{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27183/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27183","id":"gutenberg_27183","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27183","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Art appreciation","Art criticism","Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to\nthe beginning of the text.  Also I have made one spelling change:\nirrevelant circumstance to irrelevant circumstance.]\n\n\n\nTHE GATE OF APPRECIATION\nStudies in the Relation of Art to Life\n\nBY\n\nCARLETON NOYES\n\nBOSTON AND NEW YORK\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\nThe Riverside Press, Cambridge\n1907\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT 1907 BY CARLETON NOYES\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n_Published April 1907_\n\n\nTO\nMY FATHER\nAND THE MEMORY OF\nMY MOTHER\n\n\n\"Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,\nAs souls only understand souls.\"\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPreface                               i\nI.      The Impulse to Expression     i\nII.     The Attitude of Response     23\nIII.    Technique and the Layman     44\nIV.     The Value of the Medium      87\nV.      The Background of Art       105\nVI.     The Service of Criticism    137\nVII.    Beauty and Common Life      165\nVIII.   The Arts of Form            201\nIX.     Representation              221\nX.      The Personal Estimate       254\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nIN the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse\ninterests and increasingly complex demands, some few moments of\na busy week or month or year are accorded to an interest in art.\nWhatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his\ntotal scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place.\nIn his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special\ntraining; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete\nunderstanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the\nsame spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to\nleave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the\nconnoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily\non the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and\na meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself,\nhe knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble\nbuildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes\nthat in his own fashion he is able to appreciate art, I venture to think\nthat he is right.\n\nThere is a case for the outsider in reference to art. And I have tried\nhere to state it. This book is an attempt to suggest the possible\nmeaning of art to the ordinary man, to indicate methods of approach\nto art, and to trace the way of appreciation. It is essentially a\npersonal record, an account of my own adventures with the problem.\nThe book does not pretend to finality; the results are true for me as\nfar as I have gone. They may or may not be true for another. If they\nbecome true for another man, he is the one for whom the book was\nwritten. I do not apologize because the shelter here put together, in\nwhich I have found a certain comfort, is not a palace. Rude as the\nstructure may be, any man is welcomed to it who may find solace\nthere in an hour of need.\n\n     C. N.\nCAMBRIDGE, _November second, 1906._\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE IMPULSE TO EXPRESSION\n\nTOWARD evening a traveler through a wild country finds himself\nstill in the open, with no hope of reaching a village that night. The\nwind is growing chill; clouds are gathering in the west, threatening\nrain. There rises in him a feeling of the need of shelter; and he looks\nabout him to see what material is ready to his hand. Scattered stones\nwill serve for supports and low walls; there are fallen branches for\nthe roof; twigs and leaves can be woven into a thatch. Already the\ngeneral design has shaped itself in his mind. He sets to work,\nmodifying the details of his plan to suit the resources of his material.\nAt last, after hours of hard thought and eager toil, spurred on by his\nsense of his great need, the hut is ready; and fee takes refuge in it as\nthe storm breaks.\n\nThe entire significance of the man's work is _shelter._ The\nbeginning of it lay in his need of shelter. The impulse to action rose\nout of his consciousness of his need. His imagination conceived the\nplan whereby the need might be met, and the plan gave shape to his\nmaterial. The actual result of his labor was a hut, but the hut itself\nwas not the end for which he strove. The hut was but the means. The\nall-inclusive import of his work--the stimulus which impelled him to\nact, the purpose for which he toiled, and the end which he\naccomplished--is shelter.\n\nA man of special sensitiveness to the appeal of color and form finds\nhimself also in the open. He is weary with the way, which shows but\nbroken glimpses of the road. His spirit, heavy with the \"burden of\nthe mystery,\" is torn by conflict and confusion. As he looks across\nthe stony places to the gnarled and weather-tortured trees beyond,\nand up to the clouds piling black above him, there is revealed to him\na sudden harmony among the discords; an inner principle,\napprehended by his imagination, compels the fragments of the\nseeming chaos into a regnant order. These natural forms become for\nhim the expression external to himself of the struggle of his own\nspirit and its final resolution. The desire rises in him to express by\nhis own act the order he has newly perceived, the harmony of his\nspirit with the spirit of nature. As life comes to him dominantly in\nterms of color and form, it is with color and form that he works to\nexpression so as to satisfy his need. The design is already projected\nin his imagination, and to realize concretely his ideal he draws upon\nthe material of nature about him. The picture which he paints is not\nthe purpose of his effort. The picture is but the means. His end is to\nexpress the great new harmony in which his spirit finds shelter.\n\nBoth men, the traveler and the painter, are wayfarers. Both are\nseeking shelter from stress and storm, and both construct their\nmeans. In one case the product is more obviously and immediately\npractical, and the informing purpose tends to become obscured in\nthe actual serviceableness of the result. The hut answers a need that\nis primarily physical; the need in the other case is spiritual. But it is\na matter of degree. In essence and import the achievement of the two\nmen is the same. The originating impulse, a sense of need; the\nprocesses involved, the combination of material elements to a\ndefinite end; the result attained, shelter which answers the need,--they\nare identical. Both men are artists. Both hut and picture are\nworks of art.\n\nSo art is not remote from common life after all. In its highest\nmanifestations art is life at its best; painting, sculpture, poetry, music\nare the distillment and refinement of experience. Architecture and\nthe subsidiary arts of decoration adorn necessity and add delight to\nuse. But whatever the flower and final fruit, art strikes its roots deep\ndown into human need, and draws its impulse and its sustenance\nfrom the very sources of life itself. In the wide range from the hut in\nthe wilderness to a Gothic cathedral, from the rude scratches\nrecorded on the cave walls of prehistoric man to the sublimities of\nthe Sistine Chapel, there is no break in the continuity of effort and\naspiration. Potentially every man is an artist. Between the artist,\nso-called, and the ordinary man there is no gulf fixed which cannot be\npassed. Such are the terms of our mechanical civilization to-day that\nart has become specialized and the practice of it is limited to a few;\nin consequence artists have become a kind of class. But essentially\nthe possibilities of art lie within the scope of any man, given the\nright conditions. So too the separation of the \"useful arts\" from the\n\"fine arts\" is unjust to art and perversive of right appreciation.\nWhatever the form in which it may manifest itself, from the lowest\nto the highest, the art spirit is one, and it may quicken in any man\nwho sets mind and heart to the work of his hand. That man is an\nartist who fashions a new thing that he may express himself in\nresponse to his need.\n\nArt is creation. It is the combination of already existing material\nelements into new forms which become thus the realization of a\npreconceived idea. Both hut and picture rose in the imagination of\ntheir makers before they took shape as things. The material of each\nwas given already in nature; but the form, as the maker fashioned it,\nwas new. Commonly we think of art as the expression and\ncommunication of emotion. A picture, a statue, a symphony we\nrecognize as the symbol of what the artist has felt in some passage\nof his experience and the means by which he conveys his feeling to\nus. Art _is_ the expression of emotion, but all art springs out of need.\nThe sense of need which impels expression through the medium of\ncreation is itself an emotion. The hut which the traveler built for\nhimself in the wilderness--shaping it according to the design which\nhis imagination suggested, having reference to his need and to the\ncharacter of his materials--was a work of creation; the need which\nprompted it presented itself to him as emotion. The picture which\nthe other wayfarer painted of the storm-swept landscape, a harmony\nwhich his imagination compelled out of discords, was a work of\ncreation; the emotion which inspired the work was attended by need,\nthe need of expression. The material and practical utility of the hut\nobscures the emotional character of its origin; the emotional import\nof the picture outweighs consideration of its utility to the painter as\nthe means by which his need of expression is satisfied. The\nsatisfaction of physical needs which results in the creation of\nutilities and the satisfaction of spiritual needs which results in the\nforms of expression we commonly call works of art differ one from\nthe other in their effect on the total man only in degree. All works of\nuse whose conception and making have required an act of creation\nare art; all art--even in its supreme manifestations--embraces\nelements of use. The measure in which a work is art is established\nby the intensity and scope of its maker's emotion and by his power\nto body forth his feeling in harmonious forms which in turn recreate\nthe emotion in the spirit of those whom his work reaches.\n\nIn its essence and widest compass art is the making of a new thing in\nresponse to a sense of need. The very need itself creates, working\nthrough man as its agent. This truth is illustrated vividly by the\nmiracles of modern invention. The hand of man unaided was not\nable to cope with his expanding opportunities; the giant steam and\nthe magician electricity came at his call to work their wonders. The\nplow and scythe of the New England colonist on his little farm were\nmetamorphosed into the colossal steam-driven shapes, in which\nmachinery seems transmuted into intelligence, as he moved to the\nconquest of the acres of the West which summoned him to dominion.\nFirst the need was felt; the contrivance was created in response. A\nman of business sees before him in imagination the end to be\nreached, and applying his ideal to practical conditions, he makes\nevery detail converge to the result desired. All rebellious\ncircumstances, all forces that pull the other way, he bends to his\ncompelling will, and by the shaping power of his genius he\naccomplishes his aim. His business is his medium of self-expression;\nhis success is the realization of his ideal. A painter does no more\nthan this, though he works with a different material. The landscape\nwhich is realized ultimately upon his canvas is the landscape seen in\nhis imagination. He draws his colors and forms from nature around;\nbut he selects his details, adapting them to his end. All accidents and\nincidents are purged away. Out of the apparent confusion of life\nrises the evident order of art. And in the completed work the artist's\n_idea_ stands forth salient and victorious.\n\nThat consciousness of need which compels creation is the origin of\nart. The owner of a dwelling who first felt the need of securing his\ndoor so that he alone might possess the secret and trick of access\ndevised a lock and key, rude enough, as we can fancy. As the maker\nof the first lock and key he was an artist. All those who followed\nwhere he had led, repeating his device without modification, were\nbut artisans. In the measure that any man changed the design,\nhowever, adapting it more closely to his peculiar needs and so\nmaking it anew, to that extent he was an artist also. The man who\ndoes a thing for the first time it is done is an artist; a man who does a\nthing better is an artist. The painter who copies his object imitatively,\nfinding nothing, creating nothing, is an artisan, however skillful he\nmay be. He is an artist in the degree in which he brings to his subject\nsomething of his own, and fashioning it, however crudely, to express\nthe idea he has conceived of the object, so creates.\n\nThe difference between work which is art and work which is not art\nis just this element of the originating impulse and creative act. The\ndifference, though often seemingly slight and not always\nimmediately perceived, is all-important. It distinguishes the artist\nfrom the artisan; a free spirit from a slave; a thinking, feeling man\nfrom a soulless machine. It makes the difference between life rich\nand significant, and mere existence; between the mastery of fate and\nthe passive acceptance of things as they are.\n\nIf a mind and heart are behind it to control and guide it to expression,\neven the machine may be an instrument in the making of a work of\nart. It is not the work itself, but the motive which prompted the\nmaking of it, that determines its character as art. Art is not the way a\nthing is done, but the reason why it is done. A chair, though turned\non a lathe, may be a work of art, if the maker has truly expressed\nhimself in his work. A picture, though \"hand-painted,\" may be\nwholly mechanical in spirit. To set about \"making a picture\" is to\nbegin at the wrong end. The impulse to art flows from within\noutwards. Art is bound up with life itself; like nature, it is organic\nand must grow. The form cannot be laid on from the outside; it is\nborn and must develop in response to vital need. In so far as our acts\nare consciously the expression of ourselves they are prompted by the\nart spirit.\n\nAll our acts are reducible to one of two kinds: either they are acts of\ncreation, effecting a new result, or they are acts of repetition. Acts of\nrepetition tend rapidly to become habits; and they may be performed\nwithout attention or positive volition. Thus, as I am dressing in the\nmorning I may be planning the work for the day; while my mind is\ngiven over to thought, I lose the sense of my material surroundings,\nmy muscles work automatically, the motor-currents flowing through\nthe well-worn grooves, and by force of habit the acts execute\nthemselves. Obviously, acts of repetition, or habits, make up the\nlarger part of our daily lives.\n\nActs of creation, on the other hand, are performed by an effort of the\nwill in response to the consciousness of a need. To meet the new\nneed we are obliged to make new combinations. I assume that the\ntraveler constructed his hut for the first time, shaping it to the special\nnew conditions; that the harmony which the painter discerned in the\ntumult around him he experienced for the first time, and the picture\nwhich he paints, shaped with reference to his need and fulfilling it,\nis a new thing. In the work produced by this act of creation, the\nfeeling which has prompted it finds expression. In the making of the\nhut, in the painting of the picture, the impelling need is satisfied.\n\nAlthough acts of repetition constitute the bulk of life, creation is of\nits very essence and determines its quality. The significance and joy\nof life are less in being than in _becoming._ Growth is expression,\nand in turn expression is made possible by growth. In our\nconscious experience the sense of becoming is one of our supreme\nsatisfactions. Growth is the purpose and the recompense of our\nbeing here, the end for which we strive and the reward of all the\neffort and the struggle. In the exercise of brain or hand, to feel the\nwork take form, develop, and become something,--that is happiness.\nAnd the joy is in the creating rather than in the thing created; the\ncompleted work is behind us, and we move forward to new creation.\nA painter's best picture is the blank canvas before him; an author's\ngreatest book is the one he is just setting himself to write. The desire\nfor change for the sake of change which we all feel at times, a vague\nrestlessness of mind and body, is only the impulse to growth which\nhas not found its direction. Outside of us we love to see the\nmanifestation of growth. We tend and cherish the little plant in the\nwindow; we watch with delight the unfolding of each new leaf and\nthe upward reach into blossom. The spring, bursting triumphant\nfrom the silent, winter-stricken earth, is nature's parable of\nexpression, her symbol perennially renewed of the joy of growth.\n\nThe impulse to expression is cosmic and eternal. But even in the\nhomeliness and familiarity of our life from day to day the need of\nexpression is there, whether we are entirely aware of it or not; and\nwe are seeking the realization and fulfillment of ourselves through\nthe utterance of what we are. A few find their expression in forms\nwhich with distinct limitation of the term we call works of art. Most\nmen find it in their daily occupations, their profession or their\nbusiness. The president of one of the great Western railroads\nremarked once in conversation that he would rather build a thousand\nmiles of railroad than live in the most sumptuous palace on Fifth\nAvenue. Railroad building was his medium of expression; it was his\nart. Some express themselves in shaping their material environment,\nin the decoration and ordering of their houses. A young woman said,\n\"My ambition is to keep my house well.\" Again, for her,\nhousekeeping is her art. Some find the realization of themselves in\nthe friends they draw around them. Love is but the utterance of what\nwe essentially are; and the response to it in the loved one makes the\nutterance articulate and complete. Expression rises out of our\ndeepest need, and the need impels expression.\n\nThe assertion that art is thus involved with need seems for the\nmoment to run counter to the usual conception, which regards art as\na product of leisure, a luxury, and the result not of labor but of play.\nArt in its higher forms becomes more and more purely the\nexpression of emotion, the un-trammeled record of the artist's\nspiritual experience. It is only when physical necessities have been\nmet or ignored that the spirit of man has free range. But the maker\nwho adds decoration to his bowl after he has moulded it is just as\ntruly fulfilling a need--the need of self-expression--as he fulfilled a\nneed when he fashioned the bowl in the first instance in order that he\nmight slake his thirst. Art is not superadded to life,--something\ndifferent in kind. All through its ascent from its rudimentary forms\nto its highest, from hut to cathedral, art is coordinate with the\ndevelopment of life, continuous and without breach or sudden end; it\nis the expression step by step of ever fuller and ever deeper\nexperience.\n\nCreation, therefore, follows upon the consciousness of need,\nwhether the need be physical, as with the traveler, or spiritual, as\nwith the painter; from physical to spiritual we pass by a series of\ngradations. At their extremes they are easy to distinguish, one from\nthe other; but along the way there is no break in the continuity. The\ncurrent formula for art, that art is the utterance of man's joy in his\nwork, is not quite accurate. In the act of creation the maker finds the\nexpression of himself. The man who decorates a bowl in response to\nhis own creative impulse is expressing himself. The painter who\nthrills to the wonder and significance of nature is impelled to\nexpression; and his delight is not fully realized and complete until he\nhas uttered it. Such art is love expressed, and the artist's work is his\n\"hymn of the praise of things.\" But the joy for both the potter and\nthe painter, the joy which is so bound up with art as to partake of its\nvery essence, is the joy which attends self-expression and the\nsatisfaction of the need.\n\nA work of art is a work of creation brought into being as the\nexpression of emotion. The traveler creates not the wood and stone\nbut shelter, by means of the hut; the painter creates not the landscape\nbut the beauty of it; the musician creates not the musical tones, but\nby means of a harmony of tones he creates an emotional experience.\nThe impulse to art rises out of the earliest springs of consciousness\nand vibrates through all life. Art does not disdain to manifest itself\nin the little acts of expression of simple daily living; with all its\nsplendid past and vital present it is ever seeking new and greater\nforms whose end is not yet. I spoke of the work of the traveler\nthrough the wilderness as art; the term was applied also to\nrailroad-building and to housekeeping. The truth to be illustrated by these\nexamples is that the primary impulse to artistic expression does not\ndiffer in essence from the impulse to creation of any kind. The\nnature of the thing created, as art, depends upon the emotional value\nof the result, the degree in which it expresses immediately the\nemotion of its creator, and the power it possesses to rouse the\nemotion in others. To show that all art is creation and that all\ncreation tends toward art is not to obscure useful distinctions, but\nrather to restore art to its rightful place in the life of man.\n\nIn the big sense, then, art is bounded only by life itself. It is not a\ncult; it is not an activity practiced by the few and a mystery to be\nunderstood only by those who are initiated into its secrets. One\ndifficulty in the way of the popular understanding of art is due to the\nfact that the term art is currently limited to its highest manifestations;\nwe withhold the title of artist from a good carpenter or\ncabinet-maker who takes a pride in his work and expresses his creative\ndesire by shaping his work to his own idea, and we bestow the name\nupon any juggler in paint: with the result that many people who are\nnot painters or musicians feel themselves on that account excluded\nfrom all appreciation. If we go behind the various manifestations of\nart to discover just what art is in itself and to determine wherein it is\nable to link itself with common experience, we find that art is the\nresponse to a need. And that need may waken in any man. Every\nman may be an artist in his degree; and every man in his degree can\nappreciate art. A work of art is the expression of its maker's\nexperience, the expression in such terms that the experience can be\ncommunicated to another. The processes of execution involved in\nfashioning a work, its technique, may be as incomprehensible and\nperplexed and difficult as its executants choose to make them.\nTechnique is not the same as art. The only mystery of art is the\nmystery of all life itself. Accept life with its fundamental mysteries,\nwith its wonders and glories, and we have the clue to art. But we\nmiss the central fact of the whole matter if we do not perceive that\nart is only a means. It is by expression that we grow and so fulfill\nourselves. The work itself which art calls into being is not the end. It\nfails of its purpose, remaining void and vain, if it does not perform\nits function. The hut which does not furnish shelter is labor lost. The\nsignificance of the painter's effort does not stop with the canvas and\npigment which he manipulates into form and meaning. The artist\nsees beyond the actual material thing which he is fashioning; his\npurpose in creation is expression. By means of his picture he\nexpresses himself and so finds the satisfaction of his deepest need.\nThe beginning and the end of art is life.\n\nBut the artist's work of expression is not ultimately complete until\nthe message is received, and expression becomes communication as\nhis utterance calls out a response in the spirit of a fellow-man. Art\nexists not only for the artist's sake but for the appreciator too. As art\nhas its origin in emotion and is the expression of it, so for the\nappreciator the individual work has a meaning and is art in so far as\nit becomes for him the expression of what he has himself felt but\ncould not phrase; and it is art too in the measure in which it is the\nrevelation of larger possibilities of feeling and creates in him a new\nemotional experience. The impulse to expression is common to all;\nthe difference is one of degree. And the message of art is for all,\naccording as they are attuned to the response. Art is creation. For the\nartist it is creation by expression; for the appreciator it is creation by\nevocation. These two principles complete the cycle; abstractly and\nvery briefly they are the whole story of art.\n\nTo be responsive to the needs of life and its emotional appeal is the\nfirst condition of artistic creation. By new combinations of material\nelements to bring emotion to expression in concrete harmonious\nforms, themselves charged with emotion and communicating it, is to\nfashion a work of art. To feel in material, whether in the forms of\nnature or in works of art, a meaning for the spirit is the condition of\nappreciation.\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE ATTITUDE OF RESPONSE\n\nIT is a gray afternoon in late November. The day is gone; evening is\nnot yet come. Though too dark to read or write longer, it is not dark\nenough for drawn shades and the lamp. As I sit in the gathering dusk,\nmy will hovering between work done and work to do, I surrender to\nthe mood of the moment. The day is accomplished, but it is not yet a\nremembrance, for it is still too near for me to define the details that\nmade up its hours. Consciousness, not sharp enough for thought,\nfloats away into diffused and obscure emotion. The sense is upon\nme and around me that I am vaguely, unreasoningly, yet pleasantly,\nunhappy. Out of the dimness a trick of memory recalls to me the\nlines,--\n\n     \"Tears! tears! tears!\n     In the night, in solitude, tears,\n     On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck'd in by the sand,\n     Tears, not a star shining, all dark and desolate,\n     Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head;\n     O who is that ghost? that form in the dark, with tears?\n     What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch'd there on the sand?\n     Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;\n     O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along the\n          beach!\n     O wild and dismal night storm, with wind--O belching and\n          desperate!\n     O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance\n          and regulated pace,\n     But away at night as you fly, none looking--O then the\n          unloosened ocean\n     Of tears! tears! tears!\"\n\nNow I know. My mood was the mood of tears. The poet, too, has\nfelt what I was feeling. And as a poet he has been able to bring his\nemotion to expression. By the magic of phrase and the mystery of\nimage he has, out of the moving of his spirit, fashioned a concrete\nreality. By means of his expression, because of it, his emotion\nbecomes realized, and so reaches its fulfillment. And for me, what\nbefore was vague has been made definite. The poet's lines have\nwakened in me a response; I have felt what he has phrased; and now\nthey become my expression too. As my mood takes form, I become\nconscious of its meaning. I can distill its significance for the spirit,\nand in the emotion made definite and realizable as consciousness I\nfeel and know that I am living. Doubly, completely, the poem is a\nwork of art. And my response to it, the absorption of it into my own\nexperience, is appreciation.\n\nI appreciate the poem as I make the experience which the poet has\nhere phrased my own, and at the instant of reading I live out in\nmyself what he has lived and here expressed. I read the words, and\nintellectually I take in their signification, but the poem is not\nrealized in me until it wakens in me the feeling which the words are\nframed to convey. The images which an artist employs have the\npower to rouse emotion in us, so that they come to stand for the\nemotion itself. We care for nature and it is beautiful to us as its\nforms become objectively the intimate expression for us of what we\nfeel.\n\n     \"O to realize space!\n     The plenteousness of all, that there are no bounds,\n     To emerge and be of the sky, of the sun and moon and flying\n          clouds, as one with them.\"\n\nIn his contact with the external world the artist identifies himself\nwith his object. If he is painting a tree he in a measure becomes the\ntree; he values it at all because it expresses for him concretely what\nhe feels in its presence. The object and his spirit fuse; and through\nthe fusion they together grow into a new and larger unity. What his\nwork expresses is not the object for its own sake but this larger unity\nof his identity with it. To appreciate the artist's work, therefore, we\nmust in our turn merge ourselves in his emotion, and becoming one\nwith it, so extend our personality into larger life.\n\nTo make the artist's emotion our own, to identify ourselves with the\nobject which he presents to us, we must pass beyond the material\nform in which the work is embodied, letting the spirit and meaning\nof it speak to our spirit. In itself an individual picture or statue or\nsymphony is an objective, material thing, received into\nconsciousness along the channel of the senses; but its origin and its\nend alike are in emotion. The material form, whether in nature or in\nworks of art, is only the means by which the emotion is\ncommunicated. A landscape in nature is composed of meadow and\nhills, blue sky and tumbling clouds; these are the facts of the\nlandscape. But they are not fixed and inert. The imagination of the\nbeholder combines these elements into a harmony of color and mass;\nhis spirit flows into consonance with the harmony his imagination\nhas compelled out of nature, becoming one with it. To regard the\nworld not as facts and things, but as everywhere the stimulus of\nfeeling, feeling which becomes our own experience, is the condition\nof appreciation.\n\nTo the awakening mind of a child, life is full of wonder, and each\nunfolding day reveals new marvels of excitement and surprise. As\nyet untrammeled by any sense of the limitations of material, his\nquick imagination peoples his world with creatures of his fancy,\nwhich to him are more real than the things he is able actually to see\nand touch. For him the external world is fluid and plastic, to be\nmoulded into forms at will in obedience to his creative desire. In the\ntiny bundle of rags which mother-love clasps tight to her heart, a\nlittle girl sees only the loveliest of babies; and a small boy with his\nstick of lath and newspaper cap and plume is a mightier than\nNapoleon. The cruder the toy, the greater is the pleasure in the game;\nfor the imagination delights in the exercise of itself. A wax doll, sent\nfrom Paris, with flaxen hair and eyes that open and shut, is laid away,\nwhen the mere novelty of it is exhausted, in theatric chest, and the\nlittle girl is fondling again her first baby of rag and string. A real\nsteel sword and tin helmet are soon cast aside, and the boy is back\nagain among the toys of his own making. That impulse to creation\nwhich all men feel, the impulse which makes the artist, is especially\nactive in a child; his games are his art. With a child material is not\nan end but a means. Things are for him but the skeleton of life, to be\nclothed upon by the flesh and blood reality of his own fashioning.\nHis feeling is in excess of his knowledge. He has a faculty of\nperception other than the intellectual. It is imagination.\n\nThe child is the first artist. Out of the material around him he creates\na world of his own. The prototypes of the forms which he devises\nexist in life, but it is the thing which he himself makes that interests\nhim, not its original in nature. His play is his expression. He creates;\nand he is able to merge himself in the thing created. In his play he\nloses all consciousness of self. He and the toy become one, caught\nup in the larger unity of the game. According as he identifies himself\nwith the thing outside of him, the child is the first appreciator.\n\nThen comes a change.\n\n     \"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!\n     Shades of the prison-house begin to close\n          Upon the growing Boy,\n     But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,\n          He sees it in his joy;\n     The Youth, who daily farther from the east\n     Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,\n          And by the vision splendid\n          Is on his way attended;\n     At length the Man perceives it die away,\n     And fade into the light of common day.\"\n\nImagination surrenders to the intellect; emotion gives place to\nknowledge.\n\nGradually the material world shuts in about us until it becomes for\nus a hard, inert thing, and no longer a living, changing presence,\ninstinct with infinite possibilities of experience and feeling. Now\ncustom lies upon us\n\n          \"with a weight,\n     Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!\"\n\nIt happens, unfortunately for our enjoyment of life, that we get used\nto things. Little by little we come to accept them, to take them for\ngranted, and they cease to mean anything to us. Habit, which is our\nmost helpful ally in lending our daily life its practical efficiency, is\nthe foe of emotion and appreciation. Habit allows us to perform\nwithout conscious effort the innumerable little acts of each day's\nnecessity which we could not possibly accomplish if every single act\nrequired a fresh exercise of will. But just because its action is\nunconscious and unregarded, habit blunts the edge of our\nsensibilities. \"Thus let but a Rising of the Sun,\" says Carlyle, \"let but\na creation of the World happen _twice,_ and it ceases to be\nmarvelous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable.\"\n\n\"Except ye become as little children!\" Unless the world is\nnew-created every day, unless we can thrill to the beauty of nature with\nits fair surfaces and harmonies of vibrant sounds, or quicken to the\nthrob of human life with its occupations and its play of energies, its\nburdens and its joys, unless we find an answer to our needs, and\ngladness, in sunlight or storms, in the sunset and evening and\nsolitude under the stars, in fields and hills or in thronging city streets,\nin conflict and struggle or in the face of a friend, unless each new\nday is a gift and new opportunity, then we cannot interpret the\nmeaning of life nor read the riddle of art. For we cannot truly\nappreciate art except as we learn to appreciate life. Until then art has\nno message for us; it is a sealed book, and we shall not open the\nbook nor loose the seals thereof. The meaning of life is for the spirit,\nand art is its minister. To share in the communion we must become\nas children. As a child uses the common things of life to his own\nends, transfiguring them by force of his creative desire, and\nfashioning thus a wonderful world of his own by the exercise of his\nshaping imagination, a world of limitless incident and high\nadventure, so we must penetrate the visible and tangible actuality\naround us, the envelope of seemingly inert matter cast in forms of\nrigid definition, and we must open ourselves to the influence of\nnature. That influence--nature's power to inspire, quicken, and\ndilate--flowing through the channel of the senses, plays upon our\nspirit. The indwelling significance of things is apprehended by the\nimagination, and is won for us in the measure that we feel.\n\nAs we respond to the emotional appeal of the great universe external\nto ourselves we come to realize that the material world which we see\nand touch is not final. In the experience of us all there are moments\nof exaltation and quickened response, moments of illumination\nwhen--\n\n          \"with an eye made quiet by the power\n     Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,\n     We see into the life of things.\"\n\nThe \"life of things\" is their significance for the spirit. By spirit I\nmean the sum of our conscious being, that complete entity within us\nwhich we recognize as the self. The material world, external, visible,\ntangible, may be regarded as the actual world. The real world is the\nworld of spiritual forces and relations, apprehended by the\nimagination and received with feeling. Life, in the sense of our\nconscious experience of the world, is the moving of the spirit in\nemotion.\n\nThe measure of life for the individual, therefore, is the degree of\nintensity with which he feels. Experience is not meted out by weeks\nand months; it is to be sounded by the depth and poignancy of\ninstant emotion. Variety and multitude of incident may crowd\nthrough insentient years and leave no record of their progress along\nthe waste places of their march. Or a day may be a lifetime. In such\nmoments of intensest experience time and space fall away and are\nnot. The outermost bounds of things recede; they vanish altogether:\nand we are made free of the universe. At such moments we are truly\nliving; then we really _are._\n\nAs the meaning of art is not the material thing which it calls into\nform, but what the work expresses of life, so in order to appreciate\nart it is necessary to appreciate life, which is the inspiration of art\nand its fulfillment. To appreciate life is to send out our being into\nexperience and to _feel_,--to realize in terms of emotion our\nidentity with the great universe outside of us, this world of color and\nform and sound and movement, this web of illimitable activities and\nenergies, shot through with currents of endlessly varied and\nmodulated feeling. \"My son,\" says the father in Hindu lore, pointing\nto an animal, a tree, a rock, \"my son, thou art that!\" The universe is\none. Of it we are each an essential part, distinct as individuals, yet\nfusing with it in our sense of our vital kinship with all other parts\nand with the whole. I am sauntering through the Public Garden on a\nfragrant hushed evening in June; touched by the lingering afterglow,\nthe twilight has not yet deepened into night. Grouped about a bench,\nchildren are moving softly in the last flicker of play, while the\nmother nods above them. On the next bench a wanderer is stretched\nat full length, his face hidden in his crooked-up arm. I note a couple\nseated, silent, with shoulder touching shoulder. I meet a young man\nand woman walking hand in hand; they do not see me as I pass.\nBeyond, other figures are soundless shadows, gathering out of the\nenveloping dusk. It is all so intimate and friendly. The air, the\nflowers, the bit of water through the trees reflecting the lights of the\nlittle bridge, are a caress. And it is all for me! I am a child at his\ntired play, I am the sleeping tramp, I am the young fellow with his\ngirl. It is not the sentiment of the thing, received intellectually, that\nmakes it mine. My being goes out into these other lives and becomes\none with them. I feel them in myself. It is not thought that\nconstitutes appreciation; it is emotion.\n\nAnother glimpse, caught this time through a car window. Now it is a\nwinter twilight. The flurry of snow has passed. The earth is\npenetrated with blue light, suffused by it, merged in it, ever blue.\nVague forms, still and shadowy, of hills and trees, soppy with light,\nare blue within the blue. The brief expanse of bay is deeply\nluminous and within the pervasive tempering light resolves itself\ninto the cool and solemn reaches of the sky which bends down and\ntouches it. Once more my spirit meets and mingles with the spirit of\nthe landscape. By the harmony of nature's forms and twilight tones I\nam brought into a larger harmony within myself and with the world\naround.\n\nAll experience offers to us at any moment just such possibilities of\nliving. The infinite and ever-changing expressiveness of nature at\nevery instant of day and night is ours to read if we will but look\nupon it with the inner vision. The works of men in cities and\ncultivated fields, if we will see beyond the actual material, may\nquicken our emotions until we enact in ourselves their story of\nstruggle, of hopes and ambitions partly realized, of defeat or final\ntriumph. The faces seen in a passing crowd bear each the record of\nlife lived, of lives like ours of joys or disappointments, lives of great\naims or no aims at all, of unwritten heroisms, of hidden tragedies\nbravely borne, lives sordid and mean or generous and bright. The\npanorama of the world unrolls itself _for us._ It is ours to experience\nand live out in our own being according as we are able to feel. Just\nas the impulse to expression is common to all men, and all are artists\npotentially, differing in the depth of their insight into life and in the\ndegree of emotion they have to express, so appreciation lies within\nthe scope of all, and the measure of it to us as individuals is\ndetermined by our individual capability of response.\n\nLife means to each one of us what we are able to receive of it in\n\"wise passiveness,\" and then are able by the constructive force of\nour individuality to shape into coherence and completeness. As the\nlandscape which an artist paints is the landscape visioned in\nimagination, though composed of forms given in nature, so life\nfurnishes us the elements of experience, and out of these elements\nwe construct a meaning, each for himself. To one man an object or\nincident is commonplace and blank; to another it may be charged\nwith significance and big with possibilities of fuller living. \"In every\nobject.\" says Carlyle, \"there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees\nin it what it brings means of seeing.\" To _see_ is not merely to\nreceive an image upon the retina. The stimulation of the visual organ\nbecomes sight properly only as the record is conveyed to the\nconsciousness. When I am reading a description of a sunset, there is\nan image upon my retina of a white page and black marks of\ndifferent forms grouped in various combinations. But what I see is\nthe sunset. Momentarily to rest the eye upon a landscape is not\nreally to see it, for our mind may be quite otherwhere. We see the\nlandscape only as it becomes part of our conscious experience. The\nbeauty of it is in us. A novelist conceives certain characters and\nassembles them in action and reaction, but it is we who in effect\ncreate the story as we read. We take up a novel, perhaps, which we\nread five years ago; we find in it now new significances and appeals.\nThe book is the same; it is we who have changed. We bring to it the\nadded power of feeling of those five years of living. Art works not\nby information but by evocation. Appreciation is not reception but\nresponse. The artist must compel us to feel what he has felt,--not\nsomething else. But the scope of his message, with its overtones and\nsubtler implications, is limited by the rate of vibration to which we\nare attuned.\n\n     \"All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it,\n     (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of\n          the arches and cornices?)\n     All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by\n          the instruments.\"\n\nAnd again Whitman says, \"A great poem is no finish to a man or\nwoman, but rather a beginning.\" The final significance of both life\nand art is not won by the exercise of the intellect, but unfolds itself\nto us in the measure that we feel.\n\nTo illustrate the nature of appreciation and the power from which\nappreciation derives, the power to project ourselves into the world\nexternal to us, I spoke of the joy of living peculiar to the child and to\nthe childlike in heart. But that is not quite the whole of the story. A\nchild by force of his imagination and capacity of feeling is able to\npass beyond the limits of material, and he lives in a world of\nexhaustless play and happiness; for him objects are but means and\nnot an end. To transcend thus the bounds of matter imposed by the\nsenses and to live by the power of emotion is the first condition of\nappreciation. The second condition of appreciation is to feel and\nknow it, to become conscious of ourselves in our relation to the\nobject. To _live_ is the purpose of life; to be aware that we are\nliving is its fulfillment and the reward of appreciation.\n\nExperience has a double value. There is the instant of experience\nitself, and then the reaction on it. A child is unconscious in his play;\nhe is able to forget himself in it completely. At that moment he is\nmost happy. The instant of supreme joy is the instant of ecstasy,\nwhen we lose all consciousness of ourselves as separate and distinct\nindividualities. We are one with the whole. But experience does not\nyield us its fullest and permanent significance until, having\nabandoned ourselves to the moment, we then react upon it and\nbecome aware of what the moment means. A group of children are\nat play. Without thought of themselves they are projected into their\nsport; with their whole being merged in it, they are intensely living.\nA passer on the street stands and watches them. For the moment, in\nspirit he becomes a child with them. In himself he feels the\nabsorption and vivid reality to them of what they are doing. But he\nfeels also what they do not feel, and that is, what it means to be a\nchild. Where they are unconscious he is conscious; and therefore he\nis able, as they are not, to distill the significance of their play. This\nrecognition makes possible the extension of his own life; for the\nman adds to himself the child. The reproach is sometimes brought\nagainst Walt Whitman that the very people he writes about do not\nread him. The explanation is simple and illustrates the difference\nbetween the unconscious and the conscious reception of life. The\n\"average man\" who is the hero of Whitman's chants is not aware of\nhimself as such. He goes about his business, content to do his work;\nand that makes up his experience. It is not the average man himself,\nbut the poet standing outside and looking on with imaginative\nsympathy, who feels what it means to be an average man. It is the\npoet who must \"teach the average man the glory of his daily walk\nand trade.\" It is not enough to be happy as children are\nhappy,--unconsciously. We must be happy and know it too.\n\nThe attitude of appreciation is the attitude of response,--the\nprojection of ourselves into new and fuller ranges of feeling, with\nthe resultant extension of our personality and a larger grasp on life.\nWe do not need to go far afield for experience; it is here and now.\nTo-day is the only day, and every day is the best day. \"The readiness\nis all.\" But mere contact with the surface of life is not enough.\nLiving does not consist in barely meeting the necessities of our\nmaterial existence; to live is to feel vibrantly throughout our being\nthe inner significance of things, their appeal and welcome to the\nspirit. This fair world of color and form and texture is but a show\nworld, after all,--this world which looms so near that we can see it,\ntouch it, which comes to us out of the abysms of time and recedes\ninto infinitudes of space whither the imagination cannot follow it.\nThe true and vital meaning of it resides within and discovers itself to\nus finally as emotion. Some of this meaning art reveals to us, and in\nthat measure it helps us to find ourselves. But art is only the means.\nThe starting-point of the appreciation of art, and its goal, is the\nappreciation of life. The reward of living is the added ability to live.\nAnd life yields its fullest opportunities, its deepest tragedies, its\nhighest joys, all its infinite scope of feeling, to those who enter by\nthe gate of appreciation.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTECHNIQUE AND THE LAYMAN\n\nA PEASANT is striding across a field in the twilight shadow of a\nhill. Beyond, where the fold of the hill dips down into the field,\nanother peasant is driving a team of oxen at a plow. The distant\nfigures are aglow with golden mellow light, the last light of day,\nwhich deepens the gloom of the shadowing hillside. The sower's cap\nis pulled tight about his head, hiding under its shade the unseeing\neyes. The mouth is brutal and grim. The heavy jaw flows down into\nthe thick, resistive neck. The right arm swings powerfully out,\nscattering the grain. The left is pressed to his body; the big, stubborn\nhand clutches close the pouch of seed. Action heroic, elemental; the\ndumb bearing of the universal burden. In the flex of the shoulder,\nthe crook of the outstretched arm, the conquering onward stride, is\nexpressed all the force of that word of the Lord to the first toiler, \"In\nthe sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.\"\n\nThree men are standing before Millet's canvas.\n\nOne recognizes the subject of the picture. With the pleasure of\nrecognition he notes what the artist has here represented, and he is\ninterested in the situation. This is a peasant, and he is sowing his\ngrain. So the onlooker stands and watches the peasant in his\nmovement, and he _thinks_ about the sower, recalling any sower he\nmay have read of or seen or known, his own sower rather than the\none that Millet has seen and would show to him. This man's pleasure\nin the picture has its place.\n\nThe second of the three men is attracted by the qualities of execution\nwhich the work displays, and he is delighted by what he calls the\n\"actual beauty\" of the painting. With eyes close to the canvas he\nnotes the way Millet has handled his materials, his drawing, his\ncolor, his surfaces and edges, all the knack of the brush-work,\nrecognizing in his examination of the workmanship of the picture\nthat though Millet was a very great artist, he was not a great painter,\nthat the reach of his ideas was not equaled by his technical skill.\nThen as the beholder stands back from the canvas to take in the\nensemble, his eye is pleased by the color-harmony, it rests lovingly\nupon the balance of the composition, and follows with satisfaction\nthe rhythmic flow of line. His enjoyment is both intellectual and\nsensuous. And that too has its place.\n\nThe third spectator, with no thought of the facts around which the\npicture is built, not observing the technical execution as such,\nunconscious at the moment also of its merely sensuous charm, feels\nwithin himself, \"_I_ am that peasant!\" In his own spirit is enacted\nthe agelong world-drama of toil. He sees beyond the bare subject of\nthe picture; the medium with all its power of sensuous appeal and\nsatisfaction becomes transparent. The beholder enters into the very\nbeing of the laborer; and as he identifies himself with this other life\noutside of him, becoming one with it in spirit and feeling, he adds\njust so much to his own experience. In his reception of the meaning\nof Millet's painting of the \"Sower\" he lives more deeply and\nabundantly.\n\nIt is the last of these three men who stands in the attitude of full and\ntrue appreciation. The first of the three uses the picture simply as a\npoint of departure; his thought travels away from the canvas, and he\nbuilds up the entire experience out of his own knowledge and store\nof associations. The second man comes a little nearer to appreciation,\nbut even he falls short of full realization, for he stops at the actual\nmaterial work itself. His interest in the technical execution and his\npleasure in the sensuous qualities of the medium do not carry him\nthrough the canvas and into the emotion which it was the artist's\npurpose to convey. Only he truly appreciates the painting of the\n\"Sower\" who feels something of what Millet felt, partaking of the\nartist's experience as expressed by means of the picture, and making\nit vitally his own.\n\nBut before the appreciator can have brought himself to the point of\nperception where he is able to respond directly to the significance of\nart and to make the artist's emotion a part of his own emotional\nexperience, he must needs have traveled a long and rather devious\nway. Appreciation is not limited to the exercise of the intellect, as in\nthe recognition of the subject of a work of art and in the interest\nwhich the technically minded spectator takes in the artist's skill. It\ndoes not end with the gratification of the senses, as with the delight\nin harmonious color and rhythmic line and ordered mass. Yet the\nintellect and the senses, though they are finally but the channel\nthrough which the artist's meaning flows to reach and rouse the\nfeelings, nevertheless play their part in appreciation. Between the\nspirit of the artist and the spirit of the appreciator stands\nthe individual work of art as the means of expression and\ncommunication. In the work itself emotion is embodied in material\nform. The material which art employs for expression constitutes its\nlanguage. Certain principles govern the composition of the work,\ncertain processes are involved in the making of it, and the result\npossesses certain qualities and powers. The processes which enter\ninto the actual fashioning of the work are both intellectual and\nphysical, requiring the exercise of the artist's mind in the planning of\nthe work and in the directing of his hand; so far as the appreciator\nconcerns himself with them, they address themselves to his intellect.\nThe finished work in its material aspect possesses qualities which\nare perceived by the senses and which have a power of sensuous\ndelight. Upon these processes and these qualities depends in part the\ntotal character of a work of art, and they must be reckoned with in\nappreciation.\n\nIn his approach to any work of art, therefore, the layman is\nconfronted first of all with the problem of the language which the\nwork employs. Architecture uses as its language the structural\ncapabilities of its material, as wood or stone, bringing all together\ninto coherent and serviceable form. Poetry is phrased in words.\nPainting employs as its medium color and line and mass. At the\noutset, in the case of any art, we have some knowledge of the\nsignification of its terms. Here is a painting of a sower. Out of\nprevious experience of the world we easily recognize the subject of\nthe picture. But whence comes the majesty of this rude peasant, the\ndignity august of this rough and toil-burdened laborer, his power to\nmove us? In addition to the common signification of its terms, then,\nlanguage seems to have a further expressiveness, a new meaning\nimparted to it by the way in which the artist uses it. In a poem we\nknow the meaning of the words, but the _poetry_ of it, which we\nfeel rather than know, is the creation of the poet, wrought out of the\nfamiliar words by his cunning manipulation of them.\n\n     \"The grey sea and the long black land;\n     And the yellow half-moon large and low;\n     And the startled little waves that leap\n     In fiery ringlets from their sleep,\n     As I gain the cove with pushing prow,\n     And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.\n\n     \"Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;\n     Three fields to cross till a farm appears;\n     A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch\n     And blue spurt of a lighted match,\n     And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,\n     Than the two hearts beating each to each!\"\n\nA drama in twelve lines. These are words of common daily usage,\nevery one,--for the most part aggressively so. But the romance\nwhich they effuse, the glamour which envelops the commonplace\nincident as with an aura, is due to the poet's strategic selection of his\nterms, the one right word out of many words that offered, and his\nsubtle combination of his terms into melody and rhythm. The\nwonder of the poet's craft is like the musician's,--\n\n     \"That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a\n          star.\"\n\nA building rises before us; we recognize it as a building, and again\neasily we infer the purpose which it serves, that it is a temple or a\ndwelling. And then the beauty of it, a power to affect us beyond the\nmere feet that it is a building, lays hold upon us, an influence\nemanating from it which we do not altogether explain to ourselves.\nSimply in its presence we feel that we are pleased. The fact, the\nmaterial which the artist uses, exists out there in nature. But the\nbeauty of the building, the majesty and power of the picture, the\ncharm of the poem,--this is the _art_ of the artist; and he wins his\neffects by the way in which he handles his materials, by his\n_technique._ Some knowledge of technique, therefore,--not the\nartist's knowledge of it, but the ability to read the language of art as\nthe artist intends it to be read,--is necessary to appreciation.\n\nThe hut which the traveler through a wild country put together to\nprovide himself shelter against storm and the night was in essence a\nwork of art. The purpose of his effort was not the hut itself but\nshelter, to accomplish which he used the hut as his means. The\nemotion of which the work was the expression, in this case the\ntraveler's consciousness of his need, embodied itself in a concrete\nform and made use of material. The hut which he conceived in\nresponse to his need became for him the subject or motive of his\nwork. For the actual expression of his design he took advantage of\nthe qualities of his material, its capabilities to combine thus and so;\nthese inherent qualities were his medium. The material wood and\nstone which he employed were the vehicle of his design. The way in\nwhich he handled his vehicle toward the construction of the hut,\navailing himself of the qualities and capabilities of his material,\nmight be called his technique.\n\nThe sight of some landscape wakens in the beholder a vivid and\ndefinite emotion; he is moved by it to some form of expression. If he\nis a painter he will express his emotion by means of a picture, which\ninvolves in the making of it certain elements and certain processes.\nThe picture will present selected facts in the landscape; the\nlandscape, then, as constructed according to the design the painter\nhas conceived of it, becomes the motive or subject of his picture.\nThe particular aspects of the landscape which the picture records are\nits color and its form. These qualities of color and form are the\npainter's medium. An etching of the scene would use not color but\nline to express the artist's emotion in its presence; so line is the\nmedium of etching. But \"qualities\" of objects are an abstraction\nunless they are embodied in material. In order, therefore, to give his\nmedium actual embodiment the painter uses pigment, as oil-color or\nwater-color or tempera, laid upon a surface, as canvas, wood, paper,\nplaster; this material pigment is his vehicle. The etcher employs\ninked scratches upon his plate of zinc or copper, bitten by acid or\nscratched directly by the needle; these marks of ink are the vehicle\nof etching. To the way in which the artist uses his medium for\npractical expression and to his methods in the actual handling of his\nvehicle is applied the term technique. The general conception of his\npicture, its total design, the choice of motive, the selection of details,\nthe main scheme of composition,--these belong to the great strategy\nof his art. The application of these principles in practice and their\nmaterial working out upon his canvas are an affair of tactics and fall\nwithin the province of technique.\n\nThe ultimate significance of a work of art is its content of emotion,\nthe essential controlling idea, which inspires the work and gives it\nconcrete form. In its actual embodiment, the expressive power of the\nwork resides in the medium. The medium of any art, then, as color\nand mass in painting, line in drawing and etching, form in sculpture,\nsound in music, is its means of expression and constitutes its\nlanguage. Now the signification of language derives from\nconvention. Line, for example, which may be so sensitive and so\nexpressive, is only an abstraction and does not exist in nature. What\nthe draughtsman renders as line is objectively in fact the boundary\nof forms. A head, with all its subtleties of color and light and shade,\nmay be represented by a pencil or charcoal drawing, black upon a\nwhite surface. It is not the head which is black and white, but\nthe drawing. Our acceptance of the drawing as an adequate\nrepresentation of the head rests upon convention. Writing is an\nelementary kind of drawing; the letters of the alphabet were\noriginally pictures or symbols. So to-day written or printed letters\nare arbitrary symbols of sounds, and grouped together in arbitrary\ncombinations they form words, which are symbols of ideas. The\nword _sum_ stood to the old Romans for the idea \"I am;\" to\nEnglish-speaking people the word signifies a \"total\" and also a problem in\narithmetic. A painting of a landscape does not attempt to imitate the\nscene; it uses colors and forms as symbols which serve for\nexpression. The meaning attaching to these symbols derives from\ncommon acceptance and usage, Japanese painting, rendering the\nabstract spirit of movement of a wave, for example, rather than the\nconcrete details of its surface appearance, differs fundamentally\nfrom the painting of the western world; it is none the less pregnant\nwith meaning for those who know the convention. To understand\nlanguage, therefore, we must understand the convention and accept\nits terms. The value of language as a means of expression and\ncommunication depends upon the knowledge, common to the user\nand to the person addressed, of the signification of its terms. Its\neffectiveness is determined by the way in which it is employed,\ninvolving the choice of terms, as the true line for the false or\nmeaningless one, the right value or note of color out of many that\nwould almost do, the exact and specific word rather than the vague\nand feeble; involving also the combination of terms into articulate\nforms. These ways and methods in the use of language are the\nconcern of technique. Technique, therefore, plays an important part\nin the creation and the ultimate fortunes of the artist's work.\n\nJust here arises a problem for the layman in his approach to art. The\nman who says, \"I don't know anything about art, but I know what I\nlike,\" is a familiar figure in our midst; of such, for the most part, the\n\"public\" of art is constituted. What he really means is, \"I don't know\nanything about technique, but art interests me. I read books, I go to\nconcerts and the theatre, I look at pictures; and in a way they have\nsomething for me.\" If we make this distinction between art and\ntechnique, the matter becomes simplified. The layman does not\nhimself paint pictures or write books or compose music; his contact\nwith art is with the purpose of appreciation. Life holds some\nmeaning for him, as he is engaged in living, and there his chief\ninterest lies. So art too has a message addressed to him, for art starts\nwith life and in the end comes back to it. If art is not the expression\nof vital feeling, in its turn communicating the feeling to the\nappreciator so that he makes it a real part of his experience of life,\nthen the thing called art is only an exercise in dexterity for the maker\nand a pastime for the receiver; it is not art. But art is not quite the\nsame as life at first hand; it is rather the distillment of it. In order to\nrender the significance of life as he has perceived and felt it, the\nartist selects and modifies his facts; and his work depends for its\nexpressiveness upon the material form in which the emotion is\nembodied. The handling of material to the end of making it\nexpressive is an affair of technique. The layman may ask himself,\nthen, To what extent is a knowledge of technique necessary for\nappreciation? And how may he win that knowledge?\n\nOn his road to appreciation the layman is beset with difficulties.\nMost of the talk about art which he hears is either the translation of\npicture or sonata into terms of literary sentiment or it is a discussion\nof the way the thing is done. He knows at least that painting is not\nthe same as literature and that music has its own province; he\nrecognizes that the meaning of pictures is not literary but pictorial,\nthe meaning of music is musical. But the emphasis laid upon the\nmanner of execution confuses and disturbs him. At the outset he\nfrankly admits that he has no knowledge of technical processes as\nsuch. Yet each art must be read in its own language, and each has its\nspecial technical problems. He realizes that to master the technique\nof any single art is a career. And yet there are many arts, all of\nwhich may have some message for him in their own kind. If he must\nbe able to paint in order to enjoy pictures rightly, if he cannot listen\nintelligently at a concert without being able himself to compose or at\nleast to perform, his case for the appreciation of art seems hopeless.\n\nIf the layman turns to his artist friends for enlightenment and a little\nsympathy, it is possible he may encounter a rebuff. Artists\nsometimes speak contemptuously of the public. \"A painter,\" they\nsay, \"paints for painters, not for the people; outsiders know nothing\nabout painting.\" True, outsiders know nothing about painting, but\nperhaps they know a little about life. If art is more than intellectual\nsubtlety and manual skill, if art is the expression of something the\nartist has felt and lived, then the outsider has after all some standard\nfor his estimate of art and a basis for his enjoyment. He is able to\ndetermine the value of the work to himself according as it expresses\nwhat he already knows about life or reveals to him fuller\npossibilities of experience which he can make his own. He does not\npretend to judge painting; but he feels that he has some right to\nappreciate art. In reducing all art to a matter of technique artists\nthemselves are not quite consistent. My friends Jones, a painter, and\nSmith, a composer, do not withhold their opinion of this or that\nnovel and poem and play, and they discourse easily on the\nperformances of Mr. James and Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Shaw; but I\nhave no right to talk about the meaning to me of Jones's picture or\nSmith's sonata, for my business is with words, and therefore I cannot\nhave any concern with painting or with music. To be sure, literature\nuses as its vehicle the means of communication of daily life, namely,\nwords. But the _art_ in literature, the interpretation of life which it\ngives us, as distinct from mere entertainment, is no more generally\nappreciated than the art in painting. A man's technical\naccomplishment may be best understood and valued by his\nfellow-workmen in the same craft; and often the estimate set by artists on\ntheir own work is referred to the qualities of its technical execution.\nAs a classic instance, Raphael sent some of his drawings to Albert\nDuerer to \"show him his hand.\" So a painter paints for the painters.\nBut the artist gives back a new fullness and meaning to life and\naddresses all who live. That man is fortunate who does not allow his\nprogress toward appreciation to be impeded by this confusion of\ntechnique with art.\n\nThe emphasis which workers in any art place upon their powers of\nexecution is for themselves a false valuation of technique, and it\ntends to obscure the layman's vision of essentials. Technique is not,\nas it would seem, the whole of art, but only a necessary part. A work\nof art in its creation involves two elements,--the idea and the\nexecution. The idea is the emotional content of the work; the\nexecution is the practical expressing of the idea by means of the\nmedium and the vehicle. The idea of Millet's \"Sower\" is the emotion\nattending his conception of the laborer rendered in visual terms; the\nexecution of the picture is exhibited in the composition, the color,\nthe drawing, and the actual brush-work. So, too, the artist himself is\nconstituted by two qualifications, which must exist together: first,\nthe power of the subject over the artist; and second, the artist's\npower over his subject. The first of these without the second results\nsimply in emotion which does not come to expression as art. The\nsecond without the first produces sham art; the semblance of art may\nbe fashioned by technical skill, but the life which inspires art is\nwanting. The artist, then, may be regarded in a dual aspect. He is\nfirst a temperament and a mind, capable of feeling intensely and\nable to integrate his emotions into unified coherent form; in this\naspect he is essentially the _artist_. Secondly, for the expression of\nhis idea he brings to bear on the execution of his work his command\nof the medium, his intellectual adroitness and his manual skill; in\nthis aspect he is the _technician_. Every artist has a special kind of\nmeans with which he works, requiring knowledge and dexterity; but\nit may be assumed that in addition to his ability to express himself\nhe has something to say. We may test a man's merit as a painter by\nhis ability to paint. As an artist his greatness is to be judged with\nreference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist\nhis technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is\nadequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist\nor violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we\nask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he\nto say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his\nown to contribute by way of interpretation? Conceding at once to Mr.\nSargent his supreme competence as a painter, his consummate\nmastery of all his means, we ask, What has he seen in this man or\nthis woman before him worthy of the exercise of such skill? In terms\nof the personality he is interpreting, what has he to tell us of the\nbeauty and scope of life and to communicate to us of larger\nemotional experience? The worth of technique is determined, not by\nits excellence as such, but by its efficiency for expression.\n\nIt is difficult for an outsider to understand why painters, writers,\nsculptors, and the rest, who are called artists in distinction from the\nordinary workman, should make so much of their skill. Any man\nwho works freely and with joy takes pride in his performance. And\ninstinctively we have a great respect for a good workman. Skill is\nnot confined to those who are engaged in what is conventionally\nregarded as art. Indeed, the distinction implied in favor of \"art\" is\nunjust to the wide range of activities of familiar daily life into which\nthe true art spirit may enter. A bootblack who polishes his shoes as\nwell as he can, not merely because he is to be paid for it, though too\nhe has a right to his pay, but because that is his work, his means of\nexpression, even he works in the spirit of an artist. Extraordinary\nskill is often developed by those who are quite outside the pale of art.\nIn a circus or music-hall entertainment we may see a man throw\nhimself from a trapeze swinging high in air, and after executing a\ndouble somersault varied by complex lateral gyrations, catch the\nextended arms of his partner, who is hanging by his knees on\nanother flying bar. Or a man leaning backwards over a chair shoots\nat a distance of fifty paces a lump of sugar from between the\nforeheads of two devoted assistants. Such skill presupposes\nintelligence. Of the years of training and practice, of the sacrifice\nand the power of will, that have gone to the accomplishment of this\nresult, the looker-on can form but little conception. These men are\nnot considered artists. Yet a painter who uses his picture to exhibit a\nskill no more wonderful than theirs would be grieved to be\naccounted an acrobat or a juggler. Only such skill as is employed in\nthe service of expression is to be reckoned with as an element in art;\nand in art it is of value not for its own sake but as it serves its\npurpose. The true artist subordinates his technique to expression,\njustly making it a means and not the end. He cares for the\nsignificance of his idea more than for his sleight of hand; he effaces\nhis skill for his art.\n\nA recognition of the skill exhibited in the fashioning of a work of art,\nhowever, if seen in its right relation to the total scope of the work, is\na legitimate source of pleasure. Knowledge of any subject brings its\nsatisfactions. To understand with discerning insight the workings of\nany process, whether it be the operation of natural laws, as in\nastronomy or chemistry, whether it be the construction of a\nlocomotive, the playing of a game of foot-ball, or the painting of a\npicture, to see the \"wheels go round\" and know the how and the\nwherefore,--undeniably this is a source of pleasure. In the\nunderstanding of technical processes, too, there is a further occasion\nof enjoyment, differing somewhat from the satisfaction which\nfollows in the train of knowledge.\n\n     \"There is a pleasure in poetic pains\n     Which only poets know,\"\n\nsays the poet Cowper. There is a pleasure in the sense of difficulties\novercome known only to those who have tried to overcome them.\nBut such enjoyment--the pleasure which comes with enlightened\nrecognition and the pleasure of mastery and triumph--derives from\nan intellectual exercise and is not to be confounded with the full\nappreciation of art. Art, finally, is not the \"how\" but the \"what\" in\nterms of its emotional significance. Our pleasure in the result, in the\ndesign itself, is not the same as our pleasure in the skill that\nproduced the work. The design, with the message that it carries, not\nthe making of it, is the end of art.\n\nToo great preoccupation with technique conflicts with full\nappreciation. To fix the attention upon the manner of expression is\nto lose the meaning. A style which attracts notice to itself is in so far\nforth bad style, because it defeats its own end, which is expression;\nbut beyond this, our interest in technical execution is purely\nintellectual, whereas art reaches the emotions. At the theatre a critic\nsits unmoved; dispassionately he looks upon the personages of the\ndrama, as they advance, retreat, and countermarch, little by little\nyielding up their secret, disclosing all the subtle interplay of human\nmotives. From the heights of his knowledge the critic surveys the\nspectacle; with an insight born of his learning, he penetrates the\nmysteries of the playwright's craft. He knows what thought and skill\nhave gone into this result; he knows the weary hours of toil, the\ndifficulties of invention and selection, the heroic rejections, the\nintricacies of construction, the final triumph. He sees it all from the\npoint of view of the master-workman, and sympathetically he\napplauds his success; his recognition of what has been accomplished\nis his pleasure. But all the while he has remained on the outside. Not\nfor a moment has he become a party to the play. He brings to it\nnothing of his own feeling and power of response. There has been\nno union of his spirit with the artist's spirit,--that union in which a\nwork of art achieves its consummation. The man at his side, with no\nknowledge or thought of how the effect has been won, surrenders\nhimself to the illusion. These people on the stage are more intensely\nand vividly real to him than in life itself; the artist has distilled the\nsignificance of the situation and communicates it to him as emotion.\nThe man's reaction is not limited to the exercise of his intellect,--he\ngives himself. In the experience which the dramatist conveys to him\nbeautifully, shaping discords into harmony and disclosing their\nmeaning for the spirit, he lives.\n\nA true artist employs his medium as an instrument of expression;\nand he values his own technical skill in the handling of it according\nto the measure that he is enabled thereby to express himself more\neffectively. On the layman's part so much knowledge of technique is\nnecessary as makes it possible for him to understand the artist's\nlanguage and the added expressiveness wrought out of language by\nthe artist's cunning use of it. And such knowledge is not beyond his\nreach.\n\nIn order to understand the meaning of any language we must first\nunderstand the signification of its terms, and then we must know\nsomething of the ways in which they may be combined into\narticulate forms of expression. The terms of speech are words; in\norder to speak coherently and articulately we must group words into\nsentences according to the laws of the tongue to which they belong.\nSimilarly, every art has its terms, or \"parts of speech,\" and its\ngrammar, or the ways in which the terms are combined. The terms\nof painting are color and form, the terms of music are tones. Colors\nand forms are brought together into harmony and balance that by\ntheir juxtaposition they may be made expressive and beautiful.\nTones are woven into a pattern according to principles of harmony,\nmelody, and rhythm, and they become music. When technique is\nturned to such uses, not for the vainglory of a virtuoso, but for the\nservice of the artist in his earnest work of expression, then it\nidentifies itself with art.\n\nA knowledge of the signification of the terms of art the layman may\nwin for himself by a recognition of the expressive power of all\nmaterial and by sensitiveness to it. The beholder will not respond to\nthe appeal of a painting of a landscape unless he has himself felt\nsomething of the charm or glory of landscape in nature; he will not\nquicken and expand to the dignity or force caught in rigid marble\ntriumphantly made fluent in statue or relief until he has realized for\nhimself the significance of form and movement which exhales from\nevery natural object. Gesture is a universal language. The mighty\nburden of meaning in Millet's picture of the \"Sower\" is carried by\nthe gesture of the laborer as he swings across the background of\nfield and hill, whose forms also are expressive; here, too, the\nelemental dignity of form and movement is reinforced by the\nsolemnity of the color. Gesture is but one of nature's characters\nwherewith she inscribes upon the vivid, shifting surface of the world\nher message to the spirit of man. A clue to the understanding of the\nterms of art, therefore, is found in the layman's own appreciation of\nthe emotional value of all objects of sense and their multitudinous\npower of utterance,--the sensitive decision of line, the might or\ndelicacy of form, the splendor and subtlety of color, the magic of\nsound, the satisfying virtue of harmony in whatever embodiment, all\nthe beauty of nature, all the significance of human life. And this\nappreciation is to be won largely by the very experience of it. The\nmore we feel, the greater becomes our power for deeper feeling.\nEvery emotion to which we thrill is the entrance into larger capacity\nof emotion. We may allow for growth and trust to the inevitable\nworking of its laws. In the appreciation of both life and art the\nindividual may be his own teacher by experience.\n\nThe qualities of objects with their inherent emotional values\nconstitute the raw material of art, to be woven by the artist into a\nfabric of expressive form and texture. Equipped with a knowledge of\nthe terms of any art, the layman has yet to understand something of\nthe ways in which the terms may be combined. Every artist has his\nidiom or characteristic style. Rembrandt on the flat surface of his\ncanvas secures the illusion of form in the round by a system of light\nand shade; modeling is indicated by painting the parts in greater\nrelief in light and the parts in less relief in shadow. Manet renders\nthe relief of form by a system of \"values,\" or planes of more and less\nlight. The local color of objects is affected by the amount of light\nthey receive and the distance an object or part of an object is from\nthe eye of the spectator. Manet paints with degrees of light, and he\nwins his effects, not by contrasts of color, but by subtle modulations\nwithin a given hue. Landscape painters before the middle of the\nnineteenth century, working with color in masses, secured a total\nharmony by bringing all their colors, mixed upon the palette, into\nthe same key. The \"Luminarists,\" like Claude Monet, work with\nlittle spots or points of color laid separately upon the canvas; the\nfusion of these separate points into the dominant tone is made by the\neye of the beholder. The characteristic effect of a work of art is\ndetermined by the way in which the means are employed. Some\nknowledge, therefore, of the artist's aims as indicated in his method\nof working is necessary to a full understanding of what he wants to\nsay.\n\nIn his effort to understand for his own purposes of appreciation what\nthe artist has accomplished by his technique, the layman may first of\nall distinguish between processes and results. A landscape in nature\nis beautiful to the beholder because he perceives in it some harmony\nof color and form which through the eye appeals to the emotions.\nHis vision does not transmit every fact in the landscape;\ninstinctively his eye in its sweep over meadow and trees and hill\nselects those details that compose. By this act of _integration_ he is\nfor himself in so far forth an artist. If he were a painter he would\nknow what elements in the landscape to put upon his canvas. But he\nhas no skill in the actual practice of drawing and of handling the\nbrush, no knowledge of mixing colors and matching tones; he\nunderstands nothing of perspective and \"values\" and the relations of\nlight and shade. He knows only what he sees, that the landscape as\nhe sees it is beautiful; and equally he recognizes as beautiful the\npresentment of it upon canvas. He is ignorant of the technical\nproblems with which the painter in practice has had to contend in\norder to reach this result; it is the result only that is of concern to\nhim in so far as it is or is not what he desires. The painter's color is\nsignificant to him, not because he knows how to mix the color for\nhimself, but because that color in nature has spoken to him\nunutterable things and he has responded to it. The layman cannot\nmake a sunset and he cannot paint a picture; but he can enjoy both.\nSo he cares, then, rather for what the painter has done than for how\nhe has done it, because the processes do not enter into his own\nexperience. The picture has a meaning for him in the measure that it\nexpresses what he perceives and feels, and that is the beauty of the\nlandscape.\n\nAny knowledge of technical processes which the layman may\nhappen to possess may be a source of intellectual pleasure. But for\nappreciation, only so much understanding of technique is necessary\nas enables him to receive the message of a given work in the degree\nof expressiveness which the artist by his use of his medium has\nattained. A clue to this understanding may come to him by intuition,\nby virtue of his own native insight and intelligence. He may gain it\nby reading or by instruction. He may go out and win it by intrepid\nquestioning of those who know; and it is to be hoped that such will\nbe very patient with him, for after all even a layman has the right to\nlive. Once started on the path, then, in the mysteries of art as in the\nwhole complex infinite business of living, he becomes his own tutor\nby observation and experience; and he may develop into a fuller\nknowledge in obedience to the law of growth. Each partial clue to\nunderstanding brings him a step farther on his road; each new\nglimmer of insight beckons him to ultimate illumination. Though\nbaffled at the outset, yet patient under disappointment, undauntedly\nhe pushes on in spite of obstacles, until he wins his way at last to\ntrue appreciation.\n\nIf the layman seeks a standard by which to test the value of any\ntechnical method, he finds it in the success of the work itself. Every\nmethod is to be judged in and for itself on its own merits, and not as\nbetter or worse than some other method. Individually we may prefer\nVelasquez to Frans Hals; Whistler may minister to our personal\nsatisfaction in larger measure than Mr. Sargent; we may enjoy Mr.\nJames better than Stevenson; Richard Strauss may stir us more\ndeeply than Brahms. We do not affirm thereby that impressionism is\ninherently better than realism, or that subtlety is more to be desired\nthan strength; the psychological novel is not necessarily greater than\nromance; because of our preference \"programme music\" is not\ntherefore more significant than \"absolute music.\" The greatness of\nan artist is established by the greatness of his ideas, adequately\nexpressed. And the value of any technical method is determined by\nits own effectiveness for expression.\n\nThere is, then, no invariable standard external to the work itself by\nwhich to judge technique. For no art is final. A single work is the\nmanifestation of beauty as the individual artist has conceived or felt\nit. The perception of what is beautiful varies from age to age and\nwith each person. So, too, standards of beauty in art change with\neach generation; commonly they are deduced from the practice of\npreceding artists. Classicism formulates rules from works that have\ncome to be recognized as beautiful, and it requires of the artist\nconformity to these rules. By this standard, which it regards as\nabsolute, it tries a new work, and it pretends to adjudge the work\ngood or bad according as it meets the requirements. Then a Titan\nemerges who defies the canons, wrecks the old order, and in his own\nway, to the despair or scorn of his contemporaries, creates a work\nwhich the generation that follows comes to see is beautiful. \"Every\nauthor,\" says Wordsworth, \"as far as he is great and at the same time\n_original,_ has had the task of creating the taste by which he is to be\nenjoyed.\" Wordsworth in his own generation was ridiculed; Millet,\nwhen he ceased painting nudes for art-dealers' windows and\nventured to express himself, faced starvation. Every artist is in some\nmeasure an innovator; for his own age he is a romanticist. But the\nromanticist of one age becomes a classic for the next; and his\nperformance in its turn gives laws to his successors. Richard Strauss,\nderiving in some sense from Wagner, makes the older man seem a\nclassic and conservative. Then a new mind again is raised up, a new\ntemperament, with new needs; and these shape their own adequate\nnew expression. \"The cleanest expression,\" says Whitman, \"is that\nwhich finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one.\" As all life is\ngrowth, as there are no bounds to the possibilities of human\nexperience, so the workings of the art-impulse cannot be\ncompressed within the terms of a hard and narrow definition, and\nany abstract formula for beauty is in the very nature of things\nforedoomed to failure. No limit can be set to the forms in which\nbeauty may be made manifest.\n\n\"The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters\nof beauty.\" And Whitman's own verse is a notable example of a new\ntechnique forged in response to a new need of expression. Dealing\nas he did with the big basic impulses of common experience\naccessible to all men, Whitman needed a largeness and freedom of\nexpression which he did not find in the accepted and current poetic\nforms. To match the limitlessly diversified character of the people,\noccupations, and aspirations of \"these States,\" as yet undeveloped\nbut vital and inclosing the seed of unguessed-at possibilities, to tally\nthe fluid, indeterminate, outward-reaching spirit of democracy and a\nnew world, the poet required a medium of corresponding scope and\nflexibility, all-inclusive and capable of endless modulation and\nvariety. Finding none ready to his hand, he created it. Not that\nWhitman did not draw for his resources on the great treasury of\nworld-literature; and he profited by the efforts and achievement of\npredecessors. But the form in his hands and as he uses it is new.\nWhatever we may think of the success of his total accomplishment,\nthere are very many passages to which we cannot deny the name of\npoetry. Nor did Whitman work without conscious skill and\ndeliberate regard for technical processes. His note-books and papers\nreveal the extreme calculation and pains with which he wrote,\nbeginning with the collection of synonyms applying to his idea and\nmood, and so building them up gradually, with many erasures,\ncorrections, and substitutions, into the finished poem. Much of the\nvigor of his style is due to his escape from conventional literary\nphrase-making and his return to the racy idiom of common life. His\nverse, apparently inchoate and so different from classical poetic\nforms, is shaped with a cunning incredible skill. And more than that,\nit is art, in that it is not a bare statement of fact, but communicates to\nus the poet's emotion, so that we realize the emotion in ourselves.\nWhen his purpose is considered, it is seen that no other technique\nwas possible. His achievement proves that a new need creates its\nown means of expression.\n\nWhat is true of Whitman in respect to his technique is true in greater\nor less degree of every artist, working in any form. It is true of\nPheidias, of Giotto and Michelangelo and Rembrandt, of Dante and\nShakespeare, of Beethoven and Wagner, of Monet, of Rodin, in fine,\nfrom the beginnings of art to the day that now is. All have created\nout of existing forms of expression their own idiom and way of\nworking. Every artist owes something to his predecessors, but\nlanguage is re-created in the hands of each master and becomes a\nnew instrument. There can be then no single formula for technical\nmethod nor any fixed and final standard of judgment.\n\nAn artist himself is justified from his own point of view in his\nconcern with technique, for upon his technique depends his\neffectiveness of expression. His practice serves to keep alive the\nlanguage and to develop its resources. Art in its concrete\nmanifestations is an evolution. From Velasquez through Goya to\nManet and Whistler is a line of inheritance. But a true artist\nrecognizes that technique is only a means. As an artist he is seeking\nto body forth in external form the vision within, and he tries to make\nhis medium \"faithful to the coloring of his own spirit.\" Every artist\nworks out his characteristic manner; but the progress must be from\nwithin outwards. Toward the shaping of his own style he is helped\nby the practice of others, but he is helped and not hindered only in\nso far as the manner of others can be made genuinely the expression\nof his own feeling. Direct borrowing of a trick of execution and\nservile imitation of a style have no place in true art. A painter who\nwould learn of Velasquez should study the master's technique, not\nthat in the end he may paint like Velasquez, but that he may\ndiscover just what it was that the master, by means of his individual\nstyle, was endeavoring to express, and so bring to bear on his own\nenvironment here in America to-day the same ability to see and the\nsame power of sympathetic and imaginative penetration that\nVelasquez brought to his environment at the court of seventeenth-century\nSpain. The way to paint like Velasquez is to be Velasquez. No man\nis a genius by imitation. Every man may seek to be a master\nin his own right. Technique does not lead; it follows. Style is the\nman.\n\nFrom within outwards. Art is the expression of sincere and vital\nfeeling; the material thing, picture, statue, poem, which the artist\nconjures into being is only a means. The moment art is worshiped\nfor its own sake, that moment decadence begins. \"No one,\" says\nLeonardo, \"will ever be a great painter who takes as his guide the\npaintings of other men.\" In general the history of art exhibits this\ncourse. In the beginning arises a man of deep and genuine feeling,\nthe language at whose command, however, has not been developed\nto the point where it is able to carry the full burden of his meaning.\nSuch a man is Giotto; and we have the \"burning messages of\nprophecy delivered by the stammering lips of infants.\" In the\ngenerations which supervene, artists with less fervor of spirit but\nwith growing skill of hand, increased with each inheritance, turn\ntheir efforts to the development of their means. The names of this\nperiod of experiment and research are Masaccio, Uccello, Pollaiuolo,\nVerrocchio. At length, when the fullness of time is come, emerges\nthe master-mind, of original insight and creative power. Heir to the\ntechnical achievements of his predecessors, he is able to give his\ntranscendent idea its supremely adequate expression. Content is\nperfectly matched by form. On this summit stand Michelangelo,\nRaphael, Leonardo. Then follow the Carracci, Domenichino,\nGuercino, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, men who mistake the master's\nmanner for his meaning. The idea, the vital principle, has spent itself.\nThe form only is left, and that is elaborated into the exuberance of\ndecay. Painters find their impulse no longer in nature and life but in\npaint. Technique is made an end in itself. And art is dead, to be\nreborn in another shape and guise.\n\nThe relation of technique to appreciation in the experience of the\nlayman begins now to define itself. Technique serves the artist for\nefficient expression; an understanding of it is of value to the layman\nin so far as the knowledge helps him to read the artist's language and\nthus to receive his message. Both for artist and for layman technique\nis only a means. Out of his own intelligent and patient experience\nthe layman can win his way to an understanding of methods; and his\nstandard of judgment, good enough for his own purposes, is the\ndegree of expressiveness which the work of art, by virtue of its\nqualities of execution, is able to achieve. Skill may be enjoyed\nintellectually for its own sake as skill; in itself it is not art.\nTechnique is most successful when it is least perceived. _Ars celare\nartem:_ art reveals life and conceals technique. We must understand\nsomething of technique and then forget it in appreciation. When we\nthrill to the splendor and glory of a sunset we are not thinking of the\nlaws of refraction. Appreciation is not knowledge, but emotion.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE VALUE OF THE MEDIUM\n\nAS I swing through the wide country in the freshness and fullness of\na blossoming, sun-steeped morning in May, breathing the breath of\nthe fields and the taller by inches for the sweep of the hills and the\nreaches of sky above my head, every nerve in my body is alive with\nsensation and delight. My joy is in the fragrance of earth, the\ningratiating warmth of the fresh morning, the spacious, inclosing air.\nMy pleasure in this direct contact with the landscape is a physical\nreaction, to be enjoyed only by the actual experience of it; it cannot\nbe reproduced by any other means; it can be recalled by memory but\nfaintly and as the echo of sensation. There is, however, something\nelse in the landscape which can be reproduced; and this recall may\nseem more glorious than the original in nature. There are elements\nin the scene which a painter can render for me more intensely and\nvividly than I perceived them for myself. These elements embody\nthe value that the landscape has for my emotions. The scene appeals\nto something within me which lies beyond my actual physical\ncontact with it and the mere sense of touch. The harmony that the\neye perceives in these open fields, the gracious line of trees along\nthe stream's edge, the tossing hills beyond, and the arch of the blue\nsky above impregnating the earth with light, is communicated to my\nspirit, and I feel that this reach of radiant country is an extension of\nmy own personality. A painter, by the manipulation of his color and\nline and mass, concentrates and intensifies the harmony of it and so\nheightens its emotional value. The meaning of the scene for the\nspirit is conveyed in terms of color and mass.\n\nColor and mass are the painter's medium, his language. The final\nimport of art is the _idea,_ the emotional content of the work. On his\nway to the expression of his idea the artist avails himself of material\nto give his feeling concrete actuality and visible or audible\nrealization. He paints a picture, glorious in color and compelling in\nthe concentration of its massing; he carves a statue, noble in form or\nsubtly rhythmic; he weaves a pattern of harmonious sounds. He\nvalues objects not for their own sake but for the energies they\npossess,--their power to rouse his whole being into heightened\nactivity. And they have this power by virtue of their material\nqualities, as color and form or sound. A landscape is gay in\nspringtime or sad in autumn. The difference in its effect upon us is\nnot due to our knowledge that it is spring or autumn and our\nconsciousness of the associations appropriate to each season. The\nemotional quality of the scene is largely a matter of its color. Let the\nspring landscape be shrouded in gray mist sifting down out of gray\nskies, and we are sad. Let the autumn fields and woodland sparkle\nand dance in the crisp golden sunlight, and our blood dances with\nthem and we want to shout from full lungs. In music the major key\nwakens a different emotion from the minor. The note of a violin is\nvirgin in quality; the voice of the 'cello is the voice of experience.\nThe distinctive emotional value of each instrument inheres in the\ncharacter of its sound. These qualities of objects art uses as its\nlanguage.\n\nThough all art is one in essence, yet each art employs a medium of\nits own. In order to understand a work in its scope and true\nsignificance we must recognize that an artist thinks and feels in\nterms of his special medium. His impulse to create comes with his\nvision, actual or imaginative, of color or form, and his thought is\ntransmitted to his hand, which shapes the work, without the\nintervention of words. The nature of his vehicle and the conditions\nin which he works determine in large measure the details of the form\nwhich his idea ultimately assumes. Thus a potter designs his vessel\nfirst with reference to its use and then with regard to his material, its\ncharacter and possibilities. As he models his plastic clay upon a\nwheel, he naturally makes his bowl or jug round rather than sharply\nangular. A pattern for a carpet, to be woven by a system of little\nsquares into the fabric, will have regard for the conditions in which\nit is to be rendered, and it will differ in the character of its lines and\nmasses from a pattern for a wall-paper, which may be printed from\nblocks. The designer in stained glass will try less to make a picture\nin the spirit of graphic representation than to produce an harmonious\ncolor-pattern whose outlines will be guided and controlled by the\npossibilities of the \"leading\" of the window. The true artist uses the\nconditions and very limitations of his material as his opportunity.\nThe restraint imposed by the sonnet form is welcomed by the poet as\ncompelling a collectedness of thought and an intensity of expression\nwhich his idea might not achieve if allowed to flow in freer channels.\nThe worker in iron has his triumphs; the goldsmith has his. The\nlimitations of each craft open to it effects which are denied to the\nother. There is an art of confectionery and an art of sculpture. The\ndesigner of frostings who has a right feeling for his art will not\nemulate the sculptor and strive to model in the grand style; the\nsculptor who tries to reproduce imitatively the textures of lace or\nother fabrics and who exuberates in filigrees and fussinesses so far\ndeparts from his art as to rival the confectioner. In the degree that a\npainter tries to wrench his medium from its right use and function\nand attempts to make his picture tell a story, which can better be told\nin words, to that extent he is unfaithful to his art. Painting, working\nas it does with color and form, should confine itself to the\nexpression of emotion and idea that can be rendered visible. On the\npart of the appreciator, likewise, the emotion expressed in one kind\nof medium is not to be translated into any other terms without a\ndifference. Every kind of material has its special value for\nexpression. The meaning of pictures, accordingly, is limited\nprecisely to the expressive power of color and form. The impression\nwhich a picture makes upon the beholder maybe phrased by him in\nwords, which are his own means of expression; but he suggests the\nimport of the picture only incompletely. If I describe in words\nMillet's painting of the \"Sower\" according to my understanding of it,\nI am telling in my own terms what the picture means to me. What it\nmeant to Millet, the full and true significance of the situation as the\npainter felt it, is there expressed upon his canvas in terms of visible\naspect; and correspondingly, Millet's meaning is fully and truly\nreceived in the measure that we feel in ourselves the emotion roused\nby the sight of his color and form.\n\nThe essential content of a work of art, therefore, is modified in its\neffect upon us by the kind of medium in which it is presented. If an\nidea phrased originally in one medium is translated into the terms of\nanother, we have _illustration._ Turning the pages of an \"illustrated\"\nnovel, we come upon a plate showing a man and a woman against\nthe background of a divan, a chair, and a tea-table. The man, in a\nfrock coat, holding a top hat in his left hand, extends his right hand\nto the woman, who has just risen from the table. The legend under\nthe picture reads, \"Taking his hat, he said good-by.\" Here the\nillustrator has simply supplied a visible image of what was\nsuggested in the text; the drawing has no interest beyond helping the\nreader to that image. It is a statement of the bare fact in other terms.\nIn the hands of an artist, however, the translation may take on a\nvalue of its own, changing the original idea, adding to it, and\nbecoming in itself an independent work of art. This value derives\nfrom the form into which the idea is translated. The frescoes of the\nSistine Chapel are only sublime illustration; but how little of their\npower attaches to the subject they illustrate, and how much of their\nsublimity lies in the painter's rendering! Conversely, an example of\nthe literary interpretation of a picture is Walter Pater's description of\nLeonardo's Mona Lisa.\n\nThe presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is\nexpressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to\ndesire. Hers is the head upon which all \"the ends of the world are\ncome,\" and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out\nfrom within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange\nthoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a\nmoment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful\nwomen of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty,\ninto which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts\nand experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that\nwhich they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward\nform, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the\nmiddle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the\nreturn of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than\nthe rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead\nmany times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a\ndiver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and\ntrafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda,\nwas the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of\nMary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes,\nand lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the\nchanging lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The\nfancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand\nexperiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the\nidea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all\nmodes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the\nembodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea.\n\nIt is Leonardo's conception, yet with a difference. Here the critic has\nwoven about the subject an exquisite tissue of associations, a whole\nwide background of knowledge and thought and feeling which it lay\nbeyond the painter's range to evoke; but the critic is denied the\nvividness, the immediateness and intimate warmth of vital contact,\nwhich the painter was able to achieve. The Lisa whom Leonardo\nshows us and the Lisa whom Pater interprets for us are the same in\nessence yet different in their power to affect us. The difference\nresulting from the kind of medium employed is well exemplified by\nRossetti's \"Blessed Damozel.\" The fundamental concept of both\npoem and picture is identical, but picture and poem have each its\ndistinctive range and limitations and its own peculiar appeal. If we\ncancel the common element in the two, the difference remaining\nmakes it possible for us to realize how much of the effect of a work\nof art inheres in the medium itself. Painting may be an aid to\nliterature in that it helps us to more vivid images; the literary\ninterpretation of pictures or music gives to the works with which it\ndeals an intellectual definiteness. But the functions peculiar to each\nart are not to be confounded nor the distinctions obscured.\n\nPictures are not a substitute for literature, and their true meaning is\nfinally not to be translated into words. Their beauty is a visible\nbeauty; the emotions they rouse are such as can be conveyed\nthrough the sense of sight. In the end they carry their message\nsufficingly as color and mass. Midway, however, our enjoyment\nmay be complicated by other elements which have their place in our\ntotal appreciation. Thus a painting of a landscape may appeal to us\nover and above its inherent beauty because we are already, out of\nactual experience, familiar with the scene it represents, and the sight\nof it wakens in our memory a train of pleasant allied associations. A\nruined tower, in itself an exquisite composition in color and line and\nmass, may gather about it suggestions of romance, elemental\npassions and wild life, and may epitomize for the beholder the\nwhole Middle Age. Associated interest, therefore, may be\nsentimental or intellectual. It may be sensuous also, appealing to\nother senses than those of sight. The sense of touch plays a large\npart in our enjoyment of the world. We like the \"feel\" of objects, the\ncatch of raw silk, the chill smoothness of burnished brass, the thick\nsoftness of mists, the \"amorous wet\" of green depths of sea. The\nsenses of taste and smell may be excited imaginatively and\ncontribute to our pleasure. Winslow Homer's breakers bring back to\nus the salt fragrance of the ocean, and in the presence of these white\nmad surges we feel the stinging spray in our faces and we taste the\ncosmic exhilaration of the sea-wind. But the final meaning of a\npicture resides in the total harmony of color and form, a harmony\ninto which we can project our whole personality and which itself\nconstitutes the emotional experience.\n\nAll language in its material aspect has a sensuous value, as the\nwealth of color of Venetian painting, the sumptuousness of\nRenaissance architecture, the melody of Mr. Swinburne's verse, the\ngem-like brilliance of Stevenson's prose, the all-inclusive\nsensuousness, touched with sensuality, of Wagner's music-dramas.\nBecause of the charm of beautiful language there are many\nart-lovers who regard the sensuous qualities of the work itself as\nmaking up the entire experience. Apart from any consideration of\nintention or expressiveness, the material _thing_ which the artist's\ntouch summons into form is held to be \"its own excuse for being.\"\n\nThis order of enjoyment, valid as far as it goes, falls short of\ncomplete appreciation. It does not pass the delight one has in the\nradiance of gems or the glowing tincture of some fabric. The\nelement of meaning does not enter in. There is a beauty for the eye\nand a beauty for the mind. The qualities of material may give\npleasure to the senses; the object embodying these qualities becomes\nbeautiful only as it is endowed with a significance wakened in the\nhuman spirit. A landscape, says Walter Crane, \"owes a great part of\nits beauty to the harmonious relation of its leading lines, or to certain\npleasant contrasts, or a certain impressiveness of form and mass, and\nat the same time we shall perceive that this linear expression is\ninseparable from the sentiment or emotion suggested by that\nparticular scene.\" In the appreciation of art, to stop with the\nsensuous appeal of the medium is to mistake means for an end.\n\"Rhyme,\" says the author of \"Intentions,\" \"in the hands of a real\nartist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty, but\na spiritual element of thought and passion also.\" An artist's color,\nglorious or tender, is only a symbol and manifestation to sense of his\nemotion. At first glance Titian's portrait of the \"Man with the Glove\"\nis an ineffable color-harmony. But truly seen it is infinitely more. By\nmeans of color and formal design Titian has embodied here his\nvision of superb young manhood; by the expressive power of his\nmaterial symbols he has rendered visible his sense of dignity, of\nfineness, of strength in reserve. The color is beautiful because his\nidea was beautiful. Through the character of this young man as\nrevealed and interpreted by the artist, the beholder is brought into\ncontact with a vital personality, whose influence is communicated to\nhim; in the appreciation of Titian's message he sees and feels and\nlives.\n\nThe value of the medium resided not in the material itself but in its\npower for expression. When language is elaborated at the expense of\nthe meaning, we have in so far forth sham art. It should be easy to\ndistinguish in art between what is vital and what is mechanical. The\nmechanical is the product of mere execution and calls attention to\nthe manner. The vital is born out of inspiration, and the living idea\ntransmutes its material into emotion. Too great an effort at\nrealization defeats the intended illusion, for we think only of the\nskill exercised to effect the result, and the operation of the intellect\ninhibits feeling. In the greatest art the medium is least perceived, and\nthe beholder stands immediately in the presence of the artist's idea.\nThe material is necessarily fixed and finite; the idea struggles to free\nitself from its medium and untrammeled to reach the spirit. It is\nmind speaking to mind. However complete the material expression\nmay seem, it is only a part of what the artist would say; imagination\ntranscends the actual.  In the art which goes deepest into life, the\nmedium is necessarily inadequate. The artist fashions his work in a\nsublime despair as he feels how little of the mighty meaning within\nhim he is able to convey. In the greatest works rightly seen the\nmedium becomes transparent. Within the Sistine Chapel the visitor,\nwhen once he has yielded to the illusion, is not conscious of plaster\nsurface and pigment; indeed, he hardly sees color and design as such\nat all; through them he looks into the immensity of heaven, peopled\nwith gods and godlike men. Consummate acting is that which makes\nthe spectator forget that it is acting. The part and the player become\none. The actor, in himself and in the words he utters, is the\nunregarded vehicle of the dramatist's idea. In a play like Ibsen's\n\"Ghosts,\" the stage, the actors, the dialogue merge and fall away,\nand the overwhelming meaning stands revealed in its complete\nintensity. As the play opens, it cuts out a segment from the chaos of\nhuman life; step by step it excludes all that is unessential, stroke by\nstroke with an inevitableness that is crushing, it converges to the\ngreat one-thing that the dramatist wanted to say, until at the end the\nspectator, conscious no longer of the medium but only of the idea\nand all-resolving emotion, bows down before its overmastering\nforce with the cry, \"What a _mind_ is there!\"\n\nIn the art which most completely achieves expression the medium is\nnot perceived as distinct from the emotion of which the medium is\nthe embodiment. In order to render expressive the material\nemployed in its service, art seeks constantly to identify means and\nend, to make the form one with the content. The wayfarer out of his\nneed of shelter built a hut, using the material which chance gave into\nhis hand and shaping his design according to his resources; the\npurpose of his work was not the hut itself but shelter. So the artist in\nany form is impelled to creation by his need of expression; the thing\nwhich he creates is not the purpose and end of his effort, but only\nthe means. Each art has its special medium, and each medium has its\npeculiar sensuous charm and its own kind of expressiveness. This\npower of sensuous delight is incidental to the real beauty of the\nwork; and that beauty is the message the work is framed to convey\nto the spirit. In the individual work, the inspiring and shaping idea\nseeks so to fuse its material that we feel the idea could not have been\nphrased in any other way as we surrender to its ultimate appeal,--the\nsum of the emotional content which gave it birth and in which it\nreaches its fulfillment.\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE BACKGROUND OF ART\n\nSCENE: The main hall of the Accademia in Venice.\n\nTime: Noon of a July day.\n\nDramatis personae: A guide; two drab-colored and tired men; a\ngroup of women, of various ages, equipped with red-covered little\nvolumes, and severally expressive of great earnestness, wide-eyed\nrapture, and giggles.\n\n_The guide, in strident, accentless tones:_ Last work of Titian.\nNinety-nine years old. He died of smallpox.\n\n_A woman:_ Is that it?\n\n_A high voice on the outskirts:_ I'm going to get one for forty\ndollars.\n\n_Another voice:_ Well, I'm not going to pay more than fifty for\nmine.\n\n_A straggler:_ Eliza, look at those people. Oh, you missed it!\n_(Stopping suddenly?)_ My, isn't that lovely!\n\n_Chorus:_ Yes, that's Paris Bordone. Which one is that? He has\nmagnificent color.\n\n_The guide:_ The thing you want to look at is the five figures in\nfront.\n\n_A voice:_ Oh, that's beautiful. I love that.\n\n_A man:_ Foreshortened; well, I should say so! But I say, you can't\nremember all these pictures.\n\n_The other man:_ Let's get out of this!\n\n_The guide, indicating a picture of the Grand Canal:_ This one has\nbeen restored.\n\n_A girl's voice:_ Why, that's the house where we are staying!\n\n_The guide:_ The next picture . . .\n\nThe squad shuffles out of range.\n\nThis little comedy, enacted in fact and here faithfully reported, is not\nwithout its pathos. These people are \"studying art.\" They really want\nto understand, and if possible, to enjoy. They have visited galleries\nand seen many pictures, and they will visit other galleries and see\nmany more pictures before their return home. They have read\nguide-books, noting the stars and double stars; they have dipped into\nhistories of art and volumes of criticism. They have been told to\nobserve the dramatic force of Giotto, the line of Botticelli, the\nperfect composition of Raphael, the color of Titian; all this they\nhave done punctiliously. They know in a vague way that Giotto was\nmuch earlier than Raphael, that Botticelli was rather pagan than\nChristian, that Titian belonged to the Venetian school. They have\ncome to the fountain head of art, the very works themselves as\ngathered in the galleries; they have tried to remember what they\nhave read and to do what they have been told; and now they are left\nstill perplexed and unsatisfied.\n\nThe difficulty is that these earnest seekers after knowledge of art\nhave laid hold on partial truths, but they have failed to see these\npartial truths in their right relation to the whole. The period in which\nan artist lived means something. His way of thinking and feeling\nmeans something. The quality of his color means something. But\nwhat does his _picture_ mean? These people have not quite found\nthe key by which to piece the fragments of the puzzle into the\ncomplete design. They miss the central fact with regard to art; and as\na consequence, the ways of approach to the full enjoyment of art,\ninstead of bringing them nearer the centre, become for them a\nnetwork of by-paths in which they enmesh themselves, and they are\nleft to wander helplessly up and down and about in the blind-alleys\nof the labyrinth. The central fact with regard to art is this, that a\nwork of art is the expression of some part of the artist's experience\nof life, his vision of some aspect of the world. For the appreciator,\nthe work takes on a meaning as it becomes for him in his turn the\nexpression of his own actual or possible experience and thus relates\nitself by the subtle links of feeling to his own life. This is the central\nfact; but there are side issues. Any single work of art is in itself\nnecessarily finite. Because of limitations in both the artist and the\nappreciator the work cannot express immediately and completely of\nitself all that the author wished to convey; it can present but a single\nfacet of his many-sided radiating personality. What is actually said\nmay be reinforced by some understanding on the beholder's part of\nwhat was intended. In order to win its fullest message, therefore, the\nappreciator must set the work against the large background out of\nwhich it has proceeded.\n\nA visitor in the _Salon Carre_ of the Louvre notes that there are\narrayed before him pictures by Jan van Eyck and Memling, Raphael\nand Leonardo, Giorgione and Titian, Rembrandt and Metsu, Rubens\nand Van Dyck, Fouquet and Poussin, Velasquez and Murillo. Each\none bears the distinctive impress of its creator. How different some\nof them, one from another,--the Virgin of Van Eyck from the\nVirgin of Raphael, Rembrandt's \"Pilgrimsat Emmaus\" from the\n\"Entombment\" by Titian. Yet between others there are common\nelements of likeness. Raphael and Titian are distinguished by an\nopulence of form and a luxuriance of color which reveal supreme\ntechnical accomplishment in a fertile land under light-impregnated\nskies. The rigidity and restraint of Van Eyck and Memling suggest\nthe tentative early efforts of the art of a sober northern race. To a\nthoughtful student of these pictures sooner or later the question\ncomes, Whence are these likenesses and these differences?\n\nHitherto I have referred to the creative mind and executive hand as\ngenerically _the artist._ I have thought of him as a type,\nrepresentative of all the great class of those who feel and express,\nand who by means of their expression communicate their feeling.\nSimilarly I have spoken of _the work of art,_ as though it were\ncomplete in itself and isolated, sprung full-formed and panoplied\nfrom the brain of its creator, able to win its way and consummate its\ndestiny alone. The type is conceived intellectually; in actual life the\ntype resolves itself into individuals. So there are individual artists,\neach with his own distinctive gifts and ideals, each with his own\nseparate experience of life, with his personal and special vision of\nthe world, and his characteristic manner of expression. Similarly, a\nsingle work of art is not an isolated phenomenon; it is only a part of\nthe artist's total performance, and to these other works it must be\nreferred. The kind of work an artist sets himself to do is determined\nto some extent by the period into which he was born and the country\nin which he lived. The artist himself, heir to the achievements of his\npredecessors, is a development, and his work is the product of an\nevolution. A work of art, therefore, to be judged aright and truly\nappreciated, must be seen in its relation to its background, from\nwhich it detaches itself at the moment of consideration,--the\nbackground of the artist's personality and accomplishment and of the\nnational life and ideals of his time.\n\nIf the layman's interest in art is more than the casual touch-and-go of\na picture here, a concert there, and an entertaining book of an\nevening, he is confronted with the important matter of the study of\nart as it manifests itself through the ages and in diverse lands. It is\nnot a question of practicing an art himself, for technical skill lies\noutside his province. The study of art in the sense proposed has to\ndo with the consideration of an individual work in its relation to all\nthe factors that have entered into its production. The work of an\nartist is profoundly influenced by the national ideals and way of life\nof his race and of his age. The art of Catholic Italy is ecclesiastical;\nthe art of the Protestant North is domestic and individual. The actual\nform an artist's work assumes is modified by the resources at his\ndisposal,--resources both of material and of technical methods.\nRaphael may have no more to say than Giotto had, but he is able to\nexpress himself in a fuller and more finished way, because in his\ntime the language of painting had become richer and more varied\nand the rhetoric of it had been carried to a farther point of\ndevelopment. Finally, as all art is in essence the expression of\npersonality, a single work is to be understood in its widest intention\nand scope by reference to the total personality of the individual artist\nas manifested in his work collectively, and to be interpreted by the\nappreciator through his knowledge of the artist's experience of life.\n\nIn order to wrest its fullest expressiveness from a work of art it is\nnecessary as far as possible to regard the work from the artist's own\npoint of view. We must try to see with his eyes and to feel with him\nwhat he was working for. To this end we must reconstruct\nimaginatively on a basis of the facts the conditions in which he lived\nand wrought. The difference between Giotto and Raphael is a\ndifference not of individuality only. Each gives expression to the\nideals and ways of thought of his age. Each is a creative mind, but\neach bases his performance upon what has gone before, and the\nform of their work is conditioned by the resources each had at his\ndisposal. To discover the artist's purpose more completely than he\nwas able to realize it for himself in the single work,--that is the aim\nand function of the historical study of art. A brief review of the\nachievement of Giotto and of Raphael may serve to illustrate\nconcretely the application of the principle and to fix its value to\nappreciation.\n\nIn the period of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire art passed\nfrom Rome to Byzantium. The arts of sculpture and painting were\nemployed in the service of the Church, imposing by its magnificence\nand all-powerful in its domination over the lives and minds of men.\nThe function of art was to teach; its character was symbolic and\ndecorative. Art had no separate and independent existence. It had no\ndirect reference to nature; the pictorial representation of individual\ntraits was quite outside its scope; a few signs fixed by convention\nsufficed. A fish--derived from the acrostic _ichtbus--_symbolized\nthe Saviour; a cross was the visible token of redeeming grace. And\nso through several hundred years. The twelfth century saw the\nbeginnings of a change in the direction of spiritual and intellectual\nemancipation. The teachings and example of Francis of Assisi\nbrought men to the consciousness of themselves and to a realization\nof the worth and significance of the individual life. The work of\nGiotto is the expression in art of the new spirit.\n\nOf necessity Giotto founded his work upon the accepted forms of\nthe Byzantine tradition. But Giotto was a man of genius and a\ncreative mind. In the expression of his fresh impulse and vital\nfeeling, the assertion of new-found individuality, he tried to\n_realize_ as convincingly and vividly as possible the situation with\nwhich he was dealing; and with this purpose he looked not back\nupon art but out upon nature. Where the Byzantine convention had\npresented but a sign and remote indication of form by means of flat\ncolor, Giotto endows his figures with life and movement and\nactuality by giving them a body in three dimensions; his forms exist\nin the round. Until his day, light and shade had not been employed;\nand such perspective as he was able to achieve he had to discover\nfor himself. For the first time in Christian painting a figure has\nbodily existence. Giotto gives the first evidence, too, of a sense of\nthe beauty of color, and of the value of movement as a means of\nadded expressiveness. His power of composition shows an immense\nadvance on his predecessors. In dealing with traditional subjects, as\nthe Madonna and child, he follows in general the traditional\narrangement. But in those subjects where his own inventiveness is\ngiven free play, as in the series of frescoes illustrating the life of St.\nFrancis, he reveals an extraordinary faculty of design and a dramatic\nsense which is matched by a directness and clarity of expression.\n\nNot only in the technique of his craft was Giotto an innovator, but\nalso in the direction of naturalness and reality of feeling. He was the\nfirst to introduce portraits into his work. His Madonnas and saints\nare no longer mere types; they are human and individual, vividly felt\nand characterized by immediate and present actuality. Giotto was\nthe first realist, but he was a poet too. His insight into life is\ntempered by a deep sincerity and piety; his work is genuinely and\npowerfully felt. As a man Giotto was reverent and earnest, joyous\nand beautifully sane. As a painter, by force of the freshness of his\nimpulse and the clarity of his vision, he created a new manner of\nexpression. As an artist he reveals a true power of imaginative\ninterpretation. The casual spectator of to-day finds him naive and\nquaint. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was anything but that;\nthey regarded him as a marvel of reality, surpassing nature itself.\nWhen judged with reference to the conditions of life in which he\nworked and to the technical resources at his command, Giotto is\nseen to be of a very high order of creative mind.\n\nThe year 1300 divides the life of Giotto into two nearly equal parts;\nthe year 1500 similarly divides the life of Raphael. In the two\ncenturies that intervene, the great age of Italian painting, initiated by\nGiotto, reaches its flower and perfection in Michelangelo, Leonardo,\nand Raphael. The years which followed the passing of these\ngreatnesses were the years of decadence and eclipse. If we are to\nunderstand and justly appreciate the work of each man in its own\nkind, the painting of Giotto must be tried by other standards than\nthose we apply to the judgment of Raphael. Giotto was a pioneer;\nRaphael is a consummation. The two centuries between were a\nperiod of development and change, a development in all that regards\ntechnique, a change in national ideals and in the artist's attitude\ntoward life and toward his art. A quick survey of the period, if so\nhasty a generalization permits correctness of statement, will help us\nin the understanding of the craft and art of Raphael.\n\nGiotto was succeeded by a host of lesser men, regarded as his\nfollowers, men who sought to apply the principles and methods of\npainting worked out by the master, but who lacked his inspiration\nand his power. Thus it was for nearly a hundred years. The turn of\nthe fourteenth century into the fifteenth saw the emergence of new\nforces in the science and the mechanics of painting. The laws of\nperspective and foreshortening were made the object of special\nresearch and practice by men like Uccello (1397-1475), Piero dei\nFranceschi (1416-1492), and Mantegna (1431-1506). \"Oh, what a\nbeautiful thing this perspective is!\" Uccello exclaimed, as he stood\nat his desk between midnight and dawn while his wife begged him\nto take some rest. In the first thirty years of the fifteenth century,\nMasaccio contributed to the knowledge of anatomy by his painting\nof the nude form; and the study of the nude was continued by\nPollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli, in the second half of the century.\nMasaccio, also, was the first to place his figures in _air,_ enveloping\nthem in atmosphere. Verrocchio, a generation later than Masaccio,\nwas one of the first of the Florentines to understand landscape and\nthe part played in it by air and light. The realistic spirit, which\nsuffices itself with subjects drawn from every-day actual experience,\nfinds expression in the first half of the fifteenth century in the work\nof Andrea del Castagno. And so down through that century of spring\nand summer. Each painter in his own way carries some detail of his\ncraft to a further point of development and prepares the path for the\nsupreme triumphs of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael.\n\nThe growing mastery of the principles and technique of painting\naccompanied a change in the painter's attitude toward his art.\nOriginally, painting, applied in subjection to architecture and\nemployed in the service of the Church, was decorative in scope; its\npurpose was illustration, its function was to teach. As painters, from\ngeneration to generation, went deeper into the secrets of their craft,\nthey became less interested in the didactic import of their work, and\nthey concerned themselves more and more with its purely artistic\nsignificance. Religious subjects were no longer used merely as\nsymbols for the expression of piety and as incitements to devotion;\nthey became inherently artistic motives, valued as they furnished the\nartist an opportunity for the exercise of his knowledge and skill and\nfor the exhibition of lovely color and significant form. A change in\nthe mechanical methods of painting, also, had its influence on a\nchange in the conception of the function of art. With a very few\nexceptions, the works of Giotto were executed in fresco as wall\ndecorations. The principles of mural painting require that the\ncomposition shall be subordinated to the architectural conditions of\nthe space it is to fill and that the color shall be kept flat. The fresco\nmethod meets these requirements admirably, but because of its\nflatness it has its limitations. The introduction of an oil vehicle for\nthe pigment material, in the fifteenth century, made possible a much\ngreater range in gradated color, and reinforcing the increased\nknowledge of light and shade, aided in the evolution of decoration\ninto the \"easel picture,\" complete in itself. Released from its\nsubjection to architecture, increasing its technical resources, and\nwidening its interests in the matter of subject so as to include all life,\npainting becomes an independent and self-sufficing art.\n\nCoincident with the development of painting as a craft, a mighty\nchange was working itself out in the national ideals and in men's\nways of thought and feeling. Already in Giotto's time the spirit of\nindividualism had begun to assert itself in reaction from the\ndominance of an all-powerful restrictive ecclesiasticism, but the age\nwas still essentially pietistic and according to its lights, religious.\nThe fifteenth century witnessed the emancipation from tradition.\nThe new humanism, which took its rise with the rediscovery of\nGreek culture, extended the intellectual horizon and intensified the\nenthusiasm for beauty. Men's interest in life was no longer narrowly\nreligious, but human; their art became the expression of the new\nspirit. Early Christianity had been ascetic, enjoining negation of life\nand the mortification of the flesh. The men of the Renaissance, with\nsomething of the feeling of the elder Greeks, glorified the body and\ndelighted in the pride of life. Pagan myths and Greek legends take\ntheir place alongside of Bible episodes and stories of saints and\nmartyrs, as subjects of representation; all served equally as motives\nfor the expression of the artist's sense of the beauty of this world.\n\nTo this new culture and to these two centuries of growth and\naccomplishment in the practice of painting Raphael was heir. With a\nknowledge of the background out of which he emerges, we are\nprepared now to understand and appreciate his individual\nachievement. In approaching the study of his work we may ask,\nWhat is in general his ideal, his dominant motive, and in what\nmanner and by what means has he realized his ideal?\n\nHow much was already prepared for him, what does he owe to the\nage and the conditions in which he worked, and what to the common\nstore has he added that is peculiarly his own?\n\nWhereas Giotto, the shepherd boy, was a pioneer, almost solitary, by\nsheer force of mind and by his sincerity and intensity of feeling\nbreaking new paths to expression, for Raphael, on the contrary, the\nson of a painter and poet, the fellow-worker and well-beloved friend\nof many of the most powerful artistic personalities of his own or any\nage, the way was already prepared along which he moved in\ntriumphant progress. The life of Raphael as an artist extends through\nthree well-defined periods, the Umbrian, the Florentine, and the\nRoman, each one of which contributed a distinctive influence upon\nhis development and witnessed a special and characteristic\nachievement.\n\nTo his father, who died when the boy was eleven years old, Raphael\nowed his poetic nature, scholarly tastes, and love of beauty, though\nhe probably received from him no training as a painter. His first\nmaster was Timoteo Viti of Urbino, a pupil of Francia; from him he\nlearned drawing and acquired a \"certain predilection for round and\nopulent forms which is in itself the negation of the ascetic ideal.\" At\nthe age of seventeen he went from Urbino to Perugia; there he\nentered the workshop of Perugino as an assistant. The ideal of the\nUmbrian school was tenderness and sweetness, the outward and\nvisible rapture of pietistic feeling; something of these qualities\nRaphael expressed in his Madonnas throughout his career. Under the\nteaching of Perugino he laid hold on the principles of \"space\ncomposition\" which he was afterwards to carry to supreme\nperfection.\n\nFrom Perugia the young Raphael made his way to Florence, and\nhere he underwent many influences. At that moment Florence was\nthe capital city of Italian culture. It was here that the new humanism\nhad come to finest flower. Scholarship was the fashion; art was the\nchief interest of this beauty-loving people. It was the Florentines\nwho had carried the scientific principles of painting to their highest\npoint of development, particularly in their application to the\nrendering of the human figure. In Florence were collected the art\ntreasures of the splendid century; here Michelangelo and Leonardo\nwere at work; here were gathered companies of lesser men. By the\nstudy of Masaccio Raphael was led out to a fresh contact with nature.\nFra Bartolomeo revealed to him further possibilities of composition\nand taught him some of the secrets of color. In Florence, too, he\nacknowledged the spell of Michelangelo and Leonardo. But though\nhe learned from many teachers, Raphael was never merely an\nimitator. His scholarship and his skill he turned to his own uses; and\nwhen we have traced the sources of his motives and the influences\nin the moulding of his manner, there emerges out of the fusion a\ncreative new force, which is his genius. What remains after our\nanalysis is the essential Raphael.\n\nRaphael's residence in Florence is the period of his Madonnas. From\nFlorence Raphael, twenty-five years old and now a master in his\nown right, was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II; and here he\nplaced his talents and his mastership at the disposal of the Church.\nHe found time to paint Madonnas and a series of powerful and\nlovely portraits; but these years in Rome, which brought his brief\nlife to a close, are preeminently the period of the great frescoes,\nwhich are his supreme achievement. But even in these mature years,\nand though he was himself the founder of a school, he did not cease\nto learn. Michelangelo was already in Rome, and now Raphael came\nmore immediately under his influence, although not to submit to it\nbut to use it for his own ends. In Rome were revealed to him the\nculture of an older and riper civilization and the glories and\nperfectness of an elder art. Raphael laid antiquity under contribution\nto the consummation of his art and the fulfillment and complete\nrealization of his genius.\n\nThis analysis of the elements and influences of Raphael's career as\nan artist--inadequate as it necessarily is--may help us to define his\ndistinctive accomplishment. A comparison of his work with that of\nhis predecessors and contemporaries serves to disengage his\nessential significance. By nature he was generous and tender; the\nbent of his mind was scholarly; and he was impelled by a passion for\nrestrained and formal beauty. Chiefly characteristic of his mental\nmake-up was his power of assimilation, which allowed him to\nrespond to many and diverse influences and in the end to dominate\nand use them. He gathered up in himself the achievements of two\ncenturies of experiment and progress, and fusing the various\nelements, he created by force of his genius a new result and stamped\nit with the seal perfection. Giotto, to whom religion was a reality,\nwas deeply in earnest about his message, and he phrased it as best he\ncould with the means at his command; his end was expression.\nRaphael, under the patronage of wealthy dilettanti and in the service\nof a worldly and splendor-loving Church, delighted in his\nknowledge and his skill; he worshiped art, and his end was beauty.\nThe genius of Giotto is a first shoot, vigorous and alive, breaking\nground hardily, and tentatively pushing into freer air. The genius of\nRaphael is the full-blown flower and final fruit, complete, mature.\nThe step beyond is decay.\n\nBy reference to Giotto and to Raphael I have tried to illustrate the\npractical application of certain principles of art study. A work of art\nis not absolute; both its content and its form are determined by the\nconditions out of which it proceeds. All judgment, therefore, must\nbe comparative, and a work of art must be considered in its relation\nto its background and its conventions. Art is an interpretation of\nsome aspect of life as the artist has felt it; and the artist is a child of\nhis time. It is not an accident that Raphael portrayed Madonnas,\nserene and glorified, and Millet pictured rude peasants bent with toil.\nRaphael's painting is the culmination of two centuries of eager\nstriving after the adequate expression of religious sentiment; in\nMillet's work the realism of his age is transfigured. As showing\nfurther how national ideals and interests may influence individual\nproduction, we may note that the characteristic art of the Italian\nRenaissance is painting; and Italian sculpture of the period is\npictorial rather than plastic in motive and handling. Ghiberti's doors\nof the Florence Baptistery, in the grouping of figures and the three\nand four planes in perspective of the backgrounds, are essentially\npictures in bronze. Conversely, in the North the characteristic art of\nthe thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is carving and sculpture; and\n\"the early painters represented in their pictures what they were\nfamiliar with in wood and stone; so that not only are the figures dry\nand hard, but in the groups they are packed one behind another,\nheads above heads, without really occupying space, in imitation of\nthe method adopted in the carved relief.\" Some knowledge of the\norigin and development of a given form of technique, a knowledge\nto be reached through historical study, enables us to measure the\ndegree of expressiveness of a given work. The ideas of a child may\nbe very well worth listening to, though his range of words is limited\nand his sentences are crude and halting, A grown man, having\nacquired the trick of language, may talk fluently and say nothing. In\nour endeavor to understand a work of art, a poem by Chaucer or by\nTennyson, a picture by Greco or by Manet, a prelude by Bach or a\nsymphony by Brahms, we may ask, Of that which the artist wanted\nto say, how much could he say with the means at his disposal? With\na sense of the artist's larger motive, whether religious sentiment, or a\nlove of sheer beauty of color and form, or insight into human\ncharacter, we are aided by a study of the history of technique to\ndetermine how far the artist with the language at his command was\nable to realize his intention.\n\nBut not only is art inspired and directed by the time-spirit of its age.\nA single work is the expression for the artist who creates it of his\nideal. An artist's ideal, what he sets himself to accomplish, is the\nprojection of his personality, and that is determined by many\ninfluences. He is first of all a child of his race and time; inheritance\nand training shape him to these larger conditions. Then his ideal is\nmodified by his special individuality. A study of the artist's character\nas revealed in his biography leads to a fuller understanding of the\nintention and scope of his work. The events of his life become\nsignificant as they are seen to be the causes or the results of his total\npersonality, that which he was in mind and temperament. What were\nthe circumstances that moulded his character and decided his course?\nWhat events did he shape to his own purpose by the active force of\nhis genius? What was the special angle of vision from which he\nlooked upon the world? The answers to these questions are the clue\nto the full drift of his work. As style is the expression of the man, so\nconversely a knowledge of the man is an entrance into the wider and\nsubtler implications of his style. We explore the personality of the\nman in order more amply to interpret his art, and we turn to his art\nas the revelation of his personality. In studying an artist we must\nlook for his _tendency_ and seek the unifying principle which binds\nhis separate works into a whole. An artist has his successive periods\nor \"manners.\" There is the period of apprenticeship, when the young\nman is influenced by his predecessors and his masters. Then he\ncomes into his own, and he registers nature and life as he sees it\nfreshly for himself. Finally, as he has mastered his art and won some\nof the secrets of nature, and as his own character develops, he tends\nmore and more to impose his subjective vision upon the world, and\nhe subordinates nature to the expression of his distinctive\nindividuality. A single work, therefore, is to be considered in\nrelation to its place in the artist's development; it is but a part, and it\nis to be interpreted by reference to the whole.\n\nIn the study of biography, however, the man must not be mistaken\nfor the artist; his acts are not to be confounded with his message. \"A\nman is the spirit he worked in; not what he did, but what he\nbecame.\" We must summon forth the spirit of the man from within\nthe wrappages of material and accident. In our preoccupation with\nthe external details of a man's familiar and daily life it is easy to lose\nsight of his spiritual experience, which only is of significance.\nWhistler, vain, aggressive, quarrelsome, and yet so exquisite and so\nsubtle in extreme refinement, is a notable example of a great spirit\nand a little man. Wagner wrote to Liszt: \"As I have never felt the\nreal bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of\nmy dreams, in which from beginning to end that love shall be\nthoroughly satiated.\" Not the Wagner of fact, but the Wagner of\ndreams. Life lived in the spirit and imagination may be different\nfrom the life of daily act. So we should transcend the material,\ntrying through that to penetrate to the spiritual. It is not a visit to the\nartist's birthplace that signifies, it is not to do reverence before his\nlikeness or cherish a bit of his handwriting. All this may have a\nvalue to the disciple as a matter of loyalty and fine piety. But in the\nend we must go beyond these externals that we may enter\nintelligently and sympathetically into the temper of his mind and\nmood and there find disclosed what he thought and felt and was able\nonly in part to express. It is not the man his neighbors knew that is\nimportant. His work is the essential thing, what that work has to tell\nus about life in terms of emotional experience.\n\nStudies in the history of art and in biography are avenues of\napproach to the understanding of a work of art; they do not in\nthemselves constitute appreciation. Historical importance must not\nbe mistaken for artistic significance. In reading about pictures we\nmay forget to look at them. The historical study of art in its various\ndivisions reduces itself to an exercise in analysis, resolving a given\nwork into its elements. But art is a synthesis. In order to appreciate a\nwork the elements must be gathered together and fused into a whole.\nA statue or a picture is meant not to be read about, but to be looked\nat; and its final message must be received through vision. Our\nknowledge will serve us little if we are not sensitive to the appeal of\ncolor and form. There is danger that preoccupation with the history\nof art may betray us if we are not careful to keep it in its place. The\nstudy of art should follow and not lead appreciation. We are apt to\nsee what we are looking for. So we ought to come to each work\nfreshly without prejudice or bias; it is only afterwards that we should\nbring to bear on it our knowledge about the facts of its production.\nConnoisseurship is a science and may hold within itself no element\nof aesthetic enjoyment. Appreciation is an art, and the quality of it\ndepends upon the appreciator himself. The end of historical study is\nnot a knowledge of facts for their own sake, but through those facts\na deeper penetration and fuller true enjoyment. By the aid of such\nknowledge we are enabled to recognize in any work more certainly\nand abundantly the expression of an emotional experience which\nrelates itself to our own life.\n\nThe final meaning of art to the appreciator lies in just this sense of\nits relation to his own experience. The greatest works are those\nwhich express reality and life, not limited and temporary conditions,\nbut life universal and for all time. Without commentary these carry\ntheir message, appealing to the wisest and the humblest. Gather into\na single room a fragment of the Parthenon frieze, Michelangelo's\n\"Day and Night,\" Botticelli's \"Spring,\" the sprites and children of\nDonatello and Delia Robbia, Velasquez's \"Pope Innocent,\"\nRembrandt's \"Cloth-weavers,\" Frans Hals' \"Musician,\" Millet's\n\"Sower,\" Whistler's \"Carlyle.\" There is here no thought of period or\nof school. These living, present, eternal verities are all one company.\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE SERVICE OF CRITICISM\n\nTHE greatest art is universal. It transcends the merely local\nconditions in which it is produced. It sweeps beyond the individual\npersonality of its creator, and links itself with the common\nexperience of all men. The Parthenon, so far as it can be\nreconstructed in imagination, appeals to a man of any race or any\nperiod, whatever his habit of mind or degree of culture, as a perfect\nutterance. The narrow vault of the Sistine Chapel opens into\nimmensity, and every one who looks upon it is lifted out of himself\ninto new worlds. Shakespeare's plays were enjoyed by the\napprentices in the pit and royalty in the boxes, and so all the way\nbetween. The man Shakespeare, of such and such birth and training,\nand of this or that experience in life, is entirely merged in his\ncreations; he becomes the impersonal channel of expression of the\nprofoundest, widest interpretation of life the world has known. Such\nart as this comes closest to the earth and extends farthest into\ninfinity, \"beyond the reaches of our souls.\"\n\nBut there is another order of art, more immediately the product of\nlocal conditions, the personal expression of a distinctive\nindividuality, phrased in a language of less scope and currency, and\nlimited as to its content in the range of its appeal. These lesser works\nhave their place; they can minister to us in some moment of need\nand at some point in our development. Because of their limitations,\nhowever, their effectiveness can be furthered by interpretation. A\nman more sensitive than we to the special kind of beauty which they\nembody and better versed in their language, can discover to us a\nsignificance and a charm in them to which we have not penetrated.\nTo help us to the fullest enjoyment of the great things and to a more\nenlightened and juster appreciation of the lesser works is the service\nof criticism.\n\nWe do not wholly possess an experience until, having merged\nourselves in it, we then react upon it and become conscious of its\nsignificance. A novel, a play, a picture interests us, and we surrender\nto the enjoyment of the moment. Afterwards we think about our\npleasure, defining the nature of the experience and analyzing the\nmeans by which it was produced, the subject of the work and the\nartist's method of treating it. It may be that we tell our pleasure to a\nfriend, glad also perhaps to hear his opinion of the matter. The\nimpulse is natural; the practice is helpful. And herein lies the origin\nof criticism. In so far as an appreciator does not rest in his\nimmediate enjoyment of a work of art, but seeks to account for his\npleasure, to trace the sources of it, to establish the reasons for it, and\nto define its quality, so far he becomes a critic. As every man who\nperceives beauty in nature and takes it up into his own life is\npotentially an artist, so every man is a critic in the measure that he\nreasons about his enjoyment. The critical processes, therefore, are an\nessential part of our total experience of art, and criticism may be an\naid to appreciation.\n\nThe function of criticism has been variously understood through the\ncenturies of its practice. Early modern criticism, harking back to the\nmethod of Aristotle, concerned itself with the form of a work of art.\nFrom the usage of classic writers it deduced certain \"rules\" of\ncomposition; these formulas were applied to the work under\nexamination, and that was adjudged good or bad in the degree that it\nconformed or failed to conform to the established rules. It was a\ncriticism of law-giving and of judgment. In the eighteenth century\ncriticism extended its scope by the admission of a new consideration,\npassing beyond the mere form of the work and reckoning with its\npower to give pleasure. Addison, in his critique of \"Paradise Lost,\"\nstill applies the formal tests of the Aristotelian canons, but he\ndiscovers further that a work of art exists not only for the sake of its\nform, but also for the expression of beautiful ideas. This power of\n\"affecting the imagination\" he declares is the \"very life and highest\nperfection\" of poetry. This is a long step in the right direction. With\nthe nineteenth century, criticism conceives its aims and procedure in\nnew and larger ways. A work of art is now seen to be an evolution;\nand criticism adapts to its own uses the principles of historical study\nand the methods of scientific investigation. Recognizing that art is\norganic, that an art-form, as religious painting or Gothic architecture\nor the novel, is born, develops, comes to maturity, lapses, and dies,\nthat an individual work is the product of \"race, environment, and the\nmoment,\" that it is the expression also of the personality of the artist\nhimself, criticism no longer regards the single work as an isolated\nphenomenon, but tries to see it in its relation to its total background.\n\nPresent-day criticism avails itself of this larger outlook upon art. But\nthe ends to be reached are understood differently by different critics.\nWith M. Brunetiere, to cite now a few representative names,\ncriticism is authoritative and dogmatic: he looks at the work\nobjectively, refusing to be the dupe of his pleasure, if he has any;\nand approaching the work in the spirit of dispassionate impersonal\ninquiry as an object of historical importance and scientific interest,\nhe decrees that it is good or bad. Matthew Arnold considers\nliterature a \"criticism of life,\" and he values a work with reference to\nthe moral significance of its ideas. Ruskin's criticism is didactic; he\nwishes to educate his public, and by force of his torrential eloquence\nhe succeeds in persuading his disciples into acceptance of his\nteaching, though he may not always convince. Impressionistic\ncriticism, as with M. Anatole France or M. Jules Lemaitre, does not\neven try to see the work \"as in itself it really is,\" but is an account of\nthe critic's own subjective reaction on it, a narrative of what he\nthought and felt in this chance corner of experience. With Walter\nPater criticism becomes _appreciation._ A given work of art\nproduces a distinctive impression and communicates a special and\nunique pleasure; this active power constitutes its beauty. So the\nfunction of the critic as Pater conceives it is \"to distinguish, analyze,\nand separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a picture, a\nlandscape, a fair personality in life or in a book, produces this\nspecial impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what the source\nof that impression is, and under what conditions it is experienced.\"\nThe interpretative critic--represented in the practice of Pater--stands\nbetween a work of art and the appreciator as mediator and revealer.\n\nEach kind of criticism performs a certain office, and is of use within\nits own chosen sphere. To the layman, for his purposes of\nappreciation, that order of criticism will be most helpful which\nresponds most closely and amply to his peculiar needs. A work of\nart may be regarded under several aspects, its quality of technical\nexecution, its power of sensuous appeal, its historical importance;\nand to each one of these aspects some kind of criticism applies. The\nlayman's reception of art includes all these considerations, but\nsubordinates them to the total experience. His concern, therefore, is\nto define the service of criticism to appreciation.\n\nThe analysis of a work of art resolves it into these elements. There is\nfirst of all the emotion which gives birth to the work and which the\nwork is designed to express. The emotion, to become definite,\ngathers about an idea, conceived in the terms of its own medium, as\nform, or color and mass, or musical relations; and this artistic idea\npresents itself as the subject or motive of the work. The emotion and\nartistic idea, in order that they may be expressed and become\ncommunicable, embody themselves in material, as the marble of a\nstatue, the pigment of a picture, the audible tones of a musical\ncomposition. This material form has the power to satisfy the mind\nand delight the senses. Through the channel of the senses and the\nmind the work reaches the feelings; and the aesthetic experience is\ncomplete.\n\nAs art springs out of emotion, so it is to be received as emotion; and\na work to be appreciated in its true spirit must be enjoyed. But to be\ncompletely enjoyed it must be understood. We must know what the\nartist was trying to express, and we must be able to read his\nlanguage; then we are prepared to take delight in the form and to\nrespond to the emotion.\n\nTo help us to understand a work of art in all the components that\nentered into the making of it is the function of historical study. Such\nstudy enables us to see the work from the artist's own point of view.\nA knowledge of its background, the conditions in which the artist\nwrought and his own attitude toward life, is the clue to his ideal; and\nby an understanding of the language it was possible for him to\nemploy, we can measure the degree of expressiveness he was able to\nachieve. This study of the artist's purpose and of his methods is an\nexercise in explanation.\n\nThe interpretation of art, for which we look to criticism, deals with\nthe picture, the statue, the book, specifically in its relation to the\nappreciator. What is the special nature of the experience which the\nwork communicates to us in terms of feeling? In so far as the\nmedium itself is a source of pleasure, by what qualities of form has\nthe work realized the conditions of beauty proper to it, delighting\nthus the senses and satisfying the mind? These are the questions\nwhich the critic, interpreting the work through the medium of his\nown temperament, seeks to answer.\n\nTheoretically, the best critic of art would be the artist himself. He\nabove all other men should understand the subtle play of emotion\nand thought in which a work of art is conceived; and the artist rather\nthan another should trace the intricacies and know the cunning of the\nmagician processes by which the immaterial idea builds itself into\nvisible actuality. In practice, however, the theory is not borne out by\nthe fact. The artist as such is very little conscious of the workings of\nhis spirit. He is creative rather than reflective, synthetic and not\nanalytic. From his contact with nature and from his experience of\nlife, out of which rises his generative emotion, he moves directly to\nthe fashioning of expressive forms, without pausing on the way to\nscan too closely the \"meaning\" of his work. Mr. Bernard Shaw\nremarks that Ibsen, giving the rein to the creative impulse of his\npoetic nature, produced in \"Brand\" and \"Peer Gynt\" a \"great puzzle\nfor his intellect.\" Wagner, he says, \"has expressly described how the\nintellectual activity which he brought to the analysis of his music\ndramas was in abeyance during their creation. Just so do we find\nIbsen, after composing his two great dramatic poems, entering on a\nstruggle to become intellectually conscious of what he had done.\"\nMoreover, the artist is in the very nature of things committed to one\nway of seeing. His view of life is limited by the trend of his own\ndominant and creative personality; what he gains in intensity and\npenetration of insight he loses in breadth. He is less quick to see\nbeauty in another guise than that which his own imagination weaves\nfor him; he is less receptive of other ways of envisaging the world.\n\nThe ideal critic, on the contrary, is above everything else catholic\nand tolerant. It is his task to discover beauty in whatever form and to\naffirm it. By nature he is more sensitive than the ordinary man, by\ntraining he has directed the exercise of his powers toward their\nfullest scope, and by experience of art in its diverse manifestations\nhe has certified his judgment and deepened his capacity to enjoy.\nThe qualifications of an authentic critic are both temperament and\nscholarship. Mere temperament uncorrected by knowledge may\nvibrate exquisitely when swept by the touch of a thing of beauty, but\nits music may be in a quite different key from the original motive.\nCriticism must relate itself to the objective fact; it should interpret\nand not transpose. Mere scholarship without temperament misses art\nat its centre, that art is the expression and communication of\nemotional experience; and the scholar in criticism may wander his\nleaden way down the by-paths of a sterile learning. To mediate\nbetween the artist and the appreciator, the critic must understand the\nartist and he must feel with the appreciator. He is at once the artist\ntranslated into simpler terms and the appreciator raised to a higher\npower of perception and response.\n\nThe service of criticism to the layman is to furnish him a clue to the\nmeaning of the work in hand, and by the critic's own response to its\nbeauty to reveal its potency and charm. With technique as such the\ncritic is not concerned. Technique is the business of the artist; only\nthose who themselves practice an art are qualified to judge in\nmatters of practice. The form is significant to the appreciator only so\nfar as regards its expressiveness and beauty. It is not the function of\nthe critic to tell the artist what his work _should be;_ it is the critic's\nmission to reveal to the appreciator what the work _is_. That\nrevelation will be accomplished in terms of the critic's own\nexperience of the beauty of the work, an experience imaged forth in\nsuch phrases that the pleasure the work communicates is conveyed\nto his readers in its true quality and foil intensity. It is not enough to\ndogmatize as Ruskin dogmatizes, to bully the reader into a terrified\nacceptance. It is not enough to determine absolute values as\nMatthew Arnold seeks to do, to fix certain canons of intellectual\njudgment, and by the application of a formula as a touchstone, to\ndecide that this work is excellent and that another is less good.\nReally serviceable criticism is that which notes the special and\ndistinguishing quality of beauty in any work and helps the reader to\nlive out that beauty in his own experience.\n\nThese generalizations may be made more immediate and practical\nby examples. In illustration of the didactic manner in criticism I may\ncite a typical paragraph of Ruskin, chosen from his \"Mornings in\nFlorence.\"\n\nFirst, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing.\nThat farther of the two from the west end is one of the most\nbeautiful pieces of fourteenth-century sculpture in this world. . . .\nAnd now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for\nunderstanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that\nthe lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the\nfolds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the\nsoftness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a\nfew dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and\nBotticelli's;--Donatello's carving, and Luca's. But if you see nothing\nin _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where\nthey choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern\ntrick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is\nFrench, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but\nwhat is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the\nbeauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never.\n\nThe earnest and docile though bewildered layman is intimidated into\nthinking that he sees it, whether he really does or not. But it is a\nquestion if the contemplation of the \"beauty of this old man in his\ncitizen's cap,\" however eager and serious the contemplation may be,\nadds much to his experience; it may be doubted whether as a result\nof his effort toward the understanding of the rightness and loveliness\nof the lines of the cap and the exquisiteness of the choice of folds,\nwhich the critic has pointed out to him with threatening finger, he\nfeels that life is a fuller and finer thing to live.\n\nAn example of the intellectual estimate, the valuation by formulas,\nand the assignment of abstract rank, is this paragraph from Matthew\nArnold's essay on Wordsworth.\n\nWherever we meet with the successful balance, in Wordsworth, of\nprofound truth of subject with profound truth of execution, he is\nunique. His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this\nbalance. I have a warm admiration for \"Laodameia\" and for the great\n\"Ode;\" but if I am to tell the very truth, I find \"Laodameia\" not\nwholly free from something artificial, and the great \"Ode\" not\nwholly free from something declamatory. If I had to pick out poems\nof a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I\nshould rather choose poems such as \"Michael,\" \"The Fountain,\"\n\"The Highland Reaper.\" And poems with the peculiar and unique\nbeauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in\nconsiderable number; besides very many other poems of which the\nworth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still exceedingly\nhigh.\n\nThus does the judicial critic mete out his estimate by scale and\nmeasuring-rod. We are told dogmatically what is good and what is\nless good; but of distinctive quality and energizing life-giving\nvirtues, not a word. The critic does not succeed in communicating to\nus anything of Wordsworth's special charm and power. We are\ninformed, but we are left cold and unresponding.\n\nThe didactic critic imposes his standard upon the layman. The\njudicial critic measures and awards. The appreciative critic does not\nattempt to teach or to judge; he makes possible to his reader an\nappreciation of the work of art simply by recreating in his own terms\nthe complex of his emotions in its presence. Instead of declaring the\nwork to be beautiful or excellent, he makes it beautiful in the very\ntelling of what it means to him. As the artist interprets life,\ndisclosing its depths and harmonies, so the appreciative critic in his\nturn interprets art, reconstituting the beauty of it in his own terms.\nThrough his interpretation, the layman is enabled to enter more fully\ninto the true spirit of the work and to share its beauty in his own\nexperience.\n\nIn contrast to the passage from Arnold is this paragraph from an\nessay on Wordsworth by Walter Pater.\n\nAnd so he has much for those who value highly the concentrated\npresentment of passion, who appraise men and women by their\nsusceptibility to it, and art and poetry as they afford the spectacle of\nit. Breaking from time to time into the pensive spectacle of their\ndaily toil, their occupations near to nature, come those great\nelementary feelings, lifting and solemnizing their language and\ngiving it a natural music. The great, distinguishing passion came to\nMichael by the sheepfold, to Ruth by the wayside, adding these\nhumble children of the furrow to the true aristocracy of passionate\nsouls. In this respect, Wordsworth's work resembles most that of\nGeorge Sand, in those of her novels which depict country life. With\na penetrative pathos, which puts him in the same rank with the\nmasters of the sentiment of pity in literature, with Meinhold and\nVictor Hugo, he collects all the traces of vivid excitement which\nwere to be found in that pastoral world--the girl who rung her\nfather's knell; the unborn infant feeling about its mother's heart; the\ninstinctive touches of children; the sorrows of the wild creatures,\neven--their home-sickness, their strange yearnings; the tales of\npassionate regret that hang by a ruined farm-building, a heap of\nstones, a deserted sheepfold; that gay, false, adventurous, outer\nworld, which breaks in from time to time to bewilder and deflower\nthese quiet homes; not \"passionate sorrow\" only, for the overthrow\nof the soul's beauty, but the loss of, or carelessness for personal\nbeauty even, in those whom men have wronged--their pathetic\nwanness; the sailor \"who, in his heart, was half a shepherd on the\nstormy seas;\" the wild woman teaching her child to pray for her\nbetrayer; incidents like the making of the shepherd's staff, or that of\nthe young boy laying the first stone of the sheepfold;--all the\npathetic episodes of their humble existence, their longing, their\nwonder at fortune, their poor pathetic pleasures, like the pleasures of\nchildren, won so hardly in the struggle for bare existence; their\nyearning towards each other, in their darkened houses, or at their\nearly toil. A sort of biblical depth and solemnity hangs over this\nstrange, new, passionate, pastoral world, of which he first raised the\nimage, and the reflection of which some of our best modern fiction\nhas caught from him.\n\nHere is the clue to Wordsworth's meaning; and the special quality\nand power of his work, gathering amplitude and intensity as it plays\nacross the critic's temperament, is reconstituted in other and\nilluminating images which communicate the emotion to us. The\ncritic has felt more intimately than we the appeal of this poetry, and\nhe kindles in us something of his own enthusiasm. So we return to\nWordsworth for ourselves, more alert to divine his message, more\nsusceptible to his spell, that he may work in us the magic of\nevocation.\n\nCriticism is of value to us as appreciators in so far as it serves to\nrecreate in us the experience which the work was designed to\nconvey. But criticism is not a short cut to enjoyment. We cannot\ntake our pleasure at second hand. We must first come to the work\nfreshly and realize our own impression of it; then afterwards we may\nturn to the critic for a further revelation. Criticism should not shape\nour opinion, but should stimulate appreciation, carrying us farther\nthan we could go ourselves, but always in the same direction with\nour original impression. There is a kind of literary exercise, calling\nitself criticism, which takes a picture or a book as its point of\ndeparture and proceeds to create a work of art in its own right,\nattaching itself only in name to the work which it purports to\ncriticise. \"Who cares,\" exclaims a clever maker of epigrams,\n\"whether Mr. Ruskin's views on Turner are sound or not? What does\nit matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so\nfiery-coloured in its noble eloquence, so rich in its elaborate\nsymphonic music, so sure and certain, at its best, in subtle choice of\nword and epithet, is at least as great a work of art as any of those\nwonderful sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases in\nEngland's Gallery.\" A very good appreciation of Ruskin, this. But\nthe answer is that such writing as is here attributed to Ruskin is\nmagnificent: it may be art; but it is not true criticism. A work of art\nis not \"impressive\" merely, but \"expressive\" too. Criticism in its\nrelation to the work itself has an objective base, and it must be\nsteadied and authenticated by constant reference to the original feet.\nCriticism is not the source of our enjoyment but a medium of\ninterpretation.\n\nBefore we turn to criticism, therefore, we must first, as Pater\nsuggests, know our own impression as it really is, discriminate it,\nand realize it distinctly. Only so shall we escape becoming the dupe\nof some more aggressive personality. In our mental life suggestion\nplays an important and perhaps unrecognized part. In a certain frame\nof mind we can be persuaded into believing anything and into liking\nanything. When, under the influence of authority or fashion, we\nthink we care for that which has no vital and consciously realized\nrelation to our own experience, we are the victims of a kind of\nhypnotism, and there is little hope of our ultimate adjustment over\nagainst art. It is far better honestly to like an inferior work and know\nwhy we like it than to pretend to like a good one. In the latter case\nno real progress or development is possible, for we have no\nstandards that can be regarded as final; we are swayed by the\nauthority or influence which happens at that moment to be most\npowerful. In the former case we are at least started in the right\ndirection. Year by year, according to the law of natural growth, we\ncome to the end of the inferior work which up to that time has been\nable to minister to us, and we pass on to new and greater works that\nsatisfy the demands of our deepening experience. It is sometimes\nasked if we ought not to try to like the best things in art. I should\nanswer, the very greatest things we do not have to _try_ to like; the\naccent of greatness is unmistakable, and greatness has a message for\nevery one. As regards the lesser works, we ought to be willing to\ngrow up. There was a time when I enjoyed \"Robinson Crusoe\" in\nwords of one syllable. If I had _tried_ then to like Mr. George\nMeredith, I should not really have enjoyed him, and I should have\nmissed the fun of \"Robinson Crusoe.\" Everything in its time and\nplace. The lesser works have their use: they may be a starting-point\nfor our entrance into life; and they furnish a basis of comparison by\nwhich we are enabled to realize the greatness of the truly great. We\nmust value everything in its own kind, affirming what it is, and not\nregretting what it is not. But the prerequisite of all appreciation,\nwithout which our contact with art is a pastime or a pretense, is that\nwe be honest with ourselves. In playing solitaire at least we ought\nnot to cheat.\n\nSo the layman must face the situation squarely and accept the\nresponsibility of deciding finally for himself. On the way we may\nlook to criticism to guide us to those works which are meant for us.\nIn art as in the complex details of living, there is need of selection;\nand criticism helps toward that. In literature alone, to name but a\nsingle art, there is so much to be left unread which the length of our\nlife would not otherwise permit us to escape, that we are grateful to\nthe critic who aids us to omit gracefully and with success. But the\nmost serviceable criticism is positive and not destructive. The lesser\nworks may have a message for us, and it is that message in its\ndistinctive quality which the critic should affirm. In the end,\nhowever, the use we make of criticism should not reduce itself to an\nunquestioning acceptance of authority. In the ceremonial of the\nRoman service, at the moment preceding the elevation of the Host,\ntwo acolytes enter the chancel, bearing candles, and kneel between\nthe congregation and the ministrants at the altar; the tapers,\nsuffusing the altar in their golden radiance, throw the dim figures of\nthe priests into a greater gloom and mystery. So it happens that art\noften is enshrouded by the off-giving of those who would seem to\nilluminate it; and \"dark with excess of light,\" the obscurity is\nintensified. The layman is told of the virginal poetry of early Italian\npainting; he is bidden to sit at the homely, substantial feast of the\nfrank actuality of Dutch art; he listens in puzzled wonder to the\nglorification of Velasquez and Goya; he reads in eloquent, glowing\nlanguage of the splendor of Turner. He is more than half persuaded;\nbut he does not quite understand. From this tangle of contending\ninterests there seems for the moment to be no way out. It is assumed\nthat the layman has no standard of his own; and he yields himself to\nthe appeal which comes to him immediately at the instant. The next\nday, perhaps, brings a new interest or another judgment which runs\ncounter to the old. Back and forth and back again, without purpose\nand without reason; it is only an endless recurrence of the conflict\ninstead of development and progress. Taking all his estimates at\nsecond hand, so for his opinion even of a concert or a play he is at\nthe mercy of a critic who may have dined badly. Some boy, caught\nyoung at the university and broken to miscellaneous tasks on a big\nnewspaper, is sent to \"do\" a picture-exhibition, a concert, and the\ntheatre in the same day. He is expected to \"criticise\" in an hour the\nwork of a lifetime of struggle and effort and knowledge and thought\nand feeling. This is the guide of opinion and the foundation of\nartistic creed. I have stated the reduction to absurdity of the case for\nauthority in criticism. If the layman who leans too heavily upon\ncriticism comes to realize the hopelessness of his position and thinks\nthe situation through to its necessary conclusion, he sees that the\nauthority of criticism is not absolute, but varies with the powers and\nrange of the individual critic, and that at the last he must find his\nstandard within himself.\n\nThere are, of course, certain standards of excellence recognized\nuniversally and certain principles of taste of universal validity; and\nto these standards and these principles must be referred our\nindividual estimates for comparison and correction. Given a native\nsensibility to the worth of life and to the appeal of beauty, the justice\nof our estimate will be in proportion to the extent of our knowledge\nof life and of our contact with art. Our individual judgment,\ntherefore, must be controlled by experience,--our momentary\njudgments by the sum of our own experience, and our total\njudgment by universal experience. In all sound criticism and right\nappreciation there must be a basis of disciplined taste. We must\nguard ourselves against whims and caprice, even our own. So the\nindividual may not cut loose altogether from external standards. But\nthese must be brought into relation to his personal needs and applied\nwith reference to his own standard. Finally, for his own uses, the\nindividual has the right to determine the meaning and value to him\nof any work of art in the measure that it links itself with his own\nactual or possible experience and becomes for him a revelation of\nfuller life. For beauty is the power possessed by objects to quicken\nus with a sense of larger personality; and art, whether the arts of\nform or of representation, is the material bodying forth of beauty as\nthe artist has perceived it and the means by which his emotion in its\npresence is communicated. Upon this conception of beauty and this\ninterpretation of the scope and function of art rests the justice of the\npersonal estimate.\n\n\n\nVII\n\nBEAUTY AND COMMON LIFE\n\nTO become sensitive to the meaning of color and form and sound as\nthe artist employs them for expression, to feel a work of art in its\nrelation to its background, to find in criticism enlightenment and\nguidance but not a substitute for one's own experience,--these are\nmethods of approach to art. But the appreciator has yet to penetrate\nart's inmost secret. At the centre, as the motive of all his efforts to\nunderstand the language of art and the processes of technique, as the\ngoal of historical study and the purpose of his recourse to criticism,\nstands the work itself with its power to attract and charm. Here is\nMillet's painting of the \"Sower.\" In the actual presence of the picture\nthe appreciator's experience is complex. Analysis resolves it into\nconsiderations of the material form of the work, involving its\nsensuous qualities and the processes of execution, considerations\nalso of the subject of the picture, which gathers about itself many\nassociations out of the beholder's own previous knowledge of life.\nBut the clue to the final meaning of the work, its meaning both to\nthe artist and to the appreciator, is contained in the answer to the\nquestion, Why did Millet paint this picture? And just what is it\ndesigned to express?\n\nArt is born out of emotion. Though the symbols it may employ to\nexpression, the forms in which it may manifest itself, are infinitely\nvarious in range and character, essentially all art is one. A work of\nart is the material bodying forth of the artist's sense of a meaning in\nlife which unfolds itself to him as harmony and to which his spirit\nresponds accordantly. It may be a pattern he has conceived; or he\nadapts material to a new use in response to a new need: the artist is\nhere a craftsman. He is stirred by the tone and incident of a\nlandscape or by the force or charm of some personality: and he puts\nbrush to canvas. He apprehends the complex rhythms of form: and\nthe mobile clay takes shape under his fingers. He feels the\nsignificance of persons acting and reacting in their contact with one\nanother: and he pens a novel or a drama. He is thrilled by the\nemotion attending the influx of a great idea; philosophy is touched\nwith feeling: and the thinker becomes a poet. The discords of\nexperience resolve themselves within him into harmonies: and he\ngives them out in triumphant harmonies of sound. The particular\nmedium the artist chooses in which to express himself is incidental\nto the feeling to be conveyed. The stimulus to emotion which impels\nthe artist to create and the essential content of his work is _beauty._\nAs beauty, then, is the very stuff and fibre of art, inextricably bound\nup with it, so in our effort to relate art to our experience we may\nseek to know something of the nature of beauty and its place in\ncommon life.\n\nDuring a visit in Philadelphia I was conducted by a member of the\nfirm through the great Locomotive Works in that city. From the vast\noffice, with its atmosphere of busy, concentrated quiet, punctuated\nby the clicking of many typewriters, I was led through doors and\npassages, and at length came upon the shrieking inferno of the shops.\nThe uproar and din were maddening. Overhead, huge cranes were\nswinging great bulks of steel from one end of the cavernous shed to\nthe other; vague figures were moving obscurely in the murk; the\nfloor was piled and littered with heaps of iron-work of unimaginable\nshapes. After a time we made our way into another area where there\nwas more quiet but no less confusion. I yelled to my guide, \"Such a\nrumpus and row I never saw; it is chaos come again!\" And he\nreplied, \"Why, to me it is all a perfect order. Everything is in its\nplace. Every man has his special job and does it. I know the meaning\nand purpose of all those parts that seem to you to be thrown around\nin such a mess. If you could follow the course of making from the\ndraughting-rooms to the finishing-shop, if you could see the process\nat once as a whole, you would understand that it is all a complete\nharmony, every part working with every other part to a definite\nend.\" It was not I but my friend who had the truth of the matter.\nWhere for me there was only chaos, for him was order. And the\ndifference was that he had the clue which I had not. His sense of the\nmeaning of the parts brought the scattering details into a final unity;\nand therein he found harmony and satisfaction.\n\nI went away much impressed by what I had seen. When I had\ncollected my wits a little in the comparative calm of the streets, it\noccurred to me that the immense workshops were a symbol of man's\nlife in the world. In the instant of experience all seems chaos. At\nclose range, in direct contact with the facts and demands of every\nday, we feel how confusing and distracting it all is. Life is beating in\nupon us at every point; all our senses are assailed at once. Each new\nday brings its conflicting interests and obligations. Now, whether we\nare aware of it or not, our constant effort is, out of the great variety\nof experience pressing in upon us, to select such details as make to a\ndefinite purpose and end. Instinctively we grope toward and attract\nto us that which is special and proper to our individual development.\nOur progress is toward harmony. By the adjustment of new material\nto the shaping principle of our experience, the circle of our\nindividual lives widens its circumference. We are able to bring more\nand more details into order, and correspondingly fuller and richer\nour life becomes.\n\nThe mental perception of order in the parts gives the whole its\nsignificance. This quick grasp of the whole is like the click of the\nkaleidoscope which throws the tumbling, distorted bits into a design.\nThe conduct of practical life on the mental plane is the process also\nof art on the plane of the emotions. Not only does experience offer\nitself to us as the subject of thought; our contact with the world is\nalso the stimulus of feeling. In my account of the visit to the\nLocomotive Works I have set down but a part and not the sum of my\nreaction. After I had come away, I fell to thinking about what I had\nseen, and intellectually I deduced certain abstract principles with\nregard to unity and significance. But at the moment of experience\nitself I simply felt. I was overwhelmed by the sense of unloosened\npower. The very confusion of it all constituted the unity of\nimpression. The emotion roused in me by the roar and riotous\nmovement and the vast gloom torn by fitful yellow gleams from\nopened furnaces and shapes of glowing metal was the emotion\nappropriate to the experience of chaos. That I can find a single word\nby which to characterize it, is evidence that the moment had its\nharmony for me and consequent meaning. All the infinite universe\nexternal to us is everywhere and at every instant potentially the\nstimulus to emotion. But unless feeling is discriminated, it passes\nunregarded. When the emotion gathers itself into design, when the\nmoment reveals within itself order and significance, then and not till\nthen the emotion becomes substance for expression in forms of art.\n\nIf I were able to phrase what I saw and what I felt in the Locomotive\nWorks, so that by means of presenting what I saw I might\ncommunicate to another what I felt and so rouse in him the same\nemotion, I should be an artist. Whistler or Monet might picture for\nus the murk and mystery of this pregnant gloom. Wagner might\nsound for us the tumultuous, weird emotions of this Niebelungen\nworkshop of the twentieth century. Dante or Milton might phrase\nthis inferno and pandemonium of modern industry and leave us\nstirred by the sense of power in the play of gigantic forces. Whether\nthe medium be the painter's color, the musician's tones, or the poet's\nwords, the purpose of the representation is fulfilled in so far as the\nwork expresses the emotion which the artist has felt in the presence\nof this spectacle. He, the artist, more than I or another, has thrilled to\nits mystery, its tumult, its power. It is this effect, received as a unity\nof impression, that he wants to communicate. This power of the\nobject over him, and consequently the content of his work, is beauty.\n\nIn the experience of us all there are objects and situations which can\nstir us,--the twilight hour, a group of children at play, the spectacle\nof the great human crowd, it may be, or solitude under the stars, the\nworks of man as vast cities or cunningly contrived machines, or\nperhaps it is the mighty, shifting panorama which nature unrolls for\nus at every instant of day and night, her endless pageant of color and\nlight and shade and form. Out of them at the moment of our contact\nis unfolded a new significance; because of them life becomes for us\nlarger, deeper. This power possessed by objects to rouse in us an\nemotion which comes with the realization of inner significance\nexpressed in harmony is beauty. A brief analysis of the nature and\naction of beauty may help us in the understanding and appreciation\nof art, though the value to us of any explanation is to quicken us to a\nmore vivid sensitiveness to the effect of beauty in the domain of\nactual experience of it.\n\nBecause the world external to us, which manifests beauty, is\nreceived into consciousness by the senses, it is natural to seek our\nexplanation in the processes involved in the functioning of our\norganism. Our existence as individual human beings is conditioned\nby our embodiment in matter. Without senses, without nerves and a\nbrain, we should not _be._ Our feelings, which determine for us\nfinally the value of experience, are the product of the excitement of\nour physical organism responding to stimulation. The rudimentary\nand most general feelings are pleasure and pain. All the complex\nand infinitely varied emotions that go to make up our conscious life\nare modifications of these two elementary reactions. The feeling of\npleasure results when our organism \"functions harmoniously with\nitself;\" pain is the consequence of discord. In the words of a recent\nadmirable statement of the psychologists' position: \"When rhythm\nand melody and forms and colors give me pleasure, it is because the\nimitating impulses and movements that have arisen in me are such\nas suit, help, heighten my physical organization in general and in\nparticular. . . . The basis, in short, of any aesthetic\nexperience--poetry, music, painting and the rest--is beautiful\nthrough its harmony with the conditions offered by our senses,\nprimarily of sight and hearing, and through the harmony of the\nsuggestions and impulses it arouses with the whole organism.\" Beauty,\nthen, according to the psychologists, is the quality inherent in\nthings, the possession of which enables them to stimulate our\norganism to harmonious functioning. And the perception of beauty\nis a purely physiological reaction.\n\nThis explanation, valid within its limits, seems to me to fall short of\nthe whole truth. For it fails to reckon with that faculty and that entity\nwithin us whose existence we know but cannot explain,--the faculty\nwe call mind, which operates as imagination, and the entity we\nrecognize as spirit or soul. I mean the faculty which gives us the\nidea of God and the consciousness of self, the faculty which\napprehends relations and significance in material transcending their\nmaterial embodiment. I mean the entity within us which expresses\nitself in love and aspiration and worship, the entity which is able to\nfuse with the harmony external to it in a larger unity. When I glance\nout upon a winter twilight drenching earth and sky with luminous\nblue, a sudden delight floods in upon me, gathering up all my senses\nin a surging billow of emotion, and my being pulses and vibrates in\na beat of joy. Something within me goes out to meet the landscape;\nso far as I am at all conscious of the moment, I feel, There, that is\nwhat I am! This deep harmony of tone and mass is the expression of\na fuller self toward which I yearn. My being thrills and dilates with\nthe sensation of larger life. Then, after the joy has throbbed itself out\nand my reaction takes shape as consciousness, I set myself to\nconsider the sources and the processes of my experience. I note that\nmy eye has perceived color and form. My intellect, as I summon it\ninto action, tells me that I am looking upon a scene in nature\ncomposed of material elements, as land and trees and water and\natmosphere. My senses, operating through channels of matter,\nreceive, and my brain registers, impressions of material objects. But\nthis analysis, though defining the processes, does not quite explain\n_my joy._ I know that beyond all this, transcending my material\nsense-perception and transcending the actual material of the\nlandscape, there is something in me and there is something in nature\nwhich meet and mingle and become one. Above all embodiment in\nmatter, there is a plane on which I feel my community with the\nworld external to me, recognizing that world to be an extension of\nmy own personality, a plane on which I can identify myself with the\nthing outside of me in so far as it is the expression of what I am or\nmay become. Between me and the external world there is a common\nterm. The effect which nature has upon us is determined, not by the\nobject itself alone and not by our individual mind and temperament\nalone, but by the meeting of the two, the community between the\nobject and the spirit of man. When we find nature significant and\nexpressive, it is because we make nature in some way a part of our\nown experience.\n\nThe material of an object is perceived by the senses. We see that it is\nblue or green or brown; we may touch it and note that it is rough or\nsmooth, hard or soft, warm or cold. But the expressiveness of the\nobject, its value for the emotions, does not stop with its merely\nmaterial qualities, but comes with our grasp of the \"relations\" which\nit embodies; and these relations, transmitted through material by the\nsenses, are apprehended by the mind. There are, of course,\nelementary data of sense-perception, such as color and sound. It may\nbe that I prefer red to yellow because my eye is so constituted as to\nfunction harmoniously with a rate of vibration represented by 450\nbillions per second, and discordantly with a rate of vibration\nrepresented by 526 billions per second. So also with tones of a given\npitch. But though simple color and simple sound have each the\npower to please the senses, yet in actual experience neither color nor\nsound is perceived abstractly, apart from its embodiment in form.\nColor is felt as the property of some concrete object, as the crimson\nof a rose, the dye of some fabric or garment, the blue of the sky,\nwhich, though we know it to be the infinite extension of atmosphere\nand ether, we nevertheless conceive as a dome, with curvature and\nthe definite boundary of the horizon. Sound in and of itself has pitch\nand _timbre_, qualities of pure sensation; but even with the\nperception of sound the element of form enters in, for we hear it\nwith a consciousness of its duration--long or short--or of its relation\nto other sounds, heard or imagined.\n\nOur perceptions, therefore, give us forms. Now form implies\n_relation,_ the reference of one part to the other parts in the\ncomposition of the whole. And relation carries with it the\npossibilities of harmony or discord, of unity or disorder. Before an\nobject can be regarded as beautiful it must give out a unity of\nimpression. This unity does not reside in the object itself, but is\neffected by the mind which perceives it. In looking at a\ncheckerboard I may see it as an aggregation of white squares set off\nby black, or as black squares relieved by white. I may read it as a\nseries of horizontals, or of verticals, or of diagonals, according as I\n_attend_ to it. The design of the checker-board is not an absolute\nand fixed quantity inherent in the object itself, but is capable of a\nvarious interpretation according to the relative emphasis given to the\nparts by the perceiving mind. So with all objects in nature. The\ntwilight landscape which stirred me may have been quite without\ninterest or meaning to the man at my side; or, if he responded to it at\nall, his feelings may have been of a different order and quality than\nmine. Where I felt a deep and intimate solemnity in the landscape,\nhe might have received the twilight as chill and forbidding.  Beauty,\nthen, which consists in harmonious relation, does not lie in nature\nobjectively, but is constituted by the perception in man's\nconstructive imagination of a harmony and consequent significance\ndrawn out of natural forms.  It is, in Emerson's phrase, \"the integrity\nof impression made by manifold natural objects.\" And Emerson says\nfurther, \"The charming landscape which I saw this morning is\nindubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns\nthis field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none\nof them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon\nwhich no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that\nis, the poet.\" The mere pleasurable excitement of the senses is hardly\nto be called beauty. An object to be beautiful must express a\nharmony of relations and hence a meaning,--a meaning which goes\nbeyond sense-perception and does not stop with the intellect, but\nreaches the spirit. Psychologists tell us that \"a curved line is pleasing\nbecause the eye is so hung as best to move in it.\" Pleasing, yes; but\nnot beautiful. And precisely herein is illustrated the distinction. A\nlife wearied with an undulating uniformity of days will find beauty\nless in the curve than in the zigzag, because the sight of the broken\nline brings to the spirit suggestions of change and adventure. A\nsupine temper finds shock, excitement, and a meaning in the vertical.\nYet the significance of forms is not determined necessarily by\ncontrasts. A quiet spirit sees its own expression, a harmony of self\nwith external form, in the even lines and flat spaces of some Dutch\netching. Or a vigorous, hardy mind takes fresh stimulus and courage\nfrom the swirling clouds of Turner or the wind-torn landscapes of\nConstable. An object is beautiful, not because of the physical ease\nwith which the eye follows its outlines, but in so far as it has the\npower to communicate to us the feeling of larger life, to express and\ncomplete for us a harmony within our emotional experience.\n\nOur senses report to us the material world; we see, we hear, we\ntouch and taste and smell. But we recognize also that nature has a\nvalue for the emotions; it can delight and thrill and uplift, taking us\nout of ourselves and carrying us beyond the confines of the little\ncircle of our daily use and wont. As I look from my window I see\nagainst the sky a pear tree, radiant with blossom, an explosion of\nlight and sensation. Its green and white, steeped in sunshine and\nquivering out of rain-washed depths of blue, are good to behold. But\nfor me, as my spirit goes out to meet it, the tree is spring! In this I do\nnot mean to characterize a process of intellectual deduction,--that as\nblossoms come in the spring, so the flowering of the tree is evidence\nthat spring is here. I mean that by its color and form, all its outward\nloveliness, the tree communicates to me the spirit of the new birth of\nthe year. In myself I feel and live the spring. My joy in the tree,\ntherefore, does not end with the sight of its gray trunk and\ninterwoven branches and its gleaming play of leaves: there my joy\nonly begins, and it comes to its fulfillment as I feel the life of the\ntree to be an expression and extension of the life that is in me. My\nphysical organism responds harmoniously in rhythm with the form\nof the tree, and so far the tree is pleasing. But, finally, a form is\nbeautiful because it is expressive. \"Beauty,\" said Millet, \"does not\nconsist merely in the shape or coloring of a face. It lies in the\ngeneral effect of the form, in suitable and appropriate action. . . .\nWhen I paint a mother, I shall try and make her beautiful simply by\nthe look she bends upon her child. Beauty is expression.\" Beauty\nworks its effect through significance, a significance which is not\nalways to be phrased in words, but is felt; conveyed by the senses, it\nat last reaches the emotions. Where the spirit of man comes into\nharmony with a harmony external to it, there is beauty.\n\nThe elements of beauty are design, wholeness, and significance.\nSignificance proceeds out of wholeness or unity of impression; and\nunity is made possible by design. Whatever the flower into which it\nmay ultimately expand, beauty has its roots in fitness and utility;\ndesign in this case is constituted by the adaptation of the means to\nthe end. The owner of a saw-mill wanted a support made for a\nshafting. Indicating a general idea of what he desired, he applied to\none of his workmen, a man of intelligence and skill in his craft, but\nwithout a conventional education. The man constructed the support,\na triangular framework contrived to receive the shafting at the apex;\nwhere there was no stress within the triangle, he cut away the timber,\nthus eliminating all surplusage of material. When the owner saw the\nfinished product he said to his workman, \"Well, John, that is a really\nbeautiful thing you have made there.\" And the man replied, \"I don't\nknow anything about the beauty of it, but I know it's strong!\" The\nend to be reached was a support which should be strong. The strong\nsupport was felt to be beautiful, for its lines and masses were\napprehended as _right._ Had the man, with the \"little learning\" that\nis dangerous, attempted embellishment or applied ornament, he\nwould have spoiled the effect; for ornateness would have been out of\nplace. The perfect fitness of means to end, without defect and\nwithout excess, constituted its beauty; and its beauty was perceived\naesthetically, as a quality inherent in the form, a quality which apart\nfrom the practical serviceableness of the contrivance was capable of\ncommunicating pleasure. So in general, when the inherent needs of\nthe work give shape to the structure or contrivance, the resulting\nform is in so far forth beautiful. The early \"horseless carriages,\" in\nwhich a form intended for one use was grafted upon a different\npurpose, were very ugly. Today the motor-car, evolved out of\nstructural needs, a thing complete in and for itself, has in its lines\nand coherence of composition certain elements of beauty. In his\n\"Song of Speed,\" Henley has demonstrated that the motorcar,\nmechanical, modern, useful, may even be material for poetry. That\nthe useful is not always perceived as beautiful is due to the fact that\nthe design which has shaped the work must be regarded apart from\nthe material serviceableness of the object itself. Beauty consists not\nin the actual material, but in the unity of relations which the object\nembodies. We appreciate the art involved in the making of the first\nlock and key only as we look beyond the merely practical usefulness\nof the device and so apprehend the harmony of relations effected\nthrough its construction. As the lock and key serve to fasten the door,\nthey are useful; they are beautiful as they manifest design and we\nfeel their harmony. Beauty is removed from practical life, not\nbecause it is unrelated to life,--just the reverse of that is true,--but\nbecause the enjoyment of beauty is disinterested. The detachment\ninvolved in appreciation is a detachment from material. The\nappreciator may seem to be a looker-on at life, in that he does not\nact but simply feels. But his spirit is correspondingly alert. In the\nmeasure that he is released from servitude to material he gives free\nplay to his emotion.\n\nAlthough beauty is founded upon design, design is not the whole of\nbeauty. Not all objects which exhibit equal integrity of design are\nequally beautiful. The beauty of a work of art is determined by the\ndegree of emotion which impelled its creation and by the degree in\nwhich the work itself is able to communicate the emotion\nimmediately. The feeling which entered into the making of the first\nlock and key was simply the inventor's desire for such a device, his\ndesire being the feeling which accompanied his consciousness of his\nneed. At the other extreme is the emotion such as attended\nMichelangelo's vision of his \"David\" and urged his hand as he set\nhis chisel to the unshaped waiting block. And so all the way between.\nMany pictures are executed in a wholly mechanical spirit, as so\nmuch manufacture; and they exhibit correspondingly little beauty.\nMany useful things, as a candle-stick, a pair of andirons, a chair, are\nwrought in the spirit of art; into them goes something of the maker's\njoy in his work; they become the expression of his emotion: and\nthey are so far beautiful. It is asserted that Millet's \"Angelus\" is a\ngreater picture than the painting entitled \"War\" by Franz Stuck,\nbecause \"the idea of peasants telling their beads is more beautiful\nthan the idea of a ruthless destroyer only in so far as it is morally\nhigher.\" The moral value as such has very little to do with it. It is a\nquestion of emotion. If Stuck were to put on canvas his idea of\npeasants at prayer and if Millet had phrased in pictorial terms his\nfeeling about war, there is little doubt that Millet's painting would be\nthe more telling and beautiful. The degree of beauty is fixed by the\ndepth of the man's insight into life and the corresponding intensity of\nhis emotion.\n\nBeauty is not limited to one class of object or experience and\nexcluded from another. A chair may be beautiful, although turned to\ncommon use; a picture is not beautiful necessarily because it is a\npicture. \"Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is\nbad,\" says Whitman, Whistler speaks of art as \"seeking and finding\nthe beautiful in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest,\nRembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in\nthe Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its\ninhabitants were not Greeks.\" The beautiful must exhibit an integrity\nof relations within itself, and it must be in integral relation with its\nsurroundings. The standard of beauty varies with every age, with\nevery nation, indeed with every individual. As beauty is not in the\nobject itself, but is in the mind which integrates the relations which\nthe object manifests, so our appreciation of beauty is determined by\nour individuality. And individuality is the resultant of many forces.\nThe self, inexplicable in essence, is the product of inheritance, and is\nmodified by environment and training. More than we realize, our\njudgment is qualified by tradition and habit and even fashion.\nBecause men have been familiar for so many centuries with the idea\nthat sculpture should find its vehicle in white marble, the knowledge\nthat Greek marbles originally were painted comes with something of\na shock; and for the moment they have difficulty in persuading\nthemselves that a Parthenon frieze _colored_ could possibly be\nbeautiful. Until within comparatively recent years the French have\nregarded Shakespeare as a barbarian. The heroic couplet, which was\nthe last word in poetical expression in the age of Queen Anne, we\nconsider to-day as little more than a mechanical jingle. Last year's\nfashions in dress, which seemed at the time to have their merits, are\nthis year amusingly grotesque. In our judgment of beauty, therefore,\nallowance must be made for standards which merely are imposed\nupon us from without. It is necessary to distinguish between a\nformula and the reality. As far as possible we should seek to come\ninto \"original relation\" with the universe, freshly for ourselves. So\nwe must return upon our individual consciousness, and thus\ndetermine what is vitally significant to us. For the man who would\nappreciate beauty, it is not a question between this or that \"school\"\nin art, whether the truth lies with the classicists or the romanticists; it\nis not a question of this or that subject or method to the exclusion of\nall others. Beauty may be anywhere or everywhere. It is our task and\njoy to find it, wherever it may be. And we shall find it, if we are able\nto recognize it and we hold ourselves responsive to its multitudinous\nappeal.\n\nThe conception of beauty which limits its manifestation to one kind\nof experience is so far false and leads to mischievous acceptances\nand narrowing rejections. We mistake the pretty for the beautiful\nand so fail of the true value of beauty; we are blind to the\nsignificance which all nature and all life, in the lowest and\ncommonest as in the highest and rarest, hold within them. \"If\nbeauty,\" says Hamerton, \"were the only province of art, neither\npainters nor etchers would find anything to occupy them in the foul\nstream that washes the London wharfs.\" By beauty here is meant the\nmerely agreeable. Pleasing the river may not be, to the ordinary man;\nbut for the poet and the painter, those to whom it is given to see with\nthe inner eye, the \"foul stream\" and its wharfs may be lighted with\nmysterious and tender beauty.\n\n     \"Earth has not anything to show more fair:\n     Dull would he be of soul who could pass by\n     A sight so touching in its majesty:\n     This city now doth, like a garment, wear\n     The beauty of the morning.\n\n     . . . . .\n\n     Never did sun more beautifully steep\n     In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;\n     Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!\n     The river glideth at his own sweet will:\n     Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;\n     And all that mighty heart is lying still!\"\n\nAnd Whistler, by the witchery of his brush and his needle, has\ntransmuted the confusion and sordidness and filth of this\nThames-side into exquisite emotion. The essence of beauty is harmony, but\nthat harmony is not to be reduced to rule and measure. In the very\nchaos of the Locomotive Works we may feel beauty; in the thrill\nwhich they communicate we receive access of power and we _are,_\nmore largely, more universally. The harmony which is beauty is that\nunity or integrity of impression by force of which we are able to feel\nsignificance and the relation of the object to our own experience. It\nis an error to suppose that beauty must be racked on a procrustean\nbed of formula. Such false conceptions result in sham art. To create\na work which shall be beautiful it is not necessary to \"smooth, inlay,\nand clip, and fit.\" Beauty is not imposed upon material from without,\naccording to a recipe; it is drawn out from within by the integrating\npower of imagination. Art is not artificiality. Art is the expression of\nvital emotion and essential significance. The beauty of architecture,\nfor example, consists not in applied ornament but in structural\nfitness and adaptability, and grows out of the inherent needs of the\nwork. The cathedral-builders of old time did not set themselves to\ncreate a \"work of art.\" They wanted a church; and it was a church\nthey built. It is we who, perceiving the rightness of their\nachievement, pronounce it to be beautiful. Beauty is not\nmanufactured, but grows; it cannot be laid on as ornament. Beauty is\nborn out of the contact of the spirit of man with natural forms, that\ncontact which gives to objects their significance.\n\nThe recognition of the true nature of beauty may change for us the\nface of the world. Some things are universally regarded as beautiful\nbecause their appeal is universal. There are passions, joys,\naspirations, common to all the race; and the forms which objectify\nthese emotions are beautiful universally. We can all enter into the\nfeelings that gather about a group of children dancing round a\nMaypole in the Park; but in the murk and din and demoniacal\nactivity of the Locomotive Works the appeal is not so obvious. The\nstupendous workshops become beautiful to me as my being merges\ninto harmony with them and dilates with the emotion of intenser and\nfuller life. The Sistine Madonna is generally regarded as beautiful.\nBut what is the beauty in the unspeakable witch on the canvas of\nFrans Hals? Harmony of color and of composition is employed by\nRaphael in the rendering of a figure and in the expression of an\nemotion both of which relate themselves to the veneration of\nmankind. Maternity, Christian or pagan, divine or human, evokes its\nuniversal tribute of feeling. On Raphael's canvas complete harmony\nis made visible; and the beauty of the picture for us is measured by\nits power to stir us. In the painting by Frans Hals the subject\nrepresented is in itself not pleasing. The technical execution of the\npicture is masterly. But our delight goes beyond any enjoyment of\nthe skill here exhibited, goes beyond even the satisfaction of the\nsenses in its color and composition. What the picture expresses is\nnot merely the visible aspect of this woman, but the painter's own\nsympathy and appreciation. He saw a beauty in ugliness, a beauty to\nwhich we were blind, for he felt the significance of her life, the\neternal rightness to herself of what she was. His joy in this inner\nharmony has transfigured the object and made it beautiful. Beauty\npenetrates deeper than grace and comeliness; it is not confined to the\npretty and agreeable. Indeed, beauty is not always immediately\npleasant, but is received often with pain. The emotion of pleasure,\nwhich is regarded as the necessary concomitant of beauty, ensues as\nwe are able to merge ourselves in the experience and so come to feel\nits ultimate harmony. What is commonly accepted as ugly, as\nshocking or sordid, becomes beautiful for us so soon as we\napprehend its inner significance. Judged by the canons of formal\nbeauty, the sky-line of New York city, seen from the North River, is\nugly and distressing. But the responsive spirit, reaching ever\noutward into new forms of feeling, can thrill at sight of those Titanic\nstructures out-topping the Palisades themselves, thrusting their\nsquareness adventurously into the smoke-grayed air, and telling the\ntriumph of man's mind over the forces of nature in this fulfillment of\nthe needs of irrepressible activity, this expression of tremendous\nactuality and life. Not that the reaction is so definitely formulated in\nthe moment of experience; but this is something of what is felt. The\ndiscovery of such a harmony is the entrance into fuller living. So it\nis that the boundaries of beauty enlarge with the expansion of the\nindividual spirit.\n\nTo extend the boundaries of beauty by the revelation of new\nharmonies is the function of art. With the ordinary man, the plane of\nfeeling, which is the basis of appreciation, is below the plane of his\nattention as he moves through life from day to day. As a clock may\nbe ticking in the room quite unheeded, and then suddenly we hear it\nbecause our attention is called to it; so only that emotion really\ncounts to us as experience which comes to our cognizance. When\nonce the ordinary man is made aware of the underlying plane of\nfeeling, the whole realm of appreciation is opened to him by his\nrecognition of the possibilities of beauty which life may hold.\nConsciously to recognize that forces are operating which lie behind\nthe surface aspect of things is to open ourselves to the play of these\nforces. With persons in whom intellect is dominant and the\ncontrolling power, the primary need is to understand; and for such,\nfirst to know is to be helped finally to feel. To comprehend that\nthere is a soul in every fact and that within material objects reside\nmeanings for the spirit, or beauty, is to be made more sensitive to\ntheir influence. With the artist, however, the case is different. At the\nmoment of creation he is little conscious of the purport of the work\nto which he sets his hand. He is not concerned, as we have been,\nwith the \"why\" of beauty; from the concrete directly to the concrete\nis his progress. Life comes to him not as thought but as emotion. He\nis moved by actual immediate contact with the world about him,--by\nthe sight of a landscape, by the mood of an hour or place, by the\npower of some personality; it may be, too, a welter of recollected\nsensations and impressions that plays upon his spirit. The resultant\nemotion, not reasoned about but nevertheless directed to a definite\nend, takes shape in external concrete forms which are works of art.\nJust because he is so quick to feel the emotional value of life he is an\nartist; and much of his power as an artist derives from the\nconcreteness of his emotion. The artist is the creative mind, creative\nin this sense, that in the outward shows of things he feels their\ninward and true relations, and by new combinations of material\nelements he reembodies his feeling in forms whose message is\naddressed to the spirit. The reason why Millet painted the \"Sower\"\nwas that he felt the beauty of this peasant figure interpreted as\nsignificance and life. And it is this significance and life, in which we\nare made to share, that his picture is designed to express.\n\nExperience comes to us in fragments; the surface of the world\nthrows back to us but broken glimpses. In the perspective of a\nlifetime the fragments flow together into order, and we dimly see the\npurpose of our being here; in moments of illumination and deeper\ninsight a glimpse may disclose a sudden harmony, and the brief\nsegment of nature's circle becomes beautiful. For then is revealed\nthe shaping principle. Within the fact, behind the surface, are\napprehended the relations of which the fact and the surface are the\nexpression. The rhythm thus discovered wakens an accordant\nrhythm in the spirit of man. The moment gives out its meaning as\nman and nature merge together in the inclusive harmony. If the\nhuman spirit were infinite in comprehension, we should receive all\nthings as beautiful, for we should apprehend their rightness and their\nharmony. To our finite perception, however, design is not always\nevident, for it is overlaid and confounded with other elements which\nare not at the moment fused. Just here is the office of art. For art\npresents a harmony liberated from all admixture of conflicting\ndetails and purged of all accidents, thus rendering the single\nmeaning salient. To compel disorder into order and so reveal new\nbeauty is the achievement of the artist. The world is commonplace\nor fraught with divinest meanings, according as we see it so. To art\nwe turn for revelation, knowing that ideals of beauty may be many\nand that beauty may manifest itself in many forms.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE ARTS OF FORM\n\nTHE maker of the first bowl moulds the plastic clay into the shape\nbest adapted to its purpose, a vessel to hold water, from which he\ncan drink easily; the half-globe rather than the cube affords the\ngreatest holding capacity with the least expenditure of material. He\nfinds now that the form itself--over and above the practical\nserviceableness of the bowl--gives him pleasure. With a pointed\nstick or bit of flint he traces in the yielding surface a flowing line or\nan ordered series of dots or crosses, allowing free play to his fancy\nand invention. The design does not resemble anything else, nor does\nit relate itself to any object external to the maker; it has no meaning\napart from the pleasure which it gave him as he conceived and\ntraced it, and the pleasure it now gives him to look at it. To another\nman who sees the bowl, its form and its decoration afford likewise a\ndouble pleasure: there is first the satisfaction of senses and mind in\nthe contemplation of harmonious form and rhythmic pattern; and\nsecond, there is communicated to him a feeling of the maker's\ndelight in his handiwork, and sympathetically and imaginatively the\nbeholder realizes that delight in his own experience.\n\nI am walking with a friend along a road which climbs a wooded\nhillside. A few steps bring us to the top and the edge of a clearing.\nThere, suddenly a sweep of country is rolled out before us. A quick\nintake of the breath, and then the cry, \"Ah!\" Consciousness surges\nback over me, and turning to my friend, I exclaim, \"See the line of\nthose hills over there across the tender sky and those clouds\ntumbling above them; see how the hills dip down into the meadows;\nlook at the lovely group of willows along the bank of the river, how\ngraciously they come in, and then that wash of purple light over\neverything!\" My simple cry, \"Ah!\" was the expression of emotion,\nthe unconscious, involuntary expression; it was not art. It did not\nformulate my emotion definitely, and although it was an expression\nof emotion, it had no power to communicate the special quality of it.\nSo soon, however, as I composed the elements in the landscape,\nwhich stimulated my emotion, into a distinct and coherent whole\nand by means of that I tried to convey to my friend something of\nwhat I was feeling, my expression tended to become art. My\nmedium of expression happened to be words. If I had been alone and\nwanted to take home with me a record of my impression of the\nlandscape, a pencil-sketch of the little composition might have\nserved to indicate the sources of my feeling and to suggest its\nquality. Whether in words or in line and mass, my work would be in\na rudimentary form a work of representative art. The objective fact\nof the landscape which I point out to my friend engages his interest;\nhis pleasure derives from those aspects of it which my emotion\nemphasizes and which constitute its beauty; and something of the\nsame emotion that I felt he realizes in his own experience.\n\nThe impulse to expression which fulfills itself in a work of art is\ndirected in general by one of two motives,--the motive of\nrepresentation and the motive of pure form. These two motives are\ncoexistent with human activity itself. The earliest vestiges of\nprehistoric races and the remains of the remotest civilizations are\nwitnesses of man's desire to imitate and record, and also of his\npleasure in harmony of form. Certain caves in France, inhabited by\nman some thousands of years before history begins, have yielded up\nreindeer horns and bones, carved with reliefs and engraved with\ndrawings of mammoths, reindeer, and fish. On the walls and roofs of\nthese caves are paintings in bright colors of animals, rendered with\ncorrectness and animation. Flint axes of a still remoter epoch \"are\ncarved with great dexterity by means of small chips flaked off the\nstone, and show a regularity of outline which testifies to the delight\nof primitive man in symmetry.\"[*] Burial mounds, of unknown\nantiquity, and the rude stone monuments such as Stonehenge and the\ndolmens of Brittany and Wales, emerging out of prehistoric dawns,\nare evidence of man's striving after architectural unity in design and\nharmony of proportion.\n\n[*] S. Reinach, _The Story of Art throughout the Ages,_ chapter i.\n\nThe existence of these two separate motives which impel creation,\nman's desire to imitate and his delight in harmony, gives rise to a\ndivision of the arts into two general classes, namely, the\nrepresentative arts and the arts of pure form. The representative arts\ncomprise painting and sculpture, and literature in its manifestations\nof the drama, fiction, and dramatic and descriptive poetry. These arts\ndraw their subjects from nature and human life, from the world\nexternal to the artist. The arts of form comprise architecture and\nmusic, and that limitless range of human activities in design and\npattern-making for embellishment--including also the whole\ncategory of \"useful arts\"--which may be subsumed under the\ncomprehensive term _decoration._ In these arts the \"subject\" is\nself-constituted and does not derive its significance from its likeness to\nany object external to it; the form itself is the subject. Lyric poetry\nstands midway between the two classes. It is the expression of\n\"inner states\" but it externalizes itself in terms of the outer world. It\nhas a core of thought, and it employs images from nature which can\nbe visualized, and it recalls sounds whose echo can be wakened in\nimaginative memory.\n\n     \"Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,\n          And Phoebus 'gins arise,\n     His steeds to water at those springs\n          On chaliced flowers that lies;\n     And winking Mary-buds begin\n          To ope their golden eyes;\n     With everything that pretty bin,\n          My lady sweet, arise!\n               Arise, arise!\"\n\nThe intellectual and sensuous elements which lyric poetry embodies\nare finally submerged under the waves of emotional stimulus which\nflow from the form as form. Such poetry does not depend upon the\nfact of representation for its meaning; the very form itself, as in\nmusic, is its medium of communicating the emotion. Art, therefore,\nto phrase the same matter in slightly different terms, has a subjective\nand an objective aspect. In the one case, the artist projects his\nfeeling into the forms which he himself creates; in the other case, the\nforms external to him, as nature and human life, inspire the emotion,\nand these external forms the artist reproduces, with of course the\nnecessary modifications, as the symbol and means of expression of\nhis emotion.\n\nThe distinction between the representative arts and the arts of form\nis not ultimate, nor does it exclude one class wholly from the other;\nit defines a general tendency and serves to mark certain differences\nin original motive and in the way in which the two kinds of work\nmay be received and appreciated. In actual works of art themselves,\nthough they differ as to origin and function, the line of division\ncannot be sharply drawn. The dance may be an art of form or a\nrepresentative art according as it embodies the rhythms of pure\nmovement or as it numerically figures forth dramatic ideas. Painting,\nas in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel and the wall paintings of\nTintoretto and Veronese in the Ducal Palace of Venice, may be\nemployed in the service of decoration. Decoration, as in\narchitectural sculpture and in patterns for carpets and wall-coverings,\noften draws its motives from nature, such as leaves, flowers, fruits,\nand animals; but when the function of the work is decorative and not\nrepresentative, the naturalistic and graphic character of the subject is\nsubordinated to the purposes of abstract and formal design. A\npicture, on the other hand, which is frankly representative in purpose,\nmust submit its composition and color-harmony to the requirements\nof unity in design; in a sense it must make a pattern. And a statue, as\nthe \"Victory of Samothrace,\" bases its ultimate appeal, not upon the\nfact of representation, but upon complete, rhythmic, beautiful form.\n\nTo the appreciator the arts of form carry a twofold significance.\nThere is first the pleasure which derives from the contemplation and\nreception of a harmony of pure form, including harmony of color, of\nline, and of flat design as well as form in the round, a pleasure of the\nsenses and the mind. Second, works of art in this category, as they\nare the expression for the artist of his emotion, become therefore the\nmanifestation to the appreciator and means of communication of that\nemotion.\n\nMan's delight in order, in unity, in harmony, rhythm, and balance, is\ninborn. The possession of these qualities by an object constitutes its\nform. Form, in the sense of unity and totality of relations, is not to\nbe confounded with mere regularity. It may assume all degrees of\ndivergence from geometric precision, all degrees of variety, ranging\nfrom the visual perfectness of the Parthenon to the sublime and\ntriumphant inconsequence of the sky-line of New York city. It may\nmanifest all degrees of complexity from a cup to a cathedral or from\n\"Home, Sweet Home\" to Tschaikowski's \"Pathetic Symphony.\"\nWhatever the elements and the incidents, our sense of order in the\nparts and of singleness of impression endows the object with its\nform. The form as we apprehend it of an object constitutes its beauty,\nits capability to arouse and to delight.\n\nBecause of the essential make-up of man's mind and spirit, powers\nthat are innate and determined by forces still beyond the scope of\nanalysis, the perception of a harmony of relations, which is beauty,\nis attended with pleasure, a pleasure that is felt and cannot be\nexplained. This inborn, inexplicable delight is at once the origin of\nthe arts of form and the basis of our appreciation. Each art, as the\nfashioning of objects of use, as decoration, architecture, and music,\nis governed by its own intrinsic, inherent laws and rests its appeal\nupon man's pleasure in form. There is no standard external to the\nlaws of the art itself by which to judge the rightness and the beauty\nof the individual work. In the arts of use and in decoration and\narchitecture, the beauty of a work, as the beauty of a chair, as in the\nordering and appointments of a room, as the beauty of a temple, a\ntheatre, a dwelling, derives primarily from the fitness of the object to\nits function, and finally from the rhythm of its lines and the harmony\nof its masses and proportions,--its total form. A chair which cannot\nbe sat in may be interesting and agreeable to look at, but it is not\ntruly beautiful; for then it is not a chair but a curiosity, a bijou, and a\nsuperfluity; to be beautiful it must be first of all frankly and\npractically a chair. A living-room which cannot be lived in with\ncomfort and restfulness and peace of mind is not a living-room, but\na museum or a concentrated department store; at best it is only an\ninclosed space. A beautiful building declares its function and use,\nsatisfies us with the logic and coherence of its parts, and delights us\nwith its reticence or its boldness, its simplicity or its inventiveness,\nin fine, its personality, as expressed in its parts and their confluence\ninto an ordered, self-contained, and self-sufficing whole. Music,\nusing sound for its material, is a pattern-weaving in tones. The\npower of music to satisfy and delight resides in the sensuous value\nof its material and in the character of its pattern as form, the balance\nand contrast of tonal relations, the folding and unfolding of themes,\ntheir development and progress to the final compelling unity-in-variety\nwhich constitutes its form and which in its own inherent and\nself-sufficing way is made the expression of the composer's emotion\nand musical idea. Lyric poetry is the fitting of rhythmic, melodious,\ncolored words to the emotion within, to the point where the very\nform itself becomes the meaning, and the essence and mystery of the\nsong are in the singing. Beauty is harmony materialized; it is\nemotion ordered and made visible, audible, tangible. If in the arts of\nform we seek further a standard of truth, their truth is not found in\ntheir relation to any external verity, but is determined by their\ncorrespondence with inner experience.\n\nIn the category of the arts of form the single work is to be received\nin its entirety and integrity as form. The whole, however, may be\nresolved into its parts, and the individual details may be interesting\nin themselves. Thus into decorative patterns are introduced elements\nof meaning which attach themselves to the world and experience\nexternal to the artist. Many ornamental motives, like the zigzag and\nthe egg-and-dart, for example, had originally a symbolic value.\nSometimes they are drawn from primitive structures and fabrics, as\nthe checker-board pattern, with its likeness to the plaitings of rush\nmattings, and the volute and spiral ornaments, which recall the\ncurves and involutions of wattle and wicker work. Again, decoration\nmay employ in its service details that in themselves are genuinely\nrepresentative art. The frieze of the Parthenon shows in relief a\nprocession of men and women and horses and chariots and animals.\nThe sculptures of Gothic churches represent men and women, and\nthe carvings of mouldings, capitals, and traceries are based on\nnaturalistic motives, taking their designs from leaves and flowers.\nThe essential function of ornament is to emphasize form and not to\nobscure it, though nowadays in machine-made things a kind of\npseudo-embellishment is laid on to distract attention from the\nbadness and meaninglessness of the form; in true decoration the\nrepresentative elements are subordinated to the formal character of\nthe whole. The representative interest may be enjoyed separately and\nin detail; but finally the graphic purpose yields to the decorative, and\nthe details take their place as parts of the total design. Thus a Gothic\ncathedral conveys its complete and true impression first and last as\nform. Midway we may set ourselves to a reading of the details. The\nfigure of this saint on the jamb or the archivolt of the portal is\nexpressive of such simple piety and enthusiasm! In this group on the\ntympanum what animation and spirit! This moulding of leaves and\nblossoms is cut with such loving fidelity and exquisite feeling for\nnatural truth! But at the last the separate members fulfill their\nappointed office as they reveal the supreme function of the living\ntotal form.\n\nMusic, too, in some of its manifestations, as in song, the opera, and\nprogramme music, has a representative and illustrative character. In\nChopin's \"Funeral March\" we hear the tolling of church bells, and it\nis easy to visualize the slow, straggling file of mourners following\nthe bier; the composition here has a definite objective base drawn\nfrom external fact, and the \"idea\" is not exclusively musical, but\nadmits an infusion of pictorial and literary elements. In listening to\nthe love duet of the second act of \"Tristan,\" although the lovers are\nbefore us in actual presence on the stage, I find myself involuntarily\nclosing my eyes, for the music is so personal and so spiritualized, it\nis in and of itself so intensely the realization of the emotion, that the\nobjective presentment of it by the actors becomes unnecessary and is\nalmost an intrusion. The representative, figurative element in music\nmay be an added interest, but its appeal is intellectual; if as we hear\nthe \"Funeral March,\" we say to ourselves, This is so and so, and,\nHere they do this or that, we are thinking rather than feeling. Music\nis the immediate expression of emotion communicated immediately;\nand the composition will not perfectly satisfy unless it is _music,_\ncompelling all relations of melody, harmony, and rhythm into a\nsupreme and triumphant order.\n\nWhereas the representative arts are based upon objective fact,\ndrawing their \"subjects\" from nature and life external to the artist; in\ndecoration, in architecture, and in music the artist creates his own\nforms as the projection of his emotion and the means of its\nexpression. Richard Wagner, referring to the composition of his\n\"Tristan,\" writes: \"Here, in perfect trustfulness, I plunged into the\ninner depth of soul events, and from out this inmost centre of the\nworld I fearlessly built up its outer form. . . . Life and death, the\nwhole import and existence of the outer world, here hang on nothing\nbut the inner movements of the soul. The whole affecting Action\ncomes about for the reason only that the inmost soul demands it, and\nsteps to light with the very shape foretokened in the inner shrine.\"\nThe form, thus self-constituted, has the power to delight us, and the\nwork is at the same time the expression of emotion. The arts of form\nplease us with the pleasure that attends the perception of formal\nbeauty; but this pleasure docs not exhaust their capability to minister\nto us. What differentiates art from manufacture is the element of\npersonal expression. Born out of need, whether the need be physical\nor spiritual, fulfilling the urge to expression, a work of art embodies\nits maker's delight in creating. Correspondingly, beyond our\nimmediate enjoyment of the work as form, we feel something of\nwhat the man felt who was impelled to create it. His handiwork, his\npattern, his composition, becomes the means of communicating to\nus his emotional experience.\n\nObviously the significance of any work is determined primarily by\nthe intensity and scope of emotion which has prompted it. The\ncreation of works of art involves all degrees of intention, from the\nhut in the wilderness rudely thrown together, whose purpose was\nshelter, to a Gothic cathedral, in its multitudinousness eloquent of\nman's worship and aspiration. The man who moulded the first bowl,\nadapting its form as closely as possible to its use and shaping its\nproportions for his own pleasure to satisfy his sense of harmony and\nrhythm, differs from the builders of the Parthenon only in the degree\nof intensity of his inspiring emotion and in the measure of his\ncontrolling thought. The beauty of accomplished form of cathedral\nand of temple is compelling; and we may forget that they rose out of\nneed. Both hut and bowl are immediately useful, and their beauty is\nnot so evident,--that little touch of feeling which wakens a response\nin us. But in their adaptation to their function they become\nsignificant; the satisfaction which accompanies expression is\ncommunicated to us as we apprehend in the work the creator's\nintention and we realize in ourselves what the creation of it meant to\nhim as the fulfillment of his need and the utterance of his emotion.\n\nSo the expressive power of an individual work is conditioned\noriginally by the amount of feeling that enters into the making of it.\nEvery phrase of a Beethoven symphony is saturated with emotion,\nand the work leads us into depths and up to heights of universal\nexperience, disclosing to us tortuous ways and infinite vistas of the\npossibilities of human feeling. A simple earthen jug may bear the\nimpress of loving fingers, and the crudely turned form may be\neloquent of the caress of its maker. So we come to value even in the\nhumblest objects of use this autographic character, which is the gate\nof entrance into the experience of the men who fashioned them.\nEvery maker strives toward perfection, the completest realization of\nhis ideal within his power of execution. But the very shortcomings\nof his work are significant as expressive of what he felt and was\ngroping after; they are so significant that by a curious perversion,\nmachinery, which in our civilized day has supplanted the craftsman,\ntries by mechanical means to reproduce the roughness and supposed\nimperfections of hand work. Music is the consummate art, in which\nthe form and the content are one and inextricable; its medium is the\npurest, least alloyed means of expression of instant emotion.\nArchitecture, in its harmonies and rhythms, the gathering up of\ndetails into the balanced and perfect whole, partakes of the nature of\nmusic. But the arts of use and decoration also have their message for\nthe spirit. There is no object fashioned by the hand of man so\nhumble that it may not embody a true thought and a sincere delight.\nThere is no pattern or design so simple and so crude that it may not\nbe the overflow of some human spirit, a mind and heart touched to\nexpression.\n\n\n\nIX\n\nREPRESENTATION\n\nBEFORE me is a little bowl of old Satsuma. As I look at it there\nwakens in me a responsive rhythm, and involuntarily my fingers\nmove as if to caress its suave and lovely lines. The rich gold and\nmingled mellow browns of its surface pattern intricately woven are a\ngracious harmony and a delight. Gradually, as I continue to look on\nit, a feeling is communicated to me of the maker's own joy in his\nwork; and the bowl, its harmonies and rhythms, and all that it\nexpresses, become part of me. There it is, complete in itself,\ngathering up and containing within itself the entire experience. My\nthoughts, sensations, feelings do not go beyond the bowl.\n\nAnother time I am standing in the hall of the Academy in Florence.\nAt the end of the corridor towers a superb form. I see that it is the\nfigure of a youth. His left hand holds a sling drawn across his\nshoulder; his right arm hangs by his side, his hand grasping a pebble\nclose to his thigh; calm and confident, his head erect, his strength\nheld in leash waiting to be loosed, he fronts the oncoming of the foe.\nThe statue is the presentation of noble form, and it wakens in me an\naccordant rhythm; I feel in myself something of what youthful\ncourage, life, and conscious power mean. But my experience does\nnot stop there. The statue is not only presentation but representation.\nIt figures forth a youth, David, the Hebrew shepherd-boy, and he\nstands awaiting the Philistine. I have read his story, I have my own\nmental image of him, and about his personality cluster many\nthoughts. To what Michelangelo shows me I add what I already\nknow. Recognition, memory, knowledge, facts and ideas, a whole\nstore of associations allied with my previous experience, mingle\nwith my instant emotion in its presence. The sculptor, unlike the\npotter, has not created his own form; the subject of his work exists\noutside of him in nature. He uses the subject for his own ends, but in\nhis treatment of it he is bound by certain responsibilities to external\ntruth. His work as it stands is not completely self-contained, but is\nlinked with the outer world; and my appreciation of it is affected by\nthis reference to extrinsic fact.\n\nAn artist is interested in some scene in nature or a personality or\nsituation in human life; it moves him. As the object external to him\nis the stimulus of his emotion and is associated with it, so he uses\nthe object as the symbol of his experience and means of expression\nof his emotion. Here, then, the feeling, to express which the work is\ncreated, gathers about a subject, which can be recognized\nintellectually, and the fact of the subject is received as in a measure\nseparate from the feeling which flows from it. In a painting of a\nlandscape, we recognize as the basis of the total experience the fact\nthat it is a landscape, so much water and field and sky; and then we\nyield ourselves to the _beauty_ of the landscape, the emotion with\nwhich the artist suffuses the material objects and so transfigures\nthem. Into representative art, therefore, there enters an element not\nshared by the arts of pure form, the element of _the subject,_\ncarrying with it considerations of objective truth and of likeness to\nexternal fact. Toward the understanding of the total scope of a\npicture or a statue, and by inference and application of the principles,\ntoward the understanding of literature as well, it may help us if we\ndetermine the relation of beauty to truth and the function and value\nof the subject in representative art.\n\nThe final significance of a work of art is beauty, received as\nemotional experience. Nature becomes beautiful to us at the point\nwhere it manifests a harmony to which we feel ourselves attuned. At\nthe moment of enjoyment we unconsciously project our personality\ninto this harmony outside of us, identifying ourselves with it and\nfinding it at that instant the expression of something toward which\nwe reach and aspire. When we come consciously to reason about our\nexperience, we see that the harmony external to us which we feel as\nthe extension of ourselves does not stop with the actual material\nitself of nature, but emanates from it as the expression of nature's\nspirit. The harmony is a harmony of relations, made visible through\nmaterial, and significant to us and beautiful in the measure that we\nrespond to it.\n\nIt is the beauty of the object, its significance for the spirit, that\nprimarily moves the artist to expression. Why one landscape and not\nanother impels him to render it upon his canvas is not to be\nexplained. This impulse to immediate and concrete utterance is\ninspiration. And inspiration would seem to be a confluence of forces\noutside of the individual consciousness or will, focused at the instant\ninto desire, which becomes the urge to creation. \"The mind in\ncreation,\" says Shelley, \"is as a fading coal, which some invisible\ninfluence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness;\nthis power rises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades\nand changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our\nnatures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure.\" The\nartist does not say, \"Lo, I will paint a landscape; let me find my\nsubject!\" The subject presents itself. There it is, by chance almost,--a\nsudden harmony before him, long low meadows stretching away to\nthe dark hills, the late sun striking on the water, gold and green\nmelting into a suffusing flush of purple light, a harmony of color and\nline and mass which his spirit leaps out to meet and with which it\nfuses in a larger unity. In the moment of contact all consciousness of\nself as a separate individuality is lost. Out of the union of the two\nprinciples, the spirit of man and the beauty of the object, is born the\n_idea,_ which is to come to expression as a work of art.\n\nBut the artist is a mind as well as a temperament. Experience\nis a swing of the pendulum between the momentary ecstasy of\nimmediate contact and the subsequent reaction upon the moment,\nwhich is consciousness of it. In order to make his vision actual, the\nartist rises out of the domain of feeling into that of thought. The\nlandscape has compelled him; it is now he who must compel the\nlandscape. To the shaping of his work he must bring to bear all his\nconscious power of selection and organization and all his knowledge\nof the capabilities and resources of his means. Art springs out of\nemotion; painting is a science. The artist's command of his subject\nas the symbol of his idea derives from the stern and vigorous\nexercise of mind. The rightness of his composition is determined by\na logic more flexible, perhaps, but no less exacting than the laws of\ngeometry. By the flow of his line and the disposition of his masses,\nthe artist must carry the eye of the beholder along the way he wants\nit to travel until it rests upon the point where he wants it to rest.\nThere must be no leaks and no false directions; there must be the\ncosmos within the frame and nothing outside of it. The principles of\nperspective have been worked out with a precision that entitles them\nto rank as a science. Color has its laws, which, again, science is able\nto formulate. These processes and formulas and laws are not the\nwhole of art, but they have their place. The power to feel, the\nimaginative vision, and creative insight are not to be explained. But\nknowledge too, acquired learning and skill, plays its part, and to\nrecognize its function and service is to be helped to a fuller\nunderstanding of the achievement of the artist.\n\nGifted with a vibrant, sensitive temperament, endowed with\ndiscriminating and organizing power of mind, equipped with a\nknowledge of the science and the mechanics of his craft, and trained\nto skill in manual execution, the artist responds to the impulse of his\ninspiration. His subject is before him. But what is his subject? A\nscene in nature furnishes him the objective base of his picture, but\nproperly his work is the expression of what he feels. A storm may\nconvey to different men entirely different impressions. In its\npresence one man may feel himself overwhelmed with terror. These\nwild, black skies piling in upon him, the hilltops that seem to race\nthrough the clouds, the swaying, snapping trees, the earth caught up\nin the mad grasp of the tempest, may smite his soul with the\npitilessness of nature and her inexorable blind power. Another thrills\nwith joy in this cosmic struggle, the joy of conflict which he has\nknown in his own life, the meeting of equal forces in fair fight,\nwhere the issue is still doubtful and victory will fall at last upon the\nstrong, though it is not the final triumph but the present struggle that\nmakes the joy. In rendering the \"subject\" upon his canvas, by the\nmanipulation of composition and line and mass and color, he makes\nthe storm ominous and terrible, or glorious, according as he feels.\nThe import of his picture is not the natural fact of the storm itself,\nbut its significance for the emotions.\n\nA work of representative art is the rendering of a unity of impression\nand harmony of relations which the artist has perceived and to which\nhe has thrilled in the world external to him. He presents not the facts\nthemselves but their spirit, that something which endows the facts\nwith their significance and their power to stir him. As the meaning\nof nature to the beholder is determined by the effect it produces on\nhis mind and temperament, so the artist, in the expression of this\nmeaning, aims less at a statement of objective accuracy of exterior\nappearance than at producing a certain effect, the effect which is the\nequivalent of the meaning of nature to him. Thus the painter who\nsees beyond the merely intellectual and sensuous appeal of his\nsubject and enters into its spirit, tries to render on his canvas, not the\nactual color of nature, but the sensation of color and its value for the\nemotions. With the material splendor of nature,--her inexhaustible\nlavish wealth of color, the glory of life which throbs through\ncreation, the mystery of actual movement,--art cannot compete. For\nthe hues and tones of nature, infinite in number and subtlety, the\npainter has only the few notes within the poor gamut of his palette.\nHow can he quicken his dull paint with the life-beat of palpitating\nflesh, or the sculptor animate the rigid marble with the vibrations of\nvivid motion? But where nature is infinite in her range she is also\nscattering in her effects. By the concentration of divergent forces, art\ngains in intensity and directness of impression what it sacrifices in\nthe scope of its material. Michelangelo uses as his subject David, the\nshepherd-boy; but the person, the mere name, does not signify. What\nhis work embodies is triumphant youth, made visible and\ncommunicable. When Millet shows us the peasant, it is not what the\npeasant is feeling that the artist represents, but what Millet felt about\nhim. The same landscape will be rendered differently by different\nmen. Each selects his details according to the interest of his eye and\nmind and feeling, and he brings them into a dominant harmony\nwhich stands to him for the meaning of the landscape. None of the\npictures is an accurate statement of the facts as they are, off there in\nnature; all are true to the integrating inner vision. The superficial\nobserver sees only the accidents, and he does not distinguish relative\nimportance. The artist, with quicker sensibilities and a trained mind,\nanalyzes, discovers the underlying principle, and then makes a\nsynthesis which embodies only the essential; he seizes the\ndistinctive aspect of the object and makes it salient. There may be,\nof course, purely descriptive representation, which is a faithful\nrecord of the facts of appearance as the painter sees them, without\nany feeling toward them; here he works as a scientist, not as an artist.\nMerely imitative painting falls short of artistic significance, for it\nembodies no meaning beyond the external fact. It is the\nexpressiveness of the object that the true artist cares to represent; it\nis its expressiveness, its value for the emotions, that constitutes its\nbeauty.\n\nTo achieve beauty the representative artist bases his work upon the\ntruth of nature. It is nature that supplies him with his motive,--some\nglimpse, some fragment, which reveals within itself a harmony. It\nmay be a form, as a tree, a man, a mountain range, the race of clouds\nacross the sky; it may be a color-harmony or \"arrangement,\" in\nwhich color rather than form is the dominant interest, as with a\nlandscape or an interior; it may be the effects of light, as the\nsunshine playing over golden haystacks, or the glint of light on\nmetal, or the sheen of lovely fabrics. Out of the complex of interests\nand appeals which an object offers, what is the _truth_ of the object?\nThe truth of nature resides not in the accidents of surface but in the\nessential relations, of which the surface is the manifestation. A birch\ntree and an apple tree are growing side by side. Their roots strike\ndown into the same soil, their branches are warmed by the same sun,\nwet by the same rains, and swept by the same winds. The birch tree\nis always lithe and gracious and feminine; the apple tree is always\nbent and sternly gnarled like the hand of an old man. The life-force\nwhich impels the tree to growth is distinctive to each kind. Within\nall natural objects, then, a crystal, a tree, a man, there is a shaping\nprinciple which determines their essential form. But no two\nindividual apple trees are precisely alike; from the essential form of\nthe tree there are divergences in the single manifestations. Though\nsubject to accident and variation, however, every tree exhibits a\ncharacteristic, inviolate _tendency,_ and remains true to the inner\nlife-principle of its being. The \"truth\" of the apple tree is this\ndistinctive, essential form, by virtue of which it is an apple tree and\nnot some other kind, the form which underlies and allows for all\nindividual variations. What the painter renders on his canvas is not\nthe superficial accidents of some single tree, but by means of that,\nhe seeks to image forth in color and form the tendency of all trees.\nThe truth of an object presents itself to the imagination as design, for\nthis organic, shaping principle of things, expressed in colored\nmyriad forms throughout the endless pageantry of nature, is\napprehended by the spirit of man as a harmony; and in the\nexperience of the artist truth identifies itself with beauty.\n\nThe distinction between the accidental surface of things and the\nsignificance that may be drawn out of them is exemplified by the\ndifference between accuracy and truth in representation. Accurate\ndrawing is the faithful record of the facts of appearance as offered to\nthe eye. Truth of drawing is the rendering in visible terms of the\nmeaning and spirit of the object, the form which the object takes not\nsimply for the eye but for the mind. A pencil sketch by Millet shows\na man carrying in each hand a pail of water. The arms are drawn\ninaccurately, in that they are made too long. What Millet wanted to\nexpress, however, was not the physical shape of the arms, but the\nfeeling of the burden under which the man was bending; and by\nlengthening the arms he has succeeded in conveying, as mere\naccuracy could not express it, the sensation of weight and muscular\nstrain. In Hals' picture of the \"Jester\" the left hand is sketched in\nwith a few swift strokes of the brush. But so, it \"keeps its place\" in\nrelation to the whole; and it is more nearly right than if it had been\nmade the centre of attention and had been drawn with the most\nmeticulous precision. The hand is not accurate, but it is true.\nSimilarly, size is an affair not of physical extent but of proportion. A\nfigure six inches high may convey the same value as a figure six feet\nhigh, if the same proportions are observed. A statue is the\npresentation, not of the human body, but of the human form, and\nmore than that, of what the form expresses. When I am talking with\nmy friend I am aware of his physical presence detaching itself from\nthe background of the room in which we are. But I feel in him\nsomething more. And that something more goes behind the details\nof his physical aspect. His eyes might be blue instead of brown, his\nnose crooked rather than straight; he might be maimed and\ndisfigured by some mishap. These accidents would not change for\nme what is the reality. My friend is not his body, though it is by his\nbody that he exists; the reality of my friend is what he essentially is,\nwhat he is of the spirit. A photograph of a man registers certain facts\nof his appearance at that moment. The eye and the mind of the artist\ndiscern the truth which underlies the surface; the artist feels his sitter\nnot as a face and a figure, a mere body, but as a personality; and the\nportrait expresses a man.\n\nAs grasped by our finite minds, there are partial truths and degrees\nof truth. There are, for example, the facts of outer appearance,\nmodified in our reception of them by what we know as distinct from\nwhat we really see. Thus a tree against the background of hill or sky\nseems to have a greater projection and relief than is actually\npresented to the eye, because we _know_ the tree is round. Manet's\n\"Girl with a Parrot,\" which appears to the ordinary man to be too flat,\nis more true to reality than any portrait that \"seems to come out of its\nframe.\" Habitually in our observation of objects about us, we note\nonly so much as serves our practical ends; and this is the most\nsuperficial, least essential aspect. Projection is a partial truth, and to\nit many painters sacrifice other and higher truths. Manet, recovering\nthe \"innocence of the eye\" and faithful to it, has penetrated the\nsecrets and won the truth of light. Botticelli saw the world as\nsonorous undulations of exquisite line; and his subtly implicated,\nevanescent patterns of line movement, \"incorrect\" as they may be\nsuperficially in drawing, caress the eye as music finds and satisfies\nthe soul. When such is his power over us, it is difficult to say that\nBotticelli had not some measure of the truth. The world of the\nVenetians sang full-sounding harmonies of glorious color.\nVelasquez saw everything laved around with a flood of silver quiet\natmosphere. All in their own way have found and shown to us a\ntruth.\n\nTo render what he has seen and felt in the essence and meaning of it,\nthe artist seeks to disengage the shaping principle of the particular\naspect of truth, which has impressed him, from all accidents in its\nmanifestation. To make this dominant character salient beyond\nirrelevant circumstance, art works by selection. Art is necessarily a\ncompromise. It isolates some elements and sacrifices others; but it is\nnone the less true on that account. The mere material of the object is\nmore or less fixed, but the relations which the object embodies are\ncapable of many combinations and adjustments, according to the\nmind and temperament of the individual artist who is moved by it.\nAll art is in a certain sense abstraction; all art in a measure idealizes.\nIt is abstraction in the sense that it presents the intrinsic and\ndistinctive qualities of things, purged of accident.\n\nArt does not compete with nature; it is a statement of the spirit and\nintention of nature in the artist's own terms. The test of the work is\nnot apparent and superficial likeness, but truth. Art idealizes in the\nmeasure that it disengages the truth. In this aspect of it the work is\nideal as distinct from merely actual. There is a practice in art which\ndraws its standard of beauty, its ideal, not from nature but from\nother art, and which seeks to \"improve nature\" by the combination\nof arbitrarily chosen elements and by the modification of natural\ntruth to fit a preconceived formula. The Eclectics of Bologna, in the\nseventeenth century, sought to combine Raphael's perfection of\ndrawing and composition, Michelangelo's sublimity and his mastery\nof the figure, and Correggio's sweet sentiment and his supremacy in\nthe rendering of light and shade, fondly supposing thus that the sum\nof excellent parts is equivalent to an excellence of the whole. This is\nfalse idealism. The Greeks carried their research for certain truths of\nthe human form to the point of perfection and complete realization.\nThe truth of the Greeks was mistaken by the pseudo-classicists and\nmisapplied. Thus Delacroix exclaimed ironically, \"In order to\npresent an ideal head of a negro, our teachers make him resemble as\nfar as possible the profile of Antinoeus, and then say, 'We have done\nour utmost; if, nevertheless, we fail to make the negro beautiful,\nthen we ought not to introduce into our pictures such a freak of\nnature, the squat nose and thick lips, which are so unendurable to the\neyes.'\" True idealism treats everything after its own kind, making it\nmore intensely itself than it is in the play of nature; the athlete is\nmore heroically an athlete, the negro more vividly a negro. True\nidealism seeks to express the tendency by virtue of which an object\nis what it is. The abstraction which art effects is not an unreality but\na higher reality. It is not the mere type, that art presents, for the type\nas such does not exist in nature. The individual is not lost but\naffirmed by this reference to the inner principle of its being. A good\nportrait has in it an element of caricature; the difference between\nportraiture and caricature is the difference between emphasis and\nexaggeration. Art is not the falsification of nature, but the fuller\nrealization of it. It is the interpretation of nature's truth, the\ntranslation of it, divined by the artist, into simpler terms to be read\nand understood by those of less original insight. The deeper the\npenetration into the life-force and shaping principle of nature, the\ngreater is the measure of truth.\n\nIn representative art the truth of nature is the work's objective base.\nWhat the artist finally expresses is the relation of the object to his\nown experience. A work of art is the statement of the artist's insight\ninto nature, moulded and suffused by the emotion attending his\nperception. Of the object, he uses that aspect and that degree of truth\nwhich serve him for the expression of his feeling toward it. What is\ncalled \"realism\" is one order of truth, one way of seeing.\n\"Impressionism\" is another order of truth. \"Idealism\" is still another.\nBut all three elements blend in varying proportion in any work.\nEven the realist, who \"paints what he sees,\" has his ideal, which is\nthe effect he sets himself to produce by his picture, and he paints\naccording to his impression. He renders not the object itself but his\nmental image of it; and that image is the result of his way of seeing\nand feeling, his habit of mind, his interest, and his store of memories.\nThe idealist must base his work upon some kind of reality, or it is a\nmonstrosity; he is obliged to refer to the external world for his\nsymbols. The impressionist, who concerns himself with the play of\nlight over surfaces in nature, is seeking for truth, and he cares to\npaint at all because that play of light, seemingly so momentary and\nso merely sensuous, has a value for his spirit of which he may or\nmay not be wholly conscious; and these shifting effects are the\nrealization of his ideal. Unwitting at the moment of contact itself of\nthe significance that afterwards is to flow articulately from his work,\nthe artist, in the presence of his object, knows only that he is\nimpelled to render it. As faithfully as possible he tries to record what\nhe sees, conscious simply that what he sees gives him delight. His\nvision wakens his feeling, and then by reaction his feeling\ndetermines his vision, controlling and directing his selection of the\ndetails of aspect. When Velasquez, engaged on a portrait of the king,\nsaw the maids of honor graciously attending on the little princess, he\ndid not set about producing a _picture,_ as an end in itself. In the\nrelation of these figures to one another and to the background of the\ndeep and high-vaulted chamber in which they were standing, each\nobject and plane of distance receiving its just amount of light and\nfusing in the unity of total impression, were revealed to him the\nwonder and the mystery of nature's magic of light. This is what he\ntried to render. His revelation of natural truth, wrung from nature's\ninmost latencies and shown to us triumphantly, becomes a thing of\nbeauty.\n\nSo the differences among the various \"schools\" in art are after all\nlargely differences of emphasis. The choice of subject or motive, the\nangle from which it is viewed, and the method of handling, all are\ndetermined by the artist's kind of interest; and that interest results\nfrom what the man is essentially by inheritance and individual\ncharacter, and what he is moulded into by environment, training, and\nexperience. It may happen that the external object imposes itself in\nits integrity upon the artist's mind and temperament, and he tries to\nexpress it, colored inevitably by his feeling toward it, in all\nfaithfulness to the feet as he sees it. Millet said, \"I should never paint\nanything that was not the result of an impression received from the\naspect of nature, whether in landscape or figures.\" Millet painted\nwhat he saw, but he painted it as only he saw it. Or again it happens\nthat an artist imposes his feeling upon nature. Thus Burne-Jones said,\n\"I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that\nnever was, never will be--in a light better than any that ever shone--in\na land no one can define or remember, only desire.\" Whether true\nto nature or true to the creative inner vision, the work of both men\nembodies truth. Sometimes an artist effaces entirely his own\nindividuality, as in Greek sculpture and Gothic architecture, and the\nmere name of the creator does not signify. George Frederick Watts\nis reported to have said, \"If I were asked to choose whether I would\nlike to do something good, as the world judges popular art, and\nreceive personally great credit for it, or, as an alternative, to produce\nsomething which should rank with the very best, taking a place with\nthe art of Pheidias or Titian, with the highest poetry and the most\nelevating music, and remain unknown as the perpetrator of the work,\nI should choose the latter.\" Sidney Lanier wrote, \"It is of little\nconsequence whether _I_ fail; the _I_ in the matter is small\nbusiness. . . . Let my name perish,--the poetry is good poetry and the\nmusic is good music, and beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it\nwill find it.\" Or on the contrary, a work may bear dominantly, even\naggressively, the impress of the distinctive individuality of its\ncreator, as with Carlyle's prose and Browning's poetry. Whistler\nseems at times to delight less in the beauty of his subject than in the\n_exercise_ of his own power of refinement. Where another man's art\nis personal, as with Velasquez or Frans Hals, Whistler's art becomes\negotistical. He does not say, \"Lo, how mysterious is this dusk\nriver-side, how tenderly serene this mother, how wistful and mighty is this\nprophet-seer!\" He exclaims rather, \"Note how subtly I, Whistler,\nhave seen. Rejoice with me in my powers of vision and of\nexecution.\" There is no single method of seeing, no one formula of\nexpression and handling. The truth both of nature and of art is great\nand infinitely various. For art, like nature, is organic, allowing for\nendless modifications, while remaining true to the inner principle of\nits being.\n\nThe judgment of truth is a delicate business. To test the truth of a\nwork of art by reference to the truth of nature is to presuppose that\nour power of perception is equal to the artist's power, and that our\nknowledge of the object represented is equal to his knowledge of it.\nThe ordinary man's habitual contact with the world is practical, and\nhis knowledge of natural fact, based upon the most superficial aspect\nof it and used for practical purposes, tends to falsify his vision. The\nartist's contact with the world, in his capacity as artist, is one of\nfeeling; he values life, not for its material rewards and satisfactions,\nbut for what it brings to him of emotional experience. The ordinary\nman uses nature for his own workaday ends. The artist loves nature,\nand through his love he understands her. His knowledge of natural\nfact, instead of falsifying his vision, reinforces it. He studies the\nworkings of nature's laws as manifested in concrete phenomena\naround him,--the movement of storms, the growth of trees, the\neffects of light,--penetrating their inmost secrets, that he may make\nthem more efficient instruments of expression. He uses his\nunderstanding of anatomy, of earth-structure, of the laws of color, as\nthe means to a fuller and juster interpretation. As he receives the\ntruth of nature with reverence and joy, so he transmutes truth into\nbeauty.\n\nAn artist's interest in the truth of nature is not the scientist's\ninterest, an intellectual concern with knowledge for the sake of\nknowledge. The artist receives nature's revelation of herself with\nemotion. The deeper he penetrates into her hidden ways, the greater\nbecomes her power to stir him. The artist values his \"subject,\"\ntherefore, as the stimulus of emotion and as the symbol by means of\nwhich he expresses his emotion and communicates it. The value of the\nsubject to the appreciator, however, is not immediately clear. It is\nnot easy for us to receive the subject purely as the artist shows it\nto us and independently of our own knowledge of it. About it already\ngather innumerable associations, physical, practical, intellectual,\nsentimental, and emotional, all of them or any of them, which result\nfrom our previous contact with it in actual life. Here is a portrait of\nCarlyle. I cannot help regarding the picture first of all from the point\nof view of its likeness to the original. This is a person with whom I\nam acquainted, an individual, by name Carlyle. And my reaction on\nthe picture is determined, not by what the artist has to say about a\ngreat personality interpreted through the medium of color and form,\nbut by what I already know about Carlyle. Or here a painting shows\nme a landscape with which I am familiar. Then instead of trying to\ndiscover in the picture what the artist has seen in the landscape and\nfelt in its presence, letting it speak to me in its own language, I allow\nmy thoughts to wander from the canvas, and I enjoy the landscape in\nterms of my own knowledge and remembrance of it. The artist's\nwork becomes simply a point of departure, whereas it should be not\nonly the beginning but also the end and fulfillment of the complete\nexperience. What is, then, we may ask, the relation of the fact of the\nsubject to the beauty and final message of the work?\n\nThe pleasure which attends the recognition of the subject is a\nlegitimate element in our enjoyment of art. But the work should\nyield a delight beyond our original delight in the subject as it exists\nin nature. The significance of a work of representative art depends\nnot upon the subject in and of itself, but upon what the artist has to\nsay about it. A rose may be made to reveal the cosmos; a mountain\nrange or cloud-swept spaces of the upper air may be niggled into\nmeanness. The ugly in practical life may be transfigured by the\nartist's touch into supreme beauty. _\"Il faut pouvoir faire servir le\ntrivial a l'expression du sublime, c'est la vraie force,\"_ said one who\nwas able to invest a humble figure with august dignity. Millet's\npeasants reveal more of godlike majesty than all the array of\npersonages in the pantheon of post-Raphaelite Italy and the classic\nschool of France. Upon his subject the artist bases that harmony of\nrelations which constitutes the beauty and significance of his work.\nBrought thus into a harmony, the object represented is made more\nvivid, more intensely itself, than it is in nature, with the result that\nwe receive from the representation a heightened sense of reality and\nof extended personality. The importance of the subject, therefore, is\nmeasured by the opportunity it affords the artist, and with him his\nappreciators, to share in the beauty of nature and life. A picture\nshould not \"standout\" from its frame, but should go back into it,\nreaching even into infinity. Our own associations attaching to the\nsubject lose themselves as they blend with the artist's revelation of\nthe fuller beauty of his object; and finally all becomes merged in the\nemotional experience.\n\nEliminating the transient and accidental, a work of art presents the\nessential and eternal. Art appeals not to the intellect and the reason,\nbut to the imagination and the emotions. The single work, therefore,\nis concrete and immediate. But universal in its scope, it transcends\nthe particularities of limited place and individual name. We must\ndistinguish between the abstractly typical and the universal. The\nrepresentative artist does not conceive an abstraction and then seek\nto find a symbol for it. That is the method of allegory, where spring,\nfor example, is figured as a young woman scattering flowers.\nAllegory is decorative rather than representative in intention. The\nartist receives his inspiration and stimulus from some actual\nconcrete bit of nature, a woodland wrapt in tender mists of green, a\nmeadow gold and softly white with blossoms, a shimmering gauze\nof sun touched air, moist and vibrating, enfolding it. That is what he\npaints. But he paints it so that it is spring, and instinct with the spirit\nof all springs. Michelangelo does not intellectually conceive youth\nand then carve a statue. Some boy has revealed to him the beauty of\nhis young strength, and the sculptor moves to immediate expression.\nHe calls his statue David, but the white form radiates the rhythm and\nglory of all youth. And as we realize youth in ourselves, more\npoignantly, more abundantly, the mere name of the boy does not\nmatter. The fact that the portrait shows us Carlyle is an incident.\nCarlyle is the \"subject\" of the picture, but its meaning is the twilight\nof a mighty, indomitable mind, made visible and communicable. His\nwork is done; the hour of quiet is given, and he finds rest. Into this\nmoment, eternal in its significance, into this mood, universal in its\nappeal, we enter, to realize it in ourselves. The subject of picture or\nstatue is but the means; the end is life. Objective fact is transmuted\ninto living truth. Art is the manifestation of a higher reality than we\nalone have been able to know. It begins with the particular and then\ntranscends it, admitting us to share in the beauty of the world, the\ncosmic harmony of universal experience.\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE PERSONAL ESTIMATE\n\nART starts from life and in the end comes back to it. Art is born out\nof the stirring of the artist's spirit in response to his need of\nexpression, and it reaches its fulfillment in the spirit of the\nappreciator as it answers his need of wider and deeper experience.\nMidway on its course from spirit to spirit it traverses devious paths.\nThe emotion out of which art springs and of which it is the\nexpression is controlled and directed by the shaping force of mind,\nand it embodies itself in material form. This material form, by virtue\nof its qualities, has the power to delight our senses; the skill which\nwent into the fashioning of it, so far as we can recognize the\nprocesses of execution, gives us pleasure; the harmony which the\nwork of art must manifest satisfies the mind and makes it possible\nfor us to link the emotion with our own experience.\n\nThese paths which a work of art traverses in its course from its\norigin to its fulfillment I have tried to follow in their ramifications,\nand I have tried to trace them to their issue in appreciation. Some\nlovers of art may linger on the way and rest content with the\ndistance they have come, without pressing forward to the end. A\nwork of art is complex in its appeal; and it is possible to stop with\none or another of its elements. Thus we may receive the work\nintellectually, recognizing its subject, and turning the artist's\nemotion into our thought and translating it from his medium of color\nand form or sound into our own medium of words. Here is a portrait\nof Carlyle; and Carlyle we _know_ as an author and as a man. This\nlandscape is from the Palisades, where we have roamed in leisure\nhours. Before us is a statue of Zeus, whom our classical reading has\nmade a reality to us. This symphony gathers about a day in the\ncountry, suggesting an incident in our own experience of which we\nhave pleasant remembrances. Intellectually, also, we enjoy the\nevidence of the artist's skill which the work exhibits. Or we may\npass beyond the simple exercise of the intellect, and with a\nrefinement of perception we may take a sensuous delight in the\nqualities of the material in which the work is embodied. This portrait\nis a subtle harmony of color and exquisite adjustment of line and\nmass. The luminous night which enwraps the Palisades is a solemn\nmighty chord. The white rhythm of this statue caresses the eye that\nfollows it. This symphony is an intricate and wonderful\nwave-pattern upon a sea of billowing sound in which the listener immerses\nhimself voluptuously. The essential significance of a work of art is\nnot to be received apart from its form, but the form is more than\nmerely sensuous in its appeal. Finally, therefore, the color and the\ncomposition of the portrait are but the point of meeting where we\ntouch in energizing contact a powerful personality. Our spirit goes\nout into the night of these Palisades and dilates into immensity. This\nstatue is Olympian majesty made visible, and in its presence we feel\nthat we too are august. The symphony is a resolution of the struggle\nof our own tangled lives, a purification, and the experience of joy.\n\nArt is the expression of experience, whether the experience enacts\nitself within the spirit of the artist or derives from his contact with\nthe external world. So by the same token, art is finally to be received\nas experience. The ultimate meaning of a work of art to the\nappreciator is what it wakens in him of emotion. It is the artist's\nbusiness, by the manipulation of his materials and his elements, by\nthe choice of motive and the rendering, by the note and pitch of his\ncolor, the ordering of his line, the disposition of his masses, to\ncompel the direction of the emotion; he must not allow the\nsolemnity and awe with which his night invests the Palisades to be\nmistaken by the beholder for terror or for mere obscurity. But the\nquality and the intensity of the emotion depend upon the temper of\nthe appreciator's sensibilities and the depth and range of his\nexperience of life. Art is not fixed and invariable in its effect.\n\"Vanity Fair\" is a great novel. One man may read it for the sake of\nthe story, and in his amusement and interest in following the\nsuccession of incident, he may for a while forget himself. A possible\nuse to put one's reading to; yet for that man the book is not art.\nAnother may be entertained by the spectacle of the persons as they\nexhibit themselves in Thackeray's pages, much as he might stop a\nmoment on the curbstone and watch a group of children at play in\nthe street. Here he is a looker-on, holding himself aloof; and for him,\nagain, the book is not art. Still a third may find in \"Vanity Fair\" a\nrecord of the customs and manners of English people at the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century; and he adds this much to his\nstock of information. Still for him the book is not art. Not one of the\nthree has touched in vital contact the essential meaning of \"Vanity\nFair.\" But the man who sees in the incidents of the book a situation\npossible in his own life, who identifies himself with the personages\nand acts out with them their adventures, who feels that he actually\nknows Rawdon Crawley and Becky Sharp, Jo Sedley, Dobbin, and\nAmelia, and understands their character and personality better here\nthan in the actual world about him by force of Thackeray's greater\ninsight and power of portraiture, who sees in English manners here\nrepresented the interpretation of his own surroundings, so that as a\nresult of it all, his own experience becomes richer for his having\nlived out the life of the fictitious persons, his own acquaintances\nhave revealed themselves more fully, his own life becomes more\nintelligible,--for him at last the book is a work of art. So any work\nmay be a mirror which simply reflects the world as we know it; it\nmay be a point of departure, from which tangentially we construct\nan experience of our own: it is truly art only in the degree that it is\nrevelation.\n\nA work of art, therefore, is to be received by the individual\nappreciator as an added emotional experience. It appeals to him at\nall because in some way it relates itself to his own life; and its value\nto him is determined by the measure in which it carries him out into\nwider ranges of feeling. There are works whose absolute greatness\nhe recognizes but yet which do not happen at the moment to find\nhim. Constable comes to him as immensely satisfying; Turner,\nthough an object of great intellectual interest, leaves him cold. He\nknows Velasquez to be supreme among painters, but he turns away\nto stand before Frans Hals, whose quick, sure strokes call such very\nhuman beings into actuality and rouse his spirit to the fullest\nresponse. Why is it that of two works of equal depth of insight into\nlife, of equal scope of feeling, of the same excellence of technical\naccomplishment, one has an appeal and a message for him and not\nthe other? What is the bridge of transition between the work and the\nspirit of the appreciator by which the subtle connection is\nestablished?\n\nIt comes back to a matter of harmony. Experience presents itself to\nus in fragments; and in so far as the parts are scattering and\nunrelated, it is not easy for us to guess the purpose of our being here.\nBut so soon as details, which by virtue of some selecting principle\nare related to one another, gather themselves into a whole, chaos is\nresolved into order, and this whole becomes significant, intelligible,\nand beautiful. Instinctively we are seeking, each in his own way, to\nbring the fragments of experience into order; and that order stands to\neach of us for what we are, for our individual personality, the self.\nWe define thus our selecting principle, by which we receive some\nincidents of experience as related to our development and we reject\nothers as not related to it. Thus the individual life achieves its\nintegrity, its unity and significance. This, too, is the process of art. A\nlandscape in nature is capable of a various, interpretation. By\nbringing its details into order and unity, the artist creates its beauty.\nHis perception of the harmony which his imagination compels out of\nthe landscape is attended with emotion, and the emotion flows\noutward to expression in a form which is itself harmonious. This\nform is a work of art. Art, therefore, is the harmonizing of\nexperience. Appreciation is an act of fusion and identification. In\nspirit we _become_ the thing presented by the work of art and we\nmerge with it in a larger unity. The individual harmony which a\nwork of art manifests becomes significant to us as we can make it an\nharmonious part of our own experience and as it carries us in the\ndirection of our development.\n\nBut how to determine, each man for himself, what is the direction of\nour development? A life becomes significant to itself so soon as it is\nconscious of its purpose, and it becomes harmonious as it makes all\nthe details of experience subserve that purpose. The purpose of the\nindividual life, so far as we can guess it, seems to be that the life\nshall be as complete as possible, that it shall fulfill itself and provide\nthrough its offspring for its continuance. It is true that no life is\nisolated; as every atom throughout the universe is bound to every\nother atom by subtlest filaments of influence, so each human life\nstands related to all other lives. But the man best pays his debt of\nservice to others who makes the most of that which is given him to\nwork with; and that is his own personality. We must begin at the\ncentre and work outwards. My concern is with my own justice. If I\nworry because my friend or another is not just, I not only do not\nmake him more just, but I also fail of the highest justice I can\nachieve, which is my own. We must be true to ourselves. We help\none another not by precept but by _being;_ and what we are\ncommunicates itself. As physical life propagates and thus continues\nitself, so personality is transmitted in unconscious innumerable ways.\nThe step and carriage of the body, the glance of the eye, the work of\nour hands, our silences no less than our speech, all express what we\nare. As everything follows upon what we are, so our responsibility is\nto _be,_ to be ourselves completely, perfectly.\n\nA tender shoot pushes its way out of the soil into light and air, and\nwith the years it grows into a tree. The tree bears fruit, which\ncontains the seed of new manifestations of itself. The fruit falls to\nthe ground and rots, providing thus the aliment for the seed out of\nwhich other trees are to spring. From seed to seed the life of the tree\nis a cycle, without beginning and without end. At no one point in the\ncycle can we say, Here is the purpose of the tree. Incidentally the\ntree may minister to the needs and comfort and pleasure of man. The\ntree delights him to look upon it; its branches shade him from the\nnoonday sun; its trunk and limbs can be hewn down and turned to\nheat and shelter; its fruit is good to eat. The primary purpose of the\nfruit, however, is not to furnish food to man, but to provide the\nenvelope for the transmission of its seed and the continuance of its\nown life. Seen in its cosmic bearing and scope, the purpose of the\ntree is to be a tree, as fit, as strong, as beautiful, as complete, as\ntree-like, as it can be. The leaf precedes the flower and may be thought\non that account to be inferior to it in the scale of development. If a\nleaf pines and withers in regret that it is not a flower, it not only\ndoes not become a flower, but it fails of being a good leaf.\nEverything in its place and after its own kind. In so far as it is\nperfectly itself, a leaf, a blossom, a tree, a man, does it contribute to\nthe well-being of others. Man has subdued all things under his feet\nand turned them to his own uses. By force of mind he is the\nstrongest creature, but it is not to be inferred that he is therefore the\naim and end of all creation. Like everything else, he has his place;\nlike everything else he has the right to live his own life, triumphing\nover the weaker and in his turn going down before a mightier when\nthe mightier shall come; like everything else he is but a part in the\nuniversal whole. Only a part; but as we recognize our relation to\nother parts and through them our connection with the whole, our\nsense of the value of the individual life becomes infinitely extended.\nWe must get into the rhythm, keeping step with the beat of the\nuniversal life and finding there our place, our destiny, the meaning\nof our being here, and joy. The goods which men set before\nthemselves as an end are but by-products after all. If we pursue\nhappiness we overtake it not. If we do what our hands find to do,\ndevotedly and with our might, then, some day, if we happen to stop\nand make question of it, we discover that happiness is already there,\nin us, with us, and around us. The aim of a man's life in the world, as\nit would seem, is to be perfectly a man, and his end is to fulfill\nhimself; as part of this fulfillment of himself, he provides for the\ncontinuance of his life in other lives, and transmitting his character\nand influence, he enriches other lives because of what he is. The\npurpose of seeing is that we may see more, and the eye is ever\nstriving to increase its power; the health of the eye is growth. The\npurpose of life is more life, individual in the measure that it lies\nwithin a man's power to develop it, but cosmic in its sources and its\ninfluence.\n\nAs the harmony which a work of art presents finds a place in that\nharmony of experience and outward-reaching desire which\nconstitutes our personality, art becomes for us an entrance into more\nlife. In the large, art is a means of development. But as any work\nembraces diverse elements and is capable of a various appeal, it may\nbe asked in what sense the appreciation of art is related to education\nand culture. Before we can answer the question intelligently, we\nmust know what we mean by our terms. By many people education\nis regarded as they regard any material possession, to be classed\nwith fashionable clothes, a fine house, a carriage and pair, or\ntouring-car, or steam yacht, as the credential and card of entree to\nwhat is called good society. Culture is a kind of ornamental furniture,\nmaintained to impress visitors. Of course we ourselves do not think\nso, but we know people who do. Nor do we believe--as some\nbelieve--that education is simply a means of gaining a more\nconsiderable livelihood. It is pathetic to see young men in college\nstruggling in desperate, uncomplaining sacrifice to obtain an\neducation, and all the while mistaking the end of their effort. Not all\nthe deeds of daring in a university course are enacted on the athletic\nfield; the men I am thinking of do not have their pictures published\nin the newspapers,--the unrecorded heroisms of college life are very\nmoving to those who know. But the tragedy I have in mind is this--for\ntragedy consists not in sacrifice itself but in needless and futile\nsacrifice--that some of these young men suppose _there_ is a magic\nvirtue in education for its own sake, that it is the open-sesame to all\nthe wealth and beauty of life. With insufficient ability to start with,\nthey are preparing to be unfit professional men, when they might be\nexcellent artisans. The knowledge of books is in no sense the whole\nstory nor the only means of education. In devotion to some craft or\nin the intelligent conduct of some business they might find the true\neducation, which is the conscious discipline of one's powers. The\nman who can do things, whether with his hands or with his brain,\nprovided intelligence govern the exercise of hand and brain, and\nwho finds happiness in his work because it is the expression of\nhimself, is an educated man. The end of education is the building of\npersonality, the making of human power, and its fruit is wisdom.\n\nWisdom, however, does not consist in the most extensive knowledge\nof facts. Oftentimes information overweights a man and snuffs out\nwhat personal force there might otherwise have been. On the futility\nof mere learning there is abundant testimony. Walt Whitman, as we\nmight expect from his passion for the vital and the human, has said:\n\"You must not know too much and be too precise and scientific\nabout birds and trees and flowers and watercraft. A certain free\nmargin, perhaps ignorance, credulity, helps your enjoyment of these\nthings and of the sentiment of feather'd, wooded, river or marine\nnature generally. I repeat it--don't want to know too exactly or the\nreasons why.\" Even Ruskin, whose learning was extensive and\nvarious, bears witness to the same effect. He notes \"the diminution\nwhich my knowledge of the Alps had made in my impression of\nthem, and the way in which investigation of strata and structure\nreduces all mountain sublimity to mere debris and wall-building.\" In\nthe same spirit he planned an essay on the Uses of Ignorance. From\nthe midst of his labors in Venice he wrote: \"I am sure that people\nwho work out subjects thoroughly are disagreeable wretches. One\nonly feels as one should when one doesn't know much about the\nmatter.\" In other words, we are not to let our knowledge come\nbetween us and our power to feel. In thus seeming to assail\neducation I am not seeking to subvert or destroy; I want simply to\nadjust the emphasis. The really wise man is he who knows how to\nmake life yield him its utmost of true satisfaction and furnish him\nthe largest scope for the use of his powers and the expression of\nhimself. In this sense a newsboy in the streets may be wiser than a\nuniversity professor, in that one may be the master of his life and the\nother may be the servant of his information. Education should have\nfor its end the training of capacities and powers, the discipline and\ncontrol of the intelligence, the quickening of the sympathies, the\ndevelopment of the ability to live. No man is superior to his fellows\nbecause of the fact of his education. His education profits him only\nin so far as it makes him more of a man, more responsive because\nhis own emotions have been more deeply stirred, more tolerant\nbecause his wider range has revealed more that is good, more\ngenerous to give of his own life and service because he has more\ngenerously received. It is not what we know nor what we have that\nmarks our worth, but what we are. No man, however fortunate and\nwell-circumstanced he may be, can afford to thank God that he is\nnot as other men are. In so far as his education tends to withdraw\nhim from life and from contact with his fellows of whatever station,\nin so far as it fosters in him the consciousness of class, so far it is an\nevil. Education should lead us not to judge lives different from our\nown, but to try to understand and, to appreciate. The educated man,\nabove all others, should thank God that there are diversity of gifts\nand so many kinds of good.\n\nArt is a means of culture, but art rightly understood and received.\nArt does not aim to teach. It may teach incidentally, tangentially to\nits circle, but instruction, either intellectual or ethical, is not its\npurpose. It fulfills itself in the spirit of the appreciator as it enables\nhim in its presence to become something that otherwise he had not\nbeen. It is not enough to be told things; we must make trial of them\nand live them out in our own experience before they become true for\nus. As appreciation is not knowledge but feeling, so we must live\nour art. It is well to have near us some work that we want to be\n_like._ We get its fullest message only as we identify ourselves with\nit. If we are willing to be thought ignorant and to live our lives as\nseems good to us, I believe it is better to go the whole way with a\nfew things that can minister to us abundantly and so come to the end\nof them, than to touch in superficial contact a great many lesser\nworks. The lesser works have their place; and so far as they can\ncarry us beyond the point where we are, they can serve us. In a\nhurried touch-and-go, however, there is danger of scattering;\nwhereas true appreciation takes time, for it is less an act than a\nwhole attitude of mind. This is an age of handbooks and short cuts.\nBut there is no substitute for life. If for one reason or another the\nopportunity to realize art in terms of life is not accorded us, it is\nbetter to accept the situation quite frankly and happily, and not try to\ncheat ourselves with the semblance. But if it is indeed the reality,\nthen we maybe content with the minutes of experience, though we\nare denied the hours or the years. \"The messages of great poems,\"\nsays Whitman, \"to each man and woman are, Come to us on equal\nterms; only then can you understand us.\" The power of response\nmust be in us, and that power is the fruit of experience. The only\nmystery of art is the mystery of all life itself. In nature the artist\nfinds the manifestation of a larger self toward which he aspires, and\nthis is what his work expresses. Alone with his spirit, he cries to us\nfor that intimate mystic companionship which is appreciation, and\nour response gives back the echo of his cry. He reaches out across\nthe distance to touch other and kindred spirits and draw them to\nhimself. Says the poet,--\n\n     \"Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,\n     Therefore for thee the following chants.\"\n\nWe appreciate the artist's work as in it we live again and doubly.\n\nThus art links itself with life. The message of art to the individual\ndefines itself according to his individual needs. Life rises with each\nman, to him a new opportunity and a new destiny. We create our\nown world; and life means to us what we are in ourselves. In art we\nare seeking to find ourselves expressed more fully. The works that\nwe care for, if we consider it a moment, are the works we\nunderstand; and we understand them because they phrase for us our\nown experience. Life and the truth of life are relative. Truth is not in\nthe object but in our relation to it. What is true for me may or may\nnot be true for another. This much is true for me, namely, whatever\ntallies with my experience and reveals to me more of the underlying\npurpose of the universe. We are all, each in his own way, seeking\nthe meaning of life; and that meaning is special and personal to the\nindividual, each man deciding for himself. By selection here, by\nrejection there, we are trying to work toward harmony. The details\nof life become increasingly complex with the years, but living grows\nsimpler because we gradually fix a selecting and unifying principle.\nWhen we have truly found ourselves, we come to feel that the\nexternal incidents do not signify; which chance happens, whether\nthis or that, is indifferent. It is the spirit in which the life is lived\nthat determines its quality and value. The perception of purpose in the\nparts brings them into order and gives them meaning. A man's life is\nan expanding circle, the circumference of which is drawn around an\norder or interplay and adjustment of part with part. Whatever lies\nwithout the circle does not pertain to the individual--as yet. So soon\nas any experience reveals its meaning to us and we feel that it takes\nits place in our life, then it belongs to us. Whatever serves to bring\ndetails, before scattering and unrelated, into order, is for that\nmoment true. Art has a message for us as it tallies with what we\nalready know about life; and, quickening our perceptions, disclosing\ndepths of feeling, it carries us into new ranges of experience.\n\nIn this attitude toward life lies the justice of the personal estimate.\nThe individual is finally his own authority. To find truth we return\nupon our own consciousness, and we seek thus to define our\n\"original relation\" to the universal order. So as one stands before the\nworks of the Italian painters and sculptors, for example, in the\nendeavor rightly to appreciate what they have achieved, one may ask:\nHow much of life has this artist to express to me, of life as I know it\nor can know it? Has the painter through these forms, however crude\nor however accomplished, uttered what he genuinely and for himself\nthought and felt? The measure of these pictures for me is the degree\nof reality, of vital feeling, which they transmit. Whether it be spring\nor divine maternity or the beauty of a pagan idea, which Botticelli\nrenders, the same power is there, the same sense of gracious life.\nWhether it be Credi's naive womanhood, or Titian's abounding,\nglorious women and calm and forceful men, or Delia Robbia's\njoyous children and Donatello's sprites, the same great meaning is\nexpressed, the same appreciation of the goodness and beauty of all\nlife. This beauty is for me, here, to-day. In the experience of a man\nwho thinks and feels, there is a time when his imagination turns\ntoward the past. At the moment, as the world closes in about him,\nhis spirit, dulled by the attrition of daily use and wont, is unable to\ndiscern the beauty and significance of the present life around him.\nFor a time his imagination finds abundant nourishment in the mighty\npast. Many spirits are content there to remain. But life is of the\npresent. To live greatly is to live now, inspired by the past, corrected\nand encouraged by it, impelled by \"forward-looking thoughts'\" and\nproviding for the future, but living in to-day. Life is neither\nremembrance nor anticipation, neither regret nor deferment, but\npresent realization. Often one feels in a gallery that the people are\nmore significant than the pictures. Two lovers furtively holding\nhands and stopping before a canvas to press closer together,\nshoulder to shoulder; a young girl erect and firm, conscious of her\nyoung womanhood and rejoicing in it, radiating youth and life; an\nold man, whose years are behind him yet whose interest reveals his\neager welcome of new experience, unconsciously rebuking the jaded\nand indifferent: here is reality. Before it the pictures seem to recede\nand become dimmed. Our appreciation of these things makes the\nsignificance of it all. Only in so far as art can communicate this\nsensation, this same impression of the beauty and present reality of\nlife, has it a meaning for us. The painter must have registered his\nappreciation of immediate reality and must impart that to us until it\nbecomes, heightened and intensified, our own. The secret of\nsuccessful living lies in compelling the details of our surroundings\nto our own ends. Michelangelo lived his life; Leonardo lived his;\nneither could be the other. A man must paint the life that he knows,\nthe experience into which he enters. So we must live our lives\nimmediately and newly. We have penetrated the ultimate mystery of\nart when we realize the inseparable oneness of art with life.\n\nArt is a call to fuller living. Its real service is to increase our\ncapacity for experience. The pictures, the music, the books, which\nprofit us are those which, when we have done with them, make us\nfeel that we have lived by just so much. Often we purchase\nexperience with enthusiasm; we become wise at the expense of our\npower to enjoy. What we need in relation to art is not more\nknowledge but greater capability of feeling, not the acquisition of\nmore facts but the increased power to interpret facts and to apply\nthem to life. In appreciation it is not what we know about a work of\nart, it is not even what we actually see before us, that constitutes its\nsignificance, but what in its presence we are able to feel. The\nparadox that nature imitates art has in it this much of truth, that art is\nthe revelation of the possibilities of life, and we try to make these\npossibilities actual in our own experience. Art is not an escape from\nlife and a refuge; it is a challenge and reenforcement. Its action is\nnot to make us less conscious but more; in it we are not to lose\nourselves but to find ourselves more truly and more fully. Its effect\nis to help us to a larger and juster appreciation of the beauty and\nworth of nature and of life.\n\nArt is within the range of every man who holds himself open to its\nappeal. But art is not the final thing. It is a means to an end; its end\nis personality. There are exalted moments in the experience of us all\nwhich we feel to be finer than any art. Then we do not need to turn\nto painting, music, literature, for our satisfaction. We are living. Art\nis aid and inspiration, but its fulfillment and end is life.\n\n\"We live,\" says Wordsworth, \"by admiration, hope, and love.\"\nAdmiration is wonder and worship, a sense of the mystery and the\nbeauty of life as we know it now, and thankfulness for it, and joy.\nHope is the vision of things to be. And love is the supreme enfolding\nunity that makes all one. Art is life at its best, but life is the greatest\nof the arts,--life harmonious, deep in feeling, big in sympathy, the\nlife that is appreciation, responsiveness, and love.","title":"The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":52299}