The Mind of the Artist

The Mind of the Artist

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Title: The Mind of the Artist Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and
Sculptors on Their Art
Author: Various
Commentator: George Clausen
Release Date: June 22, 2006 [EBook #18653]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE MIND OF THE ARTIST
[Illustration: Rembrandt THE POLISH RIDER Berlin Photographic

Co]
THOUGHTS AND SAYINGS OF PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS
ON THEIR ART
COLLECTED & ARRANGED BY MRS. LAURENCE BINYON
WITH A PREFACE BY GEORGE CLAUSEN, R.A.
LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1909
All rights reserved

PREFACE
It is always interesting and profitable to get the views of workmen on
their work, and on the principles which guide them in it; and in
bringing together these sayings of artists Mrs. Binyon has done a very
useful thing. A great number of opinions are presented, which, in their
points of agreement and disagreement, bring before us in the most
charming way the wide range of the artist's thought, and enable us to
realise that the work of the great ones is not founded on vague caprice
or so-called inspiration, but on sure intuitions which lead to definite
knowledge; not merely the necessary knowledge of the craftsman,
which many have possessed whose work has failed to hold the attention
of the world, but also a knowledge of nature's laws.
"The Mind of the Artist" speaks for itself, and really requires no word
of introduction. These opinions as a whole, seem to me to have a
harmony and consistency, and to announce clearly that the directing
impulse must be a desire for expression, that art is a language, and that
the thing to be said is of more importance than the manner of saying it.
This desire for expression is the driving-force of the artist; it informs,
controls, and animates his method of working; it governs the hand and
eye. That figures should give the impression of life and spontaneity,
that the sun should shine, trees move in the wind, and nature be felt and
represented as a living thing--this is the firm ground in art; and in those

who have this feeling every effort will, consciously or unconsciously,
lead towards its realisation. It should be the starting-point of the student.
It does not absolve him from the need of taking the utmost pains, from
making the most searching study of his model; rather it impels him, in
the examination of whatever he feels called on to represent, to look for
the vital and necessary things: and the artist will carry his work to the
utmost degree of completion possible to him, in the desire to get at the
heart of his theme.
"Truth to nature," like a wide mantle, shelters us all, and covers not
only the outward aspect of things, but their inner meanings and the
emotions felt through them, differently by each individual. And the
inevitable differences of point of view, which one encounters in this
book, are but small matters compared with the agreement one finds on
essential things; I may instance particularly the stress laid on the
observation of nature. Whether the artist chooses to depict the present,
the past, or to express an abstract ideal, he must, if his work is to live,
found it on his own experience of nature. But he must at every step also
refer to the past. He must find the road that the great ones have made,
remembering that the problems they solved were the same that he has
before him, and that now, no less than in Duerer's time, "art is hidden in
nature: it is for the artist to drag her forth."
GEORGE CLAUSEN.

NOTE
This little volume, it need hardly be said, does not aim at being
complete, in the sense of representing all the artists who have written
on art. It is hoped, however, that the sayings chosen will be found fairly
representative of what painters and sculptors, typical of their race and
time, have said about the various aspects of their work. In making the
collection, I have had recourse less to famous comprehensive treatises
and expositions of theory like those of Leonardo and of Reynolds, than
to the more intimate avowals and working notes contained in letters
and diaries, or recorded in memoirs. The selection of these has entailed

considerable research; and in