The Mind of the Artist | Page 8

perhaps,
in the real estimation in which art is held that we shall find the reason
for failure. If the world cared for her language, art could not help
speaking, the utterance being, perhaps, simply beautiful. But even in
these days when we have ceased to prize this, if it were demanded that
art should take its place beside the great intellectual outflow of the time,
the response would hardly be doubtful.

Watts.
XLI
You refer to the use and purpose of the liberal arts; not a city in Europe,
at present, is fulfilling them. And if any one in Melbourne were now to
produce, even on a small scale, a picture fulfilling the conditions of
liberal art, then Melbourne might take the lead of civilised cities. But it
is not the ambition of leading, nor the restlessness of a competitive
spirit that may accomplish this.
A good poem, whether painted or written, whether large or small,
should represent beautiful life. Are you able to name any one who has
conceived this beauty of the life of men? I will not complicate the
requirements of painted poesy by speaking of the music of colour with
which it should be clothed; black and white were enough. The very
attempt to express the confession of love were fulfilment sufficient.
Edward Calvert.
XLII
So art has become foolishly confounded with education, that all should
be equally qualified. Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and
breeding are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no
reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land
that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music--that in
his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's
needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C Minor Symphony."
Let him have but the wit to say so, and not let him feel the admission a
proof of inferiority.
Art happens--no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend on it, the
vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it
universal end in quaint comedy and coarse farce.
This is as it should be; and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to

the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited.
Whistler.
XLIII
Art will not grow and flourish, nay it will not long exist, unless it be
shared by all people; and for my part I don't wish that it should.
William Morris.
XLIV
No, art is not an element of corruption. The man who drinks from a
wooden bowl is nearer to the brute that drinks from a stone trough than
he who quenches his thirst from a crystal cup; and the artist who gave
the glass its shape, impressed as in a mould of bronze by the simple
means of a second's breath and yet more cheaply than the fashioning of
the wooden bowl, has done more to ennoble and improve his neighbour
than any inventor of a system: in his work he gives him the use and the
enjoyment of things for which orators can only create a craving.
Jules Klagmann.
XLV
The improviser never makes fine poetry.
Titian.
XLVI
Agatharcus said to Zeuxis--For my part I soon despatch my Pictures.
You are a happy Man, replies Zeuxis; I do mine with Time and
application, because I would have them good, and I am satisfyed, that
what is soon done, will soon be forgotten.
XLVII

Art is not a pleasure trip. It is a battle, a mill that grinds.
Millet.

STUDY AND TRAINING
XLVIII
Raphael and Michael Angelo owe that immortal fame of theirs, which
has gone out into the ends of the earth, to the passion of curiosity and
delight with which this noble subject inspired them.
No man who has not studied the sciences can make a work that shall
bring him great praise, save from ignorant and easily satisfied persons.
Jean Goujon.
XLIX
He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than
compulsion is.
If a man is to become a really good painter he must be educated thereto
from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good
artists until he attain a free hand.
To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing
whatsoever that may be chosen.
It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce to measure
the human figure, before learning anything else.
Duerer.
L

The painter requires such knowledge of mathematics as belongs to
painting, and severance from companions who are not in sympathy
with his studies, and his brain should have the power of adapting itself
to