ever form she speaks it is in a way that none of us 

 fails to understand. Nor are the standards of plas- 

 tic or of pictorial art restricted to the appreciation 

 of the few; Art in its purest form — and this applies 

 also to music and other modes of expression — has 

 a universal appeal; therefore, the ability for ap- 

 preciation of the artistic, contrary to the dicta of 

 pundits who can exploit to their own advantage 

 the productions of the painter but who themselves 

 are unable to paint, is not a cultured possession. 

 The truth is, if we compare the pictures made 

 by the cave dwellers with those of the modernistic 

 school, we will find that such appreciation is not 

 even a phase of culture but a natural endowment. 

 For fundamentally the business of the artist is 

 to interpret an emotional concept. Emotions are 

 several and primitive. And in proportion to the 

 artist's power to feel and to translate faithfully 

 any one of these primal operations of the mind, he 

 may be said to have produced a work of art. Thus, 

 if Massenet makes me melancholy or Gauguin 

 gives me chills, it may be said that they have suc- 

 ceeded as artists; but this is not wholly true. Art 

 in perfection must have the element of beauty. 



[300] 



