The Evolution of Art. 299 



matchless beauty of the stars is an artist. The lesson may 

 come to him from the trite couplet of an old Greek poet ; 

 it may shine out from the glowing canvas of a Titian ; it 

 may be born in the fervor of eloquent speech if only he 

 be lifted up to see the new beauty, to be possessed of the 

 new thought, the true artist has done his work. Nature 

 has found for him its interpreter ; thenceforward he is 

 more reverent toward her; all her ways take forms of 

 lasting beauty in his sight ; he has been shown the way. 



Using the term art, then, in its broadest signification, 

 the evolution of art would be commensurate with that of 

 man, since what man has done constitutes the all of human 

 history. So competent an authority as Sydney Colvin has 

 said that art comprises " every regulated operation or dex- 

 terity by which organized beings pursue ends which they 

 know beforehand, together with the rules and the result of 

 every such operation or dexterity." 



The art of war, the art of government, the art of wor- 

 ship, the inventive arts, the art of navigation, the fine arts 

 of music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture, all 

 are within the definition. Most intimately connected with 

 all these latter arts are those of government and invention, 

 as affecting the environment, which, encircling man at dif- 

 ferent stages of his history, have constituted important 

 modifications of his creative skill. It will be assumed, 

 however, that our inquiry this evening is to be confined 

 to palpable art creation as represented in one of the five 

 great departments of human skill, the exercise of which 

 finds embodiment in a symphony, a painting, a statue, a 

 building, or a poem. All these will be found to be abso- 

 lutely determined in their results by the controlling ideals 

 of the artists, and these in turn to be largely modified by 

 contemporaneous wants. 



At the outset let us observe that all the arts are depend- 

 ent upon two classes of persons for their existence and sur- 

 vival namely, artists and art-lovers. The one can not exist 

 without the other. The last man in the world will neither 

 write, sing, paint, carve, nor build. Demosthenes, training 

 his voice at the shore of the sea, heard above the tumult- 

 uous fury of the breakers the swelling applause of Athe- 

 nian audiences. That was his objective point, and all great 

 artists dedicate their work to the art-lovers of the race 

 at large whether in alien states or in generations un- 

 born. And this distinction must be kept in mind in order 



