The Evolution of Art. 315 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 



MR. Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON : 



While I have been deeply interested in the able paper of Mr. Tay- 

 lor, 1 must dissent from his pessimistic view of the present condition 

 of the artist in America. The high prices obtained for objects of art 

 at recent sales is an evidence, it seems to me, that the condition of the 

 artist is improving. 



One of the basic principles of evolution is the law of differentiation, 

 as expressed in Herbert Spencer's well-known formula. This is true 

 not only in biology and sociology, but also in the development of art, 

 as illustrated by the lecture of the evening. As art becomes complex 

 and highly organized, it differentiates into opposing schools, resulting 

 from differences in local environments. 



As regards realism or naturalism, against which the lecturer has 

 animadverted, as I understand its devotees, they hold that art is con- 

 cerned with truth rather than with morality. In literature, at least, 

 they profess to be educators of their readers. In order to educate them 

 in a knowledge of life, we must analyze life, and if we truthfully por- 

 tray the facts derived from our analysis, we must record and portray 

 the details even of vice and crime. Such writers do not claim the 

 name of artist so much as that of educator and truth-teller. 



MB. DANIEL GBEENLEAF THOMPSON: 



I have listened with great pleasure to the scholarly and beautiful 

 lecture of Mr. Taylor, and will merely amplify one or two thoughts 

 which he has presented. In the familiar line of Keats, 



" A thing of beauty is a joy forever," 



are set forth two of the fundamental characteristics of art : first, in 

 the word " joy," which expresses the principle that there must be in 

 all true art the quality of agreeableness, and, secondly, in the word 

 " forever," which indicates the universality of art. A work of human 

 skill, to be art, must be beautiful ; the disagreeable as it exists in 

 Nature or in fact must be eliminated. Realistic art, so called, thus 

 fails to be real art. Yet we are bound to realize the fact that tastes 

 differ at different times, and that which one generation applauds may 

 be condemned by another. Many of the pictures to be seen in foreign 

 galleries are to us expressive only of the horrible, presenting as they 



