THE MODEL 135 



you will perceive how the man's emotional and intellectual 

 attitude had altered between the period of his first and that 

 of his third manner. 



From these reflections upon the points of difference 

 between a model and a picture from the model, we may 

 return to the old problem of idealism and realism, in 

 order to grasp their correlation in plastic works of art more 

 firmly. 



How striking is the contrast between any photograph from 

 the nude, male or female, and a mezzotint by Bartolozzi ! 

 The photograph presents realism in its crudest, most un- 

 compromising aspect ; sex and the individual are rendered 

 with brutal fidelity. The mezzotint presents idealism in its 

 flimsiest and most conventional aspect : it is difficult to say 

 whether those decorative figures are meant for men or 

 women ; the individual disappears in an agreeable generalisa- 

 tion. Without wishing to create hermaphrodites, the draughts- 

 man produced sexless beings. He sacrificed character, specific 

 type, salience of structure, to the incarnation of a sentiment. 

 Art, when it reached this point, had passed into a kind of 

 senile symbolism, the symbolism of insincerity and second 

 childhood, aiming at nothing but how to clothe a faint and 

 saccharine emotion with graceful form. 



The revolt against this disloyalty to truth justified the 

 action of modern realistic and naturalistic schools. It was 

 felt, and rightly felt, that almost any crudity is less offensive 

 than such emasculate distortion of the human form for 

 ornamental purposes. It was felt, and rightly felt, that the 

 idealism of Bartolozzi is the suicide of art. 



Yet the question remains, whether uncompromising realism 

 is not in its turn also the suicide of art. Driven by contempt 

 for feeble idealism into blunt copying of what they see before 

 them, realistic draughtsmen find themselves at once outrivalled 

 by the model or the photograph. 



Art, after passing through the reactionary stage of realism, 

 must become once more symbolic on a higher level. In its 



