144 BEAUTY, COMPOSITION, 



ideal beauty, composition is a compensation offered to the 

 subjectivity of man. From this we might once more deduce 

 the corollary that art cannot abide contented with bare imita- 

 tion. Man's soul speaks to man's soul from the picture, and 

 says something which nature does not say. 



No one will, however, deny ttiat everywhere in nature, 

 especially in sublime landscape or in exceptionally perfect 

 single figures, the most consummate composition may be 

 observed. In nature, however, such composition is fugitive. 

 We return to the landscape and find that altered light or 

 atmosphere has spoiled the picture ; the linear balance is still 

 there, the rest has vanished. The model drops an upraised 

 arm, and the momentary magic of his attitude, complete in 

 sculpturesque variety of rhythm, is dispersed. It is the artist's 

 duty, while making himself the secretary of Nature's shyest 

 thoughts and the interpreter of her secluded mysteries, to 

 perpetuate these fugitive perfections in work which cannot 

 pass away. While assuming this function he collaborates 

 with Nature, and becomes himself, through the infusion of his 

 spirit, a portion of the picture he produces. 



IV 



This leads us to consider expression as one of the factors 

 which constitute the so-called ideality of art. Expression, 

 in its relation to sculpture and painting, is a word of double 

 meaning. It may mean the expression which resides in the 

 object itself, which the artist seeks to seize and to render as 

 powerfully as he can the expression which belongs to a 

 good portrait. Or it may mean the expression of subjective 

 thought and feeling, not inherent in the object, for which the 

 forms of art are vehicles. I shall deal at present only with 

 expression in the second of these senses. 



I need not observe that much difference of opinion exists 

 as to whether artists ought to aim deliberately at expressing 

 thoughts and emotions. The elder schools of criticism 

 assumed, perhaps too confidently, that such expression is 

 the ultimate end and highest function of art. They could 



