MODERN PROBLEMS IN PAINTING 665 



Some may be in the Confucian sequence of the white, some in the 

 Italian sequence of the brown; others again in the French sequence 

 of the blue, but behind the veil is the mind, always eager to tell its 

 own story. The trade of the connoisseur is founded on the fact of 

 this great individuality of the master which distinguishes him from 

 the forger or the copyist. 



The common weakness of humanity is to offer advice when it is not 

 asked. Society has been ever ready to invade the sanctuary of art. 

 Patronage, with its accustomed superciliousness, has often imposed 

 its authority on a realm where gold could not reach. Public criticism 

 with the best intentions in the world has made itself only ridiculous 

 by trying to interfere in questions where the painter must be the sole 

 judge. Why enchain the dragon-spirit of art? It is evanescent and 

 always alive, and is godlike in its transformations. Was it a Greek 

 who said that he denned certain limits in art by what he had done? 

 The Napoleonic geniuses of the brush are constantly winning victo- 

 ries mindless of the dogmatic strategy of the academicians. The 

 foremost critic of modern England has been ironically censured for 

 his undue depreciation of Whistler, as one who was to be remembered 

 by what he failed to understand. The fate of aesthetic discussions is 

 to hang on the Achillean heel of art, and therein to find the vulnerable 

 point of attack. We can Ruskinize only on the past. 



If I may stretch a point, the masters themselves may be said to be 

 responsible for allowing society to frustrate the spontaneous play of 

 later artists. Their personality has been so great as to leave a last- 

 ing impression on the canons of beauty so that any deviation from 

 the accepted notions is certain to be regarded with suspicion. Society 

 has been taken into the confidence of art, and, like all confidences, 

 it was either too little or too much. The world has become disre- 

 spectful toward art on account of the proffered familiarity. It feels 

 at liberty to dictate where it ought to worship, to criticise where it 

 ought to comprehend. It is not that the public should not talk, but 

 that it should know better. It is not that society should not be 

 amused, but that it should enjoy more. We are sorry to realize how 

 much of real aesthetic sympathy is lost in the jargon of studio-talks. 



The very individuality of art which makes its problem so sub- 

 jective to the artist at the same time makes it defy classification in 

 time. It is a matter of doubt whether we can speak of the "modern 

 problems" in painting as such with any amount of accuracy or with 

 profit. The problem which confronts the painter to-day has been 

 always with him since the days he first traced the mastodon on 

 bone-fragments in the primeval dons of the cave lions. 



Of course the history of painting means the constant accretion of 

 the problems of lines, light, and color, until nowadays the complex 

 machinery requires a gigantic intellect to set it successfully in 



