668 MODERN PAINTING 



I do not know that I have made my meaning clear to you. I have 

 tried to say that the problems of the painter are individual and 

 subjective, that the method of expressing his personality lies entirely 

 with each artist and forbids any interference from the outside. 

 I hope that I have conveyed to you the idea that the questions 

 which we may discuss profitably regarding painting are not whether 

 it shall be more idealistic or less realistic, whether the artist should 

 create in this scheme of color, or that tone of light. These belong to 

 the painter exclusively, and he is well able to take care of himself. 



Then what is the objective side of the question? What are the 

 modern problems of painting which society can fitly discuss at all? 

 I reply that it is the relation of painting to society itself. Society 

 regulates the conditions under which art is produced. If it cannot 

 claim the artist, it can claim the man. If it cannot dictate his tech- 

 nique, it can furnish his theme, and to a certain extent his ideals. 

 It is in the secret understanding between the performer and the 

 audience that delight both. It is the humanity that reverberates 

 alike through the chord of art and the hearts of the people. The 

 more human the call, the more universal and deep the response. 



Sociological conditions have not, however, always been favorable 

 to the free development of art and have often threatened to crush its 

 existence, and sometimes succeeded in doing so. It is owing to this 

 that the great masters are so rare. Indeed, it is a tribute to the 

 virility of the art-instinct that we should have even the few. Their 

 lives both in the East and West have shown remarkable instances of 

 struggle and victory over circumstances. Hosts have suffered and 

 have succumbed to social tyranny. Hosts are suffering and succumb- 

 ing to their destiny. 



Nothing touches us more than the weary lines on a great painter's 

 face, for they are the traces, not of his contest with his art but with 

 the world. One is a joy and a solace, the other is an eternal torment. 

 The antagonism between the two lies in the laws of their existence. 

 Art is the sphere of freedom, society that of conventions. The vul- 

 gar ever resents the ideal. Society is somehow always afraid of the 

 living artist. It begins to offer applause when his ears are deaf. 

 flowers when he is safely laid in his grave. The success and popular- 

 ity of a living painter in many cases are signs of lowness of spiritual 

 level. For the higher the artistic mind soars the greater becomes the 

 possibility of local or contemporary miscomprehension. Even in the 

 perfection of Raphael or the princely ease of Rubens we are tempted 

 to miss the sublimity of the tormented soul of Michael Angelo. 



Society lias not only been inimical to individual masters but has 

 at times indulged in wholesale destruction of schools. Political 

 changes have often enacted tragedies. War has devastated many 

 a garden of beauty. With due respect to the interesting qualities 



