THE MIND OF WOMAN 243 



fluence of the same dominating male psychology 

 pervades all its expressions. It may be distinguished 

 how it penetrates to details, even in an art like 

 landscape painting. " How the aesthetic value of 

 a picture of a wood is enhanced," says Schopenhauer, 

 the typical pagan of the West, " if the artist paints, 

 as he should, a solitary pine standing out above the 

 others, high and erect towards heaven.'* Why ? 

 Because, in the formative arts of the West, the 

 meaning which the artist seeks to utter always 

 springs from a subconscious psychology which is 

 profoundly male. Unconsciously the fighting mind 

 realizes and revels in every feature and detail which 

 suggest to it the omnipotence of force. In the 

 detail of the solitary pine standing out high and 

 erect towards heaven, it translates into contagious 

 emotion the symbol of power thus portrayed as 

 conquering gravity. 



This tendency in art is in conflict with the deep- 

 est and most characteristic evolutionary tendency 

 underlying Western civilization. All the leading 

 movements in modern art, from Pre-Raphaelism 

 to Post-Impressionism and Futurism, reflect phases 

 of the meaning of the struggle between these two 

 forces engaged. The monstrous inspiration which 

 Western art inherited from the ancient civilizations 

 was that of the self-regarding emotions triumphing 



