The Mind of the Artist | Page 8

life of men? I will not complicate the requirements of painted poesy by speaking of the music of colour with which it should be clothed; black and white were enough. The very attempt to express the confession of love were fulfilment sufficient.
Edward Calvert.
XLII
So art has become foolishly confounded with education, that all should be equally qualified. Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and breeding are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music--that in his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C Minor Symphony."
Let him have but the wit to say so, and not let him feel the admission a proof of inferiority.
Art happens--no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy and coarse farce.
This is as it should be; and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited.
Whistler.
XLIII
Art will not grow and flourish, nay it will not long exist, unless it be shared by all people; and for my part I don't wish that it should.
William Morris.
XLIV
No, art is not an element of corruption. The man who drinks from a wooden bowl is nearer to the brute that drinks from a stone trough than he who quenches his thirst from a crystal cup; and the artist who gave the glass its shape, impressed as in a mould of bronze by the simple means of a second's breath and yet more cheaply than the fashioning of the wooden bowl, has done more to ennoble and improve his neighbour than any inventor of a system: in his work he gives him the use and the enjoyment of things for which orators can only create a craving.
Jules Klagmann.
XLV
The improviser never makes fine poetry.
Titian.
XLVI
Agatharcus said to Zeuxis--For my part I soon despatch my Pictures. You are a happy Man, replies Zeuxis; I do mine with Time and application, because I would have them good, and I am satisfyed, that what is soon done, will soon be forgotten.
XLVII
Art is not a pleasure trip. It is a battle, a mill that grinds.
Millet.

STUDY AND TRAINING
XLVIII
Raphael and Michael Angelo owe that immortal fame of theirs, which has gone out into the ends of the earth, to the passion of curiosity and delight with which this noble subject inspired them.
No man who has not studied the sciences can make a work that shall bring him great praise, save from ignorant and easily satisfied persons.
Jean Goujon.
XLIX
He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.
Love and delight therein are better teachers of the Art of Painting than compulsion is.
If a man is to become a really good painter he must be educated thereto from his very earliest years. He must copy much of the work of good artists until he attain a free hand.
To paint is to be able to portray upon a flat surface any visible thing whatsoever that may be chosen.
It is well for any one first to learn how to divide and reduce to measure the human figure, before learning anything else.
Duerer.
L
The painter requires such knowledge of mathematics as belongs to painting, and severance from companions who are not in sympathy with his studies, and his brain should have the power of adapting itself to the tenor of the objects which present themselves before it, and he should be freed from all other cares. And if, while considering and examining one subject, a second should intervene, as happens when an object occupies the mind, he ought to decide which of these subjects presents greater difficulties in investigation, and follow that until it becomes entirely clear, and afterwards pursue the investigation of the other. And above all he should keep his mind as clear as the surface of a mirror, which becomes changed to as many different colours as are those of the objects within it, and his companions should resemble him in a taste for these studies; and if he fail to find any such, he should accustom himself to be alone in his investigations, for in the end he will find no more profitable companionship.
Leonardo.
LI
If you are fond of copying other Men's Work, as being Originals more constant to be seen and imitated than any living Object, I should rather advise to copy anything moderately carved than excellently painted: For by imitating a Picture, we only habituate our Hand to take a mere Resemblance; whereas by drawing from a carved Original, we learn not only to take this Resemblance, but also