AN APPROACH TO ART 
 
 ?• . 
 
 MARY MULLEN 
 
 
 
 . K-. < 
 
 • r 
 
 
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 'i 
 
AN APPROACH TO ART 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY MULLEN 
 
 WITH FIFTY 
 
 REPRODUCTIONS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE BARNES FOUNDATION 
 
 MERION, PA. 
 
 1923 
 
THE BARNES FOUNDATION 
 
 MERION, PA. 
 
 Chartered, December 4, 1922. 
 
 I^OARD OF Directors. 
 
 Joseph Lapsley Wilson 
 Albert C. Barnes . 
 IvAura L. Barnes 
 N. E. Mullen 
 Mary Mullen 
 
 Director of Arboretum 
 
 President 
 
 Vice-President 
 
 Secretary and Treasurer 
 
 Associate Director of Education 
 
 John Dewey 
 
 . Director of Education 
 
 IvAURENCE BuERMEYER . 
 
 . Associate Director of Education 
 
 L. W Geiger .... 
 
 . Recording Secretary 
 
 Paul Guillaume 
 
 . Eoreign Secretary 
 
 John W. Prince . 
 
 . Curator of Arboretum 
 
 Phomas H. Stevenson . 
 
 . Curator of Paintiiigs 
 
 Roberts and Montgomery, Attorne}'s. 
 
 .s 
 
P R EFACE 
 
 T he plan outlined herein is based upon the generally 
 accepted beliefs that life is primarily and chiefly a matter 
 of feeling and that art in any form is a fragment of life pre- 
 sented to us enriched in feelings by means of the creative 
 spirit of the artist; that makes art and life synonymous. 
 
 A sense of beauty is so common in human beings that it could 
 rank almost with the instincts in universality. Unfortunately, 
 the practical demands of life too often suppress it, or it becomes 
 so overlaid with traditional and irrational dogmas that it never 
 attains to an adequate development. The ways and means of 
 making the sense of beauty contribute to the happiness of 
 daily life could obviously be best approached by a study of the 
 factors to the situation: I'he attributes of human nature, the 
 objective qualities of a work of art, and the aesthetic experi- 
 ence itself which results when man and art come in contact. 
 
 The intention of this book is to serve as a primer to 
 people who have a sense of beauty sufficiently active to 
 prompt them to wish to see in works of art and in life itself 
 those aesthetic aspects which are too often overlooked. I he 
 plan as presented is based upon an experience of more than 
 ten years’ continuous practice as a part of a systematic educa- 
 tional plan which accepted the modern definition that education 
 means movement, direction, growth, development. A large and 
 varied collection of paintings and a circulating library of good 
 literature gradually grew as the system developed. The only 
 requirement for participation was an interest in the thing 
 itself, for itself, and for as long a time as that interest 
 sustained itself by its own power. That Interest was the 
 sense of beauty cultivated for the sake of the values it con- 
 tributed to human happiness. 
 
 The plan as presented in this book can be only of the 
 barest essentials which the experience proved are indispens- 
 
 5 
 
able. It represents the ideas of many writers, artists, edu- 
 cators of widely-divergent viewpoints and only such of their 
 ideas as ht into the solution of the specific problem. The 
 general foundation of the plan is based upon the psychology 
 evolved by William James, John Dewey, George Santayana 
 and l^ertrand Russell. But the structure owes its identity 
 to individual contributions to ps}^chology, aesthetics and 
 education made by Havelock Ellis, Roger Fry, Bernard Hart, 
 Laurence Buermeyer, Albert C. Barnes and others. Some 
 of the best and most practical ideas originated with the 
 students themselves as results of their own reactions to 
 the environment. If the approach to the study of art 
 as stated in this book proves serviceable to others it will 
 be because experience has again proved to be the best 
 teacher. 
 
 c 
 
AN APPROACH TO ART 
 
 Art and It is interesting to tr}' to get a definition of the 
 Imitation art of painting from people whom one meets in 
 the every-day walks of life. Most of them think 
 of painting as an imitation of natural objects, hut when 
 questioned further confess that they like many pictures that 
 do not copy nature. Imitations are disappointing in all phases 
 of life and the art-world is no exception; there must he a more 
 valid reason why the pictorial arts give us so much pleasure. 
 We know human nature well enough to be quite sure that 
 painting could not have secured such a firm hold on men and 
 held its place m their lives through many centuries, if it were 
 merely a likeness of natural objects. An imitation is never 
 satisfying; the feeling that it isn’t true or real disturbs us, we 
 desire things that we can depend upon. Dependability is one 
 of the needs of human existence; in our world of constant 
 change, we try by all means in our power to make some things 
 permanent and stable so that we know just what to expect 
 from them. For instance, we could not get a sense of satis- 
 faction from an imitation diamond in a ring. We know that 
 sooner or later it will lose its lustre and show itself for what 
 it is; we have a feeling that it is not real. If we have a genuine 
 stone we know that it will always retain its brilliance; we may 
 have to polish it from time to time, but we know that we can 
 depend upon it. 
 
 It is just the same in regard to art. If art is only an 
 imitation of nature, then nature would be much more sat- 
 isfying than art and art would not he worth all the bother 
 that has been made about it. If art is nothing more than 
 a likeness of a natural object, then the highest praise we 
 could pay an artist would he to say that he is skih^ul in copy- 
 ing nature and we would then look upon his products as 
 objects to excite our wonder because of their skillful work- 
 manship. I^ut we know that art in itself is very much worth 
 while, that it gives us a great deal of pleasure, that it is 
 wonderfully satisfying. 
 
Instincts and We all know that human beings have instincts; 
 Imagination that is, when we become aware of certain 
 objects or situations in the world, they arouse 
 in us particular feelings which are termed emotions and, 
 without stopping to think or reason about them, we act in 
 a certain way. If we are walking along the street and see a 
 run-away horse coming toward us, we at once have the feeling 
 or emotion of fear and turn immediately and run in another 
 direction to get out of its way; we do not stop and wonder 
 why the horse ran away or why he happened to come in our 
 direction; we simply start and run. Or, we might notice a 
 crowd of people who seem very much interested in something 
 going on in their midst. Immediately the emotion of wonder 
 is aroused and our instinct of curiosity makes us try to find 
 out what is causing the excitement, in spite of the fact that 
 it probably does not concern us. 
 
 Animals as well as human beings have many different 
 instincts, but man is superior to the animal in that after a 
 thing has happened he can recall the whole incident; even 
 when this recollection of past experience is simply to serve 
 a present need, as when we try to recall a street and num- 
 ber a man has given us; but sometimes we recall the past 
 because we enjoy repeating the experience, and such recall 
 undertaken for its own sake is imagination, or the germ of 
 imagination. In this way a person lives a dual life, one 
 actual and the other imaginative. The great difference 
 between these two lives is that m the actual existence, the 
 instinctive reactions, such as the flight from danger, are 
 of the utmost importance and we bend all our energies to 
 accomplish what our instincts prompt us to do. But in the 
 imaginative life we do not have to act; all we have to do is 
 to use our imagination to recall what has happened, how we 
 felt and what might have happened. In real life all our 
 attention is centered on action; in the imaginative life, we 
 are interested in what we see and feel and, since we do not 
 have to act, we see a great deal more of what is going on 
 within our line of vision and we have time to think about 
 our feelings. 
 
 ['he fact that in real life all our attention is centered on 
 action can be well-illustrated by the moving pictures. If we 
 see Tom Mix on the screen and he gets into a fight, we are 
 conscious of all the details of the scene. We notice what each 
 
 8 
 
character is doing. Perhaps there will be people behind trees 
 waiting for a chance to shoot him, perhaps in the distance we 
 see a rescuing party coming along at full gallop; somebody 
 else is trying to catch his horse; we take note of the landscape. 
 But suppose we were watching a fight in actual life we would 
 he most likely so concerned about possible damage to one 
 of the participants that our attention would be concentrated 
 upon summoning a policeman to stop the hght or even a 
 physician to treat the injured. In the two cases our feelings 
 would be entirely different. In the actual hght our emotions 
 would be so strong that we would not think about them at all; 
 we would be relatively unconscious of them. But in the mov- 
 ing pictures, while we do experience the emotions that the 
 actors on the screen are depicting, they are very much weaker 
 than our emotions in actual life and we can think about them 
 and examine them. If we see a train wreck in the movies, we 
 may feel a certain amount of pity for the victims but since 
 we know that it is only a moving picture, that nobody is hurt 
 and that it is not necessary for us to act in order to relieve 
 suffering, our sense of pity is not nearly so strong as if we 
 had seen an actual train wreck; we are not living our actual 
 life in the movies, we are living our imaginative life. We 
 use our imagination in order to understand why the different 
 characters act as they do; we try to imagine their feelings 
 by thinking of how we would feel and what we would do in 
 their place and if they do not act as we think they should, 
 then we try to interpret their behavior in some other way. 
 
 Different Kinds All human beings live this secondary im- 
 of Imagination aginative life to some extent; but not all 
 flight of fancy, not all non-practical con- 
 templation, constitutes the imaginative life that gives birth 
 to art. Idle day-dreaming, “building castles in Spam,’^ is 
 imagination and if given free play, interferes with the every- 
 day duties of life; we cannot depend on people who lose sight 
 of the workaday world. If this imaginative life is carried to 
 the extreme, we term the people insane. In asylums there 
 are many patients who are living the life of the imagination 
 entirely. One man will tell us that he is a king and all the 
 people about him are his subjects, in spite of the fact that 
 he works just like the other inmates; and nothing we can say 
 or do will convince him that he is not a king. 
 
 9 
 
The actual and the imaginative lives must be combined 
 if we are to remain normal, balanced people — either while we 
 are at work, or play. For instance: Suppose an emergency 
 
 arises where one of the large tanks in a factory has to be 
 emptied more quickly than usual. The manager has to make 
 rapid plans as to just what she will do, how many girls she will 
 need, at which machines she will place each girl, how she will 
 place her stock, etc. In order to make these plans, she uses 
 imagination and experience— her imagination, guided by her 
 past experience, forms a picture in her mind as to how she will 
 accomplish this work. If her plans work out just as she hoped 
 they would, the accomplished result has in it an aesthetic 
 element. 
 
 In making plans for our leisure so that it will be more satis- 
 factory and sensible, the imagination, influenced by the intel- 
 ligence, prompts us, for example, to read worth-while books 
 instead of trashy ones; to look at good pictures and try to find 
 out something about them; to go to the theatre when the play 
 is diverting and intelligent and not merely to kill time. 
 
 I'he artist has one great advantage in his work over the 
 ordinary person: he is free to express himself in any way he 
 wishes; his work is not bound by moral obligations, he does 
 not have to work according to a rule; he does not have to try 
 to please anybody; he is absolutely free to express himself. 
 But there is after all one condition that he must fulfill if his 
 art IS to be appreciated by others; he must compose it m a 
 form that can be understood b}^ the observer: otherwise the 
 latter will be baffled and it will mean nothing to him. 
 
 Only when the object about which the imagination plays 
 has m Itself a special interest for the observer and gives him 
 a pleasurable emotion, can it be the basis upon which the 
 imagination builds up a work of art. But the artist does 
 not lose all contact with the actual world; in his conception 
 of the form which he wishes his work of art to assume, there 
 will be practical questions involved, even though it is not 
 necessary to act at that very moment. If the artist wishes 
 to paint a landscape and with the help of his imagination 
 plans the form in his mind, he does not lose sight of the 
 fact that he will have to place the objects in the landscape 
 in certain relation to each other. Practical things may not 
 be in the foreground of his consciousness, but it is a habit 
 of human beings to think of objects in terms of their uses 
 
 10 
 
even when there is no necessity to use them. This practical 
 habit explains the clifhculty most people have when they 
 endeavor to contemplate an object for the enjoyment of its 
 heaun^ alone; as for instance if our attention is called to 
 the lovely lines of a chair, to its color, its design, we observe 
 it so that we may enjoy its beauty; but we do not forget 
 that the chair is to sit in. 
 
 A sharp distinction must be made between the imagina- 
 tion that results in creation and the imagination that is idle 
 day-dreaming. We have emphasized the fact that in real 
 life action is paramount; but in saying that in the imag- 
 inative life there is no necessity for action, we do not mean 
 that the creative imaginative life is absolutely passive and 
 all we have to do is to let our fancies float aimlessly about; 
 that is day-dreaming and leads to no real enjoyment; it is 
 mere effortless contemplation, a sham and a counterfeit. 
 The creative imagination is alert and active, it is in constant 
 contact with the practical world, but its aim is to discover 
 new aspects of life and to embody those discoveries in fit 
 and meaningful expressions. It is this creative imagination 
 that makes our actual life so much fuller and richer and 
 deeper; it is from this source that all our ideals, all our hopes 
 and longings spring. 
 
 The Creative W hen a painter sees something in nature that 
 Impulse strikes him as beautiful, it stimulates his imag- 
 
 ination and feelings and thus is born the 
 creative impulse which prompts him to express what he feels. 
 He tries to put on canvas his ideas of the object and the 
 feelings which he experienced. This is not just as easy as 
 it sounds. I'he artist’s hand is not guided by some divine 
 power, and many people who are really artists in their appre- 
 ciation of beauty, cannot adequately express themselves. An 
 artist works over a canvas a long time before he is satisfied 
 that it reveals just what he feels and many a man with the 
 spirit of the artist is not recognized as such because he lacks 
 the ability to put down his aesthetic vision and feelings. A 
 person with a highly developed sense of beauty, but unable 
 to express himself by means of paint and canvas, will experi- 
 ence feelings as deep and satisfying as those of an artist when 
 an object stimulates him to expression. An example of this is 
 when a connoisseur acquires paintings and sculpture which he 
 
 11 
 
knows are expressions of the artists’ true feelings communi- 
 cated to him, and places those objects where eveiy time he 
 sees them he experiences those emotions. He arranges the 
 pictures and sculpture of the different artists in such a way 
 that each individual work contributes its share to the mak- 
 ing of a perfect whole. The result is a wonderful creation, 
 comparable in its unity and loveliness with the separate 
 paintings; in that case the collector is the artist. Art, in 
 addition to being an expression of the imaginative life, may 
 serve to arouse the imaginative life to action, and great results 
 may follow that stimulation. Even scientific facts, which we 
 usually think of as belonging to our actual existence, were 
 first discovered by means of the imagination. This is espe- 
 cially true of the embodiments of scientific discoveries, the 
 aeroplane for instance. Men saw birds Hying easil}^, swiftly 
 and gracefully and they soon began to wonder why men could 
 not Ha . They used their imaginations, in conjunction with 
 actual facts, to work out schemes that would prove practical; 
 after man}^ failures and new trials, the aeroplane became a 
 reality. 
 
 Habit Adapted We know that works of art interest us and 
 to Art stimulate our imagination, but do we know 
 
 just why Nearly everybody is more or less 
 sensitive to the different elements in a picture, the combi- 
 nation of which elements go to the making of a work of 
 art. Very often when a painting pleases us we can account 
 for the pleasurable emotion, but sometimes we do not know 
 why we like it and we are only conscious of the fact that 
 we do like it. If we are not particularly interested, we are 
 satisfied to say that we like a picture or do not like it and 
 then dismiss the subject. Rut if we are sensitive and it 
 stimulates our interest, we want to know' wdiy we like some 
 paintings and do not like others. Often we find that upon 
 close ac(|uaintance the very pictures which at first did not 
 appeal to us contain certain elements that we admire greatl}' 
 and by studying them intelligent!}' and using our imagination 
 we grow' to appreciate their fine (pialities so much that we 
 are scarcel}' conscious of the elements that disturbed us at 
 first. In that way is developed the habit of looking at a 
 picture for what is in it. 
 
 n2 
 
Beauty and Before we go directly to works of art to de- 
 Value Defined termlne just what their emotional values are, 
 it will he well for us to dehne some of the 
 terms that are constantly used in relation to art, hut gener- 
 ally with loose, indefinite meaning. 
 
 “Beauty” and “value” are two such terms. We say 
 beauty is a value, but what do we mean by the expression.^ 
 The most satisfactory way of defining such terms is to find 
 out how they came to exist, where we find them and of what 
 they consist in relation to experience; in other words, to 
 what do they correspond in our lives 
 
 In eveiy-day life, when an object has a value for us, we 
 mean that it satisfies some need of our nature, that it makes 
 life more worth while; in short, it is a satisfaction of an instinct. 
 All our emotions are either directly or indirectly the result of 
 instincts. Instincts exist and we accept them— we do not 
 have to explain them; neither do we have to account for 
 the sense of satisfaction we experience when our instincts 
 are allowed free play; that also we accept. And it is just 
 this sense of satisfaction, this feeling that an object exactly 
 serves its purpose, that gives it a value for us; it need not 
 be a useful purpose, it may only give us a pleasurable emo- 
 tion, but so long as it does what we think it should do, that 
 is, has a meaning for us, it has a value. 
 
 Art and life are inseparably woven together and their 
 values are rooted in the same soil, the instincts. But one 
 quality that distinguishes art values is that we try to express 
 those values or emotions in an object; that is we objectify 
 them. W e embody our feelings in pictures if we are painters, 
 m music if we are musicians; we make the expression permanent 
 so that we have it not only for today and tomorrow hut for 
 future years. In actual life when we experience an emotion 
 our impulse is to act; as when our self-esteem is hurt we have 
 the impulse to fight, ddie difference is that in art the instincts 
 endeavor to create something in the world; in real life they 
 react upon and modify in some way the situation that aroused 
 them. 
 
 Instincts as noted above simply exist and are, by their 
 veiy nature, not to he reasoned about in justification of their 
 existence; we know that they are implanted in every human 
 being and that they must have an outlet, that they cannot 
 be suppressed. If they are denied natural expression they 
 
 13 
 
will find some other means of freeing themselves and whether 
 their expression is good or evil depends upon the channels 
 into which they flow. Frequently the various instincts, 
 instead of working together, conflict with one another, as 
 for instance, if we want to learn stenography, perhaps our 
 ability to learn it is not nearly so great as another person’s 
 and very soon the feeling that we are not as capable as some 
 one else asserts itself and says we cannot do it. fhen unless 
 we make up our minds that we can and will do it, our feeling 
 of inferiority wins the day and we do not do it. Fhe positive 
 self-feeling, or the feeling that we should have the ability to 
 do it has been suppressed, and because of this suppression we 
 become dissatisfied and resentful, and unless we can turn to 
 some other work where the self-esteem is free to express itself 
 we shall never get over that feeling of resentment and it will 
 have a bad effect on our lives. All the troubles in the world, 
 big and little, can be traced to conflicting instincts, and the 
 failure of one of them to secure adequate satisfaction. 
 
 If we admit that instincts are not based on reason, then 
 their emotional manifestation and, in turn, the free expres- 
 sion of that emotion are also non-rational, then art itself is 
 non-rational and we recognize its freedom as one of the values 
 of art. When we say that art is free, that it is not hampered 
 by moral or useful values, we do not mean that those values 
 are never expressed in art; they very often are and add much 
 to our pleasure, but they are not essential art values. 
 
 \ ery often when we look at a work of art we tr\' to 
 make fidelity to nature a standard b\' which we judge of its 
 value, and condemn it if it does not look like a natural object. 
 Hut for an object to be beautiful, to have aesthetic value, it 
 does not have to be true to nature. A portrait by Modigliani 
 has enough resemblance to his model to enable us to under- 
 stand it, but he does not copy nature. In art, fidelity to 
 literal appearance is not one of its prime necessities; it ma\' 
 or may not follow nature — that makes no difference; if the 
 work of art means something to us, gives us a sense of satisfac- 
 tion, it fulfills its mission. Literal copies of nature may in 
 themseh'es arouse pleasure but they are not art, their expres- 
 sion lacks the free, personal feeling of the artist himself. 
 
 Neither do we make moral judgments a criterion of a work 
 of art, since art must be free to follow its bent. Moralin' 
 constantl}' has in mind the evil that is present or that ma}' 
 
 1 1 
 
appear in the future; and its aim is to avoid evil. If morality 
 is made a value of art then the spontaneity and freedom of 
 art are lost. 
 
 “ Rationality, if used as a conscious guide, also impedes 
 art in that the response is not immediate. We experience a 
 great sense of satisfaction in objects that are primarily rational, 
 but they may lack the freedom and spontaneity that charac- 
 terize great art. Rationality in art is a by-product.” 
 
 Art values, then, have the qualities of non-rationality, 
 immediacy and permanency and, since beauty is an art value, 
 it must necessarily share these same qualities of non-rational- 
 ity, immediacy and permanency. Beauty and value mean 
 the same thing to us; an object is beautiful if it has values 
 that satisfy our instinctive longings, both by the way it is 
 presented and the feelings it arouses, and since art must be 
 objectified and made permanent in one form or another a 
 work of art is beautiful insofar as it gathers together its 
 difierent qualities in such a manner that each of them does 
 its utmost toward making the finished object satisfying. 
 
 Form At this point it will be convenient to define accu- 
 Defined lately the term “form” as used in relation to 
 art. “Form” is the unification of many details 
 toward the development of the central idea so that the art 
 object most fittingly represents what the artist wishes to 
 express. The details of a work of art constitute the matter; 
 “form” is achieved when those details are unified. Many 
 people use “form” when they mean shape; others use “form” 
 in the sense of solidity and extension in three dimensions; that 
 is, when a picture is so composed that the objects look as 
 though they are actually solid, when depth is as apparent as 
 length and breadth, when the depicted object gives us the feel- 
 ing that it could be picked up and handled just like a natural 
 object, and when the spaces not only define objects but give 
 us the feeling of actual intervals or extensions, such as we 
 experience in life. 
 
 If the term “form” in the pictorial arts is restricted to solid- 
 ity and extension in three dimensions, then much of the art 
 of the past as well as the present must be regarded as inferior. 
 Because Chinese pictures are essentially flat, do they arouse 
 no aesthetic emotion.^ Shall Pascin’s pictures be condemned 
 because his figures do not have the feeling of solidity.^ 
 
“Porm” cannot be confined to any thing so limited; we have 
 ‘‘forms'’ in infinite variety; in fact, as we have seen, form is 
 the prmciple that unifies. If one picture pleases us more than 
 another it may be only a question of personal preference and 
 not a question as to whether or not the picture has “form.” 
 If we are specially interested in drawing, then a Degas will be 
 eminently satisfying; and nobody will deny that Degas’ 
 drawings have form; that is, that his drawings unify, even 
 though his figures do not have solidity. Modigliani’s “forms” 
 are flat and entirely different from Kisling’s “forms” which 
 seem solid. There is one general rule, however, governing 
 “form” in art, whether it be pictures, sculpture, music, drama, 
 or any of its other branches, and that is that the “form” must 
 be suitable to the material (matter), just as the material must 
 be selected with reference to the “form;” each depends upon 
 the other and no art is possible without their combination; 
 matter without form has no meaning for us, and form with- 
 out matter is too abstract to interest us; in their combina- 
 tion, matter supplies the variety and form the unity, which is 
 necessary in all works of art. An example in real life: We select 
 materials for a dress suitable for the style (pattern) we have 
 in mind and the combination of the materials and pattern 
 creates a satisfactory gown. If we have all the materials but 
 do not use them, they lose interest because they do not mean 
 anything to us as a dress — they are just separate articles and 
 lack unity. On the other hand, if we have a style in our mind 
 and no material with which to make the dress, it is a mere 
 flight of fancy as far as that particular dress is concerned. 
 
 Experience In actual life “form” is “the characteristic 
 
 Defined impression left in the mind by experience” and 
 
 such “forms” are possessed by every human 
 being, d'hey are the ideas we store in our minds of objects 
 or situations after they have become meaningful for us as 
 a result of our experience, our direct contact with them. 
 P.xperience, in the true sense of the word, is not a one-sided 
 activity; it is not only what we do to the situation but also 
 what the situation does to us; circumstances change us as 
 often as we change circumstances and unless we see the rela- 
 tionship and profit by the results, events have no meaning 
 for us. A child trips on a rug and tumbles down the stairs. 
 If he realizes that it was the rug that caused the trouble, 
 
he will avoid that rug in the future; hut if he does not connect 
 the rug with his tumble, the next time he comes down the 
 stairs he is likely to fall again and will probably repeat the 
 performance until he realizes that the rug has something to do 
 with it; then he either removes the rug or uses more care in 
 stepping on it. 
 
 Our forms in ever}'-day life may become mere memories 
 but no matter how faint those memories are, we never lose 
 the emotional feeling with which the experience itself was 
 surrounded; life is so much a matter of feeling that there is an 
 emotional color to all experience, that is to all our forms. 
 
 The Creative An artist is a person who can express his experi- 
 Artist ence (forms) in a suitable material so that they 
 
 will arouse similar feelings in the observer. The 
 expression, however, is not an exact copy of the object that 
 aroused the artist’s emotion; in fact what makes the artist a 
 creator is his ability to rearrange his experiences into new and 
 more meaningful forms — that is, he puts on canvas certain 
 aspects of nature, as he conceives them by the use of his imagi- 
 nation. The artist’s clearer and larger vision is of utmost 
 importance to most of us since, by the objectification of 
 what he feels, he makes it possible for us to see beauties that 
 were previously hidden from us. In the case of a landscape, 
 not only do we enjoy the picture with its wonderful revela- 
 tions and the artist’s own interpretation, but the next time 
 we see a natural landscape we view it with more feeling than 
 we did before, because the artist has pointed the way, has 
 given us a clew. 
 
 Communication We have seen that a work of art is the result 
 to Others of some situation in life that stimulated the 
 
 artist’s feelings sufficiently for his imagi- 
 nation to recast that experience into a new and more mean- 
 ingful form. If his creation reveals to us the broader vision, 
 the deeper insight, the more intense feelings which the experi- 
 ence meant to him, that is explicitly a communication of 
 similar feelings to us. d'hat communication is the function 
 of a work of art if it is of any social value. But if the form of 
 his expression arouses no emotional response in us — that is, it 
 has no meaning for us— it is because we have never had a 
 similar experience or cannot by our own powers imagine the 
 
 17 
 
artist’s experience. In looking at a picture it must be a real 
 experience for us, if it is to be worth while. The picture itself 
 stimulates our senses, but it can do no more than that unless 
 we see a meaning in the “form” which the artist portrays, 
 unless we project into that “form” our own personal feelings. 
 To intelligently approach such work requires on our part a 
 mind not closed to new forms which do not correspond to what 
 we have previously decided are standards in art. 
 
 The Greatest The trouble with a great many of us is that 
 Obstacle to when we once get a form fixed in our minds. 
 
 Appreciation we never want to change it. This inertia is 
 
 a characteristic of human nature. Then when 
 a new form is presented by an artist, it does not corres- 
 pond to the “form” we already have, and instead of trying 
 to comprehend the new form by using our .imagination, we 
 reject it and say that it is not art. This happens constantly 
 when the works of modern artists, music as well as paintings, 
 are presented to the public for the first time. If instead 
 of rejecting the new form, we examine it more closely to hnd 
 what the artist means; if instead of turning away in disdain 
 we use our imagination and try to get the artist’s viewpoint, 
 we may be rewarded by a keener and deeper insight into the 
 joy of life, d'hese fixed forms, which refuse to expand, are 
 accountable for most of the adverse criticism we read in the 
 newspapers and magazines whenever new forms of art appear. 
 Criticism written by persons who should be sensitive to and 
 interested in all phases of the art about which they write, but 
 who have only a very limited knowledge and experience, is 
 sent broadcast and serves to prejudice many readers. I'he 
 articles are not m any sense criticism of art but a statement 
 of what their authors in their ignorance, see and feel. If 
 instead of expressing their personal opinion in reference to 
 objects about which they have no knowledge, they would 
 make the announcement that new forms of art have appeared, 
 and then allow the public to get its own reactions uninfluenced 
 by adverse comments. It would be at least a step in the right 
 direction. 
 
 Artists paint, or write, or compose music because their 
 feelings must have an outlet and will not be denied. For 
 the same reasons, we are drawn to art; it is an Innate desire 
 to live vicariously the ideal life; to remould the world in 
 
 IS 
 
conformity with the heart’s desire. Adverse criticism is pow- 
 erless to stiHe this creative instinct; it acts merely to delay 
 recognition to the creators of new artistic forms and to rob 
 us of joys which if it were not for our natural inertia, we could 
 appreciate b}' our own efforts. 
 
 Characteristics In actual life we do not pay much attention 
 of Aesthetic to our incidental feelings or emotions, he- 
 Feeling cause we are too anxious to accomplish what 
 
 we have set out to do. When trying to cross 
 a street where there is traffic congestion all we think about is 
 getting across. Normally we do not stop to consider whether we 
 are afraid or not. In the imaginative life, where we are not 
 concerned with action and where the emotion is not so keen, we 
 have time to think about our feelings; that is we are conscious 
 of our emotion and we can examine it; find out why we feel as 
 we do. When we are looking at a picture all we have to do is 
 to look at it, take it in and enjoy it, we do not have to act. 
 In this enjoyment the relative deficiency in the intensity of 
 the feelings, as compared with practical life, is made up for 
 by its increased richness and stahilit}\ 
 
 The emotions we feel in actual life almost always have 
 some useful value. If we experience fear, we turn and run; 
 if our curiosity is stimulated, we investigate the cause. Hut 
 the emotions we experience in the imaginative life do not 
 serve any practical purpose; we simply enjoy them and they are 
 all the more enjoyable because they are so free from any 
 restrictions or consequences. In art, then, we appreciate the 
 emotion just for the sake of the emotion itself and this con- 
 stitutes the difference between the aesthetic feeling and the 
 emotions that we meet in the affairs of every-day life. 
 
 What to Look To learn what qualities a w^ork of art must 
 for in a Work possess in order to arouse the aesthetic feel- 
 of Art ing, we will turn to art itself and examine 
 
 it; and to simplify matters, we shall confine 
 ourselves to pictorial art. 
 
 When we look at a picture, if each element seems to combine 
 with the others to form a harmonious whole, then the picture 
 has unity; and unit}' is the first quality that a picture must 
 possess. In that case the painting satisfies our sense of beauty. 
 If the picture lacks unity, if there are some unrelated details, 
 
 19 
 
we have a feeling that something ought to be done to it to 
 make it more satisfying. Unity may be illustrated in every- 
 day life by a person who is appropriately dressed. Suppose 
 a girl is going for a walk, if she wears a short walking skirt, 
 a sweater, low-heeled shoes and a sports hat, we feel that she 
 is dressed just right for the occasion. But suppose she wears 
 a fancy, elaborate hat instead of a simple sports hat, at once 
 we have a feeling of dissatisfaction; she spoils the unity of 
 the whole by just one detail that clashes with the general 
 effect. 
 
 In the same way a picture does not satisfy us if the draw- 
 ing is not expressive, or the color is not appropriate to the 
 subject, or the figures are scattered over the canvas; it does 
 not hang together; it lacks the quality of harmony. For a 
 picture to possess unity all the difl'erent elements must be 
 so composed, that is, related to each other, that they serve 
 the central idea and form a design which is satisfying. 
 
 d'he next quality which we demand in painting is variety 
 and we must have variety in order to arouse and hold our 
 interest. A painting must have enough difl'erent elements in 
 it to keep our attention; we like the color, the graceful lines, 
 the arrangement of the different objects, etc. 
 
 Design in a picture consists of the harmonious combina- 
 tion of many different elements whose relation to each other 
 impresses the observer with a sense of fitness; the picture is 
 then said to have “plastic unity.’’ These elements are — 
 
 1. Mass — that quality in the object portrayed which 
 seems to give it weight or enable it to resist pressure. 
 
 2. Graceful, flowing lines and the arrangement of the 
 lines and masses in such order and sequence that they give 
 a sense of rhythm. 
 
 3. Spacf — that element in a picture which makes us feel 
 that it is not just a plain surface, but that there are intervals 
 between the different objects, that the}' are not just placed 
 one on top of the other. Space in a picture is nothing in 
 itself; that is, it is not like an object that can be actually 
 depicted, but the illusion of space can be so contrived that 
 it orders the objects in relation to one another. 
 
 4. Light and Shade — the effect obtained by the contrast 
 of light against dark. 
 
 5. Color— which functions in itself and in relation to light 
 and shade. 
 
 20 
 
Why These All ot these attributes which stir us in art are 
 Attributes connected with the necessary conditions of our 
 
 Move Us actual life. Mass is a physical necessity of the 
 real world; we have a feeling of being able to 
 resist pressure if we get in a crowd; a house stands firmly on 
 its foundations and resists rain and wind and will not fall 
 down. Rhythmical movements are a part of all physical 
 activities: It gives us a thrill to see eight men in a boat all 
 pulling together in perfect time; we admire a person who 
 walks gracefully; we like the graceful, rhythmical movements 
 of dancing. Space is something we make use of almost every 
 minute of our lives: Ever}" time we take a step we uncon- 
 sciously judge the distance for each step; if the girls in a 
 factory are using a corking machine they know just how 
 far they have to move the bottles in order to get them in the 
 right position; if we are on a high elevation we judge of the 
 distance between us and all of the objects within our line of 
 vision. Light and shade and also colors are so much a part 
 of our physical life that we can hardly imagine what life 
 would be without them; they define objects for us, they make 
 the different objects stand out and help us to get a much 
 more definite image of them; they bring out contrasts between 
 different objects and in different parts of the same object. 
 
 Color Color, apart from its quality of defining objects for 
 us, has a decided emotional value in the pictorial arts. 
 Color, in itself, is a purel}^ sensuous element, but it readily be- 
 comes an element of beauty because it is so much a part of 
 the objects which we look upon as independent of ourselves 
 and our visual conception of those objects is so spontaneous 
 and easy. We never get the clear, definite, easy image of an 
 external object through the other senses (taste, touch, smell, 
 hearing) as we do through sight, and just because our visual con- 
 ceptions are so easy, and because it is from our conception of 
 external objects that we obtain our aesthetic emotions, it is 
 evident that most of the beaut}' we perceive comes through 
 sight. That color is deeply involv"ed here is clearly obvious. 
 
 W e have individual color stimulations just as we have other 
 individual sense stimulations. Just as high and low sounds have 
 their different feeling-tones and sweet or spicy smells have 
 their different feeling-tones, so too do the different colors 
 have their individual feeling-tones; some colors please, others 
 
 21 
 
repel. Perhaps in the near future color sensation will be devel- 
 oped in ordinaiy people just as sound has been developed into 
 music; the color organ is a step in that direction. So far that 
 development has not had much meaning for us; hut as soon as 
 we learn to discriminate between the feeling-tones of different 
 color sensations and ally those sensations with similar sensa- 
 tions we experience in other fields, then colors by their combina- 
 tion acquire form and meaning. In looking at paintings by 
 Giorgione, Rubens, and Renoir a connoisseur can experience 
 forms by his sensitivity to color and his power to abstract it 
 from all other elements of the painting. 
 
 That colors do have a meaning for some people may be 
 illustrated by the case of a person who is in constant contact 
 with modern colorful pictures. The brilliant colors become 
 so much a part of the pictures themselves, they express so 
 much of joy and delight, they intensif}^ the emotion so much, 
 that he will look for and expect color in all works of art. He will 
 enjoy that distinctive quality, closely akin to color, which enters 
 into certain forms of music, literature and drama. That color 
 meant more to Renoir than a mere appeal to the senses, is shown 
 by his use of it as a unifying and structural element m realizing 
 a great variety of harmonious, plastic forms. 
 
 Emotional and 
 Sensuous Elements 
 Inseparably Inter- 
 woven 
 
 It appears then that the emotional ele- 
 ments of art are so closely interwoven 
 with the elements of our physical exist- 
 ence, that we cannot point to one ele- 
 ment and say this is sensuous, and to 
 another and say this is emotional; each element is both 
 emotional and sensuous, and it cannot he otherwise because 
 we must have the sensuous elements in order to express what 
 moves us emotionally, that is aesthetically. It must he em- 
 bodied in what we perceive, that is, in the sensuous elements. 
 An aesthetic emotion divorced from its object is a contradic- 
 tion in terms. 
 
 In art the emotion is different from the pleasure of the 
 senses alone, in that it is free, not restrained by the necessity 
 for action; it is ideal, not hampered h}^ material things; it 
 is eminently satisfying. And we often feel that this imagina- 
 tive life is after all our real life and that the physical life 
 is something that we must tolerate in order to enjoy that 
 of the imagination. 
 
 a 
 
Personality the After goln^ over all the different elements 
 Essence of Art that unite to make a work of art, one might 
 Expression say that nature fulfills all these conditions. 
 
 d'hat is true, d'he appreciation of nature, 
 however, lacks an element which seems essential to the aesthetic 
 experience which art gives us. In a work of art an object is 
 recreated in a new^ medium, d'his recreation proclaims the 
 triumph of our human consciousness in bending to its pur- 
 poses an alien and not wdiolly tractable stuff or matter. Our 
 enjoyment of a work of art is in part, at least, a delight in 
 this conquest. Fhe beauty of nature involves no such con- 
 quest and our appreciation of it is therefore necessarily lack- 
 ing in an essential element of art experience. 
 
 Fhe human artist uses all his capacity to express what he 
 feels; he has a purpose in his work insofar as he tries to put on 
 canvas the feelings which certain objects or situations stimulate. 
 Nature is limited; she has neither the power nor the human 
 capacity to make a landscape different from what it happens to 
 be. A painter can often improve on the parts of nature which 
 are not beautiful. A natural landscape may lack satisfying 
 design and the artist when he paints can correct that fault. "Fhe 
 result may not look like a natural landscape w hen he has finished, 
 but it will probably he more beautiful. Whether the artist 
 copies nature or not is not significant; if he can follow nature 
 and still put into his picture his own feelings, his own person- 
 ality, it IS a great picture; hut if in order to express his feel- 
 ings it is necessary for him to distort natural objects, his 
 creation is nevertheless a work of art and he is justified in what 
 he does. 
 
 All people have the possibilities of becoming artists who 
 can take any material whatsoever and by bending it to their 
 will evolve an object that will stimulate pleasurable emotions. 
 If a man can take the every-day things of life and change 
 them in such a way that they give an added pleasure, make 
 life more livable, he is in some degree an artist. It is 
 the development of sensitivity to this recasting that is the 
 approach to art. 
 
 Conclusions Art and life are one and the same thing, they 
 cannot be separated. Art is not a phase of 
 life that transcends life itself, a thing to be approached 
 only on sacred occasions; art is as much a part of reality 
 
as the imagination is a part of actual existence. Each depends 
 upon the other. 
 
 Art interests us because its subject matter is life and the 
 artist has made it more interesting than reality because he 
 takes the world we live in and shows us certain aspects of it 
 that we would not ourselves perceive. He takes the raw 
 material, the phases of life which are visible to everybody 
 and remoulds them into “forms” which are new and more 
 full of meaning to us. Works of art satisfy us because the 
 values, that is, the qualities of objects or events which appeal 
 to us, are revealed more clearly by the artist; they are intensified 
 because tbe artist sees more deeply into their meaning and 
 presents them to us as he sees and feels them. 
 
 Reality is something that touches our personal interest — 
 politics are not real to us unless we know something about 
 them; war is not real to us until we come in contact with it. 
 Reality is a quality that every work of art must possess — 
 an object that has no relation to human experience is not 
 art. Art must present to the observer an aspect of life that 
 the artist himself has experienced and it must be presented 
 in such a form that it communicates the feelings of that 
 experience to the observer. 
 
 A sense of beauty is so common to human beings that we 
 accept its universality just as we do that of love or hate or 
 fear. Unfortunately, this sense of beauty is not taken seri- 
 ously in the hustle and bustle of every-day life; it is not given 
 the attention and the guidance that it needs and deserves, 
 but is left to get along the best way it can. If it is not ignored 
 it is set aside as something apart from life; something strange, 
 something we come in contact with only occasionally. The 
 practical demands of life are so urgent that they often sup- 
 press this hunger for beauty; or traditional and irrational 
 theories so smother it that it looses the freedom which is so 
 necessary for its growth. If we could only realize that life 
 is fundamentally a matter of feeling, that we look upon feeling 
 as more Important than the events of life and that the human 
 desire to share those feelings is a normal trait of positive 
 social value, our actual world would more nearly approximate 
 the ideal. All human activities, when not merel}' means to 
 an end, constitute the essential material ol art. It is the 
 many diverse manifestations of those activities that give the 
 charm and spirituality to life. Art is simply the revelation 
 
of those activities embodied in perceptible forms capable 
 of communicating the emotional content of the experience 
 to us. 
 
 [In the foregoing discussion the word “emotionaT’ has 
 been used as descriptive of aesthetic feeling, principally to 
 conform to popular terminology. That use of the word is 
 justified to a certain extent, by reason of the probably common 
 origin of both art and pure emotion in the instincts; besides, 
 a certain quality of feeling-tone seems to be inherent in both 
 pure emotion and the aesthetic experience. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that traditional psy- 
 chology has confined the meaning of the word “emotion’’ 
 to the distinctive feelings which accompany the primary 
 instincts, like fear, love, wonder, anger, disgust and similar 
 elementary states. Hence, while we cannot speak of the 
 “aesthetic emotion” in the same sense as we correctly say the 
 “emotion of fear,” there seems to be sufficient justification 
 to employ the word “emotional” as indicative of a certain 
 quality which makes aesthetic feeling something distinctive 
 in itself, and yet distinct from pure emotion. It is in that 
 relation only that art may be termed an “expression of 
 emotion,” or aesthetic experience spoken of as “emotional 
 feeling.”] 
 
REPRODUCTIONS 
 
 The accompanying reproductions illustrate plastic form 
 in a few of its many diverse manifestations. In each work 
 represented the artist has rearranged, into new and emotion- 
 ally-moving forms, an experience which he himself has had in 
 life. In looking at these particular works of art, a trained 
 observer will participate in the feelings which the artist experi- 
 enced; and he will recognize in the work the artist’s knowl- 
 edge of the great traditions of his calling and a high degree 
 of technical skill. To appraise works of art according to any 
 standards short of a wide and genuine experience of life and 
 a knowledge of the principles of human nature which form 
 the basis of art, is not an art judgment, but an expression of 
 prejudice. And art, like life, is too complex to be measured 
 by the measuring-stick of our prejudices. 
 
 It is because the people of any age naturally prefer those 
 art forms to which they have grown accustomed, that an 
 artist of genius who recreates his experience into new forms, 
 invariably suffers contumely, derision and neglect, at first. 
 In the latter part of the last centur\^ Renoir, Cezanne, Sisley 
 and Monet were denounced by critics and the public as char- 
 latans and adventurers; today each of those artists is repre- 
 sented by numerous examples in the Louvre. The present- 
 day painters who imitate those formerly-derided masters 
 receive the prizes at exhibitions and are acclaimed as great 
 by the public; in other words, the art creations of a generation 
 ago have become the accepted standards of our art judg- 
 ments of today. But those contemporary artists whose work 
 we do not understand because they express their experience 
 in new forms are denounced quite as vehemently as were 
 Renoir and Cezanne, less than forty years ago. That injus- 
 tice serves chiefly to rob ourselves of the pleasures that would 
 come could we but grasp the meaning of the artists’ revela- 
 tions. Upon this point let us read what was written by 
 a man whom a great American writer has designated as 
 “undoubtedly the most civilized Englishman living today:” 
 
 “How slowly and painfully the function of aesthetics 
 works every one must know by observing the aesthetic judg- 
 
 27 
 
ments of other people, if not by recalling his own experiences. 
 I know in my own experience how hardly and subconsciously 
 this process works. In the matter of pictures, for instance, 
 I have found throughout life, from Rubens in adolescence 
 to Cezanne in recent years, that a revelation of the beauty 
 of a painter’s work which, on the surface, is alien or repul- 
 sive to one’s sensibility, came only after years of contempla- 
 tion, and then most often b}" a sudden revelation, in a dash, 
 by a direct intuition of the beauty of some particular picture 
 which henceforth became the clue to all the painter’s work. 
 
 “Schopenhauer long ago pointed out that a picture should 
 be looked at as a royal personage is approached, in silence, 
 until the moment it pleases to speak to you, for, if you speak 
 hist (and how many critics one knows wdio ‘speak hrst!’), 
 }^ou expose yourself to hear nothing but the sound of your 
 own voice. In other words, it is a spontaneous and ‘mystical’ 
 experience.” (Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life.) 
 
CEZAXXK 
 
 Portrait of Mme. Cezanne 
 
 ^ 2 ‘) 
 
<* 
 
 > 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 ? 
 
 1 ' 
 
 ■ I 
 
 RENOIR 
 
 Bathers 
 
 no 
 
CEZANxXE 
 
 Landscape 
 
 31 
 
CEZANNE 
 
 Elowers 
 
 33 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 RENOIR 
 
 Marchand des Pomnies 
 
CEZANNE 
 Still Life 
 
 S3 
 
30 
 
CEZANNE 
 
 Portrait 
 
 87 
 
RENOIR 
 Mother and Child 
 
•W w- 
 
 
 DEGAS 
 Ballet Dancers 
 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 MANET 
 Tarring Boat 
 
 K) 
 
 ■ S 
 
 
SISLEY 
 
 Landscape 
 
 II 
 
VAN GOGH 
 Smoker 
 
 42 
 
I 
 
 i 
 
 * 
 
 
 VAN GOGH 
 Landscape 
 
 43 
 
DAUMIER 
 The W ater-Carrier 
 
 44 
 
MONET 
 
 Woman Embroidering 
 
 45 
 
 
DAUMIER 
 The Water-Carrier 
 
 44 
 
 • 
 
 4 
 
 
 

 MONKT 
 
 Woman Kmbroidering 
 
 i 
 
 i‘ 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 
i 
 
 MATISSE 
 Joy of Life 
 
 40 
 
PICASSO 
 Compos! tion 
 
MATISSK 
 
 Nude 
 
 48 
 
 1 
 
PICASSO 
 
 Baby 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 49 
 
 
! 
 
 f 
 
 f 
 
PICASSO 
 Still Life 
 
 51 
 
ROUSSKAU (Le Oouanier) 
 I'igure in Leindscaj^c 
 
 
5.‘i 
 
 UNKNOWN -FRENCH 
 
 Date about 1840 
 
UTRILLO 
 
 Landscape 
 
 
GLACKENS 
 Pony Ballet 
 
 55 
 
ROUAULT 
 
 Bust 
 
 57 
 
1 
 
59 
 
 
MAURICE FRENI )ERGAST 
 Landscape 
 
 0 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 CO 
 
AFRICAN SCULPTURE 
 Before 10th Century 
 
 G1 
 
AFRICAN SCULPTURE 
 About 7th Century 
 
SOUTINE 
 
 Figure 
 
 G3 
 
SOUTINE 
 
 Landscape 
 
PASCIN 
 
 Figure 
 
 C5 
 
PASCIN 
 
 Landscape 
 
 
 
 
dp:muth 
 
 Factory Tops 
 
 C7 
 

 CHARLES FRENDERGAST 
 Carved Panel 
 
 08 
 
KISLING 
 
 Nude 
 
 Cl) 
 

; MODIGLIANI 
 
 , La Jolie Menagere 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 71 
 
MODIG 
 
 Figure 
 
 ■ M 
 - I 
 
LOTI RON 
 Harvesters 
 
 73 
 
LAWSON 
 
 Landscape 
 
DE CHIRICO 
 Fantasy 
 
 75 
 
MARCOUSSIS 
 Still Life 
 
 70 
 
HALICHA 
 Still Life 
 
 77 
 
SEGONZAC V, 
 
 Landscape -'i 
 
 78 
 
 I 
 

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