Introduction

T HE world is full of beauty which many people hurry past or live in front of and do not see. There is also a world of beauty in pictures, but it escapes the notice of many, because, while they wish to see it, they do not know how.

The first necessity for the proper seeing of a picture is to try and see it through the eyes of the artist who painted it. This is not a usual method. Generally people look only through their own eyes, and like or dislike a picture according as it does or does not suit their particular fancy. These people will tell you: "Oh! I don't know anything about painting, but I know what I like"; which is their way of saying: "If I don't like it right off, I don't care to be bothered to like it at all."

Such an attitude of mind cuts one off from growth and development, for it is as much as to say: "I am very well satisfied with myself, and quite indifferent to the experiences and feelings of other men." Yet it is just this experience and feeling of another man which a picture gives us. If you consider a moment you will understand why. The world itself is a vast panorama, and from it the painter selects his subject: not to copy it exactly, since it would be impossible for him to do this, even if he tried. How could he represent, for example, each blade of grass, each leaf upon a tree? So what he does is to represent the subject as he sees it, as it appeals to his sympathy or interest; and if twelve artists painted the same landscape, the result would be twelve different pictures, differing according to the way in which each man had been impressed by the scene; in fact, according to his separate point of view or separate way of seeing it, influenced by his individual experience and feeling.

It is most important to realize the part which is played by these two qualities of experience and feeling. Experience, the fullness or the deficiency of it, must affect the work of every one of us, no matter what our occupation may be. And if the work is of a kind which appeals to the feelings of others, as in the case of the preacher, the writer, the actor, the painter, sculptor, architect or art-craftsman, the musician or the dancer, it must be affected equally by the individual's capacity of feeling and by his power of expressing what he feels.

Therefore, since none of us can include in ourselves the whole range of possible experience and feeling, it is through the experience and the feeling of others that we deepen and refine our own. It is this that we should look to pictures to accomplish, which, as you will acknowledge, is a very different thing from offhand like or dislike. For example, we may not be attracted at first, but we reason with ourselves: "No doubt this picture meant a good deal to the man who painted it; it embodies his experience of the world and his feeling toward the subject. It represents, in fact, a revelation of the man himself; and, if it is true that 'the noblest study of mankind is man,' then possibly in the study of this man, as revealed in his work, there may be interest for me."

I am far from wishing you to suppose that all pictures will repay you for such intimate study. We may get inside the man to find that his experience of life is meager, his feeling commonplace and paltry. There are not a few men of this sort in the occupation of art, just as in every other walk of life, and their pictures, so far as we ourselves are concerned, will be disappointing. But among the pictures which have stood the test of time we shall always find that the fruits of the artist's experience and feeling are of a kind which makes lasting appeal to the needs of the human heart and mind, and that this fact is one of the causes of their being held in so high esteem. There is also another cause.

If only experience and feeling were necessary to make an artist, many of us would be better artists than a considerable number of those who follow the profession of art. But there is another necessity—the power of expressing the experience and feeling. This, by its derivation from the Greek, is the primary meaning of the word "art": the capacity to "fit" a form to an idea. The artist is the "fitter" who gives shape and construction to the tenuous fabric of his imagination; and this method of "fitting" is his technic.

So the making of a picture involves two processes: a taking in of the impression and a giving of it out by visible expression; a seeing of the subject with the visual and mental eye, and a communicating of what has been so seen to the visual and mental eyes of others; and both these processes are influenced by the experience and feeling of the artist and make their appeal to our own. And, I think, it should be clear from what we have been saying that the beauty of a picture depends much less upon its subject than upon the artist's conception and treatment of it. A grand subject will not of itself make a grand picture, while a very homely one, by the way in which it has been treated, may impress us profoundly.

The degree of beauty in a picture depends, in fact, upon the feeling for beauty in the artist and upon his power to express it. I have spoken of these two qualifications as if they influenced the picture separately; but, as a matter of fact, conception and technic are blended together in a picture, and as we pursue our study, we shall find ourselves embracing them simultaneously.

But at the outset we must proceed step by step, alternately studying the conception and the technic; and, in order that we may discover how variously, at successive times and in diverse countries, different men have conceived of life and have expressed their feeling and experience in pictures, I propose that we shall study them through a series of comparisons.

Our plan, therefore, will be:

not to decide offhand which we like the better, for in some cases perhaps we may not like either, since they were painted in times so remote from ours as to be outside our habit of understanding; but in order that we may get at the artist's way of seeing in each case, and reach some appreciation of his methods. In this way I hope that we may be able to piece together the story of modern painting; beginning with its rebirth in the thirteenth century, when it emerged from the darkness of the middle ages, and following it through its successive stages in different countries down to our own day.

It will very much increase the usefulness of this method if the student can obtain reproductions of other work by each artist, so as to test, by a particular study of them, the general principles that are being discussed.