Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 5))

ON THE VANITY OF APPRECIATION.

¶NEARLY EVERY art-worker has occasion to complain about lack
of appreciation. “Genuine appreciation—i. e., the capacity for poetic insight
into another man’s work—amounts almost to genius." And that is the
reason why it is so rarely met with. It is almost nonexistent, and not merely
because we live in a mercenary age in the most mercenary country of the
world. The evil roots deeper.
¶ Of whom can the artist expect appreciation ? Of the profession ? Many
artists seem to be of that opinion. They believe that a painting can be
appreciated only by painters, and that it is always the profession that puts
the first stamp of approval on a man’s work. The latter is true, as the
artists—even though a feeling of their own possible superiority may at all
times be rankling in their breasts — can appreciate the technical accomplish-
ments, which always remain a terra incognita to the laymen. But the
painter, as a rule, is taken up so much by his own work, and narrowed to
his own school and line of thought, that he finds it extremely difficult to
contemplate another man’s work with absolute liberality and impartiality.
The more individual he is, the less can he escape his ego , as another man’s
convictions can never mean to him as much as his own.
¶ Equally unreliable is the practice of self-criticism. Of course, we know
whether we have really put our very best into a work or not. But strange, our
latest work always seems the most important to us. And often years have
to elapse before the mist of self-delusion, obscuring our mental vision even
to the beauties of our own creations, is finally dissolved. No, we can not
rely on ourselves, no matter how anxious we may be to gain the just
valuation of our merits we all are craving for. It is, after all, the public
whose approbation we most care for, although we realize at the very start
that it recognizes only the value of precedent, that it is always biased and
absolutely incapable of accurate perception and of the independent estima-
tion of a work of art. It is the everlasting tragedy of the artist that, in
order to keep his genius from starvation, he is forced to beg for every
mite of praise, with doglike servility, from the very public which he
despises beyond expression.
¶ The public finds gratification only in the workmanship as a whole, apart
from any consciousness of the actual skill displayed. And therefore only the
art and poetry which have become an organic part of our life and thought,
the so-called classics, are readily understood. Innovations of any kind are
generally condemned, simply because people are not used to them. The
general public objects to artists who do not conform to the usual and
customary forms. It lacks absolutely the gift of discernment, and will take
no pains to enter into the significance of works which treat new themes, or
old themes in a new and startling manner. It finds unusual action of the
mind painful, and far from ever blaming itself, the public simply declares
that there is nothing in such artists, and either abuses them or treats them
with indifference.

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