International studio (58.1916)

The Romance of a Painter s Mind


feels something stirring, something that must
stir the world. He feels that painting can come
into great influence if it will enrich life with a
decoration which will move men like music. He
feels that it can be given almost organic life and
power, can at least be brought nearer in its ca-
pacities for sensation, to the capacities of life
itself, by employing colours just as nature em-
ploys them, abundantly and unmixed with white.
By studying the attractions and oppositions of
colour with the help of science and music, he be-
lieves that a painter will eventually be able to exert
a great power over the mind and the emotions,

without any resort to literary associations. He is
therefore a progressive painter, seeking eagerly
new mediums of pictorial expression. How can he
bring his wistful soul into co-operation with his
normal and forward-looking mind? How can he
be a dreamer of dreams and yet thoroughly a
modern man with a new art of emotional decora-
tion to suggest for future generations to develope?
Before Tack succeeded in making his own art
musical in a purely unrepresentative and psycho-
sensuous manner he had been painting the visible
effects of rhythm and music, its reflections, its
influence revealed in the eyes of those listening.


THE SOUL’S ADVENTURE

BY AUGUSTUS VINCENT TACK

XXI