Studio: international art (1.1893)

The Art Critic and the Critical Artist

formula, however firm or elastic, for, lo, here comes combine it with the records of race meetings and

a strong man, a genius, and the hempen cords with police-courts. The art specialist is he who, not

which we thought to bind him burst asunder, being so born, is desirous of making himself an art

touched by his fire. critic out of the ordinary material of man, and to

Of course this strong and erratic genius is just that end he frequents the art clubs and coteries,

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH BY WILFRID BALL

as much under the control of immutable laws as, and nourishes himself upon the brains of artists,

let us say, the weather, but, like it, the conditions rendering their frequently bald but weighty

vary so infinitely that it is dangerous to prophesy utterances into subtle and elaborate phrases whose

concerning either ; this the every-day critic knows meaning is oftentimes as obscure as it seems to be

full well and makes his prognostications after the authoritative. I do not object to their method of

event. self-education in art, indeed it seems the only

This ideal critic being so rare, it is hardly worth possible course; my sole sorrow is that it does not

while taking him into consideration except in a go far enough—with so authoritative a voice one

metaphysical, speculative sort of way, as one who feels sometimes there ought to be a little more

sits above us in the silence taking notes. To knowledge.

literature he comes once in a cycle, to art one The artist with a literary taste would seem to fill

might say not at all. For those who set them- the void—that is, if his qualifications are genuine

selves to judge of letters are at least, as a rule, —but he doesn't.

men of letters and know some of the problems of The artist is not necessarily or naturally a critic;
writing, and so can judge somewhat of the writer's-. the critical faculty is analytical, the artistic syn-
failure or success j these are those who are critics"- thetical : the artist constructs, the critic dissects,

not born but made, and to them comes at rare. The artist feels sometimes without knowing, the

intervals one who is born to judge righteous critic knows oftentimes without feeling. The

judgment in things literary—in fact, the ideal artist's cult becomes his creed, he regulates his

critic. ' methods upon certain dogmas. The critic must

But in art it is different, the critics are of two " sit as gods, holding no form of creed, but

kinds—the literary man with an artistic taste and contemplating all." The artist's preoccupation

the artist with a literary taste. The first class is with" his own problems belittles the importance of

very wide, extending from those gentlemen who those which other men are striving to solve, but

make a specialty of art criticism, to those who the more various the methods the more the critic
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