Studio: international art (1.1893)

The Art Critic and the Critical Artist

must hold his sympathies aloof from any in their cynicism ; like a hedgehog, and for the same
particular. reason, he rolled himself up in himself, turning his

Narrow, shrunken sympathies are a very notice- prickles to the world, and many young men whose
able feature of modern art, they are the expression advent has not been hailed with the enthusiasm
of a Nonconformist spirit that has its good and its . which they felt they deserved, have for the con-
bad side. It is the fresh air of individual opinion venience and comfort of it assumed this attitude,
blowing through the close atmosphere of authority, It is, one might say, the hedgehog school. But
it purifies and vitalises, but it is apt to be in- one must feel that this is not art criticism at all. It
tolerant. Each little circle cries, " Within there is is each member of an orchestra listening only to
salvation, without are dogs ;" and the little sects are his own instrument and deriding his brethren. Of
oftentimes very small, " the minister and one other," course no one can ever hear the full music, but
and that other has frequent doubts about the safety that is no reason why we should stop out all
of the minister. Intolerance is the vice of en- sounds save our own. 1 Art is larger than any or all
thusiasm, tolerance the virtue of indifference, of our methods. One must strive to see some-
These little sects rave against each other and the thing beyond our own endeavours, and to remember
world at large, because they believe in
infallibility, even if it is only their own.
Calvin burnt Servetus, and every re-
former would probably burn all who
did not hold with him, if he could only
collect faggots dry enough to kindle.
Unfortunately, the very preaching of his
own independence damages the faggots;
he has gained his claim to an individual
standpoint, but he has lost his power to
coerce others into it.

So the artist who makes good his
claim to an original outlook, makes

good, malgrc lui, his neighbour's claim

likewise; this irritates him and he grows

to hate his seemingly natural friends

more even than his sometime natural

enemies. No doubt Calvin hated Ser-
vetus much more than he did the Pope.
Therefore the critical artist, whether

he formulates his views in art journals

or allows them to trickle orally from

studio to studio, can hardly ever set

himself up as a really fair or impartial '

judge of his brethren; and besides these

abstract reasons there are, of course,

personal factors that come to bear,

friendships and rivalries, and that ulti-
mate knowledge which sometimes acts

so prejudicially to our fairness; then

there is the pose of camaraderie and the

pose of exclusiveness, the mutual admi-
ration societies, and the admiration

societies each composed of one member.
A certain man of genius to whom the

world had long delayed recognition,

sought to compensate for this neglect by
a self-admiration, and a general scorn of

others, that were both equally startling in from a water-colour sketch by wilfrid ball

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