Studio: international art (52.1911)

The Lay Figure

THE LAY FIGURE: ON THE
SKETCHES OF THE MASTERS.
" What an immense amount of enjoy-
ment must be missed by people who are wanting
in imagination," said the Art Critic. "The world
must be a dull and depressing place to the common-
place person whose limitations force him to take
things just as they are."

" I am not so sure about that," returned the
Man with the Red Tie. " You know the saying
that little things please little minds ; it sums up
well enough the general mental attitude. I think
it is quite possible that the common-place person
gets as much fun out of trifles as superior beings
like you and me get out of the things which really
exercise the mind."

" I do not claim to be a superior being," laughed
the Critic, " but still, I am thankful that my
imagination has not remained quite dormant. It
is only the imaginative man, I am certain, who can
enjoy the full flavour of art and feel the true
Eesthetic emotion."

"You mean that art gives pleasure by making
an appeal to the mind even more than to the eye,"
replied the Man with the Red Tie. "You are
right in that. A work of art that is obvious, a
mere record of fact, may attract you for the
moment by its subject or by its reality, it may
even impress you by some unusual cleverness of
execution, and yet in the long run it will weary you
by its want of suggestion."

"Yes, and by its repeated assertion of facts that
you know already," agreed the Critic. " The real
aesthetic emotion is excited by work in which you
can find new meanings every time you look at it,
by work which does not always stir your feelings in
the same way, but varies in suggestion according to
the variations in your own mood. That is why a
good sketch is so fascinating—it is always making
a fresh appeal to you."

" How can a sketch appeal to you at all ? " broke
in the Plain Man. "A sketch is merely a rough
note very hurriedly and carelessly done, which is
usually of no use to anyone but the man who
made it. The only emotion it excites in me is
irritation at its incompleteness."

" But its incompleteness is its charm," cried the
Man with the Red Tie. "It is just that which
stimulates your imagination and incites you to
study its shades of meaning. There is an elusive-
ness about it which sets you thinking."

" I deny that a sketch is incomplete " said the
Critic. " If it is a true sketch it is a perfect sug-

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gestion of the artist's idea, and if you have imagi-
nation you can follow that idea into its uttermost
refinements. It offers you all the delights of dis-
covery, of tracing out step by step all the fascinating
subtleties of the artist's intelligence and of appre-
ciating in their full degree all the intimacies of his
observation."

" It offers you nothing but a scrawl made by a
man who did not know what he wanted to do,"
scoffed the Plain Man. "You cranks are always
finding beauties in things that have not got any,
and I am sure no one would be more surprised at
your discoveries than the artist himself. I always
wonder that he does not resent the way in which
you try to make a fool of him by praising him for
things he never intended. To do him credit, he is
pretty careful, I will say, not to give himself away;
he does not attempt to show his sketches to any
sensible people."

"The rough sketches of the master are made
for the connoisseur, not for the vulgar crowd,"
quoted the Critic. "The master naturally, being
conscious of his powers, does not care to show
work that he holds precious to anyone who would
misunderstand it."

" The wise man does not cast pearls before
swine," laughed the Man with the Red Tie,
" because he knows that swine, being unimaginative
and unintelligent creatures with gross appetites, are
likely to turn and rend him. He keeps his pearls
for those more enlightened beings who can judge
their value."

" And to those who know their value they
are pearls of great price," continued the Critic.
"They are the revelations of the master's mind,
the visible workings of his brain, and by them
is conveyed to the connoisseur—the man who
knows—the full message which that master wishes
to impart. Of course he does not expect them to
be understood by the vulgar crowd, and of course
he does not want to be irritated by the comments
of the ignorant, who are quite incapable of perceiv-
ing his intention. But he has perfect faith in the
ability of the few real thinkers to grasp the full
significance of his work, and he knows that their
powers of imagination will be equal to the demand
that he makes upon them. There is the right kind
of sympathy between him and them. So he does
not hesitate to show them his sketches and to ask
them to read his thoughts."

"You are welcome to the lot: I do not want to
see them," grunted the Plain Man, " I have no use
for that sort of stuff."

The Lay Figure.