[42] Ibid., p. 61.
[43] The Fallacy of Modern Music, p. 10.
[44] A Protest against the Modern Development of Unmusical Tone, by Thomas C. Lewis.
[The Fine Arts.—1. The Artists.]
Turning, now, to Painting and Sculpture, what is it precisely that we see?
In this branch of Art, chaos and anarchy are scarcely the words to use. The condition is rather one of complete and hopeless dissolution. There is neither a direction, a goal, nor a purpose. Slavish realism side by side with crude conventions, incompetence side by side with wasted talent, coloured photography side by side with deliberate eccentricity, and scientific principles applied to things that do not matter in the least: these are a few of the features which are noticeable at a first glance. Going a little deeper, we find that the whole concept of what Art really is seems to be totally lacking in the work of modern painters and sculptors, and, if we were forced to formulate a Broad definition for the painting and sculpture of our time, we should find ourselves compelled to say that they are no more than a field in which more or less interesting people manifest their more or less interesting personalities.
There is nothing in this definition which is likely to offend the modern artist. On the contrary, he would probably approve of it all too hastily. But, in approving of it, he would confess himself utterly ignorant of what Art actually is, and means, and purposes in our midst.
Or to state the case differently: it is not that the modern artist has no notion at all of what Art is; but, that his notion is one which belittles, humiliates and debases Art, root and branch.
To have gazed with understanding at the divine Art of Egypt, to have studied Egyptian realism and Egyptian conventionalism; to have stood doubtfully before Greek sculpture, even of the best period, and to have known how to place it in the order of rank among the art-products of the world; finally, to have learnt to value the Art of the Middle Ages, not so much because of its form, but because of its content: these are experiences which ultimately make one stand aghast before the work of our modern men, and even before the work of some of their predecessors, and to ask oneself into whose hands could Art have passed that she should have fallen so low?