“Every work of art is the child of its own times.”
A man may so steep himself in history and tradition that all he does is reminiscent of the past, but such work marks no progress and such men are negligible factors in the advancement of mankind.
It is the man who yields himself to his times, who absorbs all there is of good in the life about him, who sees everything, feels everything, who mingles with his respect for the achievements of the past a mighty admiration for the triumphs of the present—such a man is a leader among his fellows; brilliant thinker, daring adventurer, he blazes the way for the timid to follow.
If we were Greeks of the fifth century we would carve the marbles they did. If we were Romans under the Caesars we would build the buildings they built. If we were Christians of the middle ages we would rear cathedrals. If we were English, French, German, Chinese, or Japanese, we would do the things they do, like the things they like. But we are none of these peoples; we are Americans living in an age of steam and electricity, of automobiles and aeroplanes, in an age of kaleidoscopic changes, of marvelous and startling developments.
What must happen in painting, music, sculpture?
Exactly what has happened in architecture.
Painting, music, sculpture that will go with our mighty steel buildings, with our factories and railroads.
Painting, music, sculpture varied in form, as old and as new as the brain of man can conceive, but always and essentially our own. That is the secret, it must be characteristic of our age—our own.
This is not a placid age.