The use of line and color freely to produce pure line harmonies and pure color harmonies, with no reference to objects is quite another, and in a sense, a far higher art—a more abstract art.
It is toward the development of this more abstract art that the modern experiments are tending. The net result in the long run will be the education of a considerable fraction of the public to the appreciation of pure line and color music and a consequent demand for paintings that are simply pure line and color compositions.
With this development of a taste for a very abstract art all the arts and crafts are certain to be beneficially affected.
The study of line for the sake of line, and of color for the sake of color if systematically pursued will make all draftsmen greater masters of line, and all painters—to the humblest house painter—greater masters of color.
IX
ESORAGOTO
NEITHER the Cubists nor Kandinsky troubled a very distinguished Japanese expert who spent many days at the exhibition.
“The principles of all this are old, very old, in Japan.”
He was far more interested in the extreme drawings and paintings than in the more academic. Pointing to a drawing that seemed scarce more than a few careless strokes, he said, “That is quite in the spirit of the best Japanese art.”
Of the “King and Queen” he said, “I like that very much,” and so on, passing from one Cubist picture to another, commenting upon each seriously and intelligently.
