If Mr. Davies had understood the very simple language in which I stated my position, he would have realized that when I say that Paddington Station is not a work of art I mean that Paddington Station does not provoke in me an æsthetic emotion, and that I believe we can have no reason for thinking a thing to be a work of art except that we feel it to be one. Paddington Station did not move me; therefore I had no reason for judging it a work of art, but, of course, I may have looked at the picture stupidly and remained insensitive to the real significance of its forms. If Mr. Davies had understood the very simple language in which I stated my position, he would have realized that, far from making a claim to infallibility in æsthetic judgments, I insisted on the fact that we might all disagree about particular works of art and yet agree about æsthetics. But if Mr. Davies had been able to catch the general drift of my book, he would have understood that whether Paddington Station moves me or whether it leaves me cold is a matter of secondary importance. The point of first importance is whether a person who is moved in the same sort of way by Paddington Station and a Sung bowl and Sta. Sophia and a Persian carpet can find any quality common and peculiar to all save that which I have called Significant Form.
That is the problem. It is not quite so simple as I have had to make it appear. Some day I hope to answer the pertinent questions raised by Mr. Roger Fry and other critics. In my book I have examined my own experience in the hope of inducing my readers to examine theirs. What do they say? Are they really talking nonsense when they speak of "works of art," including under that head pictures, pots, buildings, textiles, etc.? If they are not, what characteristic distinguishes the species? Do they not feel as much emotion for a picture of a round of beef as for a picture of the Crucifixion, and do they feel less for a Sassanian textile? If what they had taken for a jug turns out to be a paper-weight; if, as sometimes happens in a battered fresco, what was said to be the Heavenly host is proved to be a pack of licentious Florentines, do they really have to readjust their æsthetic attitude? If people who are capable of feeling and of analysing their feelings will give me honest answers to these questions, I shall be even more grateful to them than I am to Mr. Davies for his facetious advertisement of my book.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] I wonder what Mr. Davies really said. Any one who cares to know has only to consult the New Statesman for March 7 or 14, 1914. I have not a copy by me. It looks as though there had been a pretty firm offer of some sort: it came to nothing, alas!
PICTURE SHOWS
I
THE LONDON SALON
Athenæum July 1912