IV
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
From the painting by Edward Magnus
IV FELIX MENDELSSOHN
In studying the relations of a number of contemporary artists to the general tendency of their age it is interesting to note how, in spite of the influence exerted upon them all by prevailing conditions and available opportunities, each responds to the occasion in his own way, always maintaining, in the common enterprise, his own particular ideals, tastes, and methods. Despite all the schools and movements in the history of art, each artist remains himself. So it was in the period of romanticism. The romantic tendency was in the air—the tendency to subjectivism, to picturesqueness, to specialized expression, to a richly sensuous embodiment of ideas; but nevertheless, each individual composer approached music from his own standpoint, seized upon those elements in it for which he had a native affinity, and quietly ignored what did not attract him.