Part 7

We are agreed that this is the proper way to represent nature, but the art of the Japanese brings home to us the fact that it is not the only way; and we see from early pictures, such as the “Battle of St. Egidio,” by Paolo Ucello, in the National Gallery, which is extremely like a Japanese picture, that the Early Italian point of view was very similar to that of the Japanese. Then I think we can realise how much the appreciation of a work of art depends upon the accepted convention of the moment; and this may help us to understand the unaccountable neglect which has from time to time overtaken great artists.

Our conventions serve the same end as the simple selection of the Japanese, to give prominence to the thing desired; but it is not easy to decide how far we should be absolutely frank before nature, as we know we ought to be, and how much to depend on conventions. All that we can do is to try and understand the reasons for conventions, we may then be able to use them; and the underlying thing, I think, is that imitation as an end is not enough--there must be some motive or point in the picture to which it is necessary to give prominence; for all art is based on selection.

The student’s greatest difficulty is to find himself; what it is that he really wants to express; and he is naturally more influenced by the present than by the past. His inclination is to think only of the mode of to-day, of the work which surrounds him, rather than to search for general principles. But he should try and arrive at principles, and to that end study also the work of the old artists, who have travelled the whole road; depending on nature for his inspiration, while referring to them for guidance. For we train ourselves to see and understand, by studying the work of the masters, which help us to form our judgment before nature.

I have tried to put before you as fairly and with as little bias as I can, some of the problems we have to consider; but it seems to me, now that I am come to the end, that I am something like the innkeeper who had but one wine in his cellar, which he made do duty for all vintages, only changing the label on the bottle. Like the innkeeper, I have given you the only wine I have, and, after all, the label does not matter; nor does it matter, I think, what kind of label is affixed to our work--whether it is realist, idealist, impressionist, or what not. The important thing is that we do it as well as we can.

THE END

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