Without guidance some of
them have hewed a path to deserved success. Others have wandered into
strange byways and no-thoroughfares.
The nineteenth century is strewn with the wrecks of such misunderstood
and misunderstanding artists, but it was about the sixties when their
searching for a way began to lead them in certain clearly marked
directions. There are three paths, in especial, which have been followed
since then by adventurous spirits: the paths of aestheticism, of
scientific naturalism, and of pure self-expression; the paths of
Whistler, of Monet, and of Cezanne.
Whistler was an artist of refined and delicate talent with great
weaknesses both in temperament and training; being also a very clever
man and a brilliant controversialist, he proceeded to erect a theory
which should prove his weaknesses to be so many virtues, and he nearly
succeeded in convincing the world of its validity. Finding the
representation of nature very difficult, he decided that art should not
concern itself with representation but only with the creation of
"arrangements" and "symphonies." Having no interest in the subject of
pictures, he proclaimed that pictures should have no subjects and that
any interest in the subject is vulgar. As he was a cosmopolitan with no
local ties, he maintained that art had never been national; and as he
was out of sympathy with his time, he taught that "art happens" and that
"there never was an artistic period.
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