They forget that art has never been and cannot be
continuously progressive; that it is only the sciences connected with
art that are capable of progress; and that the "Henriade" is not a
greater poem than the "Divine Comedy" because Voltaire has learned the
falsity of the Ptolemaic astronomy. Finally, these writers, like other
people, desire to seem knowing and clever; and if you appear to admire
vastly what no one else understands you pass for a clever man.
I have looked through a good deal of the writings of these "up-to-date"
critics in the effort to find something like an intelligible argument
or a definite statement of belief. I have found nothing but the
continually repeated assumption that these new movements, in all their
varieties, are "living" and "vital." I can find no grounds stated for
this assumption and can suppose only that what is changing with great
rapidity is conceived to be alive; yet I know nothing more productive of
rapid changes than putrefaction.
Do not be deceived. This is not vital art, it is decadent and corrupt.
True art has always been the expression by the artist of the ideals of
his time and of the world in which he lived--ideals which were his own
because he was a part of that world. A living and healthy art never has
existed and never can exist except through the mutual understanding and
co-operation of the artist and his public.
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