COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY F. S. CROFTS & CO., INC.

BH39

ть

733465

MANUFACTURED IN THE

UNITED

STATES OF AMERICA BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK,

PREFACE

This is no book for the dogmatist, who asks few questions and distrusts all problems; nor for the system-builder, who twists all things to a scheme of his making. It is an attempt to understand the substance, form, and spirit of art-to move a little closer to art as it is practised and enjoyed, and as a place for it is gained within the interests and tasks of man's life. One volume offers scant room for this. Books have been written on every one of these problems; theories have been woven and slashed through at a stroke; art has gone its own creative way at its own sweet will; time mocks at the too confident systematizer-how then escape a sense of caution born of distrust of anything final?

A text-book it might be called by one who discovers it to be informative and who attends to the headings which throw its march into convenient patterns. But it is not a mechanical toy to be wound up again and again in the classroom and sent on its short whirring way. It is meant for the use of students and for whoever is eager, keen-witted, willing to have the mettle of his mind tested—and persistently inquisitive. No student need read it who is not venturesome and adventure-loving in his thinking. No teacher ought to use it who lacks interest in thought-processes, and who is unwilling to assist in his own education-by uncovering the work that lies hidden in short chapters and occasional references, making the most of hints and drawing parallels, cutting more deeply into problems, and making the freest use of opportunities for thought. It has the welcome of open doors and open windows; if any one, thoughtfully responsive to the welcome, finds that he must walk out

790965

again, I shall not object. I should be endangering my own intellectual life if I held that any book could be final.

The method used is the empirical one of observing and grouping facts and pushing on to general theories. This is not an easy method for aesthetics. There the facts are complex and delicate; the problems are not of a kind—some are compact and sharply limited, others spread like ink on a blotter; and general theories are apt to be incautious and personally colored.

Where firsthand experience is lacking, and there is an insensitiveness to artistic value it is useless to write. The spirit of an art must be caught from within. It is for this reason that I have given the writing of the chapter on MUSIC to PAUL KRUMMEICH, who as a practising musician lives and breathes music, and who combines a compelling curiosity with a sensitive and disciplined taste. His theories are his own; they are part of a book on music he is planning. Little attempt has been made to edit them or to fit them to mine.

In what I have written I have aimed at thought tested and controlled by a personal response to works of art. The examples cited are many. Sketchy and superficial as they seem when glanced at, they were not lightly chosen. In all cases they mean something to me an experience, an honest response, a pleasure. If I have drawn widely on art that is very old and art that is very new, and to some very questionable, it is not because I look for my pleasure shamelessly and take it where I find it, but because I do not consider it honest or a matter of pride to reject in favor of traditional values anything that takes hold and maintains itself as an experience. To the Barnes Foundation I owe a debt of gratitude for the opportunity given me to see and study many of the newer masters. They have swept into and widened my appreciation of painting, but in no sense have they made me unfit to enjoy the old.

mere names.

An intelligent reading of this book is possible only if the reader does not allow the names I have mentioned to remain He must be willing to expose himself to my examples, to judge whether they are aptly chosen, and to bring to bear on any theories offered whatever direct acquaintance with works of art he may possess.

I regret the absence of pictures. A few would have been of little use; a great many would have made the volume too bulky.

It is my belief that art is a living experience—a great creative venture on the part of races and individuals; and that a study of either the creative effort or the receptive response must have about it something of a like life and enthusiasm. Scholarship need not be drab, and enthusiasm is bad only when it is ill-considered and uncritical. I have not hesitated to put into what I have written warmth and personal rhythm when I felt them to be needed. The picturesque and striking phrases I have at times used are not adventitious ornament-gold topped nails driven at random into the wooden body of aesthetic doctrine-; they carry the enthusiasm and bring home the analysis. This way of writing on aesthetics-the only way possible to me—makes a cursory reading dangerous. The manner is not mere rhetoric; and the matter, seriously chosen and analyzed, may be had at the price of further study.

The lesser part of my thanks goes to those of my students who innocently and unwittingly helped precipitate my thought; the larger, to those who actively and thoughtfully furthered it. I have grown with the writing, and with the criticism friends have offered. In the last and irksome stages of preparing the book for the press, Dorothy Bartlett has been ready with suggestions of value; part of the work on the index is hers; and she has helped keep the devil from the printed page.

The Greek coin on the cover is meant to show how artis

tic feeling and decorative reshaping entered what to a less art-loving race would be merely a matter of commerce.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use copyright material to Harcourt, Brace & Company for Sandburg's "Seaslant" from Slabs of the Sunburnt West and his "For Christ's Sake" from A Miscellany of American Poetry, 1920; to Henry Holt & Co. for Sandburg's "Gargoyle" and "Prayers of Steel" from Cornhuskers and a few lines from Chicago Poems; to the Nation for parts of Helton's "May Jones Takes the Air" and Rorty's "Prelude," two of its Prize Poems; to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for material from Goldenweiser's Early Civilization; to the Dial Publishing Company for Waldo Frank's "Under the Dome"; and to Frederick A. Stokes Company for a portion of one of Hilda Conkling's poems.

L. W. F.