ient and mediaeval works of art has
shown us that certain maxims hold good we need these most of all
in judging the most recent modern productions; for, since personal
relations, love and hatred of individuals, favor or disfavor of the
multitude so easily enter into the valuation of living or recently
deceased artists, we are in all the more need of principles in order
to pass judgment on our contemporaries. The inquiry can be conducted
in two ways: by diminishing the influence of caprice; by bringing the
question before a higher tribunal. The principle can be tested as
well as its application; and even if we should not agree, the point in
dispute can still be definitely and clearly pointed out.

Especially should we wish that the vivifying artist, in whose works
we might perhaps have found something to remember, might test our
judgments carefully in this way; for everyone who deserves this
name is forced in our times to form, as a result of his work and his
reflections, a theory, or at least a certain conception of theoretical
means, by the use of which he gets along tolerably well in a variety
of cases. It will often be noticed, however, that in this way he
sets up as laws such maxims as are in accordance with his talent,
his inclination, and his convenience. He is subject to a fate that is
common to all mankind. How many act in this very way in other fields!
But we are not cultivating ourselves when we merely set in motion with
ease and convenience that which lies in us. Every artist, like every
man, is only an individual, and will always lean to one side. For that
reason, man should pursue so far as possible, both theoretically and
practically, that which is contrary to his nature. Let the easy-going
seek what is serious and severe; let the stern keep before his
eyes the light and agreeable; the strong, loveliness; the amiable,
strength; and everyone will develop his own nature the more, the
farther he seems to remove himself from it. Every art requires the
whole man; the highest possible degree of art requires all mankind.

The practice of the plastic arts is mechanical, and the training of
the artist rightly begins in his earliest youth with the mechanical
side; the rest of his education, on the other hand, is often
neglected, for it ought to be far more careful than the training of
others who have opportunity of deriving advantage from life itself.
Society soon makes a rough person courteous, a business life mak