"nobility of sentiment," and Mr. Roger Fry of
"planes" and "relations," both are about the same business.

Only a fool could suppose that the ancients were less sensitive to art
than we are. Since they were capable of producing great art it seems
silly to pretend that they were incapable of appreciating it. We need
not be dismayed by the stories of Apelles and Polygnotus with their
plums and sparrows. These are merely the instruments of criticism:
by such crude means did ancient critics excite the public and try to
express their own subtle feelings. If anyone seriously believes that the
Athenians admired the great figures on the Parthenon for their fidelity
to Nature I would invite him to take into consideration the fact that
they are not faithful at all. More probably a sensitive Athenian admired
them for much the same reasons as we admire them. He felt much what we
feel: only, he expressed his admiration and thus provoked the admiration
of others, by calling these grand, distorted, or "idealized" figures
"lifelike." Reading the incomparable Vasari, one is not more struck by
his sensibility and enthusiasm than by the improbability of his having
liked the pictures he did like for the childish reasons he is apt to
allege. Could anyone be moved by the verisimilitude of Uccello? I forget
whether that is what Vasari commends: what I am sure of is that he was
moved by the same beauties that move us.

The fact is, it matters hardly at all what words the critic employs
provided they have the power of infecting his audience with his genuine
enthusiasm for an authentic work of art. No one can state in words just
what he feels about a work of art--especially about a work of visual
art. He may exclaim; indeed, if he be a critic he should exclaim, for
that is how he arrests the public. He may go on to seek some rough
equivalent in words for his excited feelings. But whatever he may say
will amount to little more than steam let off. He cannot describe his
feelings; he can only make it clear that he has them. That is why
analytical criticism of painting and music is always beside the mark:
neither, I think, is analytical criticism of literary art much more
profitable. With literature that is not pure art the case is different,
facts and ideas being, of course, the analyst's natural prey. But before
a work of art the critic can do little more than jump for joy. And that
is all he need do if, like Cherubino, he is "good at jumping." T