ous appetite for technic leads many an artist to go outside his own
art in search of unforeseen but fascinating difficulties. The painter is
tempted to stretch his muscles by a tussle with the unknown obstacles of
the sculptor; and the sculptor in his turn contends with the limitations
of the painter. Michelangelo called himself a sculptor and pretended to
be no more; but in time he took up the craft of the architect, of the
painter and of the poet. And this interchange of field in search of new
worlds to conquer seems to be characteristic of the great periods of
artistic activity and achievement. In all such periods, the more
accomplished craftsmen have never wearied of technical experiment to the
constant enrichment of the processes of their art.

It is the uncreative critics, it is never the creative craftsmen, who
dwell on the danger of taking too much interest in technic. The critics
may think that the more attention the artist pays to his manner, the
less he has for his matter, and that he is in peril of sacrificing
content to form. But the craftsmen themselves know better; they know
that no one may surely separate manner and matter, form and content,
Siamese twins often, coming into being at a single birth. Furthermore,
the artist knows that technic is the one quality he can control, every
man for himself, every man improving himself as best he can. His native
gift, his temperament,--this is what it is; and what it is it must be;
and no man can better it by any effort. His character, also, the
personality of the artist, that which gives a large meaning to his
work,--how little can any man control this result of heredity and
environment?

If an artist has anything to say it will out, sooner or later, however
absorbed he may be in finding the best way of saying it. If he has
nothing to say, if he has no message for the heart of man, he may at
least give some pleasure to his contemporaries by the sheer dexterity of
his craftsmanship. There would have been no more meaning in Poe's verse,
if there had been less melody, if the poet had less devotedly studied
the "book of iambs and pentameters." There would have been no larger
significance in the painted epigrams of Gerome, if that master of line
had cared less for draftsmanship. There would have been no more solid
value in the often amusing plays of Sardou, if he had not delighted in
the ingenuity of his dramaturgical devices. At bottom, Sardou, Gerome,
and Poe, had l