IV. THE MOVEMENT

I. THE DEBT TO CEZANNE 199

II. SIMPLIFICATION AND DESIGN 215

III. THE PATHETIC FALLACY 239

V. THE FUTURE

I. SOCIETY AND ART 251

II. ART AND SOCIETY 276

ILLUSTRATIONS

I. WEI FIGURE FRONTISPIECE

II. PERSIAN DISH 3

III. PERUVIAN POT 75

IV. BYZANTINE MOSAIC 121

V. CEZANNE 199

VI. PICASSO 251

I

WHAT IS ART?

I. THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS

II. AESTHETICS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISM

III. THE METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESIS

[Illustration: PERSIAN DISH, ELEVENTH CENTURY (?)
_By permission of Mr. Kevorkian of the Persian Art Gallery_]

I

THE AESTHETIC HYPOTHESIS

It is improbable that more nonsense has been written about aesthetics
than about anything else: the literature of the subject is not large
enough for that. It is certain, however, that about no subject with
which I am acquainted has so little been said that is at all to the
purpose. The explanation is discoverable. He who would elaborate a
plausible theory of aesthetics must possess two qualities--artistic
sensibility and a turn for clear thinking. Without sensibility a man can
have no aesthetic experience, and, obviously, theories not based on
broad and deep aesthetic experience are worthless. Only those for whom
art is a constant source of passionate emotion can possess the data from
which profitable theories may be deduced; but to deduce profitable
theories even from accurate data involves a certain amount of
brain-work, and, unfortunately, robust intellects and delicate
sensibilities are not inseparable. As often as not, the hardest thinkers
have had no aesthetic experience whatever. I have a friend blessed with
an intellect as keen as a drill, who, though he takes an interest in
aesthetics, has never during a life of almost forty years been guilty of
an aesthetic emotion. So, having no faculty for distinguishing a work of
art from a handsaw, he is apt to rear up a pyramid of irrefragable
argument on the hypothesis that a handsaw is a work of art. This defect
robs his perspicuous and subtle reasoning of much