the critic gives it up, mounts a pedestal, waves whole walls, aye
galleries, to oblivion, and with the sumptuousness of a Nero, adopts the
magnificent background, in the light of which for a moment he shines
resplendent, as a gilded setting for his oracles.

CHAPTER XV - THE PICTURE SENSE

"Fortunate is he, who at an early age knows what art is."(18)

Howsoever eloquent may be the artist in his work, it is convincing only in
that degree to which his audience is prepared to understand his language
and comprehend his subject.

"The artist hangs his brains upon the wall," said the veteran salesman of
the National Academy, and there they remain without explanation or
defense. The crowd as it passes, enjoys or jeers, as the ideas of this
mute language are comprehended or confounded. Art requires no apology and
asks none; all she requests is that those who would affect her must know
the principles upon which she works. An age of altruism should be able to
insure to the artist sufficient culture in his audience so that his
language be understood and that his speech be not reckoned as an uncertain
sound. The public should form with him an industrial partnership, not in
the limited sense of giving and taking, but of something founded on
comprehensibility.

What proportion of the visitors to an annual exhibition can intelligently
state the purpose of impressionism, or distinguish between this and tonal
art; what proportion think of art only as it exploits a "subject" or
"tells a story"; how many look at but one class of pictures and have no
interest in the rest; how many go through the catalogue with a prayer-book
fidelity, and know nothing of it all when they come out! How many know
enough to hang the pictures in their own houses so that each picture is
helped and none damaged?

Could it be safely inferred that every collector of pictures knows and
feels to the point of _giving a reason_ for his choice of pictures, or
even _reasonable_ advice to a friend who would also own pictures? Is not
much of what is bought taken on the word of a reliable dealer and owned in
the satisfaction of its being "all right," and perhaps "safe," as an
investment? Is it unreasonable to ask the many sharers in the passing
picture pleasures of a great city to make themselves intelligent in some
other and more practical way than by _contact,_ gleaning only through a
lifetime what should have been theirs without delay _as a foundati