ce of art. We are, indeed, far behind the great masters of the
Renaissance. The technicalities of art have recently made great
progress; thousands of people gifted with a certain amount of talent
cultivate every branch, but art seems to fly from civilization!
Technicalities make headway, but inspiration frequents artists' studios
less than ever.

Where, indeed, should it come from? Only a grand idea can inspire art.
_Art_ is in our ideal synonymous with creation, it must look ahead; but
save a few rare, very rare exceptions, the professional artist remains
too philistine to perceive new horizons.

Moreover, this inspiration cannot come from books; it must be drawn from
life, and present society cannot arouse it.

Raphael and Murillo painted at a time when the search of a new ideal
could be pursued while retaining the old religious traditions. They
painted to decorate churches which themselves represented the pious work
of several generations of a given city. The basilic with its mysterious
aspect, its grandeur, was connected with the life itself of the city,
and could inspire a painter. He worked for a popular monument; he spoke
to his fellow-citizens, and in return he received inspiration; he
appealed to the multitude in the same way as did the nave, the pillars,
the stained windows, the statues, and the carved doors. Nowadays the
greatest honour a painter can aspire to is to see his canvas, framed in
gilded wood, hung in a museum, a sort of old curiosity shop, where you
see, as in the Prado, Murillo's Ascension next to a beggar of Velasquez
and the dogs of Philip II. Poor Velasquez and poor Murillo! Poor Greek
statues which _lived_ in the Acropolis of their cities, and are now
stifled beneath the red cloth hangings of the Louvre!

When a Greek sculptor chiseled his marble he endeavored to express the
spirit and heart of the city. All its passions, all its traditions of
glory, were to live again in the work. But to-day the _united_ city has
ceased to exist; there is no more communion of ideas. The town is a
chance agglomeration of people who do not know one another, who have no
common interest, save that of enriching themselves at the expense of one
another. The fatherland does not exist.... What fatherland can the
international banker and the rag-picker have in common? Only when
cities, territories, nations, or groups of nations, will have renewed
their harmonious life, will art be able to draw its inspiration from