by Titian. Yet between others there are common
elements of likeness. Raphael and Titian are distinguished by an
opulence of form and a luxuriance of color which reveal supreme
technical accomplishment in a fertile land under light-impregnated
skies. The rigidity and restraint of Van Eyck and Memling suggest
the tentative early efforts of the art of a sober northern race. To a
thoughtful student of these pictures sooner or later the question
comes, Whence are these likenesses and these differences?

Hitherto I have referred to the creative mind and executive hand as
generically _the artist._ I have thought of him as a type,
representative of all the great class of those who feel and express,
and who by means of their expression communicate their feeling.
Similarly I have spoken of _the work of art,_ as though it were
complete in itself and isolated, sprung full-formed and panoplied
from the brain of its creator, able to win its way and consummate its
destiny alone. The type is conceived intellectually; in actual life the
type resolves itself into individuals. So there are individual artists,
each with his own distinctive gifts and ideals, each with his own
separate experience of life, with his personal and special vision of
the world, and his characteristic manner of expression. Similarly, a
single work of art is not an isolated phenomenon; it is only a part of
the artist's total performance, and to these other works it must be
referred. The kind of work an artist sets himself to do is determined
to some extent by the period into which he was born and the country
in which he lived. The artist himself, heir to the achievements of his
predecessors, is a development, and his work is the product of an
evolution. A work of art, therefore, to be judged aright and truly
appreciated, must be seen in its relation to its background, from
which it detaches itself at the moment of consideration,--the
background of the artist's personality and accomplishment and of the
national life and ideals of his time.

If the layman's interest in art is more than the casual touch-and-go of
a picture here, a concert there, and an entertaining book of an
evening, he is confronted with the important matter of the study of
art as it manifests itself through the ages and in diverse lands. It is
not a question of practicing an art himself, for technical skill lies
outside his province. The study of art in the sense proposed has to
do with the consi