y, if no one was aware of the existence of
art except the artist, those who were not artists began to imitate it.
If no one prized art, why should sham art have come into existence?
According to him it was the sham that made men aware of the true; yet
the sham could not exist until men were aware of the true. But the
account he gives of the decadence of art is historically untrue as well
as unintelligible. We know little of the primitive artist; but we have
no proof that he was utterly different from other men, or that they did
not enjoy his activities. If they had not enjoyed them they would
probably have killed him. The primitive artist survived, no doubt,
because he was an artist in his leisure; and all we know of more
primitive art goes to prove that it was, and is, practised not by a
special class but by the ordinary primitive man in his leisure. Peasant
art is produced by peasants, not by lonely artists. Some, of course,
have more gift for it than others, but all enjoy it, though they do not
call it art. Whistler saw himself in every primitive artist; and seeing
himself as a dreamer apart misunderstood by the common herd, he saw the
primitive artist as one living in a primitive White House, and
producing primitive nocturnes for his own amusement, unnoticed, happily,
by primitive critics.

But his view, though refuted both by history and by common sense, is
still held by many artists and amateurs. They themselves make much of
art, but do not see that their theory makes little of it, makes it a
mere caprice of the human mind, like the collecting of postage stamps.
If art has any value or importance for mankind, it is because it is a
social activity. If no one but an artist can enjoy art, it seems to
follow that no art can be completely enjoyed except by him who has
produced it; for in relation to that art he alone is an artist. All
other artists, even, are the public; and, according to Whistler, the
public has nothing to do with art; it flourishes best when they are not
aware of its existence. He is very contemptuous of taste. All judgment
of art must be based on expert knowledge, for art, he says, "is based
upon laws as rigid and defined as those of the known sciences." Yet
whereas "no polished member of society is at all affected by admitting
himself neither engineer, mathematician, nor astronomer, and therefore
remains willingly discreet and taciturn upon these subjects, still he
would be highly offended were he