ture.
There are dear newspaper men to whom it would be a delight to attribute
to me such a saying; and never to let me forget that I said it. When I
say that art is essentially unmoral, I mean that the first impulse to
paint comes from something seen, either beauty of color or form or tone.
It may be light which attracts the artist, or it may be some dimming of
natural forms, until they seem to have more of the loveliness of mind
than of nature. But it is the aesthetic, not the moral or ethical,
nature which is stirred. The picture may afterwards be called "Charity,"
or "Faith," or "Hope"--and any of these words may make an apt title. But
what looms up before the vision of the artist first of all is an image,
and that is accepted on account of its fitness for a picture; and an
image which was not pictorial would be rejected at once by any true
artist, whether it was an illustration of the noblest moral conception
or not. Whether a picture is moral or immoral will depend upon
the character of the artist, and not upon the subject. A man will
communicate his character in everything he touches. He cannot escape
communicating it. He must be content with that silent witness, and not
try to let the virtues shout out from his pictures. The fact is, art is
essentially a spiritual thing, and its vision is perpetually turned
to Ultimates. It is indefinable as spirit is. It perceives in life and
nature those indefinable relations of one thing to another which to the
religious thinker suggest a master mind in nature--a magician of
the beautiful at work from hour to hour, from moment to moment, in a
never-ceasing and solemn chariot motion in the heavens, in the perpetual
and marvelous breathing forth of winds, in the motion of waters, and in
the unending evolution of gay and delicate forms of leaf and wing.

The artist may be no philosopher, no mystic; he may be with or without a
moral sense, he may not believe in more than his eye can see; but in so
far as he can shape clay into beautiful and moving forms he is imitating
Deity; when his eye has caught with delight some subtle relation between
color and color there is mysticism in his vision. I am not concerned
here to prove that there is a spirit in nature or humanity; but for
those who ask from art a serious message, here, I say, is a way of
receiving from art an inspiration the most profound that man can
receive. When you ask from the artist that he should teach you,
be careful th