To Whistler the
artist is a _Chimaera bombinans in vacuo_; to Tolstoy he is a
philanthropist. For Whistler the public has no function whatever in
relation to art; for Tolstoy the artist himself has no function whatever
except a moral one. In fact he denies the existence of the artist, as
Whistler denies the existence of the public. Whistler's truth is that
the public must not tell the artist what he is to do; Tolstoy's, that a
public with a right relation to the artist will help the artist to have
a right relation to the public.
Artists are not "sports," but men; and men engaged in one of the most
difficult of human activities. They are subject to aesthetic temptation
and sin, as all men are subject to temptation and sin of all kinds.
Their public may tempt them to think more of themselves than of what
they have to express, either by perverse admiration or by ignorant
contempt. An actual audience may be an obstruction between them and the
ideal audience to which every artist should address himself. Every
artist must desire that his ideal audience should exist, and may mistake
an actual audience for it. In the ideal relation between an artist and
his audience, it is the universal in him that speaks to the universal in
them, and yet this universal finds an intensely personal expression.
Art, which is personal expression, tells, not of what the artist wants,
but of what he values. But if his ego is provoked by the ego in a
particular audience, then he begins to tell of what he wants or of what
they want.
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