Just as it expects art to be difficult, so it
expects its own pleasure in art to be difficult; and thus we have
attained to our present notion about art which is like the Puritan
notion about virtue, that it is what no human being could possibly enjoy
by nature. And if we do enjoy it, "like a meadow gale in spring," it
cannot be good art.
But in painting as in poetry, all the new movements of value are escapes
from professionalism; and they begin by shocking the public because they
seem to make the art too easy. Dickens was horrified by an early work of
Millais; Ruskin was enraged by a nocturne of Whistler. He said it was
cockney impudence because it lacked the professionalism he expected.
Artists and critics alike are always binding burdens on the arts; and
they are always angry with the artist who cuts the burden off his back.
They think he is merely shirking difficulties. But the difficulty of
expression is so much greater than the self-imposed difficulties of
mere professionalism that any man who is afraid of difficulties will try
to be a professional rather than an artist.
In art there is always humility, in professionalism pride. And it is
this pride that makes art more ugly and tiresome than any other work of
man. Nothing is stranger in human nature than the tyranny of boredom it
will endure in the pursuit of art; and the more bored men are, the more
they are convinced of artistic salvation. Our museums are cumbered with
monstrous monuments of past professionalism; our bookshelves groan with
them.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117