They are not good theorizers about art; and I am
not myself a good theorizer about art; a creative artist rarely is. But
they do ultimately put their ideas into words. You may receive one word
one day and the next next week, but in the end an idea gets itself somehow
stated. Whenever I have listened to Laprade criticizing pictures,
especially students' work, I have thought about literature; I have been
forced to wonder whether I should not have to reconsider my ideals. The
fact is that some of these men are persuasive in themselves. They
disengage, in their talk, in their profound seriousness, in their sense of
humour, in the sound organization of their industry, and in their calm
assurance--they disengage a convincingness that is powerful beyond debate.
An artist who is truly original cannot comment on boot-laces without
illustrating his philosophy and consolidating his position. Noting in
myself that a regular contemplation of these pictures inspires a weariness
of all other pictures that are not absolutely first rate, giving them a
disconcerting affinity to the tops of chocolate-boxes or to "art"
photographs, I have permitted myself to suspect that supposing some writer
were to come along and do in words what these men have done in paint, I
might conceivably be disgusted with nearly the whole of modern fiction,
and I might have to begin again.
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