to contribute to an artists’ charity and refused. The suppliant reproved him, saying, “I wonder you should talk in this manner, who are under such obligation to the Art.” Northcote answered immediately, “It is the Art that is under obligation to me, not I to it. Do you suppose that Rubens,
Titian, and others were under obligation to the Art?—they who raised it from obscurity and made it all that it is.” We seldom speak of the Art now. We are more interested in new ideas about painting and in ideologies; but painting is what has been painted and not what artists and critics think it ought to be, or what it will be.
When we define traditional taste as “the concensus of opinion of those best qualified to judge”, as Hazlitt defined it, we are sometimes justified in including ourselves in that elite. But we must remember that most of the judges are dead or unborn. Contemporary taste, no matter how inter
national, is limited and provincial in time. Tradition is a matter of knowledge and experience, laboriously acquired or carelessly lost by each successive generation. “Reynolds,”
said Samuel Palmer (I quote from memory), “spoke of painting as a lost art, from which everyone must retrieve
the fragment necessary for his own needs.” Tradition is knowledge which is already known, or was once known.
“Common sense,” in its loose colloquial meaning, suggests pedestrian caution. It is suspicious of rhetoric and of vaguely portentous words. When a visitor called one of Constable’s sketches “an inspiration”, the painter replied tartly that it was a drawing. Common sense is suspicious when a critic tells us that “art reveals what is hidden from mortal eyes”—because common sense knows all men are mortal. Common sense should also be on guard when we are asked to look beyond or behind a picture for its meaning.
We are probably being directed to something which is
not there, for a picture is all on the surface, though, of course, it may be suggestive over and above what it states. But when Hazlitt says, “a genius is wiser than any of his
neighbours, but not wiser than the collective experience of mankind’ ’, he is referring to common sense in the dimension of history, including past and contemporary opinion. This collective experience within the circumference of taste is tradition. Hazlitt was not actually referring to the arts when
he made this generalization, and I wish to underline the reservation “within the circumference of taste”...
The mass of people who look at pictures are not connoisseurs of art and simply judge art by nature. They can enjoy pictures, but they lack the knowledge to criticize them. Nature is the common ground where artist and spectator meet. Artists, however, must consider what they mean by nature more exactly. By nature I do not mean merely the senseless reflection of the camera or the mirror, but the perception and relish of natural law in the object and medium of expression. If a picture deviates from nature too far we say, rather paradoxically, that the art is too artificial. Nature, that is, the form of the object which the painter makes a subject on his canvas, is the norm by which we
become conscious of the deviations and peculiarities of style, and most people read style in drawing and painting instinctively. The most obvious example of this is the graphic line. There are no lines in nature, but edges; yet the draughtsman can express the boundaries of objects with
graphic lines. (Chiaroscuro, or gradations of tone and colour is another convention.) In a recent article Mr.
Victor Rienaecker has explained that in Chinese painting there are eighteen standard styles of brush strokes for draw
ing garments. “The actual brush strokes thus become the
essence of Chinese painting. They are thick or thin, calm or nervous, abrupt or finished, according to the artist’s mood.” It is, however, only those styles with which he is familiar that the man-in-the-street reads by instinct, and artists themselves sometimes only appreciate painting which resembles their own.
The art of painting is always returning to the norm of nature, that is, to natural form, in order to develop a new departure of style—classical, baroque, rococo, neo-classical, romantic, naturalist, or impressionist—which all have per
sonal variations with particular artists. But we all know pedants who ignore all but imitative description and illustration. On the other hand, there are art students who dismiss pictures which have any relation to nature as coloured photographs, and who think if their painting is not like nature, it must be art, and so try to make a positive judgment with a negative criterion...
The argument about the subject or object in painting is confused. It is the ideologists who are the real culprits— those very critics who have attacked the subject in painting and dismissed it as literature. Mr. Maurice Collis writes,
“Picasso, Braque, Matisse are left dominating the field, for their only rivals, Bonnard, Roualt, and Dufy, do not stand, either singly or together, for what the French love so well, a rounded aesthetic theory.” Art dictated by that “rounded aesthetic theory” is literary painting. The incentive is purely
cerebral and theoretical, and the literature the sophisms of the picture trade...
The beauty or interest of the object is a challenge to the artist to produce an equivalent beauty in his style, and style arises from the way a picture is made. It is artificial—some
thing not exactly seen in the object, but enhancing and
reproducing one or other of its features. The mistake of missing out the object would be inconceivable to anyone witli a regard for the traditions of the art.
Tradition is not stationary; it is a development of the art, and this distinguishes it from what is unique. The unique is beyond comparison, and that one aspect of an artist’s work to which it is impossible to give any meaning of value.
As I have said, painting is what has been painted and not what we think it may be or will be. The appreciation of this obvious fact is the best way of avoiding that nega
tive, perverse approach to the art which comes of thinking we can find out what painting is by deciding what it is not. The positive approach begins with admiration and, in the case of an art student, with admiration and emulation.
What if we do not want tradition? Is it possible to paint a picture without a knowledge of the art ?- Evidently many people think so, for the word “tradition” has almost become a term of abuse.
I do not think we can neglect tradition and do good work. There is a remarkable resemblance about the pictures of the untaught. They use paints in the most obvious way and make the inevitable mistakes of ignorance; the differ
ences they express are seldom of artistic significance. It takes
Titian, and others were under obligation to the Art?—they who raised it from obscurity and made it all that it is.” We seldom speak of the Art now. We are more interested in new ideas about painting and in ideologies; but painting is what has been painted and not what artists and critics think it ought to be, or what it will be.
When we define traditional taste as “the concensus of opinion of those best qualified to judge”, as Hazlitt defined it, we are sometimes justified in including ourselves in that elite. But we must remember that most of the judges are dead or unborn. Contemporary taste, no matter how inter
national, is limited and provincial in time. Tradition is a matter of knowledge and experience, laboriously acquired or carelessly lost by each successive generation. “Reynolds,”
said Samuel Palmer (I quote from memory), “spoke of painting as a lost art, from which everyone must retrieve
the fragment necessary for his own needs.” Tradition is knowledge which is already known, or was once known.
“Common sense,” in its loose colloquial meaning, suggests pedestrian caution. It is suspicious of rhetoric and of vaguely portentous words. When a visitor called one of Constable’s sketches “an inspiration”, the painter replied tartly that it was a drawing. Common sense is suspicious when a critic tells us that “art reveals what is hidden from mortal eyes”—because common sense knows all men are mortal. Common sense should also be on guard when we are asked to look beyond or behind a picture for its meaning.
We are probably being directed to something which is
not there, for a picture is all on the surface, though, of course, it may be suggestive over and above what it states. But when Hazlitt says, “a genius is wiser than any of his
neighbours, but not wiser than the collective experience of mankind’ ’, he is referring to common sense in the dimension of history, including past and contemporary opinion. This collective experience within the circumference of taste is tradition. Hazlitt was not actually referring to the arts when
he made this generalization, and I wish to underline the reservation “within the circumference of taste”...
The mass of people who look at pictures are not connoisseurs of art and simply judge art by nature. They can enjoy pictures, but they lack the knowledge to criticize them. Nature is the common ground where artist and spectator meet. Artists, however, must consider what they mean by nature more exactly. By nature I do not mean merely the senseless reflection of the camera or the mirror, but the perception and relish of natural law in the object and medium of expression. If a picture deviates from nature too far we say, rather paradoxically, that the art is too artificial. Nature, that is, the form of the object which the painter makes a subject on his canvas, is the norm by which we
become conscious of the deviations and peculiarities of style, and most people read style in drawing and painting instinctively. The most obvious example of this is the graphic line. There are no lines in nature, but edges; yet the draughtsman can express the boundaries of objects with
graphic lines. (Chiaroscuro, or gradations of tone and colour is another convention.) In a recent article Mr.
Victor Rienaecker has explained that in Chinese painting there are eighteen standard styles of brush strokes for draw
ing garments. “The actual brush strokes thus become the
essence of Chinese painting. They are thick or thin, calm or nervous, abrupt or finished, according to the artist’s mood.” It is, however, only those styles with which he is familiar that the man-in-the-street reads by instinct, and artists themselves sometimes only appreciate painting which resembles their own.
The art of painting is always returning to the norm of nature, that is, to natural form, in order to develop a new departure of style—classical, baroque, rococo, neo-classical, romantic, naturalist, or impressionist—which all have per
sonal variations with particular artists. But we all know pedants who ignore all but imitative description and illustration. On the other hand, there are art students who dismiss pictures which have any relation to nature as coloured photographs, and who think if their painting is not like nature, it must be art, and so try to make a positive judgment with a negative criterion...
The argument about the subject or object in painting is confused. It is the ideologists who are the real culprits— those very critics who have attacked the subject in painting and dismissed it as literature. Mr. Maurice Collis writes,
“Picasso, Braque, Matisse are left dominating the field, for their only rivals, Bonnard, Roualt, and Dufy, do not stand, either singly or together, for what the French love so well, a rounded aesthetic theory.” Art dictated by that “rounded aesthetic theory” is literary painting. The incentive is purely
cerebral and theoretical, and the literature the sophisms of the picture trade...
The beauty or interest of the object is a challenge to the artist to produce an equivalent beauty in his style, and style arises from the way a picture is made. It is artificial—some
thing not exactly seen in the object, but enhancing and
reproducing one or other of its features. The mistake of missing out the object would be inconceivable to anyone witli a regard for the traditions of the art.
Tradition is not stationary; it is a development of the art, and this distinguishes it from what is unique. The unique is beyond comparison, and that one aspect of an artist’s work to which it is impossible to give any meaning of value.
As I have said, painting is what has been painted and not what we think it may be or will be. The appreciation of this obvious fact is the best way of avoiding that nega
tive, perverse approach to the art which comes of thinking we can find out what painting is by deciding what it is not. The positive approach begins with admiration and, in the case of an art student, with admiration and emulation.
What if we do not want tradition? Is it possible to paint a picture without a knowledge of the art ?- Evidently many people think so, for the word “tradition” has almost become a term of abuse.
I do not think we can neglect tradition and do good work. There is a remarkable resemblance about the pictures of the untaught. They use paints in the most obvious way and make the inevitable mistakes of ignorance; the differ
ences they express are seldom of artistic significance. It takes