d recalls the reality. At once it is plain,
however, that to different individuals the various pictures appeal in
different measure and for differing reasons. To one the very fact of
representation is a mystery and fascination. To another the important
thing is the subject; the picture must represent what he likes in
nature or in life. To a third the subject itself is of less concern than
what the painter wanted to say about it: the artist saw a beauty
manifested by an ugly beggar, perhaps, and he wanted to show that
beauty to his fellows, who could not perceive it for themselves.

The special interest in pictures of each of these three men is not
without its warrant in experience. What man is wholly indifferent to
the display of human skill? Who is there without his store of
pleasurable associations, who is not stirred by any call which rouses
them into play? What lover of beauty is not ever awake to the
revelation of new beauty? Indeed, upon these three principles
together, though in varying proportion, depends the full significance
of a great work of art.

As the lover of pictures looks back over the period of his conscious
interest in exhibitions and galleries, it is not improbable that his
earliest memories attach themselves to those paintings which most
closely resembled the object represented. He remembers the great
wonder which he felt that a man with mere paint and canvas could
so reproduce the reality of nature. So it is that those paintings which
are perhaps the first to attract the man who feels an interest in
pictures awakening are such as display most obviously the painter's
skill. Whatever the subject imitated, the fascination remains; that
such illusion is possible at all is the mystery and the delight.

But as his interest in pictures grows with indulgence, as his
experience widens, the beholder becomes gradually aware that he is
making a larger demand. After the first shock of pleasurable surprise
is worn away, he finds that the repeated exhibition of the painter's
dexterity ceases to satisfy him; these clever pieces of deception
manifest a wearying sameness, after all; and the beholder begins
now to look for something more than mere expertness. Thinking on
his experience, he concludes that the subjects which can be imitated
deceptively are limited in range and interest; he has a vague,
disquieting sense that somehow these pictures do not mean anything.
Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he t