conception, to a
thought, a feeling, an imagined picture which exists in the mind of the
artist. His aim is to communicate it truly, wholly, perfectly to the
minds of his fellow men, by one of the only two possible channels. By
means of art mind can communicate itself to mind either through the eyes
or through the ears; by spoken words and music through the ears, by
painting and sculpture and written words through the eyes.

I need not dwell upon the thought what a wonderful thing this
communication is, whereby the pictures and feelings existing in one
brain are flashed upon another brain. Nor need I elaborate the point
that this communication is rarely absolute, rarely even adequate. To
make people understand, even those who know us best, how difficult that
is!

The Greek sculptor Praxiteles conceives a human form of perfect beauty,
posed in an attitude of perfect grace, wearing an expression of perfect
charm and serenity. It exists but as a picture in his brain; but he
takes marble and hews it and chisels it till there stands visible and
unmistakable before us his very conception. He has given body and form
to his imagination. Perfect artist as he is, he communicates with
absolute exactness his mental picture to all the world of them who
behold his work.

The Italian painter Raphael conceives a woman of infinite loveliness and
purity and tenderness to represent the mother of Christ. How are we to
be sharers in that conception? He takes brushes and paint, and there
grows upon his canvas the Sistine Madonna, that picture of such mystic
potency, which to see at Dresden is never to forget. He stamps upon our
minds the very image and the very feeling which were upon his own.

The great musician hears imaginary sounds and harmonies within his
brain, proceeding from or accompanying emotions of divers kinds. He
forthwith, by arrangements and combinations of musical notes, their
times and qualities, communicates to us also those sounds and harmonies;
he reproduces in us those same emotions.

Do not say that it is the function of an artist to communicate to us
beautiful things or ugly things, things graceful or things profound,
things of pleasure or things of grief. Say rather, simply, it is his
function, as artist, to communicate--perfectly, absolutely--whatsoever
he seeks to communicate, in its form, with its feeling, in its mood;
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of his conception
and its atmospher