te with the writer on art as to
exactly what symbol is inherent in the presence of a rose in the hand
or a tear upon the cheek, but we cannot quarrel when the matter is
treated as sublimely as in the case of a literary artist like Pater.
It is in the sphere of professed critical judgment that the literary
authorities so often go astray.

Thus between the entertaining type of writer like Meier-Graefe and the
daily reporter there is no middle ground. The journalist is frank and
says that he doesn't know but that he must write; the other writes
books that are well suited for reference purposes, but have scant
bearing upon the actual truth in relation to pictures. Are there any
critics who attempt seriously to approach the modern theme, who find
it worth their while to go into modern esthetics with anything like
sincerity or real earnestness of attitude? Only two that I am aware
of. There is the intelligent Leo Stein, who seldom appears in print,
but who makes an art of conversation on the subject; and there is
Willard Huntingdon Wright, who has appeared extensively and certainly
with intelligence also, both of these critical writers being very
much at variance in theory, but both full of discernment whatever one
may think of their individual ideas. We are sure of both as being
thoroughly inside the subject, this theme of modern art, for they are
somehow painter people. I even suspect them both of having once, like
George Moore, painted seriously themselves.

Nevertheless there is a hopeful seriousness of interest developing in
what is being done this side the sea, a rediscovery of native art of
the sort that is occurring in all countries. The artist is being
taught by means of war that there is no longer a conventional center
of art, that the time-worn fetish of Paris as a necessity in his
development has been dispensed with; and this is fortunate for the
artist and for art in general. It is having its pronounced effect upon
the creative powers of the individual in all countries, almost
obliging him to create his own impulse upon his own soil; it is making
the artist see that if he is really to create he must create
irrespective of all that exists as convention in the mind.

How will this affect the artist? He will learn first of all to be
concerned with himself, and what he puts forth of personality and of
personal research will receive its character from his strict adherence
to this principle, whether he proceeds by m