oing. And this continual striving to do better led
them almost unconsciously to new and original results. Originality is a
quality over which an artist has as little influence as over the shape
and distinction of his features. All he can do is to be sincere and try
and find out the things that really move him and that he really likes.
If he has a strong and original character, he will have no difficulty in
this, and his work will be original in the true sense. And if he has
not, it is a matter of opinion whether he is not better employed in
working along the lines of some well-tried manner that will at any rate
keep him from doing anything really bad, than in struggling to cloak his
own commonplaceness under violent essays in peculiarity and the
avoidance of the obvious at all costs.

But while speaking against fretting after eccentricity, don't let it be
assumed that any discouragement is being given to genuine new points of
view. In art, when a thing has once been well done and has found
embodiment in some complete work of art, it has been done once for all.
The circumstances that produced it are never likely to occur again. That
is why those painters who continue to reproduce a picture of theirs (we
do not mean literally) that had been a success in the first instance,
never afterwards obtain the success of the original performance. Every
beautiful work of art is a new creation, the result of particular
circumstances in the life of the artist and the time of its production,
that have never existed before and will never recur again. Were any of
the great masters of the past alive now, they would do very different
work from what they did then, the circumstances being so entirely
different. So that should anybody seek to paint like Titian now, by
trying to paint like Titian did in his time, he could not attempt
anything more unlike the spirit of that master; which in its day, like
the spirit of all masters, was most advanced. But it is only by a
scrupulously sincere and truthful attitude of mind that the new and
original circumstances in which we find ourselves can be taken advantage
of for the production of original work. And self-conscious seeking after
peculiarity only stops the natural evolution and produces abortions.

But do not be frightened by conventions, the different materials in
which the artist works impose their conventions. And as it is through
these materials that he has to find expression, what expressiv