ns, or from excellent photographic
reproductions. Not only European art, but the art of the East, China and
Japan, is part of the formative influence by which he is surrounded; not
to mention the modern science of light and colour that has had such an
influence on technique. It is no wonder that a period of artistic
indigestion is upon us. Hence the student has need of sound principles
and a clear understanding of the science of his art, if he would select
from this mass of material those things which answer to his own inner
need for artistic expression.

The position of art to-day is like that of a river where many
tributaries meeting at one point, suddenly turn the steady flow to
turbulence, the many streams jostling each other and the different
currents pulling hither and thither. After a time these newly-met forces
will adjust themselves to the altered condition, and a larger, finer
stream be the result. Something analogous to this would seem to be
happening in art at the present time, when all nations and all schools
are acting and reacting upon each other, and art is losing its national
characteristics. The hope of the future is that a larger and deeper art,
answering to the altered conditions of humanity, will result.

There are those who would leave this scene of struggling influences and
away up on some bare primitive mountain-top start a new stream, begin
all over again. But however necessary it may be to give the primitive
mountain waters that were the start of all the streams a more prominent
place in the new flow onwards, it is unlikely that much can come of any
attempt to leave the turbulent waters, go backwards, and start again;
they can only flow onwards. To speak more plainly, the complexity of
modern art influences may make it necessary to call attention to the
primitive principles of expression that should never be lost sight of in
any work, but hardly justifies the attitude of those anarchists in art
who would flout the heritage of culture we possess and attempt a new
start. Such attempts however when sincere are interesting and may be
productive of some new vitality, adding to the weight of the main
stream. But it must be along the main stream, along lines in harmony
with tradition that the chief advance must be looked for.

Although it has been felt necessary to devote much space to an attempt
to find principles that may be said to be at the basis of the art of all
nations, the executive side of