How remote from individual character is the Michael Angelo in contrast
with this! Instead of an individual he gives us the expression of a
glowing mental conception of man as a type of physical strength and
power.

The rhythm is different also, in the one case being a line rhythm, and
in the other a consideration of the flat pattern of shapes or masses
with a play of lost-and-foundness on the edges (see later, pages 192
[Transcribers Note: Sidenote "Variety of Edges."] _et seq._, variety of
edges). It is this feeling for rhythm and the sympathetic searching for
and emphasis of those points expressive of character, that keep this
drawing from being the mechanical performance which so much concern with
scientific visual accuracy might well have made it, and which has made
mechanical many of the drawings of Degas's followers who unintelligently
copy his method.

VI

THE ACADEMIC AND CONVENTIONAL

The terms Academic and Conventional are much used in criticism and
greatly feared by the criticised, often without either party appearing
to have much idea of what is meant. New so-called schools of painting
seem to arrive annually with the spring fashions, and sooner or later
the one of last year gets called out of date, if not conventional and
academic. And as students, for fear of having their work called by one
or other of these dread terms, are inclined to rush into any new
extravagance that comes along, some inquiry as to their meaning will not
be out of place before we pass into the chapters dealing with academic
study.

It has been the cry for some time that Schools of Art turned out only
academic students. And one certainly associates a dead level of
respectable mediocrity with much school work. We can call to mind a lot
of dull, lifeless, highly-finished work, imperfectly perfect, that has
won the prize in many a school competition. Flaubert says "a form
deadens," and it does seem as if the necessary formality of a school
course had some deadening influence on students; and that there was some
important part of the artist's development which it has failed to
recognise and encourage.

The freer system of the French schools has been in many cases more
successful. But each school was presided over by an artist of
distinction, and this put the students in touch with real work and thus
introduced vitality. In England, until quite lately, artists were seldom
employed in teaching, which was left to men set asi