e be sure that his opinion, such as it is, when it reaches
the reader, will truthfully express either painter or critic. Such are
the limitations of one art when it comes to deal with the ideas or
material of another. Criticism is at two removes from its theme.
Therefore criticism is a makeshift. Therefore, let critics be modest
and allow criticism to become an amiable art.

But where now is the painter critic and the professional critic?
"Stands Ulster where it did?" Yes, the written and reported words of
artists are precious alike to layman and critic. That they prefer
painting to writing is only natural; so would the critic if he had the
pictorial gift. However, as art is art and not nature, criticism is
criticism and not art. It professes to interpret the artist's work,
and at best it mirrors his art mingled with the personal temperament
of the critic. At the worst the critic lacks temperament (artistic
training is, of course, an understood requisite), and when this is the
case, God help the artist! As the greater includes the lesser, the
artist should permit the critic to enter, with all due reverence, his
sacred domain. Without vanity the one, sympathetic the other. Then the
ideal collaboration ensues. Sainte-Beuve says that "criticism by
itself can do nothing. The best of it can act only in concert with
public feeling ... we never find more than half the article in
print--the other half was written only in the reader's mind." And
Professor Walter Raleigh would further limit the "gentle art."
"Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to
raise the dead." The relations between the critic and his public open
another vista of the everlasting discussion. Let it be a negligible
one now. That painters can get along without professional criticism we
know from history, but that they will themselves play the critic is
doubtful. And are they any fairer to young talent than official
critics? It is an inquiry fraught with significance. Great and small
artists have sent forth into the world their pupils. Have they
always--as befits honest critics--recognised the pupils of other men,
pupils and men both at the opposite pole of their own theories? Recall
what Velasquez is reported to have said to Salvator Rosa, according to
Boschini and Carl Justi. Salvator had asked the incomparable Spaniard
whether he did not think Raphael the best of all the painters he had
seen in Italy. Velasquez answered: "Raphael, to