the hopeless. They enjoy painting the bowed form, the tear-filled
eyes. To them grief is a festival. There are people who find
pleasure in funerals. They love to watch the mourners. The falling
clods make music. They love the silence, the heavy odors, the
sorrowful hymns and the preacher's remarks. The feelings of such
people do not indicate the general trend of the human mind. Even
a poor artist may hope for success if he represents something in
which many millions are deeply interested, around which their
emotions cling like vines. A man need not be an orator to make a
patriotic speech, a speech that flatters his audience. So, an
artist need not be great in order to satisfy, if his subject appeals
to the prejudice of those who look at his pictures.

I have never seen a good painting of Christ. All the Christs that
I have seen lack strength and character. They look weak and
despairing. They are all unhealthy. They have the attitude of
apology, the sickly smile of non-resistance. I have never seen an
heroic, serene and triumphant Christ. To tell the truth, I never
saw a great religious picture. They lack sincerity. All the angels
look almost idiotic. In their eyes is no thought, only the innocence
of ignorance.

I think that art is leaving the celestial, the angelic, and is
getting in love with the natural, the human. Troyon put more genius
in the representation of cattle than Angelo and Raphael did in
angels. No picture has been painted of heaven that is as beautiful
as a landscape by Corot. The aim of art is to represent the
realities, the highest and noblest, the most beautiful. The Greeks
did not try to make men like gods, but they made gods like men.
So that great artists of our day go to nature.

_Question_. Is it not strange that, with one exception, the most
notable operas written since Wagner are by Italian composers instead
of German?

_Answer_. For many years German musicians insisted that Wagner
was not a composer. They declared that he produced only a succession
of discordant noises. I account for this by the fact that the
music of Wagner was not German. His countrymen could not understand
it. They had to be educated. There was no orchestra in Germany
that could really play "Tristan and Isolde." Its eloquence, its
pathos, its shoreless passion was beyond them. There is no reason
to suppose that Germany is to produce another Wagner. Is England
expected to give us anothe