e work, therefore,
is concrete and immediate. But universal in its scope, it transcends
the particularities of limited place and individual name. We must
distinguish between the abstractly typical and the universal. The
representative artist does not conceive an abstraction and then seek
to find a symbol for it. That is the method of allegory, where spring,
for example, is figured as a young woman scattering flowers.
Allegory is decorative rather than representative in intention. The
artist receives his inspiration and stimulus from some actual
concrete bit of nature, a woodland wrapt in tender mists of green, a
meadow gold and softly white with blossoms, a shimmering gauze
of sun touched air, moist and vibrating, enfolding it. That is what he
paints. But he paints it so that it is spring, and instinct with the spirit
of all springs. Michelangelo does not intellectually conceive youth
and then carve a statue. Some boy has revealed to him the beauty of
his young strength, and the sculptor moves to immediate expression.
He calls his statue David, but the white form radiates the rhythm and
glory of all youth. And as we realize youth in ourselves, more
poignantly, more abundantly, the mere name of the boy does not
matter. The fact that the portrait shows us Carlyle is an incident.
Carlyle is the "subject" of the picture, but its meaning is the twilight
of a mighty, indomitable mind, made visible and communicable. His
work is done; the hour of quiet is given, and he finds rest. Into this
moment, eternal in its significance, into this mood, universal in its
appeal, we enter, to realize it in ourselves. The subject of picture or
statue is but the means; the end is life. Objective fact is transmuted
into living truth. Art is the manifestation of a higher reality than we
alone have been able to know. It begins with the particular and then
transcends it, admitting us to share in the beauty of the world, the
cosmic harmony of universal experience.

X

THE PERSONAL ESTIMATE

ART starts from life and in the end comes back to it. Art is born out
of the stirring of the artist's spirit in response to his need of
expression, and it reaches its fulfillment in the spirit of the
appreciator as it answers his need of wider and deeper experience.
Midway on its course from spirit to spirit it traverses devious paths.
The emotion out of which art springs and of which it is the
expression is controlled and directed by the shaping force