he may
discover just what it was that the master, by means of his individual
style, was endeavoring to express, and so bring to bear on his own
environment here in America to-day the same ability to see and the
same power of sympathetic and imaginative penetration that
Velasquez brought to his environment at the court of seventeenth-century
Spain. The way to paint like Velasquez is to be Velasquez. No man
is a genius by imitation. Every man may seek to be a master
in his own right. Technique does not lead; it follows. Style is the
man.

From within outwards. Art is the expression of sincere and vital
feeling; the material thing, picture, statue, poem, which the artist
conjures into being is only a means. The moment art is worshiped
for its own sake, that moment decadence begins. "No one," says
Leonardo, "will ever be a great painter who takes as his guide the
paintings of other men." In general the history of art exhibits this
course. In the beginning arises a man of deep and genuine feeling,
the language at whose command, however, has not been developed
to the point where it is able to carry the full burden of his meaning.
Such a man is Giotto; and we have the "burning messages of
prophecy delivered by the stammering lips of infants." In the
generations which supervene, artists with less fervor of spirit but
with growing skill of hand, increased with each inheritance, turn
their efforts to the development of their means. The names of this
period of experiment and research are Masaccio, Uccello, Pollaiuolo,
Verrocchio. At length, when the fullness of time is come, emerges
the master-mind, of original insight and creative power. Heir to the
technical achievements of his predecessors, he is able to give his
transcendent idea its supremely adequate expression. Content is
perfectly matched by form. On this summit stand Michelangelo,
Raphael, Leonardo. Then follow the Carracci, Domenichino,
Guercino, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci, men who mistake the master's
manner for his meaning. The idea, the vital principle, has spent itself.
The form only is left, and that is elaborated into the exuberance of
decay. Painters find their impulse no longer in nature and life but in
paint. Technique is made an end in itself. And art is dead, to be
reborn in another shape and guise.

The relation of technique to appreciation in the experience of the
layman begins now to define itself. Technique serves the artist for
efficient expression; an u