ecome a member of the sacred brotherhood
of those who understand the mystery of art. Therefore they had all
better admit that there is no mystery about it, or, rather, a mystery
for us all. Either art is of value to us all, and our own experience of
it is of value to us; or art has no value whatever to anyone, but is the
meaningless activity of a few oddities who would be better employed in
agriculture.

But if our own experience of art is of value to us, then it is possible
for us to communicate that experience to others so that it may be of
value to them; as it is possible for the painter to communicate to
others his experience of the visible world. If he denies this, once
again he denies himself. He shuts himself within the prison of his own
arrogance, from which he can escape only by a want of logic. But,
further, if our experience of art is of value to ourselves, and if it is
possible for us to communicate that experience to others, it is also
possible for us to arrive at conclusions about that experience which may
be of value both to ourselves and to others. Hence scientific or
philosophic criticism, which is based not, as some artists seem to
think, upon a fraudulent pretence of the critic that he himself is an
artist, but upon that experience of art which is, or may be, common to
all men. The philosophic critic writes not as one who knows how to
produce that which he criticizes better than he who has produced it, but
as one who has experienced art; and his own experience is really the
subject-matter of his criticism. If he _is_ a philosophic critic, he
will know that his experience is itself necessarily imperfect. As some
one has said: "We do not judge works of art; they judge us"; and the
critic is to be judged by the manner in which he has experienced art, as
the painter is to be judged by the manner in which he has experienced
the visible world. All the imperfections of his experience will be
betrayed in his criticism; where he is insensitive, there he will fail,
both as artist and as philosopher; and of this fact he must be
constantly aware. So if he gives himself the airs of a judge, if he
relies on his own reputation to make or mar the reputation of a work of
art, he ceases to be a critic and deserves all that artists in their
haste have said about him. Still, it is a pity that artists, in their
haste, should say these things; for when they do so they, too, become
critics of the wrong sort, critics insensi