William Kiddier

“ The Masterpiece I ONCE told a young artist to attempt no masterpiece. The thing cannot be done. The moment you think of doing a masterpiece you are befooled. Providence does not allow you to arrange anything of that kind. All you must do is paint with a generous heart—paint colour—and leave to the next generation the selection of your masterpiece. The painter, above all men, must be himself, without any regard for the world’s judgment. Do not be deceived: Time will decide the masterpiece—Time will destroy it! ”

“ The Middle-class THAT I belong to the middle-class is my chief misfortune; it is better to be born an aristocrat, but better still an artisan. To the middle-class belong all the money makers: builders of monopolies, political wire-pullers, and all that spells greed. These people buy everything and sell everybody. With them lying is an art, whereas for the poor it is only a pastime. The aristocrat—the product of luxury and idleness—is as much above any mean action as he is at loss in [54] managing his own affairs. ”

“ The Tonic of Genius THERE never was a colourist without a keen sense of humour and never without a generous soul. When I say humour I do not mean satire or anything that leaves a bitter taste. Satire is permissible with the community, but should never be directed against a person.
Humour must always be buoyant, pleasant in every way, and have no other meaning than that which makes the person who happens to be the sport of it laugh with the rest. ”

“ To pay attention to criticism is to pursue the process of laboured refinement which reduces all to the commonplace. Critics with much knowledge are people with retrospective minds; they cannot be of use to the born painter whose work is creative. Knowledge is related to things already accomplished; but the vast unexplored fields open to creative genius are beyond the range of all critical analysis. The painter, more [46] than any other, lives a life of spiritual change. ”

“ In a word, the painter must never aim for likeness; the material sense should never be transferred to canvas: more than anything else trees have superb rhythmic tendencies: inspired by these, he should paint a rhythmic picture.
[39] 11. Tragedy THE sky was impressive by its change from sunlight to sudden darkness; and the ethereal fabric hung like black velvet over all the woods. All the colour that a moment ago clothed the trees was gone in an instant, as a candle is blown out; and the world was without form. ”

“ His art should not be connected with any movement. Painting is a personal matter and, therefore, cannot be regulated by communities. When the painter talks he throws light upon himself, which is necessary sometimes; it may help others to understand him. The painter must be judged, in the end, from his own point of view: it is the only moral judgment for an honest man! ”

“ I believe it is a sin to seek for one. Art in the finer sense is beyond the limitations of all words assigned by the philologists. The master is a magician, therefore it is only the poets that can speak with authority about his work: and it requires all the magic of poetry to deal with the creation of things. Words must be arranged so as to lose all their etymological stiffness before they can [28] ever express the things born of inspiration. Only inasmuch as the poet’s song transcends the meaning of his words does he approach the spiritual sense of art. ”

“ But does not the motor-bus show the painter the confusion of ideas he must always avoid in his work?
I sometimes think there is humour in trees when cultivated by people who, from an insatiate love of variety, plant one of every kind around their lawns. ”

“ Critics A BOOK is not worth its paper if it cannot suffer by the process of critical mutilation; writing, and also painting, must be viewed as a whole, but never pigment by pigment or line by line. Every paragraph read separately must call forth some opposite view or else the book is poor stuff. Every inch of the picture closely viewed by itself must bewilder the observer ”

“ I went so far as to say that no picture could have any sense of dignity without the quality I have named. Everything in the work should, in some special degree, contribute to the first idea. Nothing should be introduced for the sake of variety. ”

“ OF COLOUR
[9] Contents
[11] 1. My Book is True MY view-point is the painter’s, the poet’s; ah, I am a romanticist! But my book is true. The romanticist finds truth without seeking it; it is before him, around him, and he gathers it all with the joy of the child that plucks the flowers in the fields. Truth is not knowledge: it belongs to temperament; it is vision! The child and the romanticist love the beautiful, that is all: truth is there!
[12]
[13] 2. My Friends the Trees I HAVE loved trees all my life ”

“ O but how strange, his agents save him from ruin! and the people on the land contribute more to the miserable business than is known to my lord, more than they themselves ever realise: and so the middle-class remains the back-bone of the Empire. ”

“ Although, in my solitude, years ago, I made many careful drawings of various things and gained some knowledge of their mechanism, my labours brought me no pleasure save the small satisfaction of having done a self-inflicted task after reading miserable books on art. ”

“ I do not care to see many rich people at one time. It was ordained that the percentage of rich should always be small, therefore a crowd of them in one spot is bad form, often bad colour, and mostly confusion. A group of artisans never gives me any unpleasant thoughts: it is the natural order of things ”

“ Of a truth trees can only be painted by the sympathetic hand, one that can [38] make a simple group out of all around him, selecting only those that, by their forms, shall contribute to the artistic sense relation! ”

“ To them he entrusts all his worldly belongings, with an intuitive knowledge that he is robbed always and will be as long as he lives. He knows they pursue his money with all the zest that he pursues sport. ”