Artistic career

“ The keynote of his whole life was his art—whether consciously or not he acted up to the ideal of a perfect portrait-painter—whose business was not to criticise but to observe, not to direct but to reflect the currents of society. ‘I go,’ he said, ‘with the great stream of life.’ For the purpose of such a career the hours which he spent in his painting-room were not more profitable than those he spent out of it. ”

“ In such a life there is often no great range of opportunity; and the most adventurous career touches, after all, but a few points in the infinite complex of existence. But we have our imaginations, and it is to these that the artist appeals. ”

“ This spirit of spontaneous, unquestioning rejoicing in production, which is still the privilege of youth, and which, even now, the very strong sometimes carry with them through their lives, was indeed, when Art herself was in her prime, the normal and constant condition of the artistic temper, and shone out in all artistic work. ”

“ Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make his bow to the public.
Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which depend upon special talent or genius—the great qualities of imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership—I would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, patience, and industry. ”

“ After all, your soundest basis for work will be your deep and continuing love for it, and your willingness to labor long and conscientiously to attain excellence. Do not imagine that the profession of an artist is that of an [Pg 133] idler. On the contrary, of all occupations it is perhaps the most active, for one is constantly engaged, if not with art itself, at least with its materials. ”

“ Yet all these different phases are the work of one man, spring from the temperament and the sense of colour of one artist, intelligent always, a fine and true painter in his first, a turbulent painter in his second period and, in all, a distinguished master of the technical side of his art, who has undoubtedly not yet shown us his last formula and is keeping many exquisite surprises in reserve for us. ”

“ The arts, yes, but I am without talent. I play because I have been taught, and because I have practiced—oh, so hard! But God never intended that the world should hear me. I love painting and literature, and all those things. ”

“ The idea is that of an artist, pure, simple, and direct in his work, who should excel equally in all the arts, and show—even though his work be an exception to all rules—the consummate success of such a course. ”

“ And the artists producing art will not be, as now, merely a few people selected from a small section of the nation, members of the upper classes or their hangers-on, but will consist of all those gifted members of the whole people who prove capable of, and are inclined towards, artistic activity. ”

“ An artistic life!—a triumph after long years of labor, awarded by the hand-clapping of a few admirers, most of whom had no appreciation of the work, and no sympathy with its higher motives. Would it not be cold? ”

“ Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. ”

“ After his labor, his pleasure. The comedian plays till midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the sculptor is bent before his statue; the journalist is a marching thought, like the soldier when at war; the painter who is the fashion is crushed with work, the painter with no occupation, if he feels himself to be a man of genius, gnaws his entrails. ”

“ It is not mere industry that will produce good work, nor yet skill, nor even genius: more than this is required. The heart of the artist must be thrust with all its gushing tides into the performance. ”

“ But for your comfort I may say that I believe the brain goes on developing on artistic lines in an enthusiastic nature almost as quickly in spite of the shorter time given to actual performance. ‘Then in 5 or 6 years you may find that your proved ability justifies you in joining the ranks of professional artists. ”

“ I do not speak of portrait-painters; had I no higher thoughts than being a first-rate portrait-painter, I would have chosen a far different profession. My ambition is to be among those who shall revive the splendor of the fifteenth century; to rival the genius of a Raphael, a Michael Angelo, or a Titian; my ambition is to be enlisted in the constellation of genius now rising in this country; I wish to shine, not by a light borrowed from them, but to strive to shine the brightest. ”

“ Since boyhood I have had an ambition to be a painter, not, I will confess, because of a desire to produce some great masterpiece of the arts, but simply and solely because I have always thought the life painters lead would appeal to me. ”

“ For that power, which enables the Artist to conceive his subject with dignity, may be said to belong to general education; and is as much the Genius of a Poet, or the professor of any other liberal Art, or even a good critic in any of those arts, as of a Painter. ”

“ If you should ask a dozen painters what mental qualification was most essential to an artist's success, the chances are that every man of them would reply "temperament"—in other words, genius and imagination. ”

“ For this, Art is required, and the true disciples of the great artist are not his studio-imitators, but those who become like his works of art, be they plastic as in Greek days, or pictorial as in modern times; in a word, Life is Art’s best, Art’s only pupil. ”

“ The painter, who in childhood drew with ease the likenesses of his playmates, and afterwards rose to greatness, had he not an innate gift that no industry and training could rival? The musician, seemingly born with musical ear and voice, or with instinctive mastery of instruments,—the inventor, the romancer,—was there nothing unique and exceptional in their capabilities? No, our sturdy friend replied—he would not own that any man of general ability could not equally perfect his eye and hand, ear and voice, by thorough devotion and practice. ”

“ The painter must in the end judge of painting, and the sculptor judge of sculpture. But there are two distinct sides{163} to a work of art,—to every work, for that matter: there is the relation between the worker and his work, and the relation between the completed work and the public,—the work being the intermediary between artist and people, his means of communication, his mode and manner of speech. ”

“ Would you send a young artist—more particularly a young sculptor—to study the human nature of London or Paris?—to seek the ideal among shop-girls and opera-dancers? Or the sublime and beautiful among the frivolous and degraded of one sex, the money-making or the brutalized of the other? ”

“ Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true and only method by which an artist makes himself master of his profession; which I hold ought to be one continued course of imitation, that is not to cease but with his life. ”

“ But, like all the great teachers of the world, he was sustained by something higher than earthly applause, and labored, like an immortal artist, from the love which his labor excited,—labored to realize the work of art which his imagination had conceived, as well as to propagate ideas and sentiments which should tend to elevate mankind. ”

“ For he had a strong, working, independent, ready head, which had been improved by various learning, extending beyond his profession into the fields of general literature, and into the arts of painting and sculpture. ”

“ Yet this is what art is, and you have to bear it in mind when you ask, “Is the actor an artist?” Art is a spiritual activity, and the artist’s expression of his intuitions (the painter’s “vision,” the actor’s “conception” of his part) is internal; when he wishes to externalize his expression, to communicate it to others, he has to use certain media—paint and canvas, marble and brick, musical notes, words and gestures. But it is the spiritual activity, the intuition-expression, that makes the artist. The medium is no part of his definition. ”

“ How many out of the hundreds and thousands of inspired girls and women who have turned to the easel or the desk have become great artists? Upon the stage they may; but I have often questioned whether the dramatic art be a true art, or rather a half-art, in which half-talents can reach the highest eminence. And those who are called actors of genius, what are they in comparison with men of true genius in art, in literature, in music? ”

“ First, there is the temperament of the artist himself, his native endowment for the practise of that special art, his gift of story-telling or of play-making, as the case may be. Second, there is the training of the artist, his preparation for his work, his slowly acquired mastery of the processes of his craft, his technical accomplishments. And, thirdly, there is the man's own character, his intelligence, and energy, and determination, his moral sense, his attitude toward life and its insistent problems. Now, of these three necessary factors—first, his native gift; second, his technic ”

“ This is what his art should be to the true artist, and that to a degree unknown in other and less intimate pursuits. For other professions stand apart from the human business of life; but an art has the seat at the centre of the artist’s doings and sufferings, deals directly with his experiences, teaches him the lessons of his own fortunes and mishaps, and becomes a part of his biography. ”

“ I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young painter, equally vigilant, whether at home, or abroad in the streets, or in the fields. Every object that presents itself is to him a lesson. He regards all nature with a view to his profession; and combines her beauties, or corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of men under the influence of passion; and often catches the most pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or deformity. ”

“ As soon as art became, not art for the whole people, but for a rich class, it became a profession; as soon as it became a profession, methods were devised to teach it; people who chose this profession of art began to learn these methods, and thus professional schools sprang up: classes of rhetoric or literature in the public schools, academies for painting, conservatoires for music, schools for dramatic art.
In these schools art is taught! But art is the transmission to others of a special feeling experienced by the artist. ”

“ I cannot see why, if your health and strength are spared, yours should not yet become a prominent name among American artists. If you study, work, and continue to add to your knowledge and skill, you will, by and by, begin to compose, and once well started in that line, your future is made, and your best ambition satisfied. ”

“ We may test a man's merit as a painter by his ability to paint. As an artist his greatness is to be judged with reference to the greatness of his ideas; and in his capacity as artist his technical skill derives its value from the measure in which it is adequate to their expression. In the case of an accomplished pianist or violinist we take his proficiency of technique for granted, and we ask, What, with all this power of expression at his command, has he to say? In his rendering of the composer's work what has he of his own to contribute by way of interpretation? ”

“ Once he had been a headlong art student himself, starting out to become a great painter, a great one. After years abroad under the foremost masters and other years of self-trial with every favorable circumstance his, nature had one day pointed her unswerved finger at his latest canvas as at the earlier ones and had judged him to the quick: you will never be a great painter. If you cannot be content to remain less, quit, stop! ”

“ An apt and advantageous subject rouses and elevates Invention, invigourates, promotes, and adds delight to labour; whilst a dull or repulsive one breeds obstacles at every step, dejects and wearies—the Artist loses his labour, the spectator his expectation. ”

“ And fine artists like to subscribe to the great tradition of their craft, that the work is everything, the workman only someone in the fair light of its effect; the name is added out of pride but not vain-glory, with that modest air with which a hero turns the conversation from himself. Naturalness and mastery arrive at the same moment; students cannot sign their works naturally. ”

“ So, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,—whatever you are to make your bread by, I say, so far as you have time and power, make yourself first a noble and accomplished artist; understand at least what noble and accomplished art is, and then you will be able to apply your knowledge to all service whatsoever. ”

“ So nearly, however, had she adopted art as a profession, that it appears that, had she not been discouraged by the price secured on one occasion, her energies would have been directed away from the field in which she attained her glory! ”

“ Yet the love of art still lives in some inner corner of his heart, and I know he can never enter the studio of a painter and see the artist silently bringing from the canvas forms of life and beauty, but he feels a tender twinge, as one who catches a glimpse of the beautiful girl he loved in his youth whom another has snatched away. ”

“ The magnificent and superior artist, mature in imagination and composition, fully equipped as a painter of pictures, perhaps even of academical distinction, who turns his attention to the craft, and without any adequate practical training in it, which alone could teach its right principles, makes, and in the nature of things is bound to make, great mistakes—mistakes easily avoidable. ”