Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/23

 their career without understanding or reverence for predecessors are many, for they who set the example are now grey in practice. Many painters abroad proclaim that the less students look at the antique and the old masters the better for them, declaring that the past can teach nothing; they are, surely, like quacks who, disdaining the teaching of the past world's wisdom, without the training directed by patient study, undertake to minister to suffering humanity. The law in extreme cases steps in to punish the medical pretender, but in Art his fellow is left altogether unchecked.

The effect of the schools established in conformity with such habits of mind is seen around us—in a fever justly enough characterized by Nordau as degeneration: he is wise in this, however much he may be at fault in some of his facts.

Supported by the healthy antecedents of our Nation, we should not hesitate to condemn the festering corruption as having no part in wisdom, beauty, and real joy·

Let us consider what true Art essence is. It is one and indivisible, whether it prompts the artist to affect the mind through the channel of the eye or the ear. In either case the desire is to make others participate in the delight of what seems to him a new revelation of beauty.

Art inspiration is the redundance of an overflowing heart. It is the spirit of love. In a modern poem of great excellence, there is a passage brilliant with keen and precious definition, too long to quote at length; it runs thus:—