Show STUDENT LIFE le with lack of thought and want painted simply that we may have 25 of feeling a of something we may not actually possess in reality Such pictures are good reminders of places we have visited like photographs which are sold along lines of travel and they often serve to cover soiled places on the parlor wall paper but they add nothing to the world of art A change however takes place in the character and value of the painting when the natbut comparaural beauty is not common-plac- e tively unknown for the object of every true artist is in one sense to discover hidden beauty and reveal it to the world which by reason of not possessing the eye of genius is blind to this beautj We then have a new beauty and the artist assumes the position of seer or prophet For artists represent the eyes of the world as musicians represent the ears It may be that the hidden beauty lies in a form common-plac- e and almost repulsive There is such a thing as the sublime beauty of ugliness The face of youth is not alone beautiful Age possesses leauty even in humble life It is found in the great portraits of Rembrandt and Franz llals’ where those aged and wrinkled faces bathed in a golden light peer calmly out upon you from ity method or feeling There are many painters who possess the idea that the aim and greatest beauty of art lies in the expression of technical skill It could be as well maintained that the object of poetry is to display Thythmical words and sentences after the manner of Swinburne and that poetic ideas are of no consequence Skill of hand is absolutely necessary but it is the means of saying and not the end in itself The verse of Poe or Tennyson is admirable even though it may contain no meaning and to those who can appreciate the technique of painting the manner in which Rubens and Velasquez paint a cloak or robe the power with which Rembrandt focuses light the dash and brilliancy of Fortuny give almost as great pleasure as the ideas of Michael Angelo and the poetic sentiment of Millet But the work of the hand and the conception of the mind must not bear a false relationship 'to one another We should admire the beauty in both but the thought is greater than the means of expression The most perfect beauty lies not in external surrounding but in the conception of the human mind and it would seem therefore that the artist who discovers natural beauty and in- lehind their immense frames not so great as the artist who creates beauty and uses forms of nature merely fac-simi- le Leonardo Da Vinci has shown it in his demons Millet llreton Mauve Segantini and Israels have all d thrown charm about the heavy- headed peasantry whom they have chosen for subjects It is all true and beautiful but it was entirely unknown and unseen before these painters came into the world In a similar manner there is a new beauty in the morning and evening light of Corot the foliage of Rousseau the gray voyaging clouds of Daubigny the sunset skies of Turner or the stormy skies of Courbet These men are not imitators but on the contrary revealers of new features interpreters of new beauties It is not a little part of the artist’s aim that he discover and interpret to the world new beauty and the value of his work may be estimated by the importance of his disThis is the rendering of objective covery beauty tinctured by the painter’s individual coarse-feature- terprets it is as a means of explaining his creation Take the Sower of Millet Most people have seen reproductions of this great painting What is there within this picture which gives it its place? A hundred living artists could excel the drawing as far as perfect accuracy goes A hundred could excel the rendering of light and textures The figure of itself is not of any great consequence you can find thousands of But it men of more perfect physical make-u- p is the conception of heroism in humble life which is strikingly beautiful Before Millet’s time the peasant had been considered a most degraded subject for art A man might paint a number of people in a draw ing room but to choose such a prosaic theme as a common laborer at his work was vulgar But in this shadowy figure moving across the fields at dusk and with rhythmic motion scat- - |