Fourth Printing, 1946. Craftsmanship in painting has changed much and often in the last five hundred years, in accordance with the changing needs of painters and society. Some modern painters have looked back to Cennino for instruction and found in his Craftsman's Handbook some useful guidance for present-day application. We have begun to strain at these invisible bonds of ours. This technical direction is a natural consequence of the subjective tendencies of modern styles.
Naturalistic imitation is no longer the guiding principle of painting.
We have set our faces toward the abstract, the symbolic, the subjectively conceived. The modernist, with an abstract conception, cares less for the illusion of bulk, in many cases, than for mobility of line. This is no new phenomenon in the history of art. Painting has always been conceived primarily in three dimensions or primarily in two according to the degree of concreteness that the painters have sought. Line is perhaps the most direct vehicle of thought and feeling.