St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-02-20
THE pRINCIpLEs OF ART.

Mrs. MAUD HOWE ELLIOT, VINO is
daughter of JULIA WARD HOWE, is de-
livering course of lectures in st. Paul
during the current fortnight on topics
connected with the history of art. The
Century club, local organization OF
women interested in intellectual mat
tiers, has undertaken to be her patron,
and number of its members have eX-
tended her the use of their drawing
rooms, where Oh successive afternoons
and evenings her lectures are read. 10
this extent the entertainments are prl-
vate in their character, but an admis-
sion fee is charged, and any one can
attend who is willing to pay it. This
feature brings them fairly in the domain
of newspaper comment and apologies
for the GLOBES referring to them, pro-
yided any apology is needed.
Mrs. ELLIOT writes exceedingly we'll,
and her manner on the platform and
her elocutiOn, apart from what she has
to say, make her lectures artistically
very gratifying. They are addressed,
of course, under the circumstances, to
audiences of considerable culture, who
have clearly in their feelings, if not in
their minds, conception Of the general
principles of art, and her comments and
illustrations fit into the proper intel
lectual niche, and are stimulating and
instructive. But the trouble with art
criticism, leaving out of view our pres
ent local experience with it. of course,
is that, as commonly presented, it con-
sists so largely of eXhortations to for
elgn states of mind. coupled with in
stances of such diaphanous vagueness
that the wayfaring man, stumbling
through its alleys, quickly comes to the
conclusion that either he is a fool or its
architects are.
Appreciation OF the beautiful is a
state OF feeling rather titan matter OF
conviction, and it is either born in one
or is matured through experiences
constantly reiterated until their essence
is absorbed into the being of the reclp-
lent. Other matters can be readily re-
duced to syllOgiSms, and when men
write books about them it is not hard for
them to make their meaning Ineligible.
The substantial truths OF the world are
capable of being stated in consecutive
sentences, which unfold one after
another until a convincing conclusion is
laid before the nearer, and everything
else presented is by way of illustration
or explanation of central thread of
thought, to which they are all subordi-
nate, and their connection with which
is everywhere apparent. Nobody, how
ever ignorant he might be, ever had any
difficulty is following HENRY WARD
BEECHER in his disquisitions on the
profoundest questions, and no auditor
failed to notice how one stone fitted and
depended on the other in the structure
he was building.
This sort of thing is sometimes at
tempted in the field of art. There are
critics who can analyze poetry III log
ical way, SO that one can feel that the
idea is directly Ineligible, but after he
gets through the conception left is
really very incorrect one of the arts
nature. No worthy poet Or artist of
any kind is capable of analyZing his
work, because the logical faculty and
the artistic somehow exclude each
other. Esthetics is a science. but it is
not art any more than theology is re-
ligion. No man could possibly tell
anyone else what religion was, nor how
he got his, which is his viaticum on
life's journey. The mutual exchange
of experiences and the suggestion of
states of feeling, however indistinct,
help to nurture aud develop the relig
ious instinct in us, and in the same way
the knowledge of what is meant by art,
ifnot the love of artitsef, GROWS by pres
ence in an atmosphere where it is being
talked about, no matter how indef-
nitely