The Redwood gazette., 1902-07-16
THE NEW ART.

seeing that every one uses IT..
The face of the world has un-
dergone more change during
the last hundred years than it
underwent during the eighteen
previous centuries, which have
brought humanity to the
threshold of the nineteenth
century. Everything has been
transformed except art and the
modes of expressing it. Taine
was right when he said: ITO
change the idea of such a gen
eral thing as form, what a
change must take place in the
human BRAIN"
The change is taking place.
Here and there, in every Coun-
try, nen with willing minds
are endeavoring to hasten it.
Will they succeed? Why not?
What right have we to fix linn
it's to human progress? And
even if we had enough foolish
pride to do 50, would that pre-
vent what is destined to hap
pen from coming to pass.
| What will the art of future
centuries be like? We can
scarcely form any idea. At
any rate, a time will certainly
come when painting and
sculpture, as they exist to-day
will exist no longer. This art
may not find it's inspiration in
natural forms; at least | do not
believe it will. This art will
create new and unsuspected
relationships between forms;
in fact, it will create new
forms, new lines, and new
harmonies; it will be, as it
were, the philosophic express
ton of that humanity which
will have been it's creator; it
will be symboliCal, but in quite
a different manner from what
it has been up to now, for it
will exist upon living sym
bOls.
But it is we'll to abandon the
formulae of the past. all the
NEUROLOGICAL and religious
bric-a-brac of dead epochs,
which no longer have any
meaning either for our minds
or for our feelings, on the other
hand, we shall have to study
with the greatest attention the
working methods of the prim-
tive artists of all periods
those of old China as those of
Egypt, those of old Asia as
we'll as those of old Europe.
The primitive artists were ig-
norant beings, the real "naifs,"
the really sincere; in fact they
were the people. They know
nothing and yet they know ev-
erything; they are creatures of
intuition and of suggestion,
and | stand for them against
the school. against the rules,
against the formulae. Alone,
also, the pr1mitives have had
respect for their materials:
they have not praCticed art ft r
art, they have always treated
stone, metal, earth, enamel,
glass, wood, marble, as each of
these substances should be
treated, The art of the future,
therefore, will be popular art,
Art made for the people, by
the people,, as William Morris
has said.
Now it is not, in my opinion.
from an old soil, exhausted by
MANY centuries of intense Cul-
tivatiOn, that this art, such as
| delight to imagine it, viii!
gerrninate: but from a fresh
soil, whose strength has not
been extracted, from a country
where a heritage Of prejudiCes
and traditions does not hinder
man S free advance along the
, road OF progress.
But. liberated as this art
shall be, and seeking as it will
its inspiration within itself and
in the medium from which it
shall spring forth; howeve,
complete it's individuality may
be. and totally as it's form may
: differ from the art of the past
this art will not be at all poso.
twist; and it reflects the aspir
ations, hopes. ideas and pas.
sions of the democracy which
will have lifted its bright col
ored standard in the sunshine
it will only remain the more
nobly idealist and the more
symbolical of a little more
beautiful, more harmonious