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Essays on Art
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on Art, by A. Clutton-Brock This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Essays on Art
Author: A. Clutton-Brock
Release Date: July 2, 2005 [EBook #16178]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ESSAYS ON ART
BY
A. CLUTTON-BROCK
METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1919_
PREFACE
These essays, reprinted from the Times Literary Supplement with a few additions and corrections, are not all entirely or directly concerned with art; but even the last one--Waste or Creation?--does bear on the question, How are we to improve the art of our own time? After years of criticism I am more interested in this question than in any other that concerns the arts. Whistler said that we could not improve it; the best we could do for it was not to think about it. I have discussed that opinion, as also the contrary opinion of Tolstoy, and the truth that seems to me to lie between them. If these essays have any unity, it is given to them by my belief that art, like other human activities, is subject to the will of man. We cannot cause men of artistic genius to be born; but we can provide a public, namely, ourselves, for the artist, who will encourage him to be an artist, to do his best, not his worst. I believe that the quality of art in any age depends, n