The attitude of the public was normal, logical, and sane. If the people had received the new men with wild acclamations of joy and called them great on first sight it would have meant such instability of opinion and character as to render the homage absolutely worthless. In a sense, tenacity of opinion on the part of the public is the salvation of art as well as of morals; it is essential to substantial progress. Therefore the everlasting conflict between the old and the new is a normal conflict; the clash between the public and new art, new music, new thought is a healthful clash, because the fiercer the conflict the more certain that what survives will be worth having. * * * * * The only excuse for an ugly picture is superb technic--and even then the excuse is not a very good one for the same technic should paint a beautiful thing. There were plenty of ugly pictures in the exhibition; some were interesting on account of their technic, others were without any excuse at all--_just ugly_. A great painter may paint things, a great writer may write things which no amount of good painting and no amount of good writing can excuse--there are plenty of such paintings and books in the world. But because there were a number of ugly--ugly to the extent of being objectionable--pictures in the exhibition, that should not and does not detract from the merits of men who did not paint them. An ugly work is a comment upon him who produces it and upon those who accept it. It is a golden opportunity, a touchstone to those who reject it. * * * * * There is a great deal of the ugly in the work of Matisse, mixed with a great deal of extraordinary technic. He is a good man to study, but a bad man to imitate--for that matter, the same, in a profounder sense, may be said of every man of ability. Then, too, it should never be forgotten that _refinement_ is an essential element in all _great_ art. * * * * * The supreme justification of the new art is that its works shall tend toward the beautiful. If they make for ugliness their existence is without rhyme or reason. Many of the new men seem to forget this. However, even the ugly, the grotesque, the hideous has its use. Any art may become so smug, so complacent, so conceited that it requires the shock of the ugly to stir it to new life. After Bouguereau, Matisse was inevitable. However, a very little of the ugly goes a long ways, a very little of Matisse at his worst is all that is needed as an antidote to Bouguereau. Zola-like fidelity in depicting the ugly in life has its uses--and abuses. * * * * * It is easy enough to paint a conglomeration of angles and cubes, but it will be as hollow and meaningless as the pattern of an oilcloth unless it has sincerity behind it.