But not infrequently the sculptor and the painter upset the equilibrium of the work of others by doing things which are out of key or out of proportion. The “fine artist” _may_ bring the work of decorating to a standstill by painting spotty _easel_ pictures on walls that should be treated in harmony with the entire building and with its uses. * * * * * The time will come when art schools will teach pure color composition as well as drawing and the painting of pictures. Why should not prizes be offered for color harmonies? As it is now pupils are taught everything _except_ the use of color _for the sake of color_. * * * * * What is a “still life”? Simply a painting of a number of objects selected and arranged primarily for their color notes. Why not paint the notes without the fruit and dishes? So far as the color harmony is concerned the _figure_ of an orange, an apple, a banana is not essential; in reality the photographic realization distracts. But the public is not accustomed to _pure_ color music, it is not accustomed to seeing canvases that contain only color harmonies with no suggestion of object or form, it demands that the note of yellow shall be a lemon or a banana, that the note of purple shall assume the shape of a plum and so on, and so on; yet all the time the enjoyment derived from a fine “still life” is from the harmony that results from the combination of colors, and in no sense from the objects arbitrarily and artificially grouped together. * * * * * The use of line and color _imitatively_ to depict objects is one thing. The use of line and color _freely_ to produce pure line harmonies and pure color harmonies, with no reference to objects is quite another, and in a sense, a far higher art--a more abstract art. It is toward the development of this more abstract art that the modern experiments are tending. The net result in the long run will be the education of a considerable fraction of the public to the appreciation of pure line and color music and a consequent demand for paintings that are simply pure line and color compositions. With this development of a taste for a very abstract art all the arts and crafts are certain to be beneficially affected. The study of line for the sake of line, and of color for the sake of color if systematically pursued will make all draftsmen greater masters of line, and all painters--to the humblest house painter--greater masters of color. IX ESORAGOTO Neither the Cubists nor Kandinsky troubled a very distinguished Japanese expert who spent many days at the exhibition. “The principles of all this are old, very old, in Japan.” He was far more interested in the extreme drawings and paintings than in the more academic. Pointing to a drawing that seemed scarce more than a few careless strokes, he said, “That is quite in the spirit of the best Japanese art.”