Again, some people judge one drawing as better than another in that it
shows more "individuality" or "temperament." Now a man's individuality
is, presumably, a vague feeling in our minds produced by the net result
of the ways in which he sees, hears, loves, thinks and so on, so that we
could not tell a man's individuality from any single one of his
manifestations. With his entire work as an artist before us, i.e. his
manner of seeing, we could do no more than infer, with the help of
outside data, from the subjects he chooses, and the neatness or boldness
of his line, something about his general character, and that with small
degree of certainty. To regard a man's works of art, or indeed any of
his manifestations, from this point of view, is, after all, nothing but
a kind of inquisitive cheiromancy. Those who pretend to like the
drawings of Watteau or Michelangelo "because they show more
individuality" than the incompetent work of a beginner or poor artist
cannot be skilled in their own business, because the lady who tells your
character by your handwriting finds as much individuality in bad writing
as in good,--sometimes even more. It may be entertaining to some to
guess at the artist's character from his works by this process of
inference and comparison, but it is unreasonable to imagine that
"individuality," as such, can be made a serious criterion of aesthetic
judgment. The only individuality a draughtsman can show directly by his
drawing is his individual way of conceiving the forms of nature, and
even this is immaterial provided the conception and drawing be good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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