“Now the law which has dominated painting for more than a century is a more and more comprehensive assimilation of musical idiom. Even Delacroix spoke of ‘the mysterious effects of line and colour which, alas, only a few adepts feel--like interwoven themes in music ...’ and Baudelaire, in another connection, wrote, ‘Harmony, melody, and counterpoint are to be found in colour.’ Ingres also remarked to his disciples, ‘If I could make you all musicians you would be better painters.’ Renoir, who journeyed to Sicily to paint Wagner’s portrait and to translate _Tannhäuser_, is a musical enthusiast and his work is music. Maurice Denis tells us that his pals at Julian’s Academy, those who were to found synthesism with him, never tired of discussing Lamoureux’s concerts, where they were enthusiastic habitués. Gaugin announced that ‘painting is a musical phase.’ He speaks continually of the music of a picture; when he wants to analyze his work he divides it into the literary element, to which he attaches less importance, and the musical element which he schemes first. Cézanne, whom Gaugin compared to César Franck, said, ‘not model, but modulate.’ Metzinger invokes the right of cubist painters to express all emotions as music does, and one of the æstheticians of the new school writes: ‘The goal of painting is perhaps a music of nature, visual music to which traditional painting would have somewhat the status that sacred or dramatic music has compared to concert music.’ “This, then, is the revolution in the art of line and colour which has become aware of its intrinsic power, independent of any subject. In truth, even among the Venetians, as has been well said, the subject was ‘only the background upon which the painter relied to develop his harmonies,’ but the mentality of spectators clings to this background as to the libretto of an opera. At present, an end to librettos: Pure music: those who wish to comprehend it must first of all master its idiom, for ‘Colour is learned as music is.’” (Romain Rolland: “The Unbroken Chain,” Lee Simonson’s translation.) So far, in spite of the protestations of horror made by the academicians, the pedants, and the Philistines, which would lead one to suppose a state of complete chaos, there has not been a complete abandonment of co-ordination, of selection, or of intention, in either art. In fact, it seems to me, that the qualities of intention and selection are more powerful adjuncts of the artist than they have been for many generations. In painting colour and form are cunningly contrived to give us an idea, if not a photograph, and in music natural (as well as unnatural) sounds are still arranged, perhaps to a more extreme extent than ever before. II