These are the main principles of construction and modeling--principles to which we owe the force and charm of works of art. They are the key not only to the handicraft of sculpture, but to all the handicrafts of art. For that which is true of a bust applies equally to the human form, to a tree, to a flower, or to an ornament. This is neither mysterious nor hard to understand. It is thoroughly commonplace, very prosaic. Others may say that art is emotion, inspiration. Those are only phrases, tales with which to amuse the ignorant. Sculpture is quite simply the art of depression and protuberance. There is no getting away from that. Without a doubt the sensibility of an artist and his particular temperament play a part in the creation of a work of art, but the essential thing is to command that science which can be acquired only by work and daily experience. The essential thing is to respect the law, and the characteristic of that fruitful law is to be the same for all things. Moreover, such was the method employed by the ancients, the method which we ourselves employed till the end of the eighteenth century, and by which the spirit of the Gothic genius and that of the Renaissance and of the periods of culture and elegance of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were transmitted to us. Only in our day have we completely lost that technic. These rules do not constitute a system peculiar to myself. They are general principles which govern the world of art, just as other immutable laws govern the celestial world. They are mathematical principles which I found again because my work inevitably led me to follow in the footsteps of the great masters, my ancestors. THE TRADITIONAL LAWS OF ANCIENT ART In days of old, precise laws were handed down from generation to generation, from master to student, in all the workshops of the workers in art--sculptors, painters, decorators, cabinet-makers, jewelers. But at that time workshops existed where one actually taught, where the master worked in view of the pupil. In our day by what have we replaced that marvelously productive school, the workshop? By academies in which one learns nothing, because one sets out from such a contrary point of view.