When I pointed to one of the figures, a youth holding out a long bare arm, and remarked that I had never seen an arm of such length, my criticism brought out an unsuspected principle of art. "The Cubists would say that you were altogether too literal. They are making us all understand that what art ought to do is to express not what we merely see with our eyes, but what we feel. If by lengthening that arm, the painter gets an effect that he wants, he's justified in refusing to be bound by the mathematical facts of nature. Art is not a matter of strict calculation, that is, art at its best and its purest. It's a matter of spiritual perception. All the resources of the artist ought to be bent toward expressing a spiritual idea and making it alive and beautiful through outline and color." "But how about the mixture of allegory and realism that we see in these murals and in so much of the art here? Don't you find it disturbing?" "Not at all. There's no reason in the world why the allegorical and the real should not go together, provided, of course, they don't grossly conflict and become absurd. What the artist is always working for is the effect of beauty. If a picture is beautiful, no matter how the beauty is achieved, it deserves recognition as a work of art. In these murals Du Mond has tried to reach as closely as he could to nature without being too literal and without sacrificing artistic effect. He has even introduced among his figures some well-known Californians, a Bret Harte, in the gown of the scholar, and William Keith, carrying a portfolio to suggest his painting." In that inner court we noticed how cleverly Faville had subordinated the architecture so that it should modestly connect the great central courts. McLaren was keeping it glowing on either side with the most brilliant California flowers. The ornamental columns, the Spanish doorways, and the great windows of simple and yet graceful design were all harmonious, and Guerin and Ryan had helped out with the coloring. VIII The Court of the Four Seasons