‘The theory of mechanisation of the human body could not but lead to the panegyric of the “flat-toed” ballet slipper. The simple sad necessity of giving to the ballerina a point of support receives a philosophico-æsthetic interpretation: this slipper “generalises the contour of the foot” and “makes the impression of the movement clearer and more finished.” In the name of all--I won’t say of all that is sacred--but of all that is beautiful, is it possible to say such things? You have never admired a foot; you do not know what it is--a foot that slowly rises from the ground, first with the heel, then with the sole; you do not know the beauty of supple toes; you evidently never saw the foot of Botticelli’s “Pallas,” the foot of Houdon’s “Diana.” If it is so valuable to “generalise” the contour of the foot by the flat-toed slipper, why not, then, “generalise” the contour of the hand and give to the ballerinas boxing-gloves? Art is an exteriorisation of man, a spreading of one’s self outside the limits of one’s ego, and here we are asked to cut, to shorten, to hide: a principle which is exactly the contrary of art. It was also a “generalisation” of the human figure when Niobe was being metamorphosed into a rock, but it remains till the end of time the expression of grief; the Greeks have not found a more eloquent myth for the eternalisation of human sorrow than the return of form into that which is not formed. They knew that all process of creation goes from the general to the particular. When the musician shapes the musical material accessible to everybody into a particular musical melody, he goes from the general to the particular. When the sculptor takes away piece by piece from the block of marble, he goes from the general to the particular. If, out of the shapeless mass of the human family, the great types could detach themselves and crystallise themselves into definite characters, it is only thanks to their particularities that they conquer and receive their universal value. The direction of the artist is from the shapeless, from the abstract, into the concrete; the process of art is a process of individualisation. It is easy to understand, therefore, the instinctive hostility which is provoked in a man who loves art, by all attempts at “generalisation”: it is the infiltration into art of that which is not art, it is that which in the course of centuries has deserved the appellation of “routine.” This crust of uniformity and impersonality which spreads over art is nothing but an infiltration of the generalising principle into that which is and ought to remain the sacred domain of personality. It is the desert under whose breath fades and withers the beauty of the oasis.