Produced by Ruth Hart [Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to the beginning of the text.] THE ENJOYMENT OF ART BY CARLETON NOYES BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CARLETON NOYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published, March, 1903_ To ROBERT HENRI AND VAN D. PERRINE This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, And I said to my spirit _When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?_ And my spirit said _No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond._ WALT WHITMAN CONTENTS Preface I. The Picture and the Man i II. The Work of Art as Symbol 19 III. The Work of Art as Beautiful 41 IV. Art and Appreciation 67 V. The Artist 86 PREFACE The following pages are the answer to questions which a young man asked himself when, fresh from the university, he found himself adrift in the great galleries of Europe. As he stood helpless and confused in the presence of the visible expressions of the spirit of man in so many ages and so many lands, one question recurred insistently: _Why_ are these pictures? What is the meaning of all this striving after expression? What was the aim of these men who have left their record here? What was their moving impulse? Why, why does the human spirit seek to manifest itself in forms which we call beautiful? He turned to histories of art and to biographies of artists, but he found no answer! to the "Why?" The philosophers with their theories of aesthetics helped him little to understand the dignity and force of this portrait or the beauty of that landscape. In the conversation of his artist friends there was no enlightenment, for they talked about "values" and "planes of modeling" and the mysteries of "tone." At last he turned in upon himself: What does this canvas mean to me? And here he found his answer. This work of art is the revelation to me of a fuller beauty, a deeper harmony, than I have ever seen or felt. The artist is he who has experienced this new wonder in nature and who wants to communicate his joy, in concrete forms, to his fellow men.