Produced by Ruth Hart [Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to the beginning of the text. Also I have made one spelling change: irrevelant circumstance to irrelevant circumstance.] THE GATE OF APPRECIATION Studies in the Relation of Art to Life BY CARLETON NOYES BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1907 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY CARLETON NOYES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published April 1907_ TO MY FATHER AND THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER "Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls." CONTENTS Preface i I. The Impulse to Expression i II. The Attitude of Response 23 III. Technique and the Layman 44 IV. The Value of the Medium 87 V. The Background of Art 105 VI. The Service of Criticism 137 VII. Beauty and Common Life 165 VIII. The Arts of Form 201 IX. Representation 221 X. The Personal Estimate 254 PREFACE IN the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse interests and increasingly complex demands, some few moments of a busy week or month or year are accorded to an interest in art. Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his total scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place. In his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special training; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete understanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the connoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily on the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and a meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself, he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes that in his own fashion he is able to appreciate art, I venture to think that he is right. There is a case for the outsider in reference to art. And I have tried here to state it. This book is an attempt to suggest the possible meaning of art to the ordinary man, to indicate methods of approach to art, and to trace the way of appreciation. It is essentially a personal record, an account of my own adventures with the problem. The book does not pretend to finality; the results are true for me as far as I have gone. They may or may not be true for another. If they become true for another man, he is the one for whom the book was written. I do not apologize because the shelter here put together, in which I have found a certain comfort, is not a palace. Rude as the structure may be, any man is welcomed to it who may find solace there in an hour of need.