In the essential unity of all feeling we may thus find the point in which all forms of art, notwithstanding their different subjects and materials, have their unity. By laying the chief stress on the emotional mood which in every work is conveyed from creator to spectator, we save the trouble of dividing the works into different classes. We need not then assume any peculiar principle of admiration for technical skill to explain the enjoyment of Dutch painting or of Greek sculpture. Nor need we put ourselves to the pains of deciding whether the subject or the execution is to be considered more important. The problem of content and form, so much debated throughout intellectualistic æsthetic, does not exist for the emotionalistic interpretation, which sees the essence of art in the feeling embodied, sometimes in a great and important subject, sometimes in some insignificant feature of nature or life. And the element of technical perfection becomes acknowledged in its proper light when interpreted as the indispensable condition for effectually achieving such an embodiment. It would be impossible, however, to explain as merely a confusion of standpoints the fact that certain schools of art have been considered entirely unemotional. To some extent, no doubt, the deficient appreciation of purely pictorial art is the result of the disastrous influence which has, especially in England, been exercised by prevailing currents of criticism. By systematically diverting the attention of the public from the essential element in painting, the leaders of taste may, no doubt, accomplish great things in deadening the art-sense of nations. But it is scarcely probable that, even if he knew better than to look for a “story” and literary interest in a work of pure painting, the general spectator would be able to enjoy the _état d’âme_ which is expressed in an _intérieur_ of Ver Meer or a landscape of Whistler. To him a painting the whole subject of which is sunshine, and the figures of which have no mission but that of absorbing or reflecting the light, would appear inane and cold. “Pictorial ideas,” which may represent such a wealth of feeling for the initiated, are thus to the artistically uneducated devoid of any emotional content.