The Art Spirit by Henri Robert

Author:Henri, Robert [Henri, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2007-07-31T22:00:00+00:00

TO A TEACHER

If I were you I would prefer a short and courageous career in art teaching to one that would be prolonged by hedgings. What does it matter if by standing for the thing you really believe in, fighting for it, giving to others the reasons you have used in your own conviction, making no weak concessions, you fail. Such failure is success. You keep your like- ness, anyhow. Besides, you can depend on it, there are everywhere some people who will recognize your wisdom, truth and courage, and you will be well repaid by having won the appreciation of such people, even if you come back, as a result, out of a job and strapped. Many people would denounce what I have said as sentimental or even wild fanaticism. But don’t be fooled. The diplomatic hedger is all about us. You and I have seen many of them grow up and develop their game. Some of them have bank accounts, and are very respectable and safe citizens, but we are well aware of the price paid and know it is far too dear. There are two classes of human beings. One has ideas, which it believes in fully, perhaps, but modifies to bring about “success.” The other class has ideas which it believes in and must carry out absolutely; success or no success. The first class has a tremendous majority, and they are all slaves. The second class are the only free people in the world. Some are kept under the grind of poverty. Some are sent to jail, but they are still the only free class. But the latter class does not always get ground under the heel, nor sent to jail. People are not always fools. There are those who only want “to be shown,” want to know, and there must be someone who has the courage to show them. These are the words of the old teacher before you again—get mad at me if you like—but it’s the same as I used to say when I was teacher and you were pupil, and it was such ideas, in which you then saw truth and value, that made you come to hear me. And it is because there are many people who are not fools and only want “to be shown,” that in spite of the conventions of institutions, there has always been a place open for me, although there has never been a time that failure has not been predicted.

YOU GO INTO a great cathedral and the impression may be deep upon you. Must you define what you have felt? If you can you are a poet—an artist. There are cathedrals which have measures of great and many meanings.

THE PRINCIPLES manifest in a Beethoven symphony are those of orderly growth.

A government could be constructed on the principle of a Beethoven symphony.

The principle of growth is important to your student who wishes to prepare himself before entering the art school. He should take such studies as lead to this knowledge.

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