no doubt a feeling of the weakening influence on art, as an expressive
force, of the elaborate realisations of the modern school, that prompted
Puvis de Chavannes to invent for himself his large primitive manner. It
will be noticed that in these instances it is chiefly the insistence
upon outline that distinguishes these artists from their contemporaries.

Art, like life, is apt to languish if it gets too far away from
primitive conditions. But, like life also, it is a poor thing and a very
uncouth affair if it has nothing but primitive conditions to recommend
it. Because there is a decadent art about, one need not make a hero of
the pavement artist. But without going to the extreme of flouting the
centuries of culture that art inherits, as it is now fashionable in many
places to do, students will do well to study at first the early rather
than the late work of the different schools, so as to get in touch with
the simple conditions of design on which good work is built. It is
easier to study these essential qualities when they are not overlaid by
so much knowledge of visual realisation. The skeleton of the picture is
more apparent in the earlier than the later work of any school.

The finest example of the union of the primitive with the most refined
and cultured art the world has ever seen is probably the Parthenon at
Athens, a building that has been the wonder of the artistic world for
over two thousand years. Not only are the fragments of its sculptures
in the British Museum amazing, but the beauty and proportions of its
architecture are of a refinement that is, I think, never even attempted
in these days. What architect now thinks of correcting the poorness of
hard, straight lines by very slightly curving them? Or of slightly
sloping inwards the columns of his facade to add to the strength of its
appearance? The amount of these variations is of the very slightest and
bears witness to the pitch of refinement attempted. And yet, with it