all, how simple! There is something of the primitive strength of
Stonehenge in that solemn row of columns rising firmly from the steps
#without any base#. With all its magnificence, it still retains the
simplicity of the hut from which it was evolved.

Something of the same combination of primitive grandeur and strength
with exquisite refinement of visualisation is seen in the art of Michael
Angelo. His followers adopted the big, muscular type of their master,
but lost the primitive strength he expressed; and when this primitive
force was lost sight of, what a decadence set in!

This is the point at which art reaches its highest mark: when to the
primitive strength and simplicity of early art are added the infinite
refinements and graces of culture without destroying or weakening the
sublimity of the expression.

In painting, the refinement and graces of culture take the form of an
increasing truth to natural appearances, added bit by bit to the
primitive baldness of early work; until the point is reached, as it was
in the nineteenth century, when apparently the whole facts of visual
nature are incorporated. From this wealth of visual material, to which
must be added the knowledge we now have of the arts of the East, of
China, Japan, and India, the modern artist has to select those things
that appeal to him; has to select those elements that answer to his
inmost need of expressing himself as an artist. No wonder a period of
artistic dyspepsia is upon us, no wonder our exhibitions, particularly
those on the Continent, are full of strange, weird things. The problem
before the artist was never so complex, but also never so interesting.
New forms, new combinations, new simplifications are to be found. But
the steadying influence and discipline of line work were never more