for a mediocre artist!" It is for the sake of the strange new
beauty, "the unedited poses," "the odd beautiful huddle<1> of
lines," in a stopping or squatting form, that all these wild
and subtle moments are portrayed. The limbs must be adjusted
or surprised in some pattern beyond their own. The ideas are
the occasion and the excuse for new outlines,--that is all.

<1> Said of Degas. MacColl.

This is all scarcely less true of Millet, whom we have known
above all as the painter who has shown the simple common lot
of labor as divine. But he, too, is artist for the sake of
beauty first. He sees two peasant women, one laden with grass,
the other with fagots. "From far off, they are superb, they
balance their shoulders under the weight of fatigue, the
twilight swallows their forms. It is beautiful, it is great
as a myster."<1>

<1> Sensier, _Vie et Oeuvre de J.-F. Millet_.

The idea is, as I said, from this point of view, a means to
new beauty; and the stranger and subtler the idea, the more
original the forms. The more unrestrained the expression of
emotion in the figures, the more chance to surprise them in
some new lovely pattern. It is thus, I believe, that we may
interpret the seeming trend of modern sculpture, and so much,
indeed, of all modern art, to the "expressive beauty" path.
"The mediocre artist" will lose beauty in seeking expression,
the great artist will pursue his idea for the sake of the
new beauty it will yield.