definite and restricted sense in which the words "ethical" and
"moral" are generally used, art is, and must by its nature be unmoral.
I do not mean "immoral," and let no one represent me as saying art
must be immoral by its very nature. There are dear newspaper men
to whom it would be a delight to attribute to me such a saying;
and never to let me forget that I said it. When I say that art is
essentially unmoral, I mean that the first impulse to paint comes
from something seen, either beauty of color or form or tone. It
may be light which attracts the artist, or it may be some dimming
of natural forms, until they seem to have more of the loveliness
of mind than of nature. But it is the aesthetic, not the moral
or ethical, nature which is stirred. The picture may afterwards
be called "Charity," or "Faith," or "Hope"--and any of these words
may make an apt title. But what looms up before the vision of the
artist first of all is an image, and that is accepted on account
of its fitness for a picture; and an image which was not pictorial
would be rejected at once by any true artist, whether it was an
illustration of the noblest moral conception or not. Whether a
picture is moral or immoral will depend upon the character of the
artist, and not upon the subject. A man will communicate his
character in everything he touches. He cannot escape communicating
it. He must be content with that silent witness, and not try to
let the virtues shout out from his pictures. The fact is, art is
essentially a spiritual thing, and its vision is perpetually turned
to Ultimates. It is indefinable as spirit is. It perceives in
life and nature those indefinable relations of one thing to another
which to the religious thinker suggest a master mind in nature--a
magician of the beautiful at work from hour to hour, from moment
to moment, in a never-ceasing and solemn chariot motion in the
heavens, in the perpetual and marvelous breathing forth of winds,