Nietzsche and Art — Text and Context

as essentially a case in which the public required expert guidance. Augustus John comes forward with a new concept of what is beautiful. He says pictorially this and that is beautiful. Are we to follow him or to reject him?

Hear one or two critics:--

Commenting upon one of Mr. Max Beerbohm's caricatures in the Spring Exhibition of the New English Art Club, 1909, the Times critic writes as follows--"Here an art-critic meets a number of Mr. John's strange females with long necks and bent, unlovely heads, like a child's copy of a Primitive; and the puzzled critic ejaculates, 'How odd it seems that thirty years hence I may be desperately in love with these ladies!' Odd, indeed, but perfectly possible," continues the Timesexpert. "Some of us have learned, in twenty years, to find nature in Claude Monet, and the time may come when the women in Mr. John's 'Going to the Sea,' or in the 'Family Group' at the Grafton, will seem as beautiful as the Venus de Milo. The 'return of Night primeval and of old chaos' may be nearer than we think." Then after paying Mr. John's drawing a compliment, the writer continues: "But can any one, for all that, whose mind is not warped by purely technical prepossession in favour of a technician, say that the picture would not have been enormously improved if the artist had thought more of nature and less of his 'types' If Mr. John would throw his types to the winds, look for a beautiful model, and paint her as she is, we should not have to wait the thirty years of Mr. Max Beerbohm's critic, but might begin to fall in love with her at once."[57]

And this, let me assure you, is a comparatively able criticism!

But, what guidance does it give? Why is it so timid and non-committing? And, where it is committing, why is it so vague? The words "beautiful model" mean absolutely nothing nowadays. How, then, can the critic employ them without defining the particular sense in which he wishes them to be understood?

I examined this picture of Mr. John's, as also the one at the Grafton. Both of them were full of his personal solution of the deepest problems associated with the ideas of Art and beauty; but how can we know whether to accept these solutions unless they are made quite plain by our critics? It may be suggested that Mr. John's solutions of these problems is not sufficiently important. Why, then, discuss them at all?

The _Daily Telegraph_ also contained a so-called criticism of Mr. John. After commenting, as the previous critic did, upon Mr. Max Beerbohm's caricature and the words accompanying it, the writer proceeds: "How true--to give the most obvious of all instances--with respect to Wagner! And yet Mr. Max Beerbohm, the satirist, is as regards the actual moment, not quite, quite up to date. To-day, for fear of being accused of a Bœotian denseness, we hasten to acclaim, if not necessarily to enjoy, Cézanne, Maurice Denis, the neo-Impressionists, etc., etc."[58]

"For fear of being accused of Bœotian denseness!" Yes, that is the whole trouble! Apparently, then, if we are to believe the _Daily Telegraph_ critic, Mr. John has been acclaimed, simply in order that his critics may escape the gibe of being classically dense!

Possessing neither the necessary knowledge, nor the necessary values, nor yet the necessary certainty, to take up a definite stand for or against, these critics "acclaim" novelty, in whatever garb it may come, lest, perchance, their intelligence be for one instant doubted. Very good!--at least this is a confession which reveals both their humility and their honesty, and, since it entirely supports my contention, I am entirely grateful for it.