The Scottish Art Review
THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW starts unhampered by traditions, but not without a definite policy. An indication of that policy will be found in the succeeding article — The Gospel of Art. The Dilletante and the Dryasdust, and all whose hearts have been eaten out by the pride of caste, or the dry-rot of a self-sufficing ' Culture,' will have no place here. We are not for them, nor they for us. What we want is living truth for living people. These pages will therefore be open to the contributions of those who write from know- ledge and conviction on the subjects to be dealt with by the Journal, and in harmony with the spirit which animates it. The Scotttsh Art Review is run to supply at the cost of production, and largely as a labour of love, the best thought we can command. We want good men to help us. And we require the public to co-operate with us, by buying and reading what we thus supply for the furtherance of no individual or class interests, but the furtherance of a knowledge and a love of that as- pect of divine truth which it is the privilege of Art to present to men — a knowledge and a love which this nation stands in dire need of at the present day.
THE GOSPEL OF ART.
i.
THE importance of Art in human affairs, and the advantage to man's higher well-being of his clearly recognising that importance cannot be over- rated. It is a poor and low ideal of life which would regard Art as only ornamental, only a sort of refined source of pleasure ; and it is a narrow and a false one which would have us believe that Art is only for the few. Art is for every man and woman who in childhood gathered flowers and shells because of their beauty.
But there are tendencies in our life making us grow away from and lose those first affections, and life becomes sadder and more sordid for their loss. Art is the tangible expression of the spirit which retains, tlirough life, the child's spontaneous delight in what is beautiful, as a perennial spring of purest joy, ^^•elling up through all our being. No bitterness that life may bring can blight the fair growth of souls thus nourished at the roots. Art, therefore, is the visible proof of a spirit which can triumph over all life's ills. Beginning in the innocent joys of childhood, it culminates in the manhood which, cognisant of all the trouble and the tragedy of life, and even, mayhap, a prey to them, can yet look out unfretted, from the sweet serenity within, that has learned how to resolve all human discords in the Divine harmony.
To the millions of toiling, sad, baffled and suffering men and women in this land whose lives are kept sordid, and barren, and mean for the want of this joyous spirit of Art, surely this is a matter of some importance. It is not expected or hoped that men are to be suddenly translated into heaven on earth by looking at painted pictures, or listening to sweet strains of music. But it is certain that, until men become endued with that spirit of which all true works of art are the generous expression, their lives will be bereft of an ennobling joy which is the inalienable birthright of every human soul. Not for the dilletante, or the idle rich, who, indeed, can but rarely understand its spirit. Art is for every man who, with a single eye and a pure heart, desires to learn how to recognise, in all the aspects of life and nature, rightly seen, a tangible expression of the Divine love, and who is thereby moved to share with his fellow-men delight in that recognition. For Art is the language by which such things are told.
Most men and women regard works of art with a certain affection, of a kind, frankly delighting in them, even though sometimes with no more than a child's insight into their meaning. Yet too many seem to get no further, believing, it may be, that Art is a very fine sort of thing, but with a bewildered notion that the knowledge and under- standing of it are for critics and connoisseurs only, being much too precious and profound to be shared
