Similarly a line can be significant or beautiful in two ways—for its purely formal relation to other lines, and for the economy with which 1t suggests to the imagination more than it actually describes. In both instances the emotion of the spectator is excited firstly by the work of art in itself, secondly in its relation to its original. I suggest therefore (in contradiction of Mr Bell) that many works of visual art are definitely dependent for part of their value upon our knowledge of the outside world.
But Mr Bell has the honesty to be inconsistent; he discovered, apparently when the book was half finished, that "it is in the French tradition to believe that there is a beauty common to life and art"; and, it seems, we are now allowed to enjoy a picture of a kitten partly for the kitten's sake, as long as we don't see in it a symbol of human aspiration or feminine instability. And we are not likely to do that.
The illustrations to Since Cézanne are admirable, but too few. Also I wish Mr Bell had discussed the later developments of cubism, the theories of André Lhote, and the tremendous art of Seurat more thoroughly. But that would mean another book, which I hope he will soon give us. In the meanwhile I shall read this one again.
