For it is not enough that a work of art should conform to the
aesthetic demands of its age: there must be also about it, if it
is to affect us with any permanent delight, the impress of a
distinct individuality, an individuality remote from that of
ordinary men, and coming near to us only by virtue of a certain
newness and wonder in the work, and through channels whose very
strangeness makes us more ready to give them welcome.
LA PERSONNALITE, said one of the greatest of modem French critics,
VOILE CE QUI NOUS SAUVERA.
But above all things was it a return to Nature - that formula which
seems to suit so many and such diverse movements: they would draw
and paint nothing but what they saw, they would try and imagine
things as they really happened. Later there came to the old house
by Blackfriars Bridge, where this young brotherhood used to meet
and work, two young men from Oxford, Edward Burne-Jones and William
Morris - the latter substituting for the simpler realism of the
early days a more exquisite spirit of choice, a more faultless
devotion to beauty, a more intense seeking for perfection: a
master of all exquisite design and of all spiritual vision.
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