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198 THEORIES OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
this manner, after its lighter method, approaches
true imitation;
the more zealously, on the other hand, it seeks to
grasp and comprehensibly to express what is characteristic in
objects;
the more firmly it unites both, by an unmixed, lively,
vigorous individuality:
the higher and more respectable will
it
prove. When an artist of this calibre ceases holding to
nature and thinking on nature, he will gradually depart farther
and farther from the foundation of art.
His manner will
grow more shallow and insignificant, the more it departs
from simple imitation and from style.
We need not here repeat that we take the word manner in a
good and respectful sense, and that consequently artists whose
works to our thinking fall within the circle of manner have
no ground of complaint against us. It is simply of importance
for us to give the word style the highest position, so as to have
on hand an expression with which to indicate the highest
stage that art has reached and can reach. Indeed, merely to
appreciate this stage is in itself a great felicity,
and to converse
about it with intelligent people, a noble satisfaction;
such satisfaction we shall have many an opportunity to give
ourselves in what follows.
1
Among the loftiest of human endeavors would be the successful effort to
order aright the life of an individual or of a family ; or, still higher, the shaping
of the life of a nation. However, the ordering of an individual life may
itself be considered a work of art; i.e. an example of "the skilful and systematic
arrangement or adaptation of means for the attainment of a desired
end" (Standard Dictionary). Compare Professor Albert S. Cook's address,
The Artistic Ordering of Life, published by Crowell.
2
Jan van Huysum (1682-1749), of Amsterdam, a Dutch painter of flowers
and fruit.
Rachel Ruisch (1664-1750), a painter of flowers, from The Hague.