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In so far as an appreciator does not rest in his immediate enjoyment of a work of art, but seeks to account for his pleasure, to trace the sources of it, to establish the reasons for it, and to define its quality, so far he becomes a critic.
The similitude we have already described between du Maurier's art with the pencil and the art of the modern novel is not complete until we have extended it further in the direction of a comparison with novels of George Meredith and Henry James in particular. Like these two writers du Maurier loved comedy, and your appreciator of comedy cannot stand the presence of a "funny man."
To the appreciator the arts of form carry a twofold significance. There is first the pleasure which derives from the contemplation and reception of a harmony of pure form, including harmony of color, of line, and of flat design as well as form in the round, a pleasure of the senses and the mind.
Art exists not only for the artist's sake but for the appreciator too.
In the same way the activity called forth in all art, both in the artist at the time of creation and in the man who is appreciating it, is disinterested; he is, in proportion as he is an artist or an appreciator of art, concerned at the moment in nothing but the subject-matter of the artist, and the treatment; in making or receiving a certain effect, without thought of the possible practical consequences which may follow through some inference drawn from the work or some psychological result attending upon it.
Finally, as all art is in essence the expression of personality, a single work is to be understood in its widest intention and scope by reference to the total personality of the individual artist as manifested in his work collectively, and to be interpreted by the appreciator through his knowledge of the artist's experience of life.
As art has its origin in emotion and is the expression of it, so for the appreciator the individual work has a meaning and is art in so far as it becomes for him the expression of what he has himself felt but could not phrase; and it is art too in the measure in which it is the revelation of larger possibilities of feeling and creates in him a new emotional experience.
He would never see that the victory lies with the appreciator of any personality, because, if you happen to appreciate a figure whom he himself dislikes, you are proclaimed to be guilty of perversity and bad taste.
They would hold their own by the verity of feeling that is in them, and what they might lose in technical excellence, would be compensated for in uniqueness of personality. I should like well to see them placed beside artists like Maris and Marées, and even Courbet. It would surprise the casual appreciator much, I believe.
It may teach incidentally, tangentially to its circle, but instruction, either intellectual or ethical, is not its purpose. It fulfills itself in the spirit of the appreciator as it enables him in its presence to become something that otherwise he had not been. It is not enough to be told things; we must make trial of them and live them out in our own experience before they become true for us.