they did not exist at all previous to the formation of this expressive side of the spirit.” 1

To the two fundamental questions that men ask of æstheticians-"What is art?" and "What is beauty?"-Croce either does not deign to reply, or replies in antediluvian fashion, "Art is symbol, all symbol." "An aspiration enclosed in the circle of a representaion-that is art; and in it the aspiration alone stands for the representation, and the representation alone for the aspiration." "Art is a true asthetic synthesis a priori of feeling and image in the intuition." These definitions, to my mind, do nothing more than repeat, in more elegant terms, in more sophistical formulæ, the old truism that art consists in the expression of feeling.

With regard to beauty we are still more deeply in the dark. "An appropriate expression, if appropriate, is also beautiful, beauty being nothing but the determination of the image and therefore of the expression." But we have learned that an expression which is not appropriate is not even an expression, and we remember that art is nothing other than expression: all art, then, is proper and determinate, in other words, beautiful. We are lost in another hopeless labyrinth of identities.

And the worst of it is that the concepts of appropriateness and determinateness are the most

'P. 258.

'P. 245.

'P. 248.

'P. 254.

'P. 262.

indeterminate of all possible concepts. Appropriate, if I mistake not, means adapted, and adapted brings us back to the idea of purpose. But what is the purpose of art? To move? There are works which move many people, and yet are not beautiful. To reveal? But there are some to whom a single epithet reveals the whole, and others to whom a whole series of descriptions will not convey the gift of vision. And what is the meaning of determinateness? Certainly not logical clearness, for there are poems which are great precisely because of their undefined suggestiveness; not completeness-else a notary's inventory would be more beautiful than a swift poetic image. And if we turn to the standard set up by Croce in the Esthetics itself -the standard of success and failure we are no better off. The idea of success is indissolubly associated with the idea of a model (an object or an action) which the artist approaches more or less closely or not at all. But where and what are the models to which the critic may refer in judging the success, that is, the beauty, of a work of art? Surely not the ideal images that may arise in critics' heads: for if they really had images superior to existing works they would at once express them-and then they would be no longer critics, but artists.

And yet a standard for the estimate of beauty in art is absolutely necessary if, as Croce admits,

the service of the critic consists in "clearly stating whether a work be beautiful or ugly.""

In the presence of such thoughts and such a way of thinking, in the presence of a theory which wavers constantly between nonsense and mere common sense, between emptiness and banality, one is forced to ask why it is that Croce's books have won such fame in Italy. One reason, at least, is this: among the things which Croce repeats so often there is one indubitable truth, namely, that Italians know little or nothing about philosophy. Croce's advent occurred after twenty or thirty years of positivism had made our young men forget the strong and ancient language of metaphysics; the thirst for greater certainty remained; Croce came and conquered. The average Italian, weary of his positivistsLombroso, Ardigò, Ferri, Sergi-threw himself upon the books of Croce in the belief that the philosophy dished out in them was the whole of philosophy and nothing but philosophy. Croce's popularity was increased by the fact that he began his system with a treatment of art, thus winning all the men of letters of his land, who, since they are (or think themselves) capable of art, are persuaded that they are capable also of understanding the theory of art.

But just there lies a serious difficulty. The theorist should understand and feel, deeply and

'P. 267.

thoroughly, the phenomenon he is discussing: whereas Croce, as his too extensive excursions into literary criticism make evident, has not the slightest artistic sensitiveness nor the slightest taste beyond that which is merely scholastic and traditional. There are no works in which the sense of art is more completely lacking than in those of Croce. That is why he has brought himself to consider the theory of art as a closed circle of six or seven Siamese twins, so identical one with the other that no one of them gives any help in the understanding of another. And that is why he has had to cover the banality of his commonplaces with a sophistical counterpoint of arbitrary abstractions.

At a certain point in his book Croce expresses the belief that some of his theories, because of their novelty, will at first produce a sort of bewilderment. The illustrious theorist is right, but he need not worry. The reader's bewilderment, when he comes really to understand the situation, is merely the bewilderment that comes with each new proof of the fact that enormous popularity may be won at any time by the utterance of the most bromidic of truisms, provided they be furbished up with a little coquetry and a little mystery.

XII

ARMANDO SPADINI1

ARMANDO SPADINI is an Italian painter, Italian in fatherland and in style. He was born in Florence in 1883, and has been living in Rome since 1910.

Though he has reached the mid-point of his life and his work, I do not know how his credit is rated on the pictorial exchange, nor in what esteem he is held by those doubly ignorant critics who nourish the emaciated arts of the present day with myrrh or hemlock. There are two tribes of these critic-nurses: the old-school tribe of the Minoses, who have nothing left of the original Minos except his monstrosity; and the newschool tribe of the Ten, who retain but one attribute of the original inquisitors-the mask. I fear that Spadini's name is not in the good books of either tribe. But that may be a good sign after all.

To form a fair judgment of Spadini, one must know the man, and not merely his painting, which in itself might seem so facile and so com

Written in 1918.