12
Everyone knows Pliny’s anecdote of Appelles and Protogenes.
It demonstrates clearly the aesthetic pleasure resulting solely
from this odd combination of which I have spoken.
Appelles landed one day on the Isle of Rhodes to see the works
of Protogenes, who lived there. Protogenes was not in his studio
when Appelles arrived. An old woman was there guarding
a large canvas ready to be painted. Instead of leaving his name,
Appelles drew on the canvas a line so delicate that nothing sub
tler could be conceived.
On his return Protogenes, seeing the drawn line, recognized
the hand of Appelles, and traced thereupon a line of another
color even more subtle, in such a way that there appeared to be
three.
Appelles came back again the next day, without finding him
whom he sought, and the subtlety of the line he drew that day
reduced Protogenes to despair. This sketch was for a long time
the admiration of connoisseurs who viewed it with as much
pleasure as if gods and goddesses had been depicted instead of
almost invisible tracings.
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The secret aim of the young artists of the extreme schools is
to produce pure painting. It is an entirely new plastic art. It
is still in its first stage, and is not yet as abstract as it would like
to be. Most of the young painters work a great deal with math
ematics without knowing it, but they have not yet abandoned
nature whom they patiently question so that she may teach them
the way of life.
A Picasso studies an object as a surgeon dissects a body.
This art of pure painting, if it succeeds in disengaging itself
entirely from the ancient school of painting, will not necessarily
cause such painting to disappear, any more than the development
of music has caused the disappearance of different kinds of lit
erature, or than the acridity of tobacco has replaced the savour
of food.