IN the daily life of the ordinary man, a life crowded with diverse
interests and increasingly complex demands, some few moments of
a busy week or month or year are accorded to an interest in art.
Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his
total scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place.
In his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special
training; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete
understanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the
same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to
leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the
connoisseur. For his part as a layman he remains frankly and happily
on the outside. But he feels none the less that art has an interest and
a meaning even for him. Though he does not practice any art himself,
he knows that he enjoys fine things, a beautiful room, noble
buildings, books and plays, statues, pictures, music; and he believes
that in his own fashion he is able to appreciate art, I venture to think
that he is right.
There is a case for the outsider in reference to art. And I have tried
here to state it. This book is an attempt to suggest the possible
meaning of art to the ordinary man, to indicate methods of approach
to art, and to trace the way of appreciation. It is essentially a
personal record, an account of my own adventures with the problem.
The book does not pretend to finality; the results are true for me as
far as I have gone. They may or may not be true for another. If they
become true for another man, he is the one for whom the book was
written. I do not apologize because the shelter here put together, in
which I have found a certain comfort, is not a palace. Rude as the
structure may be, any man is welcomed to it who may find solace
there in an hour of need.
C. N.
CAMBRIDGE, _November second, 1906._
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