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Room 27 Speaking By F. H. Varley

oe is the recording of Life and varies in degree according to the inner
experiences of the artist combined with his imagination or vision.
Art being as Life, then all people are artists in varying degrees. True,
some are slumbering, some desire vaguely, some aspire. Those who are
not slumbering long to express themselves in emotional moments and
often we hear the utterance, “If I could only write, | would tell the story
of my life,” “If I could only paint I would paint a wonderful sunset
I saw,” etc., etc. These are the first throbs of desire. The intensification
of such a longing makes practical the desire and records the birth of the
artist.

“Feeling” avails nothing without organization and restraint. Add
“intellect” and “will” to emotion and you possess the three great qualities
necessary for all aesthetic expression.

Emotion senses the motif, /ntellect the constructive, and Will the
power to organize.

Art is not merely recording surface life—incidents, emotions. The
Artist divines the causes beneath which create the outward result.

Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross” lives not because it is a record of
incident but because with great intensity incident and emotion has been
fused magnificently with organized constructive form.

In aesthetic work a still life group can be as great as the Rocky
Mountains or Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross.” If this were not so, the
world would be flooded with painted incidents all acknowledged great
works of Art.

Shun the barren mind that apes a coloured photograph or attempts
the literal. It is through ignorance or arrogance that one believes their
paltry pigment can compete with the glory of sunlight or the majesty of
the mountains.

Art being as Life, a composition must be a complete creation in itself
and is ever in the process of being.

Art is ageless. A drawing by Leonardo was made today and a great
drawing today is 4000 years old.

Again, Art being as Life, the true Artist must be impersonal, recording
all Life without prejudice or judgment.

This room is your workshop and as sacred as the Church. A place