But every age differs in its temperament, and the artistic conventions of one age seldom fit another.  The artist has to discover a convention for himself, one that fits his particular individuality.  But this is done simply and naturally—­not by starting out with the intention of flouting all traditional conventions on principle; nor, on the other hand, by accepting them all on principle, but by simply following his own bent and selecting what appeals to him in anything and everything that comes within the range of his vision.  The result is likely to be something very different from the violent exploits in peculiarity that have been masquerading as originality lately. #Originality is more concerned with sincerity than with peculiarity.#

The struggling and fretting after originality that one sees in modern art is certainly an evidence of vitality, but one is inclined to doubt whether anything really original was ever done in so forced a way.  The older masters, it seems, were content sincerely to try and do the best they were capable of doing.  And this continual striving to do better led them almost unconsciously to new and original results.  Originality is a quality over which an artist has as little influence as over the shape and distinction of his features.  All he can do is to be sincere and try and find out the things that really move him and that he really likes.  If he has a strong and original character, he will have no difficulty in this, and his work will be original in the true sense.  And if he has not, it is a matter of opinion whether he is not better employed in working along the lines of some well-tried manner that will at any rate keep him from doing anything really bad, than in struggling to cloak his own commonplaceness under violent essays in peculiarity and the avoidance of the obvious at all costs.

But while speaking against fretting after eccentricity, don’t let it be assumed that any discouragement is being given to genuine new points of view.  In art, when a thing has once been well done and has found embodiment in some complete work of art, it has been done once for all.  The circumstances that produced it are never likely to occur again.  That is why those painters who continue to reproduce a picture of theirs (we do not mean literally) that had been a success in the first instance, never afterwards obtain the success of the original performance.  Every beautiful work of art is a new creation, the result of particular circumstances in the life of the artist and the time of its production, that have never existed before and will never recur again.  Were any of the great masters of the past alive now, they would do very different work from what they did then, the circumstances being so entirely different.  So that should anybody seek to paint like Titian now, by trying to paint like Titian did in his time, he could not attempt anything more unlike the spirit of that master; which in its day, like the spirit of all masters, was most advanced.  But it is only by a scrupulously sincere and truthful attitude of mind that the new and original circumstances in which we find ourselves can be taken advantage of for the production of original work.  And self-conscious seeking after peculiarity only stops the natural evolution and produces abortions.