EVERY MAN AN ARTIST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 2 May 1931, Page 12

EVERY MAN AN ARTIST

“Man himself is an object of art. Man is not to he accepted either by himself or by Ills friends as tile sky and sea are accepted. Man is an object of art to he judged, to.be altered, and to he improved. He is subject to human skill,” said Dr. Tissington Tatlow, in a Lenten sermon* preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral. “There are many artists at work upon every human being—parents, teachers, friends; sometimes employers or employees or acquaintances take a hand at the work. But the most important of all the artists that work is the man himself. I do not think that* many people' accept this fundamental fact of human life with complete understanding, although most people pay some sort of tribute to it, even though this consists in little more than making a few good resolutions at the New Year, or having an uneasy feeling that they ought to do something about Lent; Yet that fact about the'nature of a human being which people treat in this rather casual way is the most tremendous reality there is in human life —the fact that each one of us is an artist and that the object of one’s skill is oneself. This is the fact which gives human life its significance, its interest, its responsibility, its importance. The recognition of til is fact is ail essential to all fine and true living.”