Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Eastman contrasts two aesthetic ideals. By calling “classic art” the art of “necessity,” he suggests an art governed by constraint: form, proportion, and an internal logic that makes each element feel inevitable rather than optional. “Modern romantic art,” in his phrasing, is marked by “caprice and chance,” implying a preference for spontaneity, subjective impulse, and effects that can feel contingent rather than structurally compelled. The opposition is less a strict historical taxonomy than a critical judgment about artistic discipline: the classical aims at coherence and inevitability, while the romantic risks arbitrariness. The quote thus participates in a long debate about whether modernity’s freedom from rules produces vitality or merely accident.