be desired to obtain anything of the might become cultivated instead of vitifreshness, raciness, or natural irregular-ated, and some noble purpose of Art ity of a free and untrammelled artistic might be served. As it is, we are floodexpression, we are driven to imitate it by ed with slovenly workmanship, or with a a reflex process from the outside. As an shallow and easy facility which is still example of what we mean, we may in- worse, unrelieved by any touch of menstance the mode of producing and print- tal power or the slightest sense of spiriting modern etchings. The asperity and ual meaning. roughness of texture of the best specimens, which result spontaneously from the vigour with which they have been executed, and the simplicity of the means used in their production, is actually imitated by artificial contrivances; this shows the way in which our age gives prominence to the mechanism of Art, how much we think of our material, and how little of that which it ought to sub-permits nothing to be done with thor serve. The deterioration of Art among us is in some measure also due to the number of drawings continually in preparation to be poured from the press in the shape of cuts for our periodicals, newspapers, and illustrated books. These are generally required to be done on the spur of the moment, allowing no time for the completion of a well-digested design, so that the artist, to assist the imagination, or rather to find a substitute for it, is compelled to summon the aid of models or sitters before he has the least notion of what he wishes to say, and by their various arrangement and combination to adapt himself to every occasion. Of course, this is quite fatal to every valuable quality in Art. Over and over again we see reproduced the same figures, the same dresses or costume, the same attitudes, without a single fresh sentiment or any effort to reach one. What this endless reproduction and repetition of the same or similar elements is intended to serve, it would be difficult to say; for we never arrive at a new idea, excepting, perhaps, occasionally in the direction of a line; we never get a glimpse into the mind of the artist, who has become, indeed, a mere draughtsman or drawing-machine; we never rise a hair's breadth above his material; he has nothing to reveal, nothing to tell; but only to give us the endless repetition of interminable pencil-strokes, which at last become a vexation to the eye, and a burden to the printed page. If we had a tenth part of this numerous progeny well conceived, thoroughly digested, and faithfully wrought out, it would be infinitely cheaper at the price paid for mere quantity, and would give us more than ten times the pleasure; the national taste Other bad influences also are at work: the vast numbers of periodicals and the dissipations of ephemeral literature, which do not allow men's minds to settle long on any one consideration, however im portant it may be; the constant flow of fugitive ideas that submerges all things in its course; an inconsiderate and superficial haste, which prevents repose and oughness, nor any man to be at ease or at his best; and perhaps above all, the inordinate love of wealth, to which is sacrificed the fine solid qualities upon which alone true reputation can be built. Most centuries have left us something in Art more or less worth keeping; what shall we leave behind us in any form of it which future generations will prize or cherish? Our public buildings, as a rule, are but monuments of a national decay, as far as Art is concerned; our paintings and innumerable illustrations bear witness to, our incapacity for all elevated thought, and we shall be known to succeeding generations as belonging to an age in which almost every spark of the epic and heroic had been quenched in the grave of a hopeless materialism. Combined with the causes above stated, no doubt photography has been injurious to Art. Not that it ought to have been so. Its sphere of usefulness is so accurately defined, so clearly out of the range of the artistic idea, that there should be no confusion of the two, the one being a record of facts, the other a registration of ideas. Nevertheless it would seem as if many painters thought their artistic mission fulfilled in the attempt to rival photography on its own ground. Added to the detrimental agencies already set forth may be reckoned the desire continually to furnish something new; but always in material or manner, and never from the side of simple power of conception. Generally this emulation shows itself in pure caprice, and in the tendency to work at once to death the slightest happy hint which may arise from the prolific and too dexterous brushwork of the day. No sooner is some novelty of knack or cleverness displayed, than, without regarding its eligibility or otherwise, a hundred copyists are ready to sacrifice their own individuality to its imitation, quite forgetful of the infinitely nobler examples always within their reach, if they would only choose to study them. Nothing indeed can exemplify the power of whim so strongly as the walls of a modern exhibition of paintings; there is the white key, the yellow key, the black key; the dry manner, the glutinous manner, the hard manner, and the fuzzy manner: no centrality anywhere, no concentration of force towards any one point, by which alone supreme excellence can be achieved, no aim, in fact, at any speciality, but simply that each may excel the others in any possible variety of evil, as if every one strove to outrival his neighbour's faults. Against our advocacy of the abstract rather than the concrete in Art it might be urged that mere local and literal representation has its position and function in painting as well as the other. This may be so; but in that case it lies quite out of the category of imaginative Art, and therefore does not come within our present scope. We also wish it to be clearly understood that the observations we have made are not altogether unexceptional in their application, though they are quite true of the English school of painting in the main. There are a few among us whose delicate discernment and whose right intentions only want the support and accumulative impetus of a school, to assume a high position in the art-history of their time. In fact, there is no want of capability to do things good and great-in this respect, perhaps, our age is quite as generally gifted as any other; but we require clear mental vision, that we may see what should be done, and disinterested energy of purpose faithfully to do it. It is more in direction than in ability that we fail; all our best activities are lost in dispersed aims, meretricious motives, and want of a leading generalship of idea. When we say the epic has gone from amongst us, we do not refer to the academically stiff and spiritless groupings of a West or a David, dignified in their time by the name of "High Art," and which chiefly consisted of an arrangement of certain useless and unwearable draperies on the loins and shoulders of lay-figures, or a more or less orderly distribution of stage-dummies in masquerade costume (a mode which is unfortunately not altogether yet extinct); but by the epic we mean the subservience of the lesser fact to the larger truth, a recognition of the great principle that circumstances and things, when used for an artistic end, are in themselves only of value as ministering to the ultimate idea and purpose of the artist, and are not to be dwelt on for their own sakes or for any manipulatory power or ability that may be displayed in their representation. In entering upon a critical inquiry into the condition of the English School of Painting, it would be but wholesale condemnation and a waste of time to advance a standard to which the school does not even pretend to appeal, and which is foreign to its main tendencies and aims. We propose, then, first to examine some of the more representative works of those painters of the school who stand most prominently before the public, or who, it is supposed, may be likely to be influential either in a right or a wrong direction; criticizing them from their own standard and point of view, trying to place them with the utmost fairness in their true light and position. We shall endeavour to test them by no individual judgment, but by that which we believe would be represented by a jury of fairly educated art-critics, or, still better, by the average high-toned artist with the true instinct of his profession, without the trammels of egotism, interest, or personal feeling. After disposing of this part of our inquiry, we will take up the question of school or kind, in order to find out the relative position of the English school; how far it submits to laws that evidently prescribed and formed the characteristics of all other worthy schools; how nearly it adheres to those tenets which have always been the ruling laws of Art, or in what respects it may reject or disregard them. In order to do this the more effectually we will supplement our inquiry by comparing our school with another, which affords us the best criterion or test of excellence, showing in what that excellence consists, and the means used to attain it. We will begin, therefore, with the period of our latest art-revolution. About half a lifetime ago a few young men set themselves to form a new theory of Art, or at least to revive one so old that at that time it had all the force and freshness of novelty. Pre-Raphaelism was the first result of this endeavour, though we are afraid it was but the repetition of the old fable of the Mountain The studies of Mr. J. F. Lewis may also be practically ranked in this class of Art, which, however valuable as transcripts of Oriental scenery, life, and character, with all their truth and faithfulness, cannot claim a high value from any other point of view. We believe that Mr. D. G. Rossetti was and the Mouse. This hideous worship of | tality is frozen in their harsh lineaments stocks and stones, we are thankful to say, and inartistic colouring. As a rule they has at last vanished in all but its conse- hold no key to sentiment, and stimulate quences and effects, which are serious no emotion. They are photographs of enough, and likely to remain so for some fact through a mind which communicates time to come. In common fairness, how-little or nothing to them; wonders of ever, we must allow that its results are not handling and technical skill, which stop to be wholly charged to the few over-en-there and never get beyond. thusiastic young men who started it. In its highest aspect it had a finer significance than was ever popularly understood or appreciated, and to this its minuteness of detail was but an accessory. It was one of those egregious delusions which its founders have long since had the good sense to abandon, but which, in the hands of the ever-ready and uninquiring follow-one of the principal originators, as he was ers of new forms and modes, became the the most intelligent exponent, of prevehicle and perpetuation of perhaps as Raphaelism. With him, however, it was much mistaken workmanship as the name realism no longer, and though it perhaps of Art can cover. Its ill-consequences retained a more archaic teatment and diswere deepened by the eloquent advocacy, tribution than was usual with other paintwe cannot fairly say exposition, of a vivid ers, it was never the slave of material, and powerful thinker, many of whose but appealed by mental images, rather most vehement opinions have since been than by the rigid imitation of facts. Full retracted or recalled. These opinions of dislocations and awkward crowdiness, had at that time a very large influence it yet always held by the sounder theory, upon the young and unformed; and all which sought truth of mental impression the more because they were associated rather than the reality of substantial dewith so much doctrine that was sound, tail. Neither has the result of pre-Ranoble, and inspiriting. But though the ac-phaelism been so disastrous with Mr. tual substance of pre-Raphaelism is gone, Rossetti as with others of the school. In its shambling awkwardness, ugly purples, the later pictures we have seen of this flaring scarlets, raw blues, and glaring greens, with the utter abnegation of tone and aerial perspective, live like a nightmare in the memory of us all. One of its most fervent disciples was Mr. Holman Hunt, in whose works some of its worst features still survive without the redeeming quality of that fine interior spiritualism, which gave a certain reach of power to his serious and impressive "Light of the World," and to the solemn lesson of the "Scape-goat." In his "Christ in the Temple" the realistic hardness and wasteful labour of finish, resigning every appeal from the side of Art, address principally the eye, and scarcely at all the mind, of the spectator. In Mr. Hunt's latest works that we have seen he keeps the same hardness of line and ungraceful finish, which seems to believe in no answering faculty in the beholder, in no responsive recognition of the broken hint which the mind feels so deeply, but which the hand despairs to reveal. When we have looked at Mr. Hunt's pictures there is no more to be said about them. They convey nothing but what is seen with the eye; the soul and the imagination are starved before them. Their vi painter much of its unnatural mechanism has been abandoned, and a freer treatment introduced. Though disfigured to some extent by the affectation of archaic mannerism, and wanting in the freedom, air, and ease, of the noblest eras of Art, they are not to be classed with the works of insincerity and thoughtlessness. They are sometimes open to the censure which we have passed upon his poetry, and there is an intellectual strain distinctly perceptible in them; but the poetic idea, rather than the mechanical execution, is the leading object of the work. Work like this is the more valuable because so little strenuous and noble work is now attempted. Here, indeed, lies one of our special grievances. No one thinks it worth while any longer to undertake a serious or epic work requiring indefinite devotion and thoughtfulness. Of the paintings which appear on the walls of the Academy from year to year, there are scarcely any that from the small amount of intellectual labour they reveal might not be included in the category of what artists call "pot-boilers." Generally, as far as thought and subject go, they have no more in them than might fitly serve to illustrate the "annuals." An artist now is not content to repay himself for effort of mind and stretch of capability by doing a noble work which might raise the public mind to its own level, and last beyond his own day. If he can paint pictures quickly, and get large prices for them, he is quite contented. A figure or two, conventionally posed, without any immediate object or purpose, but with tolerably pretty faces for the women, is thought quite sufficient to constitute an approved picture; and if the textures are well imitated, the flesh freely and dexterously handled, and the folds accurately disposed, no more is asked for or wanted. The question of motive never arises, nor any doubts as to intrinsic worth of subject. No painter, except he be very young, and have what is called a "reputation" to make, ever thinks of giving us his best; and then his best must necessarily fall short of excellence. No one asks whether it is not as much worth while to live for Art as by Art; or if, in the splendid function which is the heritage of the painter there may not be attached to conscientious labour and devotion of purpose a greater and nobler reward than money can buy or a temporary popularity have it in its power to bestow. which are always made to tell in the same way; so that they resemble in some manner the symbols used in heraldry; the subject being given, the old forms might be distributed almost as well by description as by the pencil. It is the sacrifice and abandonment of every other good and worthy thing to one, until that one becomes fatiguing and tiresome from its too persistent repetition. There is also another fundamental mistake underlying this form of art. It is far too intense to be largely loved and appreciated; or, indeed, to be good for us. Pictures should not require the utmost stretch of transcendental emotion in order that we may appreciate them. One of the most precious qualities, perhaps, that belongs to Art is its capacity of bestowing repose. To be roused to an excess of passion without adequate reason, without being the nobler or better for it, without even knowing precisely why one is roused, is not a desirable thing; is, in fact, what we very naturally resent. We all know what it is to be in the company of a nervous and excitable person, whose fatiguing demands on the sympathies are without any corresponding object or satisfaction. It is the same thing with this class of Art. It seizes upon you in whatever mood of In the school of what might be called mind, and insists that you shall become the esoteric painters, we may class the one with it: for unless the mind is worked works of Mr. Burne Jones. Some up in a greater or less degree into its own of them which we have seen (for Mr. dithyrambic condition, it is impossible to Jones, like the rest of his brotherhood, is receive the full influence of the burning a sparse exhibitor), though distinguished eyes, wild contortions, and evolutions of by a certain kind of artistic power, are the actors, in these highly-wrought sensaopen to the serious objection of an un- tional melodramas. It is a far more grahealthy morbidness of conception. They cious office to bestow repose on the mind, resemble the poems of Shelley in their than to disturb it with the aimless and intensity of emotion, and sometimes bor- objectless ebullitions of a false emotion. der on the vague and passionate frenzy Titian, in his sweet summer pastorals, of Blake. They have no pretensions to be and Giorgione, with his courtly compatranscripts from nature or the life, but are nies enjoying the delights of a "refined rather the embodiment of those twilight rusticity," Reynolds and Gainsborough, broodings which belong to the fluctuating and equable Thomas Stothard, with his region of dreams. They have occasion- pathetic touches, conceived a better misally elements of seriousness, and an ele- sion for their pencils. The greatest masvated sense of poetry in choice and dis-ters of emotion knew when to lay the tribution; but qualities like these are liable to become a mere conventional mannerism under a constant repetition of the same class of subjects, always regarded from the same point of view. Indeed, it is one of the main objections to this school that its adherents always choose the same unnatural form of face and abnormal type of feature, the same exaggerated drawing, the same dislocated move- This class of works is typical of much ment of the figure, the same overstrained resulting from the present state of Art accessories and glimmering background, among us. tragic pencil down, and give us tranquil glimpses of the world and life, and of those daily social and domestic joys with which we all can sympathize. But the spasmodic painters of our day know no repose from the continual access of fire added to fever, and delirium heaped upon frenzy, with all the reckless abandonment of a Cybelean novitiate. True 66 'Art" has almost passed away; Painting, as we are told by | scheme of the work." It is, in fact, the excellent authority, is now become a man-marvellous but natural result of the comufacture and a knack. It has its trades- bined efforts, with a single aim, of the men and its travellers. Show-rooms are employer and the painter, with no help opened, and the names of well-known possible from legal gambling or commer artists, advertised in local papers, draw cial jobbing. The result here is high exthe wealthy and half-educated parvenu to cellence, where now we have confusion spend his "thousand" in some addled dire and every evil work. Greed, then, work, that he is told is fine and of distin- and "speculation," do not bring good to guished origin. And thus, by easy trans- Art. Sandro knew nothing about these. fer, he becomes what he desires "dis- He worked, and had his wages and the tinguished" as the owner of the cele- careful constant sympathy of his employbrated masterpiece. Among the well-er; and we know that sympathy, like informed, however, he is thenceforth love, works wonders. The charming conknown, not as the owner, but, conversely, as "belonging to " the picture. 66 sequence is seen in Botticelli's picture, which alone is worth the thousand pictures that were shown last year on the same walls. Painting and picture-dealing are now "speculative" and a field for "operations ;" and names and works rise, fluc- This, then, is our moral: Let anyone tuate, and fall in market value without who would obtain a worthy work of Art, any just proportion to their merit or in- order it of the painter, and, confiding in trinsic worth. Patrons and collectors his honour, at whatever salary, engage are for the most part merely jobbers, or him by the day, and then confer with "invest" with a shrewd eye to future him in constant friendly counsel. The gain upon a rising market. To "accom-"patron" will soon find that his interest modate" these "patrons" and their pro- in the painting has become far greater tégés we see announced a "Fine Arts than the money value represents. His financial association," propounded by pleasure will not be in a mere purchased some "merchants" and a shipowner" possession, but in the memory of his cor"to advance money to artists and others dial help in the production of the work. on works of Art, and " - naturally—“to The painter, too, receiving sympathetic effect the sale of the same, under condi- aid and criticism from a friend whose tions mutually advantageous" - of course thoughts are hourly stirred by intercourse -"to the borrowers and the company." with men, will have his mind strengthHere is the "mont-de-piété" of Art. This ened and braced to work with constant is a private venture of the ordinary kind; zeal and vigorous imagination. How but in its care for public morals the be- great a contrast this to the gregarious wildered Legislature made a delicate ex- studio conversation of our modern artists, ception "in the interest of Art," and men whose individuality is nearly swamp gambling, it was told, would "do much ed in cliques, whose thoughts are “in-andgood," "promoting love of Art," as if in," whose minds follow their fingers and mere greed had any love at all. For who are emphatically "led by the hand." many years we have not visited an exhi- whose works, by natural result, are small, bition of Art Union pictures, but the however broad may be the canvas. memory of these collections enables us to say that " Art" treats all its liberal "patrons" with a strict impartiality, and that the gambling section seems to have no preference above the jobbers. Their exhibitions are as well supplied with "speculative" trash as any we have lately seen in Piccadilly or Trafalgar Square. These words remind us of a public obligation, and we would here record the expression of our thanks to the "Academy" for their annual show of paintings by old masters. In this year's exhibition was a painting which we beg the studious reader to recall to mind. Sandro Botticelli's picture of the Assumption of the Virgin was commissioned by Matteo Palmieri, who, it is said, "gave the whole We are within the walls of the Academy. Let us, in our cursory review, select the most successful of its members. Mr. Millais was a chief leader of the preRaphaelitic movement, and at one time was esteemed the Achilles of the school He, more than the rest, has not merely relaxed its strictest tenets, but almost abandoned them; and he now holds a position which it is hard to define in one word, but which perhaps might be called that of the leader of the exoteric school, since it is altogether opposed in manner and purpose to the one already described. Instead of attempting to reproduce mental visions in forms merely indicative and more or less symbolic, Mr. Millais has a fact, or is supposed to have one, for |
