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THOUGHTS ABOUT ART. 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A PAINTER'S CAMP. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 USI7ERSIT7 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1871. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1871, by 
 
 EGBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM WYLD, 
 
 CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR, 
 MEMBER OF THE BOTAL ACADEMY OF AMSTERDAM. 
 
 MY DEAR WYLD, When the "Painter's Camp" and " Thoughts 
 about Art" were issued together as one work, the whole was dedicated to 
 you. Now that they are distinct books, I renew the dedication in each of 
 them ; not regretting that my affection for you personally and admiration 
 for your art should be commemorated in two books instead of one. 
 
 Ever yours most faithfully, 
 
 P. G. HAMERTON. 
 
UHIVBR3IT7 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. PAGE 
 
 THAT CERTAIN ARTISTS SHOULD WRITE ON ART . . 1 
 
 II. 
 PAINTING FROM NATURE 16 
 
 III. 
 PAINTING FROM MEMORANDA 53 
 
 IV. 
 THE PLACE OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING AMONGST THE 
 
 FINE ARTS 85 
 
 V. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND PAINTING 113 
 
 VI. 
 WORD PAINTING AND COLOR PAINTING 145 
 
 vn. 
 
 TRANSCENDENTALISM IN PAINTING 161 
 
 VIII. 
 THE LAW OF PROGRESS IN ART . 174 
 
 IX. 
 
 ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN PAINTING . 180 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 X. PAGB 
 
 THE REACTION PROM PRE-RAPHAELITISM . . . . . 200 
 
 XI. 
 THE PAINTER IN ms RELATION TO SOCIETY ... 208 
 
 XII. 
 PICTURE BUYING . . 239 
 
 XHI. 
 THE HOUSING OF NATIONAL ART TREASURES . . 262 
 
 XIV. 
 FAME 279 
 
 XV. 
 ART CRITICISM 290 
 
 XVI. 
 PROUDHON AS A WRITER ON ART 305 
 
 XVII. 
 Two ART PHILOSOPHERS 334 
 
 XVIII. 
 FURNITURE 346 
 
 XIX. 
 THE ARTISTIC SPIRIT 369 
 
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION, 
 
 IN 1862, 1 published a work in two volumes, entitled 
 "A Painter's Camp in the Highlands, and Thoughts 
 about Art." Each of these volumes was, in fact, a dis- 
 tinct work, but they were issued together in order to 
 get an audience for the Essays. My ambition was not 
 to be a writer of travels, but a writer on art, and the 
 "Painter's Camp" was published to float the Essays, 
 as a merchant ship may carry troops. Since then the 
 position aimed at has been won ; that is, an audience 
 has been found, and there is no longer any need to 
 keep the books together. 
 
 It has not been considered advisable, however, to 
 republish either volume exactly as it was first issued. 
 Every comparatively inexperienced writer has great 
 faults which care and labor can alone remove. My 
 faults eight years ago, whatever they may be now, 
 were needless prolixity and an appearance, which the 
 reader is entreated to believe was only an appearance, 
 of egotism and conceit. In a narrative, of which I was 
 myself the hero, some degree of egotism could scarcely 
 have been avoided, and would not have merited cen- 
 
viii Preface to the American Edition. 
 
 sure; but from simple want of literary craft the pro- 
 noun I came in so frequently that the book conveyed 
 an- impression of self-assertion, which did scant justice 
 to the real feelings of its author. This may happen, as 
 all practised writers are aware, when an author thinks 
 too often of his own qualifications,' and introduces such 
 references to his own knowledge as the following : " I 
 have not had much experience in dissection, but so far 
 as my knowledge of anatomy goes I should say that 
 such or such a bone is insufficiently marked." The 
 allusion to self in a phrase of this kind arises from two 
 feelings, neither of which is blameworthy. The critic 
 feels the necessity for information; and, at the same 
 time, having asked himself whether he has information 
 enough to speak on the point, preludes his observation 
 with a disclaimer of his own importance as an author- 
 ity. And yet, simply because that unfortunate little 
 pronoun I occurs twice in the phrase, it conveys an 
 impression of self-assertion, and the confident critic 
 who assumes his own infallibility, and curtly says that 
 the bone is wrong, without troubling either his readers 
 or himself with any reference to his own qualifications 
 for judging the matter, seems more modest because he 
 is less egotistic. An English critic of note, who has 
 studied modesty as an art (his natural organ of mod- 
 esty being so small as to require cultivation), has pushed 
 the avoidance of egotism so far that he never says " I 
 believe," or " I hope," or " I saw," but " it is believed," 
 " it is hoped," and such a thing " has been observed." 
 The apparent conceit of the "Painter's Camp" was 
 due to ignorance of these precautions, and to a temper 
 which would have disdained them, not from vanity but 
 
Preface to the American Edition. ix 
 
 from sincerity. I exposed myself also to the attacks 
 of disingenuous critics, by saying things about myself 
 which were capable of easy misrepresentation ; as, for 
 example, when I said that I was the truest painter of 
 Highland scenery who had ever rendered it, the state- 
 ment, as the context showed, bearing reference to topo- 
 graphic truth alone, which is not an artistic merit at 
 all, but a matter of simple choice and will. In that 
 sense the phrase was strictly true ; but a critic detached 
 it from the context, and made it out that I considered 
 myself the truest painter of Highland landscape, in a 
 sense which involved artistic qualities of a very high 
 kind, and so it appeared that I was filled with conceit 
 so monstrous as to be scarcely compatible with sanity, 
 and this at a tune when I habitually destroyed half my 
 pictures because they did not seem to me good enough 
 to be exhibited. Critics of more genial and kindly 
 temper saw, however, the real cause of defects, which 
 they rather regretted, than reproved ; and few books so 
 entirely devoid of literary art have enjoyed so much 
 success as the " Painter's Camp." 
 
 The fault of prolixity was due to over-anxiety to be 
 understood. In the common intercourse of life, I had 
 always found that to make people understand things 
 was a matter of prodigious difficulty. For instance, it 
 had always been next to impossible to make people 
 understand why I preferred painting in a hut to paint- 
 ing out of doors in the rain, and why I preferred insub- 
 mersible life-boats to common open boats. Hence the 
 notion fixed itself in my mind, that explanation could 
 never be clear enough, or minute enough, or repeated 
 often enough, and that if a position had to be defended 
 
x Preface to the American Edition. 
 
 it was impossible to get together too strong a force of 
 authorities. I did not understand then what Scarlett, 
 the advocate, understood so well when he said that if 
 he had five or six good reasons he only gave one to 
 the jury his best. Readers are divisible into two 
 distinct classes : those who are capable of comprehend- 
 ing an author, and those who are not. The first class 
 enter into your thought at once, but the second never 
 enter into it, and all explanation is thrown away upon 
 them. I have learned this at last, and now write ac- 
 cordingly ; but when the " Painter's Camp " first came 
 out, I was in a condition of much bewilderment about 
 my audience, not knowing either whom I was address- 
 ing, or when I had said enough. 
 
 The result of these natural advances in literary ex- 
 perience has been a revision of the whole book ; but as 
 patches of new cloth do not look well on old clothes, 
 and as an author produces quite a different kind of 
 fabric at the end of eight years, nothing has been 
 altered except by erasure. The bits of unnecessary 
 egotism, the long explanations, the tiresome repetitions, 
 have been carefully suppressed ; but what remains, re- 
 mains in the old words. New essays have been added, 
 so that the book might represent the author fairly. 
 
 In the epilogue to " A Painter's Camp," allusion was 
 made to an essay which is here given in an abridged 
 form that entitled " The Painter in his Relation to 
 Society." It gave some offence in England because 
 it rebuked what Ruskin calls "the excessively vulgar 
 and excessively shallow English idea that the profes- 
 sion of an artist is not, and cannot be, a liberal one." 
 All that I regret about it is, that it was not stronger 
 
Preface to the American Edition. xi 
 
 in its antagonism, and more cunning. The contempt 
 for artists is one of the forms of Philistinism, or resist- 
 ance to culture. I dare say you may have in America 
 something resembling our British Philistinism, though 
 you can scarcely have any thing so abominable, be- 
 cause you have not got the genuine British stolidity in 
 your temperament. But it is a fact, that in England 
 a very considerable majority in the upper classes have 
 settled it amongst them that art is not a fit profession 
 for a gentleman, and this great decision of society does 
 not seem good and acceptable to the small intellectual 
 class, who are constantly calling it in question. They 
 tell me now (I have lived in France for the last six 
 years) that artists are very much petted in England at 
 present, by way of compensation for the old contempt. 
 They used to be Pariahs, and now they are pets ; but 
 artists ought neither to be Pariahs nor pets, and, of the 
 two, the condition of the Pariah is preferable. The one 
 thing which artists want, and which they have never 
 yet been able to get, is equality. They want to be 
 treated seriously, as men occupied in a great pursuit, 
 and whether they fail or succeed as individuals, the 
 greatness of the pursuit should ensure this seriousness 
 of consideration. What makes the position of an artist 
 disagreeable, outside of small and exceptionally intelli- 
 gent circles in capital cities, is, that he is not taken 
 seriously, and has to bear either contempt or compli- 
 ments. I know an excellent artist in Paris, who is 
 always exasperated when a noble friend of his meets 
 him in society, for the noble friend invariably offers his 
 salutation thus: "Bonj our, Monsieur, et faites vous tou- 
 jours de jolies choses?" and the detestable phrase is 
 
xii " Preface to the American Edition. 
 
 accompanied by a detestable grin. In the same taste a 
 gentleman used to salute a violinist of his acquaintance 
 with a pantomimic imitation of fiddling, and the ques- 
 tion " whether he had been doing any thing of that 
 kind lately ? " accompanied, like the Frenchman's ques- 
 tion, by a grin. If people could only realize the kind 
 of labor and aspiration in which artists who are artists 
 have continually to live, they would at least take them 
 seriously. If it is settled that men lose caste by paint- 
 ing, let it be settled; but then let painters enjoy the 
 sort of consideration which is given to carpenters and 
 blacksmiths, and which is due to working men in every 
 laborious trade. People who scold their contemporaries 
 need not hope to be either liked for it or paid for it, 
 and when I opened this matter in England, I knw that 
 it was enough to sink my book; but it seemed that 
 some good might be done, and I determined to attempt 
 it. Since then it has become clear to me, that since all 
 persons who understand art give artists the sort of con- 
 sideration which they deserve, the best way to obtain 
 this consideration for artists is not so much to ask for 
 it directly as to endeavor, in a general way, to spread 
 sound ideas about art. 
 
 One of my English critics has blamed me for want 
 of faith in art, because I admit that its power is very 
 limited. All spiritual power is limited in reality to 
 those who receive it willingly ; if it ever seems to exer- 
 cise any other action, it intrudes 'on the domain of tem- 
 poral power. For instance, when Lacordaire preached 
 in Notre Dame he was exercising the spiritual power; 
 but when the Church of Rome enforced her authority by 
 punishing heretics, she resorted to temporal means, and 
 
Preface to the American Edition. xiii 
 
 was so far a temporal power. Now, painting is purely 
 a spiritual power, and it influences only those who are 
 willing to be influenced. A power of this kind is great 
 or small in proportion to the numbers of its willing 
 adherents, and the numbers of persons who are in any 
 appreciable way influenced by painting are not great 
 in proportion to population. The fact that adherents 
 are willing does not prove weakness, but the fact that 
 none but willing adherents obey the call, when few are 
 willing, places every spiritual power at a disadvantage 
 in comparison with the temporal powers, because these 
 last, with the strength given to them by the adhesion 
 of some, compel the adhesion of others. But I should 
 be sorry if any reader supposed that I under-estimated 
 the power which art does possess. Art has a kind of 
 influence which it would take pages to define, but 
 which, if a man wields it, places him amongst the spir- 
 itual powers. A painter has no lordship over the lib- 
 erty of men ; he cannot govern them in the temporal 
 way, but he has access to very deep and subtle feelings 
 in the few who understand him and receive his ideas, 
 and through these feelings he exercises lordship of an- 
 other kind. It is the old duality of priest and baron. 
 The baron of these days is not always a soldier, he may 
 be a manufacturer ; and the priest of these days is not 
 always a clergyman ; he may be a writer, or even a 
 painter. 'But the broad distinction remains, and all 
 who govern by force or money are of the temporal 
 power ; all who influence by persuasion, by intellect, by 
 sympathy, are of the spiritual power. What is lamen- 
 table is, that since the two are equally necessary to civ- 
 ilization, there should be any jealousy between them, 
 
xiv Preface to the American Edition. 
 
 or contempt one of the other. I have a friend who is 
 a great manufacturer, and he wrongly fancies that I 
 rather despise him because he has not had time to get 
 culture, and cannot write and talk elegantly and per- 
 suasively. But that is a mistake of his. I respect in 
 him a strong temporal lordship, wisely administered, 
 and if he rather despised me because I have not made 
 a fortune, that would be another mistake, because the 
 accumulation of material values is his business, not 
 mine ; my business is culture. He and I, that is, his 
 class and my class, are alike indispensable, and instead 
 of undervaluing and being jealous of each other, we 
 should do well to live in mutual consideration and 
 respect. 
 
 I cannot let slip this opportunity for thanking Amer- 
 ican critics for their kind reception of "A Painter's 
 Camp." The tone of their reviews was universally so 
 generous, so entirely free from any disposition to un- 
 necessary fault-finding, that I feel now, in sending the 
 sheets of this volume across the Atlantic, a confidence, 
 I do not say in its success, but that it is sure to have 
 a fair chance. I am under the impression that there 
 exist some natural sympathies between me and my 
 American readers, of a kind likely to make the relation 
 between us easy and agreeable. I find across the At- 
 lantic a livelier disposition to receive ideas on artistic 
 subjects than I find in France, where criticism is tra- 
 ditional, and although in England pictures are liberally 
 bought, it cannot be said that there is much general 
 interest in the principles of art. The truth is, that the 
 English get all the criticism they care for in the peri- 
 odicals, and since I have written the ait criticisms in 
 
Preface to the American Edition. xv 
 
 the " Saturday Review," I reach my home public in the 
 way it seems to like best, a fragmentary way, in 
 which there is a great scattering of material, which, 
 however, may ultimately be moulded into more per- 
 manent forms. 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT ART. 
 
 THAT CERTAIN ARTISTS SHOULD WRITE ON ART. 
 
 "pMERSON has said somewhere that no truths are so 
 *-' valuable as those we have come at in endeavoring to 
 satisfy ourselves. The subject of the present chapter has, 
 of course, possessed a personal interest for me, and its 
 conclusions have cost me more thought and care than are 
 usually bestowed on the getting up of a subject merely 
 for literary treatment. If I have sufficient confidence in 
 these conclusions to act upon them, it ought to be evident 
 that, whether sound or not, they are at least sincere. 
 
 The use of literature cannot merely be to make authors 
 famous and publishers rich. The important service it 
 yields to mankind is the perpetual registering of the ex- 
 perience of the race. Without literature it is inconceiv- 
 able that any race of men could reach a degree of culture 
 comparable to ours, because, without a literature to record 
 it, the experience of dead generations could never be fully 
 available for the living one. Oral and practical tradition 
 no doubt have their use, as we see to this day in many 
 trades and professions ; but this tradition is in our time 
 nearly always aided by, or based upon, written records. 
 And nothing is more characteristic of our age than its con- 
 stantly increasing tendency to commit every thing to writ- 
 ing. The most ordinary professions and trades have their 
 literatures, trades which not long since were merely 
 
 1 
 
2 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 traditional. The experience of the race is now regis- 
 tered by literature in all its departments. Our novelists 
 paint the manners of their time. The avowed object of 
 Balzac was to leave on record a speaking portraiture of 
 French life in his time ; and though he died before his plan 
 was fully accomplished, he has left us, in the " Comedie 
 Humaine," between two and three thousand characters, 
 every one of which is, to all intents and purposes, a record 
 of real life. The retrospective habit of the last gener- 
 ation, which sought only to revive the past, has given 
 place to a wiser desire to register the present. This desire 
 is wiser, not because the present is of necessity the best of 
 models, but because it is the only one we can study from 
 nature. Some critics accuse this recent tendency of a 
 certain narrowness, as if it were from choice merely 
 that our writers register what they see, whereas it is 
 from an ^creasing desire to be true, which of course 
 seeks th^.e subjects that alone it is possible for us to paint 
 truly. 
 
 So by their love of truth our novelists are driven to 
 register the manners of their own time. How precious 
 : ekich registers will be in a thousand years ! Thackeray 
 and Balzac will make it possible for our descendants to 
 live over again in the England and France of to-day. 
 Seen in this light, the novelist has a higher office than 
 merely to amuse his contemporaries ; he hands them down 
 all living and talking together to the remotest ages. When 
 the new Houses of Parliament and the new Louvre shall 
 be as antique to others as the Colosseum is to us, they 
 shall know what manner of men and women first walked 
 under the freshly carved arcades of the new palace on the 
 banks of the Seine, and saw the tall towers grow year after 
 year like young trees at Westminster. 
 
 This view of all literature as a register of human ex- 
 perience may be demurred to with regard to some of its 
 departments. It may be objected, for example, that our 
 contemporary poetry is no record of our experience. But 
 it is a record of our feelings, and these are a part, and a 
 very important part, of the experience of all cultivated 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 3 
 
 persons. A poem, which has been greatly popular in its 
 own time, even though it may bear no very obvious rela- 
 tion to it, must nevertheless have been in close unison with 
 much contemporary sentiment. Yet even in poetry the 
 tendency to the registering of experience indubitably 
 strengthens. Byron's masterpiece, " Don Juan," is irot 
 retrospective at all ; even in " Childe Harold," the re- 
 trospection is by no means the strongest element ; and 
 the affectation of the antique, which mars the first two 
 cantos, is frankly abandoned in the third and fourth. Mrs. 
 Browning's best work, "Aurora Leigh," is modern to the 
 core. Tennyson certainly goes back to the fables of King 
 Arthur, but " In Memoriam," " Maud," and several of the 
 best of his minor pieces, are as modern as " The New- 
 comes." 
 
 I mentioned fiction and poetry first because they seemed 
 the weakest point of my argument; but when,. 1 come to 
 periodical literature no one will for a moment u/^pute that 
 it is strictly a register of all the thoughts and acts of 
 humanity, day by day, week by week, and month by 
 month. In the files of the Times our descendants will 
 possess a full and detailed record, not only of our act;,, 
 but of our most transient opinions and hopes. A number 
 of the Times has not done its work when you or I have 
 read it. Other eyes will read it after a thousand years 
 with all the advantages of that immense experience behind 
 them ! They will see us timidly delaying, or earnestly 
 advocating, changes whose vast results shall to them be 
 matter of history. 
 
 Such history as that of Macaulay and Motley is a reg- 
 ister of the retrospective kind. It is like the early chap- 
 ters of an autobiography. In an autobiography we have 
 an accurate type of mankind's ways of placing itself on 
 record. Such records or memories of their life as child- 
 hood and youth preserve to maturity are afterwards sifted, 
 judged, arranged, and re-written by the grown man in the 
 full light of his experience. Yet the past is continually 
 slipping away from us, and, though we keep its results, we 
 forget its circumstances. So all that we call history is no 
 
4 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 better than the early or introductory chapter of Humanity's 
 autobiography. Its best history is its diary; that is, 
 its daily newspapers. For histories, though they may 
 preserve facts, which is not always to be said of them, 
 inevitably lose impressions, whereas journalists write down 
 the most transient impressions of the intelligent class in 
 their time. We may therefore look upon the Times 
 newspaper not merely as a register of facts, but a record 
 of thoughts. 
 
 The technical literature which has taken such a vast 
 development of late is, however, the strongest basis of the 
 argument I wish to enforce. The immense quantity of books 
 published within the last twenty years for the especial use 
 of particular trades and professions is one of the best 
 results of the increase of population, and the consequent 
 increase of professional readers. It is, perhaps, in law 
 and medicine that this development is most remarkable ; 
 but it extends to all trades, for almost every mechanic can 
 read, and cheap technical literature is brought within the 
 reach of all purses. Mr. Weale, of Holborn, has pub- 
 lished a very valuable series of cheap technical works at a 
 shilling a volume. M. Roret, of Paris, has issued an im- 
 mense encyclopedia, including every conceivable trade 
 from common blacksmith's work up to religious archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 In reviewing all these technical works the first fact 
 that strikes one with regard to their authors is, that they 
 are none of them what we call literary men. They are 
 not men who live by literature as a profession ; they live 
 by other trades or professions, and resort to literature only 
 as a means of communicating to others their professional 
 observations. 
 
 It therefore appears that literature is not an exclusive 
 profession, but a common magazine to which intelligent 
 men of all classes, and of every occupation, contribute the 
 results of their particular experience. This is the point 
 which I desire the reader to concede. If he maintains, 
 as some literary men do, that literature is a profession 
 which no one can enter without an exclusively literary 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 5 
 
 training, if he believes that no one ought to write who 
 does any thing else, it will be necessary for me to argue 
 my point more elaborately. 
 
 There is no proof that literature is an exclusive profes- 
 sion ; if it is one, it presents the singular peculiarity that 
 its professors are often surpassed by mere amateurs. It is 
 not at all on the same footing with painting in this respect. 
 The art of pictorial expression is quite technical, and pecu- 
 liar to a certain limited class of students ; the art of verbal 
 expression is common to all men who can talk, and the 
 art of literary expression to all who can write a letter. It 
 is amazing that so many writers will not see a distinction 
 so obvious, and yet one may be accused of the incon- 
 sistency of condemning practical dilettantism in painting 
 as a folly, and being one's self a practical dilettante in 
 letters. 
 
 It is not too much to say that, of the great writers of 
 the world, at least one-half have been amateurs. Chaucer 
 and Milton were ; and even in the case of Shakespeare, 
 though his plays made money, his authorship was secon- 
 dary to his business of theatrical manager. Scott and 
 Talfourd were both lawyers, not bred especially to liter- 
 ature ; Kingsley is a clergyman, Ricardo was a banker, so 
 is Grote ; and John Stuart Mill was a hard-working ser- 
 vant of the East India Company. Sidney Dobell was a 
 wine-merchant, and followed that business assiduously 
 fifteen years. Samuel Warren is an industrious lawyer, 
 Mr. Trollope a clerk in the Civil Service, and the author 
 of ** Tom Brown's School-days " a rising barrister, whom I 
 have heard solicitors speak highly of in his professional 
 capacity. These are names which occur to me whilst 
 writing rapidly. If I took time to reflect, I should find a 
 host of other instances of amateurs who have succeeded 
 in literature ; but this is quite needless. It is enough to 
 suggest a truth so obvious. It can require no accumula- 
 tion of evidence to show, what all men's experience proves, 
 that the faculty of expressing one's self well in written lan- 
 guage is by no means peculiar to those who earn their 
 living by it. The contributors to our best reviews are not 
 
 fV> 07 TH*"*^ 
 
 THf IVBfi.SI'FV 
 
6 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 invariably writers by profession, and their editors are only 
 too happy to receive good articles written by intelligent 
 men in the intervals of quite different avocations. The 
 last phrase reminds me of a book called " Essays written 
 in the Intervals of Business," which is now (1861) in its 
 seventh edition, a fact which of itself proves that a man of 
 business may successfully occupy himself with literature. 
 
 No merely literary man can, as such, be expected to 
 write any one of those very useful and even necessary 
 books which treat of subjects that require great special 
 experience. Literary men never do write such books 
 unless prepared for them, as Lewes was for his " Essays 
 on Physiology," by a distinct professional education, quite 
 apart from purely literary culture. If by accident a man 
 who has been intended by his parents for a lawyer, and 
 educated for the law, and who has practised for some 
 years as a lawyer, afterwards abandons the law for general 
 literature, he may nevertheless compose a legal treatise ; 
 but a magazine writer by profession, who had never re- 
 ceived any legal education, could not. 
 
 There is no subject in the world of which the 'mere 
 writer-of-all-work is less competent to treat than art. It is 
 eminently a subject requiring practical experience and 
 especial study. It cannot be grasped in its large relations 
 by minds habitually occupied with other matters, and 
 whose only claim to treat of it is their faculty of verbal 
 expression. It demands great personal devotion, and un- 
 tiring enthusiasm. It requires also much technical knowl- 
 edge. The devotion and the enthusiasm are occasionally 
 found in men who are not practically artists, the technical 
 experience never. 
 
 This is the reason why our art criticism is for the most 
 part so unprofitable. Even the best of it generally deals 
 with works of art in their intellectual aspect only, with a 
 slight admixture of technical jargon, but no intelligent 
 reference to the facts of nature. 
 
 I do not, however, argue that artists should write criti- 
 cism. It may be undesirable that painters should spend 
 any of their time or energy in what would in their case be 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 1 
 
 too likely to degenerate into personal recrimination. It is 
 true that literary meu attack each other's works from 
 behind the shelter of the anonymous, and a few of the 
 best art criticisms are contributed to the periodicals by 
 artists. But this is not a desirable direction for the talents 
 of an artist who writes. His especial office with the pen 
 is to contribute to the general enlightenment on the subject 
 of art in its relation to nature, in ways which need not 
 involve attacks on his living rivals. 
 
 True art critics will belong to a separate class, when we 
 shall have enough of them to be called a class. 
 
 They ought to be especially educated for their office of 
 criticism. They should be practically acquainted with all 
 the ordinary difficulties of art. The commonest tricks of 
 the studio constantly impose on persons who pretend to 
 judge of performance in art without practical apprentice- 
 ship. A real critic can scarcely be an accomplished artist, 
 but he must be able to draw delicately, and must have tried 
 to color, or he will never know what color means. The 
 most recondite secrets of method must all be as familiar 
 to our critic as his alphabet. He must have drawn from 
 the living figure and dissected the dead. If he presume to 
 criticise landscape, he must have lived amongst the noblest 
 natural landscapes, and there filled his note-books with 
 thousands of memoranda. After long discipline in the 
 life-school, on the mountains, in the forest, by the shores of 
 the great lakes and the sea, out on the storm-waves, and 
 lastly in all the best galleries of Europe, his opinions con- 
 cerning painting may come to be worth listening to, but 
 not otherwise. 
 
 Critics of this order ought of course to be able to ex- 
 press themselves well in written language, but they would 
 not criticise because they were able to write, as so many do 
 now, but, on the contrary, write because they were quali- 
 fied to criticise, which is a different thing. 
 
 Our common critics at present have little to say, but they 
 say it cleverly. 
 
 And our painters have often much to say, but they can- 
 not say it at all, or, at the best, clumsily. 
 
8 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 I was present on one occasion when a distinguished 
 painter was asked by a young author how it happened that 
 artists so rarely wrote upon their own art. " Because," 
 said the painter, " they are so generally deficient in the 
 first rudiments of a literary education." I believe that 
 answer, however unfavorable to artists, to have been much 
 nearer to the truth than the common theory that there is 
 something essentially incompatible between the literary and 
 artistic intellects. Certainly Ary Scheffer recognized no 
 such incompatibility when he said, that " pour etre artiste, 
 il faut avoir en soi un sentiment eleve, ou une conviction 
 puissante, digne d'etre exprime par une langue qui peut 
 etre indifferemment la prose, la poesie, la musique, la sculp- 
 ture, ou la peinture." But writing is always extremely 
 irksome and disagreeable to uneducated people. If the 
 reader had seen certain letters by successful painters, he 
 would not wonder at their feeling uneasy with a pen. It is 
 on record that a famous artist wrote academy accademy. 
 Another excellent artist, who has achieved success in the 
 exhibitions of that society, wrote several letters, in all of 
 which the word " exhibition " was spelt without the h. So 
 here are two first-rate painters who could not either of 
 them spell loth the two words " academy " " exhibition," 
 the two words in the whole language must familiar to the 
 artist in his professional capacity. Here is a charming 
 extract from a letter from ajeading member of another 
 great artistic corporation : " My out-door studdy begins in 
 Aprill. Last year I took Holand and Bettgeum. I comence 
 as usual, but next year's rout I have not decided on, though 
 I have a strong inclination to visset Switzerland again." 
 Turner, of course, spelt badly too ; but Mr. Kuskin has had 
 the ingenuity to discover a sort of merit, such as it is, in 
 Turner's bad spelling, which I am sure we are all very 
 much obliged to him for pointing out to us. " All his mis- 
 takes in spelling," says his great admirer, " are economical. 
 Many bad spellers waste their letters; but Turner, never. 
 ' Engin ' for ' engine ; ' ' Aust ' for * Aoste,' or * Aouste ; ' 
 'sumit' for 'summit,' or 'sommite;' * Iser ' for 'Isere;' 
 ' le Alps ' for ' les Alpes,' &c." 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 9 
 
 Persons to whom the mere act of writing is the most 
 arduous of all exertion are not likely to spend more time 
 upon it than they are absolutely compelled so to spend. 
 This simple consideration is sufficient to account for the 
 fact that artists, in general, are not communicative by 
 means of the pen. If they were all taught to read and 
 write before they began to paint, as clergymen and lawyers 
 are before they begin to preach and to practise, artist 
 writers would, probably, bear as great a proportion to the 
 numbers employed in t their art as legal and clerical authors 
 to the other members of their professions. And if painters 
 were so taught to read arid write, perhaps they would not 
 paint any worse for it. It does not follow that Turner 
 would have painted less skilfully if he had had such a 
 degree of education as every schoolboy of twelve years old 
 ought to possess. If he had been able to write good 
 English, and even spell such French words as he required 
 as titles to his drawings, he might, nevertheless, in spite of 
 these attainments, have reached his present rank as a 
 landscape painter. 
 
 Those who think that a great artist should shut himself 
 up in mystery and solitude, like the Grand Lama, will say 
 that it is beneath his dignity to communicate any thought 
 to the world, except such as it may discover in his can- 
 vases. But the sort of dignity which is only to be kept 
 up by holding aloof from men is scarcely worth keeping 
 up at all. One consequence of this reticence on the part 
 of artists is, that the true art of coloring is almost lost to 
 us, and that whilst we have a hundred volumes by connois- 
 seurs concerning an art they knew nothing about, we have 
 scarcely a line of record from any truly great artist, giv- 
 ing an intelligible account of his technical methods and 
 observations. 
 
 In the case of artists who can write and don't, there may 
 be two reasons for their silence. The first is, that when a 
 successful painter lays down the brush to take up a pen, he 
 is sacrificing, for each hour that he writes, a certain calcu- 
 lable sum of money ; another reason is a strong conviction, 
 common to most artists, that if they were to say any thing 
 
10 That certain, Artists should write on Art. 
 
 about their art it would be of no use, because the public 
 could not understand it. 
 
 This feeling has hitherto been well founded, but there 
 can be no doubt that a certain portion of the public is ad- 
 vancing towards such a knowledge of art as will shortly 
 enable it to receive the teaching even of artists them- 
 selves. The consequence of this, and its inevitable result 
 in creating a demand for a kind of literature relating to 
 the fine arts, will be, that unless artists are themselves 
 prepared to supply such a literature, they will be sup- 
 planted by dilettantes, who will thus acquire an influence 
 over public opinion on matters connected with art to which 
 they have no natural right. On the other hand, the public 
 itself must be retarded in its art culture by the dissemina- 
 tion of crude and imperfect theories. And since it has 
 not time to investigate such matters for itself, and must 
 always take them on trust from some one in temporary 
 authority, society will, of course, set up its favorite writers 
 as rulers, against whose verdict there will be no appeal. 
 It appears therefore desirable that a few artists in each 
 generation should themselves contribute to the literature 
 of art, in order to maintain the influence which their 
 knowledge entitles them to. For as the priesthood in 
 every religion takes into its own hands the production of 
 a theological literature based on its especial tenets, so, it 
 appears, ought painters to lead the literature of their own 
 art, though I would not discourage intelligent amateurs 
 from freely contributing to it. 
 
 It is said that pictures ought to speak for themselves. 
 But universal experience proves that pictures only speak 
 to persons already advanced in art culture, just as books 
 can only reach people who have learned to read. Books 
 on art are a concession to the general incapacity to see. If 
 people could see, artists could teach them directly, with- 
 out the intervention of literary interpreters. But most 
 people find it easier to read books about art than to 
 read the art itself. They require to be told to look before 
 they will look, and they require also to be told what to 
 look for. It is owing to this incapacity for seeing without 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 11 
 
 being told, that art itself, and the literature which concerns 
 itself with natural aspects, are necessary to men, else, I 
 suppose, they could enjoy nature without the intervention 
 of painters and writers. At present we enjoy nature 
 much in this fashiou. Mr. Turner perceives that mist is 
 beautiful, and paints it. But nobody understands the mist 
 in the picture, because it looks so odd and indistinct. 
 Then comes Mr. Ruskin to tell the folks, this time in plain 
 English, not in paint, and in a fine large legible type, that 
 Turner meant to painj mist, because mist in nature was to 
 him something charming and delightful. After all this has 
 been stated in print, we go to the Turner Gallery, and 
 perceive that it is indeed mist that Turner meant ; then we 
 go to look at natural mist to see whether the Turnerian 
 account of it is true. 
 
 Thus there is always some critic or connoisseur between 
 the painter and the public, whose office it is to persuade 
 the public to look at the painter's work, and the painter in 
 his turn has to get the spectator to look at nature, if he 
 can. Writers on nature and art are clever oculists, for 
 they give sight to the blind. But all such 'writing is a 
 condescension to that blindness. All the principles of 
 architecture that Ruskin has ever stated are contained and 
 exemplified in half a dozen ruinous old buildings ; but 
 very few people saw them in the buildings till they read 
 about them in the books. So all the principles of paint- 
 ing that he has illustrated and enforced, and a thousand 
 others that no words can ever express, are fully contained 
 and splendidly exemplified in the works of five or six 
 great artists. But in order to see them in the pictures it 
 was necessary first to read about them in the book. The 
 crumbling stone and mouldering canvas gave their lessons 
 unheeded to thankless and careless children, but the atten- 
 tion of these children was at once arrested by brilliant lan- 
 guage that they could easily understand, and fresh-looking, 
 well-printed pages, that it was a pleasure to read. 
 
 Pictures to be understood by the great public always 
 require a commentary, and the best commentators would 
 often be the painters themselves, if they would condescend 
 
12 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 to explanation. A great service would be rendered by 
 certain artists to the public if they accompanied their 
 most original works with a printed note, kindly explaining 
 every thing that the ordinary spectator could not be ex- 
 pected to understand, and gently guiding his attention to 
 such natural phenomena as had been translated on the 
 canvas. Such friendly condescension would do more to 
 advance a right understanding of art than endless literary 
 criticism of it. For a careful painter must necessarily 
 have looked at nature, which cannot with equal certainty 
 be predicted of a clever critic ; and a painter must, at 
 least, have seen a picture he has himself painted, whereas 
 a critic will often put together a few clever phrases about 
 a work he has never really taken the trouble to look into. 
 If we had a complete catalogue of all Turner's works, 
 carefully annotated by himself, with details of the circum- 
 stances under which every impression was received and 
 recorded, how interesting and precious it would be ! The 
 only notes at all like this, left by any great artist, are, I 
 imagine, those brief ones by Reynolds on the materials 
 employed in his portraits. Such notes ought, of course, to 
 include processes and materials, giving a faithful account 
 of the technical history of the work; but this is not 
 enough, the intellectual history of it should be recorded 
 too ; and in the case of landscapes every thing interesting 
 in the locality should be pointed out, all changes in the 
 topography of the place for the sake of composition being 
 frankly confessed. 
 
 In this way the registering function of the pen would be 
 very usefully exercised, but I would not have the literary 
 work of all artists limited to this. Those who have a 
 natural capacity for literary expression ought to record, in 
 the form of essays and treatises, or, if professors in any 
 academy, in the form of lectures, their views on those 
 great questions of art which are yet subject to dispute, 
 and also their sincere opinions on deceased artists. It 
 would be extremely interesting, for example, and very 
 instructive, to know what Turner really thought of 
 Claude, as we should know it if he had written a treatise 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 13 
 
 on Claude. The fact that Velasquez liked Titian, and did 
 not like Raphael, is one of the most interesting things 
 which have descended to us concerning him. And though 
 the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds are full of fallacies, 
 no one who loves art would consent that they should be 
 lost, because, whether erroneous or not, they are a true 
 record of his opinions, and all that he thought is interest- 
 ing to us. 
 
 One of the best examples of a kind of art literature, 
 which falls naturally within the province of the professional 
 artist, is Sir Charles Eastlake's " Materials for a History 
 of Oil Painting." The great learning and research which 
 he has devoted to the elucidation of technical details of the 
 most useful kind peculiarly entitle him to the gratitude of 
 artists. 
 
 The biography of artists is the department of literature 
 in which painters have hitherto chiefly distinguished them- 
 selves. The biographer of a painter has frequent opportuni- 
 ties of conveying opinions on art and on matters connected 
 with art, without that directness which makes the writer of 
 essays so peculiarly responsible. Vasari's lives, though 
 not written with that vivid reality which our most recent 
 school of history aims at, are nevertheless a durable 
 monument raised by one artist to his brethren and ances- 
 tors in art. 
 
 I have said that the reserve of artists who are able to 
 write and do not is, in part, due to their impression that 
 the public is too ignorant to understand them, too igno- 
 rant, that is, to understand the said artists as the artists 
 would express themselves. There is, however, another 
 side to this question. People who are not understood may 
 be so from two causes, either the want of intelligence in 
 others, or the want of expressional art in themselves. 
 This last want often makes them irritable and discourteous 
 when their opinion is asked for by persons whom they 
 consider incapable of comprehending it if given. I have 
 seen artists who, when asked what were the best technical 
 processes in use at the present day, would become im- 
 patient, as if there were something really absurd in the 
 
14 That certain Artists should write on Art. 
 
 question, whereas it is a pre-eminently rational question, 
 and one which admits of a ready, though not a brief reply. 
 This comes of their want of literary practice, and their 
 consequent difficulty in expression. There is a passage in 
 Emerson's Essay on Plato very much to the point. 
 " Children cry, scream, and stamp with fury, unable to 
 express their desires. As soon as they can speak, and tell 
 their want, and the reason of it, they become gentle. In 
 adult life, whilst the perceptions are obtuse, men and 
 women talk vehemently and superlatively, blunder and 
 quarrel: their manners are full of desperation, their 
 speech is full of oaths. As soon as with culture things 
 have cleared up a little, and they see them no longer in 
 lumps and masses, but accurately distributed, they desist 
 from that weak vehemence and explain their meaning in 
 detail. If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, 
 man would still be a beast in the forest. The same weak- 
 ness and want, on a higher plane, occur daily in the edu- 
 cation of ardent young men and women. ' Ah ! you don't 
 understand me ; I have never met with any one who com- 
 prehends me ; ' and they sigh and weep, write verses and 
 walk alone, fault of power to express their precise mean- 
 ing. In a month or two, through the favor of their good 
 genius, they meet some one so related as to assist their 
 volcanic estate ; and good communication being once es- 
 tablished they are thenceforward good citizens." 
 
 If it needs culture to receive, it also needs culture to 
 communicate ideas by words. When artists know some- 
 thing about art they usually say that it is incommunicable, 
 which, in most cases, only means that the man himself 
 does not know how to explain it. Ignorant artists cannot 
 even teach pupils except by example, which, whatever may 
 be said of it in morals, needs, in art, to be accompanied by 
 a great deal of intelligent commentary and precept if it is 
 to be of any great use to the learner. But the ordinary 
 artist can only do ; he cannot explain how it is done, even 
 with all the advantages of direct personal communication, 
 much less in a book. 
 
 No one will be astonished at this who has ever had 
 
That certain Artists should write on Art. 15 
 
 occasion to seek information from illiterate people on 
 subjects they practically understand. A marine engineer 
 of great experience told me that the ordinary workmen 
 in his business know nothing whatever of the principles 
 which govern their own work, and could not explain the 
 very things they themselves make without falling into 
 endless blunders. Many a homely illustration of the same 
 truth may be found in the details of a farm. Illiterate 
 farmers not only will not, but really cannot, explain their 
 most habitual operations, because to explain any thing 
 rightly requires long practice in Intellectual analysis, and 
 a command of words. The author of a popular little 
 book, " Our Farm of Four Acres," found that it was use- 
 less to consult farmers' wives on the important subject 
 of butter-making. I believe that it is generally equally 
 useless to consult artists on the subject of picture-making, 
 and for the same reason. But when intelligent ladies take 
 to farming, as Madame Millet-Robinet has done, it is 
 astonishing how many things they find means to explain, 
 and how lucidly they explain them. It also seems prob- 
 able that when intelligent and cultivated gentlemen, like 
 Sir Charles Eastlake and Mr. Leslie, are no longer rare in 
 the artist class, artists will more frequently write on art. 
 
16 . Painting from Nature. 
 
 II. 
 
 PAINTING FROM NATURE. 
 
 P^HE practice of painting from nature, in the modern 
 A sense, is of very recent adoption. It is probable 
 v that before our own time' no landscape painter ever began 
 and finished an oil picture out of doors and from nature 
 itself. Figure painters painted from nature, and landscape 
 painters made studies from nature, with more or less accu- 
 racy and resolution ; but no one seriously thought of finish- 
 ing any thing but mere sketches or studies out of doors. 
 The art of landscape painting was essentially practised in 
 the studio ; its materials were gathered in the fields, like 
 the raw material of human food, but cooked in the artistic 
 kitchen before being served up for the appreciation of the 
 connoisseur. At the present day, however, many painters 
 especially our younger ones are devoting immense 
 labor to the finishing of pictures out of doors ; a costly 
 and inconvenient proceeding, and one which ought to 
 reward its votaries very richly for all the trouble and 
 fatigue it inevitably entails. 
 
 I propose in the present chapter to analyze the art of 
 painting from nature, to point out the various ways in 
 which it may be pursued, to examine one by one all the 
 principal difficulties against which painters who work 
 directly from nature have continually to contend, and 
 lastly to suggest certain plans and contrivances by which 
 a few of the most irritating of them may be combated and 
 overcome. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that, in taking their canvases 
 out of doors, all painters propose to themselves the same 
 object. A certain limitation is always, whether con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, imposed on himself by every 
 artist in his imitation of nature. If no such limitation 
 
Painting from Nature. 17 
 
 were resolved upon by the artist, no picture would ever be 
 finished, and no artist would ever have done with any one 
 of his works. If, on the other hand, no such limitation 
 were accepted by the public, no human labor could ever 
 satisfy it. But it so happens, that, so far from being 
 unpopular, a strict limitation of the imitative art is quite 
 joyfully understood and admitted by everybody ; sketches 
 being generally quite as much liked in their way as finished 
 pictm-es; and pictures which are little more than sketches 
 in oil, as, for instance, those of Decamps, being often eagerly 
 purchased by collectors. Every artist, therefore, has his 
 point of limitation, his finishing point, and he has also his 
 point of imitation, beyond which he does not think fit to fol- 
 low nature. Even the severest pre-Raphaelite must make 
 up his mind to stop somewhere in his copyism of natural 
 objects, if he could not submit to this, he would have 
 to abandon the art altogether, for the pursuit of it with 
 unbridled instincts of imitation would be altogether intol- 
 erable, and enough to drive any man mad. These two 
 limitations of finish and of imitation are, however, very 
 different things. A painter may finish minutely without 
 imitating minutely ; but he cannot imitate minutely with- 
 out finishing minutely. In working from nature, all the 
 limitations that the painter has accepted hem him in and 
 determine the character of his work. Those limitations 
 are of all kinds, they may be purely conventional, as, 
 for instance, the classicism of Sir George Beaumont ; they 
 may be fixed by the practice of some former master whom 
 the artist looks up to as an authority that it would be pre- 
 sumptuous to surpass ; they may be settled for the painter 
 by the narrowness of his own sympathies and the dulness 
 of his own sight, and so be the most impassable of all 
 prison boundaries, those of a man's own nature. 
 Lastly, they may be wise and necessary limitations, im- 
 posed upon himself consciously, severely, and sorrowfully, 
 by a great man who thoroughly loves Nature, and longs to 
 follow her wherever she would lead him, but who restrains 
 himself at a certain definite point, knowing that human 
 weakness can go no farther without failure. 
 
 2 
 
18 Painting from Nature. 
 
 In order to place more vividly before the reader the 
 manner in which these limitations operate, I will show 
 how several different classes of painters work from nature, 
 and afterwards explain what, in my own conception, is the 
 wisest way of working from nature. 
 
 THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 These painters do, indeed, work from nature, but they 
 adapt all they find to preconceived ideas in their own 
 minds, formed from famous pictures in the galleries. They 
 are painting from nature in quite a peculiar sense. Claude 
 and Poussin stand between them and every thing they see. 
 When they see any thing in nature that is like Claude, 
 they think it good for art, and introduce it ; first carefully 
 altering it in a Claudesque manner. When they find things 
 not to be found in Claude or Poussin, a circumstance that 
 must very frequently occur to them, they reject them with- 
 out hesitation, as unfitted for artistic purposes. I have 
 actually heard of two foreign artists of this kind, one of 
 whom, when travelling in the Highlands^ on seeing a mag- 
 nificent effect at Loch Awe, rather contemptuously ob- 
 served to the other that " the effect was false" though in 
 nature itself, his standard of truth being not nature, but 
 Claude.* All classical students approach nature in this 
 spirit. They do not go to her to be taught, but to impose 
 their own rules on all they take ; consequently they learn 
 nothing. Once benumb the human soul with the fatal 
 mesmerism of too much reverence for some dead man's 
 name, and you can render it for ever blind to the plainest 
 facts in the world it lives in. All classical art-students 
 have accepted the principle that the perfection of land- 
 scape art was attained two hundred years ago by the 
 classical landscape painters, and during all their lives will 
 
 * Suppose this painter had seen a true picture of the effect which he 
 called false in nature, would he not have called it false also in art ? 
 
 Yes ; and there is another thing to be said. 
 
 Other people, who would not have dared to call the effect false in nature, 
 would have called it false in art, though truly painted; and they do so 
 constantly. 
 
Painting from Nature. 19 
 
 see nothing except through the Poussin spectacles. For 
 them nature only exists as a mine of possible Claudes and 
 Poussins, and where they do not see Claude or Poussin, 
 they see nothing. Their real aim is to imitate these two 
 masters; but they disdainfully accept from nature 
 which they really despise the raw material for their 
 performances. And Nature, who yields nothing that we 
 do not toil for, only yields them faint shadows of gallery 
 compositions.* Not one of all her precious truths will she 
 let them have. They believe in the classical landscape 
 painters, and Nature lets them paint classical landscape. 
 Let them cry to their own gods, for the God of Nature 
 will grant them nothing.! 
 
 THE IMAGINATIVE MODERN SCHOOL. 
 
 They are too original and have too much natural ability 
 to allow of their patiently Poussinizing nature ; but they 
 are, at the same time, too independent and self-reliant to 
 imitate her. They paint from imagination in the presence 
 of nature, using nature merely for the first suggestion of 
 the idea, and in the subsequent progress of the work as 
 an authority on scientific facts of form, color, geology, 
 botany, meteorology, &c., &c. 
 
 In works produced on this principle there is no pretence 
 to imitation, although the painter may begin and finish his 
 picture out of doors, and although, when finished, the work 
 may seem imitative. 
 
 As painters of the classical school are prevented from 
 imitating by their reverence for dead artists, so these can- 
 
 * There is an invention intended for the especial use of this class of 
 students ; a small black mirror, called a Claude glass, intended to blacken 
 natural color to the hues of old pictures in the galleries, which, in addi- 
 tion to their own inherent want of color, are darkened by the dirt of 
 centuries. The invention answers its purpose perfectly, and confirms the 
 wilful purblindness of the human owls who use it. 
 
 t Happily, this foolish sort of study is all but extinct in England, but 
 it flourishes still on the Continent under the protection of figure painters, 
 who always rule academies and schools of art, and who have a natural 
 instinct to repress the advance of landscape by lending all the weight of 
 their authority to the shallow landscape painters of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
20 Painting from Nature. 
 
 not imitate because their imagination is too strong, and 
 they must obey it. They love nature quite sincerely and 
 exclusively, caring for other artists only so far as they lead 
 them to nature. Nevertheless, they cannot imitate nature, 
 because, in them, imagination overrules the imitative ten- 
 dency. Artists of this order, when the imagination is not 
 only powerful but of truly inventive quality (an imagina- 
 tion may be powerful that is not in the artistic sense inven- 
 tive), if their imagination is really of the inventive order, 
 such artists would do quite wrong to imitate, for loyalty to 
 the laws of its constitution is the first duty of genius. 
 These artists use natural phenomena exactly as a novelist 
 uses the people he meets with ; they study them, and 
 employ them as they think fit. But as, after all, they 
 really do study them, and not scorn them like the classical 
 landscape painters, they have their reward, and learn much, 
 though they copy little. The most illustrious example of 
 this order of artists is Turner. I believe he never really 
 imitated any natural object in his whole life. In the early 
 part of his career, being subjected to the prevailing theo- 
 ries, he wore the Claude and Poussin spectacles for a 
 while, but soon threw them aside for ever. After that he 
 looked at nature earnestly, learned an immense number of 
 facts, gathered a huge encyclopaedia of observations, but 
 never once imitated without altering. He used external 
 nature as Scott used mankind. Both were authors of fic- 
 tion, yet both eminently true in their .work. One cannot 
 quarrel with painters and writers of this order because 
 they give the full rein to their imagination ; for the 
 imaginative faculty was just as much given to be used 
 as the imitative faculty. Nor does such altering as theirs 
 imply the slightest want of reverence for nature. They 
 revere nature none the less that they also respect the laws 
 of their own nature. 
 
 It is evident that working out of doors on this principle 
 cannot be so painfully laborious a process as strict imita- 
 tion would be. It is, in fact, little more than swift 
 sketching of memoranda, even when color is used. And 
 if painters of this order ever finish from nature it is 
 
Painting from Nature. 21 
 
 merely to have the scientific facts right, not for accuracy 
 of form ; so that they do not copy Nature, they merely 
 refer to her as an author refers to the books in his library 
 on matters of fact about which he is anxious to avoid 
 error ; but this is a very different thing to copying the 
 books out, word for word, comma for comma. 
 
 THE ARTIFICIAL OR TECHNICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 They do not yet imitate in the accurate sense, but there 
 is something bearing a distant resemblance to imita- 
 tion visible in the outlines of their principal masses, yet 
 even these are wilfully arranged. They use nature for 
 reference ; and there is a general appearance of like- 
 ness in their work, more satisfactory to common judges 
 than the wholly imaginative arrangement of Turner. 
 
 They avoid detail, however, wherever mere skilful 
 manipulation -of color may be made to stand for it. How 
 far such manipulation may be made to go is very remark- 
 able. It may be made to represent any thing that has no 
 very definite form, and consequently does duty for a great 
 deal of hard drawing. These painters do not really paint 
 detail, but their skilful manipulation conveys the impres- 
 sion of detail. 
 
 I may make myself better understood by naming Mr. 
 Harding as a well-known representative of this order of 
 artists. The amount of manual skill and dexterity lav- 
 ished by Mr. Harding on a system of interpretation, whose 
 uniform aim and object is to avoid any thing like down- 
 right study of detail, is quite marvellous. He is not in 
 any sense an imitator, but a skilled interpreter of nature. 
 I do not intend this as praise, and still less as blame. 
 Every artist must work according to his own constitution. 
 Mr. Harding is not by constitution an imitator, but a 
 translator. He and nature do not speak the same lan- 
 guage, have not the same formulae. He is not a student 
 trying hard to learn nature's language, but a great pro- 
 fessor, foreign to nature, writing a translation of nature 
 into his own tongue. The translation is exceedingly 
 
22 Painting from Nature. 
 
 clever and brilliant, but it bears just as much resem- 
 blance to the original as Mr. Pope's translation of the 
 " Iliad " does to the old Greek. Some people like Pope 
 better than Homer, and some no doubt secretly prefer 
 Mr. Harding to nature ; but it does not at all follow that 
 if you like the original you will relish the translation, nor 
 the converse. 
 
 The influence which Mr. Harding has so long exercised 
 over the immense number of amateurs who put their trust 
 in him has been, on the whole, more salutary than might 
 have been expected, considering that the first condition of 
 popularity amongst amateurs is, that you are not to teach 
 true art, but a pretty and cheap substitute for art, cheap, 
 I mean, in cost of labor. No drawing-master could earn 
 his living by teaching art seriously, and the chief anxiety 
 of every drawing-master is to invent the prettiest and 
 easiest substitute for real art that he can. Now, Mr. 
 Harding's substitute was extremely pretty and successful, 
 and, what is much more to his credit, it really contained 
 as much truth as the amateurs it was intended for were 
 ever likely to tolerate. Up to a certain point, Mr. Hard- 
 ing led his scholars to nature ; but the worst of all such 
 systems as his is, that, once their fixed point reached, they 
 arrest the education of the eye. 
 
 Of course, Mr. Harding is not the only artist of this 
 class. They are, in fact, exceedingly numerous, and each 
 has a system of his own, in many cases quite as original, 
 if not so cleverly contrived as Mr. Harding's. Their uni- 
 form object, so far as they are themselves concerned, is to 
 escape the painful elaboration of detail, which the princi- 
 ples of imitation demand. Their other object, as to their 
 pupils, is to supply an easy and cheap substitute for 
 genuine work. Nevertheless, they study nature labori- 
 ously within the limits imposed by their own systems. I 
 believe that in very many cases such systems are to 
 be attributed entirely to the fact of the painter's giving 
 lessons to amateurs, and that, if it were not necessary 
 to flatter pupils with easy methods, such painters would 
 often frankly abandon their systems altogether, and devote 
 
Painting from Nature. 23 
 
 themselves in good earnest to the study of nature, accept- 
 ing only the necessary and inevitable limitations, not 
 these unnecessary artificial ones. 
 
 SHALLOW PSEUDO-IMITATORS. 
 
 We begin now to enter upon the province of imitation, 
 but are as yet only on its frontiers. 
 
 These painters do indeed imitate, but only just so far 
 as a common and very careless spectator is likely to see 
 into the subject when he idly gazes at it without observ- 
 ing it. They are of a very popular order, for they 
 accurately reproduce, not the scene itself, nor any thing 
 really resembling it, but every indolent spectator's im- 
 pression of it. Their pictures demand little intelligence 
 in the spectator as they cost little to the artist. They 
 are, therefore, intelligible, which is the first of all the 
 conditions of saleableness, and such works are produced 
 for the market in immense numbers. 
 
 In these works nature is happily arranged on received 
 principles of composition, and such truths only are stated 
 as are conducive to prettiness and perfectly easy to un- 
 derstand. 
 
 CLEVER AND LABORIOUS PSEUDO-IMITATORS. 
 
 They are not imitators in the pre-Raphaelite sense ; 
 but their work from nature goes very far, and is exceed- 
 ingly laborious in detail. The difference between their 
 imitation and pre-Raphaelite imitation is very easy to feel 
 and very difficult to explain. It consists in this, that their 
 fidelity is limited by habits of continual alteration and ab- 
 solute want of intellectual and moral sympathy with the 
 objects they illustrate, so that they never seize the sig? 
 nificant marks. They admire nature, and have much 
 energy and industry, so they work hard, and produce 
 landscapes very full of detail ; but they do not really 
 sympathize with the expression of inanimate objects, so 
 as to render it with poweV. Nor is any one of their 
 
24 Painting from Nature. 
 
 details perfectly accurate ; they do not love nature well 
 enough for that. They fill their canvas with detail to 
 make it rich, and the detail is really very cleverly painted, 
 and all copied from nature from beginning to end out of 
 doors, only not one atom of it is thoroughly genuine and 
 true. On the other hand, it is seldom imaginative, be- 
 cause the gift of invention is so rare. I could name a 
 score of successful landscape painters who belong to this 
 class, clever, prosperous, and most industrious workmen 
 in a high branch of manufacture, but neither true poets nor 
 accurate observers. Their habits of work have nothing 
 in common with Harding's masterly tricks of inter- 
 pretation ; they are scarcely intellectual enough to con- 
 ceive and apply such principles. They are looked upon 
 by the public as tolerably faithful imitators, the real fact 
 being that they are only pseudo-imitators. As on the one 
 hand their works have none of the majesty of imagination, 
 so on the other they lack the preciousness of genuine 
 imitation. 
 
 Painters of this order are often very rapid and skilful 
 in working from nature, because the constant habit of 
 manufacture leads to a certain dexterousness quite impos- 
 sible for close observers and copyists of nature, and seldom 
 compatible with great depth of feeling. Their exaggera- 
 tions and changes of all kinds are suggested solely by their 
 ideas of what would look well in the picture, not by any 
 real feeling. Now, as all changes are sure to be wrong 
 which are not dictated imperatively by intense and irre- 
 sistible emotion, these changes of theirs are ruinous to the 
 value of their work. 
 
 THE TRUE IMITATIVE SCHOOL. 
 
 We have come to true imitation at last. These painters 
 work from nature in quite a different sense to any of the 
 preceding ones. They really endeavor to render as much 
 of nature as is to be rendered by color, but will not sacri- 
 fice greater truths to less, and stop firmly at that difficult 
 point where the imitation of details, pushed to its utter- 
 
Painting from Nature. 25 
 
 most lawful power, is to be sternly arrested before it 
 endangers the truth of the whole work. Pass this point 
 ever so little, and your work is inevitably ruined, for the 
 over-fidelity with which some favorite bit of detail is sure 
 to be imitated will destroy the harmony of the whole. If, 
 on the other hand, you fall short of this point, your art of 
 painting from nature is not yet quite perfectly and pre- 
 ciously imitative. This high order of imitative painting 
 requires great knowledge of the resources of art, and 
 infinite patience and industry. I shall have more to say 
 of it shortly. 
 
 ASPIRANTS AFTER PERFECT ACCURACY. 
 
 Painters in -whom the desire for accuracy has reached a 
 morbid excess, and in whose works the passion for truth of 
 imitation is so unrestrained by artistic judgment as to be 
 destructive to pictorial harmony. 
 
 This leads to the production of studies, of which parts 
 are well painted, but entirely out of harmony with other 
 parts. With the passion for accuracy in excess, all pro- 
 duction of true pictorial art is quite impossible, for no 
 natural materials can be woven together into the shape of 
 a complete picture without some sacrifice of accuracy. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to continue long in this state 
 of mind, which is merely a disease of the imitative facul- 
 ties, and always leads either to the entire abandonment of 
 the art, or the conscious and resolute acceptance of the 
 limitations necessary to the health of the artistic intellect. 
 
 A common delusion of young painters is to suppose 
 that this over-accuracy is in itself an attractive quality, 
 because it costs them immense patience and labor. They 
 naturally value it too much in proportion to what it costs 
 them, and without sufficient reference to the effect it is 
 able to produce on others. But I fear that this, the 
 costliest of qualities in a picture, is the very one which 
 produces the least effect upon the world. It will not help 
 a picture to find a place in the exhibition, because the 
 judges cannot have the real scene before their eyes for 
 
26 Painting from Nature. 
 
 comparison, and always look for qualities of composition 
 which rigid accuracy requires us to sacrifice. It will not 
 command a purchaser, because, if the purchaser knows the 
 scene, 1 * an accurate transcript of it will inevitably seem to 
 him inadequate and spiritless, whereas, if he does not 
 know it, the accuracy will, of course, be quite thrown 
 away upon him. It will not catch the critics, because 
 critics consider accuracy incompatible with imagination, 
 and therefore do not consider accurate painters as artists 
 at all in the higher sense. 
 
 And yet the difference in cost of labor and eyesight 
 between a work which is strictly accurate and another 
 which is only accurate enough for the purposes of art is 
 something amazing. 
 
 I am writing this in my tent during a. little interval 
 when I feel too tired to go on with a difficult piece of strict 
 topographic drawing. 
 
 I therefore find myself in a position to speak with some 
 authority on this question, for just at present I am 
 engaged upon a series of drawings, undertaken for an 
 especial purpose, and which I am determined to have as 
 accurate as I can get them. 
 
 The topographic drawing I have in hand is of small 
 dimensions, and it will take me, I can scarcely tell how 
 long. The labor too, whilst I am doing it, is extremely 
 severe, severe on the eyes, and requiring so close a 
 degree of attention that it is impossible to pursue it for 
 long together without rest. 
 
 But if I were not trying for topographic accuracy, I 
 could make a drawing of the same scene, which would 
 please a critic or a council of academicians much better, in 
 a couple of hours of easy work, singing songs all the time, 
 or talking with a friend. 
 
 Painters in whom imitation has become a disease work 
 in this way, not exceptionally, and for an especial purpose, 
 as I am doing now, but habitually. And as they do not 
 
 * This for reasons stated in a chapter in the second volume, on the 
 relation between photography and painting. 
 
Painting from Nature. 27 
 
 limit themselves, they encounter the everlasting boundaries 
 with which the Supreme Artist has hedged round all his 
 poor human imitators, and so they ruin all they do, because 
 they do not know where to stop.* 
 
 I have thus roughly indicated seven of the different classes 
 of painters, all of whom may occasionally work from nature. 
 The subdivisions in such an attempt at classification are, 
 however, as numerous as the landscape painters them- 
 selves, for nearly every one has a way of work slightly 
 differing from that of all other men, even those of his own 
 school and sect. The seven divisions are, nevertheless, 
 minute enough for my purposes. And I think it will be 
 very evident that artists who work on principles so widely 
 different must produce works of a very different character, 
 even when studying from the same natural scene, and 
 further, that the art of painting from nature seen from 
 these various points of view is scarcely to be spoken of as 
 one art. It is at least seven arts whose objects are entirely 
 distinct, and whose practice differs quite as essentially as 
 some of them differ from the . art of painting from memo- 
 randa in the studio. In speaking, therefore, of painting 
 from nature as a single art, I must be understood to mean 
 that which I practise myself, for I have not space in the 
 limits of one chapter to do any thing like justice to the 
 practice of other artists, except so far as I may roughly 
 indicate their various ways of work. 
 
 The first secret of the painter from nature is to select 
 his subject wisely. 
 
 None but foreground subjects can be really painted from 
 nature in a climate so changeable as ours ; but there is a 
 kind of intermediate art, a combination of the two arts of 
 painting from nature and. painting from memoranda, which 
 is competent to deal with mountains. 
 
 To illustrate this, take a single instance of no extraor- 
 dinary difficulty. The painter wants a faithful picture of 
 
 * In the particular piece of work alluded to, I myself was limited by 
 the nature of my materials, plain pen and ink, and the extreme simplicity 
 of my aim, which did not include either local color or light and shade. 
 Gil color imposes no such salutary limitations. 
 
28 Painting from Nature. 
 
 Ben Cruachan. So he plants his easel as near to the 
 mountain as he can get it, if he wishes to see it at all, 
 which of course must be a few miles off. He sits down 
 conscientiously to paint a portrait of Ben Cruachan from 
 nature. 
 
 The first day is the 10th of July. A good, plain day- 
 light effect is on the hill, not a difficult evanescent effect, 
 but such plain daylight as an unimaginative copyist likes 
 best. 
 
 The picture cannot possibly be finished before the 10th 
 of August. 
 
 On the 10th of July, the water is a deep blue, the 
 mountain a pale, but rich olive-green, with a peculiar vel- 
 vety texture, any thing but easy to imitate. 
 
 The next day the water is cold gray, almost white, and 
 the mountain full of various new grays and deep purples, 
 with an entirely new texture not at all velvety. 
 
 Now, the question is, whether the painter, in continuing 
 to paint the effect of the 10th of July on the llth, is 
 painting from nature or from memory. 
 
 He is painting from memory. It is self-deception on 
 his part to fancy that he is. painting from nature, merely 
 because he is working out of doors. 
 
 And day after day there is a new and brilliant effect ; 
 inconceivably more brilliant in its imposing presence than 
 the painter's fast fading recollection of what he saw on 
 the 10th of July. If he is determined to finish the pic- 
 ture from nature, in the sense of direct copyism of the hues 
 before him, there are only two ways of doing it. Either 
 he may paint from nature day by day, and so make his 
 picture intensely unnatural, by mixing together a hundred 
 incompatible and contradictory effects, or he may paint 
 whenever the chosen effect shall recur, which may be five 
 or six times in a twelvemonth. 
 
 It might be objected that in working from nature he 
 would at least get the form of the mountain ; that, at least, 
 might be expected to remain stationary. 
 
 Not a bit of it. The form of a mountain under changing 
 light is the most unstable thing in the world, except that 
 
Painting from Nature. 29 
 
 of a sea wave. The perception of mountain form is entirely 
 dependent on effect. A great, rpugh boss on the side of a 
 mountain is its principal feature one minute, and the next 
 you cannot find it, seek as you will, you cannot find it 
 any more than if the thing had been fairly chiselled away 
 by the hand of a great sculptor. Rocks alter in apparent 
 shape as the light changes. A wreath of mist creeps 
 stealthily, and shows you a chasm you never suspected yes- 
 terday ; a sunbeam falls, and a great crag leaps out to 
 bask in it like an eagle from the copse. And after a cer- 
 tain practical apprenticeship, the student at last discovers 
 that the only truth of landscape painting is temporary 
 effect, and that real form belongs to sculpture alone. 
 
 It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to explain that clouds 
 can never be painted from nature. Even the slowest of 
 them are full of rapid and continual change, which, how- 
 ever little seen by careless, unobservant people, is only too 
 evident as soon as one attempts to draw them. The 
 utmost that can really be got from nature of a complete 
 sky is a rude pencil memorandum of the arrangement of 
 its principal masses, not pretending to form in any part of 
 it, still less to color. A rapid draughtsman may, however, 
 get a tolerable pencil outline of a single cloud, it he tries 
 for that only. But all attempts to paint skies from nature 
 are futile. Constable's way of sketching them in oil may 
 have served occasionally for a rude memorandum of the 
 relations of color in a common lowland sky, but he had to 
 sacrifice all the forms. 
 
 Trees may be painted from nature if they are near to 
 us, and on condition that we work only for two hours at a 
 time on the same picture, and in lowland scenery where 
 there is much sameness of effect. 
 
 Rocks admit of careful and accurate painting from 
 nature, so of course does a great precipice, if we are near 
 to it. A great deal of good material for artists who paint 
 from nature is to be had along our own coasts. The cliffs 
 on the southern coast are excellent subjects, and the climate 
 not unfavorable. 
 
 Water may occasionally, as for instance in rapidly run- 
 
30 Painting from Nature. 
 
 ning streams, be painted from nature, because there the 
 same forms are continually reproduced by the effect of the 
 submerged stones on the surface of the water ; but great 
 expanses of broad rivers and lakes cannot be painted from 
 nature at all, because they change incessantly. It is need- 
 less to add that the sea cannot be painted from nature in 
 the strict sense, though it may, no doubt, under certain 
 circumstances, be wise to paint it from memoranda in the 
 presence of nature. 
 
 In the selection of climate, a painter who works from 
 nature on pre-Raphaelite principles must, of course, be 
 guided by his practical convenience, and not by the splen- 
 dor of the scenery. 
 
 Perhaps, of all the climates in Europe, that of the 
 Highlands of Scotland is the very worst for painting from 
 nature. The continual prevalence of rainy weather, the 
 incessant changes of effect, the intense brilliance of the 
 color, subject everywhere to sudden and violent revolution, 
 the frequent occurrence of low rain-clouds which hide the 
 hills much more effectually than a cloak hides the human 
 form, all these objections are in the aggregate insuperable, 
 and not to be lightly laughed away as small evils which a 
 little resolution would overcome. The Highlands of Scot- 
 land are a noble field for painters from memoranda ; but 
 artists who wish to work from nature ought not to think of 
 going there. 
 
 On the other hand, lowland France is a perfect climate 
 for painting from nature. On the borders of Burgundy 
 and Champagne, on the banks of the river Yonne, it is 
 possible to work from nature as many days in one year as 
 you would get in seven years in the Highlands. And 
 those French subjects, if not so grand" as the Highland 
 scenery, are infinitely prettier, infinitely easier to deal with, 
 and, I should imagine, could be worked up into more 
 popular pictures. 
 
 I have such a strong dislike to any thing like uncertainty 
 or hesitation in painting, and so great an impatience of 
 alteration in a picture once begun, that my preparatory 
 work before really taking up color is always rather long 
 
Painting from Nature. 31 
 
 and laborious. Every additional year's experience con- 
 firms me, however, in this tendency, and I have got so 
 much into the habit of settling every thing about a picture 
 before I lay the dead color, that in working even from the 
 kindest and most accommodating scenery I like to furnish 
 myself with a careful study of form in pen and ink on a 
 separate sheet of paper before beginning the picture. In 
 lowland scenery I do not say that such precautions are 
 absolutely necessary ; but in all painting of mountains 
 they are indispensable. 
 
 I have said that it is possible to paint mountains from 
 nature by the help of memoranda. Perhaps such work 
 ought rather to be called painting from memoranda, aided 
 by reference to nature ; but as the work, whatever it is, is 
 after all done out of doors and not in the studio, I have 
 determined to treat of it here rather than in the other 
 volume. 
 
 In attacking a difficult mountain subject, the most pru- 
 dent way to set about it is, in my opinion, as follows : 
 
 First, to select the point of view with infinite care and 
 thought, spending several days in making sketches of the 
 mountain as seen from different places, and afterwards 
 comparing them and choosing the place from which its 
 character is to be seen best. 
 
 The next thing to be done is to set up a tent on the spot, 
 a painting-tent like the one I have myself invented being 
 the best. For the benefit of painters I shall describe it 
 here, warning other readers beforehand that the passage 
 may be skipped without losing the thread of the subject we 
 are considering. 
 
 When describing my hut,* I took occasion to observe 
 that a tent might be constructed having all the advan- 
 tages of the hut with greater space and superior portability. 
 
 I have since designed such a tent, which has been exe- 
 cuted with the most scrupulous and admirable exactness 
 by that prince of tent-makers, Mr. Benjamin Edgington. 
 
 This tent is, I think, the perfect ideal of a studio for an 
 
 * In the "Painter's Camp." 
 
 0* THB 
 
 
 
32 Painting from Nature. 
 
 artist who paints from nature, and on a moderate scale. I 
 have worked from nature in it in the coldest weather of an 
 unusually cold Highland winter, just as comfortably as if I 
 had been working in a room in London of no larger dimen- 
 sions. The tent is so strong, too, that it has resisted, when in 
 a very exposed situation, a series of equinoctial gales of 
 truly northern violence. I have been perfectly amazed to 
 see its light canvas walls and tall white roof standing firm 
 day after day in the midst of a roaring, rushing stream of 
 wind, like a rock in a torrent of water. 
 
 Its construction is simple enough to admit of easy and 
 intelligible description. 
 
 On a cube of eight feet every way, place a pyramid six 
 feet high and eight feet square at its base. That gives the 
 outward form. 
 
 The structure is thus arranged : 
 
 The perpendicular canvas walls are in three pieces ; the 
 pyramidal roof in a single piece ; then there is a lining for 
 the whole in two pieces for the walls, and a single piece 
 for the roof. There is also, of course, a strong waterproof 
 cloth for the floor. 
 
 The most original and, certainly, the most useful inven- 
 tion about it is, however, the window, which consists of a 
 sheet of the best plate glass I could get in London, three 
 feet six inches long by eighteen inches high, and contained 
 in a mahogany frame. This glass (always framed in 
 mahogany) is kept separately in an oak box,* and only 
 put into its place when the tent is erected. Another 
 mahogany frame is kept fastened to the canvas, and the 
 frame of the window is bolted to the frame on the canvas 
 by copper bolts. The window, so attached, is watertight. 
 
 The tent is held to the ground by twenty-four cords and 
 thirty-six pegs. 
 
 The worst of it is, that it takes some time to set it up ; 
 but for a picture, or even a careful study, this time is sure 
 to be regained tenfold. The reader will please to remem- 
 ber that my object was not to design a travelling tent, but 
 
 * The box contains also a second window, ready framed, to serve in 
 case of an accident to the first. This precaution is very necessary. 
 
Painting from Nature. 33 
 
 a portable studio intended for prolonged labor in one place. 
 The time spent in erecting the tent is always regained over 
 and over again the first wet or windy day. 
 
 I use a stove in the tent in winter. 
 
 The size of this tent, eight feet square, makes it pos- 
 sible to paint a picture three feet long, in great comfort, 
 and to have a table for colors at one's side. A much 
 larger picture might be painted, by replacing the central 
 pole by four poles springing from the four corners of the 
 pyramidal roof, and joined together at its apex. It is pos- 
 sible to paint a picture four or five feet long in this tent, and 
 from nature, in the coldest winter weather, or the windiest 
 time of the raw early spring, as comfortably as if the 
 painter were in a well-lighted closet at home, of the same 
 dimensions as the tent. I freely admit that greater space 
 would be pleasariter, but is it not something to have con- 
 quered that terrible enemy, bad weather? The painter 
 who possesses such a tent need concern himself very little 
 about interruptions which are fatal to the excellence of 
 work that is attempted without shelter. Cold blast and 
 pelting rain cannot disturb him. On the wild moorland he 
 lays his tenderest films of color, in the midst of its pitiless 
 storms ; and neither the rage of the wind nor the fury of 
 the rain, can spoil the perfect delicacy of his faintest hue, 
 nor the grace of his lightest line.* 
 
 The tent being pitched with the help of two men, and 
 firmly established in the chosen place, with its plate- 
 glass windows looking towards the mountain, the next 
 thing to be done is to provide one's self with preparatory 
 memoranda. 
 
 If the spot is a long way from an inn, it is better for 
 the painter to live in his tent, and have another smaller 
 tent at hand for his servant ; but if an inn or farm-house 
 is conveniently near, why let him live there by all means, 
 if he likes, only he must take care to lock up his plate- 
 glass window in his box every night. 
 
 * The cost of this tent, with windows, frames, box, &c., complete, was 
 a little under thirty pounds. It is worth the money to any landscape 
 painter who works from nature, and will pay for itself in the first year. 
 
 3 
 
34 Painting from Nature. 
 
 The preparatory memoranda will consist first of a labo- 
 rious study of form in ink, the full size of the intended 
 picture. In order to get this study of form completed, a 
 good deal of watchfulness is required, especially in these 
 Highlands of Scotland, on account of clouds and mists. 
 If the painter is lucky in his weather, he may, however, 
 get this study of form finished in a few days, with hard 
 labor. 
 
 During all this time, he must be on the lookout for a 
 noble effect, and if a suitable effect does not occur, he must 
 wait till it does, before touching color. In the .High- 
 lands, one has never to wait long for a good effect ; the 
 waiting is generally for the form study. 
 
 If there is any waiting to be done, and the weather is 
 good enough for sketching, the painter ought to occupy 
 himself in getting together as many memoranda as he 
 possibly can of every thing in the neighborhood of his tent. 
 He will be glad to have them some day, far away. 
 
 If it does nothing but rain, and there is no chance even 
 of sketching outside, it may still be possible to get a col- 
 ored foreground study through the window ; and this is 
 the best possible time to get such a study, because the 
 color of foregrounds is always richest in rain. But, lest 
 the weather should be too bad even for that, it is as well 
 to be provided with a box of books and a canister of the 
 best procurable tobacco. As for me, on such occasions, I 
 scribble in pencil in a note-book, which scribblings, copied 
 out afterwards, so as to be legible enough for the printers 
 to read, have in the course of years accumulated to these 
 two volumes. 
 
 The effect will come at last, and as it is sure to remain 
 only a minute or so, at the longest, we must have every 
 thing quite ready to seize it. The pencil memorandum is 
 to be got as rapidly as possible, the artist drawing at his 
 very utmost speed, and scribbling the sketch all over with 
 letters, according to some such plan as that detailed in the 
 chapter on Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 Once in possession of this memorandum, whilst the im- 
 pression is yet quite vivid, the painter ought, before doing 
 
Painting from, Nature. 35 
 
 any thing else, to realize the effect in water-color, or pastel, 
 or in oil if his picture is to be in oil, trying very hard 
 for the true color, but giving only just so much form as is 
 necessary to the expression of the effect. 
 
 Then let him note the time of day. In the chosen effect, 
 were there any shadows on the mountain, shadows, I 
 mean, not of clouds on the mountain, but of the mountain's 
 own bosses and protuberances on its own sides ? If there 
 were such shadows, he ought to prepare beforehand a care- 
 ful small study of the mountain's principal forms, in indeli- 
 ble brown ink, and the next day, at the precise hour and 
 minute when the chosen effect occurred, he ought, on the 
 study so prepared, to copy very rapidly, but as truly as 
 possible in the time, with a brush full of sepia or any other 
 water color he pleases, the exact shape of every shadow 
 he sees, and very queer unaccountable shapes he will find 
 them. 
 
 Thus, we have to make first a careful drawing of form, 
 the full size of the picture ; then a small memorandum of 
 effect in pencil and short-hand, which we translate into 
 color immediately ; then, after that, a study of the forms 
 of shadows. Once in possession of these memoranda, 
 we are no longer strictly bound down to what we see 
 before us, and may begin our picture with a certain degree 
 of independence of Nature's changefulness. We work, 
 however, with cautious and continual reference to the 
 actual scene. 
 
 Painters who are not much accustomed to paint moun- 
 tains from nature are invariably defeated by the subtlety 
 of the natural lines ; the extreme refinement of form, so 
 different from the vulgar exaggerations of merely popular 
 artists, the infinity of detail, and the impenetrable mystery 
 which veils it all as with enchantment. Add to these 
 difficulties the tremendous one of Nature's changefulness. 
 Every day she offers some new effect to the student; some 
 days she offers two or three hundred, any one of which, in 
 its glorious and august presence, seems to him more noble 
 and more worthy to be painted than the one he has already 
 selected. The temptations of the new effects are to be- 
 
36 Painting from Nature. 
 
 girmers quite irresistible. They alter their work to suit 
 some effect seen more recently, and so ruin it. As for the 
 recent effect being grander than the one first chosen, it is 
 -generally a mere delusion, for the comparison instituted 
 by the painter cannot really be between the two effects, as 
 they occurred in nature, but between his strong and vivid 
 recollection of the effect of to-day, and his worn-out im- 
 pression of the effect he saw a fortnight ago ; and no 
 wonder, if after a comparison of this kind, the most recent 
 effect should appear the most noble and beautiful. An 
 experienced workman makes his choice of effect very care- 
 fully, but once, chosen he abides by it, and relies upon it, 
 nor can all the enchantments of subsequent splendor turn 
 him one instant from his purpose. A good way to guard 
 one's self against this besetting temptation of recent 
 effects is, to make memoranda of them all as they occur, 
 even though it may interrupt the progress of the picture. 
 These memoranda will always be valuable, and they serve 
 to allay the instinctive desire to represent every thing that 
 moves and excites us. 
 
 The impenetrable mystery of nature is a great cause of 
 defeat to young artists who, even when they have skill 
 enough to draw firmly and accurately, can so rarely attain 
 that wonderful evanescence of execution which represents 
 just so much of objects as we see of them in nature and 
 no more. No object is ever well drawn that is completely 
 drawn, nor can any picture ever have the look of reality 
 in which details, however numerous, are all brought out 
 with perfect definition. It does not signify how . much 
 work there may be in a picture, where every detail is 
 thoroughly defined it will always look poor; and a rapid 
 sketch by a real artist, if only mysterious enough, will 
 have more power over the mind, and recall more mightily 
 the infinity of nature, than any quantity of perfectly defi- 
 nite labor. Now the difficulty of rendering the mystery 
 of nature is intimately associated with the other difficulty 
 occasioned by her changefulness. She generally defines 
 something ; some fragment of the outline of an object 
 comes out clearly for a moment, whilst a great part of 
 
Painting from Nature. 37 
 
 the same outline lies in various degrees of semi-definition, 
 and the rest of it is untraceable altogether. This for per- 
 haps two seconds, but the third second the very part of the 
 outline which was untraceable may have become the clear* 
 est and most definite, the part that was definite at first 
 bemg now quite vague or perhaps entirely invisible. Such 
 changes occur incessantly in every detail of a great moun- 
 tain's front, even in the serenest weather. Any attempt to 
 paint such a detail by mere ocular copyism must there- 
 fore be futile, for a touch cannot be laid before it will 
 become falsified by these minute changes; changes by 
 ordinary eyes unnoticed and uncared for, but which can- 
 not long be ignored by any practical student. 
 
 The extreme refinement of form in natural landscape is 
 a point so little understood by the public, and by the paint- 
 ers of portrait and genre who exercise authority in the 
 artistic profession, that I hardly like to mention it here at 
 all. The impression amongst figure painters that land- 
 scape is easy to draw, and the readiness with which, 
 on the authority of figure painters, the world has accepted 
 the doctrine, make it painfully evident that all these good 
 people have never really looked at natural landscape at all 
 nor attempted seriously to copy it. Now, landscape is not 
 merely difficult to 'draw, but it is infinitely difficult ; that is 
 to say, that the best designer of the figure now alive upon 
 the earth, whoever that may be, if he really set himself in 
 earnest to draw a mountain as it is, would find, after any 
 quantity of labor and care, that he had only been able to 
 draw it in a manner which is to be called good out of in- 
 dulgence for the weakness of human faculties, and in a 
 certain restricted sense, and that the natural mountain still 
 remained at quite an infinite and unapproachable distance 
 beyond him. As for the slight sketches of mountains which 
 figure painters are accustomed to put behind their person- 
 ages by way of background, they bear precisely tie same 
 relation to real mountain painting that the figures we 
 landscape painters sketch in our compositions do to real 
 figure painting. Recently, two more serious attempts at 
 mountain painting have been made by figure painters, 
 
38 Painting from Nature. 
 
 and it is significant that these two should be the most 
 refined draughtsmen of their time. John Lewis attempted 
 a mountain in the background to his Frank Encampment, 
 .nd Holman Hunt set up a tent on the shore of the Dead 
 Sea with the resolution to try a range of mountains in 
 good earnest. I appeal to these two figure painters whether 
 mountains are easy to paint or not, and whether their lines 
 are subtle and refined or simple and rude ? I am quite 
 willing to grant you that mountains are simple as Claude 
 painted them, four straight lines variously inclined, in- 
 closing a space of flat gray paint ; and I readily admit 
 that they are rude as Salvator rendered them, mere 
 heaps of formless mud and stone. But mountains in na- 
 ture are full of exquisite and refined form, needing most 
 masterly skill in drawing for even an approximate render- 
 ing, such skill as only three or four men now alive possess, 
 such skill as the rest of us may only humbly labor for 
 and aspire to. How shall we follow the lines of their in- 
 numerable streams? how render the roundings of their 
 infinitely various surfaces, the delicate moulding of the 
 swelling forms between the streams, the projections of the 
 descending slopes throwing all the sculpture of the great 
 mountain front into intricate fore-shortening, full of diffi- 
 cult perspective ? Mountains easy to paint indeed ! If 
 they are so very easy, how does it happen that only one or 
 two artists have ever managed to paint them in even an 
 endurable manner ? The very best of us can but give a 
 sort of abstract of mountain. No man ever really drew 
 a mountain front in its infinite fulness, and no man ever 
 will draw one, for such work is beyond all human power. 
 The most masterly mountain painting in the world is noth- 
 ing but a well-selected abstract and abridgment, choosing 
 the most expressive lines, but not rendering one line out 
 of ten. And in those lines that we do render how are we 
 to approach the ineffable tenderness and subtlety of na- 
 ture ? What the coarseness of our faculties exaggerates 
 into strong curves are often so slightly different from 
 straight lines that nothing but the photograph can render 
 them without either omitting the curve altogether or de- 
 
Painting from Nature. 39 
 
 stroying its perfect delicacy by exaggeration. And is not 
 the habit of exaggeration just as often a sign of mere 
 bluntriess and coarseness as of noble emotion ? We may 
 exaggerate because we feel strongly, but I fear we far 
 oftener exaggerate because we do not feel delicately. Per- 
 fect drawing, like perfect cookery, or perfect rowing, or rid- 
 ing, or sailing, or indeed, so far as I know acy thing else that 
 men do, becomes in its latest advance an exceedingly delicate 
 business, dealing with subtle distinctions which the un- 
 trained faculties cannot perceive at all. For the perfectly 
 trained man, however strong he may be, is also much re- 
 fined by his training, and in his strongest exercise of pou er 
 is full of grace and gentleness and self-restraint, only 
 untrained and inexperienced hands using violence. And 
 the more refined the skill of the draughtsman the less he 
 will need exaggeration, owing to his habitual self-govern- 
 ment and moderation, from which the slightest departure 
 is at once recognized as the sign of overpowering emotion. 
 It is like the writing of a great master in words, who will 
 express himself strongly rather by the exact and adhesive* 
 fitness of his words to the occasion than by their violence ; 
 or like the hostility of a perfectly refined lady, who will 
 inflict acute torture in the gentlest phrases, whereas her 
 sisters in Billingsgate, coarser but not so cruel, are obliged 
 to seek the most sounding epithets. 
 
 Of all exaggeration in landscape-painting the commonest 
 is exaggeration of height in high objects, and consequently 
 of steepness in their sloping lines. This is universal with 
 all landscape painters, and I believe the landscape painter 
 never lived who did not habitually exaggerate height and 
 steepness. But no one ever exaggerates the length of a 
 horizontal line. If, for instance, a mountain to be true 
 ought to be two feet high and six feet long in a large 
 picture, the chances are that a painter will make it about 
 three feet high and five feet long. Turner exaggerated 
 
 * In good joiner's work the strength consists very much in exquisitely 
 true jltting. If a piece of wood is perfectly fitted to its place it is easy to 
 make it stick there without using violence, and so if a word is well fitted 
 it will stick also and for ever. 
 
40 Painting from Nature. 
 
 in this way habitually ; but I know of no instance in 
 which he exaggerated the proportionate length of a hori- 
 zontal line. Our most rigid topographical painters may 
 ultimately, if they work in entire submission to photog- 
 raphy, and with its continual guidance, come to produce 
 unexaggerated work ; but if ever such work shall be ex- 
 hibited nobody will believe it to be true, because it will 
 fail to give the impression of steepness and height that 
 nature produces on her own scale, with exactly the same 
 lines. I have occasionally, for an especial purpose, made 
 rigidly unexaggerated topographical drawings ; but they al- 
 ways look so flat and tame that people intimately acquainted 
 with the scenery never know what they are intended for, 
 and I have always to prove their truth by a comparison 
 with photographs of the same places taken by myself. 
 Now, it is evident that as a painter cannot always be at 
 hand with a portfolio of photographs to defend, in hours 
 of reasoning, the literal exactness of accurate work, such 
 work, in his absence, must continually be slighted as 
 feeble, and even condemned as unfaithful. And my usual 
 work, in comparison with the work of many other land- 
 scape painters, may be wanting in that peculiar kind of 
 vigor which is attainable by making sloping lines vertical, 
 yet I know now by strict measurement that it is full of 
 demonstrable exaggerations. 
 
 If landscape painters painted on thin sheets of vulcan- 
 ized india-rubber, instead of canvas, their pictures might 
 be made tolerably true by a simple process. It would 
 then only be necessary to stretch the india-rubber sheet 
 horizontally, and the drawing would come, in a rude way, 
 nearly right. Some painters would need more stretching 
 than others, but even Mr. Newton, the truest painter of 
 Highland landscape who ever lived, would need a little 
 stretching. His noble " mountain gloom in Glen Coe " 
 shortens the horizontal length of the rocky mass in the 
 middle distance, and so exaggerates its vertical height. 
 
 You will, however, constantly find that there is a nota- 
 ble difference between the exaggerations of true men and 
 false. When a true artist exaggerates, it is not from 
 
Painting from Nature. 41 
 
 coarseness of perception, but strength of enthusiasm, 
 whereas the false one exaggerates one fact merely be- 
 cause he is blind to all the rest. In mountain drawing, 
 in addition to the exaggeration of height and steepness 
 already mentioned, bad painters always exaggerate rugged- 
 ness, and always curvature ; whereas good ones, though 
 they usually exaggerate height, because they are forced 
 to do so, in order to produce the impression they desire, 
 rarely exaggerate curves and projections with any thing 
 like violence, because they perceive and relish the reserve 
 and delicacy of nature. The reader would understand 
 this at once if he had the opportunity of comparing one of 
 Turner's mountains with any specimen of mountain draw- 
 ing by our third-rate water-color men.* 
 
 If I can judge of the progress of others by my own, I 
 should say that one of the clearest signs of advancement 
 in drawing is a steady increase in refinement of line and 
 consequent moderation, and that the best proof of prog- 
 ress in color is an increasing relish for slight gradations 
 and faint reliefs, and quiet harmonies.f 
 
 The supreme difficulty in painting from nature is to 
 know what to take and what to leave, how far to follow 
 
 * If the reader cares to follow out the subject of exaggeration as it 
 affects our popular types of figure painting, he will find, on comparing 
 what are considered good Academy studies with photographs of the same 
 models, that figure painters have a constant habit of exaggeration in the 
 volume of muscle, and that they mark all projections too violently on the 
 human form, just as the landscape painters do on the mountains. This 
 makes photographs of the naked figure look thin and ridiculous, for none 
 but the best made persons look very classical without their clothes. Yet 
 the photograph is nearly true to the actual form (not quite, for several 
 reasons too long to be explained here), and the common Academy study 
 is a bastard ideal made up of the model, much exaggerated, together with 
 confused reminiscences of Raphael and the Greeks. 
 
 enough to look quite right, and the fourth, being done when I had become 
 conscious of the habit of exaggeration, and was striving against it, so 
 true as to seem false, that is, the reverse of exaggerated. 
 
 To complete the series I took a photograph of the same subject, which 
 proved that the last drawing was nearly true, but still exaggerated; 
 whilst the exaggeration in the earlier drawings was altogether out- 
 rageous. 
 
42 Painting from Nature. 
 
 nature, how to select the most essential and mutually 
 helpful truths. We cannot have all the truths, do what 
 we will. 
 
 How far are we to be slaves to the subject, and when 
 are we to act jn something like independence of it ? 
 
 All painting from nature includes a great deal of paint- 
 ing from memory, and this is even rendered more difficult 
 out of doors than in the studio, by the presence of other 
 and embarrassing facts which it costs us a great effort to 
 reject. It is true, for example, that in painting our moun- 
 tain from nature we have to color from nature, but in quite 
 a peculiar sense, not in the way of simple imitation, and 
 matching of particular tints. The color of the mountain 
 never continuing the same for a single hour, how is it 
 possible to match its hues ? If you match them for a few 
 square inches of your picture to-day, and match the other 
 hues for a few square inches to-morrow, what good will 
 come of it? Will not the harmony of your picture be 
 utterly and irretrievably ruined, and the whole work be 
 quite false and monstrous ? Then why are you to color 
 from nature at all if you may not match the natural tints 
 you see ? Why not paint such pictures entirely in the 
 studio ? The answer is, that you are to paint from nature 
 in order to avoid falsity, and that you may have the oppor- 
 tunity of always referring to nature for any fact you find 
 it necessary to ascertain. Now, many facts of local color 
 may be ascertained through and in spite of the intervening 
 veil of transient color. For instance, in painting a High- 
 land hill in late autumn, you may always ascertain (when 
 the weather will allow of your seeing it at all) where the 
 patches of red fern are, and what is their shape, a thing 
 not easy to invent rightly in a studio ; and of the trees 
 in the forest on the mountain's flank, you may see with 
 great precision how far they are reddened by the death 
 of their leaves. But if you merely try to imitate the 
 mountain as you see it, not taking the trouble to use your 
 intellect as well as your eyes, your picture, though painted 
 from nature, will be as false and discordant as if it had 
 been painted in the dingiest studio in Newman Street. 
 
Painting from Nature. 43 
 
 So that self-reliance is one of the first lessons a young 
 artist has to learn, in working directly from nature. He 
 is to get all he oan from the natural scene, but to be thor- 
 oughly independent of it, and only submit to its guidance 
 just so far as may assist the truth of his work. All 
 slavish, Chinese imitation of separate bits is death and 
 destruction to the whole picture. Nor must any reader 
 misunderstand the reason for this most essential of all 
 principles. The object of every artist who takes his 
 canvass out of doors is to get more truth. It is true that 
 Nature offers us a continual feast, yet it would argue but 
 a slight appreciation of the delicacy of her banquet if we 
 were to mingle all her most exquisite dishes into one 
 abominable mess. We are not to mix together discordant 
 and contradictory truths, and mere ocular imitation is sure 
 to do so. What there is of simple imitation in good 
 painting from nature is really very slight, for it is mod- 
 ified first by constant obedience to the memory, often in 
 direct opposition to the facts immediately before our eyes ; 
 and farther, it is overruled by the necessity of compromise 
 in all translation of nature into art, a necessity occasioned 
 by the difference in point of light between flake white and 
 the sun, and the difference in point of depth between ivory 
 black in broad daylight and the intense vacuity of natural 
 darkness. None but very simple people ever imagine 
 that the most accurate work from nature is to be accom- 
 plished without very great reliance on the memory and 
 considerable effort of the intellect. It requires, no doubt, 
 great delicacy of hand and infinite clearness of vision, but 
 it requires, in addition to these, much of that strength of 
 memory, and all that knowledge of the resources of art, 
 which are essential to the painter who works exclusively 
 in the studio. Hence, the very curious and interesting 
 truth, that a painter who can produce a good picture in a 
 studio from slight memoranda is more likely to paint well 
 from nature than one who has never done any thing else, 
 because he has acquired the habit of self-reliance, and can 
 hold straight on his own path without being allured away 
 from it by the attractions of the ever-changing subject. 
 
44 Painting from Nature. 
 
 The artist who paints from nature must be content to 
 produce little, if he cares for accuracy. Watch a careful 
 painter at work, and you will find his time incessantly 
 divided between two* distinct acts, looking at nature, 
 and putting down what he has seen. First, the retina 
 must receive a strong impression, and then, whilst this 
 remains quite vivid in the memory, it must be got* into 
 color. But this looking at nature occupies as much time as 
 the actual work of painting. An artist, therefore, who 
 works directly from nature, in the pre-Raphaelite manner, 
 must spend twice as much time on his picture as if he 
 did it from memory and invention in the Turnerian man- 
 ner. When we take the nature of the two procedures 
 into consideration, there is nothing surprising in this dif- 
 ference. 
 
 And it needs hard looking to see the subtlety of a nat- 
 ural line. The difference between the active looking of a 
 highly-trained painter at work from nature, and the mere 
 passive, indolent looking of the people who presume to 
 judge of his work, is something quite wonderful. It is at 
 least as great as the difference of muscular exertion be- 
 tween a trained Cambridge rower pulling at speed in an 
 eight-oar, and a lady lolling in her carriage. It is this 
 difference between active and passive looking which ac- 
 counts for so much ignorance of the commonest natural 
 phenomena on the part of people who live constantly in 
 their very presence. Of all the boatmen on the French 
 rivers, how many do you think would recognize the truth 
 of Turner's river painting ? Of all the farmers and peas- 
 ants in the Highlands, or in Switzerland, how many are 
 competent judges of mountain drawing? These good 
 'people have the facts before their eyes every day, and all 
 day long ; but they only look at them passively, not ac- 
 tively ; and so they never see them at all. Of course, the 
 landscape painter himself looks at very many things quite 
 passively also. Put a landscape painter an^l any lady of 
 ordinary powers of observation into a ball-room, and it is 
 probable that the landscape painter would only passively 
 receive a most confused impression of a great quantity of 
 
Painting from, Nature. 45 
 
 muslin, and lace, and jewelry ; whereas, the lady, unless 
 quite exceptionally indifferent to such matters, would look 
 at it all actively, and, by the time the ball was over, be able 
 to describe with wonderful accuracy and minuteness the 
 dress and ornaments of half the ladies there. The fact is, 
 we all look actively at things which interest us, but only 
 from the point of view of our especial interest, and the 
 impressions we receive are determined for us by pur men- 
 tal state. A general, examining a country where he will 
 have to conduct the operations of war, receives an im- 
 pression very different from that which he, the very same 
 individual, would have received if he had been trained as 
 a landscape painter, and had visited the same country for 
 purposes of study. And even without pre-supposing the 
 great difference which a different training would have 
 produced, take a man as he is, and if that man is large- 
 minded enough to be able to see a thing from two points 
 of view, what he will see will depend entirely on the state 
 of mind in which he may happen to be at the time of 
 looking. If a painter has property, and is competent to 
 take care of it, you may be quite sure that such artistic 
 picturesqueness as depends upon the ruinous condition of 
 buildings will give him little satisfaction on his own estate, 
 it being generally pleasanter to contemplate ruin on other 
 people's property than on one's own. When looking over 
 the condition of his buildings, you may rely upon it that 
 such a painter, however strong his love of good artistic 
 material, would rather find them hideously ugly and in 
 excellent repair than ruinously pretty and picturesque, 
 and that a few acres of wretched-looking building-land in 
 the middle of a great manufacturing town, all black with 
 ashes and trodden into hideous foulness of formless mire, 
 would give more pleasure to his eye as proprietor than a 
 purple expanse of the loveliest heather in the Highlands. 
 And, therefore, in looking over his property, it is probable 
 that a painter would not see even such elements of the 
 picturesque as it might possess ; for since the picturesque 
 is generally a sign of want of repair, its delightful or 
 artistic aspect is hardly ever visible to the eyes of the 
 
46 Painting from Nature. 
 
 proprietor. In exactly the same way a painter who had 
 a yacht would not like her to be picturesque, but neat, 
 smart, orderly, and swift ; leaving the picturesque of sail- 
 ing to poor fishermen and such like, whose glorious, but 
 dirty and uncomfortable craft he would admire with all 
 sincerity, and paint with perfect love and delight. And if 
 by accident, or neglect, something about his own yacht 
 were to assume a slightly picturesque aspect, the owner, 
 though a painter, would probably not see it, but only be 
 angry with it as a gardener is with some lovely wild plant 
 that he tears up and throws on a dung-hill because it is 
 called a " weed." 
 
 From these considerations it follows that, since artistic 
 looking is an active operation, we ought to do it ener- 
 getically. The way to paint successfully from nature is 
 to apply great will and energy to the work. Resolute 
 active attention is wanted ; not merely passive attention. 
 For, unless the attention can be strongly concentrated on 
 the subject, all truthful painting is hopeless. In drawing 
 and painting from nature, nothing is to be done with a 
 wandering mind. The work requires vigorous applica- 
 tion, or it is sure to be untrue. First, hard looking before 
 every stroke ; then, stern effort of memory to retain the 
 impression whilst we are transposing it to the key of 
 the picture. The necessity for this transposition doubles 
 the intellectual labor of the painter. In painting mountains 
 from nature, it so very rarely happens that the color of 
 the mountain, as we see it whilst we paint, is the same as 
 it was when we decided on the effect, that an entire trans- 
 position of every detail from one key into another is a 
 matter of continual necessity. Add to this the farther 
 translation of the transposed passage from the full and 
 perfect tones of nature into the fractional tones of art, and 
 you have a pretty piece of work to do with the eye 
 and brain before any true stroke can be laid by the hand. 
 The consequence of all this is, that painting from nature 
 is very tiring, and cannot be long continued without rest, 
 if it is to be done really well. As soon as ever the mind 
 and eye become in the least fatigued, and cease to operate 
 
Painting from Nature. 47 
 
 with perfect vigor, it is time to give up, or the work will 
 be spoiled. Four hard hours a day with a rest after each 
 hour are as much as a painter ought generally to paint 
 from nature, unless he is unusually strong. The rest of 
 his day may be employed in free sketching, or quiet obser- 
 vation of natural facts, noting them down in a memo- 
 randum-book. 
 
 A curious result in popular criticism of the difference 
 between active and passive looking is, that the critic, who 
 looks passively, finds fault with the painter who looks 
 actively. I have heard such critics declare that no detail 
 was to be seen in nature, and thence deduce the conclu- 
 sion that painters ought not to paint detail. But the true 
 painter does not paint what an unobservant spectator sees, 
 but what he sees himself, which is altogether a different 
 matter. I can very well believe that to people who never 
 really look at nature, no details are visible : I also believe 
 that the broadest effects of light, and the most obvious 
 facts of form, are never seen by them ; but I repudiate 
 the doctrine that a painter is to regulate his expression of 
 natural truth by a reference to the degree of information 
 on the subject possessed by people who have not yet 
 learned the use of their eyes. To such critics, I always 
 feel tempted to say (if politeness did not forbid such 
 excessive candor), "You are not to elevate your own 
 powers into a standard of human attainment, nor are you 
 to be angry with painters because they see farther into 
 nature than you can. This kind of seeing comes of such 
 hard labor as you have never given ; and you are not to 
 criticise the report of the seer, but to accept from it so 
 much instruction as your limited preparatory education 
 will enable you to receive." This sort of answer would 
 probably not tend to keep the said critics in a good humor; 
 but just imagine how absurd and unreasonable we should 
 all think it to restrain the other revelators of natural truths 
 to the revelation of such truths only as are already per- 
 fectly familiar to all mankind ! When the function of the 
 painter shall be rather better understood, let us hope that 
 this imbecile doctrine, that he has no right to see deeper 
 
48 Painting from Nature. 
 
 and know more than other people, will die, like its sister 
 doctrines, that have so long retarded the advance of 
 science ; let us even hope that the world will ultimately 
 perceive that the especial duty and function of the artist 
 is precisely to see farther than the rest of mankind, 
 and to lead the eyes of all men to the deepest truths of 
 nature. 
 
 It is needless to state here that no landscape can be 
 painted from nature on such a scale, or with such a degree 
 of finish, as would demand more than a very few weeks 
 for its completion. The changes in local color produced 
 by the continual advance or decline of vegetation are so 
 incessant and so great, that to paint longer than three or 
 four weeks on one canvas, would generally involve the 
 registering of inconsistent and contradictory facts, and 
 consequently destroy the truth of the work. In the 
 depth of winter, however, a longer time may be given ; 
 and with a tent like mine, it is just as easy to paint from 
 nature in winter as in summer, except that the days are 
 shorter. 
 
 With regard to methods of work, every thing depends on 
 the student's own habits. Painters generally work best in 
 the way they are accustomed to, and there are many pro- 
 cesses in oil-painting which will yield good results in the 
 hands of those who have practised them. The best and 
 most general counsel I have to offer is, to rely on opaque 
 color, separating the work as much as possible into distinct 
 processes, and advancing step by step from great masses 
 to smaller masses till you come to the minutest details, 
 carrying the whole picture steadily on together, and grad- 
 ually evolving, as it were, the detail out of the mass. This 
 is the safest way ; but every artist paints exactly as he 
 pleases, and all true painters hate and scorn fixed rules 
 and methods of execution. And when I say " rely on 
 opaque color," I do not pretend to dictate what is legiti- 
 mate and what not. I advocate opaque color because I 
 am convinced that a steady adherence to it would do more 
 to correct the worst defects of vulgar English execution 
 than any amount of lecturing, and because half our land- 
 
Painting from Nature. 49 
 
 scape painters are ruined by resorting to glazing for effects 
 of transparency and gradation which could be, and ought 
 to be, obtained by fair downright painting with solid tints. 
 I know that it is very laborious to work such tints till 
 they look quite right, but it is also exceedingly instructive, 
 and the more so, that they never flatter the artist with a 
 false appearance of success. If he has fairly mastered the 
 subject and can paint in the strict sense of the word, it 
 is astonishing how obediently all these stubborn opaque 
 tints will minister to his desire ; but in the hands of 
 ignorance and empty pretension they are shockingly frank 
 and outspoken, and cry aloud to the whole world, " This 
 man is not our master ! " 
 
 The use of opaque color forces one to pay great atten- 
 tion to the truth of every tint and to gradation, without 
 which all merely opaque color is quite intolerable, whereas 
 a glaze will often look dangerously pretty and attractive 
 when it is neither true in color nor rightly gradated. I 
 have alluded to the subject of technical work at the con- 
 clusion of the chapter on Painting from Memoranda. I 
 may say here that the painter of mountains is not to let 
 himself be guided by the practice of figure painters, who 
 deal with objects so near to the spectator, that there is no 
 atmosphere to be represented. Thus, the advice of Ru- 
 bens, to keep white out of shadows, is to be rejected 
 without hesitation by the painter of mountains, who will 
 generally require white in every shadow he paints, on 
 account of the depth of air between the spectator and all 
 mountain shadows. And one reason why I recommend 
 the painter of mountains to' rely upon opaque color is, 
 because it is likely to teach him to paint atmosphere, 
 which, in oil, cannot be got out of transparent color. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of painting from nature, I 
 desire to add a few observations on the advantages and 
 dangers of the practice. 
 
 The advantages are twofold ; some of them belong to the' 
 picture, and others to the artist. 
 
 A picture which is painted from nature, if well done, is 
 sure to contain many truths which would have escaped the 
 
 4 
 
50 Painting from Nature. 
 
 strongest memory in the studio, unless aided by memo- 
 randa as copious in detail as the very picture itself. Such 
 works have, therefore, a peculiar value for their authen- 
 ticity, independently of their intellectual or artistic value. 
 When strictly topographical, as Seddon's Jerusalem, in the 
 National Gallery, or Brett's Val d'Aosta, they consider- 
 ably exceed the most perfect photograph in interest and 
 value as records of the scene they represent. The details 
 cannot be quite so accurately drawn as in the photograph, 
 nor so minute, but there are more of them in the picture ; 
 and, in addition to this, we have the facts of color and 
 atmosphere, which have a great deal to do with our im- 
 pression of any natural scene, and which it is consequently 
 very desirable to preserve in a record of it. 
 
 The advantages of painting from nature are, however, 
 still more striking as they concern the artist himself. 
 
 It is not for what he does-, but for what he learns, that 
 the practice is so useful. Whilst he is painting a scene 
 under one effect, he sees it under a thousand, and is inces- 
 santly occupied in comparing them. He is always learn- 
 ing something which he did not intend to learn ; knowledge 
 of all kinds being brought before him as he sits at work 
 by the inevitable changes of the natural scene. He intends 
 to paint Ben Cruachan in clear weather, and he has not 
 been two days at work before the whole mountain is veiled 
 in a half-transparent mist. If the painter has any sense, 
 instead of being angry at the mist, he will set to work and 
 study it, and learn the laws of evanescence. Round about 
 his tent, in the intervals of painful labor, he will find a 
 thousand objects of interest beautiful plants and mosses, 
 delightful studies of rock and tree forms which he may 
 as well sketch whilst he has the opportunity, and about 
 which he consequently learns a great many truths which 
 have nothing to do with the particular picture he is 
 engaged upon, but which will be of the greatest use to 
 his education as a painter. I attach much greater impor- 
 tance to the utility of the new practice of painting from 
 nature as a means of forcing painters to see facts they 
 never would have thought of looking for, than with refer- 
 
Painting from Nature. 51 
 
 ence to the quality of the pictures so produced, which 
 are generally crude, often inconsistent and contradictory, 
 and nearly always wanting in harmony as works of art. 
 
 The dangers of painting from nature are more obvious. 
 It undoubtedly weakens the memory and deadens the 
 inventive faculty, and that to such an extent, that if per- 
 sisted in without frequent alternation with studio work, 
 or unless counteracted by the continual practice of draw- 
 ing from the memory with the express object of preserving 
 its power, the habit of painting from nature will deprive 
 the artist of that faculty altogether. I have said else- 
 where that you cannot even paint from nature without 
 memory ; but in painting from nature the memory is exer- 
 cised in quite a peculiar manner. It then carries its 
 burden bit by bit, and very little at once, and by short 
 efforts. For painting away from nature the memory re- 
 quires a totally opposite kind of training. Its business is, 
 then, to carry a whole picture for long together. The 
 vivid recollection of particular bits is of no use when we 
 have no grasp of the whole, because the bits are quite 
 unavailable for our purposes when detached from their 
 natural relations. But the equal and large grasp of whole 
 impressions, even though the details may be by no means 
 accurately retained, is of great use to the artist : and 
 it is this kind of memory which pure painting from nature 
 has such a fatal tendency to debilitate. Of course the 
 intermediate art of painting from memoranda in the pres- 
 ence of nature has not this drawback to any thing like the 
 same extent, and we here approach more nearly to the 
 mental training necessary for those men who work entirely 
 in the studio. But what we gain in one direction we lose 
 in the other ; and when we have to be so entirely inde- 
 pendent of the natural scene as to rely upon the memory 
 for half our facts, we lose much of that salutary and severe 
 discipline of eye and hand which is to be derived from the 
 resolute imitation of things that will stay to be studied. 
 Yet I would always advocate the largest training attain- 
 able. It seems to me inexpressibly narrow and unreason- 
 able to restrain the practice even of our younger artists to 
 
52 Painting from Nature. 
 
 one kind of work. The simple imitation of nature must 
 precede, but ought by no means to preclude, the exercise 
 of the memory and the practice of painting as a fine art, 
 which is absolutely impossible so long as we are held down 
 to the strictly accurate copyism of natural detail. I am 
 perfectly willing to copy with patient fidelity one month, 
 but I may want to paint entirely from memory the next. 
 It is an inexpressible relief to eyes and hands jaded with 
 the wearing toil of mechanical imitation to revel in the 
 happy elysium of the memory, and realize the day dreams 
 of invention ; and again, it is often a salutary and refresh- 
 ing change to turn from this exciting poetry of the art to 
 the brave scientific prose of the most determined imitation. 
 This action and reaction of all large intellects between the 
 real and the ideal, the fact and the dream, is so universally 
 necessary to their healthful life, that they always will have 
 it somehow, either in their art or out of it. James Watt 
 refreshed himself with immense doses of fiction, and Shel- 
 ley braced himself with mathematics. The painter may 
 find the two elements in the practice of his own all-em- 
 bracing art, and alternate between the labors of observa- 
 tion and the pleasures of memory, to the perplexity of his 
 critics, but with substantial benefit to his own nature, 
 Because in obedience to its profoundest laws. 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 53 
 
 in. 
 
 PAINTING FROM MEMO* 
 
 new ways of doing things become fashionable, 
 we are too apt to consider the old ways altogether 
 obsolete. We do not easily see at first that the new 
 method may only be useful for the production of a certain 
 limited order of things, and that the old, instead of being 
 abolished and superseded by the new, may be destined to 
 endure along with it, and live for ever by its side. 
 
 When our younger painters first began to finish their 
 works from nature, the greater part of them believed, in 
 their secret hearts, that the art of painting from memo- 
 randa in the studio was thenceforth doomed to extinction. 
 They did not perceive that this other art rests on its own 
 grounds, has its own reasons for existing, and is a necessary 
 result of certain causes in nature itself, and in the constitu- 
 tion of man, which causes have lost none of their force 
 because some artists have taken their easels out of doors. 
 
 A very praiseworthy act, indeed, it is to take one's easel 
 out of doors ; but if we fancy that by so doing we have 
 altogether abolished the studio, and substituted for it a 
 painting tent, I think we are going a great deal too fast. I 
 hope there is evidence enough, not only in these volumes, 
 but in my pictures themselves, that I have worked labori- 
 ously from nature ; but at the same time I should be sorry 
 to have it inferred that I do not appreciate the art of paint- 
 ing away from nature, in the studio, and from memoranda. 
 For, as it seems to me, there are a great many very good 
 reasons why the studio ought to be preserved, even by 
 landscape painters, as a valuable old institution which we 
 cannot afford to sacrifice. These reasons I desire to state 
 in detail, and have therefore dedicated the present chapter 
 to the old art of painting from memoranda. 
 
54 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 In some essential respects a picture painted from memo- 
 randa is likely to be more valuable than one painted 
 directly from nature. It may not be so accurately imita- 
 tive, but it is likely to be more harmoniously and equally 
 worked out, truer in effect, and better in technical execu- 
 tion. It will also have a higher value as an intellectual 
 product, if the intellect of the artist be of a sufficiently 
 elevated order, to make it desirable that its presence should 
 be visible in his work. 
 
 The action of the imagination is more vigorous when the 
 bodily sight is occupied by no real scene. Hence imagina- 
 tive painters have a well-grounded dislike to painting any 
 thing more than mere studies from nature. For to a great 
 artist tli imaginative faculty is the most precious of all his 
 gifts, and he, therefore, instinctively p]aces himself in the 
 conditions most favorable to its free and happy exercise. 
 Those conditions are, first, complete bodily comfort, and, 
 secondly, a certain restriction of space. . A good room 
 offers both the comfort and the restriction. 
 
 It is needless to point out that, however imaginative a 
 great artist may be, he is also intensely observant. When 
 in the presence of glorious natural scenery, it is not the 
 imaginative part of him which works best, but the observ- 
 ant. All his intellectual power is then concentrated on the 
 faculty of observation for the enrichment of his memory. 
 No one will be surprised at this who has any conception 
 how intensely laborious the act of artistic observation really 
 is. I shall have more to say about it soon, when we come 
 to the cultivation of the memory, the most essential part of 
 the training of a painter from memoranda : for the present, 
 it is enough to affirm that the act of artistic observation is 
 so extremely laborious, as to absorb fop* the time nearly all 
 the mental energy of the painter, and that in those rare 
 cases where the imagination does really work in the pres- 
 ence of nature, it is because the observant faculty is not 
 developed to its full power and activity. 
 
 The painter from memoranda, therefore, divides his 
 labors into two distinct portions. In working from nature, 
 it is his business to observe, note down, and accumulate an 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 55 
 
 immense miscellany of natural facts. In the painting- 
 room his imagination governs the creation of works of art, 
 in obedience to the laws of nature, and with the help of 
 memoranda taken from nature. 
 
 Another reason why the imagination works better when 
 it is shut up between four walls is this : to an imaginative 
 person with a retentive memory, it is extremely desirable 
 that all his ten or twenty thousand impressions should be 
 equally accessible and equally unobtrusive ;. but in working 
 from nature, the last impression is for a time very obtru- 
 sive indeed, and puts all the impressions that remain in the 
 memory into a state of temporary eclipse. This is very 
 disagreeable to an imaginative painter, because he likes to 
 have equal and absolute power over all his accumulated 
 impressions, so as to realize whichever he will, and retain it 
 without interruption from other causes, until it is realized. 
 Now, whatever effect you choose for a picture which you 
 are painting from nature, you may be quite sure that, 
 long before you have finished it, some other effect will 
 present itself whose glorious presence will seem to you 
 more worthy to be represented than your fading recollec- 
 tion of the one selected. This kind of interference an 
 imaginative painter instinctively avoids, and when he shuts 
 himself up in a room, it is that he may have all his facts 
 and impressions under perfect control, and protected from 
 the intrusion of other impressions which are quite foreign to 
 the subject he intends to realize. 
 
 In all this there is no distrust of, or infidelity towards, 
 nature, but the reverse. There is an acute consciousness 
 on the part of the artist of his own too great sensitiveness 
 to new impressions, against which he instinctively protects 
 himself by opaque walls of masonry. A picture painted 
 from nature, in the strict sense of copying, tint for tint, 
 exactly what the painter saw, would not be true, but mon- 
 strous ; for it would consist of unrelated fragments of dif- 
 ferent effects, associated as unprofitably as leaves taken at 
 random from a hundred volumes and bound together in one. 
 Even in painting from nature, as I have shown on another 
 page, the artist has to remain faithful to some selected 
 
56 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 effect, of which he preserves a memorandum, and utterly 
 to refuse and reject all the effects which come after it; so 
 that he does not really copy nature, hue for hue, but paints 
 from a memorandum, or from memory, aided by reference 
 to nature for certain facts. And I also showed, that even 
 these facts have to be twice transposed before they can be 
 put into the picture, once from the passing effect to the 
 one selected, which usually involves a complete change of 
 color, and very frequently even of form ; and again from 
 the natural scale of light to the pictorial subdivided scale, 
 another transposition which destroys all chance of real 
 imitation. If to these transpositions you have to add the 
 changes introduced into every particle of the natural scene 
 by the imagination of a truly creative or poetical landscape 
 painter, does it not seem rather doubtful whether there can 
 be any use in his painting from nature at all? Would it 
 not be mere self-deception on his part, to set up a tent on 
 the mountains, under pretext of painting from nature, 
 when every thing he saw had to be transposed three several 
 times before he could make any use of it ? 
 
 1. From the effect visible at the moment to the one 
 selected when the picture was begun. 
 
 2. From the natural scale of light to the pictorial sub- 
 divided scale. 
 
 3. From the natural order to the imaginative composition. 
 
 So that, after all, 'there is not such a very wide differ- 
 ence between a picture done from nature and one done in 
 the studio, as to the direct copyism of facts. For if you 
 copy facts from nature, without carefully observing at least 
 the two first transpositions, there can be no truth in your 
 work ; and if you do not, or cannot, add the third, which 
 revolutionizes the arrangement of every particle, your picture 
 will have slight value as a work of art. And between a 
 picture painted out of doors, in which all the three trans- 
 positions were accomplished throughout in a masterly- 
 manner, and another similar picture, done in the studio 
 by the help of abundant memoranda', for the facts to be 
 transposed, I confess I see very little difference in point of 
 authenticity. The superiority in technical execution is 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 57 
 
 nearly sure to be on the side of the studio picture ; and 
 this superiority has great weight with artists, especially 
 witli the most accomplished ones. 
 
 The reasons why the technical superiority is likely to be 
 found in the studio picture are the physical comfort of a 
 large studio, its perfect preparation of means of all kinds, 
 and the absence of hurry caused by the permanence of 
 memoranda in comparison with the transience of nature. 
 
 I have so often insisted o"n the importance of a certain 
 degree of physical comfort for the execution of a delicate 
 work that I fear the reader will infer that I am unusually 
 fond of personal ease, and so attribute my expression of 
 what is in reality a universal truth to my own individual 
 softness of temperament and love of luxury. How far I 
 am alone in this feeling, I therefore invite the reader 
 impartially to consider. 
 
 Of all the occupations of men, I can at this moment 
 remember none, not involving some considerable degree of 
 bodily movement and exercise, which the persons devoted 
 to them are in the habit of following without the shelter 
 of some kind of building. Even joiners and blacksmiths, 
 whose muscular exertion is quite sufficient to enable them 
 to resist cold, are in the habit of working in buildings called 
 forges and workshops. And of all the trades followed in a 
 metropolis like London, there is not one which is practiced 
 in the open air when there is the ch*oice of practising it 
 under cover. The reason for this is, that the open air, 
 however pleasant under certain circumstances, as, for 
 instance, to sportsmen, is full of an immense variety 
 of small annoyances and interruptions, which so seriously 
 hinder most kinds of labor, that the workers, in self-defence, 
 protect themselves by walls and roofs, and actually find it 
 more profitable in the long run to pay rent for a building 
 to shelter them whilst they work than to work in the open 
 air. 
 
 The annoyances I here speak of are all but unknown to 
 sportsmen ; but they are very well known to painters. 
 When in vigorous exercise a man will easily resist a degree 
 of inclemency in the weather which would kill him if he 
 
58 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 were to take a chair and sit still in it for eight or ten hours 
 every day. I have ridden on horseback and pulled in a 
 boat in every conceivable variety of bad weather without 
 taking the least harm ; but I have been laid up fora month 
 in consequence of a few hours' imprudent painting from 
 nature. And of all the premature deaths of landscape 
 painters, I believe that a large percentage might be 
 distinctly traced to the habit of painting or studying in 
 the open air. 
 
 It is not, however, as it affects the health and longevity 
 of artists, but the technical perfection of their work, that 
 we have at present to consider the utility of the studio. It 
 tends to technical excellence by protecting the artist from 
 small interruptions and annoyances. 
 
 There is no doubt that it is very miserable to human 
 nature generally to be out of doors in a state of compul- 
 sory quiescence. There is always something to plague 
 one. Either it is too hot, or it is too cold, or there are 
 flies, or one is on a wasp's nest, or it rains, or the sunshine 
 dazzles one's eyes, or the movement of the water wearies 
 them, or some other such little misery maddens the unfor- 
 tunate student. I declare no man has any business to 
 paint from nature who cannot bear to be bitten by gnats 
 without wincing. The artist who should allow himself to 
 be disturbed merely because a gnat was regaling itself on 
 his blood would accomplish little. The resolute ones 
 work on in serene calm when sucked by several gnats at 
 once. Practically, however, I confess that there are limits 
 to this endurance, and I never could work delicately under 
 the stimulus of more than six gnats at a time. 
 
 Painting in rain and wind needs great courage and 
 patience. I have drawn sometimes in pencil for many 
 hours together in pouring rain, with the water streaming 
 all over my study as it does over the roof of a house ; but 
 neither the study nor myself was in any way benefited 
 by the rain. A friend of mine, a resolute painter from 
 nature, tells me that he never allows moderate rain to 
 stop him, even though it falls on the canvass itself. Still, 
 drops of water do no good to a carefully laid surface of 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 59 
 
 oil-color, and rain is a real hindrance to the art of painting. 
 Then there are the extremes of heat and cold, the burning 
 glare of Oriental suns, the icy blast of a Highland winter, 
 all to be borne patiently, if such subjects are to be painted 
 from nature. There are some sketches and studies which 
 no painter can look at without a sensation of awe at the 
 endurance they prove, like what other people feel when 
 they read of some terrible military retreat or arctic ex- 
 ploratory expedition. Gentlemen who follow painting 
 merely as a polite amusement, and lay it aside whenever 
 it becomes arduous or unpleasant, have little conception 
 of the infinite energy and resolution of mind, and firm 
 bodily endurance, which those men need who have to live 
 by their art and really face its hardships. Against some 
 of these hardships I am happy to think that my studio 
 tent is an effectual protection. Henceforth neither wind 
 nor rain nor frost need vex the landscape painter any 
 more. 
 
 But a studio tent, comfortable as it is in comparison 
 with the open air, is very inferior to such a painting room 
 as mine. My tent is eight feet square, and although its 
 pyramidal roof rises to a height of fourteen feet from the 
 ground, its walls rise only to eight feet. But my studio is 
 about twenty-seven feet long, by nineteen wide, and fif- 
 teen high. Now the tent will no doubt contain materials 
 for the execution of a small picture, and even, by remov- 
 ing the central pole, a picture six feet long might be painted 
 in it, but the space is still very inconveniently restricted 
 in comparison with that afforded by the studio. If I were 
 painting rather a large picture in the tent, I could not 
 get back far enough to see the relations of the masses of 
 color ; and although, no doubt, an accomplished artist can, 
 in a great degree, guess at the effect of what he is doing, 
 and paint without having the opportunity of seeing what 
 he is painting, nevertheless, we all like to assure ourselves 
 from time to time that the relative weight of the color 
 in different parts of the picture has been rightly deter- 
 mined. And for practical convenience, in following out 
 the different processes of painting to a successful and 
 
60 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 complete result, especially if the work be on a large scale, 
 a great deal of space is extremely desirable. I find my 
 studio, spacious as it is, only just large enough ; and if 
 ever I build one on ground of my own, it shall be a yard 
 longer and a yard wider. The comfort of a great studio 
 is most conducive to technical excellence. A substantial 
 oak easel, heavy and firm, with a screw to raise and lower 
 the picture without disturbing it, and wheels to move the 
 whole into precisely the best light ; a large painting-table, 
 with one or more great drawers, neatly divided with parti- 
 tions for colors ; shelves with every thing that can possibly 
 be wanted at any stage of the work, always at hand, and 
 in perfect order ; all these things are helps which no wise 
 man despises, for they make good and beautiful workman- 
 ship easier and pleasanter to him. And the absence of 
 hurry in studio work is another great advantage. In 
 painting from nature, you must work rapidly, and you 
 cannot well undertake more than one picture at a time. 
 For although it is quite useless to think of painting tran- 
 sient color from nature, we refer to nature for local color, 
 or else, I suppose, there would be no use in painting from 
 nature at all. And the changes in local color occasioned 
 by the ceaseless advance of vegetation are so great, so 
 revolutionary, that it is of little use undertaking any work 
 from nature which will occupy us more than a month. 
 Now a month is not enough for a picture which is solidly 
 painted, if all its processes are to be very carefully followed, 
 with sufficient intervals for drying. At least three months 
 are necessary for the fair construction of an oil-picture in 
 which impasto is employed, if we allow the right time for 
 drying, paint soundly, and do not use perilous driers. 
 Now, in the studio, there is no occasion for any hurry, 
 at all. Your memoranda will be just the same three 
 months hence, and you may as well have three or four 
 pictures going on together, letting each dry as long as is 
 necessary. In the modern way of using opaque color, and 
 obtaining texture by leaving various kinds of surface for 
 the subsequent reception of transparent films, it is fre- 
 quently necessary that certain parts of the ground-colors 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 61 
 
 should retain the rough marks of the brush, whilst in other 
 parts these marks must, be carefully scraped away, so as 
 to leave a surface as smooth as polished ivory. This 
 scraping, on color not perfectly dry, is quite impossible ; 
 and even in the height of summer the thicker parts of a 
 ground-color will take a fortnight to harden enough to be 
 fit for the scraper. Many of these minor artifices, which 
 contribute so much to the effect of a picture, have to be 
 omitted in work done directly from nature ; and hence the 
 common assertion of French critics like Ferdinand de 
 Lasteyrie, that we English do not understand the tech- 
 nical art of painting, an accusation for which there is 
 this degree of foundation, that in our works from nature 
 we are often obliged to neglect a variety of useful and 
 cunning little expedients which lend a great charm to the 
 best studio pictures. And it does, indeed, seem very possi- 
 ble that in a school like ours, where the custom of working 
 from nature is extremely prevalent, the artist craft is in 
 some danger of being neglected and lost for mere want 
 of the leisure and convenience necessary to its elaborate 
 exercise. There is a continual temptation, in working 
 from nature, to abridge the orderly succession of proces- 
 ses, and do too much at a time. No doubt a very ac- 
 complished artist may, if he pleases, finish a few square 
 inches of his picture when he has the chance of doing it 
 from nature I mean, when the effect of the moment in 
 some degree resembles the effect originally selected for 
 the work but it is extremely dangerous for all ordinary 
 painters to yield to any such temptation. For them there 
 is no safety but in the orderly and calm division of the 
 business to be done. 
 
 Memoranda for pictures may be accumulated in two 
 ways. Either the artist accumulates memoranda of natural 
 facts and phenomena with no other intention than to pro- 
 vide himself with a kind of encyclopaedia for general 
 reference, or he goes to nature with the direct intention 
 of obtaining memoranda for a particular picture. The 
 first method has the advantage of keeping his attention 
 so continually alive, that no natural fact can possibly come 
 
62 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 amiss to him ; and an artist of this universally accumu- 
 lative character, although his particular works may not 
 present any striking imitative truth, is sure to know a 
 great deal more about nature than artists who work only 
 with reference to some picture they have resolved to 
 paint. This was Turner's way of accumulating memoranda, 
 and no doubt a very good way it is, but it has a defect 
 which I must here indicate. 
 
 The evil of it is, that although your memoranda may 
 be in the aggregate very voluminous, they rarely afford, 
 when taken in this desultory manner, all the information 
 you desire when you come to consult them with reference 
 to some particular work. They fail to inform you about 
 some fact which you find to be indispensably necessary; 
 and the want of authentic information on such points 
 tends to a general weakness of statement in your whole 
 picture ; for although you may state some facts with per- 
 fect certainty, you feel so uncertain about others that you 
 dare not enter very far into detail anywhere. I believe 
 that this simple consideration explains the vagueness of 
 assertion so common in Turner's foregrounds. It may be 
 possible in one or two of his more carefully studied fore- 
 grounds to discover a few plants and leaves about which 
 there is something approaching to a definite though still 
 very mannered statement ; and a critic whose object 
 was to exalt Turner, and not to teach truth, might, no 
 doubt, from the immense mass of his works, point to a 
 few such details as a proof that Turner's observation ex- 
 tended to them ; but the real fact is, that Turner hardly 
 ever painted either trees or foregrounds in any but the 
 shallowest manner, all his interest being concentrated in 
 the distance, and in effects of atmosphere and water. Les- 
 lie's criticism, " I look in vain for a specific discrimina- 
 tion in his trees, or in the vegetation of his foregrounds," 
 is perfectly well founded, Turner's vegetation being gen- 
 erally weak and unmeaning ; nor would it be possible 
 out of the innumerable works he left behind him to ex- 
 tract any thing like a complete illustration of the prin- 
 cipal English and French trees, though he devoted two 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 63 
 
 distinct series of works to the scenery of England and 
 France. The reasons for this weakness appear to have 
 been, first, his youthful deference to elder masters, who 
 lived in days when landscape was considered so far beneath 
 the attention of a true student that trees were not thought 
 to be worthy of serious study, and were seldom specifically 
 rendered ; and, secondly, his own system of memoranda, 
 which was better fitted for dealing with sudden effects of 
 light than the elaborate details of botanical structure. In 
 considering his system of memoranda, we are therefore to 
 bear in mind that it was invented and employed by a 
 painter whose great object was to paint remote distances, 
 and to whom foreground detail was a matter of secondary 
 importance ; and we are only to imitate it so far as we 
 ourselves attempt to deal with effects in the sky and dis- 
 tance. 
 
 So far as I have been able to examine Turner's memo- 
 randa, I should say that those of the sky are nearly all that 
 it was possible to obtain in the time, whilst the memoranda 
 of mountains and trees were generally much slighter than 
 they might have been if the painter had cared to have 
 them elaborate. Being, however, accustomed to charge his 
 memory with infinite details of cloud structure, it is natural 
 that Turner should have relied upon it for every thing else 
 to the same extent. Still I see no reason why we should 
 not get abundant memoranda of things that will stay to be 
 studied, merely because we are forced to content ourselves 
 with slight notes of transient things ; and I look upon 
 Turner's whole system as rather a result of habit than 
 reflection. As a painter pre-eminently of skies and dis- 
 tances, he had acquired the habit of working almost entirely 
 from memory, aided by the very slightest notes, and he 
 carried the same habit into the foreground. In deliberately 
 reasoning out a system of memoranda, we are, however, 
 to remember that we are not all of us Turners, and cannot, 
 like him, get weak foregrounds forgiven for the sake of 
 glorious skies and illimitable distances. 
 
 Thus of the memoranda by Turner, given in the fourth 
 chapter of the fifth volume of " Modern Painters," the 
 
64 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 slight notes of a sunrise at page 187 (first edition) are 
 nearly all that could have been obtained in the time ; 
 whereas the sketch of Lausanne, opposite page 189, is 
 merely the jotting down of an idea, not by any means a 
 study of the place. All this was perfectly right for 
 Turner ; and the longer I live the more I perceive that 
 every artist finds "out the natural expression of his own 
 talent ; and that all the assertions of critics that artists 
 ought to have done this thing or that, which they did not 
 do, are quite Idle and illusory. Nevertheless, another 
 artist who is not Turner will find it no advantage to him to 
 imitate Turner's way of study, which was adapted only to 
 his peculiar genius ; and I desire to point out the bad con- 
 sequences in Turner's own work of the extreme slightness 
 of his foreground memoranda. Either his memory was 
 not strong enough to carry the specific characteristics of 
 the different kinds of trees and plants, or he despised these 
 orders of truths and rejected them on system. It is prob- 
 able that his peculiar genius felt little attraction to the 
 truths he habitually neglected; but if we desire to rep- 
 resent those truths we cannot content ourselves with 
 memoranda as slight as his, since his pictures in this 
 respect afford so little encouragement to a reliance on the 
 memory. 
 
 In speaking of Turner's memoranda of skies, I said 
 that they were nearly all that could be got in the time. 
 They are all that can be got in the way of form, which, 
 unfortunately, is always very little indeed ; but I think a 
 closer and more accurate notation of color might be at- 
 tempted with advantage, and I have myself elaborated 
 such a system, which I find practically not more cumber- 
 some than Turner's, quite as rapid, and more likely to be 
 generally useful. Thus, for instance, in the notes of a sun- 
 rise given by Mr. Ruskin, it was a great waste of time to 
 write the words " yellow," " red," " cold," " purple," and 
 " gray " in full, because the colors might have been far 
 more accurately indicated, and in the same space of time, 
 by carefully invented signs. Turner, however, relied 
 always very much upon his memory and invention ; he 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 65 
 
 even relied upon them too much, as strong men usually 
 trust their constitutions too far. And, therefore, Turner's 
 object in taking a memorandum was probably nothing more 
 than this, to direct him to that particular little corner of 
 his immense storehouse, where the whole scene was sure to 
 be found whenever he might have occasion for it. And if 
 this were so, it was unnecessary for Turner to attempt any 
 discrimination as to the sort of " red," " yellow," " purple," 
 &c., which he saw about the sun, because, the exact tints 
 would be easily found whenever he chose to look for them 
 in his own mind. 
 
 I do not say that this was so quite to this extent. 
 Turner's invention was inexhaustible, but there is no real 
 evidence that his memory was very accurately retentive. 
 His habit of altering every thing that he drew makes it 
 exceedingly difficult to convict him of definite error in a 
 matter requiring an effort of the memory, because if very 
 incorrect drawings of his were produced to prove that his 
 memory was not infallible, Mr. Ruskin would immediately 
 reply with his ingenious theory of Turnerian topography, 
 which was devised to meet all such emergencies. His 
 memory may have been very accurate, but there is really 
 no evidence of the fact ; for although he often drew from 
 memory, he never drew any thing accurately. I myself do 
 not believe that Turner's memory was not capable of carry- 
 ing much more than the mere suggestions of his inventions ; 
 and I think that it was a matter of comparatively little 
 consequence to Turner what the precise tint of red or 
 yellow about the sun may have been on that particular 
 morning, seeing that in any picture, where the fact might 
 afterwards be stated, he would certainly modify those hues 
 with a true composer's sense of their relation to all the 
 other hues in every other part of his picture. 
 
 In arranging any complete system of memoranda, we 
 are, therefore, to know what it is that we propose to our- 
 selves, how far we intend to imitate nature, and how far to 
 rely upon the memory. It is possible to obtain memo- 
 randa so full of information that a picture painted from 
 them will look as if it were painted directly from nature. 
 
 5 
 
66 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 It is, of course, also possible to take memoranda so exceed- 
 ingly slight that they will convey no more than a mere 
 suggestion, and leave- the filling up of every detail to the 
 memory and invention of the painter. Between these two 
 extremes of fulness and slightness lie an infinite variety of 
 systems ; every painter who works much in the studio 
 having a way of gathering his materials in some degree 
 peculiar to himself. 
 
 In offering a detailed explanation of my own system 
 of memoranda, I wish the reader to observe that it is 
 adapted to my own wants, and would probably have to be 
 modified before it could be as useful to any other artist. 
 Still it is more likely to be of general use than Turner's 
 plan, which relied entirely upon invention, and which, 
 therefore, can be of little use to painters who have no in- 
 vention to rely upon. 
 
 Memoranda may be made to serve a double purpose, 
 the education of the artist and the collecting of materials 
 for pictures. Of the two purposes, the first is never to be 
 lost sight of, and the second ought always to be kept in 
 subordination to it. An artist's first purpose should al- 
 ways be to train himself to perfect power, not to produce 
 this or that agreeable picture. If we want good figs we 
 must look to the fig-tree, not to this or that particular fig. 
 A thoroughly trained artist cannot paint quite worthless 
 pictures unless he accepts some vicious and destructive 
 principles ; but a partially trained one will generally ruin 
 really good work by putting some unlucky bit of weak 
 work in the same canvass. When I planned my system 
 of memoranda, I therefore determined that it should in- 
 clude in itself a complete curriculum of study, a reg- 
 ular, steady training in all the hard work of painting, such 
 as I should put a pupil through who wanted to be a great 
 artist. The consequence of this is, that whenever I go to 
 nature for materials for a picture, I refresh myself with a 
 course of elementary lessons, and so go to school again 
 from time to time, with great advantage to myself, and, 
 consequently, to every picture I paint. 
 
 The other and immediate, yet secondary, purpose of 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 67 
 
 getting materials for particular works has also to be care- 
 fully provided for. We are not to set out with the idea 
 that we are great inventors who need only the very 
 slightest hints and suggestions to produce wonderful pic- 
 tures ; but rather to underrate than overestimate our 
 inventive powers, and to trust our memory very little 
 though we train it sternly and steadily. We are to get 
 all the facts that can possibly be got directly from nature. 
 We need not go and paint from memory in the presence 
 of nature ; but we must get every fact as elaborately as its 
 own degree of permanence will admit of. We cannot 
 really draw the clouds in a sky, so we must be satisfied 
 with a sketch of their arrangement, aided by shorthand 
 notes for color ; but we can draw the principal forms of 
 a mountain with tolerable accuracy, and we are therefore 
 to do so. On the other hand, we cannot get transient 
 color from nature ; but we may get a careful study in oil 
 or water-color of local color, which we are therefore to try 
 for. The golden rule is to get from nature whatever 
 nature's transience will allow us fairly to obtain. 
 
 The secret of success in this is separation of aim. It is 
 a bad and lazy plan to try for every thing in the same 
 study. The right way is to take a series of studies each 
 with its own object : one for form, severe and delicate ; 
 another for local color, in which all the patches of differ- 
 ent hues are carefully mapped ont and set down in water- 
 color ; a third for light and shade, this one mainly for the 
 forms of shadows, a most desirable kind of truth ; a fourth 
 for transient form and color, this one being a very hasty 
 pencil memorandum with shorthand notes ; a fifth being a 
 rapid attempt to realize the effect in water-color, whilst 
 the impression of it remains quite fresh in the memory. 
 To these five studies a set of half a dozen collodion pho- 
 tographs may be added with advantage, if their exposure 
 is strictly regulated according to the particular kind of 
 detail the artist requires. The photographs are especially 
 useful for reference as to texture, which collodion renders 
 perfectly, and which none of the other memoranda can 
 render at all, unless those in water-color, at the cost of 
 
68 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 infinite labor. But the collodion photographs do not by 
 any means do away with the necessity for the severe form- 
 study. I cannot stay here to explain why photographs 
 are of little use to landscape painters as records of form ; 
 but the reader will find the whole subject investigated in 
 the chapter on the relation of photography to painting. 
 
 We have, therefore, arrived at three fundamental prin- 
 ciples, which we will recapitulate here to clear up our 
 ideas on the subject. 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLE. 
 
 The gathering of the memoranda ought to be so ar- 
 ranged as to constitute in itself a complete course of 
 artistic training. 
 
 SECOND PRINCIPLE. 
 
 In noting down facts from nature, we are to regulate 
 the degree of elaboration in our notes by the degree of 
 permanence in the thing to be studied, doing our lest to 
 get the utmost amount of truth possible to us under the 
 circumstances, not sketching permanent things carelessly 
 because we cannot study transient things deliberately. 
 
 THIRD PRINCIPLE. 
 
 We are to separate our aim as far as possible, giving 
 one study to form, another to local color, a third to light 
 and shade, a fourth to transient form and color, a fifth to 
 realize the impression noted down hastily in the fourth, to 
 all which may be added a set of collodion photographs for 
 information about texture, which there is scarcely time 
 enough to get in the other studies. 
 
 To these three principles a fourth may be added with 
 reference to the memory. 
 
 We are to cultivate the memory separately, subjecting it 
 to a peculiar training of its own ; but we are to rely upon 
 it as little as possible in obtaining memoranda from nature, 
 because then our object ought to be the accumulation of 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 69 
 
 authentic facts. I will endeavor to explain how the 
 memory may best be cultivated when we have done with 
 the subject of memoranda. First let us examine the pro- 
 posed series of studies, and whilst we are doing so I beg 
 the reader to understand that I am not proposing a pos- 
 sible series of memoranda which I have not practically 
 tried ; but a series which already exists abundantly in my 
 portfolios, which I habitually repeat when I require ma- 
 terials for a new picture, and which I rely upon for all 
 my largest and most important works. 
 
 FIRST STUDY. FORM. 
 
 A careful pen-drawing, the full size of the intended pic- 
 ture, and noting firmly every detail of form that can be 
 got without shading. As this is a mere memorandum 
 after all, and not intended to be sold or engraved, or looked 
 at by anybody but the painter, there is no attempt to 
 express distance in it, nor to make it look pretty, nor to 
 subordinate one fact in order to give importance to another. 
 The thing is a plain, downright statement of hard facts of 
 form, not a pretty, plausible drawing. How far it is to be 
 an accurate transcript of the natural scene depends entirely 
 upon the artist. The masses are to be arranged exactly as 
 they will be in the picture. My own practice is to alter 
 as little as I possibly can ; and I select only 'the very best 
 natural compositions, in order that I may be able to make 
 use of nature's own composition without much adaptation 
 to my own purposes. Still, we are not to be illiberally 
 severe on the question of accuracy. The object .of the 
 artist is to give as faithful an impression as he can of the 
 whole natural scene, and sometimes this is best done by 
 considerably altering the natural arrangement. We are 
 to bear in mind that the natural world was not intended 
 only to be painted, but to be inhabited by living men ; 
 and the physiological fact that the vertebrae of the neck 
 allow the head to turn from side to side, and that the eyes 
 move in their sockets, is proof enough that men were not 
 intended to look at nature as a militia-man does when the 
 
70 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 drill-sergeant gives the word, " Eyes right." Wherefore, 
 since we are intended to look freely around us, and to 
 gather oar impressions of natural scenery from every point 
 of the compass, there is really no reason why an artist 
 should not do so too, if his purpose is to convey to us an 
 idea of the place he is illustrating. I think, however, that 
 this form-study ought to contain the whole subject, defini- 
 tively composed, as we intend it to be in the completed 
 picture ; because, any subsequent changes in the studio 
 would have to be done without that reference to nature, 
 which is so easy whilst we are making the study. My 
 form-studies of this kind are always definitively arranged, 
 and I do not change so much as a leaf in painting from 
 them afterwards. 
 
 I draw these studies in ink, and with Gillott's little 
 lithographic steel pens. I find it takes me a week to do 
 a large one, if I work very hard, but then I draw them 
 very delicately. The continual study of hard form, that 
 this kind of memorandum compels a painter to go through, 
 lays a very valuable foundation for subsequent color work. 
 In studies of this kind, there is no avoiding the form, no 
 easy hiding of mountains in mist, no pleasant avoiding of 
 hard foreground-drawing by dexterous and attractive man- 
 ipulation. I do not admit either cloud or shadow any- 
 where in these drawings : when I^undertake to draw a 
 mountain, I must do it from foot to crest, every inch of 
 it, no friendly mist being ever allowed to intervene. Then 
 the drawing is to be filled as full of details as it possibly 
 can, every such detail being a clear statement of some 
 fact of form. And all the forms are to be studied as closely 
 as a sculptor studies the most precious curves of a maiden's 
 limbs, the very faintest swellings of the mountain's lines 
 being tenderly imitated by the fine little steel instrument, 
 and exaggerated as little as may be. 
 
 Work of this kind is good discipline in forms ; but if it 
 were too exclusively followed, we should not become paint- 
 ers, only delicate topographical draughtsmen. For all such 
 work is more definite than nature, and not half mysterious 
 enough. There are a thousand facts which, if stated at 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 71 
 
 all in such drawing, are sure to be stated too definitely, 
 and still they must be stated nevertheless. Hence a young 
 painter who relied too much on memoranda of this kind 
 would end by sacrificing gradation and mystery to a morbid 
 clearness, and, however full of detail his work might be, it 
 would always seem less rich, than slighter work in which 
 gradation and mystery were fully felt and expressed. The 
 perfection of his mere drawing would be of little use in his 
 painting, unless accompanied by other and more subtle 
 qualities, and he would experience the common disappoint- 
 ment of accomplished draughtsmen, who too frequently 
 imagine that, as they can draw better than some painters, 
 and as drawing is the basis of painting, they must also be 
 able to paint better. In affirming the utility of this kind 
 of work, I am bound to add this warning, that if too 
 exclusively persisted in it leads to three great vices : the 
 first, want of gradation ; the second, over-definition ; the 
 third, want of mystery and infinity. 
 
 SECOND STUDY. LOCAL COLOR. 
 
 Generally rather a difficult study to obtain, because the 
 local color has to be seen through, and in spite of the 
 transient color, and noted down in the manner of an 
 abstract. It is a map of the distribution of local color 
 in the picture, and should be done the full size of the form- 
 study. It saves time to trace the principal forms from the 
 first study. The patches of local color should be very 
 carefully mapped out. If you are going to paint an oil- 
 picture, this study ought, to be done in oil, using thin 
 opaque color laid on like mosaic, in patches fitted carefully 
 together. The whole study may be done in a single pro- 
 cess if it is properly managed, but two processes will do it 
 better justice. I learned the importance of this kind of 
 study from the Highland hills, many of which are all 
 patched over with a variegated local coloring of the rich- 
 est greens and purples, whilst others are covered with a 
 network of fern, which turns to a deep red in autumn. I 
 found that mere careless color-sketching was not enough 
 
 
72 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 for such elaborate designs of local color, and set myself to 
 obtain more complete memoranda of it. Very hideous 
 things these memoranda look when they are finished, hav- 
 ing neither light nor shade, nor transient hues, whilst the 
 mapped colors obliterate the beauty of the forms. Still, 
 these studies are extremely useful, and I earnestly recom- 
 mend the artistic reader not to undervalue them. One is 
 always wanting to learn some fact about local color when 
 painting in a studio. As I have already shown, the prin- 
 cipal reason why painters ever work from nature is pre- 
 cisely that they may have the continual opportunity of 
 reference for local color. Form they could get from form- 
 studies : transient color is never to be painted from nature 
 at all ; but every artist knows that the one great point of 
 superiority, in pictures done from the scene itself, is the 
 truth and variety of local color. Hence, if we would not 
 have our studio pictures inferior in this respect to pictures 
 done directly from nature, we are to map out local colors 
 with much diligence and care. 
 
 THIRD STUDY. SHADOWS. 
 
 The groundwork for this study, that is, a sketch of 
 forms, ought to be prepared beforehand, because, when 
 the shadows come, the artist will be in too great a hurry 
 to draw forms correctly. The forms of the objects being 
 accurately drawn, we have a guide to the forms of the 
 shadows, which may thus be put in with the utmost 
 rapidity, and still be tolerably correct. It is not to be 
 expected in a memorandum of this kind that the grada- 
 tions of the shadows can possibly be followed ; they are 
 far too subtle and delicate, and would occupy too much 
 time. The right way is to dash the shapes of the shadows 
 on the prepared form, drawing with a large camel-hair 
 brush full of a pale flat tint of sepia: any more elaborate 
 kind of drawing would be sure to be untrue ; because as 
 we are drawing one shadow, all the others are steadily 
 changing, and therefore slow work in such memoranda as 
 these is always false work. Mr. Rowney's indelible brown 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 73 
 
 ink is useful for the preparatory forms ; but pencil does 
 nearly as well. I have often put in the shadows in these 
 memoranda with Rowney's broad lead pencils, which are 
 very fine instruments for such work. 
 
 When the shadows are particularly numerous and elab- 
 orate, it is a good plan to outline them all very rapidly 
 first, and then fill them up to the outlines. 
 
 The true shapes of shadows got by these means always 
 add infinitely to the general air of veracity in the com- 
 pleted picture. For shadows are things that no invention 
 can ever guess at when the forms that cast them, and 
 those which they fall upon, are alike full of unknown 
 changes. No one but a tyro ever imagines that he really 
 knows any thing about the form of a mountain, merely 
 because he sees it; and as for guessing the form of a 
 shadow that one mountain will throw upon another, it 
 is impossible, for two reasons, first, because the specta- 
 tor knows nothing about the form of the mountain which 
 casts the shadow ; and, secondly, because he is equally 
 ignorant of the form of the mountain on which the shadow 
 is cast. 
 
 FOURTH STUDY. TRANSIENT FORM AND COLOR. 
 
 It is quite useless to attempt transient form and color 
 with the brush, which can render neither truly in the time. 
 All that is to be got from nature in cloud-drawing is a 
 rapid pencil memorandum of the natural composition, cov- 
 ered all over immediately afterwards with brief shorthand 
 notes of color and light. Whilst these shorthand notes 
 are being added, of course the composition will be rapidly 
 breaking up and running into new forms ; but we have 
 secured its main lines, nevertheless, and may add some 
 notes of its principal colors. I have a great number of 
 memoranda of Highland effects of this kind taken at all 
 seasons of the year, and I find the shorthand notes upon 
 them very valuable to me as records of color and light. 
 My system of notation once thoroughly mastered, so as to 
 be always at one's fingers' ends, opens new possibilities of 
 
74 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 veracity to the painter of transient effects, but it is rather 
 complicated and elaborate, and needs long practice before 
 it can be used with the necessary readiness. For there is 
 this peculiarity in all memoranda of transient effects, that 
 they must be done in so short a space of time that there is 
 not a second to spare for deliberation. The brain must be 
 ready and in full action, with perfect command of all its 
 means and materials ; the hand must be swift and uner- 
 ring; the eye eager and piercing. To work thus at utmost 
 speed, and make no mistakes in the application of an 
 elaborate set of signs, it is necessary to have used them 
 long. Even I who devised . this system found it rather 
 cumbersome and unmanageable until I had employed it at 
 least a hundred times. 
 
 I made it, however, as simple as ever I could, and used 
 no mysterious hieroglyphics, but only plain initial letters. 
 Still, as blue and black and brown all begin with a B, I 
 called blue H, the initial letter of heaven, because the 
 sky is blue; and black I marked N, because night is 
 black. Then, again, as green and grey both begin with G, 
 I called green E, because the earth is green ; and as rose 
 and red both begin with the letter R, I called rose F, for 
 flower. With these little changes, I found I could repre- 
 sent a considerable number of colors with one letter only 
 for each. 
 
 COLORS. 
 
 Red, R. Gray, G. 
 
 Blue, H. (heaven). White, W. 
 
 Yellow, Y. Black, N. (night). 
 
 Green, E. (earth). Brown, B. 
 
 Purple, P. Crimson, C. 
 
 Violet, V. Scarlet, S. 
 
 Orange, O. Mauve, M. 
 
 Lilac, L. Drab, D. 
 
 Rose, F. (flower). 
 
 But as colors in nature are hardly ever pure, I had to 
 find out some way of writing such a combination as bluish 
 grey, and I represented the syllable ish by means of a 
 colon, thus, H : G. Then, as the words " warm " arid " cold " 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 75 
 
 are much used by artists to distinguish tints into two large 
 classes, I invented signs for them thus : warm A, cold v . 
 It was easy to remember that warm was something like a 
 A and cold the same sign turned upside down. 
 
 Then, as all colors in nature are gradated, I required some 
 sign capable of being extended at will over a great surface, 
 without interfering with the other signs, and which might 
 thus indicate gradations either in large spaces or small. 
 For this purpose I finally selected a single dotted line: 
 
 Since, however, it was 
 
 absolutely necessary that I should know which end of my 
 gradation was darker than the other, I put a D at the 
 darker end, and an L at the lighter end, thus : 
 
 D 
 
 Again, as the same color would occur in very different 
 degrees of intensity, I required some graduated scale of 
 signs to indicate the degree. I found the following most 
 convenient : 
 
 Yellow 
 
 Strong Yellow 
 
 Intense Yellow 
 
 Very intense Yellow ... 
 
 I needed a simple sign for the word " pale," and another 
 for the word " dark," because these words are of constant 
 occurrence in memoranda of transient effect. For " pale " 
 I took a small open circle , and for " dark " the same cir- 
 cle filled up . 
 
 Thus G is pale gray, and *G dark gray. 
 
 In taking memoranda of skies, every painter must have 
 perceived that their colors are extremely metallic ; even 
 poets perceive this, and call the sky " golden," " silvered," 
 " copper," " leaden," and the French poets sometimes call 
 it brazen (d'airairi). I therefore selected the metals most 
 likely to be useful; but as their initial letters were the 
 same as some already devoted to colors, I wrote each in- 
 itial letter of the English word in the corresponding small 
 Greek character. It would have been useless pedantry to 
 
76 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 take the initials of the Greek words themselves, because I 
 am not in the habit of thinking in Greek. This gave me 
 the following additional signs, which I have since found of 
 great use : 
 
 Silver, o. Bronze, /3. 
 
 Gold, y. Aluminium, . 
 
 Copper, K. Lead, A. 
 
 The new metal, aluminium, was particularly useful, per- 
 haps the most useful of all, its delicate gray being of con- 
 stant occurrence in the paler rain-clouds. 
 
 Again, as everybody who is in the habit of reading 
 poetry must have remarked that the poets, when they de- 
 scribe the phenomena of the sky, cannot get on at all 
 without precious stones, and as the peculiar transparency 
 of air and semi-transparency of cloud often really do 
 resemble precious stones, I added a series of abbrevia- 
 tions of the most useful stones, thus, taking the first two 
 letters of each : 
 
 Diamond, Di. Topaz, To. 
 
 Ruby, Ru. Amethyst, Am. 
 
 Emerald, Em. Turquoise, Tu. 
 
 Pearl, Pe. Coral, Co. 
 
 Sapphire, Sa. Opal, Op. 
 
 Chrysoprase, Ch. Lapis Lazuli, La. 
 
 These abbreviations are occasionally of great use, though 
 less frequently required than the preceding ones. 
 
 We have now got some indication of color and grada- 
 tion, but in order to make our memorandum really valu- 
 able, we require tolerable accurate notes of light and 
 shade. 
 
 There is really no time to get these with the brush. It 
 is quite impossible by such means to define the degree in 
 which a light cloud relieves itself against a darker one, 
 before both are transformed, or even to render the delicate 
 differences in light between minute portions of the same 
 cloud's t urface. But it is fortunate that, although color 
 can only be noted down in a rude and imperfect manner, 
 degrees of light can, by a practised student, be noted with 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 77 
 
 accuracy and precision. It is not desirable, for it would 
 be of no use, to note the light of nature as it is ; we need 
 only set it down as paint is able to represent it. I 
 therefore transpose the scale of Nature's light to my own 
 scale of pictorial light in the memorandum itself.* 
 
 You may state light and dark with quite sufficient 
 delicacy by means of numbers. I take 100 as my high- 
 est light, that is, the sun, and the intense splendor 
 immediately surrounding ft; with zero for my darkest 
 dark, that 'is, a mountain at moonless midnight. All the 
 intermediate numbers represent intermediate degrees of 
 light. 
 
 If I had needed more minute distinctions, I might have 
 graduated my light into a thousand degrees, but a hundred 
 were quite sufficient, and the numbers from one to a hun- 
 dred will express degrees of light with a delicacy and 
 exactness which no combinations of words, however elabor- 
 ate, could rival. They have also the great advantage of 
 being expressible in figures, which are a very perfect kind 
 of shorthand. 
 
 In looking over my memoranda, I continually find such 
 distinctions as this : One ridge of mountain is marked 
 50, another close to it 51 ; a distinction so extremely 
 delicate that nothing but numbers or art could state it ; 
 words certainly could not, and all artistic expression of it 
 would cost too much time. The slightest exaggeration in 
 the light of the second ridge would deprive a third ridge 
 of its relief, and so destroy the truth of the memorandum. 
 
 By the help of numbers, the gradation sign gains also in 
 significance. 
 
 D . L 
 
 Here is the gradation without the help of numbers. We 
 know that the color is darkest at our left hand, and lightest 
 at our right ; but we do not know whether the gradation is 
 regular or not, nor whether it is strong or faint. Grada- 
 
 * The reader will find a full explanation of this difference in scale be- 
 tween natural and pictorial light in the chapter on the Relation between 
 Photography and Painting. 
 
78 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 tion in nature is hardly ever regular ; it usually becomes 
 more rapid towards one end of the scale. Let us see how 
 numbers will help us. 
 
 40 60 70 80 
 
 D L 
 
 We see by this that the gradation is much more rapid 
 at our left hand, and that the middle tint is not half-way 
 from the dark to the light, but much nearer the dark. 
 
 These figures being written in a very minute hand may 
 be put in all sorts of little places. A mere touch of in- 
 tense sunshine on a cloud or mountain may be isolafed 
 by the pencil-point, and marked with a high figure to indi- 
 cate the intensity of the light upon it, when the space 
 would be too small to allow of a word being written in it. 
 
 My own memoranda of transient effects are covered all 
 over with these signs ; but as it always requires some 
 mental effort to decipher and realize such complicated 
 pages, I find it saves time to translate them into color 
 before painting the effects in studio pictures. 
 
 FIFTH STUDY. TRANSLATION OF THE PENCIL 
 
 MEMORANDUM. 
 
 I am so much more accustomed to oil than to water- 
 color, that I myself prefer translating the pencil memoran- 
 dum into oil ; but I think the wisest way is always to 
 translate it, on its own scale, into the material "in which the 
 picture is to be painted. If it is a water-color drawing 
 that you are going to do, your memorandum ought to be 
 translated into water-color ; but if for an oil picture, 1 
 think it should be done in oil. The reason for this is, that 
 the very same natural color is rendered quite differently in 
 the two media, and there is always some degree of uncer- 
 tainty and confusion in translating a tint from one of the 
 two art languages into the other. All but the very lest 
 water-color painting is extremely crude, in comparison 
 with moderately good work in oil ; and this crudeness 
 is especially hateful in skies, which are full of tender 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 79 
 
 varieties of mingled gray, even in their most splendid 
 passage?. 
 
 In making this translation, the forms of the memoran- 
 dum should be followed with the most servile fidelity. 
 Every scratch in a good memorandum, even though inac- 
 curate, is full of meaning, and is not to be omitted without 
 loss. As the translation is to be done on the scale ,of the 
 memorandum, accuracy may be gained and time saved by 
 tracing. 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORANDA. 
 
 Whenever painters employ the camera for their own 
 purposes, they must first divest themselves of all desire to 
 produce pretty photographs. The photographic process 
 gives very little truth at a time, and it is necessary that the 
 painter who has recourse to it should know exactly what 
 truth he wants, and sacrifice every other truth to that. It 
 takes half a dozen photographs to get the details of a single 
 scene if it is extensive. The painter should fix his mind 
 on some particular portion of his subject each time he 
 photographs it, and try for that particular bit only. If 
 he does this intelligently and resolutely, and is tolerably 
 skilful in the manipulation of the wet collodion process, he 
 may get some memoranda which will be useful to him in 
 the way of reference. One notable advantage of photog- 
 raphy is that it renders the forms of shadows quite 
 accurately, and all at once, which no drawing, however 
 swift, ever can do. This is especially useful for memo- 
 randa of mountains whose shadows are generally so multi- 
 tudinous as to defy the draughtsman, and yet so expressive 
 of form that hardly one of them can be spared. The 
 whole question of the utility of photography to artists is 
 examined in the chapter on the Relation between Photog- 
 raphy and Painting. 
 
 Such are the principal memoranda which it is desirable 
 that a painter should possess before he begins a great work 
 in his studio. I think it ought to be by this time evident 
 that painters, who gather such elaborate memoranda as 
 
80 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 these, do not work in the studio merely because they are 
 too idle to work from nature. On the contrary, it would 
 in most cases be a considerable economy of toil to do the 
 picture itself from nature, instead of devoting weeks of 
 labor to the patient accumulation of materials. 
 
 Although we are to rely as little as may be on the 
 memory, we cannot paint away from nature without con- 
 tinual reference to it. ' Minute difficulties are perpetually 
 arising, which nothing but the memory can solve. In 
 order to paint really well in the studio, we need vast and 
 profound science. I can give no conception to persons not 
 practically acquainted with our art, of the immense miscel- 
 lany of information which a landscape painter must have 
 at his command if he would make the best use of his 
 memoranda. He employs, in fact, at every instant, the 
 whole of his professional education and experience, just as 
 a clever lawyer does in his daily practice, or a skilful 
 general in actual warfare, or an experienced surgeon when 
 he pays his daily visit to his hospital. The amount of 
 knowledge which may be concentrated in the painting of 
 half a dozen leaves, or in the covering of one square inch 
 of canvas representing a bit of mountain flank, or a frag- 
 ment of morning cloud, is so vast that it could not be fairly 
 stated in many such volumes as this, even if words could 
 express such knowledge at all, which they cannot. And 
 all good studio painters, however abundant and minute 
 their memoranda, paint far more from knowledge accumu- 
 lated in the memory by years of observation, than from the 
 studies and sketches in their portfolios. Hence every pru- 
 dent painter who works much away from nature will train 
 his memory by systematic exercise to the utmost strength 
 possible for it. How far such training may be of use we 
 have now to consider. 
 
 The Law of Exercise is universal. The memory works 
 under that law just as the muscles do. If we refuse to 
 exercise our muscles, they will become weak and useless ; 
 if we refuse to exercise our memories, they will become 
 weak and useless. There is no escape whatever from this 
 law. 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 81 
 
 When a man condemns his arm to inaction fora number 
 of years, as, for instance, the Indian devotees used to do, 
 that arm withers and stiffens. If a man should condemn 
 his memory to inaction for a number of years, his memory 
 would wither and stiffen. 
 
 People see that their bodies want exercise, but they do 
 not perceive that all their faculties want it, one just as 
 much as another. The faculties of' the mind are generally 
 treated much in this fashion : those that the individual finds 
 the most useful in the way of money getting he develops 
 assiduously by exercise ; and the other faculties, whose 
 exercise would embarrass and impede the increase of his 
 wealth, he leaves to die out in disuse. Thus it is that we 
 find so many fragments of men and so few men, more 
 artists like Turner, who could not spell, than like Leonardo 
 and Michel Angelo, who were accomplished gentlemen. 
 And thus it is that in our new school, if we do not look to 
 it in time, we run some risk of having artists who are not 
 only fragments of men, but even fragments of artists, with 
 eye and hand cultivated to the utmost, but the memory 
 dead of disuse. 
 
 There are two ways in which the memory is very com- 
 monly injured and ill-used. 
 
 First (the old way), by giving it no variety in its work, 
 but setting it to one little dull task for ever, choosing al- 
 ways some task beneath its strength, and in every way 
 unlikely to develop its strength. 
 
 Secondly (the newly invented way), by refusing it all 
 exercise whatever, despising its services, and shutting it 
 up without employment till it gets sickly and debilitated, 
 and incapable of the slightest exertion. 
 
 Strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as land- 
 scape painting at all without the vivid light of a clear and 
 vigorous memory. Such petty fidelities of practice as are 
 so commonly found in the work of our younger students 
 cannot of themselves give any claim to the title of land- 
 scape painter. Fancy any one calling himself a landscape 
 painter who had never painted a mountain ! And I think 
 
 6 
 
82 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 I have already conclusively shown how far it is possible 
 to paint a mountain without the aid of the memory. 
 
 But if the memory is utterly unaccustomed to carrying 
 burdens, poor work it will make of it. Long training and 
 much labor are needed before the memory is capable of 
 carrying half a dozen natural truths for a day together. 
 
 How then is this faculty to be trained? What system 
 of mental gymnastics will best develop its force and enlarge 
 its capacity ? 
 
 The right way is to learn something off by heart every 
 day from nature, not drawing it nor sketching it in any 
 way until we come home, and then trying to draw it 
 faithfully. In these exercises Invention is to be employed 
 as little as possible, because our present business is to 
 make our memory reliable. It is, of course, wise to begin 
 with very simple things indeed, and mere pencil-sketching ; 
 afterwards we may advance to sepia, and, lastly, to water- 
 color or oil. We are not to draw from memory things that 
 we have already drawn from nature, because, when we do 
 that, the memory always has recourse to the drawing, 
 and not to the scene itself; and we want to be able to 
 remember nature, not our own performances. Bits of 
 building are good for practice, because they are full of 
 definite measurable facts, and are easily referred to after- 
 wards. The student may gradually advance until he comes 
 to try to learn by heart the front of a great Gothic cathe- 
 dral, so as to draw it in detail at home without having 
 sketched it from nature. When he can manage some 
 such feat as this approximately well, he may attempt the 
 sepia study, which is so far a preparation for the subse- 
 quent color work that it contains a complete statement of 
 the relative darkness of all the local tints. After that it 
 may be well to attempt oil-painting from memory alone 
 without any assistance from memoranda, even the slightest 
 sketch being a help too great to be permitted. When the 
 details of a complete picture can be carried pretty safely 
 in the memory, we may proceed to cultivate the inventive 
 faculty. 
 
 The peculiarity of Invention is, that it is based on 
 
Painting from Memoranda. 83 
 
 memory, aud is quite powerless unless the memory is 
 richly stored. Inexperienced artists can never know 
 whether they have any invention or not, nor can any- 
 body else decide it for them until they have trained and 
 stored their memories. When Turner was very young, 
 his works showed no trace of noble invention ; but as he 
 grew older the inventive faculty progressed exactly in 
 proportion as he enriched his memory. Memory is like 
 a nation that provides the men and materials of war. 
 Invention is the emperor, who disposes of all these re- 
 sources, and marshals them on the fields of victory. 
 
 When we have for years been in the habit of systemat- 
 ically training the memory, we ought to be rich enough 
 to find out whether we really have any invention or not ; 
 and it becomes henceforth our duty to cultivate the inven- 
 tive faculty by exercise, just as we formerly did the reten- 
 tive faculty. 
 
 The way to do this is to paint a certain number of 
 pictures every year from memory .and invention alone, 
 without the aid of memoranda. If we are strong enough 
 to do this well, it is, at this stage of our culture, the severest 
 and best training possible to us as painters. In such works 
 as these the memory is entirely subordinate to invention, 
 and only furnishes the materials of which invention dis- 
 poses at its sovereign will. 
 
 So that there are all these different ways of painting : 
 
 1. Real painting from nature, possible only in fore- 
 ground work. 
 
 2. Painting from nature with the help of memoranda. 
 
 3. Painting from elaborate memoranda, away from na- 
 ture. 
 
 4. Painting from memory, aided by slight notes. 
 
 5. Painting from the unaided memory. 
 
 6. Painting from invention, aided by memory. 
 
 Since the custom of painting from nature became preva-' 
 lent, there appears to exist a most unfounded idea to the 
 effect that no progress in art is to be made anywhere but 
 in the open fields. After very carefully examining the 
 successive works of several landscape painters who do not 
 
84 Painting from Memoranda. 
 
 paint from nature at all, I am quite convinced, on the other 
 hand, that striking progress is constantly made in the art 
 of painting within the walls of studios. 
 
 We do not in the studio learn any thing new about natu- 
 ral aspects; but we may get a great deal of practical 
 experience in painting as an art. 
 
 And at this particular epoch in the history of the English 
 school, is it not this kind of experience which is most 
 needed ? 
 
The Place of Landscape Painting. 85 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE PLACE OF LANDSCAPE PAINTING AMONGST 
 THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 T AND SCAPE painters are very generally aware that 
 *-' there exist amongst figure painters and in society 
 opinions relative to landscape art which tend to assign it 
 a very inferior position. These opinions are not without 
 grounds ; they are founded on reasons which deserve con- 
 sideration ; but they fail to take into account other reasons 
 of equal weight, which would, if fairly heard, have the 
 effect of at least partially counterbalancing them. I there- 
 fore invite the reader's attention to the whole question, and 
 beg him to enter with me into a fair examination of it, 
 without hoping to settle definitively either this or any 
 other disputed point about art, for it is idle to expect per- 
 fect harmony of opinion on these matters ; we may still 
 benefit ourselves by discussing such questions as this, since 
 they involve the recognition of truths which we are always 
 apt to lose sight of. 
 
 Amongst figure painters success in landscape painting is 
 usually held in slight estimation as an artistic achievement, 
 from the idea that it is so easy that no very great credit is 
 due to mastery in it. The truth on which this opinion is 
 founded is that accurate drawing is not necessary in land- 
 scape, and that scarcely any painter who confined his 
 studies to that branch of the profession has ever been 
 able to draw accurately. " In England," says Mr. Armi- 
 tage, " nobody knows what drawing is." * Without going 
 quite so far as Mr. Armitage, we may safely admit that 
 learned drawing, or what Mr. Ford Madox Brown would 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence before the Royal Academy Commission. 
 Question 5051. 
 
86 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 call the pedantry of drawing, is much rarer in England 
 than in France. But it is a fact very much to our present 
 purpose that the French, who so rigorously exact this kind 
 of drawing from their historical painters, scarcely so much 
 as take it into consideration as one of the minor points 
 in a landscape painter. The favorite landscape painter 
 amongst artists in France, the one whose reputation has 
 been made by the admiration of artists, Corot, can scarcely 
 draw better than a school-girl. Our own Turner was not 
 an accurate draughtsman, but he was a good one. The 
 distinction which figure painters fail to observe in their 
 criticisms of landscape art is this one between quality and 
 accuracy. The necessities of pictorial composition make 
 accuracy impossible for all but the most rigidly topographic 
 landscape painter. When Titian or Paul Veronese wants 
 a form to support another, he may make one figure bend 
 and still draw it well ; but when Turner needs the same 
 thing in a mountain composition, he has to alter the main 
 lines of the whole scene, and consequently every detail 
 within them, and as he must do this every time he lays 
 pencil to paper he becomes habitually inaccurate. But 
 quality may be sought for and attained notwithstanding 
 this inaccuracy. What I mean by quality of drawing in 
 landscape is its truth to the nature of the thing repre- 
 sented. Perfectly accurate drawing would have this, of 
 course, for it would be included in the merit of accuracy ; 
 but much topographic exactitude may be reached with 
 very low quality indeed. The popular views of Switzer- 
 land, that so many tourists have such an odd fancy for 
 carrying away in their portmanteaus as reminiscences of 
 the country, are more truthful as to accuracy than Turn- 
 er's, but in quality of drawing they are beneath contempt. 
 
 The next question is, whether this quality is easy of 
 attainment. 
 
 It means, as I have said, the power of representing the 
 nature of things; their abstract, innermost nature. For 
 example, cloud must look like cloud, oak tree like oak, 
 granite like granite; and in mountain drawing the most 
 expressive markings must be instinctively selected. In all 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 87 
 
 things the kind of touch and workmanship must be found 
 which will most truly render the nature of the object. 
 An accurate outline, even accurate modelling, would often 
 be easier of attainment than the craft which can accom- 
 plish this. 
 
 I find on examining the works of great landscape paint- 
 ers that quality of this kind, in drawing and color, has 
 come to be their chief aim in middle life. They may try 
 to draw accurately at first, but they usually discover, be- 
 fore the age of thirty, that to be accurate is of little artistic 
 use in comparison with that far deeper kind of truth which 
 for want of a special word we have to call quality. Turn- 
 er let many of his more solid merits melt away from his 
 canvases in the hope of reaching some exquisite results of 
 this kind, and ultimately his aspirations ended in utter 
 shapelessness. Constable in another way tried for quality, 
 and if he failed in form, Troyon and the Bonheurs under- 
 stood his aims and profited by his example. 
 
 " If landscape painters could draw," say historical paint- 
 ers, " they could draw the figure. Now we see that every 
 time they attempt a figure they make things no better than 
 puppets or dolls dressed as peasants, therefore we decline 
 to consider them draughtsmen." One step more, and it is 
 easy to refuse even the title of artist to a landscape painter. 
 If you consider Academic drawing every thing, as Ingres 
 does ; if you consider that without accurate drawing there 
 can be no serious art, as Mr. Armitage does, then you can 
 scarcely look upon landscape painters as artists in the 
 serious sense at all. 
 
 The difficulty of arguing this point on my side of it is, 
 that whilst the figure painter appeals to a merit easily 
 ascertainable, I appeal to a merit which cannot be proved 
 to the satisfaction of any but competent judges ; and for 
 them all such proof is needless. They know that right 
 abstraction is rare and difficult. All landscape painters find 
 that to abstract in such a manner as to explain in every 
 touch the essential nature of the object, requires infinite 
 care and study. But who shall judge of the relative merit 
 of different abstractions ? It is evident that no measuring 
 
88 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 by compasses will do this ; for we admit that landscape 
 abstraction does not profess accuracy of this kind. Rela- 
 tive merit can then only be determined by persons who 
 have at the same time an intimate acquaintance with the 
 kind of object represented, practical familiarity with the 
 technical difficulties of the art, and a mind both philo- 
 sophical enough to comprehend the nature of abstract 
 ideas, and capacious enough to tolerate various interpreta- 
 tions. This last quality is perhaps the rarest of the critical 
 endowments, because it requires us to have seen in nature 
 all the facts which the united observation of the whole body 
 of landscape painters has been able to discover there, and 
 still at the same time to be catholic enough to praise one 
 man for seeing one order of truths, and another for seeing 
 a quite different order. 
 
 Now it is hopeless to expect these critical requirements 
 from any one who in the least despises landscape art. If 
 you perceive in any one, whether painter or connoisseur, 
 the slightest approach to superciliousness in speaking of 
 landscape, you may rely upon it that he neither has ac- 
 quired nor ever can acquire, so long as he remains in that 
 mood, any real knowledge of the subject. And the objec- 
 tion I have to make to the criticism of persons inclined to 
 think little of landscape lies there, that they begin by de- 
 spising it, and look upon the subject as unworthy their 
 serious attention, consequently they are from the very 
 beginning in an unteachable and unobservant frame of 
 mind. 
 
 It is evident how seriously belief in the facility of land- 
 scape must detract from the consideration of landscape 
 painters amongst artists, for artists always esteem each 
 other mainly by reference to a standard of technical diffi- 
 culty. This is probably one reason why landscape paint- 
 ers find Academic honors all but hopelessly unattainable 
 by them. One of the most distinguished of living Aca- 
 demicians said to me, " The great charm of landscape 
 painting is that it is so delightfully easy," and I believe 
 most other figure painters share this impression. The 
 feeling that they are no longer obliged to draw accurately 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 89 
 
 when painting landscape backgrounds is to them a feeling 
 of relief. They enjoy a liberty which has removed an 
 irksome responsibility and restraint, and are little capable 
 in the full fruition of this novel pleasure, of estimating the 
 real difficulties of an art which they take up occasionally 
 in the spirit of relaxation. The public, too, is particularly 
 kind and indulgent in its demands upon the landscape 
 backgrounds of figure painters. It expects nothing more 
 than a slight sketch which shall surround the figures with 
 not inharmonious coloring. No true colorist can give less 
 than that, even in his most careless hours. 
 
 But is landscape easy ? Let us consider what elements 
 it is composed of, what materials it attempts to represent. 
 
 A landscape painter has to encounter the difficulties of 
 imitating the sky, the earth, vegetation, and water, and 
 these difficulties are complicated and multiplied infinitely 
 by effect, which, in landscape, utterly transfigures every 
 object it touches, so that an object under one effect does 
 not seem to be the same thing, has not even apparently the 
 same form, as under another. It may also be observed 
 that the difficulties of landscape painting are most seriously 
 increased by the evanescence of the appearances it attempts 
 to represent. If the effect would stay, the art would be 
 less difficult, though still very far from easy. But so soon 
 as the landscape painter desires to record any of those 
 magnificent unities of nature, when her scenery masses 
 itself together in full synthesis, he must work from mem- 
 ory alone. 
 
 Has the reader ever actively looked at a cloud, or a 
 tree, or a running brook, or a calm lake ? Perhaps not, 
 for the majority never look at these things ; they like 
 pleasant landscape, they benefit by its exquisite influences, 
 sunshine, lovely colors, sweet sounds, and pure, refreshing 
 air ; all these they truly appreciate and value in their way, 
 but they no more study them than an amorous boy studies 
 the anatomy of the fair face he delights in. External 
 nature is, to the mass of mankind, a source of sensuous 
 refreshment, not a matter of laborious observation ; it is 
 passive pleasure and perpetual benefit. Happier than critic 
 
90 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 or painter, the rest of mankind need only enjoy what these 
 have to investigate and remember. 
 
 But if the reader has ever looked at a cloud, can he 
 believe that clouds are easy things to paint? Take a 
 great, elaborate, well-developed cumulus, for example, 
 would not the modelling of it puzzle Ingres himself, and 
 the unapproachable splendor of it defeat him ? Could he, 
 could any one, remember the true detail of it faithfully 
 enough ? Could any one draw it delicately enough ? 
 
 Who ever really painted a field of the cloud vulgarly 
 known as mares' tails, those long films, delicate as the 
 trains of comets, which wave with gentle curves across 
 the sky ? Who can remember a field of thirty thousand 
 cirri so as to paint it truly ? Hundreds of artists have 
 attempted to render storms, but who ever gave the true 
 evolution of the heavily-laden thunder-cloud ? You who 
 say that landscape is easy, paint for us the form and hue 
 of those threatening messengers! There is modelling 
 enough there, and strange gradations of lurid color too. 
 
 And the flames of sunset, dashing the blue lead color of 
 the clouds at the horizon with intense streaks of crimson 
 fire, fainter as they rise towards the zenith, and fading 
 over our heads in scarcely perceptible inward glowing; 
 are they easy? Is it easy to get that light with that 
 color ? 
 
 And the gradations in the exquisite open sky, so deep, 
 so pure, so ever varying, by whom have they been quite 
 rightly, quite unexceptionably wrought? By one or two 
 early religious painters, it may be, but not in their full 
 variety. Who can graduate quite truly an evening sky 
 with intense gold at the horizon and cold blue at the 
 zenith ? Will there not generally occur some dubious or 
 false passage between the gold and the blue ? Skilful paint- 
 ers of draperies, are you perfectly confident that you can 
 quite successfully resolve this particular little problem? 
 And if you had mastered it, why, there are a million more 
 such problems in reserve for you, tons plus difficiles les uns 
 que les autres. 
 
 Mountains, too, are supposed to be easy. I may be ex- 
 
91 
 
 Amongst the Fine Arts 
 
 cused for feeling sceptical on that point. I lived a few 
 years under the shadow of Ben Cruachan, and carefully 
 observed him under thousands of very different aspects, 
 but it never occurred to me that that immense agglomer- 
 ation of ever-changing, yet always perfectly harmonious 
 detail, could by any possibility become easy to paint. 
 Every separate aspect of that mountain would have cost 
 the labor of months, and it did not last even minutes, only 
 fractions of a minute. Who can carry in his memory for 
 months the true relative color and true apparent form of 
 the hundred minor hills that boss his craggy sides ? But 
 if Cruachan and Shehallion are too easy, have we not the 
 Alps on which to wreak our energies ? If bosses of crag 
 and heather are unworthy of us, the white waves and 
 azure crevasses of a glacier may deserve our condescend- 
 ing attention. Why does not some famous painter of 
 history deign to prove to us that glaciers are easy enough, 
 after all, to men who have had the advantages of a sound 
 Academical education ? 
 
 The subject of foliage is sure to draw forth the usual 
 reference to Titian's " Peter Martyr." On this, however, 
 two observations may be made : the first, that all figure 
 painters are not necessarily Titians ; the second, that his 
 foliage, though the best in old art, is not nearly so good as 
 his figures. However, I have not yet seen his " Peter 
 Martyr," and prefer, for the present, to avoid any discus- 
 sion in which I could only speak on the authority of en- 
 gravings. 
 
 I do not admit that Titian succeeded as a landscape 
 painter, further than this, that he painted landscape back- 
 grounds which, as such, were satisfactory, and suited his 
 figures. They are partly naturalistic, but also to a great 
 degree governed by a conventionalism of his own. But 
 even if Titian had painted landscape as well as paint 
 would permit, would the necessary inference be that land- 
 scape was easy, or even that it was easy for all figure 
 painters ? That would be a poor compliment to Titian. 
 Probably I, who consider landscape difficult, respect 
 Titian more for what seems to me a very partial mastery 
 
92 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 in the art, than many others do for what seems to them 
 absolute success in it. 
 
 With regard to the foliage in the backgrounds of mod- 
 ern figure painters, it may be summarily divided into two 
 classes: the careless and the careful. To the careless 
 belongs all modern background foliage up to the second 
 quarter of this century, and most of it since. To the 
 careful belongs the work of Leslie, Mulready, Millais, and 
 a few less celebrated men. Now Leslie, though every- 
 body dislikes the chalkiness of his color, was a real 
 painter. He could paint an expression, but he could not 
 paint a tree ; there are some trees of his at South Ken- 
 sington, which, though excusable enough in a painter of 
 polite comedy, would not do credit to a professor of land- 
 scape. I should imagine that Millais would paint a better 
 tree now than when he attempted the willow in the Ophe- 
 lia, or the blooming orchard that we all remember. Those 
 efforts, though serious, and therefore most creditable (for 
 how rare is such condescension on the part of a painter of 
 genre !), failed on the side of hardness. The leafage was 
 not like free, soft, natural leafage, with life and sap in its 
 vessels ; it was like artificial leaves carefully cut out of 
 sheet metal painted green. The foliage and even the 
 bough drawing of Mulready fail in another way. They 
 attempt massing, but they are entirely conventional, and 
 as examples for young landscape painters no models could 
 well be worse. His trees are bad examples, on account of 
 his satisfaction with them ; there is no sign of effort after 
 better things. They are drawn with more refinement per- 
 haps, as to line, than Constable's, but there is a quality 
 in Constable's work which all landscape painters must ap- 
 preciate, the noble dissatisfaction which would rather even 
 daufr than draw, if in " drawing " is to be involved the 
 sacrifice of moisture and mystery and freshness. Consta- 
 ble's trees are painted by a man who feelingly loved 
 nature, and desired to express how. nature affected him. 
 Mulready's are either empty abstractions, or cold, though 
 industrious, studies. 
 
 Not that an intelligent critic could, without reserve, say 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 93 
 
 that any one's foliage is " good." No painter hitherto has 
 done more than express two or three of the chief qualities 
 of trees. Foliage is so infinitely difficult that human craft 
 always fails before it in some point, and always must. 
 
 In near leaf drawing no landscape painter has hitherto 
 particularly distinguished himself. A few figure painters 
 have introduced leaves well when they have paid attention 
 to them ; but they seldom give their natural relations as 
 to position ; they usually separate the leaves more than 
 nature does, and avoid, to some considerable extent, the 
 difficulties of fore-shortened curves. 
 
 When you add to difficulties of drawing and color those 
 of illumination, you have a complication which only the 
 greatest executants may hope to contend with. An ac- 
 complished master of the figure showed me several studies 
 in which he had seriously attempted to paint near leaves 
 in sunshine, all failures, and he knew it. The intensity of 
 reflection and the brilliancy of transparency in sun-lighted 
 leaves, all acting upon and through surfaces of such ex- 
 tremely varied and complex curvature, produce in the ag- 
 gregate difficulties which no mortal hand may conquer. 
 
 Of water I hardly know how to speak, so little is pop- 
 ularly known of it. Even such a comparatively common 
 and simple fact as the interruption of a reflection . by a 
 breeze is beyond the cognizance of many persons who con- 
 cern themselves with the fine arts. I had a curious in- 
 stance of ignorance of water phenomena one day when 
 talking with a French art critic. I discovered that he 
 was under the impression that an object could not be re- 
 flected in water unless the sun was behind the object ; he 
 actually believed that reflections and shadows were the 
 same thing. A moment's observation on the side of any 
 pond would have taught him a very different theory^ but 
 this little effort of observation is just what you cannot get 
 people to give. The fact that breezes take all sorts of 
 different colors is also not generally understood, a breeze 
 being popularly supposed to be white, even by persons ad- 
 vanced enough to know that there are such things as 
 breezes. So if any historical painter chooses to say that 
 
94 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 water is very easy, I scarcely .know how to answer him, 
 the word " water " not signifying the same thing to both 
 of us. 
 
 To paint a lake surface rightly, if it is varied by breezes 
 and calms, and semi-calms and demi-semi-calms (for there 
 are such things, and they are often all visible at one time), 
 to paint such a lake surface, I say, with all the curves of 
 its breeze outlines, and the truth of reflection in its little 
 isolated bits of perfect mirror, and the ineffably light dim- 
 ness of places that the faintest airs have breathed upon, 
 and the million-rippled acres where the breeze is stronger, 
 to paint that vast and marvellous surface, so perfect in 
 its finish, so exquisite in the phantasy of its design, so 
 wide, so wonderful, and above all so evanescent, is a task 
 to try the utmost skill of hand, the utmost power of mem- 
 ory, the utmost delicacy of sight ever reached by, or given 
 to, the most finely organized of men ! 
 
 And sea-waves, what of them ? Who can paint a 
 wave, who can even draw one? Stanfield and Turner 
 have given us two interpretations of waves which do in- 
 deed render some of the facts, and are full of honest in- 
 tentions ; but if you want difficulties, even the elementary 
 ones are as yet unconquered. 
 
 Is .there not an admission of the difficulty of landscape 
 in the very desperation of the best landscape painters ? 
 When Turner came to paint at last in his wild later way, 
 that was due to a recklessness brought on by two causes ; 
 first, the impossibility of really painting the facts he de- 
 sired to record; secondly, the uselessness of trying to 
 make them intelligible to the common public. And 
 Corot, too, is reckless of much that a less sensitive artist 
 would strive for. When he gets the right relative tone on 
 any part of his canvas, he dares not meddle with it, dares 
 not put detail upon it, may lightly sketch a thin twig or 
 two across it, but is far too prudent to attempt what we 
 call " finish." For finish in landscape painting is gener- 
 ally false, because true finish is so infinitely difficult. 
 When a third-rate artist industriously dots over his trees 
 with little regular lumps of paint, he calls that " finish." 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 95 
 
 No sensitive painter could endure to do that ; he would 
 rather splash like Constable, daub like Daubigny, blur 
 and rub like Corot, blot and wash like David Cox. All 
 these men would have told you that they considered their 
 methods quite inadequate to represent nature, but that 
 landscape painting was so difficult that they were forced 
 to content themselves with any thing that would even ap- 
 proach the kind of quality they desired.* 
 
 Those who most habitually undervalue landscape paint- 
 ing for its inaccuracy are the very persons who least 
 clearly understand what accurate drawing in landscape is 
 and leads to. It would lead to pure topography, and there 
 is little encouragement to draw landscape in that manner. 
 A painter is an author, and likes to move his public, and 
 topography moves nobody. And not only that, but topog- 
 raphy, being the product of an artificial and rigidly self- 
 conscious, self-governing state of mind, does not even 
 satisfy the artist himself. , If you draw an object freely 
 and innocently as it appears to you, even setting aside all 
 intention of composition, it will be quite wrong topograph- 
 ically. To get into a cool and accurate state you must 
 reason with yourself, and say, " Every hill is half the 
 height it looks, every curve looks twice as round as it is, 
 every interesting feature is insignificant." You must dis- 
 believe the evidence of your senses, divest yourself not 
 only of the enthusiasm of the artist, but even of the com- 
 mon feelings of humanity ; you must train yourself by 
 patient labor and cautious self-denial to become* a looking- 
 glass. Are the backgrounds of the great historical paint- 
 ers models of this accuracy ? And if they have it not, and 
 can yet maintain a reputation as draughtsmen, why may 
 
 * T ought to say that since writing "A Painter's Camp in the High- 
 lands," in which (vol. ii. p. 374) I spoke somewhat severely of Constable, 
 some change has taken place in my views of him. Seeing much more in 
 nature than I did then, I can better enter into the true spirit of his work. 
 His execution still seems to me empirical ; but I have learned to prefer 
 intelligent experiments which prove original observation, even when they 
 are only partially successful, to clever traditional handicraft. I have not 
 space here to do Constable justice, but hope to do so fully on a future 
 
96 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 not landscape painters who are but equally far from such 
 rigid exactitude, escape the reproach of bad drawing ? 
 
 Historical painters are no doubt generally in the right 
 when they consider themselves more highly trained than 
 landscape artists. It is not because they are more indus- 
 trious or more intelligent, but the figure, though not less 
 difficult than the materials of landscape, aifords a more 
 convenient and regular training. Its modelling can be 
 studied quietly under a manageable light day after day ; 
 its surface is not broken as tree masses are by leaves, and 
 mountain masses by rocks and forests ; it is not so full of 
 unforeseen accident ; you know what to expect, and you 
 find it ; and, above all, when you are wrong, you readily 
 perceive your error. Landscape, as usually pursued, 
 affords no such steady and instructive training. Many 
 clouds are as elaborate in form as a living model, but the 
 model will stay for you and the cloud not. Cloud draw- 
 ing, as training, is therefore what the figure would be if 
 the students were only allowed to see nude figures march- 
 ing past them, never for one instant still. Waves are even 
 worse than clouds, mountains somewhat better, yet not so 
 much better as would seem to persons who have not tried 
 to paint them from nature ; for a mountain never gives you 
 time to study its modelling fairly. As for trees, the 
 changes of light affect them even more than they do a 
 solid substance, for the light gets into a tree amongst the 
 leaves, and alters it continually from within as well as 
 from without. Then, if you want to study leaves, draw 
 them on the bough, the light alters, the breeze moves 
 them ; bring them into the house, and they droop and fail 
 out of their places. And for the first elementary study of 
 mountains or foliage, what can you get comparable in point 
 of practicable utility to a statue for the figure ? The best 
 model of mountain scenery in the world is probably that 
 of Mont Blanc and its surrounding valleys, at Geneva; 
 but a student of landscape could not procure such models, 
 and if he could, they are only topographic sketches of the 
 very rudest kind, lacking all those refinements that an 
 artist looks for. 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 97 
 
 Again, the first training of a figure painter is more use- 
 ful, as we see ; but, what is of still greater consequence to 
 him as an artist, his practical work after is more improving 
 than landscape work. Landscapes are for the most part 
 painted in the studio ; they are always painted, even when 
 in the presence of nature, to a large extent from memory. 
 Painting from memory may exercise that faculty, but it 
 adds nothing to the stock of acquired information. A fig- 
 ure painter, working constantly more or less from models, 
 painting even inanimate accessories from the actual objects, 
 is always acquiring information, always training and main- 
 taining his faculty of representing things, and that faculty 
 is nothing less than the very foundation of pictorial power. 
 So that figure painters are likely to be better craftsmen 
 than landscape painters. And are they not so in fact ? 
 Surely no unprejudiced observer can have failed to re- 
 mark it. 
 
 The low position of landscape in the estimation of acade- 
 mies is probably in part attributable to this cause. The 
 faculty of able representation is rightly esteemed by all 
 good painters, and a class of artists which is habitually 
 deficient in this quality is svye to find a difficulty in acquir- 
 ing, from artists, honor and recognition. But the niggard 
 recognition of landscape is also due to still more serious 
 objections. It is the commonly received doctrine amongst 
 painters of history and genre, that figure painting is the 
 representation of mind, whereas landscape painting is the 
 representation of matter. By an inference, not altogether 
 justified, as I hope to show, not altogether logical, yet an 
 inference of a kind which many persons are in the habit 
 of accepting without question, they proceed thence to the 
 conclusion that to paint the figure requires mind, whilst to 
 paint landscape mind is not requisite, or at any rate, never 
 called* for in any thing like the same degree. 
 
 There are writers who speak of Turner as a copier of 
 lifeless matter. This view ignores two things : first, the 
 mind of Turner, who threw his whole soul into an inter- 
 pretation of nature which was as far removed from copy- 
 ism as Shakspeare's writing is from newspaper reporting ; 
 
 7 
 
98 . The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 and secondly, the mind of God, which invests external 
 nature with all its interest, exactly as the mind of an 
 author invests paper and print with interest. 
 
 The fact is, that by our ingenious invention of a goddess 
 of nature, whom we are in the habit of speaking very 
 lightly about, we have left the idea of God to theologians. 
 In our mythology this nature-goddess holds a peculiar 
 place of her own. She is half demon, half deity. Ten- 
 nyson says she is 
 
 " Red in tooth and claw, 
 With ravine." 
 
 Ruskin accuses her of miserliness ! " Sometimes I have 
 thought her miserliness intolerable; in a gentian, for in- 
 stance, the way she economizes her ultramarine down in 
 the bell is a little too bad." Scores of writers speak of 
 her in the same disrespectful tone. Substitute God for 
 nature, and Him for her, and see how that little accusa- 
 tion of miserliness reads ! 
 
 Do these writers really believe that nature consciously 
 exists as a working goddess? Probably not. She is a 
 fiction for the sake of convenience. In the present state 
 of the public mind no fearless investigation of the Divine 
 system of government, as we see it actually at work, is per- 
 mitted to us ; so when we talk of any hard and inexorable 
 law, it is a " law of nature ; " we do not exactly like, as 
 yet, to call it a law of God. By this timidity we do our- 
 selves serious intellectual injury, and, amongst many other 
 unfortunate results, we arrive at one which closely concerns 
 our present argument. Natural scenery, as the work of a 
 supposed nature-goddess, whom we do not respect, has not, 
 for us, any thing like that serious interest which it would 
 have had if we could have received it as a direct expres- 
 sion of the Supreme. 
 
 I put forward this argument with no intention of writing 
 what foreigners so justly reprobate as our English cant. 
 For instance, in looking at a fine natural scene, the head 
 of Loch Awe if you will, it never occurs to me to imagine 
 that God designed it as an artist composes a picture. I 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 99 
 
 believe, rather, that by the operation of general laws de- 
 pressions in the earth were produced, nobody knows 
 exactly how, and that these basins become lakes, as the 
 depressions in a Yorkshireman's plate of porridge become 
 pools of milk, whilst the lumps rise out of them moun- 
 tainously. And in my view the Scotch or Swiss lakes and 
 mountains cost the Creator just as much thought as, and 
 no more than, the hollows and lumps in the porridge. So 
 of effects ; I see God's invention in them, but do not super- 
 stitiously imagine that He designed every sunset sepa- 
 rately as a painter does. 
 
 But, on the other hand, in spite of this modern recogni- 
 tion of pervading law, producing artistic beauty as it 
 produces mechanical construction, I never look at any 
 natural scene or object without the sense of being placed 
 by it in direct communication with the Supreme Artist. 
 You may, if you will, call this world inanimate nature, 
 but every atom of it is inscribed. And let the reader be 
 assured that to comprehend never so slight a manifestation 
 of the Divine mind is no unworthy task for the proudest 
 and cleverest of us. All who study the great natural 
 Revelation are, as to the subject-matter of their studies, 
 on a footing of fraternal equality. Anatomists, astrono- 
 mers, botanists, geologists, landscape painters, figure paint- 
 ers, no one of these has the right to despise the pursuit of 
 the other. There are inequalities of capacity : Raphael is 
 greater than Dughet, but so is Turner greater than Hay- 
 don and West. In science we find no such narrow classi- 
 fications. Men who explore the solar photosphere do not 
 scorn men who explore a grain of pollen ; men who dis- 
 sect the human body do not scorn men who dissect 
 vegetables. 
 
 And one great reason why we go to external nature 
 now is because man no longer conveys to us the Divine 
 idea in its purity, as an alp or a wild chamois does. It is 
 very well to say that all human developments are in their 
 origin Divine ideas, and no doubt this is in a certain sense 
 true ; no doubt the industrial age, for example, was a 
 divine intention, so that in this sense even the most un- 
 
100 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 lovely life in the hideous streets of Oldham and Rochdale 
 deserves study for its interest as a necessary phase of 
 human evolution. But the artistic instinct turns away from 
 this. The artistic instinct is warned that such phases of 
 human life do not concern it. They concern thinkers and 
 rulers, not artists. 
 
 For there is no beauty there. Long rows of cottages, 
 whose monotonous brick fronts are dark with soot ; heaps 
 of ashes on the black acre of building ground yet unoccu- 
 pied ; foiil ordure visible everywhere ; filthy children play- 
 ing amongst it with bits of broken pot ; behind the cottages 
 a roaring factory, six or seven stories high, its vast mo- 
 notonous wall pierced with a hundred windows, all alike, 
 and all ugly half an acre of ugliness, set up vertically 
 against the sky, to bar the sunshine out; great chimney- 
 stalks for towers, ay, fifty of them within a mile, 
 pouring opaque clouds of foul coal-smoke into the vitiated 
 atmosphere ; no human beauty left there that has not 
 been marred beyond recognition by the life the men and 
 women lead there from infancy ; no costume but shapeless 
 fustian for the men, having neither grace nor gayety ; and 
 long straight pinafores for the factory girls, bound round 
 their waists with greasy leathern belts. 
 
 To any one having the sense of beauty, and all true 
 artists have it, nothing can well be more depressing 
 than the influences of such a scene. The heart sinks, the 
 sight suffers under them. Yet within the distance of a 
 day's ramble there are wild moors where the heather 
 blooms, and little dells where pure streams fall over rocks 
 of sandstone, under green fern, into lucid pools, where the 
 crimson-spotted trout dart swiftly. 
 
 We are at the point at last. That street under the fac- 
 tory seems less Divine than this solitude. The street may 
 have a more tragic interest, and some wood-cut designer, 
 working in the same temper as Hood when he wrote the 
 " Song of the Shirt," might find matter there for his note- 
 book, but he must be a man caring nothing for beauty in 
 comparison with human interest, that is, he must be less 
 an artist than a moralist. 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 101 
 
 One day I was in the cottage of a factory operative in 
 a back street in Rochdale. The young man who was 
 master of the house (they marry early there) was in a 
 loud agony of grief. After the expiration of a minute, 
 some men brought in a sack, apparently heavy ; in the 
 sack was the poor lad's young wife, dead. The sack was 
 opened, and the supgeon who was with me gave the deci- 
 sive word, " Nothing to be done." It was a most impres- 
 sive scene ; the dead woman's eyes were still quite bright, 
 for she had died of heart disease, most suddenly, ten min- 
 utes before, and her face was by nature beautiful ; but the 
 prosaic character of all the accessories quite unfitted the 
 subject for pictorial treatment. It would have done for 
 Cruikshank, however. 
 
 Nothing turns away true painters from human life so 
 soon as the loss of visible dignity. And our English life, 
 in every class, has lost it. Our prosy ugly costume and 
 love of convenience have taken away all grandeur from 
 our visible style and carriage. Besides, we are not serious 
 enough, mentally, to deserve the attention of the most 
 serious artists. We are exactly suited for the caricaturist ; 
 we are the right material for Doyle and Leech ; taking us 
 at the best, we may do for Frith, but we should not much 
 gratify Titian or Velasquez. 
 
 " Chose digne d'attention ! " said the venerable Delecluze, 
 "c'est lorsque rien n'est plus pris au serieux, c'est quand 
 Thomme en est arrive a rire de lui-meme que les artistes, 
 ainsi que les poetes qui conservent cependant encore le sen- 
 timent et le gout des grandes choses, las de chercher en 
 vain dans les actions des hommes quelque chose de cette 
 grandeur dont la Bible, dont Homere entre autres fournis- 
 sent tant d'exemples, rejettent en quelque sorte I'humanite 
 comme une matiere epuisee, et vont chercher dans la nature 
 vegetale et dans les animaux des sujets ou la vie est impar- 
 faite, mais demeuree pure depuis la creation. Comment 
 expliquer autrement le gout de Poussin pour la solitude, 
 le soin qu'il a pris lui, peintre d'histoire si excellent, de 
 peindre les bois, les bords ombreux et tristes des fleuves, si 
 ce n'est pas ce besoin imperieux qu'ont les grandes ames de 
 
102 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 se retremper aux sources primitives et inalterables de la 
 creation ? " 
 
 Men and women are more wonderful than mountains, if 
 in the overpowering marvel of creation one thing can be 
 called more wonderful than another, when all are, alike, 
 utterly incomprehensible by us. But men and women have 
 a fatal liberty which mountains have not. They have the 
 liberty of spoiling themselves, of making themselves ugly, 
 and mean, and ridiculous. They tattoo themselves in South 
 Sea islands ; what they do in North Sea islands it would 
 be more prudent not to particularize. But a mountain does 
 not know how to be ridiculous. A mountain cannot dress 
 in bad taste. Neither is it capable of degrading itself by 
 vice. Noble human life in a great and earnest age is bet- 
 ter artistic material than wild nature ; but human life in 
 an age like ours is not. 
 
 Note the subjects that true artists choose and avoid, and 
 believe that their instincts lead them rightly. If they 
 paint men, they go back to some age of costume and dig- 
 nity, or else to some golden time of early poetry, when the 
 primitive human creature fought and loved under the 
 bright sky of the world's youth. Or, if it is contemporary 
 life that they choose, they choose it as humble as possible, 
 to get down below the strata which vulgarity permeates. 
 Thus a noble artist will gladly paint a peasant driving 
 a yoke of oxen, but not a commercial traveller in his 
 
 gig- 
 
 I have said so much in other places about the popular 
 ignorance of landscape, that it would be tiresome to harp 
 on that string any longer ; but any one who is habitually 
 attentive to the indications which show the state of culture 
 on a subject that interests him, cannot help forming an 
 opinion, more or less favorable, of the degree to which it 
 is generally understood. What is to be regretted in the 
 present condition o popular information about landscape 
 is this ; landscape painters feel no confidence in the public, 
 whereas an artist ought always to feel satisfied that if he 
 merits acknowledgment he will receive it. Here is a little 
 anecdote to the point. Last autumn I found myself on the 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 103 
 
 deck of a steamer plying on the lake of Geneva. It was 
 crowded with passengers, and just as we got past Coppet, 
 their great object of interest was Mont Blanc. A white 
 cloud concealed the mountain, and all the passengers 
 that I overheard were quite certain that the cloud was 
 Mont Blanc itself. Shortly afterwards the' snowy crest 
 became visible, and then they believed that to be a cjoud. 
 This mistake would have been impossible if they had 
 known any thing about landscape ; because, although clouds 
 under certain unusual circumstances do occasionally look 
 like mountains, that particular one had forms so entirely 
 unlike mountain forms, that nobody acquainted with moun- 
 tain anatomy could have made the mistake. Such little 
 occurrences as this are, I repeat, discouraging to a land- 
 scape painter. Here were many gentlemen and ladies, rich 
 enough to travel, who could not recognize a mountain when 
 actually set there before them ; how, then, should they 
 render justice to the same thing in a picture ? They used 
 telescopes and opera-glasses ; but no trained eye would 
 have needed a telescope ; that sharp, delicate outline of the 
 snow would have been enough for it. 
 
 The reader is not aware, perhaps, that some figure 
 painters even deny to landscape the right to exist as an 
 independent art at all. Landscape is very good, they say, for 
 backgrounds, but it was never intended as any thing else 
 than a foil to human or animal life. The doctrine may be 
 shown to be untenable by reminding the reader that there 
 exist, in all scenic nature, magnificent compositions, any 
 one of which would be entirely destroyed by the interven- 
 tion of a large figure or animal in the foreground. No 
 one who is familiar with the Highlands of Scotland, or 
 Switzerland, or even with our English lake district, would 
 desire to hand over pictures of their most striking scenes 
 to a historical painter in order to have figures of large size 
 painted upon them. Surely there are scenes in nature 
 complete enough to deserve a few square feet of canvas to 
 themselves.! 
 
 A theory more commonly received is the following. It 
 is urged that no scene in nature is worth painting without 
 
104 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 some direct reference to humanity; that nature without 
 human interest is devoid of artistic value. 
 
 This is one of those questions which cannot be settled in 
 any definite way for the whole body of spectators. If you 
 say that pure nature has no artistic interest, you speak 
 truly, no doubt, so far as your own feelings are concerned, 
 but \ cannot admit that your proposition is universally 
 true, because pure nature has an infinite artistic interest for 
 me, and therefore probably for others who are similarly 
 constituted. It is from the belief that I am on this point 
 the spokesman of a considerable class that I venture to 
 explain this sentiment more in detail. We who love pure 
 nature are not indifferent to humanity. We may, as 
 thinkers and moralists, take the keenest possible interest in 
 human affairs, but we perceive that in this age men and 
 their dwellings are not usually objects of much artistic 
 interest both because they have so little beauty, and what 
 is a far graver deficiency, so little sublimity. In these 
 respects the loneliest defiles of the Alps are better than 
 the hotels and tourists of Chamonix. Indeed Switzerland, 
 in our view, is as nearly as possible spoiled by its visitors. 
 In like manner we believe the valleys of Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire, the beautiful vale of Todmorden, for example, 
 to be (artistically) ruined by factories, and rows of cottages, 
 and railways, and excellent turnpike roads. We have no 
 objection to an old castle, we consider the head of Loch 
 Awe to be improved by Kilchurn ; but we cannot admire 
 the modern castles of Ta) mouth and Inverary, much as we 
 may respect the families of Breadalbane and Argyll. In 
 short, when the human interest increases the pictorial value 
 of the locality, as mediaeval fortifications do, we are glad to 
 have it, but when it diminishes the pictorial value, as almost 
 all modern buildings and engineering works do, we prefer 
 wild nature. 
 
 It remains only to indicate what, in the present writer's 
 opinion, ought to be the chief aims of landscape painting, 
 and what position is due to it. Its great object as an art 
 ought to be the faithful rendering of the spirit and charac- 
 ter of natural scenery and interesting localities. Any 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 105 
 
 accuracy is worthless which does not express character ; 
 every inaccuracy is to be praised which helps to express it 
 better. Every thing in landscape art ought to contribute 
 to render, with the most striking fidelity, not merely the 
 scene, but that which is far deeper and more divine, the 
 spirit of the scene. And here, I am bound to observe, 
 many of our most popular artists fail, and they fail from a 
 dread of producing strange-looking pictures. If you paint 
 local character, your work is sure to have peculiarities 
 which will fail to correspond with the vague general ideas 
 that exist on the subject of landscape, and therefore you 
 are likely to offend. A well-known and most experienced 
 dealer said to me one day, in all friendliness, "If you paint 
 a truth which one spectator has not seen in nature, you 
 make that man your enemy." A recent critic, speaking of 
 an artist of real genius, Mr. E. B. Jones, said, what was true, 
 that his works pleased some and offended others ; but then the 
 critic proceeded to mention another artist, of whom he said, 
 with understood allusion to Mr. E. B. Jones, that this man 
 " trod on nobody's toes." To paint, then, in a manner not 
 agreeable to the spectator, is resented by him as a personal 
 annoyance and injury, a treading on the toes. Now it is 
 very desirable that a more liberal view should prevail. If 
 the works of an artist do not please you, pass on to those 
 of another whom you like better, and try to believe that 
 there is no intention to hurt or offend you on the part of 
 the painter you dislike. In all probability he has been 
 aiming at some quality he thinks desirable ; perhaps he has 
 not attained the quality, but is on the road to it. It is not 
 his interest to give offence ; he would be ten times happier 
 to give pleasure ; but he is trying to accomplish something 
 that he sees clearly enough, no doubt, yet which it is not to 
 be expected that we should see until he has fully set it forth. 
 I may have insisted upon this somewhat importunately ; I 
 may have offended by praising the truth that gives offence, 
 but no art doctrine has need of more frequent reiteration 
 than this, Local truth should be held sacred and inviolable. 
 I do not mean that we ought to confine ourselves to rigid 
 topography, but that local character ought to be everywhere 
 
106 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 affectionately studied, thoroughly understood, faithfully 
 though freely rendered. And there is the more need to 
 preach this doctrine that many critics have a lofty scorn of 
 local truth, as something opposed to the true spirit of art 
 and incompatible with noble work. For example, because 
 Gustave Dore went into Spain before illustrating Don 
 Quixote, a well-known French critic thought it the right 
 thing to say that the work would have been better if Dore 
 had not seen Spain. 
 
 I would entreat the reader to use all his influence in 
 favor of that kind of landscape which really means some- 
 thing and expresses something. If a painter, by the side of 
 some French river, is struck by some long monotonous line of 
 poplars, do not find fault with the monotony, but thank him 
 for it ; it is the spirit of the place. If another painter far 
 in the Scottish hills reproduces the sadness and solitude of 
 their dear humble, barren crests, grey and purple in the 
 chilly twilight, do not find fault with the melancholy and 
 loneliness of his work ; it ought to be melancholy and 
 lonely, for that was the spirit of the scene. 
 
 It is generally a waste of time to trouble ourselves much 
 about classifications of painters according to subjects ; the 
 points of real importance are the qualities of the individual 
 artist. Any one who has the true critical faculty can easily 
 recognize great powers in the treatment of very simple 
 subjects. It is those powers by which an artist takes his 
 place. And whatever branch of art a man may have 
 chosen, if he has contrived to make first-rate gifts manifest 
 in his work, I put him in the first rank. The phrases 
 "simple paysagiste" and "mere landscape painter" imply 
 that criticism is a much easier business than it really is. 
 Truly, if the rank of artists might be settled by the kind 
 of subjects they paint, anybody might be an art critic. 
 The real difficulty of criticism lies in the fact that the most 
 splendid artistic faculties may be lavished on apparently 
 humble work, and a good critic is neither to be dazzled by 
 ambition in the choice of a subject, nor turned aside from 
 what is good and able because it does not happen to be at 
 the same time pretentious. 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 107 
 
 The strong point of landscape is its power of affecting 
 the feelings by influences very difficult to define in words. 
 Music also has nameless powers, and, as a writer lately 
 observed in the Cornhill Magazine, there is some resem- 
 blance between the way landscape painting and musical 
 compositions move us. 
 
 I am inclined to believe that the communicative powers 
 of musical sounds are habitually underrated. They de- 
 serve passing allusion here in connection with landscape 
 painting, because music, like landscape art, is not strictly 
 what is called an intellectual pursuit, and is held in 
 exceedingly low estimation by all who are insensible to 
 it. But may not these vague musical expressions of 
 thought and feeling be the only expression possible for 
 those thoughts and those feelings ? I have often felt whilst 
 listening to great music that something was thereby com- 
 municated to me which could not reach me through any 
 other channel. Literary expression is no doubt more 
 practical and positive ; but are we quite sure that it is 
 higher, merely because it is more definite? The same 
 narrow spirit of classification which roughly sets down 
 landscape as unmeaning, would put music below poetry ; 
 but the more we understand it, the more embarrassing it 
 appears to settle its place. It may be that music expres- 
 ses aspirations that words cannot express, and these as- 
 pirations may very possibly be higher than those we utter 
 verbally. 
 
 If the peculiar strength of landscape lies in this vague 
 kind of influence, that of figure painting is to be sought 
 in dramatic expression. Thus, so far as it is possible to 
 compare one man of genius with another, we might say 
 that Leslie was a successor of Pope and Goldsmith, whilst 
 Millais is the younger brother of Tennyson and Keats, 
 whereas Turner might be better compared with some very 
 great musician, as Beethoven, though my knowledge of 
 Beethoven's music is not yet complete enough for me to 
 know positively how far such a comparison would be 
 reasonable. 
 
 As to the rank which landscape painting ought to hold 
 
108 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 amongst the fine arts, I claim for it simple independence. 
 One of my critics said that I seemed to rank it above 
 figure painting, but that such would never be the general 
 opinion. This is one of those misinterpretations to which 
 every public writer is liable. Some previous writers have 
 treated landscape with contempt, and I say that it does 
 not deserve contempt ; therefore it is inferred that I set 
 up landscape art above figure art. The inference is en- 
 tirely unwarranted. If any one asserts that landscape is 
 easy, that it is a mindless copyism of dead matter, I am 
 ready to answer him that it is difficult, and that, when 
 good, it is a mindful interpretation of mind ; that is to say, 
 an interpretation by human genius of the Mind that crea- 
 ted the world. But the idea of giving precedence to 
 artists according to the subjects they choose, seems to me 
 so unpractical, so inapplicable, so deficient in the simplest 
 elements of common sense, that it never once occurred to 
 me to entertain it. 
 
 The fact will always remain, that men take a keener 
 interest in each other than in the external world, and so 
 naturally pay most attention to the art which deals with 
 man. Perhaps, too, our love of landscape is in great part 
 due to a repulsion from the present unartistic and unlovely 
 aspect of humanity. In an age when men and architec- 
 ture are fit only to be caricatured, artists who have not 
 the peculiar faculty of the caricaturist naturally go to 
 external nature and the life of animals or peasants. But 
 if, in the future, man and his dwellings should again become 
 noble and interesting, will not artists turn to him and them 
 again, and neglect the forests and mountains ? There is 
 some chance of this. 
 
 Meanwhile we have the beauty of the earth, and its 
 grandeur. But can we paint its grandeur ? Is it wise to 
 desert the common pastoral subjects of Claude and Cuyp 
 for the snowy crests that dazzled the eyes of Calame? 
 M. Delaborde doubts this ; he does not exactly admit that 
 art may deal with the extraordinary in landscape. He is 
 right in one point, I think. Painting, even the truest, is 
 a kind of fiction ; and it is admitted that fiction cannot 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. 109 
 
 quite safely deal with extraordinary truth, because it ap- 
 peals to the recognition of the fidelity of its representation, 
 and few can recognize what is rare in nature. So far, it 
 may be admitted that Troyon, for instance, was wiser than 
 Calame. But I object to M. Delaborde's idea that Alpine 
 scenery is more "irregular" than commonplace landscape; 
 and I object also to another theory of his, that such scenery 
 lies out of the conditions of portraiture. Alpine scenery 
 may not be familiar to Parisians, but it is strictly natural, 
 strictly under the influence of law, and of very wonderful 
 and beautiful laws too ; indeed, the laws of earth structure 
 can nowhere be seen more plainly than in Switzerland, 
 where, from flat diluvial ground to Alpine aiguilles, you 
 can study every manifestation of the energy of the earth. 
 And as to the objection that the Alps lie out of the condi- 
 tions of portraiture, let this little anecdote answer it. Not 
 very long ago, I entered Martigny in the evening from the 
 Forclaz. A nameless mountain rose before me, but I knew 
 it instantly from a drawing of Ruskin's. I had quite for- 
 gotten the locality of the drawing, but on returning home 
 I looked through " Modern Painters " and found it. The 
 real truth is, that every mountain has features of its own 
 which bring it within the conditions of portraiture quite 
 as much as a man's face ; but faithful landscape is too 
 modern to obtain recognition, as yet, from orthodox criti- 
 cism, which always makes a point of being a century or 
 two behind its age. 
 
 Of Calame's degree of success in Alpine landscape I 
 have not space to speak here with justice ; but, considering 
 what had been done before him, he was a discoverer in 
 art. What is more to our present purpose is the compari- 
 son instituted by M. Delaborde between Flandrin and 
 Calame, so much to the disparagement of the latter. This 
 is only one instance the more of the extreme difficulty of 
 obtaining in landscape any thing like that serious kind of 
 consideration awarded to distinguished figure painters. 
 Calame deserved this if ever anv one did. He was quite 
 as earnest as Flandjin, and quite as pure and devoted a 
 genius. Calame had the highest aims, and in great part 
 
110 The Place of Landscape Painting 
 
 realized them ; so indeed had also Flandrin. But Cal- 
 ame practised an art which did not admit of the direct 
 display of those human sympathies which most surely 
 reach the heart of humanity. Flandrin painted saints and 
 princes ; Calame gave the energy of a life to the chilling 
 sublimities of nature. 
 
 Closely connected with the dislike to extraordinary 
 scenery is the dislike to extraordinary effects. The spec- 
 tator's impression on looking at a picture in which one of 
 these effects is attempted appears to be frequently some- 
 thing of this kind : " The artist is amusing himself at my 
 expense : " or else, " The artist means to read me a lesson 
 on my own ignorance ; " and in either case a feeling of 
 rebellion or resentment arises. The simple truth is, that 
 effects are the life of landscape, and that the most power- 
 ful of them are the moments when this life is carried to 
 its utmost pitch and paroxysm of intensity. Such effects 
 are necessarily rare, as the crises of passion are rare in 
 the soul of man ; but no one knows a landscape who has 
 not seen it under a noble effect, just as no one knows a 
 human being who has not seen him in a moment of su- 
 preme excitement. And again, not only for their intensity 
 of life are the noble effects observed and valued, but still 
 more for their great artistic quality of synthesis. A fine 
 effect is pictorially complete ; a common effect is usually 
 scattered and comparatively unmeaning : a fine effect has 
 large masses and vigorous oppositions ; a common effect 
 is apt to be broken and feeble, requiring much artistic 
 faculty in the painter himself to get a synthetic whole out 
 of it. And it is especially natural that coloiists should 
 like the rare effects because they always give magnificent 
 arrangements of color. Intense gold and purple are to be 
 seen on the horizon of hilly countries for ten minutes at 
 a time, on perhaps twenty evenings in a year ; rich crimson 
 and fiery scarlet still more rarely. A landscape painter 
 who loves gold and purple, or crimson and scarlet, is there- 
 fore very naturally led to attempt these rare effects. A 
 figure painter who loves the same colors may introduce them 
 whenever he chooses by means of draperies and accessories. 
 
Amongst the Fine Arts. Ill 
 
 As to the prudence of attempting these effects, no doubt 
 that is another question. If we cannot paint plain day- 
 light, it is useless to attempt these splendors. But no 
 young landscape painter would be worth much who did 
 not long to try for them ; and even a few failures may be 
 better for him than placid contentment with sober green 
 and grey. 
 
 The worst of adopting landscape as a means of expres- 
 sing yourself is the difficulty, not of putting intelligence 
 and feeling into your work, for landscape will absorb any 
 quantity of both, out of getting credit for them when there. 
 It may be answered, that painters ought to be above the 
 desire for public recognition, above the vanity which can- 
 not live without praise. But we may observe that not 
 painters only, but all men, need recognition in their avo- 
 cations to enable them to work cheerfully. It is not praise 
 and fame they want so much as the satisfaction of feeling 
 that the amount of mind they put into their work will 
 reach others. Nothing is more cruelly discouraging to an 
 intellectual and feeling workman than the sense that an 
 obstruction exists between his mind and the mind of the 
 public. 
 
 This may serve to account for the fact, that whereas we 
 have in England, at the present day, at least a dozen most 
 excellent landscape painters, and twenty or thirty really 
 good ones, we hear on every side complaints of the deca- 
 dent condition of landscape. Now it is a positive truth 
 that the average merit of landscape work has never been 
 so high or any thing like so high as it is now. But a few 
 years since a great commotion was made about the works 
 of Turner, and the brilliant advocacy of a distinguished 
 writer directed, for a time, public attention to the branch 
 of the art which Turner professed. Since then the public 
 mind has reverted to its natural channel, and even great 
 landscape painters have no chance of obtaining that degree 
 of attention which is freely accorded to third-rate painters 
 of a figure. Lee Bridell awoke a little murmur of fame 
 before he died, and a few were aware that a noble career 
 had been cut short in its early prime ; but the busy world 
 
112 The Place of Landscape Painting. 
 
 was ignorant of its loss. The imperial biographer of Caesar 
 has read the nations a lesson on their want of confidence 
 in that order of genius which must subjugate before it can 
 improve; yet it is not unnatural that we should fail to rec- 
 ognize benefactors who begin by requiring us to be slaves. 
 An ingratitude far less excusable is that which repels a 
 benefit accompanied by no condition, and turns away coldly 
 from the kindly teaching which would lay no yoke upon 
 us but the thrall of a sweet pleasure that never knew 
 repentance. 
 
Relation between Photography and Painting. 113 
 
 V. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND 
 PAINTING. 
 
 TN the course of the first volume, I promised to state, be- 
 fore concluding the work, whatever opinions I might 
 be able to form on this question of the relation between 
 photography and painting. 
 
 I may now venture to offer such results as I have been 
 able to arrive at. 
 
 I feel, however, a little embarrassed at the outset by 
 doubts as to the degree of information on these subjects 
 which I may prudently presuppose on the part of the 
 reader. I hesitate between writing in a manner intel- 
 ligible only to persons already in possession of the 
 most commonly known facts concerning the two arts, 
 whose mutual relation I purpose to examine, and writing 
 in another, and more elementary manner, which may bet- 
 ter suit the general reader, but render this chapter intoler- 
 ably tedious to an informed one. 
 
 It seems best to err on the side of clearness and prolix- 
 ity. For it would be idle to expect, on the part of persons 
 not actively occupied in these arts, a sufficient degree of 
 information to make a technical essay intelligible to them. 
 I have very good grounds for believing that there are few 
 persons living in England (in proportion to the population), 
 who really know what photography is ; and, probably, still 
 fewer who are aware what compromises, and concessions, 
 and subtle artifices are necessary to the construction of 
 any thing like a good picture. I find the general impres- 
 sion about photography to be that it is as perfect as a 
 reflection of the scene in a mirror, with the single deficiency 
 of color ; and the common notion of painting seems to be 
 even less accurate than that, for it entirely ignores the 
 
 8 
 
114 The Relation between 
 
 most refined art of the artist, without which painting could 
 only imitate what is imitable in nature, and never aspire to 
 interpret what is beyond all human imitation. 
 
 And, therefore, I will first try to explain what photog- 
 raphy is. 
 
 Photography is the blackening and decomposition of 
 a salt by some of the solar rays. 
 
 " It is drawing by light," says some etymologist who 
 has not yet forgotten his Greek. 
 
 Pardon me, it is not drawing by light, and the word 
 photography is a misnomer. If a photograph were really 
 drawn by the luminous rays, it would be far truer than it 
 is. Mr. Hardwich has clearly distinguished between the 
 luminous and actinic rays, or the rays which produce what 
 *we call light, and those which effect the chemical changes 
 we foolishly call " photography." He says, in his " Pho- 
 tographic Chemistry" (Fourth Edition, p. 61), "The 
 actinic and luminous rays are totally distinct from each 
 other, and the word ' photography,' which signifies the 
 process of taking pictures by light is, in reality inaccu- 
 rate." And, again (page 62), " In exemplifying further 
 the importance of distinguishing between visual and 
 actinic rays of light, we may observe, that, if the two 
 were in all respects the same, photography must cease to 
 exist as an art. It would be impossible to make use of 
 the more sensitive chemical preparations, from the diffi- 
 culties which would attend the previous preparation and 
 subsequent development of the plates. These operations 
 are now condupted in what is termed a dark room; but 
 it is dark only in a photographic sense, being illuminated by 
 means of yellow light which, whilst it enables the operator 
 easily to watch the progress of the work produces no 
 injurious effect upon the sensitive surfaces." 
 
 Photography having been ascertained to be the black- 
 ening and decomposition of a salt by some of the solar 
 rays, the next question of importance is how these rays 
 blacken it. 
 
 And here it is necessary to say a little about Nature's light. 
 
 Let one million represent the sun, the brightest thing 
 
Photography and Painting. 115 
 
 we know, and the unit represent the blackness of night, 
 the blackest black we know. If we take this as repre- 
 sentative of Nature's scale of light and dark, the most 
 extensive scale attainable on paper may be from a dark 
 five hundred times lighter than Nature's dark, to a light 
 a thousand times darker than Nature's light, or some- 
 where between the figures 500 and 1000. 
 
 So that to represent Nature's million degrees we have, 
 let us say, about five hundred degrees. 
 
 Nature is very rich and Art very poor. Nature has a 
 million to spend where Art has five hundred. What is 
 the most prudent thing for poor Art to do ? There are 
 two ways of imitating Nature. Art may spend side by 
 side with Nature, degree for degree of light, coin for coin, 
 till all her resources are exhausted, and then confess her- 
 self bankrupt. Or she may establish a scale of expendi- 
 ture suited to her limited resources ; and, abandoning all 
 hope of rivalry with Nature, set herself to the humbler 
 task of interpreting her. 
 
 And here is the first essential difference between pho- 
 tography and painting ; a difference which, of itself, is 
 sufficient to separate them for ever. 
 
 Poor Photography spends degree for degree with rich 
 Nature, and of course, is very soon exhausted ; but poor 
 Painting husbands her little resources, and spends a 
 penny for light where Nature spends a pound. 
 
 All photographs, therefore, which attempt to copy Na- 
 ture's effects of light, lose themselves either in a vacuity 
 of light or a vacuity of shade. 
 
 Here is another illustration, but not so good a one as 
 the preceding, because it does not sufficiently set forth 
 the enormous difference in scale between nature and the 
 photograph. 
 
 Nature's power of light is like a great organ with all 
 its vast range of octaves. The photograph's power of 
 light is, iii comparison, something like a voice, but a 
 voice of extremely limited compass. 
 
 How is the voice to follow the organ in an exercise on 
 the scales ? 
 
116 The Relation between 
 
 The voice will sing its own notes in the places where 
 they occur, but must ignore all the rest. 
 
 This is exactly the way the photograph imitates nature. 
 And when Nature plays only in the middle of her scale, 
 photography would follow her with much accuracy if it 
 were not for that fact about the excited film being in- 
 sensitive to yellow rays. 
 
 Now, what is painting ? 
 
 It is an intellectual and emotional interpretation of 
 nature by means of carefully balanced and cunningly 
 subdivided hues. Its powers of imitation are extremely 
 limited. However, the eye of the painter, instead of 
 being insensible to every thing that is yellow, is as sensi- 
 tive to gold and orange as to blue, so that in this respect 
 he may do truer work. And in his way of interpreting 
 nature's light, he has opportunities of compromise and 
 compensation which the unthinking photograph cannot 
 have. So he gets more truths. 
 
 With a view to ascertain something of the relative 
 power of light in nature and art, I have made a few 
 simple experiments which the reader may easily repeat 
 for his own satisfaction.* 
 
 People cannot see either pictures or photographs in 
 full out-of-door sunshine. They see them best, and they 
 see them habitually, in quiet, dull daylight without 
 sunshine. 
 
 The sun in a picture is usually made of a little flake 
 white, mixed with Naples or other yellow. 
 
 * This comparison of light in nature and in art contains nothing new, 
 except the illustrations; for the question has been well stated already by 
 Mr. Kuskin. His statement of the superiority of nature in power of light 
 is so far from being exaggerated that it is considerably within the truth, 
 though I dare say astonishing enough to most of his readers. .All this 
 has, of course, been known to artists for generations ; at any rate since 
 Claude's time, who, having tried to paint the sun, must have found out 
 that it was brighter than white lead. Nor is it probable that our modern 
 artists any more than Claude owe their knowledge of these facts to Mr. 
 Ruskin, whose works, I am really sorry to say, are very little read by 
 painters. A few of them have read the first volume of "Modern 
 rainters," but I have not yet met with one who had got through the 
 second ; and as this statement about light occurs in the fourth, it is as if 
 it had never been published at all, so far as they are concerned. 
 
Photography and Painting. 117 
 
 The whitest flake white is not so white as snow. 
 
 During the winter months I have obtained a great many 
 memoranda of mountain snow. On looking over these 
 memoranda I find that when not illuminated by direct sun- 
 shine the snow is in many instances considerably darker 
 than the sky ; darker even than gray clouds. 
 
 And yet I know that the flake white I have to imitate 
 snow in sunshine with is, in reality, itself darker than snow 
 in shadow. 
 
 Our whitest white is darker than many of Nature's 
 ordinary blues and greens and reds. 
 
 And our blackest black is lighter than many of Nature's 
 grays. 
 
 This last fact is easily ascertained. Hang a common 
 black cloth dress coat on a stand out of doors any moon- 
 less night, so as to bring it against the sky. Throw the 
 light of a lamp upon it, and you will find your black cloth 
 coat, the blackest thing you have, a great deal lighter than 
 a clear starlit sky. 
 
 And this experiment gives a result infinitely below the 
 truth. A fairer way would be to cast some rays of electric 
 light on the coat, because, as everybody knows, who has 
 walked in the streets at night, even gaslight is immeasur- 
 ably below ordinary clouded daylight, such as we require 
 for seeing pictures. 
 
 Well, but though the sky is darker than the coat, there 
 are some clouds visible which, in their turn, are con- 
 siderably darker than the sky. And the mountain under 
 the clouds is infinitely darker than they are. So here 
 we are in Nature's bass notes ; and no art can get down 
 there. . 
 
 In all photographs which attempt landscape, and include 
 distant' and highly illuminated objects, such as mountains 
 and the sky, the sensitive film of the negative has always 
 been so entirely decomposed by Nature's middle degrees 
 of light as to leave no room for farther decomposition 
 by the highest, or else the time of exposure has been 
 insufficient for the due action of Nature's lower degrees 
 of light, so that they have not been able to make any 
 impression. 
 
118 The Relation between 
 
 The consequence of this in the positive, with which the 
 public is most familiar, is that all Nature's higher notes 
 are lost in white vacancy, or else all her lower notes in 
 black or brown vacancy. 
 
 Thus, in a photograph of the sea ; because the sea is a 
 bright object ; if we want to have the glitter of the wave 
 we must expose our negative so very short a time that any 
 solid objects on the shore will take no effect upon it, and be 
 left blank. 
 
 In the positive, these blank objects will, of course, print 
 as brown silhouettes. 
 
 We will now examine a few photographs by the ablest 
 hands to see whether this is so. And then we will exam- 
 ine one or two pictures and engravings to see in what 
 manner intellectual art contends with this great difficulty, 
 and how far the human intellect has found means to 
 overcome it. 
 
 I have at hand a portfolio of good photographs by pro- 
 fessional photographers, and a portfolio of photographs, 
 not so good, done by myself. These will afford ample 
 materials for our investigation. 
 
 One of the best photographs of the sea, which I have 
 been able to procure in Paris, is a view of sea and sky, 
 with a pier and light-house at. the spectator's right. It is 
 by E. Colliau, and is entitled " La Jetee." The negative 
 has been exposed a very short time indeed, in order to 
 preserve the light on the clouds, and the glitter of the sun- 
 shine on the water. These two truths are accordingly 
 obtained, the silvery touches of soft light on the clouds are 
 all admirably rendered, and the glitter of the ripple is 
 accurately recorded, too. But the gray shade of the clouds 
 is given in deep brown ; and, although the sun is high, the 
 light-house, the pier, and the people upon it are all in 
 silhouette, without the faintest trace of any detail whatever. 
 Of course, if M. Colliau had exposed his wet collodion 
 negative a few seconds more, he would have obtained the 
 detail in the pier at the cost of his sky, which would have 
 been all decomposed away by the powerful action of the 
 abundant chemical rays, and his negative on development 
 
Photography and Painting. 119 
 
 would have exhibited a black sky over a very dark sea, 
 which in the positive would have given us a white sky and 
 pale water, without glitter. But we should have had our 
 pier in the corner quite perfect, and should have been able 
 to see the people upon it distinctly. 
 
 A prudent photographer will always, where possible, 
 avoid these discrepancies. The pier was introduced to 
 add a little human interest to the subject, and in this 
 respect with judgment, for one cannot help sympathizing 
 with the people on the pier, who are waiting for their 
 friends. But in photography, the great compass of Nature's 
 light should never be attempted, for it can never be even 
 suggestively rendered. And M. Colliau has succeeded in 
 producing better sea-views, where there was nothing in 
 the foreground darker than the sea itself, as, for example, 
 in that one entitled " Le mauvais temps," one of the most 
 valuable memoranda of the action of sea-waves I possess, 
 and for which I feel extremely grateful. The peculiar 
 leaping of sea-water is perfectly given, and the white 
 crests in the middle distance are as good as may be. This 
 photograph fails towards the edges, where it becomes dark 
 a common defect in sea-views, on account of their very 
 brief exposure, which M. Colliau has wisely remedied in 
 some others of his by having the positives cut into ovals 
 before being mounted. With the exception of this defect, 
 this photograph is all that one can desire ; the light in the 
 natural subject, though excessively high in pitch, being 
 very limited in compass. For the pitch matters nothing 
 whatever to the photograph, as that can always be trans- 
 posed to Photography's own key by an exposure more or 
 less prolonged ; but the compass is of the greatest impor- 
 tance, because Photography has so narrow a compass, that 
 when the natural subject includes both treble and bass 
 notes, she must pass two-thirds of them in absolute 
 silence. 
 
 I have an oval photograph of sea by M. Colliau, with 
 a boat in the middle distance. The time of exposure must 
 have been very brief, for the forms of the waves are quite 
 firm and clear, yet there is nothing black but the hull of 
 
120 The Relation between 
 
 the boat. If there had been any thing solid in the fore- 
 ground ---as, for instance, a pier it would have come in 
 silhouette, and spoiled the photograph. 
 
 I have another oval of rough sea, by the same manipu- 
 lator. It includes a fine cumulus cloud, and is altogether 
 wonderful. Where it fails as a study is in the absence of 
 distinction between foam and reflection. The negative 
 has evidently been exposed long enough for the foam to 
 act upon it ; so that it is as bright as the glitter, and there 
 is no separating them. A little more exposure, and the 
 middle tints would have blackened the negative all over 
 the surface of the water in the interstices between the 
 spots of foam and glitter. Once this done, the picture 
 would have been destroyed altogether ; for the sea would 
 have been one black blank in the negative, and one white 
 blank in the positive. 
 
 And now, if you want to know the relation between 
 these marine photographs and a good picture of the sea, it 
 is easy to ascertain it We have only to compare one of 
 the best specimens of marine photography we can find, 
 with one of the best pictures of sea hitherto produced by 
 our realist school. 
 
 I will take for this purpose one of Gustave le Gray's 
 marine photographs, and Holman Hunt's exquisite little 
 picture entitled " Fairlight Downs. Sunlight on the 
 Sea." 
 
 In the photograph the blaze of light upon the sea is 
 given with perfect fidelity ; but in order to get this, and 
 the light on the edges of the clouds, all else has been 
 sacrificed the shaded sides of the clouds, in nature of a 
 dazzling gray, brighter than white paper, are positively 
 black in the photograph, and the pale splendor of the sun- 
 lit sea, except where it flashes light, is heavy and 
 impenetrable darkness. Towards the sides of the photo- 
 graph, the distinction between sea and sky is wholly lost 
 in one uniform shade of dark brown, extending from top 
 to bottom, without any indication of a horizon ; so that, 
 if you were to cut a strip an inch and a half broad from 
 each side of the photograph, no one on looking at the 
 
Photography and Painting. 121 
 
 strip would at all suspect that it represented either sea 
 or sky, or any thing else in nature. The crowning falsity 
 is, however, the sun itself, which is darker than the sur- 
 rounding clouds, being simply a gray wafer on a white 
 ground. 
 
 However, since it is one of the peculiar misfortunes of 
 the photograph that it is not capable of giving two truths 
 at once, not having any method of compensation like that 
 which every painter finds out for himself, we must be sat- 
 isfied in all photographs of sunlight on the sea with this 
 one truth only the glitter on the ripple and not ask 
 for any more. I have observed that simple people always 
 take such photographs for moonlights, and I suspect that 
 they are extensively sold as such. The truth is that they 
 do approach nearer to the character of moonshine than 
 sunshine ; but even in moonlit water, there is a diffused 
 light outside the reflection or glitter, which is lost in these 
 photographs. 
 
 It is agreeable to turn from this representation of one 
 truth to a picture which, in about the same superficies, 
 gives us a thousand. 
 
 At Mr. Gambart's Winter Exhibition in the year 1858, 
 the reader may have seen a wonderful little picture by 
 Holman Hunt, entitled " Fairlight Downs. Sunlight on 
 the Sea." The sunlight itself in its broad white glare on 
 the water under the sun, and its gradual scattering into 
 glitter to the right hand and to the left ; in its long lines 
 in the distance, divided by the shadows of the clouds ; in 
 its restless flashing on the crests of the little waves far 
 away, is as true and truer than the photograph but here 
 all comparison ends, because there is no longer in the 
 photograph any thing to be compared with the picture. 
 Where the photograph is simply dark brown, the picture is 
 full of the most marvellously delicate gradations, and the 
 sweetest play of hue. Where the glitter is not, we have 
 still the sunlit beauty of the fair sea, which is indeed 
 better and more precious even than the glitter itself, just 
 as the fairness of a beautiful woman is better than the 
 glitter of her diamonds. And there is a hot haze in 
 
122 The Relation between 
 
 the blinding distance miles away, and there is a sultriness 
 in the accumulated clouds which shall light up that sea at 
 night with another and more terrible splendor. And then 
 there is the green of the rich land, and the purple of the 
 fallow, and nearer is a mingled glow of scarlet flowers and 
 green leaves, and staring sheep, and a dog, and the shep- 
 herd's staff. And all these other facts Hunt could get into 
 his picture because painting is a great intellectual art ; an 
 art of compensation, and compromise, and contrast ; an art 
 capable of moderation, and subject to mastery. And all 
 these other facts Gustave le Gray could not get into his 
 photograph, because photography is not a fine art, but an 
 art science ; narrow in range, emphatic in assertion, telling 
 one truth for ten falsehoods, but telling always distinctly 
 the one truth that it is able to perceive. 
 
 On comparing photographs with good topographical pen- 
 drawings of the same objects, I find a result very different 
 from any thing that many persons would expect. I find the 
 sum of detail, in subjects including both distant and near 
 objects, to be much greater in the drawing than in the 
 photograph. Thus, Bisson's Chillon, a magnificent photo- 
 graph, gives the castle in true detail, but loses the near 
 foliage in black, and the mountain detail in pale brown, 
 like the sky. A good topographical drawing would have 
 given the castle less exquisitely, but we should have had 
 the near foliage thoroughly drawn, and the mountain forms 
 defined. I have before me a good positive of the Lac de 
 Gaube. evidently printed from a waxed paper negative, 
 and therefore a remarkable degree of detail is not to be 
 expected ; still, I think, few people not accustomed to 
 analyze photographs would be prepared, in a photograph 
 of clear weather, such as this one evidently is, to find such 
 a large space of sheer vacancy as the mountain slope on 
 the left. A topographical drawing might be done in a 
 week which would contain ten times as many facts as this 
 photograph. 
 
 I once took a waxed paper negative of Craiganunie, 
 and have since drawn and painted the same subject in 
 various ways ; I find that with five or six hours' labor, I 
 
Photography and Painting. 123 
 
 can get a memorandum containing much more detail than 
 the photograph. I do not pretend to say that the details 
 in the drawing are so accurately or delicately done ; but 
 they are quite accurate enough for artistic purposes, and 
 there are more of them than in the photograph. 
 
 I know that the collodion process would have afforded 
 me more abundant detail ; but, to an artist, this additional 
 detail is often of little consequence, being not the detail he 
 wants. For the best photograph of any extensive scene 
 never gives more than partial detail, however perfect as 
 far as it goes. The artist, too, gives selected detail, that 
 which seems to him the most needful and vitally express- 
 ive : and here, ten to one, if he is a good artist, he and the 
 photograph will not be of the same opinion. 
 
 It is, therefore, quite impossible to produce good pictures 
 by copying photographs. And this is the reason why Mr. 
 Ruskin, in answer to a malicious accusation against the 
 pre-Raphaelites, that they " copied photographs, " chal- 
 lenged the accusers to produce a pfe-Raphaelite picture 
 themselves, or any thing like one, by that process. The 
 challenge was perfectly safe, and, of course, has never been 
 responded to. 
 
 The way in which artists ordinarily use photographs is 
 this. When their memoranda from nature are not minute 
 enough, as sometimes from circumstances they cannot be, 
 painters will take a suggestion from a photograph, and 
 invent details for their pictures, which the photograph 
 rather suggests than contains. This is the practice of some 
 artists I know, but I have been told, on good authority, that 
 one of our most popular painters of winter scenery always 
 works from the photograph alone, and never even draws 
 from nature. The study of winter scenery from nature 
 involves, of course, the physical difficulty of resistance to 
 the cold ; and it seems natural that a painter who does not 
 use a studio-tent like mine should find painting from pho- 
 tographs in a warm studio pleasanter work than painting 
 from nature in the cold open air of December. Even in 
 this extreme instance, however, the true way of stating 
 the case would be to say that the artist works from mem- 
 
124 The Relation between 
 
 ory and invention aided by reference to photographs, 
 because there is a good deal of color in his works, which 
 could not be got from photographs; and his system of 
 light is artistic and not photographic, a little fact which, 
 of itself, at once precludes all idea of copying photographs. 
 
 Since most artists buy photographs of subjects not often 
 obviously connected with the particular subjects of their 
 pictures, the question naturally suggests itself, whether it 
 would not be desirable for the painter to take photographs 
 himself, which might afford more direct and useful data 
 than any procurable in the shops, as he might then obtain 
 memoranda of the particular subjects he intended to paint. 
 Such a course appears at first sight likely to be peculiarly 
 advantageous to a painter, for the important reason that he 
 might adjust the time of exposure of the negative to the 
 especial result required ; and so, by taking several photo- 
 graphs of the same subject, of different degrees of expos- 
 ure, obtain from their united testimony the various truths 
 of detail he would fleed for his picture. This suggests it- 
 self as a wise and politic course to pursue, for it apparently 
 obviates the greatest inconvenience of photography, its 
 loss of detail at the two ends of the scale. By a careful 
 regulation of the exposure, half a dozen collodion nega- 
 tives of one scene might be made to yield an enormous 
 aggregate of detail in every part of the subject. 
 
 It seems also evident that since the wet collodion pro- 
 cess is almost instantaneous, certain memoranda of effects 
 of light may be got by its means which are not otherwise 
 attainable ; as, for example, the complicated shadows of 
 mountains, which it is quite impossible to draw truly on 
 account of their swift changing. And, to a painter who 
 has to deal with rich architecture, it seems as if the photo- 
 graph would be a most useful servant, giving him accurate 
 data for every stone in the most elaborately wrought build- 
 ing.* There can be no doubt that no memorandum of 
 cloud-form is equal to a photograph, for none other can be 
 
 * I speak of exteriors only. Gothic interiors are generally too dark 
 to be photographed in detail. 
 
Photography and Painting. 125 
 
 true, even in outline; whereas, the sensitive collodion will 
 arrest in an instant the flying change of innumerable 
 clouds. And, in matters of foreground detail, when a 
 painter cannot remain on the spot to finish an elaborate 
 drawing from nature ; as, for example, on a Swiss glacier, 
 the abundant detail obtainable by a collodion photograph 
 in a few seconds, will naturally tempt a landscape painter 
 to encumber himself with a camera. 
 
 For this photography, as an art so imperfect, is a won- 
 derfully obedient slave for the collecting of memoranda, if 
 only its one great peculiarity be humored a little. Pho- 
 tography cannot often give very much truth at once; but 
 it will give us innumerable truths, if we only ask for one 
 at a time. And a large collection of photographic memo- 
 randa, taken by a painter for especial purposes, seems 
 likely to be a precious possession for him. 
 
 But here occur other considerations. 
 
 Photography affords a very interesting proof of a fact 
 well known to artists, that a certain degree of exaggera- 
 tion is quite indispensable to apparent veracity. I believe 
 that this is so in literature also ; and that no study of 
 human character would ever be generally recognized as 
 true which was not idealized and exaggerated almost to 
 the verge of caricature. A certain extravagance of state- 
 ment seems in literature essential to effective work ; owing, 
 I suppose, to the coarseness of our faculties, which need 
 something stronger than pure truth, as the ordinary Brit- 
 ish consumer will only drink doctored wines, and despises 
 the genuine juice of the grape. But, however this may 
 be in books, it is quite demonstrably so in pictures, as the 
 photograph conclusively proves. Photographs of moun- 
 tains are hardly recognizable. The most careful topo- 
 graphic drawing, if it looks like nature, is sure to be full 
 of exaggerations. People who are not aware of this never 
 can recognize photographs of distant scenery, however 
 familiar the scenery may be to them ; but they will recog- 
 nize an exaggerated sketch without difficulty. I have 
 found this continually here. I do my best not to exag- 
 gerate in working from nature ; but, as soon as ever I get 
 
 
 0V TBS 
 
126 The, Relation between 
 
 interested in my subject, I cannot help exaggerating ; 
 whereas the photographic machine, being absolutely indif- 
 ferent, will not give the least additional emphasis to the 
 most interesting feature in its subject. The grandeur of 
 noble scenery excites the imagination. It is quite incredi- 
 ble how small a space is really occupied, in the picture on 
 the retina of the eye, by that far gorge between the hills 
 that we know to be a thousand feet deep, and five miles 
 through. The photograph gives the fact in its stern truth, 
 so many actinic rays and no more, an image so large in 
 porportion and no larger. But the painter always sympa- 
 thizes, more or less, with the excitement of the beholder, 
 for he is himself a beholder. And therefore, the photo- 
 graphic truth about mountains will always, in its lifeless- 
 ness, strongly offend the artistic sense, and seem false and 
 inadequate, as, indeed, it is, in relation to the spectator's 
 imagination. 
 
 But all good painting, however literal, however pre- 
 Raphaelite or topographic, is full of human feeling and 
 emotion. If it has no other feeling in it than love or 
 admiration for the place depicted, that is much already, 
 quite enough to carry the picture out of the range of pho- 
 tography into the regions of real art. 
 
 And this is the reason why a good painting cannot be 
 based on a photograph. I find photographic memoranda 
 of less value even than hasty sketches, though no painter 
 was ever more dissatisfied with mere sketching. The pho- 
 tograph renders forms truly, no doubt, as far as it goes, 
 but it by no means renders feelings, and is therefore of no 
 practical use * to a painter, who feels habitually, and never 
 works without emotion. And it is useless to try to elimi- 
 nate feeling from our art even in plain portraiture. It is 
 possible to draw portraits of mountains as grandly as 
 Titian and Vandyke drew portraits of men ; and, mark 
 you, when a painter proposes to himself the portraiture of 
 particular scenes instead of the ideal landscape painting of 
 the painter-poets, he no more abandons the life of a think- 
 
 * Except, of course, for reference as to matters of fact. 
 
Photography and Painting. 127 
 
 ing and feeling creature than an author who takes to writ- 
 ing history instead of fiction. A true painter both thinks 
 and feels, and that always, but most intensely when in the 
 actual presence of Nature. The photographic machine 
 feels nothing, and there is precisely the same difference 
 between its work and the soul's work in landscape portrait- 
 ure that there is in figure portraiture. A topographic 
 landscape painter may put as much tenderness and grace 
 into his trees and clouds as Reynolds into his women, with- 
 out at all quitting the very elastic limitations of portraiture. 
 
 I have found this utter insensibility of the photograph 
 positively irritating when I have occasionally used it to 
 obtain memoranda of my favorite scenes. It may be 
 demonstrably, mathematically, scientifically true that the 
 mountains round Loch Awe are reduced by perspective to 
 very unimportant elevations in a narrow black line of land 
 that serves to divide the sky from the water ; but it is no 
 use telling me so, because either my eyes, or my imagina- 
 tion, or some unaccountable prepossession in my unreason- 
 ing instincts will have it they are quite otherwise. And 
 the photographs seem to me unendurably inadequate and 
 false, my own drawings only seeming tolerably true, 
 though not so true as I would have them. The fact is, 
 there is a glamor on all our eyes. Queen Nature has daz- 
 zled and bewitched us by her overpowering splendor and 
 loveliness. 
 
 This power of the excited imagination to change the 
 actual forms and relative magnitudes of objects I have re- 
 peatedly tested, with results that are quite astonishing. 
 The best test, for a person who can draw, is to sketch some 
 real scene exactly as it appears to him when excited by its 
 beauty, not, of course, in forced coldness or real apathy. 
 Let him afterwards photograph the same subject. On 
 comparing the sketch with the photograph, he will under- 
 stand the degree in which the fire of imagination affects 
 the forms of things. And what is still more astonishing at 
 first is, that he cannot believe that the photograph is true 
 at all, it seems as if there were something altogether 
 wrong about it. But if he sets up a threaded frame and 
 
128 The Relation between 
 
 deliberately measures the mountains by the reticulations of 
 the crossed threads, and then coldly copies them on a 
 sheet of paper ruled with lines answering to the threads, 
 he will prove the literal accuracy of the photograph. 
 There is another way to prove it. Let the painter look 
 at the same scene by starlight. In the daylight his imagi- 
 nation is excited by the mountains, and they seem to oc- 
 cupy the whole plane of vision, but at night it is not so : 
 then the stars tyrannize over the imagination and the moun- 
 tains all shrink into a narrow, black, irregular line, tamed 
 into absolute insignificance, and precisely like the brown 
 stain that represents them in the photograph. So that a 
 photograph of a range of mountains may be a good and 
 serviceable memorandum for a night picture, when they do 
 not affect the imagination much on account of their own 
 vacancy, and the stronger influence of the stars, and yet 
 quite inadequate for any powerful daylight effect when 
 the mountains themselves are mighty. 
 
 What we artists see is a vision of Nature through the 
 lenses that she has given us, our own human eyes bright- 
 ened or dimmed as may be with human joys and sorrows 
 and emotions. That vision thus transmitted is reflected in 
 the mysterious dark chamber of the skull, with a thousand 
 subtle changes and strange variations of unaccountable 
 fantasy. And it seems to me that although the scene is 
 God's work and sacred, the lens also, and the dark cham- 
 ber, are not less God's work, nor less sacred. Men's eyes 
 were not given them to be superseded by carefully ground 
 glass lenses of the best London manufacture. The glass lens 
 is a wonderful thing no doubt, very difficult to shape and 
 polish to its true surface curves, and the mahogany box is 
 a very accurate and well-made specimen of joiner's work ; 
 but what of the lens that is in the eye, and the box that 
 holds the brain ? The artist who would truly see Nature 
 must look at her works with the eyes that she lias given 
 him, and not see her at second-hand by the intervention of 
 a glass lens and a mahogany camera. 
 
 Unspeakably important to every student and the art- 
 ist is always a student is the great question of culture. 
 
Photography and Painting. 129 
 
 I hold culture so precious that hardly any sacrifice is to be 
 refused that may tend to its attainment, nor any advan- 
 tage accepted which impedes the pursuit of it. And art- 
 ist sought to remember that, as in most things a definite 
 price has to be paid for any assistance photography can 
 give, and that this price must be paid in the precise form 
 most fatal to ultimate success. I do not speak of expen- 
 sive chemicals, of nitrate of silver, and chloride of gold ; I 
 speak of what is incomparably more precious than either 
 silver or gold, the knowledge of nature. Every piece of 
 hard study a painter does from nature, however worthless 
 in itself, has compelled him to observe natural facts which 
 the photograph does not recognize and cannot render ; and 
 every time a painter substitutes photography for nature, 
 as a source of instruction, he misses many truths, inures 
 himself to many falsities, and pays fop the convenience of 
 having the photograph in the next print-shop instead of 
 travelling to see nature, in something more ruinous than 
 coin, he pays for it with part of his own faculties. In- 
 dolence, in whatever shape, lays this terrible tax upon us, 
 that it will be paid for out of ourselves. For every hour's 
 work that we avoid through indolence is so much strength 
 lost to us ; and though there is a help which benefits us, 
 there is another kind of help which only debilitates us. 
 Now, photography will help a painter in either of these 
 ways, according to his own choice. If he refers to it quite 
 independently and intelligently for the mere refreshment 
 of his memory, it will really be of great use to him, and 
 do him no manner of harm ; but if he puts his trust in it 
 when he ought to trust nature alone, if he blindly relies 
 upon it to save himself the trouble of working and learn- 
 ing from nature, it will put poison and death into all his 
 best and noblest faculties. 
 
 If an artist takes photographic memoranda for himself, 
 what process ought he to employ ? 
 
 A great many processes have been employed by different 
 photographers since the days of Niepce, but of these, three 
 only concern us, the wet collodion, the waxed paper, and 
 the dry collodion. 
 
 9 
 
130 The Relation 'between 
 
 The wet collodion is scarcely eligible for an artist's own 
 practice on account of its well-known uncertainty, and the 
 cumbersome apparatus it requires ; and because it is neces- 
 sary to excite the film immediately before exposure, and 
 to develop the image, and fix it, immediately after, so that 
 it always consumes a great deal of daylight time, far more 
 than anybody would think who only considered the few 
 seconds or minutes of actual exposure. There are circum- 
 stances, however, where it is worth while to employ the 
 wet collodion. 
 
 When a painter is collecting memoranda for a large pic- 
 ture, a picture of sufficient value and importance to 
 make it worth his while to take a great deal of trouble 
 in obtaining records of every fact in the scene which may 
 be of use to his great work, it will repay him to set up 
 on the spot a complete photographic and artistic camp, in 
 which one tent or hut would be exclusively devoted to the 
 photographic department. With such preparations, but 
 not conveniently without them, it is possible to pursue the 
 wet collodion process ; and about a dozen negatives of dif- 
 ferent degrees of exposure, which exposure is not to be 
 regulated according to photographers' rules, but according 
 to the painter's wants, would afford the artist a mine of 
 facts for reference. 
 
 For travelling and sketching artists, on the other hand, 
 who do not collect memoranda for some especial work, 
 but merely to enrich their collections at home, the wet 
 collodion process is altogether unsuitable. When you 
 work in wet collodion, you must be content to sacrifice a 
 whole day to it at once. Now, travelling artists seldom 
 give more than two days to one place, and they could not 
 sacrifice one of them to photography. Such artists, if 
 they employ photography at all, require some process 
 which will allow of the separation of the different opera- 
 tions, so that the exposure alone shall occupy daylight 
 time, whilst the preparation and development may be 
 done by candlelight at home, on the preceding and sub- 
 sequent evenings. 
 
 The waxed paper process offers this advantage. After 
 
Photography and Painting. 131 
 
 doing a good day's work in drawing from nature, a 
 painter may prepare his sheets of waxed paper, and 
 render them sensitive ; then put them by in a portfolio, 
 and the next day get a few photographic memoranda by 
 exposing his papers in the camera in the intervals of 
 work. He merely transfers the exposed papers to 
 another portfolio, without troubling himself about de- 
 velopment, which he does afterwards at home in the 
 evening. All this sounds wonderfully convenient; but 
 as I have practically tried it with much perseverance, I 
 may be allowed to indicate a few drawbacks. 
 
 The paper process is objectionable for several reasons. 
 1st. The sheets do not retain their full degree of sensi- 
 bility long enough to be very convenient ; for I have 
 found in practice that more than one-half of them were 
 lost on account of the weather, which did not always 
 allow of their being used whilst still serviceable. 2d. 
 The time of exposure is so long as to make the process 
 useless for what is transitory in nature ; so that it is im- 
 possible to obtain a good paper negative, even of foliage 
 except in the very calmest weather, when the leaves will 
 remain quiet for twenty minutes or half an hour together. 
 This length of exposure, too, makes the process costly 
 in point of time. 3d. The negative, when obtained is 
 seldom sufficiently minute in detail to be of more use 
 than a careful drawing. 4th. The idea that the develop- 
 ment costs no daylight time merely because it is done 
 in the night is fallacious. I used to find it impossible to 
 do any good early on a summer's morning, after having 
 been kept out of bed the greater part of the night to 
 watch the slow development of a series of negatives, 
 In camp, this interruption to the night's repose is in- 
 tolerable. After working hard all day, an unbroken 
 sleep is necessary to the success of the morrow's labor, 
 and the candlelight time of the night will be paid for 
 in the daylight time of the morning it could not be 
 paid for more dearly. 
 
 The dry collodion remains. This process is now gen- 
 erally adopted for landscape, on account of advantages 
 
132 The Relation between 
 
 similar to those possessed by the waxed paper, and two 
 important advantages which the waxed paper does not 
 possess. A glass plate, with a film of dry collodion upon 
 it, will keep fit for use during a very long time for 
 twelve months certainly without any appreciable dimi- 
 nution of sensitiveness. It will also afford great delicacy 
 of detail. 
 
 I have not yet practised this process myself, and am, 
 consequently, not qualified to speak from experience, as 
 I did with regard to the two preceding processes ; but it 
 seems to me the most eligible one for a painter, because 
 it admits of a complete division of labor, by wnich all 
 the chemical work may be allotted to a practical chemist, 
 and the -choice of subject and exposure of the plate alone 
 reserved for the artist. By this system I could have 
 plates sent here from London, already sensitive and fit 
 for exposure, at any time during twelve months. After 
 having exposed them, I could return them to London 
 and have them developed in the laboratory, where they 
 were rendered sensitive. Thence they would be forwarded 
 to a printer of positives, who would print me a positive or 
 two from each plate: so that by this perfect division of 
 labor, the only time I should have to expend would be 
 the five minutes of exposure ; and the only apparatus I 
 need ever burden myself with would be a folding camera 
 and a box of sensitive plates. 
 
 Whatever photographic process an artist may pursue, 
 I hold it, however, quite a settled question that he ought 
 never to print his own positives. There are plenty of 
 positive printers in London who will do it for him on 
 reasonable terms, and so relieve him of an unnecessary 
 burden of labor. 
 
 Since few artists are likely to practise photography for 
 themselves, it is as an independent art that it is likely to 
 influence ours. Let us see how far that influence is likely 
 to extend. 
 
 I concede the title of " art " to photography, but not in 
 its highest sense. The photographer is so hampered by 
 conditions that he cannot be an artist in the true sense, 
 
Photography and Painting. 133 
 
 because he does not enjoy the least intellectual freedom. 
 He is rather the slave of the camera than its master ; and 
 though great skill and, science are needed to serve the 
 camera well, the soul of the photographer has nothing to 
 do with the result ; and makes no farther communication 
 to the spectator than this simple one : " I, such an one, 
 chose this subject." 
 
 I have said already how much I rejoice in the passing 
 away of the old jealousy with which photography used 
 to be regarded by painters. And the better its peculiar 
 powers are understood and applied, the less chance will 
 there be that these feelings of jealousy can ever possess 
 any but the most ignorant and incapable artists. For my 
 own. part, though knowing as a painter only can know, 
 how far the photograph falls short of that absolute natural 
 truth which thoughtless people are so ready to attribute to 
 it, I hold the science precious in a thousand ways. It 
 would take a whole volume to recount the services which, 
 photography has already rendered to the world, and another 
 to foretell some of its most obvious future benefits ; but, 
 as I am concerned here only with its relation to the art of 
 painting, I shall endeavor to point out one or two of the 
 principal reasons why we artists ought to be truly grate- 
 ful to the illustrious men who discovered it, and to those 
 scarcely less illustrious laborers who have brought it to 
 its present marvellous state of perfection. 
 
 First of all, photography has relieved painters of nearly 
 all the soulless drudgery they used to have to go through 
 formerly, and so has wonderfully elevated them as artists 
 by defining the true sphere of their work. For the ques- 
 tion which photography is making everybody ask, " What 
 is the good of painting ? " is precisely the question which 
 everybody in England must ask, and get answered satis- 
 factorily, before there is any chance of our art taking its due 
 place amongst the occupations of men. When I show my 
 photographs to people who do not care for art, I observe 
 that they often ask this question, a question which, I on 
 my part, find it very difficult to answer in a manner, and 
 within limits which must be polite and not didactic. How 
 
134 The Relation between 
 
 shall I answer it here ? How shall the true answer to it 
 ever be given in one sentence, or page, or chapter, or 
 volume ? For to answer this question rightly would be to 
 explain the whole art of painting, a matter of some magni- 
 tude and one not easily set forth in words, however well 
 arranged. 
 
 Here is an abstract of the answer, however, not likely 
 to be very satisfactory, I fear, to the people who usually 
 ask the question, yet the best I can find just now. 
 
 The good of painting is that it represents the relations 
 of truths of nature (1st) to each other, and (2d) to the 
 heart and intellect of man. 
 
 Photography represents facts isolated from their natural 
 companions, and without any hint of their relation to- the 
 human mind. 
 
 Now it is only the unity of relation that can satisfy the 
 artistic sense, not isolated fragments ; and, therefore, so 
 long as the artistic sense remains in the human organi- 
 zation, the demand for pictures will certainly continue. 
 
 I wish I could make perfectly clear what is that unity 
 of relation which is so satisfactory to the artistic sense ; 
 but that, in these limits, is impossible. It is enough to 
 say here that any perfect " whole " in a pictorial repre- 
 sentation of nature must include delicate colors and beau- 
 tiful forms, all helping each other to the utmost, like a chorus 
 of well-trained singers, and that in the arrangement of it 
 all a great human soul must manifest itself, just as the soul 
 of Handel does in a chorus from the Messiah. 
 
 But in the photograph we have only a fact or two 
 clearly stated, but not in their natural connection with 
 other facts ; far less in their deeper and more mysterious 
 connection, which the genius of great imaginative artists is 
 alone able to apprehend. 
 
 Therefore the division of labor likely to take place 
 between photography and painting is. this. Photography 
 will record isolated facts of which an infinite number 
 always need recording. Painting will concern itself with 
 the relations of associated truths and beauties. 
 
 And let each keep to its own task. The photograph can 
 
Photography and Painting. 135 
 
 never successfully encroach on the province of painting ; 
 and henceforth let us hope that painters will never again 
 commit the rash imprudence of attempting to intrude 
 upon the peculiar domain of the photograph. 
 
 In the few instances where photographers have at- 
 tempted to produce something resembling historical 
 pictures, by arranging models and furniture, and pho- 
 tographing the tableaux vivants so obtained, the effect 
 produced on the spectator was always the simple fact 
 that he was looking at a photograph of dressed-up 
 models and carefully arranged furniture; any thing far- 
 ther from a true picture it would be impossible to con- 
 ceive. The naivete of the mistake on which this spurious 
 art was founded is really amusing. The photographers 
 fancied that the painters merely copied their models, and 
 so thought it easy to rival them. Why, even the very 
 severest and most rigid pre-Raphaelites use the model as 
 little more than a stimulus, an authority, or a suggestion. 
 Copy the model indeed ! I should like to know where 
 on earth Hunt could have found a woman capable of 
 assuming and retaining that marvellous expression of 
 beatitude that illuminates the sweet face of Mary when 
 she finds Jesus in the Temple. That expression, which 
 is the most mighty thing in the whole picture, the 
 mightiest, I mean, over the hearts of all men and women 
 who can really feel any thing, was gotten out of the 
 painter's own soul, not from any hired model whatever. 
 And the other intense expression of maternal love in 
 the " Rescue," by Millais, whence .came it ? From the 
 model, think you, or from the mind of the painter? 
 And not only expression, but even the subtle play of 
 delicate line in the works of the great designers, even 
 that is not copyism, nor to be got at by copyism such as 
 the camera may rival. 
 
 I need not do more than refer in this place to the 
 odious vulgarity of the common stereoscopic scenes of 
 domestic life : the weddings and christenings, where a 
 sham clergyman in a pasteboard church unites a neatly 
 shaven model husband to a modest model wife ; or a 
 
136 The JKelation between 
 
 miserable infant, which at the tender age of three months 
 has commenced its professional career as a model, is held 
 for the hundredth time at a sham font to be christened 
 by the same dreary sham clergyman who officiated at the 
 sham wedding. We will leave these abominations to 
 prosper .in peace, which, being intensely vulgar, they are 
 very sure to do, under the patronage of a discriminating 
 public. 
 
 And, on the other hand, what a lamentable waste 
 of labor it is when artists forget all about the mutual 
 relation of things, to copy unmeaning details in long 
 months of labor, which any good photographer would 
 obtain in infinitely greater perfection with an exposure 
 of as many minutes! The mere fact that photography 
 does this sort of work so unapproachably well, should 
 be enough of itself to warn our young painters from 
 engaging in it. Anybody who wants a plain fact about 
 a piece of cliff' or castle-wall can get it in a photograph 
 for a few shillings : then why should he spend pounds 
 for. a picture which will give him nothing more ? But 
 the relation of the castle or the cliff to the heaven 
 above or the water beneath, and to -the minds of men 
 the significant stains of color upon it, the grandeur of 
 its enduring strength, the deep human feelings that it 
 ought to kindle in the spectator's heart these things 
 are the exclusive domain of the painter, and he should 
 never sacrifice the least of these to mere literal fidelity 
 of detail. 
 
 Some attempts have been made lately by our most 
 observant and laborious young painters to mirror nature 
 with absolute accuracy. I have tried for this myself, and 
 tried hard too ; but on comparing carefully the results I 
 obtained with those given by the photograph, I felt that 
 our two paths lay in quite different directions. What 
 I honestly meant for simple topographic painting, and 
 believed to be such, I discovered on comparing it with 
 photographs of the same subjects to be any thing but 
 literally accurate, though it seemed to me, and to every- 
 body else, much more like the scene than the photograph. 
 
Photography and Painting. 137 
 
 But all really accurate mirror painting would, in outline 
 at least, exactly coincide with photography. And I 
 see some reason to doubt whether it was ever intended 
 that men should devote their lives to this work of the 
 mirror, since Nature has given us this wonderful science 
 of photography, as it seems expressly for this very 
 purpose. 
 
 The service rendered by the stereoscope in the record- 
 ing of facts is much greater than people are ordinarily 
 aware of. In all photographs except stereoscopic ones, 
 there is a certain unnatural confusion in their flatness, 
 an uncertainty as to whether one detail is nearer to the 
 spectator than another. This uncertainty painters avoid 
 by wilful exaggeration of relief, and other artifices ; but 
 the stereoscope removes it altogether, by making us see 
 two distinct images of the same object at once from 
 different points of view, exactly as we do in looking at 
 Nature from the two different windows of our two eyes ; 
 the consequence of which is, that we grasp the details by 
 the two sides and detach them from the general confusion 
 of mere flat one-eyed vision, such as the ordinary photo- 
 graph gives us. The stereoscope renders then a very 
 peculiar and valuable service to photography, by making 
 it infinitely more legible as a record of fact ; and I do not 
 believe that a painted record of any mere fact of form, 
 however delicately done, can ever equal a shilling stere- 
 oscopic slide. I am not speaking here of color, because 
 color is so changeable as not to be very desirable in plain 
 mirror-like copyism of facts. We are not now speaking 
 of beauty nor of feeling, two things belonging almost 
 exclusively to fine art : we are speaking of the authentic 
 recording of facts of permanent interest ; and I mean to 
 say, not that color is not precious, for no painter could 
 think that, but that, as a fact of permanent interest, 
 perfect accuracy in the masonry of a building may be of 
 more consequence than the color of its mosses. 
 
 Now, as a record of plain ordinary matters of fact, the 
 photograph is perfectly reliable, and all good painting is 
 unreliable. You cannot, for instance, when looking at the 
 
138 The Relation between 
 
 most labored picture on the walls of the Academy, be 
 quite sure that, if you count the stones in a castle-wall, 
 you will ascertain the number of real stones in the real 
 castle-wall ; on the contrary, you may be quite sure that 
 no such degree of accuracy is to be got from any painter. 
 But a photograph would have given you the fact quite 
 precisely. And in this quality of perfect reliableness for 
 plain every-day facts lies the peculiar value of the photo- 
 graphic art. It cannot give us one picture, but it will 
 give us millions of most reliable memoranda containing an 
 infinite amount of useful information. It cannot give the 
 most precious truths of nature, but there is no testimony 
 so trustworthy for large classes of ordinary facts, such as 
 all the world wants. 
 
 The discovery of photography was contemporaneous 
 with the immense increase of a certain want which it per- 
 fectly supplied. A kind of art was wanted which should 
 record simple facts, and do it cheaply. A poor soldier's 
 wife can now get a more authentic miniature of her 
 husband for one shilling, than a rich lady could have pro- 
 cured a century ago for a hundred pounds. An emigrant 
 in Australia can have a picture of his father's house, with 
 every well-known and beloved detail, for less money than 
 a common artist would charge for a bad pencil sketch. 
 An architectural student can buy reliable records of every 
 building of any consequence in Europe for a few shillings 
 each, any one of which is of more value to him than, a 
 whole library of engravings. A mechanic may get for the 
 price of an evening's carouse at the alehouse a portrait of 
 his favorite engine on the nearest railway, done in a few 
 seconds, on a bit of glass varnished with collodion, and 
 that so marvellously, that the most exquisite Dutch 
 picture is as coarse as a Haydon in comparison ; and so 
 strict and rigid in its accuracy of hard, exact, mechanical 
 detail, that the best' draughtsman in England might have 
 toiled for months without approaching its microscopic 
 fidelity. A landed proprietor living at a distance from his 
 estate may easily inform himself of the condition of his 
 farm-buildings, and of the progress of external repairs and 
 
Photography and Painting. 139 
 
 alterations, by commissioning a photographer to send him 
 from time to time a photographic report, which cannot 
 possibly be falsified by his agent ; and an emperor may 
 inform himself, by weekly photographs, of the progress of 
 public works in the remotest corners of his empire, and 
 see, stone by stone, the growth of every fortress on his 
 frontier. 
 
 Photography fears no labor, and is not fastidious. 
 With good atmospheric conditions and pure chemicals, it 
 does not in the least signify to the photographic camera, 
 whether you set it to copy a Lancashire factory, or a sculp- 
 tured cathedral ; it will do either the one or the other 
 accurately, but with utter indifference. Photography has 
 neither feeling nor choice ; it is an unconscious slave, dead 
 to all affection. Therefore it does well and thoroughly all 
 that heartless, mindless work, which the old topographic 
 draughtsmen used to do so badly and inadequately ; for if 
 it has no affections, it has no repugnances, and will copy 
 the ugliest house in England, and give you every foolish 
 ornament, as if it were a gem of sculpture from a frieze of 
 Phidias. In short, it will do precisely that kind of unin- 
 tellectual, but accurate copyism of miscellaneous objects, 
 which a true artist has no business with, and neither 
 betray the impatience of the painter, nor the mockery of 
 the caricaturist. 
 
 By doing this drudgery cheaper than it can be done by 
 hand, the direct tendency of Photography is to elevate the 
 position of the painter, since it restricts him more and 
 more to the intellectual fields of art, ar^d must lead, sooner 
 or later, to a truer definition of his calling. 
 
 As a means of art education, its influence on the public 
 is salutary. In spite of all its falsities, photography is 
 the best teacher of the first element of criticism, the 
 knowledge of the Facts of Form. It also supplies, what 
 was very much wanted, a court of appeal whose impar- 
 tiality is unimpeachable. On such matters of fact as the 
 structure of a particular kind of rock, or the ramification 
 of some definite species of tree, it is now frequently 
 possible to decide a question by reference to a pho- 
 
140 The Relation between 
 
 tograph which formerly would have remained open to 
 unceasing dispute. 
 
 Photography can neither color nor compose ; there- 
 fore color and composition in painting will be felt to be 
 more precious than ever, and the lovers of intellectual 
 art will prize its peculiar attributes yet more highly when 
 they come to perceive the immense distance which these 
 two mighty powers place between it and all photographic 
 imitations of nature. 
 
 As a reproducer of works of real art Photography is very 
 precious. How inimitably it renders the magnificent 
 sculpture of the noblest Gothic architecture, the charac- 
 ter of every statue being so perfectly given, without the 
 intervention of any second person's feeling, that it is just 
 as good to see one of these photographs as the thing 
 itself, and travelling for architectural study becomes 
 almost needless. And then the precious details of mould- 
 ering stones that no painter would ever copy with rev- 
 erence enough ; their texture rendered, as our art can 
 never hope to render texture, not by coarse dragging of 
 opaque color over sticky surfaces of varnish, but by fair 
 honest drawing, inconceivably minute, of every micro- 
 scopic shadow cast by the projecting grains of rough stone. 
 I have one of these photographs before me. It is of the great 
 central doorway of Amiens Cathedral, taken obliquely, so 
 as to show that half of the arch that the sunshine fell 
 upon, whilst the other is not seen, being too much fore- 
 shortened for its details to be easily distinguished, even if 
 they were not lost in a black depth of exaggerated shade. 
 There is, consequently, rather more than one-half of the 
 sculpture visible. Now, in the visible part, I have just 
 counted thirteen great statues, and a hundred and forty 
 smaller figures, without including those in twenty-six bas- 
 reliefs. Here is a whole collection of the best and noblest 
 fine art in the world, placed by photography within every- 
 body's reach for a few francs. I remember how Mr. Rus- 
 kin, in his pamphlet on pre-Raphaelitism, after alluding 
 with some bitterness and much justice to the general 
 silliness of our painters in their choice of subject, sent 
 
Photography and Painting. 141 
 
 the reader to a broken bas-relief at Lincoln to see if 
 his heart would not break too. And now in these few 
 short years nearly all the best old bas-reliefs in Europe have 
 been mirrored for us marvellously by collodion ; and the 
 great want that made the hearts of all true lovers of noble 
 architecture ache with grief and pain, is at last most 
 richly and abundantly satisfied. The photographers have 
 done this for us all ; let us warmly express our thanks and 
 appreciation. 
 
 For the reproduction of pictures many persons, and one 
 impersonal but not the less powerful entity, the Times 
 newspaper prefer photography to engraving. There is, 
 of course, the fatal objection about the insensibility to 
 yellow rays in the negative, with the result that what is 
 yellow in the picture comes black in the positive, so that a 
 golden sunset cannot be photographed at all ; and although 
 a yellow dress in a figure picture may be of less conse- 
 quence, it is nevertheless certain that the arrangement of 
 light and shade in pictures containing yellow will always 
 be lost in the photograph. But to balance this the advo- 
 cates of photography insist with much truth on the absolute 
 fidelity with which it renders the touch peculiar to each 
 painter, and also the unapproachable perfection of its ren- 
 dering of expression. The present state of the question 
 appears to be this : pictures that will translate tolerably 
 into photography are photographed, whilst the others are 
 let alone for the present. Mr. Ruskin thinks that pho- 
 tography will supersede engraving, but not engravers, 
 who, he believes, will find easier and more agreeable 
 employment in translating pictures into black and 
 white pen drawings, to be afterwards reproduced by 
 the photograph. By this intervention of the draughts- 
 man, we should have a gain and a loss, the gain in 
 the truth of light and shade, no longer revolutionized 
 by the photograph's exclusive sensibility to actinic rays ; 
 the loss in the authentic and autographic qualities of 
 touch and expression. A third, and far more perfect 
 way in which paintings by living artists might be multi- 
 plied for the public, would be if they, and not the 
 
142 The Relation between 
 
 engravers, did the translation into light and shade, the 
 pen drawing, which might be afterwards fac-similed by 
 the photograph. Thus, by a procedure more certain, and 
 better within command than etching, original and authentic 
 work, of first-rate quality, might become attainable at a 
 very moderate price. The engravers would, of course, 
 still be necessary for the interpretation of all dead artists, 
 and of such living ones -as were too much occupied with 
 painting to have time or inclination for this pen drawing. 
 
 Painters who are accustomed to design a carefully 
 finished cartoon in black and white before beginning to 
 paint, may, at any rate, have their cartoons perfectly 
 reproduced by photography without the intervention of 
 any draughtsman or engraver; and such reproductions are 
 so perfectly autographic as to possess a far higher value 
 than any kind of engraving. The only objection to this 
 is, that the cartoon is never so minutely careful in exe- 
 cution as the finished picture. 
 
 In favor of the photographic reproductions of oil-pic- 
 tures it is right to observe that, although entirely false 
 in all such light and dark as depends upon color, they 
 are far nearer to the picture in the reproduction of its 
 light than photographs taken from nature are to natural 
 light. There are, at any rate, in photographs from pic- 
 tures, none of those great spaces of white or black 
 vacancy which distress and dissatisfy us so much in pho- 
 tographs from nature. Does the reader imagine that a 
 photograph from nature is any truer in its translation of 
 color ? Does he fancy, as I find some photographers do, 
 that the photographic rendering of pictures alone is false 
 in this respect, whilst the photographic interpretation of 
 nature is true ? It is astonishing to hear the objection 
 continually raised against photographs from pictures, that 
 they do not translate their color truly into black and 
 white as an engraving does, but change all its arrange- 
 ments, when the very people who make the objection 
 accept the photographic translation of Nature's coloring as 
 trustworthy. I suppose it is because they have only 
 looked at celebrated pictures, and have never really looked 
 
Photography and Painting. 143 
 
 at any natural scene ; but to anybody who has, the pho- 
 tographic interpretation of nature is considerably less 
 satisfactory than its interpretation of art. 
 
 With reference to drawings and etchings the objection 
 about actinic rays does not hold ; and the importance of 
 photography as a means of reproducing the most precious 
 uncolored works of elder art, is now fully recognized, 
 especially by artists. I have one or two of Raphael's 
 drawings, so perfectly reproduced that even the texture of 
 the paper Raphael used is accurately imitated on the 
 smooth albumen of the positive, and every stain of it too. 
 I remember how much Mr. Leslie used to enjoy a set of 
 photographs he had from Rembrandt's etchings, and how 
 thoroughly he appreciated the value of photography as an 
 authentic reproducer of such works. The photographic 
 reproductions of free sketches by great men are quite 
 above all competition by means of engraving. 
 
 The conclusions we have arrived at in the course of this 
 inquiry may be briefly summed up as follows : 
 
 Photography and painting are for ever independent of 
 each other, and there is no manner of rivalry possible 
 between them. Each has its own path. 
 
 Painting does. not need the help of photography, and in 
 practice can be little served by it, except for occasional 
 reference. 
 
 Because painting deals with truths not attainable by 
 photography, as the relations of light and color, and the 
 imaginative interpretation as opposed to the literal imita- 
 tion of nature. 
 
 Nevertheless, photographic memoranda of isolated facts 
 may, when intelligently consulted, be of much utility to 
 painters. 
 
 To art in general photography has rendered several ines- 
 timable services. 
 
 First, by relieving it of the drudgery of detailing com- 
 monplace facts where imagination and feeling are not 
 wanted, and a sense of beauty would only inflict unprofit- 
 able suffering on an artist who could not find any thing to 
 satisfy it. 
 
144 Photography and Painting. 
 
 And as leading, consequently, to a clearer understand- 
 ing on the part of the public of the nature of fine art as 
 distinguished from unintelligent copyism. 
 
 And as affording a sound basis for criticism by putting 
 within everybody's reach an encyclopaedia of the rudi- 
 mentary facts of nature. 
 
 And lastly, by reproducing works of real art in an 
 authentic and reliable manner. 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 145 
 
 VI. 
 WORD PAINTING AND COLOK PAINTING. 
 
 r I ^HE comparison between words and colors, as means 
 * for the expression of artistic ideas, has for a long 
 time possessed a great attraction for me ; and as it is a 
 matter which very closely concerns all workers in litera- 
 ture and painting, I intend here to offer such results as I 
 have been able to arrive at; so far, at least, as they 
 may influence the practical labors of those who write 
 or paint. 
 
 If we examine a single coat of arms, we shall at once 
 perceive that its describableness is due entirely to artistic 
 poverty. 
 
 " Paly wavy of six, or and azure, a lion rampant pean, 
 on a chief gules, three crosses fleury ermine." 
 
 I have selected the most elaborate coat I can recollect. 
 If I had chosen the most simple, as, for instance, " Ar- 
 gent a bend sable," the artistic poverty would have been 
 more evident. But a shield of fifty quarterings is infi- 
 nitely poorer, artistically, than the commonest natural 
 object, and therefore infinitely easier to describe. 
 
 For, first of all, there is no gradation in heraldry. The 
 colors are all crude; or, azure, and gules merely mean 
 gold leaf, ultramarine, and vermilion, just as they come 
 from the colorman's. 
 
 And again, the variety in the forms is finite ; it is even 
 exceedingly limited. "Paly wavy of six" a herald 
 knows at once what that means ; he has drawn it a 
 hundred times. " A lion rampant " the creature and 
 its three or four attitudes are kept in stock in every 
 heraldic mind ready for. immediate application. And the 
 cross fleury being a rigid, conventional form, is as easy to 
 remember as the -[- in algebra. 
 
 10 
 
146 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 Let us see whether we can make an equally accurate 
 description of some similar objects in nature. 
 
 " Paly wavy or and azure." There is often wavy or 
 and azure in sunset skies amongst the upper clouds ; but, as 
 every curve in it is full of unexpected and indescribable 
 changes, and every hue of it full of infinite, and most 
 subtle, and most inexplicable gradations, how can words 
 ever blazon this Divine heraldry at all ? There are lions 
 enough in Africa yet, in spite of English rifles ; but no 
 words can perfectly picture the least of their mighty 
 movements. " Pean," " ermine," " gules," " or," and 
 " azure ! " good enough for the splendor of lordly pride ; 
 but not good enough for one wreath of perishing cloud, nor 
 one feather in a wild duck's wing ! 
 
 Now all good writers who ever lived have frankly con- 
 fessed the impossibility of accurate description of natural 
 scenery in words. Good writers scarcely ever attempt it. 
 Their descriptions, even when most elaborate, are no more 
 than stimulants to the reader's imagination, rather trying 
 to make him imagine a scene for himself than vainly 
 endeavoring to convey to him a truthful picture of some- 
 thing he has not seen. All word description that goes 
 beyond this, though it may be highly accurate and inge- 
 nious, is, so far as the reader is concerned, positively use- 
 less. 
 
 For the accurate realization of a complex word descrip- 
 tion, even if it were possible, which it is not, would require 
 an effort of the intellect so enormous that not one mind in 
 a million would be capable of it, unless previously trained 
 for years to practical landscape painting. 
 
 Even the best word painting of our own day, whenever 
 it reaches a certain point of elaboration, is probably only 
 comprehensible by devoted students of nature, and they 
 always realize something else than the object described. 
 
 Word painting of the human figure seems easier than 
 that of landscape, because the varieties of human form are 
 restrained within more definite limits than the varieties of 
 mountains and clouds. But it is an error to suppose that 
 words are capable of any thing like accuracy even in figure 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 147 
 
 painting. The signalement attached to an ordinary French 
 passport is a kind of description where a rigidly proeaic 
 accuracy would be really of use, and is seriously attempted. 
 The object, of course, is to render the passport not trans- 
 ferable. But passports are transferable, notwithstanding 
 the signalement, and are very frequently transferred. A 
 young French lady, whom I know, was travelling very 
 lately with a passport which she might have transferred to 
 almost any other young French lady of her age and com- 
 plexion ; and as her complexion is the most usual in 
 France, her passport would have been available for most 
 of her young friends in case of an emergency. A simple 
 expedient is now open to continental governments which 
 would effectually render passports non-transferable. A 
 government has only to require that a photographic por- 
 trait of the bearer of every passport be printed from a 
 glass negative upon the paper of the passport itself, and 
 the passport would be of use to nobody but its owner. 
 That is to say, a government which desires to have the 
 signalements on its passports accurate must abandon wfrrd 
 painting, which cannot be accurate. 
 
 As an illustration of the difficulty of conveying a true 
 image of anybody by words, take the common case of a 
 child who has lost its mother at birth. If no portrait of 
 the mother exists, that child has no chance of ever getting 
 to know what she was like. All the neighbors know ; all 
 the child's elder relations know ; he is never tired of asking 
 questions about his mother, and they answer all his 
 questions as well as they can ; but they cannot, by means 
 of words, transfer to his brain the image of her which 
 exists so vividly in their own ; and he goes on through 
 life, actually surrounded by a thousand truthful portraits of 
 his mother, impressed on the brains of his friends and 
 contemporaries, not one of which, in spite of all his ardent 
 longing, will he ever be permitted to see. 
 
 The art of word painting has its secrets. Its first law 
 is brevity. It is not possible to produce, with an elaborate 
 word-picture, that single-stroke effect which makes the 
 power of an elaborate color-picture. For a long word 
 
148 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 description must first be read from beginning to end before 
 there is any chance of a perfect image being produced by 
 it ; and then the reader must gather up and fit together all 
 the parts of it like a child's puzzle-map no easy matter, 
 especially for indolent or half-interested readers. It is on 
 this account that long word descriptions are generally so 
 terribly fatiguing, and make such exhausting demands on 
 the reader's energy. 
 
 4 The next secret is to attempt nothing that words are 
 manifestly incapable of doing. It is needless to aim at 
 accuracy. Very rude, broad, imperfect sketching is all 
 that words are fit for. To try after imitative accuracy is 
 a mere waste of time, and is certain to make the reader 
 skip the passage, if he does not shut the book. 
 
 The object of the word painter being to make the reader 
 imagine a scene for himself, he must profoundly under- 
 stand the capacity of ordinary people's imaginations, and 
 take good care not to go beyond it. 
 
 The commonest trick of famous and clever word paint- 
 ers is to dazzle people by sounding phrases and brilliant 
 metaphors into the belief that they have really received a 
 very noble impression, when the whole force of the im- 
 pression, if analyzed, would be found to be due to the 
 music of the sentences and the splendor of the metaphors, 
 not to the natural scene which is the pretext for them. 
 
 Our best modern English word painters are, amongst 
 the poets, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, 
 and Keats, in order of excellence. 
 
 And of prose writers, Ruskin stands quite alone ; then 
 after him, but at a great distance, come about a dozen 
 others whom it is needless to particularize. 
 
 Of all these I give to Tennyson the first place. Even 
 Ruskiu, the best prose word painter who ever lived, 
 says that no description of his is worth four lines of 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Tennyson seems to me to understand the limitations of 
 word painting better than any other man. There is not 
 the slightest straining after unattainable fidelities in any 
 one of his descriptions. They go no farther than the 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 149 
 
 limits of the art allow ; and they are always exquisite as 
 far as they go. This is the highest praise that can be 
 given to any artist, because it implies his perfect concep- 
 tion of the boundaries of his art, and his mastery over all 
 that lies within those boundaries. 
 
 Shelley's painting has a remarkable resemblance to 
 Turner's, which I think no critic has hitherto pointed 
 out. There are the same splendor, color, and mystery; 
 the same love of clouds and water; the same unreality 
 and abstraction. It seems to me that if Shelley had 
 given himself a pictorial instead of a literary training, 
 he might, if he had lived, have rivalled Turner on his own 
 ground. 
 
 Byron's word painting is too passionate to be in any way 
 accurate. It owes all its power to fire of language and 
 strength of imagery. The reader is never really moved 
 by the scene described, but by the vivid images and allu- 
 sions it calls forth from the poet. 
 
 Scott's descriptions are affectionate and often very spir- 
 ited in their way, but not always artistic. They are 
 seldom pictorially conceived. They harmonize, however, 
 . very well with the vigorous human action of his characters. 
 His view of nature, though he seems to have enjoyed 
 color, was perhaps rather that of a sportsman happy to 
 be out in the open air than that of a devoted student of 
 landscape. 
 
 Keats might have made an excellent word painter if he 
 had lived ; but I do not share Mr. Ruskin's too humble 
 veneration for what he actually wrote. His words are 
 often very cleverly fitted in quaint odd ways, and do, no 
 doubt, attain a peculiar power which I dare say would 
 be difficult to imitate, if it were desirable, which it cer- 
 tainly is not. Mr. Ruskin himself is, when a little excited, 
 a much better writer of English than Keats, in his brief 
 career, ever came to be. 
 
 Wordsworth knew more of natural scenery than any 
 other writer not also a painter knew as much, I should 
 say, as many a professed landscape painter ; but as an 
 artist in words he attempted too much. I, who am a 
 
150 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 painter and who know the scenery Wordsworth described, 
 can vouch for the delicate truthfulness of his descriptions. 
 They contain evidences of observation very rare in liter- 
 ature ; but they are without effect on readers ignorant of 
 landscape, because they require powers of memory and 
 imagination in the reader, which no reader who is not a 
 profound observer of nature can possibly possess. 
 
 Mr. Ru skin's art of description in prose is in every way 
 wonderful. He complained somewhere that his readers 
 missed the arguments in his books, and dashed at the 
 descriptions. A novel complaint truly ! What author but 
 Mr. Ruskin ever found his descriptions dangerously seduc- 
 tive ? Other people's descriptions are skipped habitually 
 by the prudent reader. Mr. Ruskin's, it appears, do posi- 
 tive injury to the graver and more argumentative parts of 
 his writings. He is decidedly the first author who has 
 made landscape description too attractive. And when we 
 try to get at the reason for this attractiveness in his word- 
 pictures, we very soon see that it is mainly owing to an 
 unusual magnificence of language, and a studied employ- 
 ment of metaphor. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte was by no means a weak sketcher in 
 words : many of her descriptions prove great literary 
 power. They are more concentrated than Mr. Ruskin's, 
 but neither so profound nor so grandly conceived. 
 
 Thackeray has great and stirring powers of description, 
 which he too seldom exercises. 
 
 Marian Evans does really good landscape sketching, of' 
 an intensely truthful character. There are no better 
 quiet pictures in their way in any literature than the 
 brief ones which occur in "Adam Bede," and the " Mill 
 on the Floss." 
 
 George Sand has a passionate love for nature, with the 
 intensest feeling. She understands the expression of land- 
 scape, and renders it with great power. Her interest in 
 landscape seems to strengthen as she grows older, her 
 latest novels being remarkable for their evidence of close 
 and recent observation of nature. Her descriptions are 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 151 
 
 thoroughly masterly arid artistic, and I rank them very 
 high as specimens of what may be done with words. 
 
 Lamartine's are less passionate, more contemplative, 
 more elaborately worked out as a whole, less elaborately 
 perhaps in the most essential and significant details. In 
 his prose they often become extremely tiresome, but 
 never in his verse, whose exquisite construction carries the 
 reader on. 
 
 Of these writers I will take Tennyson, giving extracts 
 from him only, for the limits of my space would not allow 
 of an adequate study of the others. 
 
 And first, I am sorry to say, the Tennyson pictures are 
 by no means numerous. There are scarcely fifty of them 
 in all. So little faith has this prince of poet laudscapists 
 in the powers of verbal art, that he employs it very rarely 
 and very briefly. 
 
 The first that occur are in " Mariana." 
 
 With blackest moss the flower-plots 
 
 Were thickly crusted, one and all : 
 The rusted nails fell from the knots 
 
 That held the peach to the garden-wall. 
 The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : 
 
 Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 
 
 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
 Upon the lonely moated grange. 
 
 Here there is no attempt at form, and little at color. 
 The moss is simply all described as blackest. This is near 
 enough for poetry ; but a painter knows that this black 
 moss would, in nature, be full of purples and greys infin- 
 itely various. The gradations in the moss on the flower- 
 plots are not so much as alluded to, for a volume of 
 description would not have conveyed them to the reader's 
 mind. The sadness and strangeness of the broken sheds 
 may, however, be mentioned verbally, because these are 
 mental feelings, which are the peculiar province of lan- 
 guage. It is not the broken sheds that are in themselves 
 sad, but their appearance excites that feeling in the poet, 
 who conveys the feeling to his reader when he could not 
 
152 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 possibly convey the form. The extreme slightness of the 
 description of the grange itself is equally apparent : it is 
 lonely, and moated, and thatched, and the thatch is out of 
 repair no more. 
 
 Now, let us suppose that I were to select this subject 
 for a picture ; what then ? As Tennyson treats it slightly 
 in words, can I also treat the subject with equal slightness 
 on canvass ? 
 
 No. Because the art of color painting is so infinitely 
 superior to the art of word description that far more is 
 required of it, and it cannot be so rude and imperfect if it 
 would. I have already pointed out the impossibility of 
 painting moss as rudely as Tennyson describes it. For his 
 blackest moss I must set an elaborate palette of purples 
 and greys, with perhaps one touch of real black on one of 
 the nearer flower-plots ; whereas he blackens them all 
 alike, superlatively and indiscriminately, as if there were 
 no such thing as gradation in the world. 
 
 And then the forms of the mosses ? Every patch of 
 moss must, in a picture, have a form of some sort ; for in 
 nature every patch of moss has an outline designed on the 
 object it attaches itself to, which is not less delicate and 
 elaborate than the outline of England on the sea. Tenny- 
 son, of course, takes care not to talk about the forms of 
 the mosses ; he is too much of an artist to waste his words. 
 A poem the length of " Paradise Lost " would not de- 
 scribe accurately the form of the mosses on one of the 
 flower-plots. And the plots themselves ; how many were 
 there of them ? Tennyson did not count them : saw the 
 flower-plots in the vision, but took no heed of their number. 
 But in my picture my flower-plots must of necessity be 
 countable, and I must decide how many I will put. No 
 answer from the poet. But the painter cannot avoid these 
 details. His superior power of description is accompanied 
 by the need of larger and more accurate knowledge. 
 
 And the garden-wall, what were its height and length ? 
 Was it of brick or of stone? And the broken sheds; ruin- 
 ous we see, but how large were they, how shaped, and on 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 153 
 
 what side of the house were they situated? And then the 
 most important thing of all, the grange. Not one word of 
 architectural detail. The reader is to imagine, as he best 
 can, a moated grange, any old house with a ditch round 
 it will do. Tennyson knew that the imaginative reader 
 would make a very good moated grange for himself, and 
 that the dull, unimaginative reader would never be able to 
 realize the most elaborate description, so it was of no use 
 to attempt one. But no painting could possibly be so 
 vague. A house in a picture must have definite architect- 
 ural forms:* They cannot be dispensed with. And the 
 painter here, as in every thing else, requires hard knowl- 
 edge of forms and colors, where the poet will satisfy us 
 with a sweet sounding word. 
 
 The fourth stanza of " Mariana " contains a little de- 
 tailed foreground picture in the pre-Raphaelite manner : 
 
 About a stone-cast from the wall 
 A sluice with blackened waters slept, 
 
 And o'er it many, round and small, 
 The cluster'd marish mosses crept. 
 
 Hard by a poplar shook alway, 
 
 All silver green with gnarled bark : 
 For leagues no other tree did mark 
 
 The level waste, the rounding gray. 
 
 It would have been difficult to compress more of Nature 
 into so confined a compass of verse : but the reader will 
 easily see for himself that a painter would either have to 
 invent, or to seek out in Nature, a thousand details that 
 the poet has not given us. The shape of the sluice is not 
 mentioned, nor its size either, and the coloring of the 
 marish mosses is not even hinted at. The poplar was 
 silver green, but there are some millions of poplars in 
 France, " all silver green, with gnarled bark," so that this 
 does not amount to a description of any particular poplar. 
 So one might say of an Academy model, that she was " all 
 flesh color, with a smooth skin," but that would not amount 
 to a recognizable portrait of the individual woman. The 
 waste was level, and the horizon rounded the landscape 
 
154 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 with gray ; but every artist knows that in the flattest, dull- 
 est countries, there are no two landscapes alike, and yet 
 this sketch is as general as that of the poplar, and is ap- 
 plicable to any treeless flat. 
 
 It is like the opening sketch in " The Dying Swan : " 
 
 The plain was grassy, wild and bare, 
 Wide, wild, and open to the air, 
 Which had built up everywhere 
 * An under-roof of doleful gray. 
 
 But this is made rather more definite in character by 
 the distance, which is well put in, and true in effect : - 
 
 Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 
 And white against the cold white sky, 
 Shone out their crowning snows. 
 
 And the coloring of the mosses on the water is given 
 this time : 
 
 And far thro' the marish green and still 
 
 The tangled water-courses slept, 
 Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. 
 
 A painter, however, would have to know where the pur- 
 ple and green and yellow were, and what proportion of the 
 field of vision was occupied by each. And he would have 
 to paint not merely purple, but a thousand varieties of it ; 
 not merely green, but infinite gradations of bluish green, 
 yellowish green, and green much neutralized by red ; not 
 merely yellow, but delicate changes of gray and gold in 
 the yellow. For the painter goes so infinitely beyond the 
 writer in landscape, that the most detailed written pictures 
 are almost as crude as heraldic blazoning in comparison 
 with painters' work. 
 
 There are two magnificent lines in " Oriana : " 
 
 When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow 
 And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow. 
 
 It would take a painter a month to realize the first line 
 on canvas. When snow lies in the hollows of rough 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 155 
 
 land, it assumes outlines of a complexity quite infinite 
 and exceedingly difficult to draw. It is all very well for 
 a poet to say " ribb'd," and so have done with the diffi- 
 culty, just as he would say of a ship's hull in process 
 of construction, that it was " ribb'd," using the same word 
 for both. And it is the very word which gives so 
 much truth and value to the two capital lines which 
 Wordsworth made for Coleridge, and which Coleridge 
 used in the beginning of the fourth part of the "Ancient 
 Mariner : " 
 
 And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
 As is the ribbed sea-sand. 
 
 The poets may use the same word for snow in mountain 
 stream furrows, and sand corrugated by waves, but a 
 painter could not render both with the same kind of work. 
 In the one case, he would have to understand and declare 
 an immense variety of facts concerning mountain anatomy, 
 of which the poet might remain ignorant without injury to 
 his verse, and, in the other case, a totally different order 
 of facts concerning aqueous action on sand. 
 
 The " Lady of Shalott " opens with a charming descrip- 
 tion : 
 
 On either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; 
 And thro' the field the road runs by 
 
 To many-tower'd Camelot ; 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow 
 Round an island there below, 
 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowing down to Camelot. 
 Four gray walls and four gray towers, 
 Overlook a space of flowers, 
 And the silent isle imbowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
156 Word Painting and Color Painting. 
 
 This is the best and most perfect word-picture we have 
 yet come upon. Yet there is not one form in it, and only 
 the very slightest hint of color. The willows whiten, and 
 the walls and towers are gray, that is all the coloring. 
 Form there is none, except the length of the fields, if we 
 allow that shapeless length is indeed form at all. We are 
 told nothing of the height of the walls, nor of the sort of 
 battlements upon them, nor, indeed, whether they had 
 battlements. We are not even informed whether the towers 
 were round or square. To form any idea, whatever, from 
 such a description as this, it is necessary that the reader 
 should set his own imagination vigorously to work, which, 
 in fact, every reader does, according to his capacity, though 
 in most instances unconsciously. When I analyze the pic- 
 ture that rises before me on reading these two stanzas, I 
 find that I have little authority for it in Tennyson. It is 
 a composition formed from memories of scenes I know, 
 fitted together without the slightest regard for topography, 
 For the fields I see are English, like the scenery of Kent ; 
 and the road is English ; I confess to an anachronism in 
 the road, for the one I see is most decidedly macadamized ; 
 but " many tower'd Camelot " is, in my dream, not English 
 at all, but an old towered town on the Rhone, opposite 
 Avignon, with a few more towers and no modern nouses. 
 The island of Shalott is one I remember on the Yonne. 
 And the four gray walls and four gray towers are a rem- 
 iniscence of Wales. 
 
 The peculiar powers and defects which distinguish 
 word painting from color painting appear to be briefly 
 these : 
 
 Words describe the emotions of the spectator better 
 than the scene he sees. 
 
 They convey mental impressions, not material forms. 
 
 Colors convey material forms more accurately than 
 mental emotions. 
 
 Words are quite incapable of rendering form and color 
 in any but the very rudest way. They may, however, 
 indicate great delicacy of perception in the person who 
 uses them. 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 157 
 
 Colors, in skilful hands, may be made to render form 
 and hue so very accurately, that to have seen a good 
 topographical picture of a place is almost as good as 
 having seen the place itself. 
 
 Words may be very vague and still quite intelligible. 
 As, for instance, you may say " the church had a tower," 
 without so much as specifying whether the church was 
 built of brick or stone, in Gothic or classical architecture ; 
 whether it was large or small, old or new ; whether the 
 tower were tall 9r short, had a spire or not, &c., &c. 
 
 Colors, on the other hand, must be definite, or they 
 would cease to be intelligible. In a colored picture of 
 a church the architecture must not only be stated, but 
 worked out with some degree of detail, so that not only 
 would the spectator be aware at once what the architect- 
 ure and materials were, but he would receive an impres- 
 sion of a certain number of windows, &c. 
 
 Unless a word-picture is insufferably tedious, the facts 
 conveyed by it will be very few. 
 
 A color-picture will record innumerable facts without 
 becoming tiresome at all. 
 
 A word-picture, if long, cannot be combined into one 
 whole without a great intellectual effort on the part of 
 the reader. 
 
 A color-picture is combined into one whole by the 
 artist, and the spectator cannot, if he would, see one part 
 out of its relation to the other parts, whose influence it 
 cannot escape. 
 
 Artists in words can reach more brilliant effects of 
 light than artists in paint, because they recall the light 
 of nature. 
 
 Artists in color are bound down to dingy white lead. 
 
 Artists in words help themselves out by acoustic de- 
 scription; as, for instance, they add to the force of a 
 storm at sea by telling of the roar of the wind, the can- 
 vas rattling like musketry, the thunder pealing, and the 
 breakers dashing against the cliffs with a report as of 
 cannon. 
 
 Color art is silent. 
 
158 Word fainting and Color Painting. 
 
 Words may be true, because they go such a little way. 
 It is quite true, for example, that Rouen Cathedral is a 
 magnificent specimen of Gothic architecture. 
 
 But no picture of Rouen Cathedral ever was, or ever 
 can be, so absolutely true as the above statement, because 
 in all painting there must be innumerable little inactera- 
 cies of detail, owing to the imperfection of human handi- 
 work ; and yet, in painting, this cannot be avoided, as in 
 writing, by the total omission of detail, because in painting 
 such omission is direct falsehood in itself. 
 
 The office of the word painter is to get people to look 
 at art and nature, to pierce through their dulness and 
 indifference with earnest and powerful language. 
 
 The office of the color painter is to give an idea of 
 beautiful natural scenes to people living at a distance 
 from them. 
 
 I had not spacer in this Essay to compare the pictorial 
 and literary novel. I had intended to take Hogarth's 
 " Marriage a la mode " as an example of what may be 
 done in the pictorial novel on an elaborate scale, and 
 Cruikshank's " Bottle " series as a pictorial tale. I should 
 then have shown how far such works might be consid- 
 ered to contend with the literary novel in the delineation 
 of character. 
 
 The subject of this Essay, if developed in all its branches, 
 might very easily be made to fill a volume. For the sake 
 of any reader who is interested enough in the matter to 
 pursue it for himself, I will observe briefly : 
 
 That so far as the art of painting concerns itself with 
 man, as a subject, it is undoubtedly inferior, and very far 
 inferior, to written language. 
 
 For the art of painting renders the bodily shape and so 
 much of mind as the body expresses, but language reveals 
 the most secret thoughts. 
 
 Considered with reference to the body alone, painting 
 is as superior to writing as it is in landscape. 
 
 But considered as interpretations of mental character, 
 
Word Painting and Color Painting. 159 
 
 written narratives are quite incomparably superior to any 
 possible series of pictures. 
 
 Hogarth's famous series is as meagre, in comparison to 
 one of Fielding's novels, as a word-picture by Tennyson 
 to a pre-Raphaelite landscape. 
 
 We know the persons by sight, which is an advantage 
 the Novelists do not give us ; but we know very little 
 about them except their appearance. 
 
 People say that the character and history of each indi- 
 vidual are written on his face, so that such pictures as 
 Hogarth's ought to be as good a revelation of character 
 as a novel by Thackeray. 
 
 Such an assertion as this betrays a total want of ob- 
 servation. 
 
 For, in ordinary .life, does the aspect of a man, even 
 when combined with the chief visible facts of his history, 
 open for us his inner mind and life, and his secret history? 
 Not in the least. 
 
 And are bodily appearances easy to interpret ? I know 
 an unlucky peasant who was endowed with a great red 
 nose by nature: he is one of the most abstemious men in 
 England, yet enjoys the reputation of being a drunkard, 
 merely because his nose is red. If Hogarth had put him 
 in a picture, Mr. Sala, and other commentators, would 
 have moralized, on " the drunkard's " nose. 
 
 To compare word painting and linear drawing in stories 
 of human life it is only necessary to separate Thackeray's 
 illustrations to " Vanity Fair " from the novel itself, and 
 compare the two. The illustrations, without the novel, 
 would hardly, I think, convey a very full or adequate 
 idea of the characters. 
 
 Even Doyle's illustrations to " The Newcomes," which 
 are much better, are weak in comparison to the words 
 they illustrate. We could not guess the history and char- 
 acter of the Colonel merely from the pictures of him, still 
 less Ethel's. 
 
 For the novelist has always this immense advantage 
 over the painter, that he can ma*ke his characters utter 
 
160 Word Painting and Color fainting. 
 
 their own sentiments, and report to us the very words 
 they used. 
 
 The men and women that painters represent are all 
 dumb. 
 
 Again, the novelist can narrate a connected series of 
 mental changes and circumstantial events, whose neces- 
 sary development and final accomplishment may come 
 about very gradually and slowly. 
 
 The painter, on the other hand, can only give us de- 
 tached glimpses, each of one second of time. 
 
 This single-stroke effect, this concentration of the labor 
 of months to realize the effect of a moment, and that upon 
 a canvas which shall be comprehended at one glance, a 
 power which in landscape, gives the painter such an im- 
 mense advantage over the writer with his tiresome con- 
 secutiveness of detail, happens to be just as great a 
 disadvantage in the delineation of character, where the 
 literary process of consecutive revelation, not instantane- 
 ous illumination, is the process exactly suited to the 
 purpose. 
 
 In landscape and human physical form, nearly all the 
 advantages lie with color painting. 
 
 In illustrations of human character, all the advantages 
 are on the side of the writer. 
 
 For colors paint things best, but words convey thoughts 
 best. 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 161 
 
 VII. 
 
 TRANSCENDENTALISM IN PAINTING. 
 
 E connection between the word "transcendental" as 
 originally employed by Kant, and the same word as 
 I employ it in the present chapter, may be briefly indicated 
 before we consider the especial subject of the chapter 
 itself. 
 
 Kant used the word to designate the class of ideas exist- 
 ing in the human mind independently of experience. 
 Emerson calls all persons who rely on their own intuitions 
 rather than on the experience of others, Transcendentalists. 
 Transcendentalism in painting may be defined as the long- 
 ing to realize artistic ideals hitherto existing only in the 
 mind of the artist. Whether such an ideal is purely tech- 
 nical, as, for example, possible processes not hitherto 
 employed ; or artistic, in the restricted sense of composi- 
 tions of an order for which there is no precedent ; or scien- 
 tific, as natural effects yet unrecorded, the transcendental 
 tendency is to realize the dream and aspiration of the 
 artist's own mind, rather than simply to reproduce the 
 Results of other people's experience. 
 
 The transcendental state of mind is therefore directly 
 opposed to the whole feeling of the ordinary practical 
 intellect. The transcendentalist takes no interest in the 
 merely doing over again what others have done before him, 
 but kindles into enthusiasm with the exciting hope of real- 
 izing his own ideal. The practical man has no faith in 
 intuitions ; does not believe in the possibility of any thing 
 not yet actually done, and restricts all his action to the safe 
 and mechanical reproduction of such ideas of other men 
 as he has already seen embodied in material forms. The 
 two classes of men idealists and materialists are equally 
 11 
 
162 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 necessary to mankind, though necessary in very different 
 proportions ; and neither of these two classes has any right 
 to despise the other. 
 
 The transcendentalists think much, but usually produce 
 little ; the materialists produce much, but do not, in the 
 strict sense, think at all. The transcendentalists, however, 
 are accustomed to maintain that by mere thinking they can 
 increase their practical skill. 
 
 Thus it is said that Ole Bull, the celebrated Norwegian 
 violinist, arrived at his most wonderful effects less by man- 
 ual practice than meditation. He practised less, and 
 thought more, than other violinists. This is quite in keep- 
 ing with his reflections after hearing Paganini. Ole Bull 
 actually sold his last shirt to hear that mighty master, and, 
 having heard him, instead of saying like the crowd that 
 nothing new was possible after that, began to seek after 
 hitherto unknown effects that even Paganini had not dis- 
 covered. Both these facts indicate clearly that Ole Bull 
 was a musical transcendentalist, and his long retirement 
 confirms it. A true transcendentalist dislikes publicity, 
 and loves to cultivate himself in solitude. 
 
 No man has ever reached commanding eminence without 
 some touch of transcendentalism. Even in great con- 
 querors this spirit lurks and works. Their discontent with 
 the extent of their territorial dominion, and eager desire 
 to enlarge it, correspond to a similar feeling in the 
 philosopher with regard to the boundaries of present intel- 
 ligence. Conquerors are, in fact, the visible types an^, 
 examples of the intellectual conquerors, and Napoleon is 
 never so grand and commanding a figure as on the Alpine 
 snow. Every transcendentalist thrills with pleasure when 
 he hears of that passage of the Alps ; for he also would 
 cross the mighty barriers that bar him from the golden 
 fields. 
 
 The English mind does not welcome the transcendental 
 philosophy, because it prefers that sort of intellectual repose 
 which permits the most energetic and continuous labor. 
 Politically, the French, are transcendentalists, and the. 
 English not. The most practical minds have no love for 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 163 
 
 this philosophy, because they instinctively perceive it to be 
 a great hindrance to productiveness. It is impossible to 
 produce so long as we only dream about what we ought to 
 produce. This philosophy cannot become habitual either 
 in nations or individuals without destroying productive 
 energy. Its most salutary action is intermittent, by epochs. 
 Transcendental epochs are necessary to progress, but they 
 ought to leave us long intervals for hard, undoubting labor. 
 Else all this fine philosophy would end in mere weak wish- 
 ing, without the possibility of realization. 
 
 I have observed that in particular instances the abuse of 
 this tendency of the intellect has resulted in a permanent 
 state of intellectual lassitude and debility. It is, in fact, an 
 abuse of the ideal, or imaginative faculty, and will naturally 
 produce the same disastrous effects upon the mind that 
 sensual excesses do upon the body. Habitual transcenden- 
 talists in thought are any thing but transcendental in action. , 
 They surpass nobody ; and by waiting all their lives long 
 before deciding what to do are easily distanced by persons 
 of less imaginative power, but greater practical force. So 
 this philosophy is at the same time useful to a man's ambi- 
 tion, and dangerous to it. With regard to the arts, and 
 especially that of painting, I intend here to point out the 
 advantages of transcendentalism, and to indicate its peculiar 
 dangers. 
 
 In all labors there are three stages the mechanical, or 
 imitative ; the transcendental or reflective ; and the intelli- 
 gently practical. I do not say, mind, that every laborer 
 passes through all these stages. The vast majority stop at 
 the first ; a few reach the second ; still fewer attain to the 
 third. 
 
 It is obvious that to enter upon the second phase, that of 
 reflection, a new order of faculties is needed. Every human 
 being possesses in a greater or less degree the faculty of 
 imitation, or the tendency to dp what he has seen other peo- 
 ple do. But the skeptical or examining faculty, that which 
 looks ((TXfWojwat), is rarer, and it is this power which leads 
 men into the second or reflective phase. And, difficult as 
 it may be to enter this transcendental region, it is yet more 
 
164 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 difficult to pass through it, out on the other side, into the 
 third phase, the intelligently practical. 
 
 The men who remain always in the imitative stage are 
 useful to society as copyists and reproducers of other men's 
 thoughts. The men who get on as far as the second or 
 reflective stage, and stop short there, are of no good to 
 anybody that I see, except as a warning, and for their con- 
 tinual protest against low standards of criticism, and their 
 dissatisfaction with all imperfect and inadequate perform- 
 ance. But persons who have reached the third phase, and 
 are not only reflective but practical, usually achieve worthy 
 results. They attain to the highest mark their several 
 natures are capable of reaching. They are the best and 
 swiftest workers. Henceforth they lose no time. Knowing 
 the limits of art, they do not expect impossibilities. No 
 unforeseen difficulty arrests them. Having learned from 
 the transcendental philosophy the inadequacy of all means, 
 and yet the exact degrees of utility and availableness of 
 every material aid, and having lost the childish expectation 
 of too great and too immediate results ; having learned the 
 limits of their own powers, and ascertained by reflection 
 what objects they ought to strive for, these transcendental- 
 ists, when they do become practical, are the most intensely 
 practical of men. 
 
 In our art an intelligent critic would easily point out the 
 transceridentalists. The Prince of them all is Leonardo. 
 I have not at hand his Trattato della Pittura ; but in Rio's 
 life of him there is a passage very much to our purpose 
 which is founded on that treatise. " Pour lui, le peintre 
 dont les connaissances ne vont pas au-dela de son ouvrage, 
 et qui a le malheur d'etre content de lui-meme, est un 
 homme qui a manque sa vocation ; au contraire, celui qui 
 n'est jamais satisfait de son oeuvre, a toutes les chances de 
 devenir un excellent ouvrier. II est vrai qu'il produira 
 peu ; mais tout ce qu'il produira sera admirable et attray- 
 ant." This dissatisfaction with their own work is one of 
 the most striking characteristics of the transcendentalists. 
 Rio speaks elsewhere of " cet incurable me'contentement de 
 soi-meme qui le tourmentait sans relache et le fo^ait & 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 165 
 
 refaire ou k retoucher vingt fois la meme chose." Ludo- 
 vico Dolci, in his Dialogue on Painting, represents Leo- 
 nardo as "a sublime genius, always discontented with his own 
 works." Again, Leonardo used to say that theory was the 
 general, and practice the soldiers, thereby attributing a 
 degree of importance to theory, which, though perfectly 
 just, would never have been accorded by any merely prac- 
 tical person. Again, his strong, and in some respects un- 
 fortunate, tendency to extend the boundaries of his activity, 
 was quite transcendental. He was always seeking new 
 realms. His French biographer thus alludes to this dis- 
 position : " Cette disposition a etendre plutot qu' a affermir 
 ses conquetes intellectuelles, s'etait deja manifested chez 
 lui des son enfance, et ne le quitta plus pendant le cours de 
 sa longue carriere, a laquelle manqua toujours 1'unite de 
 but, non par Peffet d'une application superficielle, 'mais par la 
 promptitude avec laquelle des horizons nouveaux s'ouvraient 
 a son esprit." This continual opening of " new horizons " 
 is the element of general progress contained in the tran- 
 scendental philosophy, yet often disqualifies the individual 
 for signal success in his especial vocation. Leonardo, 
 indeed, aided the progress of both science and art 
 very appreciably, as I shall show in another place. 
 With respect to his artistic faculty, Rio says : " On peut dire 
 que, seul entre tous les artistes, par la force, la hauteur et 
 la souplesse de son genie, il s'eleva jusqu'a la synthese de 
 Videalisme et du realisme." He made endless preparations 
 before beginning a serious task, " preparatifs qui avaieut 
 pour unique but de satisfaire sa conscience d artiste." In 
 him the transcendental period does not appear to have 
 been limited to certain years of youth, but r.i her to have 
 alternated with his practical state at irregula;* intervals to 
 the very close of life. Thus, nobody could ever be sure 
 that he would execute a commission entrusted to him, 
 because, even when amongst his multifarious occupations, 
 he might have found time to do it, ten to one he would 
 just happen to be in his ideal or transcendental state, with 
 a settled conviction that all human labor was vanity, es- 
 pecially his own. Hence his great bronze statue, that was 
 
166 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 to have been, never got beyond the clay model. Italy 
 waited ten years whilst Leonardo prepared his studies for 
 this statue. He got it at length modelled in clay, and, in- 
 stead of casting it in bronze immediately, thenceforth took 
 no farther interest in the matter, so that the casting was 
 delayed till Ludovico could not furnish the bronze on 
 account of the war with France. Then the French sol- 
 diers came and amused themselves with shooting at the 
 clay model, which they found convenient as a target ; and 
 thus this great and noble work, universally recognized by 
 the Italians, during its brief existence, as the best of its 
 kind in Italy, wa"s lost for ever to the world. The portrait 
 of Mona Lisa was four years on Leonardo's easel. Vasari 
 says : " After loitering over it for four years, he finally 
 left it unfinished." His Adoration of the Magi in the 
 Uffizj is unfinished. In his Last Supper, at Milan, the 
 head of Christ was never finished, from incapacity on the 
 part of the artist to realize his too lofty ideal. It is related 
 that the Prior of the monastery where Leonardo painted 
 this work "could in no way comprehend wherefore the 
 artist should sometimes remain half a day together ab- 
 sorbed in thought before his work without making any 
 progress that he could see. This seemed to him a strange 
 waste of time, and he would fain have had him work away 
 as he could make the men do who were digging in his- 
 garden, never laying the pencil out of his hand." The 
 Prior complained of Leonardo's idleness to the Duke. 
 Leonardo condescended to explain to the Duke, " that 
 men of genius are sometimes producing most when they 
 seem to be laboring least, their minds being occupied in 
 the elucidation of their ideas, and in the completion of 
 those conceptions to which they afterwards give form and 
 expression with the hand." And with reference to the 
 slow progress of the equestrian statue, Vasari says : " there 
 is good reason to believe that the very greatness of his 
 most exalted mind, aiming at more than could be effected, 
 was itself an impediment ; perpetually seeking to add ex- 
 cellence to excellence and perfection to perfection." Some 
 Servite monks, who gave a commission to Leonardo, wish- 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 167 
 
 ing him to get on with it, conceived the hospitable, but 
 somewhat imprudent idea of lodging him and all his house- 
 hold, supplying the expenses of the whole. But he kept 
 them waiting a long time, and made no beginning. " At 
 length, however," says Vasari, " he prepared a cartoon." 
 Piero Soderini paid Leonardo every month whilst he 
 worked for him, but Leonardo did not complete the work, 
 and so honorably offered to return the money received. 
 " It is related," says Vasari, " that Leonardo, having re- 
 ceived a commission for a certain picture from Pope Leo, 
 immediately began to distil oils and herbs for the varnish, 
 whereupon the pontiff remarked : ' Alas ! the while, this 
 man will assuredly do nothing at all, since he is thinking 
 of the end before he has made a beginning to his work.' " 
 There seems to have been amongst Leonardo's customers, 
 a very general conviction that he was not to be relied upon. 
 Vasari, in a general observation on this characteristic, gives 
 a sufficient reason for it : " Leonardo, with his profound 
 intelligence of art, commenced various undertakings, many 
 of which he never completed, because it appeared to him 
 that the hand could never give its due perfection to the 
 object or purpose which he had in his thoughts, or beheld 
 in his imagination." In short, he was a transcendentalist, 
 too strongly imbued with that philosophy for sustained ac- 
 tion, yet far from being quite paralyzed by it, or we should 
 probably never have heard of him. His habit of seeking 
 for discoveries, even in the most ridiculous trifles, his end- 
 less longing after the unknown, and his aspirations towards 
 unattainable perfection, are so many signs and symptoms 
 of transcendentalism. He tells the Duke Ludovico il 
 Mauro that the difference between himself and the other 
 military engineers of his day is, that their warlike instru- 
 ments do not differ from those in common use, whereas 
 he has discovered secrets. I think it much to be regret- 
 ted that these tendencies should have possessed Leonardo 
 all his life. Up to thirty, he might have learned the 
 doctrines of this exacting and imperious philosophy ; but 
 at that age he was already great enough to have quitted 
 her schools. What a long life he lived ! and how richly 
 
168 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 he was gifted ! and what a poor, inadequate result he has 
 left in comparison with his astonishing powers and his 
 length of days ! A faded fresco on a broken plaster wall, a 
 few fair canvases, a treatise or two, and one short phil- 
 osophical poem ! He made some wonderful guesses and 
 discoveries, and achieved a colossal fame ; but so long as 
 his immortal name shall be remembered by men, it can 
 never be meditated on otherwise than mournfully. O 
 splendid Leonardo ! the many-sided ; a narrower nature 
 might have yielded more abundant fruit ! It is enough to 
 make one hate all transcendental philosophers to think 
 that so mighty a genius was all but lost to our art, because 
 he would play with their most benumbing and paralyzing 
 torpedo of a philosophy. 
 
 It is odd that the realists should be more disposed to 
 transcendentalism than what are called the idealists ; but 
 this seeming anomaly may be thus accounted for : The 
 realist compares his work continually with nature, whereas 
 the traditional idealist merely obeys certain prescribed 
 rules. Leonardo, the most transcendental of painters, 
 was so loyal to Nature as to assert that she alone was the 
 mistress of superior intellects. And you will always find 
 that the most intense realists in our art are the most ex- 
 posed to the seductions of the transcendental philosophy ; 
 for their endless striving after nature is a perpetual dis-* 
 couragement, and their best success seems to them bnt 
 failure. 
 
 Therefore, it is likely that this philosophy has never 
 had so many votaries in our art as now, when the victory 
 of the realist schools of Europe may be looked upon as 
 at last assured. Every other young painter in England 
 is a transcendentalist. There is small hope for those who 
 do not pass through this phase of intellectual experience. 
 
 This does not affect the truth of what I have just stated 
 at the beginning of this chapter respecting the general 
 rarity of transcendentalists. What I said was this : 
 
 " In all labors there are three stages the mechanical, 
 or imitative ; the transcendental, or reflective ; and the 
 intelligently practical. I do not say, mind, that every 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 169 
 
 laborer passes through all these stages. The vast major- 
 ity stop at the first ; a few reach the second ; still fewer 
 attain to the third." 
 
 I spoke, you perceive, of all labors, not of ours alone. 
 Now, if you take the mass of human occupations, you will 
 find that the most part are favorable rather to the imita- 
 tive than to the reflective man. In most trades reflection 
 and discovery are superfluous, generally positively injuri- 
 ous to the pocket. In the manufacturing districts, where, 
 I suppose, there is as much successful energy and ability 
 as you will readily find anywhere, the atmosphere is by 
 no means favorable to transcendentalism. Cotton manu- 
 facturers with an ideal turn usually ruin themselves by the 
 premature adoption of new, and as yet imperfect inven- 
 tions, and a want of steadiness in their habits of business. 
 If Leonardo had lived in Rochdale forty years ago, he 
 would have contributed very excellent inventions to the 
 cotton manufacture ; but he could never have profitably 
 worked a mill. Cotton spinners who take to studious and 
 meditative habits usually awake from their reveries to find 
 themselves in the Gazette. And so in other active and 
 busy trades. If you pause too much to reflect, you are 
 ruined. And, after all, if you can turn out as good twist 
 as your neighbors, at as low a figure, I see no reason why 
 you should bother yourself about inventions, as poor Sam- 
 uel Crompton did. In trade, invention may occasionally 
 lead to fortune, but as a general rule mere industry is 
 safer. This is so commonly understood by the more pru- 
 dent tradesmen, that they rest contentedly in the tradi- 
 tional or imitative stage, leaving the poor geniuses to 
 improve upon their instruments and machines. 
 
 But in our art the conditions are entirely reversed. A 
 painter who is a realist, does not merely compare his 
 paint with his neighbor's paint, is not satisfied merely 
 because he can turn out as good an article at as low a 
 figure as the rest of his trade, but, on the contrary, is 
 always comparing it with appearances in Nature, which 
 are quite other than paint, and with which all rivalry is 
 hopeless. The bitter and discouraging lessons that this 
 
170 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 continual comparison forces upon him, are to an intelli- 
 gent young painter nothing less than an elementary course 
 of transcendental philosophy ; and after learning a while 
 in this terrible school, there is no telling what will become 
 of him. His future fate, circumstances and his own degree 
 of strength must determine. He will either lapse into in- 
 activity and despair, in which case a speedy and total 
 change of profession is the best thing to be hoped for 
 him, or he will get through his transcendentalism as a 
 child gets through its teething, having thereby gained new 
 instruments for the acquisition of a stronger nourishment. 
 A great deal of the present prevalence of this philoso- 
 phy is due to Mr. Ruskin and the pre-Raphaelites. Mr. 
 Ruskin is almost as transcendental as Leonardo. And 
 here let me observe, in passing, that although the tran- 
 scendentalists are slow and unreliable as workmen, so that 
 when they begin any thing there is no telling whether they 
 will ever finish it, they are yet the best and most stimu- 
 lating of critics. Emerson, iii his Lecture on the Trans- 
 cendentalists, thus describes their critical tendency. He 
 speaks of " the extravagant demand they make on human 
 nature. That, indeed, constitutes a new feature in their 
 portrait, that they are the most exacting and extortionate 
 critics. Their quarrel with every man they meet, is not 
 with his kind, but with his degree. There is not enough 
 of him ; that is the only fault. They prolong the privilege 
 of childhood in this wise, of doing nothing, but making 
 immense demands on all the gladiators in the lists of 
 action and fame." No critic ever answered so precisely 
 to this description as Ruskin does. The immense service 
 he has rendered to our art has been by unceasing and im- 
 portunate demanding. He has never enough of good 
 things. He is possessed with so insatiable a hunger and 
 thirst for all that is excellent in art, that a thousand artists 
 toil from year to year without satisfying him. One might 
 give a list of the things he has asked for, and got, and yet 
 he is still asking. Let him ask ! for to demand, and exact, 
 and stimulate to nobler and sterner aims, are his office and 
 mission upon earth. Mr. Brett gave him chalk hills, and 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 171 
 
 he asked for the Val d'Aosta ; the Val d'Aosta was ac- 
 cordingly mirrored for him with a marvellous fidelity, and 
 then he wanted more of soul than the mirror gave. Once 
 he wanted apple-blossoms, and suddenly at his word the 
 walls of the Academy blossomed like an orchard. This 
 drew from him the observation that the greatest men did 
 not like flowers, so the flowers faded away from Trafalgar 
 Square. 
 
 In Mr. Ruskin's own work, the transcendental habits of 
 Leonardo are frequently betrayed. His long and careful 
 collecting of materials ; the extent of his range, including 
 architecture and painting as the most prominent subjects, 
 with politics and theology and literary criticism filling up 
 the background, occasionally to the detriment of the matter 
 in hand ; his absolute want of method and self-direction, 
 leading him in his best works to give us all sorts of disqui- 
 sitions having nothing whatever to do with the subjects of 
 the chapters where they occur ; his constant study of Na- 
 ture and ceaseless reference to her as the only authority ; 
 his contempt for tradition ; and, as an artist, his exquisite 
 refinement arid delicacy of hand, to be acquired only by the 
 severest self-criticism ; all these things are so many marks 
 and symptoms by which I know him for a transcenden- 
 talist. 
 
 And the effect Mr. Ruskin has had on our art may be 
 generally described in this manner ; namely, that he has 
 inoculated all our younger painters with more or less of 
 his own transcendental tendencies. All the best painters 
 now alive in England are striving with all their might, 
 either to paint what no one else ever painted before, or, if 
 their subjects are old ones, to treat them more truly than 
 they ever were treated before. Our English School is in a 
 state of intense aspiration after hitherto unattained per- 
 fections, a state of the general mind sure to breed tran- 
 scendentalists by hundreds. And so we have plenty of 
 them of both sorts, the active and inactive. 
 
 I think as Mr. Ruskin is the best example of a critical 
 transcendentalist I could find amongst writers on art, so 
 Mr. Holman Hunt is the most illustrious example of a 
 
172 Transcendentalism in Painting. 
 
 transcendentalist in action. The whole pre-Raphaelite 
 movement is, indeed, a result and embodiment of this 
 philosophy. The boundless confidence of these painters in 
 convictions which had but slight support at first beyond 
 the limits of their own consciousness, their decisive prefer- 
 ence of internal to external guides ; their firm reliance on 
 principles rather than persons ; their courage and obstinacy 
 in opposition ; their laborious obedience to the idea which 
 impelled them beyond the sympathies of the hour, all these 
 things indicate a transcendental rather than a materialistic 
 state. And Mr. Hunt himself, as slow and reflective, as 
 thoughtful and as fastidious as Leonardo, only more con- 
 centrated, is the most perfect example of active transcen- 
 dentalism in our art, and the " Christ in the Temple " its 
 noblest result. Fortunately for England, Mr Hunt is not 
 also by profession a military and civil engineer, so that his 
 pictures may have a fair chance of being finished. 
 
 But strong and gifted must that painter be, who with a 
 judgment so severe and exacting, does yet attempt to real- 
 ize his conceptions in so imperfect a material as paint. To 
 most people, when once their ideal rises to a certain height, 
 thenceforth all execution seems vanity. How many young 
 painters have I seen in the Slough of Despond, lost in the 
 wild, hopeless dream of the transcendentalist, longing after 
 impossible perfections. It is not so to the same extent in 
 any other art, because no other human labor suggests com- 
 parisons so discouraging. A musician, for instance, may 
 sing to an audience which is not just fresh from a chorus 
 of angels. A poet has to contend against no superhuman 
 rivalry. Even a sculptor enters into no hopeless contest 
 with nature, for he does not attempt color and light, the 
 two unattainable things, but confines himself to form alone, 
 which is quite accurately imitable. But the painter is 
 always in the presence of another Painter, with whom all 
 rivalry is hopeless ; and the traveller comes to his dingy 
 canvases with eyes still dazzled by the glitter of the 
 glacier and the splendor of the sea. 
 
 And thus in our art transcendentalism is peculiarly fatal 
 to productiveness. Let a young painter resolve that he 
 
Transcendentalism in Painting. 173 
 
 will paint entire verity, the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth, and he may as well burn palette 
 and brushes at once. The utmost we can hope for is to be 
 as true as the nature of our means and materials will per- 
 mit, a vast concession to falsity. But these limitations 
 of materials are intolerable to the ardent aspirant. He 
 sees so vividly, and feels so strongly, that he will never en- 
 dure to complete any of his attempts. He feels them to 
 be, at the best, mockeries and makeshifts. He finds it 
 impossible to express himself in paint. He will try lan- 
 guage, perhaps, and write poems, because the poem does 
 not pretend to imitate, only to celebrate, the beauty of the 
 universe. Or, if he has courage enough to stick to painting, 
 he will push imitation to its utmost limit, like Leonardo, 
 and Hunt, and Millais, to discover, after all, that art is less 
 an imitation than an interpretation of nature. 
 
174 The Law of Progress in Art. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE LAW OF PROGRESS IN ART. 
 
 npHE course of artistic or other discovery appears to 
 -* be very much the same as the succession of pro- 
 cesses followed by an artist in the construction of a single 
 picture, only that in the great field of human progress the 
 work is accomplished by the race, and taken up succes- 
 sively at its different stages by relays of innumerable 
 workers. The construction of a picture is usually effected 
 very much as follows. First a rude charcoal sketch to 
 get things in their places, and to indicate the division of 
 the future labor. This first sketch is rude to such a 
 degree that persons not conversant with art would not 
 know what was meant by it, most of the curves being rep- 
 resented by angles and straight lines even by the best 
 figure painters ; but, however rude, it is extremely useful 
 as a marking out of boundaries. Then comes a careful 
 outline of the principal of these boundaries ; that is, the 
 lines enclosing the great masses. Then within these lines 
 the dead color is roughly laid roughly, though with 
 consummate foresight. Then comes a second painting in 
 detail, then a third in still minuter detail, and, with some 
 men, even a fourth, fifth, and sixth, of detail within detail, 
 film over film, till the work has reached the highest excel- 
 lence possible to the painter. 
 
 Now, the history of human art in its great relations to 
 the whole race is merely a repetition of this process on a 
 vast scale, extending its minor processes through ages, and 
 employing, not merely the fingers of one workman, but of 
 all the best workmen in the world, generation after 
 generation. 
 
 First the great Father of the art comes and traces out 
 the charcoal sketch. He has time only to do this roughly 
 
The Law of Progress in Art. 175 
 
 and then die. Another generation carries the work on by 
 a more accurate division and definition of the boundaries 
 of future labor. A third begins to fill these boundaries. 
 A fourth goes over the whole ground again, but this time 
 in detail. A fifth traverses it all over again, but with far 
 minuter detail ; and after this the only work for the race 
 is this continual going over and over again the whole field 
 of labor, traced out and partly prepared by their fore- 
 fathers, but every time with more accurate discrimination 
 in the detail. 
 
 The same order of progress is visible in maritime dis- 
 covery, in the geography of the land, in the progress of 
 agriculture, and in the advance of every science. 
 
 In maritime discovery you will find this law of prog- 
 ress constant from the voyage of Columbus to that of the 
 last New York clipper. When Columbus crossed the 
 Atlantic, the first rude sketch was made. To-day thou- 
 sands of sea-captains are hard at work on the details. 
 The credit of originating this great system of observation 
 is due to the United States. More than a thousand of her 
 navigators " were engaged," says Maury, " day and night, 
 and in all parts of the ocean, in making and recording 
 observations according to a uniform plan, and in furthering 
 this attempt to increase our knowledge as to the winds and 
 currents of the sea, and other phenomena that relate to its 
 navigation and physical geography." And now all the 
 great European nations co-operate in this plan, so that the 
 ocean is covered with observers. 
 
 In the geography of the land we see a steady tendency 
 towards accuracy in maps. If we take Great Britain 
 alone as an example, we shall observe that the improve- 
 ment from the earliest known maps to the Ordnance sur- 
 vey is not in extent of ground, but in accuracy of detail. 
 The wonderful advance from the first rude sketch of the 
 island to the present minute survey of every square yard 
 of it is a perfect type of all human progress, which con- 
 sists far less in the conquest of new realms for this is 
 only possible in the very earliest stage of progress than 
 in the increasing accuracy with which realms long since 
 
176 The Law of Progress in Art. 
 
 conquered by our forefathers are gradually made known 
 to us. 
 
 In the progress of agriculture we find another equally 
 instructive example. It is always tending to a culture 
 less and less superficial, or u skimming," as they call it in 
 America, and more and more thorough. The progress of 
 agriculture does not consist in the enlargement of king- 
 doms. The new generation occupies the old ground, but 
 carries its culture to a more detailed perfection. 
 
 In the advance of other sciences the same course is 
 followed. First comes a man of large grasp, who lays 
 down the rough charcoal outline of the new science ; then 
 two or three take it up and define his outline better, cor- 
 recting it where faultiest. Some time afterwards you will 
 find ten thousand laborers filling up the minutest details 
 of the discovery. The history of photography from 
 the days of Niepce to the present time is the most strik- 
 ing illustration I remember. The original problem has 
 scarcely been enlarged, but how minutely has it been 
 worked out ! Human anatomy and physiology have fol- 
 lowed the same law. The first problem was Man, and 
 the problem of to-day is still Man ; but within this narrow 
 envelope, our skin, how much has been explored and 
 learned, how much yet remains for future investigation ! 
 
 In the history of our art of Landscape Painting, Turner, 
 our Columbus, did not supersede, but prepare our work. 
 We are, in relation to him, as observant sea-captains to a 
 great maritime discoverer. We go over the same waters, 
 and we add the results of all our lives of observation to 
 his great hints and strivings after truth. In the broad 
 facts he saw and proved, our evidence confirms his, but 
 we have still much to explore in which his charts cannot 
 help us. 
 
 What is known as the pre-Raphaelite movement in 
 painting resembles the system of maritime observations 
 instituted by the United States. The sea had been trav- 
 ersed before by innumerable navigators, but the time had 
 at last arrived when a more accurate and perfect knowl- 
 edge of it was felt to be desirable. It was all to be ex- 
 
The Law of Progress in Art. 177 
 
 amined over again, therefore, on a system infinitely more 
 exacting and more severe than had ever been applied to it 
 before. So in art, though Titian had painted figures and 
 Turner landscapes, it was felt by our younger painters 
 that the time was ripe for a new investigation of Nature's 
 aspects, both in man and the earth ; but this new investi- 
 gation must be conducted with a resolute adherence to 
 truth, and an accurate recording (in colors) of artistic 
 observations. So we are going over the whole ground 
 again like the modern sea-captains with their charts and 
 note-books. And it is probable that we shall surpass our 
 predecessors in accuracy, because this is a quality which 
 increases with the progress of science. But as to our sur- 
 passing them in creative genius, that is quite another 
 matter, depending entirely on individual capacity. For 
 the painter is a compound of poet and man of science, and 
 it does not follow that the poetic half of him will develop 
 itself with the same rapidity as the scientific half. The 
 probability seems even to lie a little the other way ; it is 
 difficult to conceive any order of quite accurate landscape 
 as purely poetical as the fairest Turnerian dreams. 
 
 I thus associate artistic progress with scientific, because 
 the art of painting is strictly a compound of two sciences, 
 with a poetic infusion from the mind of the artist. The 
 sciences are, first, the great science of natural aspects, an 
 infinite ocean of discovery which ten thousand discoverers 
 might traverse for ever without exhausting ; and, secondly, 
 the technical science of color. These sciences follow pre- 
 cisely the same law of progress as all other sciences, 
 though the element of human feeling may remain much 
 the same in different generations of men. Painting, how- 
 ever, develops itself very unequally, because one of its 
 component sciences may be quite stationary, whilst another 
 is in rapid progress. Thus in the Renaissance schools, 
 generally, the science of the human figure progressed with 
 astonishing vigor, whilst the science of landscape gained 
 little ground. The science of color, more limited and 
 technical than that of natural aspects, reached an early 
 and splendid maturity in Titian ; nevertheless we moderns 
 12 
 
178 The. Law of Progress in Art. 
 
 have added to it several valuable processes, unknown to 
 Titian, yet absolutely necessary for the accurate rendering 
 of many truths we desire to express, which did not come 
 within the range of Titian's art. In all this, painting is 
 exactly on the same footing with other sciences ; the high- 
 est element in it, the soul of its master-works, being 
 always, in every age, a matter of individual genius. The 
 progressive element in our art is the scientific element, 
 not the poetic ; but it must not be forgotten that the scien- 
 tific portion of any work of pictorial art is a very large 
 portion of it is, in short, the whole body of it ; that 
 the feeling of the artist infuses the spiritual element only, 
 and has nothing to do with matters of scientific fact. 
 
 We are neither to underrate nor to exaggerate the im- 
 portance of the science of natural aspects, but we are to 
 understand that, like all other sciences, it is essentially 
 progressive, and we are to accept its progress as a matter 
 of course. Artists will not be any the more famous for 
 being scientific, but they are compelled to become scien- 
 tific, because they have embraced a profession which in- 
 cludes a natural science, just as the profession of medicine 
 does. What I desire to enforce is the great truth that 
 within the Art of Painting there exists, flourishes, and 
 advances, a noble and glorious SCIENCE a science as 
 great as geology, or astronomy, or chemistry a science, 
 like them, based entirely on nature, and which is essen- 
 tially and irresistibly progressive. 
 
 Whether, in its mighty progress, this great science will 
 forward the poetic part of the art, I know not ; but it will 
 undoubtedly furnish continually new subjects for noble 
 thought, and new excitement to the enthusiasm of the 
 student. Without this stimulus of progress, the art would 
 become conventionalized and sink into a manufacture, as it 
 always has done when religious authority or national cus- 
 toms have arrested its scientific advance. I, therefore, 
 believe that the very greatest of all dangers to our art, if 
 not the only danger to it, is the stoppage of its scientific 
 development : in other words, its abandonment of the pur- 
 suit of truth. So long as all Nature is open to art, there 
 
The Law of Progress in Art. 179 
 
 surely cannot lack the necessary excitement for the poetic 
 temperament in the artist. 
 
 And as I perceive now around me all the signs of in- 
 tense scientific activity in contemporary artists ; as they 
 ransack all the realms of Nature for new facts, and. are 
 incessantly recording on canvas truths which were never 
 before recorded for the human race, I feel unlimited hope 
 and confidence in the future. The apprehensions of the 
 approaching extinction of the art of painting, expressed by 
 Constable and others, appear to me just as reasonable and 
 well-founded as apprehensions of the approaching extinc- 
 tion of the science of geography. 
 
180 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS IN PAINTING. 
 
 TT7HEN Mrs. Beecher Stowe visited England, she 
 * * found, to her great perplexity, that artists and 
 critics could no more agree about art than mankind gen- 
 erally can about religion. To a thoughtful and sincere 
 woman, anxious to find out what she ought to believe about 
 every thing in which she felt an interest, the discovery of 
 the diversity in art doctrine which exists in Europe must 
 have been quite painful. This diversity is a fact full of 
 difficulty and discouragement to students, whose only wish 
 is to learn to think rightly, and whose degree of culture in 
 the matter of art is not yet sufficient to give them an inde- 
 pendent standing-point of their own. You pay a visit, let 
 us suppose, to some eminent artist, and if your degree of 
 acquaintance permits it, or you appear to desire it, he will 
 probably, out of pure kindness to you, be led into a sort 
 of talk more or less positive and didactic, and will enun- 
 ciate some strong opinions, and lay down some hard 
 dogmas, of the truth of which a long experience has con- 
 vinced him. You go away, congratulating yourself on 
 having acquired so much wisdom, and if you never talk 
 with any other painter (or critic), you may, perhaps, rest 
 satisfied with what you have heard. But if you know 
 another eminent painter, the chances are that he will utter 
 another set of doctrines ; and if you know half a dozen, 
 you will hear so many opposite opinions, that one of two 
 results will be produced in you : either hopeless, helpless, 
 life-long bewilderment, or a quiet resolve to labor to 
 acquire independent opinions of your own. 
 
 Is the truth, then, nowhere ? Nay, rather, it is every- 
 where. For as animal life is a balanced warfare of op- 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 181 
 
 posite forces, so the life of art is a fine balance, resulting 
 from the perpetual contention of warring truths. And 
 each of these truths has its living enunciator, some painter 
 or critic who insists upon it without ceasing ; so that every 
 truth gets uttered ultimately with all those advantages of 
 vigorous statement which the hot ardor of partisanship 
 can alone achieve. After all, it is but a difference of em- 
 phasis here and emphasis there. A man will always 
 emphasize those truths about art which most strongly 
 recommend themselves to his own peculiar personal tem- 
 perament. This comes from the vastness of art, and the 
 variety of human organizations. For art is so immense a 
 study, that no one man ever knew the whole truth about it. 
 Art is a world of which each student sees and knows some 
 fragment, just as our globe is known in little bits to differ- 
 ent members of the human race, each farm being known 
 to its own farmer, each house to its own inhabitant, but no 
 one man knowing all the farms and all the houses on the 
 globe. And the opinions of artists and critics can only 
 be profitable to us if we consider their own point of view, 
 where they are on the great art sphere, and what they can 
 or cannot see from thence. And it is also necessary to 
 take into account their personal organization, of which, 
 for this time, we have only space to consider two broad 
 characteristics. Some men see synthetically, others ana- 
 lytically. 
 
 1. The analytic habit of mind. If the reader has 
 amongst his friends men of much intellectual culture, he 
 will probably have met with an analyst. They are won- 
 derfully keen investigators, and cunning hunters-up of 
 particular facts, in the pursuit of which they pay no at- 
 tention to other facts. They do not fish with a net, nor 
 even with a trident, but with one thin sharp spear. It is 
 perhaps on this account that analytic people often seem to 
 us at once so intelligent and so obtuse. When sufficiently 
 excited to investigate a fact they penetrate it very soon, 
 but without that excitement every fact escapes them. 
 The pure analyst is like a man always looking through 
 a microscope : what he does see he sees with supernatural 
 
182 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 clearness, but that one point is very small in comparison to 
 all that is going on around him. 
 
 2. 77ie synthetic habit of mind. Synthesists find con- 
 tinual pleasure in observing the relations of things, but 
 from their largeness of range they constantly miss minute 
 truths, nor do they ever see any tiring so vividly as the 
 analysts see that which they have analyzed. Whenever 
 they have to sacrifice either a truth of relation or a truth 
 of detail, they always sacrifice the detail. The synthetic 
 breadth of view seems to analysts to want accuracy, and 
 to be something very like a general bluntness. The syn- 
 thesist, on the other hand, considers analysts to be clever 
 children, surprisingly sharp on some points, and ignorant 
 of every thing else. The analyst esteems his own quality, 
 penetration ; the synthesist also esteems his own quality, 
 which is the power of seeing many things at once, with all 
 their mutual influences. 
 
 3. The combination of the two minds in one. It some- 
 times happens that a synthesist is gifted with considerable 
 powers of analysis, or the converse. When the two pow- 
 ers coexist in great vigor the result is, in painting, that 
 union of breadth with detail which is so precious and so 
 rare. An artist endowed with the double gift analyzes all 
 the pictorial impressions he receives by resolving them 
 into their minutest particles, but at the same time he sees 
 all these particles in their just relations, which the mere 
 analyst does not. The best intellect for painting is one 
 habitually synthetic, yet capable of the most accurate an- 
 alysis by an effort of the will. When the analytic tend- 
 ency predominates, even though there be considerable 
 power of synthesis, the work is not so good, because good 
 wholes, with defective parts, are always more valuable 
 than bad wholes even though their parts be separately 
 excellent. 
 
 4. Primary artistic analysis of natural appearances. 
 A finished picture is an attempt to render nature as nearly 
 as possible in full, but many kinds of drawing purposely 
 leave out whole classes of truths, and this, in itself, is a 
 sort of rude primary analysis. Every natural picture, 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 183 
 
 whether of landscape or figures, has at least the follow- 
 ing elements : 
 
 Shapes of objects, or spaces occupied by them on the 
 field of vision. 
 
 Their local color. 
 
 Reflected color. 
 
 Light and dark produced by local color. 
 
 Light and dark produced by illumination. 
 
 If we reject color we still have the various other truths 
 represented in a good engraving; but we may go much 
 farther in rejection, and still remain intelligible. We may 
 reject the light and dark produced by local color, as the 
 old masters often did in their studies, and as is done con- 
 stantly, either absolutely or partially, in most of our pop- 
 ular wood-cuts. We may reject even the light and dark 
 produced by illumination, and merely represent our objects 
 by outlines, giving the boundaries of their shapes. The 
 way in which men have always been accustomed to 
 take and leave the truths of nature* proves a certain 
 power of analysis, without which it would hardly have 
 occurred to any one to translate colored objects into 
 white and black, and still less to represent them by mere 
 outlines, which are only artificial inclosures of spaces, like 
 fences round fields. 
 
 5. Artistic analysis of light. Light presents itself to 
 the simple and unscientific, but very observant, artistic 
 mind in two different characters, as direct or reflected light. 
 What are called shadows, being merely parts of the sub- 
 ject not directly illuminated, are lighted by complex re- 
 flected lights. In the study of direct light the artistic 
 analyst is so far an optician as to perceive that surfaces at 
 right angles to the direct rays are most strongly illumina- 
 ted, and that as the angle becomes more acute the degree 
 of illumination diminishes ; this fact, at least he perceives, 
 because it is the first secret of successful modelling. But 
 
 * And that for thousands of years. The Nineveh marbles give evi- 
 dence of great power of analysis, and so does much Egyptian work. 
 Their strong abstraction must have been based upon some kind of ana- 
 lysis. 
 
184 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 it is in the study of reflected lights that artistic analysis 
 is most actively exercised. They come from sources often 
 so unexpected that a definite mental effort is needed to trace 
 them all to their various origins, and as reflections are almost 
 always complex, the sort of effort they most frequently call 
 for is analysis. Again, as light is endlessly reverberating, 
 we have re-reflections and re-re-reflections, which, ming- 
 ling together, produce appearances that all artists try to 
 account for, and that never can be accounted for without 
 the most subtle and delicate analysis. 
 
 6. Artistic analysis of forms. The study of anatomy 
 is the most definitely analytic movement in this direction 
 in figure painting. Actual dissection is evidently analytic, 
 but so also is mere observation, when it seeks the sepa- 
 rate causes of attitudes and expressions in living creatures, 
 for these cannot be clearly defined without reference to 
 the facts of anatomy. The best analyst of expression 
 would be an anatomist accustomed to observe living faces 
 under all the varieties of human emotion, with contin- 
 ual reference to anatomy. Sir Charles Bell was such 
 an observer, and his treatise on the Anatomy of Expres- 
 sion is an interesting example of the analysis of art and 
 nature in connection with each other. In landscape we 
 have an increasing tendency to analysis, as shown by the 
 special study of plants, even to dissection of flowers, and 
 the careful analysis of mountain form with reference to 
 geological structure. Mountains cannot be actually dis- 
 sected, but by means of geological diagrams we arrive at 
 the results of dissection. This kind of study has however 
 the peculiarity that it teaches the actual forms, not the 
 apparent ones, and therefore, though valuable to a certain 
 extent for the definite information it conveys, would be of 
 no use in drawing and painting unless carried on in con- 
 junction with that other kind of form-analysis which deals 
 with the appearances of forms, that is, the shapes of the 
 spaces which they occupy on the plane of vision, and their 
 projection. 
 
 The science of perspective, though of little practical 
 utility in painting, was a resolute attempt to analyze the 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 185 
 
 appearances of forms in a rigidly scientific manner. A 
 more profitable kind of analysis is that constantly exer- 
 cised by the eye of every good draughtsman when he 
 looks energetically at a cluster of forms and decomposes 
 them, just before drawing them. In such moments of 
 hard looking a good figure painter resolves a model into 
 hundreds of variously swelling muscles with many projec- 
 tions of bony structure, every one of which, though never 
 so faintly marked, he sees and seizes in its own place. 
 But I cannot help thinking (this may be because I try to 
 paint landscape myself, and so feel the difficulty of it) that 
 the most marvellous efforts in this kind of analysis are 
 made by the best of our modern English landscape paint- 
 ers. The way in which they distinguish the thousands 
 of quite different objects, every one of which has to be 
 separately examined and studied before a modern detailed 
 landscape can possibly be painted, is, I believe, the utter- 
 most reach of analysis which can be pointed to in the 
 history of art. For, first, there is the analysis of the 
 species of objects, as all the endless species of trees, plants, 
 rocks, &c., and then the disentangling of the innumerable 
 crowds of them which cover natural scenery in infinite 
 confusion. When you have analyzed the human body 
 thoroughly you are master of figure analysis, but when 
 you have analyzed an oak-tree thoroughly you are not 
 master of landscape analysis ; there still remain ever so 
 many other species of trees, and then the mountains, and 
 the rocks, and the infinite foreground vegetation, and the 
 forms of water as it runs in torrents and rises in storm- 
 waves, and the forms of clo.uds, fields vast enough, each 
 of them, for the labor of a life ! 
 
 7. Artistic analysis of color. In looking at any natural 
 picture, whether a group of men or animals, or a landscape, 
 we are aware of certain broad masses of color, but also, in 
 exact proportion to our culture, we perceive variety within 
 the masses. For example, the popular mind of the Bur- 
 gundy wine district has long perceived the splendid golden 
 color of the vines in autumn, so that the French depart- 
 ment in which those vineyards are situated has for its title 
 
186 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 that noble one the Cote d'Or, a name peculiarly interesting 
 as a national recognition of the glory of natural color. 
 Every traveller, not color-blind, who in the month of 
 October drives along the broad road that runs past the 
 Clos de Vougeot through Nuits to Became, sees on his 
 right hand such a perpetual blaze of golden color over 
 the vast expanse of sloping vineyards, that the least ob- 
 servant cannot help talking about it and wondering at it. 
 But I doubt whether anybody who has not tried to paint 
 knows of how many elements that color is composed: 
 what subtle, delicate grays there are in it, what strange 
 purples, what tender, exquisite greens, what spots of san- 
 guine crimson, what grave and sober sorts of russet, what 
 paleness of fading yellow, nearer the color of primroses 
 than of gold. The impression given by the union of all 
 these colors is invariably that of deep, reddish, very rich 
 gold ; but pray how can a painter paint so composite a 
 color without first decomposing it ? On finding himself in 
 front of such a burning expanse of vine-leaves, of whose 
 countless millions not two are colored precisely alike, a 
 painter's first thought is to sift out and analyze the ele- 
 ments of his own impression in order that he may himself 
 afterwards, by the re-union of the same elements, repro- 
 duce the impression on the minds of others. For the 
 public mind is, on this question, more critical than its 
 habitual simplicity of language would lead us to suppose. 
 A gentleman who has been driving through- the wine dis- 
 trict in autumn uses such simple, emphatic words to de- 
 scribe his impressions that you would imagine a little pure 
 cadmium yellow might satisfy him, and that the grays and 
 purples were superfluous. Not so. He would at once feel 
 that the cadmium was crude (though no cruder than his 
 own word "golden"), and to satisfy him you would have 
 to paint the grays and purples, to accomplish which you 
 must first analyze them. 
 
 It is probable that spectators who only look at pictures, 
 and are not accustomed to the conversation of artists, may 
 not give them credit for much of this sort of analysis, but 
 the portfolios of many landscape painters contain sketches 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 187 
 
 and memoranda on which letters, or words, and sometimes 
 whole sentences are written, from which it would be easy 
 to prove that their authors really do analyze color before 
 painting it. The following paragraph, copied just as it 
 stands from a note written upon a study of my own, may 
 be taken as a specimen of such memoranda. It was scrib- 
 bled hastily for my own guidance, and may be accepted 
 for what it is worth, though I would much rather quote 
 from the private memoranda of some other and better 
 painter if I had the opportunity. The numbers refer to 
 corresponding numbers on the study. 
 
 " The causes of the varieties of color in these moun- 
 tains are as follows : First, there is the rocky structure 
 of the mountain itself, which comes out bare in the bosses, 
 as, for instance, continually in Ben Vorich (No. 1), which 
 is the best example of ruggedness at Loch Awe. This 
 bare rock gives a valuable cool gray tint, but grass grows 
 where the soil holds, and this grass, as the ground is poor, 
 reaches no more brilliant color than a warm olive green. 
 The most precious result of this conformation is tliat 
 wherever water runs in wet weather the grass is much 
 greener, and this produces the appearance of an infinite 
 number of winding lines of green, running in and out 
 amongst the rocks in the most wayward manner, but in 
 reality always subject to the laws by which water flows. 
 And it is these green stream-marks which indicate, more 
 than any thing else except shadow, the true mountain 
 form. Although visibly enough defined, they are always 
 gradated at their edges into the olive-green around, because 
 the water does not always flow down them in the same 
 quantity, and only occasional floods refresh the edges, 
 whereas every shower nourishes the roots in the middle, 
 which therefore produce the greenest grass. The trees 
 at present (May) are of a dark olive green, but the places 
 where the wood has been cut are reddish. In No 2 there 
 is little variety of color just now, the principal elements 
 of it being the usual olive grass and the rock structure 
 under it. The exposed ground to the right on this moun- 
 tain is redder, though still very gray. No. 3 has a very 
 
188 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 slender covering of grass, slashed all over with reddish 
 openings. In No. 4, just under the figure, or a little to 
 the right of it, the openings are redder than anywhere 
 else. In No. 5 the bare rock scarcely appears at all, but 
 there is a great intricacy of mosaic on account of the grass 
 being patched with heather. In No. 6 the bare rock is 
 nowhere visible, but there is the richest mosaic of grass 
 and heather. As to the middle distance, beginning with 
 the promontory, some trees are now in their richest spring 
 green, whilst the evergreens show dark amongst them, and 
 therefore produce a telling contrast. The rest of the 
 middle distance is a mosaic of purple and green, neither 
 intense now." But all this, I fear, is becoming tiresome, 
 and so let us get to the concluding sentence, which certainly 
 seems to have been written by somebody who was trying 
 very hard to analyze (or separate the elements of ) the 
 natural subject, and found himself baffled by nature's in- 
 extricable entanglement. " Objects come against each other 
 continually where there is not contrast enough, either of color 
 or light, to separate them, and the consequence is an inex- 
 tricable confusion; this is especially noticeable in the leaf- 
 less tree to the right, which is quite confused with the 
 leafy one and the mountain background." 
 
 Here is only the very rudest analysis. Grass is greener 
 in one place than in another because it is better watered, 
 hills are slashed with reddish openings in the grassy turf, 
 or covered with a rich mosaic of purple and green. There 
 is another kind of color analysis incomparably more deli- 
 cate : that of a colorist actually working in color, for then, 
 at every instant, he is analyzing hues which no words can 
 describe, no writing decompose. A colorist must be an 
 analyst of color how far consciously so or not it may be 
 difficult to determine, some colorists thinking and looking 
 laboriously before they paint, others working (as it would 
 seem) by happy instinct. But out of analysis, in every 
 case, comes the astounding sorcery of making things look 
 quite right by means that seem so arbitrary, and odd, and 
 wrong. If you go to any great work in color, and stare 
 hard into it, at a distance of six inches, you will see queer 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 189 
 
 dots and streaks of color quite unlike what lies on that 
 part of the natural subject, but which tell truly at the 
 right distance, because they are concentrations of color 
 elements gathered by the analysis of surrounding fields of 
 color. They are true essences, obtained by analysis.* 
 
 8. Critical analysis of compositions. Art-critics some- 
 times analyze pictorial compositions with a view to ascer- 
 tain the laws of composition. True composers, I imagine, 
 rarely, if ever, analyze their own work in this way, and 
 the main use of such analysis is that it makes u$ admire 
 good compositions more and enjoy them better. The sort 
 of analysis with which critics often amuse themselves may 
 be best understood by an example ; and in order to be quite 
 sure that the composition selected for examination is acces- 
 sible to all readers of this Review, I will choose the draw- 
 ing by Nicholas Poussin, a photograph of which was given 
 in the second number. 
 
 It is a building of many forms, apparently acting in 
 perfect freedom, into one structure of a character so pecu- 
 liarly artificial that composition of this perfect kind is 
 never found in any natural group. Nature gives abun- 
 dant hints and suggestions, but never quite composes, in 
 our human sense ; just as the murmurs of waves and the 
 whistling of the wind may suggest musical ideas, but 
 never play tunes. In this drawing the structural arrange- 
 ment of the group is obvious at a glance. The centre is 
 the head of Pan's image. A canopy is formed over it, 
 not only by the trees, but by an imaginary arch begun 
 at one side by the arm and trumpet of a faun, and at the 
 other by the arm and timbrel of a nymph. See how 
 
 * There is a curious resemblance between the faculty of analysis in 
 seeing color and in tasting food. Many of us can know that a dish is badly 
 cooked without being able to say why. Any practised analyst of flavors, 
 a good cook, or an epicure, can somehow separate the most composite 
 flavor into all its elements, and so finds out at once which element is 
 superabundant and which deficient. The faculty of musical analysis is 
 of the same kind. A good musical critic not only hears the whole of a 
 chorus, but he hears all the parts separately, as well as simultaneously. 
 And it seems probable that a composer, when writing an opera, hears in 
 his imagination combinations of sound, which he has to analyze before 
 making out his score. 
 
190 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 curiously the right arm of the faun continues the curve of 
 the arch, and as the hand did not go far enough down it 
 holds a piece of drapery which carries the line almost to 
 the thigh of the kneeling faun, which really bears, on that 
 side, the weight of the arch. On the right the arch is 
 continued by three flying pieces of drapery, and the body 
 and leg of the boy, his foot in the right-hand corner being 
 the termination of the arch on that side. Under this im- 
 aginary arch is another easily traceable, one of which the 
 head of Pan's image is the keystone. This second or 
 inner arch is constructed on the right of the outspread 
 arms and head of the nymph taking the flowers, the head 
 of the child who carries the flower-basket, and the head, 
 body, and left leg of the boy who is helping the drinking 
 satyr. On the left, the same arch runs from the right 
 knee of the kneeling faun through his body and head to 
 the head of the woman on the goat, then through the faun's 
 head at her side to the left hand of the nymph carrying 
 the faun, whence the ascent to Pan's head is very slight. 
 The reader will observe how curiously all the other forms 
 support this arch, or correspond to it. The arm of the 
 kneeling faun, the woman's outstretched arm, the arm of 
 the faun at her side, are built together compactly. And 
 observe that the faun on the nymph's shoulder keeps its 
 right hind-leg lower for the same reason. To complete 
 the composition, there are festoons of forms under Pan as 
 well as arches above him. The most important festoon 
 begins on the left with the inclined body and the extended 
 right leg of the nymph on the goat. It reaches the ground 
 in the thigh of the fallen satyr, and rises again through 
 his shoulder to the body of the stooping faun. See how 
 the three heads of the stooping faun, the drunken satyr, 
 and the boy, carry the festoon up regularly on the right. 
 There is also a smaller festoon nearer Pan descending 
 from the uplifted hand of the nymph who carries the faun, 
 through her right hand, and along the faun's head, to the 
 shoulder of the nymph who has pushed down the satyr, 
 thence it rises through her head to the drapery of the 
 nymph taking flowers, and: through her head to the timbrel. 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 191 
 
 A lower festoon is completed by the flower-basket thrown 
 down in the foreground, to which the foot of the riding 
 nymph points, and the trees in the background are strength- 
 ening pillars within the larger or imaginary arch. The 
 composition may be summarily described as a central 
 image of Pan surrounded by arches and festoons of com- 
 bined forms. It is a real structure, not a fortuitous 
 agglomeration. Much more might be said of it in this 
 way, for the smallest details quite curiously corroborate 
 what has been already advanced, but this analysis is long 
 enough to be read with patience. 
 
 9. Artistic analysis in technical methods. Painters 
 with a strong analytic tendency often try to separate the 
 work of painting as much as possible, because such intel- 
 lects find difficulties conquerable in succession which, to 
 them, are insuperable when united. The excessive tech- 
 nical difficulty of painting consists in this, that with one 
 and the same touch the artist has to give true form and 
 true color it is like a game at billiards where you have 
 to hit two balls with one stroke, with the difference that 
 in painting misses are injurious to the beauty of the work 
 and are hard to retrieve. The finest execution is there- 
 fore always marked by great power of synthesis, of which 
 more presently; but it is safer for arti&ts who are not 
 endowed with that power to divide the difficulties as if 
 they were hostile armies, and attack them separately. 
 Such painters often work in a sort of mosaic on a care- 
 fully prepared design ; and as working with mixed tints 
 is a kind of synthesis, they sometimes carry the analytic 
 principle so far as to resolve the tints into their compo- 
 nents, and paint with small touches of quite pure color. 
 The practical analysis of natural tints has never, I believe, 
 been carried farther than by Whaite and Alfred Hunt, 
 who succeed in rendering them with remarkable brilliance 
 on the principle of resolving compound tints and repre- 
 senting them by the juxtaposition, or superposition, of the 
 component colors. It is right to add that conquering 
 difficulties by dividing them was not the only object of 
 these artists. They perceived that the brilliance of pig- 
 
192 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 merits was always dulled by mixture, and that the too 
 common modern practice of unlimited intermixture led to 
 ruinous results. To avoid this they adopted the plan of 
 working in pure colors on a white ground, and, as they 
 liked form, they chose to work on a careful design. But 
 the analytic tendency in execution is by no means con- 
 fined to these artists and their school. We observe it in 
 much modern English work. Holman Hunt's practicq is 
 analytic, indeed the pre-Raphaelite way of work is natu- 
 rally analytic, because pre-Raphaelitism has, from the 
 beginning, been an analytic movement, and may be best 
 defined as a new analysis of nature. When pictures are 
 painted on carefnl designs and finished part by part, it is 
 analytic execution. When they are first blocked out 
 roughly in formless masses and brought forward all at 
 once into drawing and detail, it is synthetic execution. 
 Of course in the first instance there must coexist consid- 
 erable intellectual power of synthesis, and, in the second, 
 of analysis, but as regards execution the distinction is 
 real. 
 
 Pictures painted analytically are objects of much con- 
 tempt to critics who admire exclusively the opposite prin- 
 ciple of work. They deny to such art the title of 
 "painting" altogether, and call it "colored drawing." 
 Having no prejudice against either process I may be 
 trusted, so far, in speaking of their relative merits and 
 defects. Analytic work is generally more carefully drawn 
 and more pure and bright in color ; synthetic work is 
 generally truer in effect, freer in handling, and more mas- 
 terly in impasto. Whaite is an excellent example of the 
 former, and Lambinet of the latter. 
 
 10. Analytic systems of art study. The principle of 
 analysis may be carried very far in art education. The 
 pupil may have the difficulties so ingeniously divided for 
 him as rarely to present more than one at a time for him 
 to contend against. The good of this system is that by 
 separating the difficulties they are more thoroughly under- 
 stood and more easily conquered ; the evil of it, that it in 
 no way represents the struggles of the mature career of 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 193 
 
 an artist whose supreme embarrassment is not the num- 
 ber of difficulties, but the fact of their intimate interunion. 
 The pupil who has always been breaking the sticks one 
 by one is likely to experience severe disappointment when 
 he discovers that he cannot break the faggot. 
 
 Advocates for the analytic system of art education gen- 
 erally attach such importance to drawing, that they would 
 have painting postponed until the pupil has acquired the 
 power of accurate design. The following sketch of an 
 analytic system of education in landscape will show how 
 far the principle may be carried. As to the policy of 
 adopting any such system in practice, it would be wise 
 to do so only on condition of frequently laying it aside 
 for a completely synthetic way of work. For example, 
 a pupil who should work alternately six months with a 
 severe analyst and six with a synthesist would escape the 
 dangers peculiar to each method when followed exclu- 
 sively. 
 
 1. Study of simple objects in black and white with the 
 pen, like Durer's wood-cuts, not recognizing local color, 
 and only using shading to help the expression of form. 
 Common daylight permitted but no sunshine. Great at- 
 tention directed to firmness and accuracy of line. 
 
 2. Study in black and white, aiming chiefly at the 
 translation of local color. No sunshine admitted. Form 
 not so severely required as before. 
 
 3. Studies of the same objects in sunshine. In the 
 attempt to render light, form and local color not severely 
 required from the student. This of course involves the 
 careful study of cast shadows and reflected lights. 
 
 4. Analytic study of many classes of natural objects by 
 the foregoing methods. Leaves, flowers, grasses, mosses, 
 branches, twigs, trunks, stones, rocks (especially such por- 
 tions of them as best show their structure), parts of moun- 
 tains, bits of foreground, and so on. All the principal 
 species of trees, rocks, &c., to be studied separately. 
 
 5. Studies admitting color but no sunshine. These 
 studies being entirely for local color every thing else is, for 
 the time, treated as of minor importance. Repetitions of 
 
194 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 the analytic study of natural objects, this time with their 
 local color, and for it peculiarly.* 
 
 6. Studies for colored sunshine. New analysis of nat- 
 ural objects in sunshine. Truth of sunlight and sun-color 
 all that is aimed at. 
 
 11. Partial or irregular analysis. It is only in very 
 recent times that the doctrine that every thing is worthy of 
 study has been admitted by artists, and even yet we find 
 figure painters who will not take the trouble to analyze 
 landscape seriously and therefore cannot paint it at all. 
 Ingres is a notable example of partial analysis ; he has 
 analyzed the human figure, and can draw it 'well, but he 
 cannot draw a stick or a stone, far less a wave of the sea 
 or the ripple of a brook. But if the reader cares to seek 
 for examples of partial analysis he will find them abund- 
 antly in the Exhibitions. The best painting requires an 
 insight so universal that nothing can escape it, and as this 
 sort of insight is rare, we find that one painter analyzes 
 one thing, and another another, but that nearly all of them 
 miss some orders of truths. Partial analysis is indeed 
 only another name for imperfect information, which cannot 
 be hidden in painting, as it may in literature, by artfully 
 passing one's ignorances in a parenthesis and loudly en- 
 larging upon the little we know. The empty space in the 
 painter's brain is represented by a corresponding empti- 
 ness in his pictures, and the critic will often find evidences 
 of partial or irregular analysis. 
 
 The difference in general power of analysis between one 
 man and another is also very great. A common painter 
 contemplating nature is like a rustic staring at the stars ; 
 he can analyze the more obvious constellations, but behind 
 them lie dim fields of cloudy light which he cannot re- 
 solve ; and the greatest painters are like astronomers with 
 telescopes, analyzing much, and guessing at more, yet still 
 always ultimately finding the last infinite and impenetrable 
 mystery of things. 
 
 * The best time for such study as this is in gloomy weather, after, or 
 during rain. The local colors are then at their fullest, and still imitable. 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 195 
 
 12. Pernicious excess in analysis. When painters see 
 detail very clearly, they are often fatally led into morbid 
 or excessive analysis. In this state the artist perceives 
 detail with surprising minuteness, and is, as it were, fasci- 
 nated and blinded by it, than which nothing can be more 
 dangerous to any painter, for then he cannot see one nat- 
 ural picture, nor even a part of it, but only the particles 
 of parts. 
 
 We see the same tendency at work in other things. 
 Grammar is an analysis of language, and may be of some 
 use in its way, provided we do not weary ourselves with 
 it. But excessive grammar is over analysis, and gramma- 
 rians are often rendered insensible to the artistic beauty 
 of great literary works by their petty grammatical habits. 
 They will interrupt you in the finest passages to expatiate 
 on the force of a particle. As there are two ways of read- 
 ing Homer, that of the poet and that of the philologist, so 
 also there are two ways of reading nature, the artist's 
 and the analyst's. 
 
 13. Premature synthesis; Synthesis, which is at- 
 tempted before a sufficient power of analysis has been 
 acquired and exercised. The color work of amateurs, who 
 are so situated as to be able to devote little time to the 
 practice of art, is nearly always rendered nugatory by 
 premature synthesis. So also, very frequently, is that of 
 artists by profession who are obliged to expose pictures 
 for sale without having given sufficient time to analysis in 
 the way of study. 
 
 14. Synthesis in light. The lightness and darkness of 
 each object, being relative, must be translated syntheti- 
 cally, that is, with continual reference to the rest of the 
 picture. When this is not done, the parts may be sepa- 
 rately true, yet false when considered with reference to the 
 whole. The necessity for synthetic and artificial systems 
 of light in pictorial art results from the difference in scale 
 of natural and pictorial light, for, if they were the same, a 
 part truly copied in its light and dark would also be true 
 relatively to the whole, which it cannot be so long as our 
 scale is shorter than Nature's. 
 
196 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 There is also, in all good pictorial art, a synthetic and 
 artificial arrangement of light. It very seldom occurs that 
 a natural scene is illuminated in a way precisely fitted to 
 the purposes of art, because the first want of human art is 
 unity, and Nature, in those fragments of her creation 
 which we make into artistic wholes, seldom cares to 
 achieve unity. The real unities of Nature are so large as 
 to be beyond the grasp of painting. Her landscapes are 
 fragments, but the globe is a rounded whole ; her men 
 and women are imperfect details, but the human race is a 
 balanced being. Art takes tiny fragments of Nature's 
 great wholes and makes little wholes of them. Nature's 
 illumination is generally scattered wants concentration. 
 Good artists contrive, without violating the laws of pos- 
 sible phenomena, to light their pictures in such a. manner 
 that the light, instead of shattering the composition into 
 fragments, shall bind and bring together all its chiefest 
 elements. 
 
 15. Synthesis in color. Color requires higher power 
 of synthesis than any thing else in art, for although analy- 
 sis is of use in studying natural color, it does not of itself 
 enable us to make color of our own ; because, whether you 
 will or not, in painting on any one part of your picture 
 you are really painting upon, that is, changing the color 
 of, the whole canvas at once, and unless you do this 
 always synthetically you will never succeed. Every new 
 touch changes all the touches already laid, if warmer it 
 cools them, if cooler it warms them, if brighter it dulls 
 them, if duller it lends them brightness. This is so 
 curiously true that visitors to the studios of painters 
 constantly believe that the artist has been working on por- 
 tions of his picture which he has never touched since their 
 previous visits. And they are right. 
 
 16. Synthesis inform. Commonly called composition. 
 The synthetic arrangement of forms is strikingly apparent 
 in all first-rate design, and it is one of the eternal distinc- 
 tions which separate good design from photography. In 
 photography the arrangement of forms can never be syn- 
 thetic. You may group your models and materials as 
 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 197 
 
 artfully as you like, there will be no synthesis. So in 
 living groups of costumed models, called tableaux vivants, 
 which people sometimes amuse themselves by getting up, 
 it is not possible, by any amount of care in arrangement, 
 ever to obtain artistic synthesis. Why ? 
 
 Because synthesis in form does not merely arrange 
 given forms, but runs into, and modifies, every line in the 
 forms themselves. A great inventive artist never in a 
 picture draws any thing exactly as it is, but compels it into 
 such shapes as he wants in that place, having reference all 
 the time to all the other shapes either already put, or to 
 be put, in all the other parts of the picture. Hence the 
 imitation of artistic composition by grouping things for 
 the photographer, or by tableaux vivants, is a manifest 
 absurdity. 
 
 Something of the mutual effect of colors is observable 
 in the relations of forms. They modify each other to a 
 considerable extent by contrast ; a stiff line seems doubly 
 stiff beside a flowing one, and a slight curve is much more 
 perceptible when you set it beside a straight line. Good 
 composers avail themselves of this property with great 
 skill, and their lightest grace and sturdiest strength are 
 due to it. 
 
 17. Synthetic systems of art study. A difference of 
 opinion exists amongst painters as to whether young 
 artists ought to begin to paint before they have mastered 
 drawing, or only take up the palette when already accom- 
 plished draughtsmen. This difference may be stated as, 
 on the one hand, an advocacy of the analytic system of 
 art education, and, on the other, of the synthetic. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Leslie are amongst the synthe- 
 sists ; and I know a good painter, who, on finding that a 
 young friend of his was drawing assiduously to improve 
 his forms, recommended him most urgently not to draw in 
 black and white, but rather try to improve his drawing 
 gradually whilst painting ; in other words, to study syn- 
 thetically. 
 
 There is much truth in this view, and much importance 
 is to be attached to the fact that since painting is, after all, 
 
198 Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 
 
 work emphatically synthetic (being the union of many 
 forms and colors and lights and darks into artistic wholes), 
 it must be right to get the student as early as possible into 
 the habit of synthesis. But painting is a synthesis of 
 what? Of innumerable truths. And it is found, in prac- 
 tice, that the human faculties are not large enough to 
 learn all these truths at once. 
 
 The most rational conclusion appears to be that the 
 right principle of early study is analysis ; but that between 
 the period of studentship and that of mastery there exists 
 an interval, in many cases long and laborious^ when the 
 artist is painfully acquiring the power of synthesis, that is, 
 the power of expressing all at once, and harmoniously, the 
 many different facts which he is already able to express 
 separately. 
 
 Such are a few of the reflections which naturally sug- 
 gest themselves, in one shape or other, to every painter 
 who thinks about his art. But it is seldom that painters 
 are willing to recognize the full value of both the two 
 great mental operations which govern the art of painting. 
 Some urge the necessity of analysis : the separation of aim 
 in study, the resolution of all things into their component 
 parts, and the conscious investigation of causes. Others, 
 and these generally the greater men, say that all analysis 
 is valueless except as a part, and by no means the most 
 difficult part, of study, that for performance it goes a very 
 little way ; and these latter have such slight respect for 
 the power of analysis, that they neither value it much in 
 themselves nor honor it in their fellow-artists. They as- 
 sert, too, that a strong healthy eye, which sees things truly 
 as they appear, and a retentive memory, which holds 
 what the eye has seen, are better possessions for a painter 
 than the power of minute analysis. And they are cer- 
 tainly right so far, that analysis becomes a habit, and 
 always has a tendency to attach itself to some facts to the 
 neglect of others, so that a skilled analyst sees a few 
 things with supernatural clearness and is blind to every- 
 thing which he has not analyzed. On the other hand, a 
 true synthesis! sees quite impartially, and this impartiality 
 
Analysis and Synthesis in Painting. 199 
 
 makes him largely receptive. The analyst penetrates and 
 resolves many things, but a perfect synthesist would re- 
 ceive all things. 
 
 The best state for a painter would, no doubt, be to see 
 things all at once, in their right pictorial relations, and 
 then to be able to keep the natural group or scene in his 
 memory with perfect distinctness, and look at it, as one 
 looks at a real scene, but without any effort of analysis, 
 simply seeing and copying the complete picture in the 
 mind. Painters are generally strong as they approach to 
 this state, -and weak as they recede from it ; the weakest 
 state of all being when the artist finds himself compelled 
 to think about what he is doing, and to analyze nature 
 with full consciousness of his occupation. Nevertheless, 
 simplicity of sight and strength of memory are so rare, 
 that most painters are wise in making up for the defi- 
 ciency of these, so far as they are able, by scientific accu- 
 racy of analysis and laborious gathering of registered 
 observations. Yet, though it may be permitted to accu- 
 mulate materials by such processes of separation, we may 
 rest assured of this, that in all fine art, the supreme Lord 
 of Construction, who, if present, makes precious the most 
 meagre materials, and in whose absence all that knowledge 
 can contribute and wealth procure will be lavished vainly, 
 is that strong ruler Synthesis, whom Analysis may effec- 
 tually serve, but can never either replace or represent. 
 
200 The Reaction from Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE REACTION FROM PRE-RAPHAELITISM. 
 
 ' I A HE paper on Analysis and Synthesis in Painting was 
 -* written to clear the way for this. Having -considered 
 the great theoretical question at length, we can now dis- 
 pose 'of this ^practical one briefly. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite movement is understood to have 
 combined two very distinct aims: first, the intellectual 
 elevation of art by the choice of noble and original sub- 
 jects, and, secondly, its technical advancement by a new 
 and minute analysis of nature. The movement was there- 
 fore at the same time very ambitious intellectually, and 
 very arduous practically, requiring both considerable men- 
 tal power for conception and enormous labor of hand for 
 realization. In two words, the Pre-Raphaelites were 
 intellectual and analytic, both to a superlative degree, 
 previous art, in England at least, having generally been 
 unintellectual (much of it even bete), and either nobly 
 synthetic (Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner), or feebly 
 attempting synthesis (West, Haydon, &c.), or again par- 
 tially analytic (Wilkie, Landseer), but never yet resolutely 
 and thoroughly analytic. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite movement in painting was contem- 
 porary with similar tendencies in the outer public mind. 
 We are generally more intellectual than men of the last 
 generation, because more familiar with literature, and 
 consequently with many forms of thought which find full 
 expression in literature, yet have no sufficient room for 
 development in the fragmentary patchwork of common 
 conversation. The steady increase of scientific studies 
 has also given very many of us the habit of analysis. 
 The father and mother of modern Pre-Raphaelitism were 
 
The Reaction from Pre-Raphaelitism. 201 
 
 modern literary thought and modern scientific investigation 
 of the facts of nature. 
 
 The reader is familiar with the chief products of the 
 movement. He has a general idea of what constitutes a 
 Pre-Raphaelite picture. But if he endeavors to construct 
 a definition of a Pre-Raphaelite picture, he will find it 
 exceedingly difficult ; I venture to add that he will not be 
 able to construct such a definition at all without including 
 some of the defects of Pre-Raphaelitism ; and I argue that 
 as in course of time, by a reaction natural to men of high 
 artistic endowments, the Pre-Raphaelite leaders will prob- 
 ably get rid of these defects, they will then produce works 
 which, however excellent, will no longer be recognisable 
 as Pre-Raphaelite works, or distinguishable by the more 
 obvious marks of the sect. 
 
 The marks of the sect were intellectual and emotional 
 intensity, marvellous power of analysis, sensitiveness to 
 strong colors, insensitiveness to faint modulations of sober 
 tint, curious enjoyment of quaintness and rigidity in ar- 
 rangement, absolute indifference to grace, and size, and 
 majesty. 
 
 Now as the greatest artists hitherto have -become syn- 
 thetic as they approached maturity, and used analysis only 
 for the acquisition of knowledge, it seemed likely that 
 after a while the Pre-Raphaelites would begin to feel 
 that so long as they combined the greatest possible amount 
 of analysis with the smallest allowable degree of synthesis 
 they were paying unequal worship to the dual deity of 
 art. The pendulum had swung so far on the side of 
 analysis, that it needed little foresight to predict a move- 
 ment in the opposite direction. 
 
 Besides, there was the question of individual tempera- 
 ment, a consideration not to be overlooked in dealing with 
 an art so peculiarly the product of individual organiza- 
 tions.* It needed not only wonderful patience to produce 
 
 * For example, the temperament of Horace Vernet. For Vernet to 
 have attempted to paint like Holman Hunt would have been artistic 
 suicide. Vernet, at the best, could only have made himself a third-rate 
 Pre-Raphaelite, and as such would not have expressed one-hundredth 
 
202 The Reaction from Pre-Eaphaelitism. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite pictures, it needed also the peculiar faculty 
 of dwelling long on one subject. Some men can do this 
 quite contentedly, others cannot endure to do it all. 
 Leonardo really liked to be long about a picture, did not 
 wish to see it finished, as some mothers do not wish to 
 see their children become men and women. On the other 
 hand, artists like Turner and Gustave Dore, being pressed 
 by multitudes of conceptions, are impatient to get the 
 idea of to-day expressed that to-morrow may be given to 
 to-morrow's thought. It is evident that artists of this 
 latter class will always seek for expeditious modes of 
 expression, and refuse long elaboration, not because they 
 do n*ot see detail, but because they would rather utter a 
 thousand thoughts briefly than ten thoughts elaborately. 
 
 Then, again, though Pre-Raphaelite work when at its 
 best is very admirable, its aims are so high, and its preten- 
 sions so great that it does not admit of mediocrity. No 
 painter, who held large views of his art, could endure to 
 produce second-rate Pre-Raphaelite pictures. Art which 
 professes only to suggest and remind, may fail in many 
 things, and still be precious to us for its obscure hints of 
 natural beauty ; art which professes to be perfect imitation 
 makes such immense claims that success is proportionately 
 more difficult. Pre-Raphaelitism was only too uncom- 
 promising ; for the art of painting is confessedly a compro- 
 mise. And the minuter the detail you profess to give, the 
 more accurate must your information be. Prudent men 
 keep within their science, and do not profess to know 
 every thing ; he who offers to tell us the whole truth, has 
 need of enormous knowledge. 
 
 It is on these grounds that I have always felt convinced 
 that the Pre-Raphaelites would not effect that universal 
 
 part of the conceptions he lived to realize. Such as he was, without 
 being in the strict sense a great painter, he expressed his particular talent 
 most completely ; and I argue that if he had attempted to be a Pre- 
 Raphaelite that particular talent of his would never have found expression 
 at all. But there need be little apprehension, in these days, of such loss 
 as this would have been ; for men of original genius will not now submit 
 to any system, however excellent in itself, when submission would involve 
 the stifling of their own faculties, and the abdication of their own place. 
 
The Reaction from Pre-Raphaelitism. 203 
 
 and permanent revolution in our school of painting which 
 Mr. Ruskin seems at one time to have anticipated. That 
 they have exercised a great and, on the whole, a beneficial 
 influence is indisputable ; that they will succeed in im- 
 posing the two principles of intellectual conception and 
 technical elaboration on the English school generally is 
 not to be hoped for. Still less is it probable that they 
 will revolutionize the disciplined schools of the Con- 
 tinent. 
 
 One of the conclusions about painting, to which I have 
 been most unwillingly driven, is that it is not necessarily 
 an intellectual occupation. There are painters who are 
 intellectual men, and such men put an intellectual element 
 into their art ; but there are also very good painters who 
 are not, in the strict sense of the word, intellectual. Good 
 eyes, and skilful fingers, are of more practical importance 
 to a painter than understanding. This is a reason why an 
 intellectual school of painting is not likely to be realized, 
 for in every school there will be men of strong sight and 
 manual skill without much power of thought. 
 
 Then as to minute elaboration, the mightiest painting 
 refuses it almost always, for master-painters will not waste 
 months in expressing facts by copyism which they can 
 express better by their magic in a day. That magic may 
 be defined as the power of representing things with pro- 
 founder truth by substitution of abstract results of study, 
 than by imitation of the object. As the Pre-Raphaelites 
 acquire this power, they will desist from minute elabora- 
 tion ; and other artists, endowed from the beginning with 
 this gift, will reject the Pre-Raphaelite discipline. 
 
 It was curious to observe this turning point in the 
 career of Millais. The following quotation from Mr. Rus- 
 kin's Notes on the Academy Exhibition of 1857 marks it: 
 "The change in his manner, from the years of Ophelia 
 and Mariana to 1857, is not merely Fall, it is Catas- 
 trophe; not merely a loss of power, but a reversal of 
 principle; his excellence has been effaced, 'as a man 
 wipeth a dish wiping it, and turning it upside down.' " 
 The truth is, that Millais, before going on his new tack, 
 
204 The Reaction from Pre-Eaphaelitism. 
 
 was for a while arrested in his progress, even visibly 
 receding, his uncertain sails shivering powerless in the 
 wind. And Mr. Ruskin, the most keenly interested on- 
 looker, feeling instinctively that the Pre-Raphaelite period 
 was over, raised this bitter cry of disappointment and 
 regret. Since then Millais paints better than ever, but 
 he is no longer a Pre-Raphaelite. Take, for instance, the 
 picture called " My first Sermon," a most charming, love- 
 able, covetable work, but not in any obvious way bearing 
 the marks of Pre-Raphaelitism. The thought is pretty 
 and interesting, but not profound ; the execution skilful, 
 but not elaborate. It is a quite successful bit of popular 
 painting, equal to Leslie in felicity of expression, superior 
 to him in color. But if " My first Sermon " is a Pre- 
 Raphaelite work, I am at a loss to recognize the signs by 
 which it is known as such. And the illustrations to 
 popular novels which Millais has of late years so richly 
 given us do not visibly exemplify the principles of Pre- 
 Raphaelitism. 
 
 It is of course difficult to prove positively that any 
 artist of the realist schools is or is not a Pre-Raphaelite, 
 because the Pre-Raphaelites have never publicly defined 
 their doctrines ; wisely leaving the public and the critics 
 to find them out as they best might, and by this policy 
 reserving much liberty of action. I have the greatest 
 respect for Millais, who, though very unequal and with 
 grave defects, seems to me as unquestionably a man of 
 genius as either Keats or Tennyson, and as sure of immor- 
 tality. But if Millais is a Pre-Raphaelite now, I see 
 nothing to exclude Landseer, or Leslie, or any other 
 thorough modern, from the sect. We have been told 
 that one important distinction of Pre-Raphaelitism was 
 that, whereas other men illustrated poets and novelists, 
 the Pre-Raphaelites were to be their own poets, yet as 
 Leslie illustrated Cervantes so Millais illustrates Mr. An- 
 thony Trollope. We have been told that another distinc- 
 tion of Pre-Raphaelitism was its care and labor in detail, 
 but the present work of Millais is not so careful as that of 
 Gerome, or. Meissonier, or Blaise Desgoffe, yet nobody 
 
The Reaction from Pre-Raphaelitism. 205 
 
 calls these men Pre-Raphaelites. We may be told now 
 that this popularized art is the natural development of 
 Pre-Raphaelitism, which is becoming freer in workman- 
 ship and more popular in subject ; that is to say, that the 
 school has developed itself into its opposite, as Protestant- 
 ism sometimes "develops" itself into Romanism. This 
 is not development : it is reaction. Now either Pre- 
 Raphaelitism has a peculiar doctrine, or it has not. If it 
 has a peculiar doctrine, in what respect is that doctrine 
 exemplified in the present work of Millais, and not exem- 
 plified in the work of Landseer and Frith ? And if Pre- 
 Raphaelitism has no peculiar doctrine at all, what is it ? 
 
 There are states of the public mind which produce 
 artistic results at particular times which, for lack of the 
 necessary heat and excitement, no subsequent epoch can 
 ever engender. And in these days we live intellectually 
 so fast that such epochs occur every twenty years. They 
 leave their mark in some work of inimitable art, never 
 again to be produced by the intelligence of man. Mar- 
 mion, Ivanhoe, Faust, Don Juan, Jocelyn, In Memoriam, 
 Vanity Fair, are not to be written twice. And I could 
 name as many pictures which are not to be painted twice, 
 but in this place it is only necessary to point to Hunt's 
 " Finding of the Saviour in the Temple," as the culmi- 
 nating and representative Pre-Raphaelite figure picture, 
 and Brett's " Val d'Aosta" as the culminating and repre- 
 sentative Pre-Raphaelite landscape. Those pictures had 
 the qualities, and the defects, of the sect. There could be 
 no question about how those works ought to be classed ; 
 they stood as visibly distinct from other forms of art as 
 soldiers in full uniform do from a crowd of civilians. 
 
 But since then, Pre-Raphaelitism, having produced the 
 one or two representative works in which it seems to be a 
 law of nature that each new thought shall embody itself, 
 is losing its individuality, and melting into other art as an 
 iceberg drifting southwards slowly melts and loses itself 
 in the warm seas that there surround it. It will exist 
 still, as water exists mingled with other water ; but it will 
 be no longer a definite, visible, isolated power. 
 
206 The Reaction from Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 Force is not lost, but it becomes untraceable when 
 diffused, and is only recognizable by us when concen- 
 trated, or at its source. Pre-Raphaelitism has been 
 unquestionably a force, a very great force, and its 
 effects, though it may cease to exist, will be lasting. It 
 was a strong and beneficial reaction from indolent synthesis 
 ,to laborious analysis, and from mental inactivity to new 
 thought and emotion, a great sharpening of the sight 
 and rousing of the intellect, and even a fresh stimulus to 
 the feelings. The irresistible pendulum swung then to- 
 wards analysis and thought ; it is now swinging back 
 towards synthesis and manual power. Such reactions 
 take place in the private lives of individual artists. They 
 try hard for synthesis and unity, then find the details 
 weak, and give themselves up to analysis ; after that, they 
 perceive, shortly, an alarming lack of unity, and so swing 
 back to synthesis. 
 
 The representative of the most recent tendency is Mr. 
 Whistler. Of his work as an etcher, I shall have to speak 
 at length before long. As a painter, he has the rare 
 faculty of true oil-sketching, selecting, with certainty, the 
 most essential truths. Mr. Whistler's merits may be best 
 expressed in this way : Given a canvas, so many feet 
 square, and so many hours to cover it in, Mr. Whistler 
 will put more truths, and truths of greater importance, 
 upon that canvas, in the givek time, than most of his 
 contemporaries. Such a faculty is of the utmost value to 
 a landscape painter, on account of the rapid changes of 
 vegetation.* Mr. Whistler seems insensible to beauty, 
 which is a grievous defect in any artist ; but his work is 
 redeemed from vulgarity by strange sensitiveness to color 
 and character. It is audacious, almost impudent, in man- 
 ner ; but it is not affected, though it looks so at first, and 
 
 * No summer landscape can be painted from nature if it takes more 
 than a month, no spring or autumn landscape if it takes more than a fort- 
 night. I am disposed to believe now that the most precious results of 
 landscape painting are frank and genuine color sketches done from nature 
 at high speed. Any thing further must be done in the studio, and it is 
 doubtful whether the studio elaboration is in all cases worth the rough 
 note from nature. 
 
The Reaction from. Pre-Raphaditism. 207 
 
 even its audacity is based on directness and simplicity of 
 purpose. I blamed his " Woman in White," because it 
 was hideous ; and hideous pictures are always detestable, 
 however meritorious. But the "Woman in White" was 
 full of strong work. 
 
 Nature is perpetually breaking bounds. We hedge 
 thought round with formulas; and, in a few years, being 4 
 too narrow, they are broken before we are aware of it. 
 The Pre-Raphaelite boundaries exist no longer. " Even 
 Pre-Raphaelitism," says Mr. Ruskin, " is degenerating 
 and forgetting the principle with which it set out that 
 nobility of subject is a main thing in painting ; nay, the 
 Pre-Raphaelites are forgetting even conscientiousness of 
 workmanship." Still, we owe them the acknowledgment 
 that they taught us, at a time when we needed the lesson, 
 that nature repays every new analysis, and that art may 
 be grave and thoughtful. 
 
208 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 XL 
 
 THE PAINTER IN HIS RELATION TO SOCIETY. 
 
 " TF a man applies himself to servile or mechanic 
 * employments, his industry in those things is a proof 
 of his inattention to nobler studies. No young man of 
 noble birth or liberal sentiments, from seeing the Jupiter at 
 Pisa would desire to be Phidias, or from the sight of the 
 Juno at Argos to be Polydetus." So says old Plutarch ; 
 and we may therefore argue from this passage alone, if 
 other proofs were wanting, that the artist was, in his time, 
 socially considered, a Despised person. The secret of Plu- 
 tarch's contempt for Phidias lies in the word servile. He 
 respected government and not servitude. He liked the 
 rough virtues, often in reality very great vices, which lead 
 men to power, and he had an honest contempt for such 
 mean genius as that of Phidias and Polycletus, which 
 exercised itself in the service of mankind. 
 
 Most people are of Plutarch's opinion ; he only gave 
 a frank expression to one of the. fundamental instincts of 
 humanity. The thermometer does not more accurately 
 indicate the precise degree of caloric present in any fluid, 
 than the popular respect the degree of governmental power 
 present at any given epoch in any one class of society. Its 
 indications are quite reliable. Men respect only power. 
 They detect the exact amount of it present in any class 
 of their contemporaries with an instinct which is absolutely 
 infallible, and in strict proportion to the amount of power 
 present is the degree of deference yielded. 
 
 The sword has at all times been an exceedingly power- 
 ful instrument. So the military profession has always been 
 in the highest degree respectable, and from the days of 
 Alexander of Macedon, downwards, kings and emperors 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 209 
 
 have practically adopted this profession without derogating 
 from the dignity of their birth. 
 
 When there is little intellectual enlightenment the fear 
 of the supernatural tyrannizes over the masses. An 
 eminently intelligent class has always turned this vague 
 dread to political account as an instrument of authority 
 stronger than weapons of steel, and the temple has men- 
 aced the world as sternly as the fortress. By this threat- 
 ening, authoritative attitude, the sacerdotal body first 
 conquered the world's respect. This position was not 
 gained, nor ever could have been gained, by mild persua- 
 sion, but by rack and red-hot pincers in this world, and 
 menaces of eternal tortures for the next.* 
 
 Then, in a more civilized state, when the sword can no 
 longer settle private quarrels, and interests become more 
 complex, a third class makes itself felt as a power in 
 society, more subtle and silent in its workings .than the 
 other two, yet gradually absorbing into its own hands the 
 government of property, the guardianship of orphans, and 
 the administration of justice. It is to the vast, though 
 unrecognized, influence of barristers and attorneys that the 
 legal profession owes that part of its social position for 
 which the high public functionaries, chosen from its ranks, 
 are not in themselves a satisfactory explanation. There is, 
 however, a very curious social distinction between the two 
 branches of this profession, which I reserve for the present, 
 and yet which will itself be found to bear out the argu- 
 ment that political power is the real standard of social 
 respectability. 
 
 Since the latter half of the eighteenth century two or 
 three other occupations have risen into such importance as 
 to rival the elder professions. 
 
 To spin cotton thread, to weave calico, to stain it with 
 patterns, to manufacture carpets, and blankets, and even 
 steel pens, have become avenues to political power. And 
 to do these things on a large scale is rapidly becoming 
 respectable, even in the strictest conventional sense. A 
 
 * If the reader doubts this, let him study the history of the Middle Ages. 
 14 
 
210 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 little external roughness of manner, and provincialism of 
 dialect, may retard the recognition of the industrial chiefs 
 in their true character, but the people will find out before 
 long, who have not found it out already, that when a man 
 governs a thousand artisans he is a leader of men and a 
 power in the state. When this is generally understood 
 the great industrial chief will rank side by side with the 
 great land-owner in the popular estimation. 
 
 Even the mere capitalist, who lives quietly on the inter- 
 est of his fortune, is respected for the great reserve of 
 power represented by the sum he possesses. But when he 
 employs this power actively in the affairs of other individ- 
 uals he becomes the centre of forces whose complicated 
 effects it is impossible to calculate ; and so the money-lender 
 has a place in the modern world which becomes stronger 
 in proportion to the increased security of his transactions, 
 and the extension of commerce, whereof he holds the 
 strings. " I very early discerned," said Heinrich Heine, 
 " that bankers would one day be the rulers of the world." 
 
 But the social history of literature is the best illustra- 
 tion of the inherent respectability of power. In the days 
 when Sir Everard Waverley, of Waverley Honor, received 
 political intelligence through the medium of Mr. Dyer's 
 manuscript " Weekly News-letter," and Mr. Dyer would 
 often humbly plead for an extra gratuity from the gen- 
 tlemen who patronized him on account of the expense he 
 had been put to in collecting information in coffee-houses, 
 in those days, I fancy, the provincial magnate had little 
 conception of the power which the successors of good Mr. 
 Dyer were destined to wield in these latter days, when a 
 newspaper correspondent is respectfully received by a 
 Governor- General of India, and confidentially informed by 
 a commander-in-chief of the details of his strategy, on the 
 sole condition that he will not divulge them at the seat of 
 war. Writers are often earnest, but they are not respected 
 for their earnestness ; they are often humane and tender- 
 hearted, but they are not respected for their gentleness ; 
 but the writer who is sure of the public ear, as, for in- 
 stance, the contributor to an established periodical, has an 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 211 
 
 appreciable social and political power, and it is for that 
 power alone that literature has begun to be respected. 
 
 Before a man of rank will enter any profession he al- 
 ways asks himself, more or less consciously, " Will this 
 business help me to govern ? " and if a career does not 
 open a fair prospect of governmental influence he will not 
 concern himself with it. 
 
 Perhaps we ought to respect virtue more than power, 
 but we don't. Moral excellence, as an abstraction, or in 
 men long ago dead, who are become, as it were, mere 
 shadows and abstractions, is very much extolled indeed ; 
 but somehow, when embodied in an individual person 
 actually existing in the world, the noblest qualities are apt 
 to lose their ideal lustre. 
 
 The reader may answer this by an appeal to history, 
 and try to show how tyrants have been hated and resisted. 
 But no student who has read history by the light of com- 
 mon sense can have failed to perceive that it is not the 
 strong, steady tyranny of power that has ever been re- 
 garded with disfavor by the masses, but only the spasmodic 
 cruelties of weak sovereigns, whose power was slipping 
 from their grasp. It was the weakness of the Nea- 
 politan dynasty, and not its cruelty, which caused our 
 political chiefs to speak with such contempt of it in the 
 House of Commons. Had the King of Naples been a 
 powerful sovereign, Lord Palmerston would have spoken 
 of him in the same respectful language he was accustomed 
 to employ when alluding to an august ally, his Imperial 
 Majesty the Emperor of the French. And all through 
 what we are taught to call " History," you will find that 
 the strong tyrant is very much respected, and that it is on 
 the weak tyrant, his descendant, that all his sins are vis- 
 ited, both by the people who rebel against him, and the 
 writers who hold him up to the execration of a discrimi- 
 nating public. 
 
 I suppose that this instinctive reverence for the mighty 
 is a natural law essential to the cohesion of society. De- 
 veloped to excess, it becomes, however, ineffably mean and 
 contemptible. Mr. Thackeray's ideal of a "snob" is 
 merely a person in whom this instinct predominates/ 
 
212 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 If the reader has ever felt the peculiar physical sensa- 
 tion produced on the nervous system by contact with some 
 individual of enormous power, he will not think it an 
 exaggeration to attribute much of the influence exercised 
 by very powerful persons over the rest of their species to a 
 sense existing in the nature of every one of us which was 
 intended to feel this peculiar influence, and prepare men 
 beforehand for submission. Who could have touched 
 Caesar without feeling this magnetic emanation? Dr. 
 Livingstone says that the contact of the lion's paw conquers 
 the will of its victim, and makes him insensible to its bite. 
 So a great human power fascinates the imagination and 
 subdues the will. Before the kings of men open their 
 lips the listeners are ready to obey. In the presence of a 
 Russian autocrat the head swims with a vague sense of the 
 infinity of his influence and the inconceivable vastness of 
 his empire. Down the great scales of life this effect on 
 the imagination becomes less and less in proportion to the 
 diminution of power, till it causes mere politeness to the 
 landed proprietor, who is king only of a few acres. 
 
 An old gentleman, a Frenchman, whom I knew very 
 well, was one day walking down the Rue Vivienne in 
 Paris. He was absorbed in calculations, for he was a 
 member of one of the greatest financial houses in Europe, 
 and it was a busy time for their house, which had large 
 transactions with embarrassed sovereigns. Lost to all 
 surrounding objects, my friend suddenly came in contact 
 with a foot passenger walking in the opposite direction, 
 lifted his hat to apologize, and found himself face to face 
 with a little man who at that time was making a consid- 
 erable noise in the world. The little man whom my 
 friend M. O had jostled off the footpath was the Em- 
 peror Napoleon the First, then at the very height of his 
 power, taking a quiet walk with Duroc, as his custom was. 
 
 Now M. O told me this story one evening as we 
 
 were walking together down the same street, and I re- 
 member he commented on the odd sensation he had expe- 
 rienced. Having a turn for philosophical reflection, he 
 was much interested in trying to account to himself for a 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 213 
 
 certain fascination which had fixed him to the spot for 
 some minutes after the accident. He had felt the 
 
 shock of immeasurable power. The man whom M. O 
 
 had pushed off the footpath was at that very hour shaking 
 the thrones of the world. Every king in Europe feared 
 him. My friend felt, no doubt, as if he had come into con- 
 tact with something superhuman. 
 
 I can realize the sensation from having myself expe- 
 rienced it in a less degree. Once, at a ball in Paris, I 
 was talking with an old French general, when a third per- 
 son, also in uniform, came and shook hands with my neigh- 
 bor. "Eh bien, comment $a va-t-il?" were the stranger's 
 remarkable words, nothing in them to astonish or elec- 
 trify one. Yet I did feel an odd, tingling sensation, for 
 the stranger's waxed moustachios stood out like rats' tails, 
 the eye was dull and glassy, the face expressionless, like a 
 bronze bust, and the nose strangely familiarized to me 
 already in Punch. It was Napoleon III. 
 
 The other half of the argument, namely, that political 
 impotence is held contemptible, is just as easy to prove. 
 Society does not concern itself with the inherent nobleness 
 of any occupation, only with its governmental power. For 
 instance, the medical profession, in itself one of the very 
 noblest of callings, and one of the most glorious fields in 
 the realms of human exertion, is only considered respect- 
 able by the middle-class, the upper, or governing classes 
 do not own it. People of rank receive their " medical 
 attendant" with no more notion that he is their intel- 
 lectual equal than if he were only a superior species of 
 hair-dresser, or any other attendant (note the peculiar offen- 
 siveness of the phrase). The work of surgeons and phy- 
 sicians requires very careful training, and when it passes 
 out of the limits of routine calls into exercise the very 
 highest moral and intellectual qualities ; but these men 
 have no place in society because their profession does 
 not conduct them to political power. If a nobleman's 
 daughter were to form an attachment for her " medical 
 man," her family would be thrown into the uttermost con- 
 sternation, whereas she may marry a country parson with- 
 out loss of caste. 
 
214 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 Another very curious illustration is supplied by the two 
 branches of the legal profession. The bar is an avenue to 
 political power, but an attorney's office is not (except in so 
 far as a country solicitor in large practice may sometimes 
 influence an election). So this busier and more generally 
 lucrative branch is not recognized by society on equal 
 terms. An attorney is a gentleman by Act of Parliament, 
 but the higher circles of society do not ratify the parlia- 
 mentary title by receiving him as an equal, and younger 
 sons of noble families never by any chance get themselves 
 articled to attorneys. The attorney, however, indemnifies 
 himself for his social wrongs by patronizing barristers at 
 their entrance into life, and governing proprietors through 
 his intimate knowledge of their private affairs. 
 
 All these inconsistencies are at once explained by the 
 theory that power is respectability. The more power a 
 man has, the more he will be respected, and the less power 
 he has, the less he will be respected, till we come down to 
 those individuals whose power is so exceedingly limited as 
 to excite no sensations of respect whatever. 
 
 Now I should like to know how a man is ever to make 
 himself terrible by painting pretty little pictures, or even 
 great big ugly ones ? Who is afraid of a picture ? It 
 cannot kill one like a sword, nor damage one's fair fame 
 like a newspaper, nor hold one up to the reprobation of the 
 godly like a preacher. It is absolutely innocuous. People 
 are not forced to buy it, nor even to look at it. There it 
 hangs in its pretty gilt frame, saying, " Pray come and look 
 at me, ladies and gentlemen ; I am really very beautiful 
 and very true, and my price is marked in the catalogue." 
 
 And accordingly, if we study the social position of the 
 artist, we shall find it slippery, unsatisfactory, and insecure. 
 Goethe observes somewhere, that though the artist is a 
 privileged person, and though his talent has an inward 
 certainty, its outward relation is peculiarly uncertain. One 
 can easily fancy that the position of a great Greek sculptor 
 in a society holding Plutarch's notions must have been 
 any thing but pleasant. And since, as I said before, the 
 world generally is quite of Plutarch's opinion, the modern 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 215 
 
 successors of Phidias, whether in sculpture or other fine 
 art, find a frank and equal intercourse with the general 
 world next to impossible for them. 
 
 The best and truest pictures of contemporary manners 
 are, undoubtedly, to be found in what the French call 
 "studies of manners," or those modern novels in which the 
 society of to-day is painted from the life* Let us see how 
 the painter's relation to this society is sketched by one or 
 two of the ablest hands.* 
 
 In " The Newcoines," when young Clive devotes himself 
 to painting, it is considered a family disgrace by his friends, 
 whose place in society, by the way, is of quite recent 
 acquisition, and whose origin is so low that they are all 
 forced to tell lies about it. But Clive is not on the road to 
 power, and of course, without power, gets no consideration 
 from the governing classes. His occupation withdraws 
 him from the society of gentlemen, and we find him, not at 
 university wine-parties with young lords, but working at 
 Gandish's with a set of low flatterers for his associates, and 
 the son of a domestic servant for his most intimate friend. 
 That reverend puppy, Charles Honeyman, the perfect in- 
 carnation of all that the weakest women most deeply love 
 and reverence, says with bland dignity, " My dear Clive, 
 there are degrees in society which we must respect. You 
 surely cannot think of being a professional artist. Such a 
 profession is very well for your protege but for you . . " 
 when Clive vehemently interrupts him. Mrs. Hobson New- 
 come tells the Colonel that his boy is not good enough to 
 associate with hers, because " he lives with artists and all 
 sorts of eccentric people," whereas hers " are bred on quite 
 a different plan. Hobson will succeed his father in the 
 bank, and dear Samuel," she trusts, "will go into the 
 Church." The father of these hopeful young gentlemen 
 calls Clive's devotion to art " this madcap freak of turn- 
 ing painter." " Confound .it," says he, " why doesn't my 
 brother set him up in some respectable business ? I ain't 
 
 * Part of what follows is abridged from a review article contributed by 
 myself to the "West of Scotland Magazine and Review," and entitled 
 41 Artist-Life in Fiction." 
 
216 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 proud ; I have not married an earl's daughter . . . but a 
 painter ! hang it, a painter's no trade at all I don't fancy 
 seeing one of our family sticking up pictures for sale. I 
 don't like it, Barnes," and two minutes afterwards he 
 heartily damns " all literary men, all artists, the whole lot 
 of them ! " The said Barnes agrees pleasantly with his 
 uncle, and farther on in the book speaks of his cousin 
 Clive as " a beggarly painter, an impudent snob, an infer- 
 nal young puppy," and so forth. Even dive's father did 
 not seriously believe that his son would live by painting 
 pictures, but considered him as a young prince who chose 
 to amuse himself with painting. Mr. Barnes mentions at 
 home "a singular whim of Colonel Newcome, who can 
 give his son twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and makes 
 an artist of him." Ethel writes to the Colonel from Baden, 
 " You will order Clive not to sell his pictures, won't you ? 
 I know it is not wrong, but your son might look higher 
 than to be an artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall 
 for him. An artist, an organist, a pianist, all these are 
 very good people ; but, you know, not ' de noire rnondej and 
 Clive ought to belong to it."* Mrs. Mackenzie, when 
 Clive in his adversity tries to support the house by his 
 labor, says, " It is most advisable that Clive should earn 
 some money by that horrid profession he has chosen to 
 adopt trade I call it." And Thackeray himself says, 
 " The Muse of Painting is a lady, whose social position is 
 not altogether recognized with us as yet. The polite world 
 permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her, but to take 
 her for better or for worse ! forsake all other chances and 
 cleave unto her! to assume her name ! many a respectable 
 person would be as much shocked at the notion, as if his 
 son had married an opera-dancer. However, it never 
 entered into Clive's head to be ashamed of the profession 
 
 * Ethel's reasoning here is feminine. She confounds together persons 
 of creative and of merely interpretative power. They ought to be clearly 
 separated, thus: 
 
 CREATORS. INTERPRETERS. 
 
 Poets. Translators. 
 
 Original Painters. Engravers and Copyists. 
 
 Musical Composers. Musical Performers. 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 217 
 
 he had chosen, and though he saw many of his school- 
 fellows in the world, these entering into the army, others 
 talking with delight of college and its pleasures or studies, 
 yet, having made up his mind that art was his calling, he 
 refused to quit her for any other mistress, and plied his 
 easel very stoutly." 
 
 But Thackeray is too profound a student of human 
 nature not to let this continual opposition have its natural 
 effect in the end. The fact is, our affections must be very 
 deeply engaged in a pursuit to enable us to follow it 
 steadily against the opinion of all around us ; and Clive, 
 not being a born painter like J. J., but only a lad of good 
 abilities (not of genius in any wise), having the choice of 
 war with his father and his wife, or the virtual abandon- 
 ment of his art, does as most of us would under similar cir- 
 cumstances, pursues the art by stealth with just sufficient 
 ardor to make his wife jealous of it, but not half enough 
 ardor for success in it. So he is miserable (being in a 
 false position), and J. J. feelingly laments for his friend: 
 " Among them they have taken him away from his art. 
 They don't understand him when he talks about it, they 
 despise him for pursuing it. Why should I wonder at 
 that ? my parents despised it too, and my father was not 
 a grand gentleman like the Colonel." Ultimately, when 
 restored to prosperity by his marriage with Ethel, Clive 
 shaves his beard and abandons his art. The moral of the 
 story is thus admirably completed. 
 
 This J. J. Ridley, the true artist, is only the son of a 
 domestic servant. Thackeray could not have made him 
 the son of a gentleman, because the obstacles placed by 
 society in the path of a man of genius of sufficient worldly 
 rank to bring him within its influence are nearly insur- 
 mountable, and all the terrible difficulties of poverty and 
 ignorance are as nothing in comparison with the one diffi- 
 culty of facing social degradation. Gentlemen are the 
 born officers of the social army, and they do not like to 
 have their epaulettes torn off. But men in the ranks 
 may do the menial work of the world, because their posi- 
 tion is so humble already that it cannot well suffer by any 
 
218 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 act not absolutely criminal. So fche butler's boy may paint 
 pictures as he might have brushed boots, and nobody con- 
 siders it a degradation, except his parents, who probably 
 had higher views for their son, and would have liked to see 
 him in livery. 
 
 The other professional artists, to whom Mr. Thackeray 
 introduces us, are not men who would naturally take a 
 strong position amongst gentlemen. Gandish, the martyr 
 to " Igh art," tells Smee, the portrait-painter, the secret 
 history of a grand work. " The models of the hancient 
 Britons in that pictur alone cost me thirty pound when 
 I was a struggling man, and had just married my Betsy 
 here. You reekonise Boadishia, Colonel, with the Roman 
 'elmet, cuirass, and javeling of the period all studied 
 from the hantique, sir, the glorious hantique." Again, with 
 what a wonderful command of all the resources of our 
 language does the same eloquent artist discourse to Colonel 
 Newcome on his illustrations of English History. "If 
 you do me the honor to walk into the Hatrium, you'll 
 remark my great pictures also from English 'istory. An 
 English historical painter, sir, should be employed chiefly 
 in English 'istory. That's what I would have done. Why 
 ain't there temples for us where the people might read 
 their history at a glance without knowing how to read ? 
 Why is my Alfred 'anging up in this 'all ? Because there 
 is no patronage for a man who devotes himself to Igh Art.- 
 You know the anecdote, Colonel. King Alfred flying 
 from the Danes took refuge in a neaterd's 'ut. The rustic's 
 wife told him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovering sat 
 down to his ignoble task, and, forgetting it in the cares of 
 state, let the cake burn, on which the woman struck him. 
 The moment chose is when she is lifting her 'and to deliver 
 the blow. The king receives it with majesty, mingled with 
 meekness. In the background the door of the 'ut is open, 
 letting in the royal officers to announce the Danes are 
 defeated. The daylight breaks in at the aperture, signify- 
 ing the dawning of 'Ope. That story, sir, which I found 
 in my researches in 'istory, has since become so popular, 
 s r, that hundreds of artists have painted it, hundreds ! I, 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 219 
 
 who discovered the legend, have my picture here !" In 
 a country where the due aspiration of the letter h is con- 
 sidered the indispensable qualification of every one claim- 
 ing the rank of gentleman, I do not see how Mr. Gandish 
 could ever expect to be recognized as one. 
 
 It is observable that, whenever Mr. Thackeray has any 
 thing to say of the artistic class, it is always to leave a 
 strong impression on the reader's mind of the artist's 
 social nonentity. The memory of Becky Sharp's father, 
 for instance, is never recalled in a manner favorable to 
 him, his drunkenness or his poverty being the character- 
 istics by one or other of which he is roughly hauled before 
 the reader from time to time. In " The Newcomes " the 
 only supportable artist is J. J. Ridley ; but in an aristo- 
 cratic country like this, people don't particularly affect the 
 society of their domestics or their families, and it is there- 
 fore a considerable obstacle to Mr. Ridley's social success 
 that his father is a butler. Gandish is an ignorant old 
 goose, and Smee one of the meanest of toadies. Clive 
 Newcome is not an artist at all ; but if, by courtesy, we 
 count him as one, his idleness and infirmity of purpose 
 were no credit to that profession which his swell manners 
 adorned. In the character sketches the essay entitled 
 u The Artists " does not contain one single portrait agree- 
 able enough to make one wish *to know the original ; and 
 by continually exhibiting poverty and meanness on the 
 one hand, or a base and unworthy success on the other, as 
 the opposite poles of the artistic career, the writer easily 
 conveys the impression that the career is in itself inevi- 
 tably degrading. But this, as I happen to know, was not 
 Mr. Thackeray's own private opinion at all. As an indi- 
 vidual, Thackeray loved and reverenced our art to a de- 
 gree that no one would believe possible who knew no more 
 about him than is to be gathered from his published works. 
 It is as a satirist only that he laughs at the brotherhood 
 of- the brush, and the brethren of that order are no worse 
 off than any other order of men of whom that satirist 
 treats. Without, therefore, complaining in any way of 
 this rough usage, we have only to note with regard to 
 
220 The Painter in his Relation to /Society. 
 
 Thackeray's works, considered as a collection of studies 
 from life, taken by one who scorns the artifice of flattery, 
 that the artists occupy in them much the same position, 
 relatively to the rest of the world, that they do in real 
 life, that is to say a very unsound and unsatisfactory 
 position. 
 
 In " St. Ronan's Well " the guests at the table d'hote 
 cannot believe Tyrrell to be a professional artist, simply 
 because his manners are good. 
 
 " I doubt, too, if he is a professional artist," said Lady 
 Binks. " If so, he is of the very highest class, for I have 
 seldom seen a better-bred man." 
 
 " There are very well-bred artists," said Lady Penelope ; 
 " it is the profession of a gentleman." 
 
 " Certainly," answered Lady Binks, " but the poorer 
 class have often to struggle with poverty and dependence. 
 In general society they are like commercial people in pres- 
 ence of their customers, and that is a difficult part to 
 sustain. And so you see them of all sorts shy and 
 reserved, when they are conscious of merit petulant and 
 whimsical by way of showing their independence intru- 
 sive in order to appear easy and sometimes obsequious 
 and fawning when they chance to be of a mean spirit. But 
 you seldom see them quite at their ease, and therefore I 
 hold this Mr. Tyrrell to be either an artist of the first 
 class, raised completely above the necessity and degra- 
 dation of patronage, or else to be no professional artist 
 at all." 
 
 There is an exquisite touch in the fifth chapter, which 
 I cannot omit, though a little out of place. Lady Penel- 
 ope, when Tyrrell avows his artistic character, " had to 
 recede," says Scott and mark this, for it is thoroughly 
 masterly and characteristic " from the respectful and easy 
 footing on which he had contrived to place himself, to one 
 which might express patronage on her own part and de- 
 pendence on Tyrrell's, and this could not be done in a 
 moment." Sir Walter Scott knew nothing of painting, 
 but, of course, observed closely whatever might indicate 
 the social estimate of art. Sir Walter never once pene- 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 221 
 
 trated beyond the surface of the artistic nature, and, 
 though a great artist himself in his work, was merely a 
 dilettante in feeling. Still, even to him, who had no 
 sympathy whatever with painters, it was plain enough 
 that society, in his day, did not treat them on terms of 
 equality. 
 
 As Scott in " St. Ronan's Well," and Thackeray in " The 
 Newcomes," have illustrated our subject, so has Charles 
 Dickens in " Little Dorrit." " Mr. Henry Gowan, inher- 
 iting from his father, the commissioner, that very ques- 
 tionable help in life, a very small independence, had been 
 difficult to settle. At last he had declared that he would 
 become a painter ; partly because he had always had an 
 idle knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the 
 Barnacles in chief who had not provided for him. So it 
 came to pass that several distinguished ladies had been 
 frightfully shocked." And of all the shocked ladies, 
 Gowan's mother was shocked the most. She says to 
 Clennam, " Perhaps you have heard that I have suffered 
 the keenest distress of mind from Henry's having taken 
 to a pursuit which well ! " shrugging her shoulders, " a 
 very respectable pursuit I dare say, and some artists are, 
 as artists, quite superior persons; still, we never yet in 
 our family have gone beyond an amateur, and it is a par- 
 donable weakness to feel a little " Here Mrs. Gowan 
 sighed. 
 
 A very clever and not unfair statement of the causes for 
 the peculiar jealousy with which the rich trading class 
 regards cultivated persons, and, above all, persons artisti- 
 cally cultivated, is put into the mouth of an intelligent 
 man of business by Miss Jewsbury, in her masterly novel, 
 "The Half-Sisters," a novel, by the way, which enters 
 better into the true artist feeling than any other I know. 
 I have never seen the question so skilfully handled ; in 
 the few sentences I shall quote, considerations are taken 
 into account which would altogether escape any ordinary 
 observer. The statement that authors and artists have 
 " no professional or business-like habits " is not true, as 
 Mr. Smiles proved in his " Self-help ; " but it is perfectly 
 
222 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 well placed, dramatically, in the mouth of a mere man of 
 business, being a prejudice common to his class. It is Mr. 
 Bryant who speaks first, a great master-miner. 
 
 " Professional people live in a world of their own ; and 
 it is very undesirable that they should be introduced into 
 the private circles of the middle classes .... I have a 
 singular objection to meeting with authors, actors, artists, 
 or professional people of any sort, except in the peculiar 
 exercise of their vocation, which I am willing to pay for. 
 There may be respectable people amongst them, but they 
 are not sufficient to give a coloring to the class ; and as 
 a class, there is a want of stamina about them ; they have 
 no precision or business-like habits, the absence of which 
 leaves an opening for faults with very ugly names ; and 
 persons whose profession it is to amuse others and make 
 themselves pleasing, cannot, in the nature of things, expect 
 to take a very high position. Men cannot feel reverence 
 or respect for those who aspire to amuse them ! " 
 
 " Well ! " cried Conrad, laughing, " I have always ob- 
 served that heavy, sententious, stupid persons, seem to 
 entertain a species of contempt for those who possess the 
 lighter gifts of being entertaining ; but I never heard it 
 made into a theory before. To leave that part of the 
 question, however, let me ask you whether you consider 
 that the province of those who profess the fine arts is only 
 to amuse ? Do you think that they have gained the real 
 end of their labor when they are paid for what they do ? 
 and do you consider the production of works of art to be 
 a mere mode of earning a living ? " 
 
 " This is an industrial country," said Bryant ; " the 
 great mass of sympathy and intellect takes a practical 
 direction, a direction that we understand ; we have no 
 real knowledge of art, no real mstinct or genuine aspira- 
 tion after it ; and I should say that in our hearts we do 
 not respect, love, or honor fine art in any of its manifes- 
 tations, as we do that which is scientific or practical. To 
 the Italians, to the French even, music and pictures are 
 necessaries of life ; to us English they only take the guise 
 of ornament or convenience, of superfluity, in short. 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 223 
 
 That being the case, we naturally do not feel drawn to the 
 society of artists ; we have nothing in common with them, 
 we do not admire them ; neither do we feel disposed to 
 introduce to the society of our wives and daughters a parcel 
 of actors, artists, musicians, and so forth, who have no 
 stake in society, who have little to lose, whose capital is 
 all invested in themselves and their two hands, and who 
 have, therefore, naturally cultivated themselves far beyond 
 what we practical men have had a chance of doing, and 
 are capable of throwing us into the shade in our own 
 houses, whilst they show that they despise us. Let them 
 keep their places, and let us keep ours ! " 
 
 " But do you allow nothing for the civilizing influ- 
 ence of men of cultivated intellect amongst you ? " said 
 Conrad. 
 
 " Railroads will do more," replied Bryant ; " every peo- 
 ple must work out its civilization in its own way. Love 
 of the fine arts is not our speciality : we do not know 
 a good tiling from a bad one unless we are told; and 
 the pretence we make about it has a bad effect on our 
 character." 
 
 Painters are not very often alluded to by our poets, 
 though there are plenty of poems abont pictures, of which 
 the great majority are trash. The only bit of well-known 
 verse which I just now remember, as really to our purpose, 
 is this line in " The Lord of Burleigh : " 
 
 He is but a landscape painter. 
 
 There is, however, a good deal in that little word but 
 as much perhaps as in all I have quoted from Scott and 
 Thackeray. For instance, if I were to say of Mr. Teuny- 
 Bon, 
 
 He is but a poet-laureate, 
 
 the reader would at once infer that in my opinion the lau- 
 reateship was not a great office. So we may very allow- 
 ably conclude, from the significant employment of the word 
 but, that in Mr. Tennyson's estimate of social position a 
 landscape painter must be content to occupy a very humble 
 place. 
 
224 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 Oo the table where I am writing there happens to be a 
 book of travels in the Highlands. I have just been reading 
 a few pages about Loch Long, and have come upon a pas- 
 sage about sketching from Nature. I should have been very 
 much astonished if the art could have been alluded to 
 without some indication of contempt for its professors, and 
 accordingly, just at the end of the paragraph, comes a bit 
 of disdain which is quite comic in its conceit. 
 
 " As I was amusing myself here with drawing the Cob- 
 ler amongst a crowd of herring-fishers, one of them, who 
 had been very intent on the proceeding, said, when it was 
 done, ' I wish I could draw like you.' I remarked that 
 herring-fishing was a better trade. ' I canna think that/ 
 was the reply. I assured him I made nothing of it. 
 ' That 's your fault,' said the fisherman ; * if I could draw 
 like you, I would make money of it.' So would I, were I 
 Parmenio." 
 
 Now this is exquisite. So WOULD I, WERE I PARME- 
 NIO. What majestic words! The reader will be quite 
 curious to know the position of a writer who thus modestly 
 mimics the sublime vanity of Alexander. In this little 
 sentence is contained a whole paragraph of pretension. It 
 says quite plainly, " My position in society is so exalted, 
 that in comparison with such men. as Reynolds* and Ru- 
 bens,! I am as the conqueror of the world to one of his 
 generals ; " or, stated like a question in the Rule of Three, 
 as Alexander was to Parmenio, so am I to any painter 
 you please. Is it a prince who speaks thus haughtily ? 
 I turn to the title-page, and find that the book was writ- 
 ten by Dr. Macculloch, a geologist. 
 
 An impression prevails in England that artists have a 
 better position in France. This is partly true, and partly 
 a mistake. From what I have seen, personally, across the 
 channel, I should say that the position of a painter in 
 
 * I declare I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Rey- 
 nolds was the finest gentleman. JThackeray. 
 
 f Rubens was an honorable and entirely well-intentioned man, ear- 
 nestly industrious, simple and temperate 'in habits of life, high-bred, 
 learned, and discreet. Ruskin. 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 225 
 
 France, as compared with his position here, is, on the 
 whole, very little better, except after fame is won, and then 
 I grant that no place in Europe is pleasanter for an artist 
 than Paris, if his art be of a kind that the Parisians can 
 understand. I remember two lines in UHonneur et V Ar- 
 gent, which indicate very well the position of a great artist 
 in France ; but I also remember a good many other pas- 
 sages, in that and other books, which indicate with equal 
 clearness the national contempt for the artistic aspirant, or 
 even for the consummate workman whose power has not as 
 yet obtained public recognition. The two lines I shall 
 quote first are spoken by a charming young French lady, 
 excited to enthusiasm by a disinterested and honorable 
 action : 
 
 " C'est plus qu'un grand artiste, et plus qu'un grand seigneur 
 Plus qu'un homme opulent ; c'est un homme d'honneur." 
 
 Now it certainly would never occur to an English girl who 
 happened to be seeking for superlatives of human great- 
 ness by comparison with which to exalt a man she ad- 
 mired, it would occur, I say, to no English girl to put a 
 great artist and a great nobleman side by side as examples 
 of the highest human dignities, and I -consider these lines 
 therefore valuable on account of their peculiarly French 
 view of the matter. 
 
 In the first act of the Fiammina, too, by Mario Uchard, 
 there is a charming conversation between a father and his 
 son, which gives an agreeable idea of the successful artist's 
 life. The father, " Daniel Lambert," is a celebrated 
 painter ; the son, a young poet. It is to be regretted, by 
 the way, that M. Uchard should have selected that par- 
 ticular name for his great artist, it being already the prop- 
 erty of a celebrity great in quite another sense. Henri, 
 the son, says to his father : 
 
 " Tu es le premier peintre du temps ; grace a toi je suis riche, 
 ton nom est un talisman pour moi, il me souffle du bonheur comme 
 au temps des fees ; toutes les portes s'ouvrent devant lui : ' C'est le 
 fils de Daniel Lambert,' dit-on sur mon passage, et Ton te fete en 
 moi, je suis ton clair de lune, je te reflete." 
 
 15 
 
226 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 Mais tu as bien tes rayons a toi. 
 
 Rayons d'emprunt . . . Je me sens bien humble devant cette 
 consideration qui me vient toute de toi, et me reduit a rien. Quand 
 on dit, par exemple : " C'est Lambert le fils," il me semble que ce 
 mot de fils est place la comme une sentinelle qui crie : " Halte-la ! 
 ne confondez pas : celui-ci n'est pas le celebre." 
 
 It is also observable that when Lord Dudley, a distin- 
 guished English " patron," comes to see Lambert, his 
 manner is any thing but patronizing. Lambert, for rea- 
 sons I cannot stop to explain, declines the commission 
 Lord Dudley has come to offer, requesting him to pardon 
 the refusal. On this his lordship answers : 
 
 " Je ne saurais vous en vouloir, monsieur ; je venais en sollici- 
 teur, et je n'ai pas perdu ma journee, puisque j'ai eu 1'honneur de 
 vous voir." 
 
 Which is all very civil and polite. 
 
 In the third act Henri challenges Lord Dudley, and in 
 the course of their conversation I find an expression 
 which we have met with elsewhere. Henri says, page 
 85: 
 
 " Je pourrais avoir recours k un de ces outrages publics qui fer- 
 ment toute retraite, mais entre gens de notre monde, un tel eclat 
 ferait rechercher la cause de mon agression, et c'est ce que je veux 
 evitera tout prix." 
 
 The expression " de notre monde," is what I allude to. 
 We have already met with it in a letter addressed by Miss 
 Ethel Newcome to her uncle the Colonel, in which she 
 says that artists are not " de notre monde." The coinci- 
 dence is curious. Here we have the son of a French 
 artist talking to a rich English lord as if he considered 
 himself in every way his lordship's equal. He is, how- 
 ever, not merely the son of a painter, but of a very famous 
 one, which, in France, is quite as good as a patent of 
 nobility. Yet, when I have granted that celebrated artists 
 are respected at Paris, I cannot admit that the great body 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 227 
 
 of painters get more consideration there than they do 
 here, or that true art is better loved for itself by our 
 neighbors than by us. 
 
 The destruction of the old French noblesse has, as 
 everybody knows, given a character to French society 
 which makes it less than ever like our own. There are, 
 however, some country towns in Lancashire and the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire where a new society, in default of 
 hereditary leaders of ancient descent, accepts for its chief 
 class an aristocracy of recent origin and precarious tenure, 
 based on the fluctuating revenues of commerce. The 
 spirit of speculation in money matters, which is strong 
 enough in these towns to cause great vicissitudes in 
 families, is yet more powerful at Paris, and there is not a 
 place in Europe where the effects of money may be better 
 studied than there. Accordingly much labor and ability 
 have been devoted by several eminent French writers, to 
 the analysis of money power in its relation to life in all its 
 forms to artistic life amongst the rest. What the modern 
 financial aristocracy of France thinks of artists we will 
 try to gather from Ponsard and others. Balzac and Ed- 
 mond About will tell us what the vulgar bourgeoisie 
 thinks. As for what the old noblesse thought on the 
 subject, that is quite simple, and need not detain us ; it 
 looked on all artists as handicraftsmen, and therefore con- 
 temptible. 
 
 Since the days of Horace the world has regarded with 
 suspicion the praises of critics who have just plentifully 
 feasted at a poet's table, and Horace's satire is no less 
 applicable to the case of painters. Dilettantes are, how- 
 ever, much more likely than artists to become the victims 
 of these post-prandial eulogies, partly, perhaps, because 
 artists do not give so many dinners as dilletantes, but 
 mainly because true artists cannot bear to hear themselves 
 praised by ignorant " connoisseurs " (who are always icily 
 indifferent to the peculiar excellencies of individual artists, 
 and who, when they praise, cause the keenest suffering 
 their feebleness is capable of inflicting), and wise painters 
 therefore most carefully avoid showing their work to mis- 
 
228 The Painter in his ^Relation to Society. 
 
 cellaneous company. But you can never dine with a 
 thorough dilletante without having to look at his sketches. 
 The first scene in that immortal comedy of Ponsard, 
 " L'ffonneur et f Argent" is of this familiar kind. Alas, 
 how many times have we not all passed through similar 
 ordeals ! 
 
 The best bit here is what the statesman says : 
 
 " It 's pretty and good. I believe you paint very well. 
 But leave all that, George, to those who have nothing. A 
 poor hungry devil without a half-penny may daub well or 
 ill a few canvases to get his living, I don't blame him 
 f or it, though he might, in my opinion, find a better use 
 for a piece of good canvas. But you, rich and honored, 
 whom people seek after and are delighted to receive, we 
 must put other projects into your head." 
 
 The reader will perceive that this bears a wonderful 
 resemblance to what Clive Newcome's friends used to say 
 to him. It sounds like Mr. Honeyman, though that 
 divine would scarcely have put the matter so forcibly as 
 the statesman does. Why art should only be pursued by 
 penniless persons I do not clearly see ; on the contrary, 
 artists seldom do any thing great until they cease to be 
 penniless, and art is, of all professions, the one where 
 private fortune is most desirable and useful. The views of 
 the statesman, however, and indeed of the majority of men 
 who think themselves and their doings of much importance 
 to the world, may be more nakedly expressed thus : 
 " Painting is a foolish and trifling occupation, which, like 
 standing on one's head in the street for chance half-pence, 
 may yet be pardoned in a man who is compelled to degrade 
 himself by sheer hunger ; but in a man of fortune, to 
 whom all careers are open, the choice of such a low trade 
 is unpardonable." I believe this to be a very just and not 
 exaggerated statement of the opinion of society on this 
 question, both here and on the Continent. 
 
 You may sometimes change the color of a conversation 
 by dropping this word " painter " into -it, just as suddenly 
 as a chemist will change the color of a fluid by dropping 
 something into it from another phial. I have done it 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 229 
 
 sometimes for amusement, and seen lively people become 
 reserved, and courteous people stiff, with a rapidity quite 
 magical. So the authors of " Les Faux Bonshommes " are 
 quite right in putting the two little words avec dedain 
 for the actor's guidance. 
 
 PEPONET. 
 II est peintre. 
 
 VERTILLAC, avec dtidoin. 
 Ah! 
 
 Then later in the same conversation, after Peponet has 
 disclosed the name of his intended son-in-law, and Vertil- 
 lac has sworn that Octave shall not have a penny of his, 
 poor Peponet cries out, 
 
 Oh ! mais voilk qui change terriblement les choses ! 
 
 VERTILLAC. 
 
 Pourquoi ? puisque vous croyez k 1'avenir de monsieur Octave ? 
 
 PEPONET. 
 
 tin avenir d'artiste ! . . . Je suis votre serviteur ! 
 
 You see Peponet has no great faith in an artist's expec- 
 tations when his rich uncle abandons him. So Peponet 
 breaks off Octave's marriage with poor Emmeline, and 
 Mademoiselle Eugenie is not sorry. 
 
 C'est egal, ma soeur n'ira pas en omnibus. 
 
 Such is the young lady's prudent reflection on this cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 Octave, however, marries Emmeline after all, at last, and 
 succeeds in his art, and gets the ribband of the Legion of 
 Honor. Then he has no further need of the services of 
 Monsieur Vertillac ; so, of course, Vertillac comes and 
 reconciles himself with his nephew. As a true man of the 
 world, he could do no less. The first rule in the world's 
 ethics is to remember the fortunate and successful, and to 
 treat them with tenderness. 
 
 In Balzac's Menage de Garcon we find as a marked 
 characteristic of the people we meet, a characteristic 
 to which Balzac frequently draws our attention him- 
 
230 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 self, that they cannot understand a painter and that they 
 do not respect him. Joseph's own mother even, the 
 object of his continual filial love and solicitude, cannot 
 consider him any thing else than a disgrace to her, and the 
 crimes of her elder son weaken her affection less than the 
 innocent pursuits of this. She and her friend Madame 
 Descoings think of art " only as a trade." Philip himself 
 despises and affects to patronize Joseph. When Joseph 
 goes to Issoudun, the people there cannot make him out 
 at all, and dislike him extremely. Hochon sneers at his 
 art. Joseph's mother presents him to these friends with a 
 tone and manner which imply how little she loves him or 
 respects his calling. Rouget tells him he may have the 
 pictures " if they can be of any use to him in his trade." 
 Balzac, I fear, is no more encouraging than Thackeray ; at 
 the same time, Balzac shows how he himself loves artists, 
 by describing the artistic nature with such tenderness and 
 kind feeling. The character of Joseph Bridau is one of the 
 purest and noblest in French fiction. Simple, generous, 
 affectionate, a good son, a forgiving brother, an unselfish and 
 high-principled man of genius, he is no unworthy ideal of 
 the artistic nature. So in the " Newcomes," poor J. J. is the 
 gentlest, the humblest, and the most inoffensive creature in 
 the whole book. Very little is said of him, but every time he 
 is mentioned you see that in that little pale and deformed 
 lad dwells a heavenly soul ; and Thackeray never rises 
 into such pure .strains of eloquence, never so willingly lays 
 aside his lancet of satire, as when he speaks of the butler's 
 boy. In all others, even in the good colonel, he has follies 
 to ridicule or cloaked sins to reveal ; but this guileless and 
 meek heart is too holy for dissection. " Whenever you 
 found him he seemed watchful and serene, his modest 
 virgin lamp always lighted and trim. No gusts of passion 
 extinguished it, no hopeless wandering in the darkness 
 afterwards led him astray. Wayfarers in the world, we 
 meet now and then with such purity, and hush while it 
 passes on." 
 
 We painters ought to feel grateful to these two great 
 novelists, for, however faithfully they have described the 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 231 
 
 world's contempt for the painter, they have with equal 
 clearness courageously disclaimed all participation in it. 
 There is, indeed, and must ever be, strong sympathy 
 between true artists, though in different realms of art; 
 and some who work in words, like Balzac and Thackeray, 
 can comprehend and esteem, and also, it appears, even 
 respect, others who express themselves by the less gener- 
 ally understood medium of colors. 
 
 M. Edmond About, in the clever " Manages de Paris" 
 gives us the history of a successful young painter who 
 wants to marry the daughter of a rich bourgeois. The 
 property of the girl's father consisting in building lots, the 
 story is entitled " Terrains a vendre." 
 
 After a long speech from the painter to his intended 
 father-in-law, in which, as is the wont of young gentlemen 
 with similar views, he temptingly dwells on the hopeful 
 state of affairs, he pauses for once to take breath, and then 
 adds . . . " * Je ne sais, monsieur, si je me suis fait com- 
 prendre. . . / 
 
 " * Oui, monsieur/ re*pondit M. Gaillard, * et, tout art- 
 iste que vous etes, vous m'avez 1'air d'uii bien honnete 
 homme.' , 
 
 " Henri Tourneur rougit jusqu'au blanc des yeux. 
 
 " * Excusez-moi,' reprit vivement le bonhomme ; 4 je ne 
 veux pas dire de mal des artistes : je ne les connais pas. 
 Je youlais simplement vous faire entendre que vous raison- 
 nez comme un homme d'ordre, un employe, un uegociant, 
 un notaire, et que vous ne professez point la morale cava- 
 liere des gens de votre etat. Du reste, vous etes fort bien 
 de votre personne, et je crois que vous plairiez a ma fille si 
 elle vous voyait souvent. Elle a toujours eu un gout pro- 
 nonce pour la peinture, la musique, la broderie et tous 
 ces petits talents de societe.' " A little farther on, he 
 says, " Vous me dites que vous gagnez des montagnes 
 d'or, et je vous crois, bien qu'il me semble assez extraor- 
 dinaire qu'un seul homme puisse fabriquer pour quatre- 
 vingt mille francs de tableaux en dix-huit mois." 
 
 This is all very good, especially the sentence where the 
 bourgeois says that his daughter has always had a strong 
 
232 The Painter in his Eelation to Society. 
 
 taste for painting, and music, and embroidery, and all those 
 little " talents de societe" 
 
 I think I have quoted enough to prove my point. First 
 of all, I said that men respected only power, and did not 
 respect artists because they were not powerful. Then I 
 had to prove that they did not respect artists, and so 
 called a few witnesses who happened to be at hand. I do 
 not want to weary the jury, and so shall call no more wit- 
 nesses. There is no need. 
 
 We cannot have the external force of organized bodies 
 without their internal restrictions. And it would demand 
 the most profound wisdom to organize such persons as 
 artists, so as neither to impose a single needless restric- 
 tion, nor omit a necessary one. A soldier or priest, if 
 asked to organize us, would hedge us round with a 
 hundred observances in no way conducive to the objects 
 of our association, and obstacles to individual advance- 
 ment. Better our present inorganic confusion than such 
 a soulless order ! We are like the sands of the sea 
 bad material to make ropes of, yet rich with inestimable 
 treasure. You may search amongst it if you will, and find 
 the scattered gems. But who^shall build all these loose 
 stones together into strength, and still not hide a single 
 precious one ? 
 
 It is a necessity and not a defect of great organizations, 
 that the caprice of the individual should be restrained 
 by an overpowering conventionalism. Organization al- 
 ways infers discipline. And discipline rules even the 
 most trivial minutiae. Being the opposite of individualism, 
 it hisses and boils with rage when it detects the presence 
 of the hostile element, as an alkaline solution effervesces 
 when an acid one is poured into it. Even in such trifles 
 as the dressing of the hair, discipline descends to the 
 minutest details all the world over, for it is its nature 
 to extirpate the individualism even of wayward locks. 
 The nobility of discipline is that it sacrifices the single 
 will to the common aim, and, repressing private diversi- 
 ties, replaces them by public union. 
 
 Now the arts repose naturally on individualism. What 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 233 
 
 is most precious in every work of art is the human spirit 
 that produced it. Individual diversities cannot here be 
 suppressed ; on the contrary, they must be guarded with 
 jealous care. And there is a certain art power, especially 
 in landscape, which can only be reached in loneliness and 
 isolation. 
 
 Again, every powerful organization requires a hier- 
 archy. But since artistic greatness is a gift of nature, 
 and not an external distinction, which a king can give, it 
 follows that there might easily be a damaging discre- 
 pancy between the hierarchic rank of the artist and his 
 artistic rank. Indeed, this discrepancy already exists. 
 Callcott was knighted and not Turner ; but no sovereign 
 could make Callcott greater than Turner. 
 
 This individualism of art is its greatest social draw- 
 back, because it deprives artists of a certain ground of 
 sympathy with a disciplined society. Military life, being 
 organized and disciplined, trains men for society, which 
 has also an organization and a discipline; whereas, art 
 develops those qualities most which society likes least, 
 qualities, indeed, which have a decided tendency to unfit 
 men for society. 
 
 Again, this individualism is, socially, weakness. So 
 long as the world endures, the men who can band them- 
 selves together will be stronger and more respected than 
 those who cannot cohere. Priests laugh at independent 
 thinkers, and call them a rope of sand : the Cardinals 
 will ever bully a lonely Galileo. Every ensign is pro- 
 tected by the proud will of a hundred legions. The 
 inventor is utterly unsupported, till he has made himself 
 famous, and gathered round him a private bodyguard of 
 determined defenders. It is by association that classes 
 of men compel respect, but alas for the original man who 
 can find no associates ! 
 
 And this, though generally true of all branches of 
 our art, is pre-eminently so of landscape. There have 
 been great schools of the figure, such as those of Raphael 
 and Rubens, where a train of pupils and imitators fol- 
 lowed the great master as courtiers follow a Prince, but 
 
234 The Painter in his ^Relation to Society. 
 
 the chief of landscape painters was the loneliest of men. 
 Landscape painting has hitherto been the most unsocial 
 of all professions. I know of no employment to be com- 
 pared to it, in this respect, but that of watching in a 
 light-house. Yet even these watchers are appointed by 
 threes to trim the lamps in those stormy towers ; but .the 
 painter watches the waves alone. For his art is singu- 
 larly isolating by the very conditions of success in it. It 
 loves desert places ; its truest votaries are pilgrims, and 
 vagabonds, and mountain anchorites. I can understand 
 that, to persons whose degree of culture does not permit 
 them to read his motives, a true student of nature must 
 appear a very sulky eremite indeed. Who, for example, 
 that had a genial, friendly heart in his breast, would play 
 such freaks as mine ? It is evident that I am a miserable, 
 sulky fellow. What sociable being would ever have lived 
 by himself in a little hut on the moors, like the Black 
 Dwarf, and your humble servant. ? And these wild 
 follies, this playing at Robinson Crusoe, this pitching of 
 tents on desolate mountains and uninhabited islands, this 
 sailing by day and by night over lonely lakes, what is 
 it all but the wretched restlessness of a misanthropist? 
 A few, perhaps, may understand that although the studies 
 of the landscape painter lead him into solitude, his heart 
 is still human, and that if he has few companions, it is 
 rather because they do not relish his hard fare, than that 
 his tents are without hospitality, and his tabernacles closed 
 to the friendly guest. 
 
 On looking back upon all I have said in this essay 
 on the subject of the relation of painter^ to society, I 
 think it very probable that the reader may have won- 
 dered ere this whether anybody is to be found so 
 eccentric as to respect these pariahs. Yes, a few such 
 persons are to be found they even form a class, though 
 a small one, and every member of this little body is 
 recognizable in an instant by a true artist. The class, 
 I repeat, is a small one so small, as scarcely to have 
 an appreciable influence in general society, though I 
 hope that it may one day have influence even there. 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 235 
 
 And who belong to this exceptional class ? 
 
 All who comprehend art, or can feel its power ; and 
 these only. 
 
 This rule is universal. I have never met with a 
 person who knew good work from bad, and did not 
 profoundly respect all true artists. People generally pre- 
 tend to separate their (affected) love of art from their 
 (sincere) contempt for the artist ; but no such separation 
 of sentiment is possible, and all that this ever means is, 
 that the love of art which such people profess is hypocrisy, 
 whilst their scorn of the artist is all sincerity. True 
 lovers of art of course feel no respect for false or inca- 
 pable workmen ; but we are not considering here any 
 question having reference to the capacity of individual 
 workmen, and the reader will remember that, at the very 
 outset, we began with Plutarch's contempt for Phidias, 
 who, so far from being false or incapable, was the chief 
 of Greek artists and one of the greatest of all time. But 
 this rule is infallible, that, whoever comprehends art re- 
 spects all true artists, and whoever despises a true artist is 
 sure to be ignorant of art. 
 
 In all good fiction, those persons who are represented 
 as holding painters in contempt are also of necessity 
 represented as being at the same time ignorant of art. 
 Thus Thackeray says of Honeyman : " But Honeyman 
 knew no more of the subject, than a deaf and dumb man 
 knows of music. He could talk the art cant very glibly, 
 and had a set of Morghens and Madonnas as became a 
 clergyman and a man of taste ; but he saw not with eyes 
 such as those wherewith Heaven had endowed the humble 
 little butler's boy, to whom splendors of Nature were 
 revealed, to vulgar sights invisible, and beauties manifest in 
 forms, colors, shadows of common objects, where most of the 
 world saw only what was dull, and gross, and familiar." 
 
 It is necessary to have read " The Newcomes " atten- 
 tively to have a definite idea of Colonel Newcome's views 
 as to art and artists. He is very civil and courteous to 
 Gandish and Smee, and lets his son be an artist without 
 opposition. Still, Colonel Newcome would not have been 
 
236 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 exactly the " gentleman " he is intended to be, had he 
 seriously ranked art along with other manly pursuits. 
 He belongs to. the large class, who, without despising 
 artists as necessarily base or ignoble, treat them kindly 
 and consider them very good people, but frivolous, and 
 occupied, not in a very mean pursuit, but in a trifling 
 one. It is obvious that, with such views, Colonel New- 
 come would be kind, in a somewhat condescending way, 
 to our friends Gandish and Smee, and would even allow 
 his son full liberty to pursue his art, as an amusement, 
 which was the light in which the colonel always regarded 
 it. But when, the colonel's great banking speculation is 
 at its height, and Clive still tries to pursue his art, the 
 colonel cannot see without bitterness that this boyish 
 pastime of painting interferes with the serious duties of 
 Olive's position as the son of a speculator. It is a vexa- 
 tion to the colonel when Clive goes to his painting-room, 
 puts on his old velvet jacket, and works with his palette 
 and brushes. " Palettes and brushes ! Could he not give 
 up those toys when he was called to a much higher station 
 in the world ? " 
 
 This gentlemanly degree of contempt for art and its 
 professors, which, however, is by no means excessive, not 
 being either haughty or insolent, or even unkind, is yet 
 thus severely accounted for by the satirist : 
 
 "The world enters into the artist's studio, and scorn- 
 fully bids him a price for his genius, or makes dull pre- 
 tence to admire it. What know you of his art ? You cannot 
 read the alphabet of that sacred look, good old Thomas 
 Newcome I What can you tell of its glories, joys, secrets, 
 consolations ? " 
 
 The reader will observe in the words I have italicised 
 a strong confirmation of my argument that scorn of the 
 artist is never accompanied by real admiration for his art, 
 only by a dull pretence at admiration. Thackeray cannot 
 help reiterating this great truth ; and in this passage it is 
 stated in as direct a manner as a novelist usually employs. 
 
 I have quoted a striking paragraph from "Modern 
 Painters," in which Mr. Ruskin expresses some of the 
 
The Painter in his Relation to Society. 237 
 
 feelings with which he looks on the great masterpieces. 
 This is the way Colonel Newcome looked at them : 
 
 " But what was all this rapture about a snuffy brown 
 picture called Titian, this delight in three flabby nymphs 
 by Rubens, and so forth? As for the vaunted antique, 
 and the Elgin marbles it might be that that battered 
 torso was a miracle, and that broken-nosed bust a perfect 
 beauty. He tried and tried to see what they were. He 
 went away privily, and worked at the National Gallery 
 with a catalogue ; and passed hours in the Museum before 
 the ancient statues, desperately praying to comprehend 
 them, and puzzled before them, as he remembered he 
 was puzzled before the Greek rudiments as a child, when 
 he cried over 6 xJ TJ dkqOrjg, xeu TO dfajdeg." 
 
 And so Colonel Newcome's contempt for the pursuit of 
 art is quite satisfactorily accounted for. 
 
 In like manner Balzac makes Rouget ignorant of the 
 value of his own pictures, and indicates how little Philippe 
 Bridau knew of the matter, by making him steal a copy, 
 mistaking it for the original. But it is Agatha, the mother, 
 whose ignorance is most dwelt upon, even in the last touch- 
 ing scenes, justly, and with profound artistic truth ; for her 
 contempt for art is one of her most strongly marked char- 
 acteristics throughout the book. So, on her very death- 
 bed, when she repents of her conduct to Joseph, he says 
 to her, " Est-ce que tu n'es pas la douce et Pindulgente 
 compagne de ma vie miserable ? Tu ne comprends pas la 
 peinture? . . . Eh ! mais ca ne se donne pas" And later, 
 one evening, looking at a picture, she exclaims aloud, 
 " Oh, commeje voudrais savoir ce que c'est que la couleur ! " 
 
 Nor have the novelists failed to enforce the other half 
 of the argument. Just as the ignorant people always 
 despise artists, so the better informed ones respect them. 
 Colonel Newcome and Honeyman may despise poor J. J., 
 but Clive Newcome does not ; for Thackeray, having 
 represented him as naturally alive to art, and as also 
 possessing sorre acquired knowledge of the subject, could 
 never have made him despise a true artist like J. J., not- 
 withstanding his humble birth. Clive writes in a letter : 
 
238 The Painter in his Relation to Society. 
 
 "Our friend J. J., very different to myself in so many 
 respects, so superior in all," &c. ; and afterwards, speak- 
 ing to Pendennis of his father and his wife, he says : 
 " But they neither understand me, don't you see ? The 
 Colonel can't help thinking I am a degraded being, 
 because I am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, 
 he patronizes Ridley ; a man of genius, whom those 
 sentries ought to salute, by Jove, sir, when he passes. 
 Ridley patronized by an old officer of Indian dragoons, 
 a little bit of a Rosey, and a fellow who is not fit to 
 lay his palette for him ! I want sometimes to ask J. J.'s 
 pardon after the Colonel has been talking to him in 
 his confounded* condescending way, uttering some awful 
 bosh about the fine arts. Rosey follows him, and trips 
 round J. J.'s studio, and pretends to admire, and says, 
 ' How soft, how sweet ; ' recalling some of mamma-in-law's 
 dreadful expressions, which make me shudder when I 
 hear them." 
 
 And if we turn to real persons, with what veneration 
 does a certain Oxford graduate speak of the barber's son ! 
 If Mr. Ruskin had not understood art, would he have 
 respected Turner as he did? In all probability not. 
 Learned, he would have despised Turner as illiterate ; 
 refined, he would have disliked his rough manners ; re- 
 ligious, he could never have borne with his unbelief. 
 RuSkin's veneration for Turner results entirety from his 
 knowledge of art. 
 
 And so we come back to our theory of respect. It is 
 power, power, always POWER that commands the respect 
 of men ; for power is always respected when it is recog- 
 nized. When people, guilty of no evident crime, do not 
 happen to be respected, it may mean, either that they 
 have no power, or that their power is as yet unrecognized. 
 And the power of artists is of so subtle a nature, that very 
 few indeed can ever detect its presence, far less be appalled 
 and awe-stricken by its manifestations. 
 
Picture Buying. 239 
 
 XII. 
 PICTURE BUYING. 
 
 A TRUTH bitter to all men who live by the exercise 
 *' of their talents is the supremacy of money over 
 talent, and the power of mere gold to enslave the finest 
 and most delicate intelligences. It is useless to endeavor 
 to evade or deny this fact, and it always seems to me that 
 the position of talent in the world would be sounder if its 
 real relation to capital were thoroughly and universally 
 understood. Why not admit frankly, if the fact is indeed 
 so, that the purse is the master and the brain the slave ? 
 Our philosophy ought to be able to face any fact, however 
 unpleasant. 
 
 The simple truth is, that capital is the nurse and gov- 
 erness of the arts ; not always a very wise or judicious 
 nurse, but an exceedingly powerful one. And in the rela- 
 tion of money to art, the man who has money will rule 
 the man who has art, unless the artist has money enough 
 to enable him to resist the money of the buyer. For 
 money alone is powerful enough to resist money, and 
 starving men are weak. 
 
 But for capital to support the fine art?, it must be abun- 
 dant there must be superfluity. The senses will first be 
 gratified to the full before the wants of the intellect awaken. 
 Plenty of good meat and drink is the first desire of the 
 young capitalist ; then he must satisfy the ardors of the 
 chase. One or two generations will be happy with these 
 primitive enjoyments of eating and slaying ; but a day will 
 come when the descendant and heir of these will awake 
 into life with larger wants. He will take to reading in a 
 book, he will covet the possession of a picture ; and unless 
 there are plenty of such men as he in a country, there is 
 but a poor chance there for the fine arts. .,-r" " 
 
 
 
240 Picture Buying. 
 
 The desire for art being one of our higher appetites, and 
 the desire for noble art the very highest of them all, it is 
 of late development, and feeble in its first manifestations ; 
 according to the well-known law, that the successive de- 
 velopment of human desires is also progressive that is, 
 from lower desires to higher. 
 
 The first desire for art appears to be always for por- 
 traiture, and generally portraiture of self and self's wife. 
 Certainly there is no subject in the world more interest- 
 ing to a man than himself, unless it be his wife ; but these 
 two subjects may not always be quite so delightful to all 
 the acquaintances of the happy pair, especially considering 
 that they can. look at the originals, if their eyes desire 
 that satisfaction. The love of portrait is a vulgar form of 
 egotism so long as it is confined to the conjugal canvases 
 which are so frequently to be seen in this domestic coun- 
 try, hanging in stately gilt frames, over highly polished 
 mahogany sideboards. But when this love of portrait 
 extends itself to one's friends it becomes more respectable, 
 and it speaks well for a man's capacity for friendship if he 
 has a little gallery of those he loves best. ' Little," I 
 say, and advisedly ; for one narrow room would probably 
 contain the images of all who care for us, yet how precious 
 will those images be when Death shall have done his 
 work ! And the portraits of those whom we have not 
 seen, yet who are our companion? in thought, or our teach- 
 ers by their example, may also be deservedly precious to 
 us if procurable. A man would follow his profession none 
 the worse in a cabinet surrounded with the likenesses of 
 those who had most ennobled it. How could a painter, 
 for instance, suffer himself to be unworthily discouraged 
 by the difficulties of his art, if the faces of Reynolds and 
 Velasquez were looking down upon him in their victorious 
 calm? 
 
 The desire for family portraits is supplied in our day by 
 photography, with one very happy result the necessary 
 diminution in scale. The offensiveness of the old conjugal 
 daubs was not merely in the vileness of the execution, but 
 the impertinent importance of the size. Why a worthy 
 
Picture Buying. 241 
 
 citizen should require thirty square feet of canvas for the 
 exhibition of his elegant person on the walls of his dining- 
 room, passes all understanding. Would not a more modest 
 area suffice ? Photography has settled this question * by 
 the necessarily miniature sizes of photographic portraits. 
 But where is the necessity for hanging these photographs 
 about chimney-pieces, in little gilt frames ? They are 
 quite ineffective as room decoration, and valueless as art. 
 Pray let them be printed always on paper from collodion 
 negatives, and then kept in a well-bound album. 
 
 The first sign of a love of art great enough to go 
 beyond portraits is the purchase of engravings. The 
 subjects of these engravings, when the purchasers select 
 for themselves, indicate their tastes in the clearest man- 
 ner. There are religious prints, and sporting prints, and 
 licentious prints ; prints theatrical, prints military, prints 
 ecclesiastical. Engravings sell enormously in England, 
 and are provided for all classes and all tastes. But these 
 engravings are not so much bought from a love of art as 
 from a feeling of interest in the subjects they illustrate. 
 Thus, when I go into a house where there is a pretty 
 engraving of surpliced choristers, with an inscription in 
 red letters underneath probably a scrap of Latin I 
 know that the master of the house, or its mistress, is a 
 Puseyite ; but when I behold John Knox thundering from 
 his pulpit, I suspect that the head of the family has a 
 leaning to the Low Church. But I do not infer that 
 either cares for art. And if you penetrate to the private 
 chambers of ^jjpung bachelors, like Mr. Harry Foker, you 
 will find prints of a more objectionable character, indi- 
 cating a taste for fine female ankles and well-developed 
 busts. Yet in all this there is no interest in art. 
 
 * This is unhappily a mistake. Since writing the above passage, I 
 have seen a dreadful announcement in the newspapers, that the Prince oi 
 Wales has had a photograph of himself taken the size of life ! lament- 
 able example ! O most pernicious precedent ! Fancy the dining-rooms 
 of our middle classes decorated with photographs of their owners as large 
 as life, with every detail of lace and jewelry mercilessly inflicted upon 
 our wearied eyes ! Let princes be taken of the actual size, or even mag- 
 nified seven times if it suits them, but let humble subjects modestly con- 
 tent themselves with card miniatures in an album. 
 16 
 
242 Picture Buying. 
 
 Still, even when some care for art does really awaken, 
 engravings are always better appreciated than pictures. 
 This for many reasons. The child likes bright colors, aud 
 the perfectly cultivated man likes good coloring; but to 
 the man whose culture is just beginning, color is a great 
 trouble and embarrassment : he does not really enjoy it, 
 and is very glad to be rid of it, always preferring, in his 
 private soul, an engraving from a picture, to the picture 
 itself. Thus, Turner's works are popular in the engrav- 
 ings, and have been widely disseminated by engravers ; 
 but the originals are not popular, nor ever can be. And 
 independently of the question of color, the mechanical 
 workmanship of a skilful engraver always appears more 
 wonderful to ignorant observers than the handling of the 
 greatest painters, because the intentional roughness of 
 loaded color, or any powerful impasto, looks like daubing 
 and bad execution to them; whereas, in a print this is 
 not possible, and the skilled cutting of the lines has a 
 delicacy of a kind more obvious to ordinary people than 
 the most delicate application of a color film. I believe the 
 great Duke of Wellington was in this stage all his life; 
 so that any reader who happens to be there too may con- 
 sole himself with the reflection that he is in very good 
 company. 
 
 But let no one flatter himself that his preference of en- 
 gravings to pictures is the result of a refined appreciation 
 of form, because, however exquisite iu their execution, 
 engravings from first-rate pictures are generally very far 
 inferior to the originals, even if judged witii reference to 
 form only. All good engravers know the innnite difficulty 
 of perfect copyism in their art ; and the thorough mastery 
 of the burin is so rare, that the majority of our popular 
 prints are not to be relied upon for form at all. The de- 
 signs on wood furnished to our wood engravers are habit- 
 ually cut to pieces by all but the very best men, and even 
 these are only to be trusted when they do every stroke 
 with their own hands, and do not employ unskilful as- 
 sistants. 
 
 Barbarous Orientals enjoy good color, and can produce 
 
Picture Buying. 245 
 
 it in their arts. But erudition and the conceit it fosters 
 seem deadly to this instinct, for hitherto the most erudite 
 epochs have colored the most vilely. Latin and Greek, 
 and classical architecture, and academic rules killed color 
 in France ; but Decamps, and Troyon, and Breton re- 
 covered the faculty in the fields. For its perfect exercise 
 sound health is needed, and not too much poring over 
 books, nor yet too deep an immersion in affairs. Very 
 few people can have the faculty in its full strength, because 
 so few have any opportunites of exercising it. There is 
 no color to be seen in our modern towns, and not very 
 much of it in our ordinary English rural landscape under 
 its usual aspects.* Here, in the Highlands, I have it in 
 abundance, and enjoy it to the full all the year round ; but 
 these deep purples slashed with emerald green, these won- 
 derful silvery grays, this depth of glowing gold, these scarlet 
 clouds of sunset, these rosy heights of snow, and colored 
 flames of the bright northern aurora, these things are not 
 visible day by day to every citizen of London or Manches- 
 ter. And so the sense of color languishes from sheer want 
 of its natural nutriment, and the houses of our rich middle 
 class are covered outside with white stucco instead of col- 
 ored marbles, and hung within with works of art in which 
 black printers' ink is the only pigment used. And as color 
 is banished from these houses, so it is entirely banished 
 from the festive costume of the men who live in them ; so 
 that a party of English gentlemen after dinner form about 
 as colorless a picture as you could find anywhere out of a 
 coal pit. White and black are not color at all, though 
 both very valuable to a colorist ; and if ever the capacity 
 to enjoy color shall be given to our descendants, one of the 
 first signs of it will be their rejection of our black and 
 white ideal of festive costume. Why should we all go 
 into mourning every time we go to feast with our friends ? 
 Is it because we all know beforehand that the dinner is 
 
 * Linnell's works show how much color may be found in common 
 English landscape ; but it needs to be watched for, because its grandest 
 color effects are rare. The usual appearance of English landscape is better 
 seen in Constable's green and gray than in LinnelTs purple and gold. 
 
244 - Picture Buying. 
 
 going to be a dull and melancholy business, for which the 
 most mournful possible costume is the most becoming and 
 appropriate? What a queer sight it is to see a dozen 
 jolly Englishmen at a festive board, dressed precisely as 
 if they had just been to a funeral, and hung up their crape 
 hatbands in the hall ! Let any artist imagine what would 
 become of the Marriage Feast at Cana, in the Louvre, if 
 the gentlemen present were all to be dressed in black 
 swallow-tails, with white cravats ! 
 
 The effect of this indifference to color as it concerns our 
 art is of course a general indifference to painting, as such, 
 because painting is especially the art of color. And the 
 recognition of our art in any country depends, primarily, 
 on the delicacy of the sense of color in that country. Now, 
 there is no nation in Europe at the present day of which 
 it can be truly said that it possesses the color faculty in a 
 national way ; some exceptional individuals possess it in 
 each nation, just as some may possess the poetic gift. 
 And so picture buying is an exceptional direction of ex- 
 penditure ; whereas, if the sense of color were as generally 
 acute as the sense of taste, it would be as universal 
 amongst all who could afford it as wine buying is with us. 
 
 When this sense of color begins to awaken, people 
 begin to want pictures, but for a long time they believe in 
 copies, and, in their private opinion, think them quite as 
 good as the original works of great men. They cannot as 
 yet distinguish between good and bad color, and are very 
 easily satisfied, any thing like elaborate or subtle coloring 
 being an offence to them. I saw a little girl learning 
 French phrases one day, and had the curiosity to open her 
 book, when I came upon a conversation about pictures, sup- 
 posed to take place in some continental gallery, and which 
 supplied young ladies with the necessary critical observa- 
 tions to be generally applied to pictures in galleries. 
 Amongst them, of course, I found the following : 
 " Those colors are too lively, they should have been sub- 
 dued ; " that being the stock observation of a whole class of 
 people in the earliest stages of connoisseurship. Provided 
 the hues be confined to brown and gray, they are consid- 
 
Picture Buying. 245 
 
 ered right and safe by this class of incipient judges, when 
 any thing like nature's brilliance of various color is rejected 
 by them on system as glaring and false. This class of young 
 beginners in picture buying supports a class of artists of 
 its own, consisting mainly of copyists and brown con- 
 ventionalists, but of course never including a colorist. 
 
 These lovers of brown art are naturally victimized by 
 false old masters, for these have the irresistible charm of 
 plenty of thick brown varnish. Considering the extreme 
 difficulty of estimating the value of works by the old mas- 
 ters, and the wildly artificial prices they fetch, it appears 
 rather a melancholy necessity in nature that the most inex- 
 perienced picture buyers should throw themselves the most 
 readily in a path so certain to be ruinously expensive, and 
 so spotted with all manner of pitfalls laid by the most 
 accomplished and scientific of swindlers. Nothing is easier 
 than to buy the works of living painters ; you go to their 
 own studios, you see them personally, you have ascertained 
 the current prices of their works, and you give them commis- 
 sions, having settled the three questions of size, and price, 
 and subject. There is little chance of your being deceived, 
 every work so commissioned is quite sure to be authentic, 
 and the painter's regard for his own reputation is your 
 guarantee that he will do his best. The work is delivered 
 to you new and sound, no tricks have been played with it, 
 no clearing away of delicate glazes, no repainting by other 
 hands, no brown varnishing to hide the crudity of bad 
 color. At any rate you see what you buy, and are not 
 deceived. But when you lay out money in old masters, no 
 such certainty is possible. Unless you are really a judge, 
 and I ask your pardon for observing that this is extremely 
 improbable, the chances are that you are buying a copy. 
 You cannot refer to the painter himself, for he has been in 
 his grave for centuries. And even if you were sure of 
 their being genuine, the works of dead masters are, 
 when worth having at all, so costly that private persons 
 can scarcely afford to contend for them. Their prices 
 are now out of all proportion to their merits, and 
 merely represent the competition that exists for them 
 
246 Picture Buying. 
 
 amongst the great personages and governments of Europe. 
 The Soult Murillo in the Louvre, for which the French 
 Government gave twenty-four thousand, six hundred and 
 twelve pounds, does most assuredly not contain as much 
 good painting as you could get from our best living colorists 
 for the same sum. No doubt it is possible that, being 
 a living artist myself, I may unconsciously feel some 
 degree of jealousy when I reflect upon a price so enor- 
 mous ; but how is it that I feel no jealousy of my most 
 successful living rivals and contemporaries, but only satis- 
 faction in their success ? It is because, as a rule, they 
 give a fair amount of good work for the money they 
 receive, and, except in very rare instances, their pictures, 
 though richly paid, are still bought with some reference 
 to the amount of thought and art in them, not in blind 
 and bigoted adoration of a great name. It is no honor 
 to the art, nor any proof of a genuine interest and delight 
 in it, when people show themselves so ostentatiously in- 
 different to the variety of its teaching and its pleasures 
 that they would rather waste a fortune on a single canvas 
 by an old master than buy thirty equally noble master- 
 pieces by modern ones. 
 
 Whilst reflecting on this great subject, the buying of 
 genuine old masters at artificial prices, and false old 
 masters at swindler's figures, I remember a novel that 
 I read in my boat one day during the summer, when the 
 breeze was faint, and she was gliding idly on Loch Awe. 
 
 In this story, which is entitled " Cinq cent mille francs 
 de rente," there is a banker, M. Picard, who gets rich and 
 buys false old masters, and is lamentably fleeced and 
 swindled in all manner of ways. The novelist, Dr. Veron, 
 moralizes a little on the subject. I will quote a paragraph 
 or two, which especially suit my purpose : 
 
 " On poussait Picard vers Pecole italienne. 
 
 " Dieu sait de combien de Jaux Raphael, de faux Ver- 
 onese, de faux Titien, de faux Correge, de faux Leonard 
 de Vinci, 1'Europe tout entiere est encombree ! 
 
 " C'est surtout avec les grandes ecoles d'ltalie que se 
 fait sur une vaste echelle 1'agio en peinture. On sait que 
 
Picture Buying. 247 
 
 les copies des plus belles oeuvres abondaient deja du temps 
 des maitres, et se brossaient meme dans le voisinage de 
 leurs ateliers. De nos jours encore, des copies des chefs 
 d'ecole les plus recherches se font a 1'enterprise." 
 
 Dr. Veron, it seems, is very much of my opinion as to 
 the superior prudence of buying modern works direct 
 from the artists themselves. If M. Picard had done so, 
 we are told that he would not have been cheated and pil- 
 laged as lie was : 
 
 " Malheureusement, les nombreux fripons qui exploiter- 
 ent 1'inexperience de ce nouvel amateur avaient pris soin 
 de le detourner du gout des oauvres modernes. Si Picard 
 eut visite les ataliers de nos artistes et leur eut fait des com- 
 mandes, il n'eut point ete gruge et dupe par tout ce vilain 
 monde." 
 
 When people awake to the worthlessness of copies they 
 are in a fair way for learning something about real art, 
 but do not buy judiciously at first; no, nor for a very long 
 time indeed. And for many years the desire for good art 
 will probably remain so very faint and feeble, so entirely 
 secondary to the love of sport, or gambling, or wine, or 
 any other gentlemanly amusement, that the greatest artists 
 can, as yet, only hope for a few chance sovereigns that 
 these ignobler pleasures may, by accident, have left at the 
 bottom of the " patron's " holiday purse. There is an 
 anecdote, in Mr. Gilchrist's " Life of Etty," which affords 
 a most felicitous illustration of this : 
 
 " The manufacturer had that morning put in his pocket 
 300 to risk in the betting ring, and had lost only 25 of 
 it. Willing to save the remainder, and lay it up in a more 
 tangible luxury, he threw down 200 in notes before the 
 nervous painter, to whom money in hand was always a 
 temptation." 
 
 I look upon that anecdote as quite inestimably precious. 
 Who does not see the moral of it ? The manufacturer 
 is John Bull, Etty being the fine arts generally, and the 
 betting ring, I fear, only represents too faithfully John 
 Bull's favorite sporty and pastimes. If any idle cash hap- 
 pens to remain in the bottom of John Bull's pocket after 
 
248 Picture Buying. 
 
 he has enjoyed his favorite amusements, he may, perhaps, 
 invest it in the fine arts ; and that is precisely his idea of 
 what he is pleased to call " patronage." 
 
 With regard to the kind of pictures most generally 
 bought, we may take the evidence of the exhibitions. 
 
 Little figure pictures sell best, rustic figures as well 
 as any. Bits of incident connected with the domesticities 
 take very well, mammas, and babies, and cradles, and . 
 that sort of thing. Returns of schoolboys, arrivals of 
 interesting letters, scenes of wooing, and billing and coo- 
 ing : all these are saleable subjects. 
 
 Subjects like these are sure of popularity, for the ma- 
 jority of purchasers are always in the first stage, which is 
 marked by the love of the common-place, and indifference 
 to all that is noble in art, whether in subject or treatment. 
 
 It is also marked by absolute indifference to landscape ; 
 an indifference which sometimes becomes more active and 
 grows into a hostilg feeling, to which landscape art is a 
 cause of irritation and offence. A gentleman said to me 
 one day, with much emphasis, " You know I hate all land- 
 scapes," The observation, as addressed to a landscape 
 painter, may not have been very polite, but it was quite 
 sincere, and accurately represented the feelings of a whole 
 class of conventionally " well educated " people. 
 
 Artists who minister to people in this early stage of 
 culture are the most fortunate both in purse and reputa- 
 tion, because there is the largest circle of persons fit to 
 appreciate their works. They may, of course, be just as 
 good painters as those whose subjects are less popular, 
 whilst they have the immense advantage of a more numer- 
 ous public. In comparison with landscape painters, they 
 have the same odds in their favor that prose writers have 
 when compared with writers of verse. Mr. Frith is the 
 most fortunate example hitherto known in our art of the 
 happy union of undeniable artistic ability wrth universal 
 popularity of subject. Every Londoner has been to the 
 Derby, and seen a railway station ; so every Londoner is 
 capable of understanding the subjects^ of Mr. Frith's great 
 pictures. Mr. Leslie was rather less fortunate in this 
 
Picture Buying. 249 
 
 respect, being too literary to please the illiterate, and too 
 fond of the past to enlist very strongly the sympathies of 
 those who are absorbed in the noisy present. Etty, with 
 his splendid idealizations of Academy models, could scarcely 
 ever be heartily appreciated, except by Academy students, 
 because they are the only people in these days who are 
 accustomed to see naked men and women. 
 
 The evidence of the exhibitions tends also to prove that, 
 after domestic incident and rustic figures, our friends and 
 the dogs and horses have the best chance of popularity. 
 Cows also, and even that uninteresting animal, the sheep, 
 find numerous admirers. Thus Landseer and Rosa Bon- 
 heur are really popular artists ; whereas, if they had 
 devoted themselves to the naked figure, like Etty, or to 
 landscape, like Turner, they could not have been in this 
 sense popular, there being no such phenomenon possible in 
 the arts, as a popular artist with an unpopular subject 
 Landseer's art is enjoyed by a large class for its connection 
 with their sports, and is valued by them just as they used 
 to value colored sporting prints in the last generation ; 
 its noblest qualities being quite unappreciable by such 
 persons. And Rosa Bonheur owed her immediate recog- 
 nition in England not to her peculiar merits as an artist, 
 which are of a kind not very popular here, but to the 
 English love of horses. 
 
 The love of landscape is rarest and latest of all. It can 
 only exist in a very advanced stage of civilization, when 
 man has lost his first boyish interest in himself, and is 
 beginning to look at the world about him. And the appre- 
 ciation of landscape is only possible to persons who have 
 habitually studied the noblest natural scenery, which per- 
 sons are extremely rare, so that competent judges in this 
 department of art are found in very small numbers. And 
 landscapes are not the most saleable of artistic merchan- 
 dise in France they are scarcely to be got rid of at all, 
 unless enlivened by the presence of animals; whilst in 
 England they are even yet considered to belong to an 
 inferior class of art, and an exhibition where they predomi- 
 nate is always spoken of as uninteresting by the news- 
 
250 Picture Buying. 
 
 papers. At Liverpool, landscape painters are frankly 
 informed that their works are not likely to find admittance, 
 by the intelligible hint, " works of genre will be preferred." 
 Landscape painters may reasonably desire an exhibition of 
 their own ; but there is one little drawback it would 
 never pay. The receipts of the different academic bodies 
 would probably not be diminished at all, but perhaps even 
 increased, by the entire exclusion of landscape from their 
 walls ; whilst an exhibition of landscapes alone would 
 have no attraction for the general public, which would 
 not visit it. 
 
 Nor do people pass suddenly from a state of repugnance 
 to one of love and appreciation. The transition is ex- 
 tremely slow. They first tolerate landscape as a back- 
 ground to men or cattle, then gradually come to desire 
 some degree of elaboration in it, and so imperceptibly 
 arrive at that point where they can take some interest in 
 common nature, though they will not as yet endure, and 
 cannot comprehend, any thing noble in effect or unusual 
 in arrangement. And it is a fact extremely discouraging 
 to all true and original landscape painters, that even of 
 those persons who like landscape, so few can endure any 
 thing like originality in it, that original genius and a 
 strong and direct hold on nature are great obstacles to 
 immediate recognition in their art. 
 
 The question how far landscape painters ought to con- 
 descend to the taste of the public admits of a very brief 
 reply. You continually find persons ignorant of natural 
 aspects, who assert that painters have no right to represent 
 effects which are to them unintelligible. It certainly may 
 not always be prudent, from a monetary point of view, to 
 paint such effects ; and many of our artists resolutely 
 deny themselves the pleasure of painting them, in order 
 that they may sell their pictures easily and bring up their 
 families decently. But the question of prudence is one 
 thing, and the question of right another. So far from 
 having no right to paint what is not intelligible to the vul- 
 gar, the artist is under a great moral obligation to do it 
 boldly from time to time for the advancement of art, even 
 
Picture Buying. 251 
 
 at heavy personal sacrifice. It is like uttering unpopular 
 truth in literature. Writers who perceive truths which 
 are offensive to their contemporaries are nevertheless 
 bound to give them full and fearless utterance, even at 
 the cost of personal reputation. For the noble human 
 faculties which perceive truth were not given to us with- 
 out a grave responsibility, and it is our bounden duty to 
 declare the truth, whether we get fame for it or obloquy. 
 
 A very curious characteristic of human nature in its 
 naif and unconscious state is, that it always gets angry at 
 things it cannot understand. When I see a thoroughly 
 naif man, and there are many such, approaching some- 
 thing of which I know his ignorance beforehand, I can 
 predict with absolute certainty that the thing, whatever it 
 may be, will put him more or less out of temper. For the 
 sense of ignorance is humiliating, and therefore unpleasant, 
 especially when it comes on one with a sudden shock. A 
 truly educated man feels no anger at any fresh discovery 
 of his own ignorance, but rather pleasure, if he sees an 
 opportunity of learning something, because the educated 
 mind is always conscious of infinite ignorance, and the 
 sense of ignorance is therefore not strange to it, but 
 habitual. 
 
 This has a great deal to do with the position of art and 
 artists. 
 
 Naif people are always irritated when truths of na- 
 ture, of which they are ignorant, are illustrated in 
 painting. 
 
 I remember meeting with a Parisian tourist in the 
 Highlands, who was quite seriously vexed at some cloud 
 shadows he saw on a mountain, because he could not 
 make out what they were. Had he seen the same shad- 
 ows in a picture, his irritation would have been directed 
 against the artist, to whom he would certainly have denied 
 all ability. However, as he happened to see the fact in 
 nature and not in oil paint, he did not know what to be 
 angry with, and so actually supposed the case of an imag- 
 inary artist that he might have the satisfaction of enun- 
 ciating the following critical opinion : " Well, whatever 
 
252 Picture Buying. 
 
 they are, no artist could have any business to paint them ; 
 they are not fit subjects for art, which ought to deal with 
 what is intelligible in nature." 
 
 " What is intelligible in nature ? " Exactly. But in- 
 telligible to whom ? Those cloud shadows, represented in 
 art, would be as intelligible to me as the shadow of a man 
 against a wall. Here is the central point of the whole 
 question. If we admit that art is to be intelligible, noth- 
 ing is settled until we have also decided to whom it is to 
 be made intelligible. 
 
 The fact is, that whenever any theorist tells us that the 
 only proper province of art is the intelligible, he always 
 means what is intelligible to himself, being angry at every 
 thing that is above his capacity, and strongly disposed to 
 abolish it if he could. Thus, people will often admit that 
 Turner's effects may be true, and yet deny vehemently 
 that he had any right to paint them, " as they were not fit 
 subjects for art, because not intelligible to the spectator " 
 the word " spectator," of course, meaning the critic him- 
 self, as in these cases it always does. 
 
 In the formation of private collections, great attention 
 ought always to be given to the character of the col- 
 lection as a whole. Every collection ought to have a 
 character of its own, and no work should be admitted 
 into it which does not quite harmonize with that char- 
 acter. Nothing is more incongruous, nothing fatigues 
 the eye more than great differences of scale in pictures 
 hung in the same room; and there are different kinds 
 of art, each good separately, which harm each other very 
 seriously when seen together. In this respect the Vernon 
 Gallery was any thing but a well-selected one. We ought 
 all to be very thankful to Mr. Vernon for leaving it to 
 us, and it is scarcely right to look a gift horse in the 
 mouth ; but I have rarely seen a collection which left so 
 feeble an impression as a whole. Separately, the pictures 
 are, many of them, of great excellence ; but the collec- 
 tion is brought together without any attempt at unity ; 
 and the pictures help one another no more than odd 
 volumes in a bookstall. The Sheepshanks' collection, 
 
Picture Buying. 253 
 
 on the other hand, is more consistently chosen. Again, 
 of national galleries, the Louvre is as badly ordered a 
 collection as could well be imagined, there being no 
 proportion whatever in the space allotted to different 
 masters ; it is a mere agglomeration, without any plan, 
 in which the most precious things and the most worthless 
 are stuck together like relics in some recent geological 
 formation. 
 
 An ideal national collection would contain specimens 
 of every great master who has lived on the earth ; but 
 it would necessarily limit the number of examples of 
 each painter, which ought, in every case, to be the very 
 finest procurable for money. The number, in my opinion, 
 ought to be limited to twelve. In twelve examples, 
 masterpieces, carefully selected so as to illustrate the 
 strongest period of the artist's career, a very sufficient 
 idea might be given of all but the most versatile of 
 painters. Each painter ought to have a room to him- 
 self, with his name inscribed over the door, and on the 
 walls within, in great legible golden letters, so that there 
 might be no confusion in the minds of ordinary spectators 
 as to whose work they were looking at. Under every pic- 
 ture there should be a detailed account of the intention 
 of the picture, and its history (but no attempt at crit- 
 icism or pointing out of "beauties"), engraved in legi- 
 ble characters on a tablet of marble as long as the frame 
 of the picture, and on which the lower part of the frame 
 should rest. Black marble would be the best, with the 
 letters engraved and gilded. No catalogue whatever 
 ought to be required, because it is wrong to put poor 
 people to the expense of buying one. If, as is generally 
 the case with painters, a portrait of the artist existed, 
 there ought to be a marble bust of him, as truthful as 
 possible, placed directly opposite the entrancje with its 
 back to the wall, and not above six feet from the floor, 
 nor in the middle of the room, because that would 
 impede the sight of his pictures. 
 
 Three or four copies of a brief biography of the painter 
 should also be accessible in different parts of the room, 
 
254 Picture Buying. 
 
 legibly printed and simply framed, with a glass for 
 protection. 
 
 Every picture should be hung with its horizon on a 
 level with the eye of a spectator of ordinary stature, and 
 there should be a clear space of three feet at least 
 between the larger pictures, and two feet between the 
 smaller ones, which space should be filled up, if possible, 
 with velvet of a dark maroon color. If a nation is too 
 poor to show its pictures to the best advantage (as that 
 poverty-stricken country, England, appears to be), a flock 
 paper, with slight pattern and all of one color, is the 
 next best thing to velvet. 
 
 It is not to be expected that a nation like Great 
 Britain should be able to afford velvet for its picture 
 galleries ; but a private speculator, who has established a 
 permanent exhibition of pictures at Paris, was cunning 
 enough to cover all his walls with it from top to bottom 
 before he hung a single picture upon them, a piece of ex 
 travagance which would astonish our House of Commons 
 if carried out, as it ought to be, in our National Gallery. 
 
 Arrangements such as these would do more to facilitate 
 the study of painting in galleries than any one would 
 believe possible who had not been accustomed to pass 
 whole days and weeks in looking at pictures. The 
 fatigue of such study, if undertaken in earnest, must 
 always be very great, but it is now needlessly increased 
 by a total absence of consideration for the convenience 
 of the student. It is at present impossible for any one 
 to study seriously in any public gallery without tiring 
 himself to death in seeking out works which ought never 
 to have been separated, and straining his eyes, and stiff- 
 ening his neck, in vain endeavors to see pictures which 
 are purposely hung so high as to be out of sight. 
 Galleries like the Louvre are an affair of mere vulgar 
 national ostentation: there are great treasures in them, 
 but no sign of any supposition on the part of their 
 guardians that the treasures can be of any use. The 
 great Rubenses in the long gallery are, it is true, hung 
 together, but they are hung at least six feet too high, the 
 
Picture Buying. 255 
 
 only earnest endeavor after perfect hanging and helpful 
 association in the whole collection having been bestowed 
 on the worst pictures in any public gallery in the world, 
 the hideous series of illustrations of the life of St. Bruno, 
 by Eustache Lesueur. These were hung in uninterrupted 
 order, but the priceless Titians are carelessly scattered 
 amongst other men's works, high or low, according to the 
 caprice of the director or the convenience of the hangers. 
 
 These defects have hitherto, I suppose, been almost 
 inevitable in national collections, which are accumulated 
 gradually by successive governments, depend largely on 
 bequests, and are usually given over to the care of per- 
 sonages who have little knowledge of or interest in art. 
 But such defects need spoil no private collection. The 
 principle of giving a separate room to each artist may, 
 in large houses, be carried out without inconvenience, 
 and all the more easily if the owner has several houses. 
 The practical difficulty of acting upon this principle is 
 that ordinary rooms are often so badly lighted that 
 pictures cannot be seen in them. A gallery may, there- 
 fore, be a necessary adjunct to houses which have been 
 constructed without reference to the convenient study of 
 art treasures. The best gallery, however, would be a suite 
 of small rooms, all lighted from above, and of which each 
 should be dedicated to a particular master, in the manner 
 already suggested for national galleries. If the owner 
 were fortunate enough to possess a few pictures of great 
 size and importance, he ought to give a separate room to 
 each of them with no other furniture than a large and com- 
 fortable sofa, placed at the right distance from the picture. 
 An ordinary exhibition, where a thousand paintings are 
 incessantly occupied in doing each other as much harm as 
 they possibly can, is the perfect type of what a collection 
 ought not to be. 
 
 The supreme merit of any collection is UNITY. Every 
 picture ought to illustrate and help the rest. And if the 
 buyer keeps in view some great leading purpose, the 
 unity will most likely come of itself, but it cannot easily 
 be reached otherwise. Mere miscellaneous buying, ac- 
 
256 Picture Buying. 
 
 cording to the caprice of the moment, leads to the raking 
 together of unrelated objects, but not to that beautiful 
 and helpful order, which multiplies a million-fold the 
 value of every particle. 
 
 Having presumed that the reader really loves art, I 
 need scarcely hint to him the desirableness of such ar- 
 rangements as will allow his pictures to be seen. If he 
 cares for them at all he will certainly hang them, so that 
 he can see them. There is no better proof of the stony 
 insensibility of many owners of pictures than their habit 
 of hanging them where not a creature except the flies 
 can ever hope to behold them. Whenever two pictures 
 are hung one above another, one of them is sure to be out 
 of sight. Pictures hung in ordinary rooms, which people 
 inhabit regularly, should not be crowded up to the very 
 ceiling like an exhibition, but rather carefully isolated and 
 distributed all over the house, such pictures only being 
 allowed to remain near each other as are naturally fitted 
 to be companions. They ought also to be intellectually 
 in harmony with the uses of the room. Illustrations of 
 literature, and portraits of authors, have a greater value 
 in libraries than in billiard rooms. I enjoy good land- 
 scapes so heartily myself that I am glad to meet with 
 them anywhere, but they have a better chance of being 
 seen in drawing-rooms than in dining-rooms. A land- 
 scape is half lost unless you can see its detail, which from 
 your seat at table is often impossible in a large dining- 
 room. But a portrait of life size loses nothing a few 
 yards away. At the Manchester Exhibition of Art 
 Treasures, Gainsborough's imperious beauty awed the 
 crowd, with her scornful eye, twenty paces off. Nothing 
 is nobler in a dining-room than a series of lordly portraits 
 by Vandyke or Reynolds ; but their successors of the pres- 
 ent day have such terrible difficulties of costume to con- 
 tend against that it would be a dangerous experiment to 
 surround a scene of festivity with gentlemen in well-fitting 
 waistcoats and highly varnished boots. And if you have 
 any ugly portraits that you have an affection for, as is 
 very likely, let them be placed in your most private 
 
Picture Buying. 257 
 
 rooms, where no guests come. They are better there for 
 many reasons. It is in our calmest hours that the dead 
 come back to us in memory; it is then that we hear 
 again their dear voices ; it is then that we recall most 
 vividly their half-forgotten looks and gestures. The ugly 
 portrait may be precious to ws, but it cannot touch the 
 hearts of strangers. Alone, we may look up to it through 
 brimming tears ; but the world will not weep before it. 
 
 I think the prevalent idea that the purchasing of pic- 
 tures is exclusively a luxury for very rich people who can 
 afford collections, is unfortunate for the art. We all of us 
 buy books, though very few of us can afford a library; 
 why should we not all buy pictures too ? The most of us 
 pay pretty heavy wine-merchants' bills ; and wine, though 
 pleasant enough in its way, is no more essential than pic- 
 tures. I see no other reason than this, that we like 
 wine better. 
 
 Every comfortable house ought to have three or four 
 good pictures, at least one in each of its principal rooms ; 
 but such a picture as its owner would not weary of, or 
 else he must have more. And all good pictures are inex- 
 haustible : some by a mysterious charm and fascination, as 
 the melancholy portrait in the Louvre, opposite the great 
 Veronese, or the face of the Mona Lisa; some by their 
 mighty poetry, as the Temeraire in the Turner Gallery ; 
 some by a wonderful ideal of beauty, as the Phryne ; and 
 some by fulness of matter and endless harmonies of color, 
 as the best works of John Lewis. 
 
 But if we are to have as noble pictures in our houses as 
 the merchants used to have at Venice, we ought to have as 
 noble houses to put them in ; not necessarily very big ones, 
 our own are generally quite large enough, but houses 
 glorious with fair architecture. There has been as much 
 money spent on English country-seats as would have built 
 three or four Venices, and yet there are very few of them 
 that one could endure to paint ; and such as are fit for pic- 
 torial treatment, are so rather by reason of mere quaint 
 picturesqueness than any high architectural excellence ; the 
 corrupt and barbarous Elizabethan being the most effec- 
 17 
 
258 Picture Buying. 
 
 tive domestic style we can boast. And in our treatment 
 of such old buildings as we possess, we have almost all of 
 us sinned against their builders, either by " modernizing " 
 in the last century, or " restoring" (which means destroy- 
 ing} in this. I cannot tell what is to come in the future, 
 whether we are always to live contentedly in square 
 boxes with oblong holes in them, as at present, or whether 
 we shall inhabit worthier dwellings. For it is conceivable 
 that human habitations might be erected which might 
 stand alone in the fields, and not be utterly shamed by the 
 contrast between nature's glory and their meanness ; 
 buildings whose marble walls might lift themselves against 
 the blossoming trees, themselves variegated with hues not 
 less exquisite ; mansions whose sculptured portals might 
 in some degree respond to the infinite sculpture of natural 
 leaves and branches in the depths of their ancient woods. 
 
 When every house shall have good art which now has 
 good literature, a good natural art will be provided to 
 supply the want, an art neither beyond the sympathies 
 of our richer middle class, nor beyond its purse. That 
 class will, of course, understand works of genre before it 
 comes to understand landscape, but I do not despair, 
 even for landscape ; for it seems to me that people can- 
 not be in the habit of travelling every autumn without 
 eventually perceiving natural beauty, more or less, accord- 
 ing to their capacity. And they will perceive, too, in the 
 exhibitions, how nature is interpreted by art, and, in time, 
 understand the symbols of the interpretation, so as to come 
 to know what the painter is aiming at. Once this point 
 reached, the walls of a hundred thousand houses will begin 
 to glow with the preciousness of faithful art. 
 
 As death gradually removes the collectors one by one, 
 they will naturally feel the desire common to all their 
 order, to keep their treasures together. For the pictures 
 when separate are the work of the artists who painted 
 them ; but their helpful association is the work of the col- 
 lector alone, and a work requiring very high qualities of 
 judgment and right feeling. Now no man likes the idea 
 that his life's labor will be annihilated at his death ; and 
 
Picture Buying. 259 
 
 collectors find great bitterness iu the thought that what 
 they have so carefully associated will be dispersed as 
 widely as ever when they are gone. And, if the public 
 only has the sense to avail itself of this feeling in collectors 
 of works of art, it may come to possess splendid galleries 
 for the mere cost of the necessary buildings to keep them 
 in. 
 
 An initiative only is wanted, and Manchester will give 
 that. Every town in England of sufficient importance to 
 have a lecture hall or a concert room is also large enough 
 to have a free gallery. They may be deterred from this 
 for some time by the impression that they cannot afford to 
 fill such galleries with works of art, but this is a needless 
 anxiety. The galleries would be filled in a hundred years 
 by gifts and bequests, and until then it would be well to 
 remember that pictures look none the worse for being well 
 isolated; and that, if there were a few yards of space 
 between them for the first twenty years, they would be 
 seen all the better for it. Let the galleries only be large 
 enough, so as to invite contributions, and the contributions 
 will come ; but, if our municipal bodies do with the pro- 
 vincial free galleries, what the Government has hitherto 
 done with the National one, that is, discourage contribu- 
 tion to the utmost, of course they need not hope for very 
 many contributors. The Vernon collection was first put 
 into a dark cellar, and afterwards on the ground floor of 
 an empty old house, where no picture could possibly be 
 seen; next it was removed to a temporary structure at 
 Kensington. The magnificent Turner bequest was treated 
 with no more consideration ; and therefore when Mr. 
 Sheepshanks presented his gallery to the nation, the gift 
 was accompanied by the condition, that it should have a 
 building of its own. If the Government had erected a 
 National Gallery twice as large as the Louvre, and invited 
 private individuals to fill it, it would have been filled in a 
 hundred years, and that most richly. All collectors, all 
 living artists, should be encouraged to contribute pictures 
 to the National Gallery, a responsible council having the 
 power of declining unsuitable offers ; and the nation would 
 
260 Picture Buying. 
 
 thus obtain immense numbers of valuable works for the 
 mere cost of the wall to hang them on. 
 
 If this book should fall into the hands of any one pos- 
 sessing sufficient local influence to determine the form of a 
 provincial public gallery, let me entreat him to consider 
 that a picture gallery is, after all, a place to see pictures 
 in, and not architecture, and, therefore, that whatever 
 architectural splendor is admissible, should of course be 
 quite subordinate to the main object of showing the pic- 
 tures. If you ask an architect for a design for a gallery, 
 he will sacrifice three out of four of all the pictures you 
 can ever hope to get together, to what he considers an 
 imposing architectural effect. He will build you magnifi- 
 cent halls, when, in fact, a large weaving shed with the 
 looms out would serve your purpose much better. I have 
 seen extensive weaving sheds in the manufacturing dis-? 
 tricts, which, at very little cost, might have been turned 
 into far better picture galleries than any palace in Europe. 
 Let its roof-lights look to the north, and have common 
 deal partitions to hang the pictures upon, and such a 
 weaving shed would be an unrivalled gallery, such a gal- 
 lery as there is not at this moment in any metropolis in 
 the world. It would be far better than the Louvre with 
 its lofty halls, and incomparably superior to our dingy 
 National Gallery and Royal Academy with their dining- 
 room proportions. The main cost of a really good picture 
 gallery would always be in land, for a perfect gallery, 
 where every picture would be on a level with the eye, and 
 lighted from above, would of course occupy an immense 
 area, but the site might be made to pay for itself, by hav- 
 ing a structure of great length with plenty of street front- 
 age, the ground floor and cellaring being let for shops and 
 warehouses, provided, always, that an intermediate story of 
 fire-proof empty brick chambers were constructed between 
 the merchandise and the pictures. An incongruous idea, 
 perhaps, you think, to put the wares below and the pic- 
 tures above. On the contrary, quite a natural juxtaposi- 
 tion. Art is always based upon and supported by 
 commercial prosperity, and the world's best masterpieces 
 
Picture Buying. 261 
 
 would only be in their right place with stores of merchan- 
 dise under them. 
 
 Picture galleries, whether public or private, are the 
 simplest things in the world to build, yet nobody seems to 
 know how to build them. The fact is, that the problem is 
 so extremely simple and obvious, that learned and clever 
 people wfll not condescend to pay any attention to it. The 
 problem is merely this ; to shelter a picture from the 
 weather, and yet allow of its being seen. Well, since 
 the invention of glass, where is thje difficulty ? I notice that 
 for things people really care to show they manage much 
 better. For instance, when a tradesman wants his adver- 
 tisement to be read, he does not, if the print is small, paste 
 it up on his third story, but wafers it to his glass window 
 at a height .of about five feet from the pavement of the 
 street, so as to be level with the eyes of the passers-by. 
 But our picture hanging generally seems to proceed on the 
 supposition that lovers of art are endowed with wings, and 
 can poise themselves before a picture near the ceiling of a 
 lofty hall, like a bee contemplating a blossom. 
 
262 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE HOUSING OF NATIONAL ART TREASURES. 
 
 TX7"HEN artistic questions come before parliament, it is 
 * ^ usually in connection with, public edifices or national 
 pictures. On such occasions it is curious to observe how 
 few members really take part in the discussion, how these 
 few always reappear, and with what languid interest other 
 honorable gentlemen listen to them or bear with them. 
 Lovers of art ought to feel warmly grateful to the few 
 representatives, who maintain, however they may differ 
 among themselves, that Art is a matter of national con- 
 cern, requiring, from time to time, the attention of the 
 legislature. It might be desirable, perhaps, that these 
 gentlemen should be more united in their views ; but it is 
 well known to all who study the fine arts that identity of 
 opinion on that subject is hopeless, the only agreement that 
 can be expected amongst lovers of art being that they all 
 agree to love it in one way or other, though never exactly 
 in the same way. 
 
 Much has been said about the liberality of England in 
 purchasing jewels, and her parsimony in caskets. She has 
 bought pictures and statues, but she will not, it is said, go 
 to the expense of rooms to show them and keep them in. 
 The delay in this, and it is only delay, is one which I have 
 never felt disposed to regret, except so far as it affects our 
 immediate enjoyment of the art treasures, and may tend 
 to discourage gifts and bequests. But recent debates lead 
 us to infer that this delay now approaches its inevitable 
 term, and that next session proposals will be brought be- 
 fore parliament for the construction of a new National 
 Gallery, or for the enlargement of the present one. A 
 vote of 20,000, to purchase land behind the existing 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 263 
 
 building, was agreed to before the dissolution of parlia- 
 ment ; but for a final decision on the subject we must now 
 wait until next year. 
 
 There is a marked tendency in the English mind, espe- 
 cially in that peculiar manifestation of it which may be 
 called the English parliamentary mind, to receive coldly 
 any proposition based upon abstract ideas of what ought to 
 be, whilst it readily entertains proposals for modifications 
 and improvements in what is. English sentiment in this 
 respect is very faithfully represented by the way in which 
 country gentlemen usually set about improvements on 
 their mansions and estates. They have a rooted dislike to 
 comprehensive plans, necessitating sacrifices which are to 
 be made all at once, and changes which admit of no transi- 
 tion. They make sacrifices which are in the end equally 
 heavy, and changes which are equally revolutionary, but 
 they set about it in the national manner, pulling down a 
 gable here, building out a new room there, altering the 
 roads and fences year by year till the ghosts of their 
 fathers would not know the old places again if they re- 
 visited the moon's glimpses. This is probably due to some 
 tenderness of sentiment. We get attached to places and 
 things, even when we acknowledge them to be incon- 
 venient. A total and sudden change, even for the better, 
 leaves a void in the recesses of our hearts. Here is Mr. 
 Cowper, for instance, who has got attached in some mys- 
 terious way to those plain and homely little rooms in Tra- 
 falgar Square, which we dignify by the proud title of a 
 "National Gallery," and so pleads for their retention in 
 the body of a new Palace of Art worthy of the nation. 
 " It would be a clumsy thing," he says, " to pull down the 
 present gallery entirely ; a good architect would leave a 
 great part of it standing, but transform it by additions 
 into all that is desired. There would be a new facade, 
 and a new building would be attached to the old building, 
 which would be so altered and reconstructed that you 
 would not know it again." Mr. Cowper cannot feel hurt 
 at being compared to so respectable a class of men as 
 country gentlemen. I therefore venture to observe that 
 
264 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 this bit of economy is exactly that of a country gentleman 
 making what he calls "alterations ; " it is very respectable, 
 and in the highest degree national, but it is not artistic, 
 and it is not wise. It is -pottering. And whatever has to 
 be done about art should be done in a very different spirit. 
 
 Other members felt this as soon as they heard that there 
 was a hankering for saving the beloved old rooms. Mr. 
 Tite said, " It was quite idle to think of adapting the pre- 
 sent building to the purposes of a National Gallery." 
 Sir G. Bowyer, like an Israelite in Canaan, would pull 
 the present building down utterly, and " let not one stone 
 remain upon another." Mr. Locke " entirely concurred in 
 the opinion that if any thing was to be done with the Na- 
 tional Gallery, it ought to be pulled down altogether. As 
 he understood the right honorable gentleman (Mr. Cow- 
 per), he was going to put a new face upon the National 
 Gallery ; but putting a new face upon a man did not alter 
 his inside, nor did it produce any greater change in a build- 
 ing. Although a new face might be put upon the National 
 Gallery, the old miserable rooms would remain within, and 
 every disgrace and inconvenience which attached to the 
 building would be perpetuated." Mr. Gregory hoped 
 " that his right hon. friend would make it a sine qua non 
 that the new gallery should be built de novo, and that 
 nothing should be taken from the present structure. No 
 patchwork whatever could convert the present gallery into 
 a creditable building worthy of the treasures it was to 
 contain." Mr. Locke repeated that " if the new gallery 
 were to be built in harmony with the old one it would be 
 a dead failure. It would cost a great deal and satisfy no 
 one." Sir J. Pakington " was anxious that there should 
 be neither harmony nor resemblance between the present 
 National Gallery and the proposed new building, which he 
 trusted would be a complete design suited to the site and 
 the object required." 
 
 It is highly satisfactory to know that a few energetic 
 members of parliament are quite alive to the necessity for 
 a grander way of treating this question than the Govern- 
 ment seems inclined to venture upon. To retain the 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 265 
 
 present building, or any portion of it, within the new one 
 would be a fatal error. It would ruin the design by com- 
 pelling the new galleries to accommodate themselves to 
 the bad ones we have already. The existing rooms are 
 such as would naturally be constructed at an epoch when 
 the nation was only just beginning, in a feeble, infantine 
 way, to wish for a collection of pictures, but they are not 
 such as a wealthy country like England ought to retain 
 permanently even as a portion of its great art gallery. 
 The Government hopes to save a little money by retaining 
 these apartments, and it is the traditional policy of British 
 Governments -to pinch on artistic expenditure generally, 
 because the mass of country constituents care nothing 
 about art. Governments are not to be severely blamed 
 for representing, in the way they order the expenditure of 
 public money, the general feeling of the nation, however 
 narrow or misguided it may be. If the nation were really 
 anxious to have noble public buildings, Cabinets would 
 seek popularity by erecting them. But it may be per- 
 mitted to observe that on certain occasions it may become 
 the duty and even the interest of the Government to make 
 itself the representative of a small instructed class rather 
 than of a large uninformed one. Our Government does so 
 from time to time on various occasions ; it has done so 
 even in artistic matters, especially in the purchase of valu- 
 able pictures, most notably the magnificent Veronese. The 
 country constituents would not, as a body, be inclined to 
 think that a piece of old canvas could possibly be worth 
 such a sum as fourteen thousand pounds ; still the purchase 
 was made, and very rightly, because the country constitu- 
 ents were not the best judges. I only wish that in the 
 erection of a new building for the national pictures, some- 
 thing of the same boldness might be exercised. Mr. Cow- 
 per, with that timidity which is habitual to gentlemen in 
 his position, tries to propitiate parliament by the assurance 
 that the new gallery will only cost 100,000, Immedi- 
 ately afterwards we read that " the vote of 200,000, the 
 proportion of the total sum of 703,000 required this year 
 for the purchase of lands and houses for a site for the new 
 
266 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 courts of Justice and offices, was agreed to." The courts 
 of Justice are not likely to cost much less than a million, 
 including the site, and -one-tenth of that sum is proposed 
 for the great national Palace of Art. 
 
 I am aware that the site of the new National Gallery is 
 already partly supplied by the land occupied by the old 
 one, and it fortunately happens that the remaining ground 
 required is to be had on reasonable terms. Still, such a 
 sum as 100,000 is evidently inadequate even for the 
 erection of a fine building. Imagine, for example, what 
 it would cost to reproduce the Louvre in London ! I 
 am far from desiring such a. reproduction, for although 
 the Louvre is altogether very grand, and in parts very 
 beautiful (especially the old quadrangle and the colonnade), 
 it is not by any means a perfect picture gallery ; but I do 
 say that England, considering her prodigious wealth, and 
 her proud position amongst European nations, ought to 
 have an art palace, in no way inferior to the Louvre in 
 point of size and artistic magnificence, and very far 
 superior to it in convenience and wise adaptation to the 
 purposes for which it should be erected. What the 
 Louvre has cost I hardly dare venture to estimate, the new 
 buildings which join it to the Tuileries have swallowed up, 
 I believe? more than two millions sterling ; the old quad- 
 rangle could scarcely be erected in our day for less than a 
 million. It is true that much of the new structure is used 
 for other than artistic purposes, but we have said nothing 
 about the long gallery. A more useful building might be 
 had for less cost, but a building which should be at the 
 same time a good gallery and an imposing work of archi- 
 tectural art could scarcely be completed for less than one 
 million sterling, exclusively of the site. 
 
 Not that our gallery need be erected all at once. The 
 best way would be to get first the land for the site, and a 
 noble design, one specially suited to an art gallery, yet at 
 the same time of palatial splendor, then pull down the 
 present National Gallery entirely, as Sir George Bowyer 
 would have it, leaving not one stone remaining upon 
 another; after that begin to build a piece of the new 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 267 
 
 palace, large enough for our present wants, and let the 
 plan be strictly followed, as future necessities arose. In 
 the great Gothic times, " when men knew how to build," it 
 never seems to have occurred to them that a cathedral 
 must necessarily be finished before it was used, or that one 
 generation was bound to end the labor. Only let the plan 
 be worthy enough and magnificent enough, only begin it 
 grandly, and posterity will be sure to carry it forward ! 
 
 It is especially necessary that a National Gallery should 
 be begun on the understanding that the design is too vast 
 for one generation. National art collections are accumu- 
 lative ; no year passes without adding to their wealth. If 
 it were known that the nation had a great building which 
 was intended to grow with the collections, valuable be- 
 quests would be thereby much encouraged and would be- 
 come much more frequent. Therefore, I say, let us begin 
 a great Palace of Art of such vast design that to com- 
 plete it will cost millions, but let us not think of complet- 
 ing it in our day, only of beginning it, and gradually going 
 on with it as fresh space is wanted. 
 
 This would be the right spirit in which to enter on such 
 a task. The present building is an excellent example of 
 how a wrong and foolish spirit sets to work in such mat- 
 ters. It is thoroughly bourgeois from dome to pavement. 
 A National Gallery was to be built at once, that is in a 
 year or two, it must look rather imposing, and yet be 
 economical. Pillars, it is well known, are imposing: 
 there were royal pillars at Carlton House, no longer 
 wanted, a capital opportunity for uniting economy with a 
 certain degree of splendor, so the architect is told that he 
 must make use of these particular pillars. The front was 
 planned to fit these adjuncts, and the domes were added to 
 give an august and Michelangelesque expression to the 
 whole. We know the result, we know that for years such 
 of us as have eyes and can see are weary of pillars and 
 pediment, and utterly ashamed of the dome and her twin 
 daughters. Even our good, honest English attachment to 
 ugly things that we have been accustomed to will not 
 reconcile us to them. 
 
268 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 That edifice is now somewhere about thirty years old, 
 and we are already talking about destroying it, or meta- 
 morphosing it so that nobody may know it again ; for so 
 heartily is the thing hated, that any one who ventures to 
 talk of preserving it is at particular pains to impress it on 
 our minds that we shall not recognize the object of our 
 aversion in the disguise he proposes for it. And what did 
 this condemned monstrosity cost ? It cost ninety-six thou- 
 sand pounds. And for four thousand more Mr. Cowper 
 now tells us that he hopes to provide an edifice worthy of 
 the nation ! Well may he be anxious to destroy as little 
 as possible of the existing building ! Well may he reflect 
 that all that brick-work, and lath, and plaster, and flooring, 
 have cost money ! 
 
 We cannot have a noble edifice for any such sum. We 
 may get bare shelter for the pictures, and if we manage 
 very cleverly, more cleverly than any nation ever yet did 
 manage, we may so arrange our simple picture shed as to 
 be able to see and study the works it will protect. That 
 would be a great thing certainly, a result well worth the 
 money asked for. But a great national edifice worthy of 
 England for four thousand more than the Wilkins gallery 
 cost is a delusion ! 
 
 If the Government does not feel justified in voting more 
 than a small sum, say 200,000, why not make an appeal 
 to all lovers of art in England ? Might we not all join, 
 according to our means, in a great national subscription ? 
 If it is wrong to tax those who do not care for Art in 
 order to build a palace they will never enjoy, let us who 
 do care tax ourselves voluntarily. Might not the Royal 
 Academy, as a body, give a handsome sum for so great a 
 purpose? Might not our great collectors give the value 
 of one or two pictures? Might not our successful artists 
 give a month's earnings ? And might not all these sub- 
 scriptions be repeated, along with a new Government 
 grant, as each generation built its piece of the great palace ? 
 That is how the great cathedrals were built : everybody 
 gave something, generation after generation. It is true 
 that they did it often from selfish reasons to eat butter 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 269 
 
 in Lent, to escape hell, to obtain indulgences ; but may 
 not we, who profess to be enlightened lovers of the fine 
 arts, spend for once, together, and for a great public purpose, 
 instead of spending always singly for our own selfish ends? 
 
 Let us first imagine what a very simple but useful 
 gallery, or picture shed, ought to be ; and then after that 
 let us indulge the dream of what a noble national Palace 
 of Art ought to be. 
 
 No actually existing picture gallery comes so near to 
 the plain practical ideal as that at South Kensington. 
 You can see the pictures or most of them; the rooms are 
 not too lofty, and the light, though not too glaring is 
 abundant. There is no room in the Louvre so good, unless 
 it be that new little one with the black doors, the first on 
 your right hand as you pass from the Salon Carre down the 
 long gallery. For, after all, the best gallery is that in 
 which the pictures are best seen. The best thing, of what- 
 ever kind, is that which best answers the peculiar purpose 
 of that particular sort of thing. For instance, the gallery 
 at South Kensington, however unadorned, is a better 
 gallery than those two new halls in the Louvre where the 
 French School is lodged. Those rooms are most noble 
 rooms ; but they are so lofty that three-fourths of the pictures 
 are lost in them by being hung, nut too high to be seen, as 
 objects, but too high to be studied, as pictures. I may be 
 told that it is a good thing to have lofty halls for two 
 reasons ; first, because they are grander, architecturally, 
 which is very true ; arid, secondly, because more people 
 may breathe in them, which is also true. I may also be 
 told, that although the hall may be lofty, there is no neces- 
 sity for hanging pictures any higher than in a lower room. 
 To these objections I answer, first, that the architectural 
 qualities of the rooms must be made subservient to their 
 fitness for their purpose, and that, as a matter of fact, low 
 rooms may be, and often have been, beautiful in their own 
 way : secondly, that although more people could breathe in 
 lofty rooms, low ones would spread the visitors over three 
 times the extent of flooring, and so neutralize the objec- 
 tion : thirdly, that to expect that all pictures in a crowded 
 
270 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 collection will be hung low, when there are vast wall spaces 
 above left quite unoccupied is futile, because the pictures 
 must be put somewhere, and will be hung on that empty 
 space, as the collection increases, whether out of sight or 
 not. When you sacrifice a hundred masterpieces of paint- 
 ing to the architectural proportions of one hall, you are 
 guilty of great waste. The whole Louvre, as a work of 
 art, is not worth the tenth part of the treasures that are 
 hidden in it by reason of its irrational construction, and if 
 the whole of that palace were razed to the earth, and a 
 plain cotton-spinning shed built on the site of it, and the 
 pictures shown under the shed, on low screens of wood, or 
 low brick walls, such as we enclose paddocks with, the col- 
 lection would gain more by that change than it lost when 
 the allies took away from it the spoils of Napoleon. 
 
 It is so difficult to speak on this subject with common 
 patience, that I hardly dare trust myself on such ground 
 at all. Such picture hanging as that in the Louvre seems 
 to me to be not merely foolish or thoughtless, but so 
 entirely irrational as to be the work of something below 
 the level of humanity. No English word is strong enough 
 to express stupidity of that calibre ; but a French word 
 will, namely, bete. To buy masterpieces, and then stick 
 them up for hundreds of years where they cannot be seen 
 is bete, because a picture is of no use if it is not seen. If 
 a lad went to study Latin, and his tutor were to say to 
 him, " You shall not hold your book where you can read 
 it, but it shall be placed at such a distance from you as to 
 be illegible," what would you think of that tutor ? Would 
 you not say he was crazy? Well, but picture hangers 
 constantly do that. I being a student of art, go to the 
 Louvre, and very much wish to see certain pictures, these 
 pictures are hung so high as to be for purposes of study 
 inaccessible to me; but I find the general public, which 
 does not care to read the pictures, is perfectly contented to 
 have them where they are ; all it wants is to give one 
 glance, be able henceforth to say it has " seen " them (a 
 polite fib), and be off to its drive and its dinner. But ask 
 some real student what he thinks of it ! 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 271 
 
 In all practical matters unconnected with the fine arts 
 the right kind of building is found and erected at once. 
 Look at a great cotton-weaving shed ; what a vast area ! 
 how well lighted ! and yet one of the cheapest of construc- 
 tions, when once you have the ground ! Such a shed 
 would be an ideal gallery ; let it be provided with partitions 
 or screens, and it would hold thousands of pictures ! Some 
 mention was made in parliament of a "quadrangle;" is a 
 picture gallery to have a quadrangle because the colleges at 
 Oxford have ? It is a most wanton waste of space. All 
 that space should be covered in. Staircases were men- 
 tioned also. What need of a staircase ? Is the gallery to 
 be necessarily two stories high ? One vast ground floor is 
 what is wanted. If you have two stories only one of them 
 can be lighted from above. If, in addition to a shed for 
 pictures, we can afford a palatial front towards the square, 
 we should need staircases to get to the upper stories of our 
 palace ; but as we are planning a cheap gallery just now, 
 to suit the proposed vote of 100,000, it is no use talking 
 about staircases. The great thing is to resolve, first, that 
 our gallery shall be 'immensely spacious, and so well 
 arranged that every picture may be seen perfectly. A low 
 shed will accomplish this ; if we can afford a noble palace, 
 by all means let us have one between the shed and the square. 
 But what is most to be deprecated is a cheap attempt which 
 tries to be both palace and gallery, and is neither the one nor 
 the other, a building where the pictures cannot all be seen, 
 which leaves no room for expansion, and which in itself, 
 with all its pretensions, is without importance as a piece of 
 architecture. 
 
 I am quite aware that these notions will seem strange 
 and heretical to persons accustomed to build from tradition. 
 But I want us to be as independent of tradition in our gal- 
 lery as we have been in most other things in which we 
 have succeeded. Railway carriages are not constructed 
 precisely like stage coaches ; and is there any particular 
 reason why picture galleries should be built like gentlemen's 
 mansions ? 
 
 When you go to a painter's studio and ask him to show 
 
272 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 you a picture, he does not run upstairs with it and hang it 
 out at the window of the third story and tell you to go 
 out into the street and look up at it. No ; he puts it on an 
 easel, level with your eye, wheels the easel into the best 
 light, and you really see the work. Now in a rationally 
 contrived gallery you ought to be able to see every picture 
 just as easily and comfortably as that. And if I and the 
 others who think with me had our will about the National 
 Gallery, every picture in it would be as accessible and as 
 easily seen as if it were still on the easel in the studio of 
 the master who painted it. 
 
 So that if the object were to have a cheap gallery I 
 would first pull down the present building, and then, having 
 bought a large space of land behind it, proceed to erect a 
 vast shed, one story high, with a decent looking stone 
 front towards the square, and plain brick walls behind. 
 This shed I would have lighted from above over its whole 
 extent ; then, inside, I would build long low walls of par- 
 tition so as to divide the shed into many corridor-like gal- 
 leries. Small separate rooms would economize space still 
 farther, and would have the advantage of isolating each mas- 
 ter ; but there is the practical objection that each room 
 would require the constant presence of a guardian. There 
 should be only one line of pictures. Each picture should 
 be so hung that its own horizon line should be from five 
 feet to five feet six inches from the floor. The walls 
 should be covered with flock paper of a rich dark maroon 
 color, showing a slight, just perceptible pattern, nearly in 
 the same tint. (The paper in the present Turner Gallery 
 is of too light and bright a red.) Ample space should be 
 left round every picture frame. A good rule to make 
 would be that every picture should have a margin of bare 
 wall equivalent to half its own breadth. All this luxury of 
 floor and wall space could scarcely be achieved in a thin 
 line of building running round a quadrangle, whereas it 
 might most easily be afforded in a great shed occupying the 
 whole space. We might easily manage, if we really made 
 it an object, to hang every one of the national pictures on 
 the line. If a picture is not good enough to be hung on the 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 273 
 
 line, it is not good enough to be in the national collection. 
 If we cannot afford to hang the present pictures all on the 
 line, we had better stop purchasing and even sell part of our 
 present collection till we can afford it. But it is nonsense 
 to talk of England not being able to afford a few hundred 
 yards of low brick wall. For the cost of some common 
 governmental blunder or mishap, for one-tenth part of the 
 cost of some useless and inglorious war, such a gallery 
 might be- built as would show perfectly and conveniently to 
 art students every picture and drawing we possess, and 
 leave ample space for the acquisitions of a coming half- 
 century. 
 
 To recapitulate the requirements of a plain picture 
 shed : 
 
 1 . It should be only one story high. 
 
 2. The whole area of its site should be entirely covered 
 in, and not enclosed by a quadrangle. 
 
 3. This vast floor should be divided by low parallel walls 
 into long corridors. 
 
 4. Every picture should be hung at that height which in 
 the Royal Academy Exhibition is known as " the line." 
 
 5. The building should be perfectly fire-proof, the floor 
 of tiles, the walls of brick, the roof of iron and glass. 
 
 But so great a nation as England ought farther to desire 
 that its Gallery should be not only a convenient receptacle 
 for works of art, but also, in itself, a noble work of art. 
 The wealthiest of -nations ought, on so fitting an occasion 
 as this, to act with a grandeur becoming her prosperity. 
 We ought to have, not merely a picture shed, but a great 
 Palace of Art. We ought to erect something not only 
 far more useful than the Louvre as a place for the exhib- 
 ition of pictures, but even, if possible, more magnificent. 
 We are perfectly aware of the extreme costliness of such a 
 plan, but there are weighty reasons why this cost ought not 
 to be begrudged. 
 
 A great deal of the effect of a picture, far more of it than 
 most people imagine, is due to the objects which surround 
 it. A fine picture is rather a climax or centre of splendor 
 
 18 
 
274 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 than splendor in itself. There is an art of multiplying 
 fourfold the apparent value of pictures at a cost which bears 
 but slight proportion to the cost of the works themselves. 
 An artist friend of mine, passing one day before the house 
 of a well-known Parisian dealer, observed that one window 
 had been cleared of everything but a solitary small picture. 
 This was framed with extreme splendor and taste, and all 
 round nothing was to be seen but rich pomegranate colored 
 velvet. Aided thus, the picture (it was a masterpiece of 
 color by Decamps) glowed exceedingly. So my friend 
 went in and said to the dealer, " You have been taking 
 particular pains about that Decamps ; I suppose you want 
 a high price." " Just so ; I must have 40,000f. for it." 
 Now, what that cunning tradesman did as a matter of 
 business we ought to do for the national pictures from 
 motives of a higher kind. This way of helping art by sur- 
 rounding it well does not seem to be at all understood by 
 persons in authority in England. Robert Browning, I 
 imagine, would understand it, for he wrote about the mu- 
 rex dye, 
 
 " Enough to furnish Solomon 
 
 Such hangings for his cedar house 
 That when, gold-robed, he took the throne 
 
 In that abyss of blue, the spouse 
 Might swear his presence shone 
 
 Most like the centre spike of gold 
 Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb." 
 
 Take the hangings away, and what becomes of Solomon ? 
 
 The objection on the score of expense is frivolous. If 
 you can afford to spend 14,000 on a Veronese and 9,000 
 on a Raphael, you can afford to surround each of them with 
 a broad margin of good pomegranate velvet. And not only 
 that, but you can afford a gallery for your paintings so 
 finished that the eye of the spectator may rest upon nothing 
 mean or poor as he approaches these precious master- 
 pieces. It is not seemly that treasures which are of such 
 immense value that money affords no means of estimating 
 it should be housed in rooms meaner and more uncomfort- 
 able than the barest entrance halls to our great hotels. In 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 275 
 
 a National Gallery the pictures should be surrounded with 
 every thing that may enhance their beauty and prove how 
 much we value them. If the floor is of wood it should be 
 an inlaid parquet of various and beautiful woods, the doors 
 and fittings of the room should be at once massive and 
 delicately wrought, like the superb ebony panelling of the 
 Salon Carre. But as there is a grave objection to the 
 employment of wood in picture galleries on the score of 
 danger from fire, we should be very lavish of the finest 
 marbles and metals. Minor decorative arts should be 
 called into requisition everywhere, as freely as they have 
 been in the new Houses of Parliament. Large pictures 
 which cannot be seen near should be guarded by advancing 
 enclosures of the most artistic wrought iron railing, full of 
 the most quaint and graceful fancies, and the name of the 
 artificer himself, notof the firm which employed him, should 
 be legibly engraven on the work and on the marble pave- 
 ment in which it was fixed. All the floors should be of 
 marble or encaustic tiles, and the utmost variety of design 
 should be everywhere encouraged, no two doors alike, no 
 two pieces of railing alike, no two floor patterns alike. The 
 doors should be of bronze with a bas-relief in every panel. 
 
 As a Palace of Art ought to have a magnificent front to- 
 wards Trafalgar Square, the low picture shed (which I would 
 always retain for its utility, however magnificently it might 
 be finished), would not afford height enough to look grand 
 from Charing Cross ; therefore the whole site of the present 
 building should be occupied by a very lofty edifice, four or 
 five stories high, comprising, first, the ground floor, a vast 
 entrance hall giving access to all the corridors in the pic- 
 ture shed, and furnished with the finest specimens of artistic 
 furniture that could be collected ; this hall should be hung 
 with tapestry, and should contain, on tables, a collection of 
 small works of art, such as statuettes, cameos, medallions, 
 gems, &c. At each end of the hall a staircase should lead 
 to the upper stories, where the drawings and prints belong- 
 ing to the nation should be exhibited in frames, and under 
 glass, like those in the Louvre. 
 
 At least two long corridors in the shed should be devoted 
 
276 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 to sculpture. All the sculpture now in the British Museum 
 should be housed there. It greatly diminishes the effect of 
 our national art collections to keep them divided, and as 
 the British Museum is in great want of space, it would be 
 a charity to relieve it. We have now, on the whole, a fine 
 collection of sculpture, though still a very incomplete one ; 
 it cannot in its present situation expand farther, for it has 
 already overflowed the building and occupied the colonnades 
 outside. It is surprising that those who have influence in 
 such matters should not be more eager to seize so excellent 
 an opportunity for uniting our art collections, as this recon- 
 struction of the National Gallery will offer. It is an 
 opportunity that is not likely ever to occur again in our 
 time. There appears to be an impression that sculpture, 
 especially the Egyptian and Assyrian, is not so much of 
 artistic as antiquarian and historical interest, so it is put in 
 the British Museum, near the great national library. But 
 the fact is, that no national gallery of art can be complete 
 without a collection of sculpture, and also that the sculpture 
 of Egypt and Nineveh, considered simply as art, is of the 
 very greatest interest, and, in its own way, of most 
 remarkable merit. The distinction between what ought to 
 be put in the British Museum, and what in the National 
 Gallery, is so easily made as to be self-evident. It makes 
 itself. We have only to draw the line where fine art 
 begins. All antiquities of the nature of fine art, and illus- 
 trating the history of fine art, should be placed in the 
 National Gallery ; all antiquities having historical, but not 
 artistic interest, should remain in the Museum. 
 
 As the study of art is very hard and tiring work, the 
 comfort of visitors should be attended to. A desire was 
 expressed in parliament that there should be comfortable 
 seats. This is very right ; most visitors to the Louvre 
 regret that capital ottoman which used to be before the 
 great Veronese. But it is not well to put ottomans in the 
 middle of rooms where pictures are exhibited : they often 
 interfere with study. We wish to retire to a certain dis- 
 tance, and find the ottoman, with the crinolines upon it, in 
 the way. It is better to fix seats near the wall on each 
 
The Housing of National Art Treasures. 277 
 
 side. If the pictures were separated by broad clear spaces, 
 a large easy chair might be put, with its back to the wall, 
 under each of those empty spaces. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the style of architecture 
 which we ought to choose. The perpendicular Gothic was 
 right for the new Houses of Parliament, because peculiarly 
 national, and fit to receive a great heraldic record of the 
 chiefs of the nation. But no style of Gothic has any his- 
 torical connection with good painting, or with any sculpture 
 in which real form has been developed. All the traditions 
 of modern painting and sculpture are inseparably interwoven 
 with the renaissance movement in architecture. No Goth 
 could ever draw the figure. The real study of the figure 
 was itself a renaissance movement. Renaissance architect- 
 ural forms occur continually in the pictures and studies of 
 the greatest masters, Gothic forms hardly ever. Our Art 
 Palace should be of renaissance architecture. All-powerful 
 associations settle this for us. That architecture alone will 
 permit of a consistent commemoration of art history. The 
 front of our Palace should be a great record. On inserted 
 slabs of marble should be inscribed the names of great art- 
 ists, in legible Roman characters, and the names also of 
 great patrons and friends of art. In a hundred niches 
 should be placed their statues. And large panels might be 
 filled with imperishable tile paintings, or with . works like 
 De Triqueti's Marmor Homericum. 
 
 Proposals for a new palace in London are not likely to 
 receive much consideration at a time when we have not yet 
 quite recovered from certain feelings of disappointment and 
 annoyance about the new Houses of Parliament. Much 
 has been said against that building, both by people who 
 hated architecture in general, and could not see the sense 
 of spending so much " foolish money," and, on the other 
 hand, by people who loved architecture, but did not love 
 the perpendicular style. 'But the new Palace of West- 
 minster is, on the whole, an effort of which we have many 
 reasons to be proud. There was very much real grandeur 
 in the idea, though Sir Charles Barry, like many men of 
 talent, had power to plan a great work, but not invention 
 
278 The Housing of National Art Treasures. 
 
 enough to carry it through with that inexhaustible variety 
 and fertility of resource in matters of detail which is the 
 privilege of genius alone. It is not equal to the works of 
 the great Gothic times ; but I am not aware of any per- 
 pendicular architecture which is better. The objection to 
 it is an objection to its style. Barry may have done wrong 
 in choosing that style, but it was adapted to the habits of 
 our workmen and the condition of our minor arts. Its 
 enrichment is mechanical, but we are mechanical also. On 
 the whole, we may accept the Houses of Parliament as the 
 grandest achievement which in all likelihood could haye 
 been produced in the beginning of the Victorian age ; and 
 so far from feeling ashamed of it, we have a right to con- 
 gratulate ourselves that the legislature is housed with a 
 grandeur befitting its great traditions. I have said else- 
 where that the building was " a lamentable and costly 
 example of mechanical enrichment," because I dislike that 
 style ; but I applaud the resolution to have as grand a 
 building as we could get in our age, and the willingness to 
 incur the necessary sacrifices. Let us persevere in the 
 same large spirit with advancing power ! Let us vote 
 eagerly, as the old Florentines voted for their Campanile ! 
 Let us eclipse the Louvre ! We are the richest nation in 
 Europe : let us have the grandest art palace ; we are the 
 most practical : let us have the best ! 
 
 
Fame. 279 
 
 XIV. 
 
 FAME. 
 
 A FRENCH gentleman whom I know very well had 
 !~^ a daughter she is now dead who was distin- 
 guished as one of the most brilliant performers on the 
 pianoforte in all France. Her father was rich, and be- 
 longed to that class of society which considers that its 
 daughters cannot earn money in any way whatever with- 
 out loss of caste, so the lady could not be a professional 
 musician as she ought to have been, but was left to develop 
 her wonderful talent for the delight of a few private 
 friends. Such a position was essentially false. When 
 Nature endows a human being with supreme musical 
 genius, it is intended, not for the possessor alone, nor for 
 any one circle of private friends, but for the human race. 
 And the desire for publicity grew in the girl's mind as 
 she rose to the heights of her art. It became necessary 
 to give weekly musical soirees for the exhibition of her 
 talent. After a while this no longer sufficed, and she 
 performed in a few public concerts of the highest order. 
 Some said that this was vanity, and not a ladylike ten- 
 dency at all. But was it not the irresistible impulse of 
 a true genius ? Can a great instrumentalist be intended 
 by Nature to perform for his own selfish pleasure ? Peo- 
 ple are no more endowed with music that they may play 
 to themselves than with tongues that they may talk to 
 themselves. And when a nobleman of high rank, like the 
 Marquis of Candia (commonly known as Mario), is gifted 
 by nature with so admirable a natural instrument, we 
 have all a kind of claim to the delight of it, as we have 
 to the light of the stars. And though the instinctive thirst 
 for fame may be often quenched by the coldness of high 
 
280 
 
 Fame. 
 
 caste, there is such an appetite, either active or dormant 
 in all intellects to which fame naturally belongs. A ce 
 tain degree of fame is essential to the free exercise of cei 
 tain forces within us, and where there is a constitutions 
 indifference to it those forces have no existence. In tl 
 course of this chapter I shall show that the desire for 
 widely spread celebrity, so commonly reproached against 
 the artistic class as a weakness or a defect, is perfectly 
 rational and right, and means no more than this, that all 
 persons belonging to that class desire a field sufficiently 
 ample for the free exercise of their especial functions a 
 feeling they have in common with many other classes 
 
 It is necessary, however, to draw a trenchant distinction 
 between this right desire for fame, and the morbid or fool- 
 ish longing for it on its own account. It is one thing to 
 desire to be celebrated, that we may work with due effect, 
 and another to desire only that we may be celebrated. 
 But even the most diseased and degraded craving for 
 notoriety is often the perversion of a true instinct uncon- 
 scious of its own import. 
 
 Fame of very different degrees and very different orders 
 is necessary to men in different situations. Men of the 
 highest social rank are immensely famous without the 
 least effort on their part ; and yet as they are saved all 
 that visible seeking after fame which characterizes artists 
 of all kinds, they are never spoken of as celebrated, celeb- 
 rity is so inevitable to them. We say of Landseer that 
 he is a celebrated painter, but not of Victoria that she is 
 a celebrated queen, because painters are for the most part 
 obscure, whereas all monarchs are celebrated by the mere 
 fact of their position. They cannot help being famous: 
 their names are on every one's lips, whether they will or 
 no. And they are famous for this very obvious reason, 
 that a great glare and blaze of fame penetrating into 
 every nook and cranny of their dominions is absolutely 
 necessary to the most ordinary exercise of their function 
 of sovereignty. I, therefore, take the fame of the mon- 
 arch to begin with, as the most obvious instance of func- 
 tional or necessary celebrity, the only celebrity in whatever 
 
Fame. 281 
 
 class which rational men desire ; and I think that, in 
 descending the social scale, I shall find no difficulty in 
 demonstrating that the desire for fame, so far from being 
 peculiar to the artistic class, is common to all men in 
 their several spheres, each desiring that degree and order 
 of renown which is suitable to his position, and necessary 
 to his forceful and effectual life therein. 
 
 I find no order of fame so certain as that which is 
 attached to a man's social position. The renown of mon- 
 archs is, of course, the best and most obvious example of 
 this kind of celebrity, yet it is not confined to any royal 
 or noble class, but belongs in minor degrees to all rich or 
 locally influential men. The fame of rulers is necessarily 
 co-extensive with the number of people they govern ; and 
 as the Emperor Napoleon is inevitably known to all 
 Frenchmen, so also is the cotton manufacturer known to 
 his hands, the landlord to his tenants, and the schoolmas- 
 ter to his scholars. Men also become known to us when 
 we have need of them ; and those who from their occupa- 
 tion render occasional services to large numbers of people 
 are of course known to large numbers. Thus, we find 
 numerous classes of society, every member of which is 
 inevitably famous, more or less, if he discharges the ordi- 
 nary functions of his office. The governor is famous in 
 the sphere of his government, and many laborers in the 
 humblest occupations acquire a degree of celebrity which 
 is not called celebrity, only because it is so intensely local, 
 but which, if judged by the number of persons reached 
 by it, is as great as the fame of many true poets and phi- 
 losophers. 
 
 If we examine the social organization of any populous 
 town, we shall find many persons there who live in the 
 broad light of a local fame of a very intense and pene- 
 trating kind. Fifty miles off, their names are scarcely 
 known ; but in their own neighborhood they enjoy a well 
 recognized and brightly focussed reputation. Like the 
 brilliant chandelier of a ball-room, their glory shines with, 
 wonderful splendor on one well-packed crowd, but is pre- 
 vented by opaque walls from reaching the outer world. 
 
282 Fame. 
 
 There is the principal land-owner first, who cannot help 
 being locally famous, however modest and retiring his dis- 
 position ; there is next the most important clergyman, who 
 is known to everybody in the place, and the smaller incum- 
 bents and curates, whose names are household words at a 
 thousand tea-tables, where they supply an inexhaustible 
 topic of conversation. There is also, probably, a banker, 
 and there are sure to be one or two solicitors also known 
 to everybody, though less talked about than the clergy. 
 And the fame of the local surgeons is as certain as disease 
 and death. And the principal tradesmen the druggist, 
 the tailor, the draper, the fashionable boot and shoe maker, 
 the grocer, the butcher are all absolutely necessary to 
 the community, and well known to it both personally and 
 by name. In a country town there is no obscurity, save 
 for the poor. All rich proprietors, all prosperous trades- 
 men, are known to thousands ; and, as a general rule, you 
 will not find these people shrinking from the degree of 
 publicity which naturally belongs to their station. The 
 land-owner will be a magistrate, and preside at public meet- 
 ings ; the clergyman preaches, of course, in public every 
 Sunday, and will speak also from the platform of the 
 Literary Institute when called upon; the attorney, how- 
 ever bashful by nature, will not shrink from the publicity 
 incident to his profession ; and as for the tradesmen, they 
 will print circulars and advertise. Of all these locally 
 famous people not a soul perhaps cares about celebrity in 
 itself; but their several positions absolutely require some 
 degree of it, or the whole business of the town would come 
 to a standstill. And if you were to take the most retiring 
 of townsmen and make an artist of him, whether poet, 
 painter, or musician, the man would immediately desire a 
 more extended recognition than his own little neighbor- 
 hood could afford, for the simple reason that a commu- 
 nity, which is large enough to keep a thriving grocer or 
 a prosperous tailor, might be far too little to supply culti- 
 .vated people in sufficient numbers to sustain a painter of 
 pictures, or pay for successive editions of musical or poet- 
 ical compositions. The desire for extensive fame, which 
 
Fame. 283 
 
 characterizes the artist class in our day, is, I believe, first 
 of all the sense of a commercial necessity. Small popu- 
 lations afford no market for intellectual works, because 
 the persons capable of appreciating such works are so 
 extremely rare that they have to be sought out from 
 amongst millions. But as the feelings and aims of the 
 Florentine artists were local because they could find appre- 
 ciation and remuneration enough in their own locality, so, 
 I imagine, our own artists would generally content them- 
 selves with local recognition if such recognition could 
 bring them, in wealth and honor, an adequate reward for 
 their labors. The difference between a locally celebrated 
 man as, for instance, a popular clergyman and a 
 widely celebrated one as, for instance, a poet often 
 consists only in this, that the persons whom the celebrity 
 has rerched are, in the one case, concentrated in a single 
 parish or diocese, and, in the other, scattered very thinly 
 over a kingdom. The difference of number is not likely 
 to be on the side of the poet. For the persons who men- 
 tally receive the poet are of a very rare order, real readers 
 of poetry being a very small and a very peculiar class ; 
 whereas the hearers of sermons are of all classes, and 
 may be concentrated in great numbers in a single parish. 
 The poet, however, is considered hungry after fame if he 
 wishes his thoughts to be received by a few thousand per- 
 sons, whereas the same natural desire on the part of a 
 clergyman is called a "wish for an adequate sphere of 
 usefulness." The preacher will, in England at least, al- 
 ways find more hearers than the poet will find readers ; 
 but it is presumed in favor of the preacher that he utters 
 his thought from a higher motive than the poet. Yet 
 is it not quite possible that a poet may wish to raise men 
 to higher views than were before attainable by them ? 
 and could any poet, with such a noble conception of his 
 calling, feel himself justified in dedicating his whole life 
 to it, unless he saw good reason for believing that his 
 efforts would not altogether fail of their effect upon the 
 world ? When the clergyman flattens his manuscript ser- 
 mon on the velvet pulpit-cushion, he is sure of his audi- 
 
284 Fame. 
 
 ence, and knows that he is fulfilling an undeniable function 
 in the world. The artist enjoys no such satisfactory feeling 
 until he is what men call famous. Until fame comes, the 
 author does not feel sure of a single reader, nor even 
 of a publisher. The written thought may never see the 
 light. And the painter who is not famous is scarcely 
 more sure of producing any effect on his fellow-creatures, 
 for the public will not look at what he does, nor the hang- 
 ers in the exhibitions put it where it can be seen. For 
 these men to desire fame is therefore not more indicative 
 of vanity or weakness in them than it would be in a 
 clergyman to desire a church. An artist without reputa- 
 tion is like a pastor without a flock. Fame is the neces- 
 sary condition for the due discharge of his function of 
 artist. What the parish is to the parson, with its thou- 
 sands of inhabitants, fame is to the poet or painter with the 
 thousands of readers or spectators that it brings him. 
 
 Having devoted myself to an art which needs fame as 
 one of the conditions of its satisfactory pursuit, I have, of 
 course, thought a good deal about it. Personally, I can 
 see nothing desirable in it, except the privilege it gives of 
 choosing one's friends from the most cultivated class. As 
 an artist, however, I look upon fame, or at least a consid- 
 erable degree of reputation, as a thing to be won at the 
 cost of any labor or sacrifice, except the sacrifice of private 
 honor. And as a prudent general examines with his tel- 
 escope a fortress as yet distant which he knows he will be 
 compelled to take, so I have endeavored to ascertain what 
 this Fame really is, and whether its outworks are quite so 
 formidable as they look. 
 
 I have no concern except with the fame of artists. The 
 fame of men of action, soldiers and discoverers, rests on 
 very different grounds. Great actions partake in some 
 degree of the undeniableness of money. In these things, 
 however, it is achievement alone which tells, and this 
 achievement is an affair of luck as much as capacity : 
 for, though no man without very quick and ready wits 
 ever succeeded in passing for a first-rate soldier, there are 
 good reasons for supposing that the most celebrated are 
 
Fame. 285 
 
 not necessarily the best. The luck of escaping bullets 
 has as much to do with military reputation as the courage 
 to face them. If Wellington had been shot in his first 
 Indian battle, we should never have heard of him, 
 and it may easily have happened that still greater mil- 
 itary geniuses than Wellington have met death and 
 oblivion in a first campaign. And then there is the ques- 
 tion of where a man may happen to be posted. I have 
 no doubt that there were at least a score of officers in the 
 English army before Sebastopol any one of whom, had he 
 been commander-in-chief, would have earned immortal 
 fame ; but they were kept down in subordinate positions, 
 and their talents were hidden in the trenches like glow- 
 worms in the ditch. I do not envy men of action their 
 chances of fame. No fame is so brilliant as theirs, but 
 none is so precarious, none so dependent upon the merest 
 accidents and the most uncontrollable conditions. The 
 populace idolizes the successful general, and growls with 
 unreasoning fury at the one who does not succeed. If 
 Grouchy had been at Waterloo, and the Prussians stayed 
 away, is it quite sure that the day would have been 
 ours ? By dint of extraordinary energy and genius, but 
 aided also by Fortune, our hero won for us that great day. 
 All I say is, what would the genius have been without the 
 luck, and would the British public have worshipped Wel- 
 lington as it does if the luck had gone against him ? Peo- 
 ple wonder at the Great Duke's modesty : but no general 
 not utterly spoiled by adulation could think of his success 
 otherwise than modestly, recognizing, as every thinking 
 man must, that, though great talents and courage are in- 
 deed necessary to the acquisition of military fame, unusu- 
 ally good luck is, at least, equally necessary ; so that when 
 people shout about the victor's car, they are extolling, not 
 only Caesar's faculties, but Caesar's fortune. 
 
 The fame of writers and painters is much more within 
 their own control. There are still the chances of disease 
 or accident, but only such chances as all men equally 
 share ; they need not incur the hazards of the battle-field 
 unless they voluntarily seek them. Nor is the accident of 
 
286 Fame. 
 
 position of such vital consequence to them as to soldiers. 
 It is certainly a great advantage to a painter to exhibit 
 his works on the line of the Academy ; but a good picture 
 of sufficiently general interest to attract the public will 
 find spectators outside of the Academy walls. It is also 
 an advantage to an author to have money enough to pub- 
 lish his first book ; but it is easier to get a book out than 
 to obtain the command of a great military expedition, 
 the only post where the highest qualities of generalship 
 have a fair chance of displaying themselves. The sense 
 that their talents have some chance of making their own 
 way without any commission from constituted authorities 
 is enough to console the workers in art for many incon- 
 veniences of their condition. It is also a wonderful stim- 
 ulus to exertion to feel that our own ideas depend on 
 ourselves alone for their expression. A good writer or 
 painter can express his own genius much more easily than 
 a good soldier, for the writer only needs a sheet of paper, 
 and the painter a piece of canvas, whereas the soldier 
 must have an army and a battle-field at a cost of millions. 
 Poor inventors in the mechanical arts are also less fortu- 
 nate than painters in this respect, when they can find no 
 capitalist courageous enough to pay for the visible realiza- 
 tion of their plans. 
 
 We have seen that a considerable fame may exist in a 
 small geographical space, if we estimate fame by the num- 
 bers of persons whom it has reached ; whereas another 
 kind of fame, not reaching in reality a greater number of 
 persons, may be scattered over a whole kingdom. We 
 may, therefore, consider fame as spreading over human 
 society superficially, or penetrating it vertically. There is 
 superficial fame affecting only the cultivated cream of 
 mankind, and cubic fame with its foundations deep in the 
 lowest ranks of the uneducated. A religious teacher, a 
 military commander, a pugilist, or a rope-dancer, may 
 derive satisfaction from the suffrages of the ignorant, be- 
 cause they afford for them the best proof of incontestable 
 success ; but a great discoverer in natural science, or a 
 great inventor in fine art, derives a more intense and com- 
 
Fame. 287 
 
 plete satisfaction from the testimony of a very few isolated 
 individuals of high and peculiar culture than from the 
 thoughtless applause of thousands. The great artist, the 
 great mathematician, and the great naturalist, appeal 
 always to the few ; the great preacher, conqueror, fighter, 
 or physical wonder, appeals to every human being with a 
 soul to be saved or a body to be bayonetted or beaten. 
 The fame of Joseph Smith the Mormonite prophet, Na- 
 poleon Bonaparte, and Tom Sayers, is cubic, and goes deep 
 down into the most ignorant strata of society ; the fame of 
 Humboldt, Arago, and Turner, barely gets below the 
 polish of the surface. The fame of personages connected 
 with religious history, whether the religion be false or true, 
 is sure to reach down to the most ignorant peasantry. 
 The most unlettered fishermen in Italian bays have 
 heard of innumerable saints ; the idlest and poorest Turk 
 has heard of Mahomet ; the most ignorant Mormonite re- 
 veres the name of Joseph Smith. I mean no injury to 
 the name of a good man called John Wesley, when I al- 
 lude to his fame here as of the same nature essentially as 
 that of a legendary saint or Morm/m prophet ; for all these 
 celebrities, whether the result of personal worth, or mythic 
 tradition, or pure imposture, are perpetuated and embalmed 
 by the religious sentiment of the people, the strongest and 
 most enduring of all the aids to fame. Nor must the Eng- 
 lish reader be angry with me for alluding to Joseph Smith 
 as a famous religious founder. Hundreds of thousands 
 believe in his name, and tens of millions have heard it. 
 That colossal renown, based on an impudent forgery, 
 already towers far above the fame of our greatest artists 
 and men of science ; and, firmly rooted in the ignorant 
 masses of mankind, may last a thousand years with power 
 unimpaired. Yes, that vulgar Mahomet of the West, with 
 his gross, ungrammatical forgery, has secured such a place 
 in the world's history as none but the founder of a creed 
 can hope for. He has founded a great fame, deep in the 
 safe rock of ignorance, and the bright waves of wit and 
 culture shall shatter themselves for ages against its mighty 
 walls in vain. 
 
288 Fame, 
 
 The fame of fighting men reaches the poor also. In 
 this respect the Emperor Napoleon, the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, Garibaldi the patriot, and Tom Sayers the pugilist, 
 stand on the same footing. Their success appeals to the 
 same popular and universal instinct. They have all fought 
 and conquered. Now, to hear that one man has beaten 
 another, or that one dog has torn another, or that one cock 
 has killed another in the cockpit, gives to the great human 
 combative instinct an intense and intelligible pleasure. 
 Everybody can understand the fact of conquest ; every- 
 body feels a thrill of admiration for the conqueror. There- 
 fore his fame reaches the poor. And if fame is to be 
 great amongst them, its grounds must be intelligible. A 
 great pugilist, or even a great rope-dancer, like Blondin 
 for instance, may achieve popular fame, where a great sci- 
 entific discoverer cannot ; for if the " Staleybridge Infant " 
 gets mauled, the people understand the mauling and ad- 
 mire the mauler ; if Blondin runs along a rope suspended 
 at a dizzy height, every laborer and brick-layer appre- 
 ciates the feat ; if Leotard leaps along swinging trapezes, 
 every schoolboy can understand the marvellous agility dis- 
 played in his flying form. Haydon was jealous of Tom 
 Thumb ; but if Haydon instead of being a very bad painter 
 had been the greatest artist that ever lived on earth, he 
 would have shown great ignorance of human nature in being 
 jealous of his tiny rival. The grounds of Titian's fame 
 are appreciable only by one person in a hundred thousand ; 
 the grounds of Tom Thumb's fame are understood at a 
 glance by every child. How immensely famous that wee 
 thing is ! Like a king born in the purple, he had notoriety 
 for his birthright ; and what so many big men toil for in 
 vain, that little creature took without an effort. 
 
 And authors, then, how far down does their fame pene- 
 trate ? We know something of its merely superficial 
 extent. We know that Shakspeare's name has gone into 
 many lands, but we rarely think how few people honor it 
 in our own. One or two authors have reached the people, 
 Burns, for instance, in Ayrshire, and Tim Bobbin, in 
 Lancashire ; but Charles Dickens scarcely gets down be- 
 
Fame. 289 
 
 low the lower grade of the middle class ; and Scott and 
 Byron are totally unknown to the English peasantry. Of 
 course, Tennyson and Thackeray are only known to the 
 comparatively cultivated classes. The hard-handed tiller 
 of the soil never heard of their names ; even the pale fac- 
 tory operative, unless he frequent the Mechanics' Institute, 
 is as yet untouched by the light of their celebrity. I have 
 mentioned elsewhere that my servant Thursday, who is by 
 birth a very creditable specimen of an English peasant, 
 and the son of a gamekeeper on a great estate, had never 
 heard of Sir Walter Scott ; * nor have I any reason for 
 believing that the great novelist's fame has ever yet pen- 
 etrated Thursday's native valley. But the fame of Tom 
 Sayers shines there in perfect splendor. The Mormon 
 prophet is known there also. So, of course, are Bonaparte, 
 and Wellington, and Wesley. 
 
 When we say that a poet is famous, we mean that he is 
 known to the reading public ; rather a small public in com- 
 parison to the human race. But with this small public 
 even the best writers must content themselves. They can- 
 not aspire to the universal fame of kings, generals, prophets, 
 pugilists, and dwarfs. At this present hour the name of 
 Tom Sayers is known to more Englishmen than the name 
 of William Shakspeare. 
 
 Still the fame of artists whether in words, or sounds, or 
 colors, is extensive and enduring in its way, surviving 
 often a great many very noisy victories. Europe and Asia 
 are full of battle-fields which the world remembers no 
 more; but the masterpieces of literature lie open every 
 day before a few true students, and the masterpieces of 
 color-art receive the continual homage of admiration, mur- 
 muring everlastingly in their august presence, generation 
 after generation. 
 
 * A more striking fact is that Scott is all but unknown to the Highland 
 peasantry. 
 
 19 
 
290 Art Criticism. 
 
 XV. 
 
 ART CRITICISM. 
 
 A MONGST the various items which go to make up a 
 ^^ newspaper, we occasionally find a column or two of 
 criticism on the Exhibitions. These criticisms are not, in 
 general, very entertaining or attractive reading, and it may 
 be questioned whether anybody ever reads them fairly 
 through. They are looked over with some anxiety by the 
 youngest artists, skimmed and dipped into by visitors to the 
 Exhibitions, and skipped by the rest of the world. They 
 are probably inserted from the feeling that literary notice 
 of some sort is due to the acknowledged importance of the 
 Fine Arts. On the whole, the periodical appearance of 
 these contributions may be accepted by painters as a com- 
 pliment to their profession. The present writer is by no 
 means disposed to regret the existence, or deny the possi- 
 ble utility, of printed art criticism. It appears to him a 
 natural and necessary product, growing inevitably in every 
 country that possesses active artists and an abundant 
 periodical literature. The object of this paper is not 
 to weaken the influence of the true critic, but rather to 
 strengthen and confirm it by attempting a definition of 
 his functions. 
 
 But it may be doubted whether all who write on art, or 
 even a large proportion of them, are qualified by previous 
 study to form opinions whose publication is desirable. It 
 would be interesting to have an authentic list of anony- 
 mous art critics, to know what are their usual avocations, 
 and what proportion of their lives has been devoted to the 
 study of art. Ferdinand de Lasteyrie tells us that fewer 
 qualifications are required from Parisian art critics than 
 from any other writers for the French press; that the 
 
Art Criticism. 291 
 
 most inexperienced youths begin with the criticism of pic- 
 tures, which is considered to require so small a stock of 
 information, and so little judgment, that any raw boy may 
 undertake it. Theatrical criticism is, however, in Paris, 
 on quite a different footing, and editors take great care to 
 employ qualified writers for that department. The cause 
 of this difference is obvious. The Parisian public is itself 
 a good judge of theatrical art, but no judge of pictorial ; 
 it therefore at once detects a pretender in theatrical criti- 
 cism, whereas an ignorant critic of pictures may write on 
 in perfect safety. The tendency of an advancing general 
 culture is therefore to elevate the tone of printed criticism 
 by excluding ignorant writers from the periodicals. 
 
 Many persons interested in the Fine Arts are beginning 
 to feel that a great change must, before long, come over 
 the tone of current art criticism ; that the duties of the 
 ordinary critic will be better understood and more worthily 
 fulfilled, and that the relation between the critic and the 
 artist on the one hand, and the critic and the public on 
 the other, will become sounder and more serviceable than 
 heretofore. The writer of these pages considers the pres- 
 ent time opportune for an attempt to indicate what seem 
 to be the most important functions of art criticism. The 
 five volumes of Modern Painters have now been for some 
 time before the world. The international picture exhi- 
 bition of 1862 drew forth an immense mass of printed 
 comment, and the present year has seen the birth of a 
 Quarterly Review exclusively devoted to the Fine Arts. 
 
 The functions and duties of an art critic would appear 
 to be very much as follows : 
 
 1. To utter unpopular truths. The reader may per- 
 haps suspect me of putting this so prominently out of sheer 
 perversity. But it is the first and most important of criti- 
 cal functions, the chief use of a critic being that he should 
 announce truths which others do not yet perceive. There 
 are but two things that a critic can state a truth and a 
 fallacy. Each of these, however, has two subdivisions as 
 to its popularity ; a truth may be popular or not, and so 
 may a fallacy. The popular truth, being already sufficiently 
 
292 Art Criticism. 
 
 expressed, has no need of the critic's advocacy ; fallacy of 
 either kind he had better abstain from altogether ; so there 
 is nothing left for him but the statement of unpopular 
 truth, rather an unpleasant and ill-requited duty, yet 
 the chief duty which the art critic has to fulfil. 
 
 2. To instruct the public in the theoretical knowledge of 
 art. The work most needed is not as yet pure criticism, 
 but art-teaching as preparatory to it. Art is a subject so 
 deep and difficult, so infinitely subtle and complex, that it 
 is only after the study of years that men even begin to 
 comprehend it. But painting has also another character- 
 istic peculiar to itself, and which places its teachers and 
 practitioners in a position of singular delicacy. Other 
 profound studies, as, for instance, chemistry or mathemat- 
 ics, are seen to be difficult by every one, and persons who 
 have not studied them never labor under the illusion that 
 they know all about them. But painting seems so simple, 
 the object which it proposes to itself is apparently so 
 obvious, that every one secretly believes himself competent 
 to judge of it. The really informed teacher has therefore 
 first to persuade his less informed readers that painting is 
 not a simple matter, but a very deep and subtle compound 
 of several sciences with poetry ; next, that they are them- 
 selves as yet more or less ignorant of painting ; and thirdly, 
 that he, the critic, knows enough of the subject to be a trust- 
 worthy teacher and guide. Now, even if the critic can 
 persuade his audience that painting is difficult of compre- 
 hension, he is accused of contempt for the public as soon 
 as he implies his opinion that the public is generally igno- 
 rant of painting.* This is so far from being a just 
 accusation, that some of the men whose genius we most 
 revere, as for instance Byron, and Scott, and Wellington, 
 knew nothing whatever of painting. Grown-up people, 
 however, seldom like to be told that they are ignorant of 
 any thing, and indeed it is superfluous rudeness to tell 
 people of their ignorance when they are already quite 
 aware of it. 
 
 * An accusation often brought against Mr. Ruskin. 
 
Art Criticism. 293 
 
 Men devoted to pure science, as for instance mathema- 
 ticians, are spared this unpleasant necessity, because no 
 one who has never learned mathematics ever dreams of 
 setting himself up as a judge of merit in mathematicians. 
 But when people are ignorant of art, they are so usually 
 to that degree that they are not even aware of their own 
 ignorance. The most politic critic is, therefore, continually 
 driven into the dilemma, either to hold his peace and so 
 let error go uncontradicted, or else convince his pupil, by 
 offensive demonstration, that he does not yet understand 
 the subject. And when we consider that the writer on 
 art addresses himself neither to the obedience of infancy 
 nor the humility of the poor, but to men and women of 
 mature age, already highly refined, often deeply and 
 variously learned in other matters, generally belonging 
 to the upper ranks of life, often very rich, and therefore 
 likely to be very proud, highly susceptible, impatient of 
 instruction, almost incapable of imagining that they have 
 anything yet to learn, the practical difficulty of such 
 teaching is clear. And even if, after making hosts of ene- 
 mies by his frankness, an art teacher should at last succeed 
 in persuading his readers that they cannot know what they 
 have never learned, the difficulty of proving his own com- 
 petence yet remains. In art criticism the most instructed 
 teacher is continually liable to err. Painting includes 
 positive science, but it also includes much more. Of its 
 noblest powers the feeling of some finely organized human 
 being is the only criterion ; of Turner's dream-power, or 
 Raphael's refinement, the soul is the only judge. And 
 here is a question of deep and inborn affinity : we are not 
 organized alike, and genius affects us variously. My im- 
 pressions will seem wrong to you if I state them quite 
 honestly, and so would yours to me. A critic, therefore, 
 who ever quits the plain ground of easily ascertainable 
 fact to attempt the higher criticism of feeling, is sure to 
 awaken dissent. Rude and simple persons express this 
 dissent with vehemence, and become personally hostile ; 
 intellectual men mark with curious interest the point of 
 divergence, and calmly try to account for it. But both 
 
 
294 Art Criticism. 
 
 henceforth regard the critic as a fallible person, whose 
 teaching is to be either rejected altogether or received 
 with thoughtful caution. 
 
 It may be asked when this educating function of the art 
 critic is to cease. It is like asking when schoolmasters are 
 to cease. Every day thousands of new human beings 
 come into the world whose future social position will 
 require them to pretend to appreciate pictures. Is this 
 pretension to be a hollow make-belief, degrading to manli- 
 ness, destructive to honesty, and thus vitally injurious to 
 character ? or is it to be the simple assertion of a well- 
 founded right to a real opinion ? If the latter, the thec*- 
 retical art teacher the " critic," as he is yet called has 
 endless work before him. By means of books and articles 
 in the reviews and newspapers, and, I think, still more by 
 direct personal communication in the form of lectures, he 
 will have to train the public in those eternal truths which 
 are the beginning of criticism. He and his successors will 
 have to repeat them over and over again so long as civil- 
 ization shall endure. 
 
 3. To defend true living artists against the malice of 
 the ignorant. Every original painter, especially in land- 
 scape, has to pass through a period of contempt which it is 
 in the power of any intelligent critic to shorten by demon- 
 strating his fidelity to nature. This ought not to be an 
 exceptional act of kindness on the critic's part ; it is a 
 simple duty which he is bound to perform whenever he 
 sees the need of it. The most acute sufferings of men of 
 genius are inflicted by the instinctive tendency of mankind 
 to consider all originality a fair butt for ridicule. But lit- 
 tle men are weak against a strong will, and one resolute 
 voice will silence the silly laughter of whole multitudes. 
 
 A peculiar form of this duty is the defence of young 
 artists whose powers are as yet imperfectly developed. It 
 is certain that a young painter who sees and feels very 
 intensely will try for too much, and spoil his pictures. 
 The sort of injury to young men's work which comes of 
 their good qualities ought, therefore, to be spoken of with 
 the utmost indulgence, and even defended by the art critic. 
 
Art Criticism. 295 
 
 Of course he must state the defects frankly, but at the 
 same time he is bound to enforce the truth, too often for- 
 gotten, that certain rare and noble qualities, like swans, are 
 repulsive at first, and only become beautiful as they approach 
 maturity. 
 
 4. To prevent false living artists from acquiring an 
 influence injurious to the general interests of art. Some 
 good-natured people think it very wrong and unkind in a 
 critic to point out the defects of living men, and so reduce 
 their incomes ; but as soon as a painter acquires any influ- 
 ence, his short-comings ought to be clearly, though not 
 discourteously, stated. For example, a certain famous 
 painter, whose services as an illustrator of interesting 
 buildings were, before the invention of photographic print- 
 ing, of quite inestimable value, has for some years exhib- 
 ited a peculiar kind of cleverly tinted drawings in oil, of 
 which he is the inventor. But a critic who should fail to 
 point out the difference between these and real pictures 
 would not be doing his duty. There is no necessity, either 
 in this or any other such case, to speak of the artist with 
 unkindness, or to vex and irritate him by sarcasm. It is 
 merely necessary to demonstrate that his works, though 
 exhibited as pictures, and therefore supposed to be works 
 in color, are only tinted drawings executed in oil, with no 
 attempt to render the variety of natural hues. After read- 
 ing such a criticism, the spectator might still sufficiently 
 admire these works on their own grounds, but he would 
 be protected from an influence which might else have viti- 
 ated his sense of color, and so incapacitated him for the 
 enjoyment of color in nature, and prevented him from ren- 
 dering the honor which is due to genuine painters who 
 really do work in color. 
 
 5. To exalt the farqe of dead artists whose example may 
 be beneficial. It may frequently happen that some dead 
 artist, whose name is not on everybody's lips, has never- 
 theless done certain things in such a supremely excellent 
 way that attention ought from time to time to be directed 
 to his works with reference to their especial quality. It 
 requires some effort to remember very many names, and 
 
296 
 
 Art Criticism. 
 
 so, out of pure indolence, the human race prefers to repeat 
 incessantly half a dozen of the most famous, and ignore 
 the rest absolutely. This is very convenient, for it enables 
 us to gain credit for a knowledge of art without heavily 
 burdening our memories, but it is neither instructive to 
 the living nor just to the dead. There is no habit more 
 degrading to the human intelligence than that of narrow- 
 ing our powers of admiration to three or four sets of 
 objects. We ought to admire all that is good, whoever did 
 it, be he living or dead. True artists, thank God ! have 
 been and still are numerous, and from every true artist 
 there is always something to be learned that no other can 
 teach us so well. 
 
 6. To weaken the fame of dead artists whose names 
 have an injurious degree of authority. One of the most 
 melancholy things in the world is the enormous power for 
 evil of the dead over the living. There are dead foreign- 
 ers who govern England in many ways with a tyranny 
 that we should endure from no living one. Great artists, 
 who, when alive, were probably far too liberal and large- 
 minded to conceive it desirable that anybody should slav- 
 ishly imitate them, are erected, when dead, into colossal 
 obstacles in the road to original achievement. There is 
 scarcely a single famous painter whose name has not been 
 misused as a means for the repression of genius. The 
 way in which great m.en are admired by little ones is so 
 utterly childish and irrational that they pervert even origi- 
 nality itself into an argument against originality. Instead 
 of saying, " Raphael was original, and you ought to be so 
 too," they say, " Raphael was original, therefore you are 
 to mimic him." They can conceive of no other sort of 
 respect for genius than that which monkeys have for 
 humanity. 
 
 There is, unfortunately, only one way of meeting this 
 fallacy. It is useless to argue that when Raphael worked 
 he had no idea of binding down all future painters to his 
 particular manner. It is in vain to suggest that it would 
 probably be rather unpleasant than not to a man of origi- 
 nal genius to be copied for ever and ever by endless gener- 
 
Art Criticism. 297 
 
 ations of mere imitators. It is idle to hope that persons 
 devoid of originality can ever be brought so far to compre- 
 hend its nature as to perceive that the object of its intensest 
 scorn is not another originality, which it always heartily 
 respects, but precisely that slavish imitation by which 
 people imagine that they are paying it an appropriate 
 homage. So the only course left is to point out the fail- 
 ings of great men, and as every great man has plenty of 
 them, there is much to be said in that way. 
 
 There is a vast critical movement in our age, the general 
 object of which may be defined as the emancipation of the 
 living intellect from the tyranny of the dead. Nothing 
 whatever is safe from this movement. No sanctity of tra- 
 dition will preserve the most revered writings from the 
 severe scrutiny of this universal criticism. No dead his- 
 torian will escape questioning as to the evidence for his 
 events ; no dead natural philosopher will pass conjecture for. 
 experiment, for the human race is advancing to ripe years, 
 and no longer accepts as infallible the authorities that gov- 
 erned its infancy. Nor can famous artists, any more than 
 famous writers and men of science, be henceforth the fault- 
 less gods they were. All their claims are to be sifted in a 
 new and strange way, not by passionate partisans, but by 
 calm clear heads that care for no man's name. Out of this 
 ordeal many a white fame will come shrivelled, and frail, 
 and black, like paper out of fire ; but others will only be 
 brightened by it afresh. And the benefit to the people 
 will be, that they will no longer worship blindly, like sav- 
 ages, but admire intelligently like thinking men. 
 
 7. To speak always with absolute sincerity. There is 
 a certain kind of criticism, very knowing in tone, and light 
 and jaunty in expression, which scarcely even pretends to 
 a conviction of any kind whatever. Such criticism is 
 almost invariably insincere. When men are quite in ear- 
 nest they are never frivolous or flippant. Perhaps an insin- 
 cere writer on art may often be rather shallow and careless 
 than dishonest, and utter idle fallacies merely because noth- 
 ing concerning art has acquired in his own mind the solidity 
 and consistence of a truth. His main object is to produce 
 
298 Art Criticism. 
 
 * 
 
 telling remarks about pictures, and say as many smart 
 things as he can find a pretext for. The criticisms in some 
 of the French newspapers are perfect masterpieces of this 
 kind of writing. They have nothing to do with art teach- 
 ing, for you may read them from year to year without 
 learning any thing. They appear to be quite purposeless, 
 and only leave a general impression on the reader's mind 
 that the writer must be rather a sharp fellow. If these 
 men were to say to themselves before writing, " I will say 
 nothing but what I think, I will set down only my real 
 opinions," they would be much embarrassed, because they 
 don't think, and have no opinions. 
 
 Happily, men have an instinct which protects them, from 
 the influence of the insincere. One writer with a set of 
 real convictions, be they truths or mistakes, has more 
 power in the world than a hundred without an opinion. 
 .The influence of insincere art critics can therefore only be 
 considerable in regions where no earnest one is active. 
 They feel this so instinctively that when a true man 
 appears, they always immediately combine against him, 
 being afraid of him, as well they may. Any particularly 
 sincere and earnest painter is also sure to be the object of 
 their untiring animosity ; but they laud false artists with a 
 brotherly good-will. 
 
 8. To give open expression to vicissitudes of opinion, 
 not fearing the imputation of inconsistency. This, though 
 put separately on account of its importance, is of course 
 comprised in the simple duty of sincerity. A man who 
 always says what he thinks, and whose opinions modify them- 
 selves continually, cannot always say the same thing. The 
 opinions of men who think are always growing and chang- 
 ing, like living children. All honest and thoughtful men 
 know this, and the sort of consistency which is merely the 
 repetition of a formula is not, in their view, a thing to be 
 respected. Such consistency is often to be attributed to 
 simple stolidity, and still oftener perhaps to a very cunning 
 sort of dishonesty. A dishonest writer thinks, before he 
 commits any thing to print, " I must mind what I am 
 about, and not say any thing contrary to what I have said 
 
Art Criticism. 299 
 
 somewhere else ; " so instead of publishing, his opinions of 
 to-day, in other words, his only sincere opinions, he dis- 
 honestly twists them to make them fit in with opinions 
 expressed perhaps years ago, and thereby gets respected 
 for his precious consistency. A stupid man, on the other 
 hand, is consistent from sheer inertness. He arrived at a 
 conclusion some time ago, and finds it too disturbing and 
 troublesome to look into the grounds of it now, wherefore 
 he also is held to be wise. But a writer who is both hon- 
 est and intelligent is perpetually reviewing his own conclu- 
 sions, and asking himself candidly where he may have 
 been mistaken ; and every time he feels convinced that he 
 has been leading people wrong, he is simple enough to be 
 in a hurry to tell them so ; on which the people, who have 
 a violent admiration for consistency, and a proportionate 
 contempt for the want of it, utterly scorn and despise him 
 as an unsafe and uncertain guide that doesn't know his own 
 mind, and cannot tell whither he is going. And indeed in 
 this last particular they are very right; for whosoever 
 accepts Truth for his leader, and follows her faithfully, 
 scarcely can tell whither she may lead him. 
 
 9. To make himself as thoroughly informed as his time 
 and opportunities will allow about every thing concerning 
 the Fine Arts, whether directly or indirectly. Art is so 
 vast that it is scarcely conceivable how any man can 
 become a very profound judge -of it, without devoting his 
 whole time to it. But I have inserted the phrase, " as his 
 time and opportunities will allow," under the supposition 
 that it might perhaps be possible for some writer of very 
 extraordinary genius to acquire an extensive knowledge 
 of art in the intervals of other and, to him, more important 
 avocations. The only way to learn the rudiments of art 
 criticism is to draw and paint the facts of nature, that is, 
 to produce careful studies from nature, each with the 
 especial object of recording faithfully some particular natu- 
 ral fact. Perhaps a thousand such studies might suffice 
 for the acquisition of the elements of natural law. They 
 ought to be executed in different materials, according | to 
 their especial purpose. But to become an accomplished 
 
300 Art Criticism. 
 
 art critic it is also essential to make studies of pictures and 
 drawings by different masters, not in the way of copying 
 complete works, but rather studying parts of them, always 
 with a definite object. It is unnecessary to indicate the 
 immense range of literary culture essential to the art critic. 
 The success of historical painting is not to be estimated by 
 persons ignorant of history, nor can illustrations of poets 
 be intelligible to spectators who never read verse. And 
 there is this peculiarity about the position of every art 
 critic, that his knowledge must embrace the knowledge, not 
 of one artist only, but of thousands. 
 
 Nor can people who stay at home become art critics. 
 No one can judge authoritatively of the representation of 
 a class of scenery with which he is not familiar. The 
 range of our landscape painters is extensive. They illus- 
 trate every kind of scenery in Europe, and of late years 
 they penetrate into Egypt and Asia. The critic must fol- 
 low them everywhere, taking memoranda of natural facts. 
 He must also travel to see pictures. The critic of litera- 
 ture may find in London all the books he needs ; but the 
 productions of painters are not so easily accessible. The 
 color of a picture cannot be reproduced. Hence nothing 
 but the original handiwork of the painter himself is of the 
 least use for reference. And to grasp the whole mind of a 
 great artist we must see all his works, for every great 
 artistic nature is so large that each picture is a new reve- 
 lation of ranges of power before unknown to us. 
 
 10. To enlarge his own powers of sympathy. How far 
 this may be done by an effort of the will must depend on 
 the nature of the man. But the elasticity and universality 
 of his sympathy are amongst the noblest and .rarest distinc- 
 tions of the genuine critic. Painting is an expression of 
 human feeling. Cold and unsympathetic temperaments, 
 which are so often tempted to write criticism by the love 
 of power, are therefore disqualified for it by their own 
 constitution. A true critic feels with the artist, and is 
 therefore strangely tolerant of the most opposite kinds 
 of artistic expression ; an unfeeling nature prides itself on 
 remaining unmoved, and actually esteems its own callous- 
 
Art Criticism. 301 
 
 ness a sort of superiority. An artist may be all the better 
 for not being self-conscious, but a critic needs a highly 
 sensitive self-consciousness to deliver him from that slavery 
 to its own narrow personality which enthralls every simple 
 mind. 
 
 11. To resist the formation of prejudices. The Fine 
 Arts naturally breed prejudice. Almost every painter is 
 perfectly convinced that some process or color is abomi- 
 nable, merely because he is not master of it, or that some 
 natural object or effect is unsuitable for artistic purposes, 
 because he himself has no feeling for it. One painter 
 tried to persuade me that cobalt is incompatible with har- 
 mony, and that it ought to be rejected from the color-box ; 
 and every color has some bitter and inveterate enemy 
 amongst artists. There is hardly a painter who has not 
 some crotchet which the experience of many others proves 
 to be quite groundless, and the more we know of Art the 
 less we feel disposed to pin our faith to the dicta of any 
 single theorist or practitioner. 
 
 The explanation of this with regard to painters is that 
 their personal experience, being intensely narrow and 
 practical, naturally gives rise to strong convictions, which 
 they have seldom enough of self-consciousness to attribute 
 to their simple personal cause, and which they therefore 
 express as if they were absolute, and not merely relative 
 truths. Instead of saying, for instance, "I don't enjoy 
 green," a painter will very likely tell you that " green is 
 incompatible with fine color." Sometimes this takes the 
 form of a violent animosity against some unoffending tree 
 or plant. Englishmen often have a prejudice against pop- 
 lars, and I met a Frenchman once who railed at chestnut- 
 trees with an incredible acerbity. 
 
 Prejudices of this kind, however foolish and unfounded, 
 are not of much consequence in painters, because if they 
 have an antipathy to a certain color or tree, they only 
 avoid it. But one or two such prejudices might vitiate 
 the judgment of a critic, so as to make him unjus,t to whole 
 classes of artists. 
 
 The artifices of pseudo art criticism are so transparent 
 
302 Art Criticism. . 
 
 that it seems hardly worth while to indicate them ; still, 
 as they appear to impose upon some people even yet, they 
 have a claim upon our attention. 
 
 To be a true art critic it is necessary, first, to be in 
 possession of an enormous amount of information about 
 Art and Nature such as very few persons have either time 
 or industry to acquire. Of course we pre-suppose a natu- 
 ral talent or disposition for criticism, but that, without the 
 information, only makes people talk; and when people 
 talk about matters which they do not understand, they 
 generally talk nonsense. 
 
 The pseudo art critic is a person who writes what is 
 called criticism without being in possession of the prelimi- 
 nary information which is indispensable to the production 
 of true criticism. His chief anxiety is to hide this defi- 
 ciency from his readers, and to leave the impression on 
 their minds that he knows all about the Fine Arts. This 
 is easy or difficult in exact proportion to the cultivation 
 of his audience. 
 
 A genuine art critic often confesses ignorance of par- 
 ticular truths ; as, for instance, in criticizing a naked figure, 
 if he does not understand anatomy he will probably tell 
 you so with perfect frankness ; or if he has not witnessed 
 a storm at sea, yet has to criticise a shipwreck, he will 
 begin by telling you that his opinion on the subject is not 
 of much value, but that the remarks he ventures to offer 
 may be taken for what they are worth. A pseudo critic 
 never does this,* and whenever a critic pretends to know 
 every thing, it is the surest sign that he knows nothing, 
 that he has not even an idea of what it is to know any 
 thing thoroughly. The pretence to universality in art 
 criticism is sure to be hollow, because human life is not 
 long enough for a man to become a universal art critic, if 
 he studied for it ten hours a day, and never did any thing 
 else. 
 
 The immediate object of a pseudo critic is to discover 
 
 * That is, up to the date of the present publication. When they have 
 read this paper they will invent a new set of dodges, amongst which 
 who knows ? even modesty may find a place. 
 
Art Criticism. 303 
 
 defects ; that of a true one, to arrive at opinions. The 
 false critic cannot, however, afford to point out the defects 
 of painters already canonized, because, by so doing, he 
 would oppose the^popular opinion, which he always takes 
 care to conciliate. There is this peculiarity about painting, 
 that it is impossible to produce an absolutely true picture, 
 because some truths must always be sacrificed to others. 
 If, in a landscape, the relation of one shadow to its light 
 is truly given, the rest of the picture must be either false 
 or out of harmony with that shadow. Again, color has 
 to be sacrificed to light, and form to color. A painter has 
 always to purchase truths with falsities, as men buy bread 
 with money; and this necessity being not in the least 
 understood by the public generally, offers to the pseudo 
 critic infinite opportunities for the exercise of his little art 
 or trick of petty fault-finding. And not only that, but the 
 extreme difficulty of painting exposes all painters, even 
 the greatest, to genuine errors, which a noble critic notices 
 only when absolutely necessary, but which the base one 
 fastens upon instinctively, whenever he dare, to the neglect 
 of every thing else ; so that the whole tissue of his criti- 
 cism like the talk of an ill-tempered woman, is tiresome and 
 interminable fault-finding. 
 
 Then there is the safe old well-known critical trick of 
 blaming a thing for not being something else. The aims 
 of our English painters are, to their honor, so large and 
 various that endless opportunities occur for the exercise 
 of this ancient artifice. The wonder is, that there should 
 exist people so simple as to be imposed upon by it ; yet it 
 still apparently answers, like many other cunning contri- 
 vances of our ancestors, which modern ingenuity strives 
 vainly to supercede. Thus if I want to leave an impres- 
 sion that John Lewis and John Brett are not what they 
 should be, I have only to suggest that Reynolds and 
 Gainsborough did not paint in that manner, which of 
 course is undeniable. 
 
 But an invention which modern times may fairly claim 
 is the art of hinting that you could say a good deal against 
 a picture if you felt inclined, but that the faults you vaguely 
 
304 Art Criticism. 
 
 allude to are too obvious to require specification. This has 
 great effect on people not very conyersant with Art. An- 
 other form of it is to allude to classes of Art, whose merit 
 and value you cannot quite safely deny, as if they were so 
 very familiar as to have become stale and tiresome. There 
 exists amongst artists a complete vocabulary of slang, the 
 great convenience of which is that it enables you to talk 
 knowingly about your superiors, and, without committing 
 yourself to the expression of a single real opinion, affect to 
 estimate lightly all that they have accomplished. 
 
 The one distinguishing quality of all valuable art criti- 
 cism is largeness, largeness of acquired information, to 
 grasp the knowledge of so many thousands of artists, and 
 largeness of natural sympathy, to enter into the individual 
 feelings and affections of so great a multitude of minds. 
 For to criticise adequately any artist's work, mere talent 
 and honesty, though needful, are not enough. It is neces- 
 sary to have learned what he has learned, and felt what 
 he has felt. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 305 
 
 XVI. 
 
 PROUDHON AS A WRITER ON ART.* 
 
 A MONGST all the discouraging facts about the public 
 * reception of the fine arts, there is not one so discour- 
 aging as the. difficulty of finding out what people really 
 think. The sameness of shallow profession that murmurs 
 in our ears is a weariness to the soul. The orthodox in art, 
 like the orthodox in some other matters, seem to find 
 satisfaction jn all acquiescence or verbal submission to 
 their authority; they are pleased and contented when 
 ignorance repeats, without either feeling or understanding, 
 the consecrated formulae ; they are happy when any one 
 says what they think, and irritated if he says what he 
 thinks himself. It appears that many minds like echoes 
 better than all the other sounds on earth, and willingly 
 pass their lives in listening to nothing else. Nay, so 
 wedded are they to this strange taste of theirs, that they 
 will listen to nothing else. 
 
 To all such and alas ! they are many this book of 
 Proudhon's is not to be recommended. The sounds that 
 come out of it are not repetitions but new voices, often 
 flatly contradictory of our own, and of all others hitherto 
 familiar in our ears. Proudhon was a very hard-headed, 
 merciless disputant, far too sincere to be always pleasant, 
 saying what he thought "in words like cannon-balls." 
 One of his phrases, " La propriete c'est le vol" was more 
 than a cannon-ball, it was a bomb-shell. It was not 
 exactly true, but there was just enough truth in it to 
 make it very terrible. The pages of his book on art are 
 charged with smaller bombs that explode in our faces as 
 we turn the leaves. 
 
 * "Du Principe de 1'Art et de sa Destination Sociale," par P. J. 
 Proudhon. Paris. 
 
 20 
 
306 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 Proudhon was "let loose on this planet" for the purpose 
 of awakening discussion on those fundamental postulates 
 which society likes to take for granted. Nobody would 
 ever discuss these, if some bold thinker did not from time 
 to time attack them. In the realms of social philosophy, 
 and we may now add of art also, Proudhon served the 
 purpose of " Her Majesty's Opposition ; " he was useful as 
 resistance is to force. No force can be exercised without 
 resistance, and, in intellectual matters, real resistance, such 
 as Proudhon's, is very difficult to get. Ships that sail on 
 water can go against the wind, because they have hold 
 with their keels upon a resisting medium ; but balloons, 
 those ships of the upper air, are driven helplessly to lee- 
 ward because no strong element withstands their flying 
 cars. In common practical matters the resistance is sup- 
 plied by material difficulties, and men may sail ; in the 
 intellectual region there is too often no such resistance, 
 and they drift. 
 
 Before criticising these posthumous notes on art which 
 Proudhon has left us, it is quite necessary, in order that 
 we may understand them rightly, to comprehend the 
 strange nature of the man. 
 
 If a great power evidently exists upon the earth, 
 appearing in times and places far apart, and asserting 
 itself victoriously as an influence strong enough to modify 
 the existence of humanity, certain thinkers are satisfied 
 that by the very fact of its wide and forcible action on 
 mankind the power has a Divine authority, or is at least 
 a natural product, and therefore to be examined respect- 
 fully. I am of this way of thinking, but Proudhon was 
 not. Take, for example, the power of capital, and its 
 exaction of tribute in the shape of interest. This power 
 has not been created by the will of individuals, or the 
 decision of governments ; it grows everywhere naturally. 
 Its strength may seem to us occasionally a temptation to 
 certain forms of tyranny, which legislation has a right to 
 guard us against, but we humbly recognize the power 
 of capital as an institution of the Supreme wisdom, and 
 therefore cannot disapprove of it any more than we can 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 307 
 
 disapprove of the natural collecting of water in lakes and 
 seas. But Proudhon's mind was so constituted that he 
 was capable of feeling the strongest moral disapproval 
 concerning the central institutions of Nature. To hoard 
 capital, in his view, was really a crime ; and the exaction 
 of interest, robbery. Nor did he maintain these views 
 because he was poor, and envied the rich. He had oppor- 
 tunities of becoming richer, and refused to profit by them, 
 from motives of conscience. Indeed, those English writers 
 must have a very slight acquaintance with the private 
 history of French republicans who believe them to have 
 been actuated by a motive so easily explained as mere 
 envy. They were enthusiasts who had a faith, and for 
 that faith they gladly suffered poverty, exile, and imprison- 
 ment, when the abandonment of it would have given them 
 ease, and often led them to much worldly prosperity. 
 
 This peculiarity of Proudhon's mind must be remem- 
 bered when we read his criticism of art. Whatever offends 
 his moral sense he vehemently opposes. Nothing is sacred 
 for him but his own sense of what is right. There is a 
 violence, a virulence, in his onslaughts which becomes 
 most offensive if we lose sight for a moment of his peculiar 
 point of view. But if we are irritated against him, it is 
 evidence of a want of philosophy in ourselves. Proudhon 
 wrote unreservedly what he thought; he might have 
 abstained from writing, or he might have written what 
 other people thought. It may be doubted whether he 
 acted wisely in leaving for publication his ideas on art, a 
 subject of which he had no special knowledge ; but there 
 cannot be a doubt that if we concede this, and leave him 
 the choice between expressing his own opinions or other 
 people's, it was his duty to us, his readers, to express 
 his own. 
 
 He had no diffidence, nor deference. But these are 
 feelings rather useful to warn us off literary ground than 
 to guide us when we are on it, pen in hand. Men of 
 strong convictions are always liable to the accusation 
 of want of modesty. They say what they believe, as if 
 they not only believed but knew it. Thorough belief has 
 
308 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 within itself an assurance equivalent to that of perfect 
 knowledge. If a man has this, his writings will convey 
 the impression that he is conceited when he is only con- 
 vinced. There is immense assurance in Proudhon's man- 
 ner, but it is only the language of genuine earnestness. 
 Writers who are never in earnest about any thing, have a 
 great advantage over him in this respect ; they can culti- 
 vate at leisure the amiable art of modesty. 
 
 The first proposition of Proudhon, which I should feel 
 inclined to dispute, is the one on which he founds his 
 position as an art critic, namely, the judicial competence 
 of the uninformed spectator. The following paragraphs, 
 translated and much condensed, contain the essentials of 
 his argument * : 
 
 " I know nothing by study or apprenticeship about painting, or 
 sculpture, or music. I have always liked their productions as 
 children like engravings. I am of that innumerable multitude 
 which knows nothing of art, as to its execution, or of its secrets, 
 which, far from swearing by a school, is incapable of appreciating 
 manual skill, the difficulties overcome, the science of means and 
 processes, but whose suffrage is the only one that artists aspire to, 
 and for whom art creates. This multitude has the right to declare 
 what it rejects or prefers, to signify its tastes, to impose its will 
 upon artists. It may make mistakes, its tastes require to be awak- 
 ened and exercised; but it is the supreme judge. It can say 
 and none may reply ' I command ; it is your business, artists, to 
 obey. For if your art repels my inspiration ; if it has the preten- 
 sion to impose itself on my fancy instead of following it; if it dares 
 to refuse my decisions ; if, in a word, it is not made for me I despise 
 it ; with all its marvels I repudiate it.' 
 
 " Nature has made us, as to ideas and sentiments, about equally 
 artists. As the progress of knowledge is slow, and requires studies 
 and efforts, so aesthetic education is rapid. Authority in art is inad- 
 missible. It is enough for any man to consult himself to be in a 
 position to put forth a judgment on no matter what work of art. 
 This is how I have constituted myself an art critic, and I recom- 
 mend all my readers to do the same. 
 
 "I judge works of art by theJaste for beautiful things which is 
 natural to us, and especially by what I have learned in literature. I 
 have no aesthetic intuition, and it is only by reflection and analysis 
 that I arrive at the appreciation of the beautiful. But it seems to 
 
 * In all extracts from Proudhon, in the course of this paper, I have 
 condensed whenever possible. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 309 
 
 me that the faculties of taste and understanding are not so far dis- 
 tinct that one cannot supply the place of the other. 
 
 " My quality of judge established, I no not hesitate to produce 
 my decisions." 
 
 The theory that ignorant persons may judge of art is so 
 popular that Proudhon will carry the suffrages of most 
 readers with him, and it is of little use to oppose him by 
 argument, because his theory flatters the self-esteem of the 
 public, whilst the contrary one wounds it. I by no means 
 accuse Proudhon of uttering this doctrine with a view to 
 flatter his readers, for he never condescended to any arts of 
 that kind, but the doctrine is very agreeable to them. If 
 you tell people that they are good judges of art they like 
 you for it, and willingly listen ; if you tell them that they 
 are incompetent, and leave them to infer that you consider 
 yourself competent, they become animated by less kindly 
 sentiments towards you, and attribute your unacceptable 
 doctrine to personal arrogance and conceit. 
 
 To judge of any picture, statue, drawing, or engraving, 
 three distinct kinds of knowledge are needed. First, an 
 accurate acquaintance with the natural facts which ought, 
 in that particular subject, to have been represented ; sec- 
 ondly, some considerable practical acquaintance with the 
 means employed to represent the facts ; thirdly, a philo- 
 sophical comprehension of the intellectual or imaginative 
 element in the work. 
 
 Take, for example, a simple pastoral subject, the picture ' 
 of " Ploughing in the Nivernais," by Rosa Bonheur, in the 
 Luxembourg. The facts to be known by any writer who 
 would criticise that picture include the construction and 
 movements of oxen, then (in a less degree in this instance 
 because they are clothed) the construction and movements 
 of men, after that the construction of trees and earth, with 
 the peculiar forms which the earth takes when it comes off 
 the mould-iron, as Woolner says, " wave lapping wave 
 without a sound." The sky, too, must have been studied, 
 and it would be no disadvantage if the writer knew 
 something about ploughs, and had seen ploughing in the 
 
310 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 country represented (the Nivernais), and were able him- 
 self to harness a yoke of oxen after the manner of the 
 peasants in those parts, that he might know whether Rosa 
 Bonheur had made no mistake in that matter. Then, as 
 to color, though the critic cannot be a colorist, he must 
 have made colored studies of oxen and ploughed land, or 
 else he will have no notion of what the real color of them 
 is. Lastly, as to the philosophy of art, he must know 
 enough of that to be able to assign its due place to the 
 work in the history of art, and to determine how far it is 
 imaginative and poetical, or if only prosaic and observant, 
 what sort of prose it is, and what separates it from other 
 prose, such, for instance, as that of Courbet. Criticism is 
 nothing else than the application of a set of tests, which 
 tests are numerous and delicate in porportion to the infor- 
 mation and feeling of the critic. These tests are not little 
 rules easily learned, as some imagine, but results of elaborate 
 knowledge of very various kinds. Now it never happens 
 that a critic is in full possession of all the knowledge needed 
 for just criticism ; he has the means of applying one or two 
 tests it may be, but these are not enough for the complete 
 estimation of the work. What is called the public estima- 
 tion of a work depends ultimately on the success with which 
 it may have passed the successive ordeals of different tests 
 applied by critics of various competence. The weakness 
 of most art criticism lies in its ignorance of those scientific 
 and technical facts which supply the only accurate tests. 
 Common criticism is a mere expression of personal liking 
 or aversion, and deserves very slight attention indeed. 
 Proudhon would elevate this criticism by Ignorance to the 
 rank of something serious that artists are bound to obey ; 
 that is he would have Ignorance dictate to Knowledge. It 
 has done so to some extent, but to a much less extent than 
 Proudhon imagined ; and every year the authority of 
 Ignorance diminishes. The public now knows the dif- 
 ference, in England at least, between a critic who has 
 grounds for what he advances and a writer who expresses 
 merely his personal fancy or caprice, and it desires nothing 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 311 
 
 so much as to find and follow competent guidance. The 
 multitude is not the supreme judge. Its suffrage is not 
 the only one that artists aspire to and for which art creates. 
 True artists aspire to the judgment of those who are sev- 
 erally competent in the various specialities of criticism. 
 When these have severally judged the work from their 
 various points of view, a general conclusion as to its merit 
 is drawn from the mass of their testimony, and this general 
 conclusion, more or less modified by time, passes current 
 always in the end. It is encouraging to remember the 
 establishment of Turner's fame in spite of the popular 
 verdict. He did not " obey " the multitude, he had " the 
 pretension to impose himself on its fancy instead of fol- 
 lowing it ; " he did " dare to refuse its decisions." The 
 multitude " despised his art with all its marvels " and " re- 
 pudiated it." And with what result ? All the popular 
 outcry and clamor were in vain, the few artists and con- 
 noisseurs who understood Turner silenced the thousands 
 who could not comprehend him, and now, no thanks to 
 any popular favor, his immortal name is engraven where 
 they cannot efface it, high in the House of Fame. There 
 is nothing in life more wonderful, more sublime, more 
 cheering to our faith and hope, than the certain ultimate 
 victory of the few who know. 
 
 Holding these views, believing that to produce art criti- 
 cism of any value needs laborious preparation, it follows that 
 I cannot allow to Proudhon, who was entirely ignorant of 
 art, the title of art critic in any serious sense at all. And 
 yet it seems well that he should have left us his impres- 
 sions on the subject, because he wrote so very sincerely, 
 and sincere writing about art, by thoughtful persons, is 
 lamentably rare. Proudhon at least tells us what an igno- 
 rant thinker worked out in his own head, and in the course 
 of his thinking by the sharp penetrating faculty of his mind, 
 he got down to one or two obscure truths which are likely 
 ere long to become widely known, at least to the more 
 thoughtful class of readers. He was the first to announce 
 in print the relation between some modern art and the new 
 Positive Philosophy. He fished up that murex, and de- 
 
312 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 serves great credit for it/* His faculty as an art philoso- 
 pher was naturally large, but there is no evidence that he 
 appreciated artistic performance. I mean that as a thinker 
 he could grasp the historical relation of school to school, 
 but as an observer I doubt whether he had that delicate 
 insight which can justly compare picture with picture. 
 
 Proudhon's assertion that authority in art is inadmissible 
 is not absolutely true, but an important truth lies hidden 
 in the loose and too general phrase. Any pretension to 
 universal authority in art is inadmissible, because no human 
 being in the course of one life can acquire the knowledge 
 necessary to a universal art critic. But, on the other hand, 
 authority on special matters naturally asserts itself, and is 
 always recognized so soon as the grounds of it are ascer- 
 tained. In a cultivated age authority on particular subjects 
 is allowed to all who can give evidence of superior knowl- 
 edge on those especial subjects. What Proudhon rebelled 
 against in his heart was the authority of superiority ; but 
 such rebellion is always vain, because nature herself insti- 
 tuted and ever sustains that just authority. 
 
 The place due to the Fine Arts amongst the occupations 
 of men would naturally occupy a thinker who busied him- 
 self so incessantly with social questions. The following 
 passages show how severely Proudhon regarded art and 
 artists from his point of view as a social moralist. 
 
 " Whether painters represent drunken priests as Courbet does, 
 or priests saying mass like Flandrin, or peasants, soldiers, horses, 
 or trees, or effigies of antique personages of whom we know next to 
 nothing, or heroes of ribvels, or fairies, angels, gods, products of 
 fancy or superstition, in what can all that seriously interest us ? 
 What good does it do to our government, our manners, our comfort, 
 our progress? Does it become serious minds to concern them- 
 selves with these costly trifles ? Have we time and money to 
 spare ? Certainly, we practical and sensible people, not initiated 
 in the mysteries of art, have a right to ask this of artists, not to 
 contradict them, but in order to be edified about what they think of 
 themselves, and what they expect from us. Nobody, however, 
 seems to have given a clear answer on these points. 
 
 * It may be permitted me to observe that I had an article on the Posi- 
 tive Philosophy of the Fine Arts in preparation, before the publication of 
 Proudhon's book. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 313 
 
 "Every two years, formerly it was every year, the government 
 regales the public with a great exhibition of painting, statuary, &c. 
 Industry never had such frequent exhibitions, and she has not had 
 them nearly so long. In fact, it is an artists' fair putting their 
 products on sale, and waiting anxiously for buyers. For these 
 exceptional solemnities the government appoints a jury to verify 
 the works sent, and name the best. On the recommendation of 
 this jury the government gives medals of gold and silver, decora- 
 tions, honorable mentions, money rewards, pensions. There are, 
 for distinguished artists, according to their recognized talents and 
 their age, places at Rome, in the Academy, in the Senate. All 
 these expenses are paid by us, the profane, like those of the army 
 and the country roads. Nevertheless, it is probable that no one, 
 either on the Jury, or in the Academy, or in the Senate, or at 
 Rome, would be in a condition to justify this part of the budget by 
 an intelligible definition of art and its function, either private or 
 public. Why can't we leave artists to their own business, and not 
 trouble ourselves about them more than we do about rope-dancers ? 
 Perhaps it would be the best way to find out exactly what they are 
 worth. 
 
 " The more one reflects on this question of art and artists, the 
 more one meets matter for astonishment. M. Ingres, a master 
 painter, like M. Courbet, has become, by the sale of his works, rich 
 and celebrated. It is evident that he, at any rate, has not merely 
 worked for fancy's sake. Quite lately he has been admitted to the 
 Senate as one of the great notables of the land. His fellow-towns- 
 men at Montauban have voted him a golden crown. Here is paint- 
 ing, then, put on the same level as war, religion, science, and 
 industry. But why has M. Ingres been considered the first amongst 
 his peers ? If you consult artists and writers about his value, most 
 of them will tell you that he is the chief, much questioned, of a 
 school fallen into discredit for the last thirty years, the classical 
 school ; that to this school has succeeded another, which in its 
 turn, became the fashion, the romantic school, headed by Delacroix, 
 who is just dead ; that this one has given away, and is now partly 
 replaced by the realist school, of which Courbet is the principal 
 representative. So that upon the glory of Ingres, the venerable 
 representative of classicism, are superposed two younger schools, 
 two new generations of artists, as two or three new strata of earth 
 are superposed on the animals contemporary with the last deluge. 
 Why has the government chosen M. Ingres, an antediluvian, rather 
 than Delacroix or Courbet ? Is art an affair of archeology, or is it 
 like politics which has always been horrified by new ideas and 
 walked with its eyes turned backwards in history ? If so, then the 
 last comers in painting would be the worst. Then what is the good 
 of encouragement and recompenses'? Let things go their own 
 way, unless we would follow the advice of Plato and Rousseau, 
 and ostracise this ' world of art,' sod of parasites and corruption." 
 
314 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 All this seems severe, but is very easily answered. Hap- 
 pily for the human race, it is guided in the right direction 
 by its instincts before it has learned to account for its own 
 doings by philosophical reasoning. Those who possess the 
 instinct which either creates or appreciates works of art do 
 not need to quiet their own consciences by any argument 
 about the wisdom "or utility of paying attention to the fine 
 arts. The art faculty, like every other great faculty of our 
 nature, carries within itself the assurance of its own law- 
 fulness. If any argument is needed to satisfy those un- 
 fortunates who can only think and never feel, here is one, 
 such as it is. Nature is always artistic, the very com- 
 monest things have artistic invention. A rose is beautiful 
 and a toad is ugly, both are artistic. Now, so long as 
 man's work is unartistic, it is a discord in the universe, 
 hence artists serve the purpose of bringing man and his 
 belongings into visible harmony with nature. If you an- 
 swer, " What is the good of being brought into harmony 
 with nature ? we don't care about artistic qualities even in 
 nature itself;" we can only say that art does not work 
 exclusively for you, but that very many other persons find 
 in it a sensible benefit and an addition to happiness. It 
 is easily shown also that art adds to human knowledge, 
 by giving it visibility and precision, but to do this the art 
 itself must be conscientiously accurate, which until very 
 lately it has seldom been. Indeed, the mission of art to 
 humanity is only just begun, and it is less easy as yet to 
 point to definite services rendered than it probably will be 
 a few centuries hence. Even now, however, we owe to 
 many deceased artists much interesting and often really 
 valuable information. Such an institution as the English 
 National Portrait Gallery is a proof of the utility of art as 
 a record. 
 
 These questionings of Proudhon as to the utility of art 
 are, however, rather introductory to his own answer than 
 the real questionings of an inquirer who could give no 
 answer, and believed that none could be given. Proudhon 
 defines art as " an idealist representation of nature and 
 ourselves with a view to the physical and moral advance- 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 315 
 
 ment (perfectionnement) of our species" This is one of the 
 best definitions hitherto constructed. It includes natural 
 truth, idealism, landscape art, figure design, and the in- 
 fluence of art as drawing attention to, and leading towards, 
 the improvement of our physical and moral life. It misses, 
 however, the affections and sentiments which cause the 
 production of all art that touches us closely. Art is the 
 expression of the artist's delight in what he sees or im- 
 agines, and an attempt to communicate the same delight to 
 others, with a view to their sympathy and applause. Then 
 Proudhon considers the aesthetic faculty one of secondary 
 rank, merely an auxiliary in the development of humanity, 
 rather a feminine than a virile faculty, and predestined to 
 obedience. Here also he is undoubtedly right from the 
 political or social point of view, which estimates faculties 
 according to their direct governmental power. The aes- 
 thetic power influences only those who by their natural con- 
 stitution are created the subjects of such influence ; its 
 weakness lies in the fact that it only governs those who are 
 willing to be governed. Political power, on the other 
 hand, governs also the unwilling. The difference between 
 the two may be accurately estimated by the difference in 
 national importance between the Royal Academy and the 
 House of Commons. But, on the other hand, considered 
 apart from the question of power over others, I am not 
 sure that the aesthetic faculty, especially when in its 
 highest form of artistic invention, can be considered a 
 secondary or an unmasculine faculty. Be assured that to 
 paint a great picture or write a great poem is manly work 
 in the strongest sense. Shakspeare and Michael Angelo 
 were certainly manly ; and however firm our manhood, it 
 is never too mighty for the great claims which the exigen- 
 cies of noble art make upon it. 
 
 The wisdom of such governmental encouragement of art 
 as Proudhon questions may indeed be doubted, but the 
 course pursued by the Emperor in selecting Ingres for 
 honors rather than Courbet, or even Delacroix, is marked 
 by Louis Napoleon's usual tact and prudence. Ingres may 
 be an "antediluvian," but his merits, such as they are, 
 
316 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 have the advantage of universal recognition, whilst the 
 merits of Delacroix and Courbet are strongly disputed. 
 The great evil of all governmental recognition of contem- 
 porary art is that persons in authority can only honor 
 " safe " men, and these are seldom the greatest, never the 
 most original. Calcott was a safe man and got knighted ; 
 Turner was not a safe man, and thirty years ago, any offi- 
 cial recognition of him would have excited much clamor, 
 which would have caused the common people to doubt the 
 judgment of their rulers. Besides, it does not follow that 
 antediluvians should be necessarily worse than their suc- 
 cessors ; their only fault is to have aimed at qualities now 
 no longer in fashion amongst artists ; but these qualities 
 may nevertheless be desirable, and to have aimed at them 
 may have been to render permanent service to the arts, 
 even though they are for the present temporarily lost sight 
 of in the pursuit of more novel aims. As to the fitness of 
 the kind of honor bestowed on Ingres there is still, how- 
 ever, room for doubt. The fine arts do not teach men how 
 to govern a country ; and the severe study of form, which 
 is Ingres' sole claim to consideration, is not enough to make 
 him vote wisely on such questions as will come before him 
 in his senatorial capacity. 
 
 Proudhon's conception of art was large. He perceived 
 the immense extension of the aesthetic faculty in man. He 
 saw that not merely painting or sculpture, but every thing 
 that aims at the adornment of life, springs from that faculty. 
 The truth is, that whenever we decorate a building or a 
 piece of joiners' work with the simplest moulding, when- 
 ever we enrich our dress with the least bit of braid or 
 ribbon, or even put a wild flower in a button-hole, we are 
 attempting to give satisfaction to the artistic instinct. A 
 manufacturer at Oldham put a cornice round the top of his 
 factory at a cost of 1,500. That was poor art, but it was 
 an attempt at art, and sprang from the instinct which 
 erected the frieze of the Parthenon. The duty of artists 
 and writers on art is to guide this blind instinct to a rational 
 activity. Thus we might suggest .to a savage, that instead 
 of carving and staining his own face, he would do better to 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 317 
 
 carve and stain wooden furniture ; and it is the duty of 
 every writer on art in the present age to tell the people who 
 invent the prevalent fashions in female dress, that although 
 the desire for becoming costume is a right instinct, the 
 existing mode is a disease of it. 
 
 Proudhon's chapter on the Ideal is somewhat unsatis- 
 factory. So far as I understand the Ideal, it is the typical 
 or perfect form to which nature tends. But there may be 
 various ideals; indeed, they are infinitely numerous. Na- 
 ture never quite reaches them in any individual creature ; 
 but very clearly indicates them. Proudhon believed that 
 there is Idealism in every thing, even in a photograph of 
 raw butcher's meat, chopped in pieces. I confess I see no 
 Ideal whatever in nature or in photography, but only hints 
 giving us a clue to the Ideal. It is scarcely worth while, 
 however, to discuss this point, on which there exists little 
 difference of opinion amongst artists. The difference which 
 does exist, and which distinguishes modern art from the 
 antique, is that we recognize a greater quantity or variety 
 of ideals than the ancients did. This is of importance, 
 because it makes our aims more various and our judgments 
 more liberal than theirs. 
 
 " For philosophers and savants," says Proudhon, " the mode of 
 expression ought to be rigorously exact. Artistic expression, on 
 the other hand, is augmentative or diminutive, laudatory or depre- 
 ciatory. So that the slavery to the pure idea, which characterizes 
 philosophy, science and industry, is just what destroys the aesthetic 
 sentiment, the ideal, whilst artistic license gives birth to it. 
 
 " The object of art is not merely to make us admire beautiful 
 things. The attainment of beauty is only the debut of the artist. 
 Our moral life consists of quite other things than this superficial 
 and sterile contemplation. There are the variety of human actions 
 and passions, prejudices, beliefs, conditions, castes, family, religion, 
 domestic comedy, public tragedy, national epic, revolutions. All 
 that is as much matter for art as for philosophy. 
 
 "Art is essentially concrete, particularist, and determinative." 
 
 All that is very true and good, one or two phrases are 
 even deep and show unusual insight. The way in which 
 Proudhon defines the change which the Fine Arts love to 
 make in all their materials is very accurate. " Artistic 
 
318 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 expression," he says, " is augmentative or diminutive, laud- 
 atory or depreciatory. His other assertion, that " the at- 
 tainment of beauty is only the debut of the artist," is more 
 likely to be disputed. Beauty and pleasure are considered 
 by many to be the end of art ; truth the end of science ; 
 morality the end of philosophy ; whereas Proudhon, being a 
 seeker after truth, and a moralist, will have it that art also 
 should seek after these things. I reserve the discussion of 
 this point till we come to Proudhon's more elaborate de- 
 velopment of his doctrine. The last sentence, " art is 
 essentially concrete, particularist, and determinative," ex- 
 presses a truth too often lost sight of by such critics as 
 Proudhon himself, who forget that the particular truths 
 and concrete forms of art can only be met by particular 
 and, so to speak, concrete criticism. Vague abstractions, 
 or even abstractions which, considered philosophically, are 
 not vague, aid us little in our attempts to estimate produc- 
 tions which always come before us with definite forms. 
 Philosophy, or at least the broad philosophical spirit, is a 
 necessary element in good art criticism, but the knowledge 
 of special facts is also indispensable to any one who would 
 speak of an art which is " essentially concrete, particularist, 
 and determinative." 
 
 Proudhon is less happy in a curious attempt he makes 
 to distinguish the Ideal from the Idea. 
 
 " The Ideal is distinguished from the Idea, because the Idea is 
 an abstract type, whilst the Ideal is the clothing given to the Idea 
 by the imagination or sentiment. For example : 
 
 " IDEA : It is safer to live in an humble condition than in a high 
 one. Ideal : Fable of the oak and the reed, combat of the rats and 
 the weasels, when the princes of the rat army, with their plumes, 
 not being able to get into the holes, were all massacred. 
 
 " IDEA : Maternal tenderness. Ideal : a hen and her chickens ; 
 the pelican ; opossums ; a woman giving suck to her child ; the 
 lion at Florence." 
 
 This is very wide of the mark. Proudhon first gives an 
 abstract moral notion, and calls that the Idea ; then an 
 artistic illustration of it in visible shape, and calls that the 
 Ideal. Turning to Liddell and Scott for reference to'a 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 319 
 
 Greek author who employed the word idea in something 
 like its modern artistic sense, I find that " in the Platonic 
 Philosophy the ideai were not only iidq, but something 
 more, viz., the perfect archetypes, models, or patterns (Lat. 
 formce), of which, respectively, all created things were the 
 imperfect antitypes or' representations." The word idea, in 
 art at least, does not mean a thought or a moral ^proposi- 
 tiou, but a form seen in the mind. So far as a work of art 
 realizes this inner vision it is ideal. Realism is the sur- 
 render to outward vision ; idealism is the surrender to the 
 inward vision. Proudhon's examples of ideals are not 
 necessarily ideals at all ; they might have been examples 
 of servile realism. He confounds thought and ideality, 
 just as our vulgar language continually confounds them. 
 People say that they have ideas when they have only 
 thoughts. By an extension of meaning which is metaphor- 
 ical we talk also of musical ideas, because our language is 
 not critically accurate enough to have a special word for 
 that which the musician hears in his imagination. Proud- 
 hon's "ideas "are only thoughts, or . moral notions; and 
 his " ideals " only instances, or illustrations. But when 
 Phidias imagined Jupiter, he saw in his mind a true artistic 
 idea; and when he wrought the great image in ivory and 
 gold, he made a work which, as an attempt to realize that 
 idea, was, so far as he approached it, ideal. 
 
 Since Proudhon was before all things a moralist, seeking 
 a definite moral utility in every thing, and approving every 
 thing only just so far as it seemed to him helpful to moral 
 progress, and since he by no means loved or understood 
 art for itself, but only as a force or influence which might 
 ameliorate men, it is evident that the principle of art for 
 art must have been, in the highest degree, repugnant to 
 him. 
 
 " Art for Art, as it has been called, not having its lawfulness in 
 itself, and resting on nothing is nothing. It is a debauch of the 
 heart and dissolution of the mind. Separated from right and duty, 
 cultivated and sought after as the highest thought of the soul and 
 the supreme manifestation of humanity, art, or the ideal, shorn of 
 the best part of itself, reduced to nothing more than an excitement 
 
320 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 of fancy and the senses, is the principle of sin, the origin of all slavery, 
 the poisoned source whence flow, according to the Bible, all the fornications 
 and abominations of the earth. From this point of view the pursuit of 
 letters and of the arts has been so often marked by historians and 
 moralists as the cause of the corruption of manners and the deca- 
 dence of states ; it is for the same reason that certain religions 
 Magism, Judaism, Protestantism have excluded it from their 
 temples. Art for art, I say, the verse for the verse, the style for 
 the style, the form for the form, fancy for fancy ; all these vanities, 
 which eat up an age like a disease, are vice in all its refinement, evil in 
 its quintessence. Carried into religion and morality, that is called 
 mysticism, idealism, quietism, and romanticism : a contemplative 
 disposition where the most subtle pride unites itself with the most 
 profound impurity, and which all the true practical moralists have 
 opposed with all their energy Voltaire just as much as Bossuet." 
 
 This passage is so powerful, so full of conviction, so 
 strongly colored with the little crystal of truth, which is 
 dissolved and disseminated in so much hot water of fanati- 
 cism, that very many good people on reading it would suc- 
 cumb at once, and never dare to oppose to such stern and 
 lofty morality the resistance of reason and common sense. 
 Let us examine for one moment what the principle of Art 
 for Art really is. It simply maintains that works of art, 
 as such, are to be estimated purely by their artistic qual- 
 ities, not by qualities lying outside of art.* For instance, 
 the comparative poetical rank of Byron and Bowles is not 
 to be settled by a comparison of their religion and morality, 
 
 * It is probable that if Proudhon were alive to answer me he would 
 say that his objection refers less to the spirit in which works of art are 
 estimated than to the spirit in which they are produced, that an artist who 
 works for artistic ends alone is a lost being, whereas an artist who works 
 for moral ends is* always safe. Unfortunately for this view it happens 
 that when art makes itself secondary to any moral or intellectual purpose, 
 it almost always, as if of necessity, loses quality as art, and very fre- 
 quently sinks so low (artistically speaking) as to get beneath the level of 
 all that deserves the very name'of art. The reader may remember Cruik- 
 shank's large painting against drunkenness; that was a painting with a 
 praiseworthy moral purpose, but it was not & picture, at all. (I have called 
 it a "painting," because airy piece of canvas covered with paint is enti- 
 tled to that designation.) On the other hand I remember many pictures 
 of drunken and immoral satyrs, by the great masters, which were not 
 produced with that honorable wish to combat moral evil and help moral 
 good which animated Cruikshank, and yet were truly pictures, and as 
 such are rightly considered treasures, whilst Cruikshank' s work is worth 
 as much as the last teetotal lecture, and no more. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 321 
 
 but of their art. Leslie used to say that he remembered a 
 versifier who considered himself a better poet than Byron, 
 because Byron's works often offended against morality, 
 whereas his own were perfectly unexceptionable on that 
 score. But amongst true critics, however desirable purity 
 may appear to them, poetry is judged as poetry, painting as 
 painting, music as music, art as art. So we say that 
 naughty Alfred de Musset was a poet, because he wrought 
 exquisite poetical work ; and we say of good Mr. Tupper 
 that he is no poet, because he has not those qualities of ear 
 and intellect and imagination which are necessary to make 
 one. If Mr. Tupper were very naughty, and poor Alfred de 
 Musset a canonized saint in heaven, that would not in the 
 least affect our estimate of them as artists. It is in vain to 
 write Jeremiads against this. A painter who paints 
 supremely well, however few or feeble the moral lessons he 
 inculcates, is sure of applause and immortality. What 
 moral lesson did Rubens teach ? What sermonizing is 
 there in Titian ? Even their sacred subjects are merely 
 treated as artistic motives, and how utterly worldly they both 
 were, how fond of pomp and vanity, how full of the lust of 
 the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life ! 
 Yet they are the princes of art; and the preachings, 
 and the teachings, the inculcated lessons, the elab- 
 orate allegories, the everlasting impertinences of inop- 
 portune counsel that fill our modern exhibitions will all 
 be swept into deserved oblivion, whilst these great men 
 remain. 
 
 When Proudhon says that "art for art has not its law- 
 fulness in itself, and rests on nothing," he forgets that art 
 rests upon nature, and that truth is essential to it. The 
 two great artists whom I have just instanced as famous for 
 purely artistic qualities were pre-eminent for their marvel- 
 lous powers of observation, and memory, and vividly truth- 
 ful imagination. They are great because they saw so 
 much, and remembered so much, and because, when they 
 imagined, they imagined with such astonishing veracity, 
 and could so splendidly set forth outwardly on canvas what 
 they had first seen inwardly. Art has its own lawfulness, 
 
 21 
 
322 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 which is dual, namely, the law of natural appearances and 
 the law of artistic exigencies, and both these laws are so 
 vast and so complex that it takes half a lifetime to learn 
 them. No wonder that writers like Proudhon, who prac- 
 tise and advocate the art criticism of pure ignorance should 
 not even be conscious that these great laws exist. 
 
 And even in such technical matters as the laying of a 
 touch, or the judgment with which glazing and impasto are 
 employed, or the prudence of using light or dark grounds, 
 or whether it is better to get light transparently through 
 the colors or opaquely upon them, whether in water-color 
 it is better to use the sponge or forego it, whether in etch- 
 ing it is wiser to obtain darks by depth of biting or by 
 multiplicity of lines, all such questions as these depend for 
 their solution on the one law that the lest method is always 
 that which best renders the highest order of truth consistently 
 with the permanence of the work. So that even in the way 
 we estimate the most purely technical qualities of handling 
 there is an understood reference to nature. What we call 
 quality in work is a very great thing, and implies very 
 great knowledge and observation of nature. Quality does 
 not rest on nothing. If a man can spread half a dozen 
 square inches of canvas with oil paint in such a manner as 
 to put what we call quality into it, that man has studied 
 nature for years and years. 
 
 And again, when writers like Proudhon consider the art 
 of painting as of itself mere dissoluteness of the mind, they 
 wholly forget the severe discipline' that is necessary to suc- 
 cess in it. This mistake is especially frequent in men who, 
 having only gone through the usual discipline of school 
 education, consider the fine arts idleness. Latin and Greek 
 are discipline, they know, but art is only " mental debauch- 
 ery." If such men would try to learn to draw in good ear- 
 nest, they would find out whether art is a discipline or not. 
 Are these gentlemen aware that ignorance lower than 
 theirs looks upon their own pursuits as they, in their 
 ignorance, look upon the pursuits of artists ? Peasants and 
 field-laborers almost always consider mental labor pure 
 idleness. You and I may find a difficult author very hard 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 323 
 
 work, but the ploughman over the hedge thinks we have a 
 pleasant, idle time of it in our easy chairs. 
 
 Proudhon makes a good and valuable distinction between 
 personal and impersonal work. The official articles in the 
 Moniteur he gives as instances of impersonal work, Mich- 
 elet's " History of the Revolution " as personal. Men of 
 genius, who always have a strong personality, hate doing 
 impersonal work ; and instinctively select those occupations 
 where their personality may exercise itself with effect. On 
 the other hand, it is a decided advantage to men without 
 special genius to follow what may be called more impersonal 
 occupations ; they shelter themselves behind the strong shield 
 of custom or officialism. Fine Art never ought to do this ; it 
 should always be frankly personal ; so ought most litera- 
 ture. Proudhon is right when he says that by his own 
 personality the artist acts directly upon ours, that he has a 
 power over us like that of the magnetizer over the mag- 
 netized, and that this power is stronger and stronger as 
 the artist is more and more energetically idealist. To 
 reduce this true doctrine to a concentrated expression, we 
 may put it that the influence of an artist is in proportion to 
 the energy of his ideality. 
 
 In a few short chapters, Proudhon rapidly outlines the 
 history of art. Egyptian art, according to him, is alto- 
 gether typical, aiming only at the fixing of types ; Grecian 
 art is the worship of form ; Middle Age art is asceticism ; 
 the Renaissance was a rehabilitation of beauty, an ambigu- 
 ous idealism ; then the Reformation brought about the 
 humanizing of art, by reducing it to seek its material in 
 common life. Rembrandt, according to Proudhon, was the 
 Luther of painting. Then came the French Revolution, 
 with the great war of the classics and romantics ; after that 
 a long period of utter confusion and irrationality, out of 
 which anarchy sprang at last the new school of Realism, 
 which Proudhon regards as the final salvation and renova- 
 tion of art, the principle which is ultimately to place it on 
 a positive basis in perfect harmony with the rational spirit 
 of modern intelligence. 
 
 It is especially interesting to find in this historical sum- 
 
324 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 mary what Proudhon thought of that great and fruitful 
 movement in art, the Renaissance. He considered it to 
 have been a reaction against the asceticism of the middle 
 ages, and then a development of Catholicism triumphant. 
 The art of the Renaissance was the outward splendor and 
 blossoming of the full-grown sovereign Papacy. Borrow- 
 ing its means from Grecian art, it worked for the glorifica- 
 tion of Papal Christianity. In this Proudhon sees nothing 
 unnatural, Paganism had filtered into Christianity. " All 
 religions have a common basis, and on the whole there is 
 but one religion. What is made matter of reproach to 
 Italian Christianity has happened more or less everywhere ; 
 every people has retained, in embracing the new religion, 
 as much as possible of its old superstition. Northern 
 asceticism never got down to Italy, which always remained 
 more Pagan than the rest of Kurope." Proudhon does not 
 see much resemblance between the Venuses of ancient art 
 and the Madonnas of the Renaissance ; he is " in love " 
 with the (female) saints of Raphael, but not with the 
 antique goddesses. He has warmer sympathy with Gothic 
 art, however, though " ascetic," and considers that it 
 
 " Asserted itself with as much power as its predecessors and 
 more sublimity. The Renaissance remains inferior to it on the 
 grounds of geniality, originality, and artistic idea, because in 'the 
 immense majority of its productions it had for its object to ally 
 together two most incompatible things the spirituality of the 
 Christian sentiment, and the ideality of Grecian figures. This 
 mixture of Paganism and Christianity, besides being an inevitable 
 reaction against Catholic asceticism, had its utility, if only to remind 
 us of antiquity, reconnect the chain of the ages, form the artistic 
 communion of the human race, and prepare us for the Revolution. 
 But it was not the less an entirely secondary task. 
 
 " What characterizes the art and time of the Renaissance is the 
 want of principles, or, if you prefer it, a tolerance incompatible 
 with the ardor of a conviction. The Church Triumphant has 
 entered into her repose and her glory ; it seems as if the purifying 
 times of suffering would never more return to her. Whether from 
 quietism or indifference, she protects equally works frankly Pagan 
 and mystical conceptions. A mixture of Paganism and spirituality, 
 the art of the Renaissance, like that of the Greeks, arrived at the 
 idolatrous worship of form." 
 
Proudhon as a "Writer on Art. 325 
 
 At the conclusion of the chapter Proudhon strongly 
 objects to the figures of Christ executed at the period of 
 the Renaissance; he does not like them at all, likes M. 
 Kenan's Christ still less, and wants a revolutionary one of 
 the temper of Danton and Mirabeau. 
 
 On the whole this is a rational and philosophical way to 
 speak about the Renaissance. During our recent heat of 
 reaction against that movement very many of us have lost 
 sight of its true character. Modern Liberals ought to look 
 back to the revival of classical literature, and the practical 
 imitation of classic art which followed it, with feelings of 
 especial and peculiar gratitude. It is to that movement 
 that we all owe our modern intellectual emancipation. 
 This is proved by the ardent hostility with which the ene- 
 mies of modernism assail the Renaissance, and by their 
 untiring endeavors to bring it into general discredit. It is 
 true that the Renaissance led to a period of license in 
 manners ; its palaces were not houses of purity, nor its 
 great luxury without sin ; but it seems unhappily inevitable 
 that every successive effort towards intellectual emancipa- 
 tion should be followed by temporary licentiousness of life. 
 If this is really inevitable, it is to be regretted ; but the 
 mind of humanity must and will advance in spite of these 
 occasional disturbances of moral equilibrium. There are 
 signs even now of something of this kind preparing itself 
 for us, a new intellectual movement which is likely to be 
 accompanied by some relaxation, in conduct. What is cer- 
 tain is that without the Renaissance and the secular studies 
 which it fostered, modern science and modern art would 
 have been still unknown to us, and Europe would have 
 stiffened into a Gothic China or Japan. 
 
 But the Renaissance, in turning towards the literature 
 and art of the ancients, fell into empty idealism, an ideal- 
 ism of externals. The art of the great time of the Renais- 
 sance had little apparent connection with the actual life of 
 the age it flourished in. Proudhon quotes a saying, at- 
 tributed to Raphael, that the business of art is not to 
 represent things as nature makes them, but as she ought 
 to make them ; and Proudhon attributes the curious mix- 
 
326 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 ture of Catholicism and Pagan mythology which distin- 
 guishes the art of the Renaissance to this spirit of idealism, 
 which was also the cause, in his opinion, of the moral cor- 
 ruption which immediately followed that movement. 
 
 The effect of the Reformation upon art was to make it 
 condescend to illustrate the actual life of its own time. It 
 resisted the new Paganism into which art had thrown 
 itself, and drove artists to paint what they saw by closing 
 the fields of idolatry and idealism. The title of Proud- 
 hon's chapter on this subject explains his view in one 
 word, " La Reforme ; I' art s' humanise" The art of the 
 Renaissance may have been Divine, but it would not con- 
 descend to be human ; aiming at what its professors thought 
 God ought to have done, it failed to perceive the qualities 
 of what he had done. Hence Proudhon gives a far higher 
 place to Rembrandt than to Raphael, puts Rembrandt and 
 Luther together, and Shakspeare along with them in a 
 trinity of reformers. What he likes in Shakspeare is not 
 so much his idealism as his true sympathy with common 
 life and clear understanding of it. Proudhon regrets very 
 much that France did not join this movement, and by no 
 means approves that tiresome pedantry which even down 
 to our own day has led Frenchmen to ape the ancients. 
 
 The war of the classics and romantics is not unfairly 
 described by Proudhon. The following passages contain, 
 I believe, all that is most valuable in the argument of each 
 party : 
 
 " The romantics reproached the established tradition with two 
 things : the first with setting aside fifteen centuries of history, 
 whence the narrowness of its thought, and the want of life and 
 originality and truth in its works ; the second with not even under- 
 standing its models, and being thereby thrown into endless contra- 
 dictions. Is the history of Christendom nothing 1 said they. Is 
 it not as much matter for poetry as the Pagan mythology and wars ? 
 And if it is artistic material, why are we to confine ourselves to the 
 limits of your classics ? And then with your worship of classic 
 form, which is your ideal, you sacrifice expression which is not less 
 important, and so fall into conventionalism and monotony.- The 
 ancients carved their calm gods because they believed in them ; we, 
 who seek action and life, common labors and civic duties, cannot 
 accept them as models. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 327 
 
 " The classics argued that art is absolute, universal, and eternal ; 
 that its rules, which are the laws of the beautiful, are, like the rules 
 of logic and geometry, immutable ; that the ancients practised 
 them because they understood them, and hence left us incompar- 
 able works; that there is only one and the same art in which 
 nations more or less succeed ; that the revolutions of history do 
 not necessitate revolutions in literature and art, as the Renaissance 
 artists proved ; that to abandon a tradition, consecrated by so many 
 masterpieces, would be to retrograde, and substitute the worship 
 of the common-place for the worship of form ; finally, that if the 
 new school thought it could excel the old, it had better try, and 
 would then be judged by its performance." 
 
 This last challenge, as Proudhon remarks, it was danger- 
 ous to accept. Old systems which have produced their full 
 quantity of fruit always contemptuously invite young sys- 
 tems to show theirs ; and when there is little or none to 
 show, they would have it believed that the immature sys- 
 tem is permanently unproductive. The Renaissance had 
 produced its fruit ; romanticism was only just beginning to 
 produce, so that any comparison on such ground was unfair. 
 In these days we all see that romanticism was less a sys- 
 tem than an emancipation, and that its greatest service is 
 to have opened the way to the universality of modern 
 naturalism. Classicism was a theory of limitation and 
 restraint ; romanticism a deliverance from this ; naturalism 
 is a boundless study of human life and the external world. 
 Traces of the two first linger yet in art, and some elderly 
 men on the rare occasions when those once mighty watch- 
 words are pronounced in these days, may even still feel a 
 lingering ardor of partisanship, such as that great contro- 
 versy kindled in their youth ; but for the coming genera- 
 tion that war will be as much matter of history as the 
 Wars of the Roses. 
 
 The part of Proudhon's book which will be read with 
 most interest is that extending from the tenth chapter to 
 the conclusion. The first nine chapters are full of princi- 
 ples and doctrines, of which I have just given an abridged 
 statement ; but in the tenth Proudhon enters on the direct 
 discussion of the merits of modern painters. His first 
 care is to define the two chief elements of every work of 
 
328 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 art, reason and taste, and to affirm that criticism ought to 
 possess these two qualities to be able to meet and measure 
 them duly. In the word " reason," Proudhon understands 
 both sciences and morality ; what he calls " taste " includes 
 every thing that is to be measured by the aesthetic faculty. 
 I doubt whether he realized the full importance of the 
 sciences which treat of natural aspects ; he was certainly 
 under the impression that a man might write art criticism 
 without them. And I doubt, farther, whether Proudhon 
 rightly saw the limits of taste ; probably he included 
 under that head much that belongs to the higher faculty of 
 invention, and to the more common gift of simple obser- 
 vation. However, taking the two words in his sense, we 
 are to understand that in his criticism he insists always on 
 the moral and rational side of art, and presents more re- 
 servedly his aesthetic judgments, which, he feels, may be 
 simply personal. This is the way he himself puts it; a 
 barer statement would be that he does not judge art as an 
 art critic at all, but as a reasoner and moralist. 
 
 Proudhon is very angry with Eugene Delacroix be- 
 cause that painter had the misfortune to aim at the ren- 
 dering of his own personal impressions, and to say so. 
 This is resented as the height of artistic presumption. 
 An artist, according to Proudhon, is not to render his own 
 impressions, but those of the public those of P. J. 
 Proudhon in particular, as one of the public. The artist 
 is to embody, not his own ideas, but the collective ideas of 
 his time. 
 
 This is one of those pleasing theories which the vulgar 
 are always so ready to accept. They like to flatter them- 
 selves that men of genius, after all, are not their teachers, 
 but their servants and interpreters. " It is we," they 
 delight to believe, " who have great ideas ; the business of 
 artists is to embody our conceptions, as the business of 
 writers is to register our opinions." It is true that much 
 writing and painting attempts only this, and succeeds ; but 
 it is also certain that great men aim at something more 
 than this. Delacroix certainly did, and so far gave evi- 
 dence of greatness. Not that his art seems to me really 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 329 
 
 grand and noble ; it is too agitated, too feverish, too full 
 of morbid and false energy. Even his color, which it is 
 the fashion to admire, is generally violent and crude, and 
 his composition often singularly awkward. With better 
 health, and less irritability of nerve, he might have been a 
 great artist, but he had not the calm of a mighty painter. 
 Proudhon objects that he painted a great variety of sub- 
 jects which he, Proudhon, does not care about, and then 
 asks, " Comprend-il mon idee, sent-il mon ideal, saisit-il 
 mon impression, a moi profane, qu'il s'agit surtout d'in- 
 teresser, d'emouvoir, et dont on sollicite le suffrage ? " 
 The objection to this style of criticism is that it attributes 
 far too much importance to the personal predilections of 
 the critic. What do we care about Proudhon's " ideal " 
 when we are studying Delacroix ? For any critic to say 
 that a painter is irrational merely because he does not 
 realize his, the critic's, own impressions is a monstrons 
 impertinence. 
 
 Proudhon is severe on Ingres for his " stupid " work. 
 The truth is that Ingres is wholly unintellectual. Long 
 labor, and a narrow obstinacy, have given him unusual 
 skill in drawing the muscles (which, nevertheless, as in 
 the picture of St. Symphorien in the Cathedral of Autun, 
 he often violently exaggerates), but no painter of great 
 fame is so mindless. I have not seen his " Vierge a la 
 Communion," but am fully disposed to believe all that 
 Proudhon says against it as a pretty young girl posing 
 charmingly, whereas it is evident that when Mary took her 
 first sacrament, it being after the death of Jesus, she must 
 have been at least fifty years old, and, having borne great 
 sorrow, could scarcely have retained that early charm which 
 grief and time so certainly wear away. I have not seen 
 this picture, but I remember the Virgin in the same 
 painter's " Jesus disputing with the Doctors," a face with- 
 out character and without emotion, like the visage of a 
 Baker Street wax-work ; and I remember the central fig- 
 ure, the boy Jesus, a conception so commonplace that any 
 religious printseller will offer you a hundred such. The 
 high-water mark of Ingres's art was reached in the Source, 
 
330 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 where all his fine knowledge of form was called for, and 
 not one ray of intelligence. 
 
 There is an elaborate criticism of Leopold Robert. His 
 pictures of Italian peasants have long been very popular 
 in France, where they are rendered familiar by engrav- 
 ings. They have a great charm, an infinite grace of com- 
 position and delicate sense of beauty. No artist ever 
 more admirably rendered the harmony of moving forms. 
 His groups are arranged with such consummate art, that 
 no limb, however joyously active, violates the profound 
 accord. Hence we yield to these works as we yield to 
 beautiful music ; they are the music of forms in motion. 
 "We are filled with a deep satisfaction, and are glad that 
 an order so exquisite should thus be arrested for ever. 
 For in the actual world of men, beautiful groupings like 
 these are scarcely seen ere they shatter, but in the 
 works of a painter like Leopold Robert the elastic limbs 
 hold themselves unweariedly, and the fair forms bind them- 
 selves together in a permanent edifice of grace. 
 
 Whether Italian peasants ever do arrange themselves so 
 felicitously, whether their limbs are so delicately moulded 
 and their faces so ideally beautiful, I cannot undertake 
 to aifirm. Proudhon utterly disbelieves these pictures. 
 There is not corn enough on the cart, he says, for a real 
 harvest, nor any genuine rustic life in these peasants of a 
 painter's dreamland. Very possibly Proudhon is right. 
 Leopold Robert may have pursued an ideal, which, so far 
 as actual rustic life is concerned, must be pronounced false 
 in its superlative refinement. Yet though his gift may 
 have been injudiciously employed, it was a great gift and 
 a rare one, and art can achieve no perfect work without it. 
 
 Proudhon considers Horace Vernet as irrational as In- 
 gres' and Delacroix. " Sottise et impuissance, je n'ai pas 
 d'autres termes pour caracteriser de pareils ouvrages" 
 Such is the verdict on Vernet's works in general. De- 
 scending to particulars, we have a lively expression of dis- 
 like. Speaking of that prodigious canvas La Smala, our 
 critic uses the following highly energetic language : 
 " Otez-moi cette peinture : pour le vulgaire qui 1'admire 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 331 
 
 elle est d'un detestable exemple ; pour les honnetes gens 
 qui savent a quel sentiment elle repond, elle est un sujet 
 de remords. L'auteur a ete paye, je suppose ; je demande 
 que cette toile soit enlevee, ratisse'e, degraissee, puis ven- 
 due comme filasse au chiffonriier." 
 
 I agree with Proudhon so far as this, that Vernet's 
 work has no intellectual or moral value, and that it is not 
 even in any high sense artistic. Nevertheless, he was a 
 great representative man, and, in his own peculiar way, 
 one of the most marvellously endowed men who ever 
 lived. He painted French soldiers so exactly as French 
 soldiers understand themselves that his works are, as it 
 were, collective works ; it is as if the whole French army 
 had taken up paint-brushes, and, suddenly gifted with pic- 
 torial skill, wrought together unanimously. His pictures 
 ought to be preserved as a thoroughly faithful record of 
 the common French military mind of this age. The 
 French soldier has a peculiar professional character, and, 
 when it is not natural to him as a man, he rapidly acquires 
 it by contact. Vernet loved that character; and as he 
 painted what he loved, he did it with a fidelity which, 
 whatever critics may say, was by no means superficial. 
 Gay, brave, thoughtless, poor, cheerful under privation, 
 happy with a little luxury or honor, merry and kind 
 habitually, yet stern and savage on occasion, of almost 
 childish simplicity, yet with a tiger-like spring and fury in 
 attack, these little madder-breeched heroes were be- 
 loved by Vernet sympathetically. He took the utmost 
 interest in them all, knew every thing about their exist- 
 ence, could remember every item of their uniforms as a 
 mother remembers the little frocks of her own children. 
 Proudhon has a profound contempt for this interest in 
 externals, but what is a soldier without his uniform 'and 
 his arms ? And Vernet could remember faces too, and 
 paint every soldier from memory whom he had once 
 looked at attentively. Proudhon is angry at Vernet's 
 honest taste for military life in its less elevating aspects ; 
 but what is more wearisome than perpetual heroics ? 
 
 Proudhon finds it convenient to admit the degradation of 
 
332 Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 
 
 modern art in order to herald the great reform which in , 
 his opinion is to renew and reinvigorate it. This reform 
 is the substitution of justice and, truth for aesthetic quality 
 as the aim of the artist. We are familiar with this prin- 
 ciple already in England in another form. Mr. Ruskin 
 has often told us that art ought to place truth first, and 
 beauty second. Proudhon goes a step farther, and says 
 that in the human mind there is but a duality, or rather 
 polarity, Conscience and Science, or in other words, 
 Justice and Truth ; the faculty which perceives beauty 
 he excludes, or wholly subordinates. Certainly there is 
 much great art which is devoid of beauty, as for instance 
 Durer's ; and there is much small art which has beauty, 
 or at least that lower form of it which we call prettiness : 
 yet the best art is both true and beautiful. Proudhon so 
 strongly detests the principle of art for art, that what he 
 most undervalues in works of art is precisely their artistic 
 quality. Like many men of narrow culture who have got 
 hold of a great truth, he has been dragged out of his depth 
 by it. It seems to me that the right theory on this sub- 
 ject has never been precisely stated even by Ruskin, and 
 still less by Proudhon. The relation of truth to aesthetic 
 quality in painting is one of inferior rank, but prior neces- 
 sity. This complex sort of relation .occurs in many other 
 things. In building, for instance, the work of the mason 
 is of inferior rank to the work of the architect, yet of prior 
 necessity. In literature, grammatical accuracy of lan- 
 guage is of inferior rank to the poetical gift, yet of prior 
 necessity. In music, truth of intonation is of inferior rank 
 to musical feeling, yet of prior necessity. So that, in my 
 view, truth is to be put before beauty as the first thing to 
 be asked for, yet not above beauty as if it were the higher 
 thing.* 
 
 * Proudhon never attempts to estimate the value of thought and im- 
 agination in art, and they can scarcely be brought under his duality. I 
 should say that, in art, natural truth is lower than artistic invention, and 
 yet more necessary ; whilst artistic invention is lower than thought, and 
 yet, for pictorial purposes, more necessary. In art, as in life, necessity 
 and rank are often in inverse proportion, and what is most necessary is 
 first asked for. Xhe food of the body is the first want, the food of the mind 
 the second. The material qualities of art are its first necessity ; the spir- 
 itual come after. 
 
Proudhon as a Writer on Art. 333 
 
 All these theories and reasonings of Proudhon, of which 
 I have endeavored to give an accurate account, are intro- 
 ductory to the main object of .his work, which is the eleva- 
 tion of Courbet to the rank of a great rational artist, the 
 reformer and regenerator of art. I prefer to reserve this 
 part of the subject, and treat Courbet in some future work, 
 when I shall have had fuller opportunities for studying 
 him. 
 
334 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 TWO ART PHILOSOPHERS * 
 
 / T" S HE illusions of perspective exist in the intellectual, 
 * as they do in the material world. As the true rela- 
 tions of solar systems cannot be learned or understood 
 without the help of science, so the relations of intellectual 
 systems are not to be comprehended without the aid of 
 philosophy. And as, on the one hand, it is not necessary 
 to the forcible and effectual life of a man of action that he 
 should accurately conceive of the rank of his own phmet 
 amongst the heavenly bodies, so, on the other, it is not 
 necessary to the success of certain special forms of intel- 
 lectual activity that the laborer should justly estimate the 
 importance of his own little intellectual world, or precisely 
 ascertain its place in the universe of mind. 
 
 This is especially true of artists. An artist is a man 
 who by long labor has trained himself to be able to ex- 
 press one version of one artistic idea,f his personal con- 
 ception of the idea dominant for the time in his own 
 country. If there is a struggle for supremacy between two 
 or more artistic ideas, the artist believes in one, and gives 
 his life to realize his private conception of it, usually look- 
 ing upon the others with antagonism or contempt. As a 
 matter of curiosity, it is always interesting to know what 
 artists think of each other; but their opinions about art 
 
 * " Philosophic de 1' Art." Par H. Taine, Lemons Professdes a Pcole 
 des Beaux Arts. Paris: Bailliere. " Le Spiritualisme dans 1' Art." Par 
 Charles LeVeque, Professeur de Philosophic au College de France. Paris : 
 Bailliere. 
 
 t Of course I use the words "artistic idea" in a special sense. I 
 should be very sorry to seem to imply that artists had not as many ideas 
 as other people, in the current acceptation of the word. What I mean is 
 the vision of desired perfection, which for every artist is necessarily one. 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 335 
 
 are valuable only as to special matters of fact, which their 
 study of nature has enabled them to ascertain, or as indi- 
 cations of the existence of attractions and repulsions of 
 which even the most acute thinkers might never suspect 
 the existence. It is of course possible for an artist to raise 
 himself from time to time out of the little plot of ground 
 which he himself cultivates, and, like a man in the car of a 
 balloon looking down on his own garden, see its true size 
 and position, and it is also just possible for an artist so 
 given to intellectual aerostation to return after each ex- 
 cursion in the upper regions, and cultivate his own acre in 
 humble and laborious contentment, knowing well its little- 
 ness, and all the defects of its situation, yet loving it enough 
 to be happy in it. This may be done, and in two or three 
 instances it has been done ; but its extreme rarity almost, 
 though not quite, justifies the general belief that there is 
 something essentially incompatible between the practical 
 and speculative intellects. One might more profitably listen 
 to a discourse about art by such a layman as Taine, than to 
 one by such an artist as was Leopold Robert. He was 
 very justly famous as a practical artist, yet Gustave 
 Planche said of his written observations on art, " His com- 
 mon-place style, which I find fault with, comes from the 
 common-place of his thoughts themselves. What he says 
 about the masters of his art is so obvious that to have said 
 it there was no necessity to be the painter of the ' Moisson- 
 neurs.' Any bourgeois who had walked about in picture 
 galleries would say as much, and say it as well. In read- 
 ing these letters of Robert, one remains convinced that the 
 practice of art, and the understanding of the general ideas 
 which govern all the forms of invention, are two perfectly 
 distinct things. The understanding of these ideas does not 
 lead to the practice of painting or sculpture, architecture or 
 music ; but it may happen to eminent artists, and L. Rob- 
 ert's correspondence is there to prove it, to enunciate about 
 these arts, thoughts so very common-place, so very useless, 
 so very inapplicable, so utterly worn, so perfectly empty, 
 that they make the most indulgent reader smile." 
 
 These considerations may prepare us to understand the 
 
336 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 position of M. Taine. He is not an artist, nor even an art 
 critic, but an art philosopher. This distinction between art 
 critics and art philosophers is, I am aware, a new one, and 
 I may be allowed the space of a paragraph for its clearer 
 definition. 
 
 An art critic, having continually to judge of small points 
 of practical success or failure in the overcoming of partic- 
 ular difficulties, must necessarily be himself minutely ac- 
 quainted with the practical details of art. Persons like 
 Proudhon, who set up as art critics without this special 
 knowledge, on the ground that since they judge only re- 
 sults, processes do not concern them, are always incapable 
 of true criticism, because they know nothing of the real 
 struggles and aims of artists, and so may praise them for 
 their simplest successes, and remain indifferent to their 
 most arduous achievements. On the other hand (as we 
 have just seen) the practical artist (who is nothing more) 
 may fail as a critic, on account of the very concentration 
 and limitation of his view. His own object is seen by him 
 in proportions so exaggerated, that other aims, not less 
 great and worthy in themselves, are hidden and dwarfed 
 by it. Thus Ingres says that drawing is the whole of art, 
 and that color may be mastered in one week ; after which, 
 what is the value of his opinion about colorists ? The true 
 critic sees qualities in more accurate proportions than M. 
 Ingres ; nor could any critic tell us that the eye might be 
 educated to color in eight days, without forfeiting for ever 
 all claim to be listened to. So that on the one hand the 
 critic is not to be ignorant of technicalities like Proudhon, 
 nor absorbed in one technical aim like Ingres ; but he ought 
 to combine a thorough knowledge of practical matters with 
 a theoretic largeness of view. When this theoretic large- 
 ness becomes the main characteristic of the writer ; when 
 he sees art habitually in vast systems and groupings occu- 
 pying in their aggregate the whole field of art history, 
 there is always a probability that the critic will lose him- 
 self in the philosopher, and that the utmost which he will 
 be able to say safely about any particular work of art will 
 be to fix its place in the artistic development of humanity. 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 337 
 
 Yet philosophy of this broad kind, if it be sound, has a 
 definite function and use. It is the only force capable of 
 repressing the narrow self-assertion of artistic sects. The 
 devotee of some special idea is always so possessed by the 
 idea, that he cannot see it in its relation to other ideas. 
 What bigoted " classic " or ardent " romantic " ever sanely- 
 appreciated the services of both classicism and romanti- 
 cism ? To go to partisans in art for sound views of the 
 whole subject is like going to a Red Republican, or a be- 
 liever in the divine right of kings, for a rational political 
 philosophy. For as the wise politician is a supporter of 
 constitutional monarchy in England, a friend of imperial- 
 ism in Russia, and of republicanism in Switzerland, because 
 of these three forms of government each is the best in its 
 own time and place, so an intelligent student of art may 
 dispassionately approve of its various developments, and 
 thank God that he has been born late enough to study at 
 once the severe ideality of the Greek, the grotesque im- 
 agination of the Goth, the science and taste of the Renais- 
 sance artists, and the earnest naturalism of the moderns. 
 
 And now at last this wider philosophy has found an 
 official advocate. In the, very centre and head-quarters of 
 academic tradition, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, a professor 
 has told the students, what no painter would be likely to 
 tell them, that art is a natural product of humanity, as 
 vegetation is a product of the soil ; and that its varieties 
 are the inevitable result of the changing states and circum- 
 stances of mankind, just as one place and climate has one 
 flora and another another. Nor does he hesitate to give 
 expression to the inference that the only duty of each 
 country and generation is to produce freely its own flowers. 
 How wide the interval from the old academic tradition to 
 this tolerant and liberal doctrine ! How pleasant to hear 
 that what is best for us to do is that which is most our 
 own, and to be released for ever from all obligation to re- 
 produce an art which was the expression of a life we have 
 not lived ! We, who have been preached to about the duty 
 of imitating the Greeks till some of us had come to that 
 22 
 
338 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 point of weariness that we hated the very name of Hellas, 
 may congratulate ourselves that an authorized teacher has 
 advanced a theory by which it may be permitted to us to 
 love Greek art heartily, and yet not waste our whole lives 
 in the vain endeavor to make our own work a repetition 
 of it. 
 
 M. Taine's theory is not very profound because it is so 
 obviously true, but the truisms of thinkers are very daring 
 speculations in the temples of tradition; and M. Taine 
 deserves honor, not so much for what he has thought, as 
 for having ventured to give utterance to his thought in a 
 place where its distinct expression marked a new era in 
 official art teaching. Even if M. Taine were to be suc- 
 ceeded by some retrograde professor, the students who 
 heard him are not likely to forget his lesson, and the con- 
 clusions to which it leads. If it is true, as this new teacher 
 says, that the artist is the product of his time, it is evident 
 (they will infer) that no modern artist can by effort be- 
 come like the product of another time. If we are orange- 
 trees, we shall produce oranges ; if fig-trees, we may 
 blamelessly produce figs. If we are in too chilly a climate, 
 our fruit will never ripen, so (as artists) we shall be un- 
 productive ; and the climate, for every artist, is the collec- 
 tive life and intellect of his own time. Those who produce 
 in it are not necessarily the best, but those whom the 
 climate best suits. The average amount of natural artistic 
 endowment is much the same in all ages ; but one epoch 
 favors the best, and another that which is not quite the 
 best, and so downwards till some epochs favor no art at all. 
 This seems to be M. Taine's view; but here it may be 
 objected that the permanent characteristics of races, as well 
 as the temporary characteristics of epochs, may have much 
 to do with the matter ; and that the average percentage 
 of natural art intellects in the French race is possibly 
 greater than amongst the Tartars or Esquimaux. This 
 consideration, however, in no wise diminishes the natural 
 effect of M. Taine's view of art on practical work and on 
 criticism. If he is in the main right as I believe him to 
 be, it is useless for us, as artists to try to do work of any 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 339 
 
 kind whatever but our own ; and it is childish in us, as 
 critics, to find fault with schools of art because they differ 
 from our own ideal and from each other. Our business, 
 as art philosophers, is not to find fault, but to note charac- 
 teristics ; and it is as idle in us to set up some kind of art 
 as perfection, blaming all other in proportion as it deviates 
 from that standard, as it would be in a botanist to set up 
 the vine leaf as the correct thing in leaf beauty, and con- 
 demn the willow as heretical for its obstinate non-conform- 
 ity to his pet pattern. 
 
 M. Taine thus defines his art philosophy : 
 
 " Ours is modern, and differs from the old in being historic, and 
 not dogmatic ; that is to say it does not impose precepts, but ascer- 
 tains and proclaims * laws. The old aesthetics gave first a definition 
 of the beautiful, and said, for example, that the beautiful is the ex- 
 pression of the moral ideal, or else that it is the expression of the 
 invisible, or, again, that it is the expression of human passions ; 
 then starting thence as from a legal decision, absolved, condemned, 
 admonished, and guided. I am very happy not to have so heavy 
 a task to perform ; I have not to guide you I should be too 
 much embarrassed. My only duty is to exhibit facts, and to show 
 you how these facts were produced. The modern method, which 
 I endeavor to follow, and which is beginning to introduce itself 
 into all the modern sciences, consists in regarding human labors, 
 and in particular, works of art, as facts and products whose charac- 
 teristics are to be noted and whose causes are to be investigated 
 no more. So understood, Science neither proscribes nor pardons ; 
 she states and explains. She does not say to you, ' Despise Dutch 
 art, it is too coarse, and enjoy none but Italian.' Neither does she 
 say to you, ' Despise Gothic art ; it lacks health ; enjoy none but 
 the Greek.' She leaves to every one the liberty to follow his 
 private preferences, to love best that which is in conformity with 
 his own temperament, and to study, with a more attentive care, 
 that which best corresponds to the development of his own mind. 
 As for Science herself, she has sympathy fur all forms of art and 
 for all schools, even for those which seem most opposed ; she 
 accepts them as so many manifestations of the human mind ; she 
 considers that the more numerous and contrary they are, the more 
 they show the mind of humanity under new and numerous aspects ; 
 she acts like Botany, which studies with equal interest, now the 
 orange-tree and the laurel, now the fir and the birch ; she is herself 
 a sort of Botany, applied not to plants, but to the labors of men. 
 
 * I use these two words to get the double force of constater employed 
 in the original. 
 
 BKSIIYJ 
 
 : 
 
340 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 In this character she follows the general movement which draws 
 together in our day the moral and the natural sciences, and which, 
 giving to the former the principles, the precautions, the directions 
 of the latter, communicates to them the same solidity, and assures 
 to them the same progress." 
 
 As a matter of purely literary criticism, it may be added 
 that M. Taine is in possession of an unusually clear and 
 cultivated style, rising occasionally even to eloquence, a 
 great advantage to any writer, but positively indispensable 
 to one who constitutes himself the advocate of views not 
 yet generally received. There are several brilliant pages 
 which I should have been glad to quote in the original, but 
 have not space. The best of these are, perhaps, the 
 sketches of Greek civilization and Gothic architecture. 
 
 If M. Taine is a historical positivist in art, that is, a 
 philosopher who considers all the varieties of art as equally 
 subjects for investigation from the scientific stand-point, 
 whether we regard them as representations of nature or as 
 manifestations of mind, M. Leveque is a being of another 
 order, a passionate spiritualist, with a capacity for quite 
 religious fervor in behalf of the doctrines in which, as he 
 believes, are bound up the fate of the Fine Arts and the 
 moral health of all humanity. 
 
 Spiritualism, as M. Leveque uses the word, means the 
 habitual reference to the ideal ; materialism, the forgetful- 
 ness of ideal excellence in the absorbing study of material 
 things. The great difficulty of spiritualism is to distinguish 
 between noble ideals and those baser creations of the im- 
 aginative faculty, which, so far from being higher than 
 material nature, fall short of it or degrade it. It is the 
 business of philosophy, says M. Leveque, to establish this 
 distinction. 
 
 "No one now doubts the power of those concealed movers which 
 at one time push societies onward, and at another pull them violently 
 back, and which are called ideas. It has been given to society to 
 choose between the good and the bad movers. The bad are the 
 ideas in which error predominates ; the good, those where predom- 
 inates truth. To recognize, unravel, clear up, fortify, develop, 
 the true element ; to distinguish, lay bare, point out, weaken the 
 false element in ideas such is the office of philosophy; and the 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 341 
 
 older a society is, the more men's minds in it are ripe and disposed 
 for criticism and discussion, the more imperious does this duty of 
 philosophy become." 
 
 
 
 M. Leveque goes on to argue that philosophy divides 
 itself naturally into specialities, and that there are as many 
 philosophies as there are sciences. Thus there is a philos- 
 ophy of history, a philosophy of medicine, a philosophy of 
 political economy ; and all these terms take their place in 
 modern language as the ideas which they express become 
 clearer and more definite. It follows that philosophy is 
 under the necessity of continual expansion and subdivision 
 to correspond with the extent of modern acquisition and its 
 minute ramification in specialities. There is a philosophy 
 of the beautiful, just as there is a philosophy of the true. 
 
 When we get hold of a book like this, with a subject so 
 peculiarly tempting to the dealer in vague and pompous 
 generalities, our best course is, first, to read it through 
 with patient attention, and then try to find out what new 
 deposit the book has left in us. The great difficulty of the 
 spiriftialist philosophy has always been that, although it 
 rightly insisted on the necessity for an idea, it was embar- 
 rassed when we inquired of it some direction and guidance 
 in our own search after the ideal. Hence spiritualism, in 
 its practical issues, is rather a retrospective than an en- 
 couraging philosophy ; it names certain artists of the past 
 as its saints and heroes, but has a tendency to restrain 
 present productiveness within the limits of traditionary 
 repetition. What it most dreads is materialism, or the 
 objective study of matter ; therefore it has to insist on an 
 intellectual ideal ; and as it is of no use to talk about such 
 ideals as are not yet embodied, nor (so far as we can know) 
 even conceived, spiritualism is always compelled to recur 
 to ideals which have already been made visible to us in 
 .marble or on canvas, its favorite examples being Greek 
 sculpture and the designs of Raphael, to which a French- 
 man is likely to add the paintings of Nicolas Poussin. By 
 dint of incessant repetition of this reference, spiritualism 
 has educated whole generations of artists in the belief that 
 by looking at these works, and copying them, and imitating 
 
342 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 them, they might themselves reach this wonderful and 
 mysterious goal, the ideal which so fascinated from afar the 
 eyes of the drout philosophers. Those who, in their own 
 way, sought new ideals in nature, were condemned as 
 materialists, or mere copiers of matter. The misfortune of 
 the spiritualists, as the directors of practical effort, was, that 
 they were always living up in the clouds, and talking about 
 qualities as severed from things, seeking the good, the 
 beautiful, the true, conceived as metaphysical notions, 
 which was a hopeless search for visible adjectives. You 
 might just as profitably set out in search of speed as an 
 entity. 
 
 To escape this imputation of cloudiness, M. Leveque 
 tells us that the spiritualist philosophy is now observant, 
 and has travelled over land and sea, which turns out to 
 mean that M. Cousin undertook a voyage across the Chan- 
 nel to study the Poussins in England. It was a pity to 
 lower the sublime generality of the phrase by this adduced 
 proof. Spiritualism voyaging over land and sea was rather 
 a grand and imposing idea. M. Cousin taking a through 
 ticket to London by Calais, or, if economically disposed, by 
 Boulogne, or, if parsimoniously, by Dieppe, makes some- 
 how a weaker impression on the imagination, and carries 
 one to prosaic associations of little rolling steamboats, and 
 that terrible temporary ailment which subjugates so many 
 voyagers, spiritualist or materialist. Still M. Cousin de- 
 serves hearty praise for having been willing to use his 
 corporeal eyes instead of evolving art criticism out of his 
 moral consciousness. There are two duties of the writer 
 on art, to look and to think ; but philosophers are too 
 apt to consider the first a work of supererogation, whilst 
 they perform the second with infinite patience and dili- 
 gence. 
 
 Our difficulty with Spiritualism is to get at the meaning 
 of its great abstraction " the Beautiful." M. Leveque 
 fixes this for us in a theistic conception. Pantheism could 
 not conceive of it, but Theism can, because Theism has 
 conceived God, who is the Beautiful, and whom, without 
 understanding, we conceive. " We have then, in the in- 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 343 
 
 nermost depths of our reason, an absolute type of grandeur, 
 not of physical grandeur, but of intellectual and moral 
 grandeur, that is to say, of perfection. Since the Infinite 
 Beauty is conceived, a measure is given us for imperfect 
 and finite beauties." 
 
 Reasoning of this sort is convenient sometimes with 
 children, because it overawes them, and prevents them 
 from asking questions, but it is unsatisfactory to men who 
 are out of the childish stage of intellectual development. 
 " The Infinite Beauty is conceived ; " Humanity has con- 
 ceived Divinity, and so has a fixed standard by which to 
 measure finite perfections. Could any thing be more vari- 
 ous, more fluctuating, more emphatically wwfixed than 
 men's conceptions of the Supreme Being ? Our concep- 
 tion of Him varies from year to year with our varying 
 knowledge and intellectual force. This is quite inevitable ; 
 it would be inevitable still if he lived familiarly amongst 
 us as an earthly sovereign. We could never form a true 
 conception of Him so long as we remained inferior to 
 Himself. Before fancying that we can conceive of God it 
 would be well to reflect whether we can even conceive of 
 mere human intellect in its highest examples. The supe- 
 rior may be admired, or even adored by the inferior, but 
 he cannot be conceived by him. The English conception 
 of God is not the French conception ; it is certainly not 
 the Scotch ; and if we may judge by the pious allusions of 
 transatlantic politicians, it is most assuredly not the Amer- 
 ican. Nor does the highest contemporary English concep- 
 tion very closely resemble that held by minds of the same 
 relative rank in the same country thirty years ago. Set- 
 ting aside atheists and young children it is likely that there 
 exist in England just now at least fifteen million different 
 conceptions of the English conception of the Deity. How 
 then are we to refer to the Idea of Deity as a fixed visible 
 standard of Beauty ? And even if we could suppose this 
 possible as to intellectual and moral perfection, how are 
 we to apply this standard to physical perfection ? How 
 reason from the Beauty of Goodness to the beauty of a 
 statue or a picture? 'It is this awkward necessity for 
 
344 Two Art Philosophers. 
 
 shifting the argument from morals to matter, that demon- 
 strates the weakness of dogmatic spiritualism.* These 
 philosophers first tell us that they have hit upon the im- 
 mutable, eternal Beauty, which is moral Beauty ; and then 
 they come with that to a piece of carved marble, or painted 
 canvas, and try to apply their immutable standard. It 
 would be as reasonable to devise a converse criticism, and 
 try to measure the accuracy of history with a two-foot 
 rule. 
 
 The spiritualist would find no words severe enough to 
 express his contempt for a philosophy of art which pro- 
 fessed to have no fixed standard of beauty, and I dare say 
 that if I were to develop my own theory of aesthetics I 
 should be called by hard names. What I say is, that spir- 
 itualism does not erect fixed standards at all; it only 
 erects words, the signification of which fluctuates every 
 day. It is amazing how easily men are governed and im- 
 posed upon by words, and the less they understand them 
 the more readily they submit to them. To say, " the 
 Beautiful is the standard of beauty" is a childish play 
 upon words, because the beautiful is an abstraction having 
 no visible existence. 
 
 At this point a spiritualist would probably accuse me of 
 denying the existence of beauty altogether. Well, except 
 as an adjective, an attribute, I do. It is a quality, not a 
 being. Just so I would deny the separate existence of 
 cleanliness or holiness. There are clean people and holy 
 people, and clean places and holy places ; but you cannot 
 detach the adjective, and set it up as an immutable stand- 
 ard of cleanliness or holiness. Of course we need some 
 kind of standard, and we derive it from some visible ex- 
 ample ; but if a higher example were shown us, we should 
 quit our old standard, and take to the new one. For in- 
 stance : our farmers have lately been told to be clean, in 
 
 * Imagine, for example, the absurdity of meditating upon the beauty 
 of sacrifice in order to be able to judge of the comparative beauty of silks. 
 The jurors at the International Exhibition would have failed to perceive 
 the connection between the two, and the manufacturers at Lyons are 
 probably not aware of it. 
 
Two Art Philosophers. 345 
 
 order to diminish the ravages of the cattle plague ; but as 
 the word " cleanliness " would to them only signify Eng- 
 lish cleanliness, a higher example was appealed to ; not an 
 abstraction, " the clean," as these philosophers say " the 
 beautiful," but " Dutch cleanliness," as an art critic might 
 counsel our artists to aim at a Dutch carefulness in exe- 
 cution. 
 
 I have no space to criticise M. Leveque's work in de- 
 tail, though I have read it with care. The central idea of 
 it is that which I have just set before the reader. Though 
 this central idea is certainly an illusion, spiritualism has 
 rendered us the service of insisting upon the necessity for 
 ideality in art. If there is no immutable standard of " the 
 beautiful," there may still be an endless endeavor after 
 that beauty which for each of us seems the best. M. 
 Leveque is especially right in desiring that artists should 
 be penetrated with the faith that their art ought to have 
 lofty intellectual, or psychological aims, and that it can 
 only have enduring value in so far as it is a product of 
 mind. With all my heart I agree with M. Leveque in as- 
 signing to those forms of art which are the mere copyism 
 of matter a much lower rank than is due to the art which 
 conveys great messages from the soul of the artist to 
 humanity. It is probable, however, that as to what partic- 
 ular art fell under each category there might be some 
 difference of opinion between us. 
 
346 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 FURNITURE : AN AFTER-DINNER CONVERSATION. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSON2E. 
 
 THE HOST, Mr. PLTTMPTON, a rich country gentleman. 
 Mr. MANTLEY, the clergyman of the parish. 
 Mr. BURLEY, a London merchant. 
 AN ARTIST. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. My new house in London is just fin- 
 ished, and I am going to furnish it. I am in much per- 
 plexity about it. I should be happy to leave it all to my 
 wife, but she is as much puzzled as myself. What am I 
 to do? 
 
 Mr. Burley. You country gentlemen make difficulties 
 out of every thing. It is the simplest thing in the world to 
 furnish a house, when you've money enough. I furnished 
 mine in a week, and very cheaply too. I said to myself, 
 " If I give up my own time to it for a day or two I shall 
 save as much as will pay me about a hundred pounds a 
 day for my trouble ; so it's worth my while." I took a 
 quantity of notes and sovereigns and went about to a good 
 many upholsterers and furniture dealers that I knew were 
 in difficulties, offering generally about half as much as they 
 asked for the things, but always in ready money. By this 
 means I furnished my house very handsomely indeed for 
 about fifteen hundred pounds. The furniture would fetch 
 two thousand by auction. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. You managed very cleverly ; but my 
 great difficulty is the question of taste. The old house here 
 is provided with an immense quantity of miscellaneous fur- 
 niture, and somehow does not look so bad after all, though 
 the_things, judged severely, are, no doubt, incongruous. 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 347 
 
 But my superfluous things here would not do in the new 
 London house, which I must furnish newly, because it is 
 a new building. It is a most embarrassing question. 
 
 The Artist. It is a most splendid opportunity. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Perhaps so, if one knew how to seize it. 
 An opportunity, I suppose you mean, for the exercise of 
 good taste. But I have no confidence in my own judgment 
 in these matters. I have sense enough to be aware that my 
 aesthetic faculty is exceedingly small. 
 
 Mr. Barley. My way of buying would not suit you, 
 because you want the things all to be in the fashion, I sup- 
 pose. But, as for taste, you can buy that for money like 
 every thing else. Go to a good upholsterer a respectable 
 man, mind. It is his trade to understand the rules of taste, 
 and he will give you the benefit of his knowledge, only he 
 will make you pay handsomely for it. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. That would scarcely be safe. A man 
 may be a respectable tradesman, and still have vulgar 
 tastes. Upholsterers usually provide things to suit the 
 majority, but you would scarcely furnish in a manner 
 creditable to your taste by so easy a process as putting the 
 whole matter into the hands of an upholsterer. 
 
 The Artist. Hear, hear ! 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I quite believe you ; and that is exactly 
 the cause of my peculiar anxiety at this moment. Of course 
 if I thought that an upholsterer could help me out of it I 
 should have no trouble. I am very unfortunately situated. 
 I have got a smattering of art culture, as it is called, which 
 prevents me from resting satisfied with vulgar ostentation ; 
 and yet I feel that my knowledge is very imperfect, and my 
 private judgment not, as yet, to be relied upon. My father 
 would have had no such anxiety. He lived in an unoss- 
 thetic age, and would have furnished like everybody else, 
 and felt sure it was all right provided only the things 
 were made of mahogany. My son will, probably, 
 understand the fine arts better than I do ; and, perhaps, 
 even enjoy such an occasion as this as an opportunity for 
 the exercise of his taste. But I, who stand between dark- 
 ness and light, do not see my way very clearly. 
 
348 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 The Artist. So far as I understand you, then, you wish 
 your town house to be in some degree artistic. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I should like it to be in perfect taste 
 throughout. I do not care about ostentation, but I must 
 have every thing right and good ; and, as you say, in some 
 degree artistic. 
 
 Mr. Burley. Your house will be very exceptional, for 
 very few houses are artistic, especially in town I don't 
 care about art ; I like comfort. I never could sit down on 
 an artistically carved chair. Mind you have your house 
 comfortable, and never mind what our friend the artist tells 
 you. Have good easy chairs that's the sort of thing 
 and good bedding. I'm not particular to color ; and carv- 
 ing is a bother ; besides, as servants say, it takes twice as 
 much cleaning as smooth furniture ; and, therefore, it costs 
 a good deal, annually, in wages. But comfort, in our age, 
 is necessary. A comfortable chair relieves anxiety. A 
 chair should support all the frame without calling any 
 muscle into action. As for wood, have smooth mahogany ; 
 that's the best. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Furniture, with you, seems to be purely 
 a physical question. I think you are quite right in requir- 
 ing it to be comfortable ; but might it not also be in some 
 way expressive of intellectual feelings, and even capable of 
 affording them gratification ? 
 
 The Artist. A house ought to be a work of art, just like 
 a picture. Every bit of furniture in it should be a particle 
 of a great composition chosen with reference to every other 
 particle. A grain of color, a hundredth of an inch across, 
 is of the utmost importance in a picture ; and a little orna- 
 ment on a chimney-piece is of the utmost artistic importance 
 in a house. 
 
 Mr. Burley. You are going quite beyond my depth now. 
 My view of furniture is, that it ought to have a respectable, 
 hospitable appearance,and to do justice at once to the wealth 
 and good feeling of its owner. I like a fine sideboard, covered 
 with costly plate, because it looks substantial ; and I like a 
 good dining-table, surrounded with comfortable chairs, be- 
 cause it looks hospitable. I go little farther than that. It is 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 349 
 
 right, no doubt, for ladies to have elegance in their drawing- 
 rooms, but that is beyond my province. A man's study or 
 place of business should always be orderly and well- 
 arranged, but it need not be elegant. Men, as it seems to 
 me, ought to express, in their furniture, the three virtues of 
 wealth, order, and hospitality. I would have no poor 
 material of any kind every thing quite substantial, and 
 rich, and good. And mind to have plenty of drawers and 
 cabinets ; they are the whole machinery of order. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I should like to unite your different 
 requirements. One of you wants art ; another intellect, 
 perhaps erudition ; and another comfort, and that most 
 desirable virtue, order. These things are not necessarily 
 incompatible, though seldom seen in combination. My 
 ambition shall be to combine them. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Furniture is very expressive of moral 
 qualities, and I think you never know a man accurately 
 until you have seen the inside of his house. However you 
 furnish yours, it will in the end only be an expression of 
 yourself, or of those sentiments and ideas which may hap- 
 pen to be predominant when you furnish. 
 
 Mr. Burley. A pretty theory, but not, I think, applicable 
 in the majority of cases. Most people's furniture expresses 
 nothing whatever. It is simply ordered from the uphol- 
 sterer, and there is an end of it. Still, of course, some 
 people express themselves in their furniture those, at 
 least, who pay any attention to it. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I am sure everybody who furnishes 
 expresses himself one way or other. The mere fact of 
 his leaving it to an upholsterer expresses a great deal, for 
 it proves that the buyer has no taste of his own, and, 
 therefore, at once excludes him from the aesthetic class. 
 
 The Artist. All who care about art pay great attention 
 to furniture. A friend of mine, who really understands 
 painting, is so exquisitely alive to harmony of color that I 
 have seen him exclude a penholder from a large room 
 because its color was discordant. To an eye so delicate as 
 his every particle of color is of consequence, and therefore, 
 
350 Furniture: An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 of course, he could never leave any thing to an upholsterer 
 not even the minutest detail. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I should feel obliged to you, Mr. Mant- 
 ley, if you would develop your theory a little. Your idea 
 that all men express themselves in furniture seems worth 
 dwelling upon. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. The habits and feelings of whole classes 
 imprint themselves on their furniture. The English aris- 
 tocracy, for example, has certain ways of its own which 
 other classes do not imitate successfully. A gentleman's 
 house is always, evidently, a gentleman's house, though the 
 owner may be quite poor. I do not say that it is always in 
 good taste, for our gentry do not always distinguish them- 
 selves in the artistic department of furnishing ; but still the 
 objects, however ugly, and even shabby, all bear witness 
 together that their owner is a gentleman. And a rich 
 tradesman has another standard to which all his furnishing 
 tends, so that you may know him at once by it. One dif- 
 ference is that a gentleman safely leaves many things with 
 a frank aspect of age and wear on them a habit brought 
 on by living in old houses and constantly using old things ; 
 whereas every thing in a thriving tradesman's house is either 
 quite new or at least in perfect repair. Another difference 
 is that a gentleman's furnishing, though it be shabby and 
 disorderly, is pretty sure to have some poetry about it 
 something of antiquity or culture, some tint of history, 
 either belonging to his own family or the state ; whereas a 
 rich tradesman's house is generally comfortable, but very 
 prosaic. But it is easier to feel these differences than to 
 describe them. 
 
 Mr. Burley. You are right so far. For example, here 
 is this old dining-room with hints of history enough to 
 occupy an antiquary for hours ; whereas in my dining- 
 room, I, being a tradesman, have only the creature com- 
 forts of good chairs and tables and an uncommonly 
 handsome carpet. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I think it is there where you rich trades- 
 men are so expressive. Even in leaving the matter to the 
 upholsterer you betray a strong love of the prosaic side of 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 351 
 
 wealth. Your furniture generally expresses a high degree 
 of satisfaction in the possession of money, combined with 
 some indifference to poetry. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. The poetical side of furniture seems to 
 be separate from, or at least independent of, the artistic. 
 The little plain chess-table in the drawing-room here that 
 you and I played upon last night is not at all an artistic 
 piece of furniture, but it is poetical that is, it excites a 
 deep emotional interest, for it once belonged to Napoleon L, 
 and its chequer of ivory and ebony has often served him for 
 a mimic battlefield. One's ideas run from that to other 
 fields of other combats to Mareugo and Waterloo ; and 
 so the table is a poetical object, for it excites emotion. But 
 it is not artistic, being in the worst extreme of a wretched 
 epoch in art, the false classicism of the first Empire. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. It is observable, too, that poets furnish 
 with reference to the feelings, and artists mainly for the 
 gratification of the artistic eye. It is intensely agreeable 
 to an intellectual man to be frequently reminded of great 
 men whom he admires by objects which either belonged to 
 them or are, in some obvious way, associated with their 
 memories. 
 
 The Artist. But are the two aims incompatible ? Could 
 not a house be furnished both intellectually and artisti- 
 cally. 
 
 'Mr. Mantley. The aims are not necessarily incompatible, 
 but in practice they very much interfere with each other. 
 People generally have to obey some leading idea when they 
 furnish. The leading ideas of our middle class are the 
 expression of wealth and the love of regularity and order ; 
 hence the richness of the materials they employ, the formal 
 arrangement of absolutely similar objects, their faultless 
 cleanliness and polish, their perfect mechanical design, and 
 the total absence of intellectual, or even aesthetic interest in 
 all of them. On the other hand, the poet or scholar is, as 
 a rule, given to the chance accumulation of odd things as 
 they please him, by recalling some cherished association ; 
 and these things can give no pleasure to the eye whether of 
 the artist or the housekeeper. And then again we have the 
 
352 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 artist nature, which, of course, pleases itself by arranging 
 about it forms and colors, so as to afford itself endless 
 delight in the quiet contemplation of them. The difficulty 
 of combining the two last is that the severe eye of the 
 artist would, in nine cases out of ten, exclude as discordant 
 some piece of furniture that the scholar might love for rea- 
 sons having nothing to do with its appearance. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. It is very amusing to study character in 
 furniture. What very great virtues may be shown in very 
 poor things ! I have a neighbor, an old maiden lady, whose 
 furniture is not what our friend Mr. Burley would call 
 handsome, and it is certainly not artistic ; nevertheless, it 
 inspires in me the utmost respect and esteem for its posses- 
 sor, for it is so simple and unpretending, and yet so useful, 
 and orderly, and comfortable. Probably at an auction the 
 whole household of furniture would not fetch fifty pounds ; 
 and yet it is so well arranged, and harmonizes so well with 
 the quiet, unaffected, and somewhat methodical habits of the 
 lady of the house, that every bit of it has, in my eyes, a 
 value far beyond that of the best new furniture in a cab- 
 inet-maker's shop. Indeed, I have heard the old lady declare 
 that she would not on any account admit a piece of new 
 furniture into her house, because it would spoil her old 
 things by contrast ; and once, when she wanted a sideboard, 
 instead of ordering one at the cabinet-maker's, she hunted 
 about for months to find something that would go with 
 her other things. At last she hit upon a quaint old struc- 
 ture of dark mahogany, of a form at least thirty years out 
 of fashion. This exactly suited her, and it now looks as if 
 it had always been in the house. Proofs of the same good 
 taste and right judgment may be found in every thing about 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I have as great a dislike to new furniture 
 as your friend the old maid. New furniture is as bad as a 
 new house it has no associations. Still, even new furni- 
 ture may express character. For instance, Mr. Burley, 
 what should you say that drawers express ? 
 
 Mr. Burley. The love of order. The main use of fur- 
 niture in a business point of view is, that it is such a help 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 353 
 
 to order.; indeed without it order would be altogether 
 impossible. The business habits of men may be guessed 
 from their furniture. The great object is to keep things at 
 once separate from each other, and easily accessible to 
 their owner. Disorder and confusion are always the pun- 
 ishment of people who will not be at the pains to under- 
 stand this theory. No amount of disorder ever conquered 
 me, and I know by practical experience in affairs that I am 
 able to cope with any amount of details, but not single- 
 handed. I require the assistance of the cabinet-maker, and 
 he is the first man I call in when there is a difficulty. Some 
 time since, being with a country gentleman of moderate 
 estate, who had a fancy for managing his own property, and 
 who, consequently, had got it into a state of awful confusion, 
 I helped him out of it in a fortnight in this way. I got 
 him to assign me a particular little room in his house to do 
 what I liked with. I sent for the joiner. I had the room 
 lined all round from top to bottom, with small drawers 
 varying in depth, made of common deal, and so arranged 
 that four locks locked them all.* When this was finished 
 I had the front of the drawers, that is, the whole wall of 
 the room, painted dark green. When the paint was dry I 
 admitted the owner of the house. " What are all these 
 drawers for ? " said he. " To get your papers in order ; 
 fetch me all your papers." Well, he brought thousands of 
 different papers, all iu great tin boxes. Now a box, 
 especially a deep one, is a barbarous piece of furniture for 
 purposes of order ; you may pack it in a very orderly 
 manner, but how are you to get at the things afterwards ? 
 A box lacks the necessary quality of accessibility. You 
 have to turn out twenty things to get at one ; hence inevit- 
 able disorder. My friend's tin boxes were all in that state ; 
 there were papers in them that ought to have been kept 
 quite accessible, that nobody could have found without a 
 week's labor. He and I emptied all the boxes, and 
 arranged the papers in the drawers according to a definite 
 
 * Quite possible by means of a simple arrangement of hinged slips, 
 vertical and horizontal. 
 
 23 
 
354 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 plan of mine, estate by estate, with subdivisions of farm by 
 farm. I chalked the contents of every drawer on the out- 
 side of it ; then I locked all the drawers, and sent for a 
 painter who painted the words in great white, legible cap- 
 ital letters. After that, I left the house ; but a year after- 
 wards my friend told me that he managed his business 
 with surprising facility, and could at any time get at any 
 little fact he wanted thanks to the drawers. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. The law of order appears to be, divide 
 and subdivide, but keep accessible. People generally do not 
 subdivide enough. They imagine that a very rude and 
 broad subdivision will suffice ; but, if things are to be 
 instantaneously accessible, the subdivision must be carried 
 very far. The old rude system of deep boxes is a case in 
 point ; if you subdivide them much, the things are no longer 
 accessible. I think the shopkeepers teach us a very useful 
 lesson if we would only profit by it ; the order in a well- 
 kept shop is really very admirable. And it is all managed 
 by three articles of furniture the shelf, the box, and the 
 drawer. Boxes on shelves are indeed drawers in another 
 form. 
 
 The Artist. Studios are generally very disorderly; I 
 think we don't pay sufficient attention to furniture as a 
 help to order. 
 
 Mr. Burley. You painters always seek the picturesque 
 in furniture, not the useful. You could not endure a 
 rational chest of drawers ; you must have carved cabinets 
 with griffins, and suits of sham armor hanging over them 
 under pretext of painting armor, which most of you never 
 paint at all. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Pray don't be hard on carved oak, for 
 my house is full of it. 
 
 Mr. Burley. Here it is a different thing. You never 
 bought any carved oak ; and yours is really ancestral, and 
 therefore respectable. But artists' studios are furnished 
 from Wardour Street. I have a great dislike to modern 
 antiques ; I think it is affectation to buy them. 
 
 The Artist. There is no affectation at all about it in 
 our case. We like carved things because their varied sur- 
 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 355 
 
 faces are more pleasing to the eye, and more like nature, 
 than dull flat mahogany. In the same way we are very 
 fond of tapestry ; nothing is better for a painting room 
 than carved oak backed by rich tapestry, because in the 
 carved oak we have a delightful mystery and variety of 
 form, and in the tapestry the same mystery and variety in 
 color. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Should you think the love of carved 
 oak an indication of artistic taste ? I know many men 
 who like pictures and are indifferent to carved oak, and, 
 conversely, others who, though passionately fond of carved 
 oak, care nothing whatever for painting. 
 
 The Artist. Refined painting and rough wood carving 
 appeal, in many ways, to two different ranks of mind. It 
 is possible to enjoy the quaint richness of carved wood, 
 without any very delicate sense of either form or color, 
 such as is necessary for the appreciation of pictures. On 
 the other hand, a lover of pictures might easily become 
 too fastidious to enjoy the uncouth and barbarous forms of 
 ordinary Elizabethan wood carving. A connoisseur, in 
 whom the love of form was stronger than the love of the 
 picturesque, would have plain furniture of exquisite form 
 and concentrate all his sculpture in marble statues. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I think it a pity that the simple country 
 art of quaint wood carving should be lost to our common 
 joiners ; I have tried to teach one or two. I can carve 
 tolerably myself, and have made a wardrobe which Mr. 
 Plumpton offered me two cows for. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I would have made the offer in money, 
 but I thought your reverence might be offended ; the 
 wardrobe is really an admirable specimen of inventive, 
 quaint wood carving. Mautley chose the story of Joseph 
 for his subject, and worked it out panel by panel, quite in 
 the spirit of genuine Gothic art. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I was inspired by the study of the won- 
 derful choir at Amiens, the most perfect achievement in 
 wood carving which has descended to us. I intend the 
 wardrobe for the vestry of my church. But about teaching 
 men to carve ; the difficulty is, that they are all mechanics 
 
356 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 in these times, whereas the old fellows were really artists, 
 though quite rough ones. Set modern workmen, for 
 example, to carve a running pattern of vine leaves. 
 All the leaves are sure to come exactly alike, and you 
 might as well get plaster mouldings at so much a foot. In 
 England at present we have a few exquisite artist carvers, 
 but then they are gentlemen sculptors in wood. What we 
 want is a class of plain workmen, able to do rough and 
 picturesque, but inventive and effective wood carving for 
 furniture ; and that class does not exist here. I am aware 
 that our rich people are as much in fault as the poor ones. 
 A carver once told me that his employers would not allow 
 any variety in his flourishes, but measured them with com- 
 passes. According to their ideas, good carving meant 
 accurately mechanical cutting of curves out of mahogany. 
 Such training is nothing short of a systematic suppression 
 of genius ; and that is the way our ordinary furniture 
 carvers are trained. Every mahogany sideboard has two 
 little flourishes on the sides, with an absurd central flour- 
 ish on the top of its back. To produce those ornaments 
 is the beginning and end of ordinary cabinet maker's 
 carving. 
 
 The Artist. The career of an artist is peculiarly diffi- 
 cult to follow ; and, unless he has private fortune, or the 
 assistance of liberal friends, he is for many years in con- 
 tinual danger of being compelled to fall back upon some- 
 thing else. In England, the unsuccessful artist usually 
 becomes a teacher of drawing. In France he often be- 
 comes a sculptor of house fronts, a decorative painter, or 
 a wood carver. Wood carvers, who have tried to be 
 artists, like to be artists still, and they work in wood 
 artistically. Add to this the fact that taste and invention 
 are much sought after, and highly appreciated in Paris, 
 and you will account for the contrast. Artistic workmen 
 carvers abound in Paris, and are very rare in London. 
 Carved oak in Paris is no modern antique no piece of 
 affectation at all. It is a flourishing contemporary art, 
 full of life, and proving its vitality by an immense produc- 
 tion. And it is not the mechanical reproduction of old 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 357 
 
 forms. The variety and novelty of the products prove the 
 vitality of the art, even more than their multiplicity. 
 Every day hundreds of pieces of carved furniture are 
 sent into the market, and not at high prices. This fur- 
 niture is just as honest in material as that of the days of 
 Queen Elizabeth; it is all in solid wood there is no 
 veneering. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. This is practical, and may suit my 
 case. That furniture is cheap, you say, in Paris. 
 
 The Artist. There are some shops on the Boulevards 
 where it is very dear ; but, if you hunt up the workmen 
 themselves at their own houses, and get acquainted with 
 them, you may obtain good work at very moderate prices. 
 You may get a very pretty carved chair for about a sover- 
 eign, a good carved bookcase for about eight, and a rich 
 cabinet for sixteen or twenty. The bookcase in my paint- 
 ing room has a carved cornice and frieze, carved frames to 
 its glass doors, a large drawer (the foot of which is mas- 
 sively carved), two carved panels to the lower part, two 
 human heads, four lions' heads, and two full length stat- 
 uettes. Add to this four rich bunches of fruit, and some 
 carving on the edges of the shelves, and consider the 
 dimensions nearly eight feet high and the fact that 
 every scrap of wood about it is genuine oak, guiltless of 
 veneer, and you cannot think it dear at eight pounds. I 
 have a table, with massive twisted legs and connecting 
 pieces, carved at the intersections, a large drawer, a band 
 of effective carving all round as deep as the drawer, and a 
 carved moulding above ; the whole in perfectly solid oak. 
 I bought that table quite new of the man who made it. I 
 gave him exactly two pounds for it. A dealer in London 
 asked me ten for a very similar table. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. The modern carving in Paris is all either 
 renaissance or modern naturalistic. They can't carve 
 Gothic. They don't seem to me to understand Gothic.* 
 
 * There is a school of Gothic stone sculptors in France, trained under 
 Viollet-le J)uc, in the old cathedrals, who have really caught the true 
 Gothic spirit. However, these men do not produce furniture ; so I cannot 
 speak of them here. 
 
358 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 The Artist. The wood carvers are trained in the 
 renaissance school, and produce work like the best of 
 the later renaissance carving, modified to a considerable 
 extent by the modern study of nature. I had a curious 
 instance of how incapable a true renaissance carver is of 
 reproducing Gothic ideas. I designed a piece of furniture 
 in the true old Gothic spirit full of quaint Gothic 
 inventions, especially a great battle of griffins and ser- 
 pents that I very much wished to see realized in wood. 
 I could not get it done in all Paris. The carvers would 
 not work from my design, but always asked permission to 
 make a design of their own from it. They produced very 
 clever designs indeed, but they entirely eliminated the 
 Gothic feeling : they translated the design into renais- 
 sance. At last I abandoned the project. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. The specimens of French carving at the 
 Exhibition were very dear, though exquisitely beautiful. 
 The - price of one small black cabinet was over twelve 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 The Artist. That was not merely carving in the ordi- 
 nary sense ; it was excellent sculpture in wood. Furniture 
 of that sort is a product of Fine Art, just like pictures, and 
 naturally brings high prices. But that I was speaking of 
 is rude in execution. 
 
 Mr. Burley. I have seen first-rate carving done by a 
 machine, and cheaper than your Frenchmen could do it. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. All machine carving that I have seen 
 loses its charm at the second glance. Just at first you may 
 fancy that there is something in it ; but, as soon as the eye 
 has had time to wander over its details, the cheat is dis- 
 covered, and your interest is gone. There is no life in the 
 touches no expression. 
 
 The Artist. You. might as well try to paint by a 
 machine. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. What do you think of the modern sub- 
 stitution of the beauty of wood for the effect of carving ? 
 In Queen Elizabeth's time, men sought richness by cutting 
 their wood into different shapes. Now we get the most 
 
Furniture : An After- Dinner Conversation. 359 
 
 richly marked woods, and show their natural beauty by 
 polishing them. Is this an advance or not ? 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I think it a sign of the decline of art. 
 It is the substitution of a beauty ready-made to hand, and 
 easily come by, for the intellectual beauty of man's labor. 
 Fancy the difference between a Gothic panel containing a 
 bas-relief and a moderate sideboard panel containing a 
 piece of well-selected and prettily veined mahogany: in 
 the one is much thought and intellect, in the other nothing 
 but a pretty piece of wood. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Yet I think the use of beautiful woods, 
 simply polished, is^ quite as justifiable as the old Venetian 
 use of polished sheets, or veneers of marble. There is no 
 difference between the two cases ; for in both man takes a 
 natural product, and cuts it into thin slices, which he pol- 
 ishes to show their beauty. 
 
 The Artist. Yes, but the Venetians used their marble 
 artistically, and we use our mahogany without any sense 
 of its artistic availableness. I have rarely seen sheets 
 of beautiful wood employed, with a just sense of their 
 value, as decoration. There are possibilities of great 
 achievements in this way, for the field is almost untried. 
 Wood of different kinds gives a great variety of good 
 color. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. There are two other debatable ques- 
 tions connected with this. Ought we to veneer? and 
 ought we to encourage painted imitation of particular 
 woods ? 
 
 Mr. Mantley. I am not so severe as Mr. Rusk in on 
 these points. His laudable love of honesty in art carried 
 him, in this instance, much too far. Veneering is a natural 
 consequence of the love of beautiful woods, and is not dis- 
 honest, because everybody knows that very beautifully 
 veined furniture is sure to be veneered, if its form will 
 admit of it. I consider veneering to be the exercise of a 
 wise economy, and no more dishonest than gilding. Again, 
 as to painting imitations of woods, why not ? There is no 
 fraud about it. None but a very unobservant person 
 would ever imagine that painted deal was oak ; but the 
 
360 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 graining gives more variety to the eye than one color 
 could, and it is in its way an imitation of nature, and 
 therefore indicative of an appreciation of natural beauty, 
 though of a very humble order. Of course, if it were 
 done to deceive, I should condemn it, and veneering too. 
 
 The Artist. But modern English furniture is really 
 dishonest. A friend of mine paid thirteen guineas for a 
 table that will not bear any comparison with the one I got 
 for fifty francs of that honest French carver. My friend's 
 table is veneered, of course, all over, and has two borders 
 of machine carving running all round it that are simply 
 glued on. The table pretends to be of $ak, but the carved 
 borders are stained beech, because beech is easier to work. 
 My table is all solid oak and carved by the hand. I would 
 not exchange mine for his if he gave me a sovereign into 
 the bargain. 
 
 Mr. Burley. Our cabinet-makers carry veneering very 
 far. They sometimes veneer wood on both sides and on 
 the edges. It takes rather a keen eye to find them out, 
 for they contrive to follow the way the grain would run in 
 solid wood. That is fraudulent ; at least it deceives many 
 purchasers. I know people who have bought furniture 
 under the impression that it was solid, which furniture I 
 found, on examination, to be artfully veneered on common 
 white wood. I think, though, our English cabinet-makers 
 turn out, as a rule, work unsurpassed for accuracy of ad- 
 justment. Their measurements are true and careful, 
 and their work is practically convenient, because it runs 
 smoothly. I have no doubt your French carver makes 
 more picturesque furniture, but I should be much surprised 
 if his drawers work as well as those my cabinet-maker 
 turns out. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. We have kept long enough on gener- 
 alities ; let us get to something definite. I want to furnish 
 my house in London. I beg you all to give me the benefit 
 of your advice. Let us begin with the dining-room. 
 
 Mr. Burley. Mahogany, of course. It is warm and 
 comfortable looking. Have dark red cushions and a green 
 flock paper. I hate a chilly dining-room. The French, 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 361 
 
 who love good eating, don't seem to understand how 
 necessary a comfortable dining-room is to the enjoyment 
 of a good dinner. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Their dining-rooms are very simply fur- 
 nished, because they never sit in them either between or 
 after meals, but as we sit here in council over Plumpton's 
 Port, we enjoy his thick carpet and soft seats. So I should 
 agree with you in recommending a comfortable dining- 
 room, but not as to the taste in which you would furnish 
 it. Plumpton is not a rich merchant, but a country gentle- 
 man, with a turn for art. He should have carved oak. 
 
 Mr. jBurley. That's because you carved the wardrobe. 
 Do you want Plumpton to have the history of Joseph in 
 his dining-room ? Carved oak may be right enough here 
 at Plumpton Court ; I don't say no ; but in London, with 
 cabs and omnibuses in hearing, it is out of place. 
 
 The Artist. I recommend carved oak, but not such 
 rude work as you have here. In London it should be 
 modern, graceful, and artistic, not Elizabethan and gro- 
 tesque. I think Mr. Burley is right in objecting to Eliza- 
 bethan oak in a modern London house, because the house 
 and its contents would be incompatible with each other. 
 Mr. Plumpton should employ the best artist carvers, and 
 have exquisite modern furniture in solid oak left of its 
 natural color. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Neither stained nor varnished ? 
 
 The Artist. Neither. It is right to stain and varnish 
 rude work, because that adds richness and hides defects. 
 But the glitter of the varnish and the darkness of the 
 stain are an injury to really delicate work, because they 
 prevent it from being seen. It would be as barbarous to 
 stain and varnish a piece of really fine sculpture in wood, 
 as to paint the Venus de Medici dark brown and give her 
 three coats of copal. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Well, and about the walls ? 
 
 The Artist. The best thing with new carved oak is 
 dark green velvet. Have your walls divided in panels 
 with frames of exquisitely carved new oak, and fill these 
 
362 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 panels with green velvet. The cornice all round the top 
 should be of carved oak too ; and in it you might intro- 
 duce a series of armorial shields from your pedigree, 
 either carved in the wood and left without color, or else 
 illuminated in gold and color on plain shields, but not both 
 carved and painted. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Any pictures ? 
 
 The Artist. Of course. I want the dark green velvet 
 in the panels for the pictures. You ought to have a series of 
 pictures connected with each other by their subjects, and, 
 if possible, painted by the same hand. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Old portraits from here would do very 
 well. 
 
 The Artist. No, they would be incongruous. They are 
 better where they are in the old house. Modern portraits, 
 on the other hand, would be hideous. A series of illustra- 
 tions of some place, if landscapes, or of some poet, if figure 
 subjects, would do better. For example: a set of illustra- 
 tions of Mr. Plumpton's most picturesque estate, or a 
 series of subjects from Tennyson. I would not have many 
 pictures. Three very large ones would look more majestic 
 than a crowd of little ones. One great picture on each 
 wall is my ideal, and none, of course, near the windows. 
 The dislike to large pictures is very general and quite 
 groundless. People who have plenty of room for large 
 pictures tell you they have no room, with great blank 
 spaces of wall everywhere. For such a dining-room as 
 yours I would have three pictures, twelve feet long each. 
 Your velvet panelling must, of course, be arranged ex- 
 pressly to receive them. The pictures should be warm in 
 color on account of the green walls. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. But the chairs and carpet ? 
 
 The Artist. The chairs green velvet like the walls, the 
 oak carved richly, yet not so as to interfere with comfort ; 
 the carpet ultramarine blue with a broad border of green 
 oak leaves, and the curtains ultramarine velvet, with a 
 border embroidered in green silk. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Blue and green together ! Mrs. Plump- 
 ton will never hear of such a violation of good taste. 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 363 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Where did you ever see such an un- 
 natural combination ? 
 
 Mr. Burley. You artists sneer at upholsterers ; why, 
 any upholsterer knows better than to put two such dis- 
 cordant colors as blue and green together. 
 
 The Artist. I am sorry to have irritated you all ; but 
 you asked my advice, and I gave it. Shall I go on or not ? 
 If I go on, I am sure to offend y.ou. I had better have 
 held my tongue. 
 
 Mr. Plwmpton. Go on, go on ; we want to hear what 
 you have got to say for yourself. We have him now, eh, 
 Mantley ? Blue and green together ! I wonder how he 
 will reason us into such a strange theory as that ! 
 
 TJie Artist. I will answer you one by one. If Mrs. 
 Plumpton dislikes blue and green together, it is merely be- 
 cause her milliner told her to do so, and she, out of pure 
 humility, obeys. But her own feelings are right, because 
 her senses are sound. Only this very morninjr, as we were 
 looking at the humming-birds in her little room, she par- 
 ticularly called my attention to one, colored exactly on the 
 principle of my carpet, dark azure, with touches of in- 
 tense green ; and she liked that the best of all of them. In 
 answer to Mr. Mantley's question where did I ever see 
 such an unnatural combination ? I may say, everywhere 
 in nature. Green hills and blue sky, green leaves against 
 the intense azure overhead, green shores of lakes and 
 blue water, green transparence and blue reflections on sea 
 waves, green shallows and blue deep water in the sea, blue 
 plumage of birds with green gleaming in it, blue flowers 
 amongst their own green leaves, blue-bells in the green 
 grass, green and blue both at their brightest on the wings of 
 a butterfly, green and blue on a thousand insects, green and 
 blue wedded together by God himself all over this colored 
 world. There, Mr. Mantley, there have I seen what you 
 please to call an unnatural combination ! And you, Mr. 
 Burley, how can you possibly think that artists who own 
 no law but that of the Divine example can concern them- 
 selves with the dicta of tradesmen, who refer nothing to 
 nature ? If you want to color well, either in furniture or 
 
364 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 
 any thing else, go and study color in God's works, not in 
 tailors' fashion books and upholsterers' shop windows.* 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. If I put green and blue together, every 
 lady will say I have no taste. They don't believe in na- 
 ture ; they believe in milliners. But now about the draw- 
 ing-room ? 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Very delicate and dangerous ground. 
 The drawing-room is a lady's own territory. Mrs. Plump- 
 ton may not particularly care to have other influences 
 than hers brought to bear upon you on that question. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. She will be glad of good advice. Let 
 us think the matter over. Pale colors of course. 
 
 The Artist. Why so pale ? I protest against the pallor 
 of English drawing-rooms. They are all gray and white, 
 and at once chilly and frivolous. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. I may begin by saying that I shall hang 
 my best modern pictures in my town drawing-room. 
 
 The Artist. Then have dark colors. They make the 
 splendor of splendid things tell. My ideal of a drawing- 
 room is derived from French salons, but mainly with a 
 view to help the effect of works of art. It is a common 
 error to spend money in pictures, and then begrudge the 
 outlay necessary to show them to advantage. Better buy 
 one picture less, and spend the money in velvet and ebony. 
 The walls should be panelled with frames of ebony filled 
 with velvet of a rich violet color. There ought to be mag- 
 nificent mirrors, let in here and there in place of the 
 velvet; and round the mirrors the ebony should be en- 
 riched with the most delicate carving. The chimney-piece 
 
 * People who are not artists, and have no confidence in their own 
 judgment about the employment of color in furniture, may overcome the 
 difficulty by a simple obedience to the Divine answers to all artistic ques- 
 tions which exist so profusely in nature. The combinations of color in 
 nature are, on the whole, better than those of our carpet manufacturers 
 and paper stainers. Select a beautiful bird, or butterfly, or plant, that 
 which pleases you best; take the colors you find in it, and of them com- 
 pose the coloring of your room. Mind you match the colors exactly (no 
 easy matter); then take care to keep the same proportions as to quantity, 
 and, as nearly as possible, the same relation as to juxtaposition. Thus, 
 by humbly accepting the teaching of nature, you shall color your room 
 well. 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 365 
 
 should be of pure white marble sculptured by some great 
 sculptor. Against your violet velvet beautiful statues 
 should relieve themselves, and between each pair of 
 statues a noble picture should bang. All round the room, 
 silver candlesticks of exquisite design should spring from 
 the ebony frames of the panels, each a separate invention. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Very good. And the furniture ? 
 
 The Artist. It might be either ebony with orange dam- 
 ask, or gilded with violet velvet. In the one case, you 
 would carry the wood work of the walls into the furniture ; 
 in the other, the hanging. The carpet might consist of a 
 chequer of alternate lozenges of needle- work, in one of 
 which an orange pattern was presented on a violet ground, 
 and in the other the same pattern heraldically counter- 
 changed fo violet upon orange.* 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Mrs. Plumpton has too much good taste 
 to cover her drawing-room table with frivolous toys ; but 
 many ladies would ruin the effect of such a drawing-room 
 as you suggest, by the introduction of many little frivoli- 
 ties, entirely out of harmony with the sober grandeur of 
 your idea. Your room seems fit for women of high cul- 
 ture, but not for all women. It would be too grave and 
 artistic for many. Light papers, miscellaneous needle- 
 work and toys, and showy ornaments give a general ap- 
 pearance of trifling which is more popular, because more 
 in harmony with tea and small talk. Character, after all, 
 governs furniture, and frivolous people will always furnish 
 frivolously, do what you will. 
 
 The Artist. I have no objection to needlework in itself ; 
 but ladies often spoil their rooms by the introduction of 
 it, because they are not able to color. The color faculty is 
 very rare in England. But a lady who was really a color- 
 ist might find infinite employment for her needle in such a 
 room as I should like. The curtains and carpet and cush- 
 ions might be all of tapestry done with the needle, but 
 done in obedience to a dominant note of color, given in this 
 
 *. In a certain French house, the carpet of the salon is formed of needle- 
 work and velvet in broad bands. The velvet is the same as that on the 
 walla ; the needlework recalls the prevailing colors of the furniture. 
 
366 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 case by the violet velvet of the walls of the room. Toys 
 on the table are intended to help people to something that 
 they can talk about ; so they have a certain social use. 
 But they should be exquisite little works of art or relics 
 of antiquity, such as ancient Roman or mediaeval jewelry, 
 or Italian goldsmith's work, always possessing either an 
 intellectual or artistic interest, not mere children's play- 
 things bought at toy-shops. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. We are getting on very slowly. We 
 have the library and bedrooms to do yet. 
 
 Mr. Burley. I think you are going very fast. Those 
 two rooms will cost you ten thousand pounds if you carry 
 out all these artistic suggestions. Such doctrines as we 
 have been listening to are not for people of moderate 
 fortune. 
 
 The Artist. They are for everybody's house and 
 everybody's pocket. People who cannot afford velvet 
 can afford paper, and good color is obtainable in very 
 humble materials. The artist instinct works in clay 
 and iron as well as in marble and gold. The arch-enemy 
 of art is not poverty, but vulgarity. A poor woman may 
 prove herself a colorist by the wise employment of a few 
 threads of dyed wool ; a rich one may proclaim her* in- 
 competence in the arrangement of the costliest tissues. 
 
 Mr. Mantky. For the library, have intellectual associa- 
 tions. Furnish for the mind. Have busts or pictures of 
 great authors ; have objects illustrative of history. The 
 chairs and tables should be comfortable and convenient for 
 study, the book-cases orderly and well arranged. In a 
 modern house I should recommend mahogany for the 
 library, with pomegranate-colored morocco. The carpet a 
 pleasant green, for contrast. 
 
 Mr. Burley. Good ; we are coming to common sense at 
 last ! It was high time we did ! Don't forget to have a 
 great writing-table with lots of drawers. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. A good plan for bedrooms is to furnish 
 them according to some dominant color ; it gives a name 
 for each. Here we have the amber-room, the crimson-room, 
 
Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 367 
 
 the blue-room, etc. I intend to follow the same plan in 
 town. It is a good old-fashioned country plan. 
 
 Tlie Artist. It is also eminently artistic, and might be 
 carried out to the greatest advantage. You will have some 
 difficulty about papers and carpets. You will probably 
 have to get them all made on purpose. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. Very well ; you shall have the ordering 
 of the color. Mrs. Plumpton will be glad to have it in 
 such good hands ; only you will have to use all your elo- 
 quence to reconcile her to your heterodox views. 
 
 The Artist. I shall take her to the humming-birds, and 
 deliver a short lecture upon them. If the humming-birds 
 don't win my battle for me, I have two strong armies in 
 reserve, the butterflies and moths in the museum, and 
 the flowers in the garden and conservatory. 
 
 Mr. Mantley. We were talking about the poetry of fur- 
 niture. English bedrooms are peculiarly deficient in 
 poetry. With rare exceptions, they are only fit for sleep- 
 ing in. I think a bedroom should be very beautiful. A 
 young lady's bedroom, especially, should be delicate and 
 gay, with all sorts of pretty evidences of the refinement of 
 its occupant. 
 
 Mr. Plumpton. In nearly all English bedrooms the bed 
 occupies too large a space, and the use of the room is quite 
 undisguised. That is because we never receive friends in 
 our bedrooms. The unquestionable superiority of French 
 bedrooms is chiefly due to the fact that the French receive 
 their friends there. I sometimes spend a week or two 
 with an old friend of mine in a French chateau, and my 
 bedroom there is really very pretty. A fine piece of 
 tapestry drawn across the alcove hides the bed during the 
 daytime ; and the rest of the room is furnished as a pleas- 
 ant mixture of the salon and library, all the apparatus for 
 washing being in a bath-room close at hand. In houses 
 where you cannot give a private sitting-room to each 
 guest, I think the bedrooms certainly ought to contain 
 every thing necessary to a man who may wish to spend 
 some hours every day in privacy, and either write or read 
 as he likes. 
 
368 Furniture : An After-Dinner Conversation. 
 
 Mr. Plampton. We have entirely neglected one little 
 fact about furniture, the astonishing hold it gains on our 
 affections. I don't know whether you are like me, Mant- 
 ley ; but I could not part with my old furniture without a 
 bitter pang. It seems to me that one of the saddest things 
 about coming to poverty must be to separate one's self from 
 all these dear old silent companions, these dumb sharers 
 and witnesses of our privacy that inhabit our rooms with us. 
 I never could sell my old mother's favorite chairs and ta- 
 bles ; and then the bed she died in, how sacred it is, 
 Mantley ! 
 
 Mr. Mantley. Yes ; all the power that wealth and 
 genius give to furniture is nothing to the power of that 
 kind of association. A king's throne may dazzle and 
 overawe us ; but the simple chair of a dear friend who 
 is dead moves us far more deeply. We get so attached 
 to some pieces of furniture that they become to us as if 
 endowed with a kind of affection themselves, and we half 
 believe not only that we love them, but that they love us. 
 We should not like to sell them to people for whom they 
 were only pieces of wood, not friends. 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 369 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE ARTISTIC SPIRIT. 
 
 r I ^HE following slight notes on a very deep and subtle 
 ** subject have no pretension to exhaust it, or even to 
 get quite to the bottom of it. Just after writing them I 
 perceive already that more things might have been said, 
 and even these few things better said. Still, such observa- 
 tions as these, though somewhat baldly set down, may have 
 a certain utility in times when there is more external inter- 
 est in art than inward sympathy with the spirit of it. If 
 once the spirit of art were fully entered into, a true under- 
 standing of it would ultimately follow ; but the erudition 
 of criticism is in vain, if we have not that inward sympa- 
 thy. How rare this is I hardly like to say positively, for 
 it may be more frequent amongst unknown lovers of art 
 than I know of, or at present imagine. But amongst 
 known writers it is indeed very rare. Robert Browning 
 thoroughly enters into the artistic mind, and sees it from 
 the inside ; but no other English poet ever did that. And 
 of prose writers Thackeray understood artists. These two 
 are on the inside ; Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, and their 
 predecessors, on the outside only. 
 
 1. As to Aristocracy. The spirit of aristocracy would 
 seem to have this in common with art, that it loves refine- 
 ment and grace. The fine art of an aristocracy is its good 
 behavior ; and the perfect aristocrat, with his grand air 
 and fine manner, has always been a favorite with the best 
 figure painters. But to conclude that between art and 
 aristocracy there is any thing more than an occasional 
 sympathy would be erroneous. Art is not necessary to an 
 aristocracy, as such, the only arts which really serve it 
 being family portraiture and the degree of architecture, 
 24 
 
370 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 scarcely deserving the name of a fine art, which suffices to 
 distinguish the house of the great land-owner. There is 
 true and intimate sympathy between aristocracies and 
 established military and ecclesiastical hierarchies, true and 
 intimate antipathy between aristocracies, and dissent in 
 politics and religion ; but between the spirit of art and the 
 spirit of aristocracy there is coolness, and that coolness 
 neither writing nor lecturing is likely to overcome. 
 
 But then, on the other hand, art is not particularly dem- 
 ocratic. Artists, if they find little to appeal to in the rich- 
 est class, find still less in those poorer classes whose entire 
 energy is absorbed in the struggle for daily bread. It is 
 true that the French republicans have usually, even in the 
 midst of the utmost national excitement, found leisure to 
 care for the protection and encouragement of art ; but this 
 is less a republican than a national sentiment. It is an 
 accepted creed in the minds of all Frenchmen that their 
 country has conquered, and must maintain, the first place 
 in two things war and art ; nor could any popular gov- 
 ernment altogether refuse to employ artists and keep up 
 picture galleries. Even Louis Phillippe, who shared and 
 represented the bourgeois feeling, spent money on pictures 
 for Versailles, though these were generally bad ones ; and 
 the present Emperor cherishes art as much as his prede- 
 cessors did. 
 
 Yet, though art be neither aristocratic nor democratic, it 
 is worthy of remark that whenever the artistic spirit devel- 
 ops itself, it effaces, between the persons possessing it, the 
 distinctions of rank. A man of rank, endowed with artis- 
 tic perceptions, is drawn towards all true artists by a feel- 
 ing of confraternity. It has been observed even of 
 photography, that it affords a common ground on which 
 men of all classes fraternize. This is still more true of 
 painting, probably because painting cultivates the feelings 
 so much more, and therefore awakens subtler sympathies. 
 Much has been written by Thackeray and other novelists 
 about the narrow contempt with which society regards art 
 and artists. The truth is that so long as people 1 of station 
 are ignorant of art, they do undoubtedly hold its professors 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 371 
 
 in slight esteem, because the Fine Arts can only influence 
 by sympathy, never by force. But on the other hand, it is 
 equally true that when rich men are endowed with the 
 faculties which apprehend art, they always respect good 
 artists, and show that they value their friendship. 
 
 2. As to the Bourgeois Spirit. The state of mind in 
 which our middle classes and the French bourgeois live, is 
 unfavorable to art in many ways. Competence and com- 
 fort and cleanliness are very good and pleasant and desir- 
 able, and it is wonderful with how little money a managing 
 couple in the middle classes will procure those blessings ; 
 but when they are made the only aims of life, they bring 
 on an incredible pettiness of soul. I never met with any 
 thoroughly bourgeois mind which had the least understand- 
 ing of art. If, for example, a mayor and common council, 
 composed of this class of people, have to deliberate about 
 the destruction of some grand relic of the middle ages, you 
 may perhaps find some one man amongst them who is 
 superior enough to think that the object ought to be pre- 
 served for its historical or antiquarian interest, but you 
 would not be likely to find any one to suggest its preserva- 
 tion on purely artistic grounds ; and if you tried to explain 
 its artistic value to such people, you would waste your 
 explanation. The cardinal bourgeois virtues of tidiness 
 and decency and order, are always likely to be offended by 
 the grandeur of the high artistic spirit. For example, a 
 mutilated antique is not exactly what the bourgeois mind 
 would care to have in its parlor. 
 
 Much of the Bohemianism we find amongst artists is 
 due to their instinctive revolt from middle-class narrow- 
 ness. The artists lose a great deal, no doubt, by yielding 
 so far to this repulsion, because there are virtues conspicu- 
 ous in the middle class which all men ought to strive for, 
 and which, when faithfully practised, add very greatly to 
 human happiness in every condition of life. The bourgeois 
 often has his revenge and triumph in the ruin and wretch- 
 edness consequent on the careless, irregular ways of Bohe- 
 mianism ; but the narrow prudence which hates ideas, 
 scorns beauty, and regulates every thing with reference to 
 
372 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 the lowest standard of utility, is quite incompatible with 
 artistic achievement ; and not only that, but it even inca- 
 pacitates men for comprehending such achievement. 
 
 3. As to Religion. The Fine Arts illustrate religion 
 willingly, because it affords good subjects, and there is 
 nothing in the artistic spirit in any way incompatible with 
 the purest spirit of devotion ; indeed, art draws us contin- 
 ually towards a state of mind akin to the devotional, by 
 requiring us to spend our time in the conscious contempla- 
 tion of the work of the Supreme Artist. Still, it is quite 
 certain that there exists an opposition between art, which 
 takes pleasure in God's work, and all those various forms 
 of religious fanaticism which condemn pleasure as sinful. 
 The healthiest temper of art is to rejoice in the sight of all 
 visible beauty, fully, heartily, and exquisitely ; the temper 
 of religious fanaticism is to turn away from all earthly 
 loveliness, and to mortify the desire of the eyes. Roman 
 Catholic piety appears to find a certain utility in art, for it 
 buys much ; but it seems to like bad art just as well as 
 good, and even to have a decided taste for certain kinds of 
 foppery as in the curling of saints' hair; or tawdri- 
 ness as in the tinsel on their garments which true art 
 disdains. Our own most earnest Protestants care very lit- 
 tle for art ; if they buy an engraving now and then, it is 
 not for any artistic quality, but for the subject, as connected 
 with their faith ; or if it be secular, for its interest as a 
 portraiture of some great man they admire, some Crom- 
 well, or Wellington, or Havelock. The reason seems to 
 be that religious enthusiasm is always so ready to be kin- 
 dled, so ready to illuminate and exalt every thing it loves 
 with its own internal light, that it does not care whether 
 the work of art be good if it only have the religious spirit, 
 or some plausible manufactured imitation of it ; and it is 
 surprising what a very poor mockery of it suffices. The 
 customs of society in matters of outward observance, to 
 which so many sceptics find it expedient to conform, make 
 it difficult to ascertain with precision, what are or have 
 been the real convictions of great artists, but amongst 
 recent ones we may note that Haydon was an extremely 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 373 
 
 religious man, who prayed almost literally without ceasing, 
 whilst Turner was a sceptic. Thomas Seddon, on the 
 other hand, was eminently pious, at least during his labors 
 in the East, but then the artistic spirit is just what is 
 absent from his works. Love of the sacred ground, rever- 
 ence for the fact, earnestness, patient industry, keenness of 
 sight, delicate skill of hand, all these he had, and exercised 
 most conscientiously, most bravely, but the spirit of art he 
 had not. Of living men it is better not to speak ; it is use- 
 less to mention those who are religious without naming 
 others who are not, and it would be wrong to expose these 
 latter to public odium on account of opinions which can 
 only be known privately, and which in no wise injuriously 
 affect their pictures. 
 
 4. As to Morality. The general opinion about the 
 morality of figure painters is this : Common sen.>e argues 
 that it is not probable that men can pass a great portion 
 of their time in the study of the female form, without 
 undergoing temptations which human nature is seldom 
 insensible enough, or resolute enough, to resist. It may, 
 however, be observed, without claiming immaculate purity 
 of life for all these artists, that the naked figure loses, 
 when seen habitually, and for purposes of serious study, 
 much of that disturbing influence over the senses which a 
 beautiful woman, unclothed, would, in other circumstances, 
 generally exercise. Arid it is only fair to say that artists, 
 as a class, are not more immoral than other men. Young 
 officers, young attorneys, young cotton manufacturers, have, 
 as a general rule, little right to reproach young painters 
 with licentiousness. 
 
 But it is not so much with morality of life that we are 
 here concerned, as with the morality of the artistic spirit 
 itself. The truth is that art, as such, has nothing to do 
 with either morality or immorality ; it illustrates both 
 with equal artistic satisfaction, provided that the quality 
 of the material be to its mind. The leaning towards 
 sensual subjects evinced by Gerome, for instance, is, we 
 are convinced, due far more to artistic predilections for 
 certain qualities of line and modelling, best found in such 
 
374 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 subjects, than to prurience of feeling. When the artistic 
 spirit is powerful, and has predilections of this kind, it is 
 apt to over-rule all other considerations. The spectator, 
 who does not share this spirit, sees immorality where none 
 was intended, and, as he sees nothing else, imagines that 
 the work was produced only for immoral purposes. On 
 the other hand, the artist, who was aiming at some purely 
 artistic triumph, some masterly feat of drawing and arrange- 
 ment of forms, and who selected the immoral subject be- 
 cause it so precisely furnished the excuse for, and called 
 for the display of, those subtleties of his craft, thinks no 
 more about the immoral conduct of his figures than a girl 
 thinks of the sexual behavior of the flowers she gathers 
 in her garden. There have been examples, no doubt, of 
 artists endowed with the true faculty, who had, notwith- 
 standing, religious convictions powerful enough to enable 
 them to withstand these artistic temptations, but such men 
 are rare, and they are not the greatest painters. It is the 
 nature of art to give to artistic considerations such impor- 
 tance that they gradually come to outweigh all others. I 
 remember taking part in a discussion in a French atelier, 
 as to the merits of a certain modern picture. The subject 
 was most immoral, but the work had valuable artistic 
 qualities, and it was on these qualities alone that the 
 discussion turned. The disputants were insensible to the 
 apparent subject, which, as they all knew, was only a 
 pretext ; their entire attention was occupied by the more 
 or less successful artistic achievement which was the real 
 purpose of the painter. 
 
 5. As to the Military Spirit. Artists like soldiers, as 
 they like priests, for their costume and action. But the 
 military and ecclesiastical costumes have both grievously 
 declined in artistic interest since the middle ages. Golden 
 cope and jewelled mitre were nobler to look upon than 
 wig and lawn sleeves, armor of steel inlaid with silver 
 and gold was better worth painting than padded coatee 
 or strapped pantaloons. Horace Vernet loved modern 
 military tailoring, however, and knew the craft down to 
 every braid and button. But are the pictures of Vernet 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 375 
 
 due to the artistic or the military spirit ? Is he not rather 
 a soldier using paint for military purposes, than a painter 
 using soldiers for artistic ends? He had a wonderful 
 memory, but of the kind which distinguishes good gene- 
 rals ; he remembered men, and uniforms, and military 
 combinations. He drew very cleverly, and colored brightly 
 and plausibly ; yet who goes to Vernet's works for their 
 artistic qualities ? 
 
 When greater artists have painted battles it has usually 
 been either for the action of the naked figure, to display 
 which they purposely stripped the combatants, or for the 
 costume of some more picturesque time or nation; not 
 from any definitely military spirit. A good many artists, 
 too, have painted battles from a love of horror and slaugh- 
 ter, which it would be grievous injustice to all noble sol- 
 diers to call their spirit. A high-minded soldier walks 
 through blood whither duty commands him, but he does 
 not wallow in it. 
 
 6. As to the Commercial Spirit. What first strikes us 
 here is the obvious reflection that commerce is the best and 
 kindest helper and friend of the Fine Arts, and yet that the 
 spirit of commerce is directly opposed to the spirit of art. 
 
 In recognizing this opposition we by no means intend 
 to detract from the utility of the commercial spirit, or to 
 imply any wish to substitute for it the artistic feeling 
 generally. It is the object of commerce to increase wealth, 
 and the result of the general spread of the commercial 
 spirit in a country is the augmentation of the national 
 power and resources. If it were to become the general 
 custom of all persons having capital enough to afford them 
 perfect leisure, to devote their whole time to the study of 
 the Fine Arts, not only would the country become so enfee- 
 bled both in money and population as to be incapable of 
 maintaining its independence, but even the Fine Arts them- 
 selves would be ruined by the diminution of that wealth, 
 a great abundance of which is absolutely necessary to 
 their support. 
 
 Men of business, whose primary object is gain, have 
 usually some difficulty in appreciating the truest artists, 
 
376 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 with whom gain is the secondary and art the first object. 
 Either they look upon the Fine Arts as a trade, or else, 
 perceiving that artists are often indifferent to their pecu- 
 niary interests, they consider them foolish children, who 
 cannot discern what is best to IDC done. No doubt a 
 commercial man who sets aside his pecuniary interest for 
 an idea, disobeys and sets aside, in so doing the com- 
 mercial principle. Some tradesmen do this knowingly 
 from time to time, as for instance, it now and then hap- 
 pens that a publisher issues a book by which he is aware 
 that he is likely to be a loser, merely because he thinks 
 that the work ought not to be stifled Or, again, a manu- 
 facturer occasionally tries a new invention less in the hope 
 that it will pay than from a desire to give ingenuity a 
 fair chance. Men who do these things often render great 
 services to humanity, but they are not likely to get much 
 reputation for wisdom in any society which recognizes 
 profit as the measure of intelligence. 
 
 Now the true artist outrages the commercial spirit ha- 
 bitually. To begin with, his choice of art at all as a means 
 of living is in itself contrary to the commercial principle, 
 because art is as a profession, too precarious to be embraced 
 by any one not prepared to endure poverty contentedly, 
 and contentment with poverty is an idea foreign to the 
 commercial mind, which is accustomed to consider it as 
 the proof of incapacity. In nine cases out of ten art is a 
 bad investment of ability, and people who make bad invest- 
 ments seldom enjoy high credit for practical sense. But 
 not only in the selection of his profession does an artist 
 outrage the commercial spirit, he often outrages it still 
 more in the way he follows his art. Instead of carefully 
 studying the market and providing what the public best 
 likes, original artists are apt to make themselves martyrs 
 to their artistic predilections. A successful tradesman 
 said to me one day, " In business we provide what sells 
 best ; that is our affair. Whether a pattern is artistic or 
 not does not concern us ; we encourage bad art if our cus- 
 tomers prefer it ; and the shopkeeper who proceeds on 
 any other principle is pretty sure to ruin himself." When 
 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 377 
 
 you buy a carpet or a wall paper and the shopman tells 
 you that the design is beautiful, what he means is that 
 it is in fashion ; and a thing gets into fashion as soon as 
 everybody thinks everybody else approves of it. The 
 temper of a real artist is not this shopman's pliant mood ; 
 it is more like the temper of William Wordsworth. He 
 offers what he believes to be the worthiest thing that he 
 is capable of doing, whether anybody likes it or not ; and 
 he will not condescend to offer any thing less worthy be- 
 cause the people like it better. This Wordsworthian con- 
 dition of mind looks self-opinionated, conceited ; would it 
 not be more graceful to yield the point, conform to prece- 
 dent, defer to the general opinion ? And artists, so far as 
 they approach to this state, are liable to be accused of 
 vanity, which is the only explanation that the world can 
 find for such strange, unaccountable ways. 
 
 A better explanation, however, does not seem unattain- 
 able. Original men appear to be endowed with an almost 
 ungovernable desire to find an outlet for their originality ; 
 and it would be as well if, instead of setting down originality 
 as folly, we were to give Heaven credit for understanding 
 the best interests of humanity when it accompanied every 
 good gift with the condition that the possessor should be 
 uneasy till he had set it forth. All artists, poets, inventors, 
 thinkers, are compelled to set forth their gifts. And this 
 is the condition of genuineness in art work. Original art 
 is not only the best, it is the only art which has any inter- 
 est. The simple expression of a real gift, however humble, 
 is better than the most learned imitation of other men's 
 labor. Nor is it vanity which makes men try to express 
 lesser talents ; vanity would rather suggest the more ambi- 
 tious notion of rivalling great men on their own ground. 
 William Hunt, not being a vain man, became what we all 
 know; had nature added vanity to his composition he 
 would never have painted such simple subjects. His life 
 was a bright triumph of that combination of humility with 
 self-reliance which distinguishes the true artist. 
 
 It follows that since a painter cannot without danger, 
 pay much attention to the question of profit, he is obliged, 
 
378 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 if he would be happy, to learn the philosophy preached 
 by so many ancient sages, and enforced by the authority of 
 no less a teacher than the Head of Christianity, that pov- 
 erty has its own blessings and compensations, and that it 
 is, in some important respects, a better condition than 
 wealth. This philosophy, wild as it may seem to the 
 worldly, has an immense attraction for noble minds. 
 The more so that it allows of a more cheerful view of 
 human life generally. If happiness is attainable by the 
 poor, we may hope that a good many more or less com- 
 pletely attain to it. But if on the other hand happiness 
 cannot possibly be procured for less than two thousand 
 pounds a year, many human beings are for ever debarred 
 from it. It seems so glorious for a human being to bear 
 bravely the suffering and contempt which poverty brings, 
 so enviable to have found the secret of an inward happi- 
 ness strong enough to dwell serenely in the midst of 
 privation, that heroic spirits are one and all in love with 
 this lofty creed. A true artist will eat bread and drink 
 water for his art ; and this temper, able to be happy 
 almost without money, often makes him careless of it 
 when it comes ; if he gets any he is apt" to be foolishly 
 generous with it, especially to brother artists who are in 
 want. This characteristic of artists tends, however, to 
 diminish as their place in general society is better recog- 
 nized. Living more in the world than they used to do 
 and less in solitude or in Bohemia, they are learning a 
 new virtue and a new vice provident habits and polite 
 selfishness. And as the Philistines only practise Chris- 
 tianity so far as it is consistent with a very high degree 
 of physical comfort, the artist who, having two coats, was 
 always ready to give one of them, if not both, to his less 
 fortunate brother, is now to be sought rather in the tav- 
 erns of disreputable Bohemia than in the pillared streets 
 of the West End. 
 
 7. As to the Industrial Spirit. The industrial principle 
 is to find out, first, how to make a thing, and then to pro- 
 duce that identical thing in the utmost possible quantities 
 and at the lowest possible rate for ever and ever. 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 379 
 
 The artistic principle is that when once a thing has been 
 perfectly well done, there is little or no use in trying to do 
 it again. If, for instance, a water-color painter felt inclined 
 to paint birds' nests, he would very likely be deterred from 
 attempting them by the reflection that Hunt had done them 
 so well. An industrial mind would endeavor to find out 
 means of producing unlimited copies of Hunt's nests in 
 color. 
 
 This is one reason the more why good artists are almost 
 always new. If a man has the artistic spirit he will either 
 seek unused material in nature, or if he appears to accept 
 the old material he will make it new by finding unthought 
 of elements and suggestions in it. 
 
 Artists, however, occasionally share the industrial spirit 
 to a certain extent ; but when they do, it degrades them 
 exactly in proportion to its degree. It would be easy to 
 mention painters, who, to save time and earn money, have 
 got more or less into habits of manufacture, producing 
 many works which are in reality only modifications of one. 
 This gives great apparent manual facility, because such 
 works are, in consequence of their frequent repetition, 
 produced with great certainty, whereas in art of a higher 
 order every new work is an untried and somewhat hazard- 
 ous experiment. 
 
 Of course the industrial principle is right in industrial 
 business, where indeed it is the only safe or possible prin- 
 ciple. Nothing can be more remote from my intention 
 than to express any thing but the most respectful admira- 
 tion for the wise maxims which commerce and industry 
 must ever apply if they would prosper. The magnificent 
 results achieved by faithful obedience to these principles 
 prove that they are sound and in harmony with natural 
 law. All I say is, that commercial and industrial wisdom 
 is not applicable to the Fine Arts, nor can the Pine Arts be 
 either effectively advanced or heartily enjoyed by a people 
 which has only that wisdom. 
 
 In the ways of labor in an artist's life, violations of in- 
 dustrial principles are frequent. Good artists are always 
 laborious, but they are seldom steadily and regularly la- 
 
380 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 borious. " "When you begin to tire of your work," said 
 Leslie, " leave off; otherwise you will probably injure it. 
 You will certainly injure yourself." Leslie was quite right 
 in speaking so to young artists ; but only fancy a cotton 
 manufacturer saying to his hands, " When you begin to 
 tire of your work, leave off!" The hard industrial law 
 requires the steadiness of a steam-engine from its servants ; 
 but then it only requires the same sort of work that steam- 
 engines may do incessant repetition of identically similar 
 acts. The exigencies of Fine Art are far heavier, not 
 merely because it requires to some extent the use of the 
 mind, but still more because it demands the unflagging ex- 
 penditure of feeling; and the feelings, more than any other 
 of our faculties, are subject to sudden and unaccountable 
 exhaustion. Fine Art work is useless unless you are in 
 the vein, and neither picture nor poem can go on with the 
 unrelaxing steadiness displayed in the weaving of a piece 
 of cotton cloth. But a prudent artist, knowing this, will 
 contrive to have easier artistic work at hand for his more 
 torpid hours. If he cannot paint passionately to-day, he 
 may yet be able to study accurately, and the picture may 
 be laid aside for some careful drawing done from nature 
 for information alone. The wise rule is never to force 
 yourself to work you are momentarily unfit for, only do 
 something, if it be but to make a note in your memorandum 
 book. . 
 
 8. As to the Intellectual Spirit. It is a tendency of the 
 present age to exalt the intellectual at the expense of the 
 perceptive and imaginative faculties. For example, if, in 
 speaking of artists, I happen to say that A. was intellectual 
 and B. not, nine readers out of ten would conclude that I 
 was praising A. and putting B. down ; whereas I might say 
 that with perfect truth and all the time reverence B. as a 
 man of the* rarest order of soul, whilst I considered A. no 
 better than a good many of us. An attorney is generally 
 more intellectual than a saint, an average artillery officer 
 is likely to be more intellectual than Garibaldi, any toler- 
 ably good critic may be more intellectual than the im- 
 mortal colorists. The art of painting does not proceed so 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 381 
 
 much by intelligence as by sight, and feeling, and invention. 
 Painters are often curiously feeble in their reasonings 
 about art, and the best painters are commonly the worst 
 reasoners. Not that their theories of art are without value ; 
 on the contrary, no art theories are so valuable as theirs if 
 only we translate them into more philosophical language, 
 which may be easily done by taking into account their 
 special points of view. The unfeigned contempt which 
 almost all ar-tists feel for critics even for the best of 
 them is partly explicable by the fact that the artistic 
 spirit can neither appreciate nor follow intellectual methods. 
 
 The elevation of scholarship, or quantity of traditional 
 acquisition, above faculty or mental flexibility and force, 
 which has always hitherto been prevalent in society, is one 
 of those inevitable pieces of injustice which it is useless to 
 combat directly, but which, we may reasonably hope, will 
 yield in due time to the gradual influences of culture. Thy 
 more serious attention given in these days to the Fine Arts, 
 and the fact that pedantry is now considered bad taste, are 
 hopeful indications. True art, which requires free and 
 healthy faculties, is opposed to pedantry, which crushes the 
 soul under a burden. 
 
 9. The Principle of Art for Art. A pernicious prin- 
 ciple in one way, that it tends to deprive painting of much 
 of its influence over the public by directing its efforts to 
 aims in whicfc the public cannot possibly take any interest, 
 and yet a principle which has always had great weight 
 with artists, which regulates the admission of pictures to 
 exhibitions, and has more influence than any other con- 
 sideration in determining the rank which an artist's name 
 must ultimately hold in the catalogue of masters. Here is 
 a recent example. Many readers will remember a picture 
 by Mr. Whistler, called " The Woman in White." The 
 work was unpleasant, and, to those who did not see the 
 technical problem which it attempted to solve, most un- 
 interesting; nevertheless it did Mr. Whistler's name good 
 amongst persons conversant with art, because it proved, on 
 his part, at least an intelligent interest in his profession. 
 The difficulty he proposed to wrestle with was that of 
 
382 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 relieving white upon white ; there was some presumption 
 in the essay, but it is quite in the artistic spirit to make 
 such attempts. The difficulty of painting white- objects 
 may be to some extent understood by the unprofessional 
 reader in this way. Nature always lets us see that a white 
 object is white, even when, from its situation, it is darker 
 than some colored objects. Nature can paint dark whites ; 
 but when painters try to paint dark whites, they generally 
 end by producing light grays, or dirty, pale, yellowish 
 browns. The difficulty is to paint a dark color which shall 
 obviously stand for white and look perfectly pure ; and this 
 difficulty is quite infinite, because to find one tint is not 
 enough. Nature has not only one dark white, she has 
 millions of various hues, produced by reflected color, which 
 all in their own place, and under their own peculiar con- 
 ditions, stand for white. 
 
 It will often be found that pictures by good painters 
 which seem to have no subject worth representing, are 
 serious endeavors to master some peculiar artistic dif- 
 ficulty ; and, when successful, these solutions of technical 
 problems are often highly valuable and interesting in a 
 certain sense. The Lorraine's great problem evidently was 
 to produce something which, by careful management, might 
 be made to look rather like the sun ; and it is generally 
 understood that he resolved that problem so far as its im- 
 mense difficulty admits of a solution. The great interest 
 of painting as a practical pursuit is, that its difficulties are 
 so infinite, that every new artist may find some untried 
 one to grapple with, and reasonably indulge the hope that, 
 if he succeeds, that conquest will give him a place in the 
 history of art development. No age has been more fertile 
 in triumphs of this kind than our own, and there is no 
 surer sign of the vigor of a school than the healthy disposi- 
 tion to seek for new conquests. So long as painters are 
 content to do what has only been done before, they always 
 do less than their predecessors. 
 
 And this principle, of art for art, makes all things which 
 deserve to be painted interesting; the question is less 
 whether the thing is of the rarest and noblest order of 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 383 
 
 beauty than what we can make of it. For instance, in 
 landscape the grand and rare effects are, considered as 
 natural effects, by far the most interesting ; but looking at 
 nature with strict reference to art, it must be admitted that 
 the problem of the right management of a few delicate 
 grays in some simple every-day effect, is quite as deep and 
 curious. I know a very intelligent amateur who has de- 
 voted years to the study of common sunshine. Indeed, it 
 may safely be asserted that any artist or critic who has 
 mastered the facts of appearance in any common object 
 under common effects, knows much. 
 
 Many painters, from an insufficient apprehension of the 
 importance of merely artistic qualities, have deceived them- 
 selves in the hope that by painting more learned and 
 thoughtful pictures, or pictures of rarer and more wonder- 
 ful subjects, or pictures of more accurate veracity than 
 their contemporaries, they might thereby achieve high 
 artistic rank. For example, we find many historical 
 painters, especially in Germany, who are thoughtful and 
 philosophical to such a degree, that they lose the healthy 
 sensuous relish for beautiful color and fair form which is 
 absolutely indispensable to a good painter ; and we have 
 landscape painters, of whom the well-known traveller, Mr. 
 Atkinson, is an instance, who endeavor to acquire artistic 
 renown by seeking some remote ground hitherto unoc- 
 cupied ; and we have young artists who spare no pains to 
 secure veracity. Now all these things are good things, 
 and there lies the danger, for if they were evidently value- 
 less no sensible man would aim at them. Thought is good, 
 novelty is good, veracity is good ; but, alas ! they cannot of 
 themselves produce art. I could easily name fine pictures, 
 priceless treasures, in which there is no thought, in which 
 there never was any novelty, and whose veracity, both as 
 to facts of history and facts of science, is so unreliable, 
 that any well-informed critic could point out falsities and 
 impossibilities by the dozen. Why, then, are such works 
 treasures ? Because, with all their faults, they have quality. 
 The men who painted them may not have been either 
 thinkers, or travellers, or historians, or men of science, but 
 
384 The Artistic Spirit. 
 
 they were artists. You or I may know more, think more, 
 observe more, but somehow, with all our efforts, we can- 
 not paint so. 
 
 The world, notwithstanding its ignorance of art, sees 
 this better than some critics and connoisseurs do, but, see- 
 ing it, draws conclusions of its own. The world sees that 
 painting is a pursuit in which thought, scholarship, infor- 
 mation, go for little ; whereas a strange, unaccountable 
 talent, working in obscure ways (a special talent as it 
 seems to outsiders, though in reality it results from a high 
 harmony of physical and mental endowments), achieves 
 the only results worth having. And the world wisely 
 hesitates before entering the arena of art. Here is a field 
 in which neither birth nor condition are of any use, and 
 wealth itself of exceedingly little ; here faculty alone avails, 
 and a kind of faculty so subtle and peculiar, so difficult to 
 estimate before years have been spent in developing it, or 
 wasted in the vain attempt to develop it where it does not 
 exist, that men having already any solid advantages in life 
 may well pause before they stake them on such a hazard. 
 
 It remains only to consider whether, in a national sense, 
 it is wise to assist in the spread of the artistic spirit. The 
 general opinion has concluded that it is. Our schools of 
 design, our art exhibitions, the great quantity of our printed 
 art criticism, all urge the country towards an art epoch, 
 which promises ultimately to be brilliant, for we have both 
 the wealth and the talent necessary for such a time. But 
 it may be doubted whether the national mind has turned 
 to art from the pure love for it. We discovered that for 
 want of artistic counsel and help, we were spending our 
 money badly every time we tried either to build a public 
 building or weave a carpet, or color a ribbon. We found 
 out that the French managed these things better, and with 
 less outlay got handsomer results, and it appeared that this 
 superiority was due to their artistic education. So we 
 said, let us study Raphael that we may sell ribbons. This 
 was not a very promising temper to start with ; we were 
 laughed at for our awkwardness, and we did not like to be 
 laughed at, so we resolved to silence derision by the acqui- 
 
The Artistic Spirit. 385 
 
 sition of art skill. Nevertheless, in spite of the commercial 
 spirit of this beginning, we are generally tending art-wards, 
 and the problem before us is whether this artistic infusion 
 will not injuriously affect the traditional character of Eng- 
 lishmen. It will modify it very considerably, rely upon that. 
 There is a difference between minds which are artistic and 
 minds which are not, so strong and decided, that nobody 
 can question the influence of art upon character. Not 
 that art always influences in the same way ; various itself, 
 it produces varied effects. But it always alters our habit- 
 ual estimates of things and men ; it alters our ways of 
 valuing things. A child in a library values those books 
 most which have gilt edges ; a book collector prizes the 
 rarest editions ; but a lover of reading for its own sake 
 neither cares for gilt edges nor rare editions, only for the 
 excellence of the matter and the accuracy of the text. 
 So is our value for men and nature affected by the artistic 
 spirit. To it, vulgar show is the gilt-edged book ; the ex- 
 traordinary is the rare edition, what it values is often very 
 humble and poor to eyes that cannot read it. It ca see- 
 majesty and dignity in many a poor laborer ; it can detect 
 meanness under the mantle of an emperor ; it can recog- 
 nize grandeur in a narrow house, and pettiness in the 
 palace of a thousand chambers. 
 
 U1U7BRSIT7 
 
 Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son. 
 
MARGARET. 
 
 By SYLVESTER JUDD. One volume. Price $1.50. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM SOME NOTABLE REVIEWS. 
 
 From the Southern Quarterly Review. 
 
 " This book, more than any other that we have read, leads us to believe in the 
 possibility of a distinctive American Literature. ... It bears the impress of New 
 England upon all its features. It will be called the Yankee novel, and rightly ; for 
 nowhere else have we seen the thought, dialect, and customs of a New England 
 Village, so well and faithfully represented. . . . More significant to our mind than 
 any book that has yet appeared in our country. To us it seems to be a prophecy 
 of the future. It contemplates the tendencies of American life and character. 
 Nowhere else have we seen, so well written out, the very feelings which our rivers 
 and woods and mountains are calculated to awaken. . . . We predict the time when 
 Margaret will be one of the Antiquary's text-books. It contains a whole magazine 
 of curious relics and habits. ... as a record of great ideas and pure sentiments, we 
 place it among the few great books of the age." 
 
 Front the North A inerican Review. 
 
 " We know not where any could go to find more exact and pleasing descriptions 
 of the scenery of New England, or of the vegetable and animal forms which give it 
 life. ... As a representation of manners as they were, and in many respects are 
 still, in New England, this book is of great value." 
 
 From the London Athenceum. 
 
 '* This book, though published some time since in America, has only recently 
 become known here by a few stray copies that have found their way over. Its 
 leading idea is so well worked out, that, with all its faults of detail, it strikes us as 
 deserving a wider circulation. . . . The book bears the impress of a new country, 
 and is full of rough, uncivilized, but vigorous life. The leading idea which it seems 
 intended to expound is, that the surest way to degrade men is to make themselves 
 degraded ; that so long as that belief does not poison the sources of experience, 
 ' all things' even the sins, follies, mistakes, so rife among men can be made 
 ' to work together for good.' This doctrine, startling as it may sound at first, is 
 wrought out with a fine knowledge of human nature." 
 
 From the Anti-Slavery Standard. 
 
 " A remarkable book, with much good common sense in it, full of deep thought, 
 pervaded throughout with strong religious feeling, a full conception of the essence of 
 Christianity, a tender compassion for the present condition of man, and an abiding 
 hope through love of what his destiny may be. ... But all who, like Margaret, 
 ' dream dreams,' and ' see visions,' and look for that time to come when man shall 
 have 'worked out his own salvation,' and peace shall reign on earth, and good- will 
 to .men, will, if they can pardon the faults of the book for its merit, read it with 
 avidity and pleasure." 
 
 From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " This is quite a remarkable book, reminding you of Southey's ' Doctor,' per- 
 haps, more than of any other book. . . . Margaret is a most angelic being, who 
 lover, everybody and whom everybody loves, and whose sweet influence is felt 
 wheiever she appears. She has visions of ideal beauty, and her waking eyes see 
 beauty and joy in every thing." 
 
 From the Christian Register. 
 
 "This is a remarkable book. Its scene is laid in New England, and its period 
 some half century ago. Its materials are drawn from the most familiar elementf 
 of every-day life. Its merits are so peculiar, and there is so much that is originaT 
 and rich in its contents, that, sooner or later, it will be appreciated. It is impossi- 
 ble to predict with assurance the fate of a book, but we shall be much mistaken 
 if Margaret does not in due season work its way to a degree of admiration seldom 
 attained by a work of its class." 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, prepaid, on receipt of f>r*ce> 
 by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, 
 
GEORGE SAND'S NOVELS. 
 
 I. MAUPRAT. Translated by VIRGINIA VAUGHAN. 
 II. ANTONIA. Translated by VIRGINIA VAUGHAN. 
 
 IH. MONSIEUR SYLVESTRE. Translated by FRANCIS 
 
 GEORGE SHAW. 
 IV. L'HOMME DE NEIGE. "(The Man of Snow.) Translated 
 
 by VIRGINIA VAUGHAN. 
 
 (OTHERS IN PREPARATION.) 
 
 A standard Library Edition, uniformly bound, in neat 16wzo volumes. Each 
 volume sold separately. Price $1.50. 
 
 SOME NOTICES OF "MAUPRAT." 
 
 "An admirable translation. As to 'Mauprat,' with which novel Roberts 
 Brothers introduce the first of French novelists to the American public, if there 
 were any doubts as to George Sand's power, it would for ever set them at rest. 
 . . . The object of the story is to show how, by her (Edmee's) noble nature, he 
 (Mauprat) is subsequently transformed from a brute to a man ; his sensual pas- 
 sion to a pure and holy love." Harper's Monthly. 
 
 " The excellence of George Sand, as we understand it, lies in her com proton- 
 s'. 3n of the primitive elements of mankind. She has conquered her way into the 
 human heart, and whether it is at peace or at war, is the same to her ; for she is 
 mistress of all its moods. No woman before ever painted the passions and the 
 emotions with such force and fidelity, and with such consummate art. Whatever 
 else she may be, she is always an artist. . . . Love is the key-note of ' Mauprat,' 
 love, and what it can accomplish in taming an otherwise untamable spirit. 
 The hero, Bernard Mauprat, grows up with his uncles, who are practically ban- 
 dits, as was not uncommon with men of their class, in the provinces, before the 
 breaking out of the French Revolution. He is a young savage, of whom the best 
 that can be said is, that he is only less wicked than his relatives, because he has 
 somewhere within him a sense of generosity and honor, to which they are entire 
 strangers. To sting this sense into activity, to detect the makings of a man in this 
 brute, to make this brute into a man, is the difficult problem, which is worked 
 out by love, the love of Bernard for his cousin Edmee, and hers for him, the 
 love of two strong, passionate, noble natures, locked in a life-and-death struggle, 
 in which the man is finally overcome by the unconquerable strength of woman- 
 hood. Only a great writer could have described such a struggle, and only a great 
 artist could have kept it within allowable limits. This George Sand has done, we 
 think ; for her portrait of Bernard is vigorous without being coarse, and her situ- 
 ations are strong without being dangerous. Such, at least, is the impression we 
 have received from reading ' Mauprat,' which, besides being an admirable study 
 of character, is also a fine picture of French provincial life and manners." Put- 
 nam's Monthly. 
 
 " Roberts Brothers propose to publish a series of translations of George 
 Sand's better novels. We can hardly say that all are worth appearing !n English ; 
 but it is certain that the ' better ' list will comprise a good many which are worth 
 translating, and among these is ' Mauprat,' though by no means the best of 
 them. Written to show the possibility of constancy in man, a love inspired be- 
 fore and continuing through marriage, it is itself a contradiction to a good many 
 of the popular notions respecting the author, who is generally supposed to be 
 as indifferent to the sanctities of the marriage relation as was her celebrated an- 
 cestor, Augustus of Saxony. . . . The translation is admirable. It is seldom that 
 one reads such good English in a work translated from any language. The new 
 series is inaugurated in the best possible way, under the hands of Miss Vaughan 
 and we trust that she may have a great deal to do with its continuance. It 
 is not every one who can "read French who can write English so well." Old 
 and New. 
 
 Sold everywhere Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of the advertised price, 
 by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
A PAINTER'S CAMP. 
 
 BY PHILIP GILBERT IIAMERTON. 
 
 In Three Books. Book I., In England ; Book II., In Scotland ; 
 Book III., In France. 1 vol. IGmo. Price $1.50. 
 
 From The Atlantic Monthly, 
 
 " They (' A Painter's Camp in the Highlands.' and ' Thoughts about Art ') are 
 the most useful books that could be placed in. the hands of the American Art 
 public. If we were asked where the most intelligent, the most trustworthy, the 
 most practical, and the most interesting exposition of Modern Art and cognate 
 subjects is to be found, we should point to Hamer ton's writings." 
 
 From The Round Table. 
 
 " Considered merely in its literary aspect, we know of no pleasanter book than 
 this for summer reading. Artistically, we consider it a most valuable addition 
 to our literature." 
 
 From The New York Tribune. 
 
 "In the pursuit of his profession as a landscape-painter, the author has not 
 hesitated to plunge into the remote and unattractive nooks and corners of nature, 
 gathering a rich store of materials for his pencil, and describing his whimsical 
 experiences with a gayety and unction in perfect keeping with tbe subject. Ilia 
 account of the practical methods by which he conquered the difficulties of the 
 position is instructive in the extreme, while the anecdotes and adventures which 
 he relates with such exuberant fun make his book one of the most entertaining 
 of the season." 
 
 From- The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 
 
 " We are not addicted to enthusiasm, but the little work before us is really so 
 full of good points that we grow so admiring as to appear almost fulsome in its 
 praise. . . It has been many a day since we have been called upon to review a 
 work which gave us such real pleasure." 
 
 From The Boston Transcript. 
 
 " The volume is divided into three books, recording the writer's experience 
 respectively in England, Scotland, and France. The volume is interesting, not 
 merely for the amount of suggestive thought and fresh observation it contains 
 bearing on the author's own profession, but for its sketches of character and 
 scenery, and its shrewd and keen remarks on topics disconnected with Art. There 
 are very few chapters of foreign travel, for instance, which are so admirable in 
 every respect as Mr. Hamerton's article on ' A Little French City ; ' and the gen- 
 eral opinions on Art given in the ' Epilogue ' are worthy the attention of all 
 painters, especially of the champions of extreme schools. We have never seen 
 any of Mr. Hamerton's pictures ; but if he paints as delightfully as he writes, he 
 must be an artist of more than common skill." 
 
 Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, jwstpaid, on receipt of price by the 
 Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
ARTHUR HELPS'S WRITIN 
 
 GS. 
 
 1. REALMAH. A Story. Price $2.00. 
 
 2. CASIMIR MAREMMA. A Novel. Price $2.00. 
 
 *. COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. Price $1.50. 
 
 4. ESSAYS WRITTEN IN THE INTERVALS OF BUS- 
 
 INESS. Price $1.50. 
 
 5. BREVIA: Short Essays and Aphorisms. Price $1.50. 
 
 From the London Review. 
 
 "The tale (REALMAH) is a comparatively brief one, intersected by the 
 conversations of a variety of able personages, with most of whose names 
 and characters we are already familiar through ' Friends in Council.' 
 Looking at it in connection with the social and political lessons that are 
 wrapt up in it, we may fairly attribute to it a higher value than could pos- 
 sibly attach to a common piece of fiction." 
 
 From a Notice by Miss E. M. Converse. 
 
 "There are many reasons why we like this irregular book (Realmah), in 
 which we should hnd the dialogue tedious without the story; the story dull 
 without the dialogue; and the whole unmeaning, unless we discerned the 
 purpose of the author underlying the lines, and interweaving, now here, 
 now there, a criticism, a suggestion, an aphorism, a quaint illustration, an 
 exhortation, a metaphysical deduction, or a moral inference. 
 
 " We like a book in which we are not bound to read consecutively, whose 
 leaves we can turn at pleasure and find on every page something to amuse, 
 interest, and instruct. It is like a charming walk in the woods in early 
 summer, where we are attracted now to a lowly flower half hidden under 
 soft moss ; now to a shrub brilliant with showy blossoms ; now to the gran- 
 deur of a spreading tree ; now to a bit of fleecy cloud ; and now to the blue 
 of the overarching -* 
 
 From a Notice by Miss H. W. Preston. 
 
 u It must be because the reading world is unregenerate that Arthur Helps 
 Is not a general favorite. Somebody once said (was it Ruskin, at whose 
 imperious order so many of us read ' Friends in Council,' a dozen years 
 ago?) that appreciation of Helps is a sure test of culture. Not so much 
 that, one may suggest, as of a certain native fineness and excellence of 
 mind. The impression prevails among some of those who do not read him, 
 that Helps is a hard writer. Nothing could be more erroneous. His man- 
 ner is simplicity itself; his speech always winning, and of a silvery dis- 
 tinctness. There are hosts of ravenous readers, lively and capable, who, 
 if their vague prejudice were removed, would exceedingly enjoy the gentle 
 wit, the unassuming wisdom, and the refreshing originality of the author 
 in question. There are men and women, mostly young, with souls that 
 sometimes weary of the serials, who need nothing so much as a persuasive 
 guide to the study of worthier and more enduring literature. For most of 
 those who read novels with avidity are capable of reading something else 
 with avidity, if they only knew it. And sucli a guide, and pleasantest of all 
 such guides, is Arthur Helps. * * Yet 'Casirrrir Maremma' is a charming 
 book, and, better still, invigorating. Try it. You are going into the country 
 for the summer months that remain. Have ' Casimir ' with you, and have 
 ' Realmah,' too. The former is the pleasanter book, the latter the more pow 
 erful. But if you like one you will like the other. At the least you will rise 
 from their perusal with a grateful sense of having been received for a time 
 into a select and happy circle, where intellectual breeding is perfect, and the 
 struggle for brilliancy unkno\vn. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of adver- 
 tised price, by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 
 
Leigh Hun/3 Writings. 
 
 THE SEER ; OR, COMMONPLACES REFRESHED. 
 " Love adds a precious Joeing to the eye." Shake- 
 speare. In two volumes. i6mo. Cloth, gilt top, 
 Price, $3.00. 
 
 Contents of " The Seer." 
 
 Pleasure; On a Pebble; Spring; 
 Color ; Windows ; Windows, con- 
 sidered from inside ; A Flower for 
 your Window ; A Word on Early 
 Rising ; Breakfast in Summer ; Anac- 
 reon ; The Wrong Sides of Scholar- 
 ship and No Scholarship ; Cricket ; 
 A Dusty Day ; Bricklayers, and An 
 Old Book ; A Rainy Day ; The East 
 Wind; Strawberries; The Waiter: 
 The Butcher; A Pinch of Snuff; 
 Wordsworth and Milton ; Specimens 
 of Chaucer ; Peter Wilkins and the 
 Flying Woman ; English and French 
 Females; English Male Costume; 
 English Women Vindicated ; Sunday 
 in London ; Sunday in the Suburbs ; 
 A Human Being and a Crowd ; The 
 
 Cat by the Fire ; Put up a Picture In 
 your Room ; A Gentleman-Saint ; 
 The Eve of St. Agnes; A " Now," 
 descriptive of a cold day ; Ice, with 
 Poets upon it ; The Piano-forte ; 
 Why Sweet Music produces Sadness ; 
 Dancing and Dancers ; Twelfth 
 Night ; Rules in Making Presents ; 
 Romance of Commonplace ; Amiable- 
 ness Superior to Common Intellect ; 
 Life After Death, Belief in Spirits ; 
 On Death and Burial ; On Washer- 
 women ; The Nightmare ; The Flor- 
 entine Lovers ; Rhyme and Reason ; 
 Vicissitudes of a Lecture ; The For- 
 tunes of Genius; Poets' Houses; 
 A Journey by Coach; Inexhaustibility 
 of the Subject of Christmas. 
 
 " ' The Seer ' is a capital companion in the traveller's pocket, and by the 
 bachelor's coffee-cup, and whenever one wishes a nibble at the good things of 
 the library at home. No one can behold the face of Nature without finding a 
 smile upon it, if he looks there through the eyes of 'The Seer.' " Boston 
 Daily A dvertiser. 
 
 "A collection of delicious essays, thoroughly imbued with the characteristics 
 of the writer's genius and manner, and on topics especially calculated to bring 
 out all the charms of his g_enial spirit and develop all the niceties of his fluent 
 diction, and worthy of being domesticated among those choice family books 
 which while away leisure hours with agreeable thoughts and fancies." 
 E. P. 
 
 " ' The Seer ' is one of the best specimens of the modern essayist's dealing 
 with the minor pleasures and domestic philosophy of life, and is a capital anti- 
 dote for the too exciting books of the hour ; it lures us to musing, and what 
 Hazlitt calls 'reposing on our sensations.'" H. T. Tuekerman. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, fast-paid, by the Publishers. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 Boston. 
 
Leigh Hunf s U^ritings. 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE SONNET. Compris- 
 ing an Essay on the Cultivation, History, and Varieties 
 of the species of poem called the Sonnet, with a Selec- 
 tion of En.glish Sonnets, now first published from the 
 original MSS. of Leigh Hunt. An Essay on American 
 Sonnets and Sonneteers, with a Selection of Sonnets, 
 by S. Adams Lee. In two volumes. i6mo. Cloth, 
 gilt top. Price, $3.00. 
 
 " The genuine aroma of literature abounds in every page of Leigh Hunt a 
 delicious Essay on the Sonnet. His mind shows itself imbued with a rich 
 knowledge of his subject, and this, illumined by the evidence of a thorough and 
 unaffected liking for it, makes him irresistible." London Saturday Review. 
 
 " As a collection of Sonnets, it is not only the fullest ever made, but by far 
 the best, even excelling the dainty little collection by Dyce, . . . and Hunt's 
 exhaustive and every way admirable introductory essay is, after all, much the 
 best part of the work. Its pages are steeped in thoughtful scholarship on this 
 special theme, and sparkle with genial and veracious criticism." R. H. Stod- 
 dard. 
 
 "A greater verbal epicurean than Leigh Hunt never lived. He luxuriated 
 over niceties of expression and revelled in a delicious image or apt phrases ; he 
 was always seeking the beautiful in neglected fields of literature ; and to renew 
 his acquaintance with the memorable sonnets of Italian and English poets was 
 simply a labor of love. He therefore wrote an essay giving the history of the 
 sonnet, and defining its conditions and possibilities, expatiated on the special 
 merits of each renowned vyriter in this sphere, and indicated the most striking 
 examples of success in artistic and effective construction or eloquent feeling as 
 thus embodied and expressed." H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 " Whether Leigh Hunt was a man of genius, or only of surpassing talent 
 is a question which we /willingly leave to the critics who find tweedledee differ 
 ent from tweedledum in kind as well as degree. We are content with the fact 
 that he has some virtue which makes us read every book of his we open, and 
 which leaves us more his friend at the end than we were before. Indeed, it 
 would be hard not to love so cheerful and kindly a soul, even if his art were 
 ever less than charming. But literature seems to have always been a gay sci- 
 ence with him. We never see his Muse as the harsh step-mother she really 
 was : we are made to think her a gentle liege-lady, served in the airiest spirit of 
 chivalric devotion ; and in the Essay in this ' Book of the Sonnet ' her aspect 
 is as sunny as any the poet has ever shown us. 
 
 " The Essay is printed for the first time, and it was written in Hunt's ol 
 age ; but it is full of light-heartedness, and belongs in feeling to a period a* 
 least as early as that which produced the ' Stories from the Italian Poets.' It 
 is one of those studies in which he was always happy, for it keeps him chiefly 
 in Italy ; and when it takes him from Italy, it only brings him into the Italian 
 air of English sonnetry, a sort of soft Devonshire coast, bordering the rug- 
 |iij? native poetry on the south." W. D. Howells, in Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 . ., Boston. 
 
 Of TELE 
 
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