% 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 Portfolio Papers
 
 Portfolio Papers 
 
 BY 
 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton 
 
 Editor of THE PORTFOLIO 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' ETCHING AND ETCHERS,' ' THE GRAPHIC ARTS,' 
 1 LANDSCAPE,' ETC. 
 
 With a Portrait of the Author etched from life 
 by Henri Manesse 
 
 LONDON 
 SEELEY &* CO., ESSEX STREET, STRAND 
 
 1889
 
 HIS-
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The publishers of the PORTFOLIO have reminded 
 me that there were several short biographies and 
 essays of mine in old numbers of that periodical 
 which it might be well to republish in a handier 
 form. I have made a selection on the principle of 
 keeping only what was of permanent interest, at 
 least, as to its subject. 
 
 Perhaps a short account of the PORTFOLIO itself 
 may not be out of place here. The success of ' Etch- 
 ing and Etchers,' first published in 1868, led me to 
 think that a periodical might be founded in Englnd 
 in which the original arts of design might be repre- 
 sented, either by original etchings or reproductions 
 of drawings by the photographic processes which 
 were then beginning to be applicable to the fine 
 arts. Before the publication of ' Etching and 
 Etchers ' there was not a single periodical in 
 England that would admit an etching, and so 
 little were publishers in sympathy with original 
 artistic expression that they looked unfavourably
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 upon pen-drawing, which could be reproduced 
 even at that time. To be considered presentable 
 to the public in a printed form, every picture or 
 drawing had to be translated by an engraver on 
 steel, copper, or wood, too frequently at the cost 
 of the artist's touch and sentiment, and sometimes 
 even with little respect for his drawing or light- 
 and-shade. At the same time, and as though there 
 had been really a dislike to originality on its own 
 account, there was no public demand for original 
 engravings executed either with the burin or the 
 etching-needle. These were appreciated by a very 
 small cultivated class, which kept its Rembrandts 
 and Diirers in private portfolios or cabinets, and 
 did not even show them to the ordinary visitor. It 
 seemed to me, in 1869, and subsequent experience 
 has fully confirmed the idea, that there was no 
 reason in the nature of things why this small cul- 
 tivated class should not be increased and extended, 
 so I conceived the idea of a periodical that would 
 admit etchings, with reproductions of drawings and 
 sketches by old and modern masters, whilst the 
 literary half of it might be devoted to the propa- 
 gation of essentially artistic ideas. I thought that 
 it might be possible to admit the public to the 
 inner temple of Art, and not to treat it eternally
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 as a profanum I'u/gns, for whose use everything 
 had to be previously adapted. 
 
 A London publisher, Mr. Richmond Seeley, 
 entered into these views, and we resolved to start 
 a periodical together. I proposed two or three 
 titles, and from these Mr. Seeley selected the 
 PORTFOLIO, which had the advantage of convey- 
 ing, by association, the idea of quietly accumulating 
 works to be kept and studied. Our enterprise had 
 very little relation to journalism, or to any tem- 
 porary excitement or sensation ; the past and 
 present were equally important to us when their 
 arts were equally good, and our only real object 
 was to make the PORTFOLIO a collection of per- 
 manent value. 
 
 A natural consequence of this entire absence of 
 the sensational element, and of the want of actua/ite, 
 was that the PORTFOLIO had to make its way slowly, 
 and in the earlier years it at one time seemed doubtful 
 whether the young periodical would live. However, 
 both editor and publisher made some sacrifices, and 
 made them, as it turned out, at the right time, for 
 the circulation rose and has since maintained itself 
 sufficiently for a healthy existence. In fact, at 
 the present day, the PORTFOLIO is the only Art 
 periodical in the English language maintaining the
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 price which is necessary for its especial purposes 
 in illustration. 
 
 I think we may fairly claim that the PORTFOLIO 
 has been of some use and has done some good in 
 making the ' outside ' public less on the outside in 
 matters of art. There is now certainly not that gulf 
 of separation that once existed between the artistic 
 and the reading world, and the PORTFOLIO has 
 done something to bridge it over. Its influence 
 has extended to other periodicals. The great French 
 magazine, L'Art, was obviously an imitation of the 
 PORTFOLIO on a larger scale, and now the English 
 Art magazines admit etchings, which before our 
 time were rigorously tabooed. Besides this, the 
 Portfolio has had some influence on illustration 
 generally, and it has encouraged the union of literary 
 and artistic cultivation, which in former times were 
 too often completely separated. 
 
 As it has been publicly affirmed that my editorship 
 of the PORTFOLIO is merely nominal, I may take 
 this opportunity of explaining the exact state of the 
 case. I have always edited the PORTFOLIO with the 
 help of Mr. Richmond Seeley, and, in fact, conjointly 
 with him. It would never occur to me to insist upon 
 the insertion of anything that could be displeasing 
 to him, and Mr. Seeley has never in a single instance
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 opposed the mildest veto from me. Nothing appears 
 in the Portfolio which is not examined and 
 approved by both of us, except in the case of 
 contributors whose work is too well known to be 
 a subject of question or doubt. Two classes of 
 contributors give me no trouble, the best and the 
 worst, but the doubtful are invariably referred to me. 
 With regard to this volume, I have let Mr. Seeley 
 have his way in publishing my portrait, so he ought 
 to let me have mine in finishing this Preface after 
 my own fashion. Perhaps in the whole history of 
 literature there does not exist another instance of 
 author and publisher who have done so much work 
 together as Richmond Seeley and I, and who have 
 done it with so little disagreement.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Part I. NOTICES OF ARTISTS. 
 
 Constable— 1873 3 
 
 Etty— 1875 39 
 
 Chintreuil— 1874 102 
 
 adrien guignet — 1874 ho 
 
 Goya— 1879 119 
 
 Part II. NOTES ON AESTHETICS. 
 
 1879 l6 3 
 
 1880 233 
 
 Part III. ESSAYS. 
 
 Style— 1881 249 
 
 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts— 1884 . . 268 
 
 The Nature of the Fine Arts— 1885 . . . 276 
 
 Can Science help Art?— 1870 285 
 
 Part IV. CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 Book Illustration— 1888 293
 
 CPJRT I. 
 
 NOTICES OF ARTISTS 
 
 B
 
 PORTFOLIO PAPERS 
 
 CONSTABLE. 
 
 THE 'Life of Constable,' by Mr. Leslie, was 
 rather a collection of well-arranged material 
 than a true biography. Leslie's desire was to make 
 Constable the narrator of his own story by means 
 of his private letters ; but the difficulty for the 
 reader is that this material, though carefully put 
 in order for his convenience, is still in the raw 
 state, so that he has the trouble of extracting the 
 essence of it for himself, which is not very easy on 
 a first perusal, nor even on a second reading, unless 
 with the help of notes. The recent acquisition di 
 two pictures by Constable for the Louvre, and the 
 increasing importance of his name in the history of 
 landscape art, have induced me to attempt a short 
 biography of him, with Leslie's material for a basis. 
 John Constable was born in the summer of 
 1776, at East Bergholt, a pleasant village in the 
 most cultivated part of Suffolk, ' situated,' as Con-
 
 4 Constable. 
 
 stable himself describes it, ' on a spot which over- 
 looks the fertile valley of the Stour, which river 
 separates that county, on the south, from Essex. 
 The beauty of the surrounding scenery, its gentle 
 declivities, its luxuriant meadow flats, sprinkled 
 with flocks and herds, its well-cultivated uplands, 
 its woods and rivers, with numerous scattered 
 villages and churches, farms, and picturesque 
 cottages, all impart to this particular spot an 
 amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be 
 found.' In the whole history of art there does not 
 exist a single instance of a landscape-painter who 
 loved his native scenery with a passion at once so 
 intense and so exclusive ; and whether it was the 
 scenery that made the artist, or the artist who lent 
 to the land of his birth that poetical consecration 
 which is the fountain of all that is most charming 
 in pictorial creation, it is certain that there existed 
 such a harmony between the place and the man, 
 that the two belonged to each other, and are hence- 
 forth inseparable in our memory. That expression 
 of Constable's, ' An amenity and elegance Jiardly 
 anyivhere else to be found', contains the utterance of 
 a life-long passion. He found in his Suffolk scenery 
 that which for him was not discoverable elsewhere, 
 the grace and charm of the native land. His dis- 
 tinction above other natives of East Bergholt was 
 to have perceived the capabilities of the trees, and 
 fields, and mills, and streams about his birthplace,
 
 Constable. 5 
 
 as material with which a painter might remain 
 permanently satisfied, and build the edifice of an 
 enduring reputation. 
 
 The early teaching which Constable received was 
 determined for him inevitably by the position of his 
 family in the well-to-do rural middle class. He was 
 taught Latin in the grammar-school kept by Dr- 
 Grimwood at Dedham, and this master saw the 
 signs of genius in his pupil, although the youth 
 attained proficiency in nothing but penmanship. 
 After this he took some lessons in French, but 
 without advancing far. In short, his literary educa- 
 tion was so limited that it only occupied a corner 
 of his mind, and left plenty of space for painting, 
 which, at the age of seventeen, had already fixed 
 itself there, never afterwards to be dislodged. At 
 this time of life Constable's most intimate friend 
 was John Dunthorne, a plumber and glazier, who 
 lived in a cottage close to the gate of his father's 
 house. Dunthorne was an enthusiastic amateur of 
 art, who gave all his leisure to the practice of land- 
 scape-painting from nature, and this similarity of 
 tastes was the cause of a close alliance. 
 
 Mr. Golding Constable, the young artist's father, 
 who had a fair property in land and mills, at first 
 desired to have him educated for the Church, and 
 then resolved to make a miller of him. Constable 
 did not feel inclined to go through the studies 
 necessary for the clerical life, though he was always
 
 6 Constable. 
 
 an attached member of the Church of England, and 
 there was an ecclesiastical element in his subsequent 
 tastes and friendships. So he became a miller in 
 his father's mills, and followed the business in a 
 quite satisfactory way for twelve months. Leslie 
 points out that this experience may have had an 
 appreciable influence on his subsequent work as an 
 artist, since the management of a windmill involves 
 continual attention to the weather, and therefore to 
 the state of the sky, which was afterwards of great 
 importance in Constable's pictures. Yes, it is prob- 
 able that this space of life passed in the windmill was 
 a part of that general experience and education 
 which formed the artist in Constable. Other in- 
 fluences soon afterwards began to operate. Sir 
 George Beaumont's mother was living at Dcdham, 
 and Constable was introduced to her and her well- 
 known son, a man who really loved art, though 
 there was a trong element of conventionalism in 
 his nature. It was at Dedham that Constable first 
 beheld a picture by Claude (now in the National 
 Gallery, with the title of The Annunciatioii) which 
 Sir George often carried about with him when he 
 travelled, and he ever after remembered the first 
 sight of a landscape by so famous an artist as an 
 important epoch in his life. Fortunately for Con- 
 stable, Sir George also possessed about thirty water- 
 colour drawings by Girtin, which the young artist 
 diligently studied by his new friend's recommenda-
 
 Constable. 7 
 
 tion, 'as examples of great breadth and truth.' These 
 early examples retained to the last their high place 
 in Constable's veneration, for his life was a con- 
 tinuous development of early-received principles and 
 impressions, unbroken by any violence of revolution. 
 
 In the year 1795 Mr. Golding Constable allowed 
 his son to go to London, with a view of ascertaining 
 'what might be his chances of success as a painter.' 
 He became acquainted with Farrington, a landscape- 
 painter, and John Thomas Smith, an engraver and 
 antiquary, whom people called ' Antiquity Smith.' 
 Both these men encouraged Constable to persever- 
 ance, and gave him valuable advice. Mr. Leslie 
 quotes an excellent saying of ' Antiquity Smith,' 
 which Constable ever afterwards remembered — a 
 saying marked with sterling good sense, and that 
 preference for the suitable which is one of the secrets 
 of the profoundest harmony in art. ' Do not,' said 
 Smith, 'set about inventing figures for a landscape 
 taken from nature ; for you cannot remain an hour 
 in any spot, however solitary, without the appearance 
 of some living thing that will in all probability accord 
 better with the scene and time of clay than will any 
 invention of your own.' 
 
 After this Constable lived alternately in London 
 and at Bergholt, giving up all his evenings to the 
 study of anatomy. Still he was not yet finally and 
 irrevocably devoted to art, for in 1797 he looks for- 
 ward, not without regret, to a life of steady business
 
 S Constable. 
 
 work, which he appears to have resumed as an 
 assistant to his father. It is only in 1799 that the 
 decision is made by which he abandons business for 
 ever, and enters as a student at the Royal Academy, 
 where he made many chalk-drawings and oil- 
 paintings from the living model. He seems to 
 have taken to copying from the elder masters, 
 which is excellent practice for a young artist when 
 he has the patience for it. During Constable's 
 early career he is always either copying something, 
 or intending or wishing to do so. In 1S00 he goes 
 to Helmingham Park, and makes sketches there, 
 and in 1801 he visits Derbyshire. In one of his 
 letters from London about this time he speaks with 
 intense affection of the scenery about his native 
 place, saying that ' he even loves every stile and 
 stump, and every lane in the village.' In 1802 he 
 takes great interest in anatomy, attends lectures on 
 the subject regularly, and makes many accurate and 
 beautiful coloured anatomical drawings of a large 
 size. He exhibited for the first time in the Academy 
 of 1802. 
 
 Amongst the favourable influences of this period 
 must be mentioned the encouragement and good 
 advice given him by the President of the Academy, 
 West. The effect on the career of an artist of a 
 single sentence spoken to him in his youth by a 
 man whom he reverences as an authority, may be 
 such as to affect the whole course of it. Here is
 
 Constable. 9 
 
 one of West's recommendations — 'Always remember, 
 sir, that light and shadow never stand still' Con- 
 stable never forgot this, and any one who knows 
 his pictures will recognise the doctrine in his work. 
 Besides this, West told his young friend to keep in 
 mind the prevailing character of every object that 
 he painted, rather than its accidental appearance — 
 a piece of advice full of the most comprehensive 
 wisdom, for it contains the whole principle of the 
 artistic interpretation of nature.* These doctrines 
 fell like seed on a good soil, and Constable had 
 other obligations to Mr. West, but the chief of them 
 was this. Dr. Fisher, an ecclesiastical friend of the 
 artist, had found him the situation of drawing-master 
 in a school, but W T est used all his influence to prevent 
 Constable from accepting it, and answered Dr. Fisher 
 himself. The elder artist well knew how impossible 
 it would have been to combine the drudgery of per- 
 petually teaching rudiments to boy-amateurs with 
 the serious studies which are necessary to success 
 in art. In a letter of Constable's, written in 1802, 
 
 * I mean as West intended it. He was not arguing against 
 what the criticism of the last century called 'accidents,' and 
 considered, as such, beneath the notice of serious art. He 
 meant that an artist ought not to forget the prevailing qualities 
 of things ; and he gave as an example, that although the sky 
 was sometimes solemn or lowering, we ought not to forget its 
 prevailing quality of brightness. The best modern art has 
 owed many of its most unquestionable successes to a kind 
 of study in harmony with this precept of 'the venerable 
 President.'
 
 io Constable. 
 
 he says that for the two years preceding he has 
 been running after pictures and seeking the truth 
 at second-hand, and he adds, ' / shall return to 
 Bcrgholt, zvhere I shall endeavour to get a pure and 
 unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may 
 employ me? In this sentence we have the one great 
 resolution of his life, the resolution which he fulfilled 
 by the entire devotion of his time and faculties 
 through many laborious years. Notwithstanding his 
 reverence for Claude, and other great artists of the 
 past, Constable had little respect for the landscape 
 art which appeared in the annual exhibitions. He 
 thought that its pervading vice was ' bravura, an 
 attempt to do something beyond the truth,' and 
 therefore he set to work from nature in a spirit 
 which, though not rebellious against the traditions 
 of the past, was entirely independent of contem- 
 porary practice. This is the characteristic in the 
 very peculiar temper of Constable which is so easily 
 misunderstood, and has been so unfairly misrepre- 
 sented. He was much less rebellious against the 
 tradition of the great masters than our own Pre- 
 Raphaelites have been, but at the same time he 
 was positively more isolated than any single mem- 
 ber of that fraternity. His position was like that 
 of an only child, who has ancestors but no brothers. 
 Of this, however, I shall have more to say when his 
 life has been fully told. 
 
 In 1803 ne made a sea-voyage from London to
 
 Constable. 1 1 
 
 Deal, and was about a month on board ship, occupy- 
 ing himself during nearly the whole time in making 
 drawings of ships in all situations, and seeing all 
 sorts of weather. During this excursion Constable 
 visited the British fleet at Chatham, when he 
 sketched the Victory in three views. The Victory 
 had just been repaired. ' She was the flower of 
 the flock,' he said. ' She looked very beautiful, 
 fresh out of dock and newly painted. When I saw 
 her they were bending the sails ; which circumstance, 
 added to a very fine evening, made a charming 
 effect.' This was two years and a half before her 
 rigging was shattered by the cannon of Trafalgar. 
 The artists of that clay were more fortunate than 
 their successors of the present in the beauty of 
 war-ships. We, who see things like the Devastation 
 encumbering the ocean with their ugliness, may 
 envy Constable his sight of that fleet which could 
 delight the eyes of painters as it stirred the hearts 
 of poets. These sketches of the Victory were used 
 by Constable afterwards for an illustration of the 
 great battle. On leaving the ship he sailed in the 
 artist lost all his sketches, a hundred and thirty in 
 number, but recovered them later. Of all losses, 
 that of sketches is the most trying to artists : they 
 bear even money losses with greater equanimity. 
 
 In 1S06 Constable's maternal uncle recommended 
 him to make a tour in Westmoreland and Cumber- 
 land, and paid his expenses. lie spent about two
 
 1 2 Constable. 
 
 months in the north, and made many sketches of 
 a large size, with fine effects of light, and shade, and 
 colour. Still, the scenery of the Lake District 
 appears to have left little impression on his mind, 
 and instead of wishing to have a residence there, 
 as Dr. Arnold did, he never revisited those hills 
 and lakes ; nor did he afterwards care to go into 
 any mountainous country, for he never saw the 
 Highlands, nor Switzerland, nor Wales. What an 
 absolute difference, in the need or taste for land- 
 scape, between the mind of Constable and the 
 mind of Dr. Arnold ! The landscape-painter said 
 * that the solitude of mountains oppressed his 
 spirits ;' and his biographer, Leslie, who so inti- 
 mately knew his tastes and feelings, tells us that 
 ' his nature was peculiarly social, and could not feel 
 satisfied with scenery, however grand in itself, that 
 did not abound in human associations. He required 
 villages, churches, farmhouses, and cottages.' On 
 the other hand, we find Dr. Arnold in Warwick- 
 shire, gazing on the dull expanse of fields eastward 
 from Rugby, and expressing his despair in the 
 pathetic complaint — ' It is no wonder we do not 
 like looking that way, when one considers that 
 there is nothing fine between us and the Ural 
 mountains.' Now it so happens that the Constable 
 country, the paradise of East Bergholt, Dedham, 
 Lavenham, and the other little places that the 
 artist loved so dearly, did lie in that very space
 
 Constable. 1 3. 
 
 between Dr. Arnold and the Ural mountains, which 
 that lover of hill-scenery considered so hopelessly 
 vacant. In all disputed matters of taste, when 
 affection has any considerable influence, the man 
 whom we ought to believe is he who speaks from 
 love. Arnold is a better authority than Constable 
 on the merits of the Lake District, but Constable, 
 on the other hand, is a better authority than Arnold 
 on the charms and qualities of eastern England. 
 ' N'ecoutez parler,' says Legouve, ' que ceux qui 
 adorent. Les froides et pales deesses qu'on appelle 
 l'equitc, 1'impartialite, ne voient qu'a travers des 
 lunettes, l'amour seul voit avec des yeux.' If a 
 painter loves a class of scenery which we look 
 upon with indifference, all the knowledge is certain 
 to be on his side of the question ; and unless we 
 resolutely shut our eyes against his teaching, he 
 will be able to make us see beauties that we were 
 blind to. 
 
 Constable's study of the figure led to two attempts 
 in sacred history, altar-pieces for Brantham and Ney- 
 land churches. I have never seen these paintings, 
 but Leslie, who knew what good figure-drawing was, 
 and who certainly had no prejudice against the 
 painter of these works, says that it is evident, from 
 visible deficiencies, that a long course of study and 
 practice would have been required before Constable 
 could have done justice, if ever, to subjects of that 
 class. He was by instinct a landscape-painter, and
 
 1 4 Constable. 
 
 therefore, in all probability, little adapted for an 
 entirely different branch of art ; it may be, even 
 less so than if his special gift had been weaker, for 
 a special gift, as it grows into predominance, always 
 atrophies the less decided gifts of its possessor. 
 After the Neyland altar-piece Constable made no 
 further attempt in that direction, but confined him- 
 self entirely to landscape, and landscape of the class 
 that had fixed his affections from the beginning. 
 His Westmoreland excursion had led to the pro- 
 duction of two or three pictures of mountain scenery, 
 but these were hardly more Constable's own subjects 
 than sacred history, and his truest enthusiasm was 
 awakened by such scenery as that of Hampshire. ' I 
 spent ten days/ he says, ' in Hants, and was de- 
 lighted beyond measure with the New Forest. I 
 think it indescribably beautiful.' Yes, that was more 
 likely to charm and interest Constable than the 
 utmost glory of mountainous landscape. Though 
 he entirely abandoned historical painting, he still 
 occasionally executed a portrait, but, as Leslie tells 
 us, with very unequal success ; for his best works of 
 the kind, ' though always agreeable in colour and' 
 breadth, were surpassed, in more common qualities, 
 by men far inferior to him in genius.' And yet it 
 may be presumed that the practice of portrait,, 
 though limited, was not without good effect upon.' 
 his own especial labour as an artist ; for portrait 
 is the best and most satisfactory kind of painting
 
 Constable. 1 5 
 
 from nature, and an excellent training in the study 
 of object -painting, with certain limited effects of 
 light and shade. 
 
 At the age of thirty-five Constable fell in love, 
 and became greatly depressed both in body and 
 mind in consequence of what appeared to be the 
 hopelessness of his attachment. The lady was Miss 
 Maria Bicknell, daughter of a solicitor to the Ad- 
 miralty, and granddaughter of the Rector of Berg- 
 holt, who opposed the match very decidedly, and 
 with reason, for at that time Constable's profession 
 was profitless. The lovers were engaged for five 
 years, and wrote each other many letters. In the 
 beginning of this correspondence the lady speaks 
 frankly of her kind and friendly feelings, but dis- 
 courages every gleam of hope, and writes with that 
 saddened wisdom which is to a lover as depressing 
 as any tone that a lady can possibly assume. ' Let 
 me, then,' she says, ' entreat that you will cease to 
 think of me. Forget that you have ever known me, 
 and I will willingly resign all pretensions to your 
 regard, or even acquaintance, to facilitate the tran- 
 quillity and peace of mind which is so essential to 
 your success in a profession which will ever be in 
 itself a source of continued delights.' The artist's 
 father also gives him some excellent practical advice, 
 in which (probably as a consequence of his own 
 observation) he hits upon the commonest impru- 
 dences of unsuccessful painters. ' If my opinion were
 
 1 6 Constable. 
 
 asked,' he says, ' it would be to defer all thoughts of 
 marriage for the present. I would farther advise a 
 close application to your profession, and to such 
 parts as may pay best. When you have hit on a 
 subject, finish it in the best manner you are able, and 
 do not in despair put it aside, and so fill your room 
 with lumber.' This is really excellent, but what 
 follows contains a pearl of good sense, which I shall 
 put in italics for the especial benefit of young artists 
 who are dissatisfied with themselves and their per- 
 formances : — ' I fear your great anxiety to excel may 
 have carried you too far above yourself, and that 
 you, make too serious a matter of the business, and 
 thereby render yourself less capable. Think less, and 
 finish as you go I Not to make too serious a matter 
 of the business is one of the secrets of happy and 
 effective workmanship in the fine arts. Quiet and 
 light-hearted labour, with something of the spirit of 
 play, carries an artist farther, and wears his mind 
 much less, than the strain of intense effort and 
 anxiety. 
 
 Notwithstanding Miss Bicknell's injunctions, the 
 lover continued his correspondence, and the lady 
 continued her friendly and sensible replies. The 
 quiet good sense of both, a little warmed, on one 
 side at least, by the fire of a very powerful though 
 suppressed passion, gives a sort of old-world charm 
 to these letters, which a modern novelist might be 
 proud to imitate completely if his art were equal
 
 Constable. 1 7 
 
 to a nature so pure and delicate as this. Miss 
 Bicknell is the wiser of the two lovers, and per- 
 ceives with great regret that Constable is unsettled 
 in his work by his attachment to herself. ' By a 
 sedulous attention to your profession ' she writes to 
 him, ' you will very much help to bestow calm on 
 my mind, which I shall look for in vain while I 
 see with sorrow how unsettled you appear, and con- 
 sequently unfitted to attend to a study that requires 
 the incessant application of the heart and head. 
 You will allow others, without half your abilities, 
 to outstrip you in the race of fame, and then look 
 back with sorrow on time neglected and oppor- 
 tunities lost, and perhaps blame me as the cause 
 of all this woe. Exert yourself while it is yet in 
 your power ; the path of duty is alone the path of 
 happiness.' 
 
 In the year 18 13 Constable's letters to Miss 
 Bicknell become more cheerful. He says that he 
 is leaving London for the only time in his life with 
 his pockets full of money, and is entirely free from 
 debt. He is quite delighted to find himself so well, 
 though he paints so many hours, but ' his mind is 
 happy when so engaged.' In 18 14 he sells two 
 pictures, a rare event with him ; but these pictures 
 are landscapes fairly sold in the open market of art, 
 not portraits commissioned by friends and patrons. 
 This greatly encouraged him to persevere in his 
 own department of the art. In 181 5 Miss Bicknell 
 
 C
 
 1 8 Constable. 
 
 writes a delightful little note, informing her lover 
 that the parental interdict is at last removed, and 
 he may see her under her father's roof. Such, how- 
 ever,, is the mixture of gladness and sorrow in the 
 lives of mortals, that within a very short time from 
 this increase of happiness Constable lost his mother, 
 and a few days after this great bereavement Miss 
 Bicknell lost hers. The relation between Constable 
 and his mother had always been one of the most 
 tender attachment, and she had furthered, with true 
 and kindly sympathy, the interests which touched 
 him, most nearly, and were dearest to his heart and 
 his ambition. It is sad that no far-seeing prophet 
 could predict to her, with the assurance which makes 
 doubt impossible, the present lustre of her son's 
 name, his place in public and private collections, 
 and the contests over his once-neglected landscapes 
 in the great sale-rooms of the world. 
 
 The correspondence between the lovers went on 
 in the same virtuous and amiable manner. Here 
 is a little specimen of it, curiously illustrating the 
 mixture of moral and religious feeling with devoted 
 affection and severe self-government which pre- 
 dominates in these letters : — 'I am happy to hear 
 that your father is so friendly and kind to you. I 
 shall always venerate him for his goodness to you, 
 who are all the world to me. I am sure you will 
 believe me, my dear Maria, when I say that I allow 
 no bad disposition, nor any wrong feeling, to remain
 
 Constable. 1 9 
 
 in my heart towards any one, for both our sakes. 
 For should it be, as I trust it is, God's good pleasure 
 that we should pass our lives together, it will be 
 but sensible conduct, as well as a religious duty, to 
 have as little to disturb our peace as possible ; for 
 as life advances our trials will increase, and at the 
 end all our ill-conduct must be accounted for.' The 
 quaint, old-fashioned simplicity of thought and feel- 
 ing in this passage, so different from the tone of 
 to-day, so impossible for us, may seem rather odd 
 and strange, and not altogether remote from the 
 ridiculous ; yet how thoroughly good, and sound, 
 and respectable a state of feeling it is ! In all that 
 is known to us about the love-affairs of men of 
 genius, there is no story of constancy and fidelity 
 more charming than this of John Constable and 
 Maria Bicknell. There is more to excite emotion 
 in the sadder history of Ampere and his Julie, but 
 no one who has read the two correspondences with 
 attention will doubt that Constable was better loved 
 than Ampere, or certainly better understood. Con- 
 stable's engagement might have been prolonged 
 until the death of Miss Bicknell's grandfather, Dr. 
 Rhudde, the Rector of Bergholt, who always per- 
 sistently opposed it, had not the lady herself fixed 
 the wedding-day (2nd October, 18 16) on her own 
 responsibility. Three years later, the irreconcilable 
 Dr. Rhudde died, and bequeathed them 4000/. 
 
 Leslie tells us that Constable's fondness for
 
 20 Constable. 
 
 children exceeded that of any man he ever knew, 
 and he was kept very happily supplied with these 
 treasures, which he nursed with untiring zeal. He 
 attained his utmost skill as a landscape-painter in 
 the earlier years of his marriage, and yet remained 
 altogether unnoticed by the public, which had its 
 own favourites, now for the most part forgotten. 
 In 1 8 19 his large picture, A Scene on the River 
 Stour (the picture with a white horse), attracted 
 some attention, but it was purchased by a friend, 
 Archdeacon Fisher ; partly, no doubt, from a sincere 
 appreciation of its merits, but also from a desire to 
 be of service to an artist for whom Mr. Fisher had 
 the warmest personal regard. The same good friend 
 and admirer bought another large Constable in the 
 year 1820, as a present for a solicitor who had 
 rendered him some services. The price of these 
 pictures was a hundred guineas each, which is the 
 lowest price that can be considered remunerative 
 for works of that size. The money, no doubt, was 
 useful to Constable, but Mr. Fisher's intelligent 
 appreciation was even still more beneficial to him 
 at a time when he greatly needed a little moral 
 support and encouragement. ' Believe me, my dear 
 Fisher,' he says in a letter, ' I should almost faint 
 by the way when I am standing before my large 
 canvasses, were I not cheered and encouraged by 
 your friendship and approbation. I now fear I shall 
 never make a popular artist.' Then we find those
 
 Constable. 2 1 
 
 little bitter bits that come from the unsuccessful. 
 ' The art will go out', Constable writes ; ' there will 
 be no genuine painting in England in thirty years ;' 
 and in another letter he says, ' Should there be a 
 National Gallery (which is talked of), there will be 
 an end of the art in poor old England, and she will 
 become, in all that relates to painting, as much a 
 nonentity as every other country that has one.' 
 Then he asks, with reference to a picture just 
 finished, whether he had not better grime it down 
 with slime and soot, as a connoisseur would probably 
 prefer filth and dirt to freshness and beauty. This 
 last boutade was fully justified by what happened 
 much later, when a dealer or auctioneer actually 
 did cover one of Constable's pictures (the Waterloo 
 Bridge) with a coat of common blacking, fixed with 
 varnish, to please the connoisseurs, who considered 
 it a decided improvement. Still, in spite of much 
 discouragement, he believes in his own powers and 
 appreciates his own work, as every true artist both 
 does and ought to do. 'My Cathedral,' he writes 
 to Fisher, ' looks uncommonly well ; it is much 
 approved of by the Academy, and, moreover, in 
 Seymour Street. I think you will say, when you 
 sec it, that I have fought a better battle with the 
 
 Church than old H c, B m, and all their 
 
 coadjutors put together. It was the most difficult 
 subject in landscape I ever had on my easel. I 
 have not flinched at the windows, buttresses, &c,
 
 2 2 Constable. 
 
 but I have still kept to my grand organ colour, and 
 have as usual made my escape in the evanescence 
 of the chiaroscuro. Calcott admires my Cathedral ; 
 he says I have managed it well.' 
 
 Constable enjoyed his visits to friends who were 
 interested in art, especially to Archdeacon Fisher 
 and Sir George Beaumont. At Cole-Orton Hall 
 (Sir George's house) the artist cordially appreciated 
 the good social qualities of his host, and enjoyed 
 the works of art that were collected there ; but the 
 two friends did not exactly agree on artistic ques- 
 tions, Sir George being much more traditional in 
 his tastes than Constable was, though even Con- 
 stable, as a critic, was more traditional than is gene- 
 rally supposed. The host believed in pictures as 
 he found them ; the guest did not avow that open 
 infidelity which startled the world at a later period 
 in the writings of a Graduate of Oxford ; but he 
 doubted whether the works of the infallible Poussin 
 had reached us in such condition that we might 
 receive that unquestionable teaching in its purity. 
 Sir George placed a small landscape by Poussin 
 on his easel close to a picture he was painting, 
 and said : ' Now, if I can match these tints I am 
 sure to be right.' ' But suppose, Sir George,' replied 
 Constable, ' Gaspar could rise from his grave, do 
 you think he would know his own picture in its 
 present state ? or if he did, should we not find it 
 difficult to persuade him that somebody had not
 
 Constable. 23 
 
 smeared tar or cart-grease over its surface, and then 
 wiped it imperfectly off?' This is one anecdote out 
 of several in which these two figures of the amateur 
 and the painter stand for and represent the two 
 distinct and hostile classes of the conventionalists 
 and the naturalists in art. The power of conven- 
 tional beliefs over the human mind considerably 
 surpasses that of ocular evidence (well-known in- 
 stances of this might be cited from the history of 
 medicine), and it is not surprising that a man like 
 Sir George Beaumont, who had the genuine con- 
 ventional disposition, should have believed that a 
 painted landscape ought to look like a Cremona 
 fiddle, or should have retained his opinion after 
 Constable had laid such an instrument on the green 
 lawn in front of Cole-Orton Hall. It is in this part 
 of Constable's life that we have the famous anecdote 
 about the brown tree. Everybody interested in land- 
 scape-painting knows that Sir George Beaumont 
 asked Constable whether he did not find it very 
 difficult to determine where to place his brown tree, 
 and that Constable replied, ' Not in the least, for I 
 never put such a thing into a picture !' These stories 
 help us to understand Constable's true position in 
 the history of art ; his work was a practical revolt 
 against the conventionalism of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and one of many dissolvent or delivering forces 
 which have at length enabled us to sec nature with- 
 out spectacles. Sir George Beaumont's spectacles
 
 24 Constable. 
 
 were coloured brown, and we who have been accus- 
 tomed for twenty years to colour of an exceeding- 
 frankness (not to say crudity) can, of course, very 
 easily see that the elegant amateur of Cole-Orton 
 had half blinded himself by prejudices that do not 
 impede our eyesight in the least. It may be well 
 for us, however, to remember that conventionalism 
 may take an infinite variety of forms, and that it 
 may establish itself just as easily in the crudest and 
 rawest greens as in the dullest of browns or greys. 
 Constable was not conventional, and yet a conven- 
 tional school might be established in imitation of 
 him. Even the most rigid and absolute naturalism 
 would become conventional so soon as it interfered 
 with the free expression of individual preferences 
 and feelings. Sir George loved both art and nature, 
 but there was a deferential and traditional element 
 in his mind which led him to respect certain artists 
 who were considered authoritative with a degree of 
 veneration which limited his insight into nature. 
 Indeed, although Sir George Beaumont was a sin- 
 cere amateur of art, a man capable by constitution 
 of taking the most unaffected delight in the works 
 of great artists whom he appreciated, he was not 
 himself an original artist, and entirely lacked that 
 audacity which, as Goethe observed, is one of the 
 characteristics of true artists. Constable, on the 
 other hand, possessed this quality of audacity in 
 the most eminent degree, and was as well fitted in
 
 Constable. 25 
 
 this respect as either Turner or Wordsworth to be 
 a soldier in the great struggle by which living artists 
 have been emancipated from the authority of the 
 dead, or rather from the tyranny of contemporary 
 conventionalism which made use of dead men's 
 names to hinder the work and repress the aspira- 
 tions of the living. 
 
 The most valuable of Constable's friendships ap- 
 pears to have been that of Archdeacon Fisher. The 
 Archdeacon really appreciated Constable's art, which 
 Sir George Beaumont did not, and he loved Constable 
 with a warm, personal affection. He was very keen 
 and intelligent — his letters prove this — and his con- 
 versation must have been very interesting, for he was 
 closely observant of human nature. Here is a phase 
 of his, rather severe, yet containing a great deal of 
 truth, — ' Men do not purchase pictures because they 
 admire them, but because others covet them.' Fisher 
 encouraged Constable when hardly any one else did, 
 and the encouragement came in the most helpful of 
 all forms, for it was not material wholly, nor yet wholly 
 spiritual, but the happiest mixture of cheques and 
 kind, intelligent letters. Constable would sometimes 
 give himself an invitation to Fisher's house, which is 
 quite enough to prove the delicacy of his friend's 
 encouragement ; for Constable was a proud and 
 sensitive person, with all the characteristics of those 
 who know that they arc not adequately appreciated. 
 
 In 1826 he painted the Cornfield, which may be
 
 2 6 Constable. 
 
 mentioned more particularly than his other works of 
 that time, as it is now in the National Gallery. Con- 
 stable writes in a letter, — ' I have despatched a large 
 landscape to the Academy, upright, of the size of the 
 Lock, but a subject of a very different nature — inland 
 cornfields, a close lane forming the foreground. It is 
 not neglected in any part. The trees are more than 
 usually studied, the extremities well defined, as well 
 as the stems. They are shaken by a pleasant and 
 healthful breeze at noon : 
 
 " While now a fresher gale, 
 Sweeping with shadowy gusts the fields of corn," &c. 
 
 I am not, however, without my anxieties, though I 
 have not neglected my work or been sparing of my 
 pains. . . . My picture occupied me wholly. I could 
 think of and speak to no one.' It might have been 
 some consolation to Constable to know that the Corn- 
 field would represent him in the National Gallery, if 
 he had not been so strongly prejudiced against all 
 National Galleries. 
 
 He loved his children with all that true parental 
 feeling which no mere sense of duty can ever imitate. 
 He called them pet names, of course, and these pet 
 names have all that wonderful originality which 
 marks the true creations of the innermost sentiment 
 of home. Thus he calls his boy William, not Billy, 
 according to ordinary custom, but Belim ; and there 
 is a charming anecdote of Belim which is worth pre-
 
 Constable. 27 
 
 serving, even in so brief a biography as this. He was 
 staying with Archdeacon Fisher, and the Archdeacon 
 writes to his papa, — ' When your pet, Belim, repeats 
 his Catechism, we cannot make him say otherwise 
 than, "and walk in the same fields all the days of my 
 life." He might have a worse idea of happiness.' 
 To this Constable answers, — ' The anecdote of dear 
 Belim is very pretty. Depend upon it, the love of 
 nature is strongly implanted in man. I have lately 
 been in Suffolk, and have had some delightful walks 
 " in the same fields." Bless the dear boy ! our ideas 
 of happiness are the same, and I join with you in 
 praying that he may never seek it in less hallowed 
 places.' 
 
 Up to the close of the year 1827 Constable's life 
 had been decidedly a happy, though often an anxious 
 one. The world's neglect had no doubt, to some 
 extent stiffened and hardened his character (not to- 
 wards those he loved, I do not mean that, but towards 
 the world), but he had such an extraordinary gift of 
 self-reliance that he could work on in spite of this. 
 He had also been extremely fortunate in his mar- 
 riage, and his paternal instincts were so strong that 
 his family of seven children gave him a happiness far 
 surpassing any anxiety they may have cost him. The 
 year 1828, however, brought a shadow on his life that 
 never afterwards quitted it. His beloved wife, Maria, 
 became seriously ill of a malady which turned out to 
 be pulmonary consumption, and after the usual suffer-
 
 28 Constable. 
 
 iners she died. Their union had been too perfect for 
 the happiness of the survivor, and although Constable 
 inherited a good fortune from his wife's father, and 
 was elected a Royal Academician in the following 
 year, he could never fully enjoy either wealth or 
 dignity without the companionship of her who had 
 been to him so true a wife and friend. The irony of 
 fortune has seldom been more strikingly illustrated 
 than in the concurrence of these events. Ease and 
 dignity come at last to the long-neglected artist ; at 
 last he can stand before a large canvas without 
 anxiety, sure that it will be well hung in the 
 Academy, and indifferent to the sale of it ; but then 
 the wife who had shared with him the long years of 
 discouragement is no longer there to congratulate 
 him, as a loving woman only can congratulate, and to 
 give sweetness to his peace. He had peace and 
 dignity for his declining years, but the dignity was 
 lonely, and the peace a sudden calm. On the day of 
 his election he said, ' It has been delayed until I am 
 solitary, and cannot impart it.' 
 
 Many will remember the very fine mezzotint 
 engravings which were executed by that admirable 
 engraver, Mr. Lucas, from various pictures or designs 
 by Constable, and published under the title ' English 
 Landscape.' This was a scheme of Constable's, in- 
 tended by him to perpetuate and extend the know- 
 ledge of his peculiar art, and to present his labours 
 to the world in that mutually helpful association
 
 Constable. 29 
 
 which is impossible with scattered canvases. The 
 plan, in a word, was a collected and cheaper edition 
 of Constable's ceuvre, designed to be accessible to the 
 general public ; but it soon became evident that the 
 general public cared very little for ' English land- 
 scape,' and the want of success attending this pub- 
 lication was certainly one of the bitterest disappoint- 
 ments of the artist's life, though he bore it, of course, 
 with the fortitude of a manly nature. The failure in 
 sale cannot be attributed to want of merit, either 
 in the painter or the engraver. Constable's work 
 was admirably adapted for engraving, from its fine 
 arrangements of light and shade, and of all the 
 kinds of engraving mezzotint was most suitable to 
 it, whilst of all the mezzotint engravers who ever 
 lived, David Lucas was the most thoroughly com- 
 petent for such a piece of work as that which 
 Constable entrusted to his accomplished hand. The 
 project had everything in its favour except popular 
 interest, but the want of this made it commercially 
 a failure. The truth is, that any serious interest 
 in that purest landscape art which is dependent 
 upon the art alone for its attraction, presupposes a 
 degree of culture which is rare even in our own day, 
 and which in Constable's time, when England had 
 half her present population and a quarter of her 
 present wealth, must have been quite insufficient to 
 pay for a work like that which he undertook. He 
 felt the neglect, however, very keenly. One day he
 
 30 Constable. 
 
 wrote to Lucas : ' Bring me another large Castle, 
 or two, or three, for it is mighty fine .... every- 
 body likes it. But I should recollect that none but 
 friends see my things ; I have no doubt the world 
 despises them.' A little later, the feeling of dis- 
 couragement determines the painter (who was his 
 own publisher) to limit the extent of his venture 
 to the work already begun. ' My plan is to confine 
 the number of plates to those now on hand ; I see 
 we have about twenty. ... It harasses my days, and 
 disturbs my rest at nights. The expense is too 
 enormous for a work that has nothing but your 
 beautiful feeling and execution to recommend it. 
 The painter himself is totally unpopular, and ever 
 will be on this side the grave ; the subjects nothing 
 but the art, and the buyers wholly ignorant of that. 
 * . . I want to relieve my mind of that which 
 harasses it like a disease.' This is not a happy 
 state of feeling for an artist towards the close of 
 his career, who knows that he has completely 
 expressed himself, and that his utmost skill has 
 failed to awaken any general interest in the public. 
 Constable was heartily appreciated by a few friends, 
 such as Leslie and Fisher, and a few others, and 
 his pictures had been understood in France by the 
 younger artists of the day ; but he had not touched 
 the public in his own country, and knew that he 
 ' could never be popular on this side the grave.' 
 In 1832 he wrote, 'My limited and abstracted art
 
 Constable. 3 1 
 
 is to be found under every hedge and in every lane, 
 and therefore nobody thinks it worth picking up ; 
 but I have my admirers, each of whom I consider 
 a host.' Sometimes, in moments of depression, 
 the want of popularity was felt more keenly: 
 ' Every gleam of sunshine is withdrawn from me, 
 in the art at least. Can it be wondered at, then, 
 that I paint continual storms ? ' However, the 
 sturdy, self-reliant independence of vulgar opinion, 
 remained with him to the last. He knew the value 
 of his own work, and had a proper contempt for 
 
 the judgment of the ignorant. ' Mr. , an 
 
 admirer of commonplace, called to see my picture, 
 and did not like it at all, so I am sure there is 
 something good in it! In another letter he says, 
 ' I have lately painted a heath that I prefer to 
 any of my former efforts ; it is about two feet six, 
 painted for a very old friend, an amateur, who 
 well knows how to appreciate it, for I cannot paint 
 doicn to ignorance.' In the year 1825 he wrote, 
 ' My Lock is now on my easel ; it is silvery, windy, 
 and delicious ; all health, and the absence of every- 
 thing stagnant, and is wonderfully got together . 
 the print will be fine.' Happily for Constable, he 
 was sustained in his labour by the certain know- 
 ledge that his work was good in its own kind ; that 
 knowledge which is the truest and best consolation, 
 often indeed the only consolation, of those who are 
 endowed with the isolating gift of originality.
 
 32 Constable. 
 
 He had not looked forward to a happy old age, 
 but he did not attain old age. He died on the 31st of 
 March, 1837, in his sixty- first year, and suddenly, 
 from the effects of indigestion, there being no dis- 
 ease (as was afterwards ascertained by a post- 
 mortem examination) sufficient to account for the 
 accident. The day before his death Constable had 
 been busy finishing a picture of Arundel Mill and 
 Castle, one of his best and brightest works, which 
 clearly proves that there could have been no mental 
 decadence. A painfully remarkable coincidence is 
 noticed by Mr. Leslie, which has almost the cha- 
 racter of a presentiment of approaching death. In 
 his very last letter of invitation to his attached 
 friend the landscape-painter writes, ' Prithee come, 
 " life is short, friendship is sweet ; " these were the 
 last words of poor Fisher to me in his last invi- 
 tation.' And so Constable quoted them in his last 
 invitation. 
 
 7ff 7fc 'I? "^ -fr 
 
 The life that we have just been studying, though 
 not very rich either in incident or in variety of 
 feeling, must ever retain a deep interest of a 
 peculiar kind. Constable was a discoverer in art, 
 and, like every innovator, had to wait long for 
 any public recognition. Even at the time of his 
 death his reputation was as nothing in comparison 
 with what it is to-day ; and unless be had attained 
 the utmost limits of human longevity he could
 
 Constable. 33 
 
 never have taken, as a living artist, that place 
 which now belongs to him as a name in the 
 history of painting. Was he a great artist ? I 
 see that Mr. Wilson, in giving the Bay of Wey- 
 mouth to the Louvre, calls the author of that 
 picture ' the greatest of English landscape-painters,' 
 but this is the exaggeration of a worshipper. The 
 rank of Constable may be ascertained by a serious 
 examination of his claims, but it cannot be settled 
 by what amounts simply to the statement of a 
 strong preference, as in Mr. Wilson's case, or an 
 equally decided repugnance, as in the case of Mr. 
 Ruskin. The qualities which mark true greatness 
 in the fine arts are high imaginative power in 
 combination with splendid executive accomplish- 
 ment, and they always include a strong sense of 
 the sublime in nature. Now it would be unjust 
 to affirm that Constable was entirely destitute of 
 the imaginative faculty, for there is considerable 
 originality of invention in the use of his materials ; 
 but in the whole range of his works which are 
 known to me there certainly does not occur one 
 single instance, either of that noble imagination 
 which elevates the mind of the spectator to the 
 exalted region of sublimity, or of that deeply and 
 tenderly sympathetic imagination which can plunge 
 us in melancholy reverie and moisten our eyes with 
 tears. Leslie said that the art of Constable gave 
 him 'a great delight, a delight distinct from, and 
 
 D
 
 34 Constable. 
 
 he almost thought superior to, that which he received 
 from any other pictures whatever ; ' and when Leslie 
 said this we may be sure that he felt it, and that 
 it was not any temporary feeling-, but a feeling 
 which had formed a part, and an essential part, 
 of his own aesthetic experience. But the secret of 
 this delight may be expressed in a single word — 
 refreshment. Leslie was himself continually occu- 
 pied with a kind of study which impelled him, by 
 an inevitable reaction, to seek refreshment in pas- 
 torals ; and as he had the keenest appreciation of 
 the genuine, the pastorals of Constable delighted 
 him,, as being the most genuine of pastorals. The 
 life which Leslie constantly studied in drawing- 
 rooms and in the theatre was a refined and artificial 
 existence, and he went from this to the landscape 
 world of Constable as a Londoner goes out into 
 the country, finding everything there which was not 
 to be found in the polished society that he painted, 
 and in the inventions of tailors, milliners, architects, 
 and gardeners, with which that society was clothed, 
 and sheltered, and surrounded. Constable had the 
 strongest dislike to all the things that Leslie 
 habitually worked with ; he said that the great 
 world was not made for him, nor he for it, and 
 that a gentleman's park was his aversion. He was 
 rustic to the heart, a Suffolk miller, knowing rural 
 things down to the minutest detail, and loving them 
 with an intense, a concentrated, and an exclusive
 
 Constable. 35 
 
 affection. And of all pictures that ever were painted, 
 Constable's pictures are the most thoroughly and 
 purely rural. He painted the crops and the weather, 
 and windmills that would turn round, and water- 
 mills that could be tenanted, and canals with locks 
 and barges that were good for their rough service. 
 Even in his very manner of work, so utterly original 
 that there is no precedent for it in any former 
 style of painting, there was a strange and profound 
 harmony with the rusticity of the painter's heart. 
 It may be rude and empirical, as if some farmer 
 endowed with genius had got palette and brushes, 
 and set to work by the light of nature and inspira- 
 tion, but it is always perfectly clear from the one 
 vice which is most out of harmony with rural 
 feeling, for at least it is never superfine. These 
 pastorals are not the pastorals of Florian, but are 
 redolent of the genuine English country, with its 
 fresh spring verdure, its gusty winds, its frequent 
 showers, its flying shadows, and foliage restlessly 
 glittering. 
 
 The influence of Constable in the history of land- 
 scape may be found ultimately to be one of the 
 most widely traceable and one of the most enduring 
 of all such personal influences. He is the father of 
 modern French landscape, which in its turn affects 
 more or less decidedly the practice of every other 
 nation. Indeed, although Turner has been a great 
 deal more engraved than Constable, and much more
 
 36 Constable. 
 
 talked about, and although Turner's life-work con- 
 tains a thousand times the quantity of suggestive 
 ideas that Constable's does, still it may be found 
 ultimately that Constable has a greater effect upon 
 practical landscape-painting. No influence could be 
 healthier than his. He saw the kind of landscape 
 which Nature had formed him to appreciate, with 
 the originality of perception which belongs to genuine 
 feeling alone, and he brought the art of painting 
 much more into harmony with certain aspects of 
 natural landscape — common aspects, but not the 
 less worth painting on that account — than it had 
 ever been before his novel and rather perilous ex- 
 periments. No one who has reflected upon the 
 nature of artistic discovery will suspect me of any 
 desire to detract from the honour which is due to 
 Constable, if I venture to express the opinion that 
 the best effects of his innovations have not been dis- 
 played so much in his own works as in those of some 
 subsequent artists, who have profited by his origin- 
 ality and courage, and worked out in tranquillity the 
 problems that he suggested. His greatest merit is 
 to have so clearly perceived that landscape was not 
 simple in its texture, like surfaces of ebony or marble, 
 but had a spotted complexity quite peculiar to itself, 
 in which there was an endless variety of colour and a 
 moving play of light. His trees are never conventional 
 in any way, though he painted at a time when conven- 
 tionalism m foliage was established in great authority-
 
 Constable. 3 7 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose, as Mr. Ruskin sup- 
 posed, that Constable had an entire contempt for the 
 works of others because he dreaded the effects of a 
 National Gallery, and did not, in his own painting, 
 adopt the manner of any of his predecessors. The 
 truth is, that Constable had a degree of reverence for 
 those who were reputed to be great masters in land- 
 scape, which curiously contrasts with the avowed 
 heresy of the author of 'Modern Painters.' He 
 studied Claude whenever he could, and copied him 
 very industriously, always with the most profound 
 respect. Constable believed that the famous land- 
 scape-painters of the seventeenth century were men 
 to be held in high honour, but only imitated in their 
 habits of reference to nature. Indeed, to most artists 
 of the present day, Constable's respect for classical 
 landscape would appear rather excessive, and few 
 now living would share it unreservedly. Notwith- 
 standing his originality, his mind was in many re- 
 spects a traditional and not a sceptical mind. It 
 was strongly imbued with the traditions of religion 
 and patriotism ; it was at the same time imbued with 
 the traditions of art. But he had that practical in- 
 dependence which is compatible with respect for 
 what has been done by others, and quite distinct 
 from the narrowness of obstinacy or the stupidity 
 of unteachablcncss. So far from resisting the 
 teaching of Claude and Poussin, he sought it with 
 reverent labour ; but in the presence of Nature he
 
 38 Constable. 
 
 made no conscious reference to picture-galleries, 
 willingly, indeed, forgetting them, yet retaining the 
 general effects of the education he had gathered 
 there. It may fairly be added, in defence of Con- 
 stable, that, so far from going to nature in a spirit 
 of unteachableness, he went there in the hope and 
 belief that, if his mind were but sufficiently humble 
 and observant, God would reveal to him something 
 both beautiful and new. Indeed, the whole temper 
 and character of Constable were admirable for their 
 combination of unshakable self-reliance with the 
 heartiest respect for merit in other men. He was 
 not entirely free from certain acerbities, which are 
 the natural and almost inevitable consequence of 
 giving one's best energies to a pursuit which few 
 are qualified to appreciate ; but it is agreeable to 
 remember, that though he never knew the sweets 
 of popularity, he enjoyed for many years what is 
 far better worth having — the entire devotion of a 
 high-minded and admirable woman, and the life- 
 long friendship of two or three earnest and culti- 
 vated men.
 
 ETTY. 
 
 THE reader, in this age of communication, has 
 probably visited the dignified eld capital of 
 Yorkshire, made the curious and interesting circuit 
 of the mediaeval walls, passed under the great ' bars ' 
 or gates, and admired the famous Minster ; but did 
 the reader ever, whilst studying these remains of the 
 second mediaeval city in the kingdom, give a thought 
 to a child that was born there in quite recent times^ 
 and who returned there in mature manhood to die, 
 after having become a famous painter in the capital ? 
 I humbly confess, that during several visits to York 
 I never once thought of William Etty ; and yet he 
 loved the city with a proud, affectionate sense of 
 citizenship, which never left him. There must be a 
 reason for this, of course, as there is for everything. 
 Nobody could go to Melrose without thinking of 
 Scott, to Rydal without thinking of Wordsworth, 
 to Weimar without thinking of Goethe ; and even 
 in the case of much less celebrated people the sight 
 of the place where they were born and died has a 
 decided tendency to refresh our memory about them, 
 and induce us to learn more than we knew before. 
 In these cases there is, however, some stronger 
 association of ideas than the mere facts of death
 
 40 Etty. 
 
 and birth. The local hero has belonged to the 
 locality by his life and work, as well as by the 
 accident of being born there. It is very possible 
 that a cultivated Englishman might not think of 
 Gibbon at Putney, where he was born ; but it is 
 impossible for him to forget Gibbon at Lausanne, 
 where he pursued his most profitable studies and 
 wrote his most important work. The artistic con- 
 nexion between Etty and York is untraceable. He 
 had a passionate admiration for York Minster, but 
 its architecture had no influence on his painting, 
 nor was there any visible influence of the surround- 
 ing landscape upon his art. We may go even 
 farther than that, and say that although Etty was 
 a figure-painter, the life of the men and women 
 he had known in Yorkshire does not appear to 
 have interested him in any picturesque aspect. 
 Thus there is no land of Etty as there is a land 
 of Scott, a land of Burns, or, as in connexion with 
 painting, there is a land of Constable ; and there 
 is no special reason why we should be more re- 
 minded of him at York than at Manchester : indeed, 
 we are more likely to think of him at the Lancashire 
 town, on account of the large picture possessed by 
 the Royal Institution there. 
 
 William Etty was born in York on the ioth of 
 March, 1787, the house being No. 20 Feasegate. 
 This house was still standing in 1855, but I do 
 not know whether it has been preserved since then,
 
 Etty. 4 r 
 
 and (having always forgotten all about Etty when 
 in York) am not able to describe it. All we know 
 is, that Etty's birthplace was not one of the now 
 rare mediaeval houses ; it belonged to the eighteenth 
 century, like his father and mother. During the 
 painter's infancy Feasegate was a good street for 
 business, and his parents carried on an active trade 
 in gingerbread. His father was a miller, and his 
 mother managed the shop-keeping part of their 
 trade. She worked hard, taking her full share of 
 those labours and duties which are laid upon a 
 poor couple with a large family. There is a little 
 romance about her history, which may be told even 
 in a brief biography of this kind. Her father, 
 William Calverley, was a ropemaker at the village 
 of Hay ton, near York, but he was a distant relative 
 of the lady of the place, Mrs. Cutler, a widow, and 
 daughter of a baronet, Sir Thomas Rudstone. Hav- 
 ing quarrelled with her nephew, who was to have 
 inherited the Hayton property, this lady looked out 
 for another heir, and adopted the ropemaker's son, 
 Etty's uncle, then a boy, who had been prudently 
 christened Rudstone Calverley. Thus it came to 
 pass that, although the artist was the son of a 
 miller and dealer in gingerbread, he was the nephew 
 of the Squire of Hayton ; but this near relationship 
 to gentility was never of the least use to him in 
 life. His mother offended the Squire of Hayton 
 by her plebeian marriage, for he judged things
 
 42 Etty. 
 
 from the point of view of his present rather than 
 his original rank in life ; he had taken the surname 
 of Rudstone after his own ; was now Rudstone 
 Calverley Rudstone ; had had time to get accus- 
 tomed to his new position, and was not unnaturally 
 angry that his sister, instead of helping him by 
 some social ambition of her own, should be a 
 hindrance to him by the choice of a much lower 
 condition. In these cases the feeling of biographers 
 and their readers is almost always against the 
 aristocrat, but it is only fair to consider that he 
 incurs a definite injury when a near relation chooses 
 to make a marriage which, in a worldly sense, is 
 degrading, and that he may fairly be allowed to 
 defend himself, so far as circumstances will permit, 
 by the negative measure of refusing to receive the 
 relations which the objectionable marriage entails 
 upon him against his will. Mr. Rudstone went 
 rather too far in dismissing his sister's husband 
 from the mill which he occupied under him, as a 
 punishment for his marriage, but he had a fair 
 right to decide for himself whether he would invite 
 the miller to his own house or not. In some 
 respects, perhaps, it may have been unfortunate for 
 Etty that his relationship with the Squire should 
 not have been acknowledged ; it might have been 
 a help to him in his artistic career, but it might 
 also, very possibly, have been a hindrance. The 
 intense prejudice against the pursuit of fine art
 
 Etty. 43 
 
 which existed at that time in the aristocracy would 
 probably be shared to the full by one newly ad- 
 mitted into the class, so that Etty might have been 
 dissuaded from adopting art as a profession. How- 
 ever this might have turned out, the aristocratic 
 connexion was for Etty exactly as if it had never 
 existed ; and always remained so, for neither he 
 nor his brothers ever claimed relationship with their 
 genteel cousins. He made his way in life, not by 
 unaided effort, but by efforts which, as we shall 
 see, were quite independent of any assistance from 
 the Hay ton family. 
 
 Etty's mother had ten children, five of whom 
 died in infancy. His uncle William had a talent 
 for drawing in pen and ink, and Etty believed that 
 he would have become an excellent engraver had 
 he passed through the necessary course of study. 
 Our hero himself showed the usual early tendency 
 to draw — not that this proves much, for all boys 
 draw for their amusement : the question is, Will 
 their love of drawing resist the irksomeness of real 
 study? Etty did not receive much literary educa- 
 tion, and this was certainly a misfortune for him, 
 even as an artist, for a more cultivated mind would 
 have directed his artistic energies to better purposes. 
 He was a shy boy, and not good-looking, and the 
 little education he got was ended before he was 
 twelve years old. Eor two years he was a boarder 
 at Pocklington, near Hayton, and after that was
 
 44 Etty. 
 
 sent to Hull, as apprentice to a printer, where for 
 seven years he led a life of perfect slavery, not 
 having even the Sundays for rest. 
 
 This Hull apprenticeship is one of the most 
 important times in Etty's experience of life. It is 
 sharply severed from the two other happier times 
 of childhood and manhood, and divides them as the 
 night divides day from day. In thinking of this 
 career, in some respects (as I have already hinted) 
 an unsatisfying career, we must always remember 
 that during those very years when he ought to 
 have been acquiring culture, and when he could 
 have assimilated it with least effort had he been 
 better situated, the future artist was kept from 
 morning till night to the drudgery of putting types 
 together for the ' Hull Packet,' or to more servile 
 work in the house. It was perhaps rather in Etty's 
 favour that his trade induced him to read, whatever 
 may have been his choice of literature, for during 
 his apprenticeship he spent his rare hours of leisure 
 in reading and drawing. It is even possible that 
 the printing may have led more directly to paint- 
 ing than another occupation would have done. He 
 became aware that there was such an art as paint- 
 ing, and that there were men living who pursued 
 it. Very likely all printers' compositors know this, 
 for the work they have to do is sure to reveal to 
 them the existence of art and artists, even if they 
 labour on the humblest provincial newspaper. Etty
 
 Etty. 45 
 
 might therefore have been less favourably, as he 
 might have been more favourably, situated. He 
 might have been employed on some farm near 
 Hayton, or even within a mile or two of York, 
 and have remained in the condition of the a^ri- 
 cultural population, to whom the world of art is 
 as much unknown as the inhabitants of another 
 planet. At Hull he read about painters and saw 
 prints in the shop-windows, already a beginning of 
 artistic education ; and besides this, he made rude 
 attempts of his own. Yet so small was his natural 
 faculty for enjoying paintable things round about 
 him, that his residence at Hull seems to have left 
 no artistic impression derived from surrounding- 
 objects. In later life he spoke of Hull as a place 
 ' memorable for mud and train-oil.' Certainly the 
 town itself is not beautiful, but the expanse of the 
 Humbcr, and the various kinds of shipping to be 
 seen upon it, offer in themselves quite as good an 
 artistic education as that enjoyed by the most 
 eminent Dutch marine-painters ; whilst within a 
 very few miles of Hull, at such places as Welton, 
 for example, there is most lovely scenery of rather 
 a quiet kind, scenery which would in itself have 
 supplied ample material for the education of a 
 great English landscape-painter. 
 
 His apprenticeship ended in October, 1805, and 
 ever afterwards he kept the day, the twenty-third 
 of the month, as the ' anniversary of emancipation
 
 46 Etty. 
 
 from slavery." An apprentice bound to a trade 
 which he does not intend to pursue in after-life 
 can never be happy, and must always look to the 
 day of his deliverance as the day of emancipation ; 
 but few such apprentices have looked forward to 
 that day with such intensity of longing as Etty 
 did, and perhaps there never was another who 
 kept the sensation of deliverance so fresh and ever 
 present in his memory. There is often compensa- 
 tion where it is least observed by the ordinary 
 looker-on ; there are even compensations of which 
 those who benefit by them are scarcely conscious. 
 Etty had a hard time of it as an apprentice, but 
 those years of ' slavery ' gave him a sense of liberty 
 in after-life which is very rarely felt by mature 
 men, whether they have to earn a living, in which 
 •case they feel the bondage, or are independent in 
 fortune, when they are too much accustomed to 
 liberty to feel the delight of it. Once rid of his 
 compositor's apron, which he would not take with 
 him to London, Etty went through life with the 
 feelings of a schoolboy in the first fortnight of the 
 holidays — a happiness well worth paying for, espe- 
 cially as the payment had been made before the 
 pleasure, and therefore could not spoil it by the 
 apprehension of a penalty to be exacted afterwards. 
 He had also a certain severe and noble satisfaction 
 in looking back upon the hard years of his appren- 
 ticeship ; he could think with self-respect, and did
 
 Etty. 47 
 
 so quite consciously all his life, that those years 
 had been endured without the slightest breach of 
 duty on his part : he had borne the burden, heavy 
 as it was, with fortitude and patience. Etty had 
 an honourable pride in the performance of duty, 
 and always preserved his master's testimonial along 
 with his diplomas. 
 
 The future artist's father had a brother in London, 
 a gold-lace merchant, to whom he wrote with requests 
 for help in the pursuit of painting. It is worth noting 
 that Etty worked at his first profession for three 
 weeks as a journeyman, whilst awaiting an answer to 
 his letters. The answer came at last, inviting him to 
 his uncle's house to stay a few months as a visitor. 
 Then began the long and beautiful history of Etty's 
 dependence upon friends and relations. It would be 
 difficult to find in the lives of those who have at any 
 time been dependent upon others a more charming 
 example of steady and persistent giving of help, 
 united to quiet dignity in its acceptance. He had 
 now three friends willing and able to assist him, both 
 with money and the encouragement of unfailing kind- 
 ness — his uncle Etty, the gold-lace merchant ; his 
 uncle's partner, Mr. Bodley ; and his brother Walter. 
 These three protected him, gave him peace and 
 affection, enabled him to live in London and pursue 
 his studies. Neither the Squire of Hayton nor the 
 King of England could have done anything better 
 for him just then.
 
 48 Etty. 
 
 Etty's artistic education is of course an especially- 
 interesting subject to us who care for art. He began 
 alone, drawing from prints or objects, including 
 plaster-casts, which he went to copy in a shop kept 
 by an Italian, Gianelli. Towards the end of the year 
 1806 he made a drawing of Cupid and Psyche from 
 the antique, which was shown to Opie. Opie sent 
 Etty to Fuseli, who admitted him as an Academy 
 student. The young artist's career as a student began 
 in the middle of January, 1807, and may be quite 
 truly said to have ended only with the decline of his 
 health at the close of his artistic life. The history of 
 English art does not offer another example of such 
 persistent studentship. On the second of July in the 
 same year occurred another event of considerable 
 importance in the artist's history. His uncle, the 
 gold-lace merchant, paid Sir Thomas Lawrence a 
 hundred guineas to take Etty as a pupil for one year. 
 The pupil had liberty to work in his master's house, 
 copy his pictures, and ask advice. Nothing could 
 have been more kindly intended than this arrange- 
 ment on the part of Etty's uncle, who had gone to 
 the most famous painter of the day as he would have 
 taken a beloved patient to the most famous physician 
 of the day : but the more fashionable a professional 
 man is, the less time will he probably be able to 
 bestow on either patient or pupil ; and in art there is 
 another thing to be considered, which is most difficult 
 to discover beforehand — the natural sympathy of the
 
 Etty. 49 
 
 pupil with his master's execution. Does such a 
 sympathy exists, or does it not exist ? If not, the 
 apprenticeship will be of little use. If the execution 
 of the master is of a kind which expresses an idio- 
 syncrasy quite different from that of the pupil, the 
 latter will have to do one of two things inevitably — 
 either he must put on an execution which does not 
 naturally belong to him, which does not express 'his 
 ideas, or else he must resist and reject his master's 
 influence, which isan in crease of toil instead of an 
 alleviation of it. The style of Lawrence could never, 
 as we all easily see now, express the mind of Etty. 
 Lawrence was a most skilful artist, manually ; and 
 his skill was just of the very kind which a young 
 beginner cannot profitably emulate. Lawrence had 
 the kind of light, free touch, which comes to clever 
 artists after a very great deal of practice, but which 
 nobody can ever really possess without the same 
 practice which they have given. The attempt to get 
 his results by copying without going through his ex- 
 perience, would be sure to discourage a young artist, 
 and Etty was profoundly discouraged ; so profoundly, 
 indeed, that he speaks of ' despondency ' and ' despair.' 
 He held on, however, with the determination which 
 was a part of his character, strengthened, no doubt, 
 in the present difficulty by a feeling of duty towards 
 his uncle, and finally came to produce fairly accurate 
 copies from Lawrence. The result of this part of 
 his education was an increased technical facility, but 
 
 E
 
 50 Etty. 
 
 nothing more ; but it got him some employment in 
 copies after his year's pupilage was over. Etty re- 
 turned to his studies from the old masters and from 
 nature, pursuing his education henceforth in his own 
 way, and enjoying his recovered liberty. 
 
 In these early days of studentship occurs one of 
 the pathetic incidents in the painter's life. His kind 
 uncle, who had protected him for about four years, 
 dies in 1809; of course in the most perfect ignorance 
 of his nephew's future celebrity, which no one at that 
 time could possibly foresee. We have often to regret 
 similar circumstances in the history of men of genius, 
 but in most cases it is the father and mother who 
 pass away before knowing the results of a young 
 man's toil and of their own protecting help, and for 
 them it is a duty which brings at least a partial 
 reward from the very beginning, even though ulti- 
 mate consequences can only be dimly guessed at. An 
 uncle is quite differently situated. Etty's uncle was 
 no more obliged to help him than was his equally 
 near aristocratic relative at Hayton. He had 
 children of his own, and his kindness to his nephew 
 William came entirely from the goodness of his heart. 
 We regret, then, that he did not live long enough 
 to see the fruits of it, and to enjoy more of his 
 nephew's success than the doubtful pleasure of an 
 anxiety for his welfare which could scarcely ever 
 have given place to any definite anticipation. His 
 uncle not only helped his nephew William, but all his
 
 Etty. 51 
 
 sister's children, and left them legacies when he died. 
 The painter's legacy was of infinite value to him. 
 
 Etty's good fortune in his relations on his f ather's 
 side continued, however, after his uncle's death. 
 Walter Etty, the painter's elder brother, became a 
 partner in the gold-lace trade, and acted toward him 
 in the most beautifully fraternal way. He needed all 
 the encouragement of such affection, and the material 
 support that accompanied it also, for he could neither 
 win medals in the contests amongst the students nor 
 get pictures received into the exhibitions ; in short, 
 he could not win the slightest external success of any 
 kind whatever, and had every appearance of being 
 that total failure in art which the French call ' nn 
 fruit sec! The bitterness of such a position for a 
 young artist who has in him the consciousness of a 
 true natural impulse is always great indeed ; he sees 
 so many mediocre works admitted into the public 
 exhibitions that it is hard to accept the verdict that 
 his own are worse than the worst of these, and that 
 he himself is less than the least of those who arc con- 
 sidered worthy of being presented to the public. The 
 humiliation is great for any artist, however indepen- 
 dent he may be in fortune — so great that the richer 
 ones, after two or three rejections, often retire from 
 the field in disgust and give their lives cither wholly 
 to amusement or to some more accessible ambition. 
 But in the case of a young artist situated as Etty was, 
 that is, living in dependence upon the kindness of
 
 5 2 Etty. 
 
 a brother, the humiliation is incalculably greater. 
 William Etty could not help thinking, what the deli- 
 cacy of Walter Etty would never permit either of 
 them to express, that if, indeed, the vocation had 
 been a mistaken one, as all the constituted authorities 
 seemed to agree, the money advanced to him was 
 thrown away, and he had no right to accept any 
 more of it. 
 
 His early defects or repulses at the Academy ex- 
 hibitions hurt Etty's self-love, but did not shake his 
 resolution. The greatest danger to a young artist 
 when he undergoes this ordeal of refusal, is to hear 
 nothing definite against his work, to know simply 
 that he is refused without being told why. It would 
 be too much to ask of the Academicians that they 
 should give reasons for the exclusion of refused pic- 
 tures, but it is probable that if they had time to do 
 so, however severe their critique motivee might be, it 
 would stimulate the energies of young artists when 
 silent refusals only benumb them. What the Council 
 of the Academy has not time to do in its official 
 capacity is, however, often very kindly and effectually 
 done by some individual Academician, who knows 
 the young aspirant, and frankly tells him why his 
 work has not been admitted. Lawrence did this for 
 Etty. ' My master,' Etty says, ' told me the truth, in 
 no flattering terms. He said I had a very good eye 
 for colour, but that I was lamentably deficient in all 
 other respects almost' The effect of this straight-
 
 Etty. 53 
 
 forward expression of opinion was to stimulate rather 
 than discourage. We have not seen those early- 
 refused pictures which Lawrence criticised in these 
 terms, but we infer that the criticism was just, because 
 it might be applied to maturcr works by Etty, who 
 remained for many years perfectly capable of shock- 
 ing trained eyes by the insufficiency of his drawing. 
 If anything surprises us in the criticism by Lawrence, 
 it is rather that he should have been able to recognise 
 Etty's colour faculty at so early a period of his career, 
 when his work appears to have shown few signs of it. 
 The transaction is honourable to both parties. In- 
 stead of shrinking from the responsibility of criticism, 
 Lawrence gives his opinion with a friendly openness, 
 and Etty, recognising the justice of it, and feeling 
 grateful for the wholesome bitterness of the truth, at 
 once applied himself manfully to correct what was 
 defective in his art, and add to it what was wanting. 
 ' I lit the lamp,' he tell us, ' at both ends of the day. 
 I studied the skeleton, the origin and insertion of the 
 muscles. I sketched from Albinus. I drew in the 
 morning ; I painted in the evening ; and after the 
 Royal Academy went and drew from the prints of 
 the antique statues of the Capitolini, the Clementina, 
 Florentine, and other galleries, finishing the extremi- 
 ties in black-lead pencil with great care. This I did 
 at the London Institution in Moorfields. I returned 
 home, kept in my fire all night, to the great dismay of 
 my landlord, that I might get up early next morning
 
 54 Etty. 
 
 before daylight, to draw. In short, I worked with 
 such energy and perseverance to conquer my radical 
 defects, that at last a better state of things began to 
 dawn, like the sun through a November fog.' 
 
 The consequence of all this labour was that he 
 was admitted as an exhibitor at the Academy in 
 1811, the title of his picture being, Telemaclms rescues 
 the Princess Antiope from the Wild Boar. He ex- 
 hibited again in 18 12, and continued in subsequent 
 years. It is unnecessary to burden a short bio- 
 graphy of this kind with the names of pictures which 
 are quite unknown to fame, and in all probability 
 deserve to remain obscure. Let us content ourselves 
 for the present with noting the important fact that 
 our hero has, by dint of great labour, forced his way 
 into the Academy as an exhibitor, — the first great 
 step in an English artist's life. The temper of reso- 
 lution which had achieved this remained with him in 
 after years. His note-books contain such entries as 
 the proverb, ' The continual dropping of water wear- 
 eth away stones,' not that such a proverb as this 
 would be quite satisfactory to the critical sense as 
 a reason for expecting success in art, for it does not 
 affirm that friction will give artistic genius ; however 
 Etty derived strength from it. An entry more 
 decidedly applicable to his case is, ' Study and 
 labour are the price of improvement.' This is not 
 so questionable a doctrine as the extreme one of 
 Reynolds, that nothing was denied to labour. Other
 
 Etty. 55 
 
 entries about industry and idleness, early rising, &c., 
 occur in the note-books, and show that certain truths, 
 so familiar that we too often neglect them, had for 
 Etty a vital freshness and significance. There is, no 
 doubt, a certain simplicity and naivete in the temper 
 of a man who could be so struck with the value of 
 these scraps of familiar wisdom as to copy them out 
 in a book ; but it is evident that he lived in a state 
 of moral effort, which gave them a peculiar intensity 
 of meaning with reference to his own career. Thus, 
 when he writes down that ' Early rising is a shorter 
 path to eminence than sleep,' he is thinking that if 
 William Etty will only have the courage to get up 
 soon, he will shorten the road to Academical honours. 
 The phrase is probably his own ; it is not very ac- 
 curate, though we see what he means. The length 
 of ground to be gone over is the same for the early 
 riser and the late one ; but the first has the advan- 
 tage of doing a greater distance every day, if both 
 leave off at sunset, and have been working with equal 
 speed. 
 
 Etty is now twenty-nine years old, a strenuous 
 student, but not much more than that ; not a culti- 
 vated man outside the limits of his profession, and in 
 painting itself only beginning to be cultivated. He 
 is not yet able to earn his living by painting, though 
 the exhibitions are open to him. His mind is most 
 earnestly determined upon improvement in his art ; 
 there is, indeed, perhaps too much earnestness about
 
 56 Etty. 
 
 him, for we see more accurately when our faculties 
 are not quite so much concentrated, or so constantly 
 on the stretch. The most hopeful element in him at 
 this period does not seem to be genius, of which little 
 or nothing is discernible, but a fine strength of will 
 and a steady perseverance in labour ; this last very 
 probably an acquired habit, due in part to the 
 discipline of his apprenticeship to printing. All 
 through life he attached especial importance to per- 
 severance, and attributed many failures simply to the 
 want of it. 
 
 In 1S16 Etty goes abroad. The story of his 
 travels seems to us of this generation like a frag- 
 ment of ancient history. He crosses from Brighton 
 to Dieppe, is twenty-four hours at sea, much of the 
 time in a narrow berth, and finally lands in an ad- 
 venturous, unforeseen manner, by moonlight. How- 
 ever brief may be this biography, however simple the 
 scheme of it, we cannot omit the artist's teapot, his 
 constant friend and companion. He loves tea much 
 too well to trust Continental grocers or tea-makers, 
 but carries his own materials and apparatus ; tea for 
 twelve months, sugar, two kettles, in case of accident 
 to one of them, and the rest. Of course such sup- 
 plies and apparatus are a stumbling-block to the 
 minds of Continental custom-house officers, who will 
 never understand how one man can need them all 
 for his own use. Etty's troubles begin at Dieppe, 
 where one of the tea-kettles is confiscated as super-
 
 Etty. 57 
 
 fluous, but restored afterwards. Etty goes to Rouen 
 in the ' diligence,' and sees the Cathedral, which he 
 naturally thinks inferior to York ; and we may be 
 sure that he will never meet with any ecclesiastical 
 building in Europe which, to him, will appear equal 
 to the great Minster. He arrives at Paris, enters by 
 what, in his barbarous French, he calls the ' Barrier 
 d'Xeuilly,' then lands at ' le bureau de diligence.' 
 He docs not like Paris very much, and soon leaves 
 for Switzerland. He crosses the Jura, 'passing 
 through ravines such as Salvator Rosa would have 
 delighted to paint,' the stock allusion to Salvator 
 Rosa being still, at that time, unexhausted. He is 
 not happy in the country inns, and becomes especi- 
 ally indignant about custom-house people on the 
 frontier of Switzerland, because they make him pay 
 duty on his stock of sugar. Continental habits put 
 him out : he wants his English breakfast, and does 
 not approve of the dejeuner a la fourchette, with ' sour 
 wine.' He complains that he can get 'no milk, no 
 tea, nor anything genial.' We should have thought 
 that the great canister in the portmanteau ought to 
 have lasted into Switzerland ; perhaps it was packed 
 up and inaccessible for the present. The bright tea- 
 pot is kept out, however, and Etty characteristically 
 refuses the substantial French dejeuner to go and 
 make himself patriotic cups of tea and slices of bread 
 and butter in the kitchen of the roadside inns, where 
 the 'diligence' halts. After a brief astonishment at
 
 5» Etty. 
 
 the majesty of Switzerland he crosses the Simplon, 
 and finds himself in Italy, where the vineyards de- 
 light him ' with grapes dropping in clusters, rich, 
 black, and luxuriant, creeping fantastically over 
 alleys of trellis-work, forming a cool and delicious 
 walk beneath.' He comes to Florence with the in- 
 tention of staying and studying there ; but finds 
 himself in a state of extreme mental depression, 
 which has a bad effect upon his health. This de- 
 pression is due to two different causes. He left 
 England in love — anxiously, rather than hopefully, 
 in love ; and this disturbs his peace : but it is 
 evident, also, that he was too intensely national in 
 his habits and feelings to enjoy a residence on the 
 Continent. A man who cannot stop at an auberge 
 without producing an English teapot, who thinks 
 that vin ordinaire is sour, and who prefers bread and 
 butter to a substantial dejeuner, ought to remain in 
 some English home. At Florence he ' feels unequal 
 to the task of going to Rome or Naples,' and de- 
 cidedly says, ' I am certain it is not in my power to 
 reside abroad.' He says that Florence has a cha- 
 racter of gloom about it that he cannot bear. ' I am 
 sick to death,' he adds, ' of travelling in a country 
 where the accommodations are such as no English- 
 man can have any idea of.' He stays just four days 
 at Florence, then leaves it in disgust, and turns back 
 homewards by Pisa, Leghorn, Genoa, Turin, Mont 
 Cenis, Chambery, Lyons, and Paris —homesick all
 
 Etty. 59 
 
 the time, and doing little or nothing but getting as 
 quickly as possible over the long leagues which 
 separate Italy from England. At Paris he deter- 
 mines to work in Regnault's atelier, but finds the 
 students a rude set, and the place a perfect bear- 
 garden — which, from similar experiences, we can well 
 believe. Being ' very uncomfortable ' in Regnault's 
 atelier, he stays there only three days, and very soon 
 gets to Calais, crossing the channel as quickly as 
 possible in a French vessel, and travelling to London 
 in a Deal coach, with sentiments of love and affection 
 for every brick in the English metropolis. 
 
 Once more in England Etty resumes work very 
 heartily, and exhibits regularly at the British Gallery 
 and the Academy. One picture of this period may 
 be specially mentioned, the Cupid and Euphrosyne ; 
 this attracted some attention, the ' Literary Gazette ' 
 praised it, and Lawrence called it a 'work of splendid 
 promise.' Etty wrote lists of ' Subjects to Paint,' 
 which he divided into ' Subjects of Grandeur,' ' Sub- 
 jects of Terror and Emotion,' ' Subjects of Poetry,' 
 and ' Subjects of Feeling,' a division which curiously 
 illustrates the non-literary character of his mind, and 
 his difficulty in establishing accurate distinctions by 
 words, for it is evident that there is no reason why a 
 subject of grandeur should not be poetical at the 
 same time, or why a subject of emotion should not 
 be a subject of feeling. By ' Subjects of Poetry,' he 
 seems rather to have understood illustrations of the
 
 60 Etty. 
 
 poets. He speaks, too, of ' La Grande Historique,' 
 an original sort of French, yet intelligible. He was 
 not altogether illiterate, however, and made memo- 
 randa of ' books to be read,' as he did of pictures to 
 be painted ; but it is remarkable that his mind should 
 have remained, as it did, quite without that ease and 
 dexterity in thought and expression which is the 
 ordinary result of a very moderate literary culture. 
 In 1820, Etty exhibited a Pandora at the British 
 Gallery, and the Coral Finders at the Academy. In 
 the Coral Finders Venus and her youthful satellites 
 arrive at the Isle of Paphos, according to the de- 
 scription in the catalogue. The subject, therefore, 
 gave free play to the kind of imagination which 
 was the genuine gift of the painter, and which after- 
 wards found a more complete expression in works 
 of greater importance, an imagination dwelling very 
 willingly upon the beauty of the naked figure, and 
 deeply enjoying its own fancies of colour and graces 
 of composition. The Coral Finders had the good 
 luck to be appreciated and bought for 30/., the price 
 fixed by the artist, in itself a sufficient evidence 
 of his modest professional standing at that time. 
 Another amateur, Sir Francis Freeling, recognised 
 the merits of the work, and offered a commission 
 to Etty, who suggested Shakespeare's description 
 of Cleopa,tra on the Cydnus as a subject. This 
 picture being finished, was exhibited in the Academy 
 for 1821, and made a sensation. Until the Coral
 
 Etty. 6 1 
 
 Finders, Etty had been perfectly obscure, although 
 he had exhibited for years. That picture gave him 
 a little reputation, but now the Cleopatra raised him 
 into a sudden celebrity. This work was sold to 
 Sir Francis Freeling for less than 200 guineas, and 
 has subsequently brought a thousand. In spite of 
 the success of the Cleopatra, there seems to have 
 been a disposition to keep Etty down a little longer, 
 for the next year's picture, Cupid sheltering his 
 Darling, was hung so low that its colour was 
 reflected on people's boots. 
 
 Notwithstanding the misery and home-sickness 
 of his first attempt at Continental travel, Etty deter- 
 mined in 1822 upon a new excursion in foreign 
 lands, not by any means forgetting his teapot and 
 English kettle, so necessary to fortify him against 
 the perils of Continental life. This time he crosses 
 the Channel in a steam-packet which gets to Calais 
 in three hours and a half, but although there is 
 steam upon the sea, there are no locomotives on 
 the land yet ; so Etty takes two days and a night 
 to get to Paris. He stays three weeks in the French 
 capital, and visits the Salon of that year, then open 
 in the Louvre. At that time no English artist ever 
 heartily approved of French painting, and Etty's 
 tone about it is as favourable as that of other 
 Englishmen used to be. He says, ' There are really 
 some clever things :' he disapproves of the portraits ; 
 but thinks the historical pictures highly creditable
 
 62 Etty. 
 
 as an effort. The old galleries of the Louvre delight 
 him, though since the defeat of Napoleon they are 
 shorn of the incomparable treasures which he once 
 concentrated there. Etty wishes England had any- 
 thing like the Louvre — a wish that our grandchildren 
 will probably see realised. During the rest of his 
 time in Paris he studied every morning at the 
 Academy ; and at the end of his three weeks left 
 for Italy, rather enjoying the grandeur of the moun- 
 tainous landscapes — observing the beautiful colour 
 of the distant mountains, and their fine masses of 
 light and shade. He is also duly impressed by 
 the grandeur of the Simplon, and then finds himself, 
 for the second time, among the Italian vineyards — 
 not so homesick as before. 
 
 The artist's second journey to Italy confirms the 
 impression that he was not intended by nature for 
 a traveller. He enjoyed little, and suffered intensely 
 from all those discomforts at which the born traveller 
 only laughs or shrugs his shoulders, or else quotes 
 the proverb, ' A la guerre commc a la guerre ! ' Etty's 
 tea-kettle simmers in many an Italian inn, but even 
 that dear friend cannot reconcile him to a land where 
 the orthodox English breakfast is unknown. He 
 travelled, too, in most unpleasantly hot weather ; 
 and we may well believe that three weeks in French 
 and Italian diligences, under a burning southern 
 midsummer sun, were enough to disgust him with 
 locomotion. But once at Rome and in the Vatican
 
 Etty. 65 
 
 gallery he forgets these ills, and talks about the 
 happy climate of Italy. ' Let us pass to the galleries 
 of statues, lit by the light of Italian skies — that 
 golden hue peculiar to her happy climate. From 
 yon open balcony the eye steals from the wonders 
 of Art to the beauties of Nature — the Alban moun- 
 tains, the hills of Apennine. How balmy, genial,, 
 the air! how calm, how dignified the scene!' At 
 this time he gets a little encouragement in the shape 
 of commissions of 25/. each for pictures requiring 
 considerable toil. He keeps a diary, and advises 
 himself therein to study economy and not drink 
 too much tea — always his great excess and self- 
 indulgence. At Naples he is enchanted with the 
 wondrous bay, and must needs ascend Vesuvius,, 
 which he does very courageously, with no com- 
 panion but an Italian sailor and a guide. He eats 
 grapes at Pompeii, and rambles all over the dis- 
 interred city. Returning to Rome, he sets to work 
 in good earnest. Etty does not seem to have had 
 that strong objection to copying other men's work 
 which is very common with original artists. Many 
 of them cannot endure to copy ; it seems to them 
 an intolerable servitude. Etty took to it willingly, 
 as a good way of improving himself. He copied 
 Veronese in the Borghese gallery, and made other 
 studies or copies after Veronese, Titian, and 
 Vandyke. 
 
 Before his departure from England, Etty had
 
 64 Etty. 
 
 managed to fall in love again, this time with a 
 cousin of his ; but, as usual, was unsuccessful. This 
 makes him so miserable when at Rome that he 
 writes : ' For six months past I have scarcely known 
 Happiness, but by name ; even now could almost 
 exchange life with a dog, or resign it altogether, 
 did not Hope whisper brighter days may yet dawn. 
 I have only found existence tolerable by applying 
 vigorously to my art, the strongest remedy my 
 thoughts could suggest. Even that was insufficient/ 
 Again he writes : ' My other loves were scratches ; 
 this, a wound.' However, he has to resign himself 
 to his fate, and does so ultimately, turning to his 
 tea-kettle for consolation. ' I have serious thoughts 
 of paying my addresses to — my tea-kettle. I have 
 found her a very warm friend. She sings, too. . . . 
 Sweet is the song of the kettle, sweeter to a studious 
 man than a crying child or a scolding wife.' This 
 language, in Etty's case, was scarcely exaggeration. 
 From Rome he goes to Venice, passing through 
 Ferrara, where he kisses Ariosto's chair and visits 
 Tasso's dungeon. ' Here I am,' he writes from 
 Venice, ' sitting by my fireside, if a pot of charcoal 
 is worthy so sacred a title. On this concern I have 
 just boiled my flat kettle, and indulged in a cup 
 or two of tea.' It was a very happy thing for Etty 
 that he went there. He grumbles at first about 
 the rain, but afterwards writes : ' Venice arrested 
 me ! brought me back to a sense of honour and
 
 Etty. '65 
 
 duty.' His first intention was only to stay ten clays : 
 he ended by staying nearly a year, spending the 
 time in a healthy state of ardent enthusiasm about 
 the great Venetians whose names and works made 
 the place sacred for him — Titian, Tintoret, Giorgione, 
 and their great brother, the Veronese. He kneels 
 at their tombs, and all but worships their memories. 
 1 If a few masses would do their souls any good, I 
 would pay for them,' he writes. Venice becomes a 
 second home to him ; out of England no place has 
 had such an attraction for him as this. The English 
 Vice-Consul, Mr. D'Orville, makes a friend of Etty, 
 so that the painter is no longer in a solitude. He 
 copies Tintoret, Veronese, and Titian, and works 
 with great diligence from the life. The painters 
 find out that he is a masterly workman, and delight 
 in watching him as he colours with such enviable 
 force and facility ; they even make him an honorary 
 member of their Academy. It is interesting to know 
 what Etty thought of the Continental painters of his 
 time. He did not think much of the Italians. ' When 
 we have seen Erench art,' he said, ' we have seen the 
 best of Continental art.' ' The efforts the French make 
 are indeed great ; and much that is desirable is mixed up 
 with much that is bad. There is an agreeable choice 
 of subject, a daring excursion into the regions of his- 
 tory and poetry, a knowledge of drawing and details, 
 and a something in colour very respectable (not often), 
 that altogether leave an impression of power." 
 
 F
 
 66 Etty. 
 
 At Venice, Etty delighted in exploring all the 
 nooks and corners of the city, which is rather sur- 
 prising, as there are so few indications in his works 
 of any particular pleasure in the picturesque of 
 towns. Everybody who has been at Venice knows 
 how easy it is to fall into a canal, especially if you 
 walk with upturned eyes and are absorbed in the 
 study of architecture. This happened to Etty, whose 
 Venetian friends thenceforward called him ' Canal 
 Etti,' a singularly perfect sobriquet, the only fault 
 of which is that it suggests itself too easily. 
 
 From Venice he went to Florence, and copied 
 there very energetically from Titian. He did not 
 care to revisit Rome, but went back to Venice again, 
 where he stayed two months, and then quitted it — 
 this time regretfully — in October 1823, with much 
 baggage of copies and studies. At Verona he stays 
 to make a sketch of the San Giorgio by Veronese. 
 After that he pushes on towards England by the 
 St. Bernard, Vevay, and Geneva, to Paris. The 
 diligence from Geneva to the French capital spent 
 three days and three nights on the journey in those 
 days. At Paris he makes studies and accumulates 
 material, making a study from Rubens, and after 
 it (of all things in the world !) the lead-coloured 
 Deluge of Poussin, which always makes us wonde 
 whether Poussin had ever seen anything so terrible 
 as the smallest of French inundations. On his 
 return to England, Etty looks back over his absence
 
 Etty. 67 
 
 of a year and a half with a sense of satisfaction 
 with his own industry. He has made upwards of 
 fifty copies or studies in oil, and has adhered to 
 his original plan of being continually in the galleries, 
 postponing original production till his return to his 
 own studio at home. There he lands one frosty, 
 moonshiny night in the winter of 1824; the next 
 night found him at his post in the life-school of 
 the Academy. 
 
 Etty is now thirty-seven. ' Years are rolling over 
 my head,' he says ; ' I ask myself, " What have I 
 done?" Echo answers, "What?"' He really has 
 done something, however little it may content 
 him, and he has prepared himself for doing very 
 much more. His plans enlarge : he takes spacious 
 chambers in Buckingham Street on a twenty-one 
 years' lease, at a rental of 120/. — a bold stroke, con- 
 sidering that his position is still very precarious, 
 though it is beginning to be hopeful. There he 
 paints big pictures, such as the Combat, bought by 
 Martin the painter for 300/. ; he paints the Judgment 
 of Paris for Lord Darnley, who vexes him with many 
 recommendations. Etty painted his Judith shortly 
 afterwards (in 1827), for he had now reached his 
 full maturity as an artist, a maturity greatly helped 
 by the residence at Venice. The next year an im- 
 portant step was made by Etty's election as a 
 member of the Royal Academy. This election 
 gave him the utmost delight, which he was at no
 
 6S Etty. 
 
 pains to conceal. Happily, his mother was still 
 alive, and could share in his satisfaction. It was a 
 great thing for Etty to be an Academician, for his 
 pictures were not sure of sale even yet. The JitditJi 
 had gained his election, but remained on his hands. 
 The Academic title is a wonderful help in picture- 
 selling ; besides this, it is a satisfaction to be re- 
 cognised, however sure an artist, may feel of his 
 own powers. ' Even the pleasure of self-approbation/ 
 said Stuart Mill, ' in the great majority, is mainly 
 dependent on the opinion of others. . . . Nor is 
 there, to most men, any proof so demonstrative of 
 their own virtue or talent as that people in general 
 seem to believe in it.' One thing, however, is so 
 characteristic about Etty that the briefest of 
 biographies ought not to omit it. He would 
 not give up his studies from life in the Academy 
 in deference to the opinion that they were derogatory 
 to the dignity of an Academician ; and he was so 
 firm on this point, that if had been necessary to 
 choose between the rights of the student and the 
 Academic title, his mind was made up to decline the 
 title, the importance of which no one knew better 
 than himself. There is something very fine in this, 
 but at the same time a reason given by Etty shows 
 how simply professional was the condition of his 
 mind. He says of the work from Academy models, 
 ' It fills up a couple of hours in the evening I should 
 be at a loss how else to employ.' Most men, not
 
 Etty. 69 
 
 so narrowly professional, are glad to have an hour 
 or two in the evening for general culture, for the 
 unbending of the mind in some study or pursuit 
 entirely different from the professional one. It is 
 no use to find fault with people for not being what 
 they cannot be ; yet it is probable enough that if 
 Etty had been so constituted as to enjoy literature 
 more, his artistic productions would have been 
 more interesting. We know that he enjoyed litera- 
 ture to some extent, and had a certain enthusiasm 
 about poets, since he kissed Ariosto's chair ; but no 
 one with the true passion for reading would have 
 felt at a loss how to employ his evenings. 
 
 There is a great deal of charm in the simple 
 character of the artist, which is evident in his almost 
 unbounded exultation on the subject of his Academic 
 election. Uncharitable judges of human nature are 
 always very severe on this exultant spirit, which they 
 call ' boasting ' and ' vanity.' It is rather the mark 
 of a simple and unworldly mind. Worldliness 
 teaches us to retain the expression of our delight, 
 and to affect to take good things that fall to us 
 as nothing more than our deserts. Children exult 
 openly, because their minds are unsophisticated ; so 
 did Etty, for the same reason. We may smile 
 when a man of forty lets his delight be visible ; 
 ought we not rather to respect him for it? 
 
 Avery important event occurred in 1829, when 
 Etty was forty-two years old. Certain artists in
 
 jo Etty. 
 
 Scotland, who appreciated Etty in consequence of 
 their visits to London, wished to have one of his 
 most important pictures. They thought of buying 
 the Judith for Edinburgh, but first they wanted 
 to borrow it. Etty refused to lend it, on account 
 of difficulties of carriage (at that time much 
 greater than in our day). The Scotchmen do not 
 give up their idea, but after the Judith has been 
 exhibited at the British Institution in 1828 they 
 offer to buy it for 210/. The original price was 
 525/. Etty accepts the offer on condition of being 
 permitted to paint two pendants at 105/. each, to 
 complete the story. The Scottish artists at once 
 agree to this proposal, and the consequences of this 
 decision were important for Etty's fame, as well as 
 for art-education in Edinburgh. The purchasers 
 really acted with great spirit, considering the diffi- 
 culties of their own position. Their Academy was 
 then in an infantine condition, so that the purchase 
 was rather heroic. Since then the three Judiths 
 have risen greatly in value, and at one time might 
 have been sold for 4000/., but it is probable that 
 they would bring less at present. The Scottish 
 Academy, however, has never shown any disposition 
 to part with them, but has continued to value them 
 on their own account. The transaction was deeply 
 agreeable to Etty, who liked to be appreciated by 
 artists for his real merits ; yet the reader perceives 
 that Etty's position, from the worldly point of view,
 
 Etty. 7 1 
 
 was still anything but brilliant, since he had to sell 
 an important work for less than one-half the price 
 originally asked for it. In 1829, again, he incurs a 
 disappointment : another attempt in the grand style, 
 BenaiaJi, is exhibited, but not sold. 
 
 The artist lost his mother in 1829. To his 
 affectionate and filial nature this was a severe trial. 
 He arrived at York after a hurried journey just in 
 time for the funeral, and had the coffin opened to 
 see his mother's face once more. Etty wrote very 
 sadly and tenderly about this event, with the open 
 expression of real feeling which was habitual with 
 him. ' She went off quiet as a lamb, or as she is 
 now, an angel. God bless her ! At five to-day we 
 saw her dear body laid, according to her anxious 
 desire, near our dearest father, and thus accom- 
 plished her long-cherished hope, and with it dear 
 father's also. They are happy, believe me ; for they 
 deserved it. Rest their souls in the peace of God 
 till we all meet again ! Mr. Flower, who christened 
 me, read the prayers.' 
 
 Later he writes to his brother Walter, ' I yet 
 linger here near the grave of my beloved mother.' 
 During the rest of his life his mother's wedding- 
 ring hung by his bedside. The filial feeling seems, 
 after her death, to have sought expansion in kind 
 attention to one of her nearest relations, her brother, 
 old John Calverlcy the joiner. Etty went to see 
 him at Beverley, which gave him much pleasure.
 
 72 Etty. 
 
 The- joiner was now eighty-nine years old, with very 
 white hair. Etty went to Hayton, too, in order to 
 ascertain the exact age of his mother at the time 
 of her death, but he did not visit the Squire of 
 Hayton. He was proud of his mother, and believed 
 that she had great qualities. 
 
 The burning of York Minster in 1829 was another 
 great calamity of the year for Etty. The Minster 
 was for him an object of love and pride. He said 
 his heart was almost broken by the news. It is 
 impossible to imagine anything that could happen 
 to inanimate matter more likely to afflict Etty than 
 the burning of York Minster. He took an active 
 part in the discussions about its restoration, and it 
 is partly in consequence of his exertions that the 
 Dean and Chapter abandoned a fearful and won- 
 derful scheme they had of removing the rood-screen, 
 and setting it farther back. The reader who knows 
 York Minster is sure to remember the screen, with 
 its. statues of the kings. The clergy seem to have 
 thought that it would be an advantage to set it 
 farther back in the choir, in order to disengage the 
 bases of the pillars of the central tower. To effect 
 this the screen was to have been shortened and 
 lowered,, or, in other words, completely spoiled. 
 Etty saw at once the stupid folly of the proposal, 
 and interfered energetically enough by all means 
 in his power, writing in the newspapers and expos- 
 tulating, privately with influential persons.
 
 Etty. 73 
 
 In the summer of 1S30, being now forty-three, 
 Etty leaves England for the third time, and goes 
 to Paris. This visit is interesting, because, without 
 in the least anticipating any unusual excitement, 
 Etty becomes witness of a French revolution. He 
 does not like Paris much — not so much as he used 
 to do. He discovers the defects of the French 
 climate, and thinks it inferior to that of England. 
 He visits the studios of the principal painters, and 
 has strong prejudices against French art, which, 
 however, do not prevent him from acknowledging 
 certain qualities in handling and drawing. He 
 thinks regretfully of home, and tea, and English 
 ways. 'Oh, I am English to my heart's core!' he 
 says, ' and would not exchange that honoured title,' 
 &c. And again he writes, ' When once I get my 
 foot on that honoured land, farewell all but it and 
 my aim at glory !' 
 
 Etty always seems to have been urged to this 
 excitement of the patriotic sentiments by his excur- 
 sions abroad, and more particularly by foreign 
 cookery and absence of proper tea and bread-and- 
 butter. Something more serious occurs to annoy 
 him on the present occasion. On the first of the three 
 days Etty is at the house of an English friend at a dis- 
 tance from his lodging, and has to get home as he best 
 can in the evening. Here is his own account : — 
 
 < A little after tea I thought I would be going. Much 
 was expected that night. Out I trotted — the soldiers yet
 
 74 Etty. 
 
 waiting in the Place — went up the Rue de la Paix towards 
 
 the Italian Boulevards Just as I was about to turn 
 
 the corner, on comes the mob in full cry, " Vive la 
 Charte /" and a thousand other cries. Smash go the 
 splendid lamps. On they come. A porte-cochere, just 
 closing, afforded me and two or three others time to get 
 in at the door (of a strange house) ere the porter closed 
 it. With fierce cries they carry on the work of destruc- 
 tion. And there we were, not knowing what would become 
 of us. In the course of a quarter of an hour they seemed 
 a.t a greater distance, and we gladly escaped this nightly 
 ihavoc. 
 
 ' How can I give an adequate idea of those portentous 
 and awful cries, that " like an exhalation " rose over Paris 
 in the darkness, and broke the still silence of midnight? 
 Mingled with the sounds of the tocsin, the deep-toned bell, 
 and the shrill, hasty, smaller one, the rattle of musketry, 
 the drums beating to arms, the crackling of fires — all 
 formed a mixture, grand, yet awful in the extreme.' 
 
 Still he worked on at the Louvre, painting whilst 
 he heard the rattle of musketry and the roar of 
 cannon, but as the guardians became uneasy, and 
 only one or two students remained out of one or 
 two hundred, Etty at last gave his things to be 
 locked up and went out, going towards the Tui- 
 leries, but deviating from his line of march when 
 he found that it led straight to the mouth of a 
 cannon. On the third day he decided not to go 
 to the Louvre, but went out, nevertheless, though 
 at great risk. He had constantly to pass groups 
 of armed revolutionists, to climb barricades. A day
 
 Etty. 75 
 
 later (Friday) there was no more fighting, but all 
 Paris was in a state of great apprehension. On 
 Saturday all is over, and the artists may go back 
 to the Louvre. Etty recovers his studies, which 
 have remained safe in a cupboard. 
 
 A stormy time, indeed, those days must have 
 been for Etty ! First, there was the revolution, with 
 all its noise and horrors. ' It was indeed a scene of 
 horrors,' he wrote, ' to tread on the bloodstained 
 pavement of Paris, to see the wounded, the dying, 
 and the heaps of dead with black and horrent hair ; 
 to smell the putrescent bodies as you passed the pits 
 in which they were thrown.' Then came the most 
 fearful thunderstorm Etty had ever experienced, 
 intensified, perhaps, to the imagination by the ex- 
 citement of civil war. 'An awful silence, and flashes 
 of lightning every half or quarter minute ; without 
 rain, without thunder. Again, a wind that seemed to 
 tear everything before it, sent glass, tiles, stones, 
 tingling and rattling down. A dead and awful 
 silence for a few seconds : — a distant roar of long- 
 drawn thunder, like the far-distant roll of artillery. 
 " It is the king's army, and the cannon of Marmont !" 
 was the first thought. Then lightning every second, 
 flash after flash, blue, vivid, and ghastly, till the 
 heavens were one blaze of lurid light. Again the 
 mighty wind, and a nearer roar of artillery, as we 
 thought.' 
 
 A third cause of disturbance in the painter's
 
 76 Etty. 
 
 feelings at this time was the familiar one of being 
 (hopelessly in love ; this time with a beautiful and 
 .accomplished young lady about twenty years younger 
 .than himself. He had painted her portrait several 
 times, and this was the consequence. He was 
 * deeply and desperately ' in love with this too 
 interesting, and too charming, model. Finally, he 
 overcame this passion, as he had overcome others, 
 and remained as contented as an often-refused old 
 bachelor can be expected to be. 
 
 About the age of forty-three Etty seems to have 
 attained the perfection of his happiness. The wounds 
 occasioned by the refusals of ladies he admired appear 
 to have healed themselves, so that the artist could 
 settle down to the peaceful existence of a confirmed 
 old bachelor. Though he had not a wife and family 
 of his own, he had near relations, and was not 
 without the solace of affectionate intercourse, which 
 is indispensable to natures such as his. He had the 
 warmest affection for his brother Walter, to whom he 
 owed much gratitude for help given when it was 
 most necessary, and always given ungrudgingly. 
 Etty had also a niece who kept house for him, and 
 whom he describes as ' faithful, good, affectionate, 
 and attentive to all my wishes.' Other elements of 
 happiness were ' a quiet, delightful, cheerful resi- 
 dence,' his Academic rank, and his increasing public 
 reputation. Some philosophers have denied alto- 
 gether the possibility of happiness ; but in all lives,
 
 Etty. 77 
 
 except the most unfortunate, it comes at times like 
 fair weather in a long sea-voyage. One of these 
 times for Etty was the year 1830. Towards the 
 close of the year, however, he was again mixed 
 up in stormy controversy about the screen of York 
 Minster. There can be no doubt about Etty's 
 earnestness in the cause. He wished to retain the 
 screen where it was (and, happily, is still), in oppo- 
 sition to a foolish scheme for removing it farther 
 eastwards, which at that time had many influential) 
 supporters. Etty was not an architect, but he per- 
 ceived at once that if this plan were carried out the 
 screen must of necessity be mutilated, and set in a 
 much worse light, whilst the choir would be short- 
 ened. This roused him to anger, and made him 
 write tremendous letters, which, in fact, won the- 
 battle, since they rallied many influential people to 
 the same cause. 
 
 The next year (Etty being now forty-four) was- 
 very productive ; but his prices even then seem to 
 have been by no means excessive. The Venetian 
 Window (now in the National collection) was bought 
 by Mr. Vernon for 120/., and the Sabina for 100/. by 
 Sir Francis Freeling. This does not indicate any- 
 thing like ardent competition amongst collectors. 
 
 In 1 83 1 Etty sent his last Judith to Edinburgh, 
 and went there himself to retouch the set. He went 
 by Leicester, Derby, and York, where, of course, he 
 revisited the Minster, with all his old enthusiasm.
 
 78 Etty, 
 
 York Minster was a life-long passion with Etty, and 
 he made a person of the building, as he did of his 
 beloved tea-kettle. ' I always see new beauties in 
 my loved Minster. Beautiful is she, and glorious : 
 peerless amongst the temples of the Most High.' 
 
 He was well received in Edinburgh by the artists, 
 where his completed Judith series were now visible 
 together. He worked upon the pictures energeti- 
 cally for several days till they came quite to his 
 mind, and then amused himself by making excur- 
 sions in Scotland, to the Falls of Clyde, Loch 
 Lomond, &c. The return to England was from 
 Glasgow to Carlisle, whence he turned aside to see 
 the English Lake District, in passing through which 
 — from Keswick to Kendal — he saw little else than 
 rain, like many another tourist before and since. 
 
 An important result of the esteem in which Etty 
 was held by Scottish artists was the purchase of his 
 large pictures — the BcnaiaJi and the Combat — by 
 the Scottish Academy. The Benaiah was bought 
 directly from Etty himself for 136/. 10s., including 
 the frame. The Combat belonged to Martin the 
 painter, from whom it was bought for its original 
 price, 300/., with interest from the time of its pur- 
 chase by Martin from Etty. 
 
 The painter's conservative spirit in all that 
 related to York antiquities was roused again by 
 the conduct of the York Corporation about the 
 old walls of the city with their grand gateways.
 
 Etty. 79 
 
 Municipalities, which generally look upon things 
 from the utilitarian point of view, are never very 
 favourably disposed towards old city walls, but look 
 upon them as useless impediments to circulation in 
 a modern town. Old gateways, too, are an impe- 
 diment to traffic ; so that there is a strong tendency 
 to demolish them when they stand in a modern 
 street. Artists and antiquaries, on the other hand, 
 and all people who have either a love for the 
 picturesque or a sentimental interest in the his- 
 torical past, are eager to preserve such great visible 
 relics of it as walls and towers, which speak of it 
 to all men, and, once destroyed, can never be 
 replaced. Etty's artistic and sentimental feelings 
 were much excited in favour of the old walls of 
 York. He and others who felt with him fought 
 bravely in their defence ; and not too soon, for in 
 1826 the barbican of Micklegate had been removed, 
 to the great grief of Sir Walter Scott, who declared 
 that he would have walked from Edinburgh to 
 York to save it ; which no doubt he would have 
 done. In 1831 the Corporation wanted to destroy 
 Bootham Bar, but Etty and others interfered ener- 
 getically to save it, and subscribed 300/. for its 
 repair. He deserves much honour and gratitude 
 as a brave defender of antiquities against stupid 
 modern Philistinism. Nor was his spirit of noble 
 watchfulness confined to York. In 1832 he spoke 
 at a public meeting in favour of repairing the
 
 8o Etty. 
 
 Abbey Church of St. Albans, and joined the sub- 
 scription, and in the same year he exerted himself 
 to preserve a Gothic chapel in Southwark. 
 
 This was the best time of Etty's art-production. 
 He was now forty-five years old, and really an 
 accomplished painter. At this time he painted 
 that delightful work which we all know, Youth at 
 the Proiv and Pleasure at the Helm. He also 
 exhibited Phcedria and Cymochles on the Idle Lake. 
 Both these works belonged to the happiest and 
 most perfect phase of his art, and were more truly 
 rare and precious than the large compositions upon 
 which he hoped to build a more substantial fame. 
 His rich colour and poetic fancy enabled him to 
 treat subjects of this kind with a felicity quite his 
 own. They really belonged to him, and in paint- 
 ing them he fully expressed the artistic part of 
 his nature. 
 
 Outside of art, and his very respectable passion 
 for antiquities, Etty was certainly not distinguished 
 by power of intellect, or even liveliness of intel- 
 ligence. On many subjects his mind seems to have 
 been in a condition of simple prejudice, and quite 
 incapable of any endeavour to lift itself to higher 
 points of view. No Conservatism known to us in 
 the present day can give any adequate notion of 
 the intensity of political prejudice in a mind like 
 Etty's in the year 1832. The very moderate 
 measures of Reform which were proposed in those
 
 Etty. 8 1 
 
 days seemed to Etty a fearful subversion of the 
 natural order of the universe. He classed ' Reform 
 and the Cholera ' together as the ' two great Evils 
 of the Day.' He foretold that Reform would ruin 
 the country. He had a great contempt and dread 
 of the lower classes, who ought, in his opinion, to 
 be kept in their places. 
 
 Etty had not hitherto been much honoured in 
 York, according to the usual rule that a man's 
 native place is one of the last to recognise his 
 reputation. The reason for this seems to be that 
 the celebrated name has to contend, in the native 
 place, with a previous conception of the person as 
 the son of an ordinary inhabitant, often without 
 social rank. When, on the other hand, there is 
 any social rank to begin with, it overshadows repu- 
 tation in the common estimate. Notwithstanding 
 Etty's descent from the gentry on the maternal 
 side, he was of humble origin, and not recognised 
 by the Squire of Hayton. It was, therefore, by no 
 means easy for the inhabitants of an aristocratic 
 place like York to forget the gingerbread shop. 
 To this difficulty may be added the prejudice 
 against art and artists, which existed so strongly 
 in English society in the last generation, and an 
 especial prejudice in Etty's case, whose works were 
 not thought quite decent because he painted the 
 nude. However, in 1832, York did positively re- 
 cognise Etty to some extent. He was invited by 
 
 G
 
 82- Etty. 
 
 the- Lord Mayor, invited to the Deanery, asked to 
 breakfast with the Sheriff, and so far lionised that 
 he could have dined out every day if he had 
 liked. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1833, he was so far suc- 
 cessful as an artist that everything painted by him 
 had been sold, but the prices had always been very 
 moderate. In the three preceding years he had 
 earned, nominally, about 500/. a-year, but a figure- 
 painter has considerable expenses which cannot be 
 avoided. Etty always handed over his money to 
 his brother Walter, who gave him little sums when 
 required. This wonderful brother had advanced to 
 the- painter about 4000/., which was now almost 
 repaid, and was entirely cleared off a little later. 
 The whole story is a very beautiful one, the fra- 
 ternal trust and generosity on one side, and the 
 fraternal conscientiousness in repayment on the 
 other — one perhaps equally rare in dealings on so 
 very large a scale, relatively to the means of both 
 parties. 
 
 In 1834 Etty sold his Hylas for 168/., but he 
 fell ill this year and remained almost incapable of 
 work, for several months. The symptoms were 
 ' severe cough, sore throat, hoarseness, low fever, 
 and soreness all over.' He recovered, however 
 sufficiently to revisit York, and to make excursions 
 in Yorkshire, where he enjoyed the beautiful remains 
 of Gothic architecture at Howden, Selby, Rivaulx,
 
 Etty. 83 
 
 and Byland, besides Fountains Abbey and Ripon 
 Cathedral. All these places interested and de- 
 lighted him. At York he was excited, as usual, by 
 the constant mania for destroying what remained of 
 the old city. The old houses about the Cathedral 
 were now swept away ; they have since been re- 
 placed by very neat middle-class tenements in 
 brick, which the York people believe to be a great 
 improvement. Etty had now a cottage of his own 
 at York, to which he hoped to pay periodical visits, 
 and so keep alive the old adt us for the city and 
 cathedral. On his return to London the painter 
 worked with great energy, and painted about this 
 time (1835) the Bridge of Sighs, the Warrior Arm- 
 ing, Venus and her Satellites, &c. 
 
 An important event in 1835 was Etty's visit to 
 Manchester, where Mr. Grant gave him a commis- 
 sion for a picture, and where he was treated with 
 consideration. In 1836 he worked steadily at a 
 class of subject that he liked, because it afforded a 
 good pretext for the nude. The longer he lived 
 the less he felt inclined to abandon his especial 
 superiority of flesh-painting, and so he chose such 
 subjects as old mythology or history, which gave 
 the opportunity for the kind of painting he delighted 
 in. It has been said that the taste for the nude 
 implies some intellectual inferiority, since it is not 
 the arms and legs, but the face and its expression, 
 which visibly convey to others the intellect of a
 
 84 Etty. 
 
 man. To this it may be frankly answered that 
 Etty was decidedly not intellectual, and yet was at 
 the same time quite decidedly artistic ; the two 
 orders of mind being separable, as we often see. 
 He therefore sought the subjects which best ex- 
 pressed his simply artistic nature. He was not a 
 painter of thought, but of physical beauty, which 
 to his feeling was most visible in the nude, and a 
 sufficing motive for his art. 
 
 He had a scheme for painting some important 
 public picture for York, but it came to nothing. 
 There were only eight supporters of the scheme, 
 and these were all private friends. York was cer- 
 tainly not the place in which any considerable 
 number of persons could be found to whom art 
 was a matter of interest, or who could understand 
 Etty's devotion to it. So he set to work on his 
 big picture of the Sirens, whose history we may 
 briefly tell in this place. It returned unsold to 
 the painter's hands after the exhibition of 1837 
 but was afterwards purchased by Mr. Daniel Grant 
 of Manchester, along with the Delilah, for 250/. — 
 not a large sum for such important pictures. After- 
 wards the purchaser's brother, Mr. William Grant, 
 p-ave the Sirens to the Manchester Institution, 
 where it may still be seen when the annual exhi- 
 bition is not open. Thus it happens that Man- 
 chester instead of York has an important picture 
 by Etty. Perhaps it is quite as well for the
 
 Etty. 85 
 
 painter's fame that it should be so, for an ener- 
 getic community like that of Manchester is much 
 more likely to appreciate the fine arts than a 
 sleepy old cathedral city. 
 
 About this time Etty would very gladly have 
 painted a picture for a Roman Catholic Chapel 
 near Manchester. He liked Roman Catholicism 
 exceedingly, and though he never joined that com- 
 munion openly, he was certainly during his latter 
 years a Roman Catholic in sentiment, if not in 
 positive belief. The one thing which kept him 
 attached to the Church of England was certainly her 
 continued possession of York Minster. Whatever 
 Church possessed the Minster possessed Etty. If 
 Rome could have recovered the Minster, Etty would 
 have gone over along with it ; and it may be suspected 
 from many passages in his letters, that if he could 
 have seen the magnificent Roman ritual in his beloved 
 Cathedral the sight would not have been displeasing 
 to him. In earlier life, during his tours on the 
 Continent, he had felt a strong Protestant opposition 
 to ' Popish ceremonies,' but at fifty he had a poetical 
 sympathy with the elaborate Roman worship not 
 unlike that of Sir Walter Scott. In 1837 he posi- 
 tively declared himself ' CatJiolic — not of the Daniel 
 O'Connell school, but that of Alfred, St. Augustine, 
 St. Bernard, St. Bruno, and Fenelon, not forgetting 
 Raphael, Michael Angelo, and a host of other great 
 and good men.' To his brother he says that he is
 
 86 Etty. 
 
 not likely ever to be a Catholic, ' unless they get their 
 own Cathedrals back again,' which confirms what I 
 have just said about the Minster. He had a strong 
 sympathy with the Roman Catholic Church of the 
 time of the Reformation, which in his opinion had 
 been abominably ill-used. He looked back to the 
 religious unity of England in the Middle Ages with 
 the deepest regret, but chiefly, in may be suspected 
 for the sake of the abbeys and cathedrals. He 
 disliked the ugly Dissenting chapels of his day. 
 
 There was a good deal of public spirit in Etty. 
 We have already seen how actively he bestirred 
 himself for the protection of the remnants of Gothic 
 art which he valued. In 1838 he tried to found a 
 school of art in York, and read a paper there on ' The 
 Importance of the Arts of Design.' He did not 
 succeed in establishing a school of art in York of the 
 kind he at first hoped for, but three years later, owing 
 to his influence, a Government School of Design was 
 established there. 
 
 About this time, at the age of fifty-one, Etty 
 became subject to a distressing cough in the winter, 
 which seems to have been the forerunner of declining 
 health. This did not prevent him from using all his 
 influence to prevent the sale of certain open common 
 pastures near York, called the ' Strays.' He also 
 wrote energetically against the breach in the city 
 wall made by the railway. Painting went on very 
 actively notwithstanding these interruptions. He
 
 Etty. S7 
 
 painted two important works, Pluto and Proserpine, 
 and Diana and Endyniion, besides others. 
 
 A fearful day for Etty was the twenty-second of 
 May, 1840, which he called Fatal Friday. This was 
 the date of the second fire of York M inster. It broke 
 out in one of the western towers and gutted the nave. 
 When Etty heard of it he burst into tears, and 
 remained in a kind of stupor for three days, unable 
 to work or write. The first thing he did afterwards 
 was to write to the Yorkshire Gazette about taking 
 measures to preserve what remained. He went to 
 York in the following month, and spoke in public 
 with great energy, and even eloquence, on the subject. 
 He also delivered a public lecture on English Cathe- 
 drals, and he subscribed liberally to the restoration of 
 the Minster. 
 
 In September he visited, rather hurriedly, the 
 galleries at Belgium, with the especial purpose of 
 studying Rubens. Of this short excursion we have 
 no details, but it is interesting to know that Fjpbens 
 attracted Etty out of England. On his rei^n he 
 painted the Bathers surprised by a Szvan, and other 
 pictures of less importance. In the year 1841 he 
 exhibited six pictures. His prices at this time had 
 improved. The Bathers brought him 210/., and the 
 Prodigal's Return, 262/. \os. Having now entirely 
 paid his brother, Etty began to save money for 
 himself. The attraction to Rubens seems to have 
 continued, for Etty revisited Antwerp in the following
 
 88 Etty. 
 
 July, besides Mechlin, Ghent, and other places. His 
 love of old abbeys could gratify itself during his visits 
 to Yorkshire ; not having seen Bolton Abbey yet, he 
 went there in 1841. Active as ever in the defence of 
 good architecture against modern Philistinism, he 
 protested openly, though in vain, against the sacrifice 
 of St. Stephen's Chapel at Westminster, which might 
 have been restored had it suited Mr. Barry's plans. 
 
 Even yet Etty's prices had not reached anything 
 remarkable. His principal picture in 1842, The Dance, 
 did not sell at all ; his second, The Innocent are Gay, 
 sold for 210/. ; his third, the Magdalene, brought 90/. 
 Six times as much has been offered for it since then. 
 In the same year he began the Joan of Arc on all the 
 three canvases at once. He had a great belief in the 
 healthy effect of work, and pursued his profession 
 with great energy. 
 
 At this time Etty lost a very dear friend, Mr. 
 Harper, the architect, of York, a man for whom Etty 
 had the very strongest affection and esteem. It is 
 especially worth notice that Etty highly appreciated 
 Mr. Harper's talent as an amateur artist. There is a 
 very common prejudice that nobody can do respect- 
 able work in art unless he lives by it, yet both Etty 
 and Stanfield admired Mr. Harper's work. Etty even 
 said that his sketches were ' of the first rank.' Now 
 Mr. Harper used colour in his sketches, and if the 
 colour had been bad, an eye so cultivated as Etty's 
 would not have tolerated it. We have, therefore, in
 
 Etty. 89 
 
 this instance, very strong evidence that it is not 
 impossible for an amateur to colour satisfactorily. It 
 is well, however, to bear in mind that Mr. Harper 
 was an architect, and that architects have a pro- 
 fessional training which helps them towards a know- 
 ledge of objects and of object-drawing. 
 
 Before painting the Joan of Arc series Etty had 
 tried his hand at fresco, in the well-known summer- 
 house experiment at Buckingham Palace. It is 
 always excessively difficult for an artist to take up 
 an unfamiliar process, and it can never be done 
 satisfactorily at short notice, for the change ought 
 to be preceded by several months of experiment. 
 It need not surprise us, then, that Etty found fresco 
 very difficult and unsatisfactory. He disliked the 
 process — a fatal obstacle to good work. Mr. Mac- 
 lise, who saw him at work, said that he did not 
 care to submit to the conditions which are peculiar 
 to the practice of fresco-painting. ' In the Pavilion 
 at Buckingham Palace, I have seen him touch upon 
 the dry plaster — not the fresh portion on which he 
 was to perform his day's work — but the dry part 
 of the previous day's. Of course such work was 
 not absorbed, and therefore useless. His habit in 
 the practice of his art was not methodical enough 
 to submit to the trammels of fresco.' After the 
 tiresome experiment in the summer-house, Etty 
 declared that neither fear nor favour would induce 
 him to undertake another. He had painted two,
 
 9<d Etty. 
 
 not on the walls. He got 40/. for having tried the 
 experiments, and neither one nor the other was 
 put in its place, which seems to imply that they 
 were considered failures. They remained his pro- 
 perty, however, and he sold them for 40/. to Mr. 
 Colls. Mr. Wethered afterwards gave 400/. for 
 them. 
 
 The annoyance occasioned by this business of 
 the fresco was forgotten in a pleasant journey to 
 Edinburgh, York, and Manchester, with the artist's 
 brother, Captain Etty, who had come back from 
 Java. Notwithstanding the shortness of his visit 
 to Scotland, the artists there found time to get up 
 a public reception at a dinner, and treated him 
 quite as a great man. Etty's connexion with Edin- 
 burgh was from first to last a source of nothing- 
 but pleasure and pride to him. We may add that 
 the Scottish Academicians of that day showed an 
 uncommon independence of petty jealousy in re- 
 cognising so handsomely the merits of a living 
 man. Such instances are rare in the history of 
 Academies. 
 
 The following winter Etty's infirmity increased. 
 He suffered much from cough and an asthmatic 
 difficulty of breathing. This did not prevent him 
 from continuing industriously his Academy work in 
 the evenings. He was often interrupted by painful 
 attacks of coughing, but worked on bravely in the 
 intervals of respite.
 
 Etty. 9 1 
 
 Notwithstanding the state of his health the painter 
 travelled in the old way, on a stage-coach, even when 
 he had the opportunity of taking the railway. Thus 
 he travelled to York on a stage-coach, which existed 
 so late as the year 1845, anc ^ when he got there took 
 steps for the purchase of a house in which to end his 
 days, for he had always intended to pass his old age 
 at York. The house he agreed to buy was one he 
 had fallen in love with twenty years before. It was 
 situated very near his birthplace, and by the river- 
 side, with a small plot of ground in front, and 
 pleasant prospect up the river from the back. He 
 paid 1 100/. for the house, and was delighted with 
 it. The situation was at the same time retired and 
 central, between Coney Street and the river. 
 
 The Joan of Arc, on its three large canvases, oc- 
 cupied Etty now, but the winter was severe and his 
 health worse. His good-humoured account of his 
 situation reminds us of Heinrich Heine. ' Now in 
 my bed-room, on the stay-at-home system, the 
 concerts I attend are the singing of my tea-kettle ; 
 the dances, those of the lid. York, they say, is very 
 gay : parties without end ! What different atmo- 
 spheres different constitutions suit! Mine is at pre- 
 sent certainly not gay : cheerful, yet grave. My 
 engrossing subject is a grave and tragic one. My 
 repeated attacks arc anything but comic ; I am 
 thankful it is not worse.' 
 
 The series of three great pictures on Joan of Arc
 
 92 Etty. 
 
 was finished in 1847, when Etty was sixty years old. 
 They were the last of the nine colossal pictures which 
 it had been his life's desire to paint, and when they 
 were finished he returned thanks in Westminster 
 Abbey for the measure of health and time which 
 had enabled him to accomplish them. He also after- 
 wards returned thanks in York Minster, and took 
 the sacrament there with especial reference to this 
 achievement. The selection of the two buildings is 
 very characteristic of Etty. The effect of such 
 august places on his mind was so powerful that he 
 felt there the solemnity of such a thanksgiving much 
 more strongly than he would have done in any ordi- 
 nary church ; indeed it may be doubted whether he 
 would have returned thanks at all, in this solemn 
 way, in an ordinary place of worship. 
 
 The Joan of Arc series had been a great task for 
 him, not lightly undertaken. He had gone to Orleans 
 to find local material in 1843, an< ^ had dreamed of 
 the three pictures for many years before they were 
 executed, giving them much preparatory labour of 
 thought before that of the hand was at last begun. 
 The mere physical labour of painting them had been 
 very considerable, and had fallen heavily on the 
 artist's enfeebled constitution. The three works 
 were, however, successful in finding purchasers, being 
 sold at once for 2500/. to Messrs. Colls, Wethered, 
 and Wass. 
 
 In September, 1847, the artist is established in
 
 Etty. 93 
 
 his house in York, and writes to a friend that it is a 
 place after his own heart. 'This is the place,' he says, 
 1 and the only.' But notwithstanding his passionate 
 love for York he soon returned to London, and his 
 artistic work there ; not the least important part 
 of which, in his eyes, was the evening attendance at 
 the Life School of the Academy. There he laboured 
 still, in spite of steadily increasing physical distress. 
 
 He felt at length that the time had come for the 
 retirement which he had planned for himself so many 
 years before, and that he must go to his house in 
 York. The removal took place in June, 1848. Etty 
 could not accomplish this without a pang, for he 
 loved London with great affection too. It was a 
 peculiarity of his, and not an unpleasing feature in 
 his character, that if he liked a place he soon had 
 tender feelings towards it. He said that he ' loved 
 in his heart every stick, hole, and corner' of his 
 London dwelling. ' At the end of Buckingham 
 Street,' he said, ' in the upper set of chambers, I 
 have enjoyed peace and happiness for upwards of 
 twenty-one years.' His strong tendency to love 
 things and places is shown by his grief at the de- 
 struction of his father's old mill, and by his finding 
 some consolation in possessing part of its old oak 
 ladder, from which he had arm-chairs made. Even 
 the rooms in Buckingham Street were not parted 
 with, but retained as a town residence for occasional 
 visits to London.
 
 94 Etty. 
 
 At York he soon began to suffer greatly from 
 ennui, dreading local scandal if he used living models, 
 yet unable to give up the habit of painting from 
 nature. However, models were procured for him, 
 and he set to work as of old in London, notwith- 
 standing provincial feeling on the subject. It is 
 absurd, indeed, to expect artists to paint the figure 
 well without studying the real figure itself, and every- 
 body knows that figure-painters can no more get 
 their knowledge than surgeons can acquire theirs by 
 the study of coats and trousers. But there is a 
 curious provincial sentiment which holds it scandal- 
 ous for an artist to study from nature in a provincial 
 town, whilst it considers the same kind of study per- 
 missible in the metropolis. The chief advantage to 
 Etty of living in York was, that he could not 
 injure his health by going to the Life Academy 
 at night. 
 
 In 1849 a proposal was made, which turned out 
 to be the crowning event of Etty's life. The Society 
 -of Arts determined to exhibit his works all together, 
 and asked for his assistance in the project, which was 
 very willingly given. Then came a time of great 
 interest for Etty, but also of great anxiety. It be- 
 came necessary to persuade the owners of the 
 different pictures to lend them. The Edinburgh 
 Academy lent their great pictures promptly and 
 kindly, with that readiness to be agreeable which 
 had always marked their dealings with the artist.
 
 Etty. 95 
 
 Manchester was not so acquiescent about the Sirens, 
 and it was only in consequence of the most urgent 
 exercise of local influence that the picture was lent 
 at last. Most of the owners answered Etty's appeal 
 with the greatest good-will, some of them even 
 anticipating it. 
 
 The private view of the collection, which included 
 many, but not all, of his most important works, took 
 place on Saturday, June n, 1849. That day was 
 the greatest of the artist's life. Rarely does a career 
 lead up to so decided a consummation. He had 
 wished to be a painter, had studied for it arduously 
 and incessantly, and now the world unanimously 
 acknowledged that he had succeeded. Etty's only 
 regret was for the absent pictures. Those exhibited 
 were 133 in number, those not exhibited would have 
 filled another room had they been present. 
 
 The painter himself had a satisfaction in seeing 
 his own works, which is the reward of successful 
 labour. He was clearly aware of their merits, and 
 was not prevented by artificial modesty from ex- 
 pressing his opinion of them candidly. ' I wish you 
 could see the uplifted arm of Judith,' he wrote to 
 Mrs. Bulmcr. ' It never looked so well before, or 
 so striking. Then there is that finest of my fine 
 pictures, Hero dying on Leanders Body.' Then he 
 wrote to his brother, ' It is truly a triumph, after a 
 struggle of many years, to see and feel one's works 
 duly estimated, considered, and applauded.'
 
 96 Etty. 
 
 The only drawback on the artist's happiness 
 during this season of triumph was a great dread of 
 -fire. ' What a calamity it would be ! ' he used to 
 say : ' my fame killed ! ' 
 
 He would not have the price of admission 
 lowered, from distrust of the poorer classes, whom 
 he always wished to keep ' in their places.' And yet 
 he mieht have remembered that when one of his 
 pictures was injured by some Philistine because 
 there were naked figures in it, the Philistine who 
 did the deed was one of the respectable payers of 
 shillings who alone, at that time, had admission to 
 the Royal Academy. 
 
 Health broke down again before the exhibition 
 closed. The evil this time was an attack of rheu- 
 matic fever, of the most severe and painful kind. 
 He got through this, however, by the help of the 
 ■doctors, and quitted London late in September for 
 his retreat in York. The London studio had not 
 been abandoned without the hope and intention of 
 returning to it, but the artist's friends in York saw 
 that the end was nearer than he himself believed. He 
 had still enough health left, however, to enjoy very 
 deeply the first months of his retreat. His old 
 passionate love for York made him delight in the 
 mere sight of the familiar places. The garden of the 
 Museum was within five minutes' walk of his house, 
 so he could go there easily ; and he deeply enjoyed 
 that very interesting place, with its Roman and
 
 Etty. 97 
 
 Gothic ruins, its near neighbourhood to the river, 
 and to the glorious Minster. 
 
 October passed in these tranquil pleasures, and 
 Etty painted still, in spite of the painful condition of 
 his hands, which were benumbed by chronic rheuma- 
 tism. He had always been imprudent, in little things, 
 about his health — those little things on which hansj 
 life and death. He heard a young man talk of 
 treating himself on the too-well-known 'hardening' 
 principle, which is health to the robust but destruc- 
 tion to the weak. On the night of the 2nd of 
 November the artist was foolish enough to try to 
 harden himself by throwing aside his flannel shirt, 
 to which he had been accustomed for many years. 
 He felt better in the day-time, and attended service 
 in the Minster, but the following night came an 
 attack of congestion of the lungs, complicated by 
 undeveloped rheumatic gout. Then Etty became 
 aware that he was going to die, and watched the 
 sunsets on the river with the feeling that the glories 
 of this world were soon to be left behind. He died 
 on the evening of November 13, 1849. 
 
 ' Lay me by my Bride,' he said ; ' she who is so 
 lovely to mine eyes, so dear to my heart, captivating 
 to my imagination ; whose brow is bound round 
 with rubies, with sapphires, with amethysts, with 
 emeralds ; who lifts her head into the heavens, and 
 seems a fitting ante-chamber thereto.' 
 
 This was his way of saying that he wished to 
 
 11
 
 98 Etty. 
 
 be buried in York Minster, But Etty had forgotten 
 to leave 500/. in his will for the exorbitant fees, 
 so he was laid in St. Olave's churchyard. His tomb 
 is near to St. Mary's Abbey, which stands in what 
 is now the garden of the Museum, and which every 
 visitor to York remembers. 
 
 The story of Etty's life has now been briefly told 
 from the ample materials collected by Mr. Gilchrist, 
 but we have said little hitherto of his work as an 
 artist. He had great difficulties to contend against 
 in consequence of his preference for the naked figure, 
 and difficulties of two distinct classes. It is both 
 difficult to paint and difficult to sell when painted. 
 People who entirely misunderstood Etty supposed 
 that he pandered to vicious tastes for money, but the 
 truth is, that as pictures are a part of domestic life 
 in England, being hung in rooms that are commonly 
 inhabited, there is a dislike to nude figures amongst 
 English purchasers generally, and therefore an artist 
 who chooses that class of subject does not increase 
 his chances of sale, but restricts them. People who 
 live entirely outside of art are always likely to mis- 
 understand the feeling of such an artist as Etty. 
 They do not see the studies of the nude which are, 
 or ought to be, constantly made by other artists for 
 their own instruction, and they fancy that the painter 
 who chooses subjects like his has some peculiar 
 depravity. The only real difference between him 
 and them is, that he carries the habit of Academic
 
 Etty. 99 
 
 study into his pictures themselves. Etty was essen- 
 tially an enthusiastic Academy student. To his 
 feeling the human figure was the most beautiful 
 object in the world, and his delight was to paint it 
 from living nature continually. All figure-painters 
 are perfectly well aware that such practice as Etty's 
 is the foundation of substantial knowledge. It is 
 curious, however, that the knowledge he acquired by 
 so much perseverance should have been limited to 
 colour and tone, for he never drew really well, and, 
 indeed, was capable of the most glaring faults in 
 drawing. His one distinction is that he could paint 
 flesh as none of his contemporaries could paint it, 
 and this came from a naturally fine sense of colour, 
 which he cultivated by painting more flesh from 
 nature than any other artist. He had a good deal 
 of poetry, too, in his composition — he had much of 
 of the poetic nature ; we have evidence enough of 
 this in such a picture as Youth at the Froze and 
 Pleasure at the Helm, which is really a poem, like 
 several others of his imaginative compositions. We 
 see from his life that he had the intense affections 
 of a poet. His love for York, for the bars, barbicans, 
 walls, and especially for the ' glorious Minster,' was 
 a poet's passion ; and so, in minor degrees, were his 
 feelings towards all other noble remains of the Middle 
 Ages. He had, too, the high disinterestedness of the 
 poetic nature. Pic was always ready to give time 
 and money in defence of architecture and antiquities.
 
 ioo Etty. 
 
 He was a true knight of the noble order which fights 
 against Philistinism continually, and he dealt some 
 very effective blows, which have saved some precious 
 things for posterity. Few men have preserved 
 through life more soundness and tenderness of 
 feeling. He loved his relations and friends with 
 much more than that tepid sort of affection which 
 dull people consider sufficient, and he was warmly 
 loved in return. The only imperfection of feeling 
 recognisable in him was a want of charity towards 
 the common people, whom he greatly distrusted. 
 Etty had a fine public spirit and a strong, though 
 not an enlightened, patriotism. He was not an 
 intellectual person, and had very little general cul- 
 ture, which accounts for his narrowness in some 
 things and the limited range of his ideas. Two ideas 
 seem to have been dominant through his life : one, 
 the beauty of flesh, with the desire to render it on 
 canvas ; the other, the beauty of Gothic architecture* 
 with the desire for its preservation. There is no 
 evidence, however, that he had the slightest critical 
 acquaintance with Gothic architecture. He seems to 
 have loved everything in York Minster equally, the 
 only exception being an especial delight in the 
 wonderful Chapter-house ; and his letters about other 
 places show none of the distinguishing faculty which 
 belongs to a really cultivated student of the subject. 
 His published letters are not the writing of an en- 
 lightened critic who wishes to enlighten others ; they
 
 Etty. 101 
 
 are simply coups de massue in defence of a righteous 
 cause, intended to beat opponents to the ground. 
 In short, Etty, like Turner, was an artist of that 
 numerous class whose faculties are almost entirely 
 absorbed by the practical work of painting, and its 
 prodigious difficulties. In these cases the man is 
 sacrificed to the art so far as his intellectual culture is 
 concerned, but he may still have time to cultivate 
 what is best in character. The character of Etty is 
 one of the simplest and sweetest in the biographies 
 of artists ; and not only was it simple and sweet, 
 but full of fortitude and persistence, with an iron 
 strength of resolution. His tenacity during so many 
 unsuccessful years is really a great example. He 
 had truly the artist-nature in the best sense, with its 
 noble industry in study, its generosity, and its dis- 
 interestedness. Money was not his object, except 
 that he might repay his brother Walter, and leave 
 some provision for his niece ; and this he accom- 
 plished handsomely. William Etty had paid his 
 debt some years before he died, but his sense of 
 gratitude was not diminished, and it seemed to him 
 that he could not too often acknowledge those ser- 
 vices which had enabled him to persevere. So he 
 left his niece the beloved house in York with 200/. 
 a-year for life, but all the rest of his now considerable 
 fortune was bequeathed to his brother Walter. And 
 thus fitly ends a true and beautiful story of fraternity.
 
 102 
 
 CHINTREUIL. 
 
 # 
 
 IN the year 1874 there was an exhibition in Paris 
 of the works of the landscape-painter, Antoine 
 Chintreuil, and at the same time a catalogue of 
 them was published by M. Cadart. The revival 
 of etching had one quite unforeseen result in 
 several countries on the Continent. It led to the 
 publication of the most sumptuous illustrated cata- 
 logues that were ever seen, and private collectors 
 found a satisfaction for their own feelings in having 
 the whole or a great part of their galleries etched 
 by the most skilful etchers of the day. Some- 
 times this may be done with a view to the pecuniary 
 interests of the collector, who is not unfrequently 
 in the present day nothing but a picture-dealer in 
 disguise. He lays out a considerable sum in pic- 
 tures when good opportunities occur ; does all he 
 can to make his collection, and his name as collector, 
 notorious ; publishes an illustrated catalogue, and 
 just at the time when his fame seems fully ripe, 
 sends the whole collection to the hammer and clears 
 a few thousands by the operation. Now although 
 
 * La Vie et PCEuvre de Chintreuil, par A. de La Fizeliere, 
 Champfleury, et F. Henriet. Quarante Eauxfortes par Martial, 
 Beauverie, Taiee, Ad. Lalauze, Saffray, Selle, et Paul Roux. 
 Paris : Cadart, Rue Neuve des Mathurins, 58, 1874.
 
 Ckintreuil. 10 
 
 j 
 
 picture-dealing is, or may be, as honourable as any 
 other branch of commerce, we have a strong objec- 
 tion to disguised picture-dealing, and are therefore 
 glad to know that this catalogue of Chintreuil's 
 work issued by M. Cadart was free from any 
 suspicion of these secret designs. 
 
 It owed its existence, first, to the affectionate 
 devotion of M. Jean Desbrosses, who was a pupil 
 of Chintreuil, and for many years almost a son to 
 him ; and secondly, to the fidelity of two or three 
 literary friends of the deceased artist, who wrote 
 very interesting biographical notices which served 
 as an introduction to the etchings and the printed 
 catalogue. The work was published in quarto, the 
 page being as long as that of ' The Portfolio,' 
 and broader. Both text and etchings are on good 
 papier verge in the ordinary copies, and on Chinese 
 or English paper by Whatman in the earlier proof 
 copies. The text is admirably printed in old type 
 by Clayc. Most of the etchings are by the skilful 
 and practised hand of Martial, but the others are 
 scarcely, if at all, inferior to them in quality, and a 
 fair average of workmanship is steadily maintained 
 throughout the book. 
 
 Chintreuil is one of the most perfect instances 
 of the pure landscape - painter that have become 
 known to the public hitherto. He was born for 
 landscape-painting, as others arc born for music ; 
 but Nature, whilst endowing him with the most
 
 104 Chintreuil. 
 
 passionate love of landscape, withheld the gift of 
 manual facility. Chintreuil did not attain executive 
 skill until comparatively late in life, and as public 
 recognition is not to be expected without that, it 
 need not surprise us if this artist remained obscure 
 till the prime of life was past. The story of his 
 existence is deeply affecting, and it is told by M. 
 de La Fizeliere with a very admirable simplicity 
 and truth ; in fact, we have seldom met with a 
 biography so free from any straining after effect. 
 The beauty of this life does not reside in its success 
 and fame, though its evening was gilded with a 
 little of these, but rather in its patience and sweet- 
 tempered resignation in poverty and obscurity, with 
 an industry that never faltered, even when its pros- 
 pects were dullest and darkest. Chintreuil began 
 life with good actions : first, in mere boyhood, main- 
 taining his old father by uncongenial labour in a 
 public school ; after that, on inheriting a little for- 
 tune himself, by abandoning it entirely for the same 
 purpose. He went to Paris, very poorly equipped 
 for the great battle of life, tried to colour scientific 
 prints, but was not neat enough in his manual work 
 to accomplish this satisfactorily; so, by the advice 
 of his friendly employer, got a situation in a book- 
 seller's shop, where he became acquainted with 
 Champfleury, since then a well - known writer. 
 Champfleury had artist friends, and Chintreuil soon 
 found the old passion and hope revive within him.
 
 Chintreuil. 105 
 
 He went on a little excursion in eastern France 
 with some of these companions, and found on his 
 return that he had lost his situation. Then he 
 began his artist life in earnest, first as the poorest 
 of poor students, living up in a garret on nothing 
 a-year. Nothing a-year is, however, an insufficient 
 income even for the most moderate wants, and so 
 Chintreuil found when he came literally to stare 
 starvation in the face. Some commissions for 
 copying were to be had from Government, and he 
 •tried to get the influence of a deputy in his favour 
 for one of these ; the deputy refused unkindly, and 
 as a last resource, Chintreuil applied to Beranger 
 the poet, to whom he was a perfect stranger. This 
 was a most fortunate step, for Beranger treated the 
 young artist with the utmost kindness, buying little 
 pictures of him, and paying for his canvases and 
 •colours. The good-natured song-writer was not a rich 
 patron, but he made up in kindness and activity what 
 he wanted in wealth ; and it was owing to this activity 
 that Chintreuil became known to a little circle of 
 intelligent people, who at any rate kept him from 
 mental dejection and physical starvation. 
 
 As soon as he was able to leave Paris, Chintreuil 
 went to live and study in the country, at Igny, 
 where there is a picturesque little river called the 
 Bicvre. He worked very hard on the banks of this 
 stream, often in the damp morning or evening air, 
 with insufficient attention to his clothing. After
 
 io6 Chintreuil. 
 
 six years of this life he caught a pleurisy, in con- 
 sequence of working from nature, and probably at 
 this time the seeds of consumption were implanted 
 in his constitution. He recovered after six months 
 of suffering, and got back into such health as he 
 ever enjoyed ; which was not really health, but 
 only a tolerable pathological state. Then he wanted 
 to recommence his habits of study, but his medical 
 advisers would not allow him to do so on the banks 
 of the Bievre, so he had to choose a drier neigh- 
 bourhood ; and at last, in obedience to this advice, 
 fixed upon La Tournelle - Septeuil, near Mantes, 
 where he settled and worked assiduously for sixteen 
 years, at the end of which he died. 
 
 The life thus briefly described was entirely 
 devoted to one purpose — the expression, by means 
 of painting, of what Chintreuil felt and knew about 
 landscape. With this purpose kept steadily in view, 
 this true student of nature lived in perfect simplicity, 
 and almost absolute retirement, not even travelling, 
 as that which he desired to paint might be seen 
 about his own home. It was only during the last 
 ten years of his life that he was a known artist, 
 and even so late as 1863 his pictures were refused 
 at the Exhibition. He received the decoration only 
 in 1870. He was born at Pont-de-Vaux, in the 
 departement de l'Ain, May 5th, 18 14, and died on 
 the 10th of August, 1873. 
 
 For many years, as we have hinted already, Chin-
 
 Chintreuil. 107 
 
 treuil was much hindered and impeded by the 
 technical difficulties of his art. Afterwards he over- 
 came these, but he overcame them quite in his own 
 way, as Constable did in his own other way : so that 
 painters who had the tradition of landscape execution 
 considered him ignorant of his business. It often 
 happens that an original artist is best appreciated 
 by artists who do not work on the same class of 
 subjects, and we are not at all surprised that Comte, 
 the eminently skilful figure-painter, should have 
 admired Chintreuil heartily, whilst the older land- 
 scape-painters did not approve of an innovator who 
 had not the proper touch for oak foliage, &c. Chin- 
 treuil was one of those genuine lovers of nature 
 whose impressions are much too vivid to be rendered 
 in set methods ; but an original artist of this kind 
 is generally both longer in acquiring technical skill, 
 and longer in commanding public applause, than 
 a docile pupil of tradition. The wonder, in our 
 opinion, is, that a painter like Chintreuil should 
 ever become famous at all ; not that he did not 
 deserve fame, but because there is so little to attract 
 popular attention in his work. Judging from these 
 etchings, and from what we remember of his pictures, 
 we should say that they hardly ever had much of 
 what we in England are accustomed to consider 
 a subject. Anything seems to have interested the 
 artist — any clump of trees, any bit of rustic road, 
 any rising ground ; and he was not at all particular
 
 10S Chintreuil. 
 
 about the beauty of the material he admitted : for 
 in one or two of his most important pictures he 
 introduces mutilated trees of painfully ugly forms. 
 He seems to have painted so many studies, merely 
 for study, as to have often, from habit, painted 
 nothing but a study when he intended to paint a 
 picture; which is, or ought to be, such a very different 
 thing. The love of nature seems to have been 
 stronger in him than the love of art, and yet the 
 nature he loved was not generally either beautiful 
 or sublime, and his works owe their interest chiefly 
 to their effects of light -and -shade. Considering 
 what a remarkably beautiful country France is, we 
 have often felt some surprise that the modern school 
 of paysagistes should have devoted itself so exclu- 
 sively to scraps of common nature, which, though 
 excellent for elementary study, are insufficient 
 motives for important pictures, unless in those rare 
 instances when the artist discovers in them some 
 beautiful harmony of composition. There are evi- 
 dences of this discovering faculty in Chintreuil ; 
 many of the subjects here are as harmonious as they 
 are simple, but in many others one has a difficulty 
 in making out whether there has been any artistic 
 intention at all beyond the mere student's purpose 
 of copying faithfully what he sees. The subject 
 given in the 'Portfolio,' Lotv Tide, is very beautiful as 
 a composition, and has, besides, that true feeling for 
 nature which was never wanting in Chintreuil, what-
 
 Chtntreuil. 109 
 
 ever he painted. There is a great deal of poetry,, 
 of the sort for which Millet is distinguished, in the 
 picture entitled Derniers Rayons, and also in Pluie 
 et Soldi. In both these last-named works the land 
 looks as unpromising for artistic purposes as possible, 
 being nothing but what is called dull, uninteresting- 
 country, without even a tree, yet the composition 
 and artistic feeling are exquisite in both. On the 
 whole the volume is valuable, and ought to be in- 
 structive to every one who takes any serious interest 
 in etching and in landscape. It may be safely re- 
 commended to the more earnest class of practical 
 amateurs.* 
 
 * Although the work contains only forty plates, the subjects 
 are much more numerous. There are often several subjects on 
 one plate.
 
 I IO 
 
 ADRIEN GUIGNET. 
 
 IF one were asked whether any single quality- 
 could be fixed upon as common to all artists 
 of eminence, the answer might be that every such 
 artist has had the power to create for himself a 
 microcosm — a little cosmos of his own. Every 
 powerful artist is grafted on the great cosmos-tree 
 of nature, and receives its sap for his nourishment ; 
 but no sooner does the sap flow into him than it is 
 transformed by the virtue of his own being into a 
 fresh creation, and the fruit he gives is not the fruit 
 of the tree on which he was engrafted. Adrien 
 Guignet had this power to a degree not unusual 
 amongst great artists, but exceedingly unusual 
 amongst minor ones ; and every one who knows his 
 ' microcosm,' as Theophile Gautier very happily 
 called it, will remember it as a distinct world, un- 
 imaginable by anybody else, and truly the product 
 of a homogeneous artistic imagination. It is won- 
 derful how such a little world on canvas fascinates 
 us when once we have obtained an entrance, and how 
 eager we become to see a little more of it, and a little 
 more, till we have exhausted the achieved work of 
 the artist, and then we feel that there must have been 
 still a great extent of the same dreamland in his
 
 Adricn Guignet. 1 1 1 
 
 «5 
 
 own imagination, of which we can never know any- 
 thing, since the access to it was closed for us by the 
 cessation of his productive activity. 
 
 I never met with any one capable of entering into 
 the conceptions of imaginative artists who did not in 
 this way want to know more and more of Guignet 
 when he had once got admission into his dreamland. 
 He was one of those artists whose fame is sure to 
 extend itself, however gradually, for he remains per- 
 manently in the memory, taking possession of his 
 own place there and keeping it in spite of the 
 enormous quantities of other work that we meet 
 with in galleries and exhibitions. The reason is,, 
 that Guignet was a poet on canvas, and I propose 
 to give some account of the sort of poetry he painted, 
 and of the spirit and habits of his life. 
 
 He was born in 1817 at Annecy, in Savoy, and he 
 died at Paris in 1854.* His family afterwards lived 
 at Salins, and was ruined by a great fire that de- 
 stroyed much property there in 1825. Guignet's 
 father then became steward at a chateau, and the boy 
 lived there from thirteen to sixteen, having access to 
 wild nature, and this may have had its influence on 
 the future character of his art. At sixteen he was. 
 put apprentice to a land-surveyor, but became tired 
 
 * I am indebted for the facts of Guignet's biography to an 
 article by Theophile Gautier in the ' Magasin pittoresque,' but 
 had formed my own opinion of his genius and work long before 
 I became aware that Gautier was also one of his admirers.
 
 112 Adrien Guignet. 
 
 of the business in a week, and fled to the woods, 
 where he lived as he could for a short time, after 
 which he returned to his parents and declared his 
 fixed resolution of becoming a painter. He was not 
 the first of the profession in his family, but I know 
 absolutely nothing of the works of the other and 
 elder Guignet, so it may be well to keep silence 
 about them in this place. Adrien went to Paris, got 
 a room for nothing, high up in General Pajol's town 
 residence, which was the General's way of being kind 
 to him, and for seven years, from 1832 to 1839, the 
 young artist worked in Blondel's atelier. Then he 
 went and worked alone, and alone in a sense much 
 more absolute than is usual with artists. His custom 
 was to paint in perfect solitude, and not to let any- 
 body see what he was doing until it was quite 
 finished ; and if by chance this solitude was ever 
 broken in upon and the canvas seen by the visitor, he 
 would either alter the composition of it, or else throw 
 it aside altogether. He lost all interest in a picture 
 that was no longer his own secret. By this private 
 way of work it is evident that his imagination could 
 act more freely than it could have done in a studio 
 crowded by callers ; and if we think of him as a poet, 
 which he was, it need not surprise us that he should 
 have liked to be alone during his hours of composi- 
 tion. This love of solitude, not for solitude's sake, 
 not from hatred to mankind, but for the work's sake, 
 and for the vision, has always been a characteristic
 
 Adrien Guignet. 1 1 
 
 "6 
 
 of poets ; and it is probable that the fashion of 
 having studios which are like drawing-rooms, crowded 
 with a succession of visitors, may in some measure be 
 accountable for the too general deficiency of the 
 poetic element in painting. 
 
 Guignet had this great advantage over unimagin- 
 ative artists, that a picture with him was always 
 primarily a pure mental conception, not a thing to 
 be seen and copied, as a student copies a model. 
 There cannot be a doubt that an artist who is gifted 
 enough to start from this point begins his picture at 
 the right end, for he strictly follows the imaginative 
 method of the true creators. Whilst recognising, as 
 clearly as Lessing did, the difference between poetry 
 in verse and sculpture or painting, we may still re- 
 main convinced that when the creative imagination 
 operates in these different arts it operates much in 
 the same way, although, in the outward expression, 
 it may select or reject this or that idea as being more 
 or less in harmony with technical conditions and 
 necessities. The best condition for an artist would 
 be that in which the knowledge of the appearance of 
 things was so complete that he would have no occa- 
 sion to refer to nature, or even to his own studies and 
 memoranda, during the progress of his work, but 
 would be left just as free as a poet in words, to 
 follow out a purely imaginative conception, deve- 
 loping it, giving it form and colour, realising it, if 
 that may be called realisation which remains ob- 
 
 I
 
 ii4 Adrien Guignet. 
 
 viously a dream. His business, in a word, would be 
 to render the dream visible. Well, this was exactly 
 the condition in which Guignet lived and worked. 
 He had been a thorough student, and had acquired 
 all necessary knowledge before giving himself up 
 to his own imaginings — this, of course, is a condition 
 sine qua 11011. But once in dreamland he never again 
 quitted it ; and even in his way of studying from 
 nature, he sought much more a stimulus to imagi- 
 nation than a knowledge of positive facts. Gautier 
 says, that instead of painting studies when out-of- 
 doors in the society of other artists who were friends 
 of his, he would quit his companions, get into wild 
 rocky places, and sit motionless for hours together, 
 gazing and dreaming, whilst the puffs of smoke came 
 from his pipe in regular, time-measuring succession. 
 He did not touch pencil or paper, did not make the 
 slightest sketch, yet received from nature what he 
 sought, and after bathing himself in the influences 
 of the forest and the sunset went back to his own 
 chamber to his work. Sometimes he would sit 
 gazing in the same abstracted way at a white canvas 
 for two or three days without touching it, then sud- 
 denly make the dream visible in a picture executed 
 with astonishing ease, decision, rapidity. 
 
 The subjects on which his imagination exercised 
 itself were almost always chosen, if, indeed, he at all 
 consciously chose them, from a remote antiquity — from 
 the books of the Old Testament, or from ancient
 
 Adrien Guignet. 1 1 5 
 
 Greek or Roman history and legend. He took great 
 interest also in a race which had no history of its 
 own, the Gauls whom Caesar conquered. The wilder 
 parts of France were peopled again with Gauls by 
 Guignet's imagination. He saw them in groups 
 amongst the rocks and under the great trees of the 
 old forests ; he saw them in myriads on the plains, 
 resisting with hopeless valour the terrible strength 
 of Rome. No flaming sunset of Burgundy could 
 redden the rocky fastnesses but Guignet would see 
 his Gauls lurking in their shadows, or coming out in 
 the fiery light to watch the distant enemy. So when 
 he paints a dolmen a Gaulish shepherd leans against 
 it beneath the moon. It seems as if his imagination 
 could not have the freedom that it needed without 
 going back two thousand years. It is possible, also 
 with respect to the Gauls, that Guignet may have 
 experienced a sentiment of sympathy which we 
 sometimes find amongst the more cultivated and 
 imaginative of modern Frenchmen. Historians al- 
 ways write from the Roman point of view, just as 
 if they saw every event from Caesar's camp ; but 
 Guignet is a Gaul at heart, and it is easier for a 
 painter to dwell upon Gaulish subjects than it would 
 be for a writer : the writer would not find material 
 enough — the painter has ample material in the 
 valorous human frame, the vigorous physical action, 
 the scenery of rock and hill, of primaeval forest, with 
 landscape effect which, if studied in our own time,
 
 1 1 6 Adrien Gttignet. 
 
 is true also of Caesar's time. There is, too, a peculiar 
 interest for the spectator in seeing the Gaul on 
 canvas — the Gaul of whom he knows so little and is 
 willing to believe that the painter can tell him more. 
 Even the effect of sunset, seen by the painter in some 
 recent excursion, appears to the spectator trans- 
 ported twenty centuries back, because there is a 
 Gaulish chieftain in the foreground, and the spec- 
 tator finds it interesting to see how the sun set in 
 the days of Vercingetorix. 
 
 Once or twice Guignet painted a slight subject 
 from the Middle Ages, such as The Knight Errant 
 and Don Quixote, for the poetry of the rider going 
 armed in the wild rough landscape. He thoroughly 
 understood the importance of landscape to a figure- 
 painter, and its remarkable influence in connexion 
 with figures. Far from disdaining it as an adjunct 
 of little consequence, he relied upon it for half the 
 power of his work ; or, rather, he conceived land- 
 scape and figure simultaneously and inseparably. 
 In the Don Quixote the impression is due to the 
 weird harmony between the scene and the figure, 
 the great spaces to right and left being a suggestion 
 of the wide world into which the knight wandered. 
 In all Guignet's works the landscape is made for 
 the figures, yet does not look contrived — it looks 
 inevitable : of course the figures must have been in 
 that landscape which suits them so well ; of course 
 that wild scene must have been inhabited by such
 
 Adricu Guignet. 1 1 7 
 
 warriors, by such banditti. Gauticr puts this painter 
 between Salvator Rosa and Decamps, but it might 
 be more accurate to put him after Decamps, whose 
 influence upon him is very marked. Guignet first 
 exhibited in 1840, when Decamps had already ap- 
 peared in five exhibitions ; and it happens curiously 
 that in 1839 Decamps came out in great strength, 
 for he had ten or eleven works in the Salon of that 
 year. Guignet learned a good deal from that great 
 artist, but never servilely imitated him, and does not 
 appear to have been bitten by the rage about 
 Decamps' processes, which at one time possessed 
 so many young French painters. Salvator influenced 
 both, to some extent, but more as to choice of wild 
 subjects than in their execution. Guignet was not so 
 fine a colourist as Decamps at his best, he was too 
 fond of pervading hot colour, often of the kind which 
 artists call 'foxy;' but he was a master of browns, 
 yellows, and warm greys, and a most skilful artist 
 manually — more skilful in a certain sense than 
 Decamps himself was. 
 
 In 1848 the Due cle Luynes, who so well under- 
 stood the fine arts and encouraged them so magnifi- 
 cently, wrote to Guignet to offer him a great com- 
 mission for three large works to occupy panels in 
 the dining-room at Dampicrrc. This commission 
 would undoubtedly have led to much subsequent 
 fame and success if the artist could have lived to 
 enjoy it, but he unfortunately died in 1854 of the
 
 1 1 8 Adrien Guignet 
 
 £> 
 
 smallpox. His reputation, which was considerable 
 amongst artists in those days, has shown no signs 
 of extinction, but on the contrary has gradually 
 extended itself since then, and may be considered 
 assured in France. His life on the whole appears to 
 have b^en a happy one ; he was absorbed in his art, 
 and had the gifts of nature that were needed for his 
 work. Although success, in the sense of money- 
 making, came rather late to him, the other sort of 
 success, the encouraging consciousness of doing good 
 work, came to him early, and he was probably never 
 troubled with any doubts about his vocation. He 
 had both the imaginative and executive faculties, so 
 that for him there was no dearth either of ideas to be 
 realised or of the ability needed for their realisation.
 
 ii9 
 
 GOYA. 
 
 IF the reader visited the Universal Exhibition at 
 Paris in 1878, he will probably not have failed 
 to pass at least some hours in the ' Retrospective ' 
 which occupied the galleries of the Trocadero, and 
 it is just possible that he may remember a series 
 of pictures by Goya, the property of Baron 
 Erlanger, which were kindly lent by him in order 
 to give the Parisian public, and foreigners from 
 beyond the sea, such as the islanders from the 
 British Archipelago, an opportunity of deriving 
 moral and aesthetic benefit from the works of the 
 successor of Velazquez. Many visitors, insufficiently 
 prepared by previous studies in the fine arts to 
 make use of so desirable an opportunity, allowed 
 their attention to be absorbed by some pretty bed- 
 steads and other curious objects, and then descended 
 the staircase, which was close at hand, without ever 
 casting a glance upon the famous ' frescoes ' by 
 Goya, which were all hung together at a convenient 
 height above the eye. Some stopped to look at 
 them, because they had been mentioned in the 
 newspapers, and it was interesting to listen to re- 
 marks which in some cases expressed a laudable 
 desire to believe what the speakers humbly imagined
 
 i 20 Goya. 
 
 that they ought to believe. ' These,' said an English 
 gentleman in my hearing to his ladies, 'these are 
 the famous frescoes, you know, of the great Spanish 
 artist, Goya, of whom, no doubt, you will have heard. 
 They are considered very fine, but I don't quite — 
 let me see — really, you know, there are often many 
 things in the works of great artists which we do 
 not quite grasp just at first, but they are fine, very 
 fine indeed ; perhaps the light is not quite good 
 enough for them here.' He and the ladies gazed 
 on the celebrated 'frescoes' for a few minutes, 
 evidently from a sense of duty, with eyes ex- 
 pressive of veneration, combined with a sense of 
 personal insufficiency, and then, having thus silently 
 paid their tribute to a celebrity they could not under- 
 stand, they meekly went their way. 
 
 Goya has, indeed, been so much written up by 
 Continental critics during the last ten or twenty 
 years, that it requires a certain courage to say the 
 truth about him. The successor of Velazquez has 
 been lifted up to the rank of a great master, and 
 since, on the Continent, the great masters are not 
 to be criticised but only worshipped, their position 
 is almost unassailable. I do not know that there 
 can be any more deplorable superstition in the fine 
 arts than this blind adoration of famous names. 
 What is fame? It is nothing but a noise made by 
 talkers and writers, and if other talkers and writers 
 were to be cowed by it into respectful silence, they
 
 Goya. 121 
 
 ■would be~_ like watch-dogs afraid to bark because 
 other dogs had barked in the next farm. The 
 opinions of critics, however celebrated they may 
 be, are simply, even when sincere, the expression 
 of their own private and personal feelings, and are 
 utterly destitute of authority. The opinions of 
 artists may seem at first somewhat more formid- 
 able, because an artist knows something positive 
 and practical ; but a little reflection would convince 
 the most timid that he may live in serene in- 
 dependence of their opinions also if he likes, for 
 whatever one artist paints or says, you can always 
 find another of equal rank to declare in plain terms 
 that he is an idiot or something worse. For ex- 
 ample, Eugene Delacroix had a passionate admira- 
 tion for Goya, and condemned himself to the slavery 
 of copying eighty of Goya's ugliest etchings, first 
 taking each plate as a whole and then copying 
 parts of it separately, so that it may seem at first 
 sight as if we ought to bow down to his opinion ; 
 but was there not another painter, called Ingres, 
 who looked upon that same Eugene Delacroix as a 
 demon from the pit, and had the windows opened 
 when he had passed through a room to get rid of 
 the sulphureous emanations ? 
 
 That delicate reference by M. Ingres to the 
 infernal regions recalls me to the point from which 
 I started — the exhibition of the 'frescoes' in Paris > 
 in which the demoniacal clement is very strong.
 
 1 2 2 Goya. 
 
 It was often strong in Goya's works, but we shall 
 have more to say of it later. The first remark to 
 be made is, that the celebrated ' frescoes ' are not 
 frescoes at all, but simply oil paintings. M. Yriarte 
 tells us, in his biography of the painter, that he 
 decorated his country-house with these inventions, 
 and executed them directly upon the wall. When 
 he wrote his book, a successful but expensive 
 attempt had been made to remove one mural paint- 
 ing, not by Goya himself, but by his son ; and in 
 those days it was the general opinion that when 
 the house was pulled down the paintings would 
 perish with it. Since then they have been saved 
 by the care of Goya's admirers, and the Baron 
 Erlanger has become their happy possessor. Thanks 
 to him, we, who have not been to Goya's quinta by 
 the Manzanares, have now ample materials for 
 knowing the painter when most himself; for when 
 an artist decorates his own house it may always be 
 safely presumed that he expresses his inmost self,, 
 since he is working for his own gratification. The 
 reader is requested to pay especial attention to this 
 in the present instance. The so-called ' frescoes ' 
 were not hasty compositions, intended to pass out 
 of the painter's sight and be forgotten by him, like 
 seme of the innumerable fancies of Gustave Dore ; 
 they were the permanent decoration of Goya's 
 principal rooms — his reception-rooms — which were 
 often crowded by visitors of high rank in the
 
 Goya. 123 
 
 society of Madrid. The walls of these apartments 
 were divided into panels, and these panels were 
 entirely filled by the paintings in question. Goya 
 is not the only artist who has decorated his own 
 house, and in all such cases it is fair to take the 
 work as representative of the painter's tastes and 
 feelings, though it is always likely to be somewhat 
 rapid in execution ; first, because it is not paid for, 
 and again, because a man working for himself is 
 always likely to be satisfied with a hasty ex- 
 pression, intelligible to the author, if not always 
 quite so intelligible to others. What, then, under 
 such circumstances, did Goya produce for his own 
 continual contemplation ? Forms of beauty and 
 grace ? visions of an artist's — a poet's — paradise ? 
 the fulfilment of those ideal longings which the 
 actual world suggests indeed but can never satisfy ? 
 Not so, his mind did not rise to any pure or elevat- 
 ing thought, it grovelled in a hideous Inferno of its 
 own — a disgusting region, horrible without sub- 
 limity, shapeless as chaos, foul in colour and ' forlorn 
 of light,' peopled by the vilest abortions that ever 
 came from the brain of a sinner. He surrounded 
 himself, I say, with these abominations, finding in 
 them I know not what devilish satisfaction, and 
 rejoicing, in a matter altogether incomprehensible 
 by us, in the audacities of an art in perfect keeping 
 with its revolting subjects. It is the sober truth 
 to say, that in the whole scries of these decorations
 
 124 Goya. 
 
 for his house, Goya appears to have aimed at 
 ugliness as Raphael aimed at beauty ; to have 
 sought awkwardness of composition as Raphael 
 schemed for elegance of arrangement ; to have 
 pleased himself in foulness of colour and brutality 
 of style as Perugino delighted in his heavenly 
 azures, and Bellini in his well-skilled hand. The 
 motives, in almost every instance, are horrible ; — 
 Saturn devouring his Offspring, Judith cutting off 
 the Head of Holofernes, A Witches' Sabbath, Two 
 Herdsmen savagely fighting. A group of hideous 
 men, scarcely human, is entitled The Politicians, 
 and there is a group of coarse women wildly laugh- 
 ing by way of a pendant. Then we have a pro- 
 cession of Inquisitors, and a terrible mysterious 
 picture, which M. Yriarte calls Asmodeus. One 
 composition in the series relieves the eye by the 
 spectacle of a popular festival, but it is made hor- 
 rible by a group of diseased and filthy beggars, to 
 which it serves simply as a background. There is 
 a separate portrait of a woman, not repulsive for a 
 wonder, and also a separate portrait of a man with 
 a long white beard. This man is listening, terrified, 
 to the suggestion of a frightful being who is whis- 
 pering in his ear. Of all these things the most 
 horrible is the Saturn. He is devouring one of his 
 children with the voracity of a famished wolf, and 
 not a detail of the disgusting feast is spared you. 
 The figure is a real inspiration, as original as it is
 
 Goya. 125 
 
 terrific, and not a cold product of mere calculating 
 design. 
 
 This description may give some faint and feeble 
 idea of the gallery -with which Goya surrounded 
 himself at his country-house. I could have made 
 the reader feel the true nature of these works of 
 art more powerfully if I had concocted literary 
 pictures as disgusting as themselves ; but my muse 
 is not a Ghoul to delight in carrion, and she shrinks 
 from the revolting task. Enough has been said to 
 show that Goya had made himself a den of foulness 
 and abomination, and dwelt therein, with satisfac- 
 tion to his mind, like a hyena amidst carcases. 
 
 His mind did not always dwell upon such sub- 
 jects, but it seems to have recurred to them when 
 at perfect liberty. Goya was a court painter, and 
 in that quality depicted the beau moiide of his time ; 
 he even tried his hand at religious painting as a 
 matter of business, but his real delight was in 
 horror, as we see quite plainly from his numerous 
 etchings, the Caprices, the Disasters of War, and 
 others, all executed by him in the free energy of 
 private and personal inspiration. He painted one 
 hundred horrible pictures. Moral horror seems to 
 have been as attractive to him as physical ; he 
 illustrated every turpitude and every vice in a spirit 
 of ferocious satisfaction. His admirers speak of 
 him as a great moralist, but this is likely to mis- 
 lead. The attitude of a moral censor can only be
 
 126 Goya. 
 
 maintained by one who has some morality of his 
 own, and Goya had none. His personal character 
 was in many ways as repulsive as his art. 
 
 After this beginning the reader may ask why 
 such a subject should be chosen for treatment here? 
 The answer is, that this is one of those cases in 
 which a reputation forms itself to the injury of art, 
 and ought to be actively resisted, as the physician 
 opposes resistance to incipient disease. The fame 
 of Goya has already poisoned art criticism in Spain 
 and France, and it is beginning to spread to 
 England, where it is already partly accepted on 
 the credit of French and Spanish writers. It is 
 time, therefore, to show plainly what Goya really 
 was. 
 
 The celebrity of the artist is in great part 
 political, and not artistic, in its origin ; it is also 
 partly a protestation against religious tyranny, which 
 Goya hated, and resisted in his own way with 
 considerable effect in Spain. In a word, Goya, 
 besides being an artist, was a great Spanish Liberal 
 just at a time when the forces of religious and 
 political tyranny were still powerful enough to 
 make Liberalism creditable, and yet sufficiently 
 weakened for Liberalism to be possible. The friends 
 of liberty, both in Spain and France, are therefore 
 strongly prejudiced in his favour, and it is a most 
 powerful element of success, even in art, to get an 
 active and growing political influence on the side
 
 Goya. 1 2 7 
 
 of one's private reputation. The purely negative 
 character of Goya's religious opinions, which in 
 England might have made the difference in social 
 influence and respectability which exists between 
 a Gladstone and a Bradlaugh, has no such effect 
 amongst the Liberals of the Continent, but is rather 
 a recommendation than otherwise. The few who 
 care for the interests of art may wish to judge of 
 it independently of politics and religion ; but who 
 and what are they to contend against the enthusiasm 
 of the multitude ? Goya was on the side of the 
 Revolution, an audacious enemy of tyranny, hypo- 
 crisy, stupidity, and superstition ; consequently he 
 was a great painter, and one of the most accom- 
 plished etchers who ever lived ! 
 
 M. Charles Yriarte fully confesses, on the second 
 page of his biography, how greatly, in the formation 
 of his own opinions about Goya, political considera- 
 tions have had the preponderance : — 
 
 ' We should hold cheap this enormous artistic production, 
 if there were nothing in it but a plastic charm. What 
 matters the execution 1 the idea is there — a line engraved 
 without effect, without much artistic effort, and the plate 
 becomes a poem, a terrible weapon, a burning brand. 
 Let us reflect for a moment that the time when Goya 
 accomplished his task of destruction, although contem- 
 poraneous with the French Revolution, is relatively sepa- 
 rated from us by a space of two centuries, since he lived 
 in a country devoted to all superstitions and all slaveries. 
 The effort was greater than our own, and we ought to
 
 128 Goya. 
 
 admire those who were the first to utter words of inde- 
 pendence and cries of liberality in the midst of that 
 nocturnal gloom.' 
 
 ' We ought to admire.' Certainly we ought to 
 admire every courageous effort in a good cause ; 
 all I say is, let us keep our admirations distinct, 
 and not declare that a man was a good artist because 
 he has an important place in the political history 
 of his country. The qualities of artist and politician 
 are in themselves distinct, and they ought to be kept 
 so. The error of confounding them may in this 
 instance be pardonable in a Spaniard, but not in 
 a foreigner. ' Le cri pousse par Goya,' says M. 
 Yriarte, ' est le cri national.' When he declares 
 that we are to accept men of genius without ques- 
 tion, and take what they give us,* an Englishman 
 may answer that intellectual liberty is not less 
 precious than political, and that if Frenchmen 
 choose to bow down in this slavish way before 
 everybody who happens to have been called a 
 genius, they are as far from a condition of true 
 mental freedom as if civil and religious liberty had 
 never been established amongst them. 
 
 The portrait published in the 'Portfolio' will enable 
 the reader to judge of Goya's appearance in his old 
 age. It has the aspect of a hale, yet irascible old man, 
 
 * II faut accepter ces gaties sans les disciiter et prendre ce 
 otitis nous donnent. — Yriarte.
 
 Goya. 129 
 
 but the look of ill-temper is more strongly marked 
 in a much earlier portrait, with a beaver hat on, 
 which was published at the beginning of the Caprices. 
 In that portrait, which is a profile, the bitter satirist 
 scowls at you out of the corner of his eye and thrusts 
 up his under-lip in scorn. It is not an agreeable 
 physiognomy in either picture, but it expresses, in 
 some degree, the character of the man. There must 
 have been another side to his character than this, for 
 a Don Juan cannot seduce women by sourness, and 
 Goya is famous for his brilliant immoralities. 
 
 Francis Joseph Goya was born on the 30th of 
 March, 1746, at Fuendetodos, a little town of 
 Aragon, his 'father being Joseph Goya, and his 
 mother Gracia Lucientes. They seem to have cul- 
 tivated their own land, but to have been simply 
 peasants. It does not appear that Goya had any 
 literary education. His childhood was passed in the 
 country, and at the age of twelve he was already an 
 art-student at Saragossa in an atelier belonging to a 
 painter named Lusan Martinez. He had a kind 
 friend named Felix Salvador, a monk, who took an 
 interest in his progress and introduced him to this 
 artist, from whom he acquired the rudiments of art 
 and some degree of manual facility. 
 
 Goya passed the turbulent years of his ado- 
 lescence at Saragossa. He was always turbulent 
 till the approaches of old age began to calm him 
 a little. What he must have been from sixteen to 
 
 K
 
 130 Goya. 
 
 thirty the sober English reader will have a difficulty 
 in imagining. His temperament was one of the 
 most ardent that ever existed. Passionate in every- 
 thing, he threw himself into both work and pleasure 
 with the violence of his hot young Southern blood. 
 Merely to amuse themselves, the young folks of 
 Saragossa had rows on festive occasions something 
 like the Town and Gown rows at Oxford, but with 
 the difference that at Saragossa the combats did 
 not take place between different classes of residents 
 in the city, but between different parishes. Slings 
 were used, wounds inflicted and received, and, as if 
 in order that these combats might lack nothing of 
 the interest of a battle, there was a sufficient loss 
 of life. On one occasion three parishioners were 
 slain, on another, seven. The consequence was that 
 the Inquisition began to direct its attention to the 
 subject, and the leaders were marked men. Goya's 
 old friend, the monk, hearing that the Inquisitors 
 began to take a dangerously lively interest in the 
 young artist, recommended a change of residence. 
 Goya accordingly went to Madrid at the age of 
 nineteen, and stayed there from 1765 to 1769. 
 Here he resumed his wild life, and became leader 
 of an Aragonese clique, for he had the qualities 
 which excite the imaginations of young men, ad- 
 dress in all bodily exercises, and an indomitable 
 audacity. The consequence was that he got stabbed 
 in the back, and though his supporters came in time
 
 Goya. 1 3 1 
 
 to help him out of immediate danger, the Inquisi- 
 tion once more became threatening and ordered his 
 arrest. He was advised to fly, and set out for 
 Rome, where his fellow-students used afterwards to 
 relate that he had paid his way from Madrid to 
 the south of Spain by working in a company of 
 bull-fighters. At Rome he resumed the careless 
 energy of his life at Madrid, and, hearing that a 
 young lady was shut up in a convent by her 
 parents, resolved to run away with her. He intro- 
 duced himself into the building for this purpose, 
 but was caught by some monks and brought to 
 justice. Thanks to the intervention of the Spanish 
 Ambassador he was permitted to escape, on condi- 
 tion that he should immediately quit Rome. 
 
 He had been a pupil, in that city, of a Spanish 
 painter, Baycu, who had preceded him in returning 
 to Madrid, and immediately after their re-establish- 
 ment in Spain Bayeu gave Goya his daughter Josefa 
 in marriage, an astonishing instance of misplaced 
 confidence, if, indeed, these good people had any 
 sort of hope that fidelity could be a possible virtue 
 for Goya. He had been working hard at portraits, 
 and composed pictures, and in 1780 was made an 
 Academician (Member of the Academy of San 
 Fernando), he being then thirty-four years old. 
 
 The Cathedral of Saragossa had been rebuilt at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, and in 1780 the 
 Chapter decided to have the interior decorated. They
 
 1 3 2 Goya. 
 
 entrusted the work to Francis Bayeu, Goya's friend, 
 master, and father-in-law : and an enormous piece of 
 work it was, far too much for the labour of a single 
 hand, so Bayeu called in the assistance of other 
 artists, Goya being amongst them ; but these other 
 artists were to submit their designs directly to the 
 Dean and Chapter, and not to Bayeu. Matters being 
 so arranged, Goya sent in two sketches, each of them 
 more than a yard and a half long : but they were 
 coldly received and politely returned by the Dean to 
 be ' retouched.' Goya protested in a long and solemn 
 document which has been preserved. In his view, 
 the rejection was a consequence of the evil influence 
 of his father-in-law, against which he protested as 
 being foreign to his own artistic ideas, and conse- 
 quently unfair in its application to his work. In this 
 crisis the difficulties were overcome by the inter- 
 vention of the monk, Don Felix Salvador, who had 
 been Goya's earliest friend, and who now succeeded 
 in overcoming his irritated pride, and persuaded him 
 to send a becoming answer to the Chapter and his 
 sketches to Bayeu. The incident is worth notice as 
 evidence that Goya's relations with his father-in-law 
 were not very cordial, so far, at least, as the fine arts 
 were concerned. 
 
 Goya was now protected by the Infant Don Luis, 
 and worked in his house for months at a time, paint- 
 ing family portraits or genre pictures just as he liked. 
 Amongst these pictures is one of the Infant and his
 
 Goya. 133 
 
 wife in her dressing-room. It must be of consider- 
 able importance, as it measures eleven feet by nine. 
 The Count of Florida, Bianca, the celebrated minister 
 of Charles III., introduced the painter at Court, where 
 he soon made his way, and painted the king's portrait. 
 But the real success of Goya at the Spanish Court 
 was due far more to personal than to artistic influ- 
 ence. He was a successful artist, but he was also a 
 successful man. He took up a peculiar and very in- 
 dependent position at Court, by sheer audacity and 
 intelligence, and by an extraordinary influence with 
 women of every rank, which was not restrained or 
 diminished by any consideration of morality. The 
 Court was dull, oppressed by a crushing etiquette. 
 Goya came as a relief with his ready impudence and 
 wonderful fertility of resource ; the artist was wel- 
 come too for his vices. The Spanish Court had been 
 compulsorily virtuous, in outward seeming at least, 
 for a space of twenty-three years under Charles III., 
 and it was weary of being virtuous. It was during 
 the reaction under the succeeding sovereign, Charles 
 IV., a reaction quite as violent as that which, under 
 our own Charles II., followed Puritanism, that Goya 
 displayed all his talents and reaped their full rewards. 
 Three months after the new sovereign's accession 
 Goya was appointed private painter to the king, with 
 the title of Excellence. To the Queen he soon be- 
 came indispensable, as a sort of walking newspaper. 
 First, she got into the habit of sending for him at all
 
 1 34 Goya. 
 
 hours of the day, and after that she made him come 
 to her room every morning at her petit lever. He 
 was at the same time her court fool and her philo- 
 sopher. His own line of policy at that time was to 
 make himself the ally of Godoy, the Queen's favourite 
 and lover. 
 
 These were Goya's most joyous days. He lived 
 at Court, in an atmosphere of vice and corruption 
 which suited him exactly ; he was the pet of great 
 ladies, who were as destitute of morality as himself; 
 and he had the most ample opportunities for the dis- 
 play of all his talents, both as painter, satirist, and 
 seducer. Besides his earnings, he enjoyed a fixed 
 pension of more than 500/. a-year, and a social 
 position which had all the advantages of very high 
 rank, with few of its obligations, and none of its re- 
 strictions and inconveniences. This gay and thought- 
 less worldly life was not destined to be of very long 
 duration. The Duchess of Alba was exiled to San 
 Lucar, and Goya accompanied her to that place. 
 During the journey their post-chaise broke down,, 
 and as they were at a distance from any town or 
 village Goya tried to lift it. He also lighted a fire,, 
 and tried to weld the broken iron with his own 
 hands. The consequence was a perspiration followed 
 by a sudden chill," which left Goya permanently,, 
 hopelessly, and completely deaf. After this mis- 
 fortune, the gaiety of his early manhood was gone 
 for ever ; his temper was soured, and it exercised
 
 Goya. 
 
 OD 
 
 itself in ill-natured outbursts against his dearest 
 friends. 
 
 The date of this accident is ascertained to have 
 been 1793, when Goya must have been forty-seven 
 years old. The Duchess of Alba remained at San 
 Lucar more than a year, and Goya stayed with her 
 most of the time, but was called back to Madrid by 
 the duties of his place at Court. On his return he 
 pleaded for the Duchess, who was recalled to royal 
 favour in consequence of his representations. She 
 died soon afterwards, as M. Yriarte tells us, still 
 young and in all her beauty. 
 
 I pass for the present, intentionally, the years of 
 Goya's life most complicated with politics and come 
 to his old age. He was considered, after his conduct 
 in the great political changes which disturbed Spain 
 at the beginning of this century, as an incorrigible 
 Liberal, which was not a recommendation at the 
 Spanish Court. Notwithstanding his abilities, his 
 private character was too unreliable to win respect 
 and esteem, and he himself began to feel that he had 
 no longer a great position in Spain, except simply as 
 an artist, and art had never filled more than half his 
 life. King Ferdinand VII. did not like Goya, and 
 mistrusted him with good reason ; most of the 
 painter's old friends had left the country ; his wife 
 was dead, most of his children were dead also, and 
 his deafness made ordinary human intercourse im- 
 possible to him. Under these circumstances it is not
 
 1 36 Goya. 
 
 surprising that life should have lost its savour for 
 Goya, and that he should have looked to voluntary 
 exile as a partial remedy against the sadness of an 
 isolated old age. He had learned French at forty, 
 and had so far mastered it that he could write 
 correctly ; so he chose France as the country of his 
 retreat. The pretext he gave to the King, on asking 
 permission to absent himself, was a desire to consult 
 Parisian medical celebrities. He arrived in France 
 in 1822 ; visited Paris first, and then went southwards 
 to Bordeaux, where he lived with a lady called 
 Weiss, and taught her daughter to draw. She after- 
 wards became a clever lithographer. The reader is 
 not to conclude that Goya was reduced to teaching 
 drawing as a means of subsistence. He had saved a 
 good fortune out of his earnings, and besides this he 
 still enjoyed his pension from the Spanish Court ; so 
 that his old age was comfortable enough, so far as 
 money matters were concerned. Its greatest enemies 
 were his own irritable temper, which vented itself in 
 many a crisis of violent exasperation ; and his com- 
 plete deafness — a deafness so complete, indeed, that 
 when he played on a piano no sound whatever 
 reached his ears. There was a little Spanish colony 
 at Bordeaux, in the midst of which Goya lived out 
 his life. He died on the 16th of April, 1828, at the 
 age of eighty-two, after having led one of the most 
 active and exciting lives in the history of art and 
 artists. He had used and abused man)' of the best 
 
 »- ,' >
 
 Goya. 137 
 
 gifts of Nature and Fortune, had seen much of man- 
 kind, of the highest in rank and the lowest in 
 morality, and had himself exercised a great influence 
 upon his countrymen. 
 
 The career of Goya is, in many respects, one of 
 the most extraordinary in all biographical history. 
 It is especially remarkable for the manifest contra- 
 diction between his daily life and the nature of his 
 political influence. He was at the same time a 
 courtier, and a revolutionary satirist and propa- 
 gandist. Though he was a productive artist, and 
 very industrious and energetic in the pursuit of his 
 profession, he does not owe his position to art alone ; 
 and it is impossible to say what his reputation might 
 have been if he had depended exclusively upon art, 
 as Turner did, without pushing himself at Court and 
 into political notoriety. He would not have been 
 altogether unknown, but his fame might have been 
 confined to his own country. 
 
 This violent agent of the Revolution not only 
 held a place at Court, and lived amongst great people, 
 but he founded a fortune and a title, for his son was 
 made a Marquis — the Marquis del Espinar — in 
 honour of him. There is nothing in the history of 
 art and political propagandism more curious than 
 this. 
 
 Another very astonishing thing in Goya's life is 
 the way in which the courtier in him protected the 
 radical, and the artist protected both. The Inquisi-
 
 138 Goya. 
 
 tion had its eye on him from the beginning, recog- 
 nising in his terrible powers as a satirist a dangerous 
 influence against itself; and at length, after the 
 publication of a set of his etchings, The Caprices, 
 he was called upon to appear before the ' sacred ' 
 tribunal. The King interfered to protect him, al- 
 though the Queen herself was severely satirised in 
 one of the plates,* and he actually bought the 
 coppers, paying in exchange for them an annual 
 pension of 125/. to Goya's son — a very handsome 
 payment for a set of caricatures. 
 
 This sketch of Goya's life would be incomplete 
 without a closer examination of his character. It 
 was, as we have seen, far from being exemplary, 
 but, at the same time, it had strong qualities. It 
 was virile always, both in its virtues and its vices. 
 Goya was not a ' half-man,' but really a man, full of 
 masculine courage, energy, and resource. We of the 
 North may be unfair to him simply because his 
 nature was so very Southern in its ardent mani- 
 festations. An Englishman might have equal energy, 
 and do an equal amount of work, but he would 
 scarcely throw himself into his work with the same 
 forgetfulness of everything but his object. Byron 
 is the only Englishman I can think of as comparable 
 to Goya in ardour, yet even Byron remained the 
 
 * It is supposed that Charles IV. did not see the reference 
 to the Queen in the plate alluded to, and that he accepted some 
 evasive explanation offered by Goya.
 
 Goya. 139 
 
 artist when most in earnest, and Goya sacrificed art 
 to thought without hesitation, thinking nothing of 
 the means, or the manner, when the moral or political 
 purpose interested him, or even when an idea was 
 urgent for immediate realisation. It has been said 
 that Byron's energy was Satanic, but the word might 
 be still better applied to Goya, who really does 
 remind us of an infernal source. We have seen 
 already how he delighted in frightful and diabolical 
 subjects, and how he selected them for the decoration 
 of his house. This is a mere nothing in comparison 
 with the quantities of revolting subjects illustrated 
 in his different etchings and other compositions. It 
 is not easy to understand the exact condition of 
 Goya's mind in reference to these horrors. He hated 
 tyranny and cruelty with his whole soul, but, instead 
 of shrinking from the visible evils which they pro- 
 duced, he would deliberately sit down to illustrate 
 them in horrible detail. He looked upon human 
 meanness, baseness, rapacity, violence, oppression, 
 with a strange mixture of indignation and grim 
 satisfaction, being really angry at these vices, and 
 yet happy as a satirist to find such opportunities for 
 the exercise of his talent. It was his pleasure to 
 degrade humanity far below its own level by giving 
 to his caricatures a degree of hideousness which no 
 artist except himself could possibly have imagined. 
 I am not forgetting the studied ugliness of some 
 heads by Lionardo ; but that is as nothing in com-
 
 1 40 Goya. 
 
 parison with the imaginations of Goya, for you see 
 at once in Lionardo's ugliest drawings that the faces 
 are only plain human faces whose defects have been 
 dwelt upon and enlarged, whereas Goya's are real 
 inventions of a diabolical genius, and they make you 
 shudder as real demons would if you could see them. 
 He had generally a moral purpose of some sort, and 
 inculcated his lesson with a bitterness of temper 
 which looks like snarling contempt for the human 
 race. Bitter irony, mockery approaching to ferocity 
 — these, and not tenderness or pity, are the prevailing 
 attitudes of Goya's mind towards the suffering and 
 the wretchedness of the world. His brain was full of 
 scorn and incontinent of hatred. There are natures 
 which must have somebody to hate as there are 
 natures which must have somebody to love. Goya 
 was a born hater and despiser, and as there was 
 plenty in the world about him which was both hateful 
 and despicable, his instincts had ample satisfaction. 
 At the same time, there can have been few Spaniards 
 more despicable than himself, notwithstanding all 
 his manly qualities. The vices which he mercilessly 
 lashed in others, with the exception of cruelty, were 
 conspicuous in his own life. He stigmatised immo- 
 rality, and was himself one of the most immoral men 
 in Spain ; he contemned political subserviency, and 
 was himself a political Vicar of Bray, paying court to 
 anybody, Bonaparte or Bourbon, who sat on the 
 Spanish throne, that he might keep his place and
 
 Goya. I 4 1 
 
 pension. He satirised his sovereign and accepted 
 his protection at the same time — a protection without 
 which he would have found himself in the claws of 
 the Inquisition. Even his onslaughts against hypo- 
 crisy were accompanied by a certain degree of hypo- 
 crisy in his own case, for did he not conform to the 
 religious usages of the Court, though he had no 
 religious belief? and are not these usages at all times 
 strict in Spain ? and were they not especially strict 
 under Charles III. — a sovereign of monastic piety, 
 who maintained in religion as in morality the most 
 rigorous etiquette ? 
 
 The baseness of Goya's personal character did not 
 prevent him from rendering real services to the cause 
 of political Liberalism and humanity in Spain. He 
 did a work there which has been done in England 
 and France by well-known caricaturists, whose pro- 
 ductions, in comparison with his, are as lemon-juice 
 to pure vitriol. He is not alone in this work in 
 Europe, but he was alone in it in the Spain of his 
 time. There was still great need for a dissolving 
 agency, for the old powers were still strong enough 
 to be dangerous to human welfare. The Inquisition, 
 which we too readily look upon as an evil now far 
 behind us in the past, was in active operation in the 
 latter part of the eighteenth century. In its last 
 decade a woman was burnt alive for witchcraft by 
 command of the Holy Office, and there was a real 
 auto-da-fc at Seville, Goya being then nearly fifty
 
 142 Goya. 
 
 years old. He himself had been on several occasions 
 so nearly within the grip of the Inquisition, that he 
 felt the shadow of its occult power hanging over him, 
 and he could realise the nature of its evil influence 
 much more adequately than we can — we, who have 
 never experienced it, and only read about it in books. 
 The really animating force in Goya's mind was 
 hatred and not hope. He was not one of those 
 enthusiasts who look forward to a blissful future 
 for humanity ; nevertheless, there is in one of his 
 plates a gleam of anticipation of better things. 'In 
 a plate,' says M. Yriarte, ' which is entirely un- 
 published, the copper having been probably con- 
 fiscated by the Inquisition, or hidden from fear, 
 the artist represents a symbolical figure in the form 
 of a young woman, surrounded by radiance, and 
 kindly receiving an old man, exhausted, bent to 
 the earth, overcome by weariness, and hardly able 
 to endure the weight of his burden. She shows 
 him the brightening sky, inundated with gleams of 
 light, the future coming on, a future at once splendid 
 and happy, with plenty, justice, peace, serenity, and 
 strength. Flowers and children fall from the sky, 
 and flutter about in its symbolical irradiations. At 
 the foot of the figure a lamb seeks refuge, and a 
 child in a cradle is sheltered under the folds of her 
 robe.' Evidently this design expresses a hope for 
 the future of the common people, the people bent 
 <lown with toil and having so little of the light,
 
 Goya. 143 
 
 the grace, the beauty of life, in the immediate 
 present. The set of plates on The Disasters of War 
 are a consecutive series of denunciations against 
 the cruelty of an invasion. They were suggested 
 by the French invasion of Spain, and exhibit every 
 imaginable evil which such a contest brings in its 
 train. Some touches of a tenderer humanity may 
 be found in other plates by Goya, but these are 
 extremely rare. The most noticeable of them is a 
 plate representing four women in a gloomy cell, 
 who are lost to all sense of suffering in the happy 
 forgetfulness of sleep. ' Do not wake them,' says 
 the inscription under the drawing ; ' sleep is often 
 the only good of the unfortunate.' A set of plates, 
 called The Prisoners, is a protest against the ill- 
 usage to which prisoners are always subject in 
 semi - barbarous states. Goya's inscriptions under 
 these etchings are so many lessons to governments : 
 'If he is a criminal, judge him, and do not prolong 
 his sufferings;' 'Get possession of his person, but 
 do not torment him ;' and so on : maxims which 
 exactly express the doctrines of our own prison 
 philanthropists. 
 
 The extreme courage exhibited by Goya at dif- 
 ferent times of his life belonged rather to a certain 
 recklessness and effrontery of disposition than to 
 elevation of mind ; but in estimating his character 
 we have to give him credit for it. He was re- 
 markable, when a young man, for a temerity sur-
 
 1 44 Goya. 
 
 passing the ordinary follies of youth, and he became 
 celebrated afterwards at Madrid for his physical 
 prowess and address. There is a story of a thrashing 
 administered by Goya to a gigantic water-carrier 
 who had been beating an unfortunate humpback; 
 and whenever he saw a mountebank he must needs 
 endeavour to surpass him. He was an excellent 
 fencer, and so well known in Madrid that the swords- 
 men who exhibited their talents publicly before the 
 populace in the open streets and squares would hand 
 the foils respectfully to Goya when he made his 
 appearance, and the spectators would watch the 
 contest with eager interest. Mere effrontery would 
 not, of itself, have carried him through his adven- 
 tures, and it was amply sustained by his personal 
 strength and skill ; but the effrontery was there 
 always, and to what a degree he possessed it the 
 following well-known anecdote is good evidence. 
 One day, when the Court was in mourning, he so 
 far forgot himself as to attempt to enter the presence 
 of the sovereign in white stockings instead of black. 
 He was stopped by the officials at the foot of the 
 grand staircase, who refused to let him pass. On 
 this he went at once to the guard-room, got an 
 inkstand and a pen, and adorned his legs with the 
 portraits of various Court officials, after which he 
 forced his way into the throne -room, where the 
 caricatures soon attracted attention. The king and 
 queen asked what was the matter, and called Goya
 
 Goya. 145 
 
 into their immediate presence, when the}" recognised 
 the principal portrait, and laughed more heartily 
 than any one. Place and circumstances being duly 
 taken into account, we must, I think, admit that Goya 
 here attained the high-water mark of impudence. 
 
 In the changes of government which succeeded 
 
 each other in Spain, Goya remained faithful to 
 
 nothing but his own interest. He had been treated 
 
 with the most extreme kindness and indulgence by 
 
 Charles IV., but when Joseph Bonaparte was set 
 
 upon the throne of Spain the painter went and did 
 
 him homage, and, in a word, became one of his 
 
 courtiers. Then came Ferdinand VII., to whom 
 
 Goya, of course, went and presented his respects, 
 
 just as if nothing had happened. Ferdinand seems 
 
 to have been the first Spanish sovereign who really 
 
 understood Goya. He saw through the disguises 
 
 of fictitious interpretations with which the ingenious 
 
 etcher of TJie Caprices had hidden their meaning 
 
 from his kind protector Charles IV. He clearly 
 
 perceived the treacherous, ungrateful, disloyal nature 
 
 of the man, and said to him plainly, ' In our absence 
 
 you have deserved exile, and, worse than that, you 
 
 have deserved to be strangled ; but you are a great 
 
 artist, and we forgive everything.' Another reason 
 
 for the royal clemency may have been that Goya 
 
 was getting old. 
 
 The artist's ingratitude was not limited to the 
 royal house. One plate of The Caprices (No. 33) 
 
 L
 
 146 Goya. 
 
 was understood to be an attack upon the minister, 
 Urquijo, the very same minister who in 1799 had 
 got him appointed ' first painter of the chamber/ 
 and written him a most kind and friendly letter 
 to announce his nomination. No. 55 of the same 
 series, entitled ' Until Death/ represents a horribly 
 decrepit old woman seated before her dressing-table 
 laden with perfumers' bottles, whilst she is trying 
 on a head-dress. Her tire-woman hides her face 
 to conceal her laughter. Now this lady, whose 
 care of her person in old age Goya thus mercilessly 
 ridiculed, was understood to be the Countess of 
 Benavente, and she and her family had for twenty 
 years been the artist's kindest patrons and friends. 
 No one was safe from his attacks, not even those 
 who had protected him by their kindness and made 
 a brilliant career possible for him, and he spared 
 neither sex nor age. 
 
 Of his conduct as a husband we know little, 
 except that he lived in a constant succession of 
 adulteries, and often with married women. One of 
 these left home and children for him, and went to 
 live with him for two months in his studio. His 
 adulteries were, in fact, almost as much a part of 
 his celebrity as his pictures, and he knew the value 
 of them in an immoral city and age as a means of 
 getting himself talked about. It was one of his 
 characteristics to intrigue with women in all ranks 
 of society, from the common people, through the
 
 Goya. 147 
 
 different ranks of the middle classes, up to the 
 highest nobility of Spain, and even to royalty itself, 
 for he was an especial favourite of the dissolute 
 Queen Maria Luisa, and we know what, for such 
 a woman, a male favourite is. The liaison with 
 the Duchess of Alba is historical, and adds im- 
 mensely to the eclat of Goya's fame in Spain, where 
 every one associates his name with hers. She was 
 beautiful, high-spirited, imperious, and a duchess, 
 and she does not seem to have concerned herself 
 in the least about the publicity of their connexion. 
 In a thoroughly immoral state of society such a 
 conquest, so far from being a disgrace to a man, 
 adds vastly to his reputation. Another of Goya's 
 conquests was a well-known bookseller's wife in 
 Madrid, and his popular celebrity was enhanced by 
 liaisons with beautiful women in the lowest classes. 
 What his wife thought of all this we are left to 
 conjecture. 
 
 Something of his true character may be guessed 
 from the following anecdote. Having to paint Saints 
 Justina and Rufina for the cathedral of Seville, Goya 
 simply made portraits of two common prostitutes in 
 the town, and remarked to Cean Bcrmudez, who was 
 a good Christian, that he would cause the faithful to 
 worship vice. In all the religious compositions ex- 
 ecuted by him the angels are really and visibly 
 nothing but women of an abandoned character. 
 
 The excessive irritability of Goya in his old age
 
 148 Goya. 
 
 may be due, in some measure, to the physical effects 
 of the life which he had led from his youth. He had 
 fits of furious senile rage against people who did all 
 that the most delicate kindness could devise in order 
 to be agreeable to him. He became so irritable 
 that on one occasion when a sitter, who was a friend 
 of his, said, ' Be careful, you are going to paint before 
 Frenchmen,' Goya, not liking the remark, kicked a 
 hole in the canvas. He was so irritable with his 
 sitters, and so domineering, that they became down- 
 right martyrs. He would not tolerate the presence 
 of any one but the sitter himself, except when, by 
 chance, an old and intimate friend happened to be 
 in the studio, and then the unwelcome witness had 
 to go and sit motionless in a corner. As for the 
 sitter, he was not allowed to stir, nor to stretch a leg; 
 he might hardly even wink : in a word, he had to sit 
 as if for a photograph, but a hundred times as long. 
 If the wretched victim transgressed, Goya flung down 
 his palette in a rage. He was rude even to ladies, he 
 who owed more than half of his position in the world 
 to their weakness. The rank and reputation of the 
 sitter had no effect in controlling the irascible old 
 man. The Duke of Wellington sat to him in Spain, 
 and being rather astonished, as he well might, at 
 Goya's manner of painting, ventured to make some 
 remark upon it ; on which the artist, infuriated, seized 
 a rapier that was hanging on the wall and made 
 ti thnist at the Duke, as if with intent to murder
 
 Goya. 149 
 
 him. Fortunately, Wellington was an active man, 
 and sprang aside in time to avoid the fate of Polonius. 
 A pleasant painter to have to deal with, was he not ? 
 The reader now understands clearly the character 
 of the man. He was a monster of immorality, im- 
 pudence, and ingratitude ; he had a violent temper, 
 entirely uncontrolled by any sense of what was be- 
 coming; he stigmatised in others the vices which he 
 practised himself; and, though claimed in these latter 
 days by the Continental Radicals as an Apostle of 
 Liberty (a nice Apostle, truly !), he was the parasite 
 of four sovereigns and the — what may I call it? — of 
 a shameless Queen. He has been compared to Don 
 Juan, but does not deserve the compliment ; the Don 
 Juan of Byron, dissolute as he is, is still a more decent 
 and respectable character than Goya : for there are 
 degrees in infamy, and Goya realised an existence 
 below the sinkings of fiction. 
 
 We have now done with the man, leaving him to 
 such immortality as he may have deserved, but the 
 artist remains to be considered. There is a certain 
 difficulty for me here, which may be stated frankly, 
 as a critic should never pretend to more knowledge 
 than that which is really his. I have never been in 
 Spain, and only know Goya as an artist through his 
 etchings, through the engravings from his works, and 
 the 'frescoes' from his country-house, which now belong 
 to Baron Erlanger. This is comparatively little, be- 
 cause Goya was an immense producer, and left hun
 
 1 50 Goya. 
 
 dreds of pictures behind him which are only to be 
 seen in Spain. There is, however, a way of forming 
 opinions which are likely, on the whole, to be fairly 
 correct, even when the materials are not complete. 
 You may judge, in a great degree, from the known 
 to the unknown, and you may learn something from 
 others about that which is unknown to yourself. For 
 example : a man who knew intimately one manufac- 
 turing town in Lancashire — let us say, Rochdale — 
 would have a fairly correct idea of another town, such 
 as Oldham, in the same region, if it were described 
 to him by an intelligent observer. To make use of 
 another person's eyes we need, however, to know what 
 an astronomer would call his personal equation. If 
 I knew Rochdale and did not know Oldham, and 
 wanted to know Oldham through another person, I 
 should first ask him what he thought of Rochdale ; 
 and if he told me that it was clean, handsome, and 
 abounding in fine examples of street architecture, 
 then I should know how to estimate the same ex- 
 pressions when he applied them to Oldham, and 
 judge of the place accordingly. Again, I should 
 take into consideration all his general ways of think- 
 ing which might affect his estimate. If the develop- 
 ment of modern industry was a delight to him, a 
 manufacturing town would find him very favourably 
 disposed to appreciate its long chimneys. Applying 
 the same method to the French admirers of Goya, 
 who praise what is known to me like what is un-
 
 Goya. 1 5 1 
 
 known, and making the necessary deductions for 
 their political sympathies, I have arrived at certain 
 conclusions which shall be at the reader's service if 
 the\- have an)- interest for him. 
 
 The first is, that the modern French admiration 
 for Goya is not artistic in its origin, but political, and 
 that if Goya had not been regarded by French writers 
 as an agent of Liberalism they would not have studied 
 or written about him at all. M. Yriarte says, for him- 
 self at least, what is equivalent to this, quite plainly. 
 Again, between the political satirist and the real artist 
 in Goya there is a third person who excites interest, 
 the man — the hero of so many strange and scan- 
 dalous adventures. If his life could be fully narrated 
 it would be as entertaining, though at the same time 
 as far from edifying, as Gil Bias. If he had lived in 
 modest retirement his works would have attracted 
 less attention, and without their courtly subjects and 
 the conspicuous life of the painter hi? oil - pictures 
 1 1 do not say his etchings, to which we shall come 
 presently) might have remained uncelebrated by 
 criticism. 
 
 The mere fact that Goya often drew and painted 
 hideous people and things does not of itself prove 
 that he was not an artist, and we must remember, in 
 this instance, the dictum that the beautiful and the 
 ugly are both tolerable in the fine arts, the pretty alone 
 being intolerable. Lionardo, Rembrandt, and many 
 other artists of note, have studied ugliness with a
 
 i5 2 Goya. 
 
 curious interest, and the most revolting- descriptions 
 
 may be found in some of the most delightful poets 
 
 in our own Spenser, for example. I should not, there- 
 fore, condemn Goya for hideousness in itself, but there 
 is something wanting in his temperament, and that 
 something is the delicate aesthetic sense. He was 
 coarse-minded, essentially vulgar ; and how could he 
 be otherwise with such a soul-degrading life as his, in 
 the midst of such an intensely corrupt society ? In 
 all his works which are directly or indirectly known 
 to me I am unable to detect any evidence of that 
 sweet enjoyment of natural beauty which is given 
 only to the pure in heart. You often find him 
 working energetically out of hatred, often as a 
 matter of business, hardly ever out of an artist's 
 love for a subject which has won his affection. 
 Again, not only did Goya work without affection 
 for his subjects, but it seems to me that he had little 
 delight in the exercise of the arts which he practised. 
 I am quite certain that he never felt the real plea- 
 sures of an etcher : he uses the etching-needle merely 
 for his political purpose, as so many people use the 
 pen in writing, without any idea of the artistic capa- 
 bilities of the instrument and the art. M. Yriarte 
 praises his etchings to the skies, declares that he is 
 ' universellement admire commc aquafortiste,' that he 
 had ' dompte le cuivre,' that ' tous ceux qui s'occu- 
 pent de l'art l'exaltent :' to all which wild laudations 
 I give this plain and simple answer, that Goya was
 
 Goya. 153 
 
 to a really cultivated etcher what a peasant fiddling 
 in an ale-house is to Joachim interpreting Beethoven. 
 Of the resources of etching — its pianos and its fortes, its 
 harmonies and oppositions, its tender cadences and its 
 notes of triumphant energy — Goya lived in Philistine 
 ignorance. If his etchings had been good, he would 
 never have endured to spoil them by heavy aquatint. 
 He was as unskilful in aquatint as in etching proper, 
 but he could lay a coarse, flat shade, which served in 
 some measure to hide the poverty of his performance 
 with the needle. For examples of his power in both 
 the reader has nothing to do but procure four back 
 numbers of' L'Art,'* in which impressions are given 
 from Goya's original coppers (not copies in any way, 
 but real originals). The four plates given are im- 
 portant in size and quite characteristic of the 
 master. 
 
 We have — 1. A Rain of Bulls (as we say, ' It rains 
 cats and dogs,' and the French say, '// pleut des lialle- 
 dardes ') ; 2. Other Laws for the People (in which the 
 People is represented by an elephant) ; 3. What a 
 Warrior! (a man brandishing a sword close by a 
 scarecrow, as if to defend it) ; 4. A Circus Queen (a 
 woman displaying her agility on a horse which is 
 standing on a slack-rope). Far from blaming our 
 contemporary for publishing these things, I think we 
 ought to be very grateful for the opportunity thus 
 afforded us of judging for ourselves. The plates are 
 
 * Nos. 118, 119, 120, and 121, all published in April 1877.
 
 154 Goya. 
 
 interesting as documents in the history of art, and, 
 therefore, valuable ; but if they had been executed, 
 say, in the year 1876, by some unknown Frenchman, 
 would our friend and contributor, M. Gaucherel, who 
 was the artistic director of 'L' Art,' have accepted them? 
 I should like to hear what M. Gaucherel, or any other 
 director of a respectable artistic magazine, would have 
 said to a young artist who presented to him a per- 
 formance of that quality. 
 
 The difficulty of criticising such work is that it lies 
 so far beneath criticism. In the first plate there is no 
 drawing. Look at the heads of the bulls: try to see 
 what sort of a skull there is under the skin. They 
 are such bulls' heads as children make out of paste. 
 Look at the ear and the nostril. You see that the 
 artist knew nothing about the construction and 
 setting on of a bull's ear, and as little about the 
 shaping of his nostril. And this is not accidental 
 carelessness. The same ignorance is displayed in all 
 the series of plates illustrating bull-fights. Again the 
 animals are wooden ; they have neither suppleness 
 nor texture, they look like ill-cut toys flung together 
 into the air. The sky is simply represented by one 
 fiat, dark shade of aquatint. 
 
 In No. 2 (Other Laws for the People), the elephant 
 is scarcely better studied than the bulls. The ear is 
 not an elephant's ear at all, and the attitude is that of 
 a cat. The shading is unintelligent and meaningless 
 throughout, but it is partly hidden under the usual
 
 Goya. 155 
 
 flat wash of aquatint. The figures are so covered up 
 with clothing (showing no forms beneath it) that they 
 escape criticism, but the hands are not drawn, though 
 visible. In No. 4 {What a Warrior!) most of the 
 figures arc hidden in the same way, but the one in 
 knee-breeches, capering on one leg, exhibits the other 
 leg very plainly, and it is drawn abominably, with as 
 much calf before as behind. Anything more empty 
 and unintelligent than the shading of the ' Warrior's ' 
 trousers it is not possible to imagine. As to the 
 fourth plate, the Queen of the Circus, I have never 
 yet been able to make out to my own satisfaction 
 whether the horse was intended to represent a living 
 animal or wooden one ; but though it looks wooden, 
 I incline to the belief that a similitude of the living 
 creature was intended. The spectators are first 
 sketched in very meagre outline and then shaded 
 indiscriminately with perpendicular lines, without 
 any distinction between their faces and dresses. The 
 ground area of the circus itself and the tent above the 
 spectators are both shaded with flat, dark aquatint, 
 which means no more than a house-painter's flat 
 paint upon a door, and requires much less manual 
 skill for its application. I say that these plates, 
 considered as etchings, are absolutely destitute of all 
 technical merits and qualities whatsoever, and if they 
 arc to be estimated simply as caricature drawings, 
 without reference to the special quality of etching, 
 I do not sec how their admirers can maintain that
 
 156 Goya. 
 
 there is anything in them at all comparable to the 
 keen observation and subtle characterisation which 
 distinguish all eminent caricaturists.* Criticism 
 equally severe may be fairly applied to the whole 
 series of The Caprices. I had intended to analyse 
 some of these, but after what has just been written it 
 is not necessary, as the plates which we have been 
 examining are in the same manner as The Caprices, 
 though on a larger scale. In their production the 
 artist appears to have been animated simply by the 
 desire to stir the public mind in reference to some 
 social or political subject which interested him for 
 the moment, and to have experienced no aesthetic 
 pleasure. He certainly communicates none. 
 
 Of Goya as a painter I cannot speak quite so 
 decidedly, because his admirers would tell me that 
 he can only be studied in Spain. They say that he 
 has some good qualities of rapid execution and light, 
 agreeable colour, which in some instances, as in The 
 Family of Charles IV., La Maja t and Manolas in a 
 Balcony, reach exquisite and original harmonies. Of 
 this I cannot say anything more than that Goya's 
 rapidity with the brush would of itself tend to pre- 
 
 * When they depend upon their qualities of design for their 
 reputation and influence. It sometimes happens that a cari- 
 caturist rises into celebrity by the wit of the few words which he 
 writes under each of his sketches. Cham, for example, is great 
 by his endless invention of witty bits of literature, the drawing 
 being merely an accompaniment, of the slightest possible value 
 in itself.
 
 Goya. 1 5 y 
 
 serve a pleasant freshness in his tints, if at any time 
 his perceptions were healthy enough for freshness 
 of colouring-. Such colouring as I have seen of his 
 is foul and filthy to ths last degree, and I have a 
 difficultv in understanding how a man so restless, 
 so irritable, and so degraded by mental and physical 
 vice, could at any time colour tenderly, delicately* 
 and purely. I have believed hitherto that the power 
 of fair colouring was reserved for serene and elevated 
 natures, but there may be exceptions to the rule, if it 
 is a rule. One technical detail is known, which is 
 that Goya laid in all his later pictures with printers* 
 ink, which is scarcely a colourist's preparation. The 
 so-called ' frescoes ' look as if they had been painted 
 with a mixture of soot, mud, whitening, and candle- 
 grease. 
 
 The admirers of Goya have made him a reputation 
 as a chiaroscurist. M. Yriarte says of him, ' On ne 
 va pas beaucoup plus loin dans la science de l'effet et 
 de la lumiere.' This assertion is clearly contradicted 
 by the etchings. They are violent, coarsely and 
 crudely violent, in their oppositions of light and 
 dark, but they arc not learned. Either Goya knew 
 little abont chiaroscuro, or he despised the science ; 
 he was too rough and rude in his practice to have 
 patience for a study which requires the most careful 
 observation of fine distinctions of light and dark.* 
 
 * His rude way of lithographing is an example of this. 
 Nobody ever used a lithographic stone so barbarously.
 
 158 Goya. 
 
 Goya in black and white scorned the refinements 
 of execution, and everything which belongs to the 
 technical business of the artist. He expressed his 
 thought as directly as possible without taking tech- 
 nical conditions into account, and it is, perhaps, this 
 very eagerness and haste to express himself that have 
 won for him the sympathies of literary men who value 
 the thought, the idea, as he did, and care as little 
 as he cared about the arts of painting, etching, and 
 lithography. The means to him mattered nothing ; 
 artistic excellence very little : what he really cared 
 about was to get his idea expressed whilst it was 
 still hot from his volcanic brain. It is narrated, that 
 when in the fervour of composing a pen-and-ink 
 drawing he would daub about the ink with his fingers 
 if the pen could not do the work fast enough. He 
 toiled always in a rage, and gave himself no time for 
 the precautions of a careful workman. He did not 
 try to please people ; his art was the result of a need 
 in his nature, an imperious need of utterance at all 
 costs. 
 
 The frescoes in the church of San Antonio de 
 la Florida are curious examples of religious subjects, 
 as dealt with by a man who had no religious con- 
 ceptions. In the dome is a large fresco of Saint 
 Anthony of Padua recalling a dead man to life, to 
 make him reveal the name of his murderer. To show 
 how little the painter has imagined the scene it is 
 only necessary to mention a single detail. He has
 
 Goya. 159 
 
 painted a railing all round the cupola, and repre- 
 sented two boys playing on this railing quite close 
 to the resuscitated man, as if such incidents happened 
 too frequently to attract their attention. The object 
 is to break the tiresome long line of the rail ; and 
 for the same reason other figures are leaning upon 
 it in quiet conversation, or looking down into the 
 church below : but there was no necessity for putting 
 the rail there at all. Goya's painted angels in this 
 church are fat and vulgar Spanish women, or worse. 
 In the picture of Saint Frauds by the bedside of a 
 man dying impenitent, the figure of the dying man 
 is very strongly conceived and full of horror, but 
 that of the saint is awkward and primitive. There 
 is a picture of St. JosepJi of Calasanz taking the 
 Sacrament, which M. Yriarte praises as being ' full 
 of unction.' The priest is certainly fulfilling his 
 duty in the usual manner, and the saint is con- 
 ducting himself with propriety, whilst the congre- 
 gation maintain a becoming gravity. 
 
 M. Yriarte justly defines the peculiar nature of 
 Goya when he says of him that he was an ardent 
 satirist, who attacked everything and everybody, 
 always ready to bite, and that his bite was venomous. 
 We may add that he is powerful by terror, horror,, 
 and antipathy, and seldom reaches the heart by any 
 kind of tenderness or charm. He is said to have 
 preferred general to particular ideas, and there is 
 much truth in this if the assertion is rightly under-
 
 1 60 Goya. 
 
 stood ; but does it not imply that he was more a 
 philosopher than an artist ? Ought not graphic art 
 to deal with the concrete, the particular instance 
 and example ? Be this as it may, it is the thinker 
 in Goya, and not the artist, who has made himself 
 especially memorable in the history of his country, 
 and has taken a place in the history of liberal ideas 
 in Europe. ' The Portfolio ' does not profess to deal 
 with politics, but we shall not hurt the feelings of 
 any party by observing that such a character as 
 Goya can do no credit to any cause.
 
 Tarj II. 
 NOTES ON AESTHETICS. 
 
 M
 
 163 
 
 NOTES ON AESTHETICS. 
 
 THE first question which many readers will feel 
 disposed to ask on seeing the title of these 
 Notes is, whether there is any use in studying such a 
 science as Aesthetics, since the most eminent artists 
 of past generations have generally troubled them- 
 selves but little about it, whilst their clever and 
 prosperous successors in the present day seldom 
 hesitate to express a hearty contempt for all who 
 concern themselves with this science as idle dilettants, 
 who make phrases about what they do not under- 
 stand ? 
 
 The answer to any such question about aesthetics 
 is that, like all the true sciences, it does not pretend 
 to be practical, though practical results may some- 
 times follow its investigations. The only object of 
 aesthetics is to form a true theory about the nature 
 of art. Whether the possession of such a theory, 
 supposing it to be fully attained, would answer any 
 useful purpose, as utility is commonly understood, is 
 a question foreign to the purposes of science. The 
 scientific spirit wants to have sound aesthetics simply 
 because it desires to think accurately. The intellect 
 finds itself confronted by art as an enormous fact 
 which can no more be denied than commerce and
 
 164 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 navigation. The intellect is impatient of erroneous 
 ideas, and its own spirit of curiosity does not permit 
 it to remain contentedly ignorant. Consequently, 
 when it meets with some obviously important mani- 
 festation of the human mind, it forms theories about 
 it which may not be absolutely true, but which tend 
 more or less directly towards absolute truth. The 
 satisfaction which aesthetics promises to its followers 
 is nothing more than the simple satisfaction of 
 attaining to approximately accurate ideas about 
 certain matters in which all civilised peoples take 
 some degree of interest. 
 
 Aesthetics, as a science, is as yet but little de- 
 veloped, and this may be accounted for by the rarity 
 of persons prepared by their studies for its advance- 
 ment. It requires the union of artistic with in- 
 tellectual tastes, and it happens too frequently that 
 these are found in different persons, some of whom 
 become artists and others philosophers. The pure 
 and perfect artist is made for production rather than 
 thought ; the philosopher has in most cases too little 
 practical experience of the conditions of art to be 
 able to take them fairly into account ; and the conse- 
 quence is that a field of study which requires a double 
 equipment for its successful exploration is hardly ex- 
 plored at all. 
 
 There must always be some presumption in 
 attacking subjects so difficult as this, and although 
 during the last twenty-five years the problems of
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 165 
 
 aesthetics have certainly never been absent from 
 the present writer's mind for the space of a single 
 day, he would not, even now, have the temerity to 
 attempt a systematic treatise. The following notes 
 are simply intended as an informal contribution to 
 a science still in its infancy. 
 
 It will be a convenience, both to the writer and 
 the reader, that these notes should be presented in 
 the shape of propositions, some of which may be 
 capable of proof, whilst others offer themselves as 
 suggestions and hypotheses which, from their nature, 
 can only be recommended for consideration. Some 
 attempt will be made to keep these propositions 
 in a kind of order, but this order will not be so rigid 
 as to exclude propositions which may occur to the 
 writer out of their proper connexion. It is one of 
 the great advantages of a magazine to permit this 
 kind of recurrence. 
 
 1 . The word AESTHETICS, its origin and signifi- 
 cation. — The word is modern, having been first used 
 in Germany by Baumgarten, a disciple of Wolf. He 
 felt the need of some special term for the science of 
 the Beautiful, and took the Greek adjective uIgOvtikos, 
 perceptive, or belonging to perception, from aiaOavofiai, 
 to perceive by the senses, most especially by the 
 sense of hearing. The word which comes nearest 
 to alaOavo/uu in modern languages is probably the 
 Italian verb scntirc, which has its general meaning 
 of knowing by means of different senses, such as
 
 1 66 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 touch, taste, &c, and its special meaning of hearing-, 
 as well as the intellectual meaning of apprehending 
 by the tact and taste of the mind. We are thus 
 brought to our own word sentiment, which, although 
 too restricted by custom to embrace the entire field 
 of aesthetics, still occupies a part of it. Every other 
 science treats artistic sentiment as if it did not exist. 
 Aesthetics not only takes sentiment into considera- 
 tion, but gives especial study to its influence in the 
 production of works of art, and endeavours to ascer- 
 tain its laws, in the perfect conviction that it cannot 
 be outside the reign of law, however apparently 
 irregular may be its manifestations. 
 
 Before leaving the philological part of our subject 
 we may observe that the word aesthetics has gener- 
 ally been written in English with the united diph- 
 thong. The original German form was Aesthetik, 
 abridged to Asthetik ; the French form is esthetique, 
 in obedience to the usual rule of the language, which 
 turns the Greek al into e. The Roman custom was 
 to turn the Greek al into ae, as alaaXwv into aesalon, 
 aldr'ip into aether, and AlOioip into Aethiops, but the 
 ancient Romans did not write the vowels together in 
 one compound letter ; they never wrote Csesar, but 
 always Caesar ; and if they had used the word 
 aestheticus (which they did not) they would certainly 
 have written the vowels separately. We would con- 
 form to the English usage of the united diphthong if 
 it were likely to endure, but it is disappearing so
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 167 
 
 rapidly from scholarly English literature that the 
 time may be easily foreseen when it will have be- 
 come obsolete, and it is better to be somewhat in 
 advance of a good reform than to lag behind it. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe that aesthetics, 
 like ethics, mathematics, metaphysics, &c, is treated 
 as singular, according to the present usage of the 
 learned. 
 
 2. That artistic Aesthetics is inseparable from 
 human personality. — The perceptions and feelings, 
 not merely of men in general but of individual 
 men, must always enter into the speculations of 
 artistic aesthetics, and this necessity for constantly 
 considering the faculties of so variable a creature as 
 man is at the same time the greatest element of 
 interest in aesthetics and its greatest difficulty. This 
 is probably the reason why, like sociology, it comes 
 late amongst the sciences. Mathematics, in which 
 abstract truths are undisturbed by any interference 
 of human nature, could offer results worth having at 
 a very early stage of human development. The 
 truths that two parallel lines, though infinitely pro- 
 longed, will never meet, and that all the parts of a 
 circle are equally distant from its centre, have nothing 
 to do with human faculties ; but the qualities of lines 
 drawn by artists are always human and personal, so 
 that the faculties of the draughtsman can never be 
 out of consideration whilst we estimate them. Hence 
 aesthetics belongs essentially to the humanities, and
 
 1 68 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 in a more advanced and more complete condition of 
 culture will probably always be taught along with 
 them. 
 
 The difficulty caused by the interference of a 
 human element is much enhanced by the fact that 
 in art-criticism the human element is generally 
 double, and sometimes even triple or quadruple. 
 Suppose that a critic is writing about a picture, 
 you have first the humanity of the artist between 
 you and nature, and secondly the humanity of the 
 critic, who cannot get rid of his own personal self 
 whilst estimating the work of the painter. But what 
 if the critic is writing about an engraving? Here 
 three idiosyncrasies affect the result, those of the 
 painter, the engraver, and the critic. Finally, the 
 result is tinged by the mental peculiarities of the 
 reader of the criticism, whose human interests and 
 feelings are no more to be stifled than those of the 
 artist and writer. Still, it might be asked, Might not 
 these personal elements of disturbance be eliminated 
 by careful discipline? — could not the painter suppress 
 in himself whatever prevented him from seeing the 
 simple truth ? — could not the engraver sacrifice his 
 own fancies to the prime virtue of fidelity ? — might 
 not the critic simply appreciate what is in the work 
 of art without addition or deduction ? — and, in a word, 
 might not these various human agencies transmit the 
 original truth, as postmen transmit letters, without 
 any loss or alteration ? The answer is, that the
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 169 
 
 personality of the painter is absolutely essential to 
 the interest of the painting, that no good engraving 
 was ever simply a piece of copyism, that no art- 
 criticism worth reading was ever written by a man 
 independent of the bias of personal feeling ; and, 
 finally, that nobody ever understood art -criticism 
 who had not feelings of his own about the fine 
 arts. 
 
 The partiality due to human feeling is ineradic- 
 able from all aesthetic occupations, and all philosophy 
 which refuses to take feeling into account is impotent 
 with reference to Art. 
 
 3. The origin of the Aesthetic sensibilities. — The 
 attempt to distinguish clearly between what we call 
 the aesthetic perceptions and the perceptions which 
 we do not call aesthetic, leads inevitably to the 
 conclusion that they are not distinguishable in their 
 first beginnings, however widely they may become 
 differentiated at a later stage of their development. 
 
 The beginning of the artistic aesthesis, or of that 
 aesthesis which ultimately becomes artistic, is simply 
 animal sensation, though by a process of gradual ele- 
 vation and refinement it attains such subtlety and 
 delicacy, as well as such a vast compass of variable 
 emotion, that it answers to our spiritual needs, and 
 we forget the physical origin. 
 
 It may be convenient to take the lowest of 
 aesthetic perceptions first, as an example. Only the 
 most ignorant criticism would deny that, in quite a
 
 1 70 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 serious and artistic sense, there is an aesthetic ele- 
 ment in the pleasures of eating and drinking. The 
 difficulty is, to define the exact point where the 
 pleasures of the table cease to be simply animal and 
 begin to be what intelligent criticism would call 
 aesthetic. It might be argued that so soon as we 
 pass beyond the simple desire to satisfy the cravings 
 of hunger we enter upon a range of sensation within 
 the domain of the higher aesthesis. The very use of 
 the word ' taste ' in art-criticism is a clear recognition 
 
 o 
 
 of the analogy between aesthetic perception and the 
 sensations of the palate ; but besides this familiar use 
 of a single word both poetry and criticism continually 
 recur to gastronomic experience as a source of ex- 
 pression, so that the language which both creative 
 and critical genius find it convenient to use is 
 frequently borrowed from the kitchen or the dinner- 
 table. A poet or a novelist will say that a man has 
 been soured by misfortune or by 'a little grain of 
 conscience ; ' he will speak of ' a bitter jest,' of ' a 
 sweet nature.' There is oil in one man's disposition, 
 and vinegar in that of another. A certain kind of 
 jest is said in French to be ' salted,' and conversation 
 may be ' seasoned ' with epigrams. A critic will say 
 that painting is sweet or acrid, luscious or dry ; that 
 the colouring of one painter is delicious, whilst that 
 of another sets the teeth on edge ; and familiar 
 French criticism goes still farther in the culinary 
 direction when it talks about a man's work as being-
 
 Notes on AestJictics. 1 7 1 
 
 ' savoureaxl and of a painter as putting too much 
 1 sauce ' into his pictures. 
 
 The frequent reference to gastronomic expe- 
 rience in illustration of aesthetic subjects would of 
 itself be enough to prove a remarkable closeness of 
 analogy between the gastronomic and the artistic 
 aesthesis ; but there is more than mere analogy, 
 there is essential identity. The sensations of the 
 palate have conditions of harmony and contrast, of 
 succession and interruption, of expectation excited, 
 as in music, with a view to satisfaction. The plea- 
 sures derived from these changes are recognised in 
 music as aesthetic pleasures, and serious criticism 
 would recognise them with the same frankness in 
 gastronomy if there were not the fear of being 
 accused of gonrmandise. The plain truth is, that in 
 music, painting, and poetry, even of the most ele- 
 vated kind, the essentially artistic qualities (as dis- 
 tinguished from the moral and intellectual) have 
 their exact counterparts in eating and drinking. 
 
 It will even be found in studying any ^series of 
 physical sensations, as for example those presented 
 by cold and heat, or by light and darkness, that they 
 have a property which is recognised by the aesthetic 
 sense as of the utmost importance in the fine arts, 
 the property, namely, of passing through infinite 
 gradations — from one end of a scale to another. 
 These gradated scales of physical sensation are con- 
 stantly resorted to by literary artists to produce
 
 172 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 effects on the artistically aesthetic sense of the 
 reader, on whose imagination they operate, by re- 
 minding him of sensations which he has experienced. 
 The suggestions of heat and cold, in all gradations 
 between the fiery and the frozen hells of Dante, 
 are used constantly by poets to convey artistically 
 aesthetic impressions, whilst the gradations and 
 oppositions between light and dark are the especial 
 means by which the chiaroscurist plays upon the 
 very deepest feelings of those who are impressionable 
 by his art. The reader who cares to follow out this 
 suggestion for himself will soon admit that hardly 
 anything which possesses the property of a gradation 
 between two opposite extremes is disdained by Art 
 (using the word in its widest sense) as a means of 
 influencing the feelings. Calm and storm, smooth- 
 ness and ruggedness, fixity and mobility, slowness 
 and speed, these are contrasts which, with their 
 intermediaries, are perpetually resorted to by literary 
 or pictorial artists, and any one of these scales 
 between opposite extremes of sensation is in itself 
 an instrument on which the artist may perform so 
 as to awaken emotion. 
 
 It is easy to show that the artistic aesthesis is 
 rooted in physical sensation, but how are we to 
 determine when the physical sensation becomes ele- 
 vated into artistic aesthesis ? What is the precise 
 nature of the development which takes place when 
 the common feelings of heat and cold, of light and
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 173 
 
 darkness, pass into the aesthesis of the poet and the 
 painter, of Dante and Rembrandt, when the sen- 
 suousness of the hungry ploughman enjoying his 
 slice of bacon is sublimated into the poetic rapture 
 of Keats with a ripe peach melting in his mouth ? 
 It is quite possible to feel the physical sensations 
 produced by sounds and odours without any poetical 
 emotion, but from the artistic point of view the 
 aesthesis which really interests us is that of the poet, 
 the generic title which includes Milton, Titian, and 
 Beethoven. The sensations of animals, and our 
 own animal sensations, are interesting from the 
 artistic point of view only as the foundation 
 of that higher aesthesis. But these are subjects 
 which require some space for any adequate in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 4. Colours and Colour. — In ordinary degrees of 
 aesthetic development there is perception of colours 
 and often an intense enjoyment of them, accom- 
 panied by profound indifference to what artists 
 understand by 'colour.' 
 
 The delight in colour is probably preceded, in 
 every case, by the delight in colours, and yet the 
 two states of mind are not only different but opposed 
 to each other, so that the lover of colour will speak 
 with some severity of the lover of colours as a 
 person whose faculties are still childish or unde- 
 veloped. The two conditions of mind are faithfully 
 represented by a mediaeval illumination and Cor-
 
 1 74 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 reggio. The difference between their work is the 
 difference between colours and colour. 
 
 If we look into it more minutely we shall perceive 
 that the illuminator likes red, blue, yellow, &c, in 
 their unmodified states, whilst the colourist probably 
 dislikes and certainly avoids them. We have no 
 evidence in the illuminator's work of any tendency 
 towards colour in Correggio's sense of the term : 
 there is too much finality in it for any striving of 
 that kind. If you could have given your illuminator 
 some brighter colour — some brilliant blue like bleu 
 lumiere, some blinding scarlet like scarlet iodine — 
 he would have welcomed it as a means of progress 
 in his own direction ; but the transition to colour 
 would have required the sacrifice of one principle and 
 the acceptance of another. 
 
 It is difficult to see how it comes to pass that a 
 love of colours can ever educate us for colour, but 
 the transition appears to be effected through an 
 increasing taste for intermediate tints, which may 
 finally arrive at the colourist's desire for the most 
 subtle descrimination possible and the most effective 
 arrangement. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that 
 the love of separate colours must of necessity lead 
 the mind to anything beyond itself. For many 
 minds it is a final state of development, beyond 
 which they neither desire to go, nor could go if 
 they desired it. 
 
 The love for colours manifests itself in various
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 175 
 
 ways, as for example in a taste for jewels, for stained 
 or painted glass, for illuminated manuscripts, for 
 herald ry, for butterflies, and for flowers, entering 
 thus as a powerful and often determinating motive 
 to the pursuit of archaeology, entomology, and 
 botany. The enjoyment of colours goes for so 
 much in the pleasure of making a collection of 
 butterflies that we can hardly imagine the charm 
 of such a collection without it. The gorgeous 
 colours of heraldry are always present to those who 
 concern themselves about coats of arms — present 
 either to the eye when they are actually painted 
 or to the imagination when described or engraved. 
 The love of colour is compelled to seek its aliment 
 chiefly in the appearances of nature and in the 
 productions of the most gifted painters. 
 
 It appears that the love for colours may be 
 developed in two very different directions. It may 
 simply become more intense in its own way, so 
 that a man who took pleasure in red and blue at 
 the age of twenty might take a keener pleasure in 
 red and blue at thirty. Or it might happen that 
 the man who had simply found pleasure in pure 
 colours early in life might like intermediate tints 
 in his maturity, in which case, though the refine- 
 ment in his perceptions increased, his delight in 
 pure colours would probably diminish. The general 
 experience of cultivated painters is that they enjoy 
 pure and bright colours less than they did when
 
 i j 6 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 they were children. A colourist who had cultivated 
 his gift assiduously for fifty years once remarked 
 to the present writer that the distinction between 
 colours and colour was never enough remembered 
 either by painters or critics. Many painters have 
 so far forgotten it as to imagine that the more 
 colours they can put into a picture the better it 
 will look. In the decade between 1850 and i860 
 many pictures were executed on this principle, espe- 
 cially in England, and even at the present day it 
 is not altogether abandoned. Such painting is really 
 derived from illumination. 
 
 5. Effects of Idiosyncrasy on the perception of Colour. 
 — It is impossible to ascertain what colours are really 
 seen by eyes other than our own, but there is 
 always a probability that the divergence is no- 
 thing more than a divergence, except in cases of 
 colour-blindness, and that most people see approxi- 
 mately the same hues. The various practice of 
 painters is of little assistance in the investigation 
 of this subject, because whatever peculiarities may 
 affect an artist's vision when he looks at natural 
 objects, will affect his sight of pigments and tints. 
 For example, if red in nature seems to a painter 
 what blue seems to us, he will still use the same 
 pigments to represent it which we should use. 
 
 Some years ago Dr. Leibreich gave a lecture on 
 ' The effect of certain faults of vision on painting 
 with special reference to Turner,' and some reviewers
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 177 
 
 of my ' Life of Turner,' both in England and 
 America, have thought it an omission of some 
 importance that I did not notice Dr. Leibreich's 
 theory, and have asked for my opinion on the sub- 
 ject. The theory has always seemed to me fallacious 
 in its application to actual artistic production. I 
 have no doubt whatever that Dr. Leibreich is right 
 about the yellowing of the lens of the eye in some 
 people, but supposing that a painter's eye became 
 affected by this change, I should not think it pro- 
 bable that his pictures would be yellower on that 
 account. The case may be stated with convenient 
 brevity as follows : — 
 
 1. The painter whose eye-lens is yellow sees all 
 things yellower than they really are. He is not 
 afflicted with the infirmity when he looks at nature, 
 and exempt from it when he looks at his palette 
 or his picture ; the affliction is permanent, alike 
 in the field and in the studio. 
 
 2. Consequently, as the painter's eye supplies 
 yellow to the natural scene, it will supply yellow 
 in the same proportion to the mixtures on his palette 
 and his canvas, which will appear to him as yellow 
 as nature appears to him, even when they are not 
 more yellow than nature is in reality. This being 
 so, it does not appear that the painter's infirmity 
 will cause him to use more of the yellow pigments. 
 
 This answer to Dr. Leibreich is not suggested 
 by any desire to imply that Turner's faculties re- 
 
 N
 
 178 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 mained in a state of perfection while he pained 
 his later pictures. It is probable, if not certain, 
 that in his declining years there was an increasing 
 insensibility of the optic nerves, which led him to 
 desire a stronger and stronger stimulus. This would 
 of itself be sufficient to account for the immoderate 
 colouring of his later pictures. 
 
 6. Causes of bad tvork in Colour. — Bad colour in 
 painting may generally be traced to one of two 
 opposite causes. 
 
 The faculty which perceives and enjoys colour 
 may be too acutely sensitive, in which case bad 
 work will result from exaggerations due to the im- 
 moderate force of impressions. 
 
 On the other hand, bad work may be the con- 
 sequence of a deficiency of colour-sensibility in the 
 artist. Deficient sensibility will produce colouring 
 below a right degree of chromatic intensity, and 
 at the same time will fail to observe and render 
 what is subtle and delicate in the colouring of 
 nature. 
 
 Two well-known French painters may be men- 
 tioned as instances. In Delacroix the colour faculty 
 was naturally of great strength, but all his nature 
 was acutely, even morbidly, sensitive, and from this 
 resulted many violent exaggerations of colour in 
 his worst pictures, because he saw colour in nature 
 with an exaggerating eye. In Gerome the eye is 
 insensitive to colour, and the consequence is that
 
 A r oles on Aesthetics. ijg 
 
 his pictures are really under- coloured, notwith- 
 standing- his introduction of bright hues to give an 
 impression of colour. The colouring of Gerome is 
 really brown and grey, but without the subtle and 
 charming varieties which a colourist would get out 
 of his greys ; the bright blues, reds, &c, in Gerome's 
 work are adventitious. 
 
 The most perfect colour is produced by painters 
 whose natural faculties arc strong, but who have 
 acquired the power of moderating their exercise.* 
 
 7. The quality which is often called 'Purity' in 
 Colour. — In Mr. Poynter's lecture ' On the Study 
 of Nature ' there is an interesting passage on the 
 effect of preconceived ideas, showing ' how they run 
 away with us in art, to the prejudice of what we 
 
 f It might appear that there is some contradiction between 
 the theory that Turner in his later years coloured violently 
 because the increasing insensibility of the optic nerves led him 
 to desire a stronger and stronger stimulus, and the theory that 
 Delacroix coloured violently because he was excessively sensi- 
 tive to colour, but both may be true, the reconciling consideration 
 being that Turner did not work from nature, whilst Delacroix 
 had models and dresses to look at, like all figure-painters, and it 
 was from these that he received his exaggerated impressions. 
 Further inquiry will lead us to an influence which operated upon 
 both. All colourists delight in colour for itself, independently 
 of natural truth, and when they can get what they require by 
 means of an exaggeration, they are not to be deterred by con- 
 siderations of simple veracity. The real object of the colourist 
 is to produce fine colour, as the object of the musical composer 
 is to produce fine melodies and harmonies ; nor is the colourist 
 necessarily a much more accurate reporter of the colours which 
 he sees than the musician of the sounds he hears.
 
 180 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 might naturally do if we relied upon our impressions 
 alone.' He gives as an instance the idea of purity 
 as it was held by the English Pre-Raphaelites : — 
 
 1 At the beginning of the movement one of the pre- 
 dominant ideas was, that purity is in all its forms essential 
 to good art. Purity of subject, purity of sentiment, purity 
 of expression, being all necessary, were only to be secured 
 by the utmost purity of form and colour. To attain to 
 purity of colour was a most important point, and to this 
 end nothing but the most refined and brilliant pigments 
 were to be used. Ochres and umbers were earthy, and 
 perhaps, therefore, earthly ; so the newest chemical com- 
 pounds were sought out for the sake of procuring the 
 clearest and brightest tints of green, yellow, scarlet, violet, 
 and blue, that could be employed for the palette. These, 
 combined in prismatic hues on the purest white, were to 
 take the place of flesh tints of the sober colours which 
 artists had been content to use up to that time. The idea 
 was carried so far, that the use of those colours was con- 
 sidered a sort of test of the earnestness of a painter in his 
 work, and they were even invested with a sort of religious 
 halo. Here, then, is a case where the idea completely out- 
 mastered the impression ; for it is certain that no painter, 
 trusting to his eyes alone, would paint the shade of even 
 the purest maiden's cheek with violet madder, and emerald 
 green, and with cadmium or orange vermilion to complete 
 the triad of prismatic colours.' 
 
 Whilst the Pre-Raphaelite painters were seeking 
 bright colour, Mr. Ruskin was writing in favour of 
 the same choice. 
 
 'Beautiful colour,' says Mr. Poynter, 'with him seems
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 181 
 
 synonymous with bright colour, or what he would call 
 pure colour as typical of purity. Where he once thought 
 he saw fine colour in Titian, he has since strenuously denied 
 it; and his keen admiration of Turner's later work, which 
 is full of crude contrasts of coarse colour, shows that his 
 appreciation of Bellini's exquisite tones must be a mere 
 accident.' 
 
 This estimate of Mr. Ruskin's manner of appre- 
 ciating colour is, I believe, just on the whole ; but 
 passages from Mr. Ruskin's writings can always be 
 quoted in favour of opposite views, for he has been 
 so active (mentally), and so excursive, that there are 
 few truths which he has not caught glimpses of for a 
 moment. The real truth about purity of colour, as 
 having nothing to do with the absence of mixture, 
 and as existing in neutral colours as well as in bright 
 and positive ones, was well stated in the ninth chap- 
 ter of the second volume of ' Modern Painters' : — 
 
 ' For I see not in the abstract how one colour should 
 be considered purer than another, except as more or less 
 compounded ; whereas there is certainly a sense of purity 
 or impurity in the most compound and neutral colours, as 
 well as in the simplest — a quality difficult to define.' 
 
 Yes, this is a fair statement of the real state of 
 the case. A sense of purity may be produced or 
 awakened in us by the most compound and neutral 
 colours. There arc painters whose palettes are always 
 in a state of dirt and confusion, and who, nevertheless, 
 paint pictures which seem to be quite pure in colour,
 
 1 82 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 the fact being that a tint which is impure on the 
 palette may look pure when transferred to a special 
 place on the picture on account of its new sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 The well-known doctrine, that two pigments 
 make a tint and three make mud, is true only, so 
 far as it is true at all, of the tint as seen by itself or 
 with unfavourable surroundings. It is positively 
 ascertained by experiment that tints compounded, 
 not of three pigments but of five or six, will look 
 pure when transferred to their proper places in a 
 picture. 
 
 What, then, is this sensation in ourselves which we 
 call the purity of that which we perceive ? Probably 
 the correct answer may be, that this sensation is a 
 condition of the nervous system, during which its 
 vibrations are what a musician would call in tune ; 
 and this condition has little to do with positive 
 brightness, or with the presence or absence of mix- 
 ture in what produces it. 
 
 This may be illustrated from gastronomy. Very 
 pure sensations of taste are often given by elaborately 
 compounded dishes, such as a matelote, a sole nor- 
 mandc, or a bouille-abaisse, each of which has a well- 
 known and decided taste in spite of the variety of its 
 ingredients. The same may be said of drinks : the 
 sensation of taste given by the liqueur, chartreuse, is a 
 pure sensation ; I mean that the palate receives one 
 definite sensation only, the consequence of drinking
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 183 
 
 chartreuse, which nothing else produces, and which 
 leaves us perfectly unconscious of the variety of 
 ingredients of which chartreuse is composed. 
 
 The notion that it is necessary to keep things 
 uncontaminated by mixture, in order to produce the 
 sensation of purity, is entirely unphilosophical. What 
 we call pure air and pure water are mixtures — what 
 we call pure English is a mixture. 
 
 8. Right and Left not indifferent in Art. — One of 
 the practical troubles which an engraver has to 
 contend against is the necessity for reversing, in 
 order that the printed impression may put to right 
 or left what is to right or left in the original picture. 
 Modern engravers almost invariably accept this as an 
 obligation, but their predecessors seem to have been 
 much more indifferent, as they often consulted their 
 own convenience by copying the picture directly upon 
 the metal, so that the printed impression and not the 
 engraved work presented itself in reverse. If right or 
 left were really a matter of indifference, the engraver 
 could not do better than allow himself this liberty, 
 which would evidently be favourable to the perfection 
 of his work, by delivering him from the inconvenience 
 of the mirror. 
 
 It is probable that the modern practice of re- 
 versing, so that the print may be like the picture, 
 has been suggested simply by a desire to obtain this 
 fidelity ; but there is another and a far deeper reason 
 for it, which is that it is not at all a matter of in-
 
 184 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 difference whether the principal masses of a com- 
 position be situated to the left hand or the right. 
 
 After a long series of observations, both on natural 
 scenery with the mirror and on the composition of 
 great masters, I have arrived at the following con- 
 clusions, which may be stated in the form of rules. 
 
 1. Whenever there is an issue from the picture 
 along which the imagination of the spectator will be 
 enticed to travel, as, for instance, an opening to the 
 distance in a landscape, it ought to be, if possible, to 
 the spectator's right. 
 
 2. Whenever there is a large mass which blocks 
 up the composition, it ought to be, if possible on the 
 spectator's left. It follows from this, that when there 
 are two masses, one on each side, as often happens in 
 the side-scenes of a theatre, and in pictures arranged 
 on the same principle, it is the larger and more im- 
 portant of these which should be placed on the left. 
 
 It is surprising how very generally, though not 
 invariably, these rules have been followed by painters 
 in the arrangement of their compositions, and how 
 much more satisfactory are, generally, those com- 
 positions in which they have been observed than 
 those in which they have been neglected. It is 
 probable, too, that the observation of these principles 
 has been simply instinctive on the part of the artists, 
 as they have never, so far as we know, been stated in 
 words by any ancient or modern master. 
 
 I remember one instance in which the apparent
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 185. 
 
 neglect of the rule was really an instinctive con- 
 formity with it, and a little perseverance would 
 probably enable a student to collect many such 
 examples. In Rogers' Poems, the vignette to the 
 ninth canto of the Voyage of Columbus, representing 
 the landing of the Spaniards on the shore of the 
 new world, puts the masses of rising land to the 
 spectator's right, whilst the opening to the distance 
 lies to his left under the sun, and here the ships 
 constitute very small masses. Yes, but the whole 
 movement of the procession is towards the right, 
 and the human interest of the scene leads the eye to 
 the crowds on the sloping land which leave a lane 
 between them for the procession to ascend. At the 
 top of this lane is a building which crowns the height,. 
 and as this building is the final goal of the spectator's 
 eye when it has wandered over the composition, it is 
 judiciously placed at his right hand. The reader has 
 only to reverse the vignette in a looking-glass to see 
 how much more unpleasantly and unnaturally his 
 eye then follows the procession from right to left. 
 
 In many instances where artists have put materiaL 
 to the right which might more judiciously have been 
 placed on the other side, the reason has cither been 
 topographic or else a desire for variety. It is obvious 
 that if an artist invariably placed his large masses to 
 the left a certain sameness would result which might 
 become monotonous, especially in sets of drawings, 
 such as Turner's Rivers of France.
 
 1 86 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 The present writer was convinced that right and 
 left were not indifferent in art long before he knew 
 that there were physiological reasons for it, but more 
 recent scientific investigations have brought to light 
 certain facts which help us to understand the subject. 
 M. Delaunay has undertaken an inquiry which has 
 already led to some curious and important results. It 
 has been ascertained that when people enter a public 
 gallery the great majority of them will go to the right 
 at first, mechanically, unless there is some object on 
 the opposite side which they particularly desire to 
 see. This, it appears, is a consequence of an in- 
 equality in the force and activity of the two halves of 
 the brain. The left half is the stronger and more 
 active of the two, and as the nerves cross, the left 
 brain moves the right side of the body and impels 
 us to the right. It has been suggested that the 
 preferableness of the left side for large masses in 
 pictures might indicate some localisation of the 
 aesthetic faculties on the opposite side of the brain, 
 but it seems to me perfectly consistent with the 
 usual law of cerebral development which places the 
 predominant powers in the left brain, and quite in 
 harmony with what we have just been saying about 
 people's habits on entering a public gallery. 
 
 The real reason why the large masses in a picture 
 are better on the left and the opening to the distance 
 better on the right is the tendency of the imagination 
 to move towards the right, in which it only repeats
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 1S7 
 
 the unbiassed movements of the body. Large masses 
 to the left block up the picture there, an opening to 
 the right is a means of escape offered just where we 
 naturally look for it. If the large masses are placed 
 on the right the imagination strikes against them in 
 its first attempt to escape, and has to recover before 
 it can start afresh in a different direction. 
 
 Our habit of looking to the right gives a greater 
 importance to all objects placed on that side, con- 
 sequently, a small object on the right has as good a 
 chance of arresting our attention as a large one on 
 the left. This is an additional reason for placing 
 large foreground masses on the left and distances on 
 the right, as distant objects generally occupy small 
 areas of the surface of the drawing or picture. 
 
 The European habit of writing and reading from 
 left to right may have something to do with the 
 habitual tendency of our eyes to travel most easily 
 in that direction. 
 
 Again, it is not at all impossible that our custom 
 of beginning many words, and all sentences, with a 
 capital letter on the left may have accustomed us in 
 some degree to put large masses on that side and 
 smaller masses to the right. Simply as a matter of 
 appearance, without any reference whatever to reason 
 or to meaning, it seems the proper thing to put the 
 largest letter to the left. The name Herodotus looks 
 perfectly satisfactory, but if we try the experiment of 
 putting a big letter to the right, as in herodotuS, the
 
 1 88 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 eye feels strangely stopped by it as by an almost 
 insurmountable obstacle. The large initial letters in 
 illuminated manuscripts look very well on the left, 
 but they seem oddly out of place when we reverse 
 the page in a looking-glass, even if we consider it 
 simply as an artistic arrangement, without reading a 
 word of it. 
 
 These considerations are of especial importance 
 to etchers who work from nature, because they often 
 draw directly on the copper without the intervention 
 of the mirror, simply for convenience, forgetting that 
 the scene which charmed them in nature may have a 
 very different aspect when reversed in the printed 
 proofs. If the side on which masses are placed were 
 really a matter of indifference, the reversal could not 
 affect the artistic value of the drawing, and would 
 simply nullify its topographic interest or utility, but 
 the truth is that artistic charm is much imperilled by 
 so dangerous an experiment as reversal, and is in 
 many instances destroyed by it so completely that 
 the artist can hardly recognise his own work, and 
 it no longer gives him the slightest satisfaction. 
 
 9. The Love and Hatred of the Artificial. — An 
 element which enters for very much into our aes- 
 thetic appreciation of persons and things is the 
 simple liking or dislike for the marks of human 
 interference. Many minds are so constituted that 
 it is a positive pleasure to them to see that human 
 effort has been expended upon anything, and a sort
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 189 
 
 of negative pain to perceive that there has been no 
 such human operation. This is quite independent 
 of any conception of beauty, and yet it is constantly 
 confounded with ideas of beauty because few people 
 take the trouble to analyse the causes of their feel- 
 ings. Since the rebellion against the extreme arti- 
 ficialism of the eighteenth century, the rebellion 
 headed by Rousseau and continued by a host of 
 writers and painters down to our own times, there 
 have been two distinct parties which may be called 
 the naturalists and the artificialists, and even in the 
 quiet intercourse of private life, where there is not 
 any very eager partisanship on either side, we may 
 still distinguish the people who in a more active 
 state of controversy would have belonged to one 
 party or the other. In matters which appear to 
 have little to do with the fine arts (though in reality 
 all these things come within their domain) this 
 opposition is often strongly marked. The liking or 
 disliking for the natural hair may be taken as a 
 case in point. The beard is still very strongly dis- 
 liked by some persons, who deny that it can be 
 beautiful ; but what they really mean is probably 
 that the beard is offensive to their preference for 
 the artificial, which shaving strongly gratifies. It 
 was not by any means accidental that the beard 
 movement should have originated with artists, who, 
 however artificial their pursuit may be in itself, are 
 brought more into contact with real nature, and are
 
 190 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 more observant of its beauties, than any other class 
 of persons. On the other hand, shaving has gener- 
 ally formed part of the ideal aimed at by disciplined 
 professions, such as those of the soldier, the lawyer, 
 and the priest. 
 
 When the love of nature first began to be fashion- 
 able in Europe there was a prevalent, but most 
 erroneous, idea that the love of the artificial is 
 stronger in the civilised races of mankind than in 
 the savage. The civilised have more conveniences, 
 and these conveniences are often very artificial in 
 their character ; but they appear to be as often 
 adopted for comfort, and to save time, as from a 
 feeling of opposition to what is natural merely 
 because it is natural. Savages interfere with and 
 alter the natural more resolutely and decidedly on 
 their own persons than civilised peoples do, both 
 in their astonishingly inconvenient ways of dressing 
 the hair, their painful habit of tattooing their bodies, 
 their abnormal treatment of certain features — such 
 as the ears, elongated by weights, and even in some 
 instances in their compression of the skull itself. 
 Besides the peoples whose degrees of civilisation 
 are so low that we call them savages, there are 
 other peoples whose civilised character is not to 
 be disputed, yet whose civilisations are inferior to 
 our own, and it appears to be a general rule that 
 these inferior civilisations are marked by a love of 
 the artificial and a corresponding dislike to the
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 191 
 
 natural which are stronger than these feelings 
 amongst ourselves. For example, it is certainly 
 not an illusion of national vanity to believe that 
 the Chinese civilisation, though very ancient and 
 very much advanced in many ways, is still on the 
 whole very far inferior to our own in knowledge 
 and power ; yet a Chinese lady is further from the 
 natural state, physically, than an English one, and 
 that not merely in the visible deformation of her 
 feet, but in all her manner of life, the deviation 
 from nature being valued as a sign of culture and 
 a mark of superior rank. 
 
 Amongst ourselves, costumes of ceremony are 
 usually further from nature than our ordinary dress. 
 For example, a dress hat, in its outline and pro- 
 portions, is less like the shape of the skull than a 
 cap or a wide-awake ; and a dress-coat is less like 
 the human body than a jacket. In the army, the 
 shell-jacket is nearer to the shape of the body than 
 the coatee. Those persons whose rank or office is 
 held to be particularly august, such as the Lord 
 Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, 
 and the Bishops, have a full ceremonial dress, which 
 differs principally from their ordinary dress in being 
 a more effectual concealment of the human form. 
 The lawn sleeves of an Anglican bishop are further 
 from the shape of his arms than his ordinary coat- 
 sleeves ; and the mitre of a Roman Catholic bishop 
 is further from the shape of his head than his hat
 
 192 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 or his cap. The wigs worn by the Speaker and 
 the Lord Chancellor are unlike anything in nature, 
 and their very unnaturalness gives the wearers an 
 amposing and official appearance. 
 
 In humbler walks of life men often cherish some 
 highly artificial fancy as to personal appearance, 
 which comes simply from a desire to show that 
 they do not neglect themselves. This may be 
 observed especially amongst soldiers and sailors, 
 who belong to highly-disciplined professions, in 
 which carelessness is considered particularly repre- 
 hensible, and in which men incur blame for small 
 inaccuracies in dress. We have all noticed the neat 
 curl of the guardsman's hair between the ear and 
 the temple, so advantageously displayed by the 
 jaunty setting of the forage-cap. I remember a 
 good instance of the taste for the artificial in the 
 steersman of an English steam-packet. He stood 
 at the helm, a fine specimen of a seaman, manly 
 and muscular, very clean and neat, and strictly 
 attentive to his business. The care and attention 
 which he devoted to his work were part of his 
 high civilisation, and of his preference for the 
 artificial (the discipline of the ship) to the natural 
 (mere staring at sea-gulls). However, the sense of 
 discipline went rather far in one respect : the 
 steersman had jet-black hair, which he had dis- 
 ciplined into long ringlets, oiled and glossy, which 
 played pleasantly about his ears in the breeze.
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 193 
 
 Nay, even the ringlets were not enough ; the ears 
 being pierced (another interference with nature), 
 and adorned with conspicuous gold ear-rings. The 
 mixture of the sense of discipline with this sailor's 
 aesthetic tastes led him, as we see, to three distinct 
 acts of interference with the natural — shaving, hair- 
 curling, and ear-piercing — all of which were con- 
 sidered unnecessary by Michelangelo. 
 
 Visible interferences with nature convey to the 
 mind several different impressions, which may have 
 little or nothing to do with beauty, and yet may 
 be confounded with it, because they are gratifying 
 or impressive to our social sense. 
 
 1. They may convey the idea of vigilant care 
 and attention. We have seen that shaving and 
 visibly artful hair-dressing convey this idea. So do 
 the staining of the nails and teeth, the painting of 
 eyebrows, &c, in countries where these practices 
 are fashionable. Amongst tribes where it is the 
 fashion to compress the skull in infancy, so as to 
 produce an intentional malformation, a naturally 
 shaped skull is considered ridiculous, and an evi- 
 dence of neglect ; whilst a skull well flattened 
 between two boards is thought to give proof of 
 proper parental care, and so be a sign of good 
 breeding. 
 
 2. Interferences with nature in the way of cover- 
 ing and disguise may convey impressions of dignity 
 and power. If the reader will compare the im- 
 
 O
 
 194 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 pression produced on his mind by the tights of a 
 circus rider (the dress nearest to nature) with the 
 vestments of a pope or the mantle of a king on his 
 coronation day, he will at once perceive that usage 
 accepts the principle that it is necessary to hide 
 and disguise the natural when an impression of 
 power or dignity has to be conveyed.* Napoleon 
 the First used to say that there was no such 
 person as a naked king ; meaning that without his 
 adjuncts the king would be a man and nothing 
 more, or, in other words, that the natural could 
 not inspire the respect which is a necessity for 
 royalty. 
 
 The appearance of care and attention is satis- 
 factory to the moral sense of civilised peoples, 
 even when their civilisation is not yet of a very 
 advanced kind, because civilisation is a product of 
 care and attention. The appearance of pure nature 
 is often unsatisfactory, because civilised people are 
 displeased by the absence of care and attention. 
 Nevertheless, it is the most highly civilised peoples 
 
 * It may be answered to this that the mere association of 
 ideas would prevent us from making such a comparison 
 justly. It might be so for people generally, but I believe 
 that a painter, trained to see, or a philosopher, trained to 
 think, might judge of such a question independently of as- 
 sociation. Again, it may be said that nudity may be king- 
 like or god-like in painting and sculpture. Yes, it can be made 
 so, but only when clothed with the ideal, which is in fact quite 
 as much a disguise of nature as the utmost artifices of dress.
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 195 
 
 who have the strongest passion for pure nature, if 
 indeed they are not the only peoples who have 
 any passion for pure nature at all. It is only the 
 civilised modern nations, and especially their urban 
 populations, who have a passionate liking for such 
 a thing as a piece of rough, precipitous rock, in 
 which there is nothing conducive to human comfort 
 or convenience, and nothing to remind us of human 
 activity or industry, except when it is the side of a 
 stone-quarry. 
 
 It is by this time a trite observation that the 
 love of wild nature is a reaction from the restraints 
 and ugliness of civilisation. It may also be a 
 reaction from the too perfect finish and polish of 
 that which is not positively ugly in civilisation. 
 Most of us have experienced the sort of ennui 
 which comes upon the mind when we have been 
 too long wearied by the order and polish of draw- 
 ing-rooms, and the feeling of refreshment that one 
 experiences on passing from them into a carpenter's 
 shop, with its rough, strong benches, and the chips 
 and shavings all about. Or, again, we know what 
 a relief it is, after being dressed up for some cere- 
 mony, to get rid of the fine clothes, and take our 
 ease in rougher and commoner things. Manchester 
 and Glasgow, with their ugliness, might drive us 
 to lake and loch, but it is quite conceivable that 
 the artificial finish of a palace like Chatsworth 
 might have very much the same effect. Paris is a
 
 196 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 beautiful city, but it makes people long for the 
 rucsredness of the forest of Fontainebleau. 
 
 Other sources of these feelings are on the 
 one hand a sense of dependence on human help, 
 valuing the comfort derived from it, and, on the 
 other, the misanthropic dislike to the evidences 
 of human effort from want of sympathy with 
 humanity. 
 
 Suppose the case of a sailor who has been ship- 
 wrecked on a shore unknown to him. If he succeeds 
 in getting to the top of a cliff, the first thing he does 
 is to seek for evidences of human occupation. If he 
 finds them, he is pleased with the hope of human 
 assistance in his distress. Now, although we have 
 not, many of us, been in such sore strait as this, we 
 all instinctively feel our weakness when isolated from 
 our kind, and we all have a certain pleasure in 
 knowing that human help is near, except when our 
 healthy feelings are turned to their opposites by 
 some perversion of our nature. This is the origin 
 of the cheerful feeling awakened in us by the sight 
 of the artificial. Imagine a desolate Arctic land- 
 scape, with its wastes of ice and snow. The dreari- 
 ness of it is beyond the power of language to ex- 
 press, but a cluster of huts, however wretched, will 
 give it another aspect. It is dreary and melancholy 
 still, but no longer wretched, since humanity is there. 
 So a bridge, or even a bit of road, will redeem a 
 Highland glen or an Alpine pass from the kind of
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 197 
 
 solitude which becomes oppressive. Turner almost 
 invariably introduced these evidences of humanity, 
 which have been considered essential until the most 
 recent times. Some very recent landscape-painters 
 have painted absolute solitude of sea and cloud, of 
 desert and burning sky, partly as a change from a 
 practice which had become a mere habit of artists, 
 and partly because they felt a stern pleasure in 
 setting themselves face to face with nature. There 
 is an interesting description of this pleasure, very 
 much to our present purpose, in Mr. John Mac- 
 Gregor's well-known 'Voyage Alone in the Yawl 
 " Rob Roy." He was out between Beachy Head 
 and Hastings on the night of the 19th of August, 
 1867, during a severe storm of thunder and lightning, 
 accompanied by a strong and very variable wind, 
 and rain hissing into the sea, and ' pouring on the 
 yawl in sheets of water.' 
 
 'So sped the storm for eight long hours, with splen- 
 dours for the eye, and deep long thrills of the sublime, 
 that stirred deep the whole inner being with feelings vivid 
 and strong, and loosed the most secret folds of conscious- 
 ness with thoughts I had never felt before, and perhaps 
 shall never know again. The mind conjured up the 
 most telling scenes it had known of " alone " and of 
 "thunder" to compare with this where both were now 
 combined. 
 
 ' To stand on the top of Mont Blanc, that round white 
 icicle highest in Europe, and all alone to gaze on a hun- 
 dred peaks around — that was indeed impressive !
 
 198 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 'More so was it to kneel alone at the edge of Etna, 
 and to fill the mind from the smoking crater with thoughts 
 and fancies teeming out of the hot, black, and wide abyss/ 
 
 Mr. MacGregor goes on to describe in a few words 
 the effect of thunder and solitude on Vesuvius and 
 at the fall of Niagara, but says that the storm in 
 the Channel was more splendid. 
 
 ' Imagination painted its own free picture on a black 
 and boundless background of mind strung tight by near 
 danger; and from out this spoke the deep, loud diapason,, 
 while the quick flashing at intervals gave point to all.' 
 
 The effect in these instances is due as much to 
 solitude in the presence of awful natural phenomena 
 as to the phenomena themselves. Mr. MacGregor 
 is an excellent example of the class of strong men 
 who like to feel themselves face to face with the 
 sublimity of nature, getting well rid, for the time 
 being, of human intervention in all its forms. The 
 characteristic common to all his voyages is that the 
 traveller was always alone. I remember a little in- 
 cident in my own boating experiences which may 
 be mentioned in this connexion. 
 
 I was by myself on a Highland loch in a tiny 
 open boat of the kind used as yachts' dingeys. It 
 was in the night, and the night was as dark as pitch,, 
 so that I could make out hardly anything except 
 the light in a window at a considerable distance. 
 The wind was high enough to produce waves which
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 199 
 
 were formidable to so small a craft ; and suddenly 
 I found myself carried away on a boiling white 
 current, which seemed to issue from the land, and 
 which, in fact, was a torrent swollen to fury by recent 
 heavy rains. All this was very impressive to me, 
 alone, with nothing of man's work near me except 
 a tiny nutshell of a boat, but the impressiveness of 
 the scene would have diminished in exact propor- 
 tion to the amount of human help about me. In a 
 large sailing-boat, with a servant, I should have felt 
 it much less, and thought chiefly of the management 
 of my sail ; in a steam launch, with several com- 
 panions, I should probably have thought that it was 
 lucky we had a light in a distant window to guide 
 us. In short, there are circumstances in which our 
 feeling for the sublime diminishes in inverse ratio 
 to the presence of human help. Imagine the three 
 following examples : — 
 
 1. A thunderstorm in the higher Alps, seen from 
 the public drawing-room of a large Swiss hotel, 
 crowded with tourists, in the height of the season, 
 as at Chamouni, for instance. 
 
 2. The same thunderstorm, seen from a lonely 
 chalet, inhabited by two or three mountaineers. 
 
 3. The same thunderstorm, seen by a lonely tra- 
 veller on the mountains, far from all human assist- 
 ance. 
 
 In these instances, the impressiveness of the scene 
 increases as the artificial circumstances diminish. It
 
 200 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 must be terrible, indeed, to affect us much in the 
 hotel. Even in the chalet we find a resource of com- 
 parative comfort, which affords our mind a refuge 
 from the full terror of the storm. But to be alone 
 in it, with nothing artificial but the clothes on one's 
 own back — this is to feel it in all the strength of 
 its sublimity. 
 
 In cases like these the love and hatred of the 
 artificial may both operate strongly. A nervous 
 woman would look to the artificial as a refuge, a 
 strong man who had a taste for the sublime, like 
 Mr. MacGregor, would like to find himself alone in 
 the presence of nature, with his artificial surround- 
 ings reduced to a minimum, so as to be completely 
 forgotten for the moment, and so as not to diminish 
 in the least the full force of the impression received 
 from nature. 
 
 We have still to consider that hatred of the 
 artificial which is due to simple misanthropy. The 
 reader might amuse himself by culling instances of 
 of this from imaginative literature. He would find 
 several in Byron — not that Byron in his better 
 moods disliked the works and presence of man, on 
 the contrary, he defended the artificial as an ele- 
 ment of poetry most vigorously in his answer to 
 Bowles — but there were times when Byron was 
 really misanthropic, and at such times he delighted 
 in the power of the natural forces as hostile or in- 
 different towards mankind. The best instance, and
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 201 
 
 the most generally known, occurs towards the close 
 of the fourth canto of ' Childe Harold:' — 
 
 ' Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
 Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 A shadow of man's ravage. 
 
 ***** 
 
 ' The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
 Their clay creator the vain title take 
 Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; 
 These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
 They melt into thy yeast of waves.' 
 
 Here, in its full force, is the rejoicing in the na- 
 tural as hostile to the artificial, and this from pure 
 misanthropy. The same sentiment, still referring to 
 the ocean, occurs in the second act of ' Manfred,' 
 where the Second Voice gives an account of havoc 
 accomplished : — 
 
 ' The ship sailed on, the ship sailed fast, 
 But I left not a sail, and I left not a mast ; 
 There is not a plank of the hull or the deck, 
 And there is not a wretch to lament o'er his wreck, 
 Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hair, 
 And he was a subject well worthy my care ; 
 A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea — 
 But I saved him to wreak further havoc for me ! ' 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply quotations. Enough 
 has been said on this subject to show how the 
 aesthetic perceptions may be interfered with by such 

 
 202 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 sentiments as the desire for the comfort of accessible 
 human help, and an ill-natured rejoicing in human 
 weakness. These sentiments directly affect our appre- 
 ciation of painting, and are able, unless we resist their 
 influence, to make us unjust in our estimate of artists. 
 It has even been maintained, as a dogma, that the 
 presence of the artificial in a painted landscape is 
 essential to its quality as a work of art, simply be- 
 cause many people feel uninterested and uncom- 
 fortable in the presence of a scene where man has 
 left no mark. In the same spirit a Manchester man 
 once observed in my hearing that the prettiest na- 
 tural landscape was wearisome to him unless he 
 could see a smoky chimney, such was the interest 
 he found in human labour of the kind most familiar 
 to him. On the other hand, there is a particular 
 state of mind, of which I have had some experience, 
 which finds its pleasure in landscape increased 
 steadily as the evidences of human labour diminish. 
 I can distinctly remember feeling more and more 
 cheerful as towns and villages were left behind, and 
 finally attaining a state of indescribable felicity when 
 I got into the most desolate scenery, amongst rocks 
 and heather, on a Lancashire or a Highland moor. 
 This was no doubt due in a great measure to the 
 ugliness of the towns in the north of England with 
 which I was most familiar. The feeling entirely 
 passed away from me in France, where the cities 
 are generally very nearly smokeless, and in most
 
 A r otes on Aesthetics. 20 
 
 
 
 cases so artistically situated that they improve the 
 landscape instead of deteriorating it. 
 
 10. Interferences of the Affections with the Judg- 
 ment in matters of Art. — The peculiarity of the Fine 
 Arts, as distinguished from the sciences, is that affec- 
 tion, in some form, is necessary to the excellence of 
 the work ; and yet affection warps the judgment, so 
 that the artist is always biassed by his likings, and 
 at the same time, of course, by his ^dislikings, which 
 will always be of proportionate intensity. The same 
 feelings always affect the judgment of the critic who 
 cannot, without a strong effort of reason, distinguish 
 clearly in his own consciousness between the sug- 
 gestions of his feelings and the decision of his in- 
 tellect. The critic is in the more trying position of 
 the two. An artist is not called upon to be just 
 in his appreciation of the various talents of others 
 — he has only to develop his own, and this develop- 
 ment may often be best obtained by a certain nar- 
 rowness and intensity of feeling, in which affection 
 and antipathy get the upper hand of reason. The 
 critic's difficulty may be stated in a very few words. 
 He cannot appreciate Art without affection, and he 
 cannot appreciate opposite kinds of Art unless his 
 reason is sufficiently strong to keep his affections 
 under constant control. His affections ought to be 
 as strong as if he had no reason, and his reason as 
 active as if he had no affections. 
 
 Affection interferes with our perception of Art by
 
 204 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 making us prefer the inferior to the superior on 
 account of some pleasant or pathetic association of 
 ideas. The nation, the family, the favourite occupa- 
 tion or amusement, all these powerfully interfere with 
 the justice of our appreciation of everything in which 
 beauty is concerned. One of the best instances of 
 this is the conviction, so deeply rooted in many an 
 honest heart north of the Tweed, that Scottish music 
 is far superior to Italian. Here we see the patriotic 
 sentiment warping the artistic judgment to such a 
 degree that sober comparison becomes impossible. 
 The heart, which is affected by the recurrence of 
 some stirring or plaintive air, some ' Scots wha hae ' 
 or 'Auld Robin Gray,' feels that the loss of them 
 would not be compensated by the most magnificent 
 creations of Italian genius, with all their abounding 
 variety, their inexhaustible invention, their exquisite 
 artistic sense. It is like preferring an English village 
 church to the Duomo at Florence because we have 
 been christened in the village church, and our father 
 and mother lie buried beneath its shadow, whilst the 
 Duomo has no associations for us, and is foreign to 
 all our experience. The popular mind does not 
 analyse its preferences — it is incapable of establishing 
 a distinction between what it cannot help loving and 
 what has claims upon its admiration. This incapacity 
 may be found, in minor degrees, in intelligences far 
 above the popular. We see it in the taste for scenery, 
 when the sentiment of local patriotism fondly ex-
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 205 
 
 aggerates the beauty and interest of the native land, 
 whilst international antagonism exaggerates the 
 defects of the neighbouring country, and depreciates 
 its merits. The remnant of old hostility is still 
 strong enough between the English and the French 
 to make them unjust in their aesthetic criticisms of 
 each other's countries. The French opinion is that 
 England is buried under perpetual fog, and an 
 Englishman must be exceptionally erudite in geo- 
 graphy to have got rid of his national belief that 
 all France is flat and uninteresting. How few 
 Frenchmen will admit, without resistance, that the 
 Thames above London is as rich in beautiful lowland 
 scenes as the best parts of the Seine or the Marne ! 
 How few Englishmen will admit willingly that 
 France contains as much fine mountainous scenery 
 as Great Britain, or that the French mountains are 
 many of them far higher than the British ! The 
 French have nothing to say against the climate of 
 Denmark, because there is no international jealousy 
 of Denmark ; the English say nothing against the 
 scenery of any minor State; but the jealousy between 
 England and France finds vent in all sorts of mutual 
 aesthetic criticisms. It chooses aesthetic criticism 
 because, in matters of taste, there is always some- 
 thing unfavourable to be said ; and it is not always 
 so easy to prove its injustice as in a statement about 
 trade or finance. The French say that the English 
 have no music ; the English say that the French
 
 206 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 have no poetry. It was a great advantage to the 
 musical and dramatic artists of Italy that their nation 
 used to be too weak and divided to excite jealousy — 
 it p-ave them a much better chance of a fair aesthetic 
 criticism in other countries than French or English 
 musical artists would have enjoyed. The truth of 
 these observations is not at all invalidated by the 
 kindly reception of English pictures in France in 
 1878, and of French actors and actresses in England 
 in 1879. The fact is, that the jealousy between the 
 two nations has diminished sufficiently to allow of 
 more just criticism than that which prevailed many 
 years ago, when French people used to deny all 
 pictorial talent to the English, and English actors 
 were received with open hostility in Paris. Repeated 
 international exhibitions have done more than any- 
 thing else to diminish aesthetic hostility between 
 nations ; but it may still be a matter of doubt whether 
 this diminution is so favourable to the cause of Art 
 as it is to that of universal justice. It is a moral 
 improvement, certainly ; but the consequence of it 
 is to bring the Art of the world more and more under 
 the influence of the same ideas, and to merge the 
 different schools into one universal school. 
 
 Narrow local affections tend to intensify special 
 excellences. The best Dutch painters had narrow 
 local affections, so had our own Constable and Crome, 
 -and these sentiments were the foundation of their art. 
 It is more likely that such artists as these would be
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 207 
 
 spoiled than improved by cosmopolitanism. Burns 
 
 by his culture, and also by his want of culture, was 
 
 incomparably more local than Byron, and had far 
 
 stronger local affections. His art as a poet was 
 
 narrowed by this, but who can tell whether he would 
 
 have gained, by a larger experience, such as that of 
 
 Byron, any equivalent compensation for the local 
 
 strength and intensity which he would have lost ? 
 
 Byron's advantages of situation are apparently far 
 
 superior, and yet, if Burns had possessed them, 
 
 these very advantages would have incapacitated 
 
 him for doing his best work. The essentially best 
 
 work of Burns could have been produced by no one 
 
 but a Scottish peasant. On the other hand, there 
 
 can be no doubt that Byron's wider experience of the 
 
 world gave him a great advantage as a critic, and 
 
 enabled him to judge of literature much better than 
 
 Burns could judge of it. This brings us back to 
 
 what I have said already, that local feeling may be 
 
 good for an artist and detrimental to a critic. 
 
 Nevertheless, a professor who happened to be ad- 
 dressing an audience of artists might warn them that 
 affections are only good for their work when the 
 nature of them is strictly artistic. It is well for a 
 painter to love his subject, but if he loves it for other 
 than artistic qualities his affections will be detri- 
 mental to the work of art in which he represents it. 
 An artist who loves a building or a landscape for the 
 sake of old associations will find it difficult to make a
 
 2o8 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 well-composed picture of it, because he will not like 
 to sacrifice the truth which is dear to him in order to 
 improve the artistic arrangement ; a kind of improve- 
 ment which he would introduce without hesitation if 
 he regarded the place with indifference, or with a 
 purely artistic affection, such as he would feel for 
 places that he liked in foreign countries. In the 
 same manner the too earnest and too serious in- 
 terest in some historical or religious subject, for 
 reasons outside of art, which sometimes leads modern 
 artists to seek for absolute truth of fact in their re- 
 presentations, is dangerous to artistic qualities. 
 
 There is, however, one love which is always safe 
 and always encouraging — the love of art itself. It 
 may be dangerous for an artist to love his subject 
 over-much, but it is scarcely conceivable that he 
 should love his art too much. The love of history 
 and archaeology, the love of botany and geology, 
 the love of locality, the love of literature, are all 
 affections which in some form or degree may be 
 dangerous to painting — not so the love of painting 
 for its own sake. Other passions may group around 
 it, but this should be the central passion of a painter. 
 His means of expression should seem to him the 
 happiest and best. He should enjoy the work of 
 painting as if he were playing 'visible music' He 
 should love his palette, his brushes, his pigments, and 
 have fanatical preferences for certain kinds of canvas 
 •or panel. The state of mind which despises the
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 209 
 
 artistic implements and materials as poor arms for 
 a struggle with nature, should not be his state of 
 mind. He ought to value them as a girl values her 
 first watch, or a boy his first gun. 
 
 1 1 Originality in Colour. — Every great colourist 
 who has hitherto appeared has coloured in his own 
 way, and even amongst painters of little celebrity, so 
 soon as they begin to give clear evidence of colour 
 power, it has always a distinctly personal character, 
 so that no one can regularly visit the exhibitions 
 without knowing the tints and tones of those artists 
 who enjoy a moderate degree of reputation for their 
 colour. 
 
 If the ultimate result of art-study were the exact 
 copyism of nature these personal differences would 
 decrease as artists advanced in culture, and by the 
 time they had reached a degree of perfection de- 
 serving to be called mastery, such differences would 
 be lost in a common resemblance to nature. What 
 we see around us in the actual world of art is 
 strikingly different from this. When colourists advance 
 in power they resemble each other less than ever, as 
 the effects of idiosyncrasy become more and more 
 decided, till at last they exhibit a complete separa- 
 tion from what has been done before, and this origin- 
 ality, when it does not offend us, we recognise as the 
 mark of the consummate artist. 
 
 In every such instance the painter invents new 
 harmonics, which arc either suggested to him (it may 
 
 P
 
 2io Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 be very remotely) by natural phenomena, or by pre- 
 vious works of art, or else simply conceived by the 
 imagination and developed by experiments with 
 pigments. The possibilities for such inventions are 
 without limit in colour, as they are in music. 
 
 What interests us chiefly in the originality of 
 colourists, as concerning our present inquiry, is that 
 it gives such striking evidence of the personal cha- 
 racter of aesthetic perceptions. Not only does school 
 differ from school, but the members of the same school 
 differ very widely from each other. 
 
 12. That Perception varies with Idiosyncrasy. — 
 In everything connected with the fine arts, whether 
 in execution or in the mere seeing of nature, idio- 
 syncrasy tells with far greater force than in many 
 other human occupations.* I had nearly written, 
 than in any other human occupation, but hesitated, 
 because, whenever I have made inquiry, I have 
 generally discovered that idiosyncrasy was of im- 
 portance, and easily detected by adepts, even in 
 
 * For the benefit of readers who do not know Greek, I 
 will copy the definition and etymology of idiosyncrasy from 
 Webster's Dictionary : — ' Idiosyncrasy, n. \_Fr., idiosyncrasie 
 and idiosyncrase, Ital. and Sp., idiosincrasia, Gr., ifaoovyKpama, 
 from ISiog, proper, peculiar, and avynpaaiQ, a mixing together, 
 from ovyicepavvvvai, to mix together, from aw, with, and 
 Kepawvvai, to mix], A peculiarity of constitution and suscep- 
 tibility ; characteristic belonging to and distinguishing an 
 individual ; idiocrasy. 
 
 ' The individual mind takes its tone from the idiosyncrasies of the 
 body. — I. Taylor. .
 
 iVotes on Aesthetics. 2 1 1 
 
 labours where one would least expect to find it. 
 There is, however, this essential difference, that 
 ordinary occupations rarely encourage its develop- 
 ment ; whilst artistic occupations encourage it con- 
 siderably in modern times, and it makes its way 
 in the fine arts, even when not encouraged. The 
 mechanic arts repress idiosyncrasy except in the 
 case of inventors, who find a relief for it in their 
 inventions. Social usage has also a very strong 
 tendency to its suppression, or at least, as that is 
 not possible, to suppress its outward manifestation 
 in costume, opinion, or manners. 
 
 The action of idiosyncrasy upon the fine arts 
 may be understood by the conditions of its suppres- 
 sion. To get rid of it, we have to adopt habits of 
 production so nearly resembling those of simple 
 manufacture, that what we moderns understand by 
 fine art is very nearly eliminated. For example, 
 cheap oil pictures in which idiosyncrasy can scarcely 
 be detected at all, are sold by auction very exten- 
 sively in the provincial towns of France ; but they 
 are produced by a process which is more than half 
 mechanical. Blocks arc used for printing in oil- 
 colours upon canvas, and the colour so laid is 
 brushed upon by different workmen in the different 
 stages of the same picture. The result is that a 
 bad landscape or figure picture, giving complete 
 satisfaction to an entirely uneducated taste, can be 
 sold at a price varying from twenty-five to a
 
 212 
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 hundred francs, without extra charge for its frame. 
 In this case there is but one outlet for idiosyncrasy^ 
 yet there is one — the touch of the brush in the wet 
 paint ; and it is just this which elevates the work 
 a little above the dead level of perfectly mechanical 
 production. Unfortunately, from an art-critic's point 
 of view, the advantage of this is in a great measure 
 neutralised by the combination of several individu- 
 alities in the same picture, as the sky is touched 
 upon by one man, the trees by another, the water 
 by a third, &c. 
 
 Idiosyncrasy may be repressed almost entirely, 
 even in paintings executed from beginning to end 
 by one man, when the artist is under the strict 
 control of a tradition, and bound to do his work 
 in a certain set fashion, to depart from which is 
 t i commit an offence against established usage, and 
 in some cases even against religion. The common 
 Russian saint-pictures are, I believe, of this class. 
 The workman labours under fixed rules which he 
 is never permitted to violate, and soon acquires 
 settled habits of manufacture in strict obedience to 
 these rules. It is probable, however, that idiosyn- 
 crasy might be detected even here by a close 
 observer personally acquainted with the workmen. 
 It can be detected by experts even in such things 
 as the sending of a telegraphic despatch along the 
 wires, or the setting of type for a book, or the 
 engraving of a visiting-card. I have heard a joiner
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 2 1 3 
 
 say after examining a box which he was supposed 
 to have made, 'No, I did not make that box; the 
 workmanship is good, but the man who made it 
 has not my particular way of dealing with the 
 materials.' 
 
 In the fine arts we owe to idiosyncrasy that 
 charm of infinite variety which so vastly increases 
 the interest of our exhibitions. This variety has 
 been greater in England than elsewhere, because 
 our artists have been less moulded by a common 
 system of authoritative education than the artists 
 of the Continent, and also because Englishmen 
 have a natural turn for the development of indivi- 
 dual peculiarities. The difficulty is to get education 
 (without which it is impossible to avoid loss of time), 
 and yet preserve what is really valuable in idiosyn- 
 crasy. It is encouraging to think that the difficulty 
 has often been overcome. Many writers and artists 
 of the present day, and in past ages, are and have 
 been at the same time highly educated and original. 
 Amongst poets it would be difficult to mention one 
 in whom idiosyncrasy was visibly stronger than it 
 is in Robert Browning, yet his education has been 
 much above the average. Amongst painters not 
 one has been more decidedly himself than Rubens, 
 the most highly educated of artists. But though 
 education will not affect a powerful idiosyncrasy 
 unfavourably, it may crush a weaker one. I have 
 known several curious instances of the degree to
 
 214 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 which this evil influence may be carried, and of 
 these the following is one of the most remarkable. 
 A painter (not an Englishman), who was young 
 thirty years ago, was happily gifted by Nature in 
 various ways. He had a very keen and active in- 
 telligence, a lively sense of the ludicrous, a habit 
 of close observation of what passed before his eyes, 
 the talent of a mimic, and the cutting severity of a 
 satirist of life and manners. Had he been able to 
 put himself effectually into his art he would have 
 done work, I do not say like Hogarth, but bearing 
 much the same relation to the humanity which 
 surrounded him. Unluckily, however, he fell from 
 the beginning under the influence of a clique of 
 artists, led by a famous painter, who inculcated the 
 utmost contempt for the representation of ordinary 
 life, and for the rendering of expression. He there- 
 fore applied himself, with his whole strength and 
 energy, to what he was taught to consider a higher 
 form of art, the laborious rendering of naked flesh 
 in a strictly classical manner. After years of labour 
 in this direction he had come to consider that the 
 thigh of an Academy model was of far greater 
 consequence in the universe than the face of a man 
 of genius, so he painted thighs year after year, 
 and omitted everything which might indicate the 
 presence of an intelligence or a soul. Meanwhile, 
 his own intelligence, not being allowed to exercise 
 itself in his art, found an outlet in conversation,
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 215 
 
 a double misfortune, for people did not like the 
 pictures and would not buy them, but they liked 
 the man because he amused them, and they wasted 
 his time by keeping him constantly in society. Here 
 is a case in which the idiosyncrasy of the man was 
 dislodged from his art by teaching, and, as it could 
 not be destroyed, was transferred to social inter- 
 course. This was exactly what ought not to have 
 happened. 
 
 Idiosyncrasy may be observed conveniently in 
 the work of students as they draw together from 
 the same model. The natural subject contains an 
 immensity of different qualities confounded together. 
 From these idiosyncrasy makes its own selection, 
 taking some and neglecting others. In a line which 
 is very nearly straight, but not quite, one man will 
 see the approach to straightness, another the deviation. 
 In a play of warm and cool tones one man will see 
 the warm tones more, and another the cool ones. 
 For one man projection is the most obvious charac- 
 teristic of form, for another, outline. In some in- 
 stances the most careful training will not remove 
 a congenital peculiarity of vision. For example, 
 most artists have a tendency, when they draw 
 what they think is a perpendicular line, to make it 
 lean one way or other, either as we write, or the 
 contrary, which proves that the habit of writing 
 has nothing to do with it. In careful drawing an 
 artist minds to correct this ; but in very rapid sketch- 

 
 2 1 6 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 ing he cannot stop to think about perpendiculars, 
 and then we see the effect of his idiosyncrasy. 
 
 It would be as well if critics would remember 
 what they constantly forget, that they, too, as well 
 as artists, have idiosyncrasies. They see some 
 qualities, and are blind to others, just like the 
 most impulsive and impressionable artists. They 
 apply the criterion of their own personal taste to 
 the general art production of the world, entirely 
 omitting to consider the effect of what astronomers 
 call the 'personal equation,' though in matters of 
 taste it is always influential, whilst it is even strong 
 enough to affect our perception of measurable and 
 positively ascertainable facts. This is seen very 
 clearly in international criticisms. An English 
 writer said last month that the French had no 
 irony (they are the most ironical beings in Europe, 
 even to the point of often becoming tiresome with 
 their irony), and another said a little later that 
 they had no humour, as if there were any people 
 in the world whose conversation was more fre- 
 quently enlivened with humorous sallies of all 
 kinds. A French critic said that England had no 
 caricaturists : he understood our language, but the 
 pages of 'Punch' left him perfectly grave, whilst 
 he would laugh till he lost his breath over the last 
 witticism of ' Cham.' One English critic said that 
 French caricaturists were all coarse and monstrous 
 in their conceptions, and addressed themselves
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 217 
 
 to a public destitute of a delicate sense of what 
 was really ludicrous. Here we see the effects of 
 national idiosyncrasy, as in the case of Sydney 
 Smith, when he said that it required a surgical 
 operation to get a joke into a Scotchman's head, 
 there being two idiosyncrasies in this instance, that 
 of some Scotchman who had failed to appreciate 
 Sydney Smith's wit, and that of the unappreciated 
 jester himself. 
 
 A great deal more might be said about the 
 effects of idiosyncrasy in the fine arts, but we have 
 reserved the liberty of recurring to different parts 
 of our subject in these desultory notes, and so 
 leave this for the present with the remark, that 
 whatever may be the differences of idiosyncrasy 
 amongst artists and real critics, they all resemble 
 each other in this, that they have an artistic 
 idiosyncrasy of some kind ; whereas there are many 
 persons, highly intelligent in other matters, who do 
 not appear to have it in their constitutions at all. 
 This is one of those mysteries in our nature which 
 cannot be scientifically explained. It is not a 
 question of superiority or inferiority of intellectual 
 power. I have seen men distinguished in litera- 
 ture — men of an intellectual rank very far, indeed, 
 above the average — who went into a house where 
 they had never been before, and yet, although the 
 walls were covered with works of art, they paid 
 no more attention to them than if they had been
 
 2 1 8 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 blank panels. I once stayed several days in a 
 house with a distinguished author, a keen and in- 
 telligent observer of mankind, who lived amongst 
 the most cultivated people in Europe, and after 
 having watched him carefully from the time he 
 entered the house to the time he went away I am 
 certain that he saw nothing upon the walls of that 
 house except the books in the library. I mean 
 that, when he went away, he must have been quite 
 unable to tell whether the works of art were oil- 
 paintings, or water-colours, or engravings. There 
 is a rule in some silly French etiquette-books, that 
 when you go to another person's house you ought 
 never to look at the works of art. How easy it is 
 for some people to obey that beautiful rule! — how 
 difficult for others! Let us hope that we may be 
 amongst the ill-mannered people who incur the 
 censure of etiquette-books. 
 
 One of the most remarkable effects of idiosyn- 
 crasy in the fine arts is in the choice of subject. 
 There is a good instance in an old number of 
 'Macmillan's Magazine' (April, 1865), in which the 
 author of ' Essays at Odd Times ' gives the follow- 
 ing account of a visit which an artist paid to him 
 in the country : — 
 
 ' Living in a country essentially destitute of the features 
 which artists love, being flat, treeless, and agricultural, a 
 country once characterised by a witty, worthless king, as 
 only fit to be cut up into roads, by which its inhabitants
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 219 
 
 might get away from it, I had often bemoaned myself on 
 account of the dearth of the beautiful about me, and looked 
 in vain for subjects for my sketch-book. I naturally ex- 
 pected, therefore, much sympathy from an artist, an old 
 friend of mine, who came to spend a few days with me one 
 summer. The morning after his arrival, however, I found 
 him under his white umbrella, in a bit of waste ground at 
 the back of my house, where a few straggling beeches and 
 elms surround an old barn and some outhouses. In the 
 midst of faggots, and hen-coops, and dust-heaps, and other 
 rubbish which collects in such places, he had taken up his 
 position, and had begun a large drawing in water-colour of 
 two or three of these trees, which he said were most pictur- 
 esquely grouped. And so indeed it seemed. At any rate, 
 with trees and sky, and some felled timber lying amidst 
 docks and mallow leaves, he produced a charming picture, 
 full of light, and colour, and beauty.' 
 
 The writer of the essay, from which this is an 
 extract, was a practical amateur in art, and evidently 
 a man of a modest disposition, so he at once attri- 
 buted the artist's choice of a subject, neglected by 
 himself, to a superiority of judgment resulting from 
 higher culture. ' If I could not find much beauty in 
 the homely scenes around me, it was because I had 
 not enough cultivated the beautiful within me.' This 
 is modest, and it may possibly have been true, but at 
 the same time it may be well to observe that there is 
 another side to the question, depending, not on cul- 
 ture but on idiosyncrasy. Let us suppose, for 
 example, that the author of the essay, instead of
 
 220 Notes 011 Aesthetics. 
 
 being a modest amateur, had been a highly accom- 
 plished artist, with the strongest possible sense of his 
 own learning and importance, he might still have 
 been just as incapable of perceiving the beauty which 
 lay around that barn and those old outhouses. It is 
 most unlikely that Raphael would have seen anything 
 in the place. We may be perfectly certain, though it 
 cannot be proved, that Phidias would have seen 
 nothing there. Titian would have enjoyed the 
 character of the 'straggling beeches and elms,' and 
 made a pen-sketch, but even Titian would not have 
 cared for the light or the local colour. Rembrandt 
 would probably have enjoyed it, and so would Ruys- 
 dael, but modern artists of strictly classical tastes, 
 such as Ingres, would have paid no attention to it ; 
 and if their attention had been forcibly directed to 
 such materials, they would have replied that they 
 were ' merely picturesque,' and consequently inter- 
 esting only to persons who pursued a low form of 
 art. Even in our own generation, after all the 
 cultivation of the sense of the picturesque which 
 has been going on since the time of Rembrandt, 
 there are still many artists of very high culture 
 indeed, some of the very highest culture, to whom 
 such a place as that described would be as uninter- 
 esting as if they were perfectly uncultivated. 
 
 Since the Fine Arts are the products of various 
 human idiosyncrasies acting upon natural material 
 and recasting it into new forms, the value of that
 
 A r otes on Aesthetics. 221 
 
 natural material is altogether relative. I remember 
 once when writing about the works of a certain 
 English artist who is now dead, and who in his 
 lifetime had a particular liking for the scenery of 
 Holland — I remember writing of that artist that it 
 was a pity he had taken a fancy to such a country. 
 He sent me a word of reply, through a common 
 friend, in which he maintained that Holland was an 
 excellent country for an artist to study landscape in, 
 and that I was quite mistaken in my estimate. No 
 doubt he was right, people are always right in their 
 real affections ; love is not a hood but an eye-water, 
 as Emerson says ; yet to my taste many parts of 
 Great Britain are better sketching grounds than 
 Holland. Again, there are differences of opinion, 
 of very long standing, about Switzerland and France. 
 I have no painful or unpleasant associations with 
 Switzerland ; my excursions in that country are 
 brightened, in memory, by recollections of every- 
 thing that is agreeable in society, hospitality, 
 scenery, health, and the rest ; yet notwithstanding this,, 
 and a strong passion for the sublime in nature, what 
 there is of an artist in me has never been really 
 touched by Switzerland, as it has been by Scotland 
 and France ; nor am I alone in this experience. It 
 is not merely that Switzerland is a difficult country 
 to paint, we admit the difficulty, but can imagine the 
 possibility of overcoming it ; the real reason is a 
 certain want of harmony between the feelings which
 
 222 
 
 Notes 011 Aesthetics. 
 
 Switzerland usually awakens in us and the purely 
 artistic feelings. We see that it is a grand country, 
 an impressive and sublime country, as well as you do, 
 but — but we enjoy it in a way other than the artistic. 
 I was reading a little book lately called ' Guienne,' by 
 Mr. Algernon Taylor, an observant description of 
 some parts of the old Duchy of Guienne and its in- 
 habitants ; and after reading Mr. Taylor's description 
 of the little old town of Conques in Rouergue, I knew 
 at once, by the elective affinity, that Conques would 
 suit me ten times better than Geneva, yet the little 
 French town has not half the attractions of the Swiss. 
 What constitutes this elective affinity, and how do 
 we recognise it in ourselves ? It is a relation between 
 man's nature and the external world, and we recog- 
 nise its operation by a profound internal satisfaction 
 in certain places, as we_ recognise its protest by a 
 feeling of dissatisfaction and weariness in other 
 places. These feelings are strong in all modern 
 poetical natures, but in landscape-painters they are 
 developed to such a degree that their satisfaction 
 or its opposite may really constitute happiness or 
 misery. If all landscape-painters were agreed that 
 the same places produced the satisfaction, then we 
 might say that it was an affair of culture, that by 
 cultivating ourselves up to a certain point we should 
 become sharers in it, but it is not so. One of the 
 most cultivated landscape-painters I know, a man 
 who draws and paints mountains with profound
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 22 
 
 
 
 knowledge, dislikes the Highlands of Scotland, and 
 finds his satisfaction in the French and Italian High- 
 lands. Why docs he dislike the Highlands of Scot- 
 land ? How or why can a landscape-painter dislike 
 such places as Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, and 
 Loch Awe ? The only answer is, that somewhere 
 in the depths of that man's idiosyncrasy, depths as 
 inaccessible to anybody else as the centre of the 
 earth, there are certain affinities and repulsions, and 
 that by the mysterious operation of these he cannot 
 do otherwise than dislike whatever is unsuitable to 
 himself. 
 
 When we have once grasped the idea that the 
 artistic satisfaction, in the presence of what is called 
 ' nature,' is dependent as much upon human idiosyn- 
 crasy as upon ' nature ' itself, we arrive at the further 
 truth that nobody can use up natural material. The 
 natural material is in itself artistically as nothing ; it 
 only becomes something in the sensations of a human 
 being. Even what we call light and colour and sound 
 are only sensations. We say that we hear thunder, 
 but we only mean that we perceive certain sensations 
 excited in our own organism by aerial waves, set in 
 motion by an electric discharge. Without an organ- 
 ized ear there may be aerial waves, but there is no 
 sound ; without an organized eye there may be 
 luminous rays, but there cannot be what we call 
 light, as that also is a sensation. What is true of 
 these comparatively simple perceptions, is at least
 
 224 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 equally true of artistic perceptions. We speak of 
 cheerful effects and melancholy effects in landscape, 
 which is merely our human way of talking, due to an 
 inveterate habit of attributing our own sensations to 
 what is outside of ourselves. The hills and clouds 
 are not cheerful under sunshine, nor are they melan- 
 choly in the twilight ; they are simply unconscious 
 in both, whilst the natural laws which produce these 
 effects are there for work of far greater importance 
 than to make a sensitive human being elated or de- 
 pressed. Again, what are commonly called cheerful 
 effects do not cheer everybody. Simple sunshine, for 
 example, as they have it in Egypt, soon becomes 
 most oppressive to some minds, whilst bad weather 
 makes some people cheerful and contented. So one 
 man is cheered by the sight of a row of brick houses, 
 which puts another into low spirits. We never know 
 beforehand what a man who is a stranger to us will 
 feel in the presence of certain objects or effects ; he 
 may be so constituted as to derive a sensation from 
 them which no human being has ever felt before ; and 
 when this is so, and the man is an artist, the result is 
 what we call originality. Public attention has been 
 lately very much directed in London to an artist who 
 had this quality very decidedly — I mean the Parisian 
 etcher, Meryon. Hundreds of artists had illustrated 
 Paris before he did, but not one of them had ever 
 produced anything resembling a Meryon etching ; 
 and this is not at all because Meryon etched with
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 225 
 
 greater truth, it is because he had a very peculiar 
 idiosyncrasy which made his interpretation of Paris 
 quite different from that of an)' other man. As to 
 truth, let it not be supposed for a moment that when 
 people are paying large prices for Meryon's etchings 
 they are giving money for veracity ; they are buying 
 what is far rarer, bits of the mind of a man of genius. 
 If they want true views of Notre Dame and the 
 Morgue they can get them, or what is much nearer to 
 them, in the common photographs sold in the Rue de 
 Rivoli. Before Meryon worked, if anybody had pre- 
 dicted that a new interpretation of Old Paris would 
 shortly be given to the world — an interpretation 
 which would awaken the keenest interest in the 
 world of art, — such a prediction would have been 
 received with incredulity from the constantly preva- 
 lent conviction that there is nothing left to discover. 
 And, in his turn, did Meryon exhaust Paris ? No, he 
 did not exhaust it more than Girtin had done before 
 him. Every fresh and original mind discovers its 
 own Paris. You have the Paris of Martial, and of 
 late years a painter named Luigi Loir has been 
 illustrating Paris so as to convey to us quite a new 
 set of impressions. The secret of these discoveries 
 lies simply in the free play given to idiosyncrasy by 
 the independent customs of modern artists. They 
 are not condemned to work after set traditions, so 
 their own natures get full play and the result is end- 
 less novelty and variety. Possessing so much in- 
 
 Q
 
 226 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 dividual liberty, they are under no obligation to seek 
 'pastures new,' as the new man makes new ground 
 wherever he happens to be, even in such a place as 
 Venice, where painters go still in the same numbers, 
 though forestalled by so many predecessors. We see 
 the same in literature. The London of Dickens is 
 not the London of Thackeray, the Scotland of Sir 
 Walter is not the Scotland of William Black. Even 
 old tales become new again when retold by a new 
 mind, as we see in the poetical narratives of Morris, 
 who has made even Jason and Atalanta new for us. 
 Shakespeare, before him, had given new life to a 
 number of old stories. This novelty, imparted by a 
 fresh mind to all that it deals with, is the reason why 
 people like to hear preachers whom they have never 
 heard before. A new preacher, in a certain limited 
 sense, is a new revelation, because, although he 
 preaches familiar doctrines, he sets them in a fresh 
 light and exhibits them to us under aspects which 
 make them really like ' tidings,' as they were to the 
 first hearers. If the conception of the Church of the 
 Future, which is indulged in by many cultivated 
 Englishmen of the present day — a Church in which 
 any man of sufficient culture might labour for the 
 moral and spiritual advancement of his fellow- 
 countrymen without binding himself to fixed opi- 
 nions — if such a Church were ever to exist, its 
 congregations would have the fullest benefit of the 
 freshness given by idiosyncrasy, as we have it
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 227 
 
 already in literature and art. It is this freshness 
 which gives the real interest to society. You go to 
 a man's house ; he tells you nothing that you did not 
 know before ; he makes remarks upon the weather 
 and on the neighbours, and on the last news in the 
 day's paper, conveying little or no information to 
 your mind ; but since he is constituted differently 
 from you, and sees the same things otherwise than 
 as you see them, you are refreshed and renewed by 
 an intercourse which an unsociable person would 
 consider an idle waste of time. 
 
 The moral of all this is, that we can hardly be 
 too careful to preserve so precious a thing as the 
 inborn quality of a person. An artist can never be, 
 in the high intellectual sense, successful, unless he 
 expresses his own idiosyncrasy in his art. What is 
 sometimes called success, the clever, well-learned 
 mimicry of another's performance, is not success ; 
 however lucrative, it is a wretched failure. Self- 
 expression is success in the fine arts (including 
 literature), providing, of course, that the self is worth 
 expressing. It may seem, to the uninitiated, that 
 nothing can be easier than for a man to express 
 his own idiosyncrasy, but it is by no means so easy 
 as it seems. When a man's mind is big enough for 
 him to be able to cope with such a thing as art 
 there arc ' abysmal depths ' of feeling in it which 
 cannot be uttered at all in a rude and imperfect 
 language. You cannot express the minds of great
 
 228 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 thinkers and great poets in the language employed in 
 the every-day intercourse of the vulgar. You cannot 
 express the knowledge and feeling of a great artist 
 with the execution of one inferior to him, however 
 slight may be the inferiority. The artist whose craft, 
 or technical language, is inferior to his mind, cannot 
 express his mind, and the difficulty experienced by 
 all artists is in bringing up the technical craft to the 
 level of the mental conception. A painter said in 
 my hearing, ' The strangest thing about my pictures 
 is that they do not seem to myself as if I had painted 
 them.' Now, that was failure, real failure, whatever 
 other people thought. It was not hopeless failure, 
 however, because the artist, now and then, in a week 
 of fortunate inspiration, did something which looked 
 to him like the offspring of his own mind, and his 
 hope was that in course of time the harmony between 
 mind and work might first become more frequent, 
 and finally habitual. 
 
 Before quitting this part of the subject we may 
 dispose of a possible objection. It might be objected 
 to this theory of success and failure that an ignorant 
 and unfeeling painter might produce ignorant and 
 unfeeling work, which would accurately represent his 
 idiosyncrasy, and yet be bad and worthless. Would 
 that be success ? Would it not be better that he 
 should abandon the desire to express his own 
 wretched little self and try instead to make himself 
 a reflection of some nobler and larger mind ? The
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 229 
 
 moon would be no luminary at all if she did not 
 reflect sunshine, but by reflection she cuts a very 
 respectable figure in the sky. 
 
 The proper answer to these questions is, that 
 when an artist has not a powerful idiosyncrasy he 
 ought not to produce imitations of strong men's work 
 and pass them off as his own, but should content 
 himself with honourably copying and translating 
 works of art. If good copies were better appreciated 
 and more adequately paid for, that would be an 
 outlet here for inferior talents, and the progress 
 made in the autotype processes leads us to hope that 
 many such may find healthy employment in trans- 
 lating pictures into monochrome for photographic 
 purposes. 
 
 This, and the work of engravers and etchers from 
 pictures, may be mentioned as possible resources ; 
 but the probability is, that few men enter the pur- 
 suit of art whose idiosyncrasies are not valuable in 
 some way or other, if only they could be fully ex- 
 pressed and properly employed. 
 
 1 3 . Idiosyncrasy and the Choice of Processes. — There 
 is a suitableness of process to idiosyncrasy, by which 
 one man is naturally an oil-painter, another naturally 
 a painter in water-colour, or fresco, or an etcher, or 
 an engraver, &c. 
 
 This suitableness of process to idiosyncrasy may 
 generally be very soon ascertained. The experience 
 of a few weeks, or at most of a few months, will
 
 230 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 enable a student to find out whether a process na- 
 turally belongs to him or not, the differences be- 
 tween students in this respect are so striking. The 
 general belief that water-colour is easier than oil, 
 that etching is easier than painting, is founded on 
 the entirely faise notion, that all men are alike in 
 their inborn facilities. What do you mean when you 
 say that water-colour is easier than oil ? You mean 
 easier for humanity to produce. You are not thinking 
 of some abstract virtue in water-colour which has no 
 reference to humanity. But what in the world is 
 humanity with reference to painting ? A mere ab- 
 straction. Humanity, chiefly English, maybe said to 
 have made London ; but it cannot be said, in the 
 same sense, to have made this or that particular 
 picture, which is always the work of one man, how- 
 ever much that man may have been prepared by 
 others. When we come to the man himself, we find 
 something tangible and ascertainable, something 
 which has its own special characteristics, its own 
 difficulties and facilities — in short, an idiosyncrasy. 
 By the strength and weakness of his idiosyncrasy 
 each man is set apart from his fellows, under quite 
 special conditions of life and work, which it is his 
 first interest to ascertain. He cannot trust others. 
 They will always make mistakes about his faculties 
 until there is a visible result. By that time, he will 
 be as wise as they. Balzac was told in youth, that 
 whatever he might ultimately succeed in, it would
 
 A T otcs on Aesthetics. 231 
 
 certainly not be literature ; and similar instances 
 abound. The safest guide is a feeling, not precisely 
 of liking or disliking, but rather of ownership or non- 
 ownership. Do you feci as if this or that process 
 belonged to you ? If you do, the probability is, that 
 you will succeed in it ultimately ; but if you have 
 not this feeling, it is likely that your labour will be 
 in vain. And this has very little to do with the 
 general powers of the intellect. An artist of magni- 
 ficent intellect and well-deserved celebrity as a painter 
 wrote to me lately, that he had never been able to 
 etch with satisfaction to himself, because he had 
 found it ' irritating ; ' another artist told me that 
 he found etching ' the most fascinating of all human 
 occupations;' a third regretted continually, that his 
 success as a painter prevented him from etching 
 more frequently, as he loved copper with all his 
 heart, and found colouring (he colours well) a torture 
 to the mind. So with water-colour and oil. Some 
 men are made for water-colour : those, probably, who 
 are rapid and impulsive, and gifted with much de- 
 cision of character. Others, who like to work more 
 deliberately, prefer oil, with all its inconveniences. 
 It is curious that the French, who are generally more 
 rapid and vivacious than the English, appear to be 
 not nearly so well adapted for water-colour, and 
 have had comparatively little success in it, whilst, 
 with all their impatience, they take to oil-painting 
 well, and pursue it with a quiet tenacity and disci-
 
 2^2 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 j 
 
 pline which seem to show that it answers well to 
 something in their innermost nature. At the same 
 time, the French have taken wonderfully to etching 
 of late years, whilst the number of English artists 
 who etch is comparatively very small ; and although 
 the English who succeed, succeed briliantly, they are 
 very few in number. If we look beyond our own 
 times, it seems clear that sculpture was as suitable 
 to the Greek intellect as it is, generally speaking, 
 unsuitable to the English. The Greek intellect ap- 
 pears in all things to have liked the limited and 
 the definite — that which is complete in itself; that 
 to which nothing can be added without being an 
 excrescence, and from which nothing can be taken 
 away without visible loss and mutilation. A chapel 
 may be added, without injury, to a Gothic cathedral ; 
 but a Greek temple would be disfigured by such an 
 addition almost as much as an animal by the addi- 
 tion of a limb. This love of the sufficient-in-itself 
 is the best characteristic of the classical spirit, and 
 the Greeks had it in the extreme, so that sculpture 
 would be naturally their art. I mean the sculpture 
 of single figures or small groups. Mere carving be- 
 longs to a lower idiosyncrasy. The Greeks, in their 
 best time, were most sober and reticent in carving ; 
 the English, in the days of Elizabeth, were exube- 
 rant. In our own day, first-rate sculpture is only 
 produced or enjoyed, by what may be called the 
 classical idiosyncrasies ; whilst carving, as a general
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 233 
 
 - oo 
 
 rule, is produced aud enjoyed by Elizabethan or 
 mediaeval idiosyncrasies. 
 
 Besides the broad, obvious divisions between the 
 arts, between painting in oil and in water, between 
 etching with acid and engraving with the burin, there 
 are very many distinctions between processes in 
 the same art which often separate the art as prac- 
 tised by one person from the same art as practised 
 by another so very widely that different names might 
 reasonably be given to such different kinds of work. 
 One artist will paint in water-colour exactly on what 
 are commonly considered to be the principles of oil ; 
 another will use thin turpentine, or even benzine, 
 washes so freely in oil-painting that much of his 
 work will be clone on the principles of the genuine 
 water-colour artist. It is unnecessary to follow this 
 part of the subject further. The ' Technical Notes,' 
 which were at one time published in the PORTFOLIO, 
 went very fully into this part of the subject, and by 
 the kind frankness of several distinguished living 
 artists, as well as by the help of records left by the 
 dead, we were able to show how each worked in his 
 own way, in obedience to the preferences or neces- 
 sities of his own ineluctable idiosyncrasy. 
 
 14. How the Idiosyncrasy of the Artist deals with 
 the External World. — The reader who has glanced 
 at any old edition of Rabelais will have noticed on 
 the title-page that the stories were composed by the 
 late M. Alcofribas, dbstracteur de quintessence. Every
 
 234 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 human idiosyncrasy is an abstracteur de quintessence, 
 each of us is an Alcofribas. 
 
 The mode of operation is by selection and rejec- 
 tion, for the most part unconscious, but not uncon- 
 scious altogether, especially in the intellectual. The 
 visitors to the great international exhibitions, or to 
 any other overwhelming agglomeration of products, 
 are all abstracteurs de quintessence, each coming back 
 home with his own concentrated essence of what 
 he has seen ; the strongest and cleverest heads get- 
 ting the most potent essence, whilst the weakest 
 get something which has but a poor flavour, yet 
 is their own. 
 
 An able metaphysician, now dead — there is no 
 reason why I should not name Dr. Appleton, who 
 founded the 'Academy' — once said to me, when 
 we were talking about people's opinions on great 
 subjects, that as all men were sure to be mistaken, 
 I was sure to be mistaken with the rest. It seemed 
 rather an assumption that all men were sure to be 
 mistaken ; but further reflection led me to the 
 conclusion that Dr. Appleton had a deeper meaning, 
 which he did not take time to explain. I believe 
 he meant that all our views must, of necessity, be 
 personal and partial views, dependent upon our 
 various idiosyncrasies ; and, consequently, that our 
 opinions about the universe could never be justly 
 representative, even on a limited scale, of the true 
 constitution of the universe. He probably thought
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 235 
 
 that the human mind was not so constituted that 
 it could perceive truth impartially, and that con- 
 sequently everybody must be mistaken, in this way, 
 that he would attribute more importance to this or 
 that quality in things than was really due to it 
 proportionately, whilst he would also unconsciously 
 make omissions, and it was Dr. Appleton's strong 
 sense of individual peculiarities in these respects, 
 which led him to attach so much importance to 
 that common consciousness which is their best 
 corrective. So we say no Member of Parliament 
 is so wise as the House of Commons, because the 
 wisest individual member is still the victim of 
 personal views. If this is true in philosophy and 
 politics, how much the more is it true in the Fine 
 Arts, where the gifts of the individual workman 
 go for so very much ! He sees only what his own 
 organization will permit him to see, even in the 
 commonest objects. Nothing is more wonderful 
 than this process of selection. I have insisted upon 
 it, especially with reference to etching, because in 
 the art of etching it is often so strikingly visible ; 
 but it is visible, too, in painting and sculpture, 
 wherever there is the slightest originality. It is 
 astonishing enough, when we think of it, how the 
 trees in a garden, from precisely the same chemical 
 constituents of soil and water, can, by selection 
 and rcconstitution of elements, produce fruit so 
 absolutely dissimilar as apples, apricots, and quinces.
 
 236 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 It is astonishing that a goose should be able to 
 make feathers out of grass and water, whilst a cow 
 will turn the same materials, by another selection, 
 into horns and hair ; but it is at least equally 
 wonderful that one man's way of seeing things 
 should lead him to produce the pictures of Leon- 
 ardo da Vinci, and another's those of Giorgione. 
 To come to some recent instances. It is certain 
 that no man living sees as Bonington saw, or even 
 as Frederick Walker saw ; and when we come to 
 look closely into the matter we always discover, 
 in such instances, preferences for some truths or 
 beauties of nature, and indifference to others ; those 
 which are preferred are exaggerated and presented 
 to us with disproportionate force, so that each 
 colourist has his own peculiar hues, and each 
 draughtsman his own graces and elegancies of 
 form. This is why a sound and well-informed 
 art-criticism must of necessity tolerate such widely 
 different kinds of artistic expression, and a genial, 
 sympathetic criticism would do much more than 
 tolerate such varieties, it would enjoy them. At 
 the same time the critic ought to be allowed to 
 demonstrate what are the kinds of truth and beauty 
 neglected by each artist, without being accused of 
 hostility towards that artist, or of inability to 
 appreciate his genius. Surely we may say that 
 good taste was wanting in Shakespeare without 
 failing to appreciate his mighty inventive power,
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 237 
 
 or that Rabelais is wanting in cleanliness, whilst 
 we still heartily appreciate his wisdom. We may 
 be clearly aware that Scott did not really represent 
 the life of the middle ages, whilst thoroughly enjoy- 
 ing the healthy mental refreshment which it was 
 his business to supply ; we may know that Byron 
 was destitute of real dramatic insight into the 
 natures of other men, and yet fully perceive the 
 extraordinary fire and energy of his own. The 
 most useful criticism which could be applied to 
 artists of all kinds would amount to a dispassionate 
 description of their artistic idiosyncrasies, in which, 
 without any feeling of hostility, the writer would 
 simply discriminate between absolute truth and 
 personal impressions and expressions. The diffi- 
 culty of this, which would be the only perfect 
 criticism, if it could be carried out, lies in the fact 
 that the critic himself also has an idiosyncrasy 
 which cannot but render him more sensitive to 
 some truths and some excellencies than to others. 
 
 15. The Common Consciousness of Schools. — The 
 theory that there is a common consciousness, superior 
 to anything accessible to individual intelligences 
 without its aid, is a help to the understanding of 
 the artistic intelligence, but it is not safe to carry 
 it too far. W'c can hardly speak- of a national 
 common consciousness in matters of art, at least in 
 the present da)-, when we consider the immense 
 differences and oppositions between one portion of
 
 ?3§ Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 the community and another. The mass of our popu- 
 lation, including the bulk of the middle classes, and 
 a considerable portion of the aristocracy, can scarcely 
 be said with truth to have any artistic consciousness 
 at all. There is rather more of it in France, and yet, 
 though the French are reputed to be the most artistic 
 of modern peoples, their artistic consciousness is 
 almost exclusively confined to the Parisian popula- 
 tion. A few individuals in the provincial towns have 
 a share in the Parisian consciousness, like distant 
 corresponding members of a learned society, but that 
 is all. The bulk of the rural population has no 
 artistic consciousness whatever. Nevertheless, though 
 we cannot help recognising the geographical restric- 
 tion of the common consciousness in art, we must 
 admit the necessity of it, such as it is ; for it appears 
 to be quite certain that nobody ever becomes either 
 artist or critic who is debarred from getting his share 
 of it. There is no instance of a man who, by sheer 
 force of native genius, without help from the common 
 consciousness of artists and critics in some great city, 
 has attained to any knowledge of art, or power in art, 
 whatever. There is no example of a man bred in a 
 village, without access to some considerable town, 
 who has ever given any evidence of artistic know- 
 ledge, though the natural materials for art, both in 
 figure and landscape, exist in abundance in the 
 country. Even the French and English rustic 
 painters, such as Millet and Mason, have had their
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 239 
 
 share, at some time of their lives, in the influences 
 of Paris and London. Most painters live habitually 
 in a capital city ; many put themselves purposely 
 under the influence of several different capital cities, 
 in succession. In ordinary language we say that this 
 is done for the sake of education and companionship \ 
 in philosophic language we may say that artists fre- 
 quent capitals to get their share of the common- 
 artistic consciousness. With its help they may be 
 small artists still, but without it they can be nothing 
 whatever in art, no more than a man can become a 
 soldier without joining a regiment. 
 
 The way in which the artistic common conscious- 
 ness operates is by familiarising the mind in a short 
 time with ideas which lie far outside of ordinary 
 ' common sense.' For example, the general common 
 sense recognises nothing in art but imitation, sees no 
 value in personal expression, looks upon composition, 
 when it hears of it, as a sort of dishonesty in paint- 
 ing, though musical ' composers,' by an accident of 
 language, are comparatively familiar to it. The 
 general common sense thinks that art must be true 
 to be good, and if you show that it is only partially 
 true, fancies you are blaming it. The general com- 
 mon sense cannot understand how or in what way 
 the fine arts can have various merits, or how or why 
 some of these merits are incompatible with each other 
 — in short, it knows nothing of the conditions and 
 exigencies which are inherent in the fine arts, and is
 
 240 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 incapable of perceiving a distinction between the 
 qualities of art and the beauties of nature. The 
 artistic common consciousness, on the other hand, 
 as it at present exists, at least in London and Paris, 
 is immeasurably ahead of the general consciousness 
 on all these points, and is fully and clearly aware of 
 many ideas which ought to be familiar to students, 
 but which lie, as yet, far outside of the provinces of 
 thought which are covered or occupied by the general 
 mind, that is, the domain of common sense. 
 
 16. Keys and Transpositions. — Music has familiar- 
 ised us with the idea that the same artistic conception 
 may be expressed in what the musician calls different 
 keys, and this is true to a great extent of the graphic 
 arts ; but it is not wholly true, for a special reason. 
 
 In music many beautiful tunes require but a short 
 compass for their complete expression, as there is no 
 contest with nature, no attempt to follow or represent 
 the vast range of the natural forces in anything. The 
 musical composer chooses his own compass, fixes by 
 himself the limits within which his idea may be 
 adequately expressed, and these limits may be very 
 narrow ; they may be included between the ex- 
 tremities of a couple of octaves, or even, for some 
 simple airs, with a single octave. It is evident that 
 the narrower the compass of the tune, the more 
 numerous may be its transpositions. There are 
 simple airs which may be played almost anywhere 
 on a piano, but elaborate compositions which require
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 241 
 
 nearly the whole compass of the instrument cannot 
 be transposed so as to push either high or low notes 
 into the region of silence. 
 
 In the graphic arts it is different. Here the 
 transposition is really and frequently carried so far 
 as to push the high or low notes into the region of 
 what is relatively silence ; that is, either into white 
 space or dark space. 
 
 But, again, here comes another distinction of 
 immense practical importance. White space is easily 
 tolerated in drawings on paper, such as pencil and 
 pen drawings, or in engravings and etchings which 
 are printed on paper, but it is not tolerable at all in 
 paintings. For example, in the well-known Hundred 
 Guilder print of Rembrandt most of the figures to 
 the spectator's left are lost in white space, so far as 
 tonality is concerned, and consequently have had to 
 be drawn in outline, because their tone is invisible. 
 Now, let us try to imagine what an impossible task 
 it would be to copy the Hundred Guilder print in 
 colour, yet at the same time in its own tones. It 
 could not be done ; and if colour were abandoned in 
 the light, as it has been sometimes in small spaces of 
 light in painting, the left of the picture would be 
 almost exclusively in white paint, which v/culd be 
 intolerable. 
 
 Transposition is easier in black and white art than 
 in colour, because the colour fixes us down to certain 
 limited ranges of tones, or else it ceases to exist. 
 
 R
 
 242 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is room for transposition to 
 a certain limited extent even in colour itself, and 
 this extent varies with the kind of subject, and with 
 the peculiar quality of the colours which have to be 
 used. It is certain, for example (every painter will 
 understand this), that transposition is far easier in 
 yellows than in reds. The reason is because yellows 
 retain far more of their chromatic quality in pale 
 tones than reds do. 
 
 As an illustration of the difficulty of transposition 
 in colour, let me suppose a particular case — a red 
 sunset. In an etching the red clouds will be left 
 white, thereby gaining many degrees of light, and 
 coming much nearer to the lightness of the clouds in 
 nature, which are light and red at the same time. 
 But in painting the artist is compelled, first of all, 
 to have his clouds red. He would be glad to 
 transpose his work into a higher key to get light ; 
 but how can he ? If he mixes white with his red 
 he loses its quality, so that is not to be thought 
 of beyond certain very narrow limits. The painter 
 is therefore compelled, under certain circumstances, 
 to transpose in the other direction, and paint every- 
 thing darker than nature to give light to his clouds 
 by opposition. The etcher had liberty in both 
 directions ; the painter, in this instance, has it only 
 in one. 
 
 Materials limit the power of transposition in 
 darks also. For example, let us suppose that Samuel
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 243 
 
 Palmer etches a twilight, and that Appian makes a 
 charcoal drawing of the same twilight ; Palmer will 
 get very much further down in the low tones than 
 Appian could, and this simply because the deepest 
 blacks of charcoal, though of delightfully fine quality, 
 are not so dark as the blacks of etching. The con- 
 sequence is that the draughtsman in charcoal has to 
 make his blacks look as dark as possible by opposi- 
 tion. When not sufficiently opposed by lights the 
 blacks of charcoal look grey, hence the charcoal 
 draughtsman should transpose rather more in the 
 direction of light than the etcher is compelled to 
 do by his process. Etchers often transpose in the 
 direction of light by choice. 
 
 It used to be believed, both by artists and con- 
 noisseurs, that light could only be expressed by 
 surrounding lights with a great quantity of dark for 
 opposition. Modern painters have proved conclu- 
 sively, by actual experiment, that light may be ex- 
 pressed in light pictures by the help of a few truly 
 related shadows and reflections. The transposition 
 of tones is therefore frequently carried in the direction 
 of light by modern painters. I mean that the whole 
 set of tones is transposed towards the treble, and this 
 allows far greater power to those extreme darks 
 which, in pictures constructed on this principle, are 
 used in small quantity, and for very special and 
 definite purposes. 
 
 We have had occasion to observe that many
 
 244 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 thincrs in art criticism lie outside of the common 
 consciousness. This matter, transposition, is amongst 
 them. The conception of art prevalent amongst the 
 general public is that it imitates the tones of nature, 
 which could only be done, if done at all, for a few 
 tones in the middle of the scale. Wilful transposition 
 is, in fact, a simple necessity in many pictures ; for 
 example, if sunshine is painted at all, it can only be 
 done by transposition. Then comes the inevitable 
 consequence that as there must be transposition of 
 some sort it is sure to differ with different artists. 
 What is really done in practice is this. Every painter 
 transposes in his own way, and not at all (as might 
 be supposed) with the orderly regularity and com- 
 pleteness of the musician.* Painters transpose simply 
 for convenience, and many a picture which satisfies 
 the eye is really painted in two keys (or more;, the 
 point of contradiction (where the two keys overlap 
 each other) being artfully concealed or dissimulated 
 by some artifice which attracts attention away from 
 it. The rigid carrying out of one key to its ultimate 
 consequences would, in fact, generally land us either 
 in white vacancy or black vacancy. The fine arts 
 are like perfectly good manners in this respect, that 
 
 * The reason for this difference is that the musician has 
 only to transpose human work (some musical composition) 
 whereas the painter has to transpose nature itself into art. The 
 musician transposes finite into finite ; the painter, infinite into 
 finite.
 
 Notes on Aesthetics. 245 
 
 the}' arc not according to rule, but according to 
 the necessities of the occasion, and the taste of 
 a cultivated person. Every real gentleman is a 
 gentleman in his own way, and not according to 
 the etiquette-book ; so every real artist is an artist 
 in his own way, and not according to laws laid 
 down by critics. 
 
 Amongst these various transpositions, pray what 
 becomes of truth ? The answer is that truth is dealt 
 with in so many and such various ways, that it is in 
 all cases partially sacrificed, whilst in some cases the 
 sacrifice is relatively very great indeed. There are 
 pictures in which everything else is sacrificed to get 
 one striking and startling truth of tone at a very 
 important point to which the attention of the spec- 
 tator is sure to be directed, but these are not generally 
 works of a very high class. In the best painting 
 sacrifice is managed more on the principle of com- 
 promise, and endless ingenuity is expended by clever 
 painters on the management of tones and colours so 
 as to prevent some of them from getting too much 
 truth to the disadvantage of the rest. The painter 
 would give full truth to all of them if he could, but as 
 this is not possible, he has to contrive so that each 
 shall get a share of truth sufficient for its place. The 
 necessity fur this parsimonious distribution of truth 
 varies greatly with the nature of the work to be done. 
 A heap of vases and rich stuffs may be painted by 
 Blaise Desgoffe with startling imitative truth so long
 
 246 Notes on Aesthetics. 
 
 as there is nothing else in the picture ; but if the 
 same materials were introduced in the foreground of 
 a sunny landscape they would have to be in great 
 measure sacrificed.
 
 <Part III 
 
 ESSAYS.

 
 249 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 THE reader may remember the definition given 
 by Reynolds in the Second Discourse, — ' Style 
 in painting is the same as in writing, a power over 
 materials, whether words or colours, by which con- 
 ceptions or sentiments are conveyed.' 
 
 This definition is simply technical. Style, here, 
 is technical facility and no more. 
 
 In the Third Discourse, Reynolds approaches the 
 question of Greatness of Style, but this time shrinks 
 from a definition on account of its difficulty. ' It is 
 not easy to define in what this great style consists ; 
 nor to describe, by words, the proper means of ac- 
 quiring it, if the mind of the student should be at all 
 capable of such an acquisition.' 
 
 Reynolds then proceeds to express himself as if 
 he believed that greatness of style consisted ' in being 
 able to get above all singular forms, local customs, 
 peculiarities, and details of every kind.' 
 
 The first study of the painter who aims at greatness 
 of style should be, according to Reynolds, the 'long 
 laborious comparison,' which by 'observing what any 
 set of objects of the same kind have in common has 
 acquired the power of discerning what each wants 
 in particular.' The artist so prepared is ' enabled to 
 
 •
 
 250 Style. 
 
 distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, 
 and deformities of things from their general figures,' 
 and so ' makes out an abstract idea of their forms 
 more perfect than any original' 
 
 It is evident from these extracts that Reynolds 
 had two distinct conceptions of style, one technical 
 and the other intellectual. The technical conception 
 was simply that of power over materials ; the intel- 
 lectual was the notion of ideal forms, of which those 
 actually seen were supposed to be imperfect varieties, 
 the variety being itself taken as evidence of deviation 
 and imperfection. As these two conceptions of style 
 are different, so are the notions of the artistic de- 
 ficiency which is the want of style. Technically it 
 would be insufficient skill in the use of materials ; 
 intellectually it would be a too great individualisation 
 of objects by a too definite marking of their particular 
 characteristics. 
 
 We may understand the opinions of Reynolds 
 more clearly by observing how he criticised the style 
 of some one painter. His criticism of Rubens opens 
 much of his own mind to us. Rubens worked ' in a 
 subordinate style ; a style florid, careless, loose, and 
 inaccurate;' yet 'those qualities which make the 
 excellency of this subordinate style appear in him 
 with their greatest lustre.' Reynolds contrasts this 
 with the ' simple, careful, pure, and correct style ' of 
 Nicholas Poussin. In the 'Journey to Flanders and 
 Holland ' Reynolds says that the manner of Rubens
 
 Style. 2 5 1 
 
 1 is often too artificial and picturesque for the Grand 
 Style.' Nevertheless, when using the word 'style' 
 with reference to manual skill, in its first sense, he 
 can praise Rubens with less reserve. In speaking of 
 the St. Justus he says, ' Every part of this picture is 
 touched in such a style that it may be considered as 
 a pattern for imitation.' 
 
 Above the skilful but subordinate style of Rubens 
 was the grand style exemplified in the works of 
 Michelangelo, of which Reynolds fully admitted the 
 exceedingly artificial character : — 
 
 ' It must be remembered that this great style itself is 
 artificial in the highest degree. It pre-supposes in the 
 spectator a cultivated and prepared state of mind. It is 
 an absurdity, therefore, to suppose that we are born with 
 this taste, though we are with the seeds of it, which by 
 the heat and kindly influence of this genius, may be 
 ripened in us.' 
 
 Reynolds was not an exact thinker, his intellect 
 was not sufficiently trained to enable him to theorise 
 quite safely on so difficult a subject as that of style, 
 and his opinion that greatness of style consisted in 
 the preference of the general to the particular, has 
 been easily demolished by Mr. Ruskin ; yet, not- 
 withstanding this logical weakness, the doctrine of 
 Reynolds may be of great utility to us as a starting- 
 point, and it is quite worth our while to try to under- 
 stand what he really thought. Unless we thoroughly
 
 252 Style. 
 
 understand the opinions of Reynolds we cannot enter 
 properly into the subject, because his opinions were 
 a necessary stage of advancement in aesthetics, through 
 which artistic humanity, whether in or out of England, 
 has had to pass before reaching the doctrine about style 
 which I shall endeavour to set forth afterwards. 
 
 We have seen that Reynolds had two distinct 
 conceptions of style, one technical and the other in- 
 tellectual. We ought not to confound the two. Let 
 us consider each by itself. Technical style is ' power 
 over materials.' That there may be no mistake about 
 his meaning Reynolds is careful to explain that in the 
 case of the painter he refers to colours, as in the case 
 of an author he would refer to words. 
 
 Here, I think, he confounds style with simple 
 skill, whereas the two are far from being identical. 
 I should say that skill is an essential part of technical 
 style, but that skill may exist without style. 
 
 It requires great skill to paint like a well-coloured 
 photograph, yet such painting would be remarkable 
 only for the complete absence of style, even technical. 
 
 There certainly is such a quality as technical style 
 as distinguished from intellectual, a quality which has 
 nothing to do with the choice of objects represented, 
 which has nothing to do with composition, or with 
 light and shade, or colour, but which is the grace of 
 the workman in the exercise of his craft. It is what 
 Englishmen of the present day call ' good form ' in 
 rowing and other pursuits which are mere modes of
 
 Style. 253 
 
 motion, and represent nothing. And although painters 
 do not paint in public, although the people do not 
 see whether the artist holds his palette and mahl- 
 stick gracefully or not, still the touches themselves 
 reveal his manual inelegance or grace. A just 
 criticism must always take account of the presence 
 or absence of this manual grace. It presupposes a 
 certain fineness of organization, and a certain virtue, 
 the love of doing things properly. It is charming 
 and admirable in itself, independently of science. 
 A set of oil studies were sent to me lately by a 
 French artist, which did not generally represent very 
 interesting subjects, and were crude in colour, but 
 the elegance of the touch was delightful, so that it 
 became a pleasure to imagine the workman actually 
 using his brush, and the work was so easy to follow 
 that he seemed to be still painting before one with a 
 beautiful facility. Here was real technical style. 
 Of skill without style there are abundant instances, 
 particularly in English and Dutch art. In such cases 
 the painter is quite master of his materials, but does 
 not use them elegantly ; just as an equestrian may 
 be master of his horse, and still not ride like a 
 gentleman. 
 
 15cforc quitting the subject of technical style, we 
 must observe that it is by no means limited to one 
 manner. As graceful women arc graceful in different 
 ways, each having her own gift which she cultivates 
 by a progress towards its own special perfection ; so
 
 254 Style. 
 
 the grace of manner in painting must vary with the 
 genius of the artist. It is national to begin with, and 
 then individual ; one nation differing from another, 
 and after that, within the nation, each person differing 
 from his fellow-countrymen. An enlightened criticism 
 instead of finding fault with these varieties, would 
 take a pleasure in them, as one of the many means 
 by which Providence relieves the ennui of human 
 ■existence. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark that the grace 
 of manner which constitutes technical style must, 
 from its nature, be beyond positive appraisement. 
 Nobody can prove it, and anybody who chooses to 
 deny its existence may do so. The denial is all 
 the easier that the grace in question manifests itself 
 so variously. Again, what seems grace to one critic 
 will look like affectation or bravura to another. 
 There is no fixed standard to appeal to, and we 
 must be content with educating our taste as well 
 as we can ; after which there is a probability that 
 although we may make mistakes sometimes, we 
 shall on the whole be likely to appreciate what is 
 good, especially if we have no narrow prejudices to 
 prevent us from recognising different kinds of ele- 
 gance in workmanship. 
 
 Popular artists usually possess technical style 
 which, in some of its manifestations at least, is an 
 exceedingly popular quality. Rubens had it to 
 excess, so that all the work of his own hand is
 
 Style. 255 
 
 full of it. He enjoyed his own manual ability as 
 a clever violinist enjoys the precision of his own 
 fingering and bowing. In the case of Rubens the 
 accomplishment went far beyond precision, and be- 
 came what Constable in speaking of Girtin called 
 the 'sword-play of the pencil.' So it did in Franz 
 Hals. In Van Dyck the power is evident also, but 
 not so conspicuous. It was one of the superiorities 
 of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Landseer had it in 
 a remarkable degree. Fortuny had it, in his own 
 way, to such a degree that it made three-quarters of 
 his reputation. Little of it was visible in the early 
 work of Millais, for example, in the Ophelia ; but his 
 later work is rich in technical style, one of the best 
 instances being the portrait of Madame Bischoffsheim. 
 Technical style in painting is, to a certain ex- 
 tent, independent of truth ; as we all know that it 
 is in literature and oratory. The writer may affirm 
 what is not true in excellent language, the orator 
 may enchant his hearers by beautifully constructed 
 sentences and a seductive voice ; whilst at the same 
 time his facts may be erroneous or unfairly presented 
 and his inferences illogical. So, in painting, the 
 most stylish brushwork is perfectly compatible with 
 ignorance or misrepresentation of nature. Falsehood 
 may be well painted as truth may be badly painted ; 
 and it happens unfortunately for the moral side of 
 art that well-painted falsehood has always an in- 
 comparably better chance of being admired, and
 
 256 Style. 
 
 even of being accepted as true, than work of far 
 higher veracity which is inferior in technical ability. 
 It may even be proved that a high degree of 
 technical style, bold and masterly brushwork, the 
 ' sword-play of the pencil,' does in itself necessarily 
 involve an infinite number of small departures from 
 the truth. Absolutely truthful painting would be 
 without dash of any kind, and would require of the 
 artist such a perpetual strain of attention in fol- 
 lowing and copying the minute truths of nature, 
 that he would not have mental liberty enough to 
 give him any liberty of hand. But it is not to these 
 minute truths, sacrificed of necessity, that I refer 
 when I say that ' stylish brushwork is perfectly 
 compatible with ignorance or misrepresentation of 
 nature.' I refer to truths of importance which may 
 be, and often have been, neglected by artists who know 
 perfectly well how to manage their brushes and colours. 
 
 Style in etching (technical) may come nearer to the 
 original meaning of the word than style in any other 
 modern art, for even in calligraphy the stylus has been 
 replaced by the pen, whereas in etching it has been 
 preserved, and the masterly use of it constitutes style 
 in the most literal sense. This may be noted, in 
 passing, as one of the curiosities of etymology. 
 
 Reynolds defined style in painting as identical 
 with the power over words in literature. Buffon 
 w r ent further, and said that ideas alone are the foun- 
 dation of style, that verbal harmony is merely ac-
 
 Style. 257 
 
 cessory and only depends upon the sensibility of 
 our organs. Again, he said that style is only the 
 order and movement which we put in our thoughts. 
 It might, however, be proved that verbal harmony 
 constitutes a sort of technical style in itself, with 
 very little dependence on ideas. 
 
 It is needless to pursue this comparison between 
 literature and painting, because there is an initial 
 defect in it which Reynolds does not appear to have 
 noticed. Painting includes a handicraft as well as a 
 fine art, and the perfection of technical style implies 
 perfect skill in the handicraft. In literature it so 
 happens that the handicraft can be separated from 
 the art. For example, the reader of these words 
 benefits by two very highly-developed handicrafts, 
 those of the type-founder and printer, which between 
 them do for these words exactly what the manual 
 skill of an artist does for the details of his picture — 
 they present the words in a clear and agreeable form, 
 which satisfies the eye and enables them to enter 
 readily into the mind. If the reader is disposed to 
 undervalue the artistic importance of printing, he 
 may soon convince himself of his error by trying 
 to read some favourite author in an edition which 
 is inappropriate and in bad taste. The difference of 
 pleasure between reading an author in a suitable and 
 an unsuitable edition is so considerable that every 
 true lover of literature pays close attention to the 
 selection of his editions. It is curious that the work 
 
 S
 
 25S Style. 
 
 of the type-founder and printer actually makes the 
 ideas of an author clearer than they are in his own 
 manuscript. Not only does it enhance the intellectual 
 beauty of his work, but it brings faults to light, and 
 makes the whole more visible. There is no com- 
 parison between typography and the graphic arts 
 in this respect, even those by which drawings are 
 reproduced. All the reproductive processes incur 
 technical loss — in many of them the loss is enormous 
 — whereas manuscript gains by typography, and the 
 author is fortunate in comparison with the draughts- 
 man, because he gains in force as well as clearness 
 through the help given by his mechanical allies. 
 
 The comparison of literature with painting would 
 be more accurate if the writer produced his own book 
 materially as well as intellectually, which would be 
 the case if he engraved the text. This has actually 
 been done in several instances : by William Blake, 
 by the French etcher, Martial, and by the English 
 etcher, Mr. Edwin Edwards. There is no intel- 
 lectual advantage, however, in discarding type, for 
 such writing in reverse has never the mental charac- 
 teristics of autograph, and written autograph itself 
 more frequently obscures thought than it elucidates 
 it. A case might be imagined in which an author 
 should write out his book in the sort of manuscript 
 which in his opinion would assist its expression most 
 effectually. This may possibly have been done by 
 some patient author before the invention of printing,
 
 Style. 259 
 
 and if such a piece of labour was ever actually ac- 
 complished the scribe would have been doing what 
 painters do every day, addressing himself to the 
 public by a handicraft of his own, without the inter- 
 vention of a mechanical process. 
 
 We may dismiss the subject of technical style in 
 painting with the observation that it may be made 
 the object of too anxious pursuit, to the detriment 
 of higher qualities. The commercial value of it is so 
 great that young artists are often painfully anxious 
 to attain it — an anxiety which is only too natural in 
 an age when the principal object of criticism seems 
 to be to prove that artists do not know their business. 
 There is, I think (and there are very eminent painters 
 who agree with me), a disposition amongst modern 
 critics to throw contempt upon artists for technical 
 failure, when the expression of contempt is either 
 altogether undeserved or else far too harsh for the 
 occasion. Critics who have no practical experience 
 themselves, who do not know in what the technical 
 difficulties of the graphic arts really consist, have no 
 hesitation in attacking men who have spent many 
 years in the contest with these difficulties, precisely 
 on these technical grounds. In most instances of 
 this kind the critic would discover, if he came to 
 know more of the matter, that the artist had been 
 hampered by difficulties which nobody but an artist 
 could fully appreciate, and that he had made some 
 compromise or sacrifice, intentionally, so as to pre-
 
 260 Style. 
 
 serve as much of one quality as was compatible with 
 the existence of another. Every artist who reads 
 these lines will know at the first glance exactly what 
 I mean. He will know that there is no such thing 
 as absolute technical perfection ; that sacrifices have 
 always to be made somewhere, and that it is either 
 gross ignorance or grievous injustice in a critic to 
 pounce upon the sacrificed parts, and exhibit their 
 purposeful slightness or dullness as an imperfection 
 which a better workman could have avoided. 
 
 We have now to consider something far higher 
 than manual style, but what is also called ' style/ 
 especially on the Continent. It is most important 
 that the reader, if he cares in any way to possess 
 accurate notions of these matters, should clearly 
 establish in his own mind the distinction between 
 these two. It may be made very clearly in words. 
 The style which comes from the dexterity of the 
 hand may be called manual style ; that which is due 
 to the mind may be called intellectual style. 
 
 Intellectual style in painting consists, first in noble 
 choice amongst realities. It must be understood that 
 all artists make a choice, and when their selection of 
 material is dictated by a high and severe taste, it is 
 so far a step in the direction of intellectual style. 
 
 But beyond this simple choice of material, beyond 
 the preference for fine models in nature, the painter 
 makes a choice of qualities in the models selected. If 
 he has the gift of discernment which leads to intel-
 
 Style. 261 
 
 lectual style, he chooses the noblest and best qualities, 
 and dwells upon them, giving attention unwillingly to 
 inferior qualities, and using them only for the sake of 
 contrast or when some moral purpose requires them 
 to be brought into prominence. This, of course, is 
 already a deviation from nature, because a fair and 
 full representation of nature would be impartial, which 
 intellectual art is not. 
 
 The deviation from nature by choice of qualities 
 is, however, still slight in comparison with a far more 
 essential alteration which I must now explain. 
 
 Intellectual style always includes the results of 
 noble education. The painter who possesses it brings 
 to his work a mind already enriched by the labours 
 of others. He adds something to nature, and that 
 something is the result of accumulated experience 
 and invention. Without tradition there can be no 
 intellectual style, because one human mind is not 
 powerful enough, nor one human life long enough, 
 to develop such a product. Intellectual style is 
 never discoverable in the isolated attempts of early 
 masters ; it comes only when great schools are 
 passing into their full maturity. It is not nature, 
 but a product of thought and taste. The early 
 masters who arise before style is developed are 
 often much nearer to nature than the painters of 
 style ever care to be. If Albert Diircr and Raphael 
 had sat down to draw a man's leg, and the same leg, 
 Diirer's drawing would assuredly have been the closer
 
 FROM A DRAWING BY RAPHAEL, IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
 
 Style. 263 
 
 copy of the natural object, which he would have 
 given with all its defects. Raphael, by adding to it 
 the quality of intellectual style, would have failed to 
 secure so accurate a likeness, but would have lifted 
 his drawing into a higher department of art. 
 
 It is a mistake, I think, in the French schools of 
 painting to speak of ' /e style'' as if there were only 
 one intellectual style, and as if it could be trans- 
 mitted like a recipe. I have known French classical 
 painters who seem to think that ' le style' was just 
 one thing which Raphael, Michelangelo, and Nicolas 
 Poussin, had got hold of in their day, and which 
 Ingres had recovered in ours. They seemed to be- 
 lieve, too, that by studying these masters they might 
 get possession of the recipe for themselves. If style 
 had been one thing only, then either Raphael or 
 Michelangelo must have been in error, for their two 
 styles differ from each other materially ; and there 
 is a great difference also between Raphael and 
 Lionardo da Vinci. We cannot reason safely about 
 this or anything else in art without admitting variety. 
 Intellectual style is sure to be present whenever the 
 natural subject is ennobled by thought and imagi- 
 nation, and enhanced by learning, as we constantly 
 see in poetry, where the poetic artist gives an in- 
 tellectual charm and value to common material 
 objects, and contrives, apropos of this thing or that, 
 to enrich his narrative or description by reference 
 to the elder lore of poetry. The possibilities of
 
 ST. SEBASTIAN. FROM THE ENGRAVING BY ALBERT DURER.
 
 Style. 265 
 
 adding these qualities to painting or drawing are by- 
 no means confined to the arts which deal with the 
 human figure. The gain is more obvious in those 
 arts, but it is not less real in landscape, in which 
 a thoughtful and poetic mind will subtly infuse the 
 results of its own thought and learning, as we see, for 
 example, in the landscapes of Samuel Palmer, from 
 which the intellectual and poetic element is never ab- 
 sent, whilst every such composition is associated in 
 the mind of the artist with noble work in literature 
 and art bequeathed by his great predecessors. 
 
 The criticism of the eighteenth century had a noble 
 ambition in view with its respect for the Grand Style, 
 though its definitions are imperfect. The reaction 
 against it went too far when some artists of the 
 present century discarded style altogether, and ac- 
 cepted as fine art the most literal rendering of the 
 most commonplace material. We have seen that 
 technical style, or manual skill, in painting can 
 hardly be compared with anything in the work of 
 a writer, because what really corresponds to it in 
 literature is done by printers ; but when we come 
 to intellectual style the comparison is fair, and it 
 may help us to understand the value of such style 
 in painting. Everybody knows the difference be- 
 tween poor and bald literature, in which facts are 
 barely stated, and literature of a high order, in which 
 facts are dealt with by the hand of a master, who 
 exhibits them with startling clearness when he
 
 266 Style. 
 
 chooses, and induces us to give him our attention 
 by enriching his pages with allusions which go far 
 beyond the facts, and have often but a very remote 
 and fanciful connexion with them. 
 
 Intellectual style, both in literature and art, is a 
 result of culture. It can only be attained by gifted 
 persons, but the most gifted persons cannot attain 
 it in isolation. The Grand Style is only one of its 
 departments, due to a predominance of the sense of 
 grandeur. Whilst acknowledging the existence of 
 the Grand Style as a noble manifestation of the 
 human mind, we may still admit that painting would 
 .soon weary us if it were all in the Grand Style, 
 which is narrowed by want of sympathy with human 
 feeling, and by a want of interest in the various 
 beauty of nature. The mind of Michelangelo is by 
 far the best example of what a human mind may 
 be, when entirely occupied by ideas of grandeur — a 
 noble mind, yet not such as any generally intelligent 
 person would wish to possess. Too exclusively pre- 
 occupied by visions of sublimity to enjoy either the 
 humour of life or the beauty of the common world, 
 Michelangelo lived above the zone in which life 
 gives its pleasantest and most varied fruits. It is 
 like living up in the higher Alps, without permission 
 to descend below the level of eternal snow. The 
 nimble genius of Shakespeare seems infinitely pre- 
 ferable, with all his glaring faults ; the Grand Style 
 was accessible to Shakespeare, but his spirit did not
 
 Style. 267 
 
 dwell in it exclusively. He could descend to any 
 level, and interest himself in anything, even in the 
 humblest wild flowers of his native land. And 
 although few subjects, comparatively, are suitable 
 for the Grand Style, every subject in the world that 
 is fit for art at all, may be ennobled by thought and 
 feeling and adorned with learning, so that even in 
 hi. humblest work. the artist is not simply a crafts- 
 man. It is Intellectual Style, in one or other of its 
 innumerable manifestations, which raises handicraft 
 into fine art. Without it all the dexterity in the 
 world is only man's cleverness ; with it, the work 
 of the painter and sculptor takes its place beside 
 that of poets and philosophers.
 
 268 
 
 SOUL AND MATTER IN THE 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 ONE of the results of many years devoted prin- 
 cipally to the study of the Fine Arts has been 
 the quite unexpected discovery that there exists a 
 school of criticism which, instead of interesting itself 
 in the material side of art, avoids as much as possible 
 all consideration of it. The advantages of this 
 course are twofold. There is, to begin with, an im- 
 mense economy of labour and time. The critic who 
 avowedly despises all technical knowledge is, by the 
 simple expression of this contempt, at once eman- 
 cipated from the troublesome obligation of acquiring 
 it. It is difficult to over-estimate the convenience of 
 this. If it were possible in the ordinary affairs of 
 life, any one might enunciate authoritative opinions 
 without preparatory study, and so there would be 
 nothing to prevent anybody from dealing with mili- 
 tary subjects or industrial subjects, or, in short, any 
 subjects whatever from which he is usually debarred 
 by his ignorance of material conditions. As things 
 really exist, one is only too clearly aware that if he 
 attempts to deal with anything in which matter is 
 concerned, he is sure to get entangled in purely
 
 Son I and Matter in the Fine Arts. 269 
 
 material difficulties, and that any one who knows 
 what those difficulties are will easily triumph over 
 him by exhibiting his oversights. The one exception 
 to this rule appears to be the Fine Arts. 
 
 If a writer on art takes fully into account the 
 influence of material conditions, he exposes himself 
 to an attack of a very peculiar kind. It may be 
 s& : d of him that he concerns himself only with 
 matter, such as pigments, canvases, coppers, acids, 
 papers ; and if it is not said openly it may very 
 easily be implied that his mind is of a low and 
 grovelling order and docs not concern itself with the 
 exalted things of art. The author of ' The Graphic 
 Arts' knowingly exposed himself to this kind of 
 attack, but he hoped, and the success of that work 
 proved the hope to be well founded, that the public 
 would not infer from the presence of interest and 
 knowledge concerning technical things the absence 
 of all interest and knowledge concerning the in- 
 tellectual and imaginative elements in art. It 
 would be strange indeed if one who was known to 
 value the intellectual life outside of the fine arts 
 should be indifferent to it within their pale — strange 
 if a steady reader of the best existing literature 
 should suddenly divest himself of his tastes when he 
 found himself before a work of graphic art, and 
 become a student of matter only, without any refer- 
 ence to mind. 
 
 The truth is that in the fine arts Mind itself is
 
 270 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts. 
 
 dependent upon Matter for its expression, and that 
 to a degree which cannot be realised until we are 
 brought into immediate contact with the material 
 necessities themselves. The very desire for a full and 
 untrammelled mental expression is of itself the cause 
 that impels artists and all who sympathise with their 
 modes of thought and their interests to take matter 
 seriously into account. When we seem, to an out- 
 sider, to be thinking of matter only, our real anxiety 
 is to facilitate some kind of mental expression — 
 perhaps some special and peculiar kind. Those who 
 know nothing of technical matters, and take no 
 interest in them, appear to believe that an artist of 
 real ability can always overcome any technical im- 
 pediment and express his genius with equal com- 
 pleteness in any of the forms of art. Such a man, 
 they seem to think, is above those material diffi- 
 culties that perplex the student and awaken the 
 curiosity of the critic. What the great artists have 
 actually done has been to express only that part of 
 themselves which could be readily expressed in the 
 kind of art they happened to be using for themoment. 
 Instead of stupidly struggling against material con- 
 ditions, they quietly and wisely conformed to them ; 
 but it is necessary for a critic to know what those 
 conditions were ; because, if he did not, he might 
 suppose that the artist had expressed all of himself 
 when he had intentionally only expressed a part. 
 To make this clear I will take a well-known ex-
 
 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts. 27 r 
 
 ample, Turner. By nature he was especially and 
 peculiarly sensitive to the beauty of distances ; but 
 this feeling for distances could only be fully expressed 
 by the utmost delicacy of shade and colour. Now, if 
 you had given Turner a reed-pen to draw with, and 
 black ink, without permission to dilute it, he could 
 not have expressed the delicacy of a distance at all ; 
 but he might still have given some idea of its nature, 
 of tiie hilly or flat country, of the woods and the dis- 
 tant villages, and he could have told you plainly 
 enough whether the water six miles off was the sea,, 
 or a Scotch loch, or a French river. The reader may 
 believe that I have supposed a case which could never 
 occur, that nobody would refuse permission to dilute 
 ink ; but the case is not imaginary. When draughts- 
 men work for photographic reproduction in blocks to 
 print with type the ink must be as black as possible 
 throughout, a condition that puts a stop at once to all 
 delicacy in distances. Now let us pause for one 
 moment to consider all that would be meant for Turner 
 by such a privation as this. It may seem only material, 
 but it is a mental privation of a terrible kind. The 
 delicacy of a distance in landscape art is inseparably 
 connected with poetical feelings which are affecting 
 because they go far beyond material things. The 
 vague mystery of a beautiful distance leads the mind 
 out of the world itself, as the most exquisite music 
 docs. It is almost a profanation to attempt any ex- 
 pression for this idea in words, except in the form of
 
 272 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts. 
 
 poetry ; but it is not too much to say that the hopes 
 and aspirations of the individual life, as well as the 
 aspirations we may indulge in for the human race, — 
 in a word, all thoughts that look wistfully to the 
 future, are connected with ideas of distance in which 
 the solid earth itself becomes aerial and loses its 
 shades in heaven. If a landscape distance only 
 meant what is measurable — -six miles, ten miles, 
 twenty or thirty miles of land — it .would not be more 
 poetical than a railway. There is more in it than 
 that, and Turner certainly felt it. Turner with black 
 ink for a medium of expression would have been de- 
 prived of the means of utterance. 
 
 If the permission to use very pale and delicate 
 gradations is necessary for the poetry of distance, so 
 there is another kind of poetical expression in the fine 
 arts that is impossible without the powers of gloom. 
 Darkness has its own poetry, and if we go deeper 
 into the matter we shall find, here also, that the real 
 reason for the way in which we are affected is a spiri- 
 tual and not a material reason. Simply from the 
 material point of view darkness is annoying because 
 one cannot find things easily, or dangerous, because 
 we may fall and hurt ourselves ; but it is not awful 
 in the least. What is truly awful in darkness is, that 
 it reminds us so powerfully of the darkness that sur- 
 rounds the little lives of men. Whatever may be the 
 religious opinions of the reader he will agree with the 
 one opinion that is common to all preachers and all
 
 Sotil and Matter in the Fine Arts. 273 
 
 philosophers. The wisest of them have always said 
 that there is a dark veil, a curtain of obscurity, im- 
 penetrable by human intelligence, between us and the 
 absolute nature of things. There is also, in all life 
 as we know it on the earth, an ineluctable element of 
 sadness which we associate with the idea of gloom. 
 In the graphic arts these feelings are expressed by 
 sombre tones and hues. Now, if Rembrandt had 
 been limited to the pale line he could not have ex- 
 pressed these feelings, or have excited them in us. 
 But, who it may be asked, would have limited him to 
 the pale line ? The answer is, that a certain instru- 
 ment would have done so if he had adopted it. The 
 silver-point, so much used by the old masters of form, 
 has admirable qualities of firmness and delicacy ; but 
 it confines the artist to the pale line, whatever may 
 be his genius. Here, then, is another example of an 
 artist whose mind could not have expressed itself by 
 a certain technical method and who had to employ 
 another. The incomparable depth of etching and 
 its unrivalled powers of contrast between delicacy and 
 darkness, exactly suited Rembrandt, and allowed him 
 to express his thought. 
 
 One more example, and I have done. One of the 
 greatest means of influence exercised by one mind 
 over many is the art of the orator. This influence is 
 entirely incompatible with extreme slowness and 
 hesitation in delivery. Without some energy and 
 rapidity there may be learned statement and sound 
 
 T
 
 274 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts. 
 
 reasoning, but there is no oratory. The real orator 
 does not simply exhibit the effects of intellectual 
 power, but he shows us intellectual power in action. 
 Is there anything of this kind in the fine arts, and 
 is it dependent in any way upon material condi- 
 tions ? The answer is yes to both questions. An 
 artist, though he died hundreds of years ago, may, 
 in certain arts, exhibit to us his mind in the rapid 
 motion of excited energy, whilst in other arts the 
 motion is not seen, and we have only a result. All 
 the arts in which sketching is possible, and these 
 only, exhibit the mind in motion and partake of the 
 nature of oratory. Water-colour and etching are 
 both excellent arts for what may be called the ora- 
 tory of drawing, whilst the employment of a slow 
 instrument like the burin makes eloquence impos- 
 sible. Here is another case in which a certain mental 
 state may be balked of expression by the use of an 
 ill-chosen instrument. It would be easy to show the 
 mental embarrassment that would result from the 
 employment of certain brushes in oil-painting, or 
 from the too liquid condition of the pigments. No 
 doubt an oil -painter could lay on colour with a 
 camel-hair brush, but he could not express his 
 power. 
 
 To me it seems always that this close association 
 of Mind with Matter in the Fine Arts gives them 
 additional interest. It does not seem to me that 
 Mind is in the least degraded by this connexion, but
 
 Soul and Matter in the Fine Arts. 275 
 
 that Matter is elevated. Those who regard the 
 material conditions of the Fine Arts with con- 
 temptuous indifference as something beneath the 
 consideration of the intellect, only show that they 
 themselves have no natural sympathy with Art. 
 The peculiarity of the Fine Arts is that, in them, the 
 action of the intellect is strictly subordinate to matter 
 — and not only that, but happily and willingly sub- 
 ordinate. It selects the material means that are 
 most perfectly favourable to its purpose, and having 
 selected them it conquers matter, not by opposition, 
 but by a studious conformity.
 
 276 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE FINE 
 
 ARTS. 
 
 MR. PARKER'S essay on the nature of the 
 Fine Arts* belongs to a small class of books 
 that are peculiarly difficult to review. It is very 
 full of matter ; and so provocative of discussion, 
 that to consider all its propositions as one would 
 desire, might lead to the writing of a volume con- 
 taining as many pages as itself. The tone cf Mr. 
 Parker's writing is enough to provoke a reply to 
 almost every page, being at the same time ratio- 
 cinative and dogmatic, not at all deferential to any 
 authority whatever, and — though not arrogant or 
 overbearing — always imperturbably self-satisfied. I 
 have read the book through twice with much interest ; 
 and if it is impossible, in the space of an article, 
 to deal satisfactorily with a volume that opens so 
 many questions, I may at least quietly consider one 
 of them. 
 
 Before proceeding to details, we may, on behalf 
 of the Fine Arts, express a grateful sense of the 
 honour done them when a representative of the 
 
 * ' The Nature of the Fine Arts.' By H. Parker, Fellow of 
 Oriel College, Oxford. London : Macmillan & Co. 1885.
 
 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 277 
 
 older culture, a Fellow of Oriel, condescends to pay- 
 so much attention to them as to institute an inquiry 
 into their nature. We are old enough to remember 
 the day when Slade Professors had not as yet been 
 heard of, and when the influence of Oxford was 
 entirely on the side of popular misunderstanding of 
 these subjects. Even so recently as the year 1863, 
 Mr. Ruskin spoke of that evil influence in the present 
 tense. In his evidence before the Royal Academy 
 Commission, he said : ' I think if you educate our 
 upper classes to take more interest in art, which 
 implies of course to know something about it, they 
 might be most efficient members of the Academy ; 
 but if you leave them, as you leave them now, to 
 the education which they get at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, and give them the sort of scorn which all 
 the teaching there tends to give, for art and artists, 
 the less they have to do with an academy of art 
 the better.' There are some traces of this ancient 
 scorn even in Mr. Parker's book. When giving the 
 evidence just referred to, Mr. Ruskin spoke of the 
 mistaken notion that a painter could be made by 
 means of a little technical education only, and said, 
 'that error is partly owing to our excessively vulgar 
 and excessively shallow English idea that the artist's 
 profession is not, and cannot be, a liberal one.' This 
 word 'liberal' is often used by Mr. Parker, and he 
 steadily maintains that painting is not a liberal art. 
 'The belief that the art of painting is a liberal art'
 
 278 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 
 
 is treated by Mr. Parker as a popular error, and he 
 seems to retain the old conception of the liberal 
 arts, that 'they are not simply the non- servile 
 pursuits, but are studies which need no technical 
 or manual instruction, being of a purely intellectual 
 kind.' He then separates the Fine Arts and the 
 Liberal Arts in a short sentence : ' At the present 
 day a complication has resulted. There is on the 
 one hand a desire, almost universal, to support the 
 view that the Fine Arts can be taught, as the Liberal 
 Arts are taught, theoretically. On the other, the 
 University of Oxford has for the first time in its 
 history, with one doubtful exception, departed from 
 the traditional ideal and included practical instruc- 
 tion.' 
 
 Mr. Parker's reasons for refusing the epithet 
 ' liberal ' to the art of painting are the following : 
 He says there never can be a science of painting, 
 in the sense in which there is a science of music. 
 You may begin by dividing musical from unmusical 
 sounds, but ' no such division of colours is possible. 
 This is a necessary result of the fact that painting 
 is an art of representation, for the artist who repre- 
 sents must use all the colours which he sees. In 
 the next place, musical sounds can be reduced to 
 language or signs. Music can be written. Colours 
 can be stated in language only in an exceedingly 
 imperfect way, which is quite inadequate for scientific 
 purposes. Colour is continuous, sound is discrete/
 
 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 279 
 
 Mr. Parker then affirms that ' the condition of a true 
 science is that it should contain propositions, the 
 terms of which have a definite meaning,' and finally 
 comes to the conclusion that ' Cassiodorus was quite 
 right when he affirmed in the introduction to the 
 Liberalium Litterarum that music belongs to matJic- 
 matica. Colours, however, cannot be so treated.' 
 
 The argument here is that painting is not one of 
 the liberal arts because it cannot be taught in rigid 
 scientific propositions. Mr. Parker admits that per- 
 spective ma}- be so taught, but this is the only part 
 of painting that seems admissible amongst the liberal 
 arts. The real objection to Mr. Parker's argument is 
 that a theory of vibrations has no more to do with 
 what a musical artist understands by ' music ' than a 
 theory of muscular contraction has to do with the art 
 of dancing. In both cases purely scientific investiga- 
 tions leave the soul of the art out of consideration. It 
 may or may not be possible to calculate the number 
 of vibrations in a string that sounds a given note ; 
 such a calculation goes no way towards explaining 
 the invention of a melody. The composer of some 
 simple tunc, such as ' Annie Laurie,' exercised the 
 true gift of musical invention, but would probably 
 have been quite unable to explain how the tune came 
 to him by any theory of mathematical coincidence. 
 The definition of a liberal art as an art that can be 
 explained in scientific terms would exclude all those 
 qualities of the Fine Arts that give them their superior
 
 280 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 
 
 rank. It is always these higher qualities that escape 
 the scientific analyst. He can define the rules of 
 prosody, but the delicate art of the poet evades his 
 measurements, often by its very violations of those 
 rules. What is really wonderful in Mr. Parker's 
 theory is that he would deprive painting of its rank 
 as a liberal art because it is too subtle, too complex, 
 too synthetic, and too refined for the rigid explana- 
 tions of the lecturer. Mr. Parker's work is, in fact, a 
 reactionary attempt to re-establish the scholastic 
 sense of the term ' liberal arts,' in opposition to the 
 modern sense. The scholastic sense is that of the 
 ' arts ' recognised in a Master's degree ; the modern 
 sense has been accurately defined by Webster, who 
 says, ' the liberal or polite arts are those in which the 
 mind or imagination is chiefly concerned, as poetry, 
 music, and painting.' Littre tells us that the word 
 'Liberal' means 'qui est digne d'un homme libre;' and 
 then he proceeds to explain that the Liberal Arts are 
 so called by opposition to the Mechanic Arts, because 
 they require 'une intervention grande et perpetuelle 
 de l'intelligence. La peinture, la sculpture, sont des 
 arts liberaux.' This opposition between the liberal 
 and the mechanic arts had its origin, according to 
 Littre, in the ancient prejudice against manual labour, 
 which was considered unworthy of a freeman, and 
 contemptuously left to slaves. The popular modern 
 reason amongst the wealthy and professional classes 
 for unwillingness to admit painting amongst the
 
 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 2S1 
 
 liberal professions is, that it includes a handicraft 
 trade, the skilled application of colours to wood or 
 canvas. Mr. Ruskin calls this prejudice ' excessively 
 vulgar and excessively shallow.' The vulgarity and 
 the shallowness of the idea consist in seeing the 
 handicraft only and not the thought, knowledge, and 
 imagination which are expressed by means of the 
 handicraft. The excuse for the prejudice is to be 
 found in the necessity for great manual skill, which 
 we admit to be an unfortunate necessity. An artist 
 may have deep thought, ample knowledge, and noble 
 imagination, yet if manual skill be wanting, his art is 
 a failure, whilst on the other hand we find instances 
 of artists clever with the brush who have succeeded 
 without poetry and with a minimum of thought. The 
 full truth about this matter is that painting may be a 
 great intellectual art or a mechanical handicraft, just 
 as it is practised by a noble mind or a common one. 
 There are pictures quite equal to the finest poems as 
 expressions of what is most elevated in thought, most 
 tender and delicate in feeling, whilst there are many 
 other pictures (produced, alas ! in ever - increasing 
 quantity) that only display a little science and a great 
 deal of purely manual dexterity. The misfortune is 
 (and for this there is no remedy) that an artist who 
 has the mental gifts may be paralysed by his want of 
 the handicraft. To realise the profound evil of this 
 we have only to imagine the poetical genius of Byron 
 and Scott denied because they wrote badly from the
 
 282 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 
 
 writing-master's point of view. Had they been subject 
 to the conditions of handicraft, as painters are, they 
 would have been compelled to produce beautiful 
 manuscripts under penalty of forfeiting their intel- 
 lectual rank, and if the manuscripts of Southey or 
 Milman had been more workmanlike they would have 
 had the preference, whilst Byron and Scott would 
 have been classed as incompetent amateurs. Few of 
 us fully realise what a great evil this inseparability 
 from handicraft is for the art of painting ; but there 
 was probably an instinctive perception of it in the 
 educated classes of former generations, who took care 
 to avoid practical meddling with the Fine Arts. 
 
 Mr. Parker says that ' the law on which all modern 
 canons of artistic criticism are based, is the supposed 
 law that the most exact imitation is the greatest work 
 of art.' Mr. Parker's statement here is much too 
 sweeping. Mr. Ruskin, in an unguarded moment, 
 said something of that kind to his pupils at Oxford, 
 but French critics have long clearly distinguished 
 between imitation and artistic interpretation (not at 
 all the same thing), and have insisted on the superiority 
 and on the necessity of interpretation, the consequence 
 of this persistent teaching being that all intelligent 
 French people at the present day understand the 
 matter as far as their knowledge goes and are prepared 
 to accept interpretative work. I may, perhaps, be 
 permitted, in self-defence, to say that for many years 
 I have been writing on the side of interpretative as
 
 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 28 
 
 »> 
 
 opposed to imitative art, and that my advocacy of 
 etching, at a time when it was less appreciated than 
 now, was founded upon this preference. It does not 
 appear, cither, that Mr. Parker clearly understands 
 the nature of imitation in painting. He says that 
 the realistic principle is ' that the sole test of merit in 
 a work of art is the degree of resemblance of the 
 imitation to the thing imitated ;' and then he observes 
 that 'the careful cabinet-maker who has made a chair 
 or a table after a given pattern has satisfied this test 
 as well as the painter or sculptor.' The fallacy here 
 is caused by a remarkable omission. If a cabinet- 
 maker is told to imitate a chair, he can absolutely 
 reproduce it, and therefore there is no interest in 
 observing the degree of approximation to the model ; 
 but if a landscape-painter were told to imitate an 
 oak-tree, we should know beforehand that he could 
 not absolutely reproduce it, and therefore we should 
 have a prolonged critical interest in following his 
 work and watching the degree of his approximation 
 to his model. This is really the interest which we 
 feel in imitative painting. We know that the painted 
 tree is quite a different thing from the real tree, that 
 it is only paint on a fiat surface, and we are pleased 
 to see that with such means a degree of imitation is 
 possible ; but we have no such pleasure in being 
 made to observe, what we all know beforehand, that 
 one wooden thing can be made to look like another 
 wooden thing shaped out of the same material
 
 284 The Nature of the Fine Arts. 
 
 and with similar tools. If, on the other hand, the 
 cabinet-maker is working from a mechanical drawing- 
 he is not imitating a model but following instructions. 
 A cabinet-maker will sometimes work from a shape- 
 less sketch if only all dimensions be written on 
 the sketch. This is not imitation, but obedience 
 to orders. 
 
 As it is a misfortune for painting that it includes 
 a difficult handicraft, so it is not less a misfortune for 
 all painters of high aims that there should be a 
 popular art of imitative painting which causes per- 
 petual misapprehension about the nobler and worthier 
 art. To paint without an ideal, without thought, 
 without imagination, merely to imitate shapes and 
 textures, may be a harmless way of earning one's 
 living, but is not a very elevated pursuit.
 
 285 
 
 CAN SCIENCE HELP ART? 
 
 VERY eminent artists and critics may be named 
 on each side the question, so that one cannot 
 express an opinion without placing oneself in oppo- 
 sition to distinguished men. The best way in cases 
 of this kind is to express one's own sincere, personal, 
 individual opinion, without deference to this or that 
 authority, since the authorities on each side are 
 equally weighty. I will begin, then, by answering 
 the question in my own way, and after that develop 
 or amplify the answer. 
 
 i. The efficiency of an artist depends, in a great 
 measure, upon his vivid recollection of organic form, 
 and of effect. 
 
 2. Scientific knowledge enables the memory to 
 retain organic form and effect with a precision not 
 otherwise attainable. 
 
 3. Therefore, scientific knowledge helps the effi- 
 ciency of an artist. 
 
 The argument on the other side is this — (I will 
 do my best to state it quite fairly) — Science can 
 teach things to an artist which are artistically easy, 
 but fails him in what is artistically difficult. For 
 example : perspective can teach how to draw the 
 straight edges of a London causeway, but not the
 
 286 Can Science help Art ? 
 
 curves of the sea-shore ; anatomy can teach the 
 places of bones and muscles, but not the subtle 
 variations of surface and of line on which the living 
 energy of the animal depends for its expression. 
 Scientific theories of colour can teach the relation 
 of primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, but never the 
 relations of the indescribable tints ; and all the tints 
 •of a great colourist are of the indescribable kind. 
 
 The whole of this is true. We may even go 
 further than this, and admit that Science teaches 
 nothing whatever that belongs specially to Art ; 
 nothing that is, in the true and deep meaning of 
 the word, artistic. 
 
 Still the sciences of perspective, optics, anatomy, 
 are useful to artists ; just as the science of geography 
 is useful to a traveller. Take the very best of maps. 
 What does it tell you of the country you intend to 
 explore ? It is not a substitute for your observation 
 as a traveller, but simply a reliable informant as 
 to where the places lie, where you will find them, 
 and a help to your topographic memory. After 
 having studied the map, you must observe the 
 country itself, in all its detail, if you want to know 
 its life. But the map has helped you, nevertheless, 
 in the arrangement of the work before you. It has 
 saved you time and trouble, it has prevented you 
 from missing your way. 
 
 What a map is to the traveller, scientific study, 
 wisely pursued, is to the artist. It can never serve
 
 Can Science help Art ? 287 
 
 him as a substitute for his own observation, but it 
 ma\' tell him where to apply his power as an 
 observer, and guard him against innumerable mis- 
 takes. If artists could always have nature before 
 them, exactly as they desired to paint it, they might 
 dispense with the help of Science altogether. Any 
 artist who sees quite clearly in the artistic sense, 
 sees also as much of organic structure as is necessary 
 to his perfect performance. But when nature is not 
 present, or is constantly changing, which very nearly 
 amounts to the same thing, artists need everything 
 which may counteract the natural infirmity of the 
 memory. The degree to which Science can do this 
 ma) T be easily demonstrated. 
 
 After we have dissected a plant, with the help 
 of any really good work on botany, the organic 
 structure of the plant, and even such characteristics 
 as its colour, the season of its growth, and the places 
 which it prefers, are engraved on the memory per- 
 manently. These things are not Art ; they do not 
 describe the artistic appearance of the plant, but, by 
 the association of ideas, they recall its artistic ap- 
 pearance, when that has been previously studied 
 from nature. They present a sort of skeleton of 
 knowledge, which the purely artistic memory clothes 
 with the perfect life.* 
 
 * It is customary to speak of anatomy, botany, geology, as 
 separate sciences, and a notion is thereby conveyed that the 
 sciences are too numerous to be accessible to an artist. In
 
 288 Can Science help Art ? 
 
 There are instances of artists who, having been 
 attracted by scientific study beyond the sphere of 
 Art, have lost the artistic spirit, and become purely 
 scientific. Thus Science may ruin an artist, but 
 not when the artistic spirit is really strong in him. 
 Science did not spoil Rembrandt's work, nor has 
 it spoiled Landseer's. I could name half-a-dozen 
 painters who have been ruined by Science, but they 
 were all men of feeble artistic gifts, to begin with. 
 A man of any native artistic force works as freely 
 after scientific training as before it. The scientific 
 
 reality, these three sciences are one. Botany and geology are 
 anatomy. Botany is primarily the anatomy of plants, and 
 geology the anatomy of the earth. And anatomy, in any of its 
 branches, is nothing more than the separation of anything into 
 its component parts. 
 
 Now, there is a very curious characteristic to be noted in the 
 ■classical spirit, in the spirit of classical tradition in the study of 
 the fine arts. It admits one of the branches of anatomy — that 
 of animal form — as necessary to the artist, but does not admit 
 the necessity of the other branches of anatomy. This may be 
 accounted for by the classic love of the human form and the 
 classic disdain of landscape: and I believe it may be asserted 
 with little fear of any effectual contradiction, that whenever 
 modern artists have been deeply and seriously interested in the 
 study of anything in nature, they have, as a rule, thankfully 
 accepted the help of Science with reference to that particular 
 thing. For instance, Rembrandt did not disdain the anatomy 
 of the human body, nor Landseer the anatomy of dogs, nor 
 Ruskin the anatomy of mountains. The disdain of Science 
 always seems to apply to things in which the artist is not 
 specially interested, and we commonly find that figure-painters 
 consider the anatomy of plants superfluous, but not human 
 anatomy.
 
 Can Science help Art? 289 
 
 training helps his memory of things, but does not 
 chill or harden his work. A man may write easily 
 and poetically, without a trace of pedantry, not- 
 withstanding his knowledge of grammar ; and gram- 
 mar, like botany and geology, is one of the branches 
 of anatomy. 
 
 U
 
 <Pjrt IV. 
 
 CONVERSATIONS.
 
 293 
 
 BOOK ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 THE following study has been cast into the form of dialogue 
 for the reader's convenience. The subject is one that has to be 
 considered from different points of view, and it is tiresome to be 
 continually told that from another point of view it has another 
 aspect. In dialogue this transition is effected frequently and 
 instantaneously by simply changing the speaker. In the present 
 instance the too frequent practice of introducing a speaker who 
 utters opinions only that they may be controverted is avoided 
 by limiting the argument to the strong points on every side. In 
 order that there may be no ambiguity about my own opinions, 
 and that I may not seem to avoid responsibility by getting 
 behind different dramatis personce, I may say that the Art-Critic 
 is the writer purely and simply, whereas the other personages 
 express opinions which the writer puts forward, not necessarily 
 as his own, but as well deserving to be taken into consideration. 
 The Scientist (I dislike the word, but it is convenient and not 
 less legitimate than 'artist'*) expresses what I have heard said 
 by scientific men in real life ; the Artist is of the picturesque order 
 and opposed to scientific views. The Poet represents imaginative 
 literature generally, and has that want of sympathy with the 
 graphic arts which so often accompanies a purely literary culture, 
 whilst he is positively hostile to science, — a natural antipathy 
 that Professor Bain will admit to be consistent. The Critic is 
 in some degree a reconciler, not by desiring the others to 
 abandon any position that they have a right to hold, but by 
 inducing them to consider the interests of others. 
 
 * How inconvenient it would be to say 'man of art' every 
 time wc say ' artist !'
 
 294 Book Ilhistration. 
 
 CONVERSATION I. 
 
 The Rivalry between Art and Literature. 
 
 Poet {opening a volume on the table, and shutting- 
 it at once contemptuously). Another illustrated edition 
 of a popular poet ! I wonder he tolerates these things. 
 
 ARTIST. Perhaps he feels rather flattered. At 
 any rate, an illustrated edition is a confirmation of 
 his fame. Publishers do not select unknown men for 
 illustration. 
 
 POET. That is one of the numerous advantages 
 of obscurity. 
 
 CRITIC. When you are dead you will probably 
 be illustrated also, and appear amongst the Christmas 
 books with some astonishingly showy binding. Add 
 to this the gilt edges, the toned paper, the faultless 
 typography, and the ' exquisite illustrations by the 
 first artists of the day,' as the advertisements have it. 
 
 POET {with a look of anguish). Say no more, I 
 pray you, those dreadful words have already added a 
 new bitterness to death ! And to think that a dead 
 poet is powerless to prevent this, and that if his works 
 live it is almost certain to happen ! 
 
 CRITIC. Almost ? Why not say perfectly certain ? 
 It is as certain as anything can be in this world, that 
 when your copyrights have expired there will be 
 illustrated editions of your poems. Then will the
 
 Book Illustration. 295 
 
 arts of the draughtsman and the photographic repro- 
 ducer be married to immortal verse ! 
 
 POET. There ought to be a law to preclude the 
 possibility of that. 
 
 ARTIST. May it not occasionally happen that 
 the illustrator perpetuates a poetical reputation that 
 would perish without his help ? There is the well- 
 known case of Rogers, who purchased immortality 
 with a definite sum of money, by going to Turner 
 and the wonderful vignette engravers of that day ; 
 just as you may buy a kind of temporary fame by 
 paying for advertisements in the papers. 
 
 POET. A most undesirable and unnatural kind 
 of existence after death. It is like paying for being 
 embalmed. Rogers' poems are really dead, yet instead 
 of being permitted to pass into oblivion quietly, 
 according to the kindly natural law, there they are, 
 existing still like mummies ! A poet needs no help 
 from illustration. If his works have not vitality 
 enough to do without it, they gain no advantage 
 from the kind of factitious immortality that illustra- 
 tion may confer. 
 
 CRITIC. I may, perhaps, be able to suggest a 
 case in which illustration would do a real service to a 
 poet's memory. Suppose the case of a poet who had 
 genius deserving durable fame, yet who might be 
 overlooked and forgotten by a mere change of 
 fashion. He has, however, the good luck to be 
 illustrated by an artist who remains in fashion during
 
 296 Book Illustration. 
 
 a generation indifferent to the poet. This would 
 carry the poet through a time that would otherwise 
 be fatal to him, and afterwards he might be really- 
 appreciated for himself. 
 
 POET. The illustrator, in that case, would be a 
 sort of camel carrying the poet across a stretch of 
 desert that would be death to him if he were 
 alone. The worst of it would be the difficulty 
 of getting rid of the camel afterwards. It is an 
 inversion of the fabled 'Old Man of the Sea.' In 
 that story the difficulty was to get rid of the rider. 
 
 ARTIST. Nothing can exceed your ingratitude to 
 the Fine Arts. You seem to look upon them not 
 merely with indifference, but with antipathy. 
 
 Poet. I can attain to indifference when the Fine 
 Arts keep to their proper place, and illustrate subjects 
 of their own ; I mean subjects that the artist finds 
 for himself in nature, and especially on condition 
 that the illustrations be kept out of the books and 
 exhibited separately as pictures are at the Royal 
 Academy, or like etchings that are published by 
 themselves. What I dislike is to see the text of a 
 poet encumbered by illustrations. 
 
 ARTIST. We have here, as it seems to me, a case 
 of jealousy. The Poet is jealous of the illustrator, 
 and of the attention that the illustrator attracts to 
 himself. 
 
 Critic. There may be a reasonable jealousy. 
 In this case I think the poet may reasonably be
 
 Book Illustration. 29 
 
 *T 
 
 jealous, as the illustrator, under pretext of doing 
 honour to the poet, really gets upon his shoulders 
 and attracts most of the public attention to himself. 
 
 POET. We can do without illustrators as ships- 
 can do without barnacles. The old poets did without 
 them for ages. 
 
 SCIENTIST. The best way to elucidate this ques- 
 tion would be to take some particular instance. May 
 I suggest Dore's illustrations to Dante as a case in 
 point ? 
 
 CRITIC. Certainly, one of the best instances you 
 could have selected. We have only to examine 
 that single case to get to the bottom of the whole 
 subject. 
 
 POET. As for me, the mere juxtaposition of the 
 two names leaves me no patience for argument. 
 Dore and Dante ! The names by themselves are 
 enough. The preposterous Frenchman stands for 
 grotesquely impudent pretension ; the illustrious 
 Italian represents all that is most august in the 
 grandeur of the human mind. 
 
 Critic. I have nothing to say against your high 
 estimate of Dante, but you arc harder on Dore than 
 you would have been if he had only illustrated 
 authors you cared for less. Your objection to Dore 
 as an illustrator of Dante would, in fact, apply to all 
 illustrators that arc inferior to so great a poet ; and 
 what illustrator is not ? 
 
 POET. Well, I could be content to regard Dore
 
 298 Book Illustration. 
 
 with simple indifference if he had not used Dante as 
 a convenience to attract attention to himself. It is 
 a terrible example of the rivalry between the illus- 
 trator and the poet. Nobody ever thinks of reading 
 Dante in the huge, unwieldy edition with Dore's 
 illustrations. The mere size of the page and weight 
 of the paper are insuperable obstacles to quiet read- 
 ing. All that people do with these editions is to 
 turn over the leaves and examine the cuts. My 
 contention is that the artist, under the utterly false 
 pretext of glorifying the poet, does, in reality, 
 ' exploit ' him in the sense of the French verb 
 exploiter. He makes use of him for his own per- 
 fectly selfish purposes. My view is that an artist 
 like Dore, with his coarse interpretations of the poets, 
 is an active evil in literature. He makes use of the 
 poets simply as a matter of business to sell his illus- 
 trations better. It is a nefarious pact between artist 
 and publishers. They plot together to get up a 
 trade : they trade on illustrious names. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Is it not possible that the artist may 
 help to keep alive the reputation of the poet ? 
 
 POET. I hope you do not mean to imply that 
 Dante stands in need of Monsieur Gustave Dore's 
 good offices. 
 
 SCIENTIST. The readers of Dante are not very 
 numerous, except in Italy. There every educated 
 man has read the ' Divina Commedia,' and many 
 women, too, like the Countess Guiccioli, are Dantean
 
 Book Illustration. 299 
 
 scholars ; but in France and England, the countries 
 Dore worked for, how many know the Italian poet 
 at first hand ?' 
 
 CRITIC. I have known about half-a-dozen Dante 
 scholars in England. 
 
 SCIENTIST. And how many in France ? 
 
 Critic. One. 
 
 SCIENTIST. My experience has been much the 
 same. Now, I venture to remark that Dore has 
 made the principal scenes in the ' Inferno' known to 
 thousands in both countries, and this may have 
 induced many to read at least a translation, or 
 enough of it to understand the pictures. Dore has 
 acted in a manner analogous to that of a professor 
 or commentator who draws attention to a great 
 poet ; but he has been a hundred times more effi- 
 cacious because a hundred times more attractive 
 than a prose commentator could ever be. I confess, 
 for my part, that many of the scenes in the ' Inferno ' 
 have been fixed in my memory more permanently 
 by the illustrations. The tortures in the drawings 
 are at any rate horrible enough. I don't profess to 
 be a judge of art, but when I see several men with 
 their heads fixed in a frozen lake, and still living, I 
 feel cold and uncomfortable. 
 
 POET. Well, for my part I would rather my 
 writings were totally forgotten than kept before the 
 public by the speculations of an illustrator. The 
 mere material aspect of illustrated books is too
 
 300 Book Illustration, 
 
 much for me. I hate their superfine paper, their 
 excessive margins, their obtrusively big and fine 
 typography, their showy bindings. My notion of 
 suitable publishing is that which consults the con- 
 venience of the reader without attracting any atten- 
 tion to itself; consequently, the volume should be 
 easily held in the hand, the print legible, the paper 
 thick enough to hide what is on the other side of 
 the leaf, but not thick enough to be heavy, and the 
 binding simple, smooth, and light. I like Morris's 
 'Earthly Paradise' as a material book. It has all 
 these qualities, and the great negative one of being 
 without illustrations. 
 
 ARTIST. We might, perhaps, find a ground to 
 agree upon. Illustration is sometimes quite subor- 
 dinate, and when it is so even you might possibly 
 tolerate it. For instance, in Hood's ' Whims and 
 Oddities,' the little pen-sketch woodcuts are of quite 
 secondary importance, and do not interfere with the 
 literature in the least. On the other hand, when 
 illustrations become big and important, why not 
 publish them separately from the text in albums ? 
 When this is done, the reader may enjoy his poet 
 in a handy edition, and refer to the illustrations when 
 he chooses. 
 
 Critic. The publishers do not take to the last 
 system you propose. In fact, it would embrace two 
 different branches of trade, — book-selling proper for 
 the readable volume, and print-selling for the album.
 
 Book Illustration. 301 
 
 There cannot be a doubt that the question of rivalry 
 between literature and art really exists, though few 
 of us feel so acutely on the subject as our friend the 
 Poet. I remember the case of a young writer of 
 verse who had a certain modest degree of accom- 
 plishment as an artist, so he published a book of 
 poems with his own illustrations. The consequence 
 was that without at all intending it, he set up a 
 conflict between the two. He told me that the 
 reviewers invariably compared the poet with the 
 artist, and generally sacrificed one to the other. One 
 reviewer would sacrifice the poet, another the illus- 
 trator. His own intention had been to make the 
 illustrator auxiliary but subordinate. 
 
 SCIENTIST. The conflict you speak of cannot be 
 avoided. It is in the nature of things. But what 
 strikes me as remarkable is that when literature and 
 art are put together it is generally literature that 
 suffers. People do not read splendidly illustrated 
 editions, and the fewer and more insignificant the 
 illustrations the better is an author's chance of being 
 read. Why should pictorial art have this advantage 
 over literature ? 
 
 Critic. The reason is simply because an 
 engraving can be understood at a glance, whereas 
 to read a page requires a little effort, and also a 
 little time. In some cases a sustained intellectual 
 effort would be necessary. We have talked about 
 Dante and Dorc. Nobody, however intelligent, can
 
 302 Book Illustration. 
 
 read Dante without close mental application, but 
 any one can glance at the woodcuts. Therefore the 
 woodcuts receive at once the slight degree of atten- 
 tion that they claim, and the poet, as we see, is 
 neglected. 
 
 SCIENTIST. This accounts for the great preva- 
 lence and great success of illustrated books in the 
 present day. People take a certain faint interest in 
 a number of subjects, and engravings supply their 
 demand for knowledge. 
 
 ARTIST. You might add that there is really a 
 much stronger appreciation of the fine arts than 
 there used to be, so that engravings or reproduced 
 drawings have an interest for the present generation 
 which they could not have for a generation ignorant 
 of art. 
 
 POET. Then there is the stronger reason for 
 jealousy on the side of literature, for if illustrations 
 are appreciated for high artistic reasons they are the 
 more dangerous as rivals, and we who write have the 
 stronger reasons for keeping them out. I say nothing 
 against pictorial art in its own domains, that is, on 
 the walls of an exhibition or in a portfolio of prints, 
 but I want to keep it out of ours. 
 
 Artist. No one knows better than an artist 
 the great importance of avoiding conflict in any 
 appeal to attention. No real artist would tolerate 
 an ornamental engraved border round a print of any 
 artistic merit. Even the ordinary engraved letters
 
 Book Illustration. 303 
 
 under a print are an injury to it, and are avoided in 
 the early proofs as much from artistic reasons as any 
 other. When lettering is given it is always purposely 
 made as light and thin as possible so as not to catch 
 the eye. Only imagine the effect of heavy lettering 
 under a delicate print ! 
 
 SCIENTIST. We have said nothing yet about 
 colour. We have talked about the attractiveness of 
 engravings, but even these lose their power of catch- 
 ing attention when works in colour are to be seen. 
 In exhibitions the rooms set apart for black and 
 white art are invariably empty when galleries of 
 coloured pictures are close by ; and these, notwith- 
 standing their vastly greater extent, arc often 
 crowded. We may therefore suppose that the recent 
 introduction of coloured illustrations, printed with 
 sufficient delicacy and taste to make them admissible 
 in works of a high character, must be an additional 
 blow to literature. 
 
 POET. There can be no doubt that the work of 
 the old illuminators was anti-literary. Can you 
 imagine any one really praying from an illuminated 
 missal with elaborate borders and miniatures ? Such 
 tilings could only distract attention, unless the orna- 
 ments had become so familiar that they were 
 entirely forgotten, as we forget the designs in the 
 coloured glass of a church that we go to every 
 Sunday. 
 
 Scientist. Your feeling on this subject might
 
 304 Book Illustration. 
 
 "be described as a kind of literary asceticism, the 
 rejection of the luxury of the eyes for the higher 
 needs of the intellect. 
 
 Poet. ' Asceticism ' is, perhaps, hardly the proper 
 term, as I am grateful for every luxury that is a help 
 to reading. I like good print, good paper, a volume 
 that can be held pleasantly, an easy chair, and a 
 well-shaded lamp. These are delightful luxuries. 
 But I don't want superfluities that seem to me 
 inimical to reading any more than, on going out 
 for a walk, I should care to be encumbered with 
 the Lord Mayor's state robes. In placing the perfect 
 convenience of the reader above every other con- 
 sideration, I speak not only as an author but as a 
 reader too. The bibliophile may think differently. 
 My reasons fall to the ground when books are pur- 
 chased merely to be looked at and very carefully 
 handled. 
 
 Scientist. You are wonderfully rational, for a 
 poet. The voice of Reason herself seems to issue 
 from your lips. 
 
 Artist. All artists are rational when the in- 
 terests of their own art are concerned, because they 
 understand them. Our friend is like a painter, who 
 wants a good frame and a good light, but would 
 rather not have the attention of his visitors distracted 
 "by anything remarkable in surrounding colour or 
 .architecture. 
 
 Scientist. Or you might say that he resembles
 
 Book Illustration. 305 
 
 a musician, who likes a room with good acoustic 
 properties and hates conversation, however intelli- 
 gent, that goes on during a musical performance. 
 This kind of jealousy is most reasonable. Let us 
 have talk or music, one or the other ; we cannot 
 attend to both at the same time. 
 
 POET. Nor to poetry and illustrations. 
 
 Artist. You mentioned a case in which a poet 
 was his own illustrator. When that is so there can 
 be no occasion for jealousy, as the attention of the 
 public could only be diverted from himself to him- 
 self. We admit that you might be reasonably jealous 
 of me if I illustrated your books, but if you were to 
 illustrate them would you be jealous of yourself ? 
 
 POET. I should do as Rossetti did. I should 
 keep the two talents separate. Have you not noticed 
 how careful Rossetti was to publish his poems with- 
 out illustrations? All he did in the way of graphic 
 art was to decorate the back of his volumes and 
 design the paper lining with a sort of unmeaning 
 pattern. 
 
 SCIENTIST. But might it not be very advan- 
 tageous in various ways that an author should illus- 
 trate his own works if he could draw well enough ? 
 
 Critic. That is one of those suggestions which 
 always seem excellent at first. I remember hearing 
 a very distinguished author say that it was most 
 desirable, but there is a fallacious idea underlying 
 every fancy of this kind. The fallacy lies in the 
 
 X
 
 ^06 Book Illustration. 
 
 o 
 
 supposition that the artist's talent would answer in 
 every respect to the author's, because the two were 
 united in the same man. It would do nothing of the 
 kind. All examples show the extreme narrowness of 
 gift and accomplishment in the graphic arts. I pre- 
 sume, to begin with, that you would not desire the 
 illustrations to be bad, as art. Very well, if you 
 admit that, you must accept the narrow range of all 
 successful work, and a probable want of connection 
 between the graphic and the literary performance. 
 
 ARTIST. In most cases the author who illustrated 
 his own works would not be, as Rossetti was, an 
 artist. He would only be an amateur like Thackeray, 
 and therefore unable to draw. Amateurs are never 
 able to draw in our sense of the word. 
 
 CRITIC. Thackeray's illustrations have a great 
 interest, but it is only psychological. His books, 
 with all their satire, are kindlier in their views of 
 human nature than his drawings. The people in the 
 drawings are generally disagreeable, besides being 
 defectively drawn. They have a habit of looking 
 mean, or else of wearing a peculiarly vapid ex- 
 pression. No one would infer from Thackeray's 
 drawings that he possessed a powerful intellect, still 
 less that his nature was really and deeply sympathetic. 
 A critic who judged Thackeray from his drawings 
 only might possibly not under-estimate the works of 
 art, but he would be sure to under-estimate the 
 artist.
 
 Book Illustration. 307 
 
 POET. In another way the same may be said of 
 Thomas Hood and his rude little pen - sketches. 
 They are always comic, whereas his genius as a poet 
 was serious and sometimes profound. Hood's sketches 
 are the playful exercise of a small part of his mind. 
 For one thing they have no delicacy, yet there was 
 much delicacy, as well as tenderness, in his work as a 
 writer. 
 
 Artist. That is true, and still I like Hood's 
 sketches far better than those of most amateurs ; 
 they are unpretending, and quite sound and straight- 
 forward in method. He used a simple kind of art, 
 which is better than attempting something beyond 
 his power. 
 
 Critic. There are two other instances of authors 
 whose drawings may be compared with their literary 
 work — Mr. Ruskin and Victor Hugo. 
 
 Artist. Ruskin is not an artist ; he draws like 
 an amateur. 
 
 Critic. I knew you would say that ; but you 
 are rather unjust. Mr. Ruskin does not draw as an 
 artist could because he has not the same purposes. 
 An artist's object is simply to produce a good work 
 of art — not to teach people anything about nature. 
 Mr. Ruskin's drawings are observant and didactic ; 
 sometimes strictly scientific. At the same time it is 
 not fair to speak of him as an amateur, because that 
 word may be taken to mean a feeble imitator of the 
 style of artists without their knowledge, and that Mr.
 
 308 Book Illustration. 
 
 Ruskin is not. He has no style as a draughtsman ; 
 yet his knowledge has always been sufficient for the 
 clear statements of fact which are all that he has 
 attempted to make. It would be just to call him a 
 student — a student of nature. 
 
 POET. Still, the difference between Ruskin as a 
 writer and as a draughtsman is very striking. He is 
 a powerful writer, fond of strong effects and able 
 to produce them ; in short, he seems to be gifted 
 with poetical power, but so far as I can see anything 
 in drawings I should not say that his drawings dis- 
 play poetical power. 
 
 CRITIC. As Mr. Ruskin has himself said, the 
 literary and artistic faculties cannot be both culti- 
 vated to the same extent. He is an artist when he 
 writes, a student when he draws. In writing he 
 unhesitatingly sacrifices accuracy to effect, and that 
 is quite characteristic of an artist. In drawing he 
 seems always anxious, above all things, to be 
 accurate, and that is characteristic of the pains- 
 taking and conscientious student. 
 
 Scientist. It must follow from what you say 
 that the draughtsman, in Ruskin, only accompanies 
 the writer half-way. 
 
 Critic. Exactly, or even less than that. The draw- 
 ings express little of the artist's idiosyncrasy, which is 
 the more remarkable that they are evidently sincere. 
 
 Artist. Anyhow they are not impudent like 
 Victor Hugo's.
 
 Book Illustration. 309 
 
 CRITIC. 'Impudent' is a strong word. Victor 
 Hugo's drawings are violent ; they express at the 
 same time an energetic and a wain disposition, but 
 there is in them no false pretension to artistic refine- 
 ment. They arc a savage utterance, partly made in 
 fun, like the thumping on the piano of some vigorous 
 but uncultivated amateur who has a rude notion of 
 music, and who turns round and laughs at his own 
 performance. There is a sort of grim humour and a 
 real turn for the grotesque in Victor Hugo's drawings. 
 They show one side of his mind. 
 
 Scientist. We seem in each case to arrive at 
 the same conclusion, namely, that when an author 
 illustrates himself he will do it very partially. 
 
 CRITIC. Quite as partially and imperfectly as 
 an} r other artist. There is no practical advantage 
 in illustrating one's own works, beyond a certain 
 convenience. A critic likes to see drawings by an 
 author just as he likes to read writings by an artist, 
 because they may gratify his curiosity by revealing 
 another side of a mind that interests him, but that 
 is all. 
 
 Scientist. If a novelist illustrated his own 
 novels we should at least get an idea of the outward 
 appearance of the people that he imagined. We 
 might sec his creations as he saw them in his mind's 
 eye. Xo other illustrator could give us that kind of 
 authenticity. 
 
 Critic. The seeker for this kind of revelation in
 
 310 Book Illustration. 
 
 Thackeray's drawings would generally come away 
 
 disappointed. He would feel that the character in the 
 
 drawing was poorer and more vapid than the character 
 
 in the text. Frederick Walker's illustrations to 
 
 ' Philip ' are more satisfactory, because more living 
 
 than those which Thackeray began to make. It is 
 
 difficult to believe that he would have given us a 
 
 better Colonel Newcome than Doyle's. Yet Doyle, 
 
 as a draughtsman, was not to be compared for one 
 
 moment with such a consummate artist as Charles 
 
 Keene, for example. Had Thackeray possessed the 
 
 technical and artistic knowledge of Keene, he would 
 
 have held in his hand an instrument as good as his 
 
 pen, and we should have seen his characters as he 
 
 conceived them. I cannot believe that Thackeray was 
 
 able to realise his own conceptions in drawing, 
 
 indeed, there is distinct evidence in one of his letters 
 
 that he knew his own weakness as a draughtsman — 
 
 at least in some degree. He thought that he had not 
 
 the knack of giving lively touches. In reality the 
 
 drawings were weak throughout, and no mere touches 
 
 could have strengthened them. 
 
 POET. Then your conclusion is that authors do 
 better not to illustrate their own works. 
 
 CRITIC. I think the rivalry we have been speaking 
 of as existing between literature and art displays 
 itself in a peculiar way when the author is his own 
 illustrator, and it is more prudent to follow Rossetti's 
 example than Thackeray's. This refers, however,
 
 Book Ilhistration. 311 
 
 chiefly to imaginative literature. When matters of 
 fact are in question an author may give useful illus- 
 trations. Utility is worth considering, but it lies 
 outside of the subject of our present conversation. 
 We may talk about it another time. 
 
 CONVERSATION II. 
 
 Utility. 
 
 Critic. The last time we met, we talked about 
 nothing but the rivalry between the literary and 
 artistic elements in illustrated books. There is an- 
 other side to the question, which is, the utility of 
 illustration. 
 
 Poet. Then we must leave out the illustration 
 of imaginative literature altogether, for, most as- 
 suredly, there can be no sort of utility in obtruding 
 drawings on a reader who is occupied with the con- 
 ceptions of a poet or a novelist. It is as much an 
 interruption as if you offered him cakes and apples. 
 
 Artist. Not quite, surely ; for the cakes and 
 apples would have nothing to do with the story. 
 
 POET. They would, at any rate, not pervert the 
 author's conceptions by substituting others. I see 
 no possible utility in turning great imaginative works 
 into picture-books. 
 
 SCIENTIST. There is this possible utility — that
 
 J 
 
 1 2 Book Illustration. 
 
 inertness of imagination in the reader may be helped 
 by the clearer conceptions of the illustrator. 
 
 POET. They are not the author's conceptions, 
 and that condemns illustration without appeal. 
 
 Scientist. I cannot agree with you, because, in 
 any case, the reader's conceptions are no more those 
 of the author than the illustrator's. It is quite a 
 mistake to suppose that when you read ' The New- 
 comes,' you see in your mind's eye exactly the Colonel 
 Newcome that Thackeray saw. Doyle's conception 
 of the Colonel is not Thackeray's cither ; but it may 
 be more vivid and more consistent than your own. 
 
 Artist. There is something to be said, too, on 
 the side of study. The illustration of a book re- 
 quires a great deal of severe mental application. 
 The artist reads carefully with a special object in 
 view, which is to invent the most appropriate visible 
 personages. Even if he sometimes fails in this, there 
 is one point on which he is always likely to give 
 useful assistance, and that is, the true representation 
 of costume and surroundings. Nobody without the 
 help of an artist will imagine those correctly for any 
 age except just his own ; and even in his own time 
 he will hardly go back more than two or three years. 
 As an artist, I am accustomed to these things, and 
 have made a special study of them ; but when I had 
 lately occasion to examine a boxful of photographs, 
 representing my relations and some other friends in 
 their costumes of thirty years ago, I could scarcely
 
 Book Illustration. 3 1 3 
 
 believe that they had ever dressed like that. An 
 author cannot be constantly describing costume, if 
 he did his books would read like the newspaper 
 accounts of levees and drawing - rooms ; but a 
 draughtsman can be continually describing dress, 
 furniture, architecture — in short, everything that is 
 visible — without making himself wearisome in the 
 least. 
 
 Scientist. You might add that an illustrator 
 can give a very clear idea of the landscape of a 
 particular country in which the scene of the poem 
 may be laid. I remember a very good instance of 
 that in Birket Foster's illustrations to Scott's prin- 
 cipal narrative poems. 
 
 POET. The artists — or, at least, the landscape 
 men — seemed to go about the country to hunt for 
 local illustrations on the ' Land of Burns ' principle. 
 It is what I should call guide-book illustration of 
 poetry. 
 
 CRITIC. That is not original. The word 'guide- 
 book ' was applied by Emerson to Scott's own work. 
 He said, ' What did Walter Scott write without 
 stint? a rhymed travellers' guide to Scotland.' If the 
 poems are only a guide-book, it is natural that the 
 illustrations to them should have the same character. 
 Emerson's sneer, like most sneers, was a misrepre- 
 ntation. Scott's love for locality made him localise 
 the scenes of his poems, and this led tourists to visit 
 the places mentioned by him. Wordsworth did
 
 3*4 Book Illustration. 
 
 exactly the same, so did Burns ; and some travellers 
 have even visited the ugly part of Spain that is 
 associated with Don Quixote. 
 
 POET. I did not remember Emerson's hit, and 
 did not intend to apply the word ' guide-book ' to 
 Scott's poems, which I fully appreciate. I was 
 speaking of illustrations only, such as those by Birket 
 Foster. 
 
 Critic. Very well ; I will answer you on that 
 ground. It would be a detestable practice (I have 
 an impression that the thing has been done) to 
 illustrate a poem with photographs taken directly 
 from nature, because they would be so rigidly and 
 topographically truthful ; but in the case of Birket 
 Foster, although he has more taste and judgment 
 than imagination, there was much artistic skill and 
 invention in the vignette arrangement of natural 
 subjects — quite enough to lift his vignettes far above 
 the level of simple photography. I see no discre- 
 pancy between them and the poetry they illustrate 
 so far as the landscape is concerned, and as to the 
 character of the border country in the illustrations to 
 ' The Lay of the Last Minstrel,' and to that of the 
 lake country in 'The Lady of the Lake,' we cer- 
 tainly get it far better in woodcuts of this kind than 
 in ideal creations. 
 
 Poet. You admit, however, that Birket Foster 
 was of use only in illustrating the local element in 
 Scott. Now, for my part, I cannot think that the
 
 Book Illustration. 3 1 5 
 
 love of locality in Scott, or in Wordsworth either, was 
 a eood thing; for their art. It enchained both of 
 them. Poetry should not live in the world that you 
 can survey from the top of a coach, but in a sort of 
 no man's land that you cannot find on the maps. 
 The fabled region of Lyonesse gains immensely from 
 the absence of any geographical situation. Only 
 fancy how disastrous the poetic loss would be if it 
 were determined that Lyonesse meant the neigh- 
 bourhood of Lyons, in France ! 
 
 SCIENTIST. That is a question outside of the 
 subject which occupies us. It is for poets to decide 
 whether they will mention real places or not. When 
 they have mentioned them it is natural that the 
 illustrator should draw them, though I can under- 
 stand that he would put himself in the wrong, by 
 creating a discrepancy between his work and the 
 poet's, if he drew them very prosaically. 
 
 Critic. Poets mention places out of affection, 
 and this affection is in itself a poetic because a 
 pathetic feeling. There is no sign that the habit will 
 be entirely abandoned. Matthew Arnold's ' Thyrsis,' 
 mentions ' the two Hinkseys,' in the second line, and 
 the second stanza begins : — 
 
 ' Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth farm, 
 Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns 
 
 The hill, behind whose ridge the sunset flames ? 
 The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, 
 
 The Vale, the three lone wears, the youthful Thames !'
 
 o 
 
 1 6 Book Illustration. 
 
 Later in the poem we find references to Cumnor, 
 Fyfield, Ensham, and Sandford, all affectionately- 
 mentioned by name, because the writer's friendship 
 for Clough had been associated with these places. 
 Now, suppose that an artist were set to illustrate this 
 poem, would it not be natural and right that he 
 should sketch them ? If the poet thought them 
 worthy of mention, the artist might fairly conclude 
 that they deserved a sketch. In the case of Cowper, 
 who led a narrow, retired life, very intimately asso- 
 ciated with one locality, Birket Foster threw an 
 additional light upon the poetry by showing us the 
 quiet English scenery in which the writer took his 
 daily walks, and where he found much of his 
 inspiration. 
 
 POET. I think it may be admitted that if a 
 poet mentions places, an artist makes himself useful 
 in illustrating them, provided he avoids the great 
 danger of making the illustrations themselves pro- 
 saic. When, however, the poem is outside of locality, 
 like Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' it is not so easy to 
 see the utility of the illustrator. 
 
 Critic. He can only be useful in such a case 
 when his imagination raises that of the reader to 
 a higher plane than that which he would have 
 naturally reached without assistance. It follows, 
 therefore, by a rigorous deduction, that works of 
 high imagination can only be illustrated by very 
 imaginative men, and then we meet at once with
 
 Book Illustration. 3 1 7 
 
 the objection that men of that calibre arc likely 
 to substitute themselves for the poet. 
 
 SCIENTIST. I wonder what Milton would have 
 thought of Turner's illustrations to ' Paradise Lost.'' 
 
 CRITIC. The probability is that he would not 
 have understood them. But to descend to humbler 
 authors and more recent times ; we have evidence 
 that some of our contemporaries looked upon their 
 illustrators with a kindly eye, and even with senti- 
 ments of gratitude. 
 
 POET. That is truly surprising. Could you 
 mention instances ? 
 
 Critic. Yes, here are two or three. Anthony 
 Trollope was extremely pleased with Millais' illus- 
 trations to his novels. He said he did not think 
 that more conscientious work was ever done by 
 man. He particularly insisted upon the pains that 
 Millais took to study the works he had to illustrate. 
 This is very interesting testimony. I can add an- 
 other to it, not less interesting. George Eliot was 
 pleased with Leighton's illustrations to ' Romola,' 
 which she praised to myself for the closeness with 
 which they followed her own work, and the char- 
 acteristics of old Florence. I remember she par- 
 ticularly praised Leighton's conception of Tito, amd 
 it was easy to see from her way of mentioning' 
 Tito that the character was one of her favourite 
 creations. We may add a third well-known novelist 
 to the number of those who have been pleased with.
 
 ii8 Book Illustration. 
 
 j 
 
 their illustrators. Dickens, in one of his prefaces, 
 says of Seymour, who made the first drawing of 
 ' the Pickwick Club,' that his happy portrait of Mr. 
 Pickwick might be said to have made him a reality. 
 I think I remember, too, that Thackeray praised 
 Frederick Walker as an illustrator, and certainly 
 he showed a deference to his talent by calling him 
 in, or consenting to his being called in, to continue 
 the illustration of ' Philip,' which the author himself 
 had already begun. 
 
 Artist. There may, then, be something like 
 gratitude on the part of an author to the artist 
 who gives labour and talent to the illustration of 
 his works. This is consolatory, for there is no 
 harder toil than the illustration of a novel, and if 
 the author is still living, one is anxious that he 
 should be satisfied. It is much more convenient to 
 illustrate a dead author. 
 
 Scientist. The kind of art to be selected for 
 the illustration of a story may be found by simple 
 reasoning, but there must often be a difficulty about 
 finding the man. Not that there is any lack of 
 talent amongst artists, but the difficulty must be 
 to find an idiosyncrasy answering nearly enough 
 to that of the writer. The artist may be in sym- 
 pathy with some of the author's moods, but not 
 with all. Considering how rarely human idiosyn- 
 crasies coincide, and how especially rare it is for 
 men of talent and originality to think and feel alike
 
 Book Illustration. 319 
 
 on more than a very few points, I should conclude 
 that the choice of an illustrator must be one of 
 the most perplexing difficulties in the business of 
 a publisher. 
 
 CRITIC. It is simplified very much by the prac- 
 tical consideration that as, after all, only certain 
 passages in a book are illustrated, the artist may 
 find points of contact sufficiently numerous for the 
 quantity of illustrations required. As a matter of 
 fact, authors are illustrated very partially. The 
 draughtsman does not accompany the author ; he 
 only joins him at different points along the road. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Now suppose a difference of idiosyn- 
 crasy of this kind. You have a humorous author 
 who occasionally passes into caricature, but who is. 
 not habitually a caricaturist in his writings. You 
 want, however, an amusing illustrator ; so you get 
 a caricaturist. He will illustrate some passages 
 quite in harmony with the text, but his drawings 
 will have a general aspect of caricature not in 
 general harmony with the other. There may be a 
 narrower idiosyncrasy in the illustrator than in the 
 author. If the artist had the broader of the two 
 idiosyncrasies, that would not matter, as he would 
 only employ a part of it on the particular task. 
 
 Critic. Your observations about caricature 
 might be supported by several examples. In former 
 days, when Dickens and Thackeray were publishing 
 their novels in numbers, the illustrations were always.
 
 320 Book Illustration. 
 
 caricatures, and Thackeray himself seems to have 
 had no other idea of illustration ; yet, though a 
 humorist, he did not go so far as that, habitually, in 
 his writings. Dickens was more of a caricaturist in 
 writing, and so, in his early Irish stories, was Charles 
 Lever ; still, they had not that persistency in carica- 
 ture which we find in illustrations to their books. 
 Hablot Browne's designs were clever according to 
 the taste of the day ; but on looking over them now 
 we find them very monotonous in their extravagance, 
 certainly more monotonous than the books that they 
 embellished. 
 
 POET. For my part, I dislike all professional 
 caricaturists and humorists : the people who set up 
 for being funny men, and who must be funny habitu- 
 ally and at all costs, whether their wit comes to them 
 or not. 
 
 Artist. Perhaps you do not appreciate humour? 
 
 POET. I beg your pardon. I am under the im- 
 pression that I appreciate it more than the profes- 
 sional jesters do. It is the salt of human existence, 
 just as the sweetest and tenderest affections are the 
 honey of it. But we do not want either all salt or all 
 honey. I can imagine a state of society vulgar 
 enough to be unable to enjoy any literature but 
 funny novels and newspapers ; a society in which 
 some American humorist would be at the head of 
 literature, and some comic French draughtsman at 
 the head of art.
 
 Book Illustration. %2\ 
 
 3- 
 
 CRITIC. Millais and Walker improved the illus- 
 tration of novels because they were men of serious 
 genius, with a faculty for gentle humour and satire 
 besides. Very few professional humorists have ever 
 excelled that scene between Lady Lufton and the 
 Duke of Omnium in Millais' illustrations to ' Framley 
 Parsonage.' There is no caricature in it whatever, 
 but the very sobriety of the artist, like the reticence 
 of well-bred people, adds piquancy to the humour of 
 the scene. The same may be said of the refined 
 comedy in the pictures of the elder Leslie. 
 
 SCIENTIST. We seem to have arrived at a prac- 
 tical kind of conclusion, which is, that novels should 
 not be illustrated on the principle of the caricaturist, 
 but in a manner free enough to admit either serious 
 or humorous treatment. We may also consider it 
 settled that illustrations of novels may have a certain 
 utility, since the authors themselves sometimes feel 
 grateful to their illustrators. 
 
 Critic. It seems to me that we have now 
 almost exhausted the subject of utility in the illus- 
 tration of imaginative literature. If you do not 
 think it too presumptuous, I feel disposed to lay 
 down a sort of rule or law about the utility of 
 illustration. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Let us hear it. There is nothing 
 like proposing laws, because the mere discussion of 
 them clears up a subject so wonderfully. 
 
 Critic. Well, my law is this: — The utility of 
 
 Y
 
 322 Book Illustration. 
 
 illustration increases with the preponderance of the 
 positive element in the subject. 
 
 Scientist. You mean that in proportion as a 
 work of literature assumes a scientific character the 
 utility of illustration becomes more and more evident. 
 
 Critic. Exactly ; and I will give you an in- 
 stance. In my opinion, the use of illustrating 
 Gulliver's Travels is very questionable — I would 
 rather read an edition without engravings — and so it 
 is with Robinson Crusoe. But when we come to real 
 travels, such as those of Baker, illustrations become 
 truly precious ; and it seems to me infinitely regret- 
 table that Mr. Palgrave had not opportunities for 
 sketching during his exploration of the heart of 
 Arabia. Here is another example. Suppose that a 
 poet writes about a flower, as Wordsworth and 
 Shelley have done, an illustrator will give us a 
 drawing of the flower, very likely to be inaccurate, 
 but whether accurate or not it is superfluous. On 
 the contrary, when a botanist describes a flower, a 
 good scientific drawing of it is the best and most 
 valuable help that the student can desire. 
 
 SCIENTIST. In confirmation of your opinion it 
 may be noticed that the illustration of scientific 
 literature is often much more complete than that of 
 imaginative literature. For example, here is Ben- 
 tham's ' British Flora,' in which every plant is drawn, 
 but you never meet with a poem in which every 
 scene and personage is illustrated.
 
 Book Illustration. 323 
 
 POET. So much the better for the artists, as it is 
 said that they do not read the books they illustrate. 
 
 ARTIST. There is no necessity for reading the 
 whole of the ' Faery Queene ' in order to make draw- 
 ings of a few incidents. 
 
 CRITIC. Certainly not, for it contains a quantity 
 of stories that arc very much isolated, quite enough 
 to be taken separately, and some of them afford 
 capital pretexts for pictures — I mean not only for 
 illustrations but for paintings. The instance of Bel- 
 phebe and the dove is a case in point. It gives a 
 painter an excuse that he would not have had other- 
 wise for painting a dove with a ruby hanging from 
 her neck. This makes the bird more interesting, and, 
 besides, the ruby is pretty as a bit of colour and 
 ornament. Then the action of Belphebe in following 
 the dove is entirely due to the poet. A painter would 
 not have made her do this because he would not have 
 been able to account for the action. Since the poet 
 explains it for him, he is at liberty to adopt the sub- 
 ject, which is charming. It would be very unreason- 
 able to argue that because a painter takes Belphebe 
 for a subject he ought to have read about Calcpinc 
 and the ' salvage man.' Who has read all ' The 
 Faery Oucene ?' Possibly there may be some proof- 
 corrector who has done so. Nobody else reads the 
 poem through, but everyone who appreciates English 
 poetry has wandered about in it as we wander in a 
 tract of country that is rich in beauty and interest
 
 324 Book Illustration. 
 
 The case is much the same with Ariosto. As for 
 anything approaching to a complete illustration of 
 either Spenser or Ariosto, it would be overwhelming ; 
 the pictorial subjects are so numerous. 
 
 POET. What you have just been saying only 
 proves the more clearly the unnecessary character of 
 illustrations to poems. For if it is true, as you say, 
 that only a few subjects out of many are illustrated, 
 those which the artist passes by have to do without 
 illustrations altogether ; and if they can do without it 
 so may the others. 
 
 SCIENTIST. That argument is certainly incontro- 
 vertible. When a publisher announces an illustrated 
 ' Faery Queene,' the poem is not illustrated as a 
 whole, but only a few passages. Illustration does not 
 permeate the whole work as a dye stains water ; it 
 only touches it here and there. 
 
 Critic. I think we may conclude here our ex- 
 amination of these questions as concerning imaginative 
 literature ; and we may do this the more readily that 
 it is really the most unsatisfactory part of our subject, 
 although at first sight it appears the most attractive. 
 
 Artist. There is only one thing I should like 
 to say. It has been thought by some painters that 
 their art ought to be entirely independent of litera- 
 ture ; and it certainly might be so, for there are 
 endless subjects in nature. If I were a writer besides 
 being what I am, a painter, my own disposition would 
 naturally lead me to keep the two arts distinct, each
 
 Book Illustration. 325 
 
 to its own work. I cannot see that painting gains 
 much from literature except the convenience of 
 representing fictitious incidents that have been 
 made generally known by means of popular books. 
 Of course, the more popular a book is the better 
 it is adapted for such a use. That is why the ' Vicar 
 of Wakefield ' has been so frequently resorted to by 
 painters. Still, the 'fine arts' could do without 
 Moses and the gross of green spectacles, the proof of 
 which is that great schools of painting flourished 
 before the days of Goldsmith. 
 
 Scientist. Well, we have done with imagin- 
 ative literature as a subject for illustration ; now 
 let us turn to something more matter-of-fact. What 
 about the illustration of history ? 
 
 CRITIC. Here I should feel inclined to exclude 
 composed pictures of historical events that the artist 
 could not witness, and for which he had insufficient 
 materials. They arc, I think, worse than useless, unless 
 it be as models of artistic composition, and that is a 
 subject not concerning the historical student. Such a 
 student is not likely to get the least good out of a clever 
 arrangement of excited horses and idashing cavaliers 
 neither is there any use in purely imaginary portraits' 
 
 ARTIST. So severe a doctrine as that would 
 exclude almost all religious art, which is historical 
 in a certain degree, but is without personal data. 
 We do not possess any evidence whatever about the 
 faces of the persons mentioned in either the Old or
 
 326 Book Illustration. 
 
 the New Testament. Would you go so far as to say- 
 that illustrations of sacred history are useless ? 
 
 Critic. I was speaking from the point of view 
 of a modern critic who can have no illusions. 
 Religious illustrations may be of use in a simple 
 state of society. We know that religious pictures 
 are of immense importance in the Greek Church, 
 which has to do with a vast and ignorant peasant 
 population. As knowledge increases, that use of 
 the religious picture diminishes. We find pictures 
 and other images of great use in the Church of 
 Rome, but they have not that religious sanctity ' 
 and importance which they retain in the Greek 
 Church. The reason evidently is that the Church 
 of Rome has to deal with populations of a higher 
 grade in civilisation. Then we come to the Church 
 of England, in which pictures are confined to the 
 figures in painted windows and to a very few mural 
 paintings and altar-pieces. Again, whilst illustrated 
 and decorated missals are extremely common, illus- 
 trated prayer-books are comparatively rare. Now, 
 please observe that the Church of England has to 
 deal with a population that is better educated than 
 most of those which are under the spiritual authority 
 of the Vatican. 
 
 Artist. Do you mean to imply that the better 
 a population is educated the less it will value and 
 appreciate art? 
 
 Critic. Not in the least, but I do mean to
 
 Book Illustration. 327 
 
 say that the peculiar simplicity of mind that makes 
 religious pictures credible belongs essentially to an 
 early state of civilisation. 
 
 Artist. How does it happen, then, that such re- 
 ligious pictures as those of Titian, Raphael, and Paul 
 Veronese, which are as much illustrations of the Bible 
 as if they were bound up in the book itself, are still so 
 highly valued that they occupy the most important 
 places in the public galleries of Europe ? 
 
 CRITIC. That proves nothing in favour of their 
 utility as illustrations of history. Nobody believes 
 in their historical value, and if they had great 
 religious value they would be in churches or other 
 religious institutions. They are now valued purely 
 and simply for artistic merits, such as colour 
 drawing, composition, grace of attitude, fine arrange- 
 ments of drapery, and so on. 
 
 Artist. Well, you will admit that modern re- 
 ligious painting may be of use when the artist does 
 everything in his power to be truthful, even down 
 to the smallest accessory ? 
 
 CRITIC. I am aware that this kind of art claims 
 to be a truthful representation of the scenes as they 
 occurred, but it can only be so when abundant 
 documents are accessible. In the case of sacred 
 history these arc wanting where most needed — that 
 is, in the physical appearance of the personages. 
 Some archaeological details may be given, but what 
 are these ? Pure idealism would be quite as satis-
 
 328 Book Illustration. 
 
 factory. At least, ideal pictures may be complete in 
 their own way ; whereas this pretended truthful art is 
 incomplete, for it lacks what is most essential — the 
 human beings. It is as unsatisfactory as would be 
 a portrait -gallery of one's deceased ancestors done 
 from living models in London. 
 
 Artist. Then what should you consider to be 
 valuable as illustrations of history ? 
 
 CRITIC. Portraits of distinguished men from au- 
 thentic sources ; careful topographic drawings of 
 localities without artistic arrangements ; accurate 
 archaeological representations of architecture, cos- 
 tume, furniture, and, in short, of all the things that 
 surrounded the men who interest us, and who make 1 
 the whole past life of humanity attractive. 
 
 ARTIST. Your list of useful illustrations appears 
 to exclude what is essentially art, except in portrait, 
 where it might creep in. Your ' careful topographic 
 drawings of localities without artistic arrangements,' 
 and your ' accurate archaeological representations,' 
 are death to art by depriving the artist of his liberty. 
 In doing such work he would cease to be an artist 
 and become only a draughtsman. 
 
 Critic. All that is perfectly true ; and it only 
 confirms my theory that illustration becomes more 
 and more unquestionably useful as it abandons the 
 imaginative — and consequently the artistic — qualities 
 to move in the direction of science. Portraits from 
 life are scientific things in comparison with imaginary
 
 Book Illustration. 329 
 
 figures of saints and martyrs. Topographic landscapes 
 are scientific in comparison with those of Claude and 
 Titian; whilst accurate archaeological drawings are in 
 themselves purely scientific, however picturesque the 
 subjects of them may be. There never was any accu- 
 rate illustration of things in the pre-scientific ages. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Here, perhaps, you exaggerate, for 
 I have certainly seen accurate representations of 
 objects both in ancient and in mediaeval drawing. 
 I should say that the worst enemy of accuracy has 
 been the search for the picturesque, and that did not 
 come till later. 
 
 Critic. I ought rather to have said that the 
 accuracy of drawing in the pre-scientific ages was of 
 a very irregular character. The draughtsmen were 
 sometimes accurate and sometimes not ; and there- 
 fore not to be relied upon without first subjecting 
 their work to careful analysis and criticism of a 
 kind that requires a practised eye and a trained 
 judgment. The modern picturesque, as you per- 
 ceive, has been a terrible enemy of accurate drawing. 
 Many things are not at all picturesque when cor- 
 rectly drawn, yet they can be made to look so 
 by altering their character. The extent to which 
 this is done can only be appreciated by knowing 
 intimately some place that picturesque artists fre- 
 quent, and then observing how they deal with 
 the severer tilings in it. We may, therefore, add 
 the pursuit of the picturesque, which is essentially
 
 330 Book Illustration. 
 
 modern, to the other enemies of the useful in 
 illustration. 
 
 CONVERSATION III. 
 
 Utility (continued). 
 
 SCIENTIST. There are one or two points in our 
 previous conversation that I should like to refer to a 
 second time. One of them concerns the utility of 
 illustrations to books of travel. It must happen 
 rarely that the traveller himself is able to draw from 
 nature in such a manner as to make satisfactory 
 illustrations in a book. On the other hand, if the 
 traveller's sketches are not accurately copied, there 
 must be a diminution of their authenticity. 
 
 Artist. In most cases it would be impossible to 
 publish the originals, which are generally very poor 
 amateur work. They may, however, be useful as 
 data, and from the facts they supply an experienced 
 draughtsman may make up presentable drawings on 
 wood that can be engraved by the ordinary wood- 
 cutters. The existing scenes of battles with savages 
 or huntings of wild beasts are got up in this way. 
 
 SCIENTIST. One can hardly think that it is the 
 best way, as the drawings arc made by men who have 
 never seen the countries visited by the traveller. 
 
 Artist. If you could see the bad original sketches 
 you would admit that the drawings are nearer to the
 
 Book Illustration. x x i 
 
 truth of nature. I have never seen a horde of naked 
 savages, but I could draw them far better than a 
 naval officer could, although the sight might be 
 familiar to him. He could not draw one savage pro- 
 perly, even if the negro posed for him, not to speak 
 of drawing complicated groups of savages in violent 
 action and from memory. 
 
 CRITIC. I think we must admit, that when materials 
 collected by amateurs have to be used there is no 
 way out of the difficulty but that of getting some 
 artist to make them up, unless the public were suffi- 
 ciently indulgent to tolerate bad art for the sake of 
 authenticity, which it is not. The public is curiously 
 severe in requiring artistic qualities of some sort and 
 excessively sharp in detecting the peculiar unskilful- 
 ness of the amateur. It will tolerate almost any 
 violation of fact in an accomplished artist and see at 
 once that the artist is accomplished, but it will only 
 laugh at poor work, though the poor work may be 
 full of valuable information. In a word, the public 
 judges of all drawings very much from an artistic 
 point of view. It looks for talent and it cares for 
 very little else. 
 
 SCIENTIST. The taste of the public has been edu- 
 cated by great artists whose work is charming, and 
 when the charm is absent the mere interest of inform- 
 ation is not enough. In this I am not one of the 
 public. I would rather see the original designs of 
 the traveller himself, however defective.
 
 *■> n o 
 
 jCW/' Illustration. 
 
 ARTIST. He might show you them in private, but 
 could hardly publish them. There are cases, how- 
 ever, when a real artist accompanies an expedition, 
 and then he may make sketches with the pen to be 
 reproduced by one of the processes that admit of 
 printing from type. In this way the reader gets the 
 impressions at first-hand. 
 
 Critic. Genuine sketches are now so much better 
 understood than they used to be that they can be safely 
 published, if good of their kind — even when very 
 slight. Twenty or thirty years ago a sketch was only 
 understood by the few who really study the fine arts. 
 
 Scientist. The way seems to be clearing itself 
 before us. In the case of travels the traveller may be 
 an amateur, and if so, his memoranda must be used 
 as materials by an artist who ought to retain as much 
 fidelity to fact as possible. Or the traveller may be 
 accompanied by an artist who sees with his own eyes 
 and selects what he wants from nature. This is evi- 
 dently the best way, and such a system of illustration 
 is carried to the utmost degree of satisfactoriness when 
 the artist's sketches are reproduced directly for publi- 
 cation. But to make this system all that it ought to 
 be, I cannot conceal the opinion, which may sound 
 heretical, that the artist should incline towards 
 science or sober truth in his preferences, rather than 
 to the beautiful or the picturesque. 
 
 ARTIST. Why not resort to instantaneous photo- 
 graphy at once ?
 
 Book Illustration. 233 
 
 CRITIC. The only practical objection to the photo- 
 graph, considered as a means of obtaining useful 
 illustrations, is that it does not detach one thing from 
 another as a skilful artist can. The artist can take 
 what the reader wants, and that only, and he can 
 make the needed facts very plain and intelligible, 
 whilst in a photograph they may be entangled with 
 many other details that are not wanted. The traveller 
 largely uses this power of selection in writing an ac- 
 count of what he has seen and done, so the illustra- 
 tions of an artist are better in harmony with his work 
 than the photograph can ever be. In fact, a pure 
 photograph from nature is out of place in any book 
 whatever. 
 
 SCIENTIST. You may perhaps be able to cast a 
 new light for me on the subject of scientific illustration. 
 It is one that I have thought about for myself, but 
 not without perplexity. 
 
 Critic. Well, with regard to science, I should 
 say that you require truth of fact more than truth of 
 appearance ; though of course it might be argued, 
 plainly enough, that truth of appearance is as much 
 scientific, in the comprehensive sense of the word, as 
 any other. There is, however, a sound reason for my 
 opinion ; which is, that the truths of appearance very 
 frequently conceal facts of a kind more important to 
 science. I may give one very obvious instance. The 
 forms of mountains are often partially concealed by 
 clouds and made to appear different from what they
 
 334 Book Illustration. 
 
 really are by effects of light and atmosphere. I 
 should say that a geological draughtsman would 
 rightly ignore these effects, though an artist would 
 give them all his attention. One might go further, 
 and argue that even in the commonest daylight the 
 appearance of a mountain does not show its geology 
 •so plainly as a scientific draughtsman might find to 
 be desirable. 
 
 Artist. I see. You would allow the scientific 
 illustrator to draw more distinctly than Nature her- 
 self. That is one of the greatest faults an artist can 
 be guilty of. It is a common fault of the inex- 
 perienced, who state the little they know as emphatic- 
 ally as possible. 
 
 CRITIC. We are trying just now to see where 
 artistic and scientific drawing diverge ; and I think it 
 is plain that we may allow a greater distinctness to 
 Science, even an unnatural distinctness, because 
 'Science is analytic and studies one order of truth at 
 once. 
 
 Artist. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
 scientific illustrations are trite. The mountains, for 
 instance, in geological books are often badly drawn, 
 and when the draughtsman attempts effect and tries 
 to shade, his shading is heavy and amateurish. 
 
 Scientist. No doubt if an artist worked for truth, 
 his greater manual skill, acquired by constant practice, 
 would give him an immense advantage. What is 
 needed for good scientific illustration is the manual
 
 Book Illustration. 335 
 
 skill of an artist employed for the purposes of science, 
 and this is difficult to obtain. Few men of science 
 are really accomplished draughtsmen, even archaeo- 
 logists are often quite unable to draw. 
 
 Critic. To get first-rate scientific illustrations 
 you require to establish a more conciliatory spirit 
 than that which has usually existed between artists 
 and men of science. Artists are needed for the work, 
 but they ought to know enough of science to enter 
 without feelings of repugnance into the necessities of 
 the case. 
 
 Scientist. It may clear up the subject to men- 
 tion a particular instance. I never knew any artistic 
 representation of foreground plants so true as Fitch's 
 illustrations to Bentham's ' British Flora.' 
 
 Critic. As I happen to possess the book, I 
 should like to know the artist's opinion on that point. 
 I have my own, but would rather reserve it for the 
 present. 
 
 ARTIST (examining one of the volumes). Oh ! I 
 see ; hard outlines, and that sort of thing. Work 
 done on the principles of a child's elementary 
 drawing. 
 
 SCIENTIST. I can only say that such work is of 
 great practical use. It is very accurate, and tells 
 more about the facts of structure than any artistic 
 drawing ever does. 
 
 ARTIST. You mean, I suppose, that it gives 
 botanical information. We care very little about
 
 336 Book Illustration. 
 
 botanical information, especially when, as in this 
 instance, it is given at the cost of truth of a higher 
 kind. For example, when the stem of a plant is 
 hairy, Mr. Fitch draws the hairs to make you see that 
 they are there, but he draws them out of all propor- 
 tion. He marks one hair out of fifty, and draws it on 
 a hugely exaggerated scale. The real hairs of the 
 plant would be invisible at that distance, and the only 
 effect of their presence, like that of the down on a 
 woman's arm, would be to produce a certain softness 
 that might be rendered in painting, but not at all in 
 linear drawing. Besides that, he draws things all on 
 one plane, and with equal distinctness. His outlines 
 are as hard as nails. 
 
 CRITIC. All that is true, but it need not be stated 
 with any severity, as Mr. Fitch may have been no less 
 clearly aware than we ourselves are of what consti- 
 tutes visual truth in a drawing. But Mr. Fitch's 
 business, in illustrating a botanical book, was simply 
 to give the facts that concerned botanists as lucidly 
 as possible. He did that most ably by linear work 
 with a very sparing use of shade, and he employed 
 shading only to explain shapes like the swelling of a 
 leaf or the rounding of a fruit. It is evident that the 
 clearness with which these illustrations convey the 
 scientific facts, is due in great part to the abstinence 
 of the artist from everything that could encumber his 
 work. Any greater degree of shading would have 
 hidden many clear but minute explanatory lines.
 
 Book Illustration. 337 
 
 For instance, the small tubercles are drawn when 
 they occur on carpels, and the lines of shading would 
 have effaced the tubercles on that scale. An artistic 
 drawing, done on the principle of visual truth, would 
 of course have omitted many of Mr. Fitch's hard out- 
 lines, yet they are of the greatest use in enabling us 
 to know what we want to know at the first glance, 
 without having to penetrate the mystery of artistic 
 drawing. Still, I should not condemn these illustra- 
 tions, even on the side of art. A necessary conven- 
 tionalism is admitted, but there is no real ignorance. 
 The exaggeration of the hairs is not ignorant ; it is 
 only the designer's way of stating the fact that the 
 stem is hairy, and the absence of hairs in his drawing 
 informs us with equal clearness that the stem is 
 glabrous. 
 
 Artist. I see you have another book which 
 pleases me infinitely better. It is ' The Wild Garden/ 
 by Mr. W. Robinson, illustrated by Alfred Parsons. 
 These drawings are quite minutely accurate enough ; 
 in fact, some of them seem to me quite as accurate in 
 structural details as those of Mr. Fitch. Here is one, 
 representing the slender stems and scattered leaves 
 and flowers of the ' Giant Scabious.' It seems very 
 delicately true. But what I particularly like about 
 these drawings is that they convey so very perfectly 
 the impression of life. These are not plants in an 
 herbarium, or scientific facts about plants, but plants 
 as they live and grow. 
 
 z
 
 33§ Book Illustration. 
 
 Scientist. Certainly these woodcuts are remark- 
 able for a rare degree of truth, and they are very 
 pretty at the same time ; still, for purposes of practical 
 study Mr. Fitch's illustrations are likely to be much 
 more useful. Mr. Parsons gives the idea of natural 
 richness and abundance, which of course cannot be 
 given by the detached specimens drawn by Mr. Fitch, 
 yet these specimens explain structure better. For 
 example, take the ' Yellow Corydal.' Mr. Parsons 
 shows how richly it may grow on a wall, and his 
 drawing explains that the flowers are in racemes, but 
 it does not and cannot show the peculiar way in which 
 the leaves are divided and cut into lobes. Mr. Fitch 
 explains this, and more besides, by his system of 
 drawing ; and he does it with less labour. 
 
 Critic. The question narrows itself simply to 
 this : Are different principles of illustration to be 
 admitted, or are we to be intolerant and admit only 
 one principle ? I should say that each book has its 
 own character, and that there is just one absolutely 
 best way of illustrating that book — one way and no 
 other. The wits of author and publisher can hardly 
 be better employed than in finding out what that one 
 best way is ; but other books require other kinds of 
 illustration, which may be almost infinitely various in 
 a library. Now, in the case of Bentham's ' British 
 Flora,' I think that the absolutely best kind of 
 illustration was hit upon because it gave the maxi- 
 mum of information with the minimum of labour, and
 
 Book Illustration. 339 
 
 therefore enabled the publishers to offer an illustra- 
 tion of every plant. The kind of illustration to ' The 
 Wild Garden ' was very well chosen also, as in that 
 work the object was not to give botanical details, but 
 to show how the wild plants grew in the garden. 
 Again, with reference to the geological books that 
 have been talked about, the absolutely best illustra- 
 tion is not attained when there is anything superfluous 
 about it, such as attempted landscape effect. This super- 
 fluity of labour is the more vexatious when the time 
 wasted upon it might have gone to the improvement 
 of the linear drawing. I believe it to be a very great 
 principle in illustration that the illustrator should 
 never exceed his duty. What is required of him ? 
 Let there be no confusion on this point. Is he to 
 give scientific information, or is he to give aesthetic 
 pleasure ? If information, what are the facts that 
 he is to inform us about ? These being decided, let 
 him detach them clearly from other facts and pre- 
 sent them in the most intelligible shape. 
 
 SCIENTIST. We have not said anything about 
 mechanical drawing, yet it is very useful in all 
 books about construction as made by men. It 
 cannot deal with natural structures, in which there 
 are neither straight lines nor simple curves ; but for 
 such arts as shipbuilding and architecture it is 
 invaluable. 
 
 Critic. The practical objection to mechanical 
 drawing is that it is not popularly intelligible. A
 
 34-0 Book Illustration. 
 
 very loose and inaccurate representation of a cathe- 
 dral or a ship may be quite safely presented to the 
 public, if it is done on artistic principles. You may 
 be sure, in that case, that it will be acceptable in 
 some way, though perhaps you do not know exactly 
 how ; but plans, sections, and elevations — though 
 incomparably more accurate and, to those who 
 understand them, more informing — convey no ideas 
 ivhatever to the unprepared mind. 
 
 SCIENTIST. That is very curious, as, in fact, a 
 mechanical drawing is far simpler and more primi- 
 tive than an artistic one. To my mind there is 
 nothing so satisfactory, whenever any human struc- 
 ture is concerned, as the three aspects of it given in 
 plan, section, and elevation. 
 
 Critic. I believe that is the case with all of 
 us who understand construction. We feel that we 
 do not thoroughly know even those buildings that 
 we have seen, until we have studied architectural 
 drawings of them. I knew a certain cathedral, as I 
 fancied, very intimately ; but when an architect 
 afterwards showed me drawings of it done to scale, 
 they were a source of great additional enlighten- 
 ment. If you want to improve a boat, the right way 
 to set to work is to make a careful mechanical 
 drawing of your boat exactly as it is, and then 
 design your improvements. The wrong way is to 
 look only at the real boat and imagine the improve- 
 ments, without the help of a mechanical drawing. I
 
 Book Illustration. 341 
 
 remember being called in to the assistance of a friend 
 who was not satisfied with his garden, which he had 
 laid out himself. It was a large garden on beauti- 
 fully varied ground. I found he had never made a 
 plan on paper ; so I made one, to scale, of the 
 garden as he had created it, and he saw at once five 
 or six great faults that we easily corrected. The 
 plan of an estate always surprises us at first sight, 
 even when we know the property intimately ; which 
 is good evidence that we do not see the reality as it 
 is without the help of a drawing. 
 
 ARTIST. This, however, can have little to do 
 with book-illustration ; as you would not put me- 
 chanical drawings into any books except scientific 
 treatises. 
 
 CRITIC. I was thinking of books on architecture, 
 in which they arc quite necessary. This is an inter- 
 esting example of art and mechanical exactness 
 coming together ; for architecture is a fine art, and 
 yet architectural works are best represented by 
 mechanical drawing. 
 
 Artist. Perhaps the best of all representations 
 of architecture are not exactly mechanical drawings, 
 but sketches done by architects, with their precise 
 knowledge, from the buildings themselves, when 
 their beauty is brought out by a favourable effect 
 of light. 
 
 Critic. Such drawings are often both charming 
 and valuable ; but there is a great temptation in all
 
 34 2 Book Illustration. 
 
 picturesque representation whatever, even when the 
 draughtsman is an architect. The temptation is to 
 heighten the quality of picturesqueness, in order to 
 gain a certain charm, at the expense of accuracy. 
 Even old buildings have often very clear, sharp, and 
 straight lines when the stone is good ; but a pic- 
 turesque draughtsman dislikes the rigidity of these, 
 and makes them broken and irregular. No one has 
 a more kindly appreciation of the merits of the 
 Houses of Parliament as an edifice than Mr. Ernest 
 George. He says : ' The building has its faults, 
 more especially a superfluity of surface ornament, 
 causing a loss of breadth ; but the proportions, the 
 composition, and the details, are the work of an 
 artist, and the grouping of the towers is charming 
 from whatever point of view they are seen.' It 
 would be difficult to be more just, in a very few 
 words, to a work often treated unjustly ; but when 
 Mr. George came to draw the Victoria Tower in his 
 etching of Millbank, Westminster, the picturesque 
 draughtsman overruled the accuracy of the archi- 
 tect, causing him to disguise the sharpness and the 
 rigidly vertical character of line in that tower. His 
 etching is much more charming than a photograph, 
 and the charm is due to a certain looseness of treat- 
 ment, in itself eminently artistic. 
 
 Artist. Then would you prefer hard mechanical 
 drawings in books about architecture ? 
 
 Critic. Certainly, if my purpose were to study
 
 Book Illustration. 343 
 
 architecture ; but not if I wanted to enjoy the skill 
 and craft of the artist who made the drawing. 
 
 Poet. I should say that a great building has a 
 sort of soul, and that a mechanical drawing of it 
 could never give the faintest conception of its soul. 
 Even a photograph, though it shows the marks of 
 time and accident, and is so far pathetic, fails to 
 convey that. I doubt even if a picture can convey 
 it ; for certainly when we see a building for the first 
 time, we always receive the impression of great 
 freshness and novelty, although we may have seen it 
 repeatedly in pictures. Sir John Lubbock gives this 
 as a strong reason for travelling ; and mentions the 
 Pyramids as a good instance, because their form is so 
 simple and they have been well photographed. Never- 
 theless, he felt on seeing them that his previous im- 
 pression had been but a faint shadow of the reality. 
 
 Artist. As book-illustrations are in black and 
 white they fail, of course, to give one very powerful 
 element in real buildings, which is their colour. 
 
 CRITIC. This may be, to some extent, supplied 
 by the writer of the text if it is a treatise on 
 architecture or a book of travel. The colour of 
 St. Paul's Cathedral is a peculiar instance. When 
 washed with rain it is a very pale cold grey, almost 
 white, and where the soot has not been washed off 
 it is nearly black. This produces the oddest effect, 
 reminding one of nothing so much as bleached 
 bones contrasted with black earth. The front of
 
 344 Book Illustration. 
 
 Notre Dame is a mellow golden brown, rather like 
 the shell of a walnut. Melrose Abbey is red, 
 Holyrood is a cool grey. The colour of such a 
 building as St. Mark's at Venice cannot be described 
 in a word, but it might be in a sentence. I have 
 often seen old buildings completely spoiled, as to 
 their colour, by merely substituting a chilly slate roof 
 for warm old tiles. A painter would hesitate before 
 giving that because it might spoil his picture, but a 
 writer need not hesitate, it would not spoil his page. 
 
 SCIENTIST. The utility of illustration has never 
 been more completely demonstrated than in modern 
 illustrated dictionaries. A drawing of the object has 
 two great uses. It explains, the nature of the thing 
 and impresses it on the memory. It is curious how 
 very small an illustration suffices for the purpose. 
 In ' Webster's Dictionary ' the explanatory cuts vary 
 between half an inch and one inch square, and they 
 often contain more information about objects than 
 could be conveyed in several paragraphs of text. 
 
 Critic. Every one who has to do with workmen 
 knows the great utility of a drawing. If the workman 
 has learned to read drawings you can convey to his 
 mind the clearest and most accurate idea of things 
 that he has never seen, whilst verbal explanations 
 would only confuse him. I was travelling last year 
 on a boat and wanted a piece of ironwork to be made 
 at once in a little town where we stopped for a short 
 time. On going to the local locksmith I found he
 
 Book Illustration. 345 
 
 looked intelligent and asked if he understood 
 mechanical drawing. He said he did, so I drew 
 what was wanted and he made it without wasting 
 a minute in experiment or hesitation, yet he had 
 never seen such a thing before in his life, or 
 anything like it. A verbal explanation would have 
 been useless in this instance. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Such cases are encouraging, but my 
 own experience of workmen has often led me to 
 regret that they did not really understand drawing, 
 and I feel very strongly that it ought to be universally 
 taught, so far as it is necessary for the representation 
 and understanding of simple tangible forms. Have 
 you anything to say about elementary education in 
 drawing, with a view to mere utility? 
 
 ARTIST. I should think it would be a waste of 
 time to teach anything about effect. I see in the 
 illustrations of scientific treatises what appears to 
 me to be a great waste of labour in shading such 
 things as photographic apparatus, for example. The 
 shading must cost enormous labour, and it is always 
 quite wrong as to effect. Of course no artist could 
 shade in that manner, an artist would not have 
 that peculiar kind of manual precision ; but if he 
 had the skill he would never use it so. In most 
 cases, where the work was intended to be simply 
 explanatory, he could make the details of con- 
 struction evident and stop there. Shading of the 
 kind given in the scientific treatises must be useless.
 
 346 Book Illustration. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Not altogether. It may be false 
 in effect, but it often serves to make construction 
 plainer by showing the direction of the grain in 
 wood, for example, and by establishing a clear 
 distinction between one substance and another, 
 even though the representation of substances may 
 not be comparable to Mr. Alma Tadema's marbles 
 or to Jules Jacquemart's crystal and sardonyx. 
 
 CRITIC. Besides that, the bad mechanical shading 
 may be of great use in the explanation of forms. 
 At least it shows which are hollowed surfaces and 
 which are in relief. This distinction is valuable on 
 the side of utility. 
 
 Artist. I have not studied the class of en- 
 gravings we are talking about, but am willing to 
 suppose that there are reasons for the great labour 
 bestowed upon them. Perhaps it may be ex- 
 planatory, as you suggest, but in many cases I 
 should think it likely that the shading would 
 conceal minor details of some importance that 
 would be more plainly seen in an outline drawing. 
 In talking of botanical drawings, especially those 
 illustrations to Bentham's ' Flora,' by Mr. Fitch, we 
 seemed to be agreed on the point that it was an 
 advantage to clearness to give a minimum of 
 shading, and that only of a strictly explanatory 
 kind. If a cultivated artist were employed to 
 draw such things as photographic cameras, and 
 told that a clear statement of structure was of the
 
 Book Illustration. 347 
 
 greatest importance, he would use a little shading, 
 no doubt, but he would not be likely to shade his 
 work all over. I cannot help thinking that, even 
 for purely utilitarian purposes, there is a great deal 
 of labour wasted on the elaborate woodcuts we 
 find in scientific books ; and I am quite sure that, 
 so far as art is concerned, the greater part of it is 
 worthless, being done only by hand and eye with- 
 out using the mind. However, this is a matter 
 concerning science rather than art, as these woodcuts 
 are outside of the fine arts altogether. 
 
 SCIENTIST. I should be sorry to imply that artists 
 would be unable to draw scientific apparatus well if 
 they applied their minds to such a task, but I do 
 think it likely that the men who do the work habitu- 
 ally have got possession of certain methods that have 
 become traditional, and are, on the whole, practically 
 efficacious. Although their work seems very elabo- 
 rate, they are so clever at it that it is neither tedious 
 nor costly. 
 
 CRITIC. Such departments of the craft of en- 
 graving are nearly related to heraldic engraving, which 
 could not be done in its perfection as a craft by any 
 one whom we should consider an artist. In short, we 
 have begun by talking about poetry and the im- 
 aginative fine arts, and have gradually gone on to 
 considerations of utility, till at last we have quitted the 
 region of fine art and are now in that of highly skilled 
 handicraft. It is beyond our province to pursue this
 
 34-8 Book Illustration. 
 
 part of the subject further, but there are technical 
 considerations concerning the employment of the 
 genuine fine arts in book illustration that may be 
 worth inquiring into when we meet again. 
 
 CONVERSATION IV. 
 
 Technical Necessities. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Our last conversation ended by 
 approaching a purely technical part of the subject, 
 when our artistic friend blamed the elaborate 
 shading in the representation of scientific apparatus 
 as a waste of time and effort. He thought that a 
 simpler kind of drawing might answer the purpose 
 and would even in some respects be clearer. I 
 said that the kind of mechanical representation of 
 such things as photographic cameras which we are 
 accustomed to in scientific manuals is the result of 
 a tradition, and is not so long and laborious as it 
 appears to be, because the traditional methods of 
 work are a saving of time and thought. There is 
 no hesitation about such work. 
 
 ARTIST. Neither is there any original ob- 
 servation. It is the application of ascertained 
 methods requiring much manual skill and an ap- 
 prenticeship, but that is all. There is no evidence 
 in these woodcuts that the objects have been really
 
 Book Illustration. 349 
 
 seen in the artistic sense of seeing. As to the 
 technical work, it is outside of the judgment of an 
 artist because he would never draw in that manner; 
 indeed, an artist would not possess the necessary- 
 kind of skill, which is really very great. 
 
 Scientist. What have you to say about the 
 kinds of art employed in the higher departments 
 of book-illustration ? 
 
 ARTIST. I think there is one principle that 
 ought never to be lost sight of, yet it is often 
 neglected. That is, not to go beyond what is 
 wanted. An illustrator should know exactly what 
 is required and then keep to it. He should not 
 burden his work. 
 
 Scientist. In what way do you think that 
 work is generally ' burdened,' as you call it ? 
 
 Artist. In several different ways, but the 
 commonest is in uselessly elaborate shading. 
 
 Critic. You might add that shading is often 
 not only uselessly elaborate but false in its elabora- 
 tion, whilst if less were attempted it might remain 
 relatively true. Any attempt in the simpler arts to 
 rival the delicate distinction of tones which is attain- 
 able in the finest engraving must incur a great risk 
 — indeed, almost a certainty — of failure. If, in a 
 work attempting full tone, the tonic values are not 
 surely and delicately separated one from another 
 the thing goes out of tune, like bad violin-playing. 
 
 Artist. Yes, and so I have a dread of illustra-
 
 35° Book Illustration. 
 
 tions that attempt complete tone unless they are 
 by the hand of a master, indeed I ought to say 
 two masters, for they require an excellent designer 
 and an excellent engraver also. 
 
 POET. I cannot say that I exactly understand 
 what you mean by complete tone. It is a technical 
 expression that lies rather beyond me. 
 
 Artist. Our critic must explain that. I know 
 very well what I mean by it. You have it in 
 refined water-colour, and in the best eneravino-s 
 from Turner's vignettes. A critic is more accus- 
 tomed to making definitions than I am. 
 
 Critic. Perhaps I may be able to illustrate 
 the subject by a reference to another art — to music. 
 Suppose a violinist slides his finger up the string 
 using the bow at the same time, the note gradually 
 rises without a break, and although it passes through 
 a number of what we call tones and semi-tones, it 
 does not omit any of the sounds that lie between 
 them. That would answer to a complete range of 
 tone in painting where there are no breaks between 
 highest and lowest, that is, between the brightest 
 light and the darkest dark. If you attempt to do 
 the same thing on the piano you cannot, because 
 in that instrument the tones and semi-tones are 
 fixed and you have nothing between them. Again, 
 there may be instruments of a less advanced kind 
 in which the intervals are wider than on the piano, 
 a peal of bells, for instance. Well, the instruments
 
 Book Illustration. 351 
 
 where there are intervals represent the simpler 
 graphic arts, and the simpler the art the fewer the 
 tones are and the wider the intervals. For example, 
 in some kinds of pen-drawing there are four notes 
 only, white, light grey, dark grey, and black. Yet 
 even with these limited resources much may be 
 done, as the artist can effect a separation between 
 objects by means of outlines when he cannot separate 
 them by tone. In the arts where tone is what we 
 call complete, it can, of itself, effect all the distinctions 
 between objects that the human eye requires, and 
 line ceases to be necessary. 
 
 SCIENTIST. That doctrine is intelligible ; but is 
 there not an inevitable falsity in the simple arts, such 
 as that kind of pen-drawing you have mentioned ?" 
 Will not several notes in nature have to be repre- 
 sented by one note in the drawing ? 
 
 Critic. That objection is well founded, and 
 would be very grave indeed if no art could be valu- 
 able except that which is strictly imitative. In fact, 
 however, the graphic arts are conventional ; and if the 
 mind understands the convention, the eye forgives the 
 falsity. The convention about tone in the incomplete 
 state is really nothing but classification. Nature passes, 
 insensibly, and without a halt, from dark to light. 
 The artist first divides this mentally into tones for his 
 convenience, usually in this way : Dark, Half-Dark, 
 Middle Tint, Lfalf -Light, Light. This is an artist's 
 conventionalism ; and he thinks of nature in this way
 
 35 2 Book Illustration. 
 
 even when he is merely looking at natural scenery 
 without drawing at all. But if you analyse the 
 matter, you will find that many tones are included 
 under such a name as ' Middle Tint,' or ' Half-Light,' 
 or ' Half-Dark.' We do this kind of grouping con- 
 tinually, when we speak or write, and are not accused 
 of falsity on that account. When an artist does it in 
 drawing he is not guilty of an outrage against truth, 
 but merely of a simplification. He translates all pale 
 tones into white, using lines to separate one thing 
 from another ; two greys, or possibly three, may 
 stand for a vast variety of intermediate tones ; and, 
 finally, a great number of dark ones may be repre- 
 sented by black. He is then working in conventional 
 or incomplete tone, which is well adapted to pen- 
 drawing, and also to the simpler kinds of engraving 
 and etching ; in fact, the famous old engravers, who 
 are the classics of the art, never worked on any other 
 principle. 
 
 Scientist. It seems clear, then, that there is 
 nothing degrading to art, or implying inferiority in 
 the artist, in the use of simplified methods. 
 
 CRITIC. Degradation and vulgarity consist, on 
 the contrary, in the imperfect and ignorant use of the 
 more complete arts, such as painting or (since we are 
 talking about book-illustration) full-toned engraving. 
 It is always a sign of high culture in art when 
 restrictions of method are intelligently accepted and 
 observed ; and even when the artist has self-denial
 
 Book Illustration. 353 
 
 enough to refrain entirely from attempting" that which 
 cannot be done really well in the art that he is prac- 
 tising, though it might be done quite well enough to 
 escape ordinary criticism. 
 
 Scientist. Can you give a good instance of this 
 self-restraint and abstinence ? 
 
 Artist. I can give a very good one. In Mr. 
 Penneli's brilliant illustrations to Mr. Hamerton's 
 book on the Saone, you will hardly find more than 
 two or three instances in which the artist has at- 
 tempted a sky. He almost invariably leaves the sky 
 blank, which at most can be taken to mean only the 
 serene summer sky, and is inadequate even for that, 
 as it does not give the gradation. A critic who did 
 not know Mr. Pennell might think that he was in- 
 different to the beauties of the clouds, but it is not so 
 at all. Few artists admire cloudy skies more than 
 Mr. Pennell does, and it is just for this reason that 
 he has not patience to represent them in an art 
 which is far too simple to give the delicacy of 
 their tones. 
 
 CRITIC. There may possibly be another reason 
 which is this : If Mr. Pennell were to draw cloudy 
 skies and shade them even in a summary and con- 
 ventional manner, he would find himself compelled to 
 carry out a more elaborate system of shading in the 
 landscapes and buildings, and that would be contrary 
 to the most refined practice of pen-drawing, considered 
 as an abstract and rightly conventional art. It comes, 
 
 A A
 
 J 
 
 54 Book Illustration. 
 
 in short, to this, that in order to do the landscapes 
 and buildings as well as possible in that limited art 
 the clouds are sacrificed. 
 
 SCIENTIST. This, then, is a case of sacrifice 
 for an artistic reason rather than of indifference to 
 nature. 
 
 Critic. Yes ; and you might even go further, 
 and say that it is the sacrifice of one part of nature to 
 another — of the sky to the earth, and to what is upon 
 the earth. 
 
 SCIENTIST. What would happen if the converse 
 sacrifice were made — if the earth were sacrificed to 
 the sky ? 
 
 Critic. In that case the things on the earth 
 would lose their brilliance ; they would be blackened 
 in order that the sky might have some feeble ap- 
 proach to the relative light and splendour that it has 
 in nature. 
 
 Scientist. Your technical considerations seem 
 to be very closely bound up with a voluntary recog- 
 nition or omission of natural truths. 
 
 Critic. It is a matter of choice between one 
 kind of truth and another, always in view of technical 
 difficulties or facilities. The wisest course is always 
 to avoid a difficulty that is not in its nature inevitable. 
 It is wise, in a certain sense, to be pusillanimous. I 
 say, in a certain sense, because there are some diffi- 
 cult ies that must be faced boldly though others are 
 avoided. For example, in violin -playing, the per-
 
 Book Illustration. 355 
 
 former avoids the difficulty of playing several notes 
 at the same time, except on very rare occasions. On 
 the other hand, the violinist must grapple with the 
 difficulty of making his own notes, which is very 
 great. The pianist has not to make his notes, they 
 are made for him by the constructor and tuner of his 
 instrument, but he is compelled to face another formid- 
 able difficulty, that of playing ten notes at the same 
 time. So in pen-drawing, the artist avoids as much 
 as possible the difficulty of delicate tones, but he has 
 to face the formidable difficulties of accent and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Scientist. It might be worth while to examine, 
 one after another, the technical considerations that 
 have to do with book - illustration, as applied to 
 different kinds of literature. Suppose we take poetry 
 first. Let us have a poet's opinion. 
 
 POET. I suppose you mean to appeal to me. If 
 so, I am for blank paper by way of illustration. If, 
 however, something must needs be printed upon it, 
 I think that Rogers showed a clear judgment in 
 choosing delicately engraved vignettes. 
 
 Artist. I think I sec your reason. You would 
 not like coarse pen-drawings, would you, however 
 artistic they might be ? You would not care to see 
 Milton illustrated by a violent pen-draughtsman like 
 Michelangelo, with his big black lines and dashes? 
 
 Poet. I have a sort of feeling that poetry re- 
 quires a technical delicacy corresponding to its own.
 
 356 Book Illustration. 
 
 For instance, in Rogers' poem, ' Jacqueline,' the 
 second part begins very prettily with these lines : — 
 
 ' The day was in the golden west ; 
 And, curtained close by leaf and flower, 
 The doves had cooed themselves to rest 
 In Jacqueline's deserted bower ; 
 The doves — that still would at her casement peck, 
 And in her walks had ever fluttered round 
 With purple feet and shining neck 
 True as the echo to the sound. 
 That casement, underneath the trees, 
 Half open to the western breeze, 
 Looked down, enchanting Garonnelle, 
 Thy wild and mulberry-shaded dell, 
 Round which the Alps of Piedmont rose, 
 The blush of sunset on their snows.' 
 
 Rogers was not generally much of a poet, and these 
 lines themselves are only pretty ; but they are very 
 pretty and very delicate in the use of colour and 
 light and shade. Now I should say that a rude pen- 
 sketch would be quite out of place in the illustration 
 of such a passage, and I may go further and say that 
 no pen-sketch whatever, even if reduced to give it a 
 refinement not naturally belonging to it, could pos- 
 sibly have a delicacy corresponding to that of the 
 verses ; but Turner's vignette had it, and artist and 
 poet seem to have been working harmoniously for 
 once. 
 
 Critic. It is chiefly the refinement of the
 
 Book Illustration. 357 
 
 shading, the completeness of the tone, that satisfies 
 you ; and you could not have had that in black and 
 white with any art less perfect than Goodall's 
 exquisite engraving. 
 
 Artist. You have selected a landscape as a 
 case in point. It is a peculiarity of landscape that 
 poetical feeling cannot readily be expressed in it 
 without full and delicate light and shade ; indeed, to 
 express the whole of what an artist feels about land- 
 scape, colour is also necessary. The absolutely 
 perfect illustration of a poem in which landscape 
 was mentioned would be in water-colour, with the 
 inconvenience that there could only be a single 
 cop}-. 
 
 Scientist. How these technical and economical 
 questions interfere, in the fine arts, with the free 
 choice of means ! 
 
 POET. I congratulate myself that literature is 
 exempt from them. Suppose I were to describe an 
 evening sky as crimson or golden, and my pub- 
 lishers were to write me a short note saying that the 
 description must be cancelled, as it would be pecu- 
 liarly expensive to print! 
 
 Artist. YVe have to renounce colour in land- 
 scape illustration to books, but people imagine it in 
 some measure. If they did not, they would be 
 shocked by the faces of people in engravings, which 
 are always ghastly white or grey. This is some- 
 thing ; and it is much to have full light and shade,
 
 o 
 
 58 Book Illustration. 
 
 which gives us the opposing powers of splendour and 
 gloom. 
 
 CRITIC. Observe the different effects produced 
 on the mind by a full-toned drawing in sepia or 
 Indian ink, and an outline sketch of the same 
 subject. The very simplest materials produce emo- 
 tion if there is solemnity in the effect. Mr. George 
 Reid, the Scottish Academician, sent me a repro- 
 duction of a sketch in Indian ink, representing 
 nothing but a corner of a calm lake, with a few 
 stones and firs — absolutely no human interest what- 
 ever. This drawing moved me deeply, because the 
 effect was one of those we call melancholy ; which, of 
 course, only means favourable to melancholy feelings 
 in ourselves. Exactly the same subject, drawn in 
 outline, would have left me utterly indifferent. 
 
 Artist. A painting of the same subject and 
 effect would probably have moved you still more 
 with the lingering colour of evening tingeing the 
 grey rain-clouds. 
 
 Critic. Perhaps ; but that would have de- 
 pended on the power of the artist to make a poem 
 in colour, and this power is very rare. Besides, 
 there are reasons why the poetry of chiaroscuro 
 tells better when there is nothing to rival it in 
 the same work. For my part, I do not greatly 
 regret the absence of colour from book - illustra- 
 tion. To be acceptable it would have to be perfect, 
 and the perfection of colour, for certain scientific
 
 Book Illustration. 359 
 
 reasons, is often incompatible with the most powerful 
 chiaroscuro. 
 
 SCIENTIST. You mean on account of the incom- 
 patibility of certain colours with very high light in 
 painting. 
 
 CRITIC. Yes, that is one reason ; and besides 
 that, a work composed for colour arrangements may 
 be almost destitute of light and shade. 
 
 Scientist. The final conclusion appears to be 
 that light and shade is indispensable for the expres- 
 sion of poetic sentiment in landscape illustration, but 
 that colour, though it might often be valuable, is not 
 indispensable. 
 
 CRITIC. That is quite my opinion with regard to 
 landscape ; but it does not follow that the light and 
 shade must necessarily be complete. If it is well 
 suggested to the imagination, as in some etchings, 
 that is often enough. However, it is none the worse 
 for being complete. The mezzotints after Girtin are 
 good examples of laborious fulness in light and shade 
 entirely helpful to the expression of sentiment. The 
 laboured chiaroscuro in Samuel Palmer's etchings is 
 also precious from beginning to end, not only 
 technically but poetically. 
 
 ARTIST. We have an excellent opportunity for 
 estimating the value of chiaroscuro in the sentiment 
 of landscape illustration by comparing the line 
 etchings for Turner's Liber Studiorum with the 
 same plates after the addition of mezzotint.
 
 360 Book Illustration. 
 
 CRITIC. Yes ; and you ma)- observe that the 
 more grave and solemn the subject is, the more 
 valuable does the shading become. If the effect is 
 simply cheerful, like that of an ordinary sunny after- 
 noon, a sketch in line may give an idea of it, or, at 
 least, tune our minds to a corresponding cheerful- 
 ness ; but a few lines can never convey the impres- 
 sion of solemnity. Gustave Dore understood this. 
 He had two ways of sketching for the wood- 
 engravers, in line with the pen and in chiaroscuro 
 with the brush. He used the first chiefly for figure 
 groups in action, when action was the important 
 matter, and effect of little or no consequence ; but 
 whenever he wanted to impress the reader with 
 landscape solemnity, as in the illustration of the 
 gloomy entrance to the infernal regions,* he took 
 the brush, and employed a kind of chiaroscuro which 
 if not very refined, left no doubt whatever about his 
 intentions. It also powerfully affected the poetical 
 feelings of the public ; and if you will trust my 
 experience for a dogmatic statement, I affirm that 
 the public is ten times more poetical than scientific 
 in its instincts. 
 
 Scientist. Now, what should you say about 
 the illustration of novels from the technical point of 
 view ? 
 
 * The engraving illustrating the well-known inscription over 
 the entrance-gate of hell, in the opening to the third canto of 
 Dante's ' Inferno.'
 
 Book Illustration. 361 
 
 Artist. I should say that expression is the 
 most important quality here ; and consequently that 
 the art which gives expression best and most easily 
 is the one that ought to be chosen. 
 
 Scientist. Then what kind of art should you 
 specially recommend ? 
 
 ARTIST. Any sort of art with easy and clear 
 linear drawing. 
 
 Critic. We see that the modern illustrators of 
 novels have been led by their own sense of the 
 necessities of the case to the choice of arts in which 
 the line was free. It is in the highest degree 
 remarkable that at a time when etching had fallen 
 into almost complete disrepute as a fine art, it was 
 resorted to by the illustrators of novels merely for 
 the facility of its line, and the fidelity with which the 
 line could be printed after the biting. Draughtsmen 
 like Hablot Browne and Doyle used a simple kind of 
 etching for their more important compositions ; but 
 as it could not be printed in the text, Doyle had 
 recourse to wood-engraving for his minor illustra- 
 tions. It was, however, facsimile wood-engraving, in 
 which the line was absolutely free when the artist 
 drew it on the block ; though of course the sub- 
 sequent work of the wood-cutter had no freedom, but 
 the slavery of it is imperceptible in the result. The 
 expense of printing etchings seems to have led to 
 their abandonment for the illustration of novels \ 
 and now we have only woodcuts or reproductions of
 
 o 
 
 62 Book Illustration. 
 
 artists' pen-sketches. There is nothing to be said 
 against these, for the special purpose we are talking 
 about, provided that the artist's lines are faithfully 
 reproduced. 
 
 Scientist. Then we may set it down as an 
 ascertained principle that line is more important in 
 the illustration of novels, and delicate shading of less 
 importance than in the illustration of poetical works ? 
 
 Critic. The rule would hold good in most 
 instances. It very seldom happens, though it may 
 happen sometimes, that anything is wanted in novels 
 beyond the illustration of figures, which must have 
 expression. Landscape illustrations are so seldom 
 wanted that they may be considered generally un- 
 necessary. Now, a great deal of life and character 
 can be given to figure sketches with shading of the 
 most summary and abstract kind ; but it would be 
 long and tedious work to give character by delicate 
 tones without the help of lines, on the principles of 
 painting. Etching, pen-drawing, and facsimile wood- 
 engraving, are the three arts most admissible in 
 works of fiction. 
 
 Scientist. We have already talked about books 
 of travel, but not with reference to the technical side 
 of their illustrations. Can we ascertain anything like 
 a law, as we certainly seem to have done in the case 
 of novels ? 
 
 CRITIC. A book of travels requires both figures 
 and landscape, therefore it might admit illustrations
 
 Book Illustration. 363 
 
 of two characters, according to the predominance of 
 line or the predominance of shade. But there is a 
 commercial consideration, which interferes with the. 
 use of the best arts for books of travel. They must 
 not be so expensive as art books ; and yet to give a 
 good idea of the places passed through, and of the 
 people seen, the illustrations must be numerous. 
 Hence the expensive methods of printing are almost 
 inadmissible, and the illustrations must be confined 
 to such as can be printed in the text. 
 
 Artist. And it follows from this that common- 
 place kinds of wood-engraving are usually resorted 
 to, because wood-engraving can give line in one 
 illustration and shade in another. Pen-sketches, if 
 well reproduced, are extremely good for figures,, 
 houses, minor details about encampments, and so on ;. 
 but they are not so good for landscapes, except the 
 immediate foregrounds. They may be made, it is 
 true, to convey the idea of landscape effect to a very 
 intelligent public, but only by a sort of shorthand. 
 They cannot in any way realise it. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Without pretending to any know- 
 ledge of art, I take an interest in the subject ; and so 
 I was comparing, the other day, some recent repro- 
 ductions of pen-sketches, very excellent in their kind,, 
 with some wood-engravings that appeared about 
 thirty years ago, and were printed with all the skill 
 and taste that could be commanded in those days. 
 The reproductions of pen-sketches had much more
 
 364 Book Illustration. 
 
 life and accent, which seemed to be due to the 
 influence of etching ; but certainly I must say that 
 there was a delicacy of tone in the woodcuts that no 
 pen-sketching could ever rival. 
 
 Artist. That I have no doubt about ; but what 
 is doubtful is whether those tones that seemed so 
 delicate were anything like faithful interpretations of 
 the tones used by the artist in his original drawing. 
 Our complaint about wood-engravers is that they so 
 often put tones and textures of their own. This may 
 be in great part involuntary, for all kinds of engrav- 
 ing are very difficult, but it is vexatious. 
 
 Critic. I can distinctly remember the time 
 when the superiority of wood-engraving in quality of 
 tone (which has nothing to do with fidelity to the 
 tones of the artist) produced a strong conviction in 
 the minds of many people, who had to do with 
 illustrated publications, that pen- drawing could never 
 be acceptable, because the quality of its tones is not 
 so soft and agreeable to the eye. The same ob- 
 jection was held to be fatal against all other pro- 
 cesses that admit of printing with type. For ex- 
 ample, a pen-drawing of a sky may give a noble 
 piece of cloud composition and it may also explain 
 the forms of clouds very clearly by a sort of rude 
 conventionalism ; but as in nature the quality of a 
 sky depends chiefly on delicacy of tones and the 
 absence of lines, it follows that the skies in common 
 woodcuts are more acceptable to the large part of
 
 Book Illustration. 365 
 
 the public, which is not very fastidious, than those of 
 the finest pen-drawings ever executed. 
 
 SCIENTIST. I notice that you make a reserve in 
 what you say. You talk of ' the large part of the 
 public that is not very fastidious.' There is some- 
 thing under that phrase which you have left un- 
 explained. 
 
 Critic. I did not think it necessary to go into 
 the matter further, as it has scarcely more than a 
 commercial interest. What happens is this. There 
 are certain obvious qualities that are easily recog- 
 nisable, even by an uneducated taste, and such a 
 taste expects them. It will find them in a woodcut, 
 and not in a pen-sketch. It is satisfied by the 
 presence of these qualities in a mediocre degree, but 
 is dissatisfied when they are absent. The educated 
 taste wants them in a far higher degree, or else is 
 prepared to go without them. To apply this to the 
 subject we have been talking about, I should say 
 the qualities of the skies in woodcuts are sufficiently 
 satisfactory to an uneducated taste. A fastidious 
 taste would be likely to require still greater delicacy 
 of tone, which it would seek in the finest plate 
 engraving. If the fastidious judge could not get 
 this, he would say, ' Very well ; then let there 
 be no pretence to delicacy of tone, and let us 
 have an avowedly rough sketch of a sky for its 
 forms and composition.' And as, in his mind, he 
 would be perfectly able to separate one quality
 
 366 Book Illustration. 
 
 from another, he could enjoy the forms and com- 
 position without the tone, which the uneducated 
 eye could not. 
 
 Artist. With regard to the education of the 
 eye, I have met with one or two educated men, or 
 what are called so (I mean University men), who 
 were totally unable to read the language of lines in 
 drawing. They only tolerated lines which were so 
 fine as to be practically invisible. The sky of Mr. 
 Haden's large etching of Greenwich is always a great 
 puzzle to them. The lines in it strike their eyes as a 
 •confusion of thick wires, and iron rods, and pokers, 
 set up somehow against the sky. That part of the 
 sky of his Calais Pier, after Turner, which is nearer 
 to the horizon, they take for cliffs — the cliffs of 
 Albion. 
 
 CRITIC. This is interesting. Nothing is more 
 interesting in art than the interpretations of igno- 
 rance. They throw a wonderful light on the ques- 
 tions concerning success and popularity. I have no 
 doubt that the popular desire for tone, and the 
 popular objection to line, have done much to keep 
 up wood-engraving, even of a very inferior quality. 
 I have nothing to say against wood-engraving that is 
 really excellent. It has its own peculiar merits that 
 no other art can successfully imitate. 
 
 Scientist. Now I should like to know what 
 you have to say about the technical question in the 
 illustration of scientific books.
 
 Book Illustration. 367 
 
 Critic. We dealt with that question, to some 
 extent, in our last conversation. When the illustra- 
 tions are not so numerous as to make the cost of 
 printing very important, and when the scientific man 
 can draw accurately enough in an explanatory way 
 for his own purposes, he ought himself to etch his 
 illustrations in a very simple and clear manner, with- 
 out attempting effect. Dr. Travis Whittaker did this 
 in his ' Student's Primer on the Urine,' which con- 
 tains sixteen etched plates of microscopic studies, 
 chiefly of different crystals. The author drew atten- 
 tion in his preface to the suitability of the etching- 
 needle for the delineation of microscopic appearances. 
 By its aid the student gets the master's graphic 
 explanation quite at first hand, which is an in- 
 estimable advantage. When etching cannot be done, 
 or cannot be afforded, the scientific man may make 
 clear pen-drawings, to be reproduced photographically 
 and printed with the text. 
 
 Artist. You assume that he is able to draw ? 
 
 CRITIC. I take it for granted that every man of 
 science, including archaeologists, ought to be able to 
 draw an object quite clearly and distinctly. I should 
 not expect him to make charming or clever artistic 
 drawings, and I should not advise him to try, as by 
 doing so he would probably miss those qualities of 
 practical importance that he ought to aim at, and 
 might generally attain. 
 
 ARTIST. The distinction between scientific and
 
 o 
 
 68 Book Illustration. 
 
 artistic illustration is plain enough. Science has 
 no object but accurate knowledge, but the pur- 
 pose of art is to move and charm. Well, then, I 
 should say that the best kind of illustration for 
 scientific books would be the clearest, and that 
 the best kind for artistic books would be the most 
 charming. Mezzotint would be very bad for scien- 
 tific illustrations. 
 
 Critic. I think this settles the question. In 
 scientific illustration any veiling of hard fact for the 
 sake of charm is a mistake ; and in artistic illus- 
 tration any assertion of hard fact at the cost of 
 visual beauty and charm is a sin against art. Mezzo- 
 tint, which is useless for scientific purposes, is ex- 
 cellent in those books which belong to the category 
 of the Fine Arts. 
 
 CONVERSATION V. 
 
 The Effect of Fashion. 
 
 Scientist. I have been thinking about the 
 probable future of book illustration ; and, with the 
 help of what has been said during our talks upon the 
 subject, was in hopes of arriving at some satisfactory 
 conclusion, had I not been embarrassed by a factor 
 that we have never yet taken into consideration, and 
 that is fashion. It interferes in everything except
 
 Book Illustration, 369 
 
 positive science, and even that is more or less 
 fashionable at different periods ; however, positive 
 science cannot be extinguished by becoming un- 
 fashionable, whereas an art may be extinguished 
 completely, as it depends on public encouragement 
 for its existence. 
 
 CRITIC. We, in this very time, are witnesses of 
 a case of extinction very remarkable in the history of 
 the fine arts, and that is the death of engraving. It 
 appears as if no effort on the part of criticism, nor 
 an)- degree of accomplishment in the engravers them- 
 selves, could prolong the existence of the dying art. 
 
 ARTIST. There is a very curious peculiarity in 
 the history of engraving. All connoisseurs appear to 
 be agreed in admiring the masters of the sixteenth 
 century, especially Marco Antonio Raimondi ; and I 
 recollect that M. Duplessis, in his history of en- 
 graving, declares that this engraver's plates after 
 Raphael's drawings have never been equalled. Well, 
 I possess a few of them, and I can see on what 
 principles they are done. The art in them is of a 
 very abstract character : it is very severe, like clas- 
 sical sculpture ; it ignores local colour, and the light 
 and shade is quite conventional and arbitrary. I 
 know very well that it is a great sort of art in its 
 way, and I have no doubt that the connoisseurs are 
 right in admiring it ; but if there is any permanence 
 in good qualities, how docs it happen that modern 
 book illustration is never done on the principles of 
 
 i: B
 
 5/ [ 
 
 Book Illustration. 
 
 Marc Antonio ? The answer is, that they are out of 
 fashion. 
 
 CRITIC. The qualities of Marc Antonio are not 
 of a kind likely to be fashionable in modern times. 
 The moderns delight in texture and tone, and they 
 hate hard outlines. In Marc Antonio there is neither 
 texture nor tone, and the outlines are really much 
 harder and more definite than the perceptible contour 
 of a marble statue. 
 
 SCIENTIST. There is a manifest hollowness or 
 falsity of pretension in this and all similar cases. 
 If Marc Antonio's work is held up to our admira- 
 tion, the reason is that it possesses certain qualities. 
 There cannot be any other reason worth considering 
 by an intelligent man. There may be a prejudice in 
 favour of a name or of an age ; but all comes at last 
 to this, that the work must have certain qualities to 
 recommend it. The hollowness or false pretension 
 lies in professing admiration for those qualities in 
 Marc Antonio, in saying that he was greater than 
 the moderns, because he had them, and then in dis- 
 couraging to the utmost every modern engraver who 
 attempts to acquire them. Do you believe (to bring 
 the matter to a practical issue) that Marc Antonio, 
 if resuscitated in the flesh, could earn his living in 
 London at the present day ? 
 
 CRITIC. Certainly not, if he continued to work 
 on his own severe principles. 
 
 SCIENTIST. That is to say, if he continued to be
 
 Book Illustration. 371 
 
 Marc Antonio. What sort of work would he be put 
 to, do you think ? 
 
 Critic. He might possibly earn a bare sub- 
 sistence as an architectural engraver, or, failing that, 
 he might engrave coats-of-arms. If he clung to fine 
 art, he would be told to learn etching or mezzotint 
 and study the picturesque, in which he would pro- 
 bably be a complete failure. 
 
 Scientist. In short, the Marc Antonio whom 
 all connoisseurs profess to admire so immensely 
 would have to abandon the very qualities that they 
 praise him for. 
 
 Artist. That is a true statement of the case. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Then it amounts to this, that 
 modern engravers are put below Marc Antonio for 
 not having his qualities, whilst if they had them 
 they would be neglected and left to starve in ob- 
 scurity. Do you believe that, with hearty encourage- 
 ment, any modern men would have equalled Marc 
 Antonio on his own ground ? 
 
 Critic. I have not a doubt of it. The kind of 
 engraving that he practised is extremely simple ; 
 and therefore, as Marc Antonio worked within very 
 narrow limits, a modern imitator might, by close 
 application, attain a surprising degree of skill in that 
 narrow speciality. 
 
 Artist. One might go a step further, and add 
 that although pictures by Raphael are purchased at 
 fabulous prices, a modern painter working exactly on
 
 $J2 Book Illustration. 
 
 Raphael's principles would find it difficult to earn a 
 living. There is a very small picture of the Three 
 Graces in the Due d'Aumale's collection, for which he 
 paid twenty-four thousand pounds. If the picture 
 could be entirely forgotten, and one exactly like it 
 were painted by a young English artist, do you think 
 he would get four-and-twenty pounds for it ? Very 
 doubtful. The figures are heavy, and Raphael's style 
 of painting is not popular now. Besides, he did not 
 enhance the beauty cf these figures by any art in the 
 arrangement of a background. The idea of the 
 group was taken from a Greek marble ; but the 
 painting is less beautiful than the piece of sculpture, 
 whilst the sculpturesque arrangement detracts from 
 its quality as a picture. 
 
 SCIENTIST. Here we have a case in which a 
 permanent reputation traverses succeeding fashions ; 
 for you say that the qualities which distinguish Marc 
 Antonio and Raphael are not fashionable now, yet 
 their works maintain their prices. 
 
 Artist. The names survive. It is a question of 
 names, of great reputations won at a time when 
 certain qualities were fashionable that are fashion- 
 able no longer. The important matter, however, 
 is the quality — I mean as concerning us: we might 
 imitate the quality, but we cannot assume the 
 name. If Marc Antonio's qualities were fashionable 
 they would soon exhibit themselves in modern book- 
 illustration.
 
 Book Illustration. ^-^ 
 
 CRITIC. We need not go so far back to find 
 exactly the same contradiction. We have already- 
 spoken of Turner's vignettes, and the exquisite en- 
 gravings from them by Goodall and others. Well, 
 the name of Turner is very great, but the qualities of 
 those vignettes are fashionable no longer. If they 
 were, the school of English landscape engraving 
 would be kept up, but the public has quietly allowed 
 it to perish. There is just one survivor of the old 
 school ; and the public cares so little about the art, 
 that he has been turned aside to other work than 
 that for which his training prepared him, and which 
 he alone, of all men living, is now able to execute. 
 The critics of the future will wonder at the barbarism 
 that could neglect the last chance of obtaining work 
 of that quality that may ever occur in England. No 
 breath of temporal'}- fashion can ever revive a slow 
 and difficult art like engraving. 
 
 Scientist. Unless my memory deceives me, the 
 art of engraving on metal was not succeeded at once 
 by the photographic processes. It was succeeded by 
 wood-engraving. After Stothard and Turner came 
 the day of John Gilbert and Birkct Foster as draughts- 
 men on wood. Was not this a distinct decline ? Is 
 not wood-engraving decidedly a lower form of art than 
 the other? I wonder at a change of fashion which 
 abandons an art whose difficulties have been overcome 
 to take up with an inferior one. Quite a library of 
 illustrated literature has appeared with woodcuts.
 
 374 Book Illustration. 
 
 CRITIC. That change of fashion might be ac- 
 counted for, in a great measure, by commercial con- 
 siderations. A publisher naturally likes to diminish 
 his risk as much as he can, so he is ready to en- 
 courage cheap methods if only they can be made 
 satisfactory. The facility of cheap printing is the 
 great attraction of wood-engraving for publishers. 
 The public being ready for a change, the adoption of 
 woodcut was made all the easier by a large demand 
 for illustrated books in the middle classes. These 
 classes include great numbers of people of limited 
 income, not indifferent to literature and art, and to 
 whom a rather cheap kind of illustrated book was 
 welcome. 
 
 Scientist. Do you think it likely that woodcut 
 will survive in spite of the cheap photographic pro- 
 cesses? Will not pen -drawing, in reproduction, 
 entirely supersede it ? 
 
 CRITIC. My impression is that if any of the arts 
 of engraving survive in spite of the photographic 
 processes, those two arts will be wood-engraving and 
 etching. 
 
 Scientist. Why these two rather than any 
 others ? 
 
 Critic. Because wood-engraving hitherto keeps 
 the lead well amongst processes that print typo- 
 graphically by the clearness and purity of its tones 
 and the variety of its textures. Now, there is no- 
 thing that the modern public really likes so much as
 
 Book Illustration. 375 
 
 texture and tone. Etching, on the other hand, may 
 keep alive through the desire of the public to have 
 some kind of plate-engraving that is not done by a 
 photographic process. It is inevitable that the 
 photographic processes, by their enormous produc- 
 tivity, must flood the market continually more and 
 more ; and this will be quite enough to awaken a 
 desire for original work. There will be no line- 
 engravers, because line-engraving requires a long 
 special apprenticeship. Etching does not require 
 this ; any one who is an artist, and has a natural 
 gift and affinity for etching, can learn it with a 
 moderate expenditure of time. There is this chance 
 for etching, but it is only a chance. 
 
 ARTIST. Even with regard to etching, the photo- 
 graphic engravers excel artists in certainty. If I 
 etch a subject, I am not quite sure of getting the 
 desired result ; but if I make a drawing with a pen, 
 using Indian ink on Bristol board, M. Dujardin will 
 make a plate from my drawing which is really an 
 etching, for he has bitten it, and it will be a better 
 plate than I could bite myself on account of his 
 wonderful skill. 
 
 Critic. That is an artist's reason. The public 
 can have no concern with practical difficulties, it 
 thinks only of results. Now, in Dujardin's process 
 there are two interferences — that of the photo- 
 graphic camera, and that of the chemist who does 
 the biting. Without knowing exactly how the thing
 
 ■J 
 
 J 6 Book Illustration. 
 
 is done, the public is aware that there is a ' process.' 
 Direct etching, on the other hand, is known to 
 be strictly original from beginning to end ; and I 
 think it likely that this quality may make the art 
 survive. 
 
 ARTIST. A friend who pays close attention 
 to changes of fashion tells me that etching is 
 not quite so fashionable as it was three or four 
 years ago. 
 
 Critic. The market for works of art is in a 
 state of incessant fluctuation ; it is never exactly in 
 the same stale for two successive years. Oil-painting 
 is, in modern times, the most permanently fashion- 
 able of the fine arts ; yet even oil-painting is less in 
 fashion than it was some years ago. We hear on 
 all sides complaints that pictures are not selling as 
 formerly. 
 
 Artist I know several painters of merit who 
 tell me they are not selling anything whatever. 
 Another says that he sells, but only at low prices to 
 speculating dealers. 
 
 Critic. The sudden popularity of water-colour 
 on the Continent a few years ago is a remarkable in- 
 stance of a fashion springing into existence. Before 
 that fashion began, Continental people, especially the 
 French, had a contempt for water-colour. All of a 
 sudden they came to appreciate it — or to fancy that 
 they appreciated it' — and then there was a change of 
 tone in the press, and a curious increase of activity
 
 Book Illustration. $77 
 
 in the artists. At one time I thought there was 
 going to be a great fashionable revival of pastel ; 
 but the difficulty of keeping pastels properly was 
 against it. 
 
 Scientist. There is a sensuous element in the 
 fine arts, which is not without its importance. The 
 love of colour in combination with a certain softness 
 would be favourable to pastel, quite independently of 
 any intellect displayed in the art. 
 
 CRITIC. An individual man, in his private life, 
 has moments of great intellectual indolence, moments 
 in which the slightest intellectual effort is an annoy- 
 ance. There may be times corresponding to these in 
 the public mind, when the intellectual part of the fine 
 arts is unpopular, and the sensuous part alone is 
 acceptable. In such times noble and serious subjects 
 would be disliked, and frivolous subjects preferred ; 
 whilst the technical qualities most sought for would 
 not be the strongest and best, but those most flat- 
 tering to the eye, most agreeable (as a luxury) to the 
 sense of vision. Such a state of the public mind 
 would, of course, be most unfavourable to severe 
 classical engraving. It would dislike all severity of 
 line. In black-and-white art it would incline to 
 mezzotint and charcoal ; but no species of black-and- 
 white art could ever satisfy it. Colour would be 
 desired more than any beauty of form or solemnity 
 of shade. There is a curious passage in Mr. Bell 
 Scott's 'Little Masters,' about the substitution of
 
 37S Book Illustration. 
 
 sensuous for intellectual pleasure in the enjoyment of 
 the fine arts : — 
 
 ' The charm of colour,' he says, ' is the vulgar or rather 
 universal charm ; and if the reader has any acquaintance 
 •with painters or collectors of pictures, he will readily ac- 
 knowledge that it is rather needless to speak to them of 
 anything else. I may relate an anecdote which has already 
 been in print. The writer of this was taken to see Mr. 
 Sheepshanks' pictures at the time he proposed to give them 
 to the nation. Struck by the mixture of comparatively 
 common with refined works hanging side by side, he 
 ventured to remark on the refinements of his taste. He 
 replied, as for that he did not know, tone and colour were 
 ■what he valued himself, though he bought occasionally as 
 he was recommended. He had ceased to collect pictures 
 at that time ; and led us in front of a new cabinet made of 
 beautiful wood, touching the shining panels of which 
 lovingly, he explained that he now enjoyed rare specimens 
 of fine woods more than anything.' 
 
 In this instance you have first the love of painting 
 for colour, which is a purely sensuous, not at all an 
 intellectual, pleasure ; then painting itself is deserted 
 for beautiful woods. The latest pleasure was not 
 entirely one of the eyes. Did you not observe the 
 expression, ' touching the shining panels lovingly ? ' 
 That indicates the complex nature of the enjoyment 
 which the panels gave. They could be touched, as 
 well as seen, with pleasure. Their smooth surface 
 was not less delightful than their pleasant colour and 
 pretty veining. These delights seem at a great dis-
 
 Book Illustration. 379 
 
 tance from Marc Antonio ; yet we have arrived at 
 them by the simple process of descent to lower and 
 lower faculties. 
 
 Scientist. I have seen a connoisseur derive 
 pleasures of this kind from an etching. It was 
 printed on thick Japanese paper, which is at the 
 same time very smooth and soft to the touch. The 
 more deeply bitten lines of the etching were in relief, 
 the deepest in strongly embossed relief. My con- 
 noisseur passed his delicate finger-tips repeatedly 
 from the smooth to the rough, and back again 
 alternately. The tactile contrast appeared to give 
 him a physical pleasure, like those satisfactions that 
 make a cat purr. This is perhaps the lowest gratifi- 
 cation that the fine arts can communicate to the 
 human mind or nerves. 
 
 ARTIST. It is something, is it not, that they 
 should be able to give even that pleasure ? 
 
 Critic. Pleasures of sight and touch are often 
 enjoyed without our being quite aware of them. To 
 touch smooth paper is une jouissance douce, to touch 
 rough paper gives the contrast that we need in all 
 pleasures, as it is une aprc jouissance. But the 
 smoothness of paper is not always for tactile gratifi- 
 cation only. For the printing of woodcuts and all 
 other typographic blocks it is essential to clearness 
 of line. In these matters the higher artistic neces- 
 sities often take the appearance of mere luxury. 
 The gilt frames of pictures are an artistic necessity,
 
 ■;8o Book Illustration. 
 
 o 
 
 and if gilding were cheaper than tin it would still be 
 preferred. So the luxury of paper in an illustrated 
 book is always, in a great degree, necessary to the 
 artistic presentation of the engravings. 
 
 SCIENTIST. I have always thought it a mis- 
 fortune for the fine arts that they have a sort of 
 natural connexion with luxury. It brings them too 
 much within the sphere of fashion, and this is a pure 
 evil. The extremely luxurious homes of certain 
 painters in London and Paris exhibit this connexion 
 very curiously. I once called upon a famous artist in 
 Paris, and found him living in a house that had cost 
 him sixteen thousand pounds. His painting-room 
 was almost as big as a lecture-hall, and furnished 
 quite as luxuriously as a fine drawing-room. I then 
 went to the counting-house of an immensely wealthy 
 banker, and found bim sitting in a small room of 
 almost Spartan plainness, with nothing to amuse the 
 eyes, only account-books and correspondence. 
 
 Artist. The connexion between art and luxury 
 is real, but it is curiously irregular and uncertain. 
 Much of the best painting has been done in poor 
 little rooms. The subjects, too, of the pictures that 
 are hung; in rich men's houses are often austere 
 enough. Poverty is as often painted as wealth. 
 
 CRITIC. You may remember, perhaps, that 
 William Morris sets himself in favour of art as 
 against luxury, contrasting the two as if they were 
 opposed. Speaking of the beautiful things now
 
 Book Illustration. 381 
 
 treasured in our museums, such as that at South 
 Kensington, Morris asks : — 
 
 'And how were they made? Did a great artist draw 
 the designs for them — a man of cultivation, highly paid, 
 daintily fed, carefully housed, wrapped up in cotton wool,. 
 in short, when he was not at work ? By no means. Won- 
 derful as these works are, they were made by " common 
 fellows," as the phrase goes, in the common course of their 
 daily labour.' 
 
 In another lecture, ' On the Lesser Arts,' Morris 
 argues strongly against burdening ourselves with 
 superfluities ; and says that there are tons upon tons 
 of unutterable rubbish that ought to be cleared out 
 of London houses ; and that these accumulations ot 
 things, useless alike for mind and body, are the result 
 of that vulgar love of luxury and show which is of 
 all obvious hindrances the worst to overpass. Then 
 he points to simplicity as the remedy. ' Simplicity 
 of life, begetting simplicity of taste — that is, a love 
 for sweet and lofty things — is of all matters most 
 necessary for the birth of the new and better art wc 
 crave for : simplicity everywhere, in the palace as 
 well as in the cottage.' 
 
 ARTIST. The whole question about luxury and 
 the fine arts might be settled at once by reference to 
 the really artistic needs. Luxury is not in itself 
 artistic ; it is only the exaggeration of comfort for 
 the body, and of display for the mind. An engraving 
 by Albert Diirer in a plain little oak frame is a work
 
 382 Book Illustration. 
 
 of art, but not an object of luxury at all. The 
 Theseus at the British Museum is not an object of 
 luxury : a cathedral is not a luxurious room. 
 
 Scientist. Let us try to define, then, what 
 are the artistic needs of illustrated books, as dis- 
 tinguished from the luxuries of the livre de luxe. 
 
 Artist. Well, this cannot be a difficult task. 
 Engravings of all kinds require margin, but not too 
 much margin. This settles the question of size, when 
 once you have determined the size of your engraving. 
 Now, as to the engravings. A great deal of both 
 nature and art can be put into a very small space ; 
 especially with the photographic processes, where 
 reduction is possible to any extent compatible with 
 the purchaser's eyesight. For my part, however, I 
 object to reduction because it alters the character of 
 the artist's execution. That which was bold becomes 
 delicate and minute ; strong and vigorous execution 
 entirely loses the qualities of strength and vigour, to 
 take upon itself an appearance of extreme care such 
 as a man must bestow upon work done on a very 
 small scale. Suppose there is to be no reduction at 
 all. The German engravers whom we call ' The 
 Little Masters,' especially the Behams, could give the 
 most energetic action to muscular figures an inch 
 high ; and represent a furious battle in a little frieze 
 of such figures five or six inches long. Some of their 
 most important engravings do not measure three 
 inches by two: and they would put half-a-dozen
 
 Book Illustration. 385 
 
 figures into them full of action and expression. The 
 clearness with which they drew was partly the con- 
 sequence of a conventionalism ; as they discarded all 
 natural light and shade, as well as all local colour, 
 shading only in an arbitrary way for roundness and 
 relief, but in the case of figure subjects something of 
 their conventionalism might be revived. It would 
 not do in landscape. All I say is, that very small 
 plates may be made to express a great deal ; and 
 consequently that an illustrated book need not be 
 more cumbrous than another. As for luxury all that 
 it requires is good paper and careful printing. The 
 binding has nothing to do with the inside of a book, 
 and the simpler it is the better. 
 
 CRITIC. With regard to what you say about 
 much art and nature in a small space, I remember 
 how strongly Samuel Palmer once insisted on the 
 marvellous concentrating power of art, that is able to 
 put so much in so little room, and that by sugges- 
 tion, in a great measure, without any excessive 
 minuteness of labour. A massive wood, a great 
 stretch of river or lake, and a remote mountainous 
 horizon, may all be suggested to the mind by a 
 drawing two inches long and an inch and a half high. 
 With regard to reduction, it certainly puts into the 
 hands of modern artists and publishers a new facility 
 for giving an immense quantity of material in a small 
 space ; and it spares artists the extreme fatigue of 
 working on a tediously minute scale.
 
 384 Book Illustration. 
 
 SCIENTIST. There is one unfortunate truth never 
 to be forgotten, namely, that it is the nature of 
 Fashion to be unreasonable, as we see in changes of 
 dress, and to leave what is rational and convenient, 
 when it has it and holds it, to go to the irrational 
 and the inconvenient. All that we can positively 
 predicate about fashion is that it will never rest for 
 very long together satisfied with the same thing. In 
 one word, it will desire novelty ; and I, for one, am 
 utterly perplexed to discover what this search after 
 novelty will lead to in ten years — in a hundred years. 
 
 Critic. The chief source of novelty in the 
 world is the coming into existence of new human 
 beings. A new genius is the most novel thing, and 
 the most prolific parent of novelties, that the world 
 ever sees. Nobody in the eighteenth century could 
 have foreseen the various forms that book-illustration 
 has taken in the nineteenth, and which are due to the 
 influence of a few men of genius and a number of 
 men of talent. Fashion may encourage this thing or 
 that ; but it is generally some genius who sets the 
 fashion, and then he gives encouragement to the arts 
 that live upon him, as Gustave Dore gave a new 
 vitality to wood-engraving, and as Mr. Pennell is just 
 now strongly encouraging the reproduction of pen- 
 drawings. Caldecott gave a most powerful stimulus 
 to coloured caricatures ; and we all know how in- 
 fluential Miss Kate Greenaway has been in giving a 
 quaint kind of refinement to coloured illustrations in
 
 Book Illustration. 385 
 
 children's books. Leech, Tenniel, and Charles Keene 
 have done much for facsimile wood -cutting ; and 
 Birket Foster for interpretative wood-cutting. An 
 old art becomes fresh and new again when it is used 
 by a new genius. A process like photogravure can 
 imitate so many arts with wonderful accuracy, that, 
 of itself, it offers variety enough to gratify the love of 
 change for many years together. The taste of the 
 public is certainly much broader and better informed 
 than it was thirty or forty years ago. I distinctly 
 remember being told by a great dealer and print- 
 publisher, still living, that etchings were perfectly 
 unsaleable. He appreciated them himself, but said 
 it was useless to publish them. A well-known editor 
 of artistic publications told me that pen-drawings 
 could never be accepted by the public. We now see 
 artistic periodicals chiefly illustrated by etchings and 
 pen-drawings. This catholicity of feeling about the 
 graphic arts makes variety easily attainable, without 
 leaving the soundest and best of the arts. In con- 
 clusion, there is one thing I want to say, which is, 
 that the future of book-illustration would be certainlv 
 more encouraging if one could be quite sure that 
 good reproductions would be heartily welcomed by 
 the critics, and bad ones justly condemned by them. 
 Unfortunately, good and bad are too frequently 
 classed together as things ' done by process/ as if 
 there were not vast differences of quality. Most cf 
 the book-illustration of the future is clearly destined 
 
 c c
 
 386 Book Illustration. 
 
 to be done by the reproductive processes : this is as 
 fatal as all other economical laws. The duty that 
 devolves more and more upon the critic is, to dis- 
 tinguish between sound and careful process work and 
 that which is exactly the contrary, and which ought 
 not to be permitted to ' vulgarise ' the fine arts in the 
 very worst sense of the word. 
 
 LONDON 
 
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 Date 
 
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 A '74 '4S 
 
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