Part 6 (1/2)

Leader, and howof the sea-shore is than the village seen against the sunset, Mr S the fifteen hundred pounds he paid for the crea could be better

The ordinary perception of the artistic value of a picture does not arise above Mr Smith's I have studied the artistic capacity of the ordinary ently, and I know erate the artistic incapabilities of Mr

Smith, it must be admitted that the influence which his money permits him to exercise in the art world is an evil influence, and is exercised persistently to the very great detriment of the real artist

But it will be said that the moneyed man cannot be forbidden to buy the pictures that please him No, but men should not be elected Acadeht by City men, and this is just what is done Do not think that Sir John Millais is unaware that Mr Long's pictures, artistically considered, are quite worthless Do not think that Mr Orchardson does not turn in contempt from Mr Leader's tea-trays Do not think that every artist, however hunorant, does not know that Mr Goodall's portrait of Mrs Kettlewell stands quite beyond the range of criticis, Mr Leader, and Mr Goodall were not elected Academicians because the Academicians who voted for them approved of their pictures, but because Mr S these painters to Academic honours the taste of Mr Smith receives official confiruish very readily--far better than it gets credit for--between bad literature and good; nor is the public deaf to good uish between good painting and bad No, I aood, only it invariably prefers the bad The language of speech we are always in progress of learning; and the language ofsiner is superior to Rossini than to see that Whistler is better than Leader Of all languages none is so difficult, so varying, so complex, so evanescent, as that of paint; and yet it is precisely the works written in this language that every one believes himself able to understand, and ready to purchase at the expense of a large part of his fortune If I could make such folk understand how illusory is their belief, what a service I should render to art--if I could only inal taste of man is always for the obvious and the coreat labour and care that man learns to understand as beautiful that which the uneducated eye considers ugly

Why will the art patron never take advice? I should seek it if I bought pictures If Degas were to tell ood one I should not buy it, and if Degas were to praise a picture in which I could see no merit I should buy it and look at it until I did Such confession will make me appear weak-minded to many; but this is so, because much instruction is necessary even to understand how infinitely as knows than any one else can possibly know The art patron never can understand as ood deal It is fifteen years since I went to Degas's studio for the first tiirls, at the washerwoas's merit alarmed me not a little, and I said to Manet--to whom I paid a visit in the course of the afternoon--”It is very odd, Manet, I understand your work, but for the life of as” To hear that some one has not understood your rival's work as well as he understands your own is sweet flattery, and Manet only murmured under his breath that it was very odd, since there were astonishi+ng things in Degas

Since those days I have learnt to understand Degas; but unfortunately I have not been able to transas could be bought for a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds apiece, I tried hard to persuade sohed and told one up fifty per cent, Long has declined fifty per cent Whistler's can be bought to-day for comparatively small prices; [Footnote: This ritten before the Whistler boom] in twenty years they will cost three times as much; in twenty years Mr Leader's pictures will probably not be worth half asis the o to an art patron--a City as, and he will laugh at you; he will say, ”Why, I could get a dicksee or a Leader for a thousand or two”

PICTURE DEALERS

In the eighteenth century, and the centuries that preceded it, artists were visited by their patrons, who bought what the artist had to sell, and commissioned him to paint what he was pleased to paint But in our time the artist is visited by a showily-dressed , his hat on the back of his head This is the West-End dealer: he throws hi on the easels that appeals to the uneducated eye, the dealer lectures the artist on his folly in not considering the exigencies of public taste On public taste--that is to say, on the uneducated eye--the dealer is a very fine authority His father was a dealer before hiht up on prices, he lisped in prices, and was taught to reverence prices He cannot see the pictures for prices, and he lies back, looking round distractedly, not listening to the ti an explanation Perhaps the publicif he were to persevere The dealer stares at the ceiling, and his lips recall his last evening at the music-hall If the public don't like it--why, they don't like it, and the sooner the artist comes round the better That is what he has to say on the subject, and, if sneers and sarcas, the dealer buys; and when he begins to feel sure that the uneducated eye really hungers for the newup a booreat dupe; the unpaid jackal that goes into the highways and byways for the dealer! The stockbroker gets the Bouguereau, the Herkonan-Bouveret that his soul sighs for; but the Press gets nothing except unreadable copy, and yet season after season the Press falls into the snare It seems only necessary for a dealer to order an artist to fran an invitation card--”Scenes on the Coast of Den the ust--to secure half a coluoodly number of London and provincial papers--to put it plainly, an advertiseet for hundreds of pounds One side of the invitation card is filled up with a speciht expect to find in a young lady's sketch-book: ”Copenhagen at Low Tide”, ”Copenhagen at High Tide”, ”View of the Cathedral from the Mouth of the River”, ”The Hills of----as seen froraphy every art critic will chronicle, and his chronicling will be printed free of charge a columns of the paper Nor is this the worst case The request to notice a collection of paintings and drawings rant, for then there is no question of benefiting a young artist who stands in need of encouragenition; the show is simply a dealer's exhibition of his ware True, that the ware may be so rare and excellent that it becomes a matter of public interest; if so, the critic is bound to notice the show But the ordinary show--a collection of works by a tenth-rate French artist--why should the Press advertise such wares gratis? The public goes to theatres and to flower-shows and to race-courses, but it does not go to these dealers'

shows--the dealer's friends and acquaintances go on private view day, and for the rest of the season the shop is quieter than the tobacconist's next door

For the lastaccounts of Messrs Tooth & MacLean's galleries (picture dealers do not keep shops--they keep galleries), glowing accounts of a large and extensive assortuereau, Rosa Bonheur: very nice things in their way, just such things as I would take Alderman Samuelson to see

These notices, taken out in the foritimate advertisement, would run into hundreds of pounds; and I ae a part of its revenue For if the Press did not notice these exhibitions, the dealers would be forced into the advertising columns, and when a little notice was published of the ware, it would be done as a little return--as a little encourage, on the same principle as ladies'

papers publish visits to dress Messrs Tooth's and not noticing Messrs Pears' is to ical; and, to use the hich makes every British heart beat quicker--unbusinesslike But with business I have nothing to do-- of dealers' shoere not iniainst the practice

Messrs Tooth & MacLean trade in Salon and Academy pictures, so the notices the Press prints are the equivalent of a subvention granted by the Press for the protection of this form of art If I were a statistician, it would interest me to turn over the files of the newspapers for the last fifty years and calculate how new have had out of the Press in the shape of free advertisement

And e think what sort of art this vast sum of money went to support, we cease to wonder at the decline of public taste

My quarrel is no new than it is with Messrs Tooth & MacLean; my quarrel--I should say, my reprimand--is addressed to the Press--to the Press that foolishly, unwittingly, not knohat it was doing, threw such power into the hands of the dealers that our exhibitions are now little more than the tributaries of the Bond Street shop? This statement will shock many; but let them think, and they will see it could not be otherwise Messrs Agnew have thousands and thousands of pounds invested in the Academy--that is to say, in the works of Academicians When they buy the work of any one outside of the Academy, they talk very naturally of their new man to their friends the Academicians, and the Academicians are anxious to please their best customer It was in some such way that Mr Burne-Jones's election was decided For Mr Burne-Jones was held in no Acadeton House, and he resolved never to send there again For many years he remained firm in his deterns of accepting Mr Jones, whereupon Messrs Agnew also accepted Mr Jones Mr Jones was popular; he was better than popular, he stood on the verge of popularity; but there was nothing like s safe--Jones's election to the Academy would do that Jones's scruples would have to be overcome; he must exhibit once in the Academy The Academicians would be satisfied with that Mr Jones did exhibit in the Acadeth of this one exhibit He has never exhibited since These are the facts: confute them who may, explain theot rid of--he is a vice inherent in our civilisation; but if the Press withdrew its subvention, his monopoly would be curtailed, and art would be recruited by new talent, at present subradually withdraw froant conity--that of a quiet handicraft And in this great reformation only two classes would suffer--the art critics and the dealers The newspaper proprietors would profit largely, and the readers of newspapers would profit still er be bored by the publication of dealers' catalogues expanded with insignificant comment

MR BURNE-JONES AND THE ACADEMY

_To the Editor of ”The Speaker”_

SIR,--Your art critic ”G M” is in error on a matter of fact, and as everybody knows the relationshi+p between fact and theory, I auour It was _after_, and not before, his election as an associate that Mr Burne-Jones made his solitary appearance as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy--Yours truly, etc,

R I

Sir,-It has always been ument with ed to break arding Mr Burne-Jones's election as an associate vitiates the arguour I, on the contrary, think that the fact that Mr Burne-Jones was elected as an associate before he had exhibited in the Royal Acade in doubt as to the particular fact, I unconsciously iination intervenes it is always to soften, to attenuate crudities which only nature is capable of

For twenty years, possibly for more, Mr Burne-Jones was a resolute opponent of the Royal Acadeh not so truculent, an opponent as Mr Whistler When he becaave hiest, I believe, ever given--to paint four pictures, the ”Briar Rose”