Part 7 (1/2)

But lengthy discourse gives time for reflection, and I am seriously anxious that my readers should consider the question which these articles introduce I believe it to be one of vital interest, reaching down a long range of consequences; and should these articles induce Manchester and Liverpool to place their galleries in the care of competent art-directors, I shall have rendered an incalculable service to English art I say ”competent art-directors”, and I mean by ”competent art-directors” lo-French art fostered by the Acade to Manchester and Liverpool individual artistic aspiration and tendency

Is the ambition of Manchester and Liverpool limited to paltry imitations of the Chantrey Fund collection? If they desire no more, it would serve no purpose to disturb the corporations in their alleries The corporations can do this better than any director But if Manchester and Liverpool desire individual artistic life, if they wish to collect art that will attract visitors and contribute to their renown, they can only do this by the appointment of competent directors For assurance on this point we have only to think what Sir Frederick Burton has done for the National Gallery, or what the late Mr Doyle did for Dublin on the rant of one thousand a year It is the man and not the amount of money spent that counts A born collector like the late Mr Doyle can do more with a thousand a year than a corporation could do with a hundred thousand a year

Nothing is of worth except individual passion; it is the one thing that achieves And I know of no more intense passion--and, I will add, noworks of art Of all passions it is the purest It matters little to the man possessed of it whether he collects for the State or for hiy are given to the enrichallery is his one thought He will lie awake at night to better think out his plans for the capture of soet up in theso of the passion for collecting, it is necessary to have known a real collector, and intimately, for collectors do not wear their hearts on their sleeve With the indifferent they are indifferent; but they are quick to detect the one man or woerness this one from the crowd

But perhaps the collector never really reveals himself except to a fellow-collector, and to appreciate the strength and humanity of the passion it is necessary to have seen Duret and Goncourt explaining a new japanesery which one of them has just acquired

The partial love which a corporation may feel for its collection is very different froallery And even if ere to ad of men perfectly conversant with art, and animated with passion equal to the collector's passion, the history of its labour would still be written in the words ”vexatious discussion and lost chances” The rule that no picture is to be purchased until it has been seen and approved of by the corporation forbids all extraordinary chances, and the unique and only moment is lost in foolish formulae The machinery is too cumbersome; and chances of sale-rooms cannot be seized; it is instinct and not reason that decides the collector, and no dozen or twentyafter my article on Manet was published in the columns of the _Speaker_, awhere could the pictures be seen, and if the owners would lend them for exhibition in the annual exhibition soon to open If they did, perhaps the corporation ht be induced to buy them for the perine e” and ”L'Enfant a l'epee” over froht I subned Snature that induces acquiescence in the beauty of a portrait by Gainsborough or Velasquez; without the signature the ordinary or drawing-room lady would prefer a portrait by Mr Shannon Mr Shannon is the fashi+on, and the fashi+on, being the essence and soul of the crowd, is naturally popular with the crowd

In my article on Manet I referred to a beautiful picture of his--”Boulogne Pier” It was then on exhibition in Bond Street I asked a friend to buy it ”You will not like the picture now,” I said; ”but if you have any latent aesthetic feeling in you it will bring it out, and you will like it in six months' tiave was that he did not like it

It did not seeht advance, and that the picture he was ignorant enough to like to-day he h to loathe six years hence

An early custoive you five hundred pounds to paint me a picture, and you shall paint me the picture you are minded to paint” Sir John painted hines' Eve” But the wisdom of the purchaser was only temporary When the picture came home he did not like it, his wife did not like it; there was no colour in it; it was all blue and green Briefly, it was not a pleasant picture to live with; and after trying the experientlee the picture for a picture by--by whom?--by Mr Sidney Cooper I wonder what he thinks of himself to-day And his fate is the fate of the aldermen who buy pictures because they like them

The administration of art, as it was pointed out in the _Manchester Guardian_, is one of extreme difficulty, and it is not easy to find a competent director; but it seems to me to be easy to naely difficult to name one ould do worse Any one man can thread a needle better than twenty men Should the needle prove brittle and the thread rotten, the threader h a task h all differ as to how it should be accomplished, yet, when the task is well acco the result We all agree in praising Sir Frederick Burton's administration; and yet how easy it would be to cavil! Why has he not bought an Ingres, a Corot, a Courbet, a Troyon? Why has he showed such excessive partiality for squint-eyed Italian saints? Sir Frederick Burton would answer: ”In collecting, like in everything else, you must choose a line I chose to consider the National Gallery as a museum The question is whether I have collected well or badly from this point of view” But a corporation cannot choose a line on which to collect; it can do no e in miscellaneous purchases

RELIGIOSITY IN ART

One Sunday reat painter, as likewise a wit, and the account he gave of a recent visit to the Dore Gallery a, he noticed that next to the door there was a high desk, so cunningly constructed both as regards height and inclination that all the discohtness of the silver inkpot, the arrangement of the numerous pens and the order-book on the desk, all was so perfect that the fingers of the lettered and unlettered itched alike with desire of the caligraphic art By this desk loitered a largepresence He wore a white waistcoat, and a uileless spectators or sought with soothing voice to entice one to display his handwriting in the order-book My friend, as silance of the white-waistcoated and honey-voiced Cerberus; but at the last moment, as he was about to slip out, he was stopped, and the following dialogue ensued:--

”Sir, that is a very great picture”

”Yes, it is indeed, it is an ireat in every sense of the word”

”So do I; it is nearly as broad as it is long”

”I was alluding, sir, to the superior excellence of the picture, and not to its dimensions”

”Oh!”

”May I ask, sir, if you knohat that picture represents?”

”I'm sorry, but I can't tell you”

”Then, sir, I'll tell you That picture represents the point of culmination in the life of Christ”

”Really; nitaries of the Church say so”

Pause, during which et past

The waistcoat, however, barred the way, and then the bland and dulcet voice spoke again