Part 11 (2/2)

Ladies under trees, by Utan alternated with pale yellow correspondselse; both are fine decorations,more definite than that sense of beauty which haunts the world The fields give flowers, and the hands of man works of art

Then this art is wholly irresponsible--it grows, obeying no rules, even as the flowers?

In obedience to the laws of soular metre so delicate and subtle that its structure escapes our analysis, the flowers bloo variety We can only say these are beautiful because they are beautiful

That is begging the question

He who atte the question in the end

But you have to ad that does not correspond to the object which the artist has set himself to copy cannot be well drawn

That idea is the blight that has fallen on European art The goodness or the badness of a drawing exists independently of the thing copied

We say--speaking of a branch, of a cloud, of a rock, of a flower, of a leaf--how beautifully drawn! Some clouds and some leaves are better drawn than others, not on account of complexity or simplicity of form, but because they interpret an innate sense of har, which exists sometimes irrespective of anatomies and proportions, is always Uta this beautiful drawing, studying the grey and the green tint, adenius that placed the yellow umbrella in the idol's hand, the black ly decorated with great yellow hair-pins I watched the beauty of the trees, and wasof the trees in the cohted in the delicate blossoanism which Western civilisation has already defaced, and in a few years will have wholly destroyed

I iven ht say that the colour was as deep and as delicate as flower-bloom, and every outline spontaneous, and exquisite to the point of re me of the hopbine and ferns

It would be well to say these things; the praise would be appropriate to the occasion; but rather am I minded to call the reader's attention to what seems to me to be an essential difference between the East and the West

Michael Angelo and Velasquez, however huge their strength in portraiture and decoration, however sublinificent display of colour, we ht and a delicacy of handicraft--the outcoht--which never was attained by Italy, and which so transcends our grosser sense that it must for ever remain only half perceived and understood by us

THE NEW ART CRITICISM

Before couishedto attach over-much importance to my criticisms--reprint what I said about _L'Absinthe_; for in truth it was I who first meddled with the moral tap, and am responsible for the overflow:--

”Look at the head of the old Boheraver Deboutin--a man whom I have known all my life, and yet he never really existed for me until I saw this picture There is the hat I have always known, on the back of his head as I have always seen it, and the wooden pipe is held tight in his teeth as I have always seen hie, how profound, how si! How easily and how naturally he lives in the pose, the body bent forward, the elbows on the table! Fine as the Orchardson undoubtedly is, it seeued and explanatory by the side of this wonderful rendering of life; thin and restless--like Duue e compare it with Ibsen's The woman that sits beside the artist was at the Elysee Mont, then she went to the _ratmort_ and had a soupe _aux choux_; she lives in the Rue Fontaine, or perhaps the Rue Breda; she did not get up till half-past eleven; then she tied a few soiled petticoats round her, slipped on that peignoir, thrust her feet into those looseshoes, and came down to the cafe to have an absinthe before breakfast

Heavens! what a slut! A life of idleness and low vice is upon her face; we read there her whole life _The tale is not a pleasant one, but it is a lesson_ Hogarth's vieas larger, wider, but not so incisive, so deep, or so intense Then how loose and general Hogarth's composition would sees! That open space in front of the table, into which the skirt and the lean legs of the man come so well--hoell the point of vieas selected! The beautiful, dissonant rhythures crushed into the right of the canvas, the left filled up with a frag in sharp perspective into the foreground The newspaper lies as it would lie across the space between the tables The colour, almost a monochrome, is very beautiful, a deep, rich harmony More ain: a ely assi definition--reood deal of Ingres' spirit, and, in the vigour of the arabesque, we may perhaps trace the influence of Poussin But these influences float evanescent on the canvas, and the reading is difficult and contradictory”

I have written ent phrase, many a stupid phrase, but the italicised phrase is the first hypocritical phrase I ever wrote I plead guilty to the grave offence of having suggested that a work of art is more than a work of art The picture is only a work of art, and therefore void of all ethical signification In writing the abominable phrase ”_but it is a lesson_” I admitted as a truth the ridiculous contention that a work of art may influence a rotesque contention that to read _Mdlle de Maupin_ may cause a man to desert his wife, whereas to read _Paradise Lost_ may induce hiuilty to having written, I admitted the inate not in our inherited natures, but are found in the books we read and the pictures we look upon That art should be pure is quite another matter, and the necessity of purity in art can benow of literature--owes a great deal to ethics, but ethics owes nothing to art Without morality the art of the novelist and the dramatist would cease So we are more deeply interested in the preservation of public y, of course, excepted To accuse us of indifference in this h standard of publicdepends upon it--and it would be difficult to suggest a more powerful reason for our advocacy Nevertheless, by a curious irony of fate we must preserve--at least, in our books--a distinctly impartial attitude on the very subject which most nearly concerns our pockets

To remove these serious disabilities should be our serious aiement with the bishops to allow us access to the pulpits Mr So-and so's episcopal style--I refer not only to this gentleure, which, on account of the opportunities it offers for a display of calf, could not fail to win their lordshi+ps' admiration--marks him as the proper head and spokesman of the deputation; and his well-known sympathies for the pecuniary interests of authors would enable him to explain that not even their lordshi+ps' pockets were so gravely concerned in the maintenance of public morality as our own

I have allowed my pen to wander so reat picture to be what it was not, and could not be--”a lesson”--it was clearly incumbent on me to show that the moral question was the backbone of the art which I practise myself, and that of all classes none are so necessarily moral as novelists I think I have done this beyond possibility of disproof, or even of argument, and may therefore be allowed to laroans as I deem sufficient for the due expiation of my sin

Confession eases the heart Listen My description of Degas' picture seemed to me a little unconventional, and to soothe the reader who is shocked by everything that lies outside his habitual thought, and to dodge the reader who is always on the watch to introduce a discussion on that sterile subject, ”s pleasant for everybody, to tickle the Philistine in his tenderest spot, I told a little lie: I suggested that soht to have known hu will do, and straight away preaching began--Zola and the drink question froy from Mr Crane

But the picture isto do with drink or sociology; and its title is not _L' Absinthe_, nor even _Un Homme et une Feests, but simply _Au Cafe_ Mr Walter Crane writes: ”Here is a study of huradation, male and feise for his language when he learns that thehis pipe is a portrait of the engraver Deboutin, a reat talent and at least Mr Walter Crane's equal as a writer and as a designer True that M Deboutin does not dress as well as Mr Walter Crane, but there aremen in Pall Mall ould consider Mr Crane's velvet coat, red necktie, and soft felt hat quite intolerable, yet they would hardly be justified in speaking of a portrait of Mr Walter Crane as a study of huradation Let me assure Mr Walter Crane that when he speaks of M Deboutin's life as being degraded, he is speaking on a subject of which he knows nothing M Deboutin has lived a very noble life, in no way inferior to Mr Crane's; his life has been entirely devoted to art and literature; his etchings have been for many years the admiration of artistic Paris, and he has had a play in verse performed at the Theatre Francais