Part 17 (1/2)

It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists theent, but thoroughly well-intended patronage If they seek to attract it by eccentricity, to deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade theht to corounded claims But if every painter of real poould do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success, there is indeed, whatever ht or said to the contrary, true instinct enough in the public uidance It is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years enables ood picture is ultiht, unless it is wilfully rendered offensive to the public by faults which the artist has been either too proud to abandon or too weak to correct

The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two , depends however, ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which has lately been aroused by the great and active genius of , or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects It may perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear ivethat sonize me by an old name) to hear the author of _Modern Painters_ say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in over-estius, I was able to perceive,[172] was the first to reprove ard of the skill of his fellow-artists; and, with this inauguration of the study of the art of all time,--a study which can only by true modesty end in wise admiration,--it is surely well that I connect the record of these words of his, spoken then too truly to myself, and true always more or less for all who are untrained in that toil,--”You don't kno difficult it is”

You will not expect ive you any analysis of the reat divisions) which the complex demands of enius, have developed for pleasure or service It ues in other Universities, hereafter to enable you to appreciate these worthily; in the hope that also the members of the Royal Academy, and those of the Institute of British Architects, uide, the efforts of the Universities, by organizing such a system of art education for their own students, as shall in future prevent the waste of genius in anydoubt as to the proper substance and use ofcoht, in every picture and design exhibited with their sanction It is not indeed possible for talent so varied as that of English artists to be compelled into the formalities of a determined school; but it must certainly be the function of every acadeuarded from what must in every school be error; and that they are practised in the best enuity is directed to the invention of others

I need scarcely refer, except for the sake of completeness in my statehtened, and powerful only for evil;--namely, the demand of the classes occupied solely in the pursuit of pleasure, for objects and modes of art that can amuse indolence or excite passion There is no need for any discussion of these requireh they are very deadly at present in their operation on sculpture, and on jewellers' work They cannot be checked by blauided by instruction; they are merely the necessary results of whatever defects exist in the temper and principles of a luxurious society; and it is only by es, not by art-criticism, that their action can bede-press, illustrative of daily events, of general literature, and of natural science Admirable skill, and some of the best talent ofthis want; and there is no li advantage of the po possess of placing good and lovely art within the reach of the poorest classes Much has been already accoreat harm has been done also,--first, by forms of art definitely addressed to depraved tastes; and, secondly, in a s which are yet not good enough to retain their influence on the public mind;--which weary it by redundant quantity of e excellence, and diminish or destroy its power of accurate attention to work of a higher order

Especially this is to be regretted in the effect produced on the schools of line engraving, which had reached in England an executive skill of a kind before unexa and legitimate methods Still, I have seen plates produced quite recently,ever before attained by the burin:[173] and I have not the slightest fear that photography, or any other adverse or competitive operation, will in the least ultimately diminish,--I believe they will, on the contrary, stirand old powers of the wood and the steel

Such are, I think, briefly the present conditions of art hich we have to deal; and I conceive it to be the function of this Professorshi+p, with respect to them, to establish both a practical and critical school of fine art for English gentlemen: practical, so that, if they draw at all, theyfirst directed to such works of existing art as will best reward their study, they htful to themselves in their consciousness of its justice, and, to the utiven only to the men who deserve it; in the early period of their lives, when they both need it e

And especially with reference to this function of patronage, I believeinto account future probabilities as to the character and range of art in England; and I shall endeavour at once to organize with you a systee of those branches in which the English schools have shown, and are likely to show, peculiar excellence

Now, in asking your sanction both for the nature of the general plans I wish to adopt, and for what I conceive to be necessary limitations of them, I wish you to be fully aware ofof your patience while I state the directions of effort in which I think English artists are liable to failure, and those also in which past experience has shown they are secure of success

I referred, but now, to the effort we are ns of our manufactures Within certain limits I believe this improvement may indeed take effect: so that we ly results of chance instead of design; and ood forlass But we shall never excel in decorative design

Such design is usually produced by people of great natural powers of mind, who have no variety of subjects to employ themselves on, no oppressive anxieties, and are in circumstances either of natural scenery or of daily life, which cause pleasurable exciten because we have too much to think of, and we think of it too anxiously It has long been observed how little real anxiety exists in the e races which excel in decorative art; and we es was a troubled one, because every day brought its dangers or its changes The very eventfulness of the life rendered it careless, as generally is still the case with soldiers and sailors Nohen there are great powers of thought, and little to think of, all the waste energy and fancy are thrown into the manual work, and you have as e mercantile concern for a day, spent all at once, quite unconsciously, in drawing an ingenious spiral

Also, powers of doing fine ornamental work are only to be reached by a perpetual discipline of the hand as well as of the fancy; discipline as attentive and painful as that which a juggler has to put hih, to overcome the more palpable difficulties of his profession

The execution of the best artists is always a splendid tour-de-force, andis supposed to be dependent on erdemain Nohen powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of eneration, you have at last, what is not so much a trained artist as a new species of aniifts you have no chance of contending And thus all our imitations of other peoples' work are futile We lish wares, and afterward to decorate the Graces

Secondly--and this is an incapacity of a graver kind, yet having its own good in it also--we shall never be successful in the highest fields of ideal or theological art

For there is one strange, but quite essential, character in us--ever since the Conquest, if not earlier:--a delight in the forree with the foulness in evil I think the lish mind in its best possible temper, is that of Chaucer; and you will find that, while it is for the hts of beauty, pure and wild like that of an April , there are, even in the es which stoop to play with evil--while the power of listening to and enjoying the jesting of entirely gross persons, whatever the feeling enerates into forreatest, wisest, and lish writers now almost useless for our youth And yet you will find that whenever Englishenius is comparatively weak and restricted

Now, the first necessity for the doing of any great work in ideal art, is the looking upon all foulness with horror, as a conteh dreadful ene the feelings hich Dante regards any form of obscenity or of base jest, with the tearded by Shakspere And this strange earthly instinct of ours, coupled as it is, in our good reat simplicity and common sense, renders them shrewd and perfect observers and delineators of actual nature, low or high; but precludes them from that speciality of art which is properly called sublielo or of Dante, we catch a fall, even in literature, as Milton in the battle of the angels, spoiled from Hesiod:[174] while in art, every atten either of the presuotism of persons who had never really learned to be workic forms of the contemplation of death,--it has always been partly insane, and never once wholly successful

But we need not feel any discomfort in these limitations of our capacity We can do much that others cannot, and more than we have ever yet ourselves coift is in the portraiture of living people--a power already so acco is left for future masters but to add the calour and felicity of perception And of what value a true school of portraiture may become in the future, orthy men will desire only to be known, and others will not fear to know them, for what they truly were, we cannot from any past records of art influence yet conceive But in my next address it will be partly my endeavour to show you how reat ht have been, had they been content to bear record of the souls that were dwelling with thelory to those they dreamed of in heaven

Secondly, we have an intense power of invention and expression in do essentially doest motives of interest) There is a tendency at this moment towards a noble development of our art in this direction, checked by many adverse conditions, which enerous civic or patriotic passion in the heart of the English people; a fault which makes its domestic affections selfish, contracted, and, therefore, frivolous

Thirdly, in connection with our siood-hurotesque which debases our ideal, we have a sympathy with the lower anih it has already found some exquisite expression in the works of Bewick and Landseer, is yet quite undeveloped This sympathy, with the aid of our now authoritative science of physiology, and in association with our British love of adventure, will, I hope, enable us to give to the future inhabitants of the globe an almost perfect record of the present forms of ani extinguished

While I myself hold this professorshi+p, I shall direct you in these exercises very definitely to natural history, and to landscape; not only because in these two branches I aht be despised by my successors; but because I think the vital and joyful study of natural history quite the principal ele introduction, not only into University, but into national, education, fro your ridicule by confessing one ofsolish youths like better to look at a bird than to shoot it; and even desire to make wild creatures tame, instead of tame creatures wild And for the study of landscape, it is, I think, now calculated to be of use in deeper, if not more important modes, than that of natural science, for reasons which I will ask you to let th

Observe first;--no race of men which is entirety bred in wild country, far from cities, ever enjoys landscape They may enjoy the beauty of animals, but scarcely even that: a true peasant cannot see the beauty of cattle; but only the qualities expressive of their serviceableness

I waive discussion of this to-day; peruarantee of future proof Landscape can only be enjoyed by cultivated persons; and it is only by iven Also, the faculties which are thus received are hereditary; so that the child of an educated race has an innate instinct for beauty, derived from arts practised hundreds of years before its birth Now farther note this, one of the loveliest things in human nature In the children of noble races, trained by surrounding art, and at the sareat deeds, there is an intense delight in the landscape of their country as _ht to them, nor teachable to any others; but, in thereat national life;--the obedience and the peace of ages having extended gradually the glory of the revered ancestors also to the ancestral land; until the Motherhood of the dust, the mystery of the Demeter from whose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return, surrounds and inspires, everywhere, the local awe of field and fountain; the sacredness of landmark that none may remove, and of wave that none may pollute; while records of proud days, and of dear persons, hostly inscription, and every path lovely with noble desolateness

Noever checked by lightness of temperament, the instinctive love of landscape in us has this deep root, which, in your minds, I will pray you to disencumber from whatever may oppress or th of your youth that a nation is only worthy of the soil and the scenes that it has inherited, when, by all its acts and arts, it isthem more lovely for its children

But if either our work, or our inquiries, are to be indeed successful in their own field, they must be connected with others of a sterner character Now listen to me, if I have in these past details lost or burdened your attention; for this is what I have chiefly to say to you

The art of any country _is the exponent of its social and political virtues_ I will show you that it is so in some detail, in the second of my subsequent course of lectures; s, and the s, I can positively declare to you The art, or general productive and fory, of any country, is an exact exponent of its ethical life You can have noble art only from noble persons, associated under laws fitted to their time and circumstances And the best skill that any teacher of art could spend here in your help, would not end in enabling you even so htly to draw the water-lilies in the Cherwell (and though it did, the hen done would not be worth the lilies the, as I trust we shall together seek, in the lahich regulate the finest industries, the clue to the lahich regulate all industries, and in better obedience to which we shall actually have henceforward to live: not ht, but under the weight of quite literal necessity For the trades by which the British people has believed it to be the highest of destinies toremain undisputed in its hands; its une more violently cri, _partly fro always up to their inco that they can subsist in idleness upon usury_, will at last colish families to acquaint themselves with the principles of providential econoround, and coh it is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest arts, nor for any, guiltlessly, to pass their days in a succession of pleasures, the most perfect mental culture possible to ies, and their best arts and brightest happiness are consistent, and consistent only, with their virtue

This, I repeat, gentle us, and there are yet land depends upon the position they then take, and on their courage init

There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a nation to be accepted or refused We are still undegenerate in race; a race led of the best northern blood We are not yet dissolute in terace to obey