Art thoughts : the experiences and observations of an American amateur in Europe

Front matter

THE

EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS OF AN AMERICAN AMATEUR IN EUROPE

BY

CHAPTER I. Preliminary Observations

Origin and Scope of the Art-Idea. — Art a Human Want. — Style — Taste. — Definition of Art. — Artist and Craftsman. — The True Artist. — Generic Motives. — Art as a Vehicle of Knowledge. — Nature the Fact. — Art the Type. — Final Test of Art. - Ideas in Art. — The World without Beauty. — Decoration. — Conscience in Art. — Inspiration. — Temptation Nature of — What Art should be .... -t- ,

CHAPTER n.

The Pagan and Christian Religious Idea in Art. Religious and ^Esthetic Ideas distinct but in Unity. — Origin of Sculpture.

— Egyptian, Assyrian, and Indian Art, One-sided Nature of -Moses and Mohammed, their Policy. — The Hebrews. — Character of Greek Art. - Muse of Cortona. — Raphael's Theory of Ideals. — A perfect Model.

— Beauty and Freedom of Grecian Art. — Every Greek a latent God.— Judaea supplants Greece. — Nature of Symbolical Art. - The Scarabeus.

— Phallus and Crucifix. — False Art of Antiquity. — " Artists of Filth."

— Polychromy. — Examples of best Greek Work. - Statue and Bust Portraiture. — Roman and Grecian Taste. — Sensuousness and Sensuality. — Salutary Efi^ects of Religion in Art. — Female Nude. — First Naked Venus.

— Disregard of Landscape. — Basis of Greek Taste ....

CHAPTER HI.

The Art and Religion of Etruria.

Etruscan Character, their Cities and Sepulchres. - Rome owed its Civilization to Etruria. - Sites of their Towns. - Contents of their Tombs - Root of Etruscan Art in Realism. - Ideas of Death and a Future Life. — The Volunni Sculptures. — Demonism. — A Domestic People. — Their Supernal Images. — Furies. - Monument of a Lady. — The Chimera. — Its Meaning

CHAPTER IV.

Comparison between Classical and Christian Art. The Art of Rome, Ancient and Modern. - Art concerns History on the Side ot Its Morality. -Its Office in regard to the Individual. - Where did viii

CONTENTS.

Paganism leave Art V — How did Christianity take it up ? — Which Form is the most successful ? — Pleasure and Pain as Motives in Art. — Christian Hope and Fear, Results of, aesthetically considered. — Asceticism. — Examples in Art. — St. Francis. — Phases of Christian Art. — The Catacombs. — Theological. — Religious, Renaissance, Modern. — Powers's "Panoramic Hell." — Dante's " Inferno." — Range of Greek Art. — Its Ideal Creations. — Christian Art. — Heathen and Christian Grotesque. — Diogenes and St. Jerome. — Bacchus, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Menelaus, and Helen. — Repose in Art. — Michael Angelo's Statues. — How good and bad Art acts. — Christian Mythology. — Ecstatic or Love Aspect of Christian Art. — The New Jerusalem. — Zeus and Jehovah. — Wisdom through Suffering. ~ Representative Christian Artists. — Disposition to Idolatry of all Peoples. — Pagan Ideals contrasted with Christian. — The Almighty as a Motive in Art. — Michael Angelo's and Blake's Treatment. — Phidias. — Razzi's " Eve." — Michael Angelo's " Eve " and " Fortune." — The Spiritual Secret of his Superiority as Man and Artist . 49

CHAPTER V.

Architecture.

Culmination of Plastic Art. — Functions of the Architect. — Nature of Architecture. — Civilization has no fixed Standard. — Central America, Mexico, Peru, China, Japan. — Hindoo Architecture. — Egyptian. — Effect of Race and Climate. — The Jews. — Turks. — Arabs. — Principles of Primitive Architecture. — Cyclopean and Pelasgian Edifices. — The Key-note of Grecian Architecture ; Character of. — Roman. — The Dome. — Germs of Architecture. — Lombard, Byzantine, Romanesque, Saracenic Styles. — Feudal Styles. — Origin, Aim, Scope, and Varieties of the Gothic. — Its Character. — The Cathedral. — Effect of Printing on the Gothic. — The Renaissance. — St. Peter's and other Examples. — Effect of Protestantism on Ecclesiastical Architecture. — Rococo Styles. — Fashion. — Bigotry and Infidelity in Architecture. — Honest Renaissance. — Modern Gothic, its Uses 94

CHAPTER VI.

Modern Italian Art, Life, and Religion.

Depressing Effect of Books on Art. — Depressing Effect of Protestantism. — Why Religious Art has died out. —Careers of the " Old Masters." — Connection between the Religion and Art of a People. — Failure of the Roman Catholic Church. — Italian Traits and Character. — A " Pagus."

— Nature of the Picturesque. — An Italian and an American Home. — What the Christian Idea has accomplished. — Dethronement of Papacy.

— Duomo of Cortona. — Westminster Abbey, Abuses of. — Monte Uliveto.

— Arezzo. — Siena. — Mendicants of Pisa. — Razzi's " Epiphany." — Hermitage of Gallicano. — Professors, as a Caste. — Old Ideas. — New Saints. — Italian Artists. — Ussi. — Altamura. — Benvenuti. — Mediaeval Tombs — Dupr^. — Morelli. — Bastianini. — Landscape and Genre Art.

— Vela. — The " Devil " in Modem Art. — Failure of the Latin Races . 136

CONTENTS.

ix

CHAPTER VII.

The Art of Holland, Belgium, Spain, and Germany.

PAGE

Printing displaces Religious Art. — How the Popes put out Protestant Ideas in Italy. — Their Return now. — Artistic Capacity of the Spanish. — Character of their Schools. — Murillo, Velasquez, Cano, Morales. — School of Holland. — Democracy in Art. — Rembrandt. — Rubens. — Belgium. — " Rural Fete" by Rubens. — Art of Germany. — Comparison between Books and Art. — Albert Durer. — Holbein. — Overbeck. — Cornelius. — Kaulbach. — The Dusseldorf Artists. — Results . . . 176

CHAPTER VIII.

English Art.

General Ignorance in Europe of it. — What Englishmen have done to Civilize the World. — The American in Europe. — Causes of Insularity of English Art. — Influence of Fashion. — English Sculpture. — Chantrey.

— Gibson. — English Painting, Nature of. — Coloring, Want of. — Water-color Painting. — Representative Artists. — Reynolds, Gainsborough, Wilson, Hogarth, Wilkie, Leslie, Landseer, Leech, " Punch," William Blake, Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Rosetti, Mrs. Benham Hay, Turner, Comparison drawn between him and Blake. — Conclusion . . 190

CHAPTER IX.

The Art of Japan and China.

Character of their Art-design. — Illuminated MSS. and Books of Design. — Boun-Tij'o and Oksai. — His Genius. — The Albert Durer of Japan. — Analysis of Japanese Design. — Oksai and Phidias in Contrast. — Demonism of Japan. — Native Humor. — Realistic Design. — Sensualism. — Jebis, or Neptune. — God of Longevity 221

CHAPTER X.

The Painters of France.

Foreign Element. — Early MS. Illuminated. — Poverty of French Art. — Clouet, Claude, Poussin, Le Sueur; their Style. — Period of Louis XIV. — Mignard. — Harlotry in Art. — Vanloo and the Animal Painters. Greuze- — Joseph Vernet. — The Art of the Revolution. — School of David. — Gericault, Girodet, Gros, G(5rard, Prud'hon, Le Brun. — Salon Carre. — H. Vernet. — Color in French Art. — The Spiritual Element. — Ary Scheffer. — Flandrin. — Delaroche. — Troyon. — Rosa Bonheur. — Ingres. — Decamps. — Fleury. — A Picture by Giorgione. — Couture. — Delacroix. — His Genius. — Muller's great Painting. — G^rome and his School. — Meissonnier. — The Lascivious - Pretty. — Baudry. — Boudier.

— The Obscene in French Art. — Still-life. — DesgofFe. — - Fromentin. — Domestic-Genre, — Frere, Merle, Browne. — Men of Feeling. — Jules Breton and Millet. — Lambron's Virgin and Child." — The Painter of

X

CONTENTS.

Ugliness. — Ribot. — The Ocean in French Art. — Nature and the Landscapists. — Lambinet. — Auguste Bonheur. — Theodore Rousseau, Diaz, Corot, the Sentimentalist. — Couture, the Realist. — Dor^, Analysis of his Genius. — Summary of the School and its Condition . . . . 230

CHAPTER XI.

FiiENCH Sculpture and Akchitecture.

Celhni's " Nymph." — Goujon's " Diana." — Pseudo-classical Work. — Portrait-Statuary. — Royalty as Jupiter Scapin. — Pierre Puget. — Decorative and Monumental Sculpture. — Modern Paris vs. Old Paris: Gain and Loss. — Polic}^ of Louis Napoleon. — Result in Art. — Statistics of the Parisian "New Jerusalem." — "La Grace de Dieu." — Assumptions of French Civilization. — Its Present Standard, and Causes thereof . . 282

CHAPTER XIL

Art in America.

Condition and Needs. — Period of West. — The Intermediate Stage. — Present Stage. — Wrong Estimate. — Average Artist as easily produced as Average Writer. — The Average Patron. — The Mechanical and Commercial Spirit of American Art. — Machine Labor. — Story's Theory. — An Old Error in a New Shape. — Its Fallacy. — Cheap Art always Poor Art. — Genius conceives quickly, executes slowly. — Our New-school Men. — Leutze and the Melo-dramatists. — Effect of the Great Exposition of 1867, on American Art. — Our Landscapists. — Raphael's " Apollo " and " Marsyas." — Mediocrity of American Sculpture. — The Sense of the Beautiful in the Italian Mind contrasted with that of the Ridiculous in the American. — The Lincoln Monument. — Statue of St. Alessio. — Boston Street-statues. — How to secure Better Sculpture. — Cost of Sculpture.— Examples of Prices. — H. Hosmer. — Studies from Life. — Our Equestrian Statues. — Mills, Ward, Ball, Jackson, Brown, Story. — The American Standard of Knowledge of Art. — Style of our Architecture. — London Criticisms. — Educational Advantages of Galleries and Museums. — Idealists in Sculpture. — Gould, Brackett, ConoUy . • . . . 291

CHAPTER XIIL

The Minor Arts. — Ornament and Decoration.

Final Object of Ornament. — Esthetic Repose. — Misplaced Ornament. — Rule of Fashion. — The Gossip of Art. — Asiatic and European and American Instincts of Beauty and Taste. — Independent Taste. — Moral Influences of Museums. — Classical and Pagan Ornamentation. — Oriental Porcelains. — Enamels and Straw-work. — Moresque Ornament. — Lucca della Robbia Ware. — Palissy. — Limoges and B3'zantine Enamels. — Italian Majolica. — Venetian Glass. — Renaissant Work. — Bronzes, Gems, Metals, Leather, etc. — Wedgewood. — Kensington and British Museums and Schools of Design. — Our Opportunity . . • .320

CONTENTS.

xi

CHAPTER XIV.

Amateurshif.

PAGE

Dilettanteisra and Amateurship, Character of. — American Critics. — What is needed to make a Sound Connoisseur. — Foreign Galleries and their Management. — Restoration of Pictures, False and Genuine. — Statistics of Galleries. — Their Value as Productive Capital. — ^Esthetic Bottom of Americans. — Foreign Amateurs. — The Born Collector. — His Risks and Pleasures. — Swindling and Forgeries in Art. — Noted Instances. — The Moreau Case, and Justice in Pans. — A Genuine Leonardo. — Letter of Holman Hunt. — Yale School of Fine Arts. — Appeal in behalf of the " Old Masters." 339

CHAPTER XV.

The Art of the Futuke.

Art the Material Representation of the Ideal. — Love and Religion its Basis. — Imagination controls it. — Retrospective View of Pagan, Mediaeval, and Renaissant Art. — Two Ways of Happiness: the Demoniac Ideal and the Beautiful Ideal. — Spirit of our Century. — Fresh Heavens opened. — The Old Flow of Theology. — St. Francis and the Death of the Body. — The Pagan Love of Diversion. — Mediasval do. — Modern Intidelity and Sadness in Life. — Fruit of American Institutions. — Immortal Moments. — Theodore Parker's Theory of Use. — Its Foolishness. — Franklin and Michael Aiigelo. — Rubens. — Contrast in uses between Physical Comfort and Mental and Spiritual Welfare. — Examples. — Ideas and Emotions. — What Fine-art accomplishes. — The Future Art of America 365

CRUMBS OF ART.

CHAPTER 1.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

INCE 1852, I have studied Art, chiefly to Purpose offind out the part it has sustained in effete ^""^^ civilizations, and to ascertain its present condition: with reference to the future. The satisfaction derived from this study amply compensates its timeand cost. But it would be incomplete, if the results might not be made useful to others. I shall try to give a succinct view of the subject as a whole, tracing its varied expressions to our time, hoping to make the meaning, origin, and aim of Art more clear to the common mind than it seems to be at present, as well as to proffer some hints for its culture. It would be presumptuous to offer this little work to the consideration of the erudite of any nation. In my own country there are few who/ give Art any serious attention ; fewer still, it may be, to sympathize with my attempt or accept my conclusions. Yet the topic is attractive to many. Those who are unable to study the history of Art at its native sources may be willing to follow me in my experiences, while freely exercising their own judgments. To them, therefore, I address myself

What is the origin and scope of the art-idea ? What has it done for men, and what may it still do ? What are its relations to nature, science, and religion ? How are communities made better or worse by it ? To what extent is it indispensable to our individual happiness? These questions cover all the ground we need examine.

Our first difficulty arises from the fact that words are vague in the ratio of their generalization. Comprehensive nouns like Art, Science, Religion, Philosophy, or God, convey to different

ORIGIN OF ART.

minds varied conceptions. Each degree of knowledge, and even of temperament, has its formula of expression. Thus language is largely conventional. As minds grow, the significance of words changes to them. I cannot, therefore, hope to be understood by all exactly as I could desire ; but I may make my use of essential terms intelligible to thinkers.

Art has its origin deep in a human want. I would

Art a hu- • i

man want, not cxclude auimals from a certam consciousness of its

The ideal. n .1 . • i 1

presence, tor even they enjoy something above and beyond physical functions, indicative of a receptive sense of pleasure, as if they too welcomed their ideal. If man were solely a being of abstract reason, the exercise of thought would be sufficient to his happiness. But he has also heart and imagination which demand gratification. Both clamor for more ithan they ever obtain. This unfulfilled wish constitutes their ideal, or that subtile aspiration of the soul which is the essence ■of noble art. This it is which gives a halo to the beauty it evokes ; which fires the sentiments and exalts the intellect, imparting an undefinable joy as the object responds to our amorous appeal : a^ language felt rather than heard. Our happiness is the more complete inasmuch that it is dissociated with notions of labor or utility. Fine art suggests neither. As with the fragrance of a flower or the radiance of a sunset, we inhale its sweetness in unconscious gratitude, forming the while close friendships with its images. No one need expect to comprehend art in its ultimate sense, unless he is capable of receiving its impressions as spontaneously and supersensuously as he would those of love ; for art is first passion, then conviction. Whence its power is not to be ciphered. Ends, not means, it affirms. Unless we apprehend the spiritual element, our satisfaction must limit itself to its technical and material functions.

Both science and art aspire to sublime things ; the former to discover and use, the latter to represent and suggest. Science tells us of what salts a tear is made, but can give no insight into its cause, as can art. Analyzing the excretions of the kidneys, it decides with mathematical accuracy on the relative activity of mind and muscle, informing us how much passion, thought, or repose a man has had in a given time, and even claims that thought itself is only one form of matter. In this way it treats movement and character, which art also embodies in solid material in a diffi^rent fashion. We can thus understand the kinship of art and science, and their diverging technical offices.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOT ART.

Some of these are confounded in popular apprehension by an endeavor to enhance the credit of certain occupations. Photography is not art, but a process of science to which art may add grace and beauty. As commonly practiced, it is chemical handici-aft, and not to be spoken of as art, though, under its guidance, capable of making one forget its scientific origin in gesthetic satisfaction. Further, it is a useful servant of the artist, in many familiar ways, besides disseminating copies of the works of art in a cheap and portable form. Chromolithography is another manual process of less importance and truth of characterization. We should not confuse the shadow with the substance of art any more than we do the abstract idea with the printed word.

Cookery, hair-dressing, and tailoring, owing to the transcedental importance given them in France, have trespassed on the domain of art. In that country, tailors, cooks, and barbers are often called artists. This misnomer may be exhilarating to individual vanity ; but it does not elevate these occupations though it does tend to degrade art, by vulgarizing its associations and lowering its mental standard. Moreover, it is a sad commentary on the aspirations of a people to permit any handicraft to rank as art ; for it virtually says that muscle is entitled to the highest honors of mind, and puts the servant in the place of his master. To cook a meal, stitch clothes, or dress hair no more makes an artist than to blow glass or shoe horses. There is no need of jumbling art and manual labor. One is the product of thought, imagination, feeling ; the other is work done according to rule, receipt, or pattern, in which dexterity of hand is of more account than mental action. Art can benefit a handicraft by making its product ornamental and pleasurable instead of plain or ugly ; but ugliness and coarseness, as we perceive in things in general, do not diminish their absolute utility.

An artist is called to higher functions than the Artist and craftsman. By the same election no cook, barber, or 'Jjf ?J^e aV«- photographer can be an artist, or else he would not be what he is. Whenever handicraft aspires to the ornamental, the artist must be called in. Calling charcoal a diamond does not make it one ; nevertheless the smutty wood can be transformed into the brilliant gem. No man of taste is taken in by names, for ugliness does not become beauty by the addition of a lie. I emphasize these points now, that I may not be misunderstood later in my application of the art -idea.

STYLE IN ART.

As there are many artificers who boast themselves artists, so there are many men who pass current as artists in virtue of prodigious self-assertion, maybe deception, and turning out work as a printer prints books. They create nothing; recast nothing ; fulfill no law of art ; but execute terribly, in acres of canvas and tons of stone, which, being called pictures and statues, impose on the credulous by sheer nomenclature. These forgeries abound in all countries and times; for art, being pleasanter in garb and more readily perverted into shams, has more parasites than science. Nevertheless there is a rule whereby to detect the real artist. His tools are in his brain rather than his hands. His creed is in his work, not his cash-book. Having a detective taste for beauty in any guise, he accumulates artistic things even less as practical hints than as objects to be enjoyed. No matter how famous an artist is in type or lucky in " orders," unless he shows style in his work and taste in his home, he is no true man, but only a shrewd guller of the public. I would gladly omit all reference to fictitious work, for the same reason that 1 would not waste eyesight on it ; but some examples will be needed to correct common misconceptions. Style taste Style I mean more particularly that character

definition of given to the artist's work which comes of tliought, whether new in conception and treatment, or the recasting of older ideas and forms into fresh life. The style of a school is an aggregation of the forces of its masters. In art, therefore, it is a positive, indispensable element, as character is, to manhood. Taste enters into style in the same way that polite manners help form the gentleman. There may be style with but little taste ; still it is essential to complete work. By putting into harmony diverse forms and qualities, it acts as a barometer of art-feeling and intelligence. A man without taste is a mental cripple. His aesthetic faculty being unformed, he is virtually deaf and blind to the most refined pleasures of life.

No one will deny that the most intense and dilFused of human joys spring from the passion of love. Without pretending to define aft in precise terms, I venture to call it the love of the soul, in the sense that science is its law. As a civilizing process, each is the complement of the other. Practically, art is the ornamental side of life, as science is its utilitarian ; the one having to do with the appearance of things, the other with their substance. Whatever is produced by man of which beauty is the main feature, and enjoyment the chief aim, that has its origin

REALISM: IDEALISM.

in the art-idea ; while things of simple use are the fruit of the opposite faculty. This is, however, only a superficial view. A more profound apprehension of their attributes makes science the representative of Divine Wisdom, and art the image of Divine Love ; both bringing down to the level of our senses, by a sort of incarnation, the unseen and infinite.

Two fundamental distinctions underlie art. I call Realism and them Realism and Idealism, from want of clearer ^G^nelk'mowords to express my meaning. The former applies to the portraiture of the external world, and partakes more or less of copying and imitation. It affects local and particular truths ; is circumscribed in action and motive ; inclines to inventories of things in its poorer estate ; is apt to be cold, pedantic, minutely fine, or broadly rough ; and seldom rises above consummate dexterity and intellectual appreciation.

Idealism bases itself on universal truths. It deals more with emotions and ideas than facts and action, opposing imagination to perception, on which realism chiefly rests. Inventing, suggesting, creating, the former is the poetry of fine art ; the latter, its prose. How to combine perfect execution with profound thought, and while rendering temporal and special truths to endow them with the spirit of the ideal and eternal, is the great problem of art. Great artists ever struggle to solve it. But owing to the bias which the mind early takes for one or the other of these phases, and the limitations of their materials, few succeed in combining their best points.

The motives which determine the generic directions of art are of three kinds. They may be classed as follows, not to define a system, but only to aid in recognizing the dominant characteristics of an artist or period. In comprehending at a glance the ruling motive, and placing ourself in sympathy with it, we not only enjoy more heartily the artist's purpose, but quicker come to sound judgment. Hence any simple rules to aid the observation of the spectator are useful. With art, as with speech, misunderstandings arise by not promptly understanding what is meant.

These generic motives are, first. Decoration ; having for its object ornament, and addressing itself chiefly to the sensuous faculties. i?his is the most common, and enters largely into food, clothing, furniture, building, manufacture, and polite manners ; in fine, into everything which besides its utility has scope for beauty.

WHAT ART IS.

Secondly, Illustration ; teaching, representation, preservation, and reminiscence under aesthetic forms being its chief aims. This includes more especially landscape, historical, and dramatic art, and portraiture, whether realistic or idealistic.

Thirdly, Revelation, in the sense of invention, suggestion, creation, and discovery, inspired by the imagination. All super-sensuous and supernal imagery that has no exact likeness to things in the world about us comes under this distinction. Its real mission is spiritual truth, but not unseldom it is prostituted to sensualism and diabolism, for it goes to either extreme just as it is controlled by a pure or a debauched mind.

Frequently the above distinctions commingle, but in general one of them marks the ruling thought. Art of itself is neither good nor evil, but passively obeys the human will, so that it affords a sure test of culture and morals, individually and nationally. I include in it polite literature, poetry, music, and the drama, because in each, as in painting and sculpture, either forms, colors, sounds, action, or thought are given under pleasurable combinations, and we are harmoniously let into the mysteries of nature, as Orpheus led the beasts, trees, and stones to follow him by the sweetness of his lyre. Whatever, therefore, has the power so to affect mankind, which is neither the direct product of pure reason or science, nor is the manifest form of nature itself, but suggests it or reveals the unseen in aesthetic guise, that is Art !

The hidden force of art lies in its kinship to our desires. It has affinities to satisfy every grade of intelligence and feeling. We may gauge our aesthetic fullness by the stages of enjoyment through which we go from a primary liking of a Carlo Dolce, Claude, or Boucher to an appreciation of Titian, Turner, or Leonardo ; by preferring the profound thought of Michael Angelo to the sweeter compositions of Raphael, and lastly the mystic spirituality of Blake to the grotesque sensualism of Dore.

But appreciation is of slow growth. Shakespeare's plays would be jargon to a Hottentot, the music of Beethoven an unmeaning noise, and Buonarotti's "Night and Morning" rud@' idols. Art demands a nice discipline of eye and ear even to learn, its alphabet. If we are to get out of it anything besides vague sensation, the physical organs must be trained to observe with exactitude, and the mental to discover its organic constitution, and to comprehend its philosophy. An experienced eye

CAPACITY OF ART.

is a bad critic, despite the often quoted story of the bird that pecked at the grapes of Zeuxis. I have known one fly into a room and try to sip honey from the wall-paper, not leaving it until it had tested each coarsely painted flower, and got well bruised for its stupidity. We must not estimate art by its effects on the uncultivated. Although in one sense an instinct, as science is a problem, few are born acutely sensible to its impressions, while every one has need of knowledge to justify his faith. The common eye sees skin-deep only into anything. Yet art discloses the soul of artist and spectator, and expands both if they but consent.

Few take note of its capacity to promote domestic pirst notions refinement and happiness in the arrangement of house- confused. hold effects in accordance with the laws of symmetry, proportion, and balance of parts ; give heed to tone, harmony, and contrast in color, or obey that subtile dictation of taste which results, like concord in music, in an harmonious unity of variety. More money is spent in perpetuating ugliness or in crude work than would, if properly directed, secure to every town a fiee school of taste in its edifices and grounds. Peoples are educated to a disregard of sesthetic rules as palpable as would be the violation of those of grammar if all the schools taught cockney English. For three centuries the artistic instincts, so conspicuous in the classical and middle ages, have been remorsely degraded, until the feeling for color is well nigh lost, and the sense of the beautiful in form so obfuscated as to make homeliness appear to be the passionate choice of the nineteenth century.

Our first notions of science or art are confused and superficial. Intellect rises to the dignity of a judge only by severe study. Taste is not the spontaneous gift of Heaven, like Wisdom fully armed from the head of Jove. Our instincts may be radically pure or vicious, and aid or embarrass our progress, but taste itself is the result of the culture of the aesthetic faculties, as grammar is that of the rules of language. Training must therefore precede the comprehension as well as execution of fine art. It is a common fallacy that art has simply to please the spectator, its works being good or bad just as they affect him, whether he is qualified to judge or not. Besides taste, acquaintance with its history and philosophy is necessary to the critic. An artist may have excellent taste, and be wanting in the latter. Indeed, few artists outside of their own systems have shown themselves to be competent critics in art, or com-

ESSENTIAL TO EDUCATION.

plete in their work. In order to appreciate the entire functions, they must inform themselves of its moral and social aspects in all times, and the part it has filled in history. But with rare exceptions they devote themselves exclusively to its technical qualities, limiting their knowledge of these to their own period or special aim.

Art knowl- The importance of art as a vehicle of knowledge, is less appreciated, because its results are so common. But were all its representations of objects, deeds, and men, which are out of the range of our sight, obliterated, the most of the globe and its history would no more exist to our material senses than the scenery and affairs of other planets. As compared with form and color, words, in the mind's infancy, are but an imperfect means of conveying adequate notions of things. Art becomes an essential of education. Besides getting from it our first impressions of whatever we cannot see, we receive the primary lessons of a higher life than that of earth. Yet as regards instruction its office is only initial. The earliest alphabets were rude pictures or symbols. Before the mental sight is opened to distinguish, in the artificial signs we call letters, their hidden thought, our lessons are given either by the things themselves or their pictorial forms. Except as revelation, its highest function, it fulfills an inferior office compared with abstract science. To this it is what the body is to the spirit, an incarnation to meet the needs of the finite in man.