XL

With the language of beauty in full resonance around him, art was not difficult to the painter and sculptor of old as it is with us. No anatomical study will do for the modern artist what habitual acquaintance with the human form did for Pheidias. No Venetian painted a horse with the truth and certainty of Horace Vernet, who knew the animal by heart, rode him, groomed him, and had him constantly in his studio. Every artist must paint what he sees, rather every artist must paint what is around him, can produce no great work unless he impress the character of his age upon his production, not necessarily taking his subjects from it (better if he can), but taking the impress of its life. The great art of Pheidias did not deal with the history of his time, but compressed into its form the qualities of the most intellectual period the world has seen; nor were any materials to be invented or borrowed, he had them all at hand, expressing himself in a natural language derived from familiarity with natural objects. Beauty is the language of art, and with this at command thoughts as they arise take visible form perhaps almost without effort, or (certain technical difficulties overcome) with little more than is required in writing—this not absolving the artist or the poet from earnest thought and severe study. In many respects the present age is far more advanced than preceding times, incomparably more full of knowledge; but the language of great art is dead, for general, noble beauty, pervades life no more. The artist is obliged to return to extinct forms of speech if he would speak as the great ones have spoken. Nothing beautiful is seen around him, excepting always sky and trees and sea; these, as he is mainly a dweller in cities, he cannot live enough with. But it is, perhaps, in the real estimation in which art is held that we shall find the reason for failure. If the world cared for her language, art could not help speaking, the utterance being, perhaps, simply beautiful. But even in these days when we have ceased to prize this, if it were demanded that art should take its place beside the great intellectual outflow of the time, the response would hardly be doubtful.

Watts.

XLI

You refer to the use and purpose of the liberal arts; not a city in Europe, at present, is fulfilling them. And if any one in Melbourne were now to produce, even on a small scale, a picture fulfilling the conditions of liberal art, then Melbourne might take the lead of civilised cities. But it is not the ambition of leading, nor the restlessness of a competitive spirit that may accomplish this.

A good poem, whether painted or written, whether large or small, should represent beautiful life. Are you able to name any one who has conceived this beauty of the life of men? I will not complicate the requirements of painted poesy by speaking of the music of colour with which it should be clothed; black and white were enough. The very attempt to express the confession of love were fulfilment sufficient.

Edward Calvert.

XLII

So art has become foolishly confounded with education, that all should be equally qualified. Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and breeding are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music—that in his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C Minor Symphony."

Let him have but the wit to say so, and not let him feel the admission a proof of inferiority.

Art happens—no hovel is safe from it, no prince may depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy and coarse farce.

This is as it should be; and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited.

Whistler.

XLIII

Art will not grow and flourish, nay it will not long exist, unless it be shared by all people; and for my part I don't wish that it should.

William Morris.

XLIV

No, art is not an element of corruption. The man who drinks from a wooden bowl is nearer to the brute that drinks from a stone trough than he who quenches his thirst from a crystal cup; and the artist who gave the glass its shape, impressed as in a mould of bronze by the simple means of a second's breath and yet more cheaply than the fashioning of the wooden bowl, has done more to ennoble and improve his neighbour than any inventor of a system: in his work he gives him the use and the enjoyment of things for which orators can only create a craving.

Jules Klagmann.

XLV

The improviser never makes fine poetry.

Titian.

XLVI

Agatharcus said to Zeuxis—For my part I soon despatch my Pictures. You are a happy Man, replies Zeuxis; I do mine with Time and application, because I would have them good, and I am satisfyed, that what is soon done, will soon be forgotten.

XLVII

Art is not a pleasure trip. It is a battle, a mill that grinds.

Millet.