should support his family, than that he should attain to or preserve-distinction in the arts. But if the pressure comes through his own fault, he has stolen, and stolen under trust, and stolen (which is the worst of all) in such a way that no law can reach him. And now you may perhaps ask me, if the debutant artist is to have no thought of money, and if (as is implied) he is to expect no honors from the State, he may not at least look forward to the delights of popularity? Praise, you will tell me, is a savory dish. And in so far as you may mean the countenance of other artists, you would put your finger on one of the most essential and enduring pleasures of the career of art. But in so far as you should have an eye to the commendations of the public or the notice of the newspapers, be sure you would but be cherishing a dream. It is true that in certain esoteric journals the author (for instance) is duly criticised, and that he is often praised a great deal more than he deserves, sometimes for qualities which he prided himself on eschewing, and sometimes by ladies and gentlemen who have denied themselves the privilege of reading his work. But if a man be sensitive to this wild praise, we must suppose him equally alive to that which often accompanies and always follows it-wild ridicule. A man may have done well for years, and then he may fail; he will hear of his failure. Or he may have done well for years, and still do well, but the critics may have tired of praising him, or there may have sprung up some new idol of the instant, some "dust a little gilt," to whom they now prefer to offer sacrifice. I will be very bold and take a modern instance. A little while ago the name of Mr. Howells was in every paper coupled with just laudations. And now it is the pleasure of the same journalists to pursue him daily with ineffective quips. Here is the obverse and the reverse of that empty and ugly thing called popularity. Will any man suppose it worth the gaining? Must not any man perceive that the reward of Mr. Howells lies in the practice of his fine and solid art, not in the perusal of paragraphs which are conceived in a spirit to-day of ignorant worship, and to-morrow of stupid injustice? A LETTER TO THE SAME YOUNG GENTLEMAN. I AM glad that in the eager questioning which naturally precedes a decision that may fashion your life for good or for ill, you have chosen to acquaint me with your friend's letter of advice, and that you ask me to add to it what my experience may suggest. On a subject so momentous the homely old adage that "Two heads are better than one," is peculiarly applicable; for in the practice of his art (and independently of success or failure) the artist gains an insight that is largely personal, and the dreariest and least applauded of the vieux saltimbanques has yet his point of vantage from which to spy into the fair gardens of the Palace of Art. The view may be obscured, the horizon hazy; but still it is from his own point of view that he beholds the wonders within, of which he will descant with infinite satisfaction to himself, with possible profit to others. For this reason, my ideas, which in some respects differ from those of your friend, may be of value to you; and as he has taken the career with which he is most familiar, and speaks from the stand-point of the author, I, from the same motive, will take that of the painter. The artist remains to-day almost alone, the embodiment of an idea. The warrior, except upon some miserable question of territory, stands idle. The priest no longer leads a crusade, or by fasting and vigorous penance, serves as a beacon-light for weary seekers after truth. Kings govern by consent of a parliament largely elected from the common people; and "noble lords of high degree " become farmers and ranchmen, confounding themselves with the average man. The artist, who has coexisted with all of these in the heyday of their prosperity, alone remains; and now, as in the late instance of Mr. Besant, by the power of his imagination brings into existence the People's Palace; or like Wagner, holds the civilized people of the world in his power, subjugating some, alienating others, but interesting all; or like Millet shows us for the first time, the man of the fields, and with consummate art, the enveloping atmosphere, the light and air of the open country. His task is more difficult, he no longer carols in the gardens of Lorenzo the Magnificent, but serves a hydraheaded master who in this work-a-day world, intent on material gain, too often turns from him to listen to the more enchanting music of the stock telegraph. But if his task be harder the career is more noble. The artist of to-day, independent of the sovereign pleasure of some petty prince, carries a message of beauty and truth to all comers; the Louvre has ceased to be a lounging place for the jaded courtier; and the South Kensington Museum brings a greater concourse of worshippers to the shrine of Michael Angelo and Donatello than came to them in their lifetime. Nor is it so necessary to consult the good pleasure of the bourgeois as your friend would have you believe; for voyez-vous, you might in the research of the particular quality in demand wear yourself to the bone, and yet, though happily endowed, fail to attain your object. Of far more importance, it seems to me, is to know yourself, to question your aptitudes, to do what you can do the best; and be sure, if it be worth the doing, your hydra-headed bourgeois will turn one of his heads and smile approvingly on you, Corot, though every other eye is fixed and every other mouth gapes admiration on-shall we say Frith? If it be worth doing?-the question which your friend says, and says most truly, you must never ask yourself-it must decide itself; and lest I should confuse you let me call to your mind the history of Jean François Millet. You have seen undoubtedly examples of the early manner of this painter,mostly nude figures of nymphs, generally employed, after the engaging habit of the wood-nymph, in bathing, in arranging the hair, in disarming Cupid, or the like. Charming pictures they are, full of color and of great truth of movement, but if Millet had never produced aught else he would never have been facile princeps, the first of modern painters. He was past his thirty-fifth year when chance-or shall we call it Fate-took him to Barbizon, where he saw clearly for the first time his life work, and gave us in rapid succession the Gleaners, the Grafting (with its Madonna-like mother) and the Angelus, to name a few among many masterpieces. It is to repeat a story already told to refer to his lack of success at first; but in trying to do what he could best do-in "living up to the level of his best thought "-he ended by subjugating his bourgeois. That the success came too late, that this son of joy ate to the end the bitter bread of Poverty and died in the early morning of his fame and fortune, was an accident, from which I pray that you may be preserved; but to you, as to your friend or to myself, the same privilege is offered as to Millet-the life that you will lead will be its own sufficient reward. I would not, however, for a moment think of urging you to consider your art before the duties common to us all. There I may safely send you back to what your friend has said so well. You must at the risk of losing your talent (if it be so weak) fulfil your duty as a citizen before you have the right to consider your Art. There are many ways of doing this within the limits of your technical acquirements. Illustration, reproductive etching, and teaching of drawing and painting, are among the many branching paths along which you may gather sustenance; but the graphic arts demand such a technical equipment, that apart from employments directly connected with them I would not advise the artist to venture. I have heard of bank clerks producing creditable water-color sketches in their spare moments, and there is at this time in Paris a landscape painter of considerable eminence who has earned his living as a professor of mathematics, but such cases are rare, and work of a kind akin to your art, which strengthens your métier while it gains your bread, is preferable. And now supposing that the die is cast and that you are fairly embarked in your career as a painter, let me exhort you to paint for your art in the noblest and highest sense that you can conceive. If you are among the fortunate few who by doing their best work can yet find favor with the general public, so much the better; but if, as is but too probable, your most serious work remains unsold, then turn cheerfully to your breadwinner. You can design honest wall-paper and count with some certainty on doing a given amount which has a market price; you will be honest in reproducing even a poor picture with your etchingneedle; you can draw honest illustrations where the subject and even the manner of treatment is imposed upon you. You can teach honestly. But you cannot paint honest pictures if in their production you relent for a moment from an unflinching effort to do your best. Surely it is better to remain outside the ranks, than to join in creating much that cumbers our exhibitions with alleged works of art where this question of artistic honesty is evaded-poor filles de joie indeed, perhaps the more to be pitied when their wares are purchased. It is this faltering in the path of rectitude that belittles the artist, and breeds the belief that his career is less noble than that of the soldier. Certainly it would be hazardous to state, impossible to find belief, that any artist could be the peer of a successful general if we were to seek confirmation of our belief at a period when the memory of the soldier's deeds is yet alive. But only last year Padua saw a strange sight. It was grande festa in that city and on the piazza di San Antonio enthusiastic groups clustered around the equestrian statue of the General Erasmo Gattamelata, which was the centre of the celebration. In honor of the general?-Not at all, brave general though he was undoubtedly in his day, and commemorated with a statue by a master of his craft, one Donatello, in whose honor on the fourth centenary of his birth all Padua, all Florence, and a good part of Italy was agog with excitement. Shakespeare against Wellington, Molière for Napoléon, seem on the face of the proposition more plausible; and who knows but what on this side of the Atlantic, with the most of our history yet to be made, some unborn painter, sculptor, or author may in that future keep alive the memory of the captains now living or lately dead, for whom to-day no meed of praise is great enough and before whom no comparison dares lift its head. "All passes,--Art alone The Bust out-lasts the throne- Here, in the midst of my supposititious case, and my perplexity in the practice of an unfamiliar art, there comes to me a document having such a bearing on this old question that I cannot forbear from translating it. It is a letter addressed to an unknown aspirant for artistic honors, from the late André Gill, the wellknown caricaturist, who during the last days of the Second Empire and the troublous times following the establishment of the Republic did most excellent work. Few who were in Paris during these years can have forgotten the telling broadsides of the Eclipse and La Lune Rousse which bore his signature. The original of the letter can be found in the Paris Figaro bearing the date of the 12th May, 1888. 89 rue Denfert-Rochereau. 30th August, You are twenty-two years of age and you have a good position; your future is assured. Let me beg of you not to abandon this reality which you hold for a chimerical idea difficult of attainment, and in nearly every case deceptive. I am forty. From my childhood I have loved art and since my school day have followed it with unrelenting ardor. I have suffered for it hunger and humiliation; I have been forced a hundred times to deviate from my chosen path and practise inferior branches of my profession. And it has only been at rare intervals and for brief periods that I have been permitted to return to the pursuit of my ideal. It is barely six years since my pictures have been accepted in the Salon and at the price of what sacrifices! And if chance has would have na mode e them that of Gill Be your few scorit the temponty The Sun where year after year despite the schatton of subjects that these was denied in until s were despence bois for popcr recog lay his frends frind him in his studio. areer found as incies coecasion. One la a ist Honor. Fame, Riches ansi-bone. Fate, at the end was kind: were this They took him thence to for with the fe des grandeurs with which he was affected be was happy in his belief that the prize long sought was his at length- dat arrivé |