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frigidity and artifice resulting from the worn-out traditions of elder schools. It demands a more earnest aim, a greater faithfulness; in a word, a return to Nature. Now this demand is founded in a partial perception of truth, and leads to an error not the less inveterate that it is respectable. It arises from the belief that high Art is but an imitation and selection from exalted Nature; whereas the soul of Art is, as has been said, "Creation in the beautiful." This error appears very natural so long as we regard the imitative arts only; for their faithful imitation being the most obvious, comes to be regarded as the essential requisite. But turn to Architecture; when this art becomes degraded, what Nature can we return to, save the Idea we have in our own mind of the true and beautiful; we are to return not to Nature, but to Art; and this return it is the province of Genius to accomplish. The same is true of Music. If, then, there are arts in which there is no imitation of nature, it follows that this imitation cannot be the essence, but only the form which Art adopts; for the essence of all arts must be the same.

The development of this idea of a return to Nature has been productive of notable effects, both for good and evil; and has formed the interior history of much of the art and literature of the past half century; there are signs that it has run its course, and is giving place to other, perhaps not more complete, ideas. Its effect upon painting is visible in an infinite number of pleasing works, possessing both good taste and refinement, generally in the class of portrait landscape; and the apotheosis of the idea may be found in a very singular, eloquent, and even valuable book, called the Modern Painters, by a graduate of Oxford In the midst of pages of vivid description of Nature, and refined criticism of works of art, we are startled with the assertion repeated a thousand times, that in the British school of our day, and chiefly in one member of this school, resides all that is most valuable in landscape. The error is simply this; that in a certain phase of Landscape Art the English have accomplished things never done nor attempted before. That this phase is not the highest, and that the author with a vivid insight into a part, is incapable of a just view of the whole, would seem probable, even to one who did not know what the English school has accomplished.

In the domain of Poetry the consequences of the dominant idea of return to Nature have been still more striking. All

nature has been ransacked. The poet has rushed to field, wood, and waterfall, and sat down before them to muse, with as much set purpose as the painter does to sketch. The vocabulary being once adjusted, and the general tone of thought and sentiment prescribed, making poetry has become so easy that it is done as a matter of course; every body can sit down before a waterfall; every tenth man can put his "Impressions" into verse; every hundredth can get them printed; the general taste becomes corrupted, sentiment mawkish, language exaggerated. And yet the leaders of this school have been great men, and, in spite of a false theory, have done good work in their time.

Another phase in Modern Art has been the reverse of this. Perceiving the religious nature of high Art, certain men of devout mind have taken as their model that period in Art when its aim was purely religious and ideal. Such has been the tendency of the modern German school of Painting. The result has been to reproduce the faults and shortcomings which were excusable in those early masters, from their imperfect knowledge, without reproducing the deep feeling which atones for them.

The consideration of these various stages of perfection, decline, and renovation, more or less successful, suggests the existence of laws by which they are governed, and the more we examine the subject, the more universal we find the application of these laws to be; we are made aware of the dependence of the artist on his time; and we become conscious that through his works the genius of the time speaks to us; more or less perfectly, indeed, according to the perfection of its interpreter. We arrive at the conviction, that where the genius of a people needs an expression, individual genius will never be wanting to give it utterance. We learn that it is with reason, that the works of art produced by a nation are instinctively appealed to, as the finest test of the rank they are entitled to among the nations. We learn, also, or should learn, this not to expect or demand of artists a work analogous to Greek, or Italian, or any other art, but rather to look and hope for an artistic expression in new directions. Among the Greeks we have seen Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, all developed and carried to perfection in a single period of time, and among a single people. In modern times, on the contrary, each nation and age have chosen a new and separate direction. The genius of Germany finds at one period an

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expression in Gothic architecture, at another in a grand and original music. One might almost believe that an original architecture could only spring up among a simple and devout people, of an unmixed race; but that a perfect expression in music requires the full development of an older people. We may remark, moreover, that as we find the religious, the artistic, and the active principles developed in different individuals, so is it with nations, in an observable degree. The Jews were a religious race, the interpreters of the revelations of God to man; the Greeks artistic. The Romans, the great active race of antiquity, borrowed their Art; the English and French, the great active races among the moderns, have originated very little in Art; save only in Poetry, the art of arts, which is least subject to these laws. May not this continent see a development of the English race in which the three parts of our nature shall not be so widely separated; and a new art spring from a new order of things?

To recur to our classification of admirers and critics of Art; we can perceive that our first great class is the most important to Art. The finished connoisseur may know and appreciate all that is best in what has gone before us in Art, and his province is to interpret it, and spread its refining influence through the world; but when a new Art springs up it has always to educate new and fresh minds to an understanding of itself; and thus we see in all such cases renewed the ancient strife between new and old. Just in proportion as Art springs from and appeals to the genius of a people, it will be high and ideal in its character; whilst Poetry, or works of art that appeal to a cultivated audience, will always be elegant and conventional; though it must be conceded that the period of transition, if it have never produced the greatest, has often given birth to the most exquisite and pleasing, works.

In our age no man is satisfied to admire and be instructed, but all must judge and criticize. This being so, a conscientious mind will still prescribe to itself certain rules;-for human judgment, if once it leaves the region of instinct, can be trusted only by reference to principles.

1052 The first natural question is, how does this please me? But we are already in danger, for how do you know that what pleases yourself is good and true? Your taste may be corrupted. Your feeling may demand something false and exaggerated.

The next step is to compare. But still we are in danger.

Things of the same kind may be compared, but an original work of art is different in kind from any thing that has gone before. The Venus de Medici and Mr. Powers' statue cannot be compared, except in certain external particulars; for they express ideas as different as possible ideas different in kind.

Where, then, lies the difficulty? Simply in this; that supposing a work to be a true work, and a new work to us, we approach it in a false position when we come to criticize it. We should come to learn from it, and to admire it. We criticize because we are afraid we shall admire amiss. We are not simple-minded; we are afraid of being taken in to admire something not admirable. Only make it certain to men that they can make no mistake in admiring, and admiration may be had cheap. This hasty criticism is always the fault of the partially cultivated class.

Most artists will in their hearts admit, that contemporary criticism is for the most part worthless in itself, and injurious to the artist who listens to it. He must know better than his audience, or he knows nothing.

We believe that it is a difficult matter to criticize aright. What is left us? To each man his suffrage and nothing more. But let each one remember, in giving that suffrage, that to a clear and instructed eye his opinion shows plainly enough his own range of apprehension and insight; but can show nothing of the relative value of the work, with reference to other works.

In brief, our advice would be, on seeing a new work which you believe to be an important one-take time. Try to see it. Do not think it incumbent upon you to think or feel about it. Do not dwell upon it long at a time, for the attention becomes fatigued; but return frequently, and each time you will find that you understand it better since you last saw it. It has been with you in the interval. It has lived with you, and educates you to itself. And when you have learned from it all it can teach you, write down your thought about it, and see how impossible to compass it in words; how paltry and insignificant criticism at sight seems to you!

It is only works which we have thus lived with that we can truly criticize; and such criticism is very different from finding fault. If a work is not worth this, it may be worthy of consideration, but not of criticism.

Can we hold ourselves guiltless, if after this we say a few words concerning the statue which suggested our subject?

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What do we demand when an American man, of this century, takes hammer and chisel, and gives us in white marble his idea of a lovely woman? Certainly not a Grecian goddess; but Woman, such as two thousand years, and the Christian religion, have made her since; a modern woman. Not an exquisite generalization of all that is most lovely in the female form, to stand boldly in the public gaze and receive the homage of all worshippers; (but rather, an ideal individual) The ancient Venus suggests no need of dress; but we feel that this woman has laid aside her dress and is conscious of it, yet she stands the image of chastity. Her purity awes you like

A the Lady in Comus. (The form is full of individualities, all

blending in an exquisite whole, and by the very peculiarities which strike the eye as differing from the Greek ideal, claiming our affection and sympathy

We learn that this is a slave, exposed for sale in the marketplace; and supposing her a captive, torn from her home, we can imagine few scenes that shall call for so much pity, admiration, and tenderness; all these feelings must be called forth in the highest degree, but yet, pervading all, and beyond all these, the sense of Beauty must everywhere be satisfied. And so it is; and indeed most persons go away with the idea that they have been called upon to see and admire nothing but a beautiful naked female figure. But visit it again and again, and you will find this marble figure steals gradually into your affections. There is no theatrical air, no forcing of the story upon you, no open demand of your sympathies; you see before you only this exquisitely delicate form, self-dependent, armed only with its purity, and needing no other shield than this in the most touching of all situations.

We close with the hope that our artist has ere this received tangible demonstration that he can depend upon the growing taste and love of Art in his own countrymen both for praise and bread.

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