324 IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARTISAN AND ARTIST. 



workmen ^yere more artists, as in tlie time of Eaffaelle; and it is very 

 desirable to restore this liappy connection." I was glad to find this 

 corroboration of what I intended to say. He says again, " We have, 

 then, to endeavor a connection between these two, tlie productive and 

 beautiful art." Now, I ask what class of art was it which was in com- 

 bination with productive art, to make it the parent of such a beautiful 

 offspring in every department I It urns not loic art; it was not the 

 mere knowing how to sketch an object from nature; it was not merely 

 linear drawing ; it was not merely elementary art : hut it teas high art, 

 and the highest art. In every one of these cases the state of society 

 was such — from what causes I do not undertake here to say — that it 

 did permit the highest artists devoting themselves to what now they 

 contemn and would despise; and, on the other hand, there was such 

 honor given to the product of industry, that, when it really had the 

 stamp of beauty upon it, it rose of itself to the department of high art. 

 Let me illustrate what I consider the danger to be guarded against 

 by another example. When you go into a picture gallery now, and you 

 see the portrait of a man, why do you care the least who that man was? 

 You see the splendid effect; the countenance, which perhaps has not a 

 beantiful feature in it, but which, by the noble expression, by the beau- 

 tiful tone of color, hy the mtijestic character thrown around the head, 

 by the harmony between the parts, even by the accessories, is made so 

 glorious that you can gaze u[)on it for hours. It may be a doge, it 

 may be a merchant, a soldier, or a prince; you care not: you see there, 

 not the portrait, but you see the painting by Titian, or by Rembrandt, 

 or Vandyke; and the artistic merit so completely swallows up all the 

 idea of personality of him who is represented, that, unless it happens 

 to be some one particularly known, you never take the trouble of inquir- 

 ing whom the painter represents. And why sol Because then por- 

 trait-painting had not become a distinct department of art. There was 

 no such thing then as a person who called himself a portrait-painter, 

 who thought he could produce a noble likeness of* man by merely giving 

 a facsimile of his features; but portraits were paintings by men who 

 w^ho could have painted an historical painting of the highest character, 

 and to whom it would have been thought not unbecoming to commit the 

 greatest artistic works iniaginable. But in modern times the portrait- 

 painter is an entirely different person, and the pictures produced by 

 that class of artists are unfortunately of but little value except to those 

 who have a personal interest in the subject of the portrait. You know, 

 too, that every one of these portraits, which cover such a vast extent of 

 the wall of the exhibition, will be transferred to the place of honor over 

 the chimney piece in the house of the owner; and, when his son grows 

 up, it will be put on one side, that a portrait of the inheritor may take 

 its place: and in the next generation it will be transferred to some other 

 more out-of-the-way corner of the house, until at last it will find a more 

 ignominious position than Caesar's dust, stopping ui) a bunghole to keep 



