30 4 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



in the first place ; then, if he should still have an inclination for 

 art, let him specialise.'" 



There is evidence to show that the way advised by Lord 

 Leighton is not the right way. Excellence in art is not to be had 

 without early devotion to the work, and the education in colleges 

 until a man is well over twenty precludes any full early training in 

 art. 



If we look at the history of our own great landscape painters we 

 find that David Cox was the son of a blacksmith, and he was an 

 artist with a true eye for the beautiful in nature. Constable was a 

 miller's son, and began his studies with a painter and glazier friend 

 in the fields a much better place to study art than any academy. 

 Turner was the son of a barber, but even in Maiden-lane a genius 

 arose. Old Crome began life as a doctor's errand boy. Carolus 

 Duran, whose portrait of Pasteur a masterpiece was seen in 

 London some years ago, told me he was at work in the Academy 'at 

 Lille at eight years of age. 



By far the best landscape art in England arose from conditions 

 different from those laid down by Lord Leighton, whose own work 

 does not justify his teaching. A picture by one of the old Dutch 

 painters who, as boys, were apprenticed to their craft, was worth all 

 he ever did. Watts and Constable, among English artists, show 

 how excellence in art is reached. 



This may seem apart from garden design, but it really is not so, 

 because the problems that confront the landscape planter are the 

 same as those which the landscape painter has to deal with viz. 

 beauty, repose, breadth, and air. The man who uses trees instead of 

 pigments has the nobler task. He has, too, ready to his hand some- 

 thing even better than the atmosphere of Corot and the sky of Diaz. 



