NA TURE 



29 



THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1878 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE FOR ARTISTS 

 I. 



WE have it on the high authority of Lord Beacons- 

 field that the Enghsh School of Artists is arriving 

 at a pitch of unexampled excellence, and that English art 

 is in the future to be the cynosure of an admiring world. 



It is Lord Beaconsfield's opinion that the time has 

 arrived in which we may speak of a school which 

 has flourished for a century with some accuracy of 

 deduction as to its principal features. The principal 

 features of the English school are, he thinks, now 

 recognised. "All will admit that it is a school of great 

 originality. All will admit that, in some provinces of 

 painting, it has certainly estabHshed a reputation which 

 may be rivalled by some nations, but which can be sur- 

 passed by none. Its power of portraiture is recognised 

 in the most classic galleries. As far as landscape 

 painting is concerned, it has achieved the highest aim of 

 both branches of the art — whether ideal, like the en- 

 chanted castle of Claude Lorraine and the classic groves 

 and solemn temples of Poussin, or whether it has com- 

 peted with the freshness of Hobbema or Ruysdael, English 

 art can match the chefs d^oeuvre of every country." 



This is high praise, and we may gather from it that so 

 far as the reproduction of form and colour goes our 

 artists have arrived at the highest knowledge and skill. 

 Of late years also, we are told, the English school has 

 given an indication of aiming at a higher range of 

 imaginative composition than has hitherto prevailed; and 

 this Lord Beaconsfield holds is natural, because if there 

 is an imaginative nation in the world it is the English 

 nation. " It is the nation that has produced the greatest 

 number of poets — the greatest number of illustrious poets 

 — and, therefore, the British artist has a heritage of 

 imagination which ought to be to him a fund of inspira- 

 tion." Nor is this all. "He has also another advantage 

 which no great school has yet possessed — he has a 

 larger range of subjects. What the pictures of antiquity 

 were we know very little. We know very well that 

 Zeuxis painted a curtain that deceived his patron, but 

 if that were a test of his school it might, I believe, be 

 stood by the commonest scene-painter of the nearest 

 theatre. With regard to the Italian masters, we know their 

 admirable works abound ; they established, not one school, 

 like England, but many schools. Those schools produced 

 many pupils, and their prolific works charmed and in- 

 structed the world. But if you look to the great creations 

 of the Italian schools, you will find, generally speaking, 

 as far as subjects are concerned, their range was extremely 

 limited. They drew their inspiration from two religions — 

 the Christian and the Pagan ; and every one must feel^ 

 when he examines a gallery of Italian art how much it is to 

 be regretted that such genius and power should not have 

 commemorated the great acts of their own history. . . ." 

 Under these circumstances Lord Beaconsfield takes a 

 very favourable view of the English school. He believes that 

 "there is a feeling which will not be satisfied in the works 

 of art if art does not aim at the production of the highest 

 modem style of imaginative creation." That our artists 

 Vol. xviii. — No. 445 



will shine here the noble speaker is convinced. " I 

 rely on the fact that there never has been a limit to the 

 increasing excellence of English achievement when a fair 

 and just opportunity was offered to it ; and, therefore, I 

 do look forward to a period of which, I think, we have 

 many symptoms and encouraging circumstances about 

 us, when imaginative art will be characteristic of the 

 English school, as well as that sense of humour and that 

 exqtdsite feeling of nature and intellectual delineation of 

 portraiture to which I have before referred.' ' 



The result predicted by Lord Beaconsfield is of course 

 a consummation devoutly to be wished, and if it be true 

 that Art is Nature passed through the alembic of Man, 

 then this highest style of imaginative creation should 

 largely increase the number of students of science in this 

 country, because, although Lord Beaconsfield was careful 

 not to say too much about Nature, she is there all the same, 

 and the laws which underlie the phenomena which it is 

 the function of art to embody should, at any rate* 

 possess some interest to the artist, and if he is to surpass 

 Nature, he must not hope to do this by evading her. 



In art as in science, imagination must have a basis 

 to work upon, and the surer the basis the more will the 

 imaginative effort which transcends it be in sympathy 

 with those hidden powers of the mind and those hidden 

 feelings which it is the function of art to bring into play. 



What little I know of the history and development of 

 art would seem to show that in the early days at all events 

 the artist was second to none in his appreciation of the 

 science of the time. Geometry was rapidly applied to 

 perspective, anatomy to form, and although the dwellers 

 in Italy had the finest examples of ancient art to appeal 

 to, it is not difficult to trace the rise of such men as 

 Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo to the direct 

 influence of the study of anatomy first introduced at the 

 University of Bologna. Da Vinci was, as is well known, 

 almost as famous for his knowledge of science as 

 for his productions in art. Indeed the anatomical studies 

 carried on in the wonderful medical schools of Italy 

 during the Middle Ages may be said to have left a 

 greater mark on the world from an art point of view than 

 they have done in the domain of the science of surgery. 

 Galileo, when he took so large a share in founding the 

 physical science of to-day, was a student of medicine ; 

 the wonderfully regular swing of that famous lamp at 

 Pisa suggested to him in the first instance a method of 

 observing the flow of blood through the veins. The idea 

 that here was a perfect method of dividing the flow of 

 time — the idea of the pendulum clock — did not come till 

 afterwards. Still the teaching of the medical school was 

 no more to Galileo than it had previously been to 

 Leonardo da Vinci or to Michael Angelo. 



Now what is the condition of things to-day? We 

 might be in the same position with regard to physical 

 science — the science of colour — as Da Vinci and his con- 

 temporaries in the 15th century were with regard to 

 biological science — the science of form. The whole 

 range of physical science — a branch of knowledge which 

 has existed for two-and-a-half centuries, but which has 

 lately been developed enormously precisely in those 

 directions of the greatest value to the artist, has not 

 yet been annexed by the students of art. 



So far as I can see there is not among artists gene- 



c 



