The Evolution of Painting. 377 



cause more intimately connected with the practice of paint- 

 ing itself has had a powerful influence in promoting decay. 

 Whenever there has been a general movement away from 

 the observation and truthful representation of nature, and 

 an effort to copy or imitate existing paintings, an immediate 

 decline has always followed. On this point Euskin says : 

 " So long as Art is steady in the contemplation and exhibi- 

 tion of natural facts, so long she herself lives and grows. 

 But a time has always hitherto come in which, having 

 thus reached a singular perfection, she begins to contem- 

 plate that perfection and to imitate it, and to deduce forms 

 and rules from it, and thus to forget her duties and ministry 

 as the discoverer of truth. And in the very instant when 

 this diversion of her purpose and forgetf ulness of her func- 

 tion take place forgetfulness generally coincident with her 

 apparent perfection in that instant, I say, begins her 

 actual catastrophe." 



In the matter of painting, the nineteenth century com- 

 pares favorably with any other period in the world's history. 

 In some parts of Russia where the Greek Church still tyr- 

 annizes over the people, the old Byzantine style still prevails. 

 But outside of the countries under the influence of the Mo- 

 hammedan or Greek Christian religions the art of painting 

 is at the present time flourishing everywhere in Europe. 

 During no other century have there been so many great 

 painters or so many people who appreciate art. 



It is sometimes claimed that the fine arts have a deleteri- 

 ous effect upon morals. Even Ruskin has been quoted in 

 support of this theory. His statement is as follows : " His- 

 torically, great success in art is apparently connected with 

 subsequent national degradation. You find, in the first 

 place, that the nations which possessed a refined art were 

 always subdued by those who possessed none ; you find the 

 Lydian subdued by the Mede ; the Greek by the Roman ; 

 the Roman by the Goth ; the Burgundian by the Switzer ; 

 but you find beyond this that even where no attack by an 

 external power has accelerated the catastrophe of the state, 

 the period in which any given people reach their highest 

 power in art is precisely that in which they appear to sign 

 the warrant of their own ruin ; and that from the moment 

 in which a perfect statue appears in Florence, a perfect pict- 

 ure in Venice, or a perfect fresco in Rome, from that hour 

 forward, probity, industry, and courage seemed to be exiled 

 from their walls, and they perish in a sculpturesque paraly- 

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