246 DEMOCRATIC ART 



ship, the love, the pathos, which made their stories admirable, 

 are shared by living men and women, whose names have not 

 been sounded through fame's silver trumpet. 



I have hitherto touched but lightly upon the extension of 

 the sphere of beauty which may be expected from Democratic 

 Art. Through it we shall be led* to discover the infinite 

 varieties of lovely form which belong peculiarly to the people. 

 Caste and high birth have no monopoly of physical come- 

 liness. It may even be maintained that social conditions 

 render it impossible for them to display more than a some- 

 what limited range of beauty. Goethe, I think, defined good 

 society as that which furnished no material for poetry. We 

 might apply this paradox to plastic art, and say that polished 

 gentlemen and ladies do not furnish the best materials for 

 sculpture and painting. How hardly shall they who wear 

 evening clothes and ball-dresses enter into the kingdom of 

 art ! There is a characteristic beauty in each several kind of 

 diurnal service, which waits to be elucidated. The superb 

 poise of the mower, as he swings his scythe ; the muscles of 

 the blacksmith, bent for an unerring stroke upon the anvil ; 

 the bowed form of the reaper, with belt tightened round his 

 loins ; the thresher's arm uplifted, while he swings the flail ; 

 the elasticity of oarsmen rising from their strain against the 

 wave ; the jockey's grip across his saddle ; the mountaineer's 

 slow, swinging stride ; the girl at the spinning-wheel, or 

 carrying the water-bucket on her head, or hanging linen 

 on the line, or busied with her china-closet : in each and 

 every motive of this kind and the list might be indefinitely 

 prolonged, for all trades and occupations have some distin- 

 guishing peculiarity there appears a specific note of grace 

 inalienable from the work performed. The artists of previous 

 ages did not wholly neglect this truth. Indeed, they were 

 eager to avail themselves of picturesque suggestions on the 

 lines here indicated. Yet they used these motives mainly 

 as adjuncts to themes of greater moment, and subordinated 

 them to what was deemed some loftier subject. Consequently, 

 these aspects of life did not receive the attention they 

 deserve; and the stores of beauty inherent in human 



