DEMOCRATIC ART 265 



false. While exalting imaginary virtues of simplicity, con- 

 tentment, and industry, these idyllic and didactic poets ignore 

 reality and make playthings of their models. From their 

 insincerity we have derived the intolerable sham of the 

 modern pastoral. What Democratic Art demands is an 

 intelligent representation of peasant-life in its actuality : not 

 such a distorted picture as Zola painted in ' La Terre,' where 

 all the ugliest details are artfully extracted and agglomerated ; 

 but something which shall reveal the essential qualities of 

 human virtue and vice, of passion and endurance, struggle and 

 achievement, capacity for high and sordid action, in tillers 

 of the soil. The poet and the artist must repel the tempta- 

 tion to prettify his subject by the addition of masquerade 

 refinement, or to vilify it by exposing only what is brutal. 

 He must be ready to extract its specific quality from the 

 phase of life he treats, believing that it contains its own 

 tragedy, its own dignity, its suffering, crime, pride, nobility, 

 and baseness. He must be able to recognise that there is as 

 much real beauty in the peasant's husk as in the prince's a 

 russet beech-nut being no less beautiful than the ruddy rind of 

 a pomegranate. He must feel that the implements of labour, 

 the attire of reaper or of milkmaid, the woodland ways and 

 field-paths of such folk, the light falling upon their home- 

 stead, and the simplicity of its interior, offer peculiar elements 

 of loveliness which are wanting to the sumptuous buildings, 

 stately terraces, and splendid costumes of Versailles or Villa 

 d'Este. 



In Dutch painting we find a genuine species, but a narrow 

 species, of the type in question. There is no note of con- 

 descension, no avoidance of fact, no selection of details 

 pleasing to the cultivated taste. Sensuous enjoyment of a 

 vulgar sort has been sympathetically felt, and rendered with 

 artistic delight in its surroundings. The beauty of the husk, 

 such as it is, receives ample justice. Loving care has been 

 expended on the development of light and shadow, colour, the 

 modelling of household gear, the delineation of industries and 

 occupations. But the result is unspiritual ; the poetry, for 

 the most part, is poetry of the pot-house. Democratic Art 



