5Q 



NA TURE 



[May 17, 1883 



islands, our oyster, lobster, and shell-fish fisheries, but also 

 matters concerning the pearl fisheries of India, the sponge- 

 fisheries of the Bahamas, and the possible coral fisheries 

 of the Australian coast. Further, the duties which even 

 among the self-helping inhabitants of the United States 

 are assigned to a State entomologist, might here also be 

 discharged. From the duly established officials of such 

 a state zoological laboratory or institute, the Foreign 

 Office and the Colonial Office could at once obtain full and 

 decisive information enabling them to act intelligently 

 in relation to the importation of the Phylloxera pest, 

 whilst the Home Office might gain courage in the presence 

 of the Colorado beetle. It seems strange that the creation 

 of an official laboratory of economic zoology has been so 

 long delayed. 



We shall be able to judge in the case of the present 

 exhibition whether the cooperation of scientific men would 

 have rendered the English department more instructive 

 than it is under the present conditions, as compared with 

 the scientifically organised exhibits of foreign countries. 

 The comparison of the official catalogue of the London 

 Exhibition with that of the Berlin Exhibition will be im- 

 portant in the same direction. With regard to the essays 

 for which the committee has offered prizes, it may at once 

 be stated that unfortunately no steps have been taken to 

 bring the questions concerning which treatises are desired 

 under the notice of the persons most likely to be able to 

 deal with them satisfactorily either in this country or 

 abroad. A series of valuable reports might have been 

 obtained and circulated in connection with the exhibition 

 by a sufficiently public appeal to the zoological world 

 made in due time. It may yet be not too late to take 

 some steps in this matter. 



SCIENCE AND ART 

 IV T O one will be surprised that Mr. Huxley took 

 •L ^ advantage of the opportunity afforded him at 

 the Academy dinner to reply to some remarks made 

 by Mr. Matthew Arnold on a like occasion two 

 years ago. Mr. Arnold, we presume, does not claim to 

 possess that amount of knowledge either of art or of 

 science which would render him a prejudiced witness, 

 and, being unprejudiced, he drew a terrible picture of the 

 future of art, not only in this, but in all other countries, 

 unless some very decided steps were taken. Time out of 

 mind, according to Mr. Arnold, art and literature had 

 divided the sweets and beauties of this world between 

 them, but now, in these latter days, that terrible thing 

 science — 



" Monstrum horrendurn, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum," 

 was about to bar their future progress, and invade and 

 destroy the fair kingdoms of thought and work gained 

 from the unknown by the labours of both. Hence the 

 necessity of an alliance offensive and defensive against 

 the common enemy ; hence the artist and the man of 

 letters were to band themselves together to stamp this 

 new hydra from out the land. 



It was not to be expected that such a view as 

 this would be allowed to pass unchallenged by Mr. 

 Huxley. He declined to regard science as an invading 

 and aggressive power, eager to banish all other pursuits 

 from the universe. Putting Mr. Matthew Arnold's view 



in a more concrete form, he represented it as picturing 

 science rising as a monster from out the troubled waters 

 of the sea of modern thought, intent upon devouring the 

 unprotected Andromeda of Art. For him Literature was 

 Perseus equipped with the swift shoes of the ready writer, 

 and the cap of invisibility of the editorial article, while 

 the death-dealing quality of Medusa's head had a fitting 

 representative in the sting of vituperation. Mr. Huxley's 

 remarks dealt less with Andromedi than with Perseus, 

 to whom he suggested the advisability of think- 

 ing twice before trying conclusions with the risen 

 monster. He ended by showing how necessary Art 

 and Science were to each other, how each was strong in 

 the other's strength, and how they were never likely to be 

 sundered, but were certain to twine round each other 

 more closely, and to help each other more as time went 

 on. Agreeing as we do altogether with Mr. Huxley, we 

 think, however, that another view is worthy of considera- 

 tion. For ourselves, although likening art to fair and 

 chained Andromeda, we cannot admit that science is 

 correctly represented in the form of the monster. Without 

 further considering of whom or of what the monster may- 

 be typical, it seems to us perfectly certain that the Perseus 

 of whom the Andromeda of Art stands so much in need 

 is not Literature, but Science, because this Perseus alone 

 can give the help and render the assistance which the 

 maiden needs so sorely at the present moment. 



Occasion has been before taken in these columns to 

 point out how one of the greatest revivals of art in the 

 history of the world was contemporaneous with the dawn 

 of one of those sciences which must for ever lie at the 

 base of much work in art : we refer to the science of 

 anatomy ; and when one looks round this year's Academy 

 and compares the work based upon this branch of know- 

 ledge, the anatomy of form, with that connected with the 

 other branch of knowledge which has to do with the 

 anatomy of light and colour, one cannot but feel that 

 the Andromeda of Art is being sacrificed indeed. Land- 

 scape painting has as close a connection with physical 

 science as figure painting has with anatomy, and we 

 cannot help thinking it is because physical science has 

 not been sufficiently taught in our public schools, that our 

 landscape painting is, if we are to judge by this year's 

 pictures, not advancing, but almost retrograding. The 

 man who finds anatomy too difficult for him and rushes 

 into landscape soon discovers that there is something 

 there which he has not learned, but which has to be 

 learned ere he can achieve distinction ; and like too many 

 others he has to give up the battle ingloriously. Not for 

 many years has there been such an absence of landscapes 

 of the highest order as in the present Academy ; and in 

 order to show, on the one hand, how those artists who 

 have some knowledge of the branches of science which 

 bear upon their work in art have succeeded in filling 

 their canvases with worthy representations of natural 

 effects, and, on the other hand, how those who lacking 

 this knowledge are only successful in producing mis- 

 representations and distortions of nature, we shall on a 

 subsequent occasion give a series of notes upon those 

 pictures which fall within the reach of our remarks. In 

 some pictures the ignorance of one part of nature has 

 been as great as if a portrait painter had painted a face 

 in which the mouth was represented between the eyes and 





