JOACHIM ELMEXDOEF. 17 



possession of the public mind." The facts cited to prove 

 his assertion were ' ' the large number of people engaged 

 in the production of art ; the numerous books issuing 

 from the press indicating a general demand for instruct- 

 ive art literature ; the multiplying forms of art manifes- 

 tation, not only in the main departments of sculpture, 

 architecture and painting, but in the numerous branches 

 of decorative art." The years that have followed his 

 statement have surely emphasized it and confirmed its 

 truth. Yet, it is scarcely a question whether clear views 

 and convictions concerning art were the causes of the 

 noted interest ; and even less is it a question whether 

 real knowledge of art has kept pace with the spread of 

 this seeming interest. 



Quite early in the century it was a bitter regret of 

 Benjamin Robert Haydon, that the nobility and higher 

 classes of Great Britain had ' ' so little dependence on 

 their own judgment in art." And he properly attributed 

 the lack to defect of education. 



While those of exceptional sensibility to the truth and 

 power of art. without any specific knowledge of its his- 

 tory or principles, may reach, intuitively, a confident 

 and just estimate of works of art : — as a genius may be- 

 come an eminent artist without or in spite of instructors, 

 yet, those of ordinary gifts, can gain independent conclu- 

 sions in art that deserve to be called judgments, only by 

 study more persistent, and instruction more systematic, 

 than most give and receive. 



There is the science as well as the sense of beauty in 

 every department of art : the science and the sense of 

 form in sculpture ; of color, form, grouping in painting ; 

 of pixxportions and detail in architecture ; of melody and 

 harmony in music ; of rhythmical expression in poetry. 

 And while any exemplifications of these great arts may 

 excite pleasurable feeling in uninstructed observers, a 

 knowledge of the combined and illustrated facts and 



