116 Taste in Art. 



TASTE IN ART. 



A visit to the Great Exhibition at Kensington must nave sug- 

 gested many interesting questions concerning taste in art, and 

 they are not the less important because they are not new. 

 The word art expresses one of the most complex ideas that 

 civilization has evolved, and a perfect theory of art, like a per- 

 fect theory of society, is impossible, because analysis must fail to 

 grasp the multiplicity of conditions under which the phenomena 

 are produced. It is probable that certain relations between the 

 structure of the eye and particular arrangements of form and 

 colour, may ultimately enable a physical theory of beauty to be 

 constructed, but this would not help us far on our road. Sup- 

 pose, for example, that convenience of vision, and the physical 

 comfort of the optical apparatus could be shown to be associated 

 with certain forms and tints presented simultaneously, or in 

 succession, we should still have to consider the more difficult 

 relations of mental and moral association, in order that we 

 might, out of an indefinite number of unobjectionable arrange- 

 ments, bestow an artistic preference upon those which were best 

 able to express, or stimulate emotion, and thought of an ideal 

 kind. Imagining that we have to deal with an average eye and 

 organization, we must condemn a disposition of colour which is 

 painful, or wearisome, and we must likewise condemn forms, or 

 arrangements of form, that suggest physical discomfort, or 

 which are obviously inappropriate. Upon these principles it is 

 not difficult to come to a wide and general agreement upon 

 many elementary propositions. All people, for example, who 

 are not sufferers from colour-blindness, admire sky-blue, and 

 they can all be brought to disapprove of an inartistic treatment 

 which should give the clear cerulean tint a muddy aspect, by 

 the juxtaposition of a hostile hue. An equal facility for agree- 

 ment exists with reference to simple harmonies, or discords of 

 colour ; but as soon as we approach more complicated problems 

 we find that a prolonged education of the eye is necessary to 

 enable the act of vision to be properly performed. Ask any 

 child the form of objects seen in perspective, and the probability 

 is that you will get an incorrect reply, founded not upon a real 

 attempt to see, and a genuine explanation of what appears to be 

 seen, but based upon wrong notions of the appearance it is sup- 

 posed they ought to present. A few experiments with a round 

 table, placed edgewise to the observer, and in various slopes, 

 will convince any one how completely seeing is an art which has 

 to be acquired, and show to how slight an extent the acquisi- 

 tion is usually made. If simple objects in easy positions are so 

 little understood by children, or even by numbers of grown-up 



