Taste in Art. 117 



people, how mucli more must defect of vision prevent the ap- 

 preciation of the beautiful curves that enter into the human 

 form. From outline let us pass to colour, and those who have 

 made no trials will be surprised to find how few persons can see 

 all the tints of an ordinary landscape or street scene. One 

 very noticeable deficiency in uneducated vision is not to see 

 violets and purple-greys, and consequently, to be insensible not 

 only to many of the chief beauties of natural objects, but also to 

 be incapable of appreciating the best efforts of landscape art, 

 The uneducated ear is contented with a few ballad cadences, 

 not even elaborated into anything that can be called an air ; 

 the uncultivated eye is equally soon pleased with what is poor 

 and bald, but as the uneducated ear is bewildered and pained 

 by a strain of Beethoven harmony, the uncultivated eye is an- 

 noyed by a masterpiece of Turner, or an exquisite picture of 

 Pyne, in which a highly complicated system of colour harmony 

 its introduced. 



Art criticisms are so often written by individuals who have 

 not learnt to see, that they meet with little respect in this 

 country. This is a misfortune, as we want methods of judging, 

 and standards of excellence distinct from those which artists 

 themselves set up. The tendency of a painter, for example, is 

 to overrate technical skill and to underrate the human thought 

 which a painting should express. He knows far better than 

 the general public how difficult it is to perform certain manipu- 

 lations, or imitate special effects. He is also well up in the 

 ordinary rules of his craft, and quick at discerning errors or 

 faults. On the other hand, he may have very low conceptions 

 of the purposes of art. He may be ignorant of history and 

 literature, or he may read the best authors with a dull percep- 

 tion of their meaning ; he may look at scenery without the 

 faculty of idealization; the events of life may go on around 

 him; empires may crash, human passion, instinct, and rea- 

 son may carry on their exciting conflicts, but he may see no- 

 thing-, feel nothing, to translate into the language of his art. 

 This shows that the mental faculty of seeing requires cultiva- 

 tion as well as the physical, and if criticism were not for the 

 most part a bad penny-a-line sort of business, it would help the 

 artist to create and the public to appreciate a nobler kind of 

 work than we are accustomed to see. Some artists, like Mr. 

 Creswick, establish and maintain a great reputation upon the 

 principle of never seeing in nature more than the average of 

 uncultivated people can understand ; others, like Mr. Redgrave, 

 appear to flourish by seeing a trifle less, for out of the thousands 

 who looked upon his " Way through the Woods," in the Eoyal 

 Academy exhibition of this year, we cannot imagine many to 

 whom a woodland scene would have had so little to say. 

 VOL. II. — no. ii. k 



