118 Taste in Art. 



In Eckermann's conversations with Goethe, the following 

 passage occurs : — " Your excellency," said I, " made an excel- 

 lent remark a little while ago, when you said that the Greeks- 

 turned to nature with their own greatness, and I think that we 

 cannot be too deeply penetrated with this maxim." " Yes, my 

 very good friend/' said Goethe, " all depends upon this. One 

 must be something in order to do something." In literature 

 we do not forget this, for, excepting the ephemeral popularity 

 of the trashy school of fast writers, our praise is given to those 

 who are more as observers and knowers than ourselves. Artists, 

 however, we treat less rationally, and are apt to over-value their 

 mere technical skill. Rightly considered, this skill is the acqui- 

 sition of a language in which something great and beautiful 

 should be said, and he who possesses the language, but tells us 

 nothing, is greatly to be condemned. Style in writing, or 

 speaking, is something like the technical part of good painting, 

 and it often covers deficiencies of thought. One who speaks in 

 public with elegance of manner, choice of words, and flowing 

 cadences, is sure to gain applause, even if there is nothing in 

 what he says ; except his audience are in earnest, and then the 

 roughest utterance with point and pith in it will be preferred. 

 This earnestness settles art questions as well as those of rhetoric 

 or literature, and it is a maudlin frame of mind that induces 

 people to be contented with a painting, or a sculpture, that 

 leaves them emotionally and intellectually no wiser than they 

 were before. The artist usually depreciates works in which 

 there is a fine thought damaged by bad technical expression, 

 and as we have said before, overrates works destitute of 

 thought, but good in technicality. In this spirit very culpable 

 pictures of Millais have been immensely praised, while his 

 noble conception of Sir Isumbras was franticly abused because 

 the knight bestrided a great rocking-horse fitter for the nursery 

 than the field. The " Black Brunswicker " of this artist was 

 perfection in satin and boots, but the man was as unlike a 

 Black Brunswicker as could be. In fact he looked a creature 

 far more likely to run away than to prove the stern hero deter- 

 mined neither to give nor take quarter, but to move on with 

 iron determination towards inevitable death. Surely, if art is 

 anything more than imitation, it is better to mount a rocking- 

 horse with a great idea, than to make a mistake like this. This 

 year Mr. Millais refutes the theories on which he used to act. 

 He justifies the warmest hopes of those who saw the genius 

 lurking under his most hideous efforts, and after the spectator 

 had refreshed his memory by looking at the Nuns digging 

 their grave at Kensington, and thus seen what could be accom- 

 plished by the force of ugliness, he could go to the Eoyal 

 Academy and observe how the same artist could win higher 



