By Mr. T. Gambler Parry. 



49 



should manifest such poverty of invention, such wretched weakness 

 of resource, that under conditions so opposite it should still remain 

 the same. 



But the modern painter has made himself a slave to the techni- 

 calities of perspective. The greatness of his art lies in design, not 

 in the mere technicalities of linear or atmospheric relief. But art 

 was in this way narrowed centuries ago, even by those who in its 

 great days glorified it by their genius — but they were intent on 

 one ideal of it alone — so they dammed up its stream and made its 

 channel narrow. I mean in what is called the renaissance of the 

 15th and; 16th centuries. Painting was reduced to pictorial effect. 

 Arts once glorious in their diversity were all drawn in, within one 

 narrow code of academic rules. The altar-piece, the window and 

 the wall (as I have said elsewhere) were all brought within the 

 category of the same rigid table of art laws. Glass, pottery, walls, 

 pictures, mosaics, were all to be treated alike — and why ? because 

 the artists were in bondage. 



Academies had ignored the varying conditions of art in its place, 

 its purpose, and its materials ; and popular opinion, lending its nose 

 to the hook of academic pretension, had frightened the artist into 

 compliance, for his health, his peace, and his pocket, but not for 

 his conscience sake. 



Mr. Parry then proceeded as follows : — I trust that you will 

 have seen my purpose in this brief sketch of classic art. I can 

 suppose that the story of Christian art might have been more 

 interesting to you, but that classic art was a perfect prototype of 

 what followed in Christian times. They both illustrate the triumphs 

 of art gained by the principle of mutual subordination — subor- 

 dination, I mean, not reducing one art to the slave of another — 

 but a mutual act, rather of espousal than of vassalage. When 

 painting asserted its own individual powers, all combination with 

 its great sister was at an end. In Christian art the case has been 

 the same, and nowadays all true principle of wall painting seems 

 to be ignored. The modern artist will not succumb to the require- 

 ments of his new position. He has been a picture painter ; he is 

 now a wall painter, but here he continues a picture painter still. 



VOL. X. — NO. XXVIII. % - D 



