I 
280 
INDIVIDUALISM IN ART. 
Some of the world’s greatest paintings have been done 
expressly for the purposes of religion ; some of the noblest 
specimens of architecture are found in temples, cathedrals, 
and churches. Some of our most beautiful music is that 
composed expressly for church services, as the Masses of 
Mozart, Schubert, Gounod, and others. I do not say that 
the religious influence has been entirely good, because, as I 
have already pointed out, ornament and decoration are not 
the highest forms of Art, and work done for the great religious 
establishments was almost wholly decorative or ornamental. 
There is a seeming paradox in this consideration, for while 
religion has called forth some of the sublimest efforts of the 
greatest geniuses, religious bigotry and oppression has, sadly 
enough, destroyed many noble and glorious works in Art, 
Literature, and Science. That Art has in some cases been 
degraded bv its contact with doctrinal religion is also a fact 
which needs no proof. That such a mind as that of Shelley, 
so wholly attuned as it was to the delicate influences of Art, 
should be disgusted by some of Michael Angelo’s work, is 
not surprising when we consider what that work was. 
Some of his most celebrated pictures are representations of 
a repulsive, savage, awful being, which is meant to represent 
God. Men with the same ideas concerning the unknowable 
as those of Shelley cannot help being affected in the same 
way by these fearful productions. They are repulsive alike 
to the eye and to the mind. Architecture owes a vast deal 
to religious institutions; so much so, that we cannot sufficiently 
estimate it—all the splendid cathedrals and churches which 
adorn our own land, and those which are among the great 
glories of the Continent; all the magnificent temples of 
India and China, and all those of ancient Greece and Lome, 
the ruins of which still are marvellously beautiful, delighting 
the eye of him who can see beauty, and forming the inspira¬ 
tion for many a noble poem. But sadly enough, as in painting, 
so in architecture, we are troubled by the edifices erected by 
the Primitive Methodist, which he calls the “ Temple of God,” 
and with which he disfigures an otherwise picturesque little 
village in a way most distressing. Although the Masses 
composed for church services are of extreme beauty, we still 
have to contend with the comic music set to the still more 
comic words of the Salvation Army man. We see from this 
that religion, as applied to the Arts, has not been altogether 
beneficial. It is, in some of its forms, answerable for much 
that is derogatory and debasing in Art, while, on the other 
hand, it has been in many directions the friend and nourislier 
of the artist and of his work. 
