ART.

"THE CORNHILL " ON COAL-SCUTTLES.

Dna readers may remember that a clever writer in the Cornhill published a paper therein called "The Philosophy of Drawing- rooms," on which I made several remarks, not wholly of a com- plimentary nature.

" G. A.," as he signed himself, answered me in a letter to the Spectator, and has returned to the charge in an article in this month's issue of the amain, entitled " Cimabue and Coal- scuttles." I do not propose to answer his criticisms again, beyond saying that he is wholly mistaken in attributing to me the role of the collector, and the desire to confine good Art to the wealthy ; but his paper has suggested to me that it may be necessary to put my argument against the modern " intense " school of estheticians into a plainer shape. I must remark, in passing, that " G. A." does not believe himself to be a member of this school, but the decoration he recommends is based on their theories.

There are, and always have been, two kinds of pretty things ; those which are actively beautiful, and those of which the chief beauty is their harmoniousness, when taken in combination with certain other objects. Some things combine both quali- ties, and are both beautiful per se and harmonious ; but, for the most part, objects of art manufacture fall into one or the other class. Now, the worst of the objects which form har- monious combinations when sought for the purpose of domestic decoration is, first, that they tend to destroy all sense of what is individually beautiful; and second, that the introduction of any discrepant object destroys the whole harmony.

Let me make my meaning clear. by an illustration. The

• ennatnie and Carl-stunlet. By "G. A.," in the C.T,$MU Magaiine, for July. favourite colour for hangings now is sage-green, or dusty Indian-red. These colours are not beautiful in themselves—far from it—but they form harmonious combinations with the blue china, which is fashionable (not, mind you, because it is beauti- ful, but because it goes with the other decorations). Again, when you have got blue china and sage-green hangings, it is evident that your furniture must not, on the one baud, be light iu colour, or, on the other, too sombre in the effect. In the one case we should have discordancy, in the other a sombreness of effect that could not be endured. We therefore find that the first com- promise is obtained by painting the furniture black, and enlivening it with a little gold. So that now we have—all for the sake of harmony, recollect—green hangings, black-aud•gold furniture, and blue china. But we do not get the whole value out of this harmony till we contrast it with little spots of pure colour, spots which will, as it were, make the harmony visible ; and so we look about for some objects which will give us what we want. There is no lack of such,—little bits of Venetian glass, a parasol from Japan, a Buddha from India, a Chinese lantern or Persian rug, an Anatolian plate or a Moorish bowl ; we seize upon them, one and all. The Japanese parasol goes helter-skelter into the fireplace, the Per- sian rug is hung carefully against the door, the Anatolian plate sticks, as in some aistlietic conjuring trick, against the wall, the lantern twinkles faintly between shaded curtains, and the Venetian glass decorates an eta Jere above the mantel- piece, from the centre of which looks down with infernal calm the Buddha, contemplative of the whole scene.

And so behold our harmony all but complete. All but, I say, but not quite, for it is evident that we cannot introduce into this scene men and women in their ordinary clothes. Fancy the incon. gruity of the old-fashioned white-muslin and blue-ribboned girl amidst such surroundings, or a Rugby boy running in muddy flannels into such a repository. No, we cannot have anything of that sort ; something must be sacrificed, and so we ourselves set the example. We dress our women in greys and faint reds and dirty blues ; we give our men wide open collars, and saffron velvet- coats, and encourage them to show no clean linen, and to leave their beards uncombed. We draw the curtains closer and closer still, as we advance in art and mystery; our voices, gradually sink. ing, take a tone of awe ; we repress a shudder when mention is made of some nineteenth-century picture or statue, and murmur under our breath of the Chryselephantine Zeus and the unknown teachers of Phidias. We no longer look even at ancient pic- tures or statues, lest our harmonious feeling should be disturbed by their beauty ; but from the recesses of some secret drawer we extract a half-defaced Greek coin, and point with sombre rap- ture to the lines of its design, the softness of its modelling.

I have drawn an extreme picture ; whether it is a true one or not, let my readers judge. I have been into houses this year which seemed to me to be as living a lie against true art, as they were inconsistent with all manly purpose or womanly feeling. Do we want to make our houses into sepulchres of dead men's bones, just for the sake of gratifying a desire to be called " artistic " ? What is the use of putting an inartistic person into an artistic house ? You might as well put a sprat into a lobster-shell. The whole thing is a monstrous fallacy, which rests upon the assumption that harmoniousness of effect is the whole of art. As a matter of fact, quite the reverse is the case ; and harmony of effect, when it is carried too far, absolutely obscures fine art. It would be a thousand times better, for any cultivation of artistic feeling, to live in a house

which had absolutely no pretence to artistic merit, than to live in one of the sickly Queen-Anne anachronisms which

are at present called art-dwellings. And it would be better for this reason, that if the taste is once perverted into this liking for harmony and quaintness, it is with the very greatest diffi- culty that it can receive any pleasure from art of other kinds.

Take a typical instance of this perversion of judgment. An ordinary, pure water-colour—I assert this deliberately—is looked upon by most of the people who are now called " aisthetic " as something too poisonous almost to mention, and they would. no more think of hanging one upon their walls than of com-

mitting any of the seven deadly sins. It is a literal truth that

this school absolutely detest such work as Cox's and De taint's paintings, and so perverted are their eyes by the mixture of bright spots of colour on a dim background amidst which they live, that they cannot see the beauty of any colour unless it be vivid in hue, and, on the whole, sombre in effect. They can admire the beauty of Burne Jones, but not that of Velasquez ; they worship Botticelli, but they do not care about Tintoretto ; they love Walker, but they (in their hearts) think Turner is over-rated, and that he worked in the wrong way.

In a word, when Art becomes fresh and healthy—that is to say, when its work seems intended to produce a smile rather than a sigh—it has no affinity for our friends. They would rather have their etag:res with bad imitations of ancient manufac- tures (such as those of modern Venetian glass), than they would have a fresh bit of nature hanging over their mantelpiece. Am I exaggerating in my descriptions of the effect produced upon foolish people by the attempt to become artistic according to given rules ? I wish I could think so. As a matter of fact, the picture is under-drawn,—all its darker shades are omitted. Of the effect upon effort, upon healthiness of mind and body, upon genuineness of life, I have said nothing, and yet I might have said much. Houses are known to me in which a laugh seems almost as misplaced as in a church, and is even subject to the same unuttered rebuke. Houses there are now by the hundred throughout London, where the thickly shaded light, as it breaks with difficulty through the faded curtains, falls not alone upon " flatted," dusky paint, blue china and black- and-gold wicker-work, but illumines faintly the pale faces of weary women, self-immolated upon the altar of their own hearths. The worship of beauty (false beauty, as I hold it to be) has its victims now by the hundred, and much of the effete- ness of our artists and the hysteria of our women, may be traced back, till we find its seemingly innocuous source, in art furniture and decorative hangings.

The other night, at an "at home," I saw the last and worst result of such teaching. My attention was drawn by a friend to a young woman in a dull colourless dress, without collar or other adornment, and with a thick mass of hair rubbed confusedly down on her forehead. She was sitting in a corner by the door- way, with a face expressive of such withered joy as I have never before seen affected. Her head leant back against the door-post, her eyes were half closed, more like a piece of seaweed left high upon a beach in the glare of a noonday sun, than a woman, there she sat, unlovely, unwomanly, and unhealthy,—but oh ! how :esthetic! The current of people flowed and eddied round her ; talk, neither wise nor witty, perhaps, but at least human, rose and fell unheeded by her ear ; while by her side stood a barrister noted for his wit, even more than for his learning vainly trying to win a smile from the poor, sad face. Is this what our wives and sisters are coming to, if they have any artistic capacities? Is this the desired result of an increased devotion to Art ? I, for one, refuse to believe it. It seems to me to be only one of the many false fashions of the day, an outgrowth from the worst part of Swinburne's and Rossetti's poetry. Let no one of this school delude himself or herself into the belief that their practices and theories tend to help Art. They tend rather to destroy it ; and as surely as you kill healthiness of feeling and strength of moral fibre in any society, so certainly you may be sure you kill also the root of all Fine Art. For Fine Art is always healthy, always strong, and never self-conscious.

HARRY QUILTER.