Our own opinion is decidedly against a Department of Art
in any shape or form. When a great public building is being erected, by all means let an ad hoe Committee be appointed to arrange for its decoration, as the Prince Consort's 'Commission did for the decora- tion of the Houses of Parliament But a permanent Art Commission would soon either sink into apathy or else encourage nothing but safe—i.e., academic—art of the most frigid kind. No Art Department would ever encourage a Steevens, or a Walker, or a Turner until they had made their fame elsewhere and needed no Government aid. What Renan called fart administratif is not a help, but a positive injury to true artists. A public Department of Art, in fact, involves a kind of art censorship. Lord Rosebery's proposal is better, but even that is too much systematised. Instead, whenever Parliament made a special grant to any great soldier or sailor, or voted any man its thanks, we would have them vote also £1,000 to have the national hero's picture painted and hung in the National Portrait Gallery. For example, when Lord Roberts receives his grant and the thanks of Parliament, an additional £1,000 should be voted to secure his portrait. That special voting of a man's picture by Parliament would give us a new honour of a very valuable and useful kind.
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