The Morning Post has published a protest against Mr. Epstein's
panel in Hyde Park signed by several well-known persons, among whom we notice the name of Sir Frank Dicksee, the President of the Royal Academy. Mr. Basil Peto in the House of Commons has also been urging the removal of the panel. Our own feeling is that to reverse the decision of the powerful committee which approved of Mr. Epstein's work would be an exceedingly bad and probably a disastrous pre- cedent. If we once began hauling things down, it is impossible to say where we should stop. Most new movements in art have been resisted and ridiculed. That has been true in our own time of the pre-Raphaelitc movement, of Whistler's painting, and so on. More- ovei, if a committee is to be turned down by public clamour, every committee in future will play for safety. It will choose harmless, inoffensive and negligible stuff in order to avoid criticism.
* * * *
Previous page
