mittee and the evidence of Dr. WAAGEN are viewed in
a new light; and the only true one in which the fine arts ought to be regarded, in- tellectually speaking. But we are a plodding and mercantile people ; and as a nation, compared with the Greeks, little better than barbarians in our appreciation of art. With us it is only u higher species of cum- mental manufacture—an ingenious superfluity, tolerated because it ministers to our self.love. To find art in its higher aim a subject of Parliaa.entary inquiry at all, therefore, was cheering. We bailed the connexion of arts with manufactures, feeling sure that the workshop is the vestibule through which a practical and mechanical people must enter into tbe sanctuary of creative genius. We agree with " PHILO. GRAPIIICUS " that the " inferior and mechanical branches of art S' were too exclusively regarded : but the object prescribed to the Com- mittee was the investigation of the principles of art in connexion with manufactures : in taking the course they did, therefore, the Com- mittee only fulfilled their instructions. Our correspondent is in advance of the age with respect to this subject ; but, instead of chiding its slow progress and wrong direction, be should rather look back with coin- placeuey to see the cumbrous machinery of legislation dragging onward
the chariot of art. Painting and sculpture are not yet naturalized among us ; they are exotics. 'f he soil requires to be cultivated and enriched by knowledge and instruction, the atmosphere of public opinion to be purified and softened by taste, before the fine plant of genius, which is beginning to take root, can expand its beautiful blossoms in our ungenial clime. Education is the first requisite. We do not think that we have "begun at the wrong end."
But let PHILOGRAPILICI'S be heard.
TO THE EDITOR Or THE SPECTATOR.
September 1837. Sin—As Sir Ma writ: SHEE, Mr. HAYDON, and other gentlemen con- cerned in a recent Parliamentary investigation, entertain such opposite opinions, and since such contradictory estimates and statements as your estimable paper discloses are set forth of the actual weight and value of Dr. WA AGEN'S evi- dence before that Committee of the House of Commons which was appointed to inquire into the best means of advancing fine art, perhaps you will make min fur a few sentences written in the way of rectification and moderation, and in the hope of promoting the object which the house of Commons must have had in view when they instituted the inquiry, however clumsily and ineffi- ciently that inquiry was pursued, and in anticipation of its resumption in the coming session.
May I be permitted to premise, that we live in an age which perhaps somewhat over-estimates its own merits and attainments; at least I fear posterity will dis- cover that we are too touch addicted to the dissipation in sophistical prating and oral gladiatorship cif that attention upon which philosophy must rest its resolves; that there are amongst us too many forward, projecting snnatterers, climbing and struggling too frequently with success, although over slippery stepping stones, for the high places; that there has been too ready a recognition or belief that the wealth of the nation constitutes its happiness ; and that mental properties shall be detei ionised, obscured, and held to be valueless, further than as they contribute to enhance those domineering bodily properties in money and laud which, " like Aaron's sapent, swallows all the rest." Whirled into the vortex of a deluded mob, we do not perceive what to po,terity and the few who keep aloof must seem flagrant and palpable.
Hence, our public institutions are, probably, too exclusively engaged in ana-
lytical pursuits, in which mere acts of memory overwhelm our synthetic faculties, absorb our intellectual powers, and obstruct rather than facilitate the flights of genius: our wisdom is thus, if I mistake not, held in abeyance, atul kept far behind our knowledge. Britain is become too much of a Mammon island—too much what Monte has eloquently lamented of America; and legis- lation, practically speaking, too much a necessary result of the clashings of amateur perceptions of classed interests, for the House of Commons, as at pre- sent constituted, to be competent to legislate effectively for fine art,—by which I mean, with such moral advantage to the public and the world as fine art in us latent energies has the power of imparting. For consider, Mr. SPECTATOR, what fine art is in all those loftier and nobler manifestations which urge society pleasureablv and morally onward. Reflect that it is too pure, ethereal, original, and ineffable in its nature, to be placed for guidance or improvement under the dogmatical dictation, of money-grinders, or the pilotage of bigots, or amid those coarse altercations by which the proceedings of our Art Committee were but too obviously charactelized. Need M.P.s be so numerous as they are? And thould they not be paid, like other public servants, out of the public treasury, in order that they might devote their minds to their duties, and not absent thenoelves at pleasure, nor seek remuueration for the value of their time and studies in ulterior and prospective and uncertain advantages? However these luestious may be answered, standing or proceeding, as our Representatives of inert solid-puddiug property do, upon the slippery stepping.stones to place and preferment, they resolved to catch at, and fancied themselves competent, be- cause they felt themselves authorized, to deal with those arts of social refine- ment which, " in this enlightened age," have no representatives. And this is the existing state of the artistical concernments of Great Britain ! Varier such circumstaucea—fluttering among the grasping altercations of party collision—the Psyche—the soul of art—how shall she escape being crushed, as tureflecting boys, without evil intentions, but in the mere ardour of pursuit, crush or at least impair the beauty of the butterflies they design to cherish; soiling their own fingers with golden feathers? Hence the printed Report of the Examinations before the Committee of the Commons, speaking of it collectively, although it has been painted upon and Varnished, like the pictures of the impartial and disinterested Academicians after they are hung, previous to being publicly exhibited,—the voluminous Report of the Examinations is by far too much "about it goddess and about it," without coming to the main point ; and though it does not quite deserve Sir MARTIN'S degrading reproach of beiug "a farrago of impudence, conceit, and arrogance," yet, unhappily for society, it consists in effect of little better than an unintelligent and inconsistent groping after the caput mortuum of the subject, its essence having been suffered to exhale in the heat of controversy. And this general description applies quite as much to the questions asked in the course of that inquiry, as to the answers returned; not that soros good things ere not uttered on both sides. While Mr. HATDON claims high value for Dr. WA *GEN'S testimony, the President of the Royal Academy points triumphantly to the dull mechanical plodding in art (or what is so termed) which pervades the countries where the plans which the foreign Professor advocates have been adopted and carried into practical effect. Viewing its merits in its results, "Look," says Sir MARTIN, and what reasoning can be fairer? " at the living art of Prussia, Bavaria, and Germany, trod compare it with our own, where no such system of gewerb' trammeling has been adopted." And surely such exemplary warning were well worth attending to What ! shall we profit by no sad experience but our own? Cannot we husband better either our taste or attention, or the means of gratify- ing them, than by following in a foreign and unprofitable career. Can our collective wisdom devise or ordain nothing better for art in the aggregate, than the cutting of legislative channels, through which shall pour in that inundation of mediocrity and cheap facilities which already threatens to deluge the fine arts arid literature of England? What a ridiculous climax of absurdity in the amateur legislation of the pre,.ent age it would form, and bow posterity would laugh, if Austria, or Bavaria, and Prussia, warned by their own profitless ex- perience as regards the higher branches of art, should now be seeking to invigo- rate or resuscitate the fine arts of their respective nations, by imitating the custom of England, iustead of seeking for flint princip!es ! And this is by no aneaus an improbable event: for the inonkies of legislation are fond of poking their noses and their fingers in other monkies' messes—no monk ies are more so.
In all ages and nations, artists of genius have been and are necessarily few,
because those only who miry their professional labours hey ond the rest entitle themselves to the honourable distinction. These leading spirits are few, and therefore the more easily within national means of honour and reward. Now, to appreciate, honour, and recompense the SIDDOSSES, the C sov.s S, and the PAC: A NI NIS, necessarily keeps talent on the stretch all through their sevtral professions ; while to omit or neglect this, and .fosier inferioritg, is a sure incus of stultification—a downward climbing, contlum ing us toward, if it does not plunge us into, the very bathos of artistical legislation. The pleasurable excitement of superior talent in art, which I am here al- vocating, and from which our Conunittee appears to have permitted their atten- tion to be averted, is " the root of the matter." And Lord VERI: L A NI 1DIS not left it for me to inform the said Commit•ee, that " it is not any thing they condo to the branches that will effect good, while they neglect irri,gatiun and stirring
the earth about the root." True it is, that some painters have risen to emt
nence in spite of poverty and discourragewents ; but these would have carried their art much farther than they did, had their means been invigorated by pleasiireable stimuli, as the biography of all tlue:e wino have done best and done most goes to prove. :MICHAEL A NG LLO, Rarnaer., WRENS, TITIAN, were all men of independence, and unretarded by pecuniary difficulties or lack of ap- preciation or patronage. Alas! I may ru.st dissemble here that the evidence of Dr. WAA GEN was suited to the calibre of the authors of the cruel Poor. laws, who, just at the time when the working classes of the British community were getting too widely apart, and irreproachable poverty wanted its tribunes, appointed oppressors, and authorized oppression. Among the unballoted Commons, are evidently too many of those who, sedulous of " happiness arid suits" of leg:slatium thought— and perhaps on this point thought rightly—that they might, at the beck of petty pleasures or private domestic necasiolia, absent themselves from the Com- mittee of inquiry without disadvantage to its object ; toOlany of those gentlemen who promote giu-shop prosperity at the expense of debauching that class of the community which their obvious duty should direct them to educate. From such " unwashed artificers" of laws, what can the purer arts and sciences— those great levers which, and which alone, can lift the glory of England—have to expect ? It is written, " By their fruits ye shall know them ;" and the re- sult has been accordingly. Something has been effected for manufactures and commerce, but nothing for art supreme. Copyright, or the protection of ori- ginal designs from piracy, has been judiciously extended to those provincial manufacturers who may purchase such designs from competent artists ; and a drawing- school, under Sir PRA NCIS CH A NTILEY and Mr. Parwownr, has been established at four shillings per week. We are then enabled to address our Representatives (so termed) in the words if the prophet, " Thou host multi- plied the labourers, but not increased their joy." Now, bail the Legislature, instead of increasing the number of tyros, and thus diluting the dignity and de- teriorating time flavour of the generous wine of art—had they, instead of pa- tronizing mediocrity—had they, instead of erecting such a mill to make verses as we read of in the Spectator of old, begun by promoting the loftier aims of art, and leut a hand, or but patronized un impetus, in extending the radius of those golden compasses which circumscribe present mortal attainment —had the Commons" to their ownselves been true," that is to say, true to their country, it " must have followed, as the night the day, they could not have proved false to any men ;" for the inferior or manufacturing branches of art necessarily must and would have advanced and vindicated in that respect our national supe- riority. It appears to me, therefore, that, instigated by Dr. WA AGES'S evidence in recommendation of conventional plodding, and by certain undeserved praises of the superiority of French paper-hanging, &c., the beguiled House of Commons has begun its work at the wrong end, and that Mr. Wentz of Redleaf, the late Sir JOHN LEICESTER, Lord Er:Remo:sr, and some few other individuals of taste, liberal minds, and opulent means, have done more, much more, for sound national art, and contributed more to the recent diffusion of good taste, than the whole House of Commons, or the Royal Academy, or than any British public body whatever. Now, what opinion will the philosophers of future ages enter.. tam n of the legislation and the royal auspices which, in a course of centuries, effects less on a subject of public importance, than a few individuals of common sense, sound taste, and moderate means, in the course of a few years? The above facts are demonstrable, if I have not already demonstrated them, to men of discernment; and further, that British art, in its nobler nianifestations, which ought to be sensible of no other than honourable and pleasureable ex- citement, is but a few shades better off than in the time of HOUARTIJ and WinsoN, and is still, as it has ever been, fighting up with few auxiliaries against its national condition with heroic energy. Upon these interesting points I caunut but think it would be well if the senior Mr. LA NDSEEIL'S evidence, which I have seen, were fairly before the public : for it is a curious fact, that the most really important question of the whole inquiry was propounded from the chair to that gentleman ; but, from irregular and interrupting occurrences, (from which legislative proceedings should surely be kept free,) his answer was postponed till the ensuing day of the Committee's meeting ; and was then, with still more of irregularity and un- dignified procedure on the part of the 111.P.s, declined to be attended to by the Chairman's substitute, Mr. Ewa ET himself being absent. Upon such casualties, alas! is the pro,perity of a nation left to depend, whilst it is boast- ing of its intellectual railroads! All this unnational aberration from the ostensibility and steadiness which I thought indispensable in national concern- ments, all this unphilosophical preference of form to essence, I myself wit- nessed with surprise—and another feeling, which I shall not name, upon that remarkable and important occasion of rare occurrence. I have the houour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, noun:ILA en ic u s.
True, we are" but a few shades better off than in the time of Ho. GARTH and Witsow."—Thanks to a Royal Academy. This it is that has "Increased the number of tyros "—this has been the great " patron of mediocrity." We me surprised that our correspondent should under- value Dr. WAAGEN'S evidence, whose opinion of the baneful influence of Academies is so sound, and so well supported by proof; and whose views of the modes in which art may best be fostered are by no means confined to the mechanical ones. We willingly accept the test pro- posed by Sir MARTIN SHEE of the merits of the German system. " Look," say we too, "at the results-at the living art of Germany." Where shall we match such artists as OVERBECY, CORNELIUS, SCHNORR, BENDEMANN, SOHN, HILDEBRANDT, RETZSCH, and others, who to refinement of art join spirituality of imagination ? Would that our artists were better acquainted with the modern German school. Their works may be a little too strongly tinctured with the Gothic dryness of ALBERT DURER ; but in knowledge, skill, and invention, we cannot compare with them. The German painters might study with advantage the colouring and chiaroscuro of the English school ; but to suppose they could improve their system of study by
imitatizq the custom of England," would indeed be a " climax of ab- surdity," that the penetrating and scientific Germans are not likely to attain to. What is the "custom of England ? " To leave art to sup- port itself by ministering to the cravings of wealth, vanity, and fashion, and to be stilled by the deadening influence of a self-seeking and irresponsible despotism. The Academy is a grub from which we fear no " Psyche" will ever burst forth.
But what is this " most really important question," which Mr. LANDSEER senior was not permitted to answer ? We should be glad to see his evidence. Indeed, we wondered why the name of one so learned in the subject was omitted in the list of witnesses.
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