Mr. Tom Taylor made a good address last week to
the York School of Art. His main point was, that though commercial enterprise and prosaic industries may seem unfavourable to art, they really stimulate the springs whence artistic genius arises. His address suggested a very curious subject, the reflex effect upon art of its being taken up by those who can only give one corner of their mind to it, who can only refresh themselves with it, and must be awkward and inartistic for nine-tenths of their lives. The great Italian school of art was essentially the art of men who were steeped in the influences of art ;—our modern art is that of men who escape into it for a breath of fresh air. How do the two differ, and how far is the latter the inferior of the former? No one could tell us better or more instructively than Mr. Taylor.
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