PAINTERS AND ARCHITECTS.
There is a presumptuous feeling in the breasts of those who, par excellence, assume the style and title of “Artists,” both in the Old and the New World, which it would be well to look into were it not that valuable time might thus be wasted on an exceedingly contemptible subject. We allude to the arrogation of eminence by those autocrats of the easel, who, not content with the undue position conceded to them by the vain and the frivolous who stilt themselves on their recognition of “high art,” and affect to govern the very laws of taste itself, go farther in the fulness of their ambition, and seek to ignore Architecture as an art. This outrage on common sense is not confined to America, it has been continuously practised, if not boldly promulgated, for over a century in London, by an institution bearing the absurd title of The Royal Academy, originally intended to foster and advance the interests of Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, yet in forty elections, or rather selections, of Associates, that is, of those ordained to emblazon their names with the R. A., but four were Architects!
And, notwithstanding the studious efforts made by our profession to elevate our position and draw at least our share of public attention, we find that this Royal Academy and the rest of the aristocratic Dundrearifications, positively prohibit the appearance of architectural designs upon the walls of their National Galleries by crowding every available foot of wall space with easel-work, (we beg pardon—“paintings,”) ephemeral, unnatural, mannerized exudations of the “modern school,” that barely patronizes Nature as a stupid fact, which to be got round must be obliterated in gaudy coloring. But, shall Architects make bold to criticize these “Artists?” No, Painting is a sublime gift, by the magic touch of which the coarse inelegant canvas is made to put forth emanations of the etherial mind, which it were a pity to limit to the paltry boundary of a gilded frame!