But why did we laugh? We do not laugh when a wealthy “patron of art,” or a paternal government pays an enormous price for a painting because it is pronounced by experts to be a genuine work of a famous “old master.” And we do not laugh—not all of us—when, as in the present instance, the value drops to nearly nothing because the painting proves to be a copy only, or the work of an unknown hand.
I am no artist—Heaven forbid!—nor even a connoisseur. If I were I should doubtless understand why a copy that is as beautiful as an original is not so desirable a possession—why it does not give so great pleasure to the eye and the mind and the heart. I should understand why the work of an obscure or unknown artist is not so valuable as the work of a famous artist if it happens to be as good.
One would suppose—that is, one unacquainted with art might be conceived as supposing—that the value of a painting would be appraised without reference to the question: Who made it? It seems (to the unenlightened) as if it would make no difference what name was borne by the person that painted it—just as the Iliad or the Odyssey would be equally pleasing whether written by Homer or by “another man of the same name,” or another name. I have the hardihood to declare that it is—and here I am on my own ground. I affirm—nay, “swear tiptoed with lifted hand”—that the pleasure of any reasonable man in reading “Ossian” is not abated by knowledge that the author was Macpherson; that to a sane judgment the “Rowley” poems are altogether as delightful as if the secret of their composition had been carried into the next world by little Chatterton when “he perished in his pride.” What is it to me, or to you, if the Shakspeare plays were written by Bacon? We have the plays; let us read and be thankful. Shakspeare and Bacon may fight it out in Elysium, with Ignatius Donnelly as umpire; of the decision, “it boots not to inquire.”
If that is the mental attitude of the true lover of letters, and it is, why is the true lover of art differently constituted, if he is? Why are “the still vexed Bermoothes” of his soul still vexed? Why can not he make up his mind that a work of art is good, or is bad, and let it go at that, serenely unconcerned about the “irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial” babble of the experts in authenticity?
Being ignorant, I thank Heaven for the existence of artists obscure by fortune or by choice, skilful enough to imitate in line or style the work of the great and famous painters. For gratification of my own eye I would as lief see and possess their work as the work that they imitate. So would anybody—for gratification of his own eye. For pigly satisfaction of owning something denied to one’s neighbor; something rare because death has stopped the supply; something to be triumphantly shown to one’s visitors in the hope of exciting some of the baser passions of the human heart, such as covetousness, envy and the like—for such “satisfaction and refined delight” one would of course prefer an original “old master” and be willing to pay a pretty penny for gratification of the preference.
Some wicked man has said that an artist has sensibility, but no sense. I fancy that is not so, but finding artists pretty generally concerned with questions of the “genuineness” of “canvases”—that is to say, pretty generally assenting to the proposition that a picture can be better or worse than it looks—I am sometimes tormented by doubt.
MODERN WARFARE
I
THE dream of a time when the nations shall war no more is a pleasant dream, and an ancient. Countless generations have indulged it, and to countless others, doubtless, it will prove a solace and a benefaction. Yet one may be permitted to doubt if its ultimate realization is to be accomplished by diligent and general application to the task of learning war, as so many worthy folk believe. That every notable advance in the art of destroying human life should be “hailed” by these good people as a step in the direction of universal peace must be accounted a phenomenon entirely creditable to the hearts, if not to the heads, of those in whom it is manifest. It shows in them a constitution of mind opposed to bloodshed, for their belief having nothing to do with the facts—being, indeed, inconsistent with them—is obviously an inspiration of the will.