Art was a subtle essence, a delicate perfume. Art was a religion. Art appealed to all our higher sympathies, and it was only by educating people up to a kind of art-millennium pitch that we could hope to see our public buildings decorated with historical paintings. He sat down and mopped himself amidst loud applause, and I felt considerably humiliated. We had a great deal more of this sort of thing at the congress. The few artists who were present sat dumb, and the high æsthetic gentlemen had it all their own way, so that the congress, which might have served some practical end, finished in vapor and smoke.
In spite, however, of this termination of the discussion, I am still convinced that until mural painters have sufficient love for their art to accept a small remuneration, decorative work of a high class will languish.
For the mural painter’s work, Manchester millionnaires do not vie with each other. No spirited and enterprising dealers beset his studio, eager to secure whatever he has on the easel. All of what Dr. Johnson called the “Potentiality of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice” is denied him. Pay of course he must have, but his patrons are generally committees or corporate bodies of some kind, who seldom give fancy prices.
Let him therefore console himself with the thought that his is the highest and noblest branch of the profession, and that whilst high-priced easel pictures are relegated to private galleries and dining-rooms, only to reappear at intervals at Christie’s salerooms, his work is a fixture, and can always be seen by the public.
With the hope that it may be admired as well as seen I shall conclude my lecture.
LECTURE IX.
ON FINISH.
It has always been a disputed point, both amongst artists and writers on art, how near an approach to absolute truth is desirable in painting; some insisting on photographic accuracy, whilst others go to the opposite extreme, and consider mere suggestiveness to be the great desideratum in painting.
Much may be argued in favor of both sides of the question, but a medium course is certainly the best.
Imitation of nature is no doubt the foundation-stone of all sound painting, and the natural inference would be, that the closer the imitation the better the picture. But, on the other hand, a picture which is not an exact counterpart of the object portrayed, but leaves something to be imagined, is generally more interesting than a more perfect copy would be.
This fact is particularly noticeable in pictures of flowers, fruit, and still life generally.