I deem this modesty unnecessary, provided they bestow on their work original thought and invention.
If they attempt to rival the manner of the great masters, then they may be taxed with presumption, but no artist need be deterred from painting such subjects as the “Last Supper,” or the “Walk to Emmaus,” because many great masters have treated the same themes. I have probably said enough in defence of taking subjects which have already been painted, and will now attempt some classification of subjects suitable for the higher class of figure-pictures.
The term “Religious,” in connection with art, ought, I think, to be confined to those subjects in which Divine personages are introduced, or to those which embody some miracle. Thus “The Creation of Adam,” “The Holy Family,” “The Raising of Lazarus,” or “The Conversion of St. Paul,” would all come under the head of religious subjects; but I think the term misapplied when speaking of such subjects as “Hagar in the Desert,” “The Finding of Moses,” “Samson and Delilah,” etc., which have no religious element in them, although they are of course strictly Scriptural.
It is almost needless for me to remark that the Old and New Testament offer an inexhaustible field for pictorial illustration. The Bible is more read and better known than any other book in the world, and this alone would preëminently distinguish it as a source whence artists should derive subjects for their pictures; but besides this, the costumes from Noah down to St. Paul are simple and dignified, suggesting the highest style of art.
There are reasons which militate against young artists (or old ones either) attempting this highest class of religious subjects, the principal of which is the fear of failure; failure in this class being a much greater humiliation than in a lower walk of art. But there is also another good reason, and that is, the want of a market for their work.
Our churches do not, as a rule, purchase Biblical pictures, and our lay patrons of art naturally enough object to importing a “Crucifixion” or a “Noli me Tangere” into galleries and rooms full of mundane-subject pictures.
There seems, however, no reason why the second class of Scriptural subjects (those, I mean, which are simply historical or anecdotic) should not be more often painted than they are.
Of allegory and allegorical subjects I need hardly say any thing. For mere decorative purposes they may sometimes be eligible, but even then I think them quite out of date, and should be sorry to see a revival of the painted riddles which were so much the fashion in the time of Giotto and his followers.
Such semi-allegorical subjects as Reynolds’ “Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy” are permissible enough, because they are easily comprehended; but the allegories I object to are those which are totally incomprehensible without a page or two of letterpress to explain their meaning.
Mythology offers a much better field than allegory for decorative purposes. “Juno in her Peacock-drawn Car Ascending to Olympus,” “Orpheus and Eurydice,” “Prometheus Vinctus,” etc., etc., are all splendid subjects.