Improvement in English Handicraft.
Elevation of the Common Level.
The English race, usually destitute of any artistic faculty or perception, produces exceptional geniuses in quite as great numbers as the French. The faculties that raise art above mere technical cleverness to the region of poetry are not excessively rare in the home of poetry itself. In fact, the English tendency has been to rely upon native gifts too much, to the neglect of handicraft, yet even in artistic handicraft the English have made surprising progress in the thirty years between 1850 and 1880. Their art critics go on repeating the old complaint that there is little above the common level, but the common level itself has risen, and the complaint amounts merely to the truism that exceptional excellence is exceptional.
The General Understanding of Art.
Paris and the Provinces.
London.
Edinburgh.
Art in the Middle and Lower Classes.
The attainments of artists are, no doubt, a matter of national concern, as are the accomplishments of all workers; nevertheless, it is still more important, from the intellectual point of view, that art should be understood by many than that it should be dexterously practised by a few. Now, as to this separate question of intelligence concerning the fine arts, I have said elsewhere, and can only repeat, that in Paris it is wonderfully general, but not in the French provinces. Intelligence of that kind is common, without being general, in London, and not very rare in the other great English towns, whilst Edinburgh is incomparably more important as an art-centre than either Lyons or Marseilles. Neither the English nor the French aristocracy has ever, as a body,[10] shown an intelligent interest in art. For some reason that may be connected with the contempt felt by a noblesse for manual labour, the understanding of art seems to belong chiefly to the middle and lower classes, who often find in it a substitute for more expensive pleasures. As for the future, this kind of intelligence is likely to increase widely in the same classes, especially if art is more intimately associated with handicrafts and manufactures.
The Particular Difficulty of the English.