THE LIMITS OF MODERN ART-CRITICISM.

I AM led by an article in the August number of this Review-a very brilliant one, entitled A Familiar Colloquy on Recent Art,'—to appeal briefly and rather humbly to its author, and other men of the same high standard of capacity, about amenities and reticences which it seems to me they are called on to respect-revive-or, perhaps, to initiate. The article in question has not the weight of its author's more careful work, though it is quite worthy of him as a model causerie. Still I think it reckless, crude, and ill-considered, in its adverse criticisms. It does not seem as if the author had overridden any genuine scruples, which would be altogether wrong; but as if he had written just as he spoke, or heard others speak, in a drawing-room or a smoking-room. According to his rather unfavourable view of society, people seem to say much the same things in either place now.

What is to be said here will not have the piquancy of conversation, and I shall avoid the mention of names as far as possible, speaking as a friend of Mr. Burne Jones, and an admirer of his censor. And this is written partly at the instance of another person for whom that painter, his critic, and his critic's critic, entertain the same strong respect and regard. So that these observations are made. ex animo; and though one critique has given rise to them, they may apply to a great many others.

First, I rather object to the colloquial form of writing, where severe adverse criticism has to be done. The writer dodges behind his characters. It is not right to print sharp moral animadversion in the mouths of dummies, however prettily you may dress them up: and they enable you to use a style of touch-and-go insinuation which cannot be replied to. In personal discussion there is no harm in saying People say this or that about you, and I want to know about it, believing them '-because the other man can speak for himself. A licence is allowed when men face each other, which should not be taken in a conversation all on one side.

Again, litera scripta manet. The sharpest things may often be said, when they ought not to be printed. The whole question of scandal, and scandalous newspaper writing, turns on printing intimate conversations for all the world to read, and proclaiming that

which was said in the ear on the housetops. It is an indiscretion; and it will certainly interfere, and gravely, with all freshness and confidence in society. It turns epigram into libel, and fun into malice. In short, criticisms may be flashed out, laughed at, and even remembered in the talk of a familiar clique, if they get no further than talk: they should be served up with their natural evanescent flavour and not printers-devilled. This applies more particularly to very clever men who live in ladies' society: they ought not to print things as said before modest women, which they would not really say before them, unless, indeed, they have an underlying conviction that no women are modest, and that is matter of the very gravest statement, and not stuff to flavour a review. Besides, there is such a thing as self-control; and a gentleman of England should be able to restrain even his humour.

Then as to painting, and Mr. Burne Jones's pictures. I am inclined to protest against the right claimed in this and other criticisms, of ignoring the artist's technical skill, and criticising his work as if that did not exist. On the subject of painting, and now on that alone, ignorance claims authority of its own, and scholars who don't know their lesson stand on the form to speak ex cathedrâ. I know that many well-read art-critics maintain that their mystery, like that of fencing in Peter Simple, consists in knowing nothing about it; but having made both books and pictures in my time, I must assert that pictures are not books, and should be treated in a different way. The fact is that the bullying power of a critic who avows his own ignorance, and appeals as an honest man to everybody else's, is so great as to be overpowering. A painter cannot by his art answer criticism which ignores his art: and the wordman is tempted to considerable outrecuidance towards the workman, as in this critique. Mr. Ralph Burgoyne, the rough intellectual dummy, first contemptuously withholds contemptible opinion as to beauty and pictorial merit, and then he and the other men advance grave censure as to intellectual and moral result. He says that the only resource of the afflicted painter is to call his assailant fool or Philistine in Pompeian Greek or medieval Latin. I seldom use either word in any language: but I have a decided opinion as to the use of the term gentleman, and its cognate adjectives, and it seems to me that those who claim that name should, in these dangerous days, walk warily in print.

The intellectual rough of the colloquy begins by saying he is not interested in technical excellence as such, and goes on to compare it to good bricklaying, as, for example, that of a ginshop. This is rather insolent, and, in fact, just the right way to shut up an anathematised artist. But it involves the assertion that painting has no more intellect or morals in it than bricklaying, and if that be the case, the painter ought not to be attacked about intellect and morals,

THE LIMITS OF MODERN ART-CRITICISM.

I AM led by an article in the August number of this Review-a very brilliant one, entitled A Familiar Colloquy on Recent Art,'-to appeal briefly and rather humbly to its author, and other men of the same high standard of capacity, about amenities and reticences which it seems to me they are called on to respect-revive-or, perhaps, to initiate. The article in question has not the weight of its author's more careful work, though it is quite worthy of him as a model causerie. Still I think it reckless, crude, and ill-considered, in its adverse criticisms. It does not seem as if the author had overridden any genuine scruples, which would be altogether wrong; but as if he had written just as he spoke, or heard others speak, in a drawing-room or a smoking-room. According to his rather unfavourable view of society, people seem to say much the same things in either place now.

What is to be said here will not have the piquancy of conversation, and I shall avoid the mention of names as far as possible, speaking as a friend of Mr. Burne Jones, and an admirer of his censor. And this is written partly at the instance of another person for whom that painter, his critic, and his critic's critic, entertain the same strong respect and regard. So that these observations are made ex animo; and though one critique has given rise to them, they may apply to a great many others.

First, I rather object to the colloquial form of writing, where severe adverse criticism has to be done. The writer dodges behind his characters. It is not right to print sharp moral animadversion in the mouths of dummies, however prettily you may dress them up: and they enable you to use a style of touch-and-go insinuation which cannot be replied to. In personal discussion there is no harm in saying 'People say this or that about you, and I want to know about it, believing them '-because the other man can speak for himself. A licence is allowed when men face each other, which should not be taken in a conversation all on one side.

Again, litera scripta manet. The sharpest things may often be said, when they ought not to be printed. The whole question of scandal, and scandalous newspaper writing, turns on printing intimate conversations for all the world to read, and proclaiming that

which was said in the ear on the housetops. It is an indiscretion; and it will certainly interfere, and gravely, with all freshness and confidence in society. It turns epigram into libel, and fun into malice. In short, criticisms may be flashed out, laughed at, and even remembered in the talk of a familiar clique, if they get no further than talk: they should be served up with their natural evanescent flavour and not printers-devilled. This applies more particularly to very clever men who live in ladies' society: they ought not to print things as said before modest women, which they would not really say before them, unless, indeed, they have an underlying conviction that no women are modest, and that is matter of the very gravest statement, and not stuff to flavour a review. Besides, there is such a thing as self-control; and a gentleman of England should be able to restrain even his humour.

Then as to painting, and Mr. Burne Jones's pictures. I am inclined to protest against the right claimed in this and other criticisms, of ignoring the artist's technical skill, and criticising his work as if that did not exist. On the subject of painting, and now on that alone, ignorance claims authority of its own, and scholars who don't know their lesson stand on the form to speak ex cathedrâ. I know that many well-read art-critics maintain that their mystery, like that of fencing in Peter Simple, consists in knowing nothing about it; but having made both books and pictures in my time, I must assert that pictures are not books, and should be treated in a different way. The fact is that the bullying power of a critic who avows his own ignorance, and appeals as an honest man to everybody else's, is so great as to be overpowering. A painter cannot by his art answer criticism which ignores his art: and the wordman is tempted to considerable outrecuidance towards the workman, as in this critique. Mr. Ralph Burgoyne, the rough intellectual dummy, first contemptuously withholds contemptible opinion as to beauty and pictorial merit, and then he and the other men advance grave censure as to intellectual and moral result. He says that the only resource of the afflicted painter is to call his assailant fool or Philistine in Pompeian Greek or medieval Latin. I seldom use either word in any language: but I have a decided opinion as to the use of the term gentleman, and its cognate adjectives, and it seems to me that those who claim that name should, in these dangerous days, walk warily in print.

The intellectual rough of the colloquy begins by saying he is not interested in technical excellence as such, and goes on to compare it to good bricklaying, as, for example, that of a ginshop. This is rather insolent, and, in fact, just the right way to shut up an anathematised artist. But it involves the assertion that painting has no more intellect or morals in it than bricklaying, and if that be the case, the painter ought not to be attacked about intellect and morals,

as he is in the next page. But the truth is, as all art-students know, that their skill and moral health or rightness are very closely related. To look on human, i.e. female, beauty with the view of representing it is not like looking on it from any other motive, innocent or guilty. The act of painting affects the moral character of the painter, and the picture. No one ought to be or is allowed to study in a life school till he has learnt the human form, i.e. its ideal anatomy, curves, chiaroscuro and colour, in the cast school. He has to bring a good deal of acquired knowledge, ocular, mental, and manual, to bear on his model when he first sees her: and the difficult and delightful manipulations, on which his success depends, leave him no time or thought for anything but themselves, when he comes to work from the life. A good student only thinks of his model on his canvas. There is, in fact, as every workman will tell you, a delicate pleasure in the curves and in the colour which the skilled workman enjoys, and which he desires to enable his critic to share. That is the use of skill: that is what distinguishes a picture from a book, as to idea, or from the natural objects themselves in pure transcript of nature. Skill wins, or ought to win favour by giving a pleasure of its own. To contrast pale crimson and grey in various shades and forms, is most delightful to anybody who can do it; and he can convey a part of that pleasure to anybody who will really look at his work, which Mr. Burgoyne says he won't do.

Again, you do not understand a painting well enough to criticise it in a leading review-still less to criticise the motives of its painter unfavourably, and with disagreeable reiteration of his name-unless you know the difficulties involved, and they cannot be appreciated without some experience in manipulations. Try to copy an outline in pencil: if you can do that right, try a form in sepia; if you can do that, try it again on canvas, and feel how the intractable nature of the pig dwells in those uncompromising bristles, which refuse for hours of trouble to do anything you want. In your first attempts at simple things you will hardly be able to see that they are all wrong. Like everything else worth doing, painting is an advance up hills of difficulty, for the sake of fine things to be seen and done on the way or on the top, and the difficulties are great part of the things. Of these difficulties the human form affords the standard, undisputed from the days of Pheidias. He preferred it draped, at least on the female side; so do I, so beyond all question does Mr. Burne Jones, and doubtless so does his critic. In that we are all at one. Nevertheless, that form undraped always has been a central standard of competence in art, and the difficulties of rendering it, light, shade, and colour, have very much to do with any painter's choice of it as his object. He must show himself equal to it, if no more; I think our leading painters take this view of it, and that Millais and Leighton have been influenced by feelings of this kind in their choice of