In the eighteenth century, and the centuries that preceded it, artists
were visited by their patrons, who bought what the artist had to sell,
and commissioned him to paint what he was pleased to paint. But in our
time the artist is visited by a showily-dressed man, who comes into
the studio whistling, his hat on the back of his head. This is the
West-End dealer: he throws himself into an arm-chair, and if there is
nothing on the easels that appeals to the uneducated eye, the dealer
lectures the artist on his folly in not considering the exigencies of
public taste. On public taste--that is to say, on the uneducated
eye--the dealer is a very fine authority. His father was a dealer
before him, and the son was brought up on prices, he lisped in prices,
and was taught to reverence prices. He cannot see the pictures for
prices, and he lies back, looking round distractedly, not listening to
the timid, struggling artist who is foolishly venturing an
explanation. Perhaps the public might come to his style of painting if
he were to persevere. The dealer stares at the ceiling, and his lips
recall his last evening at the music-hall. If the public don't like
it--why, they don't like it, and the sooner the artist comes round the
better. That is what he has to say on the subject, and, if sneers and
sarcasm succeed in bringing the artist round to popular painting, the
dealer buys; and when he begins to feel sure that the uneducated eye
really hungers for the new man, he speaks about getting up a boom in
the newspapers.
The Press is in truth the great dupe; the unpaid jackal that goes into
the highways and byways for the dealer! The stockbroker gets the
Bouguereau, the Herkomer, the Alfred East, and the Dagnan-Bouveret
that his soul sighs for; but the Press gets nothing except unreadable
copy, and yet season after season the Press falls into the snare. It
seems only necessary for a dealer to order an artist to frame the
contents of his sketch-book, and to design an invitation card--"Scenes
on the Coast of Denmark", sketches made by Mr. So-and-so during the
months of June, July, and August--to secure half a column of a goodly
number of London and provincial papers--to put it plainly, an
advertisement that Reckitts or Pears or Beecham could not get for
hundreds of pounds. One side of the invitation card is filled up with
a specimen design, usually such a futile little thing as we might
expect to find in a young lady's sketch-book: "Copenhagen at Low
Tide", "Copenhagen at High Tide", "View of the Cathedral from the
Mouth of the River", "The Hills of----as seen from off the Coast". And
this topography every art critic will chronicle, and his chronicling
will be printed free of charge amongst the leading columns of the
paper. Nor is this the worst case. The request to notice a collection
of paintings and drawings made by the late Mr. So-and-so seems even
more flagrant, for then there is no question of benefiting a young
artist who stands in need of encouragement or recognition; the show is
simply a dealer's exhibition of his ware. True, that the ware may be
so rare and excellent that it becomes a matter of public interest; if
so, the critic is bound to notice the show. But the ordinary show--a
collection of works by a tenth-rate French artist--why should the
Press advertise such wares gratis? The public goes to theatres and to
flower-shows and to race-courses, but it does not go to these dealers'
shows--the dealer's friends and acquaintances go on private view day,
and for the rest of the season the shop is quieter than the
tobacconist's next door.
For the last month every paper I took up contained glowing accounts of
Messrs. Tooth & MacLean's galleries (picture dealers do not keep
shops--they keep galleries), glowing accounts of a large and extensive
assortment of Dagnan-Bouveret, Bouguereau, Rosa Bonheur: very nice
things in their way, just such things as I would take Alderman
Samuelson to see.
These notices, taken out in the form of legitimate advertisement,
would run into hundreds of pounds; and I am quite at a loss to
understand why the Press abandons so large a part of its revenue. For
if the Press did not notice these exhibitions, the dealers would be
forced into the advertising columns, and when a little notice was
published of the ware, it would be done as a little return--as a
little encouragement for advertising, on the same principle as ladies'
papers publish visits to dressmakers. The present system of noticing
Messrs Tooth's and not noticing Messrs. Pears' is to me wholly
illogical; and, to use the word which makes every British heart beat
quicker--unbusinesslike. But with business I have nothing to do--my
concern is with art; and if the noticing of dealers' shows were not
inimical to art, I should not have a word to say against the practice.
Messrs. Tooth & MacLean trade in Salon and Academy pictures, so the
notices the Press prints are the equivalent of a subvention granted by
the Press for the protection of this form of art. If I were a
statistician, it would interest me to turn over the files of the
newspapers for the last fifty years and calculate how much Messrs.
Agnew have had out of the Press in the shape of free advertisement.
And when we think what sort of art this vast sum of money went to
support, we cease to wonder at the decline of public taste.
My quarrel is no more with Messrs. Agnew than it is with Messrs. Tooth
& MacLean; my quarrel--I should say, my reprimand--is addressed to the
Press--to the Press that foolishly, unwittingly, not knowing what it
was doing, threw such power into the hands of the dealers that our
exhibitions are now little more than the tributaries of the Bond
Street shop? This statement will shock many; but let them think, and
they will see it could not be otherwise. Messrs. Agnew have thousands
and thousands of pounds invested in the Academy--that is to say, in
the works of Academicians. When they buy the work of any one outside
of the Academy, they talk very naturally of their new man to their
friends the Academicians, and the Academicians are anxious to please
their best customer. It was in some such way that Mr. Burne-Jones's
election was decided. For Mr. Burne-Jones was held in no Academic
esteem. His early pictures had been refused at Burlington House, and
he resolved never to send there again. For many years he remained firm
in his determination. In the meantime the public showed unmistakable
signs of accepting Mr. Jones, whereupon Messrs. Agnew also accepted
Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was popular; he was better than popular, he stood
on the verge of popularity; but there was nothing like making things
safe--Jones's election to the Academy would do that. Jones's scruples
would have to be overcome; he must exhibit once in the Academy. The
Academicians would be satisfied with that. Mr. Jones did exhibit in
the Academy; he was elected on the strength of this one exhibit. He
has never exhibited since. These are the facts: confute them who may,
explain them who can.
It is true that the dealer cannot be got rid of--he is a vice inherent
in our civilisation; but if the Press withdrew its subvention, his
monopoly would be curtailed, and art would be recruited by new talent,
at present submerged. Art would gradually withdraw from the bluster
and boom of an arrogant commercialism, and would attain her olden
dignity--that of a quiet handicraft. And in this great reformation
only two classes would suffer--the art critics and the dealers. The
newspaper proprietors would profit largely, and the readers of
newspapers would profit still more largely, for they would no longer
be bored by the publication of dealers' catalogues expanded with
insignificant comment.