fond of travelling in the body, would also travel a little in soul! We
think it a great triumph to get our packages and our persons carried at
a fast pace, but we never take the slightest trouble to put any pace
into our perceptions; we stay usually at home in thought, or if we ever
mentally see the world, it is at the old stage-coach or waggon rate. Do
but consider what an odd sight it would be, if it were only quite clear
to you how things are really going on--how, here in England, we are
making enormous and expensive efforts to produce new art of all kinds,
knowing and confessing all the while that the greater part of it is bad,
but struggling still to produce new patterns of wall-papers, and new
shapes of teapots, and new pictures, and statues, and architecture; and
pluming and cackling if ever a teapot or a picture has the least good in
it;--all the while taking no thought whatever of the best possible
pictures, and statues, and wall-patterns already in existence, which
require nothing but to be taken common care of, and kept from damp and
dust: but we let the walls fall that Giotto patterned, and the canvases
rot that Tintoret painted, and the architecture be dashed to pieces that
St. Louis built, while we are furnishing our drawing-rooms with prize
upholstery, and writing accounts of our handsome warehouses to the
country papers. Don't think I use my words vaguely or generally: I speak
of literal facts. Giotto's frescoes at Assisi are perishing at this
moment for want of decent care; Tintoret's pictures in San Sebastian, at
Venice, are at this instant rotting piecemeal into grey rags; St.
Louis's chapel, at Carcassonne, is at this moment lying in shattered
fragments in the market-place. And here we are all cawing and crowing,
poor little half-fledged daws as we are, about the pretty sticks and
wool in our own nests. There's hardly a day passes, when I am at home,
but I get a letter from some well-meaning country clergyman, deeply
anxious about the state of his parish church, and breaking his heart to
get money together that he may hold up some wretched remnant of Tudor
tracery, with one niche in the corner and no statue--when all the while
the mightiest piles of religious architecture and sculpture that ever
the world saw are being blasted and withered away, without one glance of
pity or regret. The country clergyman does not care for _them_--he has a
sea-sick imagination that cannot cross channel. What is it to him, if
the angels of Assisi fade from its vaults, or the queens and kings of
Chartres fall from their pedestals? They are not in his parish.
87. "What!" you will say, "are we not to produce any new art, nor take
care of our parish churches?" No, certainly not, until you have taken
proper care of the art you have got already, and of the best churches
out of the parish. Your first and proper standing is not as
churchwardens and parish overseers, in an English county, but as members
of the great Christian community of Europe. And as members of that
community (in which alone, observe, pure and precious ancient art
exists, for there is none in America, none in Asia, none in Africa), you
conduct yourselves precisely as a manufacturer would, who attended to
his looms, but left his warehouse without a roof. The rain floods your
warehouse, the rats frolic in it, the spiders spin in it, the choughs
build in it, the wall-plague frets and festers in it; and still you keep
weave, weave, weaving at your wretched webs, and thinking you are
growing rich, while more is gnawed out of your warehouse in an hour than
you can weave in a twelvemonth.
88. Even this similitude is not absurd enough to set us rightly forth.
The weaver would, or might, at least, hope that his new woof was as
stout as the old ones, and that, therefore, in spite of rain and ravage,
he would have something to wrap himself in when he needed it. But _our_
webs rot as we spin. The very fact that we despise the great art of the
past shows that we cannot produce great art now. If we could do it, we
should love it when we saw it done--if we really cared for it, we should
recognize it and keep it; but we don't care for it. It is not art that
we want; it is amusement, gratification of pride, present gain--anything
in the world but art: let it rot, we shall always have enough to talk
about and hang over our sideboards.
89. You will (I hope) finally ask me what is the outcome of all this,
practicable tomorrow morning by us who are sitting here? These are the
main practical outcomes of it: In the first place, don't grumble when
you hear of a new picture being bought by Government at a large price.
There are many pictures in Europe now in danger of destruction which
are, in the true sense of the word, priceless; the proper price is
simply that which it is necessary to give to get and to save them. If
you can get them for fifty pounds, do; if not for less than a hundred,
do; if not for less than five thousand, do; if not for less than twenty
thousand, do; never mind being imposed upon: there is nothing
disgraceful in being imposed upon; the only disgrace is in imposing;
and you can't in general get anything much worth having, in the way of
Continental art, but it must be with the help or connivance of numbers
of people who, indeed, ought to have nothing to do with the matter, but
who practically have, and always will have, everything to do with it;
and if you don't choose to submit to be cheated by them out of a ducat
here and a zecchin there, you will be cheated by them out of your
picture; and whether you are most imposed upon in losing that, or the
zecchins, I think I may leave you to judge; though I know there are many
political economists, who would rather leave a bag of gold on a
garret-table, than give a porter sixpence extra to carry it downstairs.
That, then, is the first practical outcome of the matter. Never grumble,
but be glad when you hear of a new picture being bought at a large
price. In the long run, the dearest pictures are always the best
bargains; and, I repeat, (for else you might think I said it in mere
hurry of talk, and not deliberately,) there are some pictures which are
without price. You should stand, nationally, at the edge of Dover
cliffs--Shakespeare's--and wave blank cheques in the eyes of the nations
on the other side of the sea, freely offered, for such and such canvases
of theirs.
90. Then the next practical outcome of it is--Never buy a copy of a
picture, under any circumstances whatever. All copies are bad; because
no painter who is worth a straw ever _will_ copy. He will make a study
of a picture he likes, for his own use, in his own way; but he won't and
can't copy. Whenever you buy a copy, you buy so much misunderstanding of
the original, and encourage a dull person in following a business he is
not fit for, besides increasing ultimately chances of mistake and
imposture, and farthering, as directly as money _can_ farther, the cause
of ignorance in all directions. You may, in fact, consider yourself as
having purchased a certain quantity of mistakes; and, according to your
power, being engaged in disseminating them.
91. I do not mean, however, that copies should never be made. A certain
number of dull persons should always be employed by a Government in
making the most accurate copies possible of all good pictures; these
copies, though artistically valueless, would be historically and
documentarily valuable, in the event of the destruction of the original
picture. The studies also made by great artists for their own use,
should be sought after with the greatest eagerness; they are often to be
bought cheap; and in connection with the mechanical copies, would become
very precious: tracings from frescoes and other large works are also of
great value; for though a tracing is liable to just as many mistakes as
a copy, the mistakes in a tracing are of one kind only, which may be
allowed for, but the mistakes of a common copyist are of all conceivable
kinds: finally, engravings, in so far as they convey certain facts about
the pictures, without pretending adequately to represent or give an idea
of the pictures, are often serviceable and valuable. I can't, of course,
enter into details in these matters just now; only this main piece of
advice I can safely give you--never to buy copies of pictures (for your
private possession) which pretend to give a facsimile that shall be in
any wise representative of, or equal to, the original. Whenever you do
so, you are only lowering your taste, and wasting your money. And if
you are generous and wise, you will be ready rather to subscribe as much
as you would have given for a copy of a great picture towards its
purchase, or the purchase of some other like it, by the nation. There
ought to be a great National Society instituted for the purchase of
pictures; presenting them to the various galleries in our great cities,
and watching there over their safety: but in the meantime, you can
always act safely and beneficially by merely allowing your artist
friends to buy pictures for you, when they see good ones. Never buy for
yourselves, nor go to the foreign dealers; but let any painter whom you
know be entrusted, when he finds a neglected old picture in an old
house, to try if he cannot get it for you; then, if you like it, keep
it; if not, send it to the hammer, and you will find that you do not
lose money on pictures so purchased.
92. And the third and chief practical outcome of the matter is this
general one: Wherever you go, whatever you do, act more for
_preservation_ and less for _production_. I assure you, the world is,
generally speaking, in calamitous disorder, and just because you have
managed to thrust some of the lumber aside, and get an available corner
for yourselves, you think you should do nothing but sit spinning in it
all day long--while, as householders and economists, your first thought
and effort should be, to set things more square all about you. Try to
set the ground floors in order, and get the rottenness out of your
granaries. _Then_ sit and spin, but not till then.
93. IV. DISTRIBUTION.--And now, lastly, we come to the fourth great head
of our inquiry, the question of the wise distribution of the art we have
gathered and preserved. It must be evident to us, at a moment's thought,
that the way in which works of art are on the whole most useful to the
nation to which they belong, must be by their collection in public
galleries, supposing those galleries properly managed. But there is one
disadvantage attached necessarily to gallery exhibition--namely, the
extent of mischief which may be done by one foolish curator. As long as
the pictures which form the national wealth are disposed in private
collections, the chance is always that the people who buy them will be
just the people who are fond of them; and that the sense of exchangeable
value in the commodity they possess, will induce them, even if they do
not esteem it themselves, to take such care of it as will preserve its
value undiminished. At all events, so long as works of art are scattered
through the nation, no universal destruction of them is possible; a
certain average only are lost by accidents from time to time. But when
they are once collected in a large public gallery, if the appointment of
curator becomes in any way a matter of formality, or the post is so
lucrative as to be disputed by place-hunters, let but one foolish or
careless person get possession of it, and perhaps you may have all your
fine pictures repainted, and the national property destroyed, in a
month. That is actually the case at this moment, in several great
foreign galleries. They are the places of execution of pictures: over
their doors you only want the Dantesque inscription, "Lasciate ogni
speranza, voi che entrate."
94. Supposing, however, this danger properly guarded against, as it
would be always by a nation which either knew the value, or understood
the meaning, of painting,[12] arrangement in a public gallery is the
safest, as well as the most serviceable, method of exhibiting pictures;
and it is the only mode in which their historical value can be brought
out, and their historical meaning made clear. But great good is also to
be done by encouraging the private possession of pictures; partly as a
means of study, (much more being always discovered in any work of art by
a person who has it perpetually near him than by one who only sees it
from time to time,) and also as a means of refining the habits and
touching the hearts of the masses of the nation in their domestic life.
[Note 12: It would be a great point gained towards the preservation
of pictures if it were made a rule that at every operation they
underwent, the exact spots in which they have been repainted should be
recorded in writing.]
95. For these last purposes, the most serviceable art is the living art
of the time; the particular tastes of the people will be best met, and
their particular ignorances best corrected, by painters labouring in the
midst of them, more or less guided to the knowledge of what is wanted by
the degree of sympathy with which their work is received. So then,
generally, it should be the object of government, and of all patrons of
art, to collect, as far as may be, the works of dead masters in public
galleries, arranging them so as to illustrate the history of nations,
and the progress and influence of their arts; and to encourage the
private possession of the works of _living_ masters. And the first and
best way in which to encourage such private possession is, of course, to
keep down the prices of them as far as you can.
I hope there are not a great many painters in the room; if there are, I
entreat their patience for the next quarter of an hour: if they will
bear with me for so long, I hope they will not, finally, be offended by
what I am going to say.
96. I repeat, trusting to their indulgence in the interim, that the
first object of our national economy, as respects the distribution of
modern art, should be steadily and rationally to limit its prices, since
by doing so, you will produce two effects: you will make the painters
produce more pictures, two or three instead of one, if they wish to make
money; and you will, by bringing good pictures within the reach of
people of moderate income, excite the general interest of the nation in
them, increase a thousandfold the demand for the commodity, and
therefore its wholesome and natural production.
97. I know how many objections must arise in your minds at this moment
to what I say; but you must be aware that it is not possible for me in
an hour to explain all the moral and commercial bearings of such a
principle as this. Only, believe me, I do not speak lightly; I think I
have considered all the objections which could be rationally brought
forward, though I have time at present only to glance at the main
one--namely, the idea that the high prices paid for modern pictures are
either honourable, or serviceable, to the painter. So far from this
being so, I believe one of the principal obstacles to the progress of
modern art to be the high prices given for good modern pictures. For
observe first the action of this high remuneration on the artist's mind.
If he "gets on," as it is called, catches the eye of the public, and
especially of the public of the upper classes, there is hardly any limit
to the fortune he may acquire; so that, in his early years, his mind is
naturally led to dwell on this worldly and wealthy eminence as the main
thing to be reached by his art; if he finds that he is not gradually
rising towards it, he thinks there is something wrong in his work; or,
if he is too proud to think that, still the bribe of wealth and honour
warps him from his honest labour into efforts to attract attention; and
he gradually loses both his power of mind and his rectitude of purpose.
This, according to the degree of avarice or ambition which exists in any
painter's mind, is the necessary influence upon him of the hope of great
wealth and reputation. But the harm is still greater, in so far as the
possibility of attaining fortune of this kind tempts people continually
to become painters who have no real gift for the work; and on whom these
motives of mere worldly interest have exclusive influence;--men who
torment and abuse the patient workers, eclipse or thrust aside all
delicate and good pictures by their own gaudy and coarse ones, corrupt
the taste of the public, and do the greatest amount of mischief to the
schools of art in their day which it is possible for their capacities to
effect; and it is quite wonderful how much mischief may be done even by
small capacity. If you could by any means succeed in keeping the prices
of pictures down, you would throw all these disturbers out of the way at
once.
98. You may perhaps think that this severe treatment would do more harm
than good, by withdrawing the wholesome element of emulation, and giving
no stimulus to exertion; but I am sorry to say that artists will always
be sufficiently jealous of one another, whether you pay them large or
low prices; and as for stimulus to exertion, believe me, no good work in
this world was ever done for money, nor while the slightest thought of
money affected the painter's mind. Whatever idea of pecuniary value
enters into his thoughts as he works, will, in proportion to the
distinctness of its presence, shorten his power. A real painter will
work for you exquisitely, if you give him, as I told you a little while
ago, bread and water and salt; and a bad painter will work badly and
hastily, though you give him a palace to live in, and a princedom to
live upon. Turner got, in his earlier years, half a crown a day and his
supper (not bad pay, neither); and he learned to paint upon that. And I
believe that there is no chance of art's truly flourishing in any
country, until you make it a simple and plain business, providing its
masters with an easy competence, but rarely with anything more. And I
say this, not because I despise the great painter, but because I honour
him; and I should no more think of adding to his respectability or
happiness by giving him riches, than, if Shakespeare or Milton were
alive, I should think we added to _their_ respectability, or were likely
to get better work from them, by making them millionaires.
99. But, observe, it is not only the painter himself whom you injure, by
giving him too high prices; you injure all the inferior painters of the
day. If they are modest, they will be discouraged and depressed by the
feeling that their doings are worth so little, comparatively, in your
eyes;--if proud, all their worst passions will be aroused, and the
insult or opprobrium which they will try to cast on their successful
rival will not only afflict and wound him, but at last sour and harden
him: he cannot pass through such a trial without grievous harm.
100. That, then, is the effect you produce on the painter of mark, and
on the inferior ones of his own standing. But you do worse than this;
you deprive yourselves, by what you give for the fashionable picture, of
the power of helping the younger men who are coming forward. Be it
admitted, for argument's sake, if you are not convinced by what I have
said, that you do no harm to the great man by paying him well; yet
certainly you do him no special good. His reputation is established, and
his fortune made; he does not care whether you buy or not; he thinks he
is rather doing you a favour than otherwise by letting you have one of
his pictures at all. All the good you do him is to help him to buy a new
pair of carriage horses; whereas, with that same sum which thus you cast
away, you might have relieved the hearts and preserved the health of
twenty young painters; and if, among those twenty, you but chanced on
one in whom a true latent power had been hindered by his poverty, just
consider what a far-branching, far-embracing good you have wrought with
that lucky expenditure of yours. I say, "Consider it," in vain; you
cannot consider it, for you cannot conceive the sickness of heart with
which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first
obscurity;--his sense of the strong voice within him, which you will not
hear;--his vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not
see;--his far-away perception of things that he could accomplish if he
had but peace, and time, all unapproachable and vanishing from him,
because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all his friends
falling back from him; those whom he would most reverently obey rebuking
and paralysing him; and, last and worst of all, those who believe in him
the most faithfully suffering by him the most bitterly;--the wife's
eyes, in their sweet ambition, shining brighter as the cheek wastes
away; and the little lips at his side parched and pale, which one day,
he knows, though he may never see it, will quiver so proudly when they
call his name, calling him "our father." You deprive yourselves, by your
large expenditure for pictures of mark, of the power of relieving and
redeeming _this_ distress; you injure the painter whom you pay so
largely;--and what, after all, have you done for yourselves or got for
yourselves? It does not in the least follow that the hurried work of a
fashionable painter will contain more for your money than the quiet work
of some unknown man. In all probability, you will find, if you rashly
purchase what is popular at a high price, that you have got one picture
you don't care for, for a sum which would have bought twenty you would
have delighted in.
101. For remember always, that the price of a picture by a living artist
never represents, never _can_ represent, the quantity of labour or value
in it. Its price represents, for the most part, the degree of desire
which the rich people of the country have to possess it. Once get the
wealthy classes to imagine that the possession of pictures by a given
artist adds to their "gentility," and there is no price which his work
may not immediately reach, and for years maintain; and in buying at that
price, you are not getting value for your money, but merely disputing
for victory in a contest of ostentation. And it is hardly possible to
spend your money in a worse or more wasteful way; for though you may not
be doing it for ostentation yourself, you are, by your pertinacity,
nourishing the ostentation of others; you meet them in their game of
wealth, and continue it for them; if they had not found an opposite
player, the game would have been done; for a proud man can find no
enjoyment in possessing himself of what nobody disputes with him. So
that by every farthing you give for a picture beyond its fair
price--that is to say, the price which will pay the painter for his
time--you are not only cheating yourself and buying vanity, but you are
stimulating the vanity of others; paying, literally, for the cultivation
of pride. You may consider every pound that you spend above the just
price of a work of art, as an investment in a cargo of mental quick-lime
or guano, which, being laid on the fields of human nature, is to grow a
harvest of pride. You are in fact ploughing and harrowing, in a most
valuable part of your land, in order to reap the whirlwind; you are
setting your hand stoutly to Job's agriculture--"Let thistles grow
instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley."
102. Well, but you will say, there is one advantage in high prices,
which more than counter-balances all this mischief, namely, that by
great reward we both urge and enable a painter to produce rather one
perfect picture than many inferior ones: and one perfect picture (so you
tell us, and we believe it) is worth a great number of inferior ones.
It is so; but you cannot get it by paying for it. A great work is only
done when the painter gets into the humour for it, likes his subject,
and determines to paint it as well as he can, whether he is paid for it
or not; but bad work, and generally the worst sort of bad work, is done
when he is trying to produce a showy picture, or one that shall appear
to have as much labour in it as shall be worth a high price.[13]
[Note 13: When this lecture was delivered, I gave here some data for
approximate estimates of the average value of good modern pictures of
different classes; but the subject is too complicated to be adequately
treated in writing, without introducing more detail than the reader will
have patience for. But I may state, roughly, that prices above a hundred
guineas are in general extravagant for water-colours, and above five
hundred for oils. An artist almost always does wrong who puts more work
than these prices will remunerate him for into any single canvas--his
talent would be better employed in painting two pictures than one so
elaborate. The water-colour painters also are getting into the habit of
making their drawings too large, and in a measure attaching their price
rather to breadth and extent of touch than to thoughtful labour. Of
course marked exceptions occur here and there, as in the case of John
Lewis, whose drawings are wrought with unfailing precision throughout,
whatever their scale. Hardly any price can be remunerative for such
work.]