Lectures on Art | Page 5

the pursuit of pleasure, for objects and modes of art
that can amuse indolence or excite passion. There is no need for any
discussion of these requirements, or of their forms of influence, though
they are very deadly at present in their operation on sculpture, and on
jewellers' work. They cannot be checked by blame, nor guided by
instruction; they are merely the necessary result of whatever defects
exist in the temper and principles of a luxurious society; and it is only
by moral changes, not by art-criticism, that their action can be
modified.
10. Lastly, there is a continually increasing demand for popular art,
multipliable by the printing-press, illustrative of daily events, of
general literature, and of natural science. Admirable skill, and some of
the best talent of modern times, are occupied in supplying this want;
and there is no limit to the good which may be effected by rightly
taking advantage of the powers we now possess of placing good and
lovely art within the reach of the poorest classes. Much has been
already accomplished; but great harm has been done also,--first, by
forms of art definitely addressed to depraved tastes; and, secondly, in a
more subtle way, by really beautiful and useful engravings which are
yet not good enough to retain their influence on the public
mind;--which weary it by redundant quantity of monotonous average
excellence, and diminish or destroy its power of accurate attention to
work of a higher order.
Especially this is to be regretted in the effect produced on the schools

of line engraving, which had reached in England an executive skill of a
kind before unexampled, and which of late have lost much of their
more sterling and legitimate methods. Still, I have seen plates produced
quite recently, more beautiful, I think, in some qualities than anything
ever before attained by the burin: and I have not the slightest fear that
photography, or any other adverse or competitive operation, will in the
least ultimately diminish,--I believe they will, on the contrary, stimulate
and exalt--the grand old powers of the wood and the steel.
11. Such are, I think, briefly the present conditions of art with which
we have to deal; and I conceive it to be the function of this
Professorship, with respect to them, to establish both a practical and
critical school of fine art for English gentlemen: practical, so that if
they draw at all, they may draw rightly; and critical, so that being first
directed to such works of existing art as will best reward their study,
they may afterwards make their patronage of living artists delightful to
themselves in their consciousness of its justice, and, to the utmost,
beneficial to their country, by being given to the men who deserve it; in
the early period of their lives, when they both need it most, and can be
influenced by it to the best advantage.
12. And especially with reference to this function of patronage, I
believe myself justified in taking into account future probabilities as to
the character and range of art in England: and I shall endeavour at once
to organise with you a system of study calculated to develop chiefly the
knowledge of those branches in which the English schools have shown,
and are likely to show, peculiar excellence.
Now, in asking your sanction both for the nature of the general plans I
wish to adopt, and for what I conceive to be necessary limitations of
them, I wish you to be fully aware of my reasons for both: and I will
therefore risk the burdening of your patience while I state the directions
of effort in which I think English artists are liable to failure, and those
also in which past experience has shown they are secure of success.
13. I referred, but now, to the effort we are making to improve the
designs of our manufactures. Within certain limits I believe this
improvement may indeed take effect: so that we may no more humour

momentary fashions by ugly results of chance instead of design; and
may produce both good tissues, of harmonious colours, and good forms
and substance of pottery and glass. But we shall never excel in
decorative design. Such design is usually produced by people of great
natural powers of mind, who have no variety of subjects to employ
themselves on, no oppressive anxieties, and are in circumstances either
of natural scenery or of daily life, which cause pleasurable excitement.
We cannot design, because we have too much to think of, and we think
of it too anxiously. It has long been observed how little real anxiety
exists in the minds of the partly savage races which excel in decorative
art; and we must not suppose that the temper of the Middle Ages was a