Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/209

 supply. But the highest manifestations of the beautiful must be the spontaneous product of subtle brains and lissom fingers working for Art's sake. Yet it is also not very difficult to show that circumstances affect production even of the highest. An example may be found in the extraordinary merit of modern French sculpture, as compared with the wretched work produced in England. In the Paris Salon, which may be said to correspond with our Royal Academy, sculpture is shown in a manner which renders the huddled cloak-room full of mediocre marble and third-rate work in clay at Burlington House almost too painful to be ludicrous. However meritorious the work of an English statuary, he would get no chance—does get no chance—in the Academy exhibition: and there is every justification for the opinion that it is not bad work which in this country produces official neglect, nor good work which in France has for many years led to the loving care with which sculpture is shown in Paris; but on the contrary, that the real opportunity which a French sculptor obtains has been just as instrumental in fostering the art there as our own utter neglect to appreciate sculpture of genius has been in stifling the art here. The French treatment of sculpture has not merely raised the standard of average production. It has fostered actual genius. Even so the opportunities which the