Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/35

 which thrills the spectator's heart for the sorrows or joys of an actor in the picture's drama, by stamping the children of men as, although clouded, yet truly sons of heaven. His figures may be of true proportion and of standard colour, but with these merits achieved the master stops short of all attempt to possess his figures of a charm, beauty, and personality commanding love. I might say—if to convey a meaning it were permissible to exaggerate—that the spectator looks on but with the coldness felt at the acting of marionettes; the figures are in their places on the board, their positions are perfectly explanatory, and the subject is so graphically realized that you may remember it for ever, but there is nothing more, and it excites no unrestrainable desire, as with a thing of real beauty, to see it again.

As a remarkable exception to the mere scientific excellence of French artists, Millet will always be recognized as a designer of true poetic quality, and I must here testify that a painting by Jules Breton of 'Les Moissonneurs,' I hold to be akin to works by the greatest masters.

Yet I will not hesitate to avow the belief that, on the whole, French Art has done great harm to the world, that what it produces of late days is often the antichrist of Art, being not an emanation from love but from hate. There are some amongst the nation who hear the appeal, 'Come out of her, my people'; these I know would concur in my verdict and agree that the nation has adopted the impure entanglements of the Art of previous races, and found original delusions in addition, so that false sentiment, triviality of purpose, and negation of