Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/42

 year 1836, when Turner was in his zenith. Wilkie had painted for thirty years, Stothard had issued numberless exquisite designs, and a dozen other Englishmen—although for the most part in poverty—were doing work that would have honoured the brightest days of the glorious past.

It is yet clear that to the Bavarian artist, as also to his public, England so far had done nothing, and it is no exaggeration to say that abroad our nation has never been regarded as artistic. This verdict of our neighbours has been no doubtful one. With what we know it would be an affectation of deference not to declare that the charge against our forerunners was ridiculous, but it had a ground in the want of Government patronage, and it has consequences of a serious kind in affecting the minds of those who take the world at its own valuation.

Our painters have done little in the branches of historic or ornamental work, because the opportunity has been denied to them; and whenever English youths commit themselves to Art, their prospects of making their lives productive are destroyed, every foreigner that appears being greeted with applause, while the young Englishman has to struggle against prejudice and abuse. I protest against this, for it ruins the purest and best of Art under heaven, where, under the happiest circumstances, the career of an artist (for want of that patronage which continental governments give) must be a hard one. It is not a case of reciprocal emulation, for no other country welcomes English artists in return, and certainly in arts we have nothing to gain from continental masters.