Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/43

 Even for my future countrymen's sake, however, I would not attack this established prejudice. It is not of persons that I speak, but to save our Nation from the disgrace of an Art which is in no sense its own.

I would give an example of past days. Thirty years ago a Frenchman of wild extravagance startled the publishers' world by illustrations to an old legend. There was undoubtedly a nightmare fancy about these, which more than redeemed them from contemptibility; their weird invention indeed was so striking that it would have been unaccountable had they not gained a passing measure of attention. The press did not stop here, but went into its prescribed ecstasies over continental work, whereupon the artist was engaged to paint a series of enormous canvases illustrating holy subjects. They were of a kind, now the furore is passed, which nobody would praise for any one quality they pretended to have. I will not undertake to criticize them here, but at the time their character did not prevent the religious world from thronging to see them, and, encouraged at all points, the artist continued to produce more and more of his theatrical scenes; and many public schools still have upon their walls the prints of this false art and false religion, polluting British taste and faith; and although the Galleries where they were shown have now other and different works upon their walls, the fashion to exploit foreign pretenders flourishes still.

Either protest must be listened to, or Englishmen had better eschew the pursuit altogether in future.

The American, when asked his opinion of our climate,