History of English art since 1851 page 6

Landseer, throughout his long career, appealed to and won the sympathies of English people as a painter of animals; and his subjects were treated invariably with consummate skill. As regards accuracy of drawing, and breadth of colour, there is nothing to be desired in his paintings; while in several of them - such as the " Shepherd's Chief Mourner," now at South Kensington, and "Rescued" - he rose to true pathos and feeling; and in others showed great power of humour, as in "Jack in Office," "Alexander and Diogenes," and " Uncle Tom and his Wife for Sale."

Mr. Lewis, another water-colour exhibitor, is unrivaned in his own peculiar line of representing Eastern life. His pictures are gems of exquisite colour and marvellous delicacy, and of such rare and perfect finish as is seldom combined with power of invention and expression such as Lewis possesses.

Landscape art is a subject in itself, and we have no space to do more than mention it here as having begun a career at Turner's death under conditions which never could have been possible but for him. William Turner, of Oxford, will be long and gratefully remembered by lovers of landscape art for the faithful painting of quiet English scenery; of blue sky and green fields, and golden autumn tints, at a time when grey and dust-colour were still prevailing harmonies. Of later landscape painters, there is a large school, consisting of artists of more or less power and feeling, who may help to inaugurate a new era in the future for English landscape art.

Our survey of British art since 1851 would be incomplete without a word of reference to the drawings of John Leech, George Cruikshank, "Phiz" (H. K. Browne), and others of this school. Leech's drawings will probably be regarded as the freest from any marked mannerism, and they are certainly not. the caricatures which many other drawings of this description are. His sense of humour was keen, and always innocent; and many of his drawings in Punch were of high purpose and aim. The drawings which "Phiz" prepared for several of Dickens' novels are, of course, well known. Their power is beyond all question, but their exaggerations are a marked defect. George Cruikshank has also done good work in the illustrations of some of the novels of Dickens and other writers.

In conclusion, we would remind our readers that the function of art is twofold - to express man's delight in all created beauty; and to be, in the words of an ancient art-guild, "a teacher to ignorant men." Into one of these two divisions all true and genuine art resolves itself. But the demand creates the supply, and what we will have the art of our age to be, that in the main it will become. If we will insist that the genius of the age shall be spent, not in recording the heroic deeds of our own and other generations, nor in showing forth God's revelation, nor in recording thoughts of purity and beauty; but in drawing-room frivolities and soulless prettinesses, these we shall have at our bidding, and minds like Millais and Landseer will be lost; at best incoherent voices, leaving no echo behind them.

The mere fact of having a taste for art will not necessarily help in any way the art-progress of our generation; on the contrary, if misdirected, it may hinder its growth. There are among cultivated people two classes who make art their pleasure and leisure-study. One class, by far the larger of the two, value works of art as they do gold, not because they are beautiful, but because they are scarce or valuable - that is, saleable; or with that instinct for possession which belongs to human selfishness. They will cover their walls with pictures of a dead artist whose drawings are rare or of increasing value, when they might buy for half the sum, perhaps, works more akin to their sympathies, and help some young struggling artist. Or they will furnish their rooms after some " period," for which they have to scour all the curiosity shops in London; when for the same money they might encourage good industrial art, and extend the demand for it. They will give, more pitiable still, fabulous sums for bits of old china and glass, to shut up in cases, and triumphantly show to their friends as unique specimens. The only use of art, say they, folding themselves round complacently in their elegancies, is to extract a little more pleasure, a little more luxury out of life.

And there are others who use their knowledge, opportunities, and money, as so many talents for which they are accountable to God and their fellow-men. Their chief joy in possession is to give; in supremacy over others, to help them; in knowing more than others, to teach them. These work for all time, and are among the world's true philanthropists; the others, for their own little day of life, and for themselves, burying their talent in the mouldering earth of swift-passing time. It is for us to choose between the two.