International studio (18.1902/1903)

THE STUDIO

A COSMOPOLITAN PAINTER:
/\ JOHN LAVERY. BY JAMES
/—\ STANLEY LITTLE.—PART I.
IT may be asserted with confidence, that the
professional critic who wraps up his appreciation of
an artist or his admiration of a work of art in a
mass of words has no special or exclusive right to
pass judgment on the one or the other. Divine
right, an aimost played-out trick of the monarchical
trade, is becoming day by day a more and more
discredited pretence in
the domain of art and
literary criticism. Many
an amateur and con-
noisseur who would be
at a loss to set forth in
the language of the
schools the faith that is in
him is, nevertheless, better
qualihed than any mere
art critic to pronounce,
dehnitively and authorita-
tively, on artistic produc-
tion. The connoisseur—
by which term, of course,
the real connoisseur is
intended, not that spu-
rious brand of art patron
who buys at the dicta-
tion or direction of the
dealers, or because a
picture or other artistic
product enjoys recognition
at the hands of power-
ful cliques and mono-
polies—backs his judg-
ment with his money. In
any case the true art critic,
in common with the true
amateur or connoisseur,
is endowed by nature
with that peculiar innate
faculty, a rare enough
gift, which, for lack of
a better name, may be
called instinct; a faculty

which enables him to hunt out works of real
artistic excellence and to recognise his quarry
the moment he gets on the scent of it. Of course,
this inborn faculty needs to be sharpened by train-
ing and steadied by experience. Possibly, seeing
that in his case the commercial instinct is allied
with it, the faculty reaches its highest development
in the much-despised dealer, though obviously this
very instinct prevents the dealer—save, perhaps, the
few of great faith ; the few who, having the courage
of their opinions, plus perhaps some little of the


XVIII. No. 6$.—NOVEMBER, 1902.

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