DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0043
GENERAL INTRODUCTION. XXXix
eating oysters, girls “ chopping onions,” and so forth,
appeared to me unredeemed common-place and vulgarity;
and the merest daub of an Italian picture, which realized
to my mind some poetical image or association, would have
been preferable to the Jan Steen which Lord Francis
Egerton is so happy as to possess. Those were “ our salad
days, when we were green in judgment;” but to prefer
the Jan Steen to the fresco of Heliodorus, or the cartoons—it
would be like preferring Hudibras to Homer! Better far,
I admit, the honest preference of Jan Steen to Raphael, of
Hudibras to Homer, than the sentimentality of affected con-
noisseurship—the “ Correggiosity of Correggio,” and such
affectations; but no one must be allowed to regard their own
arbitrary preferences as tests of excellence. Let us ever
keep in mind that there must be some criterion to appeal to,
higher, and more fixed, than the power of feeling and asso-
ciation, which varies in every individual. Art is reduced
very low, when artists are driven to rely on mere common-
place associations. Hence it is that we are overwhelmed
with tableaux-de-genre, and things painted for art-unions
and annuals. What have we now for the grandeur and the
grace of the heroic and ideal in art? A bridesmaid weep-
ing in white satin, “ Gems of beauty,” and “ Flowers of
loveliness,” or such trash, cherished by the namby-pamby
taste of our fine ladies, on whose tables you find these
wretched, wiry things, with their mean contours and con-
ventional prettinesses. No wonder that the admirers of
such should think the Delphic Sibyl “ masculine,” and
denounce the Hours, in Guido’s Aurora, as “ coarse.” I
do not hesitate to say, that the false, the frivolous taste of
women, has had a permanently injurious effect on art and
artists, and that theii’ better education in this respect is
likely to do much good. There is an immeasurable dif-
ference between the mere liking for pretty pictures, the
love of novelty and variety, and the feeling and compre-
eating oysters, girls “ chopping onions,” and so forth,
appeared to me unredeemed common-place and vulgarity;
and the merest daub of an Italian picture, which realized
to my mind some poetical image or association, would have
been preferable to the Jan Steen which Lord Francis
Egerton is so happy as to possess. Those were “ our salad
days, when we were green in judgment;” but to prefer
the Jan Steen to the fresco of Heliodorus, or the cartoons—it
would be like preferring Hudibras to Homer! Better far,
I admit, the honest preference of Jan Steen to Raphael, of
Hudibras to Homer, than the sentimentality of affected con-
noisseurship—the “ Correggiosity of Correggio,” and such
affectations; but no one must be allowed to regard their own
arbitrary preferences as tests of excellence. Let us ever
keep in mind that there must be some criterion to appeal to,
higher, and more fixed, than the power of feeling and asso-
ciation, which varies in every individual. Art is reduced
very low, when artists are driven to rely on mere common-
place associations. Hence it is that we are overwhelmed
with tableaux-de-genre, and things painted for art-unions
and annuals. What have we now for the grandeur and the
grace of the heroic and ideal in art? A bridesmaid weep-
ing in white satin, “ Gems of beauty,” and “ Flowers of
loveliness,” or such trash, cherished by the namby-pamby
taste of our fine ladies, on whose tables you find these
wretched, wiry things, with their mean contours and con-
ventional prettinesses. No wonder that the admirers of
such should think the Delphic Sibyl “ masculine,” and
denounce the Hours, in Guido’s Aurora, as “ coarse.” I
do not hesitate to say, that the false, the frivolous taste of
women, has had a permanently injurious effect on art and
artists, and that theii’ better education in this respect is
likely to do much good. There is an immeasurable dif-
ference between the mere liking for pretty pictures, the
love of novelty and variety, and the feeling and compre-