The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎589v] (69/239)

38
A MORNING IN THE GALLERIES.
Art. I daresay it reminds people of the old artists idea about
grace and that sort of thing.’
“ Can anything be more useful to-day than such a reminder? ,
asked Visto.
“ Come to Burlington House,” said I, and as we walk along,
Van Dyke shall tell us why these young fellows make such a
dead set at Beauty, and why they will have it that the business
of Art is to hold up the mirror to ugliness, to pourtray nothing that
is not common, queer, or even grotesque.”
“ Why! ”, broke out Van Dyke, “ we are all sick of these tea-
tray prettinesses of ” The Thames at Dawn,” ” Pine woods at
Sunset,” ‘‘Meadows in May,” ‘‘June Blossoms,” and all the
namby-pamby goddesses, nymphs, “ blue eyes,” and golden
locks,” which are very well on a bon-bon box for a girl, but disgust
grown men in a picture gallery. Art should be real, not con
ventional ; and of all things the most fatal to Art is that which
pleases the eye. The painter has to show people what they never
saw and never could see—what he sees, and as he sees it. It does
not matter what it is—a brick wall, a blind beggar, a hog, a dung
hill—all are equally the subject of Art, when the artist has looked
at them till his soul has grown into them, and they have grown into
his soul. The new rule is—Paint just what you see, but take
care that it is what nobody sees but yourself, and what nobody
could like if he did see it. The business of Art is to shake up
your Philistines, your Bottles, and Mrs. Grundys, out of their
hum-drum lives, to teach them how queer and how nasty the
world can be, and often is.”
‘‘ You want us all to go ‘ slumming ’ in a picture gallery? ”,
said Visto, ‘‘ you can’t all be Bernard Shaws, my dear boy, and
paint paradoxes and cranks all day long. Is there no alternative
between weak prettiness and coarse realism? Because some
painters are finikin, some babyish, and some academic, is High
Art to be limited to ditchwater and rags? If w T e are sick of straw r -
berry cream and truffles, we don’t w T ant to be stuffed with garlic
and tripe.”
‘‘It does not matter what you paint,” said Van Dyke, ‘‘ the
only thing that matters is, how you paint. A picture is not in
tended to please —ought not to please the person looking at it. It
is intended to show w r hat clever things the painter could do with
his brush. Brush-work is the beginning, middle and end of a
picture. If a picture interests the public by its subject, or is
beautiful as an object to view, so far it draws off attention from
the cleverness of the painter, and thereby ceases to be sincere
Art.”
One would think a painter was an acrobat,” said Visto, ‘‘ and