knowledge of art, and on
broad general views of what is true and right, without reference to what
has been done at one time or another, or in one school or another.
Nothing can be more perilous to the cause of art, than the constant
ringing in our painters' ears of the names of great predecessors, as
their examples or masters. I had rather hear a great poet, entirely
original in his feeling and aim, rebuked or maligned for not being like
Wordsworth or Coleridge, than a great painter criticised for not putting
us in mind of Claude or Poussin. But such references to former
excellence are the only refuge and resource of persons endeavoring to be
critics without being artists. They cannot tell you whether a thing is
right or not; but they can tell you whether it is like something else or
not. And the whole tone of modern criticism--as far as it is worthy of
being called criticism--sufficiently shows it to proceed entirely from
persons altogether unversed in practice, and ignorant of truth, but
possessing just enough of feeling to enjoy the solemnity of ancient art,
who, not distinguishing that which is really exalted and valuable in the
modern school, nor having any just idea of the real ends or capabilities
of landscape art, consider nothing right which is not based on the
conventional principles of the ancients, and nothing true which has more
of nature in it than of Claude. But it is strange that while the noble
and unequalled works of modern landscape painters are thus maligned and
misunderstood, our historical painters--such as we have--are permitted
to pander more fatally every year to the vicious English taste, which
can enjoy nothing but what is theatrical, entirely unchastised, nay,
encouraged and lauded by the very men who endeavor to hamper our great
landscape painters with rules derived from consecrated blunders. The
very critic who has just passed one of the noblest works of Turner--that
is to say, a masterpiece of art, to which Time can show no
parallel--with a ribald jest, will yet stand gaping in admiration before
the next piece of dramatic glitter and grimace, suggested by the
society, and adorned with the appurtenances of the greenroom, which he
finds hung low upon the wall as a brilliant example of the ideal of
English art. It is natural enough indeed, that the persons who are
disgusted by what is pure and noble, should be delighted with what is
vicious and degraded; but it is singular that those who are co