nstantly
talking of Claude and Poussin, should never even pretend to a thought of
Raffaelle. We could excuse them for not comprehending Turner, if they
only would apply the same cut-and-dried criticisms where they might be
applied with truth, and productive of benefit; but we endure not the
paltry compound of ignorance, false taste, and pretension, which assumes
the dignity of classical feeling, that it may be able to abuse whatever
is above the level of its understanding, but bursts into genuine rapture
with all that is meretricious, if sufficiently adapted to the calibre of
its comprehension.

Sec. 14. How the press may really advance the cause of art.

To notice such criticisms, however, is giving them far more importance
than they deserve. They can lead none astray but those whose opinions
are absolutely valueless, and we did not begin this chapter with any
intent of wasting our time on these small critics, but in the hope of
pointing out to the periodical press what kind of criticism is now most
required by our school of landscape art, and how it may be in their
power, if they will, to regulate its impulses, without checking its
energies, and really to advance both the cause of the artist, and the
taste of the public.

Sec. 15. Morbid fondness at the present day for unfinished works.

Sec. 16. By which the public defraud themselves.

Sec. 17. And in pandering to which, artists ruin themselves.

Sec. 18. Necessity of finishing works of art perfectly.

One of the most morbid symptoms of the general taste of the present day,
is a too great fondness for unfinished works. Brilliancy and rapidity of
execution are everywhere sought as the highest good, and so that a
picture be cleverly handled as far as it is carried, little regard is
paid to its imperfection as a whole. Hence some artists are permitted,
and others compelled, to confine themselves to a manner of working
altogether destructive of their powers, and to tax their energies, not
to concentrate the greatest quantity of thought on the least possible
space of canvas, but to produce the greatest quantity of glitter and
claptrap in the shortest possible time. To the idler and the trickster
in art, no system can be more advantageous; but to the man who is really
desirous of doing something worth having lived for--to a man of
industry, energy, or feeling, we believe it to be the cause of the most
bitter discouragement. If ever, working upon a favorite subje