ON THE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT OF ARTISTS

Patriots and statesmen alike forget that the time will come
when the want of great art in England will produce a gap sadly
defacing the beauty of the whole national structure....

Working, for example, as an historian to record England's
battles, Haydon would, no doubt, have produced a series of
mighty and instructive pictures....

Why should not the Government of a mighty country undertake
the decoration of all the public buildings, such as Town
Halls, National Schools, and even Railway Stations....

... Or considering the walls as slates whereon the school-boy
writes his figures, the great productions of other times might
be reproduced, if but to be rubbed out when fine originals
could be procured; for the expense would very little exceed
that of whitewashing....

If, for example, on some convenient wall the whole line of
British sovereigns were painted--were monumental effigies
well and correctly drawn, with date, length of reign,
remarkable events written underneath, these worthy objects
would be attained--intellectual exercise, decoration of space,
and instruction to the public.

The year 1848 was a critical time for Watts; his first allegorical
picture, "Time and Oblivion," was painted, and, in the year following,
"Life's Illusions" appeared on the walls of the famous Academy which
contained the first works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Watts was
not of the party, though he might have been had he desired; he preferred
independence.

Watts' personal life was at this time pervaded by the influence of Lord
and Lady Holland, who, having returned from Florence to London, had him
as a constant visitor to Holland House. In 1850 he went to live at The
Dower House, an old building in the fields of Kensington. There, as a
guest of the Prinsep family, he set up as a portrait painter. His host
and family connections were some of the first to sit for him; and he
soon gained fame in this class of work.

There was a temporary interruption in 1856, when a journey to the East,
in company with Sir Charles Newton, for the purpose of opening the
buried Temple of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, gave Watts further insight
into the old Greek world; and, one cannot but think, stimulated his
efforts, later so successful, in depicting for us so many incidents in
classical lore. We have, in a v