Exhibition to witness the fact. We have also pointed to that strange
phenomenon, the rise anew of monastic institutions among us, long
after their object is accomplished, giving a spectre-like expression
to an obsolete idea; we have exposed, likewise, the inclination of the
working-classes to trust to the protection, and, on every emergency,
claim as a matter of right the aid of the wealthy, thus wilfully and
deliberately returning to the condition of serfdom: we have now to
trace the mediaeval mania in a department where, notwithstanding all
this ominous conjunction of symptoms, its appearance is truly
surprising--in the department of high art in painting.

Our readers need not fear that we are about to inflict on them a
scientific dissertation. All we wish to do, is to explain to them a
word, with the meaning of which many of them are very imperfectly
acquainted, and by the mere explanation, to enable them to determine
upon its claims to designate--not merely _a_ school, but _the_ school
of art, destined, if founded in truth and nature, to overturn every
other. This word--Pre-Raphaelitism--is taken from the name of one of
the Italian masters, and it is necessary, in order to understand the
question, to ascertain what were the circumstances and the genius that
have thus set him up as a landmark in the history of art.

After the fall of the Western Empire, the fine arts were lost, and
their productions literally buried in the wreck. The minds of the
composite nations that arose in Europe had no guide. Men were left to
their own instincts, only faintly aided by the ruins and traditions of
degenerate Rome; and each series of countries had its own style of
art, framed or adopted by the genius of the people. During the middle
ages, the style most general in Northern Europe was the Gothic; and by
that term the whole system of art during the period is popularly known
in England. The state of painting, under the Gothic regime, may be
seen in the stained windows of the cathedrals; in which strong
outlines and bright colours are laid down without any reference to
chiaro-scuro, or the scientific arrangement of light and shadow. This
seems a natural stage in art-development, and at the same moment it
was seen in equal perfection in China and Europe. In the former
region, the people are now beginning to advance a step beyond, through
their imitation of English pictures; although, but a few years ago,
they burst into fits of laught