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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont film6s en commenpant par la premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaltra sur la derni^re image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — *> signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film^s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. rrata to pelure, n A □ 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^::i!S?.«Si8*S^^4iSS^^^^.4W'&!e^^ NATIONAL tlBHAaY CANADA RlftLIOTlIx^QbE NAif ^ A TRKATISK ON THK PHILOSOPHY OF ART: OY D. R. MOORE. In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in Kugland or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men. — Hmersox. ST. JOHN, N. B. ^^i-l/Svtn Printing Company, Ltd. J897. 'SWSseSSjS^Kl^JWB^B^^ ;j^:^^.^r:;jS*'aiaiWMI''JSMV''^^^ !-'k- m 'WW # > ■H f > -• "■ ' !'*>■. # INTRODUCTIO:^. "^ #, THE Mi'lter Is constrained to offer the public no apology for Introducing this isai)ject and its treatment in the following pages. This little work is the unpretentious result of what was originally undertalten solely as a literary recreation, to while aAvay thf monotony of isolated environ- ments, and the tedium of an occasional hour snatched from the arduous round of professional life. The subject is one which, hitherto, especially in Canadian literature, has not been overdone; and with the exercUe of some industry and patience I have endeavored as fully as possible to have its treatment conform to standards of authority and truth. Probably the most interesting feature in this enquiry is the paradoxical nature of the transition from the original conditions and purposes of art, to their later and present uses. "Art," says Kmerson, "Is the path of the Creator to his woric;" assuredly it has traversed the entire distance be- tween original necessity and modern luxury. Urgent need was the parent of art, as necessity was man's llrst tutor ; its electric rod ever attracts the delicate needle of g jnuis, and to this day he remains a slave to its inexorable laws. Lilve a burning Nessus-shirt, necessity envelopes hlra within its prurient folds, now kindling the flame of hunger— now inflicting the leprosy of death. Necessity dug out the first canoe, excavated the flrst cave, erected the flrst hut, carved the flrst deity, and in ceaseless action shall so continue. Energetic action was the flrst duty required of primitive man, and success with the highest types of manhood Is possible only upon the same terms. The rude dug-out canoe of the savage was an acknowledgement of the supreme law of necessity, and became the initial design for all future mari- time crafts. It must, however, pass through successive oar, sail, steam, and electric stages before it can emerge the perfect type of an English or Italian Ironclad. In the relaxation of necessity's original grasp upon man, we witness the decay and disappearance, to any real eflect, of certain arts. The choicest production of sculpture, becomes now, only a piece for the gallery ; gaudy paintings have become mere chattels of commerce, and the ambition of the opulent present revels only In the sensuous designs of the early Greek, Roman and Gothic masters. D. R. MOORE. Stanley, N. B., 1897. f .&^A£^ .■ ^:-fy'^«t*^'^-'^^'tiS4.f3 THE^HILOSOPHY OF :^T. The operation of the human mind is a record of perpetual ascension. Imagination never tires in its search for new conquests, which, when at- tained, with the caprice of a child no longer appeased wltih a haJlf-worn toy, are wantonly thrown aside in the pur- suit of others. Intellectual power li^ donmant and obscure at the sea-level of primitive man; and, like mountain upheavals, its greatest altitudes have been attained only through the opera- tion of heterotjenious forces and energy. The interval between the dawn of in- telligence in the primitive savage, and the imaginative power of Milton or Phakespeare Is measured by suC'Ps.siV(.> violemt convulsions In the great fam- ily of mankind — Indeed, the whole field of human culture. Doubtlessly man's energies were, originally, solely of a physical character, how and when the inteMectual faculty first became quick- ened and alive must ever remain a mystery. When the struggle for life first became associated with the struggle for the life of others; when the struggle for life begot selfishness, aggressiveness and war, and ihe struggle for the life of others begot unselfishness, sympathy and peace, we shall never know. The struggle for life developed courage and strength, characteristics o^* individualism, and the struggle for the life of others de- veloped sympathy and love, the char- aoteristlcs cf altruism. The law of preservation asserted itself In the ca- pacity to provide for himself; and with the instinct of reproduction came the hope of posterity; this determined the morphology of all living things, and constitutes the ethics of ogranlc life. When the first savage mother became roused to her fllnst tender and sympa- thetic concern for her babe, and for a moment In Its 'helplessness and suffer- ing forgot herself and became conscious of the unutterable Impulses of mother- hood; when some rising feeling first lessened the cruelty of some brutal act, and a kindly gesture first softened some fierce glare, and a sympathetic gleam first kindled in an almost ani- mal eye, however long heredity might require to nurse into vigorous life these precious germs of intellectual might, these changes certainly marked the most stupendous transition In the history of man. At the confluence of the two main currents of man's constitution — the animal and the rational — he forever surrenders Inetlnot; henceforth reason assumee the control of the fiery steeds of human passion. Coincident with the progress of the development of reason Is the diminution or disappear- ance of certain vital traits or instincts. That fundamental canon of nature, self-preservation, has become relaxed and weakaned, and as thoiigh reason had made a comipromlse with the body, free will itself may, with the artful- ness of a friend destroy the beautiful temple of Itdlttbode. The instinct of self-pruservatlon universally prevails In the lower order of cneatlon, and equally distinguishes man as he first appears In the world; but physical maJi tiae long- been resigned to the opera- tion of unnatur'al Indulgences, and is now the victim of destructive needs unforesihadowed In his conetltution. I.uxury and disregard of natural law axpose him to a contlnuail siege of malady and disorder, and the tar reaching resources of science and sani- tation are powerless to confer upon him the vigor of life and longevity that marked his forniej* existence. The Achilles spots of vulnerajbillty multiply in the ratio of his civilization, and the pricv-iless web of three score aind ten years shall ever be spun fro'm his own vitals. The laws and restrictions of civiliza- tion ihave also destroyed the Elysian fields of human felicity. A truer no- bility of conduct is found in the ex- ample of Spartan obedience to the unwritten laws of their coumtry than that which distinguishes the law-cir- cumvented citizen of today. Legisla- tion has become the arbitrary gauge of social virtue and order; and the statute books of civilized nations are but the Habrew decalogue extensively Bub-sectioied to the requirements of civil exigency; English law alone pun- ishing vice, the Chinese also rewarding virtuft. Society is menaced by a thousand dangers which w^eire unknown to prim- itive communities of men. The social- istic and anarchistic outbreaks of our time are t)ut lunatic a,nd la grippe distempers of civilization, in which social disorders, as In the bodily ail- ment, the weakest organization ntiust succumib. Mam has Tieoome the crea- ture of civil law, tihe coiitinuajl opera- tion o£ which tends to the discourage- ment of voluntary deeds of herolsTn and justice, and to the shaping of individual impulses to arbitrary stand- ards of methods and expedients. Such then is the mystery of Life. Like the .9tran3re voice of the Theban Sphynx, time puts to the fleeting generations of man the, terrible riddle of huiman destiny, only to devour successive multitudes as tlhey appear. The cypher naught and eternity are both expressed by a circle, still they are alike worth- less 1/n solving the problem of life. In the morning dews of nature we behold in the mute baibe a spark of life Im- prisoned into time; in manhood we behold it kindle into operation the wonderful activities of nis being; amd in age's lone retreat, where the hoary pilgrim may look down upon the king- doms of the past and tlheir glories, we perceive it dim the grandeur of his vision, muflle the melody of his song, and extinguish the watch-fires of his reason— still does the mystery of Life e.lude our grasp and mock our pur- suit! Within the vtrssel sheds the lamp its faithful light; the Shattering of the pitcher extinguishes the flame! The path of art winds down through the perspective of man's history, and becomes lost In the grey dawn that obscures his birth. We know the be- ginnimgs of little or nothing in this world, physical enquiry zealously pur- sued may lead to the mythic Intricacies of metaphysics, and he who explorers the primitive nurseries of our race, as he nears the rejnote confines of authen- tic record, perceives in the sireen Laches!??' song of past time a confused presence tlhat defies his approach. Of late evolution has assumed the func- tion of an oracle interpreting many traits and obscure qualities in man. S«pencer belie.ve& that the pleasure from a victory at chess corresponds to the 4 ', ' 5 grratlflcatlon of ruder triumphs of an earlier time; and the raillery of & spir- ited conversation Is the analogrue of a mliDi!c battle In which lanutable to the nature of man. Music and song have ever been recognized as vital adjuncts of reli- gious ceremonies; and wliether prac- tised by the pre-hietoric Aryan, amid hie pastoral surroundings; whether reso^lnding through the sculptural temples of Egypt or Greece, or the towering oaks of the Druid groves, or whether re-echoing through the fres- coed dome of St. Peters, or the elabor- ate collonades of St. Paul's, the holiest and loftiest emotions of the human breast have ascended in sacred song. However, in Christian countries the dance hae been divorced from the list of religous ordinances, and, not unlike the nude in art, it has incurred the condemnation and censure of many, not from any Inherent vice, but from he odium acquired through vicious and immoral associations. Thus does the mind of man every- vhere outgrrow the habit of ite prime- val stature; the genius of the hour is but an iconoclast in masquerade des- troying the evanescent designs of human amibition and pride. But music being an attribute of higher life, it knows no limit, knows no lear or remorse, and wherever loved and venerated, there it wears its wondrous spell. In mad delirium, when an an- archy otf passion had driven reason from its throne, and the maniac would with merciless wrath fain pursue the Object of its most sacred affection; while the ^lenzied m.ind knew naught of time or place, yet have I heard the dark and solitary cell give forth a melody rich and sweet. The bridled tongue that stammers out an evening prayer is lessened in the sweet melody of song. Ah! music, thou whisperest of hopes and loves w^ich are not found; around the chained exile thou v~ ^avest a symphony of Joy that wakens far-off memories and charms away the vacant hours; and child- hood's sweet and oft-repeated lay daily renews the sunshine of the young soul's happiness, and repels the shadow of the aoproaching sorrow-burdened clouds of maturer years ! Having briefly considered that divi- sion of art which is relatively fixed and expressed through the medium of sound, we shall now more fully exam- ine the other igroup, which is measur- aibly fixed art, and which has its ex- pression in form and outline, viz., architecture, sculpture and painting. The hig'hj'st art springs from thought and laws which dwell in the human breast. In one instance this law earnestly ai^serts itself in the writ- ing of an epic poeim or a history; in another, the sculpture of a statute; in a third, the innpulse expresses itself in a painting, and in a fourth an archi- tectural design marks this silent and involuntary struggle towards creative action. Wa have the history of the ancients through the Greek historians, but we have also in their contempor- ary architecture and sculpture an abridged history of the ideas and at- tainments of their times. Art thus beco'mes a supplement to 'history, as an exponent of an age and a nation. And as a proof of the reciprocal affin- ity w^hlch exists between a people and their art, and of the influence of one upon the other, we shall find that those nations which have most truthfully and faithfully applied themselves to the cultivation of art, have handed down to posterity a record of intelli- gent and heroic action; and the people, who, In their pursuit of art, have from f Ignorance evaded truth, or from con- tempt have scorned nature, have in- variaibly proved themselves unfit coun- peJlors in human affairs, whose intel- lectual and moral character is dwarfed, and with whom the wheels of progresfi have been clogged by the lethargy of their own nature. It may be said that the productions of art which bear not the impress of truth and nature may be classed as ideal; but this is no argument in sup- port of their claim to be expressive of the truest concaptione of the ideal mind. At the confluence of the two streams of art— the real and the ideal —their waters are pure and indistin- guishable.; the murky water of the fountain disappears in the course of the stream. We shall have occasion to witness the universality of the law which asserts to truth and nature the obedience of art, and shall find that it is only when the extremity of their limitations are reached that either real or ideal art becomes .baneful. Architecture had its origin in two distinct roots, one of which extends down deeply in man's instructive pro- clivity to provide for his natural wants; and the other taps the fertile elements of his religous nature. Vltruvius in- forms us that the nests of birds and the lairs of beasts served aboriginal man with the earliest models for his dwell- ings, and the cave, hut and the tent mark successive advances in primitive architecture. In those localities which abounded in wood and stone, the hut gradually acquir.?d the grandest char- acter of art, and the permanence of all art is typified in the ruggec' produc- tions of the quarry. No doubt the designs of the carpenter first served as examples for the nrjason and sculp- tor, and today the richest arcnitecture and sculpture exhibit unmistakable traces of the early shaping of wood. The dance and song being regarded as religious ordinances, it is fair to as- sume that man early provided the scene of their enactment with varioufi designs becom.ing their importance. Nature's primeval sward gave place to the rude floor; then followed the erection of trees or posts for purpose of decorati'>n, later to serve as supports for enclosu-e and roof. These were the essentials of architecture, and became the groundwork of future ornamental device. The vertical seams in the bark of the tree posts suggested the graceful fluting of the Ionic columns, and the outer beams sur- mounting the posts gave the hint for the architrave of the most advanced art. These were the beginnings of an art which must yet design the great Illlads of architecture — Parthenon of Athens, St. Peter's- at Rome and St. Mark's at Venice. For thousands of years the grandest achievements of art were dedicated to religion and its ordi- nance; and as the chief rites were reserved for the dead, we can readily understand why sepulchral art early became a distinctive feature of archi- tecture. Solicitude for the spiritual welfare of aboriginal man found relief mainly in the proper interment of the dead body. To the ITellenlc mind only the rite of burial could confer upon the departed spirit a peaceful repose in the abode of the blessed; the ill- fated mortal who from any cause lies unburied, is compelled for the space uf a hundred years to wander shiver- ing and wailing through the shades by the river Styx. Virgil gives an account of an experience that befel Aenas in Hades, where he encounters the unhappy spirit of his late hero- pilot Palinurus, who relates that after iUiimii mMmamimm!ji^:^^' .>..^^ ^ 10 5 II his recent shipwreck he drifted ashore upon the coast of Italy, whej-e he was attacked by the barbarous natlvo-s and killed. Palinurue, howevor, informs Aenafi that he Is yet unburied, that his corpse lies tossed amid the break- ers in the harbor of Velia, and begs his leader either to send back there and "give him a little earth for char- ity," or by the exercise of his influence with the infernal powers secure the re- laxation of the terrible law which exclude him from the fields of Elysium. Thus we find that the colossal ex- amples of early Egyptian art were conceived in a religious spirit; indeed, for the beginnings of architecture — Ite earliest, grand even in their infancy — we must turn to this wonderful people, who were especially a nation of temple and tomlb builders. Nor do we at this late day find art withhold- ing its choicest productions from the habitation of the dead. Sepulchral art with the ancients proce.eded largely from austere rellgous motivee; today it is the outcome of reverence and affection for the deceased. The large metropolitan necropoli of the world are but confused wildernesses of art, "Wherein cunning hands have success- fully chiselled in granite ind marble designs which pierce the tenderest emotions of the heart. The brief epitaph marking the resting place of some childish form may fittingly ad- monish us of the value of time and the uncertainty of life; and the in- scription over the remains of the octogenarian rebuke the selfish pride and ambition of our nature. The highest art, Indeed, consists of this power of Investing the cold marble with a harmony and silent eloquence that appeals to our sympathy. The distance between the hushed silence of Westminster Abbey and the nearest Potter's field is an arbitrary space measured by sceptres and tridents, pierce through the robes of royal pomp to the natural heart and you will find they lie side by sidie. These emotions are everywhere translatable as the unerring language of the human heart; and the family whose opulence enables them to exult in the marble image of a sorrowing parent that bends over the grave of a dear child, possibly little dream that the sculptor obtained his design from the spectacle of an indigent we.eping mother in the neigh- boring Potter's field. Byron has evi- dently caught this idea in the following sorrowful refrain: "No sculptured marble marks thy bed of lowly sleep, But living statues there are seen to weep; Affliction's semiblar^ce bends not o'er thy tomlb — Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom!" The early architecture of Egypt is marked with a rugged endurance which seems to mock the silent ag- gression oi:' Time, Her sculptured temples of remote antiquity, still majestic amid their reluctant decay, attest to mature attainments in art; and the grim pyramids, bleached with the suns of centuries, bear a strange record of human energy and unknown mechanism. Well might Napoleon within its venerable shadow invoke the valor and heroism of his army by de- claring that forty centuries looked down upon them ! Through Assyria and Phoenicia ar- chitecture, like sculpture, found Us way from Egypt Into Greece, -where, from successive contributions of Doric, Ionian and Corinthian designs. It early acquired a grace, sympliclty and har- mony that has never been excelled. I Yt 1 These chaste and classic designs never roofing of stone; the Roman by the became corrupted by the weird and round arch or dome, and the Gothic unnatural art of India; indeed, the by the pointed arch or gable. Upon latter has never flourished In the at- examination it will be found, as Rus- i.iosphere of Christian nations. Rus-kin ^in has pointed out, that these three somewhere says that the key to a periods of «.rchitectural design corres- nation's architecture Is found in the pond to and were contemporary with re.ligion of its people, and nowhere la as many nota.ble states of human ex- this precept more fully illustrated than perlence. Tho; Greek edifice was de- with India. The absence of harmony signe.d by that noble Hellenic race, and natural simplicity in their archi- who brought to the highest scate of tecture corresponds to the superstition activity the intellectual faculty; and and the unnaturalness of their religion, beneath the flat roof of the Parthenon The distorted sold and Ivory decora- moved to and fro Socrates, Plato and tions of their termples harmonize with Aristotle— the mightiest intellects of their fantastic religious ceremonies, our race. For Hundreds of years fol- but bears no relation to the chaste and lowing the productions of the Greek beautiful designs of the Greek archi- mind were destined to nourish and tects. Judged by this criterion, one sustain the feeble intellects of man- would believe the religion of the kind; and it was in the deepening Greeks to have been of a meet exalted, shades of this intellectual twilight that Intellectual character. The faithful the round arch of Roman architecture reproduction of natural types which appears. Beneath this arch, like a vast abounds In the construction of their dome shutting out the harmony and temples and public edifices would suf- glory of nature, we behold social and flee to proclaim them seekers after moral man degenerate, and almost noblene.s6 and truth. The ijrace and relapse into his former barbarity, harmony of the Parthenon is at once During the thirteenth ..entury, the suggestive of a nobler and purer re- Gothic arch appeared, it is said, almost llglon than that which guides the eimultanoously in every country in suierstitious millions of India. Indeed Europe, bringing with it the promise the paganism of ancient Greece and ^f jj^e richest designs, 'and pointing Rome producp.d a more healthful type the way to the long halted train of of intellectual .and moral life than is human energies. today found among most ( f the Idola- \Ve shall now more fully consider trous faiths of Asia. the arts of sculpture and painting, and Art has expressed itself in three it will be seen that they did not have great systems of architecture, viz., the their origin in the luxurious manner Greek, Roman and Gothic. These in which they are at present employed, three types are each distinguished by but were the outgrowth of necessity, a certain feature that is at once char- and became early applied to a serious acteristic of Its class. The method of and earnest purpose. The art of writ- roofing or covering over an open space ing was originally drav/ing, and the determined the style of art; the Greek earliest form of written language oon- — representing the comiblned beauty S'isted of a series of rude imtative de- and grace of the Doric, Ionic and Cor- signs. The earll'-st exam/pies of writ- inthlan— Is distinguished by the flat Ing consisted of drawings, probably 12 Illustrating religious or triumphal fefitlvalfl; and this rude art having passed through successive symbolic stages, gradually acquired an intelli- gible character. The Egyptians early brought this imitative drawing to a highly serviceable state, and in these hieroglyphic tracings doubtlessly re- corded the triumphs of battles and the pageantry of their Icings. A glimpse of this primitive picture writing may still be discerned in the alphabets of certain languages; Aleph, ■;he fiist character of the Hebrew alphabet, sig- nifies an ox, and the sign for that let- ter is the outline of an ux's nead. The Phoenicians derived the rudiments of th3lr alphabet from the Egyptian hier- oglyphics, which they later brought to such a serviceable state that at the present day, with few exceptions, the alphabets of all civilized nations are of Phoenician origin. With the origin of sculpture came the exaltation of relifiious worship. We have already observed that man's re- ligious awakenings found expression in the dance, music and song, but the time must arrive -when the vague ob- jects of his devotion must be ex- changed for some material and tang- ible form. The subjucation of his sav- age nature, by the gradually unfolding attributes of affection and sympathy, marked the erection of the first intel- lectual watch tower of man, and with the dawn of love came the possibility of devotion. But what was he to wor- ship? The sun daily rolled his lambent car over the azure arch of inflnitule; the tempest-nursed thunder and light- ning with roar awakened the solitary mountain echoes, and with flaeh kindled the sable scrolls of heaven ; an awful voice issued from the coral cavern of the mighty deep — these wondrous phenomena evoked in man a deep emotion and inspired him with the truest devotional spirit of all time, viz., that of humble and rovercnd silence. For man^s earliest religion, like his earliest art, was vague and rudimentary, and the feeling existed long before he was able faithfully to express it. His faculties expanded in proportion to his physical and religi- ous needs, and when the sym- bols of infinite power no long- er fully serves his religious nature then the slunuberlng powers of inven- tion enlisted in his service. Sculp- ture's first duty consisted in designing types or symbols of^pre-existing forces or phenomena. Sun-worship, after hundreds of years, gradually merged into fire-worship; and images of wood and stone, typifying certain forces in the reign of natural law, succeeded the worship of the real phenomena. The idea of a devil seems unknown to all primitive religions, doubtlessly from the ^belief that good and evil alike are the work of the deities. With Homer, Zeus dispenses both : "Two urns by Jove's high throne have stood, The source of evil one, the other good; From thence ihe cup of mortal man he fills. Blessings to these, to those distributes ills. To most he mingles both." It !s among the Aryians that we first find mention of a devil, and strangely enough, the term devil or demon ap- pears to be derived from the Aryian deva or deity. Edward Clodd, in the following, gives a brief account of the evolution of a demon: "Early in the history of the Aryian tribes there had arisen a quarrel between the Brah- mlnic and Iranian divisions. The latter had become a quiet-loving, ag- ricultural people, while the former I f^ '3 i remained marauding nomads, attack- ing and harassing their neighbors. In their plundering inroads they Invoked the aid of spells and sacrifices, offering the sacred soma-juioe to their gods, and nerving themselves for the fray by deep draughts of the intoxicating stuff. Not only they, but their gods as well, thereby became objects of hatred to the peaceful Iranians, who foreswore worship of the freebooters' deities, and transformed the^e devas of the old religion into demons." Originating with the primitive Ary- ans, idol worship has through scores of centuries flourished in the service of successive families of mankind. When we revert to Egypt, where all art in a modern sense had its origin, and remember that the principles of many of our sciences and industries wore conceived and developed by men truly noble and ibrave, who offered prayer and thanks to sculptured deities, these hewn gods and goddesses seem to glow with a real divinity, w.hich irradiates her ancient glory and illumines the intellectual march in the morning of its progress. Imaginative art, like poetry, essays the representation of an idea wholly as it appears to the mind; no art can fully grasp the plastic designs of fancy — "it cannot create what's loftier than its dream." No painter or poet ever undertook the. execution of a work until he had became familiar with it, until it had passied in review before his imagination. The careful narrative of scenes and incidents in Milton's -Paradise Lost" attests to the poet's imagination having actually beheld the terrible things which he describes, and the lamentations of the "Purgatorio" seem to have risen in hopeless wail upon the mind of Dante. In like manner Phydias, when carving the statue of "Athenae" or Jupiter, had before his mind an ideal of bodily beauty and perfection, for the imita- tion of which his best efforts and skill are diroc<^od. Imaginative art has de- rived its ideas chiefly from scriptural and historic sources, and the produc- tions of Greek sculpture consisted largely of deities for their temiplee, and from that period down to the sixteenth century the greatest achieve- ments of chisel and brush were dedi- cated to religious purposes. No people ever surrendered them- selves with more ardor to polytheism than the Greeks, and no people ever attained in intellect or civilization a higher standard of perfection. In no nation were the laws of art more clearly or forcibly illustrated. The Greek art was idea.1, and their poll- tics, philosophy and religion were In- deed a reflection and worship of their art. Types of the ideal abound in every field of their art; Homer's po- etry, Phidia's architecture and sculp- ture, Socrates' and Plato's philosophy, and Pericle's statesmanship fully at- test to the ideal nature of the Greek mind. They derived their deities from the poetical traditions of their peo- ple, and the influence of their worship permeated every avenue of life. From the most exalted function of state down to the retirement of the domestic hearth was believed to be under the controlling influence of its enthroned deitj'. Prior to and succeeding any momentous engagement it was a mor- al duty incumbent upon the chief par- ticipants to offer sacrifice with liba- tions to the gods, to which rites were frequently added a protracted enter- tainment of music, dancing and tra- gedy. As a rule the Greeks assigned each deity a separate temple, which of i t. r4 Itself became indeed an allegory of Ideal art, in this respect differing: from the Indo-Germanic tribes, who enthroned their gods in the open air It seems strange to reflect that the re- ligious system of a people, whose ex- ample in literature, politics and phil- osophy shall commend itself to remot- est posterity, should have experienced suoh utter efCacement and death. Strange that those sculptured deities, whic«h every Greek approached with the sincerest veneration. shotild emerge from an evolution of a score of centuries mere minature Venuses, Neptunes and Jupiters — ornaments for the drawing room and study. Man ever regards with careless in- terest those ancient rites which solaced the religious instincts of 'his ancest- ors. One cannot recall the rugged grandeur of the old Norse mythalogy, without a secret regret that the idea of those monster caldron-bearing, cavern-rending deities has forever passed from the world. As Carlyle ob^ serves, there is something pathetic in this last voice of paganism. The thun- der god Thor no longer grasps his hammer "till the knuckles grow white," and striding abroad rends Scandaniavian cliff and mountain ; times has undone his apotheosis and reduced him to the precints of the nursery — plain Jack-the-jiant-killer ! And what of Cihristianity today ? The simplicity of the truths as taught by .Jesus ihimself are such as were easily comprehended by the humblest fl Sherman in Palestine; but ecclesias- tical contrivance and ritual invention have since so multiplied that the ob- .<»ervation of the simple and essential virtues, originally inculcated, seem now iu the gorgeous pageantry of ec- clesiasticism, to be actually declining in importance. Do you not every- where observe the fruitless attempt at reducing to the precise terms and measure of a science, that which !s really only a distinguished example and a life, unparalleled and grand though it bo ? You hear much about reconciling religion with science, two things which should never have been compared, as though belief and knowl- edge were synonymous. Mer° knowl- edge can no more satify the religious nature of man than mere belief can direct some department of physical sclenice. The schism of the refonnation loos- ened the key-stone in the arch of the magnitioent organization of dogmatic Christianity, establisning therein a vulnerable point in permitting the in- dividual right of arbitrary interpreta- tion of the Scriptures, wliicn, wit its later consequences of higher criticism and divers contentions, .-:eems to threaten with decay ecclesiasticism itself. The nineteenth century seems likely to witness a greater revolution in the history of Christianity than was known to the period of the reforma- tion. Morality and dogmatic theology are likely isoon to part compary, but not however until the ethical endow- ment of the latter shall hnve become wholly the possession of the former. Modern Christianity boasts that its teachings alone inculcate the love of one's neighbor as himself, and such was the example of its beneficient founder. But what is the testimony of Christian nations ? We are wont to regard England as foremoet in the van of civilized and philanthropic pro- gress, and if you visit London and at- tend religious service in St. Paul's ca,thedral you will hear state episco- pacy exhorting the exercise of those precepts which have ever ennol^led and rendered delightful the conduct of our •5 i lare. If afterwards you visit tlie na- tional arsenal at Woolwich, and ob- serve i;s v.arlike activities, you will conclude that the fruits of its terrible industry bids not fair to hasten the time when the swords of all nations shall be beaten into ploughsihares, and their spears Into prunnin,«j hooks. Do^'3 that great nation really love her enemies, and seek to do good to them who hate her ? Who records of her thie example: "Resist not evil; if any one smites thee on the right che^k turn to him the other also?" Hasi not her practice been rather the creed of Is- lam: "Avenge every insult, wash out every offense with blood, your honor and profit demand it. Require ten fold comipensation for every insult; if it be not granted send warships to shatter and destroy." But some one oibserves: English arms have only been used to make way for the agencies of civilization, to relieve the distressed, and have rescued millions of dusky mortals from the bondage of ignorance and paganism. Ah! my friend, in this noble Christian dream olf philanthropic effort there ascends beyond the spectacle of your wretched heathen the alluring vision of Indian rupees and silks and rice and African diamond fields and ivory, and the precious blood of the poor pagan himself must be shed if he refuse yield- ing up as spoils to his Christian advis- sary the wealth of nature's endow- ment. If water chokefi what will you drink after it ? Qh ! Drittania, like some royal princess thou art fragrant with the incense of the tropics, reanote isles and distant lands like emeralds enwreath thy fair brow, cashmeres and tapestries from thy sorrowful Indian groves enfold thy shapely iform, suffer not thou the fate of the Tarperian maid, who from the burden of her jewels was precipitated down the cliff and perished. , , There have been three schPfds of per- fect art-^perfect in that they each con- formed as far as possible to truth and nature — which are known as the Ath- enian, Florentine and Venetian. In support of this assertion it only neexi be observed that the productionts of these three schools attained in their respective spheres a degree of artistic excellence that has never been sur- passed. The distinguishing feature of these three schools respectively are: Athenian art possessed the character- istic of physical perfection and out- line; the Florentine endowed their art with the quality of mental expansion, while the Venetians brought to the highest possible state the harmonious employment of colors. The few sur- viving specimens of Athenian art still remain models of fomi and sensuous beauty, the expression and emotion of the characters portrayed upon the ceil- ing of the Sistine chapel at Rome, in Michael Angelos' "Last Judgmient," have grown dim amid the rising in- cense of four turbulent centuries which have brought forth no rival; while the glowing scene of Tintoretto's " Para- dise," which Ruskin declares to be the thoughtfullest and the mightiest pic- ture in the world, with its reckless distribution of colors, together with the celestial allegory, constltU'tes a marvellous achle-vement that seems to have exhausted the very resources of art. To their schools are we chiefly indebted for the richest productions of ideal art. It was Florentine and Venetian art which brought forth the great raaster- pieces of fresco and mural decoration, that appear in the churches through- out Italy and Venice, which even in their present state of mouldering de- i6 cay command the admiration of pos- terity and attest to their authors hav- ing reached the highest altitudes of human conception and effort. "We have already noticed that art had its origin in the religloue service of primitive man, and curiously enough we shall perceive that down tnrough successive stages of his social and in- tellectual progrese a chaste and sin- cere art has also continued a recog- nized agent in his religloue rites, and doubtlessly in some form shall so con- tinue. For hundreds of year«i prior to the thirteenth century Byzantine art (by which alone the art of painting was throughout the middla ages pre- served in Europe) was maintained through the encouragement it received from successive popes and wealthy ecclesiastics. It was natural to suppose that its greatest efforts would thus be directed to the decoration of places of public worship with fitting subjects from sac- red history. During this period the Christian church permitted and en- couraged a clase of subjects emibraced in scriptural teaching, especially those representing Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and the sa'.ntly apostles, together with various circumstances of their lives. However, the early Christians soon distorted Greek art by imposing upon it the austere conventionalities of their church. In the fifteenth cen- tury, with the advent of Michael An- golo and Raphael, painting attained its highest degree of excellence, and from v.'hich period the spirit and efficiency of the art has gradually declined. The progress of Byzantine art now became lost in the life-like expression and chaste noble productions of their suc- cessors, and painting of Jesus Christ, the Madonna and other sacred per- sonages arose from the brushes of Raphael. Angelo and Titian, suffused with the very emotion of thought and life. If the art of mere form had pre- viously been recognized as a servic- ablo ally In religious instruction, cer- tainly now, whe-n its productions be- came additionally endowed with a life^ like expression of thought and emo- tion, the church would recognize its InflueTice and power none the less. For centuries the church had successfully utilized the productions of art as auxil- iaries in its devotional ejcercises, and with evident good reasons. By far the greater number of its niemibers were steeped in utter ignorance, and unable to read; indeed, had they been other- wise, their condition so far as a knowl- edge of the Bible was joncerned would have been but little different, for the few copies of the scriptures then In existence, together with the high price set upon them, rendered their general perusal impossible. Under these cir- cumstances the sense of sight became utilized as a certain and permanent avenue to the understanding and mem- ory, whereby the church might incul- cate the cardinal doctrines of its faith. There exists among Protestants a popular belief that the Roman Catholic church commands an exclusive mono- poly of h'cclesiastlcal art. It must be remembered that the Greek branch of the Christian church, probably at an earlier period than her Roman sister, recognized the advantage accruing from painted and sculptured represent- ations of a sacred character. The early Greek church contained an unmistak- able alloy of the Hellenic philosophy, which exercised a distinct influence upon its ecclesiastic art, as attested to by the facts that its productions tended to inspire thought and reflection, in this respect differing from the Roman images, which more frequently aimed \ \ 17 at arouslns the passions and feelinge. Thft Oreek ohurch hae ever shown a preference for Byzantine art, and to- day expressionless draped figures, ex- ecuted In a rude archaic etyle, are characteristic of its ecclesiastical em- beHlshment. Reformed Protestantism has found much to censure raape'cting' the poei- tion which art occupies in the Roman Catholic c'hurch. Whatever in this age may be one's opinion regarding the wisdom of a continuance of this an- cient system of devotional art, for cen- turies it doubtlessly afforded a power- ful influence in preserving and sus- taining, through a great crisis in our race, the essentials of a faith that shall long continue to ennoble man and ex- alt hie mind. During the first thir- teen centuries of our era the inteJlect of Europe was intensely lethargic and unreceptive, and often Imagination could alone be aroused by an apipeal addiessed to the senses. Images eymibolic of the cruclflction, etc., were effectual in arousing the most torpid mind, and frequently de- spite the authority of the church, the ignorant masses became blind to the merely symibolic character and offered worship to the image itself. Icono- claem within the Roman Catholic church has not been unknown, and as early as the sixfh century in pro- test of this we find Pape Gregory the Great declaring that "it is one thing to worship a picture and anotlier to iearn from the language of a picture what that is which ought to be wor- shipped. What those who can read learn by means of writing, that do the uneducated learn by looking at a pic- ture. That therefore ought not to have been destroyed which had been placed In churches, not for worship, tout solely for instructing the minds of the ignorant." The early reformers were by no means of one mind regard- ing the abolition of imagee from the churches. Luther himself ,had no sym- pathy with the Iconoclastic outbreaks of his time Notwithstanding that Protestantism has become aggressive in its attacks upon the painted Madonnas and saints of her ancient neighbors, it Is unde- niable that Protestant episcopacy also recognizes certain material acceesories, measurably inseparable from Its rites and ceremonies. What of the blaze of paintly images in the windows of its churches, the fixed attitudes of its priests, clad in rich vestments of order; the uniform position of the altar, per- chance surmounted by lighted tapers ? These are but rem^nante of the grand reflection of that iridescent orb wliich through the long night of the middle ages were permitted to kindle the passions of anan, that they might en- lighten his understanding. As already observed, with the advent of the Florentine school of painting came the possibility of reproducing true types of the ideal or vital beauty. To faithfully represent the human ex- pression art must ever summon the supremeet faculties of the mind, and one cannot study the various types of natural expression, e. g. those deline- ater in Raphael's "Transfiguration," without feeling that the great "lUlads" of the human mind can as faithfully be depleted by the brush as the pen. This was only to be accomplished by return to the dllUgent study of na- ture, the faithful Imitation of wlilch had already won for Greek art a name that stands today without a rival. The prevallling character of the pre-Ra- phael art was essentialiiy physical, as determined by outline and contour of iS body, but when th8 productions of the Florentine school stood forth, not merely perfect In outline, but with an expression flushed with the subtle re- flections of intellect and morality, we might well imagine it* noble founders to believe they had pierced the veil of finite visioTi, and there beheld the Ar- cana shuttles of Isls weaving the vie- Ible garments of God. Nothing tout the purest heart could translate the Im- puleee of the mind, nothing but the most earnest mind could understand the tender yearnings of love, nothing but sympathy could fathom the well- spring of affliction and grief. Pride, sensuality and cruelty, or whatever Is expressive of evil, now became ban- ished from productions of ideal beauty, and a Madonna painting that achieved this and successfully expressed a glow- ing emotion and tenderness became the recognized standard of the new school. If we undertake an analysis of the Intelligent and moral expres- sion, we shall perceive that the pres- ence of either of these signs of evil will degrade the human face and tarn- ish the radiance of those perceptions which struggle outward, and alone il- lumine the human countenance. Pride .and vanity, with their vicious spawn, have been the source of aill national downfall; such, history as you may— JeAvish, Spartan, Greek, Roman, and Venetian— this sad truth confronts you. They may become even more odiou3 than sensuality itself, since the latter has its root in the human pas- pions, and becomes vicious only when it exceeds the temperate needs of the l)ody. But pride and vanity are ever hostile to the impulses of good and noble deeds, and from their foolis^h self-exaltation with disdain continual- ly look down upon the world beneath them, not daring to raise their eyes lest they should above behold some- thing beyond the measure of their ov/n fancied greatness. A chastened pride may so operate that it will grace and adorn the dictates of wisdom and love, but only so when it obediently serves In rebuking the errors and purifying the purposes of the will. Pride that affects superior Intellectu- al endowment becomes at once a pro- test against all liberal culture of the mind, and the wisdom of ihd wc^rld no longer confounds the sun-like bril- liancy of original profound thoug'ht with the fitful pocket-like fla,sh of self- annogance and presumption. Great men are humble, do great things un- consciously, cannot tell how or why they do them, are guided by no law or rule — their work becomes the eluci- dation of law itself. Aristotle, Plato ani Bacon can't inform you how they achieved their original work, but the borrowed light of the shallow pedant becomes at once revealed in the vanity that illumines his mind. Civilization owes to beneficence and sympathy its many endowments for relief of human suffering and distress. True beneficence, unless blindfold, is unable amid the gaze of hungry multi- tudes to sit down to luxurious boards, and sympathy knows not the reproach of selfishly turning aside from the scenes of sorrow and distress by the way, but where calajmity or disaster open the flood gates of affliction and grief, there with flowing bowl and gentle hand it may be found bringing cheer and comfort. Along the path of art there tower no monuments to the memory of the Attillas and Jeffreys, those bloodhounds of our race, who brought naught but suffering and op- pression upon mankind; but the per- spective of history is strewn with lofty •■ I »9 i columns attesting to posterity's vener- handed down to man an unerilnir talo atlon for the memory of those phllan- of past time, that may be read by all throplc deeds that struck off the shac- who dllllgently enquire. We have seen kles of oppression, and bade happiness that these productions virtually be- and Justice dwell In the habitations of come strange object lessons marking suffeiing and wrong. the unconscious and Irrepressible Sensuality Is the bloated prlestes of struggle of the human mind towards bodily pleasure, who proffering Circe's expression, and whose alUgorlcal Ian- cup of enchantment, sinks in a degra- guage convoys to posterity precepts datlon of swinish surroundings the of the deepest meaning, honor and nobility of man. Like the The relation of art to Intellect hav- hearth-flre of the Vestal vlr^'ius of old, Ing been established, we shall endeav- chastened passion should pi..dfy the or to ascertain what concern It ha^ energies of the mind, and shef*. around with morality. Art dwells in the Its mortal temple the ennobling higher planes of maji's Intellect, and warmth of continent afTectlon and is conscious of no moral Impulse; the trust. passions never painted Chevanne's The indelllble Cain-like brand of "Bathers," or Tintoretto's "Marriage ferocity and cruelty dispells the beauty of Ariadne and Bacchus." But certain of the comliest face that it settles It is that within recent times art has upon; still the fiendish nature of the been dragged down to the sensual em- Pharoes, the Neroes, and the Ivans the brace of Immorality and became the Terrible, yet lurk in masses of our race, slave of an inflated voluptuousness. The primitive savage Who seeits your in the many dreams of imagination scalp for its own value is conscious of man has found no thome nobler than no base motive, but on the contrary is man, and earnestly regarded his na- guided by the noblest impulse of his tural picture never fails to excite ad- nature, whereas the civilized savage miration and wonder. This true art who today seeks your scalp only for invrrlably achieves, and it is only the contents of your purse has yet ex- when it becomes the minion of pas- perienced no ethical life, and for the sion that its fair creations become reason that tlie mills of civilization, flushed with seductive charms of sen- thous-h operating for centuries, have suality and lust. Greek art consisted been unable to grind out the heredit- chiefly in the production of nnytho- ary brutality of his nature. The dis- logical deities, which for obvious rea- tress of indigence, the innocence of sons were executed in the nude state, youth, the infirmity of age, alike ap- To the refined Helot the idea of a peal to it in vain; it seeks naught but draped figure of Venus would have a carnival of agony— insatiated by re- aroused a perfect revolt of the feel- plition, unwearied by rapine. ings— neither mantle or robe shall en- Thus far our enquiry has been di- cumber Aprodites' silver throne on rected chiefly to the relations of art the deep. Whether or not it was ow- to intellect and their reciprocal influ- ing to their art having originated in ences upon each other. We have seen the sculpture of mythological deities, that art has been the materialized ex- it is clear that the Greeks represeni- pression of earnest thought; that its ed their philosophers, statesmen and noblest productions have successively generals in a naked condition. Chisel- I 20 inff marble, says Reynolds, has ever been a most serious business, and the attempt at transmitting: to posterity the style of a contemporary dress Is purchased often at a ruinous price — the value, indeed, of everything that Is desirable in art. Greek sculptors therefore bade their creations In nak- edness leap forth from the solid rock, which early acquired a superior excel- lence, and to this day remain models unsurpassed for technical skill and perfection. Thus the Greeks, whether amid the sacred stillness of their tem- ple, or In the fragrant atmosphere of the groves were constantly surrounded with beautiful nude statuary reflecting the nobleness of its designers, the giandeur and simplicity of which ennobled their higher nature and rebuked those pas- sions which In our own day have with the scarlet and flue linen of lust In- vested itihe richest triumphs of art. A)9 De Quincy observes : The char- acteristic aim of painting is reality and life; of sculpture, Ideality and duration; the former is sensuous and concrete, the latter abstract and Im- aginative. Thus we perceive the im- perative need of taste in the selection alone of designs, and their adaptation to the realms of painting and sculpture respectivelj', and of the possible agree- able or ridiculous effe^^t of the draped or undra^ped figure. In nude sculp- ture this agreable effect is well illus- trated in the group of the Vigillian "LaoccMjn," or in Canova's "Theseus and the Centaur," and its utter ridic- ulousness was never more exemplified than in the sculptural burlesque, which a century ago v/ns seriously undertak- en and faithfully executed in the statute of Voltaire — an ima^e repre- senting with ghastly fidelity the moagre and attenuated anatomy of its original. Te.'hnUal wkill "*and a thorough knowledge of the human frame have exalted to the hlghi-st degree many modern productions of art, but these .same facti^rs have, through the Infec- tion of a sensual realism, also brought upon some of Its fairest creations an Imputed Immorality. " Nature cares nothing for chastity," say.s M. Ht-nan. and he might have truthfully added that a large number of his country- men are similarly disaffected. Nature, like pure womanhood handling her babe of an hour, indeed, cares nothing for chastity, but the fig-leaves of man's •moral consciousness have long rustled over the grave of his moral innocence. The immorality of France has in- fected not less extensively modern art than it has modern literature. The pure waters of art and literature as they flow down from their ancient fountains through this brilliant but deplorably abandoned nation, become foul and putrid from the festering scaffold and guillotine. We only re- alize the significance of this truth when we remember that independent of painting, of all existing schools of sculpture, by far the most impo-tant are the French. Here we flnd an art which hitherto had served to apotheo- size the image of man now degrading its wonderful creations, reflecting only the soft sensuous characters of the heroes and heroines of popular ro- mance. These productions are the natural progeny of the passions and pleasures of imodern France — inspira- tions of the vicious realism of her literature — dreams of George Sand and Emile Zola. Half a century ago France could exult in the posession of the literary models of Western Europe, but during the last fifty years the char- '■ .1 I v\ ai « acter of the mass of Its fiction has beon such as to command for It only a sur- reptltiouH perusal. *'N() modern author- ity has HO exclusively monopolized the art of exhibiting vice for itH own sake as Emile Zola. Among- English au- thors who nearest appcoach this method of Zola'^ we find STuoliet and Pieidingr ofthe last century, who occa- sionally manifest a reckless concern in portraying the lewd qualities of their characters. Rarely, however, does this occur from mere wantonness in these authors, but rather does it proceed from a cleaire that an Instance of im- morality may serve as a test of the endurance of virtue. But the disciples of M. Zola's school deipend upon eth- ical y^rounds, his continual exhibition of the filthy and beafltly side of hu- man nature, and declare that what he exhibits, while revolting, is truth, and that the responsibility for this deplorable state rests, not upon the teachings of realism, but upon natural man himself. True, M. Zola freciuently sliows a masterly hand In portraying idyllic scenes, which enhance the seductive- ness of his art, and is not wanting In a sen'ee of poetic beauty and humor, which, however, he seems disinclined to employ. An illustration of delight- ful Idyllic ])eauty occurs In "The Fate of Rugon," where the young lovers, Meltte amd Sllvere, have their first meeting. A wall separated the gar- dens of the homes where the girl and boy lived, which extended across the well which served both families. "The still waters," continues M. Zola, "reflected the two openings of the well, two half moons which the shadow of the wall above divided with a dark line. If you leaned over you seemed to see, in the vague llg^ht, two wonderfully clea^", brilliant mirrors. On sunny mornlniff. when the ropea did not Irlp and trouble the surface, these two moons shone distinct in the green water, and refiected with won- (len'ul -nlnuteness :he Ivy leaves that hung above the well. Very early one mo'-nlng, when Silvere was drawing water for the huiise, he chanced to atop over at tihe moment when he was nulling ihe roj.e. A thrill ran thr )a{?h him. he 'emalned motionless, bending over the water. At the bottom of the well he thought he saw a girl's smiling face looking up at him, but he had shaken the rope, and the trou- bled water was now a dim mirror that rellected nothing clearly. He waited tin the well grew still again, he did not dare move; his heart was beating hard. As the wrinkles on the water widened and died away he saw the figure begin to grow again. Long It wavereil In the dancing pool, which gave a vague, sihadowy beauty to the apparatlon. At last It grew steady and clear. There was Meltte's smiling face, her bright kerchief, her white bodice, with its blue bands. Then iSilvere saw his own shadow In the other mirror. The two shadows nod- dei at each other, at 'first they never thought of speaking." The beauty and simplicity of this scene In unsurpass- ed, and one would have fain hoped that fortune had in store for the fairy- like Mfitte a gentler fate than the bullet of insurrection that the author aban ions her to. Here for a moment M. '^ola appears at his best, but such instances are rare; rather does he pre- f .r to dwell upon some scene of brutal riebauchery, for example the seduction and cruelty inflicted upon the poor lame girl Gervaise Maquart, or gloat over the amours of the garret, or the knowledge of secret and nameless In- iquities. Beyond doubt he accurately i ■ .g^mfi «»*»•.-*.*» » . 22 m m represents what is Pithy and detest- able in human nature, but he repre- sents it out of al'l just proportion and reason, and seldom endows ihis char- acter with a quality that does not ac- centuate some depraved and abomin- able habit. The contention that the vicious side of life should, in fiction, be suppressed is puerile and foolish, but its management demands the se- lection of p v^erage types of human character, and the prudent direction of immoral narrative, to the end of arousing the sympathy of virtue and rebuking the excesses of passion. M. Zola's genius has an affinity for fhe antith.^sis of purity and nobleness, the semblence of these attributes he may use only to disgui.se the seductive crea- tions of his imaginp.tion. &o pro- nounced in this morbid faculty in this author that were he to acompany you as guide to Versailles, instead of show- ing you the elaborate architecture and the beautiful fountains of the city, ihe would instinctively introduce you to the scullery of the palace, and lead yu through the wretched slums of ignorance and filth. Were he to es- cort you through Venice, instead of pointing out the matchless grandeur of the church of St. Mark or the mag- nificent Ducal palace vith its treasury of art, he would lead over the bridge of sighs into the state prison of the old Doges iown into its dungeons, oppressive ■ with the accumulated mould and slime of centuries, and there in an eostacy of delight point to the hea\/ chains that often in cruel embrace had bound merely the natur- al man, long after reason had taken its flight, or describe in detail the horrible banquets of human suffering, which generations ago had there been invoked in the name of Venetian tyranny. Thus we find since the close of the sixteenth century that art has suffered a degradation of those acquired endownients which originally gave premise of lasting nobility and gran- deur. Prior to this time it owed its productions chiefiy to the inspiration of religion and patriotism, and pa- tiently and earnestly labored that they might represent nature and truth. Since that time it has become more and more the slave of a classic sen- suality, and imaginative art seems no longer inclined to conform to stand- ards of nature and truth, but recog- nizing certain social signs of the age, fashions its productions to the nod of popular opinion and precon(!eived ideas of wihat is right. It has ever been its function to reproduce the physical beauty of man, and with depth of color and radiance of emotion and sympathy, kindle it with the ex- pression of life. The popular mind, which slakes its feverish thirst in the sensual fountain of M. Zola's realism, cares little for the mysterious fires that slumber in the eye, the strange lines which encircle the lips, or the shadowy modulations of the brow; a regular face, with a brawny arm and a swelling calf constitutes its ideal of manhood, while the measure of vital beauty as represented in the frail dowagers and prima-donnas of today consists of a dimpled face, an uncov- ered bosom, a finely moulded ankle and a dainty foot. Nor are these un- seraphic produetione of art found alone in the galleries and the drawing-rooms of the world. A vapid semblance of the once honored art of painting hag become solely the posee'ssion of com- , merce, and the mercbandise of na- tions is literally branded with gaudy images of expressionless lusty viragoe, \ \ 23 and dull, meaningless Cup-ids and Ve- of sympathy ancl love dwell upon the nusee. Paesion has corrupted the human face, or nobility rests upon his sacred function of art, and with the form; though, perchance, the tide of heated wine of illicit desire adminis- civilization should recede within the ters the sensual pleasure of man. obscure caverns of its birth, and re- But true art oan never die. While mote ages should behold the lapse of the emerald waste of ocean murmur- the human intellect into its primitive ir^-^ sinks in the magic spell of slum- state of credulity and awe, and should ber, or shrieks and battles with the witness reason in terror shrink from tempest's fury ; while cloud-crowned the marvellous phenomena of nature, mountains tower in rugged might, or and renounce its pursuits in philosoply russet plains and dreamy vn'e?. unfold and ecience, art shall flourish in the their vernal vesture ; while aurora faitihful interpretation of the human gilds the gates of morning with her mind, whether it be in the rude de- scrolls of burnished gold, or night's sign of the untutored savage, or in deepening crimison curtains gather o'er emulating the inspired, creations of yon western hills; while the expression Tintoret or Raphael ! } {■