ART. In the fine arts mere imitation is always fruitless; what we borrow from others must be again, as it were, born in us, to produce a poetical effect. SCHLEGEL. VII. ART. COMFORT and utility are too exclusively the national ideal, for art to be other than an exotic plant in England; where it is an indigenous product, the result, though often exquisite, is limited. A few deservedly celebrated native artists illustrate this department of human culture; but they are comparatively isolated. In no broad sense can art be said to have attained the dignity of a national language, an expression and representation of the universal mind, as in ancient Greece, modern Italy, and Germany. The sense of beauty and devotion to the ideal, are rare exceptions, not normal phases of English character. As a general truth, it may be declared, that art flourishes in Great Britain socially as an aristocratic element; popularly, under a humorous guise; and professionally, in the lives of a small number of men of decided genius. The absence of taste is manifest, at once, in the dwellings, the costume, and the ordinary arrangements of life; and when a shape or a scene arrests the eye by its artistic merit, they are usually related to convenience and economy. In the landscape gardening, railway dépôts, cutlery, fireplaces, bridges, pottery, and hay-ricks, we often see the most striking grace, appropriateness, and skill; but seldom do the same characteristics assert themselves in domestic architecture or statuary. A tunnel, brewery, or chintz pattern, are more significant of the national mind than exclusive forms of art. Beauty is chiefly allied to the service of trade and wealth. In vehicles and ship-building the Americans excel their brother utilitarians. As a use art is prolific in England, as an aspiration sterile. The superb private collections are made up almost entirely of foreign pictures; and these, from the fact of their being an individual luxury, instead of a popular blessing, as on the continent, testify, like the conservatories filled with tropical flowers, to a rare and costly gratification. Look at the history of national development in literature, and on the stage, and how exuberant is the product, and general the appreciation, compared with that which attends the fine arts. We have been reproached with our absurd imitation of classic models in public buildings, designed for purposes of mere convenience or traffic; but there are more anomalies in stone in London than of wood in the cities of America; no specimens of incongruous architecture can outvie many of the churches of the British metropolis. Club-houses boast there the most expensive embellishment; Cruikshank is the most popular limner; the engraver often grows rich, while the historical painter is driven to suicidal despair. And, in the case of successful men of genius, in the higher branches of art, what is the process of their triumph over financial difficulties? that of noble patronage or academic favor. The most lucrative sphere of painting in England is portraiture; and to render it such, great ability must coincide with the endorsement of a clique, and the prestige of fashion. Reynolds and Lawrence were the oracles of the Royal Academy, and the pets of the aristocracy. Flaxman, Barry, and Gainsborough, were unappreciated while they lived. St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey are grand and memorable exceptions to the general dearth of architectural grandeur in a city of unequalled magnitude. There are, too, special causes which limit the enjoyment of such art as does exist. To view pictures is a contemplative act, one which demands time and self-possession; and he who has once acquired the habit of musing, by the hour, in the tribune of the Florence gallery, or passing days in the halls of the Vatican, will scarcely endure twice the martyrdom of being led around by a gabbling cicerone, with a flock of other victims, to catch |