The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-05-21 00:00:00

LORD ROSEBERY ON ART AND
ARTISTS.

In London, on Saturday evening, the sixty-sixth anni-
versary festival of the Artists' General Benevolent Institu-
tion (founded in 1814 for the relief of distressed artists,
their widows, and children) took place in Willis's Rooms.
Upwards of 300 gentlemen sat down to dinner.

The Earl of Rosebery presided, and in proposing
the toast, " Prosperity to the Artists' General
Benevolent Institution," remarked that the toast
divided itself naturally into two divisions, one being
sympathy with art and the other sympathy with
mankind. As to sympathy with mankind, their
presence there showed that he need not enlarge
upon that topic. But as regards sympathy with
art that was a very different business. He felt
himself in a region where he hardly dared to
tread, and where, if he could imagine the feelings
of angels, he thought they would rather take to
their wings. (Laughter and cheers.) It was not
from a theoretical view of the subject that he
made these remarks, but it so happened that the only
remark he ever made on art he made the other day,
and the result was most unfortunate. He had said
that a human being could not be worse for the con-
templation of Fm a Angelico, but might even be the
better for it. He went to bed feeling that he had
done something to help the human race. But what
were his feelings the next morning when he nail that

he had been made to say that anybody would be the
better for the contemplation of Fra Diavolo. (Loud
Nugliter.) They
.conld, therefore imagine that he had
the greatest delicacy in dealing Ain this pubject ;
and there was furthermore this to bo s“d
that if one made a remark upon art it was pretty
sure to be old, and then the audience said, " What
business has this fellow to come down upon us with
his old and trite stuff? Away with him." Or if it
possessed the charm of novelty one was sure to be
cursed with bl, book, and candle by the Royal
Academy as a heretic in art. (Lu{;liter.!Ju onalysing
his knowledge of art with a view to this banquet, he
found that it was confined to, two proverbial expres-
sions. One of these was that art is the handmaid of
nature—an expression with which he ventured in some
way to disagree, for it seemed to him that a truer ex-
preasion cf art in relation to nature would be to say
that sho reserriblee ritarcah a magitlians in comparison
with Moses that they were able, with const'.minr,te der:-
terity, to imitate all but a supreme miracle. Art could
give them a dream of beauty and of melody; art could
give and derive lustre from the humblest objects ;
art could make tragedy pleasing and give a pathos to
comedy, but she could not pretend for, one moment to
catch the varying beauties of the storm or he sunset,.
Art in one respect was superior to nature. IN atun
gave them the beautiful haphazard and as if by acci-
dent—one day affording ample sunshine and the
other veiling the landscape in mist, whereas the true
function of art was ever to be studying, however, re-
motely, to aim aft er the beautiful. One objection might
be made to this—that portrait painting, when the sub-
ject was uninteresting for want of emihen'•:e or Want
of personal attraction, formed an exception to that
theory, but he asserted in reply that in this case art
was only making the best of a very bad bargain— '
(19ughter)—but she would not have chosen the subject
herself, but nevertheless did her best to refine and
beautify it. The second of the proverbial expressions
was "Are longa, vita brevis eat." He took that in a,
serious spirit. He believed that no one could ti.nder-
stand history until they saw the old paintings which
adorned the palaces of Venice, which were as fresh
in their colour as when they were painted, which
had seen the short-lived splendour of the Doges and
the Republic itself pass away, which had seen the
occupation of the French, the Austrians, and the
Italians with the same imposing beauty, until they
appeared to mankind to be superior to events, to
regard with indifference the decay of empires and
the flight of time. (Cheers.) Many of those pre-
sent had seen that painting of his own apotheosis
which after all human means had failed cheered
the dying moments of the Emperor Charles V. Look-
ing with their eyes at what he saw with his dying
eyes did they not feel that there was a link in paint-
ing which overstepped time, and that there was some-
thing in art 'flora enduring than empire, or, he might
say, than time itself. (Cheers.) But he would not
cling to this view of the proverb, but would take it in
connection with this associaticn. The popular idea of
, the artist was a very simple one—he had a long
beard, wore a velvet coat, smoked a great deal,
occasionally studied from the antique, and in mo-
ments of splendid inspiration dashed off master-
pieces. (Laughter.) But this audience knew that in
art, as in every other calling, eminence was only to
be won by the hardest and most unremitting labour
—(cheers)—labour which was very often unsoftened by
the possession of pecuniary means. The outer world
were very apt to take their ideas of art and of artists
from Thackeray's pictures of Mr. Gandish and his
pupils in "The Newcomes." But in the autobiography
and diaries of Haydon, than which there was hardly a
more tragical book in the English language, they found
that that eminent man was in constant difficulties
under the most sordid pressure for the smallest sums
of money, yet that he was always able to turn away
from the miserable cares that oppressed his life and
take refuge in a true and loving sympathy with his
art. (Cheers). Often a very small sum would have
enabled that man to have devoted his whole mind un-
distracted by care to the composition of great pictures.
Now, this institution gave not annuities but this tem-
porary assistance where it was required, coming like
a guardian angel to rescue a deserving man out of his
difficulties. (Cheers.) Annuities often did more
harm than good. Small aids of money occasionally
and judiciously applied were in these cases much better.
The investigations were carried on by practical artists
themselves, and the charity was the most cheaply
administered in London. (Cheers.)

After commending the Orphans' Fund, Lord Rose-
bery closed with an appeal for subscriptions to the
institution, resting it not merely on the claims which
art had upon them, but on the fact that the men
who embraced art as a calling did so not be3ause it
was to their advantage materially, but because there
was a diviner voice within them which bade them
follow art as a profession. As time went on the
affection with which art first inspired her devotees
only increased; theirs was a labour of love, but labours
of love did not put money into their pockets. (A Voice:
"No,") He heard a voice of singular emotion re-echo
that statement. (Laughter.) He asked them to do
their duty to the institution as appreciators of the
beautiful and sympathisers with mankind. (Cheers.)
The reading of a very satisfactory subscription list,
amounting to a total of considerably more than £2,000,
of which a sum exceeding £BOO was contributed by
the Arts Sketching Club, closed the proceedings.