Rather than recognizing Victorian opportunities for a new art, they saw only the democratic destruction of what they took to be aristocratic culture. In her fury this elegant nymph has rammed her thumb into Polyphemus's right eye, which she is just gouging out. Conceive the man who shall purchase this work or art, and sit down to dinner daily in the presence of the last yell. As Atkinson complained, Art, in common with other products of genius, has had to descend from her high pedestal, and become popular in sympathy and secular in spirit. Thus the people, both for evil and for good, have, throughout Europe, grown into a power, and pictures, accordingly, are made to pander to the wants of a dominant democracy.
Painters paint down to the level of the multitude.
For almost three decades one can observe Atkinson of Blackwood's , who is typical of many conservative critics, express his dismay at the effect of democracy upon the arts. It was not only the prevalence of homely portraiture and domestic scenes which troubled him, but also the fact that realistic styles, including the Pre-Raphaelite, had triumphed.