Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1878-06-13

ARTISTS AND ORtTIC5. - Every body
can understand decentralization snd
enjoy rldicale, but not everybody
knows any thing whatever about
painting. Indeed, 'art' is SO deep a
mystery to most persons that there
is general shyness of trusting ones
own Judgment against vigorous
and aggressive opinion. A loiterer
in the present exhibition of the Ma.
tional Academy may secretely like a
picture, but he is not as all sure that
he ought to like it, aud if he hears
the excellence of the work chal.
lenged with a fine air of superior
knowledge. he makes no fight because
to plead his taste may be merely to
disclose what q horrible taste it is.
Strident, thwacking, resounding crit
lcism has undoubtedly great effect.
When an aticie begins, aThis will
never do the reader is at once pre-
pared to see impotence and absurd
lty wherever the guide points them
out. A late writer says of Tom
Moore, who had as little conscierce:
Gle reviewed the poems of Lord
Thurlow 10 that slashing, hectoring,
omnipotent way which Jeffrey
thought the ideal of criticism, and
which our fathers liked. as they did
boxing, bull batting, and, cock-6ght-
ing. A glance at the reviow-if we
may SO term massacre in which no
quarter is givon-wiil satisfy one
that Moore was as clever aud unfair
as could be desired in an .Edinburqh
reviewer, {. D., 1871" Macaulay
whacked add smashed In the same
way, and in Blackwood and Fraser
criticism was often mere pretense
for dextrous sarcasm and ridicule, 10
which the sole consideration was the
amusement Of the reader. truth,
justice, tho encouragement of litera-
ture aud art, were no more consid-
cred than tho fselings of tho victim
who was -tsfsssy -55aa;ssethesed to make
an English holiday.
This is business which no hon.
orable or generous man will excuse.
But the reason that forblds it i'm
poses the supreme condition in the
tone of all criticism, that it shall be
humane. A man who goes to the
Acadamy exhibition intending to
write about the pictures in news
paper. can of course write as he
chooses. But there is none the less
a way in which be ought TO choose
to write. He ought. for instance,
to consider the immense power at
bis disposal. He has the opportun-
ity OF speaking to thousands and
thousands of persons more than can
see the pictures, or who will have
any other association with most of
the painters names than such "a the
article gives them. On the other
band the artists are men honestly
and faithfully engaged in pursuit
by which they hope to make hv-
ing They may have mistaken their
vocation. They may be conceited
and ignorant. They may pain, very
bad pictures, in the opinion of the
critic. But ths offender against the
critics conceptions of what true art
is and what the true canons of art
ought to be is not like an offender
against the moral law, whose can
mons are engraved upon the common
consciousness of men. So far 90
canous of art are concerned, il is
difference of opirioo, and the made
quate performance is at least an hon
est intention. To be smart at the
expense of the painter, who can not
defend himself,and whoss work does
not defend him-because tn ,se who
laugh at the ridicuIe do not know
whether the pic ure be good or bad,
is merely 10 be literary bully, and
to lose the respect of those who love
fair play.-EDIToR's EASY CHAIR, in
H0rper's Magazine for June.