Sacramento daily record-union., 1882-01-21

less realization. Phidias and the achieve
| ment OF Greek art are foreshadowed In
| Homer /; Dante profgures for us the passion
and color and intensity of Italian painting
the modern love of landscape dates from
Rousseau and it is in Keats that one dis
Germs the beginning of the artistic renais.
sance of England. Byron was rebel and
Shelley dreamer, but in the calmness and
| clearness of his vision, his self-control, his
unerring sense of beauty, and his recogni.
tion of separate realm for the imagina.
tion, Keats was the pure and serene artist,
the forerunner of the pre- Raphaelite school,
and so of the great Romantic movement
OF which am to speak.
If you ask nine- -tenths of the British
| public about the pre-. Raphaelites you will
| hear something about an eccentric lot of
| young men, to whom belong q sort of di-
vine crookedness and holy awkwardness
| in drawing all the chief objects of art.
| To know nothing about their great men is
one of the necessary elements of English
education. [Applause.l The pre- Raphael
ties were a number of young poets and
painters who banded together in London
| about thirty years since to revolutionize
English poetry and painting. They had
three things which the English public never
| forgive-youth, power, and enthusiasm.
| [Applause. Satire paid them the homage
which mediocrity pays to genius. Their
detractors blinded the public, but simply
confirmed the artists in their convictions.
To disagree with three.fourths of all Eng
land on all points is one Ct the first ele-
| ments of sanity. Applause.
| Pre-Rsphaelism was, above all things, a
return to nature-to draw and paint moth.
| ing but what was seen. With the joining
of William Morris and Edward Burne
Jones to the original band came changes.
The latter brought to painting more
exquisite choice, more faultless devotion
to beauty, more intense seeking after per.
| fection. He felt that the close imitation
of nature was disturbing element in i'm
aginative art The artist can exchange no
theory of life for life itself. For him there
is no escape from the bondage of the earth;
there is not even the desire of escape. He
| is the only true realst. 1t was said that
the storm of revolution blows out the torch
of poetry; but the desire for equality has
produced the most gigantic intellects that
the world has ever seen. The revolutionary
period was one of measureless production
and OF meaSureless despair.
The poetry of Morris, Swinburne and
Rosetti shows style flawless and fearless,
sustaining consciousness of the musical
value of each word as opposed to that value
which is merely intellectual, distinct ad-
vance in technique which is the character
istic of all great ideas. While, then, the
material for workmanship is being elabo-
rated, what people call the inspiration of
poets has not escaped the controlling influ-
| ence of the artistic spirit Not that the
| imagination has lost its wings, but we have
| accustomed ourselves to count their innu.
merable pulsations, to estimate their linn
| itless strength, to govern their ungOverna.
BILE freedom.
In choosing his subject the artist is the
! spectator of all time. Past and present are
alike real to him. For him no form is OBJ
solete, no subject out of date. But all
things are not fit subjects for poetry. Into
the sacred house of Beauty the true artist
will admit nothing which is harsh or dis.
| turbing nothing about which men argue.
The simple utterance of Joy is poetry. Po-
etry is not mere personal private pain. The
real experiences of the artists life are al
ways those which do not find their express
sion in his work, but seem to be gathered
up and absorbed into mere artistic form,
which seems from such real experience to
be furthes5 removed and most alien. Art
will not harm itself by keeping alive the
discussions and social problems of the day
By so doing it more completely realizes for
us that which we desire, for it brings to
many of us the real life-the life which we
do not feel. To the artist the present is
not more real than the past. For him no
form is obsolete, no subject out of date.
All lies before him like an open SCROLL If
he writes of the subjects of the present, of
free trade, of bimeJsllic currency, it will
be. as Milton expresses it, with his left
hand, in prose, and phrase, and pamphlet,
not lyric.
So 1t comes to pass that he who seems
furthest removed from tis age, it is he who
really mirrors it best for us, because he
strips life of what is accident tal, of what is
transitory he strips it of that familiarity
which makes life so obscure to US. So in
our own day, the tendency of the nine-
teenth century is the pantheistic tendency.
l agree with what was said by Burne Jones
about the dreadful effects of modern sci
ence He said, "The more materialistic
science becomes, the more angels | shall
paint; that is my protest in favor of the
immortality of the soul" Applause.
Whatever spiritual message an artist
brings to his age is matter for his own SOUL
1t is for US to do naught but accept his
teaching. But our restless modern intel
lectual spirit is not receptive enough. Only
a few have learned the secret of those high
hours when thought is not. The secret of
the influence Of Japanese art here in the
West is that it has kept true to its primary
and poetical conditions, and has not had
laid on it the burden of its own intellect
ual doubts, the spiritual tragedy of it's own
sorrows. In it's primary aspect painting
has no more spiritual message than an ex-
auisite fragment of Venetian glass. 1t is
a certain inventive and creative handling
of line and color which touches the soul
something entirely independent of any
tang poetical on the subiect-something
satisfying 10 itself. and in poetry, the pleas
ure comes from what Keats calls the sensual
life of verse, an inventive handling of
rhythmicai language. And criticism, what
place is that to have IN our culture? /
think the frat duty of an art critic is to
hold his tongue at all times and upon all
subjects. [Laughter.l The true critic ad-
dresses the public-not the artist ever
the public only. 1t is the critics place to
teach the public to find in the calm of art
the highest expression of their own most
stormy passions. " have no reverence,
said Keats, '' for the public or anything in
existence but the Eternal Being, the men,
ory of great men, and the principle of
beauty"
Such, then, is the spirit which l believe
to be guiding and underlying cur English
renaissance. But it is incomplete. There
can be no great sculpture without beau
tiful national life, and no drama without
noble national life. The commercial spirit
of England has killed both beauty and no.
bility.
Consider the warm and full. colored beau
ties of the more artistic cities of the old
world past as school of design. and then
take look at the worn and dreary appear
ance of any modern city; sombre dress of
men and women, the barrenness of color.
the colorlessness of surroundings. With
out beautiful national and natural life
not sculpture only. but all the arts. be-