an exaggeration. Since then, one of these two artists said that since the death of Ingres, there was no longer any painting in France. The intensity of these prejudices involves, as the reader has already perceived, very great injustice to all artists without the pale, just as the intensity of religious bigotry involves injustice to heretics; but I fear it must be acknowledged that we have never yet obtained the good fruits of bigotry and intolerance without their evil fruits-that if we will have the steady self-devotion of the believer to labours which are not likely to receive any earthly reward, we must bear with his scorn of the labours of others, and his gross injustice to all who work upon principles independent of his creed. When the classical prejudices die out, and give place to broader and more philosophical views of art, classical pictures will cease to be produced. The picture is the result of the prejudice, just as the good works of a sister of charity are the result of beliefs which involve the condemnation of heretics. The fact is, that the training necessary to the production of a classical picture of unquestionable merit is so terribly long and severe, that no one would go through it who had not the support of intense convictions; and it will be seen that with the decline of the classical religion in art (for the creed had all the characteristics of a religion) there has been a relaxation in practical discipline, just as when national religions decline there is usually some relaxation in morality. A critic of art is nothing if he is not philosophical, but it is not necessary to a practical artist to be philosophical, and the beliefs about art current in the ateliers have never been truly critical. They have been useful, however, in this, that by a certain unanimity within the walls of the atelier certain doctrines obtained authority enough to save young artists from the greatest of all evils, the practical inactivity which results from the want of an authoritative theory, or from the conflict of rival theories, amongst which a young man must make a choice before he can heartily set to work, yet cannot do so in any final and assured manner simply because he is a young man, and has not yet ascertained by experiment the relation between his own faculties and this or that theory. When a set of doctrines are forced upon him by the authority of a master, and of many elder fellow-pupils who all say the same thing, it saves him at least from practical hesitation and inactivity; he does something, he learns something, and goes forward a little every day, though perhaps not precisely in the direction best suited to his especial idiosyncrasy. The danger of a set system of classical art teaching is, that the freshness and elasticity of some really precious natural faculty may be diminished or annihilated by the implacable severity of the long

classical training, and that this has occurred in many instances I have no doubt, though from the nature of the case it is not possible to prove it. We must remember that the classical theory does not admit such art as that of Turner, Courbet, Daubigny, &c., to be art at all; that modern art generally exists in spite of classicism; and that its prosperity, and even its very existence, are an offence to classicism. Now if the classical training could crush the love of nature out of the pupil's mind, at least that independent love of nature which leads to revolt against its authority, it would certainly do so, and has already done so in only too many instances. This is the danger of the system. Painters who might have been happy if their consciences had been left free to select what suited them in nature, and who would then have produced work genuine after its kind, have been taught to believe that their natural instincts. were a vulgar error, and have, therefore, spent their lives in the production of work which is spurious, which gives no satisfaction to the workman, and none to the public-which is neither agreeable in the making, nor saleable when it is made-which has neither spiritual nor material value, and replenishes neither the intellect nor the purse. It is true that the popular and successful artists have most of them passed through the ateliers, but they have either forgotten their education altogether, or retained only just so much of it as might be useful, casting aside the classical principles, whilst they retained and kept up the knowledge of the human figure which was the substantial groundwork of the classical education. When there is but a feeble pictorial faculty, the practice of making studies from the nude for so many consecutive years fixes itself into an irresistible habit, and the painter never does anything but academy studies of the nude, thinly disguised under the name of some Greek divinity or nymph. When the pictorial faculty is stronger, it overcomes the habit, and produces pictures less by the help of it, than in spite of it.

Now there is a well-known argument in favour of all existing institutions, which has been resorted to in this instance, and will no doubt (for it is very convenient) be resorted to again and again. We are told that trees are known by their fruits; and then some great exhibition of modern pictures,-such, for instance, as the Exposition Universelle of 1867-is pointed to as the fruit of the classical discipline; which is about as accurate as it would be to point to modern philosophy and scientific discovery as fruits of the Church of Rome. No doubt, in a certain sense this may true. If the ground had not been prepared by the Renaissance, it is highly probable that Modernism would have been less perfect in study than it is; and in the same sense the Church of Rome,

be

by maintaining culture in the dark ages, prepared the way for the modern scientific and philosophical development. But before modern thought and science could hold their ground, they had to rebel against her authority; and so before modern art has been able to hold its ground, it has had to rebel against classical authority; and there have been four distinct rebellions of this kind in Europe, namely, Romanticism, Realism, Pre-Raphaelitism, and now Modernism, which in France they are beginning to call Modernité. After all these rebellions the classical doctrine needs extraordinary assurance to claim the fruits of revolt against itself as its own fruits, in any direct or immediate sense. It is as if England were to claim the independence of the United States as a fruit of the wisdom of her policy, when everybody knows that it was won in spite of England. Claims of this kind are, however, constantly put forth by the advocates of declining systems; and when all the strength of intolerant opposition has been vainly expended against the advance of the new ideas, the ancient orthodoxy claims them as its own, and points to them as fruits which prove how much sap is still left in the old tree.

Next month I hope to describe accurately the kind of life that is led in a Parisian atelier, and the curious public opinion that so rigidly governs it; but I have not space to do this properly here, and prefer to say a few words about what have always seemed to me two great defects in the Parisian system of art-education, in comparison with the system which was in vogue in Italy in the sixteenth century.

The first is, that the pupils are constantly doing studies, and do not see pictures painted. The difference between a study and a picture is so very great, that it does not at all follow that a man who can do good studies should be able to paint pictures, or should have pictorial conceptions of any kind; and there can be no doubt that it would be in most cases a great advantage to the pupil, to live habitually in the presence of canvases in progress. The thousand opportunities of observation as to means used which constantly occur when a pupil has continual access to a work in progress, and the fascinating interest of a canvas that slowly becomes a picture, are sure to teach him a great deal; and, unfortunately, the French system, by keeping the pupils at a distance from the master, deprive the majority of them of these advantages, although it is true that a favourite pupil is sometimes admitted to greater intimacy, and even invited to help the master upon important works. These cases, however, are very exceptional; the pupils of a French painter work usually in a studio at a distance from that where he himself paints, see nothing of his practice, and hear nothing of his

opinions about the construction of pictures, only criticisms on mere studies. This is compensated for to some extent by studies for composition, which involve, of course, much that is strictly pictorial; but the fact remains, that the students are, for the most part, kept at a distance from the easel of the master, and so lose the benefit of practical example, and the invaluable initiation which it gives. So wedded are people to existing systems, that they will coolly set aside as impracticable some other system which has been followed with the best results; and I remember that some years ago, when I discussed this very question in the Reader, I was told that it would be impossible for a master to admit pupils into his own studio, and the idea was treated as a suggestion which no one acquainted with the practical work of art would have made, or at least which such a person would immediately withdraw. But the fact is, that the Italian masters did live in that relation with their pupils which I believed to be desirable; and further, that the pupils never hindered them in the production of works which have neither been surpassed nor even equalled in this century. If living artists are so much in fear of being interrupted, that they cannot endure the presence of silent and studious pupils, how does it happen that they receive all sorts of talkative visitors, and that the studies of so many of them are lounges? When pupils are at work around you, the atmosphere of the room is an atmosphere of discipline and labour, highly favourable to the steadiness of your own application; for have you not to set the example?-but when you are surrounded by visitors you have to work in an atmosphere of idleness. Again, you need not be polite to pupils; it is understood that you are not to be interrupted. If a pupil goes out, you are under no obligation to lay your palette down and escort him; if he is talkative, and the talk plagues you, you are not obliged to tax your brain to take a share in it, as you are when ladies and gentlemen talk to you; you tell the pupil to hold his tongue, and you cannot tell Lady X. to hold her tongue. Géricault admitted pupils into his own studio, and it was a characteristic of Géricault not to be able to work at all if there was the least noise; so the pupils took care to make none. For some other reasons the association of master and pupils would be an advantage to both; but the consideration of these must be deferred till we have minutely described the life in a French atelier.

269

MR. BAGEHOT ON MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD.

By J. R. SEELEY, M.A.

THE proposal to create a great teaching University for London has recently been discussed by one who may claim, in this matter at least, to represent as fairly as any man living, the present London University. Mr. Bagehot may not please the new constituency so well as Mr. Lowe, but a bystander who wishes to discover the opinion of the most intelligent members of it, cannot do better than listen to this able writer. He might apply to the London University the old endearing title of Alma Mater, at least if examining is among the more endearing functions of maternity; he does actually say that he was "educated at" it. His article, therefore, which appeared in the Fortnightly for June, entitled "Matthew Arnold on the London University," may be taken, if not as the answer of the London University to Mr. Arnold's suggestion, yet as indicating pretty accurately what such an answer would probably be.

It amounts to this, that to make the London University a teaching body, is a thing desirable in itself, but one which was actually tried and found impracticable, that the University such as it is, that is, an examining, but not a teaching body, is not to be regarded as a mutilated or imperfect institution, but rather a new invention, and "one of the first magnitude;" that, however, Universities have a third function, that of diffusing thought and intelligence by means of first-class popular lectures addressed to first-class audiences; that this function the London University might probably undertake with advantage, though in doing so it would have to contend with serious difficulties.

In the first number of the LONDON STUDENT I discussed this subject in a paper to which Mr. Bagehot refers in flattering language. His essay, however, is not an answer to me, but to Mr. Arnold. My view is not altogether the same as Mr. Arnold's, and I should like briefly to explain my position with respect to both sides in this controversy.

It is important not to be led astray by the mere name London University. When Mr. Arnold says that the London University does not afford first-rate instruction, and Mr. Bagehot answers that it finds it impossible to do so, both writers are thinking exclusively of Burlington House. London students can get first-rate instruction on most subjects. They can learn Greek from Mr. Malden, English from Messrs. Brewer and Morley, Natural Science from Messrs. Huxley and Tyndale. If