The People's Share In Art.

its historical and poetical interest , and affording a rough-and-ready view of other times and countries . Take the great historical events of our own country . Where was the common Englishman , and how , to study them in pictures aud sculpture ? Such did not exist for the common man ; and their not

existing was , he considered , a great disgrace and detriment to the country . How , then , might they exist ? They might exist not only in frescoes and in sculpture , but in cheap lithographic prints , which could be circulated by the million . In the Houses of Parliamentwhichwith all the faults that

, , had been so maliciously exaggerated , were still , he considered , a splendid monument , they might see this art for the people displayed . They might see it in the crypt of St . Stephens ' s which had lately been so gorgeously and beautifully restored ; in the hall above , devoted to the statues of our

worthies ; in the painting of the grand old legend of Arthur ; in the historical frescoes ; they could also see it in the Assize Hall of Manchester , which would shame many of the public buildings of London by its combined beauty and convenience ; they could also see ib in the new Orphanage at

Birmingham , the donor of which had had a cloister underneath set apart as a play-ground for the children , the capitals of the columns of which were carved with fables , which were calculated to engage the minds of the children through the eye . Whether the walls of their churches would or would not be the vehicle of pictorial representations remained

to be proved . Happily , the idea that the Divine Being was dishonoured by representations of the great events ofthe Bible , that superstitious feeling , that idolatry of whitewash , was passing away , and the reasonable sense for representations of divine events was growing up . In Italy , in Germany , in

Switzerland , they saw pictorial art—of a very rude kind , no doubt—ornamenting the walls of public buildings everywhere . Unhappily the same could not be said of Old England , with more opportunity for obtaining it now than ever before existed . And why ? Partly from that superstitious dread of

colouring which had been the Englishman ' s bugbear until now , and partly from the want of sufficient art-education in our governing classes , both of which causes were happily dying- away . Again , if they wished to teach the people to appreciate art , they ought to teach them to do a little art

themselves—a little carving , a little drawing , and so forth . Drawing would give them a knowledge of proportion , which nothing else but a mathematical training could give them . Even children in village schools could be trained to a certain extent ; they could have imparted to them instruction in the

first principles of form and proportion which would be a valuable corrective to the irregularities of the mind in after-life . How it . was to be done that was not the place to discuss . He merely threw out that there was a necessity for affording to the people education in art which would stimulate and train the imaginative side of their mind , and also

confirm and strengthen that harder and more practical element—that which might be called the mathematical side of the intellect—both of which were involved in art-training . But how did all this apply to the art-workman whom it was the privilege of the Architectural Museum to bring

forward ? It was a question of supply and demand . Once educate the people to know a little something of , and to have a taste for , art—hold out before them grand types of artistic progress in ancient days , and good specimens of modern art , and they would create a demand for art-objects—cheap and

inferior , perhaps—but for objects which should be supplied to meet the demand . Who were to furnish those art-objects ? They might not be the venison of art , but the wholesome jerked beef at 3 c ? . per lb . ; and this jerked beef of art was especially what the art-workman should supply . The frescoes , as they were called , of the old churches on the

Continent , were run off in three or four colours ; why could not art-workmen be found here to fill the churches and public buildings and vestry-halls of England with similar paintings ? Why could they not do the sign-painting , which was now so much neglected—make statuettes for chimney-pieces ,

vases for flowers , and many other art-objects which an art-educated people would require and demand ? All these the art-workman could produce if he steadfastly stuck to his last . The creation of a general art-feeling was quite possible , and it was called for especially in this day , ivhen

materialism must be counteracted by cultivated imagination . That feeling once diffused , then the erection of museums and art-schools , and the adornment of highways and public buildings , as he had sua-g-ested , would turn to the financial advantage of the art-workman or working artist ; for they could be artists as truly as those who wrote "R . A . " after their names . The former

might produce art-objects for the million , as tho latter did for the higher classes , and that was the people ' s share in art . They were all engaged in a great joint-stock company , of which those whom he addressed were the trustees . They might make it by their efforts , or mar it by their neglect . He

asked them not to be thrown back by the fallacy that England was not an artistic nation . Those who held that idea might ask him , had he ever looked at Trafalgar-square ? He had , and he admitted that there was necessity for manifesting a gigantic penitence . They might lead the way

and carry the tapers in the penitential procession and having done so , show their repentance by their works . They might come forward and encourage a movement towards a better state of things ; not in a pedantic spirit , but with a generous appreciation of the art of all times

terminating in that great art of Europe and England —the art of the Middle Ages—of which they were the heirs , and destined , he believed , to be the promoters , the improvers , and the remitters to posterity .