To rightly place a human being on canvas, or in stone, or in marble, or in poetry, is the noblest achievement of art. On the technical side it exhausts the resources of the art; on the spiritual side it exhausts the genius of the artist. But “portrait-painting” as a profession, as an industrial and a commercial proposition, is a degradation of art. It is in strict accord with the spirit of the age; it is a natural and an inevitable evolution. But it is, nevertheless, a degradation,--for wherein does the shop-like atelier of the professional “portrait-painter” differ from the emporium and the bazaar of commerce? And wherein do the methods of the shrewd and successful painter differ from those of the successful merchant? Are not the doors of the studio open to every comer with a purse? Are not the prices fixed at so much per square yard of canvas? Is not the patronage of celebrities sought, regardless of artistic possibilities, for the prestige it gives? Are not the A.R.A. and the R.A., and all the degrees and decorations, sought, like the “By special appointment to H.M.--” of the tradesman, for the money there is in them? But what need to enumerate the motives that move the professional “portrait-painter,”--they are written on his every canvas. Sculpture still clings to its ideals, and the “bust-maker” is a term of reproach. No sculptor with any ambition whatsoever, with any love for his art, would willingly look forward to a career of portrait bust-making. Dire necessity may compel him, and year after year he may make the marble and bronze effigies of local celebrities; but the yoke galls, the task wearies, and he looks forward to the time when, emancipated from his thraldom, he may do something _of his own_. Not so the “portrait-painter.” He glories in his degradation; paints a score of huge, staring canvases, blatant likenesses of blatant people, and, before the paint is dry, parades them in exhibition as his latest galaxy of masterpieces,--not that his art may be magnified, but that his trade may be advertised. The sculptor is only too glad if his bronze effigies are hidden in leafy thickets, in parks, and out-of-the-way places. He has not learned the commercial value of exhibitions. He does not every few months place on view a lot of marbles and bronzes, the work of as many weeks. He has not caught from the shop-keeper the trick of displaying his wares in a window. But the “portrait-painter”----! * * * * * “Portrait-painting” pays,--that is the worst of it all. It is the one branch of the art of painting that can be followed as methodically as the making of clothes. It is, for that matter, closely allied to and quite dependent upon the tailor and the dressmaker. Worth has made more portraits than any one painter in Paris.