The first-named are mere likenesses,--photographs on canvas. This sort is very common and very popular; they are made with great facility by the professional “portrait-painters” and they are greatly applauded wherever seen. They have their fixed prices,--so much for half, three-quarters, or full-length,--and they are quite a matter of commerce, with a maximum of dexterity and a minimum of art. There are those who can and do paint great portraits, who turn out endless numbers of these mechanically-made things to the detriment of their art. Of the best of this sort were the most of Reynolds’s portraits,--superficially brilliant and attractive likenesses that ought not to be seen outside the family circle for which they were intended. Of this same sort are most of those startling people who issue from the studios of the popular “portrait-painters” of to-day, to thrust the nonentity of their individualities upon us. The identity of the “Blue-Boy,” by Gainesborough, is quite immaterial; the identity of the “Shrimp-Girl,” by Hogarth, is likewise immaterial; the identity of the “Child with a Sword,” by Manet, is of no importance,--for these are pictures, though at the same time portraits. But the identity of the “portraits” by the popular “portrait-painter” is, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a matter of great importance, the value of the canvas being enhanced by the celebrity or notoriety of the sitter. The mere portrait is better than no portrait at all, but it should be a fixture in its own household, a family heirloom, and strictly entailed; descendants failing, then to the midden. Between the mere portrait and the portrait that possesses some of the universal qualities of a work of art the interval is wide, and almost one of kind rather than degree, though no line of strict demarcation can be drawn; while, as between the painting that is primarily a portrait, with incidental universal qualities, and a painting that is primarily a work of art, and incidentally a portrait, the difference is entirely a matter of degree. In, for instance, the “Blue-Boy” the portrait element predominates; in the “Shrimp-Girl” the universal element predominates. In the former, the portrait was uppermost in the painter’s mind; in the other, the picture was the only consideration. And yet Hogarth’s is undoubtedly the more perfect portrait, though slight and sketchy as compared with the composition and finish of the Gainsborough. In fact, the “Shrimp-Girl,” as an abstract work of art, is a degree higher than the picture-portrait. It is a picture,--a work of art in the doing of which no considerations other than the artistic intention moved the painter.