And, finally, for the young workers in art Mr. Quilter has loud words of
encouragement. With a sympathy that is absolutely reckless of grammar,
he knows from experience 'what an amount of study and mental strain _are_
involved in painting a bad picture honestly'; he exhorts them (Sententia
No. 267) to 'go on quite bravely and sincerely making mess after mess
from Nature,' and while sternly warning them that there is something
wrong if they do not 'feel _washed out_ after each drawing,' he still
urges them to 'put a new piece of goods in the window' every morning. In
fact, he is quite severe on Mr. Ruskin for not recognising that 'a
picture should denote the frailty of man,' and remarks with pleasing
courtesy and felicitous grace that 'many phases of feeling . . . are as
much a dead letter to this great art teacher, as Sanskrit to an Islington
cabman.' Nor is Mr. Quilter one of those who fails to practice what he
preaches. Far from it. He goes on quite bravely and sincerely making
mess after mess from literature, and misquotes Shakespeare, Wordsworth,
Alfred de Musset, Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Swinburne, and Mr. Fitzgerald's
Rubaiyat, in strict accordance with Sententia No. 251, which tells us
that 'Work must be abominable if it is ever going to be good.' Only,
unfortunately, his own work never does get good. Not content with his
misquotations, he misspells the names of such well-known painters as
Madox-Brown, Bastien Lepage and Meissonier, hesitates between Ingres and
Ingres, talks of _Mr_. Millais and _Mr_. Linton, alludes to Mr. Frank
Holl simply as 'Hall,' speaks with easy familiarity of Mr. Burne-Jones as
'Jones,' and writes of the artist whom he calls 'old Chrome' with an
affection that reminds us of Mr. Tulliver's love for Jeremy Taylor. On
the whole, the book will not do. We fully admit that it is extremely
amusing and, no doubt, Mr. Quilter is quite earnest in his endeavours to
elevate art to the dignity of manual labour, but the extraordinary
vulgarity of the style alone will always be sufficient to prevent these
Sententiae Artis from being anything more than curiosities of literature.
Mr. Quilter has missed his chance; for he has failed even to make himself
the Tupper of Painting.
Sententiae: Artis: First Principles of Art for Painters and Picture
Lovers. By Harry Quilter, M.A. (Isbister.)
[A reply to this review appeared on November 23.]
A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH LITERATURE
(Pall Mall Gazette, December 1, 1886.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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