What is it which makes one truth
greater than another, one thought greater than another? This question
is, I repeat, of peculiar importance at the present time; for, during
a period now of some hundred and fifty years, all writers on Art who
have pretended to eminence, have insisted much on a supposed
distinction between what they call the Great and the Low Schools;
using the terms "High Art," "Great or Ideal Style," and other such, as
descriptive of a certain noble manner of painting, which it was
desirable that all students of Art should be early led to reverence
and adopt; and characterizing as "vulgar," or "low," or "realist,"
another manner of painting and conceiving, which it was equally
necessary that all students should be taught to avoid.
But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible, has
been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed
practisers of "High Art" are beginning to be looked upon with doubt,
and their peculiar phraseology to be treated with even a certain
degree of ridicule. And other forms of Art are partly developed among
us, which do not pretend to be high, but rather to be strong, healthy,
and humble. This matter of "highness" in Art, therefore, deserves our
most careful consideration. Has it been, or is it, a true highness, a
true princeliness, or only a show of it, consisting in courtly manners
and robes of state? Is it rocky height or cloudy height, adamant or
vapour, on which the sun of praise so long has risen and set? It will
be well at once to consider this.
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