Art is neither to be achieved by effort of
thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. It is the instinctive
and necessary result of power, which can only be developed through the
mind of successive generations, and which finally burst into life
under social conditions as slow of growth as the faculties they
regulate. Whole aeras of mighty history are summed, and the passions of
dead myriads are concentrated, in the existence of a noble art; and if
that noble art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice; not
caring in the least to hear lectures on it; and since it is not among
us, be assured we have to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to
the place where the stock of it is yet alive, and the branches began
to die.
And now, may I have your pardon for pointing out, partly with
reference to matters which are at this time of greater moment than the
arts--that if we undertook such recession to the vital germ of
national arts that have decayed, we should find a more singular arrest
of their power in Ireland than in any other European country. For in
the eighth century Ireland possessed a school of art in her
manuscripts and sculpture, which, in many of its qualities--apparently
in all essential qualities of decorative invention--was quite without
rival; seeming as if it might have advanced to the highest triumphs in
architecture and in painting.
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