So he announces that
'Subject is the diet of painting,' that 'Perspective is the bread of
art,' and that 'Beauty is in some way like jam'; drawings, he points out,
'are not made by recipe like puddings,' nor is art composed of 'suet,
raisins, and candied peel,' though Mr. Cecil Lawson's landscapes do
'smack of indigestion.' Occasionally, it is true, he makes daring
excursions into other realms of fancy, as when he says that 'in the best
Reynolds landscapes, one seems _to smell the sawdust_,' or that 'advance
in art is of a _kangaroo_ character'; but, on the whole, he is happiest
in his eating similes, and the secret of his style is evidently 'La
metaphore vient en mangeant.'

About artists and their work Mr. Quilter has, of course, a great deal to
say. Sculpture he regards as 'Painting's poor relation'; so, with the
exception of a jaunty allusion to the 'rough modelling' of Tanagra
figurines he hardly refers at all to the plastic arts; but on painters he
writes with much vigour and joviality. Holbein's wonderful Court
portraits naturally do not give him much pleasure; in fact, he compares
them as works of art to the sham series of Scottish kings at Holyrood;
but Dore, he tells us, had a wider imaginative range in all subjects
where the gloomy and the terrible played leading parts than probably any
artist who ever lived, and may be called 'the Carlyle of artists.' In
Gainsborough he sees 'a plainness almost amounting to brutality,' while
'vulgarity and snobbishness' are the chief qualities he finds in Sir
Joshua Reynolds. He has grave doubts whether Sir Frederick Leighton's
work is really 'Greek, after all,' and can discover in it but little of
'rocky Ithaca.' Mr. Poynter, however, is a cart-horse compared to the
President, and Frederick Walker was 'a dull Greek' because he had no
'sympathy with poetry.' Linnell's pictures, are 'a sort of "Up, Guards,
and at 'em" paintings,' and Mason's exquisite idylls are 'as national as
a Jingo poem'! Mr. Birket Foster's landscapes 'smile at one much in the
same way that Mr. Carker used to "flash his teeth,"' and Mr. John Collier
gives his sitter 'a cheerful slap on the back, before he says, like a
shampooer in a Turkish bath, "Next man!" Mr. Herkomer's art is, 'if not
a catch-penny art, at all events a catch-many-pounds art,' and Mr. W. B.
Richmond is a 'clever trifler,' who 'might do really good work' 'if he
would employ his time in learning to paint.' It is obviously unnecessary
for us to point out how luminous these criticisms are, how delicate in
expression. The remarks on Sir Joshua Reynolds alone exemplify the truth
of Sententia No. 19, 'From a picture we gain but little more than we
bring.' On the general principles of art Mr. Quilter writes with equal
lucidity. That there is a difference between colour and colours, that an
artist, be he portrait-painter or dramatist, always reveals himself in
his manner, are ideas that can hardly be said to occur to him; but Mr.
Quilter really does his best and bravely faces every difficulty in modern
art, with the exception of Mr. Whistler.