Alfred Austin are
artists of note whom we may affiliate on Byron, and that if Sappho and
Milton 'had not high genius, they would be justly reproached as
sensational'? And surely it is a crude judgment that classes Baudelaire,
of all poets, with Marini and mediaeval troubadours, and a crude style
that writes of 'Goethe, Shelley, Scott, and Wilson,' for a mortal should
not thus intrude upon the immortals, even though he be guilty of holding
with them that Cain is 'one of the finest poems in the English language.'
It is only fair, however, to add that Mr. Noel subsequently makes more
than ample amends for having opened Parnassus to the public in this
reckless manner, by calling Wilson an 'offal-feeder,' on the ground that
he once wrote a severe criticism of some of Lord Tennyson's early poems.
For Mr. Noel does not mince his words. On the contrary, he speaks with
much scorn of all euphuism and delicacy of expression and, preferring the
affectation of nature to the affectation of art, he thinks nothing of
calling other people 'Laura Bridgmans,' 'Jackasses' and the like. This,
we think, is to be regretted, especially in a writer so cultured as Mr.
Noel. For, though indignation may make a great poet, bad temper always
makes a poor critic.

On the whole, Mr. Noel's book has an emotional rather than an
intellectual interest. It is simply a record of the moods of a man of
letters, and its criticisms merely reveal the critic without illuminating
what he would criticise for us. The best that we can say of it is that
it is a Sentimental Journey through Literature, the worst that any one
could say of it is that it has all the merits of such an expedition.

Essays on Poetry and Poets. By the Hon. Roden Noel. (Kegan Paul.)

COMMON-SENSE IN ART

(Pall Mall Gazette, January 8, 1887.)

At this critical moment in the artistic development of England Mr. John
Collier has come forward as the champion of common-sense in art. It will
be remembered that Mr. Quilter, in one of his most vivid and picturesque
metaphors, compared Mr. Collier's method as a painter to that of a
shampooer in a Turkish bath. {119} As a writer Mr. Collier is no less
interesting. It is true that he is not eloquent, but then he censures
with just severity 'the meaningless eloquence of the writers on
aesthetics'; we admit that he is not subtle, but then he is careful to
remind us that Leonardo da Vinci's views on painting are nonsensical; his
qualities are of a solid, indeed we may say of a stolid order; he is
thoroughly honest, sturdy and downright, and he advises us, if we want to
know anything about art, to study the works of 'Helmholtz, Stokes, or
Tyndall,' to which we hope we may be allowed to add Mr. Collier's own
Manual of Oil Painting.

For this art of painting is a very simple thing indeed, according to Mr.
Collier. It consists merely in the 'representation of natural objects by
means of pigments on a flat surface.' There is nothing, he tells us, 'so
very mysterious' in it after all. 'Every natural object appears to us as
a sort of pattern of different shades and colours,' and 'the task of the
artist is so to arrange his shades and colours on his canvas that a
similar pattern is produced.