REPORT OF MR. IIINTON - .
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inspiration. Honest Germans are not wanting to tell their countrymen of their faults, and to point out what they deem to be the remedy for them. One of these, writing in a publication issued for the special purpose of improving the taste of the people, says :—
“ The German States have still a great work before them, ere they can Emancipate themselves from the influence of French art. They have made considerable progress since the Paris Exposition of 18G7, but it is still evident that very much of the German art-industry is altogether bound by French taste. No matter how well one race ma}^ think they are copying the works and art of another, in so much as it is copying, the result will be void of originality, expression, and freshness, and becomes fainter and weaker at each repetition.”
The German critic assails French taste at some length, and claims that it is based on entirely wrong principles :—
“ An all-prevailing fashion, and the decline of all art during the last centuries are the causes through which it has acquired and retained its powerful sway. The superiority of the French art-workmanship lies in the possession of a great number of artists who extend and practice an hereditary skill and dexterity. The fascinating charm of their creations consists in mere outward finery and show, or, in an accomplished superficial treatment, a manual facility or genius for arrangement, and an originality of invention instead °£ truthfulness of expression and faultless beauty in structure and form. These accomplishments and charm, certainly of great value, when combined with true art, are necessarily lost in copies and imitations, because they are the exclusive specialty of the French artist; hence the miserable failure of our own artists and designers,'who imitate French teachings and turn out mongrel conceptions, neither native or French.”
Some part of the above will apply to ourselves if we will but be candid in our confessions. Admitting this, we must !°ok to it that the aims of our slowly increasing number of Museums and art schools, shall mainly be directed to correct this servile defect. We are strong enough now to walk alone 111 this path, as we have in so many others.
-The critic quoted above points out a remedy for the evils
which he complains, and as his words help to show the