entering the Sistine Chapel, groups of
intelligent people before the picture consulting
their guide-books—looking attentively
at the work of High Art which they are
ordered to admire—trying hard to admire it
—then, with dismay in their faces, looking
round at each other, shutting up their books,
and retreating from High Art in despair. I
observe these groups for a little while, and I
end in following their example. We
members of the general public may admire
Hamlet and Don Giovanni, honestly, along
with the critics, but the two sublimest
pictures (according to the learned
authorities) which the world has yet beheld,
appeal to none of us; and we leave them,
altogether discouraged on the subject of Art
for the future. From that time forth we
look at pictures with a fatal self-distrust.
Some of us recklessly take our opinions from
others; some of us cautiously keep our own
opinions to ourselves; and some of us
indolently abstain from having anything to do
with an opinion at all.

Is this exaggerated? Have I misrepresented
facts in the example I have quoted of
obstructive criticism on Art, and of its
discouraging effects on the public mind? Let the
doubting reader, by all means, judge for himself.
Let him refer to any recognised authority he
pleases, and he will find that the two
pictures of which I have been writing are
critically and officially considered, to this
day, as the two masterworks of the highest
school of painting. Having ascertained that,
let him next, if possible, procure a sight of
some print or small copy from any part of
either picture (there is a copy of the whole
of the Transfiguration in the Gallery at the
Crystal Palace), and practically test the truth
of what I have said. Or, in the event of his
not choosing to take that trouble, let him ask
any unprofessional and uncritical friend who
has seen the pictures themselves—and the
more intelligent and unprejudiced that friend,
the better for my purpose—what the effect
on him was of The Last Judgment, or The
Transfiguration. If I can only be assured of
the sincerity of the witness, I shall not be
afraid of the result of the examination.

Other readers who have visited the Sistine
Chapel and the Vatican can testify for
themselves (but, few of them will—I know
them!) whether I have misrepresented
their impressions or not. To that part
of my audience I have nothing to say,
except that I beg them not to believe that I
am a heretic in relation to all works by
all old masters, because I have spoken out
about the Last Judgment and the Transfiguration.
I am not blind, I hope, to the
merits of any picture, provided it will bear
honest investigation on uncritical principles.
I have seen such exceptional works by ones and
twos, amid many hundreds of utterly worthless
canvasses with undeservedly famous names
attached to them, in Italy and elsewhere.
My valet de place has not pointed them out
to me; my guide-book, which criticises
according to authority, has not recommended
me to look at them, except in very rare cases
indeed. I discovered them for myself, and
others may discover them as readily as I did,
if they will only take their minds out of
leading-strings when they enter a gallery,
and challenge a picture boldly to do its duty
by explaining its own merits to them without
the assistance of an interpreter. If I give
that simple receipt for the finding out and
enjoying of good pictures, I need give no
more. It is no part of my object to attempt
to impose my own tastes and preferences on
others. I want—if I may be allowed, to
repeat my motives once more in the plainest
terms—to do all I can to shake the influence
of authority in matters of Art, because I
see that authority standing drearily and
persistently aloof from all popular
sympathy; because I see it keeping pictures and
the people apart; because I find it setting
up as masterpieces, two of the worst of
many palpably bad and barbarous works
of past times; and lastly, because I find it
purchasing pictures for the National Gallery
of England, for which, in nine cases out of
ten, the nation has no concern or care,
which have no merits but technical merits,
and which have not the last and lowest
recommendation of winning general approval
even among the critics and connoisseurs
themselves. The controversy described at
the beginning of this article is, as all readers
of the public journals know, not the only
controversy that has arisen of late years, when
Old Masters have been added to the gallery,
or, in other words, when the national picture-
money has been spent for the confusion of
the nation.

And what remedy against this? I say at
the end, as I said at the beginning, the
remedy is to judge for ourselves, and to
express our opinions, privately and publicly,
on every possible occasion, without hesitation,
without compromise, without reference
to any precedents whatever. Public opinion
has had its victories in other matters, and
may yet have its victory in matters of Art.
We, the people, have a gallery that is called
ours; let us do our best to have it filled for
the future with pictures (no matter when or
by whom painted), that we can get some
honest enjoyment and benefit from. Let us,
in Parliament and out of it, before dinner and
after dinner,in the presence of big-wigs just as
coolly as out of the presence of big-wigs, say
plainly once for all that the sort of High Art
which is professedly bought for us, and
which does actually address itself to nobody
but painters, critics, and connoisseurs, is not
High Art at all, but the lowest of the Low:
because it is the narrowest as to its sphere of
action, and the most scantily furnished as to
its means of doing good. We shall shock
the connoisseurs (especially the elderly ones)