,g4 ,f4 ,,watts ,illustration3 ,,the ,,habit ,,does ,,not ,,make ,,the ,,monk4 ,g4 ,f4 ,,watts ,,by ,g4 ,k4 ,,chesterton ,illustration ,,london ,,duckworth ,,co4 ,,henrietta ,,st4 ,,covent ,,garden ,published #aijd ,reprinted #aijf1 #aiji1 #aiac1 #aiad ,,printed ,,at ,,the ,,ballantyne ,,press ,,london ,,list ,,of ,,photogravures ,facing p4 ,,the ,,habit ,,does ,,not ,,make ,,the ,,monk ,frontispiece ,g4 ,f4 ,,watts1 ,r4,a4 #h ,,the ,,rider ,,on ,,the ,,white ,,horse #aj ,,leslie ,,stephen #ad ,,walter ,,crane #af ,,the ,,slumber ,,of ,,the ,,ages #ah ,,cardinal ,,manning #bj ,,chaos #bb 8,,for ,,he ,,had ,,great ,,possessions0 #bf ,,an ,,idle ,,child ,,of ,,fancy #bh ,,the ,,minotaur #cb ,,the ,,court ,,of ,,death #cd ,,matthew ,,arnold #cf ,,john ,,stuart ,,mill #cf ,,robert ,,browning #ch ,,lord ,,tennyson #ch ,,the ,,dweller ,,in ,,the ,,innermost #dj ,,george ,,meredith #db ,,orpheus ,,and ,,eurydice #dd ,,hope #df ,,jonah #dh ,,mammon #eb ,,death ,,crowning ,,innocence #ed ,a ,,story ,,from ,,boccaccio #ef ,,lord ,,lytton #eh ,,dawn #fj ,,eve ,,repentant #fb ,,love ,,and ,,death #fd ,,william ,,morris #ff ,,dante ,,gabriel ,,rossetti #fh ,,thomas ,,carlyle #gj ,,good ,,luck ,,to ,,your ,,fishing #gd ,the ,photogravures are from photographs by ,fredk4 ,hollyer4 ,permanent photographs of works of ,watts1 ,rossetti1 ,burne-,jones1 ,holbein1 and of pictures in the ,dublin and ,hague ,galleries can be obtained of ,fredk4 ,hollyer1 #i ,pembroke ,square1 ,kensington4 ,illustration3 ,g4 ,f4 ,,watts1 ,r4,a4 ,photograph from ,life by ,frederick ,hollyer4 ,george ,frederick ,watts was born on #bcrd ,february #ahag4 ,his whole rise and career synchronizes roughly with the rise and career of the nineteenth century4 ,as a rule1 no doubt1 such chronological parallels are peculiarly fanciful and unmeaning4 ,nothing can be imagined more idle1 in a general way1 than talking about a century as if it were some kind of animal with a head and tail1 instead of an arbitrary length cut from an unending scroll4 ,nor is it less erroneous to assume that even if a period be definitely vital or disturbing1 art must be a mirror of it2 the greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity2 poets1 like bricklayers1 work on through a century of wars1 and ,bewick's birds1 to take an instance1 have the air of persons unaffected by the ,french ,revolution4 ,but in the case of ,watts there are two circumstances which render the dates relevant4 ,the first is that the nineteenth century was self-conscious1 believed itself to be an idea and an atmosphere1 and changed its name from a chronological almost to a philosophical term4 ,i do not know whether all centuries do this or whether an advanced and progressive organ called 8,the ,eleventh ,century0 was ever in contemplation in the dawn of the ,middle ,ages4 ,but with us it is clear that a certain spirit was rightly or wrongly associated with the late century and that it called up images and thoughts like any historic or ritual date1 like the ,fourth of ,july or the ,first of ,april4 ,what these images and thoughts were we shall be obliged in a few minutes and in the interests of the subject to inquire4 ,but this is the first circumstance which renders the period important2 and the second is that it has always been so regarded by ,watts himself4 ,he1 more than any other modern man1 more than politicians who thundered on platforms or financiers who captured continents1 has sought in the midst of his quiet and hidden life to mirror his age4 ,he was born in the white and austere dawn of that great reforming century1 and he has lingered after its grey and doubtful close4 ,he is above all things a typical figure1 a survival of the nineteenth century4 ,it will appear to many a somewhat grotesque matter to talk about a period in which most of us were born and which has only been dead a year or two1 as if it were a primal ,babylonian empire of which only a few columns are left crumbling in the desert4 ,and yet such is1 in spirit1 the fact4 ,there is no more remarkable psychological element in history than the way in which a period can suddenly become unintelligible4 ,to the early ,victorian period we have in a moment lost the key3 the ,crystal ,palace is the temple of a forgotten creed4 ,the thing always happens sharply3 a whisper runs through the salons1 ,mr4 ,max ,beerbohm waves a wand and a whole generation of great men and great achievement suddenly looks mildewed and unmeaning4 ,we see precisely the same thing in that other great reaction towards art and the vanities1 the ,restoration of ,charles ,,ii4 ,in that hour both the great schools of faith and valour which had seemed either angels or devils to all men3 the dreams of ,strafford and the great ,high ,churchmen on the one hand2 the ,moslem frenzy of the ,english ,commons1 the worship of the ,english law upon the ,illustration3 ,,the ,,rider ,,on ,,the ,,white ,,horse other2 both seemed distant and ridiculous4 ,the new ,cavalier despised the old ,cavalier even more than he despised the ,roundhead4 ,the last stand of ,english chivalry dwindled sharply to the solitary figure of the absurd old country gentleman drinking wine out of an absurd old flagon4 ,the great roar of ,roundhead psalms which cried out that the ,god of ,battles was loose in ,english meadows shrank to a single snuffle4 ,the new and polite age saw the old and serious one exactly as we see the early ,victorian era3 they saw it1 that is to say1 not as splendid1 not as disastrous1 not as fruitful1 not as infamous1 not as good or bad1 but simply as ugly4 ,just as we can see nothing about ,lord ,shaftesbury but his hat1 they could see nothing about ,cromwell but his nose4 ,there is no doubt of the shock and sharpness of the silent transition4 ,the only difference is that accordingly as we think of man and his nature1 according to our deepest intuitions about things1 we shall see in the ,restoration and the fin de sicle philosophy a man waking from a turbid and pompous dream1 or a man hurled from heaven and the wars of the angels4 ,g4 ,f4 ,watts is so deeply committed to1 and so unalterably steeped in1 this early ,victorian seriousness and air of dealing with great matters1 that unless we sharply apprehend that spirit1 and its difference from our own1 we shall misunderstand his work from the outset4 ,splendid as is the art of ,watts technically or obviously considered1 we shall yet find much in it to perplex and betray us1 unless we understand his original theory and intention1 a theory and intention dyed deeply with the colours of a great period which is gone4 ,the great technical inequalities of his work1 its bursts of stupendous simplicity in colour and design1 its daring failures1 its strange symbolical portraits1 all will mislead or bewilder if we have not the thread of intention4 ,in order to hold that1 we must hold something which runs through and supports1 as a string supports jewels1 all the wars and treaties and reforms of the nineteenth century4 ,there are at least three essential and preliminary points on which ,watts is so completely at one with the nineteenth century and so completely out of accord with the twentieth1 that it may be advisable to state them briefly before we proceed to the narrower but not more cogent facts of his life and growth4 ,the first of these is a nineteenth-century atmosphere which is so difficult to describe1 that we can only convey it by a sort of paradox4 ,it is difficult to know whether it should be called doubt or faith4 ,for if1 on the one hand1 real faith would have been more confident1 real doubt1 on the other hand1 would have been more indifferent4 ,the attitude of that age of which the middle and best parts of ,watts' work is most typical1 was an attitude of devouring and concentrated interest in things which were1 by their own system1 impossible or unknowable4 ,men were1 in the main1 agnostics3 they said1 8,we do not know02 but not one of them ever ventured to say1 8,we do not care40 ,in most eras of revolt and question1 the sceptics reap something from their scepticism3 if a man were a believer in the eighteenth century1 there was ,heaven2 if he were an unbeliever1 there was the ,hell-,fire ,club4 ,but these men restrained themselves more than hermits for a hope that was more than half hopeless1 and sacrificed hope itself for a liberty which they would not enjoy2 they were rebels without deliverance and saints without reward4 ,there may have been and there was something arid and over-pompous about them3 a newer and gayer philosophy may be passing before us and changing many things for the better2 but we shall not easily see any nobler race of men1 and of them all most assuredly there was none nobler than ,watts4 ,if anyone wishes to see that spirit1 he will see it in pictures painted by ,watts in a form beyond expression sad and splendid4 ,hope that is dim and delicate and yet immortal1 the indestructible minimum of the spirit2 ,love and ,death that is awful and yet the reverse of horrible2 ,the ,court of ,death that is like a page of ,epictetus and might have been dreamt by a dead ,stoic3 these are the visions of that spirit and the incarnations of that time4 ,its faith was doubtful1 but its doubt was faithful4 ,and its supreme and acute difference from most periods of scepticism1 from the later ,renaissance1 from the ,restoration and from the hedonism of our own time was this1 that when the creeds crumbled and the gods seemed to break up and vanish1 it did not fall back1 as we do1 on things yet more solid and definite1 upon art and wine and high finance and industrial efficiency and vices4 ,it fell in love with abstractions and became enamoured of great and desolate words4 ,the second point of rapport between ,watts and his time was a more personal matter1 a matter more concerned with the man1 or1 at least1 the type2 but it throws so much light upon almost every step of his career that it may with advantage be suggested here4 ,those who know the man himself1 the quaint and courtly old man down at ,limnerslease1 know that if he has one trait more arresting than another1 it is his almost absurd humility4 ,he even disparages his own talent that he may insist rather upon his aims4 ,his speech and gesture are simple1 his manner polite to the point of being deprecating1 his soul to all appearance of an almost confounding clarity and innocence4 ,but although these appearances accurately represent the truth about him1 though he is in reality modest and even fantastically modest1 there is another element in him1 an element which was in almost all the great men of his time1 and it is something which many in these days would call a kind of splendid and inspired impudence4 ,it is that wonderful if simple power of preaching1 of claiming to be heard1 of believing in an internal message and destiny3 it is the audacious faculty of mounting a pulpit4 ,those would be very greatly mistaken who1 misled by the childlike and humble manner of this monk of art1 expected to find in him any sort of doubt1 or any sort of fear1 or any sort of modesty about the aims he follows or the cause he loves4 ,he has the one great certainty which marks off all the great ,victorians from those who have come after them3 he may not be certain that he is successful1 or certain that he is great1 or certain that he is good1 or certain that he is capable3 but he is certain that he is right4 ,it is of course the very element of confidence which has in our day become least common and least possible4 ,we know we are brilliant and distinguished1 but we do not know we are right4 ,we swagger in fantastic artistic costumes2 we praise ourselves2 we fling epigrams right and left2 we have the courage to play the egoist and the courage to play the fool1 but we have not the courage to preach4 ,if we are to deliver a philosophy it must be in the manner of the late ,mr4 ,whistler and the ridentem dicere verum4 ,if our heart is to be aimed at it must be with the rapier of ,stevenson which runs us through without either pain or puncture4 ,it is only just to say1 that good elements as well as bad ones have joined in making this old ,victorian preaching difficult or alien to us4 ,illustration3 ,,leslie ,,stephen4 ,humility as well as fear1 camaraderie as well as cynicism1 a sense of complexity and a kind of gay and worldly charity have led us to avoid the pose of the preacher1 to be moral by ironies1 to whisper a word and glide away4 ,but1 whatever may be the accidental advantage of this recoil from the didactic1 it certainly does mean some loss of courage and of the old and athletic simplicity4 ,nay1 in some sense it is really a loss of a fine pride and self-regard4 ,mr4 ,whistler coquetted and bargained about the position and sale of his pictures3 he praised them2 he set huge prices on them2 but still under all disguise1 he treated them as trifles4 ,watts1 when scarcely more than a boy and comparatively unknown1 started his great custom of offering his pictures as gifts worthy of a great nation4 ,thus we came to the conclusion1 a conclusion which may seem to some to contain a faint element of paradox1 that ,mr4 ,whistler suffered from an excessive and exaggerated modesty4 ,and this unnatural modesty of ,mr4 ,whistler can scarcely be more typically symbolized than in his horror of preaching4 ,the new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity1 and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies1 as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy4 ,there is only one thing that it requires real courage to say1 and that is a truism4 ,lastly1 it would be quite impossible to complete this prefatory suggestion of the atmosphere in which the mind of ,watts grew and prevailed1 without saying something about that weary and weather-beaten question of the relation of art to ethics on which so much has been said in connexion with him and his contemporaries4 ,about the real aim and the real value of ,watts' allegorical pictures ,i shall speak later1 but for the moment it is only desirable to point out what the early and middle ,victorian view of the matter really was4 ,according to the later sthetic creed which ,mr4 ,whistler and others did so much to preach1 the state of the arts under the reign of that ,victorian view was a chaos of everyone minding everyone else's business4 ,it was a world in which painters were trying to be novelists1 and novelists trying to be historians1 and musicians doing the work of schoolmasters1 and sculptors doing the work of curates4 ,that is a view which has some truth in it1 both as a description of the actual state of things and as involving an interesting and suggestive philosophy of the arts4 ,but a good deal of harm may be done by ceaselessly repeating to ourselves even a true and fascinating fashionable theory1 and a great deal of good by endeavouring to realize the real truth about an older one4 ,the thing from which ,england suffers just now more than from any other evil is not the assertion of falsehoods1 but the endless and irrepressible repetition of half-truths4 ,there is another side to every historic situation1 and that often a startling one2 and the other side of the ,victorian view of art1 now so out of mode1 is too little considered4 ,the salient and essential characteristic of ,watts and men of his school was that they regarded life as a whole4 ,they had in their heads1 as it were1 a synthetic philosophy which put everything into a certain relation with ,god and the wheel of things4 ,thus1 psychologically speaking1 they were incapable not merely of holding such an opinion1 but actually of thinking such a thought as that of art for art's sake2 it was to them like talking about voting for voting's sake1 or amputating for amputating's sake4 ,to them as to the ancient ,jews the ,spirit of the unity of existence declared in thunder that they should not make any graven image1 or have any gods but ,him4 ,doubtless1 they did not give art a ,illustration3 ,,walter ,,crane4 relation of unimpeachable correctness3 in their scheme of things it may be true1 or rather it is true1 that the sthetic was confused with the utilitarian1 that good gardens were turned so to speak into bad cornfields1 and a valuable temple into a useless post-office4 ,but in so far as they had this fundamental idea that art must be linked to life1 and to the strength and honour of nations1 they were a hundred times more broad-minded and more right than the new ultra-technical school4 ,the idea of following art through everything for itself alone1 through extravagance1 through cruelty1 through morbidity1 is just exactly as superstitious as the idea of following theology for itself alone through extravagance and cruelty and morbidity4 ,to deny that ,baudelaire is loathsome1 or ,nietzsche inhuman1 because we stand in awe of beauty1 is just the same thing as denying that the ,court of ,pope ,julius was loathsome1 or the rack inhuman1 because we stand in awe of religion4 ,it is not necessary and it is not honest4 ,the young critics of the ,green ,carnation1 with their nuances and technical mysteries1 would doubtless be surprised to learn that as a class they resemble ecstatic nuns1 but their principle is1 in reality1 the same4 ,there is a great deal to be said for them1 and a great deal1 for that matter1 to be said for nuns4 ,but there is nothing to be surprised at1 nothing to call for any charge of inconsistency or lack of enlightenment1 about the conduct of ,watts and the great men of his age1 in being unable to separate art from ethics4 ,they were nationalists and universalists3 they thought that the ecstatic isolation of the religious sense had done incalculable harm to religion4 ,it is not remarkable or unreasonable that they should think that the ecstatic isolation of the artistic sense would do incalculable harm to art4 ,this1 then1 was the atmosphere of ,watts and ,victorian idealism3 an atmosphere so completely vanished from the world of art in which we now live that the above somewhat long introduction is really needed to make it vivid or human to us4 ,these three elements may legitimately1 as ,i have said1 be predicated of it as its main characteristics3 first1 the sceptical idealism1 the belief that abstract verities remained the chief affairs of men when theology left them2 second1 the didactic simplicity1 the claim to teach other men and to assume one's own value and rectitude2 third1 the cosmic utilitarianism1 the consideration of any such thing as art or philosophy perpetually with reference to a general good4 ,they may be right or wrong1 they may be returning or gone for ever2 theories and fashions may change the face of humanity again and yet again2 but at least in that one old man at ,limnerslease1 burned1 and burned until death1 these convictions1 like three lamps in an old pagan temple of stoicism4 ,of the ancestry of ,watts so little is known that it resolves itself into one hypothesis3 a hypothesis which brings with it a suggestion1 a suggestion employed by almost all his existing biographers1 but a suggestion which cannot1 ,i think1 pass unchallenged1 although the matter may appear somewhat theoretic and remote4 ,watts was born in ,london1 but his family had in the previous generation come from ,hereford4 ,the vast amount of ,welsh blood which is by the nature of the case to be found in ,herefordshire has led to the statement that ,watts is racially a ,celt1 which is very probably true4 ,but it is also said1 in almost every notice of his life and work1 that the ,celtic spirit can be detected in his painting1 that the ,celtic principle of mysticism is a characteristic of his artistic conceptions4 ,it is in no idly antagonistic spirit that ,i venture to doubt this most profoundly4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,slumber ,,of ,,the ,,ages ,watts may or may not be racially a ,celt1 but there is nothing ,celtic about his mysticism4 ,the essential ,celtic spirit in letters and art may1 ,i think1 be defined as a sense of the unbearable beauty of things4 ,the essential spirit of ,watts may1 ,i think1 be much better expressed as a sense of the joyful austerity of things4 ,the dominant passion of the artistic ,celt1 of ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats or ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones1 is in the word 8escape03 escape into a land where oranges grow on plum-trees and men can sow what they like and reap what they enjoy4 ,to ,watts the very word 8escape0 would be horrible1 like an obscene word3 his ideal is altogether duty and the great wheel4 ,to the ,celt frivolity is most truly the most serious of things1 since in the tangle of roses is always the old serpent who is wiser than the world4 ,to ,watts seriousness is most truly the most 8joyful of things10 since in it we come nearest to that ultimate equilibrium and reconciliation of things whereby alone they live and endure life and each other4 ,it is difficult to imagine that amid all the varieties of noble temper and elemental desire there could possibly be two exhibiting a more total divergence than that between a kindly severity and an almost cruel love of sweetness2 than that between a laborious and open-air charity and a kind of ,bacchic asceticism2 between a joy in peace and a joy in disorder2 between a reduction of existence to its simplest formula and an extension of it to its most frantic corollary2 between a lover of justice who accepts the real world more submissively than a slave and a lover of pleasure who despises the real world more bitterly than a hermit2 between a king in battle-harness and a vagabond in elf-land2 between ,watts and ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones4 ,it is remarkable that even the technical style of ,watts gives a contradiction to this ,celtic theory4 ,watts is strong precisely where the ,celt is weak1 and weak precisely where the ,celt is strong4 ,the only thing that the ,celt has lacked in art is that hard mass1 that naked outline1 that 1 which makes ,watts a sort of sculptor of draughtsmanship4 ,it is as well for us that the ,celt has not had this3 if he had1 he would rule the world with a rod of iron2 for he has everything else4 ,there are no hard black lines in ,burke's orations1 or ,tom ,moore's songs1 or the plays of ,mr4 ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats4 ,burke is the greatest of political philosophers1 because in him only are there distances and perspectives1 as there are on the real earth1 with its mists of morning and evening1 and its blue horizons and broken skies4 ,moore's songs have neither a pure style nor deep realization1 nor originality of form1 nor thought nor wit nor vigour1 but they have something else which is none of these things1 which is nameless and the one thing needful4 ,in ,mr4 ,yeats' plays there is only one character3 the hero who rules and kills all the others1 and his name is ,atmosphere4 ,atmosphere and the gleaming distances are the soul of ,celtic greatness as they were of ,burne-,jones1 who was1 as ,i have said1 weak precisely where ,watts is strong1 in the statuesque quality in drawing1 in the love of heavy hands like those of ,mammon1 of a strong back like that of ,eve ,repentant1 in a single fearless and austere outline like that of the angel in ,the ,court of ,death1 in the frame-filling violence of ,jonah1 in the half-witted brutality of ,the ,minotaur4 ,he is deficient1 that is to say1 in what can only be called the god-like materialism of art4 ,watts1 on the other hand1 is peculiarly strong in it4 ,idealist as he is1 there is nothing frail or phantasmal about the things or the figures he loves4 ,though not himself a robust man1 he loves robustness2 he loves a great bulk of shoulder1 an abrupt bend of neck1 a gigantic stride1 ,illustration3 ,,cardinal ,,manning4 a large and swinging limb1 a breast bound as with bands of brass4 ,of course the deficiency in such a case is very far from being altogether on one side4 ,there are abysses in ,burne-,jones which ,watts could not understand1 the ,celtic madness1 older than any sanity1 the hunger that will remain after the longest feast1 the sorrow that is built up of stratified delights4 ,from the point of view of the true ,celt1 ,watts1 the ,watts who painted the great stoical pictures ,love and ,death1 ,time1 ,death and ,judgment1 ,the ,court of ,death1 ,mammon1 and ,cain1 this pictorial ,watts would probably be1 must almost certainly be1 simply a sad1 sane1 strong1 stupid ,englishman4 ,he may or may not be ,welsh by extraction or by part of his extraction1 but in spirit he is an ,englishman1 with all the faults and all the disadvantages of an ,englishman4 ,he is a great ,englishman like ,milton or ,gladstone1 of the type1 that is to say1 that were too much alive for anything but gravity1 and who enjoyed themselves far too much to trouble to enjoy a joke4 ,matthew ,arnold has come near to defining that kind of idealism1 so utterly different from the ,celtic kind1 which is to be found in ,milton and again in ,watts4 ,he has called it1 in one of his finest and most accurate phrases1 8the imaginative reason40 ,this racial legend about the ,watts family does not seem to rest upon any certain foundations1 and as ,i have said1 the deduction drawn from it is quite loose and misleading4 ,the whole is only another example of that unfortunate1 if not infamous1 modern habit of talking about such things as heredity with a vague notion that science has closed the question when she has only just opened it4 ,nobody knows1 as a matter of fact1 whether a ,celtic mysticism can be inherited any more than a theory on the ,education ,bill4 ,but the eagerness of the popular mind to snatch at a certainty is too impatient for the tardy processes of real hypothesis and research4 ,long before heredity has become a science1 it has become a superstition4 ,and this curious though incidental case of the origin of the ,watts genius is just one of those cases which make us wonder what has been the real result of the great rise of science4 ,so far the result would painfully appear to be that whereas men in the earlier times said unscientific things with the vagueness of gossip and legend1 they now say unscientific things with the plainness and the certainty of science4 ,the actual artistic education of ,watts1 though thorough indeed in its way1 had a somewhat peculiar character1 the air of something detached and private1 and to the external eye something even at random4 ,he works hard1 but in an elusive and personal manner4 ,he does not remember the time when he did not draw3 he was an artist in his babyhood as he is an artist still in his old age4 ,like ,ruskin and many other of the great and serious men of the century1 he would seem to have been brought up chiefly on what may be called the large legendary literature1 on such as ,homer and ,scott4 ,among his earliest recorded works was a set of coloured illustrations to the ,waverley ,novels1 and a sketch of the struggle for the body of ,patroclus4 ,he went to the ,academy schools1 but only stayed there about a month2 never caring for or absorbing the teaching1 such as it was1 of the place4 ,he wandered perpetually in the ,greek galleries of the ,british ,museum1 staring at the ,elgin marbles1 from which he always declared he learnt all the art he knew4 8,there10 he said1 stretching out his hand towards the ,ilyssus in his studio1 8there is my master40 ,we hear of a friendship between him and the sculptor ,william ,behnes1 of ,watts lounging about that artist's studio1 playing with clay1 modelling busts1 and staring ,illustration3 ,,chaos4 at the work of sculpture4 ,his eyes seemed to have been at this time the largest and hungriest part of him4 ,even when the great chance and first triumph of his life arrived a year or two later1 even when he gained the great scholarship which sent him abroad to work amid the marbles of ,italy1 when a famous ambassador was his patron and a brilliant circle his encouragement1 we do not find anything of the conventional student about him4 ,he never painted in the galleries2 he only dreamed in them4 ,this must not1 of course1 be held to mean that he did not work2 though one or two people who have written memoirs of ,watts have used a phraseology1 probably without noticing it1 which might be held to imply this4 ,not only is the thing ludicrously incongruous with his exact character and morals2 but anyone who knows anything whatever about the nature of pictorial art will know quite well that a man could not paint like that without having worked2 just as he would know that a man could not be the ,living ,serpent without any previous practice with his joints4 ,to say that he could really learn to paint and draw with the technical merit of ,watts1 or with any technical merit at all1 by simply looking at other people's pictures and statues will seem to anyone1 with a small technical sense1 like saying that a man learnt to be a sublime violinist by staring at fiddles in a shop window4 ,it is as near a physical impossibility as can exist in these matters4 ,work ,watts must have done and did do2 it is the only conclusion possible which is consistent either with the nature of ,watts or the nature of painting2 and it is fully supported by the facts4 ,but what the facts do reveal is that he worked in this curiously individual1 this curiously invisible way4 ,he had his own notion of when to dream and when to draw2 as he shrank from no toil1 so he shrank from no idleness4 ,he was something which is one of the most powerful and successful things in the world1 something which is far more powerful and successful than a legion of students and prizemen3 he was a serious and industrious truant4 ,it is worth while to note this in his boyhood1 partly1 of course1 because from one end of his life to the other there is this queer note of loneliness and liberty4 ,but it is also more immediately and practically important because it throws some light on the development and character of his art1 and even especially of his technique4 ,the great singularity of ,watts1 considered as a mere artist1 is that he stands alone4 ,he is not connected with any of the groups of the nineteenth century3 he has neither followed a school nor founded one4 ,he is not medival2 but no one could exactly call him classical3 we have only to compare him to ,leighton to feel the difference at once4 ,his artistic style is rather a thing more primitive than paganism2 a thing to which paganism and medivalism are alike upstart sects2 a style of painting there might have been upon the tower of ,babel4 ,he is mystical2 but he is not medival3 we have only to compare him to ,rossetti to feel the difference4 ,when he emerged into the artistic world1 that world was occupied by the pompous and historical school1 that school which was so exquisitely caricatured by ,thackeray in ,gandish and his 8,boadishia02 but ,watts was not pompous or historical3 he painted one historical picture1 which brought him a youthful success1 and he has scarcely painted another4 ,he lived on through the great ,pre-,raphaelite time1 that very noble and very much undervalued time1 when men found again what had been hidden since the thirteenth century under loads of idle civilization1 the truth that simplicity and a monastic laboriousness is the happiest of all things2 the great truth that purity is the only atmosphere for passion2 the great truth that silver is more beautiful than gold4 ,but though there is any quantity of this sentiment in ,watts himself1 ,watts never has been a ,pre-,raphaelite4 ,he has seen other fashions come and go2 he has seen the ,pre-,raphaelites overwhelmed by a heavy restoration of the conventional1 headed by ,millais with his ,scotch moors and his ,english countesses2 but he has not heeded it4 ,he has seen these again overturned by the wild lancers of ,whistler2 he has seen the mists of ,impressionism settle down over the world1 making it weird and delicate and noncommittal3 but he thinks no more of the wet mist of the ,impressionist than he thought of the dry glare of the ,pre-,raphaelite4 ,he1 the most mild of men1 has yet never been anything but ,watts4 ,he has followed the gleam1 like some odd modern ,merlin4 ,he has escaped all the great atmospheres1 the divine if deluding intoxications1 which have whirled one man one way and one another2 which flew to the head of a perfect stylist like ,ruskin and made him an insane scientist2 which flew to the head of a great artist like ,whistler and made him a pessimistic dandy4 ,he has passed them with a curious immunity1 an immunity which1 if it were not so nakedly innocent1 might almost be called egotism2 but which is in fact rather the single eye4 ,he said once that he had not even consented to illustrate a book2 his limitation was that he could express no ideas but his own4 ,he admired ,tennyson2 he thought him the greatest of poets2 he thought him a far greater man than himself2 he read him1 he adored him1 but he could not illustrate him4 ,this is the curious secret strength which kept him independent in his youth and kept him independent through the great roaring triumph of the ,pre-,raphaelite and the great roaring triumph of the ,impressionist4 ,he stands in the world of art as he stood in the studio of ,behnes and in the ,uffizi ,gallery4 ,he stands gazing1 but not copying4 ,of ,watts as he was at this time there remains a very interesting portrait painted by himself4 ,it represents him at the age of nineteen1 a dark1 slim1 and very boyish-looking creature4 ,something in changed conditions may no doubt account for the flowing and voluminous dark hair3 we see such a mane in many of the portraits of the most distinguished men of that time2 but if a man appeared now and walked down ,fleet ,street with so neglected a hure1 he would be mistaken for an advertisement of a hair-dresser1 or by the more malicious for a minor poet4 ,but there is about this picture not a trace of affectation or the artistic immunity in these matters3 the boy's dress is rough and ordinary1 his expression is simple and unconscious4 ,from a modern standpoint we should say without hesitation that if his hair is long it is because he has forgotten to have it cut4 ,and there is something about this contrast between the unconsciously leonine hair and the innocent and almost bashful face1 there is something like a parable of ,watts4 ,his air is artistic1 if you will4 ,his famous skull cap1 which makes him look like a ,venetian senator1 is as pictorial and effective as the boyish mane in the picture4 ,but he belongs to that older race of ,bohemians1 of which even ,thackeray only saw the sunset1 the great old race of art and literature who were ragged because they were really poor1 frank because they were really free1 and untidy because they were really forgetful4 ,it will not do to confuse ,watts with these men2 there is ,illustration3 8,,for ,,he ,,had ,,great ,,possessions40 much about him that is precise and courtly1 and which1 as ,i shall have occasion to remark1 belongs really to a yet older period4 ,but it is more right to reckon ,watts along with them in their genuine raggedness than to suppose that the unquestionable picturesqueness with which he fronts the world has any relation with that new ,bohemianism which is untidy because it is conventional1 frank because it follows a fashion1 careless because it watches for all its effects1 and ragged and coarse in its tastes because it has too much money4 ,the first definite encouragement1 or at least the first encouragement now ascertainable1 probably came to the painter from that interesting ,greek amateur1 ,mr4 ,constantine ,ionides4 ,it was under his encouragement that ,watts began all his earlier work of the more ambitious kind1 and it was the portrait of ,mrs4 ,constantine ,ionides which ranks among the earliest of his definite successes4 ,he achieved immediate professional success1 however1 at an astonishingly early age1 judged by modern standards4 ,when he was barely twenty he had three pictures in the ,royal ,academy3 the first two were portraits1 and the third a picture called ,the ,wounded ,heron4 ,there is always a very considerable temptation to fantasticality in dealing with these artistic origins3 no doubt it does not always follow that a man is destined to be a military conqueror because he beats other little boys at school1 nor endued with a passionate and clamorous nature because he begins this mortal life with a yell4 ,but ,watts has1 to a rather unusual degree1 a sincere and consistent and homogeneous nature2 and this first exhibit of his has really a certain amount of symbolism about it4 ,portraiture1 with which he thus began1 he was destined to raise to a level never before attained in ,english art1 so far as significance and humanity are concerned2 and there is really something a little fascinating about the fact that along with these pictures went one picture which had1 for all practical purposes1 an avowedly humanitarian object4 ,the picture of ,the ,wounded ,heron scarcely ever attracts attention1 ,i imagine1 in these days1 but it may1 of course1 have been recalled for a moment to the popular mind by that curious incident which occurred in connexion with it and which has often been told4 ,long after the painter who produced that picture in his struggling boyhood had lost sight of it and in all probability forgotten all about its existence1 a chance traveller with a taste in the arts happened to find it in the dusty curiosity-shop of a north-country town4 ,he bought it and gave it back to the now celebrated painter1 who hung it among the exhibits at ,little ,holland ,house4 ,it is1 as ,i have said1 a thing painted clearly with a humanitarian object3 it depicts the suffering of a stricken creature2 it depicts the helplessness of life under the cruelty of the inanimate violence2 it depicts the pathos of dying and the greater pathos of living4 ,since then1 no doubt1 ,watts has improved his machinery of presentation and found larger and more awful things to tell his tale with than a bleeding bird4 ,the wings of the heron have widened till they embrace the world with the terrible wings of ,time or ,death3 he has summoned the stars to help him and sent the angels as his ambassadors4 ,he has changed the plan of operations until it includes ,heaven and ,tartarus4 ,he has never changed the theme4 ,the relations of ,watts to ,constantine ,ionides either arose or became important about this time4 ,the painter's fortunes rose quickly and steadily1 so far as the ,academy was concerned4 ,he continued to exhibit with a fair amount of regularity1 chiefly in the form of subjects from the great romantic or ,illustration3 ,,an ,,idle ,,child ,,of ,,fancy4 historic traditions which were then the whole pabulum of the young idealistic artist4 ,in the ,academy of #ahdj came a picture on the old romantic subject of ,ferdinand and ,isabella2 in the following year but one1 a picture on the old romantic subject of ,cymbeline4 ,the portrait of ,mrs4 ,constantine ,ionides appeared in #ahdb4 ,but ,watts' mode of thought from the very beginning had very little kinship with the ,academy and very little kinship with this kind of private and conventional art4 ,an event was shortly to occur1 the first success of his life1 but an event far less important when considered as the first success of his life than it is when considered as an essential characteristic of his mind4 ,the circumstances are so extremely characteristic of something in the whole spirit of the man's art that it may be permissible to dwell at length on the significance of the fact rather than on the fact itself4 ,the great ,english ,parliament1 the ,senate that broke the ,english kings1 had just moved its centre of existence4 ,the new ,houses of ,parliament had opened with what seemed to the men of that time an opening world4 ,a competition was started for the decoration of the halls1 and ,watts suddenly sprang into importance3 he won the great prize4 ,the cartoon of ,caractacus led in triumph through the streets of ,rome was accepted from this almost nameless man by the great central power of ,english history4 ,and until we have understood that fact we have not understood ,watts3 it was 7one may be permitted to fancy7 the supreme hour of his life4 ,for ,watts' nature is essentially public--that is to say1 it is modest and noble1 and has nothing to hide4 ,his art is an outdoor art1 like that of the healthy ages of the world1 like the statuesque art of ,greece1 like the ecclesiastical and external ,gothic art of ,christianity3 an art that can look the sun in the face4 ,he ought to be employed to paint factory chimneys and railway stations4 ,i know that this will sound like an insolence3 my only answer is that he1 in accordance with this great conception of his1 actually offered to paint a railway station4 ,with a splendid and truly religious imagination1 he asked permission to decorate ,euston4 ,the railway managers 7not perceiving1 in their dull classical routine1 the wild poetry of their own station7 declined4 ,but until we have understood this immense notion of publicity in the soul of ,watts1 we have understood nothing4 ,the fundamental modern fallacy is that the public life must be an artificial life4 ,it is like saying that the public street must be an artificial air4 ,men like ,watts1 men like all the great heroes1 only breathe in public4 ,what is the use of abusing a man for publicity when he utters in public the true and the enduring things8 ,what is the use1 above all1 of prying into his secrecy when he has cried his best from the house-tops8 ,this is the real argument which makes a detailed biography of ,watts unnecessary for all practical purposes4 ,it is in vain to climb walls and hide in cupboards in order to show whether ,watts eats mustard or pepper with his curry or whether ,watts takes sugar or salt with his porridge4 ,these things may or may not become public3 it matters little4 ,the innermost that the biographer could at last discover1 after all possible creepings and capers1 would be what ,watts in his inmost soul believes1 and that ,watts has splashed on twenty feet of canvas and given to the nation for nothing4 ,like one of the great orators of the eighteenth century1 his public virtues1 his public ecstasies are far more really significant than his private weaknesses4 ,the rest of his life is so simple that it is scarcely worth telling4 ,he went with the great scholarship he gained with his ,caractacus to ,italy4 ,there he found a new patron--the famous ,lord ,holland1 with the whole of whose great literary circle he rapidly became acquainted4 ,he painted many of his most famous portraits in connexion with this circle1 both in ,italy and afterwards in ,paris4 ,but this great vision of the public idea had entered his blood4 ,he offered his cartoons to ,euston ,station2 he painted ,st4 ,george and the ,dragon for the ,house of ,lords2 he presented a fresco to the great hall at ,lincoln's ,inn4 ,of his life there is scarcely more to say1 except the splendid fact that he three times refused a title4 ,of his character there is a great deal more to say4 ,there is unquestionably about the personal attitude of ,watts something that in the vague phraseology of modern times would be called ,puritan4 ,puritan1 however1 is very far from being really the right word4 ,the right word is a word which has been singularly little used in ,english nomenclature because historical circumstances have separated us from the origin from which it sprang4 ,the right word for the spirit of ,watts is ,stoicism4 ,watts is at one with the ,puritans in the actual objects of his attack4 ,one of his deepest and most enduring troubles1 a matter of which he speaks and writes frequently1 is the prevalence of gambling4 ,with the realism of an enthusiast1 he has detected the essential fact that the problem of gambling is even more of a problem in the case of the poorer classes than in the case of the richer4 ,it is1 as he asserts1 a far worse danger than drink4 ,there are many other instances of his political identity with ,puritanism4 ,he told ,mr4 ,w4 ,t4 ,stead that he had defended and was prepared to defend the staggering publications of the 8,maiden ,tribute02 it was the only way1 he said1 to stem the evil4 ,a picturesque irradiation asserts indeed that it was under the glow of ,hebraic anger against these ,babylonian cruelties of ,piccadilly and the ,strand that he painted as a symbol of those cruelties that brutal and magnificent picture ,the ,minotaur4 ,the pictures themselves of course bear sufficient attestation to this general character3 ,mammon is what we call a ,puritan picture1 and ,jonah1 and ,fata ,morgana1 and ,for he had ,great ,possessions4 ,it is not difficult to see that ,watts has the ,puritan vigilance1 the ,puritan realism1 and the ,puritan severity in his attitude towards public affairs4 ,nevertheless1 as ,i have said1 he is to be described rather as a ,stoic than a ,puritan4 ,the essential difference between ,christian and ,pagan asceticism lies in the fact that ,paganism in renouncing pleasure gives up something which it does not think desirable2 whereas ,christianity in giving up pleasure gives up something which it thinks very desirable indeed4 ,thus there is a frenzy in ,christian asceticism2 its follies and renunciations are like those of first love4 ,there is a passion1 and as it were a regret1 in the ,puritanism of ,bunyan2 there is none in the ,puritanism of ,watts4 ,he is not ,bunyan1 he is ,cato4 ,the difference may be a difficult one to convey1 but it is one that must not be ignored or great misunderstandings will follow4 ,the one self-abnegation is more reasonable but less joyful4 ,the ,stoic casts away pleasure like the parings of his nails2 the ,mystic cuts it off like his right hand that offends him4 ,in ,watts we have the noble self-abnegation of a noble type and school2 but everything1 however noble1 that has shape has limitation1 and we must not look in ,watts1 with his national self-mastery1 either for the nightmare of ,stylites or the gaiety of ,francis of ,assisi4 ,it has already been remarked that the chief note ,illustration3 ,,the ,,minotaur4 of the painter's character is a certain mixture of personal delicacy and self-effacement with the most immense and audacious aims4 ,but it is so essential a trait that it will bear a repetition and the introduction of a curious example of it4 ,watts in his quaint and even shy manner of speech often let fall in conversation words which hint at a certain principle or practice of his1 a principle and practice which are1 when properly apprehended1 beyond expression impressive and daring4 ,the spectator who studies his allegorical paintings one after another will be vaguely impressed with something uniquely absent1 something which is usual and familiar in such pictures conspicuous by its withdrawal2 a blank or difference which makes them things sundered altogether from the millions of allegorical pictures that throng the great and small galleries of painting4 ,at length the nature of this missing thing may suddenly strike him3 in the whole range of ,watts' symbolic art there is scarcely a single example of the ordinary and arbitrary current symbol1 the ecclesiastical symbol1 the heraldic symbol1 the national symbol4 ,a primeval vagueness and archaism hang over all the canvases and cartoons1 like frescoes from some prehistoric temple4 ,there is nothing there but the eternal things1 clay and fire and the sea1 and motherhood and the dead4 ,we cannot imagine the rose or the lion of ,england2 the keys or the tiara of ,rome2 the red cap of ,liberty or the crescent of ,islam in a picture by ,watts2 we cannot imagine the ,cross itself4 ,and in light and broken phrases1 carelessly and humbly expressed1 as ,i have said1 the painter has admitted that this great omission was observed on principle4 ,its object is that the pictures may be intelligible if they survive the whole modern order4 ,its object is1 that is to say1 that if some savage in a dim futurity dug up one of these dark designs on a lonely mountain1 though he worshipped strange gods and served laws yet unwritten1 it might strike the same message to his soul that it strikes upon clerks and navvies from the walls of the ,tate ,gallery4 ,it is impossible not to feel a movement of admiration for the magnitude of the thought4 ,here is a man whose self-depreciation is internal and vital2 whose life is cloistered1 whose character is childlike1 and he has yet within such an unconscious and colossal sense of greatness that he paints on the assumption that his work may outlast the cross of the ,eternal ,city4 ,as a boy he scarcely expected worldly success3 as an old man he still said that his worldly success had astonished him4 ,but in his nameless youth and in his silent old age he paints like one upon a tower looking down the appalling perspective of the centuries towards fantastic temples and inconceivable republics4 ,this union of small self-esteem with a vast ambition is a paradox in the very soul of the painter2 and when we look at the symbolic pictures in the light of this theory of his1 it is interesting and typical to observe how consistently he pursues any intellectual rule that he laid down for himself4 ,an sthetic or ethical notion of this kind is not to him1 as to most men with the artistic temperament1 a thing to talk about sumptuously1 to develop in lectures1 and to observe when it happens to be suitable4 ,it is a thing like his early rising or his personal conscience1 a thing which is either a rule or nothing4 ,and we find this insistence on universal symbols1 this rejection of all symbols that are local or temporary or topical1 even if the locality be a whole continent1 the time a stretch of centuries1 or the topic a vast civilization or an undying church--we find this insistence looking out very clearly from the allegories of ,watts4 ,it would ,illustration3 ,,the ,,court ,,of ,,death4 have been easy and effective1 as he himself often said1 to make the meaning of a picture clear by the introduction of some popular and immediate image3 and it must constantly be remembered that ,watts does care very much for making the meaning of his pictures clear4 ,his work indeed has1 as ,i shall suggest shortly1 a far more subtle and unnamable quality than the merely hard and didactic2 but it must not be for one moment pretended that ,watts does not claim to teach3 to do so would be to falsify the man's life4 ,and it would be easy1 as is quite obvious1 to make the pictures clearer3 to hang a crucifix over the ,happy ,warrior1 to give ,mammon some imperial crown or typical heraldic symbols1 to give a theological machinery to ,the ,court of ,death4 ,but this is put on one side like a temptation of the flesh1 because it conflicts with this stupendous idea of painting for all peoples and all centuries4 ,i am not saying that this extraordinary ambition is necessarily the right view of art1 or the right view of life4 ,i am only reiterating it as an absolute trait of men of the time and type and temper of ,watts4 ,it may plausibly be maintained1 ,i am not sure that it cannot more truly be maintained1 that man cannot achieve and need not achieve this frantic universality4 ,a man1 ,i fancy1 is after all only an animal that has noble preferences4 ,it is the very difference between the artistic mind and the mathematical that the former sees things as they are in a picture1 some nearer and larger1 some smaller and further away3 while to the mathematical mind everything1 every unit in a million1 every fact in a cosmos1 must be of equal value4 ,that is why mathematicians go mad2 and poets scarcely ever do4 ,a man may have as wide a view of life as he likes1 the wider the better2 a distant view1 a bird's-eye view1 if he will1 but still a view and not a map4 ,the one thing he cannot attempt in his version of the universe is to draw things to scale4 ,i have put myself for a moment outside this universalism and doubted its validity because a thing always appears more sharp and personal and picturesque if we do not wholly agree with it4 ,and this universalism is an essential and dominant feature of such great men as ,watts and of his time as a whole4 ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer is a respectable1 almost a dapper1 figure1 his theory is agnostic and his tone polite and precise4 ,and yet he threw himself into a task more insane and gigantic than that of ,dante1 an inventory or plan of the universe itself2 the awful vision of existence as a single organism1 like an amba on the disc of a microscope4 ,he claimed1 by implication1 to put in their right places the flaming certainty of the martyrs1 the wild novelties of the modern world2 to arrange the eternal rock of ,peter and the unbroken trance of ,buddhism4 ,it is only in this age of specialists1 of cryptic experiences in art and faith like the present1 that we can see how huge was that enterprise2 but the spirit of it is the spirit of ,watts4 ,the man of that aggressive nineteenth century had many wild thoughts1 but there was one thought that never even for an instant strayed across his burning brain4 ,he never once thought1 8,why should ,i understand the cat1 any more than the cat understands me80 ,he never thought1 8,why should ,i be just to the merits of a ,chinaman1 any more than a pig studies the mystic virtues of a camel80 ,he affronted heaven and the angels1 but there was one hard arrogant dogma that he never doubted even when he doubted ,godhead3 he never doubted that he himself was as central and as responsible as ,god4 ,this paradox1 then1 we call the first element in the artistic and personal claim of ,watts1 that he ,illustration3 ,,matthew ,,arnold4 ,illustration3 ,,john ,,stuart ,,mill4 realizes the great paradox of the ,gospel4 ,he is meek1 but he claims to inherit the earth4 ,but there is1 of course1 a great deal more to be said before this view of the matter can be considered complete4 ,the universalism preached by ,watts and the other great ,victorians was of course subject to certain specialisations2 it is not necessary to call them limitations4 ,like ,matthew ,arnold1 the last and most sceptical of them1 who expressed their basic idea in its most detached and philosophic form1 they held that conduct was three-fourths of life4 ,they were ingrainedly ethical2 the mere idea of thinking anything more important than ethics would have struck them as profane4 ,in this they were certainly right1 but they were nevertheless partial or partisan2 they did not really maintain the judicial attitude of the universalist4 ,the mere thought of ,watts painting a picture called ,the ,victory of ,joy over ,morality1 or ,nature rebuking ,conscience1 is enough to show the definite limits of that cosmic equality4 ,this is not1 of course1 to be taken as a fault in the attitude of ,watts4 ,he simply draws the line somewhere1 as all men1 including anarchists1 draw it somewhere2 he is dogmatic1 as all sane men are dogmatic4 ,there is another phase of this innocent audacity4 ,it may appear to be more fanciful1 it is certainly more completely a matter of inference2 but it throws light on yet another side of the character of ,watts4 ,watts' relation to friends and friendship has something about it very typical4 ,he is not a man desirous or capable of a very large or rich or varied circle of acquaintance4 ,there is nothing ,bohemian about him4 ,he belongs both chronologically and psychologically to that period which is earlier even than ,thackeray and his ,cave of ,harmony3 he belongs to the quiet1 struggling1 self-created men of the forties1 with their tradition of self-abnegating individualism4 ,much as there is about him of the artist and the poet1 there is something about him also of the industrious apprentice4 ,that strenuous solitude in which ,archbishop ,temple as a boy struggled to carry a bag of ironmongery which crushed his back1 in which ,gladstone cut down trees and ,john ,stuart ,mill read half the books of the world in boyhood1 that strenuous solitude entered to some degree into the very soul of ,watts and made him independent of them4 ,but the friends he made have as a general rule been very characteristic3 they have marked the strange and haughty fastidiousness that goes along with his simplicity4 ,his friends1 his intimate friends1 that is1 have been marked by a certain indescribable and stately worthiness3 more than one of them have been great men like himself4 ,the greatest and most intimate of all his friends1 probably1 was ,tennyson1 and in this there is something singularly characteristic of ,watts4 ,about the actuality of the intellectual tie that bound him to ,tennyson there can be little doubt4 ,he painted three1 if not four1 portraits of him2 his name was often on his lips2 he invoked him always as the typical great poet1 excusing his faults and expounding his virtues4 ,he invoked his authority as that of the purest of poets1 and invoked it very finely and well in a sharp controversial interview he had on the nature and ethics of the nude in art4 ,at the time ,i write1 there is standing at the end of the garden at ,limnerslease a vast shed1 used for a kind of sculptor's studio1 in which there stands a splendid but unfinished statue1 on which the veteran of the arts is even now at work4 ,it represents ,tennyson1 wrapped in his famous mantle1 with his magnificent head bowed1 gazing at something in the ,illustration3 ,,robert ,,browning4 ,illustration3 ,,lord ,,tennyson4 hollow of his hand4 ,the subject is ,flower in the ,crannied ,wall4 ,there is something very characteristic of ,watts in the contrast between the colossal plan of the figure and the smallness of the central object4 ,but while the practical nature of the friendship between ,watts and ,tennyson is clear enough1 there is something really significant1 something really relevant to ,watts' attitude in its ultimate and psychological character4 ,it is surely most likely that ,watts and ,tennyson were drawn together because they both represented a certain relation towards their art which is not common in our time and was scarcely properly an attribute of any artists except these two4 ,watts could not have found the thing he most believed in ,browning or ,swinburne or ,morris or any of the other poets4 ,tennyson could not have found the thing he most believed in ,leighton or ,millais or any of the other painters4 ,they were brought together1 it must be supposed1 by the one thing that they had really in common1 a profound belief in the solemnity1 the ceremoniousness1 the responsibility1 and what most men would now1 in all probability1 call the pomposity of the great arts4 ,watts has always a singular kind of semi-mystical tact in the matter of portrait painting4 ,his portraits are commonly very faultless comments and have the same kind of superlative mental delicacy that we see in the picture of ,hope4 ,and the whole truth of this last matter is very well expressed in ,watts' famous portrait of ,tennyson1 particularly if we look at it in conjunction with his portrait of ,browning4 ,the head of ,browning is the head of a strong1 splendid1 joyful1 and anxious man who could write magnificent poetry4 ,the head of ,tennyson is the head of a poet4 ,watts has painted ,tennyson with his dark dome-like head relieved against a symbolic green and blue of the eternal sea and the eternal laurels4 ,he has behind him the bays of ,dante and he is wrapped in the cloak of the prophets4 ,browning is dressed like an ordinary modern man1 and we at once feel that it should and must be so4 ,to dress ,browning in the prophet's robe and the poet's wreath would strike us all as suddenly ridiculous2 it would be like sending him to a fancy-dress ball4 ,it would be like attiring ,matthew ,arnold in the slashed tights of an ,elizabethan1 or putting ,mr4 ,lecky into a primitive ,celto-,irish kilt4 ,but it does not strike us as absurd in the case of ,tennyson3 it does not strike us as even eccentric or outlandish or remote4 ,we think of ,tennyson in that way2 we think of him as a lordly and conscious bard4 ,some part of this fact may1 of course1 be due to his possession of a magnificent physical presence2 but not1 ,i think1 all4 ,lord ,kitchener 7let us say7 is a handsome man1 but we should laugh at him very much in silver armour4 ,it is much more due to the fact that ,tennyson really assumed and was granted this stately and epic position4 ,it is not true that ,tennyson was more of a poet than ,browning1 if we mean by that statement that ,browning could not compose forms as artistic and well-managed1 lyrics as light and poignant1 and rhythms as swelling and stirring as any in ,english letters4 ,but it is true that ,tennyson was more of a poet than ,browning1 if we mean by that statement that ,tennyson was a poet in person1 in post and circumstance and conception of life2 and that ,browning was not1 in that sense1 a poet at all4 ,browning first inaugurated in modern art and letters the notion or tradition1 in many ways perhaps a more wholesome one1 that the fact that a man pursued the trade or practice of poetry was his own affair and a thing apart1 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,dweller ,,in ,,the ,,innermost4 like the fact that he collected coins or earned his living as a hatter4 ,but ,tennyson really belonged to an older tradition1 the tradition that believed that the poet1 the appointed 8,vates10 was a recognized and public figure like the bard or jester at the medival courts1 like the prophet in the old ,commonwealth of ,israel4 ,in ,tennyson's work appeared for the last time in ,english history this notion of the stately and public and acknowledged poet3 it was the lay of the last minstrel4 ,now there is in ,watts1 gentle and invisible as he is1 something that profoundly responds to that spirit4 ,leighton1 like ,browning1 was a courtier and man of the world3 ,millais1 like ,browning1 was a good fellow and an ordinary gentleman3 but ,watts has more of ,tennyson in him2 he believes in a great priesthood of art4 ,he believes in a certain pure and childish publicity4 ,if anyone suggested that before a man ventured to paint pictures or to daub with plaster he should be initiated with some awful rites in some vast and crowded national temple1 should swear to work worthily before some tremendous altar or over some symbolic flame1 ,millais would have laughed heartily at the idea and ,leighton also4 ,but it would not seem either absurd or unreasonable to ,watts4 ,in the thick of this smoky century he is living in a clear age of heroes4 ,watts' relations to ,tennyson were indeed very characteristic of what was finest1 and at the same time quaintest1 in the two men4 ,the painter1 with a typical sincerity1 took the poet seriously1 ,i had almost said literally1 in his daily life1 and liked him to live up to his poetry4 ,the poet1 with that queer sulky humour which gave him1 perhaps1 more breadth than ,watts1 but less strength1 said1 after reading some acid and unjust criticisms1 8,i wish ,i had never written a line40 8,come10 said ,watts1 8you wouldn't like #8,king ,arthur' to talk like that40 ,tennyson paused a moment and then spread out his fingers4 8,well10 he said1 8what do you expect8 ,it's all the gout40 ,the artist1 with a characteristic power of juvenile and immortal hero-worship1 tells this story as an instance of the fundamental essence of odd magnanimity and sombre geniality in ,tennyson4 ,it is such an instance and a very good one3 but it is also an instance of the sharp logical idealism1 of the prompt poetic candour of ,watts4 ,he asked ,tennyson to be ,king ,arthur1 and it never occurred to him to think that he was asking ,addison to be ,cato1 or ,massinger to be ,saint ,dorothy4 ,the incident is a fine tribute to a friendship4 ,the real difficulty which many cultivated people have in the matter of ,watts' allegorical pictures is far more difficult4 ,it is indeed nothing else but the great general reaction against allegorical art which has arisen during the last artistic period4 ,the only way in which we can study1 with any real sincerity1 the allegoric art of ,watts is to ask to what is really due the objection to allegory which has thus arisen4 ,the real objection to allegory is1 it may roughly be said1 founded upon the conception that allegory involves one art imitating another4 ,this is1 up to a certain point1 true4 ,to paint a figure in a blue robe and call her ,necessity1 and then paint a small figure in a yellow robe and call it ,invention2 to put the second on the knee of the first1 and then say that you are enunciating the sublime and eternal truth1 that ,necessity is the mother of ,invention1 this is indeed an idle and foolish affair4 ,it is saying in six weeks' work with brush and palette knife what could be said much better in six words4 ,and there can be no reasonable dispute that of this character were a considerable ,illustration3 ,,george ,,meredith4 number of the allegorical pictures that have crowded the galleries and sprawled over the ceilings of ancient and modern times4 ,of such were the monstrous pictures of ,rubens1 which depicted a fat ,religion and a bloated ,temperance dancing before some foreign conqueror2 of such were the florid designs of the eighteenth century1 which showed ,venus and ,apollo encouraging ,lord ,peterborough to get over the inconvenience of his breastplate2 of such1 again1 were the meek ,victorian allegories which showed ,mercy and ,foresight urging men to found a ,society for the ,preservation of ,young ,game4 ,of such were almost all the allegories which have dominated the art of ,europe for many centuries back4 ,of such1 most emphatically1 the allegories of ,watts are not4 ,they are not mere pictorial forms1 combined as in a kind of cryptogram to express theoretic views or relations4 ,they are not proverbs or verbal relations rendered with a cumbrous exactitude in oil and ,chinese white4 ,they are not1 in short1 the very thing that the opponents of ,watts and his school say that they are4 ,they are not merely literary4 ,there is one definite current conception on which this idea that ,watts' allegorical art is merely literary is eventually based4 ,it is based upon the idea that lies at the root of rationalism1 at the root of useless logomachies1 at the root1 in no small degree1 of the whole modern evil4 ,it is based on the assumption of the perfection of language4 ,every religion and every philosophy must1 of course1 be based on the assumption of the authority or the accuracy of something4 ,but it may well be questioned whether it is not saner and more satisfactory to ground our faith on the infallibility of the ,pope1 or the infallibility of the ,book of ,mormon1 than on this astounding modern dogma of the infallibility of human speech4 ,every time one man says to another1 8,tell us plainly what you mean80 he is assuming the infallibility of language3 that is to say1 he is assuming that there is a perfect scheme of verbal expression for all the internal moods and meanings of men4 ,whenever a man says to another1 8,prove your case2 defend your faith10 he is assuming the infallibility of language3 that is to say1 he is assuming that a man has a word for every reality in earth1 or heaven1 or hell4 ,he knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering1 more numberless1 and more nameless than the colours of an autumn forest2 he knows that there are abroad in the world and doing strange and terrible service in it crimes that have never been condemned and virtues that have never been christened4 ,yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them1 in all their tones and semi-tones1 in all their blends and unions1 be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals4 ,he believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire4 ,whenever1 on the other hand1 a man rebels faintly or vaguely against this way of speaking1 whenever a man says that he cannot explain what he means1 and that he hates argument1 that his enemy is misrepresenting him1 but he cannot explain how2 that man is a true sage1 and has seen into the heart of the real nature of language4 ,whenever a man refuses to be caught by some dilemma about reason and passion1 or about reason and faith1 or about fate and free-will1 he has seen the truth4 ,whenever a man declines to be cornered as an egotist1 or an altruist1 or any such modern monster1 he has seen the truth4 ,for the truth is that language is not a scientific thing at all1 but wholly an artistic thing1 a thing invented by hunters1 and killers1 and such artists long before science was ,illustration3 ,,orpheus ,,and ,,eurydice4 dreamed of4 ,the truth is simply that--that the tongue is not a reliable instrument1 like a theodolite or a camera4 ,the tongue is most truly an unruly member1 as the wise saint has called it1 a thing poetic and dangerous1 like music or fire4 ,now we can easily imagine an alternative state of things1 roughly similar to that produced in ,watts' allegories1 a system1 that is to say1 whereby the moods or facts of the human spirit were conveyed by something other than speech1 by shapes or colours or some such things4 ,as a matter of fact1 of course1 there are a great many other languages besides the verbal4 ,descriptions of spiritual states and mental purposes are conveyed by a variety of things1 by hats1 by bells1 by guns1 by fires on a headland1 or by jerks of the head4 ,in fact there does exist an example which is singularly analogous to decorative and symbolic painting4 ,this is a scheme of sthetic signs or emblems1 simple indeed and consisting only of a few elemental colours1 which is actually employed to convey great lessons in human safety and great necessities of the commonwealth4 ,it need hardly be said that ,i allude to the railway signals4 ,they are as much a language1 and surely as solemn a language1 as the colour sequence of ecclesiastical vestments1 which sets us red for martyrdom1 and white for resurrection4 ,for the green and red of the night-signals depict the two most fundamental things of all1 which lie at the back of all language4 ,yes and no1 good and bad1 safe and unsafe1 life and death4 ,it is perfectly conceivable that a degree of flexibility or subtlety might be introduced into these colours so as to suggest other and more complex meanings4 ,we might 7under the influence of some large poetic station-masters7 reach a state of things in which a certain rich tinge of purple in the crimson light would mean 8,travel for a few seconds at a slightly more lingering pace1 that a romantic old lady in a first-class carriage may admire the scenery of the forest40 ,a tendency towards peacock blue in the green might mean 8,an old gentleman with a black necktie has just drunk a glass of sherry at the station restaurant40 ,but however much we modified or varied this colour sequence or colour language1 there would remain one thing which it would be quite ridiculous and untrue to say about it4 ,it would be quite ridiculous and untrue to say that this colour sequence was simply a symbol representing language4 ,it would be another language3 it would convey its meaning to aliens who had another word for forest1 and another word for sherry1 and another word for old lady4 ,it would not be a symbol of language1 a symbol of a symbol2 it would be one symbol of the reality1 and language would be another4 ,that is precisely the true position touching allegorical art in general1 and1 above all1 the allegorical art of ,watts4 ,so long as we conceive that it is1 fundamentally1 the symbolizing of literature in paint1 we shall certainly misunderstand it and the rare and peculiar merits1 both technical and philosophical1 which really characterize it4 ,if the ordinary spectator at the art galleries finds himself1 let us say1 opposite a picture of a dancing flower-crowned figure in a rose-coloured robe1 he feels a definite curiosity to know the title1 looks it up in the catalogue1 and finds that it is called1 let us say1 8,hope40 ,he is immediately satisfied1 as he would have been if the title had run 8,portrait of ,lady ,warwick10 a 8,view of ,kilchurn ,castle40 ,it represents a certain definite thing1 the word 8hope40 ,but what does the word 8hope0 represent8 ,it represents only a broken instantaneous glimpse of something that is immeasurably older and wilder ,illustration3 ,,hope4 than language1 that is immeasurably older and wilder than man2 a mystery to saints and a reality to wolves4 ,to suppose that such a thing is dealt with by the word 8hope10 any more than ,america is represented by a distant view of ,cape ,horn1 would indeed be ridiculous4 ,it is not merely true that the word itself is1 like any other word1 arbitrary2 that it might as well be 8pig0 or 8parasol02 but it is true that the philosophical meaning of the word1 in the conscious mind of man1 is merely a part of something immensely larger in the unconscious mind1 that the gusty light of language only falls for a moment on a fragment1 and that obviously a semi-detached1 unfinished fragment of a certain definite pattern on the dark tapestries of reality4 ,it is vain and worse than vain to declaim against the allegoric1 for the very word 8hope0 is an allegory1 and the very word 8allegory0 is an allegory4 ,now let us suppose that instead of coming before that hypothetical picture of ,hope in conventional flowers and conventional pink robes1 the spectator came before another picture4 ,suppose that he found himself in the presence of a dim canvas with a bowed and stricken and secretive figure cowering over a broken lyre in the twilight4 ,what would he think8 ,his first thought1 of course1 would be that the picture was called ,despair2 his second 7when he discovered his error in the catalogue71 that it has been entered under the wrong number2 his third1 that the painter was mad4 ,but if we imagine that he overcame these preliminary feelings and that as he stared at that queer twilight picture a dim and powerful sense of meaning began to grow upon him--what would he see8 ,he would see something for which there is neither speech nor language1 which has been too vast for any eye to see and too secret for any religion to utter1 even as an esoteric doctrine4 ,standing before that picture1 he finds himself in the presence of a great truth4 ,he perceives that there is something in man which is always apparently on the eve of disappearing1 but never disappears1 an assurance which is always apparently saying farewell and yet illimitably lingers1 a string which is always stretched to snapping and yet never snaps4 ,he perceives that the queerest and most delicate thing in us1 the most fragile1 the most fantastic1 is in truth the backbone and indestructible4 ,he knows a great moral fact3 that there never was an age of assurance1 that there never was an age of faith4 ,faith is always at a disadvantage2 it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors4 ,the desperate modern talk about dark days and reeling altars1 and the end of ,gods and angels1 is the oldest talk in the world3 lamentations over the growth of agnosticism can be found in the monkish sermons of the dark ages2 horror at youthful impiety can be found in the ,iliad4 ,this is the thing that never deserts men and yet always1 with daring diplomacy1 threatens to desert them4 ,it has indeed dwelt among and controlled all the kings and crowds1 but only with the air of a pilgrim passing by4 ,it has indeed warmed and lit men from the beginning of ,eden with an unending glow1 but it was the glow of an eternal sunset4 ,here1 in this dim picture1 its trick is almost betrayed4 ,no one can name this picture properly1 but ,watts1 who painted it1 has named it ,hope4 ,but the point is that this title is not 7as those think who call it 8literary07 the reality behind the symbol1 but another symbol for the same thing1 or1 to speak yet more strictly1 another symbol describing another part or aspect of the same complex reality4 ,two men felt a swift1 violent1 invisible thing in the world3 one said the word 8hope10 the other painted a ,illustration3 ,,jonah4 picture in blue and green paint4 ,the picture is inadequate2 the word 8hope0 is inadequate2 but between them1 like two angles in the calculation of a distance1 they almost locate a mystery1 a mystery that for hundreds of ages has been hunted by men and evaded them4 ,and the title is therefore not so much the substance of one of ,watts' pictures1 it is rather an epigram upon it4 ,it is merely an approximate attempt to convey1 by snatching up the tool of another craftsman1 the direction attempted in the painter's own craft4 ,he calls it ,hope1 and that is perhaps the best title4 ,it reminds us among other things of a fact which is too little remembered1 that faith1 hope1 and charity1 the three mystical virtues of ,christianity1 are also the gayest of the virtues4 ,paganism1 as ,i have suggested1 is not gay1 but rather nobly sad2 the spirit of ,watts1 which is as a rule nobly sad also1 here comes nearer perhaps than anywhere else to mysticism in the strict sense1 the mysticism which is full of secret passion and belief1 like that of ,fra ,angelico or ,blake4 ,but though ,watts calls his tremendous reality ,hope1 we may call it many other things4 ,call it faith1 call it vitality1 call it the will to live1 call it the religion of to-morrow morning1 call it the immortality of man1 call it self-love and vanity2 it is the thing that explains why man survives all things and why there is no such thing as a pessimist4 ,it cannot be found in any dictionary or rewarded in any commonwealth3 there is only one way in which it can even be noticed and recognized4 ,if there be anywhere a man who has really lost it1 his face out of a whole crowd of men will strike us like a blow4 ,he may hang himself or become ,prime ,minister2 it matters nothing4 ,the man is dead4 ,now1 of course the ordinary objection to allegory1 and it is a very sound objection1 can be sufficiently well stated by saying that the pictorial figures are mere arbitrary symbols of the words4 ,an allegorist of the pompous school might paint some group of ,peace and ,commerce doing something to ,britannia4 ,there might be a figure of ,commerce in a ,greek robe with a cornucopia or bag of gold or an argosy or any other conventional symbol4 ,but it is surely quite evident that such a figure is a mere sign like the word commerce3 the word might just as well be 8dandelion10 and the ,greek lady with the cornucopia might just as well be a ,hebrew prophet standing on his head4 ,it is scarcely even a language3 it is a cipher-code4 ,nobody can maintain that the figure1 taken as a figure1 makes one think of commerce1 of the forces that effect commerce1 of a thousand ports1 of a thousand streets1 of a thousand warehouses and bills of lading1 of a thousand excited men in black coats who certainly would not know what to do with a cornucopia4 ,if we find ourselves gazing at some monument of the fragile and eternal faith of man1 at some ruined chapel1 at some nameless altar1 at some scrap of old ,jacobin eloquence1 we might actually find our own minds moving in certain curves that centre in the curved back of ,watts' ,hope3 we might almost think for ourselves of a bowed figure in the twilight1 holding to her breast something damaged but undestroyed4 ,but can anyone say that by merely looking at the ,stock ,exchange on a busy day we should think of a ,greek lady with an argosy8 ,can anyone say that ,threadneedle ,street1 in itself1 would inspire our minds to move in the curves which centre in a cornucopia8 ,can anyone say that a very stolid figure in a very outlandish drapery is anything but a purely arbitrary sign1 like x or y1 for such a thing as modern commerce1 for the savagery of the rich1 for the hunger of the satisfied1 for the vast tachycardia or galloping of the heart that has fallen on all the great new centres of civilization1 for the sudden madness of all the mills of the world8 ,watts' ,hope does tell us something more about the nature of hope than we can be told by merely noticing that hope is shown in individual cases3 that a man rehearses successful love speeches when he is in love1 and takes a return ticket when he goes out to fight a duel4 ,but the figure of ,commerce with the cornucopia gives us less insight into what is behind commerce than we might get from reading a circular or staring out into the street4 ,in the case of ,commerce the figure is merely a symbol of commerce1 which is a symbol4 ,in the case of ,hope the matter is quite the other way2 the figure brings us nearer to something which is not a symbol1 but the reality behind symbols4 ,in the one case we go further down towards the river's delta2 in the other1 further up towards its fountain2 that at least may be called a difference4 ,and now1 suppose that our imaginary sight-seer who had seen so much of the pompous allegory of ,commerce in her ,grecian draperies were to see1 for the second time1 a second picture4 ,suppose he saw before him a throned figure clad in splendid1 heavy scarlet and gold1 above the lustre and dignity of which rose1 in abrupt contrast1 a face like the face of a blind beast4 ,suppose that as this imperial thing1 with closed eyes and fat1 sightless face1 sat upon his magnificent seat1 he let his heavy hand and feet fall1 as if by a mere pulverizing accident1 on the naked and god-like figures of the young1 on men and women4 ,suppose that in the background there rose straight into the air a raw and turgid smoke1 as if from some invisible and horrible sacrifice1 and that by one final1 fantastic1 and triumphal touch this all-destroying god and king were adorned with the ears of an ass1 declaring that he was royal1 imperial1 irresistible1 and1 when all is said1 imbecile4 ,suppose that a man sick of argosies and cornucopias came before that picture1 would he not say1 perhaps even before he looked in the catalogue and found that the painter had called it ,mammon1 would he not say1 8,this is something which in spirit and in essence ,i have seen before1 something which in spirit and in essence ,i have seen everywhere4 ,that bloated1 unconscious face1 so heavy1 so violent1 so wicked1 so innocent1 have ,i not seen it at street corners1 in billiard-rooms1 in saloon bars1 laying down the law about ,chartered shares or gaping at jokes about women8 ,those huge and smashing limbs1 so weighty1 so silly1 so powerless1 and yet so powerful1 have ,i not seen them in the pompous movements1 the morbid health of the prosperous in the great cities8 ,the hard1 straight pillars of that throne1 have ,i not seen them in the hard1 straight1 hideous tiers of modern warehouses and factories8 ,that tawny and sulky smoke1 have ,i not seen it going up to heaven from all the cities of the coming world8 ,this is no trifling with argosies and ,greek drapery4 ,this is commerce4 ,this is the home of the god himself4 ,this is why men hate him1 and why men fear him1 and why men endure him40 ,now1 of course1 it is at once obvious that this view would be very unjust to commerce2 but that modification1 as a matter of fact1 very strongly supports the general theory at the moment under consideration4 ,commerce is really an arbitrary phrase1 a thing including a million motives1 from the motive which makes a man drink to the motive which makes him reform2 from the motive that makes a starving man eat a horse to the motive which makes an idle man chase a butterfly4 ,but whatever other spirits there are in commerce1 there is1 beyond all reasonable ,illustration3 ,,mammon4 question1 in it this powerful and enduring spirit which ,watts has painted4 ,there is1 as a ruling element in modern life1 in all life1 this blind and asinine appetite for mere power4 ,there is a spirit abroad among the nations of the earth which drives men incessantly on to destroy what they cannot understand1 and to capture what they cannot enjoy4 ,this1 and not commerce1 is what ,watts has painted4 ,he has painted1 not the allegory of a great institution1 but the vision of a great appetite1 the vision of a great motive4 ,it is not true that this is a picture of ,commerce2 but that ,commerce and ,watts' picture spring from the same source4 ,there does exist a certain dark and driving force in the world2 one of its products is this picture1 another is ,commerce4 ,the picture is not ,commerce1 it is ,mammon4 ,and1 indeed1 so powerfully and perfectly has ,watts1 in this case1 realized the awful being whom he was endeavouring to call up by his artistic incantation1 that we may even say the common positions of allegory and reality are reversed4 ,the fact is not that here we have an effective presentation under a certain symbol of red robes and smoke and a throne1 of what the financial world is1 but rather that here we have something of the truth that is hidden behind the symbol of white waistcoats and hats on the back of the head1 of financial papers and sporting prophets1 of butter closing quiet and ,pendragon being meant to win4 ,this is not a symbol of commerce3 commerce is a symbol of this4 ,in sketching this general and necessary attitude towards the art of ,watts1 particularly in the matter of allegory1 ,i have taken deliberately these two very famous and obvious pictures1 and ,i have occupied1 equally deliberately1 a considerable amount of space in expounding them4 ,it is far better in a subject so subtle and so bewildering as the relation between art and philosophy1 that we should see how our conceptions and hypotheses really get on when applied systematically and at some length to some perfectly familiar and existent object4 ,a philosopher cannot talk about any single thing1 down to a pumpkin1 without showing whether he is wise or foolish2 but he can easily talk about everything with anyone having any views about him beyond gloomy suspicions4 ,but at this point ,i become fully conscious of another and most important kind of criticism1 which has been and can be levelled against the allegories of ,watts2 and which must be1 by the nature of things1 evoked by the particular line of discussion or reflection that ,i have here adopted4 ,it may be admitted that ,watts' art is not merely literary in the sense in which ,i have originally used the term4 ,it may be admitted that there is truth in the general position ,i have sketched out--that ,watts is not a man copying literature or philosophy1 but rather a man copying the great spiritual and central realities which literature and philosophy also set out to copy4 ,it may be admitted that ,mammon is obviously an attempt to portray1 not a twopenny phrase1 but a great idea4 ,but along with all these admissions it will certainly be said1 by the most powerful and recent school in art criticism1 that all this amounts to little more than a difference between a mean and a magnificent blunder4 ,pictorial art1 it will be said1 has no more business1 as such1 to portray great ideas than small ideas4 ,its affair is with its own technique1 with the love of a great billowing line for its own sake1 of a subtle and perfect tint for its own sake4 ,if a man mistakes his trade and attends to the technique of another1 the sublimity of his mind is only a very slight consolation4 ,if ,i summon a paperhanger ,illustration3 ,,death ,,crowning ,,innocence4 to cover the walls1 and he insists on playing the piano1 it matters little whether he plays ,beethoven or 8,the ,yachmak40 ,if ,i charter a pianist1 and he is found drinking in the wine cellar1 it matters little whether he has made his largest hole in good ,burgundy or bad ,marsala4 ,if the whole of this question of great ideas and small ideas1 of large atmospheres and superficial definitions1 of the higher and the lower allegory--if all this be really irrelevant to the discussion of the position of a painter1 then1 indeed1 we have been upon an idle track4 ,as ,i think ,i shall show in a moment1 this is a very inadequate view of the matter4 ,but it does draw our attention to an aspect of the matter which must1 without further delay1 be discussed4 ,that aspect1 as ,i need hardly say1 is the technique of ,watts4 ,there is of course a certain tendency among all interesting and novel critical philosophers to talk as if they had discovered things which it is perfectly impossible that any human being could ever have denied2 to shout that the birds fly1 and declare that in spite of persecution they will still assert that cows have four legs4 ,in this way some raw pseudo-scientists talk about heredity or the physical basis of life as if it were not a thing embedded in every creed and legend1 and even the very languages of men4 ,in this way some of the new oligarchists of to-day imagine they are attacking the doctrine of human equality by pointing out that some men are stronger or cleverer than others2 as if they really believed that ,danton and ,washington thought that every man was the same height and had the same brains4 ,and something of this preliminary cloud of folly or misunderstanding attaches doubtless to the question of the technical view--that is1 the solely technical view--of painting4 ,if the principle of 8art for art's sake0 means simply that there is a solely technical view of painting1 and that it must be supreme on its own ground1 it appears a piece of pure madness to suppose it other than true4 ,surely there never was really a man who held that a picture that was vile in colour and weak in drawing was a good picture because it was a picture of ,florence ,nightingale6 ,surely there never was really a man who said that when one leg in a drawing was longer than another1 yet they were both the same length because the artist painted it for an altar-piece6 ,when the new critics with a burst of music and a rocket shower of epigrams enunciated their new criticism1 they must at any rate have meant something more than this4 ,undoubtedly they did mean something more2 they meant that a picture was not a good vehicle for moral sentiment at all2 they meant that not only was it not the better for having a philosophic meaning1 but that it was worse4 ,this1 if it be true1 is beyond all question a real indictment of ,watts4 ,about the whole of this ,watts controversy about didactic art there is at least one perfectly plain and preliminary thing to be said4 ,it is said that art cannot teach a lesson4 ,this is true1 and the only proper addition is the statement that neither1 for the matter of that1 can morality teach a lesson4 ,for a thing to be didactic1 in the strict and narrow and scholastic sense1 it must be something about facts or the physical sciences3 you can only teach a lesson about such a thing as ,euclid or the making of paper boats4 ,the thing is quite inapplicable to the great needs of man1 whether moral or sthetic4 ,nobody ever held a class in philanthropy with fifteen millionaires in a row writing cheques4 ,nobody ever held evening continuation classes in martyrdom1 or drilled boys in a playground to die for their country4 ,a ,illustration3 ,a ,,story ,,from ,,boccaccio4 picture cannot give a plain lesson in morals2 neither can a sermon4 ,a didactic poem was a thing known indeed among the ancients and the old ,latin civilization1 but as a matter of fact it scarcely ever professed to teach people how to live the higher life4 ,it taught people how to keep bees4 ,since we find1 therefore1 that ethics is like art1 a mystic and intuitional affair1 the only question that remains is1 have they any kinship8 ,if they have not1 a man is not a man1 but two men and probably more3 if they have1 there is1 to say the least of it1 at any rate a reasonable possibility that a note in moral feeling might have affinity with a note in art1 that a curve in law1 so to speak1 may repeat a curve in draughtsmanship1 that there may be genuine and not artificial correspondences between a state of morals and an effect in painting4 ,this would1 ,i should tentatively suggest1 appear to be a most reasonable hypothesis4 ,it is not so much the fact that there is no such thing as allegorical art1 but rather the fact that there is no art that is not allegorical4 ,but the meanings expressed in high and delicate art are not to be classed under cheap and external ethical formul1 they deal with strange vices and stranger virtues4 ,art is only unmoral in so far as most morality is immoral4 ,thus ,mr4 ,whistler when he drops a spark of perfect yellow or violet into some glooming pool of the nocturnal ,thames is1 in all probability1 enunciating some sharp and wholesome moral comment4 ,when the young ,impressionists paint dim corners of meadows or splashes of sunlight in the wood1 this does not mean necessarily that they are unmoral2 it may only mean that they are a very original and sincere race of stern young moralists4 ,now if we adopt this general theory of the existence of genuine correspondences between art and moral beauty1 of the existence1 that is to say1 of genuine allegories1 it is perfectly clear wherein the test of such genuineness must consist4 ,it must consist in the nature of the technique4 ,if the technique1 considered as technique1 is calculated to evoke in us a certain kind of pleasure1 and there is an analogous pleasure in the meaning considered as meaning1 then there is a true wedding of the arts4 ,but if the pleasure in the technique be of a kind quite dissimilar in its own sphere to the pleasure in the spiritual suggestion1 then it is a mechanical and unlawful union1 and this philosophy1 at any rate1 forbids the banns4 ,if the intellectual conceptions uttered in ,michel ,angelo's ,day of ,judgment in the ,sistine ,chapel were the effect of a perfect and faultless workmanship1 but the workmanship such as we should admire in a ,gothic missal or a picture by ,gerard ,dow1 we should then say that absolute excellence in both departments did not excuse their being joined4 ,the thing would have been a mere accident1 or convenience4 ,just as two plotters might communicate by means of a bar or two of music1 so these subtle harmonies of colour and form would have been used for their detached and private ends by the dark conspirators of morality4 ,now there is nothing in the world that is really so thoroughly characteristic of ,watts' technique as the fact that it does almost startlingly correspond to the structure of his spiritual sense4 ,if such pictures as ,the ,dweller in the ,innermost and ,mammon and ,diana and ,endymion and ,eve ,repentant had neither title nor author1 if no one had heard of ,watts or heard of ,eve2 if1 for the matter of that1 the pictures had neither human nor animal form1 it would be possible to guess something of the painter's attitude from the mere colour and line4 ,if ,watts painted an arabesque1 it would be moral2 if he designed a ,turkey ,illustration3 ,,lord ,,lytton4 carpet1 it would be stoical4 ,so individual is his handling that his very choice and scale of colours betray him4 ,a man with a keen sense of the spiritual and symbolic history of colours could guess at something about ,watts from the mess on his palette4 ,he would see giants and the sea and cold primeval dawns and brown earth-men and red earth-women lying in the heaps of greens and whites and reds1 like forces in chaos before the first day of creation4 ,a certain queer and yet very simple blue there is1 for instance1 which is like ,titian's and yet not like it1 which is more lustrous and yet not less opaque1 and which manages to suggest the north rather than ,titian's south1 in spite of its intensity2 which suggests also the beginning of things rather than their maturity2 a hot spring of the earth rather than ,titian's opulent summer4 ,then there is that tremendous autochthonous red1 which was the colour of ,adam1 whose name was ,red ,earth4 ,it is1 if one may say so1 the clay in which no one works1 except ,watts and the ,eternal ,potter4 ,there are other colours that have this character1 a character indescribable except by saying that they come from the palette of ,creation--a green especially that reappears through portraits1 allegories1 landscapes1 heroic designs1 but always has the same fierce and elfish look1 like a green that has a secret4 ,it may be seen in the signet ring of ,owen ,meredith1 and in the eyes of the ,dweller in the ,innermost4 ,but all these colours have1 as ,i say1 the first and most characteristic and most obvious of the mental qualities of ,watts2 they are simple and like things just made by ,god4 ,nor is it1 ,i think1 altogether fanciful to push this analogy or harmony a step further and to see in the colours and the treatment of them the other side or typical trait which ,i have frequently mentioned as making up the identity of the painter4 ,he is1 as ,i say1 a stoic2 therefore to some extent1 at least1 a pagan2 he has no special sympathy with ,celtic intensity1 with ,catholic mysticism1 with ,romanticism1 with all the things that deal with the cells of the soul1 with agonies and dreams4 ,and ,i think a broad distinction between the finest pagan and the finest ,christian point of view may be found in such an approximate phrase as this1 that paganism deals always with a light shining on things1 ,christianity with a light shining through them4 ,that is why the whole ,renaissance colouring is opaque1 the whole ,pre-,raphaelite colouring transparent4 ,the very sky of ,rubens is more solid than the rocks of ,giotto3 it is like a noble cliff of immemorial blue marble4 ,the artists of the devout age seemed to regret that they could not make the light show through everything1 as it shows through the little wood in the wonderful ,nativity of ,botticelli4 ,and that is why1 again1 ,christianity1 which has been attacked so strangely as dull and austere1 invented the thing which is more intoxicating than all the wines of the world1 stained-glass windows4 ,now ,watts1 with all his marvellous spirituality1 or rather because of his peculiar type of marvellous spirituality1 has the ,platonic1 the philosophic1 rather than the ,catholic order of mysticism4 ,and it can scarcely be a coincidence that here again we feel it to be something that could almost be deduced from the colours if they were splashed at random about a canvas4 ,the colours are mystical1 but they are not transparent2 that is1 not transparent in the very curious but unmistakable sense in which the colours of ,botticelli or ,rossetti are transparent4 ,what they are can only be described as iridescent4 ,a curious lustre or glitter1 conveyed chiefly by a singular and individual brushwork1 lies over all his great pictures4 ,illustration3 ,,dawn4 ,it is the dawn of things3 it is the glow of the primal sense of wonder2 it is the sun of the childhood of the world2 it is the light that never was on sea or land2 but still it is a light shining on things1 not shining through them4 ,it is a light which exhibits and does honour to this world1 not a light that breaks in upon this world to bring it terror or comfort1 like the light that suddenly peers round the corner of some dark ,gothic chapel with its green or golden or blood-red eyes4 ,the ,gothic artists1 as ,i say1 would have liked men's bodies to become like burning glass 7as the figures in their windows do71 that the light might pass through them4 ,there is no fear of light passing through ,watts' ,cain4 ,these analogies must inevitably appear fantastic to those who do not accept the general hypothesis of a possible kinship between pictorial and moral harmonies in the psychology of men2 but to those who do accept this not very extravagant hypothesis1 it may1 ,i think1 be repeated by way of summary1 that the purely technical question of ,watts' colour scheme does provide us1 at least suggestively1 with these two parallels4 ,watts1 so far as his moral and mental attitude can be expressed by any phrases of such brevity1 has two main peculiarities3 first1 a large infantile poetry which delights in things fresh1 raw1 and gigantic2 second1 a certain ,greek restraint and agnostic severity1 which throws a strong light on this world as it is4 ,the colours he uses have also two main peculiarities3 first1 a fresh1 raw1 and1 as it were1 gigantic character2 secondly1 an opaque reflected light1 unlike the medival lighting1 a strong light thrown on this world as it is4 ,similar lines of comparison1 so far as they appear to possess any value1 could1 of course1 be very easily pointed out in connexion with the character of ,watts' draughtsmanship4 ,that his lines are simple and powerful1 that both in strength and weakness they are candid and austere1 that they are not ,celtic1 not ,catholic1 and not romantic lines of draughtsmanship1 would1 ,i think1 appear sufficiently clear to anyone who has any instinct for this mode of judgment at all4 ,in the matter of line and composition1 of course1 the same general contention applies as in the case of colour4 ,the curve of the bent figure of ,hope1 considered simply as a curve1 half repeating as it does the upper curve of the globe1 suggests a feeling1 a sense of fear1 of simplicity1 of something which lies near to the nature of the idea itself1 the idea which inspires the title of the picture4 ,the splendid rushing whirlpool of curves which constitutes1 as it were1 the ellipse of the two figures in ,diana and ,endymion is a positive inspiration4 ,it is1 simply as a form for a picture1 a mere scheme of lines1 the very soul of ,greece4 ,it is simple2 it is full and free2 it follows great laws of harmony1 but it follows them swiftly and at will2 it is headlong1 and yet at rest1 like the solid arch of a waterfall4 ,it is a rushing and passionate meeting of two superb human figures2 and it is almost a mathematical harmony4 ,technically1 at least1 and as a matter of outlines1 it is probably the artist's masterpiece4 ,before we quit this second department of the temperament of ,watts1 as expressed in his line1 mention must be made of what is beyond all question the most interesting and most supremely personal of all the elements in the painter's designs and draughtsmanship4 ,that is1 of course1 his magnificent discovery of the artistic effect of the human back4 ,the back is the most awful and mysterious thing in the universe3 it is impossible to speak about it4 ,it is the part of man that he knows nothing of2 like an ,illustration3 ,,eve ,,repentant4 outlying province forgotten by an emperor4 ,it is a common saying that anything may happen behind our backs3 transcendentally considered the thing has an eerie truth about it4 ,eden may be behind our backs1 or ,fairyland4 ,but this mystery of the human back has again its other side in the strange impression produced on those behind3 to walk behind anyone along a lane is a thing that1 properly speaking1 touches the oldest nerve of awe4 ,watts has realized this as no one in art or letters has realized it in the whole history of the world3 it has made him great4 ,there is one possible exception to his monopoly of this magnificent craze4 ,two thousand years before1 in the dark scriptures of a nomad people1 it had been said that their prophet saw the immense ,creator of all things1 but only saw ,him from behind4 ,i do not know whether even ,watts would dare to paint that4 ,but it reads like one of his pictures1 like the most terrific of all his pictures1 which he has kept veiled4 ,i need not instance the admirable and innumerable cases of this fine and individual effect4 ,eve ,repentant 7that fine picture71 in which the agony of a gigantic womanhood is conveyed as it could not be conveyed by any power of visage1 in the powerful contortion of the muscular and yet beautiful back1 is the first that occurs to the mind4 ,the sad and sardonic picture painted in later years1 ,for ,he had ,great ,possessions--showing the young man of the ,gospel loaded with his intolerable pomp of garments and his head sunken out of sight--is of course another4 ,others are slighter instances1 like ,good ,luck to your ,fishing4 ,he has again carried the principle1 in one instance1 to an extreme seldom adopted1 ,i should fancy1 either by artist or man4 ,he has painted a very graceful portrait of his wife1 in which that lady's face is entirely omitted1 the head being abruptly turned away4 ,but it is indeed idle to multiply these instances of the painter's hobby 7if one may use the phrase7 of the worship of the human back1 when all such instances have been dwarfed and overshadowed by the one famous and tremendous instance that everyone knows4 ,love and ,death is truly a great achievement3 if it stood alone it would have made a man great4 ,and it fits in with a peculiar importance with the general view ,i am suggesting of the ,watts technique4 ,for the whole picture really hangs1 both technically and morally1 upon one single line1 a line that could be drawn across a blank canvas1 the spine-line of the central figure of ,death with its great falling garment4 ,the whole composition1 the whole conception1 and1 ,i was going to say1 the whole moral of the picture1 could be deduced from that single line4 ,the moral of the picture 7if moral were the right phrase for these things7 is1 it is scarcely necessary to point out1 the monument of about as noble a silence and suppression as the human mind ever bent itself to in its pride4 ,it is the great masterpiece of agnosticism4 ,in that picture agnosticism--not the cheap and querulous incredulity which abuses the phrase1 but loyal and consistent agnosticism1 which is as willing to believe good as evil and to harbour faith as doubt--has here its great and pathetic place and symbol in the house of the arts4 ,it is the artistic embodiment of reverent ignorance at its highest1 fully as much as the ,divine ,comedy is the artistic embodiment of ,christianity4 ,technically1 in a large number of cases1 it is probably true that ,watts' portraits1 or some of them at least1 are his most successful achievements4 ,but here also we find our general conclusion3 for if his portraits are his best pictures1 it is certainly not because they ,illustration3 ,,love ,,and ,,death4 are merely portraits2 if they are in some cases better than his symbolic designs1 it is certainly not because they are less symbolic4 ,in his gallery of great men1 indeed1 we find ,watts almost more himself than anywhere else4 ,most men are allegorical when they are painting allegories1 but ,watts is allegorical when he is painting an old alderman4 ,a change passes over that excellent being1 a change of a kind to which aldermen are insufficiently inured4 ,he begins to resolve into the primal elements1 to become dust and the shadow1 to become the red clay of ,adam and the wind of ,god4 ,his eyes become1 in spite of his earnest wish1 the fixed stars in the sky of the spirit2 his complexion begins to show1 not the unmeaning red of portraits and miniatures1 but that secret and living red which is within us1 and which is the river of man4 ,the astounding manner in which ,watts has1 in some cases1 treated his sitters is one of the most remarkable things about his character4 ,he is not 7it is almost absurd to have to mention such a thing about the almost austere old democrat7 a man likely to flatter a sitter in any worldly or conventional sense4 ,nor is he1 for the matter of that1 a man likely to push compliments far from any motive3 he is a strict1 and ,i should infer a candid1 man4 ,the type of virtues he chiefly admires and practises are the reverse of those which would encourage a courtier or even a universalist4 ,but he scarcely ever paints a man without making him about five times as magnificent as he really looks4 ,the real men appear1 if they present themselves afterwards1 like mean and unsympathetic sketches from the ,watts original4 ,the fact is that this indescribable primalism1 which we have noted as coming out in the designs1 in the titles1 and in ,watts' very oil-colours1 is present in this matter in a most extraordinary way4 ,watts does not copy men at all3 he makes them over again4 ,he dips his hand in the clay of chaos and begins to model a man named ,william ,morris or a man named ,richard ,burton3 he is assisted1 no doubt1 in some degree by a quaint old text-book called ,reality1 with its stiff but suggestive woodcuts and its shrewd and simple old hints4 ,but the most that can be said for the portraiture is that ,watts asks a hint to come and stop with him1 puts the hint in a chair in his studio and stares at him4 ,the thing that comes out at last upon the canvas is not generally a very precise picture of the sitter1 though1 of course1 it is almost always a very accurate picture of the universe4 ,and yet while this1 on the one side1 is true enough1 the portraits are portraits1 and very fine portraits4 ,but they are dominated by an element which is the antithesis of the whole tendency of modern art1 that tendency which for want of a better word we have to call by the absurd name of optimism4 ,it is not1 of course1 in reality a question of optimism in the least1 but of an illimitable worship and wonder directed towards the fact of existence4 ,there is a great deal of difference between the optimism which says that things are perfect and the optimism which merely says 7with a more primeval modesty7 that they are very good4 ,one optimism says that a one-legged man has two legs because it would be so dreadful if he had not4 ,the other optimism says that the fact that the one-legged was born of a woman1 has a soul1 has been in love1 and has stood alive under the stars1 is a fact so enormous and thrilling that1 in comparison1 it does not matter whether he has one leg or five4 ,one optimism says that this is the best of all possible worlds4 ,the other says that it is certainly not the best of all possible worlds1 but ,illustration3 ,,william ,,morris4 it is the best of all possible things that a world should be possible4 ,watts1 as has been more than once more or less definitely suggested1 is dominated throughout by this prehistoric wonder4 ,a man to him1 especially a great man1 is a thing to be painted as ,fra ,angelico painted angels1 on his knees4 ,he has indeed1 like many brilliant men in the age that produced ,carlyle and ,ruskin1 an overwhelming tendency to hero-worship4 ,that worship had not1 of course1 in the case of these men any trace of that later and more denaturalized hero-worship1 the tendency to worship madmen--to dream of vast crimes as one dreams of a love-affair1 and to take the malformation of the soul to be the only originality4 ,to the ,carlylean 7and ,watts has been to some by no means inconsiderable extent a ,carlylean71 to the ,carlylean the hero1 the great man1 was a man more human than humanity itself4 ,in worshipping him you were worshipping humanity in a sacrament3 and ,watts seems to express in almost every line of his brush this ardent and reverent view of the great man4 ,he overdoes it4 ,tennyson1 fine as he was both physically and mentally1 was not quite so much of a demi-god as ,watts' splendid pictures would seem to suggest4 ,many other sitters have been subjected1 past all recognition1 to this kind of devout and ethereal caricature4 ,but the essential of the whole matter was that the attitude of ,watts was one which might almost be called worship4 ,it was not1 of course1 that he always painted men as handsome in the conventional sense1 or even as handsome as they were4 ,william ,morris impressed most people as a very handsome man3 in ,watts' marvellous portrait1 so much is made of the sanguine face1 the bold stare1 the almost volcanic suddenness of the emergence of the head from the dark green background1 that the effect of ordinary good looks1 on which many of ,morris's intimates would probably have prided themselves1 is in some degree lost4 ,carlyle1 again1 when he saw the painter's fine rendering of him1 said with characteristic surliness that he 8looked like a mad labourer40 ,conventionally speaking1 it is of course1 therefore1 to be admitted that the sitters did not always come off well4 ,but the exaggeration or the distortion1 if exaggeration or distortion there were1 was always effected in obedience to some almost awestruck notion of the greatness or goodness of the great or good sitter4 ,the point is not whether ,watts sometimes has painted men as ugly as they were painted by the primary religious painters2 the point is1 as ,i have said1 that he painted as they did1 on his knees4 ,now no one thinks that ,mr4 ,sargent paints the ,misses ,wertheimer on his knees4 ,his grimness and decision of drawing and colouring are not due to a sacred optimism4 ,but those of ,watts are due to this3 are due to an intense conviction that there is within the sitter a great reality which has to give up its secret before he leaves the seat or the model's throne4 ,hence come the red violent face and minatory eyes of ,william ,morris3 the painter sought to express1 and he did most successfully express1 the main traits and meaning of ,morris--the appearance of a certain plain masculine passion in the realm of decorative art4 ,morris was a man who wanted good wall-papers1 not as a man wants a coin of the ,emperor ,constantine1 which was the cloistered or abnormal way in which men had commonly devised such things3 he wanted good wall-papers as a man wants beer4 ,he clamoured for art3 he brawled for it4 ,he asserted the perfectly virile and ordinary character of the appetite for beauty4 ,and he possessed and developed a power of moral violence on pure ,illustration3 ,,dante ,,gabriel ,,rossetti4 matters of taste which startled the flabby world of connoisseurship and opened a new era4 ,he grew furious with furniture and denounced the union of wrong colours as men denounce an adultery4 ,all this is expressed far more finely than in these clumsy sentences in that living and leonine head in the ,national ,portrait ,gallery4 ,it is exactly the same with ,carlyle4 ,watts' ,carlyle is immeasurably more subtle and true than the ,carlyle of ,millais1 which simply represents him as a shaggy1 handsome1 magnificent old man4 ,the uglier ,carlyle of ,watts has more of the truth about him1 the strange combination of a score of sane and healthy visions and views1 with something that was not sane1 which bloodshot and embittered them all1 the great tragedy of the union of a strong countryside mind and body with a disease of the vitals and something like a disease of the spirit4 ,in fact1 ,watts painted ,carlyle 8like a mad labourer0 because ,carlyle was a mad labourer4 ,this general characteristic might of course be easily traced in all the portraits one by one4 ,if space permitted1 indeed1 such a process might be profitable2 for while we take careful note of all the human triviality of faces1 the one thing that we all tend to forget is that divine and common thing which ,watts celebrates4 ,it is the misfortune of the nonreligious ages that they tend to cultivate a sense of individuality1 not only at the expense of religion1 but at the expense of humanity itself4 ,for the modern portrait-painter not only does not see the image of ,god in his sitters1 he does not even see the image of man4 ,his object is not to insist on the glorious and solemn heritage which is common to ,sir ,william ,harcourt and ,mr4 ,albert ,chevalier1 to ,count ,tolstoy and ,mr4 ,wanklyn1 that is the glorious and solemn heritage of a nose and two eyes and a mouth4 ,the effort of the dashing modern is rather to make each of these features individual almost to the point of being incredible3 it is his desire to paint the mouth whose grimace is inimitable1 the eyes that could be only in one head1 and the nose that never was on sea or land4 ,there is value in this purely personal treatment1 but something in it so constantly lost3 the quality of the common humanity4 ,the new art gallery is too like a museum of freaks1 it is too wild and wonderful1 like a realistic novel4 ,watts errs undoubtedly on the other side4 ,he makes all his portraits too classical4 ,it may seem like a paradox to say that he makes them too human2 but humanity is a classis and therefore classical4 ,he recurs too much to the correct type which includes all men4 ,he has1 for instance1 a worship of great men so complete that it makes him tend in the direction of painting them all alike4 ,there may be too much of ,browning in his ,tennyson1 too much of ,tennyson in his ,browning4 ,there is certainly a touch of ,manning in his ,john ,stuart ,mill1 and a touch of the ,minotaur in many of his portraits of ,imperial politicians4 ,while he celebrates the individual with a peculiar insight1 it is nevertheless always referred to a general human type4 ,we feel when we look at even the most extraordinary of ,watts' portraits1 as1 for instance1 the portrait of ,lord ,stratford de ,redcliffe1 that before ,lord ,stratford de ,redcliffe was born1 and apart from that fact1 there was such a thing as a human being4 ,when we look at a brilliant modern canvas like that of ,mr4 ,sargent's portrait of ,wertheimer1 we do not feel that any human being analogous to him had of necessity existed4 ,we feel that ,mr4 ,wertheimer might have been created before the stars4 ,watts has a tendency to resume his characters into his background as if they were half returning ,illustration3 ,,thomas ,,carlyle4 to the forces of nature4 ,in his more successful portraits the actual physical characteristics of the sitter appear to be something of the nature of artistic creations2 they are decorative and belong to a whole4 ,we feel that he has filled in the fiery orange of ,swinburne's hair as one might fill in a gold or copper panel4 ,we know that he was historically correct in making the hair orange1 but we cannot get rid of a haunting feeling that if his scheme had been a little different he would have made it green4 ,this indescribable sentiment is particularly strong in the case of the portrait of ,rossetti4 ,rossetti is dressed in a dark green coat which perfectly expresses his sumptuous ,pre-,raphaelite affectation4 ,but we do not feel that ,rossetti has adopted the dark green coat to suit his dark red beard4 ,we rather feel that if anyone had seized ,rossetti and forcibly buttoned him up in the dark green coat he would have grown the red beard by sheer force of will4 ,before we quit the subject of portraiture a word ought to be said about two exceedingly noble portraits1 those of ,matthew ,arnold and ,cardinal ,manning4 ,the former is interesting because1 as an able critic said somewhere 7,i wish ,i could remember who he was or where he wrote71 this is the one instance of ,watts approaching tentatively a man whom he in all reasonable probability did not understand4 ,in this particular case the picture is a hundred times better for that4 ,the portrait-painter of ,matthew ,arnold obviously ought not to understand him1 since he did not understand himself4 ,and the bewilderment which the artist felt for those few hours reproduced in a perfect1 almost in an immortal1 picture the bewilderment which the sitter felt from the cradle to the grave4 ,the bewilderment of ,matthew ,arnold was more noble and faithful than most men's certainty1 and ,watts has not failed to give that nobility a place even greater perhaps than that which he would have given to it had he been working on that fixed theory of admiration in which he dealt with ,tennyson or ,morris4 ,the sad sea-blue eyes of ,matthew ,arnold seemed to get near to the fundamental sadness of blue4 ,it is a certain eternal bleakness in the colour which may for all ,i know have given rise to the legend of blue devils4 ,there are times at any rate when the bluest heavens appear only blue with those devils4 ,the portrait of ,cardinal ,manning is worth a further and special notice1 because it is an illustration of the fact to which ,i have before alluded3 the fact that while ,watts in one sense always gets the best out of his sitters1 he does not by any means always get the handsomest out of them4 ,manning was a singularly fine-looking man1 even in his emaciation4 ,a friend of mine1 who was particularly artistic both by instinct and habits1 gazed for a long time at a photograph of the terrible old man clad in those ,cardinal's robes and regalia in which he exercised more than a ,cardinal's power1 and said reflectively1 8,he would have made his fortune as a model40 ,a great many of the photographs of ,manning1 indeed almost any casual glimpses of him1 present him as more beautiful than he appears in ,watts' portrait4 ,to the ordinary onlooker there was behind the wreck of flesh and the splendid skeleton the remains of a very handsome ,english gentleman2 relics of one who might have hunted foxes and married an ,american heiress4 ,watts has no eyes for anything except that sublime vow which he would himself repudiate1 that awful ,church which he would himself disown4 ,he exaggerates the devotionalism of ,manning4 ,he is more ascetic than the ascetics2 more ,catholic than ,catholicism4 ,just so1 he would be1 if he were painting the ,sheik-el-,islam1 more ,moslem than the ,mohammedans4 ,he has no eyes but for ideas4 ,watts' allegories and ,watts' portraits exhaust the subject of his art4 ,it is true that he has on rare occasions attempted pictures merely reproducing the externals of the ordinary earth4 ,it is characteristic of him that he should have once1 for no apparent reason in particular1 painted a picture of two carthorses and a man4 ,it is still more characteristic of him that this one picture of a trivial group in the street should be so huge as to dwarf many of his largest and most transcendental canvases2 that the incidental harmless drayman should be more gigantic than the ,prince of this ,world or ,adam or the ,angel of ,death4 ,he condescends to a detail and makes the detail more vast than a cosmic allegory4 ,one picture1 called 8,the ,first ,oyster10 he is reported to have painted in response to a challenge which accused him or his art of lacking altogether the element of humour4 ,the charge is interesting1 because it suggests a comparison with the similar charge commonly brought against ,gladstone4 ,in both charges there is an element of truth1 though not complete truth4 ,watts proved no doubt that he was not wholly without humour by this admirable picture4 ,gladstone proved that he was not wholly without humour by his reply to ,mr4 ,chaplin1 by his singing of 8,doo-dah10 and by his support of a grant to the ,duke of ,coburg4 ,but both men were singularly little possessed by the mood or the idea of humour4 ,to them had been in peculiar fullness revealed the one great truth which our modern thought does not know and which it may possibly perish through not knowing4 ,they knew that to enjoy life means to take it seriously4 ,there is an eternal kinship between solemnity and high spirits1 and almost the very name of it is ,gladstone4 ,its other name is ,watts4 ,they knew that not only life1 but every detail of life1 is most a pleasure when it is studied with the gloomiest intensity4 ,they knew that the men who collect beetles are jollier than the men who kill them1 and that the men who worshipped beetles 7in ancient ,egypt7 were probably the jolliest of all4 ,the startling cheerfulness of the old age of ,gladstone1 the startling cheerfulness of the old age of ,watts1 are both entirely redolent of this exuberant seriousness1 this uproarious gravity4 ,they were as happy as the birds1 because1 like the birds1 they were untainted by the disease of laughter4 ,they are as awful and philosophical as children at play3 indeed they remind us of a truth true for all of us1 though capable of misunderstanding1 that the great aim of a man's life is to get into his second childhood4 ,of his work we have concluded our general survey4 ,it has been hard in conducting such a survey to avoid the air of straying from the subject4 ,but the greatest hardness of the subject is that we cannot stray from the subject4 ,this man has attempted1 whether he has succeeded or no1 to paint such pictures of such things that no one shall be able to get outside them2 that everyone should be lost in them for ever like wanderers in a mighty park4 ,whether we strike a match or win the ,victoria ,cross1 we are still giants sprawling in ,chaos4 ,whether we hide in a monastery or thunder on a platform1 we are still standing in the ,court of ,death4 ,if any experience at all is genuine1 it affects the philosophy of these pictures2 if any halfpenny stamp supports them1 they are the better pictures2 if any dead cat in a dust-bin contradicts them1 they are the worse pictures4 ,this is the great pathos and the great dignity of philosophy and theology4 ,men talk of philosophy and theology as if they were something specialistic and arid and ,illustration3 ,,good ,,luck ,,to ,,your ,,fishing4 academic4 ,but philosophy and theology are not only the only democratic things1 they are democratic to the point of being vulgar1 to the point1 ,i was going to say1 of being rowdy4 ,they alone admit all matters2 they alone lie open to all attacks4 ,all other sciences may1 while studying their own1 laugh at the rag-tag and bobtail of other sciences4 ,an astronomer may sneer at animalcul1 which are very like stars2 an entomologist may scorn the stars1 which are very like animalcul4 ,physiologists may think it dirty to grub about in the grass2 botanists may think it dirtier to grub about in an animal's inside4 ,but there is nothing that is not relevant to these more ancient studies4 ,there is no detail1 from buttons to kangaroos1 that does not enter into the gay confusion of philosophy4 ,there is no fact of life1 from the death of a donkey to the ,general ,post ,office1 which has not its place to dance and sing in1 in the glorious ,carnival of theology4 ,therefore ,i make no apology if ,i have asked the reader1 in the course of these remarks1 to think about things in general4 ,it is not ,i1 but ,george ,frederick ,watts1 who asks the reader to think about things in general4 ,if he has not done this1 he has failed4 ,if he has not started in us such trains of reflection as ,i am now concluding and many more and many better1 he has failed4 ,and this brings me to my last word4 ,now and again ,watts has failed4 ,i am afraid that it may possibly be inferred from the magniloquent language which ,i have frequently1 and with a full consciousness of my act1 applied to this great man1 that ,i think the whole of his work technically triumphant4 ,clearly it is not4 ,for ,i believe that often he has scarcely known what he was doing2 ,i believe that he has been in the dark when the lines came wrong2 that he has been still deeper in the dark and things came right4 ,as ,i have already pointed out1 the vague lines which his mere physical instinct would make him draw1 have in them the curves of the ,cosmos4 ,his automatic manual action was1 ,i think1 certainly a revelation to others1 certainly a revelation to himself4 ,standing before a dark canvas upon some quiet evening1 he has made lines and something has happened4 ,in such an hour the strange and splendid phrase of the ,psalm he has literally fulfilled4 ,he has gone on because of the word of meekness and truth and of righteousness4 ,and his right hand has taught him terrible things4