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and deep feeling that lay in them, until we were shown by Corot the witchery of romance that invested his lovely mysterious corners of nature; by Daubigny the charm of those quiet reaches of water; by William Maris the light falling in brilliant patches on cattle in the fields and on the foliage and grass; by Mauve the gentle sadness that broods over the country plains; by James Maris and Weissenbruch the loneliness of the meeting place of the restless waves of the ocean and the sandy shore that stays their progress and bounds their desires. Those who are fond of pictures and have come to understand them do indeed learn a great deal from them, and owe them a debt of gratitude; for besides the pleasure they afford in themselves they add also greatly to the enjoyment of nature, the sym

1 For such a pathetic observer finding out that the poet painters have given him their own eyes to see with, "Revival of and their own mighty thoughts to conjure with! Art," by W. J. Stillman, in "The

Old Rome and the New."

This is a very important matter, when people are actually discussing1 the necessity for art at all, a subject seriously enough considered. Some hold that the usefulness of

art was great in the past, but now exists no more, and that outside of a comparatively small circle art is little known about and less cared for, and is not necessary. It is hardly possible to see how this view can be maintained, as we must and do derive pleasure and good from the beautiful wherever it is found around us. The additional pleasure and happiness that great art gives us, in enabling us to see for ourselves what would be otherwise hidden and unknown, is surely a strong claim for the necessity of art. Under its kindly influence we learn, as we also do in other schools in which we are taught our lessons in the journey through the world, many things that are for our lasting good as well as that add to our enjoyment, many things that help us materially in our efforts to lead a higher life. It is a matter of surprise that so many lovers of pictures ignore or actually look down on the grandest and rarest quality they possess, the feeling or sentiment in them, expressed by

*"Colour is, and in its highest expression can only be, subjective; the element of form is necessarily dependent on nature for the intelligibility of its forms and types, the artist having only the faculty of exalting and refining her forms into what we recognize

the artist and found by those in sympathy with him. They seem only to find pleasure in the skilful workmanship and the colour; but the skill is only the perfection of handicraft,' and if the picture does not reflect the artist's feelings, it is the lower and not the higher kind of art that is admired. If people would only look always for the higher element, the thought and feeling that filled the artist and compelled him to its expression, as well as for artistic merit and skill, a brighter day would soon dawn for art. Emerson expresses the higher truth when he says, "The painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know." And this is the meaning of Turner when he answered the critic who said that he never saw such colours in nature as in

as the ideal. But the essential condition of all the arts of design becoming true art is in their being expression, not imitation; creation, not repetition. The form of materialism which menaces the arts of design is therefore science. The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life,' and though artistic creation does not involve the creation of the prime material, no more does, so far as science teaches, the creation of the world: the old material takes new forms, that is all. The idealist gets his materials from nature, but he recasts them in expression; the realist who is no artist repeats them as he gets them. The copyist is not an artist." The "Revival of Art." W. J. Stillman.

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his pictures, "Don't you wish you could see them?" Yes! that is the great prerogative of genius, to be able to see what is invisible to the ordinary mortal. We feel this when we are in the presence of such a picture as Millet's "Sower." Many of his own paintings and In the many of those of other artists are as fine in colour and as clever in drawing as this, but lection, are wanting in its peculiar charm. For Millet had a grand conception in his mind of the seum, New typical sower, and after numerous attempts, resulting in different versions of his thought, he at last gives on this canvas his perfect idea. A man of heroic size comes striding over the ground, his arm swinging round him and scattering the seed in the ground, where, under the influence of the sunshine and the rain, it will fructify and grow into an abundant harvest. The figure of the sower is shown against the brown earth, and his features can hardly be made out in the dark shadow under his cap. Here we have the great master's idea of the labourer doing his allotted share in the ever recurring mystery of the spring. He has not attempted to tell any story, but simply

shows us the sower going forth to sow. Yet as we sit before this wonderful creation of Millet, it has the mysterious power of setting our thoughts wandering over the past and the future, and we feel that he has painted an epitome of life with its labour and toil, its successes and failures, its hopes and its fears. Thinking over the effect such a picture produces, it is quite useless to tell us that art consists only of beautiful decoration in fine colours. No! It must be decorative, but the greatest quality in a picture is the grandeur of its idea, and its speaking power to us. The idea must of course be artistically expressed and in glowing colour, but without it the painting sinks to mere cleverness.

But in much of the art criticism of the inner circles it is held that fancy and passion have no place in painting. Technical ability remains the great standard of judgment. Notwithstanding this, the forces that have moved the world in all matters have been the dreamers and the imaginers, since the time when the great statesman of Egypt, the dreamer of dreams, showed the close connection between