Two points which Mr. Tupper chiefly
insists upon are: (1) that the subject in a work of art affects the
beholder in the same sort of way as the same subject, occurring as a
fact or aspect of Nature, affects him; and thus whatever in Nature
excites the mental and moral emotion of man is a right subject for
fine art; and (2), that subjects of our own day should not be
discarded in favour of those of a past time. These principles, along
with others bearing in the same direction, underlie the propositions
lately advanced by Count Leo Tolstoy in his most interesting and
valuable (though I think one-sided) book entitled "What is Art?"--and
the like may be said of the principles announced in the "Hand and
Soul" of Dante Rossetti, and in the "Dialogue on Art" by John
Orchard, through the mouths of two of the speakers, Christian and
Sophon. I have once or twice seen these papers by Mr. Tupper
commented upon to the effect that he wholly ignores the question of
art-merit in a work of art, the question whether it is good or bad in
form, colour, etc. But this is a mistake, for in fact he allows that
this is a relevant consideration, but declines to bring it within his
own lines of discussion. There is also a curious passage which has
been remarked upon as next door to absurd; that where, in treating of
various forms of still life as inferior subjects for art, he says
that "the dead pheasant in a picture will always be as 'food,' while
the same at the poulterer's will be but a dead pheasant.
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