136
From a painting by Turner.

Okehampton Castle 258
From a painting by Turner.

Port Ruysdael 376
From a painting by Turner.

MODERN PAINTERS.

PART I

OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

SECTION I.

OF THE NATURE OF THE IDEAS CONVEYABLE BY ART.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Sec. 1. Public opinion no criterion of excellence, except after long
periods of time.

If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that nothing has been
for centuries consecrated by public admiration, without possessing in a
high degree some kind of sterling excellence, it is not because the
average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public are
competent in any way to distinguish what is really excellent, but
because all erroneous opinion is inconsistent, and all ungrounded
opinion transitory; so that while the fancies and feelings which deny
deserved honor and award what is undue have neither root nor strength
sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for a length of time, the
opinions formed on right grounds by those few who are in reality
competent judges, being necessarily stable, communicate themselves
gradually from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend wider,
until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by absolute authority, even
where the grounds and reasons for them cannot be understood. On this
gradual victory of what is consistent over what is vacillating, depends
the reputation of all that is highest in art and literature. For It is
an insult to what is really great in either, to suppose that it in any
way addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. It is a matter
of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated but
by his equal or superior. His inferior may over-estimate him in
enthusiasm; or, as is more commonly the case, degrade him, in ignorance;
but he cannot form a grounded and just estimate. Without proving this,
however--which it would take more space to do than I can spare--it is
sufficiently evident that there is no process of amalgamation by which
opinions, wrong in