ould understand the history of art, we must learn to think in styles
rather than in years; also we must become accustomed to remote
derivations. It is possible to confound Renaissance work of the
sixteenth century with Roman of the second; it is impossible to confuse
either with their neighbours, Gothic and Byzantine. Similarly, it would
be intolerable to mistake Ming for Sung, but excusable to mistake it for
T'ang, and that, I believe, is just what Mr. Hobson has done.

But, to be frank, I care very little when or where this figure was made;
what I care about is its aesthetic insignificance. Look at the modelling
of the hands: they are as insensitive and convictionless as lumps of
bread. Look at the tight, cheap realism of the head; the accents violent
without being impressive, the choice of relief common. The chest is the
best part of the thing, and that strikes me as being traditional rather
than felt. The view of the figure in profile is less unsatisfactory than
the view from in front: but look at those hands!

If this thing impresses any one, it must impress him by its dramatic and
not by its plastic qualities; and that is not the way in which a fine
T'ang figure impresses us. Here the design is petty and the forms, in
themselves, flaccid and poor; but the tight, realistic face is made to
gaze most melodramatically into eternity. It is melodrama, I fancy, that
has taken the town by storm. Compare this overgrown knick-knack with
some really fine T'ang piece or, better still, with one of those Wei
figures which the Museum had lately the chance of acquiring at a very
moderate price, and you will feel the difference between form that
impresses by sheer aesthetic rightness and form that reminds you of the
late Sir Henry Irving. With all its elaborate quietness, this
deep-contemplative Lohan is just a piece of rhetoric: put it beside
something first-rate and you will know what to think of it as surely as
you know what to think of

I have spread its folds o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;
I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free,

when you put that beside

He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats
With plain heroic magnitude of mind....

Why is it always in purchases of this sort the nation sinks the best
part of its miserable art fund? Well, in this case I think it is
possible to follow the workings of official taste. Officials know as
well a