PEACE HE HATH PROMISED! "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you." PEACE He hath promised! O'er thy lone heart's sadness, Peace He hath promised! When the tie is broken O'er the loud tempest of thy grief be spoken The "Peace! be still!" that calmed the troubled main. Peace He hath promised! When thy faith is shaken Peace He hath promised! Gather meekly round thee His love is greater than the love that bound thee Peace He hath promised! When the darksome valley Let thy faint heart in strong assurance rally- MRS. ACTON TINDAL. ART-MANUFACTURE UNION PROPOSED AND ADDRESSED TO THE ARTISTS, ART-PATRONS, AND MANUFACTURERS GENTLEMEN,-We seek to draw your attention to the possibility of founding an Art-Manufacture Union in this country a Union that shall be co-operative with, and a help to, that existing for the advancement of painting and sculpture. We would also recom mend to your earnest consideration, some means which may render Schools of Design self-supporting, and enable the manufacturer of this country to compete in the elegance of the designs that shall be imprinted upon their cotton and other goods, with any market in the world. The birth of the present Art-Union gave rise to a warm paperwarfare some penholders contending that the institution of an Art lottery would debase the profession it was created to elevate; while more sanguine and impartial writers hailed the creation of the Union as the dawning of a bright era in Art: the latter critics were the justest. An Art-Union is certainly a lottery-so is any commercial speculation. Commerce is a game of chance-a game of hazard. Does the commercial risk debase the speculator, or the man with whom he speculates? It has been said that Art-Unions encourage the production of mediocre and inferior pictures: this assertion is a fallacy on the face of it. What artist would paint an inferior picture, in the hope of selling it as the 107. prize? What artist would not rather strive to deserve selection by the holder of the 3007. ticket? Artists-no longer fettered by the ill-educated taste of rich patrons-no longer depending upon the caprice of incompetent individuals will have free scope for the full exercise of their imagination and cultivated execution. It cannot be denied that the perfection and extension of the principles of ArtUnions may emancipate artists from the thraldom of monied ignorance, and give to the profession generally a stability and an elevation which have hitherto been monopolised by the R.A.'s of the kingdom. The system of government and election at the Royal Academy is little known, and too exclusive to confer artistic honours on the artistic genius of the kingdom. The Royal Academicians do not represent British Art. Is the President of the Royal Academy at the head of his profession? Is Sir Martin Archer Shee a greater artist than Goodall, or J. W. Allen, or Inskipp? "Educate the taste of the people before you establish ArtUnions," has been the constant cry of superficial thinkers. То such it may not be unnecessary to say-the surest way to correct bad taste is to present good models. You want to create a sound artistic taste in the people give them, then, high works of Art; show them the artistic genius of the country; open to them exhibitions that shall include all excellent works, without personal distinction; and give the unknown man who has executed a first-rate work, equal place with the established favourite. Hang the works according to their merit, not according to the station and position of the artist. In short, be ever anxious to advance merit in whomsoever it may be found-be he lord or labourer. An earnest love of Art, for Art's sake, must be spread throughout the length and breadth of the land, ere the British school can claim equal rank with the Roman, Florentine, and Spanish schools. Nor in the distribution of pictures alone can this great end be accomplished. Pictures are generally but the ornaments of a homestead, and are often unnoticed for many consecutive months. They hang against the walls, and are hung there because they take from the nakedness of the room. You hear people say "Pictures do look comfortable about one. Not because they are fine embodiments of fine ideas do these people consider pictures "such comfortable things," but because they fill up a room, and impart a sense of comfort-of luxury to it. Many people regard paintings in the light of mere furniture, and buy a Wouvermans or a Carlo Dolce as they would buy a four-post bedstead. Such people are wholly ignorant of artistic excellence ; their taste is vitiated and their eye untaught; they have no standard of beauty-no colouring offends them, and bad drawing (if it be not atrociously bad) they pass unnoticed. This acknowledged evidence of the influence of external objects upon the minds of the uneducated, leads at once to the theory upon which this proposition for the establishment of an Art-Manufacture Union is founded. We believe, with Leigh Hunt, that “it seems as if an unhandsome action before the portrait of a noble female countenance would be impossible;" and this belief (shared as it is with so illustrious a man) has firmly convinced us that a Union, such as we are about to propose, would be powerful for the enlightenment and refinement of the people of Britain. The eye is quickly educated and quickly vitiated. Ever familiar with misshapen and colourless objects, its sense of the beautiful in form and colour is soon blunted, if not wholly lost; and all who are lost to the beautiful in Art, and (as a natural consequence) to the beautiful in Nature, are deprived of one of the most refining of our intellectual enjoyments. On the other hand, the eye long used to receive the beautiful in form, and the harmonious in colouring, carries so many grand and glorious images to the mind, (which are lost, be it observed, to the uneducated pupil,) that progressive refinement in the individual is almost an unvarying con sequence. A story is told of a Catholic money-lender, who was probably accustomed to study the old masters, and who, when he was going to cheat a customer, always drew a veil over the portrait of his favourite saint. That the national taste of this country requires education, no person who has made Art a study, or who is alive to the beautiful, will deny; and the most important point to be considered in an endeavour to propagate a high standard as the appeal to which artists shall bring their labours, is the method whereby the national taste may be most effectually cultivated. Books and treatises on Art will not effect this object. Art is not fostered by a nation of critics. Critics often fetter the men whose works they criticise, by judging their works comparatively, and not positively. The English school does not need the patronage of men who can compare a picture by Turner with a Claude, or Maclise's masterpiece with the noblest production of Michael Angelo; it requires an immediate recognition of positive excellence, rather than a learned comparison with old masters. If it be the object of English Art patrons to produce a school in England based upon the old schools of Italy and Germany, then is a numerous critical tribunal useful and indispensable; but if, on the other hand, the object of Art patrons be to foster a school of progressive Art, then is a national recognition of positive merit their surest reliance. And inasmuch as it is the belief of most people that the advancement of a progressive school of Art is the aim of the more enlightened portion of the community, we put strong faith in our conviction that an Art-Manufacture Union will find favour in the minds of the artists, Art patrons, and manufacturers of this country. We want a school that will generate new thoughts and embody new ideas, not an academy bent upon reproducing old masters. Taking for granted, then, that this advancement of a progressive school is the ambition of all interested in the welfare of English artists, it requires no inordinate taxation of the reasoning faculties to comprehend at once the intimate connection of Art-Manufacture with the dissemination of pure taste, and consequently its influence upon the advancement of the Fine Arts in the country. The distribution of fine pictures alone will not purify the taste of the people. This purification-this refinement can be brought about only by a thorough revolution in the household decorations and appoint ments of the nation; and this revolution may be gradually but surely effected by means of the proposed Union. An Art-Manufacture Union would substitute useful household articles, designed by eminent men, for the tasteless, misshapen utensils now in general use. The proposed Union would distribute such prizes as Townshend's Beer Jug-an article in common use, and beautiful to the eye, and suggestive to the mind. The Union would, in fact, spread Art-Manufacture after the fashion designed lately under the superintendence of Felix Summerly, on an extended scale, throughout the country. To such a Union, poor people would contribute, because the certainty of receiving the value of their subscription, in the shape of some useful utensil, would enable them to afford the price of a ticket. In the establishment of this Union, let the present system of distribution be extended on the most liberal principles, and allow non-subscribers to become purchasers of any article at its market value. When the idea of this Union was first conceived, its adoption appeared to be encumbered by so many obstacles that we were about to abandon it as an impossible proposition, had not a closer consideration of the subject fixed in our mind a sense of the simplicity of the means whereby the objects of this Union might be effected. The first stumbling-block we set aside was the difficulty that would attend the manufacture of artists' designs by the Union. It at first appeared to us, that either the committee must cause a large stock of designs to be executed, or themselves select the prizes; and it is obvious that these alternatives are very great objections to the plan, inasmuch as the former proceeding would leave a large stock of goods on the Society's hands, while the latter would partially frustrate the immediate object of the Society's foundation, because it would compel the subscribers to abide by the taste of the committee. It afterwards occurred to us, that these difficulties might be surmounted by the exhibition of designs which should be executed in any material that would bring them within the amount of the prizes, when the said design had been selected by the prize-holders. This method would effectually do away with the above objections, and at once simplify the principle of an Art-Manufacture Union. The subjects of the designs should include all household furniture, both the useful and the ornamental. The sale of the copyright of these designs would be a |