I do not mean that these six
critics will bring the Academicians on their knees by writing
fulminating articles on the Academy. Such attacks were as idle as
whistling for rain on the house-tops. The Academicians laugh at such
attacks, relying on the profound indifference of the public to
artistic questions. But there is another kind of attack which the
Academicians may not ignore, and that is true criticism. If six
newspapers were to tell the simple truth about the canvases which the
Academicians will exhibit next month, the Academicians would soon cry
out for quarter and grant all necessary reforms.'
I have only now to withdraw the word "reform". The Academy cannot
reform, and must be destroyed. The Academy has tried to reform, and
has failed. Thirty years ago the pre-Raphaelite movement nearly
succeeded in bringing about an effectual shipwreck. But when Mr.
Holman Hunt went to Italy, special terms were offered and accepted.
The election of Millais and Watts saved the Academy, and instead of
the Academy, it was the genius of one of England's greatest painters
that was destroyed. "Ophelia", "Autumn Leaves", and "St. Agnes' Eve"
are pictures that will hold their own in any gallery among pictures of
every age and every country. But fathomless is the abyss which
separates them from Sir John Millais' academic work.
The Academy is a distinctly commercial enterprise. Has not Sir John
Millais said, in an interview, that the hanging committee at
Burlington House selects the pictures that will draw the greatest
number of shillings.
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