Viewing page 9 of 37

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

9

nor hold themselves entirely independent of those, who support their exhibitions and buy their pictures."

In what part of our plan does there appear any thing like 'defiance' to the public? Is it in that part which relates to instruction? We claim, indeed, to know the best mode of instruction for students in our own profession. But by what law of right or even courtesy can others than artists demand to interfere in the management of our schools; or how by refusing their interference, do we try to establish ourselves in defiance of such? But "they support our exhibitions and buy our pictures."

How support our exhibitions? We support them ourselves, by our productions loaned to us, indeed, for a few weeks, by those from whom they are executed, and who would be the last to demand, from that circumstance, a right to instruct our students, or control the arrangements of our exhibitions. 

The language of the Reviewer on this subject, however unreasonable in itself, and offensive to the artist, is not new, nor uncommon, even in our own country. There has ever been an unfortunate difference on the subject of obligations and rights between the artists, and the subject of obligations and rights between the artists, and the purchasers of their works; it is not for me to say on which side the blame lies; probably on both sides. But there is frequently a disposition on the part of the purchaser, to prefer claims to gratitude from the artist, which, as they are undefined, are very liable to exaggeration, and among these has often been a claim to direct the studies and thoughts of the artist, in such a way too, as to make him feel his absolute dependence on wealth. That this should be repulsive to that high feeling of independence which belongs to the native nobility of genius, (if I may be allowed the expression) is not surprising; nor is it impossible, that the spirit which brooks not control, (the parent of these lofty conceptions, which, whether fixed on stone, or canvas, or on the poetic page, have commanded the admiration of mankind,) should sometimes be fretted into acts of imprudence, by contact with the pedantry of shallow critics, or the mere whim of a wealthy purchaser of its productions. That in a cer-

2