Viewing page 25 of 37

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

                                25

and most of the great painters of antiquity were above want in their pecuniary circumstances; consequently in all these cases the ' sting of necessity' was not the operating cause of their excellence. None of our artists can boast of any such independence, so that although I believe, with the Reviewer, that "great minds may resist even the pressure of the age," and I fully approve of the course which he would have the artist adopt, of "disregarding the fashion of the day," and "the practice of his contemporaries;" and I assent that it would be delightful to indulge in that seclusion, "in the contemplation of nature," which would enable him to "redeem the reputation of his age and country, and place himself on as high an eminence as he could have reached, if he had lived in the most favored period;" yet one difficulty will prevent his following this course. How is the artist who takes so independent a stand, to subsist? He cannot like the hero of romance live without those vulgar accompaniments of life, eating, drinking, and apparel. The artist with us is generally dependent on his profession for his support, and he will be forced, therefore, often to subdue his independence to the whims of fashion, however grating to his feelings; and fall in with the errors of contemporaries if they are popular, however repulsive to his sober judgment: and his beautiful reveries while contemplating nature, and picturing scenes for his canvas, will be very liable to interruption from the cry of dependents for food, or from those most unromantic associations connected with quarter-day.-The artist, if he is expected to exert his genius to the best advantage, must be independent in some way. As he cannot be pensioned in our country, I know of no better way, than that I proposed, viz. to purchase his works. And if but one in an hundred thus encouraged, should possess that more excellent genius which permanently contributes to the honor of his country, the chance is better worth the risk of the expense, than one fifth part of the sum expended to encourage the foreign manufactories of originals. 

                                4