He interested his contemporaries
immensely; no painter ever ruled more unrivalled. He fails to interest
us because we have another point of view. We believe in our point of
view and disbelieve in his as a matter of course; and it would be
self-contradictory to say, in the interests of critical catholicity,
that in our opinion his may be as sound as our own. But to say that he
has no point of view whatever--to say, in general, that modern classic
art is perfunctory and mere formulary--is to be guilty of what has
always been the inherent vice of protestantism in all fields of mental
activity.
Nowhere has protestantism exhibited this defect more palpably than in
the course of evolution of schools of painting. Pre-Raphaelitism is
perhaps the only exception, and pre-Raphaelitism was a violent and
emotional counter-revolution rather than a movement characterized by
catholicity of critical appreciation. Literary criticism is certainly
full of similar intolerance; though when Gautier talks about Racine, or
Zola about "Mes Haines," or Mr.
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