THE PARLIAMENT-HOUSE PAINTINGS.
TO THE EDITOR OP THE SPECTATOR.
3d July 1843.
SIR—Without presuming to praise or condemn the plan of encouraging art by prizes, and without offering any opinion as to how far the excellence of cartoon-drawings is a sufficient test of the powers of a fresco painter, allow me to hope, that when the Houses of Parliament actually come to be adorned with paintings in fresco, the business will be offered to the best artist in that line in the world, and not to the best in this country. The cry grows daily louder, and will soon be successful, against protecting manufactures and pro.. tecting food ; and shall we so far retrograde as to attempt to apply this rotten' principle to art ? Let us not from any weakness, such as the idea of encous raging native artists, place on the walls of the Houses of Parliament what in a few years we may ashamed of. Let us adopt every means in our power to insure that, as the Houses of Parliament will, it is to be hoped, last for ages, so the ornaments we place there may ever continue to be indeed ornaments, and not testimonies of our narrow-mindedness 1 hope, amidst all the noise and excitement of these Cartoon exhibitions, the nation will still retain sufficient largeness of view and clearness of head nut to lose sight of two very important principles,—viz. that art must not be sacrificed to the artist ; and that wbeu engaged in what is to last for all time, the petty interests and wants of the day must be laid aside.
A CONSTANT READER.
[Inferior talent should not be employed because it is native; but native skill, being equal, should have the preference on this the first opportunity for English artists to try their hand at such work. It is to be proved that English artists may not become proficient in fresco, a method new to them, as speedily as the Germans recently have done. if the average skill of the English school in drawing and design is inferior to that of the Germans and French, there are individual Englishmen who equal the foreigners; and in colour our school excels. Moreover, the spirit and feeling of English painting would be more congenial to English tastes.—En.]
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