A MUNIFICENT ART PATRON.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10522, 7 December 1899, Page 4

A MUNIFICENT ART PATRON.

Is art >a luxury to be only produced for, and appreciated by, the! rich: or is national art an integral portion, of national life? No one , in pur generation lias done more on , the j practical aide in support of the latter answer ( to the, question tfiaa, Six .Henry TJeute, whoy l ) as this morning's cable informs us, died ' yesterday in London at the age of 80, In ' 1882, -when interest in art matters was at a ■ comparatively-low ebb, Mr Tate offered'to i the Government has collection of valuable \ modern pictures, valued at no less a sum j than £90,000. This offer the administration 1 of the day refused, on the ground of -(rant of ' space. Years went fry~and the authorities .' began to repent their, short-sighted policy. ' In 1890, accordingly, the Government of- . ( fered to place the pictures offered them in a i picture gallery to be erected at South Kensington. In the following year Mr Tate ' followed up hie firsti offer with a gift of £80,000 for the erection at. South Kensing- : ton of a national gallery of British art, . There was at first some disagreement about - the site. The matter was, however, finally < arranged, and the gallery, designed by Mr : Sydney Smith, was opened, as will be re- " membered by sour readers, with great J ceremony by the Prince of Wales in 1897« There would be little indeed in the so- . oialiets , objection to tihe huge fortunes of : miUonaires if they were as munificently and wisely iheld in trust for th© nation by the great art patron who has just died. But it must be admitted that in proportion to the ( number of wealthy men in England arid the , cokoDoes, there are comparatively few -who < have don©-much for the artistic culture of ] the nation. As « matter of fact [a

it it only <rf cent yeate, and very - to, the influence of <nw mom— w* course, Mr Ruskii*-4iha,t th» duty. «£|f2 (ration with, regard to art has been ptoximatefly tealised. In season tffld.«fc'«-1 of season, in good or in ill Buskin, throughout Ms long life, has hammered end hammered at great doctrine that, "Art without loibwitfc-'P crime, and labour without art is brutality*'*' Deaf at first, as the mass of the people «{. "*' ways are to new ideas, Englishmen ally came to believe that there w««'*«jL'j: truth after all in what this "graduate of Oxford" was spending life, wJf '-* fortune to teach. They came to eee\fi£ there was nothing intrinekally BoMa~&i;£f mere ugliness, and that good taste in art <wp not as they had suspected a doogeoua •&&# but only at worst an amiable Some, like Wiiliam Morris, went &r&*f! still, and made a, .manful attempt to ataviSft! torrent of ugliness pervading modwn j lish life. And tiiey have not been their reward. England in not, and periap* ""l never will be, ao artistic nation in the aetat \ that the Greeks have been, and the Fre&cjL ' to some extent, stiH are. No doubt oar" national strength, as wee the case ? ancient Romans, lies rather in \ tions. But no visiter to England and Iβ H London now can for a moment; dotf* t& f vitality of the artisbio progrew of the aatioa in the last twenty year* It has befen-^ped' V by tiie influence of Rtiskinj it hae been !' helped by the genius of the Pre-Baphaaßtf 1 school of painters; it W bee* helped fy - Burne-Jones and William Morris and ttolf * following of craftsmen j and it h»& been * helped, perhaps, not least, by the late Sir : Henry Tate, who did what a man of our i days emd'our race can, to follow dn the stew ) of Pericles and of Augustus. - '"' '