ART AND THE STATE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 10, 7 March 1891, Page 13

ART AND THE STATE.

The policy of State-aided art, inaugurated by Napoleon, was continued under the various paternal Governments which succeeded him. Monuments were erected continually, palaces and public buildings were decorated with mural paintings ; the Ecole des Beaux Arts was founded, and made free to the students of all nations ; the use of the galleries of the Louvre, and afterwards of the splendid Palais de

I’lndustrie, was conceded to the artists for the purposes of their yearly exhibitions, and medals of considerable intrinsic value were awarded to the most meritorious works exhibited therein. All these things were paid for out of the public funds ; and it was considered so natural and proper a thing that the State should thus support and encourage the art production of the nation that no one ever thought of questioning the legality or the advisability of the proceeding. With Frenchmen the financial part of the business never seemed worth discussing. With them the vital side of the whole question was the a»sthetic side; and even to-day, those who are loudest in their condemnation of the policy leave the question of political economy entirely on one side, and base their objections to the system upon the ground that it has become deleterious to the best and highest interests of art itself. They do not deny that contemporary art owes much to the careful nursing and fostering which it received in its infancy at the hands of the Government, but they claim that the child of 1800 has grown to the estate of manhood, and is now only hampered by the leading strings which were useful enough in its earlier years. They also state that the system is responsible for a very great evil—an evil which was not contemplated by its founders—but is none the less adirectresultandconsequenceofall its tendencies; and they further aver that thisparasitic growth has obtained such formidable proportions as at last to smother and destroy all the good which may at one time have belonged to the system. The evil thus referred to is the formation of and gradual development of a distinctly official school of art—an art which is admirably adapted to the decoration of ceremonious apartments of state, smooth, polished, and impeccable in technique, but utterly lacking in the qualities of soul and sentiment.