Art invokes
liberality and evokes fraternity. The sentiment, that there is a
common property in the productions of genius, making possession a
trust for the public welfare, will increase among those by whose
taste and wealth they have been accumulated. Masterpieces will cease
to be regarded as the selfish acquisitions of covetous amateurs, but,
like spoken truth, will become the inalienable birthright of the
people,--finding their way freely and generously, through the
magnetic influences of public spirit and pertinent examples, to those
depositories where they can most efficaciously perform their mission
of truth and beauty to the world. Then the people themselves will
begin to take pride in their artistic wealth, to honor artists as
they now do soldiers and statesmen, and to value the more highly
those virtues which are interwoven with all noble effort.
In 1823, when the National Gallery of England was founded, the
English were nearly as dead to art as we are now. A few amateurs
alone cultivated it, but there was no general sympathy with nor
knowledge of it. Yet by 1837, in donations alone, the gallery had
received one hundred and thirty-seven pictures.
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