SOCIETY OF ARTS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 703, 28 April 1852, Page 4

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

[From the Morning Chronicle, Nov. 27.] Last evening the inaugural lecture of the course of lectures on the Exhibition given by the Society of Arts, was delivered, at the rooms of the society, by the Rev. Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the presence of a numerous and distinguished auditory. Mr. 11. T. Hope, M.P., presided. The subject of the lecture was announced to be “ The General Bearing of the Exhibition on the Progress of Art and Sciences.”

Dr. Whewell commenced by observing that it seemed to him as if he were one of the persons who had the least right of any to address an audience like that on the subject of the memorable Exhibition of Art and Industry, of which the doors had just closed, inasmuch as he had no connexion with the great event nor relation to it, except that of a mere spectator, one of the millions who had visited and admired its wonders. The eminent and zealous men in whose wide views it originated, by whose unexampled energy and perseverance the great fact of such a spectacle was embodied in a visible material shape, those who in our own country or from distant lauds supplied it with the treasures and miracles of art it contained —those who, with scrutinizing eye and judicial mind, compared those various treasures, and stamped its true character on each — those, in short, who could point to the glories of the Exhibition, and say, “ quorum pars mag nil fui ” —might well be considered as having a right to lay before the public the ideas and views suggested to them by the various incidents and contents of such an assemblage of curious and useful articles. Amongst these he was not numbered; but as the Council of the Society of Arts bad done him the honour to express their wishes to that effect, he should offer to them such reflections as the contemplation of the Great Exhibition had suggested to him. and in deference to their wishes, and especially as a token of his admiration for the truly royal mind which, with so clear aud deep an insight, into the wants of the age, aud the advantageous results that might be expected from it for the progress of humanity, had devised the plan of the undertaking, he would make a few remarks, which, precisely on account of the circumstance he had stated, might be considered as those of an unconcerned spectator. To write or speak the epilogue after any great or solemn drama was by no means an easy task. We satv the confession of the difficulty in tl.e very incongruity of the manner in which the task was sometimes attempted, as when the curtain had fallen on a deep and solemn tragedy, some startling attempt at wit or pleasure was uttered to the audience by one of the characters from whose lips they had heard the moving accents of grand or sublime poetical declamation. But it was not his business now to speak an epilogue at all; the remarks he had to make might rather be likened to the criticism which came after the drama. The age of criticism came after the age of poetry ; Aristotle followed Sophocles, Longinus was long subsequent to Hotner ; and the reason of this had been well pointed out —the words of human language appeared in the form in which the poet worked with them, before they appeared in the form in which the critic used them. Poetry came first, and philosophical criticism afterwards ; imaginative works first appeared, and critical theories and speculations succeeded. The poet was termed, both by the ancient Greeks, and by cur own ancestors, the maker. Now, man’s power in making, showed itself, not only in the beautiful texture of language and grand display of poetic imagery which we admired in the chiefs of literature, but in skill of fabrication, exercised on those material substances and products which supplied the original sources from which were taken the derivative terms we are compelled to use—in the texture of fine linen or woollen or silken stuffs—in the moulding of the fused ore to its myriad forms and uses in the machinery mighty as the thunderbolt, or light as the breath of air, which wafted the flower dust to its appointed place—in the image which expressed to the eye what the poet did to the mind, so that we could not say whether Phidias or Homer was most truly a poet (applause.) That mighty theatre, full as it was of the works of man’s hand, contained also the works of many who were truly makers, on which were stamped that combination of power —fitness, and grace, which made them true exponents of the energy and activity of man’s faculties, articulate utterances of the human mind no less than if they had been audible words or melodious sentences. In the area of the the Crystal Palace were collected a vast number of expositions, not of words or letters, but things, and a man might wander amidst iis glories day by day, and con them over so as to have imbued himself in some measure with a discriminative perception of their express form and spirit ; and now, that scene being past, those days of attraction having vanished with their poetry, the time for criticism might seem-to have arrived. We must try to analyse the works we had gazed upon, and discover their principles. As the critic of literary art endeavoured to discover the laws of human nature by which its manifestations were shaped and regulated, so the-sritic of such art as we have had presented to us lately endeavoured to decipher the laws of material skill and its barmonies of proportion, how man could act by his operating power on the brute matter and the raw substance, and how in the finished products were shown forth his thoughts, activity and power. This appeared to be the proper sequel to such a great exhibition—to discover how the laws of operative power worked after having had so great a manifestation of what they did. To discover what were the laws of power in literary works was a pursuit that claimed no small respect under the name of criticism ; but to discover the laws of physical power, as exemplified in material products, was the work of science, and was indeed emphatically what we termed science ; and thus in the case now before them they had, instead of the criticism which naturally came after the general circulation of poetry, the science which naturally came after general exhibition of art — two cases of succession, or serial develo; meat, connected by the bonds of an exact analogy. Tha'.

this view of the general and natural succession of science to art, as of criticism to poetry, was not merely fantastical, or even analogical, we might easily convince ourselves by looking at the progress of art and science in past times. Generally art had preceded science ; men executed great, curious, and beautiful works before they had a scientific insight into the principles on which the success of their labours was founded. Men ransacked the cavities of earth for mineral treasures, and tore from its depths the precious hoards of gold or iron before they had gained a knowledge of the chemistry of metals, or ascertained the rules by which the processes of the miner were to be conducted. Vinous fluids pleased the palates of mankind before the laws of fermentation were settled ; mighty masses of stone were raised into the air, gigantic doors and portals reared by a vast expenditure of toil and effort, probably without much systematic arrangement, before all the applications of mechanical power had been discovered and put in practice. The early generation made —the latter explained how it was possible to do the work. Art has become the mother of science; science is the vigorous daughter of a mother of far loftier and serener beauty. As in the ancient world, so was it again in the modern period. The middle ages invented or improved a vast body of arts and artistic processes and products -— paper and printing, steel, gunpowder, the compass, painting and engraving, new forms of sculpture and architecture, whilst the science of recent times was unknown and its terms yet unheard. The dawn of the sixteenth century presented, as it were, a great exhibition of the works of art and industry which men bad been producing since the downfall of Roman civilization and power—beautiful textures, beautiful castings in bronze and iron, wonderful machines, mighty fabrics ; and from that time, stimulated by the products of human skill and the natural ripening of the human faculties, men were led to cultivate science as well as art, aud to see in science the natural complement cf art and the fulfilment of its promises. Science was the fully developed flower of which art was the wonderfully involved bud (applause.) The arts took their flight to their greatest development from the multitude of productions accumulated in the rise of« the 16th century, the artist deriving new power from a better acquaintance with the laws of science, and working with increased energy and vigour. As the speculations of the sixteenth century were the natural development of the inventive labours of the preceding ages, so must those of the present day find their origin and subject in the unexampled abundance of novel forms of art existing amongst us at the present day. Thus a great collection of the works of art might be expected to be the forerunner of great scientific progress. So it bad seemed from the beginning to those who had taken lofty, comprehensive, anil hopeful views of the present undertaking now completed, and especially to that mind which had taken the most lof.y and comprehensive view of all; and therefore persons of scientific merit aud eminence had been chosen, well qualified to find in it the materials of true and elevating speculation, and to present the results to such an audience ; for it was right that as critics analyzed the poets, so men of science should explain to us what we ought to learn from such a manifestation of art (applause.) He would remind them how great and unique the occasion was, and how peculiar some of the lessons which even the general spectator, unfit to enter into many technical details of special processes or objects, might draw from it. How great was the opportunity thus given of taking a survey of the general state of art in the world. If in the IGth century an intelligent spectator could have devoted years to travelling from land to land, he might in that way have seen a multitude of wondeiful works of art iu different countries; and, combining the impressions of all these in his mind, he would have had a comprehensive picture of the progress of human art and industry up to the latest moment. But what time and labour, what perseverance and endurance of hardships, what access to great and powerful men in every land, what happiness of opportunity would be implied in the completion of such a survey 1 A life would scarcely suffice for it ; a man would scarcely be found who could achieve it with all the appliances and means which wealth and power could give. Like the philosophers of ancient times, he must spend all his days in travel ; he must explore the immemorial seats of art and industry in the wide regions of mysterious Ind ; he must watch the artisan at his bench, the weaver at his loom, in the numberless cities and towns of China ; he must dive into the profundities of the mines of Norway aud Sweden ; he must search through the workshops of England and Germany, and follow the rushing tide of the progress of art and life in the valley of the Mississippi. And when he had done this, bow defective must it be in many particulars. How far from affording a simultaneous view of the progress made by mankind over the whole surface of the globe. During the time he had been moving from place to place what a vast change would have come over the aspect of things. Tunis, once proverbial for barbarism, was now the first foreign state to seek a place for its productions amongst the competing nations of the civilised world; Wisconsin and Java, lately sterile and untrodden solitudes, now had their harvests gathered by the latest improved reaping machines; the seas of that Orient Archipelago, onca swept by the rude savage in his piratical prow, now bore lofty ships, carrying the most valuable products of English manufacture. How must this express, not a general view of the earth’s resources and the results of the energies of mankind, but the accidental features of the traveller’s personal knowledge ; and how dim, again, the images of things seen many uays or years ago —how impossible to compare the object seen in age with the object as remembered in youth (applause.) This Ulysses of modern times might have seen the cities of many nations, the workshops of many lands, but the knowledge would be his only—he could not in any way communicate it effectively to others; it existed only in him and perished with him. Had the imagination of some mediaeval Homer supposed such a Ulysses arriving at some island of Calypso, swayed by some powerful and benignant deity, and surveying in her enchanted garden the wonders of earth, its treasures of nature and art congregated under the roof of a Crystal Palace, from the diamond’s sparkling drop to the mighty bulk of the Colossus, the whole population cf the island pouring forth its streaming millions to feast their eyes on the sight, com-

paring, judging, and scrutinizing the various objects that made up the wondrous whole—

“ et quicquid Graecia mendax Audet in historia —” this would be but a literal anticipation of the glorious reality lately withdrawn from our eyes. In nation compared with nation characteristic differences were observed—in a nation as compared with itself at an earlier period was found the best evidence of progress. There might not always be a progress in good government, nor always a progress in virtue, morality, or happiness, but there was always, except when adverse influences threw it back, a progress in arts and science. Different nations were in different stages, but the results of the skill possessed by each had never before been brought forward at one view, like distant objects at once revealed by a flash of lightning. It was as if a skilful photographer could bring within the range of his solar spheroscopa the whole globe, with all its products. But more it enabled us to achieve the wish of on ingenious speculative writer in our own day, and tracing every step of human development, be actual spectators, and, as it were contemporaneous witnesses of every artistic event of note that had occurred since the existence of man on the earth. For we had there collected specimens of the food utensils, dwellings, and domestic aris of the rudest as well as the most highly cultured nations. From Otaheite, so long the type of savage life Queen Pomare sent head-gear, which the native women fabricated from indigenous plants ; from Labuan, the latest added to the roll of our colonies we had clothes, arms, and implements of various kinds ; from Sumatra and Java, the loom and the plough, lacquered ware, and silks ; and, coming to that central and ancient mainland of India the primeval seat of civilization, we had innumerable traces of art and ingenuity clad in garbs of magnificence still peculiar to the East, and which might be contrasted with the well adapted, complete, and systematic forms of our own productions. A reflection which could not fail to strike every one, on even a cursory glance, was, that a man was by nature and universally an artificer, an artisan, an artist. How much of ingenuity, invention, knowledge, was requited to produce even such works as were sent from those whom we stigmatized as barbarians or savages—how much simple grace and neatness was often observable in them. Looking at the products of nations who had attained higher stages of cultured art, though inferior to ourselves in scientific knowledge, there was much that might well excite our envy, if not drive us to despair of imitation. Persia and India had shown that they could do things which even England,with all her energy and skill, could perhaps notequal, “ the gorgeous East still showered its barbaric pearl and gold ” on its costly vestures and inlaid arms; its silks, shawls, and embroidery shewed that Oriental magnificence must still remain proverbial. In what then could we say that our superiority consisted ? The difference might be thus briefly expressed—in the East the arts were merely exercised to gratify the tastes of the few, but with us to supply the wants of the many (applause). There the wealth of a province was lavished to furnish forth the splendid trappings of royalty, here the merchant employed his capital to provide clothing for the world. For such vast operations machinery of wondrous complexity and power was required, and it was rematkable that, instead of the most subtle and delicate machinery exercising its powers on the most costly substances, gold and jewels were chiefly wrought by hand, whilst the highest triumphs of mechanical invention were called into action to provide the requirements of the multitude. Machinery with its million fingers worked for a million, whilst in remote countries tens of thousands worked for one (applause.) There art laboured for the rich alone—here for the poor no less; there the many laboured to find gems for the diadem of the prince whose slaves they were —here men, powerful in the possession of the capital and machinery, became the servants of the public that employed them, and, whilst enriching others, became rich themselves. If such were the relations between the arts of life and machinery, might we not say that we had reached a point beyond others in the social progress of nations? The learned doctor then entered into an examination of the principles of classification adopted in the arrangement of the articles in the Great Exhibition, pointing ont the superiority of the plan to that followed in the French exhibitions of 180 G, 1819, 1827, and 1844, and showing that any system of a purely technical or scientific kind uniformly resulted in separating things naturally connected, and bringing together things widely divided. With reference to the advancement of manufacturing industry, the mineral kingdom would probably be found of less importance than the vegetable. In the former it was not so much the discovery of new substances as of new fields (as in California and Australia) that was remarkable, whilst the flexibility and various applicability of vegetable substances were proved by numberless examples, caoutchouc and gutta percha being two of the most recent. Amongst all the beneficial effects that might be looked for from the Exhibition, perhaps none surpassed that which would be produced by the intercourse that had taken place between so many men of science, brought together from different quarters of the world. In universities, the greatest importance was ascribed to the community of views, and liberal feelings of co-operation in the arts and interests of life, produced amongst their members, tending to raise the many to the level of the best. Might we not expect that from this lime the great artificers and artisans of the world would entertain for each other a larger share of regard and good will, of admiration for each other’s character ? All these feelings would surely be heightened by their being able to say, we were students together in the Great University of 1851 (applause.) On the conclusion of the lecture, Mr. Dilke rose to move the thanks of the society to Dr. Whewell for the eloquent lecture they had just heard, the value of which was enhanced by coming from one of scientific attainments so extensive.

Dr. Lyon Playfair seconded the motion, which was carried by acclamation. The members shortly after separated.