The Scottish Art Review
THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW has for its object the dissemination of Art knowledge. Interest in the Arts is manifestly increasing throughout this country, and for intelligent guidance of this interest there is a generally felt desire. While primarily intended to meet this want, the aim of the Magazine will be to treat the subjects considered in a spirit calculated to make it of value as a contribution to Art thought, independent of mere locality. In periodicals of this kind it has become more and more necessary that certain subjects should be handled by those whose knowledge of them is not only special but practical. Accordingly it is our intention that, in this paper, those actually engaged in the various Arts should express the ideas they have of necessity formed regarding the Arts which are the work of their lives. In the pages of this Review the Painter will write about Painting, the Sculptor about Sculpture, the Architect about Architecture, the Musician about Music, and the Man of Letters about Literature; but not to the exclusion of those who, though not themselves professionally engaged in the Arts, may yet have general culture or special knowledge qualifying them to deal with subjects coming within the scope of the Journal. Endeavouring, as it does, to carry the treatment of Art to a point parallel to that attained by well-directed journalism in other fields, we sincerely hope that our action will commend itself to the press. Assured that it will be endorsed by serious Art-workers, we trust that those who care for the Arts will help to advance the work by giving it an encouraging support.
PROGRESSIVENESS IN ART.
BY PRINCIPAL CAIRD.
I.
THE history of knowledge is that, on the whole of a continuous, ever accelerating progress. In some departments this may be more marked than in others, but on the whole the law is a constant one, which constitutes each succeeding age the inheritor of the intellectual wealth of all preceding ages, and makes it its vocation to hand on the heritage it has received, enriched by its own contributions, to that which comes after. And it is this characteristic of knowledge which lends an incalculable quickening influence to thought and research. If we cannot assent to the paradox that the chief value of knowledge is not in the possession but in the pursuit of it; if there are few who would endorse the well-known saying of Malebranche—'If I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, that I might pursue it again,' yet this much must be conceded, that the known, the mastered and established facts of knowledge derive a great part of their value from their relation to the unknown and the undiscovered. It is the new hopes that are ever arising in us in the search for truth, it is the stir of unresting endeavour, the impossibility of stagnation, the excitement of inquiry, the wonder and delight of the world of thought breaking upon us with the ever-unabated charm of novelty; it is the sense of the ever-increasing amount of our intellectual possessions and the prophetic glimpses of richer, but as yet unappropriated, treasures;—it is, in short, the atmosphere of progressiveness which lends a peculiar interest to the vocation of the searcher after truth. But whilst this characteristic is obviously true of the physical sciences, whilst, as respects this great department of knowledge, we see at a glance that modern times are at an almost incalculable distance in advance of ancient, and whilst there are obvious reasons on which we may base the conviction that the progress of these sciences will be still greater and more rapid in the future, is there not some ground for maintaining that in some branches of literature and in almost all that belongs to the province of art, a point of excellence was reached in past ages which has never been transcended, and that here all that is left for modern times is only the attitude of reverent study and admiration, the humbler task of imitating those exquisite works of the genius of antiquity which we can never hope to excel? Moreover, if we
