PREFACE.

It is rather through the accident of my having been offered the Slade Professorship at University College than through any conviction on my part that I had a call to instruct the public by my pen, that the ten lectures which compose this book came to be written. The first of the series, it is true, was delivered at the college before my appointment there was talked of, but I was much pressed to do it, and I undertook it with much misgiving. My position as Professor seemed to require a certain number of formal lectures, although practical instruction in art was the main object of my appointment; and these led to others being given outside for the benefit of a public which lies in wait for any one they can catch for an evening's instruction. As regards the lectures, they speak for themselves. In spite of difficulties attending the subject, I have come to the conclusion that it is much easier to write about art than to practise it; and am led to the further conclusion that, as example is always better than precept, the more time I devote to painting in future and the less to public lecturing, the better it will be for my art and for those who are interested in it. The progress that has been made in art during the last ten years has been so rapid, that much of what I said in my first lecture has become obsolete; the remarks I there made on the English school of painting especially, though true enough then, are now, through the rise of a younger school of artists, and the influence they have had upon older men, less applicable. I come to-day from the "varnishing day" of the Royal Academy Exhibition with a pleasant conviction that there is on all sides a more decided tendency towards a higher standard in art, both as regards treatment of subject and execution, than I have ever before noticed; and I have no hesitation in attributing this sudden improvement in the main to the stimulus given to us all by the election of our new President, and to the influence of the energy, thoroughness, and nobility of aim which he displays in everything he undertakes. I was probably the first, when we were both young and in Rome together, to whom he had the opportunity of showing the disinterested kindness which he has invariably extended to beginners whom he sees to be interested in their work; and to him, as the friend and master who first directed my ambition, and whose precepts I never fail to recall when at work (as many another will recall them), I venture to dedicate this book with affection and respect.

Edward J. Poynter

April 24th, 1879