In music alone of the arts, for reasons already given, special cultivation is necessary for the judgment of the higher forms of beauty.
[a] _Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti_, De Vere translation.
[b] McCurdy's _Lionardo da Vinci's Note Books_.
[c] _History of Ancient Art_, Part V., 6.
It is commonly supposed that the vast multitude of men and women--the toilers in the fields and factories, and their families, do not appreciate great works of art; that rarely they take an interest in any kind of art, and then only in simple representations of everyday incidents. This is so apparently, but it is not strictly true. The great bulk of working people grow up amidst surroundings where they do not have an opportunity of seeing good works of art. They toil from morn to eve during their whole life: their imaginations are almost entirely confined to their means of livelihood, their daily routine of labour, and their household duties. A "mute inglorious Milton" remains mute because he wants the knowledge and experience around which his fancy may roam, and a potential Raphael dies in obscurity from the enforced rigidity of his imagination. But even so, notwithstanding that the nervous activities and the imaginations of the poorer workers remain undeveloped, they are still subservient to the irrevocable laws of nature. Their faculties may be little changed from childhood in respect of matters appertaining to the higher senses, but they still exist. So it comes about that in all times since art has been practised, the paintings and sculptures of the greater masters have been well appreciated by the multitude when they could come into contact with them. In modern times great works of art are seldom available to the masses except in public galleries where their sense perception and minds are quickly confused and fatigued--in fact rendered incapable of legitimate use, but the trend of popular opinion is very decidedly settled by the experience of those business houses which undertake the reproduction of important works. There are many times the demand for prints and cards of pictures belonging to the higher forms of art, as for instance, sacred and historical subjects, and portraits, than for interiors and landscapes, and so incessant is this demand for the better works, that a painter desiring to copy one of the great Raphael or Correggio Madonnas at Florence for reproduction, will usually have to wait three or four years after entering his name, before his turn comes to set up his easel. It is rather the want of intelligent contact with them, than indifference to them, that is due the apparent lack of interest in great works of art on the part of the labouring classes.