Does the picture give you pleasure on looking at it? That is one good
test of its worth. You may grow tired of it; your taste may outgrow it,
and demand something better, just as the reader may grow out of
Montgomery's poetry into Milton's. Then you will take down the daub, and
put up a picture with a higher idea in its place. There may thus be a
steady progress of art made upon the room walls. If the pictures can be
put in frames, so much the better; but if they cannot, no matter; up
with them! We know that Owen Jones says it is not good taste to hang
prints upon walls--he would merely hang room papers there. But Owen
Jones may not be infallible; and here we think he is wrong. To our eyes,
a room always looks unfurnished, no matter how costly and numerous the
tables, chairs, and ottomans, unless there be pictures upon the walls.
It ought to be, and no doubt it is, a great stimulus to artists to know
that their works are now distributed in prints and engravings, to
decorate and beautify the homes of the people. The wood-cutter, the
lithographer, and the engraver, are the popular interpreters of the
great artist. Thus Turner's pictures are not confined to the wealthy
possessors of the original works, but may be diffused through all homes
by the Millars, and Brandards, and Wilmotts, who have engraved them.
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