He did not talk a great deal; but enough to show that he is still an
Englishman in many sturdy traits, though his accent has something foreign
about it. His conversation was chiefly about India, and other topics of
the day, together with a few reminiscences of people in Liverpool, where
he once resided. There was a kind of simplicity both in his manner and
matter, and nothing very remarkable in the latter. . . . .
The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the
Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare
none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old
Pre-Raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely
omit in their imitations. In his own art, he said the aim should be to
find out the principles on which the Greek sculptors wrought, and to do
the work of this day on those principles and in their spirit; a fair
doctrine enough, I should think, but which Mr. Gibson can scarcely be
said to practise. . . . . The difference between the Pre-Raphaelites and
himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists and realists, in a
certain sense, and he a pagan idealist.
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