Excerpt from The Graphic Arts: A Treatise on the Varieties of Drawing, Painting, and Engraving in Comparison With Each Other and With Nature
I wish to dedicate this book to you as the representative of a class that ought to be more numerous - the class of large-minded persons who can take a lively interest in arts which are not specially their own. No one who had not carefully observed the narrowing of men's minds by specialities could believe to what a degree it goes. Instead of being open, as yours has always been, to the influence of literature, in the largest sense, as well as to the influences of the graphic arts and music, the specialised mind shuts itself up in its own pursuit so exclusively that it does not even know what is nearest to its own closed door. We meet with scholars who take no more account of the graphic arts than if they did not exist, and with painters who never read; but, what is still more surprising, is the complete indifference with which an art can be regarded by men who know and practise another not widely removed from it. One may be a painter, and yet know nothing whatever about any kind of engraving; one may be a skilled engraver, and yet work in life-long misunderstanding of the rapid arts. If the specialists who devote themselves to a single study had more of your interest in the work of others, they might find, as you have done, that the quality which may be called open-mindedness is far from being an impediment to success, even in the highest and most arduous of artistic and intellectual pursuits.
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