{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76748/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76748","id":"gutenberg_76748","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76748","summary":null,"tags":["Art","Art -- France -- History","Category: Art","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Degeneration"],"text":"ON ART\n AND ARTISTS\n\n BY\n MAX NORDAU\n AUTHOR OF \u201cDEGENERATION\u201d\n\n TRANSLATED BY W. F. HARVEY, M.A.\n\n LONDON\n T. FISHER UNWIN\n ADELPHI TERRACE\n MCMVII\n\n\n [_All rights reserved._]\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n CHAP. PAGE\n\n I. The Social Mission of Art 1\n\n II. Socialistic Art\u2014Constantin Meunier 30\n\n III. The Question of Style 44\n\n IV. The Old French Masters 56\n\n V. A Century of French Art 70\n\n VI. The School of 1830 96\n\n VII. The Triumph of a Revolution\u2014\n The Realists 107\n Alfred Sisley 123\n Camille Pissarro 133\n Whistler\u2019s Psychology 145\n\n VIII. Gustave Moreau 155\n\n IX. Eug\u00e8ne Carri\u00e8re 166\n\n X. Puvis de Chavannes 185\n\n XI. Bright and Dark Painting\u2014Charles Cottet 201\n\n XII. Physiognomies in Painting 217\n\n XIII. Auguste Rodin 275\n\n XIV. Resurrection\u2014Bartholom\u00e9 294\n\n XV. Jean Carri\u00e8s 308\n\n XVI. Works of Art and Art Criticisms 320\n\n XVII. My Own Opinion 336\n\n Index 349\n\n\n\n\n ON ART AND ARTISTS\n\n\n\n\n ON ART AND ARTISTS\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n THE SOCIAL MISSION OF ART\n\n\nThere exists a school of \u00e6stheticism which laughs contemptuously at\nthe mere sight of this superscription. Art having a mission! What\nutter nonsense. A person must be a rank Philistine to connect with the\nidea of art the conception of a non-artistic mission, be it social or\notherwise. Has a work of art any other mission than to give pleasure by\nbeauty? It strives to attain no goal that lies outside of itself. It\nis its own object, and whoever assigns to it another, sins against the\nsanctity of art.\n\nThis is, in short, the theory of art for art\u2019s sake: _l\u2019art pour\nl\u2019art_. I deem this theory false and a hallmark of crass ignorance, for\npsychology and the history of civilisation and art, the history of all\narts, prove irrefutably the vanity and worthlessness of the concept\nthat denies to art any other task and mission than that of being\nbeautiful.\n\nCertainly art is, in the main, a purely subjective activity, in\nwhich the artist wishes solely to satisfy himself, without thinking\nof any person or thing external to himself. The psychological roots\nof all artistic creation are, in fact, an exceptional sensitiveness\nand feeling on the part of the artist. We know that every moderately\nstrong impression which man\u2014and, moreover, not only man, but also every\nliving creature, however low in the scale\u2014receives from the external\nworld, excites in him processes, which, in the case of man and the\nhigher animals, attain consciousness as emotion or passion. The emotion\nimperiously urges in towards liberation through movements, that is\nto say, muscular activity, which, in many cases, is accompanied by\nglandular activity, _e.g._ tears, secretion of saliva, perspiration,\netc. To men of the average type the usual forms of manifesting their\nemotion suffice. If they have wept in sorrow, laughed for joy, cursed\nor clenched their fist in anger, they are pacified. Their emotion has\nspent itself and become exhausted, and their physical life once more\nflows in its accustomed channels.\n\nHowever, if, instead of the average man, we have before us a creature\nof exceptional sensitiveness and emotionality, the psychical processes\nassume another shape. This creature feels all phenomena more acutely;\nthey arouse in him more violent passions; his emotions are deeper\nand more lasting. Their normal forms of expression do not suffice to\nlull them. They take possession of his soul, organise themselves,\nshow a tendency to become compelling ideas, and oppress it with\npsycho-motorial incitements or impulses until it has freed itself from\nthem by acts which stand in proper ratio to the number or violence of\nthe emotions. A being whose excessive emotionality is of an angry,\nmalicious nature attains relief only through deeds of destruction.\nSuch is the case with most sub-species of born criminals. Should the\nexceptionally strong emotions not be of a destructive nature, they find\ntheir outlet otherwise by artistic creations, which, therefore, are a\nliberation and solution of emotion that has become overmastering.\n\nBut this simple, as it were, normal case, in which the work of art\nactually fulfils a purely subjective mission, and aims at no other\nobject than to relieve the artist\u2019s nervous system and to unburden his\nmind of a compelling idea\u2014this case is actually met with only in the\nearliest ages of mankind. Art for art\u2019s sake\u2014the art which is practised\npurely for the relief and satisfaction of the artist\u2014is that of the\ncave-man of the quaternary period. The artist who adorned the walls\nof the Caves of Mouthe[1] with figures of animals; who scratched\nthe famous mammoth on the tusk of La Madeleine in the Dordogne;\nthe draughtsman of Bruniquel, of Schaffhausen; the author of the\nrock-pictures in Sweden, probably did not trouble himself as to whether\nhe was producing any effect on others. In all likelihood he did not\nwork for society. His psychology is disclosed to us by the subjects he\ntreated. He was an enthusiastic hunter, endowed with a particularly\nlively intuition and manual dexterity. On the days when he could not go\nhunting, either because bad weather prevented him doing so, or external\ncompulsion\u2014perhaps an accident met with in the chase\u2014confined him to\nhis cave, he thought longingly of his favourite occupation. The beasts\nthat composed his usual booty lived in his imagination. His grotto\nwas peopled with the monsters of the forest and plain of primitive\ntimes. He saw the mammoth with its stiff mane, the grisly cave-bear,\nthe aurochs and giant-elk, the shaggy, thick-set horse of Solutr\u00e9; he\npursued, fought, slew them. He felt all the keen joys of these mighty\ndeeds, and became so strongly excited that he could not refrain from\nrealising the lively pictures of his fancy, by drawing them on bones,\ntusks, or rocks, or carving them on stags\u2019 horns and elephants\u2019 teeth.\nIt would not gainsay this psychology of primitive human art, if the\nartists in remote ages (as the latest pre-historic investigations seem\nto attest) connected superstitious ideas with the imitation of their\nanimals of the chase, perhaps believed by such means they cast a spell\non the animals portrayed, and facilitated their capture. A superstition\nlike this would, in its turn, become a source of fresh emotions which\nalso seek outward expression.\n\nBesides the hunter there was also the warrior, who liked to portray his\nconquered enemies, and the sensualist, who sought delight in carving\nfemale busts, the types of which, to our taste, seem very ugly, but may\nhave appeared alluring to him.\n\nThese savage forefathers who adorned the caves of the early stone age\nwith works of art not invariably crude; who woke the echo of the forest\nvalleys with plaintive or yearning melodies; who excited themselves\nby sensuous dances in the moonlight nights of spring; who formed, in\nsymbolic and allegorical songs, their mystic impressions of the great\nphenomena of the weather and sky;\u2014these savage forefathers were the\nfirst, but at the same time last, purely subjective artists, the only\nreal believers in the dogma of \u201cart for art\u2019s sake.\u201d\n\nIn order to find them once more in our own times, we must seek them in\nthe nursery or the Board School class-room. The artist of primitive\ntimes survives by atavism in the child. But he substitutes for the\nrock-wall of the cave and the mammoth\u2019s tooth his slate, copy-book,\nschool-books, often enough his desk and form, which he adorns with\ndrawings that, if not particularly finished, are, nevertheless,\nalways full of expression, and recognisable. The child does not give\nway to his artistic wantonness in order to please others. He hides\nit, moreover, mostly for obvious reasons, from the eyes of strangers;\nhe only draws to portray symbolically that which has made a strong\nimpression on him. He always notes down the important, distinguishing\nfeatures which have struck him in the phenomenon. This fierce\nmustache, the circle drawn across which represents the head, is for\nthe little draughtsman the characteristic of manly dignity; this\nright-angled broken stroke, which bristles up over a row of men, is\nthe formidable bayonet that marks the soldier; this disproportionately\nbig stick in another man\u2019s hand is the dreaded badge that embodies the\nschoolmaster\u2019s power. The young artist has obeyed genuine impulses. His\nart forms really spring out of the deep grounds of his emotion.\n\nWith advancing civilisation, however, this state of things quickly\nchanges. The artist soon notices that he is differently conditioned\nto the rest, the average men; that his feelings are keener, their\nmanifestation more expressive than with the latter. He becomes\nconscious of his superiority, fancies himself something in regard\nto it, and cultivates it. Other men find \u00e6sthetic pleasure in his\ncreations, and encourage him by flattering applause which easily\nrises to admiration. That calls forth an energetic metamorphosis\nin the inmost processes of his work, in its causes and aims. What\nwas once organic necessity now becomes craftsmanship; uncontrollable\ninspiration is replaced by custom and by style. The artist becomes his\nown imitator. In years of cool, methodical, routine work, he simply\ncalls to mind the moment when the feverish workings of his brain\npowerfully drove him into the paths of art. He observes all rites of\nthe creator by impulse, but they are now only an attitude which he has\nlearnt. In theory he is still inspired by impulse; practically, he is\na professional craftsman who performs the day\u2019s work imposed on him by\nintelligent volition. He is still always in search of self-satisfaction\nwhilst engaged on works of art, but it is of another nature than that\nof the unsophisticated artist. The unconscious aim of his efforts is\nnot to find relief from an emotional tension: he strives after the\nvoluptuous feeling of flattered _amour propre_; he grows ambitious,\nvery often, indeed, only vain. He thinks of his public. He anticipates\nhis success. The thought of approbation takes the place of the effort\nto deliver himself from a painfully obsessing conception.\n\nThis also is always the psychology of the born artist, who is one\nbecause his organisation forces him to it. Beside him, however, swarms\nthe innumerable crowd of imitation artists, of average, and very\naverage men, who would never of themselves have thought of becoming\nartists\u2014men who would never have discovered art of themselves, if they\nhad not had before their eyes the example of the original artists,\ntheir successes, their recognition by civilised society. These\nindividuals pursue art, not to deliver themselves from an obsessing\nconception, but as a means of attaining privileges, gold, and honours.\nFor them art is an avocation like any other, a trade learnt, which is\nto bring them, not to subjective psychological, but to practical and\nsocial ends. They try by a sort of mimicry to become like the original\nartists, but they belong to another species. Nevertheless, it is not\npermissible to neglect them in this consideration, for, for one thing,\nthey constitute the vast majority of artists, from the moment when\nthe pursuit of art has become a differentiated activity, the habitual\nand exclusive occupation of a separate class of society; and then the\nproductions of these imitators are always modelled after works done\nthrough organic necessity. They are, to a certain extent, the small\nchange of originally great values; they would like to be changed for\nthem, and everything which is to be said of any particular problem of\nart, necessarily finds its application to the imitations as well as to\nthe original pictures.\n\nThese are then the origins and stages of development of art. At the\noutset, it is actually what the school of \u201cart for art\u2019s sake\u201d asserts\nof it: a subjective purpose, a satisfaction of an organic need on\nthe part of the artist. Soon, however, the artist ceases to confine\nhimself to satisfying himself in relieving himself; he also seeks to\nplease others. In the most secret and mysterious moments of creation,\nthe thought of other men is present in his mind; considerations as to\neffect and success are mixed with his productive emotions. Substitute\nmere craftsmanship for inspiration, then these considerations become\nmore and more dominant, and when art has once become a regular ordinary\nbusiness, and the imitators, the mere echoes and reflections, have\nonce become the majority among those who practise it, then the artist\nhas his eyes continually fixed on his tribunal, viz., society. In the\nmoment his work of art is germinating, it is strongly influenced by\nconsideration of the known or the supposed taste of the society whose\napplause the artist courts, and the work undergoes a development more\nor less remote from the form it would have acquired under the pure\ninfluence of emotion, its primary source.\n\nSociety naturally sees what place it occupies in the artist\u2019s mind,\nwhat share it has in his creations, and how important to him its\nverdict is. It promptly perceives its advantage. It takes possession of\nthe artist, forces its tastes on him, and insists on his working, not\nfor himself, but for it. Henceforward it has in him a paid servant; he\nhas to conform his special energy to the general plan of the society\norganism of which he is a part, and, in this way, a manifestation\nwhich was originally a purely subjective performance becomes a social\nperformance.\n\nArt, engendered by individual emotion and transfigured into a social\nwork, shares this lot which we have no right to call a degradation,\nwith innumerable other main instincts, strivings, desires. It is the\npeculiarity of civilisation that it subdues to itself human emotions,\nand applies them as motive powers for the purpose of creating results\nwhich are not always, which are not even frequently, the natural\npurpose of these emotions. The whole existence of society, every\norganisation, every civilisation, rests on the application of this\nmethod; in fact, every attitude and action of man is affected by an\nemotion at its base. Without emotion, man is a sluggish mass, with\nwhich nothing can be done. In order to get anything from him, he must\nfirst have his mind excited, and after that we must be able to direct\nthis excitement. All usages and regulations are merely a collection\nof channels dug in order to act as conduits to the emotions, and to\nutilise their force in regular employment. By the help of the emotions\nof love, society has been enabled to create marriage, which does not\nserve for the satisfaction of the instinct, but should guarantee\neconomic security for the wife and children. With the emotion of\nsympathy\u2014this preliminary condition of every social structure\u2014with\nthis fount of pity, altruism, and solidarity, mankind has created the\npolitical order, the State, with all its burdensome tyranny, which\nseems no longer to have anything at all in common with sympathy, which\nis, nevertheless, its emotional root. With the emotion of mysticism\nand superstition, society has produced practical morality and all its\nconstraint; with self-love and vanity, patriotism and its caricature,\nChauvinism; with the wicked impulses to destruction and murder, the\nprofessional qualities of the soldier, still indispensable for the\nsecurity of the political organism. In short, the whole work of\ncivilisation consists in making itself master of individual emotions,\ndiverting them from their natural goals, applying them to the good of\nthe whole body. The State society is a machine that is moved only by\nthe emotions of individuals. Social life is simply the product of a\nvery complex and skilfully conducted work of primitive emotions. If,\ntherefore, any one exclaims slightingly at the mention of the social\nproductions of art: \u201cThat\u2019s common, rank utilitarianism!\u201d we are\njustified in shrugging our shoulders. Utilitarianism? Why, certainly.\nUtility is the primary law of every society, of every living organism.\nThe lowest living creature of one cell could not support itself for\na single instant, unless all its parts were continually working with\nthe object of promoting its existence, of serving the demands of its\nlife\u2014in short, making themselves useful to the whole.\n\nWhen men came to observe that they possessed among them beings who\nhad stronger emotions than the rest, and made these emotions evident\nby creations which were calculated to make a deep impression on other\nmen, they, according to the standing rule\u2014I might say, according to\nthe biological rule\u2014of society, made haste to place these exceptional\nnatures, these artists, in the service of the great interests of\nsociety.\n\nWhoever can still entertain a doubt that art has always performed a\ntask which was by no means \u00e6sthetic, even if fulfilled by \u00e6sthetic\nmeans, let him cast a glance at the history of the arts.\n\nLet him read the poems of antiquity, gaze on the sculptures and\npaintings of the Egyptians or Assyrians or Greeks. Let him listen to\nthe far-off, and doubtless sadly distorted echo of ancient music in\nthe Hymn to Apollo, restored by over-daring scholarship. Where will\nhe find a work\u2014a single work\u2014which corresponds with the psychological\nscheme of the origin of artistic creation and with the definitions of\nthe party of \u201cArt for art\u2019s sake\u201d? Where is the work that has been\nachieved purely for self-satisfaction, for the relief of the artist\u2019s\nnerves? Where is the work that is only to serve beauty? I cannot see\nit; but what I do see is that all known works serve some purpose of\nsociety. They glorify the gods, the kings, the commonwealth. They\nextol the dignity of belief, of government, of the mother-country.\nHomer shows the heroes of the Hellenic race in the bloody apotheosis\nof their exploits. \u00c6schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides unfold on the\nstage the myths and sagas of their ancestors. On the Acropolis, in\nthe Parthenon, gleam the gods of the mother-country, the guardians of\nthe commonwealth, shaped by the magic chisel of Phidias. The Stoa,\nthe Poikile, the Stadium, are peopled with the monuments of athletes,\nwarriors, archons, legislators, of all great men who are the people\u2019s\npride, and are to serve them as models. Tyrt\u00e6us chants his sublime\nmarches to excite the warriors to fight for their country. The singer\nof the Hymn to Apollo composes his cantatas to make the temple service\nmore impressive. I am well aware that, besides these monuments, there\nare the little lyric poems of the Anthology, the charming little\nTanagra figures, that is to say, very individual revelations, which\nsing the joys and sorrows of a single soul, which seize the graceful\nmovements and gait of young women who had enraptured a single kneader\nof the clay. But these pretty little things, although _chef d\u2019\u0153uvres_\nof their kind, are not, however, to be compared with the triumphant\ncreations prompted by religious belief and patriotism, whose superhuman\nsplendour fills the centuries.\n\nIf we go from pagan antiquity to the Christian Middle Ages and the\nfree-thinking or the openly atheistic Renaissance, the _r\u00f4le_ of art\nremains unchanged. For whom does the artist work? Only for the Church\nand the palace. The pope, the bishop, the abbot demand of him the\ndecoration of the cathedral and monastery. The priest under the vaulted\narch, the monk in his refectory\u2014these must have before their eyes\nimages to remind them of the doctrines of which they are preachers and\nservants. The people, when they enter God\u2019s house, must be caught hold\nof by the representations of suffering and martyrdoms, of beneficent\nand comforting miracles, of the horrors of hell and the bliss of\nparadise, and be strengthened in their faith, seeing with their eyes\nand touching with their hands what religion teaches. The king\u2019s castle,\nthe palace of the great vassals, plume themselves on the works of arts\nthat are consecrated to the glory of their ancestors, of their rank,\nor, simply, of the dominant system. Here the stately tombs of kings or\nknights, here the statues showing the ancestor as hero or demi-god.\nHere the pictures of battles and sieges, of butcheries and victories.\nHere the painted memorials of great state ceremonies, triumphal\nentries, receptions of ambassadors, conclusions of advantageous\ntreaties, famous meetings of mighty lords. The object of all this art\nis always to flatter the vanity of the great, to impose on the populace\na high notion of their wealth and power, to make it feel, by all\npossible means of expression, the superiority of its leaders. We must\ngo down to the Italian Renaissance in order to discover, by the side of\nreligious, dynastic, aristocratic, and political art\u2014for historical art\nwas always designed to serve a political idea or arrangement\u2014in order\nto discover, I say, by the side of this prescriptive art, the beginning\nof a purely \u00e6sthetic art. When Mantegna paints the \u201cMuses on Olympus,\u201d\nor Leonardo the \u201cMona Lisa,\u201d they are no longer desirous of kindling\nfaith or strengthening subjects in obedience, but they want to enrich\nand brighten existence. But whose existence? That of a wealthy and\ndistinguished patron, of him who has placed the order with them. It is\nnot before the Renaissance that we see the artist gradually emancipate\nhimself from the rule that sternly dictates to him the choice of his\ntheme, and even, up to a certain point, the method of his treatment.\nHe then acquired to some degree the freedom to follow his own power of\nimagination, and could hope to get a return for his creations, even\nif he did not serve a dogma or a policy, even if he did not glorify a\nsaint, a king, or a nobleman; if he simply tried to move a man\u2019s soul\nby revealing the secret movements of a human soul.\n\nWe see then that, through long centuries, art had the sole task to\nserve the great institutions of society: religion, monarchy, or one\u2019s\nnative country under another form of government, the dominant castes.\nThe mechanism by which art was held in bondage was the simplest and\nmost na\u00efve: the artist had no other customer for his works except the\npowers that be. These bound him by his necessity to eat daily, or\nnearly so. The Church, the king, the republic, the city, the ruler,\ngave the artist commissions, and paid him. If he found no patron in\nthe castle or palace, he had no gold or honour to hope for from any\nother quarter. Now neither the Church, nor the Government, nor the\nprivileged classes were in the habit of throwing their money out of\nthe window. The money they expended had to bring them profit. They\nwanted the artist in their pay to become a champion for their cause,\nin exactly the same way as the cross-bowmen of their body-guard, their\njudge, their herald, steward, aye, their jailer and executioner. Art,\nin those days, preached the fear of God and his servants, submission to\nthe king and the State, respect for nobles and officials. The ruling\npowers made the artist suggest to the people all that was favourable\nto them. Art was the school of the good subject, the artist the main\nprop of priestly and monarchical-aristocratic society. The common herd,\nthe million, found none of their human emotions satisfied in art; the\nvoices that rang out of these works only cried to them: \u201cPray, obey,\ntremble.\u201d\n\nThe Netherlanders, a free people, were the first to know an art\nother than the traditional one. In Flanders and Holland, writers,\nand especially painters, began to speak no longer exclusively of God\nand the saints, the king and the great, but of the humble, obscure,\nand nameless multitude. _Genre_ painting revived for the first time\nsince ancient days. It told the everyday life of the middle and\nlower classes, their somewhat gross joys, their somewhat commonplace\nsorrows; it showed the ale-house and the mill, the sitting-room and\nthe retail shop. This was not edifying, it is true. The philosophy of\nthis art is low; it hardly widens the spiritual horizon, and is of\npoor comfort amid the narrowness and bitterness of real life. And yet\nthis art was a forerunner. It denoted a turning-point, the beginning\nof great and important things. One great king, Lewis XIV., was not\ndeceived about it. With the sharpened keen feeling of the mighty for\neverything that can encroach on their superhuman dignity, he perceived\nat once that this new art offended against his kingly majesty. How?\nThere are painters who dare to treat of plebeian subjects! What should\nthat mean? Does art perhaps even fancy that it can be other than a\ncontinual homage to the greatness and omnipotence of kings? And, with\nan annihilating wave of his hand, he banished from his august presence\nthese daring little pictures, these democratic works of Teniers,\nOstade, Dirk Hals, and Gerard Dow, whilst uttering the historic words:\n\u201c_Enlevez-moi ces grotesques._\u201d\n\nBut time stands not still; development is achieved. Modern democracy\nappears, and transposes all the conditions of existence of society and\nits members. Art cannot escape the general revolution. It experiences\nits influence spiritually and economically; changes its judgment hall\nand its mart. We do not realise the tremendous meaning of this change.\nThe court that decided as to the worth of the artist and his work was\nformerly the small circle of possible patrons\u2014princes of the Church,\nthe great, the courtiers. To-day this court is criticism, professional\ncriticism. In earlier times it was enough for the artist to please a\nfew people, perhaps only one individual, if the latter happened to be a\nmagnate. He had not to trouble himself about the crowd; moreover, the\ncrowd followed docilely the lead from above. When Dante said:\n\n \u201cCredete Cimabue nella pintura\n Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido,\n Si che la fama di colui oscura;\u201d\u2014\n\nWhat did _grido_ mean? What was _fama_? It was the opinion of a court,\nthat of Rome or Pisa, perhaps of Ravenna. We must go to Aretino to\ndiscover a specimen of an art critic who was neither a M\u00e6cenas like\nLeo X. or Lorenzo the Magnificent, or even a painter like Vasari,\nbut merely an audacious spirit who arrogated to himself the right of\ndealing out praise and blame, and conferring glory in the name of\nsomething absolutely novel, in the name of public opinion.\n\nFrom that time it is professional criticism which suggests to the\nmultitude, and imposes on the mighty, its judgment on the artist.\nBut the criticism is disinterested, or at least can be so. It does\nnot expect of the work of art a direct personal advantage, its own\nglorification, the vindication of its spiritual and material influence.\nIts measure, therefore, grows larger and broader. It brings to its\noffice philosophical and \u00e6sthetic considerations, which the popes and\nkings could not know when they gave commissions to the artists, their\n_prot\u00e9g\u00e9s_. In order to secure success, the artist must now please\nthe critic\u2014many critics\u2014and the latter pass a verdict on him with\nperceptions, with taste and spiritual prepossessions that very seldom\nare those of the bishops and great men.\n\nAnd as the artist has got another tribunal, he also comes before the\npublic under other material and spiritual conditions, and seeks in\nother ways a market for his work.\n\nIn feudal times, as we have seen, the church and palace were the places\nfor works of art. They were seen there under circumstances little\nfavourable for a purely \u00e6sthetic appreciation. In the cathedral people\nwere intimidated by the significance of the vast space, the acts of\nfaith, and the perfume of incense; in the castle, by the magnificent\ngarments of the officials, and the weapons of the guard. It was in\n1673 that a \u201cSalon,\u201d _i.e._, a regular art-exhibition, was opened in\nParis; and besides the \u201cSalon\u201d public museums were opened everywhere,\nto which every one had access without invitation or introduction.\nThe artist was now quite independent; he could work without waiting\nfor orders. He no more needed, in order to become known, to crave\nhumbly a visit to his possibly poverty-stricken studio. Here was\na definite place where he could exhibit his work to thousands of\nspectators\u2014connoisseurs, judges, possible buyers. From that time he\nworked with an eye to the great public which was sure not to be lacking\nat his regular rendezvous. If the professional critic became his judge,\nthe mass of people became his M\u00e6cenas. Universal suffrage has dethroned\nChurch and royalty, and remains the artist\u2019s only patron.\n\nI say expressly\u2014the only. It still happens that the State, _i.e._, a\nhigh official, perhaps a monarch, orders works, assigns to the artist\nthe task of adorning churches and palaces, perhaps even public places\nand walks, or even creating a monument of political import. But who\nreceives these commissions? The artist pointed out by public opinion,\n_i.e._, the democratic crowd acting under the suggestion of the\ncritics, who also belong to the crowd. The artist who has gained the\nadvantage of an officially favoured position otherwise than by popular\nacclamation, who owes it to the whim of a ruler, the mere favouritism\nof a bishop or some other great personage, is nowadays not esteemed,\nbut despised. He may receive some alms in the shape of money; he may\ncollect ridiculous titles and wretched tags of coloured ribbons, but he\nwill be branded with the name of court-artist, and this name excludes\nhim irredeemably from fame.\n\nThe literary man in earlier times lived by the favour of a protector,\nwhom alone he had to trouble about pleasing. Nowadays he lives,\nthrough newspapers and books, by the public at large. The dramatic\npoet had, for his productions, only the subsidised theatre, the\ntheatre royal, which imposed on him its regulations. To-day this\ntheatre is insignificant as compared with the free and independent\nstage, and the poet need know no other care and consideration than\nthat of getting a good grip on his public. Then the artist had\nnothing to hope for, unless he served religion, the monarchy, or the\naristocracy. Now subjects from these spheres have actually become\nlaughing-stocks\u2014_pompiers_, as they are termed with an expression of\ncontempt; and the artist, if he would become rich and famous, must\nfish for his subjects in other streams of thought. This is so true\nthat there are rulers who, from feeling that art is making itself\nindependent of them, and will no longer serve as the herald of their\nthoughts, try even to produce works of art, and would impress their\nworks on the admiration of the multitude, which, nevertheless, does not\nadmire.\n\nThe great revolution is consequently accomplished; art now works only\nfor the masses. It is still always the State that commissions; it is\nstill always the few rich who buy; but it is really universal suffrage\nthat imposes on them its own inclinations. But we do not believe that\nthat new M\u00e6cenas, the people at large, has other habits of mind or ways\nof acting than had the M\u00e6cenas of the past. The people too, exactly\nlike the priests and kings of old, demands that art should please and\nflatter it. But it further demands something else, something more than\npleasure and obsequiousness\u2014viz., a high satisfaction, a corrective\nof an evil of which it is perhaps not clearly conscious, but which,\nnevertheless, it feels strongly. And I will now try to point out this\nevil.\n\nOne of the most striking phenomena of modern life is specialisation\napplied to all departments. Every one tills merely a very little bit\nof field or rather he ploughs only one and the same furrow. This is\ntrue of mental craftsmen. It is still more true of handicraftsmen.\nWhat existence does such a man lead nowadays? There is no longer one\nwho fabricates an entire chair. One always makes the arms, another the\nlegs, a third the back, a fourth the cane-work. A knife goes through a\ndozen hands, a needle, I believe, through thirty. In order to attain\nthat extreme skill which competition demands of him and which he must\nsupply, if he would earn his bread, the workman continually repeats\nthe movement, becomes a machine, less than a machine, a tiny part of\na machine, a single wheel, a single screw. His being shrivels up, his\nsoul suffers. All development is denied him; all his faculties, except\nthe one he is always employing, become crippled, and disappear. The man\ngradually sinks almost to the low level of a polypus, which is only an\norgan of a hydramedusa.\n\nWhence comes the strange fascination that the foremost men of the\nItalian Renaissance exercise on us? The reason is that they were\ncomplete men. All their faculties were fully developed\u2014all that\noffered a possibility in them was developed to the utmost. Nothing\nhuman was alien to them. With marvellous freedom they circumscribed\nthe whole circle of human knowledge and faculties. Then the learned\nman was an universal scholar; his knowledge was encyclop\u00e6dic. The\npoets were at the same time men of action. Men of rank were artists\nand writers, and the artists were all they wished to be. Michael\nAngelo painted, modelled, built the cupola of St Peter\u2019s, and wrote\ncharming verses. Benvenuto Cellini handled the spatula as well as the\nmallet, the crayon as well as the pen, and the sword as well as all\nthese tools. Macchiavelli governed as wonderfully as he wrote, and\nLeonardo painted the \u201cLast Supper\u201d between a musical composition, a\ntreatise on mechanics, a plan of a fortification, the model of a\ntriumphal car, and the plan of a canal for the purpose of irrigation.\nCount Castiglione\u2019s \u201cCortegiano\u201d shows us the ideal of the man at\nthe time of the Renaissance. He was probably the fairest flower ever\nproduced by the human plant. The modern man may envy him; he can never\nbe his peer, but must shrivel up in his narrow corner. Hypertrophy of\na single, often subordinate faculty, atrophy of all the rest\u2014such is\nthe lot to which he is ruthlessly condemned. And there is no change\npossible in respect of it; no herb grown can prove an antidote to that\nbane. Division of labour gives to the whole advantages too great to be\ndispensed with out of consideration for the individual. Division of\nlabour is the true condition of all progress, though in this case, as\nin so many others, progress exacts a heavy, very heavy, price for its\nservices.\n\nEvery one is painfully aware of this reverse side of progress; many\nconsciously take themselves to task for it. Why has the madhouse\nphilosophy which extols the superman been able to subjugate\nspirited youth? Because it meets the longing for a fuller life of\nthe personality. And anarchism? What is the secret that makes it\nattractive to true consciences and loving hearts? Nothing except that\nanarchy seems to promise unchecked development of the individuality.\nIn all these nonsensical, wild, and criminal movements there is\nsome little revolt against the pinching and tightening in of the\npersonality entailed by the modern conditions of labour, and this is\nthe ingredient that recruits adherents among those unaccustomed to\nrigorous examination of their thoughts. And when the workmen demand an\neight-hours\u2019 day, what do they want? To find time to go and drink at\nthe public house, to be able to idle, as the ill-wishers who calumniate\nthem assert? No; they want to have a few hours in which to cease to be\nmechanical tools, in which they may again be men, and participate in\nthe great life of the community.\n\nBut by what means can we give back to men what division of labour\nand specialisation\u2014these irrefragable consequences of contemporary\nprogress\u2014have taken from them? By what means can we remake beings\ndeveloped from them harmonic? Perhaps in a very distant future science\nwill effect this necessary, demanded, and longed for miracle. Perhaps\nmankind will once more see these workers who earn their bread during a\npart of the day by handicraft, and during the rest of the time linger\non the highest summits of human thought and knowledge; a Socrates, who\nis a stonemason; a Spinoza, who polishes spectacle glasses. But, as I\nhave said before, that will be feasible only in a very remote future,\nfor science is not easily accessible; the way leading to it is long and\nrough, and the full life through science is possible only to men of a\nhigher spiritual development than the average people nowadays.\n\nBut if science is no longer the usual companion of the man of the\nmasses, and, unfortunately, will not be so for a long time, art, on the\nother hand, admits him to familiar intercourse. No tedious initiation\nis requisite for it, nor any hard labours which the majority cannot\nperform. It is sufficient to have eyes and ears, and a human heart\nin one\u2019s breast. After an apprenticeship, which may be very short;\nafter some habituation which one easily acquires by intercourse with\nbeautiful works, almost every one arrives so far that, even if he\ncannot appreciate the technical and philosophical merits of a work of\nart with consciousness, yet he can feel its charm and be susceptible of\nemotions from it.\n\nArt it is, then, which can give to modern humanity what it most\nneeds\u2014the means of attaining the full life. Here lies, unless I am\ndeceived, the greatness, the lofty mission of art in a democratic\nsociety which rests on a civilisation, the marks of which, the real\ncondition of which, are severe specialisation and division of labour\ncarried to an extreme.\n\nArt raises man out of industrialism and introduces him to a higher\nworld. In this artist-created world the man who is bundled together\nstretches himself straight; the shrivelled broadens out; the fraction\nof a man becomes complete. Here he who belongs to his machine or\nobservation-instrument becomes once more a free man and citizen of the\nworld\u2014a man participating in the life of the community, and enjoying\nwith the rest all the beauties of heaven and earth, all the greatness\nof heart and soul of the pick of men. Through art a person imprisoned\nin his daily avocation comes into communion with all civilisation.\nHere is the paradise to which the astronomer descends from his\nconstellations, to which the miner ascends from his pit, in order to\nparticipate in the same joys and raptures, to bring to flower whatever\npotentialities they possess. The mission of art in society present and\nfuture is, in short, to liberate the prisoner of subdivided labour,\nto restore the dignity of manhood to the being degraded into a little\nwheel of a machine.\n\nBut art, which is to fulfil this new and lofty mission, cannot,\nmanifestly, be conventional art. On this theocracy, monarchy, and\naristocracy have stamped the character that suited them. The multitude\nat the present day find no sort of joy in works which depict to\nthem the bliss of paradise and the torments of hell, which extol\nsome paste-board king with crown and sceptre, which offer for their\nadmiration the greatness of blue-blooded privileged beings. Like the\npatrons of earlier times, the people, who now represent M\u00e6cenas of\nold, are interested in art only for themselves. The sources of their\nemotions in art are the emotions of their own lives. In the work of\nart that is to attract them, they must find themselves again, but, as\nformerly the priest and king did, magnified and ennobled. The work of\nart must show him his own likeness, but a beautiful one; it must raise\nthe people in their own eyes, and teach them to respect themselves.\n\nThis the common realism has not comprehended, which broke in on art\nwith a din, and dared to call upon the democracy. The genuine people\nhas never had a mind to realism of this sort, but has always dismissed\nit roughly. The rough proof of a hateful and tedious reality, such as\nthe pictures of Courbet or Bastien Lepage, has never attracted any but\nthe superfine, and this only, by the well-known psychological law of\ncontrast, whereby an impression that is the exact opposite of the usual\nimpression can impart a pleasurable feeling for a short time. The rich\nand luxurious like to see works of ugliness and misery; the poor and\nafflicted do not like them. It is the same in regard to literature.\nReluctant protests have frequently become loud, in these socialistic\ndays, against the realism which a party organ offers its readers.\nThe working class do not wish to know anything about this realism\nwhich professes to be modern and democratic, yet is, in reality, only\nwretched and repulsive. It coops them up in the narrowness of their\neveryday existence, but their wish is to get out of it.\n\nPictures such as Millet\u2019s, sculptures such as Constantin\nMeunier\u2019s\u2014works which seek to show the dignity and beauty of the\noccupations of the masses, which constitute a hallowing of work, an\napotheosis of the tragedies and idylls, of all the sweet and bitter\nemotions of the people\u2019s life\u2014these works, to my thinking, exhibit the\ntype of future art.\n\nSome great genius will, perhaps, find another formula. What one may,\nhowever, say for certain is this, that the art of the future will\nnot be realistic in the narrow sense of the word. But it will not be\nmystical and \u00e6sthetic either. The people will never interest themselves\nin half-tone angels of boundless length, in violet-hued Virgins\nwith lilies in their hands in a conventional bush, in enigmatical,\nmysterious verses. And esoteric art will never give the people what\nthey need, viz., the liberating ideal. The art of the cultivator of the\nEgo, the _dilletante_, of the snobs of a Talmi-aristocracy, presumes\nto demand the future for itself. Is that to be an art of the future,\nan art of progress? One can only laugh at the notion. The art of the\nfuture will be no \u201clittle chapel,\u201d but a mighty cathedral, wide enough\nto admit the whole of mankind. And that will be exactly its vocation:\nto be the hallowed place wherein mankind will rise again to the\nchildship of God for which religion has educated them in past stages of\nevolution.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n SOCIALISTIC ART\n\n CONSTANTIN MEUNIER\n\n\nIs there a socialistic art? Can such a thing exist? So far as Socialism\nis an economic and political philosophy it is hardly comprehensible\nwith the means of expression of art. If the plastic arts are to\nbe instructive, they do not amount to more than chill symbols and\nhalting allegories. On the other hand, they are not prevented from\ndigging down to the psychical roots of Socialism, and presenting the\nfundamental feelings and ultimate intuitions from which it springs. One\nof these fundamental feelings is pity for the disinherited. One of the\nultimate intuitions is that of the dignity of all work done with moral\nearnestness and entire devotion.\n\nThe artist can show us the destitute, to whose presence amidst our\ncivilisation applies more sharply, what the Psalmist[2] asserts of the\nlife of man in general: \u201cAnd if it has been splendid, it has been toil\nand labour\u201d\u2014toil and labour without a ray of happiness; severe physical\nexertion rendered more wretched by sorrow and distress. Such a picture\ngrips our hearts, and urges on us painful questions: is this misery\ninevitable? Is it cruelly ordained by nature herself or a consequence\nof faulty institutions, capable of improvement on the part of man?\nCannot we introduce into the lot of this ill-used brother something of\njoy?\n\nAnd the artist can also show us the worker, not in want and suffering,\nlike the beast of burden, humiliated into the slave of matter, but\nrather as creating eagerly, proud of displaying his strength, joyful\nin the conviction of success, regarding his skill as his honour. This\naspect fills us with respect, perhaps with admiration. It opens to us\nthe comprehension of the import of the workman, and the lofty reality\nof his achievement.\n\nIn both cases the artist fashions fully from life; he need not\nexaggerate, he need add nothing; he can confine himself to the plain\nfacts of life. He need not betray any prejudice or any extra-artistic\naim. He will, nevertheless, so contrive that one will be able to speak\nwithout falsification of his art as of a socialistic one. For his work\nwill put the spectator in the mood in which he will be inclined to hail\nas progress every transformation which can improve the earthly lot of\nthe worker, and increase his value in the community.\n\nThe school of \u00e6sthetes, which maintains the principle of art for art\u2019s\nsake, will, I grant, admit works of this sort as a form of Socialism,\nindeed, but not as a form of art. I do not belong to this school. I\noppose it at all times and everywhere as strongly as I am able. I am\nconvinced that art has a social mission which reaches far beyond mere\ngratification, that it must necessarily be moral, and, in the highest\nsense of the word, useful; not useful in the simple way of painted or\nchiselled aids to intelligence, not moral in the vulgar way of tracts;\nbut moral through stimulating what is most human and noble in our\nspirit and soul, and useful through educating us to deeper and wider\nconceptions of phenomena. In one point, however, I agree with the\nheralds of _l\u2019art pour l\u2019art_\u2014I demand beauty in a work of art; not\nbeauty alone, but beauty in the first place.\n\nIn order, then, that we can speak of a Socialistic art, the works\nthat would deserve this designation must not only excite sympathy\nwith the disinherited, and respect for the workman, but they must\nalso arouse \u00e6sthetic feeling, they must be beautiful. This claim, of\ncourse, excludes no kind of beauty. The tragic is absolutely beautiful.\nPurification is one of the most powerful \u00e6sthetic influences. Truth\ncan be beautiful if essential and expressive. The socialist who would\nprove himself an artist must possess the lucky gift to see and exhibit\nbeauty in the figures and actions of the class of society for which his\nheart beats.\n\nAll these conditions no contemporary artist known to me fulfils in\nthe same degree as Constantin Meunier, the Belgian sculptor, painter,\nand draughtsman. Meunier died an old man in 1905. He was born in the\n\u2018thirties\u2019 of the last century. The world was slow to recognise him,\nnot because he did not deserve recognition, but because he did not seek\nit. He was big and unassuming. He lived quietly in a little Belgian\ntown as a teacher in an art school, and modestly avoided the roar of\nfame\u2019s mart. He had even refused to allow the reproduction of one of\nhis noble bronzes, for business purposes, by a first-rate Paris house\nwhich was prepared to pay a munificent price for the right of sale. He\nwas loth that his piece should become a factory-cast and a shop-window\narticle. He belongs to the narrowest circle of the blessed, of the\nchosen. He is one of the Prometheus-like artists; he informs and\ninspires life. He feels like a Samaritan, he thinks like an apostle of\nthe submerged, who utters a great cry of wrath over the harshness and\nunrighteousness of the social scheme, and he compels the bronze, like\na Benvenuto Cellini, translated from what was aristocratic and classic\ninto that which is modern and democratic.\n\nIn Meunier\u2019s work there is a unity from which he seldom digresses. He\nlived in a Belgian district of coal-pits and smelting furnaces, in the\nvery midst of rough labourers who passed their lives in the galleries\nof mines, or in the fiery glow of furnace mouths. He found his models\namong these figures. There the Labour movement in Belgium arose\u2014one of\nthe most rapid in Europe; there Meunier\u2019s art grew up\u2014one of the most\nintensive at the present time. The miner and the iron-smelter are his\nheroes; he admires their strength, and from the bottom of his heart\nhe bewails their pains. And if he is unfaithful to his Cyclopses, it\nis only, touched and enraptured, to look after his other darlings\u2014the\ncountry folk working in the fields, a subject which instils in him as\nmuch reverence as the burrowing of the coal-miners underground, and the\npowerful hammer-strokes of the iron-smiths.\n\nOne of his greatest creations, perhaps his greatest is a bronze a\nspan high, representing an old woman, the wife or, as I would rather\nassume from the stormy intensity of her emotion, the mother of a miner,\nwho, after a driving storm, has gone to the mouth of the shaft of a\ncoal-pit, to which the corpse of some one belonging to her has been\nbrought.\n\nThe woman stands there, leaning slightly forward, her countenance\npetrified with dumb despair, her arms limp, her one hand lying in the\nother, yet without any convulsion, and powerless, her knees through\na very slight bend betraying her trembling, her feet instinctively\nsomewhat turned inwards, so as to give a broader support to the body,\nand to protect the almost crippled figure from falling down. The whole\nis such a frightfully expressive picture of a poor human creature\nwho has, as it were, received a blow on the head, and in her crushed\ncondition is not strong enough even for sobbing and wringing her hands,\nthat it strikes the spectator with a cold shudder. Observe, the old\nwoman wears the garments of the poor Walloons, heavy, stiff gowns and\nneckerchiefs, the hard angles and folds of which can express only very\nroughly and indistinctly the soft play of the weakly-quivering muscles.\nWhat penetrating keenness of observation does it need to recognise in\nan entirely self-contained form shrouded in uncouth, shapeless clothes,\nwithout gestures or play of features, and to imitate, without the\nslightest exaggeration, yet overpoweringly, the tenderest lines which,\neven in such unfavourable conditions of material, express clearly and\ndramatically all that is passing in this almost impenetrably veiled\nhuman soul. This little figure, no larger than the decoration of a\nclock, is a great monument, and, like every real work of art, it points\nfar beyond the limits of itself. It reveals much more to the power of\nimagination than it manifests to the eye. This is actually proved in\nthis very case; for Meunier has a group which supplements the work\ndescribed: the same old woman, and before her, lying outstretched on\nthe ground, the corpse of him whom she is bewailing. We might think\nthat this more complete work would be more deeply affecting than the\nfragmentary one. The contrary, however, is the case. The corpse,\nalthough modelled so exquisitely, leaves us cold; it does not realise\nthe conception we have formed of it. We had expected to feel a horror\nat the sight of it, at which the blood would congeal in our veins. We\nare astonished and disappointed at seeing lying there only an unknown\nman who does not concern us. When we look at the old woman petrified by\ngrief we think of the corpse which is not exhibited to us; we see it\nwith our spiritual eyes in the horror of the old woman, we share the\nfeelings of the old woman, the unseen corpse is that of a relation of\nour own, the dead man himself is dear to us, we ourselves have suffered\nthe loss of him. On the other hand, the completed group makes any\nco-operative exertion of our imaginative powers superfluous.\n\nThe corpse lies there visible; it distracts our attention from the\nold woman; we feel less keenly her emotion; the incident no longer\noccurs in the Holy of Holies of our soul, but in a forecourt, in a\nplace of inspection. We could, in imagination, endow the corpse with\nthe features of a dear relative, and feel sorrow for the dead man:\ninspection teaches us that the corpse is a stranger to us, and we\nhave no grounds for shedding tears over it. The two works, placed in\njuxta-position, fully bear out the old dictum, that a work of art is\nmore powerfully effective in proportion as it more strongly excites our\nimaginative faculties to creative co-operation.\n\nA series of works brings before us the life of the coal-miners.\nSome of them come to daylight after their shift is ended. They are\ntired, but cheerful. About their wearied countenances there seems to\nquiver a reflection of the hearth-fire which awaits them familiarly\nin their poor homes. Here is a miner at his work. In a painful,\nhalf-recumbent position he handles the mattock in the narrow gallery\nunder the seam from which he is dislodging the coal. Here another\nis sitting inactive, with his spade and lamp, with only a pair of\ntrousers on, the upper part of his body naked, without a particle\nof fat on his muscles steeled by toil. Here a worker at a smelting\nfurnace, likewise sitting\u2014a reminiscence of the famous \u201cLes Foins\u201d\nof Bastien Lepage, which is at present in the Luxembourg. Like this\npeasant lass, Meunier\u2019s labourer is completely bestialised; he stares\nvacantly before him, with a jaw open like that of an animal; his hand,\nunused to inactivity, hangs down heavily. It is a shocking picture of\nthe degradation of man through a one-sided exertion of the muscles; a\nforcible harangue in favour of the eight hours\u2019 day, which would leave\nmore time for the human working machine, not only, as his opponents\nassert, to visit the public-house, but also for spiritual life.\n\nMeunier rises to the height of the Vedic hymns when he turns towards\nthe countryman and his heroic deeds in nourishing mankind. In the\nrelief, \u201cThe Harvest,\u201d a band of reapers\u2014four men and two women\u2014are\ngrappling with the ripe corn. One seizes violently the stalks, the\nsecond, bending forward, makes a wide stroke with his sickle, a woman\nbinds into sheaves the ears that have been mown. In the background, one\nlonging for rest looks at the position of the sun, and another, _rapido\nfessus aestu_ (fatigued by the scorching summer heat), to use Vergil\u2019s\nwords, wipes the sweat from his brow. There is the note of the Eclogues\nabout this work. Over it floats the consecration of the lofty act with\nwhich the rooted son of the soil, the ploughman\u2014the creator and bearer\nof all civilisation\u2014gains the bread of mankind out of the earth. A\nsingle figure, \u201cJune,\u201d is also created from this emotion. It is the\nrealisation in free sculpture of a _motif_ from the relief. A reaper,\nstripped to the waist, emaciated by the heavy toil of harvesting,\nexhausted by his day\u2019s work, leans upon his scythe and glances, shading\nhis eyes with his hand, at the sun\u2014\u201cI would it were bedtime and all was\nover.\u201d One would like to press the hand of this brave, good fellow,\nor at any rate that of the artist who has represented him to us so\nfaithfully and straightforwardly.\n\nAll Meunier\u2019s works have not this delicacy; many are weak, some\nabsolute failures. As an instance of such I point to \u201cThe Puddlers,\u201d\nthough it has been particularly admired by some critics. Three\niron-founders stand at the open stoke-hole of the puddle-furnace, and\nfeed it with mighty pieces for melting. From the opening issue steam\nand smoke, which curl round the three men wielding rakes and tongs, and\neddy upwards. Meunier has tried to represent this steam in sculpture.\nHe has given it a concrete form, necessarily the same corporeality as\nthe bodies, tools, blocks of metal, the flaming furnace; for sculpture\npossesses no means of differentiating the thickness of matter, when\nit abandons the mere engraved line or the make-shift of various\nperforations. The result is, that instead of smoke there is an amazing\nimage which partly reminds us of an untrimmed dab of plaster, partly\nof a weather-beaten stalactite. Meunier was originally a painter, and\ntook to sculpture only late in life. His \u201cPuddlers\u201d are formed with\nthe technique of a painter, from which the artist did not immediately\nemancipate himself. Another relief, \u201cThe Bricklayers,\u201d is absolutely\na mistake. Two men are standing in the loam-pit and handing up the\nbricks to their mates above. They do this with theatrical gestures,\nas if a conquered king were handing over his crown to his conqueror.\nThe contrast between the bombastic movement and its vulgar purpose is\nso grotesque that the picture has an irresistibly comic effect. Here\nMeunier is, for the only occasion in all the works of his with which I\nam acquainted, insincere and affected. I have looked for a long time\nat this deplorable work, and it made me thoughtful. How heavy is the\nresponsibility of the critic! Supposing I knew nothing of Meunier and\nonly saw this work, I should find it hard to resist the impulse to\nabuse him in the sharpest terms, for it unites the two worst faults\nthat can be found in a work of art: it is at the same time inanely\nfutile and obtrusively pretentious. So far I should be acting within\nthe scope of my perfect rights. But am I certain that I was not\nallowing myself to be carried away by my own natural propensity to\ngeneralise, and to condemn not only the work, but also its author, to\ncall him a bungler and a botcher? Such a verdict would, apparently,\nbe well-grounded and, in fact, revoltingly false. Works such as \u201cThe\nBricklayers\u201d are a warning to the critic; they admonish him to be\nconscientious. Their teaching is that every comprehensive verdict on an\nartist must presuppose a knowledge of his whole life\u2019s work, and that\nno single work can offer sufficient basis for the general appreciation\nof its author, especially of his depreciation.\n\nIn his figures of the miners and iron-founders, Meunier showed sympathy\nwith the lot of the proletariate; in his portrayals of the countryman\u2019s\nlife, reverence for the civilising work of the man who ploughs the\nsoil. But he reveals in certain other works of similar subjects beauty\nwhich prevents us from wishing for one moment for those Invalides of\nOlympus, the unchangeable troop of academic sculpture. The \u201cBlacksmith\u201d\nwielding his hammer, the \u201cHarbour-Workers,\u201d the more than life-sized\n\u201cSmith,\u201d are discoveries which are tantamount to revelations.\nEspecially this smith in his working garb, with his stiff leather\napron, leggings, and the foot coverings that are intended to protect\nhim from the sparks. Leaning on the tongs that are almost the height\nof a man, he rests his hand on his hips and waits until it is his turn\nto attack the work. There is a proud tranquillity, and a reserve of\nready strength in him that carry us away. This artisan is every whit\nas handsome in his way as an antique statue in a toga of ample fold,\nor a noble nudity, or a knight in romantic armour. His body possesses\nthe elegance which perfect fitness confers, his movement the energetic\nrestraint that the workman, thrifty in exerting himself, acquires\nthrough being in the habit of avoiding every prodigal expenditure of\nhis strength. Meunier trains our eyes to appreciate the \u00e6sthetic\ncharm of this phenomenon of our own days, which great art has hitherto\nstupidly passed by.\n\nOf what expressive poetry Meunier is capable we recognise with\nadmiration in a statue of an animal, the mine-horse\u2014one of those\nunfortunate nags which are brought to the mine as foals, in order to\ndraw the coal waggons to the galleries, and who are condemned to spend\nthe whole of their lives in the bowels of the earth, far from the\nsun. The animal\u2019s head droops, its lips are flabby, eyes half-closed,\nears sunken, flanks fallen in; the whole wretchedness of an innocent\ncreature condemned to night and woe is embodied in this shivering\nbeast. The mine-nag has certainly no sense of its disconsolate fate;\nit does not miss the sun, or long for green pastures. It does not envy\nits luckier brothers who can skip in the fresh grass beneath the blue\nsky. Meunier has all these feelings for it; he infuses them into the\nanimal\u2019s stupid soul; but doubly amazing is the power with which he\nhimself can express through a coarse animal body humanly lofty tragedy.\n\nWhat had already become clear to me when I saw Meunier\u2019s works\nseparately in the _salon_ at the Champs de Mars, deepened itself within\nme, at the sight of the whole collection of them, into a certain\nconviction that Meunier is, perhaps unconsciously, a pupil of Millet\u2019s.\nHe learnt from him to look with reverence on the homely men who with\nholy zeal, without gazing to the left or right, with body and soul\nin their work, wrest the works of civilisation from the forces of\nnature. He improves Millet\u2019s peasants and artisans into the plastic\nand monumental. It is the same simplicity, almost crudeness; the same\ncontempt of pose, the same extreme energy of activity, and the same\ndeep, inward life as in the master who painted the \u201cAngelus.\u201d And what\nmakes the most vivid impression on us in Meunier, as in Millet, is the\nardent piety with which the sight of true and earnestly working people\nfills him\u2014people who rise high in their apparently humble, yet fruitful\nand, through its connection with the corporate life of mankind,\nespecially significant labour. An artist, however, who discloses to us\nsuch outlooks on the path of civilisation, and such insight into the\nhuman soul, has some claim to a place near the acknowledged masters.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n THE QUESTION OF STYLE\n\n\nA history of style\u2014I mean of style in general, not of one particular\nstyle\u2014has, so far as I am aware, never been written. That I can\nunderstand. It would be a gigantic task, even exceeding the power of an\nencyclop\u00e6dist. It would have to show from what spiritual peculiarities\nof the artist; from what necessities and intuitions of the time; from\nwhat requirements of the material, and from what compulsion on the part\nof the technique, the style develops, and it would have to measure\nthe whole range of individual and national psychology, of customs, of\nmaterial and of technology. The individual, however, whose powers do\nnot suffice for an exhaustive and systematic exposition of the genesis\nand mutation of styles, can constantly register partial observations,\nand throw light on sections of this wide province.\n\nEvery human activity is excited by a need. We fabricate weapons,\nimplements, shelter, and clothing, because we need them. In the\nearliest stages of human artistic skill, purpose and material alone\ncontrol the productions of the human hand; style, so far as we can\nspeak of such a thing, is purely constructive. It makes us recognise\nthe influence of a small number of bio-mechanical and psychological\nlaws\u2014laws that have hardly varied during all the thousands of years in\nthe history of human morals. These laws are those of the least effort\nand of selfishness. By virtue of the law of least effort we choose the\nmost promising material, _i.e._, at which we have most conveniently to\nhand, which can be worked in the easiest way, or is most durable, and\nfor that reason, more especially saves us the too frequent repetition\nof the effort. We choose the form to which the material employed\nadapts itself most readily. The problem which the constructive element\nin style has to solve is this: given a determined task which should\nbe performed by an artistic expedient, how will this object be most\nreadily, and yet most perfectly, attained with the material available?\n\nThe law of selfishness alters the natural course of the law of least\neffort, and often operates quite in opposition to it. The possessor\nof an object wishes to be remarked; he will distinguish himself from\nothers, be admired and envied by them, whereby he will gain influence\nover their minds. He will therefore demand that for the object not the\nmost easily procured material, but the rarest, and that which can\nbe furnished only with the utmost difficulty, be employed, that the\nform require not the least, but greatest possible amount of labour. He\nwill likewise wish the workmen to sacrifice the elegance of economy,\nnot to represent what is alone real and necessary with the smallest\nexpenditure of material, but, on the contrary, to lavish material, and\nmake it quite visible and quite striking; to add to the Useful and\nEssential, also the Superfluous, so as to suggest the notion of wealth.\nThe idea of elegance will alter its meaning. It will no longer signify\nthe greatest suitability and perfect appropriateness, but, in the first\nplace, costliness of material, difficulty of work, wastefulness\u2014in a\nword, luxury.\n\nThe law of selfishness bursts the narrow frame of construction, and\nadds to style its second element, decoration. This, too, is still\nunder the law of least expenditure of force; this, too, is still\nprimarily subordinate to construction, _i.e._, utility, but it strives\nto render itself independent of the constructive element, and to\nbecome its own object. The history of each particular style shows this\nconflict between the constructive and decorative elements. At first\nconstruction rules alone; next, decoration, called forth by the _amour\npropre_ of the fabricator or possessor, joins it, but very timidly and\nvery modestly. It obsequiously gets out of the way of construction,\nand contents itself with corners where the constructive element has\nnothing to do. But gradually it gets bolder, steps from its holes and\ncorners, confronts construction, compels it to give way and take less\ncomfortable by-paths, and finally subjects the constructive element\nentirely to its will and caprice, so that, in the decadent period of a\nstyle, a useful object becomes wholly unserviceable for its original\npurpose, and is only an excuse for decoration, which self-gloriously\ngives itself airs.\n\nThere is another contrast between construction and decoration. The\nconstructive is the social element in the product of human labour;\nthe decorative the individual one. I do not think that this dictum\nneeds an elaborate explanation; it seems clear enough to me. In\nconstruction expression is given to a need which is, at a given time\nand in a given place, shared by many or all; it answers not only a\ncondition, but a demand of the community. Decoration is\u2014at any rate\noriginally\u2014the outcome of individual taste and individual imaginative\npower. Construction is a thing necessitated, and therefore _banal_;\ndecoration is superfluous, and therefore charming. The former appeals\nto the understanding; the latter is fantastic and sentimental. The\nhuman consciousness is, however, so arranged that\u2014for its gain? for its\nloss? (I have treated this question so often and so thoroughly in other\nplaces that I may here leave it undiscussed)\u2014it derives its feelings of\npleasure and aversion incomparably more from its sensuous than from\nits intellectual life. Wherefore, for practical purpose in style, only\nthose who are most highly developed intellectually have appreciation;\non the other hand, for what is pleasing, all whose nervous system is\nsusceptible to pleasurable feelings.\n\nAn individual decorative invention becomes style by the imitation\nof others, which can be slavish or free. A single work, a single\nartist, will never be felt as a phenomenon of style. There is the same\ndifference between originality and style as between the picture of\na certain person and the composite or average photograph of Galton.\nThe feature of family likeness that runs through the works of one\nperiod and one place, however, like that which all members of a\nblood-relationship exhibit, is explained most simply through descent\nfrom a common ancestor.\n\nDecoration is either organic or transferred. The former is the\noutgrowth of construction, and gives it a new meaning, unites to\nthe idea of its purpose a simile that can be correct or false,\npleasant or silly; the latter is added externally, and only aims\nat the beautification of the surface, without adopting living and\nnecessary relations to the structure and destination of the object.\nSurface decoration may be pretty and rich, but it is always something\nsubordinate, and always speaks of poor imagination and slight inventive\npower. Organic decoration is alone the outcome of a creative gift for\nart.\n\nThe psychical mechanism, which produces organic decoration, is\nalways the same; it is the co-operation of association of ideas\nand anthropomorphism. I know very well that this latter is only a\nparticular instance of the former; but I cite the really identical,\nnevertheless, as two apparently different ideas, so as not to become\nvague through too wide generalisation.\n\nFor the sake of clearness I will quote a concrete example. In\ncollections, one not infrequently meets with a medi\u00e6val plane having\nthe figure of a crouching lion with jaws open and a wild expression. It\nis easy to reproduce the psychic process through which this form arose.\nThe joiner who uses the plane, and follows his own work reflectively,\nsees how the mouth of the plane, when applied, strikes the iron into\nthe surface of the wood, and tears the splinters from it. What is more\nobvious than to think at the same time of jaws pouncing on the wood to\nflay and mangle it? The technical German expressions, _Hobelmaul_ and\n_Hobelwangen_ (plane-mouth and plane-cheeks) for the aperture in which\nthe _Hobeleisen_ (plane-iron) is fixed, show that the association of\nideas at once presented itself when the tool assumed the form familiar\nto us. The medi\u00e6val artist went further; he has logically developed\nthe image of a rending and devouring mouth suggested by association\nof ideas. He has given it form; he has examined it with sufficient\nartistic intensity to embody materially the picture presented by the\nword, to raise it from the rhetorical to the plastic. But whilst the\nartist advanced from the mouth of the plane to a lion\u2019s jaws, and\nfrom the latter to an entire lion crouching over the board as over a\nvictim that he has attacked and torn down, and mangling it with raging\ndelight, he has at the same time made use of anthropomorphism, has\nimputed to the plane will, passion, gruesome enjoyment, and turned the\nplaning into the tool\u2019s riotous satisfaction of bloodthirsty wild-beast\ninstincts.\n\nThis plane in the shape of a crouching lion is the model of a good\norganic decoration. The construction is not injured; it does no damage\nto the under-surface of the plane, that it is the smooth-lying belly of\nthe lion with drawn claws; it does not prejudice the working capacity\nof the iron, that it is let into a mouth of a slightly waving lip\nshape; it does not make it difficult to work, that the handle is shaped\nlike a round lion\u2019s head. A sense is communicated to the tool which it\ndid not originally possess; it does not shave and smoothe, but lives,\ntears, devours, and finds its joy therein. Organic decoration is thus\nan infusing of soul into that which possessed no soul; and not only\nthis, but also in a higher and nobler way, a submerging of oneself in\nthe soul that the artist has inspired into that which was soulless.\nHe must live in the being which his anthropomorphising association of\nideas has excogitated. \u201cWhat should I feel, how should I act, what\nmovements should I make, what expression should I have, if I were this\nobject, but thinking, willing, feeling\u2014in short, living and conscious?\nHow should I, for instance, as a plane which was really a beast of\nprey, dispose myself, if I had the board\u2014my victim\u2014under me, and began\ndevouring it?\u201d The organically decorative artist is, therefore, really\nthe dramatiser of the inanimate, for he creates beings, bestows on\nthem character, and makes them act according to the latter and the\nsituation, and, if not speak, nevertheless imitate.\n\nIf an artist has, from some especially vivid intuition and active\nassociation of ideas, found and embodied an anthropomorphic likeness\nwhich is very strikingly clear, imitation seizes it and repeats it with\nslight individual changes, which are, now and then, spirited and happy,\nbut, for the most part, make the original picture dull, nay, through\nstupidity or misunderstanding may degrade it to nonsense. Such is\nexactly the case with the material picture as with the word-picture. At\nfirst it is the new and peculiar discovery of a poetic mind, then it is\nrepeated well or ill so often that it ends with being a characterless\ncommonplace. Every cultivated language is made up of such commonplaces,\nand, in like manner, style is made up of repetitions and tones, which\nare the plastic equivalent of rhetorical phrases.\n\nThe psychic sources of style\u2014in contradistinction to those or\nfreely devised organic decoration, which style only repeats and\nvulgarises\u2014originate in very mean domains of mind. They are\nthoughtlessness, or, to put it more clearly and briefly, stupidity and\nmental inertia in their special forms as imitativeness and detestation\nof novelty.\n\nIt is thoughtlessness when we imitate forms that are suited to a\nparticular material in a quite different material, simply because we\nare used to the sight of them. The far-famed Greek temple architecture\nis largely a result of this thoughtlessness: it slavishly imitates in\nstone the wooden architecture, the place of which it has taken; it\nretains the beams with projecting beam-heads and cross-braces that\nhave neither object nor meaning in stone. To the same category belong\nthe tablets, with manifold curled up and twisted edges, which the\nRenaissance and the Rococo executed in stone and wood, although they\nhave no sense or justification except in sheet metal: the contemporary\nMoscow silver-work, which imitate painfully enough damask linen with\nRusso-Byzantine coloured embroidery, or cakes and black-bread in\nprecious metals or enamel: the marble veils, lace garments, and knitted\nstockings of the North-Italian sculptors of the decadence, etc.\n\nIt is mental inertia when we mechanically persist in repeating forms\nwhich either are unfitted for a given object, or have lost all meaning.\nFor two thousand years artists of all sorts have made a decorative\nuse of acanthus leaves in countries where no human eye has ever had\nan acanthus leaf before it. The Middle Ages decorated with a whole\nmenagerie of beasts from Asia and Africa, which they knew only from\nfables, foreign textures, and pictures. From imitation to imitation\nthe outlines, which no comparison with the actual model corrected and\nrestored to accuracy, became more inexact and grotesque. Thus arose\nacanthus capitals which are more like rough logs than the elegantly\ncurled plant, and heraldic lions and leopards, in which no feature any\nlonger reminds us of the great cats. This is then called improving\nupon the natural form, and people even discover a particular beauty\nin it: a striking proof of the ability of mankind to make a virtue\nout of necessity. For the so-called stylisation is conscious and\nintentional only in late conservative imitation. It arises, however,\nquite involuntarily through unintelligent imitation of a pattern that\nis incorrectly felt and grasped, because one has never known its living\nmodel. So, too, the whole mythology of the Greeks still haunts our\npresent-day decoration, which mythology was to the Greek artists a part\nof their living feeling and religious conviction, whilst to-day it has\nlost all thought and feeling. What can Neptune\u2019s trident, Orpheus\u2019\nlyre, the Sirens and the Centaur, the Sphynx and the Gorgon, signify\nto a son of this century? But whilst these bits of inherited form\nwander from one imitator to another, until they become hopelessly\nunrecognisable, they gain a beauty of another sort which they did not\noriginally possess: the venerable spell of antiquity surrounds them,\nand this charm, in its turn, touches certain susceptibilities of the\nsoul, the inclination to mystic, twilight conceptions of what is remote\nin time and place, the pleasurable feeling of comfortable persistance\nin that to which we are accustomed, the connection of the familiar\nand always known with the remembrance of all strong impressions, both\nhappy and unhappy, of childhood and youth. This mystico-archaic and\nsubjectively sentimental element, which occurs in every style handed\ndown traditionally, furnishes it with fanatical devotees whom its\noriginal decorative value could never win. That is, if I may say so,\nthe religious side of the feeling for, and appreciation of, style.\n\nFrom the oppressive mass of material, which I must, for the most\npart, leave untouched, I am afraid I must deal with only one more\nquestion:\u2014Is there a new style? Is the so-called \u201cSecessionism\u201d a style\nwhich characterises our time, or, perhaps, a fugitive moment of our\ntime? He who has attentively observed the later exhibitions on this\npoint will be bound to say \u201cNo\u201d decisively. Household furniture and\nroom decoration of the \u201csecessionist\u201d order are tortured into appearing\nnew and original; but they are neither the one nor the other, but a\npatient, methodical eclecticism which aims at the influence of what\nis foreign and peculiar. We distinguish accurately that rooms built\nand painted in the secession style are patched together of Chinese\nmotives, with an addition of Loie Fuller\u2019s serpentine twistings, and\nthat secessionist furniture imitates, in good wood and metal, the\nslenderness, knottiness, and pliancy of bamboos. The secession contains\na very minute percentage of independent invention and a great many\nreminiscences of Eastern Asia. The West European style, which should\nostensibly be the expression of the latest high European tendencies,\nis, in reality, Chinese and Japanese style, exaggerated by absurdity of\nform and assumed or real delirium.\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n THE OLD FRENCH MASTERS\n\n\nWe must once more change our method of study. That is the immediate\nresult of the Exhibition of Old French artists\u2014painters, draughtsmen,\nenamellers, sculptors\u2014which, in 1904, in the Pavilion de Marsan at\nthe Louvre, brought together several hundred fascinating, and perhaps\nhalf a dozen overpowering works. With the proofs furnished by these\nmasterpieces full of earnestness and beauty, a chapter in the history\nof French and European art will have to be rewritten\u2014not, to be sure,\naltogether in the sense intended and proclaimed by those who prepared\nthis exceedingly important arrangement.\n\nComparatively few medi\u00e6val French works of art have been preserved to\nus. The Hundred Years\u2019 War, the devastations of the League, and the\nGreat Revolution made a clean sweep of them with fiendish thoroughness.\nWith the ch\u00e2teaux, abbeys, and monasteries, their contents so far as\nworks of art were concerned also perished. What survived has up to\nnow appeared to a pre-conceived idea scarcely native. One historian of\nart wrote after another, that, up to the period of the Renaissance,\nthe plastic artists who worked in France came partly from the Low\nCountries, partly from Italy, but were only quite exceptionally, if at\nall, Frenchmen. From a geographical standpoint, we might speak of a\nFrench medi\u00e6val art; but from the nature and form of the work, on the\nother hand, we should admit only a Flemish or Italian, but no French\nart.\n\nThis view is no longer defensible. France, too, had, in the Middle\nAges, her own artists and schools of art, and if she also offered\nhospitality to foreign talent, she was not dependent on it. The strong,\ncreative genius that developed in Northern France from the prosaic\nsemi-circular arch of the Byzantine style the pointed-arch poetry of\nthe Gothic, knew also how to make use of the chisel and paint-brush\nas means of expression, and to satisfy by painting and carving its\nimpulse for depicting form. The medi\u00e6val art of France is not inferior\nto any other. It must no longer be treated as a mere appendage of art\ndevelopment in the Low Countries and Lombardy.\n\nTo be sure, if the learned compilers of the Exhibition Catalogue\u2014George\nLafenestre, Henri Bouchot, Leopold Delisle and other academicians\nor directors of museums and libraries\u2014claim to have discovered, in\nthe pictures and statues, a particular French national feature\nwhich distinguishes them clearly from other contemporary works, they\nare led astray by patriotic prejudice. The works bear the stamp of\na period, not of a people. Nothing is more like a fourteenth- or\nfifteenth-century French work of art than a Flemish or Italian, and\n_vice vers\u00e2_. It is noticeable that people have taken Bourdichon\u2019s\nmasterpiece, one of the gems of the collection\u2014the portrait of the\nlittle Dauphin Charles Roland, to be a work of Memling; and of the most\nbeautiful paintings of one and the same painter\u2014des Moulins\u2014have long\nascribed one to Van der Goes, the other to Ghirlandajo.\n\nNo; the temperaments of the artists at this period were not\ndifferentiated nationally. They are, moreover, not so at the present\nday either, and if analogies are established between artists of the\nsame origin, they may, in all cases, be naturally explained otherwise\nthan by a common descent. The influence of strong personalities, who\ninfluence as prototypes, external successes, which form a current of\nfashion and incite to imitation, or simply a tenaciously held tradition\nof a school, in which in a long series of artist generations has grown\nup, suffice to impress on the art of a country through extensive\nepochs, a certain family physiognomy, which only a mystically inclined\nmind will be tempted to refer to race and blood.\n\nTopographical and national classifications have in fact no inward\nspiritual justification in art, but at most a value of convenience,\nin so far as they render possible external groupings, which facilitate\na survey. The whole art of Europe is one. It has developed from\nthe Greek, the tradition of which has remained living through all\nthe centuries, and has crept, from country to country, connecting\ninseparably all separate national developments with their common\norigin. The Greeks were the teachers of the Romans, and their\ninspirations and rules were carried down into the Christian catacombs,\nand from them blossomed the art of the Middle Ages.\n\nByzantine artists from the Roman empire of the East itself or from\nItaly, initiated, at the Court of Charlemagne, the barbarians of the\nFrankish kingdom in the mysteries of their craft, and carried the\nPromethean spark, however weakly it glimmered, from Attica to the banks\nof the Seine and Scheldt, where it did not expire, but, later on, was\nfanned again to bright flame by the fresh breeze of the Renaissance.\nThe Eastern branch of Greek art withered into actual Byzantism,\nwhose last off-shoots are the Russian icons of to-day. The Church\nin the East, to suit the fetish-loving views of her superstitious\nsemi-barbarians, attributes to the picture the meaning and value of an\nidol, and opposes mistrustfully every deviation from the canon which,\naccording to her conception, might weaken the power of the idol. In\nthe West less credence was given to the picture\u2019s magical virtue, its\nform obtained no dogmatic consecration, the Church allowed the artist\nfreer movement, and thus development was possible, which broke through\nthe stiff, lifeless rule of the school, and found its way back to the\ninexhaustible primitive source of Greek art itself, namely, nature.\n\nThe emancipation from the Byzantine system is not the work of Cimabue\nand Giotto, or of an individual at all, but an effort of almost all\nthe artists of Western Europe at the close of the thirteenth and the\nbeginning of the fourteenth century. The portrait of John II. (1310-64)\nin the Exhibition, which was painted about 1359, of course _in tempera_\non a gold ground, by Girard of Orleans, is of a marvellous realism,\nunchecked by the slightest restraint of any studied rule. The head in\nprofile, turned towards the left, of the melancholy-looking man in the\n\u2019fifties with the long, well-formed nose, the scanty moustache and\nbeard, and the long hair, gleams with warm life. Girard copied his\nmodel modestly and truly, without troubling himself about a golden\nprofit, and he could put soul into the portrait of his king in the\nmeasure in which he himself felt the latter\u2019s inward life.\n\nThe awakening of a feeling for nature in art is generally ascribed\nto the Flemings, particularly to the brothers Van Eyck. That, too,\nis arbitrary, as a glance at the works of the old Frenchmen, who\nflourished contemporaneously with the Van Eycks, or even before them,\nteaches us. The feeling for nature was always active in the few with\nbright eyes and joyous consciousness of life, who dedicated themselves\nto art from inner impulse. The themes to which the plastic arts had for\nmany centuries to restrict themselves were certainly as unfavourable\nas possible to a healthy naturalism. The only subjects the painter\ndared to treat were illustrations of the Old and New Testament, legends\nof the saints, and the symbols of faith. Scenes of heaven and hell,\nBiblical miracles, and personification of the dogmas of the Church\ncould assuredly no more be painted from the model than the Holy Ghost,\nor transubstantiation. And yet nature herself came to her rights in\nthis fundamental representation of the supernatural and what lay\noutside of nature, for she does not allow herself now to be driven out,\neven by the violent methods of the pitch-fork spoken of by Horace in\na famous verse. Without taking particular thought about it, or with a\ncunning conscious of its purpose, the artists fashioned their works\nmost foreign to actual life out of elements of reality, and achieved\nthem by nature, truth, and life. For this reason even the earliest\nminiatures of the manuscripts become a trustworthy source for the\nhistory of manners. Because the art-workers of limited capacity, who\nwrought servilely according to the tradition of their gild, reproduced\naccurately all the accessories\u2014clothes, weapons, furniture, buildings,\nand scenery\u2014as they actually saw them.\n\nThe little picture, \u201cThe Virgin and Child,\u201d which is ascribed to Jean\nMalouel, and was painted about 1395, and can therefore have owed\nnothing to the Van Eycks, then in Dijon, and perhaps, too, elsewhere,\ncertainly still quite obscure young people, is of such charming realism\nthat one might rather class it as a _genre_ picture than as a sacred\npicture. The Virgin is making the Child a frock, and is just drawing\nthe thread tight, with the needle turned in a correct horizontal\ndirection, and the child Jesus is amusing Himself by putting His rosy\nlittle foot in His Mother\u2019s red leather slipper, of enormous size\nto Him, which she has taken off and placed before her. There is no\nreason why we should not assume that Malouel\u2014if it was he\u2014gave his\npatron\u2014perhaps the Duke of Burgundy\u2014his (the artist\u2019s) own dear wife\nand little son as a Holy Family.\n\nIn \u201cThe Death of the Virgin,\u201d of the same school of Burgundy, but about\na century later, the apostle, kneeling at the foot of the death-bed\nand reading his prayer-book devoutly, with a big pair of spectacles\non his nose, is, in spite of the pathos of the moment, so natural as\nto be almost comic. \u201cThe Miracle of the Saint,\u201d with his head in his\nhands, who is walking barefoot, by a pupil of Nicolas Froment\u2014perhaps\nby the master himself\u2014painted, about 1480, at Aix in Provence, attests\nthe painter\u2019s most na\u00efve indifference to probability. In the middle of\nthe street where the decapitated saint is walking, and the executioner,\nleaning on his sword, stands dumbfounded, kneel, in measured symmetry,\nto the right and left of the saint, the founder and his consort; he\nwith four little sons, she with four little daughters in a row, like so\nmany organ-pipes, behind them. The picture of the city is, however, so\nrealistic that even to-day an old corner of Aix is recognisable in it,\nand the gazers running up or standing in knots and laying their heads\ntogether, or hurrying to the windows, are of everlasting human verity.\n\nExactly the same holds good of the altar decoration, ascribed to John\nof Orleans (circ. 1374), a wonderful sepia painting on white silk. The\nsections which depict the Scourging of Christ by two brutal fellows\nwith hang-dog faces, the Carrying of the Cross, with the Mocking of\nJesus by the rabble of Jerusalem, and the Entombment, with the Blessed\nVirgin kissing the corpse, show that striving after truth, which\nhas hitherto been pronounced to be a peculiarity of the Dutch. In\nthe \u201cMartyrdom of a Holy Bishop\u201d\u2014most likely by Jean Malouel (circ.\n1400)\u2014the martyr, in mitre and pallium, gazes from a strongly barred\nprison window, near which an angel kneels, and through the bars of\nwhich the Saviour in person administers to him the viaticum. But the\ncastle in the Lombard style\u2014stone rafters and corbels with red tiled\nspaces\u2014on to the ground-floor of which the oval window opens, may be\nregarded as an architectural design.\n\nNicolas Froment\u2019s famous \u201cBurning Thornbush\u201d from Aix Cathedral\n(1475-6) is entirely fabulous in the middle. A soft, cloud-like, lumpy\nhill of rock supports a dense group of thick-stemmed trees, the tops of\nwhich unite in a kind of gigantic bird\u2019s nest, wherein the Virgin and\nChild sit enthroned. But this miracle, with no measure of reality to\ngauge it, is framed in a deep landscape with great distances; in which\nwhite towns lie by mirroring waters, and thickly-leaved trees rise up\nfrom green hills to the bright sky, and in the foreground, beside an\nangel of Annunciation, sits, surrounded by his drove of wethers and his\nquaintly posed dog, the white-bearded shepherd with his legs crossed in\nthe most natural posture you could conceive.\n\nIn the case of almost all the paintings in the Exhibition, and chiefly\nof the best of them, this proposition can be repeated. The painter\nloyally carries out the subject commissioned, treating it faithfully\naccording to the traditional formula; but what is not covered by the\nformula he shapes with sovereign freedom and an honest joyous realism\nwhich is by no means the prerogative of the Dutch and Germans, as has\nbeen so long believed, but is to be met with, according to the evidence\nof this Exhibition, in the same measure in the French.\n\nSculpture might become crude in the earlier Middle Ages, but it did not\ncease to be fostered. Sculpture in stone or wood was the complement of\nbuilding, that strongest expression of medi\u00e6val energy, ivory-carving,\nor the jewel of precious metal, the adornment of the altar or the\nstate-rooms in the palace. Painting, on the other hand, after the\ncollapse of the old world, went back to the adornment of books, and\nfrom this the great art of wall- and easel-painting was again developed\nonly after the age of the Crusades. This, in many details, betrays its\norigin from miniature. For a long time it was nothing but an enlarged\nminiature. The works in the Exhibition show, at any rate up to the\nlast third of the fifteenth century, all the features that distinguish\nthe pictorial ornamentation of the manuscripts: the gold ground, the\nneat, nay, painful perfection, the gay, unqualified, almost glaring,\ncolours, the equal clearness of objects in the furthest background and\nin the foreground, the puerile joy in innumerably repeated complicated\ndecorations of the surface, the framing, with richly figured wreaths,\nornamental borders, or picture margins. Even the standing formul\u00e6 of\nmanuscript miniatures are repeated for centuries in the paintings,\nviz., the movements of all the personages at the Annunciation,\nCrucifixion, Entombment, and Ascension. Only towards the end of the\nfifteenth century does painting fully escape from the still clinging\negg-shell of the miniature, and grow accustomed to a large, bold line,\nand a freedom of composition which finally reckons with considerations\nof distance, and prevails upon itself to neglect comparatively the\nsubsidiary in favour of the essential. The glorious Master of Moulins\nhas, it is clear, no longer the old inherited habit of feeling himself\nbanished to a page in a book. He no longer shows the same somewhat\nmechanical respect to all work, principal and accessory. In the \u201cVirgin\nand Child between the Founders,\u201d and particularly in the \u201cNativity\u201d\nwith the twilight landscape in the background, and the fat poodle in\nfront sitting on the kneeling cardinal\u2019s mantle, the precedence of\nvalues is observed, and the painter reserves his piety and devotion for\nthe noble parts.\n\nThe author of these pictures\u2014one of the greatest painters that ever\nlived\u2014is only known as the Master of Moulins, or the Painter of the\nBourbons. His name was probably Jean Perr\u00e9al, but there is no certainty\nabout it. Only a few definite names have come down to us from the\nbeginnings of modern art. We must search for them in the inventories\nand account books of princely households or cathedral chapters. The\nartists did not yet sign their works; they indulged in no dreams of\nimmortality. They did not yet feel they were the supermen, that the\nRenaissance, later on, made of them, and that, in the estimation of\nthe upper class, especially of its feminine and effeminate portion,\nthey have remained till the present day. They were honest and genuine\nartisans, just like other respectable artisans; and in France they,\nfor the most part, enrolled themselves in the Saddlers\u2019 Guild, perhaps\nbecause they, like the latter, had originally, as miniature painters,\nto do with parchment, _i.e._, a species of leather. They regarded it as\na special distinction to be appointed servant,\u2014_valet_ or _varlet_\u2014of\na prince, on whose commissions for church and palace they lived. Jean\nMalouel and his pupils, Jacques Cone and Jean Mignot, Jehan Fouquet,\nhis sons Jean and Fran\u00e7ois, and his great pupil Jean Bourdichon,\nEnguerrand Charonton and Nicolas Froment, perhaps also Perr\u00e9al and\nKing Ren\u00e9 the Good (1409-80), are perhaps the only painters whose\npersonality stands out clearly outlined in the dawn of art history\nbefore Clouet, and his contemporary Corneille of Lyons. Perhaps\na number of forgotten names may yet be dug up from archives. The\nobscurity of the few who have either been handed down to us, or been\nrescued from oblivion by industrious investigators in recent years is\na heavy injustice. They deserve to shine with the same glory as the\nmost illustrious that Vasari has preserved for us in a work of amusing\nstudio gossip.\n\nJehan Fouquet stands in a line with the greatest portrait painters of\nall times. He may be named in the same breath with Holbein\u2014nay, with\nVelasquez. His portrait of a man in the Liechtenstein Gallery at\nVienna, which shone as one of the gems of the exhibition, is perhaps\nthe most powerful work that the great master created, and the \u201cMan with\nthe Wine-glass,\u201d in the Vienna collection of Count Wilczek, is hardly\ninferior to it in significance.\n\nOf the numerous suggestions of an artistic, moral, and psychological\nnature that were the outcome of this unique exhibition, the deepest\nand most abiding\u2014at least for me\u2014was that one felt the spiritual\ncondition of the artists who created these works on commission and,\nfor the most part, according to precise instructions from princes\nand prelates, lords and governments of cities. In nearly every one\nof them is played the great drama of the struggle of souls thirsting\nfor freedom with the fearful oppression of intellect of the darkest\nMiddle Ages. Secret corners and angles, easily overlooked backgrounds\nof the pictures, suggest already the future art, untrammelled by the\nworld, which will overcome this art of the guilds, with its fixed,\ndogmatic formul\u00e6. A Fouquet, a Bourdichon, a Clouet who, in kings and\nprinces sees, and paints with horrible realism, poor, sick, ugly, dull\nfools, stands no longer under the control of royalty. He is inwardly a\ndisrespectful rebel, and is, in his way, a prelude to the procession\nof the market-women to Versailles, which, two or three centuries\nlater, was destined to overthrow the kingdom. A master of the \u201cMount\nCalvary\u201d (1460), who makes the holy women and disciples stare with\nsuch unmoved, wooden countenances at the Body of Christ, not because\nhe is incapable of painting sorrow-stricken faces\u2014all the details of\nthe painting witness to his artistic power\u2014but because he contemplates\nthe incident with coldness of heart, and expresses his unbelief to the\ninitiate as plainly as the rack and stake of the period allowed. In\nthese early works there is a very soft and very weak rumble of thunder\nof a very far-off storm. They are a first indistinct announcement of\nthe Revolutions that are slowly preparing.\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n A CENTURY OF FRENCH ART\n\n\nSincerity did not rule in all parts of the Paris Universal Exhibition\nof 1900, but a quickening air of freedom was breathed in the great\npalace of art. The temporary proprietors of this colossal building,\nthe French artists, did not pretend to any motive that they did not\npossess. \u201cMake room! Out of the way! Out!\u201d we fancied we heard from all\nthe dusky corners of the vast halls in a voice of thunder. \u201cForeigners\nfrom both worlds? To the south wing with them! In the corner! Under\nthe staircase! That\u2019s quite too good for them. The dead? The famous of\nyesterday? What do the disturbers want? Haven\u2019t they had their share\nof ribbons, titles, commissions from the State, and other forms of the\nartist\u2019s ideals? Back with you! To the furthermost building in the\nrear! If any one wants to make journeys of discovery, he can steer\naway. The chief buildings, the foregrounds, the splendid halls for us,\nthe _chers ma\u00eetres_ of to-day. We are the strongest, therefore we need\ndo no violence to our feelings. We are alive, therefore we are right.\u201d\n\nCertainly, certainly. I do not contradict this; but it suits my\ninclination to wander past the conquerors of the day to the shadows\nin the back premises, into the remote and also, as to equipment,\nsignificantly neglected halls of the Century Exhibition, to the\ngreat vault in which is collected that which was to make plain\nthe development of French art from the Revolution to Carnot, the\ngrandson. What remains when the human being who gives dinners, haunts\nantechambers, has cousins in the Ministry of the Fine Arts, whispers\nmalice in one\u2019s ear, ceases to acknowledge greetings, and writes\nflattering letters, has fallen to dust; when rivals and parasites have\ndisappeared; when the puffs of toadies, and the no less valuable ones\nof envious men and poison-boilers, are hushed and forgotten?\n\nNot much, and there lies the melancholy humour of such wanderings\nthrough the realm of shadows. The only feature that always wounded\nme somewhat in the \u201cDivine Comedy,\u201d is that Dante awards his curses\nand execrations on the departed according to the rank they occupied\namong the living. The invectives on the poor soul of a pope have\nthree stripes, those on a prince, two, and on a lord, one. That is an\ninartistic forgetfulness of the frame chosen by Dante for his poem.\nIf he remained always mindful of his programme of death and hell, he\nwould not be able to distinguish crowns or purple mantles in the red\nillumination of the under-world. The laughing and sighing philosophy of\nHamlet\u2014alas, poor Yorick!\u2014stands higher than the resentful fury of the\npassionate Italian, who makes the hierarchy overstep the threshold of\nthe grave. It is perhaps the most profound usage of the French language\nthat they deprive the dead of the \u201cMonsieur,\u201d to which every living\nman, with the exception of those criminally prosecuted and condemned,\nhas a claim. The dead has no longer a title\u2014so much more sorry a fate\nfor him, if, when he was alive, he was nothing more than a title.\n\nThe practice is even here somewhat different from the pure theory. The\ndeceased is no longer \u201cExcellency,\u201d \u201cProfessor,\u201d not even \u201cMr.\u201d But\nthe usage of contemporaries to give him a title is still expressed in\nthe respectful tone in which they pronounce his now naked name, and\nin which one possessed with a delicate sense of hearing perceives the\nrustle of all the tinsel that surrounded him when alive. In this tone,\nhowever, the name becomes familiar to the younger ones, who, without\nthinking, continue this veneration, unconscious that their accent\nexpresses respect because the bearer of the name so pronounced was\nonce a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour and an Academician. Thus,\nmy dear Schiller, are your confident words to be understood, you who\nwould never perceive the weft of vulgarity in the ways of man: \u201cHe\nwho has satisfied the best men of his time has lived for all time.\u201d\nCertainly, if by \u201cbest\u201d we would understand the best placed, best paid,\ninvested with the best office, or the best decorated. He who during\nhis lifetime has belonged to those favoured by the grace of official\nnewspapers, who has been gauged by them and provided with a \u201cfull\u201d\nmark, will be recognised for all time as full without further test.\nThe Pantheon is the continuation of the minister\u2019s official rooms, the\ngolden book of spiritual history an anthology from the Official Gazette\nand the Army List, for the use of the children of later centuries. If\nI must emphasise the essential: the appraisement even of the artist,\ntherefore of the most individual man that exists, is the outcome of\nsocial, not individual, factors, or of the latter only when they are\nsocially successful, and, therefore, themselves become social factors.\nThere are, I admit, always proud\u2014perhaps only haughty\u2014natures with an\nanarchistic, anti-social trait, who will not recognise any arrangement\nor fixing of the community, not even its hierarchy of fame, and clench\ntheir fists against laurel crowns just as they do against crowns.\nTheir rebellion, however, is seldom successful. I know of no case of a\nbomb-thrower having destroyed a Pantheon.\n\nBut as we do not take ourselves tragically, do not begin our own\nverdict with the threatening formula, \u201cIn the name of the Law,\u201d and do\nnot exact any submission from others, we are always entitled to be of\nour own opinion, and to let the dead influence us without prejudice,\nuntroubled by the distinctions of rank which were bestowed on them\nin life, and were buried with them. Such a method of observation is\nunhistorical, but subjectively fruitful; it leads to self-emancipation\nfrom many superstitions.\n\nThe Century Exhibition of French painting was far from being complete;\nit was incomparably more fragmentary than the Louvre Museum, which\nis also not without gaps. But it afforded a general view of the art\ndevelopment of the period represented, and it gave the independent man\nthe chance of correcting numerous opinions which had taken hold of him\nfrom study and reading.\n\nIt began with the masters who created and flourished before the deluge\nof 1789\u2014Watteau, Greuze, Fragonard, Vig\u00e9e-Lebrun. The three first\nhad, for two generations, sunk deeply in general estimation. Then the\nforce of fashion raised them up again to dizzy heights of fame. I do\nnot believe that they will maintain themselves there. It pleases the\nreactionaries to glorify the _ancien r\u00e9gime_ at the expense of the\nRevolution, and to this planned and deliberate toil belongs also the\nunmeasured overestimate of eighteenth century art and artistic work.\nBut it is politics, not \u00e6sthetics\u2014no taste for art, but a tendency. In\nreality, the darlings of the age of the Pompadour and Louis XVI. were\npetty masters, mere fillings of a particular frame, and, lifted out of\nthis, they lose their best qualities.\n\nWatteau still holds his ground most easily, for he is an amiable teller\nof stories that are agreeable if nothing of a more serious character\noccupies one\u2019s mind. He draws elegantly, although without pedantry; his\ncolouring is cheerful, and suits admirably his hushed, silken carpets,\ncoquettish Gobelins, and light lacquered furniture. He is the painter\nof joyous days wherein life seems an eternal feast. Gracious spring\nbedecks the earth, his men and women are all young and handsome, his\nladies wear entrancing toilettes and _coiffures_, and his gentlemen\nsilk doublets and lace shirt-frills. Even if they dress as shepherds,\nthey are laughingly addressed thus: \u201cI know you, fair masque; you are\na marquis in disguise with your charming friend, the duchess.\u201d Rosy\nangels hover about them, and mingle familiarly in their pastimes. They\nhave nothing on earth to do except pay each other witty compliments\nand play at love. I understand why American multi-millionaires pay any\nprice to be surrounded by Watteaus. It is really honourable to the\nartists of our time that the Trust magnates have not yet succeeded in\nfinding or rearing painters who would flatter their egotism through\nservile suggestions of a Watteau aspect of the world.\n\nFragonard appears in a secondary position besides Watteau. He is\ndrier, and with less \u201cswing.\u201d He is not really present in his heart at\nthe pastimes he paints. Watteau is himself a guest at his festivals;\nFragonard takes part in the _soir\u00e9es_ only under a sealed order. The\nformer amuses himself, the latter amuses the person who gives him the\ncommission.\n\nGreuze lives on the fame bestowed on him by the grateful Diderot. He\nwas enthusiastic for Diderot\u2019s tearful _bourgeois_ tragedy, and Diderot\nrepaid him with enthusiasm for his painting; but we have no longer\nany grounds, I suppose, for regarding him with Diderot\u2019s eyes. When\nhe paints his eternal model of the \u201cBroken Pitcher\u201d in the Louvre,\nand of his sundry counterparts of it in the Century Exhibition, he is\npitilessly pretty. When he sets great dramatic scenes in the Diderot\nstyle on the stage\u2014the \u201cVillage Betrothal,\u201d the \u201cFather\u2019s Curse,\u201d\netc.\u2014he is depressingly melodramatic. His young maiden is marvellously\npretty and tame, and will always delight childlike spectators with the\ncharm of her blooming girlhood. He suffered himself to be infected\nin Italy by Guido Reni\u2019s sweetness, and only transplanted his soft\nbeauties, rolling their eyes, from paradise to the middle-class earth.\nHe is simply the Bouguereau of his age. That name comprises all\nthat can be said of him in praise or blame. Greuze is Bouguereau\u2019s\nsuperior in so far as he paints more vigorously, and forms his pretty\n_ing\u00e9nues_ of real flesh\u2014not, like Bouguereau, of alabaster and\nsugar-candy.\n\nBeside the softness of Greuze, Madame Vig\u00e9e-Lebrun seems a man and\na fighter. In a century of gallantry she alone was not gallant. She\npainted women\u2019s likenesses, and did not pay court to her models; but\nshe elevated them, and gave them meaning. Where the male painters of\nthe period saw only beauty-patches, she suspected she saw a soul. If\nwe look at these women with curiously poised heads, gazing boldly out\nof their frames, they say proudly and calmly: \u201cI am no trying-on hand;\nI am no creature of luxury; I am no flesh for lust; I am a personage.\u201d\nAt a distance of a hundred years Vig\u00e9e-Lebrun is a forerunner of the\nnow innumerable American painters of emancipated womanhood. This brave\nwoman, who was beautiful, and did not overprize, nay, hardly prized her\nbeauty, was an asserter of women\u2019s rights long before the word or the\nthing was invented.\n\nPrudhon was represented by a \u201cZephyr,\u201d which has the same peculiarities\nas his \u201cCrucifixion\u201d and \u201cCrime and Punishment\u201d in the Louvre. He\nmodels a human body so that one must take one\u2019s hat off to it. He has\nthe infallible feeling of the great Spaniards for the value of light\nand shade; but what will always stand in the way of his being loved\nand not merely respected is his hatred of colour. He confines himself\nto a strict black and white style, which banishes all gladness and\ndiscourages the most willing admiration.\n\nAnd now the great deluge breaks in, and, like a sea-god David emerges\nover the raging waves. It is really with him that the century begins,\nfor what preceded him was the art of the _ancien r\u00e9gime_ and of the\nTrianon. He had at the Exhibition a \u201cDistribution of the Colours,\u201d an\n\u201cUgolino,\u201d some portraits; all of the most genuine David in choice\nof subject as well as treatment. Everywhere the capricious \u201cseeing\nyellow\u201d which seems to have been a peculiarity of his eye; everywhere\nthe grandly imposing, professorial infallibility of drawing which knows\nno first trying, no anxious searching, no hot struggle with the never\nquite attainable Nature. David compels with an imperious Medusa-glance\nthe ever-stirring, the ever-flowing, so that it becomes fixed, and\nhe can shackle the now immovable vision in brazen outlines. So his\nhuman beings appear statues, or mimes, which maintain a pose, and his\nmost blameless anatomies acquire a tendency towards the artificial.\nDavid\u2019s mood is always uniformly high-pitched. Good-humoured people,\nwho would like to see the majestic man in shirt sleeves for once, lurk\nin vain for him to unbutton himself. He never forsakes the decoration\nand costume of high tragedy. At first he sought the drama in ancient\nhistory or world-famed poetry. Afterwards, he found it in his immediate\nsurroundings. Fate vouchsafed him the favour of living in a time, the\npathos of which was mightier than that of Athens, Sparta, or Rome.\nHe satisfied his deepest longings when, in the \u201cSabine Women,\u201d he\npreached to the murderous factions among his people reconciliation\nand brotherly love, and, in \u201cThe Distribution of the Colours\u201d and the\n\u201cCoronation,\u201d he made Napoleon the equal of the heroes of mythology. He\nis, therefore, always genuine, even when he may seem to the superficial\ngaze theatrical. It is the difference between a tone naturally\nsustained during moments of life at high pressure, and declamation\nlearnt from a teacher of rhetoric.\n\nHis pupils, imitators, and rivals have, on the contrary, not succeeded\nin avoiding declamation. G\u00e9rard, Gros, Riesener, and Drolling were,\nconsciously or unconsciously, the greatest flatterers that ever painted\nportraits. Because David represented Napoleon in the character of an\nAlexander of Macedon, or an ancient god of war, the others, the smaller\npainters, in their portraits gave to even the ordinary men of the\nperiod the deportment of Olympian gods. Only G\u00e9rard\u2019s \u201cLetitia,\u201d who,\ntoo, bore apotheosis most easily, is a good modest human being. All the\nother women are Juno or Pallas Athene; all the men Mars or Achilles.\nThe contrast between the commonplace physiognomies and the magnificence\nof their appearance is now and then so violent that one is led to\nsurmise that the painter wanted to make fun of his models. \u201cCharles X.\nin his Coronation Robes,\u201d by Ingres, seems, for example, virtually a\nparody of David\u2019s \u201cCoronation of Napoleon.\u201d\n\nG\u00e9ricault stands an examination of his title to fame badly. He has\nnot so correct an eye for the figures of horses as was believed\nbefore instantaneous photographs. His portraits of soldiers are\nreally more crude than powerful. Even the sketch for the \u201cRaft of the\nMedusa,\u201d reveals evidence of straining after effect which our pious\nadmiration refused to notice in the colossal work in the Louvre. On\nthe other hand, the figure of Louis Leopold Boilly gained strangely\nin the Century Exhibition. Up till then I knew only his \u201cArrival of\na Diligence at a Posting-house,\u201d in the Louvre, and I did not rate\nhim very highly on account of the affected _atelier_ light of this\notherwise prettily studied little picture. Here he disclosed himself\nas a great philosopher and satirist. One picture represents a popular\nmerry-making with wine _gratis_, another a free performance at the\nAmbigu-Comique Theatre. There the crowd is fighting murderously over\na drink that can be had for nothing; half-grown hobbledehoys throttle\nbestial greybeards; bullies claw hold of furies; dreadful feet trample\non faces and necks in the mad storming of the wine supplies, and the\nvictors in this struggle have their reward: they lie on the ground\nbestially drunk. The scenes at the entrance of the theatre are not\nquite so vulgar. There is a less dogged scramble for intellectual\nenjoyment than for that of the palate. Yet here, too, the most brutal\nlack of consideration and greedy selfishness triumph; here, too, the\nstrong man overmasters the weak; here, too, among beings who seem\nto belie their human form, the law of the jungle holds good; and\nhere, too, poor people pay for a little doubtful pleasure with the\nsufferings, dangers, and exertions of a storming of the Malakoff.\nIn the foreground of both pictures stands a group of well-dressed\npersons who, half in pity, half in disgust, look at the disorderly\npushing of the rabble from a respectful distance. These rich people\nhave the _r\u00f4le_ of teaching the moral of the fable. They express\nthe sociological thought of the painter. Boilly deplores the low\nmoral condition of the masses, and reproaches the dominant class\nwith having degraded them to beasts, when it pretends to give them\na feast. He rejects with utter disdain the dogma of equality, yet\nwithout haughtiness, for he has for the disinherited the somewhat\ncondescending, yet warm pity of a genuine patrician. These are\nextremely modern\u2014I might call them Toynbee-feelings\u2014and they are\nexpressed with an exact, judicious brush that can conjure forth the\nconfused turmoil of a great, raging multitude, and, nevertheless,\nremain faithful in all details. Boilly was decidedly a master.\n\nThe Century Exhibition also gave the opportunity for a discovery,\nnot only to me, but also to all who brought to it an open mind.\nThere is a painter, Trutat, of whom no one had ever heard anything.\nSeekers who investigated the provincial newspaper of 1840-60 succeeded\nin discovering one or two articles about him. That is all. He once\nor twice exhibited in the \u201cSalon,\u201d but the \u201cSalon\u201d reports of the\ntime make no mention of him. He lived in the first half of the last\ncentury, and died at the age of twenty-four. Before his picture\u2014one\nsingle picture\u2014men were amazed, and women stood with moist eyes. It\nis a double picture; in the foreground, a fair young man, pale with\nsickness, with deep blue eyes and a proud, wild mane; his firm forehead\nfull of impatient dreams of joyous creations, fame, and happiness, yet,\nin his hollow cheeks, faint shadows of death. Behind him, half obscured\nin dusk, a woman\u2019s profile, his mother\u2019s head; a good Samaritan with\ntender gaze, and lips closed in sadness, which once sang cradle-songs,\nbut have learnt silence in the sick-room. In its composition there\nis a reminiscence of Ary Scheffer\u2019s \u201cSt Augustin and St Monica,\u201d in\nthe Louvre. But it is incomparably more profound, for Trutat depicts\nhimself, not saints whom the power of imagination has first to bring\nbefore him. The painting is wonderful, firm and full as that of\nFranz Hals\u2014I deliberately utter this strong statement\u2014so surely and\norganically matured that one traces beneath the skin all the most\ndelicate muscles and bones. And add to this technique, of which one\ndoes not discern how he could have acquired it in a fleeting morning of\nlife, the intensity of feeling which has raised the work to the rank\nof those high creations in which a soul is revealed. The picture is\nfull as a swan\u2019s song, of foreboding and love. The great youth does not\nunderstand himself alone, without his mother\u2014the dear mother must be\nwith him, if he goes out to the market among people. Shall she nurse\nhim? Shall she protect him? Can he dispense with her for a moment as\nhe must be taken away from her so soon? All this is in that mysterious\npicture, and it was in it when Trutat, though he did not know it,\npainted his own requiem. Only nobody then understood the riddle;\nTrutat as little as the rest. He is another Regnault, only a still\nmore genuine one. And no one has made lamentation about him, although\nhis tragedy is more painful than Regnault\u2019s. For the latter attained\nimmortality in the apotheosis of death in battle, whilst miserable\nconsumption slew Trutat ingloriously.\n\nThe Romantic fever begins to seize the century. The painters hasten to\nhang round them the botanical box, and seek the blue flower. The first\nto go forth into the moon-illumined, witching night was Chass\u00e9riau!\nPoor Chass\u00e9riau! It would have better suited his bent to paint _salons_\nwith rich Empire-furniture, wherein respectably dressed citizens sit\nwith their wives and daughters, and pleasantly tell each other the\nanecdotes of the day. His portrait of the two sisters in red shawls\nand yellow plaited dresses shows this\u2014a neat, pretty, _bourgeois_\npainting, which denies itself all enthusiasm, and all soaring. But now\nthe tarantula stings him, and he occupies himself only with obsolete\nsubjects such as Orpheus, _ch\u00e2telaines_, fairy-tale princesses with\nblack slaves, Macbeth and the three witches. The last picture is\nparticularly characteristic of him. The three witches have their white\nbeards and pointed noses, as prescribed by the romantic code; but\nthey are merely grotesque, but not in the least weird. We have the\nimpression that they have met in a peaceful country in order to gossip\nabout their neighbours, and make coffee. They publicly proffer the\nknight, who should be Macbeth, a small bowl. The heath by night lacks\nevery trace of mood; the ugly old women every touch of the demoniac.\nChass\u00e9riau painted, just as J. Fr. Kind\u2014the [\u201cFreisch\u00fctz\u201d] Kind\u2014wrote\npoetry.\n\nI am afraid I must likewise be guilty of heresy in respect of another\ngreat man; but Delacroix, too, fails to justify the idolatry people\nhave displayed and, to some extent, still display towards him. I do\nnot misjudge his joyous coloriture, although his harmonies are rather\nloud than grand. I am not blind to the characteristic mobility of his\ncomposition, although it is generally far more a stagey flourish than\nassertion of strength in the service of a will conscious of what it is\naiming at. What excites in me, however, unconquerable opposition is\nhis phrasing. If any art demands intuition it is painting. Delacroix,\nhowever, usually has not exercised intuition, but has clothed with the\ncool work of his brain abstract thoughts in conventional forms. For\nthis, look at \u201cGreece expiring on the Ruins of Missalonghi\u201d\u2014a picture\nwhich was once of enormous influence and highly praised. On some\ndisordered masonry stands a young lady in the _bal masqu\u00e9_ dress of a\nGreek, who has no thought of giving up the ghost, but is playing a part\nin robust health, and will change her dress, and have supper later. At\nsome distance behind her we catch sight of a young negro in the uniform\nof a Janissary, climbing a rubbish heap, brandishing a flag with a\ncrescent on it, and a curved sabre. This slightly painted Turkish\nwarrior appears not to see the young Greek girl; at all events he does\nnothing to her, and does not even threaten her. There is no association\nbetween the two figures; the action is disconnected. At most the\nTurk is interesting as an acrobat or banner-swinger. No murderous\npropensities are noticeable in him. The countenance of the Greek lady\nis pale and weary; but a rest in bed seems the only thing she needs.\nIt says much for the keenness of their Philhellenism that this picture\ncould move the people of the period. Delacroix had, however, no\nintuition at all when he painted it; he only illustrated an unplastic,\ninsipid phrase.\n\nHis other paintings are mostly illustrations of a text. \u201cComedians and\nBuffoons\u201d were unmistakably suggested by Victor Hugo. Confused ideas\noccur to him. Thus \u201cThe Good Samaritan\u201d was not painted to the passage\nin the Gospel, but to a story of chivalry; for the gentle benefactor\ntakes the sick man on his charger\u2014he is a mounted Samaritan!\u2014just as a\nknight takes the noble lady he is carrying off.\n\nDelacroix was a literary painter; we know that from his correspondence;\nbut without that, his pictures would betray it. He read much more in\nbooks than in nature, and he supplied paintings that gave evidence\nof education and much reading, in which the art-hating, blind-souled\nPhilistines of education delight royally. It may be that the confusion\nof his portrayal and the loudness of his palette was felt by his\ncontemporaries as a deliverance from the coldness and precision of\nDavid\u2019s school. I suspect, however, his earliest admirers valued him\nchiefly because he fed on the same books, plays, and newspapers as\nthemselves.\n\nAry Scheffer stands in the same spiritual plane as Delacroix, but lacks\nthe keenly joyous colour and the theatricality of his stage-setting.\nSchubert\u2019s songs and Schumann\u2019s are music even without the lyric text,\nand what music! I cannot imagine what Ary Scheffer\u2019s pictures from\nShakespeare, Goethe, and Byron would be without the poets and their\npoems. His picture in the Century Exhibition, \u201cThe Dead ride fast,\u201d is,\nif I exclude from my conception my remembrance of B\u00fcrger\u2019s ballad, an\nalmost touching example of tastelessness. Leonora\u2019s dishevelled hair,\nblown by the wind into a stiff, horizontal position, is supposed, for\ninstance, to illustrate the swiftness of the ride\u2014a notion which may\nhave seemed to Scheffer terrible, but is comic.\n\nHorace Vernet had a \u201cMazeppa,\u201d of course a big modern battle, and\nseveral likenesses. He is as popular as on the first day, and will\nalways remain so as long as children play with tin soldiers and the\npicture sheets of Epinal\u2014the French Neu-Ruppin\u2014find a ready sale. How\nhe dazzles! He does so to a degree which deserves admiration. From a\ndistance his pictures appear to be something; one must look at them\nquite closely to see that they are nothing, absolutely nothing. The\ncolossal canvas is apparently full of men: thousands of soldiers march,\nencamp, storm, fight; but, as a matter of fact, not a single figure\nis painted; the whole pomp of war and victory is composed of little\nstencilled gingerbread men, without any bones in their bodies, and with\nscarcely the remotest resemblance to human beings. Could Horace Vernet\ndraw? Had he really any other conception of the human form than that\nof an inflated india-rubber figure? In Paris and Versailles I have seen\nmany paintings by him, but I cannot yet answer these questions. Horace\nVernet is the fourth of a dynasty of painters: the first, Antoine, was\ngreat at little figures on sedan-chair panels; the second, Joseph,\npainted the well-known series of French harbours; the third, Carle, is\na master in depicting horses; Horace, the fourth, is the weakest of\nthem all, incomparably inferior in ability to his father, grandfather,\nand great-grandfather. He alone, however, has attained fame, and his\nrenown throws his ancestors into the shade. The wheel of fortune now\nand then plays immoral jokes of this sort, perhaps in order to teach\nits own futility.\n\nDaumier was known to me and, I suppose, most people, only as a\ndraughtsman. We learnt now to prize him as a painter of high rank.\nHis numerous paintings are illustrations to \u201cDon Quixote,\u201d romantic\nmerry-Andrews, street-singers, Moli\u00e8re\u2019s _Malade Imaginaire_, and a\ncrowded group of lawyers in cap and gown. His manner is the same in oil\nas in lead-pencil and crayon-drawing: his lines of movement broad and\nfirm, the outlines blunted, and now and again rubbed; all his figures\nmysteriously surrounded in mist, yet all so clearly and faultlessly\nrepresented that one is never led to suspect that their mysteriousness\nis a trick to hide carelessness or lack of skill. Even his oil-painting\nis really caricature, but discreet caricature. The nobler method\ninstils into him self-respect, and preserves him from caricature; he\njust marks roguishly the burlesque features, but does not diverge from\nreality. Thus his lawyers are portraits, but they look so maliciously\nintelligent, so inexorably penetrating, that we can doubt of this or\nthat head whether it is a likeness or a caricature. Let us say this:\nthe model will take it for a caricature, but his friends will regard\nit as a portrait. Daumier is a solitary; he is akin to none of his\ncontemporaries, yet an example of the migration of souls; for in him\nHogarth comes to life again, but a Hogarth who for his part would be\nanimated by a spark of Rembrandt\u2019s spirit.\n\nSuddenly another solitary appears in the ranks of the allied men of\nschool and tradition, viz., Millet. Precipitation would infer: the\nromantic is overcome; a new generation with new modes of feeling\narises; the nerves of the century begin to vibrate according to a\nnew rhythm. That is sheer nonsense; nothing has been overcome. The\nromantic masters still form romantic pupils, the crowd still feels in\nthe traditional way; the range of themes and the fashion of treating\nthem remain what they have been for a generation, but amidst the\ndependent, the docile ones, the imitator forms for himself, by the law\nof elective affinity, a divergent group\u2014the group of the forest-folk\nof Barbizon\u2014and amidst this group steps forth an individual man who\nforgets the master\u2019s _atelier_, who, in painting, thinks of neither the\n_salon_ nor the art-dealers, who looks not into books and newspapers\nnor on prototypes, but out into the world, and on that account falls\ncompletely out of the century.\n\nIf we follow up the development of art in the Exhibition, we may easily\nfall into the error of thinking that with Millet one epoch closes and\nanother begins. Such was not the case in reality. The contemporaries\nwho appreciated Millet were a diminishing few. Official art despised\nhim. There were no distinctions for him on the part of the State. The\ncritical phrase-makers knew nothing of him or mocked him horribly.\nThe rich connoisseurs passed him by. A very small congregation of\nmoderately well-off admirers, whose valuation appraised their most\nhonest admiration at 1,000 francs at most, bought his pictures at\nprices which just made it possible for him to live in Barbizon in\nwooden shoes and a blouse, and to bring up his numerous family on\npotatoes and bacon. But as he was a personality he succeeded\u2014though\nonly after his death. He made a school, like every one who has\nsomething to teach. He gained influence on the views of the creators,\nthe critics, and the public. People began to understand his speech,\nnay, to feel that what he said was beautiful. But to this day there\nis no Millet epoch in French art, and his fame is really an optical\ndelusion. His works did not bring him into the mouth of the masses,\nbut the caprice of a millionaire. On the day when it occurred to M.\nChauchard to pay 600,000 francs for Millet\u2019s \u201cAngelus,\u201d snobs of\nboth worlds took off their hats and murmured in a voice hushed with\nreverence: \u201cThat must be a great painter.\u201d As we see, the world\u2019s fame\nis but a question of money. Many more men are able to reckon than are\nable to feel the beauty of art, and, to the vast majority, its price is\nthe infallible, the one key to the understanding of a work.\n\nI must say that the millionaire who acted as Millet\u2019s herald of fame,\nhad no sense of proportion. If the work of an artist is to be measured\nby a gauge, the figures of which represent gold coins, Millet does\nnot reach the altitude of 600,000 francs, unless we estimate at least\nthirty of his contemporaries equally high. In technique, Millet follows\nthe Dutch; a David Teniers without humour and without aim at humour.\nHis landscape, never the essential with him, is poorer than that of\nRousseau and Fran\u00e7ois, not to speak of Corot. His greatness lies in\nhis personality, in his simplicity, in his avoidance of pose, in the\npious earnestness with which he follows the daily toil of the field\nlabourer. That is no new note in art, but it is the manifestation of an\nindividuality. Many are his superiors purely as painters. But souls\ncannot be compared and measured: they are incommensurable.\n\nCourbet follows on Millet. Those mad on systematising have classed\nthe two together as pioneers of Naturalism. What blindness to the\nessential! If anything does connect them\u2014according to the Hegelian\nmethod\u2014it is their very antithesis. Millet\u2014let us think of the \u201cMan\nwith the Mattock,\u201d \u201cThe Gleaners,\u201d even \u201cThe Pig-Killing,\u201d and the two\npictures in the Century Exhibition: the field-labourer, who, his day\u2019s\nwork ended, is putting on his coat, and the mother feeding her little\nchild with pap, as well as \u201cThe Angelus\u201d\u2014Millet indicates, in heavy\npainting and little-pleasing colours, in people whose coarse externals\ndo not attract a spirituality that ennobles them and makes us forget\ntheir soil-stained smock-frocks and their hard features. Courbet, on\nthe other hand, draws faultlessly, and is master of every knack of the\ntrade; but, with his rich means, he never gets above the spiritual\nstage of photography, and he knows not how to open to us the smallest\ncorner of the moral and spiritual being of his men and women.\n\nBut, strangely enough, this same Courbet, who never conceives human\nbeings except as soulless forms, can put a soul into nature and her\nlower-conditioned life. His justly famed \u201cSea-Waves\u201d breathes a\ndramatic will-power. His \u201cRoes in the Wood\u201d are spirited. Ancient,\nmysterious wisdom appears to possess even his trees. Animals and\nplants, sea and land, speak in Courbet; man alone is dumb. He is a\npantheist who excludes only man from the All-Divine. That is pessimism\nrooted in the most profound unconsciousness, which hints at serious\norganic disturbance.\n\nRosa Bonheur, represented by a wonderful \u201cTeam of Oxen before a Hay\nWaggon,\u201d is in this respect akin to Courbet. She, too, is an eloquent\nadvocate of the beauty and profound feeling of the brute; but, more\nlogical than Courbet, she confines herself to representing animals, and\ndoes not meddle with human beings. Man fails to interest her; she takes\nno heed of his indifferent appearance. The animal alone attracts her\nattention. A Rudyard Kipling of the brush, she has painted all her life\nthe \u201cJungle-Book,\u201d that tells of the wise and good and honest beasts,\nand the cunning men. Sir Edwin Landseer was also an animal-painter, but\nof quite another sort than Rosa Bonheur. When Landseer wanted to flatter\nthe beasts, he gave them human qualities. Rosa Bonheur would have\nfelt she was insulting her dear animals, if she had painted a picture\nlike the \u201cDiogenes\u201d in the National Gallery in London. The humanising\nof animals seems to her like degrading their special animal beauty.\nHer love of animals was morbid; it was, however, a deep and powerful\nemotion that made of her a great artist.\n\nOur wandering through the Century Exhibition led us finally past\nthe great landscape-men, the founders of modern landscape-painting,\nto Manet and Monet, Renoir and Degas, with whom a new century of art\nbegins. In a later section on the Caillebotte room in the Luxembourg\nMuseum, I shall study closely the authors of the Open Air Movement. The\nfight against the children of classicism and romance was furious, and\n\u201cfree-light\u201d was victorious in the degree in which it deserved victory.\nBut even in those days of turmoil there were idyllists who remained\nundisturbed by the tumult, and did not notice it. Gustave Moreau\npainted his colour stories from a palette of gold and precious stones,\nfrom a palette of Limosin and the glass-painters of Gothic cathedrals,\nas if there had never existed an \u201cOlympia\u201d of Manet or a \u201cFuneral\nProcession of Ornans,\u201d of Courbet. The high importance of Moreau, to\nwhom I return in a special study, lies in the fact that he teaches us\nthe feebleness of all classification of art development into epochs.\nTrue artists are not subject to time, and move side by side without\ninfluencing reciprocally their orbits. They are not subject to Newton\u2019s\nlaw of gravitation.\n\nThe Century Exhibition taught us something more. It sharpened our sight\nfor distinguishing between the literary painters and the painters\nproper. The former, as a rule, find fame quicker than the latter, but\ntheir fame affects posterity as a bad jest. They are illustrators of\nthe time, and what it brings, that is the worthless, art-destroying\n\u201cactuality.\u201d Every attempt to put painting at the service of\ncontemporary thought, to demand of it philosophical collaboration in\nthe development of political, moral, and social doctrines, is a sin\nagainst an art whose essence directs it to the eternal aspects of the\nphenomenal world. Only those are genuine painter temperaments which\ncan follow reflectively the play of light on surfaces in motion, and\ntell us what feelings this play awakens in them. All symbolism, all\nallegory, all graphic accompaniment of poetry, is weak. Only what has\nbeen really seen has permanence, even if it is reproduced with little\nskill. You cannot paint from hearsay, only from the impressions which\nthe eye takes in, and the soul delivers. It is astonishing that so\nprimitive a biological truth should be so difficult to grasp.\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n THE SCHOOL OF 1830\n\n\nThomy Thi\u00e9ry was a rich man of the formerly French, but afterwards\nEnglish, island of Mauritius, who lived and died in Paris, and left\nhis art collection, consisting of paintings, Barye bronzes, and some\nGobelins, to the Louvre. Thomy Thi\u00e9ry was a man of a single passion\nand a single thought; he loved only the Barbizon School and some of\nits artistic contemporaries who, in his opinion, stood in an elective\naffinity to it; but he loved them with unshaken fidelity and constant\nself-sacrifice. And in contrast to other more eclectic amateurs, he\ndid not perform his heroic deeds of an undaunted purchaser in auction\nrooms and art-shops, but carried his money to the studios of the living\nand struggling as long as he was able, and appeared on the market as\nan ordinary collector only when the brush had slipped from the hand of\nthe creators. In this way his gallery got the warmth and unity of an\norganic being, and besides its beauty, gave joy through the idea that\nit was not the result of _parvenu_ vanity, or of that cruel fancy that\ntakes satisfaction in a work without troubling about the originator,\nbut that a grateful patronage, which not only wishes to purchase art\ntreasures, but also to lighten and beautify the artist\u2019s earthly\npilgrimage, had created it. As a legacy to the Louvre, the collection\nhas from a fraction become an integral section that methodically\ndovetails into its place in the frame of this incomparable museum, in\nwhich the history of art is made to live before our gaze in select\nexamples. The management has added the pictures which it formerly\npossessed of Thomy Thi\u00e9ry\u2019s favourites, so that the three halls of the\ncollection now afford a good survey of the fruitful movement, which,\nabout 1830, took place in French painting, and diverted it from the\ndegraded classicism then dominant into the path pursued at present.\n\nThe School of Barbizon! A convenient, but, for that very reason,\na meaningless, expression. The men comprised in this commonplace\ndesignation have not much in common. In age not far apart, they were\nbound to each other by personal friendship, and partly inhabitants of\nthat Fontainebleau wood, in which some of them experienced Nature\u2019s\nrevelation. They were, however, very different in temperament, genius,\nand impulse, and they strove for personal ideals with dissimilar modes\nof expression. Only one peculiarity belongs in like degree to all,\nviz., the burning longing with which they yearned to get out of the\nstupid hole-in-the-wall of the academic studio that had become to them\na goal into freedom and life.\n\nWithout punning, the free air and freedom meant to them the same thing.\nLandscape furnished them with the means of renewing their acquaintance\nwith Nature. Under a completely Faust-like impulse, they struggled out\nof the _atelier_, where, \u201cin reek and decay, only the skeletons of\nbrutes and dead men\u2019s bones\u201d surrounded them, \u201cinto the far country.\u201d\nTheir appearance about the time of the July Revolution was the\nEaster-morning walk after brooding in the Gothic studio.\n\nThe David tradition held painting in thrall. The master\u2019s greatest\npupil, Baron Gros, and, with him, the gifted G\u00e9ricault, sought to\novercome the stiff mummifiedness and dryness of forms, the staginess of\nsubject of this art, which found its triumph in the \u201cRape of the Sabine\nWomen\u201d and the \u201cCoronation at Notre Dame.\u201d But G\u00e9ricault, misjudged\nand undervalued, died early a conquered man, and Gros, going astray in\nuncertain sounding of himself, returned, after his short revolt, to the\ntin and paste formulary of his first epoch, recognised in alarm its\nhollowness, and, by voluntary death in the Seine, got rid of the pains\nof the sceptic who has lost his faith and his ideal. The then young\ngeneration, warned and shaken by the tragedy of this seeker who found\nnothing, broke with the dominant rule, and sat down at the feet of\nNature, to learn from her.\n\nThe country is the great master-workshop. There Nature speaks her most\neloquent language of form. There she finds the tones that awaken the\nloudest echo in the soul of the genuine born painter. The creation of\na pictorial artist is, like each of the higher mental activities, very\ncomplicated; the most opposed organs of the brain have a variously\ngraded and mixed share in it. The vivid reception and rendition of\na phenomenon at rest, of the expressive line of one in motion, is\nan exercise of the motor centres. In the representation of man, or\nwhat pertains to man, which is, directly or indirectly, through the\nawakening of anthropomorphic ideas, to seize on our minds, trains of\nthought, reason, and judgment play a part by the side of the emotions\ngrowing out of the unconscious. But the real and essential element\nin painting is neither the motorial production of the drawing, nor\nthe travail of thought in the composition, but is ever the giving\nof light and colour. Now what counts in landscape is the effect of\nlight and colour. Here the painter stands before the magic changes\nof lights and the alluring colour-mysteries of Nature, which excite\nhim most keenly; for they stimulate his optical centre, of which the\nextraordinary development and particular susceptibility of light is\nthe psycho-physical basis and preliminary condition of the primitive,\nimpulsive gift of painting. Ever when men of talent feel the stiffened\ntraditions of the schools to be intolerable, and want to follow their\nown inward impulse, they flee to the country in order, in its free\nlight, to wash themselves clean from the dust of the schools, and bathe\ninto health their limbs, aching from constrained positions. There\nis profound instruction in the fact that to Giotto, in his effort\ncompletely to burst the fetters of Byzantinism, which his master,\nCimabue, had already strongly shaken, it first occurred to introduce\ninto his work the elements of landscape. His picture in the Louvre of\nSt Francis of Assisi is a touchingly _na\u00efve_ example of this.\n\nIt was Corot who first uttered in the French painting of the nineteenth\ncentury the creative words, \u201cLet there be light.\u201d Of course, he did\nnot discover day, for there were masters before him in whose pictures\nthe sun shone. We find in Ruysdael the keen, chilly clearness of a\nnorthern sky. Claude Lorrain gives warm, tender evening tones of the\nsouth, which have the effect of luxurious warm baths. From him, Turner\ndirectly traces his descent, who overheats Claude\u2019s pleasant tepidity\nto a glow, and raises his gentle clearness to a blinding splendour\nof radiancy. But no one before Corot has understood, like him, how\nto fill pictures with such discreet yet penetrating, delicate yet\nglowing light. It is no melodramatic, no Bengal or concocted light,\nno light of strange, exceptional occasions, of confusing colours, no\nvulgar, pompous, excessively brilliant light, but a restfully even,\ninexhaustibly rich, cheerful light that fills the soul with joy and\nhope.\n\nCorot\u2019s light sheds its rays from a hopeful soul. It is luminous\noptimism in visible form. Some years ago, a Corot Exhibition took\nplace in the Galliera Museum, and those who arranged it contrived\nto collect about the whole of the master\u2019s life-work. I looked\nattentively at one point: it contained hardly a single evening, not\na single autumn note or muttering of a storm, but only morning and\nspring and blue sky. That is characteristic of this child of the sun.\nIn Corot the elements of beauty are nearly always the same: pleasant\nhill-countries, winding paths that lead to weird distances and invite\nour yearning to fare thither; at a curve of the road gleaming water\nmirroring silver cloudlets; in the foreground delicately-leaved trees;\naround and over everything the wondrous air thrilling with light,\nanimated with a thin haze of mist, in which, bewitched by the feeling\nof spring, by an association of ideas, we fancy we can hear the soft\nbell-notes of invisible church towers, the twitter of pairing birds\nengaged in building their nests, and the buzz of early beetles. Some\nof the Corots in the Thi\u00e9ry rooms, _e.g._, the view of the Coliseum,\nare youthful productions, and do not yet show the dreamily soft, as it\nwere, inspired style and silver glow of his maturity. They are still\nsomewhat dry and hard, yet, even in these more prosaic pictures, the\nheart-quickening light falls from heaven\u2014Corot\u2019s incomparable strength.\n\nCorot did not belong to the forestmen of Barbizon, but he was the\nfounder of their religion of light. Th. Rousseau shares with him the\nsilkiness, and approaches him in the down-like delicacy of his young\nfoliage. Daubigny has more temperament; he is sturdier, more manly,\nperhaps I should say: more like a peasant. What raises him to the\nrank of master is the depth of his pictures, and his gift of working\nout his subjects in almost stereoscopic relief, in all planes\u2014in the\nfore-, middle-, and background. His \u201cSkiff\u201d is, therefore, an excellent\nexample. The mast of the vessel stands absolutely free. We see how\nair is encompassing it on all sides. Dupr\u00e9 shares in equal degree the\npraise of his two friends. That is not quite just, for he has by no\nmeans so much personality as they. He does not feel originally, but\nimitatively. Nature moves him first through the eyes of his companions\nin art. He imitates alternately the softness of Corot\u2019s foliage and his\nsilvery mistiness, Rousseau\u2019s smoothness and insinuating harmony of\ncolour, and Daubigny\u2019s tree-poetry, but I look in vain for the feature\nthat distinguishes him from the others.\n\nThe delicate, and at the same time reverential love with which the\nBarbizon-men treat the individual tree, Troyon expends on domestic\nanimals. As to the former the tree, so long as it does not melt in the\nhaze of distance, is never merely part of the scheme, but a distinct,\nliving being, possessing a physiognomy of its own, of which they render\na strongly individualised likeness; so the latter regards animals with\nthe understanding of a shepherd, who is known to recognise by their\ncountenances all the sheep of a numerous flock. He will correctly\ndepict the physiognomy of animals, without any propensity to giving\nthem the look of human beings, through which animal painters only too\neasily become, without intending it, comic.\n\nMillet is the continuation and consummation of the great landscape\npainters of 1830. We are not conscious of this if we regard him only\nby himself; but it is at once forced on us if we see him in the\nThi\u00e9ry Collection in connection with his comrades. Millet is also,\nfundamentally, a landscape painter, only his landscapes are animated\nby men; but not by men who are accessories, as is the case with\nCorot, but by men who are a part of the landscape, its most important\nand essential part, precisely as the trees and clouds are, but more\ndignified and spiritual than trees or clouds. With him man grows\ntogether with his rural environment, is himself a bit of nature in the\nmidst of nature, and it is not easy to decide whether he is degrading\nman, or is elevating the earth with all that on it creeps and flies,\nwhen he puts them on the same level. Millet discerns in nature an\nall-living element that can take manifold bodily forms and be expressed\nin a variety of ways, but is one and the same in all different forms.\nThis grand pantheistic feature uplifts his pictures from _genre_ to\nhigh, spiritual art. And since nature is never comic, so Millet\u2019s\npeasants\u2014themselves a bit of nature\u2014never affect us comically, but\nalways pathetically, even when they are as sturdy, clumsy, and simple\nas David Teniers\u2019s boors. In one picture in the collection, \u201cMaternal\nForesight,\u201d Millet has apparently a humorous intention: a peasant woman\nis assisting her very small youngster at the doorstep of her house in a\nlittle necessity. Even here I cannot find anything to laugh at, unless\nfrom kindly sympathy for the hop-o\u2019-my-thumb and his tender mother. It\nis just a glance at life, and at such no one who feels a reverence for\nthe sanctity of life ever laughs.\n\nThe devotees of the great Pan\u2014Corot, Rousseau, Daubigny, Millet, and\ntheir followers of the second rank, gain in significance side by side.\nTheir contemporary, Delacroix, loses beside them. What I felt at the\nCentury Exhibition of French art, I feel even more strongly in the\nThi\u00e9ry rooms at the Louvre. I am afraid Delacroix is one whose trial\nmust be revised. Perhaps we shall then be obliged to confirm the\nunfavourable verdict that the adherents of the Classical movement\npassed on him at his appearance, although on quite different grounds.\n\nDelacroix was not in love with life; he did not seek and find nature;\nhe followed in her footsteps only in books. He was essentially an\nillustrator; apart from Victor Hugo he is not to be thought of. The\nRomantics performed a duty of gratitude when, with fanatical violence,\nthey carried him triumphantly through his detractors. He is their\nhenchman with the brush; he fights with them and for them. They only\nact according to the rules of chivalry when they protect him. His\nmagic colouring is not to be contested, although it is often gaudy and\ntheatrical. But out of his \u201cHamlet with the Gravediggers,\u201d his \u201cMedea,\u201d\nhis \u201cBride of Abydos,\u201d his \u201cAbduction of Rebecca\u201d (\u201cIvanhoe\u201d), a dreary\nwaste stares us in the face, which would be hardly bearable if we did\nnot happen to know the poems from which Delacroix drew his subjects.\nWe must put life into his dead pictures by what we remember of our\nreading. Delacroix stops at the externals. We have to add soul and\npassion.\n\nAfter the men of 1830 came, on the one side, the neat painters of\nthe Empire, of whom Meissonier is the best type; on the other, the\nnaturalists with Courbet, the impressionists with Manet and Monet; and\nso the development went on to the confused struggles of this moment.\nThat period of the July Revolution was felt by its contemporaries as\nan age of storm and stress in art. On us later-born children it has\nthe effect of halcyon days, the full, rapturous life and sunny joys of\nwhich the present generation longs for in vain.\n\n\n\n\n VII\n\n THE TRIUMPH OF A REVOLUTION\n\n\n THE REALISTS\n\nIn the last years of the Empire and the first of the Republic, great\nthings occurred on the sacred hill of Montmartre, on the summit of\nwhich the Church of the Sacred Heart had not yet supplanted the Muses\nand Graces. A group of painters, diminishing in number, yet brave\nas lions, and pugnacious, arose in defence and attack against the\nofficial art of the _Acad\u00e9mie_, the _\u00c9cole des Beaux Arts_, and the\n_Salon_, which was still an institution of the State. Their palette\nwas a battle-shield, their brush a lethal weapon for cutting and\nthrusting, their easel a barricade. Uproar was what they painted, and\nplunder and carnage were the subjects of their conversation in endless\nbeer and tobacco sessions. They wanted to massacre the old idols in\noil-painting, and the tyrants of the plastic arts now become twaddlers.\nNo more painting by tinker, plumber, or chimney-sweep! No soot in\nplace of air! No Dutch dolls in tin armour, with volunteer firemen\u2019s\nbrass helmets on their gingerbread heads! On the contrary, an honest\nrendering of phenomena of light and colour from actual observation,\nsincerity, open air, and impression.\n\nThe first to gather with fury and wild gesticulation around the daring\npreachers of the new gospel were literary men and journalists. They\ndid not understand anything about painting, and would not have been\ncapable of distinguishing a varnished oleograph for a cab-drivers\u2019\npublic house from a real Leonardo; whether a picture was blackened or\nsaturated by sunlight, whether a human figure was clumsily conventional\nor felt and understood with truth to nature, that was to them quite as\nindifferent as the colour of the Empress of China\u2019s dressing-gown. They\nhad, however, the feeling that this movement in art was, in some way\nor other, connected with thought of general subversion, and attacked\nthe government. They thought they heard the naked women in Eduard\nManet\u2019s \u201cDown with Napoleon\u201d shriek. The gleaming, noonday lights of\nClaude Monet seemed to them a cry for vengeance for the _coup d\u2019\u00e9tat_.\nThey understood Pissarro\u2019s landscapes as illustrating Victor Hugo\u2019s\n_Ch\u00e2timents_, and Renoir\u2019s dancing _grisettes_ clearly pronounced a\ncrushing verdict on the Mexican Expedition. All the enemies of the\nEmpire regarded open air as an item of their political programme.\nTo be a true republican one must swear allegiance to realism. Thus\nGambetta and Zola became fanatics of the new movement, not on \u00e6sthetic\nprinciples\u2014such did not exist for either\u2014but from a tendency to\nopposition.\n\nWe should be wrong to laugh at a Radical mob orator and an anarchist\nnovelist being fervent advocates of a school of painting from party\ninterests. It arises out of a quite correct feeling. \u201cAll is in all.\u201d\nA close relationship unites all the phenomena of one time, and the\nmost opposed forms may express a single fundamental mood. About 1868\nrealism meant quite as much a revolt against a bit of authority as\nrepublicanism did. Were not a luxuriant beard and a soft hat in 1848\nproof positive of revolutionary sentiments? And about 1895 were not a\ntail-coat and a flowing neck-tie the acknowledgment of belief in blank\nverse and Maeterlinck?\n\nFrom the first moment, then, realism had the honours of the opposition\npress and the support of those politicians, the majority of whom, later\non, were to play the principal parts in the revolt of the Commune.\nThe artists, to be sure, despised it at first, as long as it gained\nno _Salon_ distinctions and had no market. For a long time\u2014for some\ndecades\u2014it had none. The public regarded the works of the new movement\nonly as expressions of unconscious or intentional artistic humour.\nIt laughed at them as it did at the saucy caricatures in the comic\npapers. There was perhaps only one individual who, a generation ago,\ntook the Manets and Monets, the Renoirs and Pissarros seriously, and\nwas prepared to manifest his belief in them by ready money\u2014the only\ngenuine martyrdom in our days\u2014and this seer, prophet, and confessor was\nCaillebotte. He bought their pictures; not at a big price, it is true,\nfor we must not expect the superhuman from mere mortals, but he bought\nthem; he poured out his red gold for them, and this sacrifice probably\npreserved the life of realism, or, at any rate, of its teachers.\n\nCaillebotte himself painted, but only for himself, and that was\npraiseworthy; but what was more important, he had acquired a handsome\nfortune by commerce, and spent the major portion of his fine income on\nopen-air pictures. He did not exhaust his enthusiasm by that. When he\ndied, he bequeathed the most striking pieces\u2014\u201cthe pearls,\u201d he called\nthem\u2014of his collection to the French State, on the condition that it\nleft them together and accommodated them with a room in a Paris museum.\n\nThe Department of Fine Arts at first made difficulties; but finally,\nit resolved to accept the bequest. The Luxembourg Museum was enlarged\nby an additional building, and a small room in the new wing now\naccommodates the pictures left by Caillebotte, amongst which he also\nsmuggled in two from his own brush. Thus the Revolutionaries attained\nthe honours of a State museum. This triumph crowns an adventurous\ncampaign which, after apparently fatal defeats at first, led from\nvictory to victory, and from conquest to conquest. For a decade and a\nhalf the art of the Manets and Monets has dominated painting. Only in\nthe works of a few obstinate old fogies is their spirit untraceable,\nat any rate on the Continent; for in England, to be sure, they have\nnot succeeded in gaining the slightest influence on the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelite\nmovement. On the other hand, in countries without old and uninterrupted\nart traditions of their own, for which the history of painting begins\nat the moment in which they themselves first co-operate actively in it,\ntherefore especially in North America and Scandinavia, there is, as a\nrule, no other art. When the painters in these countries awoke to art,\nthat was the newest thing, _le dernier cri_ of realism, and they took\nto this latest fashion, just as, in new colonies, negro ladies, who\nyesterday knew no other aid to their dusky loveliness than an apron of\nplaited grass and a few glass beads, insist that their toilet, or, at\nany rate, portions of it, shall be quite up to date.\n\nBut the victory in lands barbaric so far as art is concerned, and\nthe apotheosis in the Luxembourg Museum, do not spell the end of the\nbattle or the conclusion of peace. Realism had even recently to\nfight hard battles of persecution. Whilst the crowd pressed into the\nCaillebotte room, which was opened in 1897, and, it must be admitted,\ngave expression to very mixed feelings, certain masters of the Art\nSchool, the narrow Academician, G\u00e9r\u00f4me, at their head, sent to the\nMinister concerned a fiercely angry warning against the desecration\nof the Museum\u2019s hallowed rooms by the admission of rubbish which\nthey characterised as \u201cscandalous daubs,\u201d the \u201coffspring of utter\nincompetency or lunacy.\u201d\n\nThe warning was wrongly timed. In 1897 it came too early, or too late.\nToo late, because Manet and Monet have apparently held their own\nagainst G\u00e9r\u00f4me and Gustave Moreau, and protests are futile against\nfacts, or what are regarded as such at a given period. Too early, for\npeople then still stood\u2014and probably they stand now\u2014at an insufficient\ndistance from the movement now called impressionist to regard it from\nthe perspective of history, and to assign it its proper place in the\ndevelopment of painting. That moment will come, most likely very soon.\nThen the protest of the Academicians will be superfluous, for even the\n\u00e6sthetic boors will repeat the verdict, then become a commonplace, that\nrealism had its justification; that, besides transient harm, it was the\nauthor of permanent utility; and that, after a half-miraculous progress\nnot uncommon in the history of art, the new men, who themselves could\ndo little or nothing at all, taught more competent successors something\nprecious.\n\nThe Caillebotte room will help to bring about a correct estimate of\nthe revolutionists of \u201cthe \u2019sixties.\u201d G\u00e9r\u00f4me ought to have rejoiced\nat the opening of that room, for it really, for the first time, sets\na legend in the light of history. For twenty years everybody has\nthought he had a right to chatter about realism, though few have really\nseen the documentary monuments of it, because up to now they were\nnever conveniently accessible as a whole. The prototypical works of\nthe Naturalist School were mostly shown cursorily in rare and little\nnoticed exhibitions. Then they hung in their authors\u2019 studios, or in\nsome private collections. He who had not lived in Paris for thirty\nyears, and observed with close attention all the details of the art\nmovement, or did not undertake troublesome journeys of exploration and\ndiscovery, could speak of them only from untrustworthy imitations, or\nfrom absolutely worthless hearsay. Now, at last, the material can be\nseen by all. Whoever is capable of receiving his own impressions can\nprocure them.\n\nExtravagant enthusiasm for the pioneers of the \u201cOpen Air\u201d movement will\nnow be quite as little excusable as its condemnation without mitigating\ncircumstances. The former will, in face of the Caillebotte room, be\nrecognised at the first glance as sheer weak-mindedness, the latter as\nlack of understanding. That is the great service of this room in the\nMuseum: it adduces all that can be said on behalf of realism, and shows\nat the same time, inexorably, its limitations.\n\nI should like beforehand to exclude Raffaelli from the painters\nthat appear in this collection. He is not a labourer from the first\nhour. Even later on, when he joined the movement, he was no orthodox\nbeliever. People, from their superficial knowledge, jumbled him up\nwith the realists, because he was at first always, as the latter were\noften, a pessimistic confessor of the truth. His peculiar temperament\ndecided his choice of sad subjects. In his outlook on life he was wont\nto dwell, with self-torturing choice, on depressing sights: on the sick\nin lazar-houses; on the homeless tramps in the moats about the Paris\nforts; on poor, human wrecks that float through the street-current of\nthe great city. He told the story of these men with heart-breaking\naccuracy. He depicted them in mean, miserable, mud-tints; in the\ndust-grey of unswept, suburban streets; the sickly lime-white and\ndung-brown of neglected house-walls; the washed-out greenish-blue of\nworn-out cotton blouses. In this mood was painted his \u201cConvalescents in\nthe Hospital Yard,\u201d with its livid faces beneath the white skull-caps,\nand emaciated bodies in blue dressing-gowns, on the dank, moss-covered\nstone benches, in front of the sullen lazar-house. This picture, like\nall of Raffaelli\u2019s, makes up for the unpleasantness of its story by\nthe severe honesty of its drawing; and in the street picture, \u201cBehind\nNotre Dame,\u201d the astonishingly effective employment of the gay red\nkerchief of a workwoman in the foreground, amidst the subdued tones\nof a murky Paris day in uncertain weather, shows what a clever and\nfaithful colourist this painter is, who so long painted obstinately\nfrom a degraded palette. Nowadays, he has, in the main, overcome his\ndepression of spirits, and in his soul a bright sunshine laughs, the\nrays of which are discernible in all his later works.\n\nThe real originator of the new tendency was Eduard Manet. Of his three\npictures in the Caillebotte room, one, the \u201cOlympia,\u201d is a masterpiece.\nIt had already long been the property of the Luxembourg collection,\nand amongst the academic works of that Museum it seemed so strange\nthat it forced expressions of repugnance from most visitors. After\nthis comes an insipid brown lady in a mantilla, and the important\n\u201cBalcony.\u201d \u201cOlympia\u201d is a faded, decayed lady of the class which\npeople in Paris are accustomed to describe as \u201cthe old guard.\u201d The\nperson, whose hair is dressed for a _soir\u00e9e_, but who is entirely\nwithout clothing, lies outstretched on a bed, displaying her charms,\nwhich might convert Don Juan himself to the monastic rule of chastity.\nBy the couch stands a pretty negress, busied with her mistress. The\n\u201cBalcony\u201d shows two ladies with a gentleman friend, and a man-servant\nin the background. The two pictures display Manet\u2019s purpose and method.\nThere is nothing of impressionism and open air to be remarked in the\n\u201cOlympia.\u201d The scene is a closed room filled with diffused rays of\nchamber-light. The figures of the two women are accurately painted,\nindeed in a painfully and curiously dry style. In vain would one\nlook for the smartness and bold dashing on of colour that are now\nheld to be the characteristics of impressionism. It is all painfully\nand laboriously measured, without swing or freedom, without mastery\nover the model or the tone. The picture is revolutionary only in its\nstraightforwardness. When it appeared, the academic masters painted\nprettily. When they had to represent nudity, they painted a sort of\nconventional rose-coloured jelly, without bones or physiognomy, smooth,\nordinary, and superficially pleasing as a china doll, inartistic, and\nunspeakably tedious. In his \u201cOlympia,\u201d Manet rebelled against this\nprettiness in painting that so falsifies nature. He chose the most\nrepulsive model he could find, and reproduced it with literal exactness\nin all its repulsive truth. He showed that there is female flesh not\naltogether too old that is not composed of snow and rose leaves. He\ntaught his truth brutally and unwisely, with churlish violation of good\ntaste and gallantry, but with ardour and conviction. The \u201cBalcony\u201d\nalready announces the joyous tidings of open air. The two women are\nbathed in full daylight, which cruelly misuses their faces. Here, too,\nManet wears the blinkers that narrow his artistic horizon. He wishes to\noppose sunny brightness to the brown broth which was given out in the\nmasters\u2019 studios as the only colour whereby one could find salvation.\nHe therefore lavishes his light, which overcomes and disperses the\ndarkness; but he forgets that sunshine influences local colours; that\nit gives them various effects, according to their illuminative power;\nthat it envelops and blends them, however opposite they may be, in one\nsingle underlying harmony of silver or gold tone, and with no more\nmisgiving than a saucy child, he lays on the canvas the true colours of\nthings unaltered and unbalanced. I do not doubt that the grey-green of\nthe window-shutters and the arsenical green of the obliquely crossed\niron bars of the balcony are painted with the very trade colours which\nthe house-painters actually use for these objects. Of course, this\ntruth in detail produces the greatest artistic untruth in the whole,\nand the picture that was to be the Whitsun sermon of holy \u201cOpen Air,\u201d\nbecomes, through Manet\u2019s inadequacy, a speech for the prosecution of\nthe sun.\n\nClaude Monet, the classic of impressionism, is not to be reproached\nwith any incapacity. His execution never betrays him. He says what he\nwants to say to the last dot on the \u201ci,\u201d and if what he has said fails\nto satisfy, it is not because he lacked words, but solely because he\nhad no more to say. Monet is a tippler, a drunkard so far as light is\nconcerned. He cannot pass by any lively brilliant illumination without\nturning in for a painting-bout. Form, however, is to him a matter of\nindifference; it has no physiognomy for him, nor does it arouse in him\nany association of ideas. He neglects it absolutely. He does not draw\nor compose. In his pictures everything is without form, as in nature\nherself, unless we regard her with pre-existing thoughts of arrangement\nand meaning\u2014in short, under the optical and logical categories. But\nhe has not his peer in arresting the fugitive magic of sportive rays,\ntheir motes, their refractions on surfaces of every kind, on fixed\nbodies, liquids, and gases. His \u201cRailway Station,\u201d with its wide\nopening towards the railway line, the bluish clouds of smoke and steam\nfrom the puffing locomotive transfused with light, the shimmering\nvapour under the framework of the iron roof, is unsurpassable as a\nrendering of absolutely meaningless effects of light. Pictures of\nthis sort will become expressive only when the photography of natural\ncolours is so perfected as to admit of instantaneous copies. Equally\nremarkable as painting, and more valuable as higher art, is his\n\u201cInterior of a Room,\u201d with a shadowy boy and plants in the foreground,\nand a shining floor flooded with blue from daylight pouring in like\na cataract through the window in the background. More valuable\nartistically, because this interior of great elegance, this outline\nof a child, and this blue, fairy-tale tone of the flood of light, are\ncapable of awakening mood, _i.e._, will have an effect not only on the\nsenses but also on the soul; will stimulate not only the optic centres\nof perception, but also the higher centres of conception and judgment.\n\u201cBreakfast in the Open Air,\u201d and two landscapes and marine pieces, are\npainted after the same rule as the two panels I have described.\n\nGueuneutte\u2019s \u201cMorning Porridge\u201d draws its inspiration from Raffaelli,\nDegas\u2019s \u201cDancers and their Mothers\u201d from Manet. I put Degas, however,\nabove Manet, for he draws more lightly and smoothly than the latter,\nand when he has to depose to ugly reality under the witness\u2019s oath of\nhis naturalistic conscience, he does it, not in an angry and provoking\nway like Manet, but with the divine gift of humour.\n\nMonet\u2019s joy in light becomes with P. M. Renoir an affectation. He has\nnot the simple love of truth of his comrade. He falls into exaggeration\nwhich betrays conscious purpose and straining after originality. His\ntwo \u201cYoung Girls\u201d at a piano of the colour of cranberry syrup; his\nnude figure of a woman, on whose skin lights and shadows play so\nunfortunately that she looks as if beaten black and blue, in places\neven as if studded with the corpse-stains of putrescence in the second\ndegree; the \u201cGirl in the Swing,\u201d and particularly the \u201cBall at the\nMoulin de la Galette,\u201d seek rather to disconcert than to convince us\nby their unwonted tones. These pictures have historical importance\nas ancestors. From their jests of colour are descended the jokes of\nBesnard, from their rain of sunlight through shadowing foliage comes\nthe piebaldness of a Zorn and particularly of a Max Lieberman, who make\nan eruption of yellow and reddish spots fall on their bodies. Renoir\u2019s\n\u201cGirl Reading\u201d finally is a simple aberration. He who tolerates such\nstumps of hands in a picture that is not meant for a mere sketch is\neither without capacity or without conscience\u2014the one as bad as the\nother.\n\nPissarro is the triumph of seeing without thought. He seizes all the\nmarvels of transformation which the light of various periods of the\nyear and hours of the day accomplishes on objects over which it skims,\nwith the same certainty as Monet, but he imagines even less over it\nthan does the latter. With him the impressions which he feels from\nthe outer world do not generally pierce beyond the back of his eyes.\nHe is a remarkable instance of the sharpest sight with the retina in\nconjunction with absolute soul-blindness.\n\nThe panegyrists of impressionism assert that it was not well\nrepresented in the Caillebotte collection. That is a pretext of\nperplexed swaggerers who can now be nailed fast, and who should in\nshame and confusion crowd here, where it is easy to test their\nwild exaggerations. Impressionism has never produced confessed more\ncharacteristic works than those gathered in the Caillebotte room. It\nhas never been more straightforward than in Manet\u2019s \u201cOlympia\u201d and\nDegas\u2019s \u201cTheatre Mothers,\u201d never more bright than in Monet\u2019s \u201cBreakfast\nin the Open Air\u201d and Pissarro\u2019s landscape, never was it in a higher\ndegree lightening-sight and instantaneous painting than in Monet\u2019s\n\u201cRailway Station.\u201d Every verdict on impressionism based on this room\nis an adequately grounded verdict, against which the attempted higher\nappeal to I know not what unknown works must be rejected.\n\nThe painters who entered on the new movement are interesting as men,\nbecause they aimed at much, and at what was comparatively great. They\nare, from an artistic standpoint, uninteresting, because they achieved\nlittle. It is the old tragedy of the will, to which the strength\nplays traitor; of the mind, which subjectively and _in posse_ brings\nabout the highest, but objectively produces nothing, because it fails\nin realisation. The Manets and Monets, the Renoirs and Pissarros,\nwanted to create a new art by returning to the old truth. It gives\nthem a right to reckon themselves as belonging to the family of the\nillustrious heroes of the Renaissance, who emancipated themselves\nfrom the traditions of the Byzantine School, as the former did from\nthe sham-classic rule of a Couture, a Cabanel, or a Baudry. The man\naffected by a Cimabue and a Giotto will not be unmoved in the presence\nof Manet and Monet, especially of Monet, for he performed a creative\nact. He said: \u201cLet there be light,\u201d and \u201cthere was light\u201d in painting.\nThe miracle of Genesis is still being wrought to-day, and only in\nGustave Moreau and the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites has the Logos proved itself\npowerless.\n\nAfter paying them this tribute of recognition we will also take leave\nof them. They have pointed out paths, but they have not walked in\nthem. In place of intricate Chinese signs, they have invented a free,\nbrilliantly progressive alphabet, but in this script they had nothing\nto say. Their art is merely optical\u2014neither emotional nor ideal. They\nwere commonplace\u2014nay, to some extent\u2014unbeautiful souls. That is why,\ndespite their honest passion for truth, and despite their precious\nmedium of sunshine, they have not been able to produce genuine art-work.\n\nThey have meanwhile not lived in vain. Their influence has been\nfruitful. At first it indeed generally did harm. All bunglers flew to\nimitating them, and the impudent rabble of both worlds alleged they\nunderstood their teaching thus: \u201cDrawing is superstition, and the\nmore repulsive a hide looks, so much more beautiful and especially\nmore modern it is.\u201d But after this scum of the artistic rabble those\nwho had a vocation came over to the new movement, and showed what it\ncould achieve in consecrated hands. With the open air Roll became the\nmaster he is; impressionism brought a Brangwyn to maturity; truth\u2014the\nbeautiful truth, not the repulsive, vulgar truth\u2014found its triumphs\nin a Whistler and a Sargent. The weaknesses and mistakes of the\nforerunners have furnished despicable parasites with the transitory\nreputation, among the weak-minded, for genius, which will quickly\ndisappear before the recognition of their wretchedness. Their lofty\nviews, and, to some extent, the means of expression suggested by them,\nhave, however, equipped men of illustrious talent, who permanently\nenrich mankind\u2019s property in works of beauty.\n\n\n ALFRED SISLEY\n\nAlfred Sisley was one of the most renowned amongst that group\nof realists to which I alluded in my foregoing appreciation of\nthe Caillebotte room in the Luxembourg Museum. He, too, like his\ncompanions\u2014Manet and Monet, Pissarro and Renouard\u2014was a rebel against\ntraditions, and a preacher of new gospels. He also denied old idols\nwith fine disdain, and preached doctrines that seemed to him to embrace\nin themselves the whole truth. He managed, indeed, to collect a few\nconvinced disciples, but, on the other hand, hardly any congregation\nabout his altar or pulpit; and this was due simply to the sobriety and\nuncongeniality of his dogmas, which failed to satisfy the cravings for\n\u00e6sthetic devotion of the faithful.\n\nSisley was a landscape painter. He was purely this, to the exclusion of\nevery admixture. He never introduced a human figure, and, so far as I\nremember, only one of an animal, into his paintings. The only life that\nmoved and stirred in them was that of atmosphere: the play of lights,\nof their refractions, of their coloured dust, of their vanishing in\nshadows and darkness of various depths. Even the vegetable world,\nthough one of the most important elements in academical landscape\npainting, he treated slightingly. He had no respect for the attractive\nindividuality of a tree. It interested him at most as an object in\nhis field of view, which catches and diverts the beams of the sun in\na particular way. He saw nothing of the marvels of colour and form\nof the minute life, that is displayed in a piece of turf, a bush, or\nunderwood, and reveals to the thoughtful and experienced eye the whole\nnature-tragedy of the struggle for existence: the despairing striving\nin the various plants for air and light, or moisture and shade; the\nvictorious domination of one or several species; the meek supplication\nfor mercy of single scattered flowers or plants; the defeat and\nflight of families unable to maintain their position against superior\nantagonists; the intrusion of bold strangers demanding for themselves a\nplace among the old settlers; the confederacies of friendly groups that\nreside together and trust each other; the single combats of enemies\nseeking to throttle and uproot one another. He who has never gazed\ndeeply into nature perhaps regards all these pictures of combat and\ntriumph as mere phrases, corresponding to nothing real. The biologist\nof plants knows better, to be sure, and many a landscape painter too;\nso did the first English Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites especially. However unbearable\ntheir vagaries and perversions may be\u2014on these I will not enter\nnow\u2014this one thing must be said in their praise: they understand and\nlove plant-life. For them every grass and herb, to say nothing of those\nlords, the trees, has a physiognomy, a personal mystery, which they\nknow how to unriddle, and reveal, or, at any rate, indicate. Of all\nthis Sisley knows nothing. For him a grassy mead is a plain of colours\nwith gradations, starred with varied patches; always a mere study of\nlight and nothing else; never an expression of events of life.\n\nHere lies the limitation of his capacity. In my book, \u201cParadoxes,\u201d I\nhave tried to classify painters according to the rank of that segment\nof the central nerve-system, in which their talent is rooted. By\nthis method I arrived at a distinction between painters who feel\njoy only in colours and their harmonies, and others who, besides\ndelighting in colour, often even without this, have a developed sense\nof the proportion of things in space, therefore, of forms, reciprocal\ndistances, movements so far as these latter can be indicated by means\nof the painter\u2019s fixed process: those, in short, who know how to elicit\nfrom visible phenomena an invisible, emotional significance, and to\nrepresent them so that they express, in a natural way, psychical\nprocesses and feelings, without becoming falsified through the\nintentional introduction of arbitrary features foreign to them. Now,\nSisley is an instructive instance of those painters who are painters\nonly through their retina and lowest centres of perception, viz., their\nfeeling for colour, and the vivid sensation of enjoyment it affords\nthem.\n\nSisley has the most delicate sense for the lightest gradations and\ndepths of colour. If I may use an image from an adjacent intellectual\ndomain, he does optically what an ear would do acoustically which\nwas capable of feeling purely all the tones of a chromatic divided,\nperhaps, into sixty-fourths. This faculty gives him his rank as an\nartist, but it was also the torturing demon of his life; for he wanted\nto reproduce with equal clearness what he saw so distinctly. That is,\nhowever, impossible by the medium of oil-painting. Let it never be\nforgotten that the colours an artist uses are very different from\nthe natural appearances which they wish to recall. All painting is\na translation that falls short of the original text, and even the\nmost refined palette only permits a vulgar groping after the subtle\nplay of colour in the reality. It is sheer convention, to which our\neyes are artificially trained, that we recognise in definite play of\ncolours, human flesh, an evening sky, foliage, or mirroring water. In\nall cases we have, at most, approximations before us, and even a man\u2019s\ncountenance by Franz Hals reproduces the true coloration of the skin\non a human face, as little as perhaps the well-known _scherzo_ in the\nsecond movement of the Pastoral reproduces the true note of the golden\noriole. Sisley, overlooked, like the majority indeed of impressionists,\nand like many very juvenile stipplers and black and white artists,\nthis technical main condition\u2014if you like, this main defect\u2014of all\npainting with media as at present known; and he obstinately insisted on\novercoming a difficulty that is, as a matter of fact, insuperable. The\nwhole labour of his life is a struggle with the resistance of matter,\nintensely pathetic, but, nevertheless, finally only irritating, because\nits utter hopelessness is admitted. He tries to square the circle,\nwhich, as may be proved to him, is not feasible, and he aimlessly\ndissipates his energies in this futile effort. He is bent on arresting\nthe most fugitive vanishing, the gentlest swaying of a ray of light,\nand, as it were, the fourth decimal place of a fraction of colour, and\non fixing it on the canvas. And as he cannot conjure forth this feat\nfrom his colour-tubes, in spite of the most learned and complicated\nmixing, he tries to reach his goal by newly invented tricks of the\nbrush. Thus he gets to dotting and spotting. Innumerable minute touches\nwith the brush are to leave behind a chaos of colour-dots, from which\nthe eye may come to discern, or, at any rate, get an inkling of, the\nplay of colour in the actual object. This method is extremely laborious\nand risky. It postulates great patience and ability to emphasise in\nthe minute work the firm lines of the drawing. For if one loses sight\nof these lines, or cannot make them ring out clearly from the colour\ngamut disseminated equally over the whole canvas, the picture dissolves\ninto a shapeless daub. Sisley himself is often wrecked on this rock. By\nhis method, however, in a few happy moments, he obtains, to be sure,\neffects which would scarcely be deemed possible. Then we may enjoy in\nhis pictures a real dance of sun-motes in transfulgent air.\n\nA single picture of Sisley\u2019s even the connoisseur easily passes by.\nIt is insignificant. Even a whole row of pictures which represent\ndifferent themes will hardly make a great impression. At most, certain\ndelicacies of tone, a certain far-sighted clearness of atmosphere,\nmake an impression. If, on the other hand, you see near one another\npanels which depict the same subjects at different hours of the day or\nseasons of the year, under different lights and conditions of weather,\nyou grasp in astonishment the meaning of this artist. The subject is\nthe same, but so altered as to be hardly recognisable. People marvel\nat the power with which Sisley can arrest strangely changing aspects,\nand gain some faint idea of the difficulty which the exposition of\nobservations calls for, observations which are generally out of reach\nof any but the most acute feeling and the most painful attention.\nSisley has openly admitted that his skill is unintelligible without\nthe key afforded by comparison. That was why he exhibited, as a rule,\nat least two\u2014usually many more\u2014treatments of the same subject. Thus in\nthe _Salon_ in the Champs de Mars in 1898, he showed a beach, \u201cLady\u2019s\nCove,\u201d in two lights; and, in 1896, Moret Church, in transparent pale\nlilac just before sunset, and also in softly-veiled slate-grey in rainy\nweather. I remember a row of studies of the same village church, which\nran through all the divisions of the spectrum, one after another,\nand, on each succeeding panel, was a revelation the more dazzling in\nproportion as one already knew its form in all its details. Sisley has\nhardly ever had his equal in transposing a piece into different keys.\n\nAdmiration for the almost morbidly exaggerated sensitiveness to the\nslightest differences in tones of colour, and sympathetic feeling for\nthe artist\u2019s despair at the inadequacy of a technique, gross, after\nall, as the medium of the most delicate intentions\u2014these are the\nimpressions which one feels at even the most friendly consideration\nof Sisley\u2019s most successful works. Dreaming and longing, reminiscence\nand presentiment, on the other hand, they never inspire, for they are\nabsolutely lacking in all psychic, emotional, and imaginative sense.\n\nFrom the example of Sisley, we recognise the accuracy of the maxim\nwhich, when put nakedly, sounds almost provokingly paradoxical, and\nyet is literally correct, viz., that landscape painting, or, at any\nrate, a certain kind of landscape painting, is the most literary of\nall species of plastic art, the one from which the least is received,\nand into which the most is put. Landscape painting seems to reproduce\nnature herself, and therefore necessarily to be as objective as a land\nsurveyor\u2019s plan, or even as a photograph. It is, as a matter of fact,\nincomparably more subjective than portrait, historical, or _genre_\npainting, for there is throughout, not nature over again, but the\nfeatures of nature which have excited the attention of the painter,\nand aroused in him a mood. It therefore discloses to us, more than\nany other kind of painting, the soul of the painter, the peculiarity\nof his mode of feeling, the bent of his dreams, and the object of\nhis longing. If every work of art is a confession on the part of the\nartist, landscape painting is a particularly complete and honest\nacknowledgment. It is a portrait of the artist, which he himself has\npainted, transcribing all the wrinkles of his soul.\n\nNature in herself is absolutely expressionless. The feeling of the\nperson who contemplates her first adds expression, just as his senses\ntranslate the movements of the atmosphere and matter, which are, in\nthemselves, devoid of colour and sound to the perceptible values\nof colours and tones. The contemplation of nature awakens in us\nassociations of ideas, and these we project into nature. Therefore we\nfind, again, in this latter the whole range of emotion and thought of\nour consciousness, and nature, therefore, influences every one who\ncontemplates her correspondingly to his education and mental habits.\n\nLandscape painting is, then, also a continuous illustration of the\nliterature of its time. It is anti-classical in the Renaissance and\nLate Renaissance up to Poussin; Ossianic and Rousseauesque in the\neighteenth century, and, in Corot, is Lamartinish. It would, of course,\nbe going too far to point out here what the relations are between\neach individual great landscape painter and the writings of his\ncontemporaries; and how certain notable exceptions from the rule of\nparallelism between landscape painting and the fashion of the day in\nliterature\u2014Salvator Rosa, Ruysdael, and Turner (just to mention only\nthree)\u2014are to be explained. It is, meanwhile, not to be disputed that\nthe landscape painter approaches nature with a soul filled with the\nliterary spirit of his time, and puts into her what he has retained\nfrom his reading. A painting, then, awakens also in the mind of the\nspectator an echo of all the poetic melodies that have enthralled him,\nand it is the soft echo of these thousands of poetic voices in our\nsoul, to which we listen when we enjoy a landscape painting.\n\nWe listen, however, in vain before a picture of Sisley\u2019s; all is still\nin our soul. This is because the painter has regarded nature from a\nwholly unliterary standpoint. She awakens in him no associations of\nideas, therefore his pictures awaken none in us. He has seen the play\nof colour, found his delight in it, and has taken no further thought,\nbut has merely striven to reproduce it accurately. We follow his\nefforts with curiosity, and approve the results if they are successful.\nBut in this appraisement, humour and imaginative power have no part.\n\nIs such landscape painting art, or a clever trick? The question is\nworth careful consideration.\n\n\n CAMILLE PISSARRO\n\nOne of the most interesting artists in our times was this Pissarro,\nborn at St Thomas in the Danish Antilles, though of a Dutch Jewish\nfamily of Spanish extraction settled in Cura\u00e7oa, who died in Paris in\n1903 at the age of seventy-three. He was a born painter, of the class\nwhose sense of form hardly exceeds the average, whose remarkably fine\nperception of colour, however, reacting very strongly on every optical\nirritation, makes the excitement of the retina the source for them of\nprofound feelings of pleasure or the contrary, and fixes their idea and\nthought, to a certain extent polarises it according to colour.\n\nIt is sufficient to say few words as to his outer life. Impelled\nby his bent for painting, he came to Paris at the age of twenty,\nand had the good fortune to be taken as a pupil by old Corot. He\nsaw Th. Rousseau and Millet working with his master, and he lived\nduring the most susceptible years of youth amongst such originals,\nin the most glorious Barbizon period. His natural tendency directed\nhim imperiously to landscape painting. This, then, is the substance\nof his whole life as an artist. Incited by Millet\u2019s example, in his\nyoung days he put peasants in his fields and meadows, but they were\nalways mere accessories in the landscape, and arrested the eye less\nthan the ground and plants. He had then also sufficient knowledge of\nhimself to abandon, at an early stage, human figures, for he realised\nthat there was more life in the tiniest sod of his turf than in his\nconscientious but insignificant villagers. In the high school, in\nwhich it was his privilege to learn, he acquired that certainty and\nforce which distinguished him up to his old age. When, however, he had\nmastered Corot\u2019s brilliant technique and Rousseau\u2019s draughtsmanship\nand composition, he ceased to be an imitative disciple, and with full\ndeliberation, went his own ways, which for a time lay far from Corot\u2019s\ngoal, but at last, by a wonderfully circuitous route, brought him back\nto it once more. Not long did he try modestly and laudably, with a good\nyoung man\u2019s carefully moderated works, in the _Salon_ for certificates\nof industry and good marks from the academical masters. At once he\njoined the hot-headed set; he exhibited, from 1864 onwards, only in the\n\u201cSalon of the Rejected\u201d and with the \u201cIndependents,\u201d and became one of\nthe most prominent men in the group of impressionists.\n\nNothing is funnier than to read the explanation of the terms\n\u201cImpressionists\u201d and \u201cImpressionism\u201d of certain art-gossipers among\nthe critics in Germany. These transcendental phrasegrinders, who have\nno notion how the word arose, believe it was invented by painters or\n\u00e6sthetics with the set purpose of characterising an artistic tendency,\nand of indicating elliptically a method of execution; and, with the\nrapturous, prophet-mien common among this brotherhood, they treat us\nto the deepest and most breath-ravishing explanations of the word. The\ntruth is that the expression owes its origin to the jest of a comic\npaper that intended nothing special by it, least of all an \u00e6sthetic\ntheory. In 1874 the painters who for ten years had been known as the\n\u201cOpen Air\u201d artists or \u201cRealists\u201d exhibited a number of their works\nin the reception-room of the writer and photographer, Nadar. Claude\nMonet appeared, amongst others, with a sunset, which was quite in the\nmanner of Turner\u2019s last years, and he entitled it \u201cImpression.\u201d It was\na remarkable and characteristic work, without form, consisting only of\nstreaks of red and orange, in the highest degree offensive to those who\nwill not have the contemplation of nature restricted to the observation\nof colours, but look also for outline and modelling. A wanton scoffer,\nmaking merry in the \u201cCharivari\u201d over this exhibition, seized on Monet\u2019s\n\u201cImpression\u201d as the pattern of the new style, sneered at it in the\ntone of a genuine back-biter, and, with the object of belittling them,\ncalled Monet\u2019s fellow-combatants \u201cImpressionists,\u201d by which he meant\nonly that, according to his view, their pictures were daubs, just like\nClaude Monet\u2019s \u201cImpression.\u201d That is the simple origin of the word\ninto which the German commentators have read something exceedingly\nmysterious and wonderful.\n\nPissarro belonged to Monet\u2019s circle of friends, and fell under the\ndesignation, which rapidly became current, of \u201cImpressionist.\u201d In his\ncase, it only means that he sought and found in nature only effects of\nlight, only the play of sunbeams on things and around things.\n\nIn the three or four centuries that landscape painting has been raised\nto the rank of a branch of art\u2014I leave out of consideration, in this\nplace, the ancient landscape, because the modern development is\nunconnected with it\u2014an enquiry, which enters into the motives and aims\nof painters, can distinguish three different kinds of landscape, which\nI would term respectively the literary, the lyric, and the optical.\nI do not choose these new designations for old and well-known things\narbitrarily, but because, in my opinion, they mark what is essential\nbetter than do the prescriptive ones.\n\nLiterary landscape, on which I have already briefly expressed my\nviews in treating of Sisley, is that which traditionally goes under\nthe names of historical, heroic, ideal, or artificial landscape. It\nis not prompted by delight in nature, but is either the offspring of\nimaginative power or a piece of intellectual know-all work, in both\ncases, the result of reading. It is, to put it briefly, a continuous\nillustration of the literature in vogue. Since the Renaissance, ancient\nheroic materials have been specially favoured in poetry. The Spanish\ntheatre, Corneille, and Racine lived on them. Even if they placed the\nlofty exploits of their heroes in a less remote past and on another\nstage than the ancient world, still, they endowed them with hundreds\nof reminiscences of the Gr\u00e6co-Roman mythology and history. Poussin,\nand even Claude Lorrain, conceived their landscapes as the frames of\nheroic romances and dramas. They were designed as stage decoration,\nwhich the spectator might people from his memory with figures in Roman\nmail-armour or Gothic plate-armour, familiar to him from contemporary\npoetry. In order to facilitate this play of fancy, ancient temples\nor ruins, perhaps even men in classical garb, helpfully stimulate\nthe association of ideas. J. J. Rousseau substituted the sentimental\nfor the heroic fashion; but the return to nature, which he and his\ninnumerable imitators preached, did not to landscape painters at\nall mean the sinking into the contemplation of God\u2019s actual world,\nbut only the substitution for the heroes and knights, the upright\nor fallen marble pillars of their predecessors, of shepherds and\nshepherdesses, rustic cottages and herdsmen\u2019s fires. Thus landscape\npainting illustrated in turn Orlando Furioso, Jerusalem Delivered,\nthe \u00c6neid, the tragedies of Corneille and Racine, Rousseau, Gessner,\nand Ossian; then, nearer to our time, Victor Hugo and the Romantics,\nZola and the Naturalists, down to the latest symbolists and mystics,\nwhose contemplation, so far as one can speak of such a thing in their\ngassy heads, greets us from the pictures of Burne-Jones and his\ncontinental imitators, and also from the landscape compositions of\nPuvis de Chavannes and Henri Martin. It may be safely affirmed that,\nof the pictures of literary landscape, not a single one would have\nbeen painted unless a book or some species of literature had, to some\nextent, commissioned them with an exact specification of all details.\n\nLyrical landscape is that which is perhaps also designated landscape\nof mood. It is more consistent with nature than literary landscape. It\nowes much less to reminiscence of books or plays; its only relation\nto literature is that through this the painter is schooled to be more\nsusceptible of certain features of nature. Landscape pictures of this\nspecies could be painted under some circumstances by artists who had\nnever read a book or heard a poem, if only their own disposition\nwere attuned to poetry. For this painting the landscape itself is\na poem\u2014ballad, romance, or idyll, in many cases, perhaps, even a\nmelodrama. It tells some tale, or hints at one, the more delicately\nso much the more expressively. The wrinkles of the ground, the\nirregularity and abruptness of the lines of mountains, the gloom of the\nwoods, awaken presentiments; our yearning follows the paths which are\nlost in the blue distance, or behind hills and bends; coolness rises\nfrom the foaming rivulet; mystery broods over the motionless fish-pond.\nEverything unspoken, or partly unspeakable, which a keenly perceptive\nman of deep contemplation imports into nature, moves and reigns in and\nover the lyric landscape painting. It expresses a complex, subjective\nmood, embracing in itself many elements of sense, feeling, and\nthought\u2014the joy of spring, the melancholy of autumn, the cheerlessness\nof winter, the shudder at the weird, the dread of eternity. It is\nviewed anthropomorphically. It owes its strongest effects to traits\nwhich do not exist in nature herself, but are added to her by human\nimagination. Japanese art knows only lyric landscape. In Europe it was\nfirst developed by the great Dutchmen, Ruysdael and Van Ostade, to\nattain in Corot its zenith unsurpassed up to the present time. As it\nlays expression into its forms, it must figure the latter distinctly.\nIt draws and composes, therefore, with deliberation. It proceeds from\nthe realistically rendered topographical anecdote, even if it achieves\nthis by the transcendental.\n\nOptical landscape, finally, is that which seeks to reproduce only\nthe play of convergent or divergent, of reflected or broken light\nin nature. It is neither book-illustration nor views of places. It\ndoes not invite to the enjoyment of nature in the sense of the Sunday\nexcursionist from big towns, or the summer tripper. It offers no scene\nwith suggestion that we should live out our subjective moods there.\nThe outlines, the plastic of the bodies, are a matter of indifference\nto it. Everything is merely a patch of colour to it; only an arena\nof dancing sunbeams. It wants to reproduce, as truly and fully as\npossible, the change and merging of lights and shades, the reciprocal\ninfluence of neighbouring and overlapping colours, the _crescendo_ of\nhues in the foreground and their fading away in the perspective. It\nsystematically rates the intellectual and moral relations as foreign to\nits art. It is not enthusiastic for a particular season of the year or\na certain architecture of cliffs and mountains. It knows nothing of the\nsecret magic of water, heath, forest, or snow-plain. It gives light in\nscales, and in harmonised and dissonant chords, and will give nothing\nelse. This landscape painting is an art of purely sensual preception,\nwhich may call pre-existent feelings and thoughts over the threshold of\nconsciousness, but brings about no feelings and thoughts of itself. It\nis to be compared with the effect of the \u00c6olian harp, which stimulates\nour hearing with melodious sound, but says nothing thematically\ndifferentiated to it. Debussy, latterly, consciously strives back to\nthese origins of acoustic pleasure. The disciples of Turner in England\nand on the Continent enter in landscape on the same way back to a style\nof painting which, neglecting form, lays stress on the harmonies of\nlight and colour.\n\nIn practice, besides the three sharply outlined species of landscape\npainting, manifold transitions and mixed forms are, of course, also\nobservable. If, perhaps, G. Poussin represents literary, Corot lyric,\nTurner, at the time the formation of his cataract began, optical\nlandscape, in its theoretical purity, we see in Claude Lorrain a\nrevelling in light and a poetic mood penetrate the mytho-heroic\nliterary painting which he owes to his artistic training, and from\nwhich, in spite of higher flights, he could never entirely free\nhimself; and Segantini is a good example of an originally lyrical\nlandscape that is always more strongly inclining to the optical;\nfor if at the beginning he loved to copy high mountains, at last he\nbusied himself only with fixing the wonder of light in thin air on the\nmirroring ice and glacier snow.\n\nCamille Pissarro was mainly, in separate periods of his artistic\ndevelopment exclusively, an optical landscape painter. The attunement\nwith nature which is afforded by the meeting of mountain and wood,\nwater and reed, by the forms of trees and cliffs, the peculiarities of\nplant-life, and the movements of open country, he evidently did not\nfeel and he cannot arouse. He was nothing, and he wanted to be nothing,\nbut a priest and poet of light. When light fell, what objects it\nillumined and played on was a matter of such indifference to him that\nthis landscape painter painted city scenes just as often as those of\nopen country. Views of the Paris Boulevards, the Avenue de l\u2019Op\u00e9ra, the\nSeine seen from the bridges, the streets and squares of Rouen, occupy\nquite as large a space in his work as studies of the valley of the\nMarne and the hills of Southern England. Thanks to the good school from\nwhich he came, he never, like so many of his rivals, melts away into\nformlessness. He could not refrain from drawing distinctly. It was the\nmovement of his bold and skilful hand that pervaded his will; but the\nsole hero of his pictures, to whom he gave his love and attention, was\nlight.\n\nAfter he had outgrown the formul\u00e6 of the Corot type of landscape, he\nsought with persistent, hot endeavour to find a method that would\nqualify him to draw into his picture as much light as possible, as\nintense light as possible, even the whole sun. What he himself found\nfailed to satisfy him. When Seurat, who suffered undoubtedly from\neye troubles, came forward with his stippling, Pissarro at once took\npossession of the new manner, and became a stippler even unconsciously.\nSeurat, it is well known, taught that the painter, if he would give\ntruth and force to colour, must not mix the shade on his palette and\ntransfer it ready-made to the canvas, but must dissect it into its\nprimary colours, which are known from the spectrum, and insert them\nin little dabs by one another, so as to leave it to the eye to put\nthem together again on the retina. This optical proceeding professes\nto have been learnt by listening to nature, which also offers us only\nas single colours what we feel as a synthesis of colour. The theory\nis sheer nonsense. Nothing of the sort happens in nature. When we\nsee green grass we do not see yellow and blue grass which our eye\nmixes into green, but we see a body proceed from the \u00e6ther-vibrations\nof the undulations, which call forth on the retina a sensation of\ngreen; and to imitate this influence of the grass we have to employ\nonly one colour stuff from which atmospheric vibrations of similar\nundulations proceed. Unscientific painters were, however, impressed by\nthe sham-scientific jabber of Seurat, who tried, in his wonted manner,\nthrough a subsequently discovered theory, to convert a defect of sight\ninto an advantage; and they applied themselves the more zealously to\nstippling as the innumerable specks really made bright a twinkling,\nwhirling impression, which superficially reminded one of the vibration\nof hot air on a sunny plain at midsummer noon.\n\nOnly superficially. Pissarro soon discovered that stippling really\ndid not bring more light into his pictures, and he gave it up. He\nresigned the Seurat method to rivals who rush after eccentricity\nbecause they hope to astonish by it, and to whom a style of painting\nwas particularly suitable, which blurred the line with colour and\nsaved them that tedious drawing that always gave them the greatest\naffliction. He himself, however, returned again to the honest style of\nwielding the brush, which he had learnt of his great masters.\n\nThe stippling episode of his life, which he got over, throws light,\nhowever, on the painful, fundamental mistake of Pissarro and his\ncompanions. They wanted to paint light, and by that wanted something\nimpossible, for light is not to be represented by colours which do not\nthemselves emit light, and are neither phosphorescent nor fluorescent.\nAll that is attainable by colour is awakening the reminiscence of\nlight, and, by means of the memory-picture illuminating the brain,\nto cheat our consciousness with the idea of a directly received\nimpression. The very great masters of optical landscape painting soon\nacknowledge, or feel, that the brush can indeed conjure forth the\nillusion of illumination, but is unable to paint light, and they turn\nfrom a hopeless Sisyphus-task to create pictures of mist and dusk,\nfrom which sunlight\u2014a thing inimitable\u2014is absolutely banished. The\nmost instructive example of this is James Whistler; but he who does\nnot possess the instinctive certainty of genius will not be conscious\nof the limitations of human capacity, and ever rolls the round stone\nunweariedly up the mountain.\n\nPissarro would have saved himself many hours of tragic quest, struggle,\nand sense of powerlessness, had he known or recognised the primary fact\nwhich Friedrich Hebbel seized in his theological but lucid epigram:\n\n \u201cHe who the sun has created will ever remain quite another\n Than the industrious wight who for us prospects shall paint.\u201d\n\n\n WHISTLER\u2019S PSYCHOLOGY\n\n\u201cDo you think, prince, that Raphael would not have been the greatest\ngenius among painters if he had been unlucky enough to be born without\nhands?\u201d Lessing makes the painter Conti say to Prince Gonzaga. A\ncentury and a half ago that seemed paradoxical, and was, probably on\nthat account, one of the most quoted maxims of Lessing\u2019s. It has,\nmeanwhile, experienced the fate of many paradoxes, viz., become a\ncommonplace. Nowadays, every dabbler in psychology knows that not\narm and hand\u2014_i.e._, execution\u2014make the painter, but his optical\nbrain centres, _i.e._, his sensitiveness to impressions of sight, his\nspecific reactions on colour and form. One is a born painter\u2014a painter\nfrom organic necessity and natural bent preceding all education\u2014only by\nspecial development or susceptibility of this centre.\n\nIn painting, however, there are two elements to be kept\ndistinct\u2014drawing and colour. Both these are traceable to the centres of\nsight, but they correspond to different sensibilities. Optical centres,\nwhich perceive with particular keenness and delicacy the distinctions\nbetween intensities of light, are the real, organic hypothesis of the\ntalent for drawing; for what we perceive with the eye, without the\naid of the senses of touch and muscle, as outline or form, is purely\ndistinction of intensity in light. Optical centres, on the other hand,\nwhich are particularly sensitive to the variations of undulations\nof light, form the basis of the sense of colour and the talent for\ncolouring. As a rule the talents for drawing and colouring appear\ncoupled, even if one or the other preponderates, for highly developed\nor particularly sensitive optical centres are naturally receptive\nbeyond the average of optical impression of every sort, of differences\nboth of intensity and of undulations of light. This is, however, not\nalways the case, and there are dry, sharp draughtsmen without sense of\ncolour, and some who revel in colour without the ability to grasp the\nidea of form and render it plastically.\n\nIn a brain that is characterised by a special morphological or\nfunctional development or sensitiveness of the optical centres, this\ndominates all functions of the brain, especially memory and association\nof ideas. The entire thinking faculty has an optical or visual\ncharacter; it stands in a dependent relation to sight. Memory clings\nalmost exclusively to reminiscent pictures of the sense of sight, and\nassociation of ideas connects mainly pictures of this category. Every\nperception of form calls up in the consciousness representations of\nform. The fancy is \u201cinwardly completely full of figures,\u201d as Albert\nD\u00fcrer quaintly and with wonderful intuition expresses it in his\n\u201cDiaries.\u201d The world-picture of this brain, always disposed to intense\nobservation, is neither loud nor excited, but bright, flashing, and\nradiant like a mosaic work of precious stones and enamel. All the inner\nconnections between the different domains of the brain are sharpened\ntowards the optic centres, and all the activities of the brain, all\nemotions, all processes on the threshold of consciousness also release\ncentral optical excitements.\n\nWhistler\u2019s life-work reveals more than that of any other artist\nin our times the deep, organic primitiveness of his genius as a\npainter. We can observe in him, as in a school text, the psychology\nof the born painter. His signature is at once a fine example of the\nassociation of ideas on the part of a visionary. It consists, as\neverybody knows who has seen Whistler\u2019s works, of a butterfly with\nevenly outstretched wings. People have insisted on seeing heaven\nknows what symbol in this, and have consequently sought the wildest\nand remotest explanations of it. If any one asked the master for an\nexplanation, he laughed, and made a mysterious gesture of refusal. It\ngave him vast entertainment to see his admirers tormenting themselves\nwith profound attempts at interpreting it. They just had no eyes;\nthey could not see. The butterfly is nothing but the first letter of\nWhistler\u2019s name\u2014a big W. A Gothic, ornamental W with the two side\nlines bellied out and a bar in the middle reminds one strikingly of a\nsoaring butterfly with its cylindrical body between its outstretched\nwings. The definite association of ideas from similarity of form made\nWhistler, as he painted the W of his signature, think of a butterfly,\nand he henceforward formed this picture that was fuller in expression,\ndisregarding the original letter, which seemed to him balder and more\nmeaningless. The butterfly came to the front more and more as the W\nwent further and further back, and it is possible that at last Whistler\nhimself forgot the point from which he started.\n\nWhistler was, when he liked, in the front rank as a designer of\nforms. From the severe, painfully upright school of Gleyre he went\nforth a master of drawing, as of the outline of corporeality of three\ndimensions seen stereoscopically. One glance at his wonderfully plastic\nportraits, especially of his first period, teaches this irrefutably;\nbut, on the whole, as his individuality made itself felt, he neglected\nform and became more engrossed in colour. In the second half of his\nlife the outlines of subjects hardly any longer interested him at\nall; he only dwelt on their appearances in colour, on the harmony\nor discord of their tones. That means that his optical centres were\nmuch more sensitive to the differences of undulations than to those\nof the intensity of light. From this there necessarily resulted a\ncontradiction between him and the average individuals which was not\nto be got over, since it originated in differences in the constitution\nof the brain. He who has not Whistler\u2019s special hyper-sensitiveness\nto colour is simply unable to see things as the latter saw them. He\ncan just as little imagine the impressions that Whistler feels through\nhis sense of sight as perhaps those which are supplied to a hound by\nhis nose. When the blissfully but painfully supersensitive appreciator\nof colour and the dull seer of outline, _i.e._, the perceiver of\nlight, sought to explain themselves to each other, inexplicable\nmisunderstandings were bound to arise, which make his celebrated\nlaw-suit with Ruskin an excruciatingly comic jest. Ruskin appreciated\nonly draughtsmanship, his mind never went beyond contour. For him\na picture was a writing that should express thoughts and feelings\nin the most concrete form. He demanded that it should be a definite\ncommunication, reducible to plain words, as of a narrative, a record\nof travel, or a treatise on natural science. A picture that differed\nfrom an exact representation, just as music differs from articulate\nspeech\u2014a picture that attempted to convey only a general, not a\nconcrete stimulation of the sight-centre sensitive to colour, and the\npleasurable feeling accompanying and emphasising it, not only was to\nhim necessarily incomprehensible, but, as he was a dogmatist of strong\nfeelings, seemed to him an impertinence\u2014nay, a profligacy and personal\ninsult. Ruskin\u2019s criticism of a \u201cNocturne in Black and Gold\u201d was a new\nversion of the fable of the stork and the fox who invited each other\nin turn to dinner, improved to the point of libel. It was childish of\nWhistler to bring an action against the angry-minded art-inquisitor who\nrequired, as the first duty of a painter, the accuracy of a geologist,\nbotanist, or engineer. He should not have expected justice from judges\nwho saw and felt, not like himself, but like Ruskin. Judge Huddleston\nwas of good faith when, in the immortal trial\u2014which Whistler himself\nhas preserved for posterity in his charming book, \u201cThe Gentle Art\nof Making Enemies\u201d\u2014he exchanged with the artist remarks like these:\n\u201cWhich part of the picture, then, really represents the bridge? Do\nyou mean to say that this is the proper representation of a bridge?\u201d\n(The question referred to \u201cBattersea Bridge by Moonlight.\u201d) \u201cI had no\nintention of giving an exact copy of the bridge.\u201d \u201cDo these daubs of\ncolour on it represent human beings?\u201d \u201cThey represent what you please.\u201d\n\u201cIs that thing under there a boat?\u201d \u201cIt is a consolation to me that you\nrecognise it. My whole object was only to produce a definite harmony\nof colours.\u201d He could hear this harmony of colours: Ruskin and Judge\nHuddleston could not. It was utterly futile to try to make them feel it.\n\nHis peculiarity of giving his pictures fine and pretentious names,\nsuch as \u201cBlack and Gold,\u201d \u201cBlue and Silver,\u201d \u201cIvory and Gold,\u201d \u201cPurple\nand Gold\u201d is also generally misunderstood. People read \u201cSilver and\nBlue,\u201d and saw indistinctly intricate brush-strokes of blue with\nelevations in dead white, representing, by way of indication, the high\nseas by night and in a mist. People hurried to the picture labelled\n\u201cIvory and Gold,\u201d expecting to gaze at something like an ancient\nchryselephantine marvel, or a Florentine masterpiece of splendour\nbelonging to the days of the Medici, and what did they find? The\nlightly executed sketch of a woman in a yellow and white harmony, in\nwhich one looked in vain for the costly materials promised by the\ntitle. Not Philistines alone have shaken their heads over this, and\nevil-disposed critics have talked of hoaxing, foppery, and American\nbluff. They have wronged the artist bitterly. He was absolutely honest;\nhis optical hyper-sensitiveness felt the colour with so heightened an\nappreciation of tone that he really saw gold, silver, and purple, where\na less susceptible sense could only see dull yellow, deadened white,\nundecided reddish-brown. In all probability, it was long before he\nrealised that others failed to observe, in the appearance of the actual\nthings and his pictures of them, the rare metals and precious stones,\nthe pearls and ivory, which gleamed from them to him. The common\nphrase, which is a precipitate of the universal thought and feeling,\nspeaks of sun-gold and moon-silver. Sun and moon consequently make\nsuch a strong optical impression on even the average man that he thinks\nof gold and silver with the accompanying higher notes of ideas of\nsplendour and magnificence. In Whistler\u2019s consciousness, however, these\nideas began to be felt with gentle excitations, as whitish foam on dark\nwaves in the night, or a woman\u2019s pale complexion in cream-coloured\nraiment yielded them. These delicate charms affected his sensitiveness\njust as the force of the sun or moon affects others. In maniacal\nexcitation, of which the acutest form is madness, the brain of the\nsick person becomes so supersensitive that it reacts on the ordinary\nimpressions of the senses just as on intolerably violent irritations.\nMoreover, certain poisons, of which hashish is the best known, derange\nthe central nervous system into a condition of supersensitiveness,\nin which the person poisoned feels himself inundated with floods of\nlight, and sees a blinding brightness everywhere. The sensitiveness to\nwhich only illness or poison raises the average brain, was from nature\nthe peculiarity of Whistler\u2019s sight-centres. He was conscious that\nin certain respects he had more than others, and he felt as superior\nto them as the Indian hunter does to a pale face of the towns on a\ngame-beast\u2019s track, which the latter does not notice at all, whilst\nit gives the former a thousand clear indications. As an artist he\nwas amiably modest, as a man amusingly arrogant. He did not flatter\nhimself on his work, but on his finer organisation, _i.e._, that he was\nkneaded out of better dough than the majority.\n\nHis supersensitiveness is expressed not only in his revel of colour;\nit is also curiously and graphically revealed in the impressions\nwhich he feels of the appearance of women, and which he conveys in\nhis best portraits of women with an intensity no longer restrained\nwithin physiological bounds, but positively touching on the morbid.\nThe intensity with which he feels young, high-bred, nervous women has\nquite an uncanny effect on me. I think of his \u201cLady Meux,\u201d and other\ncapricious femininities, which were exhibited, in the last fifteen\nyears, in the Paris _salons_ and in London. He plants his model before\nus in some wonderful position. One stands with its back towards us,\nbut turns its head, as if in a sudden caprice, to us. Another shows\nus its full face, and looks fascinatingly at us with pinched mouth\nand impenetrable eyes that think troublous thoughts. These perverted,\nwhimsical beauties wear remarkable and personal toilettes which, except\nthe face and often the hands, reveal not a finger\u2019s breadth of skin,\nyet, in spite of the interposition of silk and lace, cry out for the\nfig leaf. They are bundles of sick nerves that, from the crowns of\ntheir heads to the tips of their fingers, seem to thrill with Sadic\nexcitement. It is as though they wanted to entice men to wild attempts,\nand at the same time held their claws ready to tear, with a loud cry\nof pleasure, the flesh of the daring ones. Everything madly M\u00e6nadic,\nor inexorably Sphinx-like, that Ibsen was incapable of incarnating\nconvincingly in his Hedda Gabler speaks distinctly from Whistler\u2019s\nfemale portraits.\n\nThey have become typical\u2014typical for copying painters who exaggerate\nhis neurotic women into the pornographic; typical for hysterical women,\nto whom they suggest poses and psychological states. F\u00e9licien Rops\nperhaps owes him nothing, although often enough his female demons seem\nWhistler-portraits divested of clothing; he has, from analogous organic\nhypotheses, independently attained to analogous conceptions of woman;\nbut Zorn\u2019s, Boldini\u2019s, Alexander\u2019s women point to Whistler\u2019s demoniacs.\nThe woman of a given epoch likes to form herself on the ideal which\nthe art and poetry of the time give of the \u201cinteresting\u201d woman. Thus\nWhistler, by means of his female portraits, became an educator of\nthe \u00e6sthetically superfine woman of the present day; but Whistler,\nas an educator of woman, is to me incomparably less sympathetic than\nWhistler, the delicate appreciator and symphonist of colour.\n\n\n\n\n VIII\n\n GUSTAVE MOREAU\n\n\nThe house in which Gustave Moreau spent the seventy-seven years of his\nlife (1826-98) has been turned into a museum which contains nearly all\nhis life\u2019s work, according to the catalogue 1132 items, from the copies\nand sketches of his youth, through the great finished paintings, down\nto the promising sketches, unfulfilled promises, of his old age. This\ncollection falls little short of being complete. Perhaps, with the\nsole exception of the incomparably less interesting Wierz, there is no\ncontemporary artist less often met with in public and private galleries\nthan Gustave Moreau. He never sold his pictures, for he was lucky\nenough not to be obliged to do so; and, in the time of his maturity,\nhe did not exhibit, for he shunned contact with men who were strange\nand unfamiliar to him. He who wishes to get to know him must, then, not\nshirk a pilgrimage to his house, which he inherited from his parents,\ninhabited by himself, and left as an unencumbered legacy to his native\ntown. And the journey will be found worth the trouble, for Gustave\nMoreau is a curious phenomenon, affecting to melancholy and depressing,\nat least for men enamoured with life and action, but nevertheless full\nof mysterious, strangely pathetic allurement, even for those who prefer\nto breathe in air and sunshine under a bright sky.\n\nGustave Moreau stands apart from the mighty procession of French\nart in the nineteenth century, which was headed by the classic\ncohort, continued by the powerful band of the knights and squires of\nromanticism, and then unrolled itself before our eyes, in the legion of\nthe bourgeois National Guard of Philistine academic routine-art, in the\nblouse-wearing troop of Realists, and, lastly, in the vacillating and\noscillating sun-flower groups of Symbolism. He is not to be classed in\nthis line of development. He went his way alone, deaf to the strains\nof the world of which he heard only those with which he himself was\nin harmony from the beginning. He had some few kindred spirits among\ncontemporary painters, but he did not know them, and they did not\nknow him either, and they exercised no influence on each other, but\ngrew up independently of one another from the same conditions of like\ntemperaments and peculiar moods that in the middle decades of the\nnineteenth century dominated narrow, exclusive circles, without being\ncharacteristic of this or any other time. For these temperaments\nare purely subjective, and accord with the external only so far\nas civilisation, when it has reached a certain grade of intensity\nand artificiality, always produces men with widely preponderating\ndevelopment of fancy, who are continually looking into their inner\nselves, and cannot withdraw their eyes from the fascinating spectacle\nof the wonderful events being enacted therein.\n\nMoreau was just such a visionary. Remote from life, remote from\nactuality, he ever remained engrossed in his dream, and his noble art\nserved him to retain his apparently multifarious, but, in reality,\nlittle changing dream-pictures. His museum is, then, a world by itself,\nwith which the objective outer world has no more in common than have\ndreams and ravings with pictures of the actual which serve them as\na stimulus, and furnish them with the elements of their subjective\ncombinations.\n\nSince the earliest stages of development of the spiritual life there\nhave existed, side by side with men of observation and action, thinkers\nand dreamers who turn away from actualities, and build up around them a\nworld of ideas which their excessively developed power of imagination\ncould fashion, and endow with romantic life according to their own\ninclination and necessities. Thus arose all symbols, mythologies,\nfables, and superstitions that were enshrined in folk-lore, traditions,\nand, more especially, in all arts. Civilisation brings with it, by\nthis means, besides its recognition of nature, a world of shadows\ninvented by men freely\u2014even if according to fixed psychological\nlaws\u2014like a ghostly double, the astral body of the real world; and\nour prescriptive education, which comprises in itself more \u00e6sthetic\nthan positively scientific ingredients, renders us all double citizens\nof the real and the imaginary world. The majority of us chiefly live\nin the former, and visit the latter only in rare moments, which to\nsome mean only recreation, but to others consecration and exaltation.\nA small minority, however, renounce their citizenship of the actual\nworld and withdraw wholly to the world of imagination, which has been\nconjured up by the artistic fancy of mankind in thousands of years of\ncreative activity.\n\nMoreau was a citizen of the shadow-world, wherein he spent, an eternal\nPh\u00e6acian Sunday, and he never grew weary of lingering over its\nbeauties. We learn by his representations to know it thoroughly in all\nits parts. Its landscapes are curiously jagged rocks which seem to\nbe formed of corals; chalk plains with moon-glimmering reflections;\nmountain steeps in cumulous clouds; lakes and seas of oil, opalescent\nor charged with indigo. The animals that people this hypnotising\nparadise are unicorns with silvery coats, amazing dragons that are\ntoo curly to inspire fear, milk-white flying-horses, seven-headed\nhydras standing bolt upright on the tips of their tails, Stymphalian\nbirds with women\u2019s faces, sphinxes, chim\u00e6ras, and ph\u0153nixes. Even the\nflamingos, which come nearest to the terrestrial fauna, are here with\nthe tips of their wings dipped, as it were, in blood, immeasurably\nmore oddly pathetic than we know them. The flora exhibits (besides\nmonumental marvels of Peru, which remind one of the rose windows in\nGothic cathedrals) a \u201cmystic blossom,\u201d a somewhat calla-like creation\nthat sprouts forth from a luminous rock in the blue, mirroring mere,\nand on its slender summit, between great high leaves, bears the Blessed\nVirgin surrounded by a dazzling halo. The spiritual beings that move\namidst these marvellous animals and plants, are gods, heroes, and\npoets: Tyrt\u00e6us, Orpheus, Hesiod, Sappho, Jason, Helena, Odysseus,\nPenelope, Pasiphae, Hercules, Dejanira, \u0152dipus, Jupiter, Apollo, the\nMuses, Semele, Leda, Europa, Prometheus, the Oceanides, Moses, Buddha,\nJesus Christ, the Good Samaritan; the acts or, more correctly, the\nstates in which these gods, demigods, and genii are represented are\ntaken from all mythologies and theogonies. Every mysticism that has\nat any time or place arisen, like a silver haze, from the chaotic\nbrain of man, has found admittance into Moreau\u2019s soul and flows up\nand down in it in changing pictures. As to orthodoxy of any sort or\nkind, he is quite unconcerned. His mind, when stirred, clings with the\nsame delicacy to the saint of every origin, and he kneels, like the\nlarge-hearted heathen of antiquity, at the threshold of the most varied\nrealms of divinity. The Pallas Athene in the hall of the king\u2019s palace\nat Ithaca, who enjoys the massacre of the suitors, is formed after the\nsame type as the Blessed Virgin of the \u201cmystic blossom\u201d; hovering in\nlong, trailing, white garments, radiant with a halo, ecstatic in look\nand mien and the clasping of her hands. The statues of the Chald\u00e6an\ngods in the triumph of Alexander the Great imitate hieratic repose,\nand the Eastern posture of the Buddha-Amina statues. Prometheus on the\nCaucasian peak, palpitating beneath the vulture\u2019s beak, is allied by a\nfamily likeness to Christ scourged at the pillar. Jason on the poop of\nthe _Argo_, and the fair man among the \u201cThree Magi from the East,\u201d are\ncast in the same mould. Moses, looking down from the frontier hill on\nthe blue plains of Canaan, and the great Pan, gazing at the spectacle\nof the procession of the spheres, seem brothers. Jupiter, with Semele\non his bosom melting away with its heat, has the unapproachable\nsublimity of the canonical, the orthodox God the Father. For Moreau\nthere are no dead religions; with a humble shyness and feelings of awe,\nhe approaches all that has ever been reverenced by man.\n\nMoreau\u2019s transcendental imaginations necessarily reveal themselves to\nthe senses in other colours, as in other forms than those familiar\nto us by experience. An eerie light fills his pictures with the\nshimmering radiance of mother-of-pearl. The rarest, and, therefore, as\njewels, the most treasured exceptional forms of the planetary world\nare the material of which everything in these pictures consists;\nthe buildings are of gold and precious stones; there is a twinkle\nof rubies, sapphires, and emeralds everywhere. Moreau\u2019s amazing art\nproduces from his palette of oil-colours effects that lie far outside\nits technique; they are huge Limoges plates with rivers of transparent\nenamel; paintings on glass with sun-illumined, jewel-like fragments\nof colour; Byzantine mosaics of bits of _lapis lazuli_, jasper, and\ncornelian. With this palette certain Quattrocentists such as Mantegna,\ncertain Flemish artists as Van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, as\nalso Holbein, have in their pictures produced a small number of\nbeauty-spots. No one prior to Moreau has painted big pictures entirely\nwith it.\n\nThe first impression received from the Moreau Museum is that of\nhaving entered an enchanted castle, which has about it something of\nthe treasure cave of the mountain sprites, something of the palace of\nthe Elf-queen, as we know them from the \u201cThousand and One Nights,\u201d\nand German folk-stories. And if we have tarried longer, and our eyes\nhave grown accustomed to the ripple of pearls and precious stones, of\nenamel and gold, we are astonished at the strange, weird stiffness and\nstillness of all these splendid creatures, and really feel we are\nsurrounded by ghosts and spectres that have assumed only in pretence\nthe guise of men.\n\nMoreau formed his views on Baudelaire\u2019s rules. In the rooms of his\nmuseum we fancy we are looking at a series of book-illustrations for\nthe _Fleurs-du-mal_.\n\n \u201cJe hais le mouvement qui d\u00e9place les lignes,\n Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.\u201d\n\n\u201cI hate the movement which displaces the lines, and never do I weep\nand never laugh\u201d would, as an inscription above the entrance, most\nfittingly convey in words the main feature of Moreau\u2019s art. For nearly\nall his pictures, but most of all for the \u201cTriumph of Alexander the\nGreat,\u201d \u201cPenelope\u2019s Suitors,\u201d and the \u201cDaughters of Thespius,\u201d the\nverses of the _Paris Dream_ would suit as a deliberate description.\n\n \u201cJ\u2019avais banni de ces spectacles\n Le v\u00e8g\u00e9tal irregulier\n . . . . .\n Babel d\u2019escaliers et d\u2019arcades,\n C\u2019\u00e9tait un palais infini,\n Plein de bassins et de cascades\n Tombant dans l\u2019or mat ou bruni.\n . . . . .\n C\u2019\u00e9taient des pierres inouies\n . . . . .\n Et sur ces mouvantes merveilles\n Planait....\n Un silence d\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9.\u201d\n\nThis _silence d\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9_ is the characteristic of Moreau\u2019s art. Here\nnothing moves; all is as stiff as Lot\u2019s wife after she was turned into\na pillar of salt, as the men in the fairy-tale after the wizard has, by\na wave of his magic wand, made the warm life stagnate in their veins.\nMoreau succeeds in reversing Pygmalion\u2019s miracle. His brush takes the\nlife out of every human body he paints, and turns it into a statue.\nIn none of his figures do we feel that he painted from a model. They\nall give the impression of being copies from statuary, and we are, for\ninstance, not surprised that his manifestly unfinished \u201cMoses Looking\nat the Promised Land\u201d has a long bearded head as white as marble on\nan almost flesh-coloured body. We assume that Moreau has here simply\nreproduced the natural colour of his stone prototype. Among all his\nthousand works, one alone has really struck me as having something like\na stir of passion traceable, viz., his \u201cMessalina.\u201d The abominable\nempress, slave of her animal passions, is ascending the dirty couch\nat a den in the Suburra. The young vulgarian whom she has beckoned to\nher clasps her waist with both arms; the attendant torch-bearer of the\ncrowned slut turns her head away from the repulsive sight. One can\nvery well understand the movement of this slave who is ashamed of her\nmistress, but has only to obey and hold her tongue. The eagerness,\ntoo, with which the youth kneeling before the couch creeps up to\nthe body that is offered him, is true and warm. Here is real life,\neven if in one of its lowest manifestations. But Messalina herself,\nthough the protagonist of this tragedy of C\u00e6sarean madness, is again\nentirely Moreau. With her stony repose in a situation with which it\nis so inconsistent, with her Assyrian fish-bladder-eyed profile, she\nresembles an idol in a Babylonian temple, and one wonders how the\npassion of the favoured one can endure the icy coldness gleaming from\nthis idol.\n\nHis temperament indicated to him, from his earliest awakening to\nartistic impulse, the course of his education, just as it did, later,\nthe choice of his material. As a youth in Italy he copied Pompeian\nmural paintings with fervour, and later revelled at the sight of the\nQuattrocentists. Here he recognised at first sight kindred souls; here,\nas it were, his blood spoke. He tries, by imitating them piously, to\nkeep them for reminiscences later on. His mystic bent to the old, the\nobsolete, the risen as from a grave, is a trait connecting him with\nthe Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites, who were almost his contemporaries. With them\nhe has in common, too, the uncommonly exact and accurate technique.\nHe is a cold but unerring draughtsman. All his accessory work, his\narchitecture, ornaments, implements, and clothing, are marvels of\narch\u00e6ological learning or, when this fails, of invention and patiently,\npainfully achieved execution. His conscientiousness went so far that\nhe painted perhaps twenty or more far advanced sketches of each detail\nof his large compositions ere he proceeded to the main work, and this,\nnevertheless, he often left unfinished, because he felt he had not done\nenough to satisfy his conscience.\n\nThose empty, or merely vaguely filled-in spots instead of faces in\nbig pictures, in which all besides\u2014the patterns of the garment stuffs\nand carpets, the decorations on the splendid vases, the finery,\nweapons, capitals of the pillars\u2014are precisely rendered as complete\nproductions, give suddenly to the sympathetic an idea of the pains of\nthis struggling spirit. Moreau shunned life, which was too stormy,\nnoisy, and bustling for his morbid need of repose and quiet, but it did\nnot cease to attract him as a mysterious riddle. He would gladly have\nunderstood it, comprehended it, and held it fast, but he had to admit\nto himself that he was powerless to reach it. A homunculus artificially\ngenerated in the retort, he can live only in his glass vessel, and must\ndie if he ventures out of it; but through his prison walls he gazes at\nthe great, broad, free nature, replete with tempestuous life, and in\nthe cold of his glassy den he shudders with longing for this world, so\nnear and yet beyond his reach. His longing is, however, never to be\nappeased; he will never feel the joys of the warm breath of life.\n\n\n\n\n IX\n\n EUG\u00c8NE CARRI\u00c8RE\n\n\nHow much better off are painters and art-lovers nowadays than in\nearlier times! Formerly, if you wanted to enjoy a picture you had to\nown it; if you wished to know a picture you were obliged to make a\njourney to it. If you liked an artist sufficiently to wish to surround\nyourself with his chief creations, or the whole of them, you had to\nhave unlimited wealth and set up a gallery of your own. Copies are\na mere aid to remembrance, and not a good one either. Executed by a\ndauber, they are worse than nothing; by a gifted artist, they give the\ncopyist\u2019s, not the original creator\u2019s, personality. The older methods\nof multiplication also either furnish clumsy attempts at transmitting\nthem, or they are peculiar, independent, artistic creations of another\norder than painting, which have their special beauty, but are unable to\nseize the most inward and subtle of the charms the painting possessed.\n\nSince the latest developments of photography and the copying processes\ndependent on it, the case has been altered. If you would convince\nyourself of the almost marvellous perfection with which oil-paintings\nare transferred to paper nowadays, so that every stroke of the brush,\nhowever fine, every movement of the painter\u2019s hand, every paste,\nevery unevenness in the colour plane, every effect of the canvas,\nground-coating, and varnish, is reproduced in a life-like way, and you\nhave actually before your eyes the whole personal work of the artist,\nthen look at the handsome folio entitled: _L\u2019\u0153uvre de E. Carri\u00e8re,\nTexte de Gustave Geffroy_, that has been published in Paris by H.\nPiazza et Cie., and contains the copy of 150 paintings and sketches\nby Carri\u00e8re, 75 of which have been printed on Bristol paper, and\n75 incorporated in the text. They lack colour, I admit. Only when\nphotography renders this too, will the last word of genuineness in\ncopying be pronounced. Meanwhile, we must be contented that we find\nagain in the photograph the tonality of the colours and the effects\nof light and shade in the original relatively graded in respect\nof each other. With Carri\u00e8re, however, the absence of colour is\nreally of little importance, for he painted chiefly from a grey and\nbrown palette, which can be very accurately reproduced by means of\nphotography.\n\nA hundred and fifty Carri\u00e8res! Who could pride himself on possessing\nsuch a treasure? One would have to be an American multi-millionaire\nto enjoy such an \u00e6sthetic satisfaction as that. Now it is within\nthe reach of every well-to-do individual. The 150 reproductions\ncomprise about the whole of the great artist\u2019s life-work up to now.\nThey disclose to every beholder, who is of good faith and possesses a\nsensibility for the beauties of painting, the key to the law of art\nwhich Carri\u00e8re laid down for himself. They render it possible to follow\nthe course of his development, which, at the beginning, is hesitating,\nthen becomes decided and weighty, and carries the artist from the\nschool to mastership, from tradition to uncompromising individuality.\n\nEug\u00e8ne Carri\u00e8re was born on 17th January 1849, in the village of\nGournay (Seine-et-Marne). His father was a Fleming from the north of\nFrance; his mother an Alsatian. His appearance corresponds to this\nprobably pure Germanic origin. He is a big, broad man with strong\nbones and portly stoutness; white-skinned, blue-eyed, and fair-haired;\nslow of speech, thoughtful and reserved in his movements; dreamy when\nlistening, unintrusive when silent, raising his voice little when\nsaying modest, sensible words about things which he understands. He\nwas still a child when his parents settled in the mother\u2019s home. He\ngrew up in Strassburg, and was intended for an artisan. When he was\neighteen he went to St Quentin, and had an opportunity of seeing the La\nTours in the museum there. His talent was kindled by this unsurpassed,\nperhaps unequalled master. The beautiful crayon faces of La Tour\ntaught him to feel the velvety splendour of youthful human skin, and\nmeditate on the mystery of the artistic creation of plastic effects\nthrough merely intensifying or subduing the play of light. He began to\ndraw and paint eagerly, and aroused sufficient belief in his vocation\nto be sent to Paris to the Academy of Art. What it offered him was\npractically nothing. Drawing copies of plaster models chilled him;\neven the professional life-model in the prescribed studied attitudes\nseemed to him futile and absurd. What meaning for him had this comedy\nof gladiatorial positions, ostentatious muscular development, clownish\ndistortions expressive of no natural feeling or rational purpose, in\nwhich no human being would, if left to himself, indulge, and which,\noften enough, the body can assume and retain only by the artificial\nhelp of rests and props? What he longed for was life, warm life, such\nas pulsates in men of strong feelings, and is expressed by them in a\nstraightforward, convincing way by looks and gestures.\n\nThe depression produced in him in the pupil-rooms in the _\u00c9cole des\nBeaux Arts_ made him doubt himself. Luckily for him, amidst his general\nill-luck, this spiritual crisis of his coincided with the great\ncrisis of his country. The war broke out, and Carri\u00e8re hastened as a\nvolunteer to the front. He did his duty bravely in several battles\nand engagements, was taken prisoner at Sedan, and, as such, reached\nDresden. The months of his imprisonment proved decidedly fruitful to\nhim, for he spent his days in the picture gallery, and was shown by\nthe Rubens pictures there, the ways which, up to that time, he had not\nclearly seen.\n\nAfter the war was over, he resumed his orthodox studies at the\nAcademy, and became a pupil of Cabanel. It exhibits a good testimony\nof the power of resistance in his nature that this most inaccurate\nportrait-painter of the Empire could not influence him, although\nhe had for five years his misleading example before his eyes. In\n1876 Carri\u00e8re competed for the _prix de Rome_. He did not get it.\nThat might have been predicted to him; the prize is the reward of\nthe meritorious industry of the pupil, which flatters the teacher\u2019s\n_amour propre_. Carri\u00e8re had then, however, emancipated himself from\ntutelage as an artist. He felt nowise humiliated or cast down by the\nfailure of his purpose. With brave heart he drew from the occurrence\nthe only true moral, viz., that not the approval of teachers, _i.e._,\nof those who have succeeded, but the satisfaction of his artistic\nconscience must henceforward be the goal of his efforts. He renounced\nofficial recognition, and that was wise, for it preserved him from the\npain of disillusion. From 1877 he exhibited annually in the _Salon_,\nbut it was not before 1884 that the prize judges awarded him an\n\u201chonourable mention,\u201d which can hardly, however, be called a reward.\nA year afterwards, he received the medal of the third class, which\nis \u201cthe last kindness,\u201d but at the same time the Baschkirtsew prize\nof 500 francs, which is awarded, not by the prize-committee, but by\nthe Society of Artists by universal suffrage. In 1887 the Jury rose\nto the medal of the second class, and, at the Universal Exhibition\nof 1889, to an insignificant silver medal. With this the series of\ndistinctions vouchsafed to him by the masters of his guild closes.\nHis later honours\u2014the ribbon and rosette of the Legion of Honour,\nthe room reserved for his works at the Universal Exhibition of 1900,\nthe purchase of his \u201cMaternal Love\u201d for the Luxembourg Museum, the\ncommission to paint twelve bays in the Banqueting Hall of the Paris\nHotel de Ville\u2014were forced for him from the public authorities by\nindependent opinion. They were the scanty revenue of fame, which the\nlonely man found when he ceased to seek it. It is characteristic of\nCarri\u00e8re that of all the nonsense of medals and decorations there is\nnot a word to be found in the monumental work dedicated to him. They\nwere formerly regarded in France as the great events in the life of\nan artist. Carri\u00e8re\u2019s proud independence does not admit that they\nhave any meaning at all, or deserve the most casual mention. The book\nenumerates all his works, even rough drawings, unfinished sketches,\nattempts at lithography. These are the deeds and events of his life.\nThere is no room in the book for official certificates of industry\nand his elevation in the _Tchin_.[3] Moreover, Carri\u00e8re was one of\nthe co-founders of the Salon of the Champ de Mars in 1890, which on\nprinciple repudiated the system of rewarding meritorious youths by\ntesting and directing superior officers, and rebelled against turning\nartists into an hierarchy by means of conventional marks of rank.\n\nCarri\u00e8re has formed a manner of his own, which he discovered by\nhimself, and asserted it victoriously despite of all kinds of\nopposition. Every layman sees at the first glance that his pictures\nare full of grey vapour. A sometimes transparent, at other times thick\nmist envelops his figures, and makes their different parts stand out\nwith unequal distinctness. \u201cA whim,\u201d exclaims superficiality; \u201ca\ndodge to astonish,\u201d grumbles the _blas\u00e9_ man-of-the-world, who thinks\nhimself cunning. It is neither the one nor the other. The origin of\nthe curious exhalation hovering about his figures is to be sought in\nhis own need for representing the \u00e6ther in which all planetary life is\ndisplayed. His sense of truth took umbrage at the painting in vogue,\neven that of the masters, which sets beings and objects in space,\nwithout giving any suggestion that it is not empty, but filled with\na gas possessing optical and kinetic qualities. It is all very well\ntrying, by established toning of the local colours, and blurring of\nthe contour lines, to make the fact perceptible that the figures are\nsurrounded by air; but these customary means of expression failed to\nsatisfy Carri\u00e8re, and he is not the only one they left dissatisfied.\nA whole generation of painters, about 1870, had the annoying feeling\nthat air did not get its rights in art, and made obstinate efforts to\nfind a formula for announcing the presence of air with an emphasis\nthat could not be neglected. Sisley, Monet, Pissarro, thought to solve\nthe problem by refraction and iridescent radiation which would render\napparent in the painting the visible motion of the air, its vibration\nunder definite relations of illumination and heat. The object is only\nvery imperfectly attained. The attempt is justified, and deserves\nrespect. Carri\u00e8re sets about the matter differently, in a more direct\nand _na\u00efve_ way. The decomposition of white light into its spectrum,\nas the dotters and stipplers practise it, proves, I admit, that the\nrays of light move in a material medium, as they would otherwise have\nno reason for resolving themselves into their component parts; but,\nin order to infer air from the prismatic colours, a man must be a\nphysicist, and it requires a labour of thought that has nothing in\ncommon with an immediate impression of the senses, such as must, first\nand foremost, proceed from an optical work of art. Carri\u00e8re, then,\nfound even the impressionist rule too learned. He preferred simply to\nexaggerate, and, as it were, to make palpable, the properties of air,\nwhich is neither absolutely colourless nor absolutely transparent. Thus\narose the thin grey air in which his figures are bathed, ranging from\nthe most delicate mist to the thickest smoke, but always transparent.\n\nDirectly he found his method or manner, it became alive in his hands.\nIn that his peculiarity consists, and in that he shows himself a great\nartist by the grace of God. Smoke is to him a medium of expression\nof amazing range. He employs it almost as the engraver on copper of\nmezzotint does the \u201cburr.\u201d It is a layer of veils which he diminishes\nor increases as the effect proposed demands. Here he withdraws the\ncovering. There he suffers it partly or entirely to remain, and by\nsuch means obtains, by the most natural and, apparently, the least\ntroublesome way, a recession of the non-essential, an amazing relief\nof the essential, a clearness in the expression of his thought, such\nas not one of his contemporary painters possesses. At the first\nglance at a picture of Carri\u00e8re, one is very forcibly directed to\nwhat was important to the painter. One positively cannot wander into\nwhat is unimportant, or be diverted from the main thing. It sounds\nparadoxical, but is literally true: Carri\u00e8re understood how to make\nvapour the medium of the highest clearness, to make mystery the gate of\nan unreserved revelation. That, I admit, his imitators cannot discern\nin him. It is easy to daub smoke in a picture, but that is not all.\nVapour must not be an excuse for bungling draughtsmanship; it must not\nmercifully cover defects in form. In order not to favour any fraud, it\nmakes a masterly accuracy in modelling a primary condition. To permit\noneself such noble economies and condensations one must be as accurate\na draughtsman as Carri\u00e8re. The veiling of the greater part is only,\nthen, admissible, when the lesser left unveiled is perfect.\n\nThe subject of Carri\u00e8re\u2019s portrayal is always life of deep\nfeeling\u2014self-forgetting maternal love, childhood\u2019s gracious innocence,\npathetic tenderness of father, brothers, or sisters. He has never\nworked from the peddling model who can be hired at five francs an hour,\nand who poses only with the body, not the soul. His model is his own\nfamily, with the whole range of idiosyncrasies which their existence by\nnight and day comprises. What the tender husband and father observed\nwith delighted eyes at all hours, that the painter has uniquely fixed\non canvas: the mother resting in bed with her baby at her breast; that\nsweet, shapeless little lump of human flesh which is a wee boy that\nthe elder sister fondles; the children eating or being fed at table;\nthe washing and dressing of the little one, which the mother and elder\nsister carry out as a pleasant game with a doll; the mother\u2019s anxiety\nas she cradles the fever-stricken child in her arms, and tries to quiet\nit; dressing the eldest girl for her confirmation\u2014a prelude to that\naffecting moment when the mother, with trembling hands and streaming\ntears, will place the bridal wreath on her head; the pride of the\nparents when marshalling all their five children in a row; the gloomy\nseriousness of the tiny school-girl puzzling at the work-table over her\nfirst task. Carri\u00e8re, when painting his family life, painted the life\nof mankind. His large, epic style of feeling preserved him from falling\ninto _genre_. He remained monumental even when painting details.\nHe is as little sentimental as Goethe in \u201cHermann und Dorothea\u201d;\nnevertheless, tears rise when we gaze on his pictures. The incident\ndisappears, and we stand before the Eternal, which it comprises; before\nLove, which keeps the world together.\n\nThe same feature is distinguishable also in his portraits; they ennoble\nthe model by spiritualising it. He gives only just enough of the\nanatomy to reveal the soul. And when he sets himself greater and more\nhighly differentiated tasks (\u201cThe Gallery of the Belleville Theatre,\u201d\nthe \u201cHoly Women at the Foot of the Cross\u201d), he accomplishes them by\nbringing forth the feelings and thoughts which have brought together\nthe persons concerned, and determine their bearings and movements.\n\nWhat individual works scattered in exhibitions and museums have not\nproved to every one is made indisputably clear by the 150 reproductions\nin the Piazza book, viz., that Carri\u00e8re is one of the noblest,\nchastest, most deeply-feeling artists of to-day, who has created for\nhimself a peculiar technique, particularly dangerous for imitators, but\nnatural to himself, and, therefore, in his hand, justified.\n\n\n SOME OF CARRI\u00c8RE\u2019S PICTURES\n\n\u201cThe Belleville Theatre.\u201d\u2014The light, mystic vapour which fills and\nexhales through Carri\u00e8re\u2019s pictures, like delicate bluish-white clouds\nof incense, does not, as a rule, exert a disturbing influence. In\nthis picture, quite one of his most important ones, his brush seems\nto have betrayed him. He has grown more material than is usual with\nhim. The \u201cBelleville Theatre\u201d is so densely enveloped in smoke that\nhardly anything can be distinguished amidst the clouds. Yet what\nsplendid discoveries are to be made if you make a violent effort to\npenetrate the darkness, into which a venture may only be made with\na diver\u2019s helmet and an air-pipe! We see\u2014or, rather, we surmise\u2014the\nthird and a part of the fourth gallery of the People\u2019s Theatre. The\nsuburban audience that fills these rows, gives itself unrestrainedly\nup to the magic of the spectacle. It lives not its own life, but that\nof the heroes in the piece. To this audience Hecuba is everything. The\nwide-opened eyes lost in reverie, the cheeks sunk sorrowfully in their\nhands, the shoulders contracted by fear, the bodies almost helplessly\nleaning on one another, betray the intensity with which these poor\npeople have fled out of themselves into illusion. What is truth, what\nis deception, if a poetical word, and that, too, most likely the word\nof a wretched melodrama, can snatch away small trades-people and\nartisans\u2014probably sore oppressed by the needs of existence and more\nthan full of their own troubles\u2014so far from all their griefs that\nthey forget their misery and think they are vividly experiencing a\nnew lot? That would be the Buddha philosophy of this amazing picture\nif we could but distinguish all it contains. Carri\u00e8re has painted the\nprofound doctrine of Maia and Nirvana. It is a pity he has covered it\nwith so thick a veil that it remains impenetrable even to the eyes of\nthe initiated.\n\n\u201cChrist on the Cross\u201d will give to those capable of feeling the\nimpression of a great, artistic experience. The mystical tragedy,\nfrom which a world-religion draws its emotion, is presented with the\nsimplicity and suppressed pain with which a father reports to his son\nthe tragic death of the mother. All subsidiary work that might prove\ndistracting is avoided. No thieves, no Captain Longinus, no Roman\nlegionaries, no fanatical spectators; not one of the aids in men or\nthings with which the classics of painting are wont to complicate\nthe event of Calvary, with the object of making it more impressive.\nNothing save the life-sized figure of the Saviour, who has ended His\nsufferings, and Mary, who leans against the Cross so as not to break\ndown altogether. On the face of the corpse the peace of consummation\nhas sunk; unutterable grief wastes that of the Mother. The form floats\nin a soft, unearthly light; on the latter expressive shadows strive.\nThe repose of the dead Christ, which would appear painless and almost\ncheerful were it not that a slight trait of suffering was fixed around\nthe mouth, dawns like a consolation over the dark despair which fills\nthe soul of the living mother. If she suffers humanly, as a mother,\nso that she would fain die of woe, still redemption and exaltation\nalso arise for her from the act of salvation. If one has ever heard\nPalestrina\u2019s \u201cStabat Mater,\u201d it re-echoes in his soul at the sight\nof Carri\u00e8re\u2019s picture. It has issued from the same deep emotion\nas the tear-soaked _terzine_ of Jacopone da Todi and Palestrina\u2019s\nsobbing hymn. Carri\u00e8re abandons himself to his feelings with the same\nearnestness as the Franciscan friar and the choirmaster of St Peter\u2019s.\nIt is hard for me to admit that he shares their pious belief. I assume\nthat the Mother\u2019s grief has, in the main, inspired him. This strong\nfeeling has, doubtless, made him susceptible of the sacredness of the\nsymbolism in the death on the Cross; through the human he will have\nraised himself to an inkling of the superhuman. Let us not forget\nthat Carri\u00e8re is the painter of that \u201cMotherhood,\u201d the gem of the\nLuxembourg Museum, which depicts a young mother with a child on her lap\nand another beside her, revelling in the sight of her little ones\u2014her\ntreasures\u2014with adorable tenderness in look and mien, in the pose of\nher body and the movement of her arms. Carri\u00e8re has a wonderfully\ndeep feeling for maternal love, in joy as in sorrow. Unconsciously\nand involuntarily, he has conceived his subject not with the spirit\nof a believing Christian, but with the broken heart of Mary. He might\nconfidently have called his \u201cChrist on the Cross,\u201d too, \u201cMaternity,\u201d\nlike his masterpiece in the Luxembourg; the one is a companion-picture\nof the other; the tragedy of maternal love, according to its idyl.[4]\n\nThere were cases in which the employment of Carri\u00e8re\u2019s plan of the\ndelicate grey veil of enveloping mist was not successful. I have,\nfor instance, been obliged to make reservations in respect of his\n\u201cTheatre in Belleville.\u201d In the \u201cChrist on the Cross\u201d it is organically\ndeveloped from the subject. The veil of mist shrouds the incident in\nthe weird twilight which is the prescribed atmosphere of miracle and\nthe mysteries of faith. Beyond the figures in the foreground of the\nCrucified and the Blessed Virgin we divine, in the semi-dark distance,\na great city, at the back of which, on the horizon, a twinkling white\nlight, like the still uncertain brightness of a young dawning day,\narises. Our powers of imagination may fill with life the whole of this\nprofound space wherein dawn is at odds with night\u2014with the life of a\nwhole townsfolk enjoying their revenge or weeping for woe, oppressed\nwith foreboding or hopefully confident.\n\nHere is symbolism in that high sense in which every true work of\nart is symbolic. The picture is at the same time intellectual and\ntranscendental; the rationalistic beholder, who neither seeks nor\nwishes to find a mystery, has before him the humanly affecting drama\nof the mother who bewails her son who has died unmistakably in a\nnoble task. He sees sights he can understand\u2014the peace of death and a\nmother\u2019s deepest pain\u2014presented with unsurpassable truth. He enjoys\nthe charm of perfect form, marvellous warmth of colour, produced with\nthe simple means of _gouache_ toning and a very faint heightening by\ntouches of red, and an extremely interesting distribution of soft\nlight glimmering from the dark background. The mystically minded\nbeholder sees all this, and he sees, besides, the divine element in the\nCrucifixion and the sorrow-stricken Mother, the terribly threatening\nsubversion of the natural order in the darkness brooding over the city\nand fields, and the promise in the light arising in the distance.\nWhat the rationalist sees in the work of art is sufficient to arouse\nhis feeling and admiration. The mystic\u2019s wonder and feeling will be\npowerfully strengthened by religious emotion.\n\n\u201cPortrait of my Wife.\u201d\u2014He who is guilty of the error of confounding\ngaudiness with coloration might find a guide in this work. A few bright\ntones in the spiritualised, almost transparent face; a fur collar of a\nwarm, rich brown; a gay, red flower in the girdle, comprise all that\nCarri\u00e8re employs as colour media, in order to conjure up a harmony of\nlulling melody and, at the same time, of all but hypnotising intensity.\nThat is precisely the whole mystery; it is not a question of the noise,\nbut of the harmony. Three colour values, chosen with exquisite taste,\nplaced on the right spot in the floating white and pearl-grey cloud\nwhich constitutes Carri\u00e8re\u2019s manner, and the impression of the colour\nmystery is produced with greater success and depth than by a palette\non which all the seven colours of the rainbow are keeping a witch\u2019s\nfestival.\n\n\u201cThe Kiss before Going to Sleep.\u201d\u2014A painting of marvellous range of\nfeeling. A mother with her daughters, from the grown-up one to the\nsuckling infant at her breast. The big girl bends over her mother\u2019s\nshoulder, as the latter is sitting, and takes her good-night kiss\nfrom the lips of the head turned to her. The baby has fallen asleep\nwhilst feeding at the maternal bosom. The third, half-grown-up, has\nlikewise been overcome by sleep, as she leans helplessly, with her\nwhole weight, on her mother. The last twines her fondling fingers in\nher mother\u2019s hand outstretched to her. The mother is the central point\nof the picture. From her gushes the force that penetrates, encompasses,\nattracts, and holds together the rest of the figures. Love it is which\ncollects these beings and unites them in a marvellous circle. Thus they\nbecome a symbol of the force that has built up the universe itself, and\nkeeps it in its eternal order. And this self-same love, which knits\nthese hands in each other, bends these bodies to each other, brings\nthese lips together, which is visibly the motive and attractive force,\nin all these simple but incomparably eloquent lines of movement, has\nalso guided the magic brush capable of expressing so great a theme.\nHe who at the sight of this lofty work does not feel all the hardness\nin him melting in joy stands outside humanity. Moreover, there is not\na trace of declamation, or purpose, or _tremolo_ in its execution; no\nprettily pietistic rhetoric. Not a single adjective, but only neuter\nsubstantives, as in Roman inscriptions. That is precisely the receipt,\nwhich holds good in all times and in all places, for monumental works:\neternal feelings expressed in eternal forms.\n\n\u201cThe Engaged Couple,\u201d like \u201cMaternity,\u201d like his portraits of a\nmarried couple, a young maiden, etc., etc., are unapproachable works.\nHis grasp of the essential in phenomena, his economy of form, are\nof supreme craftsmanship. It is in this direction, I think, that\nthe future development of painting lies. It will soon be over with\nmere transcription of nature, however clever; certainly, on the not\nvery distant day when colour photography will be handed over from\nthe experimental laboratory of the physicist, to professional use.\nThen the individual standpoints of observation will alone hold good.\nPeople will want views, not as the mechanically reproducing, dead\nobject-glass, but as the inspired eye of the artist sees them. Pictures\nwill have to be a selection, an interpretation, an emotional excavation\nof the optic phenomenon; every picture an anthology of vision; and\nthe personality of the artist revealing himself in it, will be the\nfascination of his work, its value and its beauty. Let no one say:\n\u201cThese are trivialities. It has always been so since plastic art\nexisted.\u201d The plastic artist was hitherto always in the first place\na depictor. His soul revealed itself only discreetly in his works.\nCarri\u00e8re goes far beyond what he sees: he paints souls; he paints\nfeelings. In his representation the inexpressible becomes an incident.\nA fugitive movement, a pose, a line of head, neck, shoulders, or hand\nin which unconsciousness is manifested, when self-control is relaxed\nfor a moment; these treacherous means of expressing mood, which the\nwill is not always able to influence\u2014these are the elements with which\nhe works. He discloses the impulses, up to their most delicate moods,\nwhich are the causes of movements and deportment. To such a spiritual\nart must painting be developed. And this is why I call Carri\u00e8re\u2019s\npictures the art of the future.\n\n\n\n\n X\n\n PUVIS DE CHAVANNES\n\n\nPuvis de Chavannes is dead, and his influence is dying; his School is\ndesolate, and I see now hardly any stragglers worrying themselves to\npaint with his palette of pale moonlight. So it is no longer necessary\nto attack him. It is enough to explain his spiritual transformation and\nhis successes.\n\nWhen he attained the maturity of his powers, that Naturalism was the\ntrump-card in painting, of which Bastian Lepage\u2019s abominable \u201cReaper,\u201d\nwhose brutalised grimace grins at the visitor to the Luxembourg Museum,\nwas admired as the highest achievement. The young critic had eyes only\nfor this art. The multitude dared not question the fulsome praise\nsquandered on the works of the naturalists; but their inner voice was\nnot mute. They had qualms of conscience about their culpable cowardice,\nand were quite well aware that naturalism, which was lauded to them\nas Progress and the Future, was in reality the negation of all art.\nThen Puvis de Chavannes stepped forward with his big wall-paintings,\nwhich put symbolism, sacred legend, and history on the stage, on a\nliterary background, and reunited them to tradition, which had been\ndisowned or scoffed at by naturalism, out of barbaric ignorance or\nvulgar arrogance. The multitude, whose inward feelings partisan\ncriticism outraged, turned forthwith to the painter who seemed to them\na deliverer and an avenger. He was a living protest against the art\nof the vulgar, the hideous, and the commonplace; against the art of\nthe mechanically dull copying of a soulless reality. He took pains to\nserve beauty. He showed unmistakably the object of his spiritualising\nhis figures and actions. Before his pictures one could once more\ndream. After prose, after vulgar, slangy prose, it was verse. People\ndid not even ask if the verses were good; people were satisfied with\nmediocre verses, provided they were verses. To Puvis de Chavannes his\nfundamental, academic instincts had given the direction; but whilst\nhe followed his bent, he became, without intending it, and without\npreviously knowing it, the file-leader of the right-about turn, which\nbegan in \u201cthe \u2019eighties\u201d and has now long ended.\n\nIn a period of idealism he would have been one of the many. People\nwould not have noticed him or would have found in him much to take\nexception to: the banality of his symbols, the impersonality,\nsmoothness, and polish of his draughtsmanship, the intentional\nincoherence of his compositions. During the predominance of naturalism,\nhis academic banality itself seemed a courageous act, and seekers\nafter the ideal even accounted his most obvious faults and weaknesses\nas excellencies in him.\n\nHe got his faded, spectral colours by imitating the fresco painters\nof the Quattrocentro. His ideal of picturesque beauty united in\ninseparable association the stateliness of the old monumental\nwall-paintings with their fadedness; and when he wished to paint in\ntheir style and produce their \u00e6sthetic effects, he at once gave his\npictures the faint coloration which had never been intended by the\nQuattrocentists, but which their works have suffered through the\ndevastating force of five centuries. The obliterated, remote, ghostly\nqualities of this faded type of painting came to meet a morbid mood\nof the time. This mystic coloration harmonised with the prevalent\nmysticism. The decadents were thankful to him for his moon-stricken\ncolouring; those athirst for beauty for his conversion to classical\ntradition; and so he became a great man through the sins of the\nnaturalists and their critical heralds.\n\nPuvis was the first academical and recognised master in France who\nbegan to paint the morbid. His whim is chalk-wash. He covers, on\nprinciple, his pictures with a white, semi-transparent broth that\nextinguishes all the colours. His eye detests colour. His glance has\na sort of chloridising effect; it takes the colour out of everything\nit ranges over. With him, however, morbidity is natural and not\nan affectation. He has that horror of all that is loud, full, and\nimpressive, which marks the nervous man, whom every rough touch\npains. It is well with him only when nature whispers, when her looks\nare veiled in a fine mist, when all life in her is motionless. In his\nsoul reigns a melancholy absence of sound, and he likes to carry this\ninto the outer world also. Moreover, the multiplicity of living forms\nconfuses and repels him; it is too full of motion and gaudiness. He\nsimplifies, therefore, all lines which thus lose their distinctive\nindividuality. He retains only what is typical of the phenomenon; he\ninfuses his style into all that his brush and pencil touch, and this\ncold stylisation is then called by people his \u201cidealism.\u201d\n\nHas Puvis laid himself open to the reproach that all his figures are\nawkwardly typical because he cannot draw? We might almost think so.\nIt is only as a reply to such a reproach that we can understand his\nexhibiting in 1896 several hundred drawings, preliminary studies\nfor all his chief works. After a minute inspection of these smaller\nand greater sheets of sketches scarcely indicated or industriously\nexecuted, of figures scarcely outlined or carefully shaded in\nlead-pencil, Indian ink, red and other coloured chalks, we are bound\nto feel every respect for his industry and conscientiousness. For\nthe originality of his talent, too? That to me is questionable. If\nI gaze on the studies of Leonardo and Albrecht D\u00fcrer, I am, in a\nvery short time, over-mastered by an inexpressible emotion. A holy\nof holies is revealed: the most secret feelings of an artist\u2019s soul\nwhich would fain become conscious of itself whilst seeking to give\nshape to the emotion that is urging it. You can see the struggle with\nthe resistance of the material, the mustering of all his forces, in\nthe majority of cases the artist\u2019s victory, ofttimes his despairing\nconfession of impotence. A feature of the phenomenon\u2014a fugitive yet\nexpressive movement has made its impression on the artist. He hastens\nto fix his conception. At first in a few hasty strokes, which are then\nstrengthened, deepened, emphasised, and developed. Five times, ten\ntimes, till the artist desists disheartened, or till the vision is\novercome and fixed by a spell in its whole force and verity, in its\ndistinctive character that is never to be repeated. In Puvis I observed\nwith astonishment the contrary process. The first sketch has always\nthe greatest individuality, every later state of the figure shows\nit less differentiated, and more reduced to an average type lacking\nexpression. He never ascends, he goes down. The artist\u2019s emotion in\nface of the phenomenon\u2014the impulse to produce in the rapture of an\nintuition is never traceable in him. None of the sheets is the arena\nof that awful fight waged by talent against the hostile demon of the\nmaterial, which reminds me of the night-long struggle of Jacob with the\nspectre at the ford Jabbok. The starting-point of the work is correct,\nice-cold _m\u00e9tier_. It progresses to simplifications that are just so\nmany evasions of difficulties, and it finally arrives at insignificant\npuppets. \u201cThat was intentional,\u201d cry the painter\u2019s eulogists. So much\nthe worse if it was intentional. But was it really intentional? That is\nthe question. Often enough, as an afterthought, a person imagines he is\nexercising volition, whilst, as a matter of fact, he is constrained.\nFor him who has learnt to see in all works documents bearing on their\ncreator\u2019s psychology, the drawings of Puvis are proof positive that\nthis highly famous man never glanced at the world with an artist\u2019s eye,\nbut that he was originally a cold, academical technician, who, later\non, by pure reason and without attaining the slightest fervour, has\nsubtilised a peculiarity: the imitation of faded frescoes in colour,\narchaic indifferentiation in drawing, abstract literary symbolism in\nhis subjects.\n\nIn fact, what is unreal and dream-like about his vision is not only\ndeterminative in regard to his archaically simple, almost poor drawing\nand his pallid colour, but also the choice of his subject. He likes\nbest to portray allegories, in which the figures are reduced to the\n_r\u00f4le_ of symbols. When he cannot be allegorical, in his famous\nwall-paintings at the Pantheon, for instance, which tell the legend\nof St G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve, he satisfies his craving for spectre painting by\nspiritualising the given historical figures into fleshless, bloodless\ndenizens of the ballad of the land of Thule. In individual and very\nrare instances, he finds a material organically suitable for his\nmoon-struck style of painting. In such cases, of course, he strives\nafter extraordinary effects; for instance, with his \u201cPoor Fisherman\u201d\nin the Luxembourg Museum. This dreadfully poor, emaciated man\u2014more\na shadow than a human being\u2014who, sorrowfully but resigned, stands\nin his old patched boat, drops his wretched net into the sluggish,\ngreyish-yellow water, and is surrounded and, as it were, fixed by the\ndead lines of a flat melancholy landscape, breathes a disconsolateness\nand abandonment that, at the sight of him, \u201chumanity\u2019s whole sorrow\u201d\nseizes the beholder.\n\nOnce again, in his last period, Puvis lighted on one of those rare\nsubjects which not only bear, but demand his peculiar methods of\nexecution, and out of this lucky encounter came forth a masterpiece,\nviz., the fresco which concludes his G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve cycle.\n\nSt G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve has stepped out of her cell on to the balcony of her\nconvent and lets her glance roam over Paris. At her feet lies the\nslumbering city; in the foreground surge the red-tiled roofs, between\nwhich soar a few tree-tops in the luxuriant verdure of midsummer; in\nthe distance stretch the soft hill lines of a cheerful landscape, the\ngreen of whose meadows is interrupted, here and there, by the white\nmass of a convent or abbey. Slender lilies and _gladioli_ bloom in\nnoble vessels on the balcony. In the bare cell, the door of which is\nwide open behind the saint, the smoking flame of a lamp of antique\npattern smoulders. At the summit, in a deep blue sky, hangs the full\nmoon, which softly illumines city and landscape, and casts an eerie\ngleam on the curled leafage of the tree-tops. Immersed and bathed\nin its soft radiance, the saint stands there, unearthly with her\nthin, ascetic countenance and her white nun\u2019s habit, which from her\nheadcloth to the trailing hem of her garment flows down in unbroken,\nperpendicular lines, and seems to lift up her soul in a quiet, ecstatic\nprayer for the slumbering town, whose peaceful prosperity is a work\nof her solicitous love. Here Puvis\u2019s peculiar method triumphs in\nevery feature. Here his temperament needed only to give itself its\nnatural scope to attain the highest artistic result. What elsewhere\nis intolerable affectation becomes here the honest revelation of a\nmood. The subdued harmony of violet and blue in different gradations\nof intensity that blend softly into one another is legitimate in the\npicture of a summer night, which takes its sole spectral light from\nthe moon and an oil-lamp. The paleness of the flesh is understandable\nin the aging nun who mortifies herself by prayer, vigils, and fasting.\nThe simplicity of the drawing, which is reduced to a few straight and\nslightly though expressively curved lines, finds its defence in the\ndusk of the semi-transparent night which suppresses all individualities\nof forms; and leaves only for us general, essential features, and\nthese rather surmised than clearly seen. Thus here a special subject\nfinds its special and fully adequate means of expression, and the work\nbecomes a model of what is termed style in the highest sense.\n\nA rejuvenation seemed to come over Puvis when he seized once more\non the G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve theme which had occupied him from the days of his\nyouth. This theme was to him what the theme of Faust was to Goethe:\nwhile the octogenarian was engrossed in it, something of the flame\nthat glowed in the young man of twenty fired him, and the last cry of\n_Una p\u00e6nitentium_[5] is still an after-thrill of Gretchen\u2019s passion.\nPuvis, too, appears to have thought or felt \u201c_Ihr naht euch wieder,\nschwankende Gestalten!_\u201d when he set about painting this concluding\npicture of the G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve cycle; and for the last strophe of his ballad,\nwhich dies away so sadly, he found again some of the power and unction\nwhich secures to its predecessors their glorious place in the century\u2019s\nArt.\n\nIf the brazen foreheads of the babblers who have the chief say in the\nart criticism of the time were at all capable of a decent blush, they\nwould turn red with shame at his series of frescoes in the Pantheon.\nPeople had the audacity to claim Puvis for some \u201cmodernity\u201d or other,\nin which certain moods of our time were said to be incorporated.\nThe only time when one can wholly surrender oneself to him, he is\nabsolutely of no time. What, in that instance, fascinates in him is\nnothing relating to the present, and still less to the future, but the\npast and the remote past, the atavistic. His life\u2019s great work is a\nlegend of a saint, which he has treated after the manner of a legend\nwith the feelings of a primitive who, in the manner natural to him\u2014the\nmanner of about the fourteenth century\u2014tells a story that is to him\na living verity, in which he believes, as those souls believe it for\nwhose edification he presents it, and which moves and touches him as\nit does the beholders who will fold their hands devoutly before his\nwork. Puvis cannot reckon on such a reception from his contemporaries,\nfor whom he designs his creation. To us the legend is strange; it is\na bit of learned literature which we look at critically, and in which\nwe cannot be expected to plunge believingly. If Puvis, nevertheless,\novercomes our opposition, and can suggest to us for moments the\nchild-like faith and all the emotions of dead and gone times that are\nconnected with that faith, he has achieved something more difficult\nthan the primitives, for whom the spirit of their time was no opponent,\nbut a confederate.\n\nBlessed are the ignorant. Their lack of suspicion secures them,\nwhenever they glance at the world, the enthusiasm of discovery\nand invention, and every phenomenon delights them as something\nunprecedented. During the lifetime of Puvis de Chavannes his peculiar\nstyle was particularly extolled by his eulogists. They exhibited him\nas a God-sent foundling; as a Moses of painting, without ancestors,\nhimself an ancestor; as a great solitary wandering apart from the\nmultitude through the history of contemporary art. Such phrases can be\nuttered only by one who rejoices in the most refreshing ignorance of\nthe historical continuity of things. Puvis is of a family. The expert\ncan name his forefathers and relations; he finds their lineaments\nrepeated\u2014often coarsened and disfigured\u2014in him.\n\nPuvis, this great, original genius of his admirers, is an impoverished\ndescendant of Cornelius. He represents the worst aberration in art\nthat this century has seen, viz., thought-painting. Nowadays it is\nno longer necessary to prove that abstraction is the negation and\nabrogation of plastic art. This maxim, fortunately, has become an\n\u00e6sthetic commonplace. Painting has to do only with sensuous phenomena;\nabstraction distils from the sensuous one quality, which, since it is\ncommon to many phenomena, is reminiscent of many phenomena, yet is\nitself not phenomenon. He who feels the impulse to paint not views but\nthoughts, proves that in his innermost soul he is not a painter, but a\nrhetorician, and that he has deceived himself marvellously as to the\nmethod of expression natural and organic to him. Cornelius\u2019s painting\npresented thoughts, religious, philosophical, and historical dogmas, in\na picture-language considerably less clearly than might have been done\nin well-ordered words. It pleased all those whose soul was seven times\nsealed against understanding what really constitutes painting. As long\nas the Cornelius tendency was dominant in Germany, that country was\ndepressingly behind in the art life of the period. As soon as Cornelius\nand his school were overthrown, a sound development of German painting\nbegan. And now, at the close of the nineteenth century in France,\nin the France which has produced, in landscape, Corot, Rousseau,\nDiaz, Harpignies: in figure-painting, Millet, Courbet, Bonnat, Roll:\nfrom which has come the return to nature and the renaissance of art,\nthe allegorical thought-painting of a Puvis has been praised as the\ngreatest advance, as the latest step in development! The snake biting\nits own tail still remains the truest symbol of human activity that the\nself-knowledge of the race has as yet discovered.\n\nAnd how far, in his special direction, Puvis lags behind his obsolete\npredecessors! A Cornelius, Kaulbach, and Stilke, displayed, after\nall, in the invention of their symbols, a rich power of imagination\nwhich might have been worthy of better things. Their two-legged\nabstractions were so honestly drawn that they deceived with regard to\ntheir phantom-like nature, and could give themselves out to be real\ncreatures of flesh and blood. Puvis\u2019s invention, on the other hand,\nis so poor that it whines pitifully for alms. The representations\nwhich kindle his imagination seem derived solely from an illustrated\nhandbook of mythology for girls\u2019 schools. For an example of this, one\nhas only to look at the wall-paintings for the Boston Library, which\nare among the most important work that Puvis has done, at least so\nfar as their range and claims are concerned. The first represents\nthe inspiring Muses \u201cgreeting with acclamations light carrying the\nGenius.\u201d From a schematic landscape with sickly pale meadows, a sea of\nultramarine blue, and spanned by a sky the colour of autumn foliage,\nnine female figures are flying to meet a delightfully insignificant\nnaked youth striding on clouds of wadding. This youth holds in each\nhand a powerfully brilliant electrical lamp, evidently the Teslasch\nalternating current light, as wires are nowhere visible. The least\nfault of this picture is that the Muses are not aspiring in voluntary,\nindependent flight, but hang motionless in the air in a passive\nattitude, like Giotto\u2019s angels and saints, who have not yet learnt\nto fly. Its mortal sin is that it wishes to represent in painting a\nvulgar, rhetorical arrangement composed of a number of abstractions.\n\nBeside this allegory, Puvis opens five windows on his world of dreams.\nNaked shepherds observe, in a southern night, the course of the stars,\nand are themselves observed by a young woman who is creeping out of a\nlowly leafy hut. A man in a sort of Roman dress looks thoughtfully at\nsome bee-hives, whilst peasants in the distance are busy working in the\nfields. A greybeard is sitting by the sea, from which a steep cliff\nemerges. On its summit a man is chained almost in the attitude of the\nCrucified. The shadow of an approaching vulture falls on him. Maidens\nemerging from the sea hover round him with disconsolate gestures. We\nmust necessarily recognise Prometheus and the Oceanides in the scene.\nAnother old man, who is blind, receives laurel branches from two young\nbeauties. A haughty dame stretches her arm with magic gestures over a\nmysterious abyss that has engulfed mighty marble buildings, pillars,\nand woodwork. Behind the woman stands a youth with a torch and book\nin his hand. I have described in brief what one actually sees. Puvis\nmeans the star-gazers for Chald\u00e6an shepherds; the Roman for Vergil;\nthe greybeard in front of the Prometheus-rocks for \u00c6schylus; the blind\nman for Homer receiving the laurels from the hands of the Iliad and\nOdyssey personified; the enchantress for history conjuring up the past.\nWe are to read still more into it. The Chald\u00e6ans signify astronomy;\nVergil bucolic poetry, \u00c6schylus dramatic, Homer epic; the conjurer up\nof the dead and ruined, Clio. Thus we have before us five polished\nplanes of the prism of man\u2019s spiritual activity, five domains of the\nMuses\u2014a fitting decoration for a library. These abstractions are\npainted in an abstract style. The human beings are schematic drawings\nas if taken from statues for illustrating an academic canon. They live\npsychically only through their artificial gestures\u2014not through their\nmask\u2014visages without mien of glance. The landscapes are geometrical\ncombinations of rocks which a Cyclopean stone-mason has hewn in ancient\nstyle; of mountains whose ridge stretches in architectural lines; of\nevenly-coloured masses of deep-blue sea, pale-green sky, and sap-green\ngrass country. The land is called Utopia, and is inhabited by Outis:\nin English, Nowhere and Nobody. The indigo, emerald, and turquoise\ntone is pleasant to the eye, especially as Puvis has here, contrary\nto his murderous habit, not massacred the living colours. But nothing\nexcept the harmony of colours appeals to me in these pictures. It is\nnot painting: it is writing. It does not presuppose in me any feeling\nfor art, but only a decent, classical education. It taps on my school\nsatchel. Before these five Puvis de Chavannes pictures, I think of a\nhighly-educated Japanese, learned in all the wisdom of his country,\nwith the most delicate feelings for line and harmony of colours; an\nappreciator of Hokusai and the other great masters of Japan: he will\nreceive no impression at all from Puvis\u2019s works; he will look upon the\nfigures as phantoms, the scenes as so much childishness; he will not\nhave an inkling what these forms, remotely resembling human beings,\nare doing, or what they mean. For he is not acquainted with the Greek\nand Latin classics, and without this hypothesis the works of Puvis are\ndead symbols, incomprehensible to any one unprovided with the special\nkey, and without the natural constraining power of plain human truth\nand beauty. The provoking over-estimation of his work by corybantic\ncritics justified every severity against Puvis de Chavannes in his\nlifetime. Now his appreciation no longer requires polemical pricks,\nand we can say that his G\u00e9nevi\u00e8ve cycle secures him a permanent place\nin the history of art; that his great allegorical frescoes are cold,\ndead, sprawling, pretentious subtleties; and that neither his drawing\nnor his colour sanctify him as a master and model. His importance\nconsists in this, _i.e._, that in his time the longing for beauty took\nhim as a cloak for a passionate confession. The Puvis cult was, in the\nmain, a reaction against Realism. By the exaggeration with which he\nwas honoured may be measured the greatness of the disgust which his\ncontemporaries felt for naturalistic art.\n\n\n\n\n XI\n\n BRIGHT AND DARK PAINTING\n\n CHARLES COTTET\n\n\nA generation ago opposition arose against gloomy painting. Down with\nthe twilight cellar painting! Down with the studio sauce! Hurrah\nfor the open air! Long live free light! With this war-song a brave,\nhot-blooded band stormed art academies and studios of masters, and,\nshouting for joy, planted their silver and violet banner on the posts\nthey had taken. For two whole decades the art exhibitions presented a\ncheerful, festive aspect. It was always Sunday. The glow of a southern\nnoon rested over whole walls. From the hundreds and thousands of\ncanvases, big and little, streamed the gleaming sunlight in its full\nglory. Men, beasts, things, landscapes\u2014all swam in luminous splendour\nwhich, at most, patches of violet shadow subdued timidly. Nature seemed\nto know no other conditions of light than those of Capri in July.\nAbout the turn of the century this suddenly began to change. In some\npictures the light went out. Certain painters again discovered the\ndarkness of evening, of leaden-clouded winter\u2019s day, of thickets, of\nrooms. On some palettes the eternal white and violet was replaced by\nthe old brown, black, and olive-green of our fathers. The phenomenon\nbecame, year by year, more marked. To-day the change is accomplished.\nFree light is thrown away after the old moons. Painting has grown sick\nof noonday. There is an atmosphere of twilight in all the pictures. The\nyoung painters\u2014the victors of the day\u2014use as much asphalt, mummy, and\number, as did the old ones thirty years ago. Whole ranges of walls in\nthe Paris _salons_ lie as in deep shadow, and we may go through several\nrooms before finding a creature represented as \u201cbreathing in rosy\nlight.\u201d\n\nWhat satires these _salons_ are on the consequential, high-stepping,\ndeep-thinking drivel of professorial and other chatterers, who, to hide\ntheir dearth of thoughts, turn out new words, discover in our days a\nparticular \u201ccharm\u201d in painting as in other arts, and prove by _a_ + _b_\nthe necessary, logically offered expression of new spiritual needs of\nthe present generation.\n\nNow what has become of the \u201ccharm\u201d that calculatingly demanded \u201cfree\nlight\u201d and nothing else? And how is it, then, with the spiritual\nneeds of the present generation, to which free light and nothing\nelse corresponded? And how does it stand with the new way, in which\nfavoured artists have taught us to contemplate and to feel nature?\nWas the \u201ccharm\u201d four or five years ago inclined to brilliancy, and\nis it changed during the night to an insatiable longing for gloom?\nDid white and violet correspond five years ago to the spiritual needs\nof the present generation, and does this generation now need black,\nbrown, or olive-green tones? Have we just as quickly again unlearnt to\ncontemplate and feel nature in sun-gold and violet, as favoured artists\nhave taught us to do?\n\nLiving art goes her way according to her own laws and impulses, and\nleaves in the lurch the babbling empty heads, with their pretentious\nthreshing of phrases, who tramp after her, expounding and talking\nwisely interpretations and clever chatter. Not by a particular\n\u201cincentive\u201d of the period, not from its alleged spiritual needs and\ncurrents of thought, are the changes of art creation to be explained,\nbut solely by the psychology of the artists, by their very human, very\nweakly prosaic needs, by the material and moral conditions under which\nthey are nowadays condemned to work.\n\nThe _salons_, the art exhibitions, are in our time the annual marts\nof success for painters. In these they have to seek fame and its\ntrain-bearer\u2014payment in cash. In these they must strive amongst a\nthousand or two thousand competitors to astonish at any price. By\nspecial beauty or special nobility? This means will be chosen by the\nvery fewest. Firstly, not one in a thousand has it in his power. In\nthe second place, even an artist not in the front rank has enough\nPhilistine contempt to be convinced that nobility and beauty are the\nlast things for which the crowd has a taste. His hunger for success\u2014a\nfitting form of his instinct for self-preservation\u2014gives the artist\nsense and understanding of the psychology of the multitude, whose\nelementary law is that it is obtuse to that which is common and reacts\non what is uncommon. The artist who works with an eye to exhibiting\nwhere his work will be one of two thousand, has only one endeavour,\nviz., to be as different as possible from these, and by this means\npossibly to make a striking impression amongst them. The contrary is\nthe greatest difference possible. That is the polar line, the angle of\n180 degrees. Logic, which unconsciously proceeds geometrically, brings\nthe artist to this. He also looks sharply at what the others are doing;\nputs himself to trouble to find out what they have in common, and in\nwhat respect they resemble each other; and when he has discovered this,\nor thinks he has done so, he proceeds to do the exact reverse.\n\nIf he has properly recognised the predominating element and has hit the\nexact opposite, the victory is gained with a weight that overthrows all\nbefore it. Professional associates, critics, and public stand in front\nof something new. The novelty-hating majority feels the disturbance in\ntheir lazy mental habits as an insult and discomfort, and sets up a\nyell. The minority of unsatisfied gainsayers, morbid bread-hunters,\nvain coxcombs, and enthusiasts longing for the glorious Unknown and\nUnprecedented, passionately take side for the novelty. This serves as\nan excuse for a conflict of those eternal conservative and radical\ntendencies, whose battle may be seen throughout the whole history of\nhuman development; and the artist who unchains these tempests sees\nhimself honoured as one of the embodiments of contemporary thought, as\na power in civilisation. Only quite exceptionally is a cool analyst\nfound to say with smiling tranquillity amidst the bluster of the war\nof minds: \u201cDear children, don\u2019t excite yourselves like that; the word\n\u2018new\u2019 is no verdict. To be different does not necessarily mean to be\nbetter. An old tendency may contain beauty in itself; a new one may,\nof course, do so too, but not necessarily. He who grows excited on\nbehalf of the old, simply because it is old, is commonplace. He who\ngrows excited for the sake of something new, merely because it is\nnew, is commonplace with a negative prefix. Only wait a little while.\nIn a short space of time the new will have become old, and you will\nrecognise that there was no grounds for raising a noise about it. The\nman of the new thing, whom you hail as the bringer of a new salvation,\nis no better than the ancients; but he is right, for he wishes to be\nnoticed, to inherit from the ancients, and that is wholly justified\nfrom his selfish standpoint.\u201d\n\nThe would-be aristocrats of intelligence\u2014the \u201cintellectuals\u201d\u2014would\nfind a speech like this intolerably homely. It is not in the least\n\u201cdeep.\u201d It is not at all applicable to the mystic inclinations of\nvaporous brains. It discovers no single unsurmised and astounding\nrelation between phenomena that have nothing in common with each other;\nbut I believe it is literally true.\n\nThe \u201cImpressionists\u201d of the Caillebotte room in the Luxembourg painted\nbrightly when the _salon_ was correspondingly dark. The one light\npicture among the dark paintings acted like a window that opens in\nthe gloomy wall to the sunny air. When the other painters saw that\nthe multitude flew towards this bright point, like moths after the\nflame of a taper, they hastened to paint also in bright colours. \u201cFree\nlight\u201d was discovered. It corresponded to no mood of the period. Free\nlight is joyous and satisfied. The spirit of the age was, during\nits predominance in painting, pessimistic and sick with longing as\nit had hardly ever been in the past. Nor was it a new way of seeing\nand feeling nature. Turner, Corot, Claude Lorrain, Ostade, Salvator\nRosa himself had seen and felt nature quite as brightly as Manet and\nMonet had done. The truth is that the \u201cImpressionists\u201d were turbulent\nyoung people who got angry at vegetating in obscurity whilst Gudin\nand Schnetz, Signol and M\u00fcller, Pils, Cabanel, Dubufe, and Robert\nFleury had all the honours and successes; and that impelled by envious\nloathing of these celebrities of that day, they found, as it were, in\na negative chemo-tropical way, the exact reverse of their dark style.\n\nFive years ago the same incident was played off exactly in the opposite\ndirection. Everybody was painting in a bright style. The Schnetz and\nCabanel, Delaunay and Cogniet of the day were called Puvis de Chavannes\nand Roll, Besnard and Cazin. Then, again, some young people got angry\nabout their being unknown and unheeded, and they entered, consciously\nand of set purpose, into opposition against the celebrities of the day.\nCharles Cottet exhibited a black picture which, in the middle of a\nblinding white exhibition wall, struck just as glaringly as did, thirty\nyears ago, the bright picture in the middle of the black wall. Cottet\nhad hit the bull\u2019s eye. He instantly created a school, and to-day\nthe _salons_ look once more as they did thirty years ago, to be once\nmore flooded with free light, probably, some twenty or thirty years\nhence. It is an orbit without beginning or end, an eternal beginning\nover again, and only posing fools seek, in this monotonous, periodical\nreturn of the same effects under the influence of the same causes, to\nferret out connections with definite phenomena of the times.\n\nCharles Cottet is developing into the undisputed leader of the young\nrace of painters. He deserves the recognition accorded to him, yet it\nis a serious matter that he provokes to imitation; for what in him\nis uncouth, though justifiable, independence, will become with the\nimitators a manner that may rapidly pass into intolerable aberration.\nCottet loves dark harmonies of colour. He paints night, closed rooms\nillumined by artificial light, candle and fire effects; unlike\nRembrandt, whose glooms are delicate and transparent, whose men and\nthings are particularly self-luminous in sunless space; and unlike his\npupil, Schalcken, who treats flames and their reflections roughly after\nthe manner of a blacksmith, without mystery or harmony. Cottet paints\nit apparently more from joy in darkness than joy in light, for with him\ndarkness is generally the principal thing, and the sources of light are\nthere chiefly to call attention to the sinister stir and movement in\nthe unillumined dusk. His imitators do not see the intense life of his\nshadows. They only see his black, brown, and dark-green palette, and\ndimly brush away at it again as in the worst days before the dawn of\n\u201cfree light.\u201d\n\nPainting goes out into the night, and will remain there a while. Then\nonce more a cheerful and free artist will come, and discover light for\nan astonished and enraptured world, and he will be deified or damned\nas a revolutionist just as Monet was thirty-five years ago when he did\nthe same, and as Cottet was five years ago when he did the reverse.\nAnd thus it will ever be so long as in the human apparatus of thought\na change of impression will relax conscious feeling, and art creation\nwill have to serve, not only the utterance of strong impulses of\nemotion and the relaxation of the nervous system, but also the ambition\nor vanity of the artist, which means, I suppose, to the end of time.\n\nCottet\u2019s execution is somewhat brutal. He works in the style of Ribot,\nwho was himself a curious mixture of reminiscences of Franz Hals,\nRibera, and Velasquez, with an admixture of personal self-will. He\nlays great, dark, almost dirty spots on the canvas, and treats human\nskin with boorish coarseness\u2014I might almost say, with the curry-comb.\nBut what truth and energy in all the movements! How economically and\nyet how exhaustively he can reveal the thoughts and feelings of his\nsubject. There is little in the whole of modern painting so pathetic as\nhis three-panelled picture, \u201cSea Folk,\u201d that now adorns the Luxembourg\nMuseum. In the middle, the parting meal of the Jack Tars before\nstarting, round the village table fifteen people, strapping young men\nwith their womenfolk\u2014mothers, wives, and sweethearts. Through the\nopen window dark-green night looks in; from the petroleum lamp there\ngleams a sharp streak of yellow light; the men sit close to each other\nin silence; forebodings and the sadness of leave-taking exalt them\nand raise the souls of these horny-handed toilers to the regions of\npoetic thought and dreams. On the right, the boat that is conveying the\nsailors to their ship; some are rowing or steering, the rest are in a\nreverie. All go carelessly to meet their fate, which perhaps will mean\nmerely prosaic seaman\u2019s work on a voyage without any adventures, but\nperhaps even heroic tragedies of struggle and destruction. On the left,\nthe women remaining behind, who watch from the shore the departing men,\ntheir lovers, their bread-winners, with sorrowful love and prayer in\ntheir looks, their mien, their hands, and their attitudes.\n\nPossibly this profound picture moves me so much only because it\nillustrates completely what I meant when I described the social mission\nof art in the future in these words: \u201cIn a work of art which is to\nattract the people, the people must find themselves again, but just\nas formerly the priest and king did: magnified and ennobled. The work\nof art must show them their own likeness, though a beautified one.\nIt must raise the people in their own eyes, teach them to respect\nthemselves.... Works which can show the dignity and beauty of the\noccupations of the multitude, which are a sanctification of labour,\nan apotheosis of the tragedies and idyls, of all the sweet and bitter\nstirrings of emotion in the common life\u2014these works, I believe,\nconstitute the type of the art work of the future.\u201d\n\nCottet\u2019s triptych is one of these works. It renders my abstract\ndeductions concrete. He is a great painter who can extract with so\nsure a hand from the stone of everyday life all the gold of beauty it\ncontains.\n\nCottet gets his suggestions for the most part from Brittany. Almost\nall his works, in any case his most famous ones, tell of Breton\nnature and the life of the Breton people. His \u201cMidsummer Fire\u201d is\nvery affecting. The holiday fire is kindled beneath the clear sky of\na midsummer night; around it assemble the Bretons, ever faithful to\ntheir traditions. The smoke ascends vertically; the flames glow on the\ncountenances gazing on them. Old women and children they are, for the\nmost part, who celebrate the solstice according to ancient custom;\nthere are hardly one or two men among the devout multitude. The sterner\nsex, the middle-aged, laugh at the superstition; but the grandmothers\nfoster the custom of their ancestors, and entwine it into the earliest\nchildhood of their grandchildren as a dear remembrance that grows up\nwith all the joys and sorrows of their infant years. Thus what is old\nis retained and is handed down from generation to generation. Cottet\nhas expressively illustrated this rule of folk-lore, not because he\nintended it, but because he was true. Far and wide, as far as the eye\ncan reach, other fires are burning, and mirroring themselves in the\nsea, and you can guess that, even around the furthest, which are hardly\nvisible in the night, the villagers are making a circle, just as round\nthe flame in the foreground. One single note hovers over the whole\nof this landscape; one single feeling dominates the soul of all this\npopulation. Each one of these old women whose glances are submerged in\nthe holy flame feels herself at this instant a unit of the whole race\ninhabiting the hereditary granite soil, and part and parcel of her\nforefathers who have long rested beneath the sod. Thus a real work\nof art, without straying into literature, points far beyond its own\nboundaries.\n\nThe \u201cNational F\u00eate at Camaret\u201d is celebrated so earnestly by the\nBreton peasants that, in spite of the bright paper lamps on the tree,\nit has the effect of a church solemnity. In \u201cThe Old Breton Nag,\u201d\nCottet has translated from bronze into less severe painting one of the\nnever-to-be-forgotten coal-mine horses of Constantin Meunier. \u201cMourning\nby the Sea\u201d is one of his masterpieces. Grandmother, mother, and\ndaughter are sitting together on a stone bench on the shore. They are\nall three wearing widow\u2019s weeds. They are speechless and motionless,\nabandoned to their thoughts, which abide with their dead. The sea,\nwhich has swallowed their husbands, and to which they turn their backs,\nlurks behind them in insidious calm behind two storms that depopulate\nthe coast, and leave behind the granite cliffs only old and young\nwidows and children, who, in turn, also will be trained for the sea\u2014the\nmerciless sea, on which the poor devoted fishermen and sailors seek\ntheir living and find their death. The existence of a population, its\ntruceless fight with hostile nature, is comprised in the black figures\nof these three modern Niobes. To-day, too, as in its beginnings, true\nart is myth-making.\n\nTo this series of pictures from Breton peasant life belongs also\nan \u201cEarly Mass in Winter,\u201d which at present hangs in the \u201cLittle\nPalace,\u201d at Paris. In the early dawn, beneath heavy clouds, a few\nBreton peasant women, of whom we get a back view, are proceeding\nacross the flat, damp heath to an insignificant village church. They\nwear the round mantle with a hood, which is usual in that country.\nOn first glancing at these short, broad, black figures without human\nform, which look like wobbling, tightly-filled coal-sacks, I could not\nhelp laughing aloud. But I observed in the mien of other observers\ncomposedness, piety, and admiration. These evidently saw in the picture\nonly the walk to church, not the clumsy sacks, always a proof how\npowerfully Cottet can conjure up a mood.\n\nOnce or twice Cottet has in some measure proved faithless to his usual\ndark style of painting, and allowed himself to revel in colour. Thus\nin his portrayal of a family of Breton fisherfolk, when the corpse of\na baby is laid on its bier. The dead child lies in its little open\ncoffin, around which four tapers are burning. On both sides of the\nbier the seven or eight relatives stand grouped: the parents, aunts,\nlittle brothers and sisters express, each in his or her way, their\ngrief, which, in the case of the still unconscious children only,\nsinks to the level of mere curiosity. From the coffin proceed two\nvividly red ribbons which stream across the bier down to the ground.\nFlowers of a similar furious red are strewn over the bier. These shrill\nvalues do not produce exactly a fine and harmonious effect in the\ndark-toned general atmosphere with the opposite warm yellow spots of\nthe taper-flames. Moreover, the composition here is also not a happy\none. It is an error to make the pale little corpse of the child the\ncentre of a large picture. Death does not attract the eyes, but repels\nthem. It does not endure the rivalry of life unless it can compel\nattention perhaps by means of special melodramatic circumstances or\nsymbolical value. The glance turns naturally to the living, feeling,\nacting human beings, and thus the centre of the picture, which should\nbe the keystone of the arch that holds the composition together, seems\nto be a gap. Christ\u2019s dead body may be made the centre of a picture.\nThis dead Saviour will always be, in the beholder\u2019s imagination, the\nmost living, the only living thing in the picture. So, too, the dead\nLazarus and Jairus\u2019s little daughter are suitable for the main figures\nin a composition, because these dead persons are virtually living, and\nwhat makes them interesting is not death, but returning life. But the\ninnumerable \u201cLessons in Anatomy,\u201d which were a favourite subject with\nthe Dutch painters (Aart Pietersen, M. van Mirevelt, Rembrandt, Adrian\nBacker, Van Neck, Cornelis Troost, etc.) show how unsuitable a corpse,\nto which no suggestions beyond its visible condition are united, is for\narresting the attention. Even a master such as Rembrandt is unable, in\nwhat is, I suppose, the most famous of all \u201cLessons in Anatomy,\u201d to\ndirect attention to the dead body. In spite of the large space occupied\nby the corpse, we do not see it, but only Dr Tulp and his audience.\nCottet\u2019s picture is the most convincing proof of the impossibility,\nin a composition containing living persons also, of laying the chief\nstress on a dead one. The psychic element, _i.e._, the mourners\u2019 pain,\nCottet has, however, expressed with gripping force and truth. It is his\nstrength and glory that the inward, emotional life preponderates with\nhim so far beyond all externals.\n\nAt the first glance his \u201cBreton Festival\u201d is even more repellent than\nthe \u201cDead Baby.\u201d The line of hills on the horizon, the stern heath, the\nchurch, the breakfast laid on the white tablecloth in the foreground,\nare certainly masterly achievements; but the Breton women grouped in\nthe open air round this still life wound us with their silk bodices\nof the crudest blue, green, and violet! It is said that Breton women\nactually dress in such shrill colours. This may be so; but that does\nnot really justify the crude reproduction of such brutalities. It is\nasserted that time will subdue the overloud tones of these violent\ncolours and effect a reconciliation of them. On this subject our\nchildren or grandchildren will have an opinion. What we see now is,\nanyhow, unpleasant. Has Cottet wished to show that he is able to deal\nwith something besides asphalt and umber? If so, let him be told that\nhis dark harmonies of brown, grey, and black are more agreeable than\nall these shrill penny-trumpet tones.\n\nCottet stands at the zenith of his life and artistic capacity. It\nwould be rash to predict his further development. Whether he keeps\nto the dark style of painting, to which he owes his reputation, or\nlets himself be led away by the strong, bright, full colours; whether\nhe remains faithful to Brittany, which seems with the young race of\nartists to take the place of the classic Italy of their predecessors,\nor seeks another soil and another landscape to serve as frames for his\nmen and women of deep emotions\u2014in any case, Cottet has already secured\nhimself a place in the History of Art; deservedly, too, but chiefly\nbecause the change in the valuation of tones is bound up with his name.\nIt was day; it became night. Manet and Monet had denoted dawn; Cottet\nintroduced evening twilight.\n\n\n\n\n XII\n\n PHYSIOGNOMIES IN PAINTING\n\n\nJohn W. Alexander, an American, possesses an enviable skill and\ncertainty. He is master of the means of expression belonging to his\nart, and has a trustworthy feeling for the harmony of those light,\nsubdued colours called in Fiance \u201cLiberty\u201d shades, after the name of\nan American tradesman in the Avenue de l\u2019Op\u00e9ra who first brought into\nvogue clothing, furniture, and wall stuffs in such peculiarly an\u00e6mic\nand almost chlorotic colours. With his dexterous draughtsmanship and\ncharming harmony of cool, diluted blue, soft green, faint pale yellow\nand delicate rose, he might possibly have pleased connoisseurs, but\ncould hardly have attained world-wide fame. He, therefore, hit upon\npainting women\u2019s portraits in amazing positions. He was the inventor\nof acrobatics in portraiture. His women lie about, in orgiastic\ncontortions, on the ground or on sofas, with their legs up and heads\nhanging over the edge, or with forms twisted twice round, like a screw,\nor curled round like a sleeping dog, astonishing the inoffensive\nspectator, and suggesting to him of corrupt imagination certain\nlustful ideas. The means were effectual. Alexander became a first-class\nfirm, and the _cr\u00e9tins_ of criticism did not fail to praise his special\nknowledge of, and feeling for, the \u201cmodern women of high-strung\nnerves and Satanic caprices.\u201d Now Alexander seems to find that he has\nacquired sufficient fame, and is abandoning his follies. Among his\nlater pictures there very rarely occurs one of which the model betrays\nhis earlier leaning to gymnastics. The ladies he now paints are quite\ndecent in their attitudes, and only, perhaps, a serpentine movement in\ntheir long, flowing garments reminds us still of the old gutta-percha\nor snakelike contortions of his bodies. Alexander has slipped through\nthe fingers of his modernistic critics. Whilst they still keep on\nraving about his \u201cmodern women with high-strung nerves and Satanic\ncaprices,\u201d he is painting prosperously, peacefully, and intelligently,\nand can now be recommended to the most respectable _bourgeois_ families\nto immortalise their matrons.\n\nAman-Jean is a melancholy painter, whose palette has been tuned in\na minor key. He is the guitarist of the falling leaf, twilight,\ntapestry-hung ancestral halls, sombre Gobelins. His pictures result\nfrom the mood in which a man catches himself humming the _King of\nThule_. I do not say that this tone of colour does not possess its\ncharm. He who does not live his life like a thoughtless, devouring,\nand digesting animal has, I suppose, on every blessed day of his\nexistence, an hour in which he finds his own soul in the subdued\nand faded palette of Aman-Jean. It is, however, morbid to see the\nphenomena of the universe merely as old Gobelins in the hue of twilight\nhours. And morbid, too, is the way in which Aman-Jean transforms his\nimpressions of poems into a painter\u2019s view. I know, for instance, a\n\u201cBeatrice\u201d of his which affords the maximum of involuntary comicality.\nBefore an artificial-looking orange-tree, which she overtowers in\nheight, Dante\u2019s beloved, with the upper part of her body thrown back,\nand her stomach pushed forward, performs a sort of _danse du ventre_.\nTo her girdle she has a golden laurel garland hanging, which, as a\nnote of illumination in the dull night-hues, has an excellent effect\nas _valeur_ (as the French say), but as an object or requisite is very\ncomic. Aman-Jean himself, with that misappreciation of subordination in\nhis pictures, which is so common among artists, lays far greater value\non such ridiculous whims than on his portraits. And yet it is only in\nthese that he shows with what sureness and intensity he is able to\nseize and lay bare the most inaccessible and most mysteriously elusive\nthing that reality has to exhibit, viz., living man. His \u201cJules Caze\u201d\nand his \u201cDampt the Sculptor\u201d belong to the most delicate portrayals of\nmen, just as his \u201cPaul Verlaine\u201d and \u201cMadame Henri Martin\u201d must also\nremain unforgettable by every one who has beheld them.\n\nHis portraits, to be sure, are not by any means of the same value.\nThere is, for instance, a portrait by him of a \u201cCossack Colonel\u201d that\nmust fully mislead in regard to him. Materiality is entirely lacking\nin the full-length figure he has painted of the Russian officer; it is\nclapped flat on the canvas like a pancake. A laurel bush climbs from\nthe bottom to the top of the picture\u2014one cannot say in the background,\nas the picture has no depth, but, apparently, behind the man. The\nshrub seems painted on the wall to the height of the head. It suddenly\ngrows plastic before our eyes, and shoots its leaves in front of the\ncolonel\u2019s nose and forehead. By this symbolism which scoffs at all the\nlaws of perspective, the painter evidently wants to suggest relations\nbetween the warrior and fame. One can only shrug one\u2019s shoulders at\nsuch puerility.\n\nHe is more and more breaking himself of the habit of regarding living\nmodels, and allows himself to be hypnotised by the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelite magic\nlantern. We might wish for an Orpheus to take this noble artist by the\nhand and lead him back to the light from the shades in which he has\nlost himself. Perhaps the adventure would be more successful than in\nthe case of Eurydice.\n\nAlbert Besnard.\u2014Contemporary painting knows no more harsh contrasts\nthan Puvis de Chavannes and Albert Besnard. The former saw nothing in\nthe world except spectres; the latter sees only fireworks. Puvis\u2019s eyes\nperceived no living colour; Besnard\u2019s eye is in a state as if it had\nreceived a violent blow from a fist, in consequence of which it saw the\nproverbial ten thousand candles. There is nothing objectionable about\nhis delight in colour; on the contrary, any one who is not suffering\nfrom Daltonism would be delighted to be invited to his debauch of\ncolours. If only Besnard only satisfied his taste in a somewhat nobler\nway! It pleases him to introduce his dazzling rockets into women\u2019s\nfaces, and there no man of healthy taste will care to follow him.\nBesnard has marvellously beautiful yellow, orange, green, blue, and\nred on his palette. He can attune them, too, to a beautifully sounding\nharmony; but why must he put yellow on the cheeks, green on the hair,\nand blue and orange on the shoulders in his portraits? Why must he\nso portray his model as if it were streaked with luminous paint or\nbathed in a stream of light that has flowed through a coloured glass\nwindow? His mastery of drawing and modelling certainly makes his\ncolouring-run-mad somewhat more endurable, but it does not justify his\nnot searching for the tumult of colour which he loves in actual life\n(where, after all, he might with some effort find them), but chasing\nthem into actual life without any regard or thought.\n\nIn the _salons_ of late years, Albert Besnard pursues a curious\npolicy. Near one or more aggressively stupid works, he exhibits a\nportrait or painting which is amazingly rational. In this there is\nmethod, unmistakably. It is a sort of self-defence. Besnard seems,\nfrom his canvasses, to address the visitors to the \u201cSalon\u201d in these\nwords: \u201cYou see that I am in private life quite a sane individual\nand correct painter, who is as much the master of his art as anybody\nin the world. The other rubbish is for the fools of modernism. For\nthose I am bound at times to play the Jack Pudding, but you need not,\nhowever, worry yourself about that.\u201d Once, for instance, this painted\nplea was the life-sized portrait of Denys Cochin, the nationalist\ndeputy for Paris\u2014an excellent work, laborious, powerfully drawn, and\nirreproachable in colour, which reminds one of Herkomer\u2019s best style.\nHis clownery, on the other hand, was a huge picture which Besnard calls\n\u201cThe Isle of the Blessed.\u201d A bushy shore in the foreground, then a wide\nexpanse of water which looks partly like sand, partly like wine-soup,\nand only in the remotest degree like natural water. Finally, in the\nbackground, a flat shore with the outlines of a white town that stick,\nas if cut out of paper, on the blue horizon. Across the level sea where\nit is reddest, glides a skiff in which stands, in the attitude of the\nSaviour calming the tempest, an enigmatical figure in red, flowing\ngarments, and with the countenance of an Indian chief, surrounded by\na grass-green and wine-dreg-coloured woman and a monkey-like rower\nof sulphur-yellow hue. On the bank young maidens tarry for the new\narrivals, their light raiment, blown bell-shaped by the breeze,\nreproducing a _motif_ of Botticelli. Between the trees groups of\nbright-coloured figures are camped, and on the steps of a hill sit\nor lounge flute-playing fauns, one of whom has the typical head of a\nretired French colonel. The women in the skiff are distinguished by\ndistorted, acrobatic attitudes, which no model could sustain for ten\nminutes without supports and props. On principle, no two figures are\nplaced side by side without being clad in the most opposite colours in\nthe spectrum. This arrangement of colours suggests the thought that\nnone of the figures must move away from the side of the others, and\nnone could step into another group, as otherwise the harmonies intended\nby Besnard would be destroyed. That seems boldly and freely fanciful,\nbut is soberly and painfully subtilised. It is a mechanical game with\ncontrasts of colours, devoid of purpose and even of the charm of any\nsense of colour. Albert Besnard has, in his later days, evidently\ndiscovered B\u00f6cklin, or even has only heard him extolled and wants now\nto make his own B\u00f6cklin. The fauns\u2014up to their heads\u2014the maidens on\nthe shore, the blue sea, the white town in the distance, are descended\nin the direct line from the pictures of the B\u00e2le master. But Besnard\nhas imitated the details as any one may copy a writing which he cannot\nread. \u201cThe link of the spirit is all that it lacks.\u201d\n\nJean Boldini is one of the most remarkable painters of female\nportraits in our time. In these he makes himself most solicitous to\nunite together the screw lines of Alexander\u2019s demoniacs twisting in\nhysterical convulsions, and Zorn\u2019s bold, sunbeam dances. The faculty\nof tumult hardly any one among contemporaries possesses like this\nuncommonly skilful Italian. His pictures seem to fly up as from a\nbursting bomb. Every fibre in his women palpitates and throbs. One of\nhis women sits half naked, just as if she had torn, in a rage, the\nclothes off her body, on a lion\u2019s skin, and he has made the head and\nskin of this common floor-rug bristle with such an expression of cruel\nsavageness, that you jump back in terror from the expected spring of\nthe bloodthirsty monster. Another woman wears on her arm and shoulders\na feather boa with wonderful convolutions, which seems to rustle\nfrom her in excitement like an eagle. A third lady stands in a door\nframe\u2014she seems to be about to spring forward with the leap of a tiger.\nShe wears one of those very modern, low-cut evening dresses, which are\nfastened over the shoulders only by a tiny chain; her bust looks as if\nit were laid bare because her dress was torn from her body in a brutal\nstruggle with a satyr. There is an atmosphere about this woman of all\nhysterical convulsions, St Vitus\u2019s dance, or defence with teeth and\nclaws against lawless attempts. There is a story about sorcerers and\nwitches who through a touch give another shape to men. This changing of\nskin is not practised only in fairy tales. Certain portrait painters\nalso have it in their power. Old Cabanel transformed the rich, fat\nwives of wholesale merchants and owners of house property, whom he\npainted for 30,000 francs, into goddesses of the old Greek mythology.\nBoldini by a spell transforms the ladies who trust themselves to\nhim into m\u00e6nads, mad women, evil witches that ride of a night on\nbroomsticks to their Sabbath. I do not believe that people pay him\n30,000 francs for that; but if a lady even disburses a centime to be\nrepresented by Boldini as a Bacchante or a Vampire, she must be as much\na victim to neurosity as Boldini makes her out to be.\n\nWilliam Bouguereau.\u2014The contempt of Bouguereau is the beginning of\nwisdom in art. That everybody knows who has occupied himself with\ncontemporary painting otherwise than as a picture-dealer. Among the\nlong-haired ones who dwell on the mountain land of Montmartre, no\nname conveys a worse insult. He who wants to make an impression on\nthe Botticelli ladies when visiting the \u201cSalon,\u201d must make a grimace\nof sudden, severe nausea when he comes across a painting by this\n\u201cmanufacturer of perfumery labels.\u201d On the other hand, Bouguereau\nhas managed to collect in his head in a coronet of all sorts all the\nhonours that blossom for an artist in France. He is Commander of the\nLegion of Honour and Member of the Institute; he gained the _Prix de\nRome_, and has pocketed all the medals that the Salons and Universal\nExhibitions had to bestow. His works fetch the highest prices in the\nmarket, and if no Parisian artist finds purchasers, the big pork\nbutcher of Chicago, that painters\u2019 Providence, to whom in their\nprayers they turn their countenances, always has gold for Bouguereau.\nThe deplorable Philistine, who would also very much like to have a\nlittle share in the \u00e6sthetic enjoyments of this world, tears his hair\nand groans: \u201cWhere is truth?\u201d The _Chat Noir_ treats Bouguereau as\na buffoon, but the Academy erects altars to him. Criticism scoffs,\nbut America pays. And, however readily the Philistine yields to the\nappearance of daring modernity, if he listens to the voice of his own\nheart, he notices to his embarrassment that Bouguereau, as a matter\nof fact, pleases him. He gazes with secret delight at his \u201cCupid and\nPsyche,\u201d his \u201cPearl,\u201d and \u201cInnocence,\u201d his \u201cOblation to Cupid,\u201d his\n\u201cWasps\u2019 Nest,\u201d his \u201cCupid _mouill\u00e9_,\u201d his \u201cHoly Women at the Tomb.\u201d It\nis always the same: a sweet maiden, or even several, a well-built youth\nof rosy body and slender limbs, laughing little mouths with pearly\nteeth, blooming cheeks, snowy bosoms and rosy fingers\u2014all lovely, all\na delight to the eye. The Philistine wriggles under the decree of\nfashion, which forces him to find these charming things horrible, and\nhis troubled look frames the question that his mouth dares not utter:\n\u201cWhy? Why?\u201d\n\nI think we are doing a good work when we answer him calmly and in\na friendly manner, without exaggeration or cheap witticisms which\nneither explain nor prove anything, not even necessarily the sincerity\nof the witling. Bouguereau pleases the insufficiently trained eye,\nbecause he paints prettily; but in art prettiness is the direct\nopposite of the beautiful, for it is untruth, since a conscience\noriginally delicate or happily trained only feels truth to be beautiful.\n\nPrettiness is necessarily untruth, for it is that which is conceived\nwithout trouble, which excites no opposition, which compels no strain\non the attention and no adaptation on the part of the spectator to the\npeculiarity of the artist. Its effect is merely the effect of what\nmeets the spectator\u2019s pre-existent thoughts or feelings completely.\nThis pre-existing element is not, however, the result of collective\nobservation and strong feeling, but the dissipated precipitate of the\nmost fugitive, indifferent perception, which is totally unfitted to\nobtrude into the world of phenomena.\n\nThe artist whose goal is prettiness, does not glance at reality, but at\nthe soul of the crowd which he wishes to please. He does not portray\nwhat he sees, and what makes an impression on him, but what suits the\nfeeble, inexact concepts which the average man forms of things. He is\na courtier of the crowd; he flatters their shallowness and incapacity.\nHe wants them to say, with a self-satisfied smile: \u201cThis man is a great\nartist, for he has the same way of looking at things as ourselves.\u201d\nPrettiness is, in lyric poetry, rhyming \u201clove\u201d with \u201cdove,\u201d \u201cheart\u201d\nand \u201cpart\u201d; in drama, it is rewarding the good characters with\nadvantageous marriages and lucrative posts, and making the wicked fall\ninto the pit they have dug for others. For this is just what the public\nexpects; such is the world-picture which the world has arranged for\nitself, and it is grateful to the poet that he does not force it to\nrectify its comfortable way of thinking.\n\nIn the plastic arts prettiness is the average or typical. Bouguereau\npaints a pattern, not a person. He has a canon to which he holds; and\nif he would only go so far as to look at real human beings, and had\nto admit that nature does not act according to his canon, he would\ncertainly say: \u201cSo much the worse for nature.\u201d\n\nSuperficiality always confuses prettiness with the ideal. One cannot\nfail to see that prettiness lacks exactness. This inexactness is,\nhowever, praised as an improvement on reality: the master of prettiness\nunderstands nature better than she understands herself. He guesses what\nshe would, but cannot always, do, and comes with his superior creative\npower to help the poor incapable. The truth is that prettiness is the\nexact reverse of the ideal; for the ideal is the presentiment of future\ndevelopments: prettiness the pompous repetition of what is commonplace.\nThe idealist is impelled by a restless longing after novelty to\nrepresent; he seeks in invisible germs which the average soul does\nnot perceive to detect the later glory of blossom. The painter of\nprettiness shows scant satisfaction in attainment, and his creation is\nnothing but a sleepy reminiscence of impressions he is accustomed to.\n\nThe chief harm done by prettiness in art is that it confirms the\nmultitude in their dulness instead of arousing them from it. What\nthe \u201cman in the street\u201d feels in presence of a work of Bouguereau\u2019s\nis self-complacent pleasure at the artist agreeing with him. He\nwill expect the same feeling also from real works of art, and be\ndisappointed if he fails to find it. Pretty paintings deaden the mind\nof the average man for powerful works, which teach men to see, educate\neyes, operate for cataract, and heal colour-blindness, are keys to the\nhidden sense of lines of movement, interpret the symbolism of form,\nand point the way to unknown beauty. The bloodthirsty backwoodsman\nof Montmartre is, therefore, right to think little or nothing of\nBouguereau, and to scalp him; and the Philistine who expects to elevate\nand enrich his mind by art must make the sacrifice of renouncing the\ncheap pleasure which the engaging banality of prettiness procures him.\n\nIf Bouguereau has anything personal to say, he can say it no worse than\nmany another. His \u201cPortrait of Himself\u201d in the velvet painting-jacket\nis sincere, and at any rate strives to be honest. It is true that here,\ntoo, he has not been quite able to overcome his habit of embellishing,\nand his cheeks are distressingly rosy. One could not expect from\nhim the almost terrifying inexorableness with which a David has\nconfessed the dreadful grimace of his face paralysed on one side, and\na Rembrandt, in his old age, the puffiness of his features and the\nwateriness of his eyes. These men had such a pride in truthfulness\nthat, in their anxiety not to be partial, they felt almost hostile to\nthemselves, and tried, and judged themselves accordingly. Bouguereau\ndoes not understand why he should treat himself more ill-temperedly\nthan his Cupids and nymphs, and smiles good-humouredly at himself.\n\nFrank Brangwyn.\u2014This young Englishman, born in Belgium, is a painter\nof the great class from which the kings of art spring. In his delight\nin colour, he reminds us of Delacroix in his _Sturm und Drang_ period;\nin the dauntlessness with which he wields the brush, of Franz Hals\nhimself, the boldest fighter with this weapon that ever lived up to\nnow. His two first works exhibited in the Paris Salon, \u201cA Sailor\u2019s\nFuneral\u201d and \u201cAll Hands Aloft,\u201d instantly called attention to him. His\n\u201cBuccaneers\u201d was a veritable revelation. In a boat, floating on the\nblue-black tide of the Carribean Sea, row some life-sized fellows clad\nin variegated material, their heads bound with bright red cloths. In\nthe glowing, tropical sun that swelters down on them, everything is\na blinding, bright flame: the foam, wet oars, the ship\u2019s planks, the\nclothing and headgear of the people. The brown cut-throats get in\nthis noonday glory an almost superhuman relief, and in their savage\ncountenances a calm consciousness of their formidableness is revealed,\nwhich even in the picture has the effect of a challenge to mortal\ncombat. A year later he exhibited \u201cGoatherds,\u201d likewise life-sized,\nand likewise plunged in the noonday glow of a southern sky, and, in\naddition, a reposefully coloured and marvellously deep night-piece,\n\u201cThe Three Holy Kings offering the Infant Jesus Gold, Incense, and\nMyrrh.\u201d His ability was further enhanced by a \u201cMarket on the Shore\u201d and\na \u201cMiraculous Draught of Fishes.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cMarket on the Shore\u201d is held in a Barbary harbour. Little\nbright-coloured carpets are spread on the yellow loamy sand, where\nnegroes in brown and green-lined _haiks_ and _burnooses_ lie squatting.\nThey are surrounded by poorer people in fantastic rags, with red\n_tarboosh_ on long, clean-shaven Hamitic skulls. Beyond, three ships\nextend their prows over the flat beach, and in the background, on the\nfurther side of a strip of water, we get a glance, through a gateway\nwith three pointed arches, at the dim throng of a mysterious Mohammedan\ntown.\n\nThe \u201cMiraculous Draught of Fishes\u201d takes place in the evening. The\nfishing-boat rocks softly on the almost oil-smooth, dark blue mirror\nof the Lake of Genesareth, on the shallow valleys and crests of whose\nwaves the setting sun\u2019s nearly horizontal beams strew leaves and\nstrips of thin gold. Four fishermen are busy hauling in with powerful\nmovements the net heavy with their catch. Behind their vessel, a\ngreen, flat-bottomed boat with sails, steered by a disciple, carries\nthe Saviour, veiled in the gloaming, across the water.\n\nReligious subjects have an especial attraction for Brangwyn. In his\ngreat picture, \u201cThe Scoffers,\u201d he shows a man with the bearded curly\nhead of an enthusiast, fastened to a pillory. The scene, as is usual\nwith Brangwyn, is an Eastern town. A crowd, which is amusing by its\nnegro and Moorish types and their charming garments and rags, presses\non the prisoner, who is wearing the strange garb of a Western artisan,\nand reviles him with the words from their mouths opened in sneering\nlaughter; with the glances of their stupid, malicious eyes; with the\ngesture of their forked and pointed fingers. Pity is mingled with\ncuriosity only in the case of a handsome, brown, young maiden in\nthe foreground, who, with a noble water-pot on her head, evidently\nreturning home from the spring, remains standing in order to gaze at\nthe scene. You may understand the story as you please. Perhaps it is\na foreign socialist or anarchist, who tried to preach his doctrines\nthere, and to whom the authorities are giving short shrift, and\nwhose only reward now is the mockery of the stupid crowd to whom he\nintended to bring a message of salvation. Perhaps the incident has a\ndeeper and more solemn sense, and is the subjective, half-touched-up,\nhalf-modernised representation of the mocking of Christ when He was\nbound to the pillar in order to undergo flagellation. Whether the drama\nis conceived from a sociological or theological standpoint, it is of\nsupreme power. The great pain of the altruist who sacrifices himself\nfor mankind, and sees his sacrifice despised; the great sin of the\npopulace that is thoughtlessly guilty of the most horrible ingratitude,\nare strikingly expressed. And in what form is this rich spiritual and\nmoral purport clothed? Such repose and nobility in varied colour; such\nwitchery in the flat triad of dark yellow, reddish purple, and deep\nblue; such amazing sureness in modelling by means of mere patches of\ncolour without outlines, it has not been my lot to meet with twice in\ncontemporary painting.\n\nNeither must I leave his \u201cSt Simon Stylites\u201d unnoticed. The saint is\nsitting, with his back resting against a pole, on the platform of his\nlofty pillar. On the other edge of the platform, ascending by a ladder,\nappears a priest in mass vestments, accompanied by a deacon, in order\nto administer Holy Communion to the Stylite, who is apparently dying.\nThe story, however, is a matter of indifference. It is the wonderful\nharmony of colours that makes this picture so expressive. It is late in\nthe day; twilight is approaching; the last ray of sunlight is finely\nsprinkled through the air around the figures above the roofs of the\nSyrian town, from which arises a transparent cloud, so thin that it is\nrather a breath, an exhalation, than a vapour, and is more surmised\nthan seen. A flight of swallows glides past the saint, and the birds,\nwith their arrow-swift and pleasing motions, observed in the precise\nJapanese way, greatly help to produce an impression of height and\nairiness, which Brangwyn attains chiefly by his art of distributing\nlight, and his eerie perspective.\n\nBrangwyn fixes in his pictures all the magic of noon and midnight. He\nshows his figures either flushed by the quivering heat of the full\nburning sun, or covered with a veil of half-transparent darkness. Both\nilluminations have the peculiarity of suppressing all subsidiary work\nand letting only what is essential remain. The face or body of a man\nsteeped in sun rays becomes almost transparent. Behind the skin and the\nconnecting tissues which we perceive only as a covering, the muscles\nand bones come forth. The intense brightness prepares a body almost\nas the dissecting knife of anatomy. Darkness has a similar effect; it\nblots out the connections and transitions, and only accentuates the\nstrong lines of construction. Only diffused light gives an equal value\nto all the parts of a surface; it shows all and explains nothing.\nDirect light, on the other hand, just like darkness, graduates\nphenomena, makes us recognise at the first glance what is external\nornamentation and what are the supports and timber.\n\nBrangwyn is an impressionist in the best sense of the word, a perfect\nrepresentative of what Impressionism contains that is justifiable. He\ndoes not stop over trivialities and accessories. He sees only the\nessential in phenomena, but this he sees with infallible certainty and\nintensity. A feature which marks exhaustively the direction, purpose,\nand force of a movement; a spot of colour that challenges and fixes the\neye, as a sudden stroke of a bell does the ear\u2014these are the optical\nelements which he grasps, and with delightful simplicity, weight, and\ncarelessness, and, as it were, in student fashion, throws on the canvas\n\u201cstraight from the wrist.\u201d The spectator finds once more in the picture\nexactly the component parts of the phenomenon which in the actual thing\nwould alone excite and fix his attention, and, corresponding to his\npsychological habit, he supplements the indications of the painting by\npictures from his own memory, till it becomes a perfect copy of the\nreal thing, which then includes also all the subsidiary matters either\nmerely hinted at, or quite passed over by the painter.\n\nBrangwyn is one of those rare gifted _virtuosi_ who does not need to\ndraw. The line does not subsist for him, just as it does not subsist in\nnature. He models with light and colour. He puts spots irregularly near\none another, little and big, long and short, angular and round, bright\nand dark, white and coloured; and from these spots, from this mosaic of\ncorrectly-felt effects of light, he builds up the phenomenon in space\nwith incomparably genuine and intense corporeality. Our judgment adds\nthe lines which the painter has never drawn, as it does when looking at\nthe actual thing. We have here the optical elements themselves, which\nare perceived by the retina of the eye as mere gradations of light, but\nare apprehended and interpreted by the higher centres as coloured and\nplastic phenomena. Such a way of painting demands infallible certainty\nof sight and trustworthy obedience of the hand, else it leads to\nbankruptcy in art.\n\nPaul C\u00e9zanne.\u2014He was one of the protagonists and pioneers of\nNaturalism. He was with Claude Monet, Caillebotte, and the other\nImpressionists an interesting subverter; with Zola he was for a moment\na victor, and is now vanquished, although, probably, he will not\nadmit it. A barefooted Masaniello, whom a successful revolution of\nthe rabble carries to the top and lodges in the king\u2019s palace, but\nwho has very soon to exchange his purple mantle for his hereditary\nrags. Fortunately, the lot of overthrown art-revolutionaries is not so\nhorrible as Masaniello\u2019s; they do not end under the executioner\u2019s hand.\n\nC\u00e9zanne has one thing in his favour which prepossesses us for him,\n_i.e._, his uprightness. It is his nature that ugliness has for him an\nattraction. He sees only what is abnormal, unpleasant, and repulsive\nin actual life. If he paints a house, it must be warped, and threaten\nto tumble down soon. If he portrays a human being, the latter has\na distorted face, apparently paralysed on one side, and a deeply\ndepressed or stupid expression. Every model that submits himself to\nhim is put in some sort of convict\u2019s dress. Here is a female portrait.\nA withered, dried-up face, mud-bedaubed clothes that look as if they\nhad been trailed through the gutter. Doubtless a \u201cprofessional\u201d who\nat a raid was accommodated in \u201cBlack Maria,\u201d and, after a night in\nthe cells of the police station, discharged? Nothing of the sort. She\nis a respectable lady of the upper middle-class. This man with the\ntrouble-distorted countenance and the greasy felt hat and overcoat\nis perhaps a starveling from Bohemia, a broken-down creature, ruined\nartist or writer? Most certainly not. He is a well-to-do person of\nindependent means. It is curious to me how any one can allow himself\nof his own accord to be painted by C\u00e9zanne, unless it were done in a\ncontrite, penitential mood as a penance. To be sure, one cannot be\nangry with him, for he does not treat himself any better than his other\nvictims. He has painted portraits of himself which would be grossly\nlibellous if another had painted them. In truth he is not vain, for he\nsees himself as he represents himself in these pictures. And his morose\neye disfigures not only faces, heads, and raiment, but also the rest.\nHeine assures us that \u201cA woman\u2019s body is a poem.\u201d He would not dare to\nsustain this statement if he were to see C\u00e9zanne\u2019s \u201cThree Naked Women\nbefore the Bath.\u201d Such nudities are really immoral, and shriek, not for\na discreet fig-leaf, but for a nine-fold covering of cloth and fur.\n\nBlaise Desgoffes.\u2014This painter, who died in 1902, was an incomparable\ncopier of still life; for indeed there exists a still and secret life\nin the productions of the artist\u2019s hand, as an eye lovingly steeped\nin form and beauty of colour sees them. Desgoffes was great in little\npictures, which rendered splendid things of gold and enamel, of rock\ncrystal, jasper and chalcedony, trinkets and precious stones, lace\nand embroidery on velvet and silk, carved and polished ebony in\ninsurpassable perfection. There is a school which very contemptuously\ncalls these pictures _bodegones_. That is the disdainful Spanish\nexpression both for a cookshop and for daubed representations of vulgar\neatables such as sausages, smoked herrings, and cheese made from whey.\nCopying the productions of human hands should be unworthy of an artist.\nOnly what is living, nay, only human life, should be justifiable. But\nthat is too narrow a conception. Certainly the highest mission of all\nhuman art is the portrayal of men and women; and what is not itself\nhuman becomes artistic in proportion as it gains relation to humanity\nby means of secret anthropomorphic animation and spiritualisation. But\nhe who demands harshly and dogmatically that the human figure should be\ntreated to the exclusion of everything else, relegates a Hondekoeter,\na Landseer, a Rosa Bonheur to the second class, and denies a Desgoffes\nthe title of artist, which is sheer nonsense. I do not know if there is\na precedence in art, or any other precedence than that of the ability\nto express and transmit the life of emotion. Anyhow, a man stands\nvery high who understood how to translate into painting the optical\npeculiarities of choice woods, metals, stones, and textures better than\nany painter before him.\n\nL\u00e9on Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric amazes like an anachronism; in him lives the soul of a\nprimitive. Thus the Van Eycks, Roger van der Weydens, and Hans Memlings\nregarded the world and man. That is, however, not a sort of affected,\nantique skill, as in the English Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites, and their Continental\nimitators, but genuine, unconscious atavism, the purity of which is\nevident from the fact that Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric paints no masquerades, but only\nnude, human limbs, or contemporary types of the people in the miserable\nworking garb of our days. If they appear like figures out of medi\u00e6val\nballads or folk-stories, it is because Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric feels them so. He is an\nout and out Fleming: mystical like his countrymen Ruysbroek, Suyskens,\netc.; and, besides, delighting in form, like the builders of the\nBelgian cathedrals and guildhalls; in love with life, like the feasters\nand dancers of the Flemish kermesses; honest and conscientious in his\nwork, like an old guild-master of the time of the Spanish Netherlands;\nbrooding and earnest, like a Beguine or a Lollard.\n\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric does not actually copy, but he is curiously vivid in his\nrecollection of what he has seen. The old Low-German and Flemish\nmasters, whose outlook on the world he shares, hover before him. From\nthe Low-German artists he has his _na\u00efve_, brick-red flesh tone and the\npainfully conscientious kind of workmanship, which neglects no wrinkle\nin the skin or curl in the hair; from Memling, his loving accuracy in\ntreating all accessory work\u2014flowers, ground, clothes, and utensils.\nSprinkling the whole canvas with equally finished details, chiefly\nluxuriant plants, is common to Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric and all the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites.\nThe pictures of this school, even if they take their subjects chiefly\nfrom the fourth dimension, are optically of two dimensions. They are\nonly surfaces. They do not understand perspective, and, therefore,\ncannot shade off a middle distance or background. Everything lies in\none and the same plane and is treated with the same clearness and\nprecision. In the accuracy with which they render every little stone,\nevery texture, and plant, the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites have no equals. If,\nin addition to this, they could paint human beings also, they would\ndeserve unstinted praise, at any rate, as draughtsmen, if not as\ncolourists.\n\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric feels the sacredness of his art profoundly, as do few other\npainters of the present day. He seems to himself a priest. It is an\nexternal, but a characteristic one: he paints hardly anything but\ntriptychs, which he regards, to a certain extent, as altar-pieces of\na philosophical religion; and what he portrays is always a sort of\npathetic symbol, from which there comes a sound like verses from the\nBible or Vedic hymns. His symbols are not always clear, but it is not\nhis fault that painting is not a fit expression of brief syntheses of\nlong trains of thought, or ethical and philosophical abstractions.\nAt most it is his fault that he does not feel this. His triptych,\nthe \u201cGolden Age,\u201d is, for instance, a view such as Ovid might have\ndescribed if he had lived in a Belgian district among Flemish people.\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric relates the history of one day of his happy race: how human\ncreatures of all gradations of age sleep peacefully in the gleaming\nnight, clinging to one another; how they are awakened by rosy dawn and\nrefresh themselves in a crystal brook; how, beneath a noonday sun,\nthey play and dance and shout for joy, pluck blossoms and fruits, and\nsit before dainty dishes. It is a profusion of magnificently modelled\nnude women who are all very red of skin; a laughing exuberance of life\nsuch as an old-time worshipper of the obscene god of fruitfulness might\nhave dreamt of amidst the reek of sacrifice. It is also a funnily\ncannibalistic debauch of delicious children\u2019s flesh and blooming,\nwell-nourished bodies. In other pictures Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric has occasionally\ntortured us by quite as perfectly painted, but, on account of their\ninexorable truth, fearfully painful representations of radiant nudities\ntorn by thorns, and whole heaps of children\u2019s corpses. Here, however,\nhe is all joy and peace, and his picture is a delight to the eye.\n\nIn another of Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\u2019s triptychs, \u201cThe Ages of the Workman,\u201d we\ncan measure the whole emptiness of such concepts as \u201cRealism\u201d and\n\u201cIdealism.\u201d Compare Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric with the Bastien Lepage of the Luxembourg.\nBastien Lepage passes for the most perfect didactic type of realistic\npainting. His brutalised, ape-like, feeble-minded, staring Reaper is\nsupposed to be genuine, unrouged nature. Possibly the painter has, on\nsome occasion, seen a disgusting idiot of this sort. I do not know,\nbut I will believe it, for I should like to assume that he had not\ndiscovered in his own imagination so perversely distorted an image of\nthe human form. But as such repulsively bestial young women are, in\nany case, rare exceptions among the white races, Bastien Lepage has\nunmistakably taken the trouble to choose out of thousands the most\nhideous model he could hunt up, out of a base, corrupt delight in\nugliness, with the malicious intention of defaming nature. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\ntells a story in his triptych, \u201cThe Ages of the Workman.\u201d Who can deny\nthat he, too, has held with absolute accuracy to reality? On the right,\nearly childhood: workmen\u2019s wives, young and fair mothers are suckling\ntheir babies, sweet, fat little creatures with firm little limbs and\nskins like rose leaves; little maidens, who can hardly stand on their\nfeet, take in tow and act the mother to still smaller brothers and\nsisters; old grandmothers, who can no longer take part in the labours\nof the household, keep an eye on the children crawling and swarming\nabout. In the middle, youth: neglected yet happy scapegraces are\nplaying cards in the street, sitting or squatting on the curb-stone;\nundisciplined lads are venturing the experiment of their first\ncigarette; grown-up youths go out with young girls of their class on\ntheir arm; what they whisper in the ears of their blushing sweethearts\nwould scarcely delight severe guardians of morals; but, at that period\nof life, in that human environment, their feelings are so natural and\nhealthy that, in spite of all crabbed affectation, they are felt to be\npleasant and touching. Finally, on the left, men in their prime are\nat work: they are erecting toilsomely, with heavy pieces, a scaffold,\nand a little youngster looks at them; what he has before his eyes is\nhis own future lot, but in his careless, boyish curiosity he notices\nonly the amusing side of the growth of a skilful and intricate work\nof man, not the hard seriousness of the ill-paid, dangerous, and\nsevere exertion. Thus the life of the poor artisan lies exposed to\nour gaze. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric does not conceal from us either its hardships or\nthe scantiness of its material condition. He shows us how poorly the\npeople are clad, how ugly their streets and houses are, how narrow is\nthe circle that includes their petty joys and sorrows, and how serious,\nnow and then, is their pastime. But he makes us see also the sunshine\nresting golden over their years of childhood and youth, and feel the\nsatisfactions with which their families also animate and delight their\nmonotonous existence. He brings these poor, humble people humanly\nnear us, and gives us a great lesson in brotherhood. Every feature\nin his picture is true; but from this truth a noble and consoling\nthought proceeds, revealing to us its full extent of beauty and moral\nmotives. Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric is a Realist quite as much as Bastien Lepage, so\nfar as he deals with the painfully exact reproduction of sights he\nhas actually observed. But in Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\u2019s presentment the commonplace\nappears ennobled, and that a superficial \u00e6stheticism dubs Idealism.\nThe fact of the matter is that the words Realism and Idealism mean\nsimply nothing. There is no art, there is no artistic tendency, which\ncould be so designated. There are only artists\u2019 temperaments, which are\nthemselves bilious, and, for that reason, dwell with malicious joy on\nthe unpleasant sides of reality, and others which delight in all that\nis bright, and have a presentiment of a deeper redeeming meaning even\nbehind the unpleasing external. The Realism of a Bastien Lepage is\ncalumny; that of a Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric, a speech for the defence.\n\nJean Paul Laurens has reached all the heights of artistic success. He\nis a professor, an Academician, and he receives the most honourable\ncommissions from the State and great cities. He has been graciously\npermitted to satisfy his ambition as a monumental painter with enormous\nwall- and ceiling-paintings, like those of the Capitol of Toulouse.\nHe was often more happy, often less happy, always powerful, always\npathetic, now and then, I will admit, declamatory. But he has also once\nforsaken his visions of history and turned a glance at the present; and\nwhat he saw there, he fixed in a great painting which he calls \u201cMining\nFolk,\u201d which stands above all his far-famed frescoes.\n\nIt is evening. Between a high, steep-sloping heap of coal and slack\nand a low line of distant hills closing the horizon, a big town is\npainted in a wide trough of country. Over the crowded roofs of this\ntown numerous chimneys rise up. No church towers or palace gables, only\nchimneys which belch aggressively, one might say, white vapour or dense\nblack smoke in the face of the twilight sky. From the middle distance\na procession of weary, toil-worn men, whose legs drag and heads hang\ndown, is moving forward along a causeway. From the depths on both sides\nof the causeway ascend clouds of sulphurous yellow and blue smoke.\n\nAny one engrossed in the details may see how the workmen wandering\nhomewards are clad in the garb of the modern proletariat, and how a\nmanufacturing town of the present day with typical factory buildings\nlies stretched before us. But the first rapid, comprehensive glance\nconveys quite a different impression. The town looks like a Sodom\nand Gomorrha in rebellion against God, and is on the point of being\nchastised by fire from heaven. The procession of men appears to be a\nband of the damned which a hidden, mysterious abyss of hell, behind\nthe bend in the road, has vomited. Near the causeway, uncanny depths\nseem to yawn, from which tongues of hell-flames leap up. It is a\nprophet\u2019s vision, and the atmosphere of a saga. You fancy you have\nan illustration of the Inferno before you, but also a note from the\nformula according to which the painters and sculptors of the Middle\nAges were wont to depict the Last Judgment.\n\nAnd the most remarkable thing is that this epic extension and\nenhancement of so banal an incident as the exodus of a shift of pitmen\nknocking off their work is by no means intended. The painter nowhere\nconsciously works with a view to melodrama. He keeps, in all details,\nstrictly to facts. It is only his perception that has made a canto of\nDante out of a true copy of an everyday incident. At the sight of the\nflaming forges, smoking chimneys, and exhausted slaves working for\nhire, there came to him an inkling of the mighty forces of nature and\nsociety which are at work in the man- and horse-powers of a modern\nwholesale business, which fixed the choice and arrangement of elements\nin his picture, imprinted on it the demoniac feature, and rendered it a\nprofound symbol of the history of a part of humanity.\n\nJef Leempoels is one of the most interesting of contemporary Flemings\nin whom the exquisite artistic qualities of their medi\u00e6val forefathers\nand masters live again. Leempoels has the sturdy, homely truthfulness\nof these ancestors, their profound feeling, and speculative mind,\nwhich easily goes astray into the fantastic. He has their masterly\ndraughtsmanship, and he only lacks their delight in colour and their\ngift of free, clear composition to rise entirely to their greatness.\n\nHe does not rely on his capability or right to distinguish between the\nessential and the non-essential. He does not dominate his subject with\nsovereignly subjective perception, but makes himself the humble slave\nof the phenomena and all their most capricious and lowest details. He\ndoes not span the world with the eye of a creative artist, but glances\nat it as though he were a photographic apparatus for taking authentic\nnegatives. To this intellectual dependence is joined an insufficient\ndevelopment of the sense of what is picturesque. Leempoels is dry in\nhis accuracy and sober in his colouring. He does not seem to think\nit is his vocation to harmonise tones and to please the eye by a\nwell-arranged palette. And in spite of all this I can never forget his\nchief pictures. He revealed his nature in _na\u00efve_ little features. For\ninstance, on the wall of the room where the father and mother, old\nand worn out by life, are sitting together, hang faded photographs\nrepresenting them, as a young married couple, in a strikingly comic\ndress according to the latest fashion of five-and-twenty years ago,\nyet young and full of joyous hope. This discreet contrast, which must\nbe sought for to be noticed, contains the whole melancholy poetry of\ntheir life from blooming youth to withered age. And the pictures of his\nsisters. The good girls are not particularly favoured by nature; they\nare true daughters of the homely Flemish race, in whom beauty is rare.\nWhen Leempoels painted them, there was a struggle in him between the\nconscientiousness of a sworn witness to reality and brotherly love; but\nthe former gained the victory, and the latter was allowed to reveal\nitself only in the delicate, almost caressing, perfection of their\nhands, necks, hair, and clothes.\n\nHis picture \u201cFriendship\u201d\u2014an old and somewhat younger man are sitting\nboldly before us, hand in hand, with their honest, ugly faces turned\nfull towards us. They are figures from the people, the one wearing\na green, the other a dark red knitted waistcoat. They are evidently\nneither rich nor educated, and no particularly developed intellectual\nlife speaks from their clear, reposeful eyes, or their heavy, vulgar\nfeatures. And yet they are noble creatures. It is their feeling\nwhich ennobles them. Only lofty souls are capable of such loyalty\nand attachment as these two workmen, who so affectionately clasp\neach other\u2019s hands and lean shoulder to shoulder\u2014let come what come\nmay!\u2014and he who comprehends character without declamation says to\nhimself involuntarily before this picture: \u201cIt is well for him who in\nhis path through life meets with such friendship.\u201d Here Leempoels has\nperformed the highest mission of the artist\u2014he has recognised and\nindicated convincingly what is grand and beautiful in the insignificant\nand commonplace. That is healthy idealism, for which it is my pride to\nfight\u2014a consoling and uplifting moral purport in an exact and true form.\n\nI am less agreed in respect of another picture. Leempoels calls it\n\u201cFate and Humanity,\u201d and in this he has gone beyond his natural vocal\nregister. From the lower rim of the picture there grows a marvellous\nflora of hands stretched forth on high, either folded in supplication\nor clenched in threatening fists, embracing many symbols of faith\nof various kinds, such as crosses, communion chalices, fetishes and\nofferings; over them appears, in violet light and filling two-thirds\nof the picture, a huge, bearded face that, indifferent and unmoved,\ngazes forward without noticing the hands of supplication and blasphemy\nraised towards it. It is plain enough what Leempoels wants to express;\nbut it is not apparent what the effect will be of this violet face as\ninexorable destiny. Its feeble, vacant gaze and stiff nimbus infuse\nno particular horror, and nothing else which might be imposing is\ndiscernible in it. On the other hand, Leempoels imparts to the hands\nthe full measure of his amazing capacity. These hundreds of hands,\nwhich are painted with a patience that is almost painful, have all\ntheir individual physiognomy. They are all individual hands of men\nand women, young and old, industrious and idle, Caucasian, Nubian,\nand Indian. The hands of all races, callings, ages and temperaments\nare so perfect in their characterisation that error is impossible. If\namong the hands were to be found those of a friend, I should certainly\nrecognise them at the first glance. As a study of human hands, the\npiece is a museum-picture which has not its peer in all the collections\nwith which I am acquainted. As a work of art it saddens through want of\ntaste. Leempoels would sin against himself if he strayed into unlimited\nsymbolism. His talent points him in the direction of the clearly\ncircumscribed. He need not trouble himself about being implicated\nwith Philistinism through his devotion to actuality. His sincerity of\nfeeling, too, in the treatment of Philistine subjects, will always\nraise him above Philistinism.\n\nHenri Martin has always aimed at lofty ends, but the paths he has\nfollowed to gain them were crooked and wrong. He was, when he began,\nand still is, in moments of relapse, a dabbing stumper, _i.e._, he\nlaid on a thick dab of colour the size of a hazel-nut and extended\nit somewhat. With this method, his famous \u201cVibrations\u201d was, indeed,\nsuccessful, especially at a certain distance; but he broke up all\nform, and this allowed him to draw quite superficially. If any one\nreproached him with not rendering a single outline with exactness and\ncertainty, he could use the excuse: \u201cOne cannot at the same time flood\na picture with flickering light and model precisely.\u201d Stumping was\nwith Martin as with his imitators the cloak to cover up artistically\ndishonest forms. His idealism\u2014the main feature in his physiognomy as\nan artist\u2014was revealed, in his first period chiefly, by his feeble\nfigures being dressed in the garb peculiar to no time or country, the\ngarb in which the Primitives were wont to make their angels appear,\nand by their moving in an artificial stage, which one can call neither\nearth, nor air, nor heaven; for, as a rule, it was painted a single\niridescent, mixed colour, mostly a sort of pale lilac, into which some\ndarker, smooth tree trunks, placed regularly like a lattice, were\nintroduced.\n\nTypical of his first period are his symbolical pictures \u201cTowards the\nAbyss,\u201d and \u201cEvery One has his own Chim\u00e6ra.\u201d We are almost ashamed to\nlinger over describing this confused rubbish.\n\n\u201cTowards the Abyss.\u201d\u2014A hussy unclad after the fashion in vogue at\na Paris artists\u2019 pot-house\u2014her cunning nudity is emphasised by\nball-shoes, long black gloves, and by a black veil, thrown back at the\nright place, but transparent throughout\u2014is hurrying down the gentle\nslope of a hill. Bats\u2019 wings wide outspread sprout from her shoulders.\nA crowd of people, in which men and women of all ages and ranks are\nmixed up, rush after her with the attitudes and gestures of epidemic\nmadness. Some run, others drag themselves along on their knees, others,\nagain, on all fours, after her, and scuffle for flowers which she\nstrews in her wake. Every meaning can be imported into this picture,\nbut nothing can be gleaned from it, or, at most, that the frenzied\nattitudes of the slaves and victims of this creature, wallowing in the\ndust, kissing and licking the hussy\u2019s footsteps, betray an unconscious\nmasochistic trait in Henri Martin\u2019s soul.\n\n\u201cEvery One has his own Chim\u00e6ra\u201d is even more futile than this perverse\nillustration of the pious admonition: \u201cKeep from sin, for the lust of\nthe flesh leads to destruction.\u201d A number of daubed, shadowy figures\ncrawl painfully along in a clay-coloured mass; each is bent under a\nburden which represents in bodily form his ruling passion. Thus the\nsensualist carries a naked strumpet; the miser a sack full of gold; the\nambitious man laurels and the spoils of war, etc.\u2014a lamentable attempt\nto represent a literary commonplace in an artist\u2019s vision, in a living\nand concrete form.\n\nLuckily, Henri Martin showed development. After his first period of\ncrudely affected stippling and streaking, of bold neglect of drawing,\namidst the shapeless daubing of coloured _confetti_, serpentines, and\npomposities, with a would-be profound yet absolutely vacant symbolism,\nhe returned to nature and life, treated warmly human subjects from\nan ideal standpoint, and toned down the crudeness of his execution\nwithout, I admit, giving it up altogether.\n\nCommissioned by a rich banker, he painted for the Marseilles Savings\nBank a monumental triptych which he called \u201cLabour.\u201d He assigns\nviews of Marseilles\u2014certainly treated with great freedom\u2014to the three\nbackgrounds. The manifest meaning of the three panels is morning,\nnoon, and evening. In the first panel, the children are on their way\nto school, reading their books; the women are going to market, the\nlabourers to their place of work. In the second, dockers, under the\nglowing sun of Provence, are unloading a ship\u2019s cargo, which consists\nof baskets full of golden oranges. In the third, the waterside is\nalmost deserted; an old couple, with a child carrying a doll in its arm\nwalking in front of them, stroll in the cool of the day; some artisan\nfamilies are also enjoying some fresh air after leaving off work, and\n\n _Jam majores cadunt altis a montibus umbrae._\n\nBut the times of day are, as I have said, only the plain meaning of the\npicture. Beside or behind it, it has also a deeper, veiled meaning.\nIt would illustrate also an actual state of things in the future.\nValiantly take full advantage of school in the morning of life, learn\nand prepare yourself by that means for working and daring later on.\nLabour in your prime until your ribs crack: you can do so, and it is\nlucrative. In return, in the evening of life you will be at ease, and,\nas a comfortable man of means, enjoy refreshing leisure.\n\nWe must be allowed to laugh at this optimistic aspect of industrial\nlife. If Henri Martin has known a docker\u2014of Marseilles or any other\nplace\u2014who was able to end his life as a man of independent means, I\nshould like to ask him for that man\u2019s photograph. Nevertheless, a\npainter need not be a political economist, and the picture is, you\nknow, intended for a Savings Bank, and the people who will see it\nthere may actually find themselves on the way to the independency that\nmakes blessed, though hardly after noonday unloading of orange boats.\nWe might be able to pass lightly over the poverty of thought in the\nwork, if its artistic qualities were satisfactory. But there\u2019s the rub.\nIt was indeed a questionable thought to put in juxtaposition three\npictures separated only by slender pillars, which had to exhibit three\nabsolutely different lights; for either the lights of morning, noon,\nand evening were properly kept apart, and we had a discord in three\nnotes, or the tones were pitched in one key in order not to shriek at\neach other, in which case they were untrue. Such is indeed the case.\nThere is a somewhat more silvery breath about \u201cMorning,\u201d a somewhat\nredder one about \u201cNoon,\u201d a paler violet about \u201cEvening\u201d; but the lights\nand shadows are about equally powerful, whatever be the position of the\nsun. The forest of masts in the middle panel is of such exaggerated\ndensity that the eye is confused in the maze of shrouds and yards. And\nthe entire picture is executed in the crudest stippling, with dabs of\ncolour thickly plastered on, so that it looks almost scaly. If Henri\nMartin could give up his vagaries and lack of good taste, he would\nbe a monumental artist of lofty vocation; for, though the fairies\nhave refused him sundry things, they have given him one precious gift\nwhen he was in his cradle, viz., that of light. There is sun in his\npictures, and they brighten up the space they occupy.\n\nHis best work up to now is a huge wall-painting for the Capitol of\nToulouse.\n\nA landscape of big, restful lines with a background of dark-shadowed\nmountain forests, against which all I have to object is that they\nwall in the whole horizon. From this range of darkening blue heights\nthe country sinks in undulating tiers of hills to the plain of the\nforeground. Here the idyll of the seasons and men\u2019s lives is developed\nin three pictures. First, amidst the laughing spring, a strapping\nmaiden, intoxicated with love, on the breast of the young lad who\nis embracing her. Next, a number of stalwart country folk in the\nsummer work of haymaking, on whom, beyond the cut grass, their wives\nand children at play are gazing. Lastly, under melancholy autumn\ntrees, a lonely old woman preoccupied with recollections. The people\nare homely, of course, without crude realism, poetic without the\nshepherd-insipidity of Gessner. The parallelism between the aging\nof the men and women and the progress of the year is unforced; the\nsymbolism clear and free from morbid, perverse mysticism. Turf, trees,\nand bushes are decorative in form, delicate, and at the same time\nsufficient in colour, and the whole is flooded by a wonderfully joyous\nsunshine, which is more reminiscent of the glories of May in Provence\nthan even Montenard\u2019s symphonies of light. Henri Martin has, I admit,\nhere, too, indulged in stippling, but he has given his people and trees\nstrong, free outlines, and scarred only the outer skin very lightly\nwith pock-marks. He has not abandoned that ill habit, but he seems to\npractise it with remorse. Perhaps he thinks gradual transition is due\nto his conversion to better insight. In any case, this picture was\nconceived and executed in a happy moment.\n\nHenri Martin\u2019s career teaches a moral. Let him who would honour an\nartist continually bear in mind an appropriately modified reading of\nSolon\u2019s warning to Cr\u0153sus: \u201cDo not pronounce on any artist before his\ndeath.\u201d\n\nJean Raffaelli.\u2014Like Henri Martin, Sisley, and the other stipplers who\npainted with little dots, Jean Fran\u00e7ois Raffaelli at first painted with\nthin, slightly serpentine strokes. And we have had to get accustomed\nto this manner. Raffaelli has been able to succeed, because he long\nfavoured subjects for which his ripple lines were the suitable\nstyle. He painted poor people in poor landscapes, emaciated bodies\nin slatternly clothes under trees as dry as brooms. Like a raindrop\non a window-pane, and like a tear on a furrowed cheek, the slender\ntraces of colour flowed down these pitiable figures, arousing twilight\nimaginations of weeping, plaintive trickling, and dissolving. Later\non he caught cheerful, coloured views of Paris streets\u2014The Invalides,\nNotre Dame, and the Place St Michel. In these his streaky way of\npainting was somewhat inadequate; but his amazing feeling for a crowd\nin the hurried, nervous movement which is peculiar to the Parisian\nlower orders, saved him. I know no painter who feels as Raffaelli the\nbustle of the world\u2019s metropolis. I think that any one who suffers from\ndread of the market-place, must get a feeling of fear at seeing his\npictures.\n\nIn a third period of his production, Raffaelli gave a rare example of\ncomplete change in his maturity. He who had grown famous as a painter\nof the poor and miserable, of vices and sicknesses, turned, at the\nzenith of his success, from the aspects that he had hitherto cherished,\nand opened his heart to the joys of existence. In his mind a process\noccurred, such as the ninth symphony describes in eternal strains. In\nhis despair a voice suddenly cries out: \u201cBrothers, let us sing other\nstrains,\u201d and roars out exultingly: \u201cJoy, fair brightness of the gods.\u201d\nFormerly, he knew only abandoned tramps, tattered beggars and thieves,\nbroken-down hospital brothers. His plant-world consisted of the leprous\nturf in front of the Paris forts, decayed flowers, the half-withered,\nsuburban street trees, broomlike and leafless as in autumn. And he\npainted this misery in miserable colours and in his own peculiar,\nstreaky manner, especially appropriate to the subject. Now he caresses\nwith a broad, full brush bloomingly beautiful maidens in white raiment,\nsunny, ornamental gardens with rich _parterres_, fresh nosegays or\nliving flowers. He has also changed his style with his subject. It is\nall renovated\u2014palette, execution, and story. I have a feeling of a\nsecret happiness having blossomed in this artist\u2019s soul, and I rejoice\nin the cheerful unconcern with which, by his altered work, he makes all\nmen privy to his _Vita Nuova_.\n\nOdilon Redon is a completed artist. His development is ended. It came\nfrom Gustave Moreau, and it never deviated from him. He is a delightful\nharmonist of colours, who handles the sharp and flat notes with equal\nmastery, and if he condescends to paint flowers, fruits, unpretentious\nstill life, and landscapes every one can understand, he displays\nnaturalness, taste, and winning homeliness. But when he strives for\nhigher expression he gets beyond his master\u2019s range of vision, and\nbecomes purely hallucinatory. Fabulous creatures, at once Pegasus and\nCentaur, stagger about amongst rare flowers, which gape like bleeding\nwounds or grin like vampires\u2019 mouths. Monsters without recognisable\norganic shape, bastard combinations of parts of dragons, beetles,\nbirds and Ashes hover or swim in an uncertain medium, which may be\nwater, air, or ether. Dreadful human heads, bound in clusters, grow\nbushlike out of the ground. All this is in colour pleasing; in form,\nenigmatical. Gustave Moreau is always intelligible; we know the myths\nhe clothes in forms of extrahuman and superhuman splendour. No one can\nmake head or tail of Odilon Redon. He himself does not think at all in\nhis unearthly representations, and they awaken no definite thoughts\neither, but affect us like wild faces in a fever.\n\nPierre Auguste Renoir is also counted among the Impressionists and\nNaturalists. When we see that the same designation is applied to him\nas, for example, to C\u00e9zanne, we can, as it were, clutch with our\nhand the misuse of the words, and convince ourselves how senseless\nclassification in art is. Renoir is certainly no painter of prettiness.\nHe does not paint nature white and rosy, or stick beauty-patches on\nher face. He does not go out of his way even for pronounced ugliness.\nYou have only to look at his two Meg\u00e6ras on the garden bench to be\nconvinced of this; but beside these witches he has so much refreshing,\nindividualised beauty, that one fails to understand how he could have\nbeen classed with C\u00e9zanne and, what is more, the routine Naturalists.\nHis naked young woman with the mother-of-pearl flesh; his lady in a\ncashmere dressing-gown on the tapestry sofa; his girl in blue with the\nred cap, and the little sister in white; his two ladies with the roses,\nare simply charming. And love speaks no less from his chrysanthemums\nand his sunny meadows than from his men and women. He who has the same\nfeeling as Renoir for roses and children, is not only a great painter,\nbut also a good and noble man.\n\nAlfred Roll is one of the most amiable figures in the art world of\nto-day. No one has such feeling as he for the exquisitely delicate\nsilvery vapour of a May morning atmosphere, quivering with sunlight and\nsaturated with dew. No one knows how to model out with such creative\ngenius as he a human body from the daylight that flows around it in\ngushing torrents. In his free-light painting one breathes free from all\noppression. Besides qualities which, in all ages, make a great artist,\nhe has the little trace of corruption which makes him a legitimate son\nof our age. One of his masterpieces\u2014the naked young woman who clings\ncaressingly to the bull\u2014awakes Pasiphaistic ideas of old classic\naberration. To procure pardon for this picture, he had to do no less\nthan paint the splendidly healthy peasant girl with the brimming\nmilk-pail and the cow\u2014certainly a worthy penance.\n\nRoll is, to be sure, not always the charming, luminous painter of the\nmilk-maid and the girl with the bull. He very often strikes other\nnotes. Thus, for instance, in his picture inspired by socialism, which\nhe calls \u201cThe Martyr\u2019s Road,\u201d he shows an old tramp who, with his back\nleaning against a tree, has collapsed by the wayside, has let his\nwallet fall beside him, and appears to be about to give up the ghost.\nThe misery of his worn countenance already overshadowed by death, of\nhis emaciated figure and tattered clothes are convincing. On the other\nhand, it is open to question whether it was good taste to paint the\ndying man in front view, with bold foreshortening of the outstretched\nlegs, and with boot-soles of a terrific size, that rear up before\nus, in the extreme foreground, like two pr\u00e6-historic _menhirs_. Roll\nintended to pay his homage to Maxim Gorki also. Was it from sincere\nfeeling, or to show that he is _dans le mouvement_, and is keeping step\nwith the most advanced of his time?\n\nHe has insisted on trying his hand at monumental decoration also. The\nfruit of his effort is a gigantic picture which he entitles \u201cLife\u2019s\nJoys.\u201d He has evidently thought of Watteau, probably of the latter\u2019s\n\u201cEmbarcation to Cythera.\u201d It is the same blissful landscape with roses,\ntrees, and water that seems, in the haze of the distance, to continue\ninterminably until it reaches Paradise. It is the same air which the\nrain of blossom renders coloured and almost opaque. It is the same\nspring sky which we might hail with shouts of joy. The men and women,\nhowever, who give life to this Eden, are different to Watteau\u2019s. In\nRoll, everything is marvellously austere and hard. His women in the\nforeground are naked, and partly lie in Michael Angelesque attitudes on\nthe grass, partly sit there overpoweringly monumental. Loving couples,\nwalking and dancing, behave as if they were possessed by wild, brutal\nlust. Something like a tragic current is traceable amidst this idyll.\nWe exclaim in alarm: \u201cHere, this very day, there will yet be murder or\nmanslaughter?\u201d And with the object of destroying still more the ideal\nnote of May, Roll puts, in the midst of this fairy-tale splendour,\nthree realistic musicians, whose clothes were bought at _la Belle\nJardini\u00e8re_, who will certainly, after every dance, go round with a\nplate and collect from their audience. Where will the nude ladies take\nmoney from to throw to them? How much more charmingly and wittily does\nWatteau begin his theme! Only a marble statue of a woman renounces the\nadvantages of elegant toilettes. Winged Cupids flit about the young\ncouples, and translate, as it were, into lyrical, rhymed verses the\nnaturalistic prose of the gallantry exhibited. The men do not rage in\nbrutal eagerness, but pay delicate and discreet court to their ladies.\nAnd above all things, Watteau\u2019s infallible taste warns him against\ntelling his stories at excessive length. As brevity is the soul of wit,\nso moderate compass is a great advantage in an Anacreontic scene. This\nshould be elegant and pleasant; but the monstrous excludes elegance\nand pleasantness. Roll\u2019s Titans and Cyclopses are not suitable for\nmasquerading as Arcadian shepherds.\n\nLucien Simon, a painter who has been an imitator of Cottet, puts\nhimself forward now, by an impetuous movement, into rank with him. \u201cThe\nEvening Gossip\u201d unites the family round the table lamp, which lights\nup a number of richly animated faces with curious lights that play and\nflicker. \u201cNuns Collecting\u201d\u2014one old and one young nun try by gentle\nyet tenacious and irrefusable pressure to overcome the resistance\nof a well-to-do and apparently somewhat niggardly country lady, and\nto determine her to open her well-guarded purse. In a \u201cBall-room\nin Brittany\u201d peasant couples, in the dress of the Celtic province,\nunder smoking lamps emitting a yellow light, spin round, with heavy\nstampings, to a bagpipe tune which drives the blood into the simple\ndancers\u2019 browned cheeks, and kindles sparks in their eyes. All this\nis stumped in broadly and luxuriously without petty dwelling on the\nless essential, yet with a sure feeling for what is characteristic in\nappearance and movement, and in a harmony of dark colours, which is as\nfar remote from the bright tone of the style of painting in vogue the\nday before yesterday as a Guido Reni is from a Franz Hals, but affirms\nits own justification as self-consciously as the particular note struck\nby a Hennar and Gustave Moreau among the moderns, of a Velasquez and\nRembrandt among the greatest ancients.\n\nUp to now, his most important creation is his \u201cMass in Brittany,\u201d a\nwork of an exquisite nature. The young and old peasants and seamen\nwho hear High Mass standing in the bare village church, are truly and\nlovingly individualised head by head. Proudly renouncing pleasing\nexternals, L. Simon has made up his mind to produce his effects only\nby the noblest means, viz., by characterising with accuracy these\nmanifold types, and by the depth and fulness of the spiritual life of\nthese pious folk here gathered together. Offence has been taken at the\nbroadness of his execution, which already bordered on superficiality,\nand on the coarseness of his colour, which put one now and then in\nmind of the bill-poster\u2019s newer art. He has laboured conscientiously\non himself, and diminished the defects of his qualities without\nweakening the latter. He still continues to paint with large strokes\nin fresco style, but he pays attention to the solid building of his\nfigures. He is still pronounced and unaffected in his colouring, but\nhe avoids letting power degenerate into coarseness, and expressiveness\ninto shrillness. Thus Lucien Simon rises slowly and steadily, though\nunerringly, to the lofty peaks of pre-eminence.\n\nJean Veber is quite a peculiar phenomenon which has not yet been\ndeservedly appreciated. On one characteristic ground: because he never\nunderstood how to be solemn; because he seems not to take himself or\nhis art seriously. He began as a caricature draughtsman for Boulevard\npapers, and only when his vocation for this peculiar province was well\nestablished, did he exhibit oil-paintings. But he was already labelled,\nand people continue to regard him merely as a comic draughtsman. The\npublic refuses to allow a double renown to a single talent. Its\nadmiration, you know, costs nothing, but it is, nevertheless, scanty\nwith it, as if it were bringing a sacrifice obtainable only with\ndifficulty. That is a royal trait in the sovereign mob. It is niggardly\nwith its distinctions in order to enhance their value. The splendid\nDaumier also had to suffer from this coyness on the part of the public.\nFor a long time nothing was thought of his easel pictures, and it\nwas really the Universal Exhibition of 1900 that first revealed to\nposterity the fact that Daumier of the \u201cCharivari\u201d was one of the most\nimportant French painters of the nineteenth century. The caricaturist\nof our days is, as it were, the journalist among plastic artists, and\nwe know that it is very hard for journalists to succeed with poetical\ncreations, however brilliant. The older humorists among the painters\nfared better. The Dutch painters could make rough fun of the life of\nthe populace without injuring their reputation as artists by so doing.\nHogarth attained high recognition, although his clumsy, Philistine,\nmoralising painting ranks below the works of many caricaturists of\nto-day. Cruikshank, however, whom I rank, without hesitation, above\nHogarth, occupies, in popular estimation, a lower rank, because he put\nhis pencil at the service of the Press.\n\nJean Veber is the descendant in the direct line of the younger David\nTeniers, the Adriaen Brouwers, and the H\u00f6llen-Breughels. From them he\nderives his full style of painting, his deep, rich colours, his great\nsureness and luxuriance of execution, his clear composition and florid\nimagination. He differs, however, from them in the quality of his\nfancy which delights in symbols replete with philosophical references;\nfrequently in Saadic spectacles of cruelty and lust, and very often\nin lubricities of the F\u00e9licien Rops kind. This is the effect of the\nhundred and fifty to three hundred years which separate him from his\nmore innocent spiritual ancestors.\n\nOf the pictures he has exhibited, some are unforgettable, when one\nhas seen them. The \u201cTriumphal Procession\u201d of a gigantic crowned\ngoose through the streets of a mighty city, amid the loud applause\nof a populace raving mad with loyalty. The \u201cStruggle for Gold\u201d of\na number of awful cripples tearing each other to pieces in their\nmad struggles for a few gold pieces that have fallen in the street;\nthe \u201cSight of Terror\u201d of a man reeling home at night, apparently\nafter a long drinking-bout, in whose eyes the houses and monuments\ntake weird, living physiognomies, are most impressive utterances of\nthe misanthropic pessimism, the satiric bitterness, and the humour\nof Veber, also, to be sure, of his predilection for the weird, the\nghostly, and the horrible.\n\nThese qualities are repeated in almost all his works up to now. The\ngreatest and most pretentious, \u201cThe Machine,\u201d offends through the\ndaring symbolism by which he illustrates the murderous power of\nwoman over the sensual man. On the other hand, \u201cSunday Morning\u201d is a\nbit of life observed with exquisite humour: a barber\u2019s shop in the\nvillage, with a soaped victim under the nimble but not too considerate\nhands of the beard-shaver\u2019s wife, whilst some other customers, of\nunspeakable comicality in looks, bearing, and dress, smoking, dreaming,\nstaring, or chattering, wait their turn on the bench by the wall.\n\u201cThe Hermit and the Female Faun\u201d is a scarcely orthodox, but keenly\nwitty modernisation of the old theme, the temptation of a saint, which\nthese square-toes of painters for the past five hundred years have\ncherished with predilection, since it permits them to present quite\nheathen sights with a hypocritically contrite air. \u201cThe Three Good\nFriends\u201d are of refreshing cheeriness. The ugliness of these contented\nlouts is touching. The painter, by way of exception, exhibits them\nwithout malice, rather sympathetically, with a plea for extenuating\ncircumstances. But generally, his wit belongs, in the main, to the\nspecies of evil-speaking. We laugh over the malice with which a\nsharp-tongued observer characterises our fellow-creatures, but we\nfeel quite well that it is not the better man in us that laughs.\nJean Veber loves to mock at mankind in goblin fashion. He sees men\nperpendicularly pushed together like a telescope, horizontally drawn\nout as short, square gnomes with pumpkin faces, who, pleased with\nthemselves and unconscious of their grotesque ugliness, strut about\nas if they were so many Apollos and Dianas. Thus Jaur\u00e8s appears with\nmouth agape and flourishing gestures on the rostrum of the Chamber,\nat the foot of which breaks a flood of blustering deputies in stormy\nsession. So in a parody of Rubens\u2019 \u201cKermes\u201d\u2014itself of the nature of a\nparody\u2014villagers resembling sacks amuse themselves with feasting and\ndrinking and amorous tendernesses which are calculated to disgust us\nwith love itself. A grandly rigged-out, inexpressibly laughing lady\nin a low-cut dress between two greybeards paying their dreadful court\nat an exquisitely appointed supper-table; a physician at the foot of\nthe bed gazing with devotion at the tongue, put out quite a yard, of a\nrich, fat lady-patient; a short, stout woman in a fashionable tailor\u2019s\n_salon_, whom the slenderest of the show-room girls is trying, with\n\u201ccake-walk\u201d movements, to fit with a dress like an umbrella-cover, are\namusing in their stupidity and ugliness. On the other hand, I cannot\nfollow Jean Veber further when, in \u201cFamily Joys,\u201d he tries to make the\nnewborn child ridiculous\u2014a shapeless bit of sprawling flesh, red as\na crab, which the midwife has brought from the bed of the exhausted\nmother at the back of the room, and is exhibiting in triumph to the\ngaping family. He should keep his sacrilegious hand off the sanctity of\nthis event.\n\nThe happy combination of a faultless dexterity with an arrogant,\ncreative humour, in which I would only like to see a trifle less\nadmixture of gall, renders Jean Veber\u2019s an artistic physiognomy that is\nfar more interesting than many an idol to whom altars are raised.\n\nEmile W\u00e9ry, a young and fortunate man of talent, began his career with\na great success. His view of an Amsterdam canal made a sensation, and\ngained the great prize at the \u201cSalon.\u201d Perhaps a little stupefied by\nthis triumph, he kept for a while to the style of his prize picture, so\nthat there was reason to fear he would early stiffen into a manner. He\npainted, for instance, an attractive triptych, which presents Venice\nto us in her three characteristic decorations: the narrow _Calle_, the\nslender _Rio_, and the splendid _Canal_. But what we cannot anyhow\nfancy absent from a view of Venice\u2014the southern sky, the gleaming\nsun, and the warm tints of her old stones and tiles: these are here\naltogether lacking. It is all grey, northern grey. It is the same tone\nas in the prize picture of Amsterdam. As Faust found Helen in every\nwoman, so W\u00e9ry then found apparently Dutch water-towns in every town,\nand Amsterdam herself in Venice. People think they are flattering the\ncity on the Amstel, when they call it the Venice of the North. W\u00e9ry\nreversed the compliment: to him Venice was the Amsterdam of the South.\nHow true it is that we see not with the eyes but with the soul!\n\nThe South, combined with his youthful impulses to development, was\nto save him from the danger of mannerism. Though he had seen Venice\nwith his Amsterdam eyes, and found in the azure and gold of the city\nof lagunes the leaden waters and mist of the north, further south,\nin the light, he bathed his eyes clean from the muddiness of higher\nlatitudes. In \u201cSicily\u201d a girl\u2019s brown head, with red cloth in the\nmidst of a cluster of dark green-leaved branches with ripe oranges,\nflashes and glows the whole noon of the magic island, which this\nvigorous woman\u2014a golden fruit among golden fruits\u2014is to personify.\nBut even after his return home he still remained drunk with the light\nof Italy. In a new picture, \u201cThe Little Ones,\u201d we are once more in a\nharbour on the North Sea, at a place where W\u00e9ry\u2019s talent takes its\nroot. Flaxen-haired youngsters are playing round a boat; one of these,\na little chap in wide, flapping trousers, is droll enough to eat.\nWater, sky, and river-bank are wedded in silver sheen, and over the\nwhole reposes a happy sense of comfort, in which the artist\u2019s cheerful\nheart is disclosed. He has happily got over his first crisis. Now his\nartistic career lies smooth and sunny before him.\n\nAnders Zorn.\u2014This Swede is a virtuoso of amazing skill. He delights in\nmarvellous effects of light, in surprises, in fixing fugitive views.\nHis pictures are snap-shots pitched on the canvas with an almost\nmechanically smart brush. He is a concert painter possessing talent.\nHe is one of the great corruptors of young artists nowadays. It is so\nfascinating, by a few wild, staggering, nimble strokes of the brush,\nto conjure up a human figure or a scene. But this method leads to the\nworst superficiality, and attracts most the lazy fellows who wish to\nsave themselves the trouble of learning properly the principles of\ndrawing and painting. Zorn did not make the thing easy for himself. He\nhonestly and industriously acquired a thorough mastery of technique\nbefore turning to execute his dazzling little pieces. He may allow\nhimself to storm and rage over the canvas, for accuracy has become\nautomatic in him. In spite of this haste, every line is on the right\nspot, and though people often regret that he only hints instead of\nstopping and deepening, nevertheless it is continually said: \u201cThe man\nknows how to build up a figure or a group.\u201d His imitators, however,\nhave caught only his daubing, and with them superficiality is but a\nbold excuse for ignorance of drawing.\n\nIgnacio Zuloaga.\u2014Spain can at the present time boast of a number of\npainters who might call out to their greatest predecessors among their\ncountrymen the proud _anch\u2019io_. What characterises them is a peculiar,\nalmost mad energy in drawing, which appears in all details, in the\nliving and the dead, not only in the mien and attitudes of men, but in\nthe sharp profile of every leaf and blade of grass, in the bold relief\nof every stone, in the aggressive self-consciousness of every being as\nof every thing. This energy is not to be learnt. One has it or one has\nit not. There are foreign painters in plenty, whom Spain has bewitched,\nand who their whole life long recount nothing but bull-fights and\nprocessions, shepherds and gipsies, _cigarreras_ and _manolas_; but no\none who knows the genuine Spaniards will confuse these with the foreign\nimitators. There is, for instance, the excellent Jules Worms. He has\nbeen exhibiting Spanish scenes uninterruptedly for forty years. They\nare always nicely painted, prettily conceived, and pleasantly executed.\nAs contributions to knowledge of the nation they are not without\nvalue. They have gained him all official honours, and he passes for an\nundisputed master of his particular province. And yet how un-Spanish is\nthis life-long Spanishness of Worms and all his rivals and imitators!\nIt is as smooth, licked, tricked up, entertaining, and banal as the\nrailway novel of an inquisitive but superficial globe-trotter. It is a\nconventional comic-opera Spanishness, a theatre decoration for scenery,\nwith groups of costumes for living figures. It lacks the power, the\nstern virility which distinguishes the Spanish painters, even those\nof the second rank, and gives them a family likeness to their great\nancestors, Valdes, Velasquez, and Ribera.\n\nThe most typical of these modern Spaniards is Ignacio Zuloaga, and the\nmost typical, perhaps, of his pictures are the three sketches from\nSpanish folk-life, which were exhibited a few years ago in the \u201cSalon.\u201d\nAn Andalusian, young, thin, and delicate, with a little crumpled\nface of apish ugliness, with a supple body that seems to whirl,\nstands in front of a poor mirror, and powders her face with coarse\nrice-powder, as though she were sticking on a comic Pierrot-mask,\nwhilst her sparkling eyes testify that she wants to make herself\nthoroughly beautiful for the bull-fight. Then we see her in loud,\nbright ribbons, with the inimitably draped mantilla over her head and\nshoulders, passing quickly through the street, greeted by two old\nconnoisseurs with highly-spiced endearment. On the third occasion\nshe or her sister goes with a diabolically piquant young gipsy girl,\nwhose insolent laugh discovers gleaming wolf\u2019s teeth and turns up the\nsharply-curved nose, rapidly over the ground, probably to keep a\nSabbath, from the expression of both grimaces. This is warm life such\nas not often glows on painted canvas. Zuloaga has felt his Andalusian\nwild creatures to his finger-tips, and renders them with all their\n_garbo_ and _salero_\u2014the German _Schneid_ and _Mumm_, and the French\n_montant_ and _mousseux_ are weak translations of this expression. The\npictures seem to be painted, not with mineral colours and oil, but with\nsulphuric acid and lunar-caustic. These ladies are young witches, of\nwhom you would imagine that by touch they must give an electric shock\nlike a torpedo-fish, that, if they open their mouths, red mice will\njump out, and that it must be more natural for them to ride through\nthe air on a broomstick than to make use of their legs in the usual\nway. In the piquant ugliness of their faces, made up with a thick\nlayer of rice-powder, in the gorgeous Sunday array, in their attitudes\nand movements, in the gipsy-girl\u2019s bestially insolent grinning and\nwinking, in the lustful glances and laughter of the men, there is a\nfulness of hot life, an insolent sensuality such as is only met with in\nBrangwyn\u2019s youthful works. One often heard the name of Goya pronounced\nbefore these pictures. It is indeed the same temperament, but another\noutlook on life, another art. Zuloaga has much of the cutting\nvirtuosity of his great countryman; but he is no embittered critic of\nthe world, rather a laughing Sunday\u2019s child who enjoys life with all\nhis senses.\n\nAnd, above all, his pictures are patterns of a domestic art which,\nthrough its unreserved sincerity, is at the same time an universal art.\nFor it reaches so deeply that it penetrates beyond the special type to\nhumanity in general.\n\n\n\n\n XIII\n\n AUGUSTE RODIN\n\n\nRodin\u2019s place in present-day art is a peculiar one. Auguste Rodin has\nbeen raised to the dignity of a test for decadent ways of feeling. We\nadmittedly call \u201ctests\u201d or proof-objects the objects (for the most\npart, the shell-armour of diatoms or the scales of butterflies\u2019 wings)\non which the magnifying power and exactness of analysis of microscopes\nis tested. By Rodin the fanatics and snobs of insane tendencies test\nthe genuineness and power of symbolico-mystic sentiment. What do you\nthink of Rodin? Do you admire him? Good: then you need further only\nadore Besnard and rave about F\u00e9licien Rops, and you can claim to be\nnumbered with the newest, without respect to the colour of your hair or\nopportunist baldness. You do not admire Rodin? Then sneak whimpering\nfrom our league. You are no decadent. No beauty with her hair combed\nin the Botticelli style will love you; Mallarm\u00e9 will not write poems,\nnor will Nietzsche philosophise for you. Nobody will invite you even\nto a Black Mass. Go to the Philistines; you belong to the narrow-minded\ncommunity, which is a herd of ruminants.\n\nIt would be intelligible if the provocations of the shriekers, who,\nafter the manner of howling dervishes, dance and rave round Rodin, were\nto induce men to take a violent part against this very man. Justice,\nhowever, demands that people should suppress their natural tendency\nto make him responsible for the ear-piercing din of his drummers and\ntrumpeters. After all, he cannot help a horde of swindlers and silly\npeople making a vulgar disturbance about him and his works. If we\nare to judge him, we must try to forget that critical offenders, by\ninvoking his name, continually outrage the sense of \u00e6sthetic decorum\nand artistic conscience. Rodin is, in fact, not the originator of\nthis shameless proceeding, but the victim of the \u00e6sthetic Catiline\nconspirators who have got possession of him, and are pushing him on\nbefore them, so that it looks from a distance as if he was their\nleader. Rodin is not the least _cabotin_. He is of a modest, homely\nnature, but no strong character; and he has not been able to stand\nagainst the suggestions of those whose interest it is to eulogise\nhim, who have for so long chattered his poor head full of their most\nbrain-firing, \u00e6sthetic doctrines, and most profound interpretations\nof his alleged purposes, until he has lost his own personality, and\nmakes the most desperate efforts to become like the picture which his\ncritical Corybantes present of him to the open-mouthed gapers.\n\nWhat has raised Rodin to an article of faith among the degenerates\nis three peculiarities. First, the choice of his materials, which\nappeal to the mysticism and sensual psychopathy of his body-guard of\ndegenerates; secondly, his technique, which deviates from tradition\nin childish, would-be-original whims; and thirdly, his mistaking the\nnatural limitations of his art, which he wants to make say things for\nwhich sculpture possesses no means of expression. These traits are\nproved by a short review of his principal works.\n\nThe production which first brought him the custom of the decadents is\na composition which was devised for the gate of Dante\u2019s _Inferno_. He\nhad worked at it for decades. After a few fragments, which were to be\nseen in 1889 in the Universal Exhibition at Paris, he showed the whole\nin a plaster model at his private exhibition of 1900. It is inspired\nunmistakably by Ghiberti\u2019s door of the Baptistery at Florence, but\nstands in intentional contrast to it. The great Quattrocentist depicts\nlife in Paradise; Rodin\u2019s intention is to show existence in Hell. The\nframing and articulation of the work, and nearly all its details, were\nrendered with organic necessity from this starting-point. The door\nis cut up into panels, which are not divided by stiff, geometrical\nlines, but, just as in the case of Ghiberti, are at the same time\nimmediately separated, and again indirectly connected into a higher\nunity, by a feature of the picture itself, _e.g._, a cliff, a man\u2019s\nfigure, a piece of building. In every panel an act from the _Inferno_\nis played. The parts, in the majority of cases indicated only in a\nsketchy way, betray strong, indeed mainly perversely directed, erotic\nimagination, and the gift of exhibiting human bodies in the movements\nof passion. Of course, Rodin, too, has not dropped down from heaven,\nbut is the descendant of easily demonstrable spiritual forefathers.\nThis sculpture of violent action, a particular development of French\nart, and in no way connected with the Laocoon, as one might easily make\nthe mistake of assuming, has its first master in Rude, whose power is\nrevealed most grandly in the \u201cMarseillaise\u201d on the Triumphal Arch at\nParis. Rude\u2019s successor and continuer is the incomparable Carpeaux,\nwho, as is most clear from his group \u201cThe Dance\u201d at the Grand Opera,\nin place of the wild heroes of his model and master, substituted wild\nBacchantes; who celebrated, instead of self-oblivious joy in sacrifice\nin the service of rugged duty, self-oblivious intoxication in a debauch\nof sensuality, but represented a life of excitement no less sublimely\nand no less ravishingly than the former. Rodin is closely connected\nwith Rude and Carpeaux. With him passion descends a step lower still\nto the uncivilised and dissolute. Heroic with Rude, voluptuous with\nCarpeaux, it is Satanic with Rodin. The \u201cGate of Hell\u201d exhibits rows\nof naked women in all the situations and occupations of the witches\u2019\nSabbath, when it is most devilish. Fits of hysteria shake and twist\nthese bodies, every motion of which betrays shocking aberration and\neager Sadism. The patients of the Salpetri\u00e8re or the Atlas of Pictures\nedited in this _clinique_ (_Iconographie de la Salpetri\u00e8re_) evidently\nserved him for models. And from him, be it incidentally observed,\nAlexander appears to have drawn his inspirations with the aggravating\ncircumstance that he clothes Rodin\u2019s naked women in rich, modern\ntoilettes, and by this artful means makes them even more obscene. The\nfeminine genius of tragedy in Rude is inspired by Tyrt\u00e6an war-songs.\nCarpeaux\u2019s two female dancers have drunk sparkling wine; Rodin\u2019s\ndemoniac women have swallowed pills of Spanish-fly. Thus it is clear\nthat Rodin must be dear to all wanton schoolboys, impotent debauchees,\nand incipient spinal sufferers.\n\nIf the \u201cGate of Hell\u201d is an illustration of hystero-epilepsy and\nfeminine Sadism, so, too, is a marble group which he exhibited in 1898\nof Masochism. A naked woman with horribly glacial, unmoved features\nsits leaning against a wall of rock. A man, apparently growing out\nof the earth, kneels before the merciless image, embraces its knees\nwith despairingly imploring gesture, and presses his head against its\nbody. This is supposed to show man in an ecstasy of desire, subjugated\nby the sexual power of woman. I can only say that a copy of this\ngroup would excellently suit as a frontispiece for an edition of the\ncollected works of Sacher-Masoch. Other smaller groups of Rodin,\nwhich he exhibited in the Champs de Mars Salon, hint at other forms of\nmorbid sensuality on which I am reluctant to dwell. They all disclose\na sub-soil of corrupted sensuality in the artist\u2019s soul. That secures\nhim influence on natures in harmony with his own. The degenerates who\nrevel with Baudelaire in love of corpses, and with F\u00e9licien Rops in\nhighly-spiced lewdness, find the same excitation in Rodin, and they\nintoxicate themselves with his ecstatic lasciviousness just as with the\nunnatural or madly exaggerated eroticism of their other fleshly poets\nand painters.\n\nSo much for Rodin\u2019s choice of themes. Now for his technique. One of his\nsingularities is that he loves to astonish people by a crude, external\ncontrast between a block of unworked marble and the most exquisitely\nfinished and sweetly polished sculpture of bodies. He takes a great\ncube out of all proportion, which he leaves as the labourer hewed it as\nit came out of the quarry; and he works a little corner of it into a\nhead and body polished with the utmost nicety. In this way, the figure\ngrows out of, or into, the natural stone. Looked at from three sides, a\nlump of rock or stone is presented to the eye, only on the fourth side\nthe work of art is revealed, blooming, as it were, in the wilderness.\nWe may describe this manner as the sculptural form of mysticism. The\nassociation of ideas which Rodin wishes to awaken by this device should\nmake the idea dawn on the consciousness that here, before our eyes, a\nmiracle of creation is being accomplished; that we surprise the very\nincarnation of the stone; that we are witnesses of the birth of organic\nform from the stiff, lifeless original matter, and may observe how the\nfigure, still half imprisoned in chaos, struggles painfully forth to\na form instinct with life. There are subjects for the representation\nof which Rodin\u2019s style would have been a happy invention: perhaps the\ncreation of Adam from a clod of earth, or the story of Deucalion and\nPyrrha, or a Promethean motive. But its uniform employment for all\npossible subjects\u2014on banal busts or groups which have no reference to\ncreation or genesis\u2014causes the manner to be recognised for what it\nis, a snatching at effect by means of eccentricity. Of course, this\nstriking and easily imitatable freak has founded a school. No American\nor Scandinavian who wants to frighten the Philistines with \u201cmodernism\u201d\nneglects to exhibit a piece of, for the most part, wretched sculpture\nas tiny as possible on a clump of unworked rock as Cyclopean as\npossible. It cannot be said that the joke is cheap. The unhewn block of\nmarble often represents a pretty stiff value in hard cash, in any case\na higher one than the corner that has been chiselled. One can only say\nthat any idiot can succeed in using a ton weight of stone as a support\nto a figure the size of a man\u2019s hand.\n\nYet, in conclusion, it is a comparatively harmless folly which a\npractitioner can remedy with a few strokes of the saw. It is sufficient\nto cut the sculpture off, and give the rough block to a needy sculptor.\nFar worse, because it is incurable, is the \u00e6sthetic principle to\nwhich Rodin pays homage in the technique of his more important works\nespecially. He is, to wit, an Impressionist. A line of motion in an\nindividuality or group interests him. He seizes it, shapes it with\nconvincing truth, with an emphasis exaggerated\u2014certainly purposely\u2014to\nthe point of caricature, and neglects everything that does not serve\nto illustrate this line of motion. Sculpture, however, is an art\nwhich does not allow any Impressionism. It demands, according to its\nnature, a perfectly accurate formation of the whole figure, and simple\nhonesty in reproducing the phenomenon. This can be proved by a theory\nof perception. Sculpture fills space and is of three dimensions; it\naddresses itself, in the first place, certainly to the eye, but also\nto the sense of touch. It calls for stereoscopic vision, and is, at\nleast in theory, capable of further proof by a second sense. Now just\nthis theoretic possibility of further proof, by means of the sense of\ntouch, has the prohibitive effect, that fancy feels no inclination\nto supplement the image provided by the sense of sight. In works of\npainting we add in our mind much which is not optically given in the\npicture. In plastic works we have not this psychical habit, because\na testing with the hands is opposed to the free, inventive power of\nthe imagination, and makes us at once recognise what has been given\nin space, and what has been added by our imagination. On this ground,\nthere is no place in sculpture for intentions or hints. That is enough\nfor a rough plan, but not for the finished work. Rodin, however, stops\nat a stage of completion, which may, at best, pass for a promise, but\nnever, in any case, for an achievement. He deliberately breaks up the\nframe of artistic form. He would fain work with the habits of the\npainter\u2019s eye and the painter\u2019s hand, and he applies this treatment to\nthe statute, standing free and exposed to examination from all sides.\n\nThe confused lines which represent the draughtsman\u2019s first sketch\n(_\u00e9bauche_) have their special charm and meaning on the surface to be\npainted. If, however, you translate them into three dimensions, if\nevery careless movement of the artist\u2019s hand, either still feeling\nits way or hurrying on, is finally fixed in clay or bronze, something\ninadmissible results, which has no right to proclaim itself a work of\nart.\n\nSuch a seeking after the right expression, such a stammering in metal\nis Rodin\u2019s monument at Calais, which represents the burgesses of Calais\nwith the rope round their necks, standing before Edward III., who had\nsuccessfully besieged that city, and asking for mercy. The crushed\nspirit which Rodin tried to express is actually visible in the group;\nbut the figures which express this emotion are formless from head\nto foot. The limbs are rugged boughs; the bodies violate the laws\nof anatomy; the whole group is on the stage of technical perfection\nreached by the idols hewn from wood by the South Sea Islanders, and\nis far inferior to many a pre-historic picture on mammoth\u2019s teeth and\nstag\u2019s horn, which may be seen, for instance, in the Museum of St\nGermain. Rodin\u2019s domestic trumpeters promptly proclaimed this for a\nwork of lofty genius. The Corporation of the town of Calais, who had\nordered it, dared not reject it. The decadents\u2019 reign of terror\u2014it was\nin the year 1895\u2014was then in all its fury. The whole Paris Press was\nin the power of the dictators of the Chat Noir, and the poor Calais\nburgesses, clever men of business, but very uncertain in questions of\nart, feared to be jeered at as wise men of Gotham, if they rebelled\nagainst the \u00e6sthetic edicts of the tyrants of Paris criticism. But\nthey blush for shame and anger whenever they pass by the memorial, and\nnow, when the reign of terror of decadent criticism is over, it will\nprobably not be long before the Calais people pluck up courage enough\nto have Rodin\u2019s bronze abomination carted off from the public square,\nand withdrawn, in a store-room in the Town Hall, from the scornful eyes\nof strangers.\n\nA counterpart of the Calais group is the design for the Victor Hugo\nMemorial, which was for the first time exhibited in 1897, and again\nfive years later, when it was somewhat further advanced. This design\nalso showed nothing but intentions. The poet is sitting naked by the\nseashore. The last shallow wave washes gently up to his feet. Two\nfemale tutelary figures\u2014perhaps History and Legend, or Poetry and\nPhilosophy\u2014are flying to him horizontally at the level of his head and\nwhispering secrets in his ear. As a mere intention, the composition\nmight be allowed to pass; but nothing of execution, practically, was\nyet to be seen. Victor Hugo\u2019s body was not modelled; the flying female\nfigures could not be distinguished, either from a distance or on close\ninspection, from cloud packs, or the fantastic animal figures of\nGothic gargoyles. Nevertheless, Rodin disarmed intelligent criticism\nby declaring that the work was a mere sketch. Of course, he could no\nlonger be fairly reproached with its shapelessness, and people had to\ncontent themselves with waiting for its completion, which has not come\nto pass up to now.\n\nRodin has overstepped, in his Balzac Memorial, which he first exhibited\nin 1898, the very extensive limits within which his silly aberrations\nmight have been borne. Master Shallow, who tolerates much, could not\ntolerate this work, and broke down under its crushing exaction. When\nthe public saw this provocative monstrosity, it broke out into that\nuncontrollable laughter, whereby the outraged intelligence of mankind\nrevenges itself with primitive force for restraints that it has long\nsuffered in silence. In the face of this result, the Committee of the\nFrench Union of Authors, which had commissioned the Balzac Memorial,\nresolved unanimously to decline it. In vain the Condottieri, who had\nusurped supremacy in art criticism by the most unscrupulous methods\nof conspiracy, violence, and oppression, made desperate efforts to\nmaintain themselves. They were powerless against the armed rising of\nsensible people who had at last come to themselves. Their tyranny\nwas vanquished, and they were swept away. They might still talk all\nsorts of twaddle about the stupidity of the masses, and, in impotent\nrage, hiss at the victors the well-known shibboleths, \u201cPhilistine,\u201d\n\u201cprovincial,\u201d etc., but this final, faint-hearted nagging sank unheard\nin the unanimous cry of scorn from public opinion.\n\nRodin has represented Balzac as, jumping out of bed in the morning,\nhe wraps himself unclad in his monk-like dressing-gown, without even\nputting his arms in the sleeves, irresistibly impelled to hurry to\nhis writing-table in order to fix the thoughts of which his creative\nbrain is full to bursting. Agreed: that, again, is the intention which\nRodin might, perhaps, have secretly put into the figure. What the eye\nreally sees is a sort of tree-trunk, hewn in the roughest manner by a\nwoodman with an axe, which is surmounted by a hideously swollen tadpole\nhead on a goitred neck. Malicious Parisian wit has exhausted all the\ndroll comparisons that this monstrosity can suggest to flouting humour.\nPeople have called Rodin\u2019s work a meal-sack, a carved potato, a snowman\nmade by a cheeky schoolboy, an unpacked statue, a stalactite, etc. The\nwork is all that, for it is nothing at all; but it is pre-eminently\nthe conclusive refutation of Rodin\u2019s \u00e6sthetics. For it is the highest\nexpression, and, on that account, the unintentional parody, of his\nimpressionist technique and of his third mistake, viz., ignorance of\nthe limitations of his art.\n\nRodin worked at this wretched piece of work for ten whole years. First\nhe read all Balzac\u2019s works; then he made a journey to Touraine and\nspent months there, so as to absorb the human environment from which\nBalzac took so many of his models, and to become permeated with the\nfeelings and impressions with which Balzac may have satiated himself\nwhen composing\u2014all this to make a human figure which was to be the\nlikeness of a man whom many people now living have known in the flesh.\nAfter these preliminary studies, Rodin finally proceeded to form his\nBalzac. His head was to be \u201ca synthesis of his works,\u201d his physiognomy\nwas to be summed up \u201cin an eye that looks on the _Com\u00e9die humaine_\nand in an upper lip that is curled in contempt for humanity.\u201d So said\nRodin himself in several interviews which were published at the time\nwhen his statue was exhibited. He was then merely repeating what the\ntwaddlers of Montmartre had chattered to him. It would be easy to make\njests about this inflammation of the brain, but it is not worth even\ncheap raillery. It is quite enough to establish, soberly and drily,\nthat Rodin, like a child or an idiot, aimed at something impossible.\nSculpture cannot furnish any \u201csynthesis of Balzac\u2019s works.\u201d Nature\nherself cannot, in the sense that Balzac himself, when he was alive,\ndid not synthetise his works, in his externals, in his physiognomy.\nHe had perhaps the head of a man of mark, but there was assuredly\nnothing in his face to show that he had written the \u201cPhysiology of\nMarriage,\u201d and not written \u201cLa Chartreuse de Parme\u201d (Stendhal). Rodin\nimagined that a portrait-statue could quite alone, merely by its own\nmeans, supply the place of a biography and a psychological and literary\ncharacterisation of the person represented. This patent lunacy was\nnecessarily bound to end, as it has ended, in a mad caricature.\n\n\u201cThe Thinker,\u201d a colossal statue which was exhibited in 1904, is almost\nas bad an aberration as Balzac. It is a gigantic enlargement of a\nlittle sketch that one saw many years ago over Rodin\u2019s \u201cGate of Dante\u2019s\nHell,\u201d in the confused and scarcely indicated unborn _foetus_ lines of\nwhich confident devotion might imagine all possible promises of future\nsplendour.\n\nThe promises are realised in \u201cThe Thinker.\u201d He who still wishes to\nshudder with foreboding in the presence of the finished work will be at\nliberty to do so. It will be the same sort of man who grew enthusiastic\nover the \u201cBalzac,\u201d before which every criticism of intelligent\u2014not\n\u201cintellectual\u201d\u2014men dissolved into unextinguishable laughter. \u201cThe\nThinker\u201d is brother of the \u201cBalzac,\u201d only it is not so comic, for\nit is not dressed in a meal-sack, but is naked, and the bared human\nbody, when misshapen, excites in a spectator of unvitiated taste, not\ncheerfulness, but discomfort, which may even rise to loathing.\n\n\u201cThe Thinker\u201d is not only naked, but also flayed. Its anatomy is\nexecuted with obtrusive importance, without the covering epidermis\nwith its vital warmth. The enormous exaggeration of the muscles, the\nimpossible assertion of strength which is expressed by the extreme\ncontraction of all the muscles, therefore also of the counteracting\nmuscles, are well-known features of sculpture in its worst period of\ndecline. There is still, however, a distinction between Rodin and\nthe _rococo_ sculptors, who confused fleshy tumours over the whole\nsurface of the bodies of their statues with the power of portraying\nartistically. At any rate, the latter had a correct knowledge of\nmyology, or the subject of the muscles, whereas Rodin\u2019s anatomy\nis shockingly inaccurate. I really do not think much of Lorenzo\nMatthielly\u2019s groups at the Vienna Hofburg-gates; but in the face of\nRodin\u2019s monstrosity I apologise in my heart for all the objections I\nhave ever made against them. At any rate, with Matthielly every muscle\noccupies its proper place. Rodin, however, invents muscles which do\nnot exist, and never did exist. Two mighty ridges, ending below in\nsausage-tips, run down the \u201cThinker\u2019s\u201d back, which are perhaps intended\nfor the two _longissimi dorsi_; in this case, however, they are howling\nblunders as regards their attachment, their whole course, and their\nform. The muscles of the forehead and temples are treated quite as\narbitrarily as those of the back. Where nature only recognises thin\ncutaneous muscles and ligatures, there Rodin puts bumps which remind\none of blood tumours after blows from a club, and impart to the face\nthe appearance of evil _Verschlagenheit_; not, as Fritz Reuter says, in\nthe sense of craftiness, but in that of receiving a sound cudgeling.\nAs a record \u201cThe Thinker\u201d stands on the same level as the anatomical\nplates in Japanese manuals of the healing art of the time of the\nShoguns.\n\nThis, however, is not yet the worst; the intellectual element fares\neven worse than the bodily one with this oaf who calls himself so\npretentiously \u201cThe Thinker.\u201d The flayed man sits crouching, with a\ndistinctly crooked hump, on a sharp-edged block of stone. His toes\nclaw convulsively into the ground. He holds a clenched fist before his\nmouth, and seems to bite it fiercely. His bestial countenance, with its\nbloated, contracted forehead, gazes as threateningly dark as midnight.\nHe who has to interpret the figure without the help of a title will,\nfrom a back view, conclude it is some one writhing in agony on the\nrack; and from a front view, a criminal meditating over some foul\ndeed. Its mien and bearing would suggest a designation such as \u201cThe\nFallen Titan,\u201d \u201cLucifer\u2019s Rebellion,\u201d or \u201cCain before he murdered his\nBrother.\u201d The last thing which one would think of would be to look for\na mind working behind this bulgy forehead, or to imagine that thought\nwas supreme in this body seized by a spasm of rigidity in all its\nmuscles. The name given by Rodin to this wretched performance sounds\nlike a scoff or a calumny, and it might be thought the misled artist,\nrobbed by his fanatics of all self-criticism, had intended to make a\nmalicious parody of Michael Angelo\u2019s _Pensieroso_.\n\nRodin himself, by his portrait busts, makes it possible to gauge\nthe whole insincerity of his pose as a profound thinker, and his\ngenius-playing arrogance; for instance, by that of Octave Mirbeau, and,\nstill more easily, by a female bust which was exhibited at the same\ntime as \u201cThe Thinker\u201d monstrosity. With the exception of the folly,\nwhich is, moreover, not too obtrusive, that a piece of the rough block\nwas allowed to remain on both shoulders, there was not the faintest\nfeature in the bust that could differentiate it from a severely\nclassical, coldly correct work. Here he had to satisfy a lady client,\nand he was irreproachably smooth, executed all the details lovingly,\nand produced a soft, delicate flesh, to which the elegant Injalbert\nmight sign his name. If one were desirous of making an objection to\nthis pleasant bust, it would, at worst, be that it is too sweet.\nHe becomes the destroyer of all form, the bungling sham-Titan, the\ninscrutable philosopher, dramatist, and lyric poet, whose eye rolls in\na fine frenzy, and who, in the throes of his fever to create, confines\nhimself to hurried indications\u2014he becomes all this only when he works\nfor his bodyguard of sympathetic sensitivism.\n\nHow future generations will laugh over all this buffoonery of \u201cnerve\nart\u201d! Only, indeed, when it comes to know the comments of contemporary\n\u201cintellectuals\u201d in addition to the artists\u2019 silly bungling. For the\nformer will show them in a way to excite sympathy and amusement what\ndevastation the deafening babble of a band of gossips, dreadfully\nignorant of art and innocent of any feeling for beauty, could produce\nin the taste and thought of a large majority, which honestly yearns\nafter \u00e6sthetic education, but, on account of a lack of trustworthy\ntraditions and adequate instruction in art, has not sufficient\nself-confidence to set up the promptings, however obscure, of their own\nfeeling against the impudent dictates of presumptuous arbiters of taste.\n\nMysticism and sexual psychopathy in the choice of themes; Impressionism\nand incidental eccentricities in technique; overstepping the\nlimitations of his art, have made Rodin the great man of the fellows\nwho for some two decades have set the fashion in art and literature. By\nthese three peculiarities, to which he owes his spurious celebrity, he\nwill be ruined as an artist, whatever the success he owes to puffing\nmay be. And that is lamentable, for Rodin is a genuinely gifted\nsculptor, who created beauty when he did not yet think himself bound\nto work out of gratitude to the \u201cyoung\u201d journals. Unfortunately, it\nis extremely improbable that he will now find his way back to that\nsimplicity and naturalness in which salvation is alone attainable.\nThere is no return from Montmartre, not, at any rate, for an old man\nwho has climbed this height and accepted with passionate earnestness\nall what he saw and heard there in advanced years. Young people who are\nstill capable of change, in many cases awake from the idle dream of\nMontmartre \u00e6stheticism. Nature does not vouchsafe to the old to begin a\nnew life.\n\n\n\n\n XIV\n\n RESURRECTION\n\n BARTHOLOM\u00c9\n\n\nI do not want to speak of Tolstoi\u2019s novel, but of a work of art\u2014great,\nat any rate, materially, as a statue\u2014which every pilgrim to Paris will,\nI suppose, wish to see, viz., the monument which Bartholom\u00e9 dedicated\n\u201cTo the Dead,\u201d and which is to be seen in the cemetery of P\u00e8re Lachaise.\n\nIt is interesting in so many aspects that one might devote to it a\nmonograph as thick as a book, which would send out suckers over the\nwhole domain of \u00e6sthetics and the history of art. Never do I feel so\npainfully the inadequacy of a short essay as when I proceed to handle\na subject so rich in connections. It is impossible to exhaust it in\nthis form, and it is painful to leave it as a fragment. One appears\nlimited, whereas one is only restricted. We must satisfy ourselves with\nindications which will easily be looked upon as superficial, though\nthey are merely terse. What is thought out as a proof takes the form of\nmere assertion, and in cases where we should like to convince, we must\nthink ourselves successful, when we have incited the reader to kindly\nco-operation\u2014which, however, goes for the most part its own way.\n\nThis pious ejaculation will make it easier for me to accommodate myself\nto the conditions which have been imposed on the short essay.\n\nWorks of sculpture in public places, which are neither monuments nor\nornamental buildings, viz., such as are not intended to call to mind\nspecial events or particular individuals, are something novel in the\ndevelopment of high art. Antiquity knew only monumental creations which\nhad their origin in patriotic sentiments. We have to bear in mind that\nreligion in ancient communities constituted a part of patriotism,\nfor there were no gods for mankind in general, but only gods for a\nparticular people or a particular state. When Socrates had to drain the\ncup of hemlock, it was not because he had sinned against Olympus, but\nbecause he had given offence to Athens in the person of her tutelary\ndivinities. The Battle of the Giants and the Frieze of the Parthenon,\nthe Pallas Athene of the Acropolis and the Olympian Zeus, were felt, by\nthose who gazed on them and for whom they had been wrought, as images\nfrom the past and present of their race. Even the \u201cLaocoon\u201d and the\n\u201cFarnese Bull\u201d were so regarded: a distinction between the legends of\ntheir race and accredited history, nay, between theology and politics,\ndid not exist in the consciousness of the multitude at large, or even\nin that of the select few. The god made of ivory and gold was the\npublic worship of a living being who was invested with high rank in\nthe commonwealth, and the Olympian victor to whom a statue was erected\nentered into mythology as a comrade of Hercules, Theseus, and Perseus.\n\nReligious art was the only public art known in the Middle Ages. If\nmaterial political interests swayed the minds of communities in Pagan\ntimes, when the nations became Christian the supersensual, _i.e._, the\nsalvation of the soul, became the great concern of the individual as of\nthe community. Patriotism disappeared from the domain of emotion; what\ntook its place\u2014the pride of town, or class, or guild\u2014was merely delight\nin material possession, or, if you like, a sort of vulgar dignity\nwithout any ideal background. Faith was their only sentiment, piety\nthe artist\u2019s sole impulse from which genuine creations could spring.\nIt followed, therefore, that religious art\u2014the only monumental art\nthen in existence\u2014attached itself to sacred places, and subordinated\nitself to them as really mere accessory decoration. Without resting on\narchitecture, sculpture stood on its own feet only in the Stations of\nthe Cross on Calvaries, but, even in this case, it had no object of\nits own, but served a definite purpose of worship. The beginnings of a\npublic art which grew out of an abstract thought of the community\u2014one\nnot of a religious but of a temporal, of civic nature\u2014are scanty and\ndim. As forerunners of such an art we can claim the Roland Pillars of\nthe Free Towns\u2014the symbol of their civil and criminal jurisdiction\u2014with\ntheir indistinct, historical background of dim memories of Charlemagne\nas the legal source of municipal liberties, and perhaps also the\nByzantine Lion of Brunswick.\n\nThe Renaissance was the first to create a monumental art that was\nto serve no practical, religious, or dynastic purpose, but one\npurely \u00e6sthetic, from which people looked for no strengthening of\necclesiastical views, no increase of authority and, through that,\nof power in a prince or government, but looked, in fact, only for\ndelight in beauty. Renaissance art, I admit, rich and free as its\ndevelopment was, also remained thoroughly under the influence of\nmedi\u00e6val traditions, and knew no other range of themes than those\nderived from the Bible and Classic mythology. Even worldlings among the\nartists, who had outgrown religious ideas, drew at least their stories\nfrom the New and, even more commonly, from the Old Testament, or from\npagan mythology, which was familiar only to the educated, and to the\nmultitude at large was meaningless, and devoid of life. A scholastic\npedantry hung about such works as Benvenuto Cellini\u2019s \u201cPerseus,\u201d for\ninstance, which prevented the masses from appreciating them fully. It\nwas not, however, done from haughty disdain, for monumental art\u2014the art\nof the streets and squares\u2014appeals indeed to the masses. The modelling,\non the one hand, of what is purely human, which appeals to feelings in\nevery human heart, and is, therefore, understood by every man; on the\nother hand, of a subject, well-defined in time and place, which must\nbe familiar, at any rate, to contemporaries and residents: this degree\nsculpture attained only gradually and late. The Goose-man of Nuremberg\nand the Brussels Mannikin are instances of local Realism; Tadda\u2019s\n\u201cJustice\u201d at Florence and Michael Angelo\u2019s \u201cPiet\u00e0\u201d\u2014these in spite of\ntheir religious relations are examples of universal human Idealism.\nIt is characteristic of the timidity of sculpture, even in its proud\nepoch of the Renaissance, that it dared not cast itself adrift from\npresenting what was of immediate utility. It thought it needed an\nexcuse for stepping out into the market-place before all the people. It\nfound it fairly in supplying towns with water. It created fountains.\nThese are the first and, for a long time, the only monumental works\nwhich were suggested neither by religion nor by loyalty to some\ndynasty; which aim neither at immortalising the memory of a particular\nevent, nor at refreshing the schoolboy knowledge of the more liberally\neducated, but embody, without any pre-possession, a purely artistic\nconception of form fulfilled and animated with subjective emotion.\nThe stages of development of the monumental fountains, which pretend\nto be mere sports of untrammelled fancy on the artist\u2019s past, extend\nto the present day, in the latest phase, in which the fountain is not\nreally intended to distribute water, like Sluter\u2019s \u201cFount of Moses\u201d\nat Dijon, or Jean Goujon\u2019s \u201cFontaine des Innocents\u201d in Paris, but uses\nthe water only as a decorative element, as Donner\u2019s fountain in the\nmarket-place of Vienna, or Reinhold Begas\u2019s Neptune fountain in the\nBerlin Schlossplatz.\n\nWe must come down to the last century to find at last a monumental\nart of universal feelings or thoughts, still, for the most part,\nmodestly cringing under the protection of architecture, as groups\non pediments of palaces, theatres, and exhibition-buildings, and\ntaking possession of the public square in full independence only in\nthe last decades. Historical works, even of an universal, impersonal\nsort, such as the numerous war-memorials in Germany and France, the\n_risorgimento_-monuments of Italy, the patriotic battle-memories in\nSwitzerland\u2014do not come under consideration here, but only abstract\nworks such as Bartholdi\u2019s \u201cFreedom enlightening the World,\u201d at New\nYork, or Dalou\u2019s \u201cRepublic as the Protector of Labour and Culture,\u201d in\nthe Place de la Nation, at Paris.\n\nEven these works still continue to show a birthmark, which betrays\ntheir origin from the sculpture of purpose, for Bartholdi\u2019s gigantic\nstatue is a lighthouse, and Dalou\u2019s \u201cTriumph of the Republic\u201d belongs\nto the fountain series.\n\nOn the other hand, Bartholom\u00e9\u2019s \u201cMemorial to the Dead\u201d is as free\nfrom every idea of commonplace utility as any mouldings for the rooms\nof a house. It originated in the artist\u2019s emotion, and had, at its\nbirth, no other purpose than that of relieving its creator by the\ngratification of an impulse. What was to become of the work after it\nwas finished is a question Bartholom\u00e9 probably never asked himself\nat all. Perhaps he resigned himself to the thought that it would\npass a pensioner\u2019s existence in some museum or other. In any case,\ncarelessness as to what use would be made of it left him entire freedom\nas to the form it should take. And now he had the unexpected happiness\nof the work being purchased by the city of Paris, and placed in P\u00e8re\nLachaise. This has been the first instance, as far as I know, of a\npurely subjective, monumental work capturing a public position without\nthis being justified by a practical service to the community, without\nembellishing a building, without satisfying any religious need or\npatriotic feeling, without immortalising any historical reminiscence,\nwithout glorifying any event or individual, but basing its claim to\nthe grateful attention of the people at large only on the grounds that\nit attempts to embody in beauty an elemental emotion alive in the\nmasses, that is to say, a real, common interest of moral order. The\nwork may become the starting-point of a new monumental art, which will\nset itself the hitherto unknown task of presenting, with the authority\nof great sculpture, moods and views of the world, viz., the spiritual\nconditions common to a people, of interpreting them to that people, and\nof fixing them for history.\n\nWith all its novelty, Bartholom\u00e9\u2019s work is, notwithstanding, not\nwithout organic connection with the historical development of\nart. There is no virgin-birth in art. Every work has a pedigree.\nBartholom\u00e9\u2019s art is allied to the Campo Santo art of the Middle\nAges, from which it borrows thoughts of consolation and promise. It\nnevertheless exhibits a daring progress when it has emancipated itself\nfrom the architecture of gateways, outer walls, chapels, etc., and\nforced its way in independent form, complete in itself.\n\nThe street of tombs opens at the main entrance of P\u00e8re Lachaise, and\nleads to a gently rising hill, the declivity of which Bartholom\u00e9\u2019s\nmasterpiece occupies. It displays the irregular, decorated side of a\ntwo-storied stone building of ancient Egyptian architecture of the\nsimplest lines. A high door opens in the middle of the upper story,\ninto the shadowy depth of which a naked man has entered. Him follows\nhesitatingly, with her outstretched right hand grasping his shoulder\nand seeking support, a young woman, the lines of whose profile, from\nher mouth distorted with fear down to the soles of her feet that detach\nthemselves reluctantly from the ground, express a horror in presence of\nthe unknown.\n\nTowards this Gate of Death move, on the right and left, groups, each of\nseven persons, whom the artist has striven honestly, yet without real\nsuccess, to fashion in various shapes. At the first hurried glance,\nthe two processions appear to be variously moved; but on looking more\nclosely into them, we recognise an uniformity which proves a striking\npoverty of imagination. On the left, hard by the Gate of Fate, a young\nwoman is sitting on a stone-bench without support, with her countenance\nconcealed by her hands. She cannot make up her mind to rise from where\nshe is resting, in order to take the last step. A second woman is\nvisible in a similar irresolute attitude, in weak relief on the wall.\nCowering behind the two, kneeling quite low, so that the thighs lie in\nparallel lines over the legs, a naked man seems to be whispering words\nof encouragement into the ear of the seated woman. Then follows a woman\nsunk on her knees as if crushed, who hides her face like the first\nwith a somewhat different movement, and behind her a man standing, but\nbending down to her, and addressing words of consolation. Last of all,\nanother woman sitting down, whose dishevelled hair is streaming over\nher countenance, and, behind her, a man standing upright, likewise as\na consoler. Thus is repeated on this side the theme of the despairing\nwoman and the calm, comforting man. On the right side the invention\nis somewhat richer. Close to the door stands an old man\u2014decidedly the\nmost expressive figure in the whole composition\u2014clinging tightly to the\ndoor-posts; and with his head and the upper portion of his body bent\nforward, he tries to get a terrified glance at the awful mystery, ere\nhe pulls himself together for entering. To his group belongs a woman\nstretched on the ground with her face pressed in her hands before her;\nanother folding her hands in prayer, and a half-grown girl shrugging\nher lean shoulders in terror. There follows a second group of three\nfigures\u2014a woman with dishevelled hair, bowed low to the ground; a\ncrouching man supporting her and preventing the feeble figure from\nsinking down completely; and a young woman who kneels on one leg, turns\nher back to Death\u2019s portal, and glances back on life as though she\nstill hoped for deliverance.\n\nThe lower story shows, through the front-wall, which is removed to its\nfull extent, the interior of the vault into which the upper Gate of\nDeath seems to lead down. On a mattress-like couch rest, side by side,\nthe naked bodies of a man and his young spouse; across their bodies is\nlaid their little one year old child; in the background is visible in\nlow relief on the wall a winged angel with outstretched arms, who looks\ndown lovingly on the three quiet sleepers. With a _na\u00efvit\u00e9_ which does\nnot rise above the puerile method of the _quattrocentisti_, of making\ntheir figures express themselves by means of legends issuing from their\nmouths, Bartholom\u00e9 writes on this wall beneath the angel the sense of\nhis allegory: \u201cThey that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon\nthem hath the light shined.\u201d\n\nAbove all, the artist deserves the respect that is due to long and\nearnest effort. We have here before us a work of ten years\u2019 labour,\nexecuted with composure, inspiration, and conscientiousness. He who\ncan do that, of him one may say, without the slightest suggestion\nof irony: \u201cWith his talent, however applied, the man is certainly a\ncharacter.\u201d Many details of the monument, nevertheless, prove that\nBartholom\u00e9 is not only a character, but also a man of talent. The\nhusband and wife turn their quiet faces to each other in the rest that\nis in the grave, and lay their hands one upon the other; and this\nmovement is so tender and sincere that it makes a deep impression.\nIt really expresses in sculpture the love that endures beyond the\ngrave. It is the solitary true emotion in the whole work; for he\nwhose eyes grow moist at the sight of the dead child with the sweet\nlittle baby limbs, will say to himself that his emotion is not of an\n\u00e6sthetic nature, is not evoked by the means of art, but is the purely\nphysical reaction of a human heart from a cruelly painful impression,\nin which no artistic element or inspiration is mingled. The woman who\nenters Death\u2019s portal a prey to horror exhibits graceful lines, and\nthe old greybeard who timidly peers into it is cleverly conceived and\naccurately represented.\n\nBeside these excellent details, many middling and absolute weak\nones disturb us. The dead husband in the grave has an Aztec face\nof repulsive ugliness, which is not called for by any artistic\nconsiderations. The attitudes of many figures, especially those\nsquatting or cowering, are in bad taste. A primary personage\u2014the man\nwho has stepped into the Gate of Death\u2014stalks bending forward with\nhead bowed down and the muscles of his back contracted, like one\nwho is hauling with all his might. It is a matter of surprise that\nthe tow-rope with which the vessel is dragged is not to be seen. I\ncannot prove it, but I am convinced that Bartholom\u00e9 has formed this\nman, not after a model, but from what he recollected of a hauler by\nConstantin Meunier. I have already called attention to the monotony\nof the group _motifs_. The whole conception of the composition, at\nany rate of the upper story, is an echo of Canova\u2019s monument to Maria\nChristina at Vienna, with the further development that Bartholom\u00e9\nshows the subterrestrial and supernatural continuation of the theme\nwhich Canova carries only as far as the entrance to the realm of\nshades, leaving what follows to the pious belief of the spectator. The\nweightiest objection which must be made to the work as a whole is its\noffensive lack of repose. All the individual details are, with few\nhappy exceptions, realistic, whilst the effect of the whole composition\nmoves in extreme unreality. How has Bartholom\u00e9\u2019s most original artistic\ninstinct not preserved him from trying to present a wholly ideal dogma\nwith the most vulgar, petty realism? Simple medi\u00e6val sculptors might\nwork thus. In our contemporaries we do not believe in simplicity, and\ntherefore the discord between idea and form has a jarring effect.\n\nThe most ideal dogma that Bartholom\u00e9 preaches is, however, that of\nthe immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body; for\nhis monument can mean only that, if it means anything at all. It is\nconceived as a consolation to the sorrow-laden who form the last escort\nto a dear one that is dead, or are making a pilgrimage to the grave\nof one they loved. And what consolation has he to offer them? See, he\nsays, in the figures on the upper story, the sorrow with which men\napproach the gates of shadow-land. Why this faint-heartedness? Why this\ntimorous shrinking from the terrors of death? Death has no terrors.\nIt is entering into peace and the fulfilment of a high promise. And\nhe shows, in the lower story, the gentle, blessed rest the dead enjoy\nwho there slumber until their resurrection, watched by their guardian\nangel, who awakes them at the appointed hour, and convey their immortal\nsouls to their divine destination.\n\nThat is the cosmic view held by an artist on the threshold of the\ntwentieth century. Holbein and his predecessors in painting the\nDance of Death were men who believed in Christianity, but the only\nconsolation that they offered mortals was this: Don\u2019t bewail your\nmortal lot, you share it with Pope and Emperor. The path from the\nRationalism of this exhortation to the mysticism of Bartholom\u00e9\u2019s dogma\nis called by the decadents Progress.\n\nThe decadents are consistent when they call Bartholom\u00e9 a modern,\none of the most modern, and hail his work as the art of the future.\nIt is logically on a line with the \u201cprogress\u201d and \u201cmodernism\u201d of a\nHuysmans, Maeterlinck, Bourget, and other New Catholics. But what is\nto be said about the city of Paris having this unctuous work erected\nin P\u00e8re Lachaise? Had the Moscow Duma done it, everybody would have\nfound it natural. But the Paris Municipal Council! This society of\nboasting freethinkers which has banished the Cross from the schools and\nchurchyards, hounded the Sisters of Mercy from the hospitals, has the\ndogma of the Resurrection preached officially!\n\nThat is the highly interesting ethical side of this work. It reveals\nmonumentally the confusion in the donkey-heads of the self-styled\nfreethinkers. That they should decree the honour of a public site to\na composition of a dogmatically religious character is proof of crass\nignorance of their own standpoint, or else of their hypocrisy. I prefer\nto assume it to be their ignorance.\n\n\n\n\n XV\n\n JEAN CARRI\u00c8S\n\n\nThe little palace, the charming edifice which was already attractive\nas the abode of the Dutuit collection, has received a new value\nand consecration. A room has been opened in it, in which a great\nartist reveals himself, whose acquaintance, though not indeed quite\nexhaustively, but nevertheless very profoundly and familiarly, can be\nmade only here in the wide world. This artist is Jean Carri\u00e8s, who died\nin 1894, at the early age of thirty-nine, after a marvellously planned\nlife. To this pattern life, as expressive as any whose story Vasari\nhas told, belonged a patron who kept what is vulgar away from him,\nwho saved him from care and anxiety, who made his mind easy as to his\ninfluence on contemporaries and posterity, and, to a certain extent,\nsymbolically personified his fame for him. This useful part was played\nby a certain Herr Hoentschel, who acquired most of Carri\u00e8s\u2019s works. He\nhas now presented them to the City of Paris, and, by so doing, rendered\nthe opening of the Carri\u00e8s Museum possible. In return his name has\nbeen engraved in letters of gold on the marble slab which declares the\npurpose to which the room has been assigned, beside that of his trusted\nartist\u2014no mean satisfaction to a high-aiming ambition.\n\nCarri\u00e8s was the son of a poor artisan of Lyons. He seemed destined,\nas he thought, to follow his father\u2019s avocation; but the fairies had\nconferred gifts on the proletarian\u2019s child in his cradle: sense of\nbeauty and power of design. He was for a short time apprenticed to an\nartisan; then he taught himself to be an artist. He pursued no beaten\ntracks, and could follow no guides. He was left to his own sense of\nlocality for finding out a path, and he made wide _d\u00e9tours_, but,\nnevertheless, raised himself safely to the highest peaks. Phenomena\ndelighted him as form and colour. His pleasurable sensations sufficed\nto impel him to utterance in sculpture and painting; he satisfied\nhis delight in form by modelling in clay, his delight in colour by\nenamelling.\n\nFor nearly two decades he sought, strove, and created in solemn\nloneliness. Only the patron whom he luckily found at the right time\nglanced over his shoulders when at work with bated breath. His\nreverential admiration expressed itself in a convincing manner by the\nhelpful gesture of the open hand. Some intimate comrades were allowed\nto witness the lofty drama of an exquisite development. His studio,\nhowever, was far removed from the noise of the market. The heat of\npraise and the icy breath of blame brought no disturbance into the\neven climate in which his talent was powerfully developing. Quiet and\ncollected, he worked on until he saw his inner vision realised before\nhim. Then he said: \u201cIt is good\u201d; and allowed a great Sabbath to follow\nthe hard days of creation. Absolutely unknown to wider circles, in 1892\nhe stepped before the public for the first time in the Champs de Mars\nwith a rich exhibition. An hour after the doors of the \u201cSalon\u201d were\nopen, he was famous. In the history of modern art, never before had\nsuch an impressive revelation been observed. There was no hesitation,\nno vacillation. Artists, critics, connoisseurs made pilgrimage, as if\nguided by the shepherds\u2019 star in the bodeful procession of the three\nkings of the East to Carri\u00e8s\u2019 glass cases and pedestals, bent their\nknees, and brought incense and myrrh. His countrymen shouted for joy:\n\u201cFrance has one great painter more.\u201d Thoughtful persons looked at one\nanother and said softly: \u201cThe world is by one beauty richer.\u201d\n\nAll asked: \u201cWho is the man?\u201d for they insisted, in their amazement,\nthat nobody knew him. And then they found out that Jean Carri\u00e8s was a\nfinished artist, a man of thirty-seven, who lived in the provinces, and\nhad, up to that time, sought nothing but the satisfaction of himself.\nHe had not wasted the tiniest little spark of his Promethean strength\nin the vulgar melodrama of fighting for success. His tragedies were the\ngreat struggle with the resistance of material, and doubt of himself,\nand they had been played in secret in his soul. And now was pressed\nupon him that for which candidates strive convulsively, and how often\nfruitlessly! The Champs de Mars Society elected him with acclamation\nto full membership, and dispensed him from the probationary period\nis associate. The State asked for specimens to serve as models for\nits museums, and tied the red ribbon to the buttonhole of his blouse.\nWhat was purchasable was bought up by the ladies of Arc de Triomphe\nquarter during the first days of the \u201cSalon.\u201d A rich American lady,\nMrs Winnareta Singer, commissioned him to carry out the model of his\nfantastic \u201cdoor.\u201d The artists f\u00eated him by a banquet in his honour\u2014a\nhomage which at that time was not lavished as was the case afterwards.\nMdlle. Luise Breslau painted his portrait, which is now exhibited in\nhis room in the midst of his works, and showed his admirers a still\nyoungish man of noble beauty, with a Lucius Verus head, the C\u00e6sarean\nnobility of which was not in the least injured by a careless slouched\nhat. I do not know whether Mdlle. Breslau has flattered her model or\nhas been honest, for I never saw Carri\u00e8s himself; but in the picture\nhe appears, as one would like to fancy him, every inch a gentleman,\non whom his careless working-dress has the effect of a disguise which\ndoes not for a second deceive as to the rank of the wearer. A delicate,\nslender figure; wonderfully active, inspired hands; deep, searching\neyes that seem to sight and fix a dream-picture hovering away; soft,\nnarrow cheeks, on which uneasy shadows play, under the short beard; a\nthoughtful, white forehead over which an abundance of light brown curls\nfalls. How many women may have indulged in dreams before this likeness,\nfor it fascinates even men!\n\nThe homage received had no intoxicating effect on him; the activity\nof the Press concerning him did not infect him with the smallest\nbeginnings of conceit. He withdrew from the curiosity of the world by\nquietly returning to his provincial nest, where, day and night, he\nstoked his flaming furnace, and mixed his acids and metallic salts;\nsuffered under frequent disappointments, and enjoyed rare delights in\nthe success of a firing or a coloured enamel. In the ensuing year one\nlooked in vain for him in the \u201cSalon,\u201d and not quite two years after\nhis unparalleled triumph that came like a bomb, men learnt that he had\ndied.\n\nHis life had ended artistically. Carri\u00e8s disappeared ere his locks grew\nscanty or grey. Beautifully and noiselessly, like another Euphorion,\nhe soared away from the admiration of his contemporaries in the full\nlustre of his fame; and his works, through his early death, experienced\nthe enhanced value of the Sibylline books. We may call him happy, for\nin this room we feel that he had given his best when he died. With a\nlonger life he might have gone astray, for there is no lack of short\nopenings to false paths. Very likely he would have repeated himself\nmany times, and that would have detracted from the dainty charm of\nrarity which, besides their noble beauty, is peculiar to his works.\n\nHe unites in himself two different and equally perfect artists: the\nsculptor and the art-potter. Each tilled a tiny field; but with what\nintensity! And what harvests they conjured out of it! As sculptor,\ncuriously enough, the whole human figure in its Olympian nudity failed\nto interest him. He has not on a single occasion sought to represent\nthe body\u2019s Paradisaic beauty. He confines himself, apparently on\nprinciple, to head and hands; but these are surpassed by nothing, and\nequalled only by little, that all the centuries since the Renaissance\nhave produced. I pass respectfully, yet without deeper feeling, by his\nbusts of Velasquez and Franz Hals. They are merely exercises of his\nhand, perhaps only pastimes. They seem theatrical by reason of the\naccentuation of the costume. In their countenances the absence of the\nmodel is too evident. But beside them the busts of Gustave Courbet, of\nJules Breton, especially of Carri\u00e8s himself, operate with unequalled\nauthority. They live before us; they think, and they reveal themselves.\nIn looking at them we involuntarily call to mind the old stories of\nthe earthen statues which a magician filled with the breath of life in\norder that they might serve him.\n\nThe same impression, only intensified and deepened, is felt before\nthe busts of the \u201cYoung Girl with the Drooping Head,\u201d the \u201cDutch\nWife,\u201d and the \u201cDutch Maiden.\u201d This young Dutch girl is particularly\nadorable. I do not consider I am exaggerating when I say she ranks as\na sister, though in a different technique, with the \u201cMona Lisa.\u201d The\nmaiden\u2019s innocent eyes, which have no presentiment of the passionate\nsecrets of Gioconda; the graceful, reposeful countenance, that seems\nwondering blissfully over her own blooming youth and the loveliness\nof the world, charm us like the miracle of a spring day. Similar joy\nstreams from his sleeping and waking little children. The softness of\nthis baby flesh, the delicate texture of this plump, warm, satin skin,\nare unattainable. Carri\u00e8s discovered a new technique for the life of\nthe outer skin, the results of which, in his hands, are amazing. He\ngives a delicate, perpendicular creasing to the membrane of the lips,\nand marks it off from the skin of the face in a discreet but firm line,\nso that it imparts the illusion of seeing swelling lip-red framed in\nmother-of-pearl. The mouths of his women are weirdly seductive. It\nwould really not surprise me if semi-fools and lunatics were to pounce\nupon these ravishing lips with eager kisses.\n\nEven when Carri\u00e8s is not idealising, but is reproducing portraits true\nto nature, he imparts to them an inwardness which seems unfathomable,\nlike that of a deep soul. For this let any one only look at the \u201cBust\nof an Unknown Lady\u201d and \u201cMother Callamand\u201d\u2014the former a cold, proud\npatrician, perhaps the Clara Vere de Vere, in whom Tennyson admires\n\u201cthat repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere\u201d; the latter a\nsplendid old nun, probably an abbess, a sturdy, peasant woman who is\nconscious of her high rank in the convent, and in whose broad face\ngoodness and severity, healthy power and enthusiastic spirituality,\nare mingled. This gift of filling the subject with inward life is\nthe strongest element in Carri\u00e8s\u2019 genius. In a series of works which\nwere exhibited in the Champs de Mars Salon, and are, unfortunately,\nnot to be found in the room of the Little Palace, this cropped up\noverpoweringly. There were fabulous animals, monsters, which a\nluxuriant imagination had invented\u2014toads, frogs, lizards of gigantic\nsize, in positions humanly conceived, the female reposing on the breast\nof the male, whose eyes are closing in rapture, and delicately embraced\nby his paws. One might think they would have a grotesque effect; by\nno means. Their anthropomorphism brought them in danger of derision;\nbut the genius of Carri\u00e8s was here directly revealed. The quasi-human,\nemotional life manifested in their attitudes made them pathetic. The\ntoads\u2019 legs were not seen; their mouths and goggle eyes were not seen.\nPeople saw only the unmistakable trait of love, and were moved by this\nexhibition of the primitive feeling\u2014the same in man and beast\u2014which\nholds the world together.\n\nPerhaps it is in accordance with this gift of spiritualisation that\nCarri\u00e8s never worked with marble, rarely with bronze, but, as a rule,\nand preferably, with potter\u2019s clay. Stone and metal, however painfully\ncorrectly they render, with every stroke of the thumb and impression of\nthe finger, the clay model, seem to him too hard for the inexpressible\ntenderness which he wants to express. Only one material satisfies\nhim\u2014the one which possesses the softness of flesh and of nerve-plasm.\nHe can knead only clay so that it retains his lightest vibrations.\nThere is something about his busts of burnt clay that reminds me of\nphonographic cylinders. There is soul-melody inscribed in them in\ninvisible lines, and, set in our mood, they again begin to give forth\nsounds, and to repeat the mood of him who composed them.\n\nThe ability with trembling fingers to coax emotions into soft clay\nand to render them plastic seems to be something divine. It did not\nsatisfy Carri\u00e8s. Anybody else would have found the limits of his genius\nenviably wide; to him they appeared narrow, and he tried to pass beyond\nthem. He wanted to create monumental pieces of sculpture, and he\nconstructed his \u201cMartyrdom of St Fidelis\u201d and his astounding \u201cGate.\u201d\nThe \u201cMartyrdom\u201d is a group, composed of the kneeling martyr in monastic\nhabit and the executioner behind him, raising his armed fist to deal\nthe murderous blow. In the details the artist is here, too, distinctly\nCarri\u00e8s, _i.e._, the executioner is of superb cruelty\u2014a fine specimen\nof the family of brutalised legionaries or torturers who, in medi\u00e6val\n_relievi_ of the Way of the Cross, scourge Christ at the pillar and\nnail Him to the Cross. Taken as a whole, the master\u2019s art is a failure;\nthe group has no line. The drama cannot be seen from any side, that\nis, the gesture of the executioner, with its menace of death, and the\ncountenance of the martyr who is awaiting his last trial, cannot be\ncomprehended at once in a single glance.\n\nIf this group is weak, the \u201cGate\u201d is a complete failure. He imagined\na gateway with a depressed keel-arch top, divided by an intervening\npillar into two gates. The pillars are covered with grotesque masks\nand mythical animals from top to bottom. The arch of the gate is\nformed by a dragon, in the gaping jaws of which stands a noble lady.\nThe separate masks and monsters scintillate with spirit, fancy, and\nhumour. In richness and variety of invention, and in depth of humour,\nI unhesitatingly place these heads far above Germain Pilon\u2019s Pont Neuf\nmasks. The contrast, too, between the fearless maiden standing in the\nanimal\u2019s jaws, full of quiet self-confidence, and the hideous beast, is\nof pregnant symbolism. The work is, nevertheless, an aberration, as a\nwhole. The masks and monsters have no organic connection with the gate,\neither constructively, or in accordance with the meaning. They are\nsimply stuck on. And the gateway itself is an insoluble riddle. Where\nshould it lead to? To a lunatic asylum, a museum of caricatures, or a\ncarnival ballroom? Or should it mean \u201cthe abstract door,\u201d the door\npure and simple, without the purpose of an entrance into a building?\nThe poor, great artist consecrated years of his life to this prodigy,\nand never saw that he had wasted them.\n\nThe decorator amused himself in devising unheard-of enamels. He\nmodelled vessels of smooth, supple plant-forms\u2014calabashes, melons,\ncucumbers, mamillaria-cactuses, bulging or fallen in, smoothly\nswelling, or warty and shrivelled, whimsically dinted like a thin\ncopper-plate, wantonly hammered, or lumpy and swollen. And over these\nwhimsicalities, which show an incredible mastery of the material,\nhe poured glazes which look so fat and moist that they seem to flow\nstill, viscous and languid. Many are purple, like half-curdled blood;\nothers white and rich, like fresh cream; and others like coloured\nfruit juices; but many a time we think we see thick matter and brains\nin frightful discharges; and on some vases the enamel imitates the\nlichens which overrun the bark of trees in spots, grooves, and bands.\nAnd when Carri\u00e8s has done enough with these glazes, which remind us of\nopalescent life-saps, he tries diversity in glazes of gold, silver,\ncoral, and precious stones, which change his stoneware phials into\nsplendid vessels from a treasury of the Thousand and One Nights.\n\nAs a sculptor in clay Jean Carri\u00e8s stands as high as Della Robbia; in\ndetails\u2014in forming lips and cheeks\u2014far higher than the latter; and, as\na decorator, no one can be compared with him, not even Bernhard de\nPalissy\u2014to mention a name by which his rank may be estimated. Carri\u00e8s\nis not a man of to-day, and fashion lies far below the height on which\nhe works. The wretched \u00e6sthetic-babbling coteries of the period cannot\nget hold of him, or make use of him for the senseless but furiously\nbellowed catchwords peculiar to the polemics of the day. He is not a\nmodernist, not a classic, not an impressionist; he is not this, he is\nnot that, but, he is, quite simply, himself. He works up what he has\nlearnt in his own person; he invents his own, and always gives himself.\nHe creates from his own soul, without looking to right or left. In him\nthere is no school, no tendency, and no straining, but only feeling,\npersonality, and the service of beauty. Yet it is through these great\nartistic natures, which belong to no time, that the line of development\nin art proceeds, and not through the pitiful _homunculi_, whom Faust\ncaricatures artificially engender in advertisement-retorts.\n\n\n\n\n XVI\n\n WORKS OF ART AND ART CRITICISMS\n\n\nDuring the last years the relation of public opinion to works of art\nhas been repeatedly discussed, and on each occasion with great warmth.\n\nThe discussion, in the main, is concerned with two questions which are\nindependent even if they are connected with each other, viz.: Has the\npublic a right to judge a work of art, or must it renounce its own\nopinion and simply bow before the verdict of specialists? Have not\nall, or, at any rate, many, works of art that have subsequently gained\nundisputed recognition by the world, been strongly opposed and rashly\nrejected on their first appearance in public?\n\nIn 1899 intellectual Berlin was excited about a pertinent question.\nProfessor Franz Stuck, the Munich painter, had obtained a commission\nfor a wall-painting for the German House of Parliament. When the artist\nsent in his sketch, there came a shriek of most unpleasant astonishment\nfrom the judging committee of the Reichstag, and a member, Dr Lieber,\nexpressed in public session, in very strong language, his absolutely\nunmixed feelings in respect of the work.\n\nThe Munich friends of the insulted artist, to their credit, made common\ncause for him. They published an armour-clad protest, in which they\ncharacterised the members as \u201claymen unable to judge,\u201d and reproached\nthem with impertinence because they \u201cthought they understood everything\nbetter than learned specialists did.\u201d\n\nI expressed my views then in the _Deutsche Revue_ of this opposition\nbetween specialists and laymen in plastic art, and I ask permission to\nrepeat here in brief the essential part of my arguments.\n\nWho are the experts? From the general drift of the objection on the\npart of the Munich artists it was to be concluded that they must be\nthe practising artists, the critics, perhaps also the professors of\nart-history. Let him who does not belong to these three sacrosanct\ncategories steal weeping away from the confederation of experts. And\neven among the critics there is probably a selection to be made. The\ncritic who praises the artist is to him undoubtedly an expert; the\ncritic who blames him shows himself incontestably as a _bourgeois_, and\nin intelligence stands almost as low as a common University professor\nwho does not teach art-history.\n\nAll this is foolish talk. In matters of art, if, indeed, any one can,\nonly an individual\u2014never a category\u2014can lay claim to the rank of\nexpert. Is, perhaps, the practising artist the expert? He is not so\nnecessarily. There are people whose vocation in life, or, speaking more\ncorrectly, whose usual occupation, is painting, but whose painting is\na continuous insult to art. One may be a professional painter, and yet\na pitiful dauber, and commit such impudent sins against good taste\nthat every non-expert must recognise this at the first glance, and be\nprovoked at it. Or is the critic the expert? It would be a good joke to\nassert that.\n\nNearly every verdict on a work or an artist committed to paper by\na professional critic is opposed by another verdict, also by a\nprofessional critic which says the exact contrary. Which of the two\ncritics is an expert? Which of the two has a right to demand that\npeople should bow before his verdict, because he habitually makes\nphrases about works of art in public? What proof of capacity do the\npapers as a rule demand of the _beaux esprits_ to whom they entrust\nart criticism? He who has observed dozens of times how ambitious\nyoung newspaper-writers, on their first report of an opening of an\nExhibition, or after forming a coffee-house acquaintance with an artist\nthirsting for advertisement, suddenly discover in their minds a gift\nfor art criticism, and have subsequently cultivated this with brazen\nself-consciousness; he will feel highly amused when people try to crack\nup art-critics as experts, simply because they exercise this function.\nEven professors of the history of art, even directors of museums, are\nnot, by reason of their office, experts in the sense of possessing very\nprofound understanding of art. The academic study of art-history lays\nthe chief stress on the facts belonging to the history of life and\nmorals, which need have nothing in common with the understanding of\nart. One may make in archives the most beautiful discoveries for the\nbiography of Leonardo, and not feel a single one of his pictures. And\nas regards superintendents of museums, it is possible to relate the\nfunniest anecdotes about their fallibility, and oppose to them simple\nconnoisseurs, also \u201cnon-experts,\u201d who have formed splendid private\ncollections.\n\nThe truth is there are no experts in questions of art, as there are,\nperhaps, in questions of technique. Expert knowledge presupposes the\nexistence of fixed rules, of a canon. There can be no talk of this in\nthe fine arts. The only element of painting that, at least to a certain\npoint\u2014to the point where the individual conception and, with it, really\nartistic interest first begins\u2014is under objective rules, is drawing,\nboth from its figure as well as its perspective side. This element can\nbe taught, learnt, and faithfully measured, for nature furnishes the\nscales. On the other hand, the colour element in painting is subject to\nabsolutely no canon, but at best to subjective feeling, at worst to a\nfashion of the period. Every artificial colour is a convention; for, as\nI have argued more particularly in my studies of Sisley and Pissarro,\nnone can truly reproduce the real colours of natural phenomena, and\nit is wholly a consequence of education and habit, when the polychrome\nof oil-painting or water-colour more easily excites in us the illusion\nof colouristic truth than the monochrome of the two-colour or of\nblack and white art. One decade paints in dark, another in bright\ncolours. One school likes powerful, another subdued harmonies of\ncolour. Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites imitate the tone of old frescoes and faded\nGobelins. Puvis de Chavannes took the colour out of his pictures by a\ntransparent white-wash, pale as the moon. Besnard, on the contrary,\ndischarges fireworks, without caring in the least if the mad tumults of\ncolour that he loved are possible or not in nature. Carri\u00e8re envelops\nhis figures in a dense mist. Cottet has, very recently, brought into\nfashion the black and dark shadings which go right back from Ribot\nand Prudhon to Velasquez and Ribera. Who is right? Who is wrong? Here\neverything is feeling, and consequently subjectivity. Of drawing, one\ncan in all cases say (and by photography irrefutably prove), it is\ncorrect, or it is wrong. Colour does not admit of a similar verdict.\nAll that can be said of it is: \u201cI like it,\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t like it.\u201d\n\nFor beauty in art, in the present condition of the perception theory,\nthe physiology and psychology of pleasurable feelings, there is no\nother standard than subjective feeling. This is dependent on the\ngreater or the less sensitiveness of the nervous system, on its\nperceptivity of slight qualitative and quantitative differences in the\nexcitation of the senses, and, therefore, on an essentially congenital\nconstitution of the organism. The gift of receiving strong impressions\nfrom works of art can be developed by practice, by the frequent and\nattentive study of works of art of different kinds; but it cannot be\nattained artificially by any effort or any amount of study.\n\nWhat, then, mean the expressions expert and layman, when applied to\n\u00e6sthetic verdicts? The classes of society, in which preponderating\noccupation with intellectual problems, continued through several\ngenerations, has refined the nervous system and rendered it more\nsensitive, produce, as a rule, individuals with a feeling for art.\nThese live in large towns, in the centres of art life, they travel,\nand visit numerous collections, and thus their feeling for art is\ndeveloped into a wide understanding of it, that studies works of art\nfrom the historical standpoint. These are the real experts, so far\nas there can be any talk of such in \u00e6sthetic questions. But these\nclasses of society, these individuals are only to the very smallest\nextent painters or professional critics, _i.e._, critics writing for\nthe public. To wish to exclude them, on that account, from the expert\nclass is ludicrous presumption of certain persons who, by their own\nauthority, confer this title on themselves. The educated public\u2014the\nintellectual _\u00e9lite_\u2014has not the least reason for allowing their\nopinion on works of art to be dictated to them by painters who may\nwell be daubers or crack-brained fools, or by critics who may be\nignorant phrase-mongers.\n\nSo much for the first question as to the fitness of the so-called\nlayman for criticising works of art.\n\nThe second question, as to the changes in public opinion about certain\nworks and their authors, is considerably more complex.\n\nIt is not to be gainsaid that such changes have occurred, but they are\nmuch rarer than those would like to make us believe who, from instances\nof pretended later conversions of originally rebellious taste on the\npart of contemporaries, hope to succeed in proving that the ugly is\nbeautiful and the beautiful is ugly.\n\nThe names which were most often cited to prove the incompetency of\ncontemporary judgment on works of art of modern tendency are most\nunfortunately chosen. Millet, Rousseau, and Corot were looked upon by\ntheir contemporaries as smearers and daubers; Manet was laughed to\nscorn, B\u00f6cklin pronounced a fool, his friends advised Hans Thoma to\nchange his name, etc., etc. In order not to go to too great length\nI will now leave Thoma and B\u00f6cklin out of the discussion. But the\nothers! That Rousseau and, especially, Corot passed for smearers\nand daubers among their contemporaries is simply not true; on the\ncontrary, justice was at once done to them for their technique. Even\ntheir most unscrupulous opponents admitted that they were draughtsmen\nand colourists. What they were reproached with was only the alleged\nintellectual insignificance of their work. People remained under the\ninfluence of classical landscape with ancient buildings or ruins, and\na decoration of ideal figures such as Poussin brought into fashion,\nand Claude Lorrain cultivated. A landscape without nymphs or shepherds\nin Arcadian dress, without temples or figures of Hermes, seemed empty,\ninsignificant, ignoble. The majority had as yet no taste for the\nwitchery of mood in wood and field. Why, Corot himself was not clear\nabout what was new and determinative in his own art, for in some of his\ngrandest pictures Dryads dance, beneath young-leaved trees immersed in\nthe mists of springtide, the most correct sham-classic square dance.\nIt was only in his last period that he renounced this ancient magic.\nRousseau had broken away from tradition more resolutely, and was on\nthat account less esteemed than Corot by contemporaries whose education\nhad been perverted by precedent. But the worst that was said against\nthe two did not go beyond the assertion that they were \u201cvulgar.\u201d\n\nThe case of Manet is, of course, different. People have roughly\ndisowned this painter; but it is absolutely false to talk about a\nchange in popular opinion about him. Those who \u201claughed at\u201d him\nthirty-five years ago, laugh at him in precisely the same way now.\nIn my study of the Caillebotte room in the Luxembourg Museum I have\nalluded to the angry protest of G\u00e9r\u00f4me and Gustave Moreau against\nadmitting the works of Manet and his friends into a State collection.\nIf the laughers are not so numerous, and if their laughter is not so\nringing as in the \u201cOlympia\u201d year, it is simply because the man is\nabsolutely done with. Only a few stragglers still talk nonsense about\nManet, men who have missed the connection of \u201cthe last train,\u201d and some\ngreybeards in their dotage\u2014the barricade warriors of the \u201cSalon\u201d\u2014who\nfancy they are still breathing the gunpowder smoke of 1863, and will\nkeep up to the day of their death, which cannot be far off, the happy,\nexultant mood of the beer-evenings at the Caf\u00e9 de Madrid. None among\nthe pillars of young and living art recognises Manet as his ancestor.\nPeople know now that he was a discovery of Zola\u2019s. The sharp turn in\nthe development of art in the last thirty years of the last century\nwas inaugurated, not by him, but by others. Courbet introduced realism\nwhich has nowadays shrunk to nothing. Monet kindled \u201cFree Light,\u201d and\nthat was a very great service which, unfortunately, is also no longer\nfully acknowledged, for the latest race of Parisian painters again\nabandons joyful brightness and goes back to the gloomy, oppressive\ntones of \u201cthe \u2019fifties.\u201d Manet, however, found nothing and invented\nnothing, and he owes the noise that was, for a period, heard about him\nonly to his relations with a devoted friend, who vindicated his own\ntendency by that of the painter, and said of him all the good which he\nthought of himself.\n\nThe change in taste from one generation to another is a general law\nwhich I proved in the _Neue Freie Presse_ of 9th August 1896, and\nafterwards developed and established in the Florence _Rivista Moderna_\n(No. 3, of 1898, \u201c_Le alternanze del gusto_\u201d). I strongly believe\nin the prevalence of this law; but if particular cases are followed\nin detail, it is recognised that many an apparent change in the\nappreciation of a work or an artist rests on an illusion of the senses.\n\nTo return to the subject of Manet. An awful din arose at the first\nappearance of \u201cOlympia.\u201d Friends and foes waged wild battle with each\nother. Each panted for the blood of the other. Twenty years later\nthe picture that had been so hotly contested was hung in the State\nMuseum, which roused fresh, but considerably weaker, opposition.\nFinally, however, no one any longer protested against its presence in\nthe picture-gallery, and now a sophist might assert: \u201cThere, you see!\nThe picture which was once laughed at is, thirty years afterwards,\nacknowledged as a classical work of art.\u201d\n\nGently! That is by no means proved. The fight has ceased only because\nit has become objectless. Who nowadays waxes warm against Manet? The\nman, you know, is dead, not only as a human being, but also as an\nartist. He no longer troubles any one. He no longer exercises any\nbad influence. He no longer even poisons popular taste, for it is\nsufficient to observe the visitors to the Luxembourg, to see that they\npass by the \u201cOlympia\u201d with laughter, and shrugging of the shoulders, or\nelse with astonishment and shakes of the head. If a belated corybant\nraises a shout of \u201cHail, Manet!\u201d he is merrily allowed to shout. It is\nsuperfluous to shout him down, for nobody listens to him. The truth is\nthat the taste for Manet is not in the least changed. People find the\n\u201cOlympia\u201d every whit as repulsive nowadays as it was thirty years ago;\nbut they no longer say so with a loud voice and with the veins about\ntheir temples swollen, because, generally, people no longer stop before\nits mouldy ugliness.\n\nIf you examine very carefully, you will generally find that the\nvarious appraisements of particular works in a new generation do not\noriginate from later generations regarding it differently than did\ncontemporaries, but from their generally no longer viewing it with\nthe same eyes. Let us only bear in mind always that the vast majority\nof mankind have no feeling of their own for artistic beauty. They act\nas if they had some feeling only because they know that a feeling\nfor art is pronounced to be a mark of higher culture. We cannot rate\ntoo highly the part played in art idiocy by sham culture, pose, and\nself-deception\u2014or, shall we say, more indulgently, by auto-suggestion?\nHonest confession of obtuseness to art is hardly found in any but\nthe two poles of humanity\u2014on the extreme summit and at the lowest\nantipode. A man must be either a rustic lout or an overtopping genius\nlike Prince Bismarck, to confess that he can make nothing of the fine\narts. The culture-Philistine never has this courage. He always pretends\nthat he finds luxurious enjoyment in the contemplation of art. This\nculture-Philistine always repeats what has been said to him; he admires\nwhere the Baedeker-star prescribes admiration. And he is, in many\ncases, not even dishonest. He persuades himself that he feels what he\nregards it as his duty as an educated man to feel; and he really comes\nto feel it in the end, thanks to this self-persuasion. All the effects\nof art depend on suggestion, so far as they are not concerned with the\nmost absolutely primitive and undifferentiated sensual excitations. On\none who has a genuine feeling for art the work of art itself conveys\nthe suggestion, which is followed by feelings of pleasure. On the\naverage men, whose blunt nerves take no impression from the work of art\nitself, the Baedeker-star\u2014the label\u2014exercises this suggestion. If a\nwork of art has once got the reputation of excellence, either because\nit deserves it, or because it acquired it from a dishonest, busy, bold,\nand swaggering clique, the next generation of Philistines in art does\nnot test it further, but takes it as something accepted. The clique can\nthen state triumphantly that the work they have puffed is a success.\nBut has it on that account acquired real success?\n\nThe number of free, strong men is extremely small, who have the\ncourage, desire, and ability to examine the veracity of traditional\nlabels; but there is a frightful devastation every time that such an\nidol-destroyer and overthrower of altars breaks into the Temple of\nRenown, which is guarded by that dragon, the Good Old Way. People are\nthen convinced about the quantity of plaster rubbish which has been\nsmuggled into proximity with real marble and gold-and-ivory work in the\nsemi-darkness of the sanctuary, and has enjoyed for hundreds, perhaps\nfor thousands of years, the same veneration as the wonder-working\nrevelations of genius.\n\nBut suppose we conceive in our mind\u2019s eye the extremely rare case in\nwhich a real masterpiece was misjudged at first, and, later on, was\ngreeted with acclamations. In this case the question, as a rule, is\nnot of lack of understanding, but of lack of sense of proportion. The\ncontemporary age which blames, and the succeeding age which praises,\nare both right, _i.e._, they do not praise and blame the same thing,\nand the divergent appraisement of the work is simply due to the fact\nthat contemporaries like to dwell on the faults and overlook the\nexcellencies, whilst latter generations neglect the faults and regard\nonly the excellencies. The contemporaries were biassed in severity,\ntheir successors are biassed in indulgence. Ideal justice is not\nof this world. But faults remain faults even in the ages that come\nafter, and excellencies, too, were excellencies even in the period of\ntheir origin; and it is jugglery and forgery when people interpret\nthe change in appraisement as if a later generation had admired as a\nmerit that which an earlier generation had stigmatised as a fault. Just\none example to illustrate these propositions: Millet is said to have\npassed for \u201ca dauber and smearer.\u201d Now, his contemporaries who blamed\nhim used no such harsh expression. They said only that Millet drew\nincorrectly and painted carelessly, and those with a real feeling for\nart notice exactly the same thing to-day, only they say it no longer,\nunless the question is expressly put to them. On the other hand, his\ncontemporaries, too, noticed his deep moral earnestness, his warm\nhuman feeling, the touching simplicity of his style, which we prize so\nhighly in Millet to-day. But they were not inclined to forgive him his\ndefects in execution on account of these intellectual merits, whilst we\ntake his weakness in form into the bargain on account of the feeling\nit contains. These weaknesses, however, are there to-day precisely as\nthey were thirty years ago, and he who fails to see them is guilty of\npresumption if he passes a verdict on pictures.\n\nTaking them altogether, the works and artists that were overvalued\nby contemporaries are far more numerous than those that were\nunderestimated at the beginning. And even in the extremely few cases\nof the latter category, the injustice of contemporaries did not, as a\nrule, take the form of violent opposition, but that of indifference.\nContemporaries did not gainsay their beauty; but it escaped their\nattention, because this was claimed by other fashions and styles. No\nwork of plastic art that is nowadays accepted without dispute was\nrejected, when it appeared, with such anger as certain products of the\n\u201cSecession\u201d are at the present day.\n\nThat is natural. The conditions of art production were half a century\nago absolutely different to what they are now. The artist gave his\npersonality full scope, and sought to please only a few customers of\nrank, without troubling himself about the people at large. To-day he\nwants to excite a sensation at any price, and he looks, for this end,\nnot into himself, but about himself. By creating he is not satisfying\nhis impulse to give form and shape, but his hunger for success.\n\nVain _amour propre_, swaggering, conceited vanity and cunning\n\u201cpushfulness\u201d are the motives that far too often guide the artist\u2019s\nbrush or chisel. The coarse vulgarity of the means corresponds with the\ncoarse vulgarity of the motives and aims. One must make a sensation,\nand that is attained most easily by a rowdy rebellion against taste,\ntruth, and healthy human intelligence. If he annoys his contemporaries,\nthe ruthless advertiser finds his account more surely than if he\npraised them. Only he who startles dares hope to be noticed in our\npresent huge exhibitions with their three thousand numbers. That is\nwhy the unscrupulous competitor works with the object of startling,\nand only with that object. His natural allies are writers who seek by\naggressive criticism to satisfy the same hysterical impulse towards\nsensation as he, and the snobs who hope to justify their claim to be\nun-Philistine by pretending to discover and appreciate hidden beauties,\nwhere the thick-headed majority of their fellow-men observe and condemn\nonly unblushing outrages on the sense of beauty.\n\nThe necessity for creating a sensation has arisen only in our times\nof over-production in all fields of intellectual creation, and of\nfrightfully murderous competition for success. In the earlier days of\nart it played hardly any part at all. On this account it is fallacious\nto try to deduce from the, after all, extremely rare romances of\nworks, originally misjudged but afterwards recognised, in the past,\nan argument in favour of certain creations of the present day, which\na large proportion of educated men rejects, not because they do not\nunderstand, them, but because they understand them only too well.\n\nLet men only have the quiet courage not to allow themselves to be put\nout of countenance; they will carry their point even before posterity.\n\n\n\n\n XVII\n\n MY OWN OPINION\n\n\nThere is hardly anything which I hate so cordially as opportunistic\ncriticism, which, in respect of phenomena in art-production presented\nin a noisy and pretentious way, affecting to signify modernity and\nprogress, does not honestly take a side, but with the cunning foresight\nof the bat in the fable attempts to come to an understanding with\nboth the opposing armies, of the birds and of the mice. Criticism\nthat openly wears the uniform of a pronounced movement in art can be\nput up with. The enemy of the movement fights the criticism and the\nmovement at the same time. It shares all the fates of its banner; it\nis in the danger, and it may be in the victory. If the movement for\nwhich it carries weapons succumbs, it gets the worst of it too, and\nexperiences the treatment accorded to the vanquished. It has to lay\ndown its weapons of criticism, falls into contempt, and has no longer\nthe possibility of devastating art life, of perplexing artists, and\noppressing those who enjoy art. Insufferable, on the other hand, are\nthe clever, the unprejudiced, the eclectics, the smooth civil sneerers\nwho praise, yet with faintness, who blame, yet with a saving clause,\nwho carry in their lips such well-known and rather good phrases as:\n\u201cCertainly, there is some exaggeration here, but the peculiar style\nis not to be misjudged\u201d: \u201cIt is certainly no finished creation, but\nthe work, nevertheless, contains some promise\u201d: \u201cThis is not exactly\na work, you know, which one could recommend for imitation, yet there\nis much to be learnt from it\u201d: \u201cIt is the new wine in Goethe\u2019s _Faust_\nthat is acting so absurdly, but still perhaps it will yield a good\nvintage.\u201d These people who talk so sweetly are those who really poison\nthe springs of public taste. Thanks to them, movements which ought to\nstand without the pale of the law enjoy a sort of equal justification,\nas it were, of the \u00e6sthetic, historico-artistic copyright. Their mask\nof benevolence, justice, and toleration gains them the confidence of\nthe irresolute, who, left to their own feeling, would recognise, at\nonce, in certain works, either a gross impropriety of the shameless\nsort, or an indubitable manifestation of insanity, yet through the\ncheap phrases of opportunistic critics, become doubtful of themselves\nand say: \u201cIf such sober-minded scholars as this and that critic\nconstantly find something to recognise in this stuff, I am perhaps\nwrong to condemn it at once.\u201d\n\nModerate feelings are much more widespread than extreme feelings.\nThey are the normal product of the nervous system in civilised\nmen; to the great majority of half-coloured, faded grey men subdued\ncolours only are sympathetic; violent and shrill colours may amuse\nit; but, in its innermost being, it feels instinctively drawn only\nto the lukewarm ones. It believes them; and on their information, on\ntheir irresponsible recommendation, gives to the most openly rascally\nart-firms the credit through which alone they can hold out for a while.\n\nAnd these critical warpers of justice are not assailable. They always\nplay an imposing part, and are always right. If an objectionable\nmovement lasts\u2014and there are aberrations which have held their ground\nfor at least a generation\u2014then they triumph modestly, for they have\nbeen among its first heralds and have \u201crecognised at once the sound\nkernel in the first strange shell.\u201d If the imbecility is as such patent\nto all, and disappears amidst the derisive laughter of the intelligent,\nthey triumph again, only somewhat more self-consciously, for they\nhave \u201cnot let themselves be dazzled by novelty, and have pointed out\nits weaknesses, and worked strenuously at its defeat.\u201d Thus every\nadventure in art life, every campaign in criticism, be its issue what\nit may, increases their esteem; and the longer they continue their\ncourse, which is so mischievous to the community, the more blindly the\nmultitude yields to their leadership, and the greater devastation they\nare guilty of through their dishonourable exercise of their office of\nguardians in matters of art.\n\nI well know how this opportunism in criticism arises. It is the result\nof the co-operation of the basest and most despicable intellectual\nqualities. I find its causes in the dull feeling for the beautiful\nwhich renders weak and indistinct all reactions from artistic\ninfluences, and suffers neither delight nor irritation to arise: in\nthe cowardly fear of man and pitiful adulation, which aims at injuring\nno one and only thinks of keeping a retreat open for itself; finally\nin common vanity, which prefers to please a crowd of gaping boobies\nrather than the select few, and the flattering, though so cheap,\nreputation of being \u201cvery intellectual,\u201d to the responsibility of crude\nperformance of duty. The favourite word by which the opportunistic\ncritics compound with every artistic confidence trick is \u201cdevelopment.\u201d\nIf the clairvoyant monitor utters the cry of \u201cdecay and degeneracy,\u201d\nthe opportunists reply, \u201cbuds of a new and splendid bloom.\u201d They love\nto appeal to the history of art. That is right. When the Masolinos and\nMasaccios sprang up, the last pupils of Gaddi and Orcagna whimpered,\n\u201cNow there is an end of painting.\u201d But what was at an end was Byzantine\nart filled by Cimabue and Giotto with some fresh life, and what began\nwas the ever glorious _Cinquecento_. And much nearer to us: when\nDelacroix emancipated himself from the colour rules of David\u2019s pupils,\nand broke out into a downright exultation of red and blue and purple;\nwhen Corot, Rousseau, and Dupr\u00e9 set homely nature viewed with lyric\neyes in the place of Poussin\u2019s classic landscape degenerated into\ndial painting; then earnest voices likewise accused the innovators of\ndigging the grave of art, and yet we know nowadays that Delacroix and\nCorot were by no means the wild anarchists which the Academicians held\nthem to be, and that an uninterrupted line of development extends from\nDavid and Prudhon through G\u00e9ricault to Delacroix, and from Nicholas\nPoussin and Claude Lorrain through Joseph Vernet, and even through\nWatteau to Corot\u2014a line which was unnoticed by contemporaries, yet\none which we now see clearly. It is the dodge of an unscrupulous\nattorney to quote these examples when treating of the art of a Puvis\nde Chavannes, an Aman-Jean, the Pr\u00e6-Raphaelites, _pointillistes_,\n_vermicellistes_, and _pipists_. There are sure marks of recognition\nby which the authorised can be distinguished from the unauthorised,\nthe true from the false, development from retrogression, and buds from\ngall-nuts. A movement which, indeed, resolutely diverges from the taste\ndominant at a given time, though striving to approach nature, need not,\nbut may, have a future; and he who does not suffer from stiffness in\nthe joints will not, as a matter of course and on principle, refuse\nto follow it with benevolent curiosity. If, however, the new movement\ndeparts from nature, one may confidently say \u201cit leads to nothing.\u201d If\nan independent method which strives after personal expression reveals\nitself in a revolutionary effort\u2014however peculiarly, nay, perversely,\nit might impress\u2014the intelligent man will not condemn, but wait to\nsee if something living comes from the attempt. If the practised eye,\nhowever, recognises, in the peculiarity, either a cunning imitation or\na cold-blooded, intentional oddity, then one may confidently pronounce\nthe death sentence, for it contains in itself no germs whatever of\ndevelopment. The only two eternal sources of art are, and will be,\nfeeling for nature and personality. Fidelity to nature and honesty\nproduce living creations. Unnaturalness and affectation are marks of\ndecay. He who ever holds fast to these simple dicta will hardly ever\nrun the risk of mistaking a Will-o\u2019-the-Wisp for a lighthouse, or what\nis morally, if not practically, a more serious error, of treading under\nfoot an insignificant chrysalis with the living and beautiful butterfly\nit enshrines.\n\nEven of the manifestations of insanity of crack-brained painters,\nof the hoaxes of tricky strugglers for success, and the whims of\nchildishly immature and childishly careless people living from hand\nto mouth, who have sprung up in the last two or three decades, the\ngood man\u2019s insinuating word of the \u201csound kernel,\u201d of the \u201ctendencies,\ncapable of development, to a new blossoming of art,\u201d has been spoken\nby the opportunistic of critics. Well, time has now given the answer\nto these verdicts, at any rate in regard to some of the movements for\nwhich those prophets so benevolently predicted a glorious future.\nFifteen or twenty years ago we saw in the Paris Salon, beside the\nexpressionless fabrications of the usual daubing artisans\u2014the \u201cMother\u2019s\nJoys,\u201d the \u201cYoung Lady at her Toilet,\u201d the \u201cOyster with Lemons,\u201d which\nconstitute the stock in trade of all exhibitions of pictures\u2014only two\nformul\u00e6 appear in hundreds of repetitions: the vulgarly realistic,\nafter the style, let us say\u2014to mention a particular name\u2014of Bastien\nLepage, that pupil of Cabanel who had degenerated into an apostle\nof Courbet; and the pseudo-idealistic, after the model of Puvis de\nChavannes. Workmen with brutalised countenances and greasy blouses, and\nunearthly figures in antiquated landscapes of chalky paleness, disputed\nthe visitor\u2019s attention. A concreteness which did not spare us a single\nfinger-nail in mourning, struggled for supremacy with a careless\nvagueness which styled itself \u201cAbstraction\u201d or \u201cSynthesis\u201d and produced\nonly questionably schematic types. Whole walls exhibited unbroken\nrows of pictures which reminded us of the spectral ballet of the dead\nnuns in \u201cRobert the Devil.\u201d Then we came to rooms where an unmixed\ncompany of rag-pickers, and night-men exercising their calling, of\nhuzzies on the night-prowl, dung-carting stable-helps, and rapscallions\nat loggerheads, were quite at home. One of these movements, _i.e._,\npainting in faint colours, has hardly a representative left; the\nother\u2014the art of vulgarity, meanness, and ugliness\u2014only a dwindling\nfew.\n\nHere, then, we have two movements, to which \u201cthe intellectuals\u201d have\npromised a future. One of them is as dead as a door-nail and buried,\nthe other dying. He who did not let himself be cheated, or want to\ncheat others, could predict this outcome with certainty. Debased\nrealism was a misunderstanding of the impulse towards truth displayed\nby the Manet School. This School held itself bound in conscience to\nrecord minutely even the unessential and the ugly accessories. Their\nlimited imitators sought only that which was ugly and unessential in\nthe world of phenomena. They thereby wandered far from the eternal aim\nof art\u2014to excite an emotion by a work of art; for the mere imitation\nof a sight either actually indifferent or frankly repulsive can\nnever excite an emotion. It was, therefore, easy to recognise that\nthis tendency could not be lasting. The pseudo-idealism of Puvis\nde Chavannes showed the other infallible mark of morbidity, viz.,\nimpersonality and dishonesty. He tried, by an artificial bleaching of\ncolours and a semi-transparent white-wash, to produce the effect of\nold and faded frescoes, in which their age of several hundred years is\nan element of \u00e6sthetic effect, by reason of the dim depictment of what\nis remote, dead and gone, and unknown; by reason of the longing they\nawake for what has for ever passed away and will never appear again.\nIt was imitation; it was an attempt to deceive. It was not the honest\nrevelation of personality, but its disguise in a strange, historical\ncostume. That had no future, and it could not last.\n\nWhat justified the primitive naturalism of the pioneers, the convinced\nfervent service of truth, this survives victoriously every change in\nfashion, and, in fact, is developing strongly further. True naturalism,\nwhich grows enthusiastic for the poetry of unpretentious sights, and\nwas the logical development of Rousseau\u2019s return to nature, and of\nGreuze\u2019s village stories inspired by that return (the \u201cVillage Bride,\u201d\nthe \u201cFather\u2019s Curse,\u201d the \u201cSon\u2019s Punishment,\u201d etc.), has held its\nground. On the other hand, loathsome painting, which is naturalism run\nmad, has been finally conquered, and the spectral painting of Puvis is\nabout to follow it into oblivion.\n\nThese much-extolled tendencies have, then, no future in them. They were\nnot buds which were to develop into blossom and fruit. They were wild\nsuckers in which a generation of artists fruitlessly squandered its\nbest strength, and which are now withered and blown away by the wind.\n\nAnd that, too, will be the lot of other aberrations which have not\nyet quite run their riotous course. That may be predicted with quiet\nconfidence, without any being taught by the future of another.\n\nA great philosophical doctrine is deducible from these facts. All\ndevelopment\u2014including that of art, which is a part of nature and a part\nof human nature, and obeys the common laws of nature\u2014all development\nis constant, and will be diverted from its logical course by no power.\nIts great procession always goes through a main street, and sudden\nturnings aside branch off only into blind alleys. Extreme forms have\nno stability; they remain individual monstrosities without issue.\nThe strenuous life is always making efforts back towards the typical\nconstitution of the species. In art this law may be found deplorable\nup to a certain point; for it is inimical to strong individualities,\neven to honest and justifiable ones, and favourable to the indifferent\naverage, whilst in art the absolutely untypical individualities are\nfull of charm. But, as things are, it is the iron law of development\nwhich no living thing can escape.\n\nIt is not easy to oppose successfully the opportunistic criticism which\nalways professes to see, even in the maddest and silliest things, at\nany rate, \u201cgerms of artistic development\u201d; but it is, nevertheless, a\nduty of subjective morality to do so. My verdict on many notabilities\nof fashion stands in sharp contrast to that which one generally\nhears and reads about them nowadays. He who does not suffer from the\ndelusion of greatness, or a morbid distemper of contradiction, feels a\nposition of this kind painfully. I have earnestly and conscientiously\ntried whether my adversaries were justified in demanding that I, as\nan individual, should submit to their huge majority. Well, I cannot\nconcede this right to them. In dozens of instances, I have too closely\nobserved how the unanimity of contemporary opinion about an artist\narises. It is enough for an artist to invent a whim and obstinately\ncling to it, without letting himself be put out by indifference,\nvexation, or scorn. Very soon some ass of a critic will come and\nexplain this whim as an inspiration of genius. This he will do out of\nvanity, affectation of originality, or an itch for sensation. He will\ndo it to give the impression that he is of more brilliant intellect\nthan the common herd, and that he alone can appreciate a beauty which\nthe Philistines stupidly pass by. If the humbug of a critic has some\nskill in coining phrases, a little perseverance, and a fairly sonorous\npulpit, he will infallibly, in course of time, collect a congregation\naround him; for it is easy to gain adherents to a chapel which one\ndesignates as a place of worship for the intellectual _\u00e9lite_, men of\nfine feelings, and those gifted with understanding. Provided that this\nsham lasts only a few years, it must needs triumph over all opposition.\nA young generation grows up which takes it for granted. No one puts to\nthe test what has come into his possession, but takes it as a matter\nof course. It attains iron permanence. What was a paradox yesterday\nhas attained the rights of dogma to-day by mere lapse of time. Busy\npens now vie in outbidding each other in the elegance and wittiness\nof the phrases with which they express the prescribed admiration for\nthe great man. If an independent person steps forward, and shows\nthe worthlessness of the puffed up celebrity, the devotees of the\nlittle chapel, which has grown into a great church, feel an honest\nindignation against the heretic. \u201cHow does this man dare to doubt, when\nwe, who are certainly better and cleverer than he, piously believe.\u201d\nThat is the history of every religion: when it is organised it becomes\nintolerant and endeavours to assert itself by means of violence. But,\nto the honour of mankind, there are, nevertheless, always independent\nspirits who will not let themselves be intimidated, and on whom\nauthority does not impose. They test the dogma, and kick it away if it\nis not firmly based. The stake has not protected religion from these\nindependent critics; still less can the Corybants of art-reporting\nguard a fashionable idol from them.\n\nThe right of criticising the views even of the most overwhelming\nmajority must be maintained. A final proof in disputed questions\nregarding \u00e6sthetics is, I admit, not to be supplied. All artistic\ninfluence rests on suggestion. The work of art, itself and, originally,\nexercises the suggestion on a minority endowed with delicate\nsensibilities. On the great majority an opinion of others, delivered\nwith firmness does so. The great majority of people admire one who\nis praised because it is suggested to them by his trumpeters that\nit is their duty to admire him. As a matter of fact, they feel the\nadmiration, without being conscious that not the work of art has\ninspired them with it, but the enthusiastic gossip which they have\nread and heard about it. These people refuse to believe me when I tell\nthem that they are admiring something which is an aberration. The\nprior suggestion prevents them from tolerating a fresh suggestion from\nme. No one, however, can contest this so far as he is quite certain\nonly of his own feelings. In art, effect is an infallible criterion,\neven if of only subjective value. If a man feels definitely as regards\ncertain pictures that they are valueless and unmeaning, he has a right\nto express it as strongly and honestly as he feels it, even if millions\ndeclare that they discover all kinds of loveliness and depth of meaning\nin them. One will perhaps fail to convince a single creature, and will,\nas likely as not, long remain a preacher in the wilderness. But perhaps\nnot for ever. The inventors of a fashionable _culte_, whom their\nselfishness obliges to stand up for their own work, will not remain in\narms for ever and live. Those who worship after them have not the same\nstrong, effective grounds, the originator\u2019s vanity, for defending that\n_culte_ desperately. The snobs who thronged to it because it was the\nsingularity and they were the exceptions, necessarily abandon it as\nit becomes commonplace and they find themselves in a vulgar majority.\nThen the uninfluenced art-conscience again faces the work; it becomes\nsusceptible to the warning of him who was, up to then, \u201cthe one voice\ncrying in the wilderness,\u201d and in a short time all lips murmur: \u201cThat\nwas indeed a swindle.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n FOOTNOTES\n\n\n[Footnote 1: In the department of Doubs.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Ps. xc. 10 in Luther\u2019s version.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Tchin_ is Russian official _noblesse_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _I.e._, of joy or suffering.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Faust: II. Theil; _sub fin._]\n\n\n\n\n INDEX\n\n\n\u00c6sthetes, School of, 32\n\nAlexander, John W., 217-8\n\nAman-Jean, 218-20\n\nAngelo, Michael, 23\n\nArt, emancipation of, 16-22\n\n\u201c\u2014\u2014 for art\u2019s sake,\u201d criticism of, 1-5, 12-5\n\n\u2014\u2014, future of, 27-9\n\n\u2014\u2014, prettiness in, 227-9\n\n\u2014\u2014, religious, 296-7\n\n\u2014\u2014, utilitarianism in, 11-2\n\nArtist, psychology of the, 5-9\n\nArtists, influence of the Byzantine, 59\n\n\nBalzac Memorial, 285-8\n\nBarbizon, School of, 97-8\n\nBartholdi, 299\n\nBartholom\u00e9, 294-307\n\nBaudelaire, 162\n\nBesnard, Albert, 220-3\n\nB\u00f6cklin, 326\n\nBoilly, 81\n\nBoldini, Jean, 154, 223-5\n\nBonheur, Rosa, 92-3\n\nBotticelli, 220, 275\n\nBouchot, Henri, 57\n\nBouguereau, William, 225-30\n\nBourdichon, 58\n\nBrangwyn, Frank, 230-6, 274\n\nBruniquel, 4\n\n\nCaillebotte Room, 93\n\nCarpeaux, 278\n\nCarri\u00e8re, Eug\u00e8ne, 166-84\n\nCarri\u00e8s, Jean, 308-19\n\nCastiglione\u2019s \u201cCortegiano,\u201d 24\n\nCatholics, New, 307\n\nCellini, Benvenuto, 23, 33\n\nCentury Exhibition, 70-81, 93-4\n\nC\u00e9zanne, Paul, 236-9, 259\n\nCharonton, Enguerrand, 67\n\nChass\u00e9riau, 83-4\n\nChauchard, 91\n\nChauvinism, 11\n\nChavannes, Puvis de, 185-200, 343\n\nCimabue, 60, 121, 339\n\nClouet, 67-8\n\nCone, Jacques, 67\n\nConti, 145\n\nCorneille of Lyons, 67\n\nCorot, 100-3, 131\n\nCottet, Charles, 201-16\n\nCourbet, 91-2\n\nCouture, 122\n\nCriticism, opportunism in, 336-9\n\n\nDante, 18\n\nDaubigny, 104\n\nDaumier, 88-9, 265\n\nDegas, 119\n\nDelacroix, 84-6, 104-5\n\nDelisle, Leopold, 57\n\nDella Robbia, 319\n\nDonner, 299\n\nDrolling, 79\n\nDupr\u00e9, 340\n\nD\u00fcrer, Albrecht, 188\n\n\nEnamels, Carri\u00e8s\u2019, 318\n\nExhibition, the Century, 70-95\n\n\nFountains, 298-9\n\nFouquet, Jehan, 67-8\n\nFragonard, 74-5\n\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric, L\u00e9on, 239-244\n\nFroment, Nicolas, 64\n\n\n_Genre_ painting, 16-7\n\nG\u00e9rard, 79\n\nG\u00e9ricault, 98\n\nGiotto, 60, 121, 339\n\nGirard of Orleans, 60\n\nGleyre, 148\n\nGorki, Maxim, 261\n\nGretchen, 193\n\nGreuze, 74-6\n\nGross, Baron, 98\n\n\nHals, Franz, 209\n\nHebbel, Friedrich, 144\n\nH\u00f6llen-Breughel, 265-6\n\nHuddleston, Judge, 150\n\nHundred Years\u2019 War, Effects of, 56\n\n\nIcons, Russian, 59\n\n_Inferno_, Dante\u2019s, 277\n\n\nJohn of Orleans, 63-4\n\n\nKipling, Rudyard, 93\n\n\nLafenestre, George, 57\n\nLa Tours, 168\n\nLandscape, literary, 136-7\n\n\u2014\u2014, lyrical, 137-9\n\n\u2014\u2014, optical, 139-40\n\nLaurens, Jean Paul, 244-6\n\nLeempoels, Jef, 246-50\n\nLeonardo, 188\n\nLessing, a remark of, 145\n\nLieberman, Max, 120\n\nLorrain, Claude, 327\n\n\nMaeterlinck, 109\n\nMallarm\u00e9, 275\n\nMalouel, Jean, 67\n\nManet, Eduard, 105, 108, 112, 121, 123, 327-8\n\nMantegna, 15\n\nMartin, Henri, 250-6\n\nMeissonier, 105\n\nMeunier, Constantin, 33, 34-40\n\nMignot, Jean, 67\n\nMillet, 89-91, 103-4, 333\n\nMonet, Claude, 105-8, 112, 115-9, 121, 123\n\nMontenard, 256\n\nMoreau, Gustave, 93-4, 155-65\n\nMouthe, caves of, 3\n\nMuseum, the Luxembourg, 110-1\n\n\nNietzsche, 275\n\n\n\u201cOpen Air\u201d movement, 93, 100, 102\n\n\nPalissy, Bernard de, 319\n\nPavilion de Marsan, 56\n\nP\u00e8re Lachaise, \u201cResurrection\u201d at, 300-7\n\nPerr\u00e9al, Jean, 66-7\n\nPissarro, Camille, 132-144\n\nPlane, medi\u00e6val, 49-51\n\nPoussin, 132\n\nPr\u00e6-Raphaelites, 324\n\nPrudhon, 77\n\n\nRaffaelli, Jean, 114, 119, 256-8\n\nRedon, Odilon, 258\n\nRenaissance, 15, 23-4, 297-9\n\nRenoir, Pierre Auguste, 120-1, 259\n\nRenouard, 123\n\nReuter, Fritz, 290\n\nRibera, 209\n\nRibot, 209\n\nRiesener, 79\n\nRodin, Auguste, 275-93\n\nRoll, Alfred, 260-2\n\nRops, F\u00e9licien, 154, 266\n\nRubens, 268\n\nRude, 278\n\nRuskin, 149-50\n\n\nScheffer, Ary, 86\n\nSculpture in early Middle Ages, 65\n\n\u201cSecession,\u201d 334\n\nSimon, Lucien, 262-4\n\nSisley, Alfred, 123-30\n\nSluter, 299\n\nSolutr\u00e9, 4\n\nStuck, Prof. Franz, 320-1\n\nSweden, rock pictures in, 4\n\n\nThi\u00e9ry, 96-7\n\n\u2014\u2014 Salon, 101\n\nThoma, Hans, 326\n\nTrutat, 81-3\n\n\nVan Eyck, the brothers, 60-2\n\nVeber, Jean, 264-8\n\nVelasquez, 209\n\nVernet, Horace, 87\n\nVig\u00e9e-Lebrun, 74, 76-7\n\n\nWatteau, 74-5, 261\n\nW\u00e9ry, Emil, 269\n\nWhistler, James, 144-54\n\nWierz, 155\n\nWilczek, Count, 68\n\nWorms, Jules, 272\n\n\nZorn, Anders, 120, 154, 270-1\n\nZuloaga, Ignacio, 270-4\n\n\n Printed at\n The Edinburgh Press,\n 9 and 11 Young Street.","title":"On art and artists","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":82514}