Part 2
On that day, as Vambéry has told us, a new era opened for Central Asia. “The countries and cities once absolutely closed to the Western man are now opened before him. There where a European could not make a single step without danger of death, he now comes and goes as freely as he pleases, for a Christian army holds the land. At Tashkend, Khojend, and at Samarcand there are clubs, _cafés_, and churches. Tashkend has its Russian newspaper, and with the plaintive chant of the Muezzin is mingled the tinkling bell of the Greek Church, more terrible to the ear of the true believer than the thunder of cannonades. In the streets of Bokhara, where, but a few years ago, the author of these lines heard only Mussulman hymns, the Russian priest, the Russian soldier, and the Russian merchant are now walking together with the pride of the conqueror. A hospital and a storehouse occupy the once splendid palace where Tamerlane used to command; the palace to which all the princes of the East came to do homage, to which the monarchs of Spain and the Indies sent an embassy to beg for the friendship of the great conqueror, and where the Turanians, humble and devout, knelt, to strike with their foreheads the green stone which forms the sacred pedestal of the throne of Timour. By the victory of the Russian eagles in Central Asia, Islam has received a most terrible wound. For the whole thousand years and more during which it has struggled with Christianity it has never been hit so full in the breast. In our time Western civilization acts vigorously on Mussulman Asia from Byzantium to India, and even Mecca and Medina have not escaped its influence. Central Asia alone had remained the sanctuary of Mahomedanism. The evil there had not been changed, and it was not Mecca but Bokhara which passed for the intellectual centre of Islam. The ascetic, the member of a religious order, the theologian, sighed for this sacred city, and the most zealous Mussulmans of the Ottoman Empire, of Egypt, of Fez, and of Morocco, came to cherish their fanaticism in its schools and in its mosques. Samarcand is incontestably the Maracanda of the Greeks, the capital of the ancient Sogdiana. It was the queen city of the basin of the Oxus. It lost its preponderance for a time, but recovered it, and under Tamerlane reached the height of its splendour. The Mahomedans had a thousand poetic expressions in praise of its wealth, its abundance of water, its innumerable canals fed from mountain torrents, and running in all directions through the plain.”
When on the Himalayas Verestchagin ascended the highest mountain but one on the face of the globe—Kanchinga. Kanchinga is twenty-eight thousand odd feet above the level of the sea, and only Mount Everest in Nepaul takes the palm of it with 29,000 feet. But Mount Everest is a peak, and no one can get up there; while Kanchinga is a huge mass of mountain that invites the climber. But Verestchagin was at Kanchinga in January, when the mountain was covered with ice and snow, so he could not get higher than 15,000 feet, and he was considered a madman for trying to do that. Some English officers in the neighbourhood, when first they heard of his project, did all they could to dissuade him from it. With his characteristic obstinacy he simply thanked them for their advice and went on with his preparations for the ascent. “At least,” they said, “you will never take the lady?” Madame Verestchagin was with him, and had insisted on accompanying him. “That will depend upon her,” said Verestchagin, and his wife went with him all the same. It was a frightful ascent. The coolies abandoned them when they had gone a very little way—these dark-skinned races cannot stand the cold—and at last they had only one man, who carried the colour-box and drawing-tools, the use of which was Verestchagin’s main object in the journey. The painter wanted to go up there to study effects of snow and cloud. By and by even this man’s courage failed him, it became so intensely cold. They were wading in snow up to the knees in some places and in others up to the waist. The ponies had been left below. There was no house or shelter of any kind. They called a halt, and the courier went back to get help, leaving Verestchagin and his wife on the mountain in the midst of the snow, with only a small wood fire between them and all but certain death, and with nothing but snow for meat and drink. They cowered over the fire till the falling snow put it out, and then for all that day and night till far into the next day they struggled as best they could for life. As a final and desperate effort, Verestchagin, taking leave of his wife, whom he never expected to see again, roused himself and dragged his almost frozen limbs down the mountain to look for help. When he had gone a long way he met the coolie who had last left them, coming back with food and aid, only just in time to save both the travellers’ lives. Verestchagin was so exhausted that he had to be carried back to where his wife lay. As soon as he had recovered, he took out his colour-box and made some capital sketches of Himalayan effects.
In 1881, a memorable exhibition of Verestchagin’s pictures was held in Vienna. Its success was probably without a parallel in the history of art exhibitions by a single painter. For a whole month the public poured into the rooms at an average rate of certainly not less than eight thousand a day (on the last day twenty thousand passed or tried to pass through the rooms), until, from the Emperor to his humblest subjects, the peasantry included, there was no class, and it may be added no nationality, within the Empire, which had not sent its representatives to the Künstlerhaus. An attempt, by some political papers, to make the enthusiasm of the Slavs for Verestchagin a means of exciting the hereditary jealousy between them and other races of the Empire was happily frustrated. It is literally true that the broad thoroughfare leading to the exhibition was often blocked by the immense crowd, and that the announcement, “The gallery is full to overflowing,” had to be hung out to excuse the temporary closing of the building two or three times a day. The artist did not conceal from his friends that he was proud of the popular and even of the numerical element in his success, because it showed that his work had touched those it was above all meant to reach. He had painted for the people in the highest sense, and their response showed that he had not laboured in vain. _Du reste_, this and this only was his reward, for, beyond the payment of his bare expenses, he had no pecuniary interest in the exhibition.
I may now leave the painter to speak for himself in regard to his own guiding principles in art. The theory of them will be found in what he has written on Progress in Art, and on Realism. The practice, in so far as it relates to right methods of historic study for the painter, is, in all that follows relating to the Campaign of Moscow, his latest and his greatest series of works.
RICHARD WHITEING.
Footnote 1:
The cross of St. George, the highest military distinction in Russia, is not given in the usual way on a mere order of the sovereign, but only after a special inquiry into the circumstances of each case by the Council of the Order.
ON PROGRESS IN ART
We artists always learn too little, and if we have recourse to books it is only cursorily, and without a system, as though we held a solid education to be quite unnecessary for the development of our talents. It must be allowed that herein lies one of the principal, if not the chief, reasons why art in its fuller and more complete development is checked, and has not yet succeeded in throwing off its hitherto thankless part of serving only as the pliable and pleasing companion to society, and in taking the lead, not merely in the æsthetic, but essentially also in the more important psychological development of mankind. While in all other regions of intellectual life it is admitted that new ideas arise, and with these the means of realizing and perfecting them, yet, in art, especially in sculpture and painting, and to a degree also in music, the old phrase still asserts itself—“The great masters have done thus, and therefore must we also do the same.” In the handling of every subject, an advance in thought may be remarked. Our view of the world is far from being what it was a few centuries ago; our handiwork itself, in its execution, has changed and improved. Under such circumstances one would think that in the region of art—for instance in painting—either a new idea or a more truthful and natural style might be possible. But no! One is always met by the same assertion—that, “Not only in the perfect construction of their pictures, but also in the sublimity of conception, the old masters stand on an unapproachable height, and we can only strive after them.”
The culture of the individual, as well as of society itself, has far overstepped its former level. On the one hand science and literature, on the other improved means of communication, have disclosed a new horizon, have presented new problems to artists. These ought also to have stimulated to some new efforts. But, again the same assertion blocks the way—“The old masters have done thus, and therefore....”
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In the art of painting, this excessive veneration and imitation show themselves to a certain degree in representations of the nude and in portraits, for both these branches of art reached a high stage of development among the old masters. But, even here, we are struck by the one-sidedness in the execution—the effect is always one and the same: a very bright light on a very dark and sometimes black ground—an effect often startling, but artificially produced, unnatural, and untrue.
Painters’ studios were formerly, it is true, small and, owing to the costliness of gas, dimly lighted. But close to these studios there were courtyards, gardens, and fields, with a beautiful background, and an abundance and variety of light, which would have been as effective, and would have made the black tones clearer and less monotonous.
We know that the darkness of the ground in old portraits is only partly attributable to the influence of age, and that in most cases it is intentional. On studying a series of old portraits one can only regret that so much technical ability in representing the body, face, clothes, lace, jewels, etc., should have been harmonized, not with the light, airy shadows of a summer’s day as we all sufficiently know and see it, but with a thick artificial black. Undoubtedly the new school of painters will render a service to art by taking men out of the darkness of attics and cellars into the clear light of gardens. It is indisputable that the monotonous early style, which showed everything in the same light of the studio, spares the artist many difficulties and embarrassments; but in art there ought to be even less hesitation than in anything else in the face of technical difficulties.
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Turning to historical pictures, we are struck by the more thoroughly intellectual and characteristic handling of the subject at the present time. History is certainly still illustrated more or less by amusing anecdotes, and artists content themselves by depicting that which science has established, instead of contributing the results of their own researches; but even now there is a very marked advance on the usual adulation and the uncritical traditions, legends, and assertions of the old school.
If painters were to study history, not in a fragmentary way from this to that page, if they would understand that the imitation of dramatic exaggeration on canvas has become obsolete, they would begin to arouse the interest of society in the past quite in a different way from that which is possible by means of anecdote, picturesque costumes, and types that are for the most part fables of history. It is a fact, that hitherto the treatment of memorable events by artists has been of a nature to draw a smile from the educated. But by changing the sunny holiday of the historical picture into a more acceptable workday, truth and simplicity would certainly be the gainers.
It seems superfluous to mention the extraordinary advance made at the present day in landscape painting, an advance due to very many causes, but chiefly, of course, to the development of natural science. It is not too much to say that the landscapes of the old masters are mere childish essays, as compared with the works of the leading living artists in this field. And it is really difficult to understand how and in what direction landscape painting can be brought to greater perfection.
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In the so-called religious painting, imitation of the old masters is nearly as great as in portraits. But this is fully explained by the gradual disappearance of religious perception, and the consequent preference for an old ideal, rather than the creation of a new one without the strong faith of olden times.
Nevertheless, the new school finds it not only possible, but even necessary, to reject inherited ideas, though hallowed by time and custom, when they evidently contradict the artistic eye and feeling of our time. First: the manner of placing God and the Saints on clouds, as though these were chairs and stools, and not substances whose physical condition is well known to us. Second: the custom of representing Christ and the holy men and women as a Roman patrician surrounded by his slaves. Third: the representation of God in the style of our kings, in robes of state, seated on a throne of gold, silver, and precious stones, with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, all suspended in clouds. Fourth: the representation of the Virgin Mary in the costly robe of a lady of high rank covered with jewels. Possibly religious painting will not now rise to a second _renaissance_, but it may nevertheless be assumed that the advance in technical knowledge may even be useful in Church paintings, if the painter, in his representation of the Deity and the Saints in their manifestations in heaven or upon earth, would replace the dim, poor, and monotonous light of the studio by a brilliant, clear, sunny atmosphere, and delicate, transparent, airy shadows.
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In order to explain our meaning, we will cite some of the famous religious works of the old masters as examples: for instance, the well-known pictures by Titian in Venice, and Rubens in Antwerp, representing the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. We are not going to speak of the great excellence of those two pictures, recognized all the world over, and by no means valued too highly. If it be also beyond doubt that these pictures have in course of time become darker, it must nevertheless be understood that they were executed within four walls, and produced by the traditional contrast of very strong light and very deep shadow. Now, we ask, whence could these black shadows have come? If the Assumption of the Virgin Mary had perchance taken place in a grotto, or in some dark, artificially-illumined space, these shadows would be intelligible, but in such case the strong lights would be inexplicable. Now it was accomplished in free air, and we may be allowed to suppose that a beautiful sunny day was chosen by God for so sublime and solemn an event. So much the brighter should the pictures have been painted, both on account of the direct and reflected sunlight. Whence then, we may ask, came these black tones? Well, they were simply due to the fact that the lights as well as the shadows were not derived from observation, but invented, as artists say, “by the head,” and were therefore from beginning to end false. But, can it be supposed that great painters like Titian and Rubens should not themselves have recognized such defects? Of course this can be as little understood as that the great Leonardo da Vinci should not have remarked the false light in his celebrated picture of beauty, _La Joconde_, when he painted her in free air, with hard, metallic tones on the face, and an impossible landscape in the background. Had he, then, no presentiment of the wonderfully tender lights and half lights, shadows and half shadows, wafted over the face of a lovely woman by the air?—how everything out of doors has quite another appearance about it than within four walls?
We will not digress too far with our investigations, and only venture to ask whether it occurred to no one at that time to demand so much from the artist? No; they were not asked. But these niceties, are they not required in these days from the artist? Yes, they are.... Then the advance is evident.
In like manner, we cannot suppose that another shortcoming in the artistic conception of such masters could have escaped their acuteness. For instance, in the representations of the Apostles, whose personalities are so clear and convincing in the Gospels, we recognize in their forms, faces, and attitudes—particularly in Titian’s pictures—not modest, humble fishermen, but fine Italian models of athletic appearance. This error was evidently acknowledged even then by the artists themselves, with their usual tact and good sense; and Rembrandt went so far as to introduce into his religious subjects Dutch market-figures. But there is still a long stride from this to the true rendering of the types and costumes recognized at the present day as indispensable. Is this not an advance? Certainly it is. We deny that study has ever yet created talent; but, on the other hand, we do not for a moment doubt that it stimulates it.
As regards time and place, the worshippers of the earlier style of painting go to such lengths in their imitation, that they not only work with the same colours and in the same manner as their adored masters, but also aim at lending to their pictures that peculiar tint which time has produced on the canvas. They cover their pictures with some dark shiny colour, in order to give an appearance of age, as if they were painted one, two, or three centuries ago. This tendency is even taught in many modern schools, and individual artists have gained great reputation as colourists merely because they can impart to their productions a resemblance to those of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, or Velasquez. Let us hope that the new school will go to work with greater deliberation, not only as regards the conception of their subject, but also in colouring; for it is impossible to treat this aright by imitating, with a quantity of varnish, a canvas which has become yellowish or reddish through time. The young school will make it a strict rule to bring every event into harmony with the time, place, and light selected, in order to benefit by all the modern acquisitions of science, in relation to the characteristics, costumes, and every psychological and ethnographical detail.
A scene which takes place in heaven or on earth should positively not be painted within four walls, but in the true light of morning or mid-day, evening or night. The illusion and effect produced by the picture cannot but gain by this, and the language of painting will become more expressive and intelligible.
Perhaps the same might be said, with little variation, of sculpture, and even of music. All the arts are now, more than ever, brothers and sisters, and long ago should have been united in one temple of taste, intellect, and talent.
REALISM
I
“Realism—realism!” How very often do we hear this term, and yet how seldom does it appear to be applied understandingly.
“What do you take realism to be?” I asked a well-educated lady in Berlin, who had been talking a great deal about realism and the realists in art. The lady did not seem to be ready with an answer, for she could only reply that “A realist is he who represents subjects in a realistic manner.”
I hold, though, that the art of representing subjects in a realistic manner does not entitle a person to the name of realist. And, in order to illustrate my meaning, I may present the following example—
When the war of the British with the Zulus came to an end, there could be found no man among the prominent English artists who would take upon himself the task of committing to canvas that epopee enacted between the whites and blacks, and so the English had to have recourse to a very talented French artist. They gave him money, and explained to him that such and such were the uniforms and the arms of the English soldiers, and such and such were the clothes, or what represents clothes, among the Zulus. Then, eye-witnesses to the military encounters told the Frenchman of what the background consisted in each case, probably supplementing their accounts with photographic views. Armed with this information the artist set to work, without having the least personal knowledge of the country he was going to reproduce, nor of the types, the peculiarities, nor the customs of Zululand. With much assurance the artist went on with his task, and turned out several lively pictures in which there are a great many men attacking an enemy—defending itself; a great number of dead and wounded; much blood; much gunpowder-smoke, and all that kind of thing; yet, with all this, there is total lack of the principal thing: there are no British nor Zulus to be found in the pictures. Instead of the former we behold Frenchmen dressed up in British uniforms, and instead of Zulus, the ordinary Parisian negro-models, reproduced in various more or less warlike attitudes.
Well, is that realism? No.
Most artists, besides, do not take sufficient pains to reproduce the true light under which the events they treat have really taken place. Thus, such scenes as are taken up in the just-mentioned pictures—scenes of battles under the intolerably torrid sun of Africa, are being painted by the greyish light of European studios. Of course the sunlight, and the numerous peculiar effects dependent on it, cannot prove successful in such a case, and the effect is lost.
Is that realism, then? Certainly not.
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I go further, and assert that in cases where there exists but a bare representation of a fact or of an event without idea, without generalization, there can possibly be found some qualities of realistic execution, but of realism there would be none: of that intelligent realism, I mean, which is built on observation and on facts—in opposition to idealism, which is founded on impressions and affirmations, established _à priori_.
Now, can any one bring the reproach against me that there is no idea, no generalization in my works? Hardly.
Can any one say that I am careless about the types, about the costumes, about the landscape of the scenes represented by me? That I do not study out beforehand the personages, the surroundings figuring in my works? Hardly so.
Can any one say that, with me, any scene, taking place in reality in the broad sunlight, has been painted by studio light—that a scene, taking place under the frosty skies of the North, is reproduced in the warm enclosure of four walls? Hardly so.
Consequently, I can claim to be a representative of realism—such realism as requires the most severe manipulating of all the details of creation, and which not only does not exclude an idea, but implies it.
That I am not alone in such an estimate of my work, is proved by the following lines, from a correspondent to an American paper,[2] sent from Paris at the time of the last exhibition of my paintings in that city—