Part 5
Turning to Italy we find even grosser injustice and an even more woeful inadequacy in the treatment accorded her modern poets. To be sure, there are biographies of Carducci, Ferrari, Marradi, Mazzoni, and Arturo Graf. But Alfredo Baccelli, Domenico Gnoli, Giovanni Pascoli, Mario Rapisardi, Chiarini, Panzacchi and Annie Vivanti are omitted. There should be biographies of these writers in an international encyclopædia one-fourth the size of the _Britannica_. Baccelli and Rapisardi are perhaps the two most important epic poets of modern Italy. Gnoli is one of the leaders of the classical school. Chiarini is not only a leading poet but is one of the first critics of Italy as well. Panzacchi, the romantic, is second only to the very greatest Italian poets of modern times, and as far back as 1898 British critics were praising him and regretting that he was not better known in England. Annie Vivanti, born in London, is a poet known and esteemed all over Italy. (It may be noted here that Vivanti wrote a vehement denunciation and repudiation of England in _Ave Albion_.)
But these names represent only part of the injustice and neglect accorded modern Italian poetry by the _Britannica_. There is not even so much as a mention in the entire twenty-nine volumes of the names of Alinda Bonacchi, the most widely known woman poet in Italy; Capuano, who, besides being a notable poet, is also a novelist, dramatist and critic of distinction; Funcini (Tanfucio Neri), a household word in Tuscany and one held in high esteem all over Italy; “Countess Lara” (Eveline Cattermole), whose _Versi_ gave her a foremost place among the poets of her day; Pitteri, who was famous as long ago as 1890; and Nencioni, not only a fine poet but one of Italy’s great critics. Nencioni has earned the reputation of being the Sainte-Beuve of Italy, and it was he who introduced Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne to his countrymen. Then there are such poets as Fontana, Bicci and Arnaboldi, who should at least be mentioned in connection with modern Italian literature, but whose names do not appear in “this complete library of information.”
But France, Belgium, and Italy, nevertheless, have great cause for feeling honored when comparison is made between the way the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ deals with their modern poetry and the way it deals with modern German and Austrian poetry. Of all the important recent lyricists of Germany and Austria _only one_ is given a biography, and that biography is so brief and inadequate as to be practically worthless for purposes of enlightenment. The one favored poet is Detlev von Liliencron. Liliencron is perhaps the most commanding lyrical figure in all recent German literature, and he receives just twenty-seven lines, or about one-fifth of the space given to Austin Dobson! But there are no biographies of Richard Dehmel, Carl Busse, Stefan George, J. H. Mackay, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustav Falke, Ernst von Wolzogen, Karl Henckell, Dörmann, Otto Julius Bierbaum, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
There can be no excuse for many of these omissions. Several of these names are of international eminence. Their works have not been confined to Germany, but have appeared in English translation. They stand in the foremost rank of modern literature, and both in England and America there are critical books which accord them extensive consideration. Without a knowledge of them no one—not even a Britisher—can lay claim to an understanding of modern letters. Yet the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ denies them space and still poses as an adequate reference work.
One may hope to find some adequate treatment of the German lyric to recent years with its “remarkable variety of new tones and pregnant ideas,” in the article on _German Literature_. But that hope will straightway be blasted when one turns to the article in question. The entire new renaissance in German poetry is dismissed in a brief paragraph of thirty-one lines! It would have been better to omit it altogether, for such a cursory and inadequate survey of a significant subject can result only in disseminating a most unjust and distorted impression. And the bibliography at the end of this article on modern German literature reveals nothing so much as the lack of knowledge on the part of the critic who compiled it. Not only is the _Britannica_ deficient in its information, but it does not reveal the best sources from which this omitted information might be gained.
An even more absurdly inadequate treatment is accorded the poets of modern Sweden. Despite the fact that Swedish literature is little known to Americans, the poetry of that country ranks very high—higher (according to some eminent critics) than the poetry of France or Germany. But the _Britannica_ makes no effort to disturb our ignorance; and so the great lyric poetry of Sweden since 1870 is barely touched upon. However, Mr. Edmund Gosse, a copious contributor to the Encyclopædia, has let the cat out of the bag. In one of his books he has pronounced Fröding, Levertin and Heidenstam “three very great lyrical artists,” and has called Snoilsky a poet of “unquestioned force and fire.” Turning to the _Britannica_ we find that Snoilsky is dismissed with half the space given Sydney Dobell and a third of the space given Patmore. Levertin receives only a third of a column; and Fröding is denied any biography whatever. He is thrown in with a batch of minor writers under _Sweden_. Heidenstam, the new Nobel prize-winner, a poet who, according to Charles Wharton Stork, “stands head and shoulders above any now writing in England,” receives only eight lines in the general notice! And Karlfeldt, another important lyrist, who is the Secretary of the Swedish Academy, is considered unworthy of even a word in the “supreme” _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
It would seem that unfair and scant treatment of a country’s poetry could go no further. But if you will seek for information concerning American poetry you will find a deficiency which is even greater than that which marks the treatment of modern Swedish poetry.
Here again it might be in place to call attention to the hyperbolical claims on which the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ has been sold in America. In the flamboyant and unsubstantiable advertising of this reference work you will no doubt recall the claim: “It will tell you more about everything than you can get from any other source.” And perhaps you will also remember the statement: “The _Britannica_ is a complete _library_ of knowledge on every subject appealing to intelligent persons.” It may be, of course, that the editors believe that the subject of American literature does not, or at least should not, appeal to any but ignorant persons, and that, in fact, only middle-class English culture can possibly interest the intelligent. But unless such a belief can be proved to be correct, the American buyers of this Encyclopædia have a grave and legitimate complaint against the editors for the manner in which the books were foisted upon them. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_, as I have pointed out, is _not_ a complete library of knowledge on the subject of literature; and in the following pages I shall show that its gross inadequacy extends to many other very important fields of endeavor. Moreover, its incompleteness is most glaringly obvious in the field of American æsthetic effort—a field which, under the circumstances, should be the last to be neglected.
On the subject of American poetry it is deficient almost to the extreme of worthlessness. In the article, _American Literature_, written by George E. Woodberry, we discover that truly British spirit and viewpoint which regards nothing as worth while unless it is old or eminently respectable and accepted. The result is that, in the paragraph on our poetry, such men as Aldrich, Stedman, Richard Watson Gilder, Julia Ward Howe, H. H. Brownell and Henry Van Dyke are mentioned; but very few others. As a supreme surrender to modernity the names of Walt Whitman, Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley and Joaquin Miller are included. The great wealth of American poetry, which is second only to that of England, is not even suggested.
Turning to the biography of Edgar Allan Poe, we find that this writer receives only a column and a half, less space than is given Austin Dobson, Coventry Patmore, or W. E. Henley! And the biography itself is so inept that it is an affront to American taste and an insult to American intelligence. One is immediately interested in learning what critic the Encyclopædia’s editors chose to represent this American who has long since become a world figure in literature. Turning to the index we discover that one David Hannay is the authority—a gentleman who was formerly the British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Mr. Hannay (apparently he holds no academic degree of any kind) lays claim to fame chiefly, it seems, as the author of _Short History of the Royal Navy_; but in just what way his research in naval matters qualifies him to write on Poe is not indicated. This is not, however, the only intimation we had that in the minds of the Encyclopædia’s editors there exists some esoteric and recondite relationship between art and British sea-power. In the _Britannica’s_ criticism of J. M. W. Turner’s paintings, that artist’s work is said to be “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.” In the present instance, however, we can only trust that the other articles in this encyclopædia, by Mr. Hannay—to-wit: _Admiral Penn_ and _Pirate and Piracy_—are more competent than his critique on Poe.
Walt Whitman gets scarcely better treatment. His biography is no longer than Poe’s and contains little criticism and no suggestion of his true place in American letters. This is all the more astonishing when we recall the high tribute paid Whitman by eminent English critics. Surely the _Britannica’s_ editors are not ignorant of Whitman’s place in modern letters or of the generous manner in which he had been received abroad. Whatever one’s opinion of him, he was a towering figure in our literature—a pioneer who had more influence on our later writers than any other American. And yet his biography in this great British cultural work is shorter than that of Mrs. Humphry Ward!
With such obviously inadequate and contemptuous treatment as that accorded Poe and Whitman, it is not surprising that all other American poets should be treated peremptorily or neglected entirely. There are very short biographical notes on Stedman, Louise Chandler Moulton, Sill, Gilder, Eugene Field, Sidney Lanier and Riley—but they are scant records of facts and most insufficient when compared to the biographies of second-rate poets of England.
But let us be grateful that the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ was generous enough to record them at all; for one can look in vain through its entire twenty-nine volumes, no matter under what heading, for even a mention of Emily Dickinson, John Bannister Tabb, Florence Earle Coates, Edwin Markham, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Clinton Scollard, Louise Imogen Guiney, Richard Hovey, Madison Cawein, Edwin Arlington Robinson, George Sylvester Viereck, Ridgeley Torrence, Arthur Upson, Santayana, and many others who hold an important place in our literature. And the names of William Vaughn Moody, Percy MacKaye and Bliss Carman are merely mentioned casually, the first two under _Drama_ and the last under _Canadian Literature_.
The palpable injustice in the complete omission of many of the above American names is rendered all the more glaring by the fact that the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ pays high tribute to such minor British poets and versifiers as W. H. Davies, Sturge Moore, Locker Lampson, C. M. Doughty, Walter de la Mare, Alfred Noyes, Herbert Trench, Ernest Dowson, Mrs. Meynell, A. E. Housman and Owen Seaman.
This is the culture disseminated by the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, which “is a complete _library_ of knowledge on every subject appealing to intelligent persons,” and which “will tell you more about everything than you can get from any other source!” This is the “supreme book of knowledge” which Americans are asked to buy in preference to all others. What pettier insult could one nation offer to another?
V
BRITISH PAINTING
If one hopes to find in the Eleventh Edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ an unprejudiced critical and biographical survey of the world’s painters, he will be sorely disappointed. Not only is the Encyclopædia not comprehensive and up-to-date, but the manner in which British art and artists are constantly forced to the front rank is so grossly biased that a false impression of æsthetic history and art values is almost an inevitable result, unless one is already equipped with a wide understanding of the subject. If one were to form an opinion of art on the _Britannica’s_ articles, the opinion would be that English painting leads the modern world in both amount and quality. The Encyclopædia raises English academicians to the ranks of exalted greatness, and at the same time tends to tear down the pedestals whereon rest the truly towering geniuses of alien nationality.
So consistently does British _bourgeois_ prejudice and complacency characterize the material on painting contained in this Encyclopædia, that any attempt to get from it an æsthetic point of view which would be judicious and universal, would fail utterly. Certain French, German, and American artists of admitted importance are considered unworthy of space, or, if indeed deserving of mention, are unworthy of the amount of space, or the praise, which is conferred on a large number of lesser English painters. Both by implication and direct statement the editors have belittled the æsthetic endeavor of foreign nations, and have exaggerated, to an almost unbelievable degree, the art of their own country. The manner in which the subject of painting is dealt with reveals the full-blown flower of British insularity, and apotheosizes the narrow, aggressive culture of British middle-class respectability. In the world’s art from 1700 on, comparatively little merit is recognized beyond the English Channel.
The number of English painters whose biographies appear in the _Britannica_ would, I believe, astonish even certain English art critics; and the large amount of space devoted to them—even to inconsequent and obscure academicians—when compared with the brief notices given to greater painters of other nations, leaves the un-British searcher with a feeling of bewilderment. But not only with the large number of English painters mentioned or even with the obviously disproportionate amount of space devoted to them does the Encyclopædia’s chauvinistic campaign for England’s æsthetic supremacy cease. The criticisms which accompany these biographies are as a rule generously favorable; and, in many cases, the praise reaches a degree of extravagance which borders on the absurd.
Did this optimism of outlook, this hot desire to ferret out greatness where only mediocrity exists, this ambition to drag the obscure and inept into the glare of prominence, extend to all painters, regardless of nationality, one might forgive the superlative eulogies heaped upon British art, and attribute them to that mellow spirit of sentimental tolerance which sees good in everything. But, alas! such impartiality does not exist. It would seem that the moment the biographers of the _Britannica_ put foot on foreign ground, their spirit of generosity deserts them. And if space is any indication of importance, it must be noted that English painters are, in the editors’ estimation, of considerably more importance than painters from abroad.
Of William Etty, to whom three-fourths of a page is devoted, we are told that “in feeling and skill as a colorist he has few equals.” The implication here that Etty, as a colorist, has never been surpassed scarcely needs refutation. It is unfortunate, however, that Mr. Etty is not with us at present to read this exorbitant testimony to his greatness, for it would astonish him, no doubt, as much as it would those other few unnamed painters who are regarded as his equals in color _sensibilité_. J. S. Cotman, we discover, was “a remarkable painter both in oil and water-color.” This criticism is characteristic, for, even when there are no specific qualities to praise in an English painter’s work, we find this type of vague recommendation.
No points, though, it would seem, are overlooked. Regard the manner in which J. D. Harding’s questionable gifts are recorded. “Harding,” you will find, “was noted for facility, sureness of hand, nicety of touch, and the various qualities which go to make up an elegant, highly-trained and accomplished sketcher from nature, and composer of picturesque landscape material; he was particularly skillful in the treatment of foliage.” Turning from Mr. Harding, the “elegant” and “accomplished” depicter of foliage, to Birket Foster, we find that his work “is memorable for its delicacy and minute finish, and for its daintiness and pleasantness of sentiment.” Dainty and pleasant sentiment is not without weight with the art critics of this encyclopædia. In one form or another it is mentioned very often in connection with British painters.
Landseer offers an excellent example of the middle-class attitude which the _Britannica_ takes toward art. To judge from the page-and-a-half biography of this indifferent portraitist of animals one would imagine that Landseer was a great painter, for we are told that his _Fighting Dogs Getting Wind_ is “perfectly drawn, solidly and minutely finished, and carefully composed.” Of what possible educational value is an art article which would thus criticise a Landseer picture?
An English painter who, were we to accept the Encyclopædia’s valuation, combines the qualities of several great painters is Charles Holroyd. “In all his work,” we learn, “Holroyd displays an impressive sincerity, with a fine sense of composition, and of style, allied to independent and modern thinking.” Truly a giant! It would be difficult to recall any other painter in history “all” of whose work displayed a “fine sense of composition.” Not even could this be said of Michelangelo. But when it comes to composition, Arthur Melville apparently soars above his fellows. Besides, “several striking portraits in oil,” he did a picture called _The Return From the Crucifixion_, which, so we are told, is a “powerful, colossal composition.” To have achieved only a “powerful” composition should have been a sufficiently remarkable feat for a painter of Mr. Melville’s standing; for only of a very few masters in the world’s history can it be said that their compositions were both powerful and colossal. El Greco, Giotto, Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, Michelangelo and Rubens rarely soared to such heights.
But Melville, it appears, had a contemporary who, if anything, was greater than he—to-wit: W. Q. Orchardson, to whose glories nearly a page is devoted. “By the time he was twenty,” says his biographer, “Orchardson had mastered the essentials of his art.” In short, at twenty he had accomplished what few painters accomplished in a lifetime. A truly staggering feat! We are not therefore surprised to learn that “as a portrait painter Orchardson must be placed in the first class.” Does this not imply that he ranked with Titian, Velazquez, Rubens and Rembrandt? What sort of an idea of the relative values in art will the uninformed person get from such loose and ill-considered rhetoric, especially when the critic goes on to say that _Master Baby_ is “a masterpiece of design, color and broad execution”? There is much more eulogy of a similar careless variety, but enough has been quoted here to show that the world must entirely revise its opinions of art if the _Encyclopædia Britannica’s_ statements are to be accepted.
Even the pictures of Paul Wilson Steer are criticised favorably: “His figure subjects and landscapes show great originality and technical skill.” And John Pettie was “in his best days a colorist of a high order and a brilliant executant.” George Reid, the Scottish artist, is accorded over half a column with detailed criticism and praise. Frederick Walker is given no less than an entire column which ends with a paragraph of fulsome eulogy. Even E. A. Waterlow painted landscapes which were “admirable” and “handled with grace and distinction”—more gaudy generalizations. When the Encyclopædia’s critics can find no specific point to praise in the work of their countrymen, grace, distinction, elegance and sentiment are turned into æsthetic virtues.
Turning to Hogarth, we find no less than three and one-half pages devoted to him, more space than is given to Rubens’s biography, and three times the space accorded Veronese! It was once thought that Hogarth was only an “ingenious humorist,” but “time has reversed that unjust sentence.” We then read that Hogarth’s composition leaves “little or nothing to be desired.” If such were the case, he would unquestionably rank with Rubens, Michelangelo and Titian; for, if indeed his composition leaves little or nothing to be desired, he is as great as, or even greater than, the masters of all time. But even with this eulogy the Encyclopædia’s critic does not rest content. As a humorist and a satirist upon canvas, “he has never been equalled.” If we regard Hogarth as an “author” rather than artist, “his place is with the great masters of literature—with the Thackerays and Fieldings, the Cervantes and Molières.” (Note that of these four “great masters” two are English.)
Mastery in one form or another, if the _Britannica_ is to be believed, was common among English painters. The pictures of Richard Wilson are “skilled and learned compositions ... the work of a painter who was thoroughly master of his materials.” In this latter respect Mr. Wilson perhaps stands alone among the painters of the world; and yet, through some conspiracy of silence no doubt, the leading critics of other nations rarely mention him when speaking of those artists who thoroughly mastered their materials. In regard to Raeburn, the Encyclopædia is less fulsome, despite the fact that over a page is allotted him. We are distinctly given to understand that he had his faults. Velazquez, however, constantly reminded Wilkie of Raeburn; yet, after all, Raeburn was not quite so great as Velazquez. This is frankly admitted.
It was left to Reynolds to equal if not to surpass Velazquez as well as Rubens and Rembrandt. In a two-page glorification of this English painter we come upon the following panegyric: “There can be no question of placing him by the side of the greatest Venetians or of the triumvirate of the seventeenth century, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velazquez.” If by placing him beside these giants is meant that he in any wise approached their stature, there can be, and has been, outside of England, a very great question of putting him in such company. In fact, his right to such a place has been very definitely denied him. But the unprejudiced opinion of the world matters not to the patriots who edited the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. That “supreme” English reference work goes on to say that in portraits, such as _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_, Reynolds “holds the field.... No portrait painter has been more happy in his poses for single figures.” Then, as if such enthusiasm were not enough, we are told that “nature had singled out Sir Joshua to endow him with certain gifts in which he has hardly an equal.”