Part 6

Nature, it seems, in her singling out process, was particularly partial to Englishmen, for among those other painters who just barely equalled Reynolds’s transcendent genius was Gainsborough. Says the _Britannica_: “Gainsborough and Reynolds rank side by side.... It is difficult to say which stands the higher of the two.” Consequently hereafter we must place Gainsborough, too, along with Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez! Such a complete revision of æsthetic judgment will, no doubt, be difficult at first, but, by living with the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ and absorbing its British culture, we may in time be able to bracket Michelangelo, Reynolds, Rubens, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Hogarth and Velazquez without the slightest hesitation.

It is difficult to conceive how, in an encyclopædia with lofty educational pretences, extravagance of statement could attain so high a point as that reached in the biographies of Reynolds and Gainsborough. So obviously indefensible are these valuations that I would hesitate to accuse the _Britannica’s_ editors of deliberate falsification—that is, of purposely distorting æsthetic values for the benefit of English artists. Their total lack of discretion indicates an honest, if blind, belief in British æsthetic supremacy. But this fact does not lessen the danger of such judgments to the American public. As a nation we are ignorant of painting and therefore are apt to accept statements of this kind which have the impact of seeming authority behind them.

The same insular and extravagant point of view is discoverable in the article on Turner. To this painter nearly five pages are devoted—a space out of all proportion to the biographies of the other painters of the world. Titian has only three and one-half pages; Rubens has only a little over three pages; and El Greco has less than two-thirds of a page! Of course, it is not altogether fair to base a judgment on space alone; but such startling discrepancies are the rule and not the exception.

In the case of Turner the discrepancy is not only of space, however. In diction, as well, all relative values are thrown to the winds. In the criticism of Turner we find English patriotism at its high-water mark. We read that “the range of his powers was so vast that he covered the whole field of nature and united in his own person the classical and naturalistic schools.” Even this palpable overstatement could be forgiven, since it has a basis of truth, if a little further we did not discover that Turner’s _Crossing the Brook_ in the London National Academy is “probably the most perfect landscape in the world.” In this final and irrevocable judgment is manifest the supreme insular egotism which characterizes nearly all the art articles in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. This criticism, to take merely one example, means that _Crossing the Brook_ is more perfect than Rubens’s _Landscape with Château de Stein_! But the Encyclopædia’s summary of Turner’s genius surpasses in flamboyant chauvinism anything which I have yet seen in print. It is said that, despite any exception we may take to his pictures, “there will still remain a body of work which for extent, variety, truth and artistic taste is like the British fleet among the navies of the world.” Here patriotic fervor has entirely swallowed all restraint.

Over a page is devoted to Constable, in which we are informed that his “vivid tones and fresh color are grafted upon the formulæ of Claude and Rubens.” This type of criticism is not rare. One frequently finds second-rate English artists compared not unfavorably with the great artists of other nations; and it would seem that the English painters add a little touch of their own, the imputation being that they not seldom improve upon their models. Thus Constable adds “vivid tones and fresh colors” to Rubens’s formula. Another instance of this kind is to be found in the case of Alfred Stevens, the British sculptor, not the Belgian painter. (The latter, by the way, though more important and better-known, receives less space than the Englishman.) The vigorous strength of his groups “recalls the style of Michelangelo, but Stevens’s work throughout is original and has a character of its own.” I do not deny that Stevens imitated Michelangelo, but, where English artists are concerned, these relationships are indicated in deceptive phraseology. In the case of French artists, whose biographies are sometimes written by unbiased critics, the truth is not hidden in dictional suavities. Imitation is not made a virtue.

Let us now turn to Watts. Over two pages are accorded him, one page being devoted largely to eulogy, a passage of which reads: “It was the rare combination of supreme handicraft with a great imaginative intellect which secured to Watts his undisputed place in the public estimation of his day.” Furthermore, we hear of “the grandeur and dignity of his style, the ease and purposefulness of his brushwork, the richness and harmoniousness of his coloring.” But those “to whom his exceptional artistic attainment is a sealed book have gathered courage or consolation from the grave moral purpose and deep human sympathy of his teaching.” Here we have a perfect example of the parochial moral uplift which permeates the _Britannica’s_ art criticism. The great Presbyterian complex is found constantly in the judgments of this encyclopædia.

So important a consideration to the _Britannica’s_ critico-moralists is this puritan motif that the fact is actually set down that Millais was devoted to his family! One wonders how much influence this domestic devotion had on the critic who spends a page and a half to tell us of Millais, for not only is this space far in excess of Millais’ importance, but the statement is made that he was “one of the greatest painters of his time,” and that “he could paint what he saw with a force which has seldom been excelled.” Unfortunately the few who excelled him are not mentioned. Perhaps he stood second only to Turner, that super-dreadnought. Surely he was not excelled by Renoir, or Courbet, or Pissarro, or Monet, or Manet, or Cézanne; for these latter are given very little space (the greatest of them having no biography whatever in the Encyclopædia!); and there is no evidence to show that they are considered of more than minor importance.

Perhaps it was Rossetti, a fellow Pre-Raphaelite, who excelled Millais in painting what he saw. Rossetti’s _The Song of Solomon_, as regards brilliance, finish and the splendor of its lighting, “occupies a great place in the highest grade of modern art of all the world.” Even Holman Hunt, one of the lesser Pre-Raphaelites, is given over a full page, and is spoken of in glowing terms. “Perhaps no painter of the nineteenth century,” we read, “produced so great an impression by a few pictures” as did Hunt; and during the course of the eulogy the critic speaks of Hunt’s “greatness.” Can it be that the naïf gentleman who wrote Hunt’s biography has never heard of Courbet, or Manet, or of the Impressionists, or Cézanne? After so sweeping and unreasoned a statement as the one concerning the great impression made by Hunt’s pictures, such an extreme conclusion is almost inevitable. Or is this critic’s patriotic vanity such that he considers an impression made in England as representative of the world? Even to intimate that the impression made by Hunt’s pictures was comparable to that made by _L’Enterrement à Ornans_ or _Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe_, or that the Pre-Raphaelites possessed even half the importance of Courbet and Manet, is to carry undeserved laudation to preposterous lengths.

Here as elsewhere, superlatives are used in such a way in describing unimportant English painters that no adequate adjectives are left for the truly great men of other nationality. It would be difficult to find a better example of undeserving eulogy as applied to an inconsequent British painter than that furnished by Brangwyn, whose compositions, we are astonished to learn, have “a nobly impressive and universal character.” Such a statement might justly sum up the greatness of a Michelangelo statue; but here it is attached to the works of a man who at best is no more than a capable and clever illustrator.

The foregoing examples by no means include all the instances of how English painters, as a result of the liberal space allotted them and the lavish encomiums heaped upon them by the _Encyclopædia Britannica’s_ editors, are unduly expanded into great and important figures. A score of other names could be mentioned. From beginning to end, English art is emphasized and lauded until it is out of all proportion to the rest of the world.

Turn to the article on _Painting_ and look at the sub-title, “Recent Schools.” Under “British” you will find twelve columns, with inset headings. Under “French” you will find only seven columns, without insets. Practically all the advances made in modern art have come out of France; and practically all important modern painters have been Frenchmen. England has contributed little or nothing to modern painting. And yet, recent British schools are given nearly twice the space that is devoted to recent French schools! Again regard the article, _Sculpture_. Even a greater and more astonishing disproportionment exists here. Modern British sculpture is given no less than thirteen and a half columns, while modern French sculpture, of vastly greater æsthetic importance, is given only seven and a half columns!

VI

NON-BRITISH PAINTING

If the same kind of panegyrics which characterize the biographies of the British painters in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ were used in dealing with the painters of all nationalities, there could be made no charge of either unconscious or deliberate injustice. But once we leave Great Britain’s shores, prodigal laudation ceases. As if worn out by the effort of proving that Englishmen are pre-eminent among the world’s painters, the editors devote comparatively little space to those non-British artists who, we have always believed and been taught, were the truly significant men in painting. Therefore, if the _Britannica’s_ implications are to be believed, England alone, among all modern countries, is the home of genius. And it would be difficult for one not well informed to escape the impression that not only Turner, but English painting in general, is “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.”

A comparison, for instance, between English and French painters, as they are presented in this encyclopædia, would leave the neophyte with the conviction that France was considerably inferior in regard to graphic ability, as inferior, in fact—if we may read the minds of the _Britannica’s_ editors—as the French fleet is to the British fleet. In its ignorant and un-English way the world for years has been laboring under the superstition that the glories of modern painting had been largely the property of France. But such a notion is now corrected.

For instance, we had always believed that Chardin was one of the greatest of still-life painters. We had thought him to be of exceeding importance, a man with tremendous influence, deserving of no little consideration. But when we turn to his biography in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ we are, to say the least, astonished at the extent of our over-valuation. He is dismissed with six lines! And the only critical comment concerning him is: “He became famous for his still-life pictures and domestic interiors.” And yet Thomas Stothard, an English painter who for twenty-five years was Chardin’s contemporary, is given over a column; James Northcote, another English contemporary of Chardin’s, is given half a column; and many other British painters, whose names are little known outside of England, have long biographies and favorable criticisms.

Watteau, one of the greatest of French painters, has a biography of only a page and a quarter; Largillière, half a column; Rigaud, less than half a column; Lancret, a third of a column; and Boucher has only fifteen lines—a mere note with no criticism. (Jonathan Boucher, an English divine, whose name follows that of Boucher, is accorded three times the space!) La Tour and Nattier have half a column each. Greuze, another one of France’s great eighteenth-century painters, is given only a column and a half with unfavorable comment. Greuze’s brilliant reputation seemed to have been due, “not to his requirements as a painter” but to the subjects of his pictures; and he is then adversely accused of possessing that very quality which in an English painter, as we have seen, is a mark of supreme glory—namely, “_bourgeois_ morality.” Half a column only is required to comment on Horace Vernet and to tell us that his most representative picture “begins and ends nowhere, and the composition is all to pieces; but it has good qualities of faithful and exact representation.”

Fragonard, another French painter whom we had always thought possessed of at least a minor greatness, is accorded no more than a column, less than half the space given to B. R. Haydon, the eighteenth-century English historical painter, and only one-third of the space devoted to David Wilkie, the Scotch painter. Fragonard’s “scenes of love and voluptuousness,” comments that art critic of the London _Daily Mail_, who has been chosen to represent this French painter in the Encyclopædia, “are only made acceptable by the tender beauty of his color and the virtuosity of his facile brushwork.” Alas! that Fragonard did not possess the “grave moral purpose” of Watts! Had his work been less voluptuous he might have been given more than a fourth of the space devoted to that moral Englishman, for surely Fragonard was the greater painter.

Géricault, one of the very important innovators of French realism, is given half a column, about an equal amount of space with such English painters as W. E. Frost, T. S. Cooper, Thomas Creswick, Francis Danby and David Scott; only about half the amount of space given to John Gilbert, C. L. Eastlake, and William Mulready; and only one-third of the space given to David Cox. One or two such disparities in space might be overlooked, but when to almost any kind of an English painter is imputed an importance equal to, if not greater than, truly significant painters from France, bias, whether conscious or unconscious, has been established.

Again regard Poussin. This artist, the most representative painter of his epoch and a man who marked a distinct step in the evolution of graphic art, is given less than half a page, about equal to the space devoted to W. P. Frith, J. W. Gordon, Samuel Cousins, John Crome, William Strang, and Thornhill; and only half the space given to Holman Hunt, and only one-third the space given to Millais! There is almost no criticism of Poussin’s art; merely a statement of the type of work he did; and of Géricault there is no criticism whatever. Herein lies another means by which, through implication, a greater relative significance is conferred on English art. Generally British painters—even minor ones—are criticised favorably, from one standpoint or another; but only now and then is a Frenchman given specific complimentary criticism. And often a Frenchman is condemned for the very quality which is lauded in a British artist.

Of David it is written: “His style is severely academic, his color lacking in richness and warmth, his execution hard and uninteresting in its very perfection,” and more in the same derogatory strain. Although this criticism may be strictly accurate, the same qualities in certain English painters of far less importance than David are made the basis for praise. The severely academic style in the case of Harding, for instance, becomes an “elegant, highly-trained” characteristic. And perfection of execution makes Birket Foster’s work “memorable for its delicacy and minute finish,” and becomes, in Paul Wilson Steer’s pictures, “great technical skill.”

Ingres, truly one of the giants of his day, is given little or no criticism and his biography draws only a little over half the space which is given to Watts (with his “grave, moral purpose”), and only a trifle more space than is given Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite who was “devoted to his family.” In Guerin’s short biography we read of his “strained and pompous dignity.” Girodet’s biography contains very adverse criticism: his style “harmonized ill” with his subjects, and his work was full of “incongruity” even to the point sometimes of being “ludicrous.” Gros, exasperated by criticism, “sought refuge in the grosser pleasures of life.” Flandrin also is tagged with a moral criticism.

Coming down to the more modern painters we find even less consideration given them by the _Britannica’s_ editors. Delacroix, who ushered in a new age of painting and brought composition back to art after a period of stagnation and quiescence, is nailed to France as follows: “As a colorist and a romantic painter he now ranks among the greatest of French artists.” Certainly not among the greatest English painters, for Constable is given more space than Delacroix; and Turner, the other precursor of the new era, is “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.”

Courbet, the father of modern painting and the artist who revolutionized æsthetics, is given half a column, equal space with those contemporaries of his from across the Channel, Francis Grant, Thomas Creswick and George Harvey. Perhaps this neglect of the great Frenchman is explained by the following early-Victorian complaint: “Sometimes, it must be owned, his realism is rather coarse and brutal.” And we learn that “he died of a disease of the liver aggravated by intemperance.” Courbet, unable to benefit by the pious and elegant _esthétique_ of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, was never deeply impressed by the artistic value of “daintiness and pleasantness of sentiment,” and as a result, perhaps, he is not held in as high esteem as is Birket Foster, who possessed those delicate and pleasing qualities.

The palpable, insular injustice dealt Courbet in point of space finds another victim in Daumier whose biography is almost as brief as that of Courbet. Most of it, however, is devoted to Daumier’s caricature. Although this type of work was but a phase of his development, the article says that, despite his caricatures, “he found time for flight in the higher sphere of painting.” Not only does this create a false impression of Daumier’s tremendous importance to modern painting, but it gives the erroneous idea that his principal _métier_ was caricature. The entire criticism of his truly great work is summed up in the sentence: “As a painter, Daumier, one of the pioneers of naturalism, was before his time.” Likewise, the half-page biography of Manet is, from the standpoint of space, inadequate, and from the critical standpoint, incompetent. To say that he is “regarded as the most important master of Impressionism” is a false statement. Manet, strictly speaking, was not an Impressionist at all; and the high place that he holds in modern art is not even touched upon.

Such biographies as the foregoing are sufficiently inept to disqualify the Encyclopædia as a source for accurate æsthetic information; but when Renoir, who is indeed recognized as the great master of Impressionism, is dismissed with one-fifth of a page, the height of injustice has been reached. Renoir, even in academic circles, is admittedly one of the great painters of all time. Not only did he sum up the Impressionists, close up an experimental cycle, and introduce compositional form into the realistic painting of his day, but by his colossal vision and technical mastery he placed himself in the very front rank of all modern painters, if not of ancient painters as well. Yet he is accorded just twenty-seven lines and dismissed with this remark: “Though he is perhaps the most unequal of the great Impressionists, his finest works rank among the masterpieces of the modern French school.” Critical incompetency could scarcely go further. We can only excuse such inadequacy and ignorance on the ground that the Encyclopædia’s English critic has seen none of Renoir’s greatest work; and color is lent this theory when we note that in the given list of his paintings no mention is made of his truly masterful canvases.

Turning to the other lesser moderns in French painting but those who surpass the contemporaneous British painters who are given liberal biographies, we find them very decidedly neglected as to both space and comment. Such painters as Cazin, Harpignies, Ziem, Cormon, Bésnard, Cottet and Bonnot are dismissed with brief mention, whereas sometimes twice and three times the attention is paid to English painters like Alfred East, Harry Furniss (a caricaturist and illustrator), Francis Lathrop, E. J. Poynter, and W. B. Richmond. Even Meissonier and Puvis de Chavannes draw only three-fourths of a page. Pissarro and Monet, surely important painters in the modern evolution, are given short shrift. A few brief facts concerning Pissarro extend to twenty lines; and Monet gets a quarter of a page without any criticism save that “he became a _plein air_ painter.” Examples of this kind of incompetent and insufficient comment could be multiplied.

The most astonishing omission, however, in the entire art division of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is that of Cézanne. Here is a painter who, whether one appreciates his work or not, has admittedly had more influence than any man of modern times. Not only in France has his tremendous power been felt, but in practically every other civilized country. Yet the name of this great Frenchman is not even given biographical mention in the great English Encyclopædia with its twenty-nine volumes, its 30,000 pages, its 500,000 references, and its 44,000,000 words. Deliberately to omit Cézanne’s biography, in view of his importance and (in the opinion of many) his genuine greatness, is an act of almost unbelievable narrow-mindedness. To omit his biography unconsciously is an act of almost unbelievable ignorance. Especially is this true when we find biographies of such British contemporaries of Cézanne as Edward John Gregory, James Guthrie, Luke Fildes, H. W. B. Davis, John Buxton Knight, George Reid, and J. W. Waterhouse. Nor can the editors offer the excuse that Cézanne was not known when the Encyclopædia was compiled. Not only was he known, but books and criticisms had appeared on him in more than one language, and his greatness had been recognized. True, he had not reached England; but is it not the duty of the editor of an “international” encyclopædia to be aware of what is going on outside of his own narrow province?

Any encyclopædia, no matter what the nationality, prejudices or tastes of its editors, which omits Cézanne has forfeited its claim to universal educational value. But when in addition there is no biographical mention of such conspicuous French painters as Maurice Denis, Vollatton, Lucien Simon, Vuillard, Louis Le Grand, Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Jean Paul Laurens, Redon, René Ménard, Gauguin, and Carrière, although a score of lesser painters of British birth are included, petty national prejudice, whether through conscious intent or lack of information, has been carried to an extreme; and the editors of such a biased work have something to answer for to those readers who are not English, and who do not therefore believe that British middle-class culture should be exaggerated and glorified at the expense of the genuine intellectual culture of other nations.