CHAPTER II.

NATURALISM IN PICTORIAL AND GLYPTIC ART.

[Sidenote: An inquiry into the influence of the study of nature on art.]

In this chapter we shall endeavour to trace the influence of the study of nature on all the best art up to the present day. [Sidenote: Woltmann and Woermann.] In order to do this it will be necessary to follow in chronological order the development of art, and we propose taking as our guide in this matter Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, who seem the most trustworthy and are the most recent of art historians. We feel, however, that we must state our attitude towards them as historians of art. For the main historical facts, we willingly accept as authorities these writers, since they have studied the matter, but when these historians try to trace the causes and effects of different phases of art on contemporary life then we entirely part company from them, for there are so many wheels within wheels in this complex comedy of life that we cannot with patience listen to searchers of manuscripts and students of autographs, who trace the fall of an empire to an oil painting, or the decadence of painting to the cheapness of wheat: such dreams may still serve, as they have always served, as a peg whereon to hang rhetorical rhapsodies, but they can have no attraction for rational minds. What we propose, then, is briefly to compile a short outline, consisting of the salient facts in the history of art, in so far as they bear on our subject, that is, how far the best artists have been naturalistic, and how true in impression their interpretation of nature. When we agree with any of the critical remarks of these gentlemen, we shall quote them in full, acknowledging them in the usual way, but we reserve to ourselves the right to differ entirely from them on artistic points. We ourselves feel much diffidence in advancing any critical remarks of our own upon these arts, for we are convinced, after a long and practical study of the subject, that no one can criticize any branch of art _and the criticism be authoritative_, unless he be a _practical master artist_ in the branch of art which he is criticizing; but as our opinions have been put to the touchstone of some first-rate practical artists in other branches than our own, we offer them, standing always ready to be corrected by any good practical artist on any point. As to who are good artists is again another wide question. Certainly their name is not legion.

[Sidenote: Criticism.]

Our object in traversing all this ground, then, is one of inquiry, to really see how far “naturalism” is the only wear for all good art, and we have done it in an impartial spirit, arriving at the conclusion that in all the glyptic and pictorial arts the touchstone answers. How far this is the case with the arts of Fiction, Poetry, &c., is a more complex matter, and one we cannot now deal with, but we feel that in the literary arts the matter is very different, for in these arts we are not confined, as we are in the pictorial and glyptic arts, to physical facts and their representation; for there is no such thing as abstract beauty of form or colour. Art has served as a peg on which to hang all sorts of fads—fine writing, very admirable in its place—morality, not to be despised—classical knowledge and literature generally, both of the highest æsthetic value, but in no way connected with the glyptic and pictorial arts. Naturalistic art has been found and lost, and lost and found time after time, and it is because the Dutch, French, English and American artists of to-day are finding it again that we feel hopeful for the art of the future.

[Sidenote: Our aim.]

Our object is, by these notes, to lead our readers to the works of art themselves, hoping that by this means they will, to some extent, educate themselves and finally form independent judgments on art matters. Much of the lamentable ignorance existing on these subjects is due to the acceptance of the dicta of writers on pictures, without the readers seeing the pictures themselves. We earnestly beg, therefore, of any one who may be sufficiently interested in the subject as to read this book, that he will go and see the original pictures and sculptures cited; all of which are within easy reach. It was our original intention to introduce photographic reproductions of the best pieces of sculpture, and the best pictures into this work, but we have decided against so doing, fearing that the reader might be tempted to look at the reproductions and neglect the originals, and a translation, however good it may be, is but a small part of the truth. In thus expressing our conclusions on naturalism in art, we do not set up as the preacher of any new gospel. Such opinions as ours are as old as the art of ancient Greece, nay older, for from the early days of Egypt downwards these ideas have been held, we shall find, by great artists in all ages. It is only in the application of these ideas to photography, and in attempting to reduce them to scientific first principles that we presume to claim any originality.

EGYPTIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Egyptian art.]

On examining specimens of Egyptian art, whether it be their paintings, architecture, sculpture or book illustrations (the papyri), one is struck by the wonderful simplicity, decision and force with which they expressed themselves. The history of Egypt has been so little studied, save by students of history, and the old popular stories concerning the nations of the past are so inaccurate and misleading, that one is at first surprised to find such power in the works of those whom we were taught, not so long ago, to look upon as Philistines; so that we might gaze on the Pyramids of Gizeh, the statues of Rameses, and the granite lions, with the wonderment of incomprehension. But now, of course, every one knows that the Egyptians were masters in certain directions, where we are but in our infancy. Even in their _cavi relievi_ and wall paintings, though these latter are but tinted outlines, they are not the outlines of childish draughtsmen, weak and unmeaning, but they show the force of a powerful skill that in one bold outline can give all the essentials of a man, bird or beast, so that the picture looks living and doing. All through their work there is a bigness of conception, a solid grip of nature which makes their work surpass many of the elaborately finished and richly detailed pictures of our modern art galleries.

[Sidenote: Works to be studied.]

Let us call the reader’s attention to such examples as are easily to be seen, namely, [Sidenote: The lions.]the granite lions, the _cavi relievi_ and the papyri in the British Museum. The lions, which are remarkable for strength of character and truthfulness of impression, may be taken as representative of the greatest period of Egyptian art, a period which ended about the time of Rameses II.; for after that time the artist began to neglect the study of nature, and gradual decadence set in.

[Sidenote: Landseer’s lions.]

We strongly advise all our readers to go to the British Museum and look well at these lions. They are hewn from granite, or porphyry, the hardest of stones, they have conventional moustaches, and are lying in conventional positions, yet withal, there is a wonderful expression of life and reserved strength about them which makes you respect them, stone though they be; and they convey to you, as you look on their long lithe flanks so broadly and simply treated, the truthful impression of strong and merciless _animals_. Your thoughts involuntarily turn from them to Landseer’s bronze lions guarding Trafalgar Square. In them you remember all the tufts of hair correctly rendered, even to the wool in the ears, the mane, the moustaches. Even the claws are there, and yet you feel instinctively you would rather meet those[2] tame cats of Trafalgar Square, with all their claws, than the Egyptian lions in the British Museum. The reason of this is that the Egyptians knew how to epitomize, so as to express the fundamental characteristics of the lion, they cared not to say how many hairs went to make up the tufted tail, nor yet how many claws each paw should have, but what they tried to do, and succeeded in doing, was to convey a sense of his power and animalism, or to convey, in short, an impression of _his nature_.

Footnote 2:

Since this was written Mr. Frith has published that Landseer modelled these lions from a tame cat.

These lions were the outcome of the best period of Egyptian sculpture. The Egyptian artists who carved those lions had been striving to interpret Nature, and hence their great success; but as soon as their successors began to neglect nature, and took to drawing up rules, they went wrong, and produced caricatures. [Sidenote: Rameses II. and decadence.] We read that after the time of Rameses II. “every figure is now mathematically designed according to a prescribed canon of numerical proportions between the parts.”

[Sidenote: Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians.”]

All this we can trace for ourselves in the plates supplied with Wilkinson’s learned work, entitled, “The Ancient Egyptians.” We see in those plates that something has happened to the people and objects represented, something that makes them no longer tell their own story, they no longer look alive, but are meaningless; the reason of this falling off was that the artist no longer used his eyes to any purpose, but did what was then supposed to be the right thing to do, namely, followed the laws laid down by some men of narrow intellect—laws called as now the “canons of art.” The very life of the Egyptian artists of that period was against good work, for they were incorporated into guilds, and the laws of caste worked as harmfully as they now do in the Orient. [Sidenote: Artists' status.] There is, then, distinct evidence that on the one hand the Egyptian artists of the best period, when untrammelled by conventionality, created works which, though lacking the innumerable qualities of later Greek art, yet possessed, _so far as they went_, the first essential of all art—truth of impression. Again, on the other hand, directly anything like “rules of art” appeared, and the study of nature was neglected, their art degenerated into meaningless conventionality, and as this conventionality and neglect of nature were never cast aside, the art of Egypt never developed beyond the work done by the artists who carved the stone lions.

MONARCHIES OF WESTERN ASIA.

[Sidenote: Assyrian art.]

Assyrian art differed from that of Egypt in that the outline of the figures was much stronger, and that they painted their bas-reliefs; but the “imitation of nature was the watchword” in Assyria, as it was in Babylon.

[Sidenote: Assyrian bas-reliefs.]

In studying the Assyrian bas-reliefs, those interested in the subject should go to the Assyrian rooms in the basement of the British Museum, and look at the reliefs of Bani-Pal—the famous lion-hunting scenes. [Sidenote: The lion-hunt.] There is, of course, much conventionality in the work, as there was in that of the Egyptians; but no observer can fail to detect that the Assyrians were naturalistic to a degree that strikes us as marvellous when we consider the subjects they were treating. Note the lioness, wounded in the spine, dragging her hindquarters painfully along. Does this not give a powerful impression of the wounded animal? and does it not occur to you how wonderful was the power of the man who in so little expressed and conveys to you so much. Consider when those Assyrian sculptors lived. Look, too, at the bas-reliefs numbered 47 and 49; and in 50 note the marvellous truthfulness of impression of the horseman, who is riding at a gallop. There is life and movement in the work, though there is much scope for improvement in the truth of the movements. Look, too, at the laden mules in bas-reliefs numbers 70 and 72. Such works as these were done by great men in art, and though crudeness of methods prevented them from rivalling some of the later work, their work is at least honest, and, as far as it goes, naturalistic. The work does not say all that there is to say about the subject; but it does say much of what is _most essential_, and by doing that is artistically greater than work done by scores of modern men. [Sidenote: Historical value of the bas-reliefs.]In addition to their artistic value, how interesting are these works as records of history. Indisputable, as written history can never be, they are to us a valuable record of the life and times. They constitute historical art in its only good sense.

ANCIENT GREEK AND ITALIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Ancient]

Greek and Italian art.

In discussing Greek _painting_ we shall rely entirely upon the erudite historical work of Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, giving a short _résumé_ of their remarks on the subject. [Sidenote: No Greek paintings extant.] This is absolutely necessary, as not one specimen of Greek painting has come down to us.[3] But on the other, hand, in dealing with Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture we shall base our remarks on the Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture in the British Museum.

Footnote 3:

Some paintings quite recently discovered in Egypt are apparently the work of Greek artists, and tend to confirm this written testimony.

[Sidenote: History of Greek painting.]

Beginning then with Greek painting, let us see what the historians tell us. They begin by saying, in painting “the Greeks effected nothing short of a revolution ... by right of which they deserve the glory of having first made painting a truthful mirror of realities.” This fact, that their pictorial art reached such perfection, is not generally known, for the reason that the assertion rests on written testimony,—but it is reliable testimony. The historians “insist on the fact that no single work of any one of the famous painters recognized in the history of Greek art has survived to our time.” Let us then briefly trace the rise of Greek painting till it culminated in Apelles. [Sidenote: Polygnotos.] Polygnotos (B.C. 475-55) is the first name we hear of, and of his works we are told, “they were just as far from being really complete pictorial representations as the wall-pictures of the Assyrians and Egyptians themselves,” although in some particulars there must have been a distinct advancement on the work of the orientals. For example, we are told Polygnotos painted the “fishes of Acheron shadowy grey, and the pebbles of the river-bed so that they could be seen through the water.” Polygnotos fell, however, into a pitfall which has entrapped many painters since, he painted imaginative pictures. We are told he “was a painter of heroes,” some of his school attempted portraiture, “but painting though in this age was still a mere system of tinted outline design.” [Sidenote: Agatharchos.] Then followed Agatharchos, “the leader of a real revolution, a revolution by which art was enabled to achieve great and decisive progress towards a system of representation corresponding with the laws of optics and the full truth of nature.” Agatharchos was a scene-painter, and was no doubt led by striving for naturalism in his scenery to study naturalism in painting generally. [Sidenote: Scene-painting.] As the historians remark, “In scene-painting as thus practised, we find the origins not only of all representations of determinate backgrounds, but also, and more especially, of landscape painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the invention of scene-painting as the most decisive turning-point in the entire history of the art, and Agatharchos is named as the master who, at the inspiration of Æschylus, first devoted himself to practising the invention.” [Sidenote: Perspective.] This painter, it is said, also paid great attention to perspective, and left a treatise which was afterwards used in drawing up the laws of perspective. It is said his manner of treatment was “comparatively broad and picturesque.” [Sidenote: Apollodoros.] Next came Apollodoros, a figure-painter, who also combined landscape and figure subjects, and of whom Pliny says “that he was the first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures, the first to bring the brush into just repute, [Sidenote: Easel-pictures.] and even that before him no easel-picture (_tabula_) had existed by any master fit to charm the eye of the spectator.” [Sidenote: Chiaro-oscuro.] Apollodoros was the first to give his pictures a natural and definite background in true perspective; he was the first, it is emphatically stated, “who rightly managed chiaro-oscuro and the fusion of colours.... He will have also been the first to soften off the outlines of his figures.... [Sidenote: Brunn.] For this reason we may, with Brunn, in a certain sense call Apollodoros “the first true painter.” We are told, however, that his “painting was, in comparison with his successors, hard and imperfect,” and that the innovations made by him in the relation of foreground and background cannot be compared to the improvements effected by the brothers Van Eyck in modern times. [Sidenote: Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes.] We now read of Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes, who, we are told, “perfected a system of pictorial representation, adequately rendering on the flat surface the relief and variety of nature, in other particulars if not in colour.” The endeavour of Zeuxis was “by the brilliant use of the brush to rival nature herself,” and from anecdotes related of him and of Parrhasios, we gather that they “laid the greatest stress on carrying out to the point of actual illusion the deceptive likeness to nature.” Many of Zeuxis' subjects were taken from everyday life—another step in the right direction. [Sidenote: Eupompos.] We now come to the Dorian school, with Eupompos as its founder; and here we find a determination to study painting scientifically, and to conscientiously observe nature, for we are told Eupompos expressed the opinion “that the artist who wished to succeed must go first of all to nature as his teacher.” [Sidenote: Pamphilos.] Pamphilos, a pupil of Eupompos, brought this school to maturity, and insisted on the “necessity of scientific study for the painter.” [Sidenote: Melanthios.] He was followed by Melanthios, who pursued the same lines of scientific investigation; and was in his turn succeeded by Pausias, of whom we hear, [Sidenote: Pausias.] “It is quoted as a novel and striking effect, that in one of his pictures the face of Methê (or personified Intoxication) was visible through the transparent substance of the glass out of which she drank.” His work was considered to have great technical excellence, his subjects were taken from everyday life, and his pictures were all on a small scale. Pliny says “his favourite themes were ‘boys,’ that is, no doubt, scenes of child-life.... He developed, it seems, a more natural method of representing the modelling of objects by the gradations of a single colour.” We read, too, that his paintings drawn fresh from life “were much appreciated by the Romans.” Such is the case with all good naturalistic works, they always interest posterity, whereas the so-called imaginative works only interest the age for which they are painted. We should to-day prefer and treasure as beyond price one of Pausias' studies of familiar Greek life, whereas the heroes of Polygnotos would lack interest for us, and excite but little enthusiasm. [Sidenote: The Theban-Attic school.] There was a third school of Greek painting, that called the Theban-Attic, and of this we read that there was “a great ease and versatility, and an invention more intent upon the expression of human emotion,” but no painter of this school made any very great advance. [Sidenote: Apelles.] At length we come to Apelles, the most famous of all Greek painters. He, although already well known and highly thought of, went to the Sikyonian school, to study under Pamphilos, and we afterwards hear of him as court painter to Alexander the Great. We are told that at court his “mission was to celebrate the person and the deeds of the king, as well as those of his captains and chief men.” This was at any rate legitimate historical painting. Woltmann and Woermann say, “In faithful imitation of nature he was second to none; he was first of all in refinement of light and shade, and consequent fulness of relief and completeness of modelling.” And again we read, “Astonishing technical perfection in the illusory imitation of nature” distinguished Apelles. Thus we see that the great aim of the greatest of Greek painters was to paint nature exactly as she is, or as glib critics would say, to paint “mere transcripts of nature.” [Sidenote: Protogenes.] Contemporary with Apelles was Protogenes, whose aim was to reach the “highest degree of illusion in detail.” The cycle of development seemed now to have reached its highest point, and as the naturalistic teachings fell into the hands of inferior men, they were abused, and Woltmann and Woermann tell us the imitative principle was not kept subservient to artistic ends, and in the hands of Theon of Samos the principle of illusion became an end in itself, and art degenerated into _legerdemain_. This same tendency is now showing its hydra head, and in London, Brussels, and other places are to be seen inferior works hidden in dark rooms, or to be viewed through peep-holes. [Sidenote: Theon.] We only want the trumpets of Theon or the music of the opera bouffe to complete the degradation.Following Theon, and probably disgusted with his phantasies, came painters of small subjects;[Sidenote: The rhyparographi.] the rhyparographi of Pliny, or the rag-and-tatter painters, “who painted barbers' shops, asses, eatables, and such-like.” “We see, therefore, that about B.C. 300 ... Greek painting had already extended its achievements to almost all conceivable themes, with the single exception of landscape. Within the space of a hundred and fifty years the art had passed through every technical stage, from the tinted profile system of Polygnotos to the properly pictorial system of natural scenes, enclosed in natural backgrounds, and thence to the system of trick and artifice, which aimed at the realism of actual illusion by means beyond the legitimate scope of art.”

“The creative power of Greek painting was as good as exhausted by this series of efforts. In the following centuries the art survived indeed as a pleasant after-growth, in some of its old seats, but few artists stand out with strong individuality from among their contemporaries. Only a master here and there makes a name for himself. [Sidenote: Timomachos.] The one of these whom we have here especially to notice is Timomachos, of Byzantium, an exception of undeniable importance, since even at this late period of Greek culture he won for himself a world-wide celebrity.”

Decadence, however, had already set in, and we find that Timomachos neglected the study of familiar subjects, and returned to the so-called imaginative style, producing such works as “Ajax and Medea,” and “Iphigenia in Taurus.” [Sidenote: Greek landscape painting.] Curiously enough, it was during this period that the only branch of painting not yet tried by the Greeks, namely, landscape painting, was attempted. Woltmann and Woermann suggest a reason for this new departure when they say, “We can gather with certainty from poetry and literature that it was in the age of the Diadochi (the kings who divided amongst them the kingdom of Alexander) that the innate Greek instinct of anthropomorphism, of personifying nature in human forms, from a combination of causes was gradually modified in the direction of an appreciation of natural scenes for their own sake, and as they really are.” Landscape painting, however, did not reach any great perfection, for we are told it “scarcely got beyond the superficial character of decorative work.” [Sidenote: Decadence.] With this period ends the true history of Greek painting, though it still lingers on, and becomes so far merged into that of Roman art that between the two it is not possible to draw a line of distinction. [Sidenote: Fabius and Ludius.] Roman art had a character of its own, and even two painters, whose names, Fabius and Ludius, and in the case of the latter whose works, have been handed down to us; but the works of Ludius do not appear to have been more than decorative work.

[Sidenote: Vases, mosaics, &c., &c.]

Besides the written testimony referred to, the state of art can be gathered from the vases, bronzes, mosaics, paintings on stone, and mural decorations which have come down to us. These were chiefly the work of Greek journeymen, and though there is much that is excellent in these productions, their period of decadence very soon set in. [Sidenote: Antiques for tourists.] It is a gauge of the art knowledge of to-day to watch the gullible English and Americans purchasing third-rate copies of the works of Greek journeymen house-decorators, and taking them home and hoarding them as works of art,—works which were only valuable in their own time, in connection with the life and architecture then existing, but which at the present day are interesting merely from an historical point of view, for no really artistic mind can possibly find satisfaction in such work for its own sake. Did these uncultured buyers but reflect and study for a while the natural beauties around them, they would soon see the error of their ways.

In their conclusion on Græco-Roman art Woltmann and Woermann say that they “have no doubt that Greek painting had at last fully acquired the power to produce adequate semblances of living fact and nature,” which could not be said of any painting up to that time. Here then we have traced a quick development of Greek painting, and an almost equally quick decline, and all through we find the never-failing truth,—that so long as nature was the standard, and all efforts were directed towards interpreting her faithfully, so long did the national art grow and improve till it culminated in the statues of Pheidias and the paintings of Apelles; but that directly nature was neglected, as it was in the time of Theon, art degenerated, till at last it fell, as we shall see, into the meaningless work of the early Christian artists. [Sidenote: Art criticism.]We find even thus early that the pedantic writer who knows nothing of practical art had begun to fill the world with his mysterious nonsense. [Sidenote: Rhetoricians.] Such were the rhetoricians of the empire who describe works “purely anonymous, indeed in many cases it is clear that the picture has been invented by the man of letters, as a peg whereon to hang his eloquence.”

It cannot be too often repeated that technical criticism is not authoritative unless made by masters of the several arts.

[Sidenote: Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture.]

Let us now proceed to the British Museum, and look at the best specimens of Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture as exhibited there.

[Sidenote: The British Museum collection.]

Taking for examination the specimens nearest at hand; we refer to those to be seen in the gallery leading out of the entrance-hall of the British Museum. [Sidenote: Nero’s bust.] The busts which strike us most forcibly are those of Nero, Trajan, Publius Hevius Pertinax, Cordianus Africanus, Caracalla, Commodus, and Julius Cæsar. The bust of Nero (No. 11) strikes one by the simplicity and breadth of its treatment, combined as these qualities are with the expression of great strength and energy. The sculptor has evidently gone at his work with a thorough knowledge of the technique, and hewn the statue straight from the marble, a custom, by the way, followed by only one modern sculptor, namely, J. Havard Thomas. Look at the broad treatment of the chin and neck of this bust of Nero. Nowadays one rarely meets with even living awe-inspiring men, but that marble carries with it such force, that, all cold and stony as it is, it creates in you a feeling of respect and awe. It should be studied from various distances and coigns of vantage, and if well studied it can surely never be forgotten. It gives the head of a domineering, cruel, sensual, yet strong man. [Sidenote: Trajan’s bust.] In the bust of Trajan (No. 15), we have the same powerful technique employed this time in rendering the animal strength of a powerful man. With his low forehead, small head, and splendid neck, the embodiment of strength, Trajan looks down on us somewhat scornfully. [Sidenote: Bust of Publius Pertinax.] Then, too, No. 35, the bust of Publius Hevius Pertinax, is no mask, but a face with a _brain behind it_. You feel this man might speak, and if he did, what he had to say would be worth listening to. Perhaps for grip of the impression of life this is the best of all these busts. Compare it with the mask (it can be called nothing else) on the shelf above it, and you will see the difference. [Sidenote: Busts of Cordianus and Caracalla.] The portrait busts of Cordianus Africanus (No. 39) and Caracalla are also marvellous for life-like expression. Look well at the cropped head and beard of Cordianus from a little distance, and see how true and life-like the _impression_ is; then go up close and see how the hair of the beard is rendered. It is done by chipping out little wedges of the marble. Here is a very good example of the distinction between what is called _realism_ and _naturalism_ or _impressionism_, for the two last we hold to be synonymous, though for lucidity we have defined them differently. If all the detail of that beard had been rendered, every hair or curl correctly cut to represent a hair or curl, and this is what the modern Italian sculptor would have done, we should have had realism and bad work. This should be borne in mind in portrait photography, that the essence, the true impression, is what is required; the fundamental is all that counts; the rest is small, niggling, contemptible.

[Sidenote: Bust of Commodus.]

Let us turn to No. 33,—the sensual face of Commodus,—he re-lives in the marble. [Sidenote: Bust of Homer.] Another very notable bust is that of Homer (No. 117), in the corner of the gallery at right angles to that we are leaving. Look how truly the impression is rendered of the withered old literary man; how the story of his long life is stamped on his face, the unmistakable look of the studious, contemplative man.

Pass we now to the next gallery, and stop at the wonderfully fine torso, No. 172. [Sidenote: Torso, and boy and thorn.] Look well at this beautiful work, so feelingly, sympathetically, and simply treated by the sculptor. You can almost see the light glance as the muscles glide beneath the skin. This is a marvellous natural work, as is also the boy pulling out a thorn from his foot. [Sidenote: Young satyr.]The young satyr (No. 184) is also a wonderfully fine piece of sculpture, and well worth close study. The student will have ample opportunity for studying, side by side, in this gallery, bad stone cutting and fine sculpture, for many of the fine marbles have been barbarously restored. As an example, we cite the lifeless, stony arms of No. 188, which compare with the rest of the figure, look at the india-rubber finger of the right hand, and you will understand what bad work is, if you did not know it already. [Sidenote: Apotheosis of Homer.] Before leaving this gallery let the reader look at No. 159, the Apotheosis of Homer. Now, as can be imagined, this is the delight of the pedantic critic, and more ignorant rhapsodies have been written on this work than perhaps on any other piece of sculpture. Of course, as any candid and competent observer will see, this is, as a work of art, very poor, and hardly worth talking about, except as a warning. In passing into the gallery where are the remains of the Parthenon frieze, notice an archaic nude torso which stands on the left, and see how the artist was feeling his way to nature. [Sidenote: Parthenon frieze.] All portions of the Parthenon frieze should be most carefully studied. The animals in 60 and 61 are fairly true, as in fact is the whole work. [Sidenote: Muybridge and his cantering horse.] It was on seeing one of Muybridge’s photographs of a man cantering on a bare-backed horse, that a sculptor remarked to us, “I wonder if the Greeks knew of photography.” And yet critics and feeble artists call this work ideal, and declare they discover imaginary groupings according to geometrical laws, and heaven knows what; all of which the best sculptors deny. [Sidenote: Horse of Selene.] The student must now look at the “Horse of Selene,” one of the most marvellous pieces of work ever done by man. It was a long time before we could see the full beauty and truthfulness of impression of this great work, and the reason was due to a simple physical fact. We stood too near to it. To see it well you should stand about twenty or thirty feet off, and out of the grey background you will see the marble horse tossing its living head, and you will be spell-bound. Having observed the truthfulness of impression, go to it close up, and note the wonderful truth with which the bony structure of the skull is suggested beneath the skin. We can say no more than that it is a true impression taken direct from nature, for in no other way could it have been obtained. Nothing ideal about it at all, simply naturalism.

Much nonsense has been written, too, about “idealism” in Greek coins. [Sidenote: Greek coins.] To us they seem simply impressions taken from busts or other works; but to make assurance doubly sure, we have taken the opinion of two of the very best modern sculptors, who are, we venture to prophesy, going to show us as good work as any done by the Greeks, and in many ways even better work.[4] Well, their opinion as to “idealism” in Greek sculpture is emphatically that it existed not. They say that the Greeks were naturalistic, the study of nature was the mainspring of their art, and the truthful expression of the poetry of nature their sole end and aim. That they attained this end in many ways we know, and in certain ways they will never be surpassed, but in other directions their work will one day appear childish.

Footnote 4:

All old work is to be surpassed, and that in the fundamental matter of movement. This advance is entirely due to Photography.

[Sidenote: Technical criticism.]

We do not attempt to give a detailed technical criticism of sculpture as executed by the Greeks, for, as we have said before, none but a _first-rate sculptor_ can do that; and as there are not half a dozen such in England, and as they have quite enough work to do at present, we fear the public will have to wait some time for such criticism. In the meantime those interested in the subject cannot do better than study the works mentioned, and let them leave all others alone; let them spend days in studying those pointed out, and they will soon find themselves able to distinguish good work from bad. [Sidenote: Gibson gallery.] Then, if they want a good shock, let them walk into the Gibson Gallery at Burlington House, for there they will see _nothing_ but bad work.

There is one point to be borne in mind when we look at the surpassing beauty of the Greek statues, and that is the natural beauty of the Greek race, and the number of excellent models the Greek sculptors had before them to choose from. [Sidenote: Taine.] Taine, in his charming but atechnical volume on “La Philosophie de l’art Grec,” goes as thoroughly into this question as a historian and philosopher can enter into the life of the past, and into art questions, which in our opinion is to a very limited extent. Nevertheless, his book is full of suggestions, and if our sculptors do not to-day equal in beauty the antiques, the cause, in our opinion, lies in the lack of perfect models, for the best technical work of to-day we think is superior to that of the Greeks. We have seen impressionistic renderings of nature by some modern sculptors which we think more natural in _all points_ than anything of the kind to be found in Greek sculpture.

[Sidenote: Modern French school.]

Like the Greeks have the leading men of the modern French school adhered to nature,—a school in our mind more akin to the Greek school at its best than any other, and for the simple reason that it is more loyal to nature than any art has been since the time of Apelles. [Sidenote: Horizon-line.] As an example of the kinship between the two schools we quote Woltmann and Woermann, who tell us the Greeks “placed their horizon abnormally high according to our ideas; and distributed the various objects over an ample space in clear and equable light.” Now modern painters have happily discarded all laws for the position of the horizon-line, and common sense shows that the height of the horizon naturally depends on how much foreground is included in the picture. The angle included by the eye vertically as well as horizontally varies with the distance of the object from us, and the only law therefore is to include in the picture as much as is included by the eye; and this of course varies with the position of the _motif_ or chief point of interest. [Sidenote: Millet.] Millet has a good many high horizons, and we feel they are normal not abnormal. On this point therefore we think the Greeks were very advanced.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Early Christian art.]

Leaving Greek art, we now come to the art of the early Christians. Woltmann and Woermann tell us that “Early Christian art does not differ in its beginnings from the art of antiquity.... The only perceptible differences are those differences of subject which betoken the fact that art has now to embody a changed order of religious ideas, and even from this point of view the classical connection is but gradually, and at first imperfectly, severed.... At the outset Christianity, as was inevitable from its Jewish origin, had no need for art. In many quarters the aversion to works of material imagery ...—the antagonism to the idolatries of antiquity—remained long unabated. Yet when Christianity, far outstepping the narrow circle of Judaism, had been taken up by classically educated Greeks and Romans, the prejudice against works of art could not continue to be general, nor could Christendom escape the craving for art which is common to civilized mankind. The dislike of images used as objects of worship did not include mere chamber decorations, and while independent sculpture found no footing in the Christian world, or at least was applied only to secular and not to religious uses, painting, on the other hand, found encouragement for purely decorative purposes, in the execution of which a characteristically Christian element began to assert itself by degrees.”

[Sidenote: The catacombs.]

The pure Christian element began to assert itself silently in decorative work in the catacombs, and “these cemeteries are the only places in which we find remains of Christian paintings of earlier date than the close of the fourth century.” These works, however, “constituted no more than a kind of picture writing,” as any one who has seen them can certify. But this symbolism got very mixed with pagan stories, and we get Orpheus in a Phrygian cap, and Hermes carrying a ram, both representing the Good Shepherd. At other times the artists seem to have set themselves to represent a Christ constructed on their knowledge of the attributes ascribed to him, and we get a beardless youth approaching “closely to the kindred types of the classical gods and heroes.” “Mary appears as a Roman matron, generally praying with uplifted hands.” [Sidenote: St. Peter’s statue at Rome.]Peter and Paul “appear as ancient philosophers,” and the well-known bronze statue of St. Peter, in the cathedral dedicated to him at Rome, is no less than a _bonâ fide_ antique statue of a Roman consul. Here we have the same neglect of nature, and the bad work always to be expected from this neglect and from enslaved minds.

[Sidenote: Mosaics.]

The mosaics of Christian art were also handed down from classical antiquity. Though rarely found in the catacombs, this art was being much used above ground for architectural decoration. This art, as Woltmann and Woermann rightly say, was “only a laborious industry, which by fitting together minute coloured blocks produces a copy of a design, which design the workers are bound by. They may proceed mechanically, but not so flimsily and carelessly as the decorative painters.” From about A.D. 450 we are told that church pictures become no longer only decorative, but also instructive. Here then was a wrong use of pictorial art—it is not meant to be symbolic and allegorical, or to teach, but to interpret the poetry of nature.

A new conception of Christ it seems now appeared in the mosaics,—a bearded type,—and this time we get the features of Zeus represented. [Sidenote: The emperors' school.] By means of the mosaics a new impulse was given to art, and in A.D. 375 a school was founded by the Emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, of which we read, “The schools of art now once more encourage the observance of traditions; strictness of discipline and academical training were the objects kept in view; and the student was taught to work, not independently by study from nature, but according to the precedent of the best classical models.”

[Sidenote: Byzantine art.]

At this time art, though lying under the influence of antique traditions, held its own for a longer time in Byzantium, where the decorative style of the early Christians lived on after the iconoclastic schism in the eighth century, and where we read that this ornamental style began to be commonly employed. [Sidenote: Justinian.]After the age of Justinian (which itself has left no creation of art at Rome), many poor and conventional works were executed at Ravenna. We read that for “lack of inner life and significance, amends are attempted to be made by material splendour, brilliancy of costume, and a gold groundwork, which had now become the rule here as well as in Byzantium.” Thus we see the artists became completely lost in confusion since they had left nature, and they knew not what to do, but, like many weak painters of the present day, tried to make their work attractive by meretricious ornaments, and true art there was none. This is carried out to-day to its fullest development by many men of medium talent, who make pictures in far countries, or of popular resorts, or religious subjects, and strive to appeal, and do appeal to an uneducated class, through the _subject_ of their work, which in itself may be a work of the poorest description.

[Sidenote: Mosaics.]

We read that in the year 640, “the superficial and unequal character of mosaic workmanship increased quickly.” [Sidenote: Miniatures.] The miniatures of the early Christians, however, we are told, showed considerable power, but the iconoclastic schism brought all this to an end. [Sidenote: Mohammedans.] “The gibes of the Mohammedans” were the cause of Leo the Third’s edict against image worship in A.D. 726. All the pictures in the East were destroyed by armed bands, and the painters thrown into prison, and so ended Byzantine art. This movement did not affect Italian art.

MEDIÆVAL ART.

[Sidenote: Mediæval.]

We have followed Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann closely in their account of the decadence of art from the greatest days of Greek sculpture and painting to the end of the Christian period; but as our object is avowedly only to deal with the best art—that which is good for all time—and to see how far that is naturalistic or otherwise, we shall speak but briefly of (the main points connected with) mediæval art, which has but little interest for us until we come to Niccola Pisano, and Giotto. [Sidenote: Miniaturists.] During the early years of what are called the Middle Ages, miniaturists were evolving monstrosities from their own inner consciousness, but with Charlemagne, who said, [Sidenote: Charlemagne.] “We neither destroy pictures nor pray to them,” the standard adopted was again classical antiquity. [Sidenote: Ivan the Terrible.]So art continuously declined until it became a slave to the Church, and the worst phase of this slavery was to be seen in the East, under Ivan the Terrible, for we read that “artists were under the strictest tutelage to the clergy, who chose the subjects to be painted, prescribed the manner of the treatment, watched over the morality of the painters, and had it in their power to give and refuse commissions. Bishops alone could promote a pupil to be a master, and it was their duty to see that the work was done according to ancient models.” Here was indeed a pretty state of things, a painter to be watched by a priest; to have his subjects selected for him! One cannot imagine anything more certain to degrade art. Religion has ever been on the side of mental retrogression, has ever been the first and most pertinacious foe to intellectual progress, but perhaps to nothing has she been so harmful as to art, unless it has been to science.

During the period of this slavery, the Church used art as a tool, as a disseminator of her tenets, as a means of imparting religious knowledge. Very clever of her, but very disastrous for poor art.

[Sidenote: Glass paintings.]

How conventional art was during the Romanesque period can be seen in the glass paintings that decorate many of the old churches, to admire which crowds go to Italy and waste their short time in the unhealthy interiors of churches, instead of spending it at Sorrento or Capri. These go back to their own country, oppressed with dim recollections of blue and red dresses, crude green landscapes, and with parrot-like talks of “subdued lights,” “rich tones mellowed by time,” and such cant.

The Romanesque style of architecture was superseded in the fourteenth century by the Gothic. [Sidenote: Gothic.] A transformation took place in art and France now took the lead. The painters of this period emancipated themselves from the direction of the priesthood—a great step indeed. [Sidenote: The guilds.] The masters of this age were specialists; the guilds now ruled supreme in art matters. We read that “now popular sentiment began to acknowledge that the artist’s own mode of conceiving a subject had a certain claim, side by side with tradition and sacerdotal prescription.... They took their impressions direct from nature,” but their insight into nature was scanty. As Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann very truly remark, “If for the purpose of depicting human beings, either separately or in determined groups and scenes, the artist wishes to develop a language for the expression of emotion, there is only one means open to him—a closer grasp and observation of nature. In the age which we are now approaching, the painter’s knowledge of nature remains but scanty. He does not succeed in fathoming and mastering her aspects; but his eyes are open to them so far as is demanded by the expressional phenomena which it is his great motive to represent; since it is not yet for their own sakes, but only for the sake of giving expression to a particular range of sentiments that he seeks to imitate the realities of the world.”

There was a struggle at this period for the study of nature, and the tyranny of the Church was being thrown off; there was then hope that art would at last advance, and advance it did. What was wanting was a deeper insight into nature, for nature is not a book to be read at a glance, she requires constant study, and will not reveal all her beauties without much wooing. [Sidenote: Thirteenth century sketch-book.] And though we read of a sketch-book of this time, the thirteenth century, in which appears a sketch of a lion, which “looks extremely heraldic,” and to which the artist has appended the remark, “N.B.—Drawn from life,” this in no way surprises us, for have we not been seriously told in this nineteenth century by the painters of catchy, meretricious water-colours, with reds, blues and greens such as would delight a child, that they had painted them from nature; pictures in which no two tones were correct, in which detail, called by the ignorant, finish, had been painfully elaborated, whilst the broad facts of nature had been ignored. Such work is generally painted from memory or photographs. Happily work of this kind will never live, however much the gullible public may buy it. Next we read that “the germs of realism already existing in art by degrees unfold themselves further, and artists venture upon a closer grip of nature.” [Sidenote: Niccola Pisano.] Here, then, were the signs of coming success, and the great effect of these gradual changes was first manifested in the work of Niccola Pisano, who “made a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique.” All honour to this man, who was an epoch-maker, who based his conception “upon a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique, of the Roman relief.” His work is by no means naturalistic or perfect, but it was enough for one man to do such a herculean task as to ignore his own times and rise superior to them. [Sidenote: Cimabue.] Painting, however, took no such quick turn, but Cimabue was the first of those who were to bring it into the right way. The principal works ascribed to him, however, are not authenticated.

[Sidenote: Giotto.]

Another epoch-maker, Giotto, now appears. He seems to have been a remarkable man in himself, which however hardly concerns us. The historian of his works says, “The bodies still show a want of independent study of nature; the proportions of the several members (as we know by the handbook of Cemieno hereafter to be mentioned) were regulated by a fixed system of measurement;” again, “The drawing is still on the whole conventional, and the modelling not carried far.” His trees and animals are like toys. Yet we read that “their naturalism is the very point which the contemporaries of Giotto extol in his creations,” but, as Woltmann and Woermann say, this must be accepted according to the notion entertained of what nature was, and we are by this means able to see how crude the notions of nature can become in educated men when they neglect the study of it. But from all this evidence we gather that Giotto’s intellect was great, and that his strides towards the truthful suggesting of nature were enormous. His attempts too at expression are wonderful for his age, see his “Presentations,” the figures are almost _natural_ notwithstanding their crude drawing; he got some of the charm and life of the children around him. We read that in some of his pictures, he took his models direct from nature, as also did Dante in his poetry, but like Dante he attempted at times the doctrinal in his pictures, as in the “Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty,” he tried in fact what many moderns are still trying to do, and daily fail to do, namely, to teach by means of their pictures—a fatal error. Doctrinal subjects are unsuitable for pictorial art, and will never live. Who cares now for Giotto’s “Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty”? but who would _not_ care for a landscape or figure subject taken by Giotto from the life and landscape of his own times?—it would be priceless. Owing to circumstances, we hear that he had to put “much of his art at the service of the Franciscans,” and though not a slave to them, yet we read this disgusted him with the monkish temper. In 1337 Giotto died, but he had done much. Without Kepler there might have been no Newton, so without Giotto there might have been no Velasquez.

[Sidenote: The guilds.]

Artists at this time belonged to one of the seven higher of the twenty-one guilds into which Florentine craftsmen were divided, namely, that of the surgeons and apothecaries (medici and speziali). Here art and science were enrolled in the same guild, and so were connected, as they always will be, for the study of nature is at the foundation of both, the very first principle of both. Together they have been enslaved, persecuted, and their progress hampered; together they have endured; and now to-day together they stand out glorious in their achievements, free to study, free to do. The one is lending a hand to the other, and the other returns the help with graceful affection. Superstition, priestcraft, tyranny, all their old persecutors are daily losing power, and will finally perish, as do all falsehoods.

[Sidenote: Summary.]

We thus leave the art of the Middle Ages, as we left the catacombs, with a wish never to see any more of it. One feels the deepest sympathy for great intellects like Giotto, and his greatest followers, whose lots were cast in times of darkness, and we cannot but respect such as struggled with this darkness, and fought to gain the road to nature’s fountains of truth and beauty. But at the same time, though we may in these pictures see a graceful pose here, a good expression there, or a beautiful and true bit of colour or quality elsewhere, yet we cannot get away from the subject-matter of many of the pictures, which, allegorical and doctrinal as they are, do not lie within the scope of art, and above all one cannot in any way get rid of the false sentiment and untruthfulness of the whole work. Such works will always be interesting to the historian and to the philosopher, but beyond that, to us they are valueless, and we would far rather possess a drawing by Millet than a masterpiece by Giotto.

When abroad, and being actually persuaded of their great littleness, we have been moved with pity for the victims we have met, victims of the pedant and the guide-book, who are led by the nose, and stand gaping before middle-age monstrosities, whilst some incompetent pretender pours into their ears endless cant of grace, spirituality, lustrous colouring, mellifluous line, idealism, _et id genus omne_, until, bewildered and sick at heart, they return home to retail their lesson diluted, and to swell the number of those who pay homage at the shrine of pedantry and mysticism. Had these travellers spent their short and valuable time in the fields of Italy, they would have “learnt more art,” whatever they may mean by that term of theirs, than they ever did in the bourgeois Campo Santo or dark interior of Santa Croce or Santa Maria Novella. Alas! that the painters of the Middle Ages were unable to paint well. Had they been able to paint, as can some of the moderns, and had they painted truthfully the life and landscape around them, there is no distance some of us would not go to see a gallery of their works: works showing men and women as they were, and as they lived, and in their own surroundings. There at once would have been the pictures, the history, and the idyllic poetry of a bygone age; and what have we now in their place? Diluted types of repulsive asceticism, sentimental types of ignorance and credulity, pictures hideous and untrue and painful to gaze upon, lies and libels on our beautiful world, and on our own race. And whom have we to thank for this? Religion—the so-called encourager of truth, charity, and all that is beautiful and good.

EASTERN ART.

Before beginning the renascence we must glance through Mohammedan, Chinese, and Japanese art. [Sidenote: Mohammedan Art.] With Mohammedan art we have little to do, as it was entirely decorative. It is seen at its best in the Alhambra, and was not the outcome of any study of nature. The Arabian mind seems to have been unable to rise beyond a conventional geometrical picture-writing. Such minds are seen to-day in all countries amongst the undeveloped. Quite recently we have seen some of the best modern negro work from the West Coast of Africa; there too was the love of geometrical ornamentation as strong as in the Arabian art. [Sidenote: Art amongst the Philistines.] We repeat, this artistically-speaking low standard of development is often seen among the people of to-day, and though highly educated in all else, in art they are uneducated, in short they are survivals; and the mischief is, that they judge pictures by their survival decorative standard; they look for bright colours placed in Persian-rug juxtaposition, and talk of “glorious colouring.” It never seems to occur to them what art really is, and what the artist has tried to express, and how well he has expressed it; and they never refer their “glorious colouring” to the infallible standard—nature; but seem to imagine there are abstract standards of colour and form. [Sidenote: Water-colours.] “Glorious colourings” are oftener than not meretricious lies dressed out in gaudiest, vulgarest apparel, and when compared with nature these “colourings” will be found veritable strumpets. Look carefully at many of the much-vaunted water-colours, and then carefully study the same scene in nature, and if many of those water-colours please you afterwards—well, in matters artistic, you have the taste of a frugivorous ape. But apply this test to the water-colours of Israels or Mauve, and you will see they interpret nature. But they have painted chiefly in oils, and wisely so, as there is more to be expressed by oil-painting, and we know of few, if any, great men who confine themselves to water-colour as a medium. But it serves the turn of a host of men—painters, but not artists, who, with their pretty paints, make pot-boilers, of which the form and idea are often stolen—stolen, perhaps, from a photograph. Do such ever study nature? No. They sit at home, and coin vulgar counterfeits with no more of nature in them than the perpetrators have of honesty. It is time that it was clearly and distinctly understood that the man who copies a photograph is as despicable as the man who copies a painting, and it is very certain neither will ever be respected by his contemporaries, or remembered by his successors. Yet the “cheap” work of these men sells well, and the gulled public talk glibly over them of “strength” and “tone” and “colouring,” and what not. Nature is so subtle and astonishing in her facts that but few even of those who do paint directly from her can come anywhere near her, whereas, those who do not study her at all, who do not paint _coram ipse_, fake and fake, and by faking they lie, and set the example to others to lie, and, if not fought against, this sort of thing would speedily take us back to the art of the Middle Ages, when we should be under the tyranny of Crœsus, instead of Clericus.

[Sidenote: Picture-buyers.]

It is, then, the absolute duty of every picture-buyer, who has any regard for truth, and any interest in the future of art, to learn to study nature carefully, and to buy only that which is true and sincere, and let the pink and white school of dishonesty die of inanition.

In short, it is high time that educated people ceased to judge painting as they often do, by the standard of coloured rugs. This talk of “colour” is one of the stumbling-blocks of the weak-kneed in art. Colour is good so long as it is true, and no longer. A Persian rug, or Turkey carpet, is not the standard of colour whereby to judge pictures, and only those in the mental state of the frugivorous ape or the Arab craftsmen can think so.

CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.

[Sidenote: China and Japan.]

In China and Japan things were very different. Following Mr. Anderson’s invaluable work, the “Pictorial Arts of Japan,” we find that their history of pictorial art begins about A.D. 457. [Sidenote: First period.] Mr. Anderson thinks, however, that art was only actually planted in Japan with the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century. [Sidenote: Buddhism.] Then it begins badly, for it was under the influence of religion, and in fact we read that the earliest art consisted of Buddhist images and mural decorations. This religious influence, together with a servile imitation of the Chinese masters, so enslaved art, that no development of importance took place till the end of the ninth century.

[Sidenote: The “Ni Ō.”]

Looking at the plate of the “Ni Ō,”—a wooden statue—considered the greatest work of the time, we can see the artist had really struggled to interpret nature, and no doubt studies were made from the nude, for the work on the anatomy could not otherwise have been so well expressed; but, good as it is, it runs in the Michael Angelo spirit, is exaggerated, and lacks entirely all the greatness of the Greek sculpture. This work—the greatest of what Mr. Anderson has called the first period—shows that there had been a struggle towards the expression of nature.

[Sidenote: Second period.]

The second period, we learn, ends with the fourteenth century, and is parallel, therefore, with the European mediæval period. On comparing plates of the Japanese work with that of the same period in Europe, we are forced to give the palm to the Japanese artists, they were, in fact, vastly superior. In looking at the plate of “The Death of Kosé No Hirotaka” we cannot but feel there was much more respect for nature in Japan than there was in Europe at that time, notwithstanding the fact that Buddhism bore the same relation to art in Japan as Christianity did in Europe. [Sidenote: Nobuzané.] We read also that in the twelfth century there was one, Nobuzané, who had a brilliant reputation for “portraits and other studies from Nature.” The specimen of Nobuzané’s work is admirable in expression, he has caught the living expression of his model, but the rest is conventional. [Sidenote: Chinese renascence.] We are told that the Chinese renascence began about 1275, and that the painters of this movement were naturalistic, “Ink sketches of birds and bamboos, portraits and landscapes were the subjects chosen,” and though these were only a kind of picture-writing, yet the movement led the artists more and more to study nature.

[Sidenote: Third period.]

Coming now to Mr. Anderson’s third period, from the end of the fourteenth century to the last quarter of the eighteenth,[Sidenote: Meichō.] we find that Meichō seems to have been to Japanese art what Giotto was to European art, and at about the same period. We read further on that in the early part of the fifteenth century the revived Chinese movement referred to made its influence felt in Japan. [Sidenote: Shiūbun.] An example given by Mr. Anderson of Shiūbun’s idealized landscape painting, while far from satisfactory or even pleasing, is, we venture to think, superior to the work of Giotto. Therein is shown some power, and there is not the childishness which is visible in Giotto’s work. [Sidenote: Soga Jasoku.] Much more naturalistic, powerful, and pleasing are the works of Soga Jasoku, fifteenth-century Chinese school. These landscapes show the artist had a feeling for nature, and although he attempted in the upper plate (Plate 16) what we consider to be beyond the scope of art, yet in the lower the master-hand shows itself. There is atmosphere in the picture. Close observation of nature resulted in a grasp of subtlest movement and expression. [Sidenote: Soga Chokuan.] Witness the “Falcon and Egret” by Soga Chokuan (sixteenth century), where the power shown in depicting the grasp of the falcon’s talon as it mercilessly crushes the helpless egret, is very great. Then look at the paintings of birds in any of our books, and see how wooden, how lifeless they are, compared with even the sixteenth-century Japanese representations of bird life.

[Sidenote: Sesshiū.]

Sesshiū, we are told, was another great painter, and the founder of a school (1420-1509). This great man, we are told, “did not follow in the footsteps of the ancients, but developed a style peculiar to himself. His power was greatest in landscape, after which he excelled most in figures, then in flowers and birds,” and later on, we are told, in animals. He preferred working in monochrome, and it is said asserted “the scenery of nature was his final teacher.”

[Sidenote: Kano school.]

Then came the Kano School, all of whose artists evidently struggled for Naturalism, and had great power of expression of movement but not of form. The leader, we are told, was an eclectic, and painted Chinese landscapes in Japan, so that he must have neglected nature, and his works belong to the so-called imaginative or unnatural school. The best men of this period were decidedly impressionists, and their chief aim seems to have been to give the impression of the scene and neglect the details, and it is perfectly marvellous how well they succeeded in depicting movement by a very few lines. The “Rain Scene” by Kano Tanyu is a fine example of this.

We read that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of decadence; we conclude therefore that in Japan art reached its highest state during the second period, under Shiūbun, Soga Jasoku, Sesshiū and Tanyu, who were all students of nature, and several of whom would have been called impressionists had they painted in these days.

[Sidenote: Matahei.]

We are told that Matahei tried to found a naturalistic school, whose followers should go direct to nature for their subjects, but the movement did not receive any hearty impulse. However it was taken up afterwards by a series of book-illustrators. [Sidenote: Kôrin.] Next we read of Kôrin whose “works demonstrate remarkable boldness of invention, associated with great delicacy of colouring, and often ... masterly drawing and composition.” It is quite marvellous to see the work of this seventeenth-century artist.

Winding up his account of the third period, Mr. Anderson says, “But three-quarters of the eighteenth century were allowed to pass without a struggle on the part of the older schools to elevate the standard of their art, and painting was beginning to languish into inanition when the revolutionary doctrines of a naturalistic school and of a few artisan book-illustrators brought new aims and new workers to inaugurate the last and most characteristic period of Japanese art.”

[Sidenote: Fourth period.]

Mr. Anderson says, “The fourth and last era began about thirty years before the close of the last century, with the rise of the [Sidenote: Shijo school.]Shijo naturalistic school of painting in Kioto, and a wider development of the artisan popular school in Yedo and Osaka, two steps which conferred upon Japanese art the strongest of those national characteristics that have now completed its separation from the parent art of Amia.”

He goes on to say “that the study of nature was admitted to be the best means of achieving the highest result in art by the older painters of China and Japan, but they limited its interpretation.”

[Sidenote: Ōkio.]

We are told that Maruyama Ōkio was the first painter who seriously endeavoured to establish naturalistic art (1733-1795). He preached radical ideas in art at Kioto, the centre of Japanese conservatism, and gathered a school around him. In summing up this school, Mr. Anderson remarks, “The chief characteristics of the Shijo school are a graceful flowing outline, freed from the arbitrary mannerisms of touch indulged in by many of the older masters; comparative, sometimes almost absolute, correctness in the interpretation of the forms of animal life; and lastly, a light colouring, suggestive of the prevailing tones of the objects depicted, and full of delicate harmonies and gradations.” Their naturalistic principles do not, however, seem to have fully developed, and their works show ignorance of the scientific facts of nature, except, perhaps, in the painting of plants, birds, and animals. Yet the work has a _verve_ which renders it very fascinating.

[Sidenote: Hokusai.]

One great man, Hokusai, appears as the last of the race purely Japanese and uninfluenced by European ideas, as all the Japanese artists are now.

So we find that through various phases the Japanese developed to impressionistic landscape-painting, and no doubt when they have got more scientific knowledge, they will make for themselves, by their wonderful originality and patience, a position in art which will surpass all their past efforts.

[Sidenote: Japanese art at the British Museum.]

Since writing this section, a collection of Japanese and Chinese art has been opened at the British Museum, which the student must by all means study, for there he will see works of most of the masters cited in these notes. [Sidenote: The Japanese Commission.] In connection with this subject our readers may have seen the very interesting report on Art by the Japanese Commission that visited the galleries and schools of Europe; wherein the conclusion of the commission on the best European art is very interesting,—Millet being the greatest painter to their mind. They think, too, that Japan will soon be able to show the world something better than anything yet accomplished, which we very much doubt.

[Sidenote: Japanese art.]

We feel, however, that wonderful as Japanese art has been, yet there is a great gulf between it and the best Greek and modern art. To us Japanese art is the product of a semi-civilized race, a race in which there is strong sympathy with nature, but a very superficial acquaintance with her marvellous workings. In short, we feel the Japanese need a deeper and more scientific knowledge of nature, and that their work falls far short of the best European work. At the present day there is a craze for anything Japanese, but like all crazes it will end in bringing ridicule upon Japanese work; for their work, though fine for an uncivilized nation, is absurd in many points, and this stupid craze by indiscriminate praise will only kill the qualities to be really admired.

[Sidenote: Chinese art.]

The earliest authentic records of Chinese painting date about A.D. 251. The earliest painters were painters of Buddhist pictures. [Sidenote: Wu-Tao-Tsz’.] Mr. Anderson mentions as one of the best known of the early masters, one Wu-Tao-Tsz’, whose animals were remarkable. He thinks that the art of China of to-day is feeble compared with that which flourished 1100 years ago. We are informed too that the “artistic appreciation of natural scenery existed in China many centuries before landscapes played a higher part in the European picture than that of an accessory,” and judging from the specimens he gives in his book of the work of the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), the Chinese artists had a great feeling for landscape. We are told that the painters of the thirteenth century “studied nature from the aspect of the impressionist,” and their subjects were all taken from nature, landscape especially delighting them. In the fifteenth century we read “decadence began by their neglect of nature and their cultivation of decorative colouring, calligraphic dexterity, and a compensating disregard for naturalistic canons.” We are told, and can readily believe it, that in painting of bird life they were unequalled save by the Japanese, and that down to 1279 the Chinese were at the head of the world in painting, and their only rivals were their pupils, the Japanese. Korean art seems also to have degenerated since the sixteenth century.

Thus we ever find the same old story. China, when she painted from nature, was unequalled by any nation in the world; when she neglected nature, as she does now, she fell to the lowest rank.

THE RENASCENCE.

[Sidenote: Renascence.]

This is a period of a return to the study of nature, of a carrying out of the feelings which seemed to be developing even in Giotto’s time. No longer now was the artist to be separated from nature by the intervention of the Church, and though natural science was not advancing as fast as art was, still a growing regard for nature was the order of the day. [Sidenote: The Van Eycks.] This feeling first showed itself strongly in the Netherlands, with the brothers Van Eyck. We are told that the Van Eycks “mixed the colours with the medium on the palette and worked them together on the picture itself, thus obtaining more brilliant effects of light as well as more delicate gradations of tone, with an infinitely nearer approach to the truth of nature.”

The Van Eycks regarded nature lovingly, and tried truthfully to represent her, and though many of their works were of sacred subjects, yet they were evidently studied from nature with loving conscientiousness; and so successful were they that to this day the picture by one of the brothers (a portrait of a merchant and his wife), in the National Gallery, remains almost unsurpassed. [Sidenote: Portrait of a merchant and his wife.] It is well worth a journey to the National Gallery on purpose to see it, and we trust all those who do not already know the picture will take the trouble to go and study it well. It is wonderful in technical perfection, in sentiment, in truthfulness of impression. Note the reflection of the orange in the mirror, with what skill it is painted. In fact the whole is full of life and beauty,—the beauty of naturalism. It is a master-piece good for all time, and yet it is but the portrait of a merchant and his wife. No religious subject here inspired John Van Eyck, but a mere merchant family, yet in many ways the picture remains, and will remain, unsurpassed. Such powerful minds as the brothers Van Eyck of course influenced all art, and they had many followers; but it does not seem that these followers had the insight into nature that characterized the Van Eycks, and the work falls off after the death of the brothers, whose names represent, and ably represent, all that was best of the fifteenth century.

[Sidenote: Quinten Massys.]

In the sixteenth century Quinten Massys was the greatest and most naturalistic painter. He was said to be the “originator of a peculiar class of _genre_ pictures, being in fact life-like studies from the citizen life of Antwerp.” Here was an honourable departure from conventionality. His followers, however, having no mind to see _how_ he was so great, were led away from the study of nature, and where are they now? Their names we all know, but who cares to see their works? Massys, the greatest painter of this period in the Netherlands, was content to take his subjects from the life of his own times, as all great men have been, from the Egyptians downwards.

[Sidenote: Germany.]

Turning now to Germany, we shall see what the best men there thought of naturalism. The movement towards the study of nature seems to have begun in the methods of engraving as practised by the goldsmiths, who were trained artists. The earliest plates we find are of subjects illustrating the life of the times, a hopeful augury for Germany, which was fulfilled by the work of the master, Albert Durer. [Sidenote: Albert Durer.] We are told he had “unlimited reverence for nature, which made him one of the most realistic painters that have ever existed.” What strikes us most after an examination of his plates at the British Museum, is the wonderful strength and direction with which the man tells his tale. His engravings are, of course, without tone, and when he does natural landscapes, as was often the case, this lack of tone is a serious fault; but for draughtsmanship he is marvellous, and it is with joy we learn that such a master said, “Art is hidden in nature, those who care have only to tear it forth.” Every one interested in art, and who is not already well acquainted with Durer’s work, should make a point of going to the Print Room in the British Museum, and studying carefully all examples of his work. They will, perhaps, at the same time, notice what struck us, namely, that one of the best draughtsmen on _Punch’s_ staff has evidently been a great admirer of Durer.

Woltmann and Woermann, speaking of Durer’s landscapes illustrative of his travels south of the Alps, say that “he reveals himself as one of the founders of the modern school of landscape painting.”

His “Mill” is remarkable. His etchings are mostly of familiar subjects of every-day life. The great danger of a man like Durer is the bad effect of his influence in later times, for inferior men imitate his faults and not his merit, as is always the case with imitators, and they forget that though Durer was a genius, yet did he live today he would probably work very differently and interpret different subjects. An artist’s time and environment must always be reckoned with.

[Sidenote: Evolution in art.]

There are so many people who cannot understand the principle of development in art, and cannot distinguish, and appreciate, and value artists according to their periods, and as steps in development, but are now-a-days led by them, holding them up as models for modern painters, whereas they are but the undeveloped efforts of earlier times. There are numbers of young men who paint better than Durer ever did, but who lack Durer’s genius; just as an undergraduate may know more science than Galileo, or more mathematics than Newton, but yet be incomparably less great than either Galileo or Newton. A work of art, however, is only valuable for its intrinsic merits, and much as we feel the value of Durer, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and others in their own time, for many of their works as works of art, _quâ_ art, we care but little now, but as historical documents they are priceless.

It may be asked how Durer, the Van Eycks, and others can be called “naturalists,” when they painted so many religious pictures. Of course the one explanation of this is that they painted conscientiously from living models and natural landscapes, and not from what is called their “imagination.” The influence of the times on these painters could not but be tremendous, but if a man must perforce paint an “imaginative” picture, its artistic value must always be in proportion to the truth of the picture; and, therefore, what is good in the picture is the naturalism of it. All the rest seems to our mind—for how could Durer or any one else paint the Virgin Mary?—uninteresting. For Durer and the men of his day there was, of course, every excuse, but to-day there is none; and if painters will persist in painting—from their imagination—woolly landscapes, peopled by impossible men, women, and animals, they will pay the penalty of such vivid imagination—by quick and well-merited consignment to oblivion. The public call such men learned. Learned, forsooth! when Lemprière or the poets have supplied the idea. “There is something great behind a picture,” is another favourite expression; well, so there is behind many an impostor’s work, but _that greatness belongs to another man_.

An artist looks at the art of the picture, a sentimentalist at the subject alone; to him a badly-painted subject may bring tears to the eyes, to an artist the same subject will probably bring a laugh. What is the sense of copying our predecessors? And even as copyists, these painters of “imaginative” works fall immeasurably below their models. Botticelli towers yet like a giant over Blake and Rossetti, yet we know he was very far from perfect.

[Sidenote: Hans Holbein.]

The next great German was Hans Holbein the younger. He had advantages over Durer, for he was born when the feeling for nature was strong, and thus started with a clear mind, and arrived at achievements never yet surpassed. Hans Holbein stands out as a master for all time. His portraits are wonderful. He, again, threw all his energy into the study of nature, and his works are chiefly representative of the life of his own times, portraits of merchants and fellow-citizens. There is the full-length portrait of a gentleman in the National Gallery, whose name has not come down to us; yet is the interest less great for that? The dead Christ at Basle too is wonderful, as every one (with good observation, be it always said) who has seen a naked dead body, will affirm, but the anatomy of the skeleton in Holbein’s “Dance of Death” would make a first year’s medical student laugh. It must have been drawn from the imagination.

Much of Holbein’s best work was done in London, and is at present in England, and we cannot leave this part of the subject without begging our readers to take every opportunity of seeing the work of this wonderful master, opportunities which, alas! will be rare enough, who was a naturalistic painter of the first quality. [Sidenote: Swiss art.] Turning to Switzerland, we find no name worth mentioning; and here we would ask those who trace the effects of sublime mountain scenery on the character of men, why there has been no Swiss art worth mentioning? Of course the explanation is simple—because art has nothing whatever to do with sublime scenery. The best art has always been done with the simplest material.

In Spain and Portugal at this time was being felt the influence of the naturalism of the Van Eycks. In France the Fontainebleau School was struggling towards nature, but no genius arose. [Sidenote: Da Vinci.] But in Italy there arose a giant, Leonardo Da Vinci. Never has there been such an instance of the combination of scientific knowledge and artistic capacity in one man. In the Louvre is his best work, the portrait of Monna Lisa, a master-piece, but in our opinion a master-piece eclipsed by other master-pieces. Of this great man we are told that “he constantly had recourse to the direct lessons of nature, saying that such teaching at second hand made the artist, not the child, but the grandchild of nature!” Again we read that “Leonardo was wholly in love with nature, and to know her through science and to mirror her by art were the aims and end of his life.” [Sidenote: M. Angelo.] Michael Angelo is the next great name we come to. Woltmann and Woermann say that “the mightiest artist soul that has lived and worked throughout Christian ages is Michael Angelo Buonarroti.” Now this is a literary dogma to which we are totally opposed, and so we are to all the pedantic criticism which follows, about “strong and lofty subjectivity,” “purified ideal,” and what not. It is such writing as this that misleads people. Let Michael Angelo be compared with the standard—nature—by any student of nature, and Michael Angelo will fall immediately. Woltmann and Woermann tell us, “he studied man alone, and for his own sake,” the structure being to him everything. This is what we always felt to be the _fault_ of Michael Angelo, _i.e._ that he was rather an anatomist, and often a lover of pathological specimens, than an artist, although he was a great sculptor. The action of the muscles in his figures may not go beyond the verge of the possible when taken _separately_, and as one would test them with an electric current, but we do insist that when taken as a harmonious whole, the spasmodic action of some muscles as expressed by him would have prevented the exaggerated actions of others by antagonizing their effect. Michael Angelo’s work has always given us the feeling that he had a model, on which, with an electric current, he tested the action of each muscle separately, and then modelled each one separately whilst the circuit was joined; in fact that his works are amateur scientific studies and not works of art; and herein is his weakness, he passes the bounds of nature. Woltmann and Woermann say first of all he does go beyond the bounds of nature, and that therein lies his greatness, and then they flatly contradict themselves, and say an anatomist has informed them that he does not go beyond the bounds of nature, and they quote this as a merit. Our opinion, also that of a student of anatomy, is that he goes beyond the bounds of nature, and exaggerates nature, and so spoils his work completely. He is far below the Greeks. His influence, too, has been hurtful, for he has kept all but very independent and powerful intellects within his traditions.

[Sidenote: Raphael and Correggio.]

Raphael[5] and Correggio we will quickly dismiss, though we are fully aware of the £70,000 reputation of the one, and the literary reputation of the other. Raphael does not appeal to us, with his sickly sentimentality, his puerile composition, his poor technique, and his lack of observation of nature. Many of the figures in his pictures, standing some feet behind the foremost, are taller and larger than those in front. We feel sure he had no independence of mind. He was a religious youth, with no great power of thought, and time will give him his true place. But as a taxpayer we must enter a mild protest against the ineptitude of authorities who pay such heavy prices for pictures such as the Raphael referred to. There was a small picture of a head—the head of a doctor—by an unknown hand, hanging near the Raphael, which, as a work of art, is infinitely its superior, but it was done by _an unknown hand_. (These pictures have since been re-hung.) For that £70,000 what a splendid collection of good work by men of the present day could have been purchased, a collection every single picture of which might easily be superior to all the Raphaels in the world as works of art!

Footnote 5:

M. Charcot has recently shown that Raphael’s demoniacs are all false and untrue.

[Sidenote: Del Sarto.]

To the same period belongs Andrea del Sarto, a naturalistic painter of great power. He had more feeling for nature than most of the men of his time, and his breadth of treatment and truthfulness of colouring are admirable. Of course he painted religious pictures, but from the naturalistic point of view they are wonderful. The student must study the portrait in the National Gallery painted by him.

[Sidenote: Titian.]

The next and last great master of this period is Titian, another of the few entitled to the name of genius. His portraits are his best works. Michael Angelo is reputed to have said, “This man might have been as eminent in design as he is true to nature and masterly in counterfeiting the life, and then nothing could be desired better or more perfect.” Titian’s works show that he had much more love for nature than Michael Angelo ever showed, and we think it a pity for Michael Angelo’s sake that he did not take a leaf from Titian’s book instead of criticizing his power of design. His landscape backgrounds show a feeling for nature far above anything painted up to that time. After his day art in Italy fell into evil ways, and no Italian name stands out even to this day. The study of nature was neglected, illogical traditions slipped in, and though some writers on painting talk of “Naturalists,” in the period of decadence, citing Caravaggio and others, we would fain know what they mean by the term “Naturalists,” for the painters they cite were no students of nature, as is shown by their works, which are more realistic than naturalistic, they being as much students of nature as are the “professional” photographers of to-day, whose ideas of nature are sharpness and wealth of detail. [Sidenote: The camera obscura.] Canaletto’s pictures look like bad photographs, and that he used a camera obscura is well known, for Count Algarotti has told us as much. He includes Ribera and other Tramontane masters in the list of those who used the camera obscura. [Sidenote: Ribera.] Ribera however, is no small painter, although he is not a great master. The passages in some of his works are masterful, as in the dead Christ at the National Gallery.

FROM THE RENASCENCE TO MODERN TIMES.

[Sidenote: Preamble.]

We shall now glance over the works of the great artists throughout Europe from the time of the Renascence period downwards, and see how and what influence Naturalism had on them, and we shall inquire whether the loving truthfulness to and study of nature and adhesion to the subjects of every-day life was not the secret of the success of all who stand out as pre-eminent during this period. The simplest method will be to take separately the countries where art has flourished.

[Sidenote: Spain.]

Beginning with Spain, we find at the outset from history that there was but little hope for art. Religion enchained art, and that terrible stain on ignorant Spain, the Inquisition, gave rise to the office of “Inspector of Sacred Pictures.” This office was no sinecure, for it controlled all the artists' movements, even prescribing how much of the virgin’s naked foot should be shown. Comments are needless, for how could art flourish under such circumstances? One name, however, comes at last to break through all rule, and in 1599, at Seville, was born Velasquez. [Sidenote: Velasquez.] Velasquez, though moving from his youth up in the most refined society of his native town, had the might of genius to see that the falsely sentimental work of his predecessors was not the true stuff, and he, like all great workers, made Nature his watchword. He is reputed to have said he “would rather be the first of vulgar painters than the second of refined ones,” and though he began by painting still life straight from nature, he finally became in his portraits one of the most refined, truthful, and greatest of painters the world has ever seen. Though greatly influenced by the religious tendencies of the time, we find him often painting the life around him, and we have from his brush water-carriers, and even drunkards; but he finally reached his greatest heights and the exercise of his full powers in portraiture. All who have a chance, and all who have not should try and create one, should go to the National Gallery and study the remarkable portrait of Philip of Spain. Barely has portraiture attained such a level as in this example, and what was the oath this painter took? “Never to do anything without nature before him.” [Sidenote: Murillo.] The next name, great in some ways, but not to be compared with Velasquez, is Murillo; and when was he great? Was it in his sickly sentimental religious pictures? No, certainly not. It was in such pictures as the Spanish peasant boys, such as can be seen in the Dulwich Gallery. [Sidenote: Dulwich Gallery.] This gallery is open to the public, and quite easy of access, and should not be neglected. [Sidenote: Fortuny.] The last Spanish name of note is that of Fortuny, a Catalonian, who is often mistaken for a Frenchman, since he lived in Paris some years ago. Fortuny is deserving of much praise as having been the first to shake off the slavery of “geometrical perspective.” His best pictures were homely and festal scenes, chiefly interiors, which he painted as he saw them without any preconceived ideas of perspective. For this new departure, and on account of his work, Fortuny deserves all praise. Since his death, in 1874, no Spanish painter of note has come to the fore, but art in that country languishes in prettiness, false sentimentality, and works done for popularity; the _ephemeridæ_ of art.

GERMANY.

Germany seems to have neglected the lessons taught her by Durer and Holbein, and the mystics seize her and carry her away from nature, and, therefore, from art. Since the days of Holbein no really great man has arisen. [Sidenote: Kaulbach.] Kaulbach, who has been well described as “all literature,” is praised by some, but he does not seem to have had even poetic ideas. Nature to him was nothing, but the petty doings of _erring_ man were everything. [Sidenote: Makart.] [Sidenote: Heffner.] Makart was meretricious and small, and Heffner’s pictures are like bad photographs in colour, just the class of photography we are now writing against. Had he been a photographer, he would never have risen above the topographical, as he has never risen [Sidenote: Munkacsy.] above the topographical in painting. Greater is the Hungarian, Munkacsy; but is he an immortal? We doubt it.

[Sidenote: Verestchagin.]

In Russia, Verestchagin is the only name that has made any stir, but he, like Heffner, sees Nature topographically, and the only emotion caused by his “show” was called up by the oriental rugs.

FLEMISH ART.

[Sidenote: Rubens and Van Dyck.]

Rubens and Van Dyck we mention only to show we have not overlooked them. The work of both shows more regard for “getting on” and the “ancients” than for nature: it is lacking in feeling and in truth. Van Dyck is often wood itself. [Sidenote: Teniers and Van Ostade.] Teniers the younger as an artist is a long way ahead of either of these men, and in some ways he goes very far. Van Ostade is often good also. His portrait of a man lighting his pipe, a small picture to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery, is a masterpiece of painting, and as fine as anything of the kind done up to this period. This little gem is the work of a lover of nature and an artist. It is quite a small canvas, about 10 × 6, with no “subject,” nothing but a man lighting his pipe; yet it is perfect, and far surpasses all the sentimentalities of Raphael, or the _tours de force_ of Rubens. The student must see this picture without fail.

ENGLISH ART.

[Sidenote: Hogarth.]

The English painters of note begin with Hogarth, though the bad work of Lely and Kneller is cited as English, because executed in England, yet neither of these two men was English, and no lover of art would be proud of them if they were. Hogarth, then, was the father of English painting, and he began on good healthy lines, for he was a naturalist to the backbone, choosing his subjects from his own time; and though he affected to point a moral in his pictures, still there is the grip of reality and insight into essentials in his work which mark him as a great painter. The reader will probably have seen his work at the National Gallery; if not, he should do so at once.

[Sidenote: Wilson.]

We pass over Wilson, for in his work is not apparent any love of nature, but only a feeling for classicism. [Sidenote: Reynolds.] The next name is that of Joshua Reynolds. He was a mannerist, and, though successful in his own time, is very mortal. [Sidenote: Gainsborough.] Close on his knightly heels came one of the true immortals, Thomas Gainsborough, one of the best portrait-painters the world has ever seen. His landscapes, though better than any up to his time, are not good, and his reputation rests chiefly on his power in portraiture, in which he was certainly a master. Naturalism breathes from his canvas; he has seized the very essence of his sitters' being, and portrayed them full of life and beauty. See his portrait of Mrs. Tickell and Mrs. Sheridan in the Dulwich Gallery; you will never forget the charm and the beauty of the ladies, wherever you go afterwards. Mrs. Siddons, in the National Gallery, too, is wonderful. Study well these two, and then go and gaze on a portrait by Reynolds, and we doubt not you will have learnt something of the gulf that separated the two painters. Gainsborough was, to our mind, the first immortal in English art, and fit to rank with Van Eyck, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, and Velasquez. [Sidenote: Kauffman and Fuseli.] Leaving “the Kauffman” and Fuseli to those who can admire them, we pass on to poor George Morland, a genius in his own branch of art. [Sidenote: Morland.] This man studied and painted from life, and his pictures bear testimony that he did so, and notwithstanding the drawbacks caused by his unfortunate temperament, his name lives and grows more respected every day, for his study was nature, and so his work will always be interesting.

[Sidenote: Bewick.]

We now come to a great and deservedly well-known name—that of Thomas Bewick, the engraver on wood. Here we have a man working in a humble way, humble that is as compared with painting or sculpture, yet loving and studying nature in every detail, and following her in all her mystery and charm, only daring now and then to add some quiet fancy of his own, and yet he lives and his name grows greater every day. A true naturalist and a real artist was he, and his fame will be lasting. When Wilson is archaic, Bewick will be held up for admiration, so powerful is the effect of the honest study of nature in his work. His birds and quadrupeds we all know; but if any reader should not know them, he should at once get a copy and study the cuts in it. Mr. Quaritch has, we believe, recently issued a reprint of the book.

[Sidenote: Wood-engraving.]

Wood-cutting has degenerated. Men of little training and no artistic feeling took it up, and slowly but surely the art decayed until it became purely mechanical, and so it has remained in England. Now it bids fair to be superseded by photo-mechanical processes, as it will undoubtedly be entirely superseded directly a really artistic process of reproduction is discovered for printing with the type. In the United States, however, wood-engraving took a fresh start, and brought photography to its aid, and our opinion is that the effect obtained in photographs printed on albumenized paper became the effect which the wood-cutters aimed for, and the result is a print of wonderful detail and beauty, but for our taste it is too polished and neat, the effect of overlaying is far too visible, and, in short, it does not render nature truly, and though far surpassing anything of the kind done in England, it is, as a work of art, altogether eclipsed by Bewick’s work, the reason being that Bewick only took wood-engraving as a medium for the expression of the beauties of nature, every line in his blocks being full of meaning. But the hydra head of commercialism showed itself, and wood-engravers with little or no feeling for or knowledge of nature set to work turning out blocks like machines. Photography will keep these artisans from falling utterly away from nature, yet such work is harmful and of no artistic good to us, though it may please the public. Had there been no constant returns to nature (as there must always be in some measure when a photograph is used) decay would be sharp and speedy, but photography bolsters up the dying art. Lately several woodblocks have been produced cut from photographs, wherein all the beauty of the photographs has been utterly lost by the engraver, and the results are bastard slips of trade; but we shall have more to say on this point later on. One thing at any rate photography can claim: that is so long as it can be practised, art can never slip back to the crude work done in some eras of its decadence. Photography has helped many of these feeble wood-cutters immensely, and the _épicier_-critic calls these works “precious.” It is extraordinary how men will deceive themselves.

[Sidenote: Water-colours.]

Now we come to a branch of art which is essentially English, namely, painting in water-colours. It is not meant by this that water-colour is a new medium, or that the English water-colourists were the first to use the medium, for the tempera paintings were but water-colours, and Albert Durer and others used it considerably; but what is implied is that the English were the first to adopt it largely and develop it, though it was reserved for the modern Dutchmen and Frenchmen to show its full capabilities. The painter in water-colour has not, of course, the same control over his medium as he has in using oils, and the work when finished even by the best artists, has an artificial look that belies nature. But to see really true water-colours the reader must not look for them in English galleries. No Englishman ever came so near to nature—to the subtleties of nature—in water-colour as do the modern Dutch and French painters. The reader would do well to go to Goupil’s exhibitions of modern Dutch and French painters, which are held from time to time, and keep a look-out for water-colours, and he should carefully study them at the Paris _Salon_. Prophecy is always risky and of little count, but we would like to venture a prophecy that water-colours will never take a very prominent place in art, because no great genius will ever be content with the medium. Of the bulk of English water-colours of to-day there is not one word of praise to be said, and the student in art matters will do well to avoid all exhibitions of this work until he has carefully studied the best work in art, and until he has a greater insight into nature; and then let him go to the various water-colour exhibitions, and if he does not receive a mental shock, we shall be greatly surprised. There is but little nature in them, indeed but little anything except pounds, shillings, and pence. The best of them are nauseous imitations of Turner, and the whole of them show an entire ignorance of the simplest phenomena of nature, which would be startling did we not remember that most of them are painted from “notes” and “memory.” These remarks do not of course apply to such work as is done by a few modern painters, such as Mr. Whistler, but these paint in oils first and water-colour afterwards. [Sidenote: Girtin.] The first man worth considering in this branch of art is Girtin, who was naturalistic as far as he could be, and had he not died at such an early age (under thirty) the probability is that Turner would have been eclipsed by him. Of Turner we shall speak later on. [Sidenote: D. Cox.] The name of David Cox rises above the men of his time; but, after all, his is not the name of an immortal. He aimed well, however, for he tried to paint the life and landscape of his time. [Sidenote: De Wint.] Much has been written about De Wint; but if we go to the basement of the National Gallery and study De Wint, and then go to Norfolk and study the landscape there, we shall find Mr. De Wint is but a sorry painter. One thing, however, may be said in his praise. He painted out of doors—not in his studio—and was no doubt a lover of nature. His peasants are not the fearful travesties of Hill, Barret, and Collins. Lewis and Cotman and Vincent have, however, done some better things than De Wint.

Returning to oil painting, we must pass over the long list of names, including Presidents of the Royal Academy, whose names are now all but if not quite forgotten, for their peasantry of the Opera Bouffe, their landscapes after Claude, their works of the imagination can now interest no one, and never did interest any but the painters themselves and an uneducated public.

[Sidenote: Turner.]

Then we come to Turner, that competitor in painting. To use a colloquialism—“There is a great man gone wrong.” Had he but lived to-day, he might have been an immortal; but he does not live, and his lease of fame is not for so long a time as is generally imagined. It has had an artificial afflatus through the writings of a “splendidly false” critic, and, curiously enough, the critic, like the artist, has had insight enough to see the true purpose of art, namely, that the artist should be true to nature, and should be an interpreter of the life and landscape of his own time; and, curiously enough, the critic, like the artist, does not know what nature is. The critic has taken Turner as nature unalloyed, and hence the whole of that gigantic work of his is built on sand. The critic never had much, if any, weight with the best artists. Even Turner himself was amused with the reasonings of his eulogistic logic! and gave it out as much as a man can give out about his eulogist, that all the tall talk about his pictures was rubbish. But Turner was sincere according to his lights. To say of his earlier pictures that he painted in _rivalry_ or imitation, if you like, of Wilson, Poussin, and Claude, is to say they are bad, as they undoubtedly are. This spirit of rivalry never seems to have deserted Turner, for in his will he left directions bequeathing one of his pictures to the Academy, on condition it should be hung side by side with a Claude. The spirit of this is, of course, patent. He thinks he has beaten Claude, and that is enough. No great genius would have descended to that. Art was to him an unending competition, and the result was that nature was neglected; and though he revelled in the life and landscape of his own times, yet the small spirit of competition was his ruin. Had he humbly, like Constable, had faith in his tenets, and lovingly and modestly clung to nature, his fame might have been immense and everlasting. His later pictures are, of course, the eccentricities of senility, and the false colourings seen by a diseased eye, as has been lately shown, and are as unlike nature as one could expect such work to be. But let us take his “Frosty Morning” at the National Gallery. Look well at it, and what do you find? Falsity everywhere, and most of the essence and poetry of a frosty morning completely missed. The truest picture by Turner that we know is a little aquarelle at South Kensington—“A View on the Thames.” Here, then, when we get Turner true to the truth which he felt in himself, and not competing (that we know of), what do we find? We find him immensely behind De Hooghe in a truthful and poetic expression of nature, as is well possible for so great a man. The Liber Studiorum should also be carefully studied, noting the falsities; trees drawn by rule, figures not drawn at all, the total disregard of the phenomena of nature, sometimes even the evidence of several suns in one picture. There is no truth of tone; no atmosphere; the values are all wrong; all the charm and subtlety of nature completely missed. [Sidenote: De Hooghe and Clays.] Go to De Hooghe or Clays after this, and what a difference! Here are no meretricious adornments, but more nature and less of erring, feeble man and his mannerisms. Turner is not the man to study, and if you cannot “understand him” well and good. Many artists cannot and do not wish to, for there is nothing to understand, and many French painters of great ability jeer at his very name. [Sidenote: Constable and Crome.] With what relief we turn from Turner to Constable and Crome. These two East Anglians are giants in the history of English painting. All should study Constable’s works at the National Gallery and South Kensington; and his life by Leslie is well worth reading, as showing how much of a naturalist in theory he was. The best example of his work that we know is a little river scene, with some willows, which we saw at South Kensington Museum. His work is not, however, perfect. You feel that there is no atmosphere in his pictures. This is due to their being out of tone. He had not the knowledge of nature that characterized De Hooghe, and was not always faithful to his creed: hence his failings. For though we read in his life such passages as these:—“In such an age as this, painting should be _understood_, not looked on with blind wonder, nor considered only as poetic inspiration, but as a pursuit—_legitimate_, _scientific_, and _mechanical_.”... “The old rubbish of art, the musty, commonplace, wretched pictures which gentlemen collect, hang up, and display to their friends, may be compared to Shakspeare’s ‘Beggarly Account of Empty Boxes.’ Nature is anything but this, either in poetry, painting, or in the fields.”... “Observe that thy best director, thy perfect guide is nature. Copy from her. In her paths is thy triumphal arch. She is above all other teachers.”... “Is it not folly, said Mr. Northcote to me in the Exhibition, as we were standing before ——’s picture, for a man to paint what he can never see? Is it not sufficiently difficult to paint what he does see? This delightful lesson leads me to ask, what is painting but an imitative art—an art that is to _realize_, not to _feign_. Then some dream that every man who will not submit to long toil in the imitation of nature, flies up, becomes a phantom, and produces dreams of nonsense and abortions. He thinks to save himself under a fine imagination, which is generally, and almost always in young men, the scapegoat of folly and idleness.”... “There has never been a lay painter, nor can there be. The art requires a long apprenticeship, being _mechanical_, as well as intellectual.”... “My pictures will never be popular,” he said, “for they have no _handling_. But I see no _handling_ in nature.”... Blake once, on looking through Constable’s sketch-books, said of a drawing of fir-trees, “Why, this is not drawing, but _inspiration_!” and Constable replied, “I never knew it before; I meant it for drawing.”... “If the mannerists had never existed, painting would have been easily understood.”... “I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught profession; that it is _scientific_, as well as poetic; that imagination alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand a comparison with _realities_.”... “The deterioration of art has everywhere proceeded from similar causes, the imitation of preceding styles, with little reference to nature.”... “It appears to me that pictures have been overvalued, held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged, rather than the reverse.”... “The young painter, who, regardless of present popularity, would leave a name behind him, must become the patient pupil of Nature”—yet Constable was not always true to himself.

[Sidenote: Crome.]

Crome, who was, in our opinion, a better painter than Constable, was like him a naturalist, and true to his faith. There is an amusing scene in his life, which we will quote. “A brother of the art met Crome in a remote spot of healthy verdure, with a troop of young persons. Not knowing the particular object of the assembly, he ventured to address the Norwich painter thus: ‘Why, I thought I had left you in the city engaged in your school.’ ‘I am in my school,’ replied Crome, ‘and teaching my scholars from the only true examples. Do you think,’ pointing to a lovely distance, ‘either you or I can do better than that?’”

Crome has expressed his view of art in the following remarks, which we read in his life:—“The man who would place an animal where the animal would not place itself, would do the same with a tree, a bank, a human figure—with any object, in fact, that might occur in Nature; and therefore such a man may be a good colourist or a good draughtsman, but he is no artist.” At the National Gallery is to be seen a very good specimen of his work, and one well worth studying. Vincent, another East Anglian, did some wonderful work, quite equal to Van der Veldes'.

[Sidenote: Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise.]

We now pass over the names of Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise, none masters, though they have been called “great colourists,” whatever that may mean. A great colourist should be a true colourist, and Müller is almost chromographic in originality in this respect.

[Sidenote: Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke.]

Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke, are names that stand out at this period, and the greatest of them is Cooke; his painting of “Lobster Pots,” at South Kensington, being wonderfully fresh and true; but none are poets; they have but little insight into nature, though Linnell at times shows the true feeling. A long list of well-known names follows, such as Hilton, Haydon, Etty, and Eastlake, but none are masters, and we only mention them to caution against them. [Sidenote: Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason.] Of considerable power were Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason, but none of them was really good, although much has been written and said in praise of their works. They are all false in sentiment, and all lack insight into the poetry of nature. [Sidenote: Wilkie and Landseer.] In technique Wilkie and Landseer are often strong, and they will always appeal to a certain class of people. [Sidenote: Mason.] Mason’s work is a fine example of the folly of introducing the so-called “imaginative” into landscape. Take his “Harvest Moon,” when and where did ever men exist with such limbs? the whole picture smacks of the model and of the “stage idealism;” there is no nature there, but a laughable parody of it. [Sidenote: F. Walker.] The next really great name in English art is that of Frederick Walker, a naturalist, and above all an artist who had a great grip of and insight into nature. But in his work the traditions of the idyllic peasants of the golden age lingers, and we find his ploughman merrily running along with a plough as though it were a toy cart; and what a ploughman! he never saw a field in his life. This is a grave fault, and takes away from the greatness of Walker, yet notwithstanding this his name will always be a landmark in English art. The reader will be able to study one of his works in the National Gallery. The date of Walker’s death brings us down to the actual present. Regarding living English painters we will remain discreetly silent. It must be remembered that English art is young, beginning as it practically does in the eighteenth century, for the miniature-painters cannot count for much, and we must therefore not expect too much. Great men, especially great artists, are rare as Koh-i-noors. England can boast of a few, such as Gainsborough, and Constable and Crome. [Sidenote: American Art.] Of American art there is but little to say. [Sidenote: Whistler.] No name stands out worthy of record till J. M. Whistler appears, and he, though an American by birth, can hardly be called an American painter, for the life and landscape of his own country he neglects, as also do[Sidenote: Sargent and Harrison.] Sargent and Harrison, two strong painters, both French by education. Whistler’s name rises far above any artist living in England, his portrait of his mother and those of Carlyle and Sarasate are works good for all time and worthy to be ranked with the best. Mr. Whistler’s influence, too, has been great and good. As a pioneer he led the revolt against ignorant criticism by his attack on Ruskin. Vide “Art and Art Criticism, Whistler _v._ Ruskin.” His life in England has been a long battle for art, and though many do not approve of all his methods, and still less of his brilliant but illogical “Ten o'Clock,” his work and influence have been for good. Another great step in advance, introduced by Mr. Whistler, has been the reform in hanging pictures; though he has not been allowed to carry out his plans thoroughly, yet he has managed his exhibitions much more artistically than any others in the country. In landscape his night-scene at Valparaiso is marvellous, and we doubt whether paint ever more successfully expressed so difficult a subject. But even as Homer nods, so does at times Mr. Whistler, and sometimes “impressions” in oil, water-colour, and etching appear with his name, an honour of which they are unworthy. Yet so long as art lives will Mr. Whistler live in his Carlyle, his portrait of his mother, Lady Campbell, and some smaller works. [Sidenote: Sargent.] Mr. Sargent’s Carnations and Lilies must be fresh in our readers' minds. We will only say of it that we never saw the actual physical facts of nature so truthfully and subtly rendered. It is indeed a picture whose title to admiration will be lasting, and if the reader has not already seen it or, having seen it, has listened to ignorant critics, and passed it over as being “ugly,” let him go to South Kensington and view it again, for the nation is its fortunate possessor. Let him look well at it, and consider what it is. It represents a garden at the time of day when the sunlight is fading but has not quite gone—crepuscule in fact, and with the dying light of day is represented the artificial light of Chinese lanterns. This is indeed a masterpiece. [Sidenote: Harrison.] Mr. Harrison’s “In Arcady” is wonderful in its effect of sunshine through trees, though the picture is marred by the low type of the models introduced and by the painting of the figures. Had it but been pure landscape it would have been a wonderful piece of work. Never have we seen the effect of noontide heat so well rendered. This, then, brings us to the end of American art, and it is to be hoped that men strong as these will go back to their own country and paint the life of their own land and time. [Sidenote: Hunt.] William Hunt is a man much thought of in America, but we have never seen any of his paintings, though his book shows him to be a naturalist to the heart, and the reader will do well to read it.

Here, then, we must leave England and America, only remarking that things look bad for the education of the American public when the best Americans stay away, and when rich sausage-makers buy Herbert’s works with which to educate themselves, and when catalogue compilers take over boat-loads of English water-colours with which still further to lead them wrong. America wants no such education as can be given by Herbert’s senilities or English water-colours. She wants a band of earnest young men, who, having learned their technique in the best schools in the world, namely those of Paris, shall return to America and paint the scenes of their own country, and therein only lies the hope for American art.

DUTCH ART.

[Sidenote: Rembrandt.]

The first mighty name of the modern period is that of Rembrandt Van Ryn. Holland, by her bravery, had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and with it the crushing yoke of Catholicism, and stood free to follow her own bent. As a result of this freedom a body of Naturalists arose who did more for modern art than any body of painters in the world. Rembrandt, though a giant and fit for the company of the immortals, Van Eyck, Velasquez, &c., was not perfect, for sometimes the power of tradition lurks in his work, and he forces his portraits by warm colours in the background, an artifice which was not at all necessary, and which Mr. Whistler has done without. There are a number of his works in the National Gallery, and a good one in the Dulwich Gallery, where is also a great Velasquez, so that the reader should not fail to go there. Rembrandt was inspired by the simple life around him, portraits and interiors satisfied him. It is a significant fact that the greatest painters, Durer, Da Vinci, Velasquez, and Rembrandt have been content to paint the life of their own times and not to draw upon their imagination. The learned painter, it cannot be too often repeated, is he who is learned in all the resources of his art, and we question very much whether one great reason why so few great painters have arisen is not that artists as a rule are so poorly and narrowly educated. At any rate, the opposite holds good, that the most highly and soundly educated artists, men who moved and held their own in the best intellectual societies of their time, were naturalists. But to return to Rembrandt. Perhaps his mastery, his grip of nature, show forth as much in his etchings as in his paintings. [Sidenote: Etchings.] He, like all great etchers, and there are few enough, used etching only within its legitimate limits, that is, as a method of expression by line, in a simple, direct and brief manner. An etching by a master may be looked upon in the same light as an epigram,[6] sonnet or ode by a poet. Many of Rembrandt’s etchings can be seen in the British Museum, and should be thoroughly well studied; after which study, pick up some of the unmeaning work of Seymour Haden or any other modern etcher, except Mr. Whistler and Rajon,[7] and you will, without doubt, distinguish the difference. Most modern works are good examples of how _not_ to etch. Line after line is put in without any meaning at all; there is no evidence of the study of nature in the work and the subjects are trivial and commonplace. One of the greatest evils commercialism has done to art is to ruin modern etching, by having pictures of the old masters copied slavishly by the etcher, and elaborated and worked up, so that one wearies of them. Such work can scarcely be said to rise to the dignity of fine art at all, and Rembrandt, we think, would rise in horror from his grave, if he could see his paintings reproduced by etchers. _Any_ reproduction of a picture is unsatisfactory and does not become fine art at all, but is only useful to publish reflections of the mind whose work it is intended to represent, and for our part we think a good photo-etching does this better, because more faithfully, than any other process. It is difficult to imagine the mind that can set itself to work for months, even years, at an engraving or etching from another man’s work when the world is so full of pathos and poetry, and subjects abound on all sides. No great man was ever found in this category.

Footnote 6:

Epigram here being used in the old Greek sense.

Footnote 7:

Now dead.

Durer and Rembrandt etched, and Mr. Whistler etches from Nature direct, not impertinently—there is no other word for it—tampering with other men’s work. But the public will buy these reproductions, and an artificial value is thus given to them, and the dealers will of course encourage whatever pays. [Sidenote: Print-sellers.] One etching by Rembrandt himself is worth all these reproductions of pictures by engraving, etching, mezzo-tint, or photo-etching, because it is an original work of art, the outcome of the loving study of nature. Not long ago a letter appeared in one of the literary “weeklies,” complaining of the stamping of photogravures by the Print-sellers' Association. The obvious answer to this print-seller’s letter is, of course, that with the works of living painters, the style of reproduction rests with the painter, and if the artist is satisfied with photo-etching, what has any one else to say—painters are the best judges of these things. Very few painters we know would entrust the reproduction of their pictures to etchers or engravers, or would countenance the _publication of another man’s view of their work_. We have seen photographs of Whistler’s Sarasate, but never engravings of it. With bad paintings on the other hand, the engraving of them has often made the painter’s name as well as the engraver’s. We could cite an example of a living painter who owes his reputation chiefly to the engravings of his works, and poor things they are even when embellished by the process. At the time this discussion was raging amongst the philistines, it was gravely asserted that “engravings always rose in price,” and this was given as a reason for buying them. Have the engravings of Mr. Landseer’s pictures risen in price! Ask the poor subscribers to the first copies. Will the engravings of Doré’s works rise in price? _Quien sabe?_ If the reader is under any such erroneous idea, let him attend a few sales of engravings in London, and he will see proofs of etchings and engravings knocked down for a few shillings.

[Sidenote: Van Ostade.]

Leaving with regret the great Rembrandt, we pass over several smaller but often-quoted names, the most influential name we come to is Van Ostade, another naturalist of great power, of whom we have already spoken. [Sidenote: De Hooghe.] Next we come to De Hooghe. This is the man who first really gripped thoroughly and expressed truly on canvas the mystery and poetry of the open air. There are two specimens (courtyards) of this wonderful painter’s work at the National Gallery. They are an education in themselves, and are well worth long and careful study for hours, indeed there are few pictures more worthy of study. There they hang, fresh as nature and beautiful as paint can express, good, valuable for all time—why? Because the painter has known how to give the sentiment of _plein air_. There they hang true and lovely, pictures of Dutch life in the seventeenth century. No history can come up to them in historic value, none can be so true.

[Sidenote: Cuyp.]

Cuyp we will pass over with few words. A great second-rate man he undoubtedly was, but his hot colouring smacks of the imagination rather than of nature. Paul Potter and Ruysdael also are men with unduly great reputations; they are both false in sentiment, and they handled nature with impertinence. Any careful observer can see that Ruysdael played with the lighting of landscapes as did Turner, and of course it is well known that he was not particular as to painting his landscapes on the spot. There is no nature in him, it is all Ruysdael, Ruysdael, Ruysdael, eternally Ruysdael.

[Sidenote: Hobbema.]

Hobbema at times verged near the truth and greatness, as for instance in the painting of a road with trees, in the National Gallery, which our readers will do well to study; but he is insincere and untrue all through and was not a naturalist. [Sidenote: Van der Velde.] In sea painting, Van der Velde the younger is wonderful in his truth and love of nature. Good specimens of his work can be seen in the National Gallery.

[Sidenote: Israels.]

Coming down to our own times, the elder Israels stands out as a giant, a distinguished master. We have only been able to see a few of his pictures, but those show us the master. Hopeful, indeed, is the art of Holland and Belgium with such men as Artz, Mauve,[8] Maas M. Maris, Mesdag, Boosboom, and others. The reader will often have opportunities of seeing works by these men at the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery, and Goupil’s, and he should take every opportunity of studying their works most carefully.

Footnote 8:

Now dead.

FRANCE.

And now, lastly, we come to France—France where art has in modern times reached its highest level. France has in modern times always been the leader of civilization in Europe, and even now she is in the van of modern progress, our intellectual mother. We may have a finer literature to show, in Germany science may be more profound, but in all that is greater than literature or science, that is in solving the problem of being and throwing off the yoke of religious and political despotism, France has become the leader. Practical, energetic, and thrifty, the French with all their faults, still remain in many ways the first nation of the world. France and the French have more of the Ancient Greek’s _esprit_ than any other nation has or ever has had. In all the humanizing influences that distinguish brute man from civilized man, the French are to the fore, but in histrionic, glyptic and pictorial art, she is unapproachable, and still reigns Queen of the Arts, in these branches.

[Sidenote: Poussin and Le Brun.]

Passing over Nicolas Poussin, Le Brun and other lesser names, whose works are not those of masters, [Sidenote: Claude Lorraine.] we arrive at Claude Lorraine, who may claim to have an inkling of the truth and whose work shows a distinct advance on Poussin, but who after all is no master because not loyal to nature, and therefore his already doubtful reputation will go on diminishing. [Sidenote: Watteau.] The first name that really stands forth as great in French art is that of Watteau. Watteau, however, cannot be ranked among the Immortals, for though his technique was marvellous, and his power of drawing unsurpassed, he like all his contemporaries, artists and otherwise, neglected nature, living as they did in the artificial times of Louis XIV. There is a picture in the National Gallery which well explains what we mean. Then name after name is handed down to us, but in vain do we look for a master among them. [Sidenote: Boucher and Greuze.] Boucher and Greuze still have admirers, but they are not great painters, because they did not study nature or at least did not succeed in painting her, as it is very easy to see from their works. [Sidenote: Delacroix.] Delacroix strove to rise from the artificial influence of the time, but he was not strong enough to become a master. [Sidenote: Ingres.] It was reserved for Ingres to make a real advance. He, though imbued to some extent with the old spirit of classicism, was a deep lover of nature, and the story of the struggle for the mastery between those two opposing tendencies is the story of his art and life. Though he rises above all previous painters of his country, he cannot be ranked with the masters. With Ary Scheffer there was a retrogression which in its turn was counteracted by Delaroche. [Sidenote: Delaroche.] It was Delaroche who afterwards said an artist would one day have to use photography. Still, in vain do we look for a genius, and until Constable’s pictures exhibited in 1824 in Paris, aroused the French as to the real aims of art, no really great master appears. But when practical France saw, she immediately took up naturalism. [Sidenote: Descamps.] Then we have first Descamps, who took up the newly revived ideas, but failed, and Rousseau made the real departure—the poetry and mystery of nature roused in him an ardent sympathy, and all honour to him for struggling on at Barbizon, in the face of the neglect and contumacy of the _Salon_.[Sidenote: Rousseau.] But Rousseau, hero though he was, never rose to be a mighty painter, and his works fall far behind those of the best painters of to-day, but as a pioneer his name will always be remembered, and though he failed, he at least took Nature as his watchword. [Sidenote: Corot.] After Rousseau came Corot, a master good for all time. His early works show signs of the classical spirit, from which he had not yet shaken himself free, thus we sometimes see in his early works, peasants strangely habited and reminding one of the seventeenth century or ancient Greece, which is of course ridiculous; but his later work is true and great. Full of breadth and feeling for the subtleties and poetry of nature, he has never been surpassed. Examples of his work in England can sometimes be seen in the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery and at Goupil’s, but it must be remembered that great as Corot is, there is much of his work that is bad. [Sidenote: Daubigny.] Another great painter is Daubigny, a contemporary of Corot’s, and though not such a subtle observer as Corot, still he is a painter whose work has had great influence and will live though it has been surpassed by younger men. [Sidenote: Troyon.] Troyon was another who like Corot loved and studied and painted from nature, but he lacked the insight into nature that Corot had, and his work is not as true as that of his contemporary.

[Sidenote: Millet.]

At length, however, we arrive at an Immortal name, that of Jean François Millet. This great man must not be confounded with two Jean François Millets who lived years before, and who were not artists at all though painters. Everything about J. F. Millet the Great, is worthy of study. Let the student seize every chance of studying his works, chances which will, alas! be rare enough as many of his best pictures are in America and most of the others in France. His pastels and water-colours are not very good, but his etchings which (reproduced) can be seen in the British Museum, are valuable for strength and power. Here is a directness of expression never surpassed. Before leaving him we will quote a few passages from his letters:—

[Sidenote: J. F. Millet.]

“I therefore concede that the beautiful is the suitable.... Understand that I do not speak of absolute beauty, for I do not know what it is, and it seems to me only a tremendous joke. I think people who think and talk about it do so because they have no eyes for natural objects; they are stultified by ‘finished art,’ and think nature not rich enough to furnish all needs. Good people, they poetize instead of being poets. Characterize! that is the object.

“When Poussin sent to M. de Chantelon his picture of the ‘Manna,’ he did not say, ‘Look, what fine _pâte_! Isn’t it swell? Isn’t it tip-top?’ or any of this kind of thing which so many painters seem to consider of such value, though I cannot see why they should. He says: ‘If you remember the first letter which I wrote to you about the movement of the figures which I promised you to put in, and if you look at the whole picture I think you will easily understand which are those who languish, which are filled with admiration, those who pity, those who act from charity, from great necessity, from desire, from the wish to satiate themselves, and others—for the first seven figures on the left hand will tell you all that is written above, and all the rest is of the same kind!’

“Very few painters are sufficiently careful as to the effect of a picture seen at a distance great enough to see all at once, and as a whole. Even if a picture comes together as it should, you hear people say, ‘Yes, but when you come near it is not finished!’ Then of another, which does not look like anything at the distance from which it should be seen, ‘But look at it near by; see how it is finished!’ Nothing counts except the fundamental. If a tailor tries on a coat, he stands off at a distance enough to see the fit. If he likes the general look, it is time enough then to examine the details; but if he should be satisfied with making fine button-holes and other accessories, even if they were _chefs-d'œuvre_, on a badly-cut coat, he will none the less have made a bad job. Is not this true of a piece of architecture, or of anything else? It is the manner of conception of a work which should strike us first, and nothing ought to go outside of that. It is an atmosphere beyond which nothing can exist. There should be a _milieu_ of one kind or another, but that which is adopted should rule.

“As confirmation to the proposition that details are only the complement of the fundamental construction, Poussin says, ‘Being fluted (pilasters) and rich in themselves, we should be careful not to spoil their beauty by the confusion of ornament, for such accessories and incidental subordinate parts are not adapted to works whose principal features are already beautiful, unless with great prudence and judgment, in order that this may give grace and elegance, for ornaments were only invented to modify a certain severity which constitutes pure architecture.’

“We should accustom ourselves to receive from nature all our impressions, whatever they may be, and whatever temperament we may have. We should be saturated and impregnated with her, and think what she wishes to make us think. Truly, she is rich enough to supply us all. And whence, should we draw, if not from the fountain-head? Why for ever urge, as a supreme aim to be reached, that which the great minds have already discovered in her, because they have ruined her with constancy and labour, as Palissy says? But nevertheless, they have no right to dictate for mankind one example for ever. By that means the productions of one man would become the type and the aim of all the productions of the future.

“Men of genius are gifted with a sort of divining-rod; some discover in nature this, others that, according to their kind of scent. Their productions assure you that he who finds is formed to find; but it is funny to see how, when the treasure is unearthed, people come for ages to scratch at that one hole. The point is to know where to find truffles. A dog who has not scent will be but a poor hunter if he can only run at sight of another who scents the game, and who, of course, must always be the first. And if we only hunt through imitativeness, we cannot run with much spirit, for it is impossible to be enthusiastic about nothing. Finally, men of genius have the mission to show, out of the riches of nature, only that which they are permitted to take away, and to show them to those who would not have suspected their presence, nor ever found them, as they have not the necessary faculties. They serve as translators and interpreters to those who cannot understand her language. They can say, like Palissy, ‘You see these things in my cabinet.’ They, too, may say, ‘If you give yourself up to nature, as we have done, she will let you take away of these treasures according to your powers. You only need intelligence and good will.’

“It must be an enormous vanity or an enormous folly that makes certain men believe that they can rectify the pretended lack of taste or the errors of Nature. On what authority do they lean? With them who do not love her, and who do not trust her, she does not let herself be understood, and retires into her shell. She must be constrained and reserved with them. And, of course, they say, ‘The grapes are green. Since we cannot reach them, let us speak ill of them.’ We might here apply the words of the prophet, ‘God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.’

“Nature gives herself to those who take the trouble to court her, but she wishes to be loved exclusively. We love certain works only because they proceed from her. Every other work is pedantic and empty.

“We can start from any point and arrive at the sublime, and all is proper to be expressed, provided our aim is high enough. Then what you love with the greatest passion and power becomes a beauty of your own, which imposes itself upon others. Let each bring his own. An impression demands expression, and especially requires that which is capable of showing it most clearly and strongly. The whole arsenal of nature has ever been at the command of strong men, and their genius has made them take, not the things which are conventionally called the most beautiful, but those which suited best their places. In its own time and place, has not everything its part to play? Who shall dare to say that a potato is inferior to a pomegranate?

“Decadence set in when people began to believe that art, which she (Nature) had made, was the supreme end; when such and such an artist was taken as a model and aim without remembering that he had his eyes fixed on infinity.

“They still spoke of Nature, but meant thereby only the life-model which they used, but from whom they got nothing but conventionalities. If, for instance, they had to paint a figure out of doors, they still copied, for the purpose, a model lighted by a studio light, without appearing to dream that it had no relation to the luminous diffusion of light out of doors—a proof that they were not moved by a very deep emotion, which would have prevented artists from being satisfied with so little. For, as the spiritual can only be expressed by the observation of objects in their truest aspect, this physical untruth annihilated all others. There is no isolated truth.

“The moment that a man could do something masterly in painting, it was called good. If he had great anatomical knowledge, he made that pre-eminent, and was greatly praised for it, without thinking that these fine acquirements ought to serve, as indeed all others should, to express the thoughts of the mind. Then, instead of thoughts, he would have a programme. A subject would be sought which would give him a chance to exhibit certain things which came easiest to his hand. Finally, instead of making one’s knowledge the humble servant of one’s thought, on the contrary, the thought was suffocated under the display of a noisy cleverness. Each eyed his neighbour, and was full of enthusiasm for a manner.”

[Sidenote: Bastien-Lepage.]

Bastien-Lepage we had judged from reproductions, but we find lately, on seeing some of his work, that we had all along misjudged him, thinking him a much greater painter than he really is. This study of Bastien-Lepage has been a revelation to us of the quite misleading and dangerous power of reproductions of a painter’s work in black and white. All the black and white reproductions that we have seen of this painter’s work give the impression of much greater work than the originals really are, and we would caution all our readers against judging of any painter’s or sculptor’s work by a reproduction by any method, from etching to cheap wood-cutting, for they may be woefully misled. We feel sure these reproductions—no matter of what kind—will have a very harmful effect on art, and will give quite wrong opinions of work; and they are, no matter of what kind, whether etching, engraving, photo-etching, woodcut, or photograph, to be strongly condemned. Bastien-Lepage is not even always strong in drawing, and his sentiment is often false, untrue, and brutal, and not nearly so fine as Courbet’s sentiment, yet Courbet’s preceded him; he was but a follower, where Courbet was a leader.

[Sidenote: Breton and Lhermitte.]

Of the older living painters, Jules Breton and Lhermitte stand out as strong men; but Breton has long ago been passed, and Lhermitte is not the man he was, but some of Lhermitte’s work will live always. There is a remarkably fine Lhermitte in the Luxembourg, which every one should try and see. Both are naturalistic painters. Of other living painters much might be written, for they, in our opinion, represent the acme of painting and its highest development. We feel that we never saw painting done to perfection until we saw the Paris _Salon_, and we strongly recommend all readers of this book, after they have studied the pictures and sculptures here referred to, and have some insight into nature, to make without fail a yearly pilgrimage to the French _Salon_, where they will see painting at its highest development, though of course there is much bad work in the _Salon_, as at other exhibitions.

The marvellous pastel work, aquarelles, and charcoal drawings will all show them how immeasurably behind France, England is in all the pictorial arts. Englishmen do not know what drawing is—therein lies the cause of their failure. This very year we went to the Academy the day after seeing the Salon, and what a fall was there!

Of living French painters the work the student should carefully study is that of Meissonier,[9] Cabanel, Carolus Duran, Pelouse, Protais, Detaille, Perrandeau, Doucet, Petitjean, Busson, Landelle, Appian, Cazin, Harpignies, La Touche, Lansyer, Le Roux, C.M.G., Abraham, Anthonissen, Moreau de Tours, Nys, Nobillet, Marinier, Michel M. Japy, Carne, Vallois, Jan-Monchablon, Joubert, Boucher, J. F., Cabrit, Durot, Poithevin, Beauvais, Denant, Dufour, and many others whose names we forget for the moment, but, be it said, all naturalistic painters to a marvellous degree.

Footnote 9:

Now dead.

This brings us to the end, so we will leave painting with France in the van and Holland and Belgium closely following and America and England floundering in the rear of these three, for we are no believers in the tall talk of the greatness of the immediate future of English painting, though there is good hope since an earnest and sincere band of young artists has arisen in England whose watchword is “Naturalism.”

SCULPTURE.

With sculpture the same old story greets us that we meet with in the history of painting. After the masterpieces of Greece come the puerile conventionalities of the Early Christians. [Sidenote: Niccola Pisano.] But as we have hitherto done so shall we continue—that is, we shall discuss the masters only, and the first we come to is Niccola Pisano. Though his work shows that he was still imbued with the spirit of classicism, yet he struggled to throw off the paralyzing conventionality of servile imitation, and tried hard to get back to nature, and some of his sculptures in Pisa are wonderful for expression. He was the pioneer where followed the great Donatello. Pisano’s son worked in the same direction as his father, and has left some wonderful architectural monuments and sculptures, but his fame rests chiefly on his architectural works, with which we are not here concerned. [Sidenote: Andrea and Nino Pisano.] Andrea and Nino Pisano made great strides towards truth and naturalness, and so paved the way for the great man to come. [Sidenote: Ghiberti.] They were immediately followed by Ghiberti, who spent many years of his life in working at the well-known mighty doors of the baptistery at Pisa. These great gates, however, show no subtlety of the sculptor’s art. Tonality there is none; the whole is rather a kind of emblematic picture-writing than sculpture, but Ghiberti says he spent his time in “studying nature and investigating her methods of work,” so that even though he did not succeed, nature was his watchword. [Sidenote: Donatello.] But all these sink into insignificance before the mighty name of Donatello. Like all true and great artists, Donatello appreciated the limits of his art, made naturalism his watchword, and followed his principles with sincerity. Whilst we are now writing, the wonderful low relief of St. Cecilia, which is on view at Burlington House, is fresh in our mind. There is the work in dark marble, looking as fresh, beautiful, lifelike, and artistic, as it did the day it left the artist’s hand. What simplicity, what truth of impression, and what subtle tonality is there seen! Those who remember this masterpiece may have noticed the way in which the outline of the neck is raised, and how untrue it looked close to; but at a distance the impression was perfect, and the suggestion of shadow most beautifully rendered. That the modelling of the mouth is feeble is obvious, but where is perfection? Casts of this work can be had for a mere trifle from Bruciani, Covent Garden, and we strongly recommend those who have not seen the original to get one, for a suggestion of such work is better than a gallery of trash. There is another fine specimen of Donatello’s work in low relief at South Kensington, but in that there is the mark of the allegorical, and it just misses the distinguished and simple character of the St. Cecilia. We do not care for his Judith and Holofernes, though it is one of the most noted of his works, and owes its renown more to its historical association than to its artistic qualities. Where Donatello relied on nature, however, his work is unsurpassed for truth and subtlety. It was natural that such a great man should have many followers, but, like most imitators of genius, they copied his bad points and none of his good ones, for these they could not attain to, not being geniuses themselves. [Sidenote: Vittore Pisano.] The wonderful medals of Vittore Pisano or Pisanello must not be forgotten, as they are well worthy of study. The student can get casts of most of these for a trifling sum, and we strongly recommend him to buy a few casts of Pisanello’s medals.

[Sidenote: Della Robbia.]

The work of the Della Robbia family is so well known that we must touch upon it, although for most of it we care little or nothing, the medium, a glazed terracotta, being unnatural. Lucca, the greatest of the family, worked, however, at first in marble. Here and there in his work one meets with a beautiful face, and often with fine expressions, but the whole lacks simplicity and fineness. He was more a decorative artist than a sculptor.

[Sidenote: M. Angelo. Cellini. Canova.]

Of Michael Angelo we have spoken. Benvenuto Cellini, a name well known, was a master in gold-working, but hardly a sculptor. Many lesser names follow, but no immortal is again seen in Italy; for though Canova made a name of some sort, he was no master. After Michael Angelo came imitation and decline. Neglect of nature, together with patronage, killed the spark of art, and so thoroughly killed it that even writers on art who had no art-training were listened to, as Winckelmann and Lessing, [Sidenote: Thorwaldsen.] but their work only produced an artificial afflatus, as Canova and Thorwaldsen proved, for both were small men, false in sentiment, and with little or no insight into nature. We say this advisedly, after seeing much of Canova’s work and nearly all that of Thorwaldsen. There is no nature in their works, but in addition to a classical sentiment a puerile realism which is still in vogue in Italy to-day in such work as a Pears delights in, “You Dirty Boy” and other trivialities. England, Spain, Holland, and America seem, up to the present, not to have produced a single sculptor, but, in our humble opinion, the young sculptors of England will lead the way in the twentieth century, and the world may look for the advent of an immortal master and for work which will surpass the Greeks. [Sidenote: Modern French sculptors.] At present France leads the way, and has some strong men in Jouffrey, Aubé, Falguière, Rodin; but there, too, the tendency seems to be towards a fumbling realism and petty _motif_. There is much talk of French sculpture being in advance of French painting. [Sidenote: Future of English sculpture.] We do not believe it, and we feel that England is at present the only country where there is any distinct and original school of sculpture, with such modellers as Gilbert and Onslow Ford, and with such a sculptor as Havard Thomas, to say nothing of younger men, the outlook is very bright indeed.

[Sidenote: Final advice.]

And now we must end the chapter with the final advice to the student to study deeply all good examples of the great artists whose work we have noted, and to leave all others alone. By and by the student will find that he is in a position to compare the good with the bad, then will it be time enough for him to look at the second-rate work, much of which contains fine passages here and there and special merits of its own; but these cannot be appreciated until the student has considerable knowledge, and that is only to be obtained by a serious study of nature and of the work of the best masters here cited.

[Sidenote: Barometer of naturalism.]

Finally, we think we have shown that “Naturalism” has been the watchword of all the best artists, and that, after all, there are but few artists in any age. Many painters and modellers and sculptors there be, but artists are few indeed. One point which has impressed us in the inquiry into naturalistic art is the curious regularity with which so-called “imaginative” painters have appeared and made reputations for themselves in the after-glow, so to speak, of the setting sun of naturalism. It would appear that painters who have lived in an age of strong men have got fairly staggered by the good naturalistic work of their age, and have instinctively felt that, being no match for the great masters on their own lines, that their only way to fame and fortune is by eccentricity, and in _assuming_ a superior tone of culture by the production of allegorical or classical inanities. The uneducated of their own generation, thoroughly tired of a naturalism whose aim they have never understood, hail with delight any novelty or new departure, and they praise puerility and falseness of colour as colour, false drawing as idealizing, conventional composition as original, the conventional and modern treatment of draperies beneath which no anatomy is discernible as an idealized and poetic treatment of drapery, and finally, in the subject of the picture they often mistake sentimentality for sentiment and sentiment for poetry. Thus these weaker men rise to fame, and many follow where they lead. But the generation which gave them fame dies, and a new generation, which has forgotten the triumph of the naturalistic masters of the past generation, wearies of them, and naturalistic work is again appreciated. The story of art seems to us like the mercury in a barometer, ever oscillating upwards and downwards, ever up towards the acme of naturalism, and ever down towards the abyss of conventionality and classicism. If we mentally map out the readings of this barometer on a chart, we shall find naturalism triumphant as the apex of each curve, whilst in the ascending curve will be found the strugglers towards naturalism, and in the descending curve the fallers away from naturalism. [Sidenote: The masters.] On the apices of these curves will be found triumphant the masters, such as the sculptors of the Egyptian lions, the sculptors of the Assyrian lion-hunts, Pheidias, Van Eyck, Durer, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, Velasquez, Donatello, Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Corot, Millet, Gainsborough, and Whistler.