Among these Dutch artists, however, was at least one who was not only arealistbut anidealist. This was Rembrandt. It is of his idealism that I will speak here; and, to illustrate it, will tell you of a small religious picture in the Louvre:The Visit to Emmaus. You remember that Christ in the evening of the day of his Resurrection came upon two of his disciples and joined them in their walk to the village of Emmaus. Not recognising him, they talked of what had happened. It was not until the little party had reached the inn, and the Saviour raised his hands in blessing the food, that their eyes were opened and they knew him. It is this moment that Rembrandt represented.
When you see this picture you will find no grandeur in it such as the Italian pictures have. The figures are those of poor ordinary men. Rembrandt, being also a realist, drew them from the real types of poor Jews in the Ghetto, or Jew-quarter of Amsterdam. There is nothing of imposing dignity even in the Saviour’s form and face. Whatever may bethe idealism in the picture, it does not depend on form. Its motive is different from that of the Italians. Its motive is light. From Christ’s figure spreads a light. Is not one of his titles—The Light of the World? And the light, flowing from this humble figure, illumines the faces of his humble companions and, passing up to the vaulted ceiling, sheds through the gloom a mystery of tremulous glow. The picture like the subject it celebrates, is a miracle—a miracle of light.
Do you see how this was an expression of idealism? Rembrandt in studying the world around him had discovered, like other artists of his time, the beauty of light. Light by degrees represented to him the highest element of beauty in the visible world. While the great Italians had found the ideal or highest conception of abstract beauty in form, Rembrandt found it in light. Therefore, when he painted this picture and wished to show that these figures, though humble looking, were not ordinary men, and that the event was no ordinary meeting at a village inn, he proceeded to idealise the scene according to his own conception of ideal beauty. He introduced into it the beauty and mystery of light.
Please note that word mystery. A mystery is what passes beyond our knowledge and understanding, something that cannot be grasped by our mind and intelligence. Thus we speak of the mystery of life: scientists have discovered how the various forms of life have been developed on the earth, but the origin of life is still a mystery to them. Even when theyhave traced life back to the smallest conceivable beginning, they are as far off from knowing what started that smallest beginning into life. But because they do not know, do they say “Oh, what we do not know is not worth the knowing”? No indeed! they realise, that hidden in the mystery is a truth, even more wonderful than what they know.
Or again, some beautiful summer night by the sea-shore you are looking out over the water. The moon is low and her rays make a pathway of light. You gaze along it and at first the waves are clearly visible, heaving in the light; further off, the movement of the waves disappears; only a luminous glow remains, growing fainter and fainter, till far away it melts into that thin line where sky and water meet—the horizon. Do you know that horizon really means boundary, the limit of our sight, the point beyond which our eye has no power to see? But is there nothing beyond? If we took ship and sailed beyond that pathway of light, should we ever reach the horizon? We should only sail on to find the horizon continually beyond our reach.
Or we turn our gaze from the water to the sky. Above us, further than eye can travel, it extends. It is studded with innumerable stars. We may know the names of some of them, and have learned about their movements and their distance from the earth; but what do we know, what does any one, even the wisest and most learned, know of them, compared with our ignorance of them? It will be well for us,as we gaze into the mystery of the heavens, to be thinking less of the little knowledge that we have than of the miracle, the wonder, of what transcends man’s understanding; of the vast, impenetrable mystery that surrounds our lives. To do so will fill us with, what we call, a spiritual joy; a joy, that is to say, which goes beyond knowledge, and affects that higher capacity of feeling that, not knowing what it is, we call spirit. This highest feeling, that we call spiritual, has always in it some element of mystery. The truth of this was curiously expressed by a little girl of my acquaintance, who was very fond of having her mother read poetry to her. I asked her if she understood a certain poem. “Of course not,” was her quick reply, “what fun would there be in poetry if you could understand it?”
Well, I have spoken at length of Rembrandt, because his way of idealising a scene through the beauty and mystery of light, has become the way of modern artists. But it was not until nearly two hundred years after his death that the world came round to this way. In the mean time Rembrandt and the other Dutch painters of his Century, like Velasquez, had been forgotten. The painters were busy trying to keep alive the other notion of idealism, the Italian one, based on form. Indeed, it was not until naturalism again became popular, that idealism by means of light was renewed.
. . . . . .
I have already told you of the revival ofnaturalismat the beginning of the Nineteenth Century; how theEnglish landscape painter, Constable, was followed by the French landscapists of the Barbizon-Fontainebleau group. You remember that their point of view was nature as it is visible to the eye, but their motive was also to express the feelings of love with which it inspired themselves.
Then, about the middle of the Century appeared Gustave Courbet who loudly proclaimed himself arealist. He meant by this that he was not moved by sentiment, as the Barbizonnaturalistswere; that he believed that the only thing which concerned a painter was to paint what he could see, as it appeared to his eye alone. He wished to limit his art to what is visible to sight. So he thought it was foolish for an artist to attempt to represent a scene from the Bible or any historical subject or subject invented by the imagination. As the artist had never seen these things, he had no business, as a painter, to try and represent them. He was going outside his own art and meddling with some one else’s: the art of the writer or actor, for example.
Courbet’s point of view ofrealismand his motive, to paint only what he could see, were carried further by another Frenchman, Édouard Manet. He had become a student of the works of Velasquez, from whom he had learnt: firstly, a new way of viewing his subject; secondly a new way of rendering what he saw. This new way of viewing the subject is what is now called “impressionism.”
I am sorry to have to trouble you with a new word;but I think you are prepared for it, since impressionism professes to be only a more natural and real way of seeing things. Ofseeingthings, that is the point. It does not take account of what things are, but of theimpressionthey produce upon our mind, when they appear before our eyes. You are at work in school, and a stranger enters the class room. He converses for a few minutes with the teacher and then goes out. What sort of man was he? If there are twenty children in the class, and each, on arriving home, relates the circumstance of the visit, there will probably be twenty different impressions of the visitor’s appearance. They will agree in some points and differ in others; yet each one of the impressions may be a true one—as far as it goes. How far it goes will depend on the quickness and thoroughness of your observation. But anyhow, it will not include a great number of details; it will rather be a general impression.
If you look out of window into a street, you may see a number of figures on the sidewalks. You receive a general impression of figures, moving or standing still; some men, some women, representing various spots of one color. Now arealisticpainter might say, “Each one of those figures represents a real person; I will paint him as he really is; and, to do so, will ask him to stand still long enough for me to study him exactly in all his visible details.” “And if you do,” retorts theimpressionistpainter, “you will paint something so real, that it will be too real. For you never could see these people in
Evening.Anton Mauve.
Evening.Anton Mauve.
Evening.Anton Mauve.
this way, if you look at them on the street. The greater part of the details would be lost in the general impression.”
Well! the more you think of it, the more right you see theimpressionistis—from his point of view. He says, if you are going to be natural, be really natural; if you want to make your pictures look real, make them real in a natural way. If the only thing in art is to be as like nature as possible, and to represent things only as they would appear, if you suddenly looked at them, theimpressionistis right. And what makes this way of looking at things particularly interesting is the fact, that it is so often the momentary effect in nature that is most beautiful: the effect that lasts but a moment, that is fugitive or fleeting, caught in an instant, before it changes to something else. You know what I mean from your own experience. A certain expression passes over your friend’s face. “Oh! if I could only photograph her now,” you exclaim; but by the time you have arranged your camera, it is gone, and cannot be brought back to order. Well, it is just that fugitive, fleeting expression of a subject that therealist, who is animpressionist, tries to represent in his pictures.
So far I have tried to explain theimpressionist’spoint of view. Now let us consider his way ofrenderingwhat he sees. The whole secret of it is the part which light plays in the appearance of things. Manet and the other impressionists, among whom Claude Monet and Whistler are the most important,see every thing, as Vermeer did, enveloped in light. But they have gone further than he.
They have studied much more closely the ever varying qualities of light, as it differs according to place and season and even time of day. Monet has painted a series of pictures the subject of every one of which is the same haystack. At least that is how some people might describe them. But, if they enter into Monet’s point of view, they would say that the real subject is not the haystack but the effect of light upon its surface, and, as the effect of light is different in every case, none of the pictures are similar to one another. Each represents a separate fugitive expression of light. Monet, in them and other pictures, has recorded with extraordinary subtlety the impression presented to his eye. For Monet’simpressionismwas alsonaturalistic.
Whistler, on the other hand, with no less subtlety, rendered also the impression that the things seen had made on his imagination. He was anidealistic impressionist. He painted, for example, a number of night-scenes, or “nocturnes,” as he called them. The actual objects in them are of less importance than Monet’s haystack, because in the dim light of twilight or night they are only faintly visible. Whistler did not wish us to be aware of the form of the bridge, or the boat, the sea and shore, or whatever the objects may be. He wished us to be conscious of them only as Presences looming up like spirit-forms in the mystery of the uncertain light. Such nocturnes asBattersea Bridgeand the sea-shorepicture,Bognor-Nocturne, appeal to us like Rembrandt’sVisit to Emmaus. Just as the latter’s forms were humble, so the bridge itself is an ordinary sort of structure, and the sea-shore and the boats are without any unusual distinction. Yet in each case the scene has been idealised through the mystery of light, and appeals to our spiritual imagination. After two hundred years Rembrandt’s new principle ofidealisation, founded upon the abstract beauty of light instead of on the abstract perfection of form, has been accepted by modern artists.
To a greater or less degree all artists, whethernaturalistsoridealists, who are painting in the modern spirit have been influenced by Monet and Whistler. The example of these two has spread far and wide the study and rendering of light. But, while their followers agree in this motive, they are independent in their points of view. There are some whose point of view, like Monet’s, isobjective. They are content to render theimpressionmade upon their eyes. But, as their eyes see differently from Monet’s, their pictures are different from his. Each is the record of a separate personality. Equally, while others, like Whistler aresubjective, recording theimpressionproduced upon their minds, their pictures vary according to the character and quality of their separate minds. In fact, in later times, a notable feature of painting is its diversity of motives and points of view.
Let me try to explain this. Ever since the American and French Revolutions, there has been a gradually increasing interest in what we call individuality. The main object of these revolutions was to establish the right of each and every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the idea of government now is to give every individual the chance of making the most of his or her possibilities. Your teachers, for example, are not running their classes as machines; they are trying to make a personal study, so far as possible, of each one of you, in order to help you to develop your particular individuality. For a long time this has been the principle of education and government. The result is that there has been a universal increase in individuality, since numbers of people who had some special possibility have had a chance to develope it. To-day, in fact, there is probably nothing that counts more than individuality. This being so it is natural that we should look for it in art. And, if we do, we shall find it.
In former times there were “schools of art.” In Italian art, we speak, for example, of the Florentine School, the Venetian School, the Roman School; or we speak of the Flemish School, and Dutch Schools and so on. In each case the artists, living in a certain city or country, had sufficient resemblance among themselves in their motives and methods of painting to produce a certain separate style. So, to-day, if an expert sees an old picture, he is able to say at once and, more often than not correctly, that it belongs to such and such a school.
But an expert of a hundred years hence, when hesees our modern pictures, will not speak of Schools. He may see at once that the picture is by an American, a German, or a French artist, for difference of race and habit of life and thought do still stamp in a general way the pictures of each separate country. But even within the limits of any one country there are as many varieties of motive and point of view as there are individuals.
So in modern times, more than ever before, there is an individual, personal note in pictures, just as there is in books. The artist makes the picture an expression of his own personal feelings. This is one reason why modern pictures are inferior to the old ones in grandeur and dignity. The older ones were not only larger in size, as a rule, but they were impersonal, like a fine building is. The architects who designed the Capitol at Washington put their own personal expression into it. But we do not feel it, as we look at their work. On the contrary, it is the impersonal, monumental dignity of the work that impresses us. But in most modern pictures, instead of what is impersonal, we receive a distinct impression of intimacy, of sharing the artist’s feeling. And it is the expression of this that we not only look for but enjoy discovering. We often speak of it as the sentiment of the picture.
This sentiment may be of all sorts and shades of feeling, “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” It may be romantic in spirit, appealing to us through the suggestion of what is weird and surprising; it may be full of the tenderness or of the trumpet callof poetry; it may invite us to gentle reverie, or stir in us a profound and poignant emotion. But I have said enough to point your way.
. . . . . .
In conclusion let me sum up the contents of this long chapter. We have seen that there are two main streams of motive and point of view; theidealisticand thenaturalistic. The former flows from the artist’s desire to represent his conception of ideal beauty, the latter from his love of nature. We have seen that they have alternately reached their highest flood, because the conditions of the times supplied a great public need to which each in turn responded. Lastly, we have seen that gradually both tendencies have undergone a change. Whereas originally both the naturalistic and the idealistic motive were concerned with form, they came to be concerned particularly with light.
Therefore, when you look at a picture, ask yourself: Has the artist simply tried to render the visible appearance, or has he also tried to make the subject interpret some feeling of his own?
If he is simply rendering the visible appearance: Has he been conscious only of form, or has he viewed the form in its envelope of lighted atmosphere? Further, has he tried to represent the visible appearance, as we should find it to be, if we studied each and every part of it separately; or he has tried to give the impression of the entire scene, as it really reached his eyes?
If he is interpreting through the subject his ownfeeling: What is the quality of the feeling? Does the picture simply express the artist’s consciousness of the grandeur or the loveliness of nature, or does it also interpret his feeling for the mystery of things not seen?
Here are a few hints for you in setting out to explore the vast country of motive and point of view.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:[1]Pronounced dees-poo-táh, with the accent on the last syllable. See page 13.[2]The body between the neck and the commencement of the legs.[3]Mural—(Latinmurus, a wall), having to do with a wall; in this case a decoration on a wall.[4]In 1759 a M. de Silhouette was minister of finance, and he was so economical that the French used his name as a nickname for cheap things, among others for the profile portraits cut out of black paper, which were then popular. In time, the word came to be used for any dark mass seen against a light one.[5]Pronounced Yo-hann-es Fair-mair.[6]We shall find it was discovered also by the Spanish artist, Velasquez, in the same century.[7]Pronounced pa-ee-sahje an-teem.[8]Still life, or as the French call it “dead nature” includes, firstly, picked flowers, fruit and vegetables, and dead animals, and secondly, vases, pots, and other objects of man’s handicraft.[9]Showing a mastery over others.[10]Turn back to his picture and see how all this that we are now discussing is there illustrated.[11]See page 88.[12]Later on I shall have something to say about these so called realists. I shall say to them, as Hamlet said to Horatio, “There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1]Pronounced dees-poo-táh, with the accent on the last syllable. See page 13.
[1]Pronounced dees-poo-táh, with the accent on the last syllable. See page 13.
[2]The body between the neck and the commencement of the legs.
[2]The body between the neck and the commencement of the legs.
[3]Mural—(Latinmurus, a wall), having to do with a wall; in this case a decoration on a wall.
[3]Mural—(Latinmurus, a wall), having to do with a wall; in this case a decoration on a wall.
[4]In 1759 a M. de Silhouette was minister of finance, and he was so economical that the French used his name as a nickname for cheap things, among others for the profile portraits cut out of black paper, which were then popular. In time, the word came to be used for any dark mass seen against a light one.
[4]In 1759 a M. de Silhouette was minister of finance, and he was so economical that the French used his name as a nickname for cheap things, among others for the profile portraits cut out of black paper, which were then popular. In time, the word came to be used for any dark mass seen against a light one.
[5]Pronounced Yo-hann-es Fair-mair.
[5]Pronounced Yo-hann-es Fair-mair.
[6]We shall find it was discovered also by the Spanish artist, Velasquez, in the same century.
[6]We shall find it was discovered also by the Spanish artist, Velasquez, in the same century.
[7]Pronounced pa-ee-sahje an-teem.
[7]Pronounced pa-ee-sahje an-teem.
[8]Still life, or as the French call it “dead nature” includes, firstly, picked flowers, fruit and vegetables, and dead animals, and secondly, vases, pots, and other objects of man’s handicraft.
[8]Still life, or as the French call it “dead nature” includes, firstly, picked flowers, fruit and vegetables, and dead animals, and secondly, vases, pots, and other objects of man’s handicraft.
[9]Showing a mastery over others.
[9]Showing a mastery over others.
[10]Turn back to his picture and see how all this that we are now discussing is there illustrated.
[10]Turn back to his picture and see how all this that we are now discussing is there illustrated.
[11]See page 88.
[11]See page 88.
[12]Later on I shall have something to say about these so called realists. I shall say to them, as Hamlet said to Horatio, “There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
[12]Later on I shall have something to say about these so called realists. I shall say to them, as Hamlet said to Horatio, “There are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”