Chapter 14

That was the fault of the Hellenic ideal. The beauty conceived by the Greeks was the order dreamed of by intelligence, but it only appealed to the cultivated mind, disdaining the humble.

Here also is a confusion of ideas, for the intelligence cannot dream of a special kind of beauty which would not be recognized by the humble, unless it were so feeble as to be altogether below Greek conceptions. The aim of the Greek sculptors was to appeal to all classes, and in this they were eminently successful.

[a]At the Luxembourg.

[b]Gsell'sArt, by Auguste Rodin.

[c]Greek Sculpture and Modern Art, 1914.

[d]Gsell'sArt, by Auguste Rodin.

Ruskin considered the figure of Christ, known as Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens, at Amiens Cathedral, the noblest ideal of Christ in existence,[a]and Dean Farrar wrote of it: "Christ is represented as standing at the central point of all history, and of all Revelation."[b]It is true that the sculpture is a noble representation of Christ, but this is not because it is a Christian ideal. In type it is purely Greek of the late fourth or early third centuryB.C.The expression is general, exhibiting the calm repose that the Greeks gave to a great philosopher.

[a]The Bible of Amiens.See Plate 2.

[b]The Life of Christ as Represented in Art.

In the case of the Madonna, Michelangelo does not appear to produce an ideal woman: he only gives an improved woman. His nearest approach to the ideal is in his early Pieta at St. Peter's, but even here the Virgin is only a less earthly prototype of his later figures. The Madonna in the Holy Family at the Uffizi is much inferior, being merely a slightly ennobled Italian peasant. The other Madonnas are far higher in character and seem to suggest the antique, except that the more materialqualities of woman are always present. The Madonnas at the Bargello and San Lorenzo are of the same general type as the figure in the Last Judgment, the Night in the Medici Chapel, the Leda in the Bargello, and the Venus in the sketch made for Pontormo. This being so, it may be imagined when the Leda is called to mind, that it is hard to associate the two Madonnas with Christian ideals. The figures are magnificent works, but they are behind the Madonnas of Raphael from the point of view of Christian conceptions. The expression is general, and all the countenances except one, indicate unconcern with surroundings; not the sublime unconcern of a Phidian god, which implies an apparent disregard of particulars because they are necessarily understood with an all-powerful comprehension of principles, but an unconcern which suggests a want of deep interest in life. The exception is the San Lorenzo Madonna, in which a certain calm resignation is the principal feature in expression. Michelangelo was more successful with his men than with his women. His painted prophets in the Sistine Chapel are as sublime as his scenes from the Creation; and his Moses in St. Peter's is rightly regarded as the first sculpture of the Renaissance.

When the Pieta of Michelangelo (in St. Peter's, Rome) was first exposed, some comment was made upon the comparatively youthful appearance of the Virgin, and Condivi relates that he spoke to the sculptor on the subject. In reply Michelangelo said[a]:

Don't you know that chaste women preserve their beauty and youthful character much longer than those who are not chaste? How youthful then must appear the immaculate Virgin whocannot be supposed ever to have had a vitiated thought. And this is only according to the natural order of things: but why may not we suppose in this particular case, that nature might be assisted by Divine interposition, to demonstrate to the world the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother? This was not necessary in the Son, nay, rather on the contrary, since Divine omnipotence was willing to show that the Son of God would take upon Him, as he did, the body of man, with all his earthly infirmities except that of sin. Therefore it was not necessary for me to make the human subordinate to the Divine character, but to consider it in the ordinary course of nature under the actual existing circumstances. Hence you ought not to wonder that from such a consideration, I should make the most holy Virgin-Mother of God, in comparison with the Son, much younger than would otherwise be required, and that I should have represented the Son at His proper age.

[a]Lanzi'sHistory of Painting in Italy, Roscoe translation, vol. i.

A few modern painters have produced works in which the Holy Family are pictured in lowly surroundings, but generally they appear to shock the public sense of propriety. Many persons will remember the sensation caused by Millais's The Carpenter's Shop, where Christ is shown as a boy of about ten years of age in the workshop of St. Joseph, and Holman Hunt's Shadow of the Cross. Later artists have been still more realistic, notably Uhde, whose sacred scenes almost stagger one with their modern suggestions, and Demont-Breton, whose Divine Apprentice represents the Boy Christ sharpening a tool at a grindstone which is turned by the Virgin.

Unquestionably the rapid advance in Italian art in the fifteenth century was largely due to the influence of the ancient Greek and Roman remains. Indeed there are very few sculptors of the period who fail to show evidence of studies in Greek forms and ornaments, while in painting there are hundreds of figures which could scarcely have been designed in the absence of antique models. True in some cases the artists do not appear to have gone beyond the ancient literature, as with Masaccio who must have had Homer in his mind when he painted his figures of Eve in the Florence frescoes, and Piero di Cosimo, whose fanciful compositions savour of the old legends wrapped up in fairy stories; but many painters were steeped both in the art and literature of Greece and Rome, and made good use of them.

But the most direct evidence of the influence of Greek art upon Italian artists of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, is to be found in the splendid series of bronze statuettes of the period. In their monumental figures the sculptors were more or less confined in their designs by considerations of portraiture, conventional drapery and symbols, and local requirements, and while they were greatly assisted by Greek experience, yet only rarely were they strictly at liberty except with ornaments and accessories. But in the small bronze figures their fancy could roam at will, and they made good use of this freedom in displaying their ready acceptance of the first principle in the design of the human figure recognized by the Greeks—that the sculptor must arrive at perfection of form if that be possible; that this perfection is not to be found in any single form in life, and consequently the artist must combine perfected parts into a harmonious whole, independently of particular models. The agreement with this principle was general, with scarcely an exception amongst the bronze figure designers, and the result was that in the period say, from 1450 to 1525, there was executed a series of bronzes fully representative of the highest level which plastic art has reached since the greater days of Greece. Right up to the timeof the maturity of Michelangelo, nearly every bronze figurine cast is purely Grecian in type, and every ornament, and even every accessory which is not from its nature of contemporary style, can be traced to Greece, either directly or through Rome.

Michelangelo brought about a change in accentuating the muscular development of the body, and before the middle of the sixteenth century most sculptors had come under his influence. This was unfortunate for he alone seemed to be capable of harmoniously combining Greek lines with muscular power. A few of his contemporaries, as Sansovino, Leone, Cellini, learned how to join, with due restraint, his innovations with modifications of the Greek torso, but generally the imitation of the great Florentine initiated a decadence, as it was bound to do, for it was accompanied with life modelling, and so meant a radical departure from the Greek forms. Giovanni di Bologna alone among the later sixteenth century sculptors, was strong enough to move in an independent direction. He restrained the accentuation of the muscles, and lightened the Greek type of torso, combining with these conditions an elegance in design which has never since been surpassed.

This then is the principal cause of the high æsthetic value of the Renaissance bronzes: the human form exhibited by them is altogether more beautiful than the form coming within the compass of life experience. Then the details of work on the bronzes are immensely superior to those of the general modern handiwork. For instance the chiselling of such men as Riccio and Cellini, has never been equalled since their time, save perhaps by Gouthière. And how poor, comparatively, are the present-day castings! How carefully the old masters worked; how particular they were with their clay; how skilfully they prepared their wax, and howslowly and deliberately the mould! How many artists now would have the patience to make such a mould? For the beautiful patinas on many of the Renaissance bronzes, age is mostly responsible, though lacquers were often used for the provision of artificial patinas, particularly after the middle of the sixteenth century, the finest being found on some of the works of Giovanni di Bologna. The tone of natural patina depends largely upon the kind of oxidation to which the bronze has been subjected, and it is no doubt often affected by the alloy used. Few modern artists have given close attention to the alloys, while the method of casting is now usually regarded as a detail of minor importance.

Seeing that the production of figurines accompanied every civilization from the dawn of history to the collapse of the Roman Empire, it is curious that the renaissance of sculpture after the Dark Age should have progressed a long way before general attention was again turned to these bronzes. There are a few figures of animals which seem to be Italian work of the late trecento, but beyond these the small cast bronzes made in Italy before the maturity of Ghiberti, were practically confined to Madonnas and Saints, mostly gilt, made to fill Gothic niches, or adorn the altars of churches and private chapels. Slender Saints they were as a rule, but always elegant, with serene countenances and delicate features; beautifully modelled as became the inheritors of the traditions of the Pisanos. It was somewhere about the middle of the fifteenth century that Italy commenced to make ungilt statuettes suitable for household ornaments, and fully ten or fifteen years more passed away before they were produced with any regularity. The earliest of them of any importance appear to be a couple of Flagellators from the design of Ghiberti. They are fine pieces of work, evidently from clay models made forthe scourging scene in one of the gates of the Florence Baptistry—gates described by Michelangelo as worthy to fill the portals of Paradise. These figures date about 1440. There is a Child Christ of a few years later by Luca della Robbia; and two or three figures from models of Donatello may be assigned to the neighbourhood of 1450. In the next ten years were turned out some figures from remaining models of Donatello which had been used for his work at Prato and Padua.

So far the small bronzes made were from studies for larger works of sculpture, but about this time intense interest began to be taken in the remains of Greek and Roman art, and no doubt it was the increased importance attached to the antique bronze figures, mostly household gods of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, that first led the principal Renaissance artists to turn their attention to similar work. From this time on, for a century and a half, these bronze figures were regularly made. The existing figurines may be broadly classified in four divisions, namely, the Paduan and Florentine figures executed prior to 1525; those of the school of Michelangelo; those of the Venetian school headed by Sansovino; and those of Giovanni di Bologna and his school. Leaving out of consideration the small ornaments for inkstands, vases, etc., the little animals, and the purely commercial imitations, chiefly Venetian, made at the end of the sixteenth century, the total number of Renaissance bronzes now known is roughly six thousand. Of these under a hundred are from models for larger works by Ghiberti, Donatello, Verrocchio, Lionardo, Michelangelo, and a few lesser lights; about two thousand represent original designs specially prepared for bronze production; some three thousand five hundred are duplicates of, or slight variations from, these originals, executed by pupils or near contemporaries of the masters;and the balance of four hundred or so, are direct reproductions of, or variations from, antique sculptures. Naturally all collectors aim for the first two sections, but the third section contains many fine bronzes, often close to the originals, with equally good patinas. They vary greatly, though they are all ascribed in commerce to the artists responsible for the originals.

The character of these variations is best seen in the case of Riccio, the most prolific of the bronze workers of the Renaissance. He designed and executed under forty small bronze figures and groups, besides some large bronze works of high importance. Of his small pieces there are in existence about a hundred duplicates made by his pupils and immediate contemporaries, who also adapted into household ornaments, various details from his larger works, bringing up the number of Riccios made from his models during his lifetime, other than by himself, to about a hundred and fifty. These are all bronzes of a high order. Then about an equal number of both kinds of models were reproduced during the twenty years following his death, all fairly good, but often slightly varied from the originals; and finally there are Riccios copied by Venetian craftsmen in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, sometimes considerably varied, and occasionally with purely Venetian ornaments added. These last mark the first distinct decadence in the small bronze art of the period. Next to Riccio among the earlier sculptors, in the number of bronzes designed, was his great contemporary, Antico, who accomplished some thirty or so. He differed from Riccio in that while the latter adhered to the Grecian practice in the design of details and ornaments, but varied the modelling somewhat to bring it more in conformity with the contemporary ideas of elegance, Antico kept strictly to the Grecian modelling, but commonly varied the ancientdesigns. There are few duplicates of Antico's work, made either during his lifetime or after. As with Riccio, his imitators overcame the difficulty of the chiselling by leaving it out, relying upon the wax to give close enough resemblance to the originals.

Of the other small bronze sculptors prior to the maturity of Michelangelo, few executed more than half a score of figures. The best known are the immediate successors of Donatello in the Paduan school, as Bertoldo and Bellano, and the giants of the Florentine school, as Filarete and A. Pollaiuolo. Bronzes by these artists are very rare, and so are the duplicates of them made by pupils, though Bertoldo, who reminds one strangely of Lysippus, had occasional imitators for the next two centuries. These bronzes include many models which have not been equalled by the greatest of later sculptors, and they will never be matched until there arises a new school of sculptors resolved to imbibe the truths which the Renaissance artists gleaned from the ancient Greeks.

The writer has used Greek and Roman names for these gods to some extent indiscriminately, in accordance with the universal custom in art. Nevertheless the practice is to be regretted as it tends to complicate the general ideas of the Greek and Roman religions. Notwithstanding the occasional direct association of some of their deities with human personages by their poets, the Romans regarded their gods as purely spiritual beings, having no special earthly habitation, or sex relations with the human race, while their powers widely differed from those of the respective Greek deities with whom they are commonly identified. Authorities differ as to whether the gods were supposed to have spiritual maritalrelations with each other.[a]In any case the whole nature of their religion precluded the development amongst the Romans of a separate sacred art. Their sculptured gods, which were taken from Grecian models, were symbols rather than presumed types.

[a]See J. G. Frazer'sAdonis, Attis, Osiris, 1914, vol. ii.; and W. W. Fowler'sReligious Experience of the Roman People, 1911.

If we may judge from the headless figures of the goddesses, commonly known as the Three Fates, from the east pediment of the Parthenon, there seems to be little difference between the general lines of the feminine torso represented by the Phidian ideal, and those of the Praxitelean model. The Parthenon torsos are more massive proportionately, but the object of both Phidias and Praxiteles was evidently to straighten the outer lines of the torso as nearly as possible, making due allowance for the varied natural swellings of their respective forms. It is obvious that the use of attire gave Phidias (presuming the Parthenon figures referred to were designed by him, as they probably were) a latitude in varying the proportions of the torsos which he could not have exercised in the case of nude forms. Unclothed, the figures would appear unwieldy, and the graceful flowing lines resulting from the partly clinging drapery could not be so completely presented with nude reclining or semi-reclining figures. There are other features also which prevent the nude representation of such massive forms. Thus, the breasts would necessarily be out of proportion in size, and widely separated. These conditions are common in fifth century and archaic figures, and do not appear to be defects in forms of life size or less, but they would be strikingly noticeable in super figures of thebroad massive type with Phidian lines. The addition of light drapery, however, converts the apparent faults into virtues, for the artist is enabled therewith to give new sweeping curves to the forms which conspicuously enhance the general beauty of the figure.

A still more amazing instance where the use of drapery allows the artist to vary the recognized proportions of the feminine form to an extent which would be impossible with nude figures, is the celebrated Ariadne at the Vatican.[a]This beautiful work, which is of the Hellenistic period, shows the daughter of Minos attired in a light flowing single garment, and reclining on a couch, asleep. The upper part of her body leans against the head of the couch, but the remainder is extended nearly at full length. The extraordinary feature of the work is that the length of the figure is altogether out of proportion with the head and with the breadth of the torso, being much too great, and yet so skilfully is the drapery arranged that this very defect becomes an advantage, for it enables a lofty grace, almost approaching grandeur, to be given to the figure, which would be impossible without the exaggeration. By the excellent device of a closely arranged cross fold of drapery passing round the middle of the figure, the artist apparently shortens it, so that the eye of the observer is not held by its great length. Only one other example of the supreme use of drapery in this way seems to be known—a bronze sitting figure of Calliope,[b]which is of the late Hellenistic period, and is obviously of the same school as the Ariadne marble.

[a]See Plate 29.

[b]Dreicer Collection, New York.

Praxiteles is known to have executed at least four other statues of Aphrodite besides the Cnidian example,but this last is the only one as to which we have fairly complete records, and of which copies have been closely identified. It is also the most celebrated. We may therefore accept the work as typical for comparative purposes.

There has been much discussion as to whether Apelles showed the same extent of figure as is represented in the sculpture, a common suggestion being that he brought the surface of the water to the waist line; but it is evident that the painting corresponded with the sculpture in this particular. The artist had to represent the goddess walking towards the shore. If he brought the water to the waist line he could not definitely suggest movement, as a deflection of the shoulder line might mean that the goddess was in an attitude of rest, corresponding to the pose of nearly all the sculptured figures of the Praxitelean school. On the other hand if he carried the water line down towards the knees, the advance of the right leg would be most marked, and the effect disturbing because of the loss of repose, a quality at all times valuable in a painting of a single figure, and really necessary in the representation of Venus. The artist very properly reduced the portion of the thighs visible to the smallest fraction possible compatible with an expression of movement, in order to give the figure the greatest repose attainable. Under any circumstances there was nothing to gain by showing the water reaching to the waist.

Certain details of the picture by Apelles are to be obtained from Grecian epigrams. Thus, one by Antipater of Sidon contains these lines[a]:

Venus, emerging from her parent sea,Apelles' graphic skill does here portray:She wrings her hair, while round the bright drops flee,And presses from her locks the foamy spray.

From this it would appear that the position of the goddess when painted was presumed to be comparatively near the artist, otherwise the separate drops of falling water would not have been observed. The last line in the following epigram by Leonides of Tarentum indicates the ideal character of the countenance, though evidence of this is scarcely necessary[b]:

As Venus from her mother's bosom rose(Her beauty with the murmuring sea-foam glows),Apelles caught and fixed each heavenly charm;No picture, but the life, sincere and warm.See how those finger tips those tresses wring!See how those eyes a calm-like radiance fling!

[a]Translated by Lord Neaves.

[b]Translated by Lord Neaves.

So far as the writer knows, Piero was the only artist of the Renaissance who used this mythological story for a composition (his picture has hitherto been called an allegory), a circumstance which is rather singular considering the suitableness of the subject for the provision of effective designs. The Greek sculptors in dealing with the legend confined themselves to the moment when Athena threw down the pipes, apparently for the reason that this instant gave an opportunity of rendering Marsyas in a strong dramatic action. The famous statue of the faun after Myron in Rome, is supposed to have formed part of a group representing Athena and Marsyas immediately after the pipes were dropped, and the design appears on still existing coins and vases of the fifth and fourth centuriesB.C.Piero takes a later moment,showing Marsyas comfortably squatting in the foreground of a delightful fanciful landscape, expressing boyish satisfaction with the prizes he is about to try. He is properly shown as a satyr instead of in the faun form of the sculptor. There appears to be no legitimate place in painting for a faun, while a satyr may at times be appropriately introduced into a pastoral composition.

Controversy has raged around this picture for something like seventy years. The work came to light before 1850 at a public auction sale when it was attributed to Mantegna, with whom of course it had nothing to do. Then it was pronounced a Raphael, but this was disputed by Passavant who held that on account of the thin lower limbs of the figures, and the minute way in which the landscape was painted, it could not be by Raphael, but was of the school of Francia, or by Timoteo della Viti. Morelli brought back the attribution to Raphael, and the work then came into the possession of the Louvre. Subsequently Pinturicchio and Perugino were alternately suggested as the painter, and to the latter the picture was assigned by the Louvre authorities. All are agreed that the date of the work is about 1502. It does not seem possible that Perugino could have painted the picture, for the subject and invention are entirely foreign to him, while the lithe active form of Apollo does not consort with the least formal of his known figures. The landscape is much in his manner, but so it is also in the style of Raphael's early period, while the small buildings therein are closely finished as in some of Raphael's other works of the time.[a]Perugino usedsimilar towers and buildings, but being a more experienced painter he did not so finely elaborate the details. The suggestion relating to the school of Francia was afterwards very properly withdrawn, and Pinturicchio must be ruled out on account of the landscape, apart from the supple figure of Apollo of which he was incapable. There remain then only Timoteo della Viti and Raphael as the possible painters of the work. But it cannot reasonably be suggested that Timoteo could have accomplished so perfect a figure as the Apollo, and moreover so original a figure. It certainly required an exceptionally bold mind to overcome the difficulty in rendering the traditionally semi-feminine form of Apollo by representing him as a young man just past his teens. Besides, the general delicacy of the work is not in the style of Timoteo. Passavant's objection to the limbs is overruled by the presence of similar limbs in the Mond Crucifixion. It would seem then that Morelli was right in assigning the beautiful little picture to the youthful period of the greatest of all painters.

[a]See Portrait of a young Man at Budapest, and the Terranuova Virgin and Child at Berlin.

The white races are here referred to merely by way of example, and there is no intention to suggest that the more or less uncivilized peoples have no perception of beauty. It is well known that both semi-civilized and savage races differ from the whites in the matter of beauty, and the fact has been partly responsible for several theories for explaining æsthetic perception, notably that of association, laid down by Alison and Jeffrey, but long since discarded. Seeing that there is no difference in kind between the sense nerves of the whites and the blacks, they must necessarily act in the same way. That the blacks appreciate as beautiful forms which thewhites disregard, seems to arise partly from want of experience, partly from training, and partly from neglect in the exercise of the sense nerves. Take for example an inhabitant of Morocco where corpulency is commonly regarded as an element of beauty in women. If none but Moroccan women are seen or pictured, it is impossible for a higher form of beauty than is to be found amongst them to be conceived, for the imagination cannot act beyond experience. In cases where the Moroccan has had experience of both white and black, it is certain that, other things being equal, the white woman would be the more admired, for this is the general experience among the black races, and is strikingly noticeable in America with the descendants of African tribes. The appreciation of very fat women can easily be understood on the ground of custom or training. A youthful Moroccan may be firmly of opinion that corpulency is not an element of beauty, but seeing that his older acquaintances hold a contrary view, he may well form the conclusion that his judgment is wrong, and so accept the decision of his more mature countrymen. It is quite common among the whites for people to doubt their own æsthetic perceptions when an inferior work of art is put forward as a thing of beauty. The general want of appreciation of certain musical harmonies on the part of uncivilized peoples is undoubtedly due to the neglect of the sense nerves concerned, for these are not cultivated except to a small extent involuntarily. The most ignorant and poor of the whites unavoidably come into frequent contact with the simpler forms of art, but the savage races see only the result of their own handiwork. The uncivilized races can scarcely be expected to admire the higher reaches of art wherein intellectual considerations enter, except for their sensorial excellence.

PLATE 28PLATE 28Automedon and the Horse of Achilles, by Regnault(Boston Museum)(Seepage 256)

(Seepage 256)

There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether Fragonard intended his splendid series of the Frick collection to represent the subjects usually assigned to them, namely, The Pursuit (or The Flight of Design, a title given to the original sketch for the picture); The Rendezvous (or The Surprise, or The Escalade); Souvenirs (or Confidences, or The Reader); The Lover Crowned (or Before the Painter); and The Abandonment (or The Reverie). It is suggested that the works have an allegorical signification connected with art, and certainly three of them—the first, second, and fourth—could be so interpreted. But magnificent paintings of this kind are usually fitted for many allegorical suggestions. Each picture represents an incident of common experience, elaborated with beautiful figures in a perfect setting. This approaches the summit of the painter's art, for no conception can be greater apart from spiritual ideals. It is symbolism in its highest form—of universal experience in which all are interested. The works are not to be taken as a necessary sequence (the last of the series was painted twenty years after the others), but the scheme of one or more of them has come within the experience of every man and woman since the world began.

Seeing that this precise dignified pose, coming so near the line of exaggeration, but never crossing it, is present in all the authenticated portraits of Titian, save those of very aged persons, we may reasonably consider the pose an important factor in determining the validity of certain portraits as to which a doubt has arisen. Thus in thecase of the Physician of Parma[a](this title is admittedly wrong), which has been variously given to Titian and Giorgione, the verdict must be in favour of Titian, for the pose is certainly his, while it is unknown in any work of Giorgione. On the other hand, the portrait of Catherine Cornara,[b]commonly ascribed to Titian, but also attributed to Giorgione,[c]cannot be by the former master; nor is the Portrait of a Man (with his hand on a bust),[d]which seems to pair with the Cornara portrait. The portrait known as An Old Man Asleep,[e]sometimes given to Titian, clearly does not belong to him.

It should be noted that the general confusion observable for many years in the estimation of Giorgione's work arose from the attribution to him of paintings executed in the comparatively broad manner of Titian, but which this artist did not adopt till Giorgione had been dead for a decade or more. The recent exhaustive critique of Lionelli Venturi[f]of the earlier master has cleared the air, and we now know the range of his work very positively. Giorgione was less fine in some of his paintings than in others, for he paid more attention to chiaroscuro as he matured, but there is no instance where he painted in the broader manner occasionally exhibited by Titian. All the works in the style of The Concert and The Three Ages are now known to be by other hands than those of Giorgione, and it must be unfortunately admitted that not a single painting by him exists either in England or America.

[a]Vienna Gallery.

[b]Cook Collection, London.

[c]By Herbert Cook inGiorgione.

[d]Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

[e]The Brera, Milan.

[f]Giorgione e il Giorgionismo, 1913.

Hals is another artist as to whom many misconceptions have arisen in regard to his use of a very broad manner inhis portraits. There is a total of about 350 works attributed to him, of which some two thirds are single portraits, and twenty are portrait groups. The balance includes over thirty genre pictures, mostly with single figures, and fifty heads of boys and girls generally shown in the act of laughing. It is in his genre work that the broad manner is mostly observable, and only very occasionally is it to be found in his portraits. In the more important works of the artist, even during his later period, his manner is by no means broad,[a]though it is not so fine as in his best years, say from 1635 to 1650. This estimate can however only be general, as his dated paintings of different periods after 1630 often correspond so closely that it is difficult to assign dates to the other pictures with certainty.

Perhaps the frequent attribution to Hals of works by his pupils and imitators, has had something to do with the public estimation of the breadth of his manner. This was often greatly exaggerated by his followers, and many portraits are given to him which he could not possibly have painted. In his important work on the artist, Dr. von Bode points out that some of the duplicates of his pictures were apparently executed by his pupils, but these are not separated in the book.[b]It is a simple matter to divide the works painted by Hals from the studio copies and the portraits of imitators. His brushwork and impasto were quite exceptional. He had a firm direct stroke, never niggled or scumbled, and his loading was restrained though very effective. Quite naturally his pupils, however industrious and skilled,could not closely imitate his remarkable freedom in handling. They were incapable of firm decisive strokes throughout a portrait, and endeavoured to overcome the loading difficulty by using brushes of a coarseness foreign to the master when rendering light tones. Moreover Hals was nearly perfect in drawing, and in this there are usually marked defects in the studio copies.

[a]See Stephanus Gereardts, Antwerp Museum; Isabella Coymans, E. Rothschild Collection, Paris; Lady with a Fan, National Gallery, London; and William van Heythuysen, Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna.

[b]Frans Hals: his Life and Work, 1914.

The term "grace" as applied in art has so many significations that it is difficult to deal with one of them without confusion. What is here specially referred to is the grace of pose designed by the artist. The object of the portrait painter is to pose his sitter so that the grace indicated shall appear natural and habitual, a feature as important now in the appearance of women as it was twenty-five centuries ago when Sappho asked[a]:

Back to Index Next