Chapter 18

See R. Schröder,Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte(Leipzig, 1904); J. N. Harpprecht,Staatsarchiv des Reichskammergerichts(1757-1785); and G. Stobbe,Reichshofgericht und Reichskammergericht(Leipzig, 1878).

(E. Br.)

1For instance, all the members of the diet might serve as Urtheilsfinder in a case like the condemnation of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, in the 12th century.2The attempt to create a new and official council ultimately failed.3More exactly, the emperor nominates, according to the regular usage of later times, a certain number of members, partly as emperor, and partly as the sovereign of his hereditary estates; while the rest, who form the majority, are nominated partly by the electors and partly by the six ancient circles.

1For instance, all the members of the diet might serve as Urtheilsfinder in a case like the condemnation of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, in the 12th century.

2The attempt to create a new and official council ultimately failed.

3More exactly, the emperor nominates, according to the regular usage of later times, a certain number of members, partly as emperor, and partly as the sovereign of his hereditary estates; while the rest, who form the majority, are nominated partly by the electors and partly by the six ancient circles.

IMPERIAL CITIES OR TOWNS,the usual English translation ofReichsstädte, an expression of frequent occurrence in German history. These were cities and towns subject to no authority except that of the emperor, or German king, in other words they were immediate; the earliest of them stood on the demesne land of their sovereign, and they often grew up around his palaces. A distinction was thus made between aReichsstadtand aLandstadt, the latter being dependent upon some prince, not upon the emperor direct. The termFreie Reichsstadt, which is sometimes used in the same sense asReichsstadt, is rightly only applicable to seven cities, Basel, Strassburg, Spires, Worms, Mainz, Cologne and Regensburg. Having freed themselves from the domination of their ecclesiastical lords these called themselvesFreistädteand in practice their position was indistinguishable from that of theReichsstädte.

In the middle ages many other places won the coveted position of aReichsstadt. Some gained it by gift and others by purchase; some won it by force of arms, others usurped it during times of anarchy, while a number secured it through the extinction of dominant families, like the Hohenstaufen. There were many more free towns in southern than in northern Germany, but their number was continually fluctuating, for their liberties were lost much more quickly than they were gained. Mainz was conquered and subjected to the archbishop in 1462. Some free towns fell into the hands of various princes of the Empire and others placed themselves voluntarily under such protection. Some, like Donauwörth in 1607, were deprived of their privileges by the emperor on account of real, or supposed, offences, while others were separated from the Empire by conquest. In 1648 Besançon passed into the possession of Spain, Basel had already thrown in its lot with the Swiss confederation, while Strassburg, Colmar, Hagenau and others were seized by Louis XIV.

Meanwhile the free towns had been winning valuable privileges in addition to those which they already possessed, and the wealthier among them, like Lübeck and Augsburg, were practicallyimperia in imperio, waging war and making peace, and ruling their people without any outside interference. But they had also learned that union is strength. They formed alliances among themselves, both for offence and for defence, and theseStädtebündehad an important influence on the course of German history in the 14th and 15th centuries. These leagues were frequently at war with the ecclesiastical and secular potentates of their district and in general they were quite able to hold their own in these quarrels. The right of the free towns to be represented in the imperial diet was formally recognized in 1489, and about the same time they divided themselves into two groups, or benches, the Rhenish and the Swabian. By the peace of Westphalia in 1648 they were formally constituted as the third college of the diet. A list drawn up in 1422 mentions 75 free cities, another drawn up in 1521 mentions 84, but at the time of the French Revolution the number had decreased to 51. At this time the Rhenish free cities were: Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Lübeck, Worms, Spires, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goslar, Bremen, Hamburg, Mühlhausen, Nordhausen, Dortmund, Friedberg and Wetzlar. The Swabian free cities were: Regensburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Nördlingen, Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, Schwäbisch-Hall, Rottweil, Ueberlingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Gmünd, Dinkelsbühl, Lindau, Biberach, Ravensburg, Schweinfurt, Kempten, Windsheim, Kaufbeuern, Weil, Wangen, Isny, Pfullendorf, Offenburg, Leutkirch, Wimpfen, Weissenburg, Giengen, Gengenbach, Zell, Buchorn, Aalen, Buchau and Bopfingen. But a large proportion of them had as little claim to their exceptional positions as the pocket boroughs of Great Britain and Ireland had before the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832.

By the peace of Lunéville in 1801 Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Worms and Spires were taken by France, and by the decision of the imperial deputation of 1803 six cities only: Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Augsburg, Frankfort-on-Main and Nuremberg, were allowed to keep theirReichsfreiheit, or in other words to hold directly of the Empire. This number was soon further reduced. On the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 Augsburg and Nuremburg passed under the sovereignty of Bavaria, and Frankfort was made the seat of a duchy for Karl Theodor von Dalberg, elector and archbishop of Mainz, who was appointed prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. When the German Confederation was established in 1815 Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfort were recognized as free cities, and the first three hold that position in the modern German empire; but Frankfort, in consequence of the part it took in the war of 1866, lost its independence and was annexed by Prussia.

In the earlier years of their existence the free cities were under the jurisdiction of an imperial officer, who was called theReichsvogtor imperial advocate, or sometimes theReichsschultheissor imperial procurator. As time went on many of the cities purchased the right of filling these offices with their own nominees; and in several instances the imperial authority fell practically into desuetude except when it was stirred into action by peculiar circumstances. The internal constitution of the free cities was organized after no common model, although several of them had a constitution drawn up in imitation of that of Cologne, which was one of the first to assert its independence.

For the history of the free cities, see J. J. Moser,Reichsstädtisches Handbuch(Tübingen, 1732); D. Hänlein,Anmerkungen über die Geschichte der Reichsstädte(Ulm, 1775); A. Wendt,Beschreibung der kaiserlichen freien Reichsstädte(Leipzig, 1804); G. W. Hugo,Die Mediatisirung der deutschen Reichsstädte(Carlsruhe, 1838); G. Waitz,Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte(Kiel, 1844 fol.); G. L. von Maurer,Geschichte der Städteverfassung in Deutschland(Erlangen, 1869-1871); W. Arnold,Verfassungsgeschichte der deutschen Freistädte(Gotha, 1854); P. Brülcke,Die Entwickelung der Reichsstandschaft der Städte(Hamburg, 1881); A. M. Ehrentraut,Untersuchungen über die Frage der Frei- und Reichsstädte(Leipzig, 1902); and S. Rietschel,Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Stadtverfassung(Leipzig, 1905). See also the articleCommune.

(A. W. H.*)

IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH(1732-1809), chief justice of Bengal, was born on the 13th of June 1732, and educated at Westminster with Warren Hastings, who was his intimate friend throughout life. In 1773 he was appointed the first chief justice of the new supreme court at Calcutta, and in 1775 presided at the trial of Nuncomar (q.v.) for forgery, with which his name has been chiefly connected in history. His impeachment was unsuccessfully attempted in the House of Commons in 1787, and he is accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings to commit a judicial murder; but the whole question of the trial of Nuncomar has been examined in detail by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who states that “no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than Nuncomar, and Impey in particular behavedwith absolute fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his duty.”

See E. B. Impey,Sir Elijah Impey(1846); and Sir James Stephen,The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey(1885).

IMPHAL,the capital of the state of Manipur (q.v.) in eastern Bengal and Assam, on the north-east frontier of India, situated at the confluence of three rivers. Pop. (1901) 67,903. It is really only a collection of villages buried amid trees, with a clearing containing the palace of the raja, the cantonments, and the houses of the few European residents.

IMPLEMENT(Lat.implementum, a filling up, fromimplere, to fill), in ordinary usage, a tool, especially in the plural for the set of tools necessary for a particular trade or for completing a particular piece of work (see TOOLS). It is also the most general term applied to the weapons and tools that remain of those used by primitive man. The Late Lat.implementum, more usually in the plural,implementa, was used for all the objects necessary to stock or “fill up” a house, farm, &c.; it was thus applied to furniture of a house, the vestments and sacred vessels of a church, and to articles of clothing, &c. The transition to the necessary outfit of a trade, &c., is easy. In its original Latin sense of “filling up,” the term survives in Scots law, meaning full performance or “fulfilment” of a contract, agreement, &c.; “to implement” is thus also used in Scots law for to carry out, perform.

IMPLUVIUM,the Latin term for the sunk part of the floor in the atrium of a Greek or Roman house, which was contrived to receive the water passing through the compluvium (q.v.) of the roof. The impluvium was generally in marble and sunk about a foot below the floor of the atrium.

IMPOSITION(from Lat.imponere, to place or lay upon), in ecclesiastical usage, the “laying on” of hands by a bishop at the services of confirmation and ordination as a sign that some special spiritual gift is conferred, or that the recipient is set apart for some special service or work. The word is also used of the levying of a burdensome or unfair tax or duty, and of a penalty, and hence is applied to a punishment task given to a schoolboy. From “impose” in the sense of “to pass off” on some one, imposition means also a trick or deception. In the printing trade the term is used of the arrangement of pages of type in the “forme,” being one of the stages between composing and printing.

IMPOST(through the O. Fr. from Lat.impositum, a thing laid upon another; the modern French isimpôt), a tax or tribute, and particularly a duty levied on imported or exported merchandise (seeTaxation,Customs Duties,Excise, &c.). In architecture, “impost” (in GermanKaempfer) is a term applied in Italian to the doorpost, but in English restricted to the upper member of the same, from which the arch springs. This may either be in the same plane as the arch mould or projecting and forming a plain band or elaborately moulded, in which case the mouldings are known as impost mouldings. Sometimes the complete entablature of a smaller order is employed, as in the case of the Venetian or Palladian window, where the central opening has an arch resting on the entablature of the pilasters which flank the smaller window on each side. In Romanesque and Gothic work the capitals with their abaci take the place of the impost mouldings.

IMPOTENCE(Lat.impotentia, want of power), the term used in law for the inability of a husband or wife to have marital intercourse. In English matrimonial law if impotence exists in either of the parties to a marriage at the time of its solemnization the marriage is voidableab initio. A suit for nullity on the ground of impotence can only be brought by the party who suffers the injury. Third persons—however great their interest—cannot sue for a decree on this ground, nor can a marriage be impeached after the death of one of the parties. The old rule of the ecclesiastical courts was to require a triennial cohabitation between the parties prior to the institution of the suit, but this has been practically abrogated (G.v.G., 1871, L.R. 2 P.C.D. 287). In suits for nullity on the ground of impotence, medical evidence as to the condition of the parties is necessary and a commission of two medical inspectors is usually appointed by the registrar of the court for the purpose of examining the parties; such cases are heardin camera. In the United States impotence is a ground for nullity in most states. In Germany it is recognized as a ground for annulment, but not so in France.

IMPRESSIONISM.The word “Impressionist” has come to have a more general application in England than in France, where it took currency as the nickname of a definite group of painters exhibiting together, and was adopted by themselves during the conflict of opinion which the novelty of their art excited. The word therefore belongs to the class of nicknames or battle-names, like “Romanticist,” “Naturalist,” “Realist,” which preceded it, words into which the acuteness of controversy infuses more of theoretical purport than the work of the artists denoted suggests to later times. The painters included in such a “school” differ so much among themselves, and so little from their predecessors compared with the points of likeness, that we may well see in these recurring effervescences of official and popular distaste rather the shock of individual force in the artist measured against contemporary mediocrity than the disturbance of a new doctrine. The “Olympia” of Manet, hooted at the Salon of 1865 as subversive of all tradition, decency and beauty, strikes the visitor to the Luxembourg rather as the reversion to a theme of Titian by an artist of ruder vision than as the demonstration of a revolutionary in painting. Later developments of the school do appear to us revolutionary. With this warning in a matter still too near us for final judgment, we may give some account of the Impressionists proper, and then turn to the wider significance sometimes given to the name.

The wordsImpressioniste,Impressionisme, are said to have arisen from a phrase in the preface to Manet’s catalogue of his pictures exhibited in 1867 during the Exposition Universelle, from which he was excluded. “It is the effect,” he wrote, “of sincerity to give to a painter’s works a character that makes them resemble a protest, whereas the painter has only thought of rendering his impression.” An alternative origin is a catalogue in which Claude Monet entitled a picture of sunrise at sea “Une Impression.” The word was probably much used in the discussions of the group, and was caught up by the critics as characteristic.1At the earlier date the only meaning of the word was a claim for individual liberty of subject and treatment. So far as subject went, most, though not all of Manet’s pictures were modern and actual of his Paris, for his power lay in the representation of the thing before his eye, and not in fanciful invention. His simplicity in this respect brought him into collision with popular prejudice when, in the “Déjeuner sur l’herbe” (1863), he painted a modernfête champêtre. The actual characters of his painting at this period, so fancifully reproached and praised, may be grouped under two heads. (1) The expression of the object by a few carefully chosen values in flattish patches. Those patches are placed side by side with little attenuation of their sharp collision. This simplification of colour and tone recalls by its broad effects of light and silhouette on the one hand Velasquez, on the other the extreme simplification made by the Japanese for the purposes of colour-printing. Manet, like the other painters of his group, was influenced by these newly-discovered works of art. The image, thus treated, has remarkable hardiness and vigour, and also great decorative breadth. Its vivacity and intensity of aspect is gained by the sacrifice of many minor gradations, and by the judgment with which the leading values have been determined. This matching of values produces, technically, a “solid” painting, without glazing or elaborate transparency in shadows. (2) During this period Manet makes constant progress towards a fair, clear colour. In his early work the patches of blond colour are relieved against black shadows; later these shadows clear up, and in place of an indeterminate brown sauce we findshadows that are colours. A typical picture of this period is the “Musique aux Tuileries,” refused by the Salon of 1863. In this we have an actual out-of-doors scene rendered with a frankness and sharp taste of contemporary life surprising to contemporaries, with an elision of detail in the treatment of a crowd and a seizing on the chief colour note and patch that characterize each figure equally surprising, an effort finally to render the total high-pitched gaiety of the spectacle as a banquet of sunlight and colour rather than a collection of separate dramatic groups.

For life of Édouard Manet (1832-1883) see Edmond Bazire,Manet(Paris, 1884). An idea of the state of popular feeling may be gained by reading Zola’s eloquent defence inMon Salon, which appeared inL’Événement(1866) andÉdouard Manet(1867), both reprinted inMes Haines(Paris, 1880). The same author has embodied many of the impressionist ideals in Claude Lantier, the fictitious hero ofL’Œuvre. Other writers belonging to Manet’s group are Théodore Duret, author ofLes Peintres français en 1867andCritique d’avant-garde, articles and catalogue-prefaces reprinted 1885. See also, for Manet and others, J. K. Huysman’sL’Art moderne(1883) andCertains. Summaries of the literature of the whole period will be found in R. Muther,The History of Modern Painting(tr. London, 1896), not always trustworthy in detail, and Miss R. G. Kingsley,A History of French Art(1899). For an interesting critical account see W. C. Brownell,French Art(1892).

The second period, to which the name is sometimes limited, is complicated by the emergence of new figures, and it is difficult as yet, and perhaps will always remain difficult, to say how much of originality belongs to each artist in the group. The main features are an intenser study of illumination, a greater variety of illuminations, and a revolution infacturewith a view to pressing closer to a high pitch of light. Manet plays his part in this development, but we shall not be wrong probably in giving to Claude Monet (b. 1840) the chief rôle as the instinctive artist of the period, and to Camille Pissarro (b. 1830) a very large part as a painter, curious in theory and experiment. Monet at the early date of 1866 had painted a picture as daring in its naïve brutality of out-of-door illumination as the “Déjeuner sur l’herbe.” But this picture has the breadth of patch, solidity and suavity of paste of Manet’s practice. During the siege of Paris (1870-71) Monet and Pissarro were in London, and there the study of Turner’s pictures enlarged their ideas of the pitch in lighting and range of effect possible in painting, and also suggested a new handling of colour, by small broken touches in place of the large flowing touches characteristic of Manet. This method of painting occupied much of the discussion of the group that centred round Manet at the Café Guerbois, in the Batignolles quarter (hence calledL’École de Balignolles). The ideas were: (1) Abolition of conventional brown tonality. But all browns, in the fervour of this revolt, went the way of conventional brown, and all ready-made mixtures like the umbers, ochres, siennas were banished from the palette. Black itself was condemned. (2) The idea of the spectrum, as exhibiting the series of “primary” or “pure” colours, directed the reformed palette. Six colours, besides white, were admitted to represent the chief hues of the spectrum. (3) These colours were laid on the canvas with as little previous mixture on the palette as possible to maintain a maximum of luminosity, and were fused by touch on the canvas as little as possible, for the same reason. Hence the “broken” character of the touch in this painting, and the subordination of delicacies of form and suave continuity of texture to the one aim of glittering light-and-colour notation. Justification of these procedures was sought in occasional features of the practice of E. Delacroix, of Watteau, of J. B. Chardin, in the hatchings of pastel, the stipple of water-colour. With the ferment of theory went aparti prisfor translating all effects into the upper registers of tone (cf. Ruskin’s chapter on Turner’s practice inModern Painters), and for emphasizing the colour of shadows at the expense of their tone. The characteristic work of this period is landscape, as the subject of illumination strictly observed and followed through the round of the day and of the seasons. Other pictorial motives were subordinated to this research of effect, and Monet, with a haystack, group of poplars, or church front, has demonstrated the variety of lighting that the day and the season bring to a single scene. Besides Pissarro, Alfred Sisley (1840-1899) is a member of the group, and Manet continues his progress, influenced by the new ideas in pictures like “Le Linge” and “Chez le Père Lathuille.”

Edmond Degas (b. 1834), a severe and learned draughtsman, is associated with this landscape group by his curiosity in the expression of momentary action and the effects of artificial illumination, and by his experiments in broken colour, more particularly in pastel. The novelty of his matter, taken from unexplored corners of modern life, still more the daring and irony of his observation and points of view, and the strangeness of his composition, strongly influenced by Japanese art, enriched the associations now gathering about the word “impressionist.” Another name, that of Auguste Renoir (b. 1841), completes the leading figures of the group. Any “school” programme would be strained to breaking-point to admit this painter, unless on the very general grounds of love of bright colour, sunlit places and independence of vision. He has no science of drawing or of tone, but wins a precarious charm of colour and expression.

The landscape, out-of-doors line, which unites in this period with Manet’s line, may be represented by these names: J. B. Corot, J. B. Jongkind, Boudin, Monet. Monet’s real teacher was Eugène Boudin (1824-1898), (See Gustave Cahen’sEugène Boudin, Paris, 1900). They, and others of the group, worked together in a painters’ colony at Saint Simeon, near Honfleur. It is usual to date the origin ofplein-airpainting,i.e.painting out-of-doors, in an out-of-doors key of tone, from a picture Manet painted in the garden of de Nittis, just before the outbreak of war in 1870. This dates only Manet’s change to the lighter key and looser handling. It was Monet who carried the practice to a logical extreme, working on his canvas only during the effect and in its presence. The method of Degas is altogether different, viz., a combination in the studio from innumerable notes and observations. It will be evident from what has been said above that impressionistic painting is an artistic ferment, corresponding to the scientific research into the principles of light and colour, just as earlier movements in painting coincided with the scientific study of perspective and anatomy. Chevreul’s famous book, already referred to,De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs(1838), established certain laws of interaction for colours adjacent to one another. He still, however, referred the sensations of colour to the three impossible “primaries” of Brewster—red, blue and yellow. The Young-Helmholtz theory affected the palette of the Impressionists, and the work of Ogden Rood,Colour(Internat. Scientific Series, 1879-1881), published in English, French and German, furnished the theorists with formulae measuring the degradation of pitch suffered by pigments in mixture.The Impressionist group (with the exception of Manet, who still fought for his place in the Salon) exhibited together for the first time as L’Exposition des Impressionistes at Nadar’s, Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. They were then taken up by the dealer Durand-Ruel, and the succeeding exhibitions in 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886 were held by him in various galleries. The full history of these exhibitions, with the names of the painters, will be found in two works: Félix-Fénéon,Les Impressionistes en 1886(Paris, 1886), and G. Geffroy,La Vie artistique(“Histoire de l’impressionisme,” in vol. for 1894). See also G. Lecomte,L’Art impressionists d’après la collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel(Paris, 1892); Duranty,La Peinture nouvelle(1876). Besides the names already cited, some others may be added: Madame Berthe Morisot, sister-in-law of Manet; Paul Cézanne, belonging to the Manet-Pissarro group; and, later, Gauguin. J. F. Raffaëlli applied a “characteristic” drawing, to use his word, to scenes in the dismal suburbs of Paris; Forain, the satiric draughtsman, was a disciple of Degas, as also Zandomeneghi. Miss Mary Cassatt was his pupil. Caillebotte, who bequeathed the collection of Impressionist paintings now in the Luxembourg, was also an exhibitor; and Boudin, who linked the movement to the earlier schools.The first exhibitions of the Impressionists in London were in 1882 and 1883, but their fortunes there cannot be pursued in the present article, nor the history of the movement beyond its originators. This excludes notable figures, of which M. Besnard may be chosen as a type.

The Impressionist group (with the exception of Manet, who still fought for his place in the Salon) exhibited together for the first time as L’Exposition des Impressionistes at Nadar’s, Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. They were then taken up by the dealer Durand-Ruel, and the succeeding exhibitions in 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886 were held by him in various galleries. The full history of these exhibitions, with the names of the painters, will be found in two works: Félix-Fénéon,Les Impressionistes en 1886(Paris, 1886), and G. Geffroy,La Vie artistique(“Histoire de l’impressionisme,” in vol. for 1894). See also G. Lecomte,L’Art impressionists d’après la collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel(Paris, 1892); Duranty,La Peinture nouvelle(1876). Besides the names already cited, some others may be added: Madame Berthe Morisot, sister-in-law of Manet; Paul Cézanne, belonging to the Manet-Pissarro group; and, later, Gauguin. J. F. Raffaëlli applied a “characteristic” drawing, to use his word, to scenes in the dismal suburbs of Paris; Forain, the satiric draughtsman, was a disciple of Degas, as also Zandomeneghi. Miss Mary Cassatt was his pupil. Caillebotte, who bequeathed the collection of Impressionist paintings now in the Luxembourg, was also an exhibitor; and Boudin, who linked the movement to the earlier schools.

The first exhibitions of the Impressionists in London were in 1882 and 1883, but their fortunes there cannot be pursued in the present article, nor the history of the movement beyond its originators. This excludes notable figures, of which M. Besnard may be chosen as a type.

In Manet’s painting, even in the final steps he took towards “la peinture claire,” there is nothing of the “decomposition of tones” that logically followed from the theories of his followers. He recognized the existence in certain illuminations of the violet shadow, and he adopted in open-air work a looser and more broken touch. The nature of his subjects encouraged such a handling, for the painter who attempts to note from nature the colour values of an elusive effect must treat form in a summary fashion, still more so when the material is in constant movement like water. Moreover, in the river-side subjectsnear Paris there was a great deal that was only pictorially tolerable when its tone was subtracted from the details of its form. Monet’s painting carries the shorthand of form and broken colour to extremity; the flowing touch of Manet is chopped up into harsher, smaller notes of tone, and the pitch pushed up till all values approach the iridescent end of the register. It was in 1886 that thedoctrinaireferment came to a head, and what was supposed to be a scientific method of colour was formulated. This waspointillisme, the resolution of the colours of nature back into six bands of the rainbow or spectrum, and their representation on the canvas bydotsof unmixed pigment. These dots, at a sufficient distance, combine their hues in the eye with the effect of a mixture of colouredlights, not of pigments, so that the result is an increase instead of a loss of luminosity. There are several fallacies, however, theoretical and practical, in this “spectral palette” and pointillist method. If we depart from the three primaries of the Helmholtz hypothesis, there is no reason why we should stop at six hues instead of six hundred. But pigments follow the spectrum series so imperfectly that the three primaries, even if we could exactly locate them, limit the palette considerably in its upper range. The sacrifice of black is quite illogical, and the lower ranges suffer accordingly. Moreover, it is doubtful whether many painters have followed the laws of mixture of lights in their dotting,e.g.dotting green and red together to produce yellow. It may be added that dotting with oil pigment is in practice too coarse and inaccurate a method. This innovation ofpointillismeis generally ascribed to George Seurat (d. 1890), whose picture, “La Grande Jatte,” was exhibited at the Rue Laffitte in 1886. Pissarro experimented in the new method, but abandoned it, and other names among thePointillistesare Paul Signac, Vincent van Gogh, and van Rysselberghe. The theory opened the way for endless casuistries, and its extravagances died out in the later exhibition of theIndépendantsor were domesticated in the Salon by painters like M. Henri Martin.

The first modern painter to concern himself scientifically with the reactions of complementary colours appears to have been Delacroix (J. Leonardo, it should be remembered, left some notes on the subject). It is claimed for Delacroix that as early as 1825 he observed and made use of these reactions, anticipating the complete exposition of Chevreul. He certainly studied the treatise, and his biographers describe a dial-face he constructed for reference. He had quantities of little wafers of each colour, with which he tried colour effects, a curious anticipation of pointillist technique. The pointillists claim him as their grandfather. See Paul Signac, “D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme” (Revue Blanche, 1898). For a fuller discussion of the spectral palette see theSaturday Review, 2nd, 9th and 23rd February and 23rd March 1901.

In England the ideas connected with the word Impressionism have been refracted through the circumstances of the British schools. The questions of pitch of light and iridescent colour had already arisen over the work of Turner, of the Pre-Raphaelites, and also of G. F. Watts, but less isolated and narrowed, because the art of none of these limited itself to the pursuit of light.Pointillisme, after a fashion, existed in British water-colour practice. But the Pre-Raphaelite school had accustomed the English eye to extreme definition in painting and to elaboration of detail, and it happened that the painting of James M’Neill Whistler (Grosvenor Gallery, 1878) brought the battle-name Impressionism into England and gave it a different colour. Whistler’s method of painting was in no way revolutionary, and he preferred to transpose values into a lower key rather than compete with natural pitch, but his vision, like that of Manet under the same influences, Spanish and Japanese, simplified tone and subordinated detail. These characteristics raised the whole question ofthe science and art of aspect in modern painting, and the field of controversy was extended backwards to Velasquez as the chief master of the moderns. “Impressionism” at first had meant individualism of vision, later the notation of fugitive aspects of light and of movement; now it came to mean breadth in pictorial vision, all the simplifications that arise from the modern analysis of aspect, and especially the effect produced upon the parts of a picture-field by attending tothe impression of the whole. Ancient painting analyses aspect into three separate acts as form, tone and colour. All forms are made out with equal clearness by a conventional outline; over this system of outlines a second system of light and shade is passed, and over this again a system of colours. Tone is conceived as a difference of black or white added to the tints, and the colours are the definite local tints of the objects (a blue, a red, a yellow, and so forth). In fully developed modern painting, instead of an object analysed into sharp outlines covered with a uniform colour darkened or lightened in places, we find an object analysed into a number of surfaces or planes set at different angles. On each of these facets the character of the object and of the illumination, with accidents of reflection, produces a patch called by modern painters a “value,” because it is colour of a particular value or tone. (With each difference of tone, “value” implies a difference of hue also, so that when we speak of a different tone of the same colour we are using the word “same” in a loose or approximate sense.) These planes or facets define themselves one against another with greater or less sharpness. Modern technique follows this modern analysis of vision, and in one act instead of three renders by a “touch” of paint the shape and value of these facets, and instead of imposing a uniform ideal outline at all their junctions, allows these patches to define themselves against one another with variable sharpness.

Blurred definition, then, as it exists in our natural view of things, is admitted into painting; a blurring that may arise from distance, from vapour or smoke, from brilliant light, from obscurity, or simply from the nearness in value of adjacent objects. Similarly, much detail that in primitive art is elaborated is absorbed by rendering the aspect instead of the facts known to make up that aspect. Thus hair and fur, the texture of stuffs, the blades of grass at a little distance, become patches of tone showing only their larger constructive markings. But the blurring of definitions and the elimination of detail that we find in modern pictorial art are not all of this ready-made character. We have so far only the scientific analysis of a field of view. If the painter were a scientific reporter he would have to pursue the systems of planes, with their shapes and values, to infinity. Impressionism is the art that surveys the field and determines which of the shapes and tones are of chief importance to theinterestedeye, enforces these, and sacrifices the rest. Construction, the logic of the object rendered, determines partly this action of the eye, and also decoration, the effects of rhythm in line and harmony in fields of colour. These motives belong to all art, but the specially impressionist motive is the act ofattentionas it affects the aspect of the field. We are familiar, in the ordinary use of the eye, with two features of its structure that limit clearness of vision. There is, first, the spot of clear vision on the retina, outside of which all falls away into blur; there is, secondly, the action offocus. As the former limits clear definition to one spot in the field extended vertically and laterally, so focus limits clear definition to one plane in the third dimension, viz. depth. If three objects, A, B and C, stand at different depths before the eye, we can at will fix A, whereupon B and C must fall out of focus, or B, whereupon A and C must be blurred, or C, sacrificing the clearness of A and B. All this apparatus makes it impossible to see everything at once with equal clearness, enables us, and forces us for the uses of real life, to frame and limit our picture, according to the immediate interest of the eye, whatever it may be. The painter instinctively uses these means to arrive at the emphasis and neglect that his choice requires. If he is engaged on a face he will now screw his attention to a part and now relax it, distributing the attention over the whole so as to restore the bigger relations of aspect. Sir Joshua Reynolds describes this process as seeing the whole “with the dilated eye”; the commoner precept of the studios is “to look with the eyes half closed”; a third way is to throw the whole voluntarily out of focus. In any case the result is that minor planes are swamped in bigger, that smaller patches of colour are swept up into broader, that markings are blurred. The final result of these tentative reviews records, in what is blurred and what is clear, the attention that has been distributedto different parts, and to parts measured against the whole. The Impressionist painter does not allot so much detail to a face in a full-length portrait as to a head alone, nor to twenty figures on a canvas as to one. Again, he indicates by his treatment of planes and definitions whether the main subject of his picture is in the foreground or the distance. He persuades the eye to slip over hosts of near objects so that, as in life, it may hit a distant target, or concentrate its attack on what is near, while the distance falls away into a dim curtain. All those devices by which attention is directed and distributed, and the importance in space of an object established, affect impressionistic composition.

It is an inevitable misunderstanding of painting which plays the game of art so closely up to the real aspects of nature that its aim is that of mere exact copying. Painting like Manet’s, accused of being realistic in this sense, sufficiently disproves the accusation when examined. Never did painting show aparti prismore pronounced, even more violent. The elisions and assertions by which Manet selects what he finds significant and beautiful in the complete natural image are startling to the stupid realist, and the Impressionist may best be described as the painter who out of the completed contents of vision constructs an image moulded upon his own interest in the thing seen and not on that of any imaginary schoolmaster. Accepting the most complex terms of nature with their special emotions, he uses the same freedom of sacrifice as the man who at the other end of the scale expresses his interest in things by a few scratches of outline. The perpetual enemy of both is the eclectic, who works for possible interests not his own.

Some of the points touched on above will be found amplified in articles by the writer inThe Albemarle(September 1892), theFortnightly Review(June 1894), andThe Artist(March-July 1896). An admirable exposition of Impressionism in this sense is R. A. M. Stevenson’sThe Art of Velasquez(1895). Mr Stevenson was trained in the school of Carolus Duran, where impressionist painting was reduced to a system. Mr Sargent’s painting is a brilliant example of the system.

(D. S. M.)

1Mr H. P. Hain Friswell has pointed out that the word “impression” occurs frequently in Chevreul’s book on colour; but it is also current among the critics. See Ruskin’s chapter on Turner’s composition—“impression on the mind.”

IMPRESSMENT,the name given in English to the exercise of the authority of the state to “press”1or compel the service of the subject for the defence of the realm. Every sovereign state must claim and at times exercise this power. The “drafting” of men for service in the American Civil War was a form of impressment. All the monarchical, or republican, governments of Europe have employed the press at one time or another. All forms of conscription, including the English ballot for the militia, are but regulations of this sovereign right. In England impressment may be looked upon as an erratic, and often oppressive, way of enforcing the common obligation to serve in “the host” or in theposse comitatus(power of the county). In Scotland, where the feudal organization was very complete in the Lowlands, and the tribal organization no less complete in the Highlands, and where the state was weak, impressment was originally little known. After the union of the two parliaments in 1707, no distinction was made between the two divisions of Great Britain. In England the kings of the Plantagenet dynasty caused Welshmen to be pressed by the Lords Marchers, and Irish kerns to be pressed by the Lords Deputy, for their wars in France. Complaints were made by parliament of the oppressive use of this power as early as the reign of Edward III., but it continued to be exercised. Readers of Shakespeare will remember Sir John Falstaff’s commission to press soldiers, and the manner, justified no doubt by many and familiar examples of the way in which the duty was performed. A small sum called imprest-money, or coat and conduct money, was given to the men when pressed to enable them to reach the appointed rendezvous. Soldiers were secured in this way by Queen Elizabeth, by King Charles I., and by the parliament itself in the Civil War. The famous New Model Army of Cromwell was largely raised by impressment. Parliament ordered the county committees to select recruits of “years meet for their employment and well clothed.” After the Revolution of 1688 parliament occasionally made use of this resource. In 1779 a general press of all rogues and vagabonds in London to be drafted into the regiments was ordered. It is said that all who were not too lame to run away or too destitute to bribe the parish constable were swept into the net. As they were encouraged to desert by the undisguised connivance of the officers and men who were disgusted with their company, no further attempt to use the press for the army was made.

A distinction between the liability of sailors and of other men dates from the 16th century. From an act of Philip and Mary (1556) it appears that the watermen of the Thames claimed exemption from the press as a privileged body. They were declared liable, and the liability was clearly meant to extend to service as a soldier on shore. In the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth (1563) an act was passed to define the liability of the sailors. It is known as “an Act touching politick considerations for the maintenance of the Navy.” By its term all fishermen and mariners were protected from being compelled “to serve as any soldiers upon the Land or upon the Sea, otherwise than as a mariner, except it shall be to serve under any Captain of some ship or vessel, for landing to do some special exploit which mariners have been used to do.” The operation of the act was limited to ten years, but it was renewed repeatedly, and was at last indefinitely prolonged in the sixteenth year of the reign of Charles I. (1631). By the Vagrancy Act of the close of Queen Elizabeth’s reign (1597), disorderly serving-men and other disreputable characters, of whom a formidable list is given, were declared to be liable to be impressed for service in the fleet. The “Takers,” as they were called in early times, the Press Gang of later days, were ordered to present their commission to two justices of the peace, who were bound to pick out “such sufficient number of able men, as in the said commission shall be contained, to serve Her Majesty as aforesaid.” The justices of the peace in the coast districts, who were often themselves concerned in the shipping trade, were not always zealous in enforcing the press. The pressed sailors often deserted with the “imprest money” given them. Loud complaints were made by the naval officers of the bad quality of the men sent up to serve in the king’s ships. On the other hand, the Press Gangs were accused of extorting money, and of making illegal arrests. In the reign of Queen Anne (1703) an act was passed “for the increase of Seamen and the better encouragement of navigation, and the protection of the Coal Trade.” The act which gave parish authorities power to apprentice boys to the sea exempted the apprentices from the press for three years, and until the age of eighteen. It especially reaffirmed the part of the Vagrancy Act of Elizabeth’s reign which left rogues and vagabonds subject to be pressed for the sea service. By the act for the “Increase of Mariners and Seamen to navigate Merchant Ships and other trading ships or vessels,” passed in the reign of George II. (1740), all men over fifty-five were exempted from the press together with lads under eighteen, foreigners serving in British ships (always numerous in war time), and landsmen who had gone to sea during their first two years. The act for “the better supplying of the cities of London and Westminster with fish” gave exemption to all masters of fishing-boats, to four apprentices and one mariner to each boat, and all landsmen for two years, except in case of actual invasion. By the act for the encouragement of insurance passed in 1774, the fire insurance companies in London were entitled to secure exemption for thirty watermen each in their employment. Masters and mates of merchant vessels, and a proportion of men per ship in the colliers trading from the north to London, were also exempt.

Subject to such limitations as these, all seafaring men, andwatermen on rivers, were liable to be pressed between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five, and might be pressed repeatedly for so long as their liability lasted. The rogue and vagabond element were at the mercy of the justices of the peace. The frightful epidemics of fever which desolated the navy till late in the 18th century were largely due to the infection brought by the prisoners drafted from the ill-kept jails of the time. As service in the fleet was most unpopular with the sailors, the press could often only be enforced by making a parade of strength and employing troops. The men had many friends who were always willing to conceal them, and they themselves became expert in avoiding capture. There was, however, one way of procuring them which gave them no chance of evasion. The merchant ships were stopped at sea and the sailors taken out. This was done to a great extent, more especially in the case of homeward-bound vessels. On one occasion, in 1802, an East Indiaman on her way home was deprived of so many of her crew by a man of war in the Bay of Biscay that she was unable to resist a small French privateer, and was carried off as a prize with a valuable cargo. The press and the jails failed to supply the number of men required. In 1795 it was found necessary to impose on the counties the obligation to provide “a quota” of men, at their own expense. The local authorities provided the recruits by offering high bounties, often to debtors confined in the prisons. These desperate men were a very bad element in the navy. In 1797 they combined with the United Irishmen, of whom large numbers had been drafted into the fleet as vagabonds, to give a very dangerous political character to the mutinies at the Nore and on the south of Ireland. After the conclusion of the great Napoleonic wars in 1815 the power of the press was not again exercised. In 1835 an act was passed during Sir James Graham’s tenure of office as first lord of the admiralty, by which men who had once been pressed and had served for a period of five years were to be exempt from impressment in future. Sir James, however, emphatically reaffirmed the right of the crown to enforce the service of the subject, and therefore to impress the seamen. The introduction of engagements for a term of five years in 1853, and then of long service, has produced so large a body of voluntary recruits, and service in the navy is so popular, that the question has no longer any interest save an historical one. If compulsory service in the fleet should again become necessary it will not be in the form of the old system of impressment, which left the sailor subject to compulsory service from the age of eighteen to fifty-five, and flooded the navy with the scum of the jails and the workhouse.

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