FOOTNOTES:

Portrait of Georg Gisze. Holbein.Portrait of Georg Gisze.Holbein.

Portrait of Georg Gisze.Holbein.

Holbein has represented Georg Gisze in his mercantile office, at a table, holding a letter which he is about to open, and surrounded by small objects, articles for which he has use in his business and in his every-day life. This man appears before us in a marvellous pose, among these material surroundings and in this professional scene. Observe his calm attitude and his almost placid physiognomy: we notice, however, the firm and decided air of a wealthy and elegant merchant. And, at the same time, we are sure that the type represented here is not of sudden growth: everything about him reveals intelligence.

Georg Gisze is young; the painter has told us his name and his age in an inscription on the wall: he is thirty-four. We do not lack information about him. We like him under that air of youthful seriousness; we see upon his face that dawning gravity in which the blossom of feeling already exists, but its plenitude and maturity are still to come. And in attentively examining our personage we are struck with his reflective and searching glance. We seem to have a glimpse in him of an undefined melancholy. This expression surprises us in this man, who ought to be happy at living and who lacks no pleasures that Fortune can procure.

This is a state of mind which is indicated to us, moreover, by a motto traced above his name on one of the walls of his office:Nulla sine mærore voluptas. Why thisthought? Is it purely emblematic, or does it contain an allusion to some private matter? We are led to believe that it is intended as a complementary explanation, that it was placed upon the picture because it was in sympathy with a train of ideas special to the model. Perhaps it recalls some domestic sorrow, the lively grief left by an absent one, or by some eternal separation. A moral mystery, which seems to us very attractive, hovers around Georg Gisze.

He has long fair hair confined beneath a black cap; his smooth-shaven face is rather thin. He wears a rich costume, a pourpoint of cerise silk with puffed sleeves, and, over this pourpoint, a cloak of black wool lined with fur. The table on which he is leaning is covered with a Persian rug, and, beside the various objects scattered upon it, you notice a bunch of carnations in an artistically wrought Venetian glass. These carnations, like the motto, awake in us an image, a poetical reminiscence. Sentiment, Germanic in its essence, mingled with dreams and vague ideals, is introduced into this merchant's office.

The master has fully displayed with supreme power, and with all the resources of his art, the colours of the costume, the paleness of the face, and the freshness of the flesh standing out from the background of green panels. He has played with all the various tones of the accessories, book and registers, inkstand, watch, and scales for weighing the gold. Every detail, with no link missing, contributes to form the perfect harmony of the whole.

We cannot too greatly admire the singular clearness and extraordinary precision with which the artist has placed inrelief every detail that can make a figure live and render a work essentially eloquent.7

People have tried to make out that Georg Gisze was a merchant of Basle. He would then have been of the race connected most closely with the Master's life. This opinion has been discussed by Woltmann, Holbein's historian. The superscriptions on the sufficiently numerous letters, which are reproduced in this painting, must be especially noticed; they are written in an ancient dialect which seems rather to be that of central Germany.8

Jouin,Chefs-d'œuvre: Peinture, Sculpture, Architecture(Paris, 1895-97).

FOOTNOTES:7In one corner of the picture is found this inscription with its Latin distich:Imaginem Georgii GyseniiIsta refert vultus, quâ cernis Īmago GeorgiSic oculos vivos, sic habet ille genas.Anno ætatis suæ XXXIII.Anno dom. 1532.8We read on one of these letters:Dem erszamen Jergen Gisze to Lunden in Engelant, mynem broder to handen.

7In one corner of the picture is found this inscription with its Latin distich:Imaginem Georgii GyseniiIsta refert vultus, quâ cernis Īmago GeorgiSic oculos vivos, sic habet ille genas.Anno ætatis suæ XXXIII.Anno dom. 1532.

In one corner of the picture is found this inscription with its Latin distich:

Imaginem Georgii GyseniiIsta refert vultus, quâ cernis Īmago GeorgiSic oculos vivos, sic habet ille genas.Anno ætatis suæ XXXIII.Anno dom. 1532.

Imaginem Georgii Gysenii

Ista refert vultus, quâ cernis Īmago Georgi

Sic oculos vivos, sic habet ille genas.

Anno ætatis suæ XXXIII.

Anno dom. 1532.

8We read on one of these letters:Dem erszamen Jergen Gisze to Lunden in Engelant, mynem broder to handen.

The chief reason why we all know theLast Judgmentof Michael Angelo, and not theParadiseof Tintoret, is the same love of sensation which makes us read theInfernoof Dante, and not hisParadise; and the choice, believe me, is our fault, not his; some farther evil influence is due to the fact that Michael Angelo had invested all his figures with picturesque and palpable elements of effect, while Tintoret has only made them lovely in themselves and has been content that they should deserve, not demand, your attention.

You are accustomed to think the figures of Michael Angelo sublime—because they are dark, and colossal, and involved, and mysterious—because, in a word, they look sometimes like shadows, and sometimes like mountains, and sometimes like spectres, but never like human beings. Believe me, yet once more, in what I told you long since—man can invent nothing nobler than humanity. He cannot raise his form into anything better than God made it, by giving it either the flight of birds or strength of beasts, by enveloping it in mist, or heaping it into multitude. Your pilgrim must look like a pilgrim in a straw hat, or you will not make him into one with cockle and nimbus;an angel must look like an angel on the ground, as well as in the air; and the much-denounced pre-Raphaelite faith that a saint cannot look saintly unless he has thin legs, is not more absurd than Michael Angelo's, that a Sibyl cannot look Sibylline unless she has thick ones.

Paradise. Tintoret.Paradise.Tintoret.

Paradise.Tintoret.

All that shadowing, storming, and coiling of his, when you look into it, is mere stage decoration, and that of a vulgar kind. Light is, in reality, more awful than darkness—modesty more majestic than strength; and there is truer sublimity in the sweet joy of a child, or the sweet virtue of a maiden, than in the strength of Antæus, or thunder-clouds of Ætna.

Now, though in nearly all his greater pictures, Tintoret is entirely carried away by his sympathy with Michael Angelo, and conquers him in his own field;—outflies him in motion, outnumbers him in multitude, outwits him in fancy, and outflames him in rage,—he can be just as gentle as he is strong: and thatParadise, though it is the largest picture in the world, without any question, is also the thoughtfullest, and most precious.

The Thoughtfullest!—it would be saying but little, as far as Michael Angelo is concerned.

For consider it of yourselves. You have heard, from your youth up (and all educated persons have heard for three centuries), of thisLast Judgmentof his, as the most sublime picture in existence.

The subject of it is one which should certainly be interesting to you in one of two ways.

If you never expect to be judged for any of your own doings, and the tradition of the coming of Christ is to youas an idle tale—still, think what a wonderful tale it would be, were it well told. You are at liberty, disbelieving it, to range the fields—Elysian and Tartarean, of all imagination. You may play with it, since it is false; and what a play would it not be, well written? Do you think the tragedy, or the miracle play, or the infinitely Divina Commedia of the Judgment of the astonished living who were dead;—the undeceiving of the sight of every human soul, understanding in an instant all the shallow and depth of past life and future,—face to face with both,—and with God:—this apocalypse to all intellect, and completion to all passion, this minute and individual drama of the perfected history of separate spirits, and of their finally accomplished affections!—think you, I say, all this was well told by mere heaps of dark bodies curled and convulsed in space, and fall as of a crowd from a scaffolding, in writhed concretions of muscular pain?

But take it the other way. Suppose you believe, be it never so dimly or feebly, in some kind of Judgment that is to be;—that you admit even the faint contingency of retribution, and can imagine, with vivacity enough to fear, that in this life, at all events, if not in another—there may be for you a Visitation of God, and a questioning—What hast thou done? The picture, if it is a good one, should have a deeper interest, surely onthispostulate? Thrilling enough, as a mere imagination of what is never to be—now, as a conjecture of whatisto be, held the best that in eighteen centuries of Christianity has for men's eyes been made;—Think of it so!

And then, tell me, whether you yourselves, or any oneyou have known, did ever at any time receive from this picture any, the smallest vital thought, warning, quickening, or help? It may have appalled, or impressed you for a time, as a thunder-cloud might: but has it ever taught you anything—chastised in you anything—confirmed a purpose—fortified a resistance—purified a passion? I know that for you, it has done none of these things; and I know also that, for others, it has done very different things. In every vain and proud designer who has since lived, that dark carnality of Michael Angelo's has fostered insolent science, and fleshly imagination. Daubers and blockheads think themselves painters, and are received by the public as such, if they know how to foreshorten bones and decipher entrails; and men with capacity of art either shrink away (the best of them always do) into petty felicities and innocencies of genre painting—landscapes, cattle, family breakfasts, village schoolings, and the like; or else, if they have the full sensuous art-faculty that would have made true painters of them, being taught from their youth up, to look for and learn the body instead of the spirit, have learned it and taught it to such purpose, that at this hour, when I speak to you, the rooms of the Royal Academy of England, receiving also what of best can be sent there by the masters of France, containnot onepicture honourable to the arts of their age; and contain many which are shameful in their record of its manners.

Of that, hereafter. I will close to-day by giving you some brief account of the scheme of Tintoret'sParadise, in justification that it is the thoughtfullest as well as mightiest picture in the world.

In the highest centre is Christ, leaning on the globe of the earth, which is of dark crystal. Christ is crowned with a glory as of the sun, and all the picture is lighted by that glory, descending through circle beneath circle of cloud, and of flying or throned spirits.

The Madonna, beneath Christ, and at some interval from Him, kneels to Him. She is crowned with the Seven stars, and kneels on a cloud of angels, whose wings change into ruby fire where they are near her.

The three great Archangels, meeting from three sides, fly towards Christ. Michael delivers up his scales and sword. He is followed by the Thrones and Principalities of the Earth; so inscribed—Throni—Principatus. The Spirits of the Thrones bear scales in their hands; and of the Princedoms, shining globes: beneath the wings of the last of these are the four great teachers and lawgivers, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Augustine, and behind St. Augustine stands his mother, watching him, her chief joy in Paradise.

Under the Thrones are set the Apostles, St. Paul separated a little from the rest, and put lowest, yet principal; under St. Paul, is St. Christopher, bearing a massive globe, with a cross upon it: but to mark him as the Christ-bearer, since here in Paradise he cannot have the child on his shoulders, Tintoret has thrown on the globe a flashing stellar reflection of the sun round the head of Christ.

All this side of the picture is kept in glowing colour—the four Doctors of the church have golden mitres and mantles; except the Cardinal, St. Jerome, who is in burning scarlet, his naked breast glowing, warm with noble life,—thedarker red of his robe relieved against a white glory.

Opposite to Michael, Gabriel flies towards the Madonna, having in his hand the Annunciation lily, large and triple-blossomed. Above him, and above Michael equally, extends a cloud of white angels, inscribed "Serafini;" but the group following Gabriel, and corresponding to the Throni following Michael, is inscribed "Cherubini." Under these are the great prophets, and singers, and foretellers of the happiness or of the sorrow of time. David, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Amos of the herdsmen. David has a colossal golden psaltery laid horizontally across his knees;—two angels behind him dictate to him as he sings, looking up towards Christ; but one strong angel sweeps down to Solomon from among the cherubs, and opens a book, resting it on the head of Solomon, who looks down earnestly, unconscious of it;—to the left of David, separate from the group of prophets, as Paul from the apostles, is Moses, dark-robed;—in the full light, withdrawn far behind him, Abraham, embracing Isaac with his left arm, and near him, pale St. Agnes. In front, nearer, dark and colossal, stands the glorious figure of Santa Giustina of Padua; then a little subordinate to her, St. Catharine, and, far on the left, and high, Saint Barbara leaning on her tower. In front, nearer, flies Raphael; and under him is the four-square group of the Evangelists. Beneath them, on the left, Noah; on the right, Adam and Eve, both floating unsupported by cloud or angel; Noah buoyed by the Ark, which he holds above him, and it isthisinto which Solomon gazes down, so earnestly. Eve's faceis, perhaps, the most beautiful ever painted by Tintoret—full in light, but dark-eyed. Adam floats beside her, his figure fading into a winged gloom, edged in the outline of fig-leaves. Far down, under these, central in the lowest part of the picture, rises the Angel of the Sea, praying for Venice; for Tintoret conceives his Paradise as existing now, not as in the future. I at first mistook this soft Angel of the Sea for Magdalene, for he is sustained by other three angels on either side, as the Magdalen is, in designs of earlier time, because of the verse, "There is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth." But the Magdalen is on the right, behind St. Monica; and on the same side, but lowest of all, Rachel, among the angels of her children gathered now again to her for ever.

I have no hesitation in asserting this picture to be by far the most precious work of art of any kind whatsoever, now existing in the world; and it is, I believe, on the eve of final destruction; for it is said that the angle of the great council-chamber is soon to be rebuilt; and that process will involve the destruction of the picture by removal, and, far more, by repainting. I had thought of making some effort to save it by an appeal in London to persons generally interested in the arts; but the recent desolation of Paris has familiarized us with destruction, and I have no doubt the answer to me would be, that Venice must take care of her own. But remember, at least, that I have borne witness to you to-day of the treasures that we forget, while we amuse ourselves with the poor toys, and the petty, or vile, arts, of our own time.

The years of that time have perhaps come, when we are to be taught to look no more to the dreams of painters, either for knowledge of Judgment, or of Paradise. The anger of Heaven will not longer, I think, be mocked for our amusement; and perhaps its love may not always be despised by our pride. Believe me, all the arts, and all the treasures of men, are fulfilled and preserved to them only, so far as they have chosen first, with their hearts, not the curse of God, but His blessing. Our Earth is now encumbered with ruin, our Heaven is clouded by Death. May we not wisely judge ourselves in some things now, instead of amusing ourselves with the painting of judgments to come?

The Relation Between Michael Angelo and Tintoret(London, 1872).

On the roof of the summer-house of the Palazzo Rospigliosi, is painted the celebrated fresco of Guido'sAurora. Its colouring is clear, harmonious, airy, brilliant—unfaded by time; and the enthusiastic admirer of Guido's genius may be permitted to hope that this, his noblest work, will be immortal as his fame.

Aurora. Guido Reni.Aurora.Guido Reni.

Aurora.Guido Reni.

Morghen's fine engraving may give you some idea of the design and composition of this beautiful painting; but it cannot convey the soft harmony of the tints, the living touches, the brilliant forms, the realized dream of the imagination, that bursts, with all its magic, upon your enraptured sight in the matchless original. It is embodied poetry. The Hours, that hand-in-hand encircle the car of Phœbus, advance with rapid pace. The paler, milder forms of those gentler sisters who rule over declining day, and the glowing glance of those who bask in the meridian blaze, resplendent in the hues of heaven,—are of no mortal grace and beauty; but they are eclipsed by Aurora herself, who sails on the golden clouds before them, shedding "showers of shadowing roses" on the rejoicing earth; her celestial presence diffusing gladness, and light,and beauty around. Above the heads of the heavenly coursers, hovers the morning star, in the form of a youthful cherub, bearing his flaming torch. Nothing is more admirable in this beautiful composition, than the motion given to the whole. The smooth and rapid step of the circling Hours as they tread on the fleecy clouds; the fiery steeds; the whirling wheels of the car; the torch of Lucifer, blown back by the velocity of his advance; and the form of Aurora, borne through the ambient air, till you almost fear she should float from your sight; all realize the illusion. You seem admitted into the world of fancy, and revel in its brightest creations.

In the midst of such youth and loveliness, the dusky figure of Phœbus appears to great disadvantage. It is not happily conceived. Yet his air is noble and godlike, and his free commanding action, and conscious ease, as he carelessly guides, with one hand, the fiery steeds that are harnessed to his flaming car, may, perhaps, compensate in some degree for his want of beauty; for he certainly is not handsome; and I looked in vain for the youthful majesty of the god of day, and thought on Apollo Belvedere. Had Guido thought of it too, he never could have made this head, which is, I think, the great and only defect of this exquisite painting; and what makes it of more importance, is, that Apollo, not Aurora, is the principal figure—the first that catches the eye, and which, in spite of our dissatisfaction, we are to the last obliged to contemplate. The defects of his Apollo are a new proof of what I have very frequently observed, that Guido succeeded far better in feminine than in masculine beauty.His female forms, in their loveliness, their delicacy, their grace and sweetness are faultless; and the beauty and innocence of his infants have seldom been equalled; but he rarely gave to manly beauty and vigour a character that was noble.

From theAuroraof Guido, we must turn to the rivalAuroraof Guercino, in the Villa Ludovisi. In spite of Guido's bad head of Apollo, and in spite of Guercino's magic chiaroscuro, I confess myself disposed to give the preference to Guido. In the first place, there is not the same unity of composition in Guercino's. It is very fine in all its parts; but still itisin parts. It is not so fine awhole, nor is it so perfect a composition, nor has it the same charm as Guido's. Neither is there the same ideal beauty in the Aurora. Guercino's is a mortal—Guido's a truly ethereal being. Guercino's Aurora is in her car, drawn by two heavenly steeds, and the shades of night seem to dissipate at her approach. Old Tithonus, whom she has left behind her seems half awake; and the morning star, under the figure of a winged genius bearing his kindled torch, follows her course. In a separate compartment, Night, in the form of a woman, is sitting musing, or slumbering, over a book. She has much of the character of a Sibyl. Her dark cave is broken open, and the blue sky and the coming light break beautifully in upon her and her companions, the sullen owl and flapping bat, which shrink from its unwelcome ray. The Hours are represented under the figure of children, fluttering about before the goddess, and extinguishing the stars of night—a beautiful idea; but one, perhaps, better adapted to poetry thanpainting. The Hours of Guercino are, however, infinitely less poetic and less beautiful than the bright female forms which encircle the car of day in Guido'sAurora. Yet it is a masterpiece of painting; and but for theAuroraof Guido, we could have conceived nothing beyond theAuroraof Guercino.

Rome in the Nineteenth Century(5th edition, London, 1852).

Although no distinct landscape is known by the hand of Guido, yet in a history of this particular branch it may not be improper to notice its immense importance as an accessory in his picture ofAurora. It is the finest instance I know of the beauty of natural landscape brought to aid a mythological story, and to be sensible of its value we have only to imagine a plain background in its stead. But though Guido has placed us in the heavens, we are looking towards the earth, where seas and mountain-tops are receiving the first beams of the morning sun. The chariot of Apollo is borne on the clouds, attended by the Hours and preceded by Aurora, who scatters flowers, and the landscape, instead of diminishing the illusion, is the chief means of producing it, and is indeed most essential to the story.

Leslie,Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A.(London, new ed., 1896).

The pearl of the Museum at Madrid is a Raphael; that of Venice is a Titian, a marvellous canvas, forgotten and afterwards recovered, which has its legend also. For many long years Venice possessed this masterpiece without knowing it. Relegated to an old and seldom frequented church it had disappeared under a slow coating of dust and behind a network of spider-webs. The subject could scarcely be made out. One day, Count Cicognora, a great connoisseur, noticing that these rusty figures had a certain air, and scenting the master under this livery of neglect and misery, wetted his finger and rubbed the canvas, an action which is not one of exquisite propriety, but which an expert on pictures cannot help doing when he is face to face with a dirty canvas, be he twenty times a count and a thousand times a dandy. The noble picture, preserved intact under this layer of dust, like Pompeii under its mantle of ashes, appeared so young and fresh that the count never doubted but that he had discovered the canvas of a great master, an unknownchef-d'œuvre. He had the strength of mind to control his excitement, and proposed to thecuréto exchange this great dilapidated painting for a beautiful picture, quite new, perfectly clean, verybrilliant, and well framed, which would do honour to the church and give pleasure to the faithful. Thecuréjoyfully accepted it, smiling to himself at the eccentricity of the count, who gave new for old and demanded nothing in return.

When relieved of its dirt and stains, Titian'sAssuntaappeared radiant as the sun when it bursts through the clouds. Parisian readers may form an idea of the importance of this discovery by going to see the beautiful copy, recently made by Serrur and placed in the Beaux Arts. TheAssuntais one of Titian's greatest works, the one in which he attains his highest flight: the composition is balanced and distributed with infinite art. The upper portion, which is arched, represents Paradise, Glory, as the Spanish say in their ascetic language: garlands of angels floating and submerged in a wave of light of uncalculable depth, stars scintillating in the flame, and brighter glints of the everlasting light form the aureole of the Father, who arrives from the depths of the infinite with the action of a hovering eagle, accompanied by an archangel and a seraph whose hands support the crown and the nimbus.

This Jehovah, like a divine bird appearing head-foremost and with body horizontally foreshortened beneath a wave of drapery flying open like wings, astonishes us by its sublime boldness; if it is possible for the brush of a human being to give a countenance to divinity, certainly Titian has succeeded. Unlimited power and imperishable youth radiate from that white-bearded face that need only nod for the snows of eternity to fall: not since the Olympian Jove of Phidias has the lord of heaven and earth been represented more worthily.

The Assumption of the Virgin. Titian.The Assumption of the Virgin.Titian.

The Assumption of the Virgin.Titian.

The centre of the picture is occupied by the Virgin Mary, who is lifted up, or rather who is surrounded by a wreath of angels and souls of the blessed: for she has no need of any aid to mount to Heaven; she rises by the springing upward of her robust faith, by the purity of her soul, which is lighter than the most luminous ether. Truly there is in this figure an unheard-of force of ascension, and in order to obtain this effect Titian has not had recourse to slender forms, diaphanous draperies, and transparent colours. His Madonna is a very true, very living, and very real woman, with a beauty as solid as that of the Venus de Milo, or the sleeping woman in the Tribune of Florence. Large, full drapery flows about her in numerous folds; her flanks are wide enough to have contained a God, and, if she was not on a cloud, the Marquis du Guast might have put his hand on her beautiful bosom, as in the picture in our Museum. Yet nothing is of more celestial beauty than this great and strong figure in its rose-coloured tunic and azure mantle; notwithstanding the powerful voluptuousness of the body, the radiant glance is of the purest virginity.

At the base of the picture, the apostles are grouped in happily-contrasted attitudes of rapture and surprise. Two or three little angels, who link them to the intermediary zone of the composition, seem to be explaining to them the miracle that is taking place. The heads of the apostles, who are of various ages and characters, are painted with a surprising force of vitality and reality. The draperies are of that fullness and abundant flow that characterize Titian as the richest and at the same time the simplest of all painters.

In studying this Virgin and mentally comparing her with other Virgins of different masters, we reflected what a marvellous and ever new thing is art. What Catholic painting has embroidered with variations upon this theme of the Madonna, without ever exhausting it, astonishes and confuses the imagination; but, in reflecting, we comprehend that under the conventional type each painter conveyed secretly, at the same time, his dream of love and the personification of his talent.

The Madonna of Albrecht Dürer in her sad and somewhat constrained gracefulness, with her tired features, interesting rather than beautiful, her air of a matron rather than a Virgin, her German andbourgeoisefrankness, her tight garments and her symmetrically broken folds, almost always accompanied by a rabbit, an owl, or an ape, through some vague memory of Germanic pantheism, may she not be the woman whom he would have loved and preferred to all others, and does she not also exceedingly well represent the very genius of the artist? As she is his Madonna, she might easily be his Muse.

The same resemblance exists in Raphael. The type of his Madonna, in whom, mingled with old memories, the features of the Fornarina are always found, sometimes suggested, sometimes copied, most frequently idealized, is she not the most perfect symbol of his talent,—elegant, graceful, and penetrated throughout with a chaste voluptuousness? The Christian nourished on Plato and Greek Art, the friend of Leo X., the dilettante Pope, the artist who died of love while painting theTransfiguration, did he not live entirely in these modest Venuses holding on theirknees a child who is Love? If we wished to symbolize the genius of every painter in an allegorical picture, would it be any other than the angel of Urbino?

The Virgin of theAssunta, big, strong, highly-coloured, with her robust and beautiful grace, her fine bearing, and her simple and natural beauty,—is she not Titian's painting with all its qualities? We might carry our researches still further; but we have said enough as a suggestion.

Thanks to the dusty shroud which covered it for so long, theAssuntaglows with a quite youthful brilliancy; the centuries have not elapsed for it, and we enjoy the supreme pleasure of seeing a picture of Titian's just it came fresh from the palette.

Voyage en Italie(new ed., Paris, 1884).

We know how theNight Watchis hung. It faces theBanquet of Arquebusiersby Van der Helst, and, no matter what has been said, the two pictures do not hurt each other. They oppose each other like day and night, like the transfiguration of things and their literal imitation, slightly vulgar and clever. Admit that they are as perfect as they are celebrated and you will have before your eyes a unique antithesis, what La Bruyère calls "opposition truths that illuminate one another."

I shall not astonish anyone in saying that theNight Watchpossesses no charm, and the fact is without example among the fine works of pictorial art. It is amazing, it is disconcerting, it is imposing, but it absolutely lacks that insinuating quality that convinces us, and it almost always fails to please us at first. In the first place, it shocks our logical sense and that habitual visual rectitude that loves clear forms, lucid ideas, and clearly formulated boldness; something warns us that our imagination as well as our reason will be only half satisfied and that even the mind that is most easily won over will not submit till the last and will not surrender without dispute. This is due to various causes that do not all arise from the picture,—the light isdetestable; the frame of dark wood in which the painting is drowned spoils its middle values, and its bronze scale of colour, and its force, and makes it look much more smoked than it is; and, lastly and above all, the exigencies of the place prevent the picture from being hung at the proper height, and, against all the laws of the most elementary perspective, oblige you to look at it from the same level.

The Night Watch. Rembrandt.The Night Watch.Rembrandt.

The Night Watch.Rembrandt.

You are aware that theNight Watch, rightly or wrongly, passes for an almost incomprehensible work, and that constitutes its chief prestige. Perhaps it would have made far less noise in the world, if for two centuries people had not kept up the habit of trying to find out its meaning instead of examining its merits, and persisted in the mania of regarding it as a picture enigmatical above all.

Taking it literally, what we know of the subject seems to me sufficient. In the first place, we know the names and quality of the personages, thanks to the care with which the painter has inscribed them on a plate at the bottom of the picture; which proves that if the painter's fancy has transfigured many things, the chief idea at least deals with the customs of local life. It is true that we cannot tell for what purpose these men are going out armed, whether they are going to practise shooting, or on parade, or what; but, as there is no matter here for the deeper mysteries, I am persuaded that if Rembrandt has failed to be more explicit it is because either he did not wish or he did not know how to be, and there is a whole series of hypotheses that might be very simply explained by some such matter as inability or intentional reticence. As for the time of day (the most vexed question of all and theonly one, moreover, that could have been settled when first it arose), for fixing that we have no need to discover that the Captain's outstretched arm casts a shadow upon the skirt of his coat. It suffices to remember that Rembrandt never treated light otherwise; that nocturnal obscurity is his habit; that shadow is the ordinary form of his poetic feeling and his usual means of dramatic expression; and that in his portraits, in his interiors, in his legends, in his anecdotes, in his landscapes, and in his etchings, as in his paintings, it is generally with night that he makes day.

It is agreed that the composition does not constitute the principal merit of the picture. The subject had not been selected by the painter, and the manner in which he intended to treat it did not allow of its first sketch being very spontaneous, nor very lucid. Therefore the scene is indecisive, the action almost null, and, consequently, the interest is greatly divided. From the very beginning is betrayed an inherent vice in the first idea, and a kind of irresolution in the manner of conceiving, distributing, and placing it. Some men marching, others standing still, one priming his musket, another loading his, another firing, a drummer who poses for the head while beating his instrument, a somewhat theatrical standard-bearer, and, finally, a crowd of figures fixed in the requisite immobility of portraits,—so far as action is concerned, these, if I am not mistaken, are the sole picturesque features of the painting.

Is this indeed sufficient to give it the facial, anecdotal, and local feeling that we expect from Rembrandt when he paints the places, things, and men of his time? If Van der Helst instead of seating his arquebusiers had made themmove in any manner whatever, do not doubt that he would have given us the truest if not the finest indications of their ways. And as for Frans Hals, you may imagine with what clearness and order, and how naturally he would have disposed the scene; how piquant, lively, ingenious, abundant, and magnificent he would have been. The idea conceived by Rembrandt then is one of the most ordinary, and I would venture to say that the majority of his contemporaries considered it poor in resources; some because its abstract line is uncertain, scanty, symmetrical, meagre, and singularly incoherent; others, the colourists, because this composition, so full of gaps and ill-occupied spaces, did not lend itself to that broad and generous employment of colours which is usual with able palettes....

Thus there is no truth and very little pictorial invention in the general disposition. Is there more in the individual figures?

What immediately strikes us is that they are unreasonably disproportioned and that many of them have shortcomings and so to speak an embarrassment of characterization that nothing can justify. The captain is too big and the lieutenant too small, not only by the side of Captain Kock, whose stature crushes him, but also beside accessory figures whose height or breadth gives this somewhat plain young man the air of a youth who has grown a moustache too soon. Regarding the two as portraits, they are scarcely successful ones of doubtful likeness and thankless physiognomy, which is surprising in a portrait-painter who had made his mark in 1642, and which affords some excuse for Captain Kock's having a little laterapplied to the infallible Van der Helst. Is the guard loading his musket rendered any better? Moreover, what do you think of his right-hand neighbour, and of the drummer? One might say that all these portraits lack hands, so vaguely are they sketched and so insignificant is their action. It follows that what they hold is also ill rendered: muskets, halberds, drum-sticks, canes, lances, and flag-pole; and that the gesture of an arm is impotent when the hand that ought to act does not do so clearly, quickly, or with energy, precision, or intelligence. I will not speak of the feet, which, in most cases, are lost in shadow. Such in reality are the necessities of the system of envelopment adopted by Rembrandt, and such is the imperious foregone conclusion of his method, that one general dark cloud invades the base of the picture and that the forms float in it to the great detriment of their points of support.

Must we add that the clothes are very similar to the likenesses, sometimes uncouth and unnatural, sometimes rigid and rebellious to the lines of the body? One would say that they are not worn properly. The helmets are stupidly put on, the hats are outlandish and ungracefully worn. The scarfs are in their place and yet they are awkwardly tied. Here is none of that unique ease of carriage, that natural elegance, thatnégligédress, caught and rendered to the life in which Frans Hals knows how to attire every age, every stature, every stage of corpulence, and, certainly also, every rank. We are not reassured on this point more than on many others. We ask ourselves whether there is not here a laborious fantasy, like an attempt to be strange, which is not at all pleasing or striking.

Some of the heads are very handsome, I have mentioned those that are not. The best, the only ones in which the hand of the master and the feeling of a master are to be recognized, are those which, from the depths of the canvas, shoot their vague eyes and the fine spark of their mobile glances at you; do not severely examine their construction, nor their plan, nor their bony structure; accustom yourself to the greyish pallor of their complexion, question them from afar as they also look at you from a distance, and if you want to know how they live, look at them as Rembrandt wants us to look at his human effigies, attentively and long, at their lips and eyes.

There remains an episodical figure which has hitherto baffled all conjectures, because it seems by its traits, its carriage, its odd splendour, and its inappropriateness, to personify the magic, the romantic feeling, or, if you prefer, the misrepresentation of the picture; I mean that little witch-like personage, child-like and crone-like at the same time, with her hair streaming and adorned with pearls, gliding among the guards for no apparent reason, and who, a not less inexplicable detail, has a white cock, that at need might be taken for a purse, hanging from her girdle.

Whatever right she has to join the troop, this little figure seems to have nothing human about her. She is colourless and almost shapeless. Her figure is that of a doll and her gait is automatic. She has the air of a beggar, something like diamonds covers her whole body, and an accoutrement resembling rays. You would say that she came from some jewry, or old clothes market, or Bohemia, and that, awaking from a dream, she had attired herself inthe most singular of all worlds. She has the light, the uncertainty, and the wavering of a pale fire. The more we examine her, the less we can grasp the subtle lineaments that serve as envelope for her uncorporeal existence. We end by seeing in her nothing but a kind of extraordinarily strange phosphorescence which is not the ordinary light of things, nor yet the ordinary brilliance of a well-regulated palette, and this adds more sorcery to the peculiarities of her countenance. Notice that in the place she occupies, one of the dark corners of the canvas, rather low in the middle distance, between a man in deep red and the captain dressed in black, this eccentric light has much greater force than the most sudden contrast with a neighbouring tint, and without extreme care this explosion of accidental light would have sufficed to disorganize the whole picture.

What is the meaning of this little imaginary or real being, who, however, is only a supernumerary while yet holding, so to speak, the chief rôle? I shall not attempt to tell you. Abler people than I have allowed themselves to inquire what it was and what it was doing there, without coming to any satisfactory conclusion.

But if to all these somewhat vain questions Rembrandt replied: "This child is a caprice no less strange than and quite as plausible as many others in my engraving or painting. I have placed it as a narrow ray amid great masses of shadow because its exiguity rendered it more vibrating and it suited me to awaken with a ray one of the dark corners of my picture. It also wears the usual costume of my female figures, great or small, young or old, and in it you will find the type frequently occurring in my works. Ilove what glitters, and that is why I have clothed her in brilliant materials. As for those phosphorescent gleams that astonish you here, whilst elsewhere they pass unnoticed, it is only the light in its colourless splendour and supernatural quality that I habitually give to my figures when I illuminate them at all strongly."—Do you not think that such a reply ought to satisfy the most difficult, and that finally, the rights of the stage-setter being reserved, he need only render account of one point: the manner in which he has treated the picture?

We know what to think of the effect produced by theNight Watchwhen it appeared in 1642. This memorable attempt was neither understood nor relished. It added noise to Rembrandt's glory, increased it in the eyes of his faithful admirers, and compromised it in the eyes of those who had only followed him with some effort and attended him to this decisive point. It made him a painter more peculiar and a master less sure. It heated and divided men of taste according to the heat of their blood, or the stiffness of their reason. In short, it was regarded as an absolutely new but dangerous adventure which brought him applause and some blame, and which at heart did not convince anybody. If you know the judgment expressed on this subject by Rembrandt's contemporaries, his friends and his pupils, you know that opinion has not sensibly varied for two centuries, and that we repeat almost the same thing that this great daring man might have heard during his lifetime....

Save one or two frank colours, two reds and a deep violet, except one or two flashes of blue, you cannot perceive anything in this colourless and violent canvas torecall the palette and ordinary method of any of the known colourists. The heads have the appearance rather than the colouring proper to life. They are red, purple, or pale, without for all that having the true paleness Velasquez gives to his faces, or those sanguine, yellowish, greyish, or purplish shades that Frans Hals renders with such skill when he desires to specify the temperaments of his personages. In the clothes and hair and various parts of the accoutrements, the colour is no more exact nor expressive than is, as I have said, the form itself. When a red appears, it is not of a delicate nature and it indistinctly expresses silk, cloth, or satin. The guard loading his musket is clothed in red from head to foot, from his hat to his boots. Do you perceive that Rembrandt has occupied himself for a moment with the varied physiognomy of this red, its nature or substance, as a true colourist would not have failed to do?...

I defy any one to tell me how the lieutenant is dressed and in what colour. Is it white tinged with yellow? Is it yellow faded to white? The truth is that this personage having to express the central light of the picture, Rembrandt has clothed him with light, very ably with regard to brilliance and very negligently with regard to colour.

Now, and it is here that Rembrandt begins to show himself, for a colourist there is no light in the abstract. Light of itself is nothing: it is the result of colours diversely illumined and diversely radiating in accordance with the nature of the ray that they transmit or absorb. One very deep tint may be extraordinarily luminous; another verylight one on the contrary may not be at all luminous. There is not a student in the schools who does not know that. With the colourists, then, the light depends exclusively upon the choice of the colours employed to render it and is so intimately connected with the tone that we may truthfully say that with them light and colour are one. In theNight Watchthere is nothing of the kind. Tone disappears in light as it does in shade. The shade is blackish, the light whitish. Everything is brilliant or dull, radiant or obscure, by an alternative effacement of the colouring principle. Here we have different values rather than contrasted tones. And this is so true that a fine engraving, a good drawing, a Mouilleron lithograph, or a photograph will give an exact idea of the picture in its important effects, and a copy simply in gradations from light to dark would destroy none of its arabesque.

What is his execution in the picture before us? Does he treat a stuff well? No. Does he express it ingeniously, or with liveliness, with its seams, folds, breaks, and tissue. Assuredly not. When he places a feather at the brim of a hat, does he give it the lightness and floating grace that we see in Van Dyck, or Hals, or Velasquez? Does he indicate by a little gloss on a dead ground, in their form, or feeling of the body, the human physiognomy of a well adjusted coat, rubbed by a movement or worn with use? Can he, with a few masterly touches and taking no more trouble than things are worth, indicate lace-work, or suggest jewellery, or rich embroidery?

In theNight Watchwe have swords, muskets, partisans, polished casques, damascened cuirasses, high boots, tiedshoes, a halberd with its fluttering blue silk, a drum, and lances. Imagine with what ease, with what carelessness, and with what a nimble way of making us believe in things without insisting upon them, Rubens, Veronese, Van Dyck, Titian himself, and lastly Frans Hals, that matchless workman, would have summarily indicated and superbly carried off all these accessories. Do you maintain in good faith that Rembrandt in theNight Watchexcels in treating them thus? I pray you, look at the halberd that the little lieutenant Ruijtenberg holds at the end of his stiff arm; look at the foreshortened steel, look especially at the floating silk, and tell me if an artist of that value has ever allowed himself more pitifully to express an object that ought to spring forth beneath his brush without his being aware of it. Look at the slashed sleeves that have been so highly praised, the ruffles, the gloves; examine the hands! Consider well how in their affected or unaffected negligence their form is accentuated and their foreshortening is expressed. The touch is thick, embarrassed, awkward, and blundering. We might truly say that it goes astray, and that applied crosswise when it should be applied lengthwise, made flat when any other than he would have rounded it, it confuses instead of determining the form....

At length I come to the incontestable interest of the picture, to Rembrandt's great effort in a new field: I am going to speak of the application on a large scale of that way of looking at things which is proper to him and which is called chiaroscuro.

No mistake is possible here. What people attribute toRembrandt is really his. Without any doubt chiaroscuro is the native and necessary form of his impressions and ideas. Others have made use of it; but nobody has employed it so constantly and ingeniously as he. It is the supremely mysterious form, the most enveloped, the most elliptic, and the richest in hidden meanings and surprises that exists in the pictorial language of the painter. In this sense it is more than any other the form of intimate feelings or ideas. It is light, vaporous, veiled, discreet; it lends its charm to hidden things, invites curiosity, adds an attraction to moral beauties, and gives a grace to the speculations of conscience. In short, it partakes of sentiment, emotion, uncertainty, indefiniteness, and infinity; of dreams and of the ideal. And this is why it is, as it ought to be, the poetic and natural atmosphere in which Rembrandt's genius never ceased to dwell.

In very ordinary language and in its action common to all schools, chiaroscuro is the art of rendering the atmosphere visible, and painting an object enveloped with air. Its aim is to render all the picturesque accidents of shadow, of half-tints, of light, of relief, and of distance; and to give in consequence more variety, more unity of effect, more caprice and more relative truth either to forms or to colours. The contrary is a more ingenuous and more abstract acceptation, by virtue of which objects are shown as they are, viewed close at hand, the atmosphere being suppressed, and consequently without any other than linear perspective, which results from the diminishing of objects and from their relation to the horizon. When we speak of aërial perspective, we already presuppose a little chiaroscuro.

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