PLATE XLIII.—GEORGE ROMNEY MRS ROBINSON—"PERDITA" Hertford House, LondonPLATE XLIII.—GEORGE ROMNEYMRS ROBINSON—"PERDITA"Hertford House, London
School. His fame in recent years has certainly exceeded his merits, but it is due to him to say that he was a conscientious artist, and a firm upholder of the tradition of Reynolds, so far as in him lay. The old King had always disliked Reynolds, and Hoppner was not well enough advised to hold his tongue on the subject of the master: worse than this, he openly accepted the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and by so doing opened the door for the admission of Lawrence as royal painter much sooner than was at all necessary. The story of their rivalry is thus—in substance—sketched by Allan Cunningham, their contemporary:—The light of the Prince of Wales's countenance was of itself sufficient to guide the courtly and beautiful to Hoppner's easel. Suffice it to say that before he was forty years of age (he was born in 1759), he had been enabled to exhibit no less than fifteen ladies of quality—for so are they named in the catalogues—a score of ladies of lower degree, and noblemen unnumbered. But by this time another star had arisen, destined to outshine that of Hoppner; though some at that period, willing to flatter the older practitioner, called it a meteor that would but flash and disappear—we allude to Lawrence. Urged upon the Academy by the King and Queen, and handed up to public notice by royal favour, this new aspirant rose rapidly in the estimation of the public; and by the most delicate flattery, both with tongue and pencil, became a formidable rival to the painter whom it was the Prince's pleasure to befriend. The factions of Reynolds and Romney seemed revived in those of Hoppner and Lawrence. If Hoppner resided in Charles Street, at the gates of Carlton House, and wrote himself "portrait painter to the Prince of Wales," Lawrence likewise had his residencein the Court end of the town, and proudly styled himself—and that when only twenty-three years old—"portrait painter in ordinary to His Majesty." In other respects, too, were honours equally balanced between them; they were both made Royal Academicians, but in this, youth had the start of age—Lawrence obtained that distinction first. Nature, too, had been kind—some have said prodigal—to both; they were men of fine address, and polished by early intercourse with the world and by their trade of portrait painting could practise all the delicate courtesies of drawing-room and boudoir; but in that most fascinating of all flattery, the art of persuading, with brushes and fine colours, very ordinary mortals that beauty and fine expression were their portions, Lawrence was soon without a rival.
The preference of the King and Queen for Lawrence was for a time balanced by the affection of the Prince of Wales for Hoppner; the Prince was supposed to have the best taste, and as he kept a court of his own filled with the young nobility, and all the wits of that great faction known by the name of Whig, Hoppner had the youth and beauty of the land for a time; and it cannot be denied that he was a rival in every way worthy of contending with any portrait-painter of his day. The bare list of his exhibited portraits will show how and by whom he was supported. It is well said by Williams, in hisLife of Lawrence, that "the more sober and homely ideas of the King were not likely to be a passport for any portrait-painter to the variety of ladies, and hence Mr. Hoppner for a long time almost monopolised the female beauty and young fashion of the country."
This rivalry continued for a time in the spirit ofmoderation—but only for a time. Lawrence, the gentler and the smoother of the two, kept silence longest; the warm nature of Hoppner broke out at last. "The ladies of Lawrence," he said, "show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional decorum." For his own he claimed, by implication, purity of look as well as purity of style. This sarcastic remark found wings in a moment, and flew through all the coteries and through both courts; it did most harm to him who uttered it; all men laughed, and then began to wonder how Lawrence, limner to perhaps the purest court in Europe, came to bestow indecorous looks on the meek and sedate ladies of quality of St. James's and Windsor, while Hoppner, limner to the court of a gallant young prince, who loved mirth and wine, the sound of the lute and the music of ladies' feet in the dance, should to some of its gayest and giddiest ornaments give the simplicity of manner and purity of style which pertained to the Quaker like sobriety of the other. Nor is it the least curious part of the story that the ladies, from the moment of the sarcasm of Hoppner, instead of crowding to the easel of him who dealt in the loveliness of virtue, showed a growing preference for the rival who "trespassed on moral as well as on professional decorum." After this, Lawrence had plenty of the fairest sitters.
THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT
Inthe preceding chapters we have traced the development of painting for five centuries—from the beginning of the fourteenth, that is to say, to the end of the eighteenth—in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Spain, and lastly in France and England. In the nineteenth the story is confined to the last two alone, as with one or two minute exceptions the art of painting had by this time entirely ceased to be worth consideration in any of the others. Only in France and England, where it had been most recently established, was it to continue; and besides continuing, reach out with the most astonishing vigour to snatch at and grasp fruits that no one before would have dreamt of being within its reach.
Between France and England—if by the latter we may be taken to mean Great Britain, and include within its artists those who have acclimatised themselves within her shores—the honours of the achievement are pretty equally divided, though it will have to be left to individual choice to decide exactly on which side the balance of credit is due. A mere list of the greatestnames is not sufficient to apportion the praise, though as a preliminary step it may be of value in clearing the issue. Let us take a dozen on either side, and see how they look.
Among these Turner stands out conspicuously from the rest, and he would be included by anyone in a list of twenty, or perhaps a dozen, of the greatest painters in the world. But oddly enough his influence on the art in general has been comparatively small, if we are to judge by its effects on other painters up to the present, while that of Constable has been considerably greater. Manet, again, and Delacroix, have accomplished far more for the history of painting than any other two in our lists—and yet their names are scarcely known outside the circle of those who know anything at all about painting.
For the English public at large an entirely different list would probably prove the superiority of their own race to their complete satisfaction—in spite of Meissonier, Doré, and Bouguereau on the other side. But that is only because the British public, owing to the monopoly
PLATE XLIV.—JACQUES LOUIS DAVID PORTRAIT OF MME. RÉCAMIER Louvre, ParisPLATE XLIV.—JACQUES LOUIS DAVIDPORTRAIT OF MME. RÉCAMIERLouvre, Paris
enjoyed by the Royal Academy, have never had a chance of judging for themselves what they approve of and what they do not, and their taste has been vitiated for generations by the exhibition of what this self-constituted authority, no doubt unconsciously, conceives to be best for them—and which, as might be expected, is usually found to coincide pretty nearly with the sort of thing they are capable of producing themselves. Hogarth's predictions at the time the Academy was instituted have in a great measure come perfectly true, and the only benefit that it has been to the English School of painting is that it has kept it going. How far this may be called a benefit is at least arguable, but in the main it is probable that if so many bad pictures had not been painted, there would not have been so many good ones. On the other hand, the removal of a man like Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from his native sphere of influence is quite enough to account for the unlooked-for flowering of blossoms like the brothers Maris, Bosboom, Israels, and Mauve in the Dutch garden, and if that is so, one need not grudge him his interment amongst Nelson, Wellington, and other heroes of our own.
In a word, the history of painting in the nineteenth century is Revolt. What it is going to be in the twentieth I am fortunately not called upon to say; but if I may throw out an opinion based upon what is already happening, I should say that no word has yet been coined which will adequately express it.
In the last century the issues were simple, and can be easily expressed. On the one side was the complacent body of practitioners following to the best of their ability the practice of painting as handed down to them in a variety of different forms, just as the Byzantine craftsmen earned their living when they were so rudelydisturbed by Cimabue and his school. On the other was a small but ever-increasing number of individuals who, like Cimabue, began to think things out for themselves, but, unlike him, did not succeed in effecting a popular triumph without—if at all—first raising both the painters and the public to a pitch of fury. It is indeed curious to read Vasari and modern historians side by side, and to wonder if, after all, Vasari knew or told everything, in his desire to glorify the art, or whether Giotto and other innovators were not in fact burnt at the stake. Probably not. Gallileo, as we know, and Savonarola suffered for their crimes. But they were working against the Church, and the artists were working for it.
In the nineteenth century, painting had altogether broken away from the Church, and so it had to fight its own battles out in the street, or in the law courts. That is what has given it such a swagger and strength. It no longer looks to its protector, it will hit you in the face before you know where you are. The feeble kind, only, looks to Academies for support, and thereby becomes feebler still.
In the present chapter, accordingly, we shall hear no more of the Madonnas, the Holy Families, and all the sacred and profane subjects on which the old masters exercised their genius. Five centuries of painting had established the art in a position of independence; and in a sixth—that is to say, the nineteenth—it began to assert itself, and to prove that its education was not in itself an end, but only a means to various ends. Instead of following out the fortunes of each painter, therefore, and attempting to set in any sort of order the reputations of artists before sufficient time has elapsed for them to cool, I propose to confine myself in the remainingpages to the broad issues raised during this period between the painters, the critics, and the public.
EUGÈNE DELACROIX
Theman who began all this street fighting was a Frenchman—Eugène Delacroix. While still a youth he was bullied, and the bully was such a redoubtable giant that it took somebody with the grit and genius of Delacroix to tackle him, but tackle him he did. The story of the fight, which is a long and glorious one, is so admirably told in Madame Bussy's life of Delacroix, that I have obtained permission to give the essence of it in her own words.
In the Salon of 1822 was exhibited Delacroix's picture ofDante and Virgil, which is now in the Louvre, and evoked the first of those clamours of abuse which were barely stilled before the artist's death. For nearly thirty years all French painters, with the exception of Gros and Prudhon; had shown themselves unquestioning disciples of the school founded by Jacques Louis David, whose masterful character and potent personality had reduced all art to a system; and Delacroix himself spoke of him with sympathy and admiration. The chief dogma of David's school was that the nearest approach to thebeau idealpermitted to the human race had been attained by the Greeks, and that all art must conform as closely as possible to theirs. Unfortunately, the chief specimens of Greek art known at that time were those belonging to a decadent period—neither the Elgin marbles nor the Venus of Milo were accessible before1816—so that the works from which they drew their inspiration were without character in themselves, or merely the feeble and attenuated copies of ancient Rome. In the pictures of this school, accordingly, we find only the monotonous perfection of rounded and well-modelled limbs, classical features and straight noses. Colour, to the sincere Davidian, was a vain and frivolous accessory, serving only to distract attention from the real purpose of the work, which was to aim at moral elevation as well as at ideal beauty. Everything in the picture was to be equally dwelt upon; there was no sacrifice, no mystery. "These pictures," says Delacroix, "have no epidermis ...they lack the atmosphere, the lights, the reflections which blend into an harmonious whole, objects the most dissimilar in colour."
By the untimely death of Géricault, whoseRaft of the Medusahad already caused a flutter in 1819, Delacroix was left at the head of the revolt against this pseudo-classicism; and amid the storm that greeted theDante and Virgilit is interesting to find Thiers writing of him in the following strain:—"It seems to me that no picture [in the Salon] reveals the future of a great painter better than M. Delacroix's, in which we see an outbreak of talent, a burst of rising superiority which revives the hopes that had been slightly discouraged by the too moderate merits of all the rest.... I think I am not mistaken; M. Delacroix has genius; let him go on with confidence, and devote himself to immense labour, the indispensable condition of talent." Delécluze, by the by, the critic-in-chief of the Davidian School, had characterised the picture asune véritable tartouillade.
In 1824 the Salon included two pictures which may be regarded as important documents in the history of painting. One of these was Constable'sHay Wain—now
PLATE XLV.—EUGÈNE DELACROIX DANTE AND VIRGIL Louvre, ParisPLATE XLV.—EUGÈNE DELACROIXDANTE AND VIRGILLouvre, Paris
in our National Gallery—which had been purchased by a Frenchman; the other was Delacroix'sMassacre of Scio, the first to receive the enlightenment afforded by the Englishman's methods, which spread so widely over the French School. It was said that Delacroix entirely repainted his picture on seeing Constable's; but his pupil, Lassalle Bordes, is probably nearer the truth in saying that the master being dissatisfied with its general tone, which was too chalky, transformed it by means of violent glazings. The critics were no less noisy over this picture than the last. "A painter has been revealed to us," said one, "but he is a man who runs along the housetops." "Yes," answered Baudelaire, "but for that one must have a sure foot, and an eye guided by an inward light."
When the Salon opened again in 1827, after an interval of three years, the public were astonished to find how large a number of painters had abandoned Davidism and openly joined the ranks of the enemy. Delacroix himself exhibited theMarino Faliero(now at Hertford House) and eleven others. The gauntlet was flung down, and war began in deadly earnest between the opposing parties. It was at this time that the terms Romanticism and Romantic came into common use. Delacroix always resented being labelled as a Romantic, and would only acknowledge that the term might be justly applied to him when used in its widest signification. "If by my Romanticism," he wrote, "is meant the free expression of my personal impressions, my aversion from the stereotypes invariably produced in the schools, and my repugnance to academic receipts, then I must admit I am Romantic."
Here we have the plain truth about the painting of the nineteenth century—and after! The critics wereunanimous in their violent condemnation of Delacroix's works: "the compositions of a sick man in delirium," "the fanaticism of ugliness," "barbarous execution," "an intoxicated broom"—such are some of the terms of abuse showered upon him. The gentlest among them commiserate the talent which here and there can be seen "struggling with the systematicbizarrerieand the disordered technique of the artist, just as gleams of reason and sometimes flashes of genius may be seen pitiably shining through the speech of a madman." The final touch to Delacroix's disgrace was given by the Directeur des Beaux Arts sending for him and recommending him to study drawing from casts, warning him at the same time that unless he could change his style he must expect neither commissions nor recognition from the State!
The year 1830 has given its name to that brilliant generation of poets, novelists, painters and philosophers which, as Théophile Gautier says with just pride, "will make its mark on the future and be spoken of as one of the climacteric epochs of the human mind." The revolution of July inspired Delacroix with one of his most interesting pictures.Le 28 Juilletis the only one of his works in which he depicts modern life, and was a striking refutation to those who complained that modern costume is too ugly or prosaic to be treated in painting. "Every old master," Baudelaire usefully pointed out, "has been modern in his day. The greater number of fine portraits of former times are dressed in the costume of their period. They are perfectly harmonious because the costumes, the hair, and even the attitude and expression (each period has its own), form a whole of complete vitality."Le 28 Juilletgives us the very breath and spirit of modern street fighting. Though the public
PLATE XLVI.—JOHN CONSTABLE THE HAY WAIN National Gallery, LondonPLATE XLVI.—JOHN CONSTABLETHE HAY WAINNational Gallery, London
remained hostile and the jury bestowed none of its prizes, as before, the Government acknowledged the artist's talent and politics by making him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Further, from 1833 to 1853 he was intermittently employed in decorating the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, and other public buildings. In 1855 he showed at the Great Exhibition a series of thirty-five of his most important pictures, the effect of which was immense. For the first and only time in his life he enjoyed a triumph, none the less great because his life-long rival Ingres also took the opportunity of exhibiting a selection of his works in the same building. But in spite of this success, and in spite of his being elected an Academician in 1857, the critics remained incorrigible. His pictures in the Salon of 1859 once more called forth one of those storms of abuse that Delacroix had the gift of arousing. Weary and disheartened—"All my life long I have been livré aux bêtes," was his bitter exclamation—he vowed to exhibit no more, and kept his word.
RUSKIN AGAINST THE PHILISTINES
InEngland, meantime, great things were being accomplished amid peaceful surroundings. In portraiture Lawrence soon became supreme, and what excellence he possessed was accentuated on his death in 1830 by the appointment of Sir Martin Archer Shee as his successor in the Presidency of the Royal Academy. That was the end of portraiture in England until a new school arose. But it was in landscape that our country occupiedthe field in the first half of the nineteenth century, and tilled it with the astonishing results that are usually the effect of doing much and saying little. The work accomplished by Turner, Constable, and Cotman, in the first half of the century, to say nothing of Crome and one or two of the older men who were still alive, has never been equalled in any country, and yet less was heard about the execution of it than would keep a modern journalist in bread and cheese for a week. Turner, who wouldn't sell his pictures, and Constable, who couldn't, between them filled up the measure of English art without any other aid than that of the materials with which they recorded their gorgeous communion with nature. When Ruskin stepped in with the "Modern Painters," originally designed as a vindication of Turner against certain later-day critics, Turner's comment was, "He knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do. He puts things into my head and points out meanings in them that I never intended." That was in 1843, when Turner was well on in his third manner—within eight years of his death. But let us go back to the beginning.
Until he developed his latest manner, Turner was about the most popular artist that ever lived. His pictures were not above the comprehension of the public, educated or otherwise, and no effort was either needed or demanded to understand them. In the diary of a provincial amateur, Thomas Greene, are recorded an impression of Turner's work as early as 1797:—"Visited the Royal Exhibition. Particularly struck with a sea-view by Turner ...the whole composition bold in design and masterly in execution. I am entirely unacquainted with the artist, but if he proceeds as he has begun, he cannot fail to become the first in his department." And again in 1799:—"Was again struck and delightedwith Turner's landscapes.... Turner's views are not mere ordinary transcripts of nature,—he always throws some peculiar and strikingcharacterinto the scene he represents."
Brought up as a topographical draughtsman, he made no departure till quite late in life from the conventional method of depicting scenery; but being a supremely gifted artist, he was capable of utilising this method as no other before or since has ever succeeded in doing. The accepted method was good enough for him, and he laid his paint upon the canvas as anybody else had done before him, and as many of our present-day painters would do well to do after him—if only they had the genius in them to "make the instrument speak." The impressions created on our mind by Turner's earlier pictures are not conveyed by dots, cubes, streaks, or any device save that of pigment laid upon the canvas in such a manner as seemed to the artist to reproduce what he saw in nature. That he did this with surprising and altogether exceptional skill is the proof of his genius. Unflagging energy and devotion to his art enabled him to realise, not all, but a wonderful number of the beauties he saw in the world, with an experience that few beside him have ever taken the trouble to acquire. When barely thirty years old—in 1805—he was already considered as the first of living landscape painters, and was thus noticed by Edward Dayes (the teacher of Girtin):—"Turner may be considered as a striking instance of how much may be gained by industry, if accompanied with perseverance, even without the assistance of a master. The way he acquired his professional powers was by borrowing when he could a drawing or picture to copy; or by making a sketch of any one in the exhibition early in the morning and finishing it up at home. By suchpractice, and a patient perseverance, he has overcome all the difficulties of the art." Turner himself used to say that his best academy was "the fields and Dr Monro's parlour"—where Girtin and other young artists met and sketched and copied the drawings in the doctor's collection. Burnet, in his notice of "Turner and his Works," suggests that John Robert Cozens had paved the way for both Girtin and Turner in striking out a broad effect of light and shade. "The early pictures of Turner," he observes, "possess the breadth, but are destitute of the brilliant power of light and colour afterwards pervading his works, and ultimately carried to the greatest extreme in his last pictures. Breadth of light seems to have been latterly his chief aim, supported by the contrast of hot and cold colour; two of his unfinished pictures exemplified the principle; they were divided into large masses of blue where the water or sky was to come and the other portions laid out in broad orange yellow, falling into delicate brown where the trees and landscapes were to be placed. This preparation, while it secured the greatest breadth, would have shone through the other colours when finished, giving the luminous quality observable in his pictures. In many instances his works sent for exhibition to the British Institution had little more than this brilliant foundation, which was worked into detail and completed in the varnishing days, Turner being the first in the morning and the last to leave; his certainty in the command over his colour, and the dexterity in his handling, seemed to convert in a few hours 'an unsubstantial pageant' into a finished landscape. Thesead captandumeffects, however, are not what his fame will depend on for perpetuity; his finest pictures are the production of great study in their composition, careful and repeated painting in the detail, and a natural arrangement of the colour and breadth of the chiaroscuro."
PLATE XLVII.—J. M. W. TURNER CROSSING THE BROOK National Gallery of British Art, LondonPLATE XLVII.—J. M. W. TURNERCROSSING THE BROOKNational Gallery of British Art, London
Whether or not we agree with all of Burnet's opinions, we shall be more likely to learn the truth about Turner from prosaic contemporaries of his earlier years than from all the rhapsodies of later days. How significant, when stripped of its amusing circumstances, is the simple fact related thus by Leslie:—"In 1839, when Constable exhibited hisOpening of Waterloo Bridge, it was placed in one of the small rooms next to a sea-piece by Turner—a grey picture, beautiful and true, but with no positive colour in any part of it. Constable's picture seemed as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times while he was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind him looking from theWaterloo Bridgeto his own picture, and at last brought his palette from the great room where he was touching another picture, and putting a round daub of red lead, somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his grey sea, went away without saying a word. The intensity of this red lead, made more vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. I came into the room just after Turner had left it. "He has been here," said Constable, "and fired a gun." On the opposite wall was a picture by Jones of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the Furnace. "A coal," said Cooper, "has bounced across the room from Jones's picture and set fire to Turner's sea." Turner did not come in again for a day and a half, and then in the last moment allowed for painting, he glazed the scarlet seal he had put on his picture, and shaped it into a buoy."
It was in 1835, after an unbroken popular triumph lasting over thirty years, that the critics openly rounded on him. The occasion seized byBlackwood's Magazinewas the exhibition of his first Venetian picture exhibited in that year—it is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. "What is Venice in this picture?" wrote Blackwood's critic. "A flimsy, whitewashed, meagre assemblage of architecture, starting off ghost-like into unnatural perspective, as if frightened at the affected blaze of some dogger vessels (the only attempt at richness in the picture). The greater part of the picture is white, disagreeable white, without light or transparency, and the boats with their red worsted masts are as gewgaw as a child's toy which he may have cracked to see what it is made of. As to Venice, nothing can be more unlike its character."
Ruskin was then only sixteen years old, but eight years later appeared in print the first volume of "Modern Painters," "by an undergraduate of Oxford," as the result of his growing indignation at this and subsequent attacks on Turner. Without following Ruskin into the dubious regions whither the pursuit of his romantic fancies ultimately led him, we may in fairness quote the opening sentence of his second chapter, "Of Truth of Colour," which will help us, moreover, in understanding the conditions under which painting was being conducted at this period. "There is nothing so high in art," he says, "but that a scurrile jest can reach at, and often the greater the work the easier it is to turn it into ridicule. To appreciate the science of Turner's colour would require the study of a life; but to laugh at it requires little more than the knowledge that the yolk of egg is yellow and spinage green; a fund of critical information on which the remarks of most of our leadingperiodicals have been of late years exclusively based. We shall, however, in spite of the sulphur and treacle criticisms of our Scotch connoisseurs, and the eggs and spinage of our English ones, endeavour to test the works of this great colourist by a knowledge of nature somewhat more extensive than is to be gained by an acquaintance, however formed, with the apothecary's shop or the dinner table."
So much for the critics. For the artist, if Ruskin said more than Turner himself could understand, he has summed up his achievement in a few passages which may possibly outlast the works themselves. "There has been marked and constant progress in his mind; he has not, like some few artists, been without childhood; his course of study has been as evidently as it has been swiftly progressive; and in different stages of the struggle, sometimes one order of truth, sometimes another, has been aimed at or omitted. But from the beginning to the present height of his career he has never sacrificed a greater truth to a less. As he advanced, the previous knowledge or attainment was absorbed in what succeeded, or abandoned only if incompatible, and never abandoned without a gain: and his present works present the sum and perfection of his accumulated knowledge, delivered with the impatience and passion of one who feels too much, and has too little time to say it in, to pause for expression or ponder over his syllables." And again of his latest works—"There is in them the obscurity, but the truth, of prophecy; the instinctive and burning language, which would express less if it uttered more; which is indistinct only by its fulness, and dark with its abundant meaning. He feels now, with long-trained vividness and keenness of sense, too bitterly, the impotence of the hand and the vainness of the colour tocatch one shadow or one image of the glory which God has revealed to him. He has dwelt and communed with Nature all the days of his life: he knows her now too well, he cannot falter over the material littlenesses of her outward form: he must give her soul, or he has done nothing, and he cannot do this with the flax, the earth, and the oil. 'I cannot gather the beams out of the east, or I would makethemtell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read this, interpret this, and let us feel together. And if you have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me; for I will give you no patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious Nature, whose I am and whom I serve. Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master, while they forget his message. Hear that message from me; but remember that the teaching of Divine truth must still be a mystery.'"
Within a very few years Ruskin was performing a more useful service for the English School of painting than that of gilding the fine gold of its greatest genius. Whether or not he was aware of the fact, young Holman Hunt had borrowed a copy of "Modern Painters," which, he says, entirely changed his opinions as to the views held by society at large concerning art, and in 1849 there were exhibited Hunt'sRienzi, Rossetti'sGirlhood of Mary Virgin, and Millais'Lorenzo and Isabella, each inscribed with the mystic letters "P.R.B.," meaning "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood." It is interesting to note that this alliance was formed when the three youngartists were looking over a book of engravings of the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa.
In the following year Hunt exhibited theBritish Family, Millais,The Carpenter's Shop, and Rossetti theEcce Ancilla Domini, and in 1851 were Hunt'sTwo Gentlemen of Veronaand three by Millais. The fury of the critics had now reached a point at which some notice had to be taken of it—as of a man in an apopleptic fit. That of the Times in particular:—"These young artists have unfortunately become notorious by addicting themselves to an antiquated style, false perspective, and crude colour of remote antiquity. We want not to see what Fuseli termed drapery "snapped instead of folded," faces bloated into apoplexy, or extenuated into skeletons; colour borrowed from the jars in a druggist's shop, and expression forced into caricature. That morbid infatuation which sacrifices truth, beauty, and genuine feeling to mere eccentricity deserves no quarter at the hands of the public." It was in disapproval of the tone of this outburst that the author of "Modern Painters" addressed his famous and useful letter to theTimes, vindicating the artists, and following it up with another in which he wishes them all "heartily good speed, believing in sincerity that if they temper the courage and energy which they have shown in the adoption of their systems with patience and discretion in framing it, and if they do not suffer themselves to be driven by harsh and careless criticism into rejection of the ordinary means of obtaining influence over the minds of others, they may, as they gain experience, lay in our England the foundation of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for three hundred years."
If any one of this strenuous young band had been a painter of the first rank, this prediction might have beenabundantly verified. But it must be owned that none of them was. Holman Hunt came nearest to being, and Millais probably thought he was, when he had abandoned his early principles and shaped for the Presidency of the Academy. Rossetti had more genius in him than the others, but it came out in poetry as well as in painting, and perhaps in more lasting form. As it was, the effects of the revolution were widespread and entirely beneficial; but those effects must not be looked for in the works of any one particular artist, but rather in the general aspect of English art in the succeeding half century, and perhaps to-day. It broke up the soil. The flowers that came up were neither rare nor great, but they were many, varied, and pleasing, and in every respect an improvement on the evergreens and hardy annuals with which the English garden had become more and more encumbered from want of intelligent cultivation. More than this, the freedom engendered of revolt had now encouraged the young artist to feel that he was no longer bound to paint in any particular fashion. People's eyes were opened to possibilities as well as to actualities; and though they were prone to close again under the soporific influence of what was regular and conventional, they were capable of opening again, perhaps with a start, but without the necessity for a surgical operation. In 1847, for example, George Frederick Watts had offered to adorn, free of charge, the booking-hall of Euston Station, and had been refused—Watts, by the by, was quite independent of the Pre-Raphaelites—whereas in 1860 the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn accepted hisSchool of Legislature, and in 1867 he was elected an academician.
Two somewhat remarkable effects of the movement are attributed to it by Mr Edmund Gosse (in a note onthe work of Alfred Hunt, written in 1884), which are probably typical of many more. The Liverpool Academy, founded in 1810, had an annual grant of £200 from the Corporation. In 1857 it gave a prize to Millais'Blind Girlin preference to the most popular picture of the year (Abraham Solomon'sWaiting for the Verdict), and so great was the public indignation that pressure was brought to bear on the Corporation, the grant was withdrawn, and the Academy ruined.
In the other instance we may not go the whole way with Mr Gosse, when in speaking of the Pre-Raphaelite principle he says that "the school of Turnerian landscape was fatally affected by them," or that all the landscape painters, except Alfred Hunt, "accepted the veto which the Pre-Raphaelites had tacitly laid upon composition or a striving after an artificial harmony of forms in landscape." But to a certain extent their influence undoubtedly was prejudicial in that respect. In suggesting another reason for the cessation of Turner s influence he is quite as near the mark, namely, the action of the Royal Academy in admitting no landscape painters to membership. At Turner's death in 1851 there were only three, among whom was Creswick. "This popular artist," says Mr Gosse, "was the Upas tree under whose shadow the Academical patronage of landscape died in England. From his election as an associate in 1842 to that of Vicat Cole in 1869, no landscape painter entered the doors of the Royal Academy." Of this august body we shall have something to say later on.
MANET AND WHISTLER AGAINST THE WORLD
Letus now cross the channel again, and see what is going on there, in 1863. Evidently there is something on, or there would not be so much excitement. As we approach the Capital we are aware of one name being prominent in the general uproar—that ofÉdouard Manet.
Manet's revolt against tradition began before he became an artist, as was in fact necessary, or he would never have been allowed to become one. The traditions of the Bourgoisie were sacred, and their power and importance since the revolution of 1848 not to be lightly set aside. But young Manet was so determined that he was at last allowed by his bourgeois parents to have his way, and was sent to study under that very rough diamond Couture. Now again his "revolting" qualities showed themselves, this time in the life class. Théodore Duret, his friend and biographer, puts it so amusingly that a quotation, untranslated, is imperative:—"Cette repulsion qui se développe chez Manet pour l'art de la tradition," he says, "se manifeste surtout par le mépris qu'il témoigne aux modèles posant dans l'atelier et à l'étude du nu telle qu'elle était alors conduite. Le culte de l'antique comme on le comprenait dans la première moitié duxixesiècle parmi les peintres avait amené la recherche de modèles speciaux. On leur demandait des formes pleines. Les hommes en particulier devaient avoir une poitrine large et bombée, un torse puissant, des membres musclés. Les individus doués des qualités requises qui posaient alors dans les ateliers, s'etaient habitués à prendre des attitudes prétendues expressiveet heroïques, mais toujours tendues et conventionelles, d'où l'imprévu était banni. Manet, porté vers le naturel et épris de recherches, s'irritait de ces poses d'un type fixe et toujours les mêmes. Aussi faisait-il tres mauvais ménage avec les modèles. Il cherchait à en obtenir des poses contraires à leurs habitudes, auxquelles ils se refusaient. Les modèles connus qui avaient vu les morceaux faits d'après leurs torses conduire certains élèves à l'école de Rome, alors la suprême récompense, et qui dans leur orgueil s'attribuaient presqu'une part du succès, se revoltaient de voir un tout jeune homme ne leur témoigner aucun respect. Il paraît que fatigué de l'eternelle étude du nu, Manet aurait essayé de draper et même d'habiller les modèles, ce qui aurait causé parmi eux une véritable indignation."
It was in 1863 that the storm of popular fury burst over Manet's head, on the exhibition of his first important picture, painted three years before, generally known asLe Déjeuner sur l'herbe. This wonderful canvas was something so new and so surprising that it was rejected by the jury of the Salon. But in company with less conspicuous though equally unacceptable pieces by such men as Bracquemond, Cazin, Fantin-Latour, Harpignies, Jongkind, J. P. Laurens, Le Gros, Pissarro, Vollon, and Whistler, it was accorded an exhibition, alongside the official Salon, which was calledle Salon des refusés. Being the largest and most conspicuous work shown, it attracted no less attention than if it had been officially hung, and probably much more. "Ainsi ce Déjeuner sur l'herbe," says M. Duret, "venait-il faire comme une énorme tache. Il donnait la sensation de quelquechose outré. Il heurtait la vision. Il produisait, sur les yeux du public de ce temps, l'effet de la pleine lumière sur les yeux du hibou."
There was more than one reason for this remarkable picture surprising and shocking the sensibilities of the public. It represents a couple of men in everyday bourgeois costume, one sitting and the other reclining on the grass under trees, while next to one of them is seated a young woman, her head turned to the spectator, in no costume at all. A profusion ofarticles de déjeuneris beside her, and it is evident that they are only waiting to arrange the meal till a second young woman, who is seen bathing in the near background, is ready to join them. The subject and composition are reminiscent of Giorgione's beautiful and famousFête Champêtre, in the Louvre, and Manet quite frankly and in quite good faith pleaded Giorgione as his precedent when assailed on grounds of good taste. But unfortunately he had not put his male figures in "fancy dress," and the public could hardly be expected to realise that Giorgione had not, either. As for the painting, it was a revelation. He had broken every canon of tradition—and yet it was a marvellous success!
Another outburst greeted the appearance of the wonderfulOlympiain 1865, this time in the official catalogue. This is now enshrined in the Louvre. It was painted in 1863, but fortunately, perhaps, Manet had not the courage to exhibit it then—for who can tell to what length the fury of the Philistines might not have been goaded by two such shocks? As it was, this second violation of the sacred traditions of the nude, which had been exclusively reserved for allegorical subjects, was considered an outrage; and the innocent, natural model, of by no means voluptuous appearance, was regarded as a disgraceful intrusion into the chaste category of nymphs and goddesses. As a painter, however, Manet had shown himself unmistakably as the great figure of
PLATE XLVIII.—ÉDOUARD MANET OLYMPIA Louvre, ParisPLATE XLVIII.—ÉDOUARD MANETOLYMPIALouvre, Paris
the age, and if we have to go to Paris or to New York to catch a glimpse of any of his work, it is partly because we are too backward in seizing opportunities so eagerly snapped up by others.
The next great storm in the artistic world followed in the wake of one of Manet's companions in adversity at theSalon des Refusés—James M'Neill Whistler, who left Paris and settled with his mother in Chelsea in the late 'sixties. That he should have existed for fifteen whole years without breaking forth into strife is so extraordinary that we are almost tempted to attribute it to the influence of his mother, who used to bring him to the old church on Sundays, as the present writer dimly remembers. In this case it was not the public, but the critic, John Ruskin, who so deftly dropped the fat into the fire. Having, as we saw, taken up the cudgels for poor Turner against the public in 1843, and for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1850, he now, in 1877, ranged himself on the other side, and accused Whistler of impertinence in "flinging a pot of paint in the face of the public." The action for libel which Whistler commenced in the following year resulted in strict fact in a verdict of one farthing damages for the libelled one; but in reality the results were much farther reaching. The artist had vindicated not only himself, but his art, from the attacks of the ignorant and bumptious. "Poor art!" Whistler wrote, "What a sad state the slut is in, an these gentlemen shall help her. The artist alone, by the way, is to no purpose and remains unconsulted; his work is explained and rectified without him, by the one who was never in it—but upon whom God, always good though sometimes careless, has thrown away the knowledge refused to the author, poor devil!" This recalls Turner's comment on Ruskin's eulogies—whichWhistler had probably never heard of—and making every allowance for Whistler's fiery, combative nature, and sharp pen, there is much truth, and truth that needed telling, in his contention. "Art," he continues, "that for ages has hewn its own history in marble, and written its own comments on canvas, shall it suddenly stand still, and stammer, and wait for wisdom from the passer-by? For guidance from the hand that holds neither brush nor chisel? Out upon the shallow conceit!"
Of the hopeless banality of the critics during this period there are plenty of examples to be found without looking very far. Several of the most amusing have been embodied in a little volume of "Whistler Stories," lately compiled by Mr Don C. Seitz of New York. Here we findThe Standard'slittle joke about Whistler paying his costs in the action—apart from those allowed on taxation, that is to say—"But he has only to paint, or, as we believe he expresses it 'knock off' three or four 'symphonies' or 'harmonies'—or perhaps he might try his hand at a Set of Quadrilles in Peacock Blue?—and a week's labour will set all square." Then there is this priceless revelation of his art when questioning his class in Paris. "Do you know what I mean when I say tone, value, light, shade, quality, movement, construction, etc.?"Chorus, "Oh, yes, Mr Whistler!" "I'm glad, for it's more than I do myself." More serious was the verdict of Sir George Scharf, keeper of the National Gallery, when (in 1874) there was a proposal to purchase the portrait of Carlyle. "Well," he said, icily, on looking at the picture, "and has painting come to this!"
High place, it would seem, did not always conduce to an appreciation of high art. Here is the opinion of Sir Charles Eastlake, F.R.I.B.A., also keeper of the