CHAPTER XXXIITHE FINE ARTS: GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY
The art-student and every other reader interested in the fine arts will find in the Britannica the material for courses of reading of very great range and of the utmost interest and value—whether he wishes to study theory, practice or history.
Theory of Art
Of course no adequate treatment of the arts, or of any one of them, could logically, much less advantageously, separate theory, practice and history. But the theory of art, though it may be inferred or deduced from many other articles in the book, including those the most devoted to the practical or historical, may best and most directly be studied in three articles,Aesthetics,Art, andFine Arts. Of these, the first,Aesthetics(Vol. 1, p. 277), equivalent to nearly 40 pages of this Guide, is written by Professor James Sully, late of University College, London, and author ofThe Human Mindand other psychological studies. It discusses the meaning of beauty and the problem of the nature of pleasure, especially “higher†pleasure, its relation to play, etc. And the article closes with a history of Aesthetic Theories, including those of the following philosophers, on all of whom the student will find separate and elaborate critical biographies in the Britannica:Plato, who set beauty high, but thought art a mere trick of imitation and wished it be censored rather than encouraged in his model republic;Aristotle, who sets beauty above the useful and necessary, but whose aesthetic seems to be applied to poetry rather than to any other art; the German philosophers,Kant,Schelling,Hegel,Schopenhauer, who so deeply impressed their theories on the literature of their times, etc. The articlesArt(Vol. 2, p. 657) andFine Artsare both by Sir Sidney Colvin, formerly keeper of prints and drawings, British Museum. The former begins with a contrast between art and nature—the contrast made famous by Pope, by Chaucer, repeatedly by Shakespeare and by Dr. Johnson in his definition of Art as “the power of doing something which is not taught by Nature or by instinct.†This definition is in itself an excellent text for a discourse on the importance in the study of the fine arts of the best literature on the subject. But Sir Sidney Colvin points out that the definition is incomplete, since Art
is a name not only for the power of doing something, but for the exercise of the power; and not only for the exercise of the power, but for the rules according to which it is exercised; and not only for the rules, but for the result. Painting, for instance, is an art, and the word connotes not only the power to paint, but the act of painting; and not only the act, but the laws for performing the act rightly; and not only all these, but the material consequences of the act or the thing painted.
Art is then “Every regulatedoperation or dexterity by which organized beings pursue ends which they know beforehand, together with the rules and theresult of every such operation or dexterity.â€
And a consideration of the etymology of the words “Art†and “Kunst†is the basis of a discussion of the relation of Science and Art, which is summed up in these words:
Science consists in knowing, Art consists in doing. What I must do in order to know, is Art subservient to Science: what I must know in order to do, is Science subservient to Art.
After speaking of dancing, music, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, the author says:
Of all these arts, the end is not use, but pleasure, or pleasure before use, or at least pleasure and use conjointly. In modern language, there has grown up a usage which has put them into a class by themselves under the name of the Fine Arts, as distinguished from the Useful or Mechanical Arts. (SeeAestheticsandFine Arts.) Nay, more, to them alone is often appropriated the use of the generic word Art.... And further yet, custom has reduced the number which the class-word is meant to include. When Art and the works of Art are now currently spoken of in this sense, not even music or poetry is frequently denoted, but only architecture, sculpture and painting by themselves, or with their subordinate and decorative branches.
Fine Arts
The articleFine Arts(Vol. 10, p. 355; equivalent to 70 pages of this Guide) is divided into the following parts:General Definition, with particular attention to the theory that makes the arts a form of play and to the definitions of Plato and Schiller;Classification—architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry classified as “shaping†and “speaking†or as imitative and “non-imitative,†with definitions from the aesthetic or philosophic point of view of sculpture and of painting; andHistorical Development, with a criticism of Spencer’s theory of the evolution and gradual separation of the arts and of Taine’s natural history, as well as a critical and illuminating outline history of the arts.
Whether we include under the fine arts music and poetry, or with the more popular usage make the fine arts not five but three, architecture, painting and sculpture, the arts may be studied in the Britannica and there is the basis for this study in this Guide.
Music is the subject of a separate chapter.
Poetry is treated in the chapters on Literature, but it will be well to remind the student of the philosophy of art of the remarkable articlePoetry(Vol. 21, p. 877; equivalent to 45 pages in this Guide) by Theodore Watts-Dunton, and of the articles on the different poetic forms, mostly by Edmund Gosse.
Architecture in the Britannica is outlined in this Guide in the chapterFor Architects.
The two chapters immediately following this are devoted respectively to Painting, Engraving and Drawing and to Sculpture and the Subsidiary Arts. Of practical value to the art student as an introduction to these two chapters are the articlesArt Societies, by A. C. Robinson Carter, editor ofThe Year’s Art, andArt Teaching, by Walter Crane, the English illustrator, who also contributed the articleArts and Crafts.
For an alphabetical list of articles on the fine arts see the end of the chapter onSculpture.
CHAPTER XXXIIIPAINTING, DRAWING, ETC.
The articlePainting(Vol. 20, p. 459; equivalent to 190 pages of this Guide) is an elaborate “key†article which may well be the starting point for more definite study. The art student who actually wishes to paint or draw—as distinct from the student of the history of art—will do well to read first in this great article its third section,The Technique of Painting(pp. 482–497), by Gerard Baldwin Brown, professor of fine art, Edinburgh, and author ofThe Fine Arts. The main topics in this part of the article are:
The Materials of Painting; The Surfaces Covered by the Painter; Binding Materials or Media; The Processes of Painting, and their Historical Uses; Painting with Coloured Vitreous Pastes (with bibliography)—on this method and on similar processes see the separate articlesCeramics, with remarkably valuable and beautiful coloured illustrations;Mosaic;Enamel;Glass, Stained. The following sections are Fresco Painting (with bibliography)—see Fig. 34, Plate X (facing p. 477); Fresco-Secco (with bibliography); Stereochromy or Water-Glass Painting (with bibliography); Spirit Fresco or the “Gambier Parry†Process, as improved by Professor Church (with bibliography); Oil Processes of Wall Painting; Tempera Painting on Walls; Encaustic Painting on Walls (with bibliography); Encaustic Painting in General (with bibliography); Tempera Painting (with bibliography); Water Colour Painting (with bibliography).
Drawing and Engraving
In connection with this part of the article—theoretically before it, perhaps,—the student should read the articlesDrawingandEngraving.
Drawing(Vol. 8, p. 552), by John R. Fothergill, editor ofThe Slade, is a peculiarly interesting article in its denial of the possibility of conveying colour by drawing or monochrome, in its tracing the development of drawing from the “papery†and flat first attempts on early Greek vases to the depth, length and breadth of the later Greeks or of a Michelangelo, for its criticism of the definition of artistic drawing as a process of selection and elimination from the forms of nature, and for its discussion of style or personality in drawing. See also the articlesCaricature,Cartoon,Illustration,Poster,Plumbago Drawings.
Engraving(Vol. 9, p. 645) is a short outline article to be supplemented by:Line-Engraving(Vol. 16, p. 721), by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, author ofDrawing and Engraving, and more popularly known as the author ofThe Intellectual Life,Human Intercourseand other essays, and by M. H. Spielmann, formerly editor of theMagazine of Art;Wood Engraving, by the same authors;Mezzotint, by Gerald Philip Robinson, president of the Society of Mezzotint Engravers; and Etching.
Supplementing the section in the articlePaintingonThe Technique of Paintingare the separate articles:Crayon,Pastel,Palette;Aquatint,Aquarelle,Encaustic Painting,Fresco,Gouache,Illuminated Manuscripts(with 5 plates), by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, late director British Museum and author ofEnglish Illuminated Manuscripts;Miniature(with 19 illustrations in halftone), by the same author, and by G. C. Williamson, author ofHistory of Portrait Miniatures, whose articles on theminiature painters theClouets,Cosway, theHilliards,George Morland,Peter Oliver, thePetitots,Pierre Prieur,John Smart, etc., should also be read;Panorama,Pastel, by M. H. Spielmann,Portraiture, by Sir George Reid, the Scotch artist and late president of the Royal Scottish Academy,Predella,TemperaandTriptych.
History of Painting
Although the articles enumerated in the last paragraph have primarily to do with technique, there is in them—especially in such articles asMiniatureandPortraiture—much historical and critical information. And from them the student may well turn back to the articlePaintingto pursue there those topics which he has not yet covered. These are:Part I.—A Sketch of the Development of the Art(pp. 460–478);Part II.—Schools of Painting, a tabular scheme (pp. 479–481), andRecent Schools of Painting(pp. 497–518), by M. H. Spielmann, for British; Léonce Bénédite, keeper of the Luxembourg Museum, for French; Fernand Khnopff, painter and etcher, for Belgian; Prof. J. C. Van Dyck, Rutgers College, author ofHistory of American Art, for the United States; and Prof. Richard Muther, Breslau University, author ofThe History of Modern Painting, on Dutch, German, Austrian, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and Balkan States.
These parts of the article are illustrated with ten plates containing 36 figures, including four prehistoric incised drawings of animals found in French caves and remarkable for their technical accuracy and life; two paintings, a boar and a bison, reproduced in colours, from the palaeolithic cave of Altamira—see also Plates II and III in the articleArchaeology(between pp. 348 and 349, Vol. 2), Figs. 6, 7 and 8 in Plate accompanyingAnthropology(opposite p. 118, Vol. 2), and the plates of American antiques in the articleAmerica(Vol. 1, pp. 808–816); an excellent Egyptian drawing of birds; the François vase (Greek); a Pompeian wall painting—see also the reproduction in colours of a wall-painting from a Roman villa in the articleMural Decoration(Vol. 20, p. 22); a wall painting from Brunswick cathedral; and typical examples of the work of Hubert van Eyck, Giotto, Lorenzetti, Masaccio, Uccello, Pollaiuolo, Piero della Francesca, Ghirlandajo, Mantegna, Bellini, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, Holbein, Watteau, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Quintin Matsys, Brouwer, Ruysdael, Turner, Chardin.
“A rough division of the whole history of art into four main periods†gives “first ... the efforts of the older Oriental peoples, best represented by the painting of the Egyptians; the second includes the classical and medieval epochs up to the beginning of the 15th century; the third the 15th and 16th centuries, and the fourth the time from the beginning of the 17th century onward. In the first period the endeavour is after truth of contour, in the second and third after truth of form, in the fourth after truth of space.â€
The Egyptian artist was satisfied if he could render with accuracy, and with proper emphasis on what is characteristic, the silhouettes of things in nature regarded as little more than flat objects cut out against a light background. The Greek and the medieval artist realized that objects had three dimensions, and that it was possible on a flat surface to give an indication of the thickness of anything, that is, of its depth away from the spectator, as well as its length and breadth, but they cannot be said to have fully succeeded in the difficult task they set themselves. For this there was needful an efficient knowledge of perspective, and this the 15th century brought with it. During the 15th century the painter fully succeeds in mastering the representation of the third dimension, and during the next he exercises the power thus acquired in perfect freedom, producing some of the most convincing and masterly presentments of solid forms upon a flat surface that the art has to show. During this period, however, and to a more partial extent even in the earlier classical epoch, efforts were being made to widen the horizon of the art and to embrace within thescope of its representations not only solid objects in themselves, but such objects as a whole in space, in due relation to each other and to the universe at large. It was reserved, however, for the masters of the 17th century perfectly to realize this ideal of the art, and in their hands painting as an art of representation is widened out to its fullest possible limits, and the whole of nature in all its aspects becomes for the first time the subject of the picture.
Early Painting
Following this classification, the articlePainting, after commenting on primitive art among bushmen, Eskimo and Australians and on the remarkable cave drawings and paintings of Altamira, Gourdan and Lortet,—even the paintings are thought to be 50,000 years old,—discusses the painting of contour in Egypt and Babylonia, in prehistoric Greece, in ancient Greece and Italy, and in the early Christian and early medieval periods. Of particular interest is the criticism of Greek drawing.
It may be admitted that in many artistic qualities it was beyond praise. In beauty, in grace of line, in composition, we can imagine works of Apelles, of Zeuxis, of Protogenes, excelling even the efforts of the Italian painters, or only matched by the finest designs of a Raphael or a Leonardo.... The facts, however, remain, first, that the Greek pictures about which we chiefly read were of single figures, or subjects of a very limited and compact order, with little variety of planes; and second, that the existing remains of ancient painting are so full of mistakes in perspective that the representation of distance cannot have been a matter to which the artists had really set themselves.... The problem of representing correctly the third dimension of space ... had certainly not been solved.... It is an additional confirmation of this view to find early Christian and early medieval painting confined to the representation of the few near objects which the older Oriental artists had all along envisaged.
For more detailed treatment of this period see the articles:Egypt,Art and Archaeology(Vol. 9, pp. 65–77), with many illustrations both of painting and sculpture, by Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, the eminent Egyptologist;Babylonia and Assyria, particularly the two plates of illustrations (opposite pp. 104 and 105, Vol. 3);Aegean Civilization, especially the illustrations (Vol. 1, pp. 246–251);Greek Art(Vol. 12, pp. 470–492), by Percy Gardner, author ofGrammar of Greek Art,—and, mostly by the same author, the articlesAgatharchus,Panaenus,Micon,Polygnotus,Protogenes,Apelles,Aristides of Thebes,Pausias,Theon,Zeuxis;Roman Art(Vol. 23, pp. 474–486), especially Plates V (p. 481) and VI (p. 484); and for the early Christian and early medieval periods such articles asIlluminated Manuscripts, with illustrations, by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, late director British Museum, andMiniature. The reader should also consult the articlesChinaandJapanfor the section on the art of each of these countries (Vol. 6, pp. 213–216, with two plates, 17 figures; and Vol. 15, pp. 172–190, with eight plates, 30 figures—especially Plates I-IV, pp. 172–177), as Oriental art in general may be said to belong to this phase of effort after truth of contour and of form. See also the separate articles on Japanese artists, mostly by E. F. Strange, author ofJapanese Illustration,Hokusai, etc.,—particularlyKorin,Utamaro,Hokusai,Hiroshige, andYosai.
The first important individual names after those of the Greek painters mentioned above are those of the Proto-Renaissance of the 13th and 14th century.
For Italy seePietro Cavallini; in Florence,Cimabue, by W. M. Rossetti, author ofFine Art, Chiefly Contemporary;Giotto, by Sir Sidney Colvin, late keeper prints and drawings, British Museum;Gaddi, by W. M. Rossetti;Orcagna, by the late John Henry Middleton, Slade professor of fine arts, Cambridge, art director South Kensington Museum;Spinello Aretino(Vol. 25, p. 685), andAngelico, by W. M. Rossetti; in Siena,Simone Martini; and for Flanders, thevan Eycks(Vol. 10, p. 90), by Sir Joseph Archer Crowe, author with G. B. Cavalcaselle, ofEarly Flemish Painters, etc.
15th Century: Florence
With the 15th century, and particularly at Florence, begins the third of the four periods in the evolution of painting. “The father of modern painting is the Florentine Masaccioâ€: see the article on him (Vol. 17, p. 833), by W. M. Rossetti, who says “he led the way in representing the objects of nature correctly, with action, liveliness and relief.... All the greatest artists of Italy, through studying the Brancacci chapel, became his champions and disciples.†For the other great Florentine names of the century see the articles:Masolino da Panicale, by Rossetti;Brunelleschi, architect, student of perspective, and, with Masolino, master of Masaccio; the two earlierLippi, by Rossetti;Botticelli, by Sir Sidney Colvin;Gozzoli, by Rossetti;Rosselli;Piero di Cosimo(Vol. 21, p. 950);Castagno;Baldovinetti, by Sir Sidney Colvin;Pollaiuolo;Ghirlandajo, father and son, by W. M. Rossetti; and, marking the perfection of art on the formal side,Bartolommeo, and Rossetti’s article,Andrea del Sarto(Vol. 1, p. 969).
15th Century: Other Parts of Italy
As for the remainder of Italy, Sienese art declines in this century, but there is an advance in Northern Italy and in Umbria. See the articles:Franceschi, by Rossetti,Melozzo, “the first who practised foreshortening with much success,†andSignorelli; Raphael’s master,Perugino, by Rossetti;Mantegna, by the same author;Lorenzo Costa;Francia, by Rossetti; and at Venice,Gentile, theVivarini,Antonello da Messina,Carpaccio, theBellini(Vol. 3, p. 700), by Sir Sidney Colvin.
15th and 16th Centuries: Northern Europe
In Germany and the Low Countries the art of the 15th and 16th centuries may be traced in the articles: for Germany—Schongauer;Dürer, by Sir Sidney Colvin;Grün; theHolbeinsandCranach, by Sir Joseph Archer Crowe;Burgkmair;Grünewald; and for the Low Countries—Roger van der Weyden; his greater pupilMemlinc, by Sir J. A. Crowe and P. G. Konody, art critic of theObserverandDaily Mail;Goes;Gerard David, by P. G. Konody;Lucas van Leyden(Vol. 17, p. 93);Heemskerk;Matsys;Breughel;Mabuse, by Sir J. A. Crowe;Floris;Moro; andBril.
16th Century: Italian Masters
Roughly contemporary with Dürer and Holbein the younger were the even greater masters of Italian painting. See the articles: for Florence—Leonardo da Vinci(Vol. 16, p. 444, equivalent to 35 pages of this Guide), andMichelangelo(Vol. 18, p. 362), both by Sir Sidney Colvin, andVasari, painter and biographer of painters; for Rome—Raphael Sanzio(Vol. 22, p. 900, with 7 cuts), by the late Prof. John Henry Middleton, andGiulio Romano, by W. M. Rossetti; for North Italy—Luini,Correggio,Parmigiano, andMoroni, all by Rossetti, andMoretto; and for Venice—Giorgione, by Sir Sidney Colvin;LottoandPalma,Titian,Tintoretto, andPaul Veronese(Vol. 20, p. 965), all by W. M. Rossetti.
We have now come to modern times so far as painting is concerned. The articlePaintingsays:
The Fourth Period: 17th Century and After
By the 17th century the development of painting had passed through all its stages, and the picture was no longer a mere silhouette or a transcript of objects against a flat background, but rather an enchanted mirror of the world, in which might be reflected space beyond space in infinite recession. With this transformation of the picture there was connected a complete change in the relation of the artist to nature. Throughout all the earlier epochs of the art the painter had concerned himself not with nature as a whole, but with certainselected aspects of nature that furnished him with his recognized subjects. These subjects were selected on account of their intrinsic beauty or importance, and as representing intrinsic worth they claimed to be delineated in the clearest and most substantial fashion. In the 17th century, not only was the world as a whole brought within the artist’s view, but it presented itself as worthy in every part of his most reverent attention. In other words, the art of the 17th century, and of the modern epoch in general, is democratic, and refuses to acknowledge that difference in artistic value among the aspects of nature which was at the basis of the essentially aristocratic art of the Greeks and Italians.... The artist who was the first to demonstrate convincingly this principle of modern painting was Rembrandt.... Rembrandt in his later work attended to the pictorial effect alone, and practically annulled the objects by reducing them to pure tone and color. Things are not there at all, but only the semblance or effect, or “impression†of things. Breadth is in this way combined with the most delicate variety, and a new form of painting, now called “impressionism,†has come into being.
See:Rubens, by Henri Hymans, author ofRubens: sa vie et son œuvre, and P. G. Konody;Rembrandt, by John Forbes White and P. G. Konody; andFrans Hals, by P. G. Konody. These were the leaders of the great 17th century school—the Dutch. For the more immediate followers of Rembrandt see the articles:Douw,Eeckhout,Flinck,Maes,Hooch,Meer. For Rubens’ great pupil and rival and his successors, the articlesVan DyckandTeniers, both by Henri Hymans and P. G. Konody,Snydersand the great animal painterFyt. SeeBrouwerfor Hals’ pupil and assistant. For the genre painters, the articles:Ter Borch,Metsu,Steen,Wouwermann, and theOstadefamily, by Sir J. A. Crowe and P. G. Konody. On the landscapists see the articles:Koninck,Goyen,Neer, by Sir J. A. Crowe and P. G. Konody;Ruysdael,Hobbema, by Sir J. A. Crowe, andBerchem; and, for animal and landscape,A. Vandevelde, Cuyp, by Sir J. A. Crowe, andPotter, by P. G. Konody. The other important articles for the Dutch school of the 17th century are:Heem,Heda,Hondecoeter,WeenixandHuysum, painters of still life, etc.;W. VandeveldeandBackhuysen, marine painters; and at the close of the period, or marking its decline,MierisandNetscher.
In the article onPaintingthis summary follows the outline of the general development of painting through the 17th century:
Kinds of Painting
The fact that the Dutch painters have left us masterpieces in so many different walks of painting, makes it convenient that we should add here some brief notes on characteristic modern phases of the art on which they stamped the impress of their genius. The normal subject for the artist, as we have seen, up to the 17th century, was the figure-subject, generally in some connexion with religion. The Egyptian portrayed the men and women of his time, but the pictures, through their connexion with the sepulchre, had a quasi-religious significance.
Portraitureis differentiated from this kind of subject-picture through stages which it would be interesting to trace, but the portrait, though secular, is always treated in such a way as to exalt or dignify the sitter. Another kind of figure-piece, also differentiated by degrees from the subject-picture of the loftier kind, is the so-calledGenre Painting, in which the human actors and their goings-on are in themselves indifferent, trivial, or mean, and even repellent; and in which, accordingly, intrinsic interest of subject has disappeared to be replaced by an artistic interest of a different kind.Landscape, in modern times so important a branch of painting, is also an outcome of the traditional figure-piece, for at first it is nothing but a background to a scene in which human figures are prominent.Marine Paintingis a branch of landscape art differentiated from this, but supplied at first in the same way with figure-interest. The origin ofAnimal Paintingis to be sought partly in figure-pieces, where, as in Egypt and Assyria, animals play a part in scenes of human life, and partly in landscapes, in which cattle, &c., are introduced to enliven the foreground. TheHunting Picture, combining a treatment of figures and animals in action with landscape of a picturesque character, gives an artist like Rubens a welcome opportunity, and the picture ofDead Gamemay be regarded as its offshoot. This brings us to the important class ofStill-life Painting, the relation of which to the figure-piece can be traced through the genre picture and the portrait.
The article then proceeds to sketch the history and development of different kinds of painting:
Portraiture:
It is Gentile and Giovanni Bellini ... who may be regarded as the fathers of modern portrait painting. Venetian art was always more secular in spirit than that of the rest of Italy, and Venetian portraits were abundant.... Some of the finest portraits in the world are the work of the great Venetians of the 16th century, for they combine pictorial quality with an air of easy greatness which later painters find it hard to impart to their creations. Though greatly damaged, Titian’s equestrian portrait of Charles V. at Madrid (fig. 26, Plate VIII.) is one of the very finest of existing works of the kind. It is somewhat remarkable that of the other Italian painters who executed portraits the most successful was the idealist Raphael, whose papal portraits of Julius II. and Leo X. are masterpieces of firm and accurate delineation. Leonardo’s “Monna Lisa†is a study rather than a portrait proper.
The realistic vein, which, as we have seen, runs through northern painting, explains to some extent the extraordinary merit in portraiture of Holbein, who represents the culmination of the efforts in this direction of masters like Jan van Eyck and Dürer.... Frans Hals of Haarlem, one of the most brilliant painters of the impressionist school that he did much to found, achieved remarkable success in the artistic grouping of a number of portraits.... As portraitists the other great 17th-century masters fall into two sets, Rembrandt and Velazquez contrasting with Rubens and his pupil Van Dyck.... In the 18th century, though France produced some good limners and Spain Goya, yet on the whole England was the home of the best portraiture. Van Dyck had been in the service of Charles I., and foreign representatives of his style carried on afterwards the tradition of his essentially courtly art, but there existed at the same time a line of native British portraitists of whom the latest and best was Hogarth. One special form of portraiture, theminiature(q.v.), has been characteristically English throughout....
Genre:
Probably the most excellent painters of genre are Ter Borch, Metsu and Brouwer, the two first painters of the life of the upper classes, the last of peasant existence in some of its most unlovely aspects. The pictures of Brouwer are among the most instructive documents of modern painting.... He is best represented in the Munich Pinacotek, from which has been selected fig. 30, Plate IX. Hardly less admirable are Teniers in Flanders; De Hooch, Ver Meer of Delft, Jan Steen, A. van Ostade, in Holland, while in more modern times Hogarth, Chardin, Sir David Wilkie, Meissonier, and a host of others carry the tradition of the work down to our own day (see Table VIII.)....
Landscape and Marine Painting:
Several of the Dutch masters, even before the time of Rembrandt, excelled in the truthful rendering of the scenes and objects of their own simple but eminently paintable country; but it was Rembrandt, with his pupil, de Koningk, and his rival in this department Jacob Ruysdael, who were the first to show how a perfectly natural and unconventional rendering of a stretch of country under a broad expanse of sky might be raised by poetry and ideal feeling to the rank of one of the world’s masterpieces of painting. Great as was Rembrandt in what Bode has called “the landscape of feeling,†the “Haarlem from the Dunes†of Ruysdael (fig. 31, Plate IX.) with some others of this artist’s acknowledged successes, surpass even his achievement.... Among Turner’s chief titles to honour is the fact that he portrayed the sea in all its moods with a knowledge and sympathy that give him a place alone among painters of marine....
Animal Painting:
In Holland, in the 17th century, the animal nature presented itself under the more contemplative aspect of the ruminants in the lush water-meadows. True to their principle of doing everything they attempt in the best possible way, the Dutch paint horses (Cuyp, Wouwerman) and cattle (Cuyp, Adrian Vandevelde, Paul Potter) with canonical perfection, while Hondekoeter delineates live cocks and hens, and Weenix dead hares and moor-fowl, in a way that makes us feel that the last word on such themes has been spoken. There is a large white turkey by Hondekoeter in which the truth of mass and of texture in the full soft plumage is combined with a delicacy in the detail of the airy filaments, that is the despair of the most accomplished modern executant.
But animals have been treated more nobly than when shown in Flemish agitation or in Dutch phlegmatic calm. Leonardo da Vinci was specially famed for his horses, which he may have treated with something of the majesty of Pheidias....
Still-Life Painting:
There is no finer Rembrandt for pictorial quality than the picture in the Louvre representing the carcase of a flayed ox in a flesher’s booth. As illustrating the principle of modern painting this form of thegraphic art has a value and importance which in itself it could hardly claim.... The way was prepared for it as has been noticed, by the minute and forcible rendering of accessory objects in the figure-pieces and portraits of the early Flemish masters, of Dürer, and above all of Holbein. The painting of flower and fruit pieces without figure interest by Jan Breughel the younger, who was born in 1601, represents a stage onward, and contemporary with him were several other Dutch and Flemish specialists in this department, among whom Jan David de Heem, born 1603, and the rather older Willem Klaasz Heda may be mentioned. Their subjects sometimes took the form of a luncheon table with vessels, plate, fruit and other eatables; at other times of groups of costly vessels of gold, silver and glass, or of articles used in art or science, such as musical instruments and the like; and it is especially to be noted that the handling stops always short of any illusive reproduction of the actual textures of the objects, while at the same time the differing surfaces of stuffs and metal and glass, of smooth-rinded apples and gnarled lemons, are all most justly rendered.... In this form of painting the French 18th-century artist Chardin, whose impasto was fuller, whose colouring more juicy than those of the Dutch, has achieved imperishable fame (see fig. 33, Plate X.); and the modern French, who understand better than others the technical business of painting, have carried on the fine tradition which has culminated in the work of Vollon. The Germans have also painted still-life to good result, but the comparative weakness in technique of British painters has kept them in this department rather in the background.
National Schools of Painting
The history of painting since the 17th century may best be studied in the Britannica in the order in which “recent schools†are treated (Vol. 20, pp. 497–518), and this plan will be followed here in a brief outline, giving only a few out of many articles for each country.
British
British art in the 17th and 18th centuries is dependent largely on foreign and particularly Flemish influences—Van Dyck in especial. See Rossetti’s articles onLelyandKneller, who, like Holbein and Van Dyck, were importations, but, unlike them, were pretty thoroughly Anglicized. For the first purely English painter see Austin Dobson’s articleHogarth(Vol. 13, p. 566). For “the most prominent figure in the English school of painting†whoseDiscourseslargely affected English notions of aesthetics, seeSir Joshua Reynolds; also the article on his rivalGeorge Romney. And read Rossetti’s articleGainsborough; and those on the portrait paintersRaeburnandSir Thomas Lawrence. On the Norwich school of landscapists see the articlesCrome,CotmanandGeorge Vincent. For foreign influences on landscape painting seeRichard Wilson(Vol. 28, p. 695) for French influence, andJohn Constable(Vol. 6, p. 982), by C. J. Holmes, author ofConstable and His Influence on Landscape Painting, for German. With the article on the greatest of English landscapistsJ. M. W. Turner(Vol. 27, p. 474), by Sir George Reid, the student should read Frederic Harrison’s article onJohn Ruskin, himself an exquisite draughtsman, although unable to compose a picture, whose championship of Turner and general theories of art so strongly influenced British painting. See also the articles on the subject painterThomas Stothardand the landscapistGirtin; and on the genre painters,Sir David Wilkie, by J. Miller Gray, late curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,Mulready,William Collins, andFrith. See the articleWilliam Blake, by J. W. Comyns-Carr, author ofEssays on Art, for an appreciation of that remarkable genius, who in his combination of painting and poetry may be reckoned a forerunner of the Pre-Raphaelites. On the P. R. Brotherhood see the articles:D. G. Rossetti, by F. G. Stephens, former art-critic to theAthenaeumand, for Rossetti’s literary work, Theodore Watts-Dunton;Sir J. E. MillaisandW. Holman Hunt, by Cosmo Monkhouse, the poet and critic; andFord Madox Brown, by W. M. Rossetti, himself a member of the Brotherhood—see the article onRossetti. Of much the same school were several later men. See,for instance, the articles:Lord Leighton, by Cosmo Monkhouse;William Morris, by Arthur Waugh;Burne-Jones, by Lawrence Binyon, poet and author of monographs on Blake, Crome, etc.;George Frederick Watts, by Malcolm Bell, biographer of Burne-Jones;Walter Crane. On the “Newlyn†school, see the articleNewlyn; on the etchers,Whistler, by Frederick Wedmore, author ofWhistler’s Etchings, andWilliam StrangandSir F. S. Haden, by Sir Charles Holroyd, artist and critic; on figure painters,Sir John Gilbert,Albert Moore,John Pettie,G. H. Boughton,Alma-Tadema,Sir E. J. PoynterandSir W. B. Richmond; for painters of sentiment,Marcus Stone,Sir Luke FildesandSir Hubert von Herkomer; among portrait painters,J. J. Shannon, andC. W. Furse; the decoratorFrank Brangwyn; the realistic landscapists,H. W. B. Davis,David Murray,Sir E. A. Waterlow,Vicat Cole; the more imaginative and romantic painters of landscape,Alfred W. Hunt,Cecil Gordon Lawson,John Linnell,G. H. Mason,Frederick Walker,Sir Alfred East,J. Buxton Knight,George Clausen; the “subjective landscapistâ€B. W. Leader; the marine paintersHenry Moore,C. Napier Hemy,James Clarke Hook; the animal-paintersBreton,Riviere,J. M. Swan, and, for the earlier period,Landseer; the Scottish artistsOrchardson, by Sir Walter Armstrong, director of National Gallery of Ireland;John Pettie,Thomas Faed,David Murray,Arthur Melville,John Lavery,Robert Brough,Sir James Guthrie, andSir George Reid, of whom we have already spoken as a contributor to the Britannica; and the water coloristsSir John Gilbert, by F. G. Stephens, former art critic of theAthenaeum,Henry Moore,Albert Moore,George Clausen,E. J. Gregory,Birket Foster,Haag,Kate Greenaway, by M. H. Spielmann, biographer of Kate Greenaway. On English illustrators, besides those already named, Hogarth and Blake notably, see the articlesThomas Bewick,Bartolozzi,Flaxman, by Sir Sidney Colvin,Cattermole,Samuel Prout,James Ward,Gillray,Bunbury,Rowlandson,Cruikshank,John Leech,Richard Doyle,Tenniel,Sir John Gilbert,Aubrey Beardsley, by E. F. Strange,Thomas Creswick,Du Maurier,C. S. Keene,Frederick Walker,G. J. Pinwell,R. Caldecott,Harry Furniss,Sir F. C. Gould,E. Linley Sambourne,Phil May,Leonard Raven-Hill.
French
On French painting of the 17th century read: on landscape,Poussin, andClaude of Lorraine(Vol. 6, p. 463), by W. M. Rossetti; the historical and religious paintersLe BrunandLe Sueur; and the portraitistPhilippe de Champaigne. For the 18th century: the articlesWatteauandFragonard, by P. G. Konody;François Boucher,Lancret,Vernetthe eldest,Rigaud,Chardin, andGreuze, by Lady Dilke, author ofFrench Painters of the 18th Century.
In the 19th century came a classical reaction: see the article on its leaderJacques Louis Davidand his pupils and imitatorsJ. B. Regnault,Girodet,Baron Guérin,Prud’hon; then a mediate movement, on which seeIngres, by Lady Dilke, andGros; and then a Romantic revolt—seeDelacroix,Géricault,Isabey. Other important names areZiem,MeissonierandRose Bonheur, both by Henri Frantz of theGazette des Beaux Arts,Cabanel,Baudry,Gérôme,Bouguereau,Benjamin Constant,Cormon,BonnatandHenner. On the Barbizon school, see the articlesBarbizon,Theodore Rousseau,Daubigny,Corot, andDiaz, by D. Croal Thomson, author ofThe Barbizon School,J. F. Millet, by Lady Dilke;Dupré,FrançaisandHarpignies. Ranking with Corot and Millet in influence isCourbet; see the article on Courbet,by Henri Frantz of the ParisGazette des Beaux Arts, and on Courbet’s followers,Legros,Fantin-Latour,Ribot, by Frederick Wedmore,Carolus-Duran. Contrasted with these nature-lovers are the more mysticMoreau,Ricard,Delaunay,FromentinandCazin.
The later names we may classify: the decorative painter—Puvis de Chavannes, by Henri Frantz; the impressionists—see the articleImpressionism(Vol. 14, pp. 343–346), by D. S. MacColl, keeper of the Tate Gallery, and author ofNineteenth Century Art, and in the articlePaintingthe discussion on pp. 473–474 of Vol. 20—Manet, by Henri Frantz,Monet,Degas,Renoir; the plein-airistsJules Breton,Bastien-Lepage, by Henri Frantz;Roll,Gervex; the symbolistGustave Moreau; the military paintersAlphonse de NeuvilleandDetaille; and the “neo-evangelistâ€Cazin.