We now pass over the names of Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise, none masters, though they have been called “great colourists,” whatever that may mean. A great colourist should be a true colourist, and Müller is almost chromographic in originality in this respect.
Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke, are names that stand out at this period, and the greatest of them is Cooke; his painting of “Lobster Pots,” at South Kensington, being wonderfully fresh and true; but none are poets; they have but little insight into nature, though Linnell at times shows the true feeling. A long list of well-known names follows, such as Hilton, Haydon, Etty, and Eastlake, but none are masters, and we only mention them to caution against them. |Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason.| Of considerable power were Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason, but none of them was really good, although much has been written and said in praise of their works. They are all false in sentiment, and all lack insight into the poetry of nature. |Wilkie and Landseer.| In technique Wilkie and Landseer are often strong, and they will always appeal to a certain class of people. |Mason.| Mason’s work is a fine example of the folly of introducing the so-called “imaginative” into landscape. Take his “Harvest Moon,” when and where did ever men exist with such limbs? the whole picture smacks of the model and of the “stage idealism;” there is no nature there, but a laughable parody of it. |F. Walker.| The next really great name in English art is that of Frederick Walker, a naturalist, and above all an artist who had a great grip of and insight into nature. But in his work the traditions of the idyllic peasants of the golden age lingers, and we find his ploughman merrily running along with a plough as though it were a toy cart; and what a ploughman! he never saw a field in his life. This is a grave fault, and takes away from the greatness of Walker, yet notwithstanding this his name will always be a landmark in English art. The reader will be able to study one of his works in the National Gallery. The date of Walker’s death brings us down to the actual present. Regarding living English painters we will remain discreetly silent. It must be remembered that English art is young, beginning as it practically does in the eighteenth century, for the miniature-painters cannot count for much, and we must therefore not expect too much. Great men, especially great artists, are rare as Koh-i-noors. England can boast of a few, such as Gainsborough, and Constable and Crome. |American Art.| Of American art there is but little to say. |Whistler.| No name stands out worthy of record till J. M. Whistler appears, and he, though an American by birth, can hardly be called an American painter, for the life and landscape of his own country he neglects, as also do|Sargent and Harrison.| Sargent and Harrison, two strong painters, both French by education. Whistler’s name rises far above any artist living in England, his portrait of his mother and those of Carlyle and Sarasate are works good for all time and worthy to be ranked with the best. Mr. Whistler’s influence, too, has been great and good. As a pioneer he led the revolt against ignorant criticism by his attack on Ruskin. Vide “Art and Art Criticism, Whistler v. Ruskin.” His life in England has been a long battle for art, and though many do not approve of all his methods, and still less of his brilliant but illogical “Ten o'Clock,” his work and influence have been for good. Another great step in advance, introduced by Mr. Whistler, has been the reform in hanging pictures; though he has not been allowed to carry out his plans thoroughly, yet he has managed his exhibitions much more artistically than any others in the country. In landscape his night-scene at Valparaiso is marvellous, and we doubt whether paint ever more successfully expressed so difficult a subject. But even as Homer nods, so does at times Mr. Whistler, and sometimes “impressionsimpressions” in oil, water-colour, and etching appear with his name, an honour of which they are unworthy. Yet so long as art lives will Mr. Whistler live in his Carlyle, his portrait of his mother, Lady Campbell, and some smaller works. |Sargent.| Mr. Sargent’s Carnations and Lilies must be fresh in our readers' minds. We will only say of it that we never saw the actual physical facts of nature so truthfully and subtly rendered. It is indeed a picture whose title to admiration will be lasting, and if the reader has not already seen it or, having seen it, has listened to ignorant critics, and passed it over as being “ugly,” let him go to South Kensington and view it again, for the nation is its fortunate possessor. Let him look well at it, and consider what it is. It represents a garden at the time of day when the sunlight is fading but has not quite gone—crepuscule in fact, and with the dying light of day is represented the artificial light of Chinese lanterns. This is indeed a masterpiece. |Harrison.| Mr. Harrison’s “In Arcady” is wonderful in its effect of sunshine through trees, though the picture is marred by the low type of the models introduced and by the painting of the figures. Had it but been pure landscape it would have been a wonderful piece of work. Never have we seen the effect of noontide heat so well rendered. This, then, brings us to the end of American art, and it is to be hoped that men strong as these will go back to their own country and paint the life of their own land and time. |Hunt.| William Hunt is a man much thought of in America, but we have never seen any of his paintings, though his book shows him to be a naturalist to the heart, and the reader will do well to read it.
Here, then, we must leave England and America, only remarking that things look bad for the education of the American public when the best Americans stay away, and when rich sausage-makers buy Herbert’s works with which to educate themselves, and when catalogue compilers take over boat-loads of English water-colours with which still further to lead them wrong. America wants no such education as can be given by Herbert’s senilities or English water-colours. She wants a band of earnest young men, who, having learned their technique in the best schools in the world, namely those of Paris, shall return to America and paint the scenes of their own country, and therein only lies the hope for American art.
The first mighty name of the modern period is that of Rembrandt Van Ryn. Holland, by her bravery, had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and with it the crushing yoke of Catholicism, and stood free to follow her own bent. As a result of this freedom a body of Naturalists arose who did more for modern art than any body of painters in the world. Rembrandt, though a giant and fit for the company of the immortals, Van Eyck, Velasquez, &c., was not perfect, for sometimes the power of tradition lurks in his work, and he forces his portraits by warm colours in the background, an artifice which was not at all necessary, and which Mr. Whistler has done without. There are a number of his works in the National Gallery, and a good one in the Dulwich Gallery, where is also a great Velasquez, so that the reader should not fail to go there. Rembrandt was inspired by the simple life around him, portraits and interiors satisfied him. It is a significant fact that the greatest painters, Durer, Da Vinci, Velasquez, and Rembrandt have been content to paint the life of their own times and not to draw upon their imagination. The learned painter, it cannot be too often repeated, is he who is learned in all the resources of his art, and we question very much whether one great reason why so few great painters have arisen is not that artists as a rule are so poorly and narrowly educated. At any rate, the opposite holds good, that the most highly and soundly educated artists, men who moved and held their own in the best intellectual societies of their time, were naturalists. But to return to Rembrandt. Perhaps his mastery, his grip of nature, show forth as much in his etchings as in his paintings. |Etchings.| He, like all great etchers, and there are few enough, used etching only within its legitimate limits, that is, as a method of expression by line, in a simple, direct and brief manner. An etching by a master may be looked upon in the same light as an epigram,[6] sonnet or ode by a poet. Many of Rembrandt’s etchings can be seen in the British Museum, and should be thoroughly well studied; after which study, pick up some of the unmeaning work of Seymour Haden or any other modern etcher, except Mr. Whistler and Rajon,[7] and you will, without doubt, distinguish the difference. Most modern works are good examples of how not to etch. Line after line is put in without any meaning at all; there is no evidence of the study of nature in the work and the subjects are trivial and commonplace. One of the greatest evils commercialism has done to art is to ruin modern etching, by having pictures of the old masters copied slavishly by the etcher, and elaborated and worked up, so that one wearies of them. Such work can scarcely be said to rise to the dignity of fine art at all, and Rembrandt, we think, would rise in horror from his grave, if he could see his paintings reproduced by etchers. Any reproduction of a picture is unsatisfactory and does not become fine art at all, but is only useful to publish reflections of the mind whose work it is intended to represent, and for our part we think a good photo-etching does this better, because more faithfully, than any other process. It is difficult to imagine the mind that can set itself to work for months, even years, at an engraving or etching from another man’s work when the world is so full of pathos and poetry, and subjects abound on all sides. No great man was ever found in this category.
6. Epigram here being used in the old Greek sense.
7. Now dead.
Durer and Rembrandt etched, and Mr. Whistler etches from Nature direct, not impertinently—there is no other word for it—tampering with other men’s work. But the public will buy these reproductions, and an artificial value is thus given to them, and the dealers will of course encourage whatever pays. |Print-sellers.| One etching by Rembrandt himself is worth all these reproductions of pictures by engraving, etching, mezzo-tint, or photo-etching, because it is an original work of art, the outcome of the loving study of nature. Not long ago a letter appeared in one of the literary “weeklies,” complaining of the stamping of photogravures by the Print-sellers' Association. The obvious answer to this print-seller’s letter is, of course, that with the works of living painters, the style of reproduction rests with the painter, and if the artist is satisfied with photo-etching, what has any one else to say—painters are the best judges of these things. Very few painters we know would entrust the reproduction of their pictures to etchers or engravers, or would countenance the publication of another man’s view of their work. We have seen photographs of Whistler’s Sarasate, but never engravings of it. With bad paintings on the other hand, the engraving of them has often made the painter’s name as well as the engraver’s. We could cite an example of a living painter who owes his reputation chiefly to the engravings of his works, and poor things they are even when embellished by the process. At the time this discussion was raging amongst the philistines, it was gravely asserted that “engravings always rose in price,” and this was given as a reason for buying them. Have the engravings of Mr. Landseer’s pictures risen in price! Ask the poor subscribers to the first copies. Will the engravings of Doré’s works rise in price? Quien sabe? If the reader is under any such erroneous idea, let him attend a few sales of engravings in London, and he will see proofs of etchings and engravings knocked down for a few shillings.
Leaving with regret the great Rembrandt, we pass over several smaller but often-quoted names, the most influential name we come to is Van Ostade, another naturalist of great power, of whom we have already spoken. |De Hooghe.| Next we come to De Hooghe. This is the man who first really gripped thoroughly and expressed truly on canvas the mystery and poetry of the open air. There are two specimens (courtyards) of this wonderful painter’s work at the National Gallery. They are an education in themselves, and are well worth long and careful study for hours, indeed there are few pictures more worthy of study. There they hang, fresh as nature and beautiful as paint can express, good, valuable for all time—why? Because the painter has known how to give the sentiment of plein air. There they hang true and lovely, pictures of Dutch life in the seventeenth century. No history can come up to them in historic value, none can be so true.
Cuyp we will pass over with few words. A great second-rate man he undoubtedly was, but his hot colouring smacks of the imagination rather than of nature. Paul Potter and Ruysdael also are men with unduly great reputations; they are both false in sentiment, and they handled nature with impertinence. Any careful observer can see that Ruysdael played with the lighting of landscapes as did Turner, and of course it is well known that he was not particular as to painting his landscapes on the spot. There is no nature in him, it is all Ruysdael, Ruysdael, Ruysdael, eternally Ruysdael.
Hobbema at times verged near the truth and greatness, as for instance in the painting of a road with trees, in the National Gallery, which our readers will do well to study; but he is insincere and untrue all through and was not a naturalist. |Van der Velde.| In sea painting, Van der Velde the younger is wonderful in his truth and love of nature. Good specimens of his work can be seen in the National Gallery.
Coming down to our own times, the elder Israels stands out as a giant, a distinguished master. We have only been able to see a few of his pictures, but those show us the master. Hopeful, indeed, is the art of Holland and Belgium with such men as Artz, Mauve,[8] Maas M. Maris, Mesdag, Boosboom, and others. The reader will often have opportunities of seeing works by these men at the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery, and Goupil’s, and he should take every opportunity of studying their works most carefully.
8. Now dead.
And now, lastly, we come to France—France where art has in modern times reached its highest level. France has in modern times always been the leader of civilization in Europe, and even now she is in the van of modern progress, our intellectual mother. We may have a finer literature to show, in Germany science may be more profound, but in all that is greater than literature or science, that is in solving the problem of being and throwing off the yoke of religious and political despotism, France has become the leader. Practical, energetic, and thrifty, the French with all their faults, still remain in many ways the first nation of the world. France and the French have more of the Ancient Greek’s esprit than any other nation has or ever has had. In all the humanizing influences that distinguish brute man from civilized man, the French are to the fore, but in histrionic, glyptic and pictorial art, she is unapproachable, and still reigns Queen of the Arts, in these branches.
Passing over Nicolas Poussin, Le Brun and other lesser names, whose works are not those of masters, |Claude Lorraine.| we arrive at Claude Lorraine, who may claim to have an inkling of the truth and whose work shows a distinct advance on Poussin, but who after all is no master because not loyal to nature, and therefore his already doubtful reputation will go on diminishing. |Watteau.| The first name that really stands forth as great in French art is that of Watteau. Watteau, however, cannot be ranked among the Immortals, for though his technique was marvellous, and his power of drawing unsurpassed, he like all his contemporaries, artists and otherwise, neglected nature, living as they did in the artificial times of Louis XIV. There is a picture in the National Gallery which well explains what we mean. Then name after name is handed down to us, but in vain do we look for a master among them. |Boucher and Greuze.| Boucher and Greuze still have admirers, but they are not great painters, because they did not study nature or at least did not succeed in painting her, as it is very easy to see from their works. |Delacroix.| Delacroix strove to rise from the artificial influence of the time, but he was not strong enough to become a master. |Ingres.| It was reserved for Ingres to make a real advance. He, though imbued to some extent with the old spirit of classicism, was a deep lover of nature, and the story of the struggle for the mastery between those two opposing tendencies is the story of his art and life. Though he rises above all previous painters of his country, he cannot be ranked with the masters. With Ary Scheffer there was a retrogression which in its turn was counteracted by Delaroche. |Delaroche.| It was Delaroche who afterwards said an artist would one day have to use photography. Still, in vain do we look for a genius, and until Constable’s pictures exhibited in 1824 in Paris, aroused the French as to the real aims of art, no really great master appears. But when practical France saw, she immediately took up naturalism. |Descamps.| Then we have first DescampsDescamps, who took up the newly revived ideas, but failed, and Rousseau made the real departure—the poetry and mystery of nature roused in him an ardent sympathy, and all honour to him for struggling on at Barbizon, in the face of the neglect and contumacy of the Salon.|Rousseau.| But Rousseau, hero though he was, never rose to be a mighty painter, and his works fall far behind those of the best painters of to-day, but as a pioneer his name will always be remembered, and though he failed, he at least took Nature as his watchword. |Corot.| After Rousseau came Corot, a master good for all time. His early works show signs of the classical spirit, from which he had not yet shaken himself free, thus we sometimes see in his early works, peasants strangely habited and reminding one of the seventeenth century or ancient Greece, which is of course ridiculous; but his later work is true and great. Full of breadth and feeling for the subtleties and poetry of nature, he has never been surpassed. Examples of his work in England can sometimes be seen in the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery and at Goupil’s, but it must be remembered that great as Corot is, there is much of his work that is bad. |Daubigny.| Another great painter is Daubigny, a contemporary of Corot’s, and though not such a subtle observer as Corot, still he is a painter whose work has had great influence and will live though it has been surpassed by younger men. |Troyon.| Troyon was another who like Corot loved and studied and painted from nature, but he lacked the insight into nature that Corot had, and his work is not as true as that of his contemporary.
At length, however, we arrive at an Immortal name, that of Jean François Millet. This great man must not be confounded with two Jean François Millets who lived years before, and who were not artists at all though painters. Everything about J. F. Millet the Great, is worthy of study. Let the student seize every chance of studying his works, chances which will, alas! be rare enough as many of his best pictures are in America and most of the others in France. His pastels and water-colours are not very good, but his etchings which (reproduced) can be seen in the British Museum, are valuable for strength and power. Here is a directness of expression never surpassed. Before leaving him we will quote a few passages from his letters:—
“I therefore concede that the beautiful is the suitable.... Understand that I do not speak of absolute beauty, for I do not know what it is, and it seems to me only a tremendous joke. I think people who think and talk about it do so because they have no eyes for natural objects; they are stultified by ‘finished art,’ and think nature not rich enough to furnish all needs. Good people, they poetize instead of being poets. Characterize! that is the object.
“When Poussin sent to M. de Chantelon his picture of the ‘Manna,’ he did not say, ‘Look, what fine pâte! Isn’t it swell? Isn’t it tip-top?’ or any of this kind of thing which so many painters seem to consider of such value, though I cannot see why they should. He says: ‘If you remember the first letter which I wrote to you about the movement of the figures which I promised you to put in, and if you look at the whole picture I think you will easily understand which are those who languish, which are filled with admiration, those who pity, those who act from charity, from great necessity, from desire, from the wish to satiate themselves, and others—for the first seven figures on the left hand will tell you all that is written above, and all the rest is of the same kind!’
“Very few painters are sufficiently careful as to the effect of a picture seen at a distance great enough to see all at once, and as a whole. Even if a picture comes together as it should, you hear people say, ‘Yes, but when you come near it is not finished!’ Then of another, which does not look like anything at the distance from which it should be seen, ‘But look at it near by; see how it is finished!’ Nothing counts except the fundamental. If a tailor tries on a coat, he stands off at a distance enough to see the fit. If he likes the general look, it is time enough then to examine the details; but if he should be satisfied with making fine button-holes and other accessories, even if they were chefs-d'œuvre, on a badly-cut coat, he will none the less have made a bad job. Is not this true of a piece of architecture, or of anything else? It is the manner of conception of a work which should strike us first, and nothing ought to go outside of that. It is an atmosphere beyond which nothing can exist. There should be a milieu of one kind or another, but that which is adopted should rule.
“As confirmation to the proposition that details are only the complement of the fundamental construction, Poussin says, ‘Being fluted (pilasters) and rich in themselves, we should be careful not to spoil their beauty by the confusion of ornament, for such accessories and incidental subordinate parts are not adapted to works whose principal featuresfeatures are already beautiful, unless with great prudence and judgment, in order that this may give grace and elegance, for ornaments were only invented to modify a certain severity which constitutes pure architecture.’
“We should accustom ourselves to receive from nature all our impressions, whatever they may be, and whatever temperament we may have. We should be saturated and impregnated with her, and think what she wishes to make us think. Truly, she is rich enough to supply us all. And whence, should we draw, if not from the fountain-head? Why for ever urge, as a supreme aim to be reached, that which the great minds have already discovered in her, because they have ruined her with constancy and labour, as Palissy says? But nevertheless, they have no right to dictate for mankind one example for ever. By that means the productions of one man would become the type and the aim of all the productions of the future.
“Men of genius are gifted with a sort of divining-rod; some discover in nature this, others that, according to their kind of scent. Their productions assure you that he who finds is formed to find; but it is funny to see how, when the treasure is unearthed, people come for ages to scratch at that one hole. The point is to know where to find truffles. A dog who has not scent will be but a poor hunter if he can only run at sight of another who scents the game, and who, of course, must always be the first. And if we only hunt through imitativeness, we cannot run with much spirit, for it is impossible to be enthusiastic about nothing. Finally, men of genius have the mission to show, out of the riches of nature, only that which they are permitted to take away, and to show them to those who would not have suspected their presence, nor ever found them, as they have not the necessary faculties. They serve as translators and interpreters to those who cannot understand her language. They can say, like Palissy, ‘You see these things in my cabinet.’ They, too, may say, ‘If you give yourself up to nature, as we have done, she will let you take away of these treasures according to your powers. You only need intelligence and good will.’
“It must be an enormous vanity or an enormous folly that makes certain men believe that they can rectify the pretended lack of taste or the errors of Nature. On what authority do they lean? With them who do not love her, and who do not trust her, she does not let herself be understood, and retires into her shell. She must be constrained and reserved with them. And, of course, they say, ‘The grapes are green. Since we cannot reach them, let us speak ill of them.’ We might here apply the words of the prophet, ‘God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.’
“Nature gives herself to those who take the trouble to court her, but she wishes to be loved exclusively. We love certain works only because they proceed from her. Every other work is pedantic and empty.
“We can start from any point and arrive at the sublime, and all is proper to be expressed, provided our aim is high enough. Then what you love with the greatest passion and power becomes a beauty of your own, which imposes itself upon others. Let each bring his own. An impression demands expression, and especially requires that which is capable of showing it most clearly and strongly. The whole arsenal of nature has ever been at the command of strong men, and their genius has made them take, not the things which are conventionally called the most beautiful, but those which suited best their places. In its own time and place, has not everything its part to play? Who shall dare to say that a potato is inferior to a pomegranate?
“Decadence set in when people began to believe that art, which she (Nature) had made, was the supreme end; when such and such an artist was taken as a model and aim without remembering that he had his eyes fixed on infinity.
“They still spoke of Nature, but meant thereby only the life-model which they used, but from whom they got nothing but conventionalities. If, for instance, they had to paint a figure out of doors, they still copied, for the purpose, a model lighted by a studio light, without appearing to dream that it had no relation to the luminous diffusion of light out of doors—a proof that they were not moved by a very deep emotion, which would have prevented artists from being satisfied with so little. For, as the spiritual can only be expressed by the observation of objects in their truest aspect, this physical untruth annihilated all others. There is no isolated truth.
“The moment that a man could do something masterly in painting, it was called good. If he had great anatomical knowledge, he made that pre-eminent, and was greatly praised for it, without thinking that these fine acquirements ought to serve, as indeed all others should, to express the thoughts of the mind. Then, instead of thoughts, he would have a programme. A subject would be sought which would give him a chance to exhibit certain things which came easiest to his hand. Finally, instead of making one’s knowledge the humble servant of one’s thought, on the contrary, the thought was suffocated under the display of a noisy cleverness. Each eyed his neighbour, and was full of enthusiasm for a manner.”
Bastien-Lepage we had judged from reproductions, but we find lately, on seeing some of his work, that we had all along misjudged him, thinking him a much greater painter than he really is. This study of Bastien-Lepage has been a revelation to us of the quite misleading and dangerous power of reproductions of a painter’s work in black and white. All the black and white reproductions that we have seen of this painter’s work give the impression of much greater work than the originals really are, and we would caution all our readers against judging of any painter’s or sculptor’s work by a reproduction by any method, from etching to cheap wood-cutting, for they may be woefully misled. We feel sure these reproductions—no matter of what kind—will have a very harmful effect on art, and will give quite wrong opinions of work; and they are, no matter of what kind, whether etching, engraving, photo-etching, woodcut, or photograph, to be strongly condemned. Bastien-Lepage is not even always strong in drawing, and his sentiment is often false, untrue, and brutal, and not nearly so fine as Courbet’s sentiment, yet Courbet’s preceded him; he was but a follower, where Courbet was a leader.
Of the older living painters, Jules Breton and Lhermitte stand out as strong men; but Breton has long ago been passed, and Lhermitte is not the man he was, but some of Lhermitte’s work will live always. There is a remarkably fine Lhermitte in the Luxembourg, which every one should try and see. Both are naturalistic painters. Of other living painters much might be written, for they, in our opinion, represent the acme of painting and its highest development. We feel that we never saw painting done to perfection until we saw the Paris Salon, and we strongly recommend all readers of this book, after they have studied the pictures and sculptures here referred to, and have some insight into nature, to make without fail a yearly pilgrimage to the French Salon, where they will see painting at its highest development, though of course there is much bad work in the Salon, as at other exhibitions.
The marvellous pastel work, aquarelles, and charcoal drawings will all show them how immeasurably behind France, England is in all the pictorial arts. Englishmen do not know what drawing is—therein lies the cause of their failure. This very year we went to the Academy the day after seeing the Salon, and what a fall was there!
Of living French painters the work the student should carefully study is that of Meissonier,[9] Cabanel, Carolus Duran, Pelouse, Protais, Detaille, Perrandeau, Doucet, Petitjean, Busson, Landelle, Appian, Cazin, Harpignies, La Touche, Lansyer, Le Roux, C.M.G., Abraham, Anthonissen, Moreau de Tours, Nys, Nobillet, Marinier, Michel M. Japy, Carne, Vallois, Jan-Monchablon, Joubert, Boucher, J. F., Cabrit, Durot, Poithevin, Beauvais, Denant, Dufour, and many others whose names we forget for the moment, but, be it said, all naturalistic painters to a marvellous degree.
9. Now dead.
This brings us to the end, so we will leave painting with France in the van and Holland and Belgium closely following and America and England floundering in the rear of these three, for we are no believers in the tall talk of the greatness of the immediate future of English painting, though there is good hope since an earnest and sincere band of young artists has arisen in England whose watchword is “Naturalism.”
With sculpture the same old story greets us that we meet with in the history of painting. After the masterpieces of Greece come the puerile conventionalities of the Early Christians. |Niccola Pisano.| But as we have hitherto done so shall we continue—that is, we shall discuss the masters only, and the first we come to is Niccola Pisano. Though his work shows that he was still imbued with the spirit of classicism, yet he struggled to throw off the paralyzing conventionality of servile imitation, and tried hard to get back to nature, and some of his sculptures in Pisa are wonderful for expression. He was the pioneer where followed the great Donatello. Pisano’s son worked in the same direction as his father, and has left some wonderful architectural monuments and sculptures, but his fame rests chiefly on his architectural works, with which we are not here concerned. |Andrea and Nino Pisano.| Andrea and Nino Pisano made great strides towards truth and naturalness, and so paved the way for the great man to come. |Ghiberti.| They were immediately followed by Ghiberti, who spent many years of his life in working at the well-known mighty doors of the baptistery at Pisa. These great gates, however, show no subtlety of the sculptor’s art. Tonality there is none; the whole is rather a kind of emblematic picture-writing than sculpture, but Ghiberti says he spent his time in “studying nature and investigating her methods of work,” so that even though he did not succeed, nature was his watchword. |Donatello.| But all these sink into insignificance before the mighty name of Donatello. Like all true and great artists, Donatello appreciated the limits of his art, made naturalism his watchword, and followed his principles with sincerity. Whilst we are now writing, the wonderful low relief of St. Cecilia, which is on view at Burlington House, is fresh in our mind. There is the work in dark marble, looking as fresh, beautiful, lifelike, and artistic, as it did the day it left the artist’s hand. What simplicity, what truth of impression, and what subtle tonality is there seen! Those who remember this masterpiece may have noticed the way in which the outline of the neck is raised, and how untrue it looked close to; but at a distance the impression was perfect, and the suggestion of shadow most beautifully rendered. That the modelling of the mouth is feeble is obvious, but where is perfection? Casts of this work can be had for a mere trifle from Bruciani, Covent Garden, and we strongly recommend those who have not seen the original to get one, for a suggestion of such work is better than a gallery of trash. There is another fine specimen of Donatello’s work in low relief at South Kensington, but in that there is the mark of the allegorical, and it just misses the distinguished and simple character of the St. Cecilia. We do not care for his Judith and Holofernes, though it is one of the most noted of his works, and owes its renown more to its historical association than to its artistic qualities. Where Donatello relied on nature, however, his work is unsurpassed for truth and subtlety. It was natural that such a great man should have many followers, but, like most imitators of genius, they copied his bad points and none of his good ones, for these they could not attain to, not being geniuses themselves. |Vittore Pisano.| The wonderful medals of Vittore Pisano or Pisanello must not be forgotten, as they are well worthy of study. The student can get casts of most of these for a trifling sum, and we strongly recommend him to buy a few casts of Pisanello’s medals.
The work of the Della Robbia family is so well known that we must touch upon it, although for most of it we care little or nothing, the medium, a glazed terracotta, being unnatural. Lucca, the greatest of the family, worked, however, at first in marble. Here and there in his work one meets with a beautiful face, and often with fine expressions, but the whole lacks simplicity and fineness. He was more a decorative artist than a sculptor.
Of Michael Angelo we have spoken. Benvenuto Cellini, a name well known, was a master in gold-working, but hardly a sculptor. Many lesser names follow, but no immortal is again seen in Italy; for though Canova made a name of some sort, he was no master. After Michael Angelo came imitation and decline. Neglect of nature, together with patronage, killed the spark of art, and so thoroughly killed it that even writers on art who had no art-training were listened to, as Winckelmann and Lessing, |Thorwaldsen.| but their work only produced an artificial afflatus, as Canova and Thorwaldsen proved, for both were small men, false in sentiment, and with little or no insight into nature. We say this advisedly, after seeing much of Canova’s work and nearly all that of Thorwaldsen. There is no nature in their works, but in addition to a classical sentiment a puerile realism which is still in vogue in Italy to-day in such work as a Pears delights in, “You Dirty Boy” and other trivialities. England, Spain, Holland, and America seem, up to the present, not to have produced a single sculptor, but, in our humble opinion, the young sculptors of England will lead the way in the twentieth century, and the world may look for the advent of an immortal master and for work which will surpass the Greeks. |Modern French sculptors.| At present France leads the way, and has some strong men in Jouffrey, Aubé, Falguière, Rodin; but there, too, the tendency seems to be towards a fumbling realism and petty motif. There is much talk of French sculpture being in advance of French painting. |Future of English sculpture.| We do not believe it, and we feel that England is at present the only country where there is any distinct and original school of sculpture, with such modellers as Gilbert and Onslow Ford, and with such a sculptor as Havard Thomas, to say nothing of younger men, the outlook is very bright indeed.
And now we must end the chapter with the final advice to the student to study deeply all good examples of the great artists whose work we have noted, and to leave all others alone. By and by the student will find that he is in a position to compare the good with the bad, then will it be time enough for him to look at the second-rate work, much of which contains fine passages here and there and special merits of its own; but these cannot be appreciated until the student has considerable knowledge, and that is only to be obtained by a serious study of nature and of the work of the best masters here cited.
Finally, we think we have shown that “Naturalism” has been the watchword of all the best artists, and that, after all, there are but few artists in any age. Many painters and modellers and sculptors there be, but artists are few indeed. One point which has impressed us in the inquiry into naturalistic art is the curious regularity with which so-called “imaginative” painters have appeared and made reputations for themselves in the after-glow, so to speak, of the setting sun of naturalism. It would appear that painters who have lived in an age of strong men have got fairly staggered by the good naturalistic work of their age, and have instinctively felt that, being no match for the great masters on their own lines, that their only way to fame and fortune is by eccentricity, and in assuming a superior tone of culture by the production of allegorical or classical inanities. The uneducated of their own generation, thoroughly tired of a naturalism whose aim they have never understood, hail with delight any novelty or new departure, and they praise puerility and falseness of colour as colour, false drawing as idealizing, conventional composition as original, the conventional and modern treatment of draperies beneath which no anatomy is discernible as an idealized and poetic treatment of drapery, and finally, in the subject of the picture they often mistake sentimentality for sentiment and sentiment for poetry. Thus these weaker men rise to fame, and many follow where they lead. But the generation which gave them fame dies, and a new generation, which has forgotten the triumph of the naturalistic masters of the past generation, wearies of them, and naturalistic work is again appreciated. The story of art seems to us like the mercury in a barometer, ever oscillating upwards and downwards, ever up towards the acme of naturalism, and ever down towards the abyss of conventionality and classicism. If we mentally map out the readings of this barometer on a chart, we shall find naturalism triumphant as the apex of each curve, whilst in the ascending curve will be found the strugglers towards naturalism, and in the descending curve the fallers away from naturalism. |The masters.| On the apices of these curves will be found triumphant the masters, such as the sculptors of the Egyptian lions, the sculptors of the Assyrian lion-hunts, Pheidias, Van Eyck, Durer, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, Velasquez, Donatello, Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Corot, Millet, Gainsborough, and Whistler.