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COROT AND MILLET
WITH CRITICAL ESSAYS BY GUSTAVE GEFFROY ARSENE ALEXANDRE
EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME
I OFFICES OF 4THE STUDIO,' LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK - MCMII
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PREFACE
A man confronted with the array of work in this volume feels it unnecessary to write a prefatory note on the arts of Corot and Millet. It is a volume that explains itself ; it asks for no introduction. But the Editor, in issuing it to the public, desires to offer his cordial thanks to all who have helped in its preparation, beginning with the authors, M. Gustave Geffroy and M. Arsene Alexandre, whose admirable essays lose but little of their style in the sympathetic translations by Mr. Edgar Preston. Mr. F. Keppel, after long study of the subject, has written the notes on the etchings of Millet. The collectors who have kindly lent work for reproduction include Sir Matthew Arthur, Bart., Mr. Alexander Young, Mr. W. A. Coats, Mr. A. T. Reid, Mr. Charles Ricketts, Mr. Morley Pegge, Mr. Alexander MacBride, Mr. W. Pitcairn Knowles, Dr. T. W. T. Lawrence, Mr. James Arthur, Monsieur Henri Rouart, and Monsieur Leon Bonnat. Much assistance has also been received from Messrs. William Marchant & Co., Messrs. Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, Mr. R. Gutekunst, Mr. E. van Wisselingh, Mr. F. Keppel, Messrs. C. Klackner & Co., Messrs. Braun, Clement & Co., the Societe Anonyme des Galeries Georges Petit, Messrs. Durand-Ruel et Fils, Messrs. Carfax & Co., the Autotype Company, Messrs. Obach & Co., Messrs. Cottier & Co., Messrs. Hollander and Cremetti, and the Proprietors of the French Gallery, London.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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c 3 c 4 c 5
c 6 c 7 c 8 c 9 c 10 c 1 1
CAMILLE COROT
OIL PAINTINGS.
" Music and Art "
«' The Wounded Eurydice "
<l Mother and Child "
" The Bather "
" Cottage Interior — Limousin "
" Tivoli, seen from the Villa d'Este "
" Hagar in the Wilderness "
" Italian Landscape "
" Chateau Thierry "
« Near Arras "
" View of Rome "
" The Great Oak at Fontaine-
bleau" c 12
"A Gust of Wind" c 13
" Evening Glow " c 14
"Orpheus" c 15
"Farmyard at Coubron " c 1 6
"The Canal at St. Quentin " c 17 " The Bridge " c 1 8
"Souvenir d'ltalie " c 19
" The Goat-herd " c 20
" Peasants near a Lake " c 21
"Goat-herd Piping" c 22
"The Lake" c 23
" Dance of Nymphs " c 24
"Women Bathing" c 25
" Pool at Ville d'Avray " " Le Pare des Lions a Mont- Marly "
" Old Cottage near Semeur " " Le Lac d'Albano " " The Castle of Wagnouville " The Bathers " " Trees and Pond " " The Bent Tree " " Peasant Riding " " Women Bathing " " The Tower "
DECORATIVE PAINTING. " Don Quixote and Cardenio
CHARCOAL DRAWINGS. " Landscape Study " " Landscape Study " " Souvenir d'ltalie " " Landscape Study "
ETCHINGS.
" Souvenir de Toscane "
" Italian Landscape "
" Boat under the Willows "
" The Pool at Ville d'Avray
" A Wooded Country "
" Souvenir d'ltalie "
JEAN FRANCOIS MILLET
CRAYON STUDIES.
" A Siesta " M
"Threshing" M
" The Stile " M
<l Potato Planting " M
" The Potato Harvest " M
" Woman Pasturing a Cow " M
"TheAngelus"
1 " The Travellers "
2 " Goat-herd and Goats "
3 " Calling in the Herd "
4 " Loading "
5 "The Calf"
6 "Almsgiving",
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c 28 c 29 c 30 c 31 c 32
c 33 c 34
C35 c 36
C45
c 27
^ 37 c38 c 39 c 40
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c 43 c 44
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7
8
M
M
M 9
M IO Mil
M 12
M 13
A
SCUOIO
Y
JEAN-BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT. BY GUSTAVE GEFFROY.
HE life story of Corot tells itself all the world over. One recognises it in the public gallery, in the private collection, in the drawing-room where one of his canvases hangs on the wall. That life-story is his work — those moist, quiver- ing, luminous paintings in which there is water and herbage, trees and clouds, with light rising or sinking on the horizon, a presentiment or a memory of the sunshine, a sweet harmony of moonlight and stars, a silvered reflection speaking amid the silence and the night. Each one of these canvases speaks for Corot, and says to us : " That day, that morning, that evening, or that night I was here, before this pool, this wood, this plain, this field, or this house. I stood under the gloomy sky, full of tears of rain. On this sad grey visage I saw the divine smile of light arise ; saw fall a shower of infinite softness, gleaming with the sun's own gold, and the sound of those rain-drops falling on the leaves was exquisite. 'Twas Spring complete, in its awakening, its perfume, its colour, its sound. Anon it was the wind, come from afar, hurrying through the valley, bending the trees, rustling the foliage, scattering the leaves, and ruffling the waters. Everything responded to the same movement, in the same way, and I strove to follow the rapid flight of the landscape, which, though keeping its place, seemed to be wildly hurrying by. 'Twas Autumn complete, with its breath of decay, its death-rattle, its farewell. Peace I found once more within this moon-lit glade, with a trace of daylight still lingering above the forest tops. That night I thought I saw the hamadryads starting from the trees, and the nymphs dancing among the ferns."
Other works, neither landscapes nor figure-pieces, might utter other confidences : " For the most part they are humble creatures — girls and women — I have depicted. I had met them in the street in their Italian garb, or in their servants' clothes ; or maybe they had come to my studio to ask if I wanted models. I never sent them away. In them I saw the beauty of life. That beauty is in every living creature, in everything that breathes, just as it is in everything which is impregnated with life. It has given me as much pleasure to paint these women as to paint my landscapes. On their flesh the poem of
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COROT
the hours has unfolded itself as beautiful, as enchanting, as on the soil, the waters, the hills, and the trees. The mystery of the woods was in their hair ; the mystery of the sky and of the still pools ; in their eyes. So too, Spring and Autumn passed before me when they smiled, joyously or sadly. And their simple speech would ever bring to my eyes the dancing of the nymphs."
Thus, and doubtless far better, do Corot's paintings speak to such as look at them and listen to what they say. Each recounts an hour of his life, the moment when he was charmed, ravished, dazzled by the poetry of things, — by some forest-glade in Artois, by some pond at Ville d'Avray, or by the supple body of some woman near him. Therein was his life, his real life, his whole life indeed, for all the time he passed away from his easel he would spend, whether he were alone or in conversation with others, in dreaming, in spite of himself, so to speak, of the relations, the harmonies, existing between the things he saw everywhere around him, the things he had repro- duced yesterday, that he was about to reproduce that very day, and on the morrow, and on all the morrows right to the end. A man, an artist, of this sort, possessing the gift of seeing and the gift of creating anew, is never completely free to think 01 aught else but his art. Even when not deliberately thinking of it he really is doing so, unknown to himself. These haunted brains are for ever weaving schemes in secret.
But I must tell ot the exterior of this life, gathering together the traits of which it was made up, and collecting the words spoken or written by Corot and by those who knew, admired, and discussed him. For all this too has its interest, inasmuch as it assists one to understand his work, and to follow its formation, its variations, its gradations.
I have before me one of the latest portraits of Corot — a photo- graph. The features are clearly marked. The brow, high and bare, crowned with hair in the coup de -vent style, is furrowed with lines. His glance goes clear, keen, direct, from beneath the heavy eyelids. The nose, short and fleshy, is attached to the cheeks by two strongly marked creases. There is a smile on the lips, of which the lower is very thick — altogether, a good, intelligent, witty face. Nothing to suggest a life of struggles, of alternations of hope and despair. Corot was indeed spared such a life, for his family, although failing to understand him, supplied him with means sufficient to enable him to preserve his liberty. In truth he could not have desired more.
At the corner of the Rue du Bac and the Quai d'Orsay, opposite c ii
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the Pont Royal, there stood more than a hundred years ago a little shop with a sign-board bearing these wo ds in yellow paint :
MME. COROT, MARCHANDE DE MODES.
It was a well-frequented shop. Mme. Corot, assisted by several capable girls, created new models, while her husband, an office clerk, spent his days in town among the day-books and ledgers appertaining to the book-keeping system of the business houses of the period. It was amid these quiet but businesslike surroundings, in this atmosphere of prudent, steady, middle-class existence, that Jean-Baptiste Camille was born on the 28th of July, 1796 (10 Thermidor, Year IV.). The birth of the child made no particular change in the life of the parents, who already had a daughter, two years of age. M. Jean Louis Corot continued to keep his accounts and strike his balances. Only for a few days did Mme. Corot neglect her elegant combina- tions of tulle and ribbons, ruches and hat shapes. The boy was sent to a primary school, where he won some successes, and on the 1 5th of December, 1806, obtained a "bourse nationale" or scholar- ship, which enabled him in the April following to enter a lycee at Rouen, where he had as correspondant a M. Jeunegon, living at No. 90, Rue Beauvoisine.
Here, in the provinces, young Camille, real Parisian as he was, first became acquainted with the bitters of life. He was home-sick, longed for his family, for Paris, and for the pavement of the quays, for the Tuileries, for the Seine — which is not the same thing at Rouen — for the Louvre, stretching its noble lines right in front of his home in the Rue du Bac. His studies at the time reveal his state of mind. It appears from notes preserved in the archives of the lycee that the first class he went through was what is known as " the second year of grammar," which corresponds with the fifth at present ; he even went as far as the belles-lettres classes (rhetoric). His name does not once appear in the lists of honours, not even in drawing. Nevertheless he got through his " humanities " by the agth of June, 1812, and returned to Paris. Here his father placed him with a marchand de nouveautes, M. Ratier, with whom he stayed a year, and then with a draper in the Rue Saint-Honore, a M. Delalain.
It was not long-cloth young Corot wanted, but canvas — canvas stretched on a frame-work, ready to be daubed. The yard-measure has no kinship with the brush, and druggets from Sedan or Elboeur have as little connection with palette and colours.
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One of Corot's biographers, M. Alfred Robaut, tells a story which may be given here :
" One day," he remarks, " when I was in Corot's studio, there entered a father with his son, the former exclaiming : ' Monsieur
Corot, here's a young man of whom your friend M. X will
have spoken to you. He threatens to upset the happiness of the whole family. I wanted to secure a position for him, something solid which should provide for his existence ; but he, on the con- trary, has taken it into his head to become a painter ! Now I ask you, Monsieur Corot, is it reasonable ? — for I was assured I might rely on your advice."
" ' H'm, h'm,' replied the painter, placing his pipe on the edge of his easel, ' this is serious, sir, very serious ! But come, did this young man finish his studies ? ' " ' Nearly,' answered the father. " ' And since then ? '
" ' Ah, Monsieur Corot, nothing that's much good ! Six years ago I put him in business, and that didn't suit him. He was always scrib- bling behind his master's counter, and then '
" Corot, ready to burst with laughter, bit his lip and exclaimed : ' Why, that's my own story you're telling me. . . . That's absolutely what happened to me ; and, if you like, I will tell you the rest. . . '" " The rest," in Corot's case, may be told in a few lines. M. Delalain, discovering that his assistant had no aptitude for sedentary work, made him a sort of town-traveller. Carrying a parcel of patterns, wrapped up in water-proof cloth, Corot went from street to street among the retail dealers, doing his work, but doubtless doing it badly, for the result was very meagre. Many a time his employer met him in the street, gazing at the pictures and prints in the shop windows, and shifting from place to place in order to get a better view, sometimes putting his parcel on the ground to shade his eyes with both hands ; as often as he possibly could do so he went into the Louvre. At such times Corot was far away from all thought of his sales or the profit he might make out of them. Little cared he either for the lessons his master had given him in the art or disposing of his goods, especially that of getting rid of old-fashioned damaged stuff at the highest possible price — principles altogether repugnant to the honest conscience of the lad, who could not under- stand why one should be at such pains to entrap other people. ' But that's business ! " replied M. Delalain, " Ah, you'll never have the commercial spirit ! "
No, as will soon be seen, Corot was never to have the shopkeeper's c iv
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temperament. M. Corot pere, pulled one way by the boy's master, who declared he could make nothing of his assistant, harassed on the other hand by the boy himself, riding his painting hobby more furiously than ever, dreaming only of frames and easels, mahlsticks, brushes, and palettes — M. Corot pere at last decides, at the end of eight years, to go into the matter, and see what can be done for his nuisance of a son. A solemn council is held in the backshop in the Rue du Bac ; the state of the family exchequer is examined, and it is found possible to detach an allowance of 1500 francs in favour of Camille, it being resolved that in no case is this amount to be exceeded.
The lad was full of thanks, and, deeply moved, declared himself to be the happiest of beings. But the realisation of his dream produced a sort of stupor. I do not believe that Corot, now that he was free, had any anxiety about what he was losing, about the magasin de nouveautes and his set of patterns. Nevertheless., he has related how, after having obtained his parents' consent to become a painter, he would walk about the quays, day after day, his portfolio under his arm, but doing absolutely nothing. However, he soon made up his mind. Installing himself by the Port Saint-Nicolas, near the spot where to-day the London steamer is moored, he began to paint the landscape of the City, as seen through the mist and smoke floating like a transparent veil over the river.
What has become of his early efforts ? Probably they are covered by other paintings ; perhaps they repose beneath some landscape at present adorning the walls of some museum or private dwelling. Several lithographs, beyond discovery now, also date from this period, notably a Kermesse Flamandey La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas, and La Peste de Bar ce lone.
While the great artist that is to be is feeling his way — his re- signed family showing no interest in his work, which they regard as vain and useless — his efforts are followed with interest by his mother's shop assistants. The young work-girls escape from the shop whenever they can, and cross the bridge to satisfy their curiosity. Corot, who sometimes recalled these memories, used to say that one of the girls, Mile. Rose, " came more often than her companions"; and he added : " She is still alive ; she has remained unmarried and pays me a visit from time to time. Last week she was here. Oh, my friends, what a change ! and what reflections it arouses ! My painting has not budged ; it is still young, it tells the hour and the weather of the day when I did it — but Mile. Rose and I myself, what are we ? "
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Corot entered the studio of Achille Michallon, master and pupil being just the same age. The former, educated by David, via Bertin, belonged to the school which sought to discover the life of human beings by searching into the souls of statues, which studied Nature's secrets with the aid of the pedagogue methods of the atelier. Corot showed afterwards a picture he had painted at Michallon's, and happily described it as "rather a study in submission than in painting." His master ordered him to be " exact and punctual," and, more submissive in art than in commerce, he obeyed. Michallon died in 1822, and Corot went off to seek Victor Bertin, who consented to take him. Michallon had preserved some- thing of an open mind and a certain desire to be inspired by Nature, but Bertin, like all David's satellites, swore by antique art, and by that alone — that art, so far as they were concerned, consisting in draping models, rigging them up with a helmet, and arming them with sword and lance and shield and quiver, and fixing them in a landscape of artificial trees where torrents of spun glass fall from mountains of cardboard and stuffed beasts roar. Such was the tra- ditional landscape, and France particularly excelled therein at the commencement of the nineteenth century, when her landscapists refused to look at Nature. At that time "Nature" simply meant a hilly background, or a couple of trees, or a motionless stream — mere accessories of a scene of biblical or Roman history. This style had at once been admitted and encouraged. The government of the day consecrated these artistic horrors by a national decree. It was decided that the artist who should best succeed in building a temple on a rock should be rewarded by a permission to stay at the Ecole de Rome. And this was Michallon's triumph. The acade- mician who about that time published the famous pamphlet, entitled " Revue critique des productions de peinture, sculpture, gravure
exposees au Salon de 1824, par M. ," expressed to perfection
that hatred of the real and that love of the false which were then the characteristics of the historical landscapist. " What," he ex- claims, " would become of the landscapist's art if, through over- timidity, he feared to burst into the domain of history ? What poetry, what high inspiration, could fire him, and sustain him in his labours ? Continually trees and shrubs, and air and space and surface — what do I care for all these things if the artist do not throw upon these objects some sentiment of living animated nature, if he do not invest them alternately with sadness or serenity, violence or calm ? " Painting was in full agreement with this sort of writing — all Homer's warriors, all Virgil's shepherds, all the c vi
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peplums, all the buskins, all the firemen's helmets, made their appearance in front of the colonnades among the sham verdure. The animals of mythology came to drink at the springs. The most guilty of these manufacturers of history, these falsifiers of Nature, were Berlin, Valenciennes, Michallon, Bidault, Watelet, together with Aligny, Flandrin, and Desgofles. It was against these men and their teaching that Constable, Bonington, Rousseau, Huet, Dupre, Corot, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, Michel, Courbet went in revolt, all inspired by the longing to rehabilitate that which the academician of 1824 had proscribed — " trees and shrubs, and air and space and surface."
Young Corot spent two winters amid these strange artistic sur- roundings. Of all this he retained but little — that little being a tendency towards classic themes, a style of composition made up of mythology and Nature. But, like Poussin, he redeemed it by close observation of reality, by breathing life into his work, and he was destined soon to attain complete freedom. Corot's career is well summed up in this extract from a letter addressed by him to one of his biographers : " Till eighteen I was at the Rouen College, then I spent eight years in business ; unable to stand this any longer I became a landscape painter, at first as a pupil of Michallon. Losing him I went into the studio of Victor Bertin. Since then I have thrown myself, all alone, on Nature, et votla I " He had learned so little in Paris that when he arrived in Rome, whither Bertin had sent him " to perfect himself," he realised that he " couldn't manage even the smallest drawing." " Two men would stop to chat," he remarked to Theophile Silvestre, one of his biographers. " I would begin to sketch them bit by bit, starting with the head, for instance. Then they would part, and all I had on my paper was sundry bits of heads. Or children would be sitting on the steps of some church, and again I would begin, only for their mother to call them away. Thus my sketch-book was full of tips of noses, foreheads, and locks of hair. I resolved for the future not to go home without having done a complete work, and for the first time I essayed drawing in the mass, rapid drawing — the only drawing possible. I set myself to take in a group at a glance ; if it stayed for a short time only at least I had got its character, its general unconscious attitude ; if it remained long I could add the details. I have done this very often, and I have even succeeded in catching in a moment, with just a few strokes, the general impression of a ballet and its surroundings at the opera, just on a scrap of paper inside my hat."
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/Here is a clear lesson, summarising Corot's whole method — a / lesson from which one may extract the definition of his artistic system, namely, to seize the movement of things, the passing life of \humanity, the quivering of the branches, the spontaneity of a gesture ; to express all this by an image fixing the fugitive impres- sion of life. What Corot did not tell was his secret with regard to / the fluid atmosphere, the soft and resplendent light which envelop Vmen and things. This secret he possessed without having the power to analyse or define it ; it was his innate sense of the sunlight, of the breath of the air, of human movement, of the swing of the branches, of the respiration of the plants, of the particles exhaled, attracted, or rejected by the earth — in a word, his innate sense of all that con- stitutes life.
In Rome Corot resumed the strolling life he had led in Paris. He sauntered along the banks of the Tiber, climbed the hills, pausing before the ancient temples in ruins which crown the Aventine where the vines and laurels grow, making sketches for the little canvases to be sent later to the exhibitions. Two of these pictures are now in the Louvre.
He became friendly with several students at the Villa Medicis — Leopold Robert (who had given up painting for sculpture), Edouard Berlin, Dupre, Bodinier, Schnetz, Lapito, Delaberge, and Aligny. The little group used to meet in Corot's tiny room, which was so narrow that he had to perch his models on his trunk. They also frequented the Caft del Greco or the Restaurant del/a Lepre. They smoked their pipes and drank and chatted, and Corot, witty and jovial then as in after years, did not scorn to listen to the advice of his comrades. They naturally were in favour of historical landscape, but, a little uneasy, began to be interested in the new formula, which had just been ingenuously brought to light by the painters Valenciennes and J. B. Deperthes. Both these artists were inspired by the works of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Gelee, and believed in the necessity of faithfully reproducing Nature. Deperthes recalled the fact that Poussin kept in his studio " moss and plants, flowers and pebbles, of which he made painted studies for the purpose of enriching his idealist compositions, and giving an air of verisimilitude thereto." He also told how Lorrain "spent his days and part of his nights watching the dawn, the sunrise, the sunset, and the twilight ; how he engraved on his memory what he had seen, and on returning to his studies hastened to put his recollections on canvas, these recollections being expressed with so much truth and precision that one would have taken them for Nature herself, decked in all her charms." c viii
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Corot utilised all this instruction to good purpose. He did not trust to his memory, but fixed his impressions at the moment he received them. Aligny met him once on the Palatine Hill, engaged in painting a study for his picture of The Coliseum, now in the Louvre, and was so struck by the air of life about the whole thing, the purity of the sky and the limpidity of the atmosphere, that he had to sound its praises again and again to escape being taxed with irony. From that day forward the students ceased to treat Corot as an amateur, and Aligny declared that there was some- thing to be gained in meeting such an associate. In 1827 Corot sent from Rome to the Paris Salon his picture, called The Roman Campagna (" Campagne de Rome "), and another, Vue prise a Narni.
The first of these canvases has been covered up by another painting. The " Guide de 1'Amateur a 1'Exposition de 1827-28," published by a certain " Societe de gens de lettres et d'artistes," criticised it in the following terms : " It is impossible that the artist can have painted from Nature, for in that case he would have done otherwise : there is nothing fixed in his composition, but tones that are quite abrupt, tints merging into violet. ... It seems to us we might have been given a better idea of the Roman Campagna. However, M. Corot is a painter of merit."
La Vue prise a Narni remained in possession of the artist. At the sale which took place after his death it was knocked down to M. Lemaitre for 2300 francs.
Several biographers have stated that Corot returned from Rome in£i827 by desire of his family. That is not so. He went back at the end of 1828. Here is the letter which fixes the date of his return, and gives some interesting details of the artist's life and character.
"Rome, the 27th of March, 1828.
" MY DEAR MONSIEUR DUVERNEY,
"I have been a long time answering your kind letter of September last. It gave me great pleasure. So you think I have made some progress ; that will encourage me, and I am going to continue steadily striving in my last campaign. It is true enough that the further one advances the more difficulties one meets. There are certain parts of painting, as I should like to treat them, which seem to me to be unconquerable. So much so that I dare not approach the pictures which I sketched at the beginning of the
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winter. The weather has been continuously fine, and I have pre- ferred to be out of doors. I could not keep in my studio. I con- template leaving Italy in the month of September next, and returning to Paris ; and there, after having embraced you all, I propose to devote myself seriously to these pictures. You may imagine how happy I shall be, surrounded by my family and my friends, working at my paintings, no longer distracted by lovely sky and lovely scenes. I shall he entirely engrossed in it, and when my work is over I shall have in prospect a happy evening to divert and refresh me for the morrow. A dozen years ago I dreamt of this happiness ; now it is within my reach ; may Fate not rob me of it ! " I purpose going to Naples in the month of May to spend some time. Thence I shall come back to the outskirts of Rome, where I shall still endeavour to seek out the power and the grace of Nature. I shall be very happy if I am able to bring back a few studies more satisfying in their execution. I shall try to do fewer and better.
" At the present moment in Rome I am doing other studies — costumes, painted and drawn, also a few compositions while I am in this country. If one only knew how I am taken up with my work my neglect might perhaps be forgiven. When you see in Paris all I have done you will congratulate me on it, persuaded as you are that I have no facility of execution.
" One of my comrades has just received a petit journal of the Salon — * M. Corot: 221, 222, colouring good, piquant effect, transparency; we recommend him to draw better and to vary the forms of his trees.' After all that, I haven't much to complain of so far as the Salon is concerned. Now, this is not everything ; I must not stay where I am ; I shall be to blame if I do not advance. My kindest remembrance to Mme. Duverney. I hope mother and child are both well, and all your family. When you see my father and mother embrace them for me and for M. and Mme. Semejon. " If you should chance to see the young ladies in the Rue du Bac tell them they are quite wrong if they are offended with me ; I am still the same good fellow, only a little bit cracked. "Je vous embrasse de tout mon coeur,
" Your friend
" CAMILLE COROT.
" Monsieur Theodore Duverney, rue Neuve des Petits-Champs,eat the corner of Rue Saint-Anne, Paris." At the end of that year — 1828 — Corot, back in Paris, receives a
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visit in his studio trom his father, who announces certain matri- monial projects which he contemplates for his son. The artist declines the proposal, urging pecuniary and other reasons, and finally adds : " I was not alone here in my studio when you came in. In the next room there is a woman who enters and who leaves at my pleasure. Her name is La Folie ; she is my Muse and she comes to enchant me ; and when the cup is full I say to her : Vanish, invisible sunbeam ! " So henceforth Corot lives in freedom, an inveterate seeker whom any sudden idea starts off", either to explore the fields and the woods, or to go o' nights round the theatres and balls, to take notes and silhouettes of actresses and dancers. M. Charles Blanc tells us that for fifteen years Corot was " seeking style by means of drawing, by large lines resolutely traced, by studied sobriety in detail." The truth is he was " seeking " all his life, and his talents were constantly in course of transformation. Moreover, Corot did not deny himself his amusements. He put into practice the precept which Leonardo da Vinci formulated in his writings : " Do not imitate those who fatigue themselves by excessive labour, and who in their walks and in company go about with a look of care and a morose expression." Corot formed one of a group of six artists — three painters, himself, Jules Boilly, and Guindrant, and three architects, Hubert, Poirot and Grizard — who met from time to time in town or in the country. Boilly and Guindrant took it into their heads to decorate the walls of a village inn with a fresco representing the six friends, arrayed as academicians, crossing the Pont des Arts on their way to the Institut. This fresco has been destroyed, which is a great pity, for the faces were moulded in plaster the better to get the likeness.
From 1827 to 1831 there were no exhibitions in the Salons of the Louvre, and Corot during this time was on his travels. First he went to Volterra, in Tuscany, where he made several studies for his Agar au Desert. He tells how he found there a landscape formed of bare, ravined soil, also a type for a weeping mother. " Unfor- tunately," he adds, " when I took this model for my picture I was never able to recover my inspiration, and I spoiled everything I did." In 1830 he explored the departments of the Pas-de-Calais and the Nord, and brought back numerous sketches of Saint-Omer, Bergnes, Dunkirk, Lille, and other places.
Returning to Paris he witnessed the outbreak of the Revolu- tion. Bullets were whistling everywhere, barricades were up, and the streets were full of combatants while he was painting the Pont au Change. So he closed his colour-box, folded up his easel, and
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went home ; then hurried to catch the coach for Chartres, where he awaited events. There he produced many studies and sketches, broadened his style, and painted the beautiful clear view of the Cathedrals de Chartres.
Returning by way of Burgundy he stops at Beaune on the banks of the Bouzoise and the Aigue, goes round the old half- ruined ramparts, where one may see a fresh landscape at every step — well-cultivated gardens, rocky districts, pools covered with water-plants, wild herbage, and rows of trees — all contributing to make the walk round the old Roman city one of the loveliest to be found in France. He visits the almshouses, a gothic building, the collection of paintings by primitive Flemish masters, and the art museum. In his journey from Beaune to Dijon he keeps to the rine-stocked hillside. What delights him most at Dijon is not the superb park, nor the avenue leading thereto, nor the ducal palace, nor the parliament house, nor the churches, but once more the walk, now demolished, which followed the line of ancient stone-work — a walk lined by trees of all sorts, entangled with ivy and bindweed and climbing plants innumerable, whose roots, run- ning through the interstices of the masonry, throw off shoots right as far as the roadway.
When Corot saw Paris again Louis Philippe occupied the place of Charles X. ; affairs were settling down again, and a romantic gust was stirring literature and art. In 1831 there was an exhibition at the Louvre. Corot sent four canvases : La Foref de Fontaine bleau, two Vues d'ltalie, and a Couvent sur les bords de fAdriatique. These works attracted no notice, save on the part of Jal, who paused to remark that " the colour is too uniform, the touch lacks accent, and the painting is flat and heavy."
To the Salon of 1833 Corot sent his Madeleine en pr&re, which won him a medal. The critics complained that this picture was cut in two by the horizon being placed too low. But perhaps it were better to accept the opinion of Philippe Burty, who sees in this picture the breaking away from historical landscape and the apogee of Corot's first manner.
Even in those days there were landscape reformers. At their head were Paul Huet, Rousseau, and Dupre. Paul Huet, inspired by Constable, supplied the impulse. Huet and Constable both had an influence over Corot. Constable, not properly appreciated in England, had won a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1824, and had conquered the French public to such an extent that the academic critics became uneasy. They protested against the infatuation, and c xii
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asked sternly of the young painters : " What resemblance do you find between these paintings and those of Poussin, which we must always admire and take as our models ? Beware of this English- man's pictures, they will be the ruin of the School. There is no beauty therein, nor style nor tradition." To which Constable replied: " Doth bother yourselves about doctrines and systems ; go straight ahead and follow your nature."
In 1834 Corot sent to the Salon three canvases, including a Vue de la Foret de Fontainebleau, and a £>uai de Rouen; after which he organised a journey to Italy with a painter friend, M. Grandjcan. Before exploring the Apennines the two travellers stayed in the French districts of the south-east. Then Corot was recalled to Paris on account of his father's illness, and there he painted the por- traits of his family. He always liked to go from landscape to figure-work. An amateur expressing surprise at this Corot re- marked : " I've done at least twenty figures a year, but call it ten only : you see what that means in fifty years." Most of these works are unknown to the public, including a portrait of himself painted before his first journey to Rome. He did not care to exhibit his portraits. When any one advised him to show these large figures of his he would reply : " How can you think of such a thing ! I haven't been forgiven yet for my small ones ! "
He completed his Agar dans le Desert from new sketches made in Tuscany, and exhibited it in the Salon of 1835, together with a Vue prise a Riva on the banks of the Lac de Garde. It was on this occasion that one of the critics, M. Charles Lenormand, vrrote these singular lines : " M. Corot, tired of the struggle, has quitted our hollow paths and wooded glades ; he has seen Italy once more, and found again those vast horizons above limpid distances he suggests so well ; and his talent, which had gone just a little astray, has faith- fully returned to him." The writer imagines that the only landscapes are to be found beyond the Alps, and that those around us are wanting in grandeur and beauty and grace. The same critic would deny Corot that which precisely constitutes his glory : " His touch," he observes, "is heavy and dull ; the suppleness, the humidity, the charm of Nature, he knows nothing of." Then comes the well-known and absurd theory of the historical landscape — the harmony between the spot and the subject.
In the Salon of 1836 there were but two of Corot's works to be seen : Diane surprise au bam and Campagne de Rome en hiver. The same year Corot did a lithograph to illustrate La Caisse d'Epargne, a raudeville by Edouard Delalain and Saint- Yves. It represents
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Mile. Rosalie in the part ot la mere Boisseau. In 1837 he showed his Saint Jerome (which he presented in 1849 to the church at Ville d'Avray), a Soleil Couchant, and a Vue prise dans File Jlschia. In
1838 his exhibits were Le Silene and Vue prise a Volterra, and in
1839 the Site J Italic and the Soirt which inspired Theophile Gautier with the following lines :
Mais void que le soir du haut des monts descend ;
L'ombre devient plus gaie et va s'elargissant;
Le ciel vert a des tons de citron et d'orange.
Le couchant s'amincit et va plier sa frange
La cigale se tait et Ton n'entend de bruit
Que le soupir de 1'eau qui se divise et fuit.
Sur le monde assoupi les heures taciturnes
Tordent leurs cheveux bruns, mouilles de pleurs nocturnes ;
A peine reste-t-il assez de jour pour voir,
Corot, ton nom modeste, Icrit dans un coin noir.
For fifteen years Corot's pictures were accepted at the Salon, out of charity, as it were, and stuck in the darkest corners. " Alas ! " he exclaimed, " I am in the catacombs." All this distressed him, not on his own account — for he would console himself by saying, " I still have my gift ! " — but rather on account of his family, who, fortunately, continued to provide him with " soup and shoe-leather." His family, indeed, remained deaf to the concert of praise begin- ning to make itself heard. Apropos of the Petit Berger, painted in 1840, and preserved in the art gallery at Metz, M. Alfred Robaut tells the following anecdote :
"Fran£ais, who frequented Corot's studio — he had been Corot's pupil for some years — took it into his head to lithograph this picture. Corot took a proof of it to his father, who was astonished to see his son's name at the bottom of a 'work which suddenly pleased him, and was also signed by Franfais. It was simply the lithograph which attracted the worthy man, for he knew the picture itself, and had found it no more attractive than any of the others. " That's good, at any rate, that ! " he exclaimed, " Camilla, you must invite this M. Fran£ais to dinner." On the appointed day the elder Corot seats Fran£ais beside him, and, almost before the meal has begun, remarks, " Monsieur Fran9ais, I must congratulate you on your great talent. You have done a superb work ; but Camille .... what do you think of him ? Will he ever do anything ? " And all the evening the conversation turned on the same subject : sarcasms at the expense of the master, whose works were treated as unsaleable daubs, compliments for the pupil, who might have thought the c xiv
COROT
whole thing a bad joke had he not known these good folks' simple, cordial nature."
Can one imagine the former dressmaker of the Rue du Bac measuring her son for a flannel vest when he was nearly fifty years old, and at sight of his broad thorax, hairy chest and muscular arms, exclaiming, " To think this is a son of mine ! He's common- place enough ! " Whereupon honest Corot would reply, jokingly, " On the contrary, you should congratulate yourself on having given birth to one of the three sages; for since the beginning of the
world there have been Socrates, Jesus Christ, and 1." This
tutelage under which Corot lived to an advanced age is perhaps one of the causes which explain the perpetual youthfulness of his mind, the constant freshness of his talent. He always had the feeling that he was still the baby, the school-boy, or the draper's assistant, in fear of family lectures and reprimands from his master. Three of Corot's works figured in the Salon of 1 840 : A Soleil Couc/iant, the Fttite en Egypte and a Maine, The " Flight into Egypt" now belongs to the Church at Rosny, near Mantes, to which it was presented by Corot through the instrumentality of a friend of his family, Mme. Osmond. Of the " Sunset" Gustave Planche remarks that " its aspect is delicious, and it gives one the same pleasure as reading some beautiful old idyll."
I have chosen, in order to mark the several stages in the artist's career, the works he sent to the Salons, because Corot always had a marked infatuation for these exhibitions, and because the works he sent there were always chosen with care, and showed some evolution, some advance, in his manner. In 1841 the Salon saw three canvases: Un Site des environs de Naples, Democrite et les Abderitains, and La Fontaine. Of the five paintings submitted in 1 842 the judges refused three. The two canvases accepted were a Site d*Italie, and the Verger which was commissioned by the Minister of the Interior. Corot parted with the first of these pictures to offer it to the little gallery at Semur, in memory of a certain connection his family had with that part of Burgundy.
In this same year, 1842, Corot paid his last visit to Italy. After this date he passed his summer either in Switzerland, in Normandy, or in Brittany, whence he always returned with an ample collection of studies and sketches. While staying at Mortain he came across the son of his former master, M. Delalain, who still preserved five portraits which Corot had painted in his employe 'days — these portraits representing the whole Delalain family. From Italy he brought back a Vue des Jardins de la Villa a"Este>
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which he intended for the Louvre ; but it was not accepted. He at once set about arranging his display for 1843. Of his three pictures —Jeunes Filles au Bain, Un Soir, and Llncendie de Sodome—the jury refused one, the last-named, the subject of which he had found in Brittany. By way of compensation he received a commission for a decorative painting intended for the church ot Saint-Nicolas-du- Chardonnet. It is called Le Eapteme du Christ, and Delacroix criti- cises it in these terms :
" Corot is a real artist. One must see a painter at home to get an idea of his merits. I have seen again, and appreciated quite dif- ferently, pictures which I had seen in galleries and which there had impressed me but slightly. His large Eapteme du Christ is full of simple beauty. ... his trees are superb. I spoke to him about the tree I have to do in Orphee (for the library of the Palais Bour- bon). He told me to go a little beyond myself, and give myself up to whatever came to me. This is what he does, generally. He will not admit that one can succeed by taking infinite pains. Titian, Raphael, and Rubens, all worked easily. They only added to reality that which they knew thoroughly. . . . This facility notwith- standing, there is always the inevitable labour. Corot ponders long over an object ; his ideas begin to come, and he adds to them while working ; it is a good system."
It was proposed to entrust Corot with the decoration of another panel in the same church, but the painter declined on account of the administrative formalities, saying he would be glad to see this com- mission given to some impecunious brother painter. A newspaper of the period attributed this second picture to Corot, remarking that in the first he had shown more personality. " Really," said Corot, " it were impossible to formulate a more judicious
criticism."
Corot was infinitely endowed for this mural painting, but oppor- tunities of proving his ability were few and far between. He was obliged to take advantage of the offers made by friends who begged him to decorate their houses, at Mantes, at Rosny, and at Auvers. One day he had come from Rosny to Mantes to visit Me. Robert, a notary, and observed some workmen engaged in painting a bath- room. Sending his "confreres" away, he took possession of their paint-pots, and himself did the four panels, which have been pre- served, if not respected ; for the owner of the house thought fit to have added to one a little dog, and to another a white rabbit. After this Corot decorated the walls of the kiosk standing near his relations' property at Ville d'Avray, and then did- the houses c xvi
COROT
of Daubigny and Decamps, the church at Rosny, and that of Ville d'Avray. He would have liked to cover the walls of some prison with his paintings. Said he : "I would have shown these poor creatures the country in my own fashion, and I believe I would have converted them to goodness by bringing them the pure blue sky."
In 1844 Corot returned to the Salon his Incendie de Sodome, which was accepted, together with a couple of landscapes. In 1845 ^e sent three pictures : Homere et les Bergers, Daphnis et Chloe, and a landscape. The " Homer " is now in the gallery of Saint Lo. About this time Corot attempted etching by means of his Sou- venir de Toscane, a plate signed simply with the initials " C. C." This was retouched later, and reproduced in the " Gazette des Beaux Arts" of April i, 1875.
A solitary picture of Corot's figured in the annual exhibition of 1 846, two having been rejected. This was his Vue de la Foret de Fontainebleau, which earned for the artist the Cross of the Legion of Honour. This caused his father to remark : " I think we must give Camille a little more money."
The following year he exhibited a Soir and a Berger jouant avec sa Chevre. Gustave Planche described the Soir as " a pearl for which there would be keen competition among amateurs" Theophile Gautier, on the other hand, while admiring the work, gave the following erroneous analysis of Corot's talent : " It's a strange talent, that of M. Corot : he has the eye, without the hand ; he sees like a consummate artist and paints like a child who has had a brush put between his thumb and forefinger for the first time ; he hardly knows how to hold the brush and apply the colour to the canvas. Well ! even this doesn't prevent M. Corot from being a great landscapist : a love of Nature, a sense of poetry and artistic intelligence make up for all this ; this bungler achieves astonishing results, such as are never attained by the most consummate dexterity. This thick, heavy touch, hesitating as it seems, obtains effects im- possible to the facile brush which travels faster than the brain." Thore, in the " Constitutionnel," ranked the Soir above the Berger, but he considered its execution " embarrassed " and its colouring " dull and ill-put-on."
Although press and public alike were discussing Corot, his. pictures either did not sell at all, or fetched very low prices, as is proved by the following letter addressed by the artist to a provincial collector, M. Dutilleux, of Arras, who became a friend and in a way a pupil :
c xvii
COROT « Ville d'Avray, May 20, 1847.
SIR
I have received your kind letter wherein you announce your in- tention of ha^ng something by me. I am greatly nattered by this dis-
"c ion on vourgpart, and till hasten to send you on a small canvas, accorTng toxins ructions. I should like to know whether you would prgeferyto have a study from Nature or a composition. The price of these would be 200 francs. The studies measure from 12 to
•* • *
15 "Awaiting your reply, Sir, I have the honour to be,
Yours faithfully,
C. COROT fils."
It was about this sale that Corot said to one of his friends : "At last I've sold a picture, and I'm sorry for it. It w.ll be missing from the complete collection." The artist at the age of 50 signed himself " Corot fils " for the reason that during nearly the whole year he lived with his parents at Ville d'Avray, and because the purchaser s letter had been opened by Corot pere, who thought it must have come from some artist-friend of his son's, so utterly improbable seemed the existence of a genuine amateur buyer. In this same year the old man died, never having realised the fame or the talen
Eighteen-forty-eight was an eventful year, quite apart from the revolution of February. Corot, who hitherto had had some of his pictures rejected each year, sent nine canvases this time, and all were accepted. What had happened? Simply this : the judges were elected by the artists by ballot. Corot was one of those chosen, being ninth on the list, with 353 votes out of 801 Among his pictures were : Site J Italic, Intirieur de Bois, Vue de Ville d Avray, Une Matinee, Crtpuscule, Un Soir, Effet du Matin, and U* Matin. The Site tltalie, which was purchased by the State, is in the Douai Gallery. Theophile Gautier wrote a beautiful passage in celebration of the freshness of these mists of morning, this Nature half-awake. « Landscapists," said he, " do not usually rise so early as that." Corot indeed had only to go out at dawn, from the house which his family had owned since 1817, to be present at Nature's awakening over the pool of Ville d'Avray, the woods of Garches and Marnes and Villeneuve 1'Etang and Saint-Cloud. The scene is always lovely and full of life. From the other side of the water, on the edge of which stands a bust of Corot on a pedestal of stone — the work of Geoffrey Dechaume — the giant trees embrace at their tops and mix
c xvui
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the colours of their leaves, the pale quivering poplar mingling with the deep green of the chestnut, ferns grow in plenty in the soil, and all around is verdure and bloom, shadow and light. In 1849, Corot was again one of the judges, being elected tenth by 217 votes in 646. His exhibits were: Le Christ au Jardin des O/iviers, Vue prise a Volterra, Site du Limousin^ Vue prise a Ville tfAvray, and Etude du Colisee. At this period Corot's second manner may be characterised as simply naturalistic. More and more closely he succeeds, by his fluid, delicate painting, in expressing the striking appearance of things in the light. His Christ of 1849 is in the Langres Gallery.
In 1850 Corot was elected a member of the "Jury de Peinture " by 330 votes out of 615. His exhibit that year consisted of a Lever de Soleil, Etudes prises a Ville d'Avray, a Site du Tyrol Itatien, and Une Matinee, with dancing nymphs rejoicing at the return of day. These nymphs were adversely criticised. The picture was evidently a reminiscence of the classical style of composition, but it also repre- sented Corot's own fancy animating the dusk rising over the water, and lingering on the ground. The essential thing is that he depicted these forms with truest touch, in rhythmical movement, with an exact sense of values. This does not mean that he evaded reality. He did not shut his eyes to the labourer driving his plough along the fields, or to the reapers and haymakers in harvest field and meadow, or to the woodcutter trimming the coppice or cutting down the tall forest trees, or to the shepherd gathering his flock, or to the boatmen and fisher folk of the lakes and rivers. There was no Salon in 1851. However, Corot had prepared a Danse des Nymphes, composed with the aid of studies done in Rome in 1826, a Matin, and a Ronde d'Enfants. That year, Corot, having got his mother's leave of absence — " liberte de s'envoler " he calls it — goes off to Arras to join the amateur painter, Dutilleux. Thence he goes on to La Rochelle to stay with a family at whose house Courbet is also a visitor. The two artists are but very slightly acquainted, and the Burgundian and the Franc-Comtois look curiously at one another. Corot is the sturdy fellow who once in the South got rid of a troublesome peasant by knocking him down with a blow of the fist. Courbet is garrulous and boastful, and, like many of his countrymen, as simple as conceited. The two men discuss things, and then each goes off to paint in his own way. In this same year Corot makes a trip to England. At the Duke of Westminster's gallery he takes a few notes which have been found in a pocket-book : " 2 Claude Lorrains (2 Soirs) ; i Raphael, big picture (Virgin, Child Jesus and
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COROT
St. John the Baptist— admirable) ; i Rembrandt, landscape ; i Sal- vator (10 to 12 feet) ; i Hobbema, very fine." It is said that after this visit he resolved to lower his horizons.
In i8c2 the management of the Salon was altered. The jury con- sisted of fifteen members nominated by the Administration des Beaux- Arts and five elected members. Corot was elected as supplementary judge by 59 votes out of 330. He displayed Repos, a Soletl Couchant, and a Vue du Port de la Rochelle, and the following year Une Matinee, a Coucher de Soldi, and a Saint Sebastien, which Delacroix declared was perhaps the most religious picture of the century. Corot, although reluctant to leave his widowed mother, neverthe- less travelled a good deal about this time in the Nord, in Brittany, and in Normandy. In 1854, there being no exhibition, he accom- panied Dutilleux as far as Rotterdam. In 1855 the annual Salon was merged in the Universal Exhibition. Corot figured among the thirty- four judges appointed by Napoleon III. He sent six canvases : Effet de Neige, Souvenir de Marconsey, Printemps, Soir, Souvenir d'ltalie, and Une Soiree. In the same year he worked at his Chemin de Croix for the church at Rosny ; also he did a picture, composed from views of Riva, for the Marseilles gallery, and then went off on his travels until the end of October. On his return he wrote to Dutilleux : " . . . . Here I am back in the studio, after going through Nor- mandy and Brittany, and doing a bit of the Lake of Geneva, La Sologne and Ville d'Avray — as much as I possibly could. I have a lot to do, and so many old pictures to finish in order to get them out of the way, as the studio is rather too crowded ! Another twenty studies this year ; five or six of them are good, so I must be content with that. If I take that little trip, we'll talk about the Exhibition ; every one seems fairly well satisfied with mine."
The manner in which Corot took note of values in his sketches may be mentioned here. If he observed a bit of colour composed of four different tonalities, he would give each a number, varying from i to 4. This numbering enabled him to note his effects very rapidly while going through a landscape, either in a carriage or a railway train — a mnemonic system of fixing the fugitive impression of anything seen or remembered. Herein lies the delicious charm of Corot's painting. In 1857 the Academic des Beaux-Arts, constituted into a jury, decided the fate of the works sent to the Salon. Corot exhibited his Incendie de Sodome, a Nymphe jouant avec F Amour, a Concert, a Soleil Couchant, a Soir, a Souvenir de Ville d'Avray, and a Matinee. The "Burning of Sodom" was the picture which figured in the Salon of 1 844 — Corot had simply reduced its dimensions by taking fifty centi-
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COROT
metres off its height. In this same year Castagnary, just starting as art critic on the Siec/e, makes the queer remark that "he has always had for Corot a mixture of love and kindly pity." Proceeding, he says, no less strangely, "I don't know where this excellent man, whose manner is so gently moving, goes to paint his landscapes; I have never seen them anywhere. But such as they are they have infinite charm." The Concert was ridiculed, not on account of the work itself, but for the choice of the subject. Nevertheless, Corot's idea was quite simple and quite admissible. He wanted to unite and to symbolise two things which he loved beyond all else : the country and music. He had a nice voice, and would sometimes sing at parties, on condition that there were not more than fifteen people present. He used to go to the Opera, and to the Symphonic Concerts. On the other hand, he read very little. Sometimes he would buy books at random on the quays, but simply in order to amuse his models. One day in his studio his friends found a woman, resting after her pose, reading a Latin work by Cujas. As for Corot himself, reading "Polyeucte" was enough for him. He saturated his mind with Cor- neille's tragedy, without ever getting to the end ; for, twenty years after beginning it, he remarked one day : " This year I really must finish ' Polyeucte.' ' He never read the newspapers, and knew nothing that was going on. On the 23rd of February, 1848, to a visitor who was talking to him of Louis Philippe and Guizot, he innocently re- marked, " Certainly people seem to be dissatisfied." Notwithstanding this, only a few days later he left his mother and went from Ville d'Avray to Paris, to get his equipment as a Garde National. "He wanted to be near the danger." With the same prudent reserve he once remarked, " M. Victor Hugo seems to be pretty famous in litera- ture." This excellent man, of whom the crowd knew nought, and whose genius was recognised only by a few artists and persons of delicate taste, was quite ignorant about his contemporaries, with the exception of the painters, and most of these he regarded as his superiors. Of Delacroix he said one day, " He is an eagle and I am only a lark, singing little songs in my grey clouds."
Corot spent a part of the year 1857 at Ville d'Avray, paid several brief visits to Brittany, when he went to see Camille Bernier ; he was also in Switzerland and at Dunkirk. There was no Salon in 1858, but an auctioneer, M. Boussalon, suggested a sale, in order to feel the pulse of the public. Corot hesitated long. Certainly he could not sell his pictures ; on the contrary, he was more accustomed to buying them back. More than once he regained possession — for a consideration — of pictures he had " lent " to pupils or to fellow-artists. To try a
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COROT
public auction seemed to him to be very risky. Still he had in reserve such a stock of works that perhaps he might part with some of them. Only a short time before a visitor had asked him, "Have you insured your studio against fire ? If there were to be one here you would lose at least forty thousand francs worth of paintings. I once had a friend whose gallery was destroyed, and the indemnity he received consoled him for the loss of his pictures." " He hadn't done them,'; interrupted Corot, excitedly ; "if such a misfortune befel me, it would kill me." Eventually Corot entrusted thirty-eight pictures to the ministerial official ; among them were five large canvases. The sale realised 14,233 francs — about .£570. The auctioneer was ashamed of such a sum — Corot, on the other hand, thought it so high he could hardly believe it.
The same year, urged by one of his intimate friends, M. J. Michelin, and assisted by the advice of Bracquemond, Corot resumed his etching work. He etched the Bateau sous les Saules, the subject of which was taken from one of the lakes at Ville d'Avray. In the Salon of 1859 Corot exhibited Dante et Virgile (in which the animals were drawn by Barye), Macbeth, Idylle, Pay sage avec Figures, Souvenir du Limousin, Tyrol Italien, and Etude a Ville d'Avray. Castagnary, when he admires Corot, seems to do so regretfully, and the conclusion he arrives at is pitiless. " No truth in his invention, no variety in his tones and in his lines : his composition is uniform, his colour impossible, his drawing false and perpetually slack." Despite these condemnations Corot does not lose faith in his work, nor his fondness for truth. In the month of August we find him at Montlhery, whence he writes to one of his pupils, named Auguin, living at Bordeaux : " I am just back from a long visit to Normandy, and I am off again to Switzerland with several friends. I recom- mend to you the greatest possible simplicity in your work ; above all, do just as you see. Have confidence in yourself, and take for your motto, ' Conscience et confiance.' Je vous embrasse bien. I'm working away like a big ruffian."
No Salon in 1860, but in the following year Corot displays six works : Le Repos, Souvenir a"Italie, Le Lac, Orphee, Soleil Levant, Danse de Nymphes. " Orpheus " was inspired by a revival of Gluck's opera, and the goddess in the picture is Madame Viardot. In this case Castagnary admires the landscape, " so suave in its expression that the tongue of Virgil alone, in its pure and tender tones, could echo and express it." Theophile Gautier, on the other hand, is dissatisfied. Orphte is not particularly to his liking. "This strange unbroken silhouette of a Eurydice, stiff as a doll, would provoke one to c xxii
CO ROT
laughter, if it were possible to laugh at our excellent Corot, so devoted to his art, so hardworking and deeply convinced. Happily he is entirely himself in his Soldi Levant, in his Souvenir d'ltatie, and in his Lac, with its silvered atmosphere, its luminous vapour, its placid waters, its bright trees and its Elysian aspect." In the same year Corot etched the Etang de Ville a"Avray, which exists in three states. One of them illustrated Edmond Roche's " Poesies Posthumes," dedicated to Corot.
Again there was no Salon in 1862, but in 1863 Corot was repre- sented by a Soleil Levant, an Etude a Ville a" Away, and an Etude a Mery-sur-Oise. In 1864 he showed Le Coup de Vent and the Souvenir de Mortefontaine, which was purchased for the Tuileries ; in 1865 the Matin or the Bacchante aux Amours, and two Souvenirs a"Italie, one of which, done in the neighbourhood of Lake Nemi, was to figure in the Exhibition of 1867. M. Henri Dumesnil affirms that this masterpiece in its first state was a motif of Ville d'Avray. In the same Salon was seen an etching with the same title, Souvenir d'ltalie. There was some talk that year of awarding to Corot the medaille d'honneur, but his chance was spoilt because he was not a historical painter. This disappointment was soon forgotten ; but Corot was greatly grieved at the death of his friend, Dutilleux, his first pur- chaser and also his pupil, to attend whose funeral he went to Arras. Corot exhibited two canvases in 1866 : Le Soir, or Fete Antique, and Solitude (Limousin), also an etching, Environs de Rome. In that year Corot was attacked by gout, a disease very prevalent in Bur- gundy, whence his family came. M. Henri Dumesnil tells us that Corot's grandfather was the son of an agriculturist of Mussy-la-Fosse, a village near Semur, in the C6te d'Or. In 1860 Corot went to visit some distant relatives there whom he had traced, and remarked in this connection : " The country is full of honest workers bearing the same name as myself. In the fields they are always calling to one another, 'He ! Corot !' You hear nothing else. I always thought some one was wanting me, and I felt there quite as though I were among my own people."
To the Salon of 1867 he sent Coup de Vent and a Vue de Marisselle, and to the Universal Exhibition Saint-Sebastien, La Toilette, Macbeth, Souvenir du Lac de Nemi, a Matin, a Soir, and the Ruines du Chateau de Pierrefonds ; as in 1855, he won the second medal, and also received the Croix d'officier of the Legion of Honour ; and the honest fellow in his happiness exclaims, "I must try to turn out good pictures, to show I haven't stolen it."
From this moment Corot became really popular. The dealers'
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COROT
windows were full of his canvases, on which large profits were made, the more so as the artist was never very particular about his prices. He good-naturedly fell in with other people's fancies of all sorts — •decorating screens, plates, box-lids, terra-cotta work, brooches, and •even, it is said, the inside of a hat. At the exhibition of Industrial Arts he had two painted silk screens, done for M. Duvelleroy, who displayed them again in 1858.
In 1868 Corot sent to the Salon a Soir and a Matin a Ville a" Away. Castagnary now surrenders. This Soir he describes as "one of Corot's blondest and most harmonious works. From it there springs a poetry so penetrating, so victorious, that all one's theories in favour of precise workmanship strive against it in vain." The same year he produced an etching, Dans les Dunes, a souvenir of the woods of La Haye, which was reproduced in Andre Lemoyne's " Sonnets et Eaux-fortes."
Two canvases were seen in 1870 : Pay sage avcc Figures and Ville (FAvray. As was his yearly custom, Corot went off to Ville d'Avray in the spring. " I go there," said he, " to rest myself with work. Think of it ! I can't have more than thirty years to live, and they go so fast ! Already seventy-four have flown, and to me they seem to have been as fast as the journeys of one's dreams . . . ." Then came the declaration of war. Corot refused to leave Paris ; indeed he wanted to go on the ramparts, and went so far as to buy several rifles. But physical weakness deterred him. So he worked away, and turned everything into money wherewith to relieve the horrors of the siege. He went among the ambulances and hospitals, emptying his hands and his pockets. He gave a big sum for " the manufacture of the cannon required to drive the Prussians out of the woods of Ville d'Avray." Then later he sent ten thousand francs for the liberation of the country — a gift which he afterwards gave to the poor of the tenth arrondissement. Instances of his kindness, his generosity are plenty. He bought the little house in which Daumier lived at Valmondois, in order to make a present of it to the artist, now nearly blind, and on the point of being turned out. Daumier in reply told Corot he was " the only man he esteemed so much that he could accept anything from him without blushing." One morning an artist friend came to borrow five thousand francs. Corot was ill that day, and in a bad temper. He said he hadn't the money. Then, tormented at having refused his friend, he thought better of it, and having dressed, hurried off to the borrower, exclaiming "Forgive me, I'm nothing better than a canaille— I told you just now I hadn't got five thousand francs. That was a lie : here they are." An Italian
C XXIV
COROT
model came to him one day with two daubs which he was trying to sell, in order to get his sick wife back to her native land — "How much do you want?" asked Corot. "A thousand francs." Corot gave the money, and with his brush transformed the two "infamies doublees d'horreur" and presented them to the Italian. A few months before his death he sold some of his pictures, and on being paid for them, handed to the dealer a bundle of ten thousand-franc notes: "Keep them," he said, "and when I am gone I want you to give an annuity of a thousand francs for ten years to the widow of my friend Millet." In selling his pictures Corot had a system of which certain unscru- pulous people took advantage. His custom was to let the less prosperous dealers have his canvases at a low price, to require more from buyers of the middle class, and, as he put it, to "safer" the rich — that is, to make them "pay through the nose." Now some of these latter did not scruple to employ agents in order to obtain better terms.
When the siege was raised Corot yielded to the entreaties of M. Alfred Robaut, and went to Arras and Douai. He painted the Beffroi de Douai, wherein he figures, standing in the street, dressed in his long blouse. Meantime the Commune had been proclaimed in Paris, and M. Robaut relates that he often had great trouble in checking Corot's ardour, "for every moment he wanted to return to Paris, to share the troubles of his family and his friends, or at least to vote." It was not till the end of May that Corot was seen in Paris, only to start off at once for the North, whence he returned with four pictures: the Moulin, the Canal de la Sensee, the Route a"Arleux, and the C/iaumiere. This same year he engraved several eaux-fortes : Venus coupe les Ailes de r Amour (in two states, unfinished plates), Souvenir des Fortifications de Douai, and the Dome jiorentin — unsigned and unpublished plates. Another etching, Les Baigneuses, was spoilt through an accident. The unbitten plate was sent to be printed, and the workman took off the coating of varnish, the result being that the proof simply showed the strokes marked by the point on the metal.
Back in Paris in July, Corot reassures Mme. Dutilleux (his friend's widow) as to the state of his health, by means of the following letter, which is sufficiently curious to be reproduced in the exact form in which it was written :
"Ville d'Avray, ce 3 Aout 1871. MADAME ET AMIE,
Je sors mes lunettes avec rapidite pour vous ecrire que nous sommes installes, ma soeur et moi : la maison est nettoyee et les traces
c xxv
CO ROT
prussiennes ont disparu. Ma soeur est en assez bonne sante, elle m'a charge de vous faire ses compliments ainsi qu'a toute la famille. J'ai commence des etudes a Ville d'Avray, j'ai retrouve des motifs, mais ce ne sont pas les jolis marais d'Arleux, Paluel, &c. Je pense que vous passez de jolis moments dans ces jolis bateaux et jolis bois du pont de Paluel et les jolis bois d'Oisy. Je me suis bien amuse la-bas et je pense que vous en faites encore tout autant, pour ne pas en perdre 1'habitude et que Mme. Marie aura retrouve du calme, du repos et alors la sante. Je fais des prieres pour que tout fa se realise,
P£chez aussi de belles anguilles
Sauce Moutarde,
Et au premier repas, je vous prie, Buvez a la sante du pauvre petit negre,
Votre nourrisson Pendant la Commune. J'ai 1'air d'ecrire en vers.
Embrassez bien pour moi M. et Mme. Alfred, Mme. Marie et Leon- tine. Mes amities a Charles, a M. et Mme. Seiter, a Paul et sa famille, et a M. Pochez, quand vous les verrez.
Recevez, madame et amie, 1'assurance de mon amide. C. COROT. Nouveaux remerciements pour tous vos soins.
PS. — Les etudes que j'ai rapportees ont etc goutees et prises presque toutes."
This was not the first time Corot had "seemed to be writing poetry." I have now before me the reproduction of an autograph, accompanied by the following:
Reflexions sur
la Peinture
les deux premieres choses
a etudier — c'est
la forme puis les valeurs
ces deux choses sont
pour moi les points d'appui
et serieuses dans 1'art
la couleur et 1'execution mettront le charme dans 1'ceuvre.*
* Reflections on painting. The two principal things to study are form and then values. These two things are my supports and are important in art. Colour and execution will put charm into one's work. c xxvi
CO ROT
The two canvases which figured in the Salon ot 1872 were a Souvenir de Ville d'Avray and Pres d' Arras. At Arras on the 1 1 th of July, 1 872, was celebrated Corot's artistic jubilee. In the same year he went to Rouen, where he saw the paintings by Delacroix in the Palais de Justice ; then down south, on the Spanish frontier, " where," he remarks, " I saw some extraordinary greens. Only wait till I can take it all in ; vous men direz des nouvelles I " At Rouen he showed his travelling companions the place in the courtyard of the lycee where he used to be put " on picket." " At that time," said he, " I could hide better than now, for there was no corporation to be seen." On the black-board in one of the rooms he drew a little flower and signed it oc, in imitation of the traditional x. This same year he paid other visits, a score or so at least, for he had friends everywhere who invited him to their homes that they might celebrate his jubilee. In 1873 he exhibited a Pastorale and Le Passeur, and in 1874 three works : Souvenir a"Ar/eux, Le Sot'r and Glair de Lune. This year, as in the preceding one, the question of awarding Corot the "medaille d'honneur" was discussed; but it was given to M. Gerome. The old man was deeply hurt at this. His friends and admirers protested, and got up a subscription to present him with a testimonial. M. Geoffroy Dechaume did a gold medallion nine centimetres in diameter, and this was presented to Corot at a banquet given in his honour at the Grand Hotel on the agth of December, 1 874. M. Marcotte simply said: "There is too much for one to say, both of the man and of the artist. This medal will speak for us." Corot opened the case and read
A COROT,
SES CONFRERES ET SES ADMIRATEURS
Juin 1874
"It makes one very happy," he replied, " to feel one is loved like that." Behind a mask of cheerfulness the old man but ill-concealed a great weariness. He was pronounced to be suffering from cancer of the stomach. He did not take to his bed at once, but prepared his pictures for the next year's Salon, and went to pay a last visit to the cottage at Ville d'Avray. A few days before his death he told one of his friends how in a dream he had seen " a landscape with a sky all roses, and clouds all roses too. It was delicious," he said ; " I can remember it quite well. It will be an admirable thing to paint." The morning of the day he died, the 22nd of February, 1 875, he said to the woman servant who brought him some nourishment, "Le pere Corot is lunching up there to-day." He died at half-past eleven at night.
c xxvii
COROT
His funeral took place two days later at Pere-la-Chaise. M. de Chennevieres, Director of Fine Arts, waxed eloquent. A priest thought it his duty to declare that Corot had made his confession. M. Jules Dupre said, " It will be hard to replace the artist ; the man can never be replaced."
His three canvases — Les Bucherons,P/aisirsduSoir and.B/Mr — appeared in the Salon of 1875, hung with black crepe. Castagnary wrote: "There is nothing new in the Bucherons or in the P/aisirs duSoir, but it is evident that despite his age the artist preserved his steady hand and his clear keen eye. These canvases are worthy to rank among the finest of their predecessors ; they show the master-hand in all its completeness. His fancy was as fresh, his sensibility as keen, as ever. Death might have had pity and paused before cutting short so sweet a life-work."
This same year — 1875 — an Exhibition comprising 228 of his pictures was arranged at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and collections were displayed at the Universal Exhibitions of 1878, 1889 and 1900, and at the Musee Galliera in 1895.
The posthumous sale took place at the Hotel Drouot in May and June, 1 875, and produced nearly two million francs, or £80,000. The catalogue contained 600 numbers.
Corot's life was entirely devoted to reverie and to labour. The man appears to us delightfully simple and honest; he was candour itself, kind- ness itself. The artist is very great. To reveal him as he really is a complete exhibition of his work would be needed ; but think how his pictures are scattered! Nevertheless one hopes this idea may be realised one of these days ; with all our means of transport and our facilities for international communication. Surely England and America will consent to let Europe see, for a month or two, the masterpieces they have captured from us ! The realisation of such a result would be well worth the cost of an embassy. Then one would be able to see those lovely, but so little known figures which are Corot's absolute masterpieces, revealing as they do an altogether par- ticular sense of the supple grace of the human form and the serious beauty of the face.
Before I close let me say I have no desire to dispute the undoubted fact that Corot had a "manner." I can see clearly enough that for a long time there remained within him something of the "historical land- scape," and that in many of his pictures with small figures, these figures are Italian in bearing and in style. Observe the three women in the Toilette— -to take a single example. It is evident that the artist was at the same time timid and obstinate; indeed, by systematically c xxviii J
COROT
selecting a number of his works, one might convict him ot monotony. Also it is evident to me that in many of his landscapes he has of set purpose put in a foreground of black trees which add a mystery to the distant dawning light. I recognise too that he rarely attempted to penetrate the infinite colouring of the shade, and that on this point he accepted — he whose discernment was so fine — the ordinary views of his time.
But how he emancipated himself from the historical landscape in his studies from Nature of figures and landscapes ! How all criticism must needs cease before those canvases in which he was really him- self ; before those wherein the poetical inspiration within them shone forth with so soft a splendour !
I gaze on these meadows, these woods, these waters, these skies
all the delightful haunts in which Corot spent his life, and which he offers to all who, like himself, desire to know and love the eternal beauty of things — and as I gaze I can imagine the emotion which animated him, because this little piece of painted canvas preserves the thrill of that moment when the painter was moved and dazzled; because leaves, water, grass and cloud all are still aquiver from the touch of this artist hand — like the reflection of the light which must have shone in his thoughtful eyes. He had no "manner" in these moments of joy and plenitude. He was no longer cautious, diligent. He let himself go ; yet all the time he was in full possession of his technical skill and knowledge, which was great, despite the reservations and criticisms of the writers I have quoted. His knowledge was within him, and, so to speak, in spite of himself, did service to his exuber- ance. Then, I think, he must have laughed aloud, and sung all his songs, and talked slyly to himself in the fields, like some big happy child. You may give yourself up to him when he feels this joy, this beati- tude, this enthusiasm. He will open to your gaze the vast fields or light in the world. He will teach you how much concentrated beauty exists wherever you are. His exquisite local genius has plumbed the depths of all things around him.
He is the subtle, the delicious painter of the land in which we live. From the pools of Ville d'Avray to the fields and coppices of Artois he roams from morn till night amid the fair and delicate landscapes of Northern France. He knows every path, every byway, every road. He wanders round the hill-sides, through the forests to the open glades. Wherever there be a spring, lighting up brown earth and sombre green with its crystals, there he will stand and watch the reflection of the heavens. He spends his morning hours gazing on the mists as they unfold their veils above the familiar pool and beyond the narrow
c xxix
COROT
stream. He notes the delicate pattern of the hoar-frost. He is enraptured with the last rays of sunlight lingering on the water. And then he flies away right into the clouds, like the lark to which he compared himself; and then his delight at their limpidity and their depth is truly extraordinary. Nearly all the skies he painted have lightness and vast extent ; like air itselr they are formed of some impalpable matter.
Look closely into these sun harmonies and here and there you will discover the prescience of a fine and subtle analysis of light. Histori- cally, Corot's work, which belongs to the painting of the Past, heralds, by its nuances and by all the hidden treasures it suggests, the bold experiments and happy discoveries of the Future.
GUSTAVE GEFFROY.
Here are the prices obtained by some of Corot's works at public sales: February, 1881: "Jeune Baigneuse, 5000 francs; Eurydice, 6510 francs ; L Atelier, 5400 francs ; Le Canal (environs de Rouen), 5900 francs ; La Prairie (environs de Saintes), 5900 francs ; Le Treport, 5610 francs ; EJfet du Soir au Eord de la Riviere, 4900 francs ; Environs de Ville a" Away, 1700 francs. November, 1881 : Baigneuses sous Bois, 1 2,500 francs ; Christine Nilsson, represented as a gipsy, at the outset of her career, playing the mandoline in the streets, 4000 francs. February, 1882 : Le Matin, 6000 francs ; Le Sentier, 5700 francs ; Les Laveuses, 1750 francs ; Soleil couchant, 850 francs ; Pay- sage, 805 francs; Bucherons sous Bois, 250 francs; a drawing, 160 francs ; La Musique, 530 francs ; La Lecture, 1250 francs ; Reverie, 2450 francs. May, 1882: Paysage (first manner), 1220 francs; Danse des Nymphes, 2350 francs ; Le Passeur, 7650 francs ; Pecheur Napolitain, 5000 francs.
March, 1883: La Mare, 2650 francs. April, 1883: Vue prise a Ville a" Away, 14,100 francs ; La Femme a la Toque, 7100 francs ; Le Matin, 2800 francs; Le Pont, 2050 francs; L Atelier, 1200 francs ; L' Atelier (pendant of the last-named), 4600 francs ; La Haie, 4000 francs ; Portrait de la Cathedrale de Chartres, 1 200 francs ; Le Moulin, 1750 francs; La Prairie (Saint-Cloud), 3150 francs; Le Chdteau de Chillon, 1510 francs; Le Pont, 1620 francs; Sous Bois (1849), 1900 francs.
In May of the same year a landscape belonging to Arsene Houssaye, and attributed to Corot, was put up for sale and realised 6300 francs. In December, 1883, Deux Femmes et un Enfant brought 9000 francs. It was at this time that the " Dumas-Trouillebert incident " occurred. The matter was settled rather more than a year later (in January,
c xxx
COROT
1885) by a judgment of the Court ordering M. Tedesco "to let Trouillebert put his own signature on the picture called La Fontaine des Gabourets," which, bearing the signature of Corot, had been sold to M. Alexandre Dumas.
In March, 1884, a picture twice signed by Corot was sold for 22,000 francs, while another canvas, which, although signed, was disputed, "went" for 25 francs. This was the Liseuse. The same year 1 find the following prices : Les Saules, 7800 francs ; the Nymphede Champs,%oo$ francs. In iS8$,Ch/o? was sold for 9900 francs. There was a sale of pictures, including many Corots, at New York in 1886. Here are some of the prices, in dollars : A Paysage, 5000 ; a Soir sur la Riviere, 9000 ; Paysage et Animaux, 4050. The Corcoran Gallery at Washington secured the Ramasseurs de Bois for 15,000 dollars.
These New York prices influenced the Paris market, and a rise took place. At the end of March, 1886, a Paysage brought 13,500 francs ; in May the Baigneuses, 9000 francs ; a Souvenir a"Ita/ie, 8000 francs; Le Passeur (perhaps the same as was sold in 1882), 25,100 francs ; Le Pecheur, 3050 francs ; the Pont de Mantes, 13,000 francs; Nymphes et Faunes (Salon of 1869), 65,100 francs ; the Saules, 8300 francs ; Village de Marcoussis, 8100 francs ; Danse de Nymphes, 15,500 francs ; and Chateau de Picrrefonds, 1 0,000 francs. On the 5th of June, 1886, Orphee ramenant Eurydice was knocked down for 25,000 francs. Prices seem to have declined in 1887. In February Le Matin " went" for 1000 francs ; in May the Lisiere du Bois de Ville a" Away for 4600 francs ; Vue du Pont et du Chdteau de Saint-Ange for 9050 francs, and an Esquisse for 1225 francs. In Paris the Coup de Vent produced 5100 francs.
In March, 1888, a study called Petit Italien assis realised 350 francs ; Diane et Nymphe au Bain surprises par Acteon (Rome, 1836), 20,000 francs ; Martyre de Saint- Sebastien, 15,000 francs. In May, 1888, Vue de Dunkerque produced 5100 francs ; Chdteau de Fontainebleau, 6000 francs ; La Place du Village, 9550 francs ; La Femme au Puits, 4050 francs ; Les Bora's de la Vienne, 7300 francs ; Environs de Limoges, 2050 francs.
The sale of Corot's canvases seems to have had a check in 1889. but this was succeeded by a fresh rise in the following year. Here, for instance, are some prices obtained in 1890 : — June : La Femme du Pecheur, 13,000 francs ; La Rochelle, 12,000 francs ; Le Cabaret, 15,700 francs ; Dunkerque, 6000 francs ; Le Pont Saint-Ange (Rome), 21,000 francs; Genes, 7100 francs; Saintry, 12,000 francs; Lac de Geneve, 1 0,000 francs ; Port de Bordeaux, \ 0,000 francs ; the Grand
c xxxi
CO ROT
Canal (Venice), 10,200 francs; LEntree du Village, 16,500 francs; Marini, 20,000 francs ; Le Matin, 60,000 francs ; Le Soir, 63,000 francs. These prices may now be compared with some realised at certain sales ten years later : March, 1900 : Le Faucheur, 6,100 francs; the Chaumieres, 8400 francs ; Coucher de Soleil sur rEtang, 7500 francs ; Le Village, 15,000 francs ; La Rafale, 22,500 francs ; Mont-de-Mar- san, 1 1, 800 francs. April, 1900 : Le Chemin du Village, 250 dollars (in New York) ; Bords de la Riviere, 1020 francs ; Les Dunes, 450 francs ; Les Collines autour du Lac, 900 francs ; Pay sage d'ltalie, 5250 francs; La Vallee apres POrage, 1020 francs. May, 1900: Scene Antique, 1 150 francs ; La Lisiere du Bois, 4050 francs ; Pre au Bord de rEtang, 16,900 francs ; Vue de Ville a"Avray, 3900 francs ; L'Etang, 24,100 francs. June, 1900: La Mare, 22,300 francs; Le Vallon de la Foret, 1 1,500 francs ; Le Matin, 32,600 francs ; Le Soir, 34,000 francs; Le Pecheur, 44,500 francs; Italienne, 13,000 francs (this picture was sold for 20,100 francs in 1899) ; L'Etang de Ville a" Away, 12,100 francs ; Le Clocher, 8,100 francs ; Une Muse, 14,000 francs : La Liseuse, 4000 francs ; La Barriere, 8300 francs ; Sentier le Long Dubois, 4100 francs; La Banlieue, 1720 francs. December, 1900: Le Coup de Vent, 1 2,000 francs ; La Charrette, \ 2,000 francs. At the end of 1900 the Metropolitan Museum of New York was bequeathed a collection of pictures by Mr. Dunn. These included a landscape by Corot, for which the testator had paid 125,000 francs. During the year several Corots had been sold in London, including Bord de Riviere, X,7°o; Le Matin, £330; an^ Vue de la Ville de Nantes, £380. In February, 1901, Dernier Rayon realised 10,000 francs ; La Tour, 17,200 francs ; and LArbre Coupe (a drawing), 3000 francs. Prices in April, 1901 : Le Chene, 4000 francs ; Le Cavalier, 17,000 francs; in May : La Condole, 7900 francs ; La Colline, 6900 francs. The collection of M. G. de Hele, of Brussels, contained several works by Corot, which were put up to auction on May 10, 1901, and realised the following prices : Au Bord de rEtang, 25,100 francs ; Paturage, 18,100 francs ; Le Pecheur, 12,100 francs ; Le Saule, 14,500 francs. Other recent prices were (Paris, May, 1901): Le Matin, 2200 francs ; Le Soir, 1900 francs ; Paysage a Ville d'Avray, 4200 francs. November, 1901 : Les Bouleaux, 3700 francs ; Vue de Naples, 1 200 francs ; La Cour de la Ferme, 23,000 francs ; Entree a" Abbeville, 17,500 francs. December, 1901 : Les Bergers, 43,800 francs ; La Cour de la Ferme, 23,000 francs ; Entree d1 Abbeville, 17,500 francs. At the sale of the Antonin Vallon Studio in May, 1901, a Paysage produced 980 francs ; Chemin d'Auvers, 4600 francs, and Figure de jeune Femme, 7400 francs. c xxxii
CO ROT
(Braun, CUment, Parti)
OIL PAINTING "MUSIC AND ART"
COKOT
OIL- PAINTING
"THE WOUNDED EURYDICE"
C 2
(Collection oj J. J. Hill, Esq., St. Paul, U.S.A.; Pilot, graph by Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York)
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"THE BATHER"
c 4
(Collection of James Arthur, Esq.)
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NEAR ARRAS"
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(Collection o] Baron Denys Cochin, Paris ; Photograph by Dnrand-Riie', Paris and New York)
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CO ROT
OIL- PAINTING
"THE GREAT OAK AT FONTAINEBLEAU "
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COROT
(Collection of M. Durand-Rutl, Paris)
"A GUST OF WIND
c 13
(Collection of Alexander Ycting,
"EVE XING
c 14
CO ROT-
OIL-PAINTING "ORPHEUS" c 15
(Cottier and Co., New York and I London}
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{Durand-Ruel, Paris and New Yotk)
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OIL PAINTING "POOL AT VILLE-D'AVRAY
c 26
COROT
DECORATIVE PAINTING
"DON QUIXOTE AND CARDENIO"
c 27
(The French Gallery, Ijindon)
COROT
(Braun, Cement, Paris)
OIL PAINTING
"LE PARC-DES-LIONS A MONT-MARLY"
c 28
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"OLD COTTAGE NEAR SEMEUR" c 29
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JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET. BY ARSENE ALEXANDRE.
CELEBRATED passage in Fromentin's book, " Les Maitres d'Autrefois," points directly to the art and work of Jean-Francois Millet. It contains such a collection of true ideas and wrong appreciations; it represents so well, in face of the imposing magnitude of that work, the opinion of a distinguished and a timorous spirit ; and, lastly, it expresses so perfectly the difficulty experienced, at the moment of its manifestation, by a great artistic fancy, in making itself under- stood even by the most intelligent men, however well disposed, that I feel bound to transcribe this passage, before considering anything else. By its very errors it will the better serve to prepare us for our study of the artist. I underline the more debatable points. Fromentin is comparing Dutch art with modern art. He says :
" A highly original painter of our day, one with a somewhat lofty soul, a melancholy spirit, a good heart and a genuinely rural nature, has expressed things about rustics and rustic life, about the hardships, the sadness and the nobility of their labour, such as never a Hollander would have thought of discovering. He has expressed these things in rather barbarous language, and in formulas wherein the imagination has more vigour and clearness than the hand. These ten- dencies were found infinitely pleasing ; and he was regarded among French painters as endowed with the sensibility of a Burns, somewhat lacking his ability to make himself understood. Finally, has he, yes or no, produced and left behind him really beautiful pictures? His form, his language — I mean that external envelope without which the works of the mind can have no being — does it possess those qualities neces- sary to make the fine painter, and to assure him that his work will endure ? Beside Paul Potter and Cuyp he is a deep thinker ; when one compares him with Terborg or with Metzu he is an interesting dreamer; there is about him something indescribable which is undoubt- edly noble when one thinks of the trivialities of Steen or Ostade or Brouwer ; as a man, he might make them blush, one and all : is he their equal as a painter ? "
In the first place, I conceive that Fromentin in this criticism has been slightly misled by this special idea of his as to the beau peintre —
M 1
MILLET
an expression which was very dear to him. To his mind—so far as one can gather— the "fine painter" is he who unites distinction with ease, who has not the bad taste to show emotion in public ; who avoids exuberance and violence alike; who may conceivably be a grand seigneur, but, above all, must be a man of the world. Now Fromentin, with his highly cultivated mind, regarded Rubens, Van Dyck and Terborg as "fine painters"; though, truth to tell, they were also something greater than that. He would have put Velasquez in the same rank, and not without reason, had he known him or paid more attention to his work. But Rembrandt, one can see, was not, in his opinion, a beau peintre; nor, assuredly, is Millet. Tis certainly a very brilliant and seductive notion, although some- what restricted and scarcely designed to enable one to comprehend great genius ; but particularly it has this drawback of bestowing the same title on artists of very unequal intellectual and moral worth. While Rubens and Van Dyck may, purely in respect of externals, be styled "fine painters," so one may put on the same list, longo sed proximus intervallo, this or that artist of our own day who could not be compared to Millet without inflicting ridicule on them and insult on him.
Starting from this conviction that Millet was not a "fane painter," Fromentin, a critic of eminence, and at times even of depth, despite the restrictions and the odd fancies which retard him in his search of the truth, naturally came to speak thus of the master with whom we are dealing. He was bound to consider "rather bar- barous" a language which we, on the other hand, shall discover to be extremely well-chosen. By a sort of contradiction, which two lines off he does not appear to notice, he was forced to the conclusion that this barbarous language lacked vigour and clearness. Finally he was driven to ask if Millet had produced and would leave behind him beautiful pictures/ I will not discuss the distinction he attempts to draw between certain Dutch "naturists" and the painter of Barbizon. Much might be said on the subject, for among the works of Cuyp and Terborg are some which are full of thought ; furthermore, Fro- mentin greatly undervalues the grand philosophy and profound humour of Steen, the Moliere of painting. But all this is apart from our real subject ; suffice it to mention the matter in order to show that when criticism goes wrong, it does not go wrong by halves. After this error on the part of a clear-seeing mind and a trained eye, one can understand how Millet's art, despite — or perhaps by very reason of — its grand simplicity! must needs be a sealed book so far as the public generally is concerned. There is no cause for astonish-
M u
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ment nor for indignation in the fact that great minds fail to be understood in their own time. Their contemporaries always see in them something involuntarily aggressive, something that shocks ; in a word, they are antipathetic. The reason is of the simplest. Great minds throw out a force beyond themselves ; whereas those who please the public simply absorb its external tastes and pre- judices. It must be left to Time to perform, on behalf of ideas, the same service as distance does for the silhouette. You cannot under- stand a mountain with your nose against it ; and few possess the privilege and the gift of being able to detach themselves sufficiently from their own period to live half-a-century ahead. Yet with regard to Millet there were certain minds of this type : artists like Rousseau, critics like Castagnary, understood Millet as we ourselves under- stand him, more or less, to-day. For this reason a study dealing with the author of the G/aneuses and the Homme a la houe may even now be something fresh and timely.
Now that we have spoken of Millet as though we knew him, let us talk of him as though he was unknown to us. On the 4th of October, 1 8 1 A, in the village of Gracbv. a do- pendence of the Commune of Greyille^ in the peighbournood 'of Cherbourg^ was born a son of _the soil. The district, the surround- Tngs 'and the time are "equally characteristic : as for the land, it is rich, ample agricultural soil, within sight of the boundless sea, presenting on the one hand a spectacle of deep, continuous labour, and on the other a spectacle of infinite imagination ; and when an intelligent being takes part in this labour the result is a natural harmony, as penetrating as spontaneous, between the two elements. Now Millet, almost to his twentieth year, took his share of the family toil. He drove the plough, was busy at seed-time and harvest, tended the beasts, and, in a word, lived the grave and humble peasant life to the full. France, which people choose to regard as gay and frivolous, is in more than one respect, when you know it well, both serious and meditative. Thus we must not consider this hard-working peasant lad, whose mind was nourished by deep and unconscious dreamings, as an exception among his race, but rather as a generalisation of its truest and most intimate qualities.
To these circumstances of birth are united those of his up-bringing. Herein he was no doubt to a certain extent privileged, but his case is not so rare, all the same, as some might imagine. We find as the head of the family a simple, practical, upright man, capable, while bravely facing all the responsibilities of life, of developing in his children that which is perhaps the highest of all human faculties —
M iii
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the faculty of admiration. We find a grandmother who seems to have been a woman as robust as she was tender, as tender as she was vigilant. The mother's family, while remaining rooted to the soil, to the true land of the peasantry, had produced in the previous century a savant and several priests. Such a case is frequent enough, indeed it is quite general. The French clergy is recruited principally from among the families of peasants and husbandmen. When the young peasant who has become a priest has the defects of his class it is impossible to imagine a human being more narrow- minded, more obstinate, more devoid of ideas. But when, as sometimes happens, he is naturally quick-witted and good-natured, he displays an unparalleled charm of simplicity and candour and good-will. Millet's maternal uncle was one of these obscure and privileged beings. He had a deep influence on the destiny of the child, and, quite involuntarily, was the determining cause of his artistic career. The part he took in the formation of Millet's mind may be explained in the most natural manner : he taught him to read, instructed him in Latin, enabled him to understand Virgil, read the Bible with him, and left it in his hands. As for the accident which turned the child into a painter, it simply hung on the fact that this old Bible was adorned with engravings. All this happened, of course, without pretension or premeditation. It is different, indeed, in the present day, when people begin to pose from their earliest years, and when every middle-class household, and soon every peasant family, will have produced at least one artist, or painter, or musician, or writer or actor. The honest folk whose acquaintance we have just made lived for themselves, without after- thought of any kind. Millet's uncle taught him Latin, and im- proved his mind, but with no idea beyond making a husbandman ot him. He showed him how to think, just as his mother and his grandmother showed him how to walk : because it was useful and natural — that was all ! But even a trifle like this is of capital im- portance— moreover, you may meet on the sea-shore a child of peasant parentage, with an uncle who is a cure^ and teaches him to read an illustrated Bible ; but this child will not necessarily become a Jean-Fran9ois Millet. Nevertheless, when retrospectively one comes to know the artist's origins, they throw a much-needed light on his personality and on his work.
And, again, the period was equally well suited to the formation of the artist. The close of the preceding century, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the early days of the new century, with links still attaching it to certain traditions, which impelled towards intellectual M iv
MILLET
emancipation, had paved the way to the expansion ot certain general ideas ; so that when, later, an artist like Millet strove to give them expression he was not regarded as an incomprehensible monstrosity. I do no more than make bare allusion to these points, the develop- ment of which would bring one too close to pure philosophy, but they certainly had as much influence in Millet's development as had the air he breathed and the family training he received. I have insisted at some length on this question of origins ; but in reality it constitutes, in conjunction with the chronology of his works, the whole biography of Millet. His story is above all one of a mind which may be seen to grow very, very slowly, to develop with much effort, to arrive at maturity after long patience, and to maintain and assert itself by dint of assiduous reflection. This spec- tacle, which brings us right to the heart of our subject, is indeed analogous to that offered by the cultivation of the land, that labour in which Millet took part; the plough regularly opening and softening the soil, and the crops springing up in due season after the long, con- tinuous and mechanical mystery of the seed's travailing. Millet's life and career constitute an operation at once natural and well- ordered. He who later was to be the painter of- the peasant was truly a peasant's son. Think how fine a thing it would be if only every artist, every historian, could thus develop normally in his own surroundings, instead of discovering a compass when there is scarce time to travel more !
What if the painter's early years were marked by many of the hesitations, the gropings, so to speak, which ever accompany the surest preparations and the most prosperous voyages ? The young peasant's vocation was settled for him by the biblical pictures he began spontaneously to copy. What helped him was that his family raised no objection to this manifestation of his natural gifts. What spurred him on somewhat was that he found himself compelled, lacking the elements, to feel his way very cautiously at the start. At Cherbourg, where, after his simple imitations of engravings, he began to copy the pictures in the art gallery, Millet found in Langlois de Chevreville, a pupil of Baron Gros, more of a protector and a friend than a real teacher. No one taught him technique. Like honest Chardin of old, he was forced to ** put on the paint till 2. it looked like thejnodcl,"
"But, wherr'one^Teflecttr'upon it, was this really an impediment, particularly in the case of a meditative, determined and subjective nature like that of Millet ? No ; because in order to attain com- plete, strong and harmonious expression, it was both natural and
M V
MILLET
necessary that he should master bit by bit, and by his own effort alone, his language simultaneously with his imagination. The second stage of this laborious formation was reached in Paris. M. Langlois obtained for his protege a small grant from the municipality of Cherbourg, which was supplemented by a further subsidy from the department of La Manche. To this modest stipend the mother and the grandmother added their slender savings. The young man, still somewhat of a peasant, and not yet quite the artist, arrived in Paris towards the end of 1836, with 600 francs in his pocket.
Let it be noted, as a highly characteristic trait, that he was Jarjrom being enthusiastic of Paris. In his ears there ever rang so strongly the august symphony of the sea, in his eyes was so vivid a remem- brance of the vast harmony of lines, the grandiose fulness of earth and sky, that our horizons must needs seem cramped and insignificant, our clamour very weak. He said as much in precise words: Paris seemed to him "doleful and dull."
Never-. .was... he ; to be altogether captivated by the city, and at once he began to maintain his freedom by frequent and regular communica- tion with his native soil ; also he decided to establish his quarters in some spot which, while not being too far from this Paris — the inevitable centre of all intellectual effort — should seem to him the most countrified and the most frankly rural. Thus at no period of his life could he be called a deracine, as we term it nowadays ; for, so to speak, he carried away and preserved with him the soil wherein his deepest roots had sprung and spread.
So far as his artistic technique is concerned it suffices to record that he studied at Paul^ Delarpche's.i2//f//£r, and that, nevertheless, on^hii _ yisitoTtp the Couyre he^was especially attracted and impressed fjy the Spanish masters. This opposition is singularly expressive. Certain it is that the bald, cold, historical painter could have had neither any sympathy with his uncivilised pupil, nor any power to jnspire him ; whereas Ribera, Zubaran and^VdiasquezlrnusT'iiecessarily have T>een Millet's real masters — those one chooses, and not those that circum- stances provide. Millet, therefore, like so many great and really original artists, was of a markedly autodidactic type. His lessons of thought he took in the country, his technical studies in the galleries of theT/oUVf e. At the same time it must be understood that these two educations became amalgamated, and that while his long contem- plation of Nature taught him how to paint, his association with the masters opened up, enlarged and smoothed the field of his fancy. Thanks to these solitary studies his aesthetics became very exalted M vi
MILLET
and very conscious. He was not to be one of those artists who pro- duce work of a sort without taking account of what they do, and are ignorant not only of the past but of themselves as well. While on this point I will anticipate in my chronology, and give a hitherto un- published instance well worth noting here.
Our great painter Fantin-Latour has told me that in his youth he
had the good fortune to go through the Louvre on several occasions
with Millet, when the latter was already well on in years, and that
the old painter moved him profoundly by the simplicity and at the same
time the loftiness of his views on ancient art. For example, to the
young artist who confessed he did not like Raphael's Archangel
Michael, he explained the work in a few words, and with a gesture
and a glance that said more than many speeches. "But look," said
he "at that crushing fall, at that terrible landscape!" At that
moment Millet must have had the "august gesture of the sower." I
note too, as secondary, but very significant details, the taste Millet
had for certain painters, whose most important works he would buy
and keep before his eyes: the harshest and most eloquent 'of all the
Spaniards, Greco*, and Hemessen, who in Flemish art brought
dramatic expression and strength of modelling to a quite special
degree of power. It seems to me that for those to whom a hint is
sufficient to enable them to grasp these questions of artistic psychology
these indications of Millet's tastes are full of importance, and are of
much greater value than the extended biographical analyses long since
published and obtainable everywhere.
But to resume our biography where we left it. In 1841, after having exhibited at the Salon of the previous year a Portrait of a Man which attracted no attention, Millet was compelled to return to Cherbourg, and one may guess it was not because he had made a -fortune ; indeed, at that time he was living and painting as best he could. It is curious to remark that, while never being an exact repetition, the life of all great artists has always certain points in common. Think of the young Watteau, forced to turn out his Saint-Francis by the dozen ; of the young Franfois Millet accepting the meagre portrait-work offered him, and not refusing even to daub a- signboard. At least one can see that in this work, which may be judgedjjy_^jwtraits_of_that period whicK ...Have been preserved, Millet always strove after robust, solid execution — never afraid of over-assertion or of giving plenty of body to his subject. But it is sad rather than surprising to find Millet, on his return to Paris
* JThe^ admirable Greco owned by Millet is now in the collection of M. Degas. It is, as one sees, a work which has had an uncommon career.
M vii
MILLET
soon afterwards ,strwing to please! He wanted to do what should be acceptable. That rough hand, which had driven the plough with so much vigour, now clumsily tried to twirl the dandy's Lnc !
OflranJ, „ P™ .«J „ -,resented £ the Salon Q{
which the celebrated
manner^' T ? "a Pre«X sketch « the Boucher
In T/6 th,?T ^ CertamlyJ the m°St Painful Period in his life.
the Salon jury rejected his Saint-Jerome, represented as being
-f
nor
«".
hcroicaUy scrap«i, the pain,er
of He ' «
»47- He, too, had overcome tempeation, and was now on the eye of becoming master of himself, full/and finally. 1 bus the ramatr was the work of the true Millet
'
of ,he
. rhe conception was at once novel and powerful. It may almost be
earth a statue full of grandeur S, ar e Th""/ " gr°SS ^ ^
" "
they a e n " "T a huma" f'«. « » fact,
function to see and defer/be ase,,ing
^jdM>Ci
MILLET
numeraries. In the paintings or Benozzo Gozzoli in the Campo Santo at Pisa, this labour of the fields and that of the vineyards — in a way the most aristocratic form of agriculture — is reproduced with perfect exactness, in a spirit of pagan nobility which is precisely the opposite of the doctrine inaugurated by Millet ; the object in the one case being to embellish, and in the other to extract beauty from the very absence of all embellishment. The Middle Ages have bequeathed to us in France, in the form of illuminations of manuscripts and cathedral sculpture, certain simple and sincere pictures of the move- ments and the attitudes of the peasant at work. But the very candour and absence of intention in these productions of such precious naturalness distinguishes them from the works of Millet, who never painted save with a definite object in view. Again, in the Avenue de MMelharnis, that masterpiece of Hobbema's in the National Gallery, and in that other most moving masterpiece, so far removed from its own period, the Repas de Paysans, by Le Nain, in the Louvre, we have the only really purely rustic works of art — rustic to the exclusion of all idea of arrangement, that existed before those ot Millet, and that present, almost involuntarily, that character of absolute simplicity and ample generalisation which the later painter, of set purpose^ introduced into his canvases.
There is thjt real key to that work, there the whole explanation of its import. Millet has given a very good account of it himself. He has explained the matter in striking terms, and one of his phrases sums up all his efforts and all is genius : he has tried, he says, to depict " the fundamental side of men and things." Elsewhere, on the subject of the Homme a la houe and the criticisms it evoked, he affirms his strong conviction even more
precisely. ** There are those who say I deny the country its
charms. ... I can see clearly enough the aureole of the marigold, and the sun away down yonder, very, very far over the land, spreading its glory amid the clouds ; but just as clearly I see on the plain below the steaming horses at work, and on that rocky spot a weary* man, whose panting one has heard since morning, and who now tries to stand erect a moment and breathe. The drama is enveloped in splendour."
Again, what could be more precise than this ? " I have been reproached for not observing the detail ; I see it, but I prefer to con- struct the synthesis, which as an artistic effort is higher and more robust. You reproach me with insensibility to charm ; why, I open
* The word used by Millet is " errene" a peasant's word for ereinte — utterly tired out.
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MILLET
your eyes to that which you do not perceive, but which is none the less real : the dramatic."
I will take another of Millet's letters. No doubt it is well known, but it cannot be quoted too often, cannot be graven too deep on the very core of any study devoted to him. It reveals his whole soul, his whole mind. " In the Femme qui vient puiser de fEau I have endeavoured that she shall be neither a water-carrier, nor even a servant, but the woman who comes to draw water for the house, the water for her husband's and her children's soup ; that she shall seem to be carrying neither more nor less than the weight of the full buckets ; that beneath the sort of grimace which is natural on account of the strain on her arms, and the blinking of her eyes caused by the light, one may see a look of rustic kindliness on her face. I have always shunned, with a kind of horror, everything approaching the sentimental ; I have desired, on the other hand, that this woman should perform simply and good-naturedly, without regarding it as irksome, an act which, like her other household duties, is one she is accustomed to perform every day of her life. Also I wanted to make people imagine the freshness of the well, and that its antiquated appearance should make it clear that many, before her, had come to draw water from it." I have been led to quote this last most charming phrase, although it interrupts our analysis, because we see in it the true painter's touch. It is as though we really had before our eyes Millet's wonderful green, that subtle mixture of colours and oils whereby he expressed the rich, smooth aspect, the warm-coloured age, of those accessories of rural life, which have been in use from generation to generations,.^-? — Foj>-lh.e rest, it is not necessary to dwell longer on this essential of Millet's work ; everything we have seen in the course of our examination will have prepared us to understand him : his studious, pensive childhood, his laborious, introspective youth ; his manhood, solitary and nurtured by toil and meditation. In solitude it is that general ideas best come to life. There is one word to add to this moral portrait which I have attempted to sketch. It is not rare, especially in our own time, for an artist to devise a complete system to which he applies and subordinates, and by which he controls, everything he produces. But more often than not this system enchains the artist or ruins his work. Millet offers us the magnifi- cent spectacle — wherein all his grandeur lies — of a man, a system, and a work all on the same level.
That solitude which, dangerous as it is for others, proved so fertile in Millet's case, was deliberately sought by him and maintained to
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MILLET
the end of his life. In 1 849 he settled down at Barbizon, and practically never left it except to go to Cherbourg and to Paris on business. Thus his life became one of sublime monotony. His entire story, devoid of spicy anecdotes, adventures, or dramatic situations, is con- tained, as I have already said, in the chronology of his works. It differs in no way, indeed, from that of his humble models — object and result apart. Like his peasant neighbours he dug and toiled and sowed day by day ; like them, in the patriarchal manner, he brought up a numerous family ; like them he reaped his bread by the sweat of his brow ; farmer of the mind, he loyally paid his lord and master, the public, a splendid rent, in the shape of works enriching the heart of humanity ; while the wages he was able to earn for himself materially did no more than suffice to let him and his live in honourable humbleness.
More than once Millet knew the meaning of want. 'Tis a story old as Art itself, and although it may seem foolish to wax indignant about it now, one may well feel sad at the thought. So strong is the contrast between these struggles and the imposing auction sales — to two of the most celebrated of which I am going to refer — that although cool and practical people may find nothing abnormal in such a state of things, they must at least admit that it is monstrous. In 1851, continuing the series of his great agrarian poems — his " Georgics in paint," as Theophile Gautier so happily described them — Millet exhibited his Semeur ; in 1853 he displayed, or at least finished, the Tondeuse de Moutons, the Berger, and the Moissonneuses, Considerations of space forbid me to analyse these lovely works, whose common character I attempted just now to point out. The year 1855 saw the production of that notable work, the Paysan greffant un Arbre. If the little old fellow on the roadside, so admirably caught and realised by Hobbema in his Middelharnis, brings many real and human things to the mind, how profound are the medita- tions on humanity evoked by this peasant in the foreground, and, in presence of his wife and child, seeming, as Gautier said, to be per- forming " a rite in some mystic ceremony, as though he were the high priest of a rural divinity ! "
Well, this work was admired by certain advanced minds, and caused an intense sensation among the really great artists of the day, but it did not bring Millet even the most modest sum. Some day the fine action I am about to relate will become classical, as are the noble deeds one recites to children to train their minds towards lofty sentiment. It was an artist who bought the picture ; and how delicately it was done ! Theodore Rousseau it was who sent a
M xi
MILLET
messenger to Millet with four thousand francs, offered for the Gre/eur by an imaginary American ; and thus Millet was saved in the hour of trouble. This picture, for which the author would never have got four, nor even two, wretched thousand-franc notes, had he not chanced upon a great-hearted comrade, was sold at the Hartmann Sale in 1881 for 133,000 francs.
There is something simple and heroic in the friendship between Rousseau and Millet. It is the more remarkable inasmuch as there were great contrasts between the two men, aad they never absolutely confided in one another, after having become intimate very slowly. On the one side unrest, on the other the reflective mind ; with Rousseau, perpetual quest, amounting almost to a disease ; with Millet, strength confident of itself, decision once arrived at ; on the one hand an analytical mind of the finest ; on the other, one of the most splendidly synthetical. How well it fits in the life of Millet, this superb, virile harmony, and how greatly preferable to mere amusing anecdote or romantic adventure.
With regret I must pass by works like those produced in 1857, which of themselves might well afford a subject for long and profit- able consideration. Let me simply make the two following essential points, for the benefit of such as may desire to go deeply into the matter. In the G/aneuses there is quite a study to be made of the rhythm of line in MilletVwork. In this picture everything is of set purpose, and everything in it is natural ; it is intense in its poetry, but with a hidden framework rigorously geometrical, absolutely exact in its mechanism. If it were not so cunningly constructed it would be less poetical ; were it less poetical it would not be so rigorously true, so perfectly live.
In the Pare aux Moutons and in the Eerger ramenant son Troupeau la Nuit I may observe that the painter has essayed one of the most difficult problems in painting — difficult to such an extent that the Impressionist School, all its other merits notwithstanding, has completely avoided it. Yet surely the impressions we feel per arnica silentia lunte are among the most moving, the most troublantes of all. But that stirring of the senses, we feel when a poet describes the night, cannot, it would seem, be expressed nor called forth by painting. The Angelus (1859) is the other great example of the immoral destiny of works of art. The expression is somewhat strong perhaps, but I let it stand. Consider that, when first produced, this picture — the most famous of them all — did not even find a buyer ; at least, in the course of its much-travelled career it was almost as often ex- changed as sold. An American was to have bought it for the M xii
MILLET
agreed sum of 1 500 francs, but backed out of his bargain. So Millet parted with it for 1000 francs. It passed from hand to hand. In 1864 it was taken in exchange. Then its price began to rise : 1800 francs, then 12,000, then 38,000, then 160,000, then 553,000, and finally 800,000. Draw what conclusions you will from these figures ; the choice is so large as to be embarrassing. By way of ending my chronology of the principal works I will simply mention that to the Angelas period — the date of Millet's fullest maturity — belong also the Becquee, the Tondeuse de Moutons, and the Tueurs de Cochons. This last-named work, so dramatic in its veracity, is the only one in which the artist showed a trace of satire or human bitterness ; for it is clear that he has made the butchers' faces bear a resemblance to that of their victim. The Homme h la Houe, men- tioned above, dates from 1863. In 1865 Millet, more by accident than by choice, had a singular return to the subjects of his youth. He was commissioned to decorate a dining-room, and executed three panels and a ceiling, representing the Seasons, in the form of mytho- logical scenes. Daphnis and CA/oe, Ceres, JJ Amour mouille and a 'Bacchanale. This latter, which formed the ceiling, is now in the possession of the King of the Belgians. Also to be mentioned as form- ing part of this somewhat exceptional work is the Agar, which figures in the superb collection of the painters of 1830 got together by the Dutch marine painter M. Mesdag. And whereas the Agar is powerful and dark in colour, Millet has tried to make the other panels as bright and genial in tone as possible. But some command- ing natures there are to whom the gift of pleasing has been denied. At the same time, although the reproaches addressed to Millet respecting a certain heaviness of colour may be justified over this dining-room decoration, in which the gloom is intensified by the floral tints lavished around it, I refuse to agree with any such criti- cism in so far as the other works are concerned — works in which the colouring is perfectly adequate to the design and to the execution. If there is a little tenderness in his colour at times it is always masculine and robust ; Millet took no heed of atmospheric analyses, l?ut his slFUllJg lyiHftetical faculties assert themselves both in his broad colourations and in his sculptural design.
In this connection it must be mentioned, however briefly, that pastels and drawings in black or in colours form a considerable part of Millet's achievement. A whole article would not be too much to devote to the drawings alone, and were the opportunity ever to arise I should be glad to undertake the task. One would then be able to analyse still more thoroughly Millet's whole philosophy, so humane,
M xiii
MILLET
so nobly sympathetic. One would then see that not one of the little incidents in the intimate life of the instinctive being failed to reveal to him its significance and its beauty ; that labour of all kinds, in field and forest and farm, was regarded by him, in its general im- port, as forming part of the great and durable rites of the soil. Meanwhile let me at least mention among the pastels the Veillee the Barafteuse, and that terrible one called Hiver, a poem the constituents of which are a ploughed field under a heavy sky, with a harrow lying neglected in the foreground. Really nothing could be grander and more dramatic ; and, as is the case with most of the very great things in art — every one has seen such a thing — one man alone could have given it expression.
As for the drawings, the importance Millet attached to them may be judged by the fact that to a series of the best-known among them he gave the somewhat imposing and systematic title, L? Epopee des Champs. At that period of his life Millet certainly had a right to use such a title, for he was indeed an epic poet, one of the few living in our time. One stands bewildered when one re-reads the criticisms of the day — true, there is no need to re-read them — in which they talk of the bestiality of Millet's figures, of his gross naturalism, and so forth. On the other hand, by way of consolation, we find certain minds more enthusiastic, and it were worth many pages to have written the fine phrase that Castagnary wrote : " Do you remember his Reaper ? He might have reaped the whole earth ! " From 1 870 onwards Millet ceased to exhibit. During the "Annee Terrible" he stayed in Cherbourg, where he painted some fine and tragic sea-pieces. He returned to Barbizon in 1871, and from 1872 till his death in 1875 his powers and his capacity for work declined. To quote the critic I have just mentioned, who in a few words traced Millet's complete silhouette: " Thus passed this man, nurtured by the Bible, severe as a patriarch, as kind as just, ardent as an apostle, simple as a child."
One word more. The State, realising only on the eve of his death the magnitude of Millet's genius, had resolved to commission him to decorate the Chapel of Sainte-Genevieve in the Pantheon. At this Millet was profoundly happy : but Death would not grant that the great painter of the shepherds should retell the touching story of the sublimest of shepherdesses. Puvis de Chavannes it was who was then chosen. It is perhaps unique in the history of art that out of such a loss should spring such consolation.
ARSENE ALEXANDRE. M xiv
THE ETCHINGS OF J. F. MILLET. BY FREDERICK KEPPEL.
HE finished original etchings -done by > Jean- Francois Millet are only thirteen in* number. Besides these we have from his hand some eight minor prints, which can hardly be called pictures at all, but are merely what the French call griffbnnements, or experimental scribblings done on a copper plate with the etching needle or the drypoint, similar in character to those which Rembrandt himself sometimes took a fancy to execute. Millet also tried his hand at both lithography and wood-engraving. The three lithographs which he has left us are finished compositions : and one of these, Le Semeur — a man sowing grain in a field — ranks as one of his finest prints.
In wood-engraving Millet confined himself to experimenting with the tools upon the wood block; and the fine woodcuts often ascribed to him were in reality engraved, from his design and under his direct guidance, by one or the other of his two brothers, Pierre or Jean- Baptiste Millet. He had the intelligence to perceive that the laboured and over-elaborate woodcuts of his own day were no more than inadequate imitations of engravings on copper or steel, and so he brought back wood-engraving to the broad and bold simplicity which had been so triumphantly practised by Albert Diirer three centuries before.
Still another process which Millet tried for the purpose of multi- plying prints from his original design was heliography. Corot and Daubigny also practised the same method. The artist drew his design upon a piece of glass which had been rendered opaque by means of a black varnish covered with powdered white lead. Duplicates of the design were made in the same way in which a photographer prints from his negative, and the result had all the characteristics of a photograph.
If this were not an illustrated publication it would here be in order to give a detailed description of each of Millet's etchings. Words are very well in their way, but in a subject like the present one a little pictorial reproduction of some etching will convey more truth to the reader than could the eloquent " word-painting " of John Ruskin himself. The illustrations here presented, even if they
M xv
MILLET
were the finest ever produced, would naturally fall short of the original proofs from which they were copied. The necessary reduction in size of some of the etchings is, of course, a serious drawback : but if these reproductions were in every respect as fine as the originals, why, each copy of this special number of THE STUDIO would be cheap at a hundred guineas ! Admitting, however, these unavoidable drawbacks in the illustrations, the respectful suggestion of the present writer to the reader is that he look at them. If they do not speak convincingly for themselves, as being thoroughly original both in design and execution, then the writer's attempt at mere verbal description and comment would be hopeless indeed. Many fairly good contemporary etchings are neglected — and justly neglected — because, at best, they are no more than disguised imitations of the work of some bigger man. A witty reviewer once characterised an exhibition of etchings as being " mainly penny-Whistlers," and these etchings were, for this reason, of no greater value than a child's penny whistle, because they lacked the supreme quality of originality. Such an imitator was well charac- terised by Dr. Johnson on the occasion when some one had asserted that the writings of a certain contemporary poet were like those of John Dryden and were quite as fine. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, " he may make Dryden's report, but he does not carry his bullet." Now both the detonation of Millet's gun and the bullet which flew from it were all his own. We may or we may not admire these etchings of his, but at least they are the uninfluenced expression of his own honest conception and vision.
While Rembrandt seldom or never etched a composition which he had painted, or painted one which he had etched, Millet's method was quite the opposite. When an artistic conception pleased him he often utilised it in various " moods and tenses," and the writer is informed by a son and a daughter of the master that several of their father's works were first etched and the design afterwards repeated in aquarelle or pastel or in oils. With regard to the latter, it is well known that Millet's habit was to keep his paintings in hand for years, working on several of them in turn according to his mood for the time being.
The eminent American author, Mrs. Schuyler van Rensselaer when writing on this same subject, says : " In etching a subject which he had previously painted Millet did not try to reproduce the painting ; he merely tried to give fresh expression, with a different artistic method, to a conception already once expressed with paint. Each etching stands on its own merit as an etching, as M xvi
MILLET
frankly and simply as though no painting ot the same subject were in existence. Millet's truly artistic nature shows itself in the fact that he went thus about his work. And the breadth and versatility of that nature is convincingly proved by the intrinsic excellence of these etchings in conjunction with the intrinsic excellence of the corresponding pictures. A man who had given his whole life to etching only, who had never thought of painting, and had never cared for those effects proper to painting and not to etching, could not have been more truly and markedly a born etcher than Millet showed himself to be — few though were the plates and many though were the canvases he worked upon.
" To depend upon lines, not tones, for expression ; to make every line ' tell,' and to use no more lines than are absolutely needed to tell exactly what he wants to say ; to speak strongly, concisely and to the point ; to tell us much while saying little ; to suggest rather than to elaborate, but to suggest in such a way that the meaning shall be very clear and individual and impressive — these are the things the true etcher tries to do. And these are the things that Millet did with a more magnificent power than any man, perhaps, since Rembrandt. Other modern etchings have more charm than his — none have quite so much feeling. Others show more grace and delicacy of touch — none show more force or certainty, and none a more artistic ' economy of means.' Compare one of these prints with the corresponding picture, and you will feel, more deeply than ever before, how much more important was the intellectual than the technical side of Millet's art."
A well-known painter, in speaking of Millet's etchings, said to the writer : " I like them even better than his paintings ; when he was painting he was thinking of his colour, but when he was etching he was thinking of his drawing" ; and, as in music, beau- tiful melody must ever be the fundamental germ and the living soul of the composition, so, in the making of a picture, personal and masterly drawing is the essential sine qua non.
The year 1860 was a memorable one for etching. Millet was then doing his best work, Meryon's finest plates had recently been etched, though his Rue Pirouette is dated 1860. Charles Jacque's Grande Bergerie was done in 1859, and such masterpieces as Sir Seymour Haden's By-road in Tipperary and the Shere Millpond, as well as Mr. Whistler's Rotherhithe and his portrait in drypoint of the engraver Riault, all bear the date of 1860. In Mr. Whistler's case this date is buttressed, before and after, by the Black Lion Wharf, Bibi Lalouette and Bibi Valentin, which were done in 1859, while the
M xvii
MILLET
tamous drypoint The Forge is dated 1861. In the year 1860, Millet, Jacquemart, Bracquemond, and Legros were all in the prime of their power as etchers. Gaillard had already begun his admirable original work ,vith the burin, and in England some of Samuel Palmer's beautiful etched landscapes had already appeared. It would be well if a historical circumstance connected with Millet could be set right. After the master's death in 1875 his friend and biographer, Alfred Sensier, sold at public auction his collection of Millet's works at an immense profit on the prices which he had paid for them. Hence arose the story that Sensier had unmercifully exploited Millet, taking advantage of the artist's necessities. It is quite true that during the long years when Millet was glad to sell his pictures at any price however small, Sensier was one of the very few who had the intelligence to buy them. But the writer of this article, being deeply interested in all that concerns Millet, has consulted a son and a daughter of the master on this question. Monsieur Charles Millet, the Paris archi- tect, frankly states that his father always gratefully recognised the sympathy and the aid of Alfred Sensier ; and his elder sister, Madame Saignier, who was a grown-up woman before her father's death, declares that Millet taught his children to love and esteem Alfred Sensier " next after le bon Dieu."
In the city of Cork the Irish driver of a jaunting-car was agreeably surprised when the gentleman whcf had hired him also gave him a helping hand with a heavy trunk. " A little help is betther than a power o' pity, sorr," is what the Irishman said. Millet sorely needed help. Some who could have helped him merely pitied him, and — like the priest and the Levite in the parable — " passed by on the other side." It Sensier was only a Samaritan, he was a Good Samaritan, because he helped the man who had "fallen among thieves."
FREDERICK KEPPEL.
M xvm
(Collection of M. Henri Kouart)
OIL PAINTING "WOMEN BATHING" c36
CO ROT
CHARCOAL DRAWING: "LANDSCAPE STUDY"
C37
(Collection of M. L4onJ. F. Konnat)
CHARCOAL DRAWING: "LANDSCAPE STUDY" C38
(Collection of M. LfonJ. F. Bommt)
COROT
(Collection of Charles Rickttts, Esq.)
CHARCOAL DRAWING: "SOUVENIR D'lTALIE"
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(Collection of W. Pitcairn Knowles, Esq.)
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ETCHING, 1855
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(Collection of Dr. T. W. T. Lau'renre)
ORIGINAL ETCHING (1868-69) "SHEPHERD-GIRL SPINNING
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"THE TWO COWS"
M 56
FROM THE ORIGINAL ETCHING, FOURTH STATE
MILLET
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRY-POINT, 1849. SECOND STATE
"SHEEP AND COW GRAZING1
M 57
FROM THE ORIGINAL TRIAL PLATE
THE SEAWEED GATHERERS'
M 58
MILLET
ORIGINAL ETCHING (1856) "THE VIGIL"
M 59
(British Museum)
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(Collection of W, Pitcairn Knowles, Esq.']
PEN DRAWING "MOTHER AND SON"
M 60
MILLET
"DIGGER RESTING"
M 6l
From the Original Etching (Collection of Dr. T. W. T. Lawrenct)
''THE PEACE-MAKER"
M 62
From the Water- Colour Sketch (The Autotype Co., Ntiv Oxford Street, London)
MILLET
(fonides Bequest, South Kensington)
WATER-COLOUR: "LANDSCAPE STUDY'
M 63
(lonidcs Bequest, South Kensington)
WATER-COLOUR: "LANDSCAPE STUDY'
M 64
MILLET
HELIOGRAPH ON GLASS "GIRL DRAWING WATER"
M 65
(British Museum)
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MODERN ETCHING AND ENGRAVING
EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME
OFFICES OF CTHE STUDIO,' LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK MCMII
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
AN editor, when reviewing an important work which has just been brought to completion under his guidance, cannot but be sensible of the disparity existing between a thing done and a thing sketched out vividly in projects — in " enchanted cigarettes " as Balzac called unrealised schemes ; for in books, as in all other works of art, many unexpected difficulties and disappointments interpose between con- ception and execution, limiting the scope of the aim in view, and lowering, more or less, the quality ot craftsmanship. The fact that several modern workers of repute are unrepresented amongst the illustrations is one cause of regret ; the large but unavoidable reduc- tion in size of many of the illustrations is another ; also it is felt that the absence of the raised line of the original plates causes a loss of distinction in the half-tone plates, which no amount of care in the selection of paper and in the printing could entirely remedy. There are, however, other sides of the question in the light of which the very faults of the volume become virtues ; and, in spite of inevitable shortcomings, the hope is entertained that the publication will add something to the general knowledge of the subject of etching and will give an impetus to the revival of interest in one of the most delightful and personal forms of artistic expression. THE Editor, having received much valued sympathy and help from many quarters, desires to express his cordial thanks to his foreign correspondents, to the artist-contributors, and also to the various publishers who have sanctioned the reproduction of copyright etchings, especially to Mr. C. Klackner and Mr. Frederick Keppel of New York and London, Mr. R. Gutekunst of London, Messrs. Frost and Reed of Bristol, M. E. Sagot, M. C. Hessele and M. Andre Marty of Paris, and Messrs. Amsler and Ruthardt of Berlin. The American Section owes much to Mr. J. M. Bowles, of New York, and to the historical notes supplied by Mr. Louis A. Holman, of Boston.
TABLE OF LITERARY CONTENTS
MODERN ETCHING AND ENGRAVING IN
GREAT BRITAIN
AMERICA -
FRANCE
GERMANY
AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
HOLLAND
BELGIUM -
DENMARK & NORWAY -
FINLAND -
ITALY
SWITZERLAND
By A. L. Baldry „ Will Jenkins „ Gabriel Mourey „ Dr. Hans W. Singer „ Wilhelm Scholermann „ Anthony Tahi „ Ph. Zilcken „ Fernand Khnopff „ Georg Brochner „ Count Louis Sparre „ Dr. Romualdo Pantini , Professor Robert Mobbs
ETCHERS AND ENGRAVERS : INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BRITISH SECTION.
Baker, Oliver, R.E. Ball, Wilfrid, R.E. Bayes, A. W., R.E. Bolingbroke, Minna, R.E. Brangwyn, Frank Burridge, Fred., R.E. Burridge, Fred., R.E. Bush, R. E. J., A.R.E. Bush, R. E. J., A.R.E. Cameron, D. Y., R.E. Cameron, D. Y., R.E. Cash, John, F.R.I.B.A. Charlton, E. W., A.R.E. Copeman , Constance G. , A. R Crawford, Susan F., A.R.E Dicksee, Herbert, R.E. Dalgliesh, T. Irving, R.E. East, Alfred, A.R.A. East, Alfred, A.R.A. Ellis, Tristram, A.R.E. Finnic, John, R.E. Goff, R., R.E. Goolden, Fred. W. Haig, Axel H., R.E. Hartley, Alfred, R.E. Herkomer, Prof. H. von, R, Herkomer, Prof. H.von, R.
AMERICAN SECTION.
Aid, George C. Backer, Otto H. Bauer, W. C. Beal, W. Goodrich
Plate 25 Herkomer, Prof. H.von, R.A.Plate 8
„ 52 Hole, William, R.S.A., R.E. „ 38
„ 9 Holroyd, Charles, R.E. ,, 21
7 Holroyd, Charles, R.E. „ 22
„ 46 Huson, Thomas, R.I., R.E. „ 39
„ 28 Kiddier, William „ 44
„ 29 Knight, Joseph, R.I., R.E. „ 10
„ 13 Legros, Prof. A., R.E. „ i
„ 14 Menpes, Mortimer, R.E. „ 50
„ 32 Meyer, A. C., A.R.E. „ 30
„ 33 Murray, J. G., A.R.E. „ 23
„ 53 Paton, Hugh, A.R.E. „ 24
4 Phillips, L. B., A.R.E. „ 48
,E. „ 34 Pott, Constance M., R.E. ,, 27
, „ 2 Raalte, H. B. van, A.R.E. „ 19
„ 47 Raalte, H. B. van, A.R.E. „ 20
,, 40 Reason, R. G. ,, 54
„ 15 Robertson, Arthur, A.R.E. „ 26
„ 1 6 Robinson, Sir J. C., C.B. „ 51
„ 41 Roller, George, R.E. „ 49
„ 35 Rowe, T. Trythall „ 42
„ 17 Short, Frank, R.E. „ 45
„ 31 Sloane, Mary A., A.R.E. „ 3
,, 12 Slocombe, Fred, R.E. „ 43
,, 1 1 Waterson, David, A.R.E. „ 36
A. „ 5 Waterson, David, A.R.E. „ 37
A.,, 6 Watson, C. J., R.E. „ 18
Plate 12 Burleigh, Sydney Richmond, Plate 17
„ 6 Duveneck, Frank „ 21
3 Getchell, Edith Loring „ 20
1 8 Hovenden, Thomas „ 16
5
J)
AMERICAN SECTION — continued.
Lathrop, W. L. Lewis, Arthur A. MacLaughlan, D. Shaw Merritt, Anna Lea Mielatz, C. F. W. Moran, Peter Moran, Thomas Oakford, Ellen Parrish, Stephen
FRENCH SECTION.
Bejot, Eugene Bejot, Eugene Besnard
Bracquemond, Felix Chahine, Edgar Chahine, Edgar Dupont, R. Dupont, R. Helleu, P. Helleu, P. Huard, Charles Jeanniot Lafitte, A. Leheutre, G.
Plate 9 24
» .. » »
19
25 7 8
4 5
Plate 25 „ 26
„ 20 » 27
» 17
„ 18
.» 13
>. 15 6
7 3
„ 22 2
GERMAN SECTION.
Fischer, Otto Plate 22
Fischer, Otto „ 24
Gambert, Otto „ 1 1
Graf, Oscar „ 5
Graf, Oscar „ 6
Halm, Peter „ 23
Hegenbart, Fritz „ 19
Hegenbart, Fritz „ 20
lilies, Arthur „ 25
Kalckreuth, Leopold Count „ 4 6
Pennell, Joseph Platt, Charles A. Platt, Charles A. Rix, Julian
Stetson, Charles Walter Weber, Otis S. Whistler, James McNeill Whistler, James McNeill
Plate 13 „ 22 » 23
„ 15 10
» » »
Lepere, Auguste Lepere, Auguste Lepere, Auguste Lepere, Auguste Monvel, Bernard de Paillard, Henry Paillard, Henry Robbe, Manuel Robbe, Manuel Schuller, J. Charles Steinlen Steinlen Viala, E.
Klinger, Max Klinger, Max Kollwitz, Kathe Leistikow, W. Liebermann, Max Meyer-Basel, C. T. Meyer-Basel, C. T. Overbeck, Fritz Pankok, Bernhard Stauffer, Karl
Plate 8 ,, 10 ,, 1 1
» 12
5 9
„ H „ i
4
„ 16 » 23
>, 24
21
Plate 12
" 3 „ 16
„ i
„ 18
8
9
» 21 » 17
» X5
GERMAN SECTION — continued.
Stuck, Franz Plate 10
Thoma, Hans „ 3
Ubbelohde, Otto „ 2
Ubbelohde, Otto Wolff, Heinrich
Plate 7
AUSTRIAN SECTION.
Cossmann, Alfred Cossmann, Alfred Cossmann, Alfred Jettmar, Rudolph Lopienski, Ignaz
HUNGARIAN SECTION.
Aranyossy, Akos F. Landsinger, Zsigmond Landsinger, Zsigmond Olgyai, Viktor Olgyai, Viktor
DUTCH SECTION.
Bauer, M. Becht, Ed. Bosch, E.
Gravesande, Storm van Houten, Miss B. G. van Koster, A. L.
BELGIAN SECTION.
Baertsoen, A. Cassiers, H. Coppens, O. Danse, A. Gailliard, F. Khnopff, Fernand Laermans, E.
Plate |
3 |
Orlik, Emil |
Plate 7 |
M |
4 |
Orlik, Emil |
„ 8 |
„ |
5 |
Schmutzer, Ferdinand |
„ 2 |
IO |
Schmutzer, Ferdinand |
9 |
|
" |
6 |
Unger, William |
» i |
Plate |
4 |
Raiischer, Lajos |
Plate 3 |
,, |
9 |
Raiischer, Lajos |
» 7 |
„ |
IO |
Szekely, Arpad |
» 5 |
„ |
i |
Szekely, Arpad |
8 |
» |
2 |
Tahi, A. |
„ 6 |
Plate |
5 |
Nieuwenkamp, W. O. J. |
Plate 6 |
„ |
9 |
Reicher, A. F. |
» 4 |
X |
1 1 |
Witsen, W. |
» 2 |
» |
IO |
Zilcken, P. |
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Zwart, W. de |
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Plate |
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Marechal, F |
Plate 10 |
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Meunier, H. |
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Romberg, M. |
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Rysselberghe, T. van |
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Titz, L. |
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Wytsman, R. |
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DANISH SECTION. |
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FrSlich, Lorenz |
Plate 10 |
Liind, Soren |
Hansen, H. N. |
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Monsted, Peter |
Hou, Axel |
2 |
Niss, Thorvald |
Krause, E. |
9 |
Schwartz, Frants |
Kroyer, P. S. |
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Schwartz, Frants |
Locher, Carl |
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Skovgaard, Niels |
Lubschitz, J. |
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NORWEGIAN AND |
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Edelfelt, A. |
Plate 8 |
Sparre, Count Louis |
Edelfelt, A. |
„ 10 |
Sparre, Count Louis |
Flodin, Hilda |
» 4 |
Thesleff, Ellen |
Flodin, Hilda |
6 |
Zorn, Anders L. |
Gallen, A. |
7 |
Zorn, Anders L. |
Nordhagen, J. |
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ITALIAN SECTION. |
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Beltrami, Luca |
Plate ii |
Nomellini, P. |
Biseo, Cesare |
6 |
Savardo, Dino |
Chessa, C. |
„ 2 |
Sezanne, Augusto |
Fattori, G. |
9 |
Turletti, C. |
Fortuny, Mariano, Jun. |
i. '5 |
Vegetti, Enrico |
Grubicy, Vittore |
» 4 |
Vetri, Paolo |
Kienerk, Giorgio |
„ 10 |
Vitalini, Francesco |
Miti-Zanetti, G. |
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SWISS SECTION. |
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Amiet, Cuno |
Plate 8 |
Muyden, E. van |
Beaumont, Pauline de |
» 4 |
Muyden, E. van |
Burnand, Eugene |
„ 10 |
Piguet, R. |
Forel, Alexis |
9 |
Ravel, Edouard |
Muyden, E. van |
„ i |
Vallet, E. |
Plate ii
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"IN WEST PRINCE'S STREET GARDENS, EDINBURGH." FROM THE ETCHING BY SUSAN F. CRAWFORD, A.R.E.
PLATE 3
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PLATE 3 — " A ROADWAY IN FLANDERS "
FROM THE ETCHING BY MARY A. SLOASE, A.R.E.
PLATE 4 — "THE SLIPWAY"
FROM THE ETCHING BY E. W. CHARLTON, A.R.E.
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"STUDY OF AN ARAB HEAD." FROM THE HERKOMERGRAVURE BY PRO- FESSOR H. VON HERKOMER, R.A.
PLATE 5
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PLATE 6 — " WILD WEATHER
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY PROFESSOR H. VON HERKOMER, R.A.
PLATE 7 — " IN THE FURROWED LAND '
FROM THE ETCHING BY MINNA BOLINGBROKE, R.E.
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"JOHN PHILLIP, R.A." FROM THE ETCHING BY A. W. BAYES, R.E.
PLATE 9
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PLATE 10 — "THE CLOUD'
I-KOM THE MEZZOTINT BY JOSEPH KNIGHT, K.I., !(.!•:.
PLATE n — "AN ESSEX STREAM"
n«'\l THE ETCHING BY ALFRED HARTLEY, R.E.
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"EVENING, MOUSEHOLE HARBOUR" FROM THE ETCHING BY REGINALD E. J. BUSH, A.R.E.
PLATE 13
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PLATE 17 — "DORDRECHT"
FROM THE ETCHING BY R. GOFF, R.E.
PLATE 18 — " VESPERS "
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY C. J. WATSON, R.E.
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"THE PHILOSOPHER." FROM THE DRY-POINT BY H. B. VAX RAALTE, A.R.E.
PLATE 20
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"NIGHT." A DRY-POINT STUDY OF A HEAD BY CHARLES HOLROYD, R.E. PLATE 21
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"GUN AND SHOT WHARF, SOUTH- WARK." FROM THE ETCHING BY CONSTANCE M. POTT, R.E.
PLATE 27
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MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN GREAT BRITAIN. BY A. L. BALDRY.
][N exact definition of etching is not easy. In the narrowest sense of the term it would pre- sumably be limited only to work which is scratched with a pointed tool upon a metal plate, to line drawings upon copper which, when rubbed with ink, will give an impression on paper. If this definition is accepted, there are but two kinds of etching, that in which the lines made by the point are deepened and strengthened by being bitten in with an acid which will eat away the copper, and that known as " dry-point," in which there is no Accentuation of the lines by the use of the acid. From plates treated in either of these ways prints can be obtained which have character- istic technical qualities and reproduce exactly the original touches of the tool ; and these prints are probably entitled to be regarded as illustrations of the purest form of the etcher's art. BUT it is questionable whether it is quite permissible to draw so .-sharp a line between etching and other kinds of engraving. There are processes allied to it which differ from it only in minor details, and there are others in which it actually plays some part in producing the final result. It is better to make the definition as broad and •comprehensive as possible, and not to insist upon distinctions which only hamper the etcher's activity. That the workers themselves desire full freedom to express their ideas in any way that suits them foest is proved by the readiness of the Royal Society of Painter- Etchers to encourage all forms of engraving which give opportunities for the display of originality of invention and accomplishment. One of the rules of this society declares that " all forms of engraving on metal, whether by the burin, the etching-needle, by mezzotint or -aquatint, or by whatever other form (of engraving) the artist may choose as a means of original expression, are understood to be in- cluded in the term 'painter-etching.'" This inclusiveness is no doubt due in some measure to the anxiety of an exhibiting association to make its shows attractive and varied, but it comes also from an ob- vious desire on the part of the artists themselves to be allowed a free
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choice as to the particular technical method which will best interpret them.
INDEED, if such a society, founded professedly to develop the art of etching and to popularise it among all lovers of interesting accom- plishment, were to attempt any exact regulation of executive processes, it would lose the greater part of its authority and would practically destroy its right to existence. Its real mission, which it seems from the first to have judiciously recognised, is to gather together all men who take an intelligent view of their artistic responsibilities and to bestow approval upon all types of production which are plainly inspired by a legitimate desire to break away from the beaten track. To ignore anything which bore the stamp of serious originality would be as mistaken a piece of policy as to extend encouragement to mechanical and commercial substitutes for the artist's work. Every man who has something fresh to say is entitled to a hearing ; it would be foolish to try and silence him because he does not use exactly the same idioms as his predecessors, or because he happens to have hit upon an idea which had not occurred to them. OF all the experts who have given an opinion on the question of terminology, perhaps the most catholic in his views is Professor von Herkomer. He declared, in one of the lectures which he delivered during his tenure of the Slade Professorship at Oxford, that he is disposed to apply the term " etching " to every form of work on metal, whether bitten with acid or indented with a burin or needle, so long as this work in its character strictly represents the freest expression of an artistic nature. He would make the distinction between what is and what is not properly called etching a matter of assthetic sentiment rather than of technical manner, and he would exclude from the category of etchings all laboriously wrought plates^ even though the methods of working followed in them might conform absolutely to executive precedents. At the same time he admitted that there is no measurement and there are no rules by which the right thing can be recognised off-hand. Personal feeling must necessarily play an important part in the guidance of the men who practise this subtle art, and it must equally have a supreme influence; over people who are honestly anxious to understand what may be the type of production that has the strongest claim upon their apprecia- tion. Of course there can be no precise standard if so much scope is allowed to individual conviction, and inevitably there must be con- flicts of taste on many more or less vital questions, but there is in these very conflicts something stimulating and encouraging to the active mind.
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IF we accept, as a basis for argument, the Professor's broad statement as to the comprehensiveness of etching and adopt his standpoint with regard to the functions of the art, it may fairly be said that there is within the artist's reach no executive device which is at the same time capable of giving so much enjoyment to producer and observer, and so full of exciting possibilities. The etcher's successes, the achievements of a man who has secured for once an absolute agree- ment between mind and hand, are exquisite things which will fascinate every intelligent thinker, because the process by which they have been brought into existence is one that allows the most complete realisation of great imaginative ideas. It abounds with subtleties which are infinitely suggestive to the possessor of the true artistic temperament, and it will lead him on to heights of expres- sion unattainable by any other mode of practice. So many ways of arriving at his results are, moreover, open to him that he need never fear that he will be hampered by the unresponsiveness of the medium ; the limitations which he has to fear are those of his own personality; nothing will check his progress more than any inability on his part to perceive the direction in which he should turn in his striving after success.
BUT, at the same time, etching in all its form is an uncertain art, or rather it is uncertain when it is used by an artist who is ambitious. If its processes are made mechanical and kept in regular sequence by a code of rules, it will give only mechanical results which will satisfy no one but the man who is cursed with commonplace instincts and an unimaginative nature. It will cease to be spontaneous and will become merely mannered and pedantically correct, losing thereby some of its noblest qualities and gaining nothing but an aspect of superficial completeness. In the hands, however, of an artist who willingly risks failures in the hope that he may achieve something of memorable importance it is capable of endless surprises, for it will vary strangely in response to his moods. Its results may be fantastic, exaggerated, contrary to all precedent, but even when they are obviously wrong, they will be neither tame nor stupid, and when they are right they will probably be exquisitely attractive. At least they will never have the smug and soulless perfection of mechanism which the unaspiring craftsman is content to attain. THE reasons for this uncertainty are to be sought partly in the temperament of the etcher, and partly in the technical complexities of the art itself. The first essential for success is enthusiasm, a love of the work for its own sake, and a resolve to be daunted by no diffi- culties that may arise to hamper the worker's progress. The
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enthusiast, when the fit is on him, will attack cheerfully the most complicated problems, and will triumph over them by sheer brilliance of inspiration and strength of will, but even a momentary slackening of his determination, or the slightest yielding to a feeling of dis- couragement, will suffice to put him hopelessly off the right track and to involve him in a maze of perplexities from which there is no escape. Even when his enthusiasm is at its highest, there may come difficulties which he cannot surmount, and he has to confess himself beaten. Some etchers, indeed, profess to regard their art as one that is made up of accidents, happy and unhappy, and to find its very unexpectedness a source of delight. But such an attitude towards it is a little too fanciful ; there is beyond doubt a very con- siderable amount of knowledge of its peculiarities to be obtained by serious study, and there are many practical details which can be reduced to order by a man who makes reasonably methodical investi- gations. How he applies his practical knowledge must, of course, depend upon himself. If he is of a wavering temperament and inclined to stray about, he may meet with more than a fair proportion of accidents, but if he has a passably stable disposition he will know well enough what lapse in his own judgment has caused him to fail, or what keying up of his nervous energies has brought success within his grasp.
IF, then, the personality of the etcher has so much to do with the character of the plates that he executes, it is possible to give the English school credit for the possession of an unusual number of members who are liberally endowed with the right mental qualities. During the last few years there has been produced in this country a very considerable amount of etched work which satisfies all the necessary conditions of spontaneity, originality and sympathy with nature, and has besides a large measure of admirable technical strength. Some of this work is worthy to rank with the best that has come from any school, much of it is decidedly above the average, and even among those examples which have to be reckoned as failures there is unquestionable evidence of well-intentioned effort to avoid the easier commonplaces that content the mere journeyman engraver. Of course the good things have to be sifted out of a mass of stuff which makes no pretence of being original in even a minor degree, but quite enough of them can be found to repay the trouble of investigation.
ONE excellent point which must be noted about our native school at its best is that it covers a very wide ground. The variety of invention which is shown by the men who belong to it, and their
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readiness to seize upon all kinds of material that seems susceptible of artistic treatment, are worthy of the highest praise. They do not merely follow in the track of one or two masters, nor are they content simply to repeat what others have done ; their obvious desire is to give fair play to their own independence of thought and their particular individualities of expression. Even those etchers who plainly reflect the practice of the teachers from whom they received their grounding of technical knowledge show in a number of cases that they are capable of giving new readings of the facts that they have learned. Generally, indeed, there is to be perceived a whole- some spirit of originality which, despite occasional aberrations, has called into existence an array of sound and interesting works of art illustrating with complete adequacy most of the worthier applications of the craft of etching.
IT is in figure drawing, perhaps, that English etchers are least successful. We have no one in this country who approaches M. Paul Helleu in graceful elegance of design and supple freedom of expression, and certainly none of our artists can be compared to him as a brilliant exponent of what is most attractive in the modern type of humanity. Nor have we a master like Mr. Anders Zorn who combines in perfect proportion certainty of draughtsmanship and masculine confidence in the use of the best devices of etching. But at least we can claim, by virtue of his long residence amongst us, M. Legros as one of our chief art leaders, and we can point to an important group of younger Englishmen who owe to his example and instruction some of the best qualities of their practice. Such artists as Mr. W. Strang, Mr. Charles Holroyd, Mr. Gascoyne, and others who were trained by M. Legros at the Slade School or at South Kensington, take high rank in this country and illustrate in their methods of working some decidedly original views about the application of aesthetic principles.
THEN there is another group of the pupils and followers of Professor von Herkomer, which includes several of the most prominent of present-day workers in various forms of engraving. The Professor himself, by his own performances as an etcher and a mezzotinter, and by his invention of a process of " plate painting," which makes possible the exact reproduction of an artist's own handiwork, has earned an indisputable right to be reckoned as one of the most versatile and capable masters of the craft, and by his ability as a teacher he has made upon the art of this country a mark which can never be effaced. He has done much to simplify the complicated processes of etching by ingenious adaptations of the older technicalities;
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he has devised various short cuts to results which were previously attainable only by prolonged and often uncertain labour ; and he has imparted to others a full share of his well-directed and intelligent enthusiasm. From these two groups is coming annually a great deal that is very significant and decidedly promising artistically. INDEED, though there are among the etchers of figure subjects only a few who are entitled to be placed in the first rank, the list of capable craftsmen who deserve to be seriously considered is by no means a small one, and it is in its way thoroughly representative. There are Mr. Mortimer Menpes, Mr. Jacomb Hood, Mr. R. W. Macbeth, Mr. D. A. Wehrschmidt, Mr. Norman Hirst, Mr. A. W. Bayes, Mr. George Roller, Mr. William Hole, Miss Cormack, Mr. E. G. Hester, Mr. J. C. Webb, Mr. J. B. Pratt, Mr. Macbeth- Raeburn, and others whose understanding of different forms of engraving is displayed in a long series of plates, some original and some reproductions of pictures. Every now and again there comes from one or other of these artists something of real excellence, something to remind us that the great ideals which were respected in past generations are still being kept alive, and that the desire for admirable achievement is as active as ever.
THE number of etchers who occupy themselves principally or entirely with landscapes and studies of architectural motives is notably large, and their record is memorable for its compre- hensiveness and for its revelation of true sympathy with nature. Much of the work which comes into this class is inspired by unusual understanding of refinements of line composition and by a delightful appreciation of subtleties of atmospheric effect, and is especially happy in its translation of gradations of tone and colour into suggestive black and white. What may be called the common- place view of nature, with its exaltation of trivial detail and its neglect of decorative arrangement and fine adjustment of masses of light and dark, is not often taken by the men who can be regarded as representative of our landscape etchers. They aim by preference at a nobler treatment of the motives which they select, and if they fail it is because they chance at times to attempt what is beyond their powers of expression. Theirs is the honourable failure which can be forgiven readily enough on account of the splendid ambition which prompted the effort ; it does not come from want of courage or from a disposition to be satisfied with little things.
BUT it would not be difficult to collect instances of the fortunate realisation of really great intentions. In the work of Mr. Frank 6
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Short, with his excellent draughtsmanship and sound sense of style, Mr. F. V. Burridge, with his large freedom of touch, Mr. D. Y. Cameron, Mr. E. W. Charlton, Mr. C. J. Watson, Mr. Wilfrid Ball, Mr. Thomas Huson, Mr. Alfred Hartley, Sir J. C. Robinson, Colonel Goff, Mr. R. E. J. Bush, and Sir F. Seymour Haden, the combination of sensitive study and strong expression is wholly fascinating ; and a not less correct appreciation of the etcher's mission in the art world is to be credited to artists like Mr. T. Irving Dalgliesh, Mr. Fred Slocombe, Mr. J. G. Murray, Mr. Oliver Baker, Mr. Alfred East, Mr. John Finnic, Mr. Arthur Robertson, Mr. Lawrence B. Phillips, Mr. F. Laing, Miss C. M. Pott, Mr. H. Van Raalte, Mr. T. T. Rowe, Miss C. G. Copeman, Mr. David Waterson, Miss M. A. Sloane, Mr. H. R. Robertson, Miss M. Bolingbroke, Mr. F. W. Goolden, Miss C. M. Nichols, Mr. W. Kiddier, and Mr. Joseph Knight. Then there are men like Mr W. Hole and M. Legros, who handle landscapes and figure-subjects with almost equal power. In all directions can be found good things which are worthy of attention from all students of contemporary art history and from all lovers of unaffected and earnest endeavour. IT is an encouraging sign that there should be now among the members of the English school a widespread belief in the importance of a generous interpretation of the technical responsibility of the etcher. Every worker is at liberty to choose the mode of practice that suits best his point of view and will aid him most satisfactorily to convey his impression of nature to other people. He is not rigidly bound down to observe narrow rules, and he need not fear that he will be denied recognition because he is impatient of all restrictions likely to limit his freedom of expression. Many of the older conventions have disappeared, and with them the pedantic insistence upon the idea that every one who might have the will and the ability to strike out for himself a new way apart from the beaten track must necessarily be a heretic and an unbeliever. This widening of opportunity has not, however, led to anything like extravagance. The sincerity of the better type of artists who practise the craft is quite beyond question ; they have not relaxed in the smallest degree their respect for Nature's authority, and plainly they value their freedom most because it helps them to realise something of her infinite variety.
A. L. BALDRY.
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PLATE 30 — " ON THE MOORS "
FROM THE MEZZOTINT BY A. C. MEYER, A.R.E. (Bv tcrmission of the Publishers, Messrs. Frost and Reed, Bristol)
PLATE 31 — "WHITBY HARBOUR"
FROM THE ETCHING BY FRED W. GOOLDEN
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PLATE 34 — " EVERY LITTLE HELPS A LITTLE " FROM THE ETCHING BY CONSTANCE G. COPEMAN, A.R.E.
PLATE 35 — "A BEND IN A MOUNTAIN STREAM' FROM THE MEZZOTINT BY JOHN FINNIE, R.E.
(By permission of the Publishers, Messrs. Frost and Reed, Bristol)
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PLATE 36 — "THE LITTLE COPSE"
FROM THE ETCHING BY DAVID WATERSON, A.K.K.
PLATE 37 — "A PIPING SHEPHERD'
FROM THE MEZZOTINT BY DAVID WATERSON, A.R.E.
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PLATE 39 — "DRIZZLE"
DRAWN, ETCHED, AND ENGRAVED BY THOMAS HUSON, R.E.
PLATE 40— "THE HILL SIDE"
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY T. IRVING DALGLIESH, K.E.
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PLATE 44 — "ON THE WAY TO PORT'
FROM THE ETCHING BY WILLIAM KIDDIER
PLATE 45—" OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE '•'
FROM THE AQUATINT BY FRANK SHORT, R.E.
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"A DOCKYARD ON THE THAMES" FROM THE ETCHING BY FRANK BRANGWYN
PLATE 46
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PLATE 47 — " THE KING "
FROM THE ETCHING BY HERBERT D1CKSEE,- R.E.
(By permission of the Publishers, Messrs. Frost and Reed, Bristol)
PLATE 48— " ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE'
FROM THE ETCHING BY L. B. PHILLIPS, A.R.E.
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"PORTRAITS OF THE LATE CECIL RHODES." FROM THE ETCHINGS BY MORTIMER MENPES, R.E.
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"A STKEET IN PERUGIA." FROM THE ETCHING BY R. G. REASON PLATE 54
MODERN ETCHING @> ENGRAV- ING IN AMERICA. BY WILL JENKINS.
HE many and varied artistic possibilities of line have each year been more intelligently practised by the American artist and better appreciated by the general public, and a brilliant school of wood engravers followed by a yet more brilliant school of pen draughtsmen whose work has appeared in well printed periodicals of large circulation, has produced a better public taste and a rapidly increasing interest in the graphic arts.
A DEFINITE revival of interest in etching means a move towards raising the standard of public taste by a wider diffusion of things of real beauty and of sufficient monetary value to prompt a careful consideration of their merits. Again, a good etchiqg|besides being a thing of beauty is always an intellectual treat ; it is so^' autographic," so closely characterised by the artist's actual touch that the student of it is almost able to feel the charm of the studio circle and to understand something of such a subtle atmosphere. MR. WHISTLER has said that " in Art it is criminal to go beyond the means used in its exercise." This is a canon which he has not only preached but conscientiously practised, and by so doing he has exerted very great influence on 'the work of American etchers. Many- sided worker and enthusiast, he has by sheer virtuosity, coupled with nobility of conception and conscientiously serious aims, triumphantly reached and maintained a higher position as an etcher than any artist of his time. He has not reached his position without opposition. It has been given to few modern artists to meet such unfair and bitter criticism from the highest in authority (at one time in England) as he has in years past had to battle against. Now happily his great- ness is fully acknowledged, and no modern artist can justly claim so many appreciative and devoted admirers. He has earnestly striven with the greatest devotion to his ideals, unhampered by weakness of conception or lack of power, to express the full realisation of any message he has desired to impart. To the artist or connoisseur his works are the highest examples of lofty purpose and graceful poetic expression in modern etching. Equally versatile as painter, etcher or lithographer, he seizes with supreme and masterly grace the innermost
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character of his subjects, and powerfully projects his statements with invariable refinement and by the most economical and effective means. He is sometimes almost epigrammatic in his manner of saying so much with so few lines or touches, and his work glows with the dramatic intensity of rich masses. It is now more than forty years since the " French Series " — The Cabaret, The Unsafe Tenement^ and others — were followed by the better known " Thames Series," each plate of which is a veritable gem of " portraiture " of the picturesque river subjects of that time. These first groups,, masterly as they are, were but the beginning of the most remarkable number of plates produced by any modern etcher, to which year by year he has added something from many and diverse motives. Shipping, buildings, figures, portraits, canals, docks, streets of London, Paris, Venice, Holland, Belgium, or the French Provinces, have all been subject to the magic of his touch. The total number of pages here available for American work would not afford sufficient space for even a briefly annotated catalogue of his important achievements in etching, to say nothing of the other branches of art in which he has with so much distinction exerted his personality. Happily he is to-day as vigorous and as active a force in art as ever. IN the foremost group of American painter-etchers stands the work of Charles A. Platt. Distinguished alike for vigorous brilliancy and richness of effects, it shows that he has every variety of technical means at his disposal, and is a master of each in some special way. Exceptionally gifted with versatility, he has employed his skill in many different directions.
STEPHEN PARRISH is an etcher whose work teems with interest regardless of the particular subject dealt with. Whether he is rendering the clear sunlight of Pennsylvania or the deeper notes of the lower Canadian Provinces, his style is always full of interest and rich in every line and mass. No American's work shows more forcibly how their country abounds in good subjects. There is a certain paucity of native subject in the work of most American painters and etchers, probably due to lack of example such as the European artist has constantly at his elbow. If the European be painting this or that phase of a landscape, he can with little trouble study masterly examples and traditions of how to solve his problems. He may see how Daubigny did this or Rousseau that ; how carefully Constable studied the various stages of the growth of a tree from month to month throughout the seasons, or with what decisive strength he painted a cloud form or a bit of foreground. The American etchers have had to look for technical example in work 2
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based on subjects foreign to tbeir own country, and have in conse- quence greatly neglected possibilities nearer at hand. Mr. Parrish is one of the men who has been able to both see and feel the greatness of the old master-etchers, and to grasp their technical methods with sufficient understanding to enable him to practise on any theme with equal force and enthusiasm.
THAT brilliant pen-draughtsman illustrator, Otto Bacher, has practised etching with accomplished skill and with a simplicity of execution which gives his work unusual force with no lack of effectiveness. His Venice plates are among the best performances by any American. His grip of locale and ability to manage with ease the complicated groupings of boats, masts, cordage and the dazzling, fascinating undulation of water reflections in brilliant sun- light, have enabled him to produce plates that are never lacking in either pictorial or technical interest.
FRANK DUVENECK is an artist who has accomplished many important plates. Versatile to a degree both as painter and etcher, he has a masterly command of line and is always able to express himself with intense dignity and polished grace of handling. Much of his best work has been done in Italy.
SEVERAL members of that talented family, the Morans, have found a distinguished position as painter-etchers. Thomas Moran may be styled the artistic discoverer of the beauties of the south-west of America. His dramatic pictures of the Yellowstone Region have earned him an unique position in American art. A dreamer like Turner, he has painted Venice and the Orient with imaginative fervour. His etchings are conspicuous for technical facility and rhetorical force. His line has a wonderful quality of nervous vitality that adds interest to all his plates. Peter Moran has also devoted himself to the south-west, and has painted much from the picturesque life of the Pueblos. In most of his work animals are an important part of his subject. His landscapes with cattle are happily rendered and conspicuous for good drawing. The late MRS. NIMMO MORAN also attained a position of distinction as an etcher. Her work is a striking example of how much can be accomplished with simple undisguised line, softened only by such mellowness as the paper and the glow of rich inks will give. WALTER L. LATHROP is an etcher who knows how to make the most of line, and in handling it to show much versatile grace and variety. His splendid series of Connecticut country landscapes are teeming with both technical interest and the charming atmosphere of a picturesque native locality.
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JOSEPH PENNELL has not only shown his ability as an etcher, but also as a writer. As a black-and-white draughtsman few men have equalled his output for the past twenty years. At the last Paris Exhibition the only gold medal of the 1st class awarded in the American section fell to him as an etcher.
MRS. ANNA LEA MERRITT first attained distinction as a portrait painter, and afterwards as the writer of the life of her late husband, Henry Merritt, artist and author. She turned her attention to etching as a means suited to the illustration of her own work. She has executed many charming plates, principally portraits of dis- tinguished men and women of the time, with an occasional plate ol river scenery, landscape, or interpretations of her own paintings. Her vigorous portraits of Miss Ellen Terry and a large head of Mr. Leslie Stephen arc striking examples of good etching. ELLEN OAKFORD has done much that is good in landscape etching ; strong in tonality, her work has much of the subtle glowing charm of moist growth and outdoor atmosphere. More of an exponent of painty masses than of flowing, sparkling lines, her work is always satisfying and charming in its own especial way. ESSENTIALLY a practitioner of the brilliant uses of line, the work of Edith Loring Getchell is vigorous, original and effective without affectation. She has practised dry-point with much success, and found her motives in Holland and France, as well as in her own New England scenery. Her hand is particularly sympathetic to all that is beautiful in foliation and growth of trees, atmospheric or climatic conditions of light, and those subtleties of nature best adapted to expression with the point.
D. SHAW MACLAUGHLAN is an accomplished young artist who first studied in the usual academic courses, but has found in the art of etching a form of expression far more suited to his artistic bent. Deeply conscious of the towering greatness of Rembrandt, Durer and the older masters of line, he has set himself the task of learning all in his power of the good that appeals to him in the works of such great men. It follows that such devoted enthusiasm to an ideal is bound to produce good work; Mr. MacLaughlan has proved this already by his many charming and vigorously original plates. A well-known exhibitor both in America and Europe, honours and medals have already begun to come to him. In such an acomplished artist and conscientious student of good etching, great things may be expected from his clever hand in the years to come. ARTHUR A. LEWIS is another young artist who is devoting his talents to the best ideals of pure etching. Strong in his use of line,
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he is also most happy in achieving a velvety richness in his work with very conscientious and clever style in his composition. He is par- ticularly happy with figure subjects. Keenly grasping all the essentials, he draws them with charming grace and striking originality of style. GEORGE C. AID strikes a modern, graceful note in his work, permeated with much artistic thought and sympathy with nature. A thorough student of his art, he has most consistently studied the subject, and practises with conviction and much promise for the future. IT is not surprising that so talented a water-colour painter and illustrator as Sidney R. Burleigh should turn his hand to etching with conspicuous success. With unusual refinement of draughtsman- ship and brilliancy of handling such as he possesses in all mediums, Mr. Burleigh might be among the foremost of American etchers. CHARLES W. STETSON is an artist who is exceptionally gifted with individuality and power as a colourist. More strongly imaginative than most men of his school, whatever he touches is at once marked with those indescribable qualities which make such works stand alone. He is voted a " genius " among his friends, and so he is ; no school, no teaching, nothing but a natural fund of deep originality, can do what he has done with rich, deep, glowing, radiant colour. THE late Thomas Hovendcn, who reached such a prominent position as a painter of American genre, practised etching with much success. Essentially an exponent of character, his figure plates were always handled with both breadth and richness of detail. JULIAN RIX as an etcher has done many clever plates, always handled with much fertility of line expression and with sympathy for tone and rich colour.
W. C. BAUER is strong in his grasp of landscape drawing in all its different phases. Dignified in composition, with an intimate know- ledge of his subjects, his plates are always seriously managed and pleasing in final effects.
OTIS WEBBER'S work, rich in tonality, is handled with a sympathetic line well expressing the different moods of nature. C. F. W. MEILATZ possesses a power of rendering a great variety of subject-matter with success. Bulk and masses of architecture, characteristics of streets, people and buildings, he sets down always with grace and conviction.
THE late W. Goodrich Beal was most accomplished in his land- scape plates ; every tree, rock, hillside, cloud, or bit of foreground found conscientious consideration from him as to its placing, size, relation and character. His compositions were always managed with a keen grasp of the relation of all the parts to his motive.
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J. A. S. MONKS has done excellent work with the etching needle. A brilliant painter of landscape, sheep and cattle, his etchings are based on solid knowledge and are handled with skill and taste. EDMUND H. GARRETT, painter, author, illustrator, and designer, has devoted himself to etching as a means of illustrating a certain beautiful series of books, and has achieved his purpose with marked artistic ability.
R. SWAIN GIFFORD has done many excellent plates, as has also J. D. Smillie, who has successfully devoted his ability to many pro- cesses— line, soft ground, aquatint, mezzotint, and dry-point. One of the classes at the National Academy is employed in etching from life under his able direction.
THOSE excellent painters, Robert Blum and W. Chase, are both accomplished etchers, but have produced nothing recently. ROBERT F. BLOODGOOD has done some very artistic plates, two of which he was good enough to contribute to this number. These, together with one by E. H. Garrett, it was found impossible to reproduce satisfactorily, and they were regretfully omitted. That clever marine painter, Carlton Chapman, also sent some excellent things, as did Frederick W. Freer and J. A. S. Monks, all of which unfortunately arrived too late to be included.
IT is not possible to include here the names of all those who might justly claim mention under the title of American etchers, neither would it serve any definite purpose to do so. The following artists, in addition to those already mentioned, have been more or less prominent as etchers at various times in the past decade, and their examples and teachings will be a powerful influ- ence towards the revival of this art, a revival which now seems more possible than was the case a few years ago.
J. M. GAUGENGIGL, Alfred Brennan, J. W. Twachtman, Charles Corwin, C. A. Vanderhoof, Bernard Walter Priestman, George L. Brown, T. W. Wood, J. M. Falconer, F. S. Church, H. Farrer, J. C. Nicoll, F. Dielman, H. P. Share, Walter Saterlee, Otto Schneider, B. Lauder, Hamilton Hamilton, Ernest Haskell, James S. King, J. Lauber, Samuel Coleman, Frank Waller, C. Volkmar, Ernest C. Post, C. A. Walker, Charles H. Woodbury, H. D. Murphy, W. G. Glackens, W. H. H. Bicknell, Frank Bicknell, Sidney Smith, H. R. Blaney, G. G. McCutcheon, Frank Waller, G. D. Clements, Elliot Dangerfield, Katherine Lewin, W. H. Skelton, J. Fagin, Krausman Van-Elten, J. J. Calaghan, J. G. L. Ferris, Frank M. Gregory, J. F. Sabin, W. St. J. Harper, Stephen J. Ferris, Herman Hyneman, W. E. Marshall, C. F. Kimball, Eric Pape, and R. Coxe.
WILL JENKINS.
American
"CAMEO NO. i." FROM THE ETCHING BY J. MCNEILL WHISTLER
PLATE 2
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PLATE 3 — " A WINTRY EVENING '
FROM THE ETCHING BY W. C. BAUER
(Bv permission of Mr. C. Klachner)
PLATE 4 — " TWILIGHT "
FROM THE ETCHING BY ELLEN OAKFORD
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PLATE 6 — " LIDO, VENICE "
FROM THE ETCHING BY OTTO H. BACKER
PLATE 7 — "THE HOUR OF REST'
FROM THE ETCHING BY PETER MORAN
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PLATE 14 — " AN EBB TIDE '
FROM THE ETCHING BY OTIS S. WEBER
(By permission of Mr. C. Klackner)
PLATE 15 — "AUTUMN ON THE PASSAIC RIVER
FROM THE ETCHING BY JULIAN RIX
(By Permission of Mr. C. Klackner)
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(By permission of Mr. C. Klackntr)
"DEM WAS GOOD OLE DAYS." FROM THE ETCHING BY THE LATE THOMAS HOVENDEN
PLATE 16
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PLATE 17 — "STUDY OF A HEAD" FROM THE ETCHING BY SYDNEY RICHMOND BURLEIGH
PLATE 18 — "ON THE MERRIMAC'
FROM THE ETCHING BY THE LATE W. GOODRICH HEAL (By tirmission of Mr. C. Klachner)
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PLATE 19 — PORTRAIT OF LOUIS AGASSIZ FROM THE ETCHING BY ANNA LEA MERRITT
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PLATE 20 — "A FISHERMAN'S FORTUNE"
FROM THE ETCHING BY EDITH L. GETCHELL
(By permission of Mr. C. Klackner)
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PLATE 21 — " DESDEMONA'S HOUSE "
FROM THE ETCHING BY FRANK DUVENECK
PLATE 22 — " WILLIAMSBURG '
FROM THE ETCHING BY CHARLES A. PLATT
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{By permission of Mr. Frederick Keppel)
"THE MARKET SLIP, ST. JOHN, N.B., AT EBB TIDE." FROM THE ETCHING BY CHARLES A. PLATT
PLATE 23
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MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN FRANCE. BY GABRIEL MOUREY.
URING the past few years engraving on metal in France has been going through an evolution analogous to that in lithography. Etching in colour is gradually and almost entirely replacing, in the esteem of connoisseurs, etching strictly so- called, dry-point etching in monochrome, and the work done with the burin or graver. Nor has it been otherwise with lithography ; public taste has recently veered round to drawings on stone, of which the more or less audacious, and more or less rich polychromatic effects, constitute the sole merit, so that the studies in monochrome of a Steinlen or a Willette impress many as belonging to a time long gone by.
IN the course of two articles on Coloured Etchings in France, which appeared in "The STUDIO" for February and March 1901, I endeavoured to define in a few words the different methods followed in the technique of this special branch of art. May I be permitted to revert here to a question interesting for so many reasons not only to artists themselves but to connoisseurs and collectors ? I was, moreover, at considerable pains to make the information I gave last year complete, by addressing myself to the man who is best acquainted in France, if not in the whole of Europe, with the secrets of etching in colour. I allude to Eugene Delatre, the engraver and printer, son of Auguste Delatre, of whom Castagnary justly said that if he had lived at the time of Rembrandt, that great etcher would not have had to take impressions of his engravings himself; Auguste Delatre, to whom Felicien Rops wrote that curious treatise on Gravure au vernts mou, or etching on a soft ground, which serves as an appendix to his Eauforte, Pointe-Seche et Verms mou (etching, dry-point, and soft-ground etching), which every etcher or engraver ought to read.
M. EUGENE DELATRE was, with M. Charles Maurin, one of the first engravers to yield to the fascination of etching in colour ; he it is who has struck off the greater number of etchings in colour which have so far appeared, for at the present day artists who print their own etchings are quite in the minority.
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THERE are three distinct processes of etching in colour. In the first only one plate is used, the colour is laid on in the manner known as a la poupee,* and the number of impressions that may be taken is practically illimitable.
IN the second process two plates are used, one for the outline and the shadows, the other for the colour or colours, care being taken to print from the plate with the colour first, and that with the outline and shadows last.
IN the third process one plate is required for each colour, and as many impressions are taken as there are plates ; but I was told by M. Delatre that with four plates every combination of colour can be obtained. THERE still remains the so-called monotype process, which is, as is well known, a painting on metal, generally on copper, which is passed through the press before the colour is completely dry. It would appear that monotypes can also be produced on zinc. The drawing is done with lithographic chalk, and similar colouring is used as in etching in colour a la poupee. The chalk drawing can only bear the taking of five or six impressions at the most, for the outlines become more and more effaced in each proof.
FOR reasons which will be readily appreciated I will not dwell longer on these technical questions. Those who actually practise any craft have, of course, an experience impossible to an outsider, and the critic who pretends to bring his personal opinion to bear on the subject, lays himself open to a charge of pedantry. And after all what do the processes employed matter ? it is the results which count, the results which speak for themselves, and it is our mission to state what those results are. The art of the engraver is indeed of all the graphic arts the most involved in mystery, the most unique, and, at the same time, on account of its infinite resources, the most wide reaching in its results. What a gulf yawns between the style of a Meryon and a Gaillard, a Lepere and a Rops, a Jacquemart and a Whistler, a Braquemond and a Helleu. "Men achieve good results," says Felicien Rops in the letter to Auguste Delatre, alluded to above, " by the use of the most diverse, the most opposite means. That which suits one will not suit another. I think much the same may be said of all dogmas, academic formula? and recipes for success as the dictum of a celebrated doctor, who, after giving it due trial, declared of a remedy for cholera that it was excellent for masons but utterly bad for cabinet makers." AMONGST the engravers who have devoted themselves most exclu-
* The poupee or doll is a bunch of rags used in this process.
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sively to monochromatic etching a first place must be given to Auguste Lepere. I have no fear that any artist or connoisseur will reproach me for naming him as one of the masters of French etching, if not the master par excellence of the day. Lepere is incomparable in his knowledge of how to express motion and life, he is a draughts- man of the highest rank, and has a most admirable grasp of technique. Every fresh plate engraved by him proves him to be a yet more complete master of his craft, and shows that his outlook is ever widening, his execution ever gaining fresh ease, his art becoming ever more and more original and personal. The series of etchings he brought back from Holland last year is an illustration of the constant progress I have described. However great the excellence attained by Lepere in his wonderful engravings we are quite sure to find him taking one step further in advance in his next productions. How exquisitely beautiful are his views of Amsterdam ; what life, what go, there is in them ; what decision of touch, what variety of effect in the biting in ; what intensity of colour they display. WE discussed so recently in " The STUDIO " the talent of M. Edgar Chahine that it is not desirable to say more here than is necessary to do justice to the more recent plates of that very original artist. His Portrait of Mdlle. Df/vatr, of the Comedie Fran9aise, which is full of refinement and insight into character, the Feather Boa and Jaby, the last representing the exquisite face of a young girl leaning on her elbow and resting her chin on her hands, her beautiful light hair crowned by a big grey hat, prove him to be endowed with the greatest versatility. But however sensible he may be of the charms of the women of the day, Edgar Chahine is no less successful in his study of typical scenes in popular resorts.
THERE is, perhaps, less sharpness and distinctness about the Paris scenes of Eugene Bejot, but they are even more pleasing. He excels in catching momentary effects, especially on the banks of the Seine, which are full of unexpected surprises in colour and perspective. GUSTAVE LEHEUTRE is another artist devoted to characteristic city scenes : the old streets and quaint old houses, &c., which he sees with the true etcher's eye, with the dry-point, so to speak, and he has produced a number of etchings full of charm. A conscientious draughtsman, he wields the etching tools with a delicacy of execution combined with a decision of touch which often result in the pro- duction of real masterpieces. How delightful, for instance, are his Maison de Garde, Tanneries a Monfargis, L' Impasse Gambey, Troyes, Ecluse du Treport, and Bateaux parisiens a Auteuil, full as they are of audacious effects of perspective.
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HELLEU is as ever the fascinating wielder of the diamond-point whom we all know so well, the masterly interpreter of the grace and elegance of the fashionable woman of the day. We are never weary of admiring him, for he is always, as has been justly said, «qual to himself; nay, even superior to himself. What could be more exquisite than his recent studies of the Duchess of M— —, one of the great ladies of the English aristocracy, especially that of La Duchesse de M— - Endormie, with her favourite fox terrier on her knees; or, to quote another example, the study of Mme. Madeleine C— —, full of typically Parisian distinction ; or, again, that most admirable scene of maternal affection, Jean Helleu embrasse par sa Mere, and Les Saxes, which is a fitting pendant to the celebrated dry-point called the Dessins de Watteau au Louvre.
GREAT indeed and full of strange fascination is the contrast when we turn from Helleu to consider the work of Steinlen, full as it is of profound melancholy, even tragedy ; for, with his deep insight into the life of the people of Paris, he transports us into the very atmosphere of the faubourgs, revealing the vice and misery under- lying the brilliant society of the capital.
STEINLEN is, in my opinion, especially successful in his etchings in black and white. His Amoureux de Village, Pauvre Here, Le Bouge, Rentree du Travail, A Concert in the Street, and certain of his land- scapes, such as the Effet de Soleil couchant sur un Pont, are especially noteworthy, so full are they of entrancing charm. These etchings, in fact, simply palpitate with truth and emotion ; their drawing and composition are alike excellent.
VERY different in style, but equally sincere in their interpretation of nature, are the engravings of the Dutchman, M. P. Dupont, who resides in Paris, and on that account has a right with the Armenian, M. Chahine, to be noticed here.
M. DUPONT has assimilated the technique of the German masters in engraving of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with rare skill and intelligence, but at the same time he has given a thoroughly personal impress to his own work. Except for one Amsterdam scene, the Groote Toren, I have scarcely seen anything of his but studies of horses — all strong dray or farm animals — notably The Fallen Horse, LOutillage, and the Cheval ma ngeant. In them the artist has shown himself thoroughly in touch with his subjects, interpreting in each case expression, gesture, attitude — in a word the special ego of every one of his models with a really touching tenderness ; for his horses, whether in the open country or on the quays of Paris, are full of individual life and character. M. Dupont is,
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in fact, an artist of the first rank and his name deserves to be remembered.
IN his etchings in black and white and in colour Charles Huard continues to interpret with great success the life of fisher folk, sailors, old country women, and other types of provincial life, observing their peculiarities with infinite care. His Viellle Femme reprisant pres d'une fenetre and In the Snow at Bel-Air are amongst the best of his signed works.
M. GASTON EY'CHENNE has also produced some studies of animals which are really little masterpieces. His La Carpe, Papillon jaune, and Petite Panthere are specially noteworthy. He is a thorough lover of delicate and subtle effects of colour, an earnest student of nature, and everything from his hand has a permanent charm of its own. — [As we go to press we have heard, with the greatest regret, of the death, at the early age of twenty-nine years, of this very talented and sympathetic artist. — EDITOR.] M. CHARLES HOUDARD confines himself more and more strictly as time goes on to the effects of sunset, in which he has attained such wonderful richness of colouring.
M. MULLER is an artist of considerable power and versatility. His portraits of actresses, especially that of Cleo de Merode, are very quaint. For myself, however, I prefer his Baigneuse sous les Saules ; Rue St. Vincent — a winter snow effect full of force and charm — Port du Pollet, and his Promenade a Hyde Park, etchings in colour in which he has obtained effects of rare delicacy and subtle refinement. M. CHARLES MAURIN is one of the very few artists who has attempted to treat the nude figure in the medium of etching. His morning and evening toilettes of young girls, his studies of girls or women bathing, chatting together in deshabille in the privacy of their own rooms, and scenes from the home life of mothers and children, are full of the greatest charm. The only fault I have to find with them is that they are, perhaps, too precise in drawing and in colouring, but some few of them have all the interest of the most charming genre paintings, notably the Ruban de Coiffure, Nowvelle education sentimentale, Premiere Toilette, and the Bain de lafillette. M. MANUEL ROBBE possesses in the very highest degree the same mastery of technique as M. Charles Maurin, but he is less perfect as a draughtsman. Some of his signed proofs are full of incomparable charm, especially, in my opinion, those in which there is the least colour — La critique, for instance, in which a young woman is standing in a delightful pose in front of an easel. The Dame a la chaise longue also pleases me greatly. The versatility of M. Robbe's
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talent is just as clearly displayed as in his scenes of intimate home life in his landscapes with figures, such as the Marche a Montmartre, Dans le Pare, Lever de Lune, the Vieil Arbre, and Aux champs, all fine renderings of typical outdoor subjects full of admirable effects of light. THE scenes of Parisian life of M. Richard Ranft are full of humour and imagination. In such typical works as his Marche a la Volatile and La Charrette anglaise he delights in striking schemes of colour, full of cheerful harmony.
M. FRANCIS JOURDAIN continues to seek his effects by contrasting masses of dark tone, achieving ever more striking and impressive results, but at the same time always retaining the decorative character of his work. As an etcher in colours he occupies an unique position, and I know nothing more charming than his Femme dans r Ombre, Femme lisant, or his Femme au canape, the last a charming study in grey and pink, relieved by the dull gold of the hair and the soft black of the velvet collar.
M. BERNARD DE MONVEL has produced little during the last year. If I am not mistaken only two plates, namely, the Bar — one of those curious studies to which he owes his celebrity — and his Before the Storm, which resembles a little too much his Haleurs, although the colouring is different.
THE plates engraved by M. Eugene Delatre are simply perfect, so wonderfully strong is his technique. In my opinion, it would be quite impossible for any one to attain to greater delicacy, refinement, softness, and depth of tone. It is an absolute delight to turn over his series of Landscapes, vibrating with the light of early morning with the mists of the dawn still clinging to them. To cite but a few, how charming are the Entree du Village de Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, the Moulin de L'Epais, the Pommiers, and the Brumes sur la Sarthe. Very different, but equally striking, are the Pont Solferino, a night effect, with the lights reflected in the humid gloom of the reddish fog ; and most charming are the two studies of cats, Moumoune and Marquis, whilst in the Vieille Femme aux Chats is displayed in an equal degree the wonderful insight into character and power of observation which distinguish so many fine works from the hand of M. Eugene Delatre. AMONGST the more recent plates of M. Jacques Villon, all of whose work bears the impress of distinction, the most pleasing are those in which he contents himself with simple effects of colour, in other words those which are the least polychromatic. Specially noticeable are his Parisienne seated in a pink armchair, with her face turned away from the spectator, the whole subject veiled in a kind of grey haze, from which emerges the exquisitely delicate and refined 6
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profile of the young girl, and that most dainty study, full of the elegance of the Second Empire, Les Premiers Beaux yours, with the figure in the blue — such a ravishing blue — costume ; very amusing too are the plates to which the artist has given the names of the Negre en bonne Fortune, the Cabaret de Nuit, and the Ombrelle rouge. THE impressionist painter M. Dezaunay endeavours, with marked success, to give to his etchings the same freshness and brightness of colour as distinguish his canvases. His studies of Breton women, such as the Paysanne de Rosporden, the Petite mendiante de Pleyben, and the Femme etfillette de Ploogastel Daoulas, are simply delightful. TO M. Dubuc we owe some very powerful studies in etching of sea effects. Now he renders with rare skill in his Mourillon the gleam- ing luminous Mediterranean, as a scintillating stretch of blue water, now he becomes tragic and grand in his Vaisseau de Guerre, a mighty man-of-war, breaking the huge waves of the ocean at night, with its smoke trailing behind it and its lamps all aglow. EQUALLY highly must be commended the landscapes of M. E. Viala, etchings in black and white, or very slightly tinged with colour. They are all characterised by broad masses of tone, and there is about them a certain mystery reflecting their artist's peculiar mode of looking at nature. The plate called Humbles 'Terres is a noteworthy example of M. Viala's special excellences. M. ROUX-CHAMPION sees his subjects in a less romantic and less cheerful light. His Pardon is one of his most successful efforts, and, in my opinion, there is much to admire in the colouring of the Robes rouges, the Moulin, and the pleasing impressionist view of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
M. HENRI PAILLARD, the illustrator of Bruges la morte, is evidently not very much in love with the process of etching in colour. His Quais de la Seine, however, is a very pleasing plate, but it is easy to see that the artist is more at home in black and white engraving.
M. L. PIVET'S Coq is a successful bit of decorative work in harmonious colouring ; M. Schuller in his Deux Coqs, and M. J. Angelvy in the two plates called Debuts and Fin d'un Maraudeur, have turned the resources of polychromatic etching to very good effect in their renderings of animals.
MANY other works deserve recognition and examination, full as they are of interest alike from the point of view of their artistic and of their technical value. I must be content, however, with mentioning the fine studies of women by M. Gaston Darbour, especially the Parisienne in a red dress looking at a drawing ; the Dame au Hibou ;
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the Inteneur forain a la Foire de Neuilly by M. Betout, displaying considerable observation and skill of execution; the exquisite Scene d'Interieur of M. V. Dupont, in which a mother is seated sewing near her child perched in a high chair ; the fine studies of flowers by Mdlle. Voruz, which are perhaps rather too Japanese in style ; the series of typical inhabitants and scenes from the street by Sunyer, notably the Place de 1'Abreuvoir a Montmarfre, Grouses assis au Luxem- bourg^ which recall not very happily the manner of Steinlen ; the landscapes of M. A. Lafitte, such as Soira Onival ; the Promenade apres la Course by M. R. Canals, a characteristic Spanish scene ; the land- scapes of the south of France by M. Ralli-Scaramang, which vibrate with life and character; the studies of women by M. E. Roustan, interesting although the execution is rather feeble ; and the Paysage du Bourbonnais of M. P. Maud. Lastly, I must not omit to mention especially the recent engravings in colour of M. Auguste Delatre, the Solitude Marais, the beautiful Moonlight Effect in Scotland, and above all the Storm Effect, a magnificent etching in black and white, in which this master in engraving has attained to a tragic grandeur truly admirable.
WHAT rich and varied results have been achieved in this new art ot etching in colour, how many artists of widely differing temperaments have been enticed to produce by its means works stamped with their own individuality ! In the collections of engravings and museums of the future an important place will be occupied by etchings in colour. French engravers may well pride themselves on having widened the field of monochromatic engraving on metal, and of having revived the art of polychromatic etching; in a word, of having converted it into a prolific and supple process, lending itself to an infinite variety of expression, and capable of being adapted to every kind of artistic temperament, every peculiarity of style.
IN conclusion, let us offer our best thanks to M. Ed. Sagot and M. Charles Hessele, the owners or publishers of the various etchings, reproductions from which form the illustrations of this article.
GABRIEL MOUREY.
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(By permission of M. Ed. Sagot)
"L'IMPASSE GAMBEY, TROVES." FROM THE ETCHING BY G. LEHEUTRE
PLATE 2
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PLATE 9 — " AMSTERDAM '
FROM THE ETCHING BY HENRY PAILLARD
" AMSTERDAM " PLATE 10
FROM THE ETCHING BY AUGUSTE
(By permission of M. Ed. Sagot)
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'QUARTIER DE LA BIEVRE" PLATE 12
FROM THE ETCHING BY AUOUSTE LEPERE
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"THE FALLEN HORSE" PLATE 15
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"MARKET DAY — AVENUE DE CLICHY." FROM THE ETCHING BY EDGAR CHAHINE
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"PAUVRE HERE. A STUDY IN POVERTY." FROM THE ETCHING BY STEINLEN PLATE 23
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"A CONCERT IN THE STREET." FROM THE ETCHING BY STEINLEN PLATE 24
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MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN GERMANY. BY HANS W. SINGER.
HERE was a renaissance of etching in, Germany, as of most of the other forms of art, during the last quarter of last century. Among the men who plied the point seriously before then, and still remain in the foremost ranks, C. A. Meyer-Basel and P. Halm are perhaps the best. Both are known by a large number of delicate landscapes, showing views of Suabia, the northern boundary lines of Switzerland around Lake Constance, and similar regions, seen with an eye which does not feel attracted to landscape in its aspects of grandeur or in its romantic phases, but which loves nature pure and simple, even if it be but a few steps beyond the gates of a city. OF the two Halm has some special claims upon our interest, even above Meyer-Basel. He has with excellent fidelity and grace repro- duced the work of other artists, and designed ornamental work. One of the best proofs of his abilities in this direction is to be found in the magnificent volumes dealing with the collections of Frederic the Great, which were on exhibit in the German Pavilion of the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Moreover Halm is, after a fashion, in spite of his comparative youth, the Nestor of modern etching. FOR it was he who gave technical instruction, as a friend, to Karl Stauffer-Bern, and on the path upon which StaufFer led there after- wards followed Klinger. To Klinger's genius, again, as well as to his success, which called forth a widespread interest in the art, the recent revival is due.
STAUFFER commenced as a portrait-painter and etcher. He was a sculptor at heart, but unfortunately he did not find that out much before the calamity befell him which ended his life. The wearisome, torturing process of elaborating his own ideal, of finding the direction in which his technical talent and the bent of his genius lay, was all evolved on the field of etching. He had a keen eye for form, loved to follow each slight elevation and depression, and continually sought for the best means towards a full and conscientious expression of form. This caused him first to drop the strong line in etching, then to relinquish the point altogether and to take up the
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graver in its place. But he did not use it in the mannered fashion to which the thoughtless successors of Mercuri andToschi had reduced it. He gave up the set " system " and used the graver with as much freedom as etchers do the point. The difference in effect is that the quality of his delicate line helps him to obtain effects of pre- cision and " colour " that the point and bitten line do not yield. As an attainment in the direction of superb " modelling," such plates as Stauffer's portrait of his mother and the reclining nude model, have rarely been surpassed.
KLINGER, originally an etcher in true spirit, underwent transforma- tions like Stauffer, but has lived to complete them. He, too, in the end has become a sculptor at heart. When he was young the exuberance of his fancy impelled him to take to etching and pen draw- ing, for he had more ideas, all struggling to be put to the test, than he could comfortably have painted. From the standpoint of the connoisseur of etching pure and simple, Klinger's earliest work, such as the sets on Ovid and the fable of Cupid and Psyche, are the most pleasing. They are tantalisingly full of odd fancies, but this "literary" character is nevertheless kept in the background. The latter series, such as the Story of a Love, Story of a Life, On Death, are over- whelming as lucubrations of a mind that must be taken seriously. Yet he is beginning to neglect his style, owing to the earnestness with which he endeavours to enforce what he has to say. The latest series, above all the Brahmsphantasie, considered as pure art, show a decline. His powers as a draughtsman are as great as ever, his fancy as vivid and powerful as before, yet his craft has fallen off lamentably. He combines on one plate methods that lack harmony. He keeps the desired effect in view, and makes for it without considering the character of his medium. Now that Klinger has turned sculptor altogether, he has lost the patience, conscientiousness, and lightness of hand which characterised the early period of his career. OF the men whom he particularly impressed, Greiner, Kolbe, Dasio, and Hofer, none but Dasio has devoted much time to engraving and etching. Dasio has done notable work ; but he has allowed himself to be carried away by a sort of spirit of romance which delights in parading a degree of culture greater than he really possesses. And in presenting his allegories, his philosophical sets, he has neglected to devote sufficient time to the technical part of his art and to his draughtsmanship.
THERE are no schools of etching in Germany, any more than there formerly were. More men apply themselves to it, and the quality as well as quantity of work produced is very much higher than it was
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some twenty-five years ago. Yet every one goes his own way, more or less. Much of the work is interesting. It shows us painters striving after aims similar to those they have already achieved with the brush. Upon the whole, very few men etch from an etcher's standpoint pure and simple. Among them the Dresden artists Unger, Fischer, and Pietschmann are in the lead. Their work runs more than any other upon the lines that legitimate etching has followed, since the days of Callot ; it is most like that of their English comrades. They have a true sense of the value of power and line. They employ the simple straightforward process, and do not fritter away time with experiments in search of new effects. Fischer has produced some very beautiful landscapes, sketches from the banks of the Elbe, from the shores of the Baltic at Bornholm or Riigen, and from the heights of the Silesian Mountains. There are few among us that have so much sense for a simple, grand style as he.
THE Hamburg artists are the very reverse. They studied from books all the methods and tricks of the trade. They have produced not very many, but very clever plates, and display dextrous feats such as other etchers have arrived at only after years of work. Yet this is the best one can say of Eitner, lilies, Kayser, &c. Perhaps they have been too apt, too clever. They have sucked the orange of etching and seem to have found it dry very soon, for they have almost given it up already. Serious art presupposes earnest work ; that is beyond dispute. The man who gets no help, who has to find out the ways and means all for himself, generally produces the most lasting work, and sticks to what he has learned. These Hamburg artists have found life too easy.
AT Berlin we find the two best reproductive etchers — we may safely say it — in all Europe, A. Kriiger and K.Koepping. Koepping's etchings of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Munkacsy have gained him world-wide fame. There is nothing to equal it. He preserves not only the character of the painter's work, but images even the quality of the brush work, nay, even the state of preservation of the picture before him. Both Kriiger and Koepping have attempted original work, but have failed to attract as much applause with it as with their other productions.
AT Berlin, too, we find Max Liebermann, certainly a most interesting artist. If we admit that such a thing as plein-air or impressionist etching is feasible we must admit that Liebermann has attained to it. Such plates as the Cart in the Downs, the Girl Herding Goats, the Beer- garden in Rosenheim, the Dutch Girls Sewing in a Little Garden, are astonishing and interesting enough. I, for my part, prefer a number
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of delicate dry-points on zinc by Liebermann, little Dutch views, which betray a fine sense of the beauty of the materials employed. LEISTI KO W, of Berlin also, turns etching into an altogether decora- tive art, just as he does painting. His style, far removed from naturalism, is very personal and engaging, from the fact that he simpli- fies not only the colours but also the forms of nature. THE work of Mrs. Kollwitz is the last one would expect from a woman. There is all but brutal realism in her delineation of the lowest types of humanity Yet such powerful creations as the weird dance about the Guillotine are wonderfully impressive. Unfor- tunately most of her plates — the series on the Weavers, the Riot, &c., — savour too much of politics.
AT Karlsruhe there are Thoma and Kalckreuth, who have etched a good deal. What interests us in their plates is the painter, or rather the artist, whom we know through his paintings. They have not as yet turned out work that adds any important new touches to their characteristics as we already know them. It is the same with the late Leibl, or with Stuck, or with Menzel even. We would not care to miss their etchings, and yet when we pass judgment on these artists, our opinion of their etchings will not weigh heavily with us. Stuck, perhaps, of all the five touches us nearest. His Pool in a Trout Stream is a beautiful plate, making the most of a wonderful technique. Before leaving Karlsruhe mention, at least, should be made of Walther Conz.
MUNICH, once upon a time the undoubted metropolis of German art, strange to say, has never given birth to a school of etchers in any way comparable with that of its painters. One of the most interesting among the younger men, Heinrich Wolff, received a call to Konigsberg, just when he was beginning to be known. He has done portraits principally, and has used the roulette in an extremely interesting way. Hegenbart, who has just begun to work upon this field, promises to succeed excellently, when we keep in mind what he has already achieved with his first few plates. He has done delicate line work, slightly too reminiscent of pure pen-and-ink drawing, but he has also completed some excellent surface work, notably the Ready for Flight. THOSE etchers who prefer to employ surface techniques, and aim at the pictorial chiaroscuro of the painters, are either Munich men or traceable to Munich influence. They are all landscapists, and I should place Gampert, with his fine moorland scenes, at the head of the list. Graf approaches him closely ; so does Pankok, who employs mezzotint, whereas the other two use aquatint and soft ground etching preferably. The " Worpswede " artists, Mackenscn and
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Overbeck would fall within or near to this category, at least as regards their aim if not their technique, which is principally pure line etching depending upon the help of the printer and of retroussage for the tonality.
THERE are, of course, also line landscape-etchers such as Ubbelohde,. who has produced beautiful, sunny work, with sweeping strokes, great delicacy, and a well thought out translation of the surfaces in nature into a scheme of line. Rasch and Hagen, of Weimar, as well as Hirzel, who is at the same time a well-known book-plate etcher, show more or less similarity to Ubbelohde.
PERHAPS I ought not to pass by Geyger and R. Muller, and Vogeler, the latter of whom has produced a number of well-known plates — but they are affected and singularly weak in sentiment. Geyger is remarkably skilful ; but this has led him into so great a. degree of over-finish that some of his later work is almost painful to behold. R. Miiller's absolute want of fancy or refined conception unfortunately render his technically excellent plates as devoid of interest as photogravures.
THESE are the names of the greater part, though, of course, not all of the modern German etchers. Upon the whole they will bear comparison with those of other countries well enough. If there is- not so much feeling for purity of style in evidence as there might be,, this is, perhaps, somewhat counterbalanced by the great variety and freshness to be found in German work of the day. There has been less of imitation and more of originality in recent German- etching and engraving than in any of the other forms of German art.
HANS W. SINGER.
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PLATE 2 — "A GUSTY DAY"
FROM THE ETCHING BY OTTO UliBELOHDE
PLATE 3 — "AN IDYLL'
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY HANS THOMA
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"THE REAPERS." FROM THE ETCHING BY LEOPOLD COUNT KALCKREUTH
PLATE 4
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"IN THE ORCHARD" FROM THE AQUATINT BY OSCAR GRAF
PLATE 5
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FROM THE ETCHING BY C. THEODOR MEYER-HAS
FROM THE ETCHING BY C. T. MEYER-BASEL
PLATE g— " NEAR STARNBERG"
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"A POOL IN A TROUT STREAM." FROM THE ETCHING BY FRANZ STUCK
PLATE 10
German
FROM THE ETCHING BY OTTO GAMPERT
PLATE n — "A KIVER SCENE AFTER SUNDOWN
PLATE 12— "ADAM AND EVE, SATAN AND DEATH'
FROM THK ETCHING BY MAX KLINGER
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PLATE 16— " DANCE IN A GIN-SHOP"
FROM THE SOFT-GROUND ETCHING BY KATHE KOLLWITZ
PLATE 17 — "THE VIOLINIST
FROM THE MIXED ETCHING BY BERNHARD PANKOK
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"ART AND MAMMON." ETCHED AND AQUATINTED BY FRITZ HEGENBART
PLATE 19
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"ROCKS ON THE ISLAND OF RUGEN." FROM THE AQUA- TINT BY OTTO FISCHER
PLATE 22
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"THE READER." FROM THE ETCHING BY PETER HALM
PLATE 23
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FUOM THE KTCHING BY OTTO FISCHER
PLATE 25 — "RETURNING HOME IN THE SNOW"
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY ARTHUR ILLIES
MODERN ETCHING @* ENGRAV- ING IN AUSTRIA. BvWILHELM SCHOLERMANN.
•
MODERN Art in Austria, properly speaking, is but a young though rapidly-growing plant of recent cultivation and success. Its " nativity," if I may be allowed to use the term in its twofold sense, scarcely dates back more than half a decade. Even as late as 1896, when the great International Exhibition of Graphic Art took place at Vienna, Austrian etchers, with the exception of a few engravers of the old masters, were conspicuous by their absence. It is not surprising, therefore, if we find that the noblest branch of the graphic arts, which, perhaps, above all others is based upon severe and time-honoured tradition — the work of the steel point upon the copperplate — has not ranked foremost among the latter productions of Austrian artists. THERE may, perhaps, be found still another, and even more psycho- logical explanation to account for this. The average talent of the Austrian artist — his artistic temperament — lies, on the whole, in a different direction. It is in the free development of fancy and taste, in the happy adaptation of form and colour to decorative purposes, that he generally finds the best opportunity for developing his powers. He is a born decorator. Severe and penetrative artistic conceptions are not, as a rule his strongest side ; but he delights in multi- coloured pageants — a field not altogether encouraging for the develop- ment of the gentle and patient art of etching.
MOREOVER, that essentially modern phase of etching, which, while uniting the hard and digging scrape of the burin or the lighter stroke of the dry point with a variety of dainty colour schemes, has contributed so largely to the perfection of colour-printing of late— a process so successfully initiated by French artists of high rank — this new process of coloured etching has not,to my knowledge, been hitherto practised to any extent by living painter-etchers in Austria. Yet the movement seems even in Vienna to gain ground by degrees, though limited for the present to reproductive engraving. WILLIAM UNGER, though not an Austrian by birth, has taken up his abode in the Austrian capital, and holds a professorship at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. His etchings, after the old
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Dutch and Flemish masters, Rembrandt and Rubens in particular, are universally appreciated, though it must be admitted that they are not all of equal strength and value, some of his numerous plates failing to do full justice to the breadth and spirit of the originals, while others are extremely good. His large plate after Titian's painting of the so-called Himmlische und Irdische Liebe (Profane and Divine Love) may be named among his most successful transmuta- tions of colour into the mellow effects of the mezzotint plate. PROFESSOR UNGER is generally regarded as the senior etcher and tutor of a generation of gifted "juniors." In fact he has inspired quite a number of younger men to work with the engraver's tools, and it would appear, from the entirely independent way in which several of his pupils and friends have developed in different directions, that his tuition and advice have not exercised any restrictive influence upon the individuality of the talents placed under his care, but, on the contrary, have been helpful in allowing free scope for each talent to find its own way by following its peculiar inclinations. AMONG the younger generation, Mr. Alfred Cossmann, a pupil of Unger, has been developing his talent in a decidedly individual manner. He was born in 1870 at Graz in the Steirmark, and, after studying at the School of Arts and Crafts of the Oesterreichische Museum fur Kunst und Industrie in Vienna — principally in the ceramic department — he began etching under Prof. Unger's directions, and has now been working independently for the last three years, after a strict course of technical training in the various methods of reproductive engraving.
IN the plate entitled A Tumult — An unlucky Democrat, the artist has taken up a modern theme. There is suggestive force of a quite ex- ceptional character in it, a hot breath of feverish agitation. There is, in fact, an abundance of imaginative expression, which, while intensely true, stops only just short of caricature. Work of this kind, thoroughly modern in spirit and cut out from life in this earnest manner, is deserving of attention not merely from a technical point of view, but in a higher and broader sense. This young artist is, in my opinion, gifted with more than talent. There is an element of strong human sympathy in him, mingled with that scarcely percep- tible ironical vein which marks the artist of genius. COSSMANN employs a variety of technical methods, combining them as the subject may require. The above-mentioned plate was etched completely, and then the aquatint was put in for background, middle tones and some pieces of the clothes and hair. ANOTHER artist of uncommon parts, Mr. Ferdinand Schmutzer,
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member of the Secessionists, has of late been very successful. He studied some years in Paris, where his strong sense of the picturesque was rapidly developed together with that fine feeling for the relative values of light and shade and broken lights which marks the born painter-etcher. His newest plates are excellent, some being of un- usually large dimensions. He has of late turned to portrait etching, and gained a gold medal at the Paris and Dresden Exhibitions. Schmutzer also made the experiment of etching the figure of a lady just about to mount a horse, nearly half life size, perhaps the largest plate in existence. This may be noted for a curiosity, though the practical and artistic value of such tours deforce seems questionable. SCHMUTZER is certainly a very strong etcher, with an excellent sense of atmospheric effect and harmonious design quite in unity with his fixed purpose and uncompromising vigour of performance. He has studied well the old masters, entering deeply into their secrets, but nevertheless remaining true to himself. Old masters, in cases like these, instead of depriving the younger men of their per- sonality, have a peculiar power of widening their range of vision. This is the case with Schmutzer, and we may look forward to his future work with increased interest and confidence. EMIL ORLIK is already well known to readers of THE STUDIO. He is to-day, take it all in all, perhaps the most skilful all-round draughtsman among the Austrian artists as a body. He is gifted with a capacity for changing from one mood, manner or method into another with a nervous, quick mental receptivity quite marvellous. He knows no limits, no prejudices, no preferences. If he makes up his mind to take in the spirit, say, of the art of Japan, he feels and draws and paints or lithographs like a Japanese. The varieties of his technical methods are at once subtle and free, delicate and strong, and he very seldom repeats himself.
OF the work of Mr. Rudolf Jettmar as an etcher and draughtsman I have had the opportunity of speaking on a former occasion (see THE STUDIO, Vol. xix. No. 85). His imagination seems to be perpetually at work in a free, fantastic spirit of mind, forming and dissolving forms like strains of music without end. He is a native of Galicia, having been born at Krakau in 1867. He has studied in Vienna, Karlsruhe, Italy, and Leipzig, and in 1897 returned to Vienna as a member of the Vereinigung bildender Kiinstler Oesterreichs. THE art of engraving proper has been traditionally practised among Austrian artists for generations, and so we find also ameng the modern men some very able artists using line engraving as a medium for the interpretation of the touch of the painter's brush, reduced
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to the simple gradations of black and white. The reproductive engraver represents for the fine arts what the translator does for literature : he must be above all an interpreter. He must penetrate into the centre of another's personality and also into the technical spirit of the original — that peculiar medium of individual expression so frequently overlooked, yet, in truth, inseparable from any art worthy of the name. AMONG the contemporary reproductive etchers and engravers, the Polish artist, Mr. Ignaz Lopienski has attained a high standard of technical execution, combined with a very delicate artistic feeling for what may be termed the soul of the picture he is translating. LOPIENSKI was born at Warsaw in 1865. He began his studies at first as a sculptor and medallist in Vienna under the direction of Professor Bengler, then at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, whence he returned to Vienna, and finally again to Warsaw. HE is above all an interpreter of his native land, that low desert plain of wild flat country, where the poor peasant people are still held in serfdom by the rich landowners, those broad spaces of wilderness, with ill-fed horses and starving vegetation, commonl) known by the name of Poland, comprising parts of the Russian, German, and Austrian Empires. The plate here given, entitled A Winter Night, is engraved after a painting by another Polish artist, Prof. Wierusz-Kowalski. It shows a wide expanse of snow ii a moonlit winter's night, rendered more lonely still by a fe^ storm-torn pines and firs, looming spectre-like against the sky, witl its twinkling stars half extinguished, as it were, by the glaring reflection of the snow. The ground shows the footprints of a pad of hungry wolves assembled in the background, as if holding a sor of council. The solitary beast in the foreground, with his tail drawr in, is sniffing up into the starry heavens, and one may just faintl) discern his warm breath like a vapour against the still, icy-cold air. There is a weird loneliness in the scene which words fail to give. THE masterful technique of the plate in question is evident. There are unity and concentration, combined with elaborate execution, though by no means any over-minuteness. IN conclusion, we may say that, although experiments outside the sphere of black and white do not yet figure among the achievements of Austrian etchers, yet what they give is good genuine work. Whatever the results of their efforts in the old medium, they are deserving of our earnest attention.
WlLHELM SCHOLERMANN.
Austrian
"PORTRAIT." FROM THE JETCHING BY WILLIAM UNGER
PLATE i
"PEASANT GIRL SEWING" FROM THE ETCHING BY FERDINAND SCHMUTZER PLATE 2
Austrian
PLATE 5— "A CHICKEN"
FROM THE ETCHING BY ALFRED COSSMANN
PLATE 4 — "A TUMULT — AN UNLUCKY DEMOCRAT"
FROM THE ETCHING BY ALFRED COSSMANN
Austrian
"THE WATCHMAN." FROM THE ETCHING BY ALFRED COSSMANN PLATE 5
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PLATE 7 — " ADMONITION "
FROM THE ETCHING BY EMIL ORLIK
PLATE 8 — "WIND ON THE PLAIN — THE COMING OF AUTUMN"
FROM THE ETCHING BY EMIL ORLIK
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"READING THE NEWS" FROM THE ETCHING BY FERDINAND SCHMUTZER PLATE 9
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"THE CLIFFS." FROM THE ETCHING BY RUDOLPH JETTMAR PLATE 10
MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN HUNGARY. BY ANTHONY TAHI.
HE etching, especially the coloured etching, can have no history, boast no tradition, with a people whose whole artistic deveopment is still so recent as that of the Hungarians. In those countries, however, where modern art has attained its greatest height, such as England, France, and Germany, the line engraving, together with the far inferior steel-plate, has held the field the longest. The whole tendency of art has been so strongly opposed to pure line, that really it is no wonder such a process as etching, demanding as it does eminently efficient treatment and handling should have been altogether neglected by many artists.
WITH the birth of a richer, a more highly-coloured vision, and particularly since our artists began to abandon their rigid bias and no longer scorned to interest themselves in all varieties of artistic work, the graphic arts — etching, lithography and occasionally xylo- graphy— once more came into favour.
CERTAIN it is, so far as Hungary is concerned, that, from one cause and another — the difficulties of the process, and notably the indifference of the public — the number of artists who have applied themselves to colour-etching is still quite insignificant. Our artists are greatly to blame for this state of things, for the majority of them make light of everything save easel-work, and think nothing else worth their notice.
WHILE in other countries, such as England, Belgium, France and Germany, etching-Associations have been in existence for nearly twenty-five years past, with the happiest results ; while, moreover, the public taste has been stimulated and raised by the publication of admirable reproductions of this class of work, we in Hungary have been absolutely without anything of the sort until last year, when a " Graphic Club " was founded ; and up till now it has produced no tangible results.
THE poor figure we cut in regard to the graphic arts must be largely attributed to the fact that Hungary has really no art-market of its own, and that it lies remote from all the international art centres.
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AS I have already observed, the number of Hungarian artists engaged in producing original etchings is very small. Most of these are painters, who recognise the necessity of expressing themselves in more than one artistic medium, and of having more than one outlet for their energies.
WHEN, nearly a quarter of a century since, the writer of these lines desired to learn the technique of etching, there was in the whole country only one man capable of giving him practical instruction therein. This was the copper-engraver Jeno Doby, at present the doyen of Hungarian etchers; for he has abandoned line engraving and devoted himself exclusively to etching. Still, even now he cannot give up the graver : thus, his etchings are marked by a strong and well-disciplined sense of line. His original etchings are very few. Doby occupies the Chair of Etching at the Budapest Applied Art School, where among his pupils were B. Chabada, A. Szekely, and Edvi-Illes.
ETCHING owes much also to Professor Lajos Rauscher of the Budapest Polytechnic, who by his example has aroused and fostered a love of the art among many of the young artists studying under his guidance. At first, especially in his views of Budapest, the architect betrayed himself by his stiff, precise drawing of the archi- tecture, and his subordination of the picturesque side of his scenes ; but soon these blemishes were overcome, and his fine natural style asserted itself with effect, especially in his aquatints, which are full of expression. A notable feature of all his plates is the care he bestows on his subject in order to bring out its entire value. ZSIGMOND LANDSINGER'S first etching was Arnold Bocklin's Heiliger Hain, which he did in Florence. HERE too originated the Portrait of 'Bocklin, that energetic and powerfully designed life-size plate, which so characteristically and vividly reproduces the head of the genial Swiss Painter. The inti- mate friendship which sprang up between Bocklin and Landsinger resulted also in the production of another plate, Fafner der Drac/ie, executed by Bocklin himself as a monotype. Landsinger's etchings are conspicuous for thorough mastery of material, and for dainty yet forceful handling of flesh tints.
VIKTOR OLGYAI studied under William Unger in Vienna and under Theodore Alphonse in Paris. As he originally intended to devote himself entirely to the graphic arts, and only later took up oil-painting, his technical knowledge of etching is remarkable. He is pre-eminently a draughtsman, and though his plates are finely toned, the most notable thing about them is their sense of line.
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Some of his best works are contained in an album of ten plates entitled " Winter," and other notable ones are The Oak, The Mill, and Way of Cypresses.
ALADAR EDVI-ILLES is an admirable water-colourist, this being clearly seen in his etched plates, which are remarkable for the strong tone he infuses into his colours. In his Cemetery the colour in the warm autumnal foliage is very happily realised, while his powerful treatment of the storm-laden sky makes the whole plate really dramatic.
A MANIFOLD and an eminently rich talent was that of Akos F. Aranyossy, who died all too young a few years since. He studied in Munich with Raab and treated with equal certainty figures and landscapes alike. In his Portrait of Bishop Bubics the delicate careful modelling of the flesh is particularly noticeable ; while in his plates entitled The Washerwoman and Geese it is the water that chiefly attracts one's attention. His premature death was a heavy loss to Hungarian etching.
ON the plates by Arpad Szekely the draughtsmanship is con- spicuous ; moreover he shows an obvious desire to impart strong tone to his method. He strives, often with success, to treat the various aspects of nature — soil, water, cloud, or vegetation — each in its own particular manner. The motives he especially affects may perhaps be considered to demand more colour in their treatment, consequently there is often a certain lack of harmony between the subject and its realisation in his plates.
ERNO BARTA in his various plates shows a decided talent in the direction of the mezzotint. His manner is powerful and deep and warm in tone. Perhaps he would be still more successful were his modelling somewhat simpler and broader.
BELA CHABADA concerns himself chiefly with the reproduction of the works of modern Hungarian artists, who have found in him a most capable and intelligent interpreter. His original mezzotints are marked by a misty delicacy which is most attractive. OTHER of our artists who have applied themselves to etching are Kalman Dery, Henrik Pap, and Jozsef Rippl-Ronai, the latter a pupil of Kopping and of Raab. Latterly he has been devoting his energies exclusively to lithography, which of recent years has been gaining more and more adherents among artists.
ANTHONY TAHI.
Hungarian
" FEBRUARY." FROM THE ETCHING BY VIKTOR OLGYAI
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MODERN ETCHING @> ENGRAV- ING IN HOLLAND. BY PHILIP ZILCKEN.
URING the early part of the nineteenth cen- tury, etching, which had flourished so splendidly in Holland in Rembrandt's time, was almost completely abandoned. About 1850 some painters— Mollinger, Jan Weissenbruch and Roelofs — made a number of interesting plates, which nevertheless lacked the free and artistic treatment that makes etchings so delightful, ^^s^—s^ IT was the well-known Austrian etcher, Unger,
who once during a sojourn in Holland induced Josef Israels, Mauve' and some other painters of the same group, to varnish copper-plates' and to make on them rapid or more elaborate improvisations, many of which have all the charm of the subtlest etchings. Most of these plates are exceedingly rare, and they cause regret that those refined artists did not oftener practise this delicate art
C STORM VAN GRAVESANDE, whose work of this kind is
well known, lived at that time in Belgium, where he worked under the
guidance of Felicien Rops. He rapidly gained so great a reputation
hihp Gilbert Hamerton, in his book on Etching and Etchers
devoted a considerable number of pages to this painter-etcher'
Hamerton says of him, in 1876, speaking of his print, Au bord
du Gems, pres a'Abcoude: " THIS is ONE OF THE MOST PERFECT
ETCHINGS PRODUCED BY THE MODERN SCHOOLS, SO PERFECT INDEED THAT IF I WERE RESTRICTED TO THE POSSESSION OF SIX MODERN
ETCHINGS, THIS SHOULD BE ONE OF THEM." Storm van Gravesande has produced a great many plates ; actually about four hundred In recent years he has abandoned pure etching and has devoted himself almost entirely to " dry-points." In this class of work I think his most typical prints are to be found. In them he succeeds in expressing perfectly the slow-flowing waters of the placid Dutch streams, the quiet surface of the Laguna of Venice, and sometimes the rough ™-T u therNorth Sea beating upon the sandy lowland beaches With but a few lines he expresses much, and his work supplies a very complete survey of Holland's picturesque landscape. STORM VAN GRAVESANDE takes a place apart in this school He has worked chiefly in Holland, but lived many
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years in Belgium and Germany, and it was only a few years ago that he returned to his native country.
ISRAELS has kept up his etching in recent years, and a good number of prints of his exist. They are all true etchings, in the sense that they consist of pure line-work, sometimes carried out direct, sometimes elaborated in different states. This great artist has interpreted in this way some of his favourite subjects — luminous and harmonious interior effects, and bright, brilliant beach scenes, with fishermen's children playing on the sands. All these works betray a personal, expressive technique, with masterly contrasts of light and shade, and are full of intense, penetrating feeling.
JAMES MARIS, when he commenced etching, made about four very small plates — a bridge, a couple of mills, and a print showing a sketch of his wife and his eldest daughter. These plates have all the qualities of similar ones by Rembrandt. The delicate and expressive drawing* the few well-placed lines, are quite masterly. Mauve made more plates, many of which are lost,* among them some little gems containing all his personal qualities of feeling, tone, and expressive drawing. MATTHEW MARIS executed at that time one very small plate — now exceedingly rare — a girl with a lamb and a baby ; but years, afterwards he undertook to make a reproduction of the celebrated " Semeur," by Millet.
IN order to train himself again in etching he then commenced a number of plates, but he himself considers these remarkable prints — that have already attained high prices — mere essays of little or no- importance. The plate after the " Semeur " is a marvellous interpreta^ tion, not a mere copy, of a masterpiece, by a genius, and in this respect it is certainly one of the most remarkable plates ever produced. Maris has added his own individual feeling to the grand conception of Millet, and thus (a rare event) two artists of the same high ran have collaborated in creating a work of unique quality. JONGKIND, at the same epoch, made his well-known rapid,, expressive, and characteristic views of Honfleur and Le Havre, and his lively sketches of Paris and Holland. But modern Dutch etching owes its renown chiefly to the younger masters, who have devoted great part of their time to this art, such as Bauer, Witsen, Dupont Miss van Houten, and others. Since 1889 they have regularly exhibited their works at the Great Paris Exhibitions, at Chicago Venice, and in Germany, with much success, while in 1900 the made a striking " hit " at the Exposition Universelle.
* The New York Public Library contains the only existing complete collection of these,. 2
Dutch
HERE it happened that the Dutch section of engraving, with about twenty-four exhibitors, obtained a number of awards as considerable as countries like England, Germany, and the United States, that had twice as many representatives, whilst one of the three chief awards in this section fell to Bauer.
EXCEPT Josef Israels, the celebrated artist who has now attained his seventy-sixth year, but whose youthfulness is as great as fifty years ago, the painter-etchers are " younger " artists, all of them between thirty and forty years of age, and not one of them devotes his whole time to etching. They all paint as well as etch, and to this is certainly due the fact that their etched work has qualities of a very genuine character.
BAUER is a remarkable type in modern art. Since his early youth he has had what Theophile Gautier calls la nostalgic de /'Orient, and he has scarcely painted anything else but scenes in Constantinople, Cairo, or Hindustan. Nearly every year he spends about six months in travelling in Eastern countries, and he sees those countries (as he once wrote to me) " not as they are, but as they were a couple of hundred years ago." And he succeeds in expressing his vision ! NUMEROUS are now his etchings, consisting of about 200 small plates, rapid and slight — though perfectly complete — sketches, and several large prints, like his Procession, The Queen of Saba, Aladdin, Morning on the Ganges, 'The Persian Feast, &c. &c., well known to collectors of etchings.
BAUER has all the qualities that characterise the real etcher, and when viewing his works one is frequently reminded of Rembrandt, because he has an analogous habit of composition, the same simple contrasts of light and shade, the same easy, subtle execution in simple, direct, never-hesitating lines. Bauer having a very personal indi- viduality, no other Dutch or foreign etcher can be compared to him. Gifted as he is with a talent for composition, and strong imagination and expression, he takes very high rank amongst modern etchers. CONSIDERABLE impulse was given to the art of etching in Holland when the Dutch Etching Club was created in 1880. Yearly exhibitions were held, and an annual portfolio was issued by the club. This impelled some of the younger painters, who would otherwise have abandoned etching, to apply themselves to it. AS the secretary of the Etchers' Club, I have been in a position to follow closely for the past twelve years the brilliant and remarkably "sincere" development of Dutch etching. In using the word "sincere," I mean that in Holland every serious artist takes his own course quietly, without any idea of imitation. It is a
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characteristic of Dutch artists that they work in their own way, following their own personal convictions, without paying attention to outside influences. And the result is individuality. AMONG such artists WillemWitsen and P. Dupont are notable types. WJTSEN is the painter of the sluggish Dutch waters of Amsterdam and Dordrecht, reflecting the old, picturesque, many-coloured buildings, often dreary and gloomy, but always full of charm. Of all the subjects chosen for his water-colours he makes etchings, and they are as thoroughly elaborated as his other work. Adding some- times sulphur tints he obtains powerful effects, never abandoning a plate before having completely expressed in it the effect, the colour, and the harmonious tone he seeks. For him every one of his plates must be a work of art.
DUPONT, who began his career with rapid, expressive etchings after nature, chiefly views of Amsterdam and its surroundings, has entirely changed his manner in recent years.
NOT satisfied with the brilliant effects achieved in his etched plates, he tried his hand some years ago at engraving. This work of his attracted considerable attention at the Paris Exhibition in 1900. He has since continued this most difficult work with increasing success, and now he is working on portraits, one of which, that of Steinlen, is worthy of particular mention. He still etches, but these plates are for him mere preparatory studies for his engravings. Being young, admirably gifted, and full of endurance and energy, much can be expected from him in the future.
MISS B. VAN HOUTEN, though little known, is a most striking etcher, too. She is a niece of the marine-painter Mesdag, and so, from her early youth, she has lived in an artistic milieu. When her studies were finished, she began to make some large plates after masterpieces, by Corot, Delacroix, Courbet and Dupre. After the last-named artist she made a very beautiful plate, so carefully and conscientiously elaborated that it gives exactly the tone, and the values, of the original. In this fine plate nothing is left to chance, but every touch is interpreted with rare and delicate skill. Miss Van Houten has also completed about a hundred original plates.
THESE plates show great strength and vigour. When she etches birds, tulips, sunflowers, or interior effects or heads, she works with deeply bitten, broad, strong lines. Such work could easily pro- duce black, heavy prints, but her delicate sensibility, her intense feeling for the things interpreted, save it from that evil, and her plates always express marvellously the tender substances of flower- petals, the soft plumage of birds, and the aerial distances in landscapes.
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TO add a few words about myself, I have completed during the last twenty years about four hundred and fifty plates, of which about two hundred are reproductions after the Marises, Mauve, Israels, Alfred Stevens, Rembrandt, Vermeer of Delft, &c. &c., while others are exclusively original landscapes, most of them after nature, and studies in dry-point after models, and a few portraits. THE artists I have mentioned are the principal figures in modern Dutch etching. Around them are working a good number of others, of various but real merit. My space being limited, I must content myself with a mere sketch of their various characteristics. AMONG the painters who have made many good and interesting etchings, mention must be made of W. de Zwart, a clever and brilliant landscape and figure-painter, whose expressive etchings are numerous.
TOOROP has done in the last few years some extremely delicate dry-points, chiefly figure studies. His etchings, like everything he produces, are very striking and personal. •"•> ||
JAN VETH, one of our most distinguished portrait-painters, has done many lithographs of celebrated Dutch-men, and also some fine etchings, of uncommon feeling and ability.
I MUST not forget, in this too short and too rapid enumeration, Etienne Bosch, who produced a great many plates, mediaeval subjects and views of Holland and Italy, among which the view of Sorrents is excellent in style and composition.
MISS ETHA FLES has done some "pure" etching, such as her Staircase at Rothenburg. Ed. Karsen, the somewhat Maeterlinck-like painter of gloomy, almost fantastic, Dutch dwellings, has done some plates of very peculiar and subtle interest. Ed. Becht has made some important soft-ground etchings, among which his Rising Moon is a very interesting plate done by means of a rarely used process. REICHER is a painter who, besides a couple of very carefully made plates after Breitner and after M. Maris, has drawn original land- scapes and some still-life subjects of striking directness of execution. W. O.J. NIEUWENKAMP was one of the first Dutch painters who went to Java. Having a very personal style, he brought from there some characteristic and interesting views.
A. KOSTER, after doing some views of the Pyrenees, applied himself to Dutch landscape, and reproduced views of the neighbour- hood of the Hague and Limburg, rendering the character of those parts of Holland in a remarkably truthful manner. AND now to complete this short sketch, I must add the names 'of some etchers of merit who have done a number of important plates
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after our ancient and modern masters, but scarcely ever any original work.
IN the first place, Van der Weele, a painter in the style of Mauve, has done some very harmonious and lovely interpretations after that master. Some originals of his are of very good quality, for instance The Dead Lamb and Pigs Drinking. The same can be said of the little views of Haarlem and surroundings by Graadt Van Roggen, a hard worker who has also made very elaborate and carefully treated repro- ductions after J. Maris, Vermeer, &c., which display much patient labour.
PROFESSOR C. DAKE, of Amsterdam, has made a number of important plates after Mauve, Israels, Maris, Mesdag, &c., in a broad manner, full of ability, that have met with great popularity.
PH. ZILCKEN.
Dutch
PLATE i — "EVENING'
FROM THE ETCHING BY W. DE ZWART
PLATE 2—" A STUDY OF DUTCH HOUSES "
FROM THE ETCHING BY W. WITSEN (By permission of Mr. E. van Wisselingh)
Dutch
PLATE 3—" STILL LIFE"
FROM THE ETCHING BY MISS D. G. VAN HOUTEN
PLATE 4 — " LA RUE DU JERZUAL X DINAN '
FROM THE ETCHING BY A. F. REICHER
Dutch
(By Permission of Mr. E. van Wiaelingh]
"LEAVING THE MOSQUE" FROM THE ETCHING BY M. BAUER
PLATE 5
Dutch
"A DUTCH CHURCH." FROM THE ETCHING BY W. O. J. NIEUWENKAMP
PLATE 6
Dutch
UIT.U 4 A.
" PAUL VERLAINE IN THE ACT OF WRITING." FROM THE ETCHING BY P. ZILCKEN, AFTER A SKETCH
BY J. TQOROP
PLATE 7
Dutch
PLATE 8 — "IN THE LIMBURG HILLS"
FROM THE ETCHING BY A. L. ROSTER
PLATE 9 — "AN OLD COTTAGE
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"VESPERS." FROM THE ETCHING BY STORM VAN GRAVESANDE
PLATE 10
"THE BAY OF SALERNO" FROM THE ETCHING BY E. BOSCH PLATE n
MODERN ETCHING 8? ENGRAV- ING IN BELGIUM. BY FERNAND KHNOPFF.
ELGIAN etchers held an Exhibition in 1901 in the Galleries of the Cercle Artistique at Brussels, at which were received examples of the work of all artists interested in etching whether with the dry-point or what the French call eau forte. IN holding this remarkable Exhibition the primary aim of the Belgian Society of Etchers was to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of its foundation, and to prove the success of its efforts to recover the position it formerly held under the management of Felicien Rops. TO found in Belgium an International Society of Etchers was the great ambition of Rops ; but his success had been long delayed by material difficulties. He did, however, at last manage to constitute the Society, and it was decided to issue an album with a portfolio of etchings, the first number of which appeared in 1875.
HER Royal Highness the Countess of Flanders had accepted the position of Honorary President of the International Society of Etchers, and the two plates she successively published in the album deservedly rank among the best of the many fine etchings which appeared in that publication.
THE greater number of those who exhibited at the Salon of the Society of Etchers were painters as well as etchers, and it was very interest- ing to note the great variety of their styles. Some few had insisted on going through what might almost be called a classic training, mastering to begin with every traditional process of the craft. Others had endeavoured to adapt the processes of etching to their own par- ticular mode of painting; yet others had set to work to discover new methods, using their etching tools in a haphazard way and trying experiments in biting in on grounds never before used ; whilst others contented themselves with merely transferring some study to copper. THE etchings of M. Baertsoen take rank amongst the most remark- able of the works exhibited. They are characterised by broad masses of light and shade, and their execution is thoroughly suited to the effect of chiaroscuro which it was evidently the aim of the artist to produce. It cannot be denied that there is now and then something almost coarse and harsh about the execution, but this very peculiarity
H
Belgian
results in the better distribution of the ink when the impressions are being struck off, and enables M. Baertsoen to secure effects by the retroussage on which he sets such store and turns to such good account, without going to the extremes indulged in by so many of his fellow etchers.
MESSIEURS WYTSMAN and Van Rysselberghe, on the other hand, appear to scorn to avail themselves of the too skilful aid of the printer, and when their well-prepared and carefully-executed drawings have been reproduced, they have all the value of conscientious work. In his etchings M. Wytsman gives proof of his thorough study of the landscape scenery of Brabant, and delights in representing the noble and dignified lines of the grand masses of forest trees character- istic of the undulating country districts. M. Van Rysselberghe, too, in his portraits and sea-pieces avoids all superficial expedients, and endeavours in every case to faithfully interpret his subject. IT is qualities similar to these which give value to the works of Messrs. Coppens and Bartholome. M. Ensor has already won considerable reputation as an engraver, and his etchings of sea-pieces and landscapes, inspired by the scenery of Ostende and its neigh- bourhood, are remarkable for a delicacy of touch, which does full justice to the subtle effects of silvery light so characteristic of the Belgian sea-board.
THE works of Messrs. Laermans and Delaunois are remarkable for their very crude appearance. The etchings of M. Laermans, indeed, give the impression of having been engraved with the aid of a very old nail, while those of M. Delaunois do not appear to have been bitten in, but to have been vitriolised. For all that, however, the engravings of both these celebrated artists have, so far as art essentials are concerned, the same fine qualities as their paintings. It is the same with the Antwerp master, M. Hens, whose sea-pieces, in spite of their somewhat rough execution, are full of luminous brightness, and attracted special attention at the Exhibition of the Society of Etchers. MESSRS. Heins,Gailliard,Mignot, Romberg, Titz, and H. Meunier have all brought to bear upon their work with the etching needle that same facility of execution which they have gained by practice in making drawings for book illustration or in designing posters. LASTLY, there is only one Belgian painter-etcher who cultivates exclusively the process known as dry-point, and that one is the writer of these notes, who has engraved in that medium several drawings or studies in outline or shade.
IN his " History of the Fine Arts in Belgium " Camille Lemonnier defines very accurately that which specially distinguishes Messrs.
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G. Biot and A. Danse, who may be said to be at the present time the two engravers by profession who dominate the Society of Etchers : " FROM the very first time he exhibited, Biot manifested those qualities of distinction and grace which have since gradually developed into a completed individual style of great distinction. Delicacy, balance, and simplicity of effect, grace of sentiment, with something of timidity and reserve in the general scheme, these are the salient features of an art which is at the same time pleasing and severe, modifying classic stiffness by its contact with a grace altogether modern."
"THE art of Danse, on the contrary, is comparatively coarse, passion- ate, feverish. The hasty dashiness of the sketch is retained even in his completed work ; he loves tones which clash with one another, unrelieved black, sharp effects of light, rugged execution. Of the school of J. B. Meunier, on whose style he formed his own, he has retained nothing but the decision of stroke of the burin, with a certain grasp of the processes employed and some skill of handling. With him the etching needle is almost always pressed into the service as supplementary to the graver or burin ; it is it which gives to his plates their sharpness of line and richness of tone ; even to his most severely correct engravings it lends a certain capriciousness which would be repudiated by those who use the burin pure and simple." M. DANSE, however, is not content with producing a vast number of engravings, he also aspires to forming engravers; and whilst he was Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Mons in 1871 he founded a school of engraving in that town at his own expense. From this school issued, amongst others, Messrs. Lenain, Bernier, L. Greuze, and Lucq, with Melles- Weiler, Wesmael, L. Danse, and Mme. Destree-Danse, the two last named the daughters of the master. M. LENAIN may justly be said to take first rank amongst contem- porary line-engravers. He handles the rigid graving tool with ease and subtlety, resulting sometimes in the production of effects more varied than those to be obtained in etching. A long study of the masterpieces of French engraving has done much to aid him in ' the development of his peculiar excellence — delicacy of execution. Moreover, a certain indefinable natural instinct, the result of his nationality, has led him to interpret well the grand production of the painters of the Flemish Renaissance, and he has begun a series of fine engravings after the works of Rubens.
THE works of the engraver, F. Marechal, of Liege, have already been criticised in the STUDIO in an article published two years ago, and in another article which came out in the same magazine
Belgian
in 1898, under the heading, " Some Artists of Liege," the remarkable art-talent of M. A. Rassenfosse, the faithful friend and devoted •disciple of the extraordinary genius Felicien Rops, was commented upon with considerable appreciation, and attention was drawn to his profound knowledge of all the processes of the engraver's craft. TWO other artists of Liege, Messrs. Donnay and De Witte, have attracted attention by some etchings full of originality and character. AMONGST the engravers who have turned their attention to taking impressions in colour must be named, as especially successful, M. Q. DE SAMPAYO, an artist of Portuguese extraction, who may be fitly included in this article on living Belgian engravers on account of his having studied under M. Rassenfosse and produced most of his work in Brussels. M. De Sampayo has himself carefully super- intended the translation into colour of his etchings, and with the aid of M. Van Campenhout, the skilful printer to the Society of Etchers, he has coloured several delicate plates a la poupee. IT was also by means of this process that the plates of Messrs. Romberg, Coppens, Gaudy, and those of the author of these notes were coloured, whereas those of Messrs. Titz and Schlobach were printed and coloured by what is known as the super-position process, that is to say, by the use of a succession of several plates, each marked with the most minute care and capable of bearing as many as three colours, provided those colours are very strictly deliminated. No doubt this process is decidedly easier for the printer, but, on the other hand, it is certain that greater delicacy and subtlety of colouring can be obtained by the process a la poupee.
FERNAND KHNOPFF.
Belgian
"A DUTCH WINDMILL" FROM THE ETCHING BY H. CASS1ERS
PLATE i
Belgian
"A ROMAN OUTCAST." FROM THE ENGRAVING BY A. DANSE, AFTER THE PAINTING BY E. WAUTERS PLATE 2
Belgian
PLATE 3 — "THREE SHOTS FOR A PENNY"
FROM THE ETCHING BY F. GAILLIARD
PLATE 4 — " FANTASIA
FROM THE DRY-POINT BY M. ROMBERG
PLATE 5 — " A BLEAK LANDSCAPE "
PLATE 6 — "A STORMY EVENING, BRABANT"
FROM THE ETCHING BY R. WYTSMAN
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PLATE 10 — " A BRIDGE OVER THE MEUSE "
FROM THE ETCHING BY F. MARECHAL
PLATE 11 — "NOCTURNE'
FROM THE ENGRAVING BY T. VAN RYSSELBERGHE
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MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN DENMARK & NORWAY. BY GEORG BROCHNER.
LTHOUGH the Danish Society of Etchers this year celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, and although Denmark boasts two veteran etchers of more than sixty years' stand- ing, it is, broadly speaking, only during the last decade that Danish painters have taken to etching, a fact no doubt connected with the attention bestowed upon the etchings of Carl Bloch, both in his lifetime and more especially after his death. During the last few years, however, etching has become extremely popular with a number of Danish artists, amongst whom one or two have even, at least for the time being, laid aside the brush and taken to the etching needle instead. I believe that all Danish etchers are painters, and that, without any significant exceptions, they only do original work, so that of what may be called " professional " etchers Denmark has none. It can under these circumstances be no matter of surprise that much of what is characteristic of their work in oil — be it for good or be it for evil — also influences the nature and the quality of their etchings, in choice of subjects, in temperament and in other respects. Thus landscapes and seascapes, figure subjects and homely interiors, predominate ; imaginary subjects are dealt with comparatively rarely, and with many artists, honest, sober work is more in vogue than striking effectiveness or technical subtleties. Danish etchings may not always impress the beholder greatly at first sight or at a cursory inspection ; not so much, probably, as will those hailing, for instance, from England and France, but due appreciation of that love of nature, of that sincerity and delicate study which many of them betray, will not be long withheld.
TO the skill, talent and unusual energy of Carl Locher, Danish etching is greatly indebted. For three years Locher, then already a man turned forty and boasting an excellent reputation as a marine painter, studied in Berlin under Professor Hans Meyer, and had it not been for Locher's guidance few of his confreres would probably have taken to the etching needle. At the courses which Locher subse- quently arranged, celebrities like Anna and Michael Ancher and
Danish
Kroyer were amongst his pupils, and I believe it was a matter of general regret when he brought his teaching to a close. Locher was also the first in Denmark to produce large etchings, and that some of these are not more widely known outside his own country is no doubt due largely to the fact that the plates, in order to ensure the absolute limitation of the issues, were in several instances destroyed. IT may not be out of place to mention here that " The STUDIO," in its selection for reproduction, has wished to give most prominence to work in which the line has been allowed its full sway as against too much " net work " or " tone." In one or two instances the etchings have unfortunately been received too late to allow of their being reproduced. I should also like to take this opportunity of acknowledging the courtesy extended to me, not only by the artists, but also by the publishing firms of Winkel and Magnussen and Stender. LORENZ FROLICH divides with Vilhelm Kyhn the honour of being the Grand Old Man in Danish Art, not only as a painter but also as an etcher. I believe the immense span of sixty-three years lies between Frb'lich's first etching and his most recent one, which no one would suspect of being the work of an octogenarian. His right hand has not yet by any means lost its cunning, and his intimate knowledge of animal life is aptly demonstrated in this little etching — in the innate bad temper of the smaller dog and the good- natured, half playful indifference of the larger. It, however, illustrates but one side of Frolich's art, for he has etched a number of charming illustrations — religious (The Lord's Prayer), poetical (Cupid and Psyche) and historical. These show him as a designer of the highest rank, full of imagination and power, and the possessor of a never-failing sense of the beautiful. His contours are especially exquisite, one might almost say invariably so, but the details do not always seem to have interested him much, and I believe mechanical ground-work has in some cases been resorted to. In this latter respect he differs from his old friend, that most delightful and talented of landscape painters, VILHELM KYHN, who prefers responsibility for the entire effect himself, leaving nothing to the mercy of the printer. Kyhn has done a great number of etchings, none very ambitious in dimensions and some almost diminutive in size, but most of them possessed of that charm which is essentially peculiar to Kyhn, arising out of a deep, one is tempted to say tender, life-long love of nature, of sincere study, of a susceptible temperament, and supported by a well- schooled, and at times consummate, technique.
IT is a matter of regret that the clever painters, Anna and Michael .Ancher, have not devoted more attention to the etching needle.
Danish
The former's Old Woman Reading is very attractive, and her husband's" Three Fishermen is entirely characteristic of this painter's art. No- one is so familiar with the hardy, weather-beaten Skaw fishermen as he, and it goes without saying that his studies are admirable.- He has handled his needle with both skill and discretion ; and it is a pity that it has not been allowed to perpetuate more of his trusty friends.
PROFESSOR OTTO BACHE, the eminent animal painter, has only just made his debut as an etcher, but the outcome — Two Dogs' Heads — augurs well. The wonderful verve and force and the keen, observant study which distinguish so much of his work in oil and with the pencil, will no doubt stand the Professor in good stead as an etcher.
H. N. HANSEN has a wider scope, and a more pregnant imagination than any other Danish etcher. He has of late years almost left off painting, and has done some admirable work with the needle, full of individuality and invention. True that his line is at times somewhat erratic and that a good deal of the effect in such cases is due to tone, but the result is often, more often than not, singularly happy, and some of his etchings possess a warmth and a colour, a poetic and, in some cases, an almost plastic beauty only rarely met with. The fine powerful head of his Florentine will bear out this. In his most recent etching, Potiphar's Wife, the treatment is more delicate, and a happy blending of refinement and humour is observable in it. Some of his etchings charm by their classic beauty (Firenze, for instance), others by their generous humour (Don Bartolo] ; others again, and perhaps the best of them, by the fulness of their poetic mood and their great decorative effect (The Cestius Pyramid in Rome, Wild Flies the Hawk, The Old Mill, and many others).
SIGVARD HANSEN also in his etchings demonstrates his preference for the snow-covered landscape, and he depicts a wintry scene ably and effectively.
PROFESSOR HASLUND only now and again takes up the needle at long intervals. His work is on a small scale, but his line is good and true, and animal life is his favourite domain. PROFESSOR FR. HENNINGSEN has, numerically, perhaps even less to his credit, but one or two little figure motifs of his are very deftly done.
AXEL HOU has etched for a considerable number of years. He is entirely self-taught, has experimented a good deal, and always makes his own needles and other requisites. His line is in some of his
Danish
work both strong and characteristic, and his effect is solely obtained by etching. His portrait — portraits are his favourite subjects — of N. Hansen-Jacobsen, the well-known Danish sculptor, now living in Paris, is not only of much merit as a likeness — portraying as it does Jacobscn in an appreciative manner, and underlining the powerful individuality of his model — but it is a capital etching effectively designed. The introduction of some of the sculptor's work is done "with discretion and skill.
PETER ILSTED must be counted amongst the best of Danish etchers, and it is interesting to see how closely his work with the needle resembles his work in oil. He is often inclined to go much into detail, but in spite of this he becomes neither sleek nor insipid. In his " Interiors," of which the Luxembourg has recently secured one, the simplicity of motif and the singleness of colour tend to produce an effect of chaste refinement, lacking a little perhaps in freshness, but telling their own tale with an earnest and charming sincerity. These qualities one finds again in his etchings, most pronounced perhaps in Girl at the Piano, although I prefer his portrait of his father.
E. KRAUSE is a young etcher of much promise, and it was quite by chance that he became one. His work is possessed of a very pronounced picturesqueness. There is warmth in his tone and he is a very clever draughtsman. He favours old-time buildings of topographical interest and beauty, and he prefers sombre night or late evening effects, which are mostly rendered by the aid of line- work, now and again sustained by a little tone. His *The Six Sisters — six old houses in Copenhagen just demolished — illustrates in an ideal manner " a harbour city." The dark, rolling clouds, the waning light mirrored in the row of old windows and in the wet pavement ; the effective silhouette of masts and rigging standing out black against the nocturnal sky, and the cluster of seamen and dock-hands in the foreground, combine to render admirably the exact mood of the picturesque scene.
KROYER'S portrait of himself affords ample proof of what the artist can do as an etcher should he, as it is sincerely to be hoped he will, again find time and inclination to busy himself with the etcher's needle. His lightness of touch, his freedom and subtlety of treatment, are evidenced in this portrait, in which he has relied solely on the line, which is clever throughout, although perhaps here and there a little capricious. The likeness is excellent — frank, genial straightforward. His portrait of Old Kyhn — what an ideal artist's head it is, with the beautiful eyes and the long white hair and
Danish
beard ! — is delightful, and his etching of Grieg and his Wife, done from his picture bought by the National Gallery of Sweden, is in its best impressions simply admirable, but much of its effect and tone depends upon the printing.
ADOLPH LARSEN has of late years become a very skilful etcher; he is careful and painstaking, a little timid perhaps, and deficient in temperament, in spite of which, however, he has several very good landscapes and interiors to his credit. He is probably best in some of his landscapes, in which the chaste, rarefied light of an evening sky has been rendered with much sincerity and feeling. There is also a very clever, although not altogether pleasing, portrait of himself, and if his extreme conscientiousness were only coupled with a little more breadth and warmth he would no doubt attain to still better results. CARL LOCHER I have already mentioned as one of the pillars it not the head corner-stone of the art of etching in Denmark. He combines a carefully trained technique with an open eye for the picturesque and a thorough knowledge of his subject, which is nearly always the sea, in its many and varied moods. There is a convincing breadth and " go " in his wave-treatment, and the mirroring in the receding breakers is done with a master's hand. In his best work — it varies considerably in merit — Locher has proved himself an etcher of very high rank indeed.
SOREN LUND is very adequately represented by his etching of The Old Horse — an illustration to a well-known Danish verse. The toilsome life of the poor old lonely horse has run its course, and the Man with the Scythe — an aerial and phantastic mower — is ready for him. Within a small compass Lund has produced quite a weird and pathetic effect, and it will be seen that the line work is good and solid.
J. LUBSCHITZ is an enthusiastic etcher, who has given much time and study to his art, both at home and in Paris. He has invented a light varnish, and his positive process claims to be an improvement on Hamerton's ; there is also a special Liibschitz needle. In some of his etchings he confines himself entirely to dry- point, in others partly so, as for instance the sky in his recent large marine, exhibited at this year's Danish Royal Academy — a striking and effective seascape, the largest original Danish etching yet pub- lished. Liibschitz is a strong believer in the supremacy of the line, and unaided by tone printing he has produced excellent atmospheric effects. Influenced by Tolstoy, Lubschitz decided to go in for larger etchings, which might gladden the hearts and embellish the houses of the people, and this he has succeeded in doing to the full.
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I believe it is owing to his initiative that men like Professor Bache, Professor Jerndorff and Professor Henningsen have taken to etching> and it is a matter of sore disappointment to him that Professor Hans Tegner, the famous pen-and-ink draughtsman, of Holberg and Andersen fame, did not persevere.
IT would have been a matter of considerable surprise had not Peter Monsted proved himself an accomplished etcher, inasmuch as he is an admirable draughtsman, and handles his brush with the utmost virtuosity. The accompanying landscape proves, however, that he has, and few Danish etchers are capable of producing a finer effect than Monsted. It has been laid at his door that he was somewhat lacking in sincerity ; be this as it may, one does not feel it in his etchings. In these, too, he shows with what skill he handles trees, singly or in clusters, naked or in the fulness of their summer garb, against an often well-chosen atmospheric motif, or stagnant water in pond or ditch. He accounts in the deftest manner possible for the triple effect of what appears on the bottom through the cloudy transparency of the water, of what is mirrored in the water, and of what may be floating on its surface.
THORVALD NISS'S Danish Landscape is thoroughly characteristic of this highly gifted painter's art. It gives much of his dash and boldness and of that directness — of that instinctive directness — with which he knows how to render the exact mood, and often an awkward mood, of the subject before him, be it land or sea. His treatment is effective and convincing, although he is not by any means above taking liberties, from the strict etcher's point of view ; but in all his work there is personality and manliness, which fully condone for any merely academic shortcomings. When in his happy mood Niss stands head and shoulders above most of his fellows, and the National Gallery of Copenhagen, as well as one or two private collections, are indebted to his brush for some of their finest landscapes and, more especially, marine subjects.
TOM PETERSEN has a fine sense of the charm of quaint old-time views, several of which he has treated with very fair success. FRANTS SCHWARTZ one might be tempted to call the aristocrat amongst Danish etchers ; he is self-contained and complete, possessed of a thorough control of the technique. He has done a great many, over a hundred, etchings, the majority of which, perhaps, are rather intended for the collector's portfolio than for a more or less indis- criminating public. He often favours dry-point, and in some of his work confines himself entirely to this method. In many of his studies he demonstrates the keenness of his power of observation, at
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other times he shows how well he is able to compose a picture. In The Annunciation the figure of Mary is charmingly simple and maidenly, and an excellent effect is produced by comparatively small means, a few lines sufficing for the soft folds of her garments and kerchief. The Three Kings aptly illustrates that passage of Heine which has been chosen for a motto. It is decorative and harmonious in its arrangement ; and there is much dead-man's dignity about the three skeleton kings.
IN Niels Skovgaard's Looking at the Snow the contrast between the children within and the wintry landscape without is cleverly and simply told.
NORWAY.
AT the eleventh hour some admirable etchings were received from JOH. NORDHAGEN, the well-known Norwegian etcher. Our arrangements were, however, so far advanced that we are only able to reproduce one, the Portrait of a Gentleman, an original work, in which the attention given to detail does not detract from its power and effectiveness. The forehead, the eyes, and the eyebrows, for instance, are perfect studies, and the masterly treatment has endowed this interesting head with an almost plastic beauty.
NORDHAGEN, who received the gold medal for etchings at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, has studied under Professor Karl Koepping in Berlin, and he has not only done a number of original etchings — studies of heads being his favourite subjects — but he has with his needle reproduced the works of several prominent Norwegian painters and of Rembrandt. We much regret the inadequate and cursory manner in which we are compelled to deal with such a prominent artist.
THE brilliant work of ANDERS L. ZORN has been so frequently illustrated and favourably criticised by "The STUDIO" that it is unnecessary to dwell further upon it here. Two admirable and characteristic examples of his etchings are illustrated, namely, Maja and A Mother.
GEORG BROCHNER.
Danish
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"PORTRAIT OF P. S. KROYER. FROM THE ETCHING BY HIMSELF
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"DANISH LANDSCAPE." FROM THE ETCHING BY THORVALD NISS
PLATE 4
Danish
PLATE 5 — " OFF THE COAST "
l-'KOM THE ETCHING BY CARL LOCHER
PLATE 6 — " BOLLEMOSEN, EFTERAAR
FROM THE ENGRAVING HY J. LUliSCIIITZ (By permission of Messrs. V. Winkcl and Magnvssen)
Danish
"A RISING WIND." FROM THE ETCHING BY PETER MONSTED
PLATE 7
Danish
PLATE 8 — "LOOKING AT THE SNOW"
FROM THE ENGRAVING BY NIELS SKOVGAARD
PLATE g — "THE six SISTERS"
FROM THE ENGRAVING BY E. KRAUSE
Danish
PLATE 10 — " DOGS AT PLAY " FROM THE ETCHING BY LORENZ FROLICH
PLATE n — "THE OLD HORSE'
FROM THE ETCHING BY SOREN LUND
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MODERN ETCHING ^ ENGRAV- ING IN FINLAND. BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE.
S I have already remarked in my article in the special number of the STUDIO on Pen-and-ink Drawings, art of every kind is in its infancy in Finland. This is espe- cially true with regard to etching, which would appear to be behind every other branch of art production in that country. In fact, the first etching of native origin did not appear there until fifteen years ago. The author of this new departure was Victor Westerholm, an artist of first rank, who had previously devoted himself exclusively to the practice of painting. The art of etching was, in fact, little under- stood or appreciated by the public ; indeed, it really seemed some- times as if artists themselves took but a very lukewarm interest inr it. By slow degrees, however, a taste for etchings has, so to speak, filtered into Finland, thanks chiefly, it is true, to the influences- brought to bear on that land by other countries, notably Sweden, its nearest neighbour, where the art of etching is held in very- high esteem.
NOW many artists of Finland appear to be quite passionately devoted to the etching needle and the biting^in acid, and even have- their own presses set up at home, so that they may strike off their proofs for themselves.
I FANCY Edelfelt was the first to follow the example of Westerholm, and use etching as a medium for expressing his art-impressions, and by dint of continuous work, combined with his usual mastery of handling and refinement of taste, he has succeeded in producing admirable results, and adding considerably to the many fine examples of his skill already given to the world.
GALL JEN also — whose vivid imagination, supple talent, and natural skill of execution are unsurpassed by any of his fellow countrymen — has already produced a very great number of comparatively fine- etchings. He handles his etching needle and bites in his plates with much the same ease as he displays in dashing off a sketch, painting a. fresco, cutting an engraving on wood, or carving a piece of furniture.. His versatility in dealing with different mediums of expression is.
Finnish
really extraordinary. Now he accentuates every tiny detail, giving the minutest attention to every corner of his etching plate, then his manner suddenly becomes broad and full of force. Moreover, he can also, when he chooses, adopt a light and elegant style, displaying a truly surprising delicacy of touch, as in the ex-libris of Professor Tikkanen.
THE etchings of Simberg arc marked by a similar originality and individuality, by an equal power of quaint, sometimes even grotesque, imagination, as are his paintings and his drawings. One of the very finest examples of Simberg's peculiar talent and originality of con- ception is his Peasant at the Gate of the Kingdom of Death ; but the charming little work is more than that, it is a typical expression of the grave and speculative character, with its predilection to melan- choly, of the people of Finland. The Garden of Death is a phantasy, alike grotesque and humorous.
MISS HILDA FLODIN is an artist who, though still quite young, gives promise of very considerable talent. Full of eager ardour for work, she is unwearying in the production of paint- ings, drawings, and etchings, everything she sets her hand to being marked by real intelligence and true art-feeling. There is something alike broad and forcible in her style of plying the etching needle, and some of her work recalls that of the best masters of the past. She draws well and accurately, and it is easy to see that increased mastery of technique is really all she needs, so that there is no doubt of her soon remedying her faults of execution, by dint of earnest and continuous study.
THE etchings of Miss Ellen TheslefF display the same delicacy of touch as do her drawings. Her Finnish Landscape — Winter repro- duced here is full of refinment and charm.
ETCHING, properly so-called, is at present, with few exceptions, the only mode of engraving on metal practised by the artists of Finland. Etching in colour has not hitherto been attempted, and the so-called " soft ground " etching, mezzotint and " tutti quanti " processes are still unbroken ground, awaiting their pioneers. So virile and ready of expansion, however, is the new-born art of Finland, that it is not unreasonable to hope that in these directions also it will prove itself ere long worthy of the attention which was attracted at the Great International Exhibition at Paris in 1901 by the work of artists of Finnish extraction.
Louis SPARRE.
Norwegian
(By permission of Mr. R. Gutekunst)
"MAJA." FROM THE ETCHING BY ANDERS L. ZORN
PLATE i
Norwegian
(By permission of Mr. R. Gutekunst)
"A MOTHER." FROM THE THE ETCHING BY ANDERS L. ZORN
PLATE 2
Finnish
PLATE 3 — "FINNISH LANDSCAPE — WINTER"
FROM THE ETCHING EY MISS ELLEN THESLEFF
PLATE 4 — " A GOOD BOOK "
FROM THE ETCHING BY MISS H. FLODIN
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"FINNISH LANDSCAPE" FROM THE ETCHING BY AXEL GALLEN
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"PORTRAIT OF A GENTLE- MAN." FROM THE ETCHING BY ]. NORDHAGEN
PLATE n
MODERN ETCHING & ENGRAV- ING IN ITALY. BY ROMUALDO PANTINI.
LTHOUGH the scope of this article does not include defunct artists, it seems fitting neverthe- less to recall the names of some of them. Antonio Fontanesi, Tranquillo Cremona, Tele- maco Signorini, are three names famous in the reformation of Italian art. They devoted themselves with as much ardour to etching as to the solution of the other great art problems, notably the plein-air theory. And as they were real artists in all they did, the technical expression of their engravings was equal to that realised in their canvases. Fontanesi was especially devoted to landscape motives, and did not remain indifferent to the influence of the French school of 1830 ; while Cremona's fine, bold, broad touch gave originality and delightful freedom to his plates. Signorini was essentially graceful and realistic. His literary leanings inclined him naturally to book illustration ; but his best work is to be seen in the album of twelve etchings dedicated to the " Mercato Vecchio " of Florence.
AKIN to the sentiment or Cremona was that of Mose Bianchi and Luigi Conconi, also of Milan. But Bianchi, while in his little etchings seeming to follow the same motives and the same methods as the master, reveals complete independence in his large Monaca de Monza, after one of his own paintings.
LUIGI CONCONFS decorative breadth is conspicuous in his impressions of ancient Roman arches ; he rises to even greater heights in his finely suggestive etching Solitudine. Mention must also be made of other two Milanese artists — of noble but very diverse tempera- ment. I refer to Grubicy and Beltrami.
VITTORIO GRUBICY is a master, a leader, alike in etching, in teaching, and in propagandism. Starting from the logical conception that many effects of Nature — whose loveliness largely consists in the vigorous contrast of its chiaroscuro — can be expressed adequately in black-and-white, he has executed in Holland and in the Alps a number of etchings possessing a certain special note of melancholy. LUCA BELTRAMI is at once a most gifted architect and a historiographer of art ; but his severer studies have not prevented
Italian
him from devoting himself assiduously to the eau-forfe, some of his works of this kind having been greatly praised in the Paris Salons. His little etching, Dans ["atelier de Pascal is a marvel of luminous treatment, and among other good things of his must be named the Rue de Chartres, which well illustrates his genial versatility. IN Turin there is quite a group of etchers, all well known in Paris as able " translators " of canvases. The two admirable eau-fortists, Carlo Chessa and Celestino Turletti, figure in the splendid volume wherein Giuseppe Giacosa has described the landscapes and recalled the dark tales of the Castelli Valdostani and Canavesani. This portly volume is, like the large edition of the " Medusa " (poems by Arturo Graf), one of the most beautiful books published in Italy for years past ; it is well illustrated by original etchings and edited by M. Roux. THIS noble branch of engraving is cultivated by many Venetian artists, prominent among them being Cesare Laurenti and Giuseppe Miti- Zanetti.
MARIANO FORTUNY, JUNR., one of our finest artists, who still exhibits in the Spanish Salons, is also working in Venice, his best things being his strange but luminous studies of the female nude.
PROFESSOR COLOMBI, of Bologna, has produced several etchings after his own genre paintings, displaying consummate certainty of touch and a wonderful sense of perspective.
AUGUSTO SEZANNE, also a Bolognese, has done a fresh and luminous aquatint, styled Springtime — a charming thing full of feeling and decorative spirit.
IN Florence there is no School of Etching, but the city boasts one young exponent of the art, Giorgio Kienerk, whose dry-points are marked by agile and nervous grace.
GIOVANNI FATTORI, however, despite his advanced age, remains an eminent master of our Italian etchers. His rapidity of impression, sureness of movement, and boldness of outline, give him a place quite apart from, and far above, the others. The Tuscan Campagna, or the desolate Roman plains and marshes with artillery horses figuring therein, form his favourite subjects ; and his broad vision of the battles of 1 859 serves to reassert and reaffirm those technical qualities which go to make him our foremost, if not our only, military artist.
WITH Fattori studied G. Viner, G. Micheli and Plinio Nomellini, the last-named of whom has acquired much of his master's energy of conception, while retaining a distinct personality. The mysterious formation of his clouds and his waves are especially
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Italian
to be remarked, while his keen vision of reality and his sense of poetic significance are plainly seen in many of his works. THERE exists in Rome a " Reale Calcografia" — or Royal School of Etching — subsidised by the Government, which employs numerous artists and craftsmen who produce original work or reproduce the canvases of famous artists. But, unhappily, the principal object of this Royal Institution is to invest the modern etching with the studied uniformity of the old engravings. Some evidence of revival was seen last year, when in the prize competitions for etchings of national character, we had from Biseo his vigorous conception of the heroic battle of Dogali.
CESARE BISEO has done other etchings for the " Reale Calco- grafia " — notably views of the Palatine and the Coliseum — in a style the technique of which recalls Piranesi, but with more sense of atmosphere and poetry. His etchings show proof of diligent study and acute observation.
FRANCESCO VITALINI, since the exhibitions last year in Rome, Venice and London, has gained wide popularity by the highly delicate sense of colour displayed in his Roman etchings ; and, to avoid confusion, it is well to draw attention to his wholly original and personal technique.
OTHER Roman artists working in the medium of the eau-forte are Professor Maccari and Pio Joris, also Filiberto Petiti and Signer Rossini, all of whom were worthily represented at the recent Black- and-White Exhibition ; also Giulio Ricci, a Bolognese etcher, who handles his graver with great delicacy and suggestiveness. Dino Savardo, of Padua, and Enrico Vegetti, of Milan, are two young men well deserving of notice.
PAOLO VETRI carries on at Naples the tradition of his kinsman Domenico Morelli. With great conscientiousness he has reproduced in eau-forte the picture of the Maddalena, and the suggestive and original King Lear, with which tew Italians are acquainted. He is also thinking of reproducing on copper all the works of his revered master.
ROMUALDO PANTINI.
Italian
PLATE i — " KING LEAR "
ETCHED BY PAOLO VETRI, AFTER D. MORELLI
PLATE 2— "CASTELLO DI GRAINES
FROM THE ETCHING BY C. CHESSA
Italian
PLATE 3 — " CASTELFUSANO '
FROM THE COLOURED ETCHING BY FRANCESCO VITALINI
PLATE 4 — "EVENING'
FROM THE ETCHING BY V1TTORE GRUBICY
Italian
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PLATE 5 — "IN THE TEMPLE"
FROM THE ETCHING BY ENRICO VEGETTI
PLATE 6 — " STUDIES OF ANIMALS
FROM THE ETCHING BY CESARE BISEO
Italian
PLATE 7 — "IN A VENETIAN LAGUNE"
FROM THE AQUATINT BY G. MITI-ZANETTI
PLATE 8 — "A STORMY DAY IN TUSCANY"
FROM THE ETCHING BY P. NOMELLINI
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PLATE 14 — "SPRINGTIME"
FROM THE AQUATINT BY AUGUSTO SEZANNE
PLATE 15 — "SUNLIGHT IN A DARK LAGUNE"
FROM THE ETCHING BY MARIANO FORTUNY, JUN.
MODERN ETCHING ©» ENGRAV- ING IN SWITZERLAND. BY ROBERT MOBBS.
BRUN, in his valuable chapter on "Les Arts plastiques dans la Suisse allemande " in " La Suisse au XIXme Siecle," touches upon the relation of such living Swiss artists as Robert Leemann, Charles Theodore Meyer, Albert Welti and Hermann Gatiker to the remark- able revival of interest in etching which characterised the latter half of last century. There can be no doubt that these and other Swiss artists have contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the development of etching not only in their own country but also in Germany, and that their work will compare favourably with the best that has been accomplished in this branch of late years in any other country.
FOREMOST in this group, and fitly serving as a typical example of modern Swiss etchers, stood, till some thirteen years ago, that erratic, original, powerful Swiss artist Charles Stauffer of Bern. His death was a widely felt loss to Swiss art. To convince ourselves of Stauffer's greatness as an etcher we have only to study his characteristically beautiful portrait of his mother, or those portraits of Gustavc Freytag, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Adolphe Menzel which, as M. Brun says, "have, in their plastic rather than pictorial effect, never been surpassed." Stauffer utilised every means at his disposal, except the aquatint, obtaining wonderful results. He has left behind him one or two albums of etchings of rare value, containing work of extraordinary beauty and technical perfection.
WHEN we turn from this artist to Albert Welti we are confronted by quite another variant of the Swiss-German type of artistic tern- perament. Endowed with a rich, inventive, and in some sense sombre imagination, and possessing a marked predilection for sym- bolic and philosophic conceptions, his work bears the stamp of a strongly accentuated individuality, and occupies, in some sense, a place apart.
IN the treatment of the portrait, Balmer is undoubtedly one of the greatest living Swiss etchers. We regret that examples of this
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artist's achievements, as well as those of one or two other artists, have come to hand too late for reproduction in this Number. We hope, however, that we shall have the opportunity of referring at length to their work in the pages of " THE STUDIO." Balmer's etchings reveal a patient dwelling upon the subject till it has yielded up the innermost secret of its distinctive character and beauty. If ever an artist's work was expressive of himself and his best self, Balmer's is. His portraits of women and children reveal the working of an artistic temperament as sensitive as it is powerful. We have under our eyes an aquatint by this artist, the tone, shading and character of which are admirable.
IF the artists of Swiss-German origin have contributed not a little to the development of etching, their fellow workers in the French- speaking part of the country have been by no means behindhand. The etchings of Eugene Burnand and Evert Van Muyden possess the qualities of acknowledged masters in this branch of art. It was a happy day for Mistral when he lighted upon such an illus- trator as Eugene Burnand, for all that could be done by means of " eau-forte " to evoke the characteristic beauty of Proven£al landscape, and to interpret the poet's great work, this artist has accomplished.
IN another domain Evert van Muyden's etchings of animal life in a wild, sylvan environment reveal an extraordinarily nervous vigour of treatment and concentration of expression, and a remarkable know- ledge and observation of the character and ways of " our brothers the animals."
RADOLPHE PIGUET'S album of etchings, dealing with subjects chosen from the National Exhibition opened in Geneva a year or two ago, is a delightful contribution to national art. M. Piguet has obtained marked success in dealing with the portrait. If he lacks the deeper feeling and power of the Swiss-German masters to whose work we have referred, his portraits reveal great skill as far as execution is concerned, and are graceful and captivating. IT is a matter for regret that Edouard Ravel has not been able to devote more time to etching, for the plates he has already executed are of rare quality and promise.
LIKE Charles Giron, Gustave Jeanneret has for many years devoted himself to the painting of Swiss landscape and national types, and is one of the most distinguished landscapists in this country. Though pre- eminently a painter, he has also turned his attention to other processes. ALL who are acquainted with present-day Swiss painting have felt the charm of Mile. Pauline de Beaumont's impressive landscapes. She has
Swiss
brought to etching the same patient study and delicate sensitiveness, and with the happiest result. Her treatment of the pensive moods and quiet aspects of Nature is always true and effective. WE should like to dwell at length upon the really remarkable achievements of Alexis Forel, for his UAoside de Notre Dame de Paris, A Gust of Wind, Morbihan, and certain other of his landscape etchings, are masterpieces.
MOST of the artists we have touched upon up to the present have long been before the public, and have had their due and well-merited meed of praise. The work of the rising school of Swiss artists calls for an equally just appreciation, not only because it holds in itself the promise of the future, but because it is expressive of a new departure, a fresh and most interesting development of Swiss Art. The members of this school, such artists, for example, as Bieler, Hodler, Vautier, Wieland, Amiet, Giacometti, Berta, Vallet, Dunki, Baud Rehfous, and others, are of widely differing artistic temperaments ; they are intense individualists, with " a personal vision of things " which is dearer to them than the formulas of the past, and with but one bond of union, viz., the endeavour to produce an Art that shall be national not merely in subject, but in essence, spirit, and treatment.
AMONGST the surest signs of the vitality of this school may be mentioned the unremitting search of its members for a more adequate expression of the artistic faith that is in them, their frank delight in their " metier," and the versatility of their gifts. Whether we turn to Amiet with his power of extracting the character of things without deforming it ; to Hodler with his rude, but vigorous workmanship and old Swiss temper ; to Edouard Berta, with his distinction in handling a subject, and his exquisite visual sensitiveness to colour ; to the robust talent and personal note of Hans Wieland as displayed in his fine lithographic plates and powerful drawings ; to Dunki's splendid treatment of military subjects ; or to Vallet's characteristic portraits of the Swiss peasant, we see signs of vitality, sincerity, and promise in the rising school of Swiss artists. WE cannot conclude this article without referring to the work of Giovanni Giacommetti, one of Segantini's best pupils. Devoted with a kind of natural piety to the study of the aspects of Nature in his native Grisons, he has already given us interpretations of mountain landscape in which the austere character of his subject is rendered with indisputable originality and feeling.
ONE of the finest etchings we have had under study is by this artist. The subject of it is Segantini on the Evening of his Death. In
Swisf
this work the pupil has rendered worthy homage to the great master.
THE modern Swiss artist is turning with zeal to many branches of art, and seeking to realise as complete a conception as possible of his vocation and its requirements.
ROBERT MOBBS.
Siviss
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MASTERS OF ENGLISH LANDSCAPE PAINTING
J. S. COTMAN D A V I D C O X PETER DE WINT
EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME
OFFICES OF tTHE STVDIO', LONDON PARIS, AND NEW YORK MCMIII
PREFATORY NOTE
This is the first serious effort to do some measure of justice to the work of J. S. Cotman, of David Cox, and of Peter De Wint. Hitherto, in all articles and books, these masters of the brush have been represented only by black-and-white illustrations, whereas the present volume contains numerous plates in colour which have been reproduced by an elaborate process in which every combination ot tint has been closely imitated.
The Editor acknowledges with gratitude the assistance which has come to him from many quarters. In preparing illustrations for the article on Cotman, he has received invaluable help from Mr. James Reeve, the well-known expert, from Mr. Sidney Colvin, Keeper ot Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, Mr. Laurence Binyon, Mr. R. J. Colman, Mr. George Holmes, Mr. G. W. Girtin, and Mr. James Orrock. Three of the special plates in black-and-white were reproduced from prints kindly lent by the Autotype Company. The illustrations of Cox's work are from pictures and drawings in many collections, Mr. Gerald Robinson, Mr. Orrock, Mr. C. C. Eley, Mr. Arthur Sanderson, Mr. O. S. Andreae, Mr. F. L. Emanuel, Mr. Whitworth Wallis, Mr. T. J. Barratt, Messrs. Thos. Agnew and Sons, the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum, and the Art Galleries at Birmingham, Manchester, and Bury, have all contributed, with the result that David Cox may be studied in every phase of his original art. Those reproductions that bear no acknow- ledgment are all from photographs belonging to Mr. James Orrock. The section on De Wint owes much of its variety to the kind- ness of the painter's granddaughter, Miss H. H. Tatlock. The De Wint drawings at South Kensington are well represented. Mr. W. G. Rawlinson has kindly lent the painter's study for the Woody Landscape; there is a good sketch from Mr. J. L. Roget's collection; and Sir Walter Armstrong has permitted illustrations to be given of several plates in his fine "Memoir of Peter De Wint" (Macmillan,i888). Then, as regards thecolour-plates,theyarefromwater-coloursbelongingtothreecollectors —Miss H. H. Tatlock, Mr. James Orrock, and Mr. Arthur Sanderson.
LIST OF SPECIAL PLATES
J.
Portraits of J. S. Cotman and David Cox S. COTMAN
Greta Bridge, Yorkshire." A Reproduction in Colour St. Botolph's Priory, Essex." A Reproduction in Colour Twickenham." A Reproduction in Colour Breaking the Clod." A Reproduction in Tone Trentham Church." A Reproduction in Colour Boats at Sea by Moonlight." A Reproduction in Tone Yarmouth Beach." A Reproduction in Colour
Gateway of the Abbey Aumale, Normandy." A Repro- duction in Colour
Landscape Composition." A Reproduction in Colour The Wold Afloat." A Reproduction in Tone A Pastoral Scene." A Reproduction in Tone
Frontispiece
Facing |
J. S. C. |
iv |
11 |
J. S. C. |
viii |
11 |
J.S. C. |
xii |
V |
J. S. C. |
xvi |
„ |
c. |
4-5 |
M |
c. |
9 |
" |
c. |
14 |
„ |
c. |
19 |
)) |
c. |
33 |
„ |
c. |
42 |
„ |
c. |
55 |
DAVID COX
" Church of St. Eustache, Paris." A Reproduction in Colour
" Tintern Abbey." A Reproduction in Colour " The Cart-shed." A Reproduction in Colour " Flying the Kite." A Reproduction in Colour " The Woodcutter." A Reproduction in Colour
Facing D. C. vili „ D. c. xvi „ D. c. 9
„ D. C. 23-24 „ D. C. 48
PETER DE WINT
" The Thames from Greenwich Hill." A Reproduction in Colour
" Nearing the Harbour." A Reproduction in Colour " Near Lowther Castle." A Reproduction in Colour " Crossing the Stream." A Reproduction in Colour " A Lane with Cottages." A Reproduction in Colour " Coast Scene." A Reproduction in Colour
" Sackbridge Hall, near Lowther." A Reproduction in Colour
Facing W IV
„ w viii
„ w xii
„ w xvi
„ w 9-10
„ w 21
w n
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
J. S. COTMAN (1782-1842)
OIL-PAINTINGS.
" Boats off Yarmouth " c i
" Boathouse with Trees " (Be- tween l8lO-2O) C 2
" Vessels at Sea " c 3 " The Baggage Wagon "
{About 1828) c 4
"The Mishap" (About 1828) c 5
MONOCHROME DRAWINGS. " Castle Eden Dean, Durham "
(About 1803) c 6
" Stream in North Wales " 07
" The Shadowed Stream " c 8 "Horses Drinking" (Exhibited
1806) c 9 "The Waterfall" (Exhibited
1808) c 10
" The Fallen Tree " c 1 1
"Mousehold Heath" (1841) c 12
" Dewy Eve " 013
"On theBure" c 14
"The Centaur" c 27
WATER-COLOURS.
" Duncombe Park, Yorkshire"
(About 1805) c 15
"Drop-Gate, Duncombe Park" c 16 "Byland Abbey" (1804) 017
" In Norwich Cathedral" c 1 8
"The Scotchman's Stone, on
the Greta, Yorkshire "
(Exhibited 1 808) " Draining Mill, Lincolnshire "
(Exhibited 1810) "Mousehold Heath "(Exhibited
1810)
"Backwater in a Park" (1798) " Chateau in Normandy " " A Dismasted Brig " " A Mountain Tarn " " Postwick Grove " " The Antiquary " " Castle in Normandy "
c 19
c 20
C 21 C 22
c 23 c 24 c 25 c 26 c 28 c 29
"Yarmouth Beach "(1831) "Crosby Hall" (1830) " At the Mouth of the Thames" (1834)
CRAYON STUDIES.
"Mare and Foal" (1816)
" Norwich Castle "
" Marshland Trees "
" Group of Trees "
"Boat on the Yare"(i839)
" From my Father's House,
Thorpe" (1841) " Riverside Trees " " Rainbow at Wolferton "
(1841)
"Below Langley" (1841) "Irstead Broad" (1841) " Hollow Way at Blofield " " Blofield: the Old Yarmouth
Road" (1841)
" Storm offCromer" (1841) "The Fallen Tree "(1841)
PENCIL AND CHALK STUDIES. " Postwick Grove " " Rokeby, Yorkshire "
PENCIL STUDIES.
" Storm Clearing over Trees "
(1824?)
" Composition with a Castle " " At Blofield " After the Frontispiece to
"Liber Studiorum"
PENCIL AND WASH DRAWING. " Deer in a Glade, Blofield "
ENGRAVING.
Frontispiece toTurner's "Liber Studiorum"
ORIGINAL ETCHING. "Chateau Gaillard, Normandy"
c 30 c 31
c 32
c 33 c 34 c 36
c 38 c 42
c 43
c 45
c 46 c 47 c 48 c 49
c 50 c 51 c 52
c 35 c 41
c 37 c 39
c 44
c S3 c 40
c 54 c 55
DC 3
DC 4
DC 5
DC 6
DAVID COX (1783-1859)
OIL-PAINTINGS.
" Waiting for the Ferry "
(1845) DC
"TheMiller'sHome"(i846) DC " The Gathering of the
Flocks" (1848) " Changing Pasture " (1847) "Tending Sheep" (1849) " Sheep-Shearing in Wales "
(1849) " The Vale of Clwyd, North
Wales" (1849) " Changing Pasture" (1850) " The White Pony " "A Breezy Day" (1852) " At the Ferry — Morning "
(1851)
" The Carrier's Wagon " " After the Day's Work " " Going to the Hayfield"
(1853)
" Rhyl Sands" (1854-55) " The Gleaners "
SEPIA DRAWINGS.
" Study of a Windmill " D c 1 7
"Snowdon" (1809) DC 1 8
" Sheep in the Valley " 0019
CRAYON STUDIES.
" Near Llanfair " D c 20
" Llanfair Church " D c 21
SOFT-GROUND ETCHING.
"A Windmill" (1819) D c 22
WATER-COLOURS.
" Welsh Mountains " D c 23
" The Market Place " D c 24
" Customs House Quay " 0025 " Pont Royal, Paris " (1829
or 1832) DC 26
"Dryslwyn Castle, South
Wales " D c 27
D C D C |
7 8 |
D C |
9 |
D C |
10 |
D C |
ii |
DC |
12 |
D C |
13 |
D C |
H |
D C D C |
15 16 |
D C D C
35 36
DC 37 38
39
40
D C 41
D C D C D C
" Hilly Landscape with
Figures" D c 28
" Seascape" (1830) D c 29
" A Cottage on the Common "
(1832) DC 30
" Barden Tower, Yorkshire"
(1836) DC 31
" Shakespeare's Cliff,
Dover" D c 32
" Water Mill in Wales" D c 33
" Curiosity " (1840) D c 34
" To Market across the
Wolds"
" Moorland Scene " "A Shaded Welsh Lane"
(1841)
" Cader Idris " " The Welsh Funeral " " Bolton Abbey " " Near Penmaenmawr " " Dryslwyn Castle, Vale of
Towy"
" Hayfield with Figures " " Chirk Viaduct, Vale of
Llangollen "
" A Roadside in Wales " " Chepstow Castle, from the
WyndclifF"
" Young Anglers" (1847) " The Miller and his Mill " "View in Wales" (1851) " Study of Trees " " Water Mill, Bettys-y-
Coed" (1849) DC 51
" Through the Green
Corn" (1850) " Driving Home the Flock" " The Hayfield " " Rustic Courtship " (1851) " Snowdon from Capel
^ Curig"
" The Challenge — A Storm on the Moor" (Ex- hibited 1853) D c 57 " Outdoor Sketch " D c 58 " Carting Vetches " (l855) Dc 59
D C 42
DC 43
DC 44 DC 45
D C 46
DC 47
D C 48
DC 49
5°
D C
D C D C D C D C
DC
52
53 54
55
56
PETER DE WINT (1784-1849)
OIL-PAINTINGS.
" A Cornfield " w
" Landscape Study " w
" A Woody Landscape " w
" Lincoln Cathedral " w
" Rest in the Cornfield " w "Mrs. De Wint and her
Daughter" w
MINIATURES.
"Peter De Wint and his Wife" w
CRAYON AND WASH STUDY.
" A Timber Yard " w 8
SEPIA DRAWINGS.
" Birmingham, from Sutton
Coldfield " w 9
" Stratford-on-Avon " w 10
WATER-COLOURS.
" Cookham-on-Thames " w 1 1
"Study of Weeds" w 12
" Conisborough Castle " w 13
" Conisborough Castle " w 14
" Sketch of Gloucester " w 1 5 " Bridge over a Branch of the
Witham, Lincolnshire " w 16
"Gloucester, 1840" w 17
' ' Scalby Mill, near Scarborough " w 1 8
" Cottages at Aldbury " (1847) w 19
" On the Wharfe "
" The Rainbow "
" The Trent, near Burton "
" Harvesting "
" Potter Gate, Lincoln "
" Stacking Hay "
" A Road in Yorkshire "
" Ruins of the Bishop's Palace,
Lincoln "
" Near Epping Forest " " Sunlight and Shade " " West Front of Lincoln
Cathedral" (1841) " Cornfield, Ivinghoe" " Westminster "
" The High Bridge, Lincoln " w 33 " Entrance to Haddon Hall " w 34 " Lancaster Castle " " Harvest Time, Lancashire " " Bray-on-Thames " " Bray-on-Thames " " Roman Canal, Lincolnshire " w 39 " The Cricketers " w 40
" Tewkesbury " w 41
" The Valley of the Lune " w 42 "Nottingham" (1847-48) w 43 " On the Dart " (1848-49) w 44
w 20
W 21 W 22
w 23 w 24 w 25 w 26
w 27 w 28 w 29
w 30 w 31 w 32
w 35 w 36
w 37 w 38
ESSAYS
"The Life and Work of John Sell Cotman." Twelve Special Plates and Fifty- Five Illustrations in Half-Tone. Written by Laurence Binyon.
" The Life and Work of David Cox." Six Special Plates and Fifty-Nine Illus- trations in Half-Tone. Written by A. L. Baldry.
" The Life and Work of Peter De Wint." Seven Special Plates and Forty- Four Illustrations Jm Half-Tone. Written by Walter Shaw Sparrow.
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THE LIFE AND WORK OF JOHN SELL COTMAN
VIEWS in life are so completely blasted, that I sink under the repeated and constant exertion of body and mind. Every effort has been tried, even without the hope of success ; hence that loss of spirits amounting almost to despair. MY eldest son, who is following the same miserable profession with myself, feels the same hopelessness; and his powers, once so promising, are evidently paralysed, and his health and spirits gone. My amiable and deserving wife bears her part with fortitude. But the worm is there. My children cannot but feel the contagion. As a husband and father, bound by every tie, human and divine, to cherish and protect them, I leave you to suppose how impossible it must be for me to feel one joy divided from them. I watch them, and they me, narrowly ; and I see enough to make me broken- hearted."
So wrote Cotman to a friend in the middle of his career. The deep despondency of his words was not indeed habitual ; he could rally, and did rally. His high-strung febrile nature, liable to fits of extreme depression, responded easily to happy influences. After 1829, when this letter was written, he was to experience some slight measure of success, brief gleams of sunshine, and a few small hints of recognition for his work. But anything like real success or adequate recognition never came. The history of Cotman's life is the history of one marvellously sensitive to the beauty of the world, marvellously endowed in eye and hand to record his visions of that beauty ; ripening early, working with enthusiasm, yet unable to make any livelihood by the best of his production ; driven more and more to the drudgery of teaching, which if it does not paralyse yet impairs his art, makes it less the spontaneous expression of his mind, and consumes the best years of his manhood; never escaping from this drudgery, yet never succumbing to it, and from time to time still striking out for himself some newly discovered beauty, if never again reaching the serene mastery of .his youth; till at last he dies, of no disease but sheer exhaustion, worn out at sixty. In an auction at Christie's in 1836, six years before Cotman's death, some of his finest drawings were sold. Of all his water- colours Greta Bridge is perhaps the very best ; it is indeed among A j sc i
JOHN SELL COTMAN
the very best water-colours ever produced in England. It fetched just eight shillings. None of his oil paintings, at a sale in 1834 at Norwich, fetched more than five guineas. Remember this, and judge with what sort of courage Cotman worked on. Absolute starvation might have been kinder.
Those who create are rarely known at their true worth in their lifetime, but they nourish the sustaining hope that Time will surely bring them justice. If it were not so, the world would be an ill place indeed. Time does bring justice, but is sometimes very slow in bringing it. Cotman is one of the finest spirits who ever worked in landscape art. Yet how has he been treated since his death, even in his native country? Ruskin, so ready with full praise for Prout and Hunt, for Robson and Copley Fielding, never, I think, mentions Cotman, who is far above all of these. Mr. Wedmore has written enthusiastically of him, but his voice has been almost alone. Mr. D. S. MacColl in his recently published "Nineteenth Century Art" has an appreciative and dis- criminating chapter on Cotman ; though one cannot help lamenting that the example by which it is illustrated seems, so far as one can judge from the reproduction, to have little to do with the artist, and represents a port in Holland, where he never was. Which brings me to another point. His name has, it is true, acquired a certain prestige in the picture-market ; but what has he gained from this ? Only that, whoever possesses a picture of the Norwich school seems to feel himself at liberty to give it Cotman's name without inquiry. Scarcely a sale or exhibition of English pictures occurs without some so-called Cotman, though quite often it may be a painting that has no remote resemblance to his work. It is hardly too much to say that he is best known by pictures which he never painted. To crown his posthumous misfortunes, the National Gallery, a few years ago, purchased what purports to be an important and representative picture which no one who has given a brief study to the artist's authentic work can accept as his. It has nothing of his design, only the slightest resemblance to his brush-work, nothing of his colour, nothing of his knowledge of boats and of the sea. Yet in all these points Cotman is strongly distinctive. Even supposing that he had painted it in some hour of aberration, it would be a deep injustice to his memory that this should represent him to the nation. If labelled E. W. Cooke, one might pass it as a hasty and inferior example of that painter's style. I do not believe it to be Cooke's work, but his name would be a more plausible finger-post to its origin than Cotman's. jsc ii
JOHN SELL COTMAN
The few oil paintings then which Cotman was able to produce, with little leisure and practically no commissions — nor did he work at oils except during certain portions of his career — are swamped for the public, in the far greater mass of work attributed to him on little or no grounds ; and, strangely enough, it is not usually because of likeness to his style that a picture is dubbed with his name, for in many cases there is no hint of likeness, but simply because it is striking and the authorship uncertain. Any forcible sea-piece has a chance of getting christened his in time.
With the drawings which he produced in infinitely greater number the case is different, though the result is much the same. As in life he was forced to be a drawing-master, so after death it is the product of his drudgery, not of his delight, which is usually made to represent him. During the latter part of his life he pro- duced many drawings which, with all their accomplishment, are hardly worthy of him. Yet it is these which one usually sees exhibited, at least in London. Numbers of his earlier and finer drawings have, I imagine, perished through long service as copies for his pupils.
But there is happily another side to this picture. If people in general have been for the most part far too careless in giving Cotman's name to pictures, still there have been one or two art- lovers and collectors who have always valued him at his proper worth, who have been jealous of his honour, and studious of his fame. Foremost among these is Mr. James Reeve of Norwich, who has devoted his life to the study of the Norwich painters, and more especially to the study of Cotman. A friend of Cotman's son, brought up in the traditions of the school, he has spared no pains in sifting and establishing the information which he has had peculiar opportunities for acquiring. His collection of Cotman drawings, formed with scrupulous choice, is the best material extant for studying that artist ; it represents him both in colour and in black and white at every period of his career. Mr. Reeve is the acknow- ledged authority on the Norwich painters ; and if he errs, it is on the side of caution in accepting work as genuine; but those who have given any study to this school must confess that with all its productions, and especially those ascribed to its two chief masters, caution can hardly be excessive.
The bulk of Mr. Reeve's collection is now the property of the nation, and in the British Museum. The greater part of our illus- trations are drawn from this source.
John Sell Cotman, the eldest son of a well-to-do silk mercer, was
j s c iii
JOHN SELL COTMAN
born at Norwich, May 16, 1782. His bent for art showed itself in early boyhood. There is already a sense of style, as well as practised skill, in an Indian-ink drawing in the British Museum Collection, dated 1794. It shows that the boy of twelve was well on his way to the finding of those conventions which the man was to mature. His parents consulted Opie, then at Norwich, who advised any profession rather than a painter's. But the boy had his will, and at sixteen or seventeen he had found his way to London. Stories are told of hardships and difficulties experienced in trying to make a living by the sale of drawings to the dealers. But Cotman was doubtless happy. He had found congenial comrades, and was appreciated as a friend and as an artist. At eighteen he was an exhibitor at the Academy. The summers of these next few years were spent in sketching-tours to Wales, Surrey, Shropshire, Somerset, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire. Yorkshire especially attracted him. In the winter he drew at Dr. Monro's on the Adelphi Terrace, studying and copying prints and drawings in the company of Girtin, Turner, Varley, and De Wint.
He joined Girtin's sketching-club, founded in 1799. The members met in the winter evenings at each other's rooms and made mono- chrome compositions on a given subject. 'The Centaur •, here repro- duced, is an example of the work done on such occasions. It shows what the evenings at Dr. Monro's had done for Cotman, how much he had assimilated of the older masters, the intentness of his interest in composition, the resource he was adding to a rare native faculty for style.
The water-colour painters formed a group of emulous young men, eager, industrious, and ambitious, full of hopes and confident of their gift. Girtin's daring and mastery of his medium were attracting wide attention to the resources of this art.
Water-Colour hitherto had been used in two quite distinct ways. From early times it had been used by the masters of Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, in sketches and studies preparatory to oil pictures. A few men, like Du'rer, Rubens, and Van Dyck made water-colour drawings for their own sake and without reference to any more elaborate subsequent work. This was especially the case with landscapes, for which there was never much demand, and which were mostly done for the artist's own pleasure. Thus a sort of tradition was established, which Gainsborough was the first to continue in England.
But about the same time as Gainsborough, the parallel line begins with Sandby and the topographical draughtsmen. These men jsc iv
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JOHN SELL COTMAN
worked mainly for engraving, and their drawings began in the careful Indian-ink wash, adapted to translation by the engraver ; over this was laid a timid tint, gradually becoming stronger and bolder in colour, as the drawings themselves came to be more valued apart from their use to the engravers.
Alexander Cozens and his son John Robert, who both worked in Italy and both taught in England, supplied a new element tending to merge the one tradition in the other ; for the elder Cozens had founded himself in .Rome on the still surviving style of Claude. The younger Cozens had a very great influence on Turner, and later on Constable. But it was Girtin and Turner with him who really made the modern water-colour.
Girtin died at twenty -seven, in 1802. His death lost us doubtless many a splendid landscape. But it was not only his own career that was ended, but his sustaining influence ; and scarcely was this with- drawn than the men of lesser gift lost confidence and inspiration, their style dropped and flagged, and fell easily a prey to the public demand for finish and elaboration. Circumstances were all against them. A livelihood was not to be made from water-colours ; the more artistic they were in aim the less success they had. Hence all but Turner were reduced to teaching ; and in too many cases the drawing-master almost wholly superseded the artist. Turner wisely took to oils for a living, though he continued to paint for his pleasure in the medium he loved better. Girtin seems to have been resolved on the same course when death overtook him.
Cotman like the others took to teaching, after a brief trial ot portraiture. Leaving his London circle he settled at Norwich. His life henceforward was to be one of laborious and little-congenial toil. But his soul was never subdued, though after the first few years his finest work is to be sought less in his finished paintings than in the studies and compositions which he poured out for his own pleasure and without any profit, a series of thoughtful, delicate, or impassioned drawings pursued with extraordinary variety right to the end of his life.
But the life at Norwich did not begin till 1806. Before that there were several years of hope and freedom passed in London and the wilder parts of England. In these few years Cotman reached maturity.
Let us consider the actual work of this first period. For con- venience of reference, I will confine myself as far as possible to the examples reproduced. The earliest of these is the Backwater in a Park (1798). Cotman was sixteen when he drew this. The
jsc v
JOHN SELL COTMAN
colouring is very near that of Girtin, but the method is already extremely distinctive. The vibration of light on the palings, re- ducing the dark intervals to the eye, is an effect of which Cotman was noticeably fond. Compare the tree stems in A Shadowed Stream, almost diminished to threads by the strong light coming between them. But more tell-tale of Cotman'sf aims at this time is the drawing of the tree-trunks. These are left almost entirely flat, with a deliberate omission of any attempt to show their roundness. In all the drawings of this time we shall find this tendency to simplify the appearance of things to a system of harmoniously coloured spaces, discarding both chiraroscuro and modelling, if need be, for the desired effect. The furthest point to which he carried this conception of picture-making is seen in The Drop Gate. In this aim Cotman was unlike all his countrymen, but was un- consciously following the universal practice pursued for more than a thousand years in those greatest schools of water-colour art, the schools of China and Japan.
The Chinese artists, on whose work all Japanese art is founded, systematically omitted all cast shadows, and preferred to suggest model- ling rather than to render it fully. The clear stain or rich blotting of the colour on silk or paper was to be preserved in its freshness : the beauty native and congenial to the materials employed, was that which was to be explored, and none other forced into their use. To attempt complete realisation wouljd have meant muddiness and confusion, and was besides contrary to their whole conception of art. It would be absurd in Europe, with our different instincts and conceptions, to dogmatise rigidly, or establish an orthodoxy which should exclude such treatment of water-colour as Rossetti's, or Millet's, or Barye's. Even in landscape, the use of body-colour and strong chalk or pen outline, doubtless is often best. But for Cotman's particular aims the Chinese or Japanese use of the medium was that best adapted. And it is astonishing how frank and bold he is at times in discarding light and shade. He will put in a tree which rises against the sky, with one brush-full of some chosen green, stem and all, perfectly flat. Or light stems standing out from a thick screen of foliage will be left in white tracery on a flat dark background.
Had Cotman not been so absolutely isolated, he might have pushed this way of seeing things to something like the point which the Japanese prints revealed, in the last few decades, to the surprise and delight of Europe. But there was nothing in contemporary theory or practice to support him. On the contrary, everything was jsc vi
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against him. This highly personal, simplifying vision clung to him to the end. But he was inevitably forced along with the dominant trend of his time : and that trend was all in another direction, towards science, the realisation of the ' quantity of Nature,' and ever new discoveries about light. With this came an increasing heigh- tening of the key in which pictures were painted. Exhibitions forced this up higher and higher, as the artists to whom low tones were natural found their works crushed out of notice by more emphatic neighbours. Cotman deserted the tender tones and uni- fying grays of his early period, and more and more reduced the world of his vision to an opposition of blue shadow and amber light. Thus, though there are fine things in the coloured work of his later years, his best are to be sought, as I have said, in his monochromes.
But to return to the early drawings. Bold though Cotman's con- ventions are, they are used with unfailing tact. There is no cheap evasion into a facile formula, such as superficial imitation of the Japanese has produced in our own day.
One thing Cotman has in common with the Japanese, an extra- ordinary appreciation of the value of gray tints in holding and enhancing a harmony of colour. Look, for instance, at the Screen in Norwich Cathedral, as lovely as it is masterly in its colour-harmony ; the effect is conceived with clear intention and carried out with perfect understanding.
Duncombe Park carries us into another world. This is one of the most exquisite of Cotman's drawings. Its delicate power of execution matches the felicity of design and the beauty of concep- tion. Spring woods in solitude, their freshness, purity, and fragrance; how the charm of these is brought to the senses, heightened and enriched as if by memory ! How delicious to the eye is that caress of gray strokes on the blue, in which the tremulous hovering of the slender tree-tops is imagined !
The same mood of remoteness and reverie saturates Greta Bridge. But here the solemnity is deepened, a note of severity comes in. The most obvious beauty of this drawing is the beauty of its colouring. Again, it is a gray of the loveliest tone and texture that holds the map of glowing and yet sober tints together. Simply as a colour-plan it gives extreme delight to the eye, for the quality of each colour is not less sustained than the harmony of their combina- tion. Yet, though colour is thus imaginatively used, there is here— what Cotman is not always curious to obtain — extraordinary reality of atmosphere. The cold light that comes after retreating heavy
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showers is in the blue band of sky, still filmy with the moisture of the air, and strikes clear outlines in the white range of cloud on the horizon, with a sharp reflection in the shallow water, where clustered rocks and pebbles lie wet and vivid in their many tints. Under this bloom of tone and atmosphere the design is built up like a piece of architecture. Cotman seems to have found in this idea of a design when such a single arch forms the centre, a base for much composing. The bridge formed a central feature, combining both curve and angle in its forms, with which surrounding sky and wood and hill could be brought into answering rhythm ; yet while staying the eye it did not bring it up on blankness but enclosed a further vista. This leaning upon suggestion, leading thought on and outward, deepens the spell of reverie under which the drawing is conceived.
Cotman was twenty-three when he painted Greta Bridge. It was exhibited in 1806 at the Academy. Of the same year probably c ft is The Scotchman's Stone on the Greta, which brings out with even greater force his mastery of brush-drawing. Where Turner, to get the spirt and dance of chafing water, would have worked half through his paper, exhausting every device of his marvellous resources, Cotman uses one single brush-full of diluted black, and with swift and light precision conjures from his paper, without scrape or scratch or added stroke, the fretted hurry of the stream. Not far from these in point of date must be placed the mono- chrome Waterfall, still in Mr. Reeve's possession. The oil-painting of the same subject, modified and improved in composition, is of some years later ; at least, so I would conjecture. Here Cotman again takes the single arch, but, making an upright instead of an oblong design, he plunges the river headlong in a cataract, and raises a mountain behind it. This vertical composition reappears under other forms, especially in a subject called by Cotman " Height and Depth," of which there are several drawings. It is founded on the Devil's Bridge of the St. Gothard.
In Mr. Reeve's drawing one may notice the square forms of the imaginary architecture. A fondness for such square shapes runs through all Cotman's art, from the early Pastoral Scene in the British Museum to the late so-called Chateau in Normandy. The contrast of straight line and angle with soft cloudy masses or drooping featheri- ness of foliage, or with the feminine elegance of slender stems, is one of his favourite motives in composition. This fondness may be associated with boyish impressions of the great square keep of Norwich Castle, combined as it can be in distant views with a j s c viii
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framing of foreground trees, and actually is in an unfinished oil picture of our painter's, for which he made several studies. Cotman's chosen method of treating water-colour being what it was, it is not surprising to find that when he wants to paint the fulness and mystery of massed foliage he nearly always resorts to monochrome. There are a number of drawings made at this early time, and a little later, to which the sense of this fulness and mystery gives the dominant mood. Such are The Shadowed Stream, Dewy Eve, Postwick Grove, and On the Bare. These, with their dignity of mass and poetry of sentiment, are among the most beautiful of Cotman's productions. Surely nowhere before, save in certain drawings of Claude, had this particular charm of nature been so ntimately explored.
A quite early drawing, Castle Eden Dean, Durham, of about 1803 or 1804, has something of the same mood, with a difference ; there is just a hint of man's presence and labour, a hint which becomes full expression in a rather later drawing, Breaking the Clod. In this last Cotman touches the highest pitch of his art. The thoughtful- ness and solemnity of Dewy Eve and its companions are here also ; but relieved and refreshed by a note of simple action, the pull of the labourer's hand on his horses' rein, as he calls to them in the morning stillness. The way in which every element of the design is brought to conspire towards the dominating mood, the beauty of the under- lying rhythms, the directness of the means employed, the bloom and dewiness of atmosphere, give this drawing a completeness and intensity by which it ranks with the very best of English landscape. Made before Millet was born, it anticipates in its own way that master's discovery of his poetic theme. Millet, the figure-painter, dwells most on the natural dignity of labour in the fields ; Cotman, the landscape-painter, on the primeval beauty of its surroundings. With most artists such drawings as these, expressing the mind's most intimate thoughts, would be found the prelude to oil paintings. But it is not so with Cotman. What a series of fine pictures his want of fortune has cost us ! He had a great ambition to paint in oils, but no scope and little encouragement.
Before settling at Norwich in 1806 he had not touched this medium. One of the earliest of his oil paintings is probably the South Gate, Yarmouth, owned by Mr. Arthur Samuel. It is dated 1810. The composition is the same as in the etching of the same subject. The brush-work is strong, even a little coarse perhaps in details, the colour sober and grave, but with nothing dead or gloomy in its pigment. The chief beauty of the painting, apart from its
jsc ix
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noble strength and simplicity of design, is luminous harmony of tone, the clear and temperate atmosphere of autumn.
Wherries on Breydon, the small picture in the National Gallery, must be of about the same date. This is as full of Cotman's real qualities as its large companion in the gallery is empty of them. A little later comes Mr. Cotman's Waterfall, one of the best of Cotman's oil pictures. I have already said something of the compo- sition, modified from the study reproduced. The handling is here freer, the pigment laid on fat with a full brush, as in all Cotman's oil pictures. He never explored the resources of the medium, never using it enough to do so. The only change that comes is a change that is still more noticeable in his water-colours. This is the gradually increasing use of stronger and more vivid tints. In the Trentham of 1808 or 1809, still more in the Draining Mill and Household Heath of 1810, there is an increasing change towards depth and warmth of colour from the delightful Twickenham of 1807. These later drawings are exhibition drawings, or rather no longer drawings but water-colour pictures, in which there is a deliberate attempt to rival the solidity and brilliance of oils. The Dismasted Brig in the British Museum is an exception, for though its colour is not specially beautiful, the brush-work has all the early lightness and masterly directness. It must have been made soon after Cotman had come to live in Yarmouth, and in daily sight of the sea.
For he was soon dissatisfied with his prospects at Norwich. He married in 1809, and teaching was not so remunerative as he had hoped. So at the suggestion of Dawson Turner, the Yarmouth antiquary and collector, he removed to the neighbouring town, though retaining his connection with Norwich and visiting his pupils there.
The companionship of Dawson Turner stimulated Cotman's antiquarian zeal — he had always loved architecture with a passion — and led to the publication of a number of works, which the artist illustrated.
Cotman's first etchings had been published in a set, without text, in 1811, while he was still at Norwich. This was followed by a series of sixty plates, published in ten parts, 1812-1818, called Etchings of all Ornamental Antiquities in Norfolk, and Sepulchral Brasses of Norfolk, published in 1819. But Cotman's most important publi- cation is the set of a hundred etchings for Dawson Turner's Normandy.
Cotman's etchings are at once the most accessible and the least j so x
JOHN SELL COTMAN
interesting part of his work ; so I shall be content with this brief summary. Nearly all are architectural subjects. Being coldly and baldly printed, they are almost always inferior to the drawings from which they were made.
These successive publications meant a great amount of work, and combined with constant teaching left Cotman little enough time for painting. Some of his best oil pictures were however done during the residence at Yarmouth, and probably most of the sea-pieces he ever did.
The drawing already mentioned is a good example of Cotman's treatment of marine subjects. Already in the first decade of the century Turner had painted the grandeur and terror of the sea, the daring and endurance of sailors, with a power by far transcending that of any previous painter and never since approached. In the sea-pictures of nearly all other artists there is something theatrical ; but from this element Cotman is entirely free. He does not rival, or attempt to rival, Turner's magnificence of conception, his triumphant evocation of splendour and beauty from turbulence, discord, chaos, and destruction. But his vision is a true vision, and it is recorded with a mastery not less than Turner's. How easy in this Dismasted Brig to have made the subject many times more striking, by a little forcing of reality ! But here there is the real blank helplessness of an utterly beaten ship, struck from a thing of almost sentient life to a tossed log, the wet, the cold, the listless wretchedness of morning after tempest, when there is nothing any longer to be done, the bleak and careless splendour of light breaking behind trailing showers on the last dazzling clouds of storm, and the heavy motion of a swell subsiding. With his innate predisposition to melancholy, and the gathering cloud of ill-success beginning to overshadow his life, Cotman could find in the sea tragic matter in plenty for his imagina- tion. He does not treat it, like Turner, as the living and tremendous theatre of a nation's victory, adventure, or disaster ; rather as the embodied plastic shape of his own thoughts attuned to a deep sense of all mortality. But, as we have seen, his production was of necessity so circumscribed that we have but hints of what he might have done. In view of the multitude of sea-pieces ascribed to Cotman we may, however, fix attention on the Fishing Boats off Tarmouth, now in the Norwich Museum, as a good test-picture. This painting hung in Cotman's house unsold for years till the sale of 1834 when it fetched £3 3-r. In one of the few cases in which he is known to have been given a commission, he was paid jTio, and the price of colours and canvas.
j s c xi
JOHN SELL COTMAN
In 1817 Cotman went to Normandy. It was his first trip abroad. He left England twice again, in 1818 and in 1820, but again confined himself to Normandy. The result is to be seen not only in the etchings for Dawson Turner's volumes, but in a number of unpublished drawings. In point of design many of these are splendid, but in point of colour few are quite happy. This period supplies most of those effects of strong contrasted blue and yellow by which alone, unfortunately, Cotman is too often judged. But it must not be assumed that all the later drawings are of this character. The Chateau in Normandy (reproduced) which is more probably a composition based on a building near Whitby, is a very happy essay in blue and brown — the brown of autumn foliage and the blue of its misty shadows. Here, instead of the immediacy and simplicity of his early manner, Cotman uses every possible device for subtilising and gradating the quality of his colour. Before this drawing was made Cotman had returned to Norwich. The publication of the Normandy made his name well known, and with renewed hopes, in 1823, he took a large house on St. Martin's Palace Plain. Here for years he worked on. But the hopes were disappointed, as before. Expenses grew as his household increased, and his income did not grow in proportion. During these years he fell into terrible depths of gloom. In one of his letters he describes how he heard one of his children say, Why^ Papa smiled ; only then realising, with horrified self-accusation, how much he had allowed to appear on his face.
At last, in 1834, what seemed like a chance of better days presented itself ; the opportunity of returning to London and becoming teacher of drawing at King's College. The emphatic praise of his old friend, J. M. W. Turner, helped to decide the appointment in his favour.
So from this year till his death Cotman worked in London, with more approach to happiness than before, and less anxiety, but still pre- vented by engrossing duties from producing much. The drawings he exhibited tended now to more elaboration and finish than hitherto, and he introduced figures more frequently. Though he painted few oil pictures, he was as fond as ever of making studies in com- position. The last year of his life is notable for the number and fine quality of such studies.
In the autumn of this year (1841) he went down to Norfolk. It was a stormy season and the floods were out. He found subjects everywhere, and made a whole set of drawings in black and white chalk on brown paper, all doubtless intended for paintings. One j s c xii
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that he began, but never finished, is now in the Norwich Museum.* A study for it is here reproduced. It is called " From my father's house at Thorpe," a beautiful view looking up the Yare, with the garden in the foreground. In the picture poplars are substituted for the pine-trees. One other subject was carried out in oils, and yet another begun ; but the majority remain only studies. These fill one with regret that we cannot possess them as paintings ; but as they are they rank with the best of Cotman's work. Something seems to have kindled his old self, and a new contact with nature gives force and matter to his imagination. Among these last studies the Storm off Cramer and The Wold Afloat are perhaps the most impressive. In the former there is a largeness and a strangeness in the composition which strike one as new in Cotman. In The Wold Afloat there is an intensity and passion to which he rarely rose. Again, it is the vision of wreck and defeat in the storm-heavy air, the beaten branches and drowned sedge, that, like a reflection of his own life, brings out in him a tragic insight and the power to record it with tragic terseness.
It was the last flicker of the flame. Before the summer of 1842 was over he was dead, of 'natural decay,' exhausted in body, and without hope or will to prolong the struggle.
Such, briefly sketched, is the story of Cotman's career. I have purposely said little of the inferior part of his production. An artist should be judged by his best. The quantity of uninspired verse poured out by Wordsworth does not prevent us from measuring him by the sublimity of his noblest poems. High success in all arts is lamentably and strangely rare ; and artists below the very greatest have mostly made their impress on the world by repeating their one success, approaching again and again the theme in which they have found themselves most truly.
If Cotman had found support sufficient, he would have made paintings of what remain to us but as studies. Had Breaking the Clod been painted and appreciated, with Dewy Eve and The Shadowed Stream and other drawings of that type, how different an impression he would have made ! Developing on this line, he would have been seen to anticipate, alone, the kind of land- scape which in the Barbizon school stands for so much in the painting of the latter nineteenth century. As it is, he is far more truly than Constable a forerunner of that school.
* According to John Joseph Cotman's repeated declaration, his father never painted a larger picture than this.
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JOHN SELL COTMAN
Yet this is but one side of his art. In the beautiful early water-colours he stretches out to join the Japanese. As an architectural draughtsman he has no superior among Englishmen. In his sea-pieces there are the germs of an art rising nearer Turner's than any other. Sensitive to every breath of beauty, his art is for ever putting forth new flowers into a frosty and indifferent air. But the world allowed him no fulfilment or completion.
This variety of range of itself made against his recognition. The public will listen to nothing new till it has been repeated over and over. Turner alone of landscape painters is more various, and there was no room for two Turners in a single generation. Not that Cotman is merely a lesser Turner. He is radically different in mind, and from the first perfectly independent of his influence. Each admired the other. Cotman made a number of copies from Turner's "Liber Studiorum" and other publications. He gave one of these to Turner, who, after some years, pre- sented it to a friend as his own work. When the drawing was remounted, Cotman's inscription was found on the back. One or these pencil studies, after the frontispiece to "Liber Studiorum," — Tyre, with the Rape of Europa — is here reproduced, and the original mezzotint along with it. As in all these copies, Cotman has modified the composition to please himself. In this case, however, his alterations are all on Turner's peculiar lines ; he has deepened, heightened, intensified ; and I think most will agree has come nearer than Turner himself to what one would imagine was Turner's conception.
Even if this be not conceded, it is plain that the younger painter was perfectly independent ; he copies Turner in the same spirit in which Rembrandt or Rubens copy Mantegna.
But I would not for a moment be understood to match Cotman's art against that of his great contemporary. Their likeness was in their variety and in their freedom from provincial limitation. Their essential unlikeness was that while Turner's was in its main mani- festations an epic art, Cotman's was lyrical.
As painting became more and more liberated trom external conditions — a liberation perhaps more to be lamented than extolled — as the Church and the State lost touch with it, and the individual patron became more and more important, landscape inevitably grew in favour as a subject. Inevitably ; for landscape, more than anything else, is the natural vehicle for a painter's personal thought and emotion : even before the days when it began to be painted for j s c xiv
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its own sake, we see how large a part it plays in the lyrical art of spirits like Giorgione.
All the great painters have used it in this way. Scientific interest in nature has brought a new element of late years, but in so far as this interest has neglected beauty and discarded emotion, so far it need not be considered except as history. Turner alone of Europeans has been able to lift and enlarge this art to greater issues, and to paint the emotions of a nation or of humanity. It is in this sense that I have used the word ' epical,' because from epic poets we demand not only the expression of an individual mind, but expression of the general mind of man.
Cotman's place, then, is in a lesser rank. But the great majority of both painters and poets who have enriched the world for us are of this lyrical temperament. What were the qualities which gave his art its essential separate character ? What is it that he gives us new ? Skill, the mastery over means, is his in an extreme degree ; and this alone has charm for all of us. We all take pleasure in seeing things well and surely done. But skill is not the measure of a man's greatness ; rather we seek such a measure in the worth and greatness of what he is capable of receiving and communicating. The mediocrity and lifelessness of so much landscape painting come from a shallowness in this capacity, a lack of kindling heat to melt the world of sight into the more real and impressive world of imagination. Cotman never rests upon the surface-picturesque. He would have echoed that cry of every poet to his soul about the world:
" Would we not shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire ! "
He is not at all concerned to imitate the actuality of nature. As we have seen, he will endow things with unknown shapes and colours, if by so doing he can subdue them the better to his mood. He is for ever seeking a rhythm, a controlling idea behind the waste and abundance of nature ; and what he creates, when his effort is victorious, coheres into a reality with a force and persuasion of its own. It is as a designer and inventor that he ranks high. If we take the whole of his recorded thought, I think that no one in Europe except Claude and Turner will be found to have invented so much in landscape. Of course, this is to take into account ail those studies and sketches so few of which were to take shape as pictures ; but to appreciate Claude duly we must do the same for him. If we try to disengage the particular character of Cotman's tempera-
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ment, I think we should lay stress on a certain fineness of fibre in his nature — a nervous force as opposed to robustness, making for in- tensity and depth of mood rather than for geniality and lightness. He has not the enchanting fluent grace of Gainsborough nor the supple confident sweep of Girtin, each in his own way sprung from the lineage of Rubens and his royal ease of power. He foregoes to a great extent the sustenance of homely matter, racy of some certain soil, on which Crome built up the simple grandeur of his masterpieces. We miss too often in him the relish of the accidental and the fresh naturalness giving sap and flavour to the imperfect and limited art of Constable. Cotman's fineness and intensity give us something different from any of these, but the absence of those qualities I have mentioned removes him from the danger of falling into loose facility or narrow self-repetition; and if his spirit is more akin to Claude's on the one hand or Corot's on the other, he is more sensitive, pure, and keen of vision, less prone to heaviness or tameness, than the former, he has more range of thought and emotion than the latter. To that capacity for sweet or solemn moods which both these masters possess he adds an architectural severity, bracing the luxurious part of his imagination with his sense for precise and pure line. By his gift, if not by his production, he ranks with masters such as these. And by his gift he should be judged. Or, if we judge him only by his maimed production, let us remember that it is we who condemned him to be less than himself, in so much as we all partake of the eternal indifference of the world.
LAURENCE BINYON.
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(In the Norwich Museum. Photograph by the Autotype Com f any, New Oxford Street, London)
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MONOCHROME DRAWING (ABOUT 1803) "CASTLE EDEN DEAN, DURHAM"
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MONOCHROME DRAWING "STREAM IN NORTH WALES"
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MONOCHROME; DRAWING (EXHIBITED 1806) "HORSES DRINKING"
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(Study for the Oil-Painting. In the Collection of James Reeve, Esq.)
MONOCHROME DRAWING (EXHIBITED 1808) "THE WATERFALL"
MONOCHROME DRAWING "THE FALLEN TREE"
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MONOCHROME DRAWING (1841) "MOUSEHOLD HEATH"
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WATER-COLOUR (EXHIBITED 1810) "DRAINING MILL, LINCOLNSHIRE"
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WATER-COLOUR"(EXHIBITED 1810) "MOUSEHOLD HEATH"
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WATER-COLOUR (1798) "BACKWATER IN A PARK"
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WATER-COLOUR: "CHATEAU IN NORMANDY"
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WATER-COLOUR "POSTWICK GROVE"
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\VATER-COLOUR (1831): "YARMOUTH BEACH"
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WATER-COLOUR (1830): "CROSBY HALL"
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WATER-COLOUR (1831): "AT THE MOUTH OF THE THAMES"
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CRAYON STUDY "GROUP OF TREES"
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PENCIL STUDY: "AT BLOFIELD"
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J. S. COTMAN
CRAYON STUDY: "RIVERSIDE TREES" c 45
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CRAYON STUDY (1841) "RAINBOW AT WOLFERTON"
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CRAYON STUDY: "HOLLOW WAY AT BLOFIELD"
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CRAYON STUDY (1841) "STORM OFF CROMER
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CRAYON STUDY (1841) "THE FALLEN TREE"
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J. S. COTMAN
PENCIL DRAWING AFTER THE FRONTISPIECE TO "LIBER STUDIORUM"
(Shoving how Cotman altered Turner's Composition)
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FRONTISPIECE TO TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM"
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.1 Q O.nTMAN IN THF RRITISH MUSEUM
THE LIFE AND WORK OF DAVID COX
HE period over which the life of David Cox extended was one of special importance in the history of the British school. Many of the painters who were chiefly instrumental in building up the reputation of our native art were among his contemporaries, and while he lived some of the most notable additions were made to the long list of masterpieces produced in this country during the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries. At the time when he was born Reynolds and Gainsborough were still alive, Romney was at the height of his success, Turner, Lawrence, and Constable were young children, and Hoppner was only just beginning his career as an exhibiting artist. De Wint, Copley Fielding, J. S. Cotman, Crome, Samuel Prout, and several others who rank as our chief masters, lived and died while he was slowly making his way to the high position which in his old age was accorded him in acknowledgment of his life-long labour. All around him there was healthy activity, earnest striving after progress of the right kind, real sincerity of conviction, and wholesome effort to attain results which would do credit to a school with high ideals — all the signs, in fact, of a great change in the conditions under which the men before him had been accustomed to work. It was, indeed, during this period that the movement away from the classic tradition, and in the direction of pure and unaffected naturalism, became plainly perceptible. In the eighteenth century the idea prevailed that the practice of art involved the observation of certain formalities, certain conventions of style and treatment which were too sacred to be questioned, and too absolute to admit of modification. But as time went on the stronger spirits began to rebel against such narrow dogma. There came men like Richard Wilson — one of Cox's immediate predecessors — whose classicism was flexible enough to permit them to study nature with some degree of sympathy. They refused to be dictated to by the believers in hard and fast tradition, and claimed the right to choose for themselves the way which would be best for them to follow. It cannot be said that they immediately departed to any very marked extent from what had been for some time previously a recognised custom, but year by year they widened the scope of their observation, and little by little they
D c i
DAVID COX
increased the strength of the personal element in their work. The change was not a sudden one ; at first it was, indeed, almost imper- ceptible in its effects, but by the beginning of the nineteenth century it had come to exercise an active influence upon -the subject-matter and the technical manner of the pictures which the better type of artists were producing, and it culminated at last in the pre-Raphaelite revolution by which the last remnants of the classic pedantry were definitely destroyed.
One of the chief claims that David Cox has to consideration arises from the fact that he was essentially a supporter of the modern point of view. In his work the strength of the naturalistic idea is not to be mistaken ; it controls the whole of his achievement, and determines not only his manner of regarding his subjects but also his executive processes. There is no straining after elegant formalities, no precise insistence upon particular rules of composition, no substitution of convention for direct inspiration ; on the contrary, in everything he produced there appears the frankest sympathy with nature's moods and ever varying suggestions. His receptivity to direct impressions was always the greatest of the qualities with which he was endowed, the foundation of all that was best in his temperament and the cause of the success which he made as a master of landscape painting. He had, innately, an extraordinary acuteness of perception which enabled him to decide at once what was artistically expedient, and kept him infallibly in the right course.
Indeed, apart from his natural equipment, he had little to help him in the making of a career. Like many other artists who have achieved a world-wide reputation he had a humble origin, and enjoyed no advantages of birth or fortune which would be likely to give him special chances in his profession. He was born on April 29, 1783, in Heath Mill Lane, Deritend, a suburb of Birmingham, where his father carried on the trade of a blacksmith and manufac- tured on occasions such things as bayonets and horseshoes for the War Department of the period. The boy received some elementary education in a local school, but very early in life he was taken into the forge to give what help he could in the blacksmith's work. Such a laborious occupation, however, proved to be beyond his strength. His constitution was too delicate to stand the strain of the constant physical exertion required of him, and in a very short time his parents realised that another way of earning a living must be found for him. An accident determined the particular direction in which he was to turn. He broke one of his legs, and while he was recovering he was given a paint-box to amuse himself with. So D c ii
DAVID COX
obvious was the enjoyment he derived from this new possession, and so promising were his first attempts at painting, that when he was well again he was sent to a drawing-school in the neighbourhood to be trained in the rudiments of artistic practice. His progress seems to have been eminently satisfactory, so much so that when he was barely sixteen he was apprenticed to a manufacturer of those fancy articles which have always been extensively produced in Birmingham and the adjacent districts.
' In this " toy trade " he had opportunities of turning his artistic capacities to account in many ways. His master, a man named Fielder, made such things as lockets, lacquered buckles, snuff-boxes, and similar trifles, which called for some ingenuity of design and some taste in execution. Many of them were ornamented with miniature paintings, and it was particularly in this branch of the work that the boy could make himself useful. He acquired in a short time no slight skill in handling the painted decorations, as one or two things done by him at this period, which have been preserved by his family, show very plainly. Had he continued long in this employment he might, indeed, have been led into modes of practice quite unlike those by which he afterwards became famous ; but, fortunately, as it seems now, his experience of the " toy trade " ended before it had had time to affect his methods in any appreciable manner. The termination of his apprenticeship was caused by a tragic occurrence — by the suicide of his master — which threw the lad once more on his own resources. His work with Fielder had lasted for only eighteen months, so that he was then not much over seventeen, and full young to face the problem of making unassisted the wherewithal to exist.
The difficulties of his position did not weaken his resolve to be an artist, but they imposed upon him the necessity of finding something to do at once. So with the idea presumably of keeping touch, even remotely, with pictorial art, he took a post as scene-painter's labourer in the Birmingham theatre which was at the time managed by the father of Macready, the tragedian. Such an occupation meant to David Cox practically beginning life again, for he had merely to grind colours and to prepare the materials for the men who actually painted the scenes. But he did not miss any chances of adding to his store of knowledge, and even in this subordinate position he was able to master the more important principles of scenic art and to study closely its technicalities and processes. His opportunity came before long. The manager of the theatre, requiring some special scenery which he did not care to entrust to the local artists, brought
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De Maria, the scene-painter at the Italian Opera House in London, to Birmingham to do the work for him, and Cox had as usual to help in the painting-room. De Maria recognised at once that his assistant was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and showed his confidence in him by allowing him to share in the actual execution of the scenes. This incident seemingly led Macready to realise that Cox was capable of better things, and the promotion or the colour-grinder to the post of scene-painter to the company followed not long after.
His engagement with Macready lasted altogether for four years, during which he gained an amount of experience in rapid and direct painting which was indisputably of great use to him in after years. The breadth and largeness of touch required for effective scenery, the frankness of expression, and the avoidance of niggling and small elaboration, are equally necessary in the finest type of landscape work ; and there is needed for the proper construction of a theatrical set a sense of proportion and a judgment of details of composition which are quite essential in the proper representation of open-air subjects. The insight into these matters which he obtained at this, the most receptive period of his life, assuredly helped him to become the wonderful interpreter of nature that he was throughout his long and busy career as a producing artist. He might, perhaps, have obtained equally sound methods in other ways, but his theatrical life is by no means to be regarded as having interfered with his develop- ment or as having harmed the purity of his technical manner. The scenic element, it must be admitted, is perceptible in many of his drawings, but only in the sense that it adds to their dignity and ampli- fies their effect. Theatrical his art never was ; but it was often dramatic in its presentation of grand line and in its suggestion of the wonders of atmospheric tone.
When he left Macready it was not with the idea of abandoning scene-painting, but rather because he wished to escape the incessant moving about from place to place which could not be avoided so long as he was attached to a provincial touring company. On the advice of Astley, the proprietor of the amphitheatre in Westminster Bridge Road, he came to London in 1804, and was at once employed on scenery for the Surrey and other theatres. Whether he worked for Astley himself is uncertain, but he seems to have found plenty to do for other managers, and to have been for a while fairly prosperous in a small way. But as time went on he began to seek fresh forms of expression. He is said to have been inspired with the wish to excel as a water-colour painter by examining drawings shown hir
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by Falser, the picture-dealer, who took some interest in him and introduced him to John Varley. His visits to Varley's studio brought him into contact with many other artists and gave him opportunities of increasing his technical knowledge and his under- standing of the difference between the work on which he was engaged and that which he must produce ir he became a painter of pictures. That he learned much from Varley cannot be questioned ; his friendship with a man of such individuality and such sound artistic sense helped him greatly at a critical point in his career.
During his theatrical life Cox had never failed to sketch from nature whenever the opportunity offered ; and, though he was settled in London and in steady employment, he found time for excursions to the country in search of subjects. In 1805, and again in 1806, he went to North Wales to paint, possibly on the suggestion of Varley who had frequently visited that picturesque part of the world. By now Cox's drawings were beginning to attract attention ; he was able to sell a fair number of them at small prices — at the rate of two guineas a dozen — and some which were exhibited by Falser brought him an influential patron, Colonel Windsor, afterwards Earl of Plymouth, who recommended him to many people as a teacher. As his earnings from sales and pupils increased Cox gradually diminished his activity as a scene-painter, until at last he felt that he could definitely break off his connection with the stage. The last set of scenes he painted was for the Wolverhampton theatre. But this change did not by any means imply any great improve- ment in his financial position. He had to work harder than ever, and his earnings for a long while were barely enough to keep him in even moderate comfort. He gave, for ten shillings each, lessons in which his method was to execute before his pupils small drawings that were handed over to them as part consideration for the fee paid ; and for the works which he sold he received sums varying from a few shillings for a slight sketch to five or six pounds for things which were large and important. Despite the smallness of his means, however, he married in 1808 Mary Ragg, the daughter of his landlady, and took a cottage at Dulwich Common. In the following year his son, David, was born, so that the young artist, even then only six and twenty, found himself in a position involving new and serious responsibilities. His consciousness of these did not make him any less earnest in his devotion to his profession, though they must have added considerably to the anxieties of this period of his life. He worked unceasingly, producing drawing after drawing,
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DAVID COX
many of which he failed to sell even at the trifling prices he asked for them. Some were bought by dealers in batches of a dozen or twenty at a time, to be resold to teachers for use as drawing copies, many he destroyed, and some of the larger ones were simply covered up with fresh sheets of paper so that he might save the cost of new stretching-frames. Several of his most characteristic productions — works now highly valued by collectors — have been found hidden in this way ; sometimes three or four were stretched one over the other on the same board. It was only by incessant effort that he kept afloat, by hours of weary tramping from pupil to pupil, and by tempting buyers with a constant succession of new subjects. Yet, even with this endless tax upon his energies, he did not relax for an instant the studies by which alone he believed he could obtain a proper understanding of the principles of his art. He was fortunate in having round his home at Dulwich, then practically a country village, landscape material of an attractive type ; and he was able to work from nature there under the inspiration of really picturesque surroundings. At the same time he did not strive merely to reproduce the facts of the local scenery : topographical records were hardly what he aimed at, he sought rather to acquire a mastery over the subtleties of atmospheric effect, and to realise the significance of aerial tone and colour at different times of day and seasons of the year. He sat also at the feet of Velasquez, Caspar Poussin, Ruysdael, and the other great masters to whose canvases he had access, and sought by analysing their practice, and even by making copies of their achievements, to educate his naturally correct taste. These studies of the pictures of his famous predecessors were not intended to save him the trouble of forming a style for himself, but to give him that scientific foundation which he felt to be necessary to enable him to express his own observations in the most convincing manner. He was anxious that no imperfections of knowledge should hamper him, and that no lack of proper grounding should in his later life check the development of his powers. In this, as in everything he did, he showed emphatically the sincerity of his conviction and the unaffected common sense which carried him at last through all his struggles into success definite and un- questionable.
How much he advanced in capacity and professional repute during this strenuous period was proved in 1813 by his election as a member of the Water Colour Society — now the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours — which had been founded in 1805. Some few years before he had joined a rival institution, the Association of D c vi
DAVID COX
Artists in Water Colours, which had only a brief existence, and ended disastrously for the men who belonged to it. It was in difficulties almost from its first inception, and the works in its last exhibition were seized by the landlord of the gallery and sold to pay arrears of rent. Cox was among the sufferers, and this experience made him ever after shy of taking part in such artistic undertakings which involved the members in financial responsibility. The Water Colour Society, however, was always a flourishing institution, and its exhibitions provided him with a useful source of income. He con- tinued to be one of its most active supporters till his death, forty-six years later.
He was now a man of thirty, with a wife and child to support, and seemingly the time when he could hope to depend solely upon the sale of his drawings for the means of subsistence was as far ofF as ever. So in the same year that saw his election as a member of the Water Colour Society, he applied for, and obtained, the post of drawing-master at the Farnham Military College. His position there was an honourable one, he was not badly paid, and he was among people who liked and respected him. But the formality of the military routine soon began to weary him, and the break in his family life caused by his being obliged to live in the college seriously affected his spirits. He found that he had undertaken work which was quite unsuited to a man who loved his freedom and had essen- tially domestic tastes, so at the end of twelve months he sent in his resignation and returned with a cheerful heart to his former struggling, but independent, existence.
But his small savings from his salary at Farnham would not last long, and as he had broken up his home at Dulwich and parted from most of his former pupils, he had to cast about for fresh employment. Just at the right moment an opportunity came, which he seized upon gladly. He saw an advertisement for a drawing-master in a girl's school at Hereford, where a salary of £100 a year was offered with permission to take other pupils out of school hours. Such a chance of obtaining a settled position in a town which he knew to be surrounded by paintable scenery, seemed to be worth taking, so he arranged matters with the lady who carried on the school, and about the end of 1814 took up his abode in a modest and picturesque cottage on the outskirts of Hereford. There he remained for thirteen years, teaching in many other schools besides the one in which he was chiefly engaged, busy with private pupils, but finding, whenever he could, spare moments for out-of-door work. Mean- while he was a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Water
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DAVID COX
Colour Society, and he kept himself in touch with the art world by annual visits to London. He even went, in 1826, for a trip abroad, and spent some weeks wandering and sketching in Holland and Belgium. Most of his work during this period was, however, done round about Hereford, in the valley of the Wye, or in Wales. He digressed into authorship in 1814, when he published his "Treatise on Landscape Painting and Effect in Water Colours," and again in 1825, when his "Young Artist's Companion or Drawing Book," appeared, both of which were admirably illustrated with plates etched by himself; and, about 1820, he issued a set of six engraved "Views of the City of Bath." Some six or seven years later he — with De Wint, Harding, Westall, and some other well-known artists — executed for a history of Warwickshire a number of illustrations which were engraved by William Radclyfle, one of his most intimate friends.
This incessant labour was not without its compensations. Gradually but steadily David Cox improved his position and became modestly prosperous. He saved sufficient money to buy a piece of land and to build on it a pretty thatched cottage from his own designs. This he sold for nearly a thousand pounds only two years after, when he decided that the time had come for him to leave the country and to make London once more his headquarters. It was only after mature consideration that he resolved to take a step which implied the abandonment of a secure position. But he felt that in London, where he would be in direct contact with both painters and buyers, and where his growing reputation would bring him as many pupils as he would be likely to want, his chances of going further in his profession would be considerably increased. The sale of his cottage provided him with a lump sum which, when added to his savings from what he had earned during the previous thirteen years, secured him from all anxiety as to his immediate future, and he saw his way to making a very fair income as soon as he was established among the right surroundings.
His confidence was certainly justified by results, for not long after he had made a new home for himself at Foxley Road, Kennington, he found that he was greatly in request as a teacher, and that his drawings would sell with comparative readiness. He raised his teaching fee to a guinea a lesson, and asked and obtained higher prices than had been possible before for his work. As a consequence he began for the first time in his life to earn money freely. His tastes remained as simple as ever, and his domestic life continued to be quiet and unpretentious, so this increase of prosperity enabled him D c viii
DAVID COX
to lay the foundations of that competence which he desired for the security of his later years. This second residence in London lasted until 1841. It was on the whole an uneventful period, during which he laboured hopefully, always gaining ground and never losing sight of his intention to make a place for himself among artists of note. About 1832 he was commissioned to execute a number of illustrations for a book, " Wanderings in North and South Wales," in which he was associated with such artists as Copley Fielding, Creswick, and Cattermole. Before this he had made a second trip abroad, and had sketched at Calais, Amiens, and Paris ; but most of his painting excursions during the fourteen years he spent in London were into picturesque districts of England and Wales. He went on one occasion into Yorkshire ; on another through Derbyshire ; he visited Hastings, Lancaster, the Lake District ; he painted many versions of famous places like Bolton Abbey, Haddon Hall, Bardon Tower, and Hardwick Hall ; wherever he rambled he found something which would serve him as material for fine and expressive work, or that he could add to the store of notes upon which he drew habitually for his more ambitious exhibition pictures.
In the record of his development this term of years is important because it saw the growth of his power as an oil-painter. He had made some experiments in this direction while he was living at Hereford, but it was not until he returned to London that he tried seriously to acquire a mastery of the medium. With characteristic modesty he decided that his unaided efforts would not suffice to give him the knowledge he desired, so he went, practically as a pupil, to W. J. Muller, the young genius whose wonderful achievements were then exciting universal admiration. By watching Muller at work Cox acquired an understanding of the processes of oil-painting which he was soon able to apply with admirable effect. He is said to have remarked in amazement at the cleverness of his young teacher, " You see, Mr. Muller, I can't paint," but it was not long before his popularity as a picture-painter contradicted this humble estimate of his abilities. How much he learned from Muller it is difficult to say ; certainly he made no difference in his own way of dealing with nature, and did not acquire any new point of view. Probably the lessons he received were of use to him solely as aids to the freer expression of convictions which had been formed by long and serious study. He knew well enough what he wanted to do, and all that he required was the explanation of certain technical details which puzzled him because he was unfamiliar with the oil medium. When the way out of these perplexities was shown to him by a worker of
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DAVID COX
extraordinary skill, it took him but a short time to adapt the teaching he received to his particular needs.
His rapid progress in this new branch of practice, and his desire for uninterrupted opportunities for carrying on a form of study which had fascinated him completely, induced him to finally take a step which he had been considering for some little while. He was now close upon sixty, and the wish to devote the remainder of his life to pictorial production only had become too strong to be resisted. Moreover, the necessity for constant drudgery as a teacher no longer existed. He had made a competence, small but sufficient, and his son was following successfully in his footsteps. The time had come when he could think about gratifying his simple tastes ; more than forty years of earnest effort had assuredly given him the right to choose how he should occupy himself in his old age.
His choice was very much what might have been expected. London, he decided, had served his purpose, and he felt that with his reputation at last established he could well afford to retire into some part of the country where he would be free to do whatever he thought best. So in the summer of 1841 he turned his back on the busy city which had been the scene of so many of his struggles and hard experiences and betook himself to a quiet retreat at Harborne, near Birmingham — partly influenced, no doubt, in his selection of this new home by the fact that Birmingham was his native place, but not less induced by the knowledge that he would find himself there among old and valued friends. Then began what must have been to him the happiest time of his life. He worked without intermission at oil pictures and water-colour drawings, the subjects for which he found sometimes round about his house, sometimes in the delightful rural districts which were within an easy journey. Important productions came in rapid succession from his studio, and though the prices he asked even then were, when compared with the sums paid to-day for his works, almost absurdly moderate, he was able by the number he sold to live in complete comfort.
The list of things which he accomplished after he went to Harborne includes many of the achievements on which his fame rests most securely. There was, for instance, the Outskirts of a Wood, with Gipsies (1843), so^ *n 1872 for 2205 guineas; and there were Peace and War (1846), The Vale of Clwyd (1846), The Skylark (1849), anc^ The Sea-shore at Rhyl (1855), which were all sold in 1872 for £3601, £2000, £2300, and £2300 respectively. For the Sea-shore at Rhyl Cox was paid £100, the highest price that he D c x
DAVID COX
ever received for any of his productions, the others he sold for sums varying from £20 to £,*/o.
It was not long after he settled at Harborne that he paid his first visit to Bettws-y-coed, the little Welsh village with which his name is now so closely associated. He had gone into North Wales, with an artist friend from London, in the summer of 1844, to sketch in the Vale of Clwyd. From there he wandered by easy stages through the district, sketching as he went, until he reached Bettws-y-coed, which struck him as such an excellent working centre that he remained there for some weeks. In the following year he returned, and finding his first impressions confirmed by a second visit, he decided to make an annual stay in this fascinating village. He continued these visits almost to the end of his life, and they seem to have given him many happy moments, not only because they brought him periodically into a place the beauties of which he declared to be inexhaustible, but also because he met there a number of congenial spirits who had come on the same mission as himself. In these artistic gatherings he was always the central figure ; his geniality and kindness of heart endeared him to every one with whom he came in contact, and his cheery disposition put him at once on the best of terms with all his professional brethren. By these meetings in Wales, and by an annual trip to London to see the exhibitions of the Water Colour Society, to which he continued to contribute a number of drawings, he kept himself, despite his apparent isolation in the country, regularly in touch with the art life of the time.
During the winter of 1845 n*s w^re died, at the age or seventy- four, and for a while Cox was completely prostrated by grief at the loss of one who had been for nearly forty years his devoted companion and helper. To his wife, indeed, he owed much ; she was a shrewd, kindly woman, whose influence had always been exercised in the right way, and to her constant encouragement was undoubtedly due some- thing of the steady determination with which he had faced the many trials of his early days. There were many occasions on which he might have broken down under the strain and drudgery of teaching, and under the disappointment, which he could not help feeling, at the long postponement of his success as a painter, had not his wife's courage and confidence in his future kept him from giving way. She had lived, however, to see her faith fully justified and to rejoice with him in the gratification of his hopes.
For some weeks he was unable to work, but as time went on he realised that he would find his best consolation in constant occupa-
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tion, and so he began a large picture, the first Vale of Clywd, and started also his annual series of drawings for the Water Colour Society. In the early summer he went with some friends to Bolton Abbey, and later he made his usual trip to Bettws-y-coed. After that his busy life continued as before, and he added every year something important to the long sequence of his works. There was the Welsh Funeral in 1850, and, besides the oil-paintings already mentioned, a host of magnificent drawings, like Snoivdonfrom Capel Curig, 'Besom Makers on Chat Moss, The Flood at Corwtn, and Peat Gatherers returning from the Moors, to quote a few at random. Some idea of his industry may be gained by noting that during the period of ten years, which ended in 1854, he exhibited not less than a hundred and thirty-six drawings in the gallery of the Water Colour Society. This was certainly the time at which his genius manifested itself most indisputably — when his confidence in his powers was most assured, and his knowledge of the resources of his craft was most convincingly displayed. After long waiting he had reached the goal for which he had been striving all his life, and he saw his claim to be counted among the greatest British masters frankly accepted by all honest art-lovers.
The first sign of any failure in his wonderful vitality came in June 1853. In the spring of that year he had been laid up for some weeks with a sharp attack of bronchitis, and shortly after he had recovered from this he had a stroke of apoplexy, which left him in a greatly enfeebled condition. Careful attention and skilful nursing restored him after a while to comparative health, but both his sight and memory remained permanently affected, and his previous vigour in working did not return. There was a perceptible change in the quality of his pictures and drawings, a loss of decision, an uncertainty of touch, and even an absence of appreciation of colour refinements. But as soon as he had sufficiently recovered he went, accompanied by his housekeeper and some friends, to Bettws-y-coed for the autumn months; and this visit he repeated in the three following years, though his increasing weakness made his attempts to paint out of doors fewer and more difficult on each occasion. The last time that he saw the place he loved so well was in the autumn of 1856. Still, despite his infirmities, he was able to travel to Edinburgh in 1855 to sit to Sir John Watson Gordon for a portrait which some of his Birmingham friends desired to present to one of the public galleries in that city, and in the summer of 1856 he went to London and sat to Boxall for another portrait, which he wished to leave to his son. The latter journey he repeated the following year ; but in D c xii
DAVID COX
1858 he was unable to leave his home, and during the winter months
he became so seriously ill that his life was despaired of. He rallied,
however, sufficiently in the spring to finish a batch of drawings for
the 1859 exhibition of the Water Colour Society. This was his last
effort ; at the beginning of June he had once more to take to his bed,
and he died peacefully on the seventh of that month. A pathetic
story is told of the last evening he spent in his sitting-room where so
much of his work had been done — how he lingered at the door
when he was going to his bedroom, and said sadly, " Good-bye
pictures ! " It was his farewell to the art which he had loved so
deeply all his life, his final surrender to the inevitable.
To understand properly the principles of David Cox's art it is
necessary to view it by the light of his temperament. Only a man
with a peculiarly balanced mind would have gone through all he did
without being soured by his experiences, and only a devoted lover
of his profession would have been able to keep the end at which he
was aiming in view always in spite of the many distractions to which
he had to submit. A less tenacious worker would have tired of the
seemingly endless struggle, would have lost courage, and would have
lapsed into indifference. But under Cox's quiet exterior there was
too much strength of character for any such wandering from the
right direction. He had been well trained in his youth by his
parents, and especially by his mother, who was a woman of more
than ordinary ability. Her guidance helped greatly to make him
the earnest thinker and the conscientious believer in honesty of
effort that he always was ; and to the habits which he formed while
he was under her control was indisputably due much of the sincerity
of creed and practice which won him his place on the roll of British
masters.
It must be remembered that he was not in the usual meaning of the word a brilliant man — at least he was not a sensational genius like Muller. Possibly if he had not been obliged to labour so unre- mittingly to make existence possible at all, he might have attracted popular attention earlier than he did ; he might have made his advance by rapid strides instead of by a means of progression that was always slow and often painful. But more probably he would have matured gradually under any circumstances. It was an essential part of his temperament that he should convince himself of the absolute security of his position before he attempted another step forward, and each stage of his career was prepared for by a vast amount of preliminary effort. He was very modest in his estimate of his own abilities, though he was entirely free from that sham
D c xiii
DAVID COX
self-disparagement which is too often the outcome of self-conscious- ness or conceit. Yet he knew that he had power which would bring him, if he had only the chance to exercise it, to eminence in his art. All he asked for was such a measure of appreciation as would admit of his doing himself justice, for relief from the necessity of spending in the toil of teaching the time which he wanted for better and nobler work. That he obtained this relief at last, before old age had sapped his energies, was to him a source of legitimate pleasure. In his life at Harborne he found compensation for all that had gone before ; and by the respect of his fellows, and the praise of the few who were best qualified to judge his work, he was cheered to attempt the highest flights. Success, however, left him just what he was before, a modest, kindly being, honestly in love with life, and a humble student seeking ever to master the great lessons which nature is so ready to teach.
Few artists have so absolutely reflected their personality in their productions as he did in his drawings and pictures. His broad, expressive brushwork, his fresh and harmonious colour, his robust sense of design, and his invariable avoidance of restless or trivial details were natural assertions of his conviction that the artificialities of the world were things to be ignored. He used no circum- locutions in what he had to say ; it was sufficient for him if he could make plain his meaning by direct statement. The " want of finish " in his works, which was resented by those of his contemporaries who could not see nature with his eyes, was really the brevity which comes from intimate study and exact knowledge. It was, no doubt, contrary to the tradition which dominated the early nineteenth- century art, to the faith in elegant classicism which so many land- scape painters then professed, but for that very reason it seems to us now to have been one of the causes of Cox's superiority. Once only did he make a concession to the spirit of the moment — when he painted, in 1825, an imaginative composition, Carthage, flLneas and Achates in imitation of Turner — but the experiment did not please him, and happily it was not repeated.
Far better was it that he should have been in his work what he was by temperament, a realist but yet a poet, an enthusiastic sympathiser with nature who could with unerring instinct dis- criminate between her moods. He may, perhaps, be said to have lacked the intellectual faculty which induced other men to formalise their impressions, but he possessed instead an unerring intelligence and a shrewdness of observation which never led him astray. It was his own mind that directed every touch in his work ; he did not, or DC xiv
DAVID COX
could not, learn from others how to sink his convictions in accord- ance with the precepts of this or that school. We welcome his simplicity to-day as one of his most precious characteristics ; it has brought us an artistic inheritance of inestimable value. At the same time it is clear that the full realisation of the importance of this inheritance was arrived at very slowly. Cox had been dead some years before the people who might have helped him most began to form any correct opinion about the claims of his work to really enthusiastic appreciation. The little fortune of £12,000 which he amassed by fifty years of close economy seems but a meagre result when we consider that the man who counted such a sum as an evidence of success is now hailed as one of the few great artists whom this country has produced. While he lived he had over and over again to put up with the disappointment of seeing drawings which he knew to be the best he could do hanging unsold upon the walls of exhibitions when those of his far less able contemporaries were finding ready purchasers ; and stories are told about him which prove that even with his gentle and quiet nature he could not help feeling on occasions some resentment at the blindness of the public to which he was making such strong appeals. The extent of his posthumous reputation only serves to accentuate the greatness of the injustice that was done to him. Surely less than half a century should have been time enough to enable people of average intelligence to see that the man they were neglecting was a master worthy of the highest honour.
For it must be remembered that Cox was not one of those painters who avoid publicity and restrict their production within very narrow limits. On the contrary, he was a constant exhibitor and a prolific worker, a man who took the widest view of his artistic responsibilities and had an absolutely catholic taste. As his biographer, William Hall, puts it : " As a master of English land- scape he stands unapproached save by Turner, and in some respects he surpassed even Turner himself. His range of art is marvellous, alike as to period, to subject, and to manner. For over fifty years he was a painter, skilled in resource, unsurpassed in industry ; there was nothing that he did not include in his works — landscape, figures, buildings, animals, fish, fruit, still life, flowers ; the commonest and most familiar aspects of Nature, her subtlest gradations, her sublimest effects, all found perfect expression by means of his facile and power- ful brush." This was the man who was, as may be judged from the prices paid for his works a dozen years after his death, estimated when alive at some two hundred times less than his real value ; the
D c xv
DAVID COX
man who was allowed to spend most of his days in poverty, and to waste his best years in hack work as a drawing-master. Truly the whole story reflects sadly upon the discrimination of our nineteenth- century predecessors ; and yet it is one the moral of which we are just as far from realising to-day. It is the curious habit of self-styled art-lovers to lavish their favours upon unworthy recipients and to look askance at true greatness. They follow a fashion blindly and unreasonably, and ignore the genius because he is too individual to conform to conventions which are based upon artificiality and kept in existence by popular ignorance. This was certainly Cox's fate ; even at the height of what seemed to him success, he was absolutely overlooked by the very people who a few years later were clamouring for his works.
A. L. BALDRY.
D c xvi
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OIL-PAINTING (DATED 1847): "CHANGING PASTURE" (Birmingham Art Gallery)
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OIL-I'AIXTIXG (1852): "A BREEZY DAY"
(Birmingham Art Gallery) Ol L-PAIXTING (1851): "AT THE FERRY— MORNIXG "
DAVID COX
OIL-PAINTING: "THE CARRIER'S W'AGON " (/„ the Collection of James Orrock, Esq., K.I.)
OIL-PAINTING: "AFTER THE DAY'S WORK" (/„ the Collection of j. Omck, Esq., R.I.)
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OIL-PAINTING (1854-55): "RHYL SANDS"
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OIL-PAIXTING: "THE GLEANERS'
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DAVID COX
(In the Collection of G. Robinson, Esy.) SEPIA DRAWING: "STUDY OF A WINDMILL"
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(/« the Collection of Gerald Robinson, Esq.)
SEPIA DRAWING (1809): " SNOWDON "
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DAVID COX
SEPIA DRAWING: "SHEEP IN THE VALLEY" (/„ the Collection of G. Hobinson, Esq.)
D c 19
CRAYON STUDY: "NEAR LLANFAIR"
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(In the Collection of Gerald Robinson, Esq.)
DAVID COX
(In the Collection of C. C. Elcy, Esq.)
CRAYON STUDY: "LLANFAIR CHURCH
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(Plate 30 in David Cox's "Young Artist's Companion'
SOFT-GROUND ETCHING (1819): "A WINDMILL1
DAVID COX
WATER-COLOUR: "WELSH MOUNTAINS
(In the Collection of Gerald Robinson, Esq.)
WATER-COLOUR: "THE MARKET-PLACE"
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{In the Collection of Otto S. Andrcac, Esq.)
WATER-COLOUR: "CUSTOMS HOUSE QUAY, LONDON'
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{In the Collection oj Gerald Robinson, Esq.)
WATER-COLOUR: "PONT ROYAL, PARIS"
D C 26
DAVID COX
WATER-COLOUR: "DRYSLWYN CASTLE, SOUTH WALES"
15 C 27
(In South Kensington Museum}
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
"HILLY LANDSCAPE, WITH FIGURES"
D C 28
(In South Kensington Museum)'
DAVID COX
(In South Ktmington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR (1830): "SEASCAPE"
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WATER-COLOUR (1832): "A COTTAGE ON THE COMMON"
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(In the British Museum) WATER-COLOUR: "SHAKESPEARE'S CLIFF, DOVER"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR: "WATER MILL IN WALES'
DC 33
DAVID COX
WATEK-COLOUR (1840): "CURIOSITY"
D c 34
WATER-COLOUR: "TO MARKET ACROSS THE WOLDS"
DC 35
DAVID COX
(In I/if British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR: "MOORLAND SCENE
D C 36
(In the Collection of James Orrock, Esq., R.I.)
WATER-COLOUR (1841)
"A SHADED WELSH LANE"
DC 37
DAVID COX
WATER-COLOUR: "CADER IDRIS'
DC 38
(III the British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH "THE WELSH FUNERAL"
DC 39
(By permission o] Messrs. Thomas Agnew and Sons)
DAVID COX
(In the British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR: "BOLTON ABBEY"
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(In the British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR : "NEAR PENMAENMAWR'
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WATER-COLOUR (1851) "VIEW IN WALES"
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WTATER-COLOUR SKETCH: "STUDY OF TREES"
(In the Collection of James Orrock, Esq., R.I.)
D c 50
DAVID COX
WATER-COLOUR (1849): "WATER-MILL, BETTYS-Y-COED"
(In the British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR (1850): "THROUGH THE GREEN CORN
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WATER-COLOUR: "OUTDOOR SKETCH"
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(In the Collection of James Orrock, Esq., R.I.)
WATER-COLOUR (1855): "CARTING VETCHES"
D c 59
THE LIFE AND WORK OF PETER DE WINT
E WINT, Cotman, David Cox— these fine landscape painters were all undervalued by most of their contemporaries. They toiled hard ; they did much noble work, but England willed that they should win after death their full portions of renown. And thus their lives bear witness to the fact that England, though very fond of pictures, has ever been slow to honour the merit of her own most gifted painters.
Cotman, a rare genius, was not only the most unfortunate or the three, but the least fitted by temperament to bear up against mis- fortune. All his life he was one of Art's galley-slaves, and he kept sorrowfully to his oar until his mind drooped and all his strength was gone. Cox and De Wint were much happier in their lots, yet the united home comforts won by the two fell far short of those which were earned in other professions by men of quite common- place ability. Since they died the value of their work has gone up by leaps and bounds. Indeed, it has increased so much and so rapidly that one cannot but wish that the State were entitled by law to retain some lasting pecuniary lien in the work of deceased artists. If only one per cent, of the vast sums paid at public auctions belonged by right of law to a National and Permanent Artists' Fund, the amount thus accumulated for the benefit of art would be considerable year by year, and the genius of the dead would become a source of monetary encouragement to the genius of the living. Some such trivial tax would be a recognition of art as a national asset of perennial value. It would do much good — if well administered. Meanwhile, in any case, the dead English masters rise higher and higher in the market, without doing even a penny- worth of good to the welfare of those arts which they served so faithfully and so well.
Peter De Wint is a case in point, the value of his pictures and drawings being now more than ten times higher than the "top" price attained during his life. Yet, somehow, despite his popularity in the market, De Wint is not yet known as he deserves to be. This was proved a few months ago by the last exhibition of Old Masters at the Royal Academy, where hundreds of persons expressed
w i
PETER DE WINT
surprise at the ample dignity and charm of the two large oil-paintings by which De Wint was represented. " Can this be the De Wint whom the dealers have found so profitable ? " it was asked. " Alter all, what a strong, fine fellow he was, and is ! How easily and well he takes his place among the best landscape painters of any school ! " And this was said with a pleased astonishment, as though De Wint had hitherto been looked upon merely as a hack for the dealer's trade, and not as a man of genius. That such remarks should have been heard in a public gallery is all the more curious, as opportunities for the study of De Wint's water-colours and oil-paintings have not been hard to find these many years, his work in both mediums being admirably shown in the South Kensington Museum. On the other hand, the man himself and his life are quite difficult to study, for little attention is drawn to them in books of reference. Even the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " has nothing to say about De Wint, and only a very brief account is given of him in the " Dictionary of National Biography." It is true that Sir Walter Armstrong, in 1888, published a valuable book on De Wint, illus- trated by twenty-four photogravures, and containing useful notes from private sources of information, notably from a memoir of her husband that Mrs. De Wint left behind in manuscript. But, unluckily, Sir Walter's book is scarce, so that the contents of it are unfamiliar to many students.
The De Wints were a prosperous family of Dutch merchants, and being in sympathy with their coat-of-arms, representing " four heads proper blowing the four winds," they became mercantile adventurers in a good many quarters of the globe. Some preferred short journeys and went to Paris, while others were more enterprising and set up their homes in the West Indies and also in New England. Peter De Wint's father, Henry, belonged to the American stock, and a part of his youth was passed in New York. The rest of his education was picked up in Europe, first at Leyden, where he graduated in medicine, and next in London at St. Thomas's Hospital. Whilst studying in London, and living on an allowance from America, Henry De Wint engaged himself to a M',^ Watson, a Scottish girl from the Lowlands, whose father had emptied his purse out of loyalty to the scapegrace Prince Charlie. But , T~nry did not mind the girl's poverty, though his marriage to her in ^73 put an end to a project much favoured by his father — a marriage, namely, with a rich cousin in America. In his letters home Henry took care not to say that he had a wife, but the fact became known at last, and Henry was disowned and disinherited. When w ii
PETER DE WINT
thus thrown on his own resources he had two children as well as a wife to support, but he did what he could to make a practice in South Wales in the neighbourhood of Cardiff. The life there did not suit him, and in 1781 he established himself at Stone, in Staffordshire, where success of a modest kind was won at last. At Stone ten more children were born to him. Peter, the fourth son, came into the world on January 21, 1784.
The traditions of his family lead one to believe that Peter was not a boyish lad, fond of mischief, and ready to be tingled with a birch-rod after the joys of getting into scrapes. The little chap wandered alone in the woods and fields, watching the growth of trees and plants and the habits of birds and beasts ; while at school he not only drew for his own amusement, but tried his best to teach his schoolfellows how to sketch. He early made up his mind that he would be an artist, and Peter De Wint never broke away from a set resolution. The mingling of Dutch and Scottish blood in his veins made him doggedly patient and tenacious, though not, I think, very friendly or very lovable. His father not only wished that he should be a physician, but started him in a course of medical training ; and Peter, though firmly bent on following a different career, neither took the law into his own hands, as an English boy might have done, nor sulked over a routine of work distasteful to him. He was content to bide his time. With patience and with tact he would be able to choose his own profession and yet win his father's consent ; and this, in the long run, he contrived to do, after he had taken some drawing lessons from a Mr. Rogers at Stafford, and after some progress had been made in his study of medicine.
It was in 1802, on Friday the ist of April, that De Wint left home to seek his art education in London. His parents and friends wished him to set out on a luckier day, but Peter was in a hurry to say good-bye, and ever afterwards he welcomed Fridays and Firsts of April as fete-days for his chances of good luck. The object of his journey to London was to be bound as apprentice to that great and jovial mf' zotinter, John Raphael Smith, for whom Turner and Girtin hadf coloured many prints. Smith was a rollicking sports- man as well as an able artist, and there were critics who disliked his passl. for the prize-ring and the cock-pit. He lived in a gay, drinking age, and if he wasted much of his substance on amusements which have since gone out of fashion, he certainly found time in which to do a prodigious amount of work, quite aside from his mezzotints. It is said, for instance, on the authority of one of
w iii
PETER DE WINT
Smith's relatives, that he drew at times as many as forty crayon portraits in a week, and sold them at a guinea a-piece. Each one was thrown off in an hour's rapid sketching, so that the doing of forty such portraits in six days must have been an effort beyond the powers of most dissipated clever men. But the main point is this— that Smith, however great his faults, was kind and unselfish, always eager to help his apprentices, and therefore glad to share with them his trade secrets. Briefly, then, he was a good master, and that was all important to De Wint, a lad of strong moral fibre, not in the least likely to be influenced by Smith's gaieties and late hours. The indentures were signed on June 7, 1802, probably some weeks after De Wint had set up his home with Smith's family, in King Street, Covent Garden. The usual practice was to " bind " a lad for seven years, but Dr. De Wint, in lieu of paying a premium, arranged that his son should be at Smith's disposal for one year extra. It was thus that Peter De Wint began his art education, and for the next four years he was very busy, painting heads in pastel, and trying his hand at engraving. Sometimes, too, he went with Smith on a fishing excursion, in order that he might sketch from nature while his master played the part of Isaac Walton. He learnt much in this happy way ; and his enjoyment was all the keener as he was ever accom- panied by his great chum and his fellow apprentice, William Hilton, a future Academician, then a boy of about sixteen. Hilton was De Wint's junior by more than two years. Being shy and sensitive, he could not but admire the bulldog-like deter- mination of De Wint, while De Wint was very well pleased with Hilton's admiration. So a friendship began at once, and it became in time one of the longest and truest friendships in the history of art. It must have been tested very often by Hilton's fits of vehemence followed by despondency ; but De Wint kept cool and did the right thing. Once, we are told, Hilton made up his mind that he would run away from his apprenticeship, owing to certain troublesome events that he disliked. This he confided to his friend, and then scampered as quickly as he could to his home at Lincoln. Raphael Smith lost his temper, as was natural, and insisted that De Wint should say where the truant had gone. He insisted again and again, but De Wint refused to betray his chum. To "old Father Antic, the Law," he was now a refractory apprentice, so he was haled before a magistrate, and the magistrate sent him to prison. Much the same thing happened to Girtin when he and his master, Edward Dayes, squabbled over their bones of contention. But Girtin's stay in prison was very different from De Wint's ; it was not unpleasant, w iv
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for the Earl of Essex rescued him and bought up his indentures. No such thing happened to our friend Peter. He sat alone in his cell, shivering with cold, nor did he regain his liberty until Hilton, hearing of his devotion, came from Lincoln to his rescue. Then Smith's mind was at ease again.
The two friends returned to work, but presently their thoughts were engrossed by the great crisis through which their country was slowly passing. Napoleon, rising to his zenith through the fall of nations, threatened invasion. London was alarmed, and volunteers for her defence were being enrolled on all sides. There are two enlistment tickets to show that Hilton and De Wint answered to the call of duty, and " were allowed to join the Battalion " of the St. Margaret's and St. John's Volunteers. Whether they put in many drills, and learnt to shoot fairly straight, I cannot say ; but their readiness to serve their country is worth mention as a touch of character.
About a year later, in 1806, they managed to end their appren- ticeship with J. R. Smith. It is not known how this came about in the case of Hilton. With De Wint it was the cause of a singular bargain. By the terms of his indentures he had still about four years to serve, yet Smith was willing to set aside his legal rights if his apprentice agreed to paint for him eighteen landscape pictures in oil-colours. These pictures were to be finished in two years, at the rate of nine a year. In the first twelve months he was to hand over to Smith nine paintings of the following sizes : " six of eleven inches by nine inches, two of one foot three inches and a half by one foot one inch and a half, and another of one foot three inches and a half by one foot and half an inch." In the second year the dimensions were to be somewhat different, but it is not necessary to detail them. De Wint agreed at once to Smith's conditions, and all the landscapes were duly finished, delivered, and acknowledged. It is clear that Smith knew his man.
I have dwelt upon this episode for two reasons, partly because of its singularity, and partly because it proves beyond doubt that De Wint started life as a painter in oil-colours. This fact is too often forgotten. It has long been assumed that he started oil-painting late in his career, and this error has prevented many experts from identi- fying his earlier canvases. The reasons that caused De Wint to give up his early practice of oil-painting were probably three in number: First, it was easier to sell water-colours; next, it was always De Wint's custom to make his way in a cool, businesslike manner, following the line of least resistance; and, third, he was confirmed in
vr v
PETER DE WINT
his practical habit of mind by the petty miseries that his friend Hilton suffered in the interests of " high art " and of academic honours. It was in 1806, on May 17, that the boys left Smith to set up for themselves. But before they took lodgings they paid a visit to Lincoln, where De Wint fell in love with his friend's sister, Harriet, then a girl of fifteen at home for the holidays. At Lincoln he made a few studies for the pictures which he had to do for Smith, and then, knapsack on shoulder, he trudged on foot into Staffordshire, sketching by the way. Hilton followed him to Stone, and both were lucky enough to be commissioned to paint several portraits. In the autumn, they returned to London and took rooms in Broad Street, Golden Square, hard by the house in which John Varley lived with happy thriftlessness. Varley, a most capable teacher, always bubbling over with enthusiasm, met De Wint, was struck with his ability, and was not happy until he had given the lad some lessons for nothing. Fortune smiled again soon afterwards, for De Wint was received by the famous Dr. Monro, the sometime teacher and patron both of Girtin and of Turner. Monro's evening class still met from time to time in the historic house on the Adelphi Terrace. I do not know whether the good doctor still gave his pupils an oyster supper and half a crown for their sketches ; but his lessons were as good as they ever were, and De Wint was not slow to profit by them. He made friends with many beautiful drawings, but those by Girtin were his favourites. He fell at once under their influence, and he remained true all his life to the serene self-command which they inculcated.
Meantime, whilst working to complete his education, De Wint, like Hilton, had to paint for a living, and that he found means ot selling his work was due, we are told, to the continued friendliness of Raphael Smith. It was a hard struggle, no doubt, but the two friends fought together, living in the same rooms and sharing expenses. " Each in turn supplied the wants of the other, so that ill- luck to hurt one had to hit both." Hilton, after leaving Smith, joined the Royal Academy schools. De Wint was ready to follow his chum's example, but it was not until March 8, 1809, that his wish was gratified. Two years later he passed into the life class, and began a steady course of figure drawing to which further reference will be made presently.
In May 1807, Dr. De Wint died, leaving a widow and five children. The eldest son inherited his father's practice and property. Being a selfish fellow, reckless and improvident, he left the younger children to shift for themselves, and made only a small provision for his w vi
PETER DE WINT
mother. Peter at the time was only twenty-three, but he shouldered the responsibilities which his elder brother declined to bear, and found means of giving a helping hand to his two sisters and also to his younger brother, Thomas, then a medical student seventeen years old. The head of the family died soon afterwards, and the mother, in sore need of money, came to Peter for support, and she remained with him until Thomas had made for himself a practice at Ancaster. She died in 1834, at the age of eighty.
Peter De Wint not only bore with courage and cheerfulness the many anxieties which followed his father's death, but, by dint of enterprise and hard work, he managed to get on fairly good terms with fortune. His water-colours, almost from the first, were easy to sell at small prices, so that he soon relied on them rather than fix his hopes on his beloved oil-paintings, which, somehow, were much harder to place. At last, encouraged by his modest success, he pro- posed an early marriage to Harriet Hilton, with the result that the wedding took place at Lincoln on June 16, 1810. This, I believe, was the only impulsive act of De Wint's thoughtful career. But it was justified by results. Mrs. De Wint was ever a true help- meet, tender of heart, thrifty of mind, cheerful, and devoted to all her husband's interests. De Wint himself was not more business- like than she, and for the rest of his life he owed much to her unfailing tact and economy. At first he received only a guinea or so for a small drawing, and five shillings an hour for lessons. But these small earnings rose steadily if slowly, till at last, in 1827, a guinea an hour was paid for lessons, while the drawings were bought for prices that ranged from five to fifty guineas. It was in 1827 that Mrs. De Wint began to keep detailed accounts of all her husband's business transactions — a thing which every painter's wife should do if she wants to understand how difficult it is to earn an income out of art.
In the autumn following their marriage, after a sketching-tour in Yorkshire, the De Wints with Hilton settled themselves at 10 Percy Street, where their daughter was born the next summer, and where they lived for seventeen years. In 1827 Hilton was appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy and removed to his chambers in Somerset House, while the De Wints set up a new home at 40 Upper Gower Street (now 113 Gower Street), where they spent the remaining years of their lives.
Something must now be said about De Wint's adventures in the public galleries. He was seen for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1807, his pictures being a view of Trentham and another
w vii
PETER DE WINT
of Matlock High Tor, one of his favourite subjects. A year later the Associated Artists came into being, and De Wint sent four water- colours to their first exhibition. In 1809 he was represented by nine, and was made a member of the Society. A critic of the period, writing in the Repository of Arts, not only speaks well of the newcomer, but shows by his comments that De Wint's style had already a settled character, remarkable for its " correct observation of nature," for its " fine selection of form," and for its " truth and simplicity of colour." " His works," the critic said, " have all the indications of superior thinking, all the germs of greatness " ; and it is worth noting that these remarks showed much greater discern- ment than many of those which were made in later years, when the masterly outdoor sketches by De Wint were often described as " daubs of dirty colour."
In 1810, on January 22, De Wint joined the Water-Colour Society as an Associate. He was elected with Frederick Nash and with Copley Fielding. On June 10, 1811, he was taken from the list of Associates and made into a full Member, so that he was recognised earlier than David Cox, who was not received as an Associate until June 8, 1812. Between 1810-1812 De Wint sent eighteen drawings to the exhibitions of the Society at Spring Gardens, one being a view of Conisborough Castle, Yorkshire, an impressive subject to which he returned several times. The catalogue of 1815 mentions A Cricket Match, but I am unable to say whether it should be identified as the famous drawing of The Cricketers, which Mr. Ellison gave to the South Kensington Museum in 1860. It is still a noble water-colour, this drawing of The Cricketers (see Illustration w 40), despite the fact that the sky has perished. It has a singular history. De Wint, finding that he could not sell it, strained another piece of paper over its surface to save the outlay on a new stretcher. After his death, when preparations were being made for the sale at Christie's, the hidden water-colour was discovered by Mr. Vokins, who long delighted to speak of his surprise. If The Cricketers really is the same drawing as the Cricket Match of 1815, the period during which it lay perdu must have been one of nearly thirty-four years. From 1818 to 1825 De Wint did not exhibit with the Water- Colour Society. When the Society was re-organised in 1821 he was asked to re-join, without passing through the grade of Associate, but he declined to accept the compliment " for the present." In the interval his work appeared twice at the Royal Academy, a Watermill in Derbyshire being hung there in 1819, and a view of Bo/ton Castle, Yorkshire, in 1820. From 1825, when he w viii
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rejoined as Member, De Wint was a constant exhibitor at the Water-Colour Society, sending as many as 359 drawings between that date and the year 1849. It is to be noted also that nearly all his subjects were English. He went for only one sketching-trip on the Continent, and that was the visit which he and his wife paid to Normandy in 1828. The landscapes there did not please him, and certainly his Normandy water-colours cannot be placed among De Wint's happiest achievements. His Welsh scenes are more fortunate, though their competition with those by David Cox proves that he is only second-best in his sympathy with Welsh scenery. To see De Wint at his very best, a true master entirely at his ease, you must study him in the work he did in his favourite sketching- grounds, as in Yorkshire, in Lincoln and its neighbourhood, in Derbyshire, and at Christchurch. In all his moods he was as English as Constable ; and it was this fact, probably, that caused his patrons to be so true to him. They were friends as well as patrons, and in the late summer he visited and sketched at their houses in the country. Among the most hospitable of his well-wishers were the Earl of Lonsdale, the Earl of Powis, the Marquis of Ailesbury, the Clives, of Oakley Park, near Ludlow, the Heathcotes of Connington Castle, Mr. Fawkes of Farnley, Mr. Cheney, of Badger, in Shropshire, and Mr. Ellison, of Sudbrooke Holme, Lincolnshire.
It is commonly forgotten that De Wint was very busy at times for the publishers. Thus, in W. B. Cooke's " Picturesque Delineation of the Southern Coast of England," there are six illustrations by his hand, the most important being The Underclijf^ Isle of Wight (June 1814), and Blackgang Chine (April i, 1816). The other four are illustrations in the text. He contributed also to W. B. Cooke's "The Thames," doing about a dozen drawings between May i, 1814, and January i, 1829. One remembers, too, that he prepared travellers' sketches for the engraver, and made as many as sixty-two drawings from the Sicilian sketches by Major William Light, an officer who had served on Wellington's staff in the Peninsula. The drawings, very well engraved, were published in 1823 in a quarto volume entitled " Sicilian Scenery." And De Wint's industry in this field may be studied in two other books, namely, in J. S. Stanhope's "Olympia" (1824), and, again, in "Views in the South of France, Chiefly on the Rhone," which appeared in 1825, illustrated by twenty-four engraved plates after drawings made by De Wint from the sketches of John Hughes, of Oriel College, Oxford. Mr. Roget has given much attention to this little-known part of De Wint's
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life-work, and every student should read what he says about it in his delightful "History of the Old Water-Colour Society." To be brief, De Wint's life was one of incessant doing. He spent no time in the happy realm or day-dreams, but toiled on and on, filling every minute of the day with a money-earning activity. Every now and then he was sorely hit in his affections, as by Hilton's death on December 30, 1839 ; but even this blow did not long interfere with his stern delight in his routine of hard labour. Then, all at once, the continued strain began to tell upon his health. He became irritable, even bearish in manner, and was much disliked by many who met him for the first time. In 1843, whilst sketching in the New Forest, he nearly died from an attack of bronchitis, and it was with difficulty that he was brought back to London. The bronchitis returned again and again, increasing his weakness. Not- withstanding his condition, he worked intermittently through the winter of 1848—49, but when spring came he had barely strength enough to be present at his private view of drawings for the exhibition. He lingered on till June 30, 1849, dying in his sixty- sixth year. And they buried him in the churchyard of the Savoy, in the same tomb with Hilton and with Hilton's wife and mother. De Wint, according to Sir Walter Armstrong, was of middle height, slender rather than stout, dark in complexion and in youth black-haired. His grand-daughter, Miss H. H. Tatlock, has in her collection a miniature portrait, in which the stubborn determination of De Wint is well represented (see Illustration w 7). Determina- tion was the keynote of his character. Even his love of money, a ruling passion with him, was due to the fact that he had set his mind on thrift and saving, two virtues that sometimes betrayed him into singular actions. It is said, for instance, that he once charged twenty-five shillings for a lesson instead of a guinea, because he had drawn a few cows on the margin of his pupil's paper. At his private views, which he held in his drawing-room, he was a clever salesman, and marked with a white label those pictures which he sold. One wealthy aquaintance had the habit of saying that this or that " perfect gem " was beyond his reach, being marked as sold. De Wint grew tired of this device, and took his revenge. " The day came round for another private view. The friend arrived, and went into raptures before two labelled drawings. 'Now, De Wint,' he exclaimed, 'these are exactly the things I should like to possess; what a pity they are sold ! ' ' My dear fellow,' said the painter, slapping him on the shoulder, ' I knew you would like them, so I put the ticket on to keep them for you.' Tableau ! But the w x
PETER DE WINT
drawings had to be taken, ' otherwise ' — De Wint would conclude — ' I would have shown him the door.' ' Again, it was the painter's custom to name his price in guineas. One client objected to this, and said : " There are no guineas now, De Wint, so we'll call it pounds." " No, you won't ! My price, sir, is guineas." " Really, you don't mean to quarrel for the shillings ? " " Don't I ? The shillings are my wife's, and I would quarrel with you for two straws — so take them or leave them ! " And to this it is convenient to add that De Wint, like many keen men of business, had a strongly religious bent of mind, thatseemsto have grown at last to be something of a mania. After De Wint's death there was a sale at Christie's, in May 1850, when many water-colours and paintings were sold in 493 lots. They realised £2364 js. 6d., thirty guineas being the highest price paid for a lot. But one must note here that Mrs. De Wint, always practical and wise, did not allow the best works to be sold at auction. She kept them for herself, and bequeathed them to her daughter, Mrs. Tatlock, a patriotic lady to whom we are all greatly indebted. It was she who presented The Cornfield and the great Woody Landscape to the South Kensington Museum, after she had tried in vain to give them to the National Gallery. Mrs. Tatlock's offer was declined by the director of that time, the late Sir William Boxall, who did not think it worth his while even to see the noble paintings so generously brought to his notice. By virtue of this mistake he will long be remembered.
The first thing to be noted about his art is the fact that De Wint was one of Girtin's art-children. Being himself a man of strong indi- viduality, he did not imitate Girtin, but he penetrated to the inner essence and life of Girtin's style, and he borrowed from it what he needed for the perfecting of his own manner. The gold and silver that he borrowed thus was always re-minted, so that, when it passed again into circulation, it was really De Wint's own, though many could see at once that it still bore traces of the master by whom it was first handled and refined. This applies to the earlier work of De Wint, and particularly to the Cookham-on-Thames (w 11), with its placid water, its stately trees, and the serene completeness of the subject as a picture. The position of the sun-illumined church, the line of the background behind, the balance between the picturesque craft on the left and the tall trees across the Thames on the right — all this, so simple in unity of impression, so full of repose and self-command, should be noted by every one that desires to know De Wint in a style unusually redolent of Thomas Girtin's. But the handling, the manipulation, the full washes of colour, that is all
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of De Wint's own finding ; and the figures in the boats are also anticipative of his later manner.
I wish I knew the date of this water-colour ; but certainties as to the chronology of De Wint's achievements are rare. It was his custom not to sign and date his work, and as he returned frequently to the same subjects, one gains little precise information from the catalogues of exhibitions. The utmost one can say is that the Cookham-on-T homes is an early water-colour, and that it contrasts helpfully with the many examples of his later manner, which are illustrated in this book. It is in strong contrast even with the Westminster (w 32, about 1808), and also with 'The Thames from Greenwich Hi//, another early production, represented here by an excellent plate in colours. In this view of the Thames, plainly an outdoor sketch, De Wint found himself completely, retaining only the principles which helped Girtin to achieve his ample strength and his simple dignity of treatment. It may be assigned to the years 1814-29, when De Wint was engaged in working for Cooke's volume on the Thames.
John Varley, another of Girtin's disciples, used to tell his pupils that flat washes of colour in a good lay-in were like silences, for as every whisper could be distinctly heard in a silence, so every lighter or darker touch on a simple and masterly lay-in told at once, and was seen to be good or bad. Cotman was so much in sympathy with this truth that his large planes of uniform colour were often reminiscent of Japanese methods, though he had no acquaintance (so far as is known) with the arts of Japan. The same truth was always a guide to Peter De Wint ; but he employed it in a manner of his own, and united it to a wealth of rich, blooming colour which has seldom been equalled. I might stir up unnecessary opposition were I to say, with Mr. James Orrock, that De Wint is " the great colourist of our landscape school, which means the greatest landscape colourist of any school." One may believe this, but taste in colour is not a thing to be proved beyond all dispute before any court of criti- cism, for the reason that no two persons ever see precisely the same colour. This fact, noticed by all students in a life-class, prevents me from dogmatising in De Wint's case ; but that his full-chorded schemes of rich colour are a joy to all artists and connoisseurs, this one may say without the least fear of overstepping the limits of critical prudence. They are among the most wholesome and invigor- ating delights of the English school of landscape painting ; and so rare are they in quality, so unique, that they have never been forged with success, unlike the colour and the style of Miiller or of Cox. w xii
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I may be told that one man or talent, Samuel Austin, after " three precious lessons " from De Wint (he wept when the third came to an end), not only followed in his master's steps, but that some of his drawings were deemed worthy of De Wint's own hand. If so, those particular drawings have disappeared. No water-colour by Austin that is known to-day could ever for a moment be taken for one by De Wint. Not only is the colour different, both in quality and in orchestration, but the handling retains evident traces of the style which Austin met with in Liverpool. It has a provincial accent, very pleasant, to be sure, but not like the powerful and original speech of De Wint. But if De Wint's colour and technique cannot be well imitated by even a skilful artist, how impossible must it be to represent them at all worthily by means of illustrations in black and white ! Such illustrations, indeed, however good, give us nothing more than remote hints of the scope and the force and charm of De Wint's best qualities. But, happily, thanks to Miss H. H. Tatlock, to Mr. James Orrock, R.I., and to Mr. Arthur Sanderson, the drawings may be studied here in seven good colour-prints, ranging in variety of subject from the rare sea-piece to the Near Lowther Castle, perhaps the most important of De Wint's large drawings. I do not say that these colour-prints are perfect, but they are invaluable as helps to a thorough knowledge of the master's art in water-colour.
Nothing shows more clearly the strength of a student's character than the choice of the pigments with which he works. As a rule, naturally enough, he is tempted to use the pigments which his master has tested and found useful. De Wint was an exception to this rule ; and hence, no doubt, the curious in matters of technique will be glad to compare his palette with that of Girtin. Girtin used fifteen colours : indigo, lake, light red, Indian red, Roman ochre, ultramarine, madder brown, burnt sienna, Vandyke brown, Cologne earth, gamboge, yellow lake, brown pink, Prussian blue, and Venetian red. De Wint's usual palette had the following twelve colours : vermilion, Indian red, Prussian or cyanine blue, brown madder, pink madder, sepia, gamboge, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, purple lake, brown pink, and indigo. To these, for occasional use, he added four others in half-cakes : orange ochre, Vandyke brown, olive green cobalt, and emerald green. All these pigments were in hard cakes, but they were kept soft with water when in use. De Wint designed his own box, as he disliked to mix his washes on the enamelled leaves with which the trade boxes were fitted. He preferred bright metal leaves with a silver-like surface.
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He employed two brushes, both large and round, but one was old and worn, while the other was new and came to a fine point. Students of his water-colours should note the foreground " accidents " and effects obtained with the worn brush. This may be studied well in some of the drawings at South Kensington, as in that rich and delightful study, A Cornfield, Iving/ioe (w 31), in which fine outdoor sketch the whole method of De Wint may be studied without difficulty. Not only was every part of it vigorously laid in with a full, flowing brush, but this ebauche, while still wet, was completed with a mosaic of added tints, some rich, some cold, all so harmonious that they charm one like precious stones arranged in a skilful manner. This result obtained, De Wint began to enliven the foreground with the worn brush, scraping with it here, adding a few crisp touches there, and producing all the effective incidents he desired. It may be seen also, in the Cornfield, Ivingboe, that the passage from the fore- ground to the extreme distance has not the variety of gradation which would have been given to it by Turner or by Copley Fielding. De Wint, indeed, hated the washing process by which infinite gradation into space was always obtained. Had he washed his drawings, he would have injured the freshness and the bloom of his colour in all the deeper and more luminous parts ; and that would have been an outrage on the aims for which he lived and laboured. Three other things of interest may be noted also in the Cornfield, I-vinghoe. The trees, first of all, though good ' in their decorative value, are rather formal and arbitrary in rendering. They are trees, but one hesitates to give them a name. This doubt does not occur always when one looks at the trees in the outdoor sketches by De Wint ; but the painter has a tendency in such studies to miss the varied character of the different species to which the trees belong. Next, the sky in this drawing has more of the English pageantry of cloud than is common in De Wint's art. De Wint was not by any means a thorough student of cloud-forms and of cloud-strata and windy weather. In his brilliant sketches, again and again, he left the sky untouched, quite content with the ivory-tinted Creswick paper upon which he delighted to work. In all this he was very different from Turner, Cox, and Collier, and from the other masters or the heavens who played the skylark in English water-colour. It was the English earth and her abundant harvests that appealed most of all to De Wint, and he managed to convey the weight of the English soil — the weight and the fresh aroma. His harvest scenes, so justly famous, are indeed full of the fragrance and life of our lusty English fields. For that one loves him ; and one may say, in the w xiv
PETER DE WINT
words of Thackeray, that " Fuseli, who wanted his umbrella to look at Constable's showers, might have called for a pot of porter at seeing one of De Wint's hay-makings."
The last of the three things to be noted in the Cornfield^ Ivinghoe, is a certain change of colour in the sky that gives a brownish tone to the wet grays and the liquid pearl-tones. This may arise from the chemical action of a slight mixture of Indian red upon the other colours used. Indian red is a permanent colour when employed alone, but (being an oxide of iron) it is dangerous in mixtures, and also as an under- wash to warm the ground. In The Cricketers, for instance, it has eaten up the blue, giving a " foxey " tint to the whole sky. But these damaging changes of colour are rare in De Wint's drawings, the great majority of which have stood the test of time very well. In some of the oil-paintings, on the other hand, the demon that produces cracks has been very busy here and there. The splendid Cornfield at South Kensington has not escaped., for the sky has long been disfigured with many large cracks of a circular form, as though William Blake's Ancient of Days had scored it with his pair of com- passes. And this should be borne in mind by the critics who tell us, from time to time, out of enmity to the lighter medium, that De Wint's water-colours are more perishable than his oil-paintings. For the rest, our painter's art as a whole must be studied at first hand, without reference to this critic or the other. It is an art not very various in appeal, but it has moods of stateliness and solemnity which entitle it to a high place among the best modern landscapes. In architectural themes it has many equals and a good many superiors, for De Wint was not always able to suggest the weight of masonry and the romance that lingers about historic buildings. Thus, for example, there is a look of tinted pasteboard in the old houses in the large drawing at South Kensington, known as West Front oj Lincoln Cathedral — a drawing, by the way, in which there is also a good deal of body-colour, a thing very rare in De Wint's work. That he turned out some fine subjects of an architectural kind is proved by The Ruins of the Bishop's Palace, Lincoln (w 27), the Fitter Gate, Lincoln (w 24), the Gloucester, 1840 (w 17), and again, by the Bridge over a Branch of the Witham (w 16). None the less, architecture was not De Wint's forte. It is known that he painted, in his original manner, some remarkable still-life pieces, including flowers ; and it ought never to be forgotten, though it usually is, that he delighted to spend a holiday in sketching the picturesque fishermen at Sheringham. Indeed, he made many such holiday sketches from the life, as Mrs. De Wint states in her
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biography. Is it not, then, high time that experts should rescue them from the artists to whom they have been wildly attributed, in the foolish belief that De Wint paid no attention to separate studies ot the human figure ? I saw one such study a little while since — a fresh, bonny water-colour, measuring nine inches high by five wide. It represented a fisherman on the sea-shore, with the breaking waves behind him. The fellow, standing erect, lacked a certain something which finds its way into professional figure-painting ; but, on the other hand, he looked so stalwart and so robust that for a moment I hesitated to hold the drawing, lest I should find the weight of it to be about thirteen stone. These figure-sketches, beyond all doubt, have a real value in the life-work of De Wint ; but it is, I believe, by virtue of his English country scenes that he takes rank, both in water-colour and in oil, as a leader in modern art. Yes, he certainly leads. There are but few modern land- scapes that deserve to be hung side by side with those which Miss H. H. Tatlock sent this winter to the Old Masters Exhibition at Burlington House.
Then, last of all, De Wint appeals to us invariably as one or the rare men who draw and model vigorously with a wealth of colour, and paint their way with consummate ease to an enduring fame. De Wint never fills in an outline with tints, nor fiddle-faddles with his pigments. He is a born master of the brush, an original colourist, a genuine painter, certainly limited in scope, but strong, earnest, manly, dignified, austere, and individual ; moved, too, by a delight in rusticity which enables him to people his landscapes with admirable cattle, with ably characterised flocks of sheep, with horses drowsy with the heat or tired by their field labours, and with groups of English bargemen and harvesters, that toil or rest happily in the sun, being true children of the Earth-Mother.
WALTER SHAW SPARROW.
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OIL-PAINTING: "MRS. DE W1XT AND HER DAUGHTER"
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(From the picture by William Hilton, R.A. in the Collection of Miss H. H. Tatloch)
PETER DE WINT
(From the miniatures in the Collection of Miss H. H. Tatlod)
PETER DE WINT AND HIS WIFE
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(In the Collection of Gerald Robinson, Esq.)
CRAYON AND WASH STUDY "A TIMBER-YARD"
PETER DE \V1XT
SEPIA DRAWING
"BIRMINGHAM FROM SUTTON COLDFIELD"
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(In the Birmingham Art Gallery)
SEPIA DRAWING
" STRATFORD-ON-AVON
(In the Birmingham Art Gallery. By permission of the Birmingham and Midland Institute)
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WATER-COLOUR "STUDY OF WEEDS'
(From Sir Walter Armstrong's ••Memoir of Peter de Wtnt")
WATER-COLOUR "CONISBOROUGH CASTLE"
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(From Sir Walter Armstrong's "Memoir of Piter de Wait." Macmillan and Co., 1888)
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WATER-COLOUR
"SKETCH OF GLOUCESTER"
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(Iii the British
WATER-COLOUR
"BRIDGE OVER A BRANCH OF
THE WITHAM, LINCOLNSHIRE"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
PETER DE WIXT
{In the Collection of Miss H. H. Tatlock)
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH "GLOUCESTER, 1840"
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PETER DE WINT
WATER-COLOUR: "SCALBY MILL NEAR SCARBOROUGH"
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(From Sir Walter Armstrong's- "Memoir of Peter Ac Wint"}
PETER DE WINT
(In the Collection of Miss H. H. Tatloch)
WATER-COLOUR (1847) "COTTAGES AT ALDBURY"
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(In the Collection of J. L. Roget, Esq.]
WATER-COLOUR: "ON THE WHARFE"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR
"THE TRENT, NEAR BURTON"
(By permission oj Messrs Thomas Agnew and Sons) WATER-COLOUR: "HARVESTING'
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WATER-COLOUR: "A ROAD IX YORKSHIRE w 26
(In South Kensington Museum):
WATER-COLOUR: "RUINS OF THE BISHOP'S PALACE, LINCOLN"
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WATER-COLOUR (1841)
"WEST FRONT OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL"
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</» the Collection of Miss H. H. Tathck) WATER-COLOUR SKETCH : "WESTMINSTER"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR: "THE HIGH BRIDGE, LINCOLN"
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(In the British Museum)
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH "LANCASTER CASTLE"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR
"HARVEST TIME, LANCASHIRE"
w 36
PETER DE WINT
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH "BRAY-ON-THAMES"
w 37
(In South Ktnsington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR "BRAY-ON-THAMES'
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(In South Kensington Museum)
PETER DE WINT
(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR
"ROMAN CANAL, LINCOLNSHIRE"
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(In South Kensington Museum)
WATER-COLOUR "THE CRICKETERS"
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WATER-COLOUR (1847-48) " NOTTINGHAM "
(In South Kensington Museum} w 43
WATER-COLOUR (1848-49) "ON THE DART"
(From Sir Walter Armstrong's "Memoir of Peter de Wint"\ w 44
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