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From  the 

Fine  Arts  Library 

Fogg  Art  Museum 
Harvard  University 


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THE 

HISTORY  OF  MODERN  PAINTING 


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The  History 


Modern  Painting 


BY 


RICHARD     MUTHER 

PROFESSOR     OF    ART     HISTORY     AT    THE     UNIVERSITY    OF    BRESLAU 
LATE  KEEPER    OF  THE   PRINTS  AT  THE    MUNICH    PINAKOTHEK 


IN     THREE     VOLUMES 

VOLUME   TIIKKE 


NEW    YORK 
MACMILLAN   AND    CO 


MDCCUXCVi 


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FA  3ZS7.  2.1 


HARVARD 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 


The  translation  of  this  volume 

was  entrusted  to 

Mr.  Arthur  Cecil  Hillier; 

and  the  printing  to 

Messrs,  Hazelly  Watson y  &*  Viney^  Ld. 

of  London  and  Aylesbury. 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION i 


BOOK   IV 
THE  PAINTERS  OF  LIFE 

CHAPTER  XXXIV 
FRANCE 

Bastien-Lepage,  Lliermitte,  Roll,  Raffaelli,  De  Nittis,  Ferdinand  Heilbuth, 
Albert  Aublet,  Jean  B^iraud,  Ulysse  Butin,  £douard  Dantan,  Henri 
Gervex,  Duez,  Friant,  Goeneutte,  Dagnan-Bouveret. — The  Landscape- 
Painters :  Seurat,  Signac,  Anquetin,  Angrand,  Luden  Pissarro,  Pointelin, 
Jan  Monchablon,  Montenard,  Dauphin,  Rosset-Granget,  £mile  Barau, 
Damoye,  Boudin,  Dumoulin,  Lebourg,  Victor  Binet,  R6n6  Billotte. — The 
Portrait-Painters:  Fantin-Latour,  Jacques  £mile  Blanche,  Boldini.— 
The  Draughtsmen :  Ch€ret,  Willette,  Forain,  Paul  Renouard,  Daniel 
Vierge •        .        .        .         ii 

CHAPTER  XXXV 
SPAIN 

From  Goya  to  Fortuny. — Mariano  Fortuny. — Official  efiforts  for  the  cultivation 
of  historical  painting. — Influence  of  Manet  inconsiderable. — Even  in 
their  pictures  from  modem  life  the  Spaniards  remain  followers  of 
Fortuny:  Francisco  Pradilla,  Casado,  Vera,  Manuel  Ramirez,  Moreno 
Carbonero,  Ricardo  Villodas,  Antonio  Casanova  y  Estorach,  Benliure  y 
Gil,  Checa,  Francisco  Amerigo,  Viniegra  y  Lasso,  Mas  y  Fondevilla, 
Alcazar  Tejedor,  Jos6  Villegas,  Luis  Jimenez,  Martin  Rico,  Zamacois, 
Raimundo  de  Madrazo,  Francisco  Domingo,  Emilio   Sala  y  Frances, 

Antonio  Fabr6s 68 

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CHAPTER  XXXVI 
ITALY 

PAGE 

Fortuny's  influence  on  the  Italians,  especially  on  the  school  of  Naples. — 
Domenico  Morelli  and  his  followers  :  F.  P.  Michetti,  Edoardo  Dalbono, 
Alceste  Campriani,  Giacomo  di  Chirico,  Rubens  Santoro,  Edoardo 
ToflFano,  Giuseppe  de  Nigris. — Prominence  of  the  costume-picture. — 
Venice :  Favretto,  Lonza. — Florence:  Andreotti,  Conti,  Gelli,  Vinea. — The 
peculiar  position  of  Segantini. — Otherwise  anecdotic  painting  still 
preponderates.— Chierici,  Rotta,  Vannuttelli,  Monteverde,  Tito.— -Reasons 
why  the  further  development  of  modem  art  was  generally  completed 
not  so  much  on  Latin  as  on  Germanic  soil 90 

CHAPTER  XXXVII 
ENGLAND 

General  characteristic  of  English  painting. — The  offshoots  of  Qassicism: 
Lord  Leighton,  Val  Prinsep,  Poynter,  Alma  Tadema. — Japanese  ten- 
dencies :  Albert  Moore. — ^The  animal  picture  with  antique  surroundings : 
Briton-Riviere. — The  old^^nr^  painting  remodelled  in  a  naturalistic  sense 
by  George  Mason  and  Frederick  Walker. — George  H.  Boughton,  Philip 
H.  Calderon,  Marcus  Stone,  G.  D.  Leslie,  P.  G.  Morris,  J.  R.  Reid,  Frank 
HolL — The  portrait-painters:  Ouless,  J.  J.  Shannon,  James  Sant, 
Charles  W.  Furse,  Hubert  Herkomer. — Landscape-painters.— Zigzag 
development  of  English  landscape-painting. — The  school  of  Fontaine- 
bleau  and  French  Impressionism  rose  on  the  shoulders  of  Constable 
and  Turner,  whereas  England,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Preraphaelites, 
deviated  in  the  opposite  direction  until  prompted  by  France  to  return 
to  the  old  path. — Cecil  Lawson,  James  Clarke  Hook,  Vicat  Cole,  Colin 
Hunter,  John  Brett,  Inchbold.  Leader,  Corbett,  Ernest  Parton,  Mark 
Fisher,  John  White,  Alfred  East,  J.  Aumonier. — The  sea-painters  :  Henry 
Moore,  W.  L.  Wyllie. — The  importance  of  Venice  for  English  painting : 
Clara  Montalba,  Luke  Fildes,  W.  Logsdail,  Henry  Woods. — French 
influences:  Dudley  Hardy,  Stott  of  Oldham,  Stanhope  Forbes    .        .110 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
BELGIUM 

As  David  swayed  over  Belgian  painting  from  1800  to  1830,  and  Delaroche 
from  1830  to  1850,  Courbet  swayed  over  it  from  1850  to  1870.— Charles 
de  Groux,  Henri  de  Braekeleer,  Constantin  Meunier,  Charles  Verlat, 
Louis  Dubois,  Jan  Stobbaerts,  Leopold  Speekaert,  Alfred  Stevens,  De 
Jongh6,  Baugniet,  the  brothers  Verhas,  Charles  Hermans. — The  land- 
scape-painters first  go  upon  the  lines  of  the  Fontainebleau  artists  and 


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the  Impressionists. — Sketch  of  the  history  of  Belgian  landscape-painting. 
— ^Van  Assche,  Verstappeni  Marneffe,  Lauters,  Jacob-Jacobs,  Kindermans, 
Fourmois,  Schampheleer,  Roelofs,  Lamorini^re,  De  Knyff. — Hippolyte 
Boulenger  and  the  Soci^t6  Libre  des  Beaux- Arts. — Theodore  Baron, 
Jacques  Rosseels,  Joseph  Heymans,  Coosemans,  Asselbergs,  Verstraete, 
Frans  Courtens.— The  painters  of  animals:  Verboeckhoven,  Alfred 
Verwee,  Parmentier,  De  Greef,  Leemputten,  L6on  Massaux,  Marie 
Collaert — The  painters  of  the  sea :  Clays,  A.  Bouvier,  Leemans,  A. 
Baertsoen,  Louis  Artan. — ^The  portrait-painters :  £mile  Wauters,  Li6vin 
de  Winne,  Agneesens,  Lambrichs. — General  characteristic  of  Belgian 
painting 201 

CHAPTER  XXXIX 
HOLLAND 

The  difference  between  Dutch  and  Belgian  painting. — The  previous  history 
of  artistic  efforts  in  Holland. — Koekkoek,  Van  Schendel,  David  Bles, 
Hermann  ten  Kate,  Pienemann,  Charles  Rochussen,  Weissenbruch, 
Bosboom,  Schelfhout,  Taurel,  Waldorp,  Kuytenbrouwer. — Figure- 
painters  :  Josef  Israels,  Christoffel  Bisschop,  Gerk  Henkes,  Albert 
Neuhuys,  Adolf  Artz,  Pieter  Oyens. — The  landscape-painters :  Jongkind, 
Jacob  and  Willem  Maris,  Anton  Mauve,  H.  W.  Mesdag.— Realism  and 
Sensitivism:  Klinkenberg,  Gabriel. — ^The  younger  generation. — Neo- 
Impressionism :  Isaac  Israels  and  Breitner. — Matthew  Maris  and 
Mysticism. — W.  Bauer  and  Jan  Toorop.— Thorn  Prikker.—"  Expression- 
ism : "  Jan  Veth  and  Haverman,  Karpen  and  Tholen  .        .228 

CHAPTER  XL 
DENMARK 

The  kinship  between  Danish  and  Dutch  painting. — Previous  history  of 
artistic  efforts  in  Denmark.— Christoph  Vilhelm  Eckersberg  and  his 
importance.— The  Eckersberg  school :  Rorbye,  Bendz,  Sonne,  Christen 
Kobke,  Roed,  Kilchler,  Vilhelm  Marstrand.— Italy  and  the  East :  J.  A. 
Krafft,  Constantin  Hansen,  Ernst  Meyer,  Petzholdt,  Niels  Simonsen. — 
The  national  movement  of  the  forties  brings  painting  back  to  native 
soil :  influence  of  Hoyen,  Julius  Exner,  Frederik  Vermehren,  Christen 
Dalsgaard. — Their  intimacy  of  feeling  in  opposition  to  the  traditional 
genre  painting. — The  landscape-painters:  Johan  Thomas  Lundbye, 
Carlo  Dalgas,  Peter  Christian  Skovgaard,  Vilhelm  Kyhn,  Gotfred 
Rump.— 'The  marine-painters:  Emanuel  Larsen,  Frederik  Sdrensen, 
Anton  Melbye. — Their  importance  and  technical  defects. — Carl  Bloch 


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sets  in  the  place  of  this  awkward  painting  which  had  national  inde- 
pendence one  which  was  outwardly  brilliant  but  less  characteristic. 
— Gertner,  Elisabeth  Jerichau-Baumann,  Otto  Bache,  Vilhelm  Rosen- 
stand,  Axel  Helsted,  Christian  Zahrtmann. — After  the  Paris  Exhibition 
of  1878  there  came  into  being  the  young  school  equipped  with  rich 
technical  means  of  expression  and,  at  the  same  time,  taking  up  the 
Eckersberg  tradition  of  intimate  and  delicate  observation:  Peter  S. 
Kroyer,  Laurits  Regner  Tuxen,  August  Jerndorfii  Viggo  Johansen,  Carl 
Thomsen,  H.  N.  Hansen,  Otto  Haslund,  Irminger,  Engelsted,  Lauritz 
Ring,  Erik  Henningsen,  Fritz  Syberg. — Painters  of  the  sea  and  fishing : 
Michael  and  Anna  Ancher,  Locher,  Thorolf  Pedersen. — The  landscape- 
painters:  Viggo  Pedersen,  Philipsen,  Thorwald  Niss,  Zacho,  Gotfred 
Christensen,  Julius  Paulsen. — The  "free  exhibitors:"  Joachim  and 
Niels  Skovgaard,  Theodor  BindesboU,  Agnes  Slott-MoUer,  Harald  Slott- 
Moller,  J.  F.  Willumsen,  V.  Hammershoy,  Johan  Rohde,  G.  Seligmann, 
Karl  Jensen 266 

CHAPTER  XLI 

SWEDEN 

Previous  history  of  Swedish  art.— The  Classicists :  Per  KraflFt,  Frederik 
Westin,  Elias  Martin. — Extension  of  the  range  of  subject  through 
Romanticism  :  Plageman,  Blomm6r,  Fahlcrantz,  Wilhelm  Palm,  Egron 
Lundgren. — Beginnings  of  a  national  painting  of  the  life  of  the  people : 
Soedermark,  Sandberg,  Dahlstrom,  Per  Wickenberg,  Karl  Wahlbom, 
August  Lindholm,  Amalia  Lindegren,  Nils  Andersson. — The  Dasseldor- 
fiau  period :  Karl  D'Uucker,  Bengt  Nordenberg,  Wilhelm  Wallander, 
Anders  KoskuU,  August  Jernberg,  Ferdinand  Fagerlin.— After  the  Paris 
World  Exhibition  of  1867,  instead  of  going  to  Dusseldorf,  the  Swedes 
repair  to  Paris  and  Munich. — Period  of  costume-painting  and  colouring 
after  the  old  masters:  Johan  KristoflFer  Boklund,  Johan  Frederik 
Hoeckert,  Marten  Eskil  Winge,  August  Malmstrom,  Georg  von  Rosen, 
Julius  Kronberg,  Carl  Gustav  Hellquist,  Gustav  Cederstrom,  Nils 
Forsberg. — ^The  landscape-painters :  Marcus  Larsson,  Alfred  Wahlberg, 
G.  Rydberg,  Edvard  Bergh.— After  the  Paris  Worid  Exhibition  of  1878 
the  last  transition,  which  led  the  young  Swedish  artists  to  follow  the 
lines  of  Impressionism,  took  place. — The  Parisian  Swedes:  Hugo 
Salmson,  August  Hagborg,  Vilhelm  von  Gegerfelt,  Karl  SkSnberg, 
Hugo  Birger. — Those  who  returned  home  became  the  founders  of  a  new 
national  Swedish  art. — Character  of  this  art  compared  with  the  Danish. — 
The  landscape-painters :  Per  Eckstrom,  Nils  Kreuger,  Karl  Nordstrom, 
Prince  Eugene,  Robert  Thegerstrom,  Olof  Arborelius,  Axel  Lindmann, 
Alfred  Thome,  John  Kindborg,  Johan  Krouth6n,  Adolf  Nordling,  Johan 


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Ericson,  Edvard  Rosenberg,  Erast  Lundstrdm. — The  painters  of  animals : 
Wennerberg,  Brandelius,  Georg  Arsenius,  Bruno  Liljefors. — The  figure- 
painters:  Axel  Kulle,  Alf  Wallander,  Axel  Borg,  Johan  Tir^n,  Allan 
Oesterlind,  Oscar  Bjorck,  Carl  Larsson,  Ernst  Josephson,  Georg  Pauli, 
Richard  Bergh,  Anders  Zorn         / 337 

CHAPTER  XLII 
NORWAY 

Previous  history  of  Norwegian  art :  J.  C.  Dahl  and  his  importance ;  Fearnley, 
Frich.— The  Dusscldorf  period :  Adolf  Tidemand,  Hans  Gude,  Vincent 
Stoltenbei^-Lerche,  Hans  Dahl,  Carl  Hansen,  Niels  Bj6rnson-M611er, 
August  Cappelen,  Morten-M Oiler,  Ludwig  Munthe,  E.  A.  Normann, 
Knud  Bergslien,  Nicolai  Arbo. — From  the  middle  of  the  seventies  Munich 
becomes  the  high-school  of  Norwegian  art,  and  from  1880  Paris. — 
Norwegians  who  remained  in  Germany  and  Paris:  M.  Grdnvold,  J. 
Ekendes,  Carl  Frithjof-Smith,  Grimelund. — Those  who  return  home 
become  the  founders  of  a  national  Norwegian  art :  Otto  Sinding,  Niels 
Gustav  Wenzel,  Jdrgensen,  Kolstoe,  Christian  Krohg,  Christian 
Skredsvig,  Eilif  Peterssen. — The  landscape-painters :  Johan  Theodor 
Eckersbeig,  Amandus  Nilson,  Fritz  Thaulow,  Gerhard  Munthe,  Dissen, 
Skramstadt,  Gunnar  Berg,  Edvard  Dircks,  Eylof  Soot,  Carl  Uckermann, 
Harriet  Backer,  Kitty  Kielland,  Hansteen.—Illustratioa :  Erik 
Werenskiold.— Finnish  art :   Edelfelt 384 

CHAPTER  XLIII 

RUSSIA 
(In  collaboration  with  Alexander  Benois,  St.  Petersburg) 

The  b^nnings  of  Russian  painting  in  the  eighteenth  century:  ^evitzky, 
Rokotov,  Borovikovsky. — The  period  of  Classicism :  Egorov,  Ugrttmov, 
Andreas  Ivanov,  Theodor  Tolstoi,  Orest  Kiprensky. — The  first  painters 
of  soldiers  and  peasants:  Orlovsky,  Venezianov. — The  historical 
painters:  BrOlov,  Bassin,  Schamschin,  Kapkov,  Flavitzky,  Moller, 
Hendrik  Siemiradzky,  Bruni,  NeflF. — Realistic  reaction:  Alexander 
Ivanov,  Sarjanko. — The  genre  painters :  Sternberg,  Stschedrovsky, 
Tschemyschev,  Morosov,  Ivan  Sokolov,  Trutovsky,  Timm,  Popov, 
Shuravlev,  Fedotov. — ^The  painters  with  a  complaint  against  society: 
Perov,  Pukircv,  Korsuchin,  Prjanischnikov,  Savitzky,  Lemoch, 
Verestchagin. — ^The  landscape-painters :  Stschedrin,  Lebedev,  Vorobiev, 
Rabus,  Lagorio,  Horavsky,  Bogoliubov,  Mestschersky,  Aivasovsky, 
TschemezofT,  Galaktionov,  Schischkin,  Baron  Klodt,  Orlovsky,  Fedders. 
Volkov,  VassiHev,  Levitan,  Kuindshi,  Savrassov,  Sudkovsky,  Vassnetzov, 


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Albert  Benois,  Svjetoslavsky. — ^The  naturalistic  figure-picture: 
Svertschkov,  Peter  Sokolov.— The  Wanderers:  Ivan  Kramskoi, 
Constantin  and  Vladimir  Makovsky,  Tschistjakov,  Schwarz,  Gay, 
Surikov,  Elias  R6pin 407 

CHAPTER  XLIV 
AMERICA 

The  previous  history  of  American  art. — The  first  Americans  who  worked 
in  England:  Benjamin  West,  John  Singleton  Copley,  Gilbert  Stuart 
Newton,  Charles  Robert  Leslie. — ^The  first  portrait-painters  in  America 
itself:  Gilbert  Stuart,  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  Joseph  Wright,  Loring 
Charles  Elliot. — The  grand  painting:  John  Trumbull,  Washington 
Allston,  Emanuel  Leutze. — Genre  painting  :  William  Sydney  Mount — 
The  landscape-painters:  Thomas  Cole,  Albert  Bierstadt,  John  B. 
Bristol,  Frederick  E.  Church,  J.  F.  Kensett,  Sanford  R.  GiflFord,  James 
Fairman,  the  Morgans,  William  Morris  Hunt. — The  Americans  in  Paris  : 
Henry  Mosler,  Carl  Gutherz,  Frederick  A.  Bridgman,  Edwin  Weeks, 
Harry  Humphrey  Moore,  Julius  L.  Stewart,  Charles  Sprague  Pearce, 
William  T.  Dannat,  Alexander  Harrison,  Walter  Gay,  Eugene  Vail, 
Walter  MacEwen. — The  Americans  in  Holland :  Gari  Melchers,  George 
Hitchcock. — The  Americans  in  London:  John  Singer  Sargent,  Henry 
Muhrmann. — The  Americans  in  Munich  :  Carl  Marr,  Charles  Frederick 
Ulrich,  Robert  Koehler,  Sion  Weuban,  Orrin  Peck,  Hermann  Hartwich. 
— The  Americans  at  home. — The  painters  of  Negro  and  Indian  life : 
Winslow  Homer,  Alfred  Kappes,  G.  Brush. — The  founding  of  the 
Society  of  American  Artists:  Walter  Shirlaw,  George  Fuller,  George 
Inness,  Wyatt  Eaton,  Dwight  William  Tryon,  J.  Appleton  Brown,  the 
Morans,  L.  C.  Tififany,  John  Francis  Murphy,  Childe  Hassam,  Julian 
Alden  Weir,  H.  W.  Ranger,  H.  S.  Bisbing,  Charles  H.  Davis,  George 
Inness,  jfinior,  J.  G.  Brown,  J.  M.  C.  Hamilton,  Ridgway  Knight,  Robert 
William  Vonnoh,  Charles  Edmund  Tarbell. — The  influence  of  Whistler : 
Kenyon  Cox,  W.  Thomas  Dewing,  Julius  Rolshoven,  William  Merrit 
Chase 454 

CHAPTER  XLV 

GERMANY 

Retrospect  of  the  development  of  German  painting  since  Menzel  and  Leibl. — 
The  landscapists  had  been  the  first  to  make  the  influence  of  Fontainebleau 
operative  :  Adolf  Lier,  Adolf  Staebli,  Otto  Frohlicher,  Josef  Wenglein, 
Louis  Neubert,  Carl  HeflFner. — The  Munich  Exhibition  of  1879  brings 
about  an  acquaintance  with  Manet  and  Bastien-Lepage :  Max  Lieber- 
mann. — The  other  representatives  of  the  new  art  in  Berlin:  Franz 


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Skarbioa,  Friedrich  Stahl,  Hans  Herrmann,  Hugo  Vogel,  Walter 
Leistikow,  Reinhold  Lepsius,  Curt  Herrmann,  Lesser  Ury,  Ludwig 
Dettmann. — ^Vienna. — Dttsseldorf:  Arthur  Kampf,  Kampffer,  Oiaf 
Jcmbcrg. — Stuttgart:  Otto Reiniger,  Robert  Haug.— Hamburg :  Thomas 
Herbst. — Carlsruhe :  Gustav  SchSnleber,  Herrmann  Baisch,  Friedrich 
Kallmorgen,  Robert  Poetzelberger.— Weimar :  Theodor  Hagen,  Baron 
Gieichen-Russwurm,  L.  Berkemeier,  R.  Thierbach,  P.  Baum.— Munich  : 
Bruno  Piglhein,  Albert  Keller,  Baron  von  Habermann,  Count  Leopold 
Kalckreuth,  Gotthard  Kuehl,  Paul  Hocker,  H.  ZOgel,  Victor  Weishaupt, 
L.  Dill,  L.  Herterich,  Waclaw  Scymanowski,  Hans  Olde,  A.  Lang- 
hammer,^Leo  Samberger,  W.  Firle,  H.  von  Bartels,  W.  Keller-Reutlingen, 
and  others. — The  illustrators :  Ren6  Reinicke,  H.  Schlittgen,  Hengeler, 
Wahle 494 


BOOK    V 
THE  NEW  IDEALISTS 

CHAPTER  XLVI 
THE  NATURE  OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM 

After  Naturalism  had  taught  artists  to  work  upon  the  impressions  of  external 
reality  in  an  independent  manner,  a  transition  was  made  by  some  who 
embodied  the  impressions  of  their  inward  spirit  in  a  free  creative 
fashion,  unborrowed  from  the  old  masters 541 

CHAPTER  XLVn 

ENGLAND 

From  William  Blake  through  David  Scott  to  Rossetti. — Rossetti  and  the  New 
Preraphaelites :  Edward  Burne-Jones,  R.  Spencer  Stanhope,  William 
Morris,  J.  M.  Strudwick,  Henry  Holliday,  Marie  Spartali-Stillman. — W. 
B.  Richmond.  Walter  Crane,  G.  F.  Watts 561 

CHAPTER  XLVin 

WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 

Whistler  as  the  creator  of  a  New  Idealism  of  colour.— Adolphe  Monticelli. 
— The  influence  of  both  upon  the  Glasgow  school. — History  of  Scotch 
painting  from  1729:  Allan  Ramsay,  David  Allan,  Alexander  and  John 
Runciman,  William  Allan,  Henry  Raebum,  David  Wilkie,  John  and 
Thomas  Faed,  Erskine  Nicol,  George  Harvey,  Alexander  and  Patrick 


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xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Nasmyth,  E.  Crawford,  Horatio  Maccullocb,  John  Phillip,  Robert  Scott 
Lauder,  John  Pettie,  W.  Orchardson,  William  Fettes  Douglas,  Robert 
Macgregor,  Peter  and  Thomas  Graham,  Hugh  Cameron,  Denovan 
Adam,  Robert  Macbeth,  John  MacWhirter,  George  Reid,  George  Paul 
Chalmers,  Hamilton  Macallum. — Glasgow  brings  to  perfection  what 
was  begun  in  Edinburgh :  Arthur  Melville,  John  Lavery,  James  Guthrie, 
Geoige  Henry,  Edward  Hornell,  Alexander  Roche,  James  Paterson, 
Grosvenor  Thomas,  William  Kennedy,  Edward  A.  Walton,  David  Gauld, 
T.  Austen  Brown,  Joseph  Crawhall,  Macaulay  Stevenson,  P.  Macgregor 
Wilson,  Coventry,  Morton,  Alexander  Frew,  Harry  Spence,  Harrington 
Mann 645 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

FRANCE 

Gustave  Moreau,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,.  Cazin,  Madame  Cazin,  Eugdne 
Carri^re,  P.  A.  Besnard,  Agache,  Aman-Jean,  M.  Denis,  Gandara,  Henri 
Martin,  Louis  Picard,  Ary  Renan,  Odilon  Redon,  Carlos  Schwabe. — The 
parallel  movement  in  Belgium :  F6licien  Rops,  Femand  Khnopff  .        .  700 

CHAPTER  L 

GERMANY 

Arnold  Boecklin,  Franz  Dreber,  Hans  von  Mar6es,  Hans  Thoma. — The 
resuscitation  of  biblical  painting. — Review  of  previous  efforts  from  the 
Nazarenes  to  Munkacsy,  E.  von  Gebhardt,  Menzel,  and  Liebermann. — 
Fritz  von  Uhde. — Other  attempts :  W.  DQrr,  W.  Volz. — L.  von  Hofmann, 
Julius  Exter,  Franz  Stuck,  Max  Klinger 741 

Bibliography 803 

Index  of  Artists 831 

List  of  Illustrations 853 


ERRATUM. 
Pages  228  and  23a    For  Rochupen  read  Rochussen. 


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INTRODUCTION 

"  "P)  EALISM "  having  led  painting  from  the  past  to  the 
XV  present,  and  "Impressionism"  having  broken  the  juris- 
diction of  the  galleries  by  establishing  an  independent  conception 
of  colour  for  a  new  class  of  subjects,  the  flood  of  modern  life, 
which  had  been  artificially  dammed,  began  to  pour  into  art  in 
all  its  volume.  A  whole  series  of  new  problems  emerged,  and  a 
vigorous  band  of  modern  spirits  were  ready  to  lay  hold  upon 
them  and  give  them  artistic  shape,  each  according  to  his  nature, 
his  ability,  and  his  individual  knowledge  and  power.  After 
nineteenth-century  painting  had  found  its  proper  field  of  activity, 
they  were  no  longer  under  the  necessity  of  seeking  remote 
subjects.  The  fresh  conquest  of  a  personal  impression  of  nature 
took  the  place  of  that  retrospective  taste  which  employed  the 
ready-made  language  of  form  and  colour  belonging  to  the  old 
masters,  as  a  vocabulary  for  the  preparation  of  fresh  works  of 
art  Nature  herself  had  become  a  gallery  of  splendid  pictures. 
Artists  were  dazzled  as  if  by  a  new  light,  overcome  as  though 
by  a  revelation  of  tones  and  strains,  from  which  the  painter 
was  to  compose  his  symphonies.  They  learnt  how  to  find  what 
was  pictorial  and  poetic  in  the  narrowest  family  circle  and 
amongst  the  beds  of  the  simplest  vegetable  garden ;  and  for 
the  first  time  they  felt  mere  wonder  in  the  presence  of  reality, 
the  joy  of  gradual  discovery  and  of  a  leisurely  conquest  of 
the  world. 

Of  course  plein^air  painting  was,  at  first,  the  chief  object 
of  their  endeavours.  Having  painted  so  long  only  in  brown 
tones,  the   radiant   magic   world   of  free  and   flowing   light   was 

VOL.    III.  I 


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2  INTRODUCTION 

something  so  ravishingly  novel,  that  for  several  years  all  their 
efforts  were  exclusively  directed  to  possessing  themselves  once 
more  of  the  sun,  and  substituting  the  clear  daylight  for  the 
clare-obscure  which  had  reigned  alone,  void  of  atmosphere. 
In  this  sunny  brightness,  flooded  with  light  and  air,  they  found 
a  crowd  of  problems,  and  turned  to  the  perpetual  discovery  of 
new  chords  of  colour.  Sunbeams  sparkling  as  they  rippled 
through  the  leaves,  and  greyish-green  meadows  flecked  with 
dust  and  basking  under  light,  were  the  first  and  most  simple 
themes. 

The  complete  programme,  however,  did  not  consist  of 
painting  in  bright  hues,  but,  generally  speaking,  in  seizing  truth 
of  colour  and  altogether  renouncing  artificial  harmony  in  a 
received  tone.  Thus,  after  the  painting  of  daylight  and  sun- 
light was  learnt,  a  further  claim  had  still  to  be  asserted :  the 
ideal  of  truth  in  painting  had  to  be  made  the  keynote  in  every 
other  task.  For  in  the  sun  light  is  no  doubt  white,  but  in  the 
recesses  of  the  forest,  in  the  moonshine,  or  in  a  dim  place,  it 
shines  and  is  at  the  same  time  charged  with  colour.  Night,  or 
mist,  with  its  hovering  and  pervasive  secrets,  is  quite  as  rich  in 
beauties  as  the  radiant  world  of  glistening  sunshine.  After 
seeing  the  summer  sun  on  wood  and  water,  it  was  a  relief  for 
the  eye  to  behold  the  subdued,  soft,  and  quiet  light  of  a  room. 
Upon  the  older  and  rougher  painting  of  free  light  there  followed 
a  preference  for  dusk,  which  has  a  softness  more  picturesque,  a 
more  tender  harmony  of  colours,  and  more  geniality  than  the 
broad  light  of  day.  Artists  studied  clare-obscure,  and  sought 
for  an  enhancement  of  colour  in  it ;  they  looked  into  the  veil  of 
night,  and  addressed  themselves  to  a  painting  of  darkness  such 
as  could  only  have  proceeded  from  the  plein-air  school.  For  this 
darkness  of  theirs  is  likewise  full  of  atmosphere,  a  darkness  in 
which  there  is  life  and  breath  and  palpitation.  In  earlier  days, 
when  a  night  was  painted,  everything  was  thick  and  opaque, 
c  >vered  with  black  verging  into  yellow;  to  which  latter  error 
aitists  were  seduced  by  the  crusts  of  varnish  upon  old  pictures. 
Now  they  learnt  to  interpret  the  mysterious  life  of  the  night,  and 
to  render  the  bluish-grey  atmosphere  of  twilight.     Or  if  figures 


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INTRODUCTION  3 

were  to  be  painted  in  a  room,  artists  rendered  the  circulation  of 
the  air  amid  groups  of  people,  which  Correggio  called  "the 
ambient  **  and  Velasquez  "  respiration."  And  there  came  also  the 
study  of  artificial  illumination— of  the  delicate  coloured  charm  of 
motley  lanterns,  of  the  flaring  gas  or  lamp-light  which  streams 
through  the  glass  windows  of  shops,  flaring  and  radiating 
through  the  night  and  reflected  in  a  blazing  glow  upon  the 
faces  of  men  and  women.  Under  these  purely  pictorial  points 
of  view  the  gradual  widening  of  the  range  of  subject  was 
completed. 

So  long  as  the  acquisition  of  sunlight  was  the  point  in 
question,  representations  from  the  life  of  artisans  in  town  and 
country  stood  at  the  centre  itself  of  artistic  efforts,  because  the 
conception  and  technical  methods  of  the  new  art  could  be 
tested  upon  them  with  peculiar  success.  And  through  these 
pictures  painting  came  into  closer  sympathy  with  the  heart-beat 
of  the  age.  At  an  epoch  when  the  labouring  man  as  such, 
and  the  political  and  social  movement  in  civilization,  had  become 
matters  of  absorbing  interest,  the  picture  of  artisans  necessarily 
claimed  an  important  place  in  art ;  and  one  of  the  best  sides 
of  the  moral  value  of  modern  painting  lies  in  its  no  longer 
holding  itself  in  indifference  aloof  from  these  themes.  When 
the  century  began.  Hector  and  Agamemnon  alone  were  qualified 
for  artistic  treatment,  but  in  the  natural  course  of  development 
the  disinherited,  the  weary  and  heavily-laden  likewise  acquired 
rights  of  citizenship.  In  the  passage  where  Vasari  speaks  of 
the  Madonnas  of  Cimabue,  comparing  them  with  the  older 
Byzantine  Virgins,  he  says  finely  that  the  Florentine  master 
brought  more  "  goodness  of  heart "  into  painting.  And  perhaps 
the  historians  of  the  future  will  say  the  same  about  the  art  of 
the  present 

The  predilection  for  the  disinherited  was  in  the  beginning 
to  such  an  extent  identified  with  the  plain,  straightforward 
painting  of  the  proletariat  that  Naturalism  could  not  be  con- 
ceived at  all  except  in  so  far  as  it  dealt  with  poverty  :  in  making 
its  first  great  successes  it  had  sought  after  the  miserable  and 
the  outcast,  and  serious  critics  recognized   its  chief  importance 


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4  INTRODUCTION 

in  the  discovery  of  the  fourth  estate.  Of  course  the  painting 
of  paupers,  as  a  sole  field  of  activity  for  the  new  art,  would 
have  been  an  exceedingly  one-sided  acquisition.  It  is  not 
merely  the  working-man  who  should  be  painted,  because  the  age 
must  strive  to  compass  in  a  large  and  full  spirit  the  purport 
of  its  own  complicated  conditions  of  life.  So  there  began,  in 
general,  the  representation,  so  long  needed,  of  the  man  of  to-day 
and  of  society  agitated,  as  it  is,  by  the  stream  of  existence.  As 
Zola  wrote  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  movement :  "  Naturalism 
does  not  depend  upon  the  choice  of  subject.  The  whole  of 
society  is  its  domain,  from  the  drawing-room  to  the  drinking- 
booth.  It  is  only  idiots  who  would  make  Naturalism  the  rhetoric 
of  the  gutter.  We  claim  for  ourselves  the  whole  world."  Every- 
thing is  to  be  painted,  forges,  railway-stations,  machine-rooms,  the 
workrooms  of  manual  labourers,  the  glowing  ovens  of  smelting- 
works,  official  f^tes,  drawing-roOms,  scenes  of  domestic  life,  cafh^ 
storehouses  and  markets,  the  races  and  the  Exchange,  the  clubs 
and  the  watering-places,  the  expensive  restaurants  and  the  dismal 
eating-houses  for  the  people,  the  cabinets  particuliers  and  cJUc  des 
premikreSy  the  return  from  the  Bois  and  the  promenades  on  the 
seashore,  the  banks  and  the  gambling-hells,  casinoes,  boudoirs, 
studios,  and  sleeping-cars,  overcoats,  eyeglasses,  and  red  dress- 
coats,  balls,  soir^es^  sport,  Monte  Carlo  and  Trouville,  the 
lecture-rooms  of  universities  and  the  fascination  of  the  crowded 
streets  in  the  evening,  the  whole  of  humanity  in  all  classes  of 
society  and  following  every  occupation,  at  home  and  in  the 
hospitals,  at  the  theatre,  upon  the  squares,  in  poverty-stricken 
slums  and  upon  the  broad  boulevards  lit  with  electric  light. 
Thus  the  new  art  flung  aside  the  blouse,  and  soon  displayed 
itself  in  the  most  various  costumes,  down  to  the  frock-coat  and 
the  smoking-jacket.  The  rude  and  remorseless  traits  which  it 
had  at  first,  and  which  found  expression  in  numbers  of  peasant, 
artisan,  and  hospital  pictures,  were  subdued  and  softened  until 
they  even  became  idyllic.  Moreover  the  scale  of  painting  over 
life-size,  favoured  in  the  early  years  of  the  movement,  could  be 
abandoned,  since  it  arose  essentially  from  competition  with  the 
works  of  the  historical  school.      So  long  as  those  huge  pictures 


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INTRODUCTION  5 

covered  the  walls  at  exhibitions,  artists  who  obeyed  a  new  ten- 
dency were  forced  from  the  beginning  —  if  they  wished  to 
prevail — to  produce  pictures  of  the  same  size.  But  since  his- 
torical painting  was  finally  dead  and  buried,  there  was  no  need 
to  set  up  such  a  standard  any  longer,  and  a  transition  could  be 
made  to  a  smaller  scale,  better  fitted  for  works  of  an  intimate 
character.  The  dazzling  tones  in  which  the  Impressionists 
revelled  were  replaced  by  those  which  were  dim  and  soft,  energy 
and  force  by  subdued  and  tender  treatment,  largeness  of  size 
by  a  scale  which  was  small  and  intimate. 

That  was  more  or  less  the  course  of  evolution  run  through 
in  all  European  countries  in  a  similar  way  between  the  years 
1875  and  18S5.  Nor  was  it  possible  to  talk  of  "imitation  of  the 
French."  For  "resemblance,  and  even  uniformity  of  style  and 
taste,  is  not  necessarily  the  same  thing  as  subserviency.  In 
every  age  certain  tendencies  and  forms  of  representation,  like 
germs  in  the  air,  may  be  found  in  quarters  divided  from  each 
other  by  space  or  national  sentiment ;  they  are  lit  upon  by 
more  than  one  person,  and  arise  without  outward  communication, 
just  as  discoveries  in  science  and  inventions  in  mechanics  are 
often  independently  made  by  several  persons.  Every  age  leaves 
its  successor  a  heritage  of  latent  f>owers,  forms  in  need  of 
development,  and  disturbing  questions.  Thus  the  dissimilarity 
of  artists  belonging  to  different  generations,  though  natives  of 
the  same  place  and  closely  related,  is  materially  greater  than 
the  distinction  between  contemporaries  belonging  to  different 
places  and  completely  unknown  to  each  other.  As  soon  as 
they  have  found  their  feet,  the  work  of  pupils  has  a  very  different 
appearance  from  that  of  the  master  under  whose  roof  they  have 
worked  for  years  together ;  yet  masters  of  the  same  period,  who 
have  never  heard  of  each  other  and  are  of  distinct  nationalities, 
are  often  so  much  alike  that  they  could  be  taken  one  for  the 
other."  These  words  from  Justi's  Velasquez  are  sufficient  to  in- 
validate the  patriotic  fears  which  inferred  a  renunciation  of  the 
principle  of  nationality,  and  the  intrusion  of  a  nugatory  VolapQk 
into  art,  from  the  outward  parity  of  the  strivings  of  modern 
times. 


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6  INTRODUCTION 

The  history  of  art  knows  nothing  of  jnational  distinctions  in 
technique  and  subjects.  Subjects  rise  according  to  the  general 
atmosphere  of  civilization.  Technical  acquirements,  like  all  other 
newly  discovered  truths,  are  the  property  of  the  whole  world.  In 
fact  it  is  the  teaching  of  every  manual  of  art,  that  since  the 
introduction  of  Christianity  all  the  greater  and  more  powerful 
movements  amongst  the  Latin  and  German  races,  taken  together, 
were  not  permanently  localized  ;  they  were  not  confined  to  one 
people,  but  spread  over  the  whole  civilized  world.  Since  the  age 
of  the  old  Christian  basilica  and  the  Gothic  cathedral,  styles  have 
never  been  the  product  of  single  nations.  And  in  this  sense 
"the  new  art"  which  has  flooded  Europe  for  twenty  years  is 
not  an  invention  of  the  French,  but  a  free  and  independent 
expression  of  the  new  spirit  It  was  not  in  France,  it  was  not 
scattered  here  and  there  in  particular  countries,  that  this  spirit 
appeared ;  it  was  a  single  stream  of  new  blood  pouring  through 
arteries  to  the  East  and  the  West,  to  the  North  and  the  South, 
in  painting  as  in  all  other  departments  of  intellectual  life.  In 
all  literatures  the  same  battles  had'  been  raging  long.  What 
Zola  was  to  Parisians,  Dostoievski  was  in  Russia,  Ibsen  in 
Norway,  Echegaray  in  Spain,  and  Verga  in  Italy.  It  is  probably 
only  because  the  French  are  people  with  a  gift  for  the  initiative 
in  art,  because  they  so  eminently  possess  the  talent  for  cutting 
the  facets  of  a  jewel,  and  for  first  giving  an  idea  or  a  subject 
an  intelligible,  attractive,  and  generally  valid  form,  that  the 
revolution  in  painting  proceeded  from  them,  whilst  in  literature 
they  share  that  glory  with  the  Norwegians  and  the  Russians. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  main  principle  of  modern  art 
had  the  effect  of  turning  national  distinctions  to  account  far 
more  than  had  been  the  case  in  earlier  times.  In  the  first  half 
of  the  century  there  had  been  a  tendency  to  suppress  what  is 
individual  and  peculiar,  subordinating  it  to  a  universal  rule. 
Painters  of  all  countries  moved  at  the  command  of  the  old 
masters  with  all  the  evenness  of  soldiers  on  parade.  Then,  in 
accordance  with  Courbet's  doctrine,  the  artist  became  the  slave 
of  nature.  Painters  opposed  historical  art  and  imitation  with  all 
their  power,  and  began  to  see  nature  with  their  own  eyes,  though 


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Il^TRODUCTION  7 

they  worked,  it  must  be  owned,  as  objectively  as  if  the  medium 
of  the  human  soul  were  of  evil  inspiration  and  man  capable  of 
beholding  the  world  like  a  photographic  apparatus,  leaving  his 
inner  self  at  home  whilst  the  process  was  going  on.  Compared 
with  this  kind  of  realism,  Naturalism  meant  the  liberation  of 
individual  temperament.  The  Impressionists  also  dispensed  with 
all  recipes  and  relied  upon  nature,  though  not,  as  Courbet,  at 
the  expense  of  their  artistic  personality.  On  the  contrary,  they 
demanded  practically  everything  from  this  element.  Instead  of 
copying  nature  pedantically  in  its  stale  reality,  they  endeavoured 
to  seize  her  in  fleeting  moments,  beaming  with  colour,  and  in 
all  the  sheer  poetry  of  her  essential  life ;  they  sought  her  in 
moments  when  she  had  a  special  quickening  power  upon  the 
spirit  of  the  artist  who  abandoned  himself  to  his  personal  vision. 
The  temperament  of  the  painter,  which  had  been  a  necessary 
evil  in  the  tyts  of  the  realist,  a  danger  to  objectivity  of  repre- 
sentation, and  a  hindrance  to  the  effort  at  attaining  complete 
truth,  now  became  the  determining  element  in  a  work  of  art. 
But  temperament  is  an  affair  of  blood.  It  is  only  a  man  of 
feeble  talent,  such  as  could  be  dispensed  with  altogether,  who 
will  be  a  mere  imitator.  The  individuality  of  the  true  artist  is 
a  thing  which  never  loses  the  mark  of  race.  The  more  completely 
he  abandons  himself  to  his  own  temperament,  the  more  distinctly 
will  he  give  expression  to  national  individuality  also.  From 
these  differences  of  temperament  amongst  various  peoples, 
national  distinctiveness  in  art  can  alone  be  said  to  spring.  To 
bring  them  under  this  point  of  view,  assigning  to  every  country 
its  place  in  the  general  chart  of  modern  painting,  will  be  the 
task  of  the  following  section  of  this  work. 


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BOOK      IV 

THE    PAINTERS    OF   LIFE 


VOL.    III. 


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CHAPTER    XXXIV 
FRANCE 

Bastien- Lepage,  Vhermitte,  Roll,  Raffaelli,  deNitiis^  Ferdinand  Heilbuth^ 
Albert  AubUt,  Jean  Beraud,  Ulysse  Bulin,  ^douard  Dantan,  Henti 
Gervex,  Duez,  Friant,  Goeneutte,  Dagnan-Boaveret, — The  Landscape- 
Painters:  Seurat,  Signac,  Anquetin,  Angrand,  Lucien  Pissafrro, 
Pointelin,  Jan  Monchablon,  Montenard,  Dauphin,  Rosset-Granget, 
Entile  Barau,  Damoye,  Boudin,  Dumouliny  Lebourg,  Victor  Binet, 
Rjhte  Billotte,  —  The  Portrait  -  Painters :  Fantin  -  Latour,  Jacques 
Entile  Blanche,  Boldini,  —  The  Draughtsmen :  Cheret,  Willette, 
Forain,  Paul  Renouard,  Daniel  Vierge. 

PARIS,  which  for  a  hundred  years  had  given  the  signal  for 
all  novel  tactics  in  European  art,  still  remained  at  the  head 
of  the  movement ;  the  artistic  temperament  of  the  French  people 
themselves,  and  the  superlatively  excellent  training  which  the 
painter  enjoys  in  Paris,  enable  him  at  once  to  follow  every 
change  of  taste  with  confidence  and  ease.  In  1883  Manet  died, 
on  the  varnishing  day  of  the  Salon,  and  in  the  preface  which 
Zola  wrote  to  the  catalogue  of  the  exhibition  held  after  the 
death  of  the  master,  he  was  well  able  to  say :  "  His  influence  is 
an  accomplished  fact,  undeniable,  and  making  itself  more  deeply 
felt  with  every  fresh  Salon.  Look  back  for  twenty  years,  recall 
those  black  Salons,  in  which  even  studies  from  the  nude  seemed 
as  dark  as  if  they  had  been  covered  with  mouldering  dust.  In 
huge  frames  history  and  mythology  were  smothered  in  layers 
of  bitumen  ;  never  was  there  an  excursion  into  the  province  of 
the  real  world,  into  life  and  into  perfect  light ;  scarcely  here  or 
there  a  tiny  landscape,  where  a  patch  of  blue  sky  ventured 
bashfully  to   shine   down.      But   little   by  little  the   Salons  were 


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12  MODERN  PAINTING 

seen  to  brighten,  and  the  Romans  and  Greeks  of  mahogany  to 
vanish  in  company  with  the  nymphs  of  porcelain,  whilst  the 
stream  of  modern  representations  taken  from  ordinary  life  in- 
creased year  by  year,  and  flooded  the  walls,  bathing  them  with 
vivid  tones  in  the  fullest  sunlight.  It  was  not  merely  a  new 
period ;  it  was  a  new  painting  bent  upon  reaching  the  perfect 
light,  respecting  the  law  of  colour  values,  setting  every  figure 
in  full  light  and  in  its  proper  place,  instead  of  adapting  it  in 
an  ideal  fashion  according  to  established  tradition." 

When  the  way  had  been  paved  for  this  change,  when  the 
new  principles  had  been  transferred  from  the  chamber  of  experi- 
ments to  full  publicity,  from  the  Salon  des  Refuses  to  the  Saloa 
which  was  official,  it  was  chiefly  the  merit  of  Bastien-Lepage 
to  have  gained  the  first  adherents  to  them  amongst  the  public. 
What  was  experimental  in  Manet  ripened  in  him  to  easy 
mastery.  He  is  the  first  who  overcame,  in  himself,  the  defiant 
hostility  of  vehement  youth,  and  attained  truth  and  beauty.  For 
him  the  new  technique  was  a  matter  of  course,  a  natural 
language,  without  which  he  could  not  have  expressed  himself 
without  constraint,  and  in  a  full,  ripe,  mature,  unconscious, 
and  straightforward  manner.  But  because  he  does  not  belong 
to  the  pioneers  of  art,  and  merely  adapted  for  the  great  public 
elements  that  had  been  won  by  Manet,  the  immoderate  praise 
which  was  accorded  him  in  earlier  days  has  been  recently 
brought  within  more  legitimate  limits.  It  has  been  urged,  by 
way  of  restriction,  that  he  stands  in  relation  to  Manet  as 
Breton  to  Millet,  and  that,  admitting  all  differences,  he  has 
nevertheless  a  certain  resemblance  to  his  teacher,  Cabanel.  As 
the  latter  rendered  Classicism  elegant,  Bastien-Lepage,  it  has 
been  said,  softened  the  ruggedness  of  Naturalism,  cut  and 
polished  the-  nails  of  his  peasants,  and  made  their  rusticity  a 
pretty  thing,  qualifying  it  for  the  drawing-room.  Degas  was  in 
the  habit  of  calling  him  the  Bouguereau  of  Naturalism.  But 
such  critics  forget  that  it  was  just  these  amiable  concessions 
which  helped  the  principles  of  Manet  to  prevail  more  swiftly 
than  would  have  been  otherwise  possible.  All  the  forms  and 
ideas  of  the  Impressionists,  with  which  no  one,  outside  the  ring 


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FRANCE 


Paris :  Bascktt.] 

Jules  Bastien- Lepage. 


of  artists,  had  been  able 
to  reconcile  himself,  were 
to  be  found  in  Bastien- 
Lepage,  purified,  miti- 
gated, and  set  in  a  golden 
style.  He  followed  the 
iclaireurs^  as  the  leader 
of  the  main  body  of  the 
army  which  has  gained 
the  decisive  battle,  and 
in  this  way  he  has  ful- 
filled an  important  mis- 
sion in  the  history  of 
art. 

\  Bastien  -  Lepage  was 
bom  in  ancient  Damvil- 
lers — once  a  small  strong- 
hold of  Lorraine — in  a 
pleasant,  roomy  house  that  told  a  tale  of  even  prosperity  rather 
than  of  wealth.  As  a  boy  he  played  amongst  the  venerable 
moats  which  had  been  converted  into  orchards.  Thus  in  his 
youth  he  received  the  freshest  impressions,  being  brought  up  in 
the  heart  of  nature.  His  father  drew  a  good  deal  himself,  and 
kept  his  son  at  work  with  the  pencil,  without  any  aesthetic 
theories,  without  any  vague  ideal,  and  without  ever  uttering  the 
word  "  academy "  or  "  museum."  Having  left  school  in  Verdun, 
Bastien-Lepage  went  to  Paris  to  become  an  official  in  the  post- 
office.  Of  an  afternoon,  however,  he  drew  and  painted  with 
Cabanel.  But  he  was  Cabanel's  pupil  much  as  Voltaire  was  a 
pupil  of  the  Jesuits.  "  My  handicraft,"  as  he  said  afterwards.  **  I 
learnt  at  the  Academy,  but  not  my  art.  You  want  to  paint 
what  exists,  and  you  are  invited  to  represent  the  unknown  ideal, 
and  to  dish  up  the  pictures  of  the  old  masters.  In  old  days 
I  scrawled  drawings  of  gods  and  goddesses,  Greeks  and  Romans, 
beings  I  didn't  know,  and  didn't  understand,  and  regarded  with 
supreme  indifference.  To  keep  up  my  courage,  I  repeated  to 
myself    that   this   was   possibly   *  grand    art,*   and    I    ask    myself 


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sometimes  whether  any- 
thing academical  still  re- 
mains in  my  composition. 
I  do  not  say  that  one 
should  only  paint  everyday 
life ;  but  I  do  assert  that 
when  one  paints  the  past 
it  should,  at  any  rate,  be 
made  to  look  like  some- 
thing human,  and  corre- 
spond with  what  one  sees 
around  one.  It  would  be 
so  easy  to  teach  the  mere 
craft  of  painting  at  the 
academies,  without  in- 
cessantly talking  about 
Michael  Angelo,  and 
Raphael  and  Murillo  and 
Domenichino.  Then  one 
would  go  home  afterwards 
to  Brittany,  Gascony,  Lor- 
raine, or  Normandy,  and  paint  what  lies  around  ;  and  any  morning, 
after  reading,  if  one  had  a  fancy  to  represent  the  Prodigal  Son, 
or  Priam  at  the  feet  of  Achilles,  or  anything  of  the  kind,  one 
would  paint  such  scenes  in  one's  own  fashion,  without  remini- 
scences of  the  galleries — paint  them  in  the  surroundings  of  the 
country,  with  the  models  that  one  has  at  hand,  just  as  if  the 
old  drama  had  taken  place  yesterday  evening.  It  is  only  in 
that  way  that  art  can  be  living  and  beautiful." 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  fortunately  prevented  him  from 
remaining  long  at  the  Academy.  He  entered  a  company  of 
Franc-Tireurs,  took  part  in  the  defence  of  Paris,  and  returned 
ill  to  Damvillers.  Here  he  came  to  know  himself  and  his 
peculiar  talent.  At  once  a  poet  and  a  realist,  he  looked  at 
nature  with  that  simple  frankness  which  those  alone  possess 
who  have  learnt  from  youth  upwards  to  see  with  their  own 
eyes   instead    of  trusting    those    of    other   people.      His    friends 


Pai-iB :  Baachti.} 
Bastien- Lepage  :  Portrait  of  his  Grand- 
father. 
{Bv  perfMission  of  Mons.  E,  Basf/eft'Lepag^f  the  owner 
of  th€  picture.) 


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Gaz.  dts  Bgaux-jifis.} 

Bastien-Lepage  :  Sarah  Bernhardt. 


called  him  "  primitive,"  and 
there  was  some  truth  in' 
what  they  said,  for  Bastien- 
Lepage  came  to  art  free 
from  all  trace  of  manner- 
ism ;  he  knew  nothing 
of  academical  rules,  and 
merely  relied  upon  his 
eyes,  which  were  »  always. 
open  and  trustworthy. 

Looking  back  as  far  as 
he  could,  he  was  able  to 
remember  nothing  except 
gleaners  bowed  over  the 
stubble  -  fields,  vintagers 
scattered  amid  the  furrows 
of  the  vineyards,  mowers 
whose  robust  figures  rose 
brightly    from     the    green 

meadows,  shepherdesses  seeking  shelter  beneath  tall  trees  from 
the  blazing  rays  of  the  midday  sun,  shepherds  shivering  in  their 
ragged  cloaks  in  winter,  peddlers  hurrying  with  great  strides 
across  the  plain  raked  by  a  storm,  laundresses  laughing  as  they 
stood  at  their  tubs  beneath  the  blossoming  apple-trees.  He 
was  impressionable  to  everything :  the  dangerous-looking  tramp 
who  hung  about  one  day  near  his  father's  house  ;  the  wood- 
cutter groaning  beneath  the  weight  of  his  burden  ;  the  passer-by 
trampling  the  fresh  grass  of  the  meadows  and  leaving  his  trace 
behind  him  ;  the  little  sickly  girl  minding  her  lean  cow  upon 
a  wretched  field  ;  the  fire  which  broke  out  in  the  night  and  set 
the  whole  village  in  commotion.  That  was  what  he  wanted  to 
paint,  and  that  is  what  he  has  painted.  The  life  of  the  peasants 
of  Lorraine  is  the  theme  of  all  his  pictures,  the  landscape  of 
Lorraine  is  their  setting.  He  painted  what  he  loved,  and  he 
loved  what  he  painted. 

It  was  in   Damvillers  that  he  felt  at  home  as  an  artist.     He 
had  his  studio  in  the  second  story  of  his  father's  house,  though 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


he  usually  painted  in  the 
open  air,  either  in  the  field 
or  the  orchard,  whilst  his 
grandfather,  an  old  man  of 
eighty,  was  near  him  clip- 
ping the  trees,  watering  the 
flowers,  and  weeding  the 
grass.  His  mother,  a 
genuine  peasant,  was  always 
busy  with  the  thousand 
cares  of  housekeeping.  Of 
an  evening  the  whole  family 
sat  together  round  the  lamp, 
his  mother  sewing,  his  father 
reading  the  paper,  his  grand- 
father with  the  great  cat  on 
his  lap,  and  Jules  working. 
At  this  time  it  was  that 
he  produced  those  familiar 
domestic  scenes,  thrown  off 
with  a  few  strokes,  which 
were  to  be  seen  at  the 
exhibition  of  the  works 
which  he  left  behind  him. 
He  knew  no  greater  pleasure 
than  that  of  drawing  again 
and  again  the  portraits  of 
his  father  and  mother,  the  old  lamp,  or  the  velvet  cap  of  his 
grandfather.  At  ten  o'clock  sharp  his  father  gave  the  signal  for 
going  to  bed. 

In  Paris,  indeed,  other  demands  were  made.  In  1872  he 
painted,  with  the  object  of  being  represented  in  the  Salon,  that 
remarkable  picture  "In  the  Spring,"  the  only  one  of  his  works 
which  is  slightly  hampered  by  conventionality  in  conception. 
The  pupil  of  Cabanel  is  making  an  effort  at  truth,  and  has 
not  yet  the  courage  to  be  true  altogether.  Here,  as  in  the 
"Spring  Song"  which  followed,  there  is   a  mixture  of  borrowed 


Pari%  :  Baschet.] 
Bastien-Lepage  :  *•  The  Flower-Girl." 


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17 


ParU :  Btischei.} 

Bastien-Lepage  :  Madame  Drouet. 


sentiment,  work  in  the 
old  style  and  fresh  Natur- 
alism. The  landscape  is 
painted  from  nature,  and 
the  peasant  woman  is  real, 
but  the  Cupids  are  taken 
from  the  old  masters. 

The  next  years  were 
devoted  to  competitive 
labours.  To  please  his 
father  and  mother  Bastien- 
Lepage  twice  contested 
the  Prix  de  Rome,  In 
1873  he  painted  as  a 
prize  exercise  a  "  Priam 
before  Achilles,"  and  in 
1875  an  "Annunciation 
of     the     Angel     to    the 

Shepherds,"  that  now  famous  picture  which  received  the  medal  at 
the  World  Exhibition  of  1878.  And  he  who  afterwards  revelled 
in  the  clearest  plein-air  painting  here  celebrates  the  secret 
wonders  of  the  night,  though  the  influences  of  Impressionism 
are  here  already  visible.  In  his  picture  the  night  is  as  dark  as 
in  Rembrandt's  visions ;  yet  the  colours  are  not  harmonized  in 
gold-brown,  but  in  a  cool  grey  silver  tone.  And  how  simple 
the  effect  of  the  heavenly  appearance  upon  the  shepherds  lying 
round  the  fire  of  coals!  The  place  of  the  curly  ideal  heads  of 
the  old  sacred  painting  has  been  taken  by  those  of  bristly, 
unwashed  men  who,  nurtured  amid  the  wind  and  the  weather, 
know  nothing  of  those  arts  of  toilette  so  much  in  favour  with 
the  imitators  of  Raphael,  and  they  receive  the  miracle  with  the 
simplicity  of  elementary  natures.  Fear  and  abashed  astonish- 
ment at  the  angelic  appearance  are  reflected  in  their  faces,  and 
the  plain  and  homely  gestures  of  their  hands  are  in  correspond- 
ence with  their  inward  excitement.  Even  the  angel  turning 
towards  the  shepherds  was  conceived  in  an  entirely  human  and 
simple  way.     In  spite  of  this,  or  just  because  of  it,  Bastien  failed 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


GajB.  dta  Beanx'Arts.} 

Bastien-Lepage  :  "  The  Hay  Harvest." 

with  his  "  Annunciation  to  the  Shepherds,'*  as  he  had  done 
previously  with  his  "  Priam."  Once  the  prize  was  taken  by 
L^on  Comerre,  a  pupil  of  Cabanel,  and  on  the  other  occasion 
by  Josef  Wencker,  the  pupil  of  Gdrdme.  It  was  written  in  the 
stars  that  Bastien-Lepage  was  not  to  go  to  Rome,  and  it  did 
him  as  little  harm  as  it  had  done  to  Watteau  a  hundred  and 
sixty  years  before.  In  Italy  Bastien-Lepage  would  only  have 
been  spoilt  for  art.  The  model  profitable  for  him  was  not 
one  of  the  old  Classic  painters,  but  nature  as  she  is  in  Damvillers, 
great  maternal  nature.  When  the  works  sent  in  for  the  com- 
petition were  exhibited,  a  sensation  was  made  when  one  day 
a  branch  of  laurel  was  laid  on  the  frame  of  Bastien-Lepage's 
"  Annunciation   to   the   Shepherds "   by   Sarah   Bernhardt.      And 


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Bastien-Lepage  :  ••Joan  of  Arc' 


[BruHM  photo. 


Sarah  Bernhardt's  portrait  became  the  most  celebrated  of  the 
small  likenesses  which  soon  laid  the  foundation  of  the  painter's 
fame. 

The  portrait  of  his  grandfather,  that  marvellous  work  of  a 
young  man  of  five-and-twenty,  is  the  first  picture  in  which  he 
was  completely  himself.  The  old  man  sits  in  a  corner  of  the 
garden,  just  as  usual,  in  a  brown  cap,  his  spectacles  upon  his 
nose,  his  arms  crossed  upon  his  lap,  with  a  horn  snuff-box  and 
a  check  handkerchief  lying  upon  his  knees.  How  perfectly 
easy  and  natural  is  the  pose,  how  thoughtful  the  physiognomy, 
what  a  personal  note  there  is  in  the  dress !  Xor  are  there  in 
that  garden,  bathed  in  light,  any  of  those  black  shadows  which 
only  fall  in  the  studio.  Everything  bore  witness  to  a  simplicity 
and  sincerity  which  justified  the  greatest  hopes.     After  that  first 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Paris :  BtucM.] 

Bastien-Lepage  :  "  PkRE  Jacques." 


work  the  world  knew 
that  Bastien-Lepage 
was  a  pre-eminent 
portrait-painter,  and 
he  did  not  betray 
the  promise  of  his 
youth.  His  succeed- 
ing pictures  showed 
that  he  had  not 
merely  rusticity  and 
nature  to  rely  upon, 
but  that  he  was  a 
charmeur  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word. 

This  ingenuous 
artist,  who  knew 
nothing  of  the  his- 
tory of  painting  and 
felt  more  at  home 
in  the  open  air  than  in  museums,  was  not  ignorant,  at  any 
rate,  of  the  portraits  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  had  chosen  • 
for  his  likenesses  a  scale  as  small  as  that  which  Clouet  and  his 
school  preferred.  The  representation  here  reaches  a  depth  of 
characterization  which  recalls  Jan  van  Eyck*s  little  pearls  of 
portrait-painting.  In  these  works  also  he  mostly  confined  him- 
self to  bright  lights.  Portraits  of  this  type  are  those  of  his 
brother,  of  Madame  Drouet,  the  aged  friend  of  Victor  Hugo, 
with  her  weary,  gentle,  benevolent  face — a  masterpiece  of  intimate 
feeling  and  refinement — of  his  friend  and  biographer  Andr^ 
Theuriet,  of  Andfieux  the  prefect  of  the  police,  and  above  all 
the  famous  and  signal  work  of  inexorable  truth  and  marvellous 
delicacy,  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  profile,  with  her  tangled  chestnut 
hair,  sitting  upon  a  white  fur,  arrayed  in  a  white  China-silk 
dress  with  yellowish  lights  in  it,  and  carefully  examining  a 
Japanese  bronze.  The  bizarre  grace  of  the  tragic  actress,  her 
slender  figure,  fashioned,  as  it  were,  for  Donatello,  the  nervous 
intensity   with   which   she   sits   there,   her   wild   Chinese   method 


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Paris:  BaschttJl 

Bastien-Lepage :  "The  Beggar." 


of  wearing  the  hair, 
and  the  profile  of 
which  she  is  so  proud, 
have  been  rendered 
in  none  of  her  many 
likenesses  with  such 
an  irresistible  force 
of  attraction  as  in 
this  little  masterpiece. 
In  some  of  his  other 
portraits  Bastien- 
Lepage  has  not  dis- 
dained the  charm  of 
obscure  light ;  he 
has  not  done  so,  for 
example,  in  the  little 
portrait  of  Albert 
Wolff,  the  art-critic, 
as     he     sits     at     his 

writing-desk  amongst  his  artistic  treasures,  with  a  cigarette  in 
his  hand.  Only  Clouet  and  Holbein  painted  miniature  portraits 
of  such  refinement.  Amongst  moderns,  probably  Ingres  alone 
has  reached  such  a  depth  of  characterization  upon  the  smallest 
scale,  and  in  general  he  is  the  most  closely  allied  to  Bastien- 
Lepage  as  a  portrait-painter  in  profound  study  of  physiognomy, 
and  in  the  broad  and,  one  might  say,  chased  technique  of  his 
little  drawings.  Comparison  with  Gaillard  would  be  greatly  to 
the  disadvantage  of  this  great  engraver,  for  Bastien-Lepage  is 
at  once  more  seductive  and  many-sided.  It  is  curious  how 
seldom  his  portraits  have  that  family  likeness  which  is  else- 
where to  be  found  amongst  almost  all  portrait-painters.  In  his 
effort  at  penetrative  characterization  he  alters,  on  every  occasion, 
his  entire  method  of  painting  according  to  the  personality,  so 
that  it  leaves  at  one  time  an  effect  that  is  bizarre,  coquettish, 
and  full  of  intellectual  power  and  spirit,  at  another  one  which 
is  plain  and  large,  at  another  one  which  is  bashful,  sparing,  and 
bourgeois. 


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Faris:  Baschet.^ 


Bastien-Lepage  :    "The  Pond  at  Damvillers." 


As  a  painter  of  peasant  life  he  made  his  first  appearance 
in   1878. 

In  the  Salon  of  this  year  a  sensation  was  made  by  a  work 
of  such  truth  and  poetry  as  had  not  been  seen  since  Millet ; 
this  was  the  "  Hay  Harvest."  It  is  noon.  The  June  sun  throws 
its  heavy  beams  over  the  mown  meadows.  The  ground  rises 
slowly  to  a  boundless  horizon,  where  a  tree  emerges  here  and 
there,  standing  motionless  against  the  brilliant  sky.  The  grey 
and  the  green  of  these  great  plains — it  is  as  if  the  weariness 
of  many  toilsome  miles  rose  out  of  them — weighed  heavily  upon 
one,  and  created  a  sense  of  forsaken  loneliness.  Only  two  beings, 
a  pair  of  day-labourers,  break  the  wide  level  scorched  by  a 
quivering,  continuous  blaze  of  light.  They  have  had  their 
midday  meal,  and  their  basket  is  lying  near  them  upon  the 
ground.     The  man  has  now  lain  down  to  sleep  upon  a  heap  of 


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:sirv;.jA«f7^""=l 

^^^r 

7  .^^^^T^HnE^/aA^H 

^        i.JM2'^ 

■"^  iaP ' . 

^  y^)mm 

,«'    ■    ■;     V;. 

-'^•it' 

^^-'  ■-- : 

^^£^. 

^:  0: 

'  !i.^;- 

^  ^  ^  ^ 

hay,  with  his  hat 
tilted  over  his  eyes. 
But  the  woman 
sits  dreaming,  tired 
with  the  long  hours 
of  work,  dazzled 
with  the  glare  of 
the  sun,  and  over- 
powered by  the 
odour  of  the  hay 
and  the  sultriness 
of  noon.  She  does 
not  know  the  drift 
of  her  thoughts ; 
nature  is  working 
upon  her,  and  she 
has  feelings  which 
she  scarcely  under- 
stands herself.  She 
is    sunburnt     and 

ugly,  and  her  head  is  square  and  heavy,  and  yet  there  lies  a 
world  of  sublime  and  mystical  poetry  in  her  dull,  dreamy  eyes 
gazing  into  a  mysterious  horizon.  By  this  picture  and  "The 
Potato  Harvest,"  which  succeeded  it  in  1879,  Bastien-Lepage, 
the  splendid,  placed  himself  in  the  first  line  of  modern  French 
painters.  This  time  he  renders  the  sentiment  of  October.  The 
sandy  fields,  impregnated  with  dust,  rest  in  a  white,  subdued 
light  of  noon ;  pale  brown  are  the  potato  stalks,  pale  brown  the 
blades  of  grass,  and  the  roads  are  bright  with  dust ;  and  through 
this  landscape,  with  its  wide  horizon,  where  the  tree-tops,  half 
despoiled  already,  shiver  in  the  wind,  there  blows  /e  grand  air, 
a  breeze  strong  as  only  Millet  in  his  water-colours  had  the 
secret  of  painting  it.  With  Millet  he  shares  likewise  the  breath 
of  tender  melancholy  which  broods  so  sadly  over  his  pictures. 
"The  Girl  with  the  Cow,"  the  little  Fauvette,  that  child  of 
social  misery — misery  that  lies  sorrowful  and  despairing  in  the 
gaze  of  her  eyes — is,  perhaps,  the  most  touching  example  of  his 


\,BraHH  photo, 
Bastien-Lepage  :   "  Love  in  the  Village." 


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brooding  devotion  to 
truth.  Her  brown 
dress  is  torn  and 
dirty,  while  a  grey 
kerchief  borders  her 
famished,  sickly  face. 
A  waste,  disconso- 
late landscape,  with 
a  frozen  tree  and 
withered  thistles, 
stretches  round  like 
a  boundless  Nir- 
vana. Above  there 
is  a  whitish,  clear, 
tremulous  sky, 
making  everything 
paler,  more  arid 
and  wearily  bright ; 
there  is  no  gleam  of 
rich  luxuriant  tints, 
but  only  dry,  stinted 
colours ;  and  not  a 
sound  is  there  in  the  air,  not  a  scythe  driving  through  the  grass, 
not  a  cart  clattering  over  the  road.  There  is  something  over- 
whelming in  this  union  between  man  and  nature.  One  thinks 
of  the  famous  words  of  Taine  :  "  Man  is  as  little  to  be  divided 
from  the  earth  as  an  animal  or  a  plant  Body  and  soul  are 
influenced  in  the  same  way  by  the  environment  of  nature,  and 
from  this  influence  the  destinies  of  men  arise."  As  an  insect 
draws  its  entire  nature,  even  its  form  and  colour,  from  the  plant 
on  which  it  lives,  so  is  the  child  the  natural  product  of  the 
earth  upon  which  it  stands,  and  all  the  impulses  of  its  spirit  are 
reflected  in  the  landscape. 

In  1879  Bastien-Lepage  went  a  step  further.  In  that  year 
appeared  "Joan  of  Arc,"  his  masterpiece  in  point  of  spiritual 
expression.  Here  he  has  realized  the  method  of  treating  his- 
torical  pictures    which    floated    before    him    as    an    idea    at   the 


Paris:  Baschei.} 

Bastien-Lepage  : 


•The  Haymaker." 


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Maga»in§  of  Art.] 
Bastien-Lepage  on  his  Sick-Bed. 
(By  permission  of  Moms.  E.  Bastien-Lepagtt 
th§  ovontr  of  the  copyright.) 


Academy,  and  has,  at  the  same 
time,  solved  a  problem  which 
beset  him  from  his  youth — the 
penetration  of  mysticism  and  the 
world  of  dreams  into  the  reality 
of  life.  *'  The  Annunciation  to 
the  Shepherds,"  "In  Spring," 
and  "The  Spring  Song  "were 
merely  stages  on  a  course  of 
which  he  reached  the  destination 
in  "Joan  of  Arc."  His  ideal 
was  "  to  paint  historical  themes 
without  reminiscences  of  the 
galleries^ — paint  them  in  the  sur- 
roundings of  the  country,  with 
the  models  that  one  has  at  hand, 
just  as  if  the  old  drama  had 
taken  place  yesterday  evening." 

The  scene  of  the  picture  is  a  garden  of  Damvillers  painted 
exactly  from  nature,  with  its  grey  soil,  its  apple-  and  pear-trees 
clothed  with  small  leaves,  its  vegetable  beds,  and  its  flowers 
growing  wild.  Joan  herself  is  a  pious,  careworn,  dreamy  country 
girl.  Every  Sunday  she  has  been  to  church,  lost  herself  in  long 
mystic  reveries  before  the  old  sacred  pictures,  heard  the  misery 
of  France  spoken  of;  and  the  painted  statues  of  the  parish 
church  and  its  tutelary  saints  pursue  her  thoughts.  And  just 
to-day,  as  she  sat  winding  yarn  in  the  shadow  of  the  apple-trees, 
murmuring  a  prayer,  she  heard  of  a  sudden  the  heavenly 
voices  speaking.  The  spirits  of  St.  Michael,  St.  Margaret, 
and  St.  Catharine,  before  whose  statues  she  has  prayed  so 
often,  have  freed  themselves  from  the  wooden  images  and  float 
as  light  phantoms,  as  pallid  shapes  of  mist,  which  will  as  sud- 
denly vanish  into  air  before  the  eyes  of  the  dreaming  girl. 
Joan  rises  trembling,  throwing  her  stool  over,  and  steps  forward. 
She  stands  in  motionless  ecstasy  stretching  out  her  left  arm, 
and  gazing  into  vacancy  with  her  pupils  morbidly  dilated.  Of 
all  human    phases   of  expression   which   painting  can   approach, 

VOL.    III.  3 


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such  mystical  de- 
lirium is  perhaps  the 
hardest  to  render ; 
and  probably  it  was 
only  by  the  aid  of 
hypnotism,  to  which 
the  attention  of  the 
painter  was  directed 
just  then  by  the  ex- 
periments of  Charcot, 
that  Bast ien- Lepage 
was  enabled  to  pro- 
duce in  his  model 
that  look  of  religious 
rapture,  oblivious  to 
the  whole  world, 
which  is  expressed 
in  the  vague  glance 
of  her  eyes,  blue  as 
the  sea. 

"Joan  of  Arc" 
was  succeeded  by  "  The  Beggar,"  that  life-size  figure  of  the  haggard 
old  tramp,  who,  with  a  thick  stick  under  his  arm — of  which  he 
would  make  use  upon  any  suitable  occasion — picks  up  what  he 
can  in  the  villages,  saying  a  paternoster  before  the  doors  while 
he  begs.  This  time  he  has  been  ringing  at  the  porch  of  an 
ordinary  middle-class  dwelling,  and  he  is  sulkily  thrusting  into 
the  wallet  slung  round  his  shoulders  a  great  hunch  of  bread 
which  a  little  girl  has  just  given  to  him.  There  is  a  mixture  of 
spite  and  contempt  in  his  eyes  as  he  goes  off  in  his  heavy 
wooden  shoes  with  a  shuffling  gait.  And  behind  the  doorpost 
the  little  girl,  who,  in  her  pretty  blue  frock,  has  such  a  trim  air 
of  wearing  her  Sunday  best,  glances  at  the  mysterious  old  man, 
rather  scared. 

"  Un  brave  Homme,"  or  "  Le  P^re  Jacques,"  as  the  master 
afterwards  called  the  picture,  was  to  some  extent  a  pendant  to 
"  The   Beggar."  ,  He  comes  out  of  the  wood   wheezing,   with   a 


Marie  Baskirtscheff :    "A  Meeting." 


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UArt,^ 


iBelltnger  sc. 
Leon  L'hermitte. 


pointed  cap  upon  his  head  and 

a   heavy   bundle   of  wood   upon 

his   shoulders,  whilst  at  his  side 

his  little  grandchild    is   plucking 

the  last  flowers.     It  is  November  ; 

the  leaves  have  turned  yellow  and 

cover  the  ground.      Pire  Jacques 

is  providing  against  the  Winter. 

And  the  Winter  is  drawing  near 

— death. 

Bastien-Lepage's    health   had 

never  been  good,  nor  was  Parisian 

life  calculated  to  make  it  better. 
Slender  and  delicate,  blond  with 

blue  eyes  and  a  sharply  chiselled 

profile — toui  petit,  tout  blond,  les 
-cluveux  a  la  bretonne,  le  nez  re- 
iroussi  et  une  barbe  d' adolescent,  as  Marie  Baskirtscheff  describes 
him — he  was  just  the  type  which  Parisiennes  adore.  His  studio 
Avas  besieged ;  there  was  no  entertainment  to  which  he  was  not 
invited,  no  committee,  no  meeting  to  hold  judgment  over  pictures 
at  which  he  was  not  present  Amateurs  fought  for  his  works  and 
asked  for  his  advice  when  they  made  purchases.  Pupils  flocked 
to  him  in  numbers.  He  was  intoxicated  with  the  Parisian  world, 
enchanted  with  its  modern  elegance  ;  he  loved  the  vibration  of 
life,  and  rejoiced  in  masked  balls  like  a  child.  Consumptive 
people  are  invariably  sensuous,  drinking  in  the  pleasures  of 
life  with  more  swift  and  hasty  draughts.  He  then  left  Paris 
and  plunged  into  the  whirlpool  of  other  great  cities.  From 
Switzerland,  Venice,  and  London  he  came  back  with  pictures 
and  landscapes.  In  London,  indeed,  he  painted  that  beautiful 
picture  "  The  Flower-Girl,"  the  pale,  delicate  child  upon  whose 
faded  countenance  love  and  hunger  have  so  early  left  their  traces. 
Through  the  whole  summer  of  1882  he  worked  incessantly  in 
Damvillers.,  Once  more  he  painted  his  native  place  in  a  land- 
scape of  the  utmost  refinement  Here,  as  in  his  portraits,  every- 
thing  has    been    rendered    with    a    positive    tren  chancy,    with    a 


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severe,  scientific  effort  after  truth,  in  which  there  lies  what  is 
almost  a  touch  of  aridness.  And  yet  an  indescribable  magic 
is  thrown  over  the  fragrant  green  of  the  meadows,  the  young,, 
quivering  trees,  and  the  still  pond  which  stretches  rippling  in 
the  cloudless  summer  sun. 

In  1883  there  appeared  in  the  Salon  that  wonderful  picture 
"  Love  in  the  Village."  The  girl  has  hung  up  her  washing  on 
the  paling,  and  the  neighbour's  son  has  run  down  with  a  flower 
in  his  hand ;  she  has  taken  the  flower,  and  in  confusion  they 
have  suddenly  turned  their  backs  upon  each  other  and  stand 
there  without  saying  a  word.  They  love  each  other,  and  wish 
to  marry,  but  how  hard  is  the  first  confession.  Note  how  the 
lad  is  turning  his  fingers  about  in  his  embarrassment ;  note  the 
confusion  of  the  girl,  which  may  be  seen,  although  she  is  look- 
ing towards  the  background  of  the  picture ;  note  the  spring 
landscape,  which  is  as  fair  as  the  figures  it  surrounds. 

It  is  a  tender  dreamer  who  gives  himself  expression  here — 
and  love  came  to  him  also. 

Enthusiastically  adored  by  the  women  in  his  school  of  paint- 
ing, he  had  found  a  dear  friend  in  Marie  Baskirtscheff^  the  dis- 
tinguished young  Russian  girl  who  had  become  his  pupil  just  as- 
his  fame  began  to  rise.  It  is  charming  to  see  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  Marie  speaks  of  him  in  her  diary.  ''Je  peins  sur  la 
propre  palette  du  vrai  Bastien^  avec  des  couleurs  d  ////,  son  pinceau^ 
son  atelier^  et  son  frere  pour  viodkle!^  And  how  the  others  envy 
her  because  of  it !  "  La  petite  Suidoise  voulait  toucher  d  sa  palette^ 
With  Marie  he  sketched  his  plans  for  the  future,  and  in  the  midst 
of  this  restless  activity  he  was  summoned  hence  together  with 
her,  for  she  also  died  young,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  just  as 
her  pictures  beg^n  to  create  a  sensation.  A  touching  idyll  in 
her  diary  tells  how  the  girl  learnt,  when  she  was  dying  of  con- 
sumption, that  young  Bastien  had  also  fallen  ill,  and  been  given 
up  as  hopeless.  So  long  as  Marie  could  go  out  of  doors  she 
went  with  her  mother  and  her  aunt  to  visit  her  sick  friend ; 
and  when  she  was  no  longer  allowed  to  leave  the  house  he  had 
himself  carried  up  the  steps  to  her  drawing-room  by  his  brother,^ 
and  there  they  both  sat  beside  each  other  in  armchairs,  and  saw 


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the  end  draw  near,  merciless  and  inevitable,  the  end  of  their 
young  lives,  their  talents,  their  ambition,  and  their  hopes.  "At 
last !     Here  it  is  then,  the  end  of  all  my  sufferings !      So  many 

efforts,  so   many  wishes,  so   many  plans,  so  many  , 

and  then  to  die  at  four-and-twenty  upon  the  threshold  of  them 
all!" 

Her  last  picture  was  one  of  six  schoolboys,  sons  of  the 
people,  who  are  standing  at  a  street  corner  chattering ;  and  it 
makes  a  curiously  virile  impression,  when  one  considers  that  it 
was  painted  by  a  blonde  young  girl,  who  slept  under  dull  blue 
silken  bed-curtains,  dressed  almost  entirely  in  white,  was  rubbed 
with  perfumes  after  a  walk  in  hard  weather,  and  wore  on  her 
shoulders  furs  which  cost  two  thousand  francs.  It  hangs  in  the 
Luxembourg,  and  for  a  long  time  a  lady  dressed  in  mourning 
used  to  come  there  every  week  and  cry  before  the  picture  painted 
by  the  daughter  whom  she  had  lost  so  early.  [Marie  died  on 
October  31st,  1884,  and  Bastien  barely  a  month  afterwards.  "  The 
Funeral  of  a  Young  Girl,**  in  which  he  wished  to  immortalize  the 
funeral  of  Marie,  was  his  last  sketch,  his  farewell  to  the  world, 
to  the  living,  alluring,  ever  splendid  nature  which  he  loved  so 
much,  grasped  and  comprehended  so  intimately,  and  to  the  hopes 
which  built  up  their  deceptive  castles  in  the  air  before  his  dying 
gaze.  He  died  before  he  reached  Raphael's  age,  for  he  was 
barely  thirty-six.  The  final  collapse  came  on  December  loth, 
1884,  upon  a  sad,  rainy  evening,  after  he  had  lain  several  months 
upon  a  bed  of  sickness.  His  frame  was  emaciated,  and  as  light 
as  that  of  a  child  ;  his  face  was  shrivelled — the  eyes  alone  had 
their  old  brilliancy. 

On  December  14th  his  body  was  brought  to  the  Eastern 
railway-station.  The  coffin  was  covered  with  roses,  white  elder 
blossoms,  and  immortelles.  And  now  he  lies  buried  in  Lorraine,  in 
the  little  churchyard  of  Damvillers,  where  his  father  and  grand- 
father rest  beneath  an  old  apple-tree.  Red  apple-blossoms  he 
loved  himself  so  dearly.  His  importance  Marie  Baskirtscheff 
has  summarized  simply  and  gracefully  in  the  words :  "  Cest  un 
artiste  puissanty  originel^  dest  un  pokte^  dest  un  philosophe  ;  les 
autres  ne  sont  que  des  fabricants  de  n'importe  quoi  d  c6ti  de  lui. 


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i'f'if/ijh 


L'hermitte:   "Paying  the  Reapers.' 


.  .  .  On  ne  peut  plus  rien   regarder  quand  on   voit  sa  peinturCy 
parce  que  (fest  beau  comme  la  nature^  comme  la  vie,  .  .  ." 

This  tender  poetic  trait  which  runs  through  his  works 
is  what  principally  distingfuishes  him  from  Uhermitte^  the 
most  sterling  representative  of  the  picture  of  peasant  life  at 
the  present  time.  I/hermitte,  also,  like  most  of  these  painters 
of  peasants,  was  himself  the  son  of  a  peasant  He  came  from 
Mont- Saint- P6re,  near  Chftteau-Thierry,  a  quiet  old  town,  where 
from  the  great  "  Hill  of  Calvary  "  one  sees  a  dilapidated  Gothic 
church  and  the  moss-grown  roofs  of  thatched  houses.  His 
grandfather  was  a  vine-grower  and  his  father  a  schoolmaster. 
He  worked  in  the  field  himself,  and,  like  Millet,  he  painted  after- 
wards the  things  which  he  had  done  himself  in  youth.  His 
principal  works  were  pictures  of  reapers  in  the  field,  peasant 
women  in  church,  young  wives  nursing  their  children,  rustics  at 
work,  here  and  there  masterly  water-colours,  pastels  and  char- 
coal drawings,  in  1888  the  pretty  illustrations  to  Andr6  Theuriet's 


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ifOtriiif>t     St\ 


L'hermitts:  ''Resting  from  Work." 
{By  ptrmistum  of  Messrs.  BoHSSoei,  Valadon  <S*  Co.t  the  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


Vie  RustiquCy  the  decoration  ol  a  hall  at  the  Sorbonne  with  repre- 
sentations of  rustic  life,  in  his  later  period  occasionally  pictures 
from  other  circles  of  life,  such  as  "  The  Fish-market  of  St. 
Malo,"  "  The  Lecture  in  the  Sorbonne,"  "  The  Musical  Soiree,"  and 
finally,  as  a  concession  to  the  religious  tendency  of  recent  years, 
a  "  Christ  visiting  the  House  of  a  Peasant"  He  has  his  studio 
in  the  Rue  Vaquelin  in  Paris,  though  he  spends  most  of  his  time 
in  the  village  where  he  was  born,  and  where  he  now  lives  quietly 
and  simply  with  the  peasants.  Most  of  his  works,  which  are 
to  be  ranked  throughout  amongst  the  most  robust  productions 
of  modern  Naturalism,  are  painted  in  the  great  glass  studio 
which  he  built  here  in  the  garden  of  his  father's  house.  Whilst 
Bastien- Lepage,  through  a  certain  softness  of  temperament,  was 
moved  to  paint  the  weak  rather  than  the  strong,  and  less  often 
men  in  the  prime  of  life  than  patriarchs,  women,  and   children. 


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M 

41 

^  :^^.r*^Jv; 

wv<9M^- 

^^W 

b^ 

--■■     :'^^,^V-1^^ 

m^^''\ 

Roll:   "The  Strike.*' 
(By  ptrmiBsion  of  th€  Arttsi.) 

Uhermitte  displays  the  peasant  in  all  his  rusticity.  He  knows  the 
country  and  the  labours  of  the  field  which  make  the  hands  homy 
and  the  face  brown,  and  he  has  rendered  them  in  a  strictly 
objective  manner,  in  a  great  sculptural  style.  Bastien-Lepage 
is  inclined  to  refinement  and  poetic  tenderness  ;  in  Uhermitte 
everything  is  clear,  precise,  and  sober  as  pale,  bright  daylight. 

Alfred  Roll  was  born  in  Paris,  and  the  artisan  of  the  Parisian 
streets  is  the  chief  hero  of  his  pictures.  Like  Zola  in  his 
Rougon-Macquart  series,  he  set  before  himself  the  aim  of  de- 
picting the  social  life  of  the  present  age  in  a  great  sequence  of 
pictures — the  workman's  strike,  war,  and  toil.  His  pictures 
give  one  the  impression  that  one  is  looking  down  from  the 
window  upon  an  agitated  scene  in  the  street  And  his  broad, 
plebeian  workmanship  is  in  keeping  with  his  rough  and  demo- 
cratic subjects.  He  made  a  beginning  in  1875  with  the  colossal 
picture  of  the  "  Flood  at  Toulouse."     The  roofs  of  little  peasants' 


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houses  rise  out  of  the  ex- 
panse of  water.  Upon  one 
of  them  a  group  of  country 
people  have  taken  refuge, 
and  are  awaiting  a  boat 
which  is  coming  from  far. 
A  young  mother  summons 
her  last  remnant  of  strength 
to  save  her  trembling  child. 
Beside  her  an  old  woman 
is  sitting,  sunk  in  the  stupor 
of  indifference,  while  in 
front  a  bull  is  swimming,  j^ 
bellowing  wildly  from  the 
water.  The  influence  of 
G^ricault's  "Raft  of  the 
Medusa"  is  indeed  ob- 
vious ;  but  how  much  more 
plainly  and  actually  has 
the  struggle  for  existence 
been  represented  here,  than 

by  the  great  Romanticist,  still  hampered  by  Classicism.  The 
devastating  effect  of  the  masses  of  water  in  all  their  elemental 
force  could  not  have  been  more  impressively  rendered  than  has 
been  done  through  this  bull  struggling  for  life  with  all  its 
enormous  strength. 

In  technique  this  picture  belongs  to  the  painter's  earlier 
phase.  Even  in  the  colouring  of  the  naked  figures  it  has  still 
the  dirty  heaviness  of  the  Bolognese.  This  bond  which  united 
him  to  the  school  of  Courbet  was  broken  when— probably  under 
the  influence  of  Zola*s  Germinal— \it.  painted  "The  Strike,"  in 
1880.  The  stern  reality  which  goes  through  Zola's  accounts  of 
the  life  of  pit-men  is  likewise  to  be  found  in  these  ragged  and 
starving  figur,cs,  clotted  with  coal  dust,  assembling  in  savage 
desperation  before  the  manufactory  walls,  prepared  for  a  rising. 
The  dull  grey  of  a  rainy  November  morning  spreads  above.  In 
1887  he  painted  war,  war  in  the  new  age,  in  which  one  man  is 


Ga«.  dt9  B€a9tX'Ati3.]  [DHJardin  Mio. 

Roll;   "Manda  LamItrie,  Fermiere." 


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GoM.  tUs  B€aMx-Arts.\ 


Roll:   "The  Woman  with  a  Bull." 
{By  permission  of  the  Artist.) 


iDujardin  helio. 


not  pitted  against  another,  but  great  masses  of  men,  who  kill 
without  seeing  one  another,  are  made  to  manoeuvre  with  scien- 
tific accuracy — war  in  which  the  balloon,  distant  signalling,  and 
all  the  discoveries  of  science  are  turned  to  account.  "  Work " 
was  the  last  picture  of  the  series.  There  are  men  toiling  in  the 
hot,  dusty  air  of  Paris  with  sandstones  of  all  sizes.  Life-size, 
upon  life-size  figures,  the  drops  of  sweat  were  seen  upon  the 
apathetic  faces,  and  the  patches  upon  the  blouses  and  breeches. 
Any  one  who  only  reckons  as  art  what  is  fine  and  delicate 
will  necessarily  find  these  pictures  brutal  ;  but  whoever  delights 
in  seeing  art  in  close  connection  with  the  age,  as  it  really  is, 
cannot  deny  to  Alfred  Roll's  great  epics  of  labour  the  value  of 
artistic  documents  of  the  first  rank. 

He   devoted  himself  to  the  more  delicate  problems  of  light, 


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especially  in  certain 
idyllic  summer 
scenes,  in  which  he 
delighted  in  painting 
life-size  bulls  and 
cows  upon  the 
meadow,  and  beside 
them  a  girl,  some- 
times intended  as  a 
milkmaid  and  some- 
times as  a  nymph. 
Of  this  type  was  the 
picture  of  1888,  "A 
Woman  who  has 
milked  a  Cow'* 
{Manda  Lamitriey 
Fermiere).  With  a 
full  pail  she  is  going 
home  across  the 
sunny  meadow. 
Around  there  is  a 
gentle  play  of  light,  a  soft  atmosphere  transmitting  faint  reflec- 
tions, lightly  resting  upon  all  forms,  and  mildly  shed  around  them. 
A  yet  more  subtile  study  of  light  in  1889  was  named  "The 
Woman  with  a  Bull."  Pale  sunbeams  are  rippling  through  the 
fluttering  leaves,  causing  a  delicious  play  of  fine  tones  upon 
the  nude  body  of  a  young  woman  and  the  shining  hide  of  a  bull. 
In  a  strip  of  ground  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris,  where  the 
town  has  come  to  an  end  and  the  country  has  not  yet  begun, 
Raffaelliy  perhaps  the  most  spirited  of  the  Naturalists,  has  taken 
up  his  abode.  He  has  painted  the  workman,  the  vagabond, 
the  restlessness  of  the  man  who  does  not  know  where  he  is 
going  to  eat  and  sleep ;  the  small  householder,  who  has  all 
he  wants ;  the  ruined  man,  overtaken  by  misfortune,  whose 
only  remaining  passion  is  the  brandy-bottle, — he  has  painted 
them  all  amid  the  melancholy  landscape  around  Paris,  with  its 
meagre  region  still  in  embryo,  and  its  great  straight  roads  losing 


Paris:  Boussod-Valadon."] 

Rafeaelli  :   "  The  Grandfather." 
(By  permission  of  the  Ariisi.) 


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themselves  disconsolately 
in  the  horizon.  Th^ophile 
Gautier  has  written  some- 
where that  the  geometri- 
cians are  the  ruination  of 
landscapes.  If  he  lived  in 
these  days  he  would  find, 
on  the  contrary,  that  those 
monotonous  roads  running 
straight  as  a  die  give  land- 
scape a  strange  and  melan- 
choly  grandeur.  One 
thinks  of  the  passage  in 
Zola's  Germincdy  where  the 
two  socialists,  Etienne  and 
Suwarin,  walk  in  the  even- 
ing silently  along  the  edge 
of  a  canal,  which,  with  the 
perpendicular  stems  of 
trees  at  its  side,  stretches 
for  miles,  as  if  measured  with  a  pair,  of  compasses,  through  a 
monotonous  flat  landscape.  Only  a  few  low  houses  standing 
apart  break  the  straight  line  of  the  horizon ;  only  here  and  there, 
in  the  distance,  does  there  emei^e  a  human  being,  whose 
diminished  figure  is  scarcely  perceptible  above  the  ground. 
RafTaelli  was  the  first  to  understand  the  virginal  beauty  of  these 
localities,  the  dumb  complaining  language  of  poverty-stricken 
regions  spreading  languidly  beneath  a  dreary  sky.  He  is  the 
painter  of  poor  people  and  of  wide  horizons,  the  poet  and 
historian  of  humanity  living  in  the  neighbourhood  of  great 
cities.  There  sits  a  house-owner,  or  the  proprietor  of  a  shop, 
in  front  of  his  own  door;  there  a  peddler,  or  a  man  delivering 
parcels,  hurries  across  the  field  ;  there  a  rag-picker's  dog  strays 
hungry  about  a  lonely  farmyard.  Sometimes  the  wide  land- 
scapes are  relieved  by  the  manufactories,  water-  and  gas-works 
which  feed  the  huge  crater  of  Paris.  At  other  times  the  snow 
lies    on    the    ground,    the  skeletons    of   trees  stand    along    the 


Paris:  BascheL] 

Raffaelli  :    "  Paris  4*  I." 
(By  permission  of  tks  Artist.) 


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high-road,  and  a 
driver  shouts  to  his 
team ;  the  heavy 
working  nags, 
covered  with  worsted 
cloths,  shiver,  and 
an  impression  of  in- 
tense cold  goes 
through  you  to  your 
very  bones.  Indeed 
Raffaelli's  austerity 
was  first  subdued 
a  little  when  he 
came  to  make  a 
lengthy  residence  in 
England.  Then  he 
acquired  a  prefer- 
ence for  the  light- 
coloured  atmosphere 
and  the  gracious 
verdure  of  nature  in 
England.  He  began 
to  take  pleasure  in 
tender  spring  landscapes,  in  place  of  rigid  scenes  of  snow.  The 
poor  soil  no  longer  seems  so  hard  and  inhospitable,  but  becomes 
attractive  beneath  the  soft,  peaceful,  bluish  atmosphere.  Even 
the  uncivilized  beings,  with  famine  in  their  eyes,  who  wandered 
about  in  his  earliest  pictures,  become  milder  and  more  resigned. 
The  grandfather,  in  his  blouse  and  wooden  shoes,  leads  his 
grandchild  by  the  hand  amid  the  first  shyly  budding  verdure. 
Old  men  sit  quietly  in  the  grounds  of  the  almshouse,  with  the 
sun  shining  upon  them.  People  no  longer  stand  in  the  mist 
of  November  evenings  with  their  teeth  chattering  from  the 
frost,  but  breathe  with  delight  the  soft  air  of  bright  spring 
mornings. 

Raffaelli  has  been  for  fifteen  years  the  master  of  this  narrowly 
circumscribed  region,  and  has  recorded   his  impressions  of  it  in 


Paris:  Bous^od-ValadoH.] 

Raffaelli  :   "  The  Old  Convalescents." 
{By  ptrmitsioH  oftht  Artist.) 


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an  entirely  personal  manner, 
in  a  style  which  in  one  of 
his  brochures  he  has  himself 
designated  "  caracterisme." 
And  by  comparing  the  cos- 
tumed models  in  the  pictures 
of  the  previous  generation 
with  the  figures  of  Raffaelli, 
the  happiness  of  this  phrase 
is  at  once  understood.  In 
fact  Raffaelli  is  a  great 
master  of  characterization, 
and  perhaps  nowhere  more 
trenchant  than  in  the 
illustrations  which  he  drew 
for  the  Revue  Illustrie, 
Spirited  caricatures  of 
theatrical  representations  al- 
ternate with  the  grotesque 
figures  of  the  Salvation 
Army.  Yet  he  feels  most 
in  his  element  when  he  dives  into  the  horrors  of  Paris  by  night 
The  types  which  he  has  created  live ;  they  meet  you  at  every 
step,  wander  about  the  boulevards,  in  the  caf6s  and  outside 
the  barriers,  and  they  haunt  you  with  their  looks  of  misery,  vice, 
and  menace. 

Giuseppe  de  Ntttis,  an  Italian  who  has  become  a  Parisian, 
a  bold,  searching,  nervously  excitable  spirit,  was  the  first 
gentiifiomfne  of  Impressionism,  the  first  who  made  a  transition 
from  the  rugged  painting  of  the  proletariat  to  coquettish  pictures 
from  the  fashionable  quarters  of  the  city,  and  reconciled  even 
the  wider  public  to  the  principles  of  Impressionism  by  the  delicate 
flavouring  of  his  works. 

"It  was  a  cold  November  morning.  Cold  it  was  certainly, 
but  in  compensation  the  morning  vapour  was  as  fine  as  snow 
turned  into  mist.  Yonder  in  the  crowded,  populous,  sooty 
quarters  of  the  city,  in    Paris   busy   with    trade    and    industry. 


GoM.  dts  Bta%iX'Art&.\  [Artist  tc* 

Raffaelu  :   "  The  Midday  Soup.** 

(By  permission  of  the  Artiste) 


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^^ 


CojB.  d«9  Beaux- Arts.] 

Giuseppe  de  Nittis. 


this  early  vapour  which  settles  in 
the  broad  streets  is  not  to  be 
found ;  the  hurry  of  awakening 
life,  and  the  confused  movement 
of  country  carts,  omnibuses,  and 
heavy,  rattling  freight  -  waggons, 
have  scattered,  divided,  and  dis- 
persed it  too  quickly.  Every 
passer-by  bears  it  away  on  his 
shabby  overcoat,  on  his  threadbare 
comforter,  or  disperses  it  with  his 
baggy  gloves.  It  drizzles  in  the 
shivering  blouses  and  the  water- 
proofs of  toiling  poverty,  it  dissolves 
before  the  hot  breath  of  the  many 

who  have  passed  a  sleepless  or  dissipated  night,  it  is  absorbed 
by  the  hungry,  it  penetrates  into  shops  which  have  just  been 
opened,  into  gloomy  backyards,  and  it  floats  up  the  staircases, 
dripping  on  the  walls  and  banisters,  right  up  to  the  frozen 
attics.  And  that  is  the  reason  why  so  little  of  it  remains  out- 
side. But  in  the  spacious  and  stately  quarter  of  Paris,  upon  the 
broad  boulevards  planted  with  trees  and  the  empty  quays,  the 
mist  lay  undisturbed,  section  over  section,  like  an  undulating 
mass  of  transparent  wool  in  which  one  felt  isolated,  hidden, 
almost  imbedded  in  splendour,  for  the  sun  rising  lazily  on  the 
distant  horizon  already  shed  a  mild  purple  glow,  and  in  this  light 
the  mist  level  with  the  tops  of  the  houses  shone  like  a  piece  of 
muslin  spread  over  scarlet." 

This  opening  passage  in  Daudet's  Le  Naiad  most  readily 
gives  the  mood  awakened  by  Giuseppe  de  Nittis*  Parisian  land- 
scapes. De  Nittis  was  born  in  1846  at  Barletta,  near  Naples, 
in  poor  circumstances.  In  1868,  when  he  was  two-and-twenty 
years  of  age,  he  came  to  Paris,  where  G6r6me  and  Meissonier 
interested  themselves  in  him.  Intercourse  with  Manet  led  him 
to  his  range  of  subject.  He  became  the  painter  of  Parisian 
street-life  as  it  is  to  be  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  quays, 
the  painter  of  mist,  smoke,  and  air.     The  Salons  of  1875  ^ind  1876 


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contained  his  first  pictures, 
the     "Place     des     Pyra- 
mides  "  and  the  view  of  the 
Pont  Royal,   fine  studies 
of  mist  with  a  tremulous 
grey  atmosphere,  out    of 
which  graceful  little  figures 
raise  their  faint,  vanishing 
outlines.     From  that  time 
he  has  stood  at  the  centre 
of   artistic    life    in    Paris. 
He  observed    everything, 
saw    everything,    painted 
everything — a  strip  of  the 
boulevards,  the   Place  du 
Carrousel,    the    Bois     de 
Boulogne,   the   races,  the 
Champs    Elys^es,    in    the 
daytime  with  the  budding 
chestnuts,  the  flower-beds 
blooming    in    all    colours, 
the  playing  fountains,  the 
women     of     grace     and 
beauty,    and     the     light 
carriages     which      crowd 
between      the      Arc      de 
Triomphe,  the  Obelisk,  and  the  Gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  and  in 
the   evening   when    chains    of   white   and    coloured    lights   flash 
through  the  dark  trees.     De  Nittis  has  interpreted  all  atmospheric 
phases.      He  seized  the  intangible,  the   vibration  of  vapour,  the 
dust  of  summer  and  the  rains  of  December  days.     He  breathed 
the  atmosphere,  as  it  were,  with  his  eyes,  and  felt  with  accuracy 
its  greater  or   diminished  density.      The  great  public  he  gained 
by   his    exquisite    sense    of    feminine    elegance.      Of   marvellous 
charm    are   the   figures  which   give   animation   to  the    Place   des 
Pyramides,  the   Place   du    Carrousel,  the   Quai   du    Pont   Neuf— 
women   in  the  most  coquettish  toilettes,  men    chatting   together 


Gan,  d98  Beaux-Arts.] 
De  Nittis: 


[Dujardin  htlio. 
"Paris  Races." 


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De  Nittis:   "The  Place  du  Carrousel." 

as  they  lean  against  a  newspaper  kiosk,  flower-girls  offering 
bouquets,  loiterers  carelessly  turning  over  the  books  exposed 
for  sale  upon  a  stall,  bonnes  with  short  petticoats  and  broad 
ribbons,  smart-looking  boys  with  hoops,  and  little  girls  with 
the  air  of  great  ladies.  Since  Gabriel  de  Saint  Aubin,  Paris 
has  had  no  more  faithful  observer.  "  De  Nittis,"  said  Claretie 
in  1 876,  "  paints  modern  French  life  for  us  as  that  brilliant 
Italian,  the  Abb^  Galliani,  spoke  the  French  language — that  is 
to  say,  better  than  we  do  it  ourselves." 

The  summit  of  his  ability  was  reached  in  his  last  pictures 
from  England.  One  knows  the  London  fogs  of  November, 
which  hover  over  the  town  as  black  as  night,  so  that  the  gas 
has  to  be  lit  at  noon,  fogs  which  are  suffocating  and  shroud 
the  nearest  houses  in  a  veil  of  crape.  Scenes  like  this  were 
made  for  De  Nittis'  brush.  He  roamed  about  in  the  smoke  of 
the  city,  observed  the  fashion  of  the  season,  the  confusion  of 
cabs  and  drays  upon  London  Bridge,  the  surge  and  hurry 
VOL.  iiu  4 


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Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.'^ 


Heilbuth  :   "  In  the  Grass/ 


of  the  human  stream  in  Cannon  Street,  the  vast  panorama  of 
the  port  of  London  veiled  with  smoke  and  fog,  the  fashionable 
West  End  with  its  magnificent  clubs,  the  green,  quiet  squares 
and  great  plainly  built  mansions ;  he  studied  the  dense,  smoky 
atmosphere  of  fog  compressed  into  floating  phantom  shapes, 
the  remarkable  effects  of  light  seen  when  a  fresh  breeze 
suddenly  drives  the  black  clouds  away.  And  again  his  eye 
adapted  itself  at  once  to  the  novel  environment.  It  was  not 
merely  the  blithe  splendour  of  Paris  that  found  an  incomparable 
painter  in  Giuseppe  de  Nittis,  but  London  also  with  its  thick 
atmosphere  and  that  mixture  of  damp,  tawny  fog  and  grey 
smoke.  Piccadilly,  the  National  Gallery,  the  railway  arch  at 
Charing  Cross,  the  Green  Park,  the  Bank,  and  Trafalgar  Square 
are  varied  samples  of  these  English  studies,  which  showed  British 
painters  themselves  that  not  one  of  them  had  understood  the 
foggy  atmosphere  of  London  as  this  tourist  who  was  merely 
travelling  through  the  town.    "Westminster"  and  "Cannon  Street," 


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a  pair  of  dreary, 
sombre  symphonies 
in  ash-grey,  perhaps 
display  the  highest 
of  what  De  Nittis 
has  achieved  in  the 
painting  of  air. 

Born  in  Ham- 
burg, though  a  natur- 
alized Frenchman, 
Ferdinand  Heilbuth 
took  up  again  the 
cult  of  the  Paris- 
ienne  in  the  wake  of 
Stevens,  and  as  he 
turned  the  acqui- 
sitions of  Impres- 
sionism to  account 
in  an  exceedingly 
pleasing  manner, 
he  seems,  in  com- 
parison with  Stevens,  lighter  and  more  vaporous  and  gracious. 
He  painted  water-scenes,  scenes  on  the  greensward  or  in  the 
entrance  squares  of  chiteaux,  placing  in  these  landscapes  girls 
in  fashionable  summer  toilette.  He  was  particularly  fond  of 
representing  them  in  a  white  hat,  a  white  or  pearl-grey  dress 
with  a  black  belt  and  long  black  gloves,  in  front  of  a  bright 
grey  stream,  seated  upon  a  fallen  trunk,  against  which  their 
parasol  is  resting.  The  bloom  of  the  atmosphere  is  harmonized 
in  the  very  finest  chords  with  the  virginal  white  of  their  dresses 
and  the  fresh  verdure  of  the  landscapes.  His  pictures  are  little 
Watteaus  of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  discreet  in  effect  as  they 
are  piquant. 

After  Heilbuth's  death  Albert  Aublet,  who  in  earlier  days 
depicted  sanguinary  historical  pieces,  became  the  popular  painter 
of  girls,  whose  beauties  are  gracefully  interpreted  in  his  pictures. 
When   he    paints   the   composer    Massenet,  sitting   at    the  piano 


Paris:  BoHssod-Vala^oH,Z 

'  Aublet:  "Studying  the  Score.* 
.  (By  permissiOM  of-  tht  Artist) 


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UArt.-\ 


\E.  ChampoUion  sc» 


BuTiN  :   "  The  Departure/ 


surrounded  by  flowers  and  beautiful  women — when  he  represents 
the  doings  of  the  fashionable  world  on  the  shore  at  a  popular 
watering-place,  or  young  ladies  plucking  roses,  or  wandering 
meditatively  in  bright  dresses  amid  green  shrubs  and  yellow 
flowers,  or  going  into  the  sea  in  white  bathing-gowns,  there 
may  be  nothing  profound  or  particularly  artistic  in  it  all,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  charming,  attractive,  bright,  joyous,  and  fresh. 

/ean  B/raud,  another  interpreter  of  Parisian  elegance,  has 
found  material  for  numerous  pictures  in  the  blaze  of  the  theatres, 
the  naked  shoulders  of  ballet-girls,  the  dress-coats  of  old  gentle- 
men, the  evening  humour  of  the  boulevards,  the  mysteries  of  the 
Caf6  Anglais,  the  bustle  of  Monte  Carlo,  and  the  footlights  of 
the  Cafe-Concert.  But  absolute  painter  he  is  not.  One  would 
prefer  to  have  a  less  oily  heaviness  in  his  works,  a  bolder  and 
freer  execution  more  in  keeping  with  the  lightness  of  the  subject, 
and  for  this  one  would  willingly  surrender  the  touches  of  ^enre 
which  B6raud  cannot  let  alone  even  in  these  days.  But  his 
illustrations  are  exceedingly  spirited. 

It    would    be    impossible   to    classify    painters    according   to 


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L'Art.] 


[DufMpxt.. 


Ulysse  Butin. 


further  specialities.  In  fact  it 
is  as  little  possible  to  bring 
individuals  into  categories  as  it 
was  at  the  time  of  the  Renais- 
sance, when  the  painter  busied 
himself  at  the  same  time  with 
sculpture,  architecture,  and  the 
artistic  crafts.  Great  artists  do 
not  wall  themselves  up  in  a 
narrow  space  to  be  studied. 
Liberated  from  the  studio  and 
restored  to  nature,  they  en- 
deavour, as  in  the  best  periods 
of  art,  to  encompass  life  as 
widely  as  possible.  A  mere 
enumeration,  such  as  chance  offers,  and  such  as  will  preserve 
a  sense  for  the  individuality  of  every  man's  talent  without  at- 
tempting comparisons,  seems  therefore  a  better  method  to  pursue 
than  a  systematic  grouping  which  could  only  be  attained 
artificially  and  by  ambiguities. 

The  late  Ulysse  Butin  settled  down  on  the  shore  of  the 
Channel  and  painted  the  life  of  the  fishermen  of  Villerville,  a 
little  spot  upon  the  coast  near  Honfleur.  Sturdy,  large-boned 
fellows  drag  their  nets  across  the  strand,  carry  heavy  anchors 
home,  or  lie  smoking  upon  the  dunes.  The  rays  of  the  evening 
sun  play  upon  their  clothes  ;  the  night  sinks,  and  a  {>rofound 
silence  rests  upon  the  landscape. 

By  preference  Edouard  Dantan  has  painted  the  interiors  of 
sculptors'  studios — men  turning  pots,  casting  plaster,  or  working 
on  marble,  with  grey  blouses,  contrasting  delicately  with  the 
light  grey  walls  of  workrooms  which  are  themselves  flooded  with 
bright  and  tender  light  Very  charming  was  "A  Plaster-Cast 
from  Nature,"  painted  in  1887 :  in  the  centre  was  a  nude 
feminine  figure  most  naturally  posed,  whilst  a  fine,  even  atmo- 
sphere, which  lay  softly  upon  the  girl's  form,  streaming  gently 
over  it,  was  shed  around 

Having  cultivated  in  the  beginning  the  province  of  feminine 


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MODERN  FAINTING 


nudity  with  little 
success,  in  such 
pictures  as  "  The 
Bacchante  **  of  the 
Luxembourg,  "  The 
Woman  with  the 
Mask,"  and  "Rolla," 
Henri  Gervex^  the 
spoilt  child  of  con- 
temporary French 
painting,  turned  to 
the  lecture-rooms  of 
the  universities,  and 
by  his  picture  of 
Dr.  P6an  at  La 
Salp^tri^re  gave  the 
impulse  to  the  many 
hospital  pictures,  sur- 
gical operations,  and 
so  forth  which  have 
since  inundated  the 
Salon.  With  the  upper  part  of  her  body  laid  bare  and  her 
lips  half-opened,  the  patient  lies  under  the  influence  of  narcotics, 
whilst  Plan's  assistant  is  counting  her  pulse.  His  audience  have 
gathered  round.  The  light  falls  clear  and  peacefully  into  the 
room.  Everything  is  rendered  simply,  without  diffidence,  and 
with  confidence  and  quietude. 

Duez^  when  he  had  had  his  first  success  in  1879  with  a 
large  religious  picture— the  triptych  in  the  Luxembourg  of  Saint 
Cuthbert — appeared  with  animal  pictures,  landscapes,  portraits,  or 
fashionable  representations  of  life  in  the  streets  and  caf6s.  In 
the  hands  of  such  mild  and  complacent  spirits  as  Friant  and 
Goeneutte,  Naturalism  fell  into  a  mincing,  lachrymose  condition ; 
but  in  a  series  of  quiet,  unpretentious  pictures  Dagnan-Bauveret 
was  more  successful  in  meeting  the  growing  inclination  of 
recent  years  for  contemplative  repose,  just  as  in  the  province 
of   literature   Ohnet,   Malot,   and    Claretie,   with    their    spirit    of 


Paris:  Boussod-Valadon."] 

Dantan  :  "  A  Plaster-Cast  from  Nature.' 


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compromise,  came 
after  those  stern 
naturalists  Flaubert 
and  Zola.  Accord- 
ing to  the  drawing 
of  Paul  Renouard, 
Dagnan-Bouveret  is 
a  little,  black-haired 
man  with  a  dark 
complexion  and 
deep  -  set  eyes,  a 
short  blunt  nose, 
and  a  black  pointed 
beard.  There  is 
nothing  in  him 
which  betrays  spirit, 
caprice,  and  audac- 
ity, but  everything 
which  is  an  indica- 
tion of  patience  and 
endurance ;  and,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  such 
are  the  qualities  by 
which  he  has  gained  his  high  position.  He  is  a  man  of  poetic 
talent,  though  rather  tame,  and  stands  to  Bastien-Lepage  and  Roll 
as  Breton  to  Millet.  One  often  fancies  that  it  is  possible  to 
observe  in  him  that  German  Gemiith^  that  genial  temper,  for  the 
satisfaction  of  which  Frau  Marlitt  provided  in  fiction.  A  pupil 
of  Gerdme,  he  made  his  first  great  success  in  the  Salon  of  1879 
with  the  picture  "  A  Wedding  at  the  Photographer's."  This 
was  succeeded  in  1882  by  "The  Nuptial  Benediction;"  in  i88j 
by  "The  Vaccination;"  in  1884  by  "The  Horse-pond"  of  the 
Mus^e  Luxembourg;  in  1885  by  a  "Blessed  Virgin,"  a  homely,, 
thoughtful,  and  delicately  coloured  picture  which  gained  him 
many  admirers  in  Germany;  and  in  1886  by  "The  Consecrated 
Bread,"  in  which  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  take  up  the  study 
of  light   in   interiors.       In   a   Catholic   church    there   are   sitting 


Ga».  d€s  B§aMx-Arts.]  [Du/ardut  Mio. 

Gervex  :   "  Dr.  Pean  at  La  SALpiTRiBRE.** 
(By  permission  oj  ikt  Ariisl.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


devout  women — most  of 
them  old,  but  also  one 
who  is  young — and  chil- 
dren, while  a  chorister 
is  handing  them  conse- 
crated bread.  This  simple 
scene  in  the  damp  village 
church,  filled  with  a  tender 
gloom,  is  rendered  with  a 
winning  homely  plainness, 
and  with  that  touch  of 
compassionate  sentiment- 
ality which  is  the  peculiar 
note  of  Ds^nan-Bouveret. 
The  "  Bretonnes  au  Par- 
don "  of  1889  thoroughly 
displayed  this  definitive 
Dagnan  :  a  soft,  peaceful 
picture,  full  of  simple  and 
cordial  poetry.  In  the 
grass  behind  the  church,  the  plain  spire  of  which  rises  at  the 
end  of  a  wall,  women  are  sitting,  both  young  and  old,  in  black 
dresses  and  white  caps.  One  of  them  is  reading  a  prayer  from 
a  devotional  book.  The  rest  are  listening.  Two  men  stand  at 
the  side.  Everything  is  at  peace ;  the  scheme  of  colour  is  soft 
and  quiet,  while  in  the  execution  there  is  something  recalling 
Holbein,  and  the  effect  is  idyllically  moving,  like  the  chime  of 
a  village  bell  when  the  sun  is  going  down. 

The  zeal  with  which  painters  took  up  the  study  of  contem- 
porary life,  so  long  neglected,  did  not,  however,  prevent  the 
quality  of  French  landscape-painting  from  being  exceedingly 
high.  New  parts  of  the  world  were  no  longer  to  be  conquered. 
For  fifteen  years  none  of  the  nobler,  nor  of  the  less  noble, 
landscapes  of  France  had  been  neglected,  nor  any  strip  of  field ; 
there  were  no  flowers  that  were  not  plucked,  whether  they  were 
cultivated  in  forcing-houses  or  had  sprung  pallid  in  a  dark 
garden  of  old  Paris.     It  was  only  the  joy  in  brightness  and  the 


LAri.^ 


DuEz: 


[£.  Champolliwt  sc, 
'Om  the  Cuff." 


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UAri,^ 


DuEz:  "The  End  of  October." 
{By  permistiion  of  the  Artist,) 


[F.  Miliua  se. 


newly  discovered  beauty  of  sunshine  that  brought  with  them 
any  change  of  material.  Following  the  Impressionists,  the  land- 
scape-painters deserted  their  forests.  Those  "woodland  depths/' 
such  as  Diaz  and  Rousseau  painted,  seldom  appear  in  the  works 
of  the  most  modern  artists.  In  opposition  the  severest  to  such 
once  popular  scenes,  there  lies  the  plain,  the  wide  expanse 
stretching  forth  like  a  carpet  in  bright,  shining  tones  under  the 
play  of  tremulous  sunbeams,  and  scarcely  do  a  few  trees  break 
the  quiet  line  of  the  distant  horizon.  At  first  the  poorest  and 
most  humble  comers  were  preferred  The  painting  of  the  poor 
brought  even  the  most  forlorn  regions  into  fashion.  Later,  in 
landscape  also,  a  bent  towards  the  most  tender  lyricism  corre- 
sponded with  that  inclination  to  idyllic  sentiment  which  was  on 
the  increase  in  figure-painting.  These  painters  have  a  peculiar 
joy  in  the  fresh  mood  of  morning,  when  a  light  vapour  wavers 
over  the  meadows  and  the  waters,  before  it  is  dissolved  into 
shining  dew.  They  love  the  blooming  fruit-trees  and  the  first 
smile  of  spring,  or  revel  in  the  gradations  of  the  dusk,  rich  as 
they  are  in  shades  of  tint,  mistily  wan  and  grey,  pale  lilac, 
delicate-  green,  and  milky  blue.     The  perspective  is  broad  and 


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fine  ;  objects  are  entirely 
absorbed  by  the  harmony 
of  colour,  and  the  older 
and  coarser  treatment  of 
free  light  heightened  to 
the  most  refined  play 
by  the  most  delicate 
shades  of  hue.  And  these 
colourists  deriving  from 
Corot,  with  their  soft  grey 
enveloping  all,  are  opposed 
by  others  who  strike  novel 
and  higher  chords  upon 
the  keyboard  of  Manet- 
landscape-painters  whom 
such  simple  and  intimate 
things  do  not  satisfy, 
but  who  search  after  un- 
expected, fleeting,  and 
extraordinary  impressions, 
analyzing  fantastically  combined  effects  of  light 

A  group  of  New-Impressionists>  who  might  be  called 
prismatic  painters,  stand  in  this  respect  at  the  extreme  left 
Starting  from  the  conviction  that  the  traditional  mixing  of 
colours  upon  the  pallet  results  after  all  only  in  pallet-tones,  and 
can  never  fully  express  the  intensity  and  pulsating  vividness  of 
tone  values,  they  founded  the  theory  of  the  resolution  of  tones — 
in  other  words,  they  break  up  all  compound  colours  into  their 
primary  hues,  set  these  directly  upon  the  canvas,  and  leave  it 
to  the  eye  of  the  spectator  to  undertake  the  mixture  for  itself. 
In  particular  George  Seurat  was  an  energetic  disseminator  of 
this  painting  in  points  which  excited  new  discussions  amongst 
artists  and  new  polemics  in  the  newspapers.  His  pictures  were 
entirely  composed  of  flaming,  glowing,  and  shining  patches. 
Close  to  these  pictures  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  a  confusion 
of  blotches,  but  at  the  proper  distance  they  took  shape  as  wild 
sea-studies  in  the  brilliant  hues  of  noon,  with  rocks  and  stones 


LAfi.\  {Salmon  ac. 

Dagnan-Bouveret  :   '*  Consecrated  Bread." 


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franx:e 


sr 


LAH.^  [J.  Pttyplat  sc. 

Dagnan-Bouveret  :  "  Bretonnes  au  Pardon." 

(By  penntasiott  of  tht  Artisf„) 


'  Standing  out  in  relief, 
orgies  of  blue,  red, 
and  violet  Such 
was  Seurat's  manner 
of  seeing  nature. 
That  such  a  course 
brings  with  it  a  good 
deal  of  monotony, 
that  it  will  hardly 
ever  be  possible  to 
quicken  art  to  this 
extent  with  science, 
is  incontestable. 
But  it  is  just  as  cer- 
tain that  Seurat  was 
a  painter  of  distinc- 
tion who  shows  in  many  of  his  pictures  a  fine  sense  for  delicate, 
pale  atmosphere.  Many  of  his  landscapes,  which  at  close  quarters 
look  like  mosaics  of  small,  smooth,  variously  coloured  stones, 
acquire  a  vibrating  light  such  as  Monet  himself  did  not  attain 
when  looked  at  .  from  a  proper  distance.  Signac^  Anquetitty 
Angrandy  and  Lucien  Pissarro  are  the  names  of  the  other  repre- 
sentatives of  this  scientific  painting,  and  their  method  has  not 
seldom  enabled  them  to  give  expression  in  an  overpowering 
manner  to  the  quiet  of  water  and  sky,  the  green  of  the  meadows 
and  the  softness  of  tender  light  shifting  over  the  sea. 

Amongst  the  younger  painters  exhibiting  in  the  Salon, 
/^^/«/^//«— without  any  trace  of  imitation — perhaps  comes  nearest 
to  the  tender  poetry  of  Corot,  and  has  with  most  subtilty 
interpreted  the  delicate  charm  of  cold  moods  of  morning,  the 
deep  feeling  of  still  solitude  in  a  wide  expanse.  Jan  Monchablon 
views  the  meadow  and  the  grass,  the  blades  and  variegated 
flowers  of  the  field,  with  the  eyes  of  a  primitive  artist  Wide 
stretches  of  rolling  ground  upon  radiant  spring  days  are  usually 
to  be  seen  in  his  pictures.  The  sun  shines,  the  grass  sparkles, 
and  the  horizon  spreads  boundless  around.  In  the  background 
cows   are   grazing,   or   there   move   small   figures   bathed   in   air. 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


GoM.  diM  Btaux-Arta.l  {F.  Miliu»  sc, 

Dagnan-Bouveret  :  "  The  Nuptial  BENEDicribN.** 

iBy  permission  of  Messrs,  Boussod,  Vuladon  cS*  Co.,  ths  owners  of  iht  copyright.) 

whilst  a  dreamy  rivulet  murmurs  in  the  foreground.  The 
bright,  soft  light  of  Provence  is  the  delight  of  Montenard,  and 
he  depicts  with  delicacy  this  landscape  with  its  bright,  rosy 
hills,  its  azure  sky,  and  its  pale  underwood.  Light,  as  he  sees 
it,  has  neither  motes  nor  shadows ;  its  vibration  is  so  intense 
and  fine  that  it  fills  the  air  with  liquid  gold,  and  absorbs  the 
tints  of  objects,  wrapping  them  in  a  soft  and  mystic  golden  veil. 

Dauphin^  who  is  nearly  allied  with  him,  always  remains  a 
colourist  His  painting  is  more  animated,  provocative,  and 
blooming,  especially  in  those  sea-pieces  with  their  bright  har- 
bours, glittering  waves,  and  rocking  ships,  whose  sails  have  a 
coquettish  sparkle  in  the  sunshine.  The  name  of  Rosset-Granget 
recalls  festal  evenings,  bright  houses  vivid  with  the  glow  of 
lights  and  fireworks,  or  the  gleam  of  red  lanterns  illuminating 
the  dark  blue  firmament,  and  reflected  by  a  thousand  fine  tints 
in  the  sea. 

The    melancholy  art  of   Entile  Barau^  a   thoroughly    rustic 


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FRANCE  53 

painter,  who  renders  picturesque  corners  of  little  villages  with 
an  extremely  personal  accent,  stands  in  contrast  with  the  blithe 
painting  of  the  devotees  of  light ;  it  is  not  the  splendour  of 
colour  that  attracts  him,  but  the  dun  hues  of  dying  nature.  He 
has  come  to  a  halt  immediately  in  front  of  Paris,  in  the  square 
before  the  church  of  Creile.  He  knows  the  loneliness  of  village 
streets  when  the  people  are  at  work  in  the  fields,  and  the  houses 
give  a  feeling  that  their  inhabitants  are  not  far  off  and  may 
return  at  any  moment.  His  pictures  are  harmonies  in  grey.  The 
leading  elements  in  his  works  are  the  pale  light  lying  upon 
colourless  autumn  sward,  the  mournful  outlines  of  leafless  trees 
stretching  their  naked  boughs  into  the  air  as  though  complaining, 
small  still  ponds  where  ducks  are  paddling,  the  scanty  green 
of  meagre  gardens,  the  muddy  water  of  old  canals,  reddish-grey 
roofs  and  narrow  little  streets  amid  moss-covered  hills,  tall 
poplars  and  willows  by  the  side  of  swampy  ditches,  and  in 
the  background  the  old  village  steeple,  which  is  scarcely  ever 
absent.  Danioye^  likewise,  is  fond  of  twilight,  and  autumn 
and  winter  evenings.  He  is  the  poet  of  the  great  plains  and 
dunes  and  the  sombre  heaven,  where  isolated  sunbeams  break 
shyly  from  behind  white  clouds.  A  fine  sea-painter,  Boudifty 
studies  in  Etretat,  Trouville,  Saint  Valery,  Crotoy,  and  Berck 
the  dunes  and  the  misty  sky,  spreading  in  cold  northern  grey 
across  the  silent  sea.  Dumoulin  paints  night  landscapes  with 
deep  blue  shadows  and  bright  blue  lights,  while  Albert  Lebourg 
has  a  passion  for  the  grey  of  rain  and  the  glittering  snow 
which  gleams  in  the  light,  blue  in  one  place,  violet  and  rosy  in 
another.  Victor  Binet  and  Rirti  Billotte  have  devoted  themselves 
to  the  study  of  that  poor  region,  still  in  embryo,  which  lies 
around  Paris,  a  region  where  a  delicate  observer  finds  so  much 
that  is  pictorial  and  so  much  hidden  poetry.  Binet  is  so 
delicate  that  everything  grows  nobler  beneath  his  brush.  He 
specially  loves  to  paint  the  poetry  of  twilight,  which  softens 
forms  and  tinges  the  trees  with  a  greyish  green,  the  quiet, 
monotonous  plains,  where  tiny  field-paths  lose  themselves  in 
mysterious  horizons,  expiring  light  of  the  autumn  sun  playing 
with    the    fallen    yellow    leaves    upon    dusty    highways.      R6n6 


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Billotte's  life' is  exceed- 
ingly many-sided.  In 
the  forenoon  he  is  an 
important  ministerial 
official,  in  the  evening 
the  polished  man  of 
society  in  dress-clothes 
and  white  tie  whom 
Carolus  Duran  painted. 
Of  an  afternoon,  in 
the  hours  of  dusk  and 
moonrise,  he  roams  as 
a  landscape-painter  in 
the  suburbs  of  Paris : 
he  is  an  exceedingly 
accomplished  man  of 
the  world,  who  only 
speaks  in  a  low  tone, 
and  what  he  specially 
loves  in  nature,  too,  is 
the  hour  when  moonlight  lies  gently  and  delicately  over  all 
forms.  The  scenes  he  usually  chooses  are  a  quarry  with  light 
mist  settling  over  it,  a  light-coloured  cornfield  in  a  bluish  dusk, 
a  meadow  bathed  in  pale  light,  or  a  strip  of  the  seashore  where 
the  delicate  air  is  impregnated  with  moisture. 

To  be  at  once  refined  and  true  is  the  aim  which  portrait- 
painting  in  recent  years  has  also  specially  set  itself  to  reach. 
In  the  years  of  chic  it  started  with  the  endeavour  to  win 
from  every  personality  its  beauties,  to  paint  men  and  women 
"  to  advantage  ; "  but  ,  later,  when  the  Naturalism  of  Bastien- 
Lepage  stood  at  its  zenith,  it  strove  at  all  costs  to  seize  the 
actual  human  being,  to  catch,  as  it  were,  the  workaday  char- 
acter of  the  personality,  as  it  is  in  involuntary  moments  when 
people  believe  themselves  to  be  unobserved  and  give  up  posing. 
The  place  of  those  pompous  arrangements  of  the  painters  of 
material  was  taken  by  a  soul,  and  temperament  interpreted  by 
an  intelligence.     And  corresponding  with  the  universal  principle 


LuciEN  PissARRO  :  "Soutude"  (Woodcut). 

(fly  permission  of  ths  proprigtors  of  th$  Dial,  ths  ovmers  of 
ths  copyright.) 


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LuciEN  PissARRo:    "Ruth"  (Woodcut). 

(By  permission  of  Messrs,  Hacon  and  Rickgt/s,  tht 

owners  of  the  copyright.) 


of  conceiving  man  and 
nature  as  an  indivisible 
whole,  it  became  im- 
perative in  portrait- 
painting  no  longer  to 
place  persons  before  an 
arbitrary  background, 
but  in  their  real  sur- 
roundings —  to  paint 
the  man  of  science 
in  his  laboratory,  the 
painter  in  his  studio, 
the  author  at  his  work- 
table — and  to  observe 
with  accuracy  the  at- 
mospheric influences  of 
this  environment. 

The  ready  master- 
worker  of  this  plain 
and  sincere  naturalism  in  portrait-painting  was  peculiarly  Fantin" 
Laiour,  who  ought  not  merely  to  be  judged  by  his  latest  paintings, 
which  have  something  petrified,  rigid,  gloomy,  and  professorial. 
In  his  younger  days  he  was  a  solid  and  powerful  artist,  one 
of  the  soundest  and  simplest  of  whom  France  could  boast  His 
pictures  were  dark  in  tone  and  harmonious,  and  had  a  puritanic 
charm.  The  portrait  of  Manet,  and  the  double  likeness  of  the 
engraver  Edwin  Edwards  and  his  wife,  in  particular,  will  always 
preserve  their  historical  value. 

Later,  when  the  whole  bias  of  art  was  to  turn  away  from  the 
poorer  classes  and  once  more  approach  this  fashionable  world, 
portrait-painting  also  tended  to  become  exquisite  and  over-refined 
and  to  show  a  preference  for  symphonic  arrangements  of  colour 
and  subtilized  effects  of  light  White,  light  yellow,  and  light 
blue  silks  were  harmonized  upon  very  delicate  scales  with  pearly- 
grey  backgrounds.  Ladies  in  mantles  of  light  grey  fur  and 
rosy  dresses  stand  amid  dark-green  shrubs,  in  which  rose-coloured 
lanterns   are   burning,  or   they  sit   in   a   ball-dress   near  a  lamp. 


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«r^"-— 


BouDiN  :   •'  The  Port  of  Trouvillk.'* 
iBy  p^rmistion  of  Mona,  Durand-Rutlf  tht  onmtrofiht  copyright.) 


[Laus€t  sc. 


which  produces  the   most   tender  and   manifold    transformations 
of  light  upon  the  white  of  the  silk. 

The  work  of  Jacques  Emile  Blanche^  the  son  of  the  celebrated 
doctor  for  the  mad,  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  these  new 
tendencies  of  French  portrait-painting.  It  is  well  known  that 
English  fashion  was  at  this  time  regarded  in  Paris  as  the  height 
of  elegance,  while  Anglicisms  were  entering  more  and  more 
into  the  French  language  ;  and  this  tendency  of  taste  gave  Blanche 
the  occasion  for  most  aesthetic  pictures.  The  English  miss,  in 
her  attractive  mixture  of  affectation  and  natvet^,  in  all  her  slim 
and  long-footed  grace,  has  found  a  delicate  interpreter  in  him. 
Tall  ladies  clad  in  white,  bitten  with  the  Anglo-mania,  drink 
tea  most  aesthetically  and  sit  there  bored,  or  are  grouped 
round   the   piano  ;   gommeux,   neat,  straight,  chic^  from  their  tall 


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hats  to  their  shining  leather 
boots,  look  wearily  about 
the  world,  with  an  eyeglass 
fixed,  a  yellow  rose  in  their 
buttonhole,  and  a  thick 
stick  in  the  gloved  hand. 
Amongst  his  likenesses  of 
well  -  known  personalities, 
much  notice  was  attracted 
by  that  of  his  father  in 
1890 — a  modern  Bertinthe 
Elder— and  in  1891  by  that 
of  Maurice  Barres,  a  por- 
trait in  which  he  has 
analyzed  the  author  of  Le 
Jardin  de  BMnice  in  a 
very  simple  and  convincing 
fashion. 

The  brilliant  Italian 
Boldini  brought  to  this 
English  chic  the  manual  volubility  of  a  Southerner  :  sometimes 
he  was  microscopic  d  la  Meissonier,  sometimes  a  juggler  of 
the  brush  a  la  Fortuny,  and  sometimes  he  gave  the  most 
seductive  mannerism  and  the  most  diverting  elegance  to  his 
portraits  of  ladies.  Bora  in  1845,  the  son  of  a  painter  of 
saints,  Boldini  had  b^un  as  a  Romanticist  with  pictures  for 
Scott's  Ivanho^,  From  Ferrara  he  went  to  Florence,  where  he 
remained  six  years.  At  the  end  of  the  sixties  he  emerged  in 
London,  and,  after  he  had  painted  Lady  Holland  and  the 
Duchess  of  Westminster  there,  he  soon  became  a  popular  por- 
trait-painter. But  since  1872  his  home  has  been  Paris,  where 
the  fine  Anglo-Saxon  aroma,  the  "aei^thetic"  originality  of  his 
pictures,  soon  became  an  object  of  universal  admiration.  In  his 
portraits  of  women  Boldini  always  renders  what  is  most  noveL 
It  is  as  if  he  knew  in  advance  the  new  fashion  which  the  coming 
season  would  bring.  His  trenchantly  cut  figures  of  ladies  in 
white  dresses  and  with  black  gloves  have  a  defiant  and  insolent 

VOL.    III.  5 


Paris  :  Boussod-Valadon,]  [Carolus  Duranfixi. 

Rini.   BiLLOTTE. 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


efifect,  and  yet  one 
which  is  captivating 
through  their  ultra- 
modern chic.  The 
portraits  of  Carolus 
Duran  have  nothing 
of  that  charm  which 
makes  such  an  appeal 
to  the  nerves,  nothing 
of  that  discomposJHg 
indefinable  quality 
which  lies  in  the 
expression  and  ges- 
tures of  a  fashionable 
woman,  whose  eccen- 
tricity reveals  every 
day  fresh  nuances  of 
beauty.  He  had  not 
the  faculty  of  seizing 
movement,  the  most 
difficult  element  in  the  world.  But  Boldini's  pictures  seem  like 
bold  and  sudden  fetches  which  clench  thq  conception  with  spirit 
and  swiftness  in  liberal,  pointed  crayon  strokes  controlled  by  keen 
observation.  There  is  no  ornament,  no  bracelet,  no  pillars  and 
drapery.  One  hears  the  silken  bodies  rustle  over  the  tightly 
laced  corset,  sees  the  mobile  foot,  and  the  long  train  swept  to 
the  side  with  a  bold  movement.  Sometimes  his  creations  are 
full  and  luxuriant,  nude  even  in  their  clothes,  excited  and  full 
of  movement ;  sometimes  they  are  bodiless,  as  if  compact  of  the 
air,  pallid  and  half-dead  with  the  exertion  caused  by  nights  of 
festivity,  "living  with  hardly  any  blood  in  their  veins  where  the 
pulse  beats  almost  entirely  out  of  complaisance." 

His  pictures  of  children  are  just  as  subtile:  there  is  an  elasticity 
in  these  little  girls,  with  their  widely  opened  velvet  eyes,  their 
rosy  young  lips,  and  their  poses  calculated  with  so  much  coquetry. 
Boldini  has  an  indescribable  method  of  seizing  a  motion  of  the 
head,  a  mien,   or  a  passing  flash  of  the  eyes,  of  arranging   the 


L'Art  franfais,\ 

BiLLOTTE :  "  Paris  Twilight." 
{By  permission  of  iht  Artist.) 


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VArt.'\  \Paul  Lafond  ac. 

BoLDiNi :  Giuseppe  Verdi. 


hair,  of  indicating  coquettish 
lace  underclothing  beneath 
bright  silk  dresses,  or  of  show- 
ing the  grace  and  fineness  of 
the  slender  leg  of  a  girl,  encased 
in  a  black  silk  stocking,  and 
dangling  in  delicate  lines  from 
a  light  grey  sofa.  There  is 
French  esprit^  something  piquant 
and  with  a  double  meaning  in 
his  art,  which  borders  on  the 
indecorous  and  is  yet  charming. 
These  portraits  of  ladies,  how- 
ever, form  but  a  small  portion 
of  his  work.  He  paints  in  oils, 
in  water-colour,  and  pastel,  and 

is  equally  marvellous  in  handling  the  portraits  of  men,  the  street 
picture,  and  the  landscape.  His  portrait  of  the  painter  John 
Lewis  Brown,  crossing  the  street  with  his  wife  and  daughter, 
looked  as  though  it  had  been  painted  in  one  jet  In  his  little 
pictures  of  horses  there  is  an  astonishing  animation  and  nervous 
energy.  M.  Faure,  the  singer,  possesses  some  small  Rococo 
pictures  from  his  brush,  scenes  in  the  Garden  of  the  Tuilerics, 
which  might  have  come  from  Fortuny.  His  pictures  from  the 
street-life  of  Paris — the  Place  Pigalle,  the  Place  Clichy — recall 
De  Nittis,  and  some  illustrations — scenes  from  the  great  Paris 
races — might  have  been  drawn  by  Caran  D'Ache. 

There  is  no  need  to  treat  illustration  in  greater  detail,  because, 
naturally,  it  could  no  longer  play  the  initiative  part  which  fell 
to  it  in  earlier  days,  now  that  the  whole  of  life  had  been  drawn 
within  the  compass  of  pictorial  representation.  Besides,  in  an 
epoch  like  our  own,  which  is  determined  to  know,  and  see,  and  feel 
everything,  illustration  has  been  so  extended  that  it  would  be 
quite  impossible  even  to  select  the  most  important  work.  En- 
tirely apart  from  the  many  painters  who  occasionally  illustrated 
novels  or  other  books,  such  as  Bastien- Lepage,  Gervex,  Dantan, 
D^taille,     Dagnan-Bouveret,    Ribot,    Benjamin     Constant,    Jean 


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Paul  Laurens,  and  others, 
there  are  a  number  of 
professional  draughtsmen 
in  Paris,  most  of  whom  are 
really  distinguished  artists. 
In  particular,  Cli^ret, 
one  of  the  most  original 
artists  of  our  time— Ch^ret, 
the  great  king  of  posters, 
the  monarch  of  a  fabu- 
lously charming  world,  in 
which  everything  gleams 
in  blue  and  red  and 
orange,  cannot  be  passed 
over  in  a  history  of  paints 
ing.  The  flowers  which 
he  carelessly  strews  on  all 
sides  with  his  spendthrift 
hand  are  not  destined  for 
preservation  in  an  his- 
torical herbarium  ;  his 
works  are  transient  flashes 
of  spirit,  brilliantly  shining 
ephemeras,  but  a  bold  and 
subtile  Parisian  art  is  con- 
cealed amid  this  improvi- 
sation. Settled  for  many 
years  in  London,  Jules  Ch6ret  had  there  already  drawn  admirable 
placards,  which  are  now  much  sought  after  by  collectors. 

In  1866  he  introduced  this  novel  branch  of  industry  into 
I  ranee,  and  gave  it — thanks  to  the  invention  of  machines  which 
admit  of  the  employment  of  the  largest  lithographical  blocks — 
an  artistic  development  which  could  not  have  been  anticipated. 
He  has  created  many  thousands  of  placards.  The  book-lrade, 
the  great  shops,  and  almost  all  branches  of  industry  owe  their 
success  to  him.  His  theatrical  posters  alone  are  amongst  the 
most  graceful   products   of   modern    art :    La   Fete   des   Mitrons, 


Paris:  Goupii.} 

BoLDiNi :  Portrait  of  a  Boy. 


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La  Salle  de  Frascati,  Les 
MongoHs,  Le  Chat  Bott^, 
L'Ath^n^e  Comique,  Fan- 
taisies  Music-Hail,  La  F^e 
Cocotte,  Les  Tsiganes,  Les 
Folies-Bergferes  en  Voy- 
age, Spectacle  Concert  de 
VHorloge,  Skating  Rink, 
Les  Pillules  du  Diable,  La 
Chatte  Blanche,  Le  Petit 
Faust,  La  Vie  Parisienne, 
Le  Droit  du  Seigneur, 
Cendrillon,  Orph^e  aux 
Enfers,  Eden  Theitre,  etc. 
These  are  mere  placards, 
destined  to  hang  for  a. few 
days  on  the  street  pillars, 
and  yet  in  graceful  ease, 
sparkling  life,  and  coquet- 
tish bloom  of  colour  they 
surpass  many  oil-paintings 
which  flaunt  upon  the  walls 
of  the  Mus6e  Luxembourg. 
Amongst  the  illustra- 
tors WiUette  is  perhaps  the 
most  charming,  the  most 
brilliant  in  grace,  fancy, 
and  spirit.  A  drawing  by 
him  is  something  living,  light,  and  fresh.  Only  amongst  the 
Japanese,  or  the  great  draughtsmen  of  the  Rococo  period,  does 
one  find  plates  of  a  charm  similar  to  Willette's  tender  poems 
of  the  "  Chevalier  Printemps "  or  the  "  Baiser  de  la  Rose."  At 
the  same  time  there  is  something  curiously  innocent,  something 
primitive,  naive,  something  like  the  song  of  a  bird,  in  his 
charming  art.  No  one  can  laugh  with  such  youthful  freshness. 
No  one  has  such  a  childlike  fancy.  WiUette  possesses  the 
curious  gift   of  looking  at  the  world  like  a  boy  of  sixteen,  with 


L'Art  franfais.] 

BoLDiNi :   Portrait  of  a  Little  Girl. 


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eyes  that  are  not  jaded  for 
all  the  beauty  of  things, 
with  the  eyes  of  a  school- 
boy in  love  for  the  first 
time.  He  has  drawn 
angels  for  Gothic  windows, 
battles,  and  everything 
imaginable  ;  nevertheless 
woman  is  supreme  over 
his  whole  work,  ruined 
and  pure  as  an  angel, 
cursed  and  adored,  and 
yet  always  enchanting. 
She  is  Manon  Lescaut, 
with  her  soft  eyes  and 
angelically  pure  sins.  She 
has  something  of  the 
lovely  piquancy  of  the 
woman  of  Brantdme, 
when  she  disdainfully 
laughs  out  of  countenance 
poor  Pierrot,  who  sings 
his  serenades  to  her  plain- 
tively in  the  moonshine* 
One  might  say  that  Wil- 
lette  is  himself  his  Pierrot^ 
dazzled  by  the  young 
bosoms  and  rosy  lips :  at 
one  time  graceful  and 
laughing,  wild  as  a  young  fellow  who  has  just  escaped  from 
school  ;  at  another  earnest  and  angry,  like  an  archangel 
driving  away  the  sinful  ;  to-day  fiery,  and  to-morrow  melan- 
choly; now  in  love,  teasing,  blithe  and  tender,  now  gloomy 
and  in  mortal  trouble.  He  laughs  amid  tears  and  weeps  amid 
laughter,  singing  the  Dies  Irce  after  a  couplet  of  Offenbach ; 
himself  wears  a  black-and-white  garment,  and  is,  at  the  same 
time,  mystic  and   sensuous.      His   plates  are   as  exhilarating  as 


L'Art  franfaisJ] 
BOLDINI  : 


Portrait  of  a  Lady. 


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Willette:   "The  Golden  Age. 


sparkling   champagne,   and    breathe   the   soft,   plaintive   spirit   of 
old  ballads. 

Beside  this  amiable  Pierrot  Forain  is  like  the  modern  Satyr, 
the  true  outcome  of  the  Goncourts  and  Gavarni,  the  product  of 
the  most  modern  decadence.  All  the  vice  and  grace  of  Paris, 
all  the  luxury  of  the  world,   and  all  the  chic  of  the  demi-monde 


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64  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  has  drawn  with  spirit,  with  bold  stenographical  execution, 
and  the  elegance  of  a  sure-handed  expert  Every  stroke  is 
made  with  trenchant  energy  and  ultimate  grace.  Adultery, 
gambling,  chambres  siparieSy  carriages,  horses,  villas  in  the  Bois 
de  Boulogne ;  and  then  the  reverse  side — degradation,  theft, 
hunger,  the  filth  of  the  streets,  pistols,  suicide, — such  are  the 
principal  stages  of  the  modern  epic  which  Forain  composed ; 
and  over  all  the  Parisienne,  the  dancing-girl,  floats  with  smiling 
grace  like  a  breath  of  beauty.  His  chief  field  of  study  is  the 
promenade  of  the  Folies-Bergferes  —  the  delicate  profiles  of 
anaemic  girls  singing,  the  heavy  masses  of  flesh  of  gluttonizing 
gourmets^  the  impudent  laughter  and  lifeless  eyes  of  prosti- 
tutes, the  thin  waists,  lean  arms,  and  demon  hips  of  fading 
bodies  laced  in  silk.  Little  dancing-girls  and  fat  rou^s,  snobs 
with  short,  wide  overcoats,  huge  collars,  and  long,  pointed  shoes 
—they  all  move,  live,  and  exhale  the  odour  of  their  own 
peculiar  atmosphere.  There  is  spirit  in  the  line  of  an  overcoat 
which  Forain  draws,  in  the  furniture  of  a  room,  in  the  hang  of 
a  fur  or  a  silk  dress.  He  is  the  master  of  the  light,  fleeting 
seizure  of  the  definitive  line.  Every  one  of  his  plates  is  like  a 
spirited  causericy  which  is  to  be  understood  through  hints  and 
the  twinkling  of  the  eyes. 

The  name  of  Paul  Renouard  is  inseparable  from  the  opera. 
Degas  had  already  painted  the  opera  and  the  ballet-dancers 
with  wonderful  reality,  fine  irony,  or  in  the  weird  humour  of  a 
dance  of  death.  But  Renouard  did  not  imitate  Degas.  As  a 
pupil  of  Pils  he  was  one  of  the  many  who,  in  1871,  were 
occupied  with  the  decoration  of  the  staircase  of  the  new  opera 
house,  and  through  this  opportunity  he  obtained  his  first  glance 
into  this  capricious  and  mysterious  world  made  up  of  contrasts 
— a  world  which  henceforward  became  his  domain.  All  his 
ballet-dancers  are  accurately  drawn  at  their  rehearsals,  but  the 
charm  of  their  smile,  of  their  figures,  their  silk  tights,  their 
gracious  movements,  has  something  which  almost  goes  beyond 
nature.  Renouard  is  a  realist  with  very  great  taste.  The 
practising  of  girls  standing  on  the  tips  of  their  toes,  dancing, 
curtseying,  and  throwing  the   public   a  kiss  with  their  hands  is 


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FoRAiN  :   "  At  the  Folies-BergIres." 
{By  permission  oj  Moms.  Durand-Rtul,  tht  owner  of  the  copyright.) 


[Lau9et  sc. 


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FRANCE  67 

broadly  and  surely  drawn  with  a  few  strokes.  The  opera  is  for 
him  a  universe  in  a  nutshell — a  rhumi  of  Paris,  where  all  the 
oddities,  all  the  wildness,  and  all  the  sadness  of  modern  life  arc 
to  be  found. 

At  the  close  mention  must  be  made  of  Daniel  Vierge,  torn 
prematurely  from  his  art  by  a  cruel  disease,  but  not  before  he 
had  been  able  to  complete  his  masterpiece,  the  edition  of  Don 
Pablo  de  Segovia.  By  birth  he  was  a  Spaniard,  his  proper 
name  being  Daniel  Vierge  Urrabieta.  He,  too,  showed  himself 
a  man  of  audacious,  delicate  talent  of  nervous  fibre ;  and  his 
illustrations  in  the  Paris  journals  are  uncommonly  Parisian, 
spirited,  delicate,  and  piquant.  Without  striving  after  a  "style," 
like  Dor^,  he  expressed  everything  with  a  boldness  and  natural- 
ness which  lie  miles  apart  from  any  kind  of  pedantry.  He 
cared  chiefly  to  devote  himself  to  the  courtly  eighteenth  century, 
the  epoch  of  silk  shoes,  powder,  and  Brussels  lace.  Certain 
of  his  plates  almost  recall  Goya,  or  the  exhilarating  verve  of 
Fortuny. 


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CHAPTER    XXXV 

SPAIN 

From  Goya  to  For  tuny. —Mariano  For  tuny, —Official  efforts  for  the  cul- 
tivation of  historical  fainting, — Influence  of  Manet  inconsiderable,— 
Even  in  their  pictures  front  modern  life  the  Spaniards  remain 
followers  of  Fortuny :  Francisco  Pradilla,  Casado,  Vera^  Manuel 
Ramirez,  Moreno  CarbonerOy  Ricardo  VillodaSy  Antonio  Casanova 
y  Estorachy  Benliure  y  Gily  Checa,  Francisco  Amerigo,  Viniegra  y 
Lasso,  Mas  y  Fondevillay  Alcazar  Tejedor,  Josi  VillegaSy  Luis 
Jimenez,  Martin  Rico,  Zamacois,  Raimundo  de  Madrazo,  Francisco 
Domingo,  Emilio  Salay  Francis,  Antonio  Fabris. 

IT  was  in  the  spring  of  1870  that  a  little  picture  called 
"  La  Vicaria "  was  exhibited  in  Paris  at  the  dealer  Goupirs. 
A  marriage  is  taking  place  in  the  sacristy  of  a  Rococo  church 
in  Madrid.  The  walls  are  covered  with  faded  Cordova  leather 
hangings  figured  in  gold  and  dull  colours,  and  a  magnificent 
Rococo  screen  separates  the  sacristy  from  the  middle  aisle. 
Venetian  lustres  are  suspended  from  the  ceiling.  And  pictures 
of  martyrs,  Venetian  glasses  in  carved  oval  frames,  richly  orna- 
mented wooden  benches,  and  a  library  of  missals  and  gospels 
in  sparkling  silver  clasps  at  the  wall,  form  part  of  the  scene 
where  the  marriage  contract  is  being  signed  ;  shining  marble 
tables  and  glistening  brasiers  are  around.  The  costumes  are 
those  of  the  time  of  Goya.  As  a  matter  of  fact  an  old  beau 
is  marrying  a  young  and  beautiful  girl.  With  affected  grace 
and  in  a  skipping  minuet  step,  holding  a  modish  three-cornered 
hat  under  his  arm,  he  approaches  the  table  to  put  his  signature 
in  the  place  which  the  escribano  points  out  with  a  submissive 
bow.  He  is  arrayed  in  delicate  lilac,  while  the  bride  is  wearing 
a  white  silk  dress  trimmed  with  flowered  lace,  and  has  a  wreath 

68 


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SPAIN  69 

of  orange  blossoms  in  her  luxuriant  black  hair.  As  a  girl- 
friend is  talking  to  her  she  examines  with  abstracted  attention 
the  pretty  little  pictures  upon  her  fan,  the  finest  which  she  has 
ever  possessed.  A  very  piquant  little  head  she  has,  with  her 
long  lashes  and  her  black  eyes.  Then,  in  the  background,  follow 
the  witnesses,  and  first  of  all  a  young  lady  in  a  swelling  silk 
dress  of  the  brightest  rose-colour.  Beside  her  is  one  of  the 
bridegroom's  friends  in  a  cabbage-green  coat  with  long  flaps, 
and  a  shining  belt  from  which  a  gleaming  sabre  hangs.  The 
whole  picture  is  a  marvellous  assemblage  of  colours,  where  tones 
of  Venetian  glow  and  strength  beside  tender  pearly  grey,  like 
that  of  the  Japanese,  and  a  melting  neutral  brown,  stand 
scintillating  together. 

The  painter,  who  was  barely  thirty,  bore  the  name  of  Mariano 
Fortuny,  and  was  born  in  Reus,  a  little  town  in  the  province  of 
Tarragonia,  on  June  nth,  1838.  Five  years  after  he  had  com- 
pleted this  work  he  died,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  on  November  21st, 
1874.  Short  as  his  career  was,  it  was,  nevertheless,  so  brilliant, 
his  success  so  immense,  his  influence  so  great,  that  his  place  in 
the  history  of  modern  painting  remains  assured  to  him. 

Like  French  art,  Spanish  art,  after  Goya's  death,  had  borne 
the  yoke  of  Classicism,  Romanticism,  and  academical  influence 
by  turns.  In  the  grave  of  Goya  there  was  buried  for  ever, 
as  it  seemed,  the  world  of  torreros,  majas,  manolas,  monks, 
smugglers,  knaves,  and  witches,  and  all  the  local  colour  of  the 
Spanish  Peninsula.  As  late  as  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of 
1867,  Spain  was  merely  represented  by  a  few  carefully  composed, 
and  just  as  carefully  painted,  but  tame  and  tedious,  historical 
pictures  of  the  David  or  the  Delaroche  stamp — works  such  as 
had  been  painted  for  whole  decades  by  Jos^  Madrazo,  J.  Ribera 
y  Fernandez,  Federigo  Madrazo,  Carlo  Luis  Ribera,  Eduardo 
Rosales,  and  many  others  whose  names  there  is  no  reason  for 
rescuing  from  oblivion.  They  laboured,  meditating  an  art  which 
was  not  their  own,  and  could  not  waken  any  echo  in  them- 
selves. Their  painting  was  body  without  soul,  empty  histrionic 
skill.  As  complete  darkness  had  rested  for  a  century  over 
Spanish  art,  from  the  death  of  Claudio  Coellos  in    1693  to  the 


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LArU-\ 


Mariano  Fortuny. 


appearance  of  Goya,  rising  like 
a  meteor,  so  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  produced 
no  single  original  artist  until 
Fortuny  came  forward  in  the 
sixties. 

He  grew  up  amid  poor  sur- 
roundings, and  when  he  was 
twelve  years  of  age  he  lost  his 
father  and  mother.  His  grand- 
father, an  enterprising  and 
adventurous  joiner,  had  made 
for  himself  a  cabinet  of  wax 
figures,  which  he  exhibited 
from  town  to  town  in  the 
province  of  Tarragonia.  With  his  grandson  he  went  on  foot 
through  all  the  towns  of  Catalonia,  the  old  man  showing  the 
wax  figures  which  the  boy  painted.  Whenever  he  had  a 
moment  free  the  latter  was  drawing,  carving  in  wood,  and 
modelling  in  wax.  It  chanced,  however,  that  a  sculptor  saw  his 
attempts,  spoke  of  them  in  Fortuny's  birthplace,  and  succeeded 
in  inducing  the  town  to  make  an  allowance  of  forty-two  francs 
a  month  to  a  lad  whose  talent  had  so  much  promise.  By  these 
means  Fortuny  was  enabled  to  attend  the  Academy  of  Barcelona 
during  four  years.  In  1857,  when  he  was  nineteen  years  of  age, 
he  received  the  Prix  de  Rome^  and  set  out  for  Rome  itself  in 
the  same  year.  But  whilst  he  was  copying  the  pictures  of  the 
old  masters  there,  a  circumstance  occurred  which  set  him  upon 
another  course.  The  war  between  Spain  and  the  Emperor  of 
Morocco  determined  his  future  career.  Fortuny  was  then  a 
young  man  of  three-and-twenty,  very  strong,  rather  thickset, 
quick  to  resent  an  injury,  taciturn,  resolute,  and  habituated  to 
exertion.  His  residence  in  the  East,  which  lasted  from  five  to 
six  months,  was  a  discovery  for  him — a  feast  of  delight.  He 
found  the  opportunity  of  studying  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood a  people  whose  life  was  opulent  in  colour  and  wild  in 
movement ;   and   he   beheld    with  wonder  the  gleaming  pictorial 


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J 

\ 

^     *^.w             ^            .     - 

w. 

III            .  >^' 

^ 

T{ 

^j4     ; 

.vll^ 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^T^^^^^p  ■Fi^^^   ' 

Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.'] 

Fortuny:  "The  Spanish  Marriage." 
(By  permission  of  Messrs,  BoMSSod,  Valachn  cS*  Co.,  the  owners  of  the  copyright,) 

episodes  so  variously  enacted  before  him,  and  the  rich  costumes 
upon  which  the  radiance  of  the  South  glanced  in  a  hundred 
reflections.  And,  in  particular,  when  the  Emperor  of  Morocco 
came  with  his  brilliant  suite  to  sign  the  treaty  of  peace,  Fortuny 
developed  a  feverish  activity.  The  great  battle-piece  which  he 
should  have  executed  on  the  commission  of  the  Academy  of 
Barcelona  remained  unfinished.  On  the  other  hand,  he  painted 
a  series  of  Oriental  pictures,  in  which  his  astonishing  dexterity 
and  his  marvellously  sensitive  eye  were  already  to  be  clearly 
discerned :  the  stalls  of  Moorish  carpet-sellers,  with  little  figures 
swarming  about  them,  and  the  rich  display  of  woven  stuffs  of  the 
East ;  the  weary  attitude  of  old  Arabs  sitting  in  the  sun ;  the 
sombre,  brooding  faces  of  strange  snake-charmers  and  magicians. 
This  is  no  Parisian  East,  like  Fromentin's ;  every  one  here  is 
speaking  Arabic.  It  is  only  Guillaumet  who  afterwards  inter- 
preted the  fakir  world  of  the  East,  dreamy  and  contemplative  in 
the  sunshine,  in  a  manner  equally  convincing. 

Yet  Fortuny  first  discovered  his  peculiar  province  when  he 
began,  after  his  return,  to  paint  those  brilliant  kaleidoscopic 
Rococo  pictures  with  their  charming  play  of  colour,  the  pictures 


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VArt,] 


Fortuny:  '<  Moors  playing  with  a  Vulture.' 


[Champollion  i 


which  founded  his  reputation  in  Paris.  Even  in  the  earliest, 
representing  gentlemen  of  the  Rococo  period  examining  engrav- 
ings in  a  richly  appointed  interior,  the  Japanese  weapons,  Renais- 
sance chests,  gilded  frames  of  carved  wood,  and  all  the  delightful 
petit-riens  from  the  treasury  of  the  past  which  he  had  heaped 
in  it  together,  were  so  wonderfully  painted  that  Goupil  began 
a  connection  with  him  and  ordered  further  works.  This  commis- 
sion occasioned  his  journey,  in  the  autumn  of  1866,  to  Paris, 
where  he  entered  into  Meissonier's  circle,  and  worked  sometimes 
at  G6r6me*s.  Yet  neither  of  them  exerted  any  influence  upon 
him  at  all  worth  mentioning.  The  French  painter  in  miniature 
is,  probably,  the  father  of  the  department  of  art  to  which 
F^ortuny  belongs ;  but  the  latter  united  to  the  delicate  execution 
of  the  Frenchman  the  flashing,  gleaming  spirit  of  the  Latin 
races  of  the  South.  He  is  a  Meissonier  with  esprit  recalling 
Goya.  In  his  picture  "  The  Spanish  Marriage "  (La  Vicaria),  all 
the  vivid,  throbbing.  Rococo  world,  buried  with  Goya,  revived 
once  more.     While  in  his  Oriental  pieces— -"The  Praying  Arab,'' 


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Qnm.,  d^  Bta>a^Atti.\ 


IHntft'm  if- 


FoRTUNY :  ••  The  Snake-Charmers.'^ 


"The  Arabian  Fantasia,"  and  **The  Snake-Charmers " — he  still 
aimed  at  concentration  and  unity  of  effect,  this  picture  had 
something  gleaming,  iridescent,  and  pearly  which  soon  became 
the  delight  of  all  collectors.  Fortuny's  successes,  his  celebrity, 
and  his  fortune  dated  from  that  time.  His  name  went  up  like 
a  meteor.  After  fighting  long  years  in  vain,  not  for  recognition, 
but  for  his  very  bread,  he  suddenly  became  the  most  honoured 
painter  of  the  day,  and  began  to  exert  upon  a  whole  generation 
of  young  artists  that  powerful  influence  which  survives  even  at 
this  very  day. 

The  studio  which  he  built  for  himself  after  his  marriage 
with  the  daughter  of  Federigo  Madrazo  in  Rome  was  a  little 
museum  of  the  most  exquisite  products  of  the  artistic  crafts  of 
the  West  and  the  East:  the  walls  were  decorated  with  brilliant 
Oriental  stuffs,  and  great  glass  cabinets  with  Moorish  and 
Arabian  weapons,  and  old  tankards  and  glasses  from  Murano 
stood  around.  He  sought  and  collected  everything  that  shines 
and  gleams  in  varying  colour.  That  was  his  world,  and  the 
basis  of  his  art. 

Pillars  of  marble  and  porphyry,  groups  of  ivory  and  bronze, 
lustres  of  Venetian  glass,  gilded  consoles  with  small  busts,  great 
tables  supported  by  gilded  satyrs  and  inlaid  with  variegated 
mosaics,  form  the  surroundings  of  that  astonishing  work  "The 
Trial   of  the   Model."      Upon   a   marble    table   a   young   girl  is 

VOL.  III.  6 


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[Champoiiion  sc, 
FoRTUNY :    "  The  Trial  of  the  Model." 
(By  permission  of  Messrs.  Boussod,  Valadon  <S»  Co.,  the  owners  of  the  copyright,) 

Standing  naked,  posing  before  a  row  of  academicians  in  the 
costume  of  the  Louis  XV.  period,  while  each  one  of  them  gives 
his  judgment  by  a  movement  or  an  expression  of  the  face.  One 
of  them  has  approached  quite  close  and  is  examining  the  little 
woman  through  his  lorgnette.  All  the  costumes  gleam  in  a 
thousand  hues  which  the  marble  reflects.  By  his  picture  "The 
Poet"  or  "The  Rehearsal,"  he  reached  his  highest  point  in  the 
capricious  analysis  of  light.  In  an  old  Rococo  garden,  with 
the  brilliant  facade  of  the  Alhambra  as  its  background,  there  is 
a  gathering  of  gentlemen  assembled  to  witness  the  rehearsal  of 
a  tragedy.  The  heroine,  a  tall,  charming,  luxuriant  beauty,  has 
just  fallen  into  a  faint.  On  the  other  hand  the  hero,  holding 
the  lady  on  his  right  arm,  is  reading  the  verses  of  his  part 
from  a  large  manuscript.  The  gentlemen  are  listening  and 
exchanging  remarks  with  the  air  of  connoisseurs  ;  one  of  them 
closes  his  eyes  to  listen  with  thorough  attention.  Here  the 
entire  painting  flashes  like  a  rocket,  and  is  iridescent  and  bril- 
liant like  a  peacock^s  tail.  Fortuny  splits  the  rays  of  the  sun 
into  endless   nuances  which  are  scarcely  perceptible   to   the   eye, 


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IS 


Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.\ 


FoRTUNY  :   •*  The  Rehearsal." 


and  gives  expression  to  their  flashing  glitter  with  astonishing 
delicacy.  Henri  Regnault,  who  visited  him  at  that  time  in 
Rome,  wrote  to  a  Parisian  friend  :  "  The  time  I  spent  with 
Fortuny  yesterday  is  haunting  me  still.  What  a  magnificent 
fellow  he  is!  He  paints  the  most  marvellous  things  and  is  the 
master  of  us  all.  I  wish  I  could  show  you  the  two  or  three 
pictures  that  he  has  in  hand,  or  his  etchings  and  water-colours. 
They  inspired  me  with  a  real  disgust  of  my  own.  Ah !  Fortuny, 
you  spoil  my  sleep." 

Even  as  an  etcher  he  caught  all  the  technical  finesses  and 
appetizing  piquancies  of  his  great  forerunner  Goya.  It  is 
only  with  very  light  and  spirited  strokes  that  the  outlines  of 
his  figures  are  drawn ;  then,  as  in  Goya,  comes  the  aquatint,  the 
colour  which  covers  the  background  and  gives  locality,  depth, 
and  light.  A  few  scratches  with  a  needle,  a  black  spot,  a  light 
made  by  a  judiciously  inserted  patch  of  white,  and  he  gives  his 
figures  life  and  character,  causing  them  to  emerge  from  the 
black  depth  of  the  background  like  mysterious  visions.  "The 
Dead  Arab,"  covered  with  his  black  cloak,  and  lying  on  the 
ground  with  his  musket  on  his  arm,  "  The  Shepherd  "  on  the 
stump  of  a  pillar,  "  The  Serenade,"  "  The  Reader,"  "  The  Tam- 
bourine Player,"  "The  Pensioner,"  the  picture  of  the  gentleman 


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UAri.^ 


with  a  pig-tail  bending 
over  his  flowers,  "  The 
Anchorite,"  and  "  The 
Arab  mourning  over  the 
Body  of  his  Friend,"  are 
the  most  important  of  his 
plates,  which  are  some- 
times pungent  and  spirited, 
and  sometimes  sombre  and 
fantastic. 

In  the  picture  "The 
Strand  of  Portici "  he  at- 
tempted to  strike  out  a 
new  path.  He  was  tired 
of  the  gay  rags  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  as  he 
said  himself,  and  meant  to 
paint  for  the  future  only 
subjects  from  surrounding 
life  in  an  entirely  modern 
manner  like  that  of  Manet.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  carry 
out  this  change  any  further.  He  passed  away  in  Rome  on 
November  2 1st,  1874.  When  the  unsold  works  which  he  left 
were  put  up  to  auction  the  smallest  sketches  fetched  high  figures, 
and  even  his  etchings  were  bought  at  marvellous  prices. 

In  these  days  the  enthusiasm  for  Fortuny  is  no  longer  so 
glowing.  The  capacity  to  paint  became  so  ordinary  in  the 
course  of  years  that  it  was  presupposed  as  a  matter  of  course  ; 
it  was  a  necessary  acquirement  for  an  artist  to  have  before 
approaching  his  pictures  in  a  psychological  fashion.  And  in 
this  latter  respect  there  is  a  deficiency  in  Fortuny.  He  is  a 
channeur  who  dazzles  the  eyes,  but  rather  creates  a  sense 
of  astonishment  than  holds  the  spectator  in  his  grip.  Beneath 
his  hands  painting  has  become  a  matter  of  pure  virtuosity,  a 
marvellous,  flaring  firework  that  amazes  and — leaves  us  cold 
after  all.  With  enchanting  delicacy  he  runs  through  the 
brilliant    gamut    of   radiant   colours    upon    the    small    keyboard 


Fortuny : 


[Waltnersc. 
'The  China  Vase/' 


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of  his  little  pictures  painted  with  a  pocket-lens,  and  everything 
glitters  golden,  like  the  dress  of  a  fairy.  To  the  patience  of 
Meissonier  he  united  a  delicacy  of  colour,  a  wealth  of  pictorial 
point,  and  a  crowd  of  delightful  trifles,  which  combine  to 
make  him  the  most  exquisite  and  fascinating  juggler  of  the 
pallet — an  amazing  colourist,  a  wonderful  clown,  an  original 
and  subtile  painter  with  vibrating  nerves,  but  not  a  truly  great 
and  moving  artist.  His  pictures  are  dainties  in  gold  frames, 
jewels  delicately  set,  astonishing  efforts  of  patience,  broken  by 
a  flashing,  rocket-like  esprit ;  but  beneath  the  glittering  surface 
one  is  conscious  of  there  being  neither  heart  nor  soul.  His 
art  might  have  been  French  or  Italian,  just  as  appropriately  as 
Spanish.  It  is  the  art  of  virtuosos  of  the  brush,  and  Fortuny 
himself  is  the  initiator  of  a  religion  which  found  its  enthusiastic 
followers,  not  in  Madrid  alone,  but  in  Naples,  Paris,  and  Rome. 
Yet  Spanish  painting,  so  far  as  it  is  individual,  works  even 
now  upon  the  lines  of  Fortuny.  After  his  death  it  divided 
into  two  streams.  The  official  endeavour  of  the  academies  was 
to  keep  the  grand  historical  painting  in  flower,  in  accord  with 
the  proud  programme  announced  by  Francisco  Tubino  in  his 
brochure  The  Renaissance  of  Spanish  Art.  "Our  contem- 
porary artists,"  he  writes,  "  fill  all  civilized  Europe  with  their 
fame,  and  are  the  object  of  admiration  on  the  far  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  We  have  a  peculiar  school  of  our  own  with  a 
hundred  teachers,  and  it  shuns  comparison  with  no  school  in 
any  other  country.  At  home  the  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts 
watches  over  the  progress  of  painting ;  it  has  perfected  the 
laws  by  which  our  Academy  in  Rome  is  guided,  the  Academy 
in  the  proud  possession  of  Spain  and  situated  so  splendidly 
upon  the  Janiculum.  In  Madrid  there  is  a  succession  of  biennial 
exhibitions,  and  there  is  no  deficiency  in  prizes  nor  in  purchases. 
Spanish  painting  does  not  merely  adorn  the  citizen's  house  or  the 
boudoir  of  the  fair  sex  with  easel-pieces;  by  its  productions  it 
recalls  the  great  episodes  of  popular  history,  which  are  able  to 
excite  men  to  glorious  deeds.  Austere,  like  our  national  character, 
it  forbids  fine  taste  to  descend  to  the  painting  of  anything 
indecorous.     Before  everything  we  want  grand  paintings  for  our 


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galleries ;  the  commercial  spirit  is  no  master  of  ours.  In  such 
a  way  the  glory  of  Zurburan,  Murillo,  and  Velasquez  lives  once 
more  in  a  new  sense." 

The  results  of  such  efforts  were  those  historical  pictures  which 
at  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of  1878,  the  Munich  International 
Exhibition  of  1883,  and  at  every  larger  exhibition  since  became 
so  exceedingly  refreshing  to  all  admirers  of  the  illustration  of 
history  upon  ground  that  was  genuinely  Spanish.  At  the  Paris 
World  Exhibition  of  1878,  Pradilla's  "Joan  .the  Mad"  received 
the  large  gold  medal,  and  was  indeed  a  good  picture  in  the 
manner  of  Laurens.  Philip  the  Fair  is  dead.  The  funereal 
train,  paying  him  the  last  honours,  has  come  to  a  halt  upon  a 
high-road,  and  the  unhappy  princess  rushes  up  with  floating  hair 
and  staring  eyes  fixed  upon  the  bier  which  hides  the  remains 
of  her  husband.  The  priests  and  women  kneeling  around  regard 
the  unfortunate  mad  woman  with  mournful  pity.  To  the  right 
the  members  of  the  Court  are  grouped  near  a  little  chapel  where 
a  priest  is  celebrating  a  mass  for  the  dead;  to  the  left  the  peasantry 
are  crowding  round  to  witness  the  ceremony.  Great  wax  candles 
are  burning,  and  the  chapel  is  lit  up  with  the  sombre  glow  of 
torches.  This  was  all  exceedingly  well  painted,  carefully  balanced 
in  composition,  and  graceful  in  drawing.  At  the  Munich  Ex- 
hibition of  1883  he  received  the  gold  medal  for  his  "Surrender 
of  Granada,  1492,"  a  picture  which  made  a  great  impression  at 
the  time  upon  the  German  historical  painters,  as  Pradilla  had 
made  a  transition  from  the  brown  bituminous  painting  of  Laurens 
to  a  "  modern  "  painting  in  grey,  which  did  more  justice  to  the 
illumination  of  objects  beneath  the  open  sky.  In  the  same  year 
Casadds  large  painting  "  The  Bells  of  Huesca,"  with  the  ground 
streaming  with  blood,  fifteen  decapitated  bodies  and  as  many 
bodiless  heads,  was  a  creation  which  was  widely  admired.  Vera 
had  exhibited  his  picture,  filled  with  wild  fire  and  pathos,  "  The 
Defence  of  Numantia,"  and  Manuel  Ramirez  his  "  Execution  of 
Don  Alvaro  de  Luna,"  with  the  pallid  head  which  has  rolled 
from  the  steps  and  stares  at  the  spectator  in  such  a  ghastly 
manner.  In  his  "  Conversion  of  the  Duke  of  Gandia,"  Moreno 
Carbonero  displayed    an    open    coffin   d    la   Laurens :    as   Grand 


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Equerry  to  the  Empress 
Isabella  at  the  Court  of 
Charles  V.,  the  Duke  of 
Gandia,  after  the  death 
of  his  mistress,  has  to 
superintend  the  burial  of 
her  corpse  in  the  vault  at 
Granada,  and  as  the  coffin 
is  opened  there,  to  confirm 
the  identity  of  the  person, 
the  distorted  features  of 
the  dead  make  such  a 
powerful  impression  upon 
the  careless  noble  that 
he  takes  a  vow  to  devote 
himself  to  God.  Ricardo 
VUlodas  in  his  picture 
"  Victoribus  Gloria  "  re- 
presents the  beginning  ol 
one    of    those    sea-battles 

which  Augustus  made  gladiators  fight  for  the  amusement  of  the 
Roman  people.  By  Antonio  Casanova  y  Estorach  there  was 
a  picture  of  King  Ferdinand  the  Holy,  who  upon  Maundy 
Thursday  is  washing  the  feet  of  eleven  poor  old  men  and 
giving  them  food.  And  a  special  sensation  was  made  by  the 
great  ghost  picture  of  Benliure  y  Gil,  which  he  named  "A 
Vision  in  the  Colosseum."  Saint  Almaquio,  who  was  slain, 
according  to  tradition,  by  gladiators  in  the  Colosseum,  is  seen 
floating  in  the  air,  as  he  swings  in  fanatical  ecstasy  a  crucifix 
from  which  light  is  streaming.  Upon  one  side  men  who  have 
borne  witness  to  Christianity  with  their  blood  chant  their 
hymns  of  praise ;  upon  the  other  troops  of  female  martyrs 
clothed  in  white  and  holding  tapers  in  their  hands  move  by  ; 
but  below  the  earth  has  opened  and  the  dead  rise  for 
the  celebration  of  this  midnight  service,  praying  from  their 
graves,  while  the  full  moon  shines  through  the  windows  of  the 
ruins  and  pours  its  pale  light  upon  the  phantom  congregation. 


Pradilla:  a  Fresco  at  the  Murga  Palace. 


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Anftai  UHMftt  Z4i/,] 


Fradilla:   "On  the  Beach.*^ 


Ha»^/>taH^i  htJitt, 


There  was  exhibited  by  CAeca  "A  Barbarian  Onset,"  a  Gallic 
horde  of  riders  thundering  past  a  Roman  temple,  from  which 
the  priestesses  are  flying  in  desperation.  Francisco  Amerigo 
treated  upon  a  huge  canvas  a  scene  from  the  sacking  of  Rome 
in  1527,  when  the  despoiling  troops  of  Charles  V.  plundered 
the  Eternal  City.  "  Soldiers  intoxicated  with  wine  and  lust, 
tricked  out  with  bishops*  mitres  and  wrapped  in  the  robes  of 
priests,  are  desecrating  the  temples  of  God.  Nunneries  are 
violated,  and  fathers  kill  their  daughters  to  save  them  from 
shame."  So  ran  the  historical  explanation  set  upon  the  broad 
gold  frame. 

But,  after  all,  these  historical  pictures,  in  spite  of  their  great 
spaces  of  canvas,  are  of  no  consequence  when  one  comes  to 
characterize  the  efforts  of  modern  art.  Explanations  could  be 
given  showing  that  in  the  land  of  bull-fights  this  painting  of 
horrors  maintained  itself  longer  than  elsewhere,  but  the  hopes 
of  those  who  prophesied  from  it  a  new  golden  period  for 
historical  painting  were  entirely  disappointed.  For  Spanish  art, 
as  in  earlier  days  for  French  art,  the  historical  picture  has 
merely    the    importance    implied    by    the    Prix   de    Rome,      A 


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SPAIN  83 

method  of  colouring  which  is  often  dazzling  in  result,  and 
a  vigorous  study  of  nature,  preserved  from  the  danger  of 
"beautiful"  tinting,  make  the  Spanish  works  different  from  the 
older  ones.  Their  very  passion  often  has  an  effect  which  is 
genuine,  brutal,  and  of  telling  power.  In  the  best  of  these 
pictures  one  believes  that  a  wild  temperament  really  does  burst 
in  flame  through  the  accepted  convention  that  the  painters 
have  delight  in  the  horrible,  which  the  older  French  artists 
resorted  to  merely  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  veritable  tableaux. 
But  in  the  rank  and  file,  in  place  of  the  Southern  vividness  of 
expression  which  has  been  sincerely  felt,  histrionic  pose  is  the 
predominant  element,  the  petty  situation  of  the  stage  set  upon 
a  gigantic  canvas,  and  in  addition  to  this  a  straining  after  effect 
which  grazes  the  boundary  line  where  the  horrible  degenerates 
into  the  ridiculous.  Through  their  extraordinary  ability  they 
all  compel  respect,  but  they  have  not  enriched  the  treasury  of 
modem  emotion,  nor  have  they  transformed  the  older  historical 
painting  in  the  essence  of  its  being.  And  the  man  who  handles 
again  and  again  motives  derived  from  what  happens  to  be  the 
mode  in  colours  renders  no  service  to  art.  Delaroche  is  dead  ; 
but  though  he  may  be  disinterred  he  cannot  be  brought  to 
life,  and  the  Spaniards  merely  dug  out  of  the  earth  mummies 
in  which  the  breath  of  life  was  wanting.  Their  works  are 
not  guide-posts  to  the  future,  but  the  last  revenants  of  that 
histrionic  spirit  which  wandered  like  a  ghost  through  the  art 
of  all  nations.  Even  the  composition,  the  shining  colours,  the 
settles  and  carpets  picturesquely  spread  upon  the  ground,  are 
the  same  as  in  Gallait.  How  often  have  these  precious  stage- 
properties  done  duty  in  tragic  funereal  service  since  Delaroche's 
"  Murder  of  the  Duke  of  Guise  "  and  Piloty's  "  Seni "  ! 

And  these  conceptions  nourished  upon  historical  painting  had 
an  injurious  influence  upon  the  handling  of  the  modern  picture 
of  the  period.  Even  here  there  is  an  endeavour  to  make  a 
compromise  with  the  traditional  historic  picture,  since  artists 
painted  scenes  from  modern  popular  life  upon  great  spaces  of 
canvas,  transforming  them  into  pageants  or  pictures  of  tragical 
ceremonies,    and    sought    too    much    after    subjects   with    which 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


ViLi.EGAs:   "The  Death  or  the  Matador. 


the  splendid  and  motley  colours  of  historical  painting  would 
accord.  Viniegra  y  Lasso  and  Mas  y  Fondevilla  execute  great 
processions  filing  past,  with  bishops,  monks,  priests,  and  choristers. 
All  the  figures  stand  beaming  in  brightness  against  the  sky,  but 
the  light  glances  from  the  oily  mantles  of  the  figures  without 
real  effect.  Alcazar  Tejedor  paints  a  young  priest  reading  his 
"  First  Mass  "  in  the  presence  of  his  parents,  and  merely  renders 
a  theatrical  scene  in  modem  costume,  merely  transfers  to  an 
event  of  the  present  that  familiar  "  moment  of  highest  excite- 
ment" so  popular  since  the  time  of  Delaroche.  By  his  "Death 
of  the  Matador,"  and  "  The  Christening,"  bought  by  Vanderbilt 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs,  Josi  Villegas,  in  ability 
the  most  striking  of  them  all,  acquired  a  European  name ; 
whilst  a  hospital  scene  by  Luis  Jimenez  of  Seville  is  the 
Sringle  picture  in  which  something  of  the  seriousness  of  French 
Naturalism  is  perceptible,  but  it  is  an  isolated  example  from  a 
province  of  interest  which  is  otherwise  not  to  be  found  in 
Spain. 

Indeed  the  Spaniards  are  by  no  means  most  attractive  in 
gravely  ceremonial  and  stiffly  dignified  pictures,  but  rather 
when    they   indulge    in    unpretentious  "  little    painting "   in   the 


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SPAIN  85 

manner  of  Fortuny.  Yet  even  these  wayward  "  little  painters/* 
with  their  varied  glancing  colour,  are  not  to  be  properly  reckoned 
amongst  the  moderns.  Their  painting  is  an  art  dependent  on 
deftness  of  hand,  and  knows  no  higher  aim  than  to  bring 
together  in  a  picture  as  many  brilliant  things  as  possible,  to 
make  a  charming  bouquet  with  glancing  effects  of  costume, 
and  the  play,  the  reflections,  and  the  caprices  of  sunbeams. 
The  earnest  modern  art  which  sprang  from  Manet  and  the 
Fontainebleau  painters  avoids  this  kaleidoscopic  sport  with  varied 
spots  of  colour.  All  these  little  folds  and  mouldings,  these 
prismatic  arts  of  blending,  and  these  curious  reflections  are 
what  the  moderns  have  no  desire  to  see :  they  blink  their  eyes 
to  gain  a  clearer  conception  of  the  chief  values ;  they  simplify ; 
they  refuse  to  be  led  from  the  main  point  by  a  thousand  trifles. 
Their  pictures  are  works  of  art,  while  those  of  the  disciples  of 
Fortuny  are  sleights  of  artifice.  In  all  this  bric-d-brac  art  there 
is  no  question  of  any  earnest  analysis  of  light.  The  motley 
spots  of  colour  yield,  no  doubt,  a  certain  concord  of  their  own  ; 
but  there  is  a  want  of  tone  and  air,  a  want  of  all  finer  senti- 
ment :  everything  seems  to  have  been  dyed,  instead  of  giving 
the  effect  of  colour.  Nevertheless  those  who  were  independent 
enough  not  to  let  themselves  be  entirely  bewitched  by  the  de- 
ceptive adroitness  of  a  conjurer  have  painted  little  pictures  of 
talent  and  refinement;  taking  Fortuny's  Rococo  works  as  their 
starting-point,  they  have  represented  the  fashionable  world  and 
the  highly  coloured  and  warm-blooded  life  of  the  people  of 
modem  Spain  with  a  bold  and  spirited  facility.  But  they  have 
not  gone  beyond  the  observation  of  the  external  sides  of  life. 
They  can  show  guitarreros  clattering  with  castanets  and  pan- 
darets,  majas  dancing,  and  ribboned  heroes  conquering  bulls 
instead  of  Jews  and  Moors.  Yet  their  pictures  are  at  an)  rate 
blithe,  full  of  colour,  flashing  with  sensuous  brilliancy,  and  at 
times  they  are  executed  with  stupendous  skill. 

Martin  Rico  was  for  the  longest  period  in  Italy  with  Fortuny,. 
and  his  pictures  also  have  the  glitter  of  a  casket  of  jewels,  the 
pungency  of  sparkling  champagne.  Some  of  his  sea-pieces, 
in  particular — for  instance,  those    of   the    canal    in   Venice    and 


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86  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  Bay  of  Fontarabia — might  have  been  painted  by  Fortuny. 
In  others  he  seems  quieter  and  more  harmonious  than  the 
latter.  His  execution  is  more  powerful,  less  marked  by  spirited 
stippling,  and  his  light  gains  in  intensity  and  atmospheric 
refinement  what  it  loses  in  mocking  caprices,  while  his  little 
figures  have  a  more  animated  effect,  notwithstanding  the  less 
piquant  manner  in  which  they  are  painted.  Their  outlines  are 
scarcely  perceptible,  and  yet  they  are  seen  walking,  jostling, 
and  pressing  against  each  other,  whereas  those  of  Fortuny, 
precisely  through  the  more  subtile  and  microscopic  method  in 
which  they  have  been  executed,  often  seem  as  though  they 
were  benumbed  in  movement.  Certain  market  scenes,  with  a 
dense  crowd  of  buyers  and  sellers,  are  peculiarly  spirited,  rapid 
sketches,  with  a  gleaming  charm  of  colour. 

Zamacois,  Casanova^  and  Raimundo  de  Madrazo^  Fortuny's 
brother-in-law,  show  no  less  virtuosity  of  the  pallet  Sea-pieces 
and  little  landscapes  alternate  with  scenes  from  Spanish  popular 
life,  where  they  revel,  like  Fortuny,  in  a  scintillating  motleyness 
of  colour.  Later,  in  Paris,  Madrazo  was  likewise  much  sought 
after  as  a  painter  of  ladies'  portraits,  as  he  lavished  on  his 
pictures  sometimes  a  fine  haut  goUt  of  fragrant  Rococo  grace 
d  la  Chaplin,  and  sometimes  devoted  himself  with  taste  and 
deftness  to  symphonic  tours  de  force  d  la  Carolus  Duran. 
Particularly  memorable  is  the  portrait  of  a  graceful  young  girl 
in  red,  exhibited  in  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1883.  She  is 
seated  upon  a  sofa  of  crimson  silk,  and  her  feet  rest  upon 
a  dark  red  carpet.  And  equally  memorable  was  a  pierrette 
in  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of  1889,  whose  costume  ran 
through  the  whole  gamut  from  white  to  rose-colour.  Her  skirt 
was  of  a  darker,  her  bodice  of  a  brighter  red,  and  a  light 
rose-coloured  stocking  peeped  from  beneath  a  grey  silk  petti- 
coat; over  her  shoulders  lay  a  white  swansdown  cape,  and 
white  gloves  and  white  silk  shoes  with  rose-coloured  bows 
completed  her  toilette.  His  greatest  picture  represented  "The 
End  of  a  Mask  Ball."  Before  the  Paris  Opera  cabs  are  waiting 
with  coachmen  sleeping  or  smoking,  whilst  a  troop  of  pierrots 
and  Pierrettes,  harlequins,  Japanese  girls,  Rococo  gentlemen,  and 


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iHanfstdngl  htlio, 
Bknuurk  y  Gil  :  *'  A  Vision  in  the  Colosseum." 

Turkish  women  are  streaming  out,  sparkling  with  the  most 
glittering  colours  in  the  grey  winter  morning,  into  which  the 
gas  of  the  lamps  casts  a  paling  yellow  light. 

Even  those  who  made  their  chief  success  as  historical 
painters  became  new  beings  when  they  came  forward  with  such 
piquant  "  little  paintings."  Francisco  Domingo  in  Valencia  is 
the  Spanish  Meissonier,  who  has  painted  little  horsemen  before 
an  inn,  mercenary  soldiers,  newspaper-readers,  and  philosophers 
of  the  time  of  Louis  XV.,  with  all  the  daintiness  in  colour 
associated  with  the  French  patriarch — although  a  huge  canvas, 
"The  Last  Day  of  Sagunt,"  has  the  reputation  of  being  his 
chief  performance.  In  the  year  in  which  he  exhibited  his 
**  Vision  in  the  Colosseum,"  Benliure  y  Gil  had  success  with  two 
little  pictures  stippled  in  varied  colours,  the  "  Month  of  Mary " 
and  the  "Distribution  of  Prizes  in  Valencia,"  in  which  children, 
smartened    and    dressed    in    white    frocks,    are    moving    in    the 


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Casado:   "The  Bells  of  Huesca." 

ante-chambers  of  a  church,  which  are  festally  adorned.  Casado^ 
painter  of  the  sanguinary  tragedy  of  Huesca,  showed  himself  an 
admirable  little  master  full  of  elegance  and  grace  in  "  The 
Bull-fighter's  Reward,"  a  small  eighteenth-century  picture.  The 
master  of  the  great  hospital  picture,  Jimenez^  took  the  world  by 
surprise  at  the  very  same  time  by  a  "Capuchin  Friar's  Sermon 
before  the  Cathedral  of  Seville,"  which  flashed  with  colour. 
Emilio  Sola  y  Frances,  whose  historical  masterpiece  was  the 
"  Expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Spain  in  1493,"  delights  elsewhere 
in  spring.  Southern  gardens  with  luxuriant  vegetation,  and 
delicate  Rococo  ladies,  holding  up  their  skirts  filled  with  blooming 
roses,  or  bending  to  the  grass  to  pick  field-flowers.  Antonio 
Fabris  was  led  to  the  East  by  the  influence  of  Regnault,  and 
excited  attention  by  his  aquarelles  and  studies  in  pen  and  ink,  in 
which  he  represented  Oriental  and  Roman  street  figures  with 
astonishing  adroitness.  But  the  ne  plus  ultra  is  attained  by  the 
bold  and  winning  art  of  Pradilla^  which  is  like  a  thing  shot  out  of 


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SPAIN  89 

a  pistol.  He  is  the  greatest  product  of  contemporary  Spain, 
a  man  of  ingenious  and  improvizing  talent,  moving  with  ease 
in  the  most  varied  fields.  In  the  bold  and  spirited  decorations 
with  which  he  embellished  Spanish  palaces,  he  sported  with 
nymphs  and  Loves  and  floating  genii  d  la  Tiepolo.  All  the 
grace  of  the  Rococo  period  is  cast  over  his  works  in  the  Palais 
Murga  in  Madrid.  The  figures  join  each  other  with  ease — 
cbquettish  nymphs  swaying  upon  boughs,  and  audacious  **  Putti " 
tumbling  over  backwards  in  quaint  games.  Nowhere  is  there 
academic  sobriety,  and  everywhere  life,  pictorial  inspiration,  the 
intoxicating  joyousness  of  a  fancy  creating  without  effort  and 
revelling  in  the  festal  delight  of  the  senses.  In  the  accom- 
panying wall-pictures  he  revived  the  age  of  the  troubadours, 
of  languishing  love-song  and  knightly  romance  free  from  the 
burden  of  thought,  in  tenderly  graceful  and  fluent  figures.  And 
this  same  painter,  who  filled  these  huge  spaces  of  wall,  lightly 
dallying  with  subjects  from  the  world  of  fable,  seems  another 
man  when  he  grasps  fragments  from  the  life  of  our  own  age  in 
pithy  inspirations  sure  in  achievement.  His  historical  pictures 
are  works  which  compel  respect ;  but  those  paintings  of  the 
most  diminutive  scale,  where  he  represented  scenes  from  the 
Roman  carnival  and  the  life  in  Spanish  camps,  the  shore  of 
the  sea  and  the  joy  of  a  popular  merry-making,  with  countless 
figures  of  the  most  intense  vividness,  carried  out  with  an  un- 
rivalled execution  of  detail  which  is  yet  free  from  anything 
laboured,  and  full  of  splendour  and  glowing  colour,  these  indeed 
are  performances  of  painting  beside  which  as  a  musical  counter- 
part at  best  Paganini's  variations  on  the  G  string  are  com- 
parable— sleights  of  art  of  which  only  Pradilla  is  capable  in 
these  days,  and  such  as  only  Fortuny  painted  thirty  years  ago. 
In  this  marvellous  acrobat  of  the  pallet  the  strength  of  the 
Romance  genius  is  embodied.  He  not  only  prescribes  subject, 
technique,  and  colour  for  the  Spaniards  of  the  present,  but 
he  is  also  the  spiritual  ancestor  to  whom  modern  Italian 
painting  may  be  traced. 


VOL.  m. 


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CHAPTER   XXXVI 

ITALY 

Fortunes  influence  on  the  Italians,  especially  on  the  school  of  Naples, — 
Domenico  Morelli  and  his  followers:  F,  P.  Michetti,  Edoardo 
Dalbono^  Alceste  Camfriani,  Giacomo  di  ChiricOy  Rubens  Santoro, 
Edoardo  Toffano. — Prominence  of  the  costume-picture, —  Venice  : 
Favrettoy  Lonza, — Florence:  Andreotti,  Conti,  Gelli,  Vinea, — The 
peculiar  position  of  Segantini, — OtheT^wise  anecdotic  painting  still 
preponderates.— Chiericit  Rotta^  Vannuttelli,  Monteverde,  Tito, — 
Reasons  why  the  further  development  of  modern  art  was  generally 
completed  not  so  much  on  Latin  as  on  Germanic  soil, 

THE  sun  of  Italy  has  not  grown  paler  ;  the  Gulf  of  Baiae 
shines  with  its  old  brightness ;  the  mighty  oaks  of  Lerici 
still  grow  luxuriantly ;  the  marvels  of  Michael  Angelo  and  Titian 
still  hang  in  the  galleries  ;  and  it  is  only  the  painting  of  Italy 
that  has  nothing  any  longer  of  that  lofty  majesty  in  the  shadow 
of  which  the  world  lay  in  the  sixteenth  century :  it  has  become 
petty,  worldly,  and  frivolous.  This  reflection  runs  through  most 
discussions  on  modern  Italian  pictures  as  a  burden  of  complaint, 
whereas  it  would  be  more  just  to  make  it  a  matter  of  praise 
for  the  moderns  that  they  should  differ  from  the  old  masters. 
To  compare  living  Italy  with  the  past,  to  hold  up  for  ever  the 
great  geniuses  of  old  time  as  figures  of  warning  before  the 
painters  of  the  present,  were  to  condemn  the  latter  to  a  stationary 
condition,  to  the  activity  of  mere  copyists.  It  is  a  sign  of  power 
and  self- consciousness  that,  instead  of  copying  their  great 
masters,  they  have  founded  a  new  and  original  school  by  their 
own  efforts— that,  even  in  this  country,  where  the  artist  is 
oppressed    by    the    wealth    of    old    masterpieces,    painting    has 


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ITALY  91 

created  for  itself  a  style  of  its  own.  Italy  is  no  longer  eccle- 
siastical, no  longer  papal,  but  has  become  a  modem  and 
mundane  country,  a  new  nation.  This  is  reflected  in  Italian 
pictures.  They  are  vivid  and  joyous  like  the  Italian  people. 
And  to  have  won  this  freedom  is  the  merit  of  the  living  genera- 
tion. Even  at  the  World  Exhibition  of  1855  Edmond  About 
called  Italy  "the  grave  of  painting"  in  his  Voyage  a  travers 
r Exposition  des  Beaux-Arts,  He  mentions  a  few  Piedmontesc 
professors,  but  about  Florence,  Naples,  and  Rome  he  found 
nothing  to  say.  "And  Venice?"  he  queries  at  the  end.  "Venice 
is  situated  in  Austria."  The  Great  Exhibition  of  1862  in  England 
was  productive  of  no  more  favourable  criticism,  for  W.  Burger's 
account  is  as  little  consolatory  as  About *s.  '*  Renowned  Italy 
and  proud  Spain,"  writes  Burger,  "have  no  longer  any  painters 
who  can  rival  those  of  other  schools.  There  is  nothing  to  be 
said  about  the  rooms  where  the  Italians,  Spanish,  and  Swiss 
are  exhibited."  It  was  only  at  the  World  Exhibition  of  1867, 
after  the  young  kingdom  had  been  founded,  that  tendencies 
towards  a  certain  elevation  were  displayed,  and  now  Italy  has 
a  throng  of  vigorous  painters.  In  Angelo  de  Gubernati's  lexicon 
of  artists  there  are  over  two  thousand  names,  some  of  which 
are  favourably  known  in  other  countries  also.  Italia  fard  da  sc 
has  likewise  become  a  saying  in  art. 

Whether  it  be  from  direct  influence  or  similarity  of  origin, 
Fortuny  has  found  his  ablest  successors  amongst  the  Neapolitan 
artists.  As  early  as  the  seventeenth  century  the  school  of 
painting  there  was  very  different  from  those  in  the  rest  of  Italy ; 
the  Greek  blood  of  the  population  and  the  wild,  romantic 
scenery  of  the  Abruzzi  gave  it  a  peculiar  stamp.  Southern  brio, 
the  joy  of  life,  colour,  and  warmth,  in  contrast  with  the  noble 
Roman  ideal  of  form,  were  the  qualities  of  Salvator  Rosa,  Luca 
Giordano,  and  Ribera,  bold  and  fiery  spirits.  And  a  breath  of 
such  power  seems  to  live  in  their  descendants  still.  Even  now- 
Neapolitan  painting  sings,  dances,  and  laughs  in  a  bacchanal  of 
colour,  pleasure,  delight  in  life,  and  glowing  sunshine. 

A  wild  and  restless  spirit,  Domenico  Morelli,  whose  biograph>' 
is  like  a  chapter  from   Rinaldo  Rinaldini,    is   the   head   of  this 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


KuHst  fur  All*.] 


MoRELLi:   "The  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony." 


Neapolitan  school.  He  was  born  on  August  4th,  1826,  and  in 
his  youth  he  is  said  to  have  been,  first  a  pupil  in  a  seminary  of 
priests,  then  an  apprentice  with  a  mechanician,  and  for  some 
time  even  facchino.  He  never  saw  such  a  thing  as  an  academy. 
Indeed  it  was  a  Bohemian  life  that  he  led,  taking  his  meals  on 
bread  and  cheese,  wandering  for  weeks  together  with  Byron's 
poems  in  his  pocket  upon  the  seashore  between  Posilippo  and 
Baiae.  In  1848  he  fought  against  King  Ferdinand,  and  was  left 
severely  wounded  on  the  battle-field.  After  these  episodes  of 
youth  he  first  became  a  painter,  beginning  his  career  in  1855 
with  the  large  picture  "The  Iconoclasts,"  followed  in  1857  by 
a  "Tasso,"  and  in  1858  by  a  "Saul  and  David."  Biblical 
pictures  remained  his  province  even  later,  and  he  was  the  only 
artist  in  Italy  who  handled  these  subjects  from  an  entirely 
novel  point  of  view,  pouring  into  them  a  peculiarly  exalted  and 
imaginative  spirit  A  Madonna  rocking  her  sleeping  Child, 
whilst  her  song  is  accompanied  by  a  legion  of  cherubs  playing 
upon  instruments,  "The  Reviling  of  Christ,"  "The  Ascension/' 
"The  Descent  from  the  Cross,"  "Christ  walking  on  the  Sea," 
"The  Raising  of  the  Daughter   of  Jairus,"   "The  Expulsion  of 


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the  Money-Changers  from 
the  Temple,"  "The  Marys 
at  the  Grave,"  "  Salve 
Regina,"  and  "  Mary 
Magdalen  meeting  Christ 
Risen  from  the  Grave," 
are  the  principal  stages  of 
his  great  Christian  epic, 
and  in  their  imaginative 
naturalism  a  new  revo- 
lutionary language  finds 
utterance  through  all  these 
pictures.  There  is  in  them 
at  times  something  of  the 
mystical  quietude  of  the 
East,  and  at  times  some- 
thing of  the  passionate 
breath  of  Eugene  Dela- 
croix. In  these  pictures 
he  revealed  himself  as  a 
true  child  of  the  land  of 
the  sun,  a  lover  of  paint- 
ing which  scintillates  and 
flickers.  As  yet  hard,  pon- 
derous, dark,  and  plastic 
in  "  The  Iconoclasts,"  he 
was  a  worshipper  of  light 
and  resplendent  in  colour 
in  the  "Mary  Magdalen." 

"The  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony"  probably  marks  the  summit 
of  his  creative  power  in  the  matter  of  colour.  Morelli  has  con- 
ceived the  whole  temptation  as  an  hallucination.  The  saint 
squats  upon  the  ground,  claws  with  his  fingers,  and  closes  his 
eyes  to  protect  himself  from  the  thoughts,  full  of  craving  sen- 
suality, which  are  flaming  in  him.  Yet  they  throng  ever  more 
thickly,  take  shape  ever  more  distinctly,  are  transformed  into 
red-haired  women  who  detach  themselves  from  corners   upon  all 


Kunsifiir  AiU.} 

MicHETTi:   "The  Corpus  Domini  Procession 
AT  Chieti." 


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94  MODERN  PAINTING 


iUan/stangl  helio, 
MicHETTX :   "  Going  to  Church." 


sides.  They  rise  from  beneath  the  matting,  wind  nearer  from 
the  depth  of  the  cavern,  even  the  breeze  caressing  the  fevered 
brow  of  the  tormented  man  changes  into  the  head  of  a  kissing 
girl.  Only  Naples  could  produce  an  artist  at  once  so  bizarre, 
so  many-sided  and  incoherent,  so  opulent  and  strange.  Younger 
men  of  talent  trooped  around  him.  A  fiery  spirit,  haughty  and 
independent,  he  became  the  teacher  of  all  the  younger  genera- 
tion. He  led  them  to  behold  the  sun  and  the  sea,  to  marvel 
at  nature  in  her  radiant  brightness.  Through  him  the  joy  in 
light  and  colour  came  into  Neapolitan  painting,  that  rejoicing 
in  colour  which  touches  such  laughing  concords  in  the  works  of 
his  pupil  Pao/o  Michetti, 

A  man  of  bold  and  magnificent  talent,  the  genuine  product 
of  the  wild  Abruzzi,  Michetti  was  the  son  of  a  day-labourer, 
like  Morelli.  However,  a  man  of  position  became  the  protector 
of  the  boy,  who  was  early  left  an  orphan.  But  neither  at  the 
Academy  at  Naples,  nor  in  Paris  and  London,  did  this  continue 
long.  As  early  as  1876  he  was  back  in  Naples,  and  settled 
amid  the  Abruzzi,  close  to  the  Adriatic,  in  Francavilla  a  Mare, 
near  Ostona,  a  little  nest  passed  just  before  the  traveller  goes 
on  board  the  Oriental  steamer  in  Brindisi.  Here  he  lives  out 
of  touch  with  old  pictures,  in  the  thick  of  the  vigorous  life  of 
the  Italian  people.  In  1877  he  painted  the  work  which  laid 
the  foundation  of  his  celebrity,  "  The  Corpus  Domini  Procession 
at  Chieti,"  a  picture  which  rose  like  a  firework  in  its  boisterous, 
rejoicing,  and  glaring  motleyness   of   colour.      The   procession  is 


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ITALY  95 

seen  just  coming  out  of  church  :  men,  women,  naked  children, 
monks,  priests,  a  canopy,  choristers  with  censers,  old  men  and 
youths,  people  who  kneel  and  people  who  laugh,  the  mist  of 
incense,  the  beams  of  the  sun,  flowers  scattered  on  the  ground, 
a  band  of  musicians,  and  a  church  facade  with  rich  and  many- 
coloured  ornaments.  There  is  the  play  of  variously  hued  silk, 
and  colours  sparkle  in  all  the  tints  of  the  prism.  Everything 
laughs,  the  faces  and  the  costumes,  the  flowers  and  the  sun- 
beams. Following  upon  this  came  a  picture  which  he  called 
"Spring  and  the  Loves."  It  represented  a  desolate  promontory 
in  the  blue  sea,  and  upon  it  a  troop  of  Cupids,  playing  round 
a  blooming  hedge  of  hawthorn,  are  scuffling,  buffeting  each 
other,  and  leaping  more  riotously  than  the  Neapolitan  street- 
boys.  Some  were  arrayed  like  little  Japanese,  some  like  Grecian 
terra-cotta  figures,  whilst  a  marble  bridge  in  the  neighbourhood 
was  shining  in  indigo  blue.  The  whole  picture  gleamed  with 
red,  blue,  green,  and  yellow  patches  of  colour :  a  serpentine  dance 
painted  twelve  years  before  the  appearance  of  Loie  Fuller.  Then 
he  painted  the  sea  again.  It  is  noon,  and  the  sultry  heat  broods 
over  the  azure  tide.  Naked  fishermen  are  standing  in  it,  and 
on  the  shore  gaily  dressed  women  are  searching  for  muscles  ; 
whilst  in  the  background  vessels,  with  the  sun  playing  on  their 
sails,  are  mirrored  brightly  in  the  water.  Or  the  moon  is  rising 
and  casts  greenish  reflections  upon  the  body  of  Christ,  which 
shines  like  phosphorus  as  it  is  being  taken  from  the  cross  :  or 
there  is  a  flowery  landscape  upon  a  summer  evening  ;  birds  are 
making  their  nest  for  the  night,  and  little  angels  are  kissing 
each  other  and  laughing.  In  all  these  pictures  Michetti  showed 
himself  an  improviser  of  astonishing  dexterity,  solving  every 
difficulty  as  though  it  were  child's  play,  and  shedding  a  brilliant 
colour  over  everything  —  a  man  to  whom  "  painting "  was  as 
much  a  matter  of  course  as  orthography  is  to  ourselves.  Even 
the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of  1878  made  him  celebrated  as  an 
artist,  and  from  that  time  his  name  was  to  the  Italian  ear  a 
symbol  for  something  new,  unexpected,  wild,  and  extravagant 
The  word  "Michetti"  means  splendid  materials,' dazzling  flesh- 
tones,  conflicting  hues  set  with  intention  beside  each  other,  the 


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96  MODERN  PAINTING 

luxuriant  bodies  of  women  basking  in  heat  and  sun,  fantastic 
landscapes  created  in  the  mad  brain  of  the  artist,  strange  and 
curious  frames,  and  village  idylls  in  the  glowing  blaze  of  the 
sun.  There  are  no  lifeless  spots  in  his  works;  every  whim  of 
his  takes  shape,  as  if  by  sorcery,  in  splendid  figures. 

Another  pupil  of  Morelli,  Edoardo  Dalbono^  completed  his 
duty  to  history  by  a  scene  of  horror  a  la  Laurens,  "The 
Excommunication  of  King  Manfred,"  and  then  became  the 
painter  of  the  Bay  of  Naples.  "The  Isle  of  Sirens*'  was  the 
first  production  of  his  able,  appetizing,  and  nervously  vibrating 
brush.  There  is  a  steep  cliff  dropping  sheer  into  the  blue  sea. 
Two  antique  craft  are  drawing  near,  the  crews  taking  no  heed 
of  the  reefs  and  sandbanks.  With  phantom-like  gesture  the 
naked  women  stretch  out  their  arms  beckoning,  embodiments 
as  they  are  of  the  deadly  beautiful  and  voluptuously  cruel 
ocean.  By  degrees  the  sea  betrayed  to  him  all  its  secrets — its 
strangest  combinations  of  colour  and  atmospheric  effects,  its 
transparency,  and  its  eternally  shifting  phases  of  ebb  and  flow. 
He  has  painted  the  Bay  of  Naples  under  bright,  hot  noon  and 
the  gloom  of  night,  in  the  purple  light  of  the  sinking  sun,  and 
in  the  strange  and  many-coloured  mood  of  twilight.  At  one 
moment  it  shines  and  plays  variegated  and  joyous  in  blue, 
grass-green,  and  violet  tones ;  at  another  it  seems  to  glitter 
with  millions  of  phosphorescent  sparks :  and  the  rosy  clouds  of 
the  sky  are  glassed  in  it,  and  the  lights  of  the  hou.ses  irregularly 
dotted  over  abrupt  mountain-chains,  or  the  dark-red  glow  of 
lava  luridly  shining  from  Vesuvius.  Now  and  then  he  painted 
scenes  from  Neapolitan  street-life — old,  weather-beaten  seamen, 
young  sailors  with  features  as  sharply  cut  as  if  cast  in  bronze, 
beautiful,  fiery,  brown  women,  shooting  the  hot  Southern  flame 
from  their  eyes,  houses  painted  white  or  orange-yellow,  in 
the  windows  of  which  the  sun  is  glittering.  The  "Voto  alia 
Madonna  der  Carmine"  was  the  most  comprehensive  of  these 
Southern  pictures.  Everything  shines  in  joyous  blue,  yellowish- 
green,  and  red  colours.  Warmth,  life,  light,  brilliancy,  and 
laughter  are  the  elements  on  which  his  art  is  based. 

Alceste  Campriani,  Giacamo  di  Chirico^  Rubens  SantorOy  Federigo 


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ITALY  97 

Cortese^  Francesco  Nettiy  Edoardo 
Toffano^  Giuseppe  de  NigriSy  have, 
all  of  them,  this  kaleidoscopic 
sparkle,  this  method  of  painting 
which  gives  pictures  the  appear- 
ance of  being  mosaics  of  precious 
stones.  As  in  the  days  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  Church  is  usually 
the  scene  of  action,  though  not 
any  longer  as  the  house  of  God, 
but  as  the  background  of  a 
coloured  throng.  As  a  rule  these 
pictures  contain  a  crowd  of  cano- 
pies, priests  and  choristers,  and  Giacomo  FAVRErto. 
country-folk,  bowing  or  kneeling 

when  the  host  is  carried  by,  or  weddings,  horse-races,  and  country 
festivals ;  and  everything  is  vivid  and  joyous  in  colour,  saturated 
with  the  glowing  sun  of  Naples.  Alceste  Campriani's  chief  work 
was  entitled  "The  Return  from  Montevergine."  Carriages  and 
open  rack-waggons  are  dashing  along,  the  horses  snorting  and 
the  drivers  smacking  their  whips,  while  the  peasants,  who  have 
had  their  fill  of  sweet  wine,  are  shouting  and  singing,  and  the 
orange-sellers  in  the  street  are  crying  their  goods  at  a  cheap  price. 
A  coquettish,  glancing  light  plays  over  the  gay  costumes,  and 
the  white  dust  sparkles  like  fluid  silver,  as  it  rises  beneath  the 
hoofs  of  the  horses  wildly  plunging  forward.  The  leading  work 
of  Giacomo  di  Chirico,  who  became  mad  in  1883,  was  "A 
Wedding  in  the  Basilicata."  It  represents  a  motley  crowd.  The 
entire  village  has  set  out  to  see  the  ceremony.  The  wedding- 
guests  are  descending  the  church  steps  to  the  square,  which  is 
decked  out  with  coloured  carpets  and  strewn  with  flowers. 
Triumphal  arches  have  been  built,  and  the  pictures  of  the 
Madonna  are  hung  with  garlands.  Meanwhile  the  sindaco 
gives  his  arm  to  the  bride,  beneath  whose  gay  costume  a  charm- 
ingly graceful  little  foot  is  peeping  out.  Then  the  bridegroom 
follows  with  the  sindaco's  wife.  With  curiosity  all  the  village 
girls  are  looking  on,  and  the  musicians  are  playing.     Winter  has 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Favretto:   "On  the  Piazzetta." 


IHan/itaHgi  hclw. 


covered  the  square  with  a  white  cloak  of  snow ;  yet  the 
sunbeams  sport  over  it,  making  it  shine  vividly  with  a  thousand 
reflections. 

Of  course  the  derivation  of  all  these  pictures  is  easily  recog- 
nizable. Almost  all  the  Neapolitan  painters  studied  at  Fortuny's 
in  the  seventies  in  Rome,  and  when  they  came  home  again  they 
perceived  that  the  life  of  the  people  offered  themes  which  had  a 
coquettish  fitness  in  Fortuny's  scale  of  tones.  From  the  variously 
coloured  magnificence  of  old  churches,  the  red  robes  of  eccle- 
siastics, the  gaudy  splendour  of  the  country-people's  clothes,  and 
the  gay  glory  of  rags  amongst  the  Neapolitan  children,  they 
composed  a  modern  Rococo,  rejoicing  in  colour,  whilst  the 
Spaniard  had  fled  to  the  past  to  attain  his  gleaming  eflfects. 

A  great  number  of  the  Italians  do  the  same  even  now.  In 
numerous  costume-pictures  from  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  flashing  with  silk  and  velvet,  the  Southerner's  bright 
pleasure  in  colour  still  loves  to  celebrate  its  orgies.  Gay  trains 
rustle,  rosy  Loves  laugh  down  from  the  walls,  Venetian  chandeliers 
shed  their  radiance ;  no  other  epoch  in  history  enables  the  painter 
with  so  much  ease  to  produce  juicily  blooming,  full-toned  chords 
of  colour.  With  his  shining  glow  of  hue,  the  appetizing  and 
spirited  Favretto  (who,  like  Fortuny,  entered  the  world  of  art  as 
a  victor,  and,  like  him  again,  was  snatched  from  it!  when  barely 


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99 


Favretto:   *' Susanna  and  the  Elders." 


iHanfstdMgi  helio^ 


thirty-seven,  after  a  brief  and  brilliant  career)  stands  at  the  head 
of  this  group.  The  child  of  poor  parents,  indeed  the  son  of  a 
joiner,  he  was  born  in  Venice  in  1849,  and,  like  the  Spaniard, 
passed  a  youth  which  was  full  of  privations.  But  all  the  cares 
of  existence,  even  the  loss  of  an  eye,  did  not  hinder  him  from 
seeing  objects  under  a  laughing  brightness  of  colour.  Through 
his  studies  and  the  bent  of  his  fancy  he  had  come  to  be  no  less  at 
home  in  the  Venice  of  the  eighteenth  century  than  in  that  of  his 
own  time.  This  Venice  of  Francesco  Guardi,  this  city  of  en- 
chantment surrounded  with  the  gleam  of  olden  splendour,  the 
scene  of  rich  and  brilliantly  coloured  banquets  and  a  graceful 
and  modish  society,  rose  once  more  under  Favretto*s  hands  in 
fabulous  beauty.  What  brio  of  technique,  what  harmony  of 
colours,  were  to  be  found  in  the  picture  "  Un  Incontro,"  the 
charming  scene  upon  the  Rialto  Bridge,  with  the  bowing  cavalier 
and  the  lady  coquettishly  making  her  acknowledgments  !  This 
was  the  first  picture  which  gave  him  a  name  in  the  world.  What 
fanfares  of  colour  were  in  the  two  next  pictures,  "  Banco  Lotto  " 
and  "  Erbajuolo  Veneziano " !  At  the  exhibition  in  Turin  in 
1883   he  was  represented   by   "The   Bath"   and   "Susanna  and 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


mcnt  of  the  Piazzetta  at  the  hour  of  the  promenade,  from  the  Doge's 
palace  to  the  h'brary,  and  from  the  Square  of  St  Mark  to  the 
pillar  of  the  lions  and  Theodore,  to  and  fro  in  surging  life.  Men 
put  up  their  glasses  and  chivalrously  greeted  the  queens  of 
beauty.  The  enchanting  magic  building  of  Sansovino,  the  loggetta 
with  their  bright  marble  pillars,  bronze  statues  of  blackish  grey, 
and  magnificent  lattice  doors,  formed  the  background  of  the 
standing  and  sauntering  groups,  whose  variegated  costumes 
united  with  the  tones  of  marble  and  bronze  to  make  a  most 
beautiful  assemblage  of  colours.  Favretto  had  a  manner  of  his 
own,  and,  although  a  member  of  the  school  of  Fortuny,  he  was 
stronger  and  healthier  than  the  latter.  He  drew  like  a  genuine 
painter,  without  having  too  much  of  the  Fortuny  fireworks.  His 
soft,  rich  painting  was  that  of  a  colourist  of  distinction,  always 
tasteful,  exquisite  in  tone,  and  light  and  appetizing  in  technique. 


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lOI 


Munich  Phoiographic  Union.] 

CoNTi:  "The  Lutk-Player.'* 


By  the  other 
Italian  cos- 
tume -  painters 
the  scale  run 
through  by 
Fortuny  was 
not  enriched 
by  new  notea 
Most  of  their 
pictures  are 
nugatory,  co- 
quettishly 
sportive  toys, 
masterly  in 
technique      no 

doubt,  but  so  empty  of  substance  that  they  vanish  from  memory 
like  novels  read  upon  a  railway  journey.  Many  have  no  greater 
import  than  dresses,  cloaks,  and  hats  worn  by  ladies  during 
a  few  weeks  of  the  season.  Sometimes  their  significance  is  not 
even  so  great,  since  there  are  modistes  and  dressmakers  who 
have  more  skill  in  making  ruches  and  giving  the  right  nuance 
to  colours.  Some  small  part  of  Favretto's  refined  taste  seems 
to  have  been  communicated  to  the  Venetian  Antonio  Lonza^  who 
delights  in  mingling  the  gleaming  splendour  of  Oriental  carpets, 
fans,  and  screens  amid  the  motley,  picturesque  costumes  of  the 
Rococo  period — Japanese  who  perform  as  jugglers  and  knife- 
throwers  in  quaint  Rococo  gardens  before  the  old  Venetian 
nobility.  But  the  centre  of  this  costume-painting  is  Florence, 
and  the  great  mart  for  it  the  Societh  artistica^  where  there  are 
yearly  exhibitions. 

Francesco  Vinea,  Tito  Conti,  Federigo  Andreotti,  and  Edoardo 
Gelli  are  in  Italy  the  special  manufacturers  who  have  devoted 
themselves,  with  the  assistance  of  Meissonier,  G6r6me,  and  For- 
tuny, to  scenes  from  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
to  plumed  hats,  Wallenstein  boots,  and  horsemen's  capes,  to 
Renaissance  lords  and  laughing  Renaissance  ladies,  and  they 
have  thereby  won  great  recognition  in   Germany.      Pretty,  Ian- 


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guishing  women  in  richly 
coloured  costumes,  tippling 
soldiers  and  gallant  cava- 
liers, laughing  peasant 
women  and  trim  serving- 
girls  drawing  wine  in  the 
cellar-vaults  and  setting 
it  before  a  trooper,  who 
in  gratitude  affectionately 
puts  his  arm  round  their 
waist,  beautiful  and  still 
more  languishing  noble 
ladies,  who  laugh  with  a 
parrot  or  a  dog  instead  of 
the  trooper  in  apartments 
richly  furnished  with  Gobe- 
lins—  such  for  the  most 
part  are  the  subjects 
treated  by  Francesco  Vinea 
with  great  virtuosity  bor- 
dering on  the  routine  of  a  typewriter.  His  technique  is  neither 
refined  nor  fascinating ;  the  colours  are  so  crude  that  they 
affect  the  eye  as  a  false  note  the  ear.  But  the  mechanical 
power  of  his  painting  is  great.  He  has  much  ability,  far  more 
indeed  than  Sichel,  and  possesses  the  secret  of  painting,  in  an 
astonishing  manner,  the  famous  lace  kerchiefs  wound  round  the 
heads  of  his  fair  ones.  Andreotti  and  Tito  Conti  work  in  the 
same  fashion,  except  that  the  ballad-singers  and  rustic  idylls 
of  Andreotti  are  the  smoother  and  more  mawkish,  whereas  the 
pictures  of  Conti  make  a  somewhat  more  refined  and  artistic 
effect.  His  colour  is  superior  and  more  transparent,  and  his 
tapestry  backgrounds  are  warmer. 

And,  so  far  as  one  can  judge  from  their  pictures,  life  runs 
as  merrily  for  the  Italians  of  the  present  as  it  did  for  those 
Rococo  cavaliers.  Hanging  here  and  there  beside  the  serious 
art  of  other  nations,  these  little  picture-people  enjoy  their  care- 
less  tinsel   pomp  ;    art   is   a  gay  thing  for   them,  as  gay  as   a 


Tito:   "The  Slipper-Seller.' 


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103 


Brothers  sc. 


Segantini  :   "  The  Punishment  of  Luxury." 


Sunday  afterncK>n  with  a  procession  and  fireworks,  walks  and 
sips  of  sherbet,  to  an  Italian  woman.  By  the  side  of  the  blue- 
plush  and  red-velvet  costume-picture  comic  £'enre  still  holds  its 
sway  :  barbaric  in  colour  and  with  materials  which  are  merrier 
than  is  appropriate  in  tasteful  pictures,  Gcetano  Chierici  repre- 
sents children,  both  good  and  naughty,  making  their  appearance 
upon  a  tiny  theatre.  Antonio  Rotta  renders  comic  episodes  from 
the  life  of  Venetian  cobblers  and  the  menders  of  nets.  Scipione 
Vannuttellt  paints  young  girls  in  white  dresses  arrayed  as  nuns 
or  being  confirmed  in  church.  Francesco  Monteverde  rejoices  in 
comical  intermezzi  in  the  style  of  Griitzner— for  instance,  an 
ecclesiastical  gentleman  observing,  to  his  horror,  that  his  pretty 
young  servant-girl  is  being  kissed  by  a  smart  lad  in  the  yard.  This 
is  more  or  less  his  style  of  subject  Ettore  Tito  paints  the  pretty 
Venetian  laundresses  whom  Passini,  Cecil  van  Haanen,  Charles 
Ulrich,  Eugene  Blaas,  and  others  introduced  into  art.  Some  also 
struck  deeper  notes.  Luigi  Nono,  in  Venice,  painted  his  beautiful 
picture  "  Refugium  Peccatorum  ; "  Ferragutti,  the  Milanese,  his 
**  Workers  in  the  Turnip  Field,"  a  vivid  study  of  sunlight  of  serious 
veracity  ;  and  more  recently  Giovanni  Segantini  has  come  forward 


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I04  MODERN  FAINTING 

with  some  very  uncommon  pieces,  in  which  he  demonstrated  that 
it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be  an  Italian  and  yet  a  serious  artist 

Segantini's  biography  is  like  a  novel.  Born  the  child  of  poor 
parents,  in  Arco,  in  1858,  he  was  left,  after  the  death  of  his 
parents,  to  the  care  of  a  relative  in  Milan,  with  whom  he  passed 
a  most  unhappy  time.  He  then  wanted  to  make  his  fortune  in 
France,  and  set  out  upon  foot ;  but  he  did  not  get  very  far,  and, 
indeed,  took  a  situation  as  a  swine-herd  beneath  a  land-steward. 
After  this  he  lived  for  a  whole  year  alone  in  the  wild  mountains, 
worked  in  the  field,  the  stable,  the  barn.  Then  came  the  well- 
known  discovery,  which  one  could  not  believe  were  it  not  to  be 
read  in  Gubernati.  One  day  he  drew  the  finest  of  his  pigs  with 
a  piece  of  charcoal  upon  a  mass  of  rock.  The  peasants  ran  in  a 
crowd  and  took  the  block  of  stone,  together  with  the  young 
Giotto,  in  triumph  to  the  village.  He  was  given  assistance, 
visited  the  School  of  Art  in  Milan,  and  now  paints  the  things 
he  did  in  his  youth.  A  thousand  metres  across  the  sea,  in  a 
secluded  village  of  the  Alps,  Val  d'Albola  in  Switzerland,  amid 
the  grand  and  lofty  mountains,  he  settled  down,  surrounded 
only  by  the  peasants  who  extort  their  livelihood  from  the  soil. 
Out  of  touch  with  the  world  of  artists  the  whole  year  round, 
observing  great  nature  at  every  season  and  every  hour  of  the 
day,  fresh  and  straightforward  in  character,  he  is  one  of  those 
natures  of  the  type  of  Millet,  in  whom  heart  and  hand,  man 
and  artist,  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  His  shepherd  and 
peasant  scenes  from  the  valleys  of  the  high  Alps  are  free  from 
all  flavour  of  genre.  The  life  of  these  poor  and  humble  beings 
passes  without  contrasts  and  passions,  being  spent  altogether 
in  work,  which  fills  the  long  course  of  the  day  in  monotonous 
regularity.  The  sky  sparkles  with  a  sharp  brilliancy.  The 
spiky  yellow  and  tender  green  of  the  fields  forces  its  way 
modestly  from  the  rocky  ground.  In  front  is  something  like 
a  hedge  where  a  cow  is  grazing,  or  there  is  a  shepherdess 
giving  pasture  to  her  sheep.  Something  majestic  there  is  in 
this  cold  nature,  where  the  sunshine  is  so  sharp,  the  air  so  thin. 
And  the  primitive,  it  might  almost  be  said  antique,  execution 
of  these   pictures   is   in   accord   with   the  primitive  simplicity  of 


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ITALY    .  los 

the  subjects.  In  fact  Segantini's  pictures,  with  their  cold  silvery- 
colours,  and  their  contours  so  sharp  in  outlines,  standing  out 
hard  against  the  rarified  air,  make  an  impression  like  encaustic 
paintings  in  wax,  or  mosaics.  They  have  nothing  alluring  or 
pleasing,  and  there  is,  perhaps,  even  a  touch  of  mannerism  in 
this  mosaic  painting ;  but  they  are  nevertheless  exceedingly  true, 
rugged,  austere,  and  yet  sunny,  and  as  soon  as  one  has  seen 
them  one  begins  to  admire  an  artist  who  pursues  untrodden 
paths  alone.  There  is  something  Northern  and  virginal,  some- 
thing earnest  and  grandiose,  which  stands  in  strange  contrast 
with  the  joyful,  conventional  smile  which  is  otherwise  spread 
over  the  countenance  of  Italian  painting. 

With  the  exception  of  Segantini,  not  one  of  these  painters 
will  own  that  there  are  poverty-stricken  and  miserable  people 
in  his  native  land.  An  everlasting  blue  sky  still  laughs  over 
Italy,  merely  sunshine  and  the  joy  of  life  rule  still  over 
Italian  pictures.  There  is  no  work  in  sunny  Italy,  and  in  spite 
of  that  there  is  no  hunger.  Even  where  work  is  being  done, 
there  are  assembled  only  the  fairest  girls  of  Lombardy,  who 
kneel  laughing  and  jesting  on  the  strand,  while  the  wind  dallies 
with  their  clothes.  They  have  a  special  delight  for  showing 
themselves  while  engaged  at  their  toilette,  in  a  bodice,  their  little 
feet  in  neat  little  slippers,  their  naked  arms  raised  to  arrange 
their  red-gold  hair.  As  a  rule,  however,  they  do  nothing  what- 
ever but  smile  at  you  with  their  most  seductive  smile,  which 
shows  their  pearl-white  teeth,  and  ensnares  every  poor  devil 
who  does  not  suspect  that  they  have  smiled  for  years  in  the 
same  way,  and  most  of  all  with  him  who  pays  highest :  '^faime 
les  kontmes  parce  que  faime  les  truffesr  These  pictures  are  almost 
throughout  works  which  are  well  able  to  give  pleasure  to  their 
possessor,  only  they  seldom  suggest  discussion  on  the  course 
of  art.  Trop  de  marchandise  is  the  phrase  generally  used  in 
the  Paris  Salon  when  the  Italians  come  under  consideration. 
Few  there  are  amongst  them  who  are  real  pioneers,  spirits 
pressing  seriously  forward  and  having  a  quickening  influence 
for  others.  The  vital  questions  of  the  painting  of  free  light. 
Impressionism,    and    Naturalism    do    not    interest    them    in   the 

VOL.  III.  8 


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io6  MODERN  PAINTING 

least.  A  naYve,  pleasant,  lively,  and  self-complacent  technique 
is  in  most  cases  the  solitary  charm  of  their  works.  One  feels 
scarcely  any  inclination  to  search  the  catalogue  for  the  painters 
name,  and  whether  the  beauty — for  she  is  not  the  first  of  her 
kind — who  was  called  Ninetta  last  year  has  now  become  Lisa. 
Most  of  these  modern  Italians  execute  their  pictures  in  the 
way  in  which  gold  pieces  are  minted,  or  in  the  way  in  which 
plastic  works,  which  run  through  so  many  editions,  are  produced 
in  Italy.  Nowhere  are  more  beautiful  laces  chiselled,  and  in 
the  same  manner  painters  render  the  shining  splendour  of  satin 
and  velvet,  the  glittering  brilliancy  of  ornaments,  and  the  starry 
radiance  of  the  beautiful  tyt:&  of  women.  Only  as  soon  as  one 
has  once  seen  them  one  knows  the  pictures  by  heart  as  one 
knows  the  works  in  marble,  and  this  is  so  because  the  painters 
had  them  by  heart  first  Everywhere  there  are  the  evidences 
of  talent,  industry,  ability,  and  spirit,  but  there  is  no  soul  in 
the  spirit  and  no  life  in  the  colours.  So  many  brilliant  tones 
stand  beside  each  other,  and  yet  there  is  neither  a  refined  tone 
nor  the  impression  of  truth  to  nature. 

In  all  this  art  of  theirs  there  is  scarcely  a  question  of  any 
serious  landscape.  Apart  from  the  works  of  some  of  the 
younger  men — for  instance,  Belloniy  Serra^  Gola^  Filippini^  and 
others,  who  display  an  intimacy  of  observation  which  is  worthy 
of  honour — a  really  close  connection  with  the  efforts  m^de 
across  the  Alps  is  not  achieved  in  these  days.  As  a  rule  the 
landscapes  are  mere  products  of  handicraft,  which  are  striking 
for  the  moment  by  their  technical  routine,  but  seldom  waken 
any  finer  feelings,  whether  the  Milanese  paint  the  dazzling 
effects  of  the  Alps,  or  the  Venetians  lagunes  steeped  in  light, 
with  gondolas  and  gondola-poles  glowing  in  the  sunshine,  or 
the  Neapolitans,  set  glittering  upon  the  canvas  their  beautiful 
bay  like  a  brilliant  firework.  Most  of  them  continue  to  pursue 
with  complete  self-satisfaction  the  flagged  gondola  of  Ziem  ;  the 
conquests  of  the  Fontainebleau  painters  and  of  the  Impressionists 
are  unnoticed  by  them. 

And  this  industrial  characteristic  of  Italian  painting  is 
sufficiently   explained    by   the    entire    character    of  the   country. 


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ITALY  107 

The  Italian  painter  is  not  properly  in  a  position  to  seek  effects 
of  his  own  and  to  make  experiments.  Hardly  anything  is 
bought  for  the  galleries,  and  there  are  few  collectors  of  superior 
taste.  He  labours  chiefly  for  the  traveller,  and  this  gives  his 
performances  the  stamp  of  attractive  mercantile  wares.  The 
Italian  is  too  much  a  man  of  business  to  undertake  great  trials 
of  strength  pour  le  rot  de  Prusse,  He  paints  no  great  pictures, 
which  would  be  still-born  children  in  his  home,  nor  does  he 
paint  severe  studies  of  plein-air^  preferring  a  specious,  exuberant, 
flickering,  and  glaring  revel  in  colour.  In  general  he  produces 
nothing  which  will  not  easily  sell,  and  has  a  fine  instinct  for 
the  taste  of  the  rich  travelling  public,  who  wish  to  see  nothing 
which  does  not  excite  cheerful  and  superficial  emotions. 

But  it  is  possible  that  this  decline  of  the  Latin  races  is 
connected  with  the  nature  of  modern  art  itself.  Of  late  the 
words  "Germanic"  and  "Latin"  have  been  much  abused.  It  has 
been  proclaimed  that  the  new  art  meant  the  victory  of  the 
German  depth  of  feeling  over  the  Latin  sense  of  form,  the 
onset  of  German  cordiality  against  the  empty  exaggeration  in 
which  the  imitation  of  the  Cinquecento  resulted.  Such  assertions 
are  always  hard  to  maintain,  because  every  century  shows  similar 
reactions  of  truth  to  nature  against  mannerism.  Nevertheless  is 
it  true  that  modern  art,  with  its  heartfelt  devotion  to  every- 
day life  and  the  mysteries  of  light,  has  an  essentially  Germanic 
character,  finding  its  ancestors  not  in  Raphael,  Michael  Angelo, 
and  Titian,  but  in  the  English  of  the  eighteenth,  the  Dutch  of 
the  seventeenth,  and  the  Germans  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
Italians  and  Spaniards,  whose  entire  intellectual  culture  rests  upon 
a  Latin  foundation,  may  therefore  find  it  difficult  to  follow  this 
change  of  taste.  They  either  adhere  to  the  old  bombastic  and 
theatrical  painting  of  history,  or  they  recast  the  new  painting 
in  an  external  drawing-room  art  draped  with  gaudy ,  tinsel. 
Even  in  France  the  rise  of  the  new  art  meant,  as  it  were,  the 
virtory  of  the  Prankish  element  over  the  Gallic.  Millet  the 
Norman,  Courbet  the  Frank,  Bastien-Lepage  of  Lorraine,  drove 
back  the  Latins  Ingres  and  Couture,  Cabanel  and  Bouguereau, 
just    as    in    the    eighteenth   century    the    Netherlander   Watteau 


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io8  MODERN  FAINTING 

broke  the  yoke  of  the  rigid  Latin  Classicism.  And  as  in  those 
days  Watteau  was  followed  by  Francois  Boucher,  who  was  more 
touched  by  the  Latin  spirit,  so  in  these  it  must  be  recognized 
that  the  youngest  generation  have  clothed  the  spirit  of  Germanic 
efforts  in  art  once  more  in  a  Latin  formula  In  external 
respects  French  art  is  still  the  most  imposing  in  the  world. 

What  esprit^  what  greatness  of  movement,  what  sovereign 
sureness  runs  through  their  works ;  and  how  provincial,  how 
painfully  embarrassed,  and  how  uncertain  seem  those  of  other 
nations  in  comparison!  The  French  artist,  therefore,  moves 
upon  the  floor  of  exhibitions  with  the  self-possession  of  a  man 
of  the  world,  who  has  grown  up  in  high-bred  circles,  in  whom 
all  the  finesses  of  social  life  are  part  and  parcel  of  his  very 
being,  and  who  is,  therefore,  always  a  model  in  matters  of  good 
taste.  The  greater  number  of  French  artists  are  interesting^ 
exuberant  in  talent,  novel,  and  piquant.  In  the  improvement 
of  technique — technique  absolute  and  as  a  thing  in  itself— lies 
the  historical  mission  of  the  French.  In  a  certain  sense  they 
are  almost  all  c/tercheurs.  They  grapple  with  the  problems 
of  colour,  of  the  reflections  of  light,  of  the  phases  of  atmo- 
sphere; and  in  putting  out  all  their  strength  to  master  these 
most  difficult  elements  of  the  phenomenal  world  and  to  paint 
them  with  the  utmost  illusion  of  reality,  they  have,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  brought  painting — and  not  merely  that  of  the  nineteenth 
century — forward  by  some  degrees  as  regards  the  observation  of 
nature.  Upon  its  technical  side  they  have  taken  up  the  problem 
stated  by  Millet  and  Bastien-Lepage :  they  have  established  a 
kind  of  general  bass  of  modern  painting,  and  polished  and 
refined  its  technical  instruments  in  a  manner  hardly  to  be 
surpassed. 

But  where  is  the  spirit  of  the  new  art  to  be  found  ?  As  a 
spurious  historical  genre  came  in  the  wake  of  Delacroix,  the 
initiators  Courbet,  Manet,  and  Degas  have  been  multifariously 
succeeded  by  a  spurious  modern  genre.  Since  Dagnan-Bouveret 
an  element  has  once  more  forced  its  way  into  painting  which 
brings  realism  and  mawkishness  into  a  most  unpleasant  com- 
bination.    Even   anecdotic   painting  is   emerging   again  upon   all 


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ITALY  109 

sides.  The  very  being  of  Naturalism  has  in  many  respects 
vanished  in  company  with  the  ruggedness  peculiar  to  it  some 
years  ago,  while  of  all  that  movement  of  the  past  decades,  with 
its  effort  after  truth,  the  brightening  of  the  pallet  is  the  only 
thing  that  has  been  essentially  retained.  Everywhere  one  comes 
across  that  fascination  for  the  mind  which  is  always  given  by  a 
surprise,  something  which  creates  astonishment  at  the  boldness, 
be  it  greater  or  less,  with  which  difficult  tasks  connected  with 
the  rendering  of  nature  have  been  solved  in  painting.  But  the 
most  recent  French  painting — like  the  Spanish  and  Italian — 
has  few  impressions  to  offer  for  the  inmost  spirit 

These  threads  of  the  Germanic  aim  in  art  were  drawn  out 
only  by  the  Germanic  nations.  Whilst  the  French  are  still 
formalists  as  they  were  in  the  times  of  David,  the  Teutons  have 
used  the  better  technical  equipment  of  the  present  day  as  the 
means  for  expressing  the  deeper  emotions  of  life.  The  highest 
art  is  once  more  identical  with  simple  nature.  In  one  case 
there  is  the  form  of  art  bearing  the  impress  of  pictorial  point 
and  understanding;  in  the  other  it  is  endowed  with  substance 
and  a  soul.  In  one  case  a  striking  effect  is  made  by  brilliant 
technique,  mastery  of  the  manual  art  of  painting,  and  careless 
sway  over  all  the  enchantments  of  the  craft;  in  the  other  one 
stands  in  the  presence  of  an  art  which  is  so  natural  and  simple 
that  one  scarcely  thinks  of  the  means  by  which  it  was  called 
into  being.  In  one  case  there  is  virtuosity,  ductility,  and  grace ; 
in  the  other  health,  intrinsic  feeling,  and  temperament. 


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CHAPTER    XXXVII 

ENGLAND 

General  characteristic  of  English  fainting. — The  offshoots  of  Classicism  : 
Lord  Leighton,  Val  Prinstp,  Poynter,  Alma  Tadema. — Japanese  ten- 
dencies :  Albert  Moore. — The  animal  picture  with  antique  surround- 
ings:  Briton-Riviire. — The  old  genre  fainting  remodelled  in  a 
naturalistic  sense  by  George  Mason  and  Frederick  Walker.— George 
H,  Boughton^  Philip  H.  Calderon,  Marcus  Stone,  G.  D.  Leslie,  P.  G. 
Morris,  J.  R.  Reid,  Frank  Holl.^The  ^trait-painters:  OulesSr 
J.  %  Shannon,  James  Sant,  Charles  TV.  Furse,  Hubert  Herkomer.— 
Landscape-painters.  —  Zigzag  development  of  English  landscape- 
painting. — The  School  of  Fontainebleau  and  the  French  Impres- 
sionism rose  on  the  shoulders  of  Constable  and  Turner,  whereas 
England,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Preraphaelites,  deviated  in  the 
opposite  direction  until  prompted  by  France  to  return  to  the  old  path, — 
Cecil  Lawson,  James  Clarke  Hook,  Vicat  Cole,  Colin  Hunter,  John 
Brett,  Inchbold,  Leader,  Corbett^  Ernest  Parton,  Mark  Fisher,  John 
White,  Alfred  East,  J.  Aumonier.—The  sea-painters  :  Henry  Moore ^ 
W.L.  Wyllic—The  importance  of  Venice  for  English  painting:  Clara 
Montalba,  Luke  Fildes,  W,  Logsdail,  Henry  Woods.— French  in- 
fluences :  Dudley  Hardy,  Stott  of  Oldham,  Stanhope  Forbes. 

TO  English  painting  the  acquisitions  of  the  French  could 
now  give  little  that  was  radically  novel,  for  the  epoch- 
making  labours  of  the  Preraphaelites  were  already  in  existence. 
Apart  from  certain  cases  of  direct  borrowing,  it  has  either 
completely  preserved  its  autonomy,  or  recast  everything  assimi- 
lated from  France  in  a  specifically  English  fashion.  It  is  in 
art  indeed  as  it  is  with  men  themselves.  The  English  travel 
more  than  any  other  people,  for  travel  is  a  part  of  their 
education.  They  are  to  be  met  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe, 
in  Africa,  Asia,  America,  or  the  European  Continent,  and  they 
scarcely  need   to   open   their  mouths— even  from  a  distance — to 


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ENGLAND  iii 

betray  that  they  are  English.  In  the  same  way  there  is  no 
need  of  a  catalogue  at  exhibitions  to  recognize  all  English 
pictures  at  the  first  glance.  English  painting  is  too  English 
not  to  be  fond  of  travel.  The  painter  delights  in  reconnoitring 
all  other  schools  and  studying  all  styles ;  he  is  as  much  at 
home  in  the  past  as  in  the  present.  But  as  the  English 
tourist,  let  him  go  to  the  world's  end,  retains  everywhere  his 
own  customs,  taste,  and  habits,  so  English  painting,  even  on 
its  most  adventurous  journeys,  remains  unwaveringly  true  to  its 
national  spirit,  and  returns  from  all  its  wanderings  more  English 
than  before ;  it  adapts  what  is  alien  with  the  same  delicious 
abnegation  of  all  scruple  with  which  the  English  tongue  brings 
foreign  words  into  harmony  with  its  own  sense  of  convenience. 
A  certain  softness  of  feeling  and  tenderness  of  spirit  induce  the 
English  even  in  these  days  to  avoid  hard  contact  with  reality. 
Their  art  rejects  everything  in  nature  which  is  harsh,  rude^ 
and  brutal  ;  it  is  an  art  which  polishes  and  renders  the  reality 
poetic  at  the  risk  of  debilitating  its  power.  It  considers 
matters  from  the  standpoint  of  what  is  pretty,  touching,  or 
intelligible,  and  by  no  means  holds  that  everything  true  is 
necessarily  beautiful.  And  just  as  little  does  the  English  eye 
—so  much  occupied  with  detail — see  light  in  its  most  exquisite 
subtilties.  Indeed  it  rather  sees  the  isolated  fact  than  the 
total  harmony,  and  is  clearer  than  it  is  fine. 

For  this  reason  pkin-air  painting  has  very  few  adepts,  and 
the  atmospheric  influences  which  blunt  the  lines  of  objects, 
efface  colours,  and  bring  them  nearer  to  each  other,  meet  with 
no  consideration.  Things  are  given  all  the  sharpness  of  their 
outlines,  and  the  harmony,  which  in  the  French  follows 
naturally  from  the  observation  of  light  and  air  saturating  form 
and  colour,  is  the  *more  artificially  attained  by  everything 
being  brought  into  concord  in  a  bright  and  delicate  tone, 
which  is  almost  too  fine.  The  audacities  of  Impressionism  are 
excluded,  because  painting  which  starts  from  a  masterly  seizure 
of  total  effect  would  seem  too  sketchy  to  English  taste,  which 
has  been  formed  by  Ruskin.  Painting  must  be  highly  finished 
and   highly   elaborated ;    that   is   a  conditio  sine  qua  non  which 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Lord  Leighton,  P.R.A. 


English  taste  refuses  to  re- 
nounce in  oil-painting  as 
little  as  in  water-colour,  and 
in  England  they  are  more 
narrowly  related  than  else- 
where, and  have  mutually 
influenced  each  other  in  the 
matter  of  technique.  In 
fact  English  water-colours 
seek  to  rival  oil-painting 
in  force  and  precision,  and 
have  therefore  forfeited  the 
charm  of  improvization,  the 
verve  of  the  first  jet,  and 
the  freshness  and  ease  which 
they  should  have  by  their 
very  character.  Through  a 
curious  change  of  parts  oil- 
painting  has  a  fancy  for 
borrowing  from  water-colours  their  effects  and  their  processes. 
English  pictures  have  no  longer  anything  heavy  or  oily,  but 
they  likewise  .show  nothing  of  the  manipulation  of  the  brush, 
rather  resembling  large  water-colours,  perhaps  even  pastels  or 
wax-painting.  The  colours  are  chosen  with  reserve,  and  every- 
thing is  subdued  and  softened  like  the  quiet  step  of  the  footman 
in  the  mansion  of  a  nobleman.  The  special  quality  in  all 
English  pictures — putting  aside  a  preference  for  bright  yellow 
and  vivid  red  in  the  older  period — consists  in  a  bluish  or 
greenish  luminous  general  tone,  to  which  every  English  painter 
seems  to  conform  as  though  it  were  a  binding  social  convention, 
and  it  even  recurs  in  English  landscapes.  In  fact  English 
painting  differs  from   French  as  England  from   France. 

France  is  a  great  city,  and  the  name  of  this  city  is  Paris. 
Here,  and  not  in  the  provinces,  lives  that  fashionable,  thinking 
world  which  has  become  the  guide  of  the  nation  and  the 
censor  of  beauty,  by  the  refinement  of  its  taste  and  its  pre- 
eminent intelkct.     The  ideas  which  fly  throughout  the  land  upon 


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ENGLAND 


"3 


Portfofio,']  iFlamtng  sc, 

Leighton:  Sir  Richard  Burton. 


invisible  wires  are  born  in 
Paris.  Painting,  likewise, 
receives  them  at  first 
hand.  It  stands  amid 
the  seething  whirlpool  of 
the  age,  the  heart's-blood 
of  the  present  streams 
through  all  its  veins,  and 
there  is  nothing  human 
that  is  alien  to  it,  neither 
the  filth  nor  the  splendour 
of  life,  its  laughter  nor  its 
misery.  All  the  nerves  of 
the  great  city  are  vibrat- 
ing in  it  Paris  has  made 
her  people  refined  and,  at 
the  same  time,  insatiate 
in  enjoyment.     Every  day 

they  have  need  of  new  impressions  and  new  theories  to  ward 
off  tedium.  And  thus  is  explained  the  universally  compre- 
hensive sphere  of  subject  in  French  painting,  and  its  feverish 
versatility  in  technique. 

But  London  has,  in  no  sense,  the  importance  for  England 
which  Paris  has  for  France.  It  is  a  centre  of  attraction  for 
business ;  but  the  more  refined  classes  of  society  live  in  the 
country.  As  soon  as  one  is  off  in  the  Dover  express  country- 
houses  fly  past  on  either  side  of  the  train.  They  are  all  over 
England — upon  the  shores  of  the  lakes,  upon  the  strand  of  the 
.sea,  upon  the  tops  of  the  hills.  And  how  pleasant  they  are, 
how  well  appointed,  how  delightful  to  look  at,  with  their  gabled 
roofs  and  their  gleaming  brickwork  overgrown  with  ivy !  Around 
them  stretches  a  fresh  lawn  which  is  rolled  every  morning,  as 
soft  as  velvet.  Fat  oxen,  and  sheep  as  white  as  if  they  had 
just  had  a  washing,  lie  upon  the  grass.  Thus  all  rustic  England 
is  like  a  great  summer  resort,  where  there  is  heard  no  sound 
of  the  ringing  [and  throbbing  strokes  of  life.  Nor  is  painting 
allowed  to    disturb   this   idyllic    harmony.     No  one    wishes   that 


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MODEMS  PAISTISG 


LoGHTox:  The  Acts  or  Peace.* 
iBy  p€rmnuum  of  Om  Amkiijpe  C4mipmmy,  At  ammtn  of  tkt  oopyr^kL) 

anything  should  remind  him  of  the  prose  of  life  when  his  work 
is  done  and  the  town  has  vanished  Schiller's  assertion,  "Life 
is  earnest,  blithe  is  art,"  is  here  the  first  law  of  aesthetics. 

English  painting  is  exclusively  an  art  based  on  luxur>% 
optimism,  and  aristocracy ;  in  its  neatness,  cleanliness,  and  good- 
breeding  it  is  exclusively  designed  to  ingratiate  itself  with 
English  ideas  of  comfort.  Yet  the  pictures  have  to  satisfy  very 
different  tastes — ^the  taste  of  a  wealthy  middle-class  which 
wishes  to  have  substantial  nourishment,  and  the  aesthetic  taste 
of  an  ilite  class,  the  readers  of  George  Eliot  and  Swinburne, 
which  will  only  tolerate  the  quintessence  of  art,  the  most  subtile 
art  that  can  be  given.  But  all  these  works  are  not  created  for 
galleries,  but  for  the  drawing-room  of  a  private  house,  and  in 
subject  and  treatment  they  have  all  to  reckon  with  the  ascendant 
view  that  a  picture  ought  in  the  first  place  to  be  an  attractive 
article  of  furniture  for  the  sitting-room.  The  traveller,  the  lover 
of  antiquity,  is  pleased  by  imitation  of  the  ancient  style ;  the 
sportsman,  the  lover  of  country  life,  has  a  delight  in  little  rustic 
scenes  ;  and  the  women  are  enchanted  with  feminine  types. 
And  everything  must  be  kept  within  the  bounds  of  what  is 
charming,  temperate,  and  prosperous,  without  in  any  degree 
suggesting  the  struggle  for  existence.  The  pictures  have 
themselves  the  grace  of  that  mundane  refinement  from  the  midst 
of  which  they  are  beheld. 


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ENGLAND 

England  is  the  country 
of  the  sculptures  of  the 
Parthenon,  the  country 
where  Bulwer  Lytton 
wrote  his  Last  Days  of 
Pompeiiy  and  where  the 
most  Grecian  female 
figures  in  the  world  may 
be  seen  to  move.  Thus 
painters  of  antique  sub- 
jects still  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  pursuit 
of  English  art — probably 
the  pursuit  of  art  rather 
than  its  development.  For 
they  have  never  enriched 
the  treasury  of  modern 
sentiment  Trained,  all  of 
them,  in  Paris  or  Belgium, 
they  are  equipped  with 
finer  taste,  and  have  ac- 
quired abroad  a  more  solid 
ability  than  James  Barry, 
Haydon,  and  Hinton,  the 
half-barbaric  English  Clas- 
sicists of  the  beginning 
of  the  century.  But  at 
bottom — like  Cabanel  and 
Bouguereau  —  they  repre- 
sent rigid  conservatism  in 
opposition  to  progress, 
and  the  way  in  which 
they  set  about  the  re- 
construction of  an  august 
or  domestic  antiquity  is 
only  distinguished  by  an 
English     nuance    of    race 


Leighton  :   "  Psyche's  Bath, 


{.By  permission  of  tkt  Berlin  Photographic  Company^ 
thg  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


from  that  of  Couture  and 
G^r6me. 

Lord  Leighton^  the  late 
highly  cultured  President 
of,  the  Royal  Academy, 
was  the  most  dignified 
representative  of  this  ten- 
dency. He  was  a  Classicist 
through  and  through — in 
the  balance  of  composi- 
tion, the  rhythmical  flow 
of  lines,  and  the  confession 
of  faith  that  the  highest 
aim  of  art  is  the  repre- 
sentation of  men  and 
women  of  immaculate 
build.  In  the  picture- 
galleries  of  Paris,  Rome, 
Dresden,  and  Berlin  he 
received  his  youthful  im- 
pressions ;  his  artistic  dis- 
cipline he  received  under 
Zanetti  in  Florence,  under 
VViertz  and  Gallait  in 
Brussels,     under      Steinle 

{By  permission  of  tht  Corporation  of  Manchester^  tht      jj^      Frankfort      and      Undcr 
owners  of  the  picture.)  * 

Ingres  and  Ary  Scheffcr 
in  Paris.  Back  in  England  once  more,  he  translated  Couture 
into  English  as  Anselm  Feuerbach  translated  him  into  German 
with  greater  independence.  Undoubtedly  there  has  never  been 
anything  upon  his  canvas  which  could  be  supposed  ungentle- 
manlike.  And  as  a  nation  is  usually  apt  to  prize  most  the 
very  thing  which  has  been  denied  it  and  for  which  it  has  no 
talent,  Leighton  was  soon  an  object  of  admiration  to  the 
refined  world.  As  early  as  1864  he  became  an  associate,  and  in 
November  1879  President  of  the  Royal  Academy.  For  sixteen 
years   he   sat   like  a   Jupiter   upon  his   throne   in   London.      An 


Leighton:  "The  Last  Watch  of  Hero," 


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Broiken  photo.} 


Poynter:   "The  Ides  of  March." 
iBy  ptrmiaaion  of  tkg  Corporatioh  of  Mancktster^  the  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


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ENGLAND 


121 


accomplished  man  of 
the  world  and  a  good 
speaker,  a  scholar  who 
spoke  all  languages  and 
had  seen  all  countries, 
he  possessed  every 
quality  which  the  pre- 
sident of  an  academy 
needs  to  have ;  he  had 
an  exceedingly  impos- 
ing presence  in  his  red 
gown,  and  did  the 
honours  of  his  house 
with  admirable  tact. 

But  one  stands  be- 
fore his  works  with  a 
certain  feeling  of  indif- 
ference. There  are  few 
artists  with  so  little 
temperament  as  Lord 
Leighton,  few  in  the 
same  degree  wanting  in 
the  magic  of  individu- 
ality. The  purest  academical  art,  as  the  phrase  is  understood 
of  Ingres,  together  with  academical  severity  of  form,  is  united 
with  a  softness  of  feeling  recalling  Hofmann  of  Dresden ;  and 
the  result  is  a  placid  classicality  adapted  ad  usum  Delphini,  a 
classicality  foregoing  the  applause  of  artists,  but  all  the  more  in 
accordance  with  the  taste  of  a  refined  circle  of  ladies.  His 
chief  works,  "  The  Star  of  Bethlehem,"  "  Orpheus  and  Eurydice,*' 
"  Jonathan's  Token  to  David,"  "  Electra  at  the  Tomb  of 
Agamemnon,"  "  The  Daphnephoria,"  "  Venus  disrobing  for  the 
Bath,"  and  the  like,  are  amongst  the  most  refined  although  the 
most  frigid  creations  of  contemporary  English  art. 

Perhaps  the  "  Captive  Andromache  *'  of  1888  is  the  quintessence 
of  what  he  aimed  at.  The  background  is  the  court  of  an  ancient 
palace,  where  female  slaves  are  gathered  together  fetching  water. 

VOL.  III.  9 


Dixon  photo. \ 

Poynter:   "Idle  Fears." 
(By  permission  of  Lord  HHiingdon,  thg  owner  of  the  picture. y 


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122 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Poynter:    "A  Visit  to  ^Esculapius." 
(By  permission  of  the  Berlin  Photographic  Company ,  the  owners  of  the  copyright,"^ 


\  Ati^errr  plmiu  i»Ct 


In  the  centre  of  the  stage,  as  the  leading  actress,  stands 
Andromache,  who  has  placed  her  pitcher  on  the  ground  before 
her,,  and  waits  with  dignity  until  the  slaves  have  finished  their 
work.  This  business  of  water-drawing  has  given  Leighton  an 
opportunity  for  combining  an  assemblage  of  beautiful  poses.  The 
widow  of  Hector  expresses  a  queenly  sorrow  with  decorum, 
while  the  amphora-bearers  are  standing  or  walking  hither  and 
thither,  in  the  manner  demanded  by  the  pictures  upon  Grecian 
vases,  but  without  that  sureness  of  line  which  comes  of  the  real 
observation  of  life.  In  its  dignity  of  style,  in  the  noble  com- 
position and  purity  of  the  lines  which  circumscribe  the  forms 
with  so  much  distinction  and  in  so  impersonal  a  manner,  the 
picture  is  an  arid  and  measured  work,  cold  as  marble  and  smooth 
as  porcelain.  "  Hercules  wrestling  with  Death  for  the  Body  of 
Alcestis"  might  be  a  Grecian  relief  upon  a  sarcophagus,  so 
carefully  balanced  are  the  masses  and  the  lines.  The  pose  of 
Alcestis  is  that  of  the  nymphs  of  the  Parthenon  ;   only  it  would 


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123 


VArt'\ 


Alma  Tadema:  **  Sappho.'* 


{JBy  p€rmisiion  of  the  Berlin  Photographic  Company ^  the  owners  of  the  copyright.) 

not  have  been  so  fine  were  these  not  in  existence.  His  "  Music 
Lesson  *'  of  1877  is  charming,  and  his  "Elijah  in  the  Wilderness" 
is  a  work  of  style.  And  in  his  frescoes  in  the  South  Kensington 
Museum  there  is  a  perfect  compendium  of  beautiful  motives  of 
gesture.  The  eye  delights  to  linger  over  these  feminine  forms, 
half  nude,  half  enveloped  with  drapery,  yet  it  notes,  too,  that 
these  creations  are  composed  out  of  the  painter's  knowledge  and 
artistic  reminiscences  ;  there  is  a  want  of  life  in  them,  because 
the  master  has  surrendered  himself  to  feeling  with  the  organs  of 
a  dead  Greek.  Leighton's  colour  is  always  carefully  considered, 
scrupulously  polished,  and  endowed  with  the  utmost  finish,  but  it 
never  has  the  magical  charm  by  which  one  recognizes  the  work 
of  a  true  colourist.  It  is  rather  the  result  of  painstaking  study 
and  cultivated  taste  than  of  personal  feeling.  The  grace  of  form 
is  always  carefully  prepared — a  thing  which  has  the  consciousness 
of  its  own  existence.  Beautiful  and  spontaneous  as  the  move- 
ments undoubtedly  are,  one  has  always  a  sense  that  the  artist 
is  present,  anxiously  watching  lest  any  of  his  actors  offend  against 
a  law  of  art 

Lord    Leighton's   pupils,  Poynter   and    Prinsep,  followed   him 
with    a    good   deal   of   determination.     Val  Prinsep  shares   with 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


\,LAiwftn^tain  sc. 


Alma  Tadema:   "The  Apodvterium." 
iBy  permission  of  Mr.  T.  McLtan^  the  owner  of  the  copyright.) 

Leighton  the  smooth  forms  of  a  polished  painting,  whereas 
Edward  Poynter  by  his  more  earnest  severity  and  metallic 
precision  verges  more  on  that  union  of  aridness  and  style  charac- 
teristic of  Ingres.  His  masterpiece,  "  A  Visit  to  ^sculapius,"  is 
in  point  of  technique  one  of  the  best  products  of  English 
Classicism.  To  the  left  ^Esculapius  is  sitting  beneath  a  pillared 
porch  overgrown  with  foliage,  while,  like  Raphael's  Jupiter  in  the 
Farnesina,  he  supports  his  bearded  chin  thoughtfully  with  his  left 
hand.  A  nymph  who  has  hurt  her  foot  appears,  accompanied 
by  three  companions,  before  the  throne  of  the  god,  begging  him 
for  a  remedy.  To  say  nothing  of  many  other  nude  or  nobly 
draped  female  figures,  numerous  decorative  paintings  in  the 
Houses  of  Parliament,  St.  Paul's,  and  St.  Stephen's  Church  in 
Dulwich  owe  their  existence  to  this  most  industrious  artist. 

Alma  Tadema,  the  famous  Dutchman  who  has  called  to  life 
amid  the  London  fog  the  sacrifices  of  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum, 
stands  to   this  grave  academical   group   as   G^rdme   to   Couture. 


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"5 


Alma  Tadema:   "Pleading." 
(By  permisaion  oj  Mr,  £.  H.  Lt/hnrt,  thg  owntr  of  th*  copyright.) 


[Lou>tttsiam  stv 


As  Bulwer  Lytton,  in  the  field  of  literature,  created  a  picture  of 
ancient  civilization  so  successful  that  it  has  not  been  surpassed 
by  his  followers,  Alma  Tadema  has  solved  the  problem  of  the 
picture  of  antique  manners  in  the  most  authentic  fashion  in 
the  province  of  painting.  He  has  peopled  the  past,  rebuilt  its 
towns  and  refurnished  its  houses,  rekindled  the  flame  upon  the 
sacrificial  altars  and  awakened  the  echo  of  the  dithyrambs  to 
new  life.  Poynter  tells  old  fables,  while  Alma  Tadema  takes 
us  in  his  company,  and,  like  the  best-informed  cicerone,  leads  us 
through  the  streets  of  old  Athens,  reconstmcting  the  temples, 
altars,  and  dwellings,  the  shops  of  the  butchers,  bakers,  and  fish- 
mongers, just  as  they  once  were. 

This  power  of  making  himself  believed  Alma  Tadema  owes  in 
the  first  place  to  his  great  archaeological  learning.  By  Leys  in 
Brussels  this  side  of  his  talent  was  first  awakened,  and  in  1863, 
when  he  went  to  Italy  for  the  first  time,  he  discovered  his 
archaeological  mission.  How  the  old  Romans  dressed,  how  their 
army  was  equipped  and  attired,  became  as  well  known  to  him 
as  the  appearance  of  the  citizens'  houses,  the  artisans*  workshops. 


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126  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  market  and  the  bath.  He  explored  the  ruins  of  temples,  and 
he  grew  familiar  with  the  privileges  of  the  priests,  the  method  of 
worship,  of  the  sacrifices,  and  of  the  festal  processions.  There  was 
no  monument  of  br^ss  or  marble,  no  wall-painting,  no  pictured 
vase  nor  mosaic,  no  sample  of  ancient  arts,  of  pottery,  stone- 
cutting,  or  work  in  gold,  that  he  did  not  study.  His  brain  soon 
became  a  complete  encyclopaedia  of  antiquity.  He  knew  the 
forms  of  architecture  as  well  as  he  knew  the  old  myths,  and  all 
the  domestic  appointments  and  robes  as  exactly  as  the  usages 
of  ritual.  In  Brussels,  as  early  as  the  sixties,  this  complete 
power  of  living  in  the  period  he  chose  to  represent  gave  Alma 
Tadema's  pictures  from  antiquity  their  remarkable  cachet  of 
striking  truthfulness  to  life.  And  London,  whither  he  migrated 
in  1870,  offered  even  a  more  favourable  soil  for  his  art.  Whereas 
the  French  painters  of  the  antique  picture  of  manners  often  fell 
into  a  diluted  idealism  and  a  lifeless  traffic  with  old  curiosities,, 
with  Alma  Tadema  one  stands  in  the  presence  of  a  veritable 
fragment  of  life ;  he  simply  paints  the  people  amongst  whom  he 
lives  and  their  world.  The  Pompeian  house  which  he  has  built 
in  London,  with  its  dreamy  vividarium,  its  great  golden  hall,  its 
Egyptian  decorations,  its  Ionic  pillars,  its  mosaic  floor,  and  its 
Oriental  carpets,  contains  everything  one  needs  to  conjure  up 
the  times  of  Nero  and  the  Byzantine  emperors.  It  is  surrounded 
by  a  garden  in  the  old  Roman  style,  and  a  large  conservatory 
adjoining  is  planted  with  plane-trees  and  cypresses.  All  the 
celebrated  marble  benches  and  basins,  the  figures  of  stone  and 
bronze,  the  tiger-skins  and  antique  vessels  and  garments  of  his 
pictures,  may  be  found  in  this  notable  house  in  the  midst  of 
London.  Whether  he  paints  the  baths,  the  amphitheatre,  or  the 
atrium,  the  scenes  of  his  pictures  are  no  other  than  parts  of  his 
own  house  which  he  has  faithfully  painted. 

And  the  figures  moving  in  them  are  Englishwomen.  Among 
all  the  beautiful  things  in  the  world  there  are  few  so  beautiful 
as  English  girls.  Those  tall,  slender,  vigorous  figures  that  one 
sees  upon  the  beach  at  Brighton  are  really  like  Greek  women, 
and  even  the  garb  which  they  wear  in  playing  tennis  is  a^  free 
and  graceful  as  that  of  the  Grecian  people.     Alma  Tadema  was 


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127 


Albert  Moore. 


able  to  introduce  into  his  works 
these  women  of  lofty  and  noble 
figure  with  golden  hair,  these 
forms  made  for  sculpture  —  to 
use  the  phrase  of  Winckelmann 
— without  any  kind  of  beautify- 
ing idealism.  In  their  still-life 
his  pictures  are  the  fruit  of 
enormous  archaeological  learning 
which  has  become  intuitive  vision, 
but  his  figures  are  the  result  of 
a  healthy  rendering  of  life.  In 
this  way  the  unrivalled  classical 
local  colour  of  his  interiors  is  to 
be  explained,  as  well  as  the 
lifelike  character  of  his  figures. 
By  his  works  a  remarkable  problem  is  solved  :  an  intense  feeling 
for  modern  reality  has  called  the  ancient  world  into  being  in 
a  credible  fashion,  whilst  it  has  remained  barricaded  against  all 
others  who  have  approached  it  by  the  road  of  idealism. 

It  is  only  in  his  method  of  execution  that  he  still  stands 
upon  the  same  ground  as  Gerdme,  with  whom  he  shares  a  taste 
for  anecdote,  and  a  pedantic,  neat,  and  correct  style  of  painting. 
His  ancient  comedies  played  by  English  actors  are  an  excellent 
archaeological  lecture;  they  rise  above  the  older  picture  of 
antique  manners  by  a  more  striking  fidelity  to  nature,  very 
different  from  the  generalization  of  the  Classicists'  ideal  ;  yet  as 
a  painter  he  is  wanting  in  every  quality.  His  marble  shines, 
his  bronze  gleams,  and  everything  is  harmonized  with  the  green 
of  the  cypresses  and  delicate  rose-colour  of  the  oleander  blossoms 
in  a  cool  marble  tone;  but  there  is  also  something  marble  in 
the  figures  themselves.  He  draws  and  stipples,  .works  like  a 
copper  engraver,  and  goes  over  his  work  again  and  again  with 
a  fine  and  feeble  brush.  His  pictures  have  the  effect  of 
porcelain,  his  colours  are  hard  and  lifeless.  One  remembers  the 
anecdotes,  but  one  cannot  speak  of  any  idea  of  colour. 

Albert  Moore  is  to  be  noted  as  the  solitary  "painter"  of  the 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


group  :  a  very  delicate 
artist,  with  a  style  peculiar 
to  himself;  one  who  is  not 
so  well  known  upon  the 
Continent  as  he  deserves 
to  be.  His  province,  also, 
is  ancient  Greece,  yet  he 
never  attempted  to  recon- 
struct classical  antiquity 
as  a  learned  archaeologist. 
Merely  as  a  painter  did 
he  love  to  dream  amid 
the  imperishable  world  of 
beauty  known  to  ancient 
times.  His  figures  are 
ethereal  visions,  and  move 
in  dreamland.  He  was 
influenced,  indeed,  by  the 
sculptures  of  the  Parthe- 
non, but  the  Japanese 
have  also  penetrated  his 
spirit  From  the  Greeks  he  learnt  the  combination  of  noble 
lines,  the  charm  of  dignity  and  quietude,  while  the  Japanese 
gave  him  the  feeling  for  harmonies  of  colour,  for  soft,  delicate, 
blended  tones.  By  a  capricious  union  of  both  these  elements 
he  formed  his  refined  and  exquisite  style.  The  world  which 
he  has  called  into  being  is  made  up  of  white  marble  pillars ;  in 
its  gardens  are  cool  fountains  and  marble  pavements ;  but  it  is 
also  full  of  white  birds,  soft  colours,  and  rosy  blossoms  from 
Kioto.  And  it  is  peopled  with  graceful  and  mysterious  maidens, 
clothed  in  ideal  draperies,  who  love  rest,  enjoy  an  eternal  youth, 
and  are  altogether  contented  with  themselves  and  with  one 
another.  It  might  be  said  that  the  old  figures  of  Tanagra  had 
received  new  life,  were  it  not  felt,  at  the  same  time,  that  these 
beings  must  have  drunk  a  good  deal  of  tea.  Not  that  they  are 
entirely  modern,  for  their  figures  are  more  plastic  and  sym- 
metrical than  those   of  the  actual  daughters  of  Albion  ;    but  in 


SaribiurB  MagOMint.] 

Albert  Moore:  "Yellow  Daffodils.** 

(By  ptrmissum  of  IV.  Connal^  Esq.,  the  onnur  of  tht 
piciutm*) 


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C.  Henischgl  rtpr.^  [  tioussod-  Valadon  sc. 

Albert  Moore:   ''Companions." 

(By  ptrmission  o/Missra.  DowdeswtU  6*  DowtUsweilSf  tht  own4ra  of  tht  copyright,) 


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131 


Albert  Moore:   "Midsummer." 

(By  permission  0/  Messrs.  Cadbury,  Jones  ^  Co.^ 
the  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


all  their  movements  they 
have  a  certain  chicy  and  in 
all  their  shades  of  expres- 
sion a  weary  modernity, 
through  which  they  deviate 
from  the  conventional 
woman  of  Classicism. 
Otherwise  the  pictures  of 
Albert  Moore  are  inde- 
scribable. Frail,  ethereal 
beings,  blond  as  corn, 
lounge  in  aesthetically 
graduated  grey  and  blue, 
salmon  -  coloured,  or  pale 
purple  draperies  upon 
bright  -  hued  couches  de- 
corated by  Japanese  artists 
with  most  aesthetic  materials ;  or  they  stand  in  a  violet  robe 
with  a  white  mantle  embroidered  with  gold  by  a  grey-blue  sea, 
which  has  a  play  of  greenish  tones  at  the  spot  where  it  breaks 
upon  the  shore.  They  stand  out  with  their  rosy  garments 
from  the  light  grey  background  and  the  delicate  arabesques  of 
a  gleaming  silvery  gobelin,  or  in  a  graceful  pose  occupy 
themselves  with  their  rich  draperies.  They  do  as  little  as 
they  possibly  can,  but  they  are  living  and  seductive,  and  the 
stuffs  which  they  wear  and  have  around  them  are  delicately 
and  charmingly  painted.  It  is  harmonies  of  tone  and  colour 
that  exclusively  form  the  subject  of  every  work.  The  figures, 
accessories,  and  detail  first  take  shape  when  the  scale  of  colour 
has  been  found ;  and  then  Albert  Moore  takes  a  delight  in 
naming  his  pictures  "  Apricots,"  "  Oranges,"  "  Shells,"  etc.,  accord- 
ing as  the  robes  arc  apricot  or  orange  colour  or  adorned  with 
light  ornaments  of  shell.  Everything  which  comes  from  his 
hands  is  delightful  in  the  charm  of  delicate  simplicity,  and  for 
any  one  who  loves  painting  as  painting  it  has  something  soothing 
in  the  midst  of  the  surrounding  art,  which  still  confuses  painting 
with  poetry  more  than  is  fitting. 


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132  MODERN  PAINTING 


Scribntr's  MagaMtng.} 

Albert  Moore:  ** Reading  Aloud." 

{By  ptrmission  of  fV,  Connai,  Esq.,  ihg  owntr  of  tht  picture,) 

Such  a  painter-poet  of  the  specifically  English  type  is  Briton^ 
Riviere,  He  is  a  painter  of  animals,  and  as  such  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  century.  Lions  and  geese,  royal  tigers  and  golden 
eagles,  stags,  dogs,  foxes,  and  Highland  cattle,  he  has  painted 
them  all,  and  with  a  mastery  which  has  nothing  like  it  except  in 
Landseer.  Amongst  the  painters  of  animals  he  stands  alone 
through  his  power  of  conception  and  his  fine  poetic  vein,  while  in 
all  his  pictures  he  unites  the  greatest  simplicity  with  enormous 
dramatic  force.  Accessory  work  is  everywhere  kept  within  the 
narrowest  limits,  and  everywhere  the  character  of  the  animals 
is  magnificently  grasped.  He  does  not  alone  paint  great  tragic 
scenes  as  Barye  chiselled  them,  for  he  knows  that  beasts  of  prey 
are  usually  quiet  and  peaceable,  and  only  now  and  then  obey 
their  savage  nature.  Moreover  he  never  attempts  to  represent 
animals  performing  a  masquerade  of  humanity  in  their  gestures 
and  expression,  as  Landseer  did,  nor  does  he  transform  them 
into  comic  actors.  He  paints  them  as  what  they  are,  a  symbol 
of  what  humanity  was  once  itself,  with  its  elementary  passions 
and  its  natural  virtues  and  failings.  Amongst  all  animal  painters 
he  is  almost  alone  in  resisting  the  temptation  to  give  the  lion  a 
consciousness  of  his  own  dignity,  the  tiger  a  consciousness  of 
his   own   savageness,  the  dog  a  consciousness  of  his  own  under- 


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ENGLAND 


133 


standing.  They  neither 
pose  nor  think  about 
themselves.  In  addition 
to  this  he  has  a  powerful 
and  impressive  method, 
and  a  deep  and  earnest 
scheme  of  colour.  In  the 
beginning  of  his  career  he 
learnt  most  from  James 
Ward.  Later  he  felt  the 
influence  of  the  refined, 
chivalrous,  and  piquant 
Scotchmen  Orchardson 
and  Pettie.  But  the  point 
in  which  Briton-Riviere  is 
altogether  peculiar  is  that 
in  which  he  joins  issue 
with  the  painters  in- 
fluenced by  Greece :  he 
introduces  his  animals  into 
a  scene  where  there  are 
men  of  the  ancient  world. 
Briton  -  Riviere    is   de- 


Scribntr's  Magaaint.} 
Albert  Moore  :   "  Waiting  to  Cross." 
{By  permission  of  Lord  Davey*Jhe  owntr  oftht  picturt.)  \ 


scended  from  a  French  family  which  found  its  way  into  England 
after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  he  is  one  of 
those  painters — so  frequent  in  English  art — whose  nature  has 
developed  early :  when  he  was  fourteen  he  left  school,  exhibited 
in  the  Academy  when  he  was  eighteen,  painted  as  a  Pre- 
raphaelite  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  twenty-two,  and 
graduated  at  Oxford  at  seven-and- twenty.  In  his  youth  he 
divided  his  time  between  art  and  scholarship — painting  pictures 
and  studying  Greek  and  Latin  literature.  Thus  he  became  a 
painter  of  animals  having  also  an  enthusiasm  for  the  Greek 
poets,  and  he  has  stood  for  a  generation  as  an  uncontested 
lord  and  master  on  his  own  peculiar  ground.  In  his  first 
important  picture,  of  1871,  the  comrades  of  Ulysse.s,  changed  into 
swine,   troop    grunting    round    the    enchantress    Circe.      In   the 


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134  MODERN  PAINTING 

masterpiece  .'of  1872  the  Prophet  Daniel  stands  unmoved  and 
submissive  to  the  will  of  God  amid  the  lions  roaring  and  showing 
their  teeth,  ready  to  spring  upon  him  in  their  hunger,  yet  re- 
garding him  with  a  mysterious  fear,  spellbound  by  the  power 
of  his  eye.  While  his  great  picture  "  Persepolis "  makes  the 
appeal  of  a  page  from  the  philosophy  of  history,  with  its  lions 
roaming  majestically  amid  the  ruins  of  human  grandeur  and  human 
civilization,  which  are  flooded  with  moonlight  The  picture  "In 
Manus  Tuas,  Domine,"  showed  St.  George  riding  solitary  through 
the  lonely  and  silent  recesses  of  a  primitive  forest  upon  a  pale 
white  horse.  He  is  armed  in  mail  and  has  a  mighty  sword  ;  a 
deep  seriousness  is  imprinted  on  his  features,  for  he  has  gone 
forth  to  slay  the  dragon.  In  yet  another  picture,  "An  Old- 
World  Wanderer,"  a  man  of  the  early  ages  has  come  ashore  upon 
an  untrodden  island,  and  is  encompassed  by  flocks  of  great  white 
birds,  fluttering  round  him  with  curiosity  and  confidence,  as  yet 
ignorant  of  the  fear  of  human  beings.  The  picture  of  1891, 
"  A  Mighty  Hunter  before  the  Lord,"  is  one  of  his  most  poetic 
night-pieces :  Nimrod  is  returning  home,  and  beneath  the  silvery 
silence  of  the  moon  the  dead  and  dying  creatures  which  he  has 
laid  low  upon  the  wide  Assyrian  plain  are  tended  and  bemoaned 
by  their  mates. 

Between  whiles  he  painted  subjects  which  were  not  borrowed 
from  ancient  history,  illustrating  the  friendship  between  man  and 
dog,  as  Landseer  had  done  before  him.  For  instance,  in  "  His 
Only  Friend "  there  is  a  poor  lad  who  has  broken  down  at  the 
last  milestone  before  the  town  and  is  guarded  by  his  dog.  In 
"  Old  Playfellows "  again  one  of  the  playmates  is  a  child,  who  is 
sick  and  leans  back  quietly  in  an  armchair  covered  with  cushions. 
His  friend  the  great  dog  has  one  paw  resting  on  the  child's  lap, 
and  looks  up  with  a  pensive  expression,  such  as  Landseer  alone 
has  painted  in  previous  times.  But  in  this  style  he  reached 
his  highest  point  in  "Sympathy."  No  work  of  Briton-Riviere's 
has  become  more  popular  than  this  picture  of  the  little  maiden 
who  has  forgotten  her  key  and  is  sitting  helpless  before  the 
house-door,  consoled  by  the  dog  who  has  laid  his  head  upon  her 
shoulder. 


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ENGLAND  137 

Since  the  days  of  Reynolds  English  art  has  shown  a  most 
vivid  originality  in  such  representations  of  children.  English 
picture-books  for  children  are  in  these  days  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  world,  and  the  marvellous  fairy-tales  and  fireside  stories 
of  Randolph  Caldecott  and  Kate  Greenaway  have  made  their  way 
throughout  the  whole  Continent.  How  well  these  English 
draughtsmen  know  the  secret  of  combining  truth  with  the  most 
exquisite  grace !  How  touching  are  these  pretty  babies,  how 
angelically  innocent  these  little  maidens !  Frank  eyes,  blue  as 
the  flowers  of  the  periwinkle,  gaze  at  you  with  no  thought  of 
their  being  looked  at  in  return.  The  naYve  astonishment  of  the 
little  ones,  their  frightened  mien,  their  earnest  look  absently 
fixed  upon  the  sky,  the  first  tottering  steps  of  a  tiny  child 
and  the  mobile  grace  of  a  schoolgirl,  all  are  rendered  in  these 
prints  with  the  most  tender  intimacy  of  feeling.  And  united 
with  this  there  is  a  delicate  and  entirely  modern  sentiment  for 
scenery,  for  the  fascination  of  bare  autumn  landscapes  robbed 
of  their  foliage,  for  sunbeams  and  the  budding  fragrance  of 
spring.  Everything  is  idyllic,  poetic,  and  touched  by  a  congenial 
breath  of  tender  melancholy. 

And  this  aerial  quality,  this  delicacy  and  innocent  grace  and 
tenderness,  is  not  confined  alone  to  such  representations  of  children, 
but  is  peculiar  to  English  painting.  Even  when  perfectly 
ordinary  subjects  from  modern  life  are  in  question,  the  basis 
of  this  art  is,  as  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  by  no  means 
the  sense  for  what  is  purely  pictorial,  by  no  means  that  naturalistic 
pantheism  which  inspires  the  modern  French,  but  rather  a  sense 
for  what  is  moral  or  ethical.  The  painter  seldom  paints  merely 
for  the  joy  of  painting,  and  the  numberless  technical  questions 
which  play  such  an  important  part  in  French  art  are  here  only 
of  secondary  importance.  It  accords  with  the  character  and 
taste  of  the  people  that  their  artists  have  rather  a  poetic  design 
than  one  which  is  properly  pictorial.  The  conception  is  some- 
times allegorical  and  subtile  to  the  most  exquisite  fineness  of 
point,  sometimes  it  is  vitiated  by  sentimentality,  but  it  is  never 
purely  naturalistic  ;  and  this  qualified  realism,  this  realism  with 
a  poetic  strain  to  keep  it  ladylike,  set  English  art,  especially  in 

VOL.  III.  10 


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138  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  years  when  Bastien-Lepage  and  Roll  were  at  their  zenith, 
in  sharp  opposition  to  the  art  of  France.  In  those  days  the 
life-size  artisan  picture,  the  prose  of  life,  and  the  struggle  for 
existence  reigned  almost  exclusively  in  the  Parisian  Salon, 
whereas  in  the  Royal  Academy  everything  was  quiet  and  cordial ; 
an  intimate,  inoffensive,  and  heartfelt  cheerfulness  was  to  be 
found  in  the  pictures  upon  its  walls,  as  if  none  of  these  painters 
knew  of  the  existence  of  such  a  place  as  Whitechapel.  A  con- 
nection between  pictures  and  poems  is  still  popular,  and  some 
touching  trait,  some  tender  episode,  some  expression  of  softness, 
is  given  to  subjects  drawn  from  the  ordinary  life  of  the  people. 
Painters  seek  in  every  direction  after  pretty  rustic  scenes,  moving 
incidents,  or  pure  emotions.  Instead  of  being  harsh  and  rugged 
in  their  sense  of  truth  and  passion,  they  glide  lightly  away  from 
anything  ugly,  bringing  together  the  loveliest  and  most  beautiful 
things  in  nature,  and  creating  elegies,  pastorals,  and  idylls  from 
the  passing  events  of  life.  Their  method  of  expression  is 
fastidious  and  finished  to  a  nicety  ;  their  vision  of  life  is  smiling 
and  kindly,  though  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  their  optimism 
has  now  anything  in  common  with  the  genre  picture  of  1850. 
The  genre  painters  from  Wilkie  to  Collins  epitomized  the  actual 
manners  of  the  present  in  prosaic  compositions.  But  here  the 
most  splendid  poetry  breaks  out,  as  indeed  it  actually  does  in 
the  midst  of  ordinary  life.  If  in  that  earlier  period  English 
painting  was  awkward  in  narration,  vulgar,  and  didactic,  it  is 
now  tasteful,  refined,  beautiful,  and  of  distinction.  The  philis- 
tinism  of  the  pictures  of  those  days  has  been  finally  stripped 
away,  and  the  humorously  anecdotic  genre  entirely  overcome. 
The  generation  of  tiresome  narrative  artists  has  been  followed 
by  painter-poets  of  delicacy  and  exquisite  tenderness  of  feeling. 
Two  masters  who  died  young  and  have  a  peculiarly  captivat- 
ing individuality,  George  Mason  and  Fred  Walker,  stand  at 
the  head  of  this,  •  the  most  novel  phase  of  English  painting. 
Alike  in  the  misfortune  of  premature  death,  they  are  also  united 
by  a  bond  of  sympathy  in  their  taste  and  sentiment  If  there 
be  truth  in  what  Theophile  Gautier  once  said  in  a  beautiful 
poem,   "  Tout  passe,  Tart    robuste   seul  a  V^temiti''    neither    of 


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ENGLAND 


141 


them  will  enter  the 
kingdom  of  immor- 
tality.    That   might 
be  applied  to  them 
which    Heine    said 
of  Leopold  Robert : 
they    have    purified 
the   peasant   in   the 
purgatory    of    their 
art  so  that  nothing 
but  a  glorified  body 
remains.       As     the 
Preraphaelites 
wished  to  give   ex- 
quisite  precision   to 
the  world  of  dream, 
Walker  and  Mason 
have      taken      this 
precision    from    the 
world      of      reality, 
•endowing     it     with 
a     refined     subtilty 
which    in    truth    it 
has  not  got.     Their 
pictures    breathe' 
only  of  the   bloom 
and     essence     of 
things,  and  in  them 
nature    is    deprived 
of  her  strength  and 
marrow,  and  paint- 
ing of  her   peculiar 
<iualities,  which  are 
changed      in  to 
coloured   breath   and   tinted   dream.     They   may  be  reproached 
with  an   excess   of  nervous   sensibility,  an   effort  after  style  by 
which    modern    truth    is    recast,   a    morbid    tendency   to    suave 


U.D.MUltrsc, 
Mason;  "The  Milkmaid." 

(By  permission  of  Mtssrs.  P.  <S*  D.  Colnaghi^  tfu  owners  oj 
the  copyright.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


[R.  Macbeth  sc. 
Mason  :   "  The  Unwilling  Playmate.'* 

(By  ptrmission  of  Mr.  Robert  Dunlhome,  tht  owmer  of  tht  copyright,) 

mysticism.  Nevertheless  their  works  are  the  most  original 
products  of  English  painting  during  the  last  twenty  years,  and 
by  a  strange  union  of  realism  and  poetic  feeling  they  have 
exercised  a  deeply  penetrative  influence  upon  Continental  art 

"  ^quam  semper  in  rebus  arduis  servare  mentem  **  might  be 
chosen  as  a  motto  for  George  Mason's  biography.  Brought  up 
in  prosperous  circumstances,  he  first  became  a  doctor,  but  when 
he  was  seven-and-twenty  he  went  to  Italy  to  devote  himself  to 
painting;  here  he  received  the  news  that  he  was  ruined.  His 
father  had  lost  everything,  and  he  found  himself  entirely  deprived 
of  means,  so  that  his  life  became  a  long  struggle  against  hunger. 
He  bound  himself  to  dealers,  and  provided  animal  pieces  by 
the  dozen  for  the  smallest  sums.  In  a  freezing  room  he  sat 
with  his  pockets  empty,  worked  until  it  was  dark,  and  crept 
into  bed  when  Rome  went  to  feast.  After  two  years,  however, 
he  had  at  last  saved  the  money  necessary  for  taking  him  back 
to  England,  and  he  settled  with  his  young  wife  in  Wetley 
Abbey.  This  little  village,  where  he  lived  his  simple  life  in  the 
deepest  seclusion,  became  for  him  what  Barbizon  had  been  for 
Millet  He  wandered  by  himself  amongst  the  fields,  and  painted 
the  valleys  of  Wetley  with  the  tenderness  of  feeling  with  which 
Corot    painted    the    outskirts    of    Fontainebleau.      He    saw    the 


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ENGLAND  145 

ghostly  mists  lying  upon  the  moors,  saw  the  peasants  returning 
from  the  plough  and  the  reapers  from  the  field,  noted  the 
children,  in  their  life  so  closely  connected  with  the  change  of 
nature.  And  yet  his  peasant  pictures  more  resemble  the  works 
of  Perugino  than  those  of  Bastien-Lepage.  The  character  of 
their  landscape  is  to  some  extent  responsible  for  this.  For 
the  region  he  paints,  in  its  lyrical  charm,  has  kinship  with 
the  hills  in  the  pictures  of  Perugino.  Here  there  grow  the 
same  slender  trees  upon  a  delicate,  undulating  soil.  But  the 
silent,  peaceful,  and  resigned  human  beings  who  move  across 
it  have  also  the  tender  melancholy  of  Umbrian  Madonnas. 
Mason's  realism  is  merely  specious ;  it  consists  in  the  external 
point  of  costume.  There  are  really  no  peasants  of  such  slender 
growth,  no  English  village  maidens  with  such  rosy  faces  and 
such  coquettish  Holland  caps.  Mason  divests  them  of  all  the 
heaviness  of  earth,  takes,  as  it  were,  only  the  flower-dust  from 
reality.  The  poetic  grace  of  Jules  Breton  might  be  recalled, 
were  it  not  that  Mason  works  with  more  refinement  and 
subtilty,  for  his  idealism  was  unconscious,  and  never  resulted 
in  an  empty,  professional  painting  of  beauty. 

When  he  painted  his  finest  pictures  he  suffered  from  very 
bad  health,  and  his  works  have  themselves  the  witchery  of 
disease,  the  fascinating  beauty  of  consumption.  .  He  painted 
with  such  delicacy  and  refinement  because  sickness  had  made 
him  weak  and  delicate ;  he  divested  his  peasant  men  and  women 
of  everything  fleshly,  so  that  nothing  but  a  shadow  of  them 
remained,  a  spirit  vibrating  in  fine,  dying,  and  elusive  chords. 
In  his  "  Evening  Hymn "  girls  are  singing  in  the  meadow ;  to 
judge  from  their  dresses  they  should  be  the  daughters  of  the 
peasantry,  but  one  fancies  them  religious  enthusiasts,  brought 
together  upon  this  mysterious  and  sequestered  corner  of  the 
earth  by  a  melancholy  world-weariness,  by  a  yearning  after  the 
mystical.  Fragile  as  glass,  sensitive  to  the  ends  of  their  fingers, 
and,  one  might  say,  morbidly  spiritual,  they  breathe  out  their 
souls  in  song,  encompassed  by  the  soft  shadows  of  the  evening 
twilight,  and  uttering  all  the  exquisite  tenderness  of  their  subtile 
temperament  in  the  hymn  they  chant.     Another  of  his  pastoral 


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iti.  Macbeth  #c. 


Walker:   "Marlow  Ferry." 
{By  ptrmission  of  Mr,  Robert  Dunthomtf  tht  owner  0/  the  copyright,) 

symphonies  is  "  The  Harvest  Moon."  Some  labourers  are 
stepping  homewards  after  their  day's  work.  The  moon  is  rising, 
and  casts  its  soft,  subdued  hght  upon  the  dark  hills  and  the 
slender  trees,  in  the  silvery  leaves  of  which  the  evening  wind  is 
playing.  "  The  Gander,"  "  The  Young  Anglers,"  and.  "  The  Cast 
Shoe  "  are  captivating  through  the  same  delicacy  and  the  same 
mood  of  peaceful  resignation.  George  Mason  is  an  astonishing 
artist,  almost  always  guilty  of  exaggeration,  but  always  seductive. 
Life  passes  in  his  pictures  like  a  beautiful  summer's  day,  and 
with  the  accompaniment  of  soft  music.  A  peaceful,  delicate 
feeling,  something  mystical,  bitter-sweet,  and  suffering,  lives 
beneath  the  light  and  tender  veil  of  his  pictures.  They  affect 
the  nerves  like  a  harmonica,  and  lull  one  with  low  and  softly 
veiled  harmonies.  Many  of  the  melancholy  works  of  Israels 
have  a  similar  eflfect,  only  Israels  is  less  refined,  has  less  of 
distinction  and — more  of  truth. 

This  suavity  of  feeling  is  characteristic  in  an  almost  higher 
degree  of  Fred  Walker,  an  artist  sensitive  and  never  satisfied 
with   himself.      Every  one  of  his  pictures   gives   the   impression 


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ENGLAND  147 

of  deep  and  quiet  reverie  ;  everywhere  a  kind  of  mood,  like 
that  in  a  fairy  tale,  colours  the  ordinary  events  of  life  in  his 
works,  an  effect  produced  by  his  refined  composition  of  forms 
and  colours.  In  his  classically  simple  art  Mason  was  influenced 
by  the  Italians,  and  especially  the  Umbrians.  Walker  drew  a 
similar  inspiration  from  the  works  of  Millet.  Both  the  English- 
man and  the  Frenchman  died  in  the  same  year,  the  former  on 
January  20th,  1875,  in  Barbizon,  the  latter  on  June  sth,  in 
Scotland  ;  and  yet  in  a  certain  sense  they  stand  at  the  very 
opposite  poles  of  art.  Walker  is  graceful,  delicate,  and  tender; 
Millet  forceful,  healthy,  and  powerful.  **  To  draw  sublimity 
from  what  is  trivial "  was  the  aim  of  both,  and  they  both  reached 
it  by  the  same  path.  All  their  predecessors  had  held  truth  as 
the  foe  of  beauty,  and  had  qualified  shepherds  and  shepherdesses, 
ploughmen  and  labourers,  for  artistic  treatment  by  forcing  upon 
them  the  smiling  grace  and  the  strained  humour  of  genre 
painting.  Millet  and  Fred  Walker  broke  with  the  frivolity 
of  this  elder  school  of  painting,  which  had  seen  matter  for 
jesting,  and  only  that,  in  the  life  of  the  rustic  ;  they  asserted 
that  in  the  life  of  the  toiler  nothing  was  more  deserving  of 
artistic  representation  than  his  toil.  They  always  began  by 
reproducing  life  as  they  saw  it,  and  by  disdaining,  in  their  effort 
after  truth,  all  artificial  embellishment ;  they  came  to  recognize, 
both  of  them  at  the  same  time,  a  dignity  in  the  human  frame, 
and  grandiose  forms  and  classic  lines  in  human  movement,  which 
no  one  had  discovered  before.  With  the  most  pious  reverence 
for  the  exact  facts  of  life,  there  was  united  that  greatness  of 
conception  which  is  known  as  style. 

Fred  Walker,  the  Tennyson  of  painting,  was  born  in 
London  in  1840,  and  had  scarcely  left  school  before  the  galleries 
of  ancient  art  in  the  British  Museum  became  his  favourite  place 
of  resort.  Drawings  for  wood-engraving  were  his  first  works, 
and  with  Millet  in  France  he  has  the  chief  merit  of  having 
put  fresh  life  into  the  traditional  style  of  English  wood-cut 
engraving,  so  that  he  is  honoured  by  the  young  school  of 
engravers  in  wood-cut  as  their  lord  and  master.  His  first,  and 
as  yet  unimportant,   drawings   appeared  in  i860   in  a  periodica 


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[/?.  Macb€tk  8C. 


Walker:  "A  Flood  in  the  Fens." 
(fiy  permission  of  Mr,  Robert  Dunthonu,  the  owner  of  the  copyright.) 

called  Once  a  Week,  for  which  Leech,  Millais,  and  others  also 
made  drawings.  Shortly  after  this  d^but  he  was  introduced 
to  Thackeray,  then  the  editor  of  Comhill,  and  he  undertook 
the  illustrations  with  Millais.  In  these  plates  he  is  already 
seen  in  his  charm,  grace,  and  simplicity.  His  favourite  season 
is  the  tender  spring,  when  the  earth  is  clothed  with  young 
verdure,  and  the  sunlight  glances  over  the  naked  branches,  and 
the  children  pluck  the  first  flowers  which  have  shot  up  beneath 
their  covering  of  snow. 

His  pictures  give  pleasure  by  virtue  of  the  same  qualities — 
delicacy  of  drawing,  bloom  of  colouring,  and  a  grace  which  is  not 
affected  in  spite  of  its  Grecian  rhythm. 

Walker  was  the  first  to  introduce  that  delicate  rosy  red  which 
has  since  been  popular  in  English  painting.  His  method  of 
vision  is  as  widely  removed  from  that  of  Manet  as  from  Couture's 
brown  sauce.  The  surface  of  every  one  of  his  pictures  resembles 
a  rare  jewel  in  its  delicate  finish :  it  is  soft,  and  gives  the 
sense  of  colour  and  of  refined  and  soothing  harmony.  His  first 
important  work,  *' Bathers,'*  was  exhibited  in  1867  at  the 
Royal  Academy,  where  works  of  his  appeared  regularly  during 
the  next  five  years.  About  a  score  of  young  people  are  standing 
on  the  verge  of  a  deep  and  quiet  English  river,  and  are  just 
about  to  refresh  themselves  in  the  tide  after  a  hot  August  day. 


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i^AwiA 


Jitiopfr  m. 


Walker:   "The  Bathers." 
{By  permission  of  Messrs.  Thomas  Agrnw  cJ*  5om5,  the  owners  oj  the  copyright.) 

Some,  indeed,  are  already  in  the  water,  while  others  are  sitting 
upon  the  grass  and  others  undressing.  The  frieze  of  the 
Parthenon  is  recalled,  so  plastic  is  the  grace  of  these  young 
frames,  and  the  style  and  repose  of  the  treatment  of  lines, 
which  are  such  as  may  only  be  found  in  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 
In  his  next  picture,  "  The  Vagrants,"  he  represented  a  group 
of  gipsies  camping  round  a  fire  in  the  midst  of  an  English 
landscape.  A  mother  is  nursing  her  child,  while  to  the  left  a 
woman  is  standing  plunged  in  thought,  and  to  the  right  a  lad  is 
throwing  wood  upon  the  faintly  blazing  fire.  Here,  too,  the  figures 
are  all  drawn  severely  after  nature  and  yet  have  the  air  of  Greek 
statues.  There  is  no  modern  artist  who  has  united  in  so  un- 
forced a  manner  actuality  and  fidelity  to  nature  with  "  the  noble 
simplicity  and  quiet  grandeur"  of  the  antique.  In  a  succeeding 
picture  of  1870,  "The  Plough,"  a  labourer  is  striding  over  the 
ground  ploughing.  The  long  day  is  approaching  its  end,  and  the 
moon  stands  silvery  in  the  sky.  Far  into  the  distance  the  field 
stretches  away,  and  the  heavy  tread  of  the  horses  mingles  in  the 
stillness  of  evening  with  the  murmur  of  the  stream  which  flows 
round  the  grassy  ridge,  making  its  soft  complaint.  "Man 
goeth  forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labour  until  the  evening" 
is  its  thoroughly  English  motto.  The  same  still  mournfulness 
of  sunset  he  painted  in  that  work  of  marvellous  tenderness  "  The 
Old  Gate."     The  peace  of  dusk  is  resting  upon  a  soft  and  gentle 


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landscape.  A  lady  who  is  the  owner  of  a  country  mansion  and 
is  dressed  like  a  widow  has  just  stepped  out  from  the  garden  gate, 
accompanied  by  her  maid,  who  is  in  the  act  of  shutting  it ; 
children  are  playing  on  the  steps,  and  a  couple  of  labourers  are 
going  past  in  front  and  look  towards  the  lady  of  the  house.  It  is 
nothing  except  the  meeting  of  certain  persons,  a  scene  such  as 
takes  place  every  day,  and  yet  even  here  there  is  a  subtilty  and 
tenderness  which  raise  the  event  from  the  prose  of  ordinary  life 
into  a  mysterious  world  of  poetry. 

In  his  later  period  he  deviated  more  and  more  towards  a 
fragrant  lyricism.  In  his  great  picture  of  1872,  "The  Harbour 
of  Refuge,"  the  background  is  formed  by  one  of  those  peaceful 
buildings  where  the  aged  poor  pass  the  remainder  of  their 
days  in  meditative  rest.  The  sun  is  sinking  and  there  is  a 
rising  moon.  The  red-tiled  roof  stands  out  clear  against  the 
quiet  evening  sky,  while  upon  the  terrace  in  front,  over  which 
the  tremulous  yellow  rays  of  the  setting  sun  are  shed,  an  old 
woman  with  a  bowed  figure  is  walking,  guided  by  a  graceful 
girl  who  steps  lightly  forward.  It  is  the  old  contrast  between 
day  and  night,  youth  and  age,  strength  and  decay.  Yet  in 
Walker  there  is  no  opposition  after  all.  For  as  light  mingles 
with  the  shadows  in  the  twilight,  this  young  and  vigorous 
woman  who  paces  in  the  evening,  holding  the  arm  of  the  aged 
in  mysterious  silence,  has  at  the  moment  no  sense  of  her  youth, 
but  is  rather  filled  with  that  melancholy  thought  underlying 
Goethe's  ''Warte  nur  baldel'  "Wait  awhile  and  thou  shalt  rest 
too."  Her  eyes  have  a  strange  gaze,  as  though  she  were  looking 
into  vacancy  in  mere  absence  of  mind.  And  upon  the  other  side 
of  the  picture  this  theme  of  the  transient  life  of  humanity  is  still 
further  developed.  Upon  a  bench  in  the  midst  of  a  verdant 
lawn  covered  with  daisies  a  group  of  old  men  are  sitting 
meditatively  near  a  hedge  of  hawthorn  luxuriant  in  blossom. 
Above  the  bench  there  stands  an  old  statue  casting  a  clearly 
defined  shadow  upon  the  golden  sand,  as  if  to  point  to  the 
contrast  between  imperishable  stone  and  the  unstable  race  of 
men,  fading  away  like  the  autumn  leaves.  Well  in  the  fore- 
ground   a   labourer    is   mowing    down   the   tender    spring    grass 


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ENGLAND  153 

with    a    scythe — a    strange,   wild,    and    rugged    figure,   a   reaper 
whose  name  is  Death. 

It  was  not  long  before  evening  drew  on  for  the  painter,  and 
Death,  the  mighty  reaper,  laid  him  low. 

Of  a  nervous  and  sensitive  temperament,  Walker  had  one  of 
those  natures  which  find  their  way  with  difficulty  through  this 
rude  world  of  fact  Those  little  things  which  he  had  the  art 
of  painting  so  beautifully,  and  which  occupy  such  an  important 
place  in  his  work,  had,  in  another  sense,  more  influence  upon 
his  life  than  ought  to  have  been  the  case.  While  Mason  faced 
all  unpleasantnesses  with  stoical  indifference.  Walker  allowed 
himself  to  be  disturbed  and  hindered  in  his  work  by  every 
failure  and  every  sharp  wind  of  criticism.  In  addition  to  that 
he  was,  like  Mason,  a  consumptive  subject.  A  residence  in 
Algiers  merely  banished  the  insidious  disease  for  a  short  time. 
Amongst  the  last  works,  which  he  exhibited  in  1875,  a  con- 
siderable stir  was  made  by  a  drawing  called  "The  Unknown 
Land  : "  a  vessel  with  naked  men  is  drawing  near  the  shores 
of  a  wide  and  peaceful  island  bathed  in  a  magical  light.  Soon 
afterwards  Walker  had  himself  departed  to  that  unknown  land : 
he  died  in  Scotland  when  he  was  five-and-thirty.  His  body 
was  brought  to  the  little  churchyard  at  Cookham  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames.  In  this  village  Fred  Walker  is  buried 
amid  the  fair  river  landscape  which  he  so  loved  and  so  often 
painted. 

After  the  Preraphaelite  revolution,  the  foundation  of  the 
school  of  Walker  indicated  the  last  stage  of  English  art.  His 
influence  was  far  greater  than  might  be  supposed  from  the  small 
number  of  his  works,  and  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  English  pictures 
in  every  exhibition  would  perhaps  never  have  been  painted  if 
he  had  not  been  born.  A  national  element  long  renounced,  that 
old  English  sentiment  which  once  inspired  the  landscapes  of 
Gainsborough  and  the  scenes  of  Morland,  and  was  lost  in  the 
hands  of  Wilkie  and  the  genre  painters,  lives  once  more  in 
Fred  Walker.  He  adapted  it  to  the  age  by  adding  some- 
thing of  Tennyson's  passion  for  nature.  There  is  a  touch  of 
symbolism  in  that  old   gate   which   he   painted   in   the   beautiful 

VOL.  III.  1 1 


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picture  of  1870.  He 
and  Mason  opened 
it  so  that  English 
art  might  pass  into 
this  new  domain, 
where  musical  sen- 
timent is  everything, 
where  one  is  buried 
in  sweet  reveries  at 
the  sight  of  a  flock 
of  geese  driven  by 
a  young  girl,  or 
a  labourer  stepping 
behind  his  plough, 
or  a  child  playing 
free  from  care  with 
pebbles  at  the 
water's  edge.  Their 
disciples  are  perhaps 
healthier,  or,  should 
one  say,  **  less  re- 
fined "  —  in  other 
words,  not  quite  so  sensitive  and  hyper-aesthetic  as  those  who 
opened  the  old  gate.  They  seem  physically  more  robust,  and 
can  better  face  the  sharp  air  of  reality.  They  no  longer  dissolve 
painting  altogether  into  music  and  poetry;  they  live  more  in 
the  world  at  every  hour,  and  not  merely  when  the  sun  is 
setting,  but  also  when  the  prosaic  daylight  exposes  objects  in 
their  material  heaviness.  But  the  tender  ground-tone,  the  effort 
to  seize  nature  in  soft  phases,  is  the  same  in  all.  Like  bees, 
they  suck  from  reality  only  its  sweets.  The  earnest,  tender, 
and  deeply  heartfelt  art  of  Walker  has  influenced  them  all. 

Evening  when  work  is  over,  the  end  of  summer,  twilight, 
autumn,  the  pale  and  golden  sky,  and  the  dead  leaves  are  the 
things  which  have  probably  made  the  most  profound  impression 
on  the  English  spirit.  The  hour  when  toil  is  laid  aside,  and 
rest  begins  and   people   seek   their  homes,  and  the    season  when 


^^^^^I^^^^^^Bf 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^Kr                                    ^  j^^^^RK    -j?^^=^9^^^^| 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^F                                          •  \  ^^HKmR*    -     '^^^^^^M 

^KK^^^^^Ktt      -.    '     .    ".;      ?'  ^''.  ;■-  T.*;. 

^B^^^Qp^^T^^II 

^^^K   \^T^^:.  i^         K           '^^9 

B^ll^jK 

HHR^^I^mB      ^1^ 

IISm^mm^^h^b^         ^B 

^w^^S^^^^^^^^ia^^ii^BS 

KH^^^I^  -j^  ^-j^g^y^QI^MHHI 

L'Afi.2 


[SmaiM  sc. 


BouGHTON  :   "  Snow  in  Spring.' 
(By  ptrmisswM  of  ihg  Artist.) 


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ENGLAND 


'55 


fires  are  first  lighted  are 
the  hour  and  the  season 
most  beloved  by  this 
people,  which,  with  all  its 
nide  energy,  is  yet  so 
tender  and  full  of  feeling. 
Repose  to  the  point  of 
enervation  and  the  stage 
where  it  passes  into  gentle 
melancholy  is  the  theme 
of  their  pictures — this,  and 
not  toil. 

How  many  have  been 
painted  in  the  last  thirty 
years  in  which  people  are 
returning  from  their  work 
of  an  evening  across  the 
country  !  The  people  in 
the  big  towns  look  upon 
the  country  with  the  eyes 
of  a  lover,  especially  those 
parts  of  it  which  lie  near 
the  town  ;  not  the  scenes  painted  by  Raffaelli,  but  the  parks 
and  public  gardens.  Soft,  undulating  valleys  and  gently  swelling 
hills  are  spread  around,  the  flowers  are  in  bloom,  and  the 
leaves  glance  in  the  sunshine.  And  over  this  country,  with  its 
trim  gravel  paths  and  its  green,  luxuriant  lawns,  there  comes 
a  well-to-do  people.  Even  the  labourers  seem  in  good  ease 
as  they  go  home  across  the  flowery  meadows. 

George  H.  Boughton  is  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  refined 
amongst  Walker's  followers.  By  birth  and  descent  a  country- 
man of  Crome  and  Cotman,  he  passed  his  youth  in  America, 
worked  several  years  in  Paris  from  1853,  and  in  1863  settled 
in  London,  where  he  is  exceedingly  active  as  a  draughtsman,  a 
writer,  and  a  painter.  His  charming  illustrations  for  Harpet^s 
Magazine,  where  he  also  published  his  delicate  story  The 
Return  of  the  Mayflower,  are   well   known.      As  a  painter,  too, 


-  VArtJ]  iSwainsc, 

Boughton  :  "  Green  Leaves  among  the  Sere." 
{By  permission  of  thg  Artist,) 


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VAfLk 


Boughton:   "The  Bearers  of  the  Burden."* 
(fiy  ptrmission  of  tht  Artist.) 


his  brush  was  only  occupied  by  pleasant  things,  whether  be- 
longing to  the  past  or  the  present  There  is  something  in  him 
both  of  the  delicacy  of  Gainsborough  and  of  the  poetry  of 
Memlinc.  He  delights  in  the  murmur  of  brooks  and  the  rustle  of 
leaves,  in  fresh  children  and  pretty  young  women  in  aesthetically 
fantastic  costume ;  he  loves  everything  delicate,  quiet,  and 
fragrant.  And  for  this  reason  he  also  takes  delight  in  old 
legends  entwined  with  blossoms,  and  attains  a  most  harmonious 
effect  when  he  places  shepherds  and  kings'  daughters  of  story 
and  steel-clad  knights  and  squires  in  his  charming  and  entirely 
modern  landscapes.  Almost  always  it  is  autumn,  winter,  or 
at  most  the  early  spring  in  his  pictures.  The  boughs  of  the 
trees  are  generally  bare,  though  sometimes  a  tender,  pointed 
yellowish  verdure  is  budding  upon  them.  At  times  the  mist 
of  November  hovers  over  the  country  like  a  delicate  veil ;  at 
times  the  snowflakes  fall  softly,  or  the  October  sun  gleams 
through  the  leafless  branches. 

Moreover  a  feeling  for  the  articulation  of  lines,  for  a  balance 


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VAri:\ 


Houghton  :   "  A  Breath  of  Wind." 
iBy  permission  of  tht  Artist.) 


[Artist  sc. 


of  composition,  unforced,  and  yet  giving  a  character  of  dis- 
tinction, is  peculiar  to  him  in  a  high  degree.  In  1877  he 
had  in  the  Royal  Academy  the  charming  picture  "A  Breath 
of  Wind."  Amid  a  soft  landscape  with  slender  trees  move 
the  thoroughly  Grecian  figures  of  the  more  shapely  English 
peasants,  whilst  the  tender  evening  light  is  shed  over  the 
gently  rising  hills.  His  picture  of  1878  he  named  "Green 
Leaves  among  the  Sere : "  a  group  of  children,  in  the  midst  of 
whom  the  young  mother  herself  looks  like  a  child,  are  seated 
amid  an  autumn  landscape,  where  the  leaves  fall,  and  the  sky 
is  shrouded  in  wintry  grey.  In  the  picture  "Snow  in  Spring" 
may  be  seen  a  party  of  charming  girls — little  modern  Tanagra 
figures — whom  the  sun  has  tempted  into  the  air  to  search  for 
the  earliest  woodland  snowdrops  under  the  guidance  of  a  damsel 
still  in  her  'teens.  Having  just  reached  a  secret  corner  of  the 
wood,  they  are  standing  with  their  flowers  in  their  hands 
surrounded    by   tremulous    boughs,   when    a   sudden    snowstorm 


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158  MODERN  FAINTING 

overtakes  them.  Thick  white  flakes  alight  upon  the  slender 
boughs,  and  combine  with  the  light  green  leaves  and  pale 
reddish  dresses  of 'the  children  in  making  a  delicate  harmony 
of  colour.  Among  his  legendary  pictures  the  poetic  "Love 
Conquers  all  Things "  in  particular  is  known  in  Germany :  a 
wild  shepherd's  daughter  sits  near  her  flock,  and  the  son  of  a 
king  gazes  into  her  eyes  lost  in  dream. 

Boughton  is  not  the  only  painter  of  budding  girlhood.  All 
English  literature  has  a  tender  feminine  trait.  Tennyson  is  the 
poet  most  widely  read,  and  he  has  won  all  hearts  chiefly  through 
his  portraits  of  women  :  Adeline,  Eleanore,  Lilian,  and  the  May 
Queen — that  delightful  gallery  of  pure  and  noble  figures.  In 
English  painting,  too,  it  is  seldom  men  who  are  represented,  but 
more  frequently  women  and  children,  especially  little  maidens 
in  their  fresh  pure  witchery. 

Belonging  still  to  the  older  period  there  is  Philip  H.  Calderon^ 
an  exceedingly  fertile  although  lukewarm  and  academical  artist^ 
in  whose  blood  is  a  good  deal  of  eff'eminate  Classicism.  When 
his  name  appears  in  a  catalogue  it  means  that  the  spectator 
will  be  led  into  an  artificial  region  peopled  with  pretty  girls- 
beings  who  are  neither  sad  nor  gay,  and  who  belong  neither  to 
the  present  nor  to  ancient  times,  to  no  age  in  particular  and  to 
no  clime.  Whenever  such  ethereal  girlish  figures  wear  the  costume 
of  the  Directoire  period,  Marcus  Stone  is  their  father.  He  is  like- 
wise one  of  the  older  men  whose  first  appearance  was  made 
before  the  time  of  Walker.  His  young  ladies  part  with  broken 
hearts  from  a  beloved  suitor,  turned  away  by  their  father,  and 
save  the  honour  of  their  family  by  giving  their  hand  to  a  wealthy 
but  unloved  aspirant,  or  else  they  are  solitary  and  lost  in  tender 
reveries.  In  his  earliest  period  Marcus  Stone  had  a  preference 
for  interiors  ;  rich  Directoire  furniture  and  objects  of  art  indicate 
the  year  in  which  the  narrative  takes  place  with  exactness. 
Later,  he  took  a  delight  in  placing  his  Rococo  ladies  and 
gentlemen  in  the  open  air,  upon  the  terraces  of  old  gardens  or 
in  sheltered  alleys.  All  his  pictures  are  pretty,  the  faces,  the 
figures,  and  the  accessories ;  in  relation  to  them  one  may 
use    the    adjective    "  pretty "    in    its    positive,    comparative,    or 


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ENGLAND  i6i 

superlative  degree.  In  England  Marcus  Stone  is  the  favourite 
painter  of  "sweethearts,"  and  it  cannot  be  easy  to  go  so  near 
the  boundaries  of  candied  genre  painting  and  yet  always  to 
preserve  a  certain  noblesse. 

Amongst  the  younger  men  G.  D.  Leslie,  the  son  of  Charles 
Leslie,  has  specially  the  secret  of  interpreting  innocent  feminine 
beauty,  that  somewhat  predetermined  but  charming  grace  derived 
from  Gainsborough  and  the  eighteenth  century.  A  young  lady 
who  has  lately  been  married  is  paying  a  visit  to  her  earlier 
school  friends,  and  is  gazed  upon  as  though  she  were  an  angel 
by  these  charming  girls.  Or  his  pretty  maidens  have  ensconced 
themselves  beneath  the  trees,  or  stand  on  the  shore  watching  a 
boat  at  sunset,  or  amuse  themselves  from  a  bridge  in  a  park  by 
throwing  flowers  into  the  water  and  looking  dreamily  after  them 
as  they  float  away.  Leslie's  pictures,  too,  are  very  pretty  and 
poetic,  and  have  much  silk  in  them  and  much  sun,  while  the 
soft,  pale  method  of  painting,  so  highly  aesthetic  in  its  delicate 
attenuation  of  colour,  corresponds  with  the  delicacy  of  their 
purport 

P.  G,  Morris,  not  less  delicate  in  feeling  and  execution,  be- 
came specially  known  by  a  "Communion  in  Dieppe."  Directly 
facing  the  spectator  a  train  of  pretty  communicants  move  upon 
the  seashore,  assuming  an  air  of  dignified  superiority,  like  young 
ladies  from  Brighton  or  Folkestone.  A  bluish  light  plays  over 
the  white  dresses  of  the  girls  and  over  the  blue  jackets  of  the 
sailors  lounging  about  the  quay ;  it  fills  the  pale  blue  sky  with 
a  misty  vibration  and  glances  sportively  upon  the  green  waves 
of  the  sea.  "  The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers "  was  a  thoroughly 
English  picture,  a  graceful  allegory  after  the  fashion  of  Fred 
Walker.  On  their  way  from  school  a  party  of  children  meet 
at  the  verge  of  a  meadow  an  old  peasant  going  home  from 
his  day's  work  with  a  scythe  upon  his  shoulder.  In  the 
dancing  step  of  the  little  ones  may  be  seen  the  influence 
of  Greek  statues;  they  float  along  as  if  borne  by  the  zephyr, 
with  a  rhythmical  motion  which  real  school-children  do  not 
usually  have.  But  the  old  peasant  coming  towards  them  is 
intended    to    recall    the    contrast    between    youth    and    age,   as 


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i62  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  Fred  Walker's  "Harbour  of  Refuge;"  while  the  scythe 
glittering  in  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  signifies  the 
scythe  of  Fate,  the  scythe  of  death  which  does  not  even  spare 
the  child. 

And  thus  the  limits  of  English  painting  are  defined.  It 
always  reveals  a  certain  conflict  between  fact  and  poetry,  reverie 
and  life.  For  whenever  the  scene  does  not  admit  of  a  directly 
ethical  interpretation,  refuge  is  invariably  taken  in  lyricism.  The 
wide  field  which  lies  between,  where  powerful  works  are  nourished, 
works  which  have  their  roots  in  reality,  and  derive  their  life 
from  it  alone,  has  not  been  definitely  conquered  by  English 
art.  England  is  the  greatest  producer  and  consumer  of  the 
earth,  and  her  people  press  the  marrow  out  of  things  as  no 
other  have  ever  done:  and  yet  this  land  of  industry  knows 
nothing  of  pictures  in  which  work  is  being  accomplished ; 
this  country,  which  is  a  network  of  railway  lines,  has  never 
seen  a  railway  painted.  Even  horses  are  less  and  less  fre- 
quently represented  in  English  art,  and  sport  finds  no  re- 
pression there  whatever.  Much  as  the  Englishman  loves  it 
from  a  sense  of  its  wholesomeness,  he  does  not  consider  it 
sufficiently  aesthetic  to  be  painted,  a  matter  upon  which  Wilkie 
Collins  enlarges  in  an  amusing  way  in  his  book  Man  and  Wife, 

And  in  English  pictures  there  are  no  poor,  or,  at  any  rate, 
none  who  are  wretched  in  the  extreme.  For  although  the 
Chelsea  Pensioners  were  a  favoured  theme  in  painting,  there 
were  none  of  them  miserable  and  heavy-laden ;  they  were 
rather  types  of  the  happy  poor  who  were  carefully  tended; 
If  English  painters  are  otherwise  induced  to  represent  the 
poor,  they  depict  a  room  kept  in  exemplary  order,  and 
endeavour  to  display  some  touching  or  admirable  trait  in 
honest  and  admirable  people.  In  fact  people  seem  to  be  good 
and  honourable  wherever  they  are  found.  Everywhere  there  is 
content  and  humility,  even  in  misfortune.  Even  where  actual 
need  is  represented,  it  is  only  done  in  the  effort  to  give 
expression  to  what  is  moving  in  certain  dispensations  of  fate, 
and  to  create  a  lofty  and  conciliating  effect  by  the  contrast 
between  misfortune  and  man's  noble  trust  in  God. 


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ENGLAND  165 

John  R.  Retd,  a  Scotchman  by  birth,  but  residing  in  London, 
has  treated  scenes  from  life  upon  the  seacoast  in  this  manner. 
How  different  his  works  are  from  the  tragedies  of  Joseph 
Israels,  or  the  grim  naturalism  of  Michael  Ancher !  He  occu- 
pies himself  only  with  the  bright  side  of  life,  with  its  colour 
and  sunshine,  not  with  the  dark  side,  with  its  toils.  He  paints 
the  inhabitants  of  the  country  in  their  Sunday  best,  as  they  sit 
telling  stories,  or  as  they  go  a-hunting,  or  regale  themselves  in 
the  garden  of  an  inn.  The  old  rustics  who  sit  happy  with 
their  pipes  and  beer  in  his  "Cricket  Match"  are  typical  of 
everything  that  he  has  painted. 

And  even  when,  once  in  a  way,  a  more  gloomy  trait  appears 
in  his  pictures,  it  is  there  only  that  the  light  may  shine  the 
more  brightly.  The  poor  old  flute-player  who  sits  homeless 
upon  a  bench  near  the  house  is  placed  there  merely  to  show 
how  well  off  are  the  children  who  are  hurrying  merrily  home 
after  school.  His  picture  of  1890,  indeed,  treated  a  scene  of 
shipwreck,  but  a  passage  from  a  poet  stood  beneath ;  there 
was  not  a  lost  sailor  to  be  seen,  and  all  the  tenderness  of  the 
artist  is  devoted  to  the  pretty  children  and  the  young  women 
gazing  with  anxiety  and  compassion  across  the  sea. 

Frank  Holl  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  his  pictures  a  more 
lachrymose  touch,  together  with  a  more  sombre  and  ascetic 
harmony  of  colour.  He  borrowed  his  subjects  from  the  life  of 
the  humble  classes,  always  searching  moreover  for  melancholy 
features  ;  he  took  delight  in  representing  human  virtue  in  mis- 
fortune, and  for  the  sake  of  greater  effect  he  frequently  chose  a 
verse  from  the  Bible  as  the  title.  Thus  the  work  with  which 
he  first  won  the  English  public  was  a  picture  exhibited  in  1869: 
"  The  Lord  gave,  the  Lord  hath  taken  away ;  blessed  be  the 
name  of  the  Lord."  A  family  of  five  brothers  and  sisters,  who 
have  just  lost  their  mother,  are  assembled  round  the  breakfast- 
table  in  a  poorly  furnished  room.  One  sister  is  crying,  another 
is  sadly  looking  straight  before  her,  whilst  a  third  is  praying 
with  folded  hands.  The  younger  brother,  a  sailor,  has  just 
reached  home  from  a  voyage,  to  close  his  dying  mother's  eyes, 
and  the  eldest  of  all,  a  young  and  earnest  curate,  is  endeavouring 


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1 66 


MODERN  FAINTING 


to  console  his  brother 
and  sisters  with  the 
words  of  Job. 

The  next  picture, 
exhibited  in  1 87 1,  he 
called  "  No  Tidings 
from  the  Sea,"  and 
represented  in  it  a 
fisherman's  family — 
grandmother,  mother, 
and  child—who  in  a 
cheerless  room  are 
anxiously  expecting 
the  return  of  a  sailor. 
"Leaving  Home" 
showed  four  people 
sitting  on  a  bench 
outside  a  waiting- 
room  at  a  railway 
station.  To  awaken 
the  spectator's  pity 
"Third  Class"  is  writ- 
ten in  large  letters 
upon  the  window  just  above  their  heads.  The  principal  figure 
is  a  lady  dressed  in  black,  who  is  counting,  in  a  somewhat 
obtrusive  manner,  the  little  money  which  she  still  has  left 

In  the  picture  "  Necessity  knows  no  Law "  a  poor  woman 
with  a  child  in  her  arms  has  entered  a  pawnshop  to  borrow 
money  on  her  wedding-ring ;  in  another,  women  of  the  poorer 
class  are  to  be  seen  walking  along  with  their  soldier  sons 
and  husbands  who  have  been  called  out  on  active  service. 
One  of  them  clasps  tightly  to  her  breast  her  little  <:hild,  the 
only  one  still  remaining  to  her  in  life,  whilst  an  aged  widow 
presses  the  hand  of  her  son  with  the  sad  presentiment  that, 
even  if  he  comes  back  to  her,  she  will  probably  not  have 
long  to  live  after  his  return.  Not  only  did  Frank  Holl  paint 
stories   for  his   countrymen,   but  he   also   painted    them    big  in 


i.  ■ 

^ 

i 

^■mi 

1 

i 

Ltipzig:  iie§mattM.] 

Reid:  "The  Rival  Grandfathers." 

{.By  ptrmissioM  of  ttu  Corporation  of  Liverpool^  the  owners 
of  the  picture.) 


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ENGLAND 


169 


L'j4rt.} 


Holl:   "Leaving  Home." 


IRamus  bc. 


majuscule  characters  which  were  legible  without  spectacles, 
and  he  partially  owed  his  splendid  successes  to  this  cheap 
sentimentality. 

Almost  everywhere  the  interest  of  subject  still  plays  the 
first  part,  and  this  slightly  lachrymose  trait  bordering  on  genre^ 
this  lyrically  tender  or  allegorically  subtile  element,  which  runs 
through  English  figure  pictures,  would  easily  degenerate  into 
vaporous  enervation  in  another  country.  In  England  portrait- 
painting,  which  now,  as  in  the  days  of  Reynolds,  is  the  greatest 
title  of  honour  possessed  by  English  art,  invariably  maintains 
its  union  with  direct  reality.  By  acknowledgment  portrait- 
painting  in  the  present  day  is  exceedingly  earnest:  it  admits 
of  no  decorative  luxuriousness,  no  sport  with  hangings  and 
draperies,  no  pose;  and  English  likenesses  have  this  severe 
actuality  in  the  highest  degree.  Stiff-necked  obstinacy,  sanguine 
resolution,  and  muscular  force  of  will  are  often  spoken  of  as 
an  Englishman's  national  characteristics,  and  a  trace  of  these 
qualities  is  also  betrayed  in  English  portrait-painting.  The 
self-reliance  of  the  English  is  far  too  great  to  suffer  or  demand 


VOL.  III. 


12 


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1 70  MODERN  FAINTING 

any  servile  habit  of  flattery :  everything  is  free  from  pose, 
plain,  and  simple.  Let  the  subject  be  the  weather-beaten  figure 
of  an  old  sailor  or  the  dazzling  freshness  of  English  youth,  there 
is  a  remarkable  energy  and  force  of  life  in  all  their  works,  even 
in  the  pictures  of  children  with  their  broad  open  brow,  finely 
chiselled  nose,  and  assured  and  penetrative  glance.  And  as 
portrait-painting  in  England,  to  its  own  advantage  and  the 
benefit  of  all  art,  has  never  been  considered  as  an  isolated 
province,  such  pictures  may  be  specified  among  the  works  of 
the  most  frigid  academician  as  well  as  amongst  those  of  the 
most  vigorous  naturalist.  Frank  Holl,  who  had  such  a  Dussel- 
dorfian  tinge  in  his  more  elaborate  pictures,  showed  at  the 
close  of  his  life,  in  his  likenesses  of  the  engraver  Samuel  Cousins, 
Lord  Duflferin,  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  Lord  Wolseley,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  the  Duke  of  Cleveland,  Sir  George  Trevelyan,  and 
Lord  Spencer,  a  simple  virility  altogether  wanting  in  his  earlier 
works.  They  had  a  trenchant  characterization  and  an  unforced 
pose  which  were  striking  even  in  England.  It  is  scarcely  possible 
to  exhibit  people  more  naturally,  or  more  completely  to  banish 
from  their  expression  that  concentrated  air  of  attentiveness 
which  suggests  photography  and  so  easily  intrudes  into  a  portrait. 
Even  Leighton,  so  devoid  of  temperament,  so  entirely  devoted 
to  the  measured  art  of  the  ancients,  became  at  once  nervous 
and  almost  brutal  in  his  power  when  he  painted  a  likeness  in 
place  of  ideal  Grecian  figures.  His  vivid  and  forcible  portrait 
of  Sir  Richard  Burton,  the  celebrated  African  traveller,  would 
do  honour  to  the  greatest  portrait-painter  of  the  Continent. 

Amongst  portrait-painters  by  profession  Walter  Ouless  will 
probably  merit  the  place  of  honour  immediately  after  Watts  as 
an  impressive  exponent  of  character.  He  has  assimilated  much 
from  his  master  Millais — not  merely  the  heaviness  of  colour, 
which  often  has  a  disturbing  effect  in  the  latter,  but  also  Millais' 
powerful  flight  of  style,  always  so  free  from  false  rhetoric  The 
chemical  expert  Pochin,  as  Ouless  painted  him  in  1865,  does 
not  pose  in  the  picture  nor  allow  himself  to  be  disturbed  in  his 
researches.  It  is  a  thoroughly  contemporary  portrait,  one  of 
those  brilliant  successes  which  later  arose  in   France  also.     The 


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[C.  Hnttschel  8c. 


Sant:   "A  Floral  Offering.** 
(By  permission  of  Messrs,  Dowde^weU  <S*  DotudeswellSf  the  owners  of  the  copyright,) 


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ENGLAND 


173 


Recorder  of  London,  Mr.  Russell  Gurney,  he  likewise  painted 
in  his  professional  character  and  in  his  robes  of  office.  In  its 
inflexible  graveness  and  earnest  dignity  the  likeness  is  almost 
more  than  the  portrait  of  an  individual ;  it  seems  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  proud  English  Bench  resting  upon  the  most  ancient 
traditions.  His  portrait  of  Cardinal  Manning  had  the  same  con- 
vincing power  of  observation,  the  same  large  and  sure  technique. 
The  soft  light  plays  upon  the  ermine  and  the  red  stole,  and 
falls  full  upon  the  fine,  austere,  and  noble  face. 

Besides  Ouless  mention  may  be  made  from  among  the  great 
number  of  portrait-painters  of/.  /.  Shannon  with  his  powerful 
and  firmly-painted  likenesses,  of  James  Sant  with  his  sincere 
and  energetic  portraits  of  women,  of  Mouat  Loudan  with  his 
pretty  pictures  of  children,  and  of  the  many-sided  Charles  W. 
Furse.  Hubert  Herkomer  was  the  most  celebrated  in  Germany, 
and  is  probably  the  most  skilful  of  the  young  men  whom  The 
Graphic  brought  into  eminence  in  the  seventies. 

The  career  of  Hubert  Herkomer  is  amongst  those  adventurous 
ones  which  become  less  and  less  frequent  in  the  nineteenth 
century  ;  there  are  not  many  who  have  risen  so  rapidly  to  fame 
and  fortune  from  such  modest  circumstances.  His  father  was  a 
carver  of  sacred  images  in  the  little  Bavarian  village  of  Waal, 
where  Hubert  was  born  in  1849.  In  1851  the  enterprising 
Bavarian  tried  his  fortune  in  the  New  World.  But  there  he 
-did  not  succeed  in  making  progress,  and  in  1857  the  family 
appeared  in  England,  at  Southampton.  Here  he  fought  his 
way  honestly  at  the  bench  where  he  carved  and  as  a  journey- 
man worker,  whilst  his  wife  gave  lessons  in  music.  A  commission 
to  carve  Peter  Vischer's  four  evangelists  in  wood  brought  him 
with  his  son  to  Munich,  where  they  occupied  a  room  in  the 
back  buildings  of  a  master-carpenter's  house,  in  which  they  slept, 
cooked,  and  worked.  In  the  preparatory  class  of  the  Munich 
Academy  the  younger  Herkomer  received  his  first  teaching,  and 
began  to  draw  from  the  nude,  the  antique  serving  as  model. 
At  a  frame-maker's  in  Southampton  he  gave  his  first  exhibition, 
and  drew  illustrations  for  a  comic  paper.  With  the  few  pence 
which  he  saved  from  these  earnings  he  went  to  London,  where 


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174  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  lived  from  hand  to  mouth  with  a  companion  as  poor  as  him- 
self.     He  cooked,  and  his  friend  scoured  the  pans ;    meanwhile 
he  worked  as  a  mason  on  the  frieze  of  the   South   Kensington- 
Museum,   and   hired   himself  out   for   the   evenings  as  a   zither- 
player.      Then  The  Grapliic  became  his  salvation,  and  after  his- 
drawings  had  made  him   known  he   soon   had   success   with   his- 
paintings.      "After  the   Toil   of  the   Day,"   a   picture  which   he 
exhibited   in   the   Royal   Academy  of   1873— a  thoughtful   scene 
from  the   village   life   of  Bavaria,  carried   out  after   the   manner 
of    Fred    Walker — found    a    purchaser    immediately.      He    was 
then   able  to   make  a    home  for  his   parents    in   the  village  of 
Bushey,    which    he    afterwards    glorified    in    the    picture    "  Our 
Village,"  and   he    began    his    masterpiece   "The    Last    Muster,'*^ 
which  obtained  in  1878  the  great  medal  at  the  World  Exhibition^ 
in  Paris.      Since  then  he  found  the  eyes  of  the   English  public 
fixed   upon   him.      There   followed   at   first  a   series  of  pictures 
in  which  he  proceeded   upon  the   lines  of  Fred  Walker's  poetic 
realism  :  "  Eventide,"  a  scene  in  the  Westminster  Union  ;    "  The 
Gloom  of  Idwal,"  a  romantic  mountain  picture  from  North  Wales  ; 
"God's  Shrine,"  a  lonely  Bavarian  hill-side   path,  with  a  shrine 
and    peasants    praying ;    "  Der    Bittgang,"   a  group    of   country" 
people   praying   for  harvest ;  "  Contrasts,"   a  picture  of  English 
ladies  surrounded  by  school-children  in  the  Bavarian  mountains. 
At  the  same  time   he  became   celebrated   as  a  portrait-painter,, 
his  first  successes   in  this  field   being  the   likenesses  of  Wagner 
and  Tennyson,  Archibald  Forbes,   his  own  father,  John  Ruskin,. 
Stanley,  and  the  conductor  Hans  Richter.     And  he  reached  the 
summit  of    his  international    fame  when    his   portrait    of   Miss 
Grant,   "The   Lady  in   White,"   appeared   in    1886;   all   Europe- 
spoke   of  it  at  the   time,  and   it   called   forth   entire   bundles  of: 
poems,  anecdotes,  biographies,  and   romances.      From  that  time 
he  advanced  in  his  career  with  rapid  strides. 

The  University  of  Oxford  appointed  him  Professor  of  the 
Fine  Arts.  He  opened  a  School  of  Art  and  had  etchings, 
copper  engravings,  and  engravings  in  mezzotint  produced  by  his 
pupils  under  his  guidance.  He  wrote  articles  in  the  London 
papers    upon    the  social    question,    and   political    economy,   and 


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ENGLAND 


177 


Magaziiu  of  Art. '\ 

Herkomer  :  John  Ruskin. 
(.By  permission  of  the  Artist,) 


all  manner  of  subjects,  an  article 
signed  with  Herkomer's  name 
being  always  capable  of  creating 
interest  He  has  his  own  theatre, 
and  produces  in  it  operas  of 
which  he  writes  the  text  and 
the  music,  and  manages  the  re- 
hearsals and  the  scenery,  beside 
playing  the  leading  parts. 

Yet  it  is  just  his  likenesses 
of  women,  the  foundations  of 
his  fame,  which  do  not  seem  in 
general  entirely  to  justify  the 
painter  s  great  reputation.  Miss 
Grant  was  certainly  a  captiva- 
ting woman,  and  she  broke 
men's  hearts  wherever  she  made 
her  appearance.  People  looked 
again  and  again  into  the  brilliant  brown  eyes  with  which 
she  looked  so  composedly  before  her  ;  they  were  overwhelmed 
by  her  austere  and  lofty  virginal  beauty.  "  The  Lady  in  Black 
(An  American  Lady)  "  made  a  yet  more  piquant  and  spiritualized 
eflfect.  Here  was  the  unopened  bud,  and  there  the  woman  who 
has  had  experience  of  the  delights  and  disappointments  of  life. 
Here  was  unapproachable  pride,  and  there  a  trait  of  distinction 
and  of  suffering,  an  almost  weary  carriage  of  the  body.  There 
will  certainly  be  an  interesting  gallery  of  beauty  if  Herkomer 
unites  these  "  types  of  women "  in  a  series.  But  even  in  the 
first  picture  how  much  of  all  the  admiration  excited  was  due 
to  the  painter  and  how  much  to  the  model?  At  bottom. 
Miss  Grant  made  a  success  because  she  was  such  a  pretty 
girL  The  arrangement  of  white  against  white  was  nothing  new : 
Whistler,  a  far  greater  artist,  had  already  painted  a  "  White 
Girl"  in  1863,  and  it  was  a  much  greater  work  of  art,  though 
on  account  of  the  attractiveness  of  the  model  being  less 
powerful  it  triumphed  only  in  the  narrower  circles  of  artists. 
Bastien-Lepage,    who    set    himself    the    same    problem    in    his 


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178  MODERN  PAINTING 

"Sara  Bernhardt,"  had  also  run  through  the  scale  ot  white  with 
greater  sureness.  And  Herkomer's  later  pictures  of  women— 
"The  Lady  in  Yellow,"  Lady  Helen  Fergusson,  and  others — are 
even  less  alluring  considered  as  works  of  art  The  reserve 
and  evenness  of  the  execution  give  his  portraits  a  somewhat 
clotted  and  stiff  appearance.  Good  modelling  and  exceedingly 
vigorous  drawing  may  perhaps  ensure  great  correctness  in  the 
counterfeit  of  the  originals,  but  the  life  of  the  picture  vanishes 
beneath  the  greasy  technique,  the  soapy  painting  through  which 
materials  of  drapery  and  flesh-tints  assume  quite  the  same  values. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  of  the  transparency,  the  rosy  delicacy, 
freshness,  and  flower-like  bloom  of  Gainsborough's  women  and 
girls.  Herkomer  appears  in  these  pictures  as  a  salon  painter  in 
whom  a  tame  but  tastefully  cultivated  temperament  is  expressed 
with  charm.  Even  his  landscapes  with  their  trim  peasants* 
cottages  and  their  soft  moods  of  sunset  have  not  enriched  with 
new  notes  the  scale  executed  by  Walker. 

All  the  more  astonishing  is  the  earnest  certainty  of  touch 
and  the  robust  energy  which  are  visible  in  his  other  works. 
His  portraits  of  men,  especially  the  one  of  his  father,  that  kingly 
old  man  with  the  long,  white  beard  and  the  furrowed  brow,  take 
their  place  beside  the  best  productions  of  English  portraiture, 
which  are  chiselled,  as  it  were,  in  stone.  In  "The  Last  Muster  " 
he  showed  that  it  is  possible  to  be  simple  and  yet  strike  a  pro- 
found note  and  even  attain  greatness.  For  there  is  something 
great  in  these  old  warriors,  who  at  the  end  of  their  days  are 
praying,  having  never  troubled  themselves  over  prayer  during 
all  their  lives,  who  have  travelled  so  far  and  staked  their  lives 
dozens  of  times,  and  are  now  drawing  their  last  breath  softly 
upon  the  seats  of  a  church.  Even  his  more  recent  groups — 
"  The  Assemblage  of  the  Curators  of  the  Charterhouse "  and 
"  The  Session  of  the  Magistrates  of  Landsberg  " — are  magnificent 
examples  of  realistic  art,  full  of  imposing  strength  and  soundness. 
In  the  representation  of  these  citizens  the  genius  of  the  master 
who  in  his  "  Chelsea  Pensioners "  created  one  of  the  "  Doelen 
pieces"  of  the  nineteenth  century  revealed  itself  afresh  in  all  its 
greatness. 


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ENGLAND  i8i 

Beside  portrait-painting  the  painting  of  landscape  stands 
now  as  ever  in  full  blossom  amongst  the  English ;  not  that  the 
artists  of  to-day  are  more  consistently  faithful  to  truth  than 
their  predecessors,  or  that  they  seem  more  modern  in  the  study 
of  light  In  the  province  of  landscape  as  in  that  of  figure- 
painting  far  more  weight  is  laid  upon  subject  than  on  the  moods 
of  atmosphere.  If  one  compares  the  modern  English  painters 
with  Crome  and  Constable,  one  finds  them  wanting  in  boldness 
and  creative  force ;  and  placed  beside  Monet  they  seem  to 
be  diffident  altogether.  But  a  touching  reverence  for  nature 
gives  almost  all  their  pictures  a  singularly  chaste  and  fragrant 
charm. 

Of  course  all  the  influences  which  have  affected  English  art 
in  other  respects  are  likewise  reflected  in  landscape-painting. 
The  epoch-making  activity  of  the  Preraphaelites,  the  passionate 
earnestness  of  Ruskin*s  love  for  nature,  as  well  as  the  influence 
of  foreign  art,  have  all  left  their  traces.  In  his  own  manner 
Constable  had  spoken  the  last  word.  The  principal  thing  in  him 
as  in  Cox  was  the  study  of  atmospheric  effects  and  of  the  dramatic 
life  of  air.  They  neither  of  them  troubled  themselves  about  local 
colour,  but  sought  to  render  the  tones  which  are  formed  under 
atmospheric  and  meteorological  influences ;  they  altogether  sacri- 
ficed the  completion  of  the  details  of  subject  to  seizing  the 
momentary  impression.  In  Turner,  generally  speaking,  it  was  only 
the  air  that  lived  Trees  and  buildings,  rocks  and  water,  are 
merely  repoussoirs  for  the  atmosphere ;  they,  are  exclusively  or- 
dained to  lead  the  eye  through  the  mysterious  depths  of  light 
and  shadow.  The  intangible  absorbed  what  could  be  touched 
and  handled.  As  a  natural  reaction  there  came  this  Preraphaelite 
landscape,  and  by  a  curious  irony  of  chance  the  writer  who  had 
done  most  for  Turner's  fame  was  also  he  who  first  welcomed 
this  Preraphaelite  landscape  school.  Everything  which  the  old 
school  had  neglected  now  became  the  essential  object  of  painting. 
The  landscape-painters  fell  in  love  with  the  earth,  with  the 
woods  and  the  fields ;  and  the  more  autumn  resolved  the  wide 
green  harmony  of  nature  into  a  sport  of  colours  multiplied  a 
thousand    times,    the    more    did    they    love    it.      Thousands  of 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


BroUura  photu,\ 

Herkomer:  "Hard  Times." 
(By  permission  of  the  Mancheiter  Art  GaUery,  the  owners  of  the  picture.) 

things  were  there  to  be  seen.  First,  how  the  foliage  turned 
yellow  and  red  and  brown,  and  then  how  it  fell  away :  how 
it  was  scattered  upon  a  windy  day,  whirling  in  a  yellow  drift 
of  leaves ;  how  in  still  weather  leaf  after  leaf  lightly  rustled  to 
the  ground  from  between  the  wavering  brown  boughs.  And 
then  when  the  foliage  fell  from  the  leaves  and  bushes  the  most 
inviolate  secrets  of  summer  came  to  light ;  there  lay  around 
quantities  of  bright  seeds  and  berries  rich  in  colour,  brown  nuts, 
smooth  acorns,  black  and  glossy  sloes,  and  scarlet  haws.  In 
the  leafless  beeches  there  clustered  pointed  beechmast,  the  mug- 
wort  bent  beneath  its  heavy  red  bunches,  late  blackberries  lay 
black  and  brown  amid  the  damp  foliage  upon  the  road,  bil- 
berries grew  amid  the  heather,  and  wild  raspberries  bore  their 
dull  red  fruit  once  again.  The  dying  ferns  took  a  hundred 
colours  ;  the  moss  shgt  up  like  the  ears  of  a  miniature  cornfield. 


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MagoMm*  of  Art,] 


Herkomer:  **The  L\st  Muster." 
{By  ^trmiMioH  oj  Messrs.  Bouasod,  Valadon  <S>  Co.,  tkt  owners  o;  the  picture.) 


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ENGLAND 


T85 


Eager  as  children 
the  landscape- 
painters  roamed 
here  and  there 
across  the  wood- 
land, to  discover 
its  treasures  and  its 
curiosities.  They 
understood  how  to 
paint  a  bundle  of 
hay  with  such  exact- 
ness that  a  botanist 
could  decide  upon 
the  species  of  every 
blade.  One  of 
them  lived  for  three 
months  under  can- 
vas, so  as  thoroughly 
to  know  a  landscape 
of  heath.  Confused 
through  detail,  they 
lost  their  view  of 
the  whole,  and  only 
made  a  return  to  modernity  when  they  came  to  study  the 
Parisian  landscape-painters.  Thus  English  art  in  this  matter 
made  a  curious  circuit,  giving  and  taking.  First,  the  English 
fertilized  French  art ;  but  at  the  time  when  French  artists  stood 
under  the  influence  of  the  English,  the  latter  swerved  in  the 
opposite  direction,  until  they  ultimately  received  from  France 
the  impulse  which  led  them  back  into  the  old  way. 

In  accordance  with  these  different  influences,  several  currents 
which  cross  each  other  and  mingle  are  to  be  found  flowing 
side  by  side  in  English  landscape-painting :  upon  one  side  a 
spirit  of  prosaic  reasonableness,  a  striving  after  clearness  and 
precision,  which  does  not  know  how  to  sacrifice  detail,  and  is 
therefore  in  want  of  pictorial  totality  of  effect ;  on  the  other 
side  an  artistic  pantheism  which  rises  at  times  to  high  lyrical 
VOL.  III.  13 


{.Artist  8c, 
Herkomer:  Miss  Grant. 
{By  p€rmts8iOH  of  Messrs.  Obetch  <S>  Co.,  thg  owners  oj  thg 
copyright.) 


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i86 


MODERN  PAINTING 


poetry    in    spite    of 
many  dissonances. 

The  pictures  of 
Cedl  Lawson  lead  to 
the  point  where  the 
Preraphaelites  begin. 
The  elder  painters, 
with  their  powerful 
treatment  and  the 
freedom  and  bold- 
ness of  their  exe- 
cution, still  keep 
altogether  on  the 
lines  of  Constable, 
whereas  in  later 
painters,  with  their 
minute  elaboration 
of  all  particularities, 
the  influence  of 
the  Preraphaelites 
becomes  more  and 
more  apparent. 

Here,  where  Cecil  Lawson  ended,  James  Clarke  Hook  began, 
the  great  patriarch  who  has  even  now  lost  nothing  of  the 
strength  with  which  he  opened  the  eyes  of  the  world  forty 
years  ago  to  the  depth  of  colouring  and  the  enchanting  life  of 
nature,  even  in  its  individual  details.  His  pictures,  especially 
those  sunsets  which  he  paints  with  such  delight,  have  something 
devout  and  religious  in  them ;  they  have  the  effect  of  a  prayer 
or  a  hymn,  and  often  possess  a  solemnity  which  is  entirely 
biblical,  in  spite  of  their  brusque,  pungent  colours.  In  his  later 
period  he  principally  devoted  himself  to  sea-pieces,  and  in  doing 
so  receded  from  the  Preraphaelite  painting  of  detail  characteristic 
of  his  youthful  period.  His  pictures  give  one  the  breath  of  the 
sea,  and  his  sailors  are  old  sea-wolves.  All  that  remains  from 
his  Preraphaelite  period  is  that,  as  a  rule,  they  carry  a  certain 
burden  of  ideas. 


iArtUtu, 
Herkomer  :   <*  An  American  Lady." 
{By  permission  of  Mr,  T,  McLean,  the  owner  of  the  copyright.) 


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ENGLAND  189 

Vicat  Cole,  likewise  one  of  the  older  school,  is  unequal  and 
less  important.  From  many  of  his  pictures  one  receives  the 
impression  that  he  has  directly  copied  Constable,  and  others 
are  bathed  in  dull  yellow  tones ;  nevertheless  he  has  sometimes 
painted  autumn  pictures,  felicitous  and  noble  landscapes,  in 
which  there  is  really  a  reflection  of  the  sun  of  Claude  Lorrain. 

With  much  greater  freedom  does  Colin  Hunter  approach 
nature,  and  he  has  the  secret  of  seizing  her  boldly  in  her  most 
impressive  moments.  The  twilight,  with  its  mysterious,  inter- 
penetrating tremor  of  colours  of  a  thousand  shades,  its  shine 
and  glimmer  of  water,  with  the  sky  brooding  heavily  above,  is 
what  fascinates  him  most  of  all.  Sometimes  he  represents  the 
dawn,  as  in  "  The  Herring  Market  at  Sea ; "  sometimes  the  pale 
tawny  sunset,  as  in  "  The  Gatherers  of  Seaweed,"  in  the  South 
Kensington  Museum.  His  men  are  always  in  a  state  of  restless 
activity,  whether  they  are  making  the  most  of  the  last  moments 
of  light  or  facing  the  daybreak  with  renewed  energies. 

Although  resident  in  London,  he  and  Hook  are  the  true 
-standard-bearers  of  the  forcible  Scotch  school  of  landscape. 
MacCallunty  MacWhirter,  and  James  Macbeth,  with  whom  John 
Brett,  the  landscape-painter  of  Cornwall,  may  be  associated,  are. 
all  gnarled,  Northern  personalities.  Their  strong,  dark  tones 
stand  often  beside  each  other  with  a  little  hardness,  but  they 
sum  up  the  great  glimpses  of  nature  admirably.  Their  brush 
has  no  tenderness,  their  spirit  does  not  lightly  yield  to  dreami- 
ness, but  they  stand  with  both  feet  firmly  planted  on  the  earth, 
and  they  clasp  reality  in  a  sound  and  manly  fashion  with  both 
arms.  Their  deeply  toned  pictures,  with  red  wooden  houses, 
darkly  painted  vessels,  veiled  skies,  and  rude  fishermen  with  all 
their  heart  in  their  work,  waken  strong  and  intimate  emotions. 
The  difference  between  these  Scots  and  the  tentative  spirits  of 
the  younger  generation  of  the  following  of  Walker  and  Mason 
is  like  that  between  Rousseau  and  Dupr^  as  opposed  to 
Chintreuil  and  Daubigny.  The  Scotch  painters  are  sombre  and 
virile;  they  have  an  accent  of  depth  and  truth,  and  a  dark, 
ascetic  harmony  of  colour.  Even  as  landscape-painters  the 
English    love   what    is   delicate   in   nature,  what   is  refined   and 


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J90  MODERN  PAINTING 

tender,  familiar  and  modest :  the  blooming  apple-trees  and  the 
budding  birches,  the  odour  of  the  cowshed  and  the  scent  of  hay, 
the  chime  of  sheep-bells  and  the  hum  of  gnats.  They  seek  no 
great  emotions,  but  are  merely  amiable  and  kindly,  and  their 
pictures  give  one  the  feeling  of  standing  at  the  window  upon  a 
country  excursion,  and  looking  out  at  the  laughing  and  budding 
spring.  In  her  novel  North  and  South  Mrs.  Gaskell  has  given 
charming  expression  to  the  glow  of  this  feeling  of  having  fled 
from  the  smoke  and  dirt  of  industrial  towns  to  breathe  the 
fresh  air  and  see  the  sun  go  down  in  the  prosperous  country, 
where  the  meadows  are  fresh  and  well-kept,  and  where  the 
flowers  are  fragrant  and  the  leaves  glance  in  the  sunshine.  In 
the  pictures  of  the  Scotch  artists  toiling  men  are  moving  busily ; 
for  the  English,  nature  merely  exists  that  man  may  have  his 
pleasure  in  her.  Not  only  is  everything  which  renders  her  the 
prosaic  handmaiden  of  mankind  scrupulously  avoided,  but  all 
abruptnesses  of  landscape,  all  the  chance  incidents  of  mountain 
scenery ;  and,  indeed,  they  are  not  of  frequent  occurrence  in 
nature  as  she  is  in  England.  A  familiar  corner  of  the  country 
is  preferred  to  wide  prospects,  and  some  quiet  phase  to  nature 
in  agitation.  Soft,  undulating  valleys,  gently  spreading  hills  con- 
forming to  the  Hogarthian  line  of  beauty,  are  especially  favoured. 
And  should  the  rainbow,  the  biblical  symbol  of  atonement, 
stand  in  the  sky,  the  landscape  is  for  English  eyes  in  the 
zenith  of  its  beauty. 

There  is  Birket  Forster^  one  of  the  first  and  most  energetic 
followers  of  Walker — Birket  Forster,  whose  charming  woodcuts 
became  known  in  Germany  likewise  ;  Inchbold^  who  with  a  light 
hand  combines  the  tender  green  of  the  grasses  upon  the  dunes 
and  the  bright  blue  of  the  sea  into  a  whole  pervaded  with  light 
and  of  great  refinement ;  Leader,  whose  bright  evening  land- 
scapes, and  Corbety  whose  delicate  moods  of  morning,  are  so 
beautiful.  Mark  Fis/ier,  who  in  the  matter  of  tones  closely 
follows  the  French  landscape  school,  though  he  remains  entirely 
English  in  sentiment,  has  painted  with  great  artistic  power  the 
dreamy  peace  of  solitary  regions  as  well  as  the  noisy  and  busy 
life  of  the  purlieus  of  the  town.    John  Whitey  in  1882,  signalized 


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ENGLAND  193 

himself  with  a  landscape,  "Gold  and  Silver,"  which  was  bathed 
in  light  and  air.  The  gold  was  a  waving  cornfield  threaded 
by  a  sandy  little  yellow  path  ;  the  silver  was  the  sea  glittering 
and  sparkling  in  the  background.  Moved  by  Birket  Forster, 
Ernest  Parton  seeks  to  combine  refinement  of  tone  with  incisive- 
ncss  in  the  painting  of  detail.  His  motives  are  usually  quite 
simple — a  stream  and  a  birch  wood  in  the  dusk,  a  range  of 
poplars  stretching  dreamily  along  the  side  of  a  ditch.  Marshall 
painted  gloomy  London  streets  enveloped  in  mist ;  Docharty 
blossoming  hawthorn  bushes  and  autumn  evening  with  russet- 
leaved  oaks  ;  while  Alfred  East  became  the  painter  of  spring  in 
all  its  fragrance,  when  the  meadows  are  resplendent  in  their  earliest 
verdure,  and  the  leaves  of  the  trees  which  have  just  unfolded 
stand  out  against  the  firmament  in  light  green  patches  of  colour, 
when  the  limes  are  blossoming  and  the  crops  begin  to  sprout. 
J/.  /.  Aumonier  appears  in  the  harmony  of  colouring,  and  in  the 
softness  of  his  fine,  light-hued  tones,  as  the  true  heir  of  Walker 
and  Mason.  A  discreet  and  intimate  sense  of  poetry  pervades 
his  valleys  with  their  veiled  and  golden  light,  a  fertile  odour  of 
the  earth  streams  from  his  rich  meadows,  and  from  all  the 
luxuriant,  cultivated,  and  peacefully  idyllic  tracts  which  he  has 
painted  so  lovingly  and  so  well.  Gregory^  Knighty  Alfred  Parsons^ 
David  Fulton^  A.  R,  Brown ^  and  St.  Clair  Simmons  have  all 
something  personal  in  their  work,  a  bashful  tenderness  beneath 
what  is  seemingly  arid.  The  study  of  water-colour  would  alone 
claim  a  chapter  for  itself.  Since  water-colour  allows  of  more 
breadth  and  unity  than  oil-painting,  it  is  precisely  here  that 
there  may  be  found  exceedingly  charming  and  discreet  concords, 
softly  chiming  tones  of  delicate  blue,  greenish,  and  rosy  light, 
giving  the  most  refined  sensations  produced  by  English  colouring. 
Of  course  England  has  a  great  part  to  play  in  the  painting 
of  the  sea.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  a  nation  occupies  an 
insular  and  maritime  position,  above  all  with  such  a  sea  and 
upon  such  coasts,  and  the  English  painter  knows  well  how  to 
give  an  heroic  and  poetic  cast  to  the  weather-beaten  features 
of  the  sailor.  For  thirty  years  Henry  Moore,  the  elder  brother 
of    Albert   Moore,   has  been   the    undisputed    monarch    of   this 


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194  MODERN  PAINTING 

province  of  art.  Moore  began  as  a  landscape-painter.  From 
1853  to  1857  he  painted  the  glistening  cliffs  and  secluded  nooks 
of  Cumberland,  and  then  the  green  valleys  of  Switzerland  flooded 
with  the  summer  air  and  the  clear  morning  light — quiet  scenes 
of  rustic  life,  the  toil  of  the  wood-cutter  and  the  haymaker, 
somewhat  as  Julien  Duprd  handles  such  matters  at  the  present 
time  in  Paris.  From  1858  he  began  his  conquest  of  the  sea, 
and  in  the  succeeding  interval  he  has  painted  it  in  all  the 
phases  of  its  changing  life, — at  times  in  grey  and  sombre  morning, 
at  other  times  when  the  sun  stands  high ;  at  times  in  quietude, 
at  other  times  when  the  wind  sweeps  heavily  across  the  waves, 
when  the  storm  rises  or  subsides,  when  the  sky  is  clouded  or 
when  it  brightens.  It  is  a  joy  to  follow  him  in  all  quarters  of 
the  world,  to  see  how  he  constantly  studies  the  waves  of  every 
zone  on  fair  or  stormy  days,  amid  the  clearness  and  brilliancy 
of  the  mirror  of  the  sea,  as  amid  the  strife  of  the  elements ; 
as  a  painter  he  is,  at  the  same  time,  always  a  student 
of  nature,  and  treats  the  sea  as  though  he  had  to  paint 
its  portrait.  In  the  presence  of  his  sea-pieces  one  has  the 
impression  of  a  window  opening  suddenly  upon  the  ocean. 
Henry  Moore  measures  the  boundless  expanse  quite  calmly, 
like  a  captain  calculating  the  chances  of  being  able  to  make  a 
crossing.  Nowhere  else  does  there  live  any  painter  who  regards 
the  sea  so  much  with  the  ^yts  of  a  sailor,  and  who  combines 
such  eminent  qualities  with  this  objective  and  cool,  attentive 
observation,  which  seems  to  behold  in  the  sea  merely  its  navigable 
capacity. 

The  painter  of  the  river-port  of  London  and  the  arm  of  the 
Thames  is  William  L.  Wyllie^  whose  pictures  unite  so  much 
bizarre  grandeur  with  so  much  precision.  One  knows  the  port 
life  of  the  Thames,  with  its  accumulation  of  work,  which  has  not 
its  like  upon  the  whole  planet.  Everything  is  colossal.  From 
Greenwich  up  to  London  both  sides  of  the  river  are  a  continuous 
quay  :  everywhere  there  are  goods  being  piled,  sacks  being  raised 
on  pulleys,  ships  being  laid  at  anchor ;  everywhere  are  fresh 
storehouses  for  copper,  beer,  sails,  tar,  and  chemicals.  The 
river  is  a  mile  broad  and  is  like  a  street  populated  with  ships. 


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\Brothtrs  photo  sc. 


Henry  Moore:  "Mounts  Bay." 
iBy  permission  of  the  CorporcUion  0/  Manchester,  the  owners  of  the  picture.) 

a  workshop  winding  again  and  again.  The  steamers  and  sailing 
vessels  move  up  and  down  stream,  or  lie  in  masses,  close  beside 
one  another,  at  anchor.  Upon  the  bank  the  docks  lie  athwart 
like  so  many  streets  of  water,  sending  out  ships  or  taking  them 
in.  The  ranks  of  masts  and  the  slender  rigging  form  a  spider's 
web  spreading  across  the  whole  horizon ;  and  a  vaporous  haze, 
penetrated  by  the  sun,  envelops  it  with  a  reddish  veil. 
Every  dock  is  like  a  town,  filled  with  huge  vats  and  populated 
with  a  swarm  of  human  beings,  that  moves  hither  and  thither 
amid  fluttering  shadows.  This  vast  panorama,  veiled  with  smoke 
and  mist,  only  now  and  then  broken  by  a  ray  of  sunlight,  is  the 
theme  of  Wyllie's  pictures.  Even  as  a  child  he  ran  about  in 
the  port  of  London,  clambered  on  to  the  ships,  noted  the  play 
of  the  waves,  and  wandered  about  the  docks,  and  so  he  painted 
his  pictures  afterwards  with  all  the  technical  knowledge  of  a 
sailor.  There  is  no  one  who  knows  so  well  how  ships  stand 
in  the  water ;  no  one  has  such  an  understanding  of  their  details : 
the  heavy  sailing-vessels  and  the  great  steamers,  which  lie  in 
the  brown  water  of  the  port  like  mighty  monsters,  the  sailors 
and  the  movements  of  the  dock  labourers,  the  dizzy  tide  of  men, 
the  confusion  of  cabs  and  drays  upon  the  bridges  spanning  the 


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k  /-i: 


arm  of  the  Thames;  only 
VoUon  in  Paris  is  to  be 
compared  with  him  as 
painter  of  a  river-port. 

Apart  from  him,  Clara 
Montalba  specially  has 
painted  the  Lxjndon  port 
in  delicate  water-colours. 
Yet  she  is  almost  more 
at  home  in  Venice,  the 
Venice  of  Francesco 
Guardi,  with  its  magic 
gleam,  its  canals,  regattas, 
and  palaces,  the  Oriental 
and  dazzling  splendour  of 
San  Marco,  the  austere 
grace  of  San  Giorgio 
Maggiore,  the  spirited 
and  fantastic  cUcadence  of 
Santa  Maria  della  Salute. 
Elsewhere  English  water- 
colour  often  enters  into  a  fruitless  rivalry  with  oil-painting,  but 
Clara  Montalba  cleaves  to  the  old  form  which  in  other  days 
under  Bonington,  David  Cox,  and  Turner  was  the  chief  glory 
of  the  English  school.  She  throws  lightly  upon  paper  notes 
and  effects  which  have  struck  her,  and  the  memory  of  which 
she  wishes  to  retain. 

For  the  English  painters  of  the  day,  so  far  as  they  do  not 
remain  in  the  country,  Venice  has  become  what  the  East  was  for 
the  earlier  generations.  They  no  longer  study  the  romantic  Venice 
which  Turner  painted  and  Byron  sang  in  CAilde  Harold,  they 
do  not  paint  the  noble  beauty  of  Venetian  architecture  or  its 
canals  glowing  in  the  sun,  but  the  Venice  of  the  day,  with  its 
narrow  alleys  and  pretty  girls,  Venice  with  its  marvellous  effects 
of  light  and  the  picturesque  figures  of  its  streets.  Nor  are 
they  at  pains  to  discover  "  ideal "  traits  in  the  character  of  the 
Italian  people.      They  paint  true,  everyday  scenes  from  popular 


^im- 


-1^ 


Magazme  of  Art.] 

Luke  Fildes:   "Venetian  Women." 

{By  ptrmisaioH  of  tht  Berlin  Photographic  Companyt 

tht  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


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life,  but  these  are 
glorified  by  the  magic 
of  light  After  Zezzos, 
Ludwig  Passini,  Cecil 
van  Haanen,  Tito,  and 
Eugene  Blaas,  the  Eng- 
lishmen Luke  Fildes, 
W.  Logsdail,  and  Henry 
Woods  are  the  most 
skilful  painters  of 
Venetian  street  scenes. 
In  the  pictures  of  Luke 
Fildes  and  W.  Logsdail 
there  are  usually  to  be 
seen  in  the  foreground 
beautiful  women,  painted 
full-size,  washing  linen 
in  the  canal  or  seated 
knitting  at  the  house 
door ;  the  heads  are 
bright  and  animated, 
the  colours  almost 
glaringly   vivid.     Henry 

IVoodSy  the  brother-in-law  of  Luke  Fildes,  rather  followed  the 
paths  prescribed  by  Favretto  in  such  pictures  as  "  Venetian 
Trade  in  the  Streets,"  "  The  Sale  of  an  Old  Master,"  "  Pre- 
paration for  the  First  Communion,"  "  Back  from  the  Rialto," 
and  the  like ;  of  all  the  English  he  has  carried  out  the  study 
of  bright  daylight  most  consistently.  The  little  glass  house 
which  he  built  in  1879  at  the  back  of  the  Palazzo  Vendramin 
became  the  model  of  all  the  glass  studios  now  disseminated 
over  the  city  of  the  lagunes. 

And  these  labours  in  Venice  contributed  in  no  unessential 
manner  to  lead  English  painting,  in  general,  away  from  its 
one-sided  aesthetics  and  rather  more  into  the  mud  of  the  streets, 
causing  it  to  break  with  its  finely  accorded  tones,  and  bringing 
it    to    a    more    earnest    study    of    light.      Beside    his    idealized 


iBfothirs  photo  sc. 

Stanhope  Forbes:   "The  Lighthouse." 

(By  penmiaaioH  oj  thg  Corporation  of  Manchester^  the 
owners  of  the  picture.^ 


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200  MODERN  PAINTING 

Venetian  women,  Luke  Fildes  also  painted  large  pictures  from 
the  life  of  the  English  people,  such  as  "  The  Return  of  the 
Lost  One,"  "The  Widower,"  and  the  like,  which  struck  tones 
more  earnest  than  English  painting  does  elsewhere;  and  in  his 
picture  of  1878,  "The  Poor  of  London,"  he  even  recalled 
certain  sketches  which  Gavarni  drew  during  his  rambles 
through  the  poverty-stricken  quarter  of  London.  The  poor 
starving  figures  in  this  work  were  rendered  quite  realistically 
and  without  embellishment;  the  general  tone  was  a  greenish 
grey,  making  a  forcible  change  from  the  customary  light  blue 
of  English  pictures.  Dudley  Hardy's  huge  picture  "  Homeless," 
where  a  crowd  of  human  beings  are  sleeping  at  night  in  the 
open  air  at  the  foot  of  a  monument  in  London,  and  Jacomb 
Hoods  plain  scenes  from  London  street  life,  are  other  works 
which  in  recent  years  were  striking  from  having  a  character 
rather  French  than  English.  Stott  of  Oldham  listens  in  rapture 
to  the  symphonic  harmonies  of  the  great  magician  Whistler, 
and  by  his  pretty  pictures  of  the  dunes  with  children  playing, 
powerful  portraits,  and  delicate,  vaporous  moonlight  landscapes 
he  has  won  many  admirers  on  the  Continent  also.  Stanhope 
Forbes  painted  "  A  Philharmonic  Society  in  the  Country,"  a 
representation  of  an  auction,  and  scenes  from  the  career  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  in  which  he  restrained  himself  from  all  sub- 
ordinate ideas  of  a  poetic  turn,  and  approached  the  Danes  by 
the  bonhomie  of  his  method  of  observation.  In  English  art 
these  are  the  few  painters  par  exceUencCy  the  solitary  artists  who 
aim  more  in  the  French  sense  at  the  naturalistic  transcript  of 
a  fragment  of  reality,  and  combine  with  it  a  more  direct  study 
of  light  than  is  elsewhere  usual  in  the  English  school. 


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CHAPTER    XXXVIII 

BELGIUM 

As  David  swayed  over  Belgian  fainting  from  1800  to  1830,  and  Delaroche 
from  1830  to  1850,  Courbet  swayed  over  it  from  1850  to  1870. — Charles 
de  Grouxy  Henri  de  Braekeleer,  Constantin  Meunier,  Charles  Verlat, 
Louis  Dubois,  Jan  Stobbaerts,  Leopold  Speekaert,  Alfred  Stevens^  De 
yonghe,  Baugniet,  the  brothers  Verhas,  Charles  Hermans. — The  land- 
scape-painters first  go  upon  the  lines  of  the  Fontainebleau  artists 
and  the  Impressionists, — Sketch  of  the  history  of  Belgian  landscape- 
painting. —  Van  Assche,  Verstappen,  Marneffe^  Lauters,  Jacob-Jacobs, 
Kinder  mans  y  Fourmois^  Schampheleer,  Roekfs,  '  Lamoriniere,  De 
Knyff,—Hippolyte  Boulenger  and.  the  Sociite  Libre  des  Beaux- Arts, 
— Thiodore  Baron^  Jacques  Rosseels,  Joseph  Heymans,  CoosemanSt 
AsselbergSt  Verstraete^  Frans  Courtens, — The  painters  of  animals  c 
Verboeckhovent  Alfred  Verwee,  Parmeniier^  De  Greef  Leemputten, 
LSon  Massaux,  Marie  Collaert, — The  painters  of  the  sea :  Clays, 
A.  Bouvier,  Leemans,  A.  Baertsoen,  Louis  Artan, — The  portrait- 
Painters  :  Emile  Wauters,  Liivin  de  Winne,  Agneesens,  Lambrichs, 
— General  characteristic  of  Belgian  painting. 

BELGIAN  painting  differs  from  English  as  a  fat  Flemish 
matron  from  an  ethereal  young  lady.  In  England  refuge  is 
taken  in  grace  and  poetry,  objects  are  divested  of  their  earthy 
heaviness,  everything  is  subtile  and  mysterious  and  of  a 
melancholy  tenderness;  even  the  painting  of  peasants  is  a 
bucolical  art,  which  only  breathes  the  spirit  of  rustic  life  without 
having  any  of  its  rude  materiality.  Painters  wander  through 
nature  like  sensitive  poets,  finding  flowers  everywhere,  and  it  is 
pleasant  to  breathe  the  perfume  of  the  charming  bouquets  into 
which  they  have  the  secret  of  binding  them  with  so  much  skill. 
But  the  Belgians  are  true  Flemish  masters,  exceedingly  material, 
not  in  the  least  refined,  and  sacrificing  nothing  to  grace.  They 
go  their  way  like  animals  at  the  plough,  without  growing  weary, 
VOL,  III.  ^^  14 


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202  MODERN  PAINTING 

but  without  any  traces  of  poetry;  they  are  exclusively  in- 
terested in  reality — in  poor  folks  and  in  rich  and  prosperous 
interiors,  in  scenes  from  peasant  life  and  from  the  streets,  in 
fat,  heavy  women,  land  and  sea,  in  everything  that  has  life, 
colour,  and  character.  A  somewhat  material  weight  and  a 
prosaic  sincerity,  an  unctuous  Flemish  health,  is  expressed  in 
everything.  It  is  as  if  Jacob  Jordaens  were  again  upon  his 
walks  in  Flanders. 

This  revolution  of  Belgian  painting  dates  from  1850.  As 
David  was  at  the  head  of  Belgian  painting  from  1800,  and 
Delaroche  from  1830,  Courbet  swayed  over  it  from  1850  to  1870. 
The  historical  picture,  along  with  everything  mythological  and 
religious,  allegorical  and  fantastic,  was  forsaken.  The  rosy 
insipidity,  the  conventional,  blooming  pallet-tone  of  Wappers 
and  Gallait  made  way  for  a  ruthless  truth  of  colouring. 
Courbet,  who  himself  descended  from  Jacob  Jordaens,  helped 
the  Belgians  to  become  conscious  of  their  old  Flemish  stock 
once  more.  When  his  "  Stonebreakers  **  was  exhibited  in 
Brussels  in  1852,  it  was  at  first  greeted  with  the  same  cry  of 
indignation  by  which  it  had  been  received  in  France.  But  this 
howl  of  indignation  did  not  hinder  Courbet's  realism  from 
triumphing  a  few  years  afterwards  with  De  Groux,  who  reflected 
it  in  a  species  of  brutal  sentimentalism. 

Charles  de  Groux  is  a  remarkable  artist.  Hendrik  Leys 
had  already  painted  poverty.  Yet  he  did  not  see  it  in  the 
reality,  but  only  in  old  pictures.  The  wealthy  and  refined 
painter  had  a  long  way  to  go  from  his  own  princely  mansion 
to  the  narrow  alleys  of  old  Antwerp  where  these  modern 
dramas  were  played  Charles  de  Groux  himself  passed  an 
indigent  life  in  an  out-of-the-way  quarter,  always  surrounded  by 
the  pallid  and  famished  faces  of  the  poor.  A  deep  compas- 
sion led  him  to  the  world  of  the  miserable  and  heavy-laden. 
He  transferred  to  them  the  melancholy  from  which  he  suffered 
himself,  lived  their  life  with  them,  and  his  heart  bled  when  he 
saw  them  suffer.  Artist  and  man  were  identical  with  each  other 
in  him.  He  became  the  painter  of  the  unfortunate  because  he 
was  himself  a  poor,  unfortunate,  and  hard-featured  man  ;  it  was 


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BELGIUM  203 

ihrough  the  same  necessity  of  nature  by  which  handsome  and 
fortunate  artists  have  been  the  poets  of  laughter  and  grace  in 
every  age.  He  mingles  with  his  painting  neither  sarcasm  nor 
complaints,  but  simply  paints  the  reality  as  he  feels  it,  with  his 
whole  heart,  though  without  dogmatizing  or  preaching  as  a 
social  democrat.  The  strife  between  labour  and  capital  does  not 
affect  him  ;  he  does  not  trouble  himself  about  the  relation 
between  workmen  and  employers  ;  he  never  utters  the  war-cry 
of  the  popular  tribune,  like  Eugene  de  Block.  In  a  real  and 
earnest  spirit  he  introduced  the  democracy  into  art,  and  gave  it 
that  baptismal  certificate  which  it  received  in  France  through 
Courbet  In  other  respects  he  does  not  resemble  the  French- 
man. Courbet  was  a  robust  painter  with  a  broad  bravura,  an 
artist  who  harmonized  everything  in  the  brown  tones  of  the 
[Bolognese.  De  Groux  seems  meagre  and  tortured  beside  him ; 
sfhrill  tones  break  through  the  sooty  harmony  of  his  pictures. 
Courbet  regarded  humanity  with  a  broad  and  healthy  Rabe- 
laisian laugh,  whereas  poor  De  Groux,  who  suffered  himself  and 
was  weak  and  sickly,  has  always  introduced  into  his  dramas  the 
profound  sentiment  of  death.  In  Courbet  there  are  healthy 
human  beings  standing  out  in  all  their  rusticity,  while  in  De 
Groux  there  are  spare  figures  with  hollow  cheeks  and  weak 
lungs,  consumptive  beings  who  in  their  very  birth  have  already 
fallen  the  victims  of  mortality.  This  preference  for  disease, 
unsightliness,  and  human  decay  gives  a  terrible  uniformity  to 
the  works  of  De  Groux.  His  pictures  are  disconsolate  and 
cheerless.  The  leaden  gloom  of  rainy  weather,  the  melancholy 
of  low  houses  with  their  roofs  buried  under  dirty  snow, 
and  the  heavy  atmosphere  of  sad  autumnal  days  are  what 
he  most  loves.  In  his  pictures  one  does  not  see  the 
spring,  nor  song-birds,  nor  sportive  butterflies;  scarcely  does 
a  strip  of  green  enliven  the  sooty  uniformity  of  his  colour- 
ing, which  is  as  gloomy  -  as  the  life  of  the  poor.  Mournful 
reality  sways  over  everything  in  his  work.  It  is  like  a 
hospital  filled  with  sick  people,  pre-ordained  in  their  cradles 
to  a  famished  and  shivering  existence.  As  mercilessly  as  a 
surgeon   operating  upon  a  diseased   limb  has   De  Groux  drawn 


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De  Groux:  "The  Deathbed." 

his  art  from  the  hospital,  and  it  is  often  brutal  where  he 
touches  the  deepest  sores  of  modern  civilization.  His  ideal 
never  goes  beyond  the  threshold  of  cellars  and  attics.  There 
are  in  his  pictures  nothing  but  poor,  broken  furniture,  stitched 
rags,  and  pale  faces,  where  famine  and  toil  have  early  left  their 
traces.  He  paints  the  sorrows  and  the  wretchedness  of  the 
artisan,  the  utter  degeneration  of  men  in  need  of  light  and  air, 
with  a  terrible  sincerity  known  to  none  before  him.  Even 
Tassaert,  the  Biranger  of  the  garret,  only  depicted  little  grisettes 
destroying  themselves  by  the  fumes  of  charcoal  with  a  pallid 
smile  upon  their  lips.  He  never  displayed  the  barren  nudity  of 
the  attic  where  old  men  die  of  starvation  beneath  their  filthy 
bedclothes.  A  thoroughly  French  grace  softened  the  mournful- 
ness  of  his  works.  De  Groux  went  to  the  bitter  end ;  he 
painted  I'assommqir  before  it  was  made  a  subject  for  fiction : 
the  drunkard  reeling   heavily  to  his  house,  ruined  men  lingering 


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BELGIUM 


ioi 


Dk  Groux:  "GraOc  before  Meat." 

over  the  brandy-glass  in  grimy  taverns,  and,  as  a  [lugubrious 
reverse  to  the  picture,  shivering  children  crouching  Gold  and 
hungry  in  a  fireless  room,  pale  women  who  hslve  cried  their 
eyes  out  sewing  in  the  dingy  light  penetrating  through  dirty 
windows,  and  broken  old  cradlefi  where  little  children  are  lying 
dead.  Even  where  he  touches  a  softer  note  he  recognizes  only 
the  regularity  of  toil  or  the  bitter  distress  of  life :  poor  women 
darning  upon  a  gloomy  afternoon  the  torn  clothes  of  their 
husbands  or  their  children,  beggars  who  stand  shivering  at  the 
street  corner,  the  half- frozen  poor  passing  with  a  faint  heart  by 
the  brasier  of  a  man  Celling  coffee,  vagabonds  drawing  a 
brandy-flask  from  their  pockets  at  the  street  corner,  little 
children  slinking  pale  and  bare-footed  over  the  rough  stones, 
mothers  praying  for  a  dying  baby.  De  Groux  knew  what  a 
close  bond  unites  the  outcasts  of  society  with  religion,  arrd 
therefore  he  sometimes  represented — and  it  is  the  only  variation 
in   his   work — the   priest   at  the   altar    amid    the   smoke  bf  the 

-candles.  Or  upon  the  high-road  bearing  the  last  consolatiofi  to 
the  dying.  He  painted  the  poor  as  if  he  had  lived  amongst  them 
himself,    and    shared    their   want,    their    renunciation,    and    their 

'  superstition ;  and   the   jiriest    and   religious   worship   he   pkinted 

like  a  man  6f  the  humble   class   who   himself  believed  in  them. 

Charies    de    Groux    Ief\    hd    school    behind    him';    but    the 


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2oe  MODERN  PAINTING 

principle  of  his  art  survived.  A  heightened  feeling  for  reality 
came  into  the  Belgian  school  with  him,  and  determined  its 
further  development.  Painters  looked  no  longer  backwards  but 
around  them,  as  did  their  great  predecessors  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  And  by  painting  the  men  who  lived  about  them,  as 
these  older  masters  had  done,  they  revelled  once  more  in  the 
warm  juicy  colour  which  was  characteristic  of  Flemish  painting 
in  the  days  of  Jordaens. 

Henri  de  Braekeleer^  nephew  of  Leys  and  son  of  Ferdinand 
de  Braekeleer,  whose  genre  pictures  had  such  a  great  reputation 
sixty  years  agOj  became  the   Belgian    Pieter   de   Hoogh  of  the 
nineteenth  century.    To  some  extent  he  closed  the  tradition  of 
Leys,    and    clothed    his    efforts,   with    a    rational    and    definite 
formula.      Leys,    who   did    not    stand    independent   of   the    old 
masters,    painted    the    people   of   Antwerp  who    lived    in   their 
time  ;  Henri  de  Braekeleer  painted  those  whom  he  saw  himself. 
Like    all    towns    which    have   a    past,   Antwerp   falls    into   two 
sharply  divided  districts.      One   of  these  is  formed   by  the   new 
town,  with    its  straight  and  broad   streets   and   stone    mansions, 
through  the  high  windows  of  which  a  clear  grey  light  falls  upon 
fine   and   comfortable  apartments ;   the  other   is  formed   by   the 
old  quarter  of  the  town,    with   its   dingy  little  houses,   its    pic- 
turesque courts,  its  tortuous  alleys  illuminated  only  by  a  scanty 
strip  of  grey  sky,  and  its  old  Flemish  population,  who  live  now 
exactly  as  their  forefathers  two  hundred  years  ago.     A   painter, 
brought  up  in  the  school  of  Leys,  and,  like  him,  paying  honour 
to   the    old    Dutch    colourists,    would    necessarily    feel    himself 
drawn  towards  these  old  nooks,  with  beams  of  light  stealing  into 
sequestered   chambers  through  little  windows   and  playing  upon 
brightly  polished  pewter  and  copper  vessels.      Here  it  was  still 
possible  to  revel  in  the  Dutch  clare-obscure,  and  that  was  what 
De  Braekeleer    did.      He    did   not    paint    the   noisy  life  of   the 
streets   of   Antwerp,    the    heavy   tread   of  the    horses   dragging 
wains  laden  high  over  the  rough  pavement,  nor  the  smoke  and 
steam    of   flues   and    manufactories.     But    he   painted    the   quiet 
and  loneliness  of  a  sleeping  town,  the  red  roofs  of  little  houses 
bathed  dreamily  in  the  dull  light  of  the  sky,  little  courts  where 


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BELGIUM  207 

old  people  sat  and  sunned  themselves  upon  a  bench.  He 
painted  men  who  were  vegetating — men  whose  life  flowed  by 
with  a  somnolent  monotony,  or  men  in  the  regular  business 
of  their  calling :  cordwainers,  tailors,  and  shoemakers,  old  men 
reading  or  geographers  bending  over  their  maps,  meagre  gardens 
with  sooty  flowers  and  dim  interiors  with  little  leaded  windows. 
He  is  himself  described  as  a  quiet,  dreamy  man,  and  he  felt 
himself  as  much  at  home  amid  these  quiet  people  and  quiet 
houses  as  Groux  did  amongst  the  poor.  In  the  matter  of 
technique  he  soon  deserted  the  old  German  lines  of  Leys, 
approaching  all  the  nearer  to  Van  der  Meer  of  Delft  and  Pieter 
de  Hoogh.  De  Hoogh  gave  him  the  warm  red  general  tone ; 
in  that  painter  he  saw  the  sunbeams  glancing  sportively  over 
table-covers,  boards,  chests,  and  copper  vessels,  the  light  which 
from  a  brighter  opening  at  the  side  penetrates  a  dark  ante- 
chamber like  a  golden  column  of  dust.  From  De  Hoogh  he 
learnt  to  seize  boldly  many  charming  problems  of  light,  solving 
them  with  the  refinement  of  an  old  Dutch  master.  Claus  Meyer 
is,  more  or  less,  his  parallel  in  Germany. 

After  Charles  de  Groux  had  painted  the  poor  and  Henri  de 
Braekeleer  the  people  of  Antwerp,  Constantin  Meunier  went  into 
the  forges  and  represented  great  virile  bodies,  naked  to  the 
waist,  in  heroic  attitudes.  Meunier  lives  in  the  little  town  of 
Louvain,  the  capital  of  the  Belgian  colliery  district.  From  his 
studio  he  looks  over  a  wide,  black  country,  like  a  huge,  solitary 
block  of  coal — a  terrible  battle-field  for  industry.  All  the  air  is 
darkened  with  smoke  ;  the  plain  is  covered  with  chimneys,  high 
as  obelisks,  and  long  rows  of  lofty  buildings  of  red,  monotonous 
brick  stand  there  like  busy  beehives.  Glowing  blast  furnaces 
flare  through  the  fog — those  iron-foundries  where  the  machines 
of  the  kingdom  are  formed,  rollers  and  fly-wheels,  the  pillars  of 
bridges  and  the  axles  of  steam-engines.  Workmen — a  species 
of  peaceable  giants — bestir  themselves  at  the  iron  hammer  with 
red  glowing  shafts.  Meunier  himself  joined  in  this  battle  at  the 
side  of  the  artisan.  At  first  a  sculptor,  he  applied  the  gloomy 
naturalism  of  Zola's  Germinal  to  plastic  art.  As  a  painter  he 
is  convincing  and  austere,  a  little  brutal  indeed,  but  sincere  and 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Meunier:  "The  Peasants*  Rebellion." 

simple.  His  landscapes  reek  of  coal  and  iron,  and  his  pit-men 
are  terrible,  sooty  figures,  bearing  the  stamp  of  great  truth- 
fulness, whether  they  stare  into  the  fire  of  the  blast  furnace 
with  a  dull  gaze,  or  rest  brooding  gloomily,  tired  out  with  their 
work.  At  times,  too,  he  exhibits  scenes  of  martyrdom  which 
are  Belgian  counterparts  to  those  painted  in  France  by  Ribot 
under  the  influence  of  the  Spanish  naturalists.  In  place  of  the 
boudoir  saints  of  the  earlier  generation  one  sees  nude  figures 
which  have  been  marvellously  painted,  half-mouldered  corpses 
with  sanguinary  wounds.  A  smack  of  the  butcher's  shop  was 
introduced  into  Flemish  art  by  Meunier's  pictures. 

On  account  of  this  attempt  to  place  religious  painting  upon 
a  realistic  basis,  Charles  Verlat  ought  not  to  be  passed  over. 
During  a  residence  in  Palestine  he  had  prepared  numerous 
figure  and  landscape  studies,  which  he  put  together  in  religious 
pictures  after  his  return.  The  result  was  a  trivial  though 
massive  realism,  as  it  is  in  most  of  the  biblical  Eastern  painters, 
but  in  Verlat  it  has  the  more   crude   effect  as  he  had   no  eye 


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BELGIUM  209 

for  landscape  whatever.  Everything  is  petrified,  the  persons,  the 
air,  and  the  light  He  did  nothing  for  the  progress  of  religious 
painting,  but  his  primitive  realism  was  so  far  stimulating  that 
it  enabled  him  to  put  an  end  to  conventional  sacred  painting 
in  Belgium ;  and  by  a  fresher  study  of  nature  he  attached 
himself  to  the  general  movement.  By  his  Eastern  pictures,  as 
well  as  his  landscapes  and  animals,  many  a  younger  artist  had 
his  eyes  opened  for  the  life  of  nature. 

Louis  Dubois  is,  perhaps,  the  most  exuberant  in  power  of 
all  this  group  influenced  by  Courbet  His  first  broad  and 
juicily  painted  likenesses  recall  old  Pourbus.  Later  he  turned, 
with  the  large  bravura  and  oily  red-brown  method  of  painting 
characteristic  of  Courbet,  to  the  figure-picture,  still-life,  and 
landscape.  When  he  painted  nude  women  they  were  exuberant 
in  health  and  strength.  He  delighted  in  fat  shoulders  and 
sinewy  necks,  the  gleam  of  the  skin  under  lamplight,  the 
coats  of  roes  and  hares,  the  iridescent  glitter  of  carp  and  cod ; 
in  fact  he  was  a  robust  workman  like  Gustave  Courbet,  and 
clasped  matter  in  all  its  unctuous  and  luxuriant  health  with 
a  voluptuous  satisfaction. 

Equally  full-blooded,  Jan  Stobbaerts  painted  artisan  pictures, 
landscapes,  and  still-life  in  dark-brown  studio  tones,  and  with 
brutal  force.  He  peculiarly  sought  out  subjects  of  a  repellent 
triviality :  cowhouses  in  warm  yellow-greenish  light  alternate 
with  dark  and  dirty  interiors,  kitchens  where  decaying  vege- 
tables are  strewn  about  with  barbers'  rooms  where  old  men  are 
being  shaved  Jan  Stobbaerts,  in  fact,  is  an  unwieldy  Flemish 
bear,  robust,  of  a  healthy  human  understanding  and  colossal 
hideousness. 

At  the  time  when  he  began  to  paint  in  Antwerp,  an  artist 
made  his  appearance  in  Brussels  who  was  not  quite  so  exuberant 
in  power,  but  also  had  a  virile  and  energetic  talent — Leopola 
Speekaert.  His  first  picture,  in  i860,  was  a  nymph  taken  by 
surprise,  a  healthy  piece  of  naked  flesh,  painted  with  that  broad 
and  robust  technique  by  which  Courbet's  nude  women  impressed 
the  Belgians.  After  that  he  also  turned  to  the  painting  of  the 
poor,  depicting  beggars,  drunkards,  women  of  the  people — pictures 


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210  MODERN  PAINTING 

from  which  later  generations  will  receive  a  terrifying  repre- 
sentation of  Brussels  in  the  sixties. 

Alfred  Stevens^  who  also  began  with  beggarwomen  and 
vagabonds,  introduced  a  certain  nervous  restlessness — even  if  it 
was  not  profound— into  Flemish  healthiness.  Women,  seas  and 
flowers,  silk  and  satin,  everything  rich  in  nuances  and  rendering 
delicate  reflections  possible,  busied  his  dexterous  brush.  His 
pictures  are  at  once  refined  and  solid,  graceful  and  strong, 
healthy  and  yet  full  of  nervous  vibration,  Flemish  and  Parisian- 
It  almost  seems,  indeed,  as  though  they  were  too  Flemish  to 
count  as  true  representations  of  the  Parisienne,  Stevens  is  now 
nearly  sixty-eight  years  of  age,  and  looks  like  the  retired  colonel 
of  a  cavalry  regiment  Even  the  rude  blows  of  fate  have  failed 
to  bow  his  broad-shouldered  and  gigantic  frame  with  its  massive 
back  and  great  muscular  hands.  And  these  muscular  hands 
have  given  something  of  their  own  strength  to  the  tender  lines 
of  Parisiennes,  and  made  such  beings  healthier  and  more  full- 
blooded  than  they  really  are.  The  heaviness  of  Jordaens  lies 
in  his  blood.  Like  all  these  Flemish  artists,  he  is  a  painter  of 
still-life.  His  pretty  women,  who  are  bathing  or  regarding 
bouquets,  Japanese  masques  and  statuettes,  in  an  attitude  which 
permits  the  spectator  to  study  their  rich  toilettes  and  their 
tasteful  household  surroundings,  seem  themselves  like  puppets 
set  amid  these  knickknacks.  The  capacity  for  grasping  the 
atmosphere  of  life  in  its  quivering  movement,  the  poetry  of 
what  is  psychical,  evaporated  from  this  art. 

The  successes  of  Stevens  led  De  Jonghe,  Baugniet,  and  the 
brothers  Verhas  into  the  same  course.  Beneath  the  hands  of 
De  Jonghe  the  Parisienne  becomes  a  tender,  languishing  being, 
stretching  at  full  length  upon  a  soft  velvet  sofa.  He,  too,  knows 
nothing  of  passion  and  spiritual  life.  All  the  interest  lies  in  the 
coquetry  of  the  toilette,  which,  however,  is  always  confined  within 
the  limits  of  conventional  decency.  All  De  Jonghe*s  women 
look  as  innocent  as  if  they  had  just  left  a  boarding-school. 
They  sit  over  their  work-basket  or  have  a  novel  resting  upon 
their  knees.  A  slight  fit  of  sulks  or  an  impatient  expectancy 
is  the  only  thing  that,  now  and  then,  disturbs  the  sunny  clearness 


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BELGIUM 


211 


^K    /^Ki    ^HflBiHlJUjliA:n!ni  _ 

1 

BnrS  fe^Hi^?^^^^Hiv^ 

fSH^Sb.  < 

?!^v:k .;;.,:.,:. , ,     mu^-^'^>w^\ 

1     ,.  ..-v. 

ii«^si!p^*V^X 

Verhas:  "The  Schoolgirls'  Review." 

of  their  foreheads.  Baugniet  and  the  brothers  Jan  and  Frans 
Verhas  opened  the  gate  upon  the  world  of  childhood  in  painting 
their  women,  and  thus  the  part  played  by  women  became 
different  The  modern  Eve  of  Stevens  and  the  beautiful,  in- 
different being  of  De  Jonghe  were  transformed  into  quiet  and 
happy  mothers,  blissfully  watching  the  little  one  playing  upon 
their  lap.  Frans  and  Jan  Verhas  have  painted  a  whole  series  of 
such  family  scenes,  in  which  the  fresh  ring  of  children's  voices 
may  be  heard.  They  are  the  first  Belgians  who  have  seized 
the  grace  of  well-bred  children  with  a  fine  comprehension.  A 
mixture  of  English  graciousness  and  Parisian  refinement  under- 
lies their  pictures. 

Charles  Hermans  brought  art  into  the  streets.  His  great 
picture  of  1875,  "  In  the  Dawn,"  was  certainly  by  no  means  a 
delicate  work,  and  it  has  an  old-fashioned  look  in  the  Mus6e 
Moderne  of  Brussels.  A  profligate  is  reeling  from  a  fashionable 
restaurant  with  his  hat  set  far  back  on  his  head  and  a  smart- 
looking  girl  upon  each  arm,  whilst  workpeople,  who  are  just 
setting  forth  to  their  day's  toil,  are  passing  down  the  street. 
There  was  a  trace  of  Hogarth  in  this  forced  opposition  between 
vice  and  virtue,  pleasure  and  duty,  luxury  and  poverty.  There 
was  a  far-fetched,  vulgar  antithesis,  suggesjtive  of  genre,  in  this 


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212  •  MODERN  PAINTING 

division  of  the  picture  into  two  groups :  on  the  one  side  creatures 
of  pleasure,  a  frou-frou  of  silken  clothes  and  a  loud  tipsy  cry ; 
upon  the  other  artisans,  earnest  and  melancholy,  with  the 
tesigned  mien  of  martyrs.  And  for  the  painter  himself  the 
above  work  was  the  only  4«cky  hit.  Even  his  ''Conscripts"  of 
1878  and  the  "Masked  Ball''  of  1880  did  not  achieve  anything 
like  the  same  success,  and  later  he  only  painted  smaller  pictures 
of  women  in  the  style  of  Alfred  Stevens,  which  are  not  far 
removed  from  what  is  now  produced  in  Paris  of  the  same 
description.  Nevertheless  Hermans'  "In  the  Dawn"  gives  a 
date  in  the  history  of  Belgian  painting.  It  was  in  Belgium  the 
first  modem  picture  with  life-size  figures,  the  first  representing 
a  street  scene  upon  the  scale  of  an  historical  picture,  and  it 
communicated  to  the  Belgians  the  principles  of  Manet's  view 
of  colour. 

All  those  elder  painters  who  gathered  round  Dubois  and 
Braekeleer  were  rich,  oily,  and  Flemish,  or  else  quiet,  phlegmatic, 
and  Dutch.  They  all  loved  sauce,  the  dark-brown  backgrounds, 
the  brown  flesh-tint  and  red  shadows.  In  the  history  of 
Belgian  painting  they  occupy  a  position  similar  to  that  of 
Courbet  and  Ribot  in  French.  When  Hermans  exhibited  his 
picture  in  the  middle  of  the  seventies,  Belgian  art  issued  from 
this  Courbet  phase,  and,  like  the  French,  sacrificed  warm,  bitu- 
minous tones  to  a  painting  which  set  the  exact  study  of  tone 
values  in  the  first  place.  And  here  also  the  revolution  was 
begun  by  the  landscape-painters.  By  their  unbroken  intercourse 
with  nature  they  first  remarked  how  little  this  unctuous  fashion 
of  painting  after  the  manner  of  Courbet  was  really  adapted  for 
grasping  the  bloom  and  tenderness  of  the  physical  world. 

The  gradual  development  of  this  landscape-painting,  in  which 
Belgian  art  so  far  shows  its  chief  power,  dates  from  1830.  At 
that  time  Ruysdael  had  been  first  discovered.  Artists  were  in 
a  melancholy  frame  of  mind,  and  produced  a  mass  of  waterfalls 
and  rocks,  and  Alpine  views  and  cascades,  the  elegiac  moiim- 
fulness  of  which  belonged  to  the  past  as  much  as  did  their  bad 
colouring.  Van  Assche,  Verstappen^  arid  Mameffe  had  a  pre- 
ference for  the  "sublime" — that  is  to  say,  for  the  exact  opposite 


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'       BELGIUM        \v  213 

of  the  simple  districts  which  they  saw  arpund  them.  Frequent 
journeys  to  Italy  had  created  in  them  a  sickly  enthusiasm  for 
lai^e,  imposing  lines.  It  wa§  only  after  the  forties  that  painters 
made  a  gradual  return  to  Belgium,  and  no  longer  toiled  to  seek 
at  a  distance  after  materials  for  the  preparation  of  artificially 
composed  stage-scenes.  Landscape  then  became  as  accurate  a 
rendering  as  was  possible  of  the  woods  and  waters  of  their 
native  land,  though  it  needed  yet  another  generation  to  reach 
the  simplicity  and  refinement  of  modern  feeling  for  nature.  The 
panoramic  prospects  froni  the  Ardennes  of  De  Jonghcy  the  ruins 
of  LauterSy  and  the  lakes  and  fjords  of  Jacob-Jacobs  are  a 
parallel  to  that  arid  painting  of  views  from  mountain  districts 
which  was  carried  on  in  Germany  by  Kameke,  old  Count 
Kalkreuth,  and  others. 

Kindermans,  who  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  Salon 
of  1854,  indicated  an  advance  beyond  this  prosaic  or  falsely 
tempered  sobriety.  He  painted  wide  green  meadows  with  an 
elevated  horizon,  isolated  groups  of  trees,  windmills,  and  the 
little  huts  of  peasants.  As  yet  he  did  not  love  nature  in  all 
her  revelations,  but  only  when  the  season  was  beautiful  and 
gave  an  opportunity  for  artistic  compositions.  Nevertheless  he 
forgot  the  town  and  the  studio,  lived  amid  the  Walloon  hills, 
heard  the  leaves  rustle  and  the  wind  sigh,  and  was  filled  with 
the  consciousness  of  nature.  A  moist  air  began  to  blow  through 
landscapes,  and  announced,  although  diffidently,  the  progress 
which  was  made  by  the  next  generation. 

FourmoiSy  who  laboured  at  the  same  time,  painted,  like 
Hobbema,  large  and  fine  groups  of  trees,  behind  which  a 
windmill  or  a  peasant's  cottage  may  be  seen  emerging,  and  little 
footpaths  leading  to  the  skirts  of  a  forest.  He  stood  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  old  Dutchman,  had  no  delicate  eye  for  the 
subtilties  of  atmosphere,  never  yielded  to  dreaminess,  and  yet  he 
was  a  good  worker  and  a  forcible  painter. 

For  his  representations  of  Belgian  flat  landscape  Edmond  de 
SchampheUer  became  well  known.  Having  lived  a  long  time  in 
Munich  during  the  fifties,  he  enjoyed  a  special  fame  in  Germany 
also.     From  1856  the  chief  elements  of  his  pictures,  which  have 


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214  MODERN  PAINTING 

been   felt  in  a  fresh   and   healthy  if  also    in    an   uninteresting 
manner,   are  meadows  covered    with    luxuriant    grass    or  fields 
ovei^own  with  waving  grain,  straight  canals,  where  the  water 
is  smooth  and  quiet  like  a  mirror,  or  still  streams  bounded  by 
low  banks  and  ruffled  by  the  wind  that  brings  the  rain;    alleys 
of  willow,  isolated  strips  of  wood,  windmills,  church  spires,  or  the 
chimneys  of  manufactories  here  and  there  rise  above  these  plains, 
the  broad    pastures   are    animated    by    majestic    cattle    grazing 
over  them,   and  a  dull  sky,  covered  by  grey  rain-clouds,  rests 
over  alL      RoelofSy    a   Dutchman    living    in    Brussels,    made  an 
attentive   study  of  the  play  of    light    upon   the  lush    Flemidi 
meadows.     Lamoriniere  made  an  appearance  with  his  tall  tree- 
stems,  carefully  and  smoothly  painted.     He  had  a  pious  venera- 
tion for  nature,  and   believed  that  he  could  compass  her  most 
readily  by  a  petty  stippling,  through   which  he  painted   every 
strip  of  bark   with  exactness — a  process  which  certainly  would 
not  fail   in   its  effect,  if  the  forest  really  made  the   impression 
that  it  was  the  first  and  most  necessary  duty  of  the  beholder 
to  verify  the  number  of  trees  which   it   possessed  at   the  given 
moment,   counting   one   there,  and   there   another,  and  there  a 
third.      Artists  were  still  diffident  and  timid  in   the  presence  of 
mighty  nature ;   painting  had  a  leaning  towards  what  was  petty, 
pretty,  and   pleasing,  a   strained   poetry  made  up  of  artificially 
harmonized   tones.      Alfred  de  Knyff,  trained   in   the  school  of 
Rousseau,   Dupr6,   Paul   Huet,  and  Cabat,  seems   to  have  first 
brought  the  genuine  programme  of  the  masters  of  Fontainebleau 
into  Belgium,  and   the   Belgian   critics  shook    their  heads  over 
him  in  disapprobation  because  he  painted  "  green,"  as  the  French 
critics  had  done  over  Rousseau.     In  the  succeeding  years,  however, 
the  conscientious  landscape  of  the  studio  gave  way,  more  and 
more,  to  the  fresh  picture  from  nature.     The  miracles  of  light  and 
atmosphere  became   in  Belgium   likewise  the  object  of  principal 
study  to  the  landscape-painters. 

In  the  history  of  art  Hippolyte  Boulenger  is  to  be  honoured  as 
the  Belgian  Corot  He  also  had  served  in  the  ranks,  and  been 
a  painter  of  household  decoration  before  he  devoted  himself  to 
landscape.      He    lived    in   those  days    in   an    attic    immediately 


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BELGIUM  215 

below  the  roof;  every  morning  when  he  rose,  and  every  evening 
when  he  returned  home,  he  looked  straight  into  the  sky.  He 
noted  with  curiosity  the  earliest  rays  of  the  sun  which  streamed 
into  his  room,  and  observed  the  last  quivering  of  the  evening 
light.  In  this  way  there  were  born  in  him  thoughts  and  emotions 
to  which  he  felt  the  need  of  giving  pictorial  expression.  Being 
too  poor,  he  was  unable  to  go  to  the  Academy,  and  was  forced 
to  content  himself  with  selling,  when  he  could,  one  of  the  copies 
of  the  old  masters  which  he  made  in  the  Brussels  Museum. 
But  one  Sunday  morning  the  sunbeams  glanced  in  his  attic  in 
a  manner  which  was  too  enticing.  He  seized  his  canvas  and  his 
brush  and  went  into  the  town,  took  the  old  coach-road  fringed 
with  great  limes,  and  passed  by  the  meadows,  cultivated  fields, 
and  woodlands  until  he  came  to  the  field  of  Waterloo.  In  an 
old  village  inn  behind  the  Bois  de  la  Cambre  he  took  lodgings, 
and  from  that  moment  he  found  his  true  calling.  He  began 
to  study  light,  different  as  it  is  at  every  hour  of  the  day,  and 
shedding  different  nuances  of  colour  upon  the  green  of  the  leaves, 
the  grey  of  the  earth,  and  the  blue  of  the  sky — apparently 
capricious  in  its  workings,  yet  obedient  to  a  logical  regularity 
of  action.  He  sought  to  fathom  the  mystery  of  the  eternal 
changes  of  light,  to  trace,  as  it  were,  the  hourly  course  of  the 
sunbeams.  Millet,  the  mighty  herald  of  the  great  Pan,  was  at 
that  time  his  ideal.  He,  too,  wished  to  paint  man  and  the  soil, 
and  to  devote  himself,  like  Millet,  to  the  worship  of  old  Cybele. 
So  he  soon  left  the  Bois  de  la  Cambre,  which  was  already 
becoming  something  too  much  of  a  park,  and  beginning  to 
resemble  the  Bois  de  Boulogne ;  first  he  went  to  Ruysbroeck, 
the  Dachau  of  Brussels,  and  then  to  Anderghem,  on  the  road 
to  Tervueren.  Tervueren  was  his  last  halting-place,  and  through 
him  it  has  become  the  cradle  of  Belgian  landscape-painting.  All 
the  day  long  he  roamed  about  in  the  wood,  and  sat  of  an  evening 
with  the  peasants  in  the  smoky  tavern. 

The  Brussels  Salon  of  1863  contained  his  first  picture,  that 
of  1866  was  the  birthplace  of  his  celebrity,  and  from  1866  to 
1873  one  masterpiece  followed  the  other.  Tervueren  became 
his   Barbizon.      Here  he  busied  himself,  and  was   never  weary 


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2i6  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  painting  the  silence  of  the  wood,  the  clear  light  resting  upon 
the  rich  meadows  of  Brabant,  and  the  fine  rain  falling  upon  the 
thirsty  cornfields.  No  one  before  him  had  shown  so  much 
power  in  painting  the  monotony  of  the  heath,  with  the  dull 
grey  wintry  clouds  lowering  above  it ;  no  one  had  hearkened 
with. more  attention  to  the  wind  moaning  its  complaint  amid 
the  melancholy  thickets  of  the  forest.  These  pictures  directly 
recall  Millet  with  their  broad  surfaces  and  the  great  and  boldly 
simplified  outline  of  the  Flemish  peasant  standing  out  so  gravely 
against  the  evening  sky.  But  after  no  long  time  Boulenger's 
manner  underwent  a  transformation,  and  when  "The  View  of 
Basti^re"  appeared  in  the  Brussels  Salon  of  1870,  this  Millet 
reeking  of  the  earth  had  acquired  the  sentiment  of  Elysium 
like  a  Corot.  A  rainbow  softly  spans  the  sky ;  a  thin,  drizzling 
rain  comes  dripping  down,  changed  into  fluid  gold  by  the  rays 
of  the  sun.  Rosy  as  mystical  flowers  stand  the  clouds  in  the 
sky,  and  below  they  are  reflected  in  the  azure  of  the  ocean. 
What  was  at  first  heavy,  hard,  and  material  became  more  and 
more  delicate  and  refined.  A  golden  bloom  lies  glittering  in 
the  latest  pictures  of  Boulenger.  Now  he  sought  only  the  most 
judicious  harmonies,  only  a  veiled  clarity  of  tones.  He  fluttered 
more  boldly  around  the  light,  as  if  with  a  presentiment  that  he 
would  soon  see  it  no  more.  And  he  was  but  seven-and-thirty 
when  he  died  in  Brussels  in  the  July  of  1874.  His  death  was 
the  greatest  blow  to  Belgian  painting.  But,  short  as  his  life  was, 
he  left  behind  him  traces  not  to  be  forgotten.  Not  "  the  school 
of  Tervueren  "  alone,  that  forcible  Ecole  en  pletn  vent,  but  all  the 
newest  art  in  Belgium  may  be  traced  to  him  who  was  so  suddenly 
smitten  by  death.  The  Flemish  heaviness,  the  intelligent 
practice  of  the  studio,  made  way  for  a  delicate  system  of  ob- 
servation, calculated  to  meet  particular  cases,  a  system  which 
endeavoured  to  note  with  fine  exactness  the  impressions  made 
by  the  season  and  the  hour. 

At  the.  suggestion  of  Boulenger,  a  circle  of  artists  was 
formed  in  1868,  the  Socidt^  Libre  des  Beaux-Arts,  which  gradually 
came  to  include  all  the  young  Belgians  of  talent.  The  most 
notable     French    and     Dutch    artists— Corot,    Millet,     Daumier, 


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BELGIUM  217 

Courbet,  Daubigny,  Alfred  Stevens,  Bonvin,  Willem  Maris,  and 
others — accepted  honorary  membership.  In  1870  the  first  exhi- 
bition of  the  society  was  arranged;  in  1871  was  founded  the 
journal  Art  Libre,  where  the  young  painters  themselves  defended 
their  ideas  with  the  pen :  they  wanted  to  paint  nature  as  they 
saw  it,  with  all  possible  renunciation  of  arrangement  and  forced 
system.  They  wanted  to  study  the  relations  of  tone  values,  and 
to  look  rather  to  the  rightness  than  to  the  brilliancy  of  colour. 
Manet  and  the  Fontainebleau  masters  had  shown  the  way  which 
Belgian  painting  had  to  follow.  And  before  long  the  doors  of 
museums  and  private  galleries  were  thrown  open  to  admit  their 
works,  as  a  short  time  before  they  had  been  opened  to  the 
Parisian  Indipendants. 

Of  them  all  Thiodore  Baron  had  most  the  stuff  in  him  to 
replace  Boulenger,  who  had  died  so  young.  He  introduced  a 
grave  and  sombre  note  into  Belgian  landscape.  His  woodlands 
dream  beneath  a  heavy  and  rainy  sky,  withered  autumn  leaves 
whirl  around,  frost  and  rime  cover  the  ground.  The  localities 
themselves  are  usually  very  simple :  a  strip  of  heath,  a  patch  of 
field,  a  straight  road,  a  boulder  of  cliff  beneath  a  sad  sky ;  no 
more  than  these  are  needed  to  create  an  impression  of  great 
loneliness,  an  earnest  and  austere  phase  of  thought  For  Baron 
there  was  no  mild  lisping  breeze,  no  fresh  budding  spring  and 
brooding  summer.  Cold  winter,  the  melancholy  of  gloomy 
November  days,  and  the  earth  in  widow's  weeds  were  what 
most  attracted  him.  He  discovered  such  moods  of  nature  in  the 
Ardennes.  The  heath  of  Coudroy,  the  steep  banks  of  the  Meuse, 
little  mountain  villages  upon  parched  moorland,  he  likewise  took 
delight  in  painting.  But  most  of  all  he  loved  the  Walloon  soil — 
not  its  wide  plains  and  far  horizons,  but  its  deep  valleys  and 
the  gnarled  lines  of  isolated  trees,  rising  ghostlike  from  a  lonely 
heath.  As  Boulenger  might  be  compared  with  Corot,  Baron 
might  be  compared  with  Rousseau.  His  method  is  broad,  solid, 
robust,  and  sound.  He  has  none  of  the  fragrant .  grace  of 
Boulenger;  he  does  not  seek  after  tender  moods  of  light,  but, 
like  Rousseau,  loves  cold  day,  builds  up  his  landscape  in  a 
geological  fashion,  and  would  give  a  sense  of  the  structure  and 
VOL.  III.  15 


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aiS  MODERN  PAINTING 

stratification  of  the  earth ;  and  finally  he  went  aground  upon 
the  same  reef  on  which  Rousseau  foundered.  He  went  into 
pai'ticularities  more  and  more.  He  wished  to  render  everything 
plastically  in  its  full  bodily  shape,  the  levels  of  the  earth  as 
well  as  the  clouds  and  the  leaves.  And  thus  his  pictures 
received  an  appearance  of  something  laboured  and  built  up. 
In  his  effort  to  catch  the  common  tone  of  day  with  all  possible 
fidelity  he  fell  into  a  hard  and  cold  grey.  Like  Rousseau, 
Baron  was,  in  truth,  a  spirit  ever  searching  and  never  contented. 
His  art  is  the  very  opposite  to  what  is  facile,  spirited,  and  ready 
in  improvization.  It  has  something  heavy,  severe,  and  tough 
a  Flemish  honesty  and  a  rich   odour  of  the  earth. 

Jacques  Rosseels,  who  had  great  influence  as  a  teacher, 
worked  upon  the  same  principles,  although  a  brighter  and  paler 
light  is  diffused  over  the  sky  of  his  landscapes.  His  art  is  freer 
and  more  cheerful,  his  colouring  softer  and  more  flattering.  The 
red  roofs,  green  meadows,  and  rich  yellow  Flemish  cornfields 
have  a  blither  note.  Great  plains,  with  little  villages  and 
clattering  windmills,  he  had  also  a  joy  in  painting;  and  his 
works  would  have  a  yet  more  cordial  effect  had  he  not,  like 
his  predecessors  of  the  seventeenth  century,  had  such  a  love  for 
the  great  scale  of  size. 

To  Boulenger,  the  Belgian  Corot,  and  Baron,  the  Belgian 
Rousseau,  Joseph  Heymans  must  be  added  as  the  Belgian  Millet, 
and  his  first  appearance  was  likewise  made  in  the  year  i860. 
His  field  of  observation  is  the  whole  Flemish  land.  Besides  the 
sandy  dunes  and  broad  cultivated  fields,  he  painted  the  forests, 
meadows,  and  slumbering  pools,  the  heath,  the  long  straight 
avenues,  horizons  stretching  into  boundless  space,  and  tiny 
footpaths  leading  through  idyllic  woodlands.  He  loves  light 
though  he  also  paints  dark  thunderclouds,  dusk  shed  over  the 
fields,  and  night  wrapping  everything  in  its  mystical  veil.  And 
with  him  nature  is  ever  the  seat  of  human  toil.  Like  Millet,  he 
places  in  his  landscapes  the  rustic  moving  behind  his  plough, 
weeding,  mowing,  or  striding  across  the  field  scattering  seed  with 
a  grandeur  of  movement ;  the  day-labourer  going  to  his  work  in 
the  early  morning  with  a  heavy  tread ;  the  shepherd  in  his  blue 


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BELGIUM  2T9 

•cloak  standing  motionless  beside  his  grazing  flocks.  Like  Millet, 
too,  he  has  a  fine  feeling  for  quiet,  rhythmical  movement.  The 
ploughman^  the  shepherd,  the  sower,  have  in  his  pictures  also 
something  gravely  sacerdotal  in  their  large  gestures.  The  silence 
of  the  heath  in  the  heart  of  the  night,  with  the  great  figure  of 
the  shepherd  leaning  on  his  staff  and  the  white  sheep  melting 
into  the  darkness,  he  has  rendered  entirely  in  Millet's  spirit.  It 
is  only  the  softness  and  the  aerial .  appearance  of  Millet's  pastels 
that  he  has  not  reached.  His  solid,  pasty  handling  deprived 
objects  of  lightness.  His  water  has  a  congealed  look,  and  his 
leaves  hang  motionless  upon  the  boughs.  In  the  presence  of 
his  pictures  one  receives  the  notion  of  a  region  where  no  wind 
-can  ever  blow  and  no  bird  dwell.  His  sincere  and  serious 
art  was  unable  to  arrest  the  tremor  of  life,  the  heart-beat  of 
nature. 

;  Contemporaneously  with  Boulenger,  Coosemans  and  Asselbergs 
settled  in  the  forest  of  Tervueren,  whence  they  often  turned  their 
-gaze  towards  Fontainebleau.  Jules  Goethals^  who  appeared  some- 
what later,  in  1866,  with  his  phases  of  rainy  weather,  inclines 
rather  to  the  minute  painting  of  De  la  Berge;  he  regarded 
landscape  with  the  eyes  of  a  primitive  artist,  seeking  to  render 
trees,  fields,  and  blades  of  grass  in  all  their  details. 

As  in  Fontainebleau,  animal  painting  came  to  flourish  hand- 
in-hand  with  landscape,  though,  until  i860,  it,  too,  had  stood 
vpon  a  very  modest  level.  The  respectable  and  inexhaustible 
Verboeckhoven  at  that  time  enjoyed  especial  celebrity,  although 
Jiis  animals  had  only  a  distant  resemblance  to  those  of  real 
iife.  They  were  always  in  an  elegiac  frame  of  mind,  and  seemed, 
in  their  melancholy,  like  fallen  angels,  to  have  remembrance 
of  a  better  and  more  human  condition,  and  still  to  preserve, 
even  as  animals,  a  decent  behaviour  and  cleanliness.  His  little 
lambs  were  always  as  pretty  as  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  beneath 
their  broad  foreheads  his  oxen  revolved  profound  philosophical 
ideas.  Thin  little  trees  and  white  little  clouds  he  loved  like  his 
predecessor  Ommeganck^  and  like  him,  too,  he  was  long  the 
favourite  of  all  collectors  who  value  mathematical  conscientious- 
jiess  of  drawing  and  sniioothness  of  execution.     His  pupils  Louis 


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I  130  MODERN  PAINTING 

I 

j  Robbe  and  Charles  Tschaggeny  devoted  themselves  also  to  paint- 

I  ing  sheep,  and   in    Belgian   painting  occupy  the   place  held  by 

!  Brascassat  in  France.     Landscapes  were  filled  up  with  animals, 

or  else  animal  pictures  were  provided   with   an  arbitral  y  back- 
ground of  landscape.     But  animals  and   landscapes  were  never 
united  in  any  complete  representation  of  natural  life.     It  was  only 
after  a  new  kind  of  study  of  nature  had  been  rendered  possible 
by  the  landscape-painters  of  the  Tervueren   school   that  animal 
painters   entered  on   a   novel  course,     Alfred    Verwee^  who  first 
distinguished  himself  with  his  "Oxen  Grazing"  of  1863,  stands  to 
the  followers  of  Ommeganck  as  Troyon  to  those  of  Brascassat. 
He  is  the  specialist  of  rich  Flemish  meadows,  upon  which  sound 
and  powerful  animals  are  grazing,  and  over  which  there  arches 
a  soft  and  misty  sky.     All  his  pictures  are  treated  with  a  heavy 
and  pasty  handling,  and  the  air  and  clouds  are  usually  of  a  dull 
and   mournful   grey.      His  works  are   wanting   in   lightness  and 
transparency,  but  they  have  an  inborn  strength.     His  oxen  seem 
quite  at  home  in  the  luxuriant  meadows  where  they  sink  deep 
in  the  high  ripe  grass ;  and  in  their  dull,  brooding  ponderousness 
they  aim   at    being  no    more    than    animals,   whether    they   lie 
chewing  the  cud  upon  the  meadows  or  clumsily  tread  the  ground 
beneath  the  yoke.     Artiongst  his   pupils   Pannentier^  Lambrichs, 
De   Greef  Frans   van  Leemputten^  and  Lion  Massaux    became 
known.     Marie  Collaert,  the   Flemish   Rosa   Bonheur,  and   from 
1866  the  muse  of  Belgian  landscape,  has   a   position    to  herself 
with   her  intimate   pictures  of  country  life,  works    in   which    a 
masculine   and   powerful    handling   is  united   with   discreet    and 
tender  feminine  sentiment     In  Verwee  there  may  be  found  yokes 
of  oxen  at  their  labour,  the  odour  of  fertile  earth  steaming  from 
the    broken    soil,    and    grey    clouds  heavily  shifting  across    the 
firmament ;   in  Marie  Collaert  quiet  nooks  beneath   a  clear  sky, 
green  stretches  of  grass,  where  the  cows  are  at  pasture  in  idyllic 
peace.     In  the  one  there  is  the  battle  with  the  soil,  and  in  the 
other  the  cheery  freshness  of  country  life. 

The  painting  of  the  sea  began  with  Paul  Jean  Clays— \n 
external  matters,  at  least — to  enter  upon  the  stage  of  intimate 
art     He  broke  with  the  tradition  of  depicting  great  storms  (the 


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BELGIUM  231 

golden  age  of  which  coincided  with  the  raptures  of  the  historical 
picture),  and  painted  quiet  expanses  of  water,  the  regular  move- 
ment of  the  tide,  the  normal  condition  of  the  sea.  Whereas  the 
earlier  generation  loved  what  was  exaggerated  and  tempestuous,. 
Clays  sought — though  in  later  years  he  may  have  done  so  very 
artificially  and  by  routine — to  grasp  the  simple,  mysterious  poetry 
of  the  peaceful  sea,  and  to  render  with  faithfulness  the  tones  of 
the  waves,  just  as  the  landscape-painters,  when  they  had  once 
overcome  the  temptation  to  rhetorical  exaggeration,  searched 
out  still  and  quiet  comers,  which  receive  their  "  mood  "  from  the . 
atmosphere  alone.  The  magical  charm  of  morning,  the  golden 
brilliancy  of  the  evening  twilight,  the  infinite  variety  of  tones 
which  light  produces  upon  the  waves,  became  the  ideal  of 
sea-painters  after  Clays. 

A.  Bouviery  over  whose  pictures  there  hovers,  as  a  rule,  a 
monotonous  grey,  took  more  delight  in  the  splashing  of  the  waves 
and  rainy  sky  than  in  the  glittering  and  sparkling  repose  of  the 
sea.  In  Leemans  there  is  still  a  certain  echo  of  Romanticism 
and  a  weak  reminiscence  of  the  moonlight  nights  of  Van  der 
Necr.  And  in  recent  exhibitions  A.  Bctertsoen  has  attracted 
notice  by  seas  of  impressive  breadth  and  a  grave  and  sombre 
character.  Louis  Artan,  who  made  his  appearance  in  1866  with 
"  Dunes  upon  the  Shores  of  the  North  Sea,"  was  probably  the 
most  refined  and  subtile  colourist  amongst  the  Belgian  sea- 
painters.  Like  Clays,  he  scarcely  leaves  the  shore,  or,  at  any 
rate,  does  not  forget,  when  he  goes  upon  the  high  sea,  to  render 
the  faint  line  of  the  dunes  fringing  the  far  horizon.  His  colouring 
is  very  delicate:  he  seeks  pale,  blended  tones,  light  blue,  soft 
green,  pallid  rose-colour.  His  pictures  have  something  tender 
and  caressing.  Like  Boulenger,  as  a  landscape-painter  he  is 
more  sensitive  to  the  fleeting  tender  play  of  light  than  is  com- 
monly the  case  with  Belgian  painters.  Both  had  in  their  veins 
a  mixture  of  Flemish  and  French  blood,  and  it  gives  their 
paintings  a  peculiar  physiognomy,  an  attractive  mingling  of 
strength  and  grace,  of  Flemish  heaviness  and  French  ease. 

For  even  now,  when  Belgian  painting  has  got  beyond  the 
Courbet    phase,    there    is    no    doubt    that    a    certain     earthy 


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MagoMint  of  Art.} 

Wauters:   "The  Madness  of  Hugo  van  der  Goes." 

ponderousness,  and  an  unctuous  compactness,  the  very  opposite 
of  Impressionism,  still  remain,  despite  the  acceptance  of  bright 
tone.  There  are  in  Belgium  at  present  many,  indeed  very  many, 
good  painters  ;  and  Belgian  art  is  a  conscientious  and  honest 
art  Wherever  it  appears  it  makes  a  striking  effect  by  its 
soundness,  its  robust  strength,  and  its  animal  warmth.  But  its 
essential  importance  lies  in  a  rather  external  and  workmanlike 
bravura.  To  use  colour  as  the  expression  of  a  subtile  emotion, 
to  pursue  the  study  of  light  to  its  most  refined  results,  is  not 
the  business  of  the  Belgian  artists.  Their  painting  is  rich  and 
broad,  and  they  work  without  effort,  but  they  have  few  surprises. 
Blamelessly  good  as  are  their  productions,  their  scenes  from 
popular  life,  portraits,  landscapes,  and  still-life,  they  seldom  give 
occasion  for  discussion  in  reference  to  their  position  in  the 
history  of  art.   . 

/.  de  la  HoesCy  Meerts^  and  Ravet  represented  the  street- 
life  of  Brussels.  Josse  Iinpens,  faithful  to  old  Flemish  habits, 
entered  the  workshops  of  tailors  and  shoemakers.  In  Paris  Jan 
van  Beers  paints   matters   which  verge   on   the  indecorous.     At 


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223 


first  his  pungent  and  adroitly 
painted  pictures  are  seductive 
and  piquant,  and  then  one  sees 
their  intention  and  is  put  out  of 
humour.  Alfred  Hubert  handles 
military  scenes  and  scenes  from 
society,  and  Hoeteriks  the 
picturesque  thronging  of  great 
masses  of  people.  Xavier  Mel- 
lery  discovered  much  that  is 
pretty  in  interiors  upon  the 
island  of  Marken.  At  first  a 
pupil  of  G6r6me  and  Bouguereau, 
Carl  NySy  in  such  pictures  as 
"The  Orphans,"  "The  Lady  with 
the  Parasol,"  "  The  Lady  with 
the  Monkey,"  followed  the  path 
prescribed  by  Alfred  Stevens. 
In  his  triptych  "A  Day  from 
the  Life  of  Chalk-Sellers,"  Lhn 
Fridiric  appeared  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  painting  of  the 
poor,  which  amongst  Belgians  at 
that  time  frequently  assumed  the 
character  of  art  with  a  revolu- 
tionary purpose.  And  Felix  Ter 
Linden  was  probably  the  most  a  pupil  of  the  French,  and 
rose  above  the  heavy  grey  painting  of  the  others,  as  a  genuine 
Impressionist  and  refined  charmeury  by  a  rapid  and  animated 
treatment,  and  a  touch  of  improvization  and  subtilty. 

Entile  Wauters,  also  a  thoroughly  Flemish  painter,  is  to  be 
highly  respected  on  all  points,  although  it  is  impossible  to  feel 
enthusiasm  for  him.  He  was  barely  thirty  when  he  received 
the  medal  of  honour  at  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of  1878 
for  a  couple  of  historical  pictures  from  the  life  of  Mary  of 
Bui^undy  and  of  Hugo  van  der  Goes.  The  admirers  of 
historical  painting  at  that  time  believed  that  they  could  welcome 


Mag,  ofArt,\  ItarUr  te. 

Wautkrs  :  Lieutenant-General 

goffinet. 


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224  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  him  the  Messiah  of  a  grand  art  resuscitated,  one  who  would 
continue  the  old  traditions  of  Wappers  and  Gallait  His  works 
were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  good  historical  pictures,  very 
judiciously  composed,  and  containing  characters  developed  in  a 
convincing  fashion.  Moreover  Wauters  was  entirely  free  from 
the  washed-out  and  hollow  exaggeration  of  the  ideal  of  beauty 
favoured  by  the  older  school,  and  he  rendered  with  simplicity 
the  portraits  of  living  men  who  seemed  to  him  to  have  a 
resemblance  to  heroes  of  the  episodes  he  would  represent. 
The  monk  endeavouring  to  soothe  poor  Hugo  van  der  Goes 
by  music  is  an  exceedingly  vivid  likeness,  while  the  children, 
choristers,  and  singers  are  painted  very  naturally  and  well,  and 
altogether  to  the  purpose.  Even  the  mad  painter  is  not  posing. 
Wauters  has  thoroughly  studied  the  symptoms  of  madness  in 
an  insane  person,  and  at  the  same  time  he  has  tactfully 
observed  the  distinction  between  painting  and  medical  analysis. 
Even  now  the  picture  makes  the  effect  of  a  forcible  work  in 
the  Brussels  Museum,  and  after  the  lapse  of  twenty  years  there 
are  not  many  historical  works  which  will  bear  scrutiny. 

His  Eastern  pictures  are  equally  good  and  judicious.  Having 
set  out  in  1870  to  witness  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal,  he 
visited  Alexandria,  Port  Said,  Ismailia,  and  Cairo ;  and  he 
repeated  this  Egyptian  journey  in  1880,  accompanying  the 
Crown  Prince  Rudolf  of  Austria,  while  in  connection  with  it 
he  executed  various  North  African  scenes,  in  which  he  noted 
the  kaleidoscopic  motley ness  of  Oriental  towns,  the  vibrating 
life  of  the  streets  of  Cairo  and  Boulac,  with  the  con- 
scientiousness of  an  ethnographical  student.  One  takes  him  at 
his  word  when  he  puts  upon  canvas  a  strip  of  African  ground 
in  large  dimensions  in  his  panorama  "  Cairo  and  the  Banks 
of  the  Nile."  Nor  does  one  doubt  that  his  portraits,  which 
in  recent  years  achieved  for  him  his  greatest  successes,  are 
uncommonly  like  their  originals  :  Madame  Somz6e  in  a  dark -blue 
silk  dress,  standing  in  a  fashionable  room  with  dark  decorations ; 
young  M.  Cosme  Somz^e,  also  dressed  in  blue,  and  riding  on 
his  pony  through  the  dunes  ;  and  Lieutenant-General  Goffinet, 
a  portrait  which  won  the  gold  medal  at  the  Munich  Exhibition 


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BELGIUM  225 

of  1890.  Emile  Wauters  rises  above  the  vigorous  group  of 
Belgian  portrait-painters,  LUvin  de  Winner  AgneesenSy  LambrichSy 
De  Gonckely  Nisen,  and  others,  as  the  most  natural  and  energetic. 
All  his  likenesses  are  powerful  in  characterization,  colour,  and 
exposition ;  they  have  been  seen  in  an  unusually  impressive 
manner,  and  placed  before  the  spectator  in  a  broad,  manly, 
and  full-blooded  style  of  painting.  Wauters  knew  all  that  was 
to  be  known,  and  in  his  judicious  loyalty  he  is  one  of  the 
soundest  painters  of  the  present  time.  Only  temperament  and 
warmth  of  feeling  are  not  to  be  sought  for  in  his  works.  That 
is  what  distinguishes  him  from  Lenbach,  for  instance,  though 
in  other  respects  he  shares  with  the  latter  the  oiliness  of  his 
pictures  an,d  their  want  of  atmosphere.  Lenbach  allows  the  eyes 
alone  to  shme  from  a  dark  scale  of  tone  artistically  imitated 
from  the  old  masters,  and  out  of  this  he  elaborates  intellectual 
character.  Wauters  places  his  figures  in  all  their  massive 
corporeality  against  a  light  grey  background.  In  the  one  there 
is  a  spiritual  individuality,  a  momentary  impression  of  quivering 
psychical  life ;  in  the  other  a  robust  counterpart  of  nature, 
colour  and  canvas,  phlegmatic  constitution,  and  Flemish  heavi- 
ness. 

Verstraete  may  probably  be  reckoned  the  most  refined  of 
the  Belgian  landscape-painters  who  have  made  an  impression 
in  the  exhibitions  of  recent  years.  There  were  to  be  seen  by 
him  summer-pieces  with  bright  green,  luminous,  and  luxuriant 
stretches  of  grass,  girlish  figfures  dressed  in  bluish-white,  and 
gaily  blooming  fruit-trees  touched  by  the  sunbeams.  Also  he 
paints  night-pieces  :  peasant  couples,  who  stand  of  an  evening 
by  a  hedge  in  the  village.  The  sky  sparkles  with  stars,  and 
the  magic  of  silent  night  reposes  over  this  poetic  idyll  which 
has  been  felt  in  such  a  homely  way.  There  is  expressed  in 
his  works  a  creative  faculty,  joyous  and  spontaneous,  sympathetic 
and  replete  with  the  freshness  of  youth.  Potato  harvests,  with 
buxom  girls,  are  painted  by  Claus  in  a  fine  and  delicate  grey 
which  recalls  Emile  Barau.  And  Frans  Courtens  is  specially  at 
his  ease  in  the  autumnal  woods,  when  the  leaves  fall  from  the 
tree-tops,  yellow,  red,  and   grey,  and  a  thin   rain  drips  through 


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226 


MODERN  PAINTING 


the  open  network 
of  foliage.  Or  else 
he  seats  himself 
before  the  sombre 
and  majestic  sea  in 
the  evening,  when 
the  moon  rises  and 
touches  the  waves 
with  glittering  lines 
of  silver.  Both  in 
the  autumn  pictures 
and  in  the  seascapes 
the  confusion  of 
yellow  and  green 
colours  is  dazzling, 
and  is  only  felt  to 
be  a  little  theatrical 
when  one  thinks 
how  much  more 
profoundly  Jacob 
Maris  would  have 
penetrated  into  the  same  scenes.  Like  the  Flemish  landscapists 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  Courtens  loves  great  spaces  of 
canvas  and  great  gold  frames,  but  he  likewise  shares  with  them 
the  qualities  of  a  bravura  painter,  somewhat  addicted  to  outward 
show.  His  pictures  are  more  the  result  of  technical  refinement 
than  of  intimate  emotion.  He  renders  the  materiality  of  forms, 
as  also  the  phenomena  of  light,  with  astonishing  sureness,  and 
he  has  a  large  and  strong-handed  method  of  treatment,  much 
local  truth,  brilliant  colour  and  great  sincerity,  but  he  never 
rids  himself  of  a  certain  prosaic  manner  of  conception,  which 
is  wanting  in  the  deeper  kind  of  intimate  sympathy.  His 
painting  is  solid,  but  not  suggestive  prose,  the  very  opposite  of 
that  lyric  painting,  so  rich  in  feeling,  which  was  peculiar  to  the 
French  painter-poets.  And  here,  too,  he  proclaims  himself  a 
true  son  of  his  country. 

Belgian  naturalism   is   like   a  vigorous   body   fed   upon   solid 


IHdnJstdngt  photo  sc, 
Courtens:   "Golden  Laburnum.*' 


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BELGIUM  227 

nourishment ;  but  in  this  physical  contentment  the  capacity 
for  enthusiasm  and  tenderness  of  feeling  have  been  lost  in  some 
d^ree.  The  pictures  look  as  though  they  had  been  painted 
throughout,  painted  in  oil,  and  painted  in  a  peculiarly  Belgian 
way.  The  painters  rejoice  in  their  fertile  tracts  of  land,  their 
fat  herds,  and  the  healthy  smell  of  the  cowhouse,  yet  about 
finer  feelings  they  trouble  themselves  but  little.  Everywhere 
there  predominates  a  firm  and  even  technique,  and  but  little 
peculiar  intimacy  and  freshness.  They  have  not  yet  come  to 
paint  the  fine  perfume  of  things,  nor  to  render  the  softness  of 
their  tone  values ;  they  have  no  feeling  for  the  light  tremor 
of  the  atmosphere  and  the  tender  poetic  dallying  of  light. 
Material  heaviness  and  prosaic  sobriety  are  expressed  in  every- 
thing' — the  racial  characteristics  by  which  Flemish  painting,  even 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  so  far  as  it  was  autochthonous,  was 
distinguished  from  the  contemporary  painting  of  the  Dutch. 


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CHAPTER  XXXIX 

HOLLAND 

The  difference  between  Dutch  and  Belgian  Minting, — The  previous  history 
of  artistic  efforts  in  Holland, — Koekkoek,  Van  Schendel,  David  Bles, 
Hermann  ten  ICate,  Pienemann,  Charles  Rochupen,  Weissenbruch, 
Bosboonty  Schelfhout,  Taurel,  Wdldorfi,  Kuytenbroumer.  —  Figure- 
painters:  yosef  Israels,  Christoffel  Bisschopy  Gerk  Henkes^  Albert 
Neuhuys,  Adolf  Artt,  Pieter  Oyens, — The  landscape-painters: 
Jongkind,  Jacob  and  Willem  Maris ^  Anton  Mauve,  H,  W,  Mesdag, 
^Realism  and  Sensitivism:  Klinkenberg^  Gabriel, — The  younger 
genet'ation,  —  Neo* Impressionism  :  Isaac  Israels  and  Breitner, — 
Matthew  Maris  and  Mysticism, —  W.  Bauer  and  Jan  Toorop, — Thorn 
Prikker,^**  Expressionism  :  **  Jan  Veth  and  Haver  man,  Karpen  and 
Tholen. 

IF  Belgium  is  the  land  of  technique,  the  intimacy  of  the 
modem  sentiment  for  nature  has  perhaps  found  the  most 
delicate  interpreters  in  the  painters  of  Holland.  What  is 
external  predominates  in  the  one  country— oils  and  brush;  in 
the  other  heart  and  hand  are  united,  sentiment  and  technique. 
The  ancestor  of  modern  Belgian  painting  is  Courbet;  the  birth 
of  modern  Dutch  painting  is  contemporaneous  with  that|great 
historical  moment  when  the  French  landscape-painters  took  up 
their  abode  in  the  forest  of  Fontainebleau,  after  they  [had 
acquired  an  understanding  for  the  old  Dutch  masters  in  the 
Louvre.  What  had  been  a  revolution  in  other  countries  was 
here  no  more  than  a  process  of  evolution.  For  the  influence 
of  the  French  upon  the  Dutch  merely  consisted  in  giving  them 
once  more  the  comprehension  for  the  beautiful  works  of  their 
own  compatriots  in  the  past.  A  succession  of  great  and 
delicate  spirits  merely  took  again  the  old,  unbroken  tradition, 
and  continued  it  in  the  present  without  effort. 

aa8 


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HOLLAND  229 

Until  the  middle  of  the  century  the  Dutch  had  made  but 
little  profit  out  of  this  heritage.  The  spirit  had  fled,  even  that 
of  Dow  and  Mieris,  and  only  the  phlegm  remained.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  Dutch  painters  of  the  eighteenth  century 
sought  to  outbid  the  minute  little  painting  of  Netscher  by 
paltry  imitation,  and  had  as  a  motto  inscribed  upon  their 
banner  purity  of  line  as  it  is  understood  by  the  bourgeoisie 
and  technique  as  it  is  understood  by  the  drawing-master.  In 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  so  far  as  anything 
was  produced  at  all,  they  had  fallen  into  heavy  and  laboured 
imitation  of  French  Classicism,  and  in  addition  to  this  they 
were  slightly  touched  with  a  trace  of  Romanticism,  which 
entered  into  a  really  comical  misalliance  with  the  Dutch  phlegm. 
And  the  representatives  of  the  Dutch  school  of  1830,  arid, 
inartistic,  and  tinged  with  false  idealism,  turned  out  in  land- 
scape nothing  but  scenical  pieces,  void  of  atmosphere,  and  in 
the  figure-picture  historical  or  burlesque  anecdotes,  romantic 
melodramas,  or  peasant  pieces  from  the  comic  opera — cold, 
inanimate,  and  conventional  paintings,  such  as  all  Europe  pro- 
duced at  that  time. 

The  next  generation  endeavoured  with  great  labour  to  raise 
itself  somewhat,  being  specially  incited  by  contact  with  the 
Belgians.  Yet  even  these  good  intentions  and  most  praise- 
worthy efforts  were  crowned  with  but  little  success.  Certain 
landscapes  and  intimate  studies  from  life  show  that  the  spirit 
which  had  lived  in  the  great  men  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  not  entirely  extinct,  although  it  had  become  exceedingly 
debilitated.  Koekkoek  and  Van  Schendel  painted  their  land- 
scapes, which  are  exceedingly  judicious  in  manner  and  in  a 
petty  way  correct  David  Bles  remembered  Teniers,  and 
mingled  with  the  technique  of  that  master  something  of  the 
genre  humour  of  Wilkie.  "  An  Audience  easily  Pleased," 
"  Family  Friends,"  and  the  like,  are  the  characteristic  titles  of 
his  pictures.  But  if  Bles  was  the  Madou  of  Holland,  Hermann 
ten  Kate  aimed  at  being  the  Dutch  Meissonier.  He  was  one 
of  those  who  cannot  imagine  painting  without  theatrical 
costumes,    broad-brimmed    grey    felt    hats,    large    collars,    and 


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230  MODERN  PAINTING 

graceful  cloaks.  The  historical  painter  Plenemann  painted  in 
the  style  of  Gros,  and  some  of  his  portraits  are  not  without 
merit  » 

The  only  man  of  superior  merit  whom  the  '*  historical  school " : 
has  produced  in  Holland  is  Charles  Rochupen,  To  take  him  as: 
a  painter  is  to  take  him  from  his  weakest  side,  for  his  colour; 
scheme  is  "conventional** — a  convention  of  his  own,  no  doubt;; 
but  in  any  case  absolutely  without  regard  to  truth  and  nature,, 
or  even  to  the  requirements  of  his  subject.  But  his  drawing  has 
a  charm  and  character  of  its  own  ;  his  groupings  are  lively  and* 
fanciful,  his  use  of  old  costume  shows  a  regard  for  picturesqueness, 
and  his  touch  is  both  easy  and  aristocratic.  He  is  the  chosen* 
illustrator  of  the  Dutch  historical  novel,  and  at  a  time  when' 
book-illustration  was  at  its  lowest  in  Holland  and  everywhere, 
Charles  Rochupen  knew  how  to  render  a  scene  in  black-and- 
white  with  impressiveness  and  artistic  decency.  Vulgarity  had 
never  a  greater  enemy  than  he.  This  same  quality  of  innate' 
aristocracy  characterizes  the  work  of  Johannes  Bosboom,  the 
painter  of  architecture.  Under. th^  gfuidance  of  Rembrandt  and 
Pieter  de  Hoogh,  he  rendered  very  delicately  in  oils  and  water-' 
colours  the  play  of  sunbeams  in  the  interior  of  picturesque 
churches,  and  warm  effects  of  light  in  large  halls  and  dusky 
corners.  As  a  rule  the  light  streams  in  broken  yellow  tones 
over  the  masonry  from  a  great  window  in  the  background^  and 
rests  broadly  upon  the  walling  of  the  vault ;  the  dark  mass  of 
the  great  Renaissance  screen  is  thrown  out  sharply,  while 
choristers  move  with  candles  in  the  depths  of  the  nave. 

Bosboom,  like  /.  W.  Weissenbruch,  was  one  of  the  painters 
of  the  old  school  who  not  only  helped  to  prepare  the  ground 
to  be  maintained  by  a  new  generation,  but  who  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  influenced  by  the  new  conception  of  art.  Whilst 
Schelfhouty  Taurel,  WcUdarp,  and  Kuytenbrouwer,  though  Knights 
of  the  Dutch  Order  of  the  Lion  and  of  the  Oaken  Crown,  only 
lived  to  be  forgotten  for  all  their  painstaking  work,  both- 
Bosboom  and  Weissenbruch  have  won  fame  in  the  later  period, 
when  they  had  taught  themselves  to  express  a  great  deal  with 
very    little   means.     There   are    drawings    and   water-colours    by 


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HOLLAND 


231 


yittAmboa  photo.] 


BosBOOM  :   "  A  Church  Interior.'* 


Bosboom  which,  with  a  few  lines  and  just  a  bit  of  colour,  open 
up  wide  visions  to  the  imagination. 

And  thus,  when  the  younger  artists  came  upon  the  scene, 
they  were  not  obliged  to  drive  back  any  hostile  and  opposing 
tendencies.  The  battle  which  had  to  be  fought  elsewhere 
before  truth  and  sincerity  could  be  placed  upon  the  throne 
usurped  by  theatrical  rhetoric  was  certainly  spared  to  Israels 
and  his  comrades.  It  was  merely  a  question  of  sowing  with 
greater  energy  and  vigour  than  these  older  artists  the  ground 
which  had  lain  fallow  since  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
argument  was  put,  more  or  less,  in  the  following  way :  "  Our 
ancestors  had  an .  enthusiasm  for  their  own  country  and  their 
own  period.  If  we  have  not  their  genius,  let  us,  at  any  rate, 
attempt  to  pursue  their  path.  Instead  of  seeking  inspiration 
in  their  times  and  their  country '  let  us  seek  it  in  our  own. 
As  regards  the  country  there   is   no  difficulty,  for  we  are  their 


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232  MODERN  PAINTING 

compatriots,  and  apart  from  a  few  hectares  won  from  the 
ocean  Holland  has  little  altered  in  appearance  during  the  last 
two  hundred  years.  It  is  only  in  the  matter  of  period  that 
every  idea  of  outward  imitation  must  be  given  up.  Let  us, 
then,  imitate  our  great  masters  with  no  intention  of  doing  over 
again  what  they  did  in  their  own  time,  but  with  the  aim  of 
doing  what  they  would  have  done  had  they  lived  in  our 
century." 

After  the  end  of  the  fifties  the  influence  of  French  exhibitions 
confirmed  the  Dutch  in  these  efforts.  Through  the  pictures  of 
Millet  and  Daubigny  the  young  Dutch  artists  learnt  that  they  had 
no  need  of  bringing  historical  pictures  into  the  world,  but  that 
it  was  their  business  to  win  the  secrets  of  the  seashore,  the 
strand,  the  dunes,  and  the  canals  of  the  old  towns,  if  they  would 
become  modem  painters.  And  admitting  they  had  made  a  great 
mistake  in  imitating  from  the  old  masters  antiquated  dress  and 
the  manners  of  bygone  times,  their  task  was  now  to  follow  them 
in  what  was  essential.  For  the  old  pictures  had  shown  the  men 
of  their  day  neither  far-fetched  nor  long-forgotten  curiosities, 
but  appealed  to  them  simply  and  cordially  as  Millet's  paintings 
had  done  to  his  own  countrymen.  It  was  quite  peacefully 
therefore,  and  without  any  battle,  that  modem  art  came  into  life 
in  Holland  In  fact  it  seemed  as  if  Pieter  de  Hoogh,  Van  Goyen, 
and  Ruysdael  had  merely  awaited  the  time  when  they  would  be 
understood  once  more  to  set  themselves  before  the  easel.  This 
direct  derivation  from  classic  masters  gives  a  classic  stamp  to 
the  modem  artists  of  Holland. 

As  soon  as  the  Dutch  are  seen  in  any  exhibition,  its  rooms 
are  impregnated  with  a  sense  of  peaceful  clarity  and  of  a  quiet 
sureness  of  effect  recalling  the  old  masters.  The  spectator  is 
conscious  of  the  soft,  even,  and  continuous  warmth  of  the  great 
faience  stoves  which  stand  in  prosperous  Dutch  houses.  There 
is  no  noise,  no  unrest,  no  struggling.  Softer  than  ever,  yielding 
and  almost  melancholy,  though  not  so  universally  comprehensive 
as  the  old  art  which  compassed  the  whole  life  of  reality  and 
dreamland,  from  the  magnificent  conceptions  of  Rembrandt  to 
the   most  burlesque  scenes  of  Ostade,  the   new  art  of  Holland 


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HOLLAND  233 

handles  the  scenes  of  life  and  the  life  of  nature  with  a  dignified 
simplicity,  the  charm  of  profound  intimacy  and  cordial  tenderness. 
Holland  is  the  most  harmonious  country  in  the  world,  the  country 
of  dim  rooms  and  pleasant  inner  chambers,  wide  plains  and 
melancholy  dunes,  magnificent  forms  of  cloud  and  skies  subdued 
in  colour.  There  is  nowhere  broad  light,  nowhere  broad  shadow, 
no  crystal  clearness  and  but  seldom  heavy  mist  A  softly 
hovering  light  of  diminished  strength  envelops  everything. 
Vaporous  grey  clouds  cover  the  sky.  The  air  is  impregnated 
with  moisture.  Few  colours  are  to  be  seen,  and  yet  everything 
is  colour.  And  to  this  spot  of  the  earth  the  Dutch  painters  are 
united  by  a  tender  sentiment  of  home.  Their  art  is  marked 
by  a  touching  and  cordial  provincialism,  the  patriotism  of  the 
church  spire.  They  remain  quietly  in  the  country,  and  confine 
themselves  to  the  representation  of  their  birthplace — the  stately 
ports  of  its  sea-board  towns,  the  beach  of  its  watering-places, 
the  peaceful  dignity  of  its  life,  the  heaviness  of  its  cattle,  and 
the  rich  soil  of  its  fields.  The  harsh  sincerity  of  the  French 
naturalists  becomes  softer  and  more  tender  in  the  hands  of  the 
Dutch  ;  the  audacity  of  the  French  "  luminists,"  ever  seeking  the 
light,  has  become  more  dusky  and  sombre  under  the  influence 
of  the  Dutch  atmosphere.  Drawing  from  the  soil  of  home  its 
entire  strength,  they  have  made  for  themselves,  in  art  as  in 
politics,  a  peaceful  little  land  where  the  noises  of  the  day  find 
no  disturbing  echo. 

The  decisive  year  which  led  the  stream  of  Dutch  painting 
back  into  its  old  course  once  more  was  1857,  the  very  year 
when  a  new  movement  in  Dutch  literature  was  begun  with 
Multatuli.  In  1855  one  Josef  Israels  was  represented  at  the 
World  Exhibition  in  Paris  by  an  historical  picture :  "  The  Prince 
of  Orange  for  the  first  time  opposing  the  Execution  of  the  Orders 
of  the  King  of  Spain."  And  in  the  catalogue  of  the  Paris  Salon 
of  1857  the  same  name  appeared  opposite  the  titles  "Children 
by  the  Sea "  and  an  "  Evening  on  the  Beach,"  a  couple  of  simple 
pictures  representing  the  neighbourhood  of  Katwijk.  Thus 
Israels'  life  embodies  a  period  in  modern  art,  that  which  led  from 
the  academical   hierarchy,   from    conventionality,   inflexibility    of 

VOL.  III.  16 


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Magazine  of  Art.] 

Josef  Israels  and  his  Son  Isaac. 


line,  and  poverty  of  colour^ 
to  the  intimate,  sensitive, 
subtile,  and  entirely  per- 
sonal emotion  which 
characterizes  the  great 
works  of  art  belonging  to 
the  end  of  this  century. 

Josef  Israels,  the  Dutch 
Millet,  was  born  on 
January  27th,  1824,  in 
Groningen,  a  little  com- 
mercial town  in  the  north 
of  Holland.  He  wanted  to  be  a  rabbi,  studied  Hebrew  in  his 
youth,  and  buried  himself  in  the  Talmud.  When  he  left  school 
he  entered  the  small  banking  business  of  his  father,  and  often 
went  with  a  money-bag  under  his  arm  to  the  neighbouring 
banking  house  of  Mr.  Mesdag,  whose  son,  H.  W.  Mesdag,  the 
painter  of  seascapes,  had  little  idea  at  the  time  that  ever  a 
sea-piece  of  his  would  hang  in  the  studio  of  this  poor  Jewish 
lad.  But  in  1844  Israels  went  to  Amsterdam  to  the  studio 
of  Jan  Kruseman,  who  was  then  a  fashionable  painter.  His 
parents  had  sent  him  to  lodge  with  a  pious  Jewish  family, 
who  lived  in  the  "  Joden-bre^straat,"  the  Ghetto  of  Amsterdam. 
He  was  enchanted  with  the  narrow  little  streets  where  the 
inhabitants  could  shake  hands  from  one  window  to  another, 
and  with  the  old  market-places  where  there  gathered  a  swarm 
of  Oriental-looking  men.  Like  Rembrandt,  he  roamed  about 
the  out-of-the-way  alleys,  noted  the  general  dealers,  the  fish- 
wives, the  fruit-shops  with  apples  and  oranges,  the  pretty  and 
picturesque  Jewesses,  and  all  this  mass  of  life  condensed  into 
such  a  little  space,  without  at  first  contemplating  the  possi- 
bility of  drawing  the  figures  which  he  saw  around  him.  On 
the  contrary,  like  a  diligent  pupil,  he  followed  the  academical 
instructions  of  Kruseman,  under  whose  guidance  he  produced 
a  series  of  grand  historical  pictures  and  Italian  scenes  of 
peasant  life. 

A  journey  to  Paris  which  he  undertook  in  1845,  moved  by 


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Vinkntbos  photo.} 


Israels:   ''A  Son  of  God's  People." 


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237 


Gam,  eUs  Btaux-Arts.'] 


Israels  :   "  The  Toilers  of  the  Sea." 


[Deaboutm  sc. 


the  exhibition  of  certain  Gretchen  pictures  of  the  Frenchified 
Dutchman  and  elegiac  Romanticist  Ary  Scheffer,  did  not 
in  any  way  cause  him  to  alter  his  ideas.  He  betook  himself, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  the  studio  of  Picot,  an  old  pupil  of 
David,  where  in  those  days  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  young 
students  were  at  work,  and  there  the  first  rules  of  the  French 
historical  painting  were  communicated  to  him.  Then  he  pre- 
sented  himself  for  entrance  into  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts, 
showing  "  Achilles  and  Patroclus "  as  his  probationary  drawing, 
and  he  came  to  Paul  Delaroche  just  after  Millet  had  left 
Delaroche's  studio.  Pils  and  Lenepveu  are  said  to  have  been 
the  only  fellow-students  with  whom  he  made  much  acquaintance, 
for  he  was  diffident  and  awkward  in  society.  And  when  he 
returned  home  in  1848,  the  year  of  the  revolution,  the  result  of 
his  residence  in  Paris  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  Millet's: 
he  had  starved  himself,  studied  in  the  Louvre,  and  seen  in  the 
Salon  how  "grand  painting"  was  carried  on  in   France.      Now 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Magaaine  of  Art.^ 


Israels:  "Weary." 


\M.  Haider  se. 


he  took  a  room  in  Amsterdam  and  tried  to  paint  as  Delaroche 
had  taught  him.  "  Aaron  discovers  in  his  Tent  the  Corpses  of 
his  Two  Sons,"  ''  Hamlet  and  his  Mother,"  "  William  the  Silent 
and  Margaret  of  Parma,"  "  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  beside 
the  Body  of  his  Father" — these  were  the  first  works  which 
he  sent  to  Dutch  exhibitions ;  knights  in  moonlight  and 
Calabrian  brigands  were  the  first  which  he  sold — for  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  guilders— to  patrons  of  art  in  Amsterdam.  Such 
names  as  Pienemann,  Kruseman,  Scheffer,  Picot,  and  Delaroche 
cannot  explain  what  Israels  became  afterwards  for  Dutch  art. 
As  with  Millet,  it  was  an  accident,  a  severe  trial  in  life,  which 
decided  the  future  of  Israels. 

Some  time  after  he  had  settled  in  Amsterdam  he  became 
exceedingly  ill,  and  went  to  Zandvoort,  a  small  fishing  village 
near  Haarlem,  for  his  health.  In  this  spot,  hidden  amongst 
the  dunes,  he  lived  solitary  and  alone,  far  from  the  bustle  of 
exhibitions,  artistic  influences,  and  the  discussions  of  the  studio. 


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HOLLAND 


239 


Israels:   "A  Mother's  Care.** 


[Hanfstangl  photo. 


He  lodged  with  a  ship's  carpenter,  took  part  in  all  the  usages 
of  his  house-mates,  and  began  to  perceive  amid  these  new 
surroundings,  as  Millet  had  done  in  Barbizon,  that  the  events 
of  the  present  are  capable  of  being  painted,  that  the  sorrows 
of  the  poor  are  as  deep  as  the  tragical  fate  of  ancient  heroes, 
that  everyday  life  is  as  poetic  as  any  historical  subject,  and 
that  nothing  suggests  richer  moods  of  feeling  than  the  interior 
of  a  fishing-hut,  bathed  in  tender  light  and  harmonious  in 
•colour.  This  residence  of  several  months  in  a  distant  little 
village  led  him  to  discover  his  calling,  and  determined  his  further 
career.  Incessantly  did  he  make  studies  of  nature,  and  of  full- 
toned  interiors,  simple  costumes,  and  the  dunes  with  their  pale 
grass  and  yellow  sand.  For  the  first  time  he  was  carried  away 
by  the  intimate  beauty  of  these  simple  things  steeped  in  ever- 
lasting  poetry.      Like    Millet,   he  conceived    an   enthusiasm   for 


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Amsttrdam :  Schalekamp.] 

Israels:  "Alone  in  the  World." 

the  life  of  peasants,  for  the  rudeness  of  their  outline,  for  their 
large  forms  which  have  become  typical  from  going  through 
ever  the  same  movements  and  repeating  ever  the  same  work. 
Zandvoort  was  a  revelation  for  him.  Entirely  saturated  as  he 
was  with  academical  traditions,  he  became  here  the  artist  who 
represented  dramas  in  the  life  of  seafaring  folk,  the  painter 
of  peaceful,  poetic  deathbeds,  and  dim,  familiar  interiors,  the 
painter  of  lonely  meadows  in  the  misty  dawn.  Here  he  came 
to  understand  the  mysteries  of  light  as  it  is  in  Holland,  and 
here  he  witnessed  the  sad  dramas  of  the  suffering  life  and 
death  of  the  poor,  and  lived  all  those  pictures,  the  full  harmonies 
of  which,  never  seen  before,  soon  outshone  in  Dutch  exhibitions 
the  loud,  motley  exaggeration  of  the  historical  pieces  of 
Kruseman. 

At  the  time  when  De  Groux  in  Brussels  revelled  in  harsh 
representations  of  misery,  Israels  appeared  in  Holland  with  his 
lyrical,  sympathetic  art,  which  was  entirely  free  from  didactic 
intention.  Back  once  more  in  Amsterdam,  he  settled  in  the 
Rozengracht,  and  passed  seven  years  in  the  city  of  Rembrandt, 


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HOLLAND 


241 


in  close  friendship 
with  Burger-Thor6 
and  Mouilleron,  the 
engraver  of  Rem- 
brandt's "  Night- 
Watch."  The  first 
works  which  he 
painted  here,  com- 
pared with  his  later 
works,  have  still  a 
slight  touch  oi  genre 
in  them,  betraying 
too  openly  a  design 
to  set  the  spectator 
smiling  or  weeping. 
**  First  Love  "  was 
the  picture  of  a  girl 
at  a  window  with  a 
young  man  placing 
an  engagement  ring 
upon  her  finger. 
His  first  celebrated 
picture,  "  By  the  Mother's  Grave,"  which  was  bought  by  the 
Amsterdam  Academy  of  Arts  and  now  hangs  in  the  National 
Museum,  represents  a  weather-beaten  fisherman  visiting  the 
graveyard  where  his  wife  reposes  after  a  toilsome  life,  and 
carrying  as  he  goes  his  youngest  child  on  his  arm,  whilst  he 
leads  an  elder  one  by  the  hand. 

In  1862  he  exhibited  in  London  "The  Cradle"  and  "The 
Shipwrecked  Man,"  that  great  dramatic,  and  perhaps  somewhat 
theatrical,  picture  which  made  his  fjame  abroad.  The  storm  has 
passed,  the  waves  have  subsided,  the  greyish-black  thunderclouds 
have  vanished,  and  greenish,  pallid  sky  smiles  upon  the  earth 
once  more.  But  upon  the  waves  a  shattered  boat  still  rocks. 
Men,  women,  and  children  have  come  down  to  see  who  the 
unfortunate  wretch  may  be,  lying  dead  upon  the  strand,  cast 
up  by  the  tide.      A   couple  of  fishermen   are  carrying   him   off. 


Paris  :  Boussod-  halation.] 

Israels:   "Returning  from  Work." 


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242  MODERN  PAINTING 

whilst  the  rest  follow  upon  the  strand  in  a  melancholy  train. 
In  this  picture  there  was  still  something  violent  and  melo 
dramatic,  nor  were  the  means  of  pictorial  expression  as  yet  so 
simple  as  they  became  in  the  later  works  of  the  master. 
Nevertheless  it  made  a  great  sensation  in  London,  and  The 
AthencBum  wrote  of  it  as  the  most  moving  picture  in  the 
exhibition.  English  collectors  began  to  valfie  Israels  and 
to  buy  his  pictures.  Mr.  Forbes  alone  possesses  forty  of  his 
works,  amongst  them  the  great  painting  "  Through  Darkness 
to  Light,"  and  that  beautiful  smaller  picture  in  which  may 
be  found  for  the  first  time  all  the  quiet  and  sad  simplicity 
of  Israels'  later  works,  "  The  Evening  before  Parting."  There 
is  a  little  peasant's  chamber,  half  in  shadow,  and  illuminated 
only  by  dull,  meagre  light.  After  a  life  of  struggles  and  priva- 
tions, lit  up  by  few  beams  of  light,  the  great  peace  has  come 
for  the  poor  fisherman  who  lies  upon  his  deathbed.  He  suffers 
no  more,  and  is  no  more  conscious.  His  eyes  are  closed,  his  lips 
motionless,  his  features  rigid.  Underlying  the  whole  there  is  a 
profound  personal  feeling,  a  great  human  poetry,  and  the  sombre 
tones  of  the  picture  correspond  to  it,  for  despising  all  finesses 
they  are  content  to  be  the  expression  of  a  mood.  In  this 
picture  Israels  had  found  his  true  self.  Appreciated  and  recog- 
nized, he  married  in  1863  the  daughter  of  an  advocate  in 
Groningen,  and  settled  down,  first  in  Scheveningen  and  then  in 
the  Hague.  And  here  he  became  in  the  course  of  the  last 
generation  the  artist  whom  the  world  has  delighted  to  honour. 
Here  he  has  painted  one  masterpiece  after  the  other,  with  that 
indefatigable  power  of  work  still  peculiar  to  the  veteran  of 
seventy  years  and  upwards. 

Josef  Israels  lives  entirely  according  to  rule.  Every  morning 
at  nine  he  may  be  seen  walking,  and  by  ten  o'clock  punctually  he 
is  at  his  easel.  In  the  Koninginnengracht,  that  quiet,  thoroughly 
Dutch  canal  leading  to  the  Park,  his  house  is  situated.  Little 
red-roofed  houses  are  passed,  houses  standing  out  with  some 
piquancy  against  the  misty  sky,  and  the  canal  is  fringed  by  trees, 
which  cast  a  bright  reflection  on  the  water.  Close  by  may  be 
heard  the  whistle  of  a  steam  tram  which  goes  its  rounds  between 


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HOLLAND  243 

the  Hague  and  Scheveningen.  In  Israels*  house  quietude  prevails 
without  a  sound.  Noble  Gobelins  subdue  the  voice,  and  thick 
carpets  the  footsteps.  Here  and  there  upon  the  walls,  in  a  finely 
outlined  black  frame,  there  hangs  an  etching  by  Rembrandt. 
Everything  has  an  air  of  intimacy,  and  is  kept  in  delicate  and  quiet 
tones;  the  very  thoughts  of  a  man  cannot  fail  to  grow  subtile 
in  the  fine  silence  of  this  home  made  for  an  artist.  Behind  the 
dwelling  there  lies  a  garden  with  a  large  glass  house.  The  man 
who  works  here  is  very  small  in  stature,  and  has  a  high  treble 
voice,  a  puckered  face,  a  white  beard,  and  two  sparkling  black 
eyes  which  flash  out  upon  you  from  behind  a  large  pair  of 
spectacles.  Everything  about  him  has  a  nervous  mobility  like 
quicksilver.  Always  talking  and  gesticulating,  he  fetches  out 
old  pictures  when  a  visitor  comes,  and  looks  at  them  inclining 
his  head  to  the  right  and  then  to  the  left ;  then  he  puts  him- 
self into  the  attitude  of  his  net-menders  or  his  potato-gatherers 
for  the  sake  of  verification,  draws  great  landscapes  in  the  air 
with  his  arms,  sits  down  so  that  he  may  get  up  again  imme- 
diately, searches  for  something  or  other,  and  at  the  same  time 
recalls  a  remark  which  he  has  read  in  the  newspaper.  Even 
when  engaged  in  painting,  he  paces  thoughtfully  between  whiles 
up  and  down  the  studio  with  great,  hasty  strides,  bending 
forward  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back. 

One  part  of  this  studio  is  separated  from  the  rest  by  a  great 
screen,  and  behind  this  screen  one  catches  sight  of  a  very  striking 
picture.  Suddenly  one  stands  in  the  room  of  a  Dutch  fisherman's 
family.  Through  a  window  composed  of  dull  panes  there  falls, 
subdued  by  a  muslin  curtain,  a  grey,  dreamy  light,  which  tones 
the  whole  room  with  mysterious  atmospheric  harmonies.  In  it 
there  stands  an  ordinary  table  of  brown  wood,  a  few  straw- 
bottomed  chairs,  a  bed,  a  cradle,  and  one  of  those  wheel-chairs 
with  the  help  of  which  little  children  attempt  their  first  toddling 
steps.  Everything  melts  in  dim  shadows,  everything  white  passes 
into  grey  and  black.  Familiar  peace  and  lyrical  melancholy  rest 
over  all.  Here  it  is  possible  to  paint  the  air  as  Israels  paints  it 
Here  the  phantoms  of  the  dusk  take  shape  and  misty  forms  grow 
solid.     Here  are  created  those  simple  scenes  from  the  daily  life 


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244  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  the  poor.  Here  sit  those  old  women  with  their  hard  folded 
hands,  their  serviceable  ty^Sy  and  wrinkled,  weather-stained  faces  ; 
here  the  poor  peasant's  child  learns  to  run  in  his  rolling-chair, 
and  here  the  fisher's  family  assemble  round  a  dish  of  smoking 
potatoes.  Few  have  made  such  a  study  of  the  milieu  in  which 
their  figures,  move  as  Israels  has  done ;  few  have  felt  in  the  same 
degree  that  every  object  in  nature,  as  in  life,  has  its  peculiar 
atmosphere  out  of  which  it  cannot  exist  In  his  pictures  the 
subject  and  the  atmosphere  are  in  perfect  harmony.  For  in  reality 
the  existence  of  these  poor  folks  is  passed  in  dim  twilight,  only 
now  and  then  irradiated  by  a  fleeting  sunbeam,  until  it  gradually 
becomes  entirely  dark,  and  death  throws  its  mysterious  shadow 
across  their  life. 

Yet  here  one  makes  the  acquaintance  of  only  one  Israels. 
This  same  melancholy  lyric  poet  is  an  innately  forcible  artist  in 
his  pictures  of  fishermen.  With  what  a  grand  simplicity  did  he 
paint  in  his  "  Toilers  of  the  Sea "  this  grey,  boundless  element 
beneath  a  leaden  sky,  and  these  huge,  weather-beaten  seamen 
with  a  heavy  anchor  upon  their  shoulders,  wading  through  the 
water  and  spattered  by  the  waves  !  And  what  simple  joyousness 
there  is  in  his  pictures  of  children !  Duranty  has  said  finely  of 
one  picture  from  the  master's  hand  that  it  was  painted  with 
"  pain  and  shadow ; "  but  these  others  has  he  painted  with  "  sun 
and  joy."  As  he  tells  of  death  with  its  dark  grey  shadows,  he 
celebrates  young  life  in  all  the  laughing  liberty  of  nature.  His 
fishermen's  children  aire  sound  and  fair,  and  have  rosy  cheeks. 
They  move  beside  the  blithe  fresh  sea,  where  the  tremulous 
waves  heave  with  delight  beneath  the  caressing  sunbeams  and 
beneath  the  blue  sky,  where  the  little  white  clouds  are  passing,, 
as  it  looks  down  in  its  clearness  upon  the  green  luxuriant  fields. 

Amongst  the  modems  Israels  is  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
powerful  of  painters,  whilst  he  is,  at  the  same  time,  a  profound 
and  tender  poet  Surrounded  by  all  the  deft  painters  of  technique 
and  virtuosity,  he  stands  out  as  an  artist  whose  sentiment  is 
deep  enough  to  make  a  great  impression  without  conjuring  tricks. 
No  one  understands  so  well  how  to  subordinate  the  work  of  the 
brush  to  the  general  mood  of  the  picture.     He  is  a  simple  poetr 


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great  in  rendering  humble  people  and  little  things — an  artist 
who  moves  in  a  narrow  circle,  but  one  who  has  penetrated  his 
material  until  it  has  yielded  to  him  its  most  intimate  emotion — a 
man  who  has  not  passed  through  life  unmoved,  and  has  therefore 
an  entirely  personal  utterance  as  a  painter  also.  Certain  of  his 
etchings  almost  touch  Rembrandt  in  depth  of  sentiment  for 
nature,  classical  simplicity,  and  suggestive  power.  They  reveal 
a  painter  who  observes  the  least  things — a  strip  of  washed  linen, 
the  grass  in  the  sun,  the  pale  yellow  sand  of  the  sea — with  a 
kindling  eye  and  a  well-nigh  religious  fervour.  How  charming 
are  these  little  ones  at  play  with  a  paper  boat  by  the  sea  !  What 
a  mild  and  peaceful  element  the  dangerous  ocean  has  become 
upon  this  morning  !  And  by  what  simple  means  has  the  impres- 
sion of  a  limitless  expanse  been  reached  !  With  a  few  strokes  he 
has  the  secret  of  rendering  the  moist  atmosphere  and  the  tender 
tones  of  the  sky.  Parts  of  the  beach  with  the  sun  shining  over 
them  alternate  with  shadowy  chambers,  the  powerful  outlines 
of  raw-boned  seamen  with  delicately  sketched  fisher-children. 
A  peasant  woman  sits  on  the  seashore  before  the  smooth  waves, 
another  works  in  her  hut,  where  the  dusk  is  drawing  on ;  a  child 
lies  in  the  cradle,  a  quiet,  wrinkled  old  woman,  enveloped  in  the 
soft  twilight,  warms  her  wearied  hands  at  the  stove.  All  these 
plates  are  exceedingly  spirited,  sometimes  lightly  improvized, 
capricious,  and  wayward,  sometimes  polished,  rounded,  and  fully 
worked  out,  but  always  free,  pictorial,  and  having  a  personal 
accent,  and  rendering  gesture  and  expression  with  absolute 
sureness.  Josef  Israels  has  never  made  a  retrograde  step,  has 
never  been  ensnared  by  the  commercial  instinct,  but  has  grown 
greater  continuously ;  and  it  is  due  to  his  power  of  self-criticism 
and  force  of  character  that  he  now  stands  as  the  recognized  head 
of  Dutch  painting. 

In  him  is  embodied  the  strength  of  modem  Holland.  He  has 
been  a  pioneer  not  merely  in  subject,  technique,  and  colour ;  for 
in  many-sidedness  also  there  is  not  one  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion who  can  touch  him.  Each  one  of  them  has  his  own  small 
field  which  he  indefatigably  cultivates.  One  paints  only  girls  by 
the  seashore  ;  another  merely  dim  interiors  ;  this  man  town-scenes 


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246  MODERN  PAINTING 

with  a  misty  sky ;  another  greyish-brown  landscapes  beneath  a 
melancholy  and  rainy  firmament ;  another  the  rich,  luxuriant, 
green,  and  heavy  soil  of  Holland  ;  another  level  banks  with  wind- 
mills and  red-roofed  houses,  detaching  themselves  from  the  dull, 
glimmering  hues  of  monotonous  grey  clouds, — ^but  every  one 
paints  a  fragment  of  Israels. 

That  painter  who  has  such  a  joy  in  colour,  Christoffel  Btssckop, 
in  these  days  also  lives  at  the  Hague  ;  he  is  only  four  years 
younger  than  Israels,  and  he,  too,  laboured  with  power  to  effect 
the  revolution  of  Dutch  painting.  His  teachers  in  Paris  were 
Gleyre  and  Comte,  the  latter  of  whom  has  exerted  a  peculiarly 
strong  influence  upon  him,  little  as  Bisschop  has  followed  him 
in  subject  The  sole  historical  picture  of  his,  contributed  to 
the  exhibition  of  1855,  was  "  Rembrandt  going  to  the  Anatomical 
Lecture."  Born  in  Leuwarden,  in  Friesland,  as  a  painter  he 
settled  in  later  years  in  his  birthplace,  where  so  many  old 
costumes  with  gold  chains,  lace  caps,  and  gay  gowns  falling  in 
heavy  folds  are  still  preserved  in  use ;  and  here  he  became  the 
painter  of  Friesland  as  the  Belgian  Adolf  Dillens  was  that  of 
Zealand.  Those  great  old  painters  of  interiors,  De  Hoogh  and 
Van  der  Meer,  were  his  guides  in  the  matter  of  technique.  Sun- 
light falling  into  an  enclosed  space  could  scarcely  be  painted 
more  luminously  warm.  Like  a  great  column  of  dust  tinged 
with  dim  colours  of  the  rainbow,  it  pours  in  through  the  ground 
window,  falls  full  upon  the  opened  leaf  of  the  folding  door,  upon 
the  boards,  and  the  deep  red  cover  spread  over  the  table  and 
embellished  with  a  large-patterned  border  upon  a  white  ground, 
while  in  this  golden  sunshine  which  floods  the  whole  room  there 
are  usually  seen  to  move  a  couple  of  quiet  and  peaceful  figures. 
A  little  old  woman,  perhaps,  steps  into  the  room  to  beg  the  young 
wife  for  a  crust  of  bread,  or  a  husband  and  wife  sit  of  an  evening 
by  the  cradle  of  their  youngest  child,  or  a  girl  in  a  white  cap 
stands  at  the  window  absorbed  in  a  letter  which  she  has  just 
received  from  her  lover. 

Gerk  Menkes  loved  to  paint  the  mist  upon  canals,  where 
the  trekschuiten  (general  passenger  boats  drawn  by  horses) 
glide    quietly     along     crowded     with     busy     people.       Homely 


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Dutch  family  scenes, 

young  mothers  with 

children       in       dim 

chambers — deep   and 

genial   works   of  the 

finest     tone  —  were 

painted     by     Albert 

Neuhuys,     A  pupil  of 

Israels,    Adolf  Artz, 

delights    in    the 

delicate     bloom      of 

autumn  :    pale    grey 

meadows    with    thin 

grass,     over      which 

there   arches  a  grey, 

pallid  sky,  tremulous 

with  light;  noon-day 

stillness    and     paths 

losing  themselves   in 

the   wide   grey-green 

plains  through  which 

they  wind  lazily  with 

a  long-drawn  curve  ; 

loamy  ditches,  where 

silvery  spotted  thistles 

and  faint  yellow   autumn   flowers  raise  up  their  heads  arid  and 

athirst      Potato-gatherers,   shepherd   girls,   and   children   at   play 

enliven    these    wide,  sad    levels.      Cafi   and   studio    scenes    are 

usually  the  work  of  Pieter  Oyens,  who,  before  his   migration   to 

Amsterdam,    was    a    pupil   of   Portaels    in    Brussels,    where    he 

acquired  a  richer,  more  energetic  and  incisive  style  of  painting 

than  is  usually  to  be  met  with  in  Dutch  art 

Performances  as  fine  and  charming  as  these  figure-pictures 
are  the  Dutch  landscapes.  Here,  likewise,  the  flower  of  Dutch 
painting  is  not  so  luxuriant  and  does  not  catch  the  eye  so  much 
as  that  of  other  nations,  though  it  is  well-nigh  more  tender  and 
fragrant     The  Dutch  have  been  the  cause  of  no  novel  sensations. 


iHan/sttuigt  pnoto. 

Bisschop:   "Sunshine  in  Home  and  Heart." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Neuhuys:   "A  Rustic  Interior.*' 


[HanfstdHgl  photo. 


and  troubled  themselves  little  about  those  technical  problems 
which  have  busied  the  more  searching  spirits  amongst  the  French 
Impressionists,  yet  in  discreet  and  delicate  feeling  for  nature 
no  artists  amongst  the  classic  and  contemporary  painters  of 
modern  landscape  have  so  nearly  approached  the  fine  masters 
of  Fontainebleau.  The  atmosphere,  almost  always  charged  with 
moisture,  which  broods  over  the  flat  and  watery  land  in  Holland, 
subdues  and  veils  the  sunlight  softly,  and  gives  succulent  fresh- 
ness to  the  vegetation ;  and  Dutch  painters  have  the  secret  of 
rendering  in  most  refreshing  pictures  all  this  native  landscape, 
which  has  no  charm  for  a  dull  eye,  though  it  is  so  rich  in  the  finest 
magic.  There  a  windmill  is  whirring  on  the  hill,  there  the  cows 
are  pasturing  in  the  meadow,  and  there  the  labourers  go  down  of 
an  evening  to  the  shore  of  the  sea ;  and  the  soft  air  impregnated 
with  damp,  and  the  delicate  bloom  of  silvery  grey  tones  en- 
veloping everything,  produce  of  themselves  "the  great  harmony" 
which  is  so  difficult  of  attainment  in  clear  and  sunny  lands. 


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249 


In  the  first  place 
let  mention  be  made 
of    Jongkindy     that 
fresh     and    healthy 
Dutch  Parisian,  who 
only  became  known 
in  wider  circles  after 
his    death    in    1891. 
Born    in   Latrop   in 
1 819,  Jongkind   left 
his  native  land  early, 
and   was   for    some 
time   in  Dusseldorf, 
and    then   went   for 
•good      to      France, 
where    his    import- 
ance   was    at    once 
recognized  by  some 
of  the  fine  spirits  in 
that    country.       In 
1864  a  critic  of  the 
Figaro  wrote :   "In 
the  matter  of  colour 
there      is      nothing 
more   delicate   to  be   seen   than   the   landscapes  of  Jongkind,  or 
if    there    is    it    must    be    the   delicious    works    of  Corot.      One 
finds   the   same   naYvet^   in   both,   the   same   bright,   pearly   grey 
sky,   the    same    fluid,    silvery   light.      Only    Jongkind    is    some- 
what  more    energetic   and   corporeal,    making  fewer  concessions 
for  the  sake  of  charm.      A  few  energetic  accentuations,  thrown 
in    as    if    by    chance    and    always    in    the    right    place,    give 
his    pictures    an   extraordinary    effect    of  vibration."      Jongkind, 
indeed,  by   his  whole  nature,  belongs  to  the  group  of  Fontaine- 
bleau    artists,   and   it  would   be   impossible    to    write    a    history 
of  French  landscape-painting  without  remembering  the  exquisite 
and    charming    pictures    of    this    Dutchman.       Diaz    interested 
himself   in    him    from    the    first,    and,    without    exercising    any 

VOL.  III.  1 7 


Artz: 


[Hatifsmngl  photo, 
•The  Goatherd." 


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250  MODERN  PAINTING 

positive   influence,   Daubigny    was   very   closely   connected   with 
him. 

Jongkind  is  a  personality  in  himself,  and  followed  the  general 
movement  in  his  own  fashion.  He  delighted  in  water  and  dewy 
morning,  moist  verdure,  and  the  night  sky,  with  a  moon  shining 
with  pallid  rays  and  shadowed  by  silvery  clouds.  What  he  has 
to  give  is  always  a  direct  rendering  of  personal  impres- 
sions. Although  broader  and  more  impressionistic,  he  some- 
times recalls  old  Van  der  Neer,  who  also  felt  the  witchery 
of  the  moon,  and  loved  so  much  to  roam  of  a  night  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Amsterdam  and  Utrecht  Like  the  old 
Netherlandish  painters,  Jongkind  is  nlost  at  ease  in  regions^ 
connected  with  humanfty.  Houses,  ships,  windmills,  streets,  and 
village  market-places,  and  all  spots  that  have  any  trace  of  human 
U^our,  are  dear  to  him.  In  Paris  he  painted  life  on  the  Pont 
Neqf,  the  houses  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  lit  up  by  the  pale 
light  of  the  moon  and  a  thousand  gas-lamps,  the  old  churches- 
find  out-of-the-way  alleys  of  the  Quartier  Latin,  the  barren 
ground  of  suburbs  just  rising  into  existence,  the  activity  of 
crossjng-sweepers  in  the  ^arly  morning.  He  knew,  as  no  other 
man,  the  buried  corners  of  grey  old  Paris,  and  their  population^ 
which  still  has  a  tinge  of  something  like  provinciality.  In 
Norm^ipdy  he  was  charmed  by  the  primitive  character  of  life 
on  the  seaboard.  And  from  Holland,  whither  he  is  often  led 
by  the  force  of  early  reminiscences,  he  brings  back  momentary 
sketches  of  the  canals,  where  the  murky  water  splashes  against 
dark  barges  ;  of  villages  in  mist,  where  the  sun  plays  coyly  upoa 
the  red  roofs ;  of  windmills  upon  green  meadows ;  of  moist 
pastures,  dim  moonrise,  and  fresh  phases  of  morning  such  as 
Goyen  loved.  In  Nivernois,  about  i860,  he  painted  the  faint 
grey  paths  of  sand,  white  cottages  in  the  glare  of  dazzling  light, 
and  the  quiver  of  sunbeams  in  the  dry  leaves  of  the  autuma 
trees ;  and  in  Brussels  and  Toulon  the  narrow  tortuous  lanes,, 
swarming  vividly  with  street-life.  His  technique  is  at  once  broad 
and  delicate,  piquant  and  powerful.  Everything  has  the  throbbing 
life  of  a  sketch. 

Jongkind  was  a  pupil  of  laabey,  and  as  early  as  1852  received 


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2S3 


Mauve  :   •*  A  Flock  of  Sheep." 


[Lathui  ac. 


a  third  medal  in  the  Salon.  But  after  that  his  pictures  were 
rejected  by  the  committees,  and  it  was  only  at  the  Paris 
Exhibition  of  1889  that  he  came  out  in  his  full  importance.  As 
a  rule,  he  still  laid  weight  on  the  construction  of  his  landscapes ; 
from  the  old  Dutch  masters  he  derived  his  pleasure  from  an 
architectonic  building  up,  and  he  took  pains  to  "  compose  *' 
his  pictures,  placing  trees,  ships,  houses,  and  people  in  such  a 
way  as  to  ensure,  as  far  as  possible,  a  rounded  whole.  Never- 
theless he  was  a  modern  through  his  feeling  for  transparent 
air;  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  give  a  serious  study  to 
atmosphere,  to  the  play  of  reflections,  and  to  the  fleeting 
alteration  of  tones.  This  makes  him  an  important  link  between 
the  landscape  of  1830  and  contemporary  Impressionism. 

Both  Jacoi  and  IVillem  Marts  worked  in  Holland  upon 
parallel  lines — Jacob  being  a  very  delicate  artist,  striking  the 
most  notable  chords,  whilst  Willem  is  warmer,  a  thorough  easy- 
going and  phlegmatic  Dutchman.  The  earth  in  the  latter's 
pictures  is  a  plump  nurse  caressed  and  wooed  by  the  sunbeams. 
Best  of  all  he  loves  the  hour  when  the  sky  becomes  blue  once 
more  after  a  storm,  and  the  first  rays  of  the  sun  glance  upon 
the  rich  turf  and  the  rushes  of  the  pond.     Leaves,  boughs,  and 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


trunks  all  glisten 
with  moisture.  The 
wind  shakes  the  last 
raindrops  from  the 
branches,  and  they 
fall,  scattering  the 
earth  with  a  thou- 
sand little  pearls. 
The  grey  moss 
spreads  itself  out 
luxuriantly,  and  is 
once  more  soft,  rich, 
and  verdant.  The 
large  black  snails 
move  upon  the 
ground  rejoicing  in 
the  damp,  and  the 
cows  which  are 
resting  breathe  with 
satisfaction  the 
damp  air  of  the  lush 
meadows  drenched 
with  rain.  Jacob 
MariSy  whose  eye  has  been  educated  by  Daubigny,  is  softer  in 
feeling,  and  more  graceful,  poetic,  and  dreamy.  By  preference 
he  paints  pictures  of  Dutch  canals  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Amsterdam  and  Rotterdam,  pictures  which  show  great  refinement 
in  their  brownish-grey,  their  breadth  and  clearness  of  vision,  and 
quiet  harmony,  or  else  he  paints  parts  of  the  beach  in  the 
Scheveningen  district,  or  windmills  soaring  like  great  towers 
in  the  foreground  high  above  the  flat  land,  or  little  low  houses 
rising  into  the  dull,  grey,  rainy  air.  The  delicacy  of  modern 
plein-air  painting  is  united  in  his  pictures  with-  the  tender 
softness  of  the  traditional  clare-obscure.  And  often  a  spot  of 
vivid  red  or  dark  violet  has  a  piquant  effect  in  the  ashen-grey 
harmony,  a  thing  which  is  at  once  dim  and  luminous,  soft  and 
precise,  simple  and  subtile. 


lAibert  phoio. 
Mesdag  :   "  Evening." 

{By  permission  of  th*  Berlin  Photographic  Company^  ih« 
owners  of  th4  copyright.) 


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25s 


De  Haas:   "Cows  in  a  Meadow.** 


[Hanfstdngl  photo. 


Mauve^  that  admirable  master  of  harmony  who  is  so  vivid 
and  spontaneous  in  his  water-colours,  has  also  this  tender,  melan- 
choly poetry  of  nature,  this  underlying  mood  of  depth  and  sadness, 
which  renders  him  so  sympathetic  in  the  present  age.  Daubign/s 
simple,  idyllic,  rustic  joy  in  nature  has  in  him  become  tinged 
with  a  sense  of  suffering  which  allies  him  with  Cazin.  A  dreamy 
mist,  a  thoughtful  silence,  rests  over  his  Dutch  landscapes,  and 
the  wind  seems  to  utter  its  complaint  among  the  leaves.  The 
dusk,  and  damp,  rainy  days,  and  all  the  minor  keys  of  nature 
has  he  especially  loved. 

In  H,  W.  Mesdagy  who  paints  the  sea  in  all  moods,  Holland 
possesses  one  of  the  first  marine  painters  of  the  world.  Since 
Courbet,  few  representations  of  the  life  of  the  sea  have  been 
rendered  with  such  fidelity  and  strength  of  impression.  Whereas 
the  Belgians,  Clays  and  Artan,  never  leave  the  shore,  in  Mesdag 
one  beholds  the  sea  from  the  sea  itself  and  not  from  the  land ; 
one  is  really  on  the  water  alone  with  the  ship,  the  sky,  and  the 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


waves.  And  whilst 
the  Belgians  take 
special  joy  in  the 
smiling  ocean,  the 
prismatic  iridescence 
of  sunbeams  upon 
the  quiet  mirror  of 
the  waters,  Mesdag 
chiefly  renders  the 
moment  of  uneasy 
suspense  before  the 
storm.  As  a  rule 
in  his  pictures  the 
sea  lies  heavy  as 
lead  in  a  threaten- 
ing lull ;  only  a  few 
lightly  quivering 
waves  seem  to  be 
preparing  for  the 
battle  that  they  will 
fight  amongst  them- 
selves. Overhead 
stretches  a  grey, 
monotonous,  and 
gloomy  sky,  where 
sometimes,  although  rarely,  the  sun,  glowing  like  the  crater  of 
a  volcano,  may  be  seen  to  stand.  Yet  it  may  be  admitted  that 
a  certain  want  of  flexibility  in  his  nature  is  the  cause  of  his 
repeating  his  most  forcible  note  with  too  much  obstinacy,  and 
at  certain  points  he  is  outmatched  by  others.  For  example, 
the  seascapes  of  Israels  surpass  Mesdag's  in  freshness  of  vision 
and  lightness  of  touch,  those  of  Mauve  have  the  advantage  in 
dreamy  tenderness  of  conception,  and  Jacob  Maris  commands 
the  expression  of  lonely  grandeur  in  a  fashion  which  is 
peculiarly  his  own.  Compare  Mesdag's  seascapes  with  those  of 
his  fellow  Dutch  artists,  and  we  find  the  best  clue  to  the  charac- 
terization of  his  art.     His  power,  like  Bisschop's,  is  essentially  a 


Oelrichs  pho/o.] 
Breitner  :   "  Horse  Artillery  in  the  Downs." 


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C.  H9Hi9chtl  rtpr.^ 


Matthew  Maris:   ''He  is  coming.'* 
{By  ptrmiasion  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  <^  DowdeswellSf  th$  owners  oj  the  copyright.) 


[Hole  sc. 


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HOLLAND  259 

material  one — ix.  he  is  a  real  realist.  Israels,  Maris,  Mauve 
paint  things  as  vehicles  interpreting  personal  and  emotional 
moods.  They  try  to  express  sadness,  grandeur,  tenderness ; 
nature's  reality  is  to  them  only  a  means,  not  an  end  in  itself, 
as  it  is  to  Mesdag,  the  broad,  steady-^oing  Dutchman  of  the 
North. 

Speaking  of  him  it  has  been  necessary  to  emphasize  the  dis- 
tinction between  his  realism  and  the  more  spiritual  endowment 
of  others.  Let  this  distinction  be  borne  in  mind  ;  for  though 
Dutch  pictures  would  seem  to  have  a  remarkable  family  re- 
semblance it  is  a  firm  and  sharp  line  of  classification.  True  it 
is  that  all  Dutch  art  of  the  seventies  is  characterized  by  a 
dignity  resulting  from  good  traditions,  a  quiet  mood  of  con- 
templation occasionally  verging  on  narrowness,  a  dark,  warm, 
and  almost  sombre  tone,  singular  taste  and  purity,  and  a  certain 
repose  and  kindliness  of  feeling.  But  for  those  who  enter  deeply 
into  this  intimate  art  it  is  easy  to  draw  a  line  dividing  the  Realists 
from  the  sensitive  Impressionists.  Amongst  the  former  with 
Mesdag  and  Bisschop  we  find  Bisschop*s  pupil  Klinkenbergy 
who  from  his  master  learnt  how  to  paint  sunshine.  The  light 
of  clear  March  days  generally  rests  upon  his  pictures,  brightening 
the  fronts  of  neat  brick  houses,  which  are  reflected  in  the  still 
water  of  canals.  De  Haas  paints  the  Dutch  and  Belgian  lowland 
landscape,  its  cloudy,  dull-blue,  Northern  summer  skies,  and  the 
cattle  or  donkeys  grazing  amongst  the  grass  of  the  dunes.  Then 
there  is  Lodewijk  Apol,  who  delights  in  wintry  woodlands,  where 
the  leafless  boughs  are  covered  with  a  sparkling  mantle  of  snow, 
frozen  waters,  and  whitish-grey  clumps  of  trees  vanishing  softly 
in  the  misty  air.  A  more  subtile  hand  and  eye  are  revealed  in 
the  work  of  Paul  Josef  Gahrtely  the  painter  of  the  polders,  the  flat 
landscape  of  which  assists  the  impression  of  air  and  light  and 
boundless  distance.  All  these  names  belong  to  the  older 
generation.  But  within  the  last  ten  years  a  number  of  younger 
artists  have  sprung  up,  and,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  more 
novel  tendencies  have  been  displayed.  Some  of  these  men  indeed 
have  merely  advanced  upon  the  old  lines.  There  are  Breitner  and 
Isaac  Israels,  who  have  created,  under   Manet's  influence,  wha 


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26o  MODERN  PAINTING 

might  be  called  the  New  Impressionism,  an  art  more  passionate, 
agitated,  energetic,  and  daring  than  the  old  art  of  intimate  emotion. 
They  abandon  themselves  to  the  full  tide  of  life,  endeavouring 
to  arrest  the  fleeting  revelation  of  a  single  moment.  Their 
technique  also  is  broader  than  that  of  the  elder  men :  form  is 
not  sacrificed  to  intimacy  of  feeling ;  it  seems  almost  swept  away 
in  nervous  energy  of  movement  and  the  massing  of  colour.  Such 
artists  as  these  could  not  but  break  the  subtile  quietude  that  had 
rested  so  long  over  Dutch  art.  They  longed  to  come  to  the 
free  use  of  their  senses  and  their  limbs,  like  the  young  husband 
in  Bjornson*s  comedy  NygiftCy  who  was  mastered  by  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  uplift  his  voice  and  dash  himself  about  lest  he  should 
lose  the  use  of  both  voice  and  limbs  in  the  silent,  antiquated 
mansion  of  his  father-in-law. 

Still  the  younger  school  of  Dutch  painting  had  no  need  to 
struggle  against  academic  art,  and  hardly  the  need  to  fight  for 
their  own  hand  against  the  great  masters  who  had  preceded  them. 
Where  both  the  older  and  the  younger  generation  are  of  genuine 
metal  all  that  the  latter  need  is  the  liberty  to  follow  their  own 
way  when  their  turn  has  come.  And  so  in  Holland  there  was 
no  cry^  raised  against  established  reputations.  On  the  contrary, 
the  younger  artists  of  Holland  have  never  ceased  to  do  honour 
to  such  men  as  Israels,  Maris,  Mauve,  and  Bosboom  ;  and  it  might 
almost  be  urged  that  these  masters  have  never  been  so  well  or 
so  highly  appreciated  as  they  arc  now  by  their  juniors.  Yet 
these  juniors  were  no  followers.  Theirs  was  an  entirely  different 
turn  of  mind  and  genius.  Next  to  the  above-named  Neo-Im- 
pressionists  we  find,  on  the  one  hand,  those  who  were  influenced 
by  the  wave  of  mysticism  sweeping  over  the  world  of  literature 
and  art  at  the  end  of  this  century.  And  on  the  other  we  find 
the  men  of  brain-power  rather  than  of  sentiment,  the  analysts 
and  psychologists,  the  acute  observers  and  distinct  expressionists. 
In  mysticism  it  was  Matthew  Marisy  a  brother  of  the  two  land- 
scape-painters already  mentioned,  who  had  first  of  all  shown  the 
way. 

Both  Jacob  and  Willem  Maris  bore  witness  to  the  invincible 
power  of  Dutch  art  which  made   two  essentially  Dutch  masters 


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HOLLAND 


263 


AmU9rdamm$r.'\ 


Veth:  Josef  Israels. 


[Hentschel  photo  se. 


of  men  who  were  the  sons  of  an  Austrian  father,  but  in  Matthew 
the  hereditary  Teutonic  passion  for  mediaeval  mysticism  broke  out 
again.  Yet  the  influence  of  Holland,  his  father's  adopted  country, 
was  not  wasted  upon  him  :  his  mystical  tendencies  were  controlled 
by  the  faculty  of  observation.  His  early  pictures  have  an  ex- 
ceeding great  charm  of  their  own,  a  direct  simplicity  of  motive 
and  a  poetic  purity  of  expression  both  in  line  and  colour.  His 
Gretchen,  for  example,  is  a  mediaeval  maiden  under  the  spell  of 
a  mystical  love  that  gives  her  a  look  of  fairy  unreality.  Indeed 
she  more  nearly  resembles  the  devoted  Katchen  von  Heilbronn 
of  Heinrich  von  Kleist  than  the  more  robust  heroine  of  Goethe. 
By  degrees  reality  lost  its  grip  on  the  painter,  and  his  visions 
grew  mistier,  gaining  at  the  same  time  in  lonely  grandeur. 
Yet  the  more  he  tries  to  evade  reality  the  stronger  a  certain 
sensuousness  seems  to  hold  him  in  its  grasp.  The  forms  hidden 
under  the  veil  of  his  dreamy  visions  assert  themselves,  rise  and 
grow,  as  if   they  were   to  burst  forth   after  all.      This   wrestle 


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264  MODERN  PAINTING 

between  the  animal  and  the  mystical  life  in  the  painter's  spirit 
to  some  extent  mars  the  unity  of  his  art,  yet  makes  it  appeal 
to  us  with  a  deeper  emotional  force  and  a  grander  imaginative 
power.  The  hermit-painter,  living  near  Lx)ndon  in  utter  solitude> 
is,  after  all,  a  human  being  with  latent  passion. 

Travels  in  the  East  and  the  love  of  mediaeval  legend  have 
quickened  the  same  tendency  to  mystical  contemplation  in 
W.  Bauer,  His  water-colours,  his  lithographs,  and  his  etchings 
are  all  of  them  filled  with  the  vibration  of  very  subtile  emotions, 
expressed  in  the  lithographs  and  etchings  with  a  curious  nervous- 
ness of  intercrossing  fibrous  lines.  In  some  of  his  etchings  again 
there  is  an  amplitude  of  vision,  a  grandeur  of  mass,  and  a  halo 
of  light  which  recall  the  work  of  Rembrandt  in  this  field  of  art. 
fan  Toorop  was  the  first  to  bring  a  tribute  from  the  Dutch  Indies 
to  the  art  of  the  mother-country.  He  worked  his  way  through 
impressionism  and  "  pointellism  "  to  a  mystical  symbolism  which, 
however,  emanates  from  Villiers-de-rislerAdam  and  Odilon  Redon 
rather  than  from  the  Indies.  This  symbolist  art  of  Toorop's  is 
as  remarkable  for  its  high  power  of  expression  and  its  delicacy 
of  handling  as  for  versatility  and  facility  of  imagination.  But, 
after  all,  symbolism,  which  by  sheer  force  of  reaction  against 
the  national  tendency  to  realism  had  at  one  moment  become, 
the  cry  of  the  new  art-movement  in  Holland  and  had  won 
another  true  and  subtile  adept  in  young  Thorn  Prikker,  could  not 
long  hold  its  own  among  a  people  which,  although  sometimes 
approaching  in  its  art  to  the  symbolical  through  simplicity  and 
grandeur,  had  always  derived  it  instinctively  from  reality,  with- 
out-seeking it  in  abstract  forms — the  domain  of  philosophy,  not 
of  art. 

Of  the  other  tendency  in  modern  Dutch  art — to  return  to 
more  directness  of  expression,  and  to  arrive  at  a  greater  intensity 
of  psychological  power  than  the  great  Impressionists  had  aimed 
at — we  find  examples  in  the  portraits  hy  Jan  Veth  and  Haverman, 
They  are  entirely  different  from  such  powerful  creations  as  Josef 
Israels  has  lately  shown  in  this  line.  Those  by  Israels  are  freely 
subjective;  the  painter  will  treat  the  features  and  expression  of 
his  sitter  with  considerable  freedom,  making  the  portrait  speak 


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HOLLAND  265 

of  his  own  moods,  and  giving  it  the  character  with  which  it 
looms  in  his  imagination.  But  these  younger  men  take  great 
pains  to  penetrate  into  the  actual  mind  and  spirit  of  the  person, 
rendering  them  with  the  utmost  directness.  Neither  their  im- 
agination nor  their  sentiment  is  allowed  to  run  away  with 
them,  and  they  aim  at  the  subjection  of  all  their  powers  to  the 
guiding  and  analyzing  brain.  As  a  matter  of  course,  this  attitude 
influences  their  technique  and  makes  it  rigid  and  strict,  until 
they  feel  so  sure  of  their  handling  that  they  can  allow  them- 
selves enough  freedom  to  devote  some  attention  to  charm  of  line 
and  unrestrained  simplicity.  Somewhat  the  same  difference  from 
the  older  school,  although  hardly  so  pronounced,  we  find  in 
the  landscapes  of  Tholen  -and  Karpen,  whose  attitude  towards 
nature  is  indeed  more  reserved,  and  who  aim  at  a  pure  and 
-direct  expression  of  forms  and  atmosphere  rather  than  at  the 
free  impressionism  of  Jacob  Maris.  And  although  too  much 
may  be  made  of  these  distinctions,  yet  they  are  real  enough  to 
show  that  Dutch  art  has  more  variety  than  a  superficial  observer 
might  suppose.  At  the  first  glance  the  pictures  of  modem 
Holland  seem  to  have  one  great  family  resemblance,  as  has 
already  been  noted,  yet  a  constant  current  of  evolution,  often 
influenced  by  movements  abroad,  of  which  Dutch  artists  have 
been  keen  students,  has  been  flowing  forwards ;  and  so  far  from 
stagnating,  Dutch  art  is  now  as  fresh  and  varied  as  in  the  old 
<Iays  of  its  glory. 


-VOL.  111.  18 


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CHAPTER  XL 

DENMARK 

The  kinship  between  Danish  and  Dutch  ^inting.^Previous  history 
of  artistic  efforts  in  Denmark. — Christoph  Vilhelm  Eckersherg 
and  his  importance,— The  Eckersberg  school :  Eorbye,  Bendz,  Sonne, 
Christen  Kdbke^  Roed,  KOchler^  Vilhelm  Mar  strand, — Italy  .and  the 
East:  J,  A.  Krafft^  Constantin  Hansen,  Ernst  Meyer,  Petzholdt, 
Niels  Simonsen, — The  national  movement  of  the  forties  brings 
painting  back  to  native  soil:  influence  of  Hoy  en,  Julius  Exner, 
Frederik  Vermehren^  Christen  Dalsgaard. — T?ieir  intimacy  of  feeling 
in  opposition  to  the  traditional  genre  painting, — The  landscape- 
painters :  Johan  Thomas  Lundbye,  Carlo  Dalgas,  Peter  Christian 
Skovgaardf  Vilhelm  Kyhn,  Gotfred  Rump, — The  marine-painters : 
Emanuel  Larsen,  Frederik  Sorensen,  Anton  Melbye.— Their  import- 
ance and  technical  defects,— Carl  Block  sets  in  the  place  of  this 
awkward  painting  which  had  national  independence  one  which  was 
outwardly  brilliant  but  less  characteristic, — Gertner,  Elisabeth 
Jerichau-Baumann^  Otto  BachCy  Vilhelm  Rosenstand,  Axel  Helsted, 
Christian  Zahrtmann,— After  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1878  there 
came  into  being  the  young  school  equipped  with  rich  technical  means 
of  expression  and,  at  the  same  time,  taking  up  the  Eckersberg  tradition 
of  intimate  and  delicate  observation :  Peter  S,  JCroyer,  Laurits  Regner 
Tuxen,  August  Jerndorff,  Viggo  Johansen,  Carl  Thomsen,  H,  N, 
Hansen y  Otto  Haslund,  Irminger,  Engelstedy  Lauritz  Ring,  Erik 
Henningsen,  Fritz  Syberg.-^  Painters  of  the  sea  and  fishing :  Michael 
and  Anna  Ancher^  Locher,  Thorolf  Pedersen, — The  landscape- 
painters  :  Viggo  Pedersen,  Philipsen,  Thorwald  Niss,  Zacho,  Gotfred 
Christensen,  Julius  Paulsen,— The  **free  exhibitors  :*^  Joachim  and 
Niels  iikovgaard,  Theodor  Bindesboll,  Agnes  Slott-Mdller,  HarakT 
Slott-Moller,  J  F.  Willumsen,  V,  Hammershoy,  Johan  Rohde^ 
G,  Seligmann^  Karl  Jensen, 

DENMARK  IS  a  new  Holland,  should  any  one  be  pleased 
to  call  it  so,  only  it  is  Holland  with  a  purer  atmosphere 
and  a  clearer  sky,  Holland  less  rich  in  soil  and  less  luxuriant ;. 
it    is    a    country   more    thinly   populated    and    one    where    the 


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DENMARK  267- 

inhabitants  are  more  dreamy.  In  accordance  with  this  likeness 
in  the  character  of  nature,  the  transition  from  the  one  school 
to  the  other  is  almost  imperceptible  in  art  As  painters  of 
interiors  and  landscape,  the  Danes  join  issue  with  the  Dutch 
by  the  touching  delicacy  of  feeling  with  which  they  paint  the 
likeness  of  their  beautiful  country,  its  domestic  life,  its  woodlands^ 
and  its  lakes.  And,  successful  as  they  have  been  in  acquiring 
technique  in  Paris,  they,  too,  avoid  making  experiments  in  pUin 
air  and  in  the  last  results  of  Impressionism.  They  are  almost 
fonder  than  the  Dutch  of  swathing  themselves  in  soft  dusk  and 
floating  haze.  Indeed  what  distinguishes  them  from  the  latter 
is  that  they  have  less  phlegm  and  more  nervous  vibration,  a 
softer  taste  for  elegiac  sadness,  that  tender  breath  of  dreamy 
melancholy  which  is  in  the  old  Danish  ballads.  What  they 
have  to  express  seems  almost  Dutch,  but  it  is  whispered  less 
distinctly  and  with  more  of  mystery,  with  that  dim,  approximative,, 
hazarded  utterance  which  betrays  that  it  is  Danish. 

Do  you  know  the  park  near  Copenhagen,  that  lovely  pleasure- 
ground  where  the  old  Danish  beeches  bend  their  heads  together 
rustling  and  fill  the  air  with  drowsy  fragrance  ?  From  the 
Sound  there  comes  a  faint,  subdued  murmur  which  echoes  low 
and  tremulous  through  the  forest.  Across  the  earth  flit  the 
soft  shadows  of  the  beeches,  and  the  warm  sunlight  plays 
between  them.  Everything  is  gathered  into  a  large,  peacefully 
dreamy  uniformity,  which  has  a  hidden  melancholy.  A  nation 
which  grows  up  amid  such  surroundings  will  become  more 
sensitive  in  its  feelings  and  more  delicate  in  organization  than 
one  which  lives  amongst  mountains  and  rough  crags.  The- 
fragrance  and  ringing  echo  of  this  strange,  soft  nature  render 
the  nerves  finer  and  quicker  in  vibration.  Have  you  read 
Jacobsen?  Can  you  recall  the  figures  of  Niels  Lyhne  and 
Mogens  and  Marie  Grubbe,  filled  as  they  are  with  gentle  and 
dreamy  devotion,  so  unsubstantiaj  that  they  live  half  in  reality 
and  half  dissolve  in  misty  visions,  possessing  so  much  tender 
sentiment — sentiment  which  is  indeed  tender  to  excess — and 
crumbling  away  the  moment  a  rude  hand  draws  them  from  the 
world  in  which   they  live?     Do  you   recollect  the   verses  which- 


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Ji68  MODERN  PAINTING 

Mogens  hums  softly  to  himself,  "  In  Sehnen  kb  ich^  in  Sehnen  "— 
**I  live  in  my  longing,  in  my  longing"? 

The  same  mysterious  fragrance  which  breathes  from  the 
works  of  Jacobsen,  the  dreamy  disposition  to  lose  consciousness 
of  self,  that  melting  away  and  vanishing  in  mist,  suggesting  the 
soft  outlines  of  the  coasts  of  Zealand,  is  likewise  peculiar 
to  Danish  art.  It,  too,  has  something  abashed  in  spirit,  an 
infinite  need  for  what  is  delicate  and  refined,  introspective, 
diffident,  irresolute,  fainting  and  despondent,  youthful  and  in- 
nocent, and  yet  glimmering  with  tears,  a  yearning  that  is  like 
sadness,  a  renunciation  that  finds  vent  in  elegies  that  are  still 
and  keenly  sweet.  It  also  avoids  the  cold,  clear  day,  and  the 
sun,  so  indiscreet  in  its  revelations.  Everything  is  covered  with 
soft,  subdued  light ;  everything  is  silent,  mysterious,  luxuriating 
in  pleasant  and  yet  mournful  reveries.  Melting  landscapes  are 
represented  in  lines  that  vanish  in  mist,  and  with  indecisive 
<lepths  and  low  tones.  Or  there  are  dark  rooms,  where  tea  is 
upon  the  table  and  quiet  people  are  leaning  back  in  their 
chairs.  The  fire  is  burning  in  the  stove  with  a  subdued  and 
pleasant  noise.  On  the  table  stands  the  petroleum  lamp,  shed- 
•ding  a  mild  dim  light  through  the  room.  And  the  blue  smoke 
of  cigars  mingles  with  the  reddish  glow  from  the  fireplace, 
which  casts  a  reflection  upon  the  carpet,  whilst  the  soft  rain 
outside  is  drumming  on  the  window-panes.  And  what  an  old- 
fashioned  grace  the  furniture  has,  the  great  mahogany  tables 
and  little  secritaires  resting  upon  slender  voluted  legsl  It  is 
not  mere  blockish,  indifferent  furniture,  for  it  has  been  in- 
herited and  cared  for,  and  it  is  narrowly  allied  with  the  lives 
-of  men.  With  what  a  genial,  confiding  air  does  it  seem  to 
regard  the  proceedings  when  the  family  are  assembled  at  table, 
when  the  water  boils  and  there  is  a  clatter  of  tea-things !  And 
when  there  is  society,  how  bashfully  it  presses  against  the  wall, 
as  though  it  were  shy  before  company !  On  the  boards  upon 
the  window-sill  old-fashioned  flowers  bloom  in  pots  spotted  with 
green,  and  old-fashioned  family  portraits  hang  upon  the  walls 
with  a  slightly  bourgeois  air  of  complacency. 

Amongst  ourselves,  where   there  is  a  general   inclination  to 


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DENMARK  269. 

regard  distant  regions  as  half-barbaric — merely  because  nothing 
is  known  about  them — people  for  a  long  time  looked  down 
upon  this  modest,  but  essentially  healthy  Danish  painting.  It 
was  only  at  the  last  great  exhibitions  that  the  epoch-making 
appearance  of  the  young  Danish  school  showed  what  a  fresh 
artistic  life  was  stirring  within  the  limits  of  this  little  Northern 
kingdom*  Through  the  works  of  the  young  painters  attention^ 
was  directed  to  their  elders,  for  it  was  not  to  be  assumed  that 
such  blossom  of  art  had  grown  up  in  the  night 

As  is  well  known,  Denmark  is  not  a  site  of  ancient  civiliza- 
tion. Before  the  period  of  Thorwaldsen  every  artistic  tradition 
was  wanting,  and  the  country  was  never  the  stage  of  a  con- 
tinuous and  historically  important  development  of  art.  From 
the  Middle  Ages  it  can  only  point  to  traces  of  feeble  artistic 
activity  in  a  few  Gothic  buildings  which  are  massively  mono- 
tonous. It  was  not  till  late,  in  fact  in  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  that  the  cultivation  of  artistic  interests  was 
pursued  with  greater  animation  under  the  government  of 
Christian  IV.  Christian  V.  (1670 — 1699)  endeavoured  to  catch 
a  few  beams  from  the  sun  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  sent  for  numbers 
of  French  artists  who  enriched  the  country  with  manifold  imita- 
tions of  Lebrun  and  Coustou.  Under  Frederik  V.  (1746 — 1766) 
an  Academy  of  Art  was  founded  at  the  Castle  of  Charlottenborg 
and  organized  according  to  the  French  model  by  the  sculptor 
Saly,  from  Valenciennes.  The  new  quarter  of  the  town  which 
rose  about  this  time  in  Copenhagen — Frederiktown,  as  it  is 
called — gives  in  its  palaces,  and  in  the  equestrian  statue  of 
Frederik  V.  executed  by  Saly,  a  tolerably  complete  picture 
of  the  Danish  Rococo  period,  and  it  was  not  particularly  rich. 
A  generation  later,  Danish  artists,  indeed,  headed  the  school,, 
but  its  tradition  remained  predominantly  French  or  German,, 
and  of  the  Classical  type.  Jens  fuel  distinguished  himself  as 
a  graceful  portrait -painter,  and  the  animal -painter  Gebauer 
executed  little  pictures  in  the  style  of  Esaias  van  der  Velde. 
Through  the  sculptor  Wiedewelt,  Winckelmann's  theories  were 
made  known  in  Copenhagen.  The  painter  Abildgaardy  an 
academician    of    sound    learning   and   many-sided   culture,  found 


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^7o  MODERN  PAINTING 

his  ideals  in  the  Italian  masters  of  the  Renaissance,  especially 
Michael  Angelo.  Amongst  such  men  Asmus  Carstens  and 
Bcrtel  Thorwaldsen,  who  made  such  an  important  contribution 
to  the  artistic  development  of  Europe,  were  destined  to  receive 
their  schooling. 

If  this  first  period  of  Danish  art  was  either  French  or  Classical, 
and  in  any  case  imported  and  without  individuality,  it  must  be 
owned  that  the  national  epoch  of  Danish  painting  was  introduced 
with  Eckersberg,  and  formed  by  a  group  of  men  who  stood  on 
their  own  ground,  representing  only  Danish  life  and  nature  as 
it  is  in  Denmark.  The  consideration  of  their  pictures  affords 
little  aesthetic  pleasure  to  the  eye.  The  execution  in  almost  all 
cases  is  angular  and  diffidently  careful,  the  representation  of  forms 
paltry,  and  the  colour  arid  and  without  anything  luminous.  But 
the  substratum  of  sentiment  makes  atonement  for  the  inadequacy 
of  the  technique.  At  a  period  when  a  spiritless  reproduction  of 
old  ideas  and  old  forms  of  civilization  went  by  the  name  of 
idealism,  the  Danes  were  the  first  independent  naturalists ;  at 
a  time  when  artists  saw  things  almost  exclusively  through  the 
medium  of  literature,  they  proved  themselves,  in  the  special 
sense  of  the  word,  to  be  painters,  and  therefore  they  had  no  need 
afterwards  to  wage  the  great  war  of  liberation  which  had  to  be 
gone  through  in  all  other  places.  They  had  no  need  to  learn 
■gradually  that  nature  may  be  artistically  rendered  without  con- 
ventional composition,  nor  was  there  any  necessity  for  them  to 
be  taught  that  there  was  a  world  better  than  that  of  commonplace 
^enre  humour.  For,  from  the  very  first,  they  plunged  into  reality 
instead  of  treating  it  with  playful  condescension,  and  were  pro- 
tected from  the  inflated  sentimentality  of  the  "village  tale"  by 
having  a  practised  eye  for  what  was  properly  pictorial.  Like 
the  Dutch  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  Danes  had  worked 
faithfully  to  nature,  and  in  their  deep  and  honourable  devotion 
they  merely  wished  to  paint  nature  itself  according  to  their  own 
true  and  personal  conception  ;  and  whilst  the  falsely  idealistic  or 
narrative  works  of  the  rest  of  the  Continent  vanished,  at  a  later 
time,  from  painting,  these  Danish  works,  which  contained  in 
themselves  fresh   and    natural   germs,    are    not    yet    antiquated, 


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DENMARK  271 

although  they  may  be  old-fashioned  ;  to  some  extent,  indeed, 
and  in  their  essential  conception,  they  may  still  be  said  to  hold 
sway  over  living  Danish  art 

Christoph  Vilhelm  Eckersberg  was,  in  many  ways,  a  remark- 
able artist  In  the  matter  of  technique  he  is  almost  antediluvian  ; 
he  is  old-fashioned  in  his  hard  and  sharp  portraits,  old-fashioned 
in  his  large  historical  pictures,  old-fashioned  in  his  petty  land- 
scapes and  carefully  drawn  and  leaden  sea-pieces.  Nevertheless 
his  pictures  have  remained  more  classical  than  those  of  his 
contemporaries,  who  donned  the  classic  garb  as  if  for  eternity. 
He  has  a  simpler  and  more  familiar  expression  for  the  things  we 
know  ;  he  gives  warmth  by  his  purity  of  feeling :  everything  he 
does  bears  the  impress  of  a  peculiar  sincerity,  as  if  he  went  bail 
in  his  person  for  the  truth  of  what  he  painted. 

Eckersberg  belongs  to  those   modest   but   meritorious  artists 
-who   have  been  little  honoured  in  the  earlier  period,  artists  who 
have  given  something  novel  in  place  of  reminiscences  from  other 
-centuries  and  the  classical  imitation  popular  in  their  time.     He 
had,  like  Carstens,  studied  under  Abildgaard,  and  after  that  he 
£nished  his  course  of  training  under  David  from   1810  to  181 3. 
From  1813  to  1816  he  was  in  Rome,  where  his  friend  Thorwaldsen 
-was,  at  that  time,  high-priest  of  art     And  just  as  he  was  at  pains 
to  follow  the  turbulent  painter  of  the  Revolutiori  in  his  Parisian 
studies,  so  his  pictures  from  Rome,  which  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
Thorwaldsen  Museum,  are  under  the  sway  of  Roman  Classicism. 
But  when   he  returned  home  in   18 16,  and  as  a  man  of  tough 
•energy  undertook  the  guidance  of  Danish  art,  it  was  soon  seen 
where  his   talent  actually  lay.     He  executed   about  this  time  a 
portrait  of  himself  in  which  he  is  painted  looking  into  the  world 
with  honest,  dark-blue  eyes,  a  massive,  sensible,  and  judiciously 
observant  man.     This  likeness  shows  him,  indeed,  both  as  a  man 
and   as  an  artist,   and   supplies  a  curious    commentary  on   the 
tedious  historical  pictures  which  he  composed  in  Paris  and  Rome. 
In   outward  respects  these  same  pictures  are  concerned  with  the 
system  of  ideas  everywhere   in   favour  at  the  period,  and  they 
borrow    their    subjects    from    the    Bible    or    classical    antiquity. 
■"Bacchus  and  Ariadne,"  "The  Spartan  Lads,"  "Ulysses  slaying 


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the  Suitors,"  all  painted  before  1816,  are  amongst  the  most 
jejune  works  produced  at  the  time.  But  compared  with  earlier 
Danish  pictures,  and  compared  with  the  classical  productions  of 
contemporaries,  they  are  true  to  nature.  Eckersberg  supplanted 
the  tall,  flabby,  mannered,  swaying  figures  of  Abildgaard,  with 
their  swollen  muscles  and  generalized  faces,  by  stiff  frames  which 
have  no  flow  of  line,  and  earnest  faces  which  know  nothing  of 
the  Cinquecento  ideal  of  beauty.  There  is  nothing  antique  about 
them  except  the  title,  for  the  basis  of  his  art  was  an  absolutely 
accurate  study  of  the  model.  Even  where  he  arranged  human 
beings  in  tableaux  vivants^  illustrating  a  story  provided  by  ancient 
authors,  direct  study  of  nature  was  the  corrective  he  applied  to  the 
mannerism  of  his  time.  And  this  sound  and  thorough  observation 
of  nature,  however  unattractive  it  might  be  in  technique,  is  yet 
more  characteristic  of  his  landscapes.  Even  in  Rome  this  quiet 
Jutlander  had  produced  a  series  of  little  pictures  sharply  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  classical  views  and  drj'  architectural  pieces 
of  his  contemporaries.  For  it  was  not  the  beauty  of  architecture 
as  such  that  had  any  charm  for  him.  The  backyard  of  a  modem 
Roman  hut  gave  him  as  much  pleasure  as  a  classical  ruin,  and 
a  meadow  in  spring  with  blossoming  flowers  was  as  dear  to  him 
as  the  colonnades  of  St.  Peter's.  Here,  too,  were  colour  and 
the  play  of  light.  His  pictures  owed  their  existence  less  to  an 
antiquarian  than  to  a  pictorial  interest,  which  is  saying  a  goo<} 
deal  considering  their  period. 

And  after  Eckersbei^  returned  home  he  remained  the  same,, 
both  in  his  outward  many-sidedness  and  in  the  essential  principle 
of  his  art.  Biblical  pictures  and  altar-paintings  were  ordered 
from  him,  and  he  painted  "  The  Passage  of  the  Israelites  through 
the  Red  Sea"  in  a  very  sensible  fashion,  and  gave  a  thoroughly 
prosaic  paraphrase  of  Raphael  in  his  "  Madonna  as  Queen  of 
Heaven."  From  the  Court  he  received  a  commission  to  decorate 
the  throne-room  of  the  Castle  of  Christiansborg  with  representa- 
tions from  Danish  history,  and  accomplished  this  task  also  in 
an  honourable  and  conscientious  manner.  Everybody  came  to 
him  to  have  portraits  taken,  and  he  satisfied  everybody  by 
making    an    accurate   likeness.      Over  and    above   this   there   is 


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DENMARK  273 

an  important  class  of  pictures  which  were  not  ordered,  and 
show  the  more  clearly  what  he  was  aiming  at  himself:  scenes 
from  everyday  life,  landscapes  and  seascapes.  He  is  the  first 
who,  in  that  age,  which  limited  its  enthusiasm  to  gods  and 
heroes,  carried  out  the  maxim  that  everything  may  be  painted, 
historical  or  present,  sacred  or  profane.  All  his  life  he  maintained 
his  love  of  light  and  air,  land  and  sea.  Sea-pieces,  which  had 
been  neglected  since  Joseph  Vernet,  were  introduced  by  him  into 
art  once  more.  What  distinguished  him,  indeed,  was  an  extra- 
ordinarily pure,  fine,  and  inwardly  felt  conception  of  what  he 
saw  in  reality  in  the  life  of  men,  upon  land  or  water ;  and 
however  dry  and  prosaic  his  pictures  may  be,  they  are  none 
the  less  sincere,  honest,  and  sound.  He  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  meaningless  poses  and  empty  phrases.  Honest  and 
thoroughly  deliberate  observation,  combined  with  severe  restraint 
from  everything  merely  dazzling  to  the  eye,  is  of  the  essence 
of  his  art. 

Even  Ihis  colouring  is  in  this  respect  characteristic.  The 
older  painters,  Juel  and  Abildgaard,  strove  to  effect  an  artistic 
harmony.  They  used  cloying  colours  which  soothed  the  eye, 
and  endeavoured  to  give  their  pictures  the  tone  of  the  old 
masters,  or  that  metallic  brilliancy  which  accorded  with  the 
gilded  decorations  of  the  Rococo  period.  And  Eckersberg  had 
also  proceeded  in  this  fashion  in  his  "Bacchus  with  Ariadne." 
But  afterwards  these  soothing  colours,  aiming  at  decorative 
effiect,  vanished  from  his  works.  .  He  then  endeavoured  to 
render  local  colours  as  faithfully  as  possible  ;  if  they  were  also 
brusque  and  harsh,  he  at  least  rescued  objects  from  the  bath 
of  sauce,  from  the  pictorial  tone,  in  which  Abildgaard  had 
steeped  them,  and  he  placed  them  in  the  open  light  of  day. 
In  him  everything  receives  its  healthy,  natural  illumination,  and 
that  is  principally  what  gives  his  pictures  a  plebeian  effect 
beside  those  of  delicate  Rococo  painters.  In  the  proximity  of 
the  portraits  of  Juel,  harmonized  in  a  golden  tone,  the  figures 
of  Eckersberg  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery  looked  as  if  they  had 
just  washed,  with  such  ingenuousness  and  sincerity  did  he 
place  the  healthy  red  in  the  cheeks  of  his  girls  boldly  against 


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274  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  white  skin.  No  doubt  there  is  a  good*  deal  which  is 
prosaic  and  material  in  this  method  of  creation.  For  the  poetry 
of  colour  he  had  but  little  feeling.  But  when,  after  looking  at 
the  pictures  of  Eckersberg  in  the  Thorwaldsen  Museum,  one's 
gaze  wanders  to  the  "  Sleeping  Girl  *'  of  Rtedel  hanging  opposite, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  outward  prettiness  and  sugary 
coquetry  are  on  the  side  of  the  German,  and  health  and  veracity 
on  that  of  the  Dane. 

Every  one  notices  with  facility  that  Eckersberg's  activity  fell 
in  a  time  when  plastic  art  was  set  above  painting,  and  the 
plastic  element  in  pictures  was  specially  accentuated.  This 
draughtsmanlike  treatment,  which  knows  little  of  the  pictorial 
conception,  is  what  chiefly  gives  his  works  their  antiquated  Mr. 
Eckersberg  paints  things  much  as  they  are  in  themselves,  and 
too  little  does  he  paint  the  impression  received  of  them.  His 
observation  is  positive,  solid,  firm,  but  it  is  not  light  enough 
with  what  is  light,  nor  fleeting  enough  with  what  is  fleeting. 
His  strong  point  is  the  rendering  of  objects  with  opaque 
surfaces  in  hard  daylight  when  everything  is  distinctly  visibla 
Dusk  and  clare-obscure,  which  dissolve  the  outlines  of  things, 
are  no  affair  of  his.  Optical  phenomena,  like  rainbows,  have 
a  heavy  and  material  appearance  in  his  works.  What  the 
moderns  leave  to  be  indistinctly  divined  he  paints  substantially 
and  palpably.  He  is  too  careful  of  outline.  What  a  hard  and 
disagreeable  effect  is  made  by  the  contours  in  his  picture  of  the 
interior  of  the  Colosseum !  In  his  effort  to  attain  outline  and 
local  colour  he  even  gives  them  to  objects  which  have  none. 
The  clouds  look  like  masonry;  the  water,  which  in  its  endless 
variety  is  almost  more  wayward  than  the  air,  and  plays,  at  the 
same  time,  in  bluish,  greenish,  and  whitish  tones,  has  only  one 
hard,  monotonous  colour  in  Eckersberg,  and  no  transparency, 
no  brilliancy  nor  glitter.  It  is  only  when  one  overlooks  these 
defects  that  one  can  enjoy  the  incomparable  study  of  the 
movement  of  the  waves,  and  the  admirable  drawing  of  ships; 
one  may  remember,  indeed,  many  more  effective  seascapes,  but 
few  so  satisfactory  in  the  consideration  of  details. 

In    Eckersberg    everything    has   been    quietly,   logically,   and 


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DENMARK 


275 


EcKERSBERG :  The  Nathanson  Family. 


i  i  flt£r  phota. 


deliberately  thought  out  and  seen  before  being  painted  ;  every 
point  stands  where  it  should  ;  he  has  his  perspective  and  anatomy 
at  his  fingers*  ends.  His  sea-pieces,  with  their  little  ships  rocking 
upon  waves  of  porcelain,  are  frigidly  and  aridly  painted,  but  very 
delicately  observed,  and  drawn  with  great  confidence.  And  his 
portraits,  limited  as  they  are  from  the  pictorial  standpoint,  must 
be  reckoned  amongst  the  best  of  their  period  as  regards  sincerity 
in  the  study  of  nature.  In  the  group  of  the  family  of  the 
merchant  Nathanson,  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery,  he  does  not 
attempt  to  embellish  his  models,  but  attacks  them,  roughly  no 
doubt,  but  straightforwardly.  Certain  of  his  pictures  of  children 
have  a  winning  innocence,  and  some  of  his  portraits  of  women  are 
worthy  of  being  named  beside  those  of  David.  In  particular,  he 
has  painted  with  a  careful  brush  and  much  delicacy  of  feeling  Anne 
Marie  Magnani,  the  friend  of  Thorwaldsen,  and  also  the  master 
himself,  whom  he  revered  as  a  god.  Here  he  has  a  real  touch  of 
greatness  in  spite  of  his  minutely  fine  work  of  detail.  The  head 
and  hands  are  drawn  with  laboured  diffidence,  as  in  all  his  pictures, 


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276 


MODERN  PAINTING 


\X  i 


/: 


ECKERSBERG  :    A   SeASCAPE. 


(.i  Ul^€  /tnu$0» 


and  the  stiff  shirt  painted  with  such  refinement  is  unpictorial. 
But  all  the  more  moving  is  the  infinite,  and  thoroughly  Pre- 
raphaelitish,  devotion  with  which  he  gave  himself  up  to  rendering 
this  head,  the  religious  piety  with  which  he  reproduced  every 
little  hair  and  every  furrow  in  the  face ;  and  by  these  fresh, 
naturalistic  qualities  Eckersberg  has  become  the  ancestor  of 
modern  Danish  art.  Positive  and  realistic,  too  honest  to  make 
a  pretence  of  raising  himself  to  the  level  of  the  great  old  masters 
by  superficial  imitation,  but  all  the  more  zealously  bent  on 
penetrating  the  spirit  of  nature,  and  loving  everything  to  the 
minutest  detail,  weak  in  imagination  but  profound  in  his  feeling 
for  nature — such  was  Eckersberg  himself,  and  such  was  the 
painting  developed  from  the  groundwork  of  his  intuition  of 
nature. 

All  his  pupils — Rorbycy  Kiichler^  Eddelien^  Bendz^  Christen  Kobke, 
Roedy  and  others— were,  like  their  master,  undiluted  naturalists, 
healthy  and   virile,  like  Peter   Hess,   Biirkel,  Franz  Kriiger,  and 


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DENMARK 


^77 


L  Tili^r  phfitii. 


Hermann  Kauflf- 
mann.  Scenes  from 
the  studios  of 
painters,  sculptors, 
and  engravers,  and 
from  the  life  of 
peasants  and 
soldiers,  were  their 
oisual  subjects,  and 
all  their  pictures 
show  that,  under 
the  influence  of  Eck- 
^rsberg,  a  homely 
spirit  of  observation 
had  entered  into 
Danish  artists.  At 
a  time  when  all 
Denmark  was  wild 
over  Oehlenschlager 
and     soft     moonlit 

nights,  they  brought  to  all  their  work  an  entirely  honest  and 
objective  veracity  which  had  no  trace  of  romantic  sentimentality; 
they  never  dreamed  of  beautifying  their  figures,  but  handled 
forms  honestly  as  they  found  them.  Still  less  did  they  feel 
any  temptation  to  treat  life  humorously,  like  the  contemporary 
£enre  painters,  for  they  had  no  higher  aim  than  to  grasp 
seriously  and  with  unfeigned  feeling  what  was  familiar  and 
<iirect  Sonne^  who  is  specially  esteemed  in  Denmark  as  a 
battle-painter,  was  one  of  the  first  to  devote  himself  to  the 
representation  of  the  life  of  the  Danish  people.  He  had  little 
technical  equipment,  but  deep  and  fine  feeling,  and  his  touching 
picture  in  the  National  Gallery,  "The  Sick  at  the  Grave  of 
St  Helen,"  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  works  of  his  generation. 
He  creates  astonishment  by  the  manner  in  which  he  shows 
himself  an  epic  painter  upon  the  grand  scale  in  his  admirable 
sgrafittos — alas!  almost  destroyed  —  upon  the  walls  of  the 
Thorwaldsen  Museum,  where  he   represented   the   return   of  the 


Bbndz  :   "  In  the  Studio." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Sonne  :   "  The  Sick  at  the  Grave  of  St.  Helen." 


ITiligt  photo. 


master  to  Copenhagen,  and  his  enthusiastic  reception  by  his 
countrymen.  Eckersberg's  successor  as  teacher  in  the  Academy 
was  Jdrgen  Roed^  and  as  such  he  maintained  Eckersberg's 
traditions ;  he  proved  himself  specially  eminent  as  a  portrait-^ 
painter,  but  has  also  painted,  quite  in  the  manner  of  his  teacher^ 
good  architectural  pictures,  scenes  from  popular  and  ordinary  life,, 
and  several  religious  works.  He  had  Eckersberg's  confident 
draughtsmanship,  and,  like  Eckersberg  too,  he  had  little  imagina- 
tion or  feeling  for  colour,  albeit  his  colours  are  more  discreet  and 
refined. 

It  is  only  Vilhelm  Marstrand  who  occupies  a  peculiar  position. 
Whereas  Eckersberg  looked  at  nature  with  the  quietly  observant 
eye  of  a  painter,  Marstrand  is  a  genre  painter  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  word — the  only  man  in  Denmark  who  had  "  ideas  ; "  and  he 
is  the  Danish  Wilkie  and  Schroedter,  Madou  and  Biard,  in  one. 
His  contemporaries  did  him  honour  as  the  most  spirited  painter^ 
the  most  gifted  master  of  characterization  in  Denmark,  on  the 
score   of  this   "  broad    and    healthy    humour."      And,    strangely 


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DENMARK 


279 


Marstrand:   "Sunday  on  the  SiljaNsee." 


enough,  even  those  who  are  living  now  cannot  shake  this  opinion. 
What  a  strange  thing  humour  is  in  painting!  In  general  it  is 
as  much  discredited  in  these  days  as  the  dramatic  exaggeration 
of  the  historical  picture.  But  as  there  is  always  a  true  distinction 
between  wild  and  genuine  passion  and  histrionic  gesticulation,  so 
true  humour  should  be  distinguished  from  affected.  Delaroche's 
historical  pictures  fail  in  their  effect,  because,  being  of  a  tame 
and  peaceable  spirit,  he  painted  sanguinary  deeds  with  the 
sf^vageness  of  Mieris ;  and  Adolf  Schroedter's  whimsicalities  are 
equally  lukewarm,  because,  being  a  home-made  and  sober  per- 
sonage, he  produced  them  with  an  insipid,  self-complacent  smile. 
The  theme  was  not  in  accordance  with  their  species  of  talent.  But 
Delacroix  sweeps  one  on  with  him  through  the  whole  gamut 
of  the  passions ;  it  is  not  a  deft  stage-manager,  but  a  bold  spirit 
of  flame  that  is  here  displayed.  And  in  his  narrower  field 
Marstrand  has  likewise  remained  fresh.  The  delights  of  colour 
are  not  demanded  from  him  ;  his  whole  art  is  directed  to  the 
observation  of  the  spirit  The  crooked  nose,  the  blotches  of  a 
toper's  face,  the  heavy  gesture  of  a  dissolute  and  brutalized  man^ 
wrinkled  features  and  vulgar  figures,  merely   serve  to   make  the 


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MODERN  FAINTING 


Marstrand:   "Erasmus  Montanus.** 


\jaig9  photo. 


nature,  trade,  mania,  and  habits  the  more  distinctly  salient. 
Here  we  have  not  forms  and  colours,  but  dissipation,  intem- 
perance, brutality,  cunning,  avarice,  hebetude.  It  is  astonishing 
how  he  brings  out  of  every  figure  the  essence  of  its  being ;  the 
realistic  force  with  which  he  sharpens  characteristic  traits  to 
make  a  character-piece  is  amazing.  To  press  more  deeply  into 
the  forge  where  his  spirit  works,  one  passes  from  his  pictures 
to  his  masterly  sketches  with  the  pen,  and  one  pursues  his 
sparkling  point  and  humour  with  still  greater  interest  where 
colour  makes  no  disturbing  effect.  Marstrand  is  never  weari- 
some, for  he  sets  one  tingling  with  eagerness,  and,  as  he  fully 
accomplishes  his  purpose,  his  art  is  justified ;  in  fact  Marstrand 
offers  a  parallel  in  art  to  the  broad  comedy  of  Holberg,  Baggesen's 
graceful  whim,  and  Heiberg's  extravagant  waywardness. 

From  1829,  when  he  exhibited  his  first  pictures,  as  a  pupil 
of  Eckersberg,  he  entered  at  once  uf)on  this  humorously  satirical 
•course.     He  painted  the  people  of  Copenhagen  and  the  Philistine 


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DENMARK 


281 


Marstrand:    "The  Visit." 


{Tiligt  photo. 


class  in  their  domestic  occupations,  or  the  vagaries  of  tavern  life, 
men  shaving  and  making  comical  faces  over  the  process, 
miserable  rejected  suitors,  or  family  parties  with  gay  interludes. 
And  with  his  eye  for  humour  he  saw  matters  which  were  just 
as  droll  in  Italy,  where  he  stayed  for  the  first  time  from  1836 
to  1843.  His  "Festival  of  St  Anthony  in  Rome"  is  a  pyro- 
technical  display  of  wit  and  humour,  and  his  Italian  vintage 
scenes  are  full  of  waggish  fun  and  comical  resource. 

He  was,  therefore,  altogether  in  his  element  when  he  painted 
the  celebrated  pictures  on  Holberg's  comedies  after  his  return^ 
and  these  occupied  him  during  several  years.  Whereas  Lorentzen 
and  Eckersberg  attempted  the  illustration  of  the  Danish  Molifere 
without  much  felicity,  Marstrand  struck  the  popular  tone  quite 
admirably.  In  1844  he  executed  the  "finery  scene*'  from 
Erasmus  Montanus,  the  following  year  the  "  Visit  to  the  Woman 

VOL.  III.  19 


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^8^  MODERN  PAINTING 

Lying-in/'  in  1852  the  "Collegium  Politicum/'  and  in  1859  the^ 
*'  coffee  scene "  from  the  Would-be  Politicians  and  the  ^*  court 
scene"  from  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck.  Marstrand  had,  indeed, 
a  spiritual  affinity  with  Holberg,  and  thus  moved  with  the 
greater  freedom  in  this  field.  His  "  Visit  to  the  Woman  Lying- 
in  "  would  do  honour  to  Hogarth,  with  such  satirical  keenness  are 
the  characters  brought  out  The  illustrations  to  Holberg  drawn, 
not  so  long  since,  by  Hans  Tegner,  and  with  a  spirited  and 
graceful  pen,  have  not  thrown  these  Marstrand  pictures  into  the 
shade.  In  addition  to  Holberg,  Don  Quixote  was  a  constant 
inspiration  to  him,  and  one  should  place  the  tedious  illustrations 
of  Adolf  Schroedter  beside  his  to  see  the  high  flight  of 
Marstrand's  fancy. 

Indeed  Marstrand  was  a  most  various  painter.  His  com- 
prehensive work,  "Sunday  on  the  Siljansee,"  executed  in  1853, 
without  having  any  of  the  "points"  of  genre  painting,  has 
been  kept  more  or  less  in  the  style  of  Teniers'  great  picture 
of  the  fair.  And  in  another  picture,  "  The  Visit."  of  1 857, 
the  satirist  has  become  a  tender,  idyllic  poet  A  peaceful 
atmosphere  of  Sunday  rests  upon  an  old  room  with  solid  furni- 
ture, where  one  perceives  that  throughout  generations  the  same 
family  has  lived  in  easy  prosperity.  It  is  this  very  interior 
alone  which  gives  the  whole  its  homely  Sunday  air.  And  here 
we  have  the  familiar  visage  of  a  young  man  who  is  courting  a 
girl.  A  handsome  naval  officer  has  entered  the  room,  and  laid 
upon  the  table  a  little  bouquet  neatly  tied  up.  The  young  lady 
has  given  him  her  thanks  in  a  subdued  voice,  and  her  aged 
mother  casts  meaning  glances  at  her,  while  an  embarrassing 
pause  has  interrupted  conversation.  Thus  it  is  a  genre  picture, 
though  one  which  has  been  rendered  with  great  charm. 

Meanwhile  he  had  made  repeated  journeys  to  the  South,  to 
Venice  and  Rome,  and  painted,  as  a  result,  a  series  of  life-size 
Italian  pictures  in  the  fashion  of  Riedel:  girls  at  the  doors  of 
inns,  children  playing  with  cats,  hunters  languishing  in  love,  and 
the  like.  His  treatment,  which  was  at  first  ornamental  and 
smooth,  seems  broader  in  these  later  works,  and  aims  more  at 
magnitude ;    the  colouring,  which    was  at   first  cold,  is   warmer 


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DENMARK  283 

and  deeper,  but  at  the  same  time  darker  and  more  suggestive 
.of  sauce.  The  evil  influence  of  these  journeys  was  that  the 
liumourist  of  earlier  days,  in  his  last  period  became  solemn,  and 
painted  Church  pictures.  "  Christ  with  His  Disciples  in  Emmaus  " 
was  executed  in  1856,  and  his  "Feast  of  Christ,"  which  was 
crowded  with  figures,  in  1869:  as  a  piece  of  composition  this 
latter  has  striking  beauty,  but  it  is  of  little  pictorial  value.  The 
best  work  of  his  last  years  is  a  series  of  portraits,  amongst 
which  are  those  of  Madame  Heiberg,  the  painter  Constantin 
Hansen,  and  Professor  Hoyen.  But  here  also  Marstrand's 
strength  does  not  lie  in  the  loving  observation  of  detail,  though 
the  old  satirist  possessed  a  keen  eye  for  soul  and  character,  and 
had  the  secret  of  giving  his  pictures  something  remarkably 
spontaneous,  living,  and  spirited. 

Yet  his  influence  was  a  danger  to  the  further  development 
of  Danish  painting.  His  life  was  divided  between  Italy  and 
Denmark,  and  by  him,  if  for  a  short  time  only,  Danish  painting 
was  alienated  from  the  soil  of  home.  The  rage  for  travelling  to 
Italy  and  the  East  came  into  vogue. 

A  large  Danish  colony  was  active  in  Rome  about  1840,  and 
a  halting  place  was  often  made  in  the  Munich  of  Ludwig  I. 
Here  it  was  that  Bendz  painted  that  fine  picture  of  Finck's  Cafe 
which  may  be  found  in  the  Thorwaldsen  Museum.  Ernst  Meyery 
who  studied  long  under  Cornelius,  threw  himself  with  great 
2cal  into  the  representation  of  Roman  and  Neapolitan  street- 
life.  KiUhler,  who  afterwards  became  a  monk  in  Italy,  painted, 
to  say  nothing  of  representations  of  street-life,  religious  pictures 
— "Joseph  and  his  Brethren,"  and  the  like — Diisseldorfian  in 
-colour,  but  free  from  sentimentalism.  Constantin  Hansen^  in  his 
mythological  frescoes  in  the  entrance  hall  of  the  University  of 
Copenhagen — where  Hilker  painted  the  ornamental  decorations — 
endeavoured,  after  the  example  of  sculptors,  to  introduce  the 
world  of  Northern  gods  into  Danish  painting,  and  he  is  also 
lepresented,  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery,  by  scenes  from  Naples 
and  prospects  of  Roman  ruins.  The  pictures  of  /.  A,  Krafft^ 
who  was  several  years  senior,  and  of  the  landscape-painter 
Fetzholdty  are  more  or  less  of  a  parallel  to   the   little    Italian 


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a84  •    MODERN  PAINTING 

pictures  of  Biirkel.  Niels  Sintonsen,  the  battle-painter,  made 
a  journey  to  Africa  and  returned  with  pictures  of  the  desert 
And  Rorbye,  also,  set  himself  to  satisfy  the  demand  for  Eastern 
pictures. 

In  his  novel  Only  a  Fiddler  Andersen  has  given  a  delightful 
account  of  the  life  of  Danish  artists  at  that  time  in  Rome, 
their  strenuous  work  and  their  jovial  meetings,  when  the 
"  Pontemolle "  was  celebrated  in  the  Caf6  Greco.  "  The  walls," 
writes  Andersen,  "were  hung  with  crowns,  and  in  the  centre 
a  garland  of  oak-leaves  formed  an  O  and  a  T,  indicating  the 
names  Overbeck  and  Thorwaldsen.  On  the  benches  round 
the  tables  artists  were  seated,  both  old  and  young,  most  of 
them  being  Germans,  with  whom  tavern  life  has  its  origin. 
They  had  all  of  them  moustaches,  beards,  and  whiskers,  and 
certain  of  them  wore  their  hair  in  long  locks.  Some  sat  in  their 
shirt-sleeves,  and  others  in  blouses.  Here  the  famous  old 
Reinhart  was  to  be  seen  in  his  buff  waistcoat,  with  a  red  cap 
on  his  head.  His  dog  was  tied  to  the  leg  of  his  chair,  and 
yelped  lustily  in  company  with  another  dog  close  by.  There 
sat  Koch,  the  Tyrolese,  the  old  artist  with  a  jovial  face.  There 
sat  Overbeck  with  bare  neck  and  long  locks  streaming  over  his 
white  collar,  dressed  like  Raphael."  And  Emil  Hannover  in  his 
subtile  and  thoughtful  book  on  Kobke  justly  points  out  of 
what  importance  Italy  and  intercourse  with  the  Nazarenes  really 
were  for  Danish  artists  at  the  time.  They  learnt  to  accomplish 
with  skill  the  monumental  tasks  set  them  in  Denmark  during 
the  thirties,  and  acquired  a  feeling  for  beauty  of  form  and 
rounded  composition.  But  they  were  drawn  aside  from  the 
sound  course  of  Eckersberg.  What  they  achieved  in  the  way^ 
of  decorative  paintings  rested  purely  upon  study  of  the  old 
masters.  And  Italian  representation  of  popular  life  led  to  the 
same  ethnographical  painting  of  costume,  and  sentimental 
romanticism  in  dealing  with  robbers,  which  flourished  everywhere 
else  at  the  time.  Even  the  German  principles  of  instruction, 
communicated  to  them  by  Ernst  Meyer,  brought  half-measures- 
into  Eckersberg's  naturalism.  A  visit  to  the  Copenhagen  col- 
lection of  engravings  on  copper  proves  that,  during  those  years,. 


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DENMARK  285 

work  was  scarcely  ever  done  after  painted  studies,  but  simply 
from  drawings.  There  was  a  general  "theory  of  colours"— of 
which  Ludwig  Richter  has  also  written  in  his  Lebenserinnerungen 
— and  artists  noted  rapidly  with  a  pencil  upon  the  leaves  of 
sketches  the  colours  which  were  to  be  employed  later.  Many 
lent  such  drawings  to  each  other  to  be  used  for  pictures 
reciprocally.  And  plaster  heads  and  the  ideal  of  beauty  likewise 
exercised  their  influence,  which  was  deadly  to  the  spirit 

It  was  the  great  national  movement  resulting  in  the  democratic 
constitution  and  the  war  with  Germany,  the  period  from  1848 
to  1850,  which  first  threw  Danish  painting  back  upon  its  own 
resources.  This  mood  found  its  earliest  expression  in  the 
writings  of  the  able  historian  of  art  N.  HOyen,  who  fought 
through  a  long  life  with  all  the  power  of  unusual  eloquence  to 
bind  the  practice  of  art  more  narrowly  than  before  with  the 
life  of  the  nation.  A  land  which  had  given  Thorwaldsen  to 
the  world,  he  urged  in  a  lecture  on  March  23rd,  1844,  On  the 
Conditions  for  the  Development  of  a  National  Scandinavian  Art, 
should  not  perish  by  the  imitation  of  alien  methods,  but  ought 
to  have  the  pride  to  secure  for  itself  a  peculiar  position  in 
European  painting.  What,  he  went  on,  was  only  possible  upon  the 
path  indicated  by  Eckersberg,  was  to  portray  what  lived  in  the 
spirit  of  the  people.  The  Danish  artist  had  in  the  first  place 
to  learn  to  feel  at  home  in  his  own  country.  Here  were  the 
tough  roots  of  his  strength.  Only  in  this  way  could  Danish 
art,  like  the  Danish  language  and  poetry,  find  a  peculiar. 
Northern  method  of  expression.  Upon  the  Danish  islands  it 
was  that  painters  should  study  the  people,  not  for  the  sake  of 
bringing  home  pictures  of  costume,  but  to  become  familiar,  on 
all  sides,  with  the  bluff,  serious  life  of  nature,  and  the  rough- 
grained  fisher-folk.  When  they  once  succeeded  in  marking  the 
original  peculiarities  of  race  in  the  people  itself,  and  seizing 
the  character  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  North  in  all  its  in- 
dividuality, it  would,  perhaps,  be  possible  for  a  grand  art,  with 
a  special  seal  of  its  own,  to  be  developed  in  Denmark.  After 
this  lecture  of  Hoyen,  a  new  impulse  is  to  be  noted  in  Danish 
painting  of  landscape  and   popular  life.     Italy  and  Rome  were 


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^ 

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— ; 

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Copenhaggn  :  Stockholm. 1 


Exner:   "The  Little  Convalescent." 

no  longer  a  meeting-place  for  artists.  The  generation  of  painters 
which  had  grown  up  amid  the  ideas  of  freedom  and  nationality 
which  shook  the  country  before  the  war  of  1848  had  no  higher 
ambition  than  to  depict  Danish  life,  and  that  no  longer  in  a 
mocking  fashion  like  Marstrand,  but  with  cordiality  and  devotion. 

Neither  Vermehren,  nor  Dalsgaard,  nor  Exner,  know  anything 
of  the  forced  humour  of  genrCy  which  existed  at  that  time  upon 
the  Continent.  Nor  do  they  take  pains  to  instruct  an  international 
public  as  to  customs  and  usages  in  Denmark.  They  painted 
simply  what  had  for  them  pictorial  attraction,  and,  despite  their 
angular  and  detailed  treatment,  and  their  monotonous  style,  so- 
void  of  charm,  they,  in  this  way,  make  some  approach  to  the 
quiet  poetry  which  is  delightful  in  the  old  Dutch  masters. 

The  least  refined  of  the  trio  \s  Julius  Exner ^  and  he  often  comes 
perilously  near  the  line  where  what  is  child-like  becomes  childish 
and  what  is  sweet  becomes  sugary.  Generally  speaking  Exner 
revolves  in  a  prescribed  circle  of  subjects :  old  men  in  night-caps 
sealing  letters  by  candle-light,  village  inns  where  there  is  dancing 


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'  •      DENMARK, .  iSt 

and  people  are  drinking  punch,  fish- women  with  a  red  kercKief 
before  a  cup  of  coffee,  lads  and  lasses  telling  each  other's  fortunes 
by  cards,  children  going  to  see  their  grandfather  on  Sunday,  old 
men  offering  little  girls  flowers  to  smell,  little  cousins  playing  with 
a  baby  who  has  just  been  christened,  young  peasant  mothers 
putting  their  children  to  bed,  musicians  playing  at  a  wedding, 
baptisms,  blind-man's-buff,  and  children  sharing  their  breakfast 
with  cats  and  ravens  or  watching  their  father  puffing  clouds  of 
smoke  for  their  edification.  In  him  preponderates  the  ethno- 
graphical element — old-world  chambers  and  gaudy  national 
costumes  which  have  held  their  ground  upon  the  islands  of 
Amager  and  Fano.  The  figures  are  sometimes  life-size,  which 
makes  the  vulgar  colouring  all  the  more  obvious,  and  the  faces 
are  often  contorted  like  masks.  Nevertheless  several  of  his 
earlier  pictures  of  children  are  not  yet  antiquated.  They  have 
something  of  the  homely  simplicity  of  Ludwig  Richter.  In  an 
age  when  German  painters  merely  turned  children  to  account  for 
comic  situations,  or  showed  off  their  precocious  humour,  Exner 
portrayed  the  inward  life  of  little  people  without  mawkishness  or 
deliberate  comicality.  His  rosy-cheeked  girls  are  all  scrubbed 
and  combed  and  prettily  dressed  up,  yet  they  are  far  more  human 
than  the  little  angels  of  Meyer  of  Bremen.  Even  in  the  simple' 
picture  of  the  little  convalescent  receiving  a  visit  from  her  friends 
every  species  of  cheap  humour  has  been  avoided.  The  girl  has 
the  sense  of  having  gone  through  something  serious ;  and  seriously 
and  with  diffidence  do  the  others  advance  towards  her. 

In  Frederik  Vert^ehren  Danish  reality  becomes  something 
almost  arid.  His  pictures  have  no  substratum  of  genre  that  can 
be  set  down  in  so  many  words.  An  old  man  who  delivers  bread 
for  a  baker  at  distant  farms,  tired  with  walking  in  the  noonday 
sun  which  broods  over  the  heath,  has  sat  down  upon  a  milestone, 
and  is  looking  mildly  and  vacantly  before  him.  In  the  poor  and 
wretched  heath  tract  of  Jutland  a  shepherd  is  standing,  a  strange 
figure,  the  living  product  of  this  rude  soil,  one  accustomed  to  live 
with  no  other  companions  than  his  lonely  thoughts,  his  sheep, 
and  his  dog.  He  neither  whistles  nor. does  anything  funny,  as 
he  certainly  must  have  done  in  German  genre  pictures.      As  a 


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Vermehren :   " A  Farmyard/ 


[Tiltgt  photo. 


matter  of  fact  he  is  knitting  socks.  A  strange  air  of  sadness  is 
in  his  gaze.  It  is  as  if  he  himself  felt  the  contrast  between  the 
boundless  horizon  and  the  limited  ideas  of  his  own  brain,  which 
rise  no  higher  than  the  stunted  bushes  of  the  heath.  Or  else 
there  is  the  strand  of  the  fishing  village  of  Hellebaek  on  a  bright 
summer  evening  without  a  breath  of  wind.  Ships  pass  far  out 
upon  the  smooth,  glassy  sea.  And  a  pair  of  children  are  playing 
by  the  water's  edge,  and  an  old  fisher  sits  upon  a  stone  with  a 
great  basket  of  muscles.  He  is  doing  nothing  interesting,  and 
contents  himself  with  quietly  breathing  the  pure  salt  air  and 
gazing  without  a  thought  in  his  mind  upon  the  sea.  Or,  again, 
there  is  a  poor  peasant's  room  with  a  cosy  old  tiled  stove.  Warm 
light  streams  in  through  the  open  door  and  mingles  with  the 
dull  atmosphere  of  the  chamber.  Everything  is  quite  still  inside. 
Upon  a  bench  by  the  stove  a  little  old  woman  is  sitting,  shelling 
peas^  while  a  girl  of  ten  years  old  is  at  her  feet  entirely  occupied 
with  her  book.     Each  of  them  has  her  own  ideas.     The  little  one 


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DENMARK 


289 


is  reading  in  Bible  history  about 
Abraham  and  Joseph,  while  the 
old  woman  sits  in  quiet  com- 
merce with  far-off  memories. 
And  time  goes  by  unmarked 
by  them  both.  Or  there  are 
a  pair  of  poor  orphan  children, 
the  girl  with  a  large  canvas 
wallet  and  the  boy  with  an  old 
basket :  they  are  going  on  their 
usual  morning  round,  begging 
alms,  and  have  just  entered  a 
peasant's  kitchen ;  the  carefully 
burnished  pots  and  pans  giving 
no  evidence  of  prosperity,  but 
much  of  cleanliness  and  the 
sense  for  order.  A  German 
genre  painter  would  have  set 
the  housewife  and  the  children 
into  some  relation  with  the 
public.  In  bestowing  a  piece 
of  bread-and-butter  the  woman 
would  have  assuredly  said  to 
the  spectator,  "  See  what  a  good 
heart  I  have."  The  children 
in  receiving  it  would  have  said, 
'*See  how  ashamed  we  feel  to 
be  begging."  In  Vermehren  the  old  woman  has  cut  the  hunch 
of  bread  without  any  sentimentality  simply  because  it  is 
customary,  and  the  childi'en  take  it  quite  as  quietly  and  without 
affected  gratitude.  They  are  accustomed  to  waiting  and  begging. 
Even  when  cavalry  soldiers  are  burnishing  their  sabres,  they  are 
altogether  quiet  and  serious  about  it  in  Vermehren,  and  do  not 
indulge  in  laughter,  song,  or  humorous  behaviour. 

Christen  Dcdsgaard  is  far  more  important  than  either,  and 
fascinates  the  beholder  by  the  fine  manner  in  which  he  analyzes 
the   inward  life  of  men  and  women^not  so   much   the  obvious 


Coptnhagtn:  :^tocAhoim.j 
Vermehren:   *'The  Shepherd  on  the 
Heath." 


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external  emotions 
of  joy  and  sor- 
row, as  the  more 
refined  shades  of 
reflection,  consi- 
deration, quietude, 
deliberate  thought 
Like  Vermehren, 
he  paints  exclu- 
sively the  peasants 
of  his  home,  and, 
being  a  peasant's 
son  himself,  he 
does  so  simply, 
and  from  the 
standpoint  of  the 
peasant.  Women 
mending  nets,  the 
workshop  of  a  vil- 
lage carpenter,  an 
old  fisher  jesting 
with  girls,  the  gunner  on  furlough,  the  shepherd  distrained  for 
rent,  and  the  churching  of  a  young  wife  are  the  subjects  of 
pictures  which  represent  him  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery — ^works 
of  simple  cordiality  and  fine  psychological  depth. 

In  characterization  Dalsgaard  is  the  very  opposite  of 
Knaus,  discreetly  indicating  what  the  latter  would  obtrusively 
mark  in  italics.  This  delicate  pictorial  observation,  which 
preserves  him  from  all  false  ingenuity,  and  from  narrative  and 
humorous  tendency,  renders  him  congenial  even  in  these  days. 
His  pictures  are  not  produced  through  any  stitching  together  of 
separate  pictorial  notes,  but  through  an  inward  unity  of  the 
whole.  Nor  does  he  seek  those  catastrophes  and  complications 
without  which,  in  the  days  of  historical  painting,  the  picture  of 
manners  could  not  exist  in  other  countries ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
has  a  preference  for  quiet  life  in  nature  and  in  the  world  of  men. 
Just  as  he  delights  in  the  serene  and  peaceful  sky,  so  does  he  takfe 


Vermehren:  "The  Peasant's  Cottage,'* 


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DENMARK 


«9^i 


delight  in  the  life 
of  men  in  its  repose, 
and  shows  this  in 
his  pictures  as  in  a 
clear  mirror.  There 
are  no  hasty  move- 
ments, and  none 
of  that  transitory 
play  of  countenance 
which  is  so  often 
forced.  The  lyrical 
character  and  the 
charm  of  tempera- 
ment in  his  pictures 
rise  from  the  depth 
and  earnestness  with 
which  he  loses  him- 
self in  the  quiet 
poetry  of  ordinary 
life.  Thanks  to  the 
seclusion  •  of  their 
country,  the  Danes- 
were  not  tempted  to 

prepare  their  works  for  the  picture  market  Thus  they  avoid  the 
painting  of  anecdote,  all  significant  moments,  and  the  celebration 
of  interesting  festivities.  They  depict  the  silent  life  of  customary 
behaviour,  and,  even  here,  only  the  subdued  and  more  reserved 
feelings :  they  have  no  care  for  agitated  action,  no  dramatic  inter- 
play of  characters ;  but  merely  the  life  of  every  day,  in  its  con- 
sistent, regular  course,  the  poetry  of  habitual  existence.  Nothing 
extraordinary  is  represented  in  their  pictures,  and  having  no 
desire  to  seem  ingenious  they  do  not  go  to  pieces  on  the  danger- 
ous reef  of  triviality.  In  an  age  when  the  genre  painters  of  the 
Continent  placed  models  in  costume  in  some  arbitrary  situation 
and  against  some  arbitrary  background,  and  there  set  them  acting 
in  a  little  theatre  for  marionnettes,  the  essential  principle  of  art 
in  Denmark  was  *^fnettre  Fhomme  vrai  dans  son  milieu  vraiJ* 


[Tillgt  photo, 
Verhehren:  "Visiting  the  Sick." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


The  landscape- 
painters  went  hand- 
in-hand  with  these 
painters  of  peasants. 
It  was  precisely  here 
that  Eckersberg's 
strict  observation 
of  nature,  although 
he  neither  painted 
many  nor  great 
landscapes,  created 
a  firm  basis.  Once 
when  a  pupil  laid 
before  him  a  picture 
"  of  his  own  compo- 
sition "  for  criticism, 
Eckersberg  said  to 
him :  **  My  good 
pupils  always  wish 
to  do  better  than 
God  Almighty  ;  they  ought  to  be  glad  if  they  could  only  do  as 
well.'*  These  words  were  not  forgotten  by  his  successors.  True, 
the  older  Danish  landscapes  were  called  "  Boredom  painted  gjreen 
on  green"  by  a  German  critic  in  1871.  But  since  we  have  ad- 
vanced so  far  as  to  be  out  of  charity  with  the  forced  sentiment 
of  the  German  "  pictures  of  mood  "  of  that  period,  the  temperate 
charm  of  these  Danish  works  finds  a  more  responsive  eye.  This 
painting  of  landscape  is  not  the  result  of  any  backward  glance 
cast  upon  that  of  the  past  nor  of  any  side-glance  upon  that  of 
contemporaries.  In  an  epoch  when  only  the  clamorous  splendours 
of  nature  in  alien  parts  were  elsewhere  held  worthy  of  pictorial 
representation,  the  Danes  buried  themselves  with  tender  devotion 
in  the  peculiar  character  of  their  island  country ;  they  have 
not  wearied  of  faithfully  portraying  its  heaths  and  forests,  its 
level  regions  along  the  coast,  and  its  grass-green  beech-woods. 
Everywhere  a  discreet  homeliness  and  an  absence  of  painting 
for    effect    is    the    rule.      The    delicate    intimacy  of  nature   in 


\Tillgt  photo. 
Dalsgaard:  ''Children  on  the  Doorstep." 


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DENMARK 


«93 


Denmark  has  the 
purely  original  fresh- 
ness of  something 
newly  discovered. 

Christen  KobkCy 
who  died  young, 
one  of  the  most 
talented  pupils  of 
Eckersberg,  and  an 
admirable  portrait- 
painter  beside, 
painted  the  poor 
and  still  growing 
tracts  environing 
the  great  town — 
strips  from  those 
districts  which  are 
almost  as  much 
town  as  country, 
those  smooth,  placid 
regions,  so  melan- 
choly in  their  poverty,  which  were  brought  into  art  at  a  far  later 
date  in  France  and  Germany. 

An  excellent  painter  of  animals  and  a  powerful  and  attractive 
master  was  Johann  Thomas  Lundbye,  who  set  his  models  straight 
in  front  of  him  and  transferred  them  to  canvas  with  a  thoroughly 
Northern  keenness  of  eye.  His  pictures — cowsheds,  grazing 
cattle,  and  forest  landscapes — are  perhaps  wanting,  like  all  of 
their  period,  in  the  features  of  greatness,  but  they  rarely  fail 
in  charm.  Lundbye  observed  the  somnolent  temperament  of 
cows  with  remarkable  energy  before  Troyon,  and  without  seeking 
droll  and  entertaining  points  like  Landseer.  As  a  landscape- 
painter  he  has,  at  times,  bright  tender  notes,  skies  of  fine 
silvery  blue,  which  evince  an  exceedingly  delicate  eye  for  colour. 
And  his  pen-and-ink  drawings  and  clear,  spirited  water-colours 
are  entirely  charming,  almost  French  in  their  grace,  and  of  a  bold 
simplicity ;  and  the  simpler  the  medium  the  more  eloquent  he  is. 


Copenhagen  :  Stockholm.] 

Dalsgaard  :  **  Waiting." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


LUNDBYE  :    *'  Cows   IN   A    MeADOW.'* 


ITUt^  photo. 


But  Lundbye  did  not  quite  live  through  one  human  generation, 
for  he  perished  as  a  volunteer  in  the  war  of  1848,  which  also 
robbed  Denmark  of  another  gifted  painter  of  animals  in  Carlo 
Dalgas.  Yet  a  number  of  others,  who  were  accorded  a  longer 
period  for  their  labours,  followed  him  upon  his  course. 

The  gifted  interpreter  of  the  beauty  of  Danish  beech-woods, 
Peter  Christian  Skovgaard^  was  the  son  of  a  peasant  belonging 
to  the  north  coast  of  Zealand.  His  mother  travelled  every 
year  with  the  children  to  her  parents  in  Copenhagen  y  and 
the  lad  was  driven  in  a  tilt-cart  along  the  Kattegut  by  the 
steel-blue  sea,  and  through  the  luxuriant  forests  of  Frederiksborg. 
Here  the  austere  grandeur  of  Northern  landscape  was  revealed 
to  him.  The  long  bridge  in  Copenhagen  with  its  old  toll-house 
in  moonlight  was  the  subject  of  the  first  small  picture  which 
he  sent  to  the  exhibition  of  the  Copenhagen  Academy  in  1836 ; 
and  it  is  the  only  moonlight  picture  which  exists  by  him. 
All  lyrical  vagueness  indeed  was  foreign  to  him ;  he  was  a 
portrait-painter,    precise,    analytical,   and    severe,   one    who  saw 


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295 


Copnthagm  :  Stockholm. "l 

Skovgaard  :  "  Sunday  Morning  at  the  Thiergarten.'* 

what  was  distant  with  a  keen  eye,  and  saw  it  as  distinctly  as 
what  was  near.  His  pervasive  characteristic  is^  absohite  reality 
and  plainness;  his.  favourite  light  was  the  cold,  pale  d^y,  the 
sober  blue  of  the  Northern  sky.  His  earliest  picture— one  of 
1839— which  represents  him  in  the  gallery  of  Christiansboi^,  is 
"A  Part  of  the  Tidsvilder  Forest."  From  the  high  hills,  over- 
grown with  brushwood,  where  a  family  of  foxes  are  lurking 
in  front,  there  is  a  wide  prospect  of  the  sea,  above  which 
arches  a  clear,  silver-grey  sky ;  gravel  paths  lead  through  the 
wood,  and  the  grass  is  mown.  At  a  period  when  the  German 
Romanticists  regarded  "civilized  nature"  as  wanting  in  beauty, 
and  only  felt  at  home  in  mediaeval  landscapes,  Skovgaard  painted 
without  a  moment's  reflection  Danish  scenes  as  they  were 
in  the  neighbourhood,  with  their  cultivation,  their  canals  and 
paths.  Sometimes  these  are  parts  of  the  strand,  sometimes 
woodland  clearings  from  the  southern  point  of  Zealand ;  every- 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Cop4nhagtus  UtockholmJ] 


Kyhn  :  Landscape. 


where  there  was  the  clear  grey  sky  and  the  fresh  sea  air 
which  he  loved.  After  1847  he  settled  himself  in  the  park 
at  Copenhagen,  and  no  one  has  explored  its  secrets  with  the 
same  zeaL  The  pleasant  clearings  in  the  forest,  with  roes, 
fallow-deer,  and  storks,  the  still  sheets  of  water  amid  young 
verdant  wood,  the  little  leaves  of  which,  glancing  in  the  sun, 
cast  greenish  reflections  of  themselves  in  the  water — these  have 
been  felt  with  much  subtilty  and  intimacy.  With  his  steel- 
coloured  tones  and  his  cold,  clear  air,  Skovgaard,  who  seems 
such  a  sober  master,  and  so  fond  of  the  broad  daylight,  has 
the  secret  of  creating  effects  which  are  altogether  seductive. 

Vilhelm  Kyhn,  who  is  still  living,  and  appears  to  grow 
better  and  more  young  and  vigorous  with  years,  is  the  poet 
amongst  these  Danes— a  man  of  virile  artistic  nature,  of  great 
truthfulness,  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  rich  and  deep  inward 
feeling,  one  who  sees  in  nature  the  mirror  of  his  own  restless 
spirit  He  has  a  sentiment  for  wide  plains  and  great  lines,  for 
nature's  austere  and  earnest  rhythm  of  form.  The  poetry  of 
his  pictures  has  kinship  with  the  old  Danish  ballads :  their 
technique  is  rough  and  angular,  their  mood  serious  and 
melancholy.       Great    thunderclouds     roll     over    endless     plains 


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DENMARK 


297 


Copenhagen:  Stoekholm.l 


Rump:  A  Spring  Landscape. 


overgrown  with  low  brushwood.  Or  a  fresh  breeze  blows  the 
light  clouds  swiftly  over  the  blue  sky.  The  air  rises  clear  and 
high  over  the  forest  trees,  and  allows  the  eye  to  range  over 
bright .  distances,  bounded  by  hills. 

Spring  is  what  attracts  Got/red  Rump,  those  clear  March 
days  when  the  snow  melts  on  the  fields,  and  a  fresh,  fine, 
yellowish  verdure  breaks  forth.  The  Copenhagen  Gallery 
possesses  a  spring  landscape  by  him  of  the  park  of  Frederiks- 
borg,  which  makes  an  exceedingly  delicate  and  intimate  effect 
in  its  intense  bright  green  tones,  in  spite  of  the  want  of  air. 
Other  masters  command  more  forcible  tones,  higher  imaginative 
power,  and  more  dramatic  chords,  but  few  had  such  moving 
tenderness,  such  sincerity,  such  simplicity,  such  freshness. 

At  the  same  time  Anton  Melbye,  Emanuel  Larsen,  and 
Frederik  Sorensen  appeared  with  their  sea-pieces,  in  which  they 
•depicted  for  the  expert  merchant  circles  of  Copenhagen  the  sea, 
and  did  this  with  an  unsurpassable  technical  knowledge  of 
3hips,  navigation,  waves,  and  wind.  Melbye  especially  is  one 
VOL.  iiL  20 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Coptnhagtn  :  Stockholm.^ 


Melbye:  "The  Lighthouse." 


of  the  most  admirable  sea-painters  of  all  times  ;  even  during 
his  life  he  was  highly  esteemed  in  foreign  countries,  and  his 
pictures  are  most  readily  to  be  found  in  Hamburg  and  St. 
Petersburg.  He  had  a  more  masculine  temperament  than  other 
Danish  painters,  and  has  often  portrayed  the  powerful  dramas 
of  the  sea  with  magnificent  force  of  conception. 

The  old  Danish  painting  is  healthy  nutriment,  a  painting 
strong  in  substance.  It  is  striking  in  all  productions  by  its 
loving  and  sympathetic  understanding  for  nature,  and  by  giving 
that  sense  of  the  artist  having  lost  himself  in  a  little  world,  a 
thing  which  also  gives  its  imperishable  charm  to  old  Dutch 
painting.  And  so,  at  a  later  time,  when,  after  the  victory  over 
stereotyped  Classicism,  over  the  exaggeration  of  historical 
painting,  over  middle-class  genre  humour,  and  over  the  loud 
effects  of  illustrative  landscape-painting,  delicacy  and  the 
poetry  of  nature,  truth  and  sincerity,  healthy  feeling  and 
simplicity  forced  their  way  everywhere  into  European  art  once 
more,  the  Danes  had  nothing  to  learn  over  again,  as  was  the 
case  with  most  other  nations. 


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DENMARK  299 

But  if  they  had  nothing  to  learn  over  again  they  had  to 
make  very  great  additions  to  their  knowledge  in  the  matter  of 
technique. 

Since  all  these  painters  had  been  practically  thrown  upon 
their  own  resources,  their  technique  was  always  crude  and  la- 
boriously childish.  There  is,  in  all  their  pictures,  a  circumspect, 
diffident  manner  of  seeing  nature,  while  the  painting  is  frequently 
suggestive  of  an  oil  print,  and  thin  and  arid  ;  the  intimate  warmth 
of  their  feeling  suffers  under  the  smooth  varnish  of  the  treat- 
ment And  any  removal  of  these  defects  seemed  all  the  less 
possible  since  a  diffident  system  of  isolation  predominated  down 
to  the  sixties.  Dreading  alien  influences,  artists  were  deter- 
mined to  be  thrown  upon  their  own  resources,  and  cherished 
the  childish  fancy  that  Denmark  was  the  whole  world.  So  the 
great  movement  which  was  then  accomplished  in  France  did 
not  penetrate  at  all  into  this  quiet  corner  of  the  earth ;  nothing 
'was  known  of  the  delicate  and  veiled  harmonies  of  Corot,  nor 
of  the  powerful  solidity  of  Courbet.  Hoyen  desired  an  art 
drawing  inspiration  from  the  soil  of  home,  and  in  this  he  was 
not  wrong ;  only  he  forgot  that  technical  improvements — like 
all  newly  discovered  truths — belong  to  the  whole  world,  and 
that  the  most  various  matters  may  be  expressed  by  the  same 
method.  The  consequence  of  this  Wall  of  China  was,  that 
Denmark,  in  the  sixties,  had  at  its  disposal  merely  a  backward 
technique  which  had  stiffened  in  old  forms,  one  which  had 
grown  stale  by  resisting  renovation.  In  reference  to  the  World 
Exhibition  of  1867,  it  was  said  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts : 
"Amongst  all  the  rooms  of  the  Champs  de  Mars  the  little 
Danish  room  is  certainly  the  coldest  and  most  melancholy.*' 
Julius  Lange  had  written  the  introduction  to  the  Danish  cata- 
logue, in  which  he  expatiated  eloquently  upon  the  national 
principles  of  the  Danish  school.  But  the  critic  of  the  Gazette 
made  a  remark  upon  it  which  was  quite  as  much  to  the  point. 
"  This  is  all  very  fine,"  said  the  critic.  "  Mais  il  ne  suffit  pas 
que  la  peinture  soit  nationale^  ni  mime  qu'elle  soit  vraie ;  il  faut 
aussi  qu'elle  soit  artiste''  Contact  with  other  countries,  which 
from    this    time    became    more    frequent,    gradually    induced    a 


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300  MODERN  PAINTING 

change.  The  Danes  began  to  grow  ashamed  of  their  older 
and  childishly  awkward  colouring,  and  they  set  themselves  from 
the  close  of  the  sixties  to  learn  to  paint. 

At  first  the  fears  of  Hoyen  certainly  appeared  to  be  valid. 
In  the  place  of  an  awkward,  but  independent,  national  painting, 
there  came,  in  the  sixties  and  seventies,  one  which  had  external 
brilliancy,  but  was  cosmopolitan  and  without  character.  For 
acquaintance  with  foreign  countries  had  all  the  effect  of  a  sur- 
prise, just  as  a  bend  of  the  road  suddenly  brings  a  far  horizon 
into  view  :  the  charming  woodland  corner  which  was  an  entire 
world  in  itself  suddenly  becomes  a  mere  nook  in  the  landscape, 
and  its  fine,  irregular  lines  appear  small  and  insignificant  in 
comparison  with  the  majestic  features  of  the  distant  mountains. 
In  the  effort  to  choose  subjects  treated  in  other  countries  the 
stamp  of  individuality  was  lost,  as  well  as  that  tender  feeling 
for  home  sinking  to  the  most  inward  chambers  of  an  artist's 
nature,  the  feeling  those  older  masters  had  possessed  in  so  high 
a  degree. 

Carl  Block  is  the  leading  representative  of  this  group.  The 
son  of  a  Copenhagen  merchant,  after  leaving  the  Academy  of 
Art  he  had  first  worked  simply,  like  Vermehren  and  Exner, 
amongst  the  Zealand  peasants  and  upon  the  west  coast  of 
Jutland;  there  he  had  painted  a  number  of  pictures  dealing 
with  the  life  of  the  people,  pictures  which,  in  their  poverty  of 
colour  and  plain  intimacy  of  feeling,  shared  all  the  merits  and 
defects  of  the  older  Danish  paintings.  It  was  a  residence  in 
Rome,  from  1859  to  1865,  which  first  made  of  him  the  many- 
sided  artist  and  great  master  of  technique  whom  Danes  of  the 
older  generation  delight  to  honour,  but  who  gives  little  know- 
ledge of  Danish  art  to  any  one  not  a  Dane. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  in  his  pictures  from  life  an  un- 
pleasant genre  element,  that  forced  "humour"  which  the  older 
painters  were  so  discreet  in  keeping  at  arm's  length.  "  An  Old 
Bachelor,"  forced  to  undertake  the  repair  of  his  trousers,  and 
displaying  a  droll  clumsiness  the  while,  and  "  A  Roman  Street- 
Barber,"  in  the  midst  of  his  work  ogling  a  pretty  woman  who  is 
looking  out  of  a  window,  were  his  first  hits.     Soon  afterwards- 


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DENMARK 


301 


Leipzig:  SeemanH.] 

Carl  Block. 


at  the  same  time  as  Griitzner — 
he  discovered  the  comic  side  of 
monastic  life,  and  was  never 
tired  of  enlivening  the  public 
with  monks  plucking  geese  or 
applying  medicated  bags  to 
alleviate  toothache,  monks  who 
are  deaf  and  nevertheless  tell 
each  other  scandalous  narratives, 
and  the  like.  And,  of  course,  in 
Italy  he  could  not  rest  till  he 
had  won  the  laurels  of  the  his- 
torical painter.  "  Sampson  in  the 
Mill  amongst  the  Philistines," 
"  The      Daughter      of      Jairus," 

"Sampson  and  Delilah,"  and  "The  Liberation  of  Prometheus" 
were  pictures  of  technical  virtuosity  such  as  Danish  painters 
had  not  previously  displayed,  and  they  made  all  the  more  sen- 
sation in  Bloch's  native  land  since  there  had  not  previously 
been  any  "grand  art"  there.  But  a  foreigner  passes  Bloch's 
works  in  the  gallery  of  Christiansborg  with  a  good  deal  of  in- 
difference :  the  attractive  qualities  of  the  older  Danish  painting, 
the  simple  poetry  and  inward  depth,  are  just  what  they  do  not 
possess,  and  what  they  have  is  a  mere  reflection  of  that  which 
France  and  Germany  have  produced  likewise.  The  two-and- 
twenty  pictures  on  the  history  of  Christ  which  he  painted  in 
1865,  on  the  order  of  Jacobsen,  for  a  chapel  in  the  Castle  of 
Frederiksborg  which  had  been  built  again  after  the  fire,  might 
have  been  executed  by  Gustav  Richter.  His  "Chancellor  Niels 
Kaas,  upon  his  Deathbed,  giving  his  Young  Ward,  Prince  Christian, 
the  Keys  to  the  Vault  where  the  Crown  Jewels  are  preserved," 
and  "King  Christian  as  Prisoner  in  the  Castle  of  Sonderborg," 
stand — even  as  regards  their  aniline  sort  of  colour — to  older 
Danish  pictures  as  a  Piloty  stands  to  a  Spitzweg.  They  are 
the  works  of  a  cultivated  and  intelligent  artist,  who  has  seen 
much  in  foreign  parts  and  has  now  himself  learnt  to  paint. 
On    the    other    hand,   they   are    completely    wanting    in    artistic 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


temperament  and  all 
individuality.  Like 
those  of  Piloty,  the 
heads  of  his  figures 
are  painted  with  a 
strong  regard  for  the 
beautiful,  and  the 
ideas  harboured  by 
their  mighty  brows 
are  such  as  Columbus 
on  the  discovery  of 
America  or  the  dying 
Milton  are  wont  to 
have  in  all  this 
kind  of  historical 
painting.  His  "  In- 
terior from  the  Age 
of  Christian  IV."— a 
young  lady  getting 
out  of  bed,  whilst  a 
dog  runs  away  with 
her  slipper— would,  very  probably,  do  honour  to  Schrader.  But 
that  he  really  was  a  fine  artist  when  he  left  oflf  imitating  others 
is  proved  by  his  etchings — especially  the  landscapes — which,  in 
spite  of  a  certain  awkwardness,  are  amongst  the  most  delicate 
and  charming  which  have  been  executed  since  Daubigny. 

A  certain  routine  of  luxuriant  painting  was  moreover  acquired 
by  the  portrait-painter  Gertner^  the  dexterous  portrait  and  animal 
painter  Otto  Bache^  who  had  little  of  the  personal  note,  and 
Mrs,  Elisabeth  Jericliau-Baumann^  who  was  trained  in  Diisseldorf 
and  called  by  Cornelius  the  one  man  in  the  Diisseldorf  school, 
on  account  of  her  "  brusque "  style.  Axel  Helsted,  who  was 
first  a  pupil  of  Bonnat  in  Paris,  and  then  worked  in  England 
and  Italy,  is  with  Vilhelm  Rosenstand,  the  pupil  of  Marstrand,  the 
last  representative  in  Denmark  of  that  more  or  less  well-painted 
genre,  principally  concerned  with  humorous  or  dramatic  points, 
as   Knaus   is   its   leading   representative   in    Germany.      He    has 


Bloch:   "A  Roman  Street-Barber." 


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DENMARK 


303 


Helsted:  "The  Deputation." 


\TiUg9  photo. 


spirit  and  trenchant  observation,  and  to  these  qualities"  he  owes 
the  success  which  many  of  his  pictures  achieved  as  copper 
engravings  and  as  members*  plates  for  the  Society  of  Art.  In 
one  of  his  works,  "In  the  Villa  Borghese,"  he  shows  an  abbot 
engaged  in  learned  conversation  with  his  pupil,  the  latter  fur- 
tively looking  at  a  lizard  and  the  old  man  at  a  pretty  nursery- 
maid. A  schoolboy  going  home  in  "After  Lessons"  has  more 
books  than  he  can  carry,  which  is  meant  to  be  funny.  And  in 
"The  Lecture  for  Ladies"  one  of  the  audience  has,  of  course,  to 
be  yawning,  another  laughing,  and  a  third,  casting  enamoured 
eyes  on  the  professor.  Or  else  an  old  gentleman  is  sitting 
bashfully  upon  a  sofa,  twirling  his  hat  in  his  embarrassment,  and 
unable  to  screw  up  his  courage  to  make  a  declaration  of  love — 
carefully  considered  at  home — to  a  pretty  widow,  who  is  looking 
at  him  with  amusement  In  another  picture  the  town  council 
are  holding  a  meeting,  where  one  member  is  making  a  patriotic 
oration,  while  another  has  fallen  asleep,  and  a  third  is  laughing, 


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IT  Ulgt  photo. 


Helsted:  "The  Timid  Lover." 


and  a  fourth  making  notes ;  one  lounges  back  in  his  chair, 
another  is  resting  both  elbows  on  the  table,  and  a  third  aflfects 
the  pose  of  a  thinker,  while  the  servant,  the  representative  of 
low  comedy,  sneaks  out  of  the  room  with  the  brandy  bottle. 
All  this  is  by  no  means  badly  painted,  only  it  is  very  ordinary ; 
by  little  tricks  of  caricature,  by  giving  his  figures  noses  which 
are  too  long,  or  by  displaying  them  when  they  are  making  £aces^ 
Helsted  tries  to  win  a  laugh.  Such  a  painter  has  certainly  none 
of  the  nalvet^  of  Kobke  and  Lundbye,  nor  has  he  the  subtilty 
of  the  moderns. 

Schooled  from  1862  to  1868  at  the  Copenhagen  Academy 
under  Marstrand  and  Vermehren,  Christian  Zahrtmann  is  now  a 
man  of  fifty  years  and  upwards.  Compared  with  the  group  of 
painters  whose  art  in  so  many  ways  degenerated  into  a  dexterous 
calligraphy,  a  superficial  routine,  Zahrtmann  marks  a  reaction  like 
that  of  the  English  Preraphaelites  when  they  set  themselves 
against  the   theatrical   beauty   of  the   historical   picture   and   the 


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305 


Philistinism  of 
petty  genre 
painting.  He 
is  an  historical 
painter,  but  in 
a  manner  en- 
tirely his  own, 
an  historical 
painter  re- 
sembling no 
one  else,  and 
rend  e  r i  n  g 
things  which 
are  not  banal 
in  an  expres- 
sive manner 
and  with  a 
strong  dash  of 
paradox.  He 
is  a  man  of 
tough  will, 
who    troubles 

himself  with  no  other  motives  than  those  which  allure  him,  a  fine 
and  bold  spirit  with  whom  the  unusual  is  a  matter  of  course; 
speaking  more  generally,  he  is  one  of  the  most  knotty  and 
obstinate  personalities  who  have  ever  touched  a  brush,  and  he 
has  refused  to  see  with  another's  eyes  or  think  with  another's 
brain,  or  tp  allow  himself  to  be  influenced  by  existing  opinion, 
in  a  degree  which  is  altogether  curious.  In  a  picture  called 
"  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba  "  he  has  painted  the  splendid 
and  luxurious  king  as  an  earnest  and  pedantic  young  rabbi,  with 
lean  cheeks  and  hollow  eyes,  the  seductive  queen  as  a  prosy  and 
learned  dame  of  sedate  age  and  understanding ;  and  so,  frigid  to 
their  very  hearts,  they  are  sitting  face  to  face,  each  in  a  Persian 
gown,  and  carrying  on  a  serious  discussion  over  the  Talmud, 
while  thin  clouds  of  incense  rise  from  the  primitive  and  meagre 
apparatus   at  their  feet     Of  the  beautiful  Aspasia  he  makes  a 


Copenhagen  :  IVinkel,] 

Zahrtmann:   "The  Death  of  Queen  Sophia  Amelia/ 


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majestic  and 
corpulent 
matron,  who, 
with  a  look 
of  deep  -  set 
pain  on  her 
broad,  mascu- 
line features, 
is  regarding 
the  bust  of 
her  dead  son. 
During  his 
residence  in 
Italy  from 
1875  to  1878 
he  repre- 
sented fruit- 
shops,  girls 
bearing  loads 
of  lime,  Sa- 
bine women 
rocking  their  children,  fruit-carriers  of  Amalfi  and  flower-sellers 
of  Florence,  and  later  in  Denmark  **The  Wise  and  the  Foolish 
Virgins,"  "Juliet  and  the  Nurse,"  and  "The  Death  of  Queen 
Sophia  Amelia ; "  but  in  either  case  what  marks  him  invariably 
is  sharp  opposition  to  that  false  ideality  which  had  at  that  time 
found  a  home  in  Danish  painting.  As  a  man  of  reflective  spirit, 
he  disdains,  in  his  pictures  of  women,  to  be  taken  captive  by 
that  beauty  of  form  which  is  so  easily  seized;  what  he  chiefly 
searches  for  in  a  woman  is  personality  and  spiritual  expression, 
rendering  the  latter  as  it  has  come  to  exist  in  and  through  life, 
with  all  the  defects  of  decaying  form,  with  features  marked  by 
suffering  or  hardened  by  strife. 

Thus  he  was  led  to  the  subject  which  has  been  nearest  his 
heart  during  more  recent  years,  the  subject  which  he  is  never  weary 
of  studying,  and  in  which  he  perpetually  discovers  new  moments. 
This    is   the   history   of   the   imprisonment   for   twenty   years  of 


Lop9nnag€n^  IVinkel.] 
Zahrtmann  ;   "  Eleokora  Christina  reading  the  Bible.*' 


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DENMARK 


307 


El  eon  o  r  a 
Christina, 
daughter  of 
Christian  IV., 
and  ihe  wife 
of  Uhlfeldt. 
She  has  dc- 
scribed  it 
herself  in  her 
Lamentable 
Recollections, 
This  heroine, 
whose  me- 
moirs arc 
classic,  and 
who  is  dear  to 
every  Dane 
this  daughter 
of  a  king 
thrown  into 
a      dungeon 

through  the  jealousy  of  a  queen,  aqd  there  mocked  by  her  very 
servants,  is  one  who  nevertheless  preserved  to  the  end  the  pride 
of  a  royal  princess  and  the  resignation  of  a  Christian  ;  for 
Zahrtmann  she  is  a  kind  of  incarnation  of  humanity  in  the 
person  of  a  woman.  In  a  corner  of  his  studio  hangs  the  life- 
size  original  portrait  of  Eleonora  Christina,  and  opposite  a 
painting  by  himself,  representing  this  corner,  with  two  huge 
candles  burning  upon  a  table  beneath  this  picture  and  illu- 
minating the  lofty  womanly  figure,  as  though  it  were  an  altar- 
piece.  She  is  his  patron  saint,  and  he  has  depicted  her  life  in 
all  its  details,  as  Menzel  did  that  of  Frederick  the  Great. 

For  long  years  he  buried  himself  in  the  history  of  this 
unfortunate  princess,  made  himself  familiar  with  her  personality 
and  her  writings,  and  endeavoured  to  put  upon  canvas  a  credible 
picture  of  her,  which  should  be  great  in  conception  and  sound 
in  form,  upon  the  basis  of  these  historical  studies.     He  painted 


Copenhagen:  IVinM.] 

Zahrtmann  :   ''  Eleonora  Christina  in  Prison.* 


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Cop€nhagin:  lVink9l.\ 


Zahrtmann  :   "Eleonora  Christina." 


her  as  a  young  wife  by  the  side  of  Uhlfeldt,  in  the  cloister  and 
in  prison,  as  she  was  when  searched  by  the  jailer  upon  her 
entry,  as  she  prayed  and  as  she  wrote  her  memoirs ;  he  called 
her  to  life  once  more  in  such  a  fashion  that  through  his  pictures 
there  was  begun  in  Denmark  a  veritable  cult  of  Eleonora 
Christina.  And  to  this  figure  he  has  given  an  intense  life. 
With  her  large,  masculine  features,  her  dignified  and  benevolent 
face,  Eleonora  seems  to  have  risen  from  the  grave  in  flesh  and 
blood,  just  as  she  once  existed.  One  feels  that  the  artist  has 
lived  her  life  through  with  her,  and  learnt  to  love  his  model. 
The  expression  in  these  pictures  has  an  air  of  veracity ;  the  play 
of  light  is  occasionally  hard  and  glittering,  but  often  exceedingly 
delicate  and  full  of  feeling.  As  Zahrtmann  emancipated  himself 
from  conventional  "beauty,"  so  he  set  himself  free  from  the 
dominant   idea  of  colouring.     At  a   time  when  the  brown  tone 


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DENMARK  309 

of  galleries  held  sway,  almost  throughout,  in  other  places,  he 
painted  in  colours  as  little  blended  and  as  sharply  accentuated 
as  possible,  and  he  sometimes  attains  an  effect — especially  in 
the  rendering  of  artificial  light — which  almost  resembles  the 
latest  experiments  of  Besnard.  His  most  beautiful  picture  of 
this  princess — one  replete  with  a  full  fusion  of  soft  brownish 
tones — represents  her  in  prison,  sitting  in  bed  by  night,  with 
her  look  fixed  upon  the  light  that  burns  on  the  table,  subdued 
by  a  shade.  An  infinite  warmth  and  a  deep  peace  rest  over 
the  picture  ;  the  white  bed,  the  variously  coloured  covering,  and 
the  dark  walls  are  under  a  yellowish-red  light,  and  between  the 
light  and  the  shadow  the  figure  of  the  old  woman  is  seen — 
a  full-bodied  matron,  sitting  quiet  and  motionless  with  large, 
composed,  and  thoughtful  features,  as  though  she  had  sat  in 
this  way  during  many  a  long  night  It  is  certainly  not  a  figure 
owing  its  origin  to  the  traditional  sentiments  of  historical 
painting,  but  a  personality  with  sharply  defined  features  and 
spiritual  expression.  Here  is  a  painter  who  has  dived  into  the 
past  without  losing  his  breath ;  one  who  has  produced  pictures 
which  are  sincere  and  free  from  pose,  and  as  earnest  and  full 
of  conviction  as  the  life  of  the  heroine  they  celebrate.  Not 
the  inspiration  of  the  footlights,  but  the  most  tender  intimacy 
of  feeling  is  his  essential  principle ;  and  in  this  sense  Zahrtmann 
makes  the  transition  to  the  last  and  specially  modern  phase  of 
Danish  art — that  which  came  into  being  from  1878,  the  year 
of  the  third  Paris  Exhibition. 

Danish  art  was  national  in  its  first  period,  although  awkward 
in  technique;  in  its  second  period  it  was  more  fully  developed 
in  technique,  though  compromised  by  an  outward  imitation  of 
foreign  methods  ;  but  now  it  appears  to  have  reached  a  climax 
of  achievement  in  point  of  technique  and  to  have  a  thoroughly 
individual  stamp.  Millet,  Bastien-Lepage,  and  the  other  more 
modern  Frenchmen  were  a  revelation  to  the  young  generation 
of  Danes,  and  gave  them  the  determining  impulses.  From  these 
artists  they  learnt  that  there  was  a  broader,  truer,  and  more 
living  method  of  understanding  nature  and  expressing  light 
than  the  paltry,  stippling  style  of  painting  in  which  Eckersbcrg 


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and  his  pupils  were  hard-bound.  And,  at  the  same  time,  these 
masters  announced  to  others  the  doctrine  that  to  be  an  artist 
there  was  no  necessity  to  become  international,  like  Bloch  and 
his  contemporaries — that  it  was  better,  like  those  older  Danes, 
to  draw  the  most  fitting  nourishment  from  the  soil  of  one's 
own  land.  From  this  epoch  we  have  to  reckon  with  a  novel 
and  most  animated  Danish  art,  combining  the  merits  of  the 
modern  French  with  those  of  the  elder  Danes.  It  attached 
itself  to  the  young  French  school  through  the  attentive  study 
of  tone-values  and  atmosphere.  All  the  modern  seekers  and 
guides,  Besnard,  Roll,  Carri^re,  Cazin,  Raflfaelli,  and  above  all 
Claude  Monet,  are  still  fervently  admired  and  much  followed 
in  the  Denmark  of  these  days.  But  this  art  has,  at  the  same 
time,  its  deep  roots  in  race  and  in  the  Danish  land.  Equipped 
with  richer  and  more  complex  means  of  expression,  it  does 
not  in  any  way  renounce  its  tradition  of  intimate  feeling  and 
refined  and  tenderly  delicate  observation.  The  older  artists  had 
been  true  ;  the  younger  sought  to  be  true  and  delicate  at  the 
same  time.  The  painting  in  Copenhagen  and  Skagen  in  these 
days  is  quite  different  and  much  better  than  that  of  Eckersberg 
and  Lundbye,  but  their  intimate  sentiment  for  nature  is  also 
possessed  by  the  young  generation  of  artists. 

The  merit  of  having  paved  the  way  for  this  fresh  develop- 
ment chiefly  belongs  to  Peter  S,  Kroyer,  one  of  the  greatest 
and  most  attractive  individualities  of  his  nation.  Born  in 
Stavanger  on  June  24th,  1851,  he  was  left  an  orphan  early 
in  life  and  went  to  Copenhagen,  where  he  was  received  in  the 
house  of  his  adoptive  father  Hendrik  Nicolai  KrOyer,  the 
ichthyologist;  and  he  was  barely  nine  years  old  before  his 
capacity  for  drawing  was  utilized  for  practical  purposes.  In 
Hendrik  Nicolai  Kr5yer*s  monograph  upon  parasite  crabs  the 
first  drawings  of  young  Kroyer  may  be  found  published  in 
copper-engraving.  Various  representations  of  the  fishing  village 
Hornbaek  ("  A  Forge  in  Hombaek,"  "  Fishers  catching  Herrings," 
"  Fishers  on  the  Stocken,"  and  "  Children  on  the  Strand ") 
were  the  first  pictures  hung  in  the  Exhibition  of  Charlottenborg 
in   1874.     In  the  same  year  a  large  cartoon,  "David  presenting 


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DENMARK  311 

himself  to  Saul  after  slaying  Goliath,"  obtained  for  him  the 
travelling  exhibition  of  the  Copenhagen  Academy,  and  during 
four  years  of  study  abroad  KrOyer  went  through  that  remark- 
able course  of  development  which  soon  placed  him  at  the  head 
of  Danish  art  as  a  master  of  technique.  In  the  older  pictures 
painting  had  been  harsh  and  diffident,  thin,  meagre,  and  motley 
in  colour;  but,  through  contact  with  the  French,  KrOyer 
acquired  that  refinement  in  tone  and  that  power  of  handling 
which  have  since  become  his  distinguishing  characteristics.  L^on 
Bonnat  was  his  first  mentor,  and  a  picture  belonging  to  the 
year  1878,  "Daphnis  and  Chloe,"  was  his  first  attempt  to 
embody  in  a  large  painting  the  new  lights  which  he  had  re- 
ceived in  Bonnat's  studio.  A  lengthy  residence  in  Brittany, 
where  he  painted  field-labourers  in  company  with  the  landscape- 
painter  Pelouse,  and  collected  opulent  material  for  studies, 
marked  the  second  stage  in  his  development;  and  a  journey 
to  Spain  and  Italy,  to  which  he  may  have  been  incited  by 
Bonnat,  the  portrayer  of  Italian  popular  life,  marked  the  third. 
The  chief  result  of  his  work  in  Brittany  was  "The  Sardine 
Packers,"  an  interior  with  women  cleaning  sardines  and  fitting 
them  for  being  packed.  In  Spain  and  Italy  he  painted  the 
"Women  binding  Bouquets  in  Granada,"  which  may  be  found 
in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery,  and  "  The  Italian  Village  Hatmaker," 
which  won  for  him  the  first  medal  in  the  Paris  Salon  of  1881. 
Naked  to  the  waist,  and  covered  with  shining  drops  of  perspira- 
tion, a  powerful  masculine  figure,  by  the  side  of  a  glowing  brasier, 
is  twisting  his  felt  with  his  hands  over  a  huge  block.  Both 
his  children,  likewise  half  naked,  are  working  in  the  same  way. 
An  oppressive  heat  fills  the  dark  room,  through  the  little  window 
of  which  a  sunbeam  is  vainly  endeavouring  to  penetrate. 

This  picture  was  of  the  same  importance  for  Danish  paint- 
ing as  Courbet's  "  Stonebreakers "  had  been  for  French  and 
Menzel's  "  Smithy  "  for  German.  Realism  was  introduced  by  it ; 
and  KrOyer  returned  home  with  a  foreign  sanction  upon  his 
art,  and  as  an  accomplished  master  he  took  up  his  old  theme, 
the  representation  of  Danish  life  in  town  and  upon  the  sea- 
shore, with  fresh  brilliancy  and  renewed  vigour. 


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CoptHkagtn:  Stockholm,] 

Kr(5yer  :   **  The  Sardine  Packers." 

Kroyer,  indeed,  is  one  of  those  rare  personalities  who  can 
do  almost  anything  they  wish.  Pictures  in  the  open  air  and 
interiors,  flashing  effects  of  sun  upon  the  strand,  mysterious 
phases  of  dusk  and  artificial  light,  he  treats  them  all  with  that 
even  sureness  which  makes  light  of  every  difficulty.  Nothing 
short  of  astonishing  in  improvization,  he  has  likewise  the  genius 
of  a  draughtsman.  With  his  pencil  in  his  hand  he  is  in- 
defatigable in  dashing  in  a  likeness,  a  pose,  or  an  attitude,  and 
with  an  aptitude  that  is  almost  invariable;  with  a  couple 
of  strokes  he  evokes  a  physiognomy.  "  Skagen  Fishers  at 
Sunset "  and  "  Fishermen  setting  out  by  Night "  were  the  first 
pictures  which  he  sent  from  Denmark  to  the  Salon.  One  repre- 
sents a  number  of  raw-boned  seamen  dragging  a  net  over  the 
tawny  sand  at  sunset.  The  beams  of  the  setting  sun  play  upon 
their  clothes,  and  the  night  draws  on  apace.  A  great  silence  rests 
over  the  sea,  and  the  large  outlines  of  the  fishermen  stand  out 
sharply  defined  against  the  obscure  sky.      In  the  other   picture 


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DENMARK 


313 


Gas.  d9S  B^attx-Arts.] 


[Guirard  mc. 


Kr3yer  :  **  Skagen  Fishers  at  Sunset.** 


there  is  the  plain  of  Skagen  in  the  dusk.  Two  or  three  white 
clouds  stand  silvery  upon  the  horizon  ;  the  lighthouse  has  just 
begun  to  show  its  lights,  and  a  group  of  fishermen  are  seated 
smoking  upon  the  fine  sea-sand.  One  of  them  lies  upon  his 
stomach  looking  seaward.  Here  and  there  a  sailor  emerges  in 
the  vaporous  dusk.  This  exhalation  from  the  sea  rests  like  a 
thin  violet  breath  over  the  whole  landscape,  and  the  strange 
intermingling  of  the  illumination  of  moonlight  and  of  the  radiance 
of  the  beacons  is  cast  over  the  figures  with  an  indistinct  bright- 
ness. In  a  third  most  charming  and  entirely  Impressionistic 
picture  of  188 1,  he  represented  the  artists  in  Skagen  at  breakfast 
There  they  sit,  eight  or  ten,  blond  and  cheery  comrades,  glad  of 
their  own  existence  in  the  world.  The  remnants  of  a  frugal 
breakfast  are  still  upon  the  table.  And  the  fresh  harmonies 
of  animated  tones  play  round  the  physiognomies,  which  have 
been  rapidly  seized.  The  following  years  were  occupied  with 
portrait-painting :  to  them  belong  the  large  family  group  of  the 
Hirschsprungks,  which  was  not  very  successful,  and  the  por- 
traits of  Krohn,  Sorensen,  and    Georg   Brandes,   which,  in   their 

VOL.  III.  21 


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314  MODERN  PAINTING 

characterization,  ease,  and  freedom  from  pose,  announced  the 
great  pictures  of  social  life  with  which  he  made  an  appearance 
in  the  exhibitions  from  the  year  1887.  The  earliest  of  these,  the 
"Soiree  in  Karlsberg,"  represented  a  number  of  Copenhagen 
artists  and  scholars  assembled  at  Jacobsen's  the  brewer's ;  and  it 
is  scarcely  possible  to  compose  a  group  with  more  spirited  ease,, 
to  set  guests  conversing,  and  to  display  them  listening  or  bored 
by  the  entertainment,  with  less  constraint  of  manner.  In 
another  picture  he  ventured  to  paint  a  party  of  men,  where  the 
guests  are  listening  to  a  quartette,  enveloped  in  dense  clouds  of 
smoke — so  dense  that  the  flames  of  the  candles  are  reduced 
to  a  dull  spot,  while  the  smoke  hangs  like  a  greenish-grey  veil 
between  the  spectator  and  the  characteristic  heads  upon  the 
canvas.  The  latter  are  also  portraits  of  well-known  personages 
in  Copenhagen.  The  third  picture  of  this  year,  "  A  Summer 
Day  upon  the  Beach  at  Skagen,"  is  saturated  in  the  light  of 
noon.  Naked  lads  are  bathing  on  the  strand,  and  their  outlines 
have  a  bluish  tinge  set  against  the  sky,  beaming  in  Northern 
brightness.  By  an  exceedingly  slight  device — in  fact  merely  by 
the  various  delicate  shades  of  blue  and  yellow — the  idea  of 
intense  heat  was  produced  with  peculiar  effect.  "  The  Musical 
Soiree"  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery  belongs  to  the  year  1888, 
and  is  another  picture  of  dim,  dusky  light,  with  great  natural- 
ness in  the  poses  of  the  company  and  astonishing  intimacy  of 
feeling  in  the  expression  of  the  listening  faces.  How  soft  and 
dreamy  in  this  work  is  the  powerful  realist  who  painted  "The 
Italian  Hatmaker"  and  "The  Fishermen  setting  out  by  Night "f 
Kroyer  is  a  light  and  mobile  artist,  always  receptive,  always 
productive,  influenced  by  the  French  and  yet  independent,  naive 
and  refined  ;  he  has  made  his  name  early  in  Scandinavia  and 
Europe,  has  an  eye  which  nothing  escapes,  and  a  hand  which 
is  felicitous  in  everything.  As  various  as  he  is  bold,  graceful 
and  facile,  he  solves  every  difficulty  as  though  it  were  child's 
play,  and  hazards  those  very  things  which  are  most  beset  with 
peril  for  the  artist. 

When   the   Danish   National   Exhibition  was   set   on    foot  in 
Copenhagen   to   celebrate   the  twenty-fifth  year   of  the   reign   of 


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DENMARK  317 

Christian  IX,,  Jacobsen,  who  had  also  made  arrangements  for  the 
representation  of  French  art,  sent  an  invitation  to  Parisian  artists, 
and  had  a  pavilion  built  for  their  works.  Pasteur  had  the  honorary 
presidency  of  the  committee  formed  in  Paris,  while  Antonin  Proust 
actually  presided ;  and  Jacobsen  commissioned  Kroyer  to  paint 
a  group  introducing  the  members.  This  gave  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  showing  his  cogent  force  as  a  master  of  characteriza- 
tion in  connection  with  a  problem  of  light  of  such  a  difficult  and 
artificial  character  that  only  a  master  could  have  ventured  upon 
it  The  proceedings  have  lasted  until  late  in  the  afternoon. 
Through  lofty  windows  falls  the  pale,  declining  wintry  light, 
whilst  in  the  room  two  oil-lamps  burn  with  an  intense  radiance, 
illuminating  the  plans  upon  the  table.  The  opposition  of 
this  double  light,  natural  and  artificial,  the  struggle  of  white 
and  yellowish  tones  tremulously  uniting  and  falling  upon  the 
faces  of  the  men,  has  been  rendered  with  astonishing  subtilty. 
Pasteur,  sitting  in  the  middle,  is  following  upon  a  plan  the  ex- 
planations of  the  Danish  architect  Klein.  Behind  him  stands 
Jacobsen  with  Charles  Gamier,  and  Paul  Dubois  is  sitting  ta 
the  right,  turning  round  towards  Jacobsen.  Antonin  Proust, 
who  is  standing,  presides  over  the  assembly.  And  around  there 
may  be  recognized  the  figures  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  taking 
hotes,  and  quite  in  the  front  Falguifere,  and  behind  Chaplin^ 
Barrias,  and  G^rdme  ;  upon  the  other  side,  from  the  left,  are 
Bonnat,  Cazin,  Roll,  Besnard,  Gervex,  Antonin  Merci6,  Chapu^ 
Carolus  Duran,  Delaplanche,  and  others.  A  momentary  sketch 
could  not  have  a  more  natural  effect,  and  yet  it  is  just  such  an 
impression  as  this  which  can  only  be  rendered  by.  the  most 
assured  technique  in  all  that  regards  composition. 

Laurits  Regner  Tuxen,  who  is  standing  to  the  right,  in  the 
corner  of  the  picture,  beside  Kroyer,  is  a  couple  of  years  junior 
to  the  latter,  and  came  in  the  same  year,  in  the  autumn  of 
1875,  to  Bonnat's  studio  in  Paris.  By  a  "Susanna,"  several 
portraits  of  women  a  la  Carolus  Duran,  and  a  large  picture,. 
"The  Boiling  of  Train-oil  upon  the  West  Coast  of  Jutland,"  he 
showed  the  Danish  public  in  1879  how  much  he  had  learnt 
in   the   high    school    of   modern   technique ;    and    after   renewed 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


residence  in  Cayeux, 
Paris,  and  Italy,  he 
settled  for  good  in 
Copenhagen  in  1883, 
where  he  has  now 
become  the  official 
court  painter,  and  is 
entrusted  with  those 
many  "  great "  com- 
missions which  the 
little  country  has  at 
its  disposal.  Beside 
the  huge  and  well- 
known  picture  of 
the  Danish  royal 
family,  consisting  of 
no  less  than  thirt>'^- 
two  figures,  he 
painted  a  certain 
number  of  ceiling- 
pieces  for  the  Castle 
of  Frederiksborg  : 
^*  Denmark  receiving  the  Homage  of  the  Estates  of  the  Realm,'* 
"The  Triumph  of  Venus,"  and  the  like.  He  is  a  man  of  the 
world  even  with  his  brush,  and  his  ability,  which  can  adapt 
itself  to  everything,  has  made  him  an  excellent  teacher,  who  has 
exercised  great  influence  over  the  development  of  Danish  painting 
through  the  private  school  which  he  founded  in  Copenhagen, 
and  who  has  quickly  raised  it  to  a  level — especially  after  Kroyer 
had  shown  the  way — which  it  would  otherwise  have  probably 
taken  a  longer  time  to  reach.  Nevertheless,  like  Bloch,  he  has 
given  one  more  evidence  that  it  is  not  easy  to  become  cosmo- 
politan without  losing  national  peculiarities.  So  far  as  I  am 
acquainted  with  his  works,  he  does  not  so  much  make  the 
impression  of  an  artist  of  conviction  and  individuality  as  of  a 
man  who  has  the  capacity  of  doing  well  whatever  may  be 
demanded  from  him. 


CoptnhagiH  :  Stockholm.'] 

TuxEN :   ''  Susanna  and  the  Elders.*' 


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DENMARK  319 

A  man  of  deeper  and  far  more  genuine  character  is  August 
Jemdorff^  originally  a  pupil  of  P.  C.  Skovgaard,  and  at  first 
chiefly  notable  as  a  landscape-painter  working  in  the  spirit  of 
his  teacher.  Afterwards  he  produced  several  biblical  pictures 
of  great  ability,  and  in  particular  several  portraits,  which  may 
probably  be  reckoned  as  his  best  performances.  He  has  an 
incisive  and  masterly  gift  of  characterization,  models  with  a 
precision  rare,  in  our  days,  and  has  likewise  shown  an  eminent 
<lecorative  talent  as  an  illustrator. 

What  principally  marks  the  present  Danish  painting  is  not, 
however,  the  gifted  variety,  grace,  and  ease  peculiar  to  these 
painters.  It  has  rather  an  honest,  familiar,  provincial  trait 
which  has  something  of  tender  melancholy.  It  is  like  a  good 
mistress  who  makes  her  home  comfortable  and  enjoys  sitting 
by  her  own  hearth,  having,  ajt  the  same  time,  an  interest  in 
music,  poetry,  and  art.  In  fact  the  Dane  has  really  nothing 
besides  the  comfort  of  his  domestic  life.  His  country,  which 
was  once  so  powerful,  has  gradually  become  smaller  in  its 
geographical  boundaries  and  politically  insignificant.  Since  the 
time  of  Christian  IV. — in  other  words,  since  the  Thirty  Years' 
War — Denmark,  which  once  held  sway  over  Sweden  and  com- 
manded all  the  Baltic,  has  steadily  declined.  She  lost  the 
provinces  of  Southern  Sweden  in  1658,  Norway  in  18 14,  and 
in  1864  the  duchies  which  were  her  pedestal.  Such  a  people 
must  necessarily  cling  with  all  the  deeper  devotion  to  what  has 
been  left  it,  its  soil  and  its  home.  Thus  it  is  that  no  great 
features  and  no  imposing  themes  are  to  be  found  in  Danish 
painting.  When  their  painters  attempt  anything  of  the  kind 
it  is  as  though  their  warmth  of  feeling  had  passed  away  and 
they  were  themselves  out  of  sorts,  as  if  they  were  borrowing 
from  others  and  what  they  did  were  not  their  own.  But  where 
Danish  painting  is  entirely  itself,  entirely  the  expression  of 
the  spirit  of  the  nation,  it  broods  quietly  over  a  perfectly 
simple,  ordinary  motive,  a  motive  which  is  almost  indigent  in 
-character.  Spreading  plants,  old-fashioned  velvet  furniture, 
loudly  ticking  clocks,  and  petroleum  lamps,  pleasant  talk  round 
the    family    table    in    the    twilight,    reveries    at    the    piano,  or 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


half  familiar  and  commonplace 
and  half  ceremonious  musical 
soiries — such  are  the  materials 
of  Danish  art.  Besides  things 
like  these,  the  Dane  paints 
with  loving  devotion  the  like- 
ness of  his  little  country,  and 
the  gracious  melancholy  of 
its  soft  scenes  lives  in  his 
landscapes. 

Viggo  Johansen  is,  perhaps,, 
the  artist  who  at  the  present 
best  represents  in  a  moral 
sense  this  Danish  art  with  all 
its   inherent   qualities.     No  one 

has  so  combined   the  old   tra- 
ViGGo  Johansen.  ,.^.  e    •   ^-       ^         i_ 

dition   of   intimate   observation 

with  the  most  modern  study  of  the  effects  of  light.  He  is,. 
par  excellence,  the  artist  of  intimate  emotion,  which,  however^ 
'v&  not  the  same  thing  as  being  a  genre  painter.  Painters  who- 
represent  domestic  scenes  in  rooms  after  the  fashion  of  genre 
are  to  be  found  in  every  school;  but  few  there  are  since 
Chardin  who  have  portrayed  faithfully  and  without  affectation 
and  banality  the  poetry  of  family  life.  For  this  something 
more  than  mere  dexterity  \s  wanting ;  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
artist  must  be  in  his  work,  and  art  and  life  must  be  fused  in  to- 
each  other.  Johansen  creates  the  feeling  that  he  really  believes 
in  what  he  is  doing.  Not  only  is  he  an  artist  with  a  rare 
capacity  for  pictorial  expression,  but  he  is  also  a  delicate  and 
sensitive  spirit  His  pictures  have  been  lived  and  seen,  and  are 
not  merely  the  result  of  design  and  skilful  make.  For  him« 
there  is  a  charm  in  the  fine,  curling  cloud  of  steam  escaping 
from  the  tea-kettle,  something  delightful  in  the  unity  of  the 
family  gathered  round  the  table,  something  cordial  in  the 
bubbling  water  and  the  fire  crackling  in  the  stove.  Were  a 
Frenchman  to  handle  such  themes  one  would  be  lost  in  ad- 
miration  of  the  finely  studied   effects  of  light.      But  Johansen's 


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DENMARK 


321 


works  are  like  a 
moment  of  life 
itself,  like  the 
memory  of  some- 
thing dear  and 
familiar  appealing 
to  the  heart  in 
plain  accents. 

In  one  of  his 
pictures  in  the 
Copenhagen  Ex- 
hibition he  repre- 
sented a  cosy 
room,  with  spread- 
ing, leafy  plants, 
copper  plates, 
flower  -  stands,  a 
cottage  -  piano,  a 
round    table,    and 


JOHANSEN 


\,1  lU^€  plUfiO, 

"The  Morning  Sleep." 


an  old-fashioned  sofa,  where  six  Danish  painters  were  comfortably 
seated  together.  The  subdued  light  of  the  lamp  fell  upon  their 
persons,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  room  in  faint  obscurity.  There 
is  not  a  Dutch  "  little  master "  who  could  have  more  accurately 
rendered  the  reflections  of  the  lamplight  playing  upon  bottles 
and  glasses,  and  not  one  who  could  have  better  attained  the  refine- 
ments of  physiognomy  which  are  in  this  work.  In  the  way  in 
which  they  sit  talking  and  listening  to  the  conversation,  the 
figures  have  an  intense  vividness  such  as  Impressionism  first 
gave  the  secret  of  arresting  in  its  direct,  momentary  effect. 
Johansen  introduced  himself  into  Germany  for  the  first  time,  in 
1890,  with  one  of  those  supper-pieces  so  characteristic  of  Danish 
painting.  The  men  in  their  old-fashioned  smart  coats,  and  the 
women  with  their  provincial,  overladen  toilettes,  are  grouped  in 
the  drawing-room  after  supper,  listening  to  a  stout  gentleman  at 
the  piano,  who  is  obliging  the  company  with  a  song.  They  are 
none  of  them  taking  pains  to  be  brilliant,  but  seem  quite  at 
home  in   the  picture,  being  simple,  reflective,  and  rather  limited 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Johansen:   "At  the  Piano." 

in  their  mental  horizon.  And  that  mild,  warm  air,  somewhat 
impregnated  with  tobacco,  that  air  in  which  Johansen  so  much 
delights,  circulates  in  the  room,  a  soft  veil  of  reddish-grey  dusk, 
from  which  the  figures  detach  themselves  slowly. 

Domestic  life,  the  quiet  comfort  of  the  Danish  home,  has 
found  its  representative  in  Johansen,  who  has  glorified  every- 
thing with  the  magic  of  his  poetry  :  the  familiar  talks  beneath 
the  lamp  in  the  long  winter  evening,  the  little  events  of  the 
day,  children  getting  up  and  going  to  bed,  and  their  games 
or  their  work  beneath  their  mother's  eyes.  It  is  Saturday 
evening.  In  the  old  wooden  bath  the  water  is  steaming,  and 
the  tiled  stove  is  glowing  as   if  it   must  burst,  so  that  the  little 


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DENMARK 


323 


Johamsen:   a  Landscape. 

ones  cannot  catch  cold  when  they  have  had  their  bath.  Or 
boys  and  girls  have  both  put  on  their  Sunday  finery  betimes, 
and  march  into  their  grandmother's  room,  where  she  is  lying 
in  bed,  not  from  being  ill,  but  because  it  is  the  warmest 
place  in  which  to  celebrate  her  birthday.  Again,  it  is  dusk, 
and  the  glimmering  coals  in  the  oven  alone  light  up  the  pleasant 
room  where  a  young  mother  is  just  beginning  to  tell  stories. 
And  four  great,  shining,  childish  eyes  look  up  at  her  full  of 
inquiry. 

But  this  same  master  who  has  created  these  unadorned  and 
intimate  interiors,  which  have  been  felt  with  such  manly  tender- 
ness, is,  at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  finest  landscape-painters 
in  Denmark.  With  marvellous  finish  Johansen  can  paint  the 
silvery  air  of  the  little  island  country,  where  autumn  is  so 
mild  and  the  sunlight  so  soft — the  vaporous  atmosphere  which, 
like  a  light  veil  of  gauze,  tones  down  all  contours  and  rounds 
all  lines  ;    and   yet  here,  too,  the  highest  art   has  been  resolved 


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into  simple  nature,  so  that  one  has  no  sense  of  beholding  a 
picture,  but  can  feel  the  poetry  of  the  landscape,  with  its  melan- 
choly, its  solitude,  and  its  mysterious  stillness.  Perhaps  the 
picture  is  one  of  a  peasant  cot,  standing  lonely  in  the  sunshine, 
upon  the  wide  green  meadow,  and  surrounded  by  the  warm 
blue  autumn  evening.  In  front  there  graze  a  couple  of  cows, 
one  seeming  to  sleep  as  it  stands,  the  other  chewing  the  cud. 
And  from  the  whole  picture  there  escapes  that  half-somnolent 
sense  of  reverie  that  overcomes  one  upon  a  warm  summer 
evening.  Or  there  are  a  couple  of  men,  thorough  Danes  of 
the  country  parts,  with  great  red  beards  and  meditative  eyes, 
sauntering  along  a  village  path,  whidh  leads  past  a  wooden 
fence  to  a  small  creek.  The  sun  is  going  down,  the  mists  from 
land  and  sea  rise  like  a  silvery  veil  over  the  landscape,  the 
air  is  still  and  not  a  leaf  stirring,  but  the  wooden  shoes  of  the 
men  grate  upon  the  sand. 

In  this  delicate  and  moving  feeling  for  nature,  Johansen's 
art  is,  as  it  were,  the  expression  of  the  collective  efforts  of  the 
younger  Danes.  As  a  painter  of  interiors  and  of  landscapes, 
he  unites  both  the  leading  tendencies  which  others  represent 
separately  :  some  confine  themselves  by  preference  to  the  country 
and  the  coast,  amid  the  people  and  amid  nature,  whence 
they  have  themselves  proceeded,  whereas  others  with  unusual 
pictorial  softness  of  effect  give  expression  to  the  genial  life  of  the 
bourgeoisie  in  Copenhagen.  Holsoe  delights  in  painting  interiors 
in  the  dusk,  and  transparent  light  falling  through  the  leafy, 
spreading  plants  on  to  the  broad  windows,  and  greenish-white 
twilight  hovering  in  the  room,  where  are  green  velvet  sofas» 
shining  mahogany  furniture,  pianos,  brackets,  and  quiet  girls 
reading  letters  at  the  window  or  playing  the  piano  by  candle- 
light. Carl  Thomsen,  H.  N'.  Hansen,  Otto  Haslund,  Irtninger, 
Engelstedy  have  all  set  themselves  free  from  those  trivial  drolleries 
into  which  genre  painting  degenerated  with  Helsted.  Johansen 
caused  them  to  reflect  that  a  genre  picture  should  not  be  a  piquant 
little  story  narrated  with  more  or  less  spirit,  but  a  fragment  of 
household  life  simply  rendered.  The  figures  which  fill  their 
plain,    sympathetic   pictures   are   those   of    people  with   graceful, 


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DENMARK  325 

indolent,  careless,  and  gentle  movements,  sitting  opposite 
each  other  thoughtfully,  and  lost  in  silence ;  solitary  women 
gazing  in  the  evening  with  longing  across  the  brown  heath ;  old 
people  with  the  look  of  being  alienated  from  the  world,  with 
the  air  of  having  sat  in  little  rooms  day  after  day  forgotten  of 
everybody ;  girls  of  a  still  and  touching  beauty,  reading  stories 
in  the  corner  by  the  stove,  dreaming  in  an  arbour,  or  accompany- 
ing their  sad  songs  on  the  piano.  Thoroughly  Danish  and 
sombre  is  Lauritz  Ringy  who  has  painted  good  pictures  from 
peasant  life.  Erik  Henningsen^  who  has  executed — rather  in  the 
style  of  Jean  B^raud — animated  street-scenes,  arrests,  popular 
merry-makings,  and  the  like,  is  a  little  superficial  and  vulgar  in 
the  French  sense.  A  tinge  of  sadness,  such  as  runs  through 
Danish  novels,  underlies  a  deathbed  scene  by  Fritz  Sybergy  who 
has  felt  the  influence  of  that  tough  and  knotty  master  of 
characterization  Zahrtmann.  In  Copenhagen  this  school  of 
Zahrtmann  forms  a  little  circle  of  its  own  and  seems  to  have 
beneficial  elements  for  the  future. 

The  resort  of  the  painters  of  the  sea  and  of  fishers  is  Skagen, 
the  little  fishing  village  at  the  extreme  end  of  Jutland.  The 
pioneers  of  the  new  renaissance  came  into  touch  at  once  with 
pletn  air  and  the  life  of  the  people  in  this  Danish  Dachau  ;  here 
they  learnt  to  love  the  wide  strand  and  the  melancholy  dunes, 
and  the  harmony  of  the  cold,  bright  light,  and  here  have  they 
studied  the  customs  of  the  dwellers  on  the  shores,  their  rude 
physiognomy,  and  the  strong,  healthy  poetry  of  their  life,  so  full 
of  changes.  Michael  Anchcr  and  his  wife  discovered  Skagen 
in  the  interests  of  Danish  painting. 

According  to  the  portrait  which  her  husband  has  painted  of 
her,  Mrs.  Anna  Ancher  is  a  pretty  little  woman  of  thirty.  She 
was  born  in  Skagen,  and  there  on  the  strand  near  her  native 
village  she  learnt  to  see  nature,  and  afterwards  worked  from 
1875  to  1878  under  Kyhn  in  Copenhagen.  Since  then  she  has 
settled  with  her  husband  in  Skagen,  far  off  at  the  world's  end. 
There  is  no  need  for  giving  the  titles  of  pictures  by  Madame 
Ancher.  "  A  Mother  with  her  Child  "  was  her  first  charming  idyll. 
Then  followed  a  picture  "  Coffee  is  Ready."     It  is  afternoon :  an 


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326  MODERN  PAINTING 

old  fisher  is  resting  on  the  bench  by  the  stove,  and  a  young  woman 
wakes  him  gently.  After  this  work  Madame  Ancher  delighted 
the  public  every  year  by  some  charming  picture,  in  which  an  ener- 
getic grasp  of  fact  was  combined  with  sympathetic  feminine 
insight  for  men  and  things.  The  Copenhagen  Gallery  possesses  a 
funeral  scene  by  her.  The  coffin  hung  with  green  wreaths,  the 
room  with  its  red-stained  walls,  and  the  people  standing  around 
with  so  serious  an  air,  how  simple  it  all  is,  and  at  the  same  time 
how  plain  and  homely!  At  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1892  she 
was  represented  by  a  study,  "  Morning  Sunlight : "  a  room  with 
walls  stained  blue,  and  bright  sunbeams  pouring  in  through 
the  window  and  playing,  as  though  they  were  a  light  shower  of 
gold,  upon  the  walls,  the  yellow  planks,  and  the  blond  hair  of  a 
girl.  All  her  pictures  are  works  softly  tender  and  full  of  fresh 
light  But  the  execution  is  downright  and  virile.  It  is  only  in 
little  touches,  in  fine  and  delicate  traits  of  observation  which 
would  probably  have  escaped  a  man,  that  these  paintings  are 
recognized  to  be  the  works  of  a  feminine  artist. 

Michael  Ancher  is  ten  years  older  than  his  wife.  Peculiarly 
is  he  the  painter  of  the  race  of  large-boned  and  rough-grained 
fishers  who  on  the  northern  coast  of  the  island  kingdom  extort 
a  meagre  livelihood  from  the  sea  by  hard  toil.  "Fishers 
watching  a  Ship  sailing  by  in  a  Storm"  was  the  title  of  the 
first  large  picture  with  which  he  made  his  appearance  in  1876. 
Upon  a  sea-dune  falling  abruptly,  a  number  of  fishers  have 
gathered  to  mark  the  vessel,  scourged  by  the  gale  out  at  sea. 
Some  of  them,  dressed  only  in  oilskin  trousers  and  woollen 
jersey,  stand  upright,  their  great  outlines  standing  sharply  defined 
against  the  gloomy  sky,  which  is  swept  by  heavy  black  clouds ; 
others  have  lain  down  upon  the  soft  drifts  of  sand.  The  colour 
is  still  rather  poor  and  sober;  but  the  conception  of  nature, 
sincere,  impressively  simple,  and  almost  ascetically  energetic,, 
already  announced  the  forceful  master  who  stands  forth  to-day 
as  the  Ulysse  Butin  of  Denmark,  a  distant  kinsman  of  those 
strong-handed,  honest,  and  simple  painters  of  the  proletariat 
who  gather  round  Alfred  Roll  in  Paris.  Michael  Ancher  knows 
the   sea   and   that   toil   of  fishermen   which   tans    the    face    and 


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DENMARK 


327 


Anna  Ancher:   "A  Funeral." 


ITtllge  photo. 


makes  the  hands  hard,  and  in  his  pictures  he  renders  it  with 
the  plainness  of  an  old  seaman.  With  him  all  is  clear, 
precise,  and  as  matter-of-fact  as  open  daylight.  His  broad 
plebeian  treatment,  which  courts  no  pictorial  graces,  but  repre- 
sents the  fact  sincerely  and  in  accordance  with  reality,  suits  his 
coarse-handed,  raw-boned  subjects.  Ancher*s  men  are  actual 
fishermen  ;  every  figure  has  an  extraordinary  intensity  of  life, 
and  the  atmospheric  mood  is  always  true  and  unforced ;  every- 
thing manufactured  and  suggestive  of  the  tableau  is  avoided  in 
his  composition  throughout.  Here  is  a  lay-preacher  upon  the 
strand  hemmed  in  by  a  throng  of  pious  listeners,  and  there, 
of  a  Sunday  evening,  a  pair  of  fishers  are  making  their  way 
home  across  the  dunes.  Here  a  heavy  boat  for  carrying 
freightage  is  being  dragged  over  the  sand  by  sturdy  nags,  and 
there  another  shoots  through  the  murky  green  tide  landwards, 
rowed  by  three  men  in  oilskin  ;    and  there,   again,  are   weather- 


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UiUg9  photo 
Michael  Ancher:   ''Fishers  watching  a  Ship  sailing  by  in  a  Storm." 

beaten  seamen,  lolling  upon  the  shore  in  heavy,  dirty  weather, 
debating  the  destiny  of  a  ship  labouring  by  at  sea.  Even 
when  he  renders,  as  he  docs  at  times,  the  familiar  events  in 
the  household  life  of  Skagen  fishermen,  his  art  retains  its 
rude  and  earnest  note.  His  "  Boys'  School  in  Skagen "  was, 
for  example,  the  very  opposite  of  a  genre  picture  by  Emanuel 
Spitzer :  there  was  no  medley  of  good  and  naughty  boys 
practising  jokes  on  a  comic  schoolmaster.  The  old  man  sitting 
at  the  desk  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  with  large  spectacles,  is  a 
Northern  giant  who  does  not  allow  joking,  and  there  is  some- 
thing downcast  and  resigned  about  the  children.  Life  amid  this 
earnest  landscape,  and  between  the  blank  whitewashed  walls  of 
this  schoolroom  flooded  with  the  hard  Northern  daylight,  has 
made  them  staid  and  serious. 

Beside   Ancher,     Locher  is   the  principal  painter   of  the   sea. 
It  was  a  bold  stroke  to  name  a  waste  of  sea  "  January,"  as  he 


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DENMARK  329 

did  in  a  picture  at  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1890;  and  yet 
one  really  felt  the  cold,  wintry  sunshine  in  this  seascape,  where 
everything  was  bright,  fluid,  and  transparent  In  the  works  of 
Thorolf  Pedersetiy  also,  the  sea  is  usually  an  earnest  and  sombre 
element  Nothing  is  to  be  seen  in  his  pictures  except  the  sea 
and  the  sky — not  a  boat,  nor  a  bird.  Long,  vaporous  strips 
of  cloud  shift  on  the  leaden-grey  firmament,  and  the  silvery 
blue  transparent  sea  rolls  out  in  long  billows,  plunging  against 
one  another  monotonously  to  the  far  horizon,  and  in  the  fore- 
ground streaming  wearily  over  the  level  bluish-yellow  sand  and 
the  pale  green  oat-tufts  of  the  dunes.  Whereas  in  the  pictures 
of  the  Belgian  marine-painters  the  sea  gleams  in  all  colours  of 
the  rainbow,  laughs  coquettishly,  or  gives  curtain-lectures  like  a 
pretty  woman,  the  Danes  paint  the  sea  in  its  limitless  and 
desolate  solitude. 

And  this  same  melancholy  trait  is  peculiar  to  the  majority 
of  Danish  landscapes.  Pictures  like  those  of  Viggo  Pedersen, 
who,  amongst  all  the  younger  Danes,  is  most  in  harmony  with 
the  latest  Frenchmen,  and  sometimes,  in  his  rainbow  pictures, 
with  Rubens  also,  are  in  their  fine,  clear  harmonies  and  their 
bright,  laughing  notes  less  characteristic  of  the  Danish  sentiment 
for  nature.  Moreover  his  field  of  work  was  not  so  much 
Denmark  as  Italy.  He  lingered  long  in  Paris,  and  then  in 
Rome  and  Sora  di  Campagna,  and  learnt  there  to  see  nature 
with  the  eyes  of  the  most  modern  Impressionists.  Otherwise  the 
painting  of  Italy  is  under  an  interdict  amongst  the  living 
Danes,  as  is  well  known ;  yet  men  like  Pedersen  are  able  to 
bring  it  into  honour  once  more.  His  pictures  have  been  seen 
in  such  an  interesting  way  that  they  mirror  the  landscape  of 
Italy  in  an  entirely  different  fashion  from  that  which  may  be 
seen  in  the  arid,  motley,  and  unpictorial  productions  of  the 
generation  which  is  vanishing.  They  have  no  majestic  mountain 
lines,  but  combine  the  grey  landscape,  the  pale  green  of  the 
olives,  and  the  tender  blue  of  the  sky  with  the  silvery  lii;ht 
which  pervades  everything — combine  them  in  absolutely  charm- 
ing concords,  vibrating  through  the  whole  atmosphere  in  delicate 
gradations. 

VOL.   III.  22 


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330  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  same  is  more  or  less  true  of  Philipseris  Italian  pictures  : 
he  is,  likewise,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  modern  plein-air 
artists,  a  landscapist  of  note,  and  an  excellent  painter  of  animals ; 
as  such  he  has  taken  his  motives  of  late  years  from  the  islands 
Saltholm  and  Amager,  near  Copenhagen.  In  no  way  is  he  behind 
the  generation  born  ten  years  later ;  on  the  contrary  he  has  gone 
in  advance  of  it  and  levelled  the  way.  Thorwald  Niss  may  also 
be  considered  as  a  path-finder  in  the  Danish  art  of  landscape,, 
although  his  work  is  characteristic  of  a  somewhat  earlier  stage 
than  Philipsen's.  Beside  powerful  seascapes  he  takes  delight  in 
painting  the  moods  of  the  forest  in  autumn,  and  has  a  broad  and 
a  luxuriant  brush.  Together  with  Zacho  and  Gotfred  Christensen^ 
the  gifted  painter  of  the  Jutland  fjords,  he  has  long  exercised 
an  unquestionable  influence  on  Danish  painting  of  landscape, 
leading  it  to  adopt  a  more  forcible  scheme  of  colour  than  it  had 
in  earlier  days. 

Otherwise  there  rests  over  the  works  of  the  younger  group  of 
Danish  landscapists  all  the  still,  absorbed  melancholy  natural 
to  the  Danish  soil.  The  charm  of  Danish  scenery  does  not 
consist  in  splendid  colour  and  large  contours.  All  the  lines  are 
gradual  in  their  curves,  soft  in  all  their  forms,  and  without  great 
changes  or  surprises.  Even  in  the  beautiful  woodlands  round 
Copenhagen  the  huge  beeches  are  so  harmoniously  rounded  that 
they  leave  the  impression  of  suavity  rather  than  of  strength.  In 
a  certain  sense  Danish  nature  corresponds  with  the  Danish  tongue, 
which  is  just  as  mild,  as  discreet,  as  delicate,  and  as  free  of 
emphasis  as  the  outlines  of  the  country.  The  Dane  does  not  give 
way  to  broad  laughter,  but  only  to  a  smile ;  he  knows  nothing  of 
wild  life,  but  has  the  sense  of  quiet  enjoyment.  Noisy  demeanour 
he  would  regard  as  vulgarity.  Indeed  in  the  great  pleasure- 
gardens  of  Tivoli  there  are  thousands  of  people  moving  with  a 
decorum  and  quietude  which  almost  seem  unnatural.  There  is 
not  a  cry  to  be  heard,  and  when  any  one  talks  with  his  neighbour 
it  is  in  an  inaudible  whisper.  Everywhere  conversation  is  carried 
on  in  a  whisper — in  the  street,  the  public  promenades,  the  res- 
taurants. And  so  the  Danish  landscape  whispers  to  you  and 
cannot   cry   aloud,   smiles   and   will    not   laugh.     It   has   nothing 


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DENMARK  33  ► 

savage,  nor  rugged,  nor  indeed  too  large,  no  brusque  transitions,, 
no  sudden  interruptions,  but  only  wide  plains  with  indeterminate, 
vanishing,  almost  intangible  lines,  soft  rolling  country  that  ceases- 
imperceptibly  at  the  shore  of  the  sea  or  embraces  still  forest  meres 
with  gentle  declivities.  Except  in  Jutland,  there  are  no  really 
austere,  rough,  and  virgin  districts,  for  everything  is  subdued,, 
lonely,  and  peaceful.  Sometimes  the  tourist  catches  sight  of  a 
humble  cottage  painted  white,  with  a  thatched  roof  glancing  in. 
the  sunlight  or  showing  itself  with  a  tender  bluish  glimmer  in  the 
dusk.  'The  atmosphere  of  Holland  is  damp  and  misty,  but  in 
Denmark  it  is  fresh  and  cool ;  the  vegetation  in  one  country  is 
rich  and  luxuriant,  in  the  other  of  a  soft,  subdued,  and  rather 
pallid  green.  The  very  sunrise  and  sunset  are  not,  as  in  Norway,, 
gorgeous  and  opulent  in  effect,  but  indecisive,  soothing,  mysterious. 
And  the  artist  surrounded  by  nature  in  this  humour  easily 
becomes  meditative  and  dreamy ;  his  pictures  receive  the  same 
subdued  and  but  faintly  rhythmical  character.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  a  tinge  of  that  gentle  melancholy  recalling  Cazin  rests  upon 
the  majority  of  Danish  pictures.  It  is  not  reminiscence  or 
plagiarism,  but  a  natural  affinity  of  spirit  with  the  painter  who- 
in  France  rendered  best  the  character  of  Northern  plains,  their 
.  moist,  soft  nature,  the  fading  blue  and  the  grey  of  tender  night,, 
everything  that  is  quiet,  still,  and  veiled.  Faint  colours,  mist  and 
sadness,  grey  weather,  storm  and  rainy  air,  a  short  spring  which 
is  almost  winter,  with  fine  yellowish  verdure  which  looks  as  though 
it  were  still  budding,  such  is  the  character  of  Danish  landscape, 
the  ground-tone  which  goes,  tender  and  discreet,  through  the 
pictures  of  the  younger  Danes.  Each  one  of  them  is  an  in- 
dividuality, and  yet  in  all  they  do  there  is  this  same  soft,  melting 
trait,  and  this  same  low  and  yearning  burden.  Each  one  of  them 
looks  at  nature  with  his  own*  eyes,  but  all  their  works  invariably 
bear  this  same  scrupulously  exact  mark  of  kinship ;  one  recog- 
nizes at  once  that  these  pictures  are  from  the  same  little  native 
land,  the  same  quiet  corner  hidden  between  the  hills. 

Julius  Paulsen  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  best  repre- 
sentatives of  this  painting  of  "mood"  in  the  landscapes  of  the 
younger    generation.       It    is    not    possible     to    characterize    his 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Paulsen:   "Adam  and  Eve/ 


L  TUlg9  photo. 


pictures  with  any  of  the  current  phrases,  nor  to  describe 
them  by  the  stringing  together  of  words,  but  one  becomes 
absorbed  in  them  when  one  meets  them  in  exhibitions,  because 
they  have  such  depth,  a  dreamy  depth  which  does  not  clamour 
for  recognition,  but  reveals  itself  by  degrees.  Peasants'  houses, 
with  wild  vines  gleaming  red  and  green,  rest  beneath  soft 
spreading  beech-trees,  while  the  shadows  creep  slowly  along 
the  walls.  In  the  sky  a  faint  moon  casts  a  tremulous 
band  of  silver  upon  the  grey-green  meadows,  upon  the  still 
vessels  in  the  harbour,  upon  the  wan  shores  lying  in  the 
vaporous  bluish  dusk.  Evening  draws  on.  The  leaves  seem 
asleep  upon  the  trees,  and  nothing  stirs  except  the  lady-birds 
«pon   the   nettles,   and   a   few   shrivelled    leaves   upon   the  grass, 


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DENMARK 


333 


Mnnich :  Hanfstangl.} 


Peterson  Mols  :    **  October.' 


contracting  slightly  beneath  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  Or 
there  is  rain,  a  dull  October  evening,  when  the  damp  mist 
clings  to  the  brown  boughs.  Often  he  does  not  paint  actual 
things  at  all,  but  only  their  reflection :  lonely  forest  meres 
imaging  the  forms  and  colours  of  nature  in  uncertain,  rippling, 
tremulous  outlines.  And  this  same  man,  who  is  one  of  the 
most  various  artists  in  Denmark,  renders  in  his  portraits, 
charged  as  they  are  with  character,  the  peculiarities  of  a  head 
no  less  well  than  he  seizes  the  secret  of  a  phase  of  nature  in 
his  landscapes.  This  same  man  is  in  Denmark,  the  land  of 
shame-faced  prudery,  one  of  the  few  who  occasionally  venture 
upon  painting  the  nude.  One  recalls  his  picture  "The  Waiting 
Models,"  and  particularly  his  "  Adam  and  Eve,"  those  two  nude 
figures  in  the  misty  shades  of  the  forest :  Adam  stretching 
his  limbs  as  he  wakes  from  a  dull  slumber,  and  Eve  standing 
in   her   dazzling    beauty,   and   looking   down    upon    him   with   a 


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334  MODERN  PAINTING 

Tialf-sensuous,  half-disdainful  glance.  For  the  present  Paulsen 
would  seem  to  have  reached  a  climax  in  his  "  Cain,"  that 
expressive  figure  turning  over  in  pain  before  the  eye  of  God — 
one  of  the  most  eminent  performances  of  the  young  Danes. 

Knowledge  of  these  men  may  be  most  readily  acquired  in 
Copenhagen  at  "  The  Free  Exhibition,"  as  it  is  called,  a  rival 
of  the  official  Salon  near  Charlottenborg.  This  Art  Union  was 
founded  in  1891  by  some  of  the  youngest  painters,  with  whom 
were  joined,  in  addition  to  Zahrtmann,  Philipsen,  Engelsted, 
Viggo  Pedersen,  and  Paulsen,  the  brothers  Joachim  and  Niels 
Skovgaardy  sons  of  that  admirable  landscape-painter  Peter 
Christian  Skovgaard,  and  both  born  artists.  They  began  as 
landscape-painters,  influenced  by  their  father,  and  executed 
pictures  in  which  the  naturalistic  traditions  of  the  old  Danish 
art  were  continued.  After  that  they  were  both  in  Italy,  and 
brought  from  thence  beautiful  Italian  landscapes  and  charming 
pictures  of  the  life  of  the  people.  Moreover  they  visited  Greece, 
where  they  made  pictorial  studies  after  antique  architecture ;  and 
thus  they  have  both  abundantly  studied  ancient  art  upon  classic 
ground.  After  their  return  they  fell  once  more  to  painting 
naturalistic  landscapes,  and  paint  them  still,  deriving  their 
motives  more  especially  from  Halland  in  the  south  of  Sweden. 
But  incidentally  they  are  following  more  and  more  a  decorative 
style,  novel  in  the  history  of  Danish  painting.  Experiments  in 
pottery  which  they  have  made  together  with  many  other  artists, 
such  as  the  gifted  T/ieodor  Bindesboll,  awakened  their  feeling  for 
the  charm  of  simple  mediums,  and,  in  particular,  the  elder 
brother  Joachim  Skovgaard  has  since  then  aimed  more  often 
at  decorative  than  at  naturalistic  effects  in  his  figure-pieces. 
Several  of  his  biblical  compositions  have  made  a  considerable 
sensation — for  instance,  "The  Angel  at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda," 
a  picture  in  which  the  rushing  movement  of  masses  achieved 
a  peculiarly  telling  effect.  In  "  Christ  as  the  Warder  of  Paradise" 
he  showed  the  influence  of  the  early  Italian  Renaissance,  more 
or  less  indeed  of  Gozzoli,  though  without  a  trace  of  actual 
imitation.  And  the  landscape  especially,  with  the  majestic 
walls   of    Paradise,   bore   witness   to   a   rare   power   of  invention. 


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DENMARK  335 

Both  he  and  his  younger  brother  have  drawn  many  illustrations, 
amongst  which  Niels  Skovgaard*s  drawings  to  the  old  Danish 
ballads  are  particularly  worthy  of  note,  and  show  an  admirable 
sense  of  style.  Both  these  artists  are  characteristic  of  the 
fermentation  which  has  taken  place  in  the  Danish  art  of  recent 
years,  for  which  the  "Free  Exhibition"  has  become  the  inde- 
pendent stage.  An  anti-naturalistic  movement  is  to  be  clearly 
traced  in  all  directions,  and  receives  new  adherents  every  year. 
The  attack  is  made  in  various  ways,  but  all  have  the  same 
object  in  view :  the  attainment  of  a  larger  method  of  conception 
than  that  of  the  older  Danish  painters  of  the  naturalistic  school 
Everywhere  they  seek  the  means  for  carrying  out  this  new 
style.  Skovgaard  is  under  the  influence  of  the  Italians,  others 
under  that  of  the  most  modern  French,  and  even  an  artist 
like  Viggo  Pedersen,  who  would  appear  to  stand  so  much  apart, 
seems  bent  on  breaking  with  his  earlier  manner. 

A  dozen  years  ago  plein-air  painting  was  the  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  young  Danish  artists,  but  amongst  the  youngest  it 
has  already  lost  its  authority.  They  hold  that  art  has  greater 
aims  than  that  of  approaching  nature  as  closely  as  possible,  and 
they  admit  other  subjects  than  those  of  the  naturalists.  After 
Niels  Skovgaard  and  the  veteran  Lorens  Frohlich — one  of  the 
most  gifted  illustrators  of  the  present,  whose  children's  books 
are  familiar  throughout  the  world — had  illustrated  the  old  Danish 
ballads  in  their  drawings,  Mrs,  Agnes  Slott^Moller  for  the  first 
time  attempted  to  treat  them  in  painting,  and  she  has  shown 
in  her  pictures  an  exceedingly  modern  comprehension  of  the 
old  legends.  Her  husband,  Harold  Slott-MoUer,  is  a  man  of 
eminent  talent  as  a  colourist,  and  his  pictures,  "The  Doctor's 
Waiting-Room "  and  the  "  Portrait  of  my  Wife,"  early  assured 
him  a  place  amongst  promising  artists  of  the  younger  genera- 
tion. Later  he  turned  to  decorative  painting,  though  without 
achieving  in  it  anything  so  deservedly  successful  as  the  two 
works  which  have  been  named.  But  the  most  singular  amongst 
all  who  appear  in  "  The  Free  Exhibition "  is  /.  F.  WtUumsen, 
^ho  seems  to  be  gaining  the  importance  of  an  initiator  in 
Danish   art.      He   too — though   he   is   little   more   than   thirty — 


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336  MODERN  PAINTING 

began  as  a  naturalistic  painter,  and  at  first  modelled  himself 
upon  Viggo  Johansen.  A  journey  to  Paris,  where  he  now  lives, 
gave  him  new  impulses.  From  the  most  modern  French  artists 
he  borrowed  many  a  mysterious  formula,  but  they  had  no  power 
to  kill  his  own  strong  and  peculiar  personality.  Willumsen  is- 
still  in  the  experimental  stage;  he  works  in  all  mediums — paints 
and  carves  in  wood,  etches,  and  makes  attempts  in  terra-cotta. 
And  in  all  that  he  does  there  is  the  effort  to  be  simple,  and  to- 
create  an  art  which,  in  opposition  to  Naturalism,  shall  be  purely 
suggestive  in  effect 

Another  man  of  singular  temperament  is  F.  Hamnurshoyy 
a  very  refined  artist  in  the  matter  of  tone-values,  one  who 
envelops  everything  in  a  soft  grey-brown  and  sheds  around  his 
figures  a  mysterious,  transparent  gloom.  Like  Whistler,  he  is 
hyper-sensitive  in  colour.  In  one  of  his  pictures  a  matron  is 
represented  sitting  quietly  before  a  silver-grey  wall ;  in  another  a 
large  round  table  covered  with  white,  and  without  any  accessories 
of  still-life,  stands  in  a  silver-grey  room.  He  has  also  painted 
dreamy,  earnest  portraits,  which  are  full  of  soul  ;  and  highly 
notable  was  his  mysterious  representation  of  "Job."  Amongst 
the  other  contributors  to  *'The  Free  Exhibition,"  honourable 
mention  must  be  made  of  Johan  RoJide^  who  paints  beautiful 
and  moving  landscapes  from  lonely  regions  in  Jutland  ;  Selig- 
mantiy  who  has  an  excellent  talent  for  narration  ;  and  Karl  Jensetiy. 
a  refined  painter  of  architecture.  Together  with  some  of  the 
younger  members  of  the  official  Salon  and  several  of  the  pupils  of 
Zahrtmann,  these  "Free  Exhibitors"  form  the  advance  guard 
of  Danish  art,  a  guard  which,  as  it  seems,  will  assure  their 
little  country  in  the  future  an  important  voice  in  the  European 
alliance  of  art. 


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CHAPTER   XLI 

SWEDEN 

Previous  history  of  Swedish  art. — The  Classicists :  Per  Krafft,  Frederik 
Westin,  Elias  Martin.— Extension  of  the  range  of  subject  through 
Romanticism:  Plageman,  BlomnUr,  Fahlcrantz,  Wilhelm  Palm, 
Egron  Lundgren, — Beginnings  of  a  national  painting  of  the  life 
of  the  people:  Soedermark,  Sandberg,  Dahlstrom,  Per  Wickenberg, 
Karl  Wahlbom,  August  Lindholm,  Amalia  Lindegren,  Nils 
Andersson.—The  DUsseldorfian  period:  Karl  D' Uncker,  Bengt 
Nordenberg,  Wilhelm  Wallander,  Anders  Koskull,  August 
'fern berg,  Ferdinand  Eager lin. — After  the  Paris  World  Exhibition 
of  1867,  instead  of  going  to  DUsseldorf  the  Swedes  repair  to  Paris 
and  Munich. — Period  of  costume-painting  and  colouring  after  the 
old  masters:  Johan  Kristoffer  Boklund,  Johan  Frederik  Hoeckert, 
Marten  Eskil  Winge,  August  Malmstrdm,  Georg  von  Rosen,  Julius 
Kronberg,  Carl  Gustav  Hellquist,  Gustav  Cederstrom,  Nils  Forsberg. 
— The  landscape-painters:  Marcus  Larsson,  Alfred  Wahlberg, 
G,  Rydberg,  Edvard  Bergh,— After  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of 
1878  the  last  transition y  which  led  the  young  Swedish  artists  to  follow 
the  lines  of  Impressionism,  took  place. — The  Parisian  Swedes :  Hugo 
Salmson,  August  Hagborg,  Vilhelm  van  Gegerfelt,  Karl  Sk&nberg, 
Hugo  Birger. — Those  who  returned  home  became  the  founders  of  a 
new  national  Swedish  art. — Character  of  this  art  compared  with 
the  Danish. — The  landscape-painters :  Per  Eckstrom,  Nils  Kreuger, 
Karl  Nordstrom,  Prince  Eugene,  Robert  ThegerstrOm,  Olof  Arbor elius, 
Axel  Lindmann,  Alfred  Ihdrne,  John  Kindborg,  Johan  Krouthin, 
Adolf  Nordling,  Johan  Ericson,  Edvard  Rosenberg,  Ernst 
Lundstrdm, — The  painters  of  animals :  Wennerberg,  Brandelius, 
Georg  Arsenius,  Bruno  Liljefors. — The  figure-painters:  Axel 
Kulle,  A  If  Wallander,  Axel  Borg,  Johan  Tirin,  Allan  Oesterlind^ 
Oscar  Bj&rck,  Carl  Lars  son,  Ernst  Josephson,  Georg  Pauli^ 
Richard  Bergh,  Anders  Zorn. 


SWEDEN  is  a  land  of  more  fashionable  tastes  than  Denmark, 
and  with  a  more  decided  leaning  towards  France.  In 
Copenhagen  cordiality  and  provincial  simplicity  are  in  the 
ascendant ;  in  Stockholm  frivolity  and  brilliancy,  greater  luxury. 


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338  MODERN  PAINTING 

■elegance  of  toilette,  refined  and  graceful  social  life.  In  Denmark 
one  finds  an  island  of  silence,  a  land  of  idylls,  where  nothing  ever 
happens.  The  inhabitants  are  thoughtful,  dreamy,  bourgeois. 
They  talk  with  a  soft  voice  and  in  a  low  key.  But  the  Swedes 
are  children  of  the  great  world,  always  slender,  elastic,  and  mobile 
in  their  pilgrimage  through  life.  Their  language  rings  bright  and 
•emphatic  ;  it  is  the  French  of  the  North.  All  their  sympathies 
are  proper  to  France.  And  they  are  the  Parisians  of  the  North 
in  their  art  also. 

Where  it  is  genuine,  Danish  painting  has  something  provincial, 
familiar,  homely.  The  new  technique  is  only  a  medium  by  which 
painters  give  expression  to  their  delicate,  discreet  observation,  and 
their  subdued  and  tender  feelings.  Like  the  old  Dutch  masters 
Pieter  de  Hoogh  and  Van  der  Meer,  they  paint  pleasant  and 
-comfortable  chambers,  with  old  sofas  and  slowly  striking  clocks, 
and  the  soft  atmosphere  of  the  sitting-room,  and  the  dim  light  of 
the  lamp.  The  husband  sits  with  his  book  at  the  table,  the 
-children  are  doing  their  exercises,  the  girls  are  playing  the  piano 
and  singing,  and  the  coals  glimmer  in  the  little  iron  stove. 

But  Swedish  painting  is  like  a  polished  man  of  the  world  who 
has  travelled  much.  It  is  more  elegant  and  gleaming,  more 
subtile  and  sensuous,  more  capricious  and  experimental.  The 
young  Stockholm  painters  who  went  to  Paris  chiefly  sought  to 
become  adepts  in  technique,  and  addressed  themselves  with 
astonishing  boldness  to  the  most  novel  problems  in  open-air 
painting.  They  have  not  the  loving  tenderness,  the  touching 
sentiment  of  home  peculiar  to  the  Danes,  but  are  less  characteristic 
and  more  cosmopolitan.  Yet  they  march  in  the  advance  guard 
of  modernity  beside  the  most  subtile  Parisians.  Both  in  their 
colour  and  their  subjects  there  is  a  more  fluent  and  supple  magic, 
a  graceful  and  nervously  vibrating  sweep  which  takes  the  eye 
captive.  They  are  French  in  their  alluring  method ;  they  have  a 
longer  tradition  in  art  than  have  the  Danes,  and  are  more  fully 
citizens  of  the  world. 

Whereas  the  Danish  painters  rarely  left  their  little  country 
before  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  the  Swedes  took  their 
part  in  the  history  of  European  art  even  in  the  eighteenth  century. 


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SWEDEN  339 

In  those  days  a  number  of  enterprising  artists,  with  the  love  of 
travel  in  their  blood,  settled  down  abroad,  divided  their  time 
between  different  courts,  and  finally  abided  where  they  had  the 
greatest  success.  Hedlinger  was  famous  as  an  engraver ;  Georg 
de  Maries  is  well  known  to  students  of  the  history  of  Bavarian 
art ;  Meytens  painted  in  Berlin  ;  Gustav  Lundberg  was  valued  as 
a  painter  of  pastels  in  Paris  ;  Hillestroni^  a  pupil  of  Boucher,  is 
mentioned  with  praise  in  Diderot's  notices  of  the  Salon  for  his 
•**  Triumph  of  Galatea  ; "  Lafrensen^  known  as  Lavreince  in  France* 
occupies  an  important  place  in  the  history  of  the  French  Rococo 
period.  More  than  one  became  a  member  of  the  French  Academy 
and  bore  the  title  Peintre  du  Rot,  Amongst  them  all  the  artist 
possessed  of  most  virti\osity  was  Alexander  Roslin,  who  went 
<t2s\y  abroad,  dividing  his  time  between  the  courts  of  Baireuth, 
Parma,  and  Paris,  where  he  was  immediately  elected  to  the 
Academy,  and  in  several  competitions  even  triumphed  over 
-Greuze.  He  had  the  art  of  arranging  his  pictures  of  ceremonies, 
and  his  solemn  state  canvases,  with  great  aplomb ;  of  these  the 
Stockholm  collection  possesses  the  great  gala  portrait  of  Marie 
Antoinette  and  the  group  of  Gustav  III.  and  his  brothers.  The 
faces,  indeed,  are  occasionally  lifeless.  But  with  all  the  more 
virtuosity  could  he  reproduce  the  mingled  sheen  of  silks  and 
velvet,  embroidery  and  golden  ornaments,  so  that  a  verse  was 
-current  in  Paris : 

**  Qui  a  figure  de  satin 
Doit  bien  itre  peint  far  Roslin.** 

He  built  a  princely  house  there,  and  is  said  to  have  left  behind 
him  a  fortune  of  eight  hundred  thousand  francs. 

The  period  of  Classicism  was  chiefly  represented  by  certain 
sculptors,  and  whoever  delights  in  Thorwaldsen  in  Copenhagen 
should  not  withhold  his  admiration  from  the  Swedes,  Erik  Gustav 
Gothe,  Johan  Nikolas  Bystrom,  and,  more  particularly,  their 
teacher  Johan  Tobias  Sei^el,  who  was  seventeen  years  senior 
to  Canova  and  thirty  years  senior  to  Thorwaldsen  ;  he  was 
in  Stockholm  the  real  founder  of  the  classical  plastic  art,  and 
for  this   reason   alone   deserves   a  more  important   place  in  the 


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340  MODERN  PAINTING 

general  history  of  art  than  has,  as  a  rule,  been  yet  accorded 
to  him. 

In  the  province  of  painting  the  transition  from  the  eighteenth 
to  the  nineteenth  century  was,  as  elsewhere,  a  period  of  decline. 
On  the  exertions  made  earlier  there  followed  debility,  and  a 
stiff  and  monotonous  school  of  painting.  The  animated  colour- 
ing of  the  age  of  Gustav  grew  pallid,  and  the  ascetic  colouring 
of  David  threw  its  grey  shadow  even  into  Sweden.  Priam 
before  Achilles,  Adonis  between  Diana  and  Venus,  Endymion, 
and  Phaedra  and  Electra,  took  possession  of  all  canvases  even 
in  the  North.  The  artist  most  prolific  in  preparing  such  ideal 
figures  was  Per  Krafft,  who,  having  acquired  in  the  beginning 
of  the  century  a  severe  style  of  drawing  and  indifferent 
colouring  under  David,  made  an  imposing  effect  in  his  native 
country  on  the  score  of  his  "grand  style."  Frederik  Westin, 
the  academician  incarnate,  who  could  not  conceive  any  picture 
which  had  not  yellowish-brown,  leather-coloured  bodies,  goes 
upon  lines  more  or  less  parallel  with  Gerard  and  Girodet,  to 
whose  suave  ornamentation  he  gave  a  barbaric  turn,  though  he 
has  also  executed  shiny  portraits  in  the  style  of  Josef  Stieler. 
The  gospel  of  stiff,  Classical  landscape-painting  was  announced 
by  Elias  Martin,  And  if  the  portrait-painter  Karl  Frederik 
von  Breda  is  painter  in  a  far  higher  degree,  he  owes  this  to 
having  worked  for  a  long  time  under  Reynolds  and  Lawrence, 
to  whose  principles  he  adhered  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

Here,  as  elsewhere.  Romanticism  extended  the  range  of 
subject,  and  led  to  a  restoration  in  the  matter  of  colour.  Artists 
sought  to  put  life  into  the  Northern  mythology ;  they  set  landscape 
free  from  the  Classical  scheme,  attempted  to  give  their  work  a 
religious  tinge  like  the  Nazarenes,  or  hurried  through  Italy  and 
the  East  in  search  of  pictorial  themes. 

The  Swedish  Nazarene  was  Karl  Plageman,  A  dreamy 
man,  with  large  visionary  eyes,  he  lived  by  emotion,  and  in 
Italy,  which  became  his  home  from  183 1,  he  was  to  such  a  degree 
intoxicated  with  the  mysticism  of  Catholic  churches,  and  the 
splendour  of  altar-pieces,  that  from  sheer  reverence  for  the  old 
masters  he  never  succeeded  in  producing  anything  that  he  could 


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SWEDEN  341 

really  call  his  own.  *•  The  dead,"  said  he,  "  have  kindled  my 
emotions,  and  it  is  the  dead  who  shall  be  my  teachers."  Like 
Overbeck,  he  reckoned  the  period  from  Cimabue  to  Perugino 
as  the  flourishing  age  of  art,  and,  indeed,  his  religious  pictures 
are  by  no  means  inept  imitations  of  the  old  models. 

Nils  Johan  Blommir  stands  to  Plageman  as  Schwind  to 
Overbeck.  Since  he  died,  as  early  as  1853,  ^^  the  age  of  six- 
and-thirty,  he  has  left  but  few  pictures  to  bear  witness  to  his 
dreamy  spirit  and  his  wealth  of  feeling,  but,  like  those  of  Schwind, 
they  are  certain  of  immortality.  Blommdr's  works  proceeded 
from  a  soft,  poetic,  and  thoroughly  Northern  sentiment.  "The 
chief  thing  in  a  work  of  art,'*  he  writes,  "is  soul.  I  want  to 
represent  what  lives  in  the  poetry  of  our  people,  all  the  figures 
which  belong  neither  to  definite  ages  nor  definite  poets,  but 
rather  constitute  the  natural  expression  of  our  nation,  standing, 
as  such,  in  the  closest  union  with  the  character  of  our  Swedish 
race."  So,  like  Schwind,  he  peopled  the  landscape  of  his  native 
country  with  the  creatures  of  Northern  folk-songs.  But  he  had 
not  the  strength  to  find  the  cogent  form  for  the  misty  visions 
of  his  imagination,  or  to  give  new  bodies  to  the  figures  of  the 
Northern  sagas,  which  had  never  yet  been  represented.  And 
in  this  he  resembled  the  contemporary  sculptor  Fogelberg.  But 
it  is  an  evidence  of  fine  tact  that  he  did  not  follow  Fogelberg 
in  merely  reproducing  the  antique,  but  attempted  a  more  romantic 
treatment  of  these  myths  in  the  style  of  the  Midsummer  Nights 
Dreamy  in  the  style  of  Cranach,  Francia,  or  the  old  Umbrians  ; 
and  in  this  way  he  preserved  the  childlike  spirit  which  is  in  the 
youthful  visions  of  the  Northern  nationalities.  Like  Schwind 
again,  Blomm^r  had  a  thoughtful,  meditative,  artistic  temperament 
to  which  everything  dramatic  and  violent  was  alien.  Even  when  he 
handled  the  myths  of  the  gods,  the  gloomy  fancies  of  the  Northern 
sagas  made  no  appeal  to  his  mild  and  yielding  disposition.  It 
was  not  with  the  mighty  Thor  that  he  was  occupied,  not  with 
the  tempest  raging  across  the  sea,  nor  with  the  desolation  of 
great  and  wild  mountains.  But  in  Freia  and  Sigyn  he  glorified 
love  and  beauty,  the  devotion  and  patience  of  woman,  as  Schwind 
4id    in   Aschenbrodel   and   "  The    Faithful    Sister,"   and    pictures 


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342  MODERN  PAINTING 

like  "The  Youth  and  the  Elves"  or  "Neckan's  Sport  with  the 
Mermaids  **  echo  so  tenderly  the  simple,  cordial  tone  of  the  old 
folk-song  that  for  the  sake  of  this  touching  and  homely  charm, 
the  inadequate  and  nugatory  painting  is  forgotten. 

The  Swedish  Lessing  was  Karl  Johan  Fahkrantz,  As  a  land- 
scapist  he  gave  typical  expression  to  the  enthusiasm  for  nature 
introduced  by  Romanticism,  and  rendered  in  an  exaggerated 
fashion  its  glory  and  splendour  or  its  minatory  gloom,  the 
melancholy  sadness  of  the  Northern  winter  or  the  peaceful 
mildness  of  the  spring.  At  times  hie  displays  valleys  with  old 
oaks,  between  which  the  light  falls  in  broad  bands  upon  the 
soft  grass,  at  times  steel-blue  lakes  in  a  clear  golden  atmosphere 
and  with  vessels  whose  sails  gleam  in  all  the  hues  of  the  prism^ 
at  times  shadowy  groves  and  rocky  dunes  overgrown  with  huge 
immemorial  trees.  Fahlcrantz  idealized  nature,  intensified  effects- 
of  light,  and  arranged  fragments  of  Ruysdael  and  Everdingen 
in  fantastic  compositions.  Under  his  hands  the  Stockholm  Park 
is  populated  with  fabulous  animals  and  deep  hollows,  which 
give  it  the  appearance  of  a  "Wolf's  Glen."  His  trees  are  of 
an  undetermined  species,  his  sky  rosy,  his  colours  warm  and 
toned  to  an  excessively  dark  shade.  Yet,  at  times,  when  he 
forgot  the  necessity  for  a  most  arbitrary  romantic  exaggera- 
tion, his  pictures  have  really  a  dreamy  poetry,  and  fully 
render  the  sentiment  intended  by  the  painter. 

Gustav  Wilhelni  Palm^  in  his  later  years  called  Palma 
Vecchio^  might  be  most  readily  compared  with  the  French 
Michallon  or  with  Paul  Flandrin.  Italy  was  almost  exclusively 
his  field  of  study.  To  a  strained  method  of  composition  and 
arrangement  he  united  a  certain  realistic  capacity  for  painting 
detail,  which  did  not  solely  aim  at  representing  "  the  tree  in  itself" 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Classicists  proper,  but  differentiated  the 
character  of  vegetation  with  scientific  accuracy.  His  olives, 
pines,  flowers,  and  grasses  are  painted  thoroughly  with  a  fine 
brush  and  are  true  to  botany ;  and  thus,  fifty  years  ago,  they 
enjoyed  a  fame  which  it  is  now  difficult  to  understand.  And 
this  careful,  loving  regard  for  nature,  scrupulous  to  the  point 
of    Philistinism    though    it   was,    in    combination    with   a  harsh,. 


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SWEDEN  345 

motley  scale  of  colour,  which  was  nevertheless  selected  with  an 
eye  to  truth,  was  still  peculiar  to  him  when,  after  an  absence  of 
sixteen  years,  he  returned  home,  and,  besides  Italian  motives,, 
sometimes  painted  little  Northern  landscapes,  architectural  frag- 
ments from  the  old  Stockholm  port  and  the  cloisters  of  Wisby. 

Egron  Lundgren  was  the  Swedish  Fromentin — a  cosmopolitan 
who  extended  his  field  of  study  as  far  as  India,  an  artist 
spirited  in  improvization,  and  a  gourmet  in  colour,  one  whose 
coquettish  art,  like  that  of  the  Frenchman,  was  half  an  affair 
of  reality,  half  of  mannerism.  His  pictures  of  the  life  of  the 
Italian  people,  such  as  the  **  Corpus  Domini  Procession "  of 
1847,  might,  with  their  piquant  effects  of  colour,  have  been 
painted  by  the  side  of  Decamp.  But  his  peculiar  province  he 
first  discovered  when  he  came  to  Barcelona  and  was  there 
attracted  by  the  life  of  the  Spanish  people.  His  aquarelles 
from  Spain — he  was  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Painters  in 
Water-Colours — are  exceedingly  spirited  fantasies,  which  have 
always  the  air  of  lightness  and  improvization.  As  he  had  the 
secret  of  giving  the  sentiment  of  a  landscape  with  a  few  strokes,, 
so  he  could  catch  the  character  and  movement  of  a  figure 
with  an  impressionistic  aptitude.  A  highly  bred  and  wealthy 
man,  he  made  London  his  headquarters  throughout  his  life, 
turning  up  sometimes  in  Italy,  sometimes  in  Spain  or  India,, 
upon  pilgrimages  of  study. 

National  and  domestic  life  was  turned  to  account  as  gradu^ 
ally  and  diffidently  in  Swedish  art  as  in  that  of  other  countries. 
Here  also  it  was  military  painting  that  made  a  beginning.  A 
few  artists,  who  had  at  one  time  been  officers,  had  exercised 
upon  the  drill-ground  a  keener  eye  for  the  characteristic 
phenomena  of  modern  life  than  the  professional  painters  had 
done  in  the  plaster-cast  class  of  the  Academy  ;  and  they  were 
the  first  to  draw,  with  a  plain  and  dry  realism,  scenes  from  the 
world  of  soldiers  or  comic  anecdotes  dealing  with  the  people. 
Some  of  them,  like  Wetterling  and  Moemer,  did  not  get  beyond 
the  stage  of  dilettantism.  On  the  other  hand,  Olof  Soedemiarky 
who  pursued  his  studies  in  Munich  and  Rome,  reached  a 
creditable   level.      The    pictures    from    Swedish    history — battles 


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344  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  parades,  the  victories  of  Carl  Johan  and  the  doings  of 
Bernadotte — which  these  men  painted  in  concert  in  the  Castle 
of  Stockholm,  are  rather  military  bulletins  than  works  of  art, 
and  stand,  artistically  considered,  more  or  less  on  an  equality 
with  the  battle-pieces  with  which  Peter  Hess  and  Albrecht 
Adam  embellished  the  Castle  at  Munich :  Soedermark,  however, 
displayed  real  merits  in  a  series  of  excellent  portraits — those,  for 
instance,  of  Frederika  Bremen  and  Jenny  Lind — and  his  portraits 
drove  out  the  classic  wax  dolls  of  Westin,  which  had  been 
hitherto  in  favour. 

Two  others,  Johan  Gustav  Sandberg  and  K,  A.  Dahlstrom, 
who  also  contributed  to  the  cycle  of  battle-pieces  and  historical 
pictures,  in  the  further  course  of  their  labours  went  from  the 
uniform  to  the  peasant's  blouse.  Their  works,  like  those  of  old 
Meyerheim,  are  not  so  much  pictures  of  peasants  as  costume- 
pictures.  Sandberg  especially  was  occupied  far  less  frequently 
witji  human  beings  than  with  their  Sunday  clothes,  and  confined 
himself — when,  for  example,  he  painted  the  unveiling  of  •  the 
statue  to  Gustav  Vasa — simply  to  a  coloured  memorandum  of 
all  the  Swedish  provincial  costumes  from  Skouen  to  Lapland. 
Dahlstrom,  who  only  died  in  1869,  seems  plainer  and  more 
animated  in  his  pictures  of  children,  fishermen,  and  beggars. 
It  was  chiefly  owing  to  his  influence  that  the  heroic  range  ot 
subjects  was  abandoned,  and  that  Swedish  painting  was  made 
familiar  with  its  own  period  and  with  Swedish  people. 

Per  Wickenberg^  who  received  an  impulse  from  him,  goes, 
more  or  less,  upon  parallel  lines  with  Hermann  Kauffmann  and 
Biirkel.  His  misty  winter  landscapes,  filled  in  with  peasants  or 
fishermen,  are  good,  honest  works,  simple,  sound,  and  fresh, 
although,  like  the  pictures  of  BUrkel,  they  are  not  so  much  based 
upon  direct  observation  as  upon  a  thorough  study  of  the  old 
Dutch  masters  Isaias  van  der  Velde  and  Isaak  Ostade. 

The  Swedish  Steffeck  was  Karl  Wahlbom,  He  painted 
peasant-pictures  in  the  manner  of  Teniers,  pictures  from  Swedish 
history,  and  especially  horses,  which  he  placed  boldly  and  vividly 
in  actual  movement  But  the  most  attractive  effect  is  produced 
by  Lorenz  August  Lindholm^  who   made  an  intelligent  study  of 


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SWEDEN  345 

Cerard  Dow  and  Metsu,  during  a  long  residence  in  Holland. 
From  the  one  he  learnt  his  conscientious  work  of  detail,  and 
from  the  other  he  gradually  acquired  full  and  vigorous  colour, 
his  own  having  been  brown  and  arid  in  the  beginning.  His 
interiors  are  simple,  quiet  pictures,  sympathetic  in  observation 
and  conscientious  in  the  minuteness  of  the  painting,  the  subjects 
being  grandmothers*  birthdays,  peasants  smoking  or  playing 
-cards,  boys  reading,  or  little  girls  holding  a  skein  for  their 
mothers. 

With  her  unpretentious  representations  of  the  joy  of  children, 
the  smiling  happiness  of  parents,  sorrow  resigned,  and  childish 
stubbornness,  Amalia  Lindegren  attained  great  national  popu- 
larity, for  without  being  a  connoisseur  it  is  possible  to  take 
pleasure  in  the  fresh  children's  faces  in  her  pictures. 

Nils  Andersson  took  up  the  theme  where  Dahlstrom  had 
•dropped  it,  and  carried  it  further  with  better  equipment  Barren^ 
stony  hills,  with  low,  scanty  bushes,  fir-woods,  and  desolate,  snowy 
landscapes  form  the  background  of  his  works,  in  which  men 
and  animals  are  seen  at  their  labours.  He  painted  nature  and 
the  folk  of  his  home  without  humour  or  poetic  varnish,  not  the 
people  on  Sunday,  but  their  ordinary  work-a-day  life.  In  this 
unforced  and  natural  homeliness  lies  his  strength.  The  colouring 
of  his  pictures  is  thin  and  clumsy,  the  execution  tortured  and 
laborious. 

Such  essentially  was  the  result  of  the  evolution  of  Swedish 
art  up  to  1850.  Sweden  had  individual  painters,  but  no  trained 
school.  Sounds  were  to  be  heard,  but  as  yet  there  was  no  full 
•chime.  But  the  ambition  to  do  as  other  nations  was  growing 
•stronger,  and  to  attain  this  end  systematic  study  abroad  was  a 
necessity.  Dusseldorf,  whither  the  Norwegian  Tidemand  had 
already  shown  the  way,  had  a  special  fame,  and  became  from 
1850  the  high-school  for  Swedish  art.  In  1855  no  l^ss  than  thirty 
Swedes  were  entered  at  the  Dusseldorf  Academy,  and  the 
'"  Northern  Society "  which  they  founded  soon  became  a  factor 
in  the  artistic  life  of  the  place. 

Yet  these  painters  have  nothing  specifically  Swedish.  Their 
art  is  Dusseldorf  art  with  Swedish  landscapes  and  costumes,  and 

VOL.   III.  23 


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346  MODERN  PAINTING 

thus  they  differ  to  their  disadvantage  from  contemporary  Danes, 
Vermehren,  Exner,  and  Dalsgaard  based  their  art  upon  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  their  own  country ;  the  heart  of  the 
people  is  throbbing  there,  the  pulse  of  vigorous  national  life. 
But  Karl  HUncker,  Bengt  Nordenberg,  Wilhelm  Wallanderr 
Anders  Koskull,  Kilian  Zoll,  Peter  Eskilson,  August  Jemberg, 
and  Ferdinand  Fagerlin  contented  themselves  with  translating 
Knaus  and  Vautier  into  Swedish.  The  Danes  were  tender  and 
cordial  poets,  but  these  men  merely  gave  a  dry  course  of  in- 
struction on  habits  and  customs  in  Swedish  villages.  The  former 
rendered  plain,  naive,  and  direct  fragments  of  everyday  life ;  the 
latter  studiously  composed  pictures  for  the  best  sitting-room. 
Foreign  patrons  of  art  did  not  exact  intimacy  of  feeling,  but 
understood  types  all  the  better  the  more  general  they  were. 
They  were  indifferent  to  the  poetry  of  daily  life  in  the  North  ^ 
it  was  only  anecdote  and  the  ethnographical  element  which  met 
with  their  approbation.  And  as  the  art  of  every  country  must 
use  its  own  language,  and  a  painting  of  national  life  presupposes- 
intimate  union  between  the  painter  and  the  nation,  it  can  only 
be  said  that,  at  this  period,  the  scales  had  not  yet  fallen  from- 
men's  eyes. 

In  the  matter  of  technique  the  results  were  likewise  paltry. 
All  these  painters  were  anecdotists  and  novel-writers.  Their 
compositions,  indeed,  are  well  balanced  and  studiously  calculated. 
Every  figure  has  something  special  to  express,  and,  as  in  Hogarth^ 
a  multitude  of  small  attributes  serve  to  throw  light  upon  each 
character ;  and  this  character,  needless  to  say,  must  always  be 
that  of  a  nicely  brought  up  person,  and  incapable  of  giving 
offence  in  the  drawing-room.  So  wherever  a  little  tale  was  told 
in  a  pleasant,  intelligible  fashion  adapted  for  the  sitting-room,, 
the  painter's  aim  was  attained,  and  the  method  of  colour  was 
a  matter  of  subsidiary  importance.  The  painting  of  a  portion 
of  nature  with  the  mere  intention  of  expressing  a  harmony  of 
colour  was  a  thing  which  did  not  lie  within  the  programme  of 
these  painters.  All  their  pictures  are  stronger  in  anecdote  than 
in  painting.  The  drawing  has  no  character,  and  the  work  of  the 
brush  is  amateurish.     And  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  same  reaction* 


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SWEDEN  347 

took  place  :  the  fund  of  ideas  was  exhausted,  and  the  painting 
did  not  improve.  But  the  Paris  International  Exhibition  of 
1867  signed  the  death-sentence  of  the  old  Dusseldorf  school. 
Through  Piloty  the  Munich  school  began  to  influence  the 
handling  of  colours  in  Germany.  Knaus  had  gone  to  Paris  to- 
acquire  in  that  city  what  Dusseldorf  could  not  give  him.  And 
from  that  time  Sweden  likewise  became  conscious  that  the 
academy  on  the  Rhine  was  no  longer  its  proper  ground.  In  the 
letters  of  the  academy  exhibitioners  complaints  of  the  antiquated 
principles  of  teaching  began  to  be  made,  and  what  Dusseldorf 
had  been  for  the  earlier  generation  Paris  and  Munich  became 
for  that  which  followed. 

The  reign  of  Karl  XV. — who  invariably  advanced  the  interests 
of  art  and  artists,  with  thorough  good-will  and  an  open  purse — 
was  for  Swedish  painting  what  the  period  from  Piloty  to 
Makart,  from  Diez  to  Lofftz,  had  been  for  the  people  of 
Munich.  The  old  masters  were  studied,  and  an  attempt  was 
made  to  acquire  an  artistic  style  of  painting  by  their  aid.  And 
as  the  sleights  of  the  pallet  are  practised  most  effectively  upon 
the  variegated  costumes  of  the  past,  historical  and  costume- 
pictures  were  at  first  placed  in  the  foreground.  By  the  painting 
of  hose,  mantles,  and  cloaks  the  artist  came  to  liberate  himself 
from  anecdotic  subject  and  to  gain  a  sense  of  the  pictorial. 

The  man  who  acted  as  a  medium  for  these  principles  was 
the  Swedish  Piloty,  Johan  Kristoffer  Boklund,  a  pupil  of  the 
Munich  Academy  and  of  Couture.  The  subjects  treated  in  his 
pictures  were  German,  and  the  style  of  painting,  which  was 
French,  was  admired  by  the  younger  generation  in  the  same 
way  as  Piloty's  style  in  "  Seni "  was  regarded  with  wondering^ 
admiration  by  Munich  people.  Boklund  painted  costume- 
pictures:  Gustavus  Adolphus  taking  leave  of  Maria  Eleonora,. 
Doctor  Faust  amid  globes  and  folios,  pale  choristers  with  censers, 
antiquaries  surrounded  by  dusty  books.  There  were  also 
picturesque  architectural  motives  from  Tyrol ;  he  delighted  in 
churches,  cloisters,  and  farms,  peopling  them  with  mercenaries^ 
plundering  soldiers,  outposts,  and  marauders.  But  in  everything 
he  did  he  laboured  to  attain  a  picturesque   harmony,  a  graceful 


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348 


MODERN  PAINTING 


L'Art,] 


HoECKERT :    "  Divine  Service  in  Lapland." 


[Milita  »c. 


Style  of  treatment,  and  he  exerted  from  1855  a  wide  influence 
on  the  younger  generation  as  teacher  at  the  academy. 

These  efforts  in  colouring  found  their  most  notable  expression 
in  Johan  Frederik  Hoeckert.  He  was  a  genuine  painter,  the 
first  in  Sweden  who  saw  the  world  with  the  eyes  of  an  artist 
As  a  restless,  searching  spirit,  never  contented  with  himself,  he 
had  run  through  all  schools  and  beheld  all  countries.  From 
1846  he  was  with  Boklund  in  Munich,  from  1851  with  Knaus 
in  Paris.  In  Holland  a  great  effect  upon  him  was  made  by 
Rembrandt,  and  the  letters  which  he  wrote  from  Italy  and 
Spain  are  those  of  a  real  painter.  Tunis,  where  he  went  in 
1862,  he  calls  the  most  marvellous  magical  kaleidoscope  in  the 
world,  and  Naples  an  inexhaustible  treasury  of  art  both  in 
painted  and  in  unpainted  pictures. 

And  though  Hoeckert  has  not  produced  much,  every  one  of 
his  pictures  is  good.  His  "  Divine  Service  in  Lapland " — 
eighteen  men  and  women  listening  to  the  words  of  a  preacher 
in   a   bare  village   chapel — won    the    first    medal    at    the    Paris 


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SWEDEN  34^ 

World  Exhibition  of  1857,  and  was  acquired  for  the  museum 
in  Lille.  Some  of  the  critics  went  so  far  as  to  compare  him 
with  Delacroix.  But  such  comparison  is  certainly  to  be 
understood  with  considerable  qualification.  Hoeckert  has  none 
of  the  glowing  violent  passion  of  the  revolutionary  ;  he  is  a 
lyric  poet  and  no  dramatist,  and  knows  nothing  of  ecstasy^ 
nothing  of  tension.  Nevertheless  his  pictures  were  the  boldest 
that  had  been  yet  painted  in  Sweden.  The  "  Interior  of  a 
Lapland  Hut" — exhibited  in  1857  ^"^  the  Paris  Salon,  and 
obtained  for  the  Stockholm  National  Museum  in  1858— in  its 
fine  golden  tone  might  have  been  painted  by  Ostade.  Certain 
of  bis  interiors,  with  their  glancing  sunlight,  their  open  doors, 
and  the  warm  daylight  flooding  into  the  dim  room,  are  evidence 
of  the  fervent  study  he  had  made  of  Pieter  de  Hoogh.  And 
all  the  motives  of  genre  painting  are  scrupulously  excluded. 
Hoeckert*s  "golden  colour"  steeps  everything  in  the  sentiment 
of  an  old-world  tale.  That  charming  costume-picture,  "  Bellman 
in  Sergei's  Studio,"  in  its  full,  deep  tones  has  a  dash  of  the 
good  youthful  works  of  Roybet.  And  his  last  picture,  exhibited 
shortly  before  his  death  in  1866,  "The  Burning  of  the  Castle 
of  Stockholm,"  was  not  painted  as  an  historical  document^ 
but  only  for  the  sake  of  the  vivid  reflections  which  the 
blaze  had  cast  upon  the  old  costumes.  Hoeckert,  in  fact^ 
was  the  first  in  Sweden  who  was  neither  a  genre  nor  an 
historical  painter,  but  painter  absolute.  That  is  what  assures 
him  an  important  place  in  the  history  of  art. 

Marten  Eskil  Winge  attempted  more  than  it  was  given 
him  to  attain :  in  Swedish  painting  he  is  the  man  of  large 
figures  and  large  canvases.  Settled  in  Rome  up  to  1865,  he 
held  in  chief  honour  Giulio  Romano,  Daniele  da  Volterra, 
Caravaggio,  and  other  muscular  Italians  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  and  he  sought  to  adapt  their  superhuman 
forms  to  the  figures  in  the  Northern  sagas.  One  of  these 
gigantic  pictures,  for  the  preparation  of  which  he  hired  the 
biggest  studio  in  Stockholm,  repesents  Loke  and  Sigyn — in 
other  words,  a  black-haired  Titan  a  la  Caravaggio  and  a  blond 
woman  a  la  Riedel.     As  he  portrayed  in  this  picture  love  and 


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3SO  MODERN  PAINTING 

patience  facing  wickedness  and  cunning,  in  "Thor's  Combat 
with  the  Giants"  he  wished  to  set  forth  the  power  of  light 
struggling  against  the  powers  of  darkness.  Flashes  of  lightning 
dart  forth,  while  the  thunder-god  raging  lays  about  him  with 
his  battle-hammer,  smiting  the  giants  to  the  earth.  Giulio 
Romano  was  his  model,  but  the  result  he  attained  was  a  cross 
between  Wiertz  and  Hendrih. 

A  further  representative  of  this  Northern  tendency,  August 
Malmstrom,  has  more  of  a  leaning  towards  the  milder  manner  of 
Blommdr.  His  very  first  picture,  painted  in  Dusseldorf  in  1856, 
"King  Heimer  and  Aslog"  (a  bardic  harper  with  a  boy  in  a 
spring  landscape),  was  the  work  of  a  tender,  dreamy  Romanticist ; 
and,  after  a  long  residence  in  Paris  under  Couture,  he  continued 
to  paint  such  subjects,  and  with  greater  technical  aptitude.  His 
^'  Sport  of  the  Elves  "  is  a  delicate  summer-night's  dream.  Every- 
thing in  nature  is  still,  the  sky  is  veiled,  and  the  horizon  alone 
is  flooded  with  the  glow  of  a  warm  sunset  A  light  mist  rises 
from  the  meadow  enveloping  the  elves,  who  are  romping  in  airy 
gambols.  As  was  shown  by  his  illustrations  to  the  Frithjof's 
Saga,  made  in  1868,  Malmstrbm  moved  with  great  ease  in  the 
province  of  Northern  legend,  and  from  these  mythical  pictures 
he  was  finally  led  to  breezy  representations  of  the  life  of 
children,  which  will  probably  do  most  to  preserve  his  name. 

The  importance  of  Georg  von  Rosen  lies  in  his  bringing  the 
Swedes  to  a  knowledge  of  the  archaic  finesses  of  Hendrik  Leys, 
after  they  had  made  acquaintance  with  Couture  and  Piloty. 
The  son  of  a  rich  man,  who  had  an  influential  position  in 
Stockholm  as  the  builder  of  the  Swedish  railways,  Georg  von 
Rosen  had  early  an  opportunity  of  visiting  all  the  leading 
studios  of  the  world.  From  Paris,  where  he  passed  his  child- 
hood, he  went  to  Stockholm,  and  thence  to  Weimar  and 
Brussels.  Even  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixties,  when  he  ex- 
hibited his  earliest  pictures—"  Sten  Sture's  Entry  in  Stockholm," 
"  Wine-tasting  at  the  Monastery  Gate,"  and  "  A  Swedish  Marriage 
in  the  Sixteenth  Century" — every  one  was  delighted  by  the 
refinement  and  authenticity  of  his  portrayal  of  archaic  civiliza- 
tion.    And  after  he  had  painted  his  "  King  Eric,"  under  Piloty 


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SWEDEN 


351 


Sioekkolm  :  Bonnur.] 

Rosen  :  "  King  Eric  in  Prison  visited  by  Karin  Mansdotter.** 

in  Munich  in  1870,  he  was  made  professor  at  the  Stockholm 
Academy,  undertaking  the  direction  of  it  after  Boklund*s  death 
in   1 88 1. 

Rosen  seems  very  unequal  in  his  works.  "King  Eric  in  the 
Chamber  of  his  Beloved,  Karin  Mansdotter,"  is  one  of  the  most 
thorough  products  of  the  school  of  Piloty,  and  might  just  as 
well  be  a  representation  of  Egmont  with  Clarchen.  The  pendant 
to  it  in  the  Copenhagen  Gallery,  "  King  Eric  in  Prison  visited  by 
Karin  Mansdotter,"  has  in  its  tender  melancholy  a  certain  trace 
-of  Fritz  August .  Kaulbach.  On  the  other  hand,  his  etchings 
and  water-colours  from  the  sixteenth  century  are  entirely  archaic 
in  the  manner  of  Leys ;  these  have  caught  most  admirably  the 
stiff  and  angular  character  of  the  period,  its  rude  exterior  and 
its  patriarchal  cordiality,  following  the  Bauembrueghels,  Lucas 
Aran  Leyden,  Cranach,  and  the  German  "little  masters."  Here 
Death  is  embracing  a  girl,  as  in  Baldung's  woodcut     There  Faust 


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352 


MODERN  PAINTING 


[HanfsMngl  Mio, 
Rosen  :   Nordenskjold. 


and  Wagner  are  walking 
outside  the  town  with 
the  poodle  making  circles 
round  them,  or  Luther  is 
translating  the  Bible  upon 
the  Wartburg.  "  The 
Bridal  Train,"  that  makes 
its  way  through  the  nar- 
row alley  of  an  old  town 
of  the  Empire,  with  drums 
beating  in  the  van,  and 
the  banners  of  the  old 
guilds,  and  children  strew- 
ing flowers;  "The  Flower 
Market"  before  the  old 
Gothic  town-hall ;  "  Grand- 
father's Birthday,"  with  the 
pretty  Nuremberg  girls  of 
gentle  birth  adorning  the 
great     Renaissance     table 


with  flowers ;  "  The  Christmas  Market,"  with  the  wedded  couple 
who  have  bought  their  Christmas-tree  —  they  seem  to  have 
stepped  out  of  the  poems  of  Julius  Wolff — the  snowy  gables, 
and  the  atmosphere  fragrant  with  pine-needles  and  Christmas 
cakes, — they  are,  one  and  all,  winning  and  genuine  pictures  of 
the  "good  old  time."  In  his  Eastern  studies,  to  which  he 
was  prompted  by  a  journey  through  Egypt,  Palestine,  Turkey^ 
and  Greece,  he  appears  as  a  sober  realist,  who  addresses  him- 
self to  the  motley  orgies  of  colour  known  to  the  South  with 
deftness  and  energy ;  and  this  realism  has  found  its  most  vivid 
and  powerful  expression  in  his  likenesses.  That  of  his  father 
reveals  an  old  cavalier  full  of  character  such  as  Herkomer  might 
have  painted ;  his  portrait  of  himself  in  the  Florentine  Ufiizi 
galleries  recalls  Erdtelt.  In  his  state  pictures  of  Karl  XV.  and 
King  Oscar  he  avoids  everything  official,  giving  a  sturdy  and 
honest  likeness  of  the  man.  But  his  best  portrait  is  probably 
that  of  Nordenskjold,  the  discoverer  of  the  North-East  Passage. 


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SWEDEN 


353 


Beneath  a  gloomy,  clouded  sky, 
amid  the  great  wastes  of  ice  of 
the  Siberian  Sea,  gleaming  white 
and  green,  there  stands  a  robust 
masculine  figure,  enveloped  in 
dark  fur,  with  a  telescope  in 
his  hand,  gazing  with  keen, 
earnest  eyes  into  the  distance, 
which  reveals  to  him  nothing 
except  endless  plains  of  ever- 
Icisting  ice. 

In  Julius  Kronberg  Swedish 
painting  does  honour  to  its 
Makart.  He  had  learnt  to 
love  the  old  Venetians  in  Diis- 
seldorf,  Paris,  and  Munich, 
and  under  their  guidance  he 
became  a  powerful  master  revel- 
ling in  colour.  His  "Nymph," 
painted  in  1879  in  Munich, 
lying  asleep  by  a  forest  pool 
weary  with  the  chase,  and 
there  spied  upon  by  fauns, 
was  a  vigorous  bravura  piece 
a  la  Benczur,  executed  with  a  gorgeous,  brownish-red,  lustrous, 
bituminous  painting.  The  voluptuous  body  of  the  red-haired 
huntress  rests  upon  a  yellow  drapery.  Her  spoils,  peacocks 
with  metallic  blue  breasts  and  pheasants  with  iridescent 
brownish-red  plumage,  lie  at  her  feet ;  luxuriant  Southern 
vegetation  gleams  around,  and  above  there  shines  a  strip  of 
deep  blue  Venetian  sky. 

Later  in  Rome  he  painted  the  seasons,  blooming  women 
hastening  through  the  air  borne  along  by  swans  and  accom- 
panied by  rejoicing  Loves ;  smiling  they  strew  roses  and  fruits 
upon  the  earth.  The  "  Visit  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  to  King 
Solomon  "  he  worked  up  into  a  gorgeous  scenical  piece  in  the 
style  of  Meininger.     A  journey  to  Egypt  brought  the  beautiful 


Stockholm:  BoMtiur,] 

Kronberg:   "A  Nymph." 


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354  MODERN  PAINTING 

serpent  Cleopatra  to  his  mind,  and  prompted  him  to  paint  his 
picture  "The  Death  of  Cleopatra,"  which,  in  its  half  romantic, 
half  classical  conception,  might  be  the  work  of  Rochegrosse.  In 
the  house  which  Kronberg  built  for  himself,  splendour  of  colour, 
pleasure,  and  sportive  exuberance  were  everywhere  predominant 
Like  Makart,  he  has  summoned  the  world  of  Loves  and  Bacchantes 
into  life  once  more;  nor  are  they  pale  and  bloodless,  but  fresh, 
robust,  and  clothed  in  brilliant  colours  and  the  sumptuous  beauty 
of  youth.  As  in  the  Viennese  master,  the  historical  subject  is 
merely  an  excuse  for  encompassing  a  great  pictorial  whole.  And, 
like  Makart,  he  has  done  his  best  in  decorative  pictures.  His 
large  ceiling-pieces  in  the  Castle  of  Stockholm — an  Aurora  and 
a  Svea  amid  the  allegorical  figures  of  Agriculture,  Industry,  and 
Art — are  blithe  and  festal  decorations,  only  distinguishable  from 
those  of  Makart  through  Kronberg  making  a  gradual  transition, 
in  accordance  with  the  tendency  of  the  time,  from  the  .brown 
tone  of  his  Munich  period  to  brighter  notes  of  colour. 

Carl  Gustav  Hellquist^  who  was  somewhat  younger  than  the 
foregoing  painters,  belongs  altogether  to  German  art ;  he  re- 
ceived his  training  in  Munich,  and  he  lies  buried  by  the  Isar. 
His  melancholy  fate  excites  compassion :  he  died  mad  just  as 
he  was  beginning  to  be  famous.  His  works,  which  are  partly 
large  representations  from  the  history  of  Sweden  and  the  Refor- 
mation, partly  genre  pictures  with  monks  like  those  of  Griitzner, 
and  peasants  like  those  of  Defregger,  are  not  such  as  have 
interest,  thoroughly  able  as  they  are.  After  being  in  the  be- 
ginning affected  by  Rosen,  Piloty,  and  Munkacsy,  Pradilla's 
**  Surrender  of  Granada"  caused  him  in  1883  to  abandon  brown 
bituminous  painting  in  favour  of  a  "  modern "  grey  painting, 
which  did  more  justice  to  the  illumination  of  objects  in  open 
air.  He  likewise  got  the  better  of  histrionic  gesticulation.  He 
represents  events  without  any  design  of  outward  brilliancy  and 
with  the  greatest  possible  fidelity  to  nature — represents  them 
honestly  and  straightforwardly,  and  avoids  all  straining  after 
effect.  Bronzed  and  weather-beaten  figures  have  supplanted 
the  fair  regulation  heads  of  Piloty,  truth  of  sentiment  and  ex- 
pression    have    taken    the    place    of    the    traditional     histrionic 


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-exaggeration.  All  his  works  result  from  an  inflexible  con- 
scientiousness. But  from  an  artistic  standpoint  this  praise  is 
-equivalent  to  calling  a  man  an  honest  fellow. 

Hellquist's  solidity  may  also  be  found  in  Gustav  Cederstrdm, 
likewise  an  exceedingly  sound  historical  painter,  who  from  his 
soundness  hardly  gets  the  better  of  being  tiresome.  His  first  large 
composition,  which  won  him  the  second  medal  at  the  World 
Exhibition  of  1878,  represented  the  "Death  of  Charles  XII.," 
the  episode  of  November  30th,  17 18,  when  the  Swedish  officers 
carried  home  the  body  of  their  fallen  master  across  the 
Norwegian  snowfields.  Through  its  national  subject  it  became 
one  of  the  most  popular  pictures  in  Sweden,  and  the  Govern- 
ment believed  that  they  had  found  in  CederstrOm  the  right  man 
for  the  loyal  discharge  of  all  state  orders  which  might  be  in 
question.  He  painted  well,  and  to  the  satisfaction  of  his 
patrons,  accounts  of  "The  Death  of  Nils  Stur"  and  "The  Intro- 
duction of  Christianity  into  Sweden  through  Saint  Ansgarius." 
And  when  he  occasionally  found  time  to  execute  pictures  on 
contemporary  subjects — burial  and  baptism  scenes,  etc. — they, 
too,  were  merely  good  "historical  pictures"  with  dramatic  op- 
position of  character  and  forced  contrasts.  Gustav  Cederstrom 
has,  in  fact,  a  prosy,  realistic  talent ;  he  is  a  reporter  who  avoids 
nugatory  phrases,  commanding  a  firm,  compact  style  germane 
to  the  subject.  Nevertheless  his  art  is  descriptive ;  it  renders 
an  account  of  the  subject,  is  better  in  portrayal  than  in  painting, 
more  enei^etic  than  refined,  more  sturdy  than  spiritual. 

Nils  Forsberg  became  the  Swedish  Bonnat  His  "  Family  of 
Acrobats  before  the  Circus  Director"  contained  nude,  virile 
figures  of  so  much  energy  that  Bonnat  could  have  painted  them 
no  better.  His  last  picture,  which  was  awarded  the  first  medal 
in  the  Paris  Salon  of  1888,  "The  Death  of  a  Hero,"  was  one  of 
those  attempts,  in  the  manner  of  Hugo  Vogel  or  Arthur  Kampf, 
to  bring  the  traditional  historical  picture  into  the  province  of 
modern  painting  of  the  time. 

Through  competition  with  the  productions  of  historical  paint- 
ing, Swedish  landscape  was  brought  into  the  same  peril  as  land- 
scape in  Germany.     Painters  only  represented  the  great  dramas 


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Paris  :  Bousaod-Vaiadon.] 

FoRSBERG : 


*The  Death  of  a  Hero." 


of  nature,  and  merely  emphasized  what  was  strikingly  effective 
in  them.  Red  mountains,  green  cascades,  tblue  rocks,  black 
suns,  all  the  physical,  geological,  and  meteorological  phenomena 
of  nature  in  Northern  lands,  were  painted  upon  great  spaces  of 
canvas,  which  are  valuable  as  descriptive  accounts,  but  are  seldom 
so  in  any  artistic  sense.  The  midnight  sun  plays  a  particularly 
prominent  part  in  the  picture  market.  And  it  was  only  dis- 
covered afterwards  that  even  in  the  most  Northern  parts  these 
phenomena  of  nature  do  not  take  place  in  quite  such  a  decorative 
manner  as  in  the  pictures  of  this  period. 

In  Marcus  Larsson  Sweden  had  her  Eduard  Hildebrandt — a 
man  whose  reputation  went  up  like  a  meteor  and  vanished  as 
swiftly  into  the  night.  A  peasant  lad,  a  saddler's  apprentice,  an 
opera-singer,  and  a  fashionable  painter,  he  made  himself  talked 
about  as  much  through  his  eccentric  art  as  through  his  eccentric 
life,  and  finally  died  in  poverty  and  want  in  1864  in  London.  He 
had  naturally  a  great  deal  of  talent.  Exceedingly  enterprising,  and 
gifted  with  great  imagination,  he  received  the  most  various  im- 
pressions of  nature,  took  up  the  most  various  technical  methods, 


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SWEDEN  357 

saw  things  in  a  large  way  and  endeavoured  to  render  their  total 
impression.  But  he  did  not  possess  the  love  of  truth  or  the 
strength  of  character  to  develop  his  talent.  As  soon  as  he  dis- 
covered what  people  admired  in  his  work,  he  became  a  bold 
virtuoso  whose  only  object  was  to  paint  more  vehemently  and 
showily  than  his  contemporaries.  Ruysdael,  intensified  in  all 
that  is  fantastically  scenical  and  then  embellished  with  Gudin's 
effects  of  light,  would  result  in  something  more  or  less  like  Marcus 
Larsson.  In  his  pictures  he  heaps  together  the  stage-properties 
of  agitated  Swedish  scenery — waterfalls,  huge  cliffs  casting  re- 
flections of  themselves  upon  steel-blue  lakes.  And  he  boasts  in 
his  letters  of  having  outstripped  Ruysdael  whenever  he  succeeded 
in  making  a  composition  "  more  opulent."  The  most  insane 
effects  of  light,  white  and  red  mountains,  waterfalls  in  the  sunset, 
burning  steamers,  lighthouses,  comets,  and  houses  aflame  by  night 
had  all  to  be  introduced  to  cover  his  want  of  intimate  emotion, 
with  their  decorative  effects  on  the  big  drum. 

Alfred  Wahlberg  is  to  Larsson  more  or  less  what  Lier  is  to 
Eduard  Hildebrandt  He  had  made  in  Paris  a  very  thorough 
study  of  the  masters  of  Fontainebleau,  especially  Dupr^,  and  he 
communicated  to  his  countrymen  the  principles  of  the  French 
paysage  inHme^  but  only  in  an  elegantly  adapted  and  diluted 
form.  His  range  indeed  is  wide :  it  extends  from  the  Northern 
landscapes  of  snow  to  the  brilliant  summer  splendour  of  Italy. 
Like  Lier,  he  had  a  special  love  of  dreamily  glowing  evening 
lights,  and  understood  the  means  of  soothing  the  eye  by  a  ragoUt 
of  finely  graduated  tones.  He  delighted  in  searching  for  diflSculties 
and  showing  off"  his  technique.  His  art  is  rich  in  change,  full 
of  surprises,  pliant,  elegant,  and  superficially  brilliant,  but  too 
merely  intelligent  and  mannered,  too  calculated  in  its  effects, 
for  him  to  be  brought  into  close  relationship  with  the  masters 
of  Fontainebleau.  The  landscapes  of  those  classic  artists  were 
the  offspring  of  the  most  cordial  devotion  to  nature,  those  of 
Wahlberg  are  the  products  of  chic.  The  vigour  of  directness 
is  wanting  in  his  feeling  for  nature,  his  method  of  expression  is 
the  reverse  of  simple.  His  strength  does  not  rest  upon  rapid 
sketching,  but  upon  the  pointing  and  rounding  of  an  impression. 


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3S8  MODERN  PAINTING 

He  was,  like  Larsson,  merely  a  painter  of  effective  points,  though 
he  was  less  crude ;  his  mood  is  not  so  forced,  but  his  artificiality 
of  sentiment  is  the  same. 

The  living  generation  is  far  more  disposed  to  award  the  palm 
to  two  other  painters  who  were  held  in  less  honour  by  their 
contemporaries,  two  who  never  came  into  contact  with  the  school 
of  Fontainebleau,  though  they  are  more  nearly  allied  to  it  in  the 
fundamental  principle  of  their  work. 

Gustav  Rydberg  never  got  beyond  a  meagre  style  of  painting,, 
for  he  had  no  experience  derived  from  foreign  countries.  All 
his  details  are  worked  out  with  diffidence.  His  pictorial  method 
savours  of  the  studio,  his  scale  of  colour  frequently  makes  a  trite 
effect,  his  handling  is  circumscribed  in  expedients.  Nevertheless 
his  pictures  are  preferable  to  those  of  Wahlberg,  for  they  are 
delicate  and  full  of  intimate  feeling,  whereas  those  of  the  latter 
are  glittering.  Like  the  Dutch  landscape-painters  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  he  did  not  go  far  to  find  his  motives.  He  buried 
himself  in  the  meagre  scenery  of  his  home  at  Skon,  and  was  at 
no  pains  to  render  it  interesting  by  adorning  it.  Misty  winter 
landscapes  and  summer  moonlight  pictures,  with  thatched 
cottages,  mills  in  the  mood  of  an  autumnal  afternoon,  huge  hay- 
stacks, green  pastures,  ploughed  land,  fields  and  forests,  village 
streets,  horses  and  waggons,  such  are  the  idyllic  passages  of  nature 
which  he  has  a  preference  for  rendering.  And  his  works  are 
those  of  a  man  who  followed  his  own  way,  consistently  cleaving 
to  his  native  land  with  a  tender  spirit. 

But  the  most  sympathetic  and  personal  effect  is  made  by 
Edvard  Bergh.  When  he  returned  home  at  the  same  time  as 
Larsson  in  1857,  the  course  of  the  one  was  that  of  a  waterfall 
foaming  and  raging  and  breaking  its  way  with  forceful  vehemence 
between  the  rocks,  to  lose  itself  sadly  in  the  sand  ;  the  course  of 
the  other  that  of  a  quiet  rivulet  swelling  to  a  stream,  and  at  last 
discharging  itself  into  a  woodland  lake,  where  the  birches  are 
mirrored  and  pale  water-lilies  flush  in  the  beams  of  the  setting 
sun.  Marcus  Larsson,  a  celebrity  in  his  lifetime,  is  now  for- 
gotten, and  Edvard  Bergh,  almost  unknown  in  his  lifetime,  is 
now   held    to   have   been   a   forerunner   of  more  recent   workers. 


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Before  he  became  a 
painter  Bergh  had 
finished  his  Uni- 
versity studies.  As 
a  young  official  he 
sauntered  through 
the  rustic  villages, 
seeing  nature  as 
much  with  the  eyes 
of  a  botanist  as  with 
those  of  a  landscape- 
painter.  After  he 
had  painted  a  little  in 
a  dilettante  fashion 
in  Upsala,  the  works 
of  the  Diisseldorfers 
made  him  decide  in 
1850  to  go  to  the 
Academy  of  the 
Rhineland.  In  1855, 
the  year  of  the 
World     Exhibition, 

he  was  in  Paris,  and  travelled  thence  to  Geneva  to  Calame, 
who  then  stood  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame.  But  these  foreign 
influences  were  soon  overcome.  The  "View  of  Uri,"  in  the 
Berlin  National  Gallery,  is  one  of  the  few  pictures  in  which 
Bergh  followed  Calame  in  aiming  at  the  grand  style.  Home 
once  more  in  1857,  he  became  the  earliest  representative  of 
intimate  landscape-painting  in  Sweden.  Bergh  was,  in  fact,  a 
man  of  harmonious  temperament,  happy  and  contented  with  his 
work,  a  quiet,  thoughtful,  dreamy  man,  whose  blood  never  boiled 
and  raged. 

Thus  he  had  no  passion  for  nature  in  her  majesty  and 
dramatic  wrath,  but  loved  her  soft  smile  and  her  still,  dreamy 
solitude.  There  are  no  storm-clouds  in  his  pictures,  no  motives 
of  cliffs  with  hoary,  foaming  waterfalls,  no  grey  quarries  and 
mossy,  primaeval   pines — no    complicated    problems  of  light  and 


E.  Bergh:  "A  Pond  in  the  Forest." 


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£.  Bergh  :   "  Under  the  Birches." 

vehement  tours  de  force  of  the  brush.  He  delighted  in  the  fir- 
woods  and  glassy  rivers  of  his  home,  the  delicate  birch-groves 
and  the  dreamy  shores  of  its  lakes,  the  bright  summer  sky  of 
Sweden,  the  quiet  pastures  and  grazing  cattle,  white  clouds 
slowly  shifting  onwards,  and  lonely  paths  leading  between  the 
spreading  roots  of  trees  to  out-of-the-way  and  sheltered  valleys. 
And  his  delicate  painting,  which  is  full  of  sentiment,  corresponds 
with  the  soft  intimate  character  of  this  landscape.  Ever)rthing 
which  afterwards  became  characteristic  of  the  new  tendency, 
the  efforts  to  arrest  the  transitory  and  momentary  moods  of 
nature,  the  first  direct  impression,  was  also  the  note  of  Bergh's 
latest  works.  Some  of  his  birch-forests  with  water  and  cattle 
are  so  fresh  and  fragrant  in  their  scheme  of  colour  that  they 
might  belong  to  the  most  modern  art  Always  following  his 
own  taste,  and  as  much  a  naturalist  as  an  artist  in  colours,  as 
much  an  analyst  as  an  emotional  artist,  Bergh  showed  Swedish 
landscape  the  way  which  led  to  its  present  prime. 

The  turning-points  in  Swedish  art  coincide  more  or  less  yA^ 


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361 


Stockholm :  BoMMiVr.] 

Hugo  Salmson. 


the  years  of  the  Paris  Exhibi- 
tions: in  1856  it  was  swayed  by 
Diisseldorf,  in  1867  by  Couture 
and  Piloty;  in  1878  it  began 
to  enter  on  the  lines  of  Manet 
and  Bastien-Lepage.  Some  of 
the  Swedes  who  had  been  long 
resident  in  Paris  early  commu- 
nicated the  new  principles  to 
their  compatriots. 

Many  experiments  had  been 
already  made  by  Hug^o  Salmson, 
who  is  now  a  man  upwards  of 
fifty,  before  he  entered  the  pro- 
vince which  has  been  his  speciality 
since  1 878.  Under  Charles  Comte, 
whose  studio  he  entered  after 
his  removal  to  Paris,  he  painted  ornamental  historical  pictures 
of  manners.  Benjamin  Constant  incited  him  to  his  life-size 
•**  Odalisque,"  painted  with  a  sleek  brush.  And  Meissonier  was 
his  inspiration  when  he  exhibited  his  "Rehearsal  of  Tartuffe,"  a 
spirited  and  pliant  Rococo  illustration,  where  the  variegated  cos- 
tumes of  modish  courtiers  stood  out  daintily  in  an  elegant  old- 
world  interior.  But,  as  soon  as  the  earliest  open-air  pictures  of 
Bastien-Lepage  appeared,  he  immediately  followed  this  new 
tendency.  His  "Labourers  in  the  Turnip  Field"  of  1878,  now 
in  the  possession  of  the  Goteborg  Art  Union,  had  an  importance 
for  Sweden  similar  to  that  which  Liebermann's  "  Women 
mending  Nets"  had  for  Germany.  The  modern  period  for 
Swedish  art  had  begun — the  period  when  a  more  austerely 
truthful  painting  followed  an  art  of  variegated  and  gorgeous 
•colours.  Even  in  France  Salmson  had  made  his  mark  with 
this  work,  and  his  "Arrest" — a  village  street  in  Picardy  where 
a  couple  of  gendarmes  have  taken  a  young  woman  in  charge 
— was  the  first  Swedish  picture  obtained  for  the  Mus^e 
Luxembourg.  This  was  in  1879.  And  in  1883  his  "Little 
Gleaners"  was  admitted  into  the  Stockholm  National  Museum. 
VOL.  III.  24 


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Stockholm :  Bonmer.] 

August  Hagborg. 


Yet  this  rapid  success  suggests  that 
Salmson  is  not  a  master  of  haughty- 
individuality,  whom  it  takes  time 
to  comprehend.  Beneath  his  hands 
Manet's  hard,  virile  art  has  become 
a  thing  made  for  popularity.  His 
peasant  girls  are  graceful,  his  land- 
scapes charming,  and  his  problems 
of  light  meet  with  a  solution  which 
is  rather  piquant  than  sincere.  His 
last  pastel  portraits  and  pictures 
of  children  are  often  completely 
mawkish.  He  is  not  a  robust  and 
original  artist,  but  one  who  has  gone 
tamely  with  the  stream.  However^ 
he  is  a  good  painter,  who  acquired 
greater  technical  readiness  in  Paris 
than  any  of  his  countrymen.  His  representations  of  the  life 
of  the  people  in  Picardy  appeal  to  the  great  public  by  their 
confident  and  noble  drawing,  their  refined  treatment  of  colour,, 
their  dainty  handling  of  the  brush,  and  their  characterization,, 
which  is  spirited  if  it  is  not  profound.  Through  this  treatment^ 
adapted  to  the  requirements  of  the  Salon,  he  won  a  more  rapid 
popularity  for  the  new  principles  than  would  have  been  otherwise 
possible. 

And  August  Hagborg^  whose  success  dates  from  the  same- 
years,  and  whose  ductile  talent  ran  through  the  same  course 
of  development,  is  his  twin  brother  in  the  history  of  Swedish 
art  Having  begun  in  Paris  with  little  hard  but  carefully 
painted  costume-pictures  from  the  Directoire  period,  he  after- 
wards found  his  vocation  in  representing  the  sea-coasts  and 
fisher-folk  of  Northern  France.  "The  Ebb-tide  on  the  English 
Channel" — a  number  of  oyster-fishers  coming  home  with  their 
booty  over  the  fresh,  clear  sea,  and  a  bright  sky  with  bluish 
strips  of  cloud — was  bought  by  the  Mus6e  Luxembourg  in 
1879,  and  from  that  time  he  was  a  popular  painter.  A  low^ 
yellowish  strand,   spreading   broadly   in    the    foreground,   fishing 


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skiffs,  the  peaceful 
sea,  and  a  clear, 
bluish -white  '  sky, 
beaming  in  the 
mild  light  of  a 
warm  noonday  sun, 
or  in  the  chill  gleam 
of  a  dull  morning, 
such  are  the  phases 
of  nature  which 
Hagborg  has  chosen 
and  repeated  in  all 
his  pictures  with 
various  accessory 
figures. 

Here  there  are 
fishers  making  for 
the  shore,  here  a 
priest  blessing  a 
newly  built  skiff, 
here  nothing  but  the 
strand  with  a  row 
of  boats  in  shining, 
silvery  morning 
mist,  here  the  dwellers  of  the  strand  talking  together  before 
setting  out.  The  veracity  and  roughness  of  Michael  Ancher  is. 
not  to  be  asked  from  him.  His  people  are  of  a  cleanly,  bloom- 
ing race,  a  people  who  are  innocent  of  laxity,  and  know  nothing 
of  the  wearisomeness  of  life.  They  are  the  types  of  the  fine 
lad  and  the  brave  lass  which  may  be  found  in  the  novels  of 
Pierre  Loti,  a  little  more  refined  than  they  are  in  reality,  and 
artificially  polished  and  freshened  up.  Trim  fisher-girls  and 
young  men  are  knotting  together  nets.  Girls  go  merrily  laugh- 
ing homewards  from  the  strand;  talking,  jesting,  or  silent  and 
embarrassed  couples  sit  on  the  grass  or  make  a  rendez-vous  with 
each  other  by  a  boat-side.  Hagborg  has  often  repeated  him- 
self, varied  the  types  and  moods  which  once  made  him  popular,. 


Hagborg:  "The  Return  Home.' 


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364  MODERN  PAINTING 

until  they  have  grown  tiresome ;  but  besides  many  pictures 
turned  out  for  the  market,  and  striking  rather  through  their  chic 
than  any  personal  emotion,  he  has  produced  several  works  in 
recent  years,  such  as  "The  Potato-Gatherers,"  "The  Church- 
yard of  Tourvilleu,"  and  the  like,  which  show  a  vigorous 
striving  in  an  onward  direction. 

Wilheltn  van  Gegerfelt,  the  landscape-painter,  is  the  third 
of  these  Parisian  Swedes.  Since  1872  he  has  lived  in  Paris, 
and  there  he  has  become  a  thoroughbred  Frenchman.  At 
present,  too,  he  seems  a  somewhat  old-fashioned  painter,  whose 
Venetian  lagunes  and  deep  blue  summer  nights  of  Naples  have 
more  in  common  with  Oswald  Achenbach  and  Clays  than 
with  Billotte  and  Monet  Like  Wahlberg,  he  had  a  greater 
regard  for  chic  and  "beautiful  tone"  than  was  favourable  to  the 
sincerity  of  his  landscapes.  But  when  he  appeared  he  excited 
a  great  deal  of  notice  by  his  bright  scale  of  colour  and  his 
refined  taste.  In  his  works  the  moonlight  rests  upon  the 
Canal  Grande,  or  a  delicate  grey  is  spread  over  some  district 
on  the  French  coast  The  sun  glitters  on  the  snowfields  of 
Upsala;  bright,  shining  rain  comes  hissing  down  in  a  Swedish 
village ;  or  skaters  in  the  silvery  dusk  of  a  winter  evening  hum 
swiftly  over  the  crystal  surface  of  the  frozen  lake. 

After  187s  the  young  Swedes  studying  in  Paris  banded 
round  these  three  painters.  As  early  as  the  winter  of  1877-8 
this  Swedish  colony  could  boast  of  eighteen  names.  Most  of 
their  owners  lived  at  Montmartre,  where  Hagborg  had  his 
studio.  Their  general  place  of  reunion  was  the  Restaurant 
Hoerman  in  the  Boulevard  de  Clichy,  which  was  christened 
"  The  Swedish  General  Credit  Company "  in  Paris,  with  reference 
to  the  kindly  consideration  of  the  proprietor  in  money-matters. 
In  the  evening  the  company  went  across  to  the  Cafe  de 
THermitage  and  played  billiards.  From  the  principal  table 
reserved  every  evening  for  the  blond  and  blue-eyed  guests 
there  rose  Swedish  quartettes.  Amongst  these  "knights  of  the 
stew-pan,"  of  whom  many  a  one  did  not  know  how  he  was 
to  live  upon  the  following  day,  there  reigned  a  wild  spirit  of 
youth,   an  audacious  levity,   but  there  was  also  a  sincere    and 


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fervent  love  of  work  which  resulted   in  a  sustained  exertion  of 
all  their  powers. 

To  two  of  the  most  talented  it  was  not  accorded  to  reap 
at  home,  in  later  days,  the  fruits  of  their  labour.  The  wag  of 
the  Parisian  clique,  Karl  Skdnberg — a  droll,  little,  hump-backed 
man,  whom  August  Strindberg  used  as  prototype  for  the  painter 
in  his  charming  sketch  The  Little  Being's— died  in  1883,  just 
after  he  had  come  back  to  Stockholm,  when  he  was  scarcely 
three-and-thirty.  And  Swedish  art  was  robbed  of  Hugo  Birger 
at  the  same  youthful  age  four  years  afterwards.  The  former 
was  a  fine  landscape-painter,  who,  making  Paris  his  head- 
quarters, searched  for  pictorial  motives  in  Holland  and  Italy. 
In  Holland  he  painted  the  harbour  of  Dort,  in  Italy  the 
glowing  blaze  of  Etna  and  the  olive-groves  of  Naples,  the 
blooming  fruit-trees  of  the  Villa  Albani  or  the  golden  skies 
and  rocking  skiffs  of  Venice.  He  is  most  effective  when  he 
renders  with  large  strokes  a  part  of  the  harbour  with 
glittering  water,  the  little  figures  of  fishermen,  and  glowing  sails, 
or  when  he  steeps  his  pictures  in  a  grey  dusk  impregnated  with 
colour.  In  Venice  he  is  peculiarly  at  home,  not  only  the  sunny 
joyous  Venice  of  spring,  glowing  with  colour,  but  Venice  in 
rainy  autumn  in  her  widow's  weeds.  Sailing  through  the 
lagunes  in  a  skiff,  he  sketched  the  wharves  and  canals  with  their 
black  ships  and  deep  red  sails,  and  the  diversified  masses  of 
the  Giudecca. 

A  virtuoso  who  often  displays  great  audacity,  Hugo  Birger, 
extended  his  field  of  study  to  Spain  and  Africa.  The  ideal 
which  he  pursued  with  feverish  activity  throughout  his  brief 
life  was  to  meet  with  curious  costumes,  to  paint  with  novel 
colours,  to  experience  novel  moods,  and  to  stand  upon  the  soil 
of  a  strange  and  distant  land.  The  blue  sky  of  Spain  glares 
upon  white  walls,  the  glowing  sun  of  North  Africa  glances 
upon  the  forms  of  negroes  and  gaudy  turbans.  One  of  his 
most  luxuriant  feasts  of  colour  was  called  "  Breakfast  in  Granada :  " 
a  party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  light,  white,  and  blue  are 
breakfasting  out  of  doors ;  the  noonday  sun  ripples,  falling 
white   through   the   foliage,   and    playing   upon    the   bottles  and 


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.aW. 


•»**■ 


,liMi      ttUtt*'!' 


Stockholm  :  Bonnier.] 

Kreuger  : 


**  Twiught/ 


fruits.  Right  in 
the  sun  stands  a 
peacock,  unfolding 
all  the  iridescent 
splendour  of  his 
tail.  Having  re- 
turned home  for 
a  short  time,  he 
painted  the  Stock- 
holm theatres  lit  up 
by  electricity,  and 
the  glowing  colour- 
symphonies  of  the 
fjords.  His  last 
great  picture  repre- 
sented the  Swedish 
artists  breakfasting  in  the  Restaurant  Ledoyer  on  the  varnishing 
■day  of  the  Salon.  But  when  it  hung  in  the  Salon  of  1887  he 
had  ended  his  career.  In  him  and  Skanberg  Swedish  painting 
lost  two  men  of  forcible  talent ;  they  were  not  great  artists  of 
fine  individual  sentiment,  but  they  were  two  bold  and  vigorous 
painters,  who  loved  painting  for  its  varied  colour,  and  rejoiced  in 
being  painters  with  their  whole  heart 

The  others  who,  at  that  time,  were  members  of  the  Swedish 
colony  in  Paris,  now  work  in  their  native  land.  Like  the  Danes 
Tuxen  and  Kroyer,  they  regarded  Paris  merely  as  a  high-school, 
to  be  gone  through  before  they  could  begin  a  fresh  course  of 
activity  in  Stockholm.  Those  who  came  to  Paris  first  adapted 
themselves  almost  more  to  French  than  to  Swedish  painting, 
for  through  their  place  of  residence  they  were  led  to  paint  tlie 
life  of  the  French  and  not  that  of  the  Swedish  people.  Fishers 
from  Brittany  and  peasants  from  Picardy  alternate  with  views 
of  Fontainebleau  and  the  French  coasts.  Even  when  a  picture 
now  and  then  seems  to  be  Swedish,  this  Swedish  aspect  is  merely 
an  aff*air  of  costumes  brought  from  the  mother-country,  and  fitted 
on  to  Parisian  models. 

But  the  artists  who  returned  to  Stockholm   gradually  made 


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Stockholm:  BonnitrJl 
Prince  Eugene  of  Sweden  :  A  Landscape. 


Swedish  art  out  of  the 
Parisian  art  of  Hagborg 
and  Salmson.  Neverthe- 
less the  cosmopolitan 
character  still  remains. 
In  Denmark  that  curiously 
emancipated  artist  Kroyer 
is  perhaps  the  only  one 
who  acquired  a  certain 
elegance,  boldness,  and 
nervous  vibration  through 
contact  with  French  paint- 
ing. Otherwise  Danish 
painting  has  a  virgin  bash- 
fulness,  something  self-con- 
tained and  homely  in  its 
preference  for  quiet  corners 
and  cosy  rooms  in  lamp- 
light.    All  those  emotions 

which  elsewhere  find  their  way  into  outward  life  are  turned 
inwards  with  the  Danes,  and  live  in  their  spirit  in  a  sharpened, 
subtilized,  and  concentrated  form.  Swedish  art  is  more  mun- 
dane, more  graceful  and  gleaming :  it  regards  what  is  simple 
as  bourgeois  \  it  loves  extremes,  caprices,  a  bright,  tingling 
Impressionism,  the  piquant,  bizarre  effects  of  light,  vibrating 
chords.  Swedish  painters  have  a  less  national  accent  than  the 
Danes,  a  less  personal  method  of  seeing  things,  but  all  the 
more  taste  and  flexibility.  It  does  one  good  to  look  at 
Johansen's  pictures ;  they  are  so  cordial  in  sentiment  that  one 
forgets  the  artist,  while  in  the  presence  of  Swedish  works  one 
thinks  only  of  the  dexterous  technique.  They  are  rather  ex- 
amples of  technical  artifice  than  works  of  art,  rather  graceful 
bravura  paintings  than  intimate  confessions ;  they  originate  rather 
from  manual  adroitness  than  from  the  painter's  heart.  More- 
over the  Swedish  painters  are  not  to  be  found  amongst  those 
men  of  rough,  forceful  nature  who  are  ridiculed  and  scoffed 
at  by  the  great  public  at  exhibitions.     They  are   never  austere 


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Stockholm  :  BonnUr.} 

LiLjEFORs:   ''Blackcocks  at  Pairing-time." 

and  puritanical,  but  rather  piquant,  pleasing,  charming,  and 
gracious.  What  is  cAtc  has  mastered  what  is  natural  in  their 
pretty  fantasies  of  colour,  and  has  even  made  a  sort  of  knickknacks 
out  of  the  very  peasants.  Exceedingly  quick  in  assimilation,, 
they  have  made  themselves  more  familiar  than  any  other  nation 
with  all  the  sleights  of  art  that  may  be  learnt  in  Paris,  and  by 
these  have  created  works  which  are  exceedingly  refined  and 
modern. 

In  the  province  of  landscape-painting  R6n6  Billotte  would 
offer  the  most  ready  parallel  to  the  works  of  the  youngest  Swedes. 
Nature  in  Sweden  has  not  the  idyllic  coyness  of  Danish  scenery,, 
nor  has  it  the  rude  air  of  desolation  and  wildness  which  gives 
the  Norwegian  its  sombre  and  melancholy  stamp.  It  is  more 
coquettish.  Southern,  and  French,  and  the  Swedish  painters  see 
it  with  French  eyes.  Their  works  have  nothing  mystical,  elegiac,, 
and  shrouded,  like  those  of  the  Danes.  Everything  is  clear  and 
dazzling.  In  the  one  school  there  is  a  naturalness,  a  simplicity 
which   almost   causes   the    spectator   to   forget   the  work  of    the 


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Stockholm  :  Bonnie.] 

Bruno  Liljepors. 


brush  ;  the  other  gives,  in  the 
first  place,  the  impression  of 
a  problem  deftly  solved.  In 
the  one  is  the  most  extreme 
reserve  in  colour,  a  soft  grey 
enveloping  everything;  in  the 
other  a  cunning  play  with 
delicate  gradations  of  tone, 
an  effort  to  analyze  the  most 
fleeting  moods  of  nature  and 
the  most  complicated  effects 
of  light.  There  are  bright 
meadows  and  woodland  clear- 
ings under  the  most  varied  phases  of  light :  when  the  dazzling 
whiteness  of  the  sun  vibrates  delicately  through  silvery  gradations 
of  the  atmosphere,  or  "  rosy-fingered  dawn  "  dallies  with  the  little 
white  clouds,  or  the  violet  reflections  of  the  deep  red  setting  sun 
fade  wearily  over  a  pool  filled  with  lilies.  There  are  woodlands 
with  graceful  birches,  the  yellow  autumnal  leaves  of  which  sparkle 
in  the  slanting  rays  of  the  light,  and  still  forest  lakes  with  white 
flowers  Which  flush  in  the  radiance  of  the  sinking  sun.  More- 
over the  wonders  of  the  Malar  See,  with  the  magical  mazes  ot 
its  glittering  arteries  of  water,  give  an  opportunity  for  the  solution 
of  difficult  problems  of  light.  The  marvellous  port  of  Stockholm 
is  painted  with  its  splendid  bridges,  palaces,  and  shining  rows  of 
houses,  and  creeks  of  the  sea  with  the  silvery  reflections  of  the 
moonlight  upon  their  curling  waves,  and  the  turrets  of  lighthouses 
rising  solemnly  over  the  ocean  like  great  moons,  and  the  windows 
of  houses,  which  have  been  lit  up,  blazing  like  flickering  will-o'-the 
wisps  in  the  blue  misty  veil  of  twilight ;  little  skiffs  and  graceful 
sailing  vessels,  which,  in  the  dying  sunset,  glide  across  the  blue 
waters  as  lightly  as  nutshells ;  shores  against  which  the  waves 
chafe  foaming  and  dazzlingly  white,  scourged  by  the  fresh  morning 
wind,  or  rockbound  coasts,  which  lie,  black  and  misty,  beneath 
the  dark  starry  sky.  Parts  of  the  streets  are  painted  in  that 
vague  illumination  which  is  neither  bright  nor  dark,  neither  day 
nor  night ;  bridges  crowded  with  a  fluctuating  throng,  and  lighted 


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Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.'] 

Oesterund  : 


'A  Baptism  in  Brittany.** 


by  flickering  lamps.  Even  when  winter  is  celebrated,  it  is  not  its 
melancholy  and  its  sad  mists  that  are  painted,  but  its  glittering 
gladness  and  its  bright,  invigorating  cold,  bouquets  and  wreaths 
of  snow,  a  fairy  architecture  of  white  snow  with  the  bluest  sky 
as  background. 

Per  Eckstrom,  one  of  the  older  artists,  paints  the  poetry  of 
•desolation  :  the  silence  of  the  heath,  when  all  its  outlines  are 
dissolved  in  the  dusk  and  all  its  colours  are  extinguished ;  the 
new  moon  over  a  clear  lake,  with  groups  of  trees  reflected 
tremulously  in  the  water;  the  silvery  tone  of  afternoon  lying 
-dreamily  over  half  dim  plains ;  still,  sequestered  pools,  sown 
with  luxuriant  water-plants  in  the  blood-red  sunset,  or  the  vague 
light  of  moonrise.  A  quiet  part  of  the  heath  in  Oeland,  in  the 
subdued,  tender,  silvery  tone  of  dusk ;  a  glittering  forest  lake, 
in  which  the  deadened  sunshine  plays  in  a  thousand  reflections ; 
and  the  study  "  Sun  and  Snow,"  a  mingled  play  of  red  and  white 
colours,  making  the  most  intense  effect,  were  the  pictures  by  which 
he  introduced  himself  in  Germany,  at  the  Munich  Exhibition  of 
1892,  as  one  of  the  finest  landscape-painters  of  the  present. 

The  painter  of  winter  twilight  and  autumn  evenings  in  the 
North  was  Nils  Kreuger,   who   had  already  in    Paris   shown   a 


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371 


Munich  :  HanfsidngL] 


BjOrck  :   "  In  the  Cowshed." 


preference  for  phases  of  winter  and  rain,  dusk  and  vapour.  In 
his  delicate  little  pictures  he  rendered  desolate  village  streets,  with 
the  soft  twilight  sinking  over  their  poverty-stricken  houses  and 
gardens,  pallid  moonshine  lying  ghostly  over  solitary  buildings 
and  deserted  paths  losing  themselves  in  the  darkness,  phases  of 
wintry  afternoon,  and  skaters  whose  fleeting  outlines  speed  lightly 
like  vague  shadows  across  the  glassy  lake. 

Karl  Nordstrdnty  more  uneven  and  less  delicate,  though  always 
captivating  through  his  bold  experiments,  chiefly  celebrates  the 
Northern  winter  with  its  cold  splendour  of  colour,  its  rarefied, 
transparent  air,  its  dazzling  sunshine,  and  its  soft  snow  resting 
like  sugar  upon  the  branches  of  the  leafless  trees.  He  has 
likewise  worked  much  and  successfully  upon  motives  from 
Skargard  under  sombre  phases  of  night  and  animated  by  the 
varied  lights  of  steamers  slowly  gliding  past  the  hilly  coasts, 
upon  harbour  views  with  glowing  rocket-lights,  yellowish-red 
pennons,  and  little  steamboats  running  from  shore  to  shore  with 
arrowy  swiftness. 


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Stockholm :  Bonnier. '\ 

Carl  Larsson, 


Scarcely  thirty  years 
^T\       i^^^^^^^^  ^^  ^S^'  ^"^  already  one 

^^ «     m^  t  3^^^  amongst  the  best,  Prince 

^      @fc(tiitatf^\  /<^^^K  Eugene    arrested     melo- 

dious moods  of  nature 
in  Skon  and  Soederman- 
land  :  in  his  pictures  a 
still  forest,  with  delicate 
birches  and  plashing 
streamlets,  is  touched  by 
the  violet  mists  around 
the  evening  sun ;  little 
golden  clouds  hang  over 
the  sea;  or-  the  sun 
shines  with  dazzling 
light  upon  a  glad,  green  meadow-land ;  or  else  the  moon 
trembles  in  long  shining  lines  upon  a  bluish  lake. 

Robert  Thegerstrdm  travelled  much,  and,  in  addition  to 
delicate  French  harmonies  in  grey,  exhibited  pretty  studies 
from  Egypt  and  Algiers.  A  sturdy  artist,  Olof  Arborelius,  has 
produced  Swiss  and  Italian  landscapes,  painted  during  his 
years  of  pilgrimage,  and,  in  his  later  period,  Swedish  landscapes, 
true  and  powerful  in  their  local  accent,  and  of  rich  and 
luxuriant  colouring.  The  dazzling  rays  of  the  summer  sun 
and  the  glittering  effects  of  winter  snow  have  principally  inspired 
his  dexterous  brush.  Axel  Lindmann  paints  honest,  clear  grey 
landscapes  enlivened  with  delicate  green,  and  they  show  that 
he  has  more  than  once  looked  at  Damoye.  In  Alfred  Thome 
the  mountain  and  Malar  scenery  has  found  an  interpreter,  in 
John  Kindborg  the  environs  of  Stockholm,  and  in  Carl  Johannson 
the  world  in  its  wintry  charms.  Johan  Krouthin  painted 
quarries,  forcible  summer-pieces  from  Skagen,  arable  fields 
in  autumn  in  the  sunshine,  pictures  of  spring  with  powerful, 
chalky  effects  of  light,  or  garden  pictures  in  which  he  united 
all  kinds  of  gay  flowers  in  joyous  combinations  of  colour.  The 
sea-painter  Adolf  Nordling  attaches  himself  to  the  great 
Danish    sea-painters    by    the    confident    manner    in    which    he 


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places  his  vessels  in  the 
waves.  His  air  is  fresh 
and  clear ;  light  and  fluent 
his  water.  Victor  Forssell, 
Johan  Ertcsofiy  Edvard 
Rosenberg,2XiA  Ernst  Lund- 
Strom  are  other  painters 
who  devote  themselves  to 
the  port  of  Stockholm. 

In  the  province  of 
animal  painting  the  men 
of  the  older  generation, 
Wennerberg,  Brandelius, 
and  others,  have  been  re- 
placed by  Georg  Arsenius 
and  Bruno  Liljefors. 
Arsenius  has  been  known 
for  many  years  by  his 
bright,  sunny,  and  dashing 
renderings  of  the  Paris 
races,  and  by  numerous 
rapid  and  confident  draw- 
ings   from    the    world    of 

sport,  published  in  the  French  journals.  After  making  frequent 
contributions  to  the  Paris  Salon  without  exciting  any  special 
attention,  Bruno  Liljefors  introduced  himself  to  the  German 
public,  for  the  first  time,  in  1892,  in  Munich.  Removed  from 
the  Stockholm  Academy  on  account  of  unfitness,  he  withdrew 
himself  and  his  models — tame  and  wild  animals,  birds  and  four- 
footed  beasts— to  an  out-of-the-way  village  in  the  north  of 
Sweden,  and  here  became  one  of  the  most  individual  personalities 
of  modern  art.  The  barren,  commonplace  scenery  of  Uppland, 
with  its  hills  clothed  with  meagre  woods  and  its  sparse  fir-forests 
and  its  green  fields"^  and  meadows  in  the  winter  snow,  usually 
forms  the  background  for  his  representations  of  animal  life :  they 
are  the  works  of  a  man  who,  without  having  been  in  Paris, 
worked   out  by  himself  all    the   inspiring    principles   of  foreign 


Stockholm  :  Bonnur.] 
Carl  Larsson  :   "Tmr  Wm  op  th«  Viking." 


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Stockholm :  Bonnitr.^ 

Richard  Bergh. 


painting.  In  his  earliest 
years  Liljefors  devoted  him- 
self with  zeal  and  earnest 
purpose  to  open-air  painting, 
painted  woods  and  meadows 
in  that  most  intense  sunlight 
loved  by  Manet ;  then  he 
studied  the  Japanese,  and 
assimilated  their  spirited 
sureness  in  seizing  transient 
movements.  But,  in  these 
days,  this  technical  bravura 
is  only  used  as  a  vehicle 
for  his  fresh  and  healthy 
observation  and  intimate 
feeling.  Liljefors  knows  his 
models.  He  has  learnt  to 
arrest  the  most  instantaneous 
movements  of  animals ;  he  has  made  himself  familiar  with  their 
way  of  life,  their  characteristics  and  their  habits.  He  represents 
the  spoit  of  birds  in  the  sunshine,  the  hare  sitting  solitary 
upon  a  snowy  field  of  a  grey  winter  afternoon,  the  hound,  the 
household  of  foxes,  quails,  magpies,  and  reed-sparrows  as  they 
hide  shivering  in  the  snow. 

And  just  as  he  represents  these  animals  with  the  essential 
accuracy  of  an  old  sportsman,  he  paints  his  men  with  the 
good-humour  of  a  head-ranger,  living  in  the  country  and 
playing  cards  with  peasants  in  the  tavern.  His  landscapes 
have  been  seen  with  the  fresh,  bright  eyos  of  one  accustomed 
to  live  out  of  doors,  one  who  can  go  about  without  having 
numbed  and  frozen  fingers.  When  he  paints  boys  taking  nests 
or  getting  over  the  palings  to  steal  apples  he  does  it  with  a 
boy's  sense  of  enjoyment,  as  though  he  would  like  to  be  of  the 
party  himself.  When  he  paints  the  sunny  corners  of  a  peasant 
garden,  where  diapered  butterflies  poise  on  the  flowers  and 
sparrows  scratch  merrily  till  they  cover  themselves  with  sand, 
one  would  take  Liljefors  himself  for  the  old  gardener  who  had 


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laid  out  and  planted  this 
plot  of  land.  Whether  he 
represents  the  darkness 
of  a  summer  night,  or 
blackcocks  pairing  in  a 
dark  green  valley,  or  the 
solitude  of  the  forest, 
where  the  poacher  is 
awaiting  his  victim  with 
strained  attention,  or  the 
sombre  humour  of  after- 
noon upon  the  heath,  where 
the  sportsman  is  plodding 
wearily  home,  followed  by 
his  panting  dogs,  there 
runs  through  his  picture 
a  deep  and  unforced  sen- 
timent, a  reverence  for  the 
mysticism  of  nature  and 
the  majestical  sublimity  of 
solitude.  Living  in  a  far- 
off  village,  out  of  touch  with  the  artist  world  throughout  the  whole 
year,  surrounded  only  by  his  animals,  and  observing  nature  at  all 
seasons  and  at  all  hours,  Liljefors  is  one  of  those  men  who  have 
something  of  Millet's  nature,  one  of  those  in  whom  heart  and 
hand,  man  and  artist,  are  united.  It  is  only  through  living  so 
intimately  with  the  theme  of  his  studies  that  he  has  seen  Swedish 
landscape  with  such  largeness  and  quietude,  and  learnt  to  overhear 
the  language  of  the  birds  and  the  whisper  of  the  pines. 

Beyond  this  it  is  impossible  to  divide  Swedish  painters 
according  to  "subjects"  or  provinces.  The  more  "Swedish" 
they  are,  and  the  more  deftly  they  have  learnt  to  play  with 
technique,  the  more  they  are  cosmopolitans  who  take  a  pleasure 
in  venturing  upon  everything.  Axel  Kulle  represents  peasant 
life  in  South  Sweden  in  a  very  authentic  manner  with  regard  to 
costume  and  furniture,  yet  with  a  humorous  accent  which  is  a 
relic   of    his   Dusseldorf  period.      A   sturdy,   prosaic   realist,   Alf 


K  M.:±m 

1^ 

vi#    -... 

Iv :: 

% 

1          ; 

,v  \    '^     ..        ■ 

Stockholm:  Bonnitr,} 

R.  Bergh  :   •'  At  Evenfall." 


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Go*,  <Us  Bgaux-Atis.} 

R.  Bergh  :  Portrait  of  his  Wipe. 


WallaneUr,  is  the  leading 
representative  of  natural- 
ism in  the  treatment  of  the 
proletariat.  Old  men  and 
women  in  the  street,  the 
inn,  or  the  market-place, 
he  places  upon  canvas  as 
large  as  life,  and  his  works 
are  energetic,  fresh,  and 
full  of  colour,  though  with- 
out delicacy  or  the  play 
of  feeling.  Axel  Borg 
paints  peasant  life  in 
Orebro:  street-scenes  and 
fairs,  or  farms  of  a  Sunday 
forenoon,  when  the  waggon 
stands  ready  for  an  ex- 
cursion to  the  neighbour- 
ing village.  The  snowy  landscape  of  Lapland,  with  its  moun- 
tains, pines,  and  waterfalls,  has  a  forcible  and  fearless  interpreter 
in  Johan  Tir^n,  who  is  a  robust  and  pithy  painter.  AUan 
Oesterlind,  an  artist  who  tells  his  tale  with  delicacy,  has  now 
settled  in  Brittany,  where  he  paints  rustic  life  in  the  field  and 
at  home,  by  daylight  and  firelight,  in  the  market-square  and 
the  churchyard,  with  Parisian  flexibility.  In  him  the  child-world 
in  particular,  has  a  fine  observer :  he  surprises  children  in  their 
games  and  their  griefs,  simply,  and  without  mixing  in  them 
himself;  they  are  all  absorbed  in  their  employment,  and  not 
one  of  them  steps  out  of  his  surroundings  to  coquet  with  the 
spectator.  And  Ivar  Nyberg  delights  in  family  scenes  round  the 
lamp  of  an  evening,  young  ladies  sitting  at  the  piano  by  candle- 
light, or  old  women  telling  girls  their  fortunes  by  cards ;  those 
twilight  motives  and  those  indeterminate  effects  of  light  in  an 
interior  which  are  so  dear  to  the  Danes. 

There  is  something  a  little  German  about  Oscar  BJorck^  which 
is  quite  in  accordance  with  his  Munich  training.  He  can  neither 
be  called  particularly  spirited  nor   particularly   intimate,  but  he 


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}ias  a  sound  and  sincere  naturalism,  a  quiet  and  graceful  style, 
and  an  even  methcwi  of  creation,  which  is  free  from  all  nervous 
intensity.  In  Skagen,  where  he  worked  for  some  time,  he  was 
affected  by  Danish  influences  which  prompted  him  to  pictures 
from  the  life  of  seamen — "  The  Signal  of  Distress  "  and  so  forth 
— in  the  manner  of  Michael  Ancher.  Intercourse  with  Julius 
Kronberg  in  Rome  led  him  to  paint  a  "  Susanna,"  an  adroit 
studio  study  in  the  style  of  French  Classicism.  The  leading 
work  of  his  Roman  period  was  a  representation  of  a  forge,  an 
exceedingly  sound  picture,  in  which  he  analyzed  correctly  and 
with  adherence  to  fact  the  play  of  sunbeams  on  the  smoke- 
grimed  walls  of  the  smithy,  their  blending  with  the  fire  on  the 
hearth,  and  the  strife  of  this  double  illumination  of  sun  and  fire 
upon  the  upper  part  of  the  tanned  bodies  of  the  workmen.  In 
Venice  he  painted  the  Piazza  d'Erbe  flooded  with  sunshine,  and 
the  interiors  of  old  Renaissance  churches,  on  the  gleaming  mosaics 
of  which  dim  daylight  plays,  broken  by  the  many-coloured  glass 
windows.  A  "Stable,"  upon  the  walls  and  planks  of  which  the 
•early  sun  fell  in  large,  sparkling  patches,  a  "  Sewing-Room " 
with  the  broad  daylight  glancing  tremulously  over  the  white 
figures  of  girls,  and,  occasionally,  able  portraits,  were  his  later 
works,  which  were  sterling  and  powerful,  though  they  were  not 
particularly  spirited. 

Carl  Larsson  is  amusing,  coquettish,  and  mobile,  one  of  those 
capricious,  facile  men  of  talent  to  whom  everything  is  easy.  He 
first  made  a  name  as  an  illustrator,  and  his  piquant  representa- 
tions of  fashionable  life  as  well  as  his  grotesquely  bizarre 
caricatures  are  the  most  spirited  work  which  has  arisen  in  Sweden 
in  the  department  of  illustration  during  the  century.  This 
facility  in  production  remained  with  him  later.  Always  attempt- 
ing something  novel  and  mastering  novel  spheres  of  art,  he  went 
from  oil-painting  to  pastels  and  water-colours,  and  from  sculpture 
to  etching.  The  refined  water-colours  which  he  painted  in 
Prance — pictures  of  little  gardens  with  young  fruit-trees,  gay 
flowers,  old  men,  and  beehives — were  followed  by  delicate 
landscapes  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Stockholm  and  Dalame, 
interiors  bathed  in  sunlight,  and  amusing  portraits  of  his  family 
VOL.  III.  25 


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and  his  feminine  pupils. 
But  this  was  merely  a 
transitional  stage  to  "  grand 
art,"  the  decorative  painting 
which  had  been  the  aim  of 
his  youthful  dreams.  Even 
in  the  days  when  he  worked 
at  a  Stockholm  photogra- 
pher's, and  was  employed 
in  retouching,  he  painted 
in  an  audacious  effervescent 
humour  pictures  like  "The 
Sinner's  Transit  to  Hell,"  or 
old  bards  singing  their  last 
ballad  to  the  sinking  sun. 
Even  then  the  motley  old 
wooden  figures  of  the 
Stockholm  churches  had 
bewitched  him,  and  the  fan- 
tastic woodcuts  of  Martin 
Schongauer  and  Diirer. 
In  his  decorative  works  he 
sports  with  all  these  elements  like  a  spirited  tattler  who  has 
seen  much  and  babbles  about  it  in  a  way  that  is  witty  and 
stimulating,  if  not  novel.  In  the  three  allegorical  wall-paintings^ 
Renaissance,  Rococo,  and  Modern,  which  he  designed  for  the 
Fiirstenberg  Gallery  in  Stockholm,  Tiepolo,  Goltzius,  Schwind,. 
and  modern  French  plastic  art  are  boldly  and  directly  inter- 
mingled. In  the  series  of  wall-paintings  for  the  staircase  of  the 
girls'  school  in  Goteborg,  where  he  represented  the  life  of 
Swedish  women  in  different  ages,  the  technique  of  open-air 
painting,  naturalistic  force,  curious  yearning  for  the  magic  of 
the  Rococo  period,  daring  of  thought  suggesting  Cornelius,  and 
the  pale  grey  hue  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  are  mixed  so  as  to 
form  a  strange  result  It  all  has  something  of  the  manner  of 
a  poster,  with  but  little  that  is  monumental  or,  indeed,  inde- 
pendent.     But   Larsson   plays   with  all    his    reminiscences  with. 


\Arii8i  sc] 

Zorn:  Portrait  of  Himself. 


^^^ 


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such  an  attractive  and 
sovereign  talent,  the  total 
effect  is  so  fresh  and 
delightful,  so  vivid  and 
full  of  fantastic  point,  so 
effective  in  colour  and  in 
substance,  so  far  removed 
from  all  dry  didacticism, 
that  he  raises  himself  to 
a  position  beside  the 
finest  decorators  of  the 
present  age. 

In  Ernst  Josephson, 
another  spirited  impro- 
viser,  bold  portraits  and 
motley  scenes  from  the 
life  of  the  Spanish  people 
alternate  with  robust,  life- 
size  pictures  of  forges, 
millers'  men,  and  Swedish 
village  witches.  Georg 
Pau/t  pdAnitd  little  Italian 

landscapes  with  a  fine,  natural  lyricism  of  feeling,  sea  and  bridge 
pictures  with  gas-lamps,  spring  evenings  when  the  setting  sun 
casts  a  red  light  into  the  room,  or  bright  moonlight  nights  when 
the  air  seems  transformed  into  chill  light.  In  some  of  his- 
expressive  pictures  of  sick-rooms  there  was  an  echo  of  H.  von 
Habermann,  and  in  his  last  work,  "The  Norns,"  he  followed,, 
like  the  latter,  a  monumental  and  allegorical  tendency  in  the 
manner  of  Agache.  As  a  pupil  at  the  Academy,  Richard  Bergh 
was  called  by  his  comrades  the  Swedish  Bastien-Lepage.  The 
tender  absorption  in  nature  and  the  quiet,  contemplative  method 
of  his  father,  Edvard  Bergh,  is  peculiar  to  him  too.  "The 
Hypnotic  Stance,"  which  made  him  first  known  in  the  Paris 
Salon,  was  rather  a  transient  concession  to  the  style  of  Gervex 
than  the  expression  of  Bergh's  own  temperament.  He  paints 
best  when  he  represents  the  people  whom  he  best  knows,  and 


Stockholm  :  BonnurJ] 
ZoRN :  Portrait  of  his  Mother  and  Sister. 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


his  intimate  portraits  of 
members  of  his  family  and 
of  particular  friends  only 
find  their  counterpart  in 
corresponding  likenesses 
by  Bastien-Lepage,  Spe- 
cially charming  was  the 
simple  picture  of  his  wife 
which  he  sent  in  1886  to 
the  Paris  Salon :  a  young 
woman  with  a  bright  and 
yet  thoughtful  look,  who 
is  sitting  with  a  piece  of 
white  material  upon  her 
knees  and  her  arms  crossed 
in  her  lap  ;  she  has  just 
left  off  sewing,  and  is 
looking  dreamily  before 
her.  The  pretty  studio 
picture  "  After  the  Sitting," 
with  the  young  model 
dressing  with  a  tired  air ;  the  landscape  "  Towards  Evening," 
Tiarmonized  entirely  in  yellow,  and  slightly  tinged  by  qualities  of 
the  Scotch  school,  with  a  fair  peasant  girl  sitting  upon  a  hill 
with  the  evening  sun  pouring  over  her ;  and  several  other  land- 
scapes with  young  ladies  dreaming  in  a  lonely  park,  themselves 
bright  and  tender  like  the  Northern  summer,  were  further 
•evidences  of  his  refined  and  sympathetic  art 

The  most  deft  and  ultra-modern  of  these  men  is  Anders  Zom, 
From  the  first  day  his  whole  career  was  one  continuous  triumph. 
He  was  a  peasant  boy  from  Dalame,  and  he  had  left  the  school 
at  Einkoping,  when  he  came  in  1875  to  Stockholm,  at  first  with 
the  intention  of  becoming  a  sculptor.  Even  as  a  boy  he  had 
•carved  animals  in  wood  while  out  in  the  pastures,  and  then 
coloured  them  with  fruit-juice.  At  school  he  painted  portraits 
from  nature,  without  having  ever  worked  on  the  usual  drawing 
models  for  copying.     Thus  he  acquired  early  a  keen  eye  for  form 


Stockholm:  Bonnier, "l 

Zorn:   "The  Omnibus." 


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and  character,  and  adhered 
to  this  vivifying  principle 
when  in  later  years  he 
began  at  the  Academy  to 
paint  little  scenes  from 
the  life  of  the  people 
around  his  home.  An 
exhibition  for  the  work  of 
pupils  brought  him  his 
earliest  success.  He 
painted  the  portrait  of  a 
girl  in  mourning,  a  little 
picture  full  of  delicate 
feeling,  in  which  the 
piquant  black  veil  specially 
roused  the  admiration  of 
all  ladies.  From  that 
time  he  had  quantities  of 
orders  for  portraits.  He 
painted  children  and 
ladies     with     or     without 

veils,  and  was  the  lion  of  the  Academy.  With  the  sums  which 
he  was  enabled  to  save  through  these  commissions  he  left  home,, 
and,  after  a  circular  tour  through  Italy  and  Spain,  he  landed 
in  London  in  1885,  and  took  a  studio  there  in  the  most 
fashionable  part  of  the  town.  And  purchasers  and  visitors 
anxious  to  order  pictures  came  quickly.  Making  London  his 
headquarters,  he  led  a  life  of  constant  movement,  emerging  now 
in  Spain  or  Morocco,  now  in  Constantinople  or  at  home.  His 
field  of  work  was  changed  just  as  often,  and  the  development  of 
his  power  was  rapid.  He  painted  quantities  of  pictures  in  water- 
colours — old  Spanish  beggars  and  gipsy  women,  Swedish  children 
and  English  girls.  And  he  touched  them  all  in  a  manner  that 
was  fresh,  wayward,  piquant,  and  full  of  charm,  and  with  a 
dexterity  quite  worthy  of  Boldini.  In  his  next  period  Swedish 
open-air  motives  were  what  principally  occupied  this  painter,  who 
was   always  seeking    some  new   thing.      Having   busied   himself 


Stockholm  :  Bonnier.} 
Zorn:   "The  Ripple  of  the  Waves.'* 


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382  MODERN  PAINTING 

with  river  motives  in  England,  he  now  began  at  Dalaro  to  study 
^aves.  The  large  water-colour  picture  called  "The  Ripple  of 
the  Waves"  represented  a  quiet  lake,  the  clear  mirror  of  which 
rippled  lightly  beneath  the  soft  evening  wind.  A  pair  of  summer 
visitors,  a  lady  and  gentleman,  are  sitting  upon  a  jetty,  and  in 
front  a  washerwoman  is  talking  with  a  boatman  who  is  passing 
T>y.  A  quick  eye  and  a  sure  hand  are  requisites  for  painting 
tiie  sea.  In  its  eternal  alternation  of  ebb  and  flow  it  leaves  the 
painter  no  time  for  deliberate  study.  Zom  attacked  the  problem 
again  and  again,  until  he  finally  solved  it.  His  first  oil 
picture,  exhibited  in  Paris  and  acquired  by  the  Mus6e  Luxem- 
bourg, rendered  the  peaceful  hour  when  daylight  yields  softly  to 
the  radiance  of  the  moon :  an  old  seaman  and  a  young  girl  are 
looking  thoughtfully  from  a  bridge  down  into  a  river.  His  next 
picture  he  called  "Oiit  of  Doors."  Three  girls  are  standing 
naked  on  the  shore  after  bathing,  whilst  a  fourth  is  still  merrily 
splashing  in  the  water.  After  this  picture  he  became  famous  in 
France.  Everything  in  it  had  been  boldly  delineated.  The  water 
lived,  and  rocked,  and  rippled.  The  reflections  of  the  light  and 
the  thousand  rosy  tints  of  evening  were  rendered  with  extreme 
:sensitiveness  of  feeling,  and  played  tenderly  and  lightly  on  the 
water  and  the  nude  bodies  of  the  women.  And  how  natural 
were  the  women  themselves,  how  unconsciously  graceful,  as  if 
they  had  no  idea  that  a  painter's  eye  was  resting  upon  them ! 

Zom  has  painted  much  of  the  same  kind  since  :  women 
before  or  after  bathing,  sometimes  enveloped  in  the  grey 
atmosphere,  sometimes  covered  by  the  waves  or  the  gleaming 
light  of  the  sky. 

The  most  refined  picture  of  all  was  a  sketch  exhibited  in 
Munich  in  1892,  and  now  in  the  possession  of  Edelfelt  It 
made  such  a  bright  and  light  effect,  it  was  so  simple  and 
entirely  natural,  that  one  quite  forgot  what  sovereign  mastery 
was  requisite  to  produce  such  an  impression.  The  same  bold 
<:onfidence  which  knows  no  difficulties  makes  his  interiors  and 
likenesses  an  object  of  admiration  to  the  eye  of  every  painter. 
As  he  stood  on  a  level  with  Cazin  in  his  bathing  scenes,  he 
•stands  here  on   a   level   with  Besnard.     In  his   picture  of  1892 


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the  spectator  looked  into  the  interior  of  an  omnibus.  Through 
the  windows  fell  the  dim  light  of  a  grey  afternoon  in  Paris, 
and  carried  on  a  vivid  combat  with  the  light  of  the  gas-lamps 
upon  the  faces  of  the  men  and  women  inside.  The  study  of 
light  in  the  treatment  of  a  woman  asleep  beneath  the  lamp 
almost  excelled  similar  efforts  of  the  French  in  its  delicate 
effect  of  illumination.  A  ball  scene  made  a  fine  and  animated 
impression  elsewhere  only  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  the 
American  Stewart.  His  portraits  give  the  feeling  that  they 
must  have  been  painted  at  a  stroke :  they  have  a  sureness  in 
characterization  and  a  simple  nobility  of  colour  which  admit 
of  a  manifold  play  of  tones  within  the  very  simplest  scale. 
Even  his  etchings,  although  they  are  summary  and  merely 
indications,  find  their  like  in  spirit  and  piquancy  only  in  those 
of  Legros.  Zorn  is  the  most  dexterous  of  the  dexterous,  a 
conjurer  whose  hand  follows  every  glance  of  his  marvellously 
organized  eye,  as  if  by  some  logical  law  of  reflex  action — a 
man  who  can  do  everything  he  wishes,  who  rejoices  in  experiment 
for  its  own  sake,  one  who  never  ceases  conquering  new 
difficulties  in  mere  play,  in  every  new  work.  He  is  a  Frenchman 
in  his  bravura  and  bold  technique,  and  in  this  mundane  grace 
he  is  as  typical  of  the  Swedish  art  of  the  present  as  Johansen  is 
of  Danish  art  in  his  simple,  provincial  intimacy  of  emotion. 


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CHAPTER    XLII 

NORWAY 

Previous  history  of  Norwegian  art:  J.  C  Dahl  and  his  import- 
ance; Fearnley^  Frich, — The  DUsseldorf  period:  Adolf  Tidemand, 
Hans  Gude^  Vincent  Stoltenberg-Lerche,  Hans  Dahl,  Carl  Hansen, 
Niels  Bj&rnson-Mdller ,  August  Cafpelen,  Morten- MUller,  Ludwig 
Munthe,  E.  A,  Normann,  Knud  Bergs  lien,  Nicolai  Arbo, — 
From  the  middle  of  the  seventies  Munich  becomes  the  high-school 
of  Norwegian  art,  and  from.  1880  Paris.  —  Norwegians  who 
remained  in  Germany  and  Paris:  M*  Grdnvold,  J,  Ekendes, 
Carl  Frithjof- Smith,  Grimelund.  —  Those  who  return  home  be- 
come the  founders  of  a  national  Norwegian  art:  Otto  Sinding, 
Niels  Gustav  Wenzel,  Jdrgensen,  Kolstoe,  Christian  Krohg, 
Christian  Skredsvig,  Eilif  Peterssen.  —  The  landscape  -  ^inters : 
Johan  Theodor  Eckersberg,  Amandus  Nilson,  Fritz  Thaulam, 
Ge^'hard  Munthe,  Dissen,  Skramstadt,  Gunnar  Berg,  Edvard^ 
Dircks,  Eylof  Soot,  Carl  Uckermann,  Harriet  Backer,  Kitty 
Kielland,  Hansteen,  —  Illustration :  Erik  Werenskiold, — Finnish 
art:    EdelfelL 

THE  Norwegians  made  their  entry  into  modern  art  with 
almost  greater  freedom  and  boldness. 
What  a  powerful  reserve  modern  art  possesses  in  nationalities 
which  are  not  as  yet  broken  in  by  civilization — nationalities 
which  approach  art  free  from  aesthetic  prejudice,  with  the  youngs 
bright  eyes  of  the  children  of  nature — is  most  plainly  shown 
in  the  case  of  the  Norwegians.  That  which  is  an  acquired 
innocence,  a  naivete  intelligente  in  nations  which  have  been  long 
civilized,  is  with  them  natural  and  unconscious.  They  had  no 
necessity  to  free  themselves  with  pains  from  the  yoke  of  false 
principles  of  training  which  pressed  in  other  countries  upon  all 
the  moderns.  They  were  not  immured  for  long  years  in  the 
cells  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts,  they  did  not   need  to  fight 

384 


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NOJRWAY  385 

the  battles  which  the  strongest  had  to  wage  elsewhere,  before 
they  could  find  nature  and  themselves.  As  beings  who  had 
never  had  a  share  in  any  artistic  phase  of  the  past,  and  who* 
had  grown  up  without  much  academical  instruction,  they  began 
to  represent  the  soil  and  the  people  of  their  home  with  a 
clearness  of  vision  peculiar  to  races  in  direct  contact  with 
nature,  and  with  a  technique  as  primitive  as  if  brush  and 
pigments  had  been  invented  for  themselves.  For  this  reason,, 
of  course,  the  barbarism  of  the  uneducated  nature  which  enters 
the  world  of  art  as  a  stranger  is  often  betrayed  in  their  works 
even  now.  As  yet  they  have  not  had  time  to  refine  their 
ideas,  to  adorn  and  embellish  them :  they  display  them  entirely 
naked ;  they  are  unable  to  subdue  their  strong  sense  of  reality,, 
breaking  vehemently  forth,  to  a  cogent  harmony.  Their  art 
is  sturdy  and  sanguine,  and  occasionally  crude;  even  in  colour 
it  is  hard  and  brusque,  and  peculiarly  notable  for  a  cold  red 
and  a  dull  violet — those  hues  so  popular  even  in  the  painting 
of  Norwegian  houses.  The  taste  of  an  amateur  formed  on 
the  old  masters  would  be  infallibly  shocked  with  their  glaring 
light,  and  those  offensive  tones  which  recur  in  their  interiors,, 
in  their  costumes  and  furniture.  Indeed  Norwegian  painting 
is  still  in  leading  strings.  But  it  will  cast  them  aside.  The 
inherent  individuality  which  it  has  already  developed  makes 
that  a  certainty. 

Norway  can  look  back  to  a  great  past  in  art  even  less 
than  Denmark.  What  was  produced  in  earlier  times  has  only 
an  architectonic  interest.  The  history  of  painting  begins  for 
them  with  the  nineteenth  century,  and  even  then  it  has  na 
quiet  course  of  development  For  the  student  the  earliest  name 
of  importance  in  that  history  is  Johann  Christian  Dahl,  who  in 
the  twenties  opened  the  eyes  of  German  painters  to  the  charm, 
which  nature  has  even  in  her  simplicity.  He  was  followed  in 
the  mother-country  by  Feamley  and  Frichy  who  depicted  with 
a  loving  self-abandonment,  not  alone  the  romantic  element  in 
Northern  scenery,  huge  blue-black  cliflTs,  dark  and  silent  fjords,, 
and  dazzling  glaciers,  but  the  gentle  valleys  and  soft  unobtrusive 
hills  of  Ostland.       The  first  figure-painter,  the   Leopold   Robert 


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386  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  the  North,  was  Adolf  Tidemand,  with  whom  began  the 
Diisseldorfian  period  of  Norwegian  art.  The  younger  men  oi 
talent  gathered  round  him  and  Gude,  who  came  to  Diisseldorf 
in  1 84 1,  four  years  later.  Vincent  Stoltenberg-Lerche  painted 
the  interiors  of  monasteries  and  churches,  which  he  utilized  for 
genre  pictures,  filling  them  in  with  suitable  accessory  figures 
,d  la  Griitzner.  Hans  Dakl  produced  village  idylls  A  la  Meyerheim, 
and  survived  into  times  when  something  more  true  and  forcible 
was  demanded  from  art.  Carl  Hansen,  who  has  now  settled 
in  Copenhagen,  began  with  genre  scenes  under  the  influence 
•of  Vautier,  and  afterwards  acquired  a  prepossessing  distinction 
of  colour  in  such  pictures  as  "  The  Salmon-Fishers,"  "  Sentence 
of  Death,"  "The  Lay  Preacher,"  and  others  of  the  same  type. 
Niels  Bjomson-M oiler ^  August  Cappelen,  Morten-MuUer,  Ludwig 
Munthe,  and  Normann  glorified  the  majestic  configurations  of 
the  fjords,  the  emerald-green  walls  of  cliff,  the  cloven  dingles 
of  the  higher  mountains,  the  fir-woods  and  the  splendour  of 
the  Lofoten.  With  the  sleights  of  art  which  they  had  acquired 
at  Diisseldorf  there  were  some  who  even  attempted  to  work 
upon  scenes  from  the  Northern  mythology.  Knud  Bergslien 
represented  people  in  armour  flying  across  the  whitened  plains 
in  huge  snowshoes,  giving  as  the  titles  of  his  pictures  names 
ohosen  from  the  Viking  period.  Trained  from  1851  under 
Sohn  and  Hunten,  Nicolai  Arbo  became  the  Rudolf  Henneberg 
of  the  North.  The  National  Gallery  of  Christiania  possesses  an 
"  Ingeborg "  from  his  hand,  and  a  "  Wild  Hunt,"  in  which  the 
traditional  heroic  types  are  transformed  into  Harold,  Olaf,  Odin, 
and  Thor,  by  a  change  in  their  attributes. 

All  these  painters  betrayed  no  marks  of  race.  Schooled  abroad, 
and,  to  some  extent,  working  away  from  Norway  throughout 
their  lives,  they  merely  reflect  tendencies  which  were  dominant 
in  foreign  parts.  In  fact  Norwegian  art  only  existed  because 
a  corner  was  conceded  to  it  in  public  and  private  galleries  in 
alien  countries.  "  National "  it  first  became  twenty  years  2^0, 
like  Swedish  art,  and  its  development  proceeded  in  a  similar 
fashion. 

Like  the  Swedes,  the  Norwegians  had,  from  the  close  of  the 


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NORWAY  387 

sixties,  a  suspicion  that  Diisseldorf  was  no  longer  the  proper 
place  for  their  studies ;  and  when  Gude  was  called  thence  to 
Carlsruhe,  the  Academy  of  the  Rhineland  was  no  longer  a  gather- 
ing-place for  Norwegian  students.  Some  followed  him  to  Baden, 
but  the  majority  repaired  to  Munich,  where  Makart  had  just 
painted  his  earliest  marvels  of  colour,  where  Lenbach  and  Defregger 
had  begun  their  career,  and  Piloty,  Lindenschmit,  and  Diez  were 
famous  teachers.  But  their  sojourn  by  the  Isar  was  not  of  long 
duration  either.  While  they  were  working  there  Liebermann 
came  back  with  new  views  of  art  from  Paris.  Through  the 
brilliant  appearance  made  by  the  French  at  the  Munich  Ex- 
hibition of  1878,  their  gaze  was  turned  in  a  yet  more  westerly 
direction.  So  they  deserted  the  studios  of  Lindenschmit  and 
Lofftz  for  those  of  Manet  and  Degas,  and  left  the  contemplative 
life  of  Munich  for  the  surging  world  of  art  in  Paris. 

The  last  and  decisive  step  was  their  return  home.  M.  Gronvold 
and  /.  Ekendes  in  Munich,  C.  Frithjof- Smith  in  Weimar,  and 
Grimelund  in  Paris  are  probably  the  only  Norwegians  who  are 
now  working  abroad.  In  the  later  and  more  forcible  men  there 
was  strengthened  that  sentiment  for  home  which  has  such  a 
fertilizing  power  in  art.  Having  learnt  their  grammar  in  Germany 
and  their  syntax  in  Paris,  they  borrowed  from  the  works  of  the 
modern  French  the  further  lesson  that  an  artist  derives  his 
strength  from  the  soil  of  his  mother-country.  And  since  then  a 
Norwegian  art  has  been  developed.  In  the  distant  solitudes  of 
the  North,  on  their  snowfields  and  Qords  and  meadows,  the 
former  pupils  of  Diez  and  Lindenschmit  became  the  great 
original  painters  whom  we  now  admire  so  much  in  exhibitions. 

Men  of  various  and  ductile  talent,  like  Otto  Sinding,  are  but 
little  characteristic  of  Northern  sentiment.  During  his  long 
residence  in  Carlsruhe,  Munich,  and  Berlin,  he  was  aflfected  by 
too  many  influences,  and  swayed  by  too  many  tendencies,  from 
those  of  Riefstahl  and  Gude  to  those  of  Boecklin  and  Thoma, 
to  proceed  in  any  determined  direction.  With  "The  Surf"  he 
made  his  first  appearance,  in  1870,  as  a  richly  endowed  marine- 
painter  ;  in  his  "  Struggle  at  the  Peasant  Wedding "  he  was  a 
genre  painter  after  the  manner  of  Tidemand;  to  his"  Ruth  amongst 


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388  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  Workers  of  the  Field  "  Bastien-Lepage  had  stood  godfather ; 
several  bathing  scenes  and  peasant  pictures  recalled  Riefetahl, 
and  his  "  Mermaid "  suggested  Thoma.  Once,  indeed,  at  the 
annual  exhibition  of  1891  at  Munich,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had 
come  to  feel  at  home  on  Northern  soil.  There  he  exhibited  a 
beautiful  picture  of  the  Lofoten,  '*  Laplanders  greeting  the  Return 
of  the  Sun,"  and  a  couple  of  peasant  pictures  which  gave  a  delicate 
interpretation  of  the  grave  melancholy  life  of  the  North,  There 
was  a  peaceful  picture  of  evening,  one  of  sheep  grazing  on  the 
gentle  declivity  of  a  mountain.  The  day  had  sunk,  and  a  glimmer- 
ing Northern  twilight  rested  over  the  hills,  upon  which  a  silvery 
light  was  falling  from  the  clear  vault  of  the  sky.  He  had  also 
a  soft,  delicate,  languishing  picture  of  spring,  with  rosy  boughs 
laden  with  blossom,  stretching  along  a  verdant  mountain  country, 
and  on  the  far  side  of  a  blue  lake  cliffs,  still  covered  with  dazzling 
snow,  rose  into  the  clear  sky.  A  strange  magic  lay  in  this  contrast 
between  frost  and  blossom  :  it  was  as  if  a  gentle  breath  of  spicy 
fragrance  rose  from  a  snowiield,  or  as  if  the  splash  of  rushing 
mountain  streams  were  sounding  in  the  air  of  spring.  But  in 
the  following  year  he  appeared  once  more  with  fantasies  in  the 
style  of  Boecklin — pieces  which  merely  recalled  Boecklin,  and  not 
Sinding.  Artistic  polish  has  robbed  him  of  all  directness.  In 
fact  he  is  a  man  of  talent,  pushing  his  feelers  into  everything 
and  drawing  them  back  with  the  same  ease ;  a  sensibility  to 
impressions  which  never  wearies  is  his  quality,  and  instability  his 
defect. 

Almost  all  the  others  stand  firmly  on  the  soil  of  their  country, 
which  has  not  been  levelled  by  foreign  civilization,  and  they  are 
in  every  sense  its  children.  And  it  is  curious  to  note  that,  even 
in  three  countries  closely  united  by  race,  religion,  and  language, 
like  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden,  the  modem  principle  of 
individuality  expressed  itself  in  works  of  a  distinctive  character. 
As  the  Danes  are  yielding  and  thoughtful,  vague  and  misty, 
and  the  Swedes  elastic,  graceful,  mundane,  and  refined,  the  Nor- 
v/egians  are  rough,  angular,  and  resolute.  There  is  a  similar 
difference  between  the  three  dialects  :  the  language  of  the  Swedes 
has  a  vivid,  emphatic,  Parisian  note  ;  that  of  the  Danes  runs  in 


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JVOJ^IVAV  389 

a  soft  lisping  chant ;  while  Norwegian  speech  is  clear,  simple, 
and  positive,  although  when  written  it  is  almost  the  same  as 
the  Danish.  Provincial  geniality  and  loving  tenderness  are 
in  the  ascendant  amongst  the  Danes ;  urbane  grace,  winning 
refinement,  and  mundane  polish  amongst  the  Swedes;  and  in 
the  Norwegians  there  is  a  robust  strength,  something  ascetic, 
honest,  and  at  once  brusque  and  warm-hearted,  an  eafnest 
and  quite  unvarnished  sincerity.  One  feels  that  one  is  in  a 
country  inhabited  by  a  rude,  scattered  population,  a  nation  of 
fishers  and  peasants.  Stockholm  is  the  Athens  and  Christiania 
the  Sparta  of  the  North,  and  Norway,  in  general,  the  great 
fish-receptacle  of  Europe.  Its  principal  sources  of  income  are 
the  products  of  the  sea  :  cod,  cod-liver-oil,  herrings,  and  fish- 
guano.  In  no  country  in  the  world  has  man  such  a  hard  fight 
with  nature.  And  so  it  is  that  the  Norwegian  people  seem  so 
quiet,  inflexible,  and  composed,  such  veritable  men  of  iron. 
Denmark  is  a  prosperous  country,  and  its  landscape  is  soft  and 
without  salient  form.  Its  people  have  the  struggle  of  life  behind 
them.  It  is  not  merely  the  thousands  of  villas  in  the  towns 
that  are  neat  and  trim,  for  the  country  farms  are  so  pleasantly 
arranged,  and  so  spick-and-span,  that  they  might  be  taken  for 
summer  residences  where  guests  of  the  educated  class  are  mas- 
querading in  rustic  dress.  In  Norway,  where  nature  takes 
unusually  bold  proportions,  man  has  still  something  of  the  iron 
rusticity  of  a  vanished  age  of  heroes,  and  a  tourist  moves 
amongst  the  old  tobacco-chewing  sailors,  with  their  horny  hands, 
their  leather  trousers,  and  their  red  caps,  as  amongst  giants. 
These  people,  who  are  unwieldy  ashore,  look  like  antediluvian 
kings  of  the  sea  when  they  stand  in  their  skiffs.  And  the 
painters  themselves  have  also  something  rough  and  large-boned, 
like  the  giants  they  represent.  Everything  they  produce  is 
healthy  and  frank.  The  air  one  breathes  in  their  work  is  not 
the  atmosphere  of  the  sitting-room,  but  has  the  strong  salt  of 
the  ocean,  a  freshness  as  invigorating  as  a  sea-bath.  They 
approach  p/etn  air  with  an  energy  that  is  almost  rude,  and  paint 
under  the  open  sky  like  people  who  are  not  afraid  of  numb 
fingers.     The  trenchant  poetry  of  Northern  scenery  and  the  deep 


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39© 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Com,  dgs  Btaux-Arts.] 


Wekzel:   "Morning." 


[Artisit 


religious  feeling  of  the  people  find  grave  and  measured  expres- 
sion in  the  works  of  Norwegian  artists.  They  look  at  life  with 
keen  bright  eyes,  and  paint  it  in  its  true  colours,  as  it  is,  simply 
and  without  making  pictorial  points,  without  embellishment,  and 
without  any  effort  after  "style."  Such  is  the  clear  and  most 
realistic  ideal  of  the  young  Norwegian  painters. 

Niels  Gustav  Wenzel,  JOrgensen,  Kolstoe,  and  Christian  Krohg 
are  names  which  form  the  four-leaved  clover  plant  of  Norwegian 
fisher-painting. 

Wenzely  who  went  straight  from  his  native  country  to  Paris, 
excited  general  indignation  when  he  exhibited  in  Christiania 
his  first  naturalistic  and  uncompromising  pictures,  which  were 
almost  glaring  in  their  effects  of  light.  One  of  them,  "  Morning," 
represented  a  number  of  good  people  grouped  round  a  table,  at 
the  hour  when  blue  daylight  and  lamplight  are  at  odds.  This 
light  was  so  trenchantly  painted  that  the  figures  had  yellow 
rims  thrown  full  on  their  faces.      Around   these  stood   uncouth. 


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NORWAY 


391 


old-fashioned  presses 
and  benches,  firm, 
clumpy  chairs,  look- 
ing as  if  they  had 
stood  for  centuries 
in  the  same  place, 
and  must  have  been 
once  used  by  a  de- 
parted generation  of 
greater  and  stronger 
beings.  Door  and 
window  looked  out 
upon  log-houses  and 
the  Norwegian  high- 
land scenery.  In  a 
second  picture, "  The 
Confirmation  Feast," 
he  roused  a  feeling 
akin  to  compassion 
for  the  poor  people 
he  represented, 
people  whose  life 
runs   by   quiet   and  void  of  poetry  even  at  their  festivities. 

It  must  be  owned  that  Jorgensen  has,  likewise,  a  heavy  hand, 
yet  he  gives  an  earnest  and  essentially  true  rendering  of  the  life 
of  labourers  out  of  work,  men  staring  vacantly  before  them, 
women  with  tired  faces,  and  the  cold  light  relentlessly  exposing 
the  poverty  of  little  rooms. 

Under  Lindenschmit  Kolstoe  had  already  made  many  experi- 
ments in  the  treatment  of  light;  then  he  painted  landscapes  in 
Capri,  and  lamplight  studies  in  Paris,  which  were  as  glaring  as- 
they  were  sincere.  At  present  he  lives  in  Bergen.  His  fishers 
are  as  large  and  wild  as  kings  of  the  sea. 

But  by  far  the  most  powerful  of  these  painters  of  fishermen 
is  Christian  Krohg,  who  is  equally  impressive  as  an  author  and 
as  an  artist.  He  is  now  a  man  upwards  of  forty,  and  first  took 
up  painting  in  1873  21^^^  he  had  passed  his  examination  for  the: 


Scribnn's  Mageuint.] 

Krohg:  "The  Struggle  for  Existence." 


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392  MODERN  PAINTING 

tar.  Gude  attracted  him  to  Carlsruhe,  where  he  worked  under 
•Gussow,  and  when  the  latter  was  summoned  to  Berlin  he  followed 
him,  and  stayed  there  three  years.  In  1880  he  was  in  Paris, 
where  he  was  affected  by  Naturalism  in  art  and  literature,  by 
Zola  and  by  Roll.  With  these  views  he  returned  to  Christiania. 
Krohg  is,  indeed,  a  naturalist  who  has  often  a  brutal  actuality, 
a  painter  of  great  and  Herculean  power.  He  seeks  the  truth, 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  As  the  author  of 
the  social  novel  Albertine  he  made  a  name  even  before  he  had 
worked  with  the  brush,  and  pictures  of  the  poor  or  scenes  from 
sick-rooms  were  his  first  artistic  efforts.  In  one  there  sits  a 
poor,  hard-featured  sempstress,  working  busily  by  the  dim  lamp- 
light, whilst  the  grey,  lowering  dawn  has  already  begun  to  peer 
through  the  window.  In  another  a  doctor  has  been  called  from 
^  brilliantly  lighted  reception-room  to  the  side  of  the  poor 
woman  who  stands  shivering  with  cold  in  the  dark  ante-chamber. 
The  large  picture  in  the  National  Gallery  of  Christiania,  "The 
Struggle  for  Existence,"  makes  a  strange,  gloomy  impression ; 
there  is  a  snowy  street  in  the  wintry  dawn,  and  before  the  door 
of  a  house  a  pushing,  elbowing  crowd,  where  the  various  figures 
tell  their  tale  of  misery  in  all  keys.  From,  the  door  a  hand  is 
thrust  out  distributing  bread ;  otherwise  the  street  is  empty, 
except  for  a  policeman  in  the  distance,  who  is  sauntering  in- 
differently upon  his  beat,  while  elsewhere  profound  peace  is 
resting  over  Christiania.  And  he  reached  the  extreme  of  merciless 
reality  in  his  picture  of  a  medical  examination  in  a  bare  room 
at  a  police-station,  with  the  grey  daylight  streaming  in. 

Yet  Krohg's  proper  domain  is  not  that  of  Zolaism  in 
pigments,  but  the  representation  of  Norwegian  pilots.  The 
steaming  atmosphere  of  rooms  which  filled  his  earliest  pictures 
is  changed  in  his  later  works  for  the  fresh  sea-air  sweeping 
keen  over  the  salt  tide.  Krohg  knows  the  sea  and  seamen, 
the  battle  of  man  with  the  icy  waters.  What  splendid  figures 
he  has  represented,  men  with  muscles  as  hard  as  steel,  bronzed 
faces,  oilskin  caps,  and  blue  blouses!  How  boldly  they  are 
placed  upon  the  canvas,  with  great  sweeps  of  colour,  while  the 
--cutting  air  blows  in  their  faces !     When  Krohg  paints  the  part 


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NORIVAY 


393 


Ga».  </<M  B4aux-Aris,] 


Skredsvig:  '*Mix>summbr  Night." 


of  a  ship,  it  is  fearlessly  cut  off,  and  though  the  waves  are 
not  seen  they  are  felt  none  the  less.  How  impressive  is  the 
sailor  standing  upon  the  ship's  bridge,  taking  observations  of 
the  weather,  and  the  pilot  spreading  out  the  chart  in  the 
cabin !  Even  Michael  Ancher,  who  was  with  Krohg  in  Skagen, 
is  a  dwarf  in  comparison. 

Christian  Krohg's  pictures  are  downright,  but  thoroughly 
healthy.  And  when,  for  the  sake  of  a  change,  he  paints  a 
pretty  fisher-girl  in  the  fresh  light  of  spring,  this  brusque 
naturalist  can  be  delicate,  and  this  large-thewed  artist  becomes 
gentle. 

Christian  Skredsvig  and  Eilef  Petcrssen  represent  this  gentler 
side  of  Norwegian  art.  There  is  a  soft  kernel  beneath  the  rough 
husk,  great  tenderness  beneath  a  rude  appearance,  something 
indefinable,  something  like  the  devotion  to  silence. 

Corot  had  been  Skredsvi^s  great  ideal  in  Paris.  He  passed 
through  Normandy,  rendering  the  profound  and  melancholy  spirit 
of  sad,  misty  autumn  days.  He  went  to  Corsica,  and  there  he  saw 
flowery  meadows  and  pleasant  sequestered  nooks,  such  as  no  one 
had  yet  noticed  in  the  coldly  majestic  scenery  of  the  South. 
His  "  Midsummer  Night,"  exhibited  in  the  Paris  Salon  of  1887 
and  afterwards  acquired  by  the  Copenhagen  Gallery,  was  his  first 

VOL.   III.  26 


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394  MODERN  PAINTING 

work  celebrating  the  still  majesty  of  Northern  landscape.  A 
boat  is  gliding  over  the  mirror  of  a  quiet  lake.  The  boatman 
has  left  hold  of  his  oar  to  light  his  pipe,  and  not  a  wave 
troubles  the  peaceful  surface  of  the  water.  A  man  behind  is 
playing  the  harmonica,  and  two  girls  are  listening.  It  is  ten 
o'clock,  and  the  light  dusk  of  summer,  the  suave  magic  of  the 
Northern  nights,  has  shed  over  everything  its  soft  mantle  of 
clear  blue.  In  the  background  the  light  greyish-blue  mountain 
heights  rise  transparent  and  aerial,  like  a  train  of  evening  clouds. 
No  one  utters  a  word,  the  boat  glides  on  its  course  peacefully 
and  inaudibly,  and  the  tones  of  the  harmonica,  borne  by  the 
night-wind,  alone  vibrate  in  silvery  strains  over  the  serene,  faintly 
quivering  water.  Everything  lies  in  a  sort  of  dreamy  half-light,, 
and  the  lake  reflects  the  scene,  dimmed  and  subdued  like  an  echo. 
The  total  effect  stands  alone  in  its  solitude,  peace,  and  freshness. 

In  Munich  Skredsvig  delighted  every  one  in  1891  with  two- 
works.  In  one  which  he  called  "  Evening  Rest "  a  rustic  in 
front  of  a  log-house,  with  his  hands  thrust  into  his  pockets,, 
was  playing  with  a  cat  in  the  grass,  which  fawned  at  his  feet 
Described  in  so  many  words,  it  sounds  like  the  subject  of  a 
genre  picture.  But  in  the  painting  one  was  only  conscious  of  the 
scent  of  the  hay  and  the  field-flowers,  the  sentiment  of  evening 
peace.  The  second  work,  "Water-lilies,"  has  not  its  fellow  for 
familiar  lyrical  poetry ;  three  pale  lilies  are  'floating  in  the  dusk 
upon  quiet  water,  and  that  is  all.  But  out  of  this  Skredsvig^ 
created  a  picture  expressing  a  mood,  and  one  of  profound  feeling,, 
such  as  the  old  painters  never  knew.  A  more  recent  work  made 
a  somewhat  startling  effect.  Uhdc  and  Soeren  Kierkegaard  stood 
godfather  to  his  "Christ  as  Healer  of  the  Sick,"  but  Skredsvig 
went  further  than  Uhde,  by  not  merely  transplanting  his  peasants- 
into  the  nineteenth  century,  but  the  Saviour  Himself  In  the 
foreground  to  the  right  a  countryman  is  driving  his  sick  wife 
past  in  a  cart.  Straight  opposite,  an  old  woman  is  spreading  a 
carpet  for  the  Son  of  Man  to  walk  upon.  From  the  background 
He  is  seen  advancing  in  the  Sunday  garb  of  a  Norwegian  artisaa 
with  a  little  round  hat  in  His  hand.  Children  are  led  to  Him,, 
and  He  blesses  them  tenderly.     Poor  and  simple  folk  are  standing 


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round,  amongst  whom  there,  is  one  who  is  like  a  Protestant 
minister.  Of  late  years  this  religious  painting  has  been  con- 
siderably abused,  but  Skredsvig  made  atonement  by  the  deep- 
earnestness  with  which  everything  was  touched,  as  well  as  by  a 
narvet^  recalling  the  old  masters.  A  trait  of  benevolence  ran 
through  the  picture,  something  biblical  and  patriarchal,  far  re- 
moved from  that  suggestion  of  malicious  narvetd  with  which 
Jean  Beraud  profanes  the  sacred  legends. 

During  his  years  of  study  under  Lindenschmit  Et7t/  Peterssen 
made  a  beginning  with  historical   anecdotes.      "The  Death  of 
Corvis  Uhlfeld,"  "  A  Scholar  in  his  Study,"  and  "  Christian  VI. 
signing  a   Sentence  of  Death,"  were   all   good   costume-pictures 
more  or  less   in   the  style  at  that  time  affected   by  Georg  von 
Rosen  in   Munich.      A  group  from   the    last-mentioned   picture 
he    repeated   in  the   composition    "  Women   in    Church,"    which 
has  the  appearance  of   an   early   Habermann  ;    in  colour  it  is- 
Venetian,  and  it  is  old  German  in  dress.     Love  of  the  Venetian 
colourists,  whom    he  had    already  studied   with    enthusiasm    in 
the  Pinakothek,  induced  him  to  make  a  journey  to  Italy.     He 
was  in   Rome  in   1879,  and   painted   there  a  "  Kiss  of  Judas," 
under    the   influence  of   Titian,  as  well  as    various  altar-pieces- 
for  Norwegian  churches  :  a  "  Repentant  Magdalene,"  an  "  Adora- 
tion of  the  Shepherds,"  and  a  "  Christ  in  Emmaus."     A  picture 
called    "A   Siesta    in    Sora,"  a   group  of  fine   Italian    artisans,, 
showed   that  he  was   b^inning  to   treat   modem    life.      In  his 
"  Piazza  Montenara "  he  produced  a  vivid  and   airy  picture  of 
the    Roman   streets.      And    since    settling    down    in    his   home 
once  more,  in    1883,  he  has  become  a  delicate  and   expressive 
modern    landscapist      His    "Laundresses"    was,   in    1889,  one 
of    the    best    pictures     of    the    Munich    Exhibition,    gleaming 
with    exuberant  colour  and   a    dazzling  glow  of  sunshine.     Irt 
another    pictiu*e    he    represented    nymphs,    in    a    landscape    by^ 
night,  leaning  against  a  tree,  and  softly  touched  by  the  sub- 
dued light    Yet  in  his  "Woodland  Lake"  of  1891   he  achieved 
a  still    more  striking  effect   without   the    aid    of   such    mytho- 
logical beings.     The  still   water,  over  which  the  trees  leaned   so 
dreamily,  was  an   enchanted   lake,  casting   its   spell   over   every^ 


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one   and   holding  him   fast,  a   lake  full  of  quiet  harmonies  and 
soft  dreams. 

And,  in  general,  this  exquisite  delicacy  is  the  note  of  Norwegian 
landscapes.  These  same  angular,  unvarnished  artists  who  face 
objects  with  such  opened-eyed  frankness  in  their  figure-pictures 
show  great  refinement  of  feeling  in  their  landscapes.  Their 
predecessors  had  glorified  only  what  was  romantically  wild  or 
meteorologically  interesting  in  nature  as  she  is  in  Norway,  and  had 
•cultivated,  even  more  than  their  German  colleagues,  that  superficial 
panoramic  painting  which  blazed  out  with  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
to  excite  the  interest  of  tourists.  What  attracted  them  was 
the  element  of  strangeness  in  scenery,  and  what  drew  others  to 
their  pictures  was  the  interest  of  an  album  of  travel.  All  those 
midnight  scenes  glaring  in  blue  and  red,  those  fantastic  beauties 
of  the  Lofoten,  those  flaming  tournaments  between  sunset  and 
dawn,  were  merely  striking  as  curious  phenomena  very  accurately 
rendered  in  an  impersonal  style.  These  landscape-painters 
supplemented  Baedeker  and  corroborated  Passai^e.  They  were 
an  inciting  cause  of  journeys  to  Norway.  Otherwise  their  works 
bore  the  stamp  of  ordinary  prose ;  they  amazed  people  and 
instructed  them,  but  they  could  barely  have  existed  apart  from 
the  mere  interest  of  subject-matter.  The  modems,  who  were 
as  composed  as  the  earlier  painters  were  explosive,  discovered 
Norway  in  its  work-a-day  garb,  the  poetry  of  winter  and  the 
charm  of  spring.  For  them  Norway  was  no  longer  the  land  of 
wild  romance,  of  Alpine  peaks  effectively  lit  up  by  the  limelight 
man,  nor  the  land  of  phenomena  through  which  nature  only 
speaks  with  an  accent  of  vehemence,  but  the  land  of  brightness, 
sunshine,  snow,  and  silence.  Norwegian  landscapes  are,  indeed, 
characterized  by  their  remarkable  and  apparently  exaggerated 
clearness  of  atmosphere,  a  rarefied,  shining,  transparent  atmo- 
sphere where  all  colours  join  in  a  revel  of  brightness.  The  sea, 
the  houses,  the  snowfields,  the  men  and  women  in  their  motley 
garb,  seem  to  sparkle  and  flash  in  the  most  dazzling  tones  ;  every- 
thing is  clear,  aerial,  and  full  of  quivering  light.  Yet  they  are 
exceedingly  simple;  it  almost  seems  as  if  the  painters  beheld 
a  younger  earth   with  fresher   eyes   than   our  own.      The  elder 


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generation  painted  the  dash  of  waterfalls  and  the  devastating 
might  of  the  elements ;  but  nature,  as  seen  by  these  moderns,  is 
as  peaceful  as  it  is  solitary.  In  Danish  landscapes  she  seems  to 
stand  closely  bound  to  man  and  to  be  his  friend.  She  resignsi 
as  it  were,  her  majesty,  to  nestle  round  the  dwellings  of  men,  and 
is  the  medium  of  their  intercourse.  But  in  Norway  everything 
lies  in  ghostly  peace,  as  silent  as  the  grave:  nature  is  austere 
and  vast,  and  all  the  works  of  men  emerge  like  something  forlorn 
and  exceptional  One  artist  celebrates  the  marvellous  splendour 
of  autumn,  when  the  yellow  leaves  of  the  lithe  birches  sparkle 
like  gold  and  their  slender  white  stems  gleam  like  silver.  Another 
renders  lonely  lakes,  where  no  boat  furrows  the  water,  no  human 
being  is  visible,  and  no  shout  is  heard,  where  not  even  a  bird 
is  to  be  seen,  nor  a  fish  darting  to  the  surface.  Here  the  sun 
is  sinking  clear  and  cold  ;  in  its  parting  it  does  not  shed  the 
faintest  gleam  of  purple  over  the  land.  There  it  is  winter, 
which  has  enveloped  the  country  in  a  great,  glittering  mantle 
of  snow.  The  spectator  feels  how  sunny  and  how  cold  it  is  in 
these  Northern  latitudes,  how  the  air  chills  you  to  the  jnarrow^ 
let  the  sea  be  ever  so  blue.  The  atmosphere  has  an  icy  trans- 
parency, the  snow  a  glittering  whiteness.  If  it  is  through  no 
accident  that  the  greatest  landscape-painters  of  the  century 
have  been  city-bred,  it  is  also  comprehensible  that  the  most 
delicate  pictures  of  spring  should  have  been  painted  in  wintry 
Norway.  The  longer  the  spring  is  in  coming,  the  more  men 
know  how  to  prize  it, — that  spring  which  is  not  as  ours,  but  a 
season  less  adorned,  a  season  without  luxuriance,  though  full  of 
fragrance  and  moist,  fertile  warmth,  a  season  rich  in  fine,  tender,, 
yellowish  verdure ;  spring  as  it  is  only  known  in  islands,  where 
the  freshness  of  the  sea  calls  forth  a  succulent  and  yet  pallid 
and  colourless  vegetation. 

Bom  in  1833  i"  Tidemand's  birthplace,  Mandal,  Amandus^ 
Nilson  was  probably  the  first  to  discover  all  these  refinements 
of  Norwegian  scenery.  Having  arrived  at  Diisseldorf  in  i86r> 
he  moved  at  first  entirely  upon  the  lines  of  Gude.  But  after 
he  had  returned  to  Christiania  in  1868,  where  Johann  Tfuodor 
Eckersbergy  who  died  early,  worked  with  him  at  the  time,  Nilson 


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398  MODERN  PAINTING 

entirely  altered  his  style.  While  the  Diisseldorfian  Norwegians 
turned  out  their  works  for  the  market,  Nilson  submitted  himself, 
in  a  simple  and  direct  manner,  to  the  influences  of  Norwegian 
scenery,  in  its  barren  meagreness  and  its  grave  and  severe 
melancholy.  At  first  he  thought  himself  obliged  to  make  con- 
cessions to  the  reigning  taste,  "  rounded  off "  his  pictures,  and 
robbed  them  of  the  freshness  of  work  done  in  the  first  jet  But 
when  he  ventured  to  "  retain  the  result  of  the  sketch  "  the  younger 
men  began  to  honour  him  as  a  forerunner.  Nilson  is  the  real 
autochthonous  Norwegian  landscape-painter  who,  without  having 
■ever  come  in  touch  with  the  Fontainebleau  school,  was  never- 
theless the  first  to  make  their  principles  valid  in  the  North. 
On  his  journey  for  study  through  South  Norway,  where  he  had 
lived  as  a  child,  he  painted  in  a  robust  and  downright  style 
barren  mountains,  and  lonely,  poverty-stricken  houses,  and  hills 
with  a  few  pines  forcing  their  way  from  the  stony  soil  In 
contrast  with  the  works  of  Gude,  which  are  "  seen "  in  a  cool 
and  positive  fashion,  and  painted  well,  in  the  style  of  the  old 
masters,  though  they  display  no  trace  of  temperament,  a  sombre 
and  often  moody  poetry,  which  is  nevertheless  full  of  force 
and  energy,  runs  through  those  of  Nilson.  He  loves  the  poetry 
of  waste  places.  A  melancholy  twilight  rests  over  his  cold, 
snowy  landscapes,  over  his  coasts,  where  the  weary  waves  at 
last  find  rest,  over  his  silent  strands  unbroken  by  a  human 
habitatioa  He  takes  a  peculiar  delight  in  painting  black  autumn 
nights,  where  the  dark  pastures  seem  asleep,  and  the  murmuring 
waves  sing  a  lullaby.  The  emptiness  of  a  vanished  world  broods 
over  his  pictures,  the  love  of  nature  felt  by  a  man  who  is  happiest 
in  the  autumnal  season  and  at  night. 

Fritz  Thaulow^  whose  portrait  has  been  painted  by  Carolus 
Duran — it  is  that  of  an  attractive-looking  man  with  fair  hair  — 
introduced  the  refinements  of  French  technique.  His  favourite 
phases  of  nature  are  the  glitter  of  snow,  the  clear  air  of  winter,  and 
the  sparkle  of  ice;  one  envies  him  the  delightful  nooks  which 
he  discovered  in  the  environs  of  Christiania.  The  usual  elements 
in  Thaulow's  pictures  are  little  red  houses,  lying  deep  in  snow, 
with  great  shining  patches  of  sunlight,  a  clear  sky,  and,  perhaps, 


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1^             "^^BSk^-  ^ 

%F% 

Muntch:  HaMfstOngl,} 


Thaulow:   "Thaw  in  Norway." 


a  peasant  woman  coquettishly  attired,  and  walking  in  boots 
which  are  so  gigantic  that  they  must  have  some  special  name ; 
or  else  a  river  half  choked  with  snow,  or  snow  and  nothing  beside. 
And  how  admirably  this  eternal  snow  is  painted  !  How  blue  and 
still  the  air  is  above !  Not  a  cloudlet  floats  in  the  azure  of  the 
sky.  A  feeling  of  boundless  solitude  is  expressed  in  his  works, 
a  feeling  such  as  steals  over  the  wanderer  in  the  high  mountains 
despite  the  brightness  of  the  snow.  He  awakens  a  longing  for 
those  lonely  fields  of  the  North.  And  this  although  he  is  never 
in  a  proper  sense  expressive  of  "  mood."  In  Munich  one  of  his 
pictures  once  hung  beside  that  of  a  Scotch  painter.  In  the  latter 
there  was  a  deep  and  fervent  passion  for  nature,  and  glowing 
splendour,  and  joy  without  reserve,  melancholy,  sensuousness, 
and  reverie;  in  the  former  clear  and  peaceful  sunshine  over  an 
open  plain,  stillness,  health,  childlike  simplicity,  brightness  of 
vision,  quietude. 

As  Thaulow  had  the  art  of  rendering  winter,  Gerhard  Munthe 
knew  the  secret  of  depicting  the  amenity  of  spring,  its  young 
verdure,    its    budding    leaves — depicting    it     by    a    painting     of 


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Com.  dt9  Beaux-Arts,] 

Weremskiold:   **A  Norwegian  Peasant  Girl." 


[Dujardin  Mio. 


nature  penetrated  through  and  through  with  a  feeling  for  its 
moods.  One  s^^s  in  his  pictures  only  soft,  green  meadows 
gleaming  tenderly  in  a  pale  light  of  noon,  great  cherry-trees 
white  with  blossom,  hanging  beeches,  and  green  fences — so 
green  that  they  seem  to  have  been  painted  with  the  damp 
air  itself  Here  and  there  a  still,  silver-grey  pool  twinkles 
between  the  trees,  or  a  log-house  painted  with  deep  red  emerges 
brightly. 

Dissert,  who  returned  to  Norway  from  Carlsruhe  in  1876,. 
was  won  back  from  Gude,  and  turned  to  the  painting  of  lofty 
cliffs.  He  delights  in  naked  masses  of  rock,  stretching  out  in 
brown  monotony  and  shrouded  in  thick  mist,  glaciers,  and 
Norwegian  waterfalls.  Skramstadt^  who  was  in  Diisseldorf  and 
Munich  in  1873,  has  devoted  himself  to  the  scenery  of  Ostland^ 
and  loves  chill  moods  of  autumn,  clear,  ringing  winter  days^ 
and  snowfields  stretching  to  the  horizon.     For  Northern  Norway 


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401 


Gunnar  Berg  was  in 
painting  what  Jonas 
Lie  was  in  literature. 
On  a  mountain  peak 
high  in  the  Lofoten 
he  has  his  studio, 
the  most  northerly 
in  the  world,  fas- 
tened by  great 
cramp-irons  to  the 
rock.  Here  it  is 
that  Berg,  a  true 
descendant  of  the 
defunct  race  of  Vi- 
kings, paints,  come 
frost  or  rain,  his 
fresh  and  boldly 
naturalistic  pictures. 
Mention  must  like- 
wise be  made  of  the 
dazzling  sea  -  shore 
landscapes  of  Karl  Edvard  Dircks^  and  the  ploughed  fields, 
saturated  with  light  and  exhaling  the  smell  of  the  earth,  which 
are  painted  by  Eylof  Soot,  The  animal  painter  Carl  Uckermann^ 
who,  after  leaving  Munich  in  1880,  became  a  pupil  of  Van 
Marckc  in  Paris,  continues  the  good  traditions  of  Troyon. 
Harriet  Backer  paints  convincing  pictures  of  interiors :  blond 
girls  reading  by  lamplight  in  rooms  which  are  stained  blue. 
Kitty  Kielland^  a  sister  of  the  author  of  that  name,  delights 
in  lonely  woods,  little  white,  red-tiled  houses,  and  dreamy  trees 
casting  reddish  and  pale  green  reflections  on  the  clear  water  of 
still  pools.  A  sense  of  great  peace  underlies  the  seascapes  of 
Hansteen :  rainy  phases  of  morning  on  the  fjord  of  Christiania. 
Grey  is  the  sea,  grey  the  clouds,  grey  and  leaden  the  sky,  and 
all  these  greys  unite  with  the  gloomy  atmosphere  in  creating 
a  grave  and  deep  harmony. 

But    Norway  is   not  alone    the    land   of   snowfields,  but    of 


Scribffurs  MagOMint.} 

Werenskiold:   Bjornstjerne  BjSrnson. 


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Werenskiold:   From  Asbj6rnsen*s  Fairy  Tales. 

fairy  tales  also,  of  giants  and  dragons,  of  nixies  and  the 
daughters  of  c^es.  On  this  ground  of  the  sagas  Erik  Weren- 
skiold  stands  out  as  the  most  poetic  and  creative  of  Norwegian 
artists.  As  a  painter  he  made  his  advance  slowly  and  very 
cautiously.  Upon  the  little  genre  pictures  which  he  painted 
under  Lindenschmit  in  Munich  there  followed  fresh  oi>en-air 
pictures  in  Paris :  "  The  Meeting,"  that  summer  scene,  so  ex- 
pressive of  individual  mood,  with  the  young  peasant  lad  and 
the  girl  greeting  each  other  as  they  pass  in  the  meadow ;  "  The 
Prodigal  Son,"  sitting  ragged  and  famished  upon  a  bench  in 
his  father's  garden.  In  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1890  there 
was  a  simple  but  deeply  poetic  "Mood  of  Evening,"  which 
was  only  pictorially  effective  by  the  great  contrast  of  the 
broad  green  plain  and  the  clear  ether.  Children  are  walking 
in  a  meadow,  and  a  lonely  cot  rises  in  the  middle  distance. 
A  second  picture,  now  to  be  found  in  the  National  Gallery  of 
Christiania,  represented  a  peasant  burial  with  peculiar  earnestness, 
depth,  and  truthfulness.  In  a  churchyard  bare  of  all  adorn- 
ment, overgrown  with  grass  and  weeds,  and  enclosed  by  walls, 
above  which  were   to    be  seen    the   tops  of  trees  and    a   wide 


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Cop0Hhag9M:  Gyldtndalsk,'] 

Wsrsnskiold:   From  AsbjSrnsen's  Fairy  Tales. 

g^een  land,  there  stand  a  few  peasants  in  their  shirt-sleeves, 
holding  the  pickaxes  and  shovels  with  which  they  have  just  been 
filling  in  a  grave.  A  young  man,  not  wearing  a  particularly 
ecclesiastical  garb,  is. reading  out  a  prayer.  There  is  no  ex- 
citement, and  no  cry  of  sorrow  is  raised.  These  large,  robust 
men  have  done  their  Christian  duty,  and  now  they  are  all  going 
back  to  their  customary  work.  A  still,  warm  summer  air 
quivers  upon  the  hills,  and  rests  gently  upon  the  quiet  gathering. 
But  Werenskiold  is  also  an  excellent  portrait-painter,  and  his 
likenesses  of  Kitty  Kielland,  the  composer  Edvard  Grieg,  and 
the  novelist  BjOrnson  are,  in  their  unvarnished  simplicity,  to 
be  reckoned  amongst  the  best  in  Norwegian  art  That  of 
Bjomson  was,  perhaps,  a  little  forced,  or,  at  any  rate,  showed 
only  one  side  of  Bjomson's  individuality :  in  this  portrait  he  is 
the  great  agitator,  the  tribune  of  the  people,  the  mention  of 
whose  name,  according  to  Brandes,  is  like  hoisting  the  national 
flag  of  Norway.     But   in   these   hard   eyes,  these  tightly  closed 


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404 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Edelfelt:   Pasteur  in  his  Laboratory. 

(By  p^rmtMion  of  Msaars.  Bo$«8»od,  Valadon  &  Co.,  the 

ownen  of  ths  copyright.) 


lips,  and  this  air  of  con- 
centrated energy,  the 
tender  and  sensitive  poet 
and  the  noble  and  warm- 
hearted friend  are  not  to 
be  found.  These,  how- 
ever, are  not  the  works 
which  fully  display  the 
importance  of  Weren- 
skiold.  He  is  only  com- 
pletely himself  when  he 
has  a  pencil  in  his  banc}. 
The  fairy  tales  of  Ander- 
sen, the  stories  of  Christian 
Asbjornsen  and  Jorgen 
Moe,  which  were  pub- 
lished by  Gyldendalsk  in 
Copenhagen  with  draw- 
ings by  Werenskiold,  contain  the  best  that  has  been  done  in 
Norway  in  the  way  of  illustration.  In  their  bizarre  union  of  elfish 
fancy  and  rustic  humour,  these  plates  have  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
Northern  tale  in  a  way  which  is  perfectly  marvellous.  Werenskiold 
makes  you  believe  whatever  he  pleases.  He  has  given  the 
impossible  and  invisible  an  air  of  probability  with  such  con- 
vincing narvetd  that  one  is  tempted  to  believe  that  the  simple 
spirit  of  olden  times  lives  in  the  man  himself.  Fairies  and 
monsters  he  has  seen  hovering  upon  waste  and  heath,  and 
giants  and  enchanted  princesses  dwelling  in  strongholds  of  the 
bygone  world.  Dreamland  and  reality  he  rules  over  with  the 
same  ease,  so  that  he  draws  the  spectator  irresistibly  into  his 
magic  circle.  Black  and  white  suffice  him  for  the  expression 
of  all  the  secrets  of  light.  The  interior  of  peasants'  cottages 
and  wide,  open  nature  are  rendered  alike  by  a  few  strokes 
with  the  whole  force  of  realism ;  and  yet  everything  is  enveloped 
in  a  dim  atmosphere  of  dreams,  from  which  the  supernatural 
arises  of  its  own  accord.  The  hill  above  the  flord  where  the 
three    princesses    sit    and    dream    is    in    Norway,  but    it  is    in 


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NORWAY 


405 


fairyland  too.  The 
little  birch-woods, 
with  their  shining 
boughs,  may  be  seen 
in  every  Norwegian 
landscape,  but  in 
Werenskiold's  draw- 
ings they  are  like 
ms^ic  groves,  where 
the  little  silvery 
trees  bear  golden 
leaves.  With  as 
much  fancy  as  in- 
timacy of  feeling, 
he  knows  how  to 
approach  these  le- 
gends from  all  sides, 
expressing  their 
comicality  and  their 
horrors,  their  child- 
ish laughter  and 
their  virgin  grace, 
the  drollness  of 
gnomes  and  the 
brutality  of  three-headed  giants,  the  primitive  fantasticality  of 
fabulous  animals  dwelling  in  desolate,  rocky  wastes,  the  elfin 
delicacy  of  creatures  pervading  the  air. 

The  art  of  Finland  is  an  appanage  of  that  of  Sweden,  and 
has  gone  through  the  same  French  training.  Its  leading  repre- 
sentative is  Edelfelt^  by  no  means  a  vehement  force  in  art,  but 
a  graceful  and  many-sided  painter,  who  combines  the  healthy 
brightness  of  Scandinavian  vision  with  the  coquettish  chic  of  Paris, 
and  the  pictorial  sensitiveness  of  the  French  with  that  irresist- 
ible breath  of  virginal  freshness  only  to  be  found  in  nationalities 
which  have  never  been  worn  out  The  work  which  first  made 
him  known  was  a  portrait  of  Pasteur,  whom  he  painted  examin- 
ing a   preparation   in   his   laboratory.      In  "The  Women  in  the 


Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.'] 
Edelfelt:  ''Christ  appearing  to  Mary  Magdalene." 


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4o6  MODERN  PAINTING 

Churchyard "  he  produced  a  pretty  picture  of  the  life  of  the 
Finnish  people.  In  "  Boys  Bathing  "  he  painted  the  swing  of 
the  waves,  like  Zorn  ;  the  setting  sun,  in  this  picture,  cast  its 
last  rays  across  quiet  waters,  and  played  gently  over  the  elastic 
young  frames  of  the  bathers.  His  "  Laundry,"  a  harmony  of 
yellow  on  white,  was  one  of  the  pearls  of  the  Munich  Exhibi- 
tion of  1893,  a"d  ^^  "Christ  appearing  to  Mary  Magdalene"  he 
followed  the  lead  of  Uhde,  and  treated  the  theme  as  if  it  were 
a  Finnish  legend.  Christ  stands  in  a  Northern  landscape,  and 
at  His  feet  there  kneels,  not  the  splendid  courtesan  of  the  gospel,, 
but  a  poor  peasant  woman  in  that  heavy  nun-like  costume 
worn  in  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Russia ;  but  indeed  Finland 
belongs  to  the  Empire  of  the  Czar. 


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CHAPTER    XLIII 

RUSSIA 

(In  collaboration  with  Alexander  Benois,  St.  Petersburg) 

The  beginnings  of  Russian  fainting  in  the  eighteenth  century :  Levitzky, 
Rokotav,  Baravikovs^.—The  period  of  Classicism :  Egorov,  UgrH- 
mov,  Andreas  Ivanov,  Theodor  Tolstoi^  Or  est  Kiprensky, — The  first 
painters  of  soldiers  and  peasants :  Orlavsky,  Veneiianov* —  The 
historical  painters :  BrUloVj  Bassin^  Schamschin^  Kapkov,  Flavitzky, 
MolUr,  Hendrik  SiemiradMky,  Bruni,  Neff, — Realistic  reaction: 
Alexander  Ivanov,  Sarjanko,  —  The  genre  painters  :  Sternberg ^ 
Stschedrovsky,  Tschernyschev,  Morosov,  Ivan  Sokolov,  TrutovsJ^^ 
Timm,  Popov,  Shuravlev,  Fedotov. — The  painters  with  a  complaint 
against  society :  Perov,  Pukirev,  Korsuchin^  Prj'anischnikov, 
Savitzkyt  Lemoch,  Verestchagin.—Ths  landscape-painters:  Stsche- 
drin,  Lebedev,  Vorobiev,  Rabus,  Lagorio,  Horavsky,  Bogoliubov^ 
Mestschersky,  Aivasovsky,  TscherneMoff,  Galaktionov,  Schischkin, 
Baron  Klodt,  Orlovsky,  Fedders,  Volkov,  Vassiliev,  Levitan, 
ITuindshi,  Savrassov,  Sudhovshy,  VassnetMov,  Albert  Benois, 
Svjetoslavshy. — Tfie  naturalistic  figure^icture :  Suertschhov,  Peter 
Soholov.—The  wanderers :  Ivan  Kramskoi,  Constantin  and  Vladimir 
Makovsky,  Tschistjakov,  Schwari,  Gay,  Surikov,  Elias  RSpin, 

A  STRANGE  fable  has  currency  amongst  the  Russian  people  ; 
it  is  rather  Oriental  than  Slav  in  its  colour,  and  was  pro- 
bably brought  by  the  Mongols  from  the  highland  desert  to  the 
lowland  Steppes.  Among  these  Steppes,  runs  the  fable,  a  magic 
plant  raises  somewhere — who  knows  where  ? — its  tender  blossom, 
everlastingly  green,  deathless,  and  freed  from  all  the  laws  of 
growth  and  decay.  So  long  as  it  grows  and  blossoms  on  the 
earth  it  cannot  be  perceived,  for  the  reed-grass  and  the  flowers 
of  the  Steppes  lift  their  heads  higher  and  hide  this  tender  plant 
from  view.      But  the  eternally  green   flower   becomes   visible  to 


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4o8  MODERN  PAINTING 

any  one  who  travels  over  the  bald  Steppes  in  the  sad  autumn, 
and  even  from  a  distance  its  fragrance  assures  him  that  it  is 
the  magic  flower  which  he  has  seen.  For  this  fragrance  is 
peculiar  to  itself,  and  ineffably  rich  and  sweet;  it  has  not  its 
like  upon  earth,  to  say  nothing  of  its  equal.  And  if  any  one 
breathes  it  the  whole  world  is  changed  for  him.  He  under- 
stands everything ;  what  is  dumb  speaks  to  him,  and  what  has 
speech  cannot  lie.  Beneath  the  sound  of  a  hypocritical  phrase 
he  penetrates  to  the  most  profoundly  secret  thoughts  ;  animal, 
tree,  and  rock  talk  to  him  with  tones  that  have  a  meaning ;  he 
overhears  nature,  and  learns  how  she  breathes  and  works  and 
creates ;  he  hears  the  song  of  the  stars  in  their  nightly  courses. 
Yet  every  one  becomes  sad  who  has  drunk  in  this  fragrance ; 
every  one  becomes  sad,  for — say  the  poor  folk  in  the  great  plain 
— it  is  not  a  joyous  song  which  vibrates  through  the  universe. 

Now  the  great  Russian  authors  have  wandered  out  in  the 
autumn,  and  have  sought  the  magic  flower  and  found  it  They 
have  understood  the  song  and  grown  wise,  and  tender  and 
pitiful.  "The  sorrow  of  created  things"  has  passed  throi^h 
them  like  a  shudder. 

And,  in  truth,  it  was  under  the  star  of  pessimism  that  mystical, 
credulous  Russia  first  struck  a  grandiose  and  original  note  in  the 
spiritual  concord  of  the  nations. 

The  French  Naturalists  wished  to  create  "human  documents." 
Their  aim  was  the  objective  representation  of  naked  nature. 
Each  individual  man,  they  taught,  was  a  material,  which,  when 
brought  into  contact  with  others,  entered  into  definite  relation- 
ships, and  it  was  the  business  of  the  author,  as  a  man  of 
science,  to  represent  their  character.  In  the  hands  of  the 
Russians  the  living,  suffering  human  spirit  celebrated  its  new 
birth  after  a  long  mortification.  The  monotonous  desolation  of 
the  brown  Steppes  spreading  beneath  a  grey  sky,  the  lament- 
able existence  of  man  in  a  country  over  the  spiritual  life  of 
which  the  thought  of  Siberia  rested  like  a  dark  veil,  induced 
an  infinite  compassion  for  humanity.  Never  has  the  world 
heard  such  repining,  sympathetic,  sorrowfully  resigned,  and 
deep  and   tender  tones,  as   Turgeniev,  Dostoievski,  and  Tolstoi 


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RUSSIA  409s 

reserved  for  their  downtrodden  heroes  :  "  poor  people,  deadened 
souls,  idiots,  branded  and  debased  and  possessed." 

But  has  any  one  of  the  Russian  painters  heard  this  song?" 
In  these  days  there  is  such  a  fervent  longing  for  spiritual  origin- 
ality, freedom  from  scholastic  forms,  and  youthful  inwardness  of 
feeling.  The  world  is  eager  for  something  naTve,  for  a  natural 
art  born  in  a  country  where  there  are  no  museums,  and  amongst 
simple  people ;  it  desires  picturies  like  none  that  have  been 
seen  elsewhere,  it  has  need  of  a  stream  of  fresh  life  and  a  new 
taste  in  art.  The  Russian  authors  are  Russian  in  every  drop- 
of  their  blood.  Nowhere  does  the  bond  between  the  written 
word  and  the  most  secret  sorrows  of  the  nation  seem  more* 
closely  formed.  They  sympathize  with  their  own  race  in  the 
most  direct  fashion,  and  the  beating  of  its  pulse  is  also  theirs. 
Everything  in  their  work  is  pervaded  with  the  odour  of  their 
native  soil,  with  the  sap  of  popular  life.  Their  feeling  for  nature 
adheres  so  closely  to  the  secret  working  of  the  elements,  and 
the  atmosphere  is  so  charged  with  the  germs  of  a  spiritual  life, 
peculiar  in  character,  that  in  Russia,  above  all  countries,  one 
might  expect  an  art  allied  to  the  sturdiest  sentiment  of  nation- 
ality, an  art  laying  bare  the  quivering  nerves  of  the  people,- 
an  art  in  which  violent  sobbing  would  be  united  with  mocking, 
peals  of  merriment,  blithe  laughter  with  gloomy  funereal  bells,, 
feverish  unbridled  wildness  with  sorrowful  abnegation,  the  acrid 
smell  of  brandy  with  devout  mysticism.  One  dreams  of  strange 
things :  knouts  and  sacred  pictures,  desolate  steppes,  plaintive 
gipsy  songs  and  sombre  pine- woods,  moon  and  mist,  death  and 
the  grave,  longing  and  affliction,  the  parching  July  sun  and  rigid 
seas  of  ice ;  men  whose  days  go  by  in  vain  monotony  ;  hollow, 
broken,  somnolent  lives  which  come  and  pass  away  without  needs 
or  desires,  like  grass  by  the  wayside,  regarded  by  no  one  and  by 
no  one  pitied  ;  bold  flaming  spirits  famishing  before  the  pictures 
of  saints  in  religious  stupor ;  high-born  aristocrats  casting  riches 
and  titles  aside,  to  find  their  lost  peace  of  mind  by  working  in  the 
sweat  of  their  brow ;  Cossacks  bounding  upon  fiery  horses  across 
the  endless,  sunny  meadow-plains ;  and  peasant  children  crouching: 
round  the  glimmering  fire  and  telling  each  other  ghost-stories. 
VOL.  III.  27 


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410  MODERN  PAINTING 

But  art  has  to  reckon  with  more  difficult  conditions  than 
literature.  And  indeed  perfect  artistic  form  is  wanting  even 
in  the  works  of  Russian  authors.  In  a  sense,  Tolstoi  and 
Dostoievski  can  do  no  more  with  the  inkpot  than  any  other 
educated  man  who  can  give  clear  expression  to  his  thoughts. 
What  distinguishes  them  is  not  their  facility,  but  their  naturalness 
and  simplicity,  which  so  entirely  retain  the  directness  in  con- 
ception, and  the  freshness  and  vividness  of  the  first  draught, 
that  one  scarcely  thinks  of  the  manner  in  which  their  works 
have  been  produced.  A  French  author  would  have  polished 
the  mere  shell  of  his  book  in  a  different  fashion,  though  he  would 
have  rendered  the  kernel  less  sweet  and  savoury;  and  he  would 
liave  divested  his  ideas  of  their  elementary  force.  In  art,  too,  the 
spirit  is  not  fuUgrown  before  the  body  has  matured ;  thought  and 
feeling  do  not  become  self-conscious  before  the  outward  frame  has 
been  developed  into  clear  and  sensuous  forms.  It  is  the  acquired 
mastery  of  technique  which  is  the  first  condition  for  the  minting 
of  a  spiritual  individuality.  But  Russian  painting  has  not 
yet  arrived  at  this  subtilized  aesthetic  stage.  With  barbarism 
on  one  side  and  civilization  on  the  other,  it  wavers  between 
the  blind  imitation  of  foreign  models  and  the  stiff*,  rude,  and 
awkward  expression  of  inborn  emotion.  Some  have  studied 
diligently  under  foreign  masters,  and  lost  their  individual  character 
in  following  an  alien  style ;  and  in  studiously  pursuing  the 
academical  pattern  they  have  wilfully  suppressed  every  personal 
note.  In  the  case  of  others  it  is  evident  that  they  had  some- 
thing to  express,  feelings  and  desires  of  their  own,  the  special 
secrets  of  their  strange  race,  but  they  failed  to  body  them 
forth ;  they  plagued  themselves,  stuttering  helplessly  in  an  in- 
tractable language  to  which  they  were  not  habituated.  Never- 
theless Russia,  during  the  past  hundred  years,  has  contributed 
to  the  general  development  of  painting  a  creditable  total  of 
artistic  power.  Whereas  the  earlier  period  was  merely  receptive 
of  jejune  impressions  of  foreign  styles,  artists  are  now  in  a  better 
position  to  make  something  of  their  own  from  the  result 
Amongst  the  discoverers  and  initiators  of  European  art  there 
is  certainly  no  Russian  name  to  be  found,  but  there  is  usually 


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RUSSIA  4H 

a  Russian  to  be  jnet  with  amongst  the  followers  of  men  of  other 
nationalities  who  have  broken  new  ground.  And  in  the  annual 
^'wandering  exhibitions,"  as  they  are  called,  there  is  an  increase 
of  pictures  which  seem  the  heralds  of  an  approaching  outburst 
in  Russian  art  From  parasitic  works  of  borrowed  sentiment 
Russian  painting  rises  to  national,  barbaric  strength,  utterly 
wanting  in  the  discipline  that  comes  of  taste  ;  and  out  of  this  evil 
-originality  it  rises  again,  and,  in  individual  cases,  highly  refined 
and  well-balanced  performances  are  produced — works  in  which 
the  spirit  of  the  people  is  felt  none  the  less  to  vibrate.  That 
is  more  or  less  the  course  of  development  which  has  been  run 
through  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

What  was  produced  in  Russia  before  the  year  1700  is  only 
•of  value  for  those  making  researches  in  Byzantine  art  The 
•connection  between  the  Empire  of  the  Czar  and  the  West  dates 
from  Peter  the  Great  This  prince  wanted  European  pictures 
for  his  palaces  arranged  in  the  European  style  —  ceiling-pieces 
and  wall-paintings — and  for  the  execution  of  them  he  summoned 
from  foreign  parts  a  number  of  mediocre  painters,  who  adapted 
in  a  workmanlike  fashion  for  Russian  necessities  the  courtly 
allegories  invented  by  Lebrun.  Dannhauer,  Grooth,  the  elder 
Lampi,  and  afterwards  Toqu^,  Rotari,  and  others,  were  employed 
as  portrait-painters  at  the  Court  of  St.  Petersburg.  For  the 
genesis  of  a  "national  Russian  art"  their  appearance  was,  of 
■course,  ineffectual.  The  Asiatic  Colossus  merely  received  a 
superficial  Western  varnish.  Nevertheless  the  barbarians  acquired 
a  taste  for  pictures,  luxury,  elegance,  and  refinement  As  a 
result  commissions  were  multiplied  During  the  fabulous  splen- 
dour which  flooded  the  Court  and  was  in  favour  with  the 
aristocracy  under  Elizabeth,  whole  regiments  of  artists  were 
needed.  Demand  creates  supply.  And  so  amongst  the  crowd 
of  foreigners  there  emerged  native  artists,  some  of  whom  gave 
a  good  account  of  themselves  beside  their  French  comrades. 
In  particular  Levitzky^  the  first  remarkable  painter  of  the 
Empire  of  the  Russias,  may  be  reckoned  amongst  the  best  por- 
traitists of  the  eighteenth  century.  As  a  colourist  and  master 
of  characterization   he  does    not  stand   upon    the   same  footing 


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412  MODERN  PAINTING 

with  Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  and  Graflf,  but  his  likenesses- 
might  easily  be  mistaken  for  those  of  Madame  Vigte-Lebrun  or 
Rafael  Mengs.  His  contemporary,  Rokotov,  is  more  pedestrian 
and  less  vivid.  The  fine  portrait  of  Catherine  II.  by  his  pupil,. 
Borovikovsky^  which  represents  the  Empress  in  a  plain  morning- 
dress,  passing  through  the  park  of  Zarskoe  Selo,  accompanied 
by  her  favourite  dog,  makes  a  specially  striking  effect  in  the 
private  collection  in  Moscow  where  it  is  to  be  found.  His 
church-pictures  are  void  of  any  religious  feeling,  as  is  always 
the  case  in  those  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  but  they  are  flowing 
in  line,  effectively  decorative,  and  show  great  taste  in  colour. 

Through  mere  intercourse  with  the  foreign  masters  whom, 
they  saw  working  around  them,  they  had  all  three  formed  them- 
selves on  the  style  of  the  old  painters.  In  1757,  still  during 
the  reign  of  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  Russia  made  a  further 
advance  in  the  cultivation  of  art :  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy 
of  Arts  was  founded.  It  was  the  time  when  Rousseau's- 
t,fnile  had  created  the  wildest  confusion  of  ideas,  and  an 
exceedingly  strange  programme  was  accordingly  taken  up.  The 
ground-floor  of  the  Academy  was  occupied  by  an  infant-schooL. 
Boys  of  from  three  to  five  were  taken  there,  being  sometimes, 
brought  from  the  foundling  hospital.  After  they  had  gone: 
through  the  elementary  course  of  teaching  they  entered  the 
more  advanced  school,  being  then  from  eleven  to  thirteen  years 
of  age.  There  they  were  drilled  to  become  artists,  and  finally 
sent  abroad,  where  Mengs  and  David  stood  at  the  zenith  of 
their  glory.  In  St  Petersburg  young  Russians  were  compelled 
with  the  knout  to  make  Oriental  reverences  before  Poussin  and 
the  Bolognese.  When  they  came  to  Rome  they  transferred, 
their  servile  veneration  to  the  two  younger  princes  of  painting 
whom  the  world  delighted  to  honour.  And  so  the  Classicism, 
of  Mengs  and  David — icy  rigidity  and  tediousness  aiming  at 
style — found  its  way  into  Russia.  Like  a  new  Minerva,  armed, 
with  diplomas  and  arrayed  in  academical  uniform,  Russian  art 
descended  to  the  earth,  ready-made.  Artists  complimented  each 
other  on  being  a  Russian  Poussin,  a  Caracci,  a  Raphael,  or — 
highest    honour    of   all — a   Guido    Reni :   they   painted    Jupiter^ 


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RUSSIA 


413 


Achilles,  Ulysses, 
Hercules,  Socrates, 
and  Priam  ;  that  is 
to  say,  wax-dolls, 
-provided  with  friz- 
zled hair  and  yellow 
and  blue  togas, 
moving  majestic- 
ally in  bare  land- 
scapes, painted  in 
the  style  of  Valen- 
-ciennes. 

These  produc- 
tions of  Egorov^ 
Ugruniov,  and 
Jlndreas  Ivanov — 
honoured  artists  in 
their  lifetime — look 
down  from  the  walls 
•of  the  Hermitage, 
sad  and  silent  in 
these  days,  like 
reduced  heroes  of 
Cornelius  in  a  state 
of  emaciation. 
They  were  one  and  all  stiff  and  buckram  painters  making  a 
frightful  abuse  of  Greek  and  Roman  names,  and  staring  with 
their  dull  Mongol  eyes  into  the  blithe  world  of  antiquity. 
Count  Tkeodor  Tolstoi^  the  sculptor  and  designer  of  medallions, 
is  the  only  one  amongst  them  who  makes  an  oasis  in  the 
wilderness  of  French  Classicism  resembling  that  made  by 
Prudhon  in  France.  His  illustrations  to  Bogdanovitsch's  trans- 
lation of  the  tale  of  Psyche  take  a  place  immediately  below 
Prudhon's  drawings  in  grace,  charm,  and  aristocratic  elegance. 
He  neither  imitated  nor  troubled  himself  about  academical  for- 
tnulas,  but  felt  like  a  Greek ;  and  his  compositions  are  fresh 
-and   delicate   where    others    were   stiff   and    formal.      But,  as    a 


ij 

^ 

A 

r      r 

^■*0\ 

m 

A 

r         -    . 

\ 

^m 

^=;-. 

f 

*     ^^^1 

i 

m 

_i_ti 

I 

lUiktM  9C. 

BoROviKOvsKY :   The  Empress  Catherine  II. 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


genuine  painter  of 
the  epoch,  the  only 
one  of  them  who 
survives  is  Orest 
Kiprensky,  a  man  of 
naive  artistic  temper 
who  had  a  delight 
in  colour  and  was 
inspired  by  Rubens 
and  Van  Dyck,  and 
not  by  RaphaeU 
Poussin,and  Mengs. 
When  one  comes,  in 
the  Russian  section 
of  the  Hermitage,, 
across  Kiprensky's 
portrait  of  his  father 
— an  obese,  cherry- 
cheeked  old  gentle- 
man with  goggle 
eyes,  wrapped  in 
fur  and  standing; 
broad  -  legged  with 
a  stick  in  his  hand — one  fancies  that  one  has  unearthed  a 
Rubens  in  the  thick  of  these  tedious,  dismal  Classicists.  Almost 
all  his  works  have  unusual  breadth  of  technique,  rich  and 
liquid  tone,  bold  drawing,  and  astonishing  characterization. 
Very  fine  is  his  portrait  of  himself  in  the  Florentine  Uffizi 
galleries,  a  masterpiece  of  energetic  conception,  with  colouring 
which  recalls  the  old  masters  ;  and  to  this  must  be  added  his 
portrait  in  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy  of  Arts  of  Captain 
Davydov,  the  famous  poet  and  military  author,  who  as  Colonel 
of  a  Hussar  regiment  played  such  an  important  part  in  1814 
under  Blucher  in  the  war  against  the  French. 

The  Napoleonic  campaigns  brought  about  the  beginnings  of 
realism  in  Russia  as  in  Germany  and  France,  and  what  Gros 
was  in  Paris  and   Albrecht   Adam  in   Munich,  Orlovsky  was  ia 


KiPRENSKY :  Captain  Davydov. 


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RUSSIA 


41S 


Orlovsky  :   "  A  Cossack  Bivouac." 

the  Empire  of  the  Russias.  Born  in  Poland,  but  working 
throughout  his  life  in  Russia,  Orlovsky  had,  like  Adam,  not  a 
little  of  the  temperament  of  a  rough  infantry  soldier ;  as  a  boy 
he  had  seen  the  gaily  accoutred  troops  defiling  past  for  the  war, 
and  as  a  young  man  he  had  himself  taken  part  in  many  a  skirmish. 
When  he  came  home  he  painted  with  great  verve  the  things  he 
had  witnessed  on  the  field.  The  aesthetic  connoisseurs  of  St 
Petersburg  accepted  him  half  against  their  will,  and,  searching 
for  a  title  through  the  great  archives  of  art,  as  was  their  usage, 
they  called  him  the  Russian  Wouverman,  which  at  that  time 
was  not  intended  to  imply  high  praise. 

Having  had  a  Wouverman,  they  soon  had  a  Teniers  also. 
F'or  Russia  Venezianov  has  much  the  same  importance  as  Biirkel  for 
Germany.  Having  been  born  in  1779,  he  lived  at  a  time  when  genre 
was  considered  the  lowest  grade  of  art,  although  it  was  extremely 
easy  to  gain  a  reputation  equal  to  that  of  Poussin  and  Raphael ; 
indeed  it  was  only  necessary  to  draw  in  due  form  after  plaster 


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Venezianov:  "The  Threshing-floor." 

casts,  and  reproduce  old  pictures  as  accurately  as  possible.  Never- 
theless Venezianov,  without  troubling  himself  about  the  reigning 
precepts  in  aesthetics,  turned  to  the  representation  of  peasant 
life  with  the  utmost  delight  in  his  subject  and  the  most  ardent 
striving  after  truth ;  and  this,  remember,  was  in  an  epoch  when 
the  Russian  peasant  was  sold  like  a  beast,  and  the  poor,  rough, 
and  dirty  devil  had  no  picturesque  costume  of  his  own.  Such 
an  abrupt  entry  into  art  makes  Venezianov  a  very  remarkable 
person,  and  indeed  the  true  father  of  Russian  painting.  And, 
although  he  was  inspired  by  English  copper-engravings,  this  only 
makes  it  the  more  surprising  that,  instead  of  falling  into  anecdotic 
and  narrative  painting,  he  should  have  aimed  at  the  most  un- 
varnished reproduction  of  what  he  had  actually  seen.  His 
pictures,  it  is  true,  are  cold  and  heavy  in  colouring  ;  they  have 
not  the  vividness  of  the  old  Dutch  masters,  but  the  frigidness 
of  Debucourt  and  Boilly.      Nevertheless   they  give   pleasure  by 


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RUSSIA  417 

the  loving  manner  in  which  they  are  treated,  by  the  delicate 
observation  which  they  display  now  and  then,  and,  above  all, 
by  the  intense  earnestness  with  which  he  showed  a  generation 
of  eclectics  that  the  salvation  of  art  lay  in  truth  and  nature 
alone.  At  the  same  time  Sylvester  Stschedrin,  a  powerful  painter 
who  revealed  a  good  deal  of  inward  temperament,  emancipated 
himself  from  the  conventional  landscape  of  Poussin.  Realism 
was  furtively  gaining  ground,  a  national  Russian  school  was 
going  through  the  process  of  fermentation,  and  the  awkward, 
lazy  camel  began  to  bestir  itself  at  last. 

But  the  phase  of  historical  painting  had  also  to  be  overcome. 
Just  as  in  Germany  the  healthy  art  of  Peter  Hess  and  Biirkel 
was  long  overshadowed  by  the  glittering  histrionic  vehemence 
of  Piloty,  so,  after  1834,  the  era  of  great  historical  canvases 
came  into  existence  in  Russia. 

For  many  years  past  rumours  had  come  from  Rome  to  the 
-effect  that  a  young  man  of  genius,  Karl  Brulov,  many  of  whose 
glorious  "revelations  of  colour"  had  been  already  seen,  had 
completed  a  picture  over  which  all  Italy  was  in  a  fever  of  excite- 
ment And  in  this  at  least  there  was  no  exaggeration.  In 
the  whole  history  of  art  there  is  scarcely  an  example  of  such 
a  dazzling  success  as  that  achieved  by  Briilov's  picture  "The 
Fall  of  Pompeii."  Substantial  volumes  might  be  compiled  from 
the  numberless  eulogies  which  appeared  in  Italian  journals.  To 
compare  the  young  Russian  with  Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael 
was  a  thing  which  seemed  faint  praise  to  the  Roman  critics. 
People  took  their  hats  off  to  him,  as  they  did  to  Gu^rin  in  Paris  ; 
lie  was  allowed  to  cross  the  boundaries  of  states  without  a 
passport,  for  his  fame  had  penetrated  even  to  the  custom-house 
officials.  When  he  appeared  in  the  theatre  the  public  rose  from 
their  seats  to  greet  the  master;  and  a  dense  crowd  gathered 
round  the  door  of  his  house  or  followed  him  wherever  he  went,  to 
rejoice  in  the  contemplation  of  such  a  man  of  genius.  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  who  was  then  the  idol  of  the  Russians,  had  sat  for  an 
hour  in  the  painter's  studio  examining  the  work  with  the  greatest 
attention  without  uttering  a  word,  until  he  at  last  declared  that 
Briilov  had  not  painted  a  mere  picture,  but  an  epic.     And  even 


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Karl  BrOlov. 


Cammuccini,  the  ironical  David 
of  the  Itah'ans,  called  Briilov  a 
colossus. 

At    length,    having    won    a 
European  fame  in  this  fashion, 
the   picture   arrived   in    Russia. 
The  public  was  excited  to  the 
highest     pitch     both     by     the 
notices   in   papers   and  the  ac- 
counts of  travellers.     Of  course 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  Italians, 
who   were    still    reckoned    the 
only  artistic  nation  by  the  grace 
of  God,  was  enough  to  silence 
criticism.      People  streamed  in 
masses   to  the  Academy   where   the  masterpiece   was   exhibited, 
with  the  firm   determination  of  admiring  it,  and  they  were  not 
in  the  least  disappointed. 

A  colossal  canvas  with  falling  houses  and  swarms  of  people 
painted  over  life-size,  a  motley  chaos  of  luminous  colours,  where 
"  the  fire  of  Vesuvius  and  the  flash  of  the  lightning  seemed  to 
have  been  stolen  from  heaven,"  could  not  fail  to  make  a  thrill- 
ing impression  upon  people  who  had  hitherto  been  able  to  enjoy 
nothing  but  dead  and  dreary  compositions.  Briilov  was  said 
to  have  eclipsed  Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo,  and  he  alone 
had  the  art  of  combining  awful  tragedy  with  the  noblest  beauty. 
And  language  such  as  this  was  not  merely  used  by  petty 
journalists.  Following  the  example  given  by  Scott,  the  greatest 
geniuses  of  Russia  went  one  beyond  the  other  in  the  cult  of 
Briilov  :  Gogol  wrote  an  article  filled  with  unmeasured  praise ; 
Puschkin  flung  himself  upon  his  knees  before  the  painter 
imploring  him  for  a  sketch;  Shukovsky  spent  whole  days  in 
Briilov's  studio,  and  spoke  of  his  religious  pictures  as  "  divinely 
inspired  visions." 

At  the  present  time  this  enthusiasm  is  as  hard  to  understand 
as  that  which  was  accorded  about  the  same  epoch  to  the  works 
of  Delaroche,   Wappers,   and  Gallait.      Of  course  there   can   be 


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RUSSIA  421 

no  doubt  that  Briilov's  "  Fall  of  Pompeii "  has  an  historical 
importance  in  Russian  art  By  breaking  the  monotony  of 
Classicism  with  a  loud  fanfare,  it  awakened  a  sense  for  colour, 
and  directed  the  drowsy  attention  of  the  Russian  public  to 
native  painting.  The  interest  in  art  grew  stronger  ;  with  every 
year  a  larger  number  of  people  began  to  visit  exhibitions,  and 
the  career  of  Russian  painters  was  followed  with  eagerness. 

But  all  this  gives  no  measure  for  an  artistic  judgment.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Briilov's  picture  was  a  tame  compromise  between 
Classicism  and  Romanticism.  The  public  seemed  to  be  receiving 
something  novel  without  being  called  upon  to  alter  its  taste,  and 
it  was  just  this  which  rendered  the  painter,  like  his  contem- 
porary Delaroche,  the  favourite  of  the  old  and  the  idol  of  the 
young.  Instead  of  ordinary  people  and  horrible,  commonplace 
reality,  such  as  Venezianov  had  painted,  there  was  a  pretty 
stage-scene  with  ideal  figures  elegantly  posing.  The  type  in 
favour  with  the  Classicists  was,  certainly,  a  little  altered ; 
for  in  the  place  of  the  Antinous  and  Laocoon  heads  there  was 
a  mixture  of  those  beloved  of  Domenichino  and  that  of  the 
Niobe ;  but  the  fair  and  lofty  ideal  of  yellowish-white  and 
brownish-red  wax-figures  in  artificial  and  theatrical  poses  was 
still  held  in  honour.  That  worse  than  mediocre  opera  of  Paccini, 
V Ultimo  Giomo  di  Pompejiy  had  given  Briilov  the  first  idea 
for  his  picture.  And  all  his  later  career  was  a  compromise* 
When  he  returned  from  Italy  the  opinion  was  that  his  best  was 
still  to  come:  it  was  expected  that  he  would  execute  something 
grandiose  and  bold  ;  the  public  was  convinced  that  he  was  a  genius 
of  worldwide  reach,  whose  every  stroke  would  be  a  revelation.  It 
made  a  mistake,  for,  defective  as  it  was,  "  The  Fall  of  Pompeii " 
remains  the  painter's  masterpiece.  The  things  which  he  pro- 
duced afterwards  were  either  banal  Italian  scenes,  which  scarcely 
suffer  comparison  with  those  of  Riedel,  or  church  pictures,  such 
as  "  The  Crucifixion  "  or  "  The  Ascension  of  the  Virgin,"  which 
might  be  the  work  of  a  third-rate  Bolognese.  Everything  about 
them  is  correct,  intelligent,  well-intentioned,  cleverly  devised,, 
but  tiresome  and  inanimate  all  the  same.  Shortly  after  his 
arrival  in  St.  Petersburg  he  began   that  colossal   picture   "  The 


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Defence  of  Pskovs,"  in  which  he  meant  to  surpass  tumaelf.  He 
worked  upon  it  more  than  ten  years,  yet  the  result  was  a  badly 
painted  patriotic  stage-scene  in  the  braggadocio  style  of  Horace 
Vemet.  However  a  few  energetic  portraits  and  unassuming 
water-colours  have  survived  his  tawdry  historical  pictures. 

But  none  the  less  lasting  and  fateful  was  the  influence  which 
he  exerted  over  the  Russian  art  of  his  time.  The  incense  offered 
to  this  prince  of  painters  mounted  to  the  heads  of  other  artists. 
To  be  Briilov,  to  approach  Briilov — since  to  outstrip  him  seemed 
impossible — was  the  aim  of  them  all.  Who  cared  any  more 
about  Orlovsky  or  Venezianov !  What  dwarfs  were  such 
disciples  of  the  old  Dutch  masters  beside  the  colossus  who  had 
vaulted  to  the  highest  peak  of  Parnassus  with  a  single  bound. 
From  this  time  there  was  in  all  directions  a  constant  search 
after  strained  effects  of  light  and  impossible  poses.  The  ex- 
hibitions were  flooded  with  huge  compositions.  The  most  varied 
periods  were  chosen  from  antiquity,  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
the  Bible,  but  less  frequently  from  Russian  history,  and  they 
were  all  illustrated  with  the  same  superficiality,  the  same  glare 
of  colour,  and  the  same  false  idealism.  Encouraged  through 
purchases  made  by  the  Academy  and  the  Emperor,  who  wanted 
a  "  grand  art,"  like  Ludwig  I.  and  Friedrich  Wilhelm  IV.,  and 
welcomed  by  the  enthusiastic  applause  of  the  great  public, 
historical  painters  shot  up  in  denser  ranks.  BassiUy  Scliamschin^ 
KapkaVy  and  later  Flavitzky  and  MoUer^  were  idols  looked  up  to 
upon  all  sides,  though  they  were  absolute  nonentities,  who,  if 
they  were  all  added  together,  would  not  yield  the  material  neces- 
sary for  one  solitary  artist  of  real  personality.  One  of  the  most 
talented,  Hendrik  Siemiradzky^  threw  himself  into  panoramic 
representations  of  Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  or  spoilt  his 
tasteful  and  sunny  landscapes  by  the  lifeless  puppets  with  which 
he  filled  them  in.  Bruni^  who  is  generally  mentioned  in  the 
same  breath  with  Briilov,  became  the  Russian  Hippol5^e  Flandrin. 
He  provided  church  pictures,  etc.,  in  particular  the  ceiling-pieces 
of  St.  Isaac's  Cathedral  in  St.  Petersburg,  in  which  he  added  to 
the  puritanic  hue  of  Overbeck  and  the  frigid  Michael-Angelesque 
ideal  of  Cornelius  a  certain  warm,  piquant  Neo-French  elegance. 


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RUSSIA  423 

Nefff  who  was  considered  the  greatest  colourist  after  Briilov, 
painted  with  an  enervating  mawkishness  bashful  nymphs  and 
holy  saints,  who  even  now  have  lost  nothing  of  their  candied 
freshness  of  colour.  Every  one  of  these  men  awakens  a  remini- 
scence, so  that  his  pedigree  can  be  guessed  at  once,  and  his 
name  entered  under  the  prbper  heading.  They  all  bear  the 
brand  of  the  ruling  tendency  in  Italy,  France,  Germany.  And 
painting  could  only  recover  when  Russia  came  to  a  consciousness 
that  Briilov  was  not  a  colossus,  and  that  "  The  Fall  of  Pompeii  ** 
was  a  strained  operatic  climax,  provided  with  anaemic  waxworks, 
and  not  a  poem. 

The  first  breach  in  the  citadel  of  "grand  art*'  was  made 
by  a  few  painters  who  move  on  lines  more  or  less  parallel  with 
those  of  the  English  Preraphaelites.  That  notable  man 
Akxander  Ivanov^  who  has  become  known  in  Germany  through 
a  publication  of  the  Berlin  Archaeological  Institute,  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  representing  "  The  Appearance  of  the  Messiah 
amongst  the  People"  as  early  as  1833.  In  his  earlier  days 
Ivanov  was  a  conscientious,  industrious  young  man,  who  sub- 
missively followed  academical  precepts,  and  hardly  dreamed  of 
anything  beyond  an  historical  picture  in  the  style  of  Bruni  and 
Briilov.  But  he  possessed  too  great  a  soul  to  remain  on  this 
smooth  and  easy  path,  he  had  too  serious  an  idea  of  the 
mission  of  an  artist ;  and  so  stereotyped  idealism,  balance  of 
composition,  and  all  those  easily  acquired  matters,  which  led 
so  many  painters  to  fame  in  the  age  of  Classicism,  were  not 
enough  to  satisfy  him.  He  wanted  to  create  a  work  which 
should  place  the  great  moment  of  history  truthfully  before  the 
eyes  of  men ;  he  wanted  to  embody  the  scene  in  real  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel.  There  was  nothing  which  seemed 
too  hard  for  him  in  the  way  of  his  attainment  With  the  zeal 
of  a  young  man,  Ivanov,  who  was  then  thirty,  settled  to  his 
work  :  he  read  through  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands 
upon,  sat  whole  days  in  different  libraries,  starved  himself  to 
buy  books,  and  painted  and  drew  without  intermission.  Nothing 
was  to  recall  to  any  one's  mind  composition  and  plaster-casts, 
the    stage    or    the    academy.       Landscape,    human    types,    and 


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^^ 

•  -^*«i< 

"% 

^        M 

fH 

■^r.| , 

J  '^fi 

1/       ^<Snv 

ikM 

'^W■^> 

-W 

g^ 

IvANOv :   "  Thb  Appearance  of  the  Messiah  amongst  the  People." 

underlying  idea  were  to  be  all  true  to  reality,  faithful  to  the 
spirit  of  history.  His  work  took  him  more  than  twenty-five 
years.  With  boundless  patience  and  a  faith  entirely  worthy  of 
primitive  Christianity,  he  laboured  by  means  of  fervid  studies 
of  nature  to  express  everything  to  the  last  stroke,  just  as  he 
had  it  in  his  mind.  His  effort  to  be  authentic  went  so  far  that 
he  had  the  intention  of  going  to  Palestine  to  get  his  ideas  of 
the  scenery  upon  the  very  spot,  and  to  study  genuine  Hebrew: 
types.  As  he  had  not  the  means  for  carrying  out  this  plan, 
he  repaired,  without  giving  the  malaria  a  thought,  to  the  most 
deserted  regions  of  the  Campagna,  to  become  familiar  with  the 
aspect  of  the  wilderness ;  and  every  Saturday  he  went  to  the 
synagogue  in  Rome  to  hunt  for  the  most  pronounced  Jewish^ 
countenances. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  present  day  only  a  very  small 
amount  of  truth  has  been  reached,  in  spite  of  all  his  endeavours. 
Much  of  his  work  is  academical,  and,  at  the  first  glance,  the 
picture  hardly  seems  to  deviate  from  other  compositions  con- 
structed  according   to   the    Classical  ideal   and   illuminated   after 


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RUSSIA 


42s 


IvANov:  Study  for  the  Heads  of  Two  Slaves  in  the  "Appearance  of 

THE  Messiah." 

the  manner  of  Cornelius.  But  as  soon  as  one  looks  into  the 
detail  one  understands  the  artist's  intention.  There  is  no 
sentiment  superficially  borrowed  from  the  old  masters.*  Every- 
thing, even  the  awkward  composition,  bears  the  impress  of 
truthfulness.  From  the  sublime  and  inspired  St.  John  to  the 
stupid,  hideous  slaves  the  characterization  of  the  different  heads 
is  wonderful,  full  of  serious  majesty,  conceived  in  a  large  and 
convincing  style,  and  free  from  every  trace  of  academical 
beauty.  There  is  something  which  is  almost  genius  in  the  way 
in  which  Christ  has  been  imagined  :  He  is  quiet  and  composed,, 
by  no  means  a  beautiful  Jupiter,  but  a  hard-featured  man,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  thrilling,  superhuman  figure,  advancing 
towards  the  people  with  the  lofty  bearing  of  a  spiritual  presence,, 
though  His  gait  is  none  the  less  natural.  The  colouring  is 
obviously  the  weakest  part  of  the  picture,  and  has  a  languid^ 
dismal  appearance  beside  the  dazzling  theatrical  effects  of  Briilov. 
But  the  numerous  sketches — they  are  over  two  hundred — which 

VOL.  III.  28 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Ivanov  has  left  in  the  way 
of  landscapes  or  studies  of 
figures  and  drapery  in  oil 
and  water-colours,  throw 
peculiar  light  even  upon 
his  efforts  at  colour.  In 
these  studies  he  was  one 
of  the  first  to  practise  in 
some  degree  the  principle 
o{  plein  air^  and  in  many 
of  his  open-air  sketches 
he  shows  an  understand- 
ing of  light  such  as  else- 
where only  Madox  Brown 
possessed  in  those  years. 

But   in  the   large   picture 
Sarjanko:   Mrs.  Sokurova.  ^^    ^^jj^j    ^^     ^^^^j^     ^^^^ 

mony.  The  total  effect  is  weak,  there  is  a  want  of  unity, 
and  the  orchestration  of  the  tones  is  interrupted  by  discords. 
In  spite  of  this,  however,  there  is  assured  to  him  in  the  history 
of  painting  a  place  of  honour  amongst  the  earliest  tough  and 
knotty  realists,  a  place  of  honour  amongst  the  founders  of  the 
modern  intuition  of  colour. 

In  the  field  of  portrait- painting  Sarjanko  was  inspired  with 
similar  principles.  Every  wrinkle,  ever>''  little  hair,  the  texture 
of  the  skin,  and  almost  every  pore  are  laboriously  and  slavishly 
reproduced  in  his  likenesses  with  the  pains  of  a  Denner.  As  a 
result  of  this  his  works  have  often  the  spiritless  effect  of  a 
coloured  photograph.  Nevertheless  this  austere  and  merciless 
pedantry  essentially  contributed  to  the  gradual  purification  of 
taste.  As  a  result  of  such  work  artists  at  last  began  to  have 
«yes  for  true  and  simple  nature,  and,  after  the  burden  of 
spurious  idealism  had  been  got  rid  of,  the  national  tendency, 
which  was  begun  unobtrusively  after  the  Napoleonic  war,  was 
gradually  able  to  grow  to  its  full  strength. 

Literature  paved  the  way  for  it.  In  1823  Gribojedov  repre- 
sented Russian  society  in  his  comedy  Woe  to  the  Man  who  is  too 


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-Clever^  in  highly  coloured  scenes  and  pithy,  energetic  verse.  In 
1832  Puschkin  completed  his  Eugen  Onegin,  In  the  same  year 
the  great  Gogol  came  before  the  public  with  his  Evenings  at  the 
Farm  near  Dikanka^  in  which  he  gave  Russian  poetry  the  ten- 
dency towards  modern  realism  in  the  representation  of  human 
life.  It  was  in  this  work  that  he  portrayed  with  a  harmless 
sense  of  fun  the  officials,  landlords,  and  popes  of  Little  Russia, 
and  their  life  which  runs  by  so  cheerfully  in  its  narrow  rounds. 
In  1836  his  Examiner  of  Accounts  was  put  upon  the  stage,  a 
comedy  which  was  likewise  an  objurgatory  sermon.  At  the 
same  time  his  Russian  Tales  appeared,  as  well  as  his  novel  Dead 
Souls  \  in  these  works  he  was  thoroughly  serious  and  bitter, 
giving  in  all  its  veracity,  and  with  a  terrible  force,  the  very 
essence  of  Russian  life  in  a  genuinely  Russian  form  of  literature. 
Painting  followed  suit.  Previously  it  was  Crusaders,  Italians, 
Turkish  ladies,  and  views  of  Constantinople  and  Naples  which 
had  ruled  in  exhibitions  by  the  side  of  the  large  historical  pictures, 
but  from  the  end  of  the  thirties  artists  began  to  seek  their  mate- 
rials upon  Russian  soil.  It  must  be  admitted  that  they  did  this, 
at  first,  only  for  the  purposes  of  genre  painting,  which  flooded 
Europe  at  the  time  with  its  plenitude  of  sentimental  anecdotes. 
It  was  necessary  to  give  pictures  a  jovial  or  didactic  turn  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  public  from  the  captivating  episodes 
in  history,  and  the  richly  coloured  and  motley  pictures  of  Italian 
women,  in  which  people  took  delight  Gogol's  intense  feeling 
for  beauty,  and  healthy,  animated  naturalism  were  weakened 
into  swooning  sentimentality  which  could  be  used  in  little  bourgeois 
stories. 

A  beginning  was,  at  any  rate,  made  by  Sternberg,  who  died 
in  Rome  at  the  age  of  seven-and-twenty.  He  portrayed  peasant 
life  in  "  Little  Russia  "  with  a  good  deal  of  rose-coloured  sentiment 
but  with  a  sympathetic  gift  of  observation  and  great  technical 
dexterity.  Stschedrovsky  represented  types  of  street-life  in  St. 
Petersburg  in  a  series  of  energetic  lithographs.  Tschemyschev, 
MorosoVy  Ivan  Sokolov,  Trutovsky^  the  pretty  though  superficial 
illustrator  Timm,  Popov,  Shuravlev,  and  others  also  appeared  with 
fresh  and  unassuming  pictures  of  Russian  popular  life,     x^nd  the 


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428  MODERN  PAINTING 

victory  of  genre  painting  was  decisive  when  Paul  Andreevitsch 
Fedotov  appeared  in  the  exhibition  of  1849  with  three  pictures, 
"The  Newly  Decorated  Knight,"  "The  Major's  Match,"  and 
"The  Morning  after  the  Wedding."  These  works  have  the 
importance  for  Russia  which  the  works  of  Hogarth  have  for 
England. 

Fedotov,  the  son  of  poor  parents,  was  born  in  Moscow  in 
181 5,  and  had  been  an  officer  in  the  army  before  he  turned  to 
painting.  Even  as  a  cadet  he  drew  portraits  of  his  comrades 
and  parade  and  street-scenes,  and  when  he  retired  he  entered 
the  class  for  battle-painting  in  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy,  and 
indeed  it  was  the  only  section  of  the  institution  where  pupils 
came  into  a  certain  contact  with  life.  His  works  of  this  period, 
such  as  the  large  water-colour  picture  "The  Admission  of  the 
Grand  Duke  Michael  into  the  Finnish  Regiment  of  Lifeguards 
in  1837,"  have  a  plain  matter-of-fact  style  which  is  more  or  less 
paralleled  in  the  paintings  of  Franz  Kriiger.  He  has  drawn  the 
rigid,  self-satisfied  soldiery,  in  their  tight  uniforms  and  absurd 
shakos,  very  vividly,  and  without  satirical  intention.  Gogol's 
success  induced  him  to  make  a  transition  from  the  painting  of 
uniform  to  the  representation  of  citizen-life,  and  his  pictures  in 
exhibitions  were  justly  held  to  be  a  piquant  pendant  to  the 
creations  of  Gogol. 

In  "The  Newly  Decorated  Knight"  he  painted  the  room  of 
a  subordinate  official  who  has  received  his  first  decoration,  and 
given  his  colleagues  a  banquet,  to  celebrate  the  occasion,  on  the 
previous  evening.  This  worthy  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of 
pinning  his  new  token  of  glory  to  his  dressing-gown  as  soon  as- 
it  is  morning,  though  his  maid-of-all-work  holds  up  in  triumph 
his  worn-out  broken  boots  which  she  is  carrying  off  to  black.  The 
floor  is  strewn  with  broken  plates,  bottles,  glasses,  and  remnants- 
of  the  feast,  and  a  tipsy  guest,  who  has  just  come  to  his  senses 
and  is  rubbing  his  tired  eyes,  is  lying  under  the  table.  In  St^ 
Petersburg  the  picture  created  an  immense  sensation ;  such 
audacity  in  making  mock  at  imperial  distinctions  was  an  unheard- 
of  thing.  And  when  the  work  was  to  have  been  lithographed 
the    censorship    interfered.     The    decoration    had    to    disappear^ 


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and  the  harmless 
title  "  Reproaches 
in  Consequence  of 
a  Festive  Meeting" 
was  substituted  for 
the  original. 

Fedotov's  second 
picture,  "  The  Ma- 
jor's Match,"  to  which 
he  appended  an 
explanation  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty 
lines  of  humorous 
verse,  depicted  two 
parties  who  want 
to  overreach  each 
other :  a  major  with 
-debts,  who  wishes  to 
marry  a  fat  mer- 
chant's daughter  for 
the     sake     of     her 

marriage  portion,  and  a  rich  tradesman  who  is  anxious  to  be 
the  father-in-law  of  a  noble.  In  honour  of  the  day  the  bride  has 
thrown  on  an  exceedingly  dicollet^e  white  silk  dress,  her  father 
has  arrayed  himself  in  his  best  coat,  and  her  mother,  too,  is 
majestically  dignified.  They  are  seated  like  this  in  the  drawing- 
room,  and  are  awaiting  with  beating  hearts  the  arrival  of  the 
lofty  guest.  Suddenly  the  door  is  opened,  and  the  lady  who  has 
been  making  the  match  rushes  in,  exclaiming,  "  The  Major  is 
here ! "  And  thereupon  there  ensues  one  of  those  comical  scenes 
ol  consternation  in  which  Paul  de  Kock  delighted.  The  daughter, 
who  has  sprung  up  blushing,  wishes  to  make  her  escape,  but  is 
held  back  by  her  mother  catching  hold  of  her  dress.  The 
portly  old  father  cannot  succeed  in  properly  arranging  his  fine 
raiment,  which  he  is  unaccustomed  to  wear ;  servants  are  bustling 
about  bringing  refreshments,  and  an  old  maid  who  has  ventured 
to  intrude  is   all  ^yts   and   ears.      Meanwhile    through  the  open 


Fedotov:   "The  Newly  Decorated  Knight." 


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430  MODERN  PAINTING 

door  the  elderly  and  very  threadbare  figure  of  the  fiance  may 
be  seen  in  the  ante-chamber,  casting  a  critical  look  in  the  glass 
and  giving  his  moustache  a  martial  curl. 

In  the  third  picture  it  is  the  young  man  who  has  been 
hoaxed.  He  believes  himself  to  have  married  a  rich  and 
guileless  maiden  who  would  give  him  a  complete  establishment. 
But  on  the  morning  after  the  wedding  an  officer  of  justice 
appears  and  makes  a  seizure  of  everything ;  the  young  wife 
kneels  imploring  pardon,  and  through  the  open  door  the  step- 
mother may  be  seen  in  the  bedroom  wringing  the  neck  of  a 
dove,  whose  blood  drips  on  the  wedding  bed. 

"The  Mouse-trap,'  "The  Pet  Dog  is  111,"  "The  Pet  Dog  is 
Dead,"  "The  Milliner's  Shop,"  "The  Cholera,"  "The  Return  of 
the  Schoolgirl  to  her  Home,"  arranged  other  episodes  i  la 
Hogarth  in  complicated  scenes  of  comedy ;  but,  although  forcible 
contributions  to  the  history  of  Russian  manners,  they  are 
throughout  more  suitable  for  literature  than  for  art  The 
colour  is  crude,  and  the  characterization  verges  upon  caricature. 
It  is  only  the  element  of  still-life  that  he  often  handles  with 
charm,  though  here  he  almost  approaches  the  "  little  masters "" 
of  Holland.  In  his  later  years  he  attempted  to  go  further  irt 
this  direction,  but  madness,  followed  soon  afterwards  by  death, 
brought  his  plans  to  an  end. 

And  those  who  came  after  him  made  no  progjress  in  this 
respect  either.  They  stand  to  their  predecessors  as  Carl  Hiibner 
or  Wiertz  to  Madou  and  Meyerheim.  The  elder  men  regarded 
painting  as  a  toy  or  an  amusing  comic  paper,  and  could  seldom 
resist  giving  their  pictures  a  jovial  or  a  smiling  trait  All  their 
scenes  have  a  roseate  tinge,  and  reveal  nothing  of  real  life — 
nothing  of  all  the  tragic  and  saddening  miseries  of  Russia  lan- 
guishing beneath  the  yoke  of  serfdom.  These  humourists  were 
followed  by  doctrinaire  preachers.  The  "  picture  with  a  social 
purpose,"  which  supplanted  the  optimistic  painting  of  anecdote 
in  the  rest  of  Europe,  found  particularly  fertile  soil  in  the 
Empire  of  the  Czar.  The  death  of  Nicholas  I.  and  the  accession 
of  Alexander  II.,  who  had  been  long  beloved  and  looked 
forward    to  on    account    of    his    Liberal    opinions — "  the    angel 


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431 


Perov;   "A  Funeral  in  the  Country." 

in  human  shape "  he  was  called  as  Czarevitch — had  freed 
Russia  from  a  heavy  and  oppressive  burden  ;  men  began  to 
breathe  freely,  and  a  fresh  breeze  went  through  the  land.  The 
Government  itself,  with  its  great  programme  of  reform,  which 
began  so  energetically  by  the  abolition  of  serfdom,  summoned 
all  the  Liberal  thinkers  to  its  assistance  ;  and,  encouraged  by 
these  efforts  at  emancipation,  ideas  and  views  which  had  been 
hitherto  concealed  and  suppressed  came  to  light  in  all  regions 
of  intellectual  life,  with  an  official  passport  to  justify  their 
existence.  Literature,  which  had  been  muzzled  up  to  this  time, 
muttered  and  thundered  in  a  fearful  manner :  **  Life  is  no  jest 
and  no  light  sport,  but  heavy  toil.  Abnegation,  continual  abne- 
gation, is  its  inward  meaning,  and  the  answer  to  its  riddle.*' 
Painting  also,  it  was  held,  must  become  an  educational  influence, 
and  take  part  in  the  great  battle  ;  it  must  join  by  taking  up 
its  parable  and  teaching.  It  was  not  created  to  soothe  the 
senses,  but  to  serve  ends  that  were  higher,  more  progressive,  and 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


more  enno- 
bling to  the 
world.  The 
droll  and  far- 
cical element 
'of  "^the  earlier 
pictures  was 
abruptly  cast 
aside  for  more 
melancholy 
ideas.  An  ar- 
gumentative, 
didactic  paint- 
ing, in  alliance 
with  the  social 
programme, 
came  then  in- 
to existence, 
and  as  a  result 
of  these  views, 
technique,  the 
purely  picto- 
rial element,  had  to  suflFer.  It  was  only  necessary  to  have 
humane  ideas,  to  dash  off  in  colours  mordant  innuendoes  and 
loud  complaints,  and  to  bring  fresh  evidence  of  the  sad  condition 
of  the  peasantry,  the  evils  of  the  administration,  the  inebriety  of 
the  people,  and  the  corruption  of  the  nobles,  to  be  praised,  not 
merely  as  a  good  Liberal,  but  as  a  great  painter  too. 

Perov  is  the  most  interesting  of  these  painters  with  a  com- 
plaint against  society.  It  is  not,  indeed,  that  he  had  more 
talent  or  loftier  ideas  than  the  others,  but  he  was  the  first  to 
open  fire,  and  he  underlined  his  bold  notions  as  heavily  as 
possible.  In  his  earliest  pictures,  with  which  he  came  forward 
in  1858— "The  Arrival  of  the  Official  of  Police"  and  "The 
Newly  Nominated  Registrar  of  the  Board  " — he  chiefly  aimed  at 
the  officials,  the  heartless  and  merciless  oppressors  of  the 
peasantry.     Later  he   attacked    by   preference   the   rural    clergy. 


Perov:   "The  Village  Sermon." 


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whom  he  depicted  incisively  in  all  their  brutal  coarseness.  "An 
Ecclesiastical  Procession  in  the  Country,"  in  particular,  is  one 
of  the  typical  pictures  of  this  second  period.  The  procession 
issues  from  the  house  of  a  rich  peasant,  where  its  members 
have  been  drinking  freely,  and  pours  into  the  street.  Old 
rustics  and  young  lads  and  girls  are  reeling  in  the  mud  with 
images  and  relics,  while  the  priest  staggers  along  behind, 
followed  by  the  deacon.  The  host  is  leaning  drunk  against  the 
door-post,  and  the  rest  are  lying  unconscious  in  the  dirt.  In 
1865  he  produced  one  of  his  best  pictures—-"  A  Funeral  in  the 
Country."  A  poor  widow  is  seated  in  a  miserable  peasant 
sledge,  with  her  head  sunk  forwards  and  her  back  against  the 
coffin  of  her  husband ;  two  children — a  little  boy  sleeping, 
wrapped  in  his  father's  great  sheepskin,  and  his  pining  and 
crying  sister — crouch  behind  her,  but  otherwise  a  sheep-dog  is 
the  only  follower  in  the  funeral  train.  In  "The  Village 
Sermon"  the  fat  squire  has  fallen  asleep,  while  his  wife  im- 
proves the  occasion  by  whispering  with  her  lover.  Behind  them 
stands  the  flunkey  keeping  the  villagers  at  a  respectful  distance  by 
blows  and  abuse.  And  in  "The  Troika"  three  ragged  and  half- 
famished  apprentice  boys  are  drawing  a  sledge,  laden  with  a  great 
cask  of  water ;  the  ground  is  frozen  hard,  and  the  poor  fellows 
are  almost  fainting  with  exertion.  "  A  Woman  who  has  drowned 
herself"  is  the  epilogue  to  a  tragedy,  and  "The  Arrival  of  the 
Governess"  the  prologue  to  a  drama — a  poor,  pretty  girl  coming 
to  a  fresh  family  and  encountering  the  sensual  glance  of  the 
brutal  master  of  the  house. 

Over  most  of  his  contemporaries  Perov  has  the  advantage  of 
standing  upon  entirely  national  ground,  and  displaying  his  own 
qualities  instead  of  making  a  show  with  those  of  others.  He  is 
a  man  who  has  had  real  emotions  in  life,  and  has,  therefore, 
something  serious  to  express.  In  his  hand  the  pencil  changes 
into  a  probe,  with  which  he  has  penetrated  deeply  into  the 
diseased  spots  in  his  own  natioa  He  despairs  and  hopes,  fights 
and  grows  faint,  has  always  a  keen  eye  for  the  good  of  the 
people,  accuses  the  rich,  and  deduces  evils  from  the  open  con- 
dition of  society,  but  while  he  points  to  its  bleeding  wounds  he 


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434  MODERN  PAINTING 

offers  it  healing  balm.  And  so  his  pictures  betray  a  complex 
frame  of  mind,  out  of  which  tears  or  laughter  may  arise  at  any 
moment.  He  stands  to  his  own  people  as  a  mother  to  a  dearly 
beloved  child.  And  as  she  chastens  it  with  a  rod  and  compels 
it  to  take  the  better  part  by  severe  admonition,  and  then 
presses  it  to  her  heart  and  covers  it  with  kisses,  Perov  protects 
and  idolizes  the  people,  and  in  the  next  moment  smites  hard 
'  with  the  might  of  his  satire.  Like  a  severe  judge,  he  unveils 
the  misconduct  of  the  great  and  the  abuses  practised  by 
officials,  tears  the  mask  from  the  upper  ten  thousand,  and 
reveals  their  withered  faces.  He  turns  to  the  poor  like  a  kind 
father,  like  a  man  following  the  rule  of  the  gospel,  and  praises 
their  righteousness.  He  is  at  once  the  accuser  of  society  and 
its  physician,  and  his  course  of  healing  is  to  return  to  nature, 
righteousness,  truth,  and  compassion. 

One  is  grateful  to  him  for  his  philanthropic  intentions.  But 
there  is  no  enjoyment  in  looking  at  his  pictures,  for  the  school- 
master is  the  assassin  of  the  artist.  What  is  properly  pictorial 
comes  off  second-best  in  them,  since  he  does  not  command  the 
handicraft  of  art  In  fact  he  might  be  most  readily  compared 
with  Wiertz,  and,  like  him,  he  exercised  an  evil  influence  upon 
a  whole  group  of  painters.  It  is  not  merely  his  contemporaries 
Pukirev,  Korsuchin,  Prjaniscfmikov,  who  have  deprived  many  of 
their  prettily  painted  pictures  of  artistic  charm  by  lachrymose 
complaints  against  society  or  satirical  didacticism,  for  Savitsky 
and  Lemoch  did  the  same  afterwards. 

The  most  familiarly  known  of  the  men  with  this  bent  is 
Vassily  Verestchagin,  an   apostle  of  peace  tinged  with   Nihilism. 

The  exhibition  of  his  pictures  which  took  place  in  the 
February  of  1882  at  Kroll's,  in  Berlin,  will  be  remembered. 
They  were  not  to  be  seen  by  day,  but  only  under  electric 
light.  Concealed  by  curtains  was  an  harmonium,  upon  which 
war-songs  were  played,  accompanied  by  subdued  choruses.  And 
the  hall  was  decorated  with  Indian  and  Tibetan  carpets,  em- 
broideries and  housings,  weapons  of  every  description,  images 
and  sacred  pictures,  musical  instruments,  antlers,  bear-skins,  and 
stufTed    Indian    vultures.     In  the   midst  of  these   properties   the 


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y^y^*^^<.^^ 


^^^ 


painter — a  little  black-bearded  man, 
like  one  of  those  Caucasian  warriors 
who  appear  in  Theodor  Horschelt's 
work  "  From  the  Caucasus " — 
himself  did  the  honours  to  the 
guests  who  had  been  invited. 

Although  still  young,  Verest- 
chagin  had  already  seen  a  great 
deal  of  life.  After  leaving  the 
school  of  G6r6me  in  Paris,  he  ac- 
companied the  expedition  of  General 
Kaufmann  against  Samarcand. 
Horschelt,  with  whom  he  made 
acquaintance  at  the  scene  of  war 
in  the  Caucasus,  took  him  in  1870  for  a  couple  of  years  to 
Munich.  When  the  Russo-Turkish  War  broke  out  in  1877 
he  again  accompanied  the  Russian  troops,  and  even  took  an 
active  share  in  the  struggle :  he  was  in  the  Shipka  Pass, 
went  with  Gourko  over  the  Balkans,  was  present  at  the  siege 
of  Plevna,  and  worked  as  the  secretary  of  General  Skobeleff 
during  the  negotiations  of  peace  at  San  Stefano.  And,  having 
fought  everywhere  with  the  savageness  of  a  Caucasian,  he  began 
to  preach  peace  as  an  apostle  of  humanity. 

"The  Pyramid  of  Skulls — dedicated  to  all  Conquerors  past, 
present,  and  to  come,"  was  as  it  were  the  title-page  to  his  thrilling 
works.  In  "  Forgotten  "  a  wounded  soldier  lay  upon  the  field 
of  battle  with  famishing  ravens  gathering  round  him,  whilst  his 
battalion  was  seen  disappearing  in  the  distance.  In  another  of 
his  pictures  there  was  the  Emir  of  Samarcand  lost  in  agreeable 
contemplation  of  a  heap  of  decapitated  heads  strewn  at  his  feet. 
In  another  there  stood  a  fair-haired  priest  blessing  a  whole  crowd 
of  mutilated  Russians  upon  a  steppe.  Still  more  ghastly  was 
the  picture  entitled  "  The  Street  after  Plevna."  It  is  an  icy  cold 
winter's  day,  and  the  desolate  landscape  and  the  bodies  of  those 
who  have  died  upon  the  transport-car  are  covered  with  a  light 
crust  of  snow.  The  artillery  of  later  columns  have  driven  with 
indifference   over   the   dead,   crushing   them,  and   the   crows  and 


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436 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Verestchagin  : 


•'The  Pyramid  of  Skulls." 


ravens  thank 
the  Lord  for 
the  richly 
spread  table 
which  has 
been  pre- 
pared for 
them.  In 
dense  swarms 
they  flutter 
down  to  the 
opulent  ban- 
quet,     and 

most  densely  of  all  where  the  wheels  of  the  gun-carriages  have 
made  a  way  for  their  beaks.  Then,  thoroughly  sated,  they  alight 
upon  the  telegraph  wires  to  digest  their  meal  in  peace.  Ghastly 
corruption  reigns  in  "  The  Turkish  Hospital  before  Plevna,"  a 
gloomy  cellar  where  sick  and  wounded  men  welter  in  confused 
masses  amid  mouldy  corpses.  Near  this  hung  the  trilogy  of 
pictures  representing  the  sentinel  freezing  with  cold.  At  the 
side  of  that  was  the  picture  of  the  Czar  Alexander  with  his 
staff,  regarding  the  battle  raging  around  as  though  it  were  a 
stage-play.  "  Skobelefl*  in  the  Shipka  Pass "  brought  the  series 
to  a  conclusion.  There  he  is,  fat,  and  with  a  full,  flushed 
countenance,  dashing  over  the  ground,  which  is  covered  with 
snow  and  strewn  with  corpses,  as  he  good-humouredly  summons 
his  freezing  comrades  to  a  champagne  breakfast,  crying,  "  Brothers, 
I  thank  you  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor." 

In  spite  of  his  Parisian  studies  Verestchagin's  work  in  all 
these  pictures  was  very  crude — full  in  colour,  but  thin  and 
uninteresting  in  technique.  Moreover  the  ostentatious  arrange- 
ments which  he  made  for  his  exhibitions,  and  the  cleverness 
with  which  he  calculated  the  effect  upon  the  great  public,  did 
not  contribute  to  enhance  his  artistic  reputation.  And  his  coarse- 
ness and  crudity  when  he  works  by  legitimately  artistic  means 
may  be  seen  in  his  ethnographical  pictures  from  Turkestan  and 
India,   which    stand    in    technique    incomparably    below    similar 


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437 


works  by  Pasini, 
and  will  lose  what 
remains  of  their 
interest  with  the 
discovery  of  photo- 
graphy in  colours. 
Nevertheless  Verest- 
chagin's  significance 
for  Russian  art  is 
great. 

What  had  been 
hitherto  produced  in 
the  matter  of  battle- 
pieces  —  Orlovsky's 
work  excepted — is 
scarcely  worth  men- 
tioning. Sauerveid 
and  Villevalde  were 
lifeless  copyists  of 
Horace  Vernet 
Kotzebue,  the  son 
of  the  well-known 
author,  no  doubt 
showed  deftness  in 
composition,  groupings 
swarms   of  soldiers    in 


Munich :  Hanfsi&Hgl.^ 
Verestchagin  :    **The  Emir  of  Samarcand  visiting 
THE  Trophies." 


and  scenical  accessories.  There  are 
his  pictures.  Huge  cliffs,  ancient  for- 
tresses and  houses  tower  picturesquely  one  above  the  other.  But 
the  men  are  made  of  lead,  and  the  landscapes  are  stage-scenes, 
at  once  empty  and  banal.  In  fact  he  was  merely  an  opulent 
arrangeur  who  was  learned  in  uniforms,  and  the  dramatic  element 
of  war  escaped  him  altogether. 

Now  Verestchagin  struck  out  an  entirely  new  path.  A  short 
time  before  his  appearance  Tolstoi's  great  novel  War  and  Peace  haJ 
been  published,  and  there  war  had  been  for  the  first  time  depicted, 
not  from  the  prejudiced  standpoint  of  a  patriot,  but  with  the 
lucid  spirit  of  a  cosmopolitan  author.  The  mere  painting  of 
horrors  is  avoided  :    it  is  a  thing  rather  indicated   than  brought 


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438  MODERN  PAINTING 

out  in  detail ;  but  the  great  figure  of  the  Destroyer  with  his 
hyenas  and  his  terrors  is  nevertheless  the  principal  figure  of 
the  narrative.  Even  Tolstoi's  patriotism  sometimes  mocks  at 
itself,  and  from  the  midst  of  his  representations  of  soldierly 
loyalty  and  the  contempt  of  death  there  rises  the  heart-breaking 
cry :  "  To  what  purpose  ?  "  The  painter  continued  the  motives 
which  the  author  had  indicated.  All  who  had  gone  before 
him — and  not  in  Russia  alone — were  official  illustrators  who 
glorifieid  the  theme  "Dulce  et  decorum  est"  in  the  service  of 
victorious  Governments.  True  to  the  principles  of  young  Russia, 
Verestchagin  became  the  accuser  of  the  military  system,  by 
making  the  reverse  side  of  martial  splendour — all  the  misery 
and  the  sanguinary  destruction  of  masses,  with  which  glory  is 
purchased — the  subject  of  representation.  In  the  one  case  war 
is  represented  from  the  standpoint  of  the  regimental  captain ; 
in  the  other  from  one  which  is  purely  human.  He  wanted  to 
paint  war  as  it  is,  and  not  as  a  suitable  embellishment  for 
the  Winter  Palace.  And  here  he  is  a  pioneer  on  the  path  leading 
to  truth,  which  assures  him  an  honourable  if  not  a  lofty  place 
in  the  history  of  the  development  taken  by  the  modern  principle 
in  art. 

This  storm-and-stress  period  in  Russian  art  came  to  an  end 
with  Verestchagin.  It  was  impossible  to  be  for  ever  laying  on 
the  scourge,  uttering  curses,  and  thundering  against  the  evils  of 
creation.  After  the  storm  there  came  a  calm,  and  disillusionment 
after  the  revolt.  Society  became  quiet  again,  literature  laid  down 
its  arms,  and  painters  also  grew  weary  of  forgetting  their  own 
calling  in  the  service  of  progressive  ideas.  The  sensational  style 
of  painting  with  a  purpose-  and  a  grievance  was  thrown  into 
the  background,  and  all  the  greater  weight  was  laid  upon 
conscientious  and  harmonious  execution. 

In  this  battle  to  establish  what  was  purely  pictorial,  landscape 
played  the  mediating  part  in  Russia  as  in  the  rest  of  Europe. 
Russia  possesses  in  Turgeniev's  Diary  of  a  Sportsman  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  books  in  modern  literature.  Turgeniev  dis- 
covered the  forests  and  steppes  of  his  country,  and  made  them 
speak,  and  made  them  silent.      He  loves  nature  as  though   she 


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439 


Stschedrin  :   **  Sorrento/ 


were  a  mistress,  clings  to  her,  and  becomes  so  wedded  to  her  that 
he  feels  in  solitude  like  a  fish  in  the  cool  tide.  What  a  charming 
idyll  of  the  forest  it  is  when  in  the  course  of  the  day's  sport  he 
lies  on  his  back  and  looks  up  into  the  cloudy  sky,  or  when  he 
roams  of  an  evening  through  the  fragrant  meadow-lyid,  or 
crouches  at  night  beside  a  shepherd's  fire  and  watches  the  sky 
from  midnight  to  the  glimmering  of  dawn  ;  when  he  describes 
little  farms  where  content  and  poverty  are  mingled,  or  those 
of  the  gloomy  boundless  regions  in  the  interior  of  Russia,  where 
everything  is  sad,  like  a  vaporous,  grey,  rainy  day.  This  strange 
mixture  of  love  and  dread,  the  fervour  for  nature  and  the  horror 
of  her,  stands  alone  in  the  whole  literature  of  the  world.  Every 
blade  of  grass  lives  ;  everything  stirs,  and  the  creative  impulse  is 
everywhere ;  the  spirit  of  the  steppe  floats  visibly  over  the  earth, 
weird,  mysterious,  cold,  dumb,  and  awful.  And  in  art  also 
landscapes  are  the  most  enjoyable  productions  which  modern 
Russia  has  brought  forth. 

The  founder  of  this  Russian  school  was  Stschedrin^  who  died 
at  thirty-eight  in  Naples.     He  was  a  painter  who  was  so  simple 


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440  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  had  so  much  warmth  and  temperament  that  Europe  could 
not  show  the  like  in  the  twenties  of  this  century.  His  work 
towers  over  everything  which  was  at  that  time  painted  by 
Bertin  and  Valenciennes,  dr  even  Rottmann  and  Koch.  He 
was  the  direct  successor  of  Dujardin,  Berchem,  and  Pynacker, 
and  their  equal  in  spirit  His  landscapes  indeed,  which  are 
principally  views  of  Naples,  have  great  delicacy  of  colour,  although 
they  are  sometimes  heavy  and  bituminous  in  their  shadows. 
Moreover  they  are  so  full  of  light  and  air,  so  splendid,  and  so 
finely  and  energetically  painted,  that  it  is  astonishing  to  read  the 
date.  1 820  underneath,  for  1650  or  1660  might  be  more  readily 
ascribed  to  them. 

Lebedev,  who  also  died  young  in  Naples,  was  Stschedrin's 
energetic  follower  in  the  battle  against  Winckelmann's  principles. 
Indeed,  if  he  had  lived  a  few  years  longer  and  returned  to  his 
native  land,  Russian  painting  would  probably  have  been  able  to 
set  up  a  worthy  rival  to  the  great  European  landscapists  of  1830. 
Even  his  earliest  little  pictures,  painted  before  his  Italian  journey 
— thin  and  grey  views  of  St.  Petersburg — give  him  a  place 
amongst  the  first  champions  of  paysage  intime,  and  this  in  spite 
of  their  hard  tone  and  their  childish  and  awkward  technique. 
And  in  Italy  he  and  Blechen  were  the  first  who  rendered  the 
South  without  any  strained  effort  at  style.  "  Gradually,'*  he  writes, 
"  I  am  setting  myself  free  from  all  prejudices.  Nature  has 
opened  my  eyes,  and  I  am  beginning  to  be  her  slave.  In  my 
last  works  you  will  not  find  composition  or  effects,  for  every- 
thing is  simple  there." 

But  the  period  of  historical  painting  led  artists  astray  for 
some  time.  In  Russia,  as  elsewhere,  the  polished  exotic,  pictur- 
esque views,  cultivated  for  years  by  Vorobiev^  RabuSy  Lagorio^ 
Horavsky,  BogoliuboVy  Mestschersky^  and  others,  had  their  vogue. 
They  all  wished  merely  to  see  nature  through  a  prism  which 
would  render  her  beautiful ;  they  imitated  Calame  and  Achen- 
bach,  sometimes  adroitly  and  sometimes  mechanically,  indulged 
in  platitudes  which  have  been  long  outgrown,  and  are  tedious 
and  insipid,  in  spite  of  all  their  Oriental  towers,  Gothic  castles, 
calm  or  agitated  seas,  rocky  regions,  and  glaring  effects  of  light. 


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441 


Schischkin:   "A  Forest  Landscape." 


Aivasavsky  alone  takes  high  rank  amongst  them,  although  he 
was  a  rapid  painter,  a  d^corateur  for  ever  seizing  upon  loud, 
pyrotechnical  effects  a  la  Gudin.  But  in  spite  of  their  glaring 
and  violent  colours  many  of  his  sea-pieces  reproduce  with  great 
cogency  the  grandeur  and  crash  of  the  storm,  and  others  the 
limitless  peace  of  the  sea ;  and  in  virtue  of  these  he  seems  a 
forerunner  of  the  later  landscape  of  "mood." 

This  was,  in  fact,  developed  as  soon  as  Russian  landscape- 
painting  returned  to  Russian  soil.  But,  until  the  forties,  painters 
were  under  the  persuasion  that  their  home,  the  flat,  sad  country 
where  grey  was  harmonized  on  grey,  could  offer  no  subject  worth 
painting,  and  that  it  was  only  richly  coloured  Southern  prospects 
that  were  artistically  possible.  The  brothers  Tscliemezoff  and 
the  copper-engraver  Galaktionov^  indeed,  drew  views  of  towns 
according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  books  of  topography,  but 
without  higher  pretensions. 

Schischkin^  however,  recognized  that  the  Russian  painter  could 

only  love  and  understand    Russian  landscape,   and   reproduce    it 

artistically.     When  he  was  sent  abroad  he  begged  to  be  allowed 

to  return   and   paint  without  hindrance  what  was  dearer  to  him. 

VOL.  \\\,  29 


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442 


MODERN  PAINTING 


ScHiscHKiN :   "  A  Woody  Landscape.* 


{ArtiatM, 


than  all  else  beside.  The  north  of  Russia  is  a  pallid,  melancholy 
land.  It  is  without  great  lines  and  imposing  masses,  and  every- 
thing is  lost  in  vanishing  nuances.  Nevertheless  Schischkin 
succeeded  in  grasping  the  individuality  of  this  scenery,  and  in 
rendering  it  in  his  drawings  with  unrivalled  mastery — in  drawings, 
for  the  life  of  colour  was  a  thing  alien  to  him  throughout  his 
life.  All  his  oil-pictures  are  phlegmatically  prosaic,  paltry,  and 
pedantically  correct ;  but  the  fresh  spontaneity  and  chromatic 
delicacy  which  he  attained  in  his  etchings  and  charcoal  drawings 
are  all  the  more  striking. 

His  direct  followers  show  no  advance  in  technique.  Baron 
Klodt  had  a  certain  proclivity  for  the  picturesque,  in  consequence 
of  which  his  pictures  lost  in  plainness  and  intimacy,  while 
Orlovsky,  Fedders^  VolkoVy  and  others  remained  always  hard  in 
colour,  arid,  and  pedantic.  The  stripling  Vassiliev,  who  died 
at  three-and-twenty,  was,  in  fact,  the  first  to  prove  that  the 
landscape-painter  did  not  need  to  be  a  photographer  im- 
mortalizing   this    or    that    region    in   a  superficial    portrait,   but 


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-could  become  a  medium  between  man  and  nature,  an  interpreter 
■of  that  secret  musical  language  through  which  nature  in  all 
places  speaks  to  the  human  soul.  With  him  the  Russian 
landscape  of  "  mood "  was  first  born.  There  was  no  further 
requisition  for  Alpine  peaks  and  ocean,  and  motley  colours 
straining  after  eflTect,  for  the  artist  learnt  tenderly  and  simply 
to  celebrate  the  scenery  of  his  native  land.  Levitan  painted 
his  "  Quiet  Monastery,"  a  deeply  moving  picture  full  of  feeling  ; 
Kuindshi  painted  Southern  nights  and  bright  birch-woods  full 
of  quivering  air  and  moonlight  or  sunshine ;  Savrassov  delicate 
spring  landscapes  impregnated  with  great  poetic  feeling ; 
Sudkovsky  interpreted  gravely  the  majesty  of  the  sea  ;  Vassnetzov 
the  sad  waste  of  Siberia,  its  dark  plains  and  endless  virgin 
forests  ;  Albert  Benois  produced  brilliant  pictures  of  the  East, 
and  delicate,  sensitive  Russo-Finnish  landscapes ;  and  Svjeto- 
slavsky  seized  the  character  of  Moscow. 

And  through  these  landscape-painters,  who  went  their  own 
way  quietly  and  modestly,  far  from  the  tumult  of  philanthropical 
ideas,  there  rose  an  impulse  to  give  artistic  treatment  to  the 
figure-picture  likewise.  The  sense  of  the  purely  pictorial  was 
strengthened,  and  artists  began  to  turn  from  narrative  and 
didactic  art  and  to  represent  simply  what  they  saw  around 
them,  without  ulterior  designs.  At  first  they  did  so  feebly 
and  laboriously,  then  with  more  energy  and  with  increasing 
perception  and  ability.  Svertscfikov  painted  animal  pictures, 
but  could  hit  off  the  Russian  peasant  and  the  Russian  pro- 
prietor very  finely  indeed.  His  representations  of  horses  in 
particular — those  poor  little  patient  Russian  horses,  now  sink- 
ing in  the  snow,  now  scorched  by  the  sun  or  trotting 
merrily  in  the  troika — are  exceedingly  truthful,  animated,  and 
sympathetic.  Peter  Sokolov  produced  hunting-scenes,  funerals, 
and  tavern-rooms — all  in  a  plain  and  vigorous  style,  which 
was  now  and  then  cynical,  though  always  striking.  He  is 
a  painter  of  individuality  even  in  his  technique,  for  his 
pictures  are  a  mixture  of  delicate  aquarelles,  heavy  gouache 
colours,  pastel,  and  ink.  Through  the  most  remarkable  com- 
binations   he    succeeds    in    attaining    an    impression    which    is 


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444 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Ivan  Kramskoi. 


sometimes  crude,  but  frequently 
exceedingly  piquant  and  full  of 
character. 

But  the  principal  advance  was 
made  by  a  phalanx  of  young^ 
artists  who  worked  their  way 
upwards  during  the  sixties  and 
seventies.  In  1863  thirteen 
pupils  completed  their  studies 
at  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy^ 
and  entered  into  competition 
for  the  gold  medal,  which  took 
the  place  there  of  the  Prix^ 
de  Rome,  Their  leader  was  a 
somewhat  older  student,  Ivan 
Kramskoi y  a  poor  young  fellow 
who  could  barely  earn  his  bread  as  retoucher  at  a  photo- 
grapher's. The  pictures  which  he  had  produced  at  the  time 
of  his  death  are  few,  and  have  long  been  surpassed  by  the 
performances  of  younger  men.  There  are  some  portraits  which 
for  all  their  earnest  veracity  do  not  get  beyond  the  arid  effect 
of  photography.  And  even  his  few  figure-pictures,  such  as 
"  Anguish  that  will  not  be  Comforted "  (a  mother  bewailing 
her  son),  only  produce  a  mediocre  effect  in  spite  of  their 
forcible  realism  and  their  sincerity,  which  is  free  from  all 
forced  vehemence.  But  in  the  history  of  Russian  art  Kramskoi 
has  the  importance  of  one  who  had  a  quickening  influence. 
He  served  the  young  school  with  his  head  rather  than  his 
hand.  He  was  an  ardent  spirit,  an  energetic  agitator,  and 
soon  gathered  all  around  him  who  were  healthy,  fresh  in 
mind,  and  enthusiastic.  And  his  ideas  upon  art  and  the 
loftiness  of  the  artist's  calling  were  worked  out  so  completely^ 
and  he  had  the  secret  of  laying  them  before  his  younger 
comrades  with  such  conviction,  enthusiasm,  and  impressiveness^ 
that  they  all  looked  up  to  him  as  their  standard-bearer.  In 
Kramskoi's  confined  room,  where  the  furniture  consisted  of  a 
few  broken  chairs  and  poverty  was  a  daily  visitant,  those  seeds 


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RUSSIA  445 

of  thought  were  developed  which  soon  became  the  guiding 
principles  of  the  new  Russian  painting. 

When  the  Board  of  Professors  at  St.  Petersburg  refused  to 
give  the  thirteen  competitors  free  choice  of  subject  for  their 
prize  exercise,  wishing  to  compel  them  to  represent  "The  Grod 
Odin  in  Valhalla,"  they  one  and  all  left  the  Academy  in  open 
feud.  They  were  tired  of  having  an  official  style  prescribed 
to  them  by  the  accepted  "school,"  and  no  longer  cared  to  have 
a  uniform  forced  upon  their  work.  Imagination  and  creative 
energy  were  more  to  them  than  laws  or  code,  for  they  wanted 
to  be  free  men  and  not  to  purchase  diplomas  by  convention 
and  medals.  Between  academicism  and  individual  purpose  there 
was  the  same  breach  in  Russia  that  took  place  sooner  or  later 
in  every  other  country.  "The  Society  for  Wandering  Ex- 
hibitions," which  up  to  the  present  has  remained  the  centre 
of  the  Russian  national  school,  and  which  comprehends  in  itself 
all  the  young,  animated,  and  promising  men  of  talent  in  the 
country,  was  recruited  from  these  seceding  painters  in  1870. 
And  though  it  is  a  centre  it  is  one  that  wanders  through  the 
•entire  land.  The  "  Wanderers "  have  emancipated  Russian 
painting  from  everything  alien,  anecdotic,  didactic,  and  eclectic; 
they  have  placed  it  upon  thoroughly  national  soil,  endowed  it 
with  a  new  and  independent  technique,  and  within  a  few  years 
they  have  won  an  honourable  position  amid  European  schools 
of  art 

Meanwhile  some  of  those  thirteen  students  have  forgotten 
their  storm-and-stress  period  and  become  different  men.  Most 
of  all  is  this  true  of  Constantin  Makavsky,  who  is  now  but  a 
caricature  of  what  he  was  when  he  painted  his  "  Carnival  in 
St.  Petersburg"  and  the  gloomy  "Child's  Funeral  in  the 
Country."  All  the  decorative  panels,  visionary  heads  of  maidens, 
musing  "bojar"  women,  and  indecently  voluptuous  bacchanals, 
which  he  turns  out  by  the  dozen,  have  an  insufferable  light  rosy 
crust  of  colour ;  they  have  all  the  same  weak  drawing,  and  the 
same  sensuousness  unredeemed  by  a  trace  of  taste.  Even  his 
pictures  from  the  life  of  "  bojars "  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth  centuries,  which   are    in    great   request    in   America,  are 


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V.  Makovsky:   "A  Bankruptcy.' 


spoilt  by  sickly  sentimentality  or  a  misapplied  air  of  distinction 
and  comnie-il-faut. 

His  younger  brother,  Vladimir  Makovsky,  has  still  a  weakness 
for  lachrymose  anecdotes,  aimed  in  a  commonplace  way  against 
society ;  or  in  an  effort  at  characterization  he  falls  into  obtrusive 
caricature  a  la  Briitt.  But  in  his  smaller  and  less  ambitious 
pictures,  which  are  delicately  painted  after  nature,  he  is  tasteful, 
luxuriant,  and  really  fine. 

The  greatest  of  them  all,  from  the  very  first  day,  was  Elias 
Ripin,  and  he  remains  so  still.  In  him  was  embodied  the  artistic 
power  of  contemporary  Russia.  His  works,  with  those  of  Tolstoi, 
Turgeniev,  Gontscharov,  and  Dostoievski,  will  hand  down  to 
later  times  a  vivid  and  characteristic  account  of  the  Russia  of 
the  last  five-and-twenty  years  in  all  its  completeness — an  account 
including  all  grades  of  society,  from  the  nobles  to  the  outlaws,  the 
village  clergy  and  the  peasants. 

R^pin  is  now  slightly  over  fifty  years  of  age.  Springing 
from  an  old  Cossack  stock,  he  was  born  in  1844  at  Tschuguev^ 
in  the  department  of  Charkow.  As  the  son  of  an  indigent  officer, 
he  received  his  first  instruction  in  the  village  school,   which  was- 


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carried  on  by  his 
mother,  being  taught 
at  a  later  period  by 
the  sexton  of  the 
parish  church. 
Then  he  entered 
a  military  school, 
which  was  broken 
up  when  he  was 
thirteen.  A  me- 
chanical painter  of 
saints  of  the  name 
of  Bunakov  gave 
him  his  first  know- 
ledge of  drawing. 
And  at  the  end  of 
three  years  he  was 
already  in  a  position 
to  gain  a  livelihood 
by  painting  the  pic- 
tures of  saints,  and 
three  years  after  that  he  wandered  to  the  distant  imperial  city 
upon  the  Neva  to  enter  the  Academy  there.  During  the  six 
years  that  he  remained  as  an  Academy  pupil  his  talent  developed 
rapidly.  Even  the  picture  entitled  "The  Raising  of  Jairus's 
Daughter,"  produced  for  an  Academy  prize  competition,  revealed 
him  in  his  power  and  energy,  gleaming  like  a  diamond  amongst 
pebbles  beside  the  other  works  sent  in  for  competition.  The 
medal,  accompanied  by  a  travelling  scholarship  of  some  years*^ 
duration,  was  awarded  to  him.  So  he  went  abroad  to  Paris  and 
Rome,  studying  both  the  old  and  the  modern  masters.  Yet  he 
was  not  ensnared  by  foreign  influences.  In  fact  the  best  pic- 
ture which  he  painted  in  Italy,  **  Szadko  in  the  Wonderful  Realm 
of  the  Sea,"  was  based  upon  a  national  Russian  saga.  In  a  gulf 
of  the  sea  penetrated  by  the  sunshine,  nixies  and  sea-nymphs^ 
embodying  the  different  feminine  types  of  Europe,  are  vainly 
striving  to  catch  the  young  and  handsome  Szadko  ;  but  it  was 


Makovsky:   **A  Duet." 


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only  Tschernavuschka 
emerging  vaguely  in  the 
distance  that  enchained 
him.  And  the  painter 
himself  was  drawn  home- 
wards. Even  before  his 
scholarship  had  expired  he 
begged  permission  to  re- 
turn, and  in  1873  he  com- 
pleted his  "Burlaki,"  the 
men  who  tow  vessels  along 
the  Volga,  the  masterpiece 
of  modern  Russian  art. 

"In  the  blaze  of  the 
noonday  sun,  youths,  men, 
and  boys  are  tramping 
along,  in  the  burning  sand 
on  the  flat,  unsheltered 
banks  of  the  river,  with 
the  thick  ropes  round 
breast  and  shoulders,  and 
their  tanned,  naked  feet  planted  upon  the  hot  ground.  The 
hair  falls  in  disorder  upon  their  brownish-red  brows,  which  are 
dripping  with  perspiration.  Here  and  there  a  man  holds  his 
arm  before  his  face  to  protect  himself  from  the  scorching  rays. 
Singing  a  monotonous,  melancholy,  barbaric  melody,  they  drag 
the  high-masted  barque  laden  with  crops,  up-stream,  through  the 
wide,  deserted  plain ;  their  work  was  yesterday  what  it  is  to-day 
and  will  be  to-morrow.  It  is  as  if  they  had  been  tramping  like 
this  for  centuries,  and  would  be  pushing  forward  in  the  same 
way  for  centuries  to  come.  Types  they  are  of  the  life  of  serfs 
in  Europe,  types  cast  variously  together  from  the  North  and 
the  South  and  the  East  of  the  vast  empire,  by  the  hand  of 
Fate  :  the  children  of  different  slave-races,  most  of  them  figures 
of  iron,  though  there  are  some  who  seem  feeble  ;  some  are  in- 
different too,  whilst  others  are  brooding  gloomily, — but  they  are 
one  and  all  pulling  at  the  same  rope." 


Elias  RiPIN. 


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Repin  :   *'Men  towing  a  Ship  along  the  Volga." 

With  this  picture,  an  epic  embodying  the  spirit  of  the  Russian 
people,  R^pin  stood  out  as  a  finished  artist.  He  had  looked 
upon  these  worn-out  men,  set  to  the  work  of  brutes,  with  the 
eye  of  a  philanthropist  and  the  eagle  glance  of  an  artist ;  their 
sorrowful  songs  had  moved  him  deeply,  and  he  grasped  the 
dreadful  reality  with  an  inflexible  hand,  and  placed  it  with 
glowing  colours  upon  the  canvas  in  all  its  fearful  veracity.  A 
dumb  sorrow  overshadows  the  picture,  all  the  pessimistic  gloom 
that  hovers  over  Russia.  As  yet  no  other  work  had  expressed 
with  all  the  resources  of  European  painting  the  resigned  suffering 
and  that  weary  absence  of  desire  which  are  the  peculiarity  of 
this  race  of  people.  And  let  him  paint  portraits,  or  rustic  life, 
or  pictures  from  Russian  history,  R^pin  remained,  even  in  his 
later  works,  ever  the  same  inherently  forceful  master. 

An  element  of  gloom,  oppression,  and  debasement  reigns 
consistently  throughout.  Even  when  he  represents,  for  a  change, 
the  village  youth  in  the  joy  of  the  dance,  the  merriment 
resembles  inebriation.  But  the  denunciatory  narrative  element 
has  been  finally  cast  aside.  In  place  of  the  vehement  extrava- 
gances of  inartistic  painting  with  a  moral  purpose,  there  is  in 
R^pin  a  mild  fervour  reconciled  with  suffering  and  subdued  to 
a  spirit  of  still  humility.  There  rises  from  his  pictures  a  heavy 
feeling  that  weighs  upon  the  heart,  and  this  simply  because  he 
painted  so  plainly  what  he  saw.      There  is  in  them  an  ineffable 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


RcPiN  :   ♦*  The  Cossacks*  Jeering  Reply  to  the  Sultan.'* 

luxury  of  woe,  a  low  yearning  cry  for  the  peacefulness  of  death, 
something  of  the  resigned  melancholy  of  Russian  songs  with 
their  slow  movement  There  is  in  them,  as  in  the  works  of  the 
Russian  authors,  a  profound  compassion  for  the  poor  and 
miserable — the  suffering,  hopeless  mood  which  weighs  upon  the 
country  everywhere,  the  entire  spirit  of  this  strange  nation, 
which  is  still  young  and  in  its  prime,  and  yet  sick  in  spirit, 
and  looking  faint  and  weary  to  a  leaden  sky. 

In  a  large  picture  of  1883  a  church  procession  may  be  seen 
upon  its  way  forth.  All  the  people  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  village  have  set  out,  young  and  old,  halt  and  sound. 
A  troop  of  peasants,  in  torn  furs  and  patched  clothes,  are 
panting  as  they  carry  along  with  stupid  looks  a  heavy  shrine, 
hoisted  upon  poles  and  festally  adorned  with  ribbons.  The 
crowd  are  pressing  and  elbowing  behind — cripples  and  hunch- 
backs, a  dirty  sexton  staring  straight  before  him,  and  old 
women  muttering  prayers  in  a  dull,  smothered  ecstasy.  And 
a  tall  country  gendarme  is  laying  into  them,  right  and  left, 
with  the  knout,  to  make  room  for  the  clergy,  the  head  of  rural 
police,  and  the  village  elders.  Then  there  are  again  masses 
of  people,  fluttering  banners  and  crucifixes,  an  endless  defile  of 


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451 


LtipMtg:  StemanM.] 

Repin:    "The  Miracle  of  St.  Nicholas." 


misery,  hebetude, 
helplessness,  and 
filth,  and  at  the 
tail  of  the  body 
another  gendarme 
with  a  whip.  Huge 
volumes  could  tell 
no  more  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  countr>' 
than  this  simple 
picture,  in  the  centre 
of  which  the  knout 
is  whistling  in  the 
very  midst  of  eccle- 
siastical banners. 

Amongst  R^pin's 
portraits,  those  of 
the  poet  Pissemski, 
with  strange,  vivid 
eyes ;  that  of  the  composer  Mussorsky,  sketched  a  few  days 
before  his  death  ;  that  of  the  novel-writer  Vassevolad  Garschin, 
who  died  young  by  his  own  hand  a  few  years  ago  ;  and  those 
of  Count  Tolstoi,  are  worthy  of  special  praise.  Tolstoi  he  has 
painted  several  times,  representing  him  upon  one  occasion  striding 
behind  the  plough. 

At  comparatively  recent  exhibitions  some  historical  pictures 
of  his  made  a  sensation.  After  Russian  painting  had  gone  through 
the  school  of  life,  and  bold  naturalism  had  taken  the  place  of 
classical  abstraction,  painters  could  venture  to  utilize  national 
history  without  falsity  or  theatrical  costume.  The  first  attempt 
of  this  kind  had  been  made  by  Tschistjakov  in  his  picture 
"Sophie  Vitotovna."  In  the  sixties  Schwarz,  who  died  early, 
came  forward  with  his  energetic  representations  from  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.  Jacohy  sought  to  catch  the 
historical  physiognomy  of  Russian  Court  life  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  With  his  "Puschkin"  and  his  "Peter  I."  the  portrait- 
painter   Gay  was  very  successful.     Surikov  produced  his  "Bojar 


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R^piN :  Count  Leo  Tolstoi. 

Woman  Norosovna"  and  "The  Execution  of  the  Strelitzes," 
gloomy  and  thoroughly  Russian  pictures,  bearing  witness  to  an 
earnest  attempt  to  live  the  life  of  the  past.  But  in  this  field 
also  R6pin  distanced  all  his  predecessors,  plunged  into  the  past 
with  most  energy  and  freedom,  broke  with  all  tame  compromise 
the  most  abruptly,  and  conjured  up  things  long  gone  by  with  a 
terrible  force  of  conviction,  as  though  they  had  been  seen  and 
lived  through.  His  "  Ivan  the  Cruel,  who  has  slain  his  Son  in 
a  Sudden  Paroxysm  of  Fury,"  made  such  an  impression  at  the 
exhibition  of  1885  that  the  public  stood  before  it  horrified,  while 
ladies  were  carried  away  fainting.  It  might  have  recalled  the 
best  modem  historical  pictures  of  Spain,  except  that  R^pin's  work 
made  a  more  gloomy,  elemental,  and  barbaric  effect.  An  old 
man,  with  his  face  spattered  with  blood  and  his  savage  features 
distorted  with  despair,  kneels  on  the  floor  in  the  centre  of  a  wide 
hall  of  the  Kremlin  :  his  eyes  start  from  their  sockets,  dilated  with 
horror,  and  stare  vacantly  in  the  torture  of  conscience ;  in  his  arms 
he  holds  the  fainting  figure  of  a  youth,  over  whose  countenance, 
which  streams  with  blood,  death  casts  its  awful  shadow. 

R^pin's  picture  "  The  Cossacks'  Jeering  Reply  to  the  Sultan  "  is 


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RUSSIA  453 

a  combination  of  magnificent  military  heads,  a  collection  of  figures 
conceived  with  a  force  recalling  Gogol ;  they  are  figures  that  are 
really  made  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  barbaric  to  the  bone  and 
marrow.  No  brilliant  painting  of  material  has  been  aimed  at> 
no  grace  in  line  and  composition.  He  makes  use  of  historical 
painting  merely  to  depict  children  of  nature  in  their  primitive 
passions.  His  picture  of  St.  Nicholas  preventing  the  execution 
of  three  innocent  men  who  have  been  condemned  to  death  has 
something  butcherly  in  conception,  and  in  execution  something 
inherently  thrilling.  At  once  imperious  and  impressive  is  the 
gesture  with  which  the  saint  strikes  the  arm  of  the  brutal  and 
astonished  executioner,  a  man  of  muscular  build,  while  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  victims,  in  their  gratitude  to  their  good  genius,  is 
powerful  and  convincing.  In  technique,  also,  R6pin  is  a  great 
modem  master,  with  a  sharp  decision  in  drawing  and  colour, 
and  an  earnest,  almost  ascetic  simplicity,  which  admit  only  of 
what  is  indispensable  and  subservient  to  the  designed  effect  of 
the  picture.  His  "Ship's  Crew"  of  1873  was  praised  as  the 
sunniest  picture  at  the  Vienna  Exhibition  ;  and  from  that  time 
he  has  gone  forward  with  a  firm  step.  His  works  became  lighter 
and  brighter  from  year  to  year  ;  and  R6pin  found  what  Ivanov 
had  sought  in  vain— sun,  air,  and  life.  To  Russian  art  he  is 
what  Menzel  is  to  German  and  what  Manet  was  to  French.  He 
breathes  the  atmosphere  of  his  own  time  and  his  own  people, 
and  since  his  appearance  there  has  been  a  greater  number  of 
masters  who  have  painted  Russian  life  with  a  knowledge  of  all 
the  resources  of  the  new  French  technique,  together  with  that 
feeling  for  nature  and  humanity  which  marks  the  most  eminent 
performances  of  Russian  literature.  The  secret  song  of  the 
steppes,  that  song  of  boundless  love  and  boundless  sufferings,  is 
becoming  intelligible  to  painters  at  last  Their  tale  is  not  yet 
complete  in  the  European  sessions  of  art,  and  beside  the  Western 
nations  they  are  "  dead  souls "  as  yet.  But  they  began  a  great 
period  of  liberation  in  Russian  painting,  and  when  that  man 
comes  who  shall  arouse  these  souls  from  slumber,  he  may  hope 
the  best  from  their  youthful  vigour  which  has  never  been 
worked  out. 


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CHAPTER    XLIV 

AMERICA 

The  previous  history  of  American  art — The  first  Americans  who  worked 
in  England :  Benjamin  West,  John  Singleton  Copley,  Gilbert  Stuart 
Newton,  Charles  Robert  Leslie.  —  The  first  portrait-painters  in 
America  itself :  Gilbert  Stuart,  Charles  Wilson  Peale^  Joseph 
Wright,  Loring  Charles  Elliot, — The  grand  painting :  John  Trum^ 
bull,  Washington  Allston,  Emanuel  Leutze,  —  Genre  painting: 
William  Sydney  Mount — The  landscape-painters  :  Thomas  Cole, 
Albert  Biers tadt,  John  B,  Bristol,  Frederick  E.  Church,  J.  F. 
Kensett,  Sanford  R,  Gifford,  James  Fairman,  the  Morgans, 
William  Morris  Hunt — The  Americans  in  Paris :  Henry  Mosler, 
Carl  Gutherz,  Frederick  A,  Bridgman,  Edwin  Weeks,  Harry 
Humphrey  Moore,  Julius  Z.  Stewart,  Charles  Spragtie  Pearce, 
William  T,  Dannat,  Alexander  Harrison,  Walter  Gay,  Eugine 
Vail,  Walter  MacEwen,  —  The  Americans  in  Holland:  Gari 
Melchers,  George  Hitchcock, — The  Americans  in  London  :  John 
Singer  Sargent,  Henry  Muhrmann, — The  Americans  in  Munich: 
Carl  Marr,  Charles  Frederick  Ulrich,  Robert  Koehler,  Sion 
Wenban,  Orrin  Peck,  Hermann  Hartwich, — The  Americans  at 
home,— The  painters  of  Negro  and  Indian  life:  Winslow  Homer, 
A  If  red  Kappes,  G,  Brush, — The  founding  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists:  Walter  Shir  law,  George  Fuller,  George  Inness,  Wyatt 
Eaton^  Dwight  William  Tryon^  J.  Appleton  Brawny  the  Morans^ 
L,  C.  Tiffany^  John  Francis  Murphy ^  Childe  Hassam^  Julian  Alden 
Weir^  H,  W,  Ranger,  H.  S.  Bisbing,  Charles  H,  Davis,  George 
Innessy  junior,  J.  G,  Brown,  J.  M.  C.  Hamilton,  Ridgway  Knight, 
Robert  William  Vonnoh,  Charles  Edmund  Tarbell.—The  influence 
of  Whistler :  Kenyon  Cox,  W.  Thomas  Dewing,  Julius  Rolshoven, 
William  Merrit  Chase, 

IN  spite  of  its  greater  geographical  distance  America  lies 
nearer  to  the  artistic  centres  of  Europe  than  Russia.  It  is 
only  possible  to  become  acquainted  with  Russian  painting  in 
the  country  itself,  at  its  "  wandering  exhibitions,"  but  the 
successes  of  the   Americans  are  chronicled  in  the  annals  of  the 

454 


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AMERICA  455 

Paris  Salon.  Their  art  is  an  exact  echo  of  that  of  Europe, 
because  they  have  learnt  their  technique  in  the  leading  European 
Academies.  Indeed  the  drama  of  America  is  divided  into  the 
very  same  acts  as  that  of  Europe.  The  piece  which  has  gone 
the  round  of  the  theatres  of  Europe  is  produced  in  America, 
though  the  names  of  the  actors  are  not  the  same. 

Up  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776  there  were 
neither  painters  nor  sculptors  in  America.  People  ate  and 
drank,  and  built,  and  reclaimed  the  land,  and  multiplied.  But 
a  large  bar  of  iron  was  of  more  value  than  the  finest  statue, 
and  an  ell  of  good  cloth  was  prized  more  highly  than  "  The 
Transfiguration"  of  Raphael.  Here  and  there,  perhaps,  there 
were  old  family  portraits  which  some  emigrant  had  brought 
with  him  from  Europe,  but  these  were  not  calculated  to  awaken 
a  taste  for  art  As  a  rule  public  buildings  were  made  of  wood, 
or  of  brick  at  best,  and  they  had  no  pretensions  to  style.  The 
settlers  were  poor,  and  far  too  much  occupied  with  getting  fish 
and  potatoes  for  their  daily  support  to  trouble  themselves  about 
problems  of  colour.  In  addition  to  this,  art  was  repudiated  by 
the  Quakers  as  a  bauble  of  the  world.  And  it  was  only  when 
the  dollar  began  to  display  its  might  that  enterprising  portrait- 
painters,  who  had  failed  in  Europe,  occasionally  crossed  the 
ocean  to  make  the  New  World  happy  with  their  dubious  art 

Incited  by  these  strangers,  a  few  young  men  on  the  far  side 
of  the  world  cherished  the  belief  that  they  could  find  a  lucra- 
tive vocation  by  painting.  But,  since  the  ground  was  not  yet 
ready  for  them  at  home,  they  first  set  to  work  in  Europe.  As 
soon  as  he  was  one-and-twenty,  Benjamin  West,  the  first  artist 
born  in  the  New  World,  went  over  to  London,  where  he  after- 
wards became  the  President  of  the  Royal  Academy.  He  was 
followed  by  John  Singleton  Copley,  who  opposed  the  Classical 
productions  of  the  age  by  his  vigorous  representations  of  con- 
temporary events  of  war,  while  Gilbert  Stuart  Newton  and 
Charles  Robert  Leslie  play  a  part  in  the  history  of  English 
genre  painting. 

When,  at  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  war,  the  population 
gradually  came   to    know   more    of   peace,    artistic    needs    were 


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456  MODERN  PAINTING 

first  felt  in  America  itself;  but  a  favourable  field  was  at  first 
only  offered  for  portrait- painters,  as  was  the  case  in  England 
also.  Born  in  Narraganset  in  1756,  Gilbert  Stuart  was  notably 
active  in  Boston  from  the  year  1793,  after  he  had  returned 
from  Europe ;  and  he,  to  begin  with,  is  a  man  who  might 
hold  his  own  with  honour  beside  the  great  British  portraitists. 
He  was  a  man  of  independent  mind,  who  neither  imitated 
his  master,  West,  nor  yet  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  nor 
borrowed  anything  from  the  old  painters.  "  I  mean  to  sec 
nature,"  he  said,  "  with  my  own  eyes.  Rembrandt  looked  at 
her  with  his  and  Raphael  with  his,  and  although  they  have 
nothing  in  common,  both  are  marvellous."  IJe  was  a  masterly 
colourist,  and  in  some  of  his  portraits,  such  as  that  of  Wash- 
ington in  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  or  that  of  "  Mr.  Grant  upon 
the  Ice,"  stands  immediately  beside  Gainsborough.  The  latter 
picture,  in  fact,  was  exhibited  in  England  in  1878  over  the 
name  of  Gainsborough,  and  was  then  first  put  to  the  credit  of 
the  real  master. 

In  addition  to  Stuart,  Charles  Wilson  Peale^  Joseph  Wright, 
Chester  Harding,  and,  more  particularly,  Loring  Charles  Elliot 
acquired  fame  as  incisive  masters  of  characterization.  Elliot, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  one  of  the  best  of  his  age.  A  trait  of 
greatness  and  of  the  most  keen  and  fine  characterization  runs 
through  his  pictures.  The  people  he  painted  are  gnarled  genuine 
types  of  that  race  which  felled  the  woods,  cultivated  the  wide  and 
desolate  lands,  and  in  the  space  of  a  single  century  gave  their 
republic  strength  to  take  a  place  amongst  the  foremost  nations. 
One  of  these  portrait-painters,  John  Trumbull,  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  War  of  Independence  as  Washington's  adjutant,  and 
who  had  been  for  a  long  time  one  of  West's  pupils  when  a 
political  prisoner  in  London,  made  a  transition  from  portrait- 
painting  to  the  glorification  of  his  country's  deeds  in  war. 
Influenced  by  Copley's  London  pictures,  he  addressed  a  letter  to. 
the  President  of  the  Republic,  offering  "  to  preserve  the  memory  of 
every  national  event  by  a  monumental  work."  And  evidence  of 
his  muscular  energy  is  specially  to  be  found  in  the  series  of  mural 
paintings  from  the  American  War  of  Independence  with  which  he 


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embellished  the  Capitol  of  Washington  in  1817.  Besides  these 
there  are  to  be  seen  in  American  collections  historical  pieces 
of  his,  such  as  "The  Battle  of  Bunkers  Hill"  "The  Death  of 
Montgomery/'  "  The  Declaration  of  American  Independence," 
"The  Departure  of  the  Garrison  from  Gibraltar,"  and  other 
works  of  a  similar  kind,  which  in  their  healthy  realism  are  more 
or  less  of  a  parallel  to  the  pictures  of  Gros. 

By  the  Romantic  movement  America  was  only  moderately 
affected,  for  there  were  no  knights  or  monks  or  bandits  over 
whom  it  was  possible  to  wax  enthusiastic ;  and  the  tendency 
which  reached  its  climax  in  Ingres  and  Cornelius  only  found  a 
representative  in  Washington  Allston.  He  was  a  many-sided 
man  who  had  first  studied  under  West,  and  then  for  some  years 
in  Italy,  while  from  1818  he  painted  in  Boston  representations 
from  the  Bible  and  from  history,  portraits,  ideal  figures,  genre 
pictures,  and  landscapes.  He  was  lauded  for  his  poetic  vein,  and 
named  the  American  Titian.  Such  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of 
contemporaries  is,  of  course,  invariably  followed  by  a  more 
chastened  style  of  criticism,  and  Koehler,  in  his  history  ot 
American  painting,  can  find  nothing  to  say  to  Allston's  advantage. 
Nevertheless,  so  far  as  his  principal  works  can  be  judged  by 
reproductions,  he  seems  to  have  been  a  strong  and  forcible  artist, 
"  The  Two  Sisters,"  "  Jeremiah  and  the  Scribe,"  and  "  The  Dead 
Man  raised  after  touching  the  Bones  of  Elisha"  are  favourable 
samples  of  his  work.  The  drawing  is  noble  and  large,  the  idea 
simple  and  deep,  and  the  figures  betray  something  bluff,  out- 
landish, and  realistically  angular,  which  brings  him  nearer  the 
English  Preraphaelites  than  the  Idealists. 

With  Allston's  death  in  1843,  however,  his  style  became 
extinct,  and  the  genius  of  grand  painting*  departed  from  the 
New  World  for  ever,  while  a  German,  Emanuel  Leutze,  went 
further  on  the  path  trodden  by  West  and  Copley.  Born  in 
Wurtemberg  and  nearly  chosen  as  Director  in  Diisseldorf,  he  can- 
not altogether  be  reckoned  amongst  the  Americans.  And  indeed 
his  pictures  from  the  War  of  Liberation  are  really  American  in 
nothing  except  subject ;  while  it  is,  at  most,  the  staid,  virile  trait 
in  his  work  which  distinguishes  him  from  the  Diisseldorfers. 
VOL.  III.  30 


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458  MODERN  PAINTING 

However  his  "  Washington  crossing  the  Delaware "  is  a  sincere 
and  loyal  historical  picture,  which  in  its  quiet,  matter-of-fact 
composition  rather  resembles  an  earnest  artist  like  Copley  than 
Lessing  with  his  sentimentalism  and  exaggeration. 

After  Leutze  had  shown  the  way,  Germany  for  a  time  took 
the  place  of  England  and  Italy  as  a  training-school  for  American 
artists.  A  whole  troop — Edward  White,  William  Henry  Powell, 
and  Henry  Peters  Gray  amongst  the  number — followed  him  to  Diis- 
seldorf,  and,  after  their  return,  endowed  the  world  with  historical 
pictures  of  a  sentimental  and  academical  cast.  Even  the  genre 
painters  in  America  differed  little  from  their  Diisseldorf  con- 
temporaries. Mention  should  be  made  of  a  pupil  of  Meyerheim, 
Thomas  Hill,  who  was  fond  of  making  his  Californian  landscapes 
the  stage  for  idyllic  scenes  of  childhood,  and  there  was  Daniel 
Huntingdon,  who  at  the  close  of  his  life,  when  he  was  President 
of  the  New  York  Academy,  indulged  in  allegorical  pictures,  such 
as  "  Mercy's  Dream,"  "  The  Sibyls,"  apd  the  like.  The  place 
taken  in  England  by  Wilkie  belongs  in  America  to  William 
Sydney  Mount.  Himself  a  farmer,  he  adapted  the  life  of  American 
countryfolk  and  negroes  for  facetious  purposes.  But  though  he 
made  use  of  a  studio  upon  wheels,  with  which  he  was  able  to 
go  round  the  country,  his  pictures — "  Bargaining  for  a  Horse," 
**The  Cheat,"  "The  Little  Thieves,"  and  so  forth — might  just 
as  well  have  been  painted  in  England  or  Germany  as  in  America. 

Indeed  the  most  original  work  produced  in  American  painting 
in  those  days  was  done  in  the  field  of  landscape.  William  CuUen 
Bryant's  Thanatopsis  appeared  in  1 8 1 7,  and  this  was  a  book  which 
had  the  same  significance  for  America  as  the  works  of  Thomson 
and  Rousseau  had  for  England  and  France :  soon  afterwards 
**  The  Hudson-River  School "  began  to  rise,  glorifying  the  marvels 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  the 
American  lakes,  though  at  first  only  in  the  Classical  style.  The 
real  initiator  of  the  movement  was  Thotnas  Cole,  who  goes  on  lines 
more  or  less  parallel  with  those  of  the  Germans  Koch  and 
Reinhart,  and  in  some  of  his  works  with  those  of  Joseph  Vernet. 
Poussin  was  his  ideal,  historical  composition  his  strong  point,  and 
colour  his  weakness. 


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Then,  for  a  time,  German  Romanticism  with  its  lyrical  temper 
and  its  sickly  passion  for  moonshine  became  the  determining  in- 
fluence. As  Cole,  who  came  from  England,  applied  the  principles 
-of  Wilson  to  American  mountain  scenery,  Albert  Bierstadt^  who 
was  born  in  Diisseldorf,  introduced  the  Diisseldorfian  manner  of 
landscape  into  the  New  World.  Having  studied  under  Lessing 
on  the  Rhine  in  1853,  he  took  part  in  1858  in  an  expedition 
of  General  Lander  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  these  wild 
regions  of  the  West  gave  him  henceforth  the  material  for  his 
pictures.  Whole  mountain  chains  stretch  out  like  a  panorama, 
and  deep  mountain  lakes,  and  wild  masses  of  shattered  cliff, 
and  headlong  waterfalls  and  silent  forests.  Only  a  trapper, 
a  cowboy,  or  an  Indian  riding  bareback  after  buffalo  gives 
occasional  animation  to  the  desolate  wilderness.  Matters  of 
such  ethnographical  interest  met  with  approval  in  Europe 
also,  and  quite  naturally.  At  the  time  when  Gude  represented 
Norway,  his  native  land,  for  the  benefit  of  the  European 
public,  Bierstadt  put  into  the  market  the  boundless  American 
prairies  with  their  herds  of  buffalo,  the  defiant,  gigantic  forms 
of  the  mountain  cliffs,  and  the  valleys  of  California— pictures 
which  united  geographical  accuracy  with  the  effort  to  compass 
-dazzling  meteorological  effects.  John  B.  Bristol  and  Frederick 
Edward  Church  followed  a  similar  course,  representing  with 
strong  effects  of  light  or  mere  photographic  exactness  views  of 
Chimborazo,  of  tropical  moonlight  in  Mexico,  of  the  thundering 
falls  of  Niagara,  and  of  the  huge  mountain  masses  of  the  West. 
The  Alps  were  also  popular,  and  the  rich  fields  of  Italy. 
J,  F,  Kensett,  who  is  said  to  have  had  a  fine  feeling  for  the 
poetry  of  colour  and  to  have  painted  admirably  the  lovely  shores 
•of  the  mountain  lakes  in  America,  enjoys  the  fame  of  being  the 
best  master  of  technique,  while  Sanford  R,  Gifford.^n  American 
Hildebrandt,  who  glorified  all  the  phenomena  of  light  in  America, 
Italy,  and  the  East,  is  reputed  to  be  the  most  many-sided  of  this 
group.  Amongst  other  landscapists  of  the  sixties  George  Loring 
Brown,  a  sort  of  American  Claude,  Worthington  Whitredge  of 
Ohio,  a  pupil  of  Achenbach,  John  W,  Casilear,  Albert  Bellows, 
Richard  W,  Hubbard,   W.  T,  Richards,  F.  Cropsey,  Edward  Gay, 


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Amtrican  Art  Btvinv,] 

Hunt:   "Sheep  in  a  Meadow." 


and  IV.  Stanley  Haseltine 
may  be  mentioned ;  but 
it  is  impossible  for  one 
who  is  not  an  American 
to  judge  of  their  work. 
In  general  the  career  of 
American  landscape  seems 
to  have  been  that,  under 
the  influence  of  European 
paysage  intime^  artists 
gradually  came  to  lay  less 
weight  upon  mere  subject, 
and  aimed  at  producing 
an  effect  by  purely  artistic 
means.  Gracious  studies 
of  light,  and  intimate  views 
of  forest  paths,  and  distant 
huts  and  meadowland,  took 
the  place  of  pompous  dra-^ 
matic  efforts,  wild  mountain  landscapes,  and  glaring  fireworks, 
A  knowledge  of  the  English  water-colour  artists  De  Wint  and 
Cox  was  communicated  by  Jafnes  Fairman,  who  was  by  birth  a 
Scot,  while  the  three  brothers  William^  Peter^  and  Thomas  Morgan 
have  been  manifestly  influenced  by  Turner  in  their  strong  sense 
of  the  effect  of  light.  A  couple  of  Dutch  emigrants,  Albert 
van  Beest  and  F,  de  Haas^  painted  the  first  sea-pieces,  and  were 
followed  by  Harry  Chase,  who  had  gone  to  Holland  in  1862 
to  study  under  Kruseman  van  Elten  and  Mesdag.  These  were 
no  longer  scenes  with  a  dramatic  intention — ^ships  wrecked  in  a 
storm  upon  the  cliffs  or  labouring  against  high-running  waves — 
such  as  C.  Petersen,  W.  E.  Norton,  and  A.  T  Bricher  had  a  pre- 
dilection for  painting.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  quiet 
representations  of  the  simple  poetry  of  the  sea.  James  M.  Hart 
and  Hamilton  Hamilton,  under  the  influence  of  the  Fontainebieau 
school,  turned  to  the  portrayal  of  the  American  forests,  resplendent 
in  red  and  yellow  foliage,  and  of  animals  lying  on  the  rich 
meadows.     The  most  important  of  these  men  was  William  Morris 


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Niw  York:  AppMon,} 

Mosler:   "The  Prodigal  Son." 


//««/,  who  from  1846 
had  been  for  some  time 
a  sculptor  in  Diisseldorf, 
and  had  undergone  a 
long  apprenticeship  under 
Couture  in  Paris  and 
Millet  in  Barbizon  before 
he  returned  to  settle 
down  in  Boston.  In 
particular  he  has  painted 
certain  pieces  with  sheep 
which  approach  Charles 
Jacque  in  delicacy. 

Such  essentially  was 
the  result  of  the  career 
of  American  art  up  to 
i860.  America  had  in- 
•dividual  painters,  but  no 
formed  school.  But  the  ambition  to  stand  on  a  level  with  other 
nations  was  gaining  ground,  and  to  do  this  it  was  necessary  to 
5tudy  systematically  abroad.  Earlier  artists  had  only  left  America 
■on  brief  trips  which  left  no  permanent  impressions;  the  next 
generation  made  itself  at  home  all  over  Europe.  Diisseldorf, 
to  which  Leutze  and  Bierstadt  had  directed  attention,  was  no 
longer  even  thought  of  as  a  training-school.  As  for  Munich,  it 
wavered  indecisively  between  Kaulbach  and  Piloty.  But  Paris 
enjoyed  all  the  greater  celebrity.  Here,  under  G6r6me,  Lemuel 
Everett  Wilwarth^  who  was  a  teacher  of  the  New  York  School 
■of  Art,  had  already  gained  the  principles  of  knowledge  with 
which  he  impressed  his  pupils.  Hence  had  come  Francois  Regis 
Gignoux  and  Asher  Brown-Durand^  two  French  landscapists  who 
made  a  great  sensation  in  New  York  during  the  sixties.  So 
Paris  became  for  the  American  generation  of  i860  what  it  had 
teen  for  the  Germans  of  1850.  And,  treating  the  Parisian 
Americans  alone,  it  would  be  easy  to  write  a  short  history  of 
French  art,  for  they  distinctly  reflect  the  French  methods  of 
various  epochs. 


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When  the  first  Americans  came  to  Paris  the  new  seeds  planted 
by  Courbet  and  the  Fontainebleau  landscapists  had  not  yet  forced 
their  way  to  the  surface.  The  scholastic  and  externally  brilliant 
painting  of  Couture  was  the  centre  of  interest.  Bouguereau  had 
achieved  his  earliest  successes,  and  the  cold  porcelain  style  of 
G6r6me  was  an  object  of  admiration.  And  there  was  also  the 
discreetly  chastened  peasant- painting  of  Breton,  whose  "Return 
of  the  Reapers"  had  placed  him  in  1853  in  the  front  rank  of 
French  genre  painters.  To  these  masters  the  first  Americans 
who  came  to  study  in  Paris  most  naturally  turned. 

The  old  genre  painting  found  its  representative  in  Henry 
Mosler^  who  was  born  in  1840  in  New  York.  His  most  lasting 
impressions  he  received  in  the  years  when  Knau$  made  his  suc- 
cesses in  Paris,  and  when  Breton  came  forward  with  his  earliest 
pictures  of  peasant  life.  Mosler's  works — for  example,  "The 
Tinker,"  "The  Harvest  Festival,"  "The  Last  Moments,"  and 
"  The  Prodigal  Son  " — are  good  genre  pictures,  which  might  be 
ascribed  to  Vautier  or  Bokelmann,  or  one  of  the  French  painters 
of  the  village  tale,  say  Brion,  Marchal,  or  Breton.  . 
.  ,  Bouguereau's  scented  Neo-Classicism  with  a  tendency  to  be 
feebly  fanciful  had  its  satellite  in  Carl  Gutherz^  a  Swiss  by 
birth,  who  had  come  to  Paris  as  a  boy  in  185 1.  One  of  his 
principal  pictures,  which  was  painted  in  1888,  was  called  "Lux 
Incarnationis."  From  the  manger  in  Bethlehem  there  shone  a 
beaming  light.  The  air  was  filled  with  heavenly  squadrons,, 
spreading  throughout  space  like  gleaming  and  hovering  clouds. 
In  the  foreground  beautiful,  slender  young  angels,  with  many- 
coloured  wings,  issued  from  the  glittering  throng,  with  golden 
aureoles  crowning  their  young  heads.  There  were  nude  little 
boy  *  angels  also,  following  them  and  scattering  the  flowers  of 
heaven,  which  turned  to  rosy  clouds.  All  these  angels,  however, 
were  modernized  French  Cinquecento  angels ;  they  were  feeble 
and  mawkish  every  one  of  them,  and  suggested  a  monotonous 
atmosphere  of  perfume.  "  Ecce  Homo,"  "  Sappho,"  "  The  Temp- 
tation of  St.  Anthony,"  "The  Golden  Legend,"  and  "The 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  are  titles  of  other  pictures  of  his 
which  are  as  motley  as  they  are  feeble. 


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New  yon;  Appieion.] 


Bridgman  :   "  In  the  Harem." 


When  translated  into  American,  G6r6me  means  Frederick 
A,  Bridg?nan.  From  1863  to  1866  he  was  steel -engraver  to 
an  American  company  for  making  banknotes,  and  thus  well 
prepared  when  he  came  to  Gerdme,  the  hard  Classicist,  whom 
he  resolutely  followed  to  the  East  He  trod  the  soil  of  Africa 
for  the  first  time  in  1872,  travelled  through  Algiers  and  Egypt> 
and  then  became  the  painter  of  these  regions — and  not  alone 
of  their  present  populations,  but  of  their  classical  past  as  well. 
His  "Burial  of  a  Mummy"  won  the  gold  medal  at  the  Paris 
World  Exhibition  of  1878,  and  in  1881  he  was  able  to  bring 
together  three  hundred  and  thirty  pictures  of  the  East  at  an 
exhibition  in  New  York.  Under  G^rdme  Bridgman  acquired 
great  dexterity,  learning  from  him  all  that  was  to  be  learnt ;  he 
is  indeed  a  little  more  flexible  than  his  teacher,  though  at 
bottom  a  hard  Classicist  also.  White  draperies,  dark  skin  tints, 
shining  marble  and  keen  blue  atmosphere,  ethnographical  accuracy 
and  a  taste  for  anecdote,  are  the  leading  characteristics  of  his 
pictures.  He  does  not  fail  to  specify  that  his  negro  festival,  for 
example,  takes  place  "In  Blidah;"  and  when  he  shows  a  beauty 


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Munich  :  Han/stdngl.} 


Weeks:   "The  Last  Journey." 


of  the  harem  fallen  upon  by  a  sensual  assassin  in  the  series 
called  "The  Sacrifice  of  Virtue,"  he  pays  tribute  to  G6r6me's 
delight  in  executioners.  His  white,  cold  porcelain  pictures  are, 
like  those  of  G6r6me,  judiciously  composed,  deftly  carried  out, 
and  exceedingly  pretty  in  detail,  but  they  are  hard  and  motley, 
paltry  and  inexpressive  of  temperament 

After  working  under  G6r6me,  Edwin  Lord  Weeks  (born  in 
Boston  in  1849)  penetrated  yet  further  into  the  East  The 
earliest  pictures  which  he  sent  to  the  Paris  Salon  represented 
scenes  from  remote  parts  of  Morocco.  With  caravans  organized 
by  himself  he  pressed  into  the  hidden  interior  of  this  empire  to 
paint  the  strange  reality.  Not  to  become  monotonous,  he  then 
passed  to  India,  which  he  explored  in  all  directions,  finding 
that  scenery,  architecture,  and  the  ways  of  men  provided  him 
with  a  yet  greater  wealth  of  materials.  With  peculiar  delight 
he  lingered  in  the  sacred  city  of  Benares,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges,  where  pagoda  follows  pagoda  and  mosque  follows 
mosque,  and  the  steam  of  the  funeral  piles  where  the  corpses 
of  devout    Hindoos    are    burning    mounts    into    the    air.      The 


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iBrauH  photo. 
Stewart:  "The  Hunt  Ball." 

{By  pgrmisaion  of  Messrs.  Ad.  Braun  <S*  Co.,  tht  owners  of  th§  copyright.) 

Streets  swarm  with  figures  clad  in  white  and  with  white 
turbans,  and  protected  from  the  rays  of  the  sun  by  huge  and 
gaudy  umbrellas.  Brown  and  half-naked  men  and  women 
occupied  in  washing  clothes  squat  upon  the  bank  ;  and  slender 
dark-skinned  girls  with  fans  of  Indian  palm  walk  along  past 
dazzling  marble  palaces.  In  his  studies  from  Hindostan  Weeks 
has  portrayed  with  great  knowledge  of  Indian  nature  the 
pictorial  and  grotesque  features  of  the  Hindoos,  and  the 
splendour  of  burning  sunlight  shed  over  all  their  doings.  The 
intense  white  tropical  sun  pours  down  upon  the  white  marble 
temples,  gleams  upon  the  variegated  silken  costumes,  broods 
upon  the  brown  skin  of  the  people,  glitters  upon  the  tails  of 
peacocks  and  the  gold-embroidered  hangings  of  the  elephants. 
And  it  is  only  Verestchagin's  Oriental  pictures  which  reach 
such  a  dazzling  tropical  effect. 

A  third  pupil  of  G^rdme,  Harry  Humphrey  Moore,  turned  to 
Japan,  though  before  doing  so  he  went  through  a  second 
course  of  apprenticeship,  for  he  worked  under  Fortuny  in  Rome. 
The  latter  gave  him  the  pungency  and  sparkle  of  his  painting, 
and   as,   some    dozen    years   ago,  the    bold,  capricious   pictures 


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of  the  Spaniard  were  deemed  worth  their  weight  in  gold,  the 
refined  Japanese  studies  of  Moore,  glittering  in  red  and  yellow, 
are  at  present  much  sought  after  in  America. 

Julius  L.  Stewart,  a  Parisian  from  Philadelphia,  and  the 
son  of  an  American  collector  who  possesses  the  best  pictures 
of  Fortuny,  reversed  the  course  of  Moore — that  is  to  say,  he 
had  been  a  pupil  of  Fortuny's  pupil  Zamacois  before  he  placed 
himself  under  G6r6me — and  the  lively  variety  of  colour  and 
spirited  improvization  of  his  works  bear  witness  to  his  artistic 
descent.  In  result  of  Fortuny 's  influence,  Stewart  has  become  a 
thorough  man  of  the  world,  a  painter  of  society,  and  one  of  capti- 
vating grace,  whose  "  Hunt  Ball "  and  "  Five-O'Clock  Tea "  were 
amongst  the  most  refined  pictures  of  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1889. 

Straitened  by  no  old  artistic  traditions,  the  Americans 
had  not  any  occasion  to  do  homage  to  conservative  opinions 
in  their  painting.  The  words  Classicism  and  Naturalism  had 
no  meaning  for  them.  They  merely  repaired  to  the  studios 
where  they  believed  themselves  able  to  learn  most.  Having 
given  a  preference  in  the  beginning  to  academicians  of  the 
Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  they  were  the  first  who  afterwards  went 
with  the  new  movement  in  Paris  which  set  in  the  direction  of 
landscape  and  Naturalism.  Even  those  who  studied  under 
Bonnat  and  Carolus  Duran  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventies 
did  not  remain  faithful  to  the  method  of  their  teachers,  but 
with  an  astonishing  instinct  found  out  the  masters  to  whom  the 
future  belonged.  Counsel  was  sought  from  Manet  and  Monet, 
Bastien-Lepage  and  Dagnan-Bouveret,  Millet  and  Cazin,  in  turn. 
In  many  of  these  Americans  it  is  only  their  particular  mitier  that 
is  interesting,  what  the  Parisians  call  faire  les  Rousseau,  /aire 
les  Carriere,  faire  les  Bastien.  And  in  all  one  recognizes  certain 
influences,  whether  they  follow  the  landscapists  of  1830,  move 
in  the  train  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  or  Besnard,  or  infest  the 
neighbourhood  of  Giverny  to  study  the  bold  atmospheric  vibra- 
tions of  Claude  Monet.  But  as  they  never  follow  old-fashioned 
models,  but  invariably  the  most  modern,  they  are  characteristic, 
if  not  of  American,  at  all  events  of  the  most  novel  tendencies 
of  French  painting,  and  that  in  a  very  striking  way. 


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Nno  York  :  AppMon,} 


Pearce:   "The  Shepherdess/ 
{By  ptrmissioH  of  th§  Artist.) 


Charles  Sprague  Pearce  of  Boston,  who  came  to  Bonnat 
in  1873,  when  he  was  two-and-twenty,  and  has  since  lived 
on  the  Seine  as  one  of  the  finest  artists  of  the  American 
colony,  has  a  preference  for  Picardy.  His  shepherdesses, 
peasant  girls,  and  women  chopping  wood  or  minding  their 
herds,  are  the  works  of  a  man  who  acquired  a  forcible 
technique  under  Bonnat  and  studied  Bastien-Lepage  with  under- 
standing. 

Then  there  is  William  J,  Dannat^  a  broad  painter,  who 
began  his  studies  in  Munich,  and  then  went  to  Munkacsy  in 
Paris.  Now  he  is  a  man  upwards  of  forty,  working  as  teacher 
at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  notable  as  a  spirited  observer 
of  the  pictorial  peculiarities  of  Spain.  He  is  a  dandy  of  art 
for  whom  conventional  beauty  is  a  thing  utterly  thrashed  out, 
a  juggler  of  the  brush  who  can  do  whatever  he  likes,  and  there- 
fore likes  to  show  all  that  he  can  do.  His  earliest  pictures — 
"  A  Quartette,"  "  A  Sacristy  in  Arragon,"  and  so  forth — obviously 


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Pans:  BoiU8od-Valadon,\ 


Dannat  :  "  Spanish  Women." 
{By  p€rmiBsum  of  tfu  Ariiit,) 


owe  their  existence  to  similar  works  of  Manet  At  present 
Degas  is  his  ideal,  and  the  study  of  artificial  light  his  field  of 
experiment  The  representation  of  a  Spanish  ca//  chantant 
made  him  the  enfant  terrible  of  the  Munich  Exhibition  in  1892. 
Six  rouged  and  squalling  Spanish  girls,  clattering  castanets, 
and  each  more  hideous  than  the  other,  are  sitting  upon  a  bench 
s^ainst  a  light  grey  background.  The  electric  light  falling 
full  upon  them  makes  a  caricature  of  every  colour,  and  plays 
upon  their  faces  in  violet,  pale  red,  green,  and  blue  reflections. 
The  whole  thing  looked  like  an  audacious  tavern  sign,  and  it 
was  only  noticed  by  those  who  were  not  disposed  to  lose  their 
temper  that  the  scene  had  been  observed  with  the  ready  instinct 
of  a  Japanese,  and  painted  alia  prima  with  a  sureness  which 
only  few  living  artists  could  command. 

Alexander  Harrison  has  made  a  close  study  of  Besnard  and 
Cazin.  He  has  not  painted  much,  but  every  one  of  his  pictures 
was  a  palpable  hit  The  earliest  and  most  unassuming,  a  small 
landscape,  discreet  and  delicate  in  its  effect,  displayed  a  stream- 


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Pmris:  Batssod-ValadonJ] 


Harrison:  "In  Arcady." 


let  and  trees,  in  the  midst  of  which  a  gap  allowed  the  sight  of 
a  peaceful  landscape  in  the  light  of  evening.  The  second, 
"In  Arcady,"  was  one  of  the  finest  studies  of  light  which  have 
been  painted  since  Manet.  The  manner  in  which  the  sunlight 
fell  upon  the  high  grass  and  slender  trees,  its  rays  gliding  over 
branch  and  shrub,  touching  the  green  blades  like  shining  gold, 
and  glancing  over  the  nude  bodies  of  fair  women — herje  over  a 
hand,  here  over  a  shoulder,  and  here  again  over  the  bosom — was 
painted  with  such  virtuosity,  felt  with  such  poetry,  and  so  free 
from  all  the  heaviness  of  earth  that  one  hardly  had  the  sense 
of  looking  at  a  picture  at  all.  The  luminous  painting  of  Besnard 
had  here  reached  its  final  expression,  and  the  summit  of  classic 
finish  was  surmounted.  His  third  picture  was  called  "  The  Wave." 
To  seize  such  phenomena  of  nature  in  their  completeness — things 
so  fickle  and  so  hard  to  arrest  in  their  mutability — had  been 
the  chief  study  of  French  painters  since  Manet  When  Harrison 
exhibited  his  "  Wave,"  sea-pieces  by  Duez,  Roll,  and  Victor  Binet 
were  also  in  existence  ;  but  Harrison's  "  Wave "  was  the  best 
of  them  all.     The   rendering   of  water,  the  crystal  transparency 


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I^ew  iork:  Apple  ton,] 


Gay:   "The  Sewing-School." 


of  the  billows  with  their  changing  light,  was  in  this  case  so 
extraordinarily  faithful  that  one  was  tempted  to  declare  that 
the  water  of  the  others  was  absolutely  solid,  compared  with 
this  elemental  essence  of  moisture.  If  one  looked  long  at  this 
heaving  and  subsiding  tide,  this  foaming  revel  of  waves,  one 
almost  felt  a  sort  of  giddiness,  and  fancied  one's  self  riding 
upon  the  high-running  crests  of  the  billows  over  the  bottomless 
sea.  Air  and  the  motion  of  waves  were,  during  the  following 
years,  the  chief  objects  of  Harrison's  study.  In  his  picture  of 
1892  a  greenish-yellow  evening  sky  arched  over  a  motionless 
stretch  of  green-yellow  sea,  where  nude  women  were  bathing 
in  the  full  play  of  green-yellow  reflections.  The  entire  picture 
was  almost  one  monotony  of  greenish  yellow  in  its  discreetly 
wavering  hues ;  but  with  what  delicacy  were  these  varieties  of 
tone  differentiated  !  What  play  there  was  of  light !  how  the 
sea  flashed  and  glittered !  and  with  what  a  bloom  the  bodies 
of  the  women  rose  against  the  air !  Evening  lay  dreamy  and 
darkling  over  a  still  woodland  lake  in   his   picture  of  1893.     A 


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funs:  uvunsod'yaiadon.^ 


Melchers:   "The  Sermon.** 


skiff,  with  the  naked  figure  ot  a  young  man  in  it,  sailed  in  this 
far-off  solitude.  The  effect  was  large  and  solemn,  unostentatious 
and  yet  great. 

A  pupil  of  Bonnat,  Walter  Gay  of  Boston,  seems  to  feel 
specially  at  home  amongst  the  peasants  of  the  west  of  France, 
and,  with  that  rather  tiresome  frankness  of  Northern  painters — a 
frankness  which  fails  to  express  the  temperament  of  the  artist 
— he  studies  the  manners  of  the  people  where  they  are  primitive 
and  naive.  Through  large  windows  hung  with  thin  curtains 
the  bright  daylight  falls  into  the  clean  rooms  of  peasants, 
gleaming  on  the  boards  of  the  floor,  the  shining  tops  of  the 
tables,  and  the  white  caps  of  the  women,  who  sit  at  their 
work  sewing ;  it  is  the  familiar  problem  of  light  for  which 
Liebermann,  Kuehl,  and  Uhde  have  also  a  predilection. 
Eugene  Vail^  who  was  influenced  by  Mesdag  and  De  Nittis, 
shrouds  his  Dutch  sea-pieces  and  pictures  of  the  port  of 
London  in  a  heavy,  melancholy  mist.  Walter  MacEwen  of 
Chicago   paints   interiors   with  delicate  light,  moist  sea  air,  and 


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Aig^^g            ~% 

-^^^^■^ 

..     1 

f^  -J  .  ■^tjJ^T^^^pjh^^                                        ■ 

^^^^^^H^P^^^^K   *■     ^^^^^^^^^^H 

HM^SMfc^  Y     N^ggjd 

n      f 

^    3L 

.'Sfift^vycjti!', 

:L^i 

(,*iA^'d 

*fm$i. 

i»M^'tefiiii 

?   ^J*  "t-     " 

)a 

*       '^tV  «i  > 

*»*?     ^'^ 

*r 

.^■,':^^: 

.    '.'^-  ■ 

r        - 

Paris  ;  Boussod-  ValadoM.'\ 


Hitchcock:   "Maternity.*' 


monotonous  dunes  with  labourers  returning  in  the  evening  from 
their  day's  work. 

Before  migrating  to  Paris  both  of  these  painters  had  long 
worked  in  Holland,  whither  Liebermann  had  shown  the  way 
at  the  close  of  the  seventies,  and  where  Gari  Melchers  and 
George  Hitchcock  are  occupied  at  the  present  time. 

Gari  Melchers^  once  a  pupil  of  the  Classicists  Boulanger  and 
Lefebure,  has  something  thoroughly  Dutch  in  his  temperament, 
as  indeed  his  name  would  indicate,  only  he  lacks  the  peculiar 
tenderness  of  the  Dutch.  Like  the  Dutch  amongst  whom  he 
lives,  he  paints  scenes  from  the  life  of  peasants  and  fishermen 
in  Holland,  and  has  discovered  a  peculiarly  congenial  field  of 
study  in  the  plain,  whitewashed  village  churches  of  the  country. 
His  first  effort  of  this  kind,  "The  Sermon"  of  1886,  was 
painted  in  a  very  robust  style,  and  seen  with  sincerity.  A  few 
peasant  women,  in  their  picturesque  costume,  are  sitting  piously 
following  the   words  of  the   preacher,   whom   one   does  not  see,. 


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[Bassano  photo. 
George  Hitchcock. 


though  the  expression  of  the 
faces  IS  painted  so  convincingly 
that  one  seems  to  hear  him.  Gari 
Melchers  is,  indeed,  a  sincere  and 
quiiet  observer,  and  approaches 
nature  with  energy,  though  he 
looks  into  the  world  with  the 
cold  objectivity  of  a  camera. 
His  figures  are  heavy  and 
motionless,  his  pictures  arid  and 
wanting  in  poetry ;  they  are  all 
flooded  with  the  same  hard 
Northern  daylight.  In  the  pre- 
sence of  his  picture  "  The  Lord's 
Supper,"  painted,  as  it  is,  in  such 
a  staid  and  matter-of-fact  style, 
one  almost  feels  compassion  for  people  whose  religion  is  so 
entirely  without  any  sort  of  mystical  grace.  The  church  itselt 
IS  bald  and  monotonous ;  and  the  dull  blue,  green,  and  grey 
colours  of  the  dresses,  which  give  the  picture  its  peculiarly 
chill  and  arid  tone,  are  in  keeping  with  the  church. 

George  Hitchcock^  who  also  lives  in  Egmond,  unites  to  the 
Dutch  phlegm  a  certain  delicate,  English  Preraphaelite  nuance. 
One  knows  the  Dutch  spring,  when,  through  the  famous  culture 
of  flowers,  towns  like  Haarlem  and  Egmond  are  surrounded  with 
a  dazzling,  variegated  carpet  of  tulips,  dark  and  bright  red,  violet 
and  sky-blue,  white  and  bordered  with  yellow,  when  the  air  is 
filled  with  intoxicating  perfume  and  the  nightingales  warble 
in  the  green  woods.  A  picture  like  this,  an  actual  picture 
entitled  "Tulip  Growing,"  was  the  foundation  of  Hitchcock's 
reputation  in  the  Salon  of  1885.  In  one  of  his  later  works 
a  field  of  white  lilies  stretched  along  beside  a  green  meadow. 
The  flowers  had  shot  up  high  and  almost  reached  to  the 
girdle  of  the  young  country  girl  who  moved,  grave  and 
thoughtful,  through  the  idyllic  landscape.  A  faint  circkt  of 
beams  hovered  above  her  head ;  it  was  Mary  awaiting  the 
joyous  tidings  of  the  angel.  The  dunes,  too,  with  their  tall 
vou  in.  31 


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Magwsint  of  Art.  ^ 

Sargent:   "A  Venetian  Street-Scene." 
(J5y  ptrmisaion  of  the  Artist.) 


grey  -  green  grass^ 
and  their  damp  and 
melancholy  atmo- 
sphere, he  had  a 
delight  in  painting. 
Here  stands  a  shep- 
herdess —  one  with 
the  name  of  Jeanne 
d'Arc  —  lost  in 
thought  beside  her 
flock,  and  here 
young  peasant 
wives,  accompanied 
by  their  children,, 
wend  their  way  home  from  their  work  in  the  fields. 

While  these  Americans  at  work  in  Holland  acquire  a  certain 
provincial  character,  a  cordial  and  phlegmatic  trait,  in  harmony 
with  their  place  of  resort,  those  in  London  are  accomplished 
men  of  the  world,  who  have  travelled  much  and  are  graceful, 
subtile,  and  scintillating.  In  Paris  they  have  absorbed  every- 
thing that  is  to  be  learnt  there,  and  they  combine  with  their 
Parisian  ckic  a  fragrant  Anglo-Saxon  aroma. 

At  their  head  stands  John  Singer  Sargent^  one  of  the  most 
dazzling  men  of  talent  in  the  present  day.  Born  in  Florence 
in  1856,  Sargent  is  still  a  young  man.  In  Florence  and  in 
France  he  was  brought  up  arhid  brilliant  surroundings,  and 
thus  acquired  as  a  boy  what  is  wanting  to  many  painters 
throughout  their  whole  lives — refined  and  exquisite  taste.  Having 
copied  portraits  after  the  old  Venetians,  he  began  to  study 
under  Carolus  Duran,  and  he  is  now  what  Carolus  Duran  once 
was — a  painter  of  the  most  mundane  elegance.  Indeed,  com- 
pared with  Sargent's  women,  those  of  Duran  are  like  village 
belles.  Psychological  analysis  of  character,  it  is  true,  is  a  thing 
as  alien  to  him  as  it  was  to  his  teacher ;  but  how  thoroughly 
successful  he  is  in  reproducing  the  fragrant  odeur  de  fevime^. 
and  in  catching  the  physiognomy,  fashion,  gesture,  tone, 
and  spirit  of  a   dignified   aristocracy!     How  vividly  his   women 


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Mag(tzin€  of  Art.'\ 

Sargent:  Portrait  of  Himself. 
{By  pgrmiasioH  of  tht  Artist.) 


Stand  out  in  their  exquisitely 
tasteful  dresses  !  No  one  has 
painted  those  professional 
beauties  who  consecrate  every- 
thing to  self-adoration  with  a 
more  complete  understanding 
of  what  he  was  about.  No 
one  is  so  triumphant  in  ar- 
resting the  haughty  reserve  of 
a  woman,  the  delicate  com- 
plexion of  a  girl,  a  flitting 
smile,  an  ironical  or  timid 
glance,  a  mien,  a  turn  of  the 
head,  or  a  tremor  of  the  lips. 
No  one  has  such  a  compre- 
hension of  the  eloquent  grace 
of  delicate,,  sensitive  hands  playing  with  a  fan  or  quietly  folded 
together.  He  is  the  painter  of  subtile  and  often  strange  and 
curious  beauty,  conscious  of  itself  and  displaying  its  charms  in 
the  best  light — a  fastidious  artist  of  exquisite  taste,  the  most 
refined  painter  of  feminine  portraits  of  the  present  day.  His 
portrait  of  Mrs.  Boit  made  an  impression  of  power  like  a 
Velasquez,  and  those  of  Mrs.  Henry  White,  Mrs.  Comyns  Carr,. 
and  the  group  of  the  Misses  Vickers,  one  of  very  great  dis- 
tinction. In  the  year  1887  he  painted  the  portrait  of  Mrs. 
Playfair,  a  lady  with  a  majestic  figure,  standing  in  yellowish- 
white  silk  with  a  dark  green  mantle  in  front  of  a  white  and 
red  background  ;  that  of  Ellen  Terry  as  Lady  Macbeth  was 
painted  in   1890. 

But  the  smile  of  the  modern  sphinx  is  not  his  only  theme,, 
for  he  also  renders  the  grace  of  high-bred  children  ;  and  as  a 
painter  of  children  he  is  equalled  by  Renoir  alone.  The  four 
little  girls  playing  in  a  great  dark  hall  in  his  "Portrait  of  the 
Misses  F."  were  exquisite  indeed,  and  painted  with  a  veracity 
that  was  entirely  natve  and  novel ;  all  the  poses  were  natural,  all 
the  colours  subtile,  those  of  the  furniture,  the  great  Japanese 
vases,   the    bright    vaporous   dresses,   the   silk   stockings.      In    a 


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TTT 


Gum.  dts  Beaux- Arts.} 


Sargent:  "El  Jaleo." 
(By  permUtion  of  tht  ArtisU) 


picture  of  1891  a]  most  enchanting  young  girl,  seen  full-face,  sat 
bolt-upright  upon  a  plain  high  wooden  chair  in  front  of  dark 
wainscoting,  looking  dreamily  and  unsuspectingly  before  her,  out 
of  widely  opened  brown  eyes,  like  those  of  a  gazelle  ;  while  in 
the  charming  picture  "Carnation  Lily  Lily  Rose,"  which  now 
hangs  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  a  fine  effect  of  light  d  la 
Besnard  is  united  with  delicate  observation  of  child-life.  The 
scene  takes  place  at  the  hour  of  dusk  in  a  pretty  garden  nook 
belonging  to  an  English  country  place.  Amid  green  leaves  and 
rosy  flowers  growing  thickly,  two  little  girls,  with  the  gravest 
faces  in  the  world,  are  intent  on  lighting  great  Japanese  lanterns, 
the  light  of  which  struggles  with  the  twilight,  casting  tremulous 
reddish  beams  upon  the  foliage  and  the  children's  dresses. 

Sargent  is  French  in  his  entire  manner,  and,  above  every- 
thing, a  painter  for  painters.  Of  poetry  and  inward  absorption 
he  has  no  trace.  Like  Besnard,  he  is  a  subtile  virtuoso,  though 
undoubtedly  an  artist  who  challenges  the  admiration  of  his 
fellows,  while  the  great  public  stand  in  perplexity  before  his 
pictures.      His   mitier  interests   him,  and   therefore  he   interests 


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others.  His  pic- 
tures, moreover, 
always  show  the 
work  of  the  hand. 
Every  stroke  can  be 
followed.  Every- 
thing lives  and 
breathes  and  moves 
and  trembles. 
Some  scenes  from 
Venice  and  from 
Spanish  cafh  chan- 
tantSy  perhaps,  show 
the  full  degree  of 
his  ability.  Need- 
less to  state  he  has 
not  represented  the 
Grand  Canal  nor 
the  Palace  of  St 
Mark,  for  anything 
so  banal  and  thread- 
bare would  hardly 
suit  his  taste.  On 
the  contrary,  his 
views  from  Venice 
only  contain  scenes 
from     dark     holes 

and  corners  of  the  town,  or  from  low  halls  where  a  sunbeam  is 
coyly  falling.  Or  a  pair  of  girls,  wrapped  in  dirty  greenish-yellow 
shawls,  are  flitting  through  the  streets  in  their  little  wooden 
shoes  like  lizards.  In  1882  he  painted  a  gipsy  dance  with  a 
gallant  maestria  which  would  have  delighted  Goya.  Degas 
alone  would  have  rendered  the  movement  of  the  dancing-girl, 
in  all  her  melting  lines,  with  such  astonishing  sureness  of  hand, 
and  Manet  alone  would  have  rendered  the  guitarrero  with  so 
much  naturalness.  One  of  his  later  masterpieces,  "  Carmencita," 
a  portrait  of  the  Spanish  dancer,  dressed  in  orange  and  advancing 


Sargent  :  "  Carhencita.' 


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478  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  the  footlights  with  her  hand  resting  upon  her  hip,  has  come 
into  the  possession  of  the  Muste  Luxembourg. 

Together  with  Sargent  amongst  the  London  Americans,  Henry 
Muhmiann  has  specially  come  to  the  front  at  recent  exhibitions. 
Trained  in  Munich,  he  now  works  by  preference  in  Hastings, 
and  amid  the  dark  cliffs  of  this  old  seaside  town  he  has  painted 
landscapes  of  a  dim,  melancholy,  and  earnest  depth.  With 
their  fine  instinct  for  novelty,  their  presage  of  the  tendency  of 
the  future,  the  Americans  are  well  able  to  estimate  the  value 
of  European  schools  of  art.  For  this  reason  they  seek  neither 
Berlin  nor  Diisseldorf  amongst  German  centres  of  art,  but 
only  Munich,  nor  did  they  come  even  here  until  Munich  had 
•decisively  joined  in  the  great  modern  movement 

In  Munich  Carl  Marr  has  acquired  the  reputation  of  being 
an  artist  of  uncommon  soundness.  He  cannot  be  called  par- 
ticularly spirited  nor  particularly  intimate  in  feeling ;  and  many 
young  painters  shake  their  heads  with  indifference  when  they 
behold  his  pictures — wearisome  and  sound,  sound  and  wearisome. 
Marr  is  no  stormy  revolutionary;  he  is  a  worker,  a  born 
professor  for  an  academy,  whose  talent  is  made  up  of  the 
elements  of  will,  work,  study,  and  patience.  He  is  possessed 
of  an  arid  precision,  to  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  do  justice, 
and  through  this  quiet,  sure-footed  Naturalism,  free  from  all 
extravagances,  he  has  won  many  admirers — not  indeed  amongst 
epicures,  but  at  any  rate  amongst  the  conservatives  in  art 

His  large  "  Procession  of  Flagellants,"  by  which  he  introduced 
himself  to  the  artistic  world  in  1889,  was  a  good,  serious,  historical 
picture,  which  had  no  false  vehemence.  One  could  not  go 
into  great  raptures  at  seeing  a  bright  historical  painting  taking 
the  place  of  one  which  was  brown,  but  it  was  impossible  not 
to  recognize  the  draughtsmanlike  qualities  and  the  courage 
and  endurance  requisite  for  illustrating  so  big  a  canvas.  His 
next  picture,  "Germany  in  1806,"  was  more  intimate  and  sensitive 
in  feeling :  in  subject,  indeed,  it  was  not  entirely  free  from  features 
savouring  of  German  genre  and  Die  Gartenlaube^  but  from  a 
technical  standpoint  it  had  interest,  since  it  bore  witness,  for 
the   first    time,   to  the   observation   of   twilight    in    an    interior, 


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AMERICA  479 

after  a  period  in  which  brightness  of  painting  had  been  insisted 
on  in  a  one-sided  fashion.  Even  in  his  "Summer  Day"  of 
1892  he  showed  that  he  had  the  art  of  producing  a  genre 
picture  intelligible  to  the  great  public  with  the  resources  of 
modern  plein-air  painting.  The  girls,  and  mothers  and  children, 
sitting  under  the  leaves  in  the  garden,  were  pretty  enough  to 
delight  the  Sunday  crowd  of  sightseers,  while  the  brilliancy 
of  the  sun  rippling  through  the  foliage,  and  the  motes  of  light 
playing  upon  the  ground  and  the  human  figures,  were  inter- 
preted with  consummate  ability.  In  fact  Marr  has  the  capacity 
of  satisfying  every  one.  His  pictures  attract  the  most  incompetent 
judges  because  they  tell  a  story,  and  yet  the  soundness  of 
their  technique  is  so  great  that  they  cannot  offend  the  most 
-exacting. 

Charles  Frederick  Ulrich^  who  was  born  in  New  York,  and 
afterwards  became  a  pupil  of  Lofftz  and  Lindenschmit,  has 
found  much  that  is  pretty  to  paint  in  Italy.  In  fact  he  takes  a 
place  in  the  group  represented  by  Ludwig  Pasini,  Zezzos,  Nono, 
Tito,  Cecil  van  Haanen,  Franz  Ruben,  Eugene  Blaas,  William 
Logsdail,  Henry  Woods,  and  others.  The  richly  coloured  city  of 
the  lagunes  is  his  domain — not  romantic  Venice,  but  the  Venice 
of  the  day,  with  its  narrow  ways  and  pretty  girls,  Venice  with 
its  glittering  effects  of  light  and  picturesque  figures  in  the  streets. 
Laundresses  and  women  making  bouquets  sit  laughing  and 
jesting  over  their  work — the  same  coquettish  girls  with  black  or 
red  hair,  pearly  white  teeth,  and  neat  little  slippers  who  move 
also  in  the  works  of  Tito.  What  distinguishes  Ulrich  from  the 
Italians  is  merely  that  he  loves  refinement  and  softness  in  making 
transitions,  mild  lustre  of  colour,  and  distinction  and  sobriety  in 
general  tone,  after  the  fashion  of  the  English  water-colour  artists, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  pyrotechnics  of  Fortuny. 

Mention  should  be  made  also  of  the  portraits  and  unpre- 
tentious sketches  from  street-life  in  Munich  by  Robert  Koehler 
of  Milwaukee,  and  of  good  landscapes  and  etchings  by  Sion 
Wenban.  Orrin  Peck  attracted  attention  in  1889  by  a  picture 
named  "From  Him,"  a  thoughtful  piece  of  Dusseldorfian  work 
Avith   modern   technique.      And   Hermann  Harhvich^   a   pupil  of 


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48o  MODERN  PAINTING 

Lofftz,  chiefly  finds  his  subjects  in  South  Tyrol  and  the  North 
of  Italy:  interiors  with  grandmothers  and  children,  laundresses 
upon  sunny  meadows,  or  winter  landscapes  with  cattle-dealers 
and  shivering  animals. 

True  it  is  that  all  these  painters  reveal  nothing  American.  They 
are,  indeed,  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  their  French,  English, 
and  German  colleagues.  But  the  swiftness  and  ability  with  which 
America  came  to  support  herself  upon  European  crutches  in  the 
matter  of  technique  is  all  the  more  admirable.  All  these  men 
have  become  good  soldiers  in  the  armies  of  foreign  leaders.  They 
have  learnt  to  stand  firmly  on  their  feet  in  Europe,  and  that  in 
itself  is  a  great  achievement.  Even  as  late  as  the  year  1878- 
Mr.  G.  W.  Sheldon  was  able  to  write  in  an  article  upon  American 
art  published  in  Harper's  Magazine :  "  The  great  defect  of 
American  art — to  speak  in  the  spirit  of  self-examination  and 
soberness — is  ignorance.  American  artists,  with  a  few  conspicuous 
exceptions,  have  not  mastered  the  science  of  their  profession. 
They  did  not  learn  early  enough  how  to  draw ;  they  have  not 
practised  drawing  persistently  enough  or  long  enough.  .  .  .  They 
have  not  clear  ideas  of  what  art  is  and  of  what  art  demands." 

But  now  after  less  than  twenty  years  exactly  the  opposite  has 
come  to  pass.  What  is  striking  in  all  American  pictures  is  their 
eminent  technical  ability.  There  is  displayed  in  these  pictures 
a  strenuous  discipline  of  talent,  an  eff'ort  to  probe  the  subject  as 
artistically  as  possible,  a  thoroughness  seldom  equalled  even  by 
the  "  thoroughness  "  of  the  Germans.  And  technique  being  the 
basis  of  every  art,  the  groundwork  for  the  growth  of  a  specially 
American  school  has  been  thus  created. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  for  one  who  is  not  an  American 
to  make  for  himself  any  clear  sketch  of  transatlantic  art  But 
according  to  the  accounts  which  reach  us  from  the  United  States, 
a  powerful  artistic  movement,  expressing  itself  by  the  foundation 
of  numerous  galleries,  art  schools,  and  art  unions,  must  have 
passed  through  the  country  during  the  last  twenty  years.  In 
every  really  large  town  there  are  industrial  museums  and  picture 
galleries,  and  sometimes  these  are  of  great  importance ;  the 
modern  section  of  the  New  York  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art, 


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AMERICA  481 

in  particular,  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  kind.  Academies  of  Art 
have  sprung  up  in  all  directions,  the  most  distinguished  being 
those  of  Boston,  New  York,  Newhaven,  and  Philadelphia,  beside 
which  there  are  comprehensive  private  collections.  Their  illus- 
trated magazines  are  supported  by  a  most  extensive  circle  of 
readers,  and  are  sometimes  periodicals  of  such  high  artistic 
character  that  Europe  has  nothing  similar  that  can  be  placed 
beside  them.  The  Century  and  Harper's  Magazine^  for  instance, 
count  amongst  their  illustrators  men  whose  names  are  held  in 
esteem  in  both  hemispheres,  such  as  Edwin  A,  Abbey ^  Charles  5. 
Reinhart^  Howard  Pyle^  Joseph  Pennell^  and  Alfred  Parsons.  More- 
over a  new  school  for  the  art  of  woodcut  engraving  has  come 
into  being,  with  Frederick  Jungling,  Closson,  and  Timothy  Cole 
at  its  head,  and  these  men  stand  to  their  European  colleagues  as 
a  spirited  etcher  to  a  neat  line-engraver  in  copper.  And  even  as 
regards  painting,  the  Paris  Exhibition  of  1889  and  the  Munich 
Exhibition  of  1892  bore  witness  that  an  individual  movement  was 
already  stirring  in  America,  and  that  American  art  was  no  longer 
an  appanage  of  European,  but  an  independent  growth,  an 
organism  which  had  set  itself  free  from  Europe.  In  the  Paris 
Exhibition  of  1855  the  Americans  had  no  section  to  themselves. 
In  1867,  it  is  true,  they  had  three  sides  of  a  small  inner  gallery, 
but  only  excited  interest  amongst  their  compatriots.  In  1878 
they  were  represented  by  a  larger  quantity  of  pictures  and  better 
quality.  But  in  1889  the  American  section  was  one  of  the  most 
admirable  in  the  World  Exhibition.  Not  only  were  there  painters 
who,  after  they  had  become  known  in  Europe,  had  continued  to 
work  energetically  according  to  the  principles  acquired  in  the  old 
world,  but  there  were  likewise  young  artists  who  had  completed 
their  schooling  across  the  ocean,  and  boldly  went  their  own  way, 
untouched  by  European  influences.  Moreover  older  artists  were 
discovered,  men  whose  relationship  to  our  own  schools  it  was  by 
no  means  easy  to  establish,  though  they  took  a  place  beside  the 
most  individual  masters  in  Europe. 

And  yet  one  is  not  brought  into  the  "  Wild  West "  by  these 
American  masters.  Hordes  of  Indians,  grazing  buffaloes,  burning 
prairies  and  virgin  forests,  gold-diggers,  fur-traders,  and  Roman- 


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482 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Ntw  York :  AppUion.^ 


Homer:   *'The  Negro  School/' 


ticism  of  the  **  Leather  Stocking  "  order  may  be  sought  in  their 
works  in  vain.  The  many-sided  IVinslow  Hovur^  the  painter  of 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  is  striking  as  the  only  one  of  them  who 
represents  in  his  subjects  what  we  should  understand  as  peculiarly 
American.  He  took  an  interest  in  the  coloured  population,  and 
had  the  secret  of  kindling  an  interest  for  them  in  Europeans  also. 
His  negro  studies,  his  representations  of  the  land  and  the  people, 
his  pictures  of  the  American  soil  with  the  race  of  men  whose  home 
it  is,  are  often  rather  narve  in  painting,  but  they  are  honest  and 
sincere,  baptized  in  American  water.  He  was  a  vigorous  realist 
who  went  straight  to  the  mark  and  painted  his  open-air  scenes  in 
sunlight  fluently  from  nature.  Thus  he  was  the  first  energetic 
representative  of  open-air  painting  in  America. 

Moreover  Alfred  Kappes  has  sometimes  given  felicitous 
renderings  of  negro  life.  G,  Brushy  on  the  other  hand,  borrows 
his  subjects  from  the  life  of  the  Indians,  while  Robert  Blum 
paints    Japanese    street-scenes     full    of   sunlight    and     lustrous 


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AMERICA 


483 


Ntw  York:  AppUton.] 


Inness:  a  Landscape. 


colour.  For  the  rest,  American  art  is  a  rhuvi^  of  the  art  of 
Europe,  just  as  the  race  itself  is  a  medley  of  the  civilized 
peoples  of  the  old  world.  Of  the  peculiarity  of  life  in  the 
West  it  has  nothing  so  original  and  unexpected  to  reveal  as 
the  things  which  Mark  Twain  and  Bret  Harte  have  told  in 
literature.  Yet  it  is  an  exceedingly  tasteful  rhumiy  and  if 
America  still  counts  as  a  convenient  market  for  the  commercial 
wares  of  Europe,  this  does  not  mean  that  there  are  no  painters 
in  the  country,  but  merely  that  American  painters  are  too 
proud  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  picture-dealers.  This  reaction 
found  its  weightiest  expression  in  1878,  in  the  foundation  of 
the  Society  of  American  Artists,  the  first  article  in  whose 
statutes  was  that  they  did  not  accept  Cabanel,  Bouguereau, 
and  Meyer  of  Bremen  as  their  leaders,  but  Millet,  Corot,  and 
Rousseau.  The  founders  of  this  society  were  Walter  Shirlaw^ 
who  had  come  home  from  Munich,  George  Fuller,  who  had 
lived  upon  his  farm  in  quiet  retirement,  far  from  the  artistic 
life  of  capitals,  George  Inness,  Wyatt  Eaton,  Morris  Hunt,  and 
Thomas  Moran,     It   is  the   chief  merit  of  these  men  that   they 


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484  MODERN  PAINTING 

made  the  noble  art  of  the  Fontainebleau  colony  the  basis  of 
artistic  effort  in  America. 

George  Inness  made  himself  for  the  first  time  known  in  Germany 
in  1892  by  three  landscapes.  "  Sunset,"  painted  in  1888,  displayed 
a  few  withered  trees  upon  a  lonely  heath,  and  a  blue-black 
sky,  where  a  deep  red  sun  broke  forth  from  the  rent  clouds. 
The  second  picture,  "Winter  Morning,"  represented  a  season 
which  is  dear  to  English  painters  likewise — the  verge  of  spring 
before  nature  grows  verdant,  and  when  the  trees  and  shrubs 
show  their  earliest  buds,  and  a  suggestion  of  coming  blossom 
peeps  through  the  remnants  of  the  snow  which  still  cover  the 
fields  with  a  dirty  brownish  grey.  The  third  picture,  "  A 
Calm  Day,"  displayed  a  few  trees  on  the  border  of  a  lake  in 
the  dusk :  the  forms  of  nature  here  were  merely  a  medium  by 
which  the  painter  represented  the  play  of  finely  balanced 
tones. 

It  then  became  known  that  George  Inness,  a  master  whom 
his  contemporaries  had  not  known  how  to  value,  and  who  first 
received  his  laurels  from  the  younger  generation,  was  born  as 
early  as  May  ist,  1825,  in  Newburgh  (Orange  County),  near 
the  romantic  banks  of  the  Hudson,  where  simple,  rustic,  and 
idyllic  landscapes  stretch  hard  by  the  virgin-forest  scenery  of 
America.  When  he  began  to  paint,  R.  Gignoux,  who  had  come 
from  France  and  held  the  masters  of  Barbizon  in  great 
veneration,  had  just  entered  into  the  full  possession  of  his 
powers.  At  his  studio  Inness  beheld  the  first  landscapes  of  the 
Fontainebleau  school,  and  became  more  familiarly  acquainted 
with  their  works  through  a  residence  in  Europe  extending 
from  1 87 1  to  1875.  In  these  later  years  he  worked  upon  his 
most  important  creations.  His  life,  like  that  of  Corot,  was  a 
constant  renovation  of  artistic  power.  Like  Corot,  he  began 
with  views  from  Italy.  Simple  pictures  from  the  Roman 
Campagna  alternated  with  straightforward  representations  of  the 
Gulf  of  Naples.  Then,  for  a  time,  he  became  a  Romanticist, 
embellishing  the  wild  woods  of  America  with  angels  and 
pilgrims,  monks  and  crucifixes.  But  in  the  sixties  the  marvels 
of  light   became  his  field   of  study,   and   some  of   the    pictures 


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AMERICA 


485 


Munich:  Hanfaiangl.] 

Hassam  :  "  Seventh  Avenue,  New  York,** 

which  he  painted  at  that  time — for  example,  the  large  work 
"Light  Triumphant" — might  have  been  signed  by  Turner. 
Grey  clouds  shift  across  the  firmament,  and  behind  them  stands 
the  shining  globe  of  the  sun ;  all  the  sky  quivers  like  fluid 
gold ;  shining  yellow  is  the  stream  which  flows  through  the 
meadow ;  and  sunbeams  ripple  through  the  branches  of  the 
trees  and  glance  upon  the  brown  glistening  hide  of  the  cattle 
and  the  white  horses  of  the  cowboys.  Sad  and  sombre,  and 
covered  with  thick  darkness,  was  "The  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death,"  with  the  distant  cross  upon  which  the  body  of  the 
Saviour  hung  shining.  But  in  these  days  this  same  Romanticist 
has  purged  himself  and  become  quiet  in  manner,  classic,  like 
a  painter  of  the  Fontainebleau  school  whose  name  one  cannot 
recall.  He  loves  the  world  when  it  lies  in  a  solemn  dusk, 
rolling  country  with  leafless  boughs  and  withered  bushes ;  though 
he   also  delights  in  the  red,  glowing  splendours  of  sunset   and 


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486 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Munich :  Han/stdngl.] 


Vonnoh:    "A  Poppy  Field.** 


the  dark  thunderstorm.  At  times  he  is  broad  and  powerful 
like  Rousseau,  at  times  delicate  with  the  Elysian  sentiment  of 
Corot,  here  idyllically  rustic  like  Daubigny,  and  here  full  of 
vehement  lament  like  Dupr6.  All  his  pictures  are  tone- 
symphonies,  broadly  painted,  deeply  harmonized,  and  in  perfect 
concord.  And  the  history  of  art  must  hold  him  in  honour  as- 
one  of  the  most  delicate  and  many-sided  landscapists  of  the 
century. 

Wyatt  Eaton  became  the  American  Millet  Having  been* 
first  a  pupil  of  Leutze  in  Diisseldorf  and  then  for  many  years- 
in  Barbizon,  he  began  to  paint  reapers,  wood-choppers,  and 
peasants  resting  from  their  work — in  fact  all  those  country 
motives  naturalized  in  art  by  the  poetic  genius  of  Jean  Francois. 
Wyatt  Eaton's  talent,  however,  has  not  the  robust  largencss- 
or  the  complete  rusticity  of  the  master  of  Gruchy  ;  nevertheless 
it  holds  itself  aloof  from  the  manufactured  elegance  by  which 
Jules  Breton  obtained  admission  into  the  drawing-room  for 
Millet's  peasants.  His  representation  of  country  life  is  sincere 
and  honest,  though  his  painting,  like  Millet's,  has  a  certain 
laboured  heaviness.  Men,  and  trees,  and  haystacks  are  touched 
by  the  same  oily  light. 

A  younger  artist,  Dwight  William  Tryon,  who  has  been  since 


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AMERICA 


487 


1885  the  Director 
of  the  Hartford 
school  of  art,  had 
his  eye  disciplined 
under  Daubigny. 
There  may  be  seen 
in  his  pictures,  as 
in  Daubigny's,  a 
silvery  grey  atmo- 
sphere, against 
which  the  tracery 
of  young  foliage 
stands  out  in  re- 
lief, green  shining 
meadows  and  softly 
rippling  streams, 
corn-fields,  apple- 
trees,  and  fruit- 
gardens.  In  his 
delicate  little  pic- 
ture "  The  Rising  Moon,"  exhibited  in  the  Munich  Exhibition 
of  1892,  the  parting  flush  of  evening  plays  over  a  bluish-green 
haystack  with  a  dusky  yellow  light.  His  second  picture,  "  Day- 
break," displayed  a  lake  and  a  sleeping  town,  over  which  the 
grey  dawn  cast  its  hesitating  beams.  In  his  third  picture^ 
"  December,"  he  rendered  a  strip  of  sedge  and  a  grey  fallow- 
ground  over  which  there  rested,  sad  and  chill,  a  grey  heavy 
stratum  of  atmosphere,  pierced  by  yellowish  streaks  of  light. 

/.  Appleton  Brown,  whose  works  made  a  stir  in  the  Salon  as 
early  as  the  seventies,  is  compared  with  Duprd  by  American 
critics.  His  favourite  key  of  colour  is  that  of  dun-coloured 
sunset,  and  against  it  a  gnarled  oak  or  the  yellow  sail  of  a  small 
craft  stretches  like  a  dark  phantom.  That  admirable  painter  of 
animals,  Peter  Moran,  turned  early  from  Landseer  to  Rosa 
Bonheur  and  Troyon.  One  of  his  brothers,  Thomas  Moran, 
gave  himself  up  to  the  study  of  landscape,  and  the  other,. 
Edward,  to  that  of  the  sea  and  life  upon  the  strand.      They  are 


Cox :   "  Evening.' 


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488 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Munich  :  liftn^iian^Ly 


Dewing  :   "  At  the  Piano." 


in  every  sense  American  artists,  men  who  borrow  their  subjects 
from  American  scenery  only,  depicting  it  under  a  peculiarly 
brilliant  light  In  Thomas  Moran's  pictures  from  the  virgin 
forests  of  the  South  all  objects  are  enveloped  in  the  golden 
haze  of  Turner.  Waterfalls  and  glowing  red,  blue,  and  violet 
masses  of  cliff  are  bathed  in  sunny  mist,  in  orange,  tender  blue, 
or  light  green  atmosphere.  Edward  Moran  painted  fishermen 
and  fisher-women  at  their  toil  or  returning  home :  water  and 
strand,  people  and  vessels,  vanish  into  a  blue  haze  which  de- 
composes all  outlines.  L.  C,  Tiffany  established  himself  in  the 
port  of  New  York,  and  painted  charming  things  which  yield  in 
nothing  to  those  of  Vollon :  in  the  foreground  are  ships  and 
men  at  work,  and  in  the  background  the  piquant  outline  of 
New  York  rising  out  of  the  mist,  and  reflected  in  the  clear 
water  of  the  ocean,  gilded  by  the  dawn.  The  works  of  John 
Francis  Murphy  are  full  of  intimate  feeling,  and  although  his 
dark  regions  of  wood,  sedge-grown  pools,  and  peasant  cabins 
were   painted    on   the    Hudson,    they    have   been   seen,    in   their 


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AMERICA 


489 


Amtrican  Art  JReviiw.] 

WiLUAM  Merrit  Chase. 


delicately  toned  poetry  of  nature, 
entirely  with  the  eyes  of  a 
Fon  tainebleau   painter. 

The  younger  men  passed 
from  beauty  recalling  the  old 
masters,  and  the  clarity  bathed 
in  radiance  which  Turner  loved, 
to  the  study  of  more  complicated 
effects  of  light.  Fire,  lamplight, 
and  sunlight  strive  for  the 
mastery  upon  their  canvases. 
Childe  HassaiHy  who  returned 
some  years  ago  from  Paris  to 
America,  has  rendered  the  street- 
life  of  New  York  in  fresh  and 
fleeting  sketches :  snow,  smoke, 
and  flaring  gaslight  pouring 
through  the  shop  -  windows, 
quivering  out  into  the  night,  and 

reflected  in  an  intense  blaze  upon  the  faces  of  men  and  women. 
Julian  Alden  Weir,  son  of  Robert  Walter  Weir,  the  American 
Piloty,  worked  in  Paris  under  G^rdme,  though  he  would  seem 
to  have  made  a  far  more  frequent  study  of  Cazin.  His  simple 
little  pictures — field-paths  leading  between  meadows,  narrow 
rivulets  rippling  by  the  side  of  dusty  roads— have  that  softly 
meditative  and  tenderly  dreamy  trait  which  is  the  note  of 
Cazin's  landscapes.  Another  of  these  painters,  N.  W.  Ranger^ 
loves  the  quiet  hour  when  the  lighted  gaslamps  contend 
against  the  fading  day,  and  the  electric  light  pierces  the  sea  of 
smoke  and  mist  hanging  over  the  streets  with  its  keen  rays. 
As  befits  his  Dutch  origin,  Alexander  van  Laer  has  in  his  sea- 
pieces  more  of  a  leaning  towards  Mesdag*s  grey  tones.  Bisbing 
paints  large  landscapes,  saturated  by  light  and  air,  with  cows 
somnolently  resting  in  the  sun  ;  while  Davis  has  the  secret  of 
interpreting  the  greyish-blue  eff*ects  of  morning  with  great 
delicacy.  And  the  younger  Inness  has  a  fondness  for  departing 
thunder-showers,  rainbows,  and   misty  red  sunbeams  penetrating 

VOL.  III.  32 


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490 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Munich :  HanfstdnglJ] 


Chase  :   "  In  the  Park." 


in  the  form  of  wedges  through  a  sea  of  mist,  and  restmg  upon 
wide  stony  fields. 

Unhackneyed,  desperately  unhackneyed,  unhackneyed  to  ex- 
aggeration are  the  figure-painters  also.  That  enlivening  artist 
/.  G.  Brown^  indefatigable  in  portraying  the  street-arabs  of 
New  York  ;  /.  M.  C,  Hamilton,  who  based  himself  upon  Alfred 
Stevens;  the  miniature-painter  Ignaz  Marcel  Gaugengigl\  and 
even  /.  Ridgway  Knight  of  Philadelphia,  a  Bastien-Lepage 
transposed  into  the  key  of  feminine  prettiness ;  these,  with  their 
smooth,  neat,  conscientious  painting,  no  longer  fit  into  the 
general  plan  of  American  art.  The  younger  men*  do  not  waste 
their  time  over  such  work  of  detail  done  with  a  fine  brush,  in 
addition  to  which  the  ordinary  grey  painting  is  too  simple  for 
them.  Some  of  them,  like  Eliuh  Vedder  and  Frederick  S. 
Churchy  move  in  a  grotesquely  fantastic  world  of  ideas.  Others 
attempt  the  most  hazardous  schemes  of  colour,  and  often  excite 
the  impression  that  their  pictures  have  not  been  painted  with 
the  brush  at  all.  In  this  respect  that  bold  colourist  Robert 
William     Vonnoh    reached    the    extreme    limit    at    the    Munich 


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AMERICA  491 

Exhibition  of  1892;  His  gleaming  and  flaming  picture  of  a 
field  of  poppies,  where  a  girl  was  playing,  while  the  glowing 
July  sun  glanced  over  it,  is  less  like  an  oil-picture  than  a  relief 
in  oils.  The  unmixed  red  had  been  directly  pressed  on  to  the 
canvas  from  the  tube  in  broad  masses,  and  stood  flickering 
against  the  blue  air ;  and  the  bluish-green  leaves  were  placed 
beside  them  by  the  same  direct  method,  white  lights  being 
attained  by  judiciously  managed  fragments  of  blank  canvas. 
Never  yet  was  war  so  boldly  declared  against  all  the  con- 
ventional usages  of  the  studio ;  never  yet  were  such  barbaric 
means  employed  to  attain  an  astounding  effect  of  light.  Even 
with  portrait-painting  the  most  subtile  studies  of  light  were 
combined  :  the  persons  sit  before  the  hearth  or  beneath  a 
lamp,  irradiated  with  the  light  of  the  fire ;  hands,  face,  and 
clothes  are  covered  with  reflections  of  the  flame.  And  Charles 
Edmund  Tarbelly  who,  like  Besnard,  regards  the  human  brain 
merely  as  a  medium  for  perceiving  effects  of  light,  is  in  the 
habit  of  briefly  naming  his  broadly  executed  pictures  of  girls 
"An  Opal"  or  "An  Amethyst"  to  suit  the  tone  of  the  pre- 
vailing illumination. 

But  as  the  Americans  were  the  first  to  follow  Manet's 
painting  of  light,  so  were  they  also  the  first  to  adopt  that 
lyricism  of  colour  originated  by  Watts  and  Whistler,  and  now 
extending  over  European  painting  in  wider  and  wider  circles. 
Kenyan  Cox,  a  pupil  of  Gerdme  and  Carolus  Duran,  who  in 
earlier  days  painted  large  mythological  pictures  in  the  manner 
of  French  Classicism,  had  in  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1892  a 
marvellous  nude  figure  of  a  woman  in  front  of  a  deep  Titian- 
esque  group  of  trees — a  work  which  might  have  been  painted  by 
a  modern  Scotchman,  so  full  in  tone  were  the  chords  of  colour 
which  he  struck  on  it. 

A  pupil  of  Boulanger  and  Lefebure,  W.  Thomas  Dewingy 
like  Whistler,  paints  pale,  slender  women  resting  in  the  twilight, 
and  one  of  his  pictures— a  young  lady  in  black  silk  sitting  at 
the  piano  before  a  silvery  grey  wall — had  in  its  refined  grey 
and  black  tones  something  of  the  brilliant,  knightly  verve  which 
is  elsewhere  only  to  be  found  in  Orchardson.    Julius  Rolshoven 


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492  MODERN  PAINTING 

who  now  lives  in  Cincinnati,  after  having  long  painted  in  Italy, 
exhibited  pictures  from  Venice — girls  kneeling  before  the  image 
of  the  Virgin  at  the  sound  of  the  Ave  Maria,  views  of  the 
Doge's  palace  or  of  Chioggia — and  in  these  pictures  too  there 
was  nothing  of  the  sunny  play  of  light  which  modem  Italians 
shed  over  such  scenes ;  on  the  contrary  powerful  greenish-blue 
tones  were  spread  out,  with  an  effect  of  dark  and  solemn 
gravity. 

William  Merrit  Chase  has  studied  the  symphonic  harmonies 
of  the  great  magician  Whistler  with  the  finest  understanding  for 
them.  In  the  seventies  Chase  counted  as  one  of  the  most 
original  amongst  the  younger  pupils  of  Piloty,  and  works  of 
his  belonging  to  that  period,  such  as  "The  Court  Fool"  and 
the  picture  of  the  street-arabs  smoking,  were  good  genre 
pieces  in  the  German  style.  But  in  1883  he  surprised  every 
one  by  his  vivid  portrait  of  the  painter  Frank  Duvenek,  who 
was  seated,  with  American  nonchalance,  facing  the  back  of  a 
chair,  smoking  a  cigar,  as  also  by  his  portrait  of  F.  S.  Church, 
and  by  some  fine  landscapes — Venetian  canal  pictures  and 
desolate  American  cliffs.  From  being  a  pupil  of  Piloty  he  had 
become  a  bold  painter  in  bright  tones,  revelling  in  the  whitest 
sunlight  In  the  decade  which  has  passed  since  that  time 
Velasquez,  whom  he  copied  in  Spain,  and  Whistler,  under 
whose  influence  he  was  in  London,  led  him  forwards  from  mere 
bright  painting  to  that  beauty  of  tone  which  is  now  sought 
in  all  quarters  of  Europe  by  the  most  advanced  men  of  the  age. 
The  present  Director  of  the  Art  Students*  League  paints,  when 
he  is  in  the  mood,  in  a  very  fine  and  delicate  grey,  as  in  the 
park-scene  entitled  "Two  Friends."  He  is  bright  and  full  of 
bloom  when  he  paints  graceful  children,  slender  girls  with 
brown  curling  hair,  walking  in  green  sunny  fields  and  clothed 
in  dazzling  white,  playing  at  the  edge  of  a  pond  or  jumping 
about  over  gaily  coloured  skipping-ropes.  He  revek  as  a  land- 
scapist  in  deep  chords  of  colour  recalling  Scotch  painters, 
and  makes  a  sombre  and  powerful  effect  in  his  portrait  of 
Whistler. 

So  America  has  an  art  of  her  own.     Yet  even  those  Americans 


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AMERICA  493 

who  work  in  their  native  land  betray  an  accent  less  national 
than  the  Danes,  for  example,  or  the  Dutch  ;  and  national  accent 
they  cannot  have  because  the  entire  civilization  of  America,  far 
more  than  that  of  other  countries,  is  exposed  to  international 
influences.  They  possess  no  captivating  intimacy  of  emotion, 
they  know  nothing  of  confidential  revelations,  but  clearness  of 
eye  they  have,  and  deftness  of  hand,  and  refined  taste,  and 
they  understand  admirably  the  secret  of  creating  an  illusion  by 
technique.  Let  Europe  or  America  be  their  home,  they  are 
children  of  the  New  World,  the  most  modern  amongst  the 
moderns. 


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CHAPTER   XLV 

GERMANY 

Retrospect  of  the  development  of  German  fainting  since  Menzel  and 
LeibL—The  landscapists  had  been  the  first  to  make  the  influence 
of  Fontainebleau  operative:  Adolf  Lier,  Adolf  Staebli,  Otto  Frdh- 
licher,  Josef  Wenglein^  Louis  Neubert,  Carl  Heffner,—The  Munich 
Exhibition  of  1879  brings  about  an  acquaintance  with  Manet  and 
Bastien-Lepage :  Max  Liebermann. — The  other  representatives  of 
the  new  art  in  Berlin :  Franz  Skarbina,  Friedrich  Stahl^  Hans 
Herrmann,  Hugo  Vogel,  Walter  Leistikow,  Rein  hold  Lepsius,  Curt 
Herrmann,  Lesser  Ury,  Ludwig  Dettmann, —  Vienna,^ Dussel- 
dorf:  Arthur  Kampf  Kdmpffer,  Olaf  Jernberg,— Stuttgart : 
Otto  Reiniger,  Robert  Haug.— Hamburg :  Thomas  Herbst, — 
Carlsruhe:  Gustav  Schdnleber,  Herrmann  Baisch,  Friedrich  Kail- 
morgen,  Robert  Poetzelberger,— Weimar :  Theodor  Hagen,  Baron 
Gleichen-Russwurm,  L,  Berkemeier,  R,  Thierbach,  P,  Baum, — 
Munich:  Bruno  Piglhein,  Albert  Keller,  Baron  von  Haber- 
mann.  Count  Leopold  Kalckreuth,  Gotthard  Kuehl,  Paul  Hbcker, 
H  ZUgel,  Victor  Weishaupt,  L.  Dill,  L.  Herterich,  Waclaw 
Scymanowski,  Hans  Olde,  A,  Langhammer,  Leo  Samberger^  W,  Firle, 
H  von  Bartels,  W.  Keller-Reutlingen,  and  others.^The  illustrators : 
Reni  Reinicke,  H.  Schlittgen,  Hengeler,  Wahle, 

C'^ERMANY  was  longest  in  putting  off  the  old  Adam  and 
^  joining  in  the  great  tendency  which  was  flooding  Europe ; 
and  yet  the  old  Adam  had  been  neither  thoroughly  French  nor 
thoroughly  German.  As  late  as  1878  the  Gazette  des  Beaux 
Arts — the  journal  best  qualified  to  form  an  estimate  upon  works 
of  art— in  its  article  upon  the  World  Exhibition,  was  able  to 
summarize  its  judgment  of  the  German  galleries  in  these  words : 
"  There  are  one  or  two  artists  of  the  first  rank  and  many  men 
of  talent,  but  in  other  respects  German  painting  is  still  upon 
the  level  of  the  schools  which  had  their  day  amongst  us  thirty 


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GERMANY  495 

years  ago;  this  is  the  solitary  school  of  painting  which  does 
not  seem  to  perceive  that  the  age  of  railways  and  World 
Exhibitions  needs  an  art  different  from  that  of  the  age  of 
philosophy  and  provincial  isolation."  The  pigtail,  which  in 
earlier  days  had  been  the  mode  in  other  countries,  had  been 
worn  so  long  that  it  was  now  piously  represented  to  be  "the 
German  national  style."  It  had  vanished  out  of  all  recollection 
that  historical  painting  had  been  imported  in  1842  from  Belgium, 
whither  it  was  brought  from  Paris  in  1830.  In  the  course  of 
years  it  had  become  so  dear  to  the  Germans  that  they  clung  to 
it  as  to  a  national  banner,  and  founded  Art  Unions  to  foster  in 
Germany  a  thing  which  had  been  buried  everywhere  else.  It 
was  forgotten  that  the  anecdotic  genre  had  been  borrowed  from 
England  in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  had  been  in 
England,  as  in  France,  a  mere  cloak  for  artistic  weaknesses,  or 
a  sop  for  a  public  not  yet  trained  to  appreciate  art.  But  when 
this  phase  of  the  anecdote  told  in  colours  had  been  overcome 
elsewhere,  it  was  a  pleasant  delusion  to  be  able  to  praise  humour 
and  geniality  as  the  peculiar  portion  of  the  Germans. 

The  Munich  painters  of  costume,  belonging  to  the  close  of 
the  seventies,  had  taken  an  important  step  for  Germany  in 
setting  painting,  pure  and  simple,  in  the  place  occupied  by 
painted  history  and  painted  anecdote  ;  and  their  pictures  met 
with  the  best  reception  in  Paris.  But  the  critic  of  the  Gazette 
pointed  out  with  perfect  justice  that  they  merely  represented  a 
stage  of  transition  towards  modernity.  An  ardent  study  of  the 
old  masters  had  assisted  artists  in  learning  once  more  how  to 
paint,  at  a  time  when  narrative  subject  was  held  of  chief  account 
and  not  painting  at  all.  But  the  mischief  was  that  everything 
was  hopelessly  well-painted  in  a  way  which  did  not  further  the 
historical  development  of  art  by  one  single  step.  Artists  under- 
stood how  to  adapt  the  garment  of  the  old  painters  in  a 
masterly  fashion,  to  let  it  fall  in  graceful  folds,  to  trim  it  with 
joyous  colours,  but  it  was,  none  the  less,  an  old  garment,  which, 
in  spite  of  artificial  renovation,  was  not  rendered  more  beautiful 
than  it  had  been  when  it  was  new. 

The  representation  of  genuine   modern  humanity  began  with 


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496  MODERN  PAINTING 

Menzel.  During  those  years  he  held  sway  over  an  isolated 
domain  of  his  own.  Positive  in  spirit  and  keen  of  eye,  he  found 
material  that  he  could  turn  to  account  wherever  he  was— in 
drawing-rooms,  upon  public  promenades,  in  menageries  and 
manufactories.  He  had  no  stories  to  tell,  and  introduced  nothing 
humorous  into  his  work,  but  simply  kept  his  eyes  open.  And 
yet  even  in  his  method  there  was  a  certain  narrative  element, 
something  with  a  savour  of  genrCy  an  inclination  to  be  discursive. 
He  observed  the  physiognomies  and  attitudes  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  with  the  eyes  of  Hogarth;  and  the  ceremonial  laws  of 
courtly  splendour,  when  he  renders  account  of  them,  make  an 
effect  which  is  more  plebeian  than  aristocratic ;  the  gaiety 
of  watering-places,  when  seen  by  him,  has  an  almost  mournful 
comicality.  He  was  a  cold  analyst,  accentuating  and  defining 
acutely  what  he  had  first  worked  out  with  keenness  in  his 
own  mind,  but  he  was  deficient  in  tenderness,  quickness  of 
feeling,  -and  affection.  There  is  something  satirical  in  his  way 
of  underlining,  something  heartless  in  his  calculated  irony,  which 
hardly  lowers  the  rapier  to  spare  helpless  children  and  defence- 
less women.  Few  have  seen  more  keenly  into  the  spirit  of  their 
fellows ;  but  he  always  stands  unapproachably  above  them,  and 
deals  with  them  merely  to  turn  spirited  epigrams  at  their 
expense. 

With  Leibl  German  painting  made  an  advance  upon  Menzel's 
piquant  feuilleton  style,  and  one  which  was  in  the  direction  of 
simplicity.  Its  method  of  interpretation  was  no  longer  that 
of  scoring  points :  Leibl  observes  and  paints.  Moreover  he 
paints  exceedingly  well,  paints  human  bodies  and  articles  of 
clothing  so  accurately  as  to  create  an  illusion,  paints  all  things 
tangible  with  such  a  fidelity  to  nature  that  one  is  prompted  to 
lay  one's  hand  upon  them.  The  entire  population  of  Aibling — 
peasants,  sportsmen,  and  women — are  the  uncanny  doubles  of 
nature  in  Leibl's  pictures,  and  are  overwhelming  in  their  resem- 
blance to  life.  All  his  technical  resources  have  a  masterly 
sureness  in  their  effect.  One  cannot  but  admire  such  handiwork, 
and  nevertheless  one  understands  why  it  was  that  later  painters 
aimed  at  something  different. 


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GERMANY  497 

And  landscape  had  reached  the  ideal  which  had  floated 
before  the  younger  generation,  ever  since  the  masters  of  Bar- 
bizon  became  more  accurately  known  in  Germany,  just  as  little 
as  figure-painting.  A  great  advance  was  made  when  Adolf 
Lier,  going  back  to  Schleich,  set  up  the  Munich  painting 
expressing  the  mood  of  nature  in  place  of  the  painted 
Baedeker  dear  to  the  older  generation.  Lier  had  been  in 
Barbizon.  The  forceful  figure  of  Jules  Dupr6  had  been  near 
him,  and  his  first  pictures  were  a  revelation  for  Germany. 
And  when  art  which  was  purely  objective  and  geographical 
gave  way  before  the  impulse  to  represent  native  scenery 
in  the  intimate  charm  of  its  moods  of  light  and  air,  there 
came  of  necessity  an  increasing  and  proportionate  power  of 
artistic  absorption.  Simple  scenes  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  Munich,  Schleissheim,  and  Dachau  in  moonshine,  rain,  or 
evening  light,  in  spring  or  in  autumn,  were  Lier's  favourite 
motives.  The  rays  of  the  setting  sun  in  his  landscapes 
are  reflected  in  brown  morasses  surrounded  by  trees,  or  the 
evening  clearness  gleams  over  snow  and  ice,  or  the  light  of 
the  noonday  sun  battles  with  the  dust  rising  from  a  road, 
where  a  flock  of  sheep  are  passing  leisurely  forwards.  Adolf 
Staebliy  who  was  a  Swiss,  worked  on  the  shores  of  the  Starn- 
bergersee  and  the  Ammersee,  attracted  by  their  mighty  clumps 
of  trees,  majestically  grave  in  outline.  His  compatriot  the 
late  Otto  Frohlicher,  who  was  most  decisively  impressed  by 
Theodore  Rousseau,  painted  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dachau 
and  Peissenberg  wide  plains  in  gloomy  moods  of  rain,  and 
gnarled  oaks  rising  like  phantoms  against  the  sky;  and.  false 
and  mediocre  as  he  is  in  his  studio  pictures,  he  has  left  strong 
and  virile  studies  breathing  of  the  fresh  and  delicious  fragrance 
of  the  forest,  fosef  Wenglein  rendered  the  broad,  flat,  sandy 
bed  of  the  Isar  near  Toelz,  the  sun  struggling  against  the 
vapours  rising  from  moor  and  meadow,  the  wooded  spines  of 
the  hills  fringing  the  river's  bed,  and  the  delicate  outlines  of 
the  Upper  Bavarian  ranges,  emerging  out  of  the  distance  in 
shining  silvery  vapour.  Poor  Louis  Neuberty  who  was  buried 
alive,   delighted  in  the  lyricism  of  desolate  places :   silent  coasts 


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498  MODERN  PAINTING 

where  the  weary  waves  subside,  black  autumn  nights  when 
the  dark  pastures  slumber  and  the  murmuring  waters  sing  them 
a  lullaby.  Carl  Heffner  found  congenial  motives  in  the  soft 
park-like  scenery  of  England:  quiet  country-houses  pleasantly 
hidden  amongst  trees,  and  lonely  pools  where  lazily  shifting 
clouds  are  mirrored. 

But  neither  Lier  himself  in  his  later  years  nor  any  of  his 
followers  had  the  reverence  for  nature  necessary  for  drawing 
full  advantage  from  the  doctrines  of  the  Fontainebleau  school. 
It  was  only  in  the  beginning,  at  the  first  acquaintanceship  with 
paysage  intime,  that  the  German  painters  found  refreshment 
from  this  new  source.  In  later  times  its  waters  were  adulterated 
with  unseasonable  spices.  In  the  days  when  the  gallery  tone, 
reminiscent  of  old  masters,  dominated  figure-painting,  landscape 
was  likewise  subjected  to  this  influence.  The  warm  golden  light 
of  Lier  became  a  formula  with  the  Munich  school.  *'  Beautiful " 
views  were  followed  by  a  necessity  for  "  beauty  "  of  tone.  Nature 
was  still  regarded  with  preconceived  notions,  and  its  simple 
poetry,  which  inspired  the  French,  was  gradually  transformed 
into  something  the  very  opposite. 

Things  were  in  this  condition  when  the  Parisian  Impres- 
sionists raised  the  cry  after  light  and  sun,  and  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  their  innovations  was  acquired  through  the  French 
making  such  an  imposing  display  as  they  did  at  the  Munich 
Exhibition  of  1879.  Courbet  had  risen  above  the  horizon  in 
Germany  in  1869,  and  now  the  French  exhibitors  of  1879  pointed 
out  the  way  which  led  from  Courbet  to  Millet,  Manet,  and 
Bast  ien  -Lepage. 

Soon  after  a  certain  change  might  have  been  noticed  in 
German  exhibitions.  Amid  the  great  historical  pictures,  and 
costume-pieces  modelled  on  the  old  masters,  and  antiquated 
genre  scenes,  there  hung,  scattered  here  and  there,  exceedingly 
unassuming  pictures,  which  rendered  neither  pompous  dramatic 
scenes  nor  amusing  pranks,  but  simple  and  unpretentious  sub- 
jects which  had  been  directly  observed.  They  represented 
toiling  humanity:  shepherds,  peasants,  cobblers,  women  mending 
nets,  men  stitching  sails   or  binding  wire.     Or  they  represented 


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GERMANY  499 

people  at  their  recreation  in  the  beer-garden  or  in  the  enforced 
inactivity  of  old  age.  And  the  persons  thus  painted  carried 
on  no  by-play  with  the  public,  as  in  earlier  genre  pictures ;  on 
the  contrary  they  were  absorbed  in  their  occupation,  and  every- 
thing suggestive  of  a  relation  between  the  model  and  the 
artist,  the  figure  and  the  spectator,  was  scrupulously  eradicated 
Moreover  the  inanimate,  petrified  element  which  vitiated  the 
productions  of  the  realists  was  also  avoided.  The  wind  was 
felt  to  be  blowing  strong  around  the  figures  ;  and  the  beholder 
not  only  saw  peasants  and  blouses,  but  fancied  that  he  could 
breathe  the  very  odour  of  the  forest  and  the  earth. 

Just  as  at  this  time  it  was  the  aim  of  modern  drama  to 
represent  its  personages,  by  all  the  resources  in  its  power,  as 
under  the  sway  of  their  physical  and  moral  surroundings,  their 
real  and  habitual  atmosphere,  so  atmospheric  effect — air  and 
light— had  now  become  the  chief  field  of  study  in  painting. 
Here  and  there  in  the  galleries  of  exhibitions .  there  emerged 
little  landscapes,  the  most  unpretentious  that  could  have  been 
painted  :  monotonous  plains,  poor  flat  lands,  vegetable  gardens 
and  weedy  fields,  and  straight  tulip-beds  cut  in  broad  stripes ; 
and  with  great  frequency  the  peculiarly  iridescent  bluish-red 
tones  of  certain  species  of  cabbage-heads  were  to  be  remarked. 
As  the  figure-painters  scorned  to  arouse  an  interest  for  art  in 
those  who  had  no  real  feeling  for  it  by  making  points  and 
painting  anecdote,  the  landscape-painters  disdained  to  stimulate 
a  topographical  interest  by  representing  the  scenery  beloved  of 
tourists,  and  were  above  creating  the  sentiment  of  landscape  for 
their  pictures  by  false  sentiment  They  devoted  themselves  to 
nature  with  complete  reverence,  turning  their  eyes  only  to  the 
charm  of  atmosphere — the  spiritual  charm — which  rests  over  quiet 
and  unmolested  nooks.  German  painting  had  grown  more  ideal 
and  more  elevated  in  taste  since  artists  had  given  up  working 
frankly  for  the  picture-buyer ;  although  it  busied  itself  only  with 
toiling  and  heavily  laden  humanity,  and  with  potato-fields  or 
cabbage-fields,  it  had  become  more  exclusive  and  refined,  for 
now  it  touched  only  tones  that  were  discreet  and  low,  and  had 
no  regard  for  those  who  did  not  care  to  listen  to  them. 


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500  MODERN  PAINTING 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  battle  that  had  to  be 
fought  in  Germany  was  almost  severer  than  in  France.  Since 
Oswald  Achenbach  and  Eduard  Griitzner  the  public  had  seen 
so  many  views  of  Vesuvius  and  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  so 
many  humorous  genre  episodes,  that  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  imagine  simple  regions  and  serious  men  after  these  showy 
landscapes  and  laughing  faces.  In  addition  to  this  an  uncom- 
promising study  of  nature  offended  ^y^  which  could  only 
tolerate  her  when  trimmed  and  set  in  order.  The  fresh  rendering 
of  personal  impressions  seemed  brutal  after  that  more  glittering 
painting  which  made  a  dexterous  use  of  the  articulation  of  form 
and  colour  found  in  the  old  masters,  adapting  them  for  the 
expression  of  its  own  aims.  The  effort  to  express  the  values 
of  tone  with  a  renunciation  of  all  narrative  intention  was  looked 
upon  as  want  of  spirit,  because  the  interest  in  subject,  even  the 
very  rudest  that  has  any  relation  to  art,  obstructed  the  growth 
of  the  sense  for  absolute  painting. 

But  the  science  of  aesthetics — which  had  hitherto  been  almost 
always  obliged  to  take  up  a  deprecatory  attitude  towards  modem 
art— had  now  occasion  to  follow  the  nature  and  history  of  the 
opposition  party  with  interest,  and  from  the  very  first  day. 
For  it  had  to  establish  that  their  programme  attacked  the 
validity  of  those  elements  in  the  ascendant  art  by  which  it  was 
fundamentally  distinguished  from  genuine  old  painting.  The 
new  art  aroused  confidence  because  it  no  longer  formed  for 
itself  a  style  out  of  oUier  styles,  but,  like  every  genuine  form  of 
art,  aimed  at  being  the  chronicle  and  mirror  of  its  own  age. 
It  aroused  confidence  because,  after  a  prolonged  period  of 
mongrel  narrative  art,  it  set  forth  a  true  style  of  painting,  which 
stood  in  need  of  no  interesting  title  in  a  catalogue,  but  carried 
in  itself  the  justification  of  its  own  existence.  And  although 
the  roots  of  the  new  tree  were  embedded  in  France,  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  German  painting,  after  so  long  deviating  into 
romantic  lines,  were  about  to  begin  once  more,  with  modem 
refinement  of  colour,  at  the  point  where  Diirer  and  the  "little 
masters"  had  broken  off.  To  those  reviewing  the  past  it  was 
as  though  a  bridge  had  been  cast  from  the  present  to  that  old 


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GERMANY 


501 


Graphischt  Kiinstt,}  [  Uhdt  pxt. 

Max  Liebermann. 


art  of  the  Germans,  Dutch,  and 
English  which  in  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies pressed  ever  onwards, 
opposing  Romantic  Eclecticism. 
The  finest  spirits  occupied  with 
the  science  of  aesthetics  began 
to  champion  the  new  ideas,  after 
having  sceptically  held  aloof 
from  all  modern  art.  And  they 
were  joined  by  a  large  number 
of  the  younger  men.  In  1888, 
twenty  years  after  Manet  had 
arranged  that  private  exhibition 
at  Durand-Ruel's  which  was  so 
momentous  in  its  results,  the 
*' New  Art"— against  which  the 

doors  of  the  Art  Union  had  been  closed  even  in  Munich — was 
triumphantly  established  in  the  Crystal  Palace,  and  at  that  time 
I  began  my  articles  on  the  great  International  Exhibition  with 
the  heading  ^^ Max  Liebermann'' 

He  was  the  bearer  of  the  Promethean  fire  that  was  kindled 
in  Barbizon,  and  the  initiator  of  the  movement  in  Germany 
corresponding  with  that  which  had  taken  place  in  Fontainebleau. 
Whilst  others  who  had  been  before  him  in  Barbizon  received 
no  enduring  impressions,  Liebermann  was  the  first  to  bring  the 
unvarnished  programme  of  the  new  style  to  his  native  land,  and 
thus  became  one  of  those  pioneers  whose  place  is  assured  in  the 
history  of  art.  When  he  appeared  he  fared  as  badly  as  the 
French  painters  who  had  quickened  his  talent :  he  was  decried 
as  an  apostle  of  hideousness.  But  now  it  is  a  different  matter, 
arid  his  works  show  that  he  has  not  altered  himself,  but  has 
made  a  change  in  us.  He  went  a  step  further  than  Menzel  in 
adopting  a  style  of  simplicity,  and  endeavouring  to  lose  himself 
in  nature  where  Menzel  had  been  content  to  hover  over  the 
surface  of  things  in  his  brilliant  way.  And  he  went  a  step 
further  than  Leibl  in  no  longer  regarding  it  as  the  highest  aim 


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502 


MODERN  PAINTING 


Craphische  KiiHsie.] 

LlEBERMANN  : 


[Halm  sc. 
"The  Cobbler's  Shop." 


of  art  to  paint  pic- 
tures which  should 
be  a  wide  and 
broad  illustration  of 
sheer  downright 
perspicuity  ;  on  the 
contrary  he  at- 
tempted to  grasp 
the  very  nature  of 
things,  their  pulsat- 
ing life  and  their 
fragrant  essence. 
That  art  is  an  affair 
of  feeling,  know- 
ledge, and  discovery 
rather  than  of  calculation,  combination,  and  tortured  effort  was 
the  revelation  which  he  was  the  first  to  make  to  German 
painters. 

Max  Liebermann  was  born  in  Berlin  on  July  29th,  1849. 
Here  he  passed  his  childhood,  went  to  the  "  gymnasium "  or 
advanced  school,  and,  at  his  father's  wish,  had  himself  Entered 
at  the  university  in  the  "faculty  of  philosophy."  At  the  same 
time  he  studied  in  Steffeck's  studio,  where  he  made  so  much 
progress  that  at  the  end  of  eighteen  months  he  was  allowed  to 
assist  the  master  in  his  large  picture  **  Sadowa,"  He  painted 
guns,  sabres,  uniforms,  and  hands  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of 
his  teacher,  but  he  was  himself  so  thoroughly  convinced  of  the 
inadequacy  of  his  studies  that  in  1869  he  made  the  experiment 
of  entering  the  School  of  Art  in  Weimar.  And  there  he  worked 
for  three  years  under  Thumann  and  Pauwels,  beginning  pictures 
in  their  style,  though  not  one  of  them  was  ever  finished  ;  and 
in   1872  he  exhibited  his  first  work,  "Women  plucking  Geese." 

Weimar  was  still  the  stronghold  of  Classicism,  in  spite  of 
Lenbach  having  been  there  for  some  time.  Genelli  was  fresh 
in  the  memory  of  all,  and  Preller  was  still  alive.  Upon  such 
consecrated  ground  "  Women  plucking  Geese "  must  have  made 
a  very  plebeian   impression,  and  one  which  was  the  more  brutal 


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GERMANY 


503 


Graphisch*  KiiMs/e.] 
LlEBERMANN  : 


[/Cruder  sc, 
'The  Seamstress." 


as  even  this  first  picture 
had  the  naturalness  and 
simplicity  which  were  cha- 
racteristic of  Liebermann's 
style.  Here  there  was 
already  shown  a  man  who 
approached  nature  with 
resolution  and  impartiality. 
It  was  only  the  technique 
that  was  still  heavy  and 
material :  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career,  indeed, 
Liebermann  was  under  the 
influence  of  Courbet,  and 
he  remained  faithful  to 
this  sooty  bituminous 
painting   when    he   visited 

Paris  at  the  end  of  1872.     Munkacsy,  himself  at  the  time  under 
the    influence    of   Ribot,   confirmed    him    in    his    preference    for 
heavy   Bolognese   shadows,  so   that   one   who   afterwards  became 
a   "  bright   painter "   was   named  by  the  Berlin   critics   "  the   son 
of  darkness."     It  was  only  when  he  came  to  know  the  works  of 
Troyon,  Daubigny,  and  Corot  that  he  liberated  himself  from  the 
influence    of  the   school   of  CourbeL      The   "  Women  preserving 
Vegetables,"  exhibited  in  the  Salon  of  1873 — a  number  of  women 
on  barrels  and   wooden    benches,  preparing    cabbage,  artichokes, 
and  asparagus  for  the   next  year — already  showed  greater  light- 
ness  and   clarity  of  treatment.      The  summer  of  1873  he  spent 
in  Barbizon,  and  though  he  made  no  personal  acquaintance  with 
Millet,  who  died  the  following  year,  the  works  of  the  latter  left 
a  profound   impression   upon  him.      Under   Millet's  influence  he 
produced  "The  Labourers  in  the  Turnip-Field,"  his  first  master- 
piece,  and   "  Brother  and   Sister,"  which   appeared   in   the  Paris 
Salon  of  1876.     Whereas  his  works  of  the  Weimar  period  made 
a    dull    and    heavy    impression    (without    having,    however,    the 
character  of  the  ^enre  picture  at  that  time  habitual  in  Germany), 
his   taste   now   became   purer    and   more    refined.     When    Millet 


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304 


MODERN  PAINTING 


LlEBERMANN  :    '*  WOMEN   PLUCKING  GeESE." 

died  he  repaired  to  Millet's  follower,  Israels ;  and  in  Holland  he 
did  not  study  the  old  masters  in  the  museums,  but  living  men 
in  the  fishing  villages,  not  the  tone  of  the  galleries,  but  the  moist, 
bluish  haze  around  the  sun,  and  habituated  himself  still  more  to 
look  at  nature  with  a  clear  eye.  Back  in  Germany  once  more, 
he  remained  from  1878  for  a  time  in  Munich,  and  made  himself 
highly  unpopular  by  his  "  Christ  in  the  Temple,"  a  belated  result 
of  his  earlier  studies  of  Menzel.  The  Bavarian  Diet  called  him 
a  rhyparographer,  and  the  clergy  complained  of  his  picture  as 
profaning  religious  sentiment.  Yet  a  mere  lover  of  art  will 
admire  its  incisive  painting  and  its  penetrative  force  of  charac- 
terization, though,  upon  the  whole,  he  will  not  regret  that  this 
work  has  remained  Liebermann's  only  attempt  at  the  painting 
of  biblical  subjects. 

In  the  same  year,  however,  he  found  once  more  where  his 
real  talent  lay,  and  never  forgot  it :  he  painted  "  The  Children's 
Nursery  in  Amsterdam,"  and  in  1881  "  An  Asylum  for  Old  Men," 
which  won  a  medal  at  the  Paris  Salon.  In  a  leafy  garden 
quiet,  meditative  old  men  are  sitting  beneath   the    trees,   lost  in 


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GERMANY 


505 


LlEBERMANN  :     "  ThE   CoURTYARD  OF  THE  ORPHANAGE   IN    AMSTERDAM." 

their  memories  and  leisurely  reverie.  One  would  fancy  that  the 
painter  had  lived  amongst  them  himself,  and  found  pleasure  in 
sitting  on  the  bench,  when  the  leaves  rustled  and  the  sunshine 
gleamed.  There  is  not  one  of  them  whom  he  has  sought  to 
beautify,  though,  at  the  same  time,  he  indulges  in  no  pointed 
•epigram  upon  their  dulness ;  he  has  simply  painted  them  all  as 
if  he  were  one  of  themselves,  without  even  hinting  at  anything 
better  or  more  lofty.  For  the  first  time  the  spirit  of  Millet  had 
-crossed  the  German  border. 

After  this  he  produced,  one  after  the  other  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, "The  Shoemaker's  Workshop,"  "The  Bleachyard,"  and 
"The  Beer-Concert  in  Munich."  Through  these  pictures  he 
'Confirmed  his  reputation  in  Paris.  He  became  a  member  of  the 
"  Cercle  des  Quinze,"  at  the  head  of  which  were  Alfred  Stevens 
and  Bastien-Lepage,  and  from  that  time  exhibited  annually  in 
the  Salon  Petit,  though  as  yet  he  was  in  a  measure  excluded 
from  German  exhibitions.  In  1884  he  settled  once  more  in 
Berlin,  where  he  still  lives,  mixing  but  little  in  artistic  life, 
VOL.  III.  33 


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5o6  MODERN.  PAINTING 


^'^■^■^^-^ 


1 


-f^ss^^ism^^ 


^VYMTit- 


■■^m^fM 


Goj*  */fs  BtouA-Aft5.] 


LlEBERMANN  :     **  ThE    NeT-MeNDERS." 


though  he  has  dwelt  there  ever  since,  when  not  residing  in 
Holland.  For  Holland,  with  its  soft  mist  effacing  the  abruptness 
of  contrasts,  has  become  a  second  home  for  Liebermann ;  he  has 
an  affection  for  the  country,  and  passes  every  summer  in 
Zandvoort,  the  little  village  near  Hilversum  where  Israels  went 
through  the  complete  renovation  of  his  impressions  upon  art. 
Here  he  places  himself  in  the  direct  presence  of  nature,  studying 
it  in  its  elementary  simplicity,  and  transforming  into  colour  its 
odour  of  earth.  Here  he  does  not  paint  stormy  seas,  old  harbour 
buildings,  and  vast  masses  of  cloud,  like  Andreas  Achenbach, 
but  the  view  of  the  dunes  and  the  straight,  monotonous  distance, 
not  what  is  merely  objective,  but  light,  the  mist  about  the  sun,, 
and  the  silvery  tone  of  the  sea-air  charged  with  moisture. 
Here  he  produces  the  pictures  with  which  he  gives  us  fresh 
delight  with  every  year :  old  women  in  solitude,  brooding  in 
bare  rooms,  where  whitish-green  landscapes  are  seen  through 
the  great  window-panes  ;  the  workrooms  of  artisans,  weavers,  and 


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GERMANY 


507 


Craphisch§  Kunstt.^ 


Liebermann:   "The  Woman  with  Goats." 


shoemakers,  spare,  raw-boned  men  devoted  to  their  work  without 
a  thought  for  anything  beyond  it,  and  plunged  in  it  with  that 
air  of  absorption  which  is  the  most  special  and  one  of  the  most 
excellent  features  in  Liebermann's  paintings;  hospital  gardens,, 
with  old  men  lost  in  that  contemplative  inaction  of  the  aged  ; 
fishermen  by  the  sea ;  women  gathered  together  beneath  the 
moist  sky  of  the  Dutch  coasts,  mending  nets  or  at  the  potata 
harvest  ;  peasant  families  saying  their  homely  grace  at  table  ;, 
women  sewing  at  the  window  in  their  wretched  lodging,  or 
women  ironing  and  spreading  large  white  sheets  upon  the 
greensward. 

One  of  his  finest  pictures  was  "The  Courtyard  of  the 
Orphanage  in  Amsterdam,"  painted  in  1881.  A  genre  painter 
of  the  earlier  iperiod  would  not  have  neglected  to  introduce  some 
narrative  episode,  and  would  thus  have  robbed  the  scene  of  the 
simplicity,  cordiality,  and  tender  intimacy  of  feeling  which  it 
has  in  Liebermann.  The  sun  stands  high  in  the  heaven,  and 
the  orphan  girls,  in  a  black  and   red   costume   with   white   caps^ 


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5o8 


MODERN  PAINTING 


DrtsdtH  :  voh  Stidliin,] 

LlEBERMANN  :    "A   VILLAGE   STREET   IN   HOLLAND." 

are  passing  to  and  fro,  chatting  together  and  doing  work.  They 
talk  and  move  with  such  an  unconscious  air  that  they  seem  to 
have  no  suspicion  of  being  painted.  The  soft  light  plays  upon 
their  pretty,  expressive  faces.  There  is,  in  truth,  something  sad 
and  resigned  in  these  children,  who  pass  their  life  like  nuns, 
without  family,  and  strictly  according  to  regulation :  life  has 
made  them  so  staid  and  earnest  within  these  walls. 

His  "  Ropeyard,"  again,  is  an  idyll  of  quiet  work.  If  an 
-earlier  artist  had  painted  this  scene,  the  people  in  the  picture 
would  have  been  laughing,  or  whistling,  or  telling  each  other 
stories.  In  Liebermann  they  do  nothing  to  excite  laughter,  but 
merely  move  backwards,  working  at  the  rope  ;  its  finely  tempered 
reality  is  what  gives  the  scene  its  quiet  magic. 

In  his  "Net-Menders,"  in  the  Hamburg  Kunsthalle,  he 
attempted  a  higher  flight,  and  this  work  showed  the  full  weight 
and  energy  of  his  personality.  The  vibrating  light  was  heavily 
painted  in  "  The  Asylum  for  Old  Men  "  and  in  "  The  Ropeyard." 


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GERMANY 


509 


H^^ 

^ 

VjB 

^^k 

P^^ 

H|||K| 

^B^^l 

^IBH^bf^' 

^ 

\ 

Wz  ^1 

Jk^H^ 

\H''     '  ^ 

^_a» 

--.rf^"-  J^- 

V:-         ■ift-^ 

Cmphischg  Kiinst*.} 


Liebbrmann:  "The  Flax-Spinners." 


Looking  at  them  one  fancies  the  painter  at  his  easel  ardently 
toiling  to  arrive  at  truth.  But  here  he  has  taken  in  a  large 
scene  at  a  single  glance,  and  placed  it  palpitating  with  life 
upon  the  canvas  with  a  bold  hand  :  it  is  a  hymn  of  toil  and 
labour,  of  the  struggle  for  life,  of  adverse  winds  and  dark  grey 
days  of  rain.  There  stretches  a  Northern  plain,  meagre  and 
barren,  of  a  green  passing  into  grey,  and  shut  in  to  the  right 
by  the  dunes,  which  imperceptibly  melt  away  at  the  horizon. 
Grey  clouds  are  in  the  sky,  which  is  swept  by  the  storm.  In 
this  landscape,  blown  through  by  so  strong  a  wind  and  itself 
so  grandiose  in  its  vacancy,  women,  old  and  young,  are  seen^ 
standing,  sitting,  or  upon  their  knees,  unfolding  nets  and  mending 
them  :  that  one  of  them  who  is  most  in  the  foreground  is  life-size 
and  painted  in  full  light,  whilst  of  those  who  are  farther  away 
only  the  grey  clothes  and  white  caps  are  indistinctly  visible. 
Three  of  the  women  are  erect,  their  broad  outlines  standing  out 
against  the  horizon ;  the  perspective  seems  wide  and  limitless. 
One  feels  the  sea-wind  blowing  over  the  landscape,  and  fancies 
that  one  breathes  the  salt  sea-air.  One  woman,  laden  with  nets^ 
steps  towards  the  depth  of  the  picture,  bending  backwards  ;  she 
is  tall  and  blond,  and  a  gust  is  blowing  through  her  skirt.     All 


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Liebermann:   "Labourers  in  a  Turnip-Field." 

these  movements  have  been  boldly  seized  and  set  down  with  a 
powerful  hand.  Everything  is  strong  and  healthy,  and  some  of 
the  figures  have  a  youthful  grace  and  freshness  such  as  Lieber- 
mann has  seldom  attained. 

The  Munich  Pinakothek  possesses  a  similar  picture,  "The 
Woman  with  Goats."  In  a  grey,  deserted  region,  upon  a  wild 
and  lonely  down,  an  old  peasant  woman  is  leading  two  goats 
upon  a  sandy,  wind-swept  slope.  Here,  too,  the  figures  are 
composed  in  the  expanse  in  such  a  large  and  impressive  way 
that  the  picture  does  not  seem  a  mere  fragment  of  nature,  but 
an  entire  reach  of  her  presented,  as  it  were,  in  a  condensed 
form.  The  old  woman,  the  goats,  the  sand,  and  the  parched 
grass  are  not  separate  objects,  but  only  one.  The  painter  has 
seized  the  soul  of  this  wide  landscape,  and  placed  it  upon 
canvas.  There  is  no  need  of  another  stroke,  for  everything  has 
been  expressed. 

As  he  painted  here  the  scanty  grass  of  a  scorched  soil,  so  in 
his  "Village  Street  in  Holland"  of  1888  he  rendered  the  virgin 
charm  of  nature  refreshed  by  rain.  On  her  way  to  the  meadow 
a  dairymaid  has  stopped  in  the  village  street  to  talk  to  a 
peasant  woman.  A  fertilizing  summer  rain  has  refreshed  the 
land,  the  wind  shakes  the  last  drops  from  the  boughs,  every- 
thing sparkles  with  moisture ;  ducks  are  splashing  in  the  puddles, 
hens  picking  worms  in  the  grass,  and  the  cow  is  dragging  her 


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GERMANY  511 

Iceeper  impatiently  forwards,  in  longing  expectation  of  the  joys 
which  await  her  on  the  soft  green  pasture. 

Among  his  interiors,  "The  Flax-Spinners,"  in  the  Berlin 
National  Gallery,  is  probably  one  of  the  best.  Such  an  astonish- 
ing effect  was  produced  by  the  simplest  means  that  the  spectator 
hardly  thought  about  the  artistic  workmanship,  imagining  himself 
to  hear  the  hum  and  whiz  of  the  wheels  in  the  still  workplace. 

Recently  he  has  painted  portraits,  of  which  those  of  his  wife 
in  a  rocking-chair  and  of  Herr  Petersen,  the  Burgomaster  of 
Hamburg,  may  be  mentioned  with  special  praise.  The  former  is 
<:aptivating  through  the  fine  feeling  for  the  life  and  moods  of 
the  spirit  which  is  shown  in  it,  while  the  latter  is  large  in  its 
very  plainness,  like  a  modern  Velasquez. 

But  his  drawings,  etchings,  and  pastels  form  the  most  im- 
portant supplement  to  his  big  pictures.  In  his  oil-pictures 
Liebermann  is  by  no  means  what  one  understands  by  a 
dexterous  master  of  technique.  The  world  will  never  say,  in 
speaking  of  his  pictures,  "  What  deftness ! "  but  rather,  "  What 
insight ! "  He  struggles  with  colour  like  Millet  There  is  a 
-want  of  ease  in  his  works.  They  are  sometimes  clumsy  and 
laboured,  harsh  and  crude,  deadened  and  oily.  And  this  makes 
itself  felt  in  a  specially  unpleasant  way  in  the  smaller  pictures 
with  many  figures — "  The  Commemoration  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  in  the  Wood  near  Kosen,"  the  "  Dutch  Market  Scene " 
-of  1 89 1,  the  "Munich  Beer-Concert,"  and  others — where  he 
•encroached  upon  the  province  of  Menzel.  Although  a  brilliant 
conversationalist  and  a  man  of  mobile  and  highly  strung  nature, 
he  never  reaches  the  pungency  and  sparkle  of  Menzel  in  the 
works  where  he  attempts  to  paint  the  behaviour  of  an  agitated 
•crowd  or  the  dallying  play  of  sunbeams  rippling  through  foliage. 
A  certain  unyielding  heaviness  and  ungainliness  are  at  odds 
with  the  flexible  character  of  the  subject  represented. 

Liebermann's  salient  feature  is  not  pictorial  piquancy,  but 
monumental  amplitude,  a  trace  of  something  epical,  the  en- 
•deavour  to  embody  what  he  has  seen  in  large  forms.  As  he 
himself  writes,  "  I  do  not  seek  for  what  is  called  the  pictorial, 
but  I  would  grasp  nature  in  her  simplicity  and   grandeur — the 


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512  MODERN  PAINTING 

simplest  thing  and  the  hardest."  For  this  reason  his  pictures 
of  interiors  are,  in  general,  but  little  felicitous.  Instead  of  being 
subtile  and  expressive,  they  often  seem  to  be  rough,  lifeless,  and 
chalky.  It  is  as  if  his  broad  technique  were  cribbed  and  con- 
fined in  a  closed  space.  And  he  works  most  freely  when  he 
strikes  the  great  chords  of  simple  landscapes,  seen  in  a  large 
way,  whence  the  outlines  of  toilers  rise  here  and  there  into 
view.  Where  a  medley  may  be  found  in  Menzel,  there  is  in 
Liebermann  a  powerful  impression  of  nature,  a  noble  simplicity. 
These  sober  plains  of  his  touching  the  horizon  in  the  far 
distance,  these  figures  standing  with  such  astonishing  natural- 
ness  in  the  space — these  are  really  "great  art,"  monumental 
in  their  effect.  And  this  sense  for  space,  reminding  one 
of  Millet,  is  felt  in  his  drawings  and  pastels  with  far  more 
elementary  force.  Heavy  and  laboured  in  his  oil-pictures,  he 
attains  here  an  astonishing  softness  of  light ;  the  figures  stand 
out  boldly  from  the  background,  and  the  space  is  filled  with 
light  air,  giving  the  eye  a  vision  of  boundless  distance  His 
etchings,  of  which  there  are  about  a  score,  have  nothing  like 
them  except  those  of  Israels.  Israels  alone  has  the  secret  of 
producing  such  a  notable  suggestion  of  colour,  tone,  and  space 
by  a  simple  combination  of  lines  and  strokes,  disregarding  all 
scholastic  routine. 

Finally  Liebermann,  like  Israels,  possesses  that  other  quality 
which  in  art  stands  higher  than  the  utmost  virtuosity :  he  has 
honesty  and  the  manly  loyalty  of  conviction.  Looking  at  his 
works  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  that  he  could  or  would  have 
painted  anything  different  from  what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  has 
painted.  His  "Women  plucking  Geese"  was  executed  over 
twenty  years  ago,  and  since  then  a  cultivated  Impressionism 
would  seem  to  have  outstripped  him.  Many  an  artist  was  over- 
come by  a  home-sickness  for  the  realm  of  beautifully  moulded 
forms ;  others  were  tempted  to  set  what  was  pleasing,  even  what 
was  coquettish,  in  the  place  of  austere  art  And  many  were 
the  tentative,  conciliatory  experiments  to  put  the  new  technique 
in  the  service  of  their  old  hankering  after  genre  and  melodrama. 
Many,    also,    began    to     pay    homage    in    a    style    which    was 


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GERMANY 


S13 


Ltipzig:  S40mann.] 

Framz  Skarbina. 


;  frequently  extravagant  to  the 
modern  yearning  for  unearthly 
paradises.  But  Liebermann 
always  remained  the  same. 
As  in  earlier  days  his  pictures 
embodied  the  fearless  creed  of 
a  man  in  the  face  of  the  old 
tendency,  they  do  so  now  in 
the  face  of  the  very  newest : 
"  Here  I  stand,  and  I  can  do 
nothing  else ;  God  help  me. 
Amen."  He  is  a  clearly  defined 
personality  —  as  Goethe  would 
say,  "  a  nature."  And  the 
history  of  art  delights  in  such 
bluff  spirits.  Men  of  character 
it  loves,  but  not  men  of  compromise.  And  so  the  name  of 
Liebermann  will  survive  when  many  of  his  famous  contemporaries 
are  forgotten.  A  few  years  ago,  when  Paris  held  her  Centenary 
Exhibition,  Liebermann  saved  the  honour  of  German  art  by  his 
"  Net-Menders."  And  I  believe  that  a  hundred  years  hence, 
when  the  balloon  or  the  electric  railway  is  carrying  people 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  to  a  new  Centenary  Exhibition,  the 
picture  will  be  hanging  there  again,  only  it  will  be  venerable 
then  instead  of  being,  as  it  is  now,  in  the  freshness  of  its  youth. 
For  Max  Liebermann  will  be  an  old  master  then,  and  not  one 
of  the  worst. 

The  further  development  of  painting  proceeded  in  Germany 
as  elsewhere.  By  every  revolution  in  art  some  new  side  of 
nature  is  brought  forward,  and  a  new  task  is  set  and  has  to 
be  executed  in  a  special  way.  The  task  of  the  generation  of 
1880  was  the  observation  of  the  colours  of  natural  objects 
under  the  influence  of  varying  effects  of  light.  Its  execution 
began  with  the  study  of  plain  and  ordinary  daylight.  At  this 
period  the  peasant  and  artisan  picture  predominated  in  exhibitions, 
and  fanatics  thought  that  art  should  always  move  in  wooden 
shoes  amongst  vegetable  fields.     The  turn  then  came  for  harder 


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IHan/stangl  kelio. 


Skarbina:   "The  Fish-Market  at  Blankenberge." 

and  more  complicated  problems  of  illumination.  Besides  the 
brightness  of  day,  artists  now  painted  the  misty  freshness  of 
morning,  the  still  evening  twilight,  the  sultry,  misty  atmosphere 
before  the  storm,  the  faint  ripple  of  moonlight,  and  the  wavering 
of  dusk  or  artificial  light  in  rooms.  And  the  more  painters 
learnt  to  express  light  in  all  its  phenomena,  the  less  one-sided 
did  they  become  in  choice  of  subject  The  painting  of  rough 
scenes  was  supplemented  by  the  painting  of  refifted,  the  painting 
of  everyday  life  by  the  painting  of  strange  and  out-of-the-way 
scenes.  And,  finally,  there  resulted  the  very  same  advantage 
which  Goethe  had  secured  a  hundred  years  before,  after  the 
"  storm  and  stress  period "  had  run  its  course :  "  With  greater 
freedom  of  form,  a  more  rich  and  various  range  of  matter  had 
been  attained,  and  no  subject  in  wide  nature  was  any  longer 
excluded  as  inartistic."  Nature  is  everywhere,  temperament  is 
everywhere,  and  light  and  colour  are  everywhere.  "  Art  is  em- 
bedded in  nature,  and  he  has  it  who  can  tear  it  out." 

While  Liebermann  was  the  same  from  the  beginning,  Skarbina^ 
the   second   representative  of  the  new  art  amongst  the  painters 


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GERMANY 


515 


Lefsius  :  Ernest  Curtius. 

(By  permission  of  iht  Berlin  Photographie  Company, 
the  owners  of  the  copyright,) 


living  ill  Berlin,  has 
gone  through  very  many 
changes.  Born  in  Berlin 
on  February  24th,  1849, 
a  few  months  before 
Liebermann,  he  began 
with  pictures  from  the 
life  of  Frederick  the  Great, 
in  which  he  proceeded 
rigorously  upon  the  path 
struck  by  Menzel.  In 
1878  he  horrified  the 
world  by  his  "  Awakening 
of  One  supposed  to  be 
Dead,"  a  showpiece 
painted  with  great  ana- 
tomical ability,  and  in 
1885  in  Paris  he  passed 
from  costume-painting  and 
Tude  Naturalism  directly  to  Impressionism.  There  he  produced 
many  pictures,  both  large  and  small,  representing  life  upon 
the  boulevards,  glances  at  Paris  from  the  studio,  life  behind  the 
scenes,  and  the  like.  He  painted  the  coquettish  grace  of  the 
Parisienne,  the  unwieldliness  of  Norman  peasant  women,  chimney- 
sweeps coming  from  their  work,  ballet-girls  dressing,  old  men  in 
blouses  and  wooden  shoes  with  baskets  slung  upon  their  backs, 
going  to  their  daily  labour.  His  earlier  pictures  are  oily,  but  in 
these  later  works—"  The  Fish-Market  at  Blankenberge,"  "  The 
Sailor's  Sorrow,"  etc.  —  he  succeeded  in  seizing  the  silvery, 
vaporous  tone  of  the  atmosphere  in  a  masterly  fashion.  But 
when  French  painting  turned  from  plein  air  to  the  study  of 
the  effects  of  artificial  illumination,  Skarbina  addressed  himself 
to  more  difficult  tasks  in  the  rendering  of  light.  The  original 
studies  of  half-light  with  which  Besnard  had  been  attracting 
attention  for  some  years  past,  in  particular,  incited  him  to 
produce  delightful  little  pictures,  in  which  he  painted  the  effect 
of  lamps  with  coloured  shades  with  fine  pictorial  feeling.      And 


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5i6  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  made  the  technique  of  water-colours  a  flexible  medium  of 
expression ;  and,  indeed,  it  renders  the  impression  of  mutable 
and  checkered  moods  better  than  oil-painting,  which  is  more 
slowly  brought  to  maturity. 

Skarbina  is  as  various  as  modern  life — one  of  those  artists 
of  virtuosity  produced  by  the  culture  of  great  towns.  His 
works  have,  perhaps,  a  less  personal  accent,  less  inward  force  of 
conviction,  than  those  of  Liebermann,  and  one  has  a  sense  that, 
if  the  current  of  art  should  set  to-morrow  in  an  opposite 
direction,  he  would  be  splashing  in  the  new  stream  as  gaily 
as  ever,  and  with  the  same  success.  But  he  supplements 
Liebermann  by  his  eminent  dexterity  of  hand,  his  great  gift  for 
quickness  of  grasp  and  luxuriance  in  execution.  His  technique, 
for  the  most  part,  shows  brilliant  ability;  the  chic  which  he 
displays  in  his  pictures  of  women  is  entirely  Parisian  in  taste ; 
and  his  skill  in  rendering  atmospheric  effect  has  an  aptitude 
which  equals  De  Nittis. 

Friedrich  Stahly  who  migrated  some  years  ago  from  Munich 
to  Berlin,  is  also  an  adroit  virtuoso  who  has  made  modem 
society  his  domain  without  penetrating  too  deeply  below  the 
surface.  Moreover  he  has  the  secret  of  giving  artistic  treatment 
to  modem  costume,  the  mastery  of  which  was  in  earlier  times 
such  a  source  of  difficulty  to  German  painters.  His  seaside 
pictures  are  particularly  amusing,  and  have  been  seen  with  a 
fine  feeling  for  colour  and  executed  with  pointed  spirit 

Then  there  is  Hans  Herrmann^  who  has  painted  the  quays 
and  market-squares,  peopling  them  with  figures  and  taking 
advantage  of  everything  which  the  scenes  afford  to  give  them 
animation.  He  is  specially  fond  of  damp  autumn  days,  when  a 
mellow,  light  grey  tone  spreads  over  town  and  country,  and  the 
trees  stretch  their  branches  amid  misty  clouds.  But  he  does 
not  succeed  in  the  reproduction  of  palpitating  life,  and  his 
pictures  seldom  rise  above  the  stiff  impression  of  photography. 

Hugo  Vogely  who  passed  from  historical  emdition  to  modem 
society ;  Walter  Leistikow^  who,  after  painting  in  a  rather  con- 
ventional style,  developed  into  a  fresh  landscapist ;  the  portrait- 
painters    Reinhold   Lepsius    and    Curt   Herrmann ;    Lesser    UrVy 


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GERMANY  517 

who  made  his  appearance  with  some  pictures  full  of  talent  ; 
and  the  water-colour  artist  Ludwig  Dettmann,  most  of  them 
members  of  the  "  Society  of  Eleven,"  might  be  also  mentioned. 
Berlin,  as  it  seems,  does  not  yet  offer  ground  where  a  painter 
can  develop — scarcely,  indeed,  ground  upon  which  a  matured 
painter  can  keep  his  footing.  The  numerous  public  Commissions 
which  are  distributed  at  random,  without  understanding  for  the 
inward  and  vital  conditions  of  art,  now  as  ever  justify  the 
verdict  which  Goethe  passed  upon  the  cultivation  of  Berlin  art 
in  1 80 1  in  the  Propyla'e\  "Poetry  is  ousted  by  history,  land- 
scape by  views,  and  what  is  universally  human  by  what  is 
patriotic."  Generally  speaking,  too,  the  people  of  Berlin  have 
not  for  growing  and  germinating  tendencies  that  receptivity 
which  has  always  been,  and  always  will  be,  the  fundamental 
temper  of  any  society  in  which  art  is  to  blossom. 

Vienna  has  been  even  less  productive  of  effective  champions 
for  the  new  ideas  than  Berlin  itself.  Since  Makart  there  have 
arisen  in  Vienna  but  few  men  of  original  talent  qualified  to 
follow  that  great  development  which  has  gone  forward  with 
seven-leagued  boots.  There  has  been  a  want  of  everything  in- 
dicating distinction  or  spontaneity ;  petrified  types  in  genre  and 
historical  work,  vulgar  motleyness  of  colour  or  the  imitation  of 
the  tones  of  old  pictures,  rules  of  composition  learnt  by  rote, 
tame  and  banal  drawing,  and  systematic  indifference  for  the 
frank  poetry  of  nature — those  are  usually  the  characteristics 
of  Austrian  painting.  Landscape  and  the  painting  of  animals 
are  the  two  solitary  departments  which  have  still  life  in 
Vienna,  and  are,  perhaps,  destined  to  pour  fresh  blood  into  its 
anaemic  art 

Dusseldorf  is  the  town  where  art  is  carried  on  by  a  cor- 
poration. The  genius  of  the  paint-box  is  a  reflective  spirit, 
with  sufficient  taste  and  insight  not  to  despise  novelty,  but  too 
timid  to  follow  any  path  where  others  have  not  gone  scatheless. 
The  old  artists  go  on  painting  in  Dusseldorf  as  they  have 
painted  for  years,  and  neither  better  nor  worse.  And  young 
men  have  still  before  their  eyes  that  "fear  of  doing  anything 
foolish   in   paint"  which  Immermann  once  cited   as  the  charac- 


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Si8  MODERN  PAINTING 

teristic  of  the  school.  Arthur  Kampf,  Eduard  Kdnipffer^  Olaf 
femberg,  and  a  few  young  landscape-painters,  however,  excited 
special  attention  at  recent  ^chibitions. 

In  Otto  Reiniger  Stuttgart  possesses  a  powerful  landscapist, 
who  has  a  preference  for  large  cultivated  fields,  and  in  essential 
simplicity  of  technique  does  the  utmost  that  is  possible  in  this 
province  of  work  ;  and  in  Robert  Haug  it  has  a  popular  painter 
of  soldiers,  who  unites  sound  ability  with  a  homely  bourgeois 
talent  for  narrative. 

Thomas  Herbst  lives  in  Hamburg,  known  by  few,  though 
one  of  the  most  refined  landscape  and  animal  painters  of  the 
present  age.  The  idyllic  nooks  about  the  old  Hanseatic  town 
and  the  green  meadows  near  Blankenese  have  been  painted  by 
him  with  a  tender  gift  of  absorption  and  a  delicacy  expressive 
of  the  artist's  temperament. 

In  the  eighties  Carlsruhe  came  to  the  front  with  astonishing 
vigour.  Gustav  Schonleber,  a  pupil  of  Lier,  painted  in  Holland, 
rendering  those  delicate  charms  of  flat  landscape  which  even 
three  hundred  years  ago  quickened  the  feeling  of  the  Dutch 
painters.  Still  streams,  rippled  by  a  light  breeze,  glide  through 
fertile  plains.  Church  towers  rise  in  the  yellow  evening  sky. 
Moist  vapour  trembles  in  the  atmosphere,  and  envelops  the 
old  red  and  grey  roofs.  Herrmann  Baischy  who  worked  for  a 
time  under  Rousseau  in  Paris,  discovered  felicitous  motives  in 
the  level  land  by  the  North  Sea  and  in  the  wide  plains 
bordering  the  Dutch  coast.  Grazing  herds  move  in  the  rich 
pastures,  where  a  windmill  or  a  clump  of  trees  rises ;  here  and 
there  herdsmen  stand  leaning  upon  their  staffs,  or  dairymaids 
come  to  milk  upon  the  meadow.  The  sky  is  clouded,  and  the 
sea-mist  hangs  in  the  greyish-green  tree-tops.  Deriving  his 
impulse  from  Schonleber  and  Baisch,  Kallmorgen  usually  enlivens 
his  landscapes  with  dramatically  pointed  scenes  of  genre.  A 
crockery  market  is  thrown  into  commotion  by  a  frightened 
horse,  or  a  dashing  rider  passes  through  a  village  in  the  Black 
Forest  Or  perhaps  the  place  is  visited  by  a  flood.  Ruined 
hedges  and  gardens  and  vegetable-beds  smothered  in  mud  emerge 
from  the  subsiding  water.      Children    and   women   in   the   damp 


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GERMANY 


519 


Bruno  Piglhein. 


spring    wind    stand    by    in    dull 

despair.     But  where  there  are  no 

young  men  of  enterprise  pressing 

forward,  older   painters  lack   the 

best  incitement  to  progress,  and 

Carlsruhe   seems    to    have   come 

once      more     to     a      standstill. 

Schonleber     has      adapted     the 

newly     discovered     method     of 

expression   to   the   needs  of  the 

drawing-room,   and    his    pictures 

have    become    so    chic    that    he 

rather  resembles  Oswald  Achen- 

bach  than   Liebermann.      Baisch 

repeats  the  same  subjects  without 

renovating  his  talent,  and  whether  that  sensitive  artist  Robert 
Poetzelberger  will  succeed  in  creating  an  aftermath  must  be  left 
for  the  future  to  decide. 

Weimar  presents  the  astonishing  and  remarkable  pheno- 
menon of  an  academy  that  for  once  exercises  no  retarding 
influence  upon  the  efforts  of  a  band  of  artists.  Here  through 
long  years  Theodor  Hagen  has  fought  for  everything  genuine 
and  progressive,  and,  whether  as  a  teacher  or  an  artist,  has 
opened  the  eyes  of  many  a  young  painter.  His  pictures  are 
homely  and  simple :  cultivated  fields  and  hills  touched  by  the 
delicate  bloom  of  the  rising  sun,  or  phases  of  evening  when 
colours  fade  in  the  darkness  and  forms  are  veiled.  Schiller's 
grandson,  Baron  Gleicften-Russwurm,  was  strengthened  by  Hagen 
to  go  with  courage  upon  his  solitary  way.  Even  in  the  days 
when  the  geographical  view  was  everywhere  in  the  ascendant, 
he  roamed  over  his  fields  as  a  landlord,  noting  the  billowing 
wind  in  the  tops  of  the  trees  that  were  growing  green,  and  the 
play  of  light  upon  the  narrow  grassy  ridges  separating  meadow 
from  meadow,  and  painted  his  unostentatious  pictures :  green 
cornfields  with  blossoming  apple-trees  shivering  in  the  evening 
breeze,  green  meadows  with  washing  spread  out  to  bleach. 
Beside    Hagen    with     his     liking    for     discreet,    subdued    tones, 


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520  MODERN  PAINTING 


Piglhein:   '*La  Diva." 


iHanfsUbtgi  pholo. 


Gleichen-Russwurm  seems  more  direct  and  downright  His 
painting  is  full  and  healthy,  decisive  and  broad.  Everything 
is  flooded  with  the  brightest  and  most  unbroken  daylight 
Amongst  younger  artists  formed  by  Hagen,  Berkemeier  and 
Thierbach  are  both  noticeable.  Berkemeiery  a  man  of  born 
talent,  paints  strand  pictures  from  Holland,  his  native  country, 
rendering  an  energetic  analysis  of  the  impressions  of  nature. 
Thierbach,  an  artist  of  homely  simplicity,  slightly  recalling 
Thoma,  has,  in  particular,  discovered  charming  scenes  in  the 
Harz  district  And  in  Paul  Baum  Claude  Monet  has  found  a 
satellite  who  is  full  of  talent 

But  the  new  art  has  its  firm  stronghold  in  Munich.  The 
more  Berlin  has  become  the  centre  of  actual  life,  the  great 
city  which  levels  all  things,  the  more  has  Munich  assumed 
the  absolute  and  incontestable  leadership  in  art  It  would 
seem  that  there  are  currents  from  the  sources  of  the  Isar 
which  neither  the  decrees  of  Ministers  nor  the  power  of  gold 
can  guide  into  the  Spree.  The  Munich  colony  of  artists  have 
always  admitted  honourably  how  much  there  was  to  be  learnt 
from  foreign  countries ;  they  have  never  complacently  rested 
upon  their  attainments,  but  have  answered  to  all  novel  impulses 
with  a  delight  in  learning  and  fine  comprehension.  This  gives 
the  Munich  school  its  great  predominance  ;  and  this  has  rendered 
Munich   the   home   of  progress,    the   guiding    centre    of   artistic 


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34 


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GERMANY 


523 


Albert  Keller. 


creation  in  Germany.  Of  course 
it  is  impossible  to  pass  final 
judgment  upon  these  contem- 
poraries, the  more  exact  classi- 
fication of  whom  must  be  the 
work  of  time  alone.  It  is  even 
difficult  to  make  a  just  selection 
of  artists,  for  the  greatness  of 
Munich  art  is  that  it  does  not 
rest  upon  individual  masters 
towering  over  the  others,  but 
upon  the  vigorous  strength  and 
efficient  drill  of  the  whole  band  : 
the  higher  the  general  level  rises, 
the  more  do  the  separate  peaks 
seem  to  vanish. 

Amongst  those  older  artists 
who  have  remained  young,  Bruno  Piglhein  claims  the  foremost 
place :  he  is  a  painter  who  did  not  join  in  affecting  the  outward 
symptoms  of  the  new  movement,  and  yet  he  could  not  grow 
old-fashioned,  having  always  been  of  a  modern  spirit.  A  man 
of  facile,  improvising  talent,  Piglhein  has  painted  the  most 
various  subjects  and  such  as  lie  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
most  obvious  reality,  and  yet  he  has  never  done  so  as  an 
imitator  of  the  old  masters  nor  as  a  genre  painter.  In  all  his 
work  expression  is  given  to  personal  taste  which  has  been 
subjected  to  superior  training.  A  pictorial  and  not  an  anecdotic 
idea  guided .  him  in  everything.  Attention  was  first  drawn  to 
him  in  1879  by  a  picture  of  the  Crucifixion,  "  Moritur  in  Deo." 
The  angel  floating  down  to  the  Saviour  and  receiving  His  spirit 
from  His  pale  lips  in  a  kiss  was  bold  and  magnificent  in  effect. 
Afterwards  he  acquired  a  certain  reputation  as  the  painter  of 
Paganism  and  beautiful  sin.  His  piquant  pastels — his  "  Pierrette," 
his  "Pschiitt,"  his  "Dancing  Girl,"  or  the  idyll  of  "The  Girl 
with  the  Dog  " — might  be  taken  for  the  works  of  a  Frenchman, 
with  such  an  audacious  bravura  and  Parisian  esprit  were  they 
painted.      But  while  they   were   making  his   name   in    England 


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and  America,  Piglhein 
himself  returned  to  far 
greater  tasks.  Panoramas 
are,  as  a  rule,  matters  of 
indifference  to  art  A 
work  of  art  is  as  different 
from  those  rough  -  and  - 
ready  representations  of 
patriotic  events,  which 
have  hitherto  been  almost 
exclusively  adapted  for 
panoramic  pictures,  as  a 
poem  is  different  from  the 
report  of  a  battle.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the 
report  of  a  battle,  whether 
in  paint  or  print,  might 
be  consistent  with  art,  but 
it  is  questionable  whether 
such  has  been  the  case  in 
actual  practice.  But  in 
his  "  Crucifixion  of  Christ " 
of  1888  Piglhein  opened  a  new  course  to  panoramic  painting. 
It  was  only  a  man  of  such  eminent  ability,  such  great 
imagination  and  refined  feeling,  who  could  have  compassed  an 
effect  so  thoroughly  artistic  in  the  form  of  a  panoramic  picture. 
Indescribable  was  the  impression  made  by  the  landscape  fringed 
with  hills  and  groves  of  olive,  a  landscape  which  in  some  places 
revealed  scenes  which  had  been  finely  felt  and  which  were 
grandiose  in  their  effect  But  the  best  of  Piglhein  is  his 
unpainted  pictures. 

In  science  there  are  proud  and  lonely  spirits,  who  never  feel  the 
need  of  expressing  their  thoughts  through  the  medium  of  printer's 
ink — spirits  to  whom  the  diligent  handicraftsman  in  the  things 
of  the  mind  is  fain  to  look  up  to  with  a  reverent  awe,  acknow- 
ledging that  what  he  brings  to  light  himself  is  a  poor  fragmen- 
tary result  compared  with    the  rich  store  of  ideas  hidden  in  the 


{Hanfst&ngl  photo. 
Keller:  Portrait  of  a  Lady. 


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minds  of  those  great 
silent  men.  It  is 
with  similar  feelings 
that  one  regards 
Piglhein.  He  is  ac- 
corded high  honours 
by  the  younger 
generation;  Various 
as  the  opinions  held 
about  older  men  may 
be,  in  regard  to 
Piglhein  there  is  no 
difference  of  judg- 
ment. He  is  looked 
upon  as  one  of  those 
rare  artists  who  could 
do  all  they  wish,  had 
they  but  occasion 
to  display  the  full 
measure  of  their  en- 
dowment. His  Cen- 
taur   pictures,   "  The 

Burial  of  Christ"  with  its  grave  and  solemn  landscape,  the 
picture  of  the  blind  woman  stepping  through  the  blooming  field 
of  poppies  feeling  her  way  with  a  stick— all  these  are  amongst 
the  most  effective  pictures  produced  in  Germany  during  the 
last  decade;  and  yet,  exhibited  by  Piglhein,  they  seem  merely 
the  minor  investments  of  a  vast  capital,  which  would  yield  pro- 
ceeds of  a  very  different  kind  were  it  but  rightly  laid  out. 
Germany  is  guilty  of  annually  wasting  large  sums  of  money  on  the 
unprofitable  purchase  of  oil-paintings  which  in  a  few  years  will 
merely  crowd  her  galleries  with  so  much  daubed  canvas.  She 
has  numbers  of  public  buildings  embellished  with  wall-paintings 
which,  in  the  form  of  cheap  woodcuts,  would  be  far  more  effectual 
in  answering  the  designed  end  of  fostering  a  sense  of  patriotism. 
And  in  Piglhein  it  possesses  a  man  of  the  first  order  of  decora- 
tive   talent.      What  he  has  been  allowed  to   execute  is  little  :    a 


[Han/stdngl  photo, 
Keller:   "The  Sleep  of  a  Witch." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Keller  :   "  Supper." 


\HanJstdngl  i^hoto. 


"  Bavaria,"  a  few  decorations  in  Hamburg  and  Wiesbaden — 
occasional  works  which  have  not  taken  him  many  weeks.  But 
every  one  of  these  works  was  whimsical,  imaginative,  buoyant, 
and  strange.  They  bore  no  trace  of  academical  sobriety,  but 
were  everywhere  full  of  life,  pictorial  inspiration,  and  irrepress- 
ible joy  of  the  senses.  Everything  showed  that  in  his  imagina- 
tion there  are  latent  powers  which  only  need  a  summons  to 
reveal  themselves  in  the  most  delightful  manner.  The  history 
of  German  art  in  the  nineteenth  century  is  frequently  a  history 
of  wasted  opportunities.  And  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  Germany 
will  not  first  recognize  Piglhein's  significance  when  it  is  too 
late. 

Albert  Keller,  also,  was  a  pure  painter,  at  a  time  when  only 
historical  and  genre  painters  were  otherwise  to  be  found  in 
Munich.  He  never  gave  himself  up  to  making  coarse  broth, 
and  on  that  account  he  had  to  renounce  popular  fame ;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  never  ceased  to  be  interesting  in  artistic 
circles,  and  in  this  restlessly  progressive  age  of  ours  it  is  a 
rarity  in  itself  that  a  man  of  fifty  should  be  of  interest  still. 
Keller's  range  of  subject  is  limited  in  only  one  point :  he  has  a 
vast  contempt  of  banality,  and  the  reproduction  of  other  men's 
work  or  of  his  own.  Every  subject  must  give  him  the  oppor- 
tunity for  introducing   special    models,  and  such  as  have  not  as 


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GERMANY 


527 


Munich  :  Photographic  l/moH.] 

Baron  von  Habermann  :  Portrait  of  Himself. 

yet  been  used,  pictorial  experiments  and  new  problems  of 
colour.  In  all  that  he  does  he  expresses  an  original  artistic 
physiognomy,  something  boldly  subjective  in  conception,  and  he 
possesses  temperament  to  the  very  ends  of  his  fingers.  White 
satin  dresses,  vases  with  lilac  elder  flowers,  spirited  arrange- 
ments of  colours,  and  heavy  silks,  cushions,  and  bearskins — such 
are  the  accessories  in  Albert  Keller's  portraits  of  women. 
There  is  no  one  else  in  Germany  who  can  render  pale,  delicate 
faces  and  finely  shaped  lids  with  so  much  comprehension,  no 
one  who  can  drape  rustling  dresses  with  such  perfect  taste  or 
place  them  upon  canvas  with  such  a  capricious  grace.  The 
fragrance  of  sa/on  and  boudoir  escape  from  those  pictures  of  his 
which  have  the  mistress  of  the  salon  as  their  subject. 

Sometimes   these   likenesses   are   groups   giving   rise   to   such 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Habermann  :  "A  Child  or  Misfortune." 


{Htttt/stdHgl  helio. 


works  as  his  charming  "  Supper,"  which  he  had  in  the  exhibi- 
tion of  1890.  In  Johansen's  works  which  hung  there  at  the 
same  time  the  subdued  radiance  of  the  lamp  was  seen  to 
shine,  but  in  Keller's  there  were  candles  gleaming  like  faint 
bright  spots  in  the  atmosphere  impregnated  with  the  smoke  of 
cigarettes.  In  Johansen  the  men  had  old-fashioned  coats,  and 
the  women  were  over-dressed  in  a  provincial  way.  But  Keller 
painted  a  fashionable  scene  of  smart  life  with  the  most  refined 
chic. 

Or  his  sensibility  to  colour  is  combined  with  an  interest  in 
hypnotism  and  spiritualism  giving  rise  to  such  pictures  as  "  The 
Raising  of  a  Dead  Woman"  and  "The  Sleep  of  a  Witch."  In 
the  picture  of  the  raising  he  found  occasion  to  utilize  as  a  back- 
ground antiquity  with  its  delicately  graduated  hues  and  the  East 
with  its  delight  in  colour.  His  theme  "  The  Sleep  of  a  Witch " 
allowed  him  to  gather  into  a  beautiful  bouquet  the  motley  and 
richly  coloured  costumes  of   the  Middle  Ages,  over    which  there 


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GERMANY 


529 


Count  Leopold  von  Kalckreuth. 


rose  the  lustrous  mother-of-pearl 
tone  of  a  nude  woman's  body. 
In  each  case,  however,  a  modern 
psychological  problem  was  united 
with  the  scheme  of  colour.  The 
earnest  and  absorbed  portrayal 
of  the  girl  whose  spirit  falters 
dreamily  back  into  life  out  of 
the  night  of  death,  and  the 
enthusiastic  ecstasy  of  the  witch 
suffering  a  death  of  fire  with  a 
smile  of  rapture  would  never 
have  been  painted  if  Charcot  and 
Richer  had  not  about  that  time 
created  an  interest  in  hypnotic 
researches. 

But  a  temperament  rejoicing  in  colour,  like  Keller's,  is  not 
seen  at  its  best  in  finished  pictures,  but  rather  in  sketches ;  in 
the  latter  the  original,  creative,  and  individual  element  is  dis- 
played with  greater  force  than  is  the  case  in  works  where  it 
too  easily  evaporates  in  the  course  of  elaboration.  The  privilege 
of  the  gourmet  is  to  have  a  palate  so  fine  that  in  contact  with 
dainties  it  gives  him  sensations  which  escape  others.  Keller 
works  for  artistic  gourfnets  whose  eyes  are  similarly  sensitive  to 
the  pleasures  of  colour.  What  he  represents  is  a  matter  of 
indifference — pleasant  interiors  with  children,  girls  seated  at  the 
piano  or  reading  or  occupied  with  their  toilette,  religious  sub- 
jects or  mythological ;  in  each  case  the  figures  and  subjects  are 
developed  from  the  scheme  of  colour,  and  the  chords  which  he 
strikes  are  voluptuously  toned.  Every  sketch  of  his  is  a  refined 
and  coquettish  jewel,  a  trinket  of  alluring  charm.  He  saw  the 
artists  who  delighted  in  grey  or  bituminous  tones  pass  by  his 
window,  but  he  remained  always  the  same :  a  charmeur  in 
colour,  a  painter  of  sparkling  grace  belonging  to  the  noble 
family  of  those  spoken  of  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  peintres 
des  fites  galantes — men  like  Alfred  Stevens,  Decamps,  Isabey, 
and  Watteau. 


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Munich:  Albtrt.] 


Kalckreitth  :   "  Homewards." 


In  Baron  von  Habermann  this  sensibility  to  colour  is  com- 
bined with  a  stronger  leaning  towards  dicadent^  or,  as  Nordau 
would  say,  degenerate  art  He  is  an  esprit  tourtntntiy  a  Sybarite, 
who  has  spoilt  his  taste  for  ordinary  fare,  and  finds  savour  only 
in  the  strong  spice  of  strange  and  unfamiliar  matters.  Standing 
at  first  beneath  the  influence  of  the  Piloty  school,  and  beneath 
the  sway  of  ideals  reminiscent  of  the  old  masters,  he  even  then 
displayed  an  astonishing  sureness  and  most  notable  taste.  A 
tinge  of  melancholy,  and  a  bitter  pessimistic  view  of  the  world, 
entered  into  his  later  pictures,  where  medicine  bottles,  basins, 
and  surgical  instruments  took  the  place  occupied  by  settles  and 
folios  in  the  earlier  historical  pieces.  At  times  he  has  moments 
when  a  general  disgust  of  everything  traditional  moves  him 
to  the  painting  of  regular  gamin  pictures  of  girls,  in  which  he 
is  most  perverse ;  but  of  late  years  work  with  an  allegorical 
strain  is  what  seems  to  have  interested  him  chiefly.  It  is  poss- 
ible that  the  originality  of  Habermann  may  seem  slightly 
perverse  to  later  generations ;    but  for  any  one  who  would  know 


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531 


Graphischg  Kuttstt.l 


Kuehl:    *' LUbeckv Orphan  Girls." 


the  feelings  of  our  own  age  he  is  one  of  the  most  captivating 
figures. 

Amongst  those  who  have  chosen  the  naturalistic  range  of 
subject  without  qualification,  Count  Leopold  von  Kakkreuth  is  one 
of  the  most  powerful.  It  was  in  grey  Holland  that  his  eyes 
were  opened,  and  melancholy,  lowering,  sunless  phases  of  atmo- 
sphere predominate  in  his  pictures.  In  1888  he  painted  the  old 
seaman  on  the  strand  watching  the  boats  running  out,  and 
gazing  sadly  after  them.  The  sky  was  grey,  and  grey  the 
strand,  and  the  form  of  the  old  man  in  his  rough  red  frieze 
shirt  and  loose  dark  grey  trousers  rose  powerful  in  the  fore- 
ground amid  the  flat  coast  landscape.  The  exhibition  of  1889 
contained  "  Homewards,"  two  great  farm-horses,  with  a  labourer 
seated  upon  one  of  them  and  talking  with  a  sturdy  country  girl 
— a  picture  which  has  nothing  like  it  as  a  realistic  study.  A 
second  picture  was  named  "  Summer."  In  the  sunny  evening 
summer  air,  which  none  the  less  prognosticates  a  storm,  a 
peasant^  woman,  with  a  sickle  in  one  hand  and  the  other  resting 


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against  her  pregnant  body, 
is  seen  to  pass  along  the 
ripening  corn  lost  in  dull 
brooding  thoughts.  A 
gigantic  energy,  something 
at  once  athletic  and  monu- 
mental, is  in  Kalckreuth's 
austere  and  mercilessly 
realistic  works.  If  he 
paints  rustic  life,  the 
heavy  odour  of  the  earth 
streams  from  his  pictures ; 
if  he  executes  likenesses, 
they  have  a  plainness  and 
force  of  expression  such 
as  only  Leibl  possessed 
amongst  previous  artists. 

Gotthard  Ktuhl  takes 
his  origin  from  Fortuny. 
His  earliest  piquant 
Rococo  pictures  had  the 
same  dazzling  virtuosity  as  the  works  of  the  Spaniard,  and  this 
artistic  descent  from  Fortuny  is  to  be  seen  in  him  always. 
There  is  something  sparkling  and  coquettish  in  the  way  in 
which  sunbeams  fall  upon  blond  hair,  and  metal,  and  the 
crucifixes  and  altars  of  old  Rococo  churches,  in  the  pictures 
of  Kuehl.  The  Dutch  purity  of  Liebermann  is  united  with  a 
certain  esprit  recalling  Menzel— with  a  love  of  all  that  sparkles 
and  flickers,  of  splendour  and  of  ornament.  **  Liibeck  Orphan 
Girls,"  painted  in  1884,  was  the  name  of  the  first  picture  in 
which  he  followed  Liebermann.  Four  young  and  pretty 
sempstresses  are  seated  in  their  workroom  with  soft  light 
playing  over  their  figures.  Clear,  cold  tones  are  here  in  the 
ascendant,  and  it  is  only  the  red  of  the  clothes  and  of  the  tiles 
of  a  roof  seen  through  the  open  window  which  gives  animation 
to  the  light  harmony  of  colours.  In  other  pictures  there  sit  men 
stitching  sails,  or  there  are  old  women  at  work  ;   while   through 


Munich  :  Hanfst&ngl.'\ 

Kuehl:   "A  Church  Interior.' 


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GERMANY 


533 


the  slits  of  the  jalousies 

the    light    falls    broadly, 

flashing      and      dazzling 

upon  the  polished  boards. 

But     the     gay     Rococo 

churches     which    remain 

intact     in     Munich, 

Bruchsal,       Liibeck,      or 

Hamburg     continued    to 

be    his    favourite    study. 

Girls     in    white    dresses 

play     upon     the     organ. 

Choristers    in     red     and 

black   move    in   front   of 

the   bright   plaster  walls. 

Or,   perhaps,   the   church 

is     empty  ;      the      light 

glances     upon     splendid 

altars  with  spiral  marble 

pillars,  upon   the   curved 

gable  ceiling,  where  the 

eye    of   God    is   glowing 

in  golden  rays,  upon  the 

gorgeous    reliques    sparkling    in    precious    tabernacles.      In    the 

sportive   and  pointed   treatment  of  such  matters  Kuehl  displays 

a  peculiar  adroitness. 

In  the  pictures  by  which  he  first  became  known  in  1883, 
Paul  Hocker^  another  of  the  many  artists  inspired  by  Holland, 
usually  represented  kitchens  in  the  homes  of  Dutch  fishermen, 
kitchens  with  tiled  fireplaces,  painted  delft  plates,  and  bubbling 
kettles.  The  crackling  fire  throws  its  golden-reddish  glow  in 
all  directions,  chasing  away  the  shades  of  dusk.  Before  the 
hearth  sits  the  young  huisvrouw,  lost  in  still  reverie,  with  her 
face  turned  to  the  blaze  which  tinges  her  cheeks  with  a  warm 
flush,  whilst  a  smart  little  white  cap  covers  the  upper  part  of 
her  visage.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not  reach  an  intimate  effect 
transcending   the   nlere   impression   of  a   picture,  like  Johansen, 


[Hanfst&ngl  helio. 
Hocker:   "Before  the  Hearth.** 


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534 


MODERt^  PAINTING 


ZuGEL :   **  In  the  Autumn." 

but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  his  works  have  a  fusion  of 
colour  which  is  soothing  to  the  eye.  In  later  days  he  painted 
sea-pieces  or  meditative  nuns,  and  when  mysticism  came  into 
vogue  he  showed  an  eclectic  taste  in  joining  the  movement. 

In  Heinrich  Zugel  and  Victor  Weishaupt  the  Munich  school 
possesses  two  animal  painters  who  compare  with  the  great  French- 
men in  inherent  force.  Indeed  Heinrich  ZUgel — who  is  full  of 
genuinely  pictorial  talent,  and  touches  nature  as  few  others  have 
done — is  admirable  in  the  painting  of  cattle  of  all  kinds,  and 
not  less  so  in  rendering  light,  air,  and  landscape.  As  a  rule 
there  may  be  seen  in  his  pictures  sheep  grazing  upon  blue  and 
sunny  summer  days  over  fresh  pastures  clothed  with  tender 
green,  while  the  sunbeams  glance  upon  their  fleecy  backs.  His 
most  impressive  picture  of  oxen  was  in  the  exhibition  of  1892. 
With  a  mild  and  cool  light  the  autumn  sun  fell  upon  the  brown 
field  turned  up  by  the  ploughshare.  A  magnificent  pair  of 
dappled  oxen  yoked  to  the  plough  stepped  forwards,  casting 
broad  shadows  upon  the  steaming  clods.  That  powerful  and 
energetic    master    Victor    Weishaupt    is    usually   more    dramatic. 


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GERMANY  535 

His  brutes  engage  in  combat  or  rush  wildly  over  the  wide  plain. 
But  in  his  idyllic  landscapes  he  renders  the  freshness  and  blithe 
serenity  of  rustic  life. 

Ludwig  Dill  is  best  known  as  the  painter  of  Venice,  of  the 
lagunes  and  Chioggia,  but  besides  his  forcible  and  energetic 
sea-pieces  he  has  painted  landscapes,  intimately  felt  and  repre- 
sented with  sovereign  power:  little  strips  of  shore  where  the 
waves  subside,  familiar  garden  nooks  with  flowers  growing  in 
gay  confusion,  lonely  moonlight  nights,  dimly  blue,  and  filled 
with  a  silvery,  tremulous  starlight. 

A  vigorous  pictorial  talent  animates  the  work  of  Ludwig 
Herterich^  who  moves  with  facility  in  the  most  various  fields, 
without  any  marked  tendency  to  brooding  speculation ;  and  he 
is,  at  the  same  time,  an  excellent  teacher,  who  has  opened  the 
eyes  of  many  a  younger  artist.  Waclaw  Scymanowski  makes 
a  rough,  it  might  almost  be  said  a  crude  and  barbaric  effect ; 
but  every  one  of  his  pictures,  from  the  wild  and  agitated  "  Fight 
in  a  Tavern"  down  to  "The  Prayer"  of  1893,  is  an  earnest 
work,  sustained  with  artistic  force  of  conception.  Hans  Olde^ 
who,  after  his  apprentice  period  in  Munich,  settled  in  a  sequestered 
nook  of  Holstein,  has  found  charming  things  to  paint  amid 
the  cool,  sparkling  air  of  the  North :  tilled  fields  in  the  fresh 
dew  before  sunrise,  with  labourers  going  to  their  work,  or  silvery 
winter  landscapes  where  the  snow  is  like  crystal,  white  flocks 
of  sheep,  trees  covered  with  icicles,  and  glittering  beams  pouring 
over  the  diamond  crust  of  the  ice  in  waves  of  blue  light. 

All  the  work  of  Arthur  Langhammer  is  exceedingly  delicate, 
sincere,  and  expressive  of  the  artist's  mood,  and  felt  with  manly 
tenderness.  In  Leo  Satnberger  a  new  Lenbach  seems  to  have 
risen  in  the  Munich  school,  though  one  with  less  piquancy  and 
a  largeness  which  is  more  austere.  Walter  Firle  was  successful 
with  a  series  of  fluent  pictures,  in  which  he  followed  the  leaders 
of  the  school  as  a  dexterous  disciple.  Hans  von  Bartels  is  a 
luxuriant  water-colour  artist  who  represents,  almost  with  too 
much  routine,  the  pictorial  charm  of  the  Northern  sea,  the 
gleaming  floor  of  the  waters  with  the  damp  atmosphere  above, 
the  restless  throng  of  human  beings   in  the  port  of  Hamburg, 


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536  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  the  interior  of  smoky  taverns  where  seamen  gather.  And 
Wilhebn  Kelkr-Reutlingen  has  the  art  of  reproducing  in  a  masterly 
fashion  the  charm  of  a  level  landscape  with  its  subtile  grada- 
tions of  colour  and  all  the  plenitude  of  light  shed  through  the 
great  vault  of  the  sky.  The  Dachau  plain  was  a  special  source 
of  inspiration  for  his  beautiful  summer  landscapes.  The  names 
of  other  painters  who  would  demand  more  detailed  consideration 
if  they  lived  in  any  town  less  rich  in  artists  than  Munich  are 
G,  Ankarcrona^  Martin  Aster,  Frits  Baer,  Benno  Becker^  E.  Becker- 
Gundahl,  Peter  Behrens,    Tina  Blau,  Josef  Block,  H.  Borchardt, 

B.  Buttersacky  Louis  Corinth,  Alois  Delug,  Otto  Ecktnann,  H, 
Eichfeldy  Otto  Engel,  Alois  Erdtelt,  Friedrich  Fehr,  Georg  Flad, 
Heinz  Heim,  Thomas  Theodor  Heine,  Hubert  von  Heyden,  O.  Hierl- 
Deronco,  A.  Hoelzel,  Tluodor  Huntnul,  H.  Konig,  E,  Kubierschky, 
M,  Kuscltel,  R,  Lipps,  G.  von  Maffei,  P,  P.  MUller,  Hermann 
Neu/iauSy  Ernst  Opler,  Geza  Peske,  F.  Rabending,  W.  Rduber, 
M.  von  Schmaedel,  L,  Schoenchen,  Paul  Schroeter,  Alfred  von 
Schroedter,  F,  Strobentz,  O.  Ubbelohde,   W.   Velten,  C.   Vinnen,  and 

C,  Voss.  And  to  this  long  list  there  might  be  joined  a  whole 
series  of  young  men  of  talent  But  as  yet  they  are  too  much 
in  a  state  of  development  for  the  historian  to  dwell  upon  them, 
though  they  are  of  all  the  more  importance  to  the  lover  of 
painting  who  has  the  artistic  eminence  of  Munich  at  heart ;  for 
in  art,  to  speak  candidly,  the  younger  generation  are  of  prime 
significance,  since  they  alone  assure  the  future,  and  without  a 
worthy  future  the  past  itself  must  speedily  decay. 

That  the  art  of  illustration  took  a  new  and  higher  development 
under  the  influence  of  the  earnest  study  of  nature  which  had 
entered  into  painting  is  a  truth  of  which  Fliegende  Blatter  gives 
sufficient  proof.  Here,  also,  the  vagueness  or  extravagance  of 
early  days  was  transformed  until  it  became  refined,  discreet, 
and  animated.  Spirited  comedy  took  the  place  of  burlesque 
farces,  and  vivid  street  or  drawing-room  studies  that  of  droll 
figures  separately  displayed.  Rend  Reinicke  especially,  and  also 
Hermann  Schlittgen,  mark  the  furthest  extreme  to  be  attained 
by  modern  caricature  as  opposed  to  the  stereotyped  distortion 
of  former  epochs.      With   incisive  strokes,   the  effect  of  which 


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GERMANY  537 

has  been  fully  calculated,  they  understand  how  to  render  the 
world  of  fashion  and  pleasure  in  the  streets  and  in  the 
salon,  in  ordinary  attire  or  in  uniform,  in  ball-dress  or  in  the 
skirts  of  the  ballet.  Every  line  is  made  to  tell ;  every  one  of 
their  plates  is  a  spirited  causerie,  fresh,  light,  and  sparkling. 
And  Hengelery  Fritz  Wahle,  and  others  have  likewise  produced 
charming  pictures,  elaborated  with  an  astonishing  technique, 
pictures  from  which  later  generations  will  gather  as  much  con- 
cerning the  physiognomy  of  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
as  the  delicate  Rococo  masters  have  taught  the  present  generation 
in  regard  to  the  civilization  of  the  eighteenth.  Franz  Stuck, 
whose  rise  has  been  so  brilliant,  leads  from  this  art  rejoicing 
in  reality  to  the  last  phase  of  modernity,  the  New  Idealism. 


VOL.  III.  35 


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BOOK   V 

THE   NEW  IDEALISTS 


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BOOK   V 

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CHAPTER   XLVI 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM 

Afier  Naturalism  had  taught  artists  to  work  ufon  the  impressions  of 
external  reality  in  an  independent  manner^  a  tra?tsition  was  made  by 
some  who  embodied  the  impressions  of  their  inward  spirit  in  a  free 
creative  fashion  ^  unborrowed  from  the  old  masters. 

**  A  RTIST,  thou  art  priest :  art  is  the  great  mystery,  and 
JljL  when  thy  labour  results  in  a  masterpiece,  a  ray  of  the 
Divine  descends  as  though  upon  an  altar.  O  veritable  presence 
of  Deity,  thou  who  shinest  upon  us  from  the  sublime  names  of 
Da  Vinci,  Michael  Angelo,  Beethoven,  Wagner ! 

"  Artist,  thou  art  king  :  art  is  the  true  kingdom.  When  thy 
hand  has  executed  a  perfect  line,  the  very  Cherubim  come  down 
from  heaven  and  behold  themselves  in  it  as  in  a  glass. 

"  Drawing  full  of  spiritual  meaning,  line  inspired  with  soul, 
form  that  has  been  inwardly  felt,  thou  hast  given  body  to 
our  dreams :  Samothrace  and  St.  John,  Sistine  Chapel  and 
Cenacolo,  Parsifal,  Ninth  Symphony,  Notre-Dame. 

"  Artist,  thou  art  mage  :  art  is  the  great  wonder  and  the  evi- 
dence of  our  immortality.  Who  has  doubt  any  longer?  Giotto 
has  touched  the  stigma  of  St  Francis,  the  Virgin  appeared 
to  Fra  Angelico,  and  Rembrandt  demonstrated  the  raising  of 
Lazarus.  Of  all  pedantic  subtilties  there  has  been  absolute 
confutation :  men  doubt  of  Moses,  and  there  comes  Michael 
Angelo ;  men  deny  Jesus,  and  there  comes  Leonardo.  Men 
profane  all  things ;  but  sacred  and  unchangeable  art  continues  in 
prayer.  O  ineffable,  serene,  and  lofty  sublimity,  Holy  Grail  for 
ever  shining,  pix  and  relique,  unvanquished  banner,  omnipotent 


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542  MODERN  PAINTING 

art,  Art-God,  th^e  do  I  honour  upon  my  knees,  thou  last 
ray  from  above,  falling  upon  our  corruption  !  Imbecile  kings, 
who  have  lost  their  crowns,  die  upon  the  pavement  of  the 
towns  where  once  their  race  held  sway.  A  stupefied  nobility 
only  lives  in  the  stable  in  these  days,  and  false  priests  soil  their 
cloth.  All  is  tottering,  all  is  over,  the  decadence  yawns  and 
shakes  the  rock  upon  which  Jesus  built  His  Church.  Weep, 
O  Gregory  VII.,  mighty  Pope,  who  wouldst  have  saved  all,  weep 
in  heaven  over  thy  Church  fallen  into  darkness  ;  and  thou,  old 
Dante,  catholic  Homer,  rise  from  thy  throne  of  glory,  and 
mingle  thy  wrath  with  the  despair  of  Buonarotti.  Yet  behold 
— for  a  ray  of  sacred  light  is  visible,  a  pale  lustre  is  shed 
abroad — O  miracle  of  miracles !  a  rose  lifts  up  its  head  and 
opens  its  chalice  wide,  clasping  the  holy  cross  with  its  leaves  : 
and  the  cross  beams  in  heavenly  splendour ;  Jesus  has  not 
cursed  the  world,  for  He  receives  the  adoration  of  Art  The 
magi  were  the  first  who  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Divine 
Master,  and  at  the  last  the  magi  will  be  His  children.  The 
austere  enthusiasm  of  the  artist  survives  the  lost  piety  of  olden 
days.  Miserable  moderns,  halt  upon  your  course  to  the  nirvana, 
sink  beneath  the  burden  of  your  sins,  for  your  blasphemies 
shall  never  slay  faith.  You  may  close  the  churches,  but  what 
of  the  galleries  ?  The  Louvre  will  read  the  mass  if  Notre-Dame 
is  profaned.  Strauss,  surely,  has  denied,  but  Parsifal  has  borne 
witness,  and  the  archangel  of  Fra  Angelico  drowns  with  his 
sublime  voice  the  godless  old  wives'  twaddle  of  Ernest  Renan. 

"  Humanity,  O  Saviour,  will  always  go  to  Thy  mass  when 
the  priests  are  Bach,  Beethoven,  and  Palestrina.  Miserable 
moderns,  you  will  never  conquer,  for  St.  George  slays  the 
monster  ever  afresh,  and  Genius  and  Beauty  will  always  be 
God.  Brothers  in  Art,  I  give  the  battle-cry:  let  us  form  a 
sacred  band  for  the  rescue  of  Ideality.  We  are  a  few, 
with  all  against  us ;  but  the  angels  are  fighting  upon  our  side. 
We  have  no  leader,  but  the  old  masters  are  guiding  us  to 
Paradise." 

Such  were  the  words  with  which  Sar  Joseph  P^ladan,  in  the 
spring  of   1 892,   prefaced   the  catalogue    of    the    "  Rosicrucian " 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  543 

Exhibition  in  Paris,  which,  by  the  way,  was  not  called  "  cata- 
logue," but  Geste  EsthMque,  and  had  at  the  top  the  motto 
Non  nobis  Domine^  sed  nonn'm's  tut  glorice  soli.  Amen,  The 
exhibitors  called  themselves  magi  or  aesthetes,  and  were  more- 
over mediaeval  Catholics  who  had  chosen  the  Gothic  Rose  as 
their  emblem,  and  revived  once  more  the  Order  of  the  Rose- 
Garland.  They  painted,  but  likewise  held  themselves  to  be 
musicians,  and  they  exorcised  spirits  at  the  midnight  hour. 
Before  the  great  public  they  posed  as  hierophants,  and  de- 
picted themselves  in  their  catalogue  as  Chaldean  magi  devoted 
to  cabalistic  studies.  To  display  their  piety  to  the  whole 
world,  upon  the  opening  day  of  their  Salon  they  had  a  mass 
read  for  its  prosperity,  and  arranged  that  the  Celebration  music 
in  Parsifal  should  be  played  upon  the  organ.  When  the  last 
note  had  died  away  they  drew  of  a  sudden  from  their  breasts 
the  roses  which  they  had  worn  in  their  buttonholes  upon 
varnishing  day,  crossing  them  in  the  air  with  daggers,  to  the 
great  amazement  of  the  workmen  and  humble  dames  who 
attended  early  mass  in  Notre-Dame.  At  any  rate  their  prayers 
were  not  without  result.  On  the  opening  day — March  loth, 
1892 — the  premises  of  the  picture-dealer  Durand-Ruel  contained 
over  eleven  thousand  eager  spectators,  in  spite  of  the  high 
price  charged  for  admission.  The  great  mage  Peladan — a  man 
with  pale  features,  a  black  beard,  and  long  flowing  black  hair, 
clad  in  a  fantastic  costume  of  satin — did  the  honours  of  the 
house,  to  the  amusement  of  the  visitors.  The  programme  of 
the  Rosicrucians  was  as  follows ;  Everything  contemporary, 
every  representation  which  has  as  its  object  dead  nature, 
inanimate  landscape,  animals  or  plants,  or  "any  other  sort  of 
absurdity,"  was  to  be  rigorously  left  on  one  side,  likewise 
everything  realistic,  however  perfect  in  technique,  even  portraits 
so  far  as  they  did  not  "achieve  style."  "For  technique,'*  they 
said,  "  is  nothing,  and  substance,  thought,  and  style  everything." 
Their  object  was  to  paint  all  the  beautiful  myths  of  the  world, 
and  to  permeate  this  mythical  element  with  the  tender  senti- 
ment peculiar  to  our  own  generation,  carrying  it  to  the  point 
of  mysticism.     It  was  only  such  works  which   could    enrich   the 


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544  MODERN  PAINTING 

^gg^^g^t^  of  our  emotions,  and  give  us  sensations  we  should  not 
otherwise  have  had.  Amongst  the  works  exhibited  there  were 
pictures  which  recalled  the  art  of  the  ancient  Assyrians  rather 
than  that  of  modem  Paris,  so  helplessly  childish  were  they  in 
line  and  colour — so  archaic,  Chaldean,  and  metaphysical.  One 
artist  had  painted  a  flight  of  spirits,  another  an  "anaesthetic 
trance,"  a  third  the  angel  of  the  Rose-Garland,  and  a  fourth 
a  communicant  rapt  in  ecstasy;  a  Swiss,  named  Trachsel,  por- 
trayed in  a  series  of  water-colours  the  feelings  and  passions  of 
a  humanity  "  surpassing  our  own  in  the  intensity  of  their 
sensibilities."  In  the  evenings  choruses  from  Parsifal  were 
heard  resounding  from  invisible  depths,  and  fugues  by  Sebastian 
Bach.  Later  a  mass  of  Palestrina  was  performed  and  a 
pastorale  Chald^enne,  And  "  The  Son  of  tlie  Stars,**  a  Wagnerian 
coifiedy  in  three  acts,  by  Sar  Pdadan,  was  also  represented.  Ad 
rosam  per  Crucem,  ad  Crucem  per  rosam,  in  ea,  in  eis  gemmatus 
resurgam. 

Granting  that  this  exhibition  was  a  bizarre  aberration  of 
taste  on  the  part  of  novices  who  wished  to  advertise  themselves, 
it  was,  none  the  less,  in  its  essence,  the  issue  of  a  significant 
tendency  of  spirit,  serious  symptoms  of  which  had  been  per- 
ceptible for  several  years.  Even  in  this  paradoxical  display  it 
gave,  as  it  were,  official  confirmation  of  the  transition  of  art 
from  Realism  to  Transcendentalism,  of  its  joining  the  aristocratic 
and  idealistic  current  which  had  long  been  sweeping  over 
literature.  Realism  had  been  the  child  of  that  period  which 
had  seen  the  rise  of  Comte*s  philosophy.  Its  standard-bearers 
belonged  to  a  positive,  sober  generation,  inspired  rather  by  epical 
than  lyrical  emotion.  In  all  departments  of  intellectual  life 
those  throve  best  who  were  best  able  to  complete  their  work 
with  clear  vision  and  made  the  fewest  demands  upon  sentiment 
As  the  analysis  of  modem  manners  ruled  over  the  theatre  in 
Augier,  Dumas,  and  Sardou,  so,  in  the  hands  of  Balzac,  Flaubert, 
and  Zola,  the  novel  also  made  a  return  to  its  true  function  of 
painting  manners,  after  the  Romanticists  had  made  it  a  pretext 
for  lyrical  outpourings  and  descriptions  glowing  with  colour. 
There    arose    in    France    the    most    marvellous    constellation   of 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  545 

sculptors  who  had  appeared  since  the  Renaissance.  And  in 
criticism  and  science  Positivism  unrolled  its  banner  more 
proudly  than  ever  :  Comte,  Littr6,  Taine,  and  Sainte-Beuve  were 
in  the  height  of  activity.  All  metaphysical  researches  were  thrown 
into  the  background  as  unscientific.  In  the  presence  of  myth- 
ology and  religion  the  world  had  recourse  to  parody  and 
scepticism  with  Offenbach  and  Renan.  Nor  were  the  passions 
known  any  longer.  Taine  and  Zola  entrench  themselves  behind 
an  earthwork  of  objectivity,  and  seldom  allow  any  glimpse  into 
their  inward  spirit.  With  them  man  is  the  product  of  his 
circumstances,  like  everything  else,  and  as  such  he  has  the  right 
to  be  what  he  is.  Science  should  take  the  place  of  morals, 
religion,  and  philanthropy.  And  as  science  stands  unimpassioned 
in  the  face  of  nature,  painting  would  conquer  her  through  mere 
clearness  of  eyesight  and  with  as  little  passion. 

In  the  exhibitions,  whichever  way  one  turned,  there  was  the 
fresh  pulsating  life  of  our  own  time,  which  had  gradually  been 
made,  in  all  its  phases,  a  wide  field  of  observation  for  the  artist. 
Upon  all  sides  the  portrayal  of  the  modern  man  had  taken  the 
place  of  artificial  efforts  to  breathe  life  into  vanished  ages  of 
civilization.  After  a  long  period  of  alienation  from  the  world 
painting  came  back  at  last  to  its  chief  task — that  of  leaving  a 
counterfeit  of  its  own  time  to  posterity. 

The  purely  artistic  result  was  as  important  as  the  historical. 
The  art  of  the  nineteenth  century  had  begun  with  a  decayed 
Idealism  which  could  only  keep  its  ground  by  leaning  upon  the 
old  masters.  In  the  majority  of  instances  works  were  grounded 
upon  the  basis  of  canonical  forms  established  by  the  Greeks  and 
the  Cinquecentisti.  By  opposing  this  imitative  and  eclectic 
art.  Realism  opened  a  path  to  a  new  and  independent  view  of 
nature,  after  a  period  of  external  imitation.  Discipleship  and 
the  tyranny  of  set  form  were  overcome,  and  thus  the  foundation 
of  a  new  Renaissance  was  created ;  for  every  independent  period 
of  art  has  begun  with  making  a  transcript  of  nature,  a  reproduc- 
tion of  reality. 

Realism,  however,  could  not  be  the  permanent  expression  of 
the   total    life    of   the    present.      Many    as    were    the    "human 


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546  MODERN  FAINTING 

documents"  created  by  the  Zola  school,  it  depicted  only  a  part 
of  modern  life  :  its  bareness,  its  lack  of  poetry,  its  struggle  for 
existence,  its  dominance  of  the  masses,  its  rough  plebeian  breath, 
and  its  broad  and  unconstrained  gesture.  Zola's  characters  are 
men  of  the  crowd,  intelligent  members  of  the  proletariat ;  he 
had  no  vision  for  the  subtile  contradictions  and  curious  states 
of  soul  in  reflective  personalities,  for  the  representation  of  the 
tangled  life  of  thought  And  the  aim  of  the  painters  who 
went  upon  parallel  lines  with  him  was  an  exclusively  outward 
truth  ;  it  was  mere  reality.  Their  intention  was  to  place  this 
upon  canvas  in  its  bluff  nudity  or  its  refined  elegance,  exactly 
as  it  was,  and  without  embellishment  or  addition.  They  were 
positivists  who  noted  down  with  accuracy  all  the  events  and 
agitations  of  life.  We  had  from  them  a  great  quantity  of  docu- 
ments on  the  existence  of  peasants  and  handicraftsmen,  public 
amusements,  society,  and  the  family.  With  an  exhaustiveness 
which  nothing  could  daunt,  the  record  was  given  of  how  people 
fish  and  dine,  what  people  do  upon  a  country  holiday  in  the 
sun,  how  they  frequent  concerts,  and  behave  at  weddings  and 
during  the  revels  of  the  Carnival,  or  in  the  studio  and  in  the 
drawing-room.  We  beheld  the  Parisienne  at  the  theatre,  the 
Parisienne  driving  to  a  soiree,  the  Parisienne  coming  back  from 
a  soiree,  the  Parisienne  crossing  a  bridge,  the  Parisienne  with  a 
parasol,  and  the  Parisienne  with  a  bouquet.  And  ultimately  we 
were  exceedingly  well  instructed  upon  the  whole  matter. 

But  did  these  pictures  give  expression  to  the  inner  life  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  secret  pangs  and  hopes  that  move 
our  unstable  age?  It  is  not  alone  the  entire  fashion  of  outward 
existence  that  has  altered  since  the  days  of  the  old  masters. 
We  have  discovered  novel  emotions,  as  science  has  discovered 
new  colours ;  we  have  created  a  thousand  hitherto  unknown 
nuances,  a  thousand  inevitable  refinements.  It  took  a  long 
time  before  we  became  the  children  of  our  own  age,  but  now 
that  we  are  on  familiar  terms  with  it,  we  are  all  the  more 
conscious  of  its  monotonous  prose.  So  we  have  the  need  of 
living  not  merely  in  the  world  around  us,  but  in  an  inward 
world  that  we  build  up  ourselves,  a  world  far  more  strange  and 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  547 

fair,  far  more  luminous  than  that  in  which  our  feet  stumble 
so  helplessly.  We  feel  the  need  of  rising  into  the  wide  land 
of  vision  upon  the  pinions  of  fancy,  of  building  castles  in  the 
clouds,  and  watching  their  rise  and  their  fall,  and  following 
into  misty  distance  the  freaks  of  their  changing  architecture. 
The  more  grey  and  colourless  the  present  may  be,  the  more 
alluringly  does  the  fairy  splendour  of  vanished  worlds  of  beauty 
flit  before  us.  It  is  the  very  banality  of  everyday  life  that 
renders  us  more  sensitive  to  the  delicate  charm  of  old  myths, 
and  we  receive  them  in  a  more  childlike,  impressionable  way 
than  any  earlier  age,  for  we  look  upon  them  with  fresh  ^y^s 
that  have  been  rendered  keen  by  yearning.  We  have  also 
grown  more  religious  and  prone  to  believe.  Positivistic  philosophy 
excited  the  lust  after  knowledge,  but  did  not  satisfy  it,  and  the 
result  is  a  tendency  towards  the  supernatural. 

Various  names  have  been  invented  for  all  these  anti-realistic 
inclinations,  according  to  the  land  where  their  source  oozed 
from  the  soil :  religious  reaction  in  popular  life ;  mysticism, 
spiritualism,  and  theosophy  in  the  intellectual  world.  But  they 
have  the  same  character  throughout :  the  long-repressed  life 
of  the  inward  spirit  needed  expression,  and  the  emotions 
rebelled  against  science.  Under  this  influence  all  regions  of 
spiritual  life  received,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  a  new  stamp. 
Music,  which  holds  sovereign  power  over  the  emotions,  has 
suddenly  become  the  central  point  of  interest.  Even  France, 
which  had  known  nothing  higher  than  the  theatrical  aptitude 
of  Meyerbeer,  which  had  laughed  with  Offenbach,  never  under- 
stood Berlioz,  and  hissed  German  music — even  France  is  falling 
under  the  symphonic  sway  of  Richard  Wagner. 

Language,  hitherto  of  architectonic  structure  and  marble 
coldness,  is  becoming  fine  in  shades  of  expression,  morbid  in 
its  personal  accent  of  feeling.  Form  dissolves  and  vanishes. 
Thought,  once  so  rigid  and  unyielding,  is  growing  mobile  and 
fluent  ;  style  is  becoming  more  flexuous,  and  the  vocabulary 
of  cultivated  men  widens  its  boundaries,  to  follow  with  pliancy 
all  the  agitations  of  the  spirit  and  comprise  the  most  fleeting 
nuances  which  almost  defy  expression. 


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548  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  age  of  Realism  had  spoken  of  lyrical  poetry  as  though 
it  were  a  mere  pastime  for  boys  and  girls,  a  shallow  outpouring 
of  insipid  emotion,  not  to  be  tolerated  unless  charged  and 
freighted  with  the  results  of  exact  science.  At  the  present 
day  it  wakes  to  new  life.  Symbolists,  decadents,  or  whatever 
they  may  call  themselves,  all  aim  at  taking  from  music  its 
most  intimate,  intangible  qualities  —  its  profound  dreaminess, 
its  diffuse  harmony,  its  swooning  languor.  Poets  of  the 
preceding  generation  spoke  with  such  correctness  that  the  ribs 
of  grammar  were  felt  in  their  phrases,  and  employed  words 
as  literally  as  if  they  had  just  looked  them  up  in  the  columns 
of  the  dictionary.  But  these  new  poets  would  create  a  lyrical 
poetry  of  dreamland,  and  set  what  is  mystically  veiled,  visionary, 
and  unfathomable  in  the  place  of  that  clear  perfection  of 
form  which  belonged  to  the  Classicists ;  and  by  the  mere  chime 
of  words  they  aim  at  attaining  a  suggestive  effect  resembling 
music. 

In  the  novel,  many  of  the  older  writers,  not  yet  fully 
accepted,  suddenly  became  celebrities ;  above  all  the  brothers 
Goncourt,  who  had  been  in  advance  of  their  age,  just  as 
amongst  the  Romanticists  Balzac,  who  was  in  advance  of  his 
own  contemporaries,  first  received  his  sceptre  from  the  following 
generation  of  Realists.  But  now  there  is  no  longer  asked  from 
a  novelist  either  the  objectivity  of  the  Realists  or  the  rhetoric 
of  the  Romanticists ;  what  is  sought  is  a  thinker,  and  still  more 
a  dreamer,  who  will  give  a  glimpse  into  that  au-deid  where  the 
spirit  passes  with  rapture  from  one  mystery  to  another.  Zola 
and  the  other  Naturalists,  who  depicted  the  outward  world, 
les  ^tats  des  choses^  have  been  succeeded  by  hluysmans  and  Rod, 
^who  look  into  the  inner  life,  les  ^tats  d'dmes\  giving  up  all 
pretension  to  plot,  they  seek  with  the  more  accuracy  to  represent 
the  spiritual  life,  the  restlessly  surging  sensations  of  complex 
individualities.  The  negation  of  passion  is  giving  way  to  an 
intense  and  vibrating  life  of  the  nerves,  and  atheism  to  plaintive 
yearning  after  simple  faith.  Paul  Bourget  devotes  himself  to 
a  kind  of  intensified  Christianity  which  he  calls  "/a  religion  dc 
la  souff ranee  humainey    L^on  Hennique  proclaims  a  "  spiritualistic 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  549 

Gospel,"  the  chief  tenet  of  which  is  the  old  doctrine  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls. 

The  new  watchwords  were  first  transferred  to  the  province 
of  the  drama  by  Maeterlinck  and  the  other  Belgian  symbolists. 
Soon  afterwards  there  came  into  vogue  in  Paris  those  sacred 
legends  and  pious  mystery-plays  in  which  Sara  Bernhardt 
attained  her  most  recent  triumphs.  The  story  of  the  faithful 
Griselda  is  listened  to  with  suspense,  and  tears  of  pity  are 
wept  over  the  fate  of  St.  Cecilia. 

Even  in  science  there  are  tokens  of  a  reaction  against  the 
positivistic  spirit  which  ruled  in  former  years.  After  the  drawers 
of  cabinets  have  been  arranged,  data  collected,  and  details 
confirmed,  a  movement  in  the  direction  of  subjectivity  and 
subtile  speculation  is  taking  the  place  of  arid  enumerations  and 
pedantic  parchment  erudition.  Methodical  students  and  sober, 
prosy  writers  are  being  succeeded  by  artists  and  psychologists, 
who  bring  their  own  vivid  temperament  into  play  by  their  own 
might  In  England  it  is  no  longer  Macaulay  but  Carlyle  who 
counts  as  the  greatest  .  historian.  France,  the  native  land  of 
Comte,  has  fallen  under  the  sway  of  Qerman  philosophy.  And 
Germany  has  begun  to  become  enthusiastic  for  the  haughty, 
triumphant  Individualism  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche.  The  cult 
of  great  personalities  is  on  the  increase.  And  character  and 
individuality  are  the  most  potent  watchwords. 

For  painting  such  a  process  of  spiritual  fermentation  is  far 
more  difficult  than  it  is  for  literature.  For  while  the  written 
word  can  pliantly  turn  with  the  finest  windings  of  fancy, 
familiarize  itself  with  the  most  distant  regions,  and  give  ductile 
expression  to  the  most  soaring  ideas  and  the  most  deeply 
seated  feelings,  painting  has  to  translate,  to  transform,  and  to  cast 
afresh.  It  must  fashion  a  sensuous  garment  for  the  strange 
impressions  which  are  bursting  in  upon  it ;  but  before  they 
can  be  arrayed  in  any  such  garment,  the  ideas  must  have  first 
taken  firm  shape.  The  significance  of  an  age  must  be  stamped 
with  a  certain  distinctness  and  must  have  definite  relations  to  be 
made  the  subject  of  a  picture.  For  this  very  reason  it  was  that 
art,  at  the  beginning  of  the   century,  took   refuge   in   the   past, 


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550  MODERN  PAINTING 

since  the  present,  in  its  unreadiness  and  its  wavering  between 
the  old  order  and  the  new,  offered  the  painter  no  firm  and 
tangible  form.  It  was  only  when,  about  the  middle  of  the 
century,  the  character  of  life,  as  a  whole,  began  to  take  a  more 
distinct  impress,  that  it  was  possible  for  art  to  seize  the  out- 
ward physiognomy  of  the  age.  And  it  will  be  yet  more  difficult 
for  it  to  find  sensuous  expression  for  all  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  contradictions  which  the  century  has  brought  forth  now 
that  it  is  ebbing  fast,  for  the  inexpressibly  transient  moods 
affecting  the  nervous  system  in  these  modern  days,  for  all  the 
variously  tinted  sensations  of  this  strange  century  and  their 
prismatic  radiation  in  all  directions.  But  that  art  has  addressed 
itself  to  this  task  may  be  perceived  even  now. 

It  was  a  characteristic  symptom  of  this  fermentation  that 
painters  interested  themselves  more  intensely  in  certain  specified 
periods  of  the  artistic  history  of  the  past :  it  was  not  the 
majestically  flowing  line  and  outward  form  of  the  school  of 
Raphael,  but  the  angular  archaism  of  the  Quattrocento  and  its 
spiritualized  .sentiment  which  attracted  them.  The  primitive 
artists,  the  Byzantines,  the  "  miniature-painters "  and  the 
sculptors  of  the  Middle  Ages,  became  a  subject  of  study.  The 
mysterious  smile  of  the  Mona  Lisa  enchanted  men  once  more, 
and  the  tender  Virgins  of  Carlo  Crivelli,  in  all  the  comely 
hieratical  grace  of  their  gestures,  and  the  childish  melancholy  of 
Botticelli's  Madonnas,  with  their  nymphlike  glance  gazing  into 
the  infinite,  seemed  as  near  akin  to  ourselves  as  if  they  moved 
amongst  us  still.  Even  amongst  the  older  modern  painters  the 
most  vibrating  and  idealistic  came  into  sudden  favour :  the  fame 
of  Corot  increased  and  outshone  the  celebrity  of  the  other 
great  landscape-painters  of  Barbizon.  Of  all  the  work  of  Millet 
the  picture  which  fetched  the  highest  price  was  his  one  idealistic 
painting,  "The  Angelus."  Germany  discovered  Schwind.  The 
confessions  of  a  pure  and  tremulous  virgin  soul  were  recognized 
in  his  paintings  ;  it  was  believed  that  there  was  to  be  found  in 
him  that  blitheness  freed  from  all  melancholy  which  we  know 
no  longer  and  yearn  after  with  so  much  ardour.  Was  it  not 
possible  to  attempt  to  fill  in  the  crevices  which  Realism  had  left, 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  551 

to  crown  and  supplement  it?  Impressionism  itself  made  the 
transition  possible.  After  Courbet's  doctrine  of  the  viriti  vraie 
had  been  supplemented  by  the  addition  that  the  representation 
of  any  portion  of  reality  only  became  art  through  the  tempera- 
ment brought  to  bear  upon  it,  and  that  the  essential  element 
in  art  was  not  any  document  in  its  photographic  platitude,  but 
the  man  who  used  it  as  a  vehicle  for  expression,  it  was  already 
possible  to  lay  stress  altogether  upon  personality,  splendid  in 
itself,  and  of  itself  creating  all.  For  what  is  reality?  We 
know  nothing  of  it.  Our  mental  impressions  are  all  that  we 
know.  And  are  the  things  which  live  in  the  imagination  of  a 
true  artist  less  real  than  the  objects  before  our  eyes?  It  is 
merely  a  question  of  their  being  embodied  in  a  credible  fashion, 
so  that  they  can  be  communicated  to  others  as  though  by  sug- 
gestion ;  and  yet  only  that  man  who  has  already  become  a 
master  of  nature  is  capable  of  creating  such  a  new  world  out  of 
himself.  It  is  only  the  achievement  of  technical  mastery  that 
gives  even  genius  the  means  of  showing  its  spiritual  power. 
This  condition  seemed  now  to  be  fulfilled.  Zola's  documents 
humains  could  be  made  subjective — not  counterfeits  of  external 
reality,  but  witnesses  to  the  spiritual  life  of  their  creator. 
Naturalism  was  no  longer  looked  upon  as  the  aim  of  art,  but 
as  "  the  sound  training-school "  from  which  to  rise  into  far-off 
realms  of  fantastic  creation.  It  is  a  course  of  development 
which  has  been  already  run  a  score  of  times  in  the  world's 
history — the  same,  indeed,  which  Holland  went  through  at  the 
time  when  Rembrandt  made  his  appearance. 

And  the  historian  is  always  a  falsifier  of  the  truth  when- 
ever he  is  compelled  for  purely  external  reasons — "clearness 
of  arrangement,"  for  example — to  divide  into  periods,  because 
in  reality  periods  flow  imperceptibly  into  one  another,  and  it  is 
fortunate  for  art  that  they  do ;  the  most  various  currents  cross 
each  other  and  have  an  equal  right  to  their  course.  It  would 
be  most  lamentable  if  the  "  New  Idealism,"  denoting  a  guild, 
were  to  become  the  theoretical  watchword  for  the  conquest  of 
Naturalism,  which  has  also  a  practical  importance.  A  powerful 
Naturalism  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  all  art,  and  without  that 


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552  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  falls  into  weak  and  sickly  aberrations.  And  with  all  the 
metaphysical  tendencies  of  the  present  Naturalism  must  remain 
the  link  between  fancy  and  reality.  Only  so  long  as  the 
capital  of  Naturalism  is  intact  will  the  interest  of  it  permit 
some  few  mortals  to  make  successful  journeys  into  the  more 
ethereal  and  unearthly  regions. 

The  Realists  had  painted  modern  life,  and  the  New  Idealists, 
supplementing  them,  paint  modern  emotion.  Fancy  shakes  her 
shining  blossoms  into  the  quietude  of  everyday  life.  Thus,  in 
accordance  with  the  predisposition  of  their  natural  temperament, 
there  are  some  who  have  a  longing  for  fairy  poetry  like  that  of 
Schwind,  for  sagas  and  for  visions : — 

"  Einmal  lasst  mich  athmen  wieder 
In  dem  goldnen  Marchenwald." 

Others  find  pleasure  in  the  tender  mysticism  and  renunciation 
of  the  Gospel.  And  beside  Christian  religious  tendencies  there 
are  leanings  towards  ancient  Asiatic  conceptions  and  forms  of 
fancy.  All  manner  of  occult,  supersensuous  enthusiasms  make 
formulae  for  themselves  and  seek  satisfactioni  The  enchant- 
ments of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  riddles  of  hallucination,  and  the 
marvellous  old  doctrines  arising  from  the  earliest  home  of  man- 
kind have  an  incessant  charm  for  painters.  And  the  legends  of 
chivalry  stir  men  also,  the  tales  of  that  fantastic  world  so 
brilliant  to  the  eye,  that  world  where  love,  war,  adventure, 
magnanimity,  and  asceticism  were  united.  Beautiful  people  in 
rich  garb  carry  on  their  traffic  in  marble  palaces  and  gilded 
halls ;  peaceful  Madonnas  rest  upon  the  blooming  meadows  and 
feel  the  joy  of  motherhood.  Once  more  the  world  listens  in 
wonder  to  the  mystical  voice  of  nature  in  old  ballads,  to  fading 
tones  echoing  from  vanished  worlds  of  glamour ;  and  it  loses 
itself  once  more  in  old  myths  and  legends  wreathed  with 
blossoms.  Even  Greece,  Hellas,  compromised  as  it  is  by 
Classicism,  has  again  become  the  fairyland  of  the  mind,  and 
the  romantic  side  of  Hellenism  an  essential  element  in  the 
newest   art. 

This   yearning   after    far-off    worlds   of    beauty    is    combined 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  555. 

with  a  demand  for  new  delights  of  colour.  And  even  in  its. 
conception  of  colour  modern  painting  has  moved  in  a  steep 
line  of  ascent.  At  first  entirely  unpictorial,  it  provided  modern 
erudition  with  imposing  illustrations,  only  attractive  for  the 
substance  of  thought  which  was  in  them.  Then  it  emancipated, 
itself  from  the  service  of  science,  and  learnt  to  recognize  colour 
as  its  peculiar  medium  of  expression.  Slowly  it  began  to  traia 
its  vision  upon  the  old  masters,  and,  at  length,  having  completed 
its  study  in  the  galleries,  it  began  to  liberate  itself  from  the 
yellow  tone  of  varnish,  to  renew  itself,  and  to  cast  its  slough. 
There  then  followed  a  revision  of  painted  nature  upon  the 
basis  of  real  nature.  And  now,  after  "bright  painting"  has^ 
taught  a  more  differentiated  method  of  seeing  colour,  after  every 
power  has  been  exerted  to  compass  the  most  difficult  elements 
of  the  world  of  phenomena — light,  air,  and  colour— ending  in 
extreme  imitation  of  reality,  the  last  and  most  decisive  step^ 
is  being  accomplished :  a  transition  is  being  made  from  the 
more  objective  reproduction  of  impressions  to  a  free,  purely 
poetic,  and  symphonic  handling  of  colours.  They  hide  them- 
selves no  longer  with  such  bashfulness  beneath  a  brown  crust ;. 
they  cast  their  grey  veil  aside,  and  stand  out  making  their  own 
claims  to  independence.  A  new  and  specifically  modem  method 
of  colour  is  arising.  As  imagination  takes  refuge  from  sober 
reality  in  a  marvellous  Beyond,  so  the  eye  dreams  of  other 
colours  more  subtile  or  more  intense  than  those  to  be  seen 
in  our  poor  world.  By  some  the  forms  of  nature  are  used 
merely  as  a  material  for  the  expression  of  ideas,  by  others  the 
hues  of  nature  merely  as  a  medium  for  orgies  of  colour.  Some 
revel  in  effects  of  light,  in  full  and  impetuous  tones,  in  all  the 
imaginable  and  unearthly  joys  of  colour.  Others  divest  their 
work  of  colour,  avoid  all  lustre  and  power  of  tone,  to  languish,, 
like  true  cUcadents^  merely  in  soft,  blanched,  delicately  pallid,  and 
mistily  indistinct  hues. 

''  Car  nous  voulons  la  nuance  encore, 
Pas  la  couleur,  rien  que  la  nuance; 
La  nuance  seule  fiance 
Le  r^ve  au  r6ve  et  la  flute  au  cor." 
VOL.  III.  36 


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554  MODERN  FAINTING 

But  the  common  characteristic  is  that,  instead  of  the  ob- 
jectivity of  Realism,  the  pleasure  of  emotion  has  now  the  central 
place;  and  we  have  art  able  to  give  that  inward  thrill 
demanded  by  nerves  which  have  themselves  become  finer  and 
more  complicated  than  of  yore. 

Moreover,  since  the  etching  pen  is  far  more  pliant  than  the 
brush  in  following  the  spirit  into  the  domain  of  fantasy  and 
legendary  dreamland,  etching  and  lithography,  which  have  been 
hitherto  pursued  in  a  merely  desultory  fashion,  are  now  suddenly 
becoming  of  prime  importance.  Here  the  strongest  emotions 
•can  be  crowded  into  the  smallest  space ;  here  may  be  embodied 
the  boldest  visions,  things  which  could  scarcely  be  represented 
by  painting.  The  poetical  element  in  the  nature  of  drawing, 
which  renders  things  as  visions  rather  than  as  bodies,  the 
possibility  of  working  without  a  definitely  localized  background, 
«ven  the  limitation  to  black  and  white,  give  far  more  room 
for  the  sport  of  fantasy.  The  advantages  which  the  pallet  has 
in  varied  colours  are  compensated  in  engraving  by  its  unlimited 
-capacities  for  the  artistic  representation  of  light  and  shadow ; 
and  these  in  themselves  make  it  possible — as  Diirer,  Rembrandt, 
and  Goya  have  shown — to  conjure  up  a  world  more  rich  in 
■colour  than  the  real  one,  a  world  of  poetry  and  mysticism. 

And  even  the  forms  of  art  which  had  been  in  full  flower 
•during  the  realistic  period  went  through  a  process  of  change 
under  the  influence  of  the  new  conceptions. 

The  landscape-painters  of  the  previous  decade  delighted  in 
•quiet  intimacy  of  feeling  and  accurate  reproduction  of  the 
ordinary  nooks  of  the  earth  in  their  usual  mood.  When 
summer  came,  and  the  grass  shot  up  thick  and  lush  in  the 
meadows,  and  the  grain  waved  in  the  wide  fields,  painters 
probably  declared  that  it  was  a  beautiful  time  of  year,  and 
painted  their  landscapes  ;  but  they  were  not  men  of  peculiarly 
poetic  temper,  and  knew  neither  indefinite  longing  nor  day- 
dreams. But  the  most  recent  landscape-painters  supplement 
the  work  of  their  predecessors  by  laying  far  more  powerful 
stress  upon  the  element  of  individual  mood.  They  revel  in  the 
thousand  subtile  shades  of  colour  that  nature  shows,  and  carefully 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  555 

note  the  impressions  which  have  the  finest  charm  for  the  eye. 
Nature  attracts  them  where  she  is  strange,  and  they  neglect 
her  where  she  becomes  commonplace.  Cold,  unflattering  day- 
light is  no  concern  of  theirs.  The  occult  element  in  nature  has 
the  same  degree  of  fascination  as  the  occult  element  in  the 
life  of  the  spirit  The  world  looks  forth  from  the  darkness  of 
night  and  the  veil  of  mist  with  more  mysterious  eyes,  and 
•creates  the  surmise  of  deeper  and  stranger  backgrounds.  Thus 
the  most  refined  and  sensitive  artists  have  a  deeply  seated  love 
of  the  phenomena  of  mist.  Above  all,  they  delight  in  evening, 
when  colour  is  on  the  point  of  vanishing  and  ghostly  shades 
emerge,  when  a  soft  film  of  vapour  rests  over  the  earth,  and  a 
mysteriously  plaintive  humour  would  seem  to  find  expression 
in  the  landscape. 

Even  portrait-painting  has  received  a  fresh  nuance.  In  the 
likenesses  of  the  previous  period  people  are  fully  revealed  in 
their  ordinary  mood,  and  trenchantly  characterized.  But  the 
most  recent  portraitists  delight  in  a  strange  dusk.  Form, 
and  reality,  and  what  is  material,  recede.  And  something 
supersensuous,  the  presentiment  of  another,  unknown  world,  into 
which  the  forms  float  and  out  of  which  they  issue,  is  what  the 
spectator  is  intended  to  feel.  The  figures  glimmer  dreamily  as 
if  through  veils  of  mist,  like  those  of  dear  and  distant  persons 
whom  one  beholds  with  closed  eyelids,  journeying  to  meet  them 
in  the  spirit 

Yet  it  is  chiefly  in  the  region  of  monumental  painting  that 
the  troops  have  banded  together.  Hitherto  art  has  been  almost 
•exclusively  taken  up  with  oil,  pastel,  and  water-colour  painting, 
and  the  execution  of  decorative  commissions  left  to  eclectics  of 
the  second  rank ;  but  now  it  is  precisely  the  most  advanced 
artists  who  are  making  their  way  from  canvas  to  fresco  painting. 
The  definition  that  art  is  nature  seen  through  a  temperament 
is  no  longer  completely  valid.  A  very  considerable  part  of  art 
has  become  purely  decorative.  Wall-painting,  in  its  most  essential 
and  monumental  form,  that  of  frescoes,  can  alone  give  an 
opportunity  of  testing  upon  a  grand  scale  the  independence 
won  by  painting — opportunity,  moreover,  of  expressing  the  spirit 


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SS6  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  the  age  with  greater  fulness  of  tone  than  would   be  possible 
upon  canvas. 

Down  to  the  appearance  of  Manet,  decorative  painting  had 
either  been  derivative^ — in  other  words,  a  tasteful  employment  of 
tradition — or  else  prosaic — arid  didacticism,  attracting  the  atten- 
tion of  the  crowd  by  a  discursive  representation  of  shipwrecks^ 
sieges,  assassinations,  and  battles.  Then  Naturalism  became 
ascendant  even  here.  The  endeavour  of  artists  was  devoted  to- 
rendering  heroic  the  events  of  daily  life,  and  bestowing  upon 
them  the  highest  honours  in  the  power  of  the  brush.  In  France^ 
as  in  Germany,  attempts  were  made  to  decorate  public  buildings 
with  scenes  from  the  life  of  artisans  or  of  humble  citizens.  But 
in  these  days  the  subjects  which  inspire  large  representations  in 
painting  are  the  same  as  of  yore :  religion,  mythology,  and 
allegory.  At  the  same  time  all  traditional  compositions  and 
"sujets"  in  a  banal  sense  have  been  renounced.  Painting  leaves 
to  the  erudite  the  task  of  elucidating  such  matters  as  the  fall  of 
Troy  or  Nineveh,  or  the  great  events  of  Roman  history.  Instead 
of  engaging  the  intellect  or  satisfying  a  thirst  for  knowledge,  it 
merely  aims  at  exciting  the  emotions  and  inviting  tender  reveries. 
Instead  of  placing  before  us  the  rough  and  toilsome  life  of  every 
day,  it  would  rise  above  it  and  waken  a  solemn  Sabbath  in  the 
spirit.  The  simple  elements  of  this  new  symbolically  decorative 
painting — which  is,  perhaps,  destined  to  become  a  dominant  and 
guiding  influence,  as  in  the  great  periods  of  art — are  delightful 
groves  and  flowery  fields,  peopled  with  blithe  and  peaceful  mea 
and  women,  revelling  in  happy  idleness  or  at  rest  in  careless  medi- 
tation; and  everything  is  bathed  in  silvery  atmosphere,  and  in 
light,  vaporous  colours,  affecting  the  nerves  like  subdued  music 
played  upon  high-pitched  silver  strings.  It  is  not  enough  that 
our  artists  should  have  again  taken  up  the  conception  of  UArt' 
pour  VArt.  For  the  possibility  must  be  likewise  given  to  them 
of  doing  something  that  the  world  needs  with  the  capacities- 
they  have  developed.  Without  this  basis  their  art  remains,  with 
all  its  richness  of  endowment  and  ability,  a  superficial  and 
empty  art  It  is  just  the  sense  of  an  aimless  expenditure  of 
strength,  such  as  the  best  artists  must  have,  that   has  brought,. 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEn   IDEALISM  557 

in  so  many  ways,  a  trace  of  nervous  strain  and  the  sterile 
fancifulness  of  the  studio  into  modem  creations. 

But  wall-painting  may  have  a  conciliating  effect  by  giving 
art  a  feeling  for  what  is  great,  simple,  enduring,  and  the  in- 
vigorating sense  of  a  definite  aim.  The  view  that  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture  must  be  allied  together,  that  every 
separate  art  is  in  need  of  the  others  to  attain  its  full  height, 
the  conversion  of  a  spacious  hall  into  a  work  of  art,  was  the 
ideal  of  all  the  ages  which  have  been  famous  as  '^  flourishing 
periods."  The  nineteenth  century  has  so  far  a  style  of  archi- 
tecture, a  style  of  sculpture,  a  style  of  painting,  a  reproductive 
art  and  a  decorative  art— all  separate  arts  which  have  been 
-developed  and  flourish  more  or  less  apart  from  one  another. 
But  the  great  and  total  expression  of  its  life  is  still  to  seek. 
By  mural  painting  alone  can  any  aggregate  effect  of  all  the  plastic 
arts,  corresponding  to  that  which  Wagner  attempted  and  realized 
in  his  musical  dramas,  become  a  matter  of  attainment  It  alone 
•can  be  the  test  as  to  whether  modem  painting  has  finally  stripped 
•off  its  character  of  mere  discipleship,  whether  it  has  within  itself 
the  strength  to  execute  tasks  which  bring  it  into  direct  compe- 
tition with  the  works  of  classic  masters,  whether,  now  that  the 
-days  of  imitation  have  been  overcome  through  Naturalism,  a 
special  nineteenth-century  style  has  been  minted.  And,  in  this 
respect,  there  is  still  a  period  of  transition  to  be  gone  through. 

Of  course  there  is  a  great  difference  between  the  works  of 
the  new  painters  and  those  earlier  "  Idealists "  who  have 
attempted  decorative  painting.  Not  only  has  the  ability  become 
far  greater  than  before,  but  there  is  a  freedom  of  sentiment 
The  men  of  the  elder  generation  never  got  beyond  mummy-like 
art  in  their  works,  because  they  set  themselves  in  opposition  to 
their  age,  attempted  to  feel  with  the  nerves  of  a  long-vanished 
.race,  toiled  to  produce  imitations  bearing  the  mark  of  style,  and 
to  work  on  subjects  from  the  antique  or  the  Renaissance  in  the 
sentiment  of  those  ages  ;  but  the  blood  of  the  present  pulsates 
and  its  nerves  vibrate  in  the  works  of  the  new  artists.  The 
former  were  copyists,  calligraphists  who  executed  school  exer- 
cises after  the  old  masters  ;  the  latter  use  the  language  of  the 


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558  MODERN  PAINTING 

nineteenth  century,  our  own  intellectual  dialect  The  blithe  joy 
of  existence  and  a  sure  and  vital  peace  are  expressed  in  the 
works  of  the  old  masters.  But  the  character  of  modem 
sentiment  is  essentially  melancholy.  The  great  visionary  of 
Zurich,  a  full-blooded,  an  heroic  nature,  lives  into  the  present 
in  his  overflowing  strength  and  sunny  joyousness,  solitary,  like 
a  rare  and  extraordinary  creature,  a  survival  of  the  vanished 
Hellenic  race.  All  the  others  are  consumed  with  romantic 
longing,  though  in  place  of  the  Byronic  spirit  of  revolt  known 
to  bygone  days  there  is  a  sentimental  sense  of  the  sorrow  of 
creation,  in  place  of  grand  thrilling  effects  a  low  vibration 
of  feeling.  The  Romanticists  gathered  together  gigantic  legends, 
piled  up  dream  upon  dream,  explored  Greece,  Arabia,  and  the 
East,  overburdened  the  human  imagination  with  colours  fronx 
all  latitudes,  introduced  distorted  and  terrible  countenances  amid 
darkness  and  lightning.  The  men  of  to-day  are  quiet  dreamers 
who  pine  sadly  for  the  lost  ideals  of  bygone  times,  tired  spirits 
who  only  luxuriate  in  "golden  languors,"  in  the  tremor  of 
mysterious,  subdued,  tender,  and  melancholy  emotions.  The 
earlier  Romanticists  sought  to  drag  the  mass  of  men  along  with 
them,  to  bring  blazing  flames,  storm,  and  passion  into  the  drab 
of  ordinary  life,  and  they  therefore  revelled  in  great  heaven- 
storming  gestures,  complicated  lines,  and  glowing  colours.  But 
the  men  of  these  days  are  aristocrats  who  fear  contact  with  the 
multitude,  and  are  therefore  scrupulous  in  avoiding  everything 
which  could  excite  a  banal  emotion.  As  the  poets  of  our  day 
despise  rhetoric,  the  novelists  intrigue,  the  musicians  melody,  so 
the  painters  disdain  interest  of  subject,  agitation,  to  some  extent 
even  colour.  Through  everything  there  runs  that  languid  resig- 
nation and  profonde  tristesse  ipicurienne  which,  in  the  absence  of 
satisfying  ideals,  has  taken  hold  of  our  own  generation.  Even 
where  it  is  a  question  of  humanitarian  ideas,  the  austerity  of  the 
antique  spirit  is  tempered  by  the  melancholy  of  the  modem 
intellect.  Painters  tell  the  ofttold  legends  of  old  Greece  as 
never  a  Greek  would  have  told  them — tell  them  in  relationship 
with  problems,  moods,  and  passions  of  which  the  Greek  spirit 
never  dreamed.     They  fill  Olympus  with  the  light,  the  mist,  the 


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THE  NATURE   OF  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  55^ 

colour,  and  the  melancholy  of  a  later  and  more  neurotic  age^ 
the  moods  of  which  are  more  rich  in  nuances — an  age  which  is 
sadder  and  more  disturbed  by  human  problems  than  was 
ancient  Greece. 

It  is  only  the  articulation  of  forms  that  is  in  many  ways 
confined  in  the  old  limitations.  In  the  endeavour  to  find 
sensuous  means  of  expression  for  the  new  ideas,  which  are 
often  exceedingly  overwrought,  counsel  has  been  sought  once 
more  from  the  old  masters ;  and  artists  have  turned  for  help- 
to  the  Quattrocento,  which  in  its  fresh  Naturalism  and  its 
profound  intensity  of  expression,  attained  by  purely  psychical 
means,  appeals  far  more  to  an  age  concerned  with  the  inward 
life,  and  no  longer  recognizing  a  special  cult  of  plastic  beauty,, 
than  the  vainglorious  Cinquecento  with  its  dignified  figures,, 
whose  entire  expression  is  usually  to  be  found  only  in  their 
gestures.  Some,  however,  succeed  in  making  these  borrowed 
forms  the  ready  vehicles  of  a  novel  burden  of  emotion.  But 
with  those  whose  modernity  is  not  strong  enough  to  enable 
them  to  pour  new  wine  into  old  bottles,  this  archaic  tendency 
may  easily  lead  to  an  eclectic  want  of  independence.  The 
works  of  Courbet  and  Leibl  will  have  an  effect  upon  all  ages,, 
even  the  most  distant,  so  long  as  they  exist.  But  the  latest 
tendency  is  calculated  to  foster  a  certain  disposition  to  coquet 
with  an  exceedingly  cheap  inspiration,  and  one  which  pre- 
supposes but  little  ability.  Just  as  many  of  the  Impressionists 
fell  into  vulgarity  and  a  dry  reporter  style,  so  the  most  modern 
of  the  average  painters  have,  perhaps,  too  great  a  leaning 
towards  strange  melancholy,  search  out  forms  which  aim  at 
being  mysterious,  pose  with  languor,  and  approach  a  kind  of 
intellectual  snobbery.  There  is  often  something  irritating  in  a 
far-fetched  fiautgoUt  which  dresses  up  the  simplest  motives  for 
the  aesthetic  epicure.  The  pale,  subdued  Gobelin  tone,  used  by 
some  of  the  leading  men  of  the  movement,  is  exaggerated  and 
watered  down  by  the  rank  and  file ;  the  effort  to  produce  simple 
tones  and  heraldic  lines  has  fostered  a  certain  tendency  towards 
merely  industrial  art.  These  are  perils  which  every  school  of 
painting  brings  with  it  when  it  goes  beyond  nature.     Amongst 


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!S6o  MODERN  FAINTING 

a  thousand  writers  a  genuine  poet  is  as  much  a  rarity  as  a 
genuine  "  Idealist "  amongst  a  thousand  artists.  And  it  is 
^ery  possible  that  when  the  tendency  by  which  we  are  swamped 
at  present  has  run  its  course,  and  led  us,  perhaps,  back  into 
the  old  picture-galleries  instead  of  forwards  to  a  new  Parnassus, 
-exceedingly  few  of  those  who  are  admired  in  these  days  will 
hold  their  place.  But  for  contemporaries  their  works  are  a 
source  of  refreshment,  because  they  give  a  fair  and  captivating 
form  to  a  mood  of  our  own  time,  which  struggled  for  expression, 
and  the  cravings  of  which  mere  Naturalism  had  not  been  able 
to  satisfy. 


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CHAPTER    XLVII 

ENGLAND 

From  William  Blake  through  David  Scott  to  Rossetti,—Rossetti  and 
the  New  Freraphaelites :  Edward  Burne-JoneSy  R,  Spencer 
Stanho^,  William  Morris,  y,  M,  Strudwick,  Henry  Holliday, 
Marie  Spartali'Stillman,—  W,  B,  Richmond,  Walter  Crane, 
G.    F.    Watts, 

HOW  is  it  possible  that  England  should  have  taken  the 
lead  upon  this  occasion  also?  How  is  it  possible  that 
the  very  newest  idealistic  and  romantic  tendency  of  European 
art  should  have  taken  its  origin  thence,  this  art  for  Mandarins 
which  has  produced  all  that  is  most  delicate  in  the  painting 
of  the  nineteenth  century  ?  Can  an  Englishman,  a  matter-of-fact 
being  who  finds  his  happiness  in  comfort  and  a  practical  sphere 
of  action,  be  at  the  same  time  a  Romanticist?  Is  not  London 
the  most  prosaic  town  in  Europe?  Yet,  without  a  question, 
this  is  the  very  reason  why  the  New  Romanticism  found  its 
earliest  expression  there,  although  it  was  the  place  where 
Naturalism  had  reigned  longest  and  with  the  greatest  strictness. 
There  was  a  reaction  against  the  prose  of  everyday  life,  just 
as,  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  century,  English  landscape-painting 
had  been  a  reaction  against  town-life.  To  escape  the  whistle 
of  locomotives  and  the  restless  bustle  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  the  choice  intellects  take  refuge  in  a  far-off  world, 
a  world  where  everything  is  fair  and  graceful  and  all  emotions 
tender  and  noble,  a  world  where  no  rudeness,  no  discord,  and 
nothing  fierce  or  brutal  disturbs  the  harmony,  of  ideal  perfection. 
These  artists   become  revellers   in  a  land  of  fantasy,  and    flee 

561 


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562  MODERN  PAINTING 

from  reality  to  an  inner  life  which  they  have  created  for  them- 
selves, wander  from  the  foggy  London  of  railways  to  the  sunny 
Italy  of  Botticelli,  take  their  rest  in  the  land  of  poetry,  and 
bring  home  lovely  pictures  and  harmonious  moods  of  spirit 

Moreover  they  find  in  the  primitive  artists  that  simplicity 
which  is  most  refreshing  of  all  to  overstrained  spirits.  Having 
produced  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Turner,  the  English  were  artistic 
geumietSy  sated  with  all  enjoyments  in  the  realms  of  the  intellect,, 
and  they  now  meditated  works  through  which  yet  a  new  thrill 
of  beauty  might  pass  through  the  imagination.  In  the  primitive 
masters  they  discovered  all  the  qualities  which  had  vanished 
from  art  since  the  sixteenth  century — inofficious  purity,  innocent 
and  touching  Naturalism,  antiquated  austerity,  and  an  enchanting 
depth  of  feeling.  Jaded  with  other  experiences,  they  admired 
in  those  naYve  spirits  the  capacity  for  ecstatic  rapture  and 
vision — in  other  words,  for  the  highest  gratification.  If  one 
could  but  have  in  this  nineteenth  century  such  feelings  as  were 
known  to  Dante,  the  gloomy  Florentine  ;  Botticelli,  the  great 
Jeremiah  of  the  Renaissance  ;  or  the  tender  mystic  Fra  Angelico  T 
Surfeited  with  modernity,  and  endowed  with  nerves  of  acute 
refinement,  artists  went  back  in  their  fancy  to  this  luxuriously 
blissful  condition,  and  finally  came  to  the  point  where  modernity 
was  transformed  once  more  into  childish  babble,  and  the  un- 
believing materialism  of  the  present  age  into  a  mystical  and 
romantic  union  with  the  old  currents  of  emotion. 

The  earliest  symptoms  of  this  new  spirit  had  been  long 
proclaimed  in  poetry  and  art.  In  the  National  Gallery  in 
London  there  are  two  remarkable  little  pictures  bearing  the 
numbers  mo  and  1164,  one  of  them  described  as  "The 
Spiritual  Form  of  Pitt  guiding  Behemoth,"  and  the  other 
representing,  in  a  strange,  unearthly,  and  dreamily  transcendental 
fashion,  "The  Procession  from  Calvary."  The  painter  of  them 
is  a  man  who,  in  the  Lexicon  of  Artists^  is  simply  disposed  of 
as  being  mad,  though  by  others  he  has  been  celebrated  as  the 
greatest  dreamer,  the  profoundest  visionary,  of  the  century : 
this  is  the  Swedenborg  of  painting,   William  Blake. 

The  youth   of  this  remarkable  man  fell  in   the  years   when 


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ENGLAND  563 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  reigned  over  English  painting  with  un- 
disputed authority,  but  even  with  regard  to  Sir  Joshua,  Blake 
did  not  conceal  that  he  had  higher  conceptions  of  the  nature 
of  art.  The  British  Museum  possesses  a  copy  of  the  famous 
Discourses  of  Reynolds,  the  margins  of  which  are  scribbled  over 
with  notes  in  pencil  by  Blake.  In  these  same  notes  he  declared 
true  art  to  have  been  degraded  by  the  reputation  of  Reynolds' 
Discourses  and  pictures.  Painting,  as  Reynolds  understood  it, 
corresponded  to  the  needs  of  the  day;  and  Blake  worked 
throughout  his  life  without  other  thanks  than  the  appreciation 
of  a  few  superior  and  solitary  minds.  The  importance  of  his 
work  was  overlooked,  and,  perhaps,  it  can  only  be  treated  with 
justice  in  this  age  devoted  to  the  worship  of  individualities. 
What  Blake  recognized  as  the  basis  of  art  was,  in  the  first 
place,  imagination  and  poetic  force.  Every  conception  of  his 
he  believed  to  be  a  vision ;  his  mind  only  touched  upon  high 
and  sublime  themes,  and  busied  itself  with  profound  and 
abstract  problems ;  he  never  undertook  the  representation  of  a 
barren  and  trivial  subject,  and  troubled  himself  exceedingly 
little  about  the  actual  world.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  possessed 
a  mind  of  great  power,  containing  an  entire  universe  in  itself ; 
but  different  from  other  "  thinking  artists  *'  of  his  time,  he 
remained  a  painter  in  spite  of  all  his  poetic  qualities.  His 
strangest  visions  were  embodied  in  precise  forms,  which  ex- 
pressed all  that  he  had  to  reveal.  "  Invention,"  he  wrote, 
"depends  altogether  upon  execution  or  organization.  As  that 
is  right  or  wrong,  so  is  the  invention  perfect  or  imperfect. 
Michael  Angelo's  art  depends  on  Michael  Angelo's  execution 
altogether."  And  this  is  an  opinion  which  most  essentially 
distinguishes  the  "  mad  Englishman "  from  his  erudite  brother- 
artists  at  that  time  in  Germany.  But  even  some  amongst  his 
contemporaries  perceived  in  him  this  strange  combination  of  a 
visionary  teeming  with  ideas  and  a  powerful  realist.  In  the 
preface  to  one  of  Blake's  books  Fuseli  declared  that,  so  long  as 
there  remained  a  taste  for  the  arts  of  design,  the  originality 
of  the  conception  and  the  masterly  boldness  of  execution 
belonging  to  this  artist  would  never  be   without  admirers.     The 


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IJBraun  photo, 
Blake:  "The  Queen  of  Evil." 


German  painter  Gotzinger, 
who  lived  for  some  time 
in  England  about  this 
period,  writes  :  "  I  saw 
many  men  of  talent  in 
London^  but  only  three 
of  genius  —  Coleridge, 
Flaxman,  and  Blake — and 
of  these  Blake  was  the 
greatest."  When  the 
painter-poet  William  Blake 
was  born  in  London  on 
November  28th,  1757,  the 
vast  city  on  the  Thames 
received  one  of  the 
strangest  inmates,  and  one 
of  the  most  eccentric  per- 
sonalities that  ever  dwelt  within  its  walls.  His  intellectual  life, 
as  one  of  his  biographers  has  written,  is  a  mine  of  marveb 
and  problems,  few  of  which  can  be  thoroughly  investigated  and 
cleared  up. 

His  education  was  of  an  exceedingly  primitive  description, 
for  he  was  hardly  able  to  read,  write,  or  reckon.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  began  to  draw  young,  and  was,  as  Cunningham  writes, 
an  artist  at  ten  years  of  age  and  a  poet  at  twelve.  A  con- 
temporary declares  that  as  a  boy  Blake  was  in  the  habit  of 
singing  his  verses  to  his  own  music,  "  which  was  singularly 
beautiful."  At  any  rate  he  had  begun  to  compose  his  earliest 
poems,  afterwards  published  amongst  the  Poetical  Sketches^  in 
his  twelfth  year,  and  his  gift  as  a  draughtsman  became  evident 
at  the  age  of  fifteen,  immediately  after  he  entered  a  school  for 
drawing  in  London.  About  this  time  he  fell  in  love  with  a 
pretty  girl,  who  did  not  care  for  him,  and  made  him  exceedingly 
jealous.  He  told  his  grief  to  another  girl,  the  daughter  of  a 
gardener,  with  whom  he  lodged.  This  latter  maiden  offered 
him  her  sympathy.  "  Do  you  pity  me  ?  "  said  Blake.  "  Yes,"  she 
answered,  "I  do,  most  sincerely."     "Then  I  love  you  for  that" 


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**And  I  love  you 
too,"  she  replied. 
This  duologue  ended 
in  Blake*s  maofiage, 
and  Kitty  Boucher 
was  the  right  wife 
for  him,  for  she  be- 
lieved in  his  visions 
as  firmly  as  he  did 
himself,  and  did  not 
disturb  his  inter- 
course with  invisible 
spirits.  For  Blake 
was  a  medium  of 
the  purest  water,  a 
hundred  years  be- 
fore any  one  had 
heard  of  modern 
spiritualists.  Homer 
and  Dante  came 
and  sat  round  him 
for  his  portraits. 
Once  he  saw  a  tree  full  of  angels ;  and  at  another  time  he 
prophesied  that  a  man  who  had  met  him  casually  in  the  street 
would  be  hanged,  which  came  to  pass  after  many  years.  Or 
he  held  intercourse  with  Christ  and  the  apostles.  He  took 
himself  for  Socrates  or  a  brother  of  Socrates,  and  in  later  years 
he  had  really  something  Socratic  in  his  appearance.  Moreover^ 
Milton,  Moses,  and  the  prophets  were  peculiarly  frequent  in 
their  visits  to  Blake,  and  he  describes  them  as  majestic  shades, 
grey,  although  shining,  and  taller  than  ordinary  people.  When 
his  brother  Robert  died,  he  saw  his  soul  fly  to  heaven,  "  clapping 
its  hands  for  joy."  Once  as  he  sat  naked,  reciting  Paradise 
Lost,  in  a  summer-house  with  his  wife,  he  admitted  a  friend 
without  hesitation,  receiving  him  with  the  words,  "  Come  in  ; 
it's  only  Adam  and  Eve,  you  know."  At  the  same  time  he 
did   not   in   any   way  give   the   impression   of  being   morbid   or 


\Brauti  photQ. 

Blake:  From  a  Water-Colour  at  the  British  Museum. 


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S66  MODERN  PAINTING 

overrexcitable.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  a  stout,  thickset  maw 
of  robust  health,  and  his  large,  brilliant  eyes  were  clear  and 
observant  in  their  look. 

Blake  regarded  his  poems  as  revelations,  and  believed  that 
in  writing  them  he  did  not  create,  but  merely  acted  the  part 
of  an  amanuensis,  and  that  the  authors  were  in  eternity.  He 
wrote  his  verses,  according  to  his  own  profession,  from  dictation, 
often  pouring  out  from  twenty  to  thirty  lines  at  a  sitting,  without 
premeditation,  and  even  against  his  will.  And  these  books  of 
his,  furnished  with  his  own  illustrations,  brought  him  in  a 
moderate  income.  "  I  don't  seek  profit,"  said  he ;  "I  want 
nothing,  and  I  am  happy."  In  1821  he  removed  to  his  humble 
abode — consisting,  indeed,  of  two  rooms — in  Battersea,  where 
he  died  seven  years  later,  on  August  12th,  1828. 

The  chief  basis  of  Blake's  artistic  gift  is  that  which  gives 
his  poems  their  peculiar  position — a  vast  power  of  intuition. 
He  is  an  enthusiast  at  the  mercy  of  the  creatures  of  his  own 
imagination,  and  wasting  himself  in  troubled  hallucinations. 
All  reality  evaporated  into  something  spectral;  every  thought 
was  agitating;  a  stream  of  wild  faces  came  rushing  into  his 
seething  brain,  and  a  series  of  pictures  rose  before  him  in 
mingled  froth  and  splendour. 

As  no  special  school  of  painting  existed  in  England  in 
Blake's  youth,  he  chose  his  own  method  of  instruction  for  him- 
self, and  at  Basire  the  copper-engraver's  he  found  an  early 
opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  works  with  which 
he  was  most  in  sympathy.  He  united  a  fine  appreciation  of 
DQrer  with  an  admiration  for  Michael  Angelo.  He  based 
himself  upon  the  study  of  this  great  Italian,  though  without 
falling  into  direct  imitation.  He  lived  amongst  his  ancestors, 
indeed,  as  other  artists  amongst  their  contemporaries.  The 
present  in  which  his  body  moved  did  not  exist  for  him ;  and 
he  placed  himself  outside  of  his  century,  in  the  society  of  those 
who  were  kin  to  him  in  spirit.  Visions  of  heaven  and  hell 
were  more  actual  to  him  than  the  world  around ;  he  caught 
voices  from  the  land  of  spirits  more  distinctly  than  the  dreary 
hum  of  life  at  his  feet. 


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ENGLAND  567 

An  early  work  published  by  this  painter-poet  was  an 
illustrated  edition  of  his  own  poems,  Songs  of  Innocence^  1789, 
which,  even  in  technique,  is  one  of  the  most  curious  books  of 
illustration  known  to  the  history  of  art — a  work  where  every- 
thing, except  the  paper,  has  originated  from  the  artist  himself 
The  verses  are  his,  and  so  are  the  drawings ;  and  he  even 
■engraved  the  verses  himself  in  copper,  and  coloured  the  pictures 
with  his  own  hand.  The  succeeding  books,  illustrated  in  the 
same  way — and  accessible  in  the  Department  of  Copper- 
Engraving  in  the  British  Museum — show  how  Blake's  genius 
gradually  unfolded.  The  Prophetic  Booksy  in  particular,  have 
l)etween  the  verses  drawings  of  exquisite  beauty,  rich  imagination, 
and  refined  taste.  And  in  the  plates  which  he  produced  in 
1794  for  Young's  Night  Thoughts,  plates  which  he  himself  was 
wont  to  call  "his  frescoes,"  he  has  risen  to  his  full  height. 
The  method  of  arrangement  is  always  the  same.  In  the  middle 
of  every  page  is  the  text  of  the  poem,  and  around  it  the 
drawings  suggested  by  the  poet  The  vague  diction  of  Young, 
who  treated  sublime  themes  without  being  sublime,  is  what  suits 
Blake  best.  His  imagination  is  always  affected  through  and 
through  by  a  sensuous  conception,  and  transforms  the  misty 
and  indistinct  verses  of  the  author  into  visions  which  have 
been  clearly  seen.  All  ideas,  even  the  most  abstract,  v^ome  to 
him  clothed  in  firm  bodily  outlines.  Even  the  most  unearthly 
things  take  a  vivid,  physical  shape.  Where  the  book  treats  of 
the  punishments  of  hell,  Blake  draws  groups  of  men  and  women 
twisting  in  a  confused  coil,  and  suffering  convulsive  tortures, 
in  the  spirit  of  Michael  Angelo,  though  without  imitation.  Where 
reference  is  made  to  the  blast  at  the  last  judgment,  he  shows 
an  angel  descending  to  waken  the  dead  with  the  pealing  notes 
of  the  trumpet.  Upon  all  that  concerns  death,  its  hopes  and 
its  terrors,  he  had  loved  to  brood  from  his  youth  upwards,  and 
when  he  illustrated  Blair's  poem  The  Grave  in  1805,  he  gave 
the  journey  across  the  grave  all  the  colour  and  appearance  of 
life. 

Blake's  works  combine  the  creative  force  of  a  man   with  the 
faith  of  a  child.      They   are   a   terrible   dream   to    which   clear 


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568  MODERN  PAINTING 

artistic  expression  has  been  given — the  product  of  a  ripe 
imagination.  All  the  vacant  space  of  the  earth  and  the  air 
seemed  to  him  to  be  trembling  beneath  the  beat  of  spirits' 
wings  and  shaking  beneath  the  tread  of  their  feet  The  flowers 
and  grass,  and  the  stars  and  stones,  spoke  to  him  with  actual 
lips,  and  gazed  upon  him  with  vivid  ^y^.  Hands  emerging 
from  the  shadow  of  material  nature  reached  forth  to  seize  him, 
to  guide  him  or  restrain.  What  are  hallucinations  to  other 
people  were  actual  facts  to  him.  Upon  his  path  and  before  his 
easel,  in  his  ears  and  beneath  his  eyes,  there  moved,  and 
gathered,  and  shone,  and  sang  an  endless  world  of  spirits.  All 
the  mysterious  beings,  hovering  diffused  in  the  atmosphere^ 
spoke  to  him,  and  consoled  or  threatened  him.  Beneath  the 
damp  mantle  of  the  grass,  and  in  the  light  mist  rising  from 
the  plain,  strange  faces  grinned  and  white  hairs  fluttered. 
Tempters  and  guardian  angels,  fetches  of  the  living  and  phan- 
toms of  the  dead,  peopled  the  breeze  around  him,  and  the  fields 
and  mountains  which  met  his  glance. 

Two  series  of  illustrations — one  to  the  Book  of  Job  and  one 
to  Dante's  Infema — which  were  undertaken  in  his  last  years 
were  not  brought  to  completion,  yet  the  tone  which  he  had 
struck  did  not  die  with  his  death.  His  spirit  was  reborn  in 
fresh  incarnations,  and  first  of  all  in  the  Scotchman  David 
Scott. 

Scott's  pictures  alone  would  not  have  been  sufficient  to 
maintain  his  name.  Like  so  many  historical  painters  of  the 
first  half  of  the  century,  he  has  wasted  his  best  strength  in 
covering  voluminous  spaces  of  canvas  with  oils,  under  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  producing  "grand  art." 

Residence  in  Italy,  whither  he  repaired  in  1833,  was  his 
destiny  also.  Only  for  a  short  time  did  his  Northern  tempera- 
ment attempt  to  defy  the  great  impressions  peculiar  to  the 
country.  He  wrote  at  first  that  Titian  was  an  unimaginative  old 
man,  Tintoretto  a  blind  Polyphemus,  and  Paul  Veronese  only  the 
attendant  of  a  dc^e.  Michael  Angelo  seemed  to  him  monstrous^ 
and  he  regarded  the  Loggias  of  Raphael  as  childish.  But  his 
opinion  soon  changed,  and  he  fell  under  the  spell  of  the  mighty 


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ENGLAND  569 

dead.  The  result  of  his  studies  in  Rome  was  his  gigantic 
picture  "  Discordia,"  which  he  brought  to  Scotland  in  1834.  In 
substance  this  is  a  true  product  of  English  painting  of  ideas  : 
the  rising  of  the  son  against  the  father  was  something  like  a 
Titanic  battle  between  the  past  and  the  future,  the  new  order 
which  overthrows  the  old ;  while  in  form  it  showed  the  eclecticism 
of  a  man  who  had  studied  the  "Laocoon,"  the' muscular  figures 
of  Daniele  da  Volterra,  and  the  Mantua  n  frescoes  of  Giulio 
Romano  only  too  accurately.  When  he  did  not  meet  with  the 
success  of  which  he  had  dreamed,  he  felt  himself  a  martyr,  like 
Wiertz,  and  fell  more  and  more  into  the  wildest  extravagances. 
In  1845  he  contributed  to  the  Scotch  Academy  a  "  Raising  of 
the  Dead,"  the  figures  of  which — and  they  were  more  than  life- 
size — were  intended  to  outvie  Signorelli  an  Terribilitei.  Weary 
of  dun  shadows  and  pallid  light,  he  launched  out  in  another 
picture,  the  "  Triumph  of  Love,"  into  incredible  and  barbarically 
crude  green  and  blue  orgies  of  colour.  In  short,  as  a  painter, 
he  was  one  of  those  "  problematic  natures "  so  frequent  in  the 
history  of  the  nineteenth  century — men  who  accomplished  but 
little,  through  pure  Titanic  ambition — one  of  those  vain  dreamers 
who  are  full  of  ideas  and  designs,  but  bring  nothing  to  com- 
pletion ;  and  history  allowed  him  to  fall  into  oblivion,  like  others 
of  his  kind,  until  it  began  gradually  to  be  perceived  that  Scott 
had  other  claims  to  consideration  besides  these  ambitious 
attempts. 

David  Scott,  son  of  a  Scotch  engraver,  Robert  Scott,  was 
born  in  1806,  in  Edinburgh,  amid  the  frost  and  snow  of  a 
Northern  winter.  His  father,  an  earnest.  God-fearing  man, 
already  far  advanced  in  years — the  very  type  of  a  stern  old 
Scotch  Puritan — was  burdened  with  five  children,  and  lived  in 
the  strictest  economy  and  abstinence  in  a  solitary  manner, 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  town,  to  avoid  all  temptation  to 
extravagance.  After  David's  birth  he  fell  a  prey  to  religious 
monomania,  his  four  elder  children  having  been  snatched  from  him 
swiftly,  one  after  the  other,  by  an  epidemic.  Three  others  came 
in  their  place,  and,  in  William  Bell  Scott's  book,  it  is  touching 
to  read  how  the  poor  mother,  who  was  also  mentally  afflicted, 
VOL.  III.  37 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Mag.  of  AH.  ]  [Hunt  del. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 


always  called  these  later  children 
to  her  by  the  names  of  their 
elder  brothers  who  were  dead. 
In  this  austere  family,  where 
cheerfulness  was  almost  regarded 
as  lunacy,  David  grew  up,  quiet 
and  occupied  with  his  own 
thoughts,  in  melancholy  solitude. 
It  is  related  as  one  of  the  first 
characteristic  traits  of  his  boy- 
hood, that  once  when  he  wrapped 
himself  up  in  a  sheet  to  play  at 
being  a  ghost,  he  was  so  much 
terrified  by  his  own  reflection  in 
the  glass  that  he  fainted,  suffer- 
ing afterwards  from  a  severe 
nervous  fever.  His  imagination  was  morbidly  active,  like  that 
of  Theodor  Hoffmann— who  was  overcome  with  horror  himself 
as  he  wrote  his  stories  by  lamplight — and  it  was  feverishly 
heated  by  Blake's  illustrations.  From  his  youth  the  idea  of 
death  had  excited  his  mind,  and  on  one  occasion,  when  he 
was  persuaded  by  his  brother  Robert  to  compete  for  a  prize 
poem,  he  composed  such  a  dark  and  mystical  ode  to  Death 
that  it  gained  him  the  prize,  a  guinea. 

The  laborious  technique  of  colouring  was  naturally  a  hindrance 
to  such  a  visionary,  such  a  glowing,  feverish,  and  poetic  genius  ; 
and  it  was  only  as  a  draughtsman  that  he  felt  himself  competent 
to  express  everything  that  moved  his  imagination.  In  1831  he 
published  a  series  of  six  remarkable  compositions  verging  on 
the  manner  of  Max  Klinger,  under  the  title  "  The  Monograms  of 
Man."  The  first  is  named  "Life:"  the  creative  Hand  of  God 
descends  from  heaven,  giving  life  to  everything  it  touches — the 
sun,  the  stars,  and  human  beings.  The  second  plate  shows  how 
man  stands  out  lofty  and  glorious  in  all  the  pride  of  his  strength, 
like  an  angel  of  the  Apocalypse  with  one  foot  on  the  earth  and 
one  on  the  sea,  in  this  fashion  giving  evidence  of  his  lordship 
over   the   world.      Other   deep   allegories   on   knowledge,   earthly 


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ENGLAND 


57i 


\Watispxt. 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 


power,  and  the  end  of  all  things 
follow  in  succession.  And  all 
these  grand  or  bizarre  fancies 
are  boldly  expressed  with  firm 
strokes,  and  executed  with  a 
sureness  which  reveals  not  merely 
a  strange  dreamer,  but  one  who 
is  altogether  an  artist.  And  still 
more  singular  is  the  union  of 
vivid  reality  and  forceful  im- 
agination in  his  second  series, 
published  in  1837,  comprising 
twenty-five  large  sketches  to 
Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner. 
This  ballad  is  an  eerie  tale  of 
a   haunted    ship,   the    terrors    of 

which  owe  their  origin  to  a  sailor  having  been  so  wanton  as  to 
slay  an  albatross — the  hallowed  bird  of  seamen— which  had 
taken  refuge  upon  the  ship.  The  entire  crew,  excepting  himself, 
are  punished  for  this  act  of  inhospitality  by  death,  whilst  he  is 
tormented  by  the  ghostly  figures  who  have  perished  through  his 
fault.  Scott's  drawings,  executed  during  the  frost  of  long  winter 
nights,  are  thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  weird  spirit  of  the 
ballad ;  they  have  something  of  the  profound  imagination  of 
Scotch  poetry,  something  of  Ossian  and  the  heroic  greatness  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  something  of  those  mysterious  and  infinite 
notes  which  murmur  complainingly  in  the  old  bardic  songs. 

It  was  only  Rethel  in  Germany  who  lent  the  fantastic  dreams 
of  fever  such  puissant  expression.  The  series  of  eighteen  illustra- 
tions for  Nicholas  Architecture  of  tlie  Heavens— mysticsl  interpreta- 
tions of  astronomical  subjects,  again  displaying  all  the  profundity 
of  a  mind  absorbed  in  metaphysical  speculations — belong  to  his 
last  period,  when  his  nerves  were  shattered.  And  forty  drawings 
for  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  were  first  published  after  his  death — 
plates  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  diary  and  letters  of  the 
unfortunate  artist,  show  that  the  fate  of  this  morbid  decadent 
was  merely  due  to  his  having  been  born  too  early. 


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THE E/ffiT^ ITALIAN  POETS 

fn;rnOtii]od!A[ciino  b  ID^n^eAIisnitri 


A  direct  line  passes 
from  Blake  through  David 
Scott  to  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetii.  How  highly 
Rossetti  honoured  Blake 
may  be  gathered  from  the 
sonnet  which  he  wrote 
upon  this  strange  mystic, 
as  well  as  from  other 
sources.  With  the  works 
of  David  Scott  he  be- 
came familiar  through  his 
friendship  with  that  artist's 
brother,  William  Bell  Scott. 
And  under  the  influence 
of  Scott  and  Rossetti 
English  Preraphaelitism 
now  entered  upon  a  new 
and  entirely  different 
phase. 

Although  Rossetti  was 
the  soul  of  the  earlier 
movement,  he  was  a  man 
whose  temperament  was  even  then  essentially  different  from 
that  of  his  comrades  Millais  and  Hunt,  who  founded  the 
Brotherhood  with  him  in  1848.  Even  the  two  works  which  he 
exhibited  with  them  in  1849  and  1850  make  one  feel  the  deep 
chasm  which  lay  between  him  and  them.  In  the  former  year, 
when  Hunt  was  represented  by  his  "Rienzi,"  and  Millais  by  his 
"  Lorenzo  and  Isabella,"  Rossetti  produced  his  "  Girlhood  of 
Mary  Virgin."  In  the  following,  when  Hunt  painted  "The 
Converted  British  Family  sheltering  a  Christian  Missionary  "  and 
Millais  "The  Child  Jesus  in  the  Workshop  of  Joseph  the  Car- 
penter," Rossetti  came  forward  with  his  "  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini." 
"  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin  "  was  a  little  picture  of  austere 
simplicity  and  ascetic  character ;  it  was  intentionally  angular  in 
drawing,  and  possessed  a  certain  archaic  bloom.     The  Virgin,  clad 


Oa«.  dta  Beaux- Arts.} 

Rossetti  :  The  Title-page  to  "  The  Early 

Italian  Poets." 

(By  permission  of  the  Publishers.) 


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Portfolio.^ 


RossETTi:   "EccE  Ancilla  Domini." 
iBy  permission  of  Messrs.  T.  Agnew  &  Softs,  the  owners  oj  the  copyright.) 


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in  grey  garments, 
sits  at  a  curiously 
shaped  frame  em- 
broidering a  lily 
with  gold  threads 
upon  a  red  ground. 
The  flower  she  is 
copying  stands  be- 
fore her  in  a  vase, 
and  a  little  angel, 
with  roseate  wings, 
is  watering  it  with 
an  air  of  abashed 
reverence.  St.  Anne 
is  busy  by  the 
side  of  the  Virgin  — 
both  being,  respect- 
ively, portraits  of 
the  artist's  mother 
and  sister  —  and  in 
the  background  St  Joachim  is  binding  a  vine  to  a  trellis.  And 
several  Latin  books  are  lying  upon  the  floor.  The  second  work, 
**  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini,"  is  the  familiar  picture  which  is  now  in 
the  National  Gallery — a  harmony  of  white  upon  white  of 
indescribable  graciousness  and  delicacy.  Mary,  a  bashful, 
meditative,  and  childlike  maiden,  in  a  white  garment,  is  shown 
in  a  half-kneeling  attitude  upon  a  white  bed.  The  walls  of  the 
chamber  are  white,  and  in  front  of  her  there  stands  a  frame  at 
which  she  has  been  working  ;  and] a  piece  of  embroidery,  with  a 
lily  which  she  has  begun,  hangs  over  it.  Before  her  stands  the 
angel  with  flame  rising  from  his  feet,  in  solemn,  peaceful  gravity, 
as  he  extends  towards  her  the  stalk  of  the  lily  which  he  holds. 
A  dove  flies  gently  in  through  the  window.  Now  in  spite  of  their 
romantic  subjects  the  work  of  Hunt  and  Millais  is  lucid  and 
temperate,  while  Rossetti  is  dreamily  mystical.  The  two  former 
were  straightforward,  true,  and  natural,  whereas  the  simplicity  of 
the  latter  was  subtilized  and  consciously  affected.     It  was  due  to 


Rossetti:  **Lilith." 
(By  pgrmission  o/  Mr.  W.  M,  Rossetii.) 


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Portfolio.]  G,  H^'.  Rhgad  3c. 

RossETTi :   "  Beata  Beatrix." 
(By  permission  of  Mr,  F.  Hollyer^  th€  owtur  oj  the  copyright.) 


the  vibrating  delicacy 
1  t  his  distcmpcredj 
SL.'Qthing  imagination 
that  he  was  able  to 
give  himself  a  dc- 
ce|jtivc  appearance 
oi  bein^  a  primitive 
artist.  The  creative 
[>ower  nf  the  two 
former  is  an  earnest 
po\ver  of  the  under- 
standing, whereas  in 
tlic  latter  there  is  a 
vjgiic  dreaminess,  a 
tendency  to  luxuriate 
in  his  own  moods,  an 
c  fR  ore  seen  ce  of  tones 
and  colours.  In  the 
one  case  there  is  ai|_ 
lingular  but  singti 
minded  study 
nature  ;    in  the  othc 


there  is  the  demureness  and  embarrassment  of  the  Quattrocentc 
a  demureness  breaking  into  blossom  and  an  embarrassment  fol 
of  charm — a  romanticism  which  cherished  the  yearning  for  repos 
in  the  childlike  and  innocent  Middle  Ages,  and  clothed  it  wit 
all  the  attractions  of  mysticism.  Holman  Hunt,  Madox  Brown^^ 
and  Millais  were  realists  in  their  drawing,  men  who  wanted  to 
represent  objects  with  all  possible  accuracy,  to  be  faithful  in 
rendering  the  finest  fibre  of  a  petal  and  every  thread  in  a  fabric* 
Rossetti*s  picture  was  a  symphonic  ode  in  pii^ments,  and  he 
himself  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  modern  lyricists  of  colour. 
This  distinction  became  wider  and  wider  with  the  course  of 
time,  and  as  early  as  1858  he  found  himself  deserted  by  his 
earlier  comrades.  Madox  Brown,  Holman  Hunt,  and  especially 
Millais,  in  their  further  development,  tended  more  and  more  to 
become    Naturalists,  and  were  finally  led  to  completely  realistic 


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PO^MTM/.] 


ROSSETTI  :    "  MONNA  RosA.** 
(By  ptrmission  of  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossttti.) 


iSwan  photo  sc. 


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subjects  from  the  im- 
mediate present  by  the 
inviolable  fidelity  with 
which  they  studied  nature. 
On  the  other  hand,  Ros- 
setti  became  the  centre 
of  a  new  circle  of  artists, 
who  directed  the  current 
of  what  was  originally 
Naturalism  more  and 
more  into  mysticism  and 
refined  archaism. 

In  1856  The  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Magazine 
was  founded  as  a  monthly 
periodical.  There  were 
several  contributions  by 
Rossetti,  and  in  this  way 
he  became  so  well  known 
in  Oxford  that  the  Union 
accepted  an  offer  from  him  to  execute  a  series  of  wall-paintings. 
Accordingly  he  painted  several  pictures  from  the  Arthurian 
legends,  making  the  sketches  for  them  himself,  and  employing 
for  their  elaboration  a  number  of  young  men,  some  of  them 
amateur  artists  and  students  at  the  University.  In  this  way 
he  came  into  connection  with  Arthur  Hughes,  William  Morris, 
and  Edward  Burne-Jones.  These  artists,  afterwards  joined  by 
Spencer  Stanhope  and  Walter  Crane,  both  of  them  younger 
men,  became — with  George  Frederick  Watts  at  their  flank — 
the  leading  members  of  the  new  brotherhood,  the  representatives 
of  that  New  Preraphaelitism  in  which  interest  is  now  centred 
in  England. 

Their  art  is  a  kind  of  Italian  Renaissance  upon  English  soil. 
The  romantic  chord  which  vibrates  in  old  English  poetry  is 
united  to  the  grace  and  purity  of  Italian  taste,  the  classical 
lucidity  of  the  Pagan  mythology  with  Catholic  mysticism,  and 
the  most  modern   riot  of  emotion   with   the  demure  vesture  of 


Rossetti:    "The  Blessed  Damozel.*' 

(JSy  permission  of  Mr.  F.  Hollyert  tht  ownsr  of  tht 
copyright.) 


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the  primitive  Florentines. 
Through  this  mixture  of 
heterogeneous  elements 
English  New  Idealism  is, 
probably,  the  most  re- 
markable form  of  art 
upon  which  the  sun  has 
ever  shone :  borrowed  and 
yet  in  the  highest  degree 
personal,  it  is  an  art  com- 
bining an  almost  childlike 
simplicity  of  feeling  with  a 
morbid  hautgoUt,  the  most 
attentive  and  intelligent 
study  of  the  old  masters 
with  free,  creative,  modern 
imagination,  the  most 
graceful  sureness  of  draw- 
ing and  the  most  spark- 
ling individuality  of  colour 
with  a  helpless,  stammering  accent  introduced  of  set  purpose. 
The  old  Quattrocentisti  wander  amongst  the  real  Italian 
flowers ;  but  with  the  New  Preraphaelites  one  enters  a  hot- 
house :  one  is  met  by  a  soft,  damp  heat,  bright  exotic 
flowers  exhale  an  overpowering  fragrance,  juicy  fruits  catch  the 
eye,  and  slender  palms,  through  the  branches  of  which  no  rough 
wind   may  bluster,  gently  sway  their  long,  broad  fans. 

Professor  Lombroso  would  certainly  find  the  material  for 
ingenious  disquisition  in  Rossetti,  who  introduced  this  Italian 
phase,  and  came  of  an  Italian  stock.  And  it  might  almost 
seem  as  if  a  soul  from  those  old  times  had  found  its  re- 
incarnation in  the  lonely  painter  who  lived  at  Chelsea, 
though  it  was  a  soul  who  no  longer  bore  heaven  in  his  heart 
like  Fra  Angelico.  In  his  whole  being  he  seems  like  a 
phenomenon  of  atavism,  like  a  citizen  of  that  long-buried  Italy 
who,  after  many  transmigrations,  had  strayed  into  the  misty 
North,  to   the   bank   of  the   Thames,   and   from    thence   looked 


Portfolio.^ 

Rossetti  :   "  Sancta  Lilias." 


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RossETTi :  **  Sibyl.* 


in  his  home-sickness  ever 
towards  the  South,  en- 
veloped in  poetry  and 
glowing  in  the  sun. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 
was  a  Catholic  and  an 
Italian.  Amid  his  English 
surroundings  he  kept  the 
feelings  of  one  of  Latin 
race.  His  father,  the 
patriot  and  commentator 
upon  Dante,  had  originally 
lived  in  Naples,  and  in- 
flamed the  popular  party 
there  by  his  passionate 
writings.  In  consequence 
of  the  active  part  which 
he  took  in  political  agita- 
tion he  lost  his  post  at  the  Bourbon  Museum,  escaped  from 
Italy  upon  a  warship,  disguised  as  an  English  officer,  settled  in 
London  in  1824,  and  married  Francesca  Polidori,  the  daughter 
of  a  secretary  of  Count  Alfieri.  Here  he  became  Professor  of 
the  Italian  language  at  King's  College,  and  published  several 
works  on  Dante,  the  most  important  of  which,  Daniels  Beatrice, 
written  in  1852,  once  more  supported  the  theory  that  Beatrice 
was  not  a  real  person.  Dante  Gabriel,  the  son  of  this  Dante 
student  Gabriele  Rossetti,  was  born  in  London  on  May  12th, 
1828.  The  whole  family  actively  contributed  to  scholarship  and 
poetry.  His  elder  sister,  Maria  Francesca,  was  the  authoress  of  A 
Shadow  of  Dante,  a  work  which  gives  a  most  valuable  explana- 
tion of  the  scheme  of  Tlie  Divine  Comedy ;  his  younger  sister, 
Christina,  was  one  of  the  most  eminent  poetesses  of  England  ; 
and  his  brother,  William  Michael  Rossetti,  is  well  known  as 
an  art-critic  and  a  student  of  Shelley.  Even  from  early  youth 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  was  familiar  with  the  world  of  Dante, 
and  brought  up  in  the  worship  of  Dante's  wonderful  age  and 
an    enthusiasm    for  his   mystic    and    transcendental    poetry.     He 


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knew  Dante  by 
heart,  and  Guido 
Cavalcanti.  The 
mystical  poet  be- 
came his  guide 
through  life,  and 
led  him  to  Fra 
Angel  i  CO,  the 
mystic  of  painting. 
Indeed  the  world 
of  Dante  and  of  the 
painters  antecedent 
to  Raphael  is  his 
spiritual   home. 

He  was  barely 
eighteen  when  he 
became  a  pupil  at 
the  Royal  Academy, 
studying  a  couple 
of  years  later  under 
Madox  Brown,  who 
was  not  many  years  older  than  himself.  Even  then  Rossetti 
had  an  almost  mesmeric  influence  upon  his  friends.  He  was 
a  pale,  tall,  and  thin  young  man,  who  always  walked  with 
a  slight  stoop ;  dry  in  his  manner,  silent,  and  careless  in 
dress,  there  was  nothing  captivating  about  him  at  a  transitory 
meeting.  But  his  pale  face  was  lit  up  by  his  unusually 
reflective,  deeply  clouded,  contemplative  eyes ;  and  about  his 
defiant  mouth  there  played  that  contempt  of  the  profane  crowd 
which  is  natural  to  a  superior  mind,  while  the  laurel  of  fame 
was  already  twined  about  his  youthful  forehead.  In  1849,  when 
he  was  exhibiting  his  earliest  picture,  he  had  published  in  The 
Germ,  to  say  nothing  of  his  numerous  poems,  a  mystical, 
visionary  sketch  in  prose  named  Hand  and  Soul,  which  was 
much  praised  by  men  of  the  highest  intellect  in  London.  Soon 
afterwards  he  published  a  volume  entitled  Dante  and  his  Circle^ 
in    which    he    translated    a    number   of    old    Italian    poems,   and 


Rossetti:   Study  for  "Astarte  Syriaca." 


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ROSSETTI  :     "ASTARTE    SyRIACA." 
{By  permission  of  thg  Corporation  of  Manchtster,  the  owners  of  thi  piJure.) 


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RossETTi  :  Study  for  "  Dante's  Dream." 


rendered  Dante's  Vita 
Nuova  into  strictly  archaic 
English  prose.  Reserved 
as  he  was  towards 
strangers,  he  was  irre- 
sistibly attractive  to  his 
friends,  and  his  brilliant, 
genial  conversation  won 
him  the  goodwill  of  every 
one.  A  man  of  gifted  and 
delicate  nature,  sensitive 
to  an  extreme  degree,  a 
sedentary  student  who  had 
yet  an  enthusiasm  for 
knightly  deeds,  a  jaded 
spirit  capable  of  morbidly 
heightened,  exotic  sensibility  and  soft,  melting  reverie,  one  whose 
overstrained  nerves  only  vibrated  if  he  slept  in  the  daytime  and 
worked  at  night,  it  seemed  as  though  Rossetti  was  born  to  be 
the  father  of  the  decadence,  of  that  state  of  spirit  which  every 
one  now  perceives  to  be  flooding  Europe. 

His  later  career  was  as  quiet  as  its  opening  had  been 
brilliant.  After  that  graciously  sentimental  little  picture  "Eccc 
Ancilla  Domini,"  Rossetti  exhibited  in  public  only  once  again ; 
this  was  in  1856.  From  that  date  the  public  saw  no  more  of 
his  painting.  He  worked  only  for  his  friends  and  the  friends 
of  his  friends.  He  was  famous  only  in  private,  and  looked 
up  to  like  a  god  within  a  narrow  circle  of  admirers.  One 
of  his  acquaintances,  the  painter  Deverell,  had  introduced 
him  in  1850  to  the  woman  who  became  for  him  what  Saskia 
Uylenburgh  had  been  for  Rembrandt  and  Helene  Fourment  for 
Rubens — his  type  of  feminine  beauty.  She  was  a  young  dress- 
maker's assistant.  Miss  Eleanor  Siddal.  Her  thick,  heavy  hair 
was  fair,  with  that  faint  reddish  tint  in  it  which  Titian  painted  ;  it 
grew  in  two  tapering  bands  deep  down  into  the  neck,  being  there 
somewhat  fairer  than  it  was  above,  and  it  curled  thickly.  Her 
eyes  had  something  indefinite  in  their  expression  ;  nothing, 
VOL.  III.  38 


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Magaaing  of  Art.'\ 


[O.  Lacour  $c. 


RossETTi:  "Dante's  Dream." 
(By  permission  oj  the  Corporation  of  Liverpool,  the  owners  of  the  ptcfure,) 

however,  that  was  dreamy,  mobile,  and  changeable,  for  they 
seemed  rather  to  be  insuperable,  fathomless,  and  unnaturally 
vivid.  All  the  play  of  her  countenance  lay  in  the  lower  part 
of  her  face,  in  the  nostrils,  mouth,  and  chin.  The  mouth  indeed, 
with  its  deep  corners,  sharply  chiselled  outlines,  and  lips  triumph- 
antly curved,  was  particularly  expressive.  And  her  tall,  slender 
figure  had  a  refined  distinction  of  line.  In  i860  they  married. 
Some  of  his  most  beautiful  works  were  painted  during  this 
epoch— the  "Beata  Beatrix,"  the  "Sibylla  Palmifera,"  "Monna 
Vanna,"  "  Venus  Verticordia,"  "  Lady  Lilith,"  and  "  The  Beloved  " 
— pictures  which  he  painted  without  a  thought  of  exhibition  or 
success.  After  a  union  of  barely  two  years  this  passionately 
loved  woman  died,  a  still-born  child  having  been  born  a  short 
time  before.  He  laid  a  whole  volume  of  manuscript  poems — 
many  of  them  inspired  by  her — in  the  coffin,  and  they  were 
buried  with  her.  From  that  time  he  lived  solitary  and  secluded 
from  the  world,  surrounded  by  mediaeval  antiques,  in  his  old- 
fashioned  house  at  Chelsea,  entirely  given  up   to   his   dreams,  a 


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RossETTi :   "  Rosa  Triplex." 
{By  permission  of  Mr,  F.  Hoilyer,  ths  owner  of  the  copyright.) 


Stranger  in  a  world  without  light  He  suffered  much  from  ill- 
health,  and  was  sensitive  and  hypochondriacal,  and,  indeed,  under- 
mined his  health  by  an  immoderate  use  of  chloral.  His  friends 
entreated  him  to  bring  out  his  poems,  and  all  England  was 
expectant  when  Rossetti  at  length  yielded  to  pressure,  opened 
the  grave  of  his  wife,  and  took  out  the  manuscript.  The  poems 
appeared  in  the  April  of  1870.  The  first  edition  was  bought 
up  in  ten  days,  and  there  followed  six  others.  Wherever  he 
appeared,  he  was  honoured  like  a  god.  But  the  attacks  directed 
against  the  first  pictures  of  the  Preraphaelites  were  repeated, 
although  now  transferred  to  another  region.  An  article  by 
Robert  Buchanan  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  and  published 
afterwards  as  a  pamphlet,  entitled  T/u  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry y 
accused  Rossetti  of  immorality  and  imitation  of  Baudelaire  and 
the  Marquis  de  Sade.  Rossetti  stepped  once  more  into  the 
arena,  and  replied  by  a  letter  in  the  Atlienceum  headed  The 
Stealthy  School  of  Criticism,  From  that  time  he  shut  himself 
up  completely,  never  went  out,  and   led  "the  hole-and-cornerest 


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RossETTi :   Study  for  '*  The  Saluta- 
tion OF  Beatrice.** 


existence.'*  He  considered  him- 
self as  the  victim  of  a  widely 
ramified  conspiracy,  which  aimed 
at  tormenting  him  to  death ;  he 
had  hallucinations,  took,  morphia, 
to  which  he  became  so  ac- 
customed that  at  last  he  procured 
himself  a  few  hours*  sleep  with 
three  doses  of  four  grammes 
every  time  ;  his  eyes  grew  dull 
and  languid  ;  he  shuffled  in  his 
gait  and  stooped,  grew  eccentric 
in  dress  ;  he  was  paralyzed,  his 
eyes  shone  with  an  unnatural 
brilliancy,  and  his  hollow  "  grassy  green "  cheeks  assumed  a 
hectic  flush ;  almost  every  evening  he  suffered  from  a  dull, 
throbbing  headache,  which  in  later  days  alternated  with  palpita- 
tion of  the  heart  ;  and  at  night  he  fancied  that  he  was 
suffocating  in  bed,  and  on   the  point  of  fainting. 

In  1 88 1  he  published  a  second  volume  of  poems,  chiefly 
composed  of  ballads  and  sonnets.  And  a  year  afterwards,  on 
April  9th,  1882,  he  died,  honoured,  even  in  the  academical 
circles  in  which  he  never  mingled,  as  one  of  the  greatest  men 
in  England.  The  exhibition  of  his  works  which  was  opened 
a  couple  of  months  after  his  death  created  an  immense  sensa- 
tion. Those  of  his  pictures  which  had  not  been  already  sold 
straight  from  the  easel  were  paid  for  with  their  weight  in 
gold,  and  are  now  scattered  in  great  English  country  mansions 
and  certain  private  galleries  in  Florence.  The  only  very  rich 
collection  in  London  is  that  of  an  intimate  friend  of  the  artist, 
the  late  Mr.  Leyland,  who  had  gathered  together  in  his  splendid 
house  in  the  West  End  probably  the  most  beautiful  work  of 
which  the  East  can  boast  in  carpets  and  vases,  or  the  early 
Renaissance  in  intaglios,  small  bronzes,  and  ornaments.  Here, 
surrounded  by  the  quaint  and  delicate  pictures  of  Carlo 
Crivelli  and  Botticelli,  Rossetti  was  in  the  society  of  his 
contemporaries. 


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RossETTi :   "Mary  Magdalene  at  the  House  of  Simon  the  Pharisee." 
(By  permission  of  Mr.  IV.  M.  RossetH.) 


[S'^cati  phMo  *f* 


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His  range  of 
subject  was  not 
wide.  In  his  ear- 
liest period  he  had 
a  fancy  for  painting 
small  biblical  pic- 
tures, of  which  "  Ecce 
Ancilla  Domini" 
is  the  best  known, 
and  the  delightfully 
archaic  "  Girlhood 
of  Mary  Virgin  " 
one  of  the  most 
beautiful.  But  this 
austerely  biblical 
tendency  was  not 
of  long  continuance. 
It  soon  gave  way  to 
a  brilliant,  imagina- 
tive Romanticism, 
to  which  he  was 
prompted  by  Dante. 
"  Giotto  painting  the  Portrait  of  Dante,"  "  The  Salutation  of 
Beatrice  on  Earth  and  in  Eden "  (from  the  Vita  Nuova\  "  La 
Pia"  (from  the  Purgatorio),  the  "  Beata  Beatrix,"  and  "Dante's 
Dream,"  in  the  Walker  Art  Gallery  in  Liverpool,  are  the 
leading  works  which  arose  under  the  influence  of  the  great 
Italian.  The  head  of  his  wife,  with  her  heavily  veiled  eyes, 
and  Giotto's  well-known  picture  of  Dante,  sufficed  him  for  the 
creation  of  the  most  tender,  mystical  poems,  which,  at  the  same 
time,  show  him  in  all  the  splendour  of  his  wealth  of  colour. 
He  revels  in  the  most  brilliant  hues;  his  pictures  have  the 
appearance  of  being  bathed  in  a  glow  ;  and  there  is  something 
deeply  sensuous  in  his  vivid  and  lustrous  green,  red,  and  violet 
tones.  In  the  picture  "Dante  on  the  Anniversary  of  Beatrice's 
Death"  the  poet  kneels  at  the  open  window  which  looks  out 
upon   Florence ;   he   has  been   drawing,   and   a  tablet   is   in   his 


RossETTi:   "Silence," 


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592  MODERN  PAINTING 

hand.  The  room  is  quite  simple,  a  frieze  with  angels*  heads 
being  its  only  ornament  Visitors  of  rank  have  come  to  see 
him — an  elderly  magnate  and  his  daughter — and  have  stood 
long  behind  him  without  his  noticing  their  presence.  For  he 
has  been  thinking  of  Beatrice,  and  it  is  only  when  his  attention 
is  attracted  to  them  by  a  friend  that  he  turns  round  at  last 
The  **  Beata  Beatrix,'*  in  the  National  Gallery  in  London — a 
picture  begun  in  1863  and  ended  in  the  August  of  1866 — treats 
of  the  death  of  Beatrice  "  under  the  semblance  of  a  trance,  in 
which  Beatrice,  seated  in  a  balcony  overlooking  the  city,  is 
suddenly  rapt  from  earth  to  heaven."  In  accordance  with  the 
description  in  the  Vita  Nuova^  Beatrice  sits  in  the  balcony  of 
her  father's  palace  in  strange  ecstasy.  Across  the  parapet  of 
the  balcony  there  is  a  view  of  the  Arno  and  of  that  other 
palace  where  Dante  passed  his  youth  close  to  his  adored 
mistress,  until  the  unforgotten  9th  of  June,  1290,  when  death 
robbed  him  of  her.  A  peaceful  evening  light  is  shed  upon  the 
bank  of  the  Arno,  and  plays  upon  the  parapet  with  warm 
silvery  beams.  Beatrice  is  dressed  in  a  garment  belonging  to 
no  definite  epoch,  of  green  and  rosy  red,  the  colours  of  Love 
and  Hope.  Her  head  rises  against  a  little  patch  of  yellow  sky 
between  the  two  palaces,  and  seems  to  be  surrounded  by  it  as 
by  a  halo.  She  is  in  a  trance,  has  the  foreknowledge  of  her 
approaching  death,  and  already  lives  through  the  spirit  in 
another  world,  whilst  her  body  is  still  upon  the  earth.  Her 
hands  are  touched  by  a  heavenly  light  A  dove  of  deep 
rose-coloured  plumage  alights  upon  her  knees,  bringing  her  a 
white  poppy,  whilst  opposite,  before  the  palace  of  Dante,  the 
figure  of  Love  stands,  holding  a  flaming  heart,  and  announcing 
to  the  poet  that  Beatrice  has  passed  to  a  life  beyond  the  earth. 
"La  Donna  Finestra,"  painted  in  1879  and  to  be  counted 
amongst  his  ripest  creations,  has  connection  with  that  passage  in 
the  Vita  Nuova  where  Dante  sinks  to  the  ground  overcome  with 
sorrow  for  Beatrice's  death,  and  is  regarded  with  sympathy  by  a 
lady  looking  down  from  a  window,  the  Lady  of  Pity,  the  human 
embodiment  of  compassion.  "  Dante's  Dream  "  is  probably  the 
work    which   shows   the   painter   at   his  zenith.      The  expression 


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ENGLAND  593 

of  the  heads  is  profound  and  lofty,  the  composition  severely 
mediaeval  and  admirably  complete,  and  although  the  painting 
is  laboured,  the  total  impression  is  nevertheless  so  cogent  that 
it  is  impossible  to  forget  it.  "The  scene,"  in  Rossetti's  own  de- 
scription, "  is  a  chamber  of  dreams,  strewn  with  poppies,  where 
Beatrice  is  seen  lying  on  a  couch,  as  if  just  fallen  back  in  death ; 
the  winged  figure  of  Love  carries  his  arrow  pointed  at  the 
dreamer's  heart,  and  with  it  a  branch  of  apple-blossom  ;  as  he 
reaches  the  bier.  Love  bends  for  a  moment  over  Beatrice  with 
the  kiss  which  her  lover  has  never  given  her ;  while  the  two 
green-clad  dream-ladies  hold  the  pall  full  of  May-blossom 
suspended  for  an  instant  before  it  covers  her  face  for  ever." 
The  expression  of  ecstasy  in  Dante's  face,  and  the  still,  angelical 
sweetness  of  Beatrice,  are  rendered  with  astonishing  intensity. 
She  lies  upon  the  bier,  pale  as  a  flower,  wrapped  in  a  white 
shroud,  with  her  lips  parted  as  though  she  were  gently  breathing, 
and  does  not  seem  dead,  but  fallen  asleep.  Her  fair  hair  floats 
round  her  in  golden  waves.  In  its  vague  folds  the  covering  of 
the  couch  displays  the  marble  outlines  of  the  body.  And  a  look 
of  bliss  rests  upon  the  pure  and  clear-cut  features  of  her  lovely 
face. 

This  "  painting  of  .the  soul "  occupied  Rossetti  almost  exclu- 
sively in  the  third  and  most  fruitful  period  of  his  life,  when  he 
painted  hardly  any  pictures  upon  the  larger  scale,,  but  separate 
feminine  figures  furnished  with  various  poetic  attributes,  the 
deeper  meaning  of  which  is  interpreted  in  his  poems.  **  The 
Sphinx,"  in  which  he  busied  himself  with  the  great  riddle  of 
life,  is  the  only  one  containing  several  figures.  Three  persons — 
a  youth,  a  man  of  ripe  years,  and  a  gray -beard — visit  the  secret 
dwelling  of  the  Sphinx  to  inquire  their  destiny  of  this  omni- 
scient being.  It  is  only  the  man  who  really  puts  the  question  ; 
the  gray-beard  stumbles  painfully  towards  her  cavern,  while  the 
young  man,  wearied  with  his  journey,  falls  dying  to  the  earth 
before  the  very  object  of  his  quest.  The  Sphinx  remains  in 
impenetrable  silence,  with  her  green,  inscrutable,  mysterious 
eyes  coldly  and  pitilessly  fixed  upon  infinity.  "  The  Blessed 
Damozel,"   "Proserpina,"   "  Fiammetta,"   "The   Daydream,"    "La 


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\Wattspxt. 

Sir  Edward  Burne-Jones. 


Bella  Mano,"  "  La  Ghirlandata," 
"  Veronica  Veronese,"  "  Diis 
Manibus,"  "  Astarte  Syriaca," 
are  all  separate  figures  dedi- 
cated to  the  memory  of  his 
wife.  As  Dante  immortalized 
his  Beatrice,  Rossetti  honoured 
his  wife,  who  died  so  early,  in 
his  poems  and  his  pictures. 
He  painted  her  as  "The 
Blessed  Damozel,"  with  her 
gentle,  saint-like  face,  her  quiet 
mouth,  her  flowing  golden  hair 
and  peaceful  lids.  He  repre- 
sents her  as  an  angel  of  God 
standing  at  the  gate  of  heaven, 
looking  down  upon  the  earth.  She  is  thinking  of  her  lover, 
and  of  the  time  when  she  will  see  him  again  in  heaven,  and  of 
the  sacred  songs  that  will  be  sung  to  him.  Lilies  rest  upon 
her  arm,  and  lovers  once  more  united  hover  around. 

There  is  no  action  or  rhetoric  of  gesture  in  Rossetti.  His 
tall  Gothic  figures  are  motionless  and  silent,  having  almost  the 
floating  appearance  of  visionary  figures  which  stand  long  before 
the  gaze  of  the  dreamer  without  taking  bodily  form.  They  glide 
along  like  phantoms  and  shadows,  like  the  blossoms  of  the  tree 
and  the  ears  of  the  field  which  hover  passive  to  the  wind. 
They  neither  talk,  nor  weep,  nor  laugh,  and  are  only  eloquent 
through  their  quiet  hands,  the  most  sensuous  and  the  most 
spiritual  hands  ever  painted,  or.  with  their  eyes,  the  most  dreamy 
and  fascinating  eyes  which  have  been  rendered  in  art  since 
Leonardo  da  Vinci.  In  the  pictures  which  Rossetti  devoted  to 
her,  Elizabeth  Siddal  is  a  marvellously  lofty  woman,  glorified 
in  the  mysticism  of  a  rare  beauty.  Rossetti  drapes  his  idol  in 
Venetian  fashion,  with  rich  garments  which  recall  Giorgione  in 
the  character  of  their  colour,  and,  like  Botticelli,  he  strews  flowers 
of  deep  fragrance  around  her,  especially  roses,  which  he  painted 
with  wonderful  perfection,  and  also  hyacinths,  for  which  he  had 


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a  great  love  and  the 
intoxicating  perfume  of 
which  affected  him  greatly. 
This  taste  for  beautiful 
and  deeply  lustrous  colours 
and  rich  accessories  is, 
indeed,  the  one  purely 
pictorial  quality  which  this 
painter-poet  has,  if  one 
understands  by  pictorial 
qualities  the  capacity  for 
intoxicating  one's  self  with 
the  beauty  of  the  visible 
world.  His  drawing  is 
often  faulty ;  and  his 
bodies,  enveloped  in  rich 
and  heavy  garments,  are 
not,  perhaps,  in  invariable 
accordance  with  anatomy. 
What  explains  Rossetti's 
fabulous  success  is  purely 
the  condition  of  spirit 
which  went  to  the  making 
of  his  works  —  that  ner- 
vous vibration,  that  ecstasy 
of  opium,  that  combination 
of  suffering  and  sensuous- 
ness,  and  that  romanticism 
drunk  with  beauty,  which 
go  through  his  paintings. 
When  they  appeared  they 
seemed  like  a  revelation 
of  a  beautiful  land,  only 
one  could  not  say  where  it  existed — a  revelation  indeed,  for 
it  revealed  for  the  first  time  a  world  of  story  which  was  in  no 
sense  fabulous  :  there  came  a  romanticism  which  was  something 
real  ;    a   style    arose    which    seemed    as    though    it   were   woven 


BuRNE-JoNEs:   "King  Cophetua  and  the 
Beggar- Maid." 

{By  ptrmtMion  of  tht  Right  Hon,  thg  Earl  of  Wham- 
cliffty  tht  owner  of  the  picturt^  and  oj  Messrs,  F.  and 
D,  Colnaghi  cS*  Co,^  tht  owners  of  the  copyright.) 


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BuRNE-JoNEs:   "Chant  d'Amour." 
(5y  permission  of  Mr.  F.  Hollyir,  tht  owner  of  the  copyright.) 

of  tones  and  colours,  a  style  rioting  in  an  everlasting  exhilara- 
tion of  spirit,  breaking  out  sometimes  in  a  glow  of  flame 
and  sometimes  in  delicate,  tremulous  longing.  Even  where  he 
paints  a  Madonna  she  is  merely  a  woman  in  his  eyes,  and  he 
endows  her  with  the  glowing  fire  of  passionate  fervour,  with  a 
trace  of  the  joy  of  the  earth,  which  no  painter  has  ever  given 
her  before.  And  through  this  union  of  refined  modem  sensuous- 
ness  and  Catholic  mysticism  he  has  created  a  new  thrill  of 
beauty.  His  painting  was  a  drop  of  a  most  precious  essence, 
in  its  hues  enchanting  and  intoxicating,  the  strongest  spiritual 
potion  ever  brewed  in  English  art.  The  intensity  of  his  over- 
strained sensibility,  and  the  wonderful  Southern  mosaic  of  form 
into  which  he  poured  this  sensibility  with  elaborate  refinement, 
make  him  seem  the  brother  of  Baudelaire  and  the  ancestor  of 
the  decadence. 

This   tendency   of  spirit   was    so    novel,   this   plunge  in  the 
tide  of  mysticism  so    enchanting,  this  delicate,  archaic  fragrance 


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BuRNE-JoNEs:   "Circe." 
iBy  ptrmi3sioH  q/  Mr.  F.  Hollyer,  thg  owntr  of  the  copyright.) 

SO  overwhelming,  that  a  new  stage  in  the  culture  of  nnodern 
England  dates  from  the  appearance  of  Rossetti.  He  borrowed 
nothing  from  his  contemporaries,  and  all  borrowed  from  him. 
There  came  a  time  when  budding  girls  in  London  attired 
themselves  like  early  Italians  from  Dante's  Inferno,  when 
Jellaby  Postlethwaite,  in  Du  Maurier's  mocking  skit,  entered  a 
restaurant  at  luncheon-time,  and  ordered  a  glass  of  water  and 
placed  in  it  a  lily  which  he  had  brought  with  him.  "What 
else  can  I  bring  ? "  asked  the  waiter.  "  Nothing,"  he  sighed  ; 
*•  that  is  all  I  need."  There  began  that  aestheticism,  that  yearn- 
ing for  the  lily  and  that  cult  of  the  sunflower,  which  Gilbert 
and  Sullivan  parodied  in  Patience,  Swinburne,  who  has  tasted 
of  emotions  of  the  most  various  realms  of  spirit,  and  in  his  poems 
set  them  before  the  world  as  though  in  marvellously  chiselled 
goblets,  represents  this  aesthetic  phase  of  English  art  in  litera- 
ture. As  a  painter,  Edward  Burne-Jones — the  greatest  of  that 
Oxford  circle  which  gathered  round  Rossetti  in  1856 — began  to 
work  at  the  point  where  Rossetti  left  off. 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Magazine  of  Art, \ 

BuRNE- Jones:    "The  Days  of  Creation," 
{By  permission  of  Mr,  F,  Hollyer^  the  owner  of  the  copyright.) 

Sir  Edward  Burner  Jones,  who  must  now  be  spoken  of,  was 
born  in  Birmingham  in  August  1833,  and  was  reading  theo- 
logy in  Oxford  when  Rossetti  was  there  painting  the  mural 
pictures    for    the    Union.      Rossetti    attracted   him    as   a   flame 


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Magazine  of  Ar/,] 

BuRNE- Jones  :   "  The  Days  or  Creation." 

(fly  permission  of  Mr.  F.  Hoiiyer,  thi  owner  of  the  copyright.) 

attracts  the  moth.  As  yet  he  had  not  had  any  artistic 
training,  but  some  of  his  drawings  which  were  shown  to 
Rossetti  by  a  mutual   friend    revealed    so    much  poetic  force,  in 


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spite  of  their  embarrassed 
method  of  cMprcssion,  that 
the  paintcr^poet  entered 
into  communication  with 
him,  and  allowed  him  to 
paint  in  the  Debating 
Room  Dt  the  U  n  ion  a 
subj  ect  from  the  Arthurian 
legends,  "  The  Death  of 
Merlin,"  The  picture  met 
with  approval,  and  Burnc* 
Jones  abandoned  theology, 
became  an  intimate  friend 
of  Rossetti  and  the  com- 
panion of  his  studies,  and 
went  with  him  to  London. 
There  he  designed  a 
number  of  church  win- 
dows for  Christ  Church 
Cathedral »  Oxford,  and  in 
1864  exhibited  his  first  picture,  "The  Legend  of  a  Knight  who 
pardons  his  Enemy."  Later  there  followed  three  small  pictures 
from  the  "Legend  of  Pyramus"  and  a  picture  called  "The 
Angel  of  Evening,"  a  glimmering  landscape  through  which  a 
gentle  spirit  in  a  bronze-green  garment  is  seen  to  float  But 
none  of  these  works  excited  much  attention.  In  some  de^cc 
this  was  owing  to  their  amateurish  technique,  but  the  time  for 
this  decadent  mood  had  not  yet  arrived.  Two  small  pictures 
exhibited  in  1870,  "Phyllis"  and  "Demoi>hoon,"  were  c\*en 
thought  offensive  on  account  of  the  "sensuous;  expression"  of 
the  nymph.  So  Bume-Jones  withdrew  them,  and  from  that 
time  held  for  many  years  aloof  from  all  the  exhibitions  of  the' 
Royal  Academy.  During  seven  years  his  name  was  never  seen 
in  a  catalogue.  It  was  only  on  May  ist,  1S77,  at  the  opening 
of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery — founded  by  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay,  like- 
wise a  painter,  to  afford  himself  and  his  comrades  a  place  of 
exhibition  independent  of  the  Academy— that  Burne-Jones  once 


BuRNE- Jones  :  "Pygmauon  (The  Soul  Attains). 

{By  ptrmission  of  Mr.  F*  HoUyer^  tht  owner  of  the 

copyright.) 


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Frngtmrni,^ 


BuRNE-JoNEs:   "Perseus  and  Andromeda/ 


\!Swan  photo  sc. 


VOL,    III. 


39 


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more  made  his  ap- 
pearance before  the 
€yt&  of  the  world. 
But  his  pictures,  like 
those  of  Rossetti, 
had  found  their  way 
in  secrecy  and  by 
their  own  merit,  and 
of  a  sudden  he  saw 
himself  regarded  as 
one  of  the  most 
eminent  painters  in 
the  country. 

His  art  is  the 
flower  of  most 
potent  fragrance  in 
English  aestheticism, 
and  the  admiration 
accorded  to  him  in 
England  is  almost 
greater  than  that 
which  had  been 
previously  paid  to 
Rossetti.  The 
Grosvenor  Gallery, 
where  he  exhibited 
his  pictures  at  this 
period,  was  a  kind 
of  temple  for  the  aesthetes.  On  the  opening  day  men  and 
women  of  the  greatest  refinement  crowded  before  his  works. 
There  was  a  cult  of  Burne-Jones  at  the  Grosvenor  Gallery 
as  there  is  a  cult  of  Wagner  at  Bayreuth.  One  had  to  work 
one's  way  very  gradually  through  the  crowd  to  see  his  pictures, 
which  always  occupied  the  place  of  honour  in  the  principal 
room  of  the  gallery,  and  I  remember  how  helplessly  I  stood 
in  1884  before  the  first  of  his  pictures  which  I  saw  there. 

In  a  kind  of  vestibule  of  early  Gothic  architecture  there  was 


LArL\ 

BURNE-JONES:    "Th£   ENCHANTMENT  OF  Me&UN.*' 

(JBy  p^rmiaaioH  of  Mr,  F.  Holtytr,  tkt  owfur  of  tht  copyright,) 


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seated  in  the  foreground  an 
armed  man,  who,  in  his  dark, 
gleaming  harness  and  his  hard 
and  bold  profile,  was  like  a 
Lombard  warrior,  say  Man- 
tegna's  Duke  of  Mantua,  and 
as  he  mused  he  held  in  his 
hand  an  iron  crown  studded 
with  jewels ;  farther  in  the 
background,  upon  a  high 
marble  throne,  a  maiden 
was  enthroned,  a  young  girl 
with  reddish  hair  and  a  pale 
worn  face,  looking  with  stead- 
fast eyes  far  out  into  another 
world,  as  though  in  a  hypnotic 
trance.  Two  youths,  apparently 
pages,  sang,  leaning  upon  a 
balustrade ;  while  all  manner 
of  costly  accessories,  brilliant 
stuffs,  lustrous  marble,  grey 
granite,  and  mosaic  pavement, 
shining  in  green  and  red  tones, 
lent  the  whole  picture  an  air 
of  exquisite  richness.  The  title 
in  the  catalogue  was  **  King 
Cophetua  and  the  Beggar- 
Maid,"  and  any  one  acquainted 
with  Provencal  poetry  knew  that  King  Cophetua,  the  hero  of 
an  old  ballad,  fell  in  love  with  a  beggar-girl,  offered  her  his 
crown,  and  married  her.  But  this  was  not  to  be  gathered 
from  the  picture  itself,  where  all  palpable  illustration  of  the  story 
was  avoided.  Nevertheless  a  vague  sense  of  emotional  dis- 
quietude was  revealed  in  it.  The  two  leading  persons  of  the 
strange  idyll,  the  earnest  knight  and  the  pallid  maiden,  are  not 
yet  able  themselves  to  understand  how  all  has  come  to  pass — 
how  she,  the   beggar-maid,  should   be  upon   the   marble   throne. 


BuRNE-JoNEs:   "The  Annunciation." 

{By  permUaion  of  Mr.  F,  HoUytr,  tht  ownfr 
of  thi  copyright.) 


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BuRME-JoNEs:   "The  Golden  Stairs." 
<By  ptrmission  of  Mr,  /"•  HoUy^r^  the  owner  of  the  copyright,) 


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607 


and  he,  the  king,  kneeling  on 
the  steps  before  her  whom  he 
has  exalted  to  be  a  queen. 
They  remain  motionless  and  pro- 
foundly silent,  but  their  hearts 
are  alive  and  throbbing.  They 
have  feelings  which  they  cannot 
comprehend  themselves,  and  the 
past  and  present  surge  through 
one  another :  life  is  a  dream, 
and  the  dream  is  life. 

Everything  that  Bume-Jones 
has  created  is  at  once  fragrant, 
mystical,  and  austere,  like  this 
picture.  His  range  of  subject  is 
most  extensive.  In  his  Princess 
Alfred  Tennyson  had  quickened 
into  new  life  the  legends  of 
chivalry,  and  in  his  Idylls  of  t/te 
King  the  tales  of  the  Knights 
of  the  Holy  Grail.  Swinburne 
publif hed  his  Atalanta  in  Calydon, 
in  which  he  exercised  once  more 
the  mysterious  spell  of  the 
ancient  drama,  while  he  created 
in  Chastelard,  Bothwell,  and 
Mary  Stuart  a  trilogy  of  the 
finest  historical  tragedies  ever 
written,  and  showed  in  Tristram 
of  Lyonesse  that  even  Tennyson 
had  not  exhausted  all  the  beauty  in  old  legends  of  the  time  of 
King  Arthur.  And,  as  early  as  1866,  he  had  given  to  the 
world  his  Poems  and  Ballads,  dedicated  to  Bume-Jones.  In 
these  works  lie  the  ideas  to  which  the  painter  has  given  form 
and  colour. 

He  paints  Circe  in  a  saffron   robe,  preparing  the  potion   to 
enchant  the  companions  of  Ulysses,  with  a  strange  light  in  her 


MagaMin$  of  Art.] 

BuRNE-JoNBs:  "Sibylla  Delphica." 

iBy  ptrmissioH  of  tht  CorpomiioH  of  Man- 
chtsier,  thf  owngri  of  ths  pieturt.) 


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6o8  MODERN  PAINTING 

orbs,  while  two  panthers  fawn  at  her  feet.  He  represents  the 
goddess  of  Discord  at  the  marriage  of  Thetis,  a  ghastly,  pallid 
figure,  entering  amongst  the  gods  who  are  celebrating  the 
occasion,  with  the  fateful  apple  in  her  hand.  He  depicts 
Pygmalion,  the  artist  king  of  Cyprus,  supplicating  Aphrodite 
to  breathe  life  into  the  ivory  image  of  a  maiden,  the  work  of 
his  own  hands. 

Apart  from  classical  antiquity,  he  owes  some  of  his  inspira- 
tion to  the  Bible  and  Christian  legends,  the  sublimity  of  their 
grave  tragedies,  and  the  troubled  sadness  of  their  yearning  and 
exaltation.  One  of  his  leading  works  devotes  six  pictures  to 
the  days  of  creation.  An  angel — accompanied  in  every  case  by 
the  angels  of  the  previous  days — carries  a  sphere,  in  which  may 
be  seen  the  stars,  the  waters,  the  trees,  the  animals,  and  the 
first  man  and  woman,  in  their  proper  sequence.  The  scene  of 
the  "Adoration  of  the  Kings"  is  a  landscape  where  fragrant 
roses  bloom  in  the  shadow  of  the  slender  stems  of  trees,  which 
rise  straight  as  a  bolt  The  Virgin  sits  in  their  midst  calm  and 
unapproachable,  and  in  her  lap  the  Child,  who  is  more  slender 
than  in  the  pictures  of  Cimabue.  The  three  wise  men — tall, 
gigantic  figures,  clad  in  rich  mediaeval  garments — approach 
softly,  whilst  an  angel  floats  perpendicularly  in  the  air  as  a 
silent  witness. 

In  his  picture  "The  Annunciation"  Mary  is  standing  motion- 
less beside  the  great  basin  of  a  well-spring,  at  the  portico  of  her 
house.  To  the  left  the  messenger  of  God  appears  in  the  air. 
He  has  floated  solemnly  down,  and  it  seems  as  if  the  folds  of 
his  robes,  which  fall  straight  from  the  body,  had  hardly  been 
ruffled  in  his  flight,  as  if  his  wings  had  scarcely  moved  ;  with 
the  extremities  of  his  feet  he  touches  the  branches  of  a  laurel. 
Mary  does  not  shrink,  and  makes  no  gesture.  There  they  stand, 
gravely,  and  as  still  as  statues.  The  robe  of  the  angel  is  white, 
and  white  that  of  the  Virgin,  and  white  the  marble  floor  and 
the  wainscoting  of  the  house,  and  it  is  only  the  pinions  of  the 
heavenly  messenger  that  gleam  in  a  golden  brightness.  A 
picture  called  "Sponsa  die  Libano"  bore  as  a  motto  the  words 
from  The  Song  of  Solomon  :  "  Awake,  O  north  wind ;  and  come. 


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ENGLAND  609 

thou  south ;  blow  upon  my  garden,  that  the  spices  thereof  may 
flow  out."  The  bride,  in  an  ample  blue  robe,  walks  musing 
beside  a  stream,  upon  the  shore  of  which  white  lilies  grow, 
whilst  the  vehement  figures  of  the  North  and  South  Winds  rush 
through  the  air  in  grey,  fluttering  garments. 

In  addition  to  his  love  for  Homer  and  the  Bible,  Bume- 
Jones  has  a  passion  for  the  old  Trouvtres  of  the  Oiansons  de 
Geste,  the  great  and  fanciful  adventures  of  vanished  chivalry, 
Provencal  courts  of  love,  and  the  legends  of  Arthur,  Merlin, 
and  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table.  His  "Chant  d' Amour*' 
is  like  a  page  torn  out  of  an  old  English  or  Provencal  tale. 
On  the  meadow  before  a  mediaeval  town  a  lady  is  kneeling* 
a  sort  of  St  Cecilia,  in  a  white  upper-garment  and  a  gleaming 
skirt,  playing  upon  an  organ,  the  full  chords  of  which  echo 
softly  through  the  evening  landscape.  To  the  left  a  young 
knight  is  sitting  upon  the  ground,  and  silently  listens,  lost  in 
the  music,  while  a  strange  figure,  clad  in  red,  is  pressing  upon 
the  bellows  of  the  instrument.  "The  Enchantment  of  Merlin," 
with  which  he  made  his  first  appearance  in  1877,  illustrated  the 
passage  in  the  old  legend  of  Merlin  and  Vivien,  relating  how  it 
came  to  pass  one  day  that  she  and  Merlin  entered  a  forest, 
which  was  called  the  forest  of  Broceliande,  and  found  a  glorious 
wood  of  whitethorn,  very  high  and  all  in  blossom,  and  seated 
themselves  in  the  shadow.  And  Merlin  fell  asleep,  and  when 
she  saw  that  he  slept  she  raised  herself  softly,  and  began  the 
spell,  exactly  according  to  the  teaching  of  Merlin,  drawing  the 
magic  circle  nine  times  and  uttering  the  spell  nine  times.  And 
Merlin  looked  around  him,  and  it  seemed  to  him  as  though  he 
were  imprisoned  in  a  tower,  the  highest  in  the  world,  and  he 
felt  his  strength  leave  him  as  if  the  blood  were  streaming  from 
his  veins. 

In  other  pictures  he  abandons  all  attempt  to  introduce 
ideas,  confining  himself  to  the  simple  grouping  of  tender  girlish 
figures,  by  means  of  which  he  makes  a  beautiful  composition 
of  the  most  subtile  lines,  forms,  colours,  and  gestures.  The 
"Golden  Stairs"  of  1878  was  a  picture  of  this  description:  a 
train   of  girls,  beautiful   as  angels,  descended  the  steps  without 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Pagtant,^ 


BuRNE-JoNEs :   "  The, Sea-Nymph,*' 
iBy  permission  of  Mr,  F,  Hollytr,  tfu  owner  of  the  eofyrighi.) 


lowan  fhoio  $e. 


aim  or  object,  most  of  them  with  musical  instruments,  and  all 
with  the  same  delicate  feet  and  the  same  robes  falling  in 
beautiful  folds.  In  this  year  he  also  produced  "  Venus'  Looking- 
glass  : "  a  number  of  nymphs  assembled  by  the  side  of  a  clear 
pool  at  sunset,  in  the  midst  of  a  sad  and  solemn  landscape, 
are  kneeling  by  the  water's  edge  together,  reflected  in  its 
surface. 

Besides  these  numerous  canvases,  mention  must  be  made 
of  the  decorative  works  of  the  master.  For  the  English  church 
in     Rome    Burne-Jones    has     designed     decorations     in    a    rich 


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ENGLAND 


6ii 


and  grave  Byzantine 
style,  and  in  Eng- 
land, where  mural 
decoration  has  little 
space  accorded  to  it 
in  churches,  there  is 
all  the  more  com- 
prehensive scope  for 
painting  upon  glass. 
Until  the  sixties 
church  windows  of 
this  kind  were 
almost  exclusively 
ordered  from  Ger- 
many. The  court 
dep6t  of  glass- 
painting  in  Munich 


BuRNE-JoNEs:  "The  Wood-Nymph." 
{By  permission  of  Mr,  F.  Hollytr,  th$  owner  of  tkt  copyright,) 


provided  for  the  adornment  of  Glasgow  Cathedral  from  drawings 
by  Schwind,  Heinrich  Hess,  and  Schraudolph,  and  for  the 
windows  of  St  Paul's  from  designs  by  Schnorr,  while  Kaulbach 
was  employed  for  a  public  building  in  Edinburgh.  In  these 
days  Bume-Jones  reigns  over  this  whole  province.  Where 
the  German  masters  handled  glass-painting  by  modernizing 
it  like  a  Nazarene  fresco,  Burne-Jones,  who  has  penetrated 
deeply  into  the  mediaeval  treatment  of  form,  created  a  new 
style  in  glass-painting,  and  one  exquisitely  in  keeping  with  the 
Neo-Gothic  architecture  of  England.  His  most  important  works 
of  this  description  are  probably  the  glass  windows  which  he 
designed  for  St.  Martin's  Church  and  St.  Philip's  Church  in 
Birmingham,  his  native  town.  These  labours  of  his  in  the 
province  of  Gothic  window-painting  explain  how  he  came  to 
his  style  of  painting  at  the  easel :  he  habituated  himself  to 
compose  his  pictures  with  the  architectonical  sentiment  of  a 
Gothic  artist.  Forced  to  satisfy  the  requisitions  of  the  slender, 
soaring  Gothic  style,  he  came  to  paint  his  tall,  straight-lined 
figures,  the  composition  of  which  is  not  triangular  in  the  old 
fashion,  but  formed  in  long  lines  as  in  vertical  church  windows. 


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6i2  MODERN  PAINTING 

It  IS  not  difficult  to  find  prototypes  for  every  one  of  these 
works  of  his.  His  sibyls  recall  Pompeii.  His  church  decoration 
would  never  have  arisen  but  for  the  mosaics  of  Ravenna.  And 
those  angels  in  golden  drapery  with  grave,  hieratical  gestures 
in  the  pictures  of  the  Trecentisti  influenced  him  in  his  "  Days 
of  Creation."  Other  works  of  his  suggest  the  Etruscan  vases 
or  the  suavity  of  Duccio.  "Laus  Veneris"  has  the  severe 
classicality  of  Mantegna  saturated  with  Bellini's  warmth  of  hue. 
The  "Chant  d'Amour,"  in  its  deep  splendour  of  colour,  is  like 
an  idyll  by  Giorgione.  And  often  he  heaps  together  costly 
work  in  gold  and  ivory  like  the  Florentine  goldsmith  painters 
Pollajuolo  and  Verrochio.  Many  of  his  young  girls  are  of 
lineal  descent  from  those  slender,  flexible,  feminine  saints  of 
Perugino,  painted  in  sweeping  lines  and  planted  upon  small 
flat  feet  Often,  too,  when  he  exaggerates  his  Gothic  principles 
and  gives  them  eight-and-a-half  or  nine  times  the  proportion 
of  their  heads,  they  seem,  with  their  lengthy  necks  and  slim 
hands  fit  for  princesses,  like  younger  sisters  of  Parmegg^anino's 
lithe-limbed  women  ;  while  sometimes  their  movements  have 
a  more  ample  grace,  a  more  majestic  nobility,  and  their  lips 
are  moved  by  the  mystical  inward  smile  of  Luini,  so  un- 
fathomably  subtile  in  its  silent  reserve.  But  it  is  Botticelli 
who  is  most  often  brought  to  mind.  Bume-Jones  has  borrowed 
from  him  the  fine  transparent  gauze  draperies,  clinging  to  the 
limbs  and  betraying  clearly  the  girlish  forms  in  his  pictures  ; 
the  splendid  mantels,  flowered  and  adorned  with  dainty  patterns 
of  gold ;  the  taste  for  Southern  vegetation,  for  flowers  and  fruits, 
and  artificial  bowers  of  thick  palm  leaves  or  delicate  boughs 
of  cypress,  which  he  delights  in  using  as  a  refined  and  significant 
embellishment ;  from  Botticelli  he  has  borrowed  all  the  attributes 
with  which  he  has  endowed  his  angels — rose-garlands  and  vases, 
tapers  and  tall  lilies ;  even  his  type  of  womanhood  has  an 
outward  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Florentine  with  its  long, 
delicate,  oval  face  framed  in  wavy  hair,  its  dreamy  ftyts  and 
finely  arched  brows,  its  dainty  and  rather  tip-tilted  nose,  and 
its  ripe,  delicately  curving  mouth  slightly  opened.  Indeed 
Burne-Jones's  painting  is   like  one  of  those  gilded  flower-tables 


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ENGLAND  613 

where  plants  of  all  latitudes  mingle  their  tendrils  and  their 
foliage,  their  bells  and  their  clusters,  their  perfume  and  their 
marvellous  glory  of  colour,  in  a  harmony  artificially  arranged. 
In  its  strained  archaism  his  art  is  an  affected,  artificial  art,  and 
would  perish  as  swiftly  as  a  luxuriant  exotic  plant  had  not 
this  pupil  of  the  Italians  been  born  a  thoroughbred  Englishman, 
and  this  primitive  painter  been  also  a  dicadent,  and  this  Botticelli 
risen  from  the  grave  become  a  true  Briton  on  the  bank  of  the 
Thames. 

Burne-Jones  stands  to  Botticelli  as  Botticelli  himself  stood 
to  the  antique,  or  as  Swinburne  to  his  literary  models.  As 
a  graceful  scholar,  Swinburne  has  reproduced  all  , styles :  the 
language  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  forms  of  Greek  literature, 
and  the  naive  lisp  of  the  poets  of  chivalry.  He  decorates  his 
verses  with  all  manner  of  strange  metaphors  drawn  from  the 
literatures  of  all  periods.  His  Atalanta  in  Calydon  is,  down  to 
the  choruses,  an  imitation  of  the  Sophoclean  tragedies.  In 
his  Ballad  of  Life  h^  follows  the  model  of  the  singers  who 
made  canzonets,  the  writers  who  followed  Dante  and  the 
earliest  lyric  poets  of  Italy.  In  Laus  Veneris  he  tells  the  story 
of  Tannhauser  and  Dame  Venus  in  the  manner  of  the 
French  romantic  poets  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  Saint  Dorothy 
is  a  faithful  echo  of  Chaucer's  narrative  style  ;  and  the  Christmas 
Carol  is  modelled  upon  the  Provencal  Ballades.  Even  the 
earliest  lyrical  mysteries  are  reproduced  in  some  poems  so 
precisely  that,  so  far  as  form  goes,  they  might  be  mistaken 
for  originals.  But  the  thought  of  Swinburne's  verse  is  what  no 
earlier  poet  would  have  ever  expressed.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  a  Greek  chorus  would  have  chanted  any  song  of  the 
weariness  of  man,  and  of  the  gifts  of  grief  and  tears  brought  to 
him  at  his  creation ;  nor  would  a  Greek  have  written  that 
Hymn  to  Aphrodite,  the  deadly  flower  born  of  the  foam  of 
blood  and  the  froth  of  the  sea.  And  in  Hesperia^  where  he 
describes  a  man  who  has  loved  beyond  measure  and  suffered 
overmuch  amid  the  mad  pleasures  of  Rome,  and  now  sets  out, 
pale  and  exhausted,  to  sail  the  golden  sea  of  the  West  until 
he   reach   the   "Fortunate   Islands"  and   find    peace    before    his 


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6i4  MODERN  PAINTING 

death,  the  mood  does  not  reflect  the  thoughts  of  the  old 
world,  but  those  of  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century;  and 
so  it  is,  too,  in  his  "  Hendecasyllables,"  where  he  complains  in 
classically  chiselled  diction  of  the  swift  decay  of  beauty  and 
the  hidden  ills  which  of  a  sudden  consume  the  inward  force 
of  life.  And  Bume-Jones  treats  old  myths  with  the  same 
freedom  and  independence.  He  takes  them  up  and  recasts 
them,  discovers  modern  passions  lying  in  the  very  heart  of 
them,  enriches  them  with  a  wealth  of  delicate  shades,  borrowed 
without  the  smallest  ceremony  from  a  new  conception  of  the 
world  and  from  the  life  of  his  own  time.  The  human  soul 
grown  old  looks  back,  as  it  were,  upon  the  path  which  it  has 
travelled,  and  ^^s  the  spirit  of  its  own  ripe  age  latent  in  its 
infancy,  recognizing  that  "the  child  is  father  of  the  man."  All 
the  figures  in  his  pictures  are  surrounded  by  a  dusk  which  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  broad  daylight  in  which  the 
Renaissance  artists  placed  the  antique  world.  There  remains 
what  may  be  called  a  residue  of  modern  feeling  which  has  not 
been  assimilated  to  the  old  myth,  a  breath  of  magic  ftoating 
round  these  figures  on  their  career,  something  mysterious,  an 
elusive  air  of  fable.  And  this  is  the  pervasive  temperament 
and  sentiment  of  our  own  age.  It  is  our  own  inward  spirit 
that  gazes  upon  us  as  though  from  an  enchanted  mirror  with 
the  mien  of  a  phantom. 

And  just  as  he  remodels  the  entire  spirit  of  old  myths,  he 
converts  the  figures  which  he  has  borrowed  into  an  artistic  form 
of  his  own,  and,  without  hesitation,  subordinates  them  in  type 
and  physical  build  and  bearing  to  the  new  part  they  have 
to  play. 

His  pictures  differ  in  their  whole  character  from  those  of 
the  masters  of  the  Quattrocento.  In  Botticelli,  also,  the  young 
foliage  grows  green  and  flaunts  in  its  exuberant  abundance. 
But  in  Burne-Jones  the  vegetation  suggests  one  of  those  im- 
mense forests  in  Sumatra  or  Java.  All  the  plants  are  luxuriant 
and  resplendent  in  colour,  and  seem  to  swoon  in  their  own 
opulent,  plethoric  life.  Every  tree  crea^tes  an  impression  of 
having  shot  up   in   swift  and   wanton  growth   under   a  tropical 


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ENGLAND  615 

heat  Rank  parasitic  plants  trail  from  stem  to  stem,  and 
garlands  of  climbers  grow  in  a  ripe  tangle  round  the  branches. 
And  in  proportion  as  the  vegetation  is  luxuriant  and 
sensuous  the  human  figures  are  wasted  and  languishing.  The 
severe  charm,  rigidity,  and  demureness  of  the  Quattrocento 
is  weakened  into  lackadaisical  melancholy.  The  dreamy  bliss  of 
Botticelli  is  transposed  into  sanctified  solemnity,  delicate  fragility, 
a  voluptuous  lassitude,  a  gentle  weariness  of  the  world.  When 
he  paints  ancient  sibyls,  they  are  touched  at  once  by  the 
unearthly  asceticism  of  the  Middle  Ages  seeking  refuge  from 
the  world,  and  the  melancholy,  anaemic  lassitude  of  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  If  he  paints  a  Venus  she  does  not 
stand  out  victorious  in  her  nudity,  but  wears  a  heavy  brocaded 
robe,  and  around  her  lie  the  symbols  of  Christian  martyrdom, 
palms,  and  perhaps  a  lyre.  It  is  not  the  fairness  of  her  body 
that  makes  her  goddess  of  love,  but  only  the  dim  mystery  of  her 
radiant  eyes.  She  is  not  the  Olympian  who  entered  into  frolick- 
some  adventure  with  the  war-god  Mars  amid  the  laughter  of 
the  heavenly  gods,  for  in  her  conventional  humiliation  she  is 
rather  like  the  beautiful  daemon  of  the  Middle  Ages  who,  upon 
her  journey  into  exile,  passed  by  the  cross  where  the  Son  of 
Man  was  hanging,  and  tasted  all  the  bitterness  of  the  years. 
In  their  delicate  features  his  Madonnas  have  a  gentle  sadness 
rarely  found  in  the  Italian  masters.  Even  the  angels,  who  were 
roguish  and  wayward  in  the  Quattrocento,  do  their  spiriting 
with  ceremonious  gravit}%  and  a  subdued  melancholy  underlies 
their  devotional  reverence.  In  Botticelli  they  are  fresh,  youth- 
ful figures,  lightly  girdled,  and  with  fluttering  locks  and 
swelling  robes  and  limber  bodies,  whether  they  float  around 
the  Madonna  in  blissful  revelry  or  look  up  to  the  Child  Christ 
in  their  rapt  ecstasy.  But  in  Burne-Jones  they  are  devout, 
sombre,  deeply  earnest  beings,  gazing  as  thoughtfully  and 
dreamily  as  though  they  had  already  known  all  the  affliction 
of  the  world.  Their  limbs  seem  paralyzed,  and  their  gesture 
weary.  It  is  not  possible  to  look  at  one  of  his  pictures  with- 
out being  reminded  of  the  Florentines  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  yet    the  spectator    at    once   recognizes  that    they  are    the 


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6i6  MODERN  PAINTING 

work  of  Burne-Jones.  He  is  even  opposed  to  Rossetti,  his  lord 
and  master,  through  this  element  of  melancholy :  the  intoxication 
of  opium  is  followed  by  the  sober  awakening. 

Rossetti's  women  are  dazzling  and  glorious  figures  of  a 
modern  and  deliberately  cruel  beauty — sisters  of  Messalina, 
Phaedra,  and  Faustina.  He  delineates  them  as  luxuriant  beings 
with  supple  and  splendid  bodies,  long  white  necks,  and  snowily 
gleaming  breasts  ;  with  full  and  fragrant  hair,  ardent,  yearning 
eyes,  and  demoniacally  passionate  lips.  Their  mother  is  the 
Venus  Verticordia  whom  Rossetti  so  often  painted  Cruel  in 
their  love  as  one  of  the  blind  forces  of  nature,  they  are  like  that 
water-sprite  with  her  song  and  her  red  coral  mouth,  dragged 
from  the  sea  in  a  fishing-net,  as  an  old  French  fabliau  tells, 
and  so  fair  that  every  man  who  beheld  her  was  seized  by  the 
love  of  her,  but  died  when  he  clasped  her  in  his  arms.  What 
they  love  in  man  is  his  physical  strength — faces  and  sinews  of 
bronze.  Only  the  strong  man  who  loves  them  with  over- 
powering madness,  like  a  stormy  wind,  can  bend  them  to  his 
will.  Swinburne  has  sung  of  "  the  lips  intertwisted  and  bitten, 
where  the  foam  is  as  blood,"  of 

"The  heavy  white  limbs  and  the  cruel 
Red  mouth  like  a  venomous  flower." 

But  the  women  of  Burne-Jones  know  that  this  fervour  is  no 
longer  to  be  found  upon  the  earth.  The  blood  has  been 
sapped,  and  the  fire  burns  low,  and  the  glorious,  ancient  might 
of  love  has  disappeared.  For  these  women  life  has  lost 
its  sunshine,  and  love  its  passion,  and  the  world  its  hopes. 
The  hue  of  their  cheeks  is  pallid,  their  eyes  are  dim,  their 
bodies  sickly  and  without  flesh  and  blood,  and  their  hips  are 
spare.  With  pale,  quivering  lips,  and  a  melancholy  smile 
or  a  strangely  resigned,  intensely  grieved  look  flickering  at 
the  corners  of  their  mouths,  they  live  consumed  by  sterile 
longing,  and  pine  in  silent  dejection,  gazing  into  vacant  space 
like  imprisoned  goldfish,  or  luxuriate  in  the  vague  Fata 
Morgana  of  an  over-delicate,  over-refined,  and  bashfully  tremulous 
eroticism  : — 


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"And  the  chaplets  of  old  are  above  us, 

And  the  oyster-bed  teems  out  of  reach  ; 
Old  poets  outsing  and  outlove  us, 

And  Catullus  makes  mouths  at  our  speech. 
Who  shall  kiss  in  the  father's  own  city, 

With  such  lips  as  he  sang  with  again  ? 
Intercede  with  us  all  of  thy  pity. 

Our  Lady  of  Pain/' 

Swinburne's  first  ardent  and  sensuous  volume  of  lyrics 
contains  a  poem  The  Garden  of  Proserpine  \  it  tells  how  a 
man  weary  of  all  things  human  and  divine,  and  no  longer  able 
to  support  the  intoxicating  fragrance  of  the  roses  of  Aphrodite, 
draws  near  with  wavering  steps  to  the  throne  where  calm 
Proserpine  sits  silent,  crowned  with  cold  white  flowers.  And 
in  the  same  way  Rossetti's  flaming  and  quivering  passion  and 
his  volcanic  desire  end  in  Burne-Jones  with  sad  resignation, 
and  sleep  and  death. 

Whilst  Christianity  and  Hellenism  mingle  in  the  figures 
of  Burne-Jones,  a  division  of  labour  is  noticeable  amongst  the 
following  artists :  some  addressed  themselves  exclusively  to  the 
treatment  of  ancient  subjects,  others  to  ecclesiastical  romantic 
painting  in  the  style  of  the  Quattrocento,  and  others  again 
recognized  their  chief  vocation  in  initiating  a  reformation  in 
kindred  provinces  of  industrial  art 

R,  Spencer  Stanhope^  who  was  at  Oxford,  like  Burne-Jones, 
and,  indeed,  received  his  first  artistic  impulses  while  employed 
for  the  elaboration  of  Rossetti's  mural  pictures  for  the  Union, 
worked  even  in  later  days  chiefly  in  the  field  of  decorative 
painting,  and  is,  with  Burne-Jones,  the  most  active  monumental 
painter  for  churches  in  England.  His  oil-paintings  are  few,  and 
in  their  gracious  Quattrocento  build  they  are  in  outward 
appearance  scarcely  different  from  those  of  Burne-Jones.  In 
a  picture  belonging  to  the  Manchester  Gallery  there  is  a  maiden 
seated  amid  a  flowery  meadow,  while  a  small  Cupid  with  red 
pinions  draws  near  to  her;  the  landscape  has  an  air  of  peace 
and  happiness.  Another  picture — probably  inspired  by  Catullus' 
Lament  for  Lesbians  Sparrow — displays  a  girl  sitting  upon  an 
-old  town  wall  with  a  little  dead  bird.     "  The  Temptation  of  Eve  " 


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620  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  like  a  brilliantly  coloured  mediaeval  miniature,  painted  with 
the  greatest  finesse.  As  in  the  woodcut  in  the  Cologne  Bible, 
Paradise  is  enclosed  with  a  circular  red  wall.  Eve  is  like  a 
slim,  twisted  Gothic  statue.  Like  Burne-Jones,  Stanhope  is 
always  delicate  and  poetic,  but  he  is  less  successful  in  setting 
upon  old  forms  of  art  the  stamp  of  his  individuality,  and  thus 
giving  them  new  life  and  a  character  of  their  own.  In  their 
severe,  archaeological  character  his  pictures  have  little  beyond 
the  affectation  of  a  style  which  has  been  arrived  at  through 
imitation. 

The  third  member  of  this  Oxford  Circle,  the  poet  William 
Morris^  has  exercised  great  influence  over  English  taste  by  the 
institution  of  an  industrial  establishment  for  embroidery,  painting 
upon  glass,  and  household  decoration.  Keeping  in  mind  that 
close  union  which  existed  in  the  fifteenth  century  between  art 
and  the  manual  crafts,  he  and  certain  of  his  disciples  did  not 
hesitate  to  provide  designs  for  decorative  stuffs,  wall-papers, 
furniture,  and  household  embellishments  of  every  description. 
They  were  chiefly  indebted  to  the  Japanese,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  old  Italians,  though  they  succeeded  in  creating  a  thoroughly 
modern  and  independent  style,  in  spite  of  all  they  borrowed. 
The  whole  range  of  industrial  art  in  England  received  a  new 
lease  of  life,  and  household  decoration  became  blither  and  more 
cheerful  in  its  appearance.  Only  light,  delicate,  and  finely 
graduated  colours  were  allowed  to  predominate,  and  they  were 
combined  with  slender,  graceful,  and  vivacious  form.  The  heavy 
panelling  which  was  popular  in  the  sixties  gave  way  to  bright 
papers  ornamented  with  flowers;  narrow  panes  made  way  for 
large  plate-glass  windows  with  light  curtains,  where  long- 
stemmed  flowers  were  entwined  in  the  pattern.  Slim  pillars 
supported  cabinets  painted  in  exquisite  hues  or  gleaming  with 
lacquer-work  and  enamel.  Seats  were  ornamented  with  soft 
cushions  shining  in  all  the  delicate  splendour  of  Indian  silks.  And 
the  Preraphaelite  style  of  ornamentation  was  even  extended  to  the 
embellishment  of  books,  so  that  England  created  the  modem 
book,  at  a  time  when  other  nations  adhered  altogether  to  the 
imitation  of  old  models. 


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In  his  early  years 
Arthur  Hughes  attracted 
much  attention  by  an 
Ophelia,  a  delicate, 
thoroughly  English  figure 
of  soft  Preraphaelite 
grace ;  but  in  later  years 
he  rarely  got  beyond 
sentimental  Renaissance 
maidens  suggestive  of 
Julius  Wolff,  and  humor- 
ous work  in  the  style  of 
genre. 

J.  N.  Strudwick^  who 
worked  first  under 
Spencer  Stanhope  and 
then  under  Bume-Jones, 
was  more  consistent  in 
his  fidelity  to  the  Pre- 
raphaelite  principles. 
His  pictures  have  the 
same  delicate,  enervated 
mysticism,  and  the  same 
thoughtful,  dreamy 
ix)etry,  as  those  of  his 
elders  in  the  school 
By  preference  he  paints 
slender,  pensive  girlish 
figures,  with  the  sentiment  of  Burne-Jones,  taking  his  motive 
from  some  passage  in  a  poet  In  a  picture  called  "Elaine"  the 
heroine  is  mournfully  seated  in  a  room  which  is  like  a  chapel, 
with  a  large  organ  in  the  background.  Another  of  his  works 
reveals  three  girls  occupied  with  music.  Or  a  knight  strewn 
with  roses  lies  asleep  in  a  maiden's  lap.  Or  again,  there  is 
St  Cecilia  standing  before  a  Roman  building  with  her  small 
organ.  Strudwick  does  not  possess  the  spontaneity  of  his 
master.     The  childlike,  angular  effect  at  which  he  aims  often 


Dixon  photoJl 
Strudwick:   "Thy  Tuneful  Strings  wake 
Memories.** 
{jBy  p€rmis*ion  of  IV,  Imtrtg,  Esq,,  ths  owturoftht  ptciurt.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


seems  slightly  weak  and 
mawkish.  And  occasion- 
ally his  painting  has 
something  diffident,  when 
he  paints  in  the  archi- 
tectural detail  and  rich 
artistic  accessories,  stip- 
pling with  a  very  fine 
brush.  But  his  works  are 
so  exquisite  and  delicate, 
so  precious  and  aesthetic, 
that  they  must  be  reckoned 
amongst  the  most  charac- 
teristic performances  of 
the  New  Preraphaelitism. 
One  of  his  larger  com- 
positions he  has  named 
"Bygone  Days."  There 
is  a  man  musing  over 
the  memories  of  his  life, 
as  he  sits  upon  a  white  marble  throne  in  front  of  a  long 
white  marble  wall,  amid  an  evening  landscape.  He  stretches 
out  his  arms  after  the  vanished  years  of  his  youth,  the  years 
when  love  smiled  upon  him,  but  Time,  a  winged  figure  like 
Orcagna's  Morte^  divides  him  from  the  goddess  of  love,  swinging 
his  scythe  with  a  threatening  gesture.  "The  Past,"  a  slender 
matron  in  a  black  robe  covers  her  face  lamenting.  In  Strud wick's 
most  celebrated  picture,  "  The  Ramparts  of  God's  House," 
there  is  a  man  standing  at  the  threshold  of  heaven,  naked  as 
a  Greek  athlete.  His  earthly  fetters  lie  shattered  at  his  feet. 
Meanwhile  the  angels  receive  him,  marvellously  spiritual  beings 
filled  with  a  lovely  simplicity  and  revealing  ineffable  profundity 
of  soul,  beings  who  partake  of  Fra  Angelico  almost  as  much 
as  of  Ellen  Terry.  Their  expression  is  quiet  and  peaceful. 
Instead  of  marvelling  at  the  new-comer,  they  gaze  with  their 
eyes  green  as  a  water-sprite's  meditatively  into  illimitable  space. 
The  architecture  in  the  background  is  entirely  symbolical,  as  in 


Magtuiin$  of  Art.l 

Strudwick:   "The  Gentle  Music  of  a 

Bygone  Day." 

(By  pgrmissioH  q/ John  Dixon,  Esq.,  tkt  owner  oftht 

piciurt,) 


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the  pictures  of  Giotto.  A 
little  house  with  a  golden 
roof  and  gilded  mediaeval 
reliefs  is  inhabited  by  a 
dense  throng  of  little 
angels,  as  if  it  were  a 
Noah's-ark.  The  colour 
is  rich  and  sonorous,  as 
in  the  youthful  works  of 
Carlo  Crivelli. 

Henry  HoUiday,  who 
has  of  late  devoted  himself 
largely  to  decorative  tasks, 
seems  in  these  works  to 
be  Xh^juste-milieu  between 
Burne-Jones  and  Leighton. 
And  the  youngest  repre- 
sentative of  this  group 
tinged  with  religious  and 
romantic  feelings  is  Marie 
Spartali'Stillmany  who  lives  in  Rome  and  paints  as  a  rule 
pictures  from  Dante,  Boccaccio,  and  Petrarch,  after  the  fashion 
of  Rossetti. 

Others,  who  turned  to  the  treatment  of  antique  subjects, 
were  led  by  these  themes  more  towards  the  Idealism  of  the 
Cinquecento  as  regards  the  form  of  their  work  ;  and  in  this 
way  they  lost  the  severe  stamp  of  the  Preraphaelites. 

In  these  days  William  Blake  Richmond^  in  particular,  no 
longer  shows  any  trace  of  having  once  belonged  to  the  mystic 
circle  of  Oxonians.  The  Ariadne  which  he  painted  in  the 
old  days  was  a  lean  and  tall  woman  with  fluttering  black 
mantle,  casting  up  her  arms  in  lamentation  and  gazing  out  of 
those  deep,  gazelle-like  eyes  which  Burne-Jones  gave  his 
Vivienne.  Even  the  scheme  of  colour  was  harmonized  in  the 
bronze,  olive  tone  which  marked  the  earliest  works  of  Burne- 
Jones.  But  soon  afterwards  his  views  underwent  a  complete 
revolution  in  Italy.     In  form  influenced  by  Alma  Tadema,  and 


Strudwick:  "Elaine." 

(fiy  ptrmissioM  0/  th$  Btrlin  Pholographie  Campatty, 
tht  owturs  0/  ihg  copyrighL) 


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Dixon  photo.} 


Strudwick:  «*Thk  Ramparts  of  God's  House." 
{By  ptrmistion  of  fViUiam  ItttrU,  Esq,,  tht  owtur  of  iMs  piciurt,) 


by  the  French  in  colour,  he  drew  nearer  to  the  academic 
manner,  until  he  became,  at  length,  a  Classicist  without  any 
salient  peculiarity.  The  allegory  "Amor  Vincit  Omnia"  is 
characteristic  of  this  phase  of  his  art  Aphrodite,  risen  from 
her  bath,  is  standing  naked  in  a  Grecian  portico,  through  which 
a  purple  sea  is  visible.  Her  maidens  are  busied  in  dressing 
her;  and  they  are,  one  and  all,  chaste  and  noble  figures  of 
that  classic  grace  and  elegant  fluency  of  line  which  Leighton 
usually  lends  to  his  ideal  forms.  In  a  picture  which  became 
known  in  Germany  through  the  International  Exhibition  of 
1 89 1,  Venus,  a  clear  and  white  figure,  floats  down  with  stately 
motion  towards  Anchises.  It  is  only  in  the  delicate  pictures  of 
children  which  have  been  his  chief  successes  of  late  years  that 
he   is  still   fresh  and  direct      Girls  with  thick  hair  of  a  Monde 


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cendrie^  finely  moulded  lips,  and 
large  gazelle-like  eyes  full  of 
sensibility,  are  seen  in  these 
works  dreamily  seated  in  white 
or  blue  dresses  against  a  red 
or  a  blue  curtain.  And  the 
aesthetic  method  of  painting, 
which  almost  suggests  pastel 
work  in  its  delicacy,  is  in  keep- 
ing with  the  ethereal  figures  and 
the  bloom  of  colour. 

Walter  Crane  has  been  far 
more  successful  in  uniting  the 
Preraphaelite  conception  with  a 
sentiment  for  beauty  formed 
upon  the  antique,  Burne-Jones's 
"  paucity  of  flesh  and  plenitude 
of  feeling"  with  a  measured 
nobility  of  form.  Born  in  Liver- 
pool in  184S,  he  received  his 
first  impressions  of  art  at  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition 
of  1857,  where  he  saw  Millais'  "Sir  Isumbras  at  the  Ford." 
The  chivalrous  poetry  of  this  master  became  the  ideal  of 
his  youth,  and  it  rings  clearly  throughout  his  first  pictures, 
exhibited  in  1862.  One  of  these  has  as  its  subject  "The  Lady 
of  Shalott"  approaching  the  shore  of  her  mysterious  island 
in  a  boat,  and  the  other  St.  George  slaying  the  dragon. 
Meanwhile,  however,  he  had  come  to  know  Walker,  through 
W.  J.  Linton,  the  wood-engraver,  for  whom  he  worked  from 
1859  to  1862,  and  the  former  led  him  to  admire  the  beauty  of 
the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon.  After  this  he  passed  from 
romantic  to  antique  subjects,  and  there  is  something  notably 
youthful,  a  fresh  bloom  as  of  old  legends,  in  these  compositions, 
which  recall  the  sculpture  of  Phidias.  "The  Bridge  of  Life," 
belonging  to  the  year  1875,  was  like  an  antique  gem  or  a 
Grecian  bas-relief  At  the  Paris  World  Exhibition  of  1878  he 
had  a  "Birth  of  Venus,"  noble  and  antique  in  composition,  and 


London  :  Ward  <$•  Downey,"] 

Crane  :   "  The  Knight  of  the  Silver 

Fish." 

{By  permission  of  the  Artist.) 


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628  MODERN  PAITNING 


Portfolio,^ 

Crane:  "The  Chariots  of  the  Fleeting  Hours." 

{By  permission  of  iks  Artist,) 

of  a  severity  of  form  which  suggested  Mantegna.  The  suave 
and  poetic  single  figures  which  he  delights  in  painting  are  at 
once  Greek  and  English  :  girls,  with  branches  of  blossom,  in 
white  drapery  falling  into  folds,  and  enveloping  their  whole 
form,  while  indicating  every  line  of  the  body.  His  "  Pegasus  " 
might  have  come  straight  from  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 
**The  Fleeting  Hours"  at  once  recalls  Guido  Reni's  "Aurora" 
and  DUrer's  apocalyptic  riders. 

Later  he  turned  to  decorative  painting,  like  all  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Preraphaelite  group.  He  is  one  of  the  most 
original  designers  for  industrial  work  in  tapestry,  next  to 
Morris  the  most  influential  leader  of  the  English  arts  and 
crafts,  and  he  has  collaborated  in  founding  that  modern 
naturalistic  tendency  of  style  which  will  be  the  art  of  the 
future.  His  designs  are  always  based  upon  naturalistic  motives 
— the  English  type  of  womanhood  and  the  English  splendour 
of  flowers.  There  always  predominates  a  sensitive  relationship 
between  the  aesthetic  character  of  the  forms  and  their  sym- 
bolical significance.  He  always  adapts  an  object  of  nature 
so  that  it  may  correspond  in  style  with  the  material  in  which 
he  works.  The  way  in  which  he  makes  use  of  the  noblest 
models  of  antiquity  and  of  the  Renaissance,  and  yet  im- 
mediately transposes  them  into  an  English  key  of  sentiment 
and  into  available  modern  forms,  is  entirely  peculiar.  And 
last,  but  not  least,   he   is   a   marvellous   illustrator.      Every  one 


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went  wild  with  delight  at  the 
close  of  the  sixties  over  the 
appearance  of  his  first  children's 
books,  The  Fairy  Chiefs  The 
Little  Pig  who  went  to  Market^ 
and  King  Luckiboy^  the  pic- 
tures of  which  were  soon 
displayed  upon  all  patterns  for 
embroidery.  And  they  were 
followed  by  others :  after  1875 
he  published  Tell  me  a  Story^ 
The  First  of  May  —  a  Fairy 
Masque^  The  Sirens  Three, 
Echoes  of  Hellas,  and  so  forth. 
The  two  albums  T/ie  Bab^s 
Bouquet  and  Tfie  Baby's  Opera 
of  1879  are  probably  the  finest 
of  them  all. 

In  spite  of  their  childish 
subjects,  the  drawings  of 
Walter  Crane  have  such  a 
monumental  air  that  they 
have  the  effect  of  "grand 
painting."  Without  imitation 
he  reproduces  spontaneously 
the  grace  and  character  of  the 
primitive  Florentines.  Some  of 
his  plates  recall  "  The  Dream 
of  Polifilo"  and  might  bear  the 
monogram   of   Giovanni   Bellini. 


Portfolio,^ 

Crane:   "A  Water-Lily. " 
{By  permission  of  tht  Artist.) 

They  owe    their    origin   to   a 


profound  Germanic  sentiment  mingled  with  pagan  reminiscences  ; 
they  are  an  almost  Grecian  and  yet  English  art,  where  fancy 
like  a  foolish,  dreamy  child  plays  with  a  brilliant  skein  of  forms 
and  colours. 

That  great  artist  George  Frederick  Watts  stands  quite  apart 
as  a  personality  in  himself  In  point  of  substance  he  is  divided 
from    others    by    not    leaning    upon    poets,    but    by    inventing 


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■^^■j^^^H 

^V^^H 

L'^r/.]  IBichard  dtl. 

George  Frederick  Watts. 


independent  allegories  for  him- 
self;  and  in  point  of  form  by 
courting  neither  the  Quattro- 
cento nor  the  Roman  Cinque- 
cento,  but  rather  following  the 
Venice  of  the  later  Renaissance. 
Instead  of  the  marble  precision 
of  Squarcione  or  Mantegna, 
what  predominates  in  his  work 
is  something  soft  and  melting, 
which  might  recall  Correggio, 
Tintoretto,  or  Giorgione,  were  it 
not  that  there  is  a  cooler  grey, 
a  subdued  light  fresco  tone  in 
Watts,  in  place  of  the  Venetian 
glory  of  colour. 

As  a  man.  Watts  is  one  of  those  artists  who  are  only  to  be 
found  in  England-^an  artist  who,  from  his  youth  upwards,  has 
been  able  to  live  for  his  art  without  regard  to  profit  Born  in 
London  in  the  year  1820,  he  left  the  Academy  after  being  a 
pupil  there  for  a  brief  period,  and  began  to  visit  the  Elgin  Room 
in  the  British  Museum.  The  impression  made  upon  him  by  the 
sculptures  of  the  Parthenon  was  decisive  for  his  whole  life. 
Not  merely  are  numerous  plastic  works  due  to  his  study  of 
them,  but  several  of  his  finest  paintings.  When  he  was  seven- 
teen he  exhibited  his  first  pictures,  which  were  very  delicately 
painted  and  with  scrupulous  pains ;  and  in  1 843  he  took  part 
in  the  competition  in  regard  to  the  frescoes  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  amongst  which  the  representation  of  St.  George  and 
the  Dragon  was  from  his  hand.  With  the  proceeds  of  the  prize 
which  he  received  at  the  competition  he  went  to  Italy,  and 
there  he  came  to  regard  the  great  Venetians  Titian  and 
Giorgione  as  his  kin  and  his  contemporaries.  The  pupil  of 
Phidias  became  the  worshipper  of  Tintoretto.  In  Italy  he  pro- 
duced "  Fata  Morgana,"  a  picture  of  a  warrior  vainly  trying 
to  lay  hold  of  a  nude  feminine  figure  which  floats  past  by 
her    airy   white    veil ;    this    work    already   displays    him    as    an 


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ENGLAND 


631 


LArt,^ 


Watts:  Lady  Lindsay. 


accomplished  artist,  though 

it  is  wanting  in  the  large 

Classical   quietude    of    his 

later    paintings.      He    re- 
turned  home    with    plans 

demanding      more      than 

human  energy.     Like  the 

Frenchman  Chenavard,  he 

cherished   the   purpose   of 

representing  the  history  of 

the   world   in   a  series  of 

frescoes,    which    were    to 

adorn      the     walls     of     a 

building  specially  adapted 
for  the  purpose.  "  Chaos," 
"  The  Creation,"  "  The 
Temptation  of  Man,"  "The 
Penitence,"  "  The  Death  of 
Abel,"  and  "The  Death 
of  Cain  "  were  the  earliest 
pictures  which  he  designed  for  the  series.  It  was  through  fresco- 
painting  alone,  as  he  believed,  that  it  was  possible  to  school 
English  art  to  monumental  grandeur,  nobleness,  and  simplicity. 
But  it  was  not  possible  for  him  to  remain  long  upon  this  path 
in  England,  where  painting  has  but  little  space  accorded  to  it 
upon  the  walls  of  churches,  while  in  other  public  buildings 
decoration  is  not  in  demand.  Moreover  it  is  doubtful  whether 
Watts  would  have  achieved  anything  great  in  this  province  of 
art.  At  any  rate  a  work  which  he  executed  for  the  dining-hall 
at  Lincoln's  Inn — an  assembly  of  the  lawgivers  of  all  times  from 
Moses  down  to  Edward  I. — is  scarcely  more  than  a  mixture 
of  Raphael's  "  School  of  Athens "  and  the  Hemicycle  of 
Delaroche.  In  magnificent  allegories  in  the  form  of  oil-paintings 
he  first  found  the  expression  of  his  individuality.  Taken  alto- 
gether he  has  now  painted  over  two  hundred  and  fifty,  which 
are  nearly  all  in  the  possession  of  the  artist.  Like  Turner,  Watts 
has    probably   never  disposed   of   any    of   his   pictures   by  sale. 


{fiy  ptrmisaion  of  Lady  Lindsay,  tht  owner  of  tht 
picture.) 


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At  present  he  is 
a  man  of  seventy- 
five,  though  he  con- 
tinues to  work  as 
though  he  were  but 
fifty.  He  lives  in 
a  retired  way  amid 
the  vast  town,  like 
a  patrician  of  old 
Venice.  His  mar- 
riage with  Miss 
Ellen  Terry  w*as 
dissolved  after  a 
few  years,  as  Watts 
could  not  bring  him- 
self to  sacrifict!  a  life 
passed  in  his  quiet 
world  of  thought  to 
the  whirl  of  societj^- 
He  hears  nothing 
of  what  goes  o«  in 
artistic  circles,  and 
does  not  know 
whether  he  is  un- 
derstood or  not.  Yet  he  has  lent  one  or  other  of  his  pictures 
to  almost  every  public  exhibition.  Nine  large  pictures  of  his 
alone  hang  over  the  staircase  of  the  South  Kensington  Museum 
opposite  the  entrance  to  the  library.  But  even  these  are  only 
"exemplars"  of  his  art.  To  know  his  work  thoroughly  it  is 
necessary  to  go  to  his  house.  His  studio  in  Little  Holland 
House,  which  after  the  painter's  death  is  to  pass  into  the 
possession  of  the  State  as  a  complete  gallery,  contains  almost 
all  his  important  creations,  and  is  visited  by  the  public  upon 
Saturday  and  Sunday  afternoon  as  freely  as  if  it  were  a 
museum. 

As    a    landscape-painter   Watts    is   a   visionary,   like  Turner^ 
though   in  addition   to  the  purely  artistic   effect  of  his   pictures 


ICamtroH  photo. 
Watts:   "Hope.** 
(By  ptrmissioH  of  tht  Arttst.) 


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Pag»ant.'\ 


Watts:   "Paolo  and  Francesca.* 
{By  pgrmissioH  of  tht  Ar/isi.) 


[Swan  photo  sc. 


VOU  III. 


41 


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635 


Caa,  dts  Biattx-Arta.] 

Watts:   "Artemis  and  Endymion." 

(By  ptrmisaion  of  Mr.  Robert  Dunihonu,  the  owntr  of  tht  copyright.) 

he  always  endeavours  to  awaken  remoter  feelings  and  ideas  of 
some  kind  or  another.  His  landscape  "Corsica"  reveals  a  grey 
expanse,  with  very  slight  vibrations  of  tone,  which  suggest  that 
out  to  sea  a  distant  island  is  emerging  from  the  mist.  His 
'"  Mount  Ararat,"  a  picture  entirely  filled  with  the  play  of  light 
blue  tones,  represents  a  number  of  barren  rocky  cones  bathed  in 
the  intense  blue  of  a  pure  transparent  starry  night  Above  the 
highest  peak  there  is  one  star  sparkling  more  brilliantly  than  the 
others.  In  his  "  Deluge  :  the  Forty-first  Day,"  he  attempted  to 
depict,  after  an  interpretation  of  his  own,  the  power  "with 
which  light  and  heat,  dissipating  the  darkness  and  dissolving 
the  multitude  of  the  waters  into  mist  and  vapour,  give  new  life 
to  perished  nature."  What  is  actually  placed  before  the  eye 
is  a  delicate  symphony  of  colours  which  would   have  delighted 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Turner  :  wild,  agitated  sea,, 
clouds  gleaming  like  liquid 
gold,  and  mist  behind 
which  the  sun  rises  in  a 
magical  glow,  like  a  red 
ball  of  fire. 

In   his   portraits   he   is 
earnest  and  sincere.     Just 
as   fifty   years   ago  David 
d* Angers    devoted    half  a 
lifetime  to  the  assemblage 
of     a      portrait       gallery 
of  famous  contemporaries,. 
Watts   has   in    these  days 
the   glory  of  really  being 
the  historian  of  his   time. 
The  collection  of  portraits,, 
many  of  which  are  to  be 
seen   in  the  new  National 
Portrait  Gallery,  comprises 
about  forty  likenesses,  all 
of   them    half-length    pic- 
tures,  all    of    them    upoa 
the  same  scale  of  size,  all 
of  them  representing  very 
famous     men.       Amongst 
the    poets    comprised    in    this     gallery    of    genius    are    Alfred 
Tennyson,  Robert  Browning,  Matthew  Arnold,  Swinburne,  William 
Morris,   and  Sir  Henry  Taylor ;   amongst   prose-writers,   Carlyle 
John  Stuart  Mill,  Lecky,  Motley,  and   Leslie  Stephen  ;   amongst 
statesmen,    Gladstone,   Sir   Charles   Dilke,   the   Duke   of  Argyll,. 
Lord   Salisbury,   Lord    Shaftesbury,   Lord   Lindhurst,   and    Lord 
Sherbrooke ;   amongst   the  leaders  of  the  clergy.   Dean    Stanley^ 
Dean  Milman,  Cardinal  Manning,   and   Dr.  Martineau ;   amongst 
painters,  Rossetti,  Millais,  Leighton,  Burne-Jones,  and  Calderon  ; 
and     amongst     notable     foreigners,     Guizot,     Thiers,     Joachim,, 
the    violinist,    and    many    others.      In   the   matter   of   technique 


[Camifon  photo. 

Watts:   "Love  and  Life." 

{By  permission  of  Mr.  Robert  Dunthorfu,  ths  owner 
of  the  copyright.) 


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ENGLAND 


637 


Watts  is  excelled  by 
many  of  the  French. 
His  portraits  have  some- 
thing heavy,  nor  are 
they  eminent  for  soft- 
ness of  modelling,  nor 
for  that  momentary  and 
animated  effect  peculiar 
to  Lenbach.  But  few 
likenesses  belonging  to 
this  century  have  the 
same  force  of  expression, 
the  same  straightforward 
sureness  of  aim,  the  same 
grandeur  and  simplicity. 
Before  each  of  the  per- 
sons represented  one  is 
able  to  say.  That  is  a 
painter,  that  a  poet,  and 
that  a  scholar.  All  the 
self-conscious  dignity  of 
a  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy  is  expressed  in 
the  picture  of  Leighton, 
and  his  look  is  as  cold 
as  marble  ;  while  the 
eyes  of  Burne  -  Jones 
seem  mystically  veiled,  as 
though  they  were  gazing 
into  the  past.  Indeed 
the  way  in  which  Watts 
grasps  his  characters  J  is  masterly  beyond  conception.  Amongst 
the  old  painters?  Tintoretto  and  Morone  might  be  compared 
with  him  most  readily,  while  Van  Dyck  is  the  least  like 
him  of  all. 

In   opposition   to   the    poetic    fantasy   of    Burne-Jones   dally- 
ing  with   legendary   lore,   an    element    of    brooding    thought    is 


\Camtron  photo. 
Watts:   "Love  and  Death." 
{By  permission  of  tht  Corporation  of  Manchester,  the 
owners  of  the  picture.) 


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characteristic  of  the  large 
compositions  of  Watts,  a 
meditative  absorption  in 
ideas  which  provoke  the 
intellect  to  further  activity 
by  their  mysterious  alle- 
gorical suggestions.  Just 
as  he  makes  an  approach 
to  the  old  Venetians  in 
external  form,  he  is 
divided  from  them  in  the 
inward  burden  of  his 
work  by  a  severity  and 
hardiness  characteristic  of 
the  Northern  spirit,  a 
predominance  of  idea  sel- 
dom met  with  amongst 
Southern  masters,  and  a 
profoundly  sad  way  of 
thought  in  which  one 
sees  the  signature  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Apart 
from  the  purely  artistic  effect  of  his  work,  he  has  the  purpose 
of  giving  the  substance  for  grave  meditations  through  his 
pictures  :  "  The  end  of  art,"  he  writes,  "  must  be  the  exposition 
of  some  weighty  principle  of  spiritual  significance,  the  illustration 
of  a  great  truth." 

"  The  Spirit  of  Christianity,"  the  only  one  of  his  works  which 
has  a  religious  tone,  displays  a  youth  throned  upon  the  clouds, 
with  children  nestling  at  his  feet  The  look  of  his  powerful 
head  is  cast  upwards,  and  his  right  hand  opened  widely.  In 
"  Orpheus  and  Eurydice "  he  has  chosen  the  moment  when 
Orpheus  turns  round  to  behold  Eurydice  turning  pale  and 
sinking  to  the  earth,  to  be  once  more  swallowed  by  Hades. 
The  lyre  drops  from  his  hands,  and  with  a  gesture  of  despair 
he  draws  the  form  of  his  wife  to  his  heart  in  a  last,  eternal 
embrace.     "  Artemis  and   Endymion  "  is  a  scene  in  which  a  tall 


UArt.^  \Watkins  ac. 

Watts:  "Orpheus  and  Eurydice." 

iBy  permission  of  the  Artist,) 


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Pageant.} 


Watts:  "Ariadne." 
{By  permission  of  Mr,  F.  Hollyer,  the  owner  of  the  copyright.) 


{Swan  photo  sc. 


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ENGLAND  641 

lemale  figure  in  silvery  shining  vesture  bends  over  the  sleeping 
shepherd,  throwing  herself  into  the  curve  of  a  sickle. 

But,  as  a  rule,  he  neither  makes  use  of  Christian  nor  of 
ancient  ideas,  but  embodies  his  own  thoughts.  In  "  The  Illusions 
-of  Life,"  a  picture  belonging  to  the  year  1847,  beautiful,  dreamy 
figures  hover  over  a  gulf,  spreading  at  the  verge  of  existence. 
At  their  feet  lie  the  shattered  emblems  of  greatness  and  power, 
-and  upon  a  small  strip  of  the  earth  hanging  over  an  abyss 
those  illusions  are  visible  which  have  not  yet  been  destroyed : 
<ilory,  in  the  shape  of  a  knight  in  harness,  chases  the  bubble 
■of  a  brilliant  name ;  Love  is  symbolized  by  a  pair  who  are 
tenderly  embracing ;  Learning,  by  an  old  man  poring  over 
manuscripts  in  the  dusk ;  Innocence,  by  a  child  grasping  at  a 
butterfly.  "  The  Angel  of  Death "  is  a  picture  of  a  winged 
and  mighty  womdn  throned  at  the  entrance  of  a  way  which 
leads  to  eternity.  Upon  her  knees  there  rests,  covered  with  a 
^hite  cloth,  the  corpse  of  a  new-born  child.  Men  and  women 
of  every  station  lay  reverently  down  at  the  feet  of  the  angel 
the  symbols  of  their  dignity  and  the  implements  of  their 
earthly  toil. 

"Love  and  Death"  represents  the  two  great  sovereigns  of 
the  world  wrestling  together  for  a  human  life.  With  steps 
which  have  a  mysterious  majesty,  pallid  Death  draws  near,  de- 
manding entrance  at  the  door  of  a  house,  whilst  Love,  a  slight, 
boyish  figure  with  bright  wings,  places  himself  in  the  way ; 
l>ut  with  one  great,  irresistible  gesture  the  mighty  genius  of 
•death  sweeps  the  shrinking  child  to  one  side.  In  another 
picture,  "Love  and  Life,"  the  genius  of  Love,  in  the  form  of 
a  slim,  powerful  youth,  helps  poor,  weak,  clinging  Life,  a  half- 
^rown,  timid,  and  diffident  girl,  to  clamber  up  the  stony  path 
•of  a  mountain,  over  which  the  sun  rises  golden.  "  Hope "  is 
a  picture  where  a  tender  spirit,  bathed  in  the  blue  mist,  sits 
upon  the  globe,  blindfold,  listening  in  bliss  to  the  low  sound 
touched  from  the  last  string  of  her  harp.  "  Mammon "  is 
•embodied  by  Watts  in  a  coarse  and  bloated  satyr  brutally 
setting  his  heel  upon  a  youth  and  a  young  girl,  as  upon  a 
footstool. 


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642  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  1893,  when  the  committee  of  the  Munich  Exhibition  were 
moved  by  the  writings  of  Cornelius  Gurlitt  to  have  some  of 
these  works  sent  over  to  Germany,  a  certain  disappointment 
was  felt  in  artistic  circles.  And  any  one  who  is  accustomed  to 
gauge  pictures  by  their  technique  is  justified  in  missing  the 
genuine  pictorial  temperament  in  Watts.  The  sobriety  of  his 
scheme  of  colour,  his  preference  for  subdued  tones,  his  distaste 
for  all  "  dexterity  "  and  freedom  from  all  calculated  refinement, 
are  not  in  accord  with  the  desires  of  our  time.  Even  his 
sentiment  is  altogether  opposed  to  that  which  predominates  in 
the  other  New  Idealists.  Burne-Jones  and  Rossetti  awaken 
sympathy  because  their  repining  lyricism,  their  psychopathic 
subtilty,  their  wonderful  mixture  of  archaic  simplicity  and 
(Ucadent  hautgoUt^  are  in  direct  touch  with  the  present.  Watts 
seems  cold  and  wanting  in  temperament  because  he  makes  no 
appeal  to  the  vibrating  life  of  the  nerves. 

But  the  same  sort  of  criticism  was  written  by  the  younger 
generation  in  Germany,  seventy  years  ago,  on  the  works  of 
Goethe,  which  have,  none  the  less,  remained  fresher  than  those 
of  Schlegel  and  Tieck.  What  is  modem  is  not  always  the 
same  as  what  is  eternally  young.  And  if  one  endeavours, 
disregarding  the  current  of  the  age,  to  approach  Watts  as 
though  he  were  an  old  master,  one  feels  an  increasing  sense  of 
the  probability  that  amongst  all  men  of  the  present  he  has, 
next  to  Boecklin,  the  best  prospect  of  becoming  one.  In  spite 
of  all  its  independence  of  spirit,  the  art  of  Burne-Jones  has  an 
affected  mannerism  in  its  outward  garb.  The  sentiment  of  it 
is  free,  but  the  form  is  confined  in  the  old  limits.  And  it  is 
not  impossible  that  later  generations,  to  whom  his  specifically 
modern  sentiment  will  appeal  more  and  more  faintly,  may  one 
day  rank  him,  on  account  of  his  archaism  in  drawing,  as  much 
amongst  the  eclectics  as  Overbeck  and  Fiihrich  are  held  to  be 
at  the  present  time.  But  this  is  what  can  never  happen  to 
Watts.  His  works  are  the  expression  of  an  artist  who  is  as 
little  dependent  upon  the  past  as  upon  the  momentary  tendencies 
of  the  present.  His  articulation  of  form  has  nothing  in  common 
with   the   lines   of  beauty  of  the  antique,   or   the   Quattrocento, 


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ENGLAND  64^ 

or  the  Cinquecento.  It  is  a  thing  created  by  himself  and  to 
himself  peculiar.  He  needs  no  erudition,  and  no  attributes 
and  symbols  borrowed  from  the  Renaissance,  to  body  forth  his 
allegories.  With  him  there  begins  a  new  power  of  creating 
types ;  and  his  figure  of  Death — that  tall  woman,  clad  in 
white,  with  hollow  cheeks,  livid  face,  and  lifeless  sunken  tyts — 
is  no  less  cogent  than  the  genius  with  the  torch  reversed  or 
the  burlesque  skeleton  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Moreover  there  is 
in  his  works  a  trace  of  profundity  and  simple  grandeur 
which  stands  alone  in  our  own  period.  It  is  precisely  our 
more  sensitive  nervous  system  which  divides  us  from  the  old 
painters,  and  has  generally  given  the  artistic  productions  of 
our  day  a  disturbed,  capricious,  restless,  and  overstrained 
character,  placing  them  behind  those  of  the  old  masters. 

Watts  is,  perhaps,  the  only  painter  who  can  support  an 
approach  to  them  in  every  respect.  Here  is  a  man  who  has 
been  able  to  live  in  himself  far  away  from  the  bustle  of 
exhibitions,  a  man  who  works  now  that  he  is  old  as  soundly 
and  freshly  as  when  he  was  young,  a  man,  also,  who  is  always 
simple  in  his  art,  lucid,  earnest,  grandiose,  impressive,  and  of 
monumental  sublimity.  Though  he  shows  no  trace  of  imitation 
he  might  have  come  straight  from  the  Renaissance,  so  deep  is 
his  sense  of  beauty,  so  direct  and  so  condensed  his  power  of 
giving  form  to  his  ideas.  And  amongst  living  painters  I  should 
find  it  impossible  to  name  a  single  one  who  could  embody  such 
a  scene  as  that  of  "  Love  and  Death"  so  calmly,  so  entirely  with- 
out rhetorical  gestures  and  all  the  tricks  of  theatrical  manage- 
ment. There  is  the  mark  of  style  about  everything  in  Watts,, 
and  it  is  no  external  and  borrowed  style,  but  one  which  is  his 
own,  a  style  which  a  notable  man,  a  thinker  and  a  poet,  has 
fashioned  for  the  expression  of  his  own  ideas.  That  is  what 
makes  him  a  master  of  contemporary  painting  and  of  the 
painting  of  all  times.  And  that  is  what  will,  perhaps,  render 
him,  in  the  eyes  of  later  generations,  the  greatest  man  of  our 
time.  England  regards  him  as  such  already*  With  Rossetti 
and  Bume-Jones  he  is  given  the  highest  admiration  ;  he  is  the 
"artistic    artist    of   this    day,"    beside    whom    a    Tadema   or  a 


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644  MODERN  PAINTING 

Leighton  is  merely  mentioned  in  the  second  or  third  rank,  as  a 
fine  craftsman.  It  is  only  Whistler  who  by  some  people  is 
placed  upon  an  equality  with  Watts,  and  different  as  this 
wonderful  magician  in  tone-values  may  be,  in  the  purport  of  his 
work,  from  Watts  the  illustrator  of  ideas,  it  is  not  a  far  cry 
from  the  delicate  grisaille  style  of  the  great  Watts  to  Whistler's 
misty  harmonies  dissolving  in  vapour. 


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CHAPTER    XLVIII 

WHISTLER   AND    THE   SCOTCH  PAINTERS 

Whistler  as  the  creator  of  a  New  Idealism  of  colour,  —  Adolf  ?ie 
Monticelli,  —  The  influence  of  both  upon  the  Glasgow  school, — 
History  of  Scotch  fainting  from  1729 ;  Allan  Ramsay,  David 
Allan,  Alexander  and  John  Runciman,  William,  Allan,  Henry 
Raebumj  David  Wilkiey  John  and  Thomas  Faed^  Erskine  Nicol, 
George  Harvey y  Alexander  and  Patrick  Nasmyth,  E,  Crawford^ 
Horatio  Macculloch,  John  Phillif,  Robert  Scott  Lauder ^  John  Pettie, 
W,  Orchardson,  William  Fettes  Douglas y  Robert  Macgregor,  Peter 
and  Thomas  Graham^  Hugh  Cameron,  Donovan  Adam^  Robert 
Macbeth^  John  MacWhirter^  George  Reid,  George  Paul  Chalmers, 
Hamilton  Macallum, — Glasgow  brings  to  perfection  what  was 
begun  in  Edinburgh :  Arthur  Melville,  John  Lavery,  James  Guthrie, 
George  Henry,  Edward  Hornell,  Alexander  Roche,  James  Pater  son, 
Grosvenor  Thomas,  William  Kennedy,  Edward  A.  Walton,  David 
Gauld,  T,  Austen  Brown,  Joseph  Crawhall,  Macaulay  Stevensony 
P,  Macgregor  Wilson,  Coventry,  Morton,  Alexander  FreWy  Harry 
Spence,  Harrington  Mann, 

WHEN  the  English  gallery  in  the  Munich  International 
Exhibition  was  opened  in  the  summer  of  1888,  there 
hung  a  full-length  portrait  in  the  centre  of  the  principal  wall. 
The  model  was  a  tall  and  very  slender  woman  ;  she  seemed 
in  the  act  of  stepping  away  from  the  spectator  towards  the 
background  of  the  picture,  and  was  seen  in  profile  just  as  she 
turned  her  head,  throwing  back  a  last  glance  before  vanishing. 
It  was  Lady  Archibald  Campbell,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
women  in  England.  In  this  portrait  she  lived  in  all  her  charm, 
with  her  fragile  figure,  her  blond  hair,  her  aristocratic  hands 
and  deep  eyes.  Or,  in  better  words,  the  likeness  gave  the 
essence  of  her  haughty  and  distinguished  beauty,  what  remains 

645 


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646  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  a  figure  when  the  artist  has  eliminated  from  his  impression 
•everything  which  is  not  in  the  highest  degree  refined  and 
exquisite.  In  the  face  of  this  sylph-like  being  gliding  away 
there  was  an  expression  of  slight  contempt,  as  if  this  beautiful 
woman  had  pity  on  all  the  plain  crowd  in  the  exhibition  whom 
she  would  have  to  contemplate,  or  all  the  unfortunate,  badly 
painted  people  whose  portraits  hung  around.  The  whole  portrait 
stood  out  in  grey  against  a  black  background,  being  only 
-enlivened  in  a  soft  way  by  delicate  greyish-blue  and  brownish- 
grey  tones,  with  a  little  blond  colour  and  a  little  rose-colour. 
Nevertheless  the  picture  was  full  of  air,  a  strangely  soft, 
harmonious  air.  It  was  felt  that  the  model  was  living,  walking, 
and  moving.  It  was  a  great  work  of  art,  the  work  of  a  master, 
a  work  ol  James  McNeill  Whistler, 

The  second  of  the  pictures  exhibited  in  Munich — a  nocturne, 
"**  Black  and  Gold,"  in  which  everything  had  a  dark  sheen, 
broken  by  scattered  golden  stars — I  did  not  understand  at  the 
time,  but  I  learnt  to  understand  it  soon  afterwards  when  1 
was  on  the  way  to  England.  It  was  a  November  day,  and  1 
stood  upon  the  deck  of  the  vessel  and  saw  the  evening  sink 
over  the  sea.  The  calm,  dark  water,  through  which  the  steamer 
glided  with  steady  strokes,  melted  into  the  blue  of  the  sky. 
All  lines  vanished.  A  sad  veil  of  greyish-black  dusk  floated 
before  one's  ^yts.  But  suddenly  to  the  right  the  radiance  of 
a  beacon  flared  unsteadily,  a  great  yellow  disc,  orbed  and 
beaming  like  a  huge  planet  Farther  back  there  was  another 
showing  fainter,  and  then  a  third,  and  then  others — a  whole 
alley  of  lights,  each  one  surrounded  by  a  great  blue  circle  of 
atmosphere.  And  in  the  far  background  the  host  of  lights  in 
the  distant  town.  It  was  as  though  a  fairy-garden  floated  in 
the  air,  with  shining  golden  flowers  which  lived  and  moved, 
at  times  closing  their  cups  and  disappearing,  to  blaze  forth 
again  the  more  vividly.  The  stars  overhead  were  like  glow- 
worms, shining  at  one  moment  brightly,  and  then  vanishing 
in  the  night.  And  if  one  looked  farther  down,  all  might  be 
seen  mirrored  in  the  water  in  a  thousand  gold  and  silver 
reflections :  a  harmony  of  black  and  gold — a  Whistler. 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         647 


The  master  who  has  created 
these  works,   an   artist  by  the 
grace  of  God,  and  perhaps  the 
proudest    and    most    naturally 
gifted    who    has    appeared    in 
these   days   upon   English  soil, 
is  by  birth  an  American.     His 
ancestors  lived  in  Ireland,  until 
in  the  beginning  of  this  century 
Major  John  Whistler  migrated 
to     America.       His     son     was 
Major    George    Whistler,    who 
went  to  Russia  as  an  engineer, 
where  he  made  the  St.  Peters- 
burg and  Moscow  Railway,  and 
occupied     an     influential     post 
under    the    Emperor    Nicholas. 
In  America  he  had  married  a 
lady  from  Kentucky,  and  James 
McNeill  Whistler,  their  son,  was 
born  in  Baltimore  in  1834.     He 
spent  his  childhood   in  Russia, 
and    on    his  father's  death   re- 
turned    with     his     mother     to 
America,  where  he  was  educated 
at  the  military  school  at  West 


Scribntrs  MagoMtPU,} 
Whistler  :  "  Symphony  in  White  No.  i  : 
The  White  Girl." 
(By  ptrmissioH  of  tht  ArHsi.) 


Point  But  having  no  taste  for  the  profession  of  arms,  in  1856 
he  entered  Gleyre's  studio  in  Paris,  where  he  associated  with 
Degas,  Bracquemond,  Fantin-Latour,  Ribot,  and  Legros.  In 
Paris  he  brought  out  in  1858  his  first  series  of  etchings,  known 
to  collectors  by  the  title  of  "The  Little  French  Set,"  and  in 
1859  he  sent  to  the  Salon  some  pictures,  which  were  rejected. 
The  same  fate  befell  in  1863  his  earliest  work  of  eminence,  the 
"  Femme  Blanche "  (now  known  as  the  "  Symphony  in  White 
No.  I  :  The  White  Girl"),  which  was  exhibited,  however,  in  the 
Salon  des  Refusis^  and  made  a  great  sensation  in  artist  circles,  as 
did  the  first  pictures  of  Manet  at  the  same  time.     The  "  White 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Girl"  is  standing,  throwm 
out  by  a  white  curtaini 
which     covers     the    en- 
tire   background.      The 
whole  picture  is  a  com- 
bination of  white  tones^ 
separated    by  the    lines 
of   a    single    figure,    an. 
arrangement     in     white. 
At    the   time    this    was 
not  set  forth  in  the  title. 
But  he  supplemented  the 
titles  of   the    later  pic- 
tures, exhibited  in  1874 
in   London,   as   follows : 
"  Portrait   de    ma   Mire 
— Arrangement  en   noir 
et   en    gris  ;  "    "  Portrait 
de     Thomas     Carlyle — 
Arrangement  en  noir  et 
en  gris."      And   in  both 
works  figure   and   back- 
ground were  harmonized  in  a  scale  composed  of  black  and  grey.. 
With   these  pictures   Whistler    came  to  London,  which   has 
since  been   his  home  so   far  as  such  a  restless  man,  appearing 
at  one  time  in  Paris,  and  then  in  Venice,  and  then  in  America^ 
can   be  said   to  have  any  home  at  all.     He  settled  in  Chelsea,,. 
a  district  which  he  discovered,  in  an  artistic  sense,  as  an  etcher. 
During  the  following  years  he  exhibited   partly  in    Burlington 
House  or  the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  and  partly  at  a  special  place,. 
48,  Pall  Mall ;  and   by   preference  small  pictures  which  he  de- 
scribed  as   "notes,   harmonies,   and   nocturnes,"  as  aiTangements 
in    yellow    and    white,   arrangements   in   flesh-colour    and    grey^ 
arrangements  in  brown  and  gold,  harmonies  in  grey  and  peach- 
colour,  symphonies    in   blue    and    rose-colour,    or    variations    ia 
grey  and  green.     The  vignettes  upon  the   invitation  cards  were 
likewise  printed   in  yellow,  grey,   silver,  etc.,   according    to    the.- 


Whistler  :    "  Symphony   in   White  No.  2  : 
The  Little  White  Girl." 


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4^ 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


65 1 


prevailing  note  in  the 
exhibition  ;  the  floors 
and  walls  of  the  room 
were  decorated  with 
yellow  and  white,  with 
grey  and  silver  ;  and 
even  the  servants  were 
liveried  in  such  colours. 
As  a  matter  of  course 
the  English  public,  ac- 
customed to  run  their 
noses  into  a  picture  and 
find  it  explained  for  them 
by  a  piece  of  poetry  in 
the  catalogue,  were  not 
inclined  to  display  much 
sympathy  when  they 
found  themselves  face  to 
face  with  combinations 
of  colour  which  needed 
to  be  looked  at  from 
a  distance  and  had  no 
interest  of  subject. 
Ruskin,  the  herald  of  the 
Preraphaelites,  published 
a  detailed  sentence  of 
condemnation  ;  Whistler 
answered  and  brought  an 
action  against  him  for  libel.  Through  these  brochures,  these 
trials,  and  more  especially  through  the  paradoxical  lectures 
which  he  sometimes  gave  in  his  studio — not  at  five  but  at  ten 
o'clock — before  a  distinguished  gathering,  he  soon  became  a 
celebrity  in  London.  The  stories  current  about  him  are  legion. 
His  vie  de  parade  is  as  much  a  subject  of  conversation  as  any 
of  the  great  race-meetings.  And  wherever  he  shows  himself  he 
is  as  well  known  as  the  Prince  of  Wales,  or  Gladstone,  or  Irving. 
But  to  know  Whistler,  the  artist,  he  must  be  visited  in  his 


Paris:  BoMaod-Va/adoH.^ 

Whistler:  Miss  Alexander. 

{By  ptrmisaioM  of  W,  C,  AUxatuUr^  Esq.,  tht  owntr 
of  the  pic/urt.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Paris:  Boussod-Valadon.} 

Whistler:  Thomas  Carlyle. 
(By  permission  of  the  Corporation  of  Glasgow,  the  owners  of  th§  pictun.) 


home;  here  he 
is  no  longer 
the  man  of 
brusque  ways 
and  sarcastic 
features,  wilh 
the  jaunty 
white  lock 
upon  his  fore- 
head, and  the 
long  \valking^ 
stick  which  he 
brings  with 
htnif  like  a 
clanking 
cavalry  sword, 
whenever  he 
goes  the 
rounds  upon 
the  opening 
day  of  an  ex- 
hibition. On 
the     contrary 


Whistler  seems  like  a  hermit  in  his  secluded  house,  like  the 
monarch  of  a -far  kingdom,  peopled  only  with  his  own  thoughts 
— a  realm  where  he  reigns  in  the  midst  of  mysterious  landscapes 
and  grave  and  quiet  men  and  women,  who  have  stood  near  him 
in  mind  and  spirit,  and  to  whom  his  brush  has  given  new 
life.  The  thoughtful  eyes  of  women  gaze  upon  you  ;  fair  hair, 
black  and  grey  furs,  pale,  fading  flowers,  and  grey  felt  hats 
with  black  feathers  stand  out  from  dusty  canvases  placed  care- 
lessly to  one  side,  sometimes  taking  definite  form,  sometimes 
melting  intangibly  and  indistinctly,  as  if  seen  through  grey  silky 
veils.  The  air  which  envelops  them  is  at  once  bright  and  dark; 
the  atmosphere  of  this  silent  room,  in  which  the  painter  sees  his 
models,  has  a  subdued  and  shrouded  daylight,  an  old  light  as 
it  were,  which  has  become  harmonious  like  a  faded  Gobelin. 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         653 


Whistler:   "Portrait  of  my  Mother*" 

Whistler's  art  is  the  most  refined  quintessence  of  all  that  is 
finest  in  that  which  the  most  recent  decades  have  offered  the 
artistic  gourmet.  In  London,  where  he  passed  the  years  of  his 
youth,  the  feminine  figures  of  Rossetti  hovered  around  him, 
gazing  at  him  with  their  thoughtful  glance  fixed  upon  the  world 
beyond.  The  Parisian  Impressionists  gave  him  softness  and 
fluency  of  modelling  and  the  feeling  for  atmosphere  ;  the  Japanese, 
the  bright  harmony  of  their  tone,  the  taste  for  fantastic  decora- 
tions, and  the  surprises  of  detail  brought  in  here  and  there  in 
an  entirely  wayward  fashion  ;  Diego  Velasquez,  the  great  line, 
the  black  and  grey  backgrounds,  and  the  refined  black  and 
silver-grey  tone-values  in  costumes.  From  the  quaint  and 
bizarre  union  of  all  these  elements  he  formed  his  exquisite 
and:  entirely   personal^  style,  which  combines  the  acquisitions  of 


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654 


MODERN -PAINTING 


Impressionism  with  the 
Gobelin-like  beauties  of 
j  tone  belonging  to  the 
old  painters.  The  chalky 
daylight  of  Manet,  even 
the  dazzling  splendour  of 
lights  and  the  piquant 
and  pungent  effects  of  fire 
with  which  Besnard  works, 
would  be  an  offence  to 
him.  His  eye  is  habituated 
to  delicate,  tender,  monoto- 
nous colours.  It  revels 
only  in  the  soft  grey 
dreamy  tones  which  fill 
his  studio  as  if  with 
mysterious  atmospheric 
harmonies.  Everything 

glaring  is  subdued,  every- 
thing flows  into  dusky 
shadows,  Everything  white 
passes  into  grey  and  black. 
The  appearances  of  the 
dusk  take  shape,  misty 
forms  grow  denser,  and 
there  arise  those  works 
which  give  a  mere  risunUy 
which  contain  only  the 
poetry  of  nature. 

In  his  brochures 
Whistler  has  himself 
written  with  brilliancy  upon  this  view  of  art.  The  antithesis  to 
art  is  in  his  eyes  every  sort  of  painting  which  is  placed  at  the 
service  of  philistinism  through  mere  interest  of  subject  That 
man  alone  is  "  painter  "  who  draws  the  motives  for  his  harmonies 
from  the  accord  of  coloured  masses.  For  this  reason  he  is 
decisively  an    opponent   to   the   movement   which   Ruskin   called 


Paris:  Botissod-yaUuhn,} 

Whistler  :  Lady  Meux. 

(By  permission  of  Sir  Henry  Meux,  Bart,,  ike  owner 

of  the  picture.) 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


655 


Realism.  The  uncompromising 
reproduction  of  the  model, 
without  selection  or  attempt  at 
embellishment,  from  the  idea 
that  nature  is  always  beautiful, 
is  the  theme  of  his  fine 
mockery.  "Nature  indeed,"  he 
writes,  "  contains  the  elements 
in  colour  and  form  of  all 
pictures,  as  the  keyboard  con- 
tains the  notes  of  all  music. 
But  the  artist  is  born  to  pick, 
and  choose,  and  group  with 
science  these  elements,  that 
the  result  may  be  beautiful — 
as  the  musician  gathers  his 
notes,  and  forms  chords,  until 
he  brings  forth  from  chaos 
glorious  harmony."  The  sharply 
outlined  distinctness  of  the 
Preraphaelite  landscape  is  cited 
as  an  example  of  the  inartistic 
character  of  prosaic  delineation 
of  nature.  "  And  when  the 
evening  mist  clothes  the  riverside  with  poetry,  as  with  a  veil,, 
and  the  poor  buildings  lose  themselves  in  the  dim  sky,  and  the 
tall  chimneys  become  campanili,  and  the  warehouses  are  palaces 
in  the  night,  and  the  whole  city  hangs  in  the  heavens,  and 
fairyland  is  before  us — then  the  wayfarer  hastens  home ;  the 
working  man  and  the  cultured  one,  the  wise  man  and  the  one 
of  pleasure,  cease  to  understand,  as  they  have  ceased  to  see,. 
and  Nature,  who  for  once  has  sung  in  tune,  sings  her  exquisite 
song  to  the  artist  alone,  her  son  and  her  master — her  son  in 
that  he  loves  her,  her  master  in  that  he  knows  her.  To  him 
her  secrets  are  unfolded,  to  him  her  lessons  have  become 
gradually  clear.  He  looks  at  her  flower,  not  with  the  enlarging 
lens,  that   he   may  gather   facts   for    the  botanist,  but   with   the 


LArt.\ 

Whistler  :   Pablo  Sarasate. 
(JBy  permission  of  ihg  Artist.) 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Parit:  Boussod'Vatadon.'j 

Whistler:   ''Harmony  in  Grey  and  Green:  The  Ocean. ** 
{By  pgrmisaum  of  tht  ArtiaL) 

light  of  the  one  who  sees   in   her  choice  selection   of  brilliant 
tones  and  delicate  tints  suggestions  of  future  harmonies." 

Everything  that  Whistler  has  produced,  his  portraits  as  well 
as  his  landscapes,  emanate  from  this  aristocratic  sentiment  of  art 
Millais  is  different  from  Bonnat,  Bonnat  from  Wauters,  and 
Wauters  again  from  Lenbach,  but  they  have  all  one  element 
in  common :  in  portraits  they  depict  men  and  women  in  all 
their  massive,  corporeal  heaviness.  They  place  their  models 
straight  before  them,  and  there  is  not  a  wrinkle  or  a  hair  that 
escapes  their  remorseless  vision.  Whistler's  figures,  also,  have  a 
convincing  air  of  life ;  the  drawing  and  modelling  are  correct, 
and  infinitely  soft  and  delicate.  But  they  never  have  the  look 
of  being  uncanny  doubles  of  nature.  They  are  like  dreamy 
visions  passing  before  one's  fancy.  Millais  knows  nothing  of 
selection,  and  copies  the  model ;  but  the  whole  art  of  Japan 
lies   in   the  principle  of   selection,   and    it    taught    Whistler    to 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         657 

select  His  drawing  never 
dwells  upon  what  is  sub- 
ordinate or  anecdotic  ;  he 
is  engrossed  with  the 
decisive  lines  which  cha- 
racterize a  gesture  and 
lend  it  rhythm.  Moreover 
the  piquant  froufrou  of 
modern  toilettes,  to  which 
Besnard  and  Sargent  owe 
their  successes,  is  no  affair 
of  his.  Although  the 
costume  belongs  to  the 
present  day,  it  is  simpli- 
fied and  transposed  into 
the  grand  style,  as  Ver- 
rochio  simplified  when  he 
executed  the  armour  of 
Colleoni.  And  as  he  de- 
spises coquettish,  rustling 
folds  of  drapery,  he  avoids 
all  pronounced  colours.  The  mysterious  redness  of  a  rose  upon 
the  soft  black  of  a  dress  and  the  white  patch  of  a  picture  upon 
a  wall  are  his  only  brighter  attractions  of  colour.  Amongst 
portrait-painters  of  the  present  time  Whistler  stands  as  Millet 
does  amongst  the  painters  of  the  peasantry.  There  is  style  in 
all  his  work,  and  it  is  all  simple,  earnest,  and  grandiose.  Even 
the  subdued  light  enveloping  his  figures  like  a  veil  serves,  in 
the  first  place,  a  purpose  of  style — enables  him  to  avoid  every- 
thing indifferent,  and  to  bring  into  his  picture  only  the  principal 
values,  the  great  lines,  the  "  living  points."  In  this  way  there 
is  produced  in  his  works  an  effect  in  the  highest  sense  decora- 
tive, and  at  the  same  time  mysterious.  Divested  of  everything 
paltry  or  material,  his  figures  seem  like  phantoms.  They  have 
lost  their  shadows :  shadows  indeed  themselves,  they  live  in 
a  delicate  ashen-grey  milieu  ;  they  are  almost  immaterial,  as  if 
set    free    from    the    weight  of   the  body;    they  hover  between 


Paris:  Boussod-Vatadon.] 

Whistler:  *' Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold: 

The  Falling  Rocket." 

{By  ptrmUaioH  of  iks  ArtisL) 


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6s8  MODERN  PAINTING 

earth  and  heaven,  like  a  breath  that  has  been  compressed  and 
will  soon  dissolve  once  more  as  swiftly  as  it  took  shape.  They 
remind  the  spectator  of  what  is  told  of  spiritualistic  stances  \ 
spaces  in  the  air  are  seen  to  compress  themselves  ;  the  spirit 
is  materialized  and  takes  bodily  shape,  and  stands  before  us 
infinitely  calm,  a  reflective  being  with  a  meditative  or  a  gravely 
self-conscious  mien,  just  like  a  human  being,  and  divested  of 
all  substance. 

The  portrait  of  little  Miss  Alexander  was  one  of  his  earliest 
and  most  characteristic  works.  The  fair-haired  girl,  dressed 
as  a  Spanish  infanta,  advances  towards  the  spectator,  with  a 
large  hat  in  her  hand.  Her  costume  runs  through  the  entire 
gamut  of  Velasquez'  grey,  and  certain  details  of  the  toilette 
merely  serve  to  keep  these  shades  apart  or  accentuate  them 
more  sharply — for  instance  the  black  shoes,  the  black  feather 
in  her  hat,  and  the  black  scarf  of  her  dress — whilst  her  blond 
hair,  falling  lightly  down,  is  likewise  bound  by  a  black  ribbon 
in  the  manner  of  Velasquez.  But  the  spray  of  white  marguerites 
in  the  corner  of  the  room  is  Japanese  in  its  effect,  and 
the  wall-paper  Japanese,  and  the  white  kerchief  embroidered 
with  gold  which  lies  upon  the  floor,  standing  out  against  the 
wall. 

In  his  portrait  of  his  mother,  taken  in  profile,  she  is  sitting 
in  a  black  gown,  motionless  and  dreamy,  in  that  tranquillity 
common  with  old  people,  which  seems  so  calm,  and  which  yet 
holds  such  a  throng  of  memories.  Her  face  is  pale,  and  no 
gesture,  no  loud  word,  disturbs  the  subtilty  of  her  thoughts.  A 
few  black  and  grey  silvery  tones  achieve  an  enigmatical  and 
almost  mystical  effect.  At  the  same  time  there  is  a 
simplicity  in  the  tones,  a  harmony  and  a  largeness,  such  as  only 
the  greatest  artists  have  displayed. 

Thomas  Carlyle,  also,  he  has  painted  in  profile  against  a 
grey  wall,  and  made  such  an  arrangement  of  colour-values  that 
the  spectator  seems  to  hear  a  funeral  march,  played  in  a  minor 
key.  The  chair  on  which  he  is  sitting  is  black;  and  so  are 
the  hat  upon  his  knee,  the  roomy  coat  falling  into  creases,  and 
the  glove  which  he  covers  with    his  hand.     There  is  an   air  of 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         659 

lassitude  in  the  whole  outline:  the  body  is  buried  in  the  thick 
clothes ;  and  the  legs,  crossed  over  each  other,  are  hidden 
beneath  a  great-coat  lying  across  them.  His  head,  which  has 
a  corpse-like  pallor,  inclines  wearily  towards  the  left  shoulder. 
The  untrimmed  beard  and  the  long  hair  are  grey,  the  eyes 
half-closed,  half-watchful,  the  features  grave  and  resigned, 
although  touched  with  a  bitter  trace  of  melancholy.  The 
atmosphere  enveloping  the  tall,  spare  figure  is  in  harmony  with 
this  effect :  it  has  not  that  yellowish-green  which  appears  in 
the  portrait  of  Miss  Alexander;  on  the  contrary,  the  day  is 
dark  and  dreary,  like  the  mists  rising  from  the  Thames;  it  is 
a  wintry  Lx)ndon  day,  at  the  hour  of  gathering  dusk,  when 
life  fades,  and  the  night  lowers  its  shadowy  pinions  upon  the 
earth.  An  engraving  hangs  on  the  wall  in  a  black  frame,  like 
an   announcement  of  a  death  surrounded  by  a  black  border. 

The  portrait  of  Theodore  Duret  was  an  arrangement  in 
black  and  red.  The  well-known  critique  d* avant-garde  is  standing 
dressed  for  a  ball,  in  correct  and  fashionable  garb,  with  a  rose- 
coloured  domino  with  black  lace  upon  his  arm  and  a  fiery  red 
fan  in  his  gloved  hand.  In  the  portrait  of  Pablo  Sarasate, 
painted  in  1885,  the  violinist  emerges  out  of  misty  greyish- 
black  darkness,  holding  his  violin  in  one  hand  and  his  bow 
in  the  other.  He  is  in  evening  clothes,  entirely  in  black  except 
for  his  shirt  and  tie,  and  in  the  dark  atmosphere  his  expressive 
hands  acquire  a  sensitive,  phantom-like  animation.  His  figure 
looks  as  though  it  were  floating  into  another  world  or  coming 
from  a  far  distance  beyond.  The  usual  distinctness  of  objects 
is  entirely  banished  from  these  portraits. 

And  in  Whistler's  landscapes,  too,  the  eyes  are  hardly  led 
in  a  greater  degree  to  rest  upon  the  forms  of  things.  It  might 
be  said  that  he  liberates  beings  and  objects  from  the  opaque 
garment  in  which  their  spirit  is  imprisoned,  penetrating  by  the 
intuition  of  genius  to  their  pure  essence,  to  that  which  is  alone 
worthy  of  being  retained.  And  just  as  he  conceives  the  people 
whom  he  depicts  rather  as  groups  of  colour  than  arrangements 
in  line,  aiming  at  effect  of  tone  without  troubling  himself  about 
indifferent  details  of  draughtsmanship,  so  in   his  landscapes  the 


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€6o  MODERN  PAINTING 

bodily   presence  of  nature  is  merely  the  necessary  condition  of 
a  mood  which  is  felt  with  astonishing  refinement 

The  impression  which  the  artist  desires  to  arrest  is,  for 
instance,  that  of  moonshine  upon  a  clear  night  He  takes  the 
bank  of  a  river  as  his  subject,  because  he  needs  some  sort  of 
motive  as  a  vehicle  for  colour,  but  the  motive  in  itself  has  no 
signification  whatever,  and  for  this  reason  the  lines  are  scarcely 
distinguishable.  What  attracts  him  is  merely  the  combination 
of  colours — a  combination  in  black  and  gold,  in  blue  and  gold, 
or  in  silver  and  blue,  which  is  only  intended  to  render  a  general 
impression  of  the  transparency  and  poetry  of  nature.  And 
merely  through  presenting  such  pictorial  ideas — pictorial  in  the 
purest  sense  of  the  word — painting,  according  to  Whistler,  is 
as  free  an  art  as  music.  The  final  consummation,  the  highest 
summit  of  this  art,  will  be  reached,  as  he  believes,  when  there 
is  a  public  which  will  make  no  demand  for  definite  subjects, 
but  be  content  with  tones  and  harmonious  combinations  of 
colour.  There  will  be  no  longer  figures  or  landscapes,  but 
merely  notes  of  colour,  just  as  in  Wj^nerian  music  harmonious 
tone,  apart  from  all  melodious  form,  has  an  independent 
organic  life  of  its  own.  And  this  is  why  he  borrows  the  titles 
of  his  pictures  from  music,  describing  them  as  Op.  i,  etc,  like 
a  composer.  If  the  **  motive"  of  a  picture  consists  of  the 
combination  of  two  or  more  dominant  colours,  arranged  in  a 
melodious  system,  he  calls  it  a  "harmony"  or  "arrangement" 
of  the  tones  which  form  the  most  important  part  of  the  scale. 
But  where  a  single  colour  gives  the  ground-tone,  the  motive 
is  called  a  note  in  orange,  a  little  note  in  grey,  a  note  in  blue 
and  opaL  The  "note"  is,  as  it  were,  the  key  in  which  the 
other  tones  are  harmonized. 

The  mystical  shrouds  of  night,  dissolving  all  contours,  so 
that  only  tones  are  recognizable,  have  naturally  a  special  part 
to  play  in  these  symphonies.  No  one  has  gazed  with  a  more 
reverent  tremor  of  awe  into  the  infinite  darkness  than  Whistler, 
no  one  has  looked  with  more  overwhelming  sentiment  at  the 
silent  stars  eternally  rolling  through  the  pale  firmament  and 
girdling  our  little  world.     He  paints  the   boundless  expanse  of 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         66  r 

the  sea,  the  ships  that  rock  there  helplessly,  the  rhythm  of  the 
long  waves,  and  the  soft  blue  light  flooding  the  sonorous  silence 
of  the  world  like  a  breath  from  beyond  the  grave.  He  celebrates 
the  blue,  transparent  dusk  which  rests  over  the  earth  immediately 
before  sunrise  or  sunset,  the  wavering  lights  of  sleeping  towns,, 
and  the  measureless  expanse  of  sombre  mist,  where  human 
forms  are  seen  to  emerge  for  a  moment  But  he  has  also 
occupied  himself  a  great  deal  with  artificial  effects  of  lights 
especially  displays  of  fireworks :  rockets  mounting  in  long  lines 
and  turning  high  overhead  into  serpents,  which  rise  into  the 
sky  to  burst  with  a  crash,  or  bodies  of  light,  trembling  in  the 
air  like  great,  dim  spheres,  and  sinking  slowly  in  a  crown  of 
many-coloured  stars,  like  a  soft  and  spherical  shower  of  gold. 
All  Whistler's  landscapes  are  harmonies  and  symphonies  of  this 
sort — whether  in  green,  in  red,  in  grey,  in  blue  and  silver,  in 
blue  and  gold,  in  silver  and  violet,  in  violet  and  rose-colour,  in 
rose-colour  and  black,  in  mallow-colour  and  silver,  or  in  black 
and  gold.  He  saw  them  wherever  he  was  led  by  his  restless 
spirit,  in  Holland,  Dieppe,  Jersey,  Havre,  Honfleur,  Liverpool, 
London,  especially  Chelsea,  Paris,  and  Venice — above  all  in 
Venice,  the  phantom  city,  the  Venice  of  dreamland,  where  his 
harmonious  art  has  its  special  home,  and  his  brush  and  etching- 
pen  are  familiar  with  all  the  streets,  canals,  and  barks. 

Etching,  as  Rembrandt  showed,  permits  the  artist  to  create 
a  dreamy  world  of  sentiment,  light,  and  poetry  far  more  readily 
than  painting.  It  was  not  by  chance,  therefore,  that  Whistler^ 
the  great  composer  of  symphonic  tones,  made  it  his  medium  also, 
and  became  a  master  of  etching  with  whom  no  other  artist  of 
the  present  age  can  be  compared  His  first  plates,  views  of 
Venice  and  the  Thames,  date  back  to  1850,  and  even  then  he 
used  all  technical  resources  indiscriminately  in  giving  form  to 
his  visions.  At  the  present  time  his  work  in  etching,  according 
to  the  catalogue  published  by  Frederick  Wedmore,  comprises 
two  hundred  and  fourteen  plates,  and  four  larger  series — ^**  The 
Little  French  Set"  of  1858,  "The  Thames  Set"  of  1871, 
"Venice,"  executed  in  1880,  and  "Venice,  Second  Series/'  in 
1887.     More    or    less    excepting    the   masterpieces  of    Seymour 


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662  MODERN  PAINTING 

Haden,  these  plates  are  the  finest  and  most  original  work  that 
modern  etching  has  to  show.  The  last  views  from  Venice,  in 
particular,  perhaps  excel  all  his  other  works  in  flexibility  and 
intimate  feeling  for  nature.  Since  Rembrandt,  no  artist  has 
attempted  to  render  so  much  with  so  little  work — or  what  seems 
so  little — and  such  little  means.  Here  also  he  is  only  engrossed 
with  what  is  expressive  and  characteristic,  which  with  him 
means  what  is  subtile,  fleeting,  delicate,  and  veiled  as  though 
by  night. 

Like  the  Japanese  landscapes,  those  of  Whistler  are  places 
of  dreamland,  landscapes  of  the  mind,  summoned  with  closed 
eyes,  and  set  free  from  everything  coarse  and  material, 
breathed  upon  the  picture  and  encompassed  with  mysteries. 
Like  the  Japanese,  but  with  brilliant  refinements  such  as  never 
occurred  even  to  the  greatest  painters,  this  wonderful  harmonist 
has  the  art  of  simplifying  and  rendering  all  things  spiritual, 
whilst  he  retains  the  mere  essence  of  forms,  and  of  colours  only 
what  is  transient,  subtile,  and  musical. 

Most  interesting  results  were  also  compassed  by  Whistler 
when  he  transferred  these  principles  to  decorative  painting. 
He  has  decorated  with  such  arrangements  of  colour  various 
houses  in  London ;  while  in  Paris  the  music-room  of  his 
friend  Sarasate  is  one  of  his  earliest  creations— an  arrange- 
ment in  white  and  clove-coloured  yellow,  which  is  extended 
to  all  the  furniture.  In  Mr.  Leyland's  house  in  London,  that 
famous  mansion  where  the  most  beautiful  works  of  the  Pre- 
raphaelites  were  gathered  together  with  those  of  their  predecessors 
from  the  fifteenth  century,  the  "peacock-room"  is  his  work: 
at  the  narrower  ends  of  the  room  two  large  peacocks,  spreading 
out  their  tails  and  prepared  to  fight,  are  represented,  first  in 
blue  upon  a  gold  ground  and  then  in  gold  upon  a  blue  ground ; 
the  decoration  of  the  longer  sides  of  the  room  is  also  a  harmony 
in  blue  and  gold,  the  motive  of  which  is  composed  by  the 
blue  tail-feathers  and  the  iridescent  golden  plumage  around 
the  necks  of  peacocks.  And  a  delightful,  musical,  and  luxuriously 
pictorial  effect  is  achieved  without  the  assistance  of  any  kind 
of  definite  subject-matter. 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


663 


Paris:  Bous30ci'l>^aladon,] 

Adolphe  Montxcblu. 


As  regards 
modern  art,  Whistler 
is  painter  par  ex- 
cellence. While  the 
New  Idealism 
reached  the  highest 
summit  of  intelli- 
gence with  the  Pre- 
raphaelites,  it  here 
created  a  style  of 
painting  which,  as 
far  as  possible,  made 
a  renunciation  of 
form,  seeking  its 
effects  in  the  musical 
chime  of  colours. 
For    Whistler's    art 

marks,  as  it  were,  the  ultimate  consummation  of  the  efforts 
which  were  begun  by  the  artists  of  Fontainebleau.  The  old 
schools  looked  to  the  lines  of  objects  and  clothed  them  with 
colour.  After  Constable  the  new  schools  merely  painted  the 
soft  crepuscular  effects  and  fine  chromatic  suggestions  which 
are  really  observed  by  the  eye,  and  at  the  same  tim«  they 
abandoned  the  completion  of  the  abstract  outline.  Corot  went 
still  further.  With  him  began  the  purely  poetic  conception  of 
the  values  of  light,  the  conception  which  gives  a  free  descrip- 
tion of  nature.  But  in  Whistler  this  symphonic  development 
of  tone-value  has  become  a  designed  and  clearly  motived  art. 
For  him  the  material  element  in  nature  is  merely  the  basis 
for  an  independent  elaboration  of  chromatic  values  which  have 
been  felt  in  an  entirely  subjective  manner.  His  pictures  have 
been  emancipated  altogether  from  the  conception  of  the  draughts- 
man, and  are  purely  pictorial.  In  this  way  he  shows  himself 
to  be  the  haughtiest  product  of  the  realistic  school,  the  very 
opposite  of  the  old  painters,  whom,  in  his  endeavour  to  com- 
pass beauty  of  tone,  he  nevertheless  resembles.  It  was  only 
after  Impressionism    had    broken   with  the    mere  draughtsman's 


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664 


MODERN  PAINTING 


conception  of  objects 
and  the  golden  tone 
of  the  old  masters, 
and  discovered  the 
medium  of  new 
harmonies  in  the 
surrounding  atmo- 
sphere, that  the 
direct  truth  of 
colour  and  expres- 
sion aimed  at  by  the 
Impressionists  could 
be  brought  to  that 
refinement  of  style 
and  subjective  con- 
ception of  colour 
which  culminates  in 
beauty  and  pro- 
fundity of  tone. 

For  a  long  time 
Whistler  had  a 
strange  comrade  in 
his  efforts  in  Monti- 
celli^  that  magician 
in  colour  born  in  Marseilles.  The  difference  between  them  is 
that  Whistler  uses  a  delicate,  graduated  scale  which  seeks 
harmony  in  the  agreement  of  complementary  colours,  whereas 
Monticelli  only  worked  with  pure,  sharply  defined  hues,  standing 
in  opposition  and  mutually  intensifying  one  another,  to  reach 
ultimately  a  higher  effect  But  in  the  most  essential  point  they 
were  at  one,  for  both  agreed  that  only  problems  of  chromatic 
harmony  should  hold  sway  in  painting,  and  that  the  literary 
element,  as  it  is  called,  should  be  thrown  altogether  on  one  side. 
Sainte-Beuve  long  cherished  the  idea  of  erecting  a  temple 
to  the  neglected  and  misunderstood — '^  aux  artistes  qui  nant 
pas  brilUf  aux  amants  qui  tiont  pas  aimi^  a  cette  ilite  infinie 
que    ne    visitirent  jamais    Foccasion^    le    bonheur   ou    la   gloire^ 


Pari9:  BoHssod-ValadoM,} 

MoNTicELu:  "A  Spring  Morning.* 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


665 


MoNTiCELLi :   "  An  Italian  Festival," 

Adolphe  Monticelli  would  be  accorded  one  of  the  first  places 
amongst  them.  Born  on  October  14th,  1824,  in  Marseilles, 
whither  his  family  had  migrated  from  Italy,  he  had  been 
trained  in  the  school  of  art  belonging  to  that  town,  and  he  betook 
himself  to  Paris  in  the  middle  of  the  forties.  There  his  friend- 
ship with  Diaz  was  of  assistance  to  him,  as  it  brought  him 
quickly  into  connection  with  picture-dealers  and  purchasers. 
He  had  no  need  to  fight  for  his  existence,  worked  with  facility, 
and  sold  many  of  his  pictures.  In  the  inviting  studio  which 
he  built  for  himself  he  had  a  fancy  for  living  like  an  old 
Venetian,  dressing  in  splendid  velvet  costumes,  and  wearing  a 
large  grey  Rubens  hat.  Towards  the  close  of  the  Second  Empire 
he  was  on  the  road  to  fame.  His  painting  ^yas  prized  in 
England  and  America.  Napoleon  III.  bought  pictures  from  him. 
Daubigny,  Troyon,  and  even  Delacroix  gave  vent  to  their 
astonishment  at  the  liquid  splendour  of  his  colour  ;  and  great 
things  were  expected  of  him  amongst  painters.  Then  came 
the  events  of  1870.  To  avoid  the  agitation  of  the  siege 
Monticelli  repaired  to  his  native  town,  and  once  there,  he 
remained  in  Marseilles  until  his  death  in  1886,  without  any- 
thing that  his  friends  could  say  persuading  him  to  return  to 
VOL.  III.  43 


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^66  MODERN  PAINTING 

Paris.  He  had  no  ambition,  never  troubled  his  head  about 
criticism  or  exhibitions,  and  the  conception  of  fame  existed 
for  him  no  longer.  Every  evening  he  was  seen  walking  through 
the  town  with  a  dignified  gait,  holding  in  each  hand  a  small 
wooden  panel  covered  with  colours,  which  he  disposed  of  to  a 
dealer  at  a  moderate  price.  His  whole  lodging  consisted  of  one 
room,  with  a  bed,  an  easel,  and  two  chairs.  The  only  thing  he 
valued  was  the  large  red  silk  curtain  over  the  window,  which 
served  to  bathe  the  whole  room  in  purple,  the  colour  which 
the  old  painter  specially  loved.  His  conversation  was  quaint, 
being  studded  with  phrases  which  he  made  up  for  his  own 
personal  employment,  and,  on  account  of  this  strange  and  often 
unintelligible  idiom,  his  neighbours  used  to  regard  him  as  mad 
in  the  extreme.  One  of  his  manias  was  that  he  had  once 
lived  in  Venice  at  the  time  of  Titian.  And  if  he  was  in  any 
society  where  the  name  of  Delacroix  chanced  to  be  mentioned, 
he  invariably  took  off  his  hat  with  an  expression  of  solemnity 
on  his  face.  All  music  sent  him  quite  wild  with  delight, 
especially  that  of  the  gipsies,  and  if  he  went  to  a  concert 
where  it  was  played,  he  always  rushed  home  at  once,  lit  all 
the  candles,  and  painted  as  long  as  he  could  hold  the  brush. 
In  appearance  he  is  said  to  have  been  a  handsome  old  man, 
walking  with  a  large,  impressive  stride,  and  having  a  grave, 
majestic  countenance,  thick  white  hair,  and  a  long  beard, 
-which  fell  deep  upon  his  chest. 

Monticelli's  pictures  are  gipsy  music  transposed  into  the 
medium  of  paint.  In  his  first  period  he  possessed  a  very 
strict  sense  of  observation.  There  are  landscape  studies  of 
his  in  which  he  reproduced  accurately  the  simplest  impressions 
<A  nature.  He  painted  the  country  in  its  workaday  garb : 
lonely  farms  where  hens  are  pecking  or  donkeys  seem  absorbed 
in  philosophic  contemplation  before  the  manger.  Yet  such 
studies  from  nature,  together  with  a  few  portraits,  are  rare 
exceptions  in  his  work.  His  leading  quality  is  the  creation  of 
a  marvellously  luxuriant  fantasia  of  colours,  a  most  decorative 
■command  of  effect.  The  simplest  sensation  is  transformed  in 
his  brain   into  a  brilliant  spectacle.      A    landscape,   a  sheaf  of 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         667 

sunbeams,  a  reflection,  a  patch  of  variegated  cloth,  acted  upon 
liim  like  hasheesh,  and  was  followed  by  visions  of  colour 
mounting  like  a  rocket.  When  walking,  he  is  said  to  have  been 
often  beside  himself  with  excitement  over  a  flower,  or  the. 
stem  of  a  tree  upon  which  the  sun  was  playing.  At  first  he 
stood  under  the  sway  of  his  age.  The  brown  bituminous  tone 
in  which  he  harmonized  everything  betrays  his  allegiance  to 
the  Romantic  school  But  in  later  days,  when  he  left  Paris, 
his  colour  became  fresh,  liquid,  and  pure.  The  drawing  is  con- 
fined to  summary  suggestions.  The  figures  have  lost  their 
lines  and  simply  make  the  effect  of  masses.  They  merely 
«erve  to  separate  the  exuberant  colours,  and  compose  glittering 
-combinations  of  tone  through  their  grouping.  Yet  it  is  just 
in  these  compositions  which  seem  half  chaotic  to  the  mind  that 
he  has  displayed  all  the  astonishing  witchery  of  his  colours, 
rearing  the  most  wonderful  and  fabulous  structures  with  plants, 
-clouds,  costumes,  and  human  beings. 

Upon  a  fantastic  stage,  whence  a  dazzling  light  casts  its 
radiance  far  and  wide,  little  figures  in  green,  blue,  red,  and 
yellow  dresses  are  seen  to  move.  Young  pages  wave  gay 
banners  or  trail  huge  wreaths.  Musicians  hold  their  instruments 
in  their  hands.  Gay  and  gorgeous  lamps  painted  with  birds 
and  flowers  shed  a  reddish  light  In  the  foregjround  upon 
the  mosaic  floor  lie  variegated  carpets,  and  ladies  robed  in 
purple  silk  are  seated  upon  banks  of  moss,  smiling  as  they 
watch  the  spectacle.  Or  a  triumphal  arch  rises  in  a  dark 
-clearing  of  the  forest.  Roses,  lilies,  and  pinks  grow  luxuri- 
antly around  the  black  socles.  Youths  cast  in  bronze  hold 
burning  torches  in  their  uplifted  hands,  while  from  the  left 
approaches  a  splendid  chariot  drawn  by  black  horses.  And 
in  it  sits  a  haughty  female  figure,  whose  cherry-coloured 
mantle  flutters  high  in  the  air.  Cavaliers  in  puffed  velvet 
curvet  proudly  behind.  Or  at  the  foot  of  a  mountain  decorated 
for  a  festivity  large  bonfires  are  being  set  ablaze.  The 
flames  mount  wildly  through  the  mist  Yellow  and  violet 
-clouds  chase  each  other  restlessly  across  the  firmament  In 
the  background   a  rosy  shining  fortress,  with   battlements    and 


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668  MODERN  PAINTING 

spires,  is  visible  upon  a  huge  black  cone ;  in  the  foreground 
girls  have  trooped  together — some  of  them  naked,  and  others 
clad  in  garments  of  brick-red  silk — while  they  carry  on  their 
sports  in  a  varied  medley  of  colour,  or  stand  motionless, 
gazing  in  open-mouthed  wonder  at  the  blazing  flames.  Or 
else  a  gorgeous  bark  glides  over  a  lake.  Great  swans 
splash  in  the  water  near  it,  their  splendid  pinions  shining  in 
the  sunlight  At  the  side  a  white  marble  flight  of  steps, 
washed  by  the  dark  blue  waves,  leads  to  a  polished  pave- 
ment, where  ladies  and  cavaliers  move  to  and  fro  in  conver- 
sation, served  by  pages  in  black  embroidered  with  silver.  Or 
the  sky  is  lowering.  A  blue  dusk  pours  like  moonlight  over 
the  earth.  Glowworms,  butterflies,  and  strange  birds  with 
glittering  gold  plumage  hover  mysteriously  through  the  night 
In  the  foreground  are  girls  treading  a  gay  measure  upon  the 
emerald  meadow.  They  have  wound  tendrils  round  neck  and 
breast,  placed  crowns  of  blossom  upon  their  fair  rippling  hair,, 
and  wave  long  fans  of  palm  before  them. 

In  all  these  works  Monticelli  appears  as  an  artiste  in- 
complete  The  majority  of  the  figures  which  give  animation  to 
his  scenes  are  clumsily  drawn.  They  are  not  planted  well 
upon  their  feet,  and  move  automatically  like  awkward 
marionnettes.  But  the  suggestive  power  of  his  painting  is  very 
great.  Everywhere  there  are  swelling  chords  of  colour  which 
move  the  spirit  before  the  theme  of  the  picture  has  been 
recognized.  He  revels  in  the  festal  adornments  of  Veronese 
and  the  rich  garments  of  Titian  with  the  carelessness  of  a 
child.  The  whole  universe  he  bathes  in  a  deep  glow.  Through 
the  sheer  suggestiveness  of  colour  and  without  any  kind  of 
geographical  or  archaeological  researches,  he  has  the  secret  of 
conjuring  up  a  landscape,  a  bygone  century,  an  era  of  civili- 
zation :  the  East  or  the  Italy  of  Petrarch,  the  Provencal 
courts  of  love  or  the  fites  galantes  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  has  a  wonderful  feeling  for  the  secret  threads  which 
connect  certain  colours  with  certain  phases  of  sentiment  He 
unites  deep  blue  robes,  emerald  lakes,  rosy  skies,  and  purple 
mountains    in    combinations    sparkling  with    colour.      He    saw 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         669 

•everything  in  a  motley  dream  of  colour.  Amongst  his  sober 
contemporaries  he  has  the  effect  of  a  brilliant  patch  of  colour, 
a  shining  abnormity,  a  pallet  where  the  most  decided  colours 
are  widely  intermingled.  Yet  a  new  beauty  lay  implicit  in 
his  works.  No  one  before  him  had  so  boldly  announced  the 
absolutism   of  colour. 

In  his  lifetime  Monticelli  exerted  no  influence  ;  his  pictures 
were  too  grotesque  for  critics  and  too  incomplete  for  amateurs. 
It  was  only  made  evident  a  short  time  ago  that  his  efforts 
were  not  without  consequences,  and  that  a  whole  band  of 
artists,  possessing  an  astonishingly  forceful  individuality,  had 
based  themselves  upon  the  same  principles,  and  done  so  with 
such  inherent  power  and  audacity  that  Monticelli's  works 
seemed  almost  like  diffident  experiments  in  comparison  with 
theirs.  Mingle  Whistler's  refinement  with  Monticelli's  glow  of 
colour  and  his  wayward  Japanese  method,  and  the  Boys  of 
Glasgow  are  the  result. 

Since  the  year  1729,  when  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke  was 
founded  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland  had  formed  an  independent 
province  in  British  painting ;  and  it  is  only  due  to  the  remote- 
ness of  the  country  that  the  artists  who  laboured  during  the 
following  years  on  the  far  side  of  the  forest  of  the  Picts  did 
not  attain  the  same  European  celebrity  as  their  English  com- 
rades. Allan  Ramsay,  one  of  the  very  founders  of  this  guild, 
^as  a  masterly  portrait-painter  who  had  learnt  much  from 
Rembrandt,  and  comes  close  to  Reynolds  in  the  blooming  tone 
of  his  likenesses.  It  must  be  admitted  that  his  follower,  David 
Allan,  began  in  Rome  with  an  "Invention  of  Drawing" — now 
in  the  Edinburgh  National  Gallery — which  looks  like  a  Rotari 
laboured  at  with  a  view  to  style,  but  when  he  returned  home 
he  emancipated  himself  from  the  classic  system.  He  illustrated 
Ramsay's  Gentle  Shepherdy  became  absorbed  in  Scotch  ballad 
poetry,  and  beheld  the  grave,  solemn  forms  of  the  Scotch  High- 
land mountains  with  the  eyes  of  a  Romanticist.  The  two 
brothers  Alexander  and  John  Runciman  are  more  or  less  of  a 
parallel  to  Henry  Fuseli,  and  illustrated  Shakespeare  and 
Homer  after  his    fashion.      Their    pictures    have    a   tempestuous 


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Harvey  :  "  The  Covenanters'  Preaching.** 
{By  p4rmisBion  of  tlu  Corporation  of  GUugoWt  the  owmers  of  th€  picturt.) 

force  of  imagination,  and  are  painted  in  deep  brown  and 
dark  blue  tones.  William  Allan  became  celebrated  in  St 
Petersburg,  and  in  later  years  attracted  so  much  attention 
in  his  own  country  by  his  "grand  art"  that  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  Scotch  Academy  in  1838.  In  Henry  Raebum 
Edinburgh  possessed  the  boldest  and  most  virile  of  all  British 
portrait-painters,  a  master  of  great  plastic  power  and  an  im- 
pressiveness  suggesting  Velasquez,  While  Reynolds  composed 
his  pictures  in  refined  tones  reminiscent  of  the  old  masters, 
Raeburn  painted  his  models  under  a  trenchant  light  from  above. 
The  most  glaring  hues  of  red  official  robes,  green  Highland 
bodices,  and  gowns  of  more  than  one  colour  are  placed  beside 
one  another  firmly,  quietly,  and  confidently  without  gradation, 
and  at  the  same  time  brought  into  harmony.  That  admirable 
genre  painter  David  Wilkie  soon  afterwards  acquired  a  European 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


671 


\,Broih*n  photo  ««. 


Alexander  Nasmyth:  Landscape. 
(By  permission  of  tht  Corporation  of  Manchtsttr^  tkt  ovonmrs  of  the  picturt,) 

name.  While  /oAn  and  Thomas  Faed  continued  Wilkie*s 
innocent  art,  bringing  it  down  to  the  present  time  ;  Erskim 
Nicol  applied  Ostade*s  golden  tone  to  incidents  of  Irish  life  ; 
and  Sir  George  Harvey^  President  of  the  Edinburgh  Academy 
from  1864,  became  a  Scotch  Defregger,  and  one  whose  pictures 
were  widely  circulated  in  copper-engraving. 

Landscape-painting  began  with  Alexander  Nasmyth,  who 
goes,  more  or  less,  upon  parallel  lines  with  Old  Crome,  the 
English  Hobbema.  His  son,  Patrick  Nasmyth,  became  more 
celebrated,  and  is,  indeed,  a  painter  for  lovers  of  art,  and  one 
whose  pictures  hold  their  ground  by  the  side  of  good  old 
Dutch  paintings.  Edmund  Thornton  Crawford  took  a  step  in 
advance  like  Constable  in  England.  His  works,  which  are 
pungent  in  execution  although  grave  in  sentiment,  are  the 
earliest  which  showed  emancipation  from  the  tone  of  the  old 
masters,   the    earliest   which    displayed    vigorous    observation    of 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


m.                  ' 

L^                   '         " 

-•^\1 

^j^i(^'Cr*-t^ 

,s^^  ^A*ii\  ■•< 

Portfolio.^  iJi/uad  sc. 

Pettie  :  "  Dost  know  this  Water-fly  ?  '* 


the  nature  of  the 
atmosphere.  Horatio 
Maccullock  awakened 
an  enthusiasm  for 
the  Scotch  mountain 
landscape,  which  he 
was  the  first  to 
render  in  its  marvel- 
lous depth  of  tone. 
The  effort  to  attain 
a  vivid  scale  of  light 
has  often  led  him, 
however,  into  empty 
bravura  painting. 
His  clouds  have  a 
greater  intensity  of 
steel-blue  and  his 
lakes  are  more 
purple  than  is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the 
case  even  in  rich- 
toned  Scotland.  Yet 
because  later  artists 


followed  his  tendency  towards  richness  of  tone  with  more 
earnestness  and  a  greater  love  of  truth,  he  has  certainly  fulfilled 
the  part  of  an  initiator  of  importance. 

With  John  Phillip  this  local  isolation  of  Scotch  art  came  to 
an  end.  Just  as  in  the  previous  generation  Wilkie,  who  was  a 
Scotchman,  had  stood  at  the  head  of  British  genre  painting, 
Phillip,  who  was  also  a  Scotchman,  put  an  end  to  this  narrative 
genre  painting,  after  he  had  once  acquired  a  pictorial  sense  of 
vision  in  the  Museo  del  Prado.  The  tone  of  his  pictures  is 
deep,  the  colour  luminous,  the  method  of  painting  broad  and 
virile,  betraying  the  influence  of  Velasquez.  Robert  Scott  Lauder^ 
who  was  a  teacher  at  the  Academy  from  1850,  added  a  know- 
ledge of  Delacroix  to  that  of  Velasquez.  He  had  been  five 
years    upon    the   Continent,  had    seen    Titian   and    Giorgione    in 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         673 


Munich  Photographic  Union,] 

Pettie  :   "  Edward  VI.  signing  a  Death-Warrant." 

Italy  and  Rubens  in  Munich,  and  when  he  returned  through 
Paris  in  1838  upon  his  way  to  Scotland,  Delacroix  had  just 
finished  the  pictures  of  the  Luxembourg.  Lauder  communicated 
the  great  Frenchman's  secrets  of  colour  to  his  fellow-country- 
men, who  named  him  the  Scotch  Delacroix  in  gratitude.  But 
so  high  a  reputation  is  not  confirmed  by  Lauder's  pictures. 
His  leading  works  in  the  Edinburgh  Academy,  "  Christ  walking 
on  the  Sea "  and  "  Christ  teaches  Humility,"  certainly  betray 
the  intention  of  resembling  the  brilliant  Romanticist  by  their 
deep  symphonies  of  tone,  but  Delacroix's  spirit  is  not  there. 
Lauder  has  only  been  the  Scotch  Piloty,  and  he  shared  with 
Piloty  the  quality  of  being  an  excellent  teacher.  Almost  all 
the  Scotch  painters  who  have  arisen  since  the  seventies  may 
be  derived  from  him  and  from  Phillip.  Deep  chromatic  har- 
mony was  the  device  they  inscribed  upon  their  banner  under 
the  influence  of  Lauder,  while  John  Phillip  directed  their  glance 
to  chivalrous  Spain. 

/o/in  Pettie,  who  was  born  in  Edinburgh  in  1839  and 
worked  in  London  from  1862  until  his  death  in  1893,  painted 
secluded  corners  where  cavaliers  of  the  seventeenth  century  are 
duelling,   rapiers,   foils,   and    sabres ;    and    in   other    pictures    he 


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Mag.  of  Art. "l  ijonnard  sc. 

W.  Q.  Orchardson  :  Portrait  of 

Himself. 

(By  p^rmissioH  of  the  Artist.) 


shows  the  cause  of  these  affairs : 
modish  beauties  dressed  in  the 
costume  of  the  period  of  Frans 
Hals  walk  between  two  gentle- 
men, pressing  the  hand  of  one 
while  they  smile  upon  the  other. 
There  is  always  a  difference 
between  new  clothes  and  those 
which  have  hung  in  a  museum, 
and  lost  their  life  the  while, 
as  completely  as  the  people  to 
whom  they  once  belonged.  But 
in  Pettie  these  anachronisms 
are  but  little  obvious,  because 
he  combines  with  his  archaeo- 
logical knowledge  an  astonishing 
pictorial  faculty  and  a  notable 
feeling  for  life  and  movement. 
Everything  he  produced  is  liquid  and  blooming,  appetizing  and 
animated.  His  "  Body-Guard,"  painted  in  1884  and  now  in  the 
South  Kensington  Museum,  and  "  Edward  VI.  signing  a  Death- 
Warrant,'*  belonging  to  the  Hamburg  Kunsthalle,  are  both,  in 
particular,  works  with  a  sonorous  glow  of  colour  which  would 
have  delighted  Tintoret.  In  other  works  he  has  not  despised 
the  attraction  of  cool,  silver  tones,  and  has  then  sometimes 
produced  masterpieces  of  the  delicacy  of  Terborg.  Such,  for 
instance,  is  his  **  Challenge,"  in  which  the  bearer  of  the  cartel, 
a  young  man  dressed  in  yellow  silk,  delivers  the  message  to  a 
gentleman  in  silver-grey :  in  point  of  colour  this  is  perhaps 
the  most  delicate  work  produced  in  England  since  Gains- 
borough's "Blue  Boy." 

In  contradistinction  from  Pettie,  who  has  a  preference  for 
the  costumes  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  William 
Orcliardson  usually  borrows  his  subjects  from  the  French  Direc- 
toire  period,  which,  in  its  faintness  of  colour,  is  most  favourable 
to  his  peculiar  method  of  painting.  That  luminous  combination 
of  light   grey   and    delicate  yellow,  which  Pettie  only  attempted 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         675 

in  certain  pictures,  became  Orchardson*s  favourite  scale.  He, 
too,  is  an  accomplished  student  of  the  history  of  manners,  and 
an  ardent  admirer  of  old  costumes.  But  these  dresses  are 
only  the  means  by  which  he  attains  a  finely  calculated  ensemble 
of  colours.  All  his  hues  have  a  distinction  and  delicacy  which 
have  not  been  seen  since  Watteau,  and  all  his  figures  have  a 
confidence  of  gesture  which  bears  witness  to  the  painter  s  own 
refinement. 

His  picture  of  Napoleon  as  a  prisoner  upon  the  Belkrophon 
— a  work  which  is  now  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum — is 
perhaps  the  only  instance  in  which  he  has  treated  a  scene  in 
the  open  air.  All  is  over :  the  triumphs  of  Tilsit,  the  theatrical 
representations  with  the  parterre  of  queens,  the  great  days  of 
Austerlitz,  Jena,  and  Wagram.  Napoleon's  generals  are  dead, 
and  his  old  grenadiers  sleep  beneath  the  sands  of  the  desert  or 
the  icy  plains  of  Russia.  Orchardson  has  represented  in  his 
picture,  simply  and  without  vehemence,  that  impressive  moment 
in  French  history  when  Napoleon  beheld  the  last  point  of  the 
French  coast  vanish  from  his  gaze. 

Otherwise  his  scenes  are  almost  always  laid  in  a  salon 
furnished  in  the  Empire  style,  and  peopled  with  that  elegant 
and  yet  dignified  society  which  lived  in  the  beginning  of  the 
century.  The  theme  of  his  picture  "  The  Queen  of  Swords," 
which  excited  a  great  deal  of  admiration  at  the  Paris  World 
Exhibition  of  1878,  was  a  picturesque  dance  of  the  chivalrous 
age  of  Werther,  and  the  costume,  so  trivial  in  trivial  hands, 
makes  a  chivalrous  and  noble  appearance  in  his.  There  is  a 
high-bred  dignity,  something  like  unapproachable  pride,  io  the 
entire  figfure  of  this  girl,  who  is  stepping  beneath  the  last  pair 
of  crossed  and  sparkling  swords.  In  his  next  picture,  "  Hard 
Hit,"  four  gentlemen  in  the  costume  of  1790  have  been 
playing  cards,  and  one  who  has  lost  everything  has  just  left  his 
seat.  A  picture  exhibited  in  1883,  and  now  in  the  Hamburg 
Kunsthalle,  treated  the  scene  which  Carlyle  has  given  in  his 
History  of  Frederick  the  Greats  the  scene  in  which  Voltaire,  as 
the  guest  of  the  Due  de  Sully,  fell  a  victim  to  the  stratagem 
of  the  Due  de  Rohan,  who,  being  stung  by  Voltaire's  sarcasms. 


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Orchardson:   "The  First  Dance." 
{By  permission  of  Messrs,  DowaUswtU  <S*  Dowdiswells,  the  owners  of  the  copyright.) 

had  him  summoned  from  the  dinner  and  beaten  by  lackeys 
outside.  In  the  exhibition  of  1885  appeared  "The  Salon  of 
Madame  Recamier."  The  actress,  dressed  entirely  in  white,  is 
seated  upon  a  sofa,  amid  a  circle  of  her  adorers,  including 
Foucher,  Prince  Lucien  Bonaparte,  Bemadotte,  and  the  Due 
de  Montmorency.  Farther  away  Talleyrand  and  Brillat-Savarin 
stand  in  conversation  with  Madame  de  Stael.  In  all  these 
pictures  Orchardson  understood  how  to  satisfy  the  great  public 
by  an  accurately  narrated  anecdote,  and  give  delight  to  the 
critical  spectator  by  his  severe  harmonies  of  white  and  brown 
tones. 

Sometimes,  however,  he  has  a  fancy  for  placing  modern  men 
in  evening  clothes,  or  ladies  dressed  for  a  ball,  in  his  fine 
salons  with  their  brown  polished  floors  and  their  stiff  and  cere- 
monious Empire  furniture.  "  The  First  Cloud  "  may  be  specially 
mentioned  as  a  work  of  this  description,  as  well  as  the  two 
counterparts  "  Mariage    de  Convenance "  and    "  Alone  ;  "  and    in 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


677 


^^H 

^H 

R8u 

Munich  Photo/craphic  Union.} 


Orchardson  :   "  Voltaire." 
{By  permission  of  the  Artist.) 

all  these  pictures  he  has  treated  a  little  chapter  from  a  novel 
d  la  Sardou  or  Dumas,  with  great  distinction.  Often  his  pictures 
have  nothing  except  a  light  brown  background,  against  which 
some  very  dark  object  painted  in  warm  colours,  such  as  a  piano 
or  an  organ,  stands  out  with  considerable  effect. 

With  Orchardson  and  Pettie  may  be  associated  other  interest- 
ing painters  who  were  only  less  known  upon  the  Continent 
because  they  left  the  far  North  less  frequently.  One  of  the 
most  refined  pupils  of  Lauder  was  William  Fettes  Douglas^  for 
a  long  time  President  of  the  Scotch  Academy,  an  artist 
whose  works — "  The  Alchemist,"  "  The  Bibliomaniac,"  "  The 
Magician,"  etc. — may  be  most  readily  compared  with  those  of 
Diaz,  so  calm  they  are,  so  pure,  so  readily  recalling  the  old 
masters,  so  full  of  gleaming  luminous  tone. 

The  landscape-painters  are  very  dissimilar  in  the  effect  they 
produce.  Robert  Macgregor  devotes  himself  to  the  observation 
of  the    Scotch    fishing-folk.      His   pictures— for   instance,   "  The 


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Orchardson  :  "  Hard  Hit." 
{.By  ptrmissxon  of  th»  AriUL) 


iChamfroUioH  ae. 


Shrimp-Fishers/*  in  the  Edinburgh  Gallery — contain,  as  a  rule, 
merely  a  group  of  two  or  three  seamen,  with  the  strand,  the 
sky,  and  a  strip  of  distant  sea.  Peter  Graham^  in  whose  works 
the  breath  of  the  Highlands  is  most  felt,  loves  Macculloch's 
deep  and  grave  tones :  the  rough  crags  of  North  Britain,  in  the 
wildest  and  most  tempestuous  weather,  half-shrouded  by  misty 
•clouds  lashed  by  the  storm ;  the  shores  of  the  Highland  lakes ; 
and  raging  Highland  streams,  which  dash  foaming  over  their 
stony  beds.  "  Wandering  Shadows "  and  "  A  Resting-Place  for 
Sea-Birds "  are  characteristic  titles  of  his  pictures.  A  fine 
lyricist,  Thomas  Graham^  revels  in  all  gradations  of  grey,  paints 
the  full,  heavy  brown  of  the  heath,  the  dark  slopes  of  bald 
mountains,  and  the  rich  play  of  colour  in  the  darkling  sky. 
In  the  pictures  of  Hugh  Cameron  expression  is  given  to  a 
more  delicate  side  of  Scotch  art.  He  loves  best  to  paint 
children  playing  by  the  verge  of  clear  lakes — things  such  as 
Israels  painted,  but  different  in  sentiment  and  in  the  harmony 
•of  colour.     In  the   Dutchman   the  clouds  are   usually  grey  and 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         679 


Orchardson:  "Maitre  BIbe.*' 
(JSy  p€rmission  of  tht  Artist,) 


\Jasinski  9C, 


sombre,  and  the  mist  rising  from  the  sea  is  damp  and  heavy  ; 
whereas  everything  is  light,  full  of  colour,  and  silvery  in 
Cameron's  sunny  painting.  In  the  works  of  Israels  the  spec- 
tator feels  that  the  atmosphere  is  bitterly  cold,  and  that  the 
little  ones  are  shivering;  but  Cameron's  world  is  an  abode  of 
happiness.  Denovan  Adam  paints  deer,  in  a  straightforward 
style  which  has  no  special  peculiarity.  In  such  pictures  as 
"The  Potato  Harvest"  and  "The  Sheepshearing "  Robert 
Macbeth  showed  a  slight  leaning  towards  that  Greek  rhythm 
of  form  peculiar  to  the  school  of  Walker,  but  in  later  years 
devoted  himself  chiefly  to  etching,  and  is  now  the  most 
superior  reproductive  etcher  in  England,  being  held  there  in 
the  same  estimation  as  Charles  Waltner  is  in  France.  In  the 
beginning /t7A«  MacWhirter  was  an  energetic  follower  of  Turner, 
the  great  painter  of  light,  and  was  long  celebrated  for  his 
power  of  producing  the  most  magnificent  pictures  by  the 
slightest  means.  Highland  storms,  and  silver  birches  with 
graceful  quivering  foliage,  he  had  a  special  love  of  painting ; 
but  afterwards,    when    in    Italy,    he    made    a    transition    to    a 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Annan  photo.} 


Douglas:   ''The  Bibliomaniac/ 


smooth  sugary  style.  The  triumphal  arch  of  Titus  and  the 
Colosseum  in  Rome,  the  ports  of  Genoa,  Constantinople,  and 
Florence,  and  the  temple  of  Girgenti  are  his  principal  motives. 
The  works  of  George  Paul  Chalmers  might  be  mistaken  for 
pictures  of  the  same  type  by  Israels.  The  sea-painter  Hamilton 
Macalluin  recalls  the  soft,  beautiful  fulness  of  colour  belonging 
to  the  old  Venetians.  And  Sir  George  Reidy  President  of  the 
Royal  Scottish  Academy  since  the  death  of  Douglas,  and  not 
to  be  confused  with  a  namesake  who  is  more  English  in 
manner,  paints  landscapes  like  a  refined  Dutch  master  of  the 
following  of  Mauve,  and  is  a  worthy  contemporary  of  Orchardson 
as  a  portraitist 

In  reviewing  its  course  of  development,  the  distinction  between 
Scotch  painting  and  English  is  easily  recognizable.  Whilst 
the  latter  was  paltry  and  motley  in  the  beginning,  and  at 
length  achieved  a  delicate  refinement  reminiscent  of  water- 
colour  painting,  Scotch  art  had  always  something  deep  and 
sonorous,  and  a  preference  for  full  and  swelling  chords.  The 
English  artists  made  spiritual  profundity  and  graceful  poetry 
the  aim  of  their  pictures.  The  Scotch  are  painters.  They 
.instituted   a   worship   of   colour   such   as   had   not    been    known 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         68i 

since  the  days  of  Titian.  And  as  they  were  the  greatest 
painters,  so  they  possessed  in  David  Scott,  Noel  Paton,  and 
others  some  of  the  greatest  visionaries  of  the  century.  To 
their  love  of  home,  and  of  their  valleys  and  mountains,  they 
united  a  romantic  faculty  for  burying  themselves  in  the  past 
of  old  Scotland.  Edinburgh,  however,  was  not  the  spot  for 
the  development  of  all  the  germs  which  nature  had  implanted 
in  the  Scotch  temperament  It  has  been  happily  described  as 
the  Northern  Athens.  Its  principal  buildings  are  classic,  and 
possess  porticoes,  friezes,  and  pediments.  The  numerous  memorials 
to  Scotch  poets  are  imitated  from  the  graceful  round  temple  of 
Lysicrates  and  other  buildings  in  the  Tripod-street  in  Athens. 
And  the  national  monument  on  Calton  Hill  is  a  reproduction  of 
the  ruins  of  the  Parthenon. 

Glasgow,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  modern  town  where  there 
is  nothing  to  recall  the  past  It  is  only  as  a  town  for  the 
manufacture  of  steamships  that  it  plays  any  part  in  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  nineteenth  century.  James  Watt  was  born  here  ;  in 
1 8 14  the  first  steam-paddles  ploughed  up  the  waves,  and  almost 
all  the  great  steamers  which  cross  the  ocean  from  Europe  are 
built  in  Glasgow.  For  the  rest  it  is  smoky  flues,  cotton  manu- 
factories, and  glass  works  that  give  the  town  its  character. 

Yet  this  place  was  destined  to  represent  the  modern  element 
in  art  in  opposition  to  conservative  Edinburgh.  In  the  latter 
town  the  character  of  the  inhabitants  is  predominantly  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  the  teaching  of  Leighton  prevails  in  the  Academy. 
Glasgow  has  no  academy  and  its  population  is  Gaelic.  An  old 
kinship  of  race  associates  these  aboriginal  Scotch  with  France. 
The  most  modern  of  all  modern  schools,  that  of  Fontainebleau, 
was  the  beginning  of  art  for  the  young  Scotch  painters. 

The  outward  circumstance  which  led  the  Glasgow  school  of 
painting  into  these  lines  was  an  exhibition  held  in  the  year 
1886.  At  his  own  cost  an  enthusiast  for  art  brought  together 
in  Glasgow  a  collection  of  French  and  Dutch  pictures.  Millet, 
Corot,  Diaz,  Israels,  Maris,  Bosboom,  and  Mesdag  were  seen  for 
the  first  time.  And  Whistler's  symphonies  of  colour  were  also 
there.     Monticelli's  pictures  were  shown  to  the  public,  and  many 

VOL.  III.  44 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


of  them  were  bought. 
The  young  painters 
discovered  congenial 
elements  in  these 
masters.  And  it 
became  their  aim  to 
follow  them  and  do 
as  they  did.  But 
when  they  had 
satiated  themselves 
with  these  foreign 
ideas,  the  peculiar 
character  of  their 
own  country  was 
the  cause  of  their 
recasting  them  in 
a  curious  way,  so 
that  they  reproduced 
them  almost  as  if 
they  were  something^ 
entirely  novel. 

Little  picturesque 
as  Glasgow  may  be 
in  itself,  it  is  well 
known  as  the  town  through  which  one  enters  the  Highlands,, 
the  most  romantic  of  all  places  in  the  world.  Desolate  glens 
alternate  with  wild,  sombre  valleys,  gloomy  lakes,  and  dark 
lonely  shores.  Oaks  and  beeches  bend  their  boughs  from  the 
rocky  verge  deep  into  the  still  water.  The  outlines  of  the 
mountains  are  bold  and  wild,  but  crumbledj  torn,  and  beaten  by 
the  storm,  as  though  their  outlines  had  been  drawn  by  a  hand 
trembling  with  age.  Fragrant  heather,  where  millions  of  bees 
and  butterflies  are  humming  and  fluttering,  intoxicated  with  its 
aroma,  covers  the  ground  with  a  reddish  carpet.  The  sky 
is  almost  always  clouded,  and  the  clouds  hang  low  on  the 
mountains,  and  whatever  rises  between  earth  and  sky  seems  as 
though  it  were  wrapped  in  a  soft  veil,  which  connects  the  very 


Annan  photo,"] 

Cameron:  "Going  to  the  Hay." 

(By  permission  of  the  Edinburgh  Board  of  ManufacturerSf 
tht  ounurs  of  the  piciure.) 


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Brothtrs  photo  sc] 


Peter  Graham:   "Where  Deep  Seas  Moan." 
{By  permission  of  Benjamin  Amiitaget  Esq.,  the  owner  of  the  picture,) 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


685 


strongest  hues  by  a 
quantity  of  delicate 
gradations.  While 
the  clear,  transparent 
air  in  Norway  em- 
phasizes in  fresh 
colours  all  peculiari- 
ties with  an  almost 
brutal  reality,  it 
seems  in  Scotland 
as  if  great  and  pro- 
found mystery  lay 
over  the  whole  of 
nature.  In  the  hours 
of  dusk,  when  the 
sky  is  like  a  deep 
purple  dome,  and 
the  aged  rocks  glow 
as  if  consumed  by 
inward  fire,  every- 
thing joins  to  form 
a  symphony  of 
tones.  With  strange 
dreaminess       the 


Hentschel  photo  »c.]  [Law  sc. 

MacWhirter  :  "  A  Gumpse  of  Loch  Katrine." 

(By  permission  of  Messrs,  Dowdeswell  <$>  Dowdsswslis,  the 
owners  of  the  copyright,) 


ripples  spread  over  the  bosom  of  the  still,  gloomy  lakes  ;  while 
on  the  heathy  slopes  the  sheep  graze  here  and  there,  looking 
like  phantoms,  or  the  hoarse  cry  of  the  gulls  wails  through 
the  air  in  famished  complaint. 

This  sombre,  melancholy  country  seems  naturally  to  have 
become  the  birthplace  of  romantic  legend  and  poetry.  Scot- 
land is  the  land  of  second  sight,  the  land  of  dreams  and 
presentiments.  Sad  and  plaintive  are  the  songs  which  hoary 
old  musicians  sing  or  play  upon  the  bagpipes,  the  national 
instrument.  Tales  and  legends  are  associated  with  every  jutting 
crag  and  every  wooded  glen.  According  to  popular  superstition, 
a  white  horse,  known  as  a  kelpie,  dwells  in  every  lake,  and  the 
shepherd   sitting   upon   the   brink  of  a  cliff  sees  it,  now  grazing 


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Annan  phoio,] 


Chalmers  :  "  The  Legend." 


(By  pgrmission  of  tht  Edinburgh  Association  for  the  Protnotion  of  ihs  Fin§  Arts,  iht  owners 

of  iht  picture.) 

by  the  shore,  now  whinnying  and  snorting  as  it  tramples  the 
water.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Wordsworth,  Bums,  Campbell,  and  many 
others,  gave  upon  this  soil  poetic  frs^rance  to  their  works. 
Here  dwelt  the  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and  there  Rob  Roy,  and 
there  Wordsworth's  Highland  Girl.  Here  arose  the  "Songs  of 
Ossian,"  with  which  Scotland  struck  so  deep  a  chord  in  the 
poetry  of  European  nations  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 

At  that  time,  when  all  the  literary  world  did  sacrifice  to  the 
gods  of  Hellas,  the  Scotch  heroic  poems  were  characterized  by 
a  gloom  of  sentiment  and  the  might  of  richly  coloured  tones,  in 
contradistinction  from  those  ideal  figures  of  Hellenic  beauty, 
bathed,  as  they  were,  in  light.  Ossian  took  the  place  of  Homer, 
and  led  the  literature  of  the  "  storm  and  stress  "  period  into  new 
lines.  In  Die  Horen  Herder  published  his  profound  study 
Homer  und  Ossian,  "  Homer,"  he  writes,  "  is  purely  objective, 
purely  epical  ;  Ossian  is  purely  subjective  and  lyrical.  In  Homer 
everything  is  seen  in  vigorous  life  and   plastic  amplitude,  while 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS 


687 


MagoMin*  o/Art."] 

Sir  George  Reid^  P.R.S.A. 


in  Ossian  there  is  only  a  fore- 
boding. In  Homer  all  is  sunny 
and  as  bright  as  day ;  in  Ossian 
everything  is  shrouded  in  grey 
twilight"  Classicism  rested  upon 
the  Homeric  method  of  thought 
and  representation,  upon  sharply 
defined  drawing  and  plastic 
severity  of  form ;  but  the 
modem  gospel  of  colour  with 
tone,  indistinct  outline,  and  depth 
of  temperament  was  announced 
by  "  Ossian."  The  scenery  he 
loves  is  the  heath  and  the  dark 
rock,  against  which  the  sea 
breaks  booming  as  it  rolls ;  the 
silver  stream  dashes  from  the  moss-grown  mountains,  the  waves 
plunge,  and  the  howling  storm  chases  the  mist  and  the  clouds. 
The  sun  sheds  its  parting  rays  in  the  West,  here  and  there  the 
stars  twinkle,  and  the  light  of  the  moon  seldom  shines  in  full 
brightness,  but  is  shrouded  and  obscured.  The  waving  grass 
rustles  and  "  the  beard  of  the  thistle "  is  swayed  by  the  wind. 
Everything  is  grey  or  black — rocks,  streams,  trees,  moss,  and 
clouds.  Homer's  epithet  for  a  ship  is  "rosy-cheeked,"  but 
Ossian  calls  it  "  black-breasted."  "  Spirits  in  the  garment  of  the 
mist"  pass  over  the  heath.  Heroes  fall  and  great  clans  perish, 
and  grey  bards  sing  their  dirge.  "Thus,"  writes  Goethe  in 
Wahrheit  und  Dichtung^  "  Ossian  had  lured  us  to  Ultima  Thule, 
and  roaming  there  upon  the  grey,  limitless  heath,  amid  mossed 
tombs  rising  from  the  earth  abruptly,  we  saw  the  grass  around 
us  agitated  by  a  chilling  wind  and  the  sky  heavily  clouded 
above  our  heads.  But  in  the  moonshine  this  Caledonian  night 
was  turned  into  day  :  fallen  heroes  and  faded  maidens  hovered 
round,  until  at  last  we  fancied  that  we  really  beheld  the  spirit 
of  Loda  in  its  awful  form." 

The   Boys  of   Glasgow   now  accomplished   in   the    realm   of 
painting  what  "Ossian"   had    done    a    century    before    in    that 


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of  literature :  in  their  Works  personal  mood  is  set  in  the  place  of 
form,  and  tone-value  in  that  of  pencilled  outline,  far  more  boldly 
and    abruptly   than    in    Corot,   Whistler,  and    Monticelli.      And 
the  powerful   effect  which  was   made  when   the   Scotch  gallery 
was  opened  in  the  summer  of  1890  at  the  annual  exhibition  in 
Munich  is  remembered  still.      All  the  world  was  then  under  the 
spell  of  Manet,  and  recognized  the  highest  aim  of  art  in  faithful 
and  objective  reproduction  of  an  impression  of  nature.     But  here 
there    burst    out    a    style    of    painting    which    took    its    origin 
altogether  from   decorative  harmony,  and  the  rhythm  of  forms 
and  masses  of  colour.     Some  there  were  who  rendered  audacious 
and  sonorous   fantasies   of  colour,   whilst  others   interpreted  the 
poetic  dreams  of  a  wild  world  of  legend  which  they  had  conjured 
up.     But  it  was  all  the  expression  of  a  powerfully  excited  mood 
of  feeling  through  the  medium  of  hues,  a  mood  such  as  the  lyric 
poet  reveals  by  the  rhythmical  dance  of  words  or  the  musician 
by  tones.     None  of  them  followed  Bastien-Lepage  in  the  sharp- 
ness of  his  "bright  painting."     The  chords  of  colour  which  they 
struck   were  full,  swelling,  deep,  and  rotund,  like  the  sound  of 
an   organ   surging  through  a  church  at  the   close  of  a  service. 
They  cared    most  to  seek    nature  in  the   hours   when    distinct 
forms  vanish  out  of  sight  and  the  landscape  becomes  a  vision 
of  colour,  above  all  in  the  hours  when  the  clouds,  crimson  with 
the  sunken  sun,  cast  a  purple  veil  over  everything,  softening  all 
contrasts   and   awakening  reveries.     Solitary  maidens  were  seen- 
standing  in  the  evening   sunshine  upon  the  crest  of  a  hill ;  and 
there  were  deep   golden    suns    sinking    below   the  horizon  and 
gilding  the  heath  with  their  last  rays,  and  dark  forests   flecked 
with   fiery  red    patches   of   sunlight    and    clothed   with    shining 
bronze-brown  foliage.     One  associated  his  fantasies  with  the  play 
of  the  waves  and  the  clouds,  with  the  rustling  of  leaves  and  the. 
murmur  of  springs  of  water;  another  watched   the   miracles  of 
light  in  the  early  dawn  upon  lonely  mountain  paths.     And  upon 
all  there  rested  that  mysterious  sombre  poetry  of  nature  which 
runs  so  sadly  through  the  old  ballads. 

But  it  was  not  merely  the  glow  and  sombre  sensuousness  of 
nature  which  appealed  to  the  Scotch  ;  for  they  were  also  attracted 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         689 

by  sport  and  merriment,  by  waywardness  and  by  whim.  Amongst 
the  landscapes  there  hung  joyous  masses  of  colour  with  figures 
in  them — pictures  of  the  palette  which  the  spectator  was  forced 
to  r^ard  much  as  Polonius  did  the  cloud  in  Hamlet: — 

^*  Ham.  Do  you  see  yonder  cloud  that's  almost  in  shape  of  a  camel  ? 

**  FoL  By  the  mass,  and  *tis  like  a  camel,  indeed. 

*^  Ham.  Methinks,  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

**  Pol.  It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

** Ham.  Or,  like  a  whale? 

**Pol.  Very  like  a  whale.** 

They  recalled  that  passage  about  Leonardo  da  Vinci  where  he 
tells  the  young  painters  that  extraordinary  fabulous  creatures 
may  be  discovered  in  clouds  and  weather-beaten  masonry :  "If 
you  have  to  invent  a  situation,  you  can  see  things  there  which 
are  like  the  loveliest  landscapes,  clothed  with  mountains,  rivers, 
rocks,  trees,  great  plains,  and  hills  and  valleys.  You  can  see 
there  all  manner  of  battles,  vivid  attitudes,  curiously  strange 
figures,  faces,  and  costumes.  In  looking  at  such  walls,  or  at 
any  medley  of  objects,  the  same  thing  happens  as  when  one 
hears  the  chime  of  bells ;  for  then  you  can  recognize  in  the 
strokes  any  name  or  any  word  you  have  imagined."  In  this 
world  one  floated  between  heaven  and  earth,  in  a  land  of 
dream ;  figures  dissolved  like  fantastic  forms  of  cloud,  which 
billow  and  heave  and  change  their  shapes. 

And  the  wonder  increased  when,  in  the  following  year,  the 
Glasgow  Boys  came  forward  with  other  performances,  and  those 
of  a  far  more  positive  character.  On  this  occasion  they  exhibited 
portraits  which  cast  into  the  background  almost  everything  ex- 
hibited by  the  English.  They  rendered  old  towns  of  story  where 
the  chime  of  bells,  the  burst  of  the  organ,  and  the  tones  of  the 
mandoline  vibrate  in  the  air,  while  glittering  trains  festally  decked 
with  gold  and  colours  surge  through  the  broad  streets.  They 
displayed  soft  or  terrible  representations  from  old-world  tales, 
which  really  breathed  that  true  legendar>''  atmosphere  for  which 
we  were  so  pining,  since  it  seemed  to  have  vanished  out  of  art 
for  ever.  They  brought  water-colours  of  amazing  ability,  vivid 
and  sparkling  in   technique,  and  bold   to  audacity.     Almost  all 


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of  them  seemed  to 
be  bom  colourists 
who  had  been  gifted 
with  their  talent  in 
the  cradle. 

Arthur  MelvilUy 
known  by  the  Boys 
as  King  Arthur, 
went  to  Paris 
as  early  as  the 
beginning  of  the 
seventies,  and  then 
to  Tangier  ;  he 
started  from  the  art 
of  Meissonier  and 
G^rdme.  He  has 
something  of  the 
sparkling  colouring 
of  Fortuny,  though 
it  has  been  freshened 
by  Impressionism 
and  is  free  from  the  stippling  "little  painting"  of  the  Spaniard. 
By  preference  he  uses  water-colours  as  a  medium,  and  in  1891 
he  fascinated  the  public  at  the  exhibition  by  a  series  of  scenes 
from  Eastern  towns.  The  richly  hued  confusion  of  a  crowd 
numbering  thousands  of  people  in  the  open  market-place  was 
rendered  with  the  same  virtuosity  as  were  the  separate  groups 
of  Arabs,  adorned  with  turbans  and  enveloped  in  burnouses, 
who  rode  through  festal  arches  into  the  courts  of  houses 
surrounded  by  galleries,  or  the  cowering  figures  of  old  beggars 
acting  as  snake-charmers.  Every  picture  made  a  gleaming  com- 
bination of  colours,  a  flexible  mass  of  bright  luminous  tones, 
but  a  soft  atmosphere  was  there  to  reconcile  and  harmonize 
everything.  The  picture  "Andrew  with  his  Goat"  was  entirely 
Scotch  in  its  bold  manner  of  placing  sharp,  unblended  colours 
beside  each  other.  In  the  midst  of  a  purple  autumn  landscape 
in  Scotland  there  stood  a   red-haired   boy,  with  a  reddish-brown 


Glasgow :  McCiure.} 

Melville  :   ''  The  Snake-Charmers.  ' 
{By  permission  of  the  Artist.) 


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goat,  before  a  reddish 
tree  —  a  problem  of 
colours  which  seems 
barbaric,  and  one  which 
the  Japanese  alone  had 
previously  solved  in  an 
equally  tasteful  manner. 
Melville's  comrade  in 
Paris  and  Tangier, /(t?A« 
Lavery,  inclines  rather 
to  the  vaporous,  melting 
style  of  Khnopff  and 
Whistler.  His  "  Tennis 
Party,"  a  charming 
illustration  of  English 
social  life,  made  a 
striking  effect  by  its 
softness  and  superiority 
of  tone,  even  before 
the  works  of  the  other 
Scots  were  known  in 
Germany ;  while  his 
"  Ariadne,"  a  life-size 
pastel,  showed  that  he 
had  an  understanding 
of  the  tender,  melting, 
ideal  figures  of  the 
great  George  Frederick 
Watts.  Besides  these, 
Lavery  produced  pic- 
tures which  had  a  genuinely  Scotch  gloom,  and  which  were  like 
strophes  of  Ossian  rendered  through  the  medium  of  pigments. 
In  his  "  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  on  the  Morning  after  the  Battle 
of  Langside,"  the  historical  event  was  glorified  until  it  took  the 
hues  of  poetry,  and  a  mysterious  legendary  atmosphere  rested 
over  all.  And  this  same  dreamer  painted  pictures  of  ceremonies, 
such    as   "  The   Reception   of    Queen    Victoria   at   the   Glasgow 


Lavery  :  *'  A  Girl  in  White." 
(By  ptrmission  of  the  Artist.) 


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Lavery  :  "  A  Tennis  Party." 
(By  p€rmi9sum  of  (hi  Artist.) 


[HoHfaidrngl  photo. 


Jubilee  Exhibition  of  1887,"  in  which  he  showed  that  such 
prosaic  matters  as  reception-halls,  raspberry-coloured  carpets, 
uniforms,  and  black  coats  could  result  in  something  different 
from  a  mere  picture  sheet. 

James  Guthrie,  the  son  of  a  Scotch  preacher,  is  as  powerful 
as  Lavery  is  delicate.  When  his  parents  lived  in  London  he 
was  schooled  there  by  Pettie,  and  was  then  for  some  time  in 
Paris  ;  he  freed  himself  from  Pettie's  piquant,  golden  colouring,, 
recalling  the  old  masters,  when  he  worked  in  the  summer  of  1888 
in  the  little  Scotch  village  of  Cockburnspath.  Here  he  produced 
his  broad  and  substantially  painted  work  "  In  the  Orchard,"  by 
which  he  introduced  himself  at  the  Munich  Exhibition  of  1890. 
The  figures  he  paints  are  not  like  ornamental  trinkets,  nor  does 
he  court  favour  by  delicate  colours.  But  Frans  Hals  would 
rejoice  at  the  bold  breadth,  freshness,  and  naturalness  with  which 
he  paints  everything.  His  likeness  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Gardner  is 
great  in  its  simplicity.  And  a  life-size  equestrian  portrait  from 
his  brush  has  a  touch  of  real  monumental  grandeur.  Beside 
these  pictures  he  exhibited  a  series  of  pastels  rejoicing  in  colour, 
pictures  of  social  and  popular  life  from  the  tumult  of  the  city 
and  the  peace  of  the  village :  beautiful  white-robed  women 
dreaming  in  the  twilight,  slender  tennis-playing  maidens  upon 
the  fragrant  lawn,  girls  at  the  piano  with  the  soft  light  of  the 
lamp  pouring  over  them,  puffing  railway-trains,  the  shrill  whistle 
of  which  echoes  through  the  peace  of  nature. 


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Gutbrie:   "In  the  Orchard." 
(By  ptrmusion  of  the  Artist.) 


iHatt/atdngl  Mio. 


When  Guthrie  worked  in  1888  in  Cockburnspath,  which  has 
since  become  the  Scotch  Dachau,  he  was  joined  by  those  two 
inseparable  comrades  George  Henry  and  Edward  Homelly  two 
other  forceful  personalities  belonging  to  the  young  school.  Brought 
up  amid  the  steam  and  smoke  of  a  manufacturing  town,  Henry 
was  all  the  more  sensitive  to  the  radiant  wonders  of  light  when 
he  arrived  in  the  country,  and  he  became  the  greatest  poet  in 
colour  that  Scotland  had  seen  since  the  days  of  Scott  Lauder. 
In  1 89 1  he  produced  a  melancholy  picture  called  "A  Galloway 
Landscape,"  with  a  deep  blue  river  swerving  here  and  there  as 
it  flowed  down  the  steep,  mountains  glowing  in  colour,  trees  with 
variegated  foliage,  and  white  clouds  hastening  like  phantoms 
through  the  greenish  sky.  Another  profoundly  imaginative  land- 
scape he  called  "Cinderella."  The  eye  was  met  by  dark, 
mysteriously   dim   and   rich   tones.      It  was   only   slowly  that  a 


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dark  slope  in  the  forest 
seemed  to  rise  into  view, 
and  upon  it  moved 
the  figures  of  children 
dancing.  The  dark  mood 
of  something  mystenous 
and  fantastically  real — 
the  mood  of  something 
"fey,"  as  the  Scotch  call 
it  in  their  own  dialect — 
brooded  over  the  whole. 
In  a  third  picture  a  girl 
was  putting  mushrooms 
into  a  basket,  and  her 
charming  profile  stood  in 
broad,  cool  tones  against 
the  yellow  disc  of  a 
rising  moon.  Collaborat- 
ing with  Homell,  he 
painted  a  remarkable 
picture,  "  The  Druids,"  a 
luminous  tapestry  of  colours,  as  one  might  say,  a  luminous 
tapestry  in  which  the  sensuous,  imaginative  colouring  of  the 
Scots  found,  perhaps,  its  most  powerful  and  ebullient  expression. 
The  picture  glowed  and  sparkled  in  deep,  warm,  swelling  tones. 
Impressionism  was  united  with  the  Japanese  painting,  and  Monti- 
celli's  splendour  of  colour  where  it  is  most  luxuriant  with  a  flat 
drawing  of  outline,  while  everything  seemed  to  have  been  painted 
off  with  a  heavy  brush. 

A  further  attempt  to  apply  the  Scotch  dreaminess  to  the 
province  of  l^endary  painting  was  made  by  Alexander  Roclte 
in  his  moving  picture  "  Good  King  Wenceslaus."  A  shivering 
lad  searching  for  fire-wood  is  stepping  lightly  through  the 
deep  snow  after  good  King  Wenceslaus,  who,  crowned  with 
his  halo,  has  made  steps  for  him.  The  picture  was  so  plain 
and  cordial,  so  full  of  Schwind's  innocence  and  of  the  dreamy 
mood  of  a  fairy  tale,  that  it  made  the  appeal  of  an  illustration 


Guthrie  :   Portrait  of  a  Lady. 
(By  permission  of  the  Artist.) 


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695 


Glasgow  :  McCiurg,] 


Roche:   "Good  King  Wenceslaus.** 
(By  permission  0/  ths  Artist.) 


to  some  German  folk-legend.  In  the  picture  of  the  stiff  playing- 
card  "kings,"  and  the  "knaves"  who  tried  to  win  their  ladies 
from  them,  Roche  appeared  as  a  bold  improviser  after  the 
Japanese  fashion. 

In  such  purely  decorative  sports  of  colour  some  of  the 
Glasgow  Boys  were  especially  strong,  and  their  confession  of 
faith,  as  it  has  been  formulated  in  this  matter  by  James 
PatersoHy  is  pretty  much  the  same  as  that  of  Monticelli  and 
Whistler.  Art,  as  he  has  written,  is  not  imitation,  but  inter- 
pretation. Of  course  one  must  paint  what  one  sees,  but 
whether  the  result  is  art  entirely  depends  upon  what  one  sees. 
The  most  devout  study  of  nature  maintained  through  a  whole 
lifetime  will  not  make  an  artist  For  art  is  not  nature,  but 
something  more.  A  picture  is  not  a  fragment  of  nature ;  it  is 
nature  reflected,  coloured,  and  interpreted  by  a  human  soul, 
and  a  feeling  for  nature  which  is  penetrative  and  not  merely 
passive.  The  decorative  element,  as  it  is  called,  is  an  essential 
element  of  every  real  work  of  art.  Forms,  tones,  and  colours 
must  make  a  soothing  effect  upon  the  human  eye,  and  the 
artist  can  only  follow  nature  so  far  as  she  gives  him  elements 


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Ltipnig:  Sgtmann.] 


Paterson:  Landscape. 


of  this  kind.  And,  for  this  reason,  in  almost  all  the  great 
triumphs  of  landscape  -  painting  there  may  be  seen  a  con- 
siderable deviation  from  the  actual  facts  of  nature,  an  intentional 
and  necessary  deviation,  not  one  that  is  the  result  of  chance 
or  defect. 

Paterson  himself  seemed  in  his  landscapes  to  have  the 
greatest  sense  of  adjustment  in  this  group  of  Scotch  painters. 
In  a  picture  entitled  "In  the  Evening"  he  rendered  the  poetry 
of  gathering  dusk  in  jubilant  hues.  Upon  a  green  meadow 
entirely  dipped  in  shadow  there  gleamed  bright  masses  with 
soft  melting  outlines :  houses  with  fine  blue  smoke  curling 
from  their  chimneys  into  the  dark  atmosphere.  And  compact 
masses  of  cloud,  touched  with  a  dull  glow  by  the  setting  sun, 
covered  the  sky  like  huge  phantoms.  Brown,  green,  and  blue 
were  the  only  ground-tones,  and  the  whole  was  harmonized 
in  grey  and  black.  But  within  this  darkness  there  was  life 
and  movement :    above  in  the  row  of  houses,  and  beneath  in  a 


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WHISTLER  AND   THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         697 


flock  of  sheep  which 
slowly  mounted  a 
hill  in  a  wide  train. 
In  a  picture  ex- 
hibited in  the  Paris 
Salon  of  1893,  great 
masses  of  cloud,  the 
remnants  of  a  heavy 
storm,  shifted  over 
a  distant  range  of 
hills,  the  far  summits 
of  which  were  glow- 
ing in  the  sunset. 
Nature  was  still 
-quivering  as  if  in 
fever,  the  last  drops 
of  rain  descended 
glistening  like  tears, 
and  the  whole  land- 
5cape  wept  at  the 
farewell  of  the  part- 
ing sun. 

Morning  and  the  first  mysterious  dawn  of  nature  present 
the  most  alluring  effects  of  colour  for  Grosvenor  Thomas,  And 
so,  equipped  with  his  paint-box,  he  roams  out  before  six  o'clock 
beyond  the  gates  of  the  smoky  town,  amid  fields  and  low 
heights  with  scant  foliage,  along  the  banks  of  the  Clyde,  upon 
dusty,  beaten  roads,  where  he  meets  no  one  but  a  peasant 
•driving  his  cart  or  a  man  on  the  tow-path  with  his  strong 
horses.  The  pictures  of  dawn  which  he  has  exhibited  are 
grave  and  elegiac,  and  have  a  solemn  Ossianic  depth  of  feeling. 

WiUiam  Kennedy  delights  in  spring,  and  has  painted  it 
in  modern  pastorals  which  are  excessively  Impressionistic  in 
technique  and  marvellously  delicate  in  effect.  In  one  of  his 
pictures,  an  apple-tree  in  blossom  spread  its  crooked  and 
motley  branches  against  the  bright  sky.  The  young  and  tender 
green   of  the   meadows   in   spring   grew   lush   around,   and   little 

VOL.  III.  45 


Munich  :  Hanf%t&ngl.'\ 

Walton  :  "  The  Girl  in  Brown." 
(By  permission  of  the  Artist,) 


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698  MODERN  PAINTING 

rosy  clouds  shifted  across  the  firmament.  In  the  distance  there 
wound  a  river  like  a  narrow  dark  blue  ribbon,  and  lying  upon 
his  back  in  the  foreground,  with  a  bristly  wolf-dog  at  his  side^ 
a  red-haired  shepherd  boy  stretched  himself  lazily  as  he  looked 
into  the  deep  blue  sky. 

Edward  Arthur  Walton  seems  more  under  the  influence 
of  Whistler  or  the  Dutch  painters  Israels  and  Mesdag.  His 
landscapes,  which  are  quieter  in  tone  than  those  of  his  com- 
patriots, are  bathed  in  a  fine  and  sombre  grey.  Heavy  clouds 
of  mist  sweep  over  the  brown  heath,  or  a  vaporous  dusk 
effacing  all  colours  rests  upon  the  lonely  fields.  And  his. 
refined  portrait  of  a  girl  with  brown  hair  entirely  enveloped 
in  grey  and  black  is  quite  after  the  manner  of  Whistler. 

Merely  wayward  and  decorative  in  his  effects  is  David  Gauldr 
for  whom  the  highest  aim  of  art  is  to  subdue  to  his  hand,  by 
force  if  necessary,  though  with  taste  and  talent,  a  lavish  opulence 
of  conflicting  colours  and  wild  forms.  Some  of  his  pictures 
with  cloud  effects  were  not  inappositely  compared  with  the 
glass  mosaic  of  leaded  cathedral  windows.  Black  and  green  or 
green  and  blue  were  his  favourite  combinations.  Closely  as- 
sociated with  Guthrie,  T.  Austen  Brown^  who  lives  in  Edinbui^h, 
indulged  in  blue  and  green  harmonies  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Japanese,  fames  Whitelaw  Hamilton  painted  landscapes  in  which 
cold  green  was  boldly  placed  upon  glowing  red  and  light 
yellow  upon  a  deep  brown-green.  Joseph  Crawhall  appeared 
as  a  gifted  artist  in  water-colours  who  painted  horses,  parrots, 
camels,  ducks,  and  bulls,  and,  as  a  rule,  with  but  a  few  energetic 
tones.  Of  rounded  pictorial  effect  it  was  impossible  to  speak. 
Like  Hokusai,  he  gave  only  the  "vivid  points,"  but  these  he 
rendered  with  all  the  sureness  of  the  Japanese.  In  particular 
there  was  a  picture,  "  At  the  Duck- Pond,"  where  the  animation 
of  the  ducks  oaring  their  way  swiftly  through  the  water  was 
expressed  with  such  astonishing  truth  that  the  spectator  fancied 
he  could  see  their  movements  every  moment.  From  his  love 
of  moonlight  effects  Macaulay  Stevenson  is  named  "  the  moon- 
lighter" by  the  Glasgow  Boys.  The  enterprising  P.  Macgregor 
Wilson^  who,  in  the  cause  of  art,  extended  his  travels  to  Persia,. 


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WHISTLER  AND  THE  SCOTCH  PAINTERS         699 

and  there  painted  the  Shah  and  his  Ministers ;  R.  M,  G,  Coventry, 
whose  pictures  are  generally  no  more  than  symphonies  of 
shades  in  blue ;  Thomas  Corsan  Morton,  Alexander  Frew,  Harry 
S pence,  Harrington  Mann,  J,  M.  DoWy  A.  B,  Docfierty^  Pirie^ 
Park,  D.  Y.  Cameron,  and  /.  Reid  Murray,  are  all,  as  Cornelius 
Gurlitt  has  ably  described  them  in  Westermann's  Monatsheft,. 
thoroughly  Scotch  artists  of  high  rank,  every  one  of  whom  lives 
in  his  own  world  of  fancy,  every  one  of  whom  casts  his  ardent 
temperament  into  the  mould  of  artistic  forms,  which  are 
entirely  individual  in  character. 

As  the  Scotch  have  made  an  annual  appearance  at  German 
exhibitions  since  their  first  great  success,  the  clamorous  en- 
thusiasm which  greeted  them  in  1890  has  become  a  little  cooler. 
It  was  noticed  that  the  works  which  had  been  so  striking  on  the 
first  occasion  were  not  brought  together  so  entirely  by  chance,, 
but  were  the  extract  of  the  best  that  the  Glasgow  school  had 
to  show.  And  in  regard  to  their  average  performances,  it  could 
not  be  concealed  that  they  had  a  certain  outward  industrial 
character,  and  this,  raised  to  a  principle  of  creation,  led 
too  easily  to  something  stereotyped.  The  art  of  the  Continent 
is  deeper  and  more  serious,  and  the  union  between  temperament 
and  nature  to  be  found  in  it  is  more  spiritual.  With  their 
decorative  pallet  pictures  this  Scotch  art  approaches  the  border 
where  painting  ends  and  the  Persian  carpet  begins.  For  all 
that,  it  has  had  a  quickening  influence  upon  the  art  of  the 
Continent.  Through  their  best  performances  the  Scotch  nourished 
the  modern  longing  for  mystical  worlds  of  beauty.  After  a  period 
of  pale  "bright  painting,"  they  schooled  the  painter's  eye  to 
recognize  nature  in  her  richer  tints.  And  since  their  ap- 
pearance a  fuller  ground-tone,  a  deeper  note,  and  a  more 
sonorous  harmony  have  entered  into  French  and,  Germaa 
painting. 


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CHAPTER    XLIX 

FRANCE 

Gustave  Moreau^  Puvis  de  ChavanneSy  Cazin^  Madame  Cazin,  Eugene 
Carrth'ey  P.  A,  Besnard^  Agache^  Atnan-Jean^  M,  Denis,  Gandara^ 
Henri  Martin^  Louis  Picard^  Ary  Penan,  Odilon  Redon,  Carlos 
Schwabe.  —  T?te  parallel  movement  in  Belgium :  Filicien  Rops^ 
Fernand  Khnopff. 

JK.  HUYSMANS  has  written  a  strange  book,  in  which 
•  he  puts  in  a  nutshell  everything  that  the  modern  epicure 
finds  artistically  beautiful.  A  Rebours  is  the  history  of 
a  typical  d^cadent^  a  masterly  analysis  of  the  ideas  and 
sensations  of  the  over-refined  society  of  the  century.  In  nervous 
dread  of  all  that  is  banal  and  commonplace  in  modern  life, 
Des  Esseintes,  the  hero  of  the  novel,  has  formed  for  himself  a 
kind  of  artistic  paradise  in  the  midst  of  the  grey,  barbaric 
world,  and  lives  there  solitary  in  communion  with  the  books 
and  works  of  art  which  appeal  to  his  exquisite  taste.  Politics 
are  a  matter  of  indifference  to  him,  for  on  the  great  stage  of 
the  world  he  sees  nothing  but  bad  comedies  played  by  mediocre 
actors.  He  would  wish,  indeed,  to  be  religious,  but  the  religion 
of  the  world  in  general  is  repugnant  to  him,  so  he  looks 
forward  to  the  redemption  of  the  future  generation  by  a  new 
mystical  faith  which  is  to  rise  when  the  present  state  of 
civilization  has  perished.  He  has  a  contempt  for  all  striving, 
because,  in  spite  of  all  his  seekings,  he  has  found  no  ideal 
which  seems  to  him  worth  the  pains.  But  he  likewise  despises 
himself,  for  he  feels  his  impotence,  and  the  consciousness  of 
it   fills   him   with  bitterness  and  heaviness  of  spirit.     In  woman 


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FRANCE  701 

he  takes  no  delight  in  strong  and  healthy  comeliness,  stimulating 
life  and  generation,  but  in  an  over-ripe,  autumnal,  hysterical 
beauty  of  ghostly  pallor,  and  with  deep,  enchanting  eyes  that 
tell  of  mortality.  As  a  student  of  history  he  devotes  himself 
to  the  ages  of  decline,  since  he,  too,  surrounded  by  wild, 
barbaric  hordes,  feels  a  kinship  with  those  old  civilizations 
perishing  of  their  own  refinement  In  literature  Apuleius 
and  Petronius  are  his  delight  amongst  the  Latin  writers,  and 
amongst  the  French  Baudelaire,  the  Goncourts,  Verlaine,  Mal- 
larm^,  and  Villiers.  As  a  connoisseur  he  accepts  Goncourt's 
definition  of  beauty  as  that  which  uneducated  people  regard 
with  instinctive  distaste.  The  art  which  he  reveres  is  very 
different  from  that  which  meets  with  official  recognition.  It 
is  art  which  only  appeals  to  delicate  and  fastidious  spirits,  and 
is  incomprehensible  to  the  average  man  with  his  tastes  and 
opinions.  His  own  ideals  are  Gustave  Moreau,  the  French 
Bume-Jones,  and  Odilon  Redon,  the  French  Blake.  And  he 
specially  cultivates  his  sense  of  smell,  daily  surrounding  himself 
with  new  flowers — not  the  ordinary  roses,  lilies,  and  violets,  but 
ardently  lustrous  poison-flowers  with  an  overpowering  perfume. 
And  at  the  end  of  the  book  he  finds  himself,  exhausted  by 
these  spiritual  and  sensuous  aberrations  in  the  devotion  to  art, 
with  one  simple  choice  before  him :  insanity  and  death  or  the 
return  to  nature  and  normal  life. 

Huysmans'  work  marks  in  a  very  striking  manner  the  change 
which  has  passed  over  the  literary  and  artistic  physiognomy 
of  France.  Ten  years  ago,  Zola  was  indisputably  at  the 
head  of  French  authorship.  Every  one  of  his  novels  was 
an  event,  and  circulated  through  the  world  in  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  copies.  But  his  tendency  in  literature  already 
belongs  to  the  past,  while  Verlaine  and  Bourget  are  regarded 
as  guides  to  the  future.  In  Verlaine  a  melancholy  whisper 
never  heard  before,  and  one  which  is  sometimes  mournful  and 
plaintive  to  the  verge  of  insanity,  became  audible  amid  the 
merciless  logic  of  the  French  tongue.  Bourget,  the  herald  of 
the  English  Preraphaelites,  would  probe  and  analyze  in  all 
its    symptoms    that    eager    feeling,    yearning    after    unheard-of 


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refinement,  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  modern 
humanity.  Mallarme, 
wearied  of  pleasure,  en- 
deavours to  reach  that 
primitive  simplicity  which 
is  doubly  refreshing  to 
overstrained  spirits.  And 
Maurice  Barres  has  written 
his  novels  Sous  FCEil  des 
Barbares  and  Un  Homme 
Libre,  dividing  humanity 
into  two  classes '  the  bar- 
barians and  the  men  of 
intelligence.  To  the  bar- 
barians belong  all  people 
who  have  any  calling  or 
profession,  from  the  em- 
peror to  the  beggar,  from 
the  prime  minister  to  the 
lowest  agricultural  labourer 
— scholars,  the  commercial 
classes,  manual  labourers, 
and  artisans.  The  men 
of  intelligence  are  the  chosen  people,  the  small  band  comprising 
the  ilite  of  the  intellect,  those  whose  pleasure  is  in  pure  beauty. 
The  type  of  these  aristocrats,  "  Uhomme  libre,"  is  only  relatively 
satisfied  with  pleasure,  and  only  really  happy  when  analyzing 
his  pleasures  in  memory.  His  ideal  is  absolute  solitude ;  his 
lasting  misfortune  is  that  he  is  forced  to  live  under  the  eyes 
of  the  barbarians  and  in  their  society. 

A  similar  change  is  to  be  seen  in  the  province  of  painting. 
When  Zola  stood  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  the  walls  of  the 
Salon  were  almost  exclusively  covered  with  scenes  from  the 
modern  life  of  peasants  and  artisans.  Wherever  one  looked 
there  was  the  struggle  for  existence,  the  prose  of  life.  But  in 
these  days  that  utterance  of  Louis  XIV.,  "  Otez-moi  ces  magotsl' 


Paris  :  Baschei.] 

MoREAu:  "The  Young  Man  and  Death." 


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seems  to  have  once 
more  become  the 
principle  of  the  in- 
tellectual upper  ten 
thousand.  Pictures 
from  the  Bible, 
mythology  or  legend 
are  in  the  ascendant. 
There  is  music 
everywhere.  Sere- 
nades alternate  with 
nocturnes  and  sym- 
phonies-of  morning. 
A  fragrant  archaism 
has  taken  the  place 
•of  Naturalism,  sin- 
gularity that  of 
■everyday  life,  mys- 
tical dusk  or  a  light 
blue,  fine  grey,  or 
rosy,  faded  Gobelin 
tone  that  of  glaring  daylight.  And  just  as  the  younger  genera- 
tion in  literature  looks  up  to  Baudelaire,  that  abstractor  of 
<iuintessences,  as  their  spiritual  ancestor,  so  two  of  the  older 
artists  took  the  initiative  in  the  process  of  artistic  transformation 
— two  solitary  and  superior  spirits,  who  were  too  quiet  and 
mournful  for  the  riotous  generation  of  1830,  and  too  solemn  and 
mystical  for  the  Naturalists ;  and  it  was  left  for  the  younger 
generation  to  recognize  their  significance  and  how  far  they  were 
in  advance  of  their  age. 

In  pictorial  art  Gustave  Moreau  is  equivalent  to  Charles 
Baudelaire.  It  is  only  certain  of  the  strange  and  fascinating 
poems  in  the  Fleurs  du  Mai  that  strike  the  same  note  of 
sentiment  as  the  tortured,  subtilized,  morbid,  but  mysterious 
and  captivating  creations  of  Moreau.  And  his  figures,  like  those 
of  Baudelaire,  live  in  a  mysterious  world,  and  stimulate  the 
spirit  like  eternal   riddles.     Every  one  of  his  works  stands   in 


Paris  :  Baschtt.]  IGoupil photo  sc, 

MoRKAu:   "Galatea." 


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Gum*  dt9  Btaux-Artt*^ 

MoREAu:  A  Design  for  Enamel. 


need    of    a    commentary; 
every  one   of  them  bears 
witness  to  a  profound  and 
peculiar  activity  of  mind, 
and  every  one  of  them  is 
full    of    intimate    reveries. 
Every     agitation     of    his 
inward  spirit  takes  shape 
in      myths     of    hieratical 
strangeness,  in  mysterious 
hallucinations,     which    he 
sets    in   his    pictures    like 
jewels.      He  gives  ear  to 
dying  strains,  rising  faintly, 
inaudible  to  the   majority 
of  men.    Marvellous  beings 
pass  before  him,  fantastic 
and    yet    earnest ;    forms 
of  legendary   story  hover 
through  space  upon  strange 
animals ;    a   fabulous  hip- 
pogriff  bears  him  far  away 
to  Greece  and  the  East,  to 
vanished  worlds  of  beauty. 
Upon     the     journey     he 
beholds    Utopias,    beholds 
the  Fortunate  Islands,  and 
pinions   of    dream.     An  age 
and    Bouguereau    could    not 
him.      The    Naturalists,    also, 


visits  all  lands,  borne  upon  the 
which  went  wild  over  Cabanel 
possibly  be  in  sympathy  with 
looked  upon  him  as  a  singular  being  ;  it  was  much  as  if  an 
Indian  magician  whose  robe  shone  in  all  the  hues  of  the  rain- 
bow had  suddenly  made  his  appearance  at  a  ball,  amongst 
men  in  black  evening  coats.  And  it  is  only  since  the  mysterious 
smile  of  Leonardo's  feminine  figures  has  once  more  drawn  the 
world  beneath  its  spell  that  the  spirit  of  Moreau's  pictures 
has  become  a  familiar  thing.     Even   his   schooling   was  different 


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from  that  of  his  contem- 
poraries. He  was  the  only 
pupil  of  that  strange  artist 
Theodore  Chass^riau,  and 
Chass^riau  had  directed 
him  to  the  study  of  Bel- 
lini, Mantegna,  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  and  all  those  en- 
chanting primitive  artists 
whose  ensnaring  female 
figures  are  seen  to  move 
through  mysterious  black 
and  blue  landscapes.  He 
was  then  seized  with  an 
enthusiasm  for  the  hie- 
ratical  art  of  India.  And 
he  was  also  affected 
by  old  German  copper- 
engraving,  old  Venetian 
pottery,  painting  upon 
vases  and  enamel,  mosaics 
and  niello  work,  tapestries 
and  old  Oriental  minia- 
tures. His  exquisite  and  expressive  style,  which,  at  a  time 
when  the  flowing  Cinquecento  manner  was  in  vogue,  made  an 
unpleasant  effect  by  its  archaic  angularity,  was  the  result  of  the 
fusion  of  these  elements. 

When  he  appeared,  the  special  characteristic  of  French  art 
was  its  seeking  after  the  great  agitations  of  the  spirit,  Amotions 
fortes.  The  spirit  was  to  be  roused  by  stormy  vehemence,  as  a 
relaxed  system  is  braced  by  massage.  But  the  present  genera- 
tion desires  to  be  soothed  rather  than  stirred  by  painting.  It 
cannot  endure  shrill  cries,  or  loud,  emphatic  speech,  or  vehement 
gestures.  What  it  desires  is  subdued  and  refined  emotions, 
and  Moreau's  distinction  is  that  he  was  the  first  to  give  ex- 
pression to  this  weary  decadent  humour.  In  his  work  a  com- 
plete   absence   of  motion   has   taken   the   place  of  the   striding 


GoM,  dt9  B€aHX'Arts.]  {LalauM  sc. 

MoREAU  :  "  The  Death  of  Orpheus." 


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legs,  the  attitudes  of  the 
fencing-master,  the  arms 
everlastingly  raised  to 
heaven,  and  the  passion- 
ately distorted  faces  which 
had  reigned  in  French 
painting  since  David.  He 
makes  spiritual  expression 
his  starting-point,  and  not 
scenic  effect ;  he  keeps, 
as  it  were,  within  the  laws 
which  rule  over  classical 
sculpture,  where  vehemence 
was  only  permitted  to 
intrude  from  the  period  of 
decline,  from  the  Perga- 
mene  reliefs,  the  Laocoon, 
and  the  Farnese  Bull 
Everything  bears  the  seal 
of  sublime  peace ;  every- 
thing is  inspired  by 
inward  life  and  suppressed 
passion.  Even  when  the 
gods  fight  there  are  no 
mighty  gestures  ;  with  a  mere  frown  they  can  shake  the  earth 
like  Zeus. 

His  spiritual  conception  of  the  old  myths  is  just  as  peculiar 
as  his  grave  articulation  of  form  ;  it  is  a  conception  such  as 
earlier  generations  could  not  have,  one  which  only  beseems 
the  spiritual  condition  of  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
During  the  most  recent  decades  archaeological  excavations  and 
scientific  researches  have  widened  and  deepened  our  conceptions 
of  the  old  mythology  in  a  most  unexpected  manner.  Beside 
the  laughter  of  the  Grecian  Pan  we  hear  the  sighs  and  behold 
the  convulsions  of  Asia,  in  her  anguish  bearing  gods,  who 
perish  young  like  spring  flowers,  in  the  loving  arms  of 
Oriental   goddesses.     We  have  heard  of  chryselephantine  statues 


Ga»,  dtB  Btaux-Art%,'\  [Dujardm  Mio. 

MoREAU :  "  The  Plaint  of  the  Poet." 


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covered  with  pre- 
cious stones  from 
top  to  bottom  ;  and 
we  know  the  grace- 
ful terra  -  cotta 
figures  of  Tanagra. 
Before  there  was  a 
knowledge  of  the 
Tanagra  statuettes 
no  archaeologist 
could  have  believed 
that  the  Eros  of 
Hesiod  was  such  a 
charming,  wayward 
little  rascal.  Before 
the  discovery  of  the 
Cyprus  statues  no 
artist  would  have 
ventured  to  adorn 
a  Grecian  goddess 
with  flowers,  pins 
for  the  head,  and 
a  heavy  tiara. 
Prompted  by  these 
discoveries,  Moreau  has  been  swayed  by  strangely  rich  inspira- 
tions. He  is  said  to  work  in  his  studio  as  in  a  tower  opulent 
with  ivory  and  jewels.  He  has  a  delight  in  arraying  the  figures 
of  his  legends  in  the  most  costly  materials,  as  the  discoveries 
at  Cyprus  give  him  warrant  for  doing,  in  painting  their  robes 
in  the  deepest  and  most  lustrous  hues,  and  in  being  almost  too 
lavish  in  his  manner  of  adorning  their  arms  and  breasts.  Every 
figure  ;of  his  is  a  glittering  idol  enveloped  in  a  dress  of  gold 
brocade  embroidered  with  precious  stones.  His  love  of  orna- 
mentation IS  even  extended  to  his  landscapes.  They  are 
improbable,  far  too  fair,  far  too  rich,  far  too  strange  to  exist 
in  the  actual  world,  but  they  are  in  close  harmony  with  the 
character  of  these  sumptuously  clad  figures,  wandering  in   them 


L'AH,] 


[Gaujtan  se. 


Moreau  :  "  The  Apparition.' 


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like  the  mystic  and  melancholy  shapes  of  dream.  The  capricious 
generation  that  lived  in  the  Renaissance  occasionally  handled 
classical  subjects  in  this  manner,  but  there  is  the  same  difference 
between  Filippino  Lippi  and  Gustave  Moreau  as  there  is 
between  Botticelli  and  Bume-Jones :  the  former,  like  Shakespeare 
in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dreamy  transformed  the  antique  into 
a  blithe  and  fantastic  fairy  world,  whereas  that  fire  of  yearning 
romance  which  once  flamed  from  poor  Holderlin's  poet  heart 
burns  in  the  pictures  of  Moreau. 

His  "  Orpheus "  is  one  of  his  most  characteristic  and 
beautiful  works.  He  has  not  borrowed  the  composition  from 
antique  tragedy.  The  drama  is  over.  Orpheus  has  been  torn 
asunder  by  the  Maenads,  and  the  limbs  of  the  poet  lie 
scattered  over  the  icy  fields  of  the  hyperborean  lands.  His 
head,  borne  upon  his  lyre  now  for  ever  mute,  has  been 
cast  upon  the  shore  of  Erebus.  Nature  seems  to  sleep  in 
mysterious  peace.  Around  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen  but 
still  waters  and  pallid  light,  nothing  to  be  heard  but  the 
tone  of  a  small  shrill  flute,  played  by  a  barbarian  shepherd 
sitting  on  the  cliff.  A  Thracian  girl,  whose  hair  is  adorned 
with  a  garland,  and  whose  look  is  earnest,  has  taken  up  the 
head  of  the  singer  and  regards  it  long  and  quietly.  Is  it 
merely  pity  that  is  in  her  tyt&'i  A  romantic  Hellenism,  a 
profound  melancholy  underlies  the  picture,  and  the  old  story 
closes  with  a  cry  of  love.  In  his  "  CEdipus  and  the  Sphinx " 
of  1864,  and  his  "Heracles"  of  1878,  he  treated  battle  scenes, 
the  heroic  struggle  between  man  and  beast,  and  in  these 
pictures,  also,  there  is  no  violence,  no  vehemence,  no  move- 
ment. In  a  terrible  silence  the  two-  ants^onists  exchange 
looks  in  his  "  CEdipus  and  the  Sphinx,"  while  their  breath 
mingles.  Like  a  living  riddle,  the  winged  creature  gazes  upon 
the  stranger,  but  the  youth  with  his  long  locks  stands  so 
composedly  before  her  that  the  spectator  feels  that  he  must 
know  the  decisive  word. 

In  "  Helen  upon  the  Walls  of  Troy "  the  figure  of  the 
enchantress,  as  she  stands  there  motionless,  clad  in  a  robe 
glittering  with   brilliant   stones   and   diamonds  like  a  shrine,  is 


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seen  to  rise  against  the  blood-red  horizon  as  though  it  were 
a  statue  of  gold  and  ivory.  Like  a  queen  of  spades,  she  holds 
in  her  hand  a  large  flower.  Heaps  of  bodies  pierced  with 
arrows  lie  at  her  feet.  But  she  has  no  glance  of  pity  for  the 
dying  whose  death-rattle  rises  to  her.  Her  wide,  apathetic 
eyes  are  fixed  upon  vacancy.  She  sees  in  the  gold  of  the  sun- 
set the  smoke  ascending  from  the  Grecian  camp.  She  will 
embark  in  the  fair  ship  of  Menelaus,  and  return  in  triumph  to 
Hellas,  where  new  love  shall  be  her  portion.  And  the  looks  of 
the  old  men  fasten  upon  her  in  admiration.  "  It  is  fitting  that 
the  Trojans  and  the  Achaeans  fight  for  such  a  woman."  Helen 
in  her  blonde  voluptuous  beauty  is  transformed  beneath  the 
hands  of  Moreau  into  Destiny  stalking  over  ground  saturated 
with  blood,  into  the  Divinity  of  Mischief — a  divinity  that,  with- 
out knowing  it,  poisons  everything  that  comes  near  her,  or  that 
she  sees  or  touches. 

In  his  "Galatea"  Moreau's  love  of  jewels  and  enamel  finds 
its  highest  triumph.  Galatea's  grotto  is  one  large,  glittering 
casket  Flowers  made  from  the  sun,  and  leaves  from  the  stars, 
and  branches  of  coral  stretch  forth  their  boughs  and  open  their 
cups.  And  as  the  most  brilliant  jewel  of  all,  there  rests  in  the 
holy  of  holies  the  radiant  form  of  the  sleeping  Galatea,  a  kind 
of  Greek  Susanna,  watched  by  the  staring,  adamantine  eye  of 
Polyphemus. 

And  just  as  he  bathes  these  Grecian  forms  in  the  dusk  of 
a  profound  romantic  melancholy,  so  in  Moreau*s  pictures  the 
figures  of  the  Bible  are  tinged  with  a  shade  of  Indian  Budd- 
hism, a  pantheistic  mysticism  which  places  them  in  a  strange 
modern  light.  In  his  "  David "  he  represents  in  a  quiet  and 
peaceful  way  the  entry  of  a  human  soul  into  Nirvana.  The 
aged  king  sits  dreaming  upon  his  gorgeous  throne.  And  an 
angel  watches  in  shining  beauty  beside  this  phantom,  the  flame 
of  whose  life  is  burning  slowly  down.  A  curious  light  falls 
upon  him  from  the  sky.  The  light  of  the  evening  horizon 
shines  faint  between  the  pillars,  and  the  spectator  feels  that  it 
is  the  end  of  a  long  day.  His  pictures  of  1878  dealing  with 
Salome,   in    their    strange   sentiment — suggestive    of    an    opium 


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Graphischt  KiinsU.] 

PUVIS   DE  ChaVANNES. 


vision — are  like  a  paraphrase 
of  Heine's  poem  in  AUa  Troll. 
In  a  sombre  hall  supported  by 
mighty  pillars,  through  which 
coloured  lamps  and  stupefying 
pastil-burners  shed  a  blue  and 
red  light,  sits  Herod  the 
king,  half  asleep  with  hasheesh, 
wrapped  in  silk,  and  motionless 
as  a  Hindu  idol.  His  face 
is  pale  and  gloomy,  and  his 
throne  is  like  a  crystal  con- 
fessional chair,  fashioned  with 
all  the  riches  of  the  world. 
Two  women  lean  at  the 
foot  of  a  pillar.  One  of  them 
touches  the  strings  of  a  lute,  and  a  small  panther  yawns 
near  a  vessel  of  incense.  Upon  the  floor  of  variegated  mosaics 
flowers  lie  strewn.  Salome  advances.  Tripping  upon  her 
toes  as  lightly  as  a  figure  in  a  dream,  she  begins  to  dance, 
holding  a  tremulous  lotus-flower  in  her  hand.  A  shining  tiara 
is  upon  her  head ;  her  body  is  adorned  with  all  the  jewels 
which  the  dragons  guard  in  the  veins  of  the  earth.  Faster  and 
faster  and  with  a  more  voluptuous  grace  she  twists  and 
stretches  her  splendid  limbs ;  but  of  a  sudden  she  starts  and 
presses  her  hand  to  her  heart :  she  has  seen  the  executioner 
as  he  smote  the  head  of  John  from  the  body. — In  the  midst 
of  an  Oriental  paradise,  the  body  of  the  Baptist  lies  in  the 
grass ;  the  head  has  been  set  upon  a  charger,  and  Salome,  like 
a  bloodthirsty  tigress,  watches  it  with  looks  of  ardent, 
famished   love. 

Different  as  they  seem  in  technique,  there  are  many  points 
of  contact  between  the  visionary  Gustave  Moreau  and  Puvis 
de  ChavanneSy  the  original  and  fascinating  creator  of  the 
decorative  painting  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Where  one 
indulges  in  detail,  the  other  resorts  to  simplification  ;  where  the 
former    is    opulent    the    latter    is    ascetic ;    and    yet    they    are 


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associated  through  in- 
ward sympathy. 

Puvis  de  Chav- 
annes,  the  eternally 
young,  is  the  Do- 
menico  Ghirlandajo 
of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  most 
eminent  monumental 
works  which  have 
been  achieved  during 
the  last  thirty  years 
in  France  owe  their 
existence  to  him. 
Wall-paintings  from 
his  hand  may  be 
found  above  the  stair- 
case of  the  museums 
of  Amiens,  Marseilles, 
and  Lyons,  in  the 
Parisian  Panthten  and 
the  new  Sorbonne,  in 
the  town-halls  of 
Poitiers  and  many  other  French  towns — pictures  which  it  is 
difficult  to  describe  in  detail,  through  the  medium  of  pedestrian 
prose.  The  two  works  with  which  he  opened  the  decorative 
series  in  the  museum  of  Amiens  in  1861  are  entitled  "Bellum*"^ 
and  "Concordia,*'  In  the  former  warriors  are  riding  over  a 
monotonous  plain.  Two  smoking  pillars,  the  gloomy  witnesses  to 
sorrow  and  devastation,  cast  their  dark  shadows  over  the  still 
fields,  whilst  here  and  there  burning  mills  rise  into  the  sombre 
sky  like  torches.  In  "Concordia,"  the  counterpart  to  this  work,, 
there  are  women  plucking  flowers  and  naked  youths  urging 
their  horses  in  a  blooming  grove  of  laurel.  In  the  Parisian 
Pantheon  he  painted,  between  1876  and  1878,  "The  Girlhood 
of  St.  Genevieve."  A  laughing  spring  landscape,  filled  with 
the   blitheness  of  May,  spreads  beneath   the   bright  sky  of  the 


Puvxs  DK  Chavannes:   "The  Girlhood  of 
St.  Gencvicve.** 

(By  permission  of  ike  Atiisi,) 


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iBranm  photo. 


Puvis  DE  Chavannes:   "A  Vision  of  Antiquity." 
iBy  permission  o/  tht  Artist.) 


Isle  de  France.  Calm  figures  move  in  it,  men  and  women, 
children  and  greybeards.  A  bishop  lays  his  hand  upon  the 
head  of  a  young  shepherdess;  sailors  are  coming  ashore  from 
their  barks.  "The  Grove  sacred  to  the  Arts  and  Muses" 
comes  first  in  the  decoration  of  the  Lyons  Museum.  Upon 
one  side  is  a  thick  forest,  dark  and  profound,  and  upon  the 
other  the  horizon  is  fringed  by  violet-blue  hills  and  a  large 
lake  reflecting  the  bluish  atmosphere;  in  the  foreground 
are  green  meadows,  where  the  flowers  gleam  like  stars,  and 
trees  standing  apart,  oaks  and  firs,  their  strong,  straight  stems 
rising  stiffly  into  the  sky.  At  the  foot  of  a  pillared  porch 
strange  figures  lie  by  the  shore  or  stand  erect  amid  the  pale 
grass,  one  with  her  arm  pointing  upwards,  another  musing  with 
her  hand  resting  upon  her  chin,  a  third  unrolling  a  parchment 
Athletic    youths    are    bringing    flowers    and    winding    garlands. 


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Puvis  DE  Chavannes:  "Christian  Inspiration/ 
(By  ptrmUsion  of  tht  Artist,) 


[BrauH  photo. 


The  "  Vision  of  Antiquity "  and  "  Christian  Inspiration "  com- 
plete the  series.  The  first  of  these  pictures  brings  the  spec- 
tator into  Attica.  Locked  by  a  simple  landscape  of  hills  the 
blue  sea  is  rippling,  and  bright  islands  rise  from  its  bosom, 
while  a  clear  sky  sheds  its  full  light  from  above.  Trees  and 
shrubs  are  growing  here  and  there.  A  shepherd  is  playing 
upon  the  pan-pipes,  goats  are  grazing,  and  five  female  figures, 
some  of  them  nude,  the  others  clothed,  caress  tame  peacocks 
in  the  tall  grass  or  lean  against  a  parapet,  breathing  in  the 
fresh,  cool  air.  Farther  back,  at  the  foot  of  a  height,  is  a 
young  woman,  holding  herself  erect  like  a  stat.ue,  as  she  talks 
with  a  youth,  whilst  in  the  distance  at  the  verge  of  the  sea 
a  spectral  cavalcade,  like  that  in  Phidias*  frieze  of  the  Parthenon, 
gallop  swiftly  by.  In  the  counterpart,  "Christian  Inspiration," 
a  number  of  friars  who  are  devoted  to  art  are  gathered  together 
in  the  portico  of  an   abbey  church.     The  walls  are  embellished 

VOL.   III.  46 


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Paris  :  Baschei.] 

Puvis  DE  Chavannes:  "The  Beheading  of  St.  John  the  Baptist." 
(By  ptrmisaion  of  th€  Artist.)  ' 

with  naYve  frescoes  in  the  style  of  the  Siennese  school  One 
of  the  monks  who  is  working  on  the  pictures  has  alighted  from- 
the  ladder  and  regards  the  result  of  his  toil  with  a  critical  air. 
Lilies  are  blooming  in  a  vase  upon  the  ground  And  outside, 
beyond  the  cloister  wall,  the  flush  of  evening  sheds  its  parting 
light  over  a  lonely  landscape,  whence  dark  cypresses  rise  into- 
the  air,  straight  as  a  bolt.  In  the  decoration  of  the  Sor bonne 
the  object  was  to  suggest  all  the  lofty  purposes  to  which  the 
place  has  been  dedicated,  upon  the  wall  of  the  great  amphitheatre 
used  for  the  solemn  sessions  of  the  faculty,  and  facing  the 
statues  of  the  founders.  Puvis  de  Chavannes  did  this  by  dis- 
playing a  throne  in  a  sacred  grove,  a  throne  upon  which  a 
grave  matron  arrayed  in  sombre  garments  is  sitting  in  meditation. 
This  is  the  old  Sorbonne.  Two  genii  at  her  side  bring  palm- 
branches  and  crowns  as  offerings  in  honour  of  the  famous  minds^ 
of  the  past.  Around  are  standing  manifold  figures  arrayed  in 
the   costumes  which   were  assigned  to  the  arts  and   sciences  in- 


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Puvis  DE  Chavannes:   "The  Threadspinner." 
(By  ptrmissioH  of  Mons,  Durand-Rugl,  tkgjowtur  of  th§  pictur§,) 


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Florence  at  the  time 
of  Botticelli  and 
Filippino  Lippi. 
From  the  rock  upon 
which  they  are  set 
there  bursts  the 
living  spring  from 
which  youth  derives 
knowledge  and  new 
power.  And  thick 
wood  divides  this 
still  haunt  conse- 
crated to  the  muses 
from  the  rush  and 
the  petty  trifles  of 
life.  In  a  painting 
entitled  "Inter  Artes 
et  Naturam/'  over 
the  staircase  of  the 
museum  of  Rouen, 
artists  musing  over 
the  ruins  of  mediaeval  buildings  are  seen  lying  in  the  midst 
of  a  Norman  landscape,  beneath  apple-trees  whose  branches  are 
weighed  down  by  their  burden  of  fruit ;  upon  the  other  side 
of  the  picture  there  is  a  woman  holding  a  child  upon  her 
knees,  whilst  another  woman  is  trying  to  reach  a  bough  laden 
with  fruit,  and  a  group  of  painters  look  on  enchanted  with  the 
grace  of  her  simple,  harmonious  movement. 

Puvis  de  Chavannes  is  not  a  virtuoso  in  technique;  for  a 
Frenchman,  indeed,  he  is  almost  clumsy,  and  is  sure  in  very 
little  of  the  work  of  his  hand.  And  it  is  easily  possible  that 
a  later  age  will  not  reckon  him  among  the  great  painters.  But 
what  it  can  never  forget  is  that  after  a  period  of  lengthy 
aberrations  he  restored  decorative  art  in  general  to  its  proper 
vocation. 

Before  his  time  what  was  good  in  the  so-called  monumental 
painting   of    the    nineteenth   century   was   usually   not   new,   but 


i 

IK     fL     ^ 

IgB^ia^i^^^ 

'    1 

iBrauM  photo. 
Puvis  de  Chavannes:   "Autumn." 


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\Braun  phoio. 
Puvis  DE  Chavannes:   "The  Grove  sacrep  to  the  Arts  and  Muses,*' 
{By  pennissioH  of  the  Artist.) 

borrowed  from  more  fortunate  ages,  and  what  was  new  in  it,  the 
narrative  element,  was  not  good,  or  at  least  not  in  good  taste. 
When  Paolo  Veronese  produced  his  pictures  in  the  Doge's  Palace 
or  Giulio  Romano  his  frescoes  in  the  Sala  dei  Giganti  in 
Mantua,  neither  of  them  thought  of  the  great  mission  of 
instructing  the  people  or  of  patriotic  sentiments ;  they  wanted 
to  achieve  an  effect  which  should  be  pictorial,  festal,  and 
harmonious  in  feeling.  The  task  of  painters  who  were  entrusted 
with  the  embellishment  of  the  walls  of  a  building  was  to 
waken  dreams  and  strike  chords  of  feeling,  to  summon  a  mood 
of  solemnity,  to  delight  the  eye,  to  uplift  the  spirit  What 
they  created  was  decorative  music,  filling  the  mansion  with  its 
august  sound  as  the  solemn  notes  of  an  organ  roll  through  a 
church.  Their  pictures  stood  in  need  of  no  commentary,  no 
exertion  of  the  mind,  no  historical  learning.  But  the  painting 
which  in  the  nineteenth  century  did  duty  upon  official  occasions 
and  was  encouraged  by  governments  for  the  sake  of  its 
pedagogical  efficiency  was  not  permitted  to  content  itself  with 
this  general  range  of  sentiment ;  it  had  to  lay  on  the  colours 
more  thickly,  and  to  appeal  to  the  understanding  rather  than 
to  sentiment.     Descriptive  prose  took  the  place  of  lyricism. 

Puvis  de  Chavannes  went  back  to  the  true  principle  of  the 
old  painters  by  renouncing  any  kind  of  didactic  intention  in 
his  art     In  the  Panthten  of  Paris,  when  the  eye  turns   to  the 


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-works  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  after  beholding  all  the  admirable 
panels  with  which  the  recognized  masters  of  the  flowing  line 
have  illustrated  the  temple  of  St.  Genevieve,  when  it  turns 
irom  St.  Louis,  Clovis,  Jeanne  d'Arc,  and  Dionysius  Sanctus 
to  "  The  Girlhood  of  St.  Genevieve,"  it  is  as  if  one  laid 
aside  a  prosy  history  of  the  world  to  read  the  Eclogues  of 
Virgil. 

In  the  one  case  there  are  archaeological  lectures,  stage 
scenery,  and  histrionic  art ;  in  the  other  simple  poetry  and  lyrical 
magic,  a  marvellous  evocation  from  the  distant  past  of  that 
atmosphere  of  legend  which  banishes  commonplace.  His  art 
would  express  nothing,  would  represent  nothing ;  it  would  only 
<:harm  and  attune  the  spirit,  like  music  heard  faintly  from  the 
distance.  His  figures  perform  no  significant  actions ;  nor  are 
any  learned  attributes  employed  in  their  characterization,  such 
as  were  introduced  in  Greece  and  at  the  Renaissance.  He  does 
not  paint  Mars,  Vulcan,  and  Minerva,  but  war,  work,  and  peace. 
In  translating  the  word  bellum  into  the  language  of  painting  in 
the  Museum  of  Amiens  he  did  not  need  academical  Bellonas, 
nor  swordcuts,  nor  knightly  suits  of  armour,  nor  fluttering 
•standards.  A  group  of  mourning  and  stricken  women,  warlike 
horsemen,  and  a  simple  landscape  sufficed  him  to  conjure  up 
the  drama  of  war  in  all  its  terrible  majesty.  And  he  is  as  far 
from  gross  material  heaviness  as  from  academical  sterility. 
The  reapers  toiling  in  his  painting  entitled  "  Summer "  are 
modern  in  their  movements  and  in  their  whole  appearance, 
and  yet  they  belong  to  no  special  time  and  seem  to  have  been 
wafted  into  a  world  beyond;  they  are  beings  who  might  have 
lived  yesterday,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  a  thousand  years 
ago.  The  whole  of  existence  seems  in  Puvis  de  Chavannes 
like  a  day  without  beginning  or  end,  a  day  of  Paradise,  unchange- 
able and  eternal.  And  very  simple  means  sufficed  him  to  attain 
this  transcendental  effect :  like  Millet,  he  generalizes  what  is 
individual,  and  tempers  what  is  presented  in  nature  ;  antique 
nudity  is  associated  in  an  unforced  manner  with  modern 
<:ostume ;  a  designed  simplicity,  which  has  nothing  of  the 
academical    painting  of  the   nude,   is  expressed  in  the  handling 


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of  form.  Even  his  landscape  he  constructs  upon  its  elementary 
forms,  and  by  means  of  its  essential,  expressive  features.  But 
by  a  certain  concordance  of  lines,  by  a  distinct  rhythm  of  form, 
he  compasses  a  sentiment  which  is  grave  and  solemn  or 
idyllic. 

The  Quattrocentisti,  especially  Ghirlandajo,  were  his  models 
in  this  epical  simplicity,  and  beside  Baudry,  the  deft  and  spirited 
decorator  of  the  most  modernized  High  Renaissance  style,  he 
has  the  effect  of  a  primitive  artist  risen  from  the  grave.  His 
pictures  have  an  archaic  bloom — something  sacerdotal,  if  you 
will,  something  seraphic  and  holy.  Often  one  fancies  that  one 
recognizes  the  influence  of  old  tapestries,  to  say  nothing  of  Fra 
Angelico,  but  one  is  at  a  loss  to  give  the  model  copied.  And 
what  places  him,  like  Moreau,  in  sharp  opposition  to  the  old 
masters  is  that,  instead  of  their  sunny,  smiling  blitheness,  he,, 
too,  is  under  the  sway  of  that  heavy  melancholy  spirit  which 
the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  first  brought  into  the  world 

When  he,  a  countryman  of  Flandrin  and  Chenavard,  began 
his  career  under  Couture  almost  half  a  century  ago,  the  world 
did  not  understand  his  pictures.  People  blamed  the  poverty 
of  his  pallet,  asserted  that  he  was  too  simple  and  restricted  in 
his  methods  of  colouring,  and  he  was  called  a  Lenten  painter, 
un  peintre  de  carinuy  whose  dull  eye  noted  nothing  in  nature 
except  ungainly  lin^s  and  uniformly  grey  tones.  Women  were 
especially  unfavourable  to  him,  taking  his  lean  figures  as  a 
personal  insult  to  themselves.  Moreover  the  calm  and  immobility 
of  his  figures  were  censured,  and  when  he  exhibited  his  earliest 
pictures  in  1854,  at  the  same  time  as  those  of  Courbet,  he  was 
called  un  fou  tranquille,  just  as  the  latter  was  christened  un  fou 
furieux.  In  later  years  it  was  precisely  through  these  two 
qualities,  his  grandiose  quietude  and  his  "anaemic"  painting, 
that  he  brought  the  world  beneath  his  spell,  and  diverted  French 
art  into  a  new  course. 

As  his  landscapes  know  nothing  of  agitated  clouds,  nor 
abruptness  nor  the  strife  of  the  elements,  so  his  figures  avoid 
all  oratorical  vehemence.  They  are  eternally  young,  free  from 
brutal  passions,  lost  in  oblivion.     Let  him  conjure  up  old  Hellas 


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or  the  quiet  life  of  the  cloister, 
over  figures  and  landscapes  there 
always  rests  a  tender  sentiment 
of  consecration  and  dreamy 
peace  ;  no  violent  gesture  and 
no  loud  tone  disturb  that 
harmony  of  feeling  by  any 
vehement   action. 

Nor  does  the  colour  admit 
any  discord  in  the  large  har- 
mony. It  is  exceedingly  soft 
and  light,  although  subdued  ;  it 
has  that  faint,  deadened  inde- 
cisiveness  to  be  seen  in  faded 
tapestries  or  frescoes  losing 
colour.  Tender  and  delicate  in 
its  chalky  grey  unity,  which 
banishes  reality  and  creates  a 
world  of  dreams,  it  is  spread  around  the  shadowy  figures.  It 
is  impossible  to  imagine  his  pictures  without  this  light  so  pure 
and  yet  veiled,  this  silvery,  transparent  air,  impregnated  with 
the  breath  of  the  Divine,  as  Plato  would  say ;  it  is  impossible 
to  imagine  them  without  the  delicate  tones  of  these  pale  green, 
pale  rose-coloured,  and  pale  violet  dresses,  which  are  as  delicate 
as  fading  flowers,  and  without  this  flesh-tint,  which  lends  a 
phantomlike  and  unearthly  appearance  to  his  figures.  It  is  all 
ike  a  melody  pitched  in  the  high,  finely  touched,  and  tremulous 
tones  of  a  violin  ;  it  invites  a  mood  which  is  at  once  blithe 
and  sentimental,  happy  and  sad,  banishes  all  earthly  things  into 
oblivion,  and  carries  one  into  a  distant,  peaceful,  and  holy  world. 


\Monde  Illustrt. 
Charles  Cazin. 


*'  Mon  coeur  est  en  repos,  mon  dme  est  en  silence, 
Le  bruit  lointain  du  monde  expire  en  arrivant, 
Comme  un  son  61oign6  qu'affaiblit  la  distance, 
A  I'oreille  incertaine  apport6  par  le  vent. 

"J'ai  trop  vu,  trop  senti,  trop  aim6  dans  ma  vie; 
Je  viens  chercher  vivant  le  calme  du  Leth6  : 
Beaux  lieux,  soyez  pour  moi  ces  bords  ou  Ton  oublie ; 
L*oubli  seul  d^sormais  est  ma  f61icit6. 


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Cazin  :  "  Dusk." 


\GoupUphoio  u. 


**  D*ici  je  vols  la  vie,  i  travers  un  nuage, 
S'^vanouir  pour  moi  dans  Tombre  du  pass^.  .  .  . 

**  L'amiti6  me  trahit,  la  piti6  m'abandonne, 
£t,  seul,  je  descends  le  sentier  de  tombeaux. 

**  Mais  la  nature  est  li  qui  t'inVite  et  qui  t'aime ; 
Plonge-toi  dans  son  sein  qu'elle  t'ouvre  toujours ; 
Quand  tout  change  pour  toi,  la  nature  est  la  m^me. 
Est  le  m^roe  soleil  se  l^ve  sur  tes  jours." 

Puvis  de  Chavannes'  veiled  harmony  transposed  yet  more  into 
dreamy  uncertainty  and  tempered  with  fainter  and  more  elegfiac 
gradations  of  colour  is  the  art  of  Charles  Cazin.  He  awaits  us 
as  the  evening  gathers,  and  tells  with  a  vibrating  voice  of  things 
which  induce  a  mood  of  gentle  melancholy.  He  has  his  hour, 
his  world,  his  men  and  women.  And  his  hour  is  that  secret 
and  mystic  time  when  the  sun  has  gone  down  and  the  moon 
is  rising,  when  soft  shadows  repose  upon  the  earth,  bringing 
forgetfulness.      And  the   land  he   enters   is  a  damp,  misty   land 


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Scribturs  MagoMmt.] 


Cazin:   "A  Dead  City." 
(By  permission  of  ih$  Artist.) 


With  dunes  and  pale  foliage,  one  that  lies  beneath  a  heavy  sky 
and  is  seldom  irradiated  by  a  beam  of  hope,  a  land  of  Lethe 
and  self-forgetfulness,  a  land  created  to  yield  to  the  soft  distress 
of  infinite  weariness.  The  motives  of  his  landscapes  are  always 
exceedingly  simple,  though  they  have  a  simplicity  which  is 
perhaps  forced,  instead  of  being  entirely  natve.  He  represents, 
it  may  be,  the  entrance  into  a  village  with  a  few  cottages,  a 
few  thin  poplars,  and  reddish  tiled  roofs,  bathed  in  the  whitish 
shadows  of  evening.  Upon  the  broad  street  lined  with  irregular 
houses,  in  a  provincial  town,  the  rain  comes  splashing  down. 
Or  it  is  night,  and  in  the  sky  there  are  black  clouds,  with 
the  moon  softly  peering  between  them.  Lamps  are  gleaming 
in  the  windows  of  the  houses,  and  an  old  post-chaise  rolling 
heavily  over  the  slippery  pavement.  Or  dun-green  shadows 
repose  upon  a  solitary  green  field  with  a  windmill  and  a 
sluggish  stream.     The  earth   is  wrapt  in  mysterious  silence,  and 


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Paris :  Baschtt.] 

Cazin:   "Hagar  and  Ishmael.'* 


there  is  movement  only 
in  the  sky,  where  a  flash 
of  lightning  quivers— not 
one  that  blazes  into  in- 
tensely vivid  light,  but 
rather  a  silvery  white 
electric  spark  lambent 
in  the  dark  firmament 
Corot  alone  has  painted 
such  things,  but  where  he 
is  joyous  Cazin  is  elegiac 
The  little  solitary  houses 
are  of  a  ghostly  grey. 
The  trees  sway  towards 
each  other  as  if  in 
tremulous  fear.  And  the 
mist  hangs  damp  in  the 
brown  boughs.  Faint 
evening  shadows  flit  around.  A  Northern  malaria  seems  to 
prevail.  And  at  times  a  sea-bird  utters  a  wailing  complaint 
One  thinks  of  Russian  novels,  Nihilism,  and  Raskolnikoff, 
though  I  know  not  through  what  association  of  ideas.  One  is 
disposed  to  sit  by  the  wayside  and  dream,  as  Verlaine  sings: — 

"  La  lune  blanche 
Luit  dans  les  bois ; 
De  chaque  branche 
Part  une  voix. 
L'6tang  reflate, 
Profond  miroir, 
La  silhouette 
Du  saule  noir 
Oi]i  le  vent  pleura: 
Rdvons  c*est  I'heure. 
Un  vaste  et  tendre 
Apaisement 
Semble  descendre 
Du  firmament 
Que  I'astre  irise : 
C'est  rheure  exquise."* 

Sometimes  the   humour   of  the   landscape   is  associated    with 


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Paris  :  Baschg/.] 


Cazin:  "Judith." 
{By  p€rmissioH  of  th$  Artist.) 


the  memory  of  kindred  feelings  which  passages  in  the  Bible 
or  in  old  legends  have  awakened  in  him.  In  such  cases  he 
creates  the  biblical  or  mythological  pictures  which  have 
principally  occupied  him  in  recent  years.  Grey-green  dusk 
rests  upon  the  earth  ;  the  shadows  of  evening  drive  away  the 
last  rays  of  the  sun.  A  mother  with  her  child  is  sitting  upon 
a  bundle  of  straw  in  front  of  a  thatched  cottage  with  a  ladder 
leaning  against  its  roof,  and  a  poverty-stricken  yard  bordered 
by  an  old  paling,  while  a  man  in  a  brown  mantle  stands 
beside  her,  leaning  upon  a  stick  :  this  picture  is  "  The  Birth 
of  Christ."  Two  solitary  people,  a  man  and  a  woman,  are 
walking  through  a  soft,  undulating  country.  The  sun  is  sinking. 
No  house  will  give  the  weary  wanderers  shelter  in  the  night, 
but  the  shade  of  evening,  which  is  gradually  descending, 
envelops     them     with     its     melancholy    peace  :     this     is    "  The 


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Carri&re:  Alphonse  Daudet  and  his  daughter  £sm£e. 
{By  p^rmUsioH  of  M,  Alphonu  Daudei,  tht  own$r  of  th*  piciun.) 


[Cmrntn/arr 


Flight  into  Egypt."  An  arid  waste  of  sand,  with  a  meagre 
bush  rising  here  and  there,  and  the  parching  summer  sun 
brooding  sultry  overhead,  forms  the  landscape  of  the  picture 
"  Hs^ar  and  Ishmael."  Or  the  fortifications  of  a  mediaeval 
town  are  represented.  Night  is  drawing  on,  watch-fires  are 
burning,  brawny  figures  stand  at  the  anvil  fashioning  weapons, 
and  the  sentinels  pace  gravely  along  the  moat  The  besieged 
town  is.  Bethulia,  and  the  woman  who  issues  with  a  wild  glance 
from  the  town  gateway  is  Judith,  who  is  going  forth  to  slay 
Holofernes,  followed  by  her  handmaid.  Through  such  works 
Cazin  has  become  the  creator  of  the  landscape  of  religious 
sentiment,  which  has  since  occupied  so  much  space  in  French 
and  German  painting.  The  costume  belongs  to  no  time  in 
particular,  though  it  is  almost  more  appropriate  to  the  present 
than  to  bygone  ages  ;  but  something  so  biblical,  so  patriarchal, 
such   a  remote  and   mystical   poetry  is  expressed   in  the   great 


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Carriere  :  ''  Motherhood." 

lines  of  the  landscape  that  the  figures  seem  like  visions  from 
a  far-oflf  past 

The  pictures  of  Madame  Cazin  illustrate  the  old  physiological 
truth  that,  through  living  long  together,  man  and  wife  gradually 
come  to  resemble  one  another.  The  delicate  sensibility  of  her 
husband  is  found  in  her  with  a  certain  feminine  tinge,  for  his 
calm  sentiment  receives  a  nervous,  vibrating  trait  in  her  work. 
Let  her  draw  a  peasant  woman  sewing  her  dress,  represent  a 
girl  sitting  meditatively  in  the  garden  with  a  book  upon  her 
knees,  or  design  figures  for  memorial  statues,  in  every  case  there 
runs  through  her  work  a  trace  of  profound  dreaminess,  a  still 
melancholy,  a  sobbing  happiness  of  tears,  a  touching  sadness. 

The  continuation  of  this  movement  is  marked  by  that 
charming  artist  who  delighted  in  mystery,  Eugene  Carrierey 
"  the  modern  painter  of  Madonnas,"  as  he  has  been  called  by 
Edmond  de  Goncourt.     Probably  no  one  before  him  has  painted 


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the  unconscious 
spiritual  life  of 
children  with  the 
same  tender,  ab- 
sorbed feeling :  little 
hands  grasping  at 
something,  stammer- 
ing lips  of  little 
ones  who  would 
kiss  their  mother, 
dreamy  eyes  gazing 
into  infinity.  But 
although  young 
children  who  are 
at  the  beginning  of 
life,  and  whose  eyes 
open  wide  as  they 
turn  towards  the 
future,  look  out  of 
his  pictures,  a  pro- 
found sadness  rests 
over  them.  His 
figures  move  gravely  and  silently  in  a  soft,  mysterious  dusk,  as 
though  parted  from  the  world  of  realities  by  a  veil  of  gauze. 
All  forms  seem  to  melt,  and  fading  flowers  shed  a  sleepy 
fragrance  around  ;  it  is  as  though  there  were  bats  flitting 
invisibly  through  the  air.  Even  as  a  portrait-painter  he  is  still 
a  poet  dreaming  in  eternal  mist  and  mystical  haze.  In  his 
likenesses,  Alphonse  Daudet,  Geffroy,  Dolent,  and  Edmond  de 
Goncourt  looked  as  though  they  had  been  resolved  into  vapour, 
although  the  delineation  of  character  was  of  astonishing  power, 
and  marked  firmly  with  a  penetrative  insight  into  spiritual  life 
such  as  was  possessed  by  Ribot  alone. 

At  the  very  opposite  pole  of  art  stands  Paul  Albert 
Besnard:  amongst  the  worshippers  of  light  he  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  subtile  and  forcible  poet,  a  luminist  who  cannot  find 
tones  high  enough  when  he  would   play  upon  the  fibres  of  the 


Gob.  dts  Biatix-Aria.^ 

Besnard:  "Evening." 


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spirit  Having  issued 
from  the  Ecole  des 
Beaux  Arts  and  gained 
the  Prix  de  Rome  with 
a  work  which  attracted 
much  notice,  he  had 
long  moved  upon  strictly 
official  lines ;  and  he 
only  broke  from  his 
academical  strait  -  waist- 
coat about  a  dozen  years 
ago,  to  become  the  re- 
fined artist  to  whom  the 
younger  generation  do 
honour  in  these  days,  a 
seeker  whose  works  are 
very  varied  in  merit, 
though  they  always 
strike  one  afresh  from 
the  bold  confidence  with 
which  he  attacks  and 
solves  the  most  difficult 

problems  of  light.  In  Whistler,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  Cazin,  and 
Carriere  a  reaction  towards  sombre  effect  and  pale,  vaporous 
beauty  of  tone  followed  the  brightness  of  Manet ;  but  Besnard, 
pushing  forward  upon  Manet's  course,  revels  in  the  most  subtile 
effects  of  illumination— effects  not  ventured  upon  even  by  the 
boldest  Impressionists — endeavours  to  arrest  the  most  unexpected 
and  unforeseen  phases  of  light,  and  the  most  hazardous  com- 
binations of  colour.  The  ruddy  glow  of  the  fire  glances  upon 
faded  flowers.  Chandeh'ers  and  tapers  outshine  the  soft  radiance 
of  the  lamp;  artificial  light  struggles  with  the  sudden  burst  of 
daylight;  and  lanterns,  standing  out  against  the  night  sky  like 
golden  lights  with  a  purple  border,  send  their  glistening  rays 
into  the  blue  gloom.  It  is  only  in  the  field  of  literature  that 
a  parallel  may  be  found,  in  Jens  Pieter  Jacobsen,  who  in  his 
novels  occasionally  describes  with  a  similar  finesse  of  perception 
VOL.  III.  47 


[Goupil  photo  sc, 
Besnard:  ''Vision  de  Fbmme." 


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the  reflection  of  fire  upon 
gold  and  silver,  upon  silk 
and  satin,  upon  red  and 
yellow  and  blue,  or 
enumerates  the  hundred 
tints  in  which  the  Sept- 
ember sun  pours  into  a 
room. 

The  portrait  group  of 
his  children  is  a  har- 
mony in  red.  A  boy  and 
two  girls  are  standings 
with  the  most  delightful 
absence  of  all  constraint,, 
in  a  country  room,  which 
looks  out  upon  a  moun- 
tainous landscape.  The 
wall  of  the  background  is 
red,  and  red  the  costume 
of  the  little  ones,  yet  all 
these  conflicting  nuances  of 
red  tones  are  brought  into  harmonious  unity  with  inherent  taste. 
Rubens  would  have  rejoiced  over  a  second  landscape  ex- 
hibited in  the  same  year.  A  nude  woman  is  seated  upon  a 
divan  drinking  tea,  with  her  feet  tucked  under  her  and  her 
back  to  the  spectator.  The  warm  and  the  more  subdued, 
reflections  of  a  fire  out  of  sight  and  of  the  daylight  meet 
upon  her  back,  quivering  in  yellowish  stripes,  like  a  glowing^ 
aureole  upon  her  soft  skin. 

In  a  third  picture,  called  "  Vision  de  Femme,"  a  young 
woman  with  the  upper  part  of  her  form  unclothed  appears 
upon  a  terrace,  surrounded  by  red  blooming  flowers  and 
the  glowing  yellow  light  of  the  moon.  Under  this  symbol 
Besnard  imagined  Lutetia,  the  eternally  young,  hovering  over 
the  rhododendrons  of  the  Champs  Elys^es  and  looking  down 
upon  the  blaze  of  lights  in  the  Caf(6  des  Ambassadeurs. 
In    1889   he   produced    "The    Siren,"    a   symphony   in    red.      A 


Besnard:   Mlles.  D- 


[Lotf  Rios  8c. 


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Aman-Jean  :  "  Venezia," 
fJBy  pgrmission  of  Dr,  G.  Hirth,  th€  owntr  of  the  picturt.) 


petite  femme  of 
Montmartre  stands 
wearily  in  a  half- 
antique  morning 
toilette  before  a 
billowing  lake, 
which  glows  be- 
neath the  rays  of 
the  setting  sun  in 
fiery  red  and  dull 
mallow  colour.  In 
his  "Autumn"  of 
1890  he  made  the 
same  experiment 
in  green.  The  moon  casts  its  silvery  light  upon  the  changeful 
greenish  mirror  of  a  lake,  and  at  the  same  time  plays  in  a 
thousand  reflections  upon  the  green  silk  dress  of  a  lady  sitting 
upon  the  shore.  While,  in  a  picture  of  1891,  a  young  lady  in 
an  elegant  nigligi  is  seated  at  the  piano,  with  her  husband 
beside  her  turning  over  the  music.  The  light  of  the  candles 
is  shed  over  hands,  faces,  and  clothes.  Another  picture,, 
called  "Clouds  of  Evening,"  represented  a  woman  with  delicate 
profile  amid  a  violet  landscape,  over  which  the  clouds  were 
lightly   hovering,  touched    with   orange-red   by  the   setting  sun. 

The  double  portrait,  executed  in  1892,  of  the  "  Miles.     D ,"" 

one  of  whom  is  leisurely  placing  a  scarf  over  her  shoulders 
with  a  movement  almost  recalling  Leighton,  while  the  other 
stoops  to  pick  a  blossom  from  a  rhododendron  bush,  is  exceed- 
ingly soft  in  its  green,  red,  and  blue  harmony. 

The  French  Government  recognized  the  eminent  decorative 
talent  displayed  in  these  pictures,  and  in  recent  years  it  has 
given  Besnard  the  opportunity  of  achieving  his  highest  triumphs 
as  a  mural  painter.  Here,  too,  he  is  modern  to  the  ends  of  his 
fingers,  knowing  nothing  of  stately  gestures,  nothing  of  old- 
world  narvet^;  but  merely  through  his  appetizing  and  sparkling 
play  of  colour,  he  has  the  art  of  converting  great  blank  spaces 
into  a  marvellous  storied  realm. 


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732  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  1890  he  had  to  represent  "Astronomy"  as  a  ceiling-piece 
for  the  Salon  des  Sciences  in  the  H6tel  de  Ville.  Ten  years 
before  there  would  have  been  no  artist  who  would  not  have 
executed  this  task  by  the  introduction  of  nude  figures  provided 
with  instructive  attributes.  One  would  have  held  a  globe,  the 
second  a  pair  of  compasses,  and  the  third  a  telescope  in  one 
hand,  and  in  the  other  branches  of  laurel  wherewith  to  crown 
Galileo,  Columbus,  or  Kepler.  Besnard  made  a  clean  sweep  of 
all  this.  He  did  not  forget  that  a  ceiling  is  a  kind  of  sky,  and 
accordingly  he  painted  the  planets  themselves,  the  stars  which 
course  through  the  blue  between  earth  and  moon.  The  old 
figures  in  pictures  of  the  stars  are  arranged  in  a  gracious  inter- 
play of  light  bodies  floating  softly  past.  Amongst  the  pictures 
of  the  Ecole  de  Pharmacie  a  like  effect  is  produced  by  Bes- 
nard's  great  composition  "  Evening,"  a  work  treated  with  august 
simplicity.  The  atmosphere  is  of  a  grey-bluish  white  :  stars  are 
glittering  here  and  there,  and  two  very  ancient  beings,  a  man 
and  a  woman,  sit  upon  the  threshold  of  their  house,  grave, 
weather-beaten  forms  of  quiet  grandeur,  executed  with  ex- 
pressive lines.  The  old  man  casts  a  searching  glance  at  the 
stars,  as  if  yearning  after  immortality,  while  the  woman  leans 
weary  and  yet  contented  upon  his  shoulder.  In  the  hall  behind 
a  kettle  hangs  bubbling  over  the  fire,  and  a  young  woman  with 
a  child  upon  her  arm  steps  through  the  door :  man  and  the 
starry  world,  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  presented  under  plain 
symbols. 

Such  are,  more  or  less,  the  representative  minds  of  contem- 
porary France,  the  centres  from  which  other  minds  issue  like 
rays.  Alfred  Agache  devotes  himself  with  great  dexterity  to  an 
allegorical  style  after  the  fashion  of  Barroccio.  Inspired  by  the 
Preraphaelites,  Aman-Jean  has  found  the  model  for  his  allegori- 
cal compositions  in  Botticelli,  and  is  a  neurasthenic  in  colour 
after  the  fashion  of  Whistler  in  his  delicate  likenesses  of  women. 
Maurice  Denis,  who  drew  the  illustrations  to  Verlaine's  Sagesse 
in  a  style  full  of  archaic  bloom,  as  a  painter  takes  delight  in 
the  intoxicating  fragrance  of  incense,  the  gliding  steps  and  slow, 
quiet  movements  of   nuns,  in    men   and  women    kneeling    before 


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FRANCE  735 

the  altar  in  prayer,  and  priests  crossing  themselves  before  the 
golden  statue  of  the  Virgin.  The  Spaniard  Gandara,  who  lives 
in  Paris,  displays  in  his  grey,  misty,  and  melting  portraits,  over 
which  the  colour  hovers  like  a  light  breath,  a  great  talent  sug- 
gestive of  Carri^re  or  Whistler.  That  spirited  "  pointillist " 
Henri  Martin  seems  for  the  present  to  have  reached  a  climax 
in  his  "  Cain  and  Abel,"  one  of  the  most  powerful  creations  of 
the  younger  generation  in  France.  Louis  PicarcTs  work  has  a 
tincture  of  literature,  and  he  delights  in  Edgar  Allan  Poe,. 
mysticism,  and  psychology.  Ary  Renan,  the  son  of  Ernest 
Renan  and  the  grandson  of  Ary  Schcffer,  has  given  the  soft 
subdued  tones  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  a  tender  Anglo-Saxon 
fragrance  in  the  manner  of  Walter  Crane.  And  that  spirited 
artist  in  lithograph,  Odilon  Redon,  has  visions  of  distorted  faces^ 
flowers  that  no  mortal  eye  has  seen,  and  huge  white  sea-birds 
screaming  as  they  fly  across  a  black  world.  Forebodings  like 
those  we  read  of  in  the  verse  of  Poe  take  shape  in  his  works, 
ghosts  roam  in  the  broad  daylight,  and  the  sea-green  eyes  of 
Medusa-heads  dripping  with  blood  shine  in  the  darkness  of 
night  with  a  mesmeric  effect.  Carlos  Schwabe  drew  the  illus- 
trations for  the  Evangile  de  VEnfance  of  Catulle  Mend^s  with 
the  charming  naivete  of  Hans  Memlinc,  and  had  a  delicate 
archaic  picture,  "Eventide,"  in  the  Rosicrucian  Exhibition  of 
1892,  a  picture  with  an  inward  depth  of  sentiment  verging  on 
Fra  Angelico:  angels  in  waving  garments  fluttered  round  the 
belfry  of  a  little  church,  floating  peacefully  over  a  sleeping: 
village  and  announcing  rest  to  men. 

Belgium,  the  neighbour  of  France,  has  so  far  contributed 
two  pre-eminent  masters  to  the  new  movement.  "You  have  set 
in  the  heaven  of  art  a  beam  from  the  kingdom  of  death.  You 
have  created  a  new  shudder."  It  was  thus  that  Victor  Hugo 
wrote  to  Baudelaire  when  the  latter  published  his  Fleurs  du  Maly 
and  this  note  macabre  was  uttered  in  plastic  art  by  Filicien  Rops. 
It  is  venturesome  to  speak  of  Rops  in  a  book  intended  for 
general  reading,  because  his  works  are  not  of  a  character  to  be 
exhibited  under  a  glass  case  in  a  cabinet  of  engravings.  They 
are  catalogued  there  under  the  heading  secreta,  like  the  famous 


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734  MODERN  PAINTING 

"  free  "  works  of  Giulio  Romano,  Marc  Anton, 
and  Annibale  Carracci,  like  some  of  the  works 
of  Fragonard,  Boucher,  and  Baudouin,  like  many 
of  Rowlandson's  and  the  majority  of  Japanese 
picture-books.  However,  the  "  Hermaphrodite  " 
of  the  Vatican  and  the  "Symplegma"  of  the 
Florentine  Tribuna  are  also  indecorous,  though 
they  cannot  be  struck  out  of  the  history  of 
Grecian  art. 

Rops   is  one    of   the   greatest,  or— putting 
PnrU:  Conquet.}  KHngcr  on  ohc  side — perhaps  the  very  greatest 

uciEN  OPS.  etcher  of  the  present  age.  He  is  now  upwards 
of  fifty,  and  looks  back  upon  an  agitated  life.  His  ancestors 
were  Mag>'ars.  But  his  grandfather  migrated  from  Hungary  to 
Belgium,  where  he  married  a  Walloon;  and  in  Belgium  Felicien 
was  born  in  1845  at  Namur.  After  studying  at  the  University 
in  Brussels  he  lost  his  father,  and  was  master  of  an  inheritance 
-of  his  own.  But  within  a  few  years  this  fortune  had  slipped 
through  his  fingers.  He  was  to  be  seen  at  one  time  in 
Norway,  then  in  England  or  at  Monte  Carlo,  then  at  the 
fashionable  watering-places  in  his  native  country,  where  he  had 
always  a  yacht  ready  for  his  own  use.  Having  wasted  his 
substance,  he  began  to  work,  illustrated  jokes  for  a  small  Brussels 
paper  known  as  TAe  Crocodile^  founded  the  Uylenspiegel  after  the 
model  of  the  Parisian  Charivari^  and  instituted  an  International 
Etching  Club;  but  these  were  all  ventures  which  speedily 
perished.  By  sheer  necessity  he  was  forced  to  earn  a  livelihood 
by  the  illustration  of  novels.  It  was  only  when  he  went  to 
Paris  in  1875  that  he  found  more  extensive  employment  for 
his  talents.  According  to  the  catalogue  published  by  Ramiro, 
his  etchings  now  comprise  about  six  hundred  plates,  to  which 
must  be  added  over  three  hundred  lithographs — works  which  in 
the  matter  of  technique  place  him  upon  a  level  with  the  first 
masters  in  these  delicate  branches  of  art.  Rops  was  not  content 
with  the  ordinary  methods  of  etching;  he  rejuvenated  and 
widened  them,  and  combined  new  expedients  with  the  zeal  of 
an  alchemist.     Each  one  of  his  plates  may  be  at  once  recognized 


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by  the  spirited  emphasis  of 
the  drawing,  the  breadth 
of  treatment,  the  solidity 
of  the  contours,  and  a 
curious  union  of  grace 
and  power.  His  style, 
which  is  always  broad, 
nervous,  and  full  of  con- 
centration, has  also  some- 
thing measured,  correct, 
and  classic.  Few  men 
dash  off  a  sketch  with 
such  an  air  of  improviza- 
tion,  and  yet  few  have  the 
same  degree  of  capacity 
for  bringing  a  plate  to 
the  utmost  perfection. 
He  is  as  sure  and  metallic 
in  his  drawing  as  Ingres, 
as  scrupulously  exact  in 
detail  as  Meissonier,  and 
as  lai^e  and  broad  in  movement  as  Millet 

Many  of  these  Parisian  works  are  also  illustrations — for 
example,  those  executed  for  Lemerre's  edition  of  Les 
Diaboliques  of  Barbey  d'Aur^villy,  Le  Vice  Suprime  of  Joseph 
P^ladan,  and  so  forth.  But  in  later  years,  when  he  no  longer 
needed  to  work  for  his  living,  the  illustrator  gave  way  to  the 
creative  artist.  In  these  days  Filicien  Rops  leads  an  exceedingly 
easy  life.  Every  day  he  is  to  be  seen  upon  the  boulevards,  a 
tall,  spare  man,  with  tangled  brownish-grey  hair,  vividly  flashing 
eyes,  and  a  sharply  cut  face,  to  which  a  slightly  Mephistophelean 
air  is  given  by  a  thin  beard  ending  in  two  narrow  points.  Visitors 
are  constantly  passing  in  and  out  of  his  studio.  Kops  himself 
is  always  moving,  sparkling  with  a  coruscation  of  wit  and 
humour,  going  from  one  person  to  another,  and  lighting  his 
cigarette,  which  is  eternally  going  out.  However,  he  occupies 
himself  chiefly  with  the  culture  of  flowers,  and  annually  expends 


Rops:  "The  Woman  and  the  Sphinx,** 


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736  MODERN  PAINTING 

large  sums  in  buying  "old"  roses  and  tulips  in  Haarlem  and 
Antwerp,  from  which  he  develops  new  varieties.  The  day 
passes  amid  these  distractions  without  his  having  the  appearance 
of  completing  anything.  His  works  are  produced  at  night  The 
dreams  which  others  are  dreaming  he  transfers  to  paper  with  a 
sure  hand  while  in  his  vigils.  Memories  crowd  upon  him.  All 
that  he  has  lived  passes  before  his  eye,  and  he  renders  it  with 
the  earnestness  of  a  philosopher. 

Baudelaire,  in  a  poem  called  Don  Juan  aux  Enfers,  has 
treated  the  scene  where  the  gates  of  hell  close  behind  Don 
Juan,  that  artist  in  the  pleasures  of  life,  and  a  wild,  heart- 
rending wail  rises  from  the  lips  of  countless  women  and  strikes 
the  ear  of  him  who  has  had  a  contempt  for  woman  and  her 
sorrows.  Rops  shows  the  reverse  of  the  medal.  Woman  is  the 
mistress  who  alone  rules  over  his  world.  She  is  to  him  what 
Venus  was  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Madonna  to  the  painters  of 
the  Renaissance.  No  one  has  drawn  the  feminine  form  with  the 
same  sureness,  no  one  so  attentively  followed  woman  through  all 
stages  of  development.  His  entire  work  is  a  song  of  songs 
upon  the  grace  and  delicacy  and  degeneration  of  the  feminine 
body,  as  modern  civilization  has  made  it  Yet  in  spite  of  the 
truth  of  gestures,  the  realism  of  his  types,  and  of  the  modem 
costume,  in  spite  of  all  his  stockings,  corsets,  and  lace  petticoats, 
which  do  not  deny  their  origin  from  the  Moulin  Rouge,  there  is 
at  the  same  time  something  which  transcends  nature  in  Rops' 
figures  of  women.  They  are  like  supernatural  beings,  nymphs, 
dryads,  bacchantes,  strange  goddesses  of  a  contemporary  myth- 
ology, whose  secret  saturnalia  has  been  the  discovery  of  the 
artist.  There  arise  gilded  altars,  the  flames  of  sacrifice  flare 
upwards  to  the  sky,  and  pilgrims  draw  near  from  all  quarters 
of  the  world,  laying  their  crowns  at  the  feet  of  all-powerful 
Eros. 

Woman  is  for  Rops  the  demoniacal  incarnation  of  pleasure, 
the  daughter  of  darkness,  the  servant  of  the  devil,  the  vampire 
who  sucks  the  blood  of  the  universe.  "  Prostitution  as  Mistress 
of  the  World"— a  woman  footed  like  a  goat,  standing  upon 
the  globe,   naked   to   the   hips,   and   contorting  her   wasted   face 


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FRANCE 


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with  provocative  laughter 
— might  serve  as  the  title- 
page  to  all  his  works. 
Here  a  nude  girl  sprawls 
upon  the  back  of  a 
sphinx,  clasping  the  neck 
of  the  creature  and  im- 
ploring it  to  reveal  to 
her  the  secret  of  new  and 
unknown  sensations  with 
which  she  may  goad  the 
wearied  nerves  of  men. 
There  she  has  embraced 
a  statue  of  Hermes,  and 
contemplates  it  with  a 
consuming,  sensuous 
gaze.  The  luxuriant 
body  of  a  woman  is 
being  transformed  into  a 
decaying  horse,  and  be- 
fore this  carcase,  covered 
by  a  swarm  of  flies, 
Satan  stands  grinning 
in  secret  enjoyment.  Or 
Venus,  as  a  skeleton  in  ball  toilette,  holding  in  one  gloved 
and  bony  hand  the  train  of  her  dress  and  in  the  other  a 
fan,  coquets  with  a  man  in  evening  clothes  with  his  breast 
covered  with  orders,  who  bows  before  her  in  the  most  correct 
style,  holding  his  head  under  his  arm  instead  of  an  opera-, 
hat.  On«  of  his  finest  pictures  reveals  the  darkness  of 
night.  A  sower  with  one  foot  upon  Notre-Dame  and  the 
other  upon  the  Sorbonne  stands  high  above  sleeping  Paris, 
his  huge  outline  standing  in  relief  against  the  sky.  Upon 
his  arm  he  holds  a  large  leather  apron  filled  with  crawling 
women  larva,  and  with  a  majestic  movement  scatters  the  seed 
of  the  Evil  One  over  the  silent  city.  By  the  end  of  his 
beard   and   the   form   of  his   hat   he   resembles   a   Quaker:   that 


Magauing  of  Art. \ 

Khnopff:    "An  Angkl.'* 


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73S  MODERN  PAINTING 

which  he  sows  is  the  wedding   gift  which  the  New  World  has 
brought  the  Old. 

In  the  fashion  in  which  he  treats  such  subjects  Rops  stands 
in  the  history  of  art  without  a  predecessor.  The  men  of  old 
time  since  Solomon,  Aristophanes,  Catullus,  Ovid,  and  Martial, 
did  not  hold  aloof  in  any  prudish  way  from  erotic  themes.  But 
Giulio  Romano  and  Annibale  Carracci  are  merely  lascivious,  and 
Fragonard  and  Baudouin  toy  with  such  subjects  in  a  frivolous 
manner.  The  obscenities  of  Rubens  and  Rembrandt  are  in- 
herently coarse,  and  the  horribly  sensuous  inventions  of  the 
Japanese  are  hysterical  and  distorted  But  new  and  lofty  tones 
echo  through  the  work  of  Rops.  Many  of  his  plates  are  like 
epics  at  once  religious  and  mystical.  His  dance  of  death  of 
the  body  is,  as  it  were,  the  last  form  that  the  old  dances 
of  death,  those  venerable  Catholic  legends,  assume  in  the  hands  of 
a  modern  artist.  Baudelaire,  Barbey  d* Aur^villy,  .  and  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  alone  have  found  notes  like  these  for  the  secret 
omnipotence  of  pleasure. 

As  a  painter,  Fernand  Khnopff  is  so  far  the  only  artist  who, 
standing  in  connection  with  Maeterlinck  and  the  literary  dicadents^ 
has  introduced  an  intellectual,  spiritualized/  and  delicate  trait 
into  the  fleshly  and  sensuous  Flemish  art.  He  passed  his 
youth  in  the  town  of  Hans  Memlinc  .  A  world  of  mysterious 
feelings  rested  in  the  dim  twilight  of  its  churches,  over  the  con- 
secrated halls  of  the  Hospital  of  St  John>  and  over  the  quiet 
streets,  where  the  passer-by  hears  nO  sound  save  the  sound  of 
his  own  footsteps,  and  even  that  is  subdued  by  the  moss 
and  grass  that  have  overgrown  the  stones  worn  smooth  by 
time  and  the  dripping  of  rain.  It  was  here  and  not  in  the 
Academy  of  Brussels  that  he  received  his  lasting  impressions. 
He  went  to  the  studio  of  Mellery  without  acquiring  any  of  the 
famous  belle  pdte  flamande,  and  in  Paris,  although  Jules  Lef(6bure, 
the  Classicist,  was  his  teacher,  the  rich  archaism  of  Gustave 
Moreau,  sparkling  in  marble  and  jewels,  and  the  melancholy 
tenderness  of  Eugene  Carri^re,  were  the  objects  of  his 
enthusiasm. 

His  very   first  picture,  "The  Crisis,"   which  appeared  in   the 


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FRANCE  739 

Brussels  Salon  of  1881,  showed  that  he  was  under  the  sway  of 
the  ideas  touched  upon  by  the  French  symbolists.  Upon  a 
wide  plain,  the  background  of  which  is  formed  by  monotonous 
brown  rocks,  while  a  dun  grey  sky  arches  monotonously  over- 
head, there  stands  a  criminal  seized  by  remorse  in  the  presence 
of  this  solemn  aspect  of  nature,  meeting  his  gaze  with  such  an 
air  of  reproachful  inquiry.  Then  came  some  portraits  which 
brought  him  success :  blond  and  blue-eyed  girls,  thoughtfully 
looking  before  them  with  their  heads  resting  on  the  table; 
slender  women  sitting  dreamily  at  the  piano  in  the  dusk,  lost 
in  a  world  of  sound.  One  of  his  most  graceful  pictures  was 
**  Girls  playing  Lawn-Tennis."  The  game  is  over,  the  sun  has 
set,  and  the  maidens,  delicate  beings  with  aristocratic  move- 
ments and  an  ethereal  delicacy,  are  standing  with  a  serious 
air  in  the  melancholy  landscape.  "The  Temptation  of  St. 
Anthony"  he  treated  according  to  the  conception  of  Flaubert. 
The  temptress  appears  to  the  saint  in  the  guise  of  an  innocent, 
half-childish  creature ;  she  is  enveloped  in  a  rich  garment,  and 
her  head  is  crowned  with  a  costly  diadem ;  diamonds,  gold, 
silver,  and  precious  stones  shine  out  of  the  darkness  in  the 
background.  "  Veux-tu  le  bouclier  de  Dgran-ben-Dgran^  celui 
qui  a  bdti  les  Pyramides  ?  le  voild.  .  .  .  fai  des  trisors  mfermis 
dans  des  galeries  oil  Fon  se  perd  comme  dans  un  hois.  J*ai 
des  palais  diti  au  treillage  de  roseaux  et  des  palais  dhiver 
en  marbre  noir,  .  .  .  Oh  !  si  tu  voulais ! "  Both  figures  are 
standing  motionless,  and,  as  in  Moreau's  picture  of  CEdipus,  the 
whole  drama  is  merely  reflected  in  their  eyes. 

In  certain  pictures  of  the  Sphinx  Khnopff  has  been  chiefly 
successful  in  the  creation  of  a  type  with  eyes  such  as  Poe  often 
describes,  eyes  which  the  man  whom  they  have  mesmerized  is 
forced  to  follow,  which  rivet  him  wherever  he  may  move  or 
stand,  which  fill  the  world  with  .  their  lifeless  glitter.  Some- 
times this  stony  being  looks  cruel  and  spectral,  sometimes 
voluptuous  and  heartless.  Sometimes  one  fancies  that  a  mock- 
ing sneer  is  perceptible  round  the  thin,  shrivelled  lips,  a 
triumphant  laughter  in  the  eager  vampire  eyes  ;  sometimes 
they  seem  to  be  as  lifeless  as  stone.     Especially  expressive  was 


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740  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  work  named  "An  Angel."  An  image  of  the  Sphinx 
spreads  out  its  limbs  in  solemn  gravity  upon  the  lofty  platform 
of  a  Gothic  cathedral,  while  the  statue  of  an  angel  in  helmet 
and  harness  stands  beside  the  brute  with  one  hand  grasping 
its  forehead.  Surrounded  by  the  darkness  of  the  night  sky, 
where  only  a  few  stars  are  glittering,  the  two  figures  of  stone 
assume  an  unearthly  and  spectral  life. 


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CHAPTER    L 

GERMANY 

Arnold  Boecklin,  Franz  Dreber,  Hans  von  Maries,  Hans  Thoma. — The 
resuscitation  of  biblical  painting, — Review  of  ^evious  efforts  from 
the  Nazarenes  to  Munkacsy,  E,  von  Gebhardt,  Menzel,  and  Lieber- 
mann.^Fritz  von  Uhde.— Other  attempts:  W,  DUrr,  JV.  Volz.— 
Z.  von  Hofmann,  Julius  Exter,  Franz  Stuck^  Max  Klinger, 

IT  was  not  long  before  the  doctrine  of  the  two  souls  in 
Faust  was  exemplified  in  Germany  also :  from  the  fertile 
manure  of  Naturalism  there  sprang  the  blue  flower  of  a  new 
Romanticism.  In  Germany  there  had  once  lived  Albrecht 
Diirer,  the  greatest  and  most  profound  painter-poet  of  all  time ; 
and  there,  too,  even  in  an  unpropitious  age,  that  genial  visionary 
Moritz  Schwind  succeeded  in  flourishing.  When  the  period 
of  eclectic  imitation  had  been  overcome  by  Naturalism,  was 
it  not  fitting  that  artists  should  once  more  attempt  to  embody 
the  world  of  dreams  beside  that  of  actual  existence,  and  beside 
tangible  reality  to  give  shape  to  the  unearthly  foreboding 
which  fills  the  human  heart  with  the  visions  and  the  cravings 
of  fancy?  In  that  age  of  hope  arose  the  cult  of  Boecklin^  and 
Germany  began  to  honour  in  him  who  had  been  so  long 
blasphemed  the  founder  of  a  new  and  ardently  desired  art 

Burne-Jones,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  Gustave  Moreau,  and 
Arnold  Boecklin  are  the  four-leaved  clover  of  modern  Idealism, 
To  future  generations  they  will  bear  witness  to  the  sentiment 
of  Europe  at  the  close  of  the  century.  All  four  are  more  or 
less  of  the  same  age ;  they  all  four  began  their  work  in  the 
beginning  of  the  fifties;   and  they  were  all  different  from  those 


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74*  MODERN  PAINTING 

who  had  gone  before  them  or  who  stood  around.  They 
embodied  the  spirit  of  the  future.  Boecklin  had  gone  through 
a  process  of  change  as  little  as  the  others.  His  spirit  was  so 
rich  that  it  comprised  a  century  in  itself,  and  leads  us  now 
towards  the  century  to  come.  He  was  the  contemporary  of 
Schwind,  he  is  our  own  contemporary,  and  he  will  be  the 
contemporary  of  those  who  come  after  us.  And  it  were  as 
impossible  to  derive  his  art  from  that  of  any  previous  move- 
ment as  to  explain  how  he,  our  greatest  visionary,  came  to 
be  bom  in  Basle,  the  most  prosaic  town  in  Europe, 

His  father  was  a  merchant  there,  and  he  was  bom  in  the 
year  1827.  In  1846  he  went  to  Schirmer  in  DOsseldorf,  and 
upon  Schirmer's  advice  repaired  to  Brussels,  where  he  copied  the 
old  Dutch  masters  in  the  gallery.  By  the  sale  of  some  of  his 
works  he  acquired  the  means  of  travelling  to  Paris.  He  passed 
through  the  days  of  the  Revolution  of  June  in  1848,  studied 
the  pictures  in  the  Louvre,  and  returned  home  after  a  brief  stay 
to  perform  his  military  duties.  In  the  March  of  1850,  when  he 
was  three-and-twenty,  he  went  to  Rome,  where  he  entered  the 
circle  of  Anselm  Feuerbach;  and  in  1853  he  married  a  Roman 
lady.  In  the  following  year  he  produced  the  decorative  pictures 
in  which  he  represented  the  relations  of  man  to  fire ;  these 
had  been  ordered  for  the  house  of  a  certain  Consul  Wedekind 
in  Hanover,  but  were  sent  back  as  being  "bizarre."  In  1856 
he  betook  himself— rather  hard  up  for  money — ^to  Munich, 
where  he  exhibited  in  the  Art  Union  "The  Great  Pan,"  which 
has  been  bought  by  the  Pinakothek.  Paul  Heyse  was  the 
medium  of  his  making  the  acquaintance  of  Schack.  And  in 
1858  he  was  appointed  a  teacher  at  the  Academy  of  Weimar, 
by  the  influence  of  Lenbach  and  Begas.  During  this  time 
he  produced  "  Pan  scaring  a  Shepherd "  in  the  Schack  Gallery, 
and  "Diana  Hunting."  After  three  years  he  was  again  in 
Rome,  and  painted  there  "The  Old  Roman  Tavern,"  "The 
Shepherd's  Plaint  of  Love,"  and  "The  Villa  by  the  Sea."  In 
1866  he  went  to  Basle  to  complete  the  frescoes  over  the 
staircase  of  the  museum,  and  in  1871  he  was  in  Munich, 
where  "The    Idyll   of    the   Sea"   was  exhibited   amongst   other 


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GERMANY 


743 


Munich  Photographic  Union.'i 
Arnold  Boecklin  :  Portrait  of  Himself. 


things.  In  1876  he  settled  in 
Florence,  and  since  1886  he 
has  lived  at  Zurich. 

Any  one  who  would  in- 
terpret a  theory  based  upon 
the  idea  that  an  artist  is  the 
result  of  influences  might, 
while  he  is  about  it,  speak  of 
Boecklin's  apprentice  period 
in  Dusseldorf  and  Schirmer's 
biblical  landscapes.  That  "har- 
monious blending  of  figures 
with  landscape"  which  is  the 
leading  note  in  Boecklin's 
work,  was  of  course  from  the 
days  of  Claude  Lorraine  and 
Poussin  the  essence  of  the  so- 
called  historical  landscape  which  found  its  principal  representatives 
at  a  later  period  in  Koch,  Preller,  Rottmann,  Lessing,  and 
Schirmer.  Yet  Boecklin  isi  not  the  disciple  of  these  masters,, 
but  stands  at  the  very  opposite  pole  of  art.  The  art  of  all 
these  men  was  merely  a  species  of  historical  painting.  Old 
Koch  read  the  Bible,  iEschylus,  Ossian,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare ; 
found  in  them  such  scenes  as  Noah's  thank-offering,  Macbeth 
and  the  witches,  or  Fingal's  battle  with  the  spirit  of  Loda ;  and 
sought  amid  the  Sabine  hills,  in  Olevano  and  Subiaco,*  for  sites 
where  these  incidents  might  have  taken  place.  Preller  made 
the  Odyssey  the  basis  of  his  artistic  creation,  chose  out  of  it 
moments  where  the  scene  might  be  laid  in  some  landscape,, 
and  found  in  Rilgen,  Norway,  Sorrento,  and  the  coast  of  Capri 
the  elements  of  nature  necessary  to  his  epic.  Rottmann  worked 
upon  hexameters  composed  by  King  Ludwig,  and  adhered  in 
the  views  he  painted  to  the  historical  memories  attached  to 
the  towns  of  Italy.  Lessing  sought  inspiration  in  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  for  whose  monks  and  nuns  he  devised  an  appropriately 
sombre  and  mysterious  background.  Schirmer  illustrated  the 
Books  of  Moses  by  placing  the  figures  in  Schnorr's  Picture  Bible 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Arnold  Bokckun. 


in  Preller's  Odyssean 
landscape.  Whether  they 
were  Classicists  appeal- 
ing to  the  eye  by  the 
architecture  of  form,  or 
Romanticists  addressing 
the  spirit  by  the  "  mood  " 
in  their  landscapes,  it 
was  common  to  all  these 
painters  that  they  set  out 
from  a  literary  or  histori- 
cal subject  They  gave 
an  exact  interpretation  of 
the  actions  prescribed  by 
their  authors,  surrounding 
the  figures  with  fictitious 
landscapes,  corresponding 
in  general  conception  to 
one's  notion  of  the 
surroundings  of  heroes,  patriarchs,  or  hermits.  Their  pictures 
are  historical  incidents  with  a  stage-setting  of  landscape. 

In  Boecklin  all  this  is  reversed.  Landscape-painter  he  is  in 
his  very  essence,  and  he  is  moreover  the  greatest  landscape- 
painter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  at  whose  side  even  the 
Fontainebleau  group  seem  one-sided  specialists.  Every  one  of 
the  latter  had  a  peculiar  type  of  landscape  and  a  special  hour 
in  the  day  which  appealed  to  his  feelings  more  distinctly  than 
any  other.  One  loved  spring  and  dewy  morning,  another  the 
clear,  cold  day,  another  the  threatening  majesty  of  the  storm, 
the  flashing  effects  of  sportive  sunbeams,  or  the  evening  after 
sunset,  when  colours  fade  from  view.  But  Boecklin  is  as  inex- 
haustible as  infinite  nature  herself.  In  one  place,  he  celebrates 
the  festival  of  spring  with  its  burden  of  beauty:  it  is  ushered 
in  by  snowdrops,  and  greeted  with  joy  by  the  veined  cups  of 
the  crocus;  yellow  primroses  and  blue  violets  merrily  nod  their 
heads,  and  a  hundred  tiny  mountain  streams  leap  headforemost 
into  the  valley  to  announce  the  coming  of  spring.     In  another, 


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GERMANY 


745 


nature  shines,  and 
blooms,  and  chimes, 
and  breathes  her  balm 
in  all  the  colours 
6f  summer.  Tulips 
peaked  with  purple 
rise  at  the  side  of 
paths.  And  flowers 
in  rows  of  blue,  white, 
and  yellow  —  hya- 
cinths, daisies,  gen- 
tians, anemones,  and 
snapdragon — fill  the 
sward  in  hordes  ;  and 
down  in  the  valley 
blow  the  narcissus 
in  dazzling  myriads, 
loading  the  air  with 
an  overpowering  per- 
fume. But,  beside 
such  lovely  idylls,  he  has  painted  with  puissant  sublimity  as 
many  complaining  elegies  and  tempestuous  tragedies.  Here,  the 
sombre  autumnal  landscapes,  with  their  tall  black  cypresses,  are 
lashed  by  the  rain  and  the  howling  storm.  There,  lonely^ 
islands  or  grave,  half-ruined  towers,  tangled  with  creepers,  rise 
dreamily  from  a  lake,  mournfully  hearkening  to  the  repining 
murmur  of  the  waves.  And  there,  in  the  midst  of  a  narrow 
rocky  glen,  a  rotten  bridge  hangs  over  a  fearful  abyss.  Or  a 
raging  storm,  beneath  the  might  of  which  the  forests  bow,, 
blusters  round  a  wild  mountain  land  which  rises  from  a  blue- 
black  lake.  Boecklin  has  painted  everything :  the  graceful  and 
heroic,  the  solitude  and  the  waste,  the  solemnly  sublime  and 
the  darkly  tragic,  passionate  agitation  and  demoniacal  fancy,  the 
strife  of  foaming  waves  and  the  eternal  rest  of  rigid  masses  of 
rock,  the  wild  uproar  of  the  sky  and  the  still  peace  of  flowery 
fields.  The  compass  of  his  moods  is  as  much  greater  than  that 
of  the  French  Classicists  as  Italy  is  greater  than  Fontainebleau. 

VOL.  III.  48 


Munich  Photographic  Union,'] 

Boecklin:   "A  Summer  Day.' 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


For  Italy  is  Boecklin's 
home  as  a  landscape- 
painter,  and  the  moods  of 
nature  there  are  more  in 
number  than  Poussin  ever 
painted.  Grave  and  sad 
and  grandiose  is  the 
Roman  Campagna,  with 
the  ruins  of  the  street  of 
sepulchres,  and  the  grey 
and  black  herds  of  cattle 
looking  mournfully  over 
the  brown  pastures. 
Hidden  like  the  Sleeping 
Beauty  He  the  Roman 
villas  in  his  pictures,  in 
their  sad  combination  of 
splendour  and  decay,  of 
life  and  death,  of  youth 
and  age.  Behind  weather- 
beaten  grotto  -  wells  and 
dark  green  nooks  of  yew, 
white  busts  and  statues 
gleam  like  phantoms. 
From  lofty  terraces  the  water  in  decaying  aqueducts  ripples 
down  with  a  monotonous  murmur  into  still  pools,  where  bracken 
and  withered  shrubs  overgrown  with  ivy  are  reflected.  Huge 
<:ypresses  of  the  growth  of  centuries  stand  gravely  in  the  air, 
tossing  their  heads  mournfully  when  the  wind  blows.  Then  at 
a  bound  we  are  at  Tivoli,  and  the  whole  scenery  is  changed. 
<jreat  fantastic  rocks  rise  straight  into  the  air,  luxuriantly 
mantled  by  ivy  and  parasitic  growths.  Trees  and  shrubs  take 
root  in  the  clefts.  And  the  floods  of  the  Anio  plunge  headfore- 
most into  the  depths  with  a  roar  of  sound,  like  a  legion  of 
demons  thunder-stricken  by  some  higher  power.  Then  comes 
Naples  with  its  glory  of  flowers  and  its  moods  of  evening 
glowing  in  deep  ruby.     Blue  creepers  twine  round  the  balustrades 


Munich  :  Albert.} 

Boecklin:  "A  Rocky  Chasm.' 


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GERMANY 


1A1 


of  castles.  Hedges  of 
monthly  roses  veil  the 
roads,  and  oranges  grow 
large  amid  the  dark 
foliage.  Farther  away  he 
paints  the  Homeric  world 
of  Sicily,  with  its  crags 
caressed  or  storm-beaten 
by  the  wave,  its  blue 
grottoes,  and  its  deep 
glowing  splendours  of 
-changing  colour.  Or  he 
represents  the  inland  land- 
scape of  Florence  with  its 
soft  graceful  lines  of  hill, 
its  fields  and  flowers,  buds 
and  blossoms,  and  its 
numbers  of  white  dream- 
ing villas  hidden  amid 
rosy  oleanders  and  stand- 
ing against  the  blue  sky 
with  a  brightness  almost 
dazzling. 

Boecklin  has  no  more 
rendered  an  exact  portrait 
of  the  scenery  of  Italy 
than  the  Classic  masters  of  France  sought  to  represent  in  a 
photographic  way  districts  in  the  forest  of  Fontainebleau.  His 
whole  life,  like  theirs,  was  a  renewed  and  perpetual  wooing  of 
nature.  As  a  boy,  he  looked  down  from  his  attic  in  Basle  upon 
the  heaving  waters  of  the  Rhine.  When  he  was  in  Rome,  in 
1850,  he  wandered  daily  in  the  Campagna  to  feast  his  eyes  upon 
its  grave  lines  and  colours.  After  a  few  years  in  Weimar,  he 
gave  up  his  post  to  gather  fresh  fmpressions  in  Italy.  And  the 
moods  with  which  he  was  inspired  by  nature  and  the  phenomena 
he  observed  were  stored  in  his  mind  as  though  in  a  great 
-emporium.      Then  his   imagination   went   through  another  stage. 


Munich :  Albert.^ 

BoECKUN  :   **  The  Penitent." 


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That  "organic^union 
of  figures  and  land- 
scape "  which  the 
representatives  of 
"heroic  landscape" 
had  surmised  and 
endeavoured  to  at- 
tain by  a  reasoned 
method  through  the 
illustration  of  pas- 
sages in  poetry  took 
place  in  Boecklin 
by  the  force  of 
intuitive  conception. 
The  mood  excited 
in  him  by  a  land- 
scape is  translated 
into  an  intuition  of 
life. 

In  many  pictures, 
particularly  those  of 
his  earlier  period,  the  ground-tone  given  by  the  landscape  finds 
merely  a  faint  echo  in  small  accessory  figures.  In  such  pictures 
he  stands  more  or  less  on  a  level  with  Dreber^  that  master  who 
died  in  Rome  in  1875  and  was  forgotten  in  the  history  of 
German  art  more  swiftly  than  ought  to  have  been  the  case. 
For  Franz  Dreber  was  not  one  of  those  Classicists  dispersed 
over  the  face  of  Europe,  men  who  were  content  with  setting 
heroic  actions  in  the  midst  of  noble  landscapes  in  the  fashion 
of  Preller.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  the  lyricist  of  this  move- 
ment, the  first  man  who  did  not  touch  the  epical  material  of 
old  myths  in  a  manner  that  was  merely  scholarly  and  illustra- 
tive, but  developed  his  picture  from  the  original  note  of  landscape. 
In  his  pictures  nature  laughs  with  those  who  are  glad,  mourns 
with  those  who  weep,  sheds  her  light  upon  the  joyful,  and 
envelops  tortured  spirits  in  storm  and  the  terror  of  thunder.  If 
the  golden  age  is  to  be  represented,  the  scene  is  a  soft  summer 


Munich:  Alheri.\ 

Boecklin  :  "  Pan  startling  a  Goat." 


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749 


landscape,        where 

everything  breathes 

peace  and  innocence 

and  bliss.     And  the 

life    of    those    who 

inhabit    this   happy 

region    runs    by   in 

blissful    peace    also. 

Fair     women     and 

children    rest    upon 

the     meadow,     and 

gather     fruits     and 

pluck  roses.      If  he 

paints  Ulysses  upon 

the     shore    of    the 

sea,     looking     with 

yearning       towards 

his     distant     home, 

a  dull,  sultry  haze 

of  noon  broods  over 

the  district,  wide  and  grey  like  the  hero's  yearning.     A  spring 

landscape  of  sunny  blitheness,   with   butterflies    sipping  at    the 

blossoms  of  the  trees  and  sunbeams  sportively  dallying  on  the 

sea,    are    the    surroundings    of    the    picture    where    Psyche    is 

crowned   by   Eros.      And   if  Prometheus   is   represented   chained 

to  the  rock  and  striving   to  burst  his   fetters,  all  nature   fights 

the  fight  of  the  Titan.     Lurid  clouds  move  swiftly  through  the 

sky,  ghostly   flashes    of    lightning   quiver,   and    a   wild   tempest 

rakes  the  mountains. 

In  Boecklin's  earlier  pictures  the  accessory  figures  are  placed 
in  close  relation  with  the  landscape  in  a  manner  entirely  similar. 
The  mysterious  keynote  of  sentiment  in  nature  gives  the  theme 
of  the  scene  represented.  In  the  picture  called  "  The  Penitent," 
in  the  Schack  Gallery,  a  hermit  is  kneeling  half-naked  before 
the  cross  of  the  Saviour  upon  the  slope  of  a  steep  mountain. 
Troops  of  ravens  fly  screaming  above  his  head,  and  a  strip  of 
blue   sky   shines   with   an   unearthly   aspect    between    the    trees. 


MunUh  :  Albert.^ 

Boecklin:  "The  Herd." 


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Mnnich  Photographic  Uftioft.} 

Bokckun:   "A  Sacred  Grove." 

which  are  bent  into  wild  shapes.  The  character  of  the  scene 
is  terribly  severe,  and  severe  and  heavy  is  the  misery  in  the 
heart  of  the  man  chastising  himself  with  the  scourge  in  his 
hand  as  he  kneels  there  in  prayer.  A  deep  melancholy  rests 
over  the  picture  named  "The  Villa  by  the  Sea."  The  failing 
waves  break  gently  on  the  shore  with  a  mournful  whisper,  the 
wind  utters  its  complaint  blowing  through  the  cypresses,  and  a 
few  sunbeams  wander  coyly  over  the  deep  grey  of  the  sky.  At 
the  socle  of  a  niche  a  young  woman  dressed  in  black  stands^ 
and,  with  her  head  resting  upon  her  hand,  looks  out  of  deeply 
veiled  eyes  over  the  moving  tide.  In  "The  Spring  of  Love" 
the  landscape  vibrates  in  lyrically  soft  and  flattering  chords. 
The  budding  splendour  of  blossoms  covers  the  trees  luxuriantly, 
and  a  rivulet  ripples  over  the  laughing  grassy  balk.  A  young 
man  touches  the  strings  of  a  lyre  and  sings ;  and  beside  him, 
leaning  against  a  blooming  bush,  there  stands  a  girl,  who  is 
also  singing  loudly.  In  "The  Walk  to  Emmaus"  the  ground- 
tone  is  given  by  a  grave   evening  landscape.     The  storm  ruffles 


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Munich  Photographic  Union. I 

Boecklin:   "Regions  of  Joy." 
{By  permission  of  the  Berlin  Photographic  Company ^  the  owners  oj  the  copyright.) 

the  tops  of  the  great  trees,  and  chases  across  the  sky  the  heavy 
clouds,  over  which  strange  evening  lights  are  flitting.  All  nature 
trembles  in  shivering  apprehension.  "  Abide  with  us :  for  it  is 
toward  evening,  and  the  day  is  far  spent." 

But  Boecklin's  great  creations  reach  a  higher  level.  Having 
begun  by  extending  the  lyrical  mood  of  a  landscape  to  his 
figures,  he  finally  succeeded  in  populating  nature  with  beings 
which  seem  the  final  condensation  of  the  life  of  nature  itself, 
the  tangible  embodiment  of  that  spirit  of  nature  whose  cosmic 
action  in  the  water,  the  earth,  and  the  air  he  had  glorified  in 
one  of  his  youthful  works,  the  frescoes  of  the  Basle  Museum. 
In  such  pictures  he  has  no  forerunners  whatever  in  the  more 
recent  history  of  art.  His  principle  of  creation  rests,  it  might 
be  said,  upon  the  same  overwhelming  feeling  for  nature  which 
brought  forth  the  figures  of  Greek  myth.  When  the  ancient 
Greek  stood  before  a  waterfall  he  gave  human  form  to  what  he 
saw.  His  eye  beheld  the  outlines  of  beautiful  nude  women, 
nymphs  of  the  spot,  in  the  descending  volume  of  the  cascade  ; 


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its  foam  was  their  fluttering  hair,  and  in  the  rippling  of  the 
water  and  spattering  froth  he  heard  their  bold  splashing  and 
their  laughter.  The  elemental  sway  of  nature,  the  secret  inter- 
weaving of  her  forces,  took  shape  in  plastic  forms  : — 

**  Alles  wies  den  eingeweihten  Blicken, 
Alles  eines  Gottes  Spur  .  .  . 
Diese  Hohen  fullten  Oreaden, 
Eine  Dryas  lebt  in  jedem  Baum, 
Aus  dem  Urnen  lieblicher  Najaden 
Sprang  der  Strome  Silberschaum. 
Jener  Lorbeer  wand  sich  einst  um  Hilfe, 
Tantals  Tochter  schweigt  in  diesem  Stein, 
Syrinx  Klage  tont  aus  jenem  Schilfe, 
Philomelas  Schmerz  aus  diesem  Hain/' 

The  beings  which  live  in  Boecklin's  pictures  owe  their  origin 
to  a  similar  action  of  the  spirit  He  hears  trees,  rivers,  mountains, 
and  universal  nature  whisper  as  with  human  speech.  Every 
flower,  every  bush,  every  flame,  the  rocks,  the  waves,  and  the 
meadows,  dead  and  without  feeling  as  they  are  to  the  ordinary 
eye,  have  to  his  mind  a  vivid  existence  of  their  own  ;  and  in  the 
same  way  the  old  poets  conceived  the  lightning  as  a  fiery  bird 
and  the  clouds  as  the  flocks  of  heaven.  The  stones  have  a 
voice,  white  walls  lengthen  like  huge  phantoms,  the  bright  lights 
of  the  houses  upon  a  mountain  declivity  at  night  change  into 
the  great  eyes  with  which  the  spirit  of  the  fell  glares  fixedly 
down  ;  legions  of  strange  beings  circle  and  whir  round  in  the 
fantastic  region.  In  his  imagination  every  impression  of  nature 
condenses  itself  into  figures  that  may  be  seen.  As  a  dragon 
issues  from  his  lair  to  terrify  travellers  in  the  gloom  of  a 
mountain  ravine,  and  as  the  avenging  Furies  rise  in  the  waste 
before  a  murderer,  so  in  the  still  brooding  noon,  when  a  shrill 
tone  is  heard  suddenly  and  without  a  cause,  the  Grecian  Pan 
lives  once  again  for  Boecklin — Pan  who  startles  the  shepherd 
from  his  dream  by  an  eerie  shout,  and  then  whinnies  in  mockery 
at  the  terrified  fugitive.  The  cool,  wayward  splashing  element 
of  water  takes  shape  as  a  graceful  nymph,  shrouded  in  a  trans- 
parent water-blue  veil,  and  leaning  upon  her  welling  urn  as  she 
listens   dreamily   to   the   song  of  a  bird.      The  fine  mists  which 


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rise  from  the  water-source  become  embodied  as  a  row  of  merry- 
children,  whose  vaporous  figures  float  hazily  through  the  shining 
clouds  of  spring.  And  the  secret  voices  that  live  amid  the 
silence  of  the  wood  press  round  him,  and  the  phantom  born  of 
the  excited  senses  becomes  a  ghostly  unicorn  advancing  with 
noiseless  step,  and  bearing  upon  his  back  a  maiden  of  legendary 
story  dressed  in  a  white  garment  In  the  thundercloud  lying 
over  the  broad  summit  of  a  mountain  and  abundant  in  blessing 
rain  he  sees  the  huge  body  of  the  giant  Prometheus,  who  brought 
fire  from  heaven  and  lies  fettered  to  the  mountain-top,  spread- 
ing over  the  landscape  like  a  cloud.  The  form  of  Death 
stumbling  past  cloven  trees  in  rain  and  tempest,  as  he  rides 
his  pale  horse,  appears  to  him  in  a  waste  and  chill  autumnal 
region,  where  stands  a  ruined  castle  in  lurid  illumination.  A 
sacred  grove,  lying  in  insular  seclusion  and  fringed  with  venerable 
old  trees  that  rise  straight  into  the  air  rustling  as  they  bend 
their  heads  towards  each  other,  is  peopled,  as  at  a  word  of 
enchantment,  with  grave  priestly  figures  robed  in  white,  which 
approach  in  solemn  procession  and  fling  themselves  down  in 
prayer  before  the  sacrificial  fire.  The  lonely  waste  of  the  sea 
is  not  brought  home  to  him  with  sufficient  force  by  a  wide 
floor  of  waves,  with  g^lls  indolently  flying  beneath  a  low  and 
leaden  sky.  So  he  paints  a  flat  crag  emerging  from  the  waves, 
and  upon  its  crest,  over  which  the  billows  sweep,  the  shy  dwellers 
of  the  sea  bathe  in  the  light.  Naiads  and  Tritons  assembled 
for  a  gamesome  ride  over  the  sea  typify  the  fleeing  hide  and 
seek  of  the  waves.  Yet  there  is  nothing  forced,  nothing  merely 
ingenious,  nothing  literary  in  these  inventions.  The  figures  are 
not  placed  in  nature  with  deliberate  calculation :  they  are  an 
embodied  mood  of  nature ;  they  are  children  of  the  landscape, 
and  no  mere  accessories. 

Boecklin's  power  of  creating  types  in  embodying  these  beings 
of  his  imagination  is  a  thing  unheard  of  in  the  whole  history 
of  art.  He  has  represented  his  Centaurs  and  Satyrs,  and  Fauns 
and  Sirens  and  Cupids,  so  vividly  and  impressively  that  they 
have  become  ideas  as  currently  acceptable  as  if  they  were 
simple  incomposite  beings.      He  has  seen  the   awfulness  of  the 


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sea  at  moments 
when  the  secret 
beings  of  the  deep 
emerge,  and  he 
allows  a  glimpse 
into  the  fabulous 
reality  of  their  as  yet 
unexplored  exist- 
ence.  For  all 
beings  which  hover 
swarming  in  the 
atmosphere  around, 
have  their  dwelling 
in  the  trees,  or  their 
haunts  in  rocky 
deserts,  he  has  found 
new  and  convincing 
figfures.  Everything 
which  was  created 
in  this  field  before 
his  time — the  works 
of  Diirer,  Mantegna,  and  Salvator  Rosa  not  excepted — was  an 
adroit  sport  with  forms  already  established  by  the  Greeks,  and 
a  transposition  of  Greek  statues  into  a  pictorial  medium.  With 
Boecklin,  who  instead  of  illustrating  mytholc^y  himself  creates 
it,  a  new  power  of  inventing  myths  was  introduced.  His 
creations  are  not  the  distant  issue  of  nature,  but  corporeal 
beings,  full  of  ebullient  energy,  individualized  through  and 
through,  and  stout,  lusty,  and  natural  ;  and  in  creating  them 
he  has  been  even  more  consistent  than  the  Greeks.  In  their 
work  there  is  something  inorganic  in  the  combination  of  a 
horse's  body  with  the  head  of  Zeus  or  Laocoon  grafted  upon 
it.  But  in  the  presence  of  Boecklin's  Centaurs  heaving  great 
boulders  around  them  and  biting  and  worrying  each  other's 
manes,  the  spectator  has  really  the  feeling  which  prompts  him 
to  exclaim,  "  Every  inch  a  steed  ! "  In  him  the  nature  of  the 
sea  is  expressed  through  his  cold,  slimy  women  with  the  dripping 


Munich  Photographic  UnioM,} 

Boecklin:   "Silence  in  the  Forest.* 


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hair  clinging  to  their  heads 
far  more  powerfully  than 
it  was  by  the  sea-gods  of 
Greece.  How  merciless  is 
the  look  in  their  cold,  black, 
soulless  eyes !  They  are  as 
terrible  as  the  destroying 
sea  that  yesterday  in  its 
bellowing  fury  engulfed  a 
hundred  human  creatures 
despairing  in  the  anguish  of 
death,  and  to-day  stretches 
still  and  joyous,  in  its  blue 
infinity  and  its  callous 
oblivion  of  all  the  evils  it 
has  wrought. 

And  only  a  slight  altera- 
tion in  the  truths  of  nature 
has  sufficed  him  for  the 
creation  of  such  chimerical 
beings.  As  a  landscape-painter  he  stands  with  all  his  fibres 
rooted  in  the  earth,  although  he  seems  quite  alienated  from 
this  world  of  ours,  and  his  fabulous  creatures  make  the  same 
convincing  impression  because  they  have  been  created  with  all 
the  inner  lexical  congruity  of  nature,  and  delineated  under  close 
relationship  to  actual  fact  with  the  same  numerous  details  as 
the  real  animals  of  the  earth.  For  his  Tritons,  Sirens,  and 
Mermaids,  with  their  awkward  bodies  covered  with  bristly  hair 
and  their  prominent  eyes,  he  may  have  made  studies  from  seals 
and  walruses.  As  they  stretch  themselves  upon  a  rocky  coast, 
fondling  and  playing  with  their  young,  they  have  the  look  of 
sea-cows  in  human  form,  though,  like  men,  they  have  around 
them  all  manner  of  beasts  of  prey  and  domestic  pets  which 
they  caress,  in  one  place  a  sea-serpent,  in  another  a  seal.  His 
obese  and  short-winded  Tritons,  with  shining  red  faces  and 
flaxen  hair  dripping  with  moisture,  are  good-humoured  old 
gentlemen   with  a  quantity  of  warm   blood   in   their  veins,  who 


Munich:  AlUrt.\ 
BoECKUN  :  "  The  Shepherd's  Plaint." 


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love  and  laugh  and  drink 
new  >vine..  His  Fauns 
may  be  met  with  amongst 
the  shepherds  of  the  Cam- 
pagna,  swarthy  strapping 
fellows  dressed  in  goat- 
skins after  the  fashion  of 
Pan  —  lads  with  glowing 
eyes  and  two  rows  of 
white  teeth  gleaming  like 
ivory.  It  is  chiefly  the 
colour  lavished  upon  them 
which  turns  them  into 
children  of  an  unearthly 
world,  where  other  suns 
are  shining  and  other 
stars. 

In  the  matter  of  colour 
also  the  endeavours  of  the 
nineteenth  century  reach  a 
climax  in  Boecklin.  When 
Schwind  and  his  comrades 
set  themselves  to  represent 
the  romantic  world  of  fairyland,  an  interdict  was  still  laid  upon 
colour,  and  it  was  lightly  washed  over  the  drawing,  which 
counted  as  the  thing  of  prime  importance.  The  period  which 
schooled  once  more  the  lost  sense  of  colour,  by  means  of  a 
diligent  study  of  the  old  colourists,  culminated  in  the  flaunting 
bituminous  painting  of  Makart.  The  activity  of  those  who 
advanced  from  the  study  of  mere  translations  from  nature  to 
that  of  the  editio  princeps  was  begun  with  Liebermann.  But 
Boecklin  was  the  first  in  Germany  who  revealed  the  marvellous 
power  in  colour  for  rendering  moods  of  feeling  and  its  inner 
depth  of  musical  sentiment.  Even  in  those  years  when  the 
brown  tone  of  the  galleries  prevailed  everywhere,  colour  was 
allowed  in  his  pictures  to  have  its  own  independent  existence, 
apart  from  its  office  of  being  a  merely  subordinate  characteristic 


Munich  Photographic  UnioM.] 

Boecklin  :  **  Flora.* 


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of  form.  For  him  green 
was  thoroughly  green,  blue 
was  divinely  blue,  and  red 
was  jubilantly  red.  At  the 
very  time  when  Richard 
Wagner  lured  the  colours 
of  sound  from  music,  with 
a  glow  and  light  such  as 
no  master  had  kindled  be- 
fore, Boecklin's  symphonies 
of  colour  streamed  forth 
like  a  crashing  orchestra. 
The  whole  scale,  from  the 
most  sombre  depth  to  the 
most  chromatic  light,  was 
at  his  command.  In  his 
pictures  of  spring  the 
colour  laughs,  rejoices,  and 
exults.  In  "The  Isle  of 
the  Dead"  it  seems  as 
though  a  veil  of  crape 
were  spread  over  the  sea, 
the    sky,    and    the    trees. 

And  since  that  time  Boecklin  has  grown  even  greater.  His 
splendid  sea-green,  his  transparent  blue  sky,  his  sunset  flush 
tinged  with  violet  haze,  his  yellow-brown  rocks,  his  gleaming 
red  sea-mosses,  and  the  white  bodies  of  his  girls  are  always 
arranged  in  new  glowing,  sensuous  harmonies.  Many  of  his 
pictures  have  such  an  ensnaring  brilliancy  that  the  eye  is  never 
weary  of  feasting  upon  their  floating  splendour.  Indeed  later 
generations  will  probably  do  him  honour  as  the  greatest 
colour-poet  of  the  century. 

And,  at  the  same  time,  they  will  learn  from  his  works  that 
at  the  close  of  this  same  unstable  century  there  were  complete 
and  healthy  human  beings.  The  more  modern  sentiment  became 
emancipated,  the  more  did  artists  venture  to  feel  with  their 
own   nerves   and  not   with  those   of  earlier  generations,  and   the 


Munich  Photographic  Union.] 

BoECKUN  :  "  Vita  Somnium  Brevb." 


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Boeckun:   "In  the  Trough  of  the  Waves." 


iHeutjsiOMgt  kelio. 


more  it  became  evident  that  modern  sentiment  is  almost  always 
disordered,  restlessly  despairing,  unbelieving,  and  weary  of  life. 
Even  Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  Gustave  Moreau,  and  Puvis  de 
Chavannes  are  men  of  overstrained,  unhealthy  temperament, 
refining  even  where  they  would  be  narve.  A  distracted,  psycho- 
pathic trait  runs  almost  always  through  their  works.  Shrill 
cries  of  tremulous  longing  and  melancholy  abnegation  break 
forth  everywhere.  And  early  satiety  and  the  beginning  of  pre- 
mature sterility  have  laid  hold  upon  the  younger  men.  At 
thirty  they  produce  good  works,  and  then  they  repeat  them- 
selves, break  down,  and  become  the  caricatures  of  their  earlier 
selves.  Boecklin,  however,  the  most  modern  of  them  all, 
possesses  that  quality  of  iron  health  of  which  modernity  knows 
so  little.  There  is  a  portrait  of  him  painted  by  himself  in 
which  he  faces  the  spectator  in  the  best  of  humours,  holding  a 
wine-glass  in  his  right  hand,  while  his  left  arm  rests  against 
his   side.     That   is   the   fundamental   sentiment   running  through 


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Mmuch  :  Albiri,^ 


Boeckun:  "An  Idyll  of  the  Ska." 


his  art  It  rises  from  the  sad  tide  that  flows  around  us  to-day 
like  a  granite  island  of  antique  fable,  becau3e  he  is  so  exuber- 
ant of  his  power,  so  full  of  sunny  blitheness,  so  free  from  all 
sentimentality  and  from  the  sorrowfulness  of  the  world,  so 
saturated  with  that  Olympian  calm  which  has  vanished  from 
the  world  since  Goethe :  he  is  no  mortal  who  has  fought  and 
conquered  and  lost  the  peace  of  his  own  soul  in  conquest, 
but  a  hero,  a  god  who  triumphs  smiling  in  quiet  power. 

A  niaster  who  died  in  Rome  some  nine  years  ago  might 
have  been  in  the  province  of  mural  painting  for  German  art 
what  Puvis  de  Chavannes  has  become  for  French.  In  the  earlier 
histories  of  art  his  name  is  not  mentioned.  Seldom  alluded 
to  in  life,  dead  as  a  German  painter  ten  years  before  his  death, 
he  was  summoned  from  the  grave  by  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
friend  who  was  a  refined  connoisseur  four  years  after  the  earth 
had  closed  over  him.  Such  was  Hans  von  Maries'  destiny  as 
an  artist. 

Maries  was  born  in  Elberfeld  in  1837.  In  beginning  his 
studies  he  had  first  betaken  himself  to  Berlin,  and  then  went 
for  eight  years  to  Munich,  where  he  paid  his  tribute  to  the 
historical  tendency  by  a  "Death  of  Schill."  But  in  1864  he 
migrated  to  Rome,  where  he  secluded  himself  with  a  few  pupils, 
VOL.  III.  49 


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Boecklin:   "The  Isle  of  the  Dead." 


{MaxKHngtr'^c. 


and  passed  his  time  in  working  and  teaching.  Only  once  did 
he  receive  an  order.  He  was  entrusted  in  1873  with  the  execution 
of  some  mural  paintings  in  the  library  of  the  Zoological 
Museum  in  Naples,  and  lamented  afterwards  that  he  had  not 
received  the  commission  in  riper  years.  When  he  had  sufficient 
confidence  in  himself  to  execute  such  tasks  he  had  no  similar 
opportunity,  and  thus  he  lost  the  capacity  for  the  rapid  com- 
pletion of  a  work.  He  began  to  doubt  his  own  powers,  sent 
no  more  pictures  to  any  exhibition,  and  when  he  died  in  the 
summer  of  1887,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  his  funeral  was  that  of  a 
man  almost  unknown.  It  was  only  when  his  best  works  were 
brought  together  at  the  annual  exhibition  of  1891  at  Munich 
that  he  became  known  in  wider  circles,  and  these  pictures,  now 
preserved  in  the  Castle  of  Schleissheim,  will  show  down  to  future 
years  who  Hans  von  Maries  was  and  what  he  aimed  at. 

"  An  artist  rarely  confines  himself  to  what  he  has  the 
power  of  doing,"  said  Goethe  once  to  Eckermann ;  "  most  artists 
want  to  do  more  than  they  can,  and  are  only  too  ready  to 
go  beyond  the  limits  which  nature  has  set  to  their  talent." 
Setting  out  from  this  tenet,  there  would  be  little  cause  for 
rescuing  Maries  from  oblivion.  Some  likenesses  and  a  few 
drawings  are  his  only   performances  which  satisfy  the  demands 


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763 


Munich:  FUdltr,} 

Hans  von  Maries  :   Portrait 
OF  Himself. 


of  the  studio — the  likenesses  being 
large  in  conception  and  fine  in  taste, 
the  drawings  sketched  with  a  swifter 
and  surer  hand.  His  large  works  have 
neither  in  drawing  nor  colour  any 
one  of  those  advantages  which  are 
expected  in  a  good  picture ;  they 
are  sometimes  incomplete,  sometimes 
tortured,  and  sometimes  positively 
childish.  "  He  is  ambitious,  but  he 
achieves  nothing,"  was  the  verdict 
passed  upon  him  in  Rome.  Upon 
principle  Maries  was  an  opponent  of 
all  painting  from  the  model.  He 
scoffed  at  those  who  would  only 
reproduce  existing  fact,  and  thus,  in 
a    certain    sense,    reduplicate    nature, 

according  to  Goethe's  saying :  "If  I  paint  my  mistress's  pug 
true  to  nature,  I  have  two  pugs,  but  never  a  work  of  art."  For 
this  reason  he  never  used  models  for  the  purpose  of  detailed 
pictorial  studies ;  and  just  as  little  was  he  at  pains  to  fix 
situations  in  his  mind  by  pencil  sketches  to  serve  as  notes  ;  for, 
according  to  his  view,  the  direct  use  of  motives,  as  they  are 
called,  is  only  a  hindrance  to  free  artistic  creation.  And  of 
course  creation  'of  this  kind  is  only  possible  to  a  man  who 
can  always  command  a  rich  store  of  vivid  memories  of  what 
he  has  seen  and  studied  and  profoundly  grasped  in  earlier  days. 
This  treasury  of  artistic  forms  was  not  large  enough  in  Maries. 
If  one  buries  one's  self  in  Maries'  works — and  there  are  some 
of  them  in  which  the  trace  of  great  genius  has  altogether 
vanished  beneath  the  unsteady  hand  of  a  restless  brooder — it 
seems  as  if  there  thrilled  within  them  the  cry  of  a  human 
heart.  Sometimes  through  his  method  of  painting  them  over 
and  over  again  he  produced  spectral  beings  with  grimacing 
faces.  Their  bodies  have  been  so  painted  and  repainted  that 
whole  layers  of  colour  lie  upon  separate  parts,  and  ruin  the 
impression    in    a    ghastly    fashion.      Only   too    often    his    high 


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Munich:  FttdUr.} 


Mar£es:   "The  Hesperides.*' 


purpose  was  wrecked  by  the  inadequacy  of  his  technical  ability ; 
and  his  poetic  dream  of  beauty  almost  always  evaporated 
because  his  hand  was  too  weak  to  give  it  shape. 

If  his  pictures,  in  spite  of  all  this,  made  a  great  effect  in 
the  Munich  exhibition,  it  was  because  they  formulated  a  principle. 
It  was  felt  that  notes  had  been  touched  of  which  the  echo 
would  be  long  in  dying.  When  Maries  appeared  there  was 
no  •* grand  painting"  for  painting's  sake  in  Germany,  but  mural 
decoration  after  the  fashion  of  the  historical  picture — works  in 
which  the  aim  of  decorative  art  was  completely  misunderstood, 
since  they  merely  gave  a  rendering  of  arid  and  instructive 
stories,  where  they  should  have  simply  aimed  at  expressing 
"  a  mood."  Like  his  contemporary  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in 
France,  Maries  restored  to  this  "grand  painting**  the  principle 
of    its    life,   its    joyous    impulse,    and    did   so   not    by    painting 


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anecdote,  but  be- 
cause he  aimed  at 
nothing  but  pictorial 
decorative  effect. 
A  sumptuous  festal 
impression  might  be 
gained  from  his 
pictures  ;  it  was  as 
though  beautiful  and 
subdued  music  held 
the  air ;  they  made 
the  appeal  of  quiet 
hymns  to  the  beauty 
of  nature,  and  were, 
at  the  same  time, 
grave  and  monu- 
mental in  effect. 

In  one  St.  Martin 
rides  through  a 
desolate  wintry 
landscape  upon  a 
slow  -  trotting    nag, 

and  holds  his  outspread  mantle  towards  the  half-naked  beggar, 
shivering  with  the  cold.  In  another  St  Hubert  has  alighted 
from  his  horse,  and  kneels  in  adoration  before  the  cross  which 
he  s^ts  between  the  antlers  of  the  stag.  In  another  St.  George, 
upon  a  powerful  rearing  horse,  thrusts  his  lance  through  the 
body  of  the  dragon  with  solemn  and  earnest  mien.  But  as 
a  rule  ^ven  the  relationship  with  antique,  mythological,  and 
mediaeval  legendary  ideas  is  wanting  in  his  art  Landscapes 
which  seem  to  have  been  studied  in  another  world  he  populates 
with  people  who  pass  their  lives  lost  in  contemplation  of  the 
divine.  Women  and  children,  men  and  grey-beards  live,  and 
love,  and  labour  as  though  in  an  age  that  knows  nothing  of 
the  stroke  of  the  clock,  and  which  might  be  yesterday  or  a 
hundred  thousand  years  ago.  They  repose  upon  the  luxuriant 
sward    shadowed    by   apple-trees    laden    with    fruit,   abandoning 


Munich  :  FUdUr,"] 

Marles  : 


"Three  Youths.'* 


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themselves  to  a  thousand 
reveries  and  meditations. 
They  do  not  pose,  and 
they  aim  at  being  nothing 
except  children  of  nature, 
nature  in  her  innocence 
and  simplicity.  Nude 
women  stand  motionless 
under  the  trees,  or  youths 
arc  seen  reflected  in  the 
water-source.  The  motive 
of  gathering  oranges  is 
several  times  repeated : 
a  youth  snatches  at  the 
fruit,  an  old  man  bends 
to  pick  up  those  which 
have  dropped,  and  a 
child  searches  for  those 
which  are  rolling  away 
in  the  grass.  Sometimes 
the  steed,  the  Homeric 
comrade  of  man,  is  intro- 
duced :  the  nude  youth 
rides  his  steed  in  the  training-school,  or  the  commander  of 
an  army  gallops  upon  his  splendid  warhorse.  Everything 
that  Martes  has  painted  belongs  to  the  golden  age.  And 
when  it  was  borne  in  mind  that  these  pictures  had  been  pro- 
duced twenty  years  back  or  more,  they  came  to  have  the 
significance  of  works  that  opened  out  a  new  path  ;  there  was 
poetry  in  the  place  of  didactic  formulas,  in  the  place  of  historical 
anecdote  the  joy  of  plastic  beauty,  in  the  place  of  theatrical 
vehemence  an  absence  of  gesticulation  and  a  perfect  simplicity 
of  line.  At  a  time  when  others  rendered  dramas  and  historical 
episodes  by  colours  and  gestures,  Marees  composed  idylls.  He 
came  as  a  man  of  great  and  austere  talent,  Virgilian  in  his 
sense  of  infinite  repose  on  the  heart  of  nature,  monastic  in 
his   abnegation   of  petty   superficial   allurements,   despite   special 


Munich :  FtfdUr.^ 

MARiss:  "St.  Hubert." 


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Graphischt  Kiinsit.] 
Hans  Thoma  :  Portrait  or  Himself. 


attempts  which  he  made  at 
chromatic  effect.  Something 
dreamy  and  architectonic,  lofty 
and  yet  familiar,  intimate  in 
feeling  and  yet  monumental, 
holds  sway  in  his  works.  In- 
timacy of  effect  he  achieved 
by  the  stress  he  laid  upon 
landscape ;  monumental  dignity 
by  his  grandiose  and  earnest 
art,  and  his  calm  and  sense  of 
style  in  line.  All  abrupt  turns 
and  movements  were  avoided 
in  his  work.  And  he  displayed 
a  refinement  entirely  peculiar 
to  himself  through  the  manner 
in  which  he  brought  into  accord 
the  leading   lines  of  landscape 

and  the  leading  lines  in  his  figures.  A  feeling  for  style,  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  was  understood  by  the  old  painters,  is  every- 
where dominant  in  his  work,  and  a  handling  of  line  and 
composition  in  the  grand  manner  which  placed  him  upon  a 
level  with  the  masters  of  art.  A  new  and  simple  beauty  was 
revealed.  And  if  it  is  true  that  it  is  only  in  the  field  of  plastic 
art  that  he  has  had,  up  to  the  present,  any  pupil  of  importance 
— and  he  had  one  in  Adolf  Hildebrandt— it  is,  nevertheless, 
beyond  question  that  the  monumental  painting  of  the  future 
is  alone  capable  of  being  developed  upon  the  ground  prepared 
by  Mardes. 

Nans  Thoma,  the  hermit  of  Frankfort,  makes  but  a  ver^/ 
small  figure  beside  Boecklin  or  even  Maries.  Both  of  the 
latter  command  a  far  more  impressive  and  monumental  art, 
and  Thoma  is  slightly  Philistine  in  comparison.  And  he  was 
over-estimated  beyond  a  doubt  when,  in  the  rapture  of  having 
discovered  this  misunderstood  painter,  people  placed  him  beside 
Boecklin.  The  mind  of  Boecklin,  who  beholds  the  wonders 
of  the  world  with   large   and   clear  eyes,  embodying   the   most 


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daring  visions  of  his  poetic 
spirit  with  deliberate  and 
confident  power,  is  so 
stupendous  in  its  sovereign 
calm  that  it  would  be  a 
crying  injustice  to  measure 
Thoma  by  the  same 
standard.  He  is  merely 
naYve  and  genial,  and  in 
no  case  large  and  lofty; 
none  the  less  is  he  an 
artist  whom  it  is  possible 
to  love. 

Thoma,  the  pupil  of 
Albrecht  Altdorfer,  was 
born  in  Bernau,  in  the 
Black  Forest,  close  to 
Hochkopf.  As  a  boy  he 
was  surrounded  by  the 
homely  poetry  of  nature. 
He  lived  in  an  old  wooden 
house  roofed  with  shingle, 
lay  upon  the  green 
pastures  on  the  mountain 
slope  of  his  village,  and 
played  amid  the  little  glistening  trout-streams  which  wind  like 
silver  ribbons  through  the  soft  meadows  of  the  Black  Forest 
Up  to  his  twentieth  year  he  lived  his  life  as  if  in  a  quiet 
forest  idyll,  and  then  worked,  in  the  winter,  at  any  rate,  for 
some  time  under  Schirmer.  But  he  was  too  old  to  learn  the 
A  B  C  of  art.  Neither  his  residence  in  Diisseldorf  in  1867, 
nor  his  stay  in  Paris  in  1868,  nor  a  journey  to  Italy  in  1874, 
nor  a  sojourn  in  1875  in  Munich,  where  he  specially  affected 
the  society  of  Boecklin,  Leibl,  and  Triibner,  left  any  permanent 
impressions  behind  them.  Victor  Miiller  alone  seems  to  have 
had  a  quickening  influence  upon  him  through  some  of  his 
fairy  pictures.      Having  acquired   a  simple  method   of  painting. 


Frankfort:  KiiM.] 

Thoma : 


'  Flora.' 


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Munich  :  Hanf8tdngl.'\ 


ThOMA  :    "  TWIUGHT  IN   THE   BeECHES." 


with  which  he  appears  to  have  been  content,  and  a  faculty  for 
giving  exhaustive  expression  to  what  he  profoundly  felt,  h^ 
settled  in  Frankfort,  and  led  a  lonely,  industrious  life  in  his 
studio,  which  was  overgrown  with  ivy,  troubling  himself  little 
over  his  want  of  success  or  the  derision  of  the  public.  So 
long  diS  the  Piloty  school  was  in  the  ascendant  his  unpre^ 
tentious  pictures  were  not  understood.  They  represented  no 
great  historical  dramas,  and  did  not  obtrude  themselves 
through  flaunting  bituminous  painting  or  pompous  gestures. 
Even  in  the  matter  of  colour  there  were  some  of  them  which 
seemed  too  green  and  blue,  and  others  had  too  little  grace 
in  their  hard  outlines.  It  was  only  in  1889,  when  he  exhibited 
in  the  Munich  Art  Union,  that  Germany  began  to  understand 
Thoma's  fresh  and  childlike  tones. 

Moreover  his  works  will  not  stand  minute  criticism.  They 
are  full  of  inequalities,  weaknesses,  and  errors  of  drawing. 
Every  one  of  them  might  be  pulled  to  pieces  on  the  score  of 
technical    blemishes.       And    yet    one    would    not    wish    them 


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Munich :  HanfsMngt,] 


Thoma:  *'A  Taunus  Landscape/' 


different ;  one  would  be  afraid  of  the  personal  note  being  lost 
in  them.  As  they  are  they  have  something  so  profoundly 
German  in  their  strange  dreaminess  that  they  recall  Friedrich 
SchlegeFs  assertion  that  the  German  artist  has  either  no 
character  whatever,  or  he  is  forced  to  accept  that  of  the  old 
German  masters  and  be  true-hearted,  bourgeois^  and  a  trifle 
clumsy. 

If  Boecklin  belongs  neither  to  the  past  nor  the  present, 
and  Maries  is  only  at  home  in  the  Italian  Quattrocento, 
Thoma's  art  is  rooted  in  the  old  German  wood-engraving.  In 
place  of  the  opulent  imagination  of  the  master  of  Zurich, 
who  with  the  wide  eyes  of  a  creature  of  the  sea  gazes  fixedly 
into  life  like  the  Hellenic  sphinx,  there  is  something  rustic 
and  provincial  in  Thoma,  something  naively  childlike  which 
directly  suggests  the  masters  of  the  age  of  Diirer,  more  par- 
ticularly Altdorfer.  A  fresh  whiff  of  ozone,  a  fragrant  poetry 
of  fable,  and   the  rustling   of  German   woodlands   are  felt  from 


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his  pictures.  And  the  memory  of  Schwind  and  Ludwig  Richter 
is  awakened  in  his  rustic  idylls. 

There  are  landscapes :  grassy  hills,  sown  with  flowers, 
in  the  distance  mountains,  and  little  brooks  in  the  foreground, 
and  heavy  blue  air  above ;  little  paths  which  wind  over  the 
hills,  and  men  playing  the  guitar  as  they  wend  their  way; 
dark  green  slopes  of  forest,  with  deeply  hued  rain-clouds  and 
dark  blue  horizon,  and  in  the  foreground  moist  fields  and 
solitary  peasants  following  the  plough.  Here  he  paints  a 
luxuriantly  green  valley  of  the  Black  Forest,  traversed  by 
glittering  and  rippling  waters,  and  warm  sunshine  sleeping 
upon  the  clumps  of  trees;  there  a  landscape  in  the  Taunus 
country  viewed  by  a  traveller  who  is  lying  upon  a  shady 
slope.  Or  he  paints  children  dancing,  or  peasant  lads  sitting 
upon  the  stump  of  a  tree  in  the  garden  playing  the  fiddle. 
The  golden  moon  rises  in  the  deep  blue  sky  behind  them, 
and  scarlet  flowers  glimmer  through  the  dusk,  while  the  soft 
notes  of  the  instrument  softly  and  tremulously  die  away  amid 
the  mysterious  peace  of  evening. 

In  these  still  landscapes  the  fabulous  beings  of  old  legends 
find  a  congenial  haunt,  the  spirits  of  the  forest  and  the 
fountain.  Sometimes  there  is  a  nymph  seated  by  the  brawling 
stream,  whilst  farther  back  upon  the  ground  starred  with 
flowers  little  angels  are  twirling  in  the  dance.  Sometimes  he 
reveals  a  goat-footed  fellow  in  the  thick  of  the  wood  blowing 
his  syrinx,  and  at  the  verge  of  the  forest  a  passing  horseman 
listening  in  wonder  to  the  ghostly  tones.  Or  he  represents  a 
gigantic  man  with  a  lion  at  his  side,  standing  as  sentinel 
before  the  Garden  of  Love,  where  finely  outlined  figures  of 
women  and  nude  striplings  are  roaming.  Or  beneath  a 
dazzling  blue  sky  in  front  of  the  shadowy  gloom  of  a  forest 
whence  a  cool  stream  is  flowing,  the  Madonna  is  seated,  bending 
over  the  Child  with  maternal  love,  while  little  blond  and 
blooming  angels,  shining  like  dragon-flies,  wild  children  of  the 
sky,  bow  with  a  droll  gravity.  His  "Paradise"  is  a  marvellous 
landscape  with  fair  mountains  and  slender  trees,  green 
meadows,    blue    waters,    and    wise    animals    living    in    peaceful 


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harmony  with  Adam  and  Eve,  Lucas  Kranach  might  have 
painted  the  picture,  were  there  not  over  everything  in  the 
work  of  Thoma  a  light  breath  of  that  melancholy  which  the 
nineteenth  century  brought  first  into  the  world. 

But  the  young  school  has  no  right  to  claim  either  Boecklin 
or  Maries  or  Thoma.  They  looked  on  with  indifference  whilst 
the  historical  painters,  the  Naturalists,  and  the  Impressionists 
passed  by  their  studio  window,  having  already  found  the  ex- 
pression they  needed  for  their  reverie  and  meditation.  The 
first  Idealist  of  Naturalism  is  Fritz  von  Uhde.  As  early  as 
1884,  when  other  young  artists  regarded  everything  trans- 
cending reality  as  a  lure  of  the  devil,  Uhde  rode  forth  into 
the  unknown  land  as  the  first  to  start  upon  a  reconnoitring 
venture:  he  was  the  first  who,  standing  upon  the  soil  of 
Naturalism,  was  not  satisfied  with  merely  reproducing  what  he 
had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  ;  on  the  contrary  he  approached 
metaphysical  tasks  by  the  route  of  Naturalism  itself  "Art 
has  decisively  broken  with  religion."  It  is  a  curious  coincidence 
that  Fritz  von  Uhde  was  born  in  the  very  year  when  old  F. 
T.  Vischer  demonstrated  this  thesis  throughout  so  many  pages 
of  his  ^stJutic,  because  it  was  Von  Uhde  who  was  destined 
to  take  up  new  sides  of  religious  painting  and  devote  himself 
to  giving  it  new  life  with  the  zeal  of  an  apostle. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  its  history  had  been  one  of  great 
misfortunes.  As  a  heritage  derived  from  the  classic  periods 
of  art  it  had  come  at  once  under  the  curse  of  disci pleship 
An  age  wanting  in  independence,  such  as  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  of  course  never  got  beyond  the  imitation 
of  classical  forms,  and  confined  itself  to  a  lukewarm  repetition 
of  figures  borrowed  from  the  Cinquecento,  which  became  so 
diluted  that  they  gradually  assumed  a  Byzantine  pattern.  "  All 
biblical  pieces  have  been  robbed  of  their  truth  and  simpli- 
city and  spoilt  for  sympathetic  minds  by  frigid  exaltation  and 
starched  ecclesiasticism.  By  stately  mantles  falling  into  folds  an 
effort  is  made  to  conceal  the  empty  dignity  of  the  supernatural 
persons."  Thus  it  was  that  Goethe  wrote  of  this  Idealism  of 
a  period  of  decay. 


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In  the  age  when  the  Oriental  picture  dominated  art  religious 
painting  also  took  part  in  this  journey  to  the  East.  On  the 
tour  which  he  made  to  Syria  and  Palestine  in  1839-40,  Horace 
Vernet  had  recognized  to  his  horror  how  much  the  Bible  had 
been  misconceived  up  to  this  time.  Jerusalem,  Damascus,  and 
Nazareth— in  reality  they  were  all  very  diflferent  from  what  the 
pictures  of  the  old  masters  would  have  led  one  to  suppose. 
From  the  atmospheric  effects  to  the  agrarian,  geological,  and 
architectural  details  there  was  nothing  that  tallied.  Even  the 
costume  in  which  biblical  personages  had  been  represented  was 
apocryphal.  Joseph — the  East  is  conservative  in  its  fashions — 
wore  a  white  shirt  and  a  machlah  when  he  was  espoused  to 
Mary,  and  they  had  never  thought  of  enveloping  themselves  in 
red  and  blue  drapery  in  the  interests  of  the  future  Cinquecentisti. 
The  "  Sposalizio  *'  of  Perugino  and  Raphael,  after  this  was 
recognized,  had  the  effect  of  a  veritable  masquerade.  Vernet 
hastened  to  submit  his  new  discovery  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Institute.  Modern  painting,  he  contended,  would  attain  its 
greatest  triumphs  through  it.  It  could  begin  by  reclothing 
the  persons  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  restoring  to 
them  those  proper  local  associations  which  they  had  been  forced 
to  do  without  in  the  Renaissance.  Happily  this  version  of  the 
Bible  met  with  the  same  fate  as  Putkammer*s  orthography — no 
one  could  accustom  himself  to  it  Through  this  historical  and 
ethnographical  meddling  to  which  it  was  submitted  in  the 
thirties  and  forties,  religious  painting  was  no  loftier  than  it 
had  been  in  the  days  of  Era  Angelico  and  Rembrandt.  The 
spirit  was  dead,  but  the  letter  was  alive.  In  strictly  copying 
their  architecture  from  Egyptian,  Persian,  Assyrian,  or  Roman 
remains,  and  their  costumes  from  those  of  the  modern  Bedouins, 
painters  were  certainly  able  to  attain  local  truth  in  externals, 
but  the  more  essential  truth  of  subject  retreated  further  into 
the  background.  The  character  of  the  majority  of  these  pictures 
might  be  described  as  an  arid  and  Philistine  Realism,  in  which 
every  trace  of  taste  disappeared,  before  the  fatal  consciousness 
at  last  arose  that  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Christ  most  certainly 
did  not  wear  burnouses  and  turbans. 


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iHanjBidngl  photo. 
Eduard  von  Gebhardt. 


Afterwards,  when  belief  in 
historical  painting  was  the  first 
requisite  of  the  aesthetic  cate- 
chism, the  Oriental  genre  picture 
was  followed  by  the  religious 
spectacular  piece,  the  gala  re- 
presentation before  God  the 
Father.  As  all  the  secular 
heroes  of  the  Piloty  and  the 
Delaroche  school  declaimed, 
gesticulated,  and  upset  stools, 
the  heroes  of  sacred  history 
strode  by  with  an  empty  desire 
of  admiration  with  all  the 
exaggerated  bearing  of  stage 
princes.  Munkacsys  "  Christ 
before  Pilate"  is  probably  the 
best  known  and  most  important  of  these  operatic  scenes. 
If  one  were  to  think  of  any  one  of  those  figures  from  the 
populace  which  surround  the  Saviour  in  Rembrandt's  etchings, 
any  one  of  those  simple  folk  who  have  no  premeditated  aim, 
who  are  just  there,  though  they  take  part  in  the  action  with 
all  their  might  and  main,  and  do  not  in  the  least  concern  them- 
selves about  the  spectator — if  one  were  to  think  of  such  a  figure 
beside  the  noisy,  shrieking  figurants  so  well  trained  to  fill  their 
place  in  these  pictures,  all  the  ostentatious  creations  of  this 
period  would  sink  into  nothing ;  and  beside  Rembrandt's  natural 
and  unforced  composition  the  same  fate  would  befall  the  adroidy 
designed  arrangement  by  which  these  painters  sought  to  conceal 
the  hoUowness  of  their  work. 

The  reaction  against  this  spurious  art  began  with  Wilhelm 
Steinhausen—di  master  who  has  been  but  little  honoured,  though 
he  had  both  force  and  depth  of  expression — and  more  particularly 
with  Eduard  von  Gebhardt,  Nothing  more  was  to  be  gained 
from  banal  idealism  of  form ;  dominated  by  the  effort  to  obtain 
beautiful  folds  of  drapery,  it  left  no  room  for  the  development 
of  characterization.      Weary  of  pseudo-idealistic  pomp,  and,  like 


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775 


Gebhardt  :   "  PietX." 


iHaitfsiangl  photo. 


Leys,  basing  the  whole  spirit  of  his  art  upon  the  mediaeval  . 
Germans,  Gebhardt  endeavoured  to  paint  the  men  and  women 
of  the  Bible  in  the  costume  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
Van  Eycks,  DUrer,  Holbein,  and,  above  all,  Roger  van  der 
Weyden,  the  great  dramatist  amongst  the  Northern  painters  ot 
the  Quattrocento,  were  his  models,  and  he  imitated  them  with 
such  judgment  that  it  seemed  as  if  a  good  Dutch  painter  of 
the  Reformation  period  were  risen  from  the  grave.  For  this 
reason  he  marks  no  period  of  progress  in  the  history  of  art. 
What  he  painted  had  been  already  painted  quite  as  well.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  appearance  was  a  matter  of  importance  to 
the  religious  painting  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  substituting 
angular  old  Nuremburg  and  old  Flemish  figures  for  the  handsome, 
athletic  men  formerly  introduced  as  fishers  and  apostles,  he 
accustomed  the  eye  to  notice  that  there  was  something  truer 
than  noble  line  and  aristocratic  pose.  Realistic  force  took  the 
place  of  ideal  vagueness.  For  though  the  costumes  are  taken 
from   the  wardrobe  of  the   fifteenth  century,  the  heads  are   for 


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Menzel  :   "Christ  in  the  Temple.*' 


lArHstlUho. 


the  most  part  studied  from  nature.  In  the  tough  and  raw 
population  of  his  Esthland  home  he  found  a  race  of  men  as 
sinewy  as  Roger  van  der  Weyden  could  have  desired.  In  spite 
of  their  garb  his  apostles  have  a  certain  likeness  to  modern 
artisans  ;  they  do  not  pose  and  are  not  taken  up  with  themselves. 
His  antiquarian,  old-world,  ascetic  tendency  is  not  merely  more 
full-blooded,  but  it  has  also  greater  spiritual  distinction  than  that 
of  the  earlier  artists,  because  he  laid  stress  in  the  first  place 
upon  the  action  of  the  soul,  the  idealism  of  thought. 

In  this  sense  Gebhardt  forms  a  link  between  the  past  and  the 
present.  When  once  the  modern  picture  of  the  age  had  been 
substituted  in  the  hands  of  the  Realists  for  the  historical  painting, 
and  the  modern  artisan  had  usurped  the  place  of  the  Renaissance 
damsel  and  the  mercenary  soldier,  it  followed  quite  naturally 
that  certain  painters  were  prompted  to  treat  the  history  of  Christ 
as  if  they  had  taken  part  in  it  themselves  that  day  or  the  day 
before.      It  was  only   by  this  transposition  to  the   present   that 


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777 


Liebermann:  "Christ  in  the  Temple." 


it  was  held  possible 
to  give  sacred 
painting  that  inner 
relationship  to  the 
age  which  it  had  in 
the  older  periods  of 
art.  And  the  sym- 
pathy with  which 
the  liberals  at  this 
time  followed  the 
struggle  for  the 
emancipation  of  the 
Jews  was  so  eager, 
that  artists  felt  they 
were  on  the  right 
way  in  represent- 
ing Christ  as  a 
specially  wise  and 
benevolent  Jew.  At 
the  head  of  the  group  is  Menzel,  who  in  a  brilliant  lithograph 
of  1 85 1  introduced  the  boy  Jesus  as  an  intelligent  young 
Israelite,  delighting  a  number  of  Polish  Jews  by  His  wise 
replies.  As  further  experiments  the  two  pictures  by  Ernst 
Zimmermann  and  Max  Liebemuum  made  a  sensation  in  1879; 
they  were  suggestive  even  from  the  purely  pictorial  point  of 
view,  though  they  were  too  much  in  opposition  with  the  con- 
ceptions of  our  age  to  have  successors  on  the  same  lines: 
as  circumstances  are,  it  is  impossible  to  make  the  Western  Jew 
of  the  nineteenth  century  a  leading  actor  in  sacred  history 
without  pictures  becoming  comic  or  producing  an  irreverent 
satirical  effect. 

Fritz  von  Ulide  felt  this,  and  set  modern  Christians  in  the  place 
of  modern  Jews.  When  he  came  forward  in  1884  with  the  first 
picture  of  this  type  he  had  already  concerned  himself  with  a 
great  variety  of  matters.  His  father  was  an  ecclesiastical 
functionary,  and  he  wajs  bom  in  Wolkenburg  in  Saxony  on 
May  22nd,  1848,  and  entered  the  Saxon  Horse  Guards  in  1867- 
VOL.  III.  50 


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He  went  through  the  French 
campaign  as  an  officer,  and 
remained  in  the  army  until 
1877,  when  he  had  attained  the 
grade  of  captain.  After  that 
he  betook  himself  to  Munich  to 
become  a  painter,  did  his  duty 
by  the  painting  of  knights  and 
harness,  and  revelled  in  colouring 
after  the  fashion  of  Makart 
In  1879  he  stood  in  Paris  at 
Munkacsy's  easel.  A  "  Chan- 
teuse"  and  a  "Family  Concert" 
exhibited  in  1880  in  the  Paris 
Salon  were  the  fruits  of  his 
residence  in  that  city.  It  was 
only  after  his  return,  when  he 
was  incited  to  go  to  Holland 
through  Max  Liebermann,  that  his  views  underwent  a  revolution. 
"  The  Sempstresses "  and  "  The  Organ-Grinder "  were  exceed- 
ingly pleasing  works  from  Dutch  life,  which  avoided  every  hint 
of  genre,  and,  next  to  those  of  Liebermann,  they  were  the  first 
pictures  which  familiarized  Munich  painters  with  the  results  of 
French  Naturalism. 

Since  that  time  Uhde  has  frequently  painted  such  repre- 
sentations from  modern  life,  and  he  is  altogether  one  of  the 
most  various  masters  of  the  present— one  of  the  most  capable 
in  making  transitions.  In  1884  he  sent  "The  Drum  Practice" 
to  the  Munich  Exhibition;  in  1888  "A  Children's  Procession," 
which  in  its  sparkling  vivacity  made  a  close  approach  to  Menzel ; 
in  1889  "A  Nursery,"  and  "A  Little  Princess  of  the  Heath" 
such  as  Bastien-Lepage  would  have  painted  in  Dachau.  And 
he  placed  himself  at  the  side  of  the  most  eminent  Munich 
portraitists  by  the  likeness  of  a  lady  in  black  painted  in  1890, 
and  in  1893  by  "The  Actor."  He  grew  richer  in  the  means 
of  expression,  and  his  pallet  became  more  powerful.  Gifted 
with   a   tenacious    faculty   for   work,   he    has    ability  enough    to 


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779 


approach  all 
subjects ;  and 
it  is  to  be 
expected  that 
he  will  con- 
tinue to  take 
the  public 
by  surprise 
through  many 
eminent  pic- 
tures dealing 
with  the  most 
varied  sub- 
jects. I" ' 

#  But  it  is 
as  a  biblical 
painter  that  he 
has  achieved 
his  most  last- 


iHanfstangl  photo, 
'The  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 


mg  successes, 

associated    as  Uhde  : 

they  are  with 

those  violent  attacks  upon  him  which  contributed  to  render  his 
works  more  familiar.  The  first  of  these  same  works — a  picture 
entitled  "Suffer  Little  Children  to  come  unto  Me,"  which  is  now 
in  the  Leipzig  Museum — represented  a  schoolroom.  It  had  a 
Dutch-tiled  floor,  and  was  filled  with  those  straw  mats,  cane- 
bottomed  chairs,  and  flower-pots  which  Munich  painters  were  so 
fond  of  turning  to  account  at  a  later  time ;  and  it  was  provided 
with  those  broad  windows  in  the  back  wall  which  have  since 
become  part  of  the  inventory  of  the  Munich  school.  Within 
it  the  most  charming  peasant  children  are  standing  in  their 
large  wooden  shoes  with  a  delightful  awkwardness,  some  of 
them  wearing  an  air  of  attentive  curiosity,  others  bashful 
and  embarrassed.  The  pretty  child  in  front,  with  a  delicious 
air  of  confidence,  reaches  out  his  hand  to  the  pale  stranger 
-who    has    entered    during    the    lesson    in    religion     and    seated 


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Btrlin:  Schus/gr.j 


Uhde:  "Come,  Lord  Jesus,  be  our  Guest." 


Himself  upon  a  Dutch  cane-bottomed  chair.      And  this  stranger 
is  Christ 

At  the  exhibition  of  1884  the  picture  became  the  object  of 
embittered  attacks  on  account  of  this  figure.  But  Uhde  did 
not  allow  himself  to  be  diverted  from  his  purpose,  and  went 
calmly  his  own  way.  "Come,  Lord  Jesus,  be  our  Guest" 
was  the  second  strophe  of  his  biblical  epic  The  family  has 
just  assembled  for  dinner  in  the  dwelling  of  a  poor  artisan,, 
and  grace  is  about  to  be  said,  when  Christ  enters,  a  thin  figure 
in  a  long  robe  falling  into  folds  and  with  a  faint  halo  round 
His  head.  The  workman  takes  off  his  cap,  welcoming  the  Son 
of  God  with  a  reverent  gesture.  The  rest  look  up  to  Him 
with  unfeigned  and  quiet  love.  Through  a  narrow  window 
behind  the  light  streams  in,  falling  upon  the  group.  "The  Last 
Supper,"  which  first  appeared  in  the  Paris  Salon  of  1886,  made 
an  effect  of  grave  composition.  A  quiet  sorrow  is  expressed  in 
the  countenance  of  Jesus;  and  the  furrowed,  weather-beaten 
faces   of   the   apostles— simple    fishermen    and   artisans,   such   as 


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Uhde  :  "  The  Holy  Night." 


iHan/stdngl  pholo. 


the  Gospel  describes  them — are  inspired  with  deep  feeling.  An 
evening  dusk,  the  weak  light  of  the  dying  day,  falls  over  this 
sad  scene  of  parting,  as  though  it  were  a  grey  veil.  In  "  The 
Sermon  on  the  Mount"  he  produced  his  first  biblical  picture 
with  a  scene  in  the  open  air.  The  sun  has  almost  set,  and  its 
last  rays  cast  a  glow  upon  the  field.  A  peaceful  village,  of 
which  the  red  roofs  may  be  descried,  lies  in  the  dusky  back- 
ground. Tired  and  covered  with  dust  by  His  journey,  Christ 
has  seated  Himself  upon  a  bench  in  the  open  field,  and  is 
preaching  to  the  "poor  in  spirit"  who  have  gathered  round 
Him.  Women  and  children  are  kneeling  at  His  feet.  And 
troops  of  people  are  descending  from  the  mountain  slope,  the 
women — by  nature  more  capable  of  enthusiasm — being  followed 
by  the  more  tranquilly  minded  men,  who  listen  to  the  words  of 
the  Preacher  leaning  upon  their  scythes. 

"The  Holy  Night"  is  an  altar  triptych.  In  the  central 
picture,  which  represents  a  bare  workshop,  Mary  is  regarding 
with  quiet  reverence  the  Child  who  is  lying  upon  her  lap. 
In  the  left-hand  picture  the  shepherds  are  drawing  near, 
following  a  steep  mountain  road  in  awe  and  veneration,  while 
their    rude    forms,  emerging    from    the    gloom,  are    illuminated 


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Uhde:   "The  Last  Supper." 


iHai^sUmgl^koia. 


here  and  there]  by  the  radiance  of  a  lantern.  In  the  picture 
on  the  right  hand  there  are  little  angels  descending  from 
heaven:  these  are  no  naked  Loves  painted  in  the  fashion  of 
the  Italians,  but  the  departed  innocents  in  white  robes  and 
with  flowers  in  their  hair. 

And  in  all  these  pictures  Uhde  shows  himself  an  eminent 
painter  as  well  as  a  great  psychologist  It  is  marvellous,  in  his 
picture  "  Suffer  Little  Children  to  come  unto  Me,"  how  the  light 
gently  ripples  into  the  room,  touching  the  blond  heads  of  the 
little  ones  with  a  golden  brightness  and  glancing  over  the  straw 
mats  upon  the  floor.  The  whole  atmosphere  is  tremulously 
clear,  and  everything  is  steeped  in  fine  silvery  grey  harmonies. 
An  august  poetry  of  light  plays  round  the  figures  in  the 
picture  treating  of  the  adoration  of  the  child  Jesus.  The  faint 
brightness  of  a  crisp,  sparkling,  mid-winter  night  is  streaming 
in,  while  in  the  foreground  a  lantern  is  flickering  and  casts, 
here  at  one  moment  and  there  at  another,  a  reddish  beam 
through  the  mysterious  gloom.  In  the  "  Going  to  Bethlehem " 
loose  snow  has  fallen  on  the  ground,  and  night  has  descended 
upon  the  wanderers;  the  wind  plays  with  the  blond  hair  of  the 


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lliUMj^MH^t  pHoio, 


Uhde:  "Suffer  Little  Children  to  come  unto  Me.*' 

young  woman  and  nifHes  her  meagre  robe,  while  the  lights  of 
the  village  are  twinkling  in  the  distance,  and  a  poetry  of 
Christmastide,  fragrant  of  the  pine,  rests  upon  the  landscape. 
And  how  rich  is  every  one  of  his  works  in  delicate  spiritual 
observation  !  A  trace  of  tenderness,  inward  depth,  and  cordial 
idyllicism  runs  through  the  art  of  Uhde.  His  Christ— that  quiet 
Being  laying  His  hand  so  sofdy  down  and  moving  with  such 
spiritual  calm — is  the  impersonation  of  benevolence,  the  em- 
bodiment of  brotherly  love.  In  "The  Holy  Night"  Mary  is 
not  a  beautiful  woman,  but  she  is  glorified  by  the  consciousness 
of  her  motherhood  As  Millet  wrote,  "  When  I  paint  a  mother 
I  try  to  render  her  beautiful  by  the  mere  look  she  gives  her 
child."  And  in  "  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount "  the  varied 
gestures  of  naive  humility,  pious  devotion,  edification,  and  sincere 
uplifting  of  the  heart  are  entirely  masterly.  A  nameless  yearning,, 
an  ardent  desire  fully  to  understand  the  words  spoken,  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  dilated  blue  eyes  of  the  two  women  as  in  the 
sunburnt  faces  of  the  men.  The  charming  angel  in  "  The 
Annunciation,"    raising    his     dress    somewhat    awkwardly    and 


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uttering  the  glad  tidings  with  uplifted  hand,  is  altogether 
delightful.  But  he  is  specially  to  be  ranked  amongst  the  greatest 
painters  of  children  that  the  century  has  produced.  I  should 
be  unable  to  name  any  previous  artist  who  could  have  painted 
with  such  delightful  charm  the  babbling  lips  and  shining  eyes 
of  children,  their  shy  trust,  their  bashful  curiosity  and  awkward 
attempts  at  friendliness,  and  all  the  simple  nalvet^  of  child-life. 
In  later  days  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  will  be  felt  with 
greater  candour  than  is  at  present  possible. 

"  *  Tell  me  yourself,  Reverend  Sir :  Could  you  imagine  a 
sacred  story  with  modern  costume,  a  St  Joseph  in  a  coat 
of  pilot  cloth,  a  Virgin  in  a  dress  with  a  Turkish  shawl  thrown 
round  her  shoulders?  Would  it  not  seem  to  you  an  un- 
dignified, nay,  a  horrible  profanation  of  the  loftiest  theme? 
And  yet  the  old  painters,  more  especially  the  Germans,  repre- 
sented all  biblical  and  sacred  stories  with  the  costume  of  their 
own  time,  and  it  would  be  quite  false  to  maintain  that  those 
costumes  were  better  adapted  to  pictorial  representation  than 
the  present  Many  of  the  fashions  of  old  time  were  exaggerated, 
I  might  say  monstrous ;  just  fancy  those  pointed  shoes  bent 
upwards  an  ell  in  height,  those  bulging  trunk-hose,  those 
slashed  jerkins  and  sleeves.*  *  Well,'  replied  the  Abbot,  *  well, 
my  dear  Johannes,  in  a  few  words  I  can  put  before  you 
thoroughly  the  difference  between  the  old  pious  age  and  the 
more  corrupt  era  of  the  present  Consider  this :  in  olden  times 
the  sacred  stories  had  so  entered  into  human  life,  I  might 
even  say  they  were  so  much  a  condition  of  life,  that  every  one 
believed  the  miraculous  to  have  taken  place  before  his  very 
eyes,  and  that  everlasting  Omnipotence  might  allow  it  to 
happen  every  day.  And  to  the  devout  painter  sacred  history, 
to  which  he  turned  his  attention,  was  identified  with  the 
present ;  amongst  men  surrounding  him  in  life  he  saw  the 
grace  of  God  accomplished,  and  because  he  perceived  it  so 
vividly  it  was  what  he  represented  in  pictures.  But,  my  dear 
Johannes,  just  because  the  present  age  is  too  profane  not  to 
stand  in  hideous  contrast  with  those  pious  l^ends,  just  because 
no    one    is,  in   a    condition   to    imagine   those   miracles    taking 


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GERMANY  785 

place  amongst  us,  the  representation  of  them  with  our  modern 
costume  must  necessarily  appear  preposterous,  absurd,  and  even 
irreverent  If  the  Eternal  Power  were  to  permit  a  miracle 
actually  to  take  place  before  the  eyes  of  us  all,  we  might  then 
tolerate  the  costume  of  our  own  age  in  the  picture;  but  so 
long  as  this  is  not  the  case,  young  painters,  if  they  would  have 
any  standpoint,  must  take  care  to  note  with  accuracy  in  old 
events  the  costume  of  the  actual  period,  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  the  case.  St  duo  idem  faciunt  non  est  idem^  and 
it  is  quite  possible  that  what  fills  me  in  an  old  master  with  a 
devout  and  holy  thrill,  would  seem  a  profanation  to  me  in 
a  new  painter.'" 

This  passage  occurs  in  T.  A.  Hoffmann's  Lebensansichten  des 
Kater's  Murr,  published  in  1820,  and  it  possibly  explains  why 
it  is  that  Uhde's  pictures,  in  spite  of  all  their  wealth  of  spiritual 
feeling,  produce  an  effect  upon  the  majority  of  the  public  which 
is  rather  strange  than  convincing.  The  na3fvet6  and  naturalness 
quite  unconsciously  produced,  according  to  the  general  suppo- 
sition, by  the  old  masters,  is  in  Uhde  a  logical  conclusion — in 
other  words,  the  result  of  a  complicated  sequence  of  ideas.  When 
he  introduced  into  his  pictures  certain  symbolical  ideas,  repre- 
sented things  which  mirrored,  as  it  were,  the  eternal  continuance 
of  Christian  doctrine,  it  was  easier  to  follow  him.  Not  once 
alone  does  Jesus  console  those  who  are  crying  for  faith,  not  once 
alone  does  He  approach  the  table  of  the  poor,  not  once  alone 
does  He  break  bread  with  His  disciples:  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  But  when  the  painter 
came  to  represent  historical  events  which  could  only  be  imagined 
as  having  happened  once,  when  he  began  not  merely  to  introduce 
modern  peasants  into  biblical  pictures,  but  to  clothe  biblical 
personages  in  the  dress  of  modern  peasants,  the  effect  of  his 
pictures  was  seriously  prejudiced  in  the  opinion  of  most 
spectators,  because  the  historical  consciousness  rebelled.  After 
a  long  period  of  eruditely  rationalistic  art,  there  are  few  im- 
mediately capable  of  regarding  pictures  through  any  medium 
except  that  of  the  understanding.  But  Uhde's  historical  position 
does  not  suffer  by  this.      In  sentiment  and   ability  his   pictures 


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786  MODERN  PAINTING 


Munich  Photographic  Um'on.] 

DOrr:   "Madonna." 

are  amongst  the  best  produced  in  Germany  during  the  last 
decade.  Indefatigably  wrestling  to  obtain  a  personal  solution 
of  ancient  problems,  he  has  merely  chosen  modem  costume  to 
avoid  all  the  medley  of  historical  costume,  and  divert  no  one 
from  the  psychical  character  of  the  motive  by  an  external, 
antiquarian  equipment,  while  to  justify  his  conception  he  may 
cite  as  his  accomplices  all  the  old  masters  of  Teutonic  origin, 
and  even  the  Italians  of  periods  other  than  that  of  Raphael.  In 
his  creations  with  as  little  constraint  as  in  theirs  is  the  poetic 
joy  in  the  ever-enduring  sentiment  of  devout  legends  interwoven 
with  true  artistic  pleasure  in  faithfully  representing  life  as  it  is 
around  us,  and,  if  any  inference  from  the  past  be  permissible 
in  reference  to  the  future,  later  generations  will  view  Uhde's 
pictures  with  as  little  prejudice  as  we  do  the  works  of  the  old 
m.asters. 

His  art  has  exerted  a  wide  influence,  particularly  in  other 
countries,  although  none  of  his  imitators  has  equalled  the  master 
in  earnestness  and  inward  depth  of  feeling.  The  Scandinavians 
Skresdvig  and  Edelfelt,  in  addition  to  UHermitte,  Blanche, 
and  many  others,  have  painted  New  Testament  pictures  with 
the  costume  of  the  present  time.  Even  Jean  B6raud,  the 
journalist    of    the     Parisian    boulevards,    has    been   guilty  of   a 


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787 


Crucifixion  upon  Mont- 
martre  and  [a  St.  Mary 
Magdalene  lying  at  the 
feet  of  Jesus  in  a  cabinet 
particulier  of  the  Cafi 
Anglais  amid  a  circle  of 
Parisian  men  of  letters. 
In  Germany  it  was 
only  Firle  and  Hermann 
Neuhaus  who  made  a 
few  more  or  less  success- 
ful attempts.  The  other 
sacred  painters  worked 
with  exquisite  delicacy, 
avoiding  every  Natural- 
istic adaptation  of  biblical 
events,  and  merely  en- 
deavouring to  create  an 
effect  akin  to  devotional 
feeling  through  the 
medium  of  a  fragrant 
atmosphere  of  fairy- 
legend,  overpowering  the  spectator  like  mesmerism.  This 
peculiarity,  for  instance,  helped  in  1888  to  achieve  the  success 
gained  by  the  "Madonna"  of  Wilhelm  Diirr.  The  shades  of 
evening  have  fallen,  enveloping  the  earth  in  dreamy  silence. 
The  meadow-grass  and  the  foliage  of  the  bushes  rise  almost 
black  against  the  dusky  sky,  and  the  outlines  of  the  figures 
melt  into  hazy  vapour.  And  the  air  only  vibrates  with  the 
nottts  of  a  Tiola  with  \diich  a  blond-headed  angel  is  greeting 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  whilst  another,  lost  in  devout  reverie,  ga€es 
up  in  rapture  to  the  Child-Christ.  A  Madonna  of  Wilhelm 
Volz  attained  in  the  following  year  a  similar  if  less  enduring 
effect  It  is  a  Sunday  forenoon  in  spring.  The  bells  of  the 
little  church  in  the  distance  are  chiming,  the  gnats  humming, 
and  the  leaves  rustling.  And  Mary,  a  delicate,  girlish  figure 
in   a  white   dress   and   with  a  white   kerchief  for   her  head,  has 


Hofmann:  "Daphnis  and  Chloe." 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Exter:   "The  Wave.*' 


{AUHtt  photo. 


seated  herself  upon  a  bench  in  an  open  field.  No  angel  draws 
near  to  announce  to  her  the  glad  tidings.  But  her  spirit  is 
vividly  moved.  She  hears  the  chime  of  the  bells,  the  hum  of 
the  gnats,  and  the  rustling  of  the  leaves.  In  her  heart,  as  in 
nature,  it  is  spring.  The  whole  picture  is  composed  with  few 
tones  of  colour,  and  through  this  very  simplicity  of  white  on 
green  it  produces  a  delicate  effect  of  fragrant  innocence  and 
of  being  veiled  by  a  hue  of  old-world  story. 

In  the  rest  German  New  Idealism  is  expressed  through  the 
same  forms  as  in  England  and  France.  For  some  all  is  trans- 
formed into  an  iridescent  and  variegated  fairy  realm.  They 
live  once  more,  as  in  the  times  of  Novalis,  in  the  world  of  the 
blue  flower,  where  sun  and  moon  and  stars  endow  things  with 
beauty,  fragrant  and  rich  in  colour,  and  unearthly,  although  for 


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GERMANY 


789 


Franz  Stuck. 


that  reason  the  more  perishable. 
The  others,  with  a  greater 
tendency  to  Hellenic  severity 
of  form,  have  an  inclination 
to  aim  at  style,  at  primitive 
Classical  simplicity.  A  third 
class  busy  themselves  as  etchers 
with  thoughtful  allegorical  in- 
ventions. But  the  peculiar 
decadent  mood,  I'ipidhnie  de 
langueur,  as  Andr6  Michel  has 
called  it,  has  for  the  present 
no  interpreter,  which  is  perhaps 
an  evidence  of  the  healthy 
inborn  force  of  the  German 
people. 

Ludwtg  von  Hqfmann  is 
abundant  in  the  attractions  of 
colour,  placing  red  flowers,  blue  fields,  and  green  skies  in  skilful 
combinations  of  hue.  Deep  blue  clouds  are  resting  over  the 
far-off  sea.  The  veils  of  mist  above  it  are  crossed  by  red  and 
green  lances  of  sunlight,  pearls  of  dew  are  sparkling,  and  three 
young  girls,  in  bright  Grecian  robes  of  crape  and  with  long 
auburn  air,  run  laughing,  arm-in-arm,  into  the  clear  waves  of 
the  sea.  Another  of  his  pictures  is  a  symphony  in  rose-colour. 
Heavy  yellow  roses  are  hanging  from  a  bush,  flowery  woods 
girdle  a  large  lake,  and  the  water  is  tinged  with  glowing 
purple.  Swans  glide  through  the  rushes,  dark  bluebells  bend 
to  and  fro  at  the  shore,  and  the  solitary  figure  of  a  woman 
looks  thoughtfully  into  the  murmuring  waters.  A  third  picture 
reveals  a  bluish-green  thicket,  where  deep  blue  poison-flowers 
grow  rife.  Adam  is  asleep,  and  Eve  drinks  in  with  avidity  the 
sibilant  words  of  the  serpent  Or  between  flowery  bushes  and 
tall  palms  of  which  the  fan-like  leaves  sway  in  the  yellow  light 
of  the  sky,  there  sleeps  a  sheltered  pool,  where  a  handsome  boyish 
Daphnis,  standing  up  to  the  knees  in  water,  is  gazed  upon  with 
yearning  by  his   fair-haired   Chloe.     But   Hofmann  has  not  yet 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


Stuck  :   "  Fighting  Satyrs.*' 

found  his  ultimate  form  of  expression.  His  works  seem  like 
a  pageant  of  all  the  ideas  of  the  century,  a  sanguinary  battle- 
field between  Boecklin,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  Whistler,  and  the 
Scots ;  and  so  far  as  can  be  seen  it  will  be  long  before  a  style 
of  his  own  arises  from  this  medley  of  other  styles.  But  the 
chords  of  colour  which  he  touches  have  often  a  most  soothing 
harmony ;  and  in  his  conceptions,  especially  those  of  landscapes, 
a  largeness  and  poetry  only  bestowed  upon  really  talented  men 
lie  sometimes  implicit;  while  an  unfailing  sense  of  decorative 
effect  is  expressed  in  his  designs  for  lacquer-work  and  the 
like. 

Julius  Exter  was  prompted  in  the  most  fruitful  manner  by 
Besnard.  His  very  first  picture,  "The  Playground"  of  1890, 
was  an  interesting  study  in  the  manner  of  the  French  luminists. 
The  bright  colours  of  the  dresses  have  a  piquant  and  coquettish 
effect  between  the  sunlight  and  the  shade  of  the  avenue  ;  and 
the  delicate  figures  of  the  girls  running  about  in  their  play  are 
detached  in  a  fragrant  and  charming  way  from  the  soft  colouring 
of  the  background.  Later  he  .became  more  courageous  in  the 
tasks  he  set  himself  to  accomplish.     His  "  Wave  "  was  a  marvellous 


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GERMANY 


791 


Stuck:   "The  Crucifixion." 


iHanfstOngl  photo. 


picture  of  dusk.  In  the  blue  haze  of  evening,  which  is  just 
drawing  on.  a  beautiful  siren  rises  from  the  gleaming  violet 
confusion  of  the  waves,  while  at  no  great  distance  the  form  of 
another  woman  emerges  like  a  shadow  from  the  water.  Glittering 
pearls  fall  from  her  hair,  and  magical  hues  repose  upon  the  sea. 
"Paradise  Lost"  is  a  symphony  in  yellow.  Two  naked  figures 
are  cowering  on  the  earth,  while  the  soft  sunlight  falls  upon 
them.  In  another  picture  there  were  naked  boys  lying  upon  the 
strand ;  and  the  warm  sea-air  plays  over  their  lithe  forms 
stretched  upon  the  sand.  At  times  Exter  also  stands  in  other 
people's  shoes,  but  he  will  acquire  a  manner  of  his  own  ;  the 
bold  confidence  with  which  he  worked  from  the  very  first  day 
gives  assurance  of  that. 

Amongst  young   Munich  artists  Franz  Stuck  is  the  man  of 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


{Han/BtdHgl  photo. 


Stuck:   "Lucifer." 


greatest  and  most 
promising  talent. 
Beside  these 
painters,  with  their 
nervously  vibrating 
sense  of  colour,  he 
has  the  effect  of 
being  a  draughts- 
man ;  beside  these 
men  of  calculated 
refinement  he  is  like 
a  primitive  artist 
And  primitive  are 
the  subjects  he  re- 
presents,  primitive 
his  simplification  of 
colour,  primitive  his 
style  in  form.  In 
the  former  painters  everything  is  colour  and  flowing  light,  and 
in  him  everything  is  line,  firmness  of  contour,  and  plastic  calm. 
His  starting-point  was  industrial  art  When  he  took  the  world 
by  storm  in  1889  with  his  first  picture,  "The  Warder  of 
Paradise,"  a  year  after  Rochegrosse's  "  Tannhauser "  had  been 
exhibited  in  Munich,  he  was  already  known  by  his  spirited 
illustrations  for  Fliegende  Blatter  and  his  graceful  desigpis 
for  "cards  and  vignettes."  Since  then  he  has  developed  in 
an  extraordinary  way.  With  a  many-sidedness  and  a  fertility 
which  are  unequalled,  he  has  the  secret  of  approaching  legends 
from  all  sides,  seizing  their  joyous  grace  and  their  demoniacal 
horror.  Here  he  paints  the  form  of  Satan  rising  like  a  spectre 
from  a  dim  grey  background.  There  he  revels  with  Boecklin 
in  the  wild  company  of  those  demi-gods,  who  carry  on  their 
grotesque  gambols  in  old  scenes  of  fable.  To  take  shelter  from 
the  heat  a  faun  has  clambered  up  a  tree  with  broad  leaves, 
and  there  he  takes  his  noonday  slumber  lying  astride  upon  a 
bough.  Or  upon  a  cliff  over  the  sea-coast,  amid  a  classical 
evening    landscape,  a    shepherd    is    playing    the    flute,  while    a 


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GERMANY  793 

nixie,  tempted  by  curiosity,  has  crept  out  to  listen.  Pairs  of 
Centaurs  bound  across  the  field  at  a  thundering  gallop,  and 
faun  children  seek  glow-worms  in  the  late  evening  twilight 
In  his  "  Wild  Hunt  *'  figures  with  glowing  eyes,  heads  thrown 
backwards,  gaping  mouths,  and  arms  flung  up  in  raving  madness, 
issue  from  the  thick  grey  atmosphere.  The  spirits  of  the  night 
are  riding  upon  the  skeletons  of  animals.  In  front  of  all  these 
glimmers  the  bare  skull  of  a  horse,  and  above  it  is  seen,  distorted 
with  hellish  rage,  the  visage  of  the  devil,  who  is  whirling  his 
whip  in  frenzied  urgency,  with  his  doubled  arm  bent  back.  Yet 
Stuck  gave  his  attention  also  to  the  tender  German  legends 
with  their  lime-blossoms  and  enchanted  princes.  The  evening 
sky  shines  as  though  with  liquid  gold.  In  the  dim  meadow 
stands  a  princess  looking  down  with  curiosity  at  a  frog  which 
bears  a  tiny  crown  upon  its  head  and  is  a  prince  bewitched.  Such 
pictures  as  "Orpheus  making  Music,"  the  "Samson"  painted 
grey  upon  grey,  the  "Head  of  Pallas  Athene,"  and  that  picture 
representing  the  figure  of  a  muscular  young  athlete  bearing  a 
statue  of  Nike  and  a  laurel  in  his  hands,  have  an  entirely 
ornamental  effect  in  the  style  of  a  baroque  antique.  His  "  Sin  " 
is  a  luxuriant  woman  with  a  pale  amber  visage  framed  in  raven 
locks,  a  woman  whose  shining  eyes  are  animated  with  a  smile 
at  once  startled  and  sick  with  longing,  while  the  cold  body  of 
a  serpent  presses  round  her  form  in  heavy  coils.  He  represents 
Medusa  staring  into  vacancy  with  a  dead,  distorted  gaze.  In 
the  exhibition  of  1890  he  had  a  Pieti  of  a  petrified  Classicality. 
The  body  of  the  Saviour  lay  upon  a  marble  socle,  while  the 
Mother  was  standing  beside  it,  upright  and  rigid  as  a  statue, 
hiding  her  face  with  her  hands.  And  his  "Crucifixion"  of  189 1 
was  a  deep  symphony  upon  the  theme  of  Golgotha,  with  full 
chromatic  figures.  There  was  a  Venetian  bloom  and  a  Scotch 
sombre  tinge  in  the  strong  austere  colours  of  the  waving  black 
and  crimson  mantles  of  the  priests,  something  brutal  and 
Herculean  in  the  rigid  drawing  of  the  nude  body,  and  some- 
thing distorted  to  caricature  in  the  yelling  and  howling  Jews 
breathing  fury  and  indignation  as  they  shout,  "  Crucify  Him  ! 
crucify  Him ! " 

VOL.  in.  51 


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794  MODERN  PAINTING 

But  in  spite  of  their  great  variety  of  subject  one  sharply 
defined  trait  runs  through  the  pictures  of  Stuck — a  trait,  as 
it  were,  of  the  creative  capacity  for  industrial  art.  Every  work 
takes  the  spectator  by  surprise  through  its  strange  individuality 
of  colour,  which  has,  however,  always  the  mark  of  taste,  and 
through  a  skill  in  draughtsmanship  sometimes  suggesting  the 
Greeks  and  sometimes  the  Japanese.  He  is  always  captivating 
by  his  ease  and  dexterity  in  technique,  and  by  his  strong  sense 
of  decorative  effect  But  he  is  not  to  be  ranked  amid  the 
artists  with  whom  one  can  enter  into  spiritual  relationship.  When 
Rops  draws  a  Satan,  there  is  a  lurid  fire  in  his  glimmering  and 
uncannily  watchful  eyes.  There  is  something  of  the  serpent 
in  them  and  something  of  Nero  abstractedly  gazing  at  the 
flames  of  burning  Rome.  Burne-Jones  holds  one  in  thrall  by 
his  tender  melancholy  ;  Boecklin  by  the  weight  of  spirit  with 
which  he  bears  one  along  with  sovereign  power,  as  he  runs 
through  the  entire  gamut  from  wayward  humour  to  the  pitch 
where  terror  is  wedded  to  gjrandeur.  The  harmonies  of  Puvis 
de  Chavannes  whisper,  melting  and  mysterious  like  exquisite 
music  heard  in  the  dusk.  In  the  picture  one  is  always  conscious 
of  the  psychical  state  from  which  it  was  created  and  which 
quickens  the  same  mood  of  spirit  in  the  spectator.  But  what 
is  expressed  in  the  pictures  of  Stuck  is  pure  and  positive 
pleasure  in  moulding  and  developing  forms.  If  Boecklin's  beings 
are  full  of  life  and  the  force  of  nature,  Stuck's  are  decorative 
and  antiquarian.  If  Gustave  Moreau's  mysticism  is  spiritualized 
and  rich  in  thought,  Stuck's  works  are  mythological  repre- 
sentations which  do  not  go  beyond  ornamental  effect  A 
Bavarian,  full  of  strength  and  marrow,  he  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  sorrows  and  sufferings  which  impel  the  men 
of  aristocratic  temperament  amongst  the  moderns  to  become 
productive ;  he  bounds  into  the  weary  present  age  like  a 
Centaur. 

And  that  is  what  divides  Stuck  from  Max  Klinger,  with 
whom  he  shares  the  elements  of  Hellenic  sentiment,  originality, 
precision  of  form,  and  the  heraldic  line.  Stuck  is  more  enthralling 
in  his  handiwork,  for  he  is  the  greater  master  of  technique.     But 


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GERMANY 


795 


Max  Klinger. 


the  works  of  Klinger  are  more 
interesting  to  the  psychologist, 
for  a  more  profound  and  dis- 
tinctive spirit  is  expressed  in 
them.  It  was  in  1878  that  a 
young  pupil  of  Gussow  first  ex- 
hibited at  the  Berlin  Academy 
Exhibition  two  series  of  pen 
sketches,  a  "  Series  upon  the 
Theme  of  Christ"  and  "Fantasies 
upon  the  Finding  of  a  Glove." 
Klinger  began  his  career  as  an 
etcher  with  an  "experience,"  a 
love-affair,  which  had  lacerated 
his  spirit.  Being  a  man  of 
excitable,  sensitive  temperament, 
he  emancipated  himself  from  a 
passion,  like  Goethe,  by  giving 
it  artistic  form.     The  first  work 

of  the  series  brings  the  spectator  to  the  Berlin  skating-rink. 
The  two  leading  figures  are  the  artist,  a  tall  military  figure 
with  thick  curling  hair,  and  a  young  lady,  a  Brazilian.  The 
lady  loses  a  long  six-buttoned  glove  as  she  skims  along ;  and  the 
young  artist  stoops  in  his  course  to  pick  it  up.  What  is  more 
serious,  he  falls  in  love  with  her.  After  returning  home  he  sits 
cowering  down  with  his  face  buried  in  his  hands,  and  dreams 
of  the  glove  and  its  wearer — dreams  of  the  history  of  his  love  : 
the  highest  happiness,  doubt,  despair,  and  happiness  again. 
Then  he  beholds  the  glove  upon  a  ship  reeling  in  a  terrible 
storm  ;  and  then  the  sea  subsides,  and  the  glove  is  borne  to 
the  shore,  where  the  foam  is  transformed  into  shining  roses,  in 
a  shell  drawn  by  creatures  of  the  sea.  The  glove  is  in  his 
possession,  and  makes  him  happy.  They  pass  the  night 
together,  but  in  the  morning  it  goes  from  him  as  though  forced 
to  flee.  Klinger  stretches  out  his  arms  imploringly  to  hold 
it,  as  it  is  being  borne  from  him  by  an  angry  monster.  Then 
there    is    once   more    tempest    and    dismay.      The    waves    beat 


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against  the  very  bed 
of  the  sleeper,  and 
all  manner  of  pro- 
digies of  the  deep 
draw  near.  At  last 
he  awakes  to  find 
the  glove  lying  upon 
the  table  beside  his 
bed,  where  he  had 
laid  it  upon  the  pre- 
vious evening ;  while 
a  little  Cupid,  mock- 
ing the  dreamer, 
keeps  watch  over 
the  soft  and  fragrant 
treasure,  upon  which 
rose-leaves  are 
showered. 

The  originality 
of  these  things,  exe- 
cuted when  he  was 
one-and-twenty,  was 
so  baroque  that  no 
one  knew  whether  it  was  the  result  of  genius  or  insanity.  But 
most  people  were  content  with  disposing  of  "  The  Glove "  as 
an  example  of  lunacy,  while  they  broke  out  in  tones  of  the 
greatest  indignation  over  the  treatment  of  the  religious  themes. 
It  was  Levin  alone  who  championed  Klinger,  writing  in  Dii 
Gegenwart  that  it  would  be  said  in  after-times  of  the  Berlin 
Exhibition  of  1878:   "Max  Klinger  first  exhibited  there." 

Fifteen  years  have  passed  since  then,  and  Klinger  has  gone 
his  lonely  way,  disregarding  praise  and  blame.  He  neither 
stood  in  need  of  protection  nor  of  external  impulses,  for  there 
lived  in  this  thin,  reserved  man,  with  his  red  hair  and  strange, 
prominent  eyes,  guarded  by  gold  spectacles,  such  a  prolific 
and  light-winged  fantasy  as  has  fallen  to  the  portion  of  few 
mortals.      Undisturbed   by  the   taste   or  opinion  of  the   day,  he 


[Artist  sc. 


Kunger:  "Time  and  Fame." 


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GERMANY 


797 


Klinger  :   "  The  Evocation." 


[Ariisi  sc. 


worked  in  industrious  quietude  in  Munich,  Brussels,  Paris,  or 
Rome,  as  the  case  might  be,  until  he  finally  settled  far  from 
the  society  of  artists,  in  Plagwitz,  near  Leipzig,  where  he 
handles  the  brush  or  the  etching-needle,  the  chisel  or  the  pen, 
according  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment. 

His  "Judgment  of  Paris"  was  the  en/ant  terrible  of  the 
exhibition  of  1886.  It  was  said  that  the  body  of  the  foremost 
goddess  was  the  colour  of  leather,  and  that  the  second  looked 
like  a  figure  in  terra-cotta.  Juno  had  no  peacock,  and  Paris 
not  even  an  apple,  as  he  sat  there  composedly  with  a  red 
cloth  spread  over  his  lap.  Instead  of  a  philological  exegesis  of 
the  fable,  Klinger  had  created  a  legendary  picture  of  Homeric 
natvet^  in  the  fashion  of  the  old  masters.  In  his  "  Crucifixion 
of  Christ"  there  lived  something  of  the  quiet  gravity  of  Italian 
frescoes.  His  "  Pieti,"  with  its  vehemently  contorted  faces, 
might  have  been  attributed  to  Carlo  Crivelli,  apart  from  its 
paradisiacal  landscape,  which  is  so  targe  in  conception  and 
which  betrays  its  nineteenth-century  origin.  And  in  the  picture 
of  those  nixies  dreamily  resting  upon  a  lonely  cliff  of  the  sea, 
and  placed  beneath  a  magical  light  coming  from  some  mysterious 


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source,  he  won  his 
spurs,  after  long 
experiments,  as  an 
artist  in  colouring. 

But  etching  re- 
mained his  peculiar 
field.  Here  it  is  not 
a  technical  artist  for 
ever  making  tenta- 
tive efforts  who  gives 
expression  to  his 
talent,  but  the  ac- 
complished master. 
He  is  a  man  of 
inventive,  specula- 
tive talent,  and  by 
a  mixture  of  the 
manner  of  aquatint 
and  pure  work  of 
the  needle  he 
brought  the  capa- 
city for  expression 
in  etching  to  such  an  astonishing  height  that  certain  exemplars 
of  his  work  are  to  be  ranked  even  in  technique  with  the  best 
that  the  history  of  art  has  to  show.  Later  times  will  probably 
date  a  new  period  in  the  art  of  the  burin  from  his  appear- 
ance. As  in  earlier  years  Stauffer-Bem  received  from  Klinger 
the  impulses  which  were  most  permanent  with  him,  so  at  the 
present  day  Otto  Greiner — one  of  the  most  forcible  artists  in 
Munich  and  one  with  the  greatest  capacity  for  development — 
has  been  attracted  by  Klinger ;  and,  equipped  with  an  admirable 
knowledge  of  drawing,  Greiner  has  been  the  first  in  Germany  to 
make  lithography  an  effective  medium  of  expression. 

In  Klinger  the  thinker  and  the  poet  are  combined.  All 
that  limitless  range  extending  from  what  is  lovely  to  what  is 
terrible,  and  from  the  realistic  element  to  the  imaginative,  is 
spanned  by  Klinger's  art  as  it  was  by  that  of  the   old  German 


Kunger:  "Temptation." 


lAHist  «c. 


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GERMANY 


799 


masters.  At  times 
he  is  as  one  preach- 
ing repentance,  lay- 
ing bare  the  evils 
of  the  age  without 
mercy,  revealing  the 
night-sides  of  life 
with  a  hand  of 
power,  and  lifting 
the  curtain  upon 
the  brutal  tragedies 
of  the  gutter  and 
the  hovel.  And  at 
times,  intoxicated 
with  beauty  and 
filled  with  the  joy 
of  life,  he  summons 
into  existence  an 
Hellenic  world  as 
bright  as  crystal, 
peopling  marvellous 
Grecian  landscapes 
with  glorious  nude  figures  which  seem  to  have  taken  their  rise 
directly  from  the  enchanting  forms  delineated  upon  Grecian  vases. 
Naturalism  of  the  school  of  Zola  and  Socialistic  tendencies  of 
thought  are  united  with  Goya's  demoniacal  fantasy.  The  inward 
emotion  and  profound  worship  of  beauty  of  Franz  Schubert, 
whose  music  he  plays  and  loves,  are  combined  with  the  meta- 
physical fantasticality  of  Jean  Paul  Richter  and  the  wild  fevered 
dreams  of  T.  A.  Hoffmann.  Like  the  visionary  Blake,  he  finds  his 
inspiration  everywhere :  forms  take  shape  before  him  in  every- 
thing— in  the  smoke  of  a  taper,  in  the  waves  of  the  sea,  in  the 
scudding  fleeces  of  the  clouds  ;  beautiful  women  and  deformed 
dwarfs,  winged  figures  wailing  as  they  float  towards  heaven,  and 
gnomes  with  long  beards  smiling  as  they  move  in  mystic  dances. 
The  works  which  immediately  followed  "  The  Glove "  dealt 
with  ancient   legends ;   and   over  his  representations  for   "  Cupid 


lArtiit  «c. 


Kunger:   "Mother  and  Child.* 


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MODERN  PAINTING 


and  Psyche  "  there 
rested  a  blithe  joy  in 
existence  which  was 
genuinely  antique,  an 
Ionic  annenity,  a 
noble  simplicity,  and 
a  largeness  and  calm 
such  as  was  attained 
by  no  other  artist  of 
the  century.  Long 
before  he  ever  set 
his  foot  upon  Roman 
soil  he  had  dreamed 
in  his  "  Deliverances 
of  Sacrificial  Victims 
told  in  Ovid  "  of 
classical  landscapes, 
noble  and  rich  in 
form,  and  simple  and 
pristine  in  sentiment. 
And  in  his  series 
of  illustrations  to 
Simplicissimus  he  gave  expression  in  a  fashion  that  was  fresh 
and  aboriginally  Teutonic  to  the  witchery  of  the  German .  forests 
with  their  mysterious  gloom,  their  desolate  glens,  and  their 
enchanting  glimpses  into  the  distance. 

But  he  once  more  struck  a  path  leading  to  the  present  age 
in  "  Eve  and  the  Future."  Eve  is  standing  before  the  fatal 
tree,  and  the  gaping  mouth  of  the  serpent  looking  down 
upon  her  is  a  mirror.  The  knowledge  of  her  beauty  is  to  be 
her  ruin.  Standing  enchanted  upon  tiptoe,  she  beholds  her  own 
charm.  Then  the  die  is  cast.  Before  the  gate  of  rock  at  the 
verge  of  Paradise  there  crouches  a  huge  tiger  resting  upon  his 
fore-paws  in  majestic  quietude.  Abrupt  walls  of  insurmountable 
rock  enclose  the  garden  of  Eden,  now  for  ever  lost  to  men. 
**The  wages  of  sin  is  death,*'  and  in  the  final  plate  "Death 
as  the  Pavior  "  stamps  together  a  pyramid  of  skulls. 


Kunger:   "To  Beauty.* 


[Artist  sc. 


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GERMANY  80 1 

"  A  Life  "  gives  a  new  version  of  that  old  Hogarthian  theme 
the  career  of  a  harlot.  There  is  a  young  woman,  passionate  and 
dreamy,  and  surrounded  by  luring  faces  like  those  of  a  Fata 
Morgana.  For  a  time  she  lives  in  a  wild  intoxication  of  love« 
and  is  then  deserted.  After  that  comes  need  and  the  seductive 
chink  of  gold.  Then  there  is  seen  a  coquette  looking  on  com- 
posedly while  two  rivals  are  killing  one  another  for  her  sake. 
The  next  scene  is  that  of  a  dancing-girl  whirling  round  upon 
the  stage  in  mad  bounds  and  displaying  her  charms.  And  the 
end  of  all  takes  place  in  a  gutter  under  the  gloom  of  night.  She 
is  judged :  she  is  saved.  In  the  final  plate  Christ  rises  through 
the  night,  revealing  a  world  of  atonement  and  purity  and  peace. 

And  the  art  of  the  nineteenth  century  seems  also  to  be 
saved.  '^  Le  propre  de  IWwmnte  est  d'inventer^  cfitre  sot  et  non 
pas  un  autrel'  has  once  more,  as  in  the  great  ages,  become  the 
principle  of  creation  for  the  best  works.  When,  in  the  beginning 
of  his  career,  Klinger  produced  the  series  dealing  with  the 
sacrificial  victims  in  Ovid,  he  opened  it  with  an  appeal  to 
the  ancient  muse.  A  work-table  with  drawing  implements  is 
represented  ;  to  the  left  is  a  candle  with  a  bright  flame,  the 
smoke  of  which  thickens  into  clouds.  A  head  of  classic  beauty 
wreathed  with  flowers  rises  mistily,  and  hard  by  there  is  a 
Grecian  landscape.  And  to  the  right,  resting  upon  the  table, 
the  two  hands  of  an  artist  are  clasped  in  fervent  prayer  to  the 
spirit  of  antique  beauty.  Another  confession  of  faith  is  made 
in  the  last  plate  of  the  series  on  deatti.  A  magnificent  group 
of  primaeval  trees  surrounded  with  tendrils  permits  a  free 
prospect  of  the  sea  resting  beneath  the  cheerful  glance  of  the 
sun.  Upon  the  turf  in  front  a  nude  mortal  is  kneeling,  having 
sunk  down  in  the  presence  of  the  ocean,  overpowered  by  an 
ecstatic  sense  of  beauty ;  and  kneeling  there  he  covers  his  face 
with  his  hands  to  press  back  his  thickly  coming  tears.  Thus 
the  stammering  appeal  to  the  ancient  goddess  is  followed  by 
a  thrilling  hymn  to  the  beauty  of  nature.  They  are,  as  it  were, 
the  starting-point  and  the  destination  of  the  way  over  which 
the  painting  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  passed.  It  received 
freedom    from    the    study   of    life,   and   now   that    the    basis   of 


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Naturalism  has  been  prepared  for  it,  the  imagination  comes 
proudly  to  her  royal  right  Upon  a  title-page  which  Klinger 
drew  in  1881  for  the  catalogue  of  a  private  exhibition  in  Berlin, 
the  beautiful  form  of  a  woman  with  floating  hair  stands  with 
an  earnest  mien  upon  the  globe,  over  which  a  silvery  full-moon 
is  shining.  In  her  lap  rests  the  son  of  art  to  whom  she,  with 
glowing  eyes,  reveals  the  secrets  of  the  universe,  pointing  with  a 
key  instead  of  a  staff.  And  should  she  ever  lose  the  touch 
of  earth  beneath  her  feet  in  that  ecstasy  amid  the  clouds  which 
has  been  attained  by  •Boecklin,  two  gigantic  hands  from  above 
— such  as  Klinger  drew  in  one  of  his  dedication  plates — will 
once  more  press  down  upon  the  earth  a  mass  of  rock  with 
the  inscription  : 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


TO 


VOLUME     III 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

Bastien- Lepage : 

A.  Theuriet,  y.  Bastien- Lepage ^  Vhomme  et  V artiste.    Paris,  1885. 

A.  Hustin,  Bastien-Le^age.    **  VArt,''  1885,  I.  13. 

G.  Dargenty,  'TArt;*  1885,  I.  146,  163. 

A.  de  Fourcaud,  Jules  Bastien-Le^age,  sa  vie  et  ses  ceuvres,    Paris,  1888. 

Marie  von  Baskirtscheff,  Journal  intime,    Paris,  1890. 

Marie  Baskirtscheff: 

Cornelius  Gurlitt,  Marie  Baskirtscheff  und  ihr  Tagebuch,  in  Hanfstangrs 
''  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,**  1892, 1.  61. 

L6011  L'hermitte : 

Robert  Walker,  **  Art  Journal,''  1886,  p.  266. 

Raffaelli: 

Alfred  de  Lostalot,  Expositions  diverses  d  Paris :   CEuvres  de  M.  J,  F, 

Raffaelli,    **  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,**  1884,  I.  334- 
Emil  Hannover,  Raffaellu     **  Af  Dagens  Krdnike**    Copenhagen,  1889. 

J.  de  Nittis: 

Philippe  Burty,  ''  VArt**  1880,  p.  276. 

Henry  Jouin,  Maitres  contemporains,  p.  229.    Paris,  1887. 

Ferdinand  Hellbuth: 

A.  Hustin,  *TArtr  1889,  II.  268. 

A.  Helferich,  **  KunstfUr  Alle,*'  V.,  1890,  p.  61. 

Qervex : 

F.  Jahyer,  Galerie  contem^oraine  litiraire  et  artistique,  1879,  P-  ^7^- 

Friant: 

Roger  Marx,  Silhouettes  d* artistes  contem^orains,     **  L*Art,**  1883,  p.  461 . 

80s 


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8o6  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ulysse  Batin: 

Paul  Leroi,  'TArt;'  1878,  II.  25. 
Abel  Patoux,  'TArt,''  1890,  II.  7,  117. 

Das:naii-Boiiveret : 

B.  Karageorgevitsch»  **  Magazine  of  Art ^^  February,  1893,  Number  148. 

9n  tbe  more  Accent  Xan6dcape«pafnter0  fn  (General: 

P.  Taren,  Die moderne Landschaft,    "  Gegenwart"  1889,  20. 

Qeorge  5eiirat: 

Obituary  in  the  *'  Chronique  des  Arts,**  1890,  14. 

Cheret: 

Ernest  Malndron,  Les  affiches  illustries,    *' Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,'*  1884, 

II.  418  and  435. 
Karl  Huysmans,  Certains,    Paris,  1891. 
Caffiche  illustrie,    Le  roi  de  Vaffiche,    L*asuvre  de  Chiret,  etc.    "Ztf 

Plume*'  Number  no,  15  November,  1893. 
R.  H.  Sherard,  **  Magazine  0/ Art,''  September,  1893,  Number  155. 

Paul  Renouard: 

Eugene  V^ron.  **  L'Art,"  1875,  III.  58  ;  1876,  IV.  252. 
Jules  Claretie,  M,  Paul  Renouard  et  I'Ofira,    '*  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts;; 
1881,  I.  435. 

Daniel  Vierget 

J.  and  E.  R.  Pennell,  Daniel  Vierge,    "  Port/olio,"  1888,  p.  210. 
**  Magazine  0/  Art,"  1892,  Number  146  (December). 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

Francisco  Tubino,  T^  Revival  of  Spanish  Art    1882. 

Sfanische  KUnstlermap^e,    Edited  by  Princess  Ludwig  Ferdinand,  with  an 

Introduction  by  F.  Reber.    Munich,  1885. 
Gustav  Diercks,  Moderne  spanische  Maler,    **  Vom  Pels  zum  Meer,"  1890, 5. 

Fortuny: 

'*  ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst,"  1874,  p.  341. 

Davillier,  Fortuny,  sa  vie,  son  oeuvre,  sa   correspondance,  ^  Avec  cinq 

dessins  inidits  en  facsimile  et  deux  eaux-fortes  originates,    Paris, 

Aubry,  1876. 
Fortuny  und die  moderne  Maler eider  Spanier,    "  Allgemeine  Zeitung," 

1 88 1,  Supplement,  245. 
Walther  Fol,  "  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts^'  1875,  I.  267,  351. 
Charles  Yriarte,  '*  L'Art,^  1875,  I.  361. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  807 

Charles  Yriarte  in  *'  Les  artistes  cilkbres,^'     Paris,  1885. 
See  also  the  For  tuny  Album  published  by  Goupil.    40  page  photographs. 
Paris,  1889. 

Pradilla: 

Delia  Hart,  **  Art  Journal*'  1891,  p.  257. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

James  Jackson  Jarves,  Modern  Italian  Painters  and  Painting,    '^  Art 

Journal;'  1880,  IX. 
Die  Kunstausstellung  im  Senatsfalast  zu  Mailand,    "  Zeitschrift  fUr 

bildende  Kunstr  XVI.,  1881,  361,  381. 
Camillo  Boito,  Pittura  e  scultura.    Mailand,  1883. 
Die  modernen    Venetianer  Maler,    **  Allgemeine  Kunstchronik;*  1884, 

VIII.  2. 
Milliot,  De  Part  actuel  en  Italic,    **  Refjue  du  monde  latin ^  Juni,  1887. 
Angelo  de  Gubernatis,  Dizionario  degli  Artisti  Italiani  vvventi,    Firenze, 

1889. 
M.  Wittich,  Italienische  Malerei,    Mappe,  1890,  8. 
Helen  Zimmern,  Die  moderne  Kunst  in  Italien,     *'  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,** 

1890,  p.  74. 

After  this  chapter  was  in  the  press  there  appeared  : 
A.  Stella,  Pittura  e  Scultura  in  Piemonte,    Turin,  Paravia  &  Comp.,  1893. 

9n  tbe  VieapoUtand : 

Principessa  della  Rocca,  Artisti  Italiani  Viventi  {^Napolitani\    Napoli, 

1878. 
Helen  Ziramem,  Die  neapolitanische  Malerschule,    "  Kunst  fUr  A  lie,'* 

1889,  p.  81. 

Morelli: 

Helen  Zimmem,  **  Art  Journal,*'  1885,  pp.  345  and  357. 

Michetti: 

Helen  Zimmem,  **  Art  Journal,''  1887,  pp.  16  and  41. 

Dalbono : 

Helen  Zimmem,  *' Art  Journal,"  1888,  p.  45. 

Favretto: 

Obituaries  in  1887:  Garocci,  **  Arte  e  storia,"  VI.  16  ;  "  Chronique  des 
Arts,"  24;  **  Allgemeine  Kunstchronik,**  26;  **  Mittheilungen  des 
M&hr,  Gewerbemuseums;*  8 ;  "  Courrier  de  VArt,"  VI.  25  ;  '*  Kunst- 
chronik,"  XXII.  t;]  ;  **  The  Saturday  Review,**  i  October,  1887. 

See  also  Giacotno  Favretto  e  le  sue  of  ere.  Edizione  unica  di  tutti  i 
principali  Capolavori  del  celebre  Artista  Veneziano.  Publicata  per 
cura  di  G.  Cesare  Sicco.    Torino,  1887. 


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8o8  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHAPTER   XXXVII 

Frederick  Wedmore,  Some  Tendencies  in  Recent  Painting.    *'  Temple  Bar^ 

July,  1878. 
E.  Chesneau,  Artistes  anglais  contemporains.     Paris,  1887. 
Claude  Phillips,  The  Progress  of  English  Art  as  shown  at  the  Manchester 

Exhibition .     *  *  Magazine  ofArt**  December,  1 887. 
Ford  Madox    Brown  on  the  same  subject    in  the  ''Magazine  of  Art,'' 

February,  1888. 
Rutari,  Kunst  und  KUnstler  in  England.     '*  JCdlnische  Zeitung,'*   1890, 

205. 

Leightoo : 

J.  Beavington- Atkinson,  "  Portfolio*'  1870,  p.  161. 

Mrs.  A.  Lang,  Sir  F.  Leighton,  his  Life  and  Work.     42  Plates.     "  The 
Art  Annual,**  1%^^.     London,  Virtue. 

Poynter: 

Sidney  Colvin,  *'  Portfolio**  1871,  i. 

P.  G.  Hamerton,  ''Portfolio,**  1877,  11. 

James  Daffome,  **  Art  journal,**  1877,  p.  18;  1881,  p.  26. 

Alma  Tadema: 

G.  A.  Simcox,  **  Portfolio,**  1874,  p.  109. 

H.  Billung,  ''  ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst  **  1879,  XIV.  229,  269. 

The  Works  of  Laurence  Alma  Tadema.     ''Art  Journal**  February,  1883. 

Alice  Me)niell,  Z.  Alma  Tadema.     "  Art  Journal,**  November,  1884. 

Georg    Ebers,    Lorenz    Alma   Tadema.      "  Westermanns  Monatshefte,'^ 

November  and  December,  1885. 
Helen  Zimmem,  L.  Alma   Tadema,   his   Life   and   Work,     "  The  Art 

Annual"  1SS6,     London,  Virtue. 
K.  Brflgge,  Alma  Tadema.     "  Vom  Pels  2um  Meer,**  1887,  2. 
Helen  Zimmem  in  Hanfstangl's  "  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,"  1890,  II.  130. 

Albert  Moore: 

Sidney  Colvin,  **  Portfolio**  1870,  i. 

Harold  Frederic,  "  Scribner*s  Magazine**  December,  1 891,  p.  712. 

Kari  Blind,  '*  Vom  Pels  zum  Meer:*  1892. 

Britoo  Riviere: 

James  Daffome,  The  Works  of  Briton  Rivilre.    "Art  Journal**  1878,  p.  5. 
Walter  Armstrong,  Briton  Riviire,  his  Life  and  Work.    **  Art  Annual** 

1891.    London,  Virtue. 
A  Braun,  Ein  englischer  Thiermaler.    "  AllgemeineKunstchronik"  1888, 

37-39- 

R.  Caldecott: 

Claude  Phillips,  "  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts"  1886,  I.  327. 
See  also  R.  Caldecott,  Sketches,  with  an  Introduction  by  H.  Blackburn. 
London  y  1890. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  809 

Qeorge  Ma^on: 

Sidney  Colvin,  George  Mason,    **  Port/olio,**  1871,  p.  113. 

G.  A.  Simcox,  Mr,  Mason's  Collected  Works,    '*  Port/olio  "  1873,  p.  40. 

Alice  Meynell,  "  Art  journal"  1883,  pp.  43,  108,  and  185. 

Walker: 

Sidney  Colvin,  Frederick  Walker,     '*  Portfolio,''  1870,  p.  ^i. 

Obituary  in  the  ''  Art  Journal^'  1875,  pp.  i^i,  254,  351. 

James  Dafforae,  The  Works  of  Frederick  Walker.    ''  Art  Journal,''  1876, 

p.  297. 
J.  Comyns  Carr,  *'  Portfolio;'  1875,  p.  117. 
J.  Comyns  Carr,  ''  L'Art,"  1876,  I.  175,  II.  130. 
J  Comyns  Carr,  Frederick  Walker,  an  Essay.     London,  1885. 

Q.  H.  Boughtoo: 

Sidney  Colvin,  ''Portfolio,"  1871,  p.  65. 
James  Dafforne,  **  Art  Journal,"  1873,  p.  41. 

a.  D.  Leslie: 

Tom  Taylor,  ''Portfolio,"  1870,  p.  177. 

P.  H.  Calderoo: 

Tom  Taylor,  "Portfolio,"  1870,  p.  97. 
James  Dafforne,  "Art  Journal,"  1870,  p.  9. 

Marcus  Stone: 

Lionel  G.  Robinson,  '^  Art  Journal,"  1885,  p.  68. 

Prank  Holl : 

Harty  Quilter,  In  Memoriam :  Frank  Holl,    "  Universal  Review,"  August, 

1888. 
Erwin  Volckmann,  **  ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst,"  24,  1889,  p.  130. 
Gertrude  E.  Campbell.  "  Art  Journal,"  1889,  p.  53. 

Herkomer : 

J.  Dafforne,  The   Works  of  Hubert  Herkomer,     "  Art  Journal,"   1880, 

p.  109. 
Helen  Zimmem,    H    Herkomer,      "Kunst  fUr  A  lie,"    Jahrgang  VI., 

1891,  I. 
W.  L.   Courtney,  Professor  Hubert  Herkomer,  Royal  Academician,  his 

Life  and  Work,    "  Art  Annual"  for  1892.    London,  Virtue. 
Ludwig  Pietsch,  Hubert  Herkomer,     "  Velhagen  und  Klasings  Monat- 

shefte,"  1892. 
See    also    H.  Herkomer;  Etching  and  Mezzotint  Engraving.     Lectures 

delivered  at  Oxford.    London,  1892. 

On  Aodern  JEttdltab  Xandecape : 

p.  G.  Hamerton,  The  Landscape- Painters,     "  Portfolio,"  1870,  p.  145. 
Alfred    Dawson,  English   Landscape  Art,  its  Position   and  Prospects, 
London,  1876, 
VOL.  III.  52 


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8io  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Alfred  W.  Hunt,  Modern  English  Landscape- Painting.      **  Nineteenth 
Century,''  May,  1880. 

Cecil  Lawsoo: 

*'  Art  Journal,''  1882,  p.  ii^, 

Heseltine  Ovon,  '*  Magazine  of  Art '*  Number  158,  December,  1893. 

Hook: 

F.  G.  Stephens,  James  Clarke  Hook,    **  Portfolio,''  1871,  p.  181. 
A.  H.  Palmer,  James  Clarke  Hook,    ''Port/olio,"  1888,  pp.  1-165. 
Frederick  George  Stephens,  James  Clarke  Hook^  his  Life  and    Work. 
''  Art  Annual,"  1888.    London,  Virtue. 

Vicat  Cole: 

James  Dafforae,  **  Art  Journal''  1870,  p.  177. 

Colio  Huoter: 

Walter  Armstrong,  '^  Art  Journal ''  1885,  P-  "7- 

Birket  Poster: 

James  Dafforae,  ''  Art  Journal,"  1871,  p.  157. 

Marcus  B.  Huish,  "  Art  Annual,'"  1890.    London,  Virtue. 

David  Murray: 

Marion  Hepworth  Dixon,  "  Art  Journal,*'  1891,  p.  144. 
W.  Araastrong,  '*  Magazine  0/ Art,"  1 891,  p.  397. 

Ernest  Parton: 

**  Art  Journal,"  1892,  p.  353. 

W.  B.  Leader: 

James  Dafforae,  **  Art  Journal,"  1871,  p.  45. 

W.  L-  Wyilie: 

J.  Penderel-Brodhurst,  **  Art  Journal,"  1889,  p.  220. 

Henry  Moore: 

'*  Art  Journal "  i88i,  pp.  161  and  22^. 

P.  G.  Hamerton,  A  Modern  Marine  Painter.    "  Portfolio,"  1890,  pp.  88 
and  no. 

On  tbe  Oroup  ot  JEngltab  painters  worfifttd  in  IDenfce : 

Julia  Cartwright,  The  Artist  in  Venice.     *'  Portfolio,"  1884,  p.  17. 

Henry  Woods: 

**  Art  Journal,"  1886,  p.  97. 

Clara  Montalba : 

"  L'Art,"  1882,  in.  207. 

Stanhope  A.  Forbes: 

Wilfrid  Meynell,  "  Art  Journal,"  1892,  p.  65. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  8 1 1 

CHAPTER   XXXVIII 

Principal    Authority  :    Camille    Lemonnier,  Histoire  des  Beaux- Ar is    en 

Belgique,     Bnixelles,  1881. 
Lucien  Solvay,  L'Art  et  la  Liber ti.    Les  Beaux-Arts  en  Belgique  defuis 

1830.     Bnixelles,  1881. 

Henri  de  Braekeleer: 

Obituary  in  **  Chronique  des  Arts^^  1888,  26  and  27 ;  "  Kunstchronik,'' 
1888,  41. 

Hippolyte  Boulenger: 

Camille  Lemonnier,  *'  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts"  1879,  11.  255. 

Theodore  Pourmois: 

E.  Greyson,  Theodore  Four  mots,     ''Journal  des  Beaux- Arts  ^'  1871,  p.  164. 

J.  van  Beers: 

J.  Westervoorde,  '*  De  nieuwe  Gids"  i  October,  1887. 
M.  H.  Spielmann, ''  Magazine  of  Art ''  October,  1892. 

Xavier  Mellery : 

Camille  Lemonnier,  '*  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts ,''  1885,  I.  425. 

Joseph  Stevens: 

Camille  Lemonnier,  "  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts'*  1880,  X, 
Obituary   in    **  Kunstchronik,''  Neue    Folge,   III.  32 ;    "  Chronique  des 
Artsr  1892. 

Emile  Wauters: 

Hans  Spielmann,  '*  Magazine  of  Art,'  October,  1887. 


CHAPTER   XXXIX 
5n  Oeneral: 

C.  Vosmaer,  Onze  hedendaagsche  schilders.  Met  vele  Portretten  en 
Facsimiles  naar  Teekeningen.  Eerste  Serie,  Haag,  1881  en  1882. 
Tweede  Serie,  Amsterdam,  1883-85. 

Jan  Veth,  Gedenkboek  van  Heedendaagsche  Nederlandsche  Schilderkunst, 
Amsterdam,  1892,  2  vols.  With  twenty  Etchings,  Lithographs,  and  Wood- 
cut Engravings  by  Breitner,  Dysselhof,  Roland  Hoist,  Toorop,  J.  Veth, 
and  Ph.  Zilcken,  and  about  fifty  pen-and-ink. Sketches  by  H.  Nibbrig. 

See  also  the  periodical  "  Elzevier,''  which  has  appeared  since  1891,  containing 
an  illustrated  biography  every  month. 

Johannes  Bosboom  : 

Obituary  in  '*  Kunstchronik"  1891,  i ;  *'  Chronique  des  Arts  "  1891,  31. 
H.  L.  Berchenhoff,  Johannes  Bosboom,    With  Portraits  and  twelve  Etchings. 
Amsterdam,  1891. 


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8i2  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Jacob  Maris: 

A.  J.  Godoy,  Jacob  Maris ^  sa  vie  et  ses  cenvres,    Amsterdam,  1891. 

Mauve: 

Obituary  in  **  Courrier  de  PArt,'*  1888,  7. 

H.  L.  Berchenhoff,  Anton  Mauve,    Met  Facsimiles.    Amsterdam,  1890. 

UraeU: 

Josef  Israels,  Fhomme  et  Partiste,  Eauz-fortes  par  W.  Steelink.  Texte 
par  F.  Netscher  et  Philippe  Zilcken.  Amsterdam,  J.  M.  Schadekamp, 
1891. 

Bisschop : 

Wettrheene,  Christoffel Bisschop,  the  Dutch  Painter,  **  Art  Journal^  1892, 
p.  211. 


CHAPTER  XL 
H.  Lucke,  Ddnische  Kunst,    '*  ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst,**  VI.,  1871, 

Julius  Lange,  **  Nutids  Kunst,"    Kopenhagen,  1873. 

Julius    Lange,  Billedkunst,   Skildringer   og  Studier  fra   Hjetnmet  og 

Udlandet,     Kopenhagen,  1884. 
N.  L.  Hdyen,  Skri/ter,  udg.  of  J.  L,  Ussing,    Kopenhagen,  187 1— 1876. 

3  vols. 
A.  Devienne,  Les  Artistes  du  Nord  au  Salon  de  1874.    Lille,  1875. 
Philippe  Weilbach,  Dansk  Kbnstnerlexikon,  indeholdende  korte  Levnedsteg- 

nelser  a/ Konstnere,  som  indtil  Udgangen  af  i^it  have  level  og  ar be jdet 

i  Danmark  eller  den  danske  Stat,    Kopenhagen,  1878. 
Sigurd  MQller,  Nyere  dansk  Maler kunst,    Kopenhagen,  1884. 
H.  Weitemeyer,    Ddnetnark,    Geschichte   und  Beschreibung,    Literaiitr 

und  Kunst,    Kopenhagen,  1889. 
Maurice    Hamel,  La  feinture  du    nord  d  Vexposiiion  de  Copenhague, 

'*  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,""  1888,  IL  388. 
A.  Ruhemann,  Die  nordische  Kunstausstellung  in  Kopenhagen,     **  Kunst 

fUr  Alle;*  1888,  Heft  5. 
L.  Marholm,  Ddnische  Maler.    **  Gegenwart,**  1888,  Band  33,  p.  345. 
H.  Helferich,  Die  Kopenhagener  Ausstellung,     **  Die  Nation,*^  1888,  53. 
Momme  Nissen,  Paris  und  die  Malerei  der  Nichtfranzosen,     "  Kunst 

Unserer  Zeit''  1890,  L  zy. 
See  also  **  Kunstbladel'*  and  **  Tilskueren,''  as  well  as  the  paper  *' Poh- 

liken,**  with  articles  by  Karl  Madsen,  Emil  Hannover,  and  others. 

Eckersberg : 

Philippe  Weilbach,  Maler  en  Eckersbergs  Levned  og  Vaerker.    Kopenhagen, 

1872. 
Julius  Lange,  **  Nutids  Kunsly"  pp.  44-83. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  813 

K5bke: 

Emil  Hannover,  Christen  Kdbke,  en  Stttdie  tdansk  Kunsthistorie,    Kopen- 
hagen,  1893. 

Dal8s:aard : 

Emil  Hannover,  **  Politiken,''  1892. 

Bloch: 

Sigurd  MOller,  Carl  Bloch.     "  Zeitschrift fur  bildende  Kunst"  1883. 
Julius    Lange,    Historiske   Billeder   af  C    Bloch,      '' Nutids    Kunst,'' 

pp.  260-74. 
Julius  Lange,  "  KunstfUr  Alle^^'  Band  5,  p.  233. 

Elisabeth  Jerichau-Baumaoo : 

Obituary  by  Sigurd  MQller  in   '' Zeitschrift  fUr   bildende   Kunst;'    17, 
B.  100. 

Krtfyer: 

Andr6  Michel,  Le  Comiti fran^ais  de  P exposition  de  Copenhague,  Tableau 
de  P.  S,  Krdyer.     **  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,''  1890,  L  148. 

Willumsen : 

Emil  Hannover,  "  Politiken,"  1893. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

Principal  Authority:  Georg  Nordensvan,  Svensk  Konst  och  Svenska 
Konstn&rer  i  19*  Arhundradet,  With  three  hundred  Illustrations. 
Stockholm,  Albert  Bonnier,  1892. 

Soedermark : 

L.  Loostrom,  Olofjohan  Soedermark,    Stockholm,  1879. 

Hoeckert : 

T.  Chasrel,  Etudes  sur  le  Musie  de  Lille.    "  VArt"  1877,  IV.  261. 

Amalie  Lindegren: 

''  KunstchroniK  Neue  Folge,  III.  12. 

HellquUt: 

Heinrich  Wilke,  Biografhie  des  Malers  C.  G.  Hellquist.    Berlin,  1891. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

L.  Dietrichson  kindly  lent  the  author  the  manuscript  of  a  book  upon 
Norwegian  Art  as  yet  unpublished  when  this  volume  was  being  pre- 
pared for  the  press  in  Germany. 


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8i4  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A.  Schoy,   VArt  moderne  en  Norwige.    ** journal  des  Beaux- Arts'' 

1880,  21. 
H.  H.  Boyesen,  Norwegian  Painters.     **  Scribner's  Magazine,**  December, 

1892,  p.  756. 

Tidemaod : 

L.  Dietrichson,  Adolf  Tidemand,  hans  Liv  og  hans  Vaerker,    Chrisdania, 

T6nsberg,  1879. 
See  also  L.  Deitrichson's  work  Fra  Kunstensverden,    Kopenhagen,  1885, 

P-  239- 

Peter  Arbo: 

Obituary  in  *'  Kunstchronik*'  Neue  Folge,  IV.  3. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

(Tht  books  ami  articUs  marked  with  mn  asttrisk  have  only  apptand  in  tht  Russian  langttagt.) 

5n  Oeneral : 

*  P.  N.  Petrov,  Russian  Salaried  Painters  of  Peter  the  Great,    "  Herald 

for  the  Fine  Arts"  (Vjestnik  Isjastschnych   Iskusstw),  1883,  Part  I., 
p.  66 ;  Part  II.,  p.  193. 

*  Garschin,  The  Beginnings  of  Academical  Art  in  Russia,    **  Herald  for 

the  Fine  Arts**  (Vjestnik  Isjastschnych  Iskusstw),  Vol.  IV.,  Book  3; 

Vol.  v.,  Books  2  and  3  ;  Vol.  VI.,  Book  4;  Vol.  VII.,  p.  567. 
J.  D.  Fiorillo,  Versuch  einer  Geschichte  der  Bildenden  KUnste  in  Russland 

(short  articles  upon  art).    Gottingen,  1803,  II.  Band. 
List  of  the  most  prominent  Russian  artists  from  the  still  unpublished  account 

of  painting  in  Russia  by  the   Staatsrath  von   Stflhlin  (Meusels  Mis- 

cellaneen  artistischen  Inhalts,  Part  II.,  pp.  260-77). 

*  P.  Petrov,  The  Art  of  Painting  a  Hundred  Years  Ago.    "  The  Light  of 

the  North  "  (Ssevemofi  Ssijanie),  1862,  p.  393. 
Henri  Reimers,  VAcademie  Imfiriale  des  Beaux-Arts  d  St.  Peter sbourg 
depuis  son  origine  jusqu*au   rigne   d* Alexandre   I.  en   1807.     St 
Petersbourg. 

*  **  Journal  of  the  Fine  Arts**  (W.  J.  Grigorovitsch).    St.  Petersburg, 

1823,  1825.    (Shumal  Isjastschnych  Iskusstw)— ^^WJ7>«. 

*  *'Art  Chronicle*'  (by  Kukolnik,  later  Strugovstschikov),  1836,  1837,  1838, 

1840,  1 841  (Chudoshestvennaja  GdiS^tai)— passim. 

*  Russian  Pictures,  by  Kukolnik  (Kartiny  Russkoi  Shivopissi).    St.  Peters- 

burg, 1846.    Particularly  Kukolnik's  article:   "The  Russian  School  of 

Painting,"  pp.  3  and  75. 
D.  G.  F.  Waagen,  Die  Gemdldesammlung  in  der  Kaiserlichen  Eremitage 

zu  St,  Petersburg,  nebst  Bemerkungen  aber  andere  dortige  KunsU 

sammlungen.    Munchen,  Fr.  Bruckmanns  Verlag,  1864. 
N.  de  Gerebtzoff,  Essai  sur  l* histoire  de  la  civilisation  en  Russie,     Tome  IL 

Russie  moderne.    Chapitre  IX.,  p.  358.    Paris,  Amyot,  1858. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  815 

N.  Ramasanov,  Materials  for  a  History  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  Russia, 
Moscow,  1863. 
Th^ophile  Gautier,  Trisors  (TArt  de  la  Russie  Ancienne  et  Moderne* 
Paris,  1859. 

*  M.  Mostovsky,  History  of  the  Temfle  of  Christ  the  Saviour  in  Moscow, 

Moscow,  1883. 
Alphabetisches    Verzeichniss   russischer  KUnstler  (in    the    German    St. 
Petersburg  Calendar  for  the  year  1840,  p.  161). 

*  P.  N.  Petrov,  Collection  (Sbornik)  of  Materials  for  the  History  of  the 

Imperial  Academy  of  St.  Petersburg  during  the  hundred  years  of  its 
existence.    St.  Petersburg,  1864. 

*  A.  J.  Somov,  Picture  Gallery  of  the  Imperial  Academy,     Catalogue  of 

Original  Works  of  the  Russian  School,    St  Petersburg,  1872. 

*  Achscharumov,  Problems  (Voprossy)  of  Painting  during  the  Rise  of  the 

Russian  National  School.     *' Herald  for  the  Fine  Arts"  (Vjestnik 
Isjastschnych  Iskusstw),  1884,  pp.  143,  171. 

*  St2LSsoy,  Five-and' twenty  Vears  of  Russian  Art.    "  Furopean  Herald*' 

(Vjestnik  Evropy),  1882,  November,  p.  215. 

*  Somov,  Outline  (Otscherk)  of  the  History  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  Russia,  I. 

and  II.,  1882.     Unpublished  Manuscript. 
Sobko  et  Botkine,  *' 2S  Ans  de  VArt  Russe  *'  (1855-80).     Catalogue  Illustri 

de  la  section  des  Beaux-Arts  d  Exposition  Nationale  de  Moscou  en 
,      1882.    St  Petersbourg,  1882  (texte  fran9ais  et  russe). 
J.  Hasselblatt  (Norden),  Historischer   Ueberblick  der  Entwickelung  der 

kaiser lich  Russischen  Akademie  der  KUnstezu  St.  Petersburg.    Fin 

Beitrag  zur  Geschichte  der  Kunstin  Russland,    St.  Petersburg,  1886. 
N.  Sobko,  VArt  en  Russie,  l* Exposition  de  Moscou  (in  the  **  Annuaire 

Illustri  des  Beaux- Arts,*'  1882,  Paris,  Dumas). 
J.  Norden,  Etwas  von  russischer  Kunst  und  ihren    Vertretern.      **  Die 

KunstfUr  A  lie,**  III.  Jahrgang,  Parts  13  and  14. 

*  D.  Rovinsky,    Complete    Dictionary  (Podrobnij    Sslovar)  of  Engraved 

Russian  Portraits.    With  seven  hundred  Phototypes.    St.  Petersburg, 
1889. 

*  Ivan  Nikolaevitsch  Kramskoi,  his  Life,  Correspondence,  and  Writings 

upon  Art,  1837—1887.     Edited  by  A.  Ssuvorin.    St.  Petersburg,  1888. 
Wilhelm  Henckel,  Neuere  russische  KUnstler.    In  Hanfstangl's  *'  Kunst 

Unserer  Zeit,**  1890,  II.  62. 
Marius  Vachon,  LArt  russe   contemporain.     **  Revue  Encyclopedigue,** 

Number  24,  i  Decembre,  1891 ;  *'  La  Russie,** 

*  Bulgakov,  Our  Artists  (Naschi  Chudoshniki) :  Biographies,  Portraits, 

and  Illustrations  after  their   Works.    Vol.  I.,   1889;  Vol.  II.,  1890. 
St.  Petersburg. 

*  A.  Beggrov,  Illustrated  Catalogue  of  the  Sixteenth  (1888)  Travelling 

Exhibition, 

*  Sobko,  Illustrated  Catalogues  of  the  Seventeenth,  Eighteenth,  Nineteenth, 

Twentieth,  and  Twenty-first  Travelling  Exhibitions, 

*  Sobko,  Dictionary  of  Russian  Artists  from  the  Eleventh  Century, 
Hermann  Bahr,  Russische  Kunst,     **  MagazinfUr  Liter atur,'*  1892,  42. 


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8i6  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Theodor  ToUtoi : 

*  Recollections  of  Count  Theodor  Tolstoi.    **  Russkaja  Starina^'  1874. 

*  Katharina  Junge,  Childhood  and  Youth  of  Count  Theodor  Petrovitsch 

Tolstoi.      **  Russian   Archives  of  Art''   (Russkij   chudoshestwennij 
Archiw),  1892,  pp.  7,  62. 
See  also  Bas-reliefs  alligoriques  gravis  au  trait  en  memoire  des  Mnements 
de  la  guerre  de  1812,  1813,  et  1814.    Inventis' et  exicutis  far  le  Comte 
Thiodor  Tolstoi.     St.  Petersburg,  1818. 

KipreoAky: 

*  His   biography  in  the  "  Chudoshestvennaja    GcLseta'*  1840,   Book  II., 

Number  13. 

Denezianov : 

*  Petrov,   Alexei    Gavrilovitsch     Venezianov,    the  Father   of  National 

Painting  in  Russia.    "  Russha/a  Starina,'*  1878,  October,  November. 

BHiloV : 

Ed.   Dobbert,  JTarl  BrUlov.    Eine   Skixze  aus  der  russischen   Kunst- 
geschichte.    St.  Petersburg,  1871. 

*  Somov,  K.  P.  BrUlav  and  his  Importance  in  Russian  Art.    St  Peters- 

burg, 1876. 

*  Stassov,   The    Importance  of  BrUlov    and  Ivanov  in    Russian  Art. 

**  Russian  Herald"  (Russkij  Vjes^ik),  1861,  Numbers  9  and  10.  . 

*  Petrov,  K.  P.  BrUlov.    "  The  Light  of  the  North''  (Ssevemofi  Ssijanie). 

1862,  pp.  675,  725. 

*  Gogol,   The  Last  Day  of  Pompeii.     Gogol's  Works,   Edition  of  1867, 

Vol.  II. 

*  Ramasanov,  K.  P.  BrUlov  (in  his  Materials ^  etc.). 

Theodor  A.  Bruni : 

A.  S.,  Theodor  A.  Bruni.     *'  Pschela,"  1875,  Number  35,  p.  425. 

H.  5ieiiiirailzky: 

*  Bulgakov,  The  Pictures  of  H.  %  Siemiradzky.    St  Petersburg,  1890. 

Sternberg : 

*  Stassov,  The  Painter  Sternberg.    **  Vjestnik  Isjastschnych  Iskusstw'' 

1887,  p.  365. 

Pedotov : 

*  A.  J.  Somov,  Paul  Andreevitsch  Fedotov.    St.  Petersburg,  1878. 

*  Bulgakov,  P.  A.  Fedotov   and   his   Works.    Profusely  illustrated.    St. 

Petersburg,  1893. 
Fedotov  in  the  Tredjakov  Gallery.    **  Russkij  Chudoshestwennij  Archiw t'' 
1892. 

Alexander  Ivanov: 

*  Botkin,  Alexander  Andreevitsch   Ivanov,  his  Life  and   Correspond- 

ence,  1806 — 1858. 


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*  Letters  of  A .  Ivanov  to  his  Son,    **  Russkij  Chudoshestwennij  Archiw^ 

1892,  pp.  22,  87,  152. 
Darstellungen  aus  der  heiltgen  Geschichte,    Hinterlassene  Entwur/e  von 
Alexander  Ivanoff,    Berlin,  1879— 1887.    Parts  1-14. 

5arjaoko : 

*  Perov,  Our  Teachers.    ''Journal  of  Art"'  t  Chudoshestwennij  Shurnal), 

1881. 

Pcrov: 

Sobko  et  Rovinsky,   Vassili  Perof  sa  vie  et  son  ceuvre,    60  Phototypies 

d'apr^s  les  tableaux  du  mattre.    St.   Petersburg,  1892  (texte  nisse  et 

fran9ais). 
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Peroff  (1833 — 1882),  avec  une  notice  biographique  sur  l* artiste.    St. 

Petersburg,  1883  (texte  russe  et  fran^ais). 

Verestchagin : 

•  Stassov,  Vassilij  Vassiljevitsch  Verestchagin.    **  Vj'estnik  Isjastschnych 

Iskusstw"  1883,  Parts  I.  and  II. 
Sobko,  Battle  and  Travel.    **  Magazine  of  Art;*  1884. 
L.  Hugonnet,  **  L*Art,**  1879,  P*  ^^5- 
A.  Rosenberg,  "  Grenzboten,**  1882,  8. 

L.  Pietsch,  V.  V.  Verestchagin.    '' Nord  und  SUd,**  June,  1883. 
Schultze,  Der  Maler  V.  Verestchagin.    '*  Bussische  Revue^  1883,  6. 
Helen  Zimmem,  ''Art  Journal^  1885,  pp.  9  and  38. 
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Part  III. 
Hodgetts,   Vassili  Verestchagin.    "  The  Academy,"*  1888,  Number  858. 

5tschedrio : 

•  The  Importance  of  Stschedrin  as   Pounder  of  Russian  Landscape- 

painting.    "  Vj'estnik  Isjastschnych  Ishusstw,**  1887,  Vol.  I.,  p.  97. 

J.  Aiva50V5ky: 

Bulgakov,  Die  Neuen  Bilder  des  Professor  J.  K,  Aivasovsky.    St.  Peters- 
burg, 1 89 1. 

Vorobiev : 

•  Petrov,  M.   N.   Vorobiev  and  his   Schools.     "  Vjestnik  Isjastschnych 

Iskusstwr  Vol.  VI.,  1888,  Part  IV.,  p.  279. 

5chi8chkio : 

*  Bulgakov,  Pictures  and  Drawings  of  Professor  %  %  Schischkin.    St. 

Petersburg. 


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Theodor  Vassiliev : 

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Isjastschnych  Iskusstw,**  1889,  Parts  IV.  and  V. 

*  Letters  of  Vassiliev,     **  Vjestnik  Isjastschnych  Iskussiw^  1890,  Parts 

III.,  IV.,  V. 

*  Vassiliev    in    the    Tredjakov    Gallery,      **  Russkij    Chudoshestwennij 

Archiw^  1892,  p.  209. 

Kuindshi: 

*  N.    Alexandrov,    The  Importance  of   Kuindshi,     **  Chudoshestwennij 

Shumai;'  1881,  p.  21. 

Kramskoi : 

*  A.    Ssuvorin,  J.    N,  Kramskoi,   his   Life  and    Correspondence,     St. 

Petersburg,  1888. 

*  V.   A.    Voskressensky,    Esthetic     Views    of    Kramskoi,      **  Vjestnik 

Isjastschnych  Iskusstw;'  Vol.  VI.,  1888,  Part  V. 

*  Kramskoi  in    the   Tredjakov  Gallery,      "  Russkij    Chudoshestwennij 

Archiw,''  1892,  p.  109. 

*  Recollections  of  J,  E,  Rejoin  :  y,  N,  Kramskoi,     '*  Russkaja  Starina,'* 

1882,  May. 

Constaotio  Makov^ky : 

*  Bulgakov,  The  Pictures  of  K,  Makovsky,    St.  Petersburg. 

Vladimir  Makovslcy: 

*  N.    Alexandrov,   The    Talent   of  Vladimir   Makovsky,     *'  Chudoshest- 

wenntj  Shurnal/*  1881,  p.  93. 

*  A.  A.  Kisselev,    V,  £,  Makovsky  as  Genre  Painter,     ** Artist^"  1893, 

Number  29,  p.  48. 
Photogravures    daprH   les    tableaux  de    Vladimir  Makovs^,     Edition 
Kousnetzov. 

R^pio : 

*  V.  Stassov,  J,  E,  Rejoin,    "  Pschela,""  1875,  Number  3,  p.  41. 

*  W.  M.,  y.  E,  Ripin,  Characteristics,    '*  Artist,''  1893,  Numbers  26,  27,  29. 
Aldum  de  J,  E,  Ripin,    Edit6  par  E.  Cavos.    St.  Petersburg,  1891. 

J.  Norden,  Ilja  Ripin,    *'  Zeitschrift  fUr  bildende  Kunst:*  Neue   Folge, 
III.  5,  1892. 

Schwarz : 

*  W.  Stassov,  G,  Schwarz,    **  Vjestnik  Isjastschnych  Iskusstw,'*    1884, 

Vol.  I.,  pp.  25,  113. 

5urikov : 

*  V.  M.  Micheev,  V  %  Surikov.     "  Artist,''  1893,  Number  16,  p.  61. 

CHAPTER  XLIV 
5n  Oeneral: 

**  American  Art  Review,''    A  Journal  devoted  to  the  Practice,  Theory, 
History,  etc.,  of  Art.    2  vols.,  Boston,  1880-81. 


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American  Landscape,    The   National   Gallery  of  American  Landscapes. 

New  York  and  Boston.    No  date. 
S.   G.  W.  Benjamin,  Art  in  America,    A  critical  and  historical  sketch. 

With  99  engravings  on  wood.     New  York  and  London,  1880. 
S.  G.  W.  Benjamin,  Our  American  Artists.    With  12  Portraits,  sketches 

of  studios,  and  wood-engravings  from  paintings.  Boston,  1880. 
William  C.    Brownell,   The  Art  Schools  of  Philadelphia.      "  Scribner's 

Magazine ,*'  September,  1879. 
Champlin,  Cyclopcedia  of  Painters.     Edited  by  Perkins. 
C.  E.  Clement  and  L.  Hutten,  Artists  of  the  Nineteenth  Century^  2  vols. 

Boston,  1879. 
J.  E.  Freeman,  Gatherings  from  an  Artist*  s  Portfolio,    Boston,  1883. 
H.  W.  French,  The  Pioneers  of  Art  in  America,    Art  and  Artists  in 

Connecticut.    Illustrations.     Boston  and  New  York,  1879. 
P.  G.  Hamerton,  English  and  American  Painting,     **  The  International 

Review,^*  February  and  May,  1879. 
W.  J.  Hoppin,  Esquisse  d'une  Histoire  de  la  Peinture  aux  Etats-Unis 

d'Amirique,     **  L'Art,'*  Vol.  VL,  pp.  97,  136,  157.     Paris,  1876. 
Die  Kunst  auf  der  Weltausstellung  zu  Philadelphia,    ^^  Zeitschrift  fUr 

bildende  Kunst, ^*  Bd.  11,  1876,  p.  326 ;  12,  pp.  43,  142,  204,  239. 
Horatio  N.  Powers,  B Art  en  Amiriqtie,  ^'  DArt,*'  1876,  II.  171. 
G.  W.  Sheldon,  American  Painters :  Biographical  Sketches  of  Fifty  Living 

American  Artists,  with  eighty-three  examples  of  their  works.    Illus- 
trated.   New  York,  1879.    Neu-  Edition,  London,  1884. 
G.  W.  Sheldon,  Recent  Ideals  of  American  Art.    New  York  and  London, 

1891. 
C.  Tardieu,  Ztf  P«>//«r^ /i  V Exposition  Universelle  de  1878.    Etats-Unis, 

**VArt:'  1878,  Vol.  XV.,  p.  197. 
H.  T.  Tuckermann,  American  Artist  Life,  comprising  Biographical  and 

Critical  Sketches.    New  York,  1 867. 
H.  J.  Wilmot- Buxton  and  S.  R.  Koehler,  English  and  American  Painters, 

London,  1883. 
Charles  de  Kay,  Movements  in  American  Painting.    **  Magazine  of  Art,'* 

i887»  p.  37' 
J.  C.  van  Dyke,  How  to  Judge  of  a  Picture.    New  York,  1889. 
Die  nordamerikanische  Kunst  seit  ihrem  Beginne,     **  Hamburger  Nach- 

richten,'*  1892,  17  and  18. 
Cornelius  Gurlitt,  Die  amerikanische  Kunst  in  Europa,  in  HanfstSngl's 

''Kunst  Unserer Zeit''  1892. 
Robert  Koehler,  Die  Entwicklung  der  schonen  Kilns te  in  den  Vereinigten 

Staaten  von  Nordamerika,     '*  Kunst  fur  Alle,**  1893,  Parts  15-17. 
L.  Lef^bvre,  Les  peintres  amiricains  d  r exposition  universelle  de  Chicago. 

'TArt,*'  1893,  Number  705. 
"  The  Century  Magazine "  and  ** Harper's  Monthly  Magazine.' 

AlUton : 

Outlines  and  Sketches  by  Washington  Allston,    Engraved  by  J.  and  S.  W. 
Cheney.     18  Plates.     Boston,  1850. 


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M.  F.  Sweetser,  Artist  Biographies.    Boston,  1878-79.    Vol.  XIY.  Allston. 
Rudolf  Doehn,  Der  Maler-Dichter  Washington  Allston.    "  Unsere  Zeit," 

1881,  I.  616. 
M.  G.  van  Renselaer,  **  Magazine  of  Arty'  1889,  p.  145. 

Blerstadt: 

S.  R.  Koehler,  ''  ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst;'  V ,  1870,  p.  65. 

Qeorse  L.  Brown: 

S.  R.  Koehler,  *' ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst,"  VI.  1871,  p.  61. 

Kruseman  van  Ellen: 

'' Art  Journal  *'  1878,  p.  170. 

S.  R.  Koehler,  ''American  Art  Review''  1880,  p.  100. 

A.  P.  Bellows,  A.  T.  Bricher,  J.  W.  Casilear,  J.  M.  Hart: 

'\Art  Journal:'  1877.  PP-  46»  »74»  230,  314. 

A.  van  BeeAt: 

Auguste  Demmin,  Le  Peintre  de  Marine  A,  van  Beest.    Notice  Biogra- 
phique,    Paris,  1863. 

Frederick  Church: 

'*  Art  Journal "  1879,  p.  238. 
*'L'Artr  i88i,IV.  156. 

5waln  Qifford: 

S.  R.  Koehler,  **  American  Art  Review,'*  1880,  10. 

F.  A.  Bridsrman: 

^*  Art  Journal "  1879,  p.  155. 

Qeorse  Hitchcock: 

Lionel  G.  Robinson,  **  Art  Journal,"  1891,  p.  289. 

Sargent: 

R.  A.  M.  Stevenson,  **  Art  Journal,"  1888,  p.  65. 

WInslow  Homer: 

**  Art  Journal,"  1879,  p.  54. 

inness : 

**  Art  Journal,"  1877,  p.  no. 

Qeorge  Puller: 

Charles  de  Kay,  **  Magazine  of  Art"  1889,  p.  349. 

Peter  Moran: 

"  Art  Journal;'  1879,  p.  26. 

John  Appleton  Brown: 

''  Art  Journal,"  1879,  p.  74. 


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Chase: 

M.  G.  van  Renselaer,  W.  Merrit  Ckase.   "  American  Art  Review,''  1881, 4. 

9n  tbe  Brt0  ot  'Kepro5uction : 

S.  R.  Koehler,  The  Works  of  the  American  Etchers.    *^  American  Art 

Review''  1880. 
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far  bildende  Kunst"  New  Series,  II.  1891,  4. 
E.  Bale,  Mr,  Timothy  Cole  and  A  merican  Wood-Engraving,    "  Magazine 

of  Art,"  February,  1893,  Number  148. 
Henry  James,  Our  Artists  in  Europe  (F.  D.  Millet,  Edwin  Abbey,  Alfred 

Parsons,  etc. ) .     *  *  Harper's  Magazine,  "June,  1 893 . 


CHAPTER  XLV 

Cornelius  Gurlitt  and  Hermann  Helferich  have  probably  done  niost  to  create 
the  basis  of  the  new  art-criticism  in  Germany.  In  addition  to  these  the 
following  writers  have  written  upon  the  new  movement  with  fine  taste 
and  comprehension :  Hermann  Bahr,  Benno  Becker,  H.  E.  von  Berlepsch, 
Max  Bernstein,  Oskar  Bie,  O.  J.  Bierbaum,  G.  Conrad,  Julius  Elias, 
Alfred  Freihofer,  Richard  Graul,  Franz  Hermann,  L.  Kaemmerer,  Julius 
Levin,  H.  A.  Lier,  L.  Marholm,  Alfred  Gotthard  Meyer,  Karl  Neumann, 
Momme  Nissen,  Karl  von  Perfall,  H.  Rosenhagen,  Max  Schmid,  Paul 
Schumann,  Franz  Servaes,  Clemens  Sokal,  Henry  Thode,  Carl  Vinnen, 
Theodor  Volbehr.  G.  Voss. 

Adolf  Lier: 

Obituary:  C.  A.  Regnet,  *'  Zeitschrift  fUr  bildende  Kunst,"  1883,  Vol.  2  ; 

**  Allgemeine  Zeitung,"  1883,  Supplement,  326. 
Exhibition  of  the  Works  of  Adolf  Lier  and  others  in  the  Royal  National 

Gallery,  Beriin,  1883. 
H.  A  Lier,  *'  Zeitschrift fUr  bildende  Kunst,"  1887,  XXII.  229. 

Josef  Weogieio : 

F.  Pecht,  *' Kunst fUr  Alle,"  Jahrgang  VIIL,  Part  12. 
F.  Pecht,  *'  Deutsches  Kunstblatt,"  1883,  3. 

Liebermann : 

Paul  Leroi,  Silhouettes  d' artistes  contemporains,     **  LArt,"  1883,  p.  405. 
H.  Helferich,   Studie    Uber   den    Naturalismus  und  Max  Liebermann, 

''  Kunst fUr  Alle,"  1887,  11.  209,  225. 
Franz  Hermann,  *^  Freie  BUhne"  1890. 

Franz  Hermann,  "  Westermanns  Monatshefte,"  September,  1892. 
Richard  Graul,  *'  Graphische  KUnste,"  1892. 
Ludwig    Kaemmerer,   *'  Zeitschrift  fUr   bildende   Kunst,"    August   and 

September,  1893. 


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822  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

5karbioa : 

F.  Hermann,  **  Zeitschri/t fur  bildende  Kunst"  1892. 

On  tbe  Brt  ot  IDienna : 

C.  von  LQtzow,  Die  Kunst  in  JVien  unter  der  Regierung  Franz  Josephs  L 
*'  Graphische  KUnste;'  XII.  i. 

Robert  Russ: 

Richard  Graul,  '*  Graphische  KUnste^'  XII.  55. 

Emil  Schiodler: 

Obituaries :  "  Chronique  des  Arts"  1892,  28  ;   **  Kunst  fUr  A  lie,''  VII.  i  ; 

**  Kunstchronik,*'  New  Series,  III.  32  ;  '*  Allgemeine  Kunstchronik,"^ 

1892,  Number  25. 
H.  Fischel,  **  Graphische  KUnste;'  1893,  3. 

Robert  Haug: 

F.  Hermann,  **  Graphische  KUnste,''  XV.  1892,  4. 

The  Laodscape-Paioters  lo  Carlsruhe: 

F.    Pecht,    Die   Karlsruher  Landschafterschule,     '' Kunst  fUr  Alle,'* 
1890,  10. 

Qleicheo-Rti55wumi : 

H.   Helferich,    Gem&lde   von   Baron    Gleichen-Russwurm    und  Bdcklin, 
**  Nation,*'  1889,33. 

Piglheio : 

R.  Muther,  '' Zeitschr if t fUr  bildende  Kunst r  1887,  XXII.  165. 

a.  Kuehl: 

R.  Graul,  **  Graphische  KUnste,"  XVI.  1893,  Part  i. 

Bartels: 

H.  Weizsacker,  '*  Graphische  KUnste,**  XVI.  1893,  Part  2. 

CHAPTER  XLVI 

Hermann  Bahr,  **  Kritik  der  Moderne,**    Zurich,  1890. 

Hermann  Bahr,  Decadence.     **  Nation,''  1891,  40. 

Victor  Rott,  Kunst  und  Mystik,     *  *  A  telier, "  1 892,  57. 

Clemens  Sokal,  Paul  Verlaine,    Supplement  to  the  **  Allgemeine  Zeitung,'* 

1892. 
H.  Mazel,  Tendances  religieuses  de  VArt  contemporain,     **  VArt,*'  1891, 

P-  653- 
Benno  Becker,  Die  A  usstellung  der  Secession.    * '  Kunst fUr  A  lie''  August, 

1893. 
Arthur   Symons,   The  Decadent  Movement   in    Literature,     **  Harper* s 

Monthly,"  November,  1893. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  823 

CHAPTER  XLVII 
ITbe  <3enetal  Aovement  of  Civilisation : 

T.  H.  S.  Escott,  England:  its  People ,  Polity,  and  Pursuits.    London,  1890. 

William  Blake: 

Alexander  Gilchrist,  Life  of  W,  Blake,  with  Selections  from  his  Poems 

and  Writings^  2  vols.    London,  1863. 
Swinburne,  TFilliam  Bla^,  a  Critical  Essay,    London,  1868. 
William  Blake,  Artist,  Poet,  and  Mystic.     **  The  New  Quarterly  Review,'' 

April.  1874. 
J.  W.  Comyns  Carr,  Les  dessins  de  William  Blake.     **  LArt,'"  1875,  IL 

169  and  265,  in.  I. 
J.  Beavington- Atkinson,  Exhibition   of  the   Works  of    William  Blake. 

*'  Portfolio;"  1876,  p.  67. 
Works  by  William  Blake,  reproduced  in  facsimile  from  the  original 

editions  (Coloured  Illustrations).    London,  1876. 
William  Bell  Scott,  William  Blake,  Etchings  from  his  Works.    London, 

1878. 
The  Poetical   Works  of    William  Blake,  Lyrical  and  Miscellaneous. 

Edited,  with  a  prefatory  memoir,  by  William  Michael  Rossetti.    London, 

1890. 

David  Scott: 

William  Bell  Scott,  Memoir  of  David  Scott.    London,  1850. 

Mary  M.  Heaton,  **  L'Art,'*  1879,  IV.  y^. 

Thomais  Gray,  David  Scott  and  his  Works.    Plates.    London,  1884. 

Rossetti : 

William    Sharp,    Dante    Gabriel  Rossetti  and  Pictorialism    in    Verse. 

**  Portfolio,"  1882,  p.  176. 
William  Sharp,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  a  Record  and  a  Study.    London, 

1882. 
William    Tirebuck,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,   his  Works  and  Influence, 

London,  1882. 
T.  Hall  Caine,  Recollections  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.    London,  1882. 
F.  G.  Stephens,  The  Earlier  Works  of  Rossetti,     **  Portfolio,'*  May,  1882. 
Sidney  Colvin,  Rossetti  as  a  Painter.    '*  Magazine  of  Art,"  March,  1883. 
W.  Tirebuck,  Obituary  in  the  **  Art  Journal,''  January,  1883. 
R  WaldmQller,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  Dichter  undMaler.   '*  Allgemeine 

Zeitung,"  1883.  Blatt  344. 
Notes  on  Rossetti  and  his  Works,     **  Art  Journal,"  May,  1884. 
William  Michael  Rossetti,  Introduction  to  the  two-volume  edition  of  the 

works  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.      London,  1883. 
Franz  HUffer,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. .  Leipzig,  1883. 
J.  Beavington- Atkinson,  Contemporary  Art,  Poetic  and  Positive  {Rossetti 

and  A  Ima  Tadema,  Linnell  and  Lawson),    *'  Blackwood's  Magazine, ' ' 

March,  1883. 


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Theodore  Watts,  The  Truth  about  Rossetti.    *' Nineteenth  Century!'  March, 

1883. 
F.  G.  Stephens,  The  Earlier  Works  of  Rossetti,    ''Portfolio*'  1883,  pp.  87 

and  1 14. 
Theodore  Duret,  Les  expositions   de  Londres :  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

"  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,''  1883, 11.  49. 
David  Hannay,  The  Paintings  of  Rossetti,    **  National  Review,'*  March, 

1883. 
Helen  Zimmera,  A  us  London,  D,  G,  Rossetti,     **  Wester manns  Afonat- 

shefte,"  August,  1883. 
Harry  Quilter,  The  Art  of  Rossetti,    **  Contemporary  Review,"  February, 

1883. 
William  Michael    Rossetti,  Notes  on  Rossetti  and  his    Works,      '*  Art 

Journal,**  1884,  pp.  148,  164,  204,  255. 
F.  G.  Stephens,  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini    **  Portfolio,"  1888,  p.  125. 
William  Michael  Rossetti,  D,  G,  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer,    London, 

1889. 
Wilhelm  Weigand,  *'  Gegenwart,**  1889,  p.  38,  and  his  Essays, 
F.  G.  Stephens,  Beata  Beatrix,     "  Portfolio,**  1891,  p.  45. 
F.  G.  Stephens,  Rosa  Triplex,  by  D,  G,  Rossetti,    "  Portfolio,**  1892, 

p.  197. 

Burne-Jones: 

Sidney  Colvin,  ^^  Portfolio,**  1870,  p.  17. 

F.  G.  Stephens,  ''Portfolio,**  1885,  pp.  220  and  227. 

Birmingham  Museum  and  Art  Gallery,  Catalogue  {with  Notes)  of  the  Collec- 
tions of  Paintings  by  George  Frederick  Watts  and  Edward  Bume- 
Jones.    Birmingham,  1886. 

F.  G.  Stephens,  "Portfolio,**  1889,  p.  214. 

F.  G.  Stephens,  Mr,  Burne-Jones*  Mosaics  at  Rome.    "  Portfolio,**  1890, 

May. 

MsAcolm  Bell,  Edward  Bume- Jones.    London,  1892. 

Andr6  Michel,  "  Journal  des  Dibats**  15  March,  1893. 

Cornelius  Gurlitt,  Die  Praerafaeliten,  eine  britische  Malerschuk, 
"  Westermanns  Monatshefte,*'  July,  1892. 

P.  Leprieur,  Burne-Jones,  decor ateur  et  ornemaniste.  "  Gazette  des  Beaux- 
Arts,**  1892.  IL  381. 

Arthur  Hughes: 

William  Michael  Rossetti,  ^'Portfolio,**  1870,  p.  113. 

J.  M.  5tnidwick: 

G.  Bernard  Shaw,  "  Art  Journal,**  1891,  p.  97. 

Walter  Crane: 

F.  G.  Stephens,  The  Designs  of  Walter  Crane,    "Portfolio;'  1891,  12,  45. 

Cornelius  Gurlitt,  **  Gegenwart,**  1893. 

Peter  Jessen,  "  Zeitschrift fUr  bildende  Kunst,**  1893. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  «  825 

Watts: 

J.  Beavington-Atkinson»  ^^  Portfolio ^^^  1870,  p.  65. 

F.  W.  Myers,  On  Mr,  JVaits^  Pictures,    **  Fortnightly  Review^'  February, 

1882. 
F.  W.  Myers,  Stanzas  on  Mr.  Watts'  Collected  Works.    London,  1882. 
H.  Quilter,  The  Art  of  Watts.    "  Contemporary  Review^''  February,  1882. 
Walter  Armstrong,  George  Frederick  Watts.    '*  L'Art"  1882,  p.  379. 
Harrington,  The  Painted  Poetry  of  Watts  and  Rossetti.     **  Nineteenth 

Century,'^  June,  1883. 
Pfeiffer,  On  Two  Pictures  by  G.  F.  Watts.    **  Academy^'  1884,  p.  627. 
M.  H.  Spielmann,  The  Works  of  Mr.  G.  F.  Watts,  with  a  Catalogue  of 

his  Pictures.     *' Pall  Mall  Gazette/*  Extra  Number   22.     London, 

1886. 
F.  G.  Stephens,  G.  F  Watts.    "Portfolio,*'  1887,  p.  13. 
Helen  Zimmem  in  Hanfstangl's  '^  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,**  1892. 
Hermann  Helferich,  **  Kunstfilr  Alle,**  December,  1893. 


CHAPTER   XL\  III 

Whistler : 

Art  and  Art'Critics  {ftie  Pamphlet  upon  Ruskin).    Fifth  Edition.    London, 

1878. 
Mr.   Whistler's  Ten  O clock.    Three  Lectures  delivered  in  London,  1885. 

London,  1888. 
The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies.    London,  1892. 
F.  Wedmore,  Mr.    Whistler's    Theories   and  Art,    1879.     ''Nineteenth 

Century*'  August,  1879. 
Theodore  Duret,  James  Whistler.    **  Gazette des  Beaux- Arts,'*  April,  1881, 

I.  365. 
Frederick  Wedmore,  Mr.  Whistler's  Pastels.    **  Academy,"  1881,  pp.  458-60. 
Frederick  Wedmore,  Four  Masters  of  Etching  ( Whistler,  LegroSy  Seymour 

Haden,  Jacquemart).    London,  1883. 
Walter  Dowdeswell,  *'  Art  Journal,"  1887,  p.  97. 
A.  C.  Swinburne,  Mr.  Whistler's  Lecture  on  Art.    **  Fortnightly  Review," 

1888. 
Cornelius  Gurlitt,  Die  amerikanische  Kunst  in  Europa,  in  Hanfst^ngl's 

"  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,*'  1892. 
Twenty  photogravures  after  Whistler's  pictures  are  in  the  Whistler- Album. 

Paris,  Boussod,  Valadon  et  Cie,  1892. 

Monticelli : 

Adolphe  Monticelli,  Vingt  Planches  d'apris  les  tableaux  originaux  de 
Monticelli  et  deux  portraits  de  T artiste  lithographiis  far  A.  M, 
Lauzet,  ctccompagnis  d*une  itude  biografhique  et  critique  de  Paul 
Guigou  et  d'un  fohne  liminaire  de  Fernand  Mazade.  Paris,  Boussod, 
Valadon  et  Cie,  1890. 
VOL.  111.  53 


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826  ^  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

9n  tbe  Scotcb  paintctd: 

Walter  Armstrong,    Scottish    Painters.      '' Portfolio^ ^    1887,  pp.  53-227. 

Also  separately  under  the  title  Scottish  Painters,  a  Critical  Study, 

With  Illustrations.    London,  Seeley  &  Co.,  1888. 
John  Mackintosh,  The  History  of  Civilization  in  Scotland,    Aberdeen, 

A.  Brown  &  Co.,  1887. 
Robert  Brydell,  Art  in  Scotland^  its  Oripn  and  Progress.    Edinburgh  and 

London,  W.  Blackwood  &  Sons,  1889. 
CovcL^\\i&  Q\iz\\\X,  Die  Kutist  in  Schottland,    **  Westermanns  Monatshefte^ 

November  and  December,  1893. 

Thomas  Faed: 

James  Daffome,  **  Art  Journal;^  1871,  pp.  i  and  62. 

John  Faed: 

James  Daffome,  "  Art  journal,'*  1871,  p.  z^y. 

Ersklne  Nicol : 

James  Daffome,  *'  Art  Journal^ ^  1870,  p.  65. 

Alexander  Nasmyth : 

Alexander  Fraser,  *^  Art  Journal,*'  1882,  p.  208. 

John  MacWhirter: 

James  Daffome,  **  Art  Journal^'*  1879,  p.  9. 

Hamilton  Macallum: 

James  Daffome,  **  Art  Journal,*'  1880,  p.  149. 

Qeor^e  Reid: 

J.  M.  Gray,  **  Art  Journal,**  1882,  p.  361. 

Mr.  George  Reids  Drawings  of  Edinburgh,    **  Portfolio*^  1891,  p.  20. 

Orchardson : 

James  Daffome,  *^  Art  Journal,**  1870,  p.  233. 

Alice  Meynell,  Our  Living  Artists :   W.  Q,  Orchardson.    **  Magazine  of 
Art;*  1881,  7. 

ITbc  <3Ui0dOW  Scbool: 
A.  H.  Millar,  Scottish  Art,    **  Art  Journal,"  March,  1880.     *«  Scottish  Art 

Review,**  Glasgow,  1SS2, passim. 
W.  Armstrong,  Scottish  Painters.    "  Portfolio,**  1887. 
Helen  Zimmem,  Schottische  Maler,  in  Hanfstangl's  *'  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit;* 

1890,  L  90. 
Die  moderne  schottische  Malerei    **  Neue  Zuricher  Zeitung,**  1891,  p.  ^t^. 
H.  Janitschek,  Von  moderner  Malerei.    **  Nation^*  1891,  VIIL  7. 
**  Scottish   Art  Review,**   Glasgow,   Maclure,    Macdonald    &    Co.,    1885, 

passim. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  827 

CHAPTER  XLIX 

Qustave  Moreau : 

Lesparias  du  Salon,    *'  L'Art;'  1876,  III.  246. 

Charles  Tardieu,  La peinture  d  V exposition  universelle  de  1878.     *'  L*Art** 

1878,  II.  319. 
Ary  Renan,  G.  Moreau,    *'  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,'*  i886, 1.  377,  II.  36. 
Claude  Phillips,  Babies  of  La  Fontaine  by  Gustave  Moreau,    **  Magazine 

o/Artr  1887,  p.  ^y. 
Karl  Huysmans,  A  Rebours,    Paris,  1892,  passim. 

Puvls  de  Chavannes: 

A.    Baigni^res,   La  peinture   dicoratvue  au  XIX,  siicle:    M,  Fuvis  de 

Chavannes,    "  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,*  May,  1 881,  I.  416. 
Edouard  Aynard,  Les  peintures  dicoratvves  de  Fuvis  de  Chavannes  au 

Falais  des  Arts,    Lyon,  1884. 
Thiebault-Sisson,   Fuvis  de    Chavannes   et  son  osuvre,      **  La  Nouvelle 

Revue,''  December,  1887. 
Andr^  Michel,  Exposition  de  M,  Fuvis  de  Chavannes,    *  *  Gazette  des  Beaux- 

Arts,"  1888, 1.  36. 
Hermann  Bahr,  "  Zur  Kritik  der  Moderne,**    ZQrich,  1890. 
Andr6  Michel,  "  Graphische  KUnste,'*  XIV.  1892,  zj. 
A.  Nossig,  **  Allgemeine  Kunstchronik,"'  1893,  Number  12. 

Cani^re: 

G.  Geflfroy,  La  vie  artistique.    Friface  d^Edtnond  de  Goncourt,    Fointe 
siche  d'Eugine  Carriire,    Paris,  Dentu,  1893. 

Odllon  Redon: 

J.  Dtstri^y  L  asuvre  lithographique  de  Odilon  Redon,    Catalogue  descriftif, 
Bruxelles,  1891. 

F^liclen  Ropa: 

T.  Hippert  and  J.  Linnig,  Le peintre-graveur  hollandais  et  beige  du  XIX, 

siicle,     Brtlssel,  1879. 
Erast^ne  Ramiro,   Catalogue  descriptif  et  analytique  de  Voeuvre  grave  de 

Filicien  Rops,    Paris,  Librairie  Conqufit,  1887. 
Erast^ne    Ramiro,    Catalogue   descriptif  de   Poeuvre   lithographique   de 

Filicien  Rops.    Paris,  1888. 
K.  Huysmans,  Vart  moderne,    Paris,  1889. 

Fernand  Khnopff: 

Walter  Shaw- Sparrow,  *'  Magazine  of  Art,**  1891,  p.  ^j. 

CHAPTER    L 
Boecklln : 

F.   Pecht,   **Nord  und  Sad,"   1878,  IV.  288.     Reprinted    in   *' Det^tsche 

Kiinstler  des  19  Jahrhunderts^*  Nordlingen,  1879,  pp.  180-202. 
A.  Rosenberg,  "  Grenzboten**  1879, 1.,  pp.  387-397. 


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Graf  Schack,  Meine  Gemdldesammlung,    Stuttgart,  1881,  pp.  139-155. 

O.  Berggruen,  Die  Galerie  Schack.    Wien,  1883. 

Zwei  neue  Gemdlde  von  A,  Boecklin,     **  Deutsche  Rundschau,''  June,  1883. 

E.  Koppel,  Arnold  Boecklin,    "  Vom  Fels  zum  Meer,'*  July,  1884. 

Otto  Baisch,  Arnold  Boecklin,    **  Westermanns  Monalshe/le,"  August, 

1884,  ^'j, 
Guido  Hauck,  Arnold  Boecklins  Gefilde   Seligen  und   Goethes  Faust 

Berlin,  1884. 

F.  Pecht,  Zu  Arnold  Boecklins  60  Geburtstag,     **  Kunst  ffir  Alle^'  1887, 

III.  2. 
Fritz  Lemmermayer,  "  Unsere  Zeit^'  1888,  II.  492. 
Helen  Zimmera,  ''  Art  Journal,''  1888,  p.  305. 
Berthold  Haendke,  Arnold  Boecklin  in  seiner  historischen  und  kunst- 

lerischen  Entwicklung,    Hamburg,  1890. 
Hugo  KaatZy  Der  Realismus  Arnold  Boecklins.    **  Gegenwart^'  38,  p.  168 

(1890). 
Cams  Sterne,  Arnold  Boecklins  Fabelwesen   im  Lichte  der  organischen 

Formenlehre.    **  Gegenwart,''  1890,  ^'j,  p.  21. 
A.  Fendler,  Arnold  Boecklin.    **  Illustrirte  Zeitung,*'  1890,  Number  2310. 
J.  Mahly,  Aus  Arnold  Boecklin' s  Atelier.    **  Gegenwart,"  1892,  14. 
Emil  Hannover  in  the  Kdpenhagener  **  Tilskueren"  1892,  p.  118. 
Franz  Hermann,  **  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,'  Numbers  430  and  433,  i  April 

and  I  July,  1893. 
Franz  Hermann  in  HanfstangUs  **  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit,"  December,  1893. 
Carl  Neumann,  *^ Preussische  JahrbUcher,'  Vol.  71,  1893,  Part  2. 
Cornelius  Gurlitt,  "  Kunst /Hr  Alle,"  iSg^,  Part  2. 
Ola  Hansson,  **  Seher  und  Deuter."     Berlin,  1894,  p.  152. 
F.  von  Ostini  in  "  Velhagen  und  Klasing  Monatsheften^  1894. 
See  also  the  work  on  Boecklin  produced  by  the  publishing  company  for 

''Kunst  und   Wissenschaft'*  with  forty  of  the  artist's  chief  pictures 

reproduced  in  photogravure.    Munich,  1892. 

H.  von  Maries: 

Conrad  Fiedler,  H.    von  Maries.      Munich,   1889.     (i    vol.   text,    i   vol. 

pictures. ) 
Conrad  Fiedler,  H.  von  Maries  auf  der  MUnchener  Jahresausstellung, 

''  Allgemeine  Zeitung^  1891,  Supplement  Number  150. 
H.  Janitschek,  *'  Die  Nation,"  1890,  Number  51. 

Carl  von  Pidoll,  Aus  der  Werkstatt  eines  Kilnstlers.    Luxemburg,  1890. 
Cornelius  Gurlitt,  **  Gegenwart^"  1891,  i. 

Heinr.  Wolfflin,  '*  Zeitschrift/Hr  bildende  Kunst,"  1892,  Part  4. 
Emil  Hannover  in  the  Kopenhagener  **  Tilskueren"  1891,  p.  i. 

Franz  Dreber: 

Exhibition  in  Royal  National  Gallery  of  Berlin,  1876. 

Hubert  Janitschek,  Zur  Charakteristik   Franz  Dreber s.      **  Zeitschri/t 
fUr  bildende  Kunst"  XI.  1876,  p.  681. 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY  829 

Hans  Thoma: 

A.  Spier,  Hans  Thoma,     **  Gegenujart,'*  ^'j,  1890,  p.  85. 
Cornelius  Gurlitt,  Z.  Ury  und  H,  Thoma,     **  Gegenwart"  37,  1890,  p.  125. 
Coraelius  Gurlitt,  Hans  Thoma,     **  Kunst  Unserer  Zeit"  1890,  I.  55. 
Franz  Henqann,  *'  Zeitschriftfurbildende  Kunst,''  ^,  New  Series,  1891,  225. 
Henry  Thode,  "  Graphische  Ktinste"  1892,  XV.  i. 
See  also  Zehn  Bilder  von  Hans  Thoma,    Frankfurt,  Keller,  1893. 
Hans  Thoma  and  Henry  Thode,  Federspiel,    Frankfurt  a.  M.,  Keller,  1893. 
Hans  Thoma,  Eighteen  Photographs  after  Originals  0/  the  Master.    Text 
by  H.  Thode.    Munich,  Hanfstangl,  1892. 

'KcUdioud  painting  of  tbc  present  ITime : 

G.  Portig,  Friedrich   Overbeck  und  die  religiose  Malerei  der  Neuzeit, 
**  Unsere  Zeit;*  1887,  H.  72. 

F.  M.  Fels,  Religidse  Motive  in  der  neuen  Malerei.    "  Gegentaart"  1890, 

Vol.  ^T,  pp.  165,  185. 
C.  Aldenhoven,  Religiose  Kunst,    **  Nation,*'  1891,  51. 
C.    Gumpenberg,    On    the   Artistic    Treatment   of  Religious    Subjects, 

** Moderne  Blatter"  1891,  2. 

Munkacsy : 

G.  Neuda,  Michael  Munkacsy,     **  Oesterreichische  Kunstchronik,"  1879,  ^• 
K.  A.  Regnet,  "  Ueber  Land  und  Meer,"  Vol.  47,  Part  13. 

G.  Guizot,  Munkacsy  et  Paul  Baudry,     **  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,"  June, 

1884. 
O.  Berggrun,  "  Gra^hische  KUnste,"  VII.  25. 
A.  Rosenberg,  **  Grenzboten,"  1884,  Part  11. 
On  the  picture  **  Christus  vor  Pilatus  :  "  R.  Hoffmann,  **  Kirchliche  Monats- 

schrift,"  1884,  III.  6;  A.  Lichtwark,  **  Gegenwart,"  1884,  7. 

Eduard  von  Qebhardt: 

Adolf  Rosenberg,   Eduard  von   Gebhardt,  ein  Maler  der  Reformation, 

**  Vom  Pels  zum  Meer,"  December,  1884. 
Fritz  Bley,  Kloster  Loccum,     '*  Kunst  fUr  A  lie,'*  Vol.  II.,  p.  195. 

Von  Uhde: 

Paul  Leroi,  **  LArt,"  1882. 

Andr6  Michel,  **  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,"  1885. 

F.  Reber,  '' Kunst fUr  Alle,"  I.,  1886. 

H.  Lucke,  ''ZeitschriftfUr  bildende  Kunst,"  1887. 

M.  Bouchon  and  A.  Pigeon  in  **  Z^  Passant,"  1887. 

J.  Lafenestre,  **  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  1887. 

Karl  Huysmans,  **  Revue  Contemporaine,"  1887. 

Jules  Lemattre,  '*  Journal  des  Debats,"  May,  1887. 

Claude  Phillips,  ''  Art  Journal y"  1889,  p.  65. 

L.  Frank  in  *'  De  Vlaam'sche  School,"  1891. 

Unsigned  article  in  **  The  Art  Review,"  Vol  I.,  Number  5. 

R.  de  la  Sizeranne  in  **  La  Grande  Revue,''  Fourth  Year,  Number  10. 


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Richard  Graul,  **  GrafhischeKunste;'  1892,  XV.  6. 

Otto  Feld,  "  Nord  und  Sud;'  June,  1893. 

O.  J.  Bierbaum,  Fritz  von  Uhde.    Munich,  Albert,  1893. 

O.  J.  Bierbaum  in  *'  Die  Geseilschaff,'*  1893,  Part  i. 

Franz  Hermann,  "  Westermanns  Monatshefte''  October,  1893. 

Von  Hofmann : 

W,  Bode,  ''  Preussische  yahrbUcher;'  May,  1893. 

Stuck: 

Stuck'Album,    Text  by  Bierbaum.     Munich,  Albert,  1893. 

5tauffer-Beni: 

Otto     Brahm,     Karl    Stauffer-Bern,    Sein    Leben    und    Brie/wechsei, 

Stuttgart,  1892. 
August  Schricker,  **  Nbrd  und  SUd/"  December,  1893. 

Otto  Qrelner: 

R,  Graul,  *'  GrafhischeKunste,*"  XV.,  1892,  4. 

Max  Lehrs,  Die  tnoderne  Lithographie,    **  Graphische  Kiinste,''  December, 
1893. 

Klinser: 

Georg  Brandes,  Moderne  Geister.     Frankfurt  a.  M.,  1887,  p.  57. 

Wilhelm  Bode,  Berliner  Malerradirer.     *'  Graphische  KUnste^''  1890, 

XIII.  45. 
Alfred  Gotthold  Meyer,  Max  Klingers  Todesphantasien^  in  the  weekly 

periodical  "  Deutschland,'*  published  by  Fritz  Mauthner,  Glogau,  1889. 
Wilhelm  Weigand,  Max  Klinger.    **  MUnchner  Neueste  Nachrichten;^ 

1891,  Number  116. 
F.  von    Ostini,  Eine  Klinger-Ausstellung  in  MUnchen.      *'  MUnchner 

Neueste  Nachrichten,*'  1891,  Number  125. 
Franz  Hermann,  "  Westermanns  Monatsheftey^  1891,  421. 
O.  J.  Bierbaum,  '' Moderne  Blatter;'  1891,  2. 


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INDEX    OF    ARTISTS 


PAGE 

Abbey y  Edwin,  born  in  Philadelphia,  1852 481 

Abilgaard,  Nicolai  Abraham*  boro  in  Copenhagen,  nth  September,  1742; 

died  in  Rigdom,  27th  November,  1848 269 

Adam^  Denovan,  lived  in  Stirling,  near  Edinburgh ;  died  1896                      .  679 

Agache,  Alfred,  bom  in  Lille,  29th  August,  1843 732 

Agneesens,  Edouard,  bom  in  Brussels,  24th  August,  1842     .  .225 

Aivasavsfyt  Ivan  Konstantinovitsch,  bom  7th  July,  18 17,  at  Feodosia,  in  the 

Crhaea 441 

Allatiy  David,  bora  at  Alloa,  near  Edinburgh,  13th  February,  1744;  died  at 

Alloa,  6th  August,  1796 669 

Allan^  William,  born  in  Edinburgh,  1782 ;  died  in  Edinburgh,  23rd  Febmary, 

1850 670 

Alistan,  Washington,  bom  in  South  Carolina,  5th  November,  1779 ;  died  in 

Cambridgeport,  near  Boston,  8th  July,  1843 457 

Alma  Tadema^  Laurens,  bom  8th  January,  1836,  at  Dronryp,  in  Friesland; 

lives  in  London 124 

Aman-Jean^  Edmond,  lives  in  Paris 732 

AmerigOy  Francisco,  lives  in  Valentia 82 

AncheTt  Anna,  bom  in  Skagen,  i8th  August,  1859 325 

AncheTy  Michael,  bom  in  Bomholm,  9th  June,  1849 326 

AnderssoHy  Nils,  bom  in  OstergOtland.  1817;  died  in  Vaxholm,  1865   .        .  345 

AndreotUy  Federigo,  born  in  Florence,  1847 ;  lives  in  Florence     .  102 

Angrand^  Charles,  bom  at  Criquetote  au  Camp,  April,  1854  •  S' 
AnkarcromOy  Gustav,  bom  in  jOnkOping,  1866 ;  lives  in  Munich  .                -536 

Apol^  Lodewyk  Frederik  Hendrik,  bom  in  The  Hague,  1850  .  259 
AHfO,  Peter  Nicolai,  bom  at  Gulskroon  (Norway),  i8th  June,  1831 ;  died 

in  Christiania,  14th  October,  1892 386 

ArboreltHSt  Olof,  bom  at  Orsa,  in  Dalekarlien,  4th  November,  1842              .  372 

Arsenius,  Georg,  bom  in  Stockholm,  1855 373 

Artan,  Louis,  bom  in  The  Hague,  21st  April,  1837 221 

Artz,  Adolf,  bom  in  The  Hague,  1837 247 

Assche,  Henri  van,  born  in  Bmssels,  30th  August,  1772 ;  died  in  Brussels, 

loth  April,  1841 212 

AsselbergSy  Alphonse,  bom  in  Bmssels,  19th  June,  1839  .219 

Aster,  Martin 536 

83« 


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832  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PACE 

Aublet,  Albert,  bom  in  Paris,  i8th  January,  1851 43 

Aumonier,  M.  J.,  lives  in  London 193 

Bache,  Otto,  bom  at  Roeskilde,  2i8t  August,  1839 302 

Backer^  Harriet,  bom  at  Holmestrand,  21st  January,  1845    .  .401 

Boer,  Fritz,  bom  in  Munich,  i8th  August,  1850 536 

Baertsoen,  Albert,  bora  at  Ghent,  1865 221 

Baisch,  Hermann,  born  in  Dresden,  12th  July,  1846J  lives  in  Carlsruhe       .  518 

i?ar<(i«,  Emile,  bora  nth  March,  1851 52 

Baron,  Th6odore,  bora  in  Bmssels,  1840 217 

Bartels,  Hans  von,  bora  in  Hamburg,  25th  December,  1856  .        .  -535 

Baskirischeff,  Marie,  bora  in  St.  Petersburg,  i860;   died  in   Paris,  31st 

October,  1884 28 

^/W5i«,  Peter,  bora  1793;  died  1877 422 

BastUn-Lepage,    Jules,    bora    at    Damvillers    (Department    Meuse),    ist 

November,  1848;  died  in  Paris,  loth  December,  1884  .12 

Bauer,  W 264 

i?<z«r^#i^/,  Charles,  bora  in  Brussels,  1 814 211 

Baum,  Paul,  bora  in  Meissen,  22nd  September,  1859 520 

Becker,  Benno,  bora  in  Memel,  3rd  April,  i860 536 

Becker-Gundahl,  Carl,  bora  in  Ballweiler,  Pfalz,  4th  April,  1856  .                 .  536 

Beers,  Jan  van,  born  in  Lierre  (Belgium),  27th  March,  1852  ....  222 
Beest,  Albert  van,  bora  in  Rotterdam,  11  th  June,  1S20;  died  in  St.  Luke's 

Hospital,  New  York,  8th  October,  i860 460 

Behrens,  Peter,  bora  in  Hamburg,  14th  April,  1868 536 

Bellows,  Albert,  born  in  Milford  (Massachusetts),  1830;  died  1883  .  .  459 
Bendz,  Vilhelm  Ferdinand,  bora  in  Odense,  20th  March,  1804;  died  in 

Vicenza,  14th  November,  1832 276 

BenUurey  Gil,  Jos6,  bora  in  Valencia,  1855 ;  lives  in  Rome         ...  81 

^^»^^,  Albert,  born  1852;  lives  in  St.  Petersburg 443 

Biraud,  Jean,  bora  in  St.   Petersburg,   31st  December,   1849  (pupil  of 

Bonnat) 44 

Berg,  Gunnar,  lives  in  Svolvar,  Lofoten,  Norway 401 

Bergh,  Edvard,  born  in  Stockholm,  29th  March,  1828 ;  died  in  Stockholm, 

23rd  September,  1880 358 

Bergh,  Richard,  bora  in  Stockholm,  1858  (pupil  of  Laurens  in  Paris)  .        .  379 

i?^/]^5/^,  Knud,  bora  in  Norway,  15th  May,  1827 386 

Berkemeier,  Ludolph,  born  in  Holland,  20th  August,  1864    ....  520 

Besnard,  Paul  Albert,  bora  in  Paris,  2nd  June,  1849 728 

Bierstadt,  Albert,   bora  at   Solingen,    1830;    lives  in   Irvington,   on    the 

Hudson 459 

i?t7^7/t!^,  R6n6,  bora  24th  June,  1846                       53 

^i^f^^M//,  Theodor,  born  2i8t  July,  1846 334 

Binet,  Victor,  bom  in  Rouen,  17th  March,  1849 53 

Birger,  Hugo,  bora  1854;  died  in  Stockholm,  1887 365 

Bisbing,    H.   S.,    bora    in   Philadelphia,    31st    January,    1854;    lives    in 

Paris 489 

Bisschop,  Christoffel,  bora  in  Leeuwarden,  in  Friesland,  1828 ;  lives  at  The 

Hague 246 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  833 

PAGE 

Bjdrck^  Oscar,  bom  in  Stockholm,  i860;  lives  in  Stockholm  .  .  376 
^Az^^,  William,  born  in  London,  28th  November,  1757;  died  in  London, 

I2th  August,  1828 562 

Blanche t  Jacque  Emile,  bom  in  Paris,  31st  January,  1861     .  56 

Blau^  Tina,  bora  in  Vienna,  15th  November,  1847;  lives  in  Munich  536 

BUs,  David,  bora  at  The  Hague,  19th  September,  1821  229 
Bloch^  Carl,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  23rd  May,  1834;  died  in  Copenhagen, 

22nd  Febmary,  1890 300 

Block,  Josef,  bora  in  Berastadt,  in  Silesia,  27th  November,  1863  .        .  536 

^/i9mm^^.  Nils  Johan,  bora  in  Blommerdd,  1816;  died  1858         ...  341 

Boecklin,  Araold,  bora  in  Basle,  i6th  October,  1827 741 

Bogoliubav,  Alexel,  bora  1824  (pupil  of  Calame  and  Achenbach)  .  .  440 
Boklund,  Johann  Kristoffer,  born  at  KuUa-Gummarstorp,  in  South  Sweden, 

15th  July,  181 7;  died  in  Stockholm,  loth  December,  1880                     .  347 

Boldini,  Giovanni,  bora  in  Ferrara.  1844;  lives  in  Paris       ....  57 

^^?nrA<zr^/,  Hans,  bora  in  Berlin,  nth  April,  1865 536 

Barg,  Axel,  born  in  Ystad,  1847 376 

Borovikorvsky,  Vladimir,  bora   in   Mirgorod,    1758  (pupil  of   Lampi  and 

Levitzky);  died  1826 412 

Bosboom,  Johannes,  born  at  The  Hague,  i8th  February,  181 7;  died  at  The 

Hague,  14th  September,  1891 230 

Boudin,  Eugene  Louis,  bora  in  Honfleur,  1825  ;  lives  in  Paris      •        •        •  S3 

^^M^A/^;f,  George,  bora  near  Norwich,  December,  1834  •  '55 
Boulenger,  Hippolyte,  born  in  Touraay,  1838;  died  in  Brussels,  4th  July, 

1874 214 

Bouvier,  Arthur,  bora  in  Brassels,  1837 221 

Braekeleer,  Henri  de,  bora  in  Antwerp,  1830;  died  in  Antwerp,  21st  July, 

1888 206 

Brandelius,  Gustaf,  bora  in  Fredsberg  (Westgotland),  22nd  October,  1833 ; 

died  in  SkOfde,  1884 373 

Breda,  Karl  Frederik  von,  worked  in  Stockholm  about  1800  340 
Breitner,  George  Hendrik,  born  in  Rotterdam,  12th  September,  1857 ;  lives 

in  Amsterdam 259 

Brett,  John,  lives  in  London 189 

Bricher,  A.  T.,  born  1837 460 

Bridgman,  Frederick  Arthur,  bora  in  Tuskegee  (Alabama),  November,  1847; 

lives  in  Paris *        .        .  463 

Bristol,  John  Buoyan,  bora  in  New  York,  14th  March,  1824.                          .  459 

Brown,  A.  R 193 

Brown,  George  Loring,  bora  in  Boston  (Massachusetts),  2nd   Febmary, 

1814;  died  at  Maiden,  near  Boston,  25th  June,  1889                          .  4S9 

Brown,  J.  Appleton,  bora  in  Newburyport  (Massachusetts),  1844         .        .  487 

Brown,  J.  G.,  born  in  England ;  lives  in  New  York 490 

Brown,  John  Lewis,  bora  in  Bordeaux,  i6th  August,  1829 ;  died  in  Paris, 

14th  November,  1890 59 

Brown,  Thomas  Austen,  lives  in  Edinburgh 698 

Brillov,   Karl,   bora   12th    December,    1799;    died    in  Rome,    nth  June, 

1852 417 

Brum,  Fedelio,  bora  in  Moscow,  1800;  died  1875 422 


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834  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

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Bume-Jofus,  Sir  Edward,  bom  io  Birmingham,  28th  August,  1833  .  .  598 
Butin^  Ulysse,  born  at  St  Quentin,  15th  May,  1838;  died  in  Paris,  9th 

December,  1883 45 

Buttersack,    Bemhard,    bom    in    liebenzel   (WurtemburgX    i6th  March, 

1858 536 

Caldecott,  Randolph,  bom  in  Chester,  22nd  filarch,  1846 ;  died  in  Florida, 

12th  February,  1886 137 

Cald^roHt  Philip  Hermogenes,  bom  at  Poitiers,  1833 158 

Cameroftt  D.  Y.,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 

Cameron^  Hugh,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  1833 678 

Camprianiy  Alceste,  bora  in  Temi,  1848;  lives  in  Naples     ....  96 

Caran  (VAche  (E.  Poirtf),  bora  in  St.  Petersburg 59 

Carbonero,  Jos6  Moreno,  bora  in  Malaga,  i860 7S 

CarrUre^  Eugene,  bora  in  Gouraay-sur-Maroe  (Seine  et  Oise),  21st  January, 

1849 ;  lives  in  Paris irj 

Casado  del  Alisal,  bom  in  Valencia,  1832 ;  died  in  Madrid,  loth  October, 

1886 1% 

Casanova  y  Estorach,  Antonius,  bom  in  Tortosa,  9th  August,  1847  .81 

CasiUar,  John  W.,  bom  in  New  York;  studied  in  Europe,  1840;  opened  a 

studio  in  New  York,  1874 459 

Caxin,    Jean    Charles,    bora   in    Samer   (Department    Pas    de    Calais), 

1841 722 

Cazin,  Madame 727 

Cederstrdm,  Gustav  Olaf  Freiherr  von,  bom  in  Stockholm,  12th  April, 

1845 355 

Chalmers,  G.  Paul,  bora  in  Montrose,  1836 ;  died  1878        ....  680 

C&^^,  Henry,  bora  1810;  died  1879 4^0 

Chase^  William  Merrit,  bora  at  Franklin  Township  (Indiana),  1849  •  49^ 
Checa^  Ulpiano,  bora    in   Colmar  de  Oreja,  3rd  April,   i860;    lives   in 

Paris 82 

Chiret,  Jules,  born  in  Paris,  31st  May,  1836 60 

Chierictt  Gaetano,  born  at  Reggio,  1838 103 

Chirico,  Giacomo  di,  bora  in  Venosa,  1845  \  ^^^^  i°  Naples.        ...  96 

ChrisUnsen,  Gottfred,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  23rd  July,  1845  33^ 

Church,  Frederick  E.,  bora  at  Hartford  (Connecticut),  14th  March,  1826  .  459 
Clous,  Emile,  bora  in  Ulgham,  near  Morpeth,  8th  April,  1781 ;  died  in 

Newcastle-on-Tyne,  9th  February,  1840 225 

C^iltij'^,  Paul  Jean,  bora  m  Bruges,  181 9 220 

Cole,  Thomas,  born  1801 ;  died  1848 458 

Cole,  Vicat,    born    at    Portsmouth,   1833;    died    in    London,  6th    April, 

1893 189 

CoUaert,  Marie,  bom  in  Brussels,  9th  December,  1842 220 

Conii,  Tito,  bom  in  Florence,  1847 102 

Coosemans,  Joseph  Theodore,  bom  in  Brussels,  1828  ;  lives  in  Brussels       .  219 

Corbctt,  R.  M.,  lives  in  London 190 

Corinth,  Louis,  bom  in  Tapiau  (East  Prassia),  21st  July,  1858     ...  536 

Cortese,  Federigo,  born  in  Naples,  December,  1829 97 

Cmirtens,  Franz,  bom  in  Termonde,  24th  Febmary,  1853  .225 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  835 

PAGE 

Coventry,  R.  M.  G.,  lives  in  Glasgow             699 

Cox,  Kenyon,  lives  in  New  York 491 

Crane,  Walter,  bora  in  Liverpool,  1845 627 

Crawford,  Edmund  Thornton 671 

CrawhaU,  Joseph,  bom  in  Glasgow,  i860 698 

Cropsey,  Jasper  Francis,  born  in  Staten  Island,  18th  February,  1823    .        .  459 

Dagnan-Botiveret,   Pascal  Adolphe  Jean,   born  in  Paris,  7th  February, 

1852 46 

Dahl,  J.  C,  bora  in  Bergen  (Norway),  24th  Febraary,  1788 ;  died  in  Dresden, 

14th  October,  1857 385 

DahlsMm,  Karl  Andreas,  died  1869 344 

Dalbono,  Edoardo,  bora  in  Naples,  1843 9^ 

Dalgas,  Carlo,  bora  in  Naples,  9th  November,  1820 ;  fell  in  the  Danish  War, 

31st  December,  1850 294 

Dalsgaard,  Christen,  bora  at  Krabbesholm,  near  Skive,  in  Jutland,  30th 

October,  1824 289 

Damoye,  P.  E.,  bora  in  Paris,  20th  Febmary,  1847 53 

Dannat,  Wilh'am  T.,  bora  in  New  York,  1853 ;  lives  in  Paris  .  467 
Dannhauer,  Johann  Gottfried,  born  in  Saxony,  1680;  came  to  Russia,  17 10; 

died  in  St  Petersburg,  1733 4^^ 

Danton,  Edouard,  born  in  Paris,  26th  August,  1848 4S 

Dauphin^  E.,  bora  in  Toulon,  28th  NoYember,  1857 52 

Davis,  Charles  H.,  lives  in  Amesbuiy  (Massachusetts)  ....  489 
Dejonghe,  Gustave,  bora  in  Courtrai,  1828 ;  died  in  Antwerp,  1893  .  .210 
De  Jonghe,  Jean  Baptiste,  born  in  Courtrai,  8th  January,  1785 ;  died  in 

Brassels,  1844 213 

Delug,  Alois,  bora  in  Bozen,  Tyrol,  $th  May,  1859 536 

Denis,  Maurice,  bora  in  Paris,  1855 732 

Dettmann,  Ludwig,  bora  at  Adelbye,  near  Hamburg,  25th  July,  1865  .        •  S^T 

Dewing,  Thomas  William,  born  in  Boston   .                491 

De   JVinne,  Lievin,  bora  in  Ghent,  1821 ;    died  in  Brussels,   13th  May, 

1880 22s 

Di/i,  Ludwig,  born  in  Gernsbach,  in  Baden,  2nd  February,  1846 ;  lives  in 

Munich *  535. 

Dircks,  Carl  Edward,  bora  in  Christiania,  9th  June,  1855     .                        .  401 

Dissen,  Andreas  Edvard,  bora  in  Modu,  1844 4oo 

Docharfy,  Alexander,  lives  in  Glasgow 193 

Domingo,  Francisco,  bora  in  Valencia,  1842 ;  lives  in  Valencia  ...  87 
Douglas,  William  Fettes,  bora  in  Edinburgh,  1822;  died  in  Edinburgh, 

1891 677 

Dow,  Thomas  Millie,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 

Dreber,  Heinrich   Franz,  bora   in   Dresden,   9th  January,  1822;  died  in 

Anticoli  di  Campagna,  near  Rome,  3rd  August,  1875     .                         .  74^ 
Dubois,  Louis,  bora    in  Brussels,   1830;    died   in  Brussels,   28th  April 

1880 209 

Dues,  Ernest,  bora  in  Paris,  8th  March,  1843 ;  died  1896     ....  46 

Dumoulin 53 

DUncker.KanX 34^ 


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836  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PAGE 

Durand,  Asher  Brown,  born  in  Jefferson,  New  Jersey,  21st  August,  1791  ; 

continued  to  work  until  1877 461 

DUrr,  Wilhelm,  bom  in  Freiburg  (Breisgau),  1857 787 

Duveneck,  Frank,  bom  in  Covington,  Kentucky,  1848 ;  studied  in  Munidi, 

1877 492 

East,  Alfred,  bora  in  Kettering,  15th  December,  1849 >93 

EatoHf  Wyatt,  bora  in  Canada 486 

Eckersberg,  Christoph  Wilhelm,  bom  at  Varaaes,  in  Schleswig,  2nd  January, 

1783  ;  died  in  Copenhagen,  22nd  July,  1853 271 

Eckersberg^  Johann  Theodor,  born  in  Drammen  (Norway),  1822 ;  died  near 

Sandviken,  13th  July,  1870 397 

Eckmann,  Otto,  born  in  Hamburg,  19th  November,  1865  .  -536 

Eckstrdtn.V^ ...  370 

Eddelien,  Matthias  Heinrich  Elias,  born  in  Greifswalde,  22nd  January,  1803; 

died  24th  December,  1852 276 

Edelfelt^  Albert,  bora  in  Helsingfors,  21st  July,  1854 405 

JJ^i^nw,  Alexel,  bora  1776;  died  185 1 413 

Eichfeld,  Hermann,  bora  in  Carlsmhe,  27th  February,  1845  -536 

Ekendes,  Jahn,  bora  at  Hof,  in  Norway,  28th  September,  1847;  lives  in 

Munich 387 

Elliot,  Charles  Loring,  born  in  New  York,  1812  ;  died  1868.                .  456 

Engelt  Otto  H.,  bora  at  Erbach,  in  Odenwald,  27th  December,  1866   .        .  536 

Engelstedy  Malthe,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  ist  August,  1852  .  .  324 
Erdtelt,  Alois,  bora  in  Herzogswalde,  near  Grottkau,  Upper  Silesia,  5th 

November,  1851 536 

Ericson,  Johan,  bora  1848  ;  lives  in  Stockholm 373 

JE'«^tf«/,  Prince,  bora  1864;  studied  in  Paris,  1887-9 37^ 

Exner,  Julius,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  30th  November,  1825  ....  286 
Exter,  Julius,  bora  at    Ludwigshafen    on    the  Rhine,   20th  September, 

1863 790 

Fabris^  Antonio,  born  in  Barcelona 88 

Faed,  John,  born  in  Kirkcudbrightshire,  1820 671 

Faed,  Thomas,  bora  at  Burley  Mill  (Scotland),  1826;  lives  in  London  '.  671 
FahlcroHtz,   Karl  Johan,  bora  at  Stora-Juna  (Dalarae),  29th  November, 

1774;  died  in  Stockholm,  ist  January,  1861 343 

Fairman,  James,  bora  in  Glasgow,  1826 460 

Fanttn-Latour,  Henri,  bora  at  Grenoble,  14th  January,  1836  ...  55 
Favretto,  Giacomo,  bora   in  Venice,    1849;  died  in  Venice,    12th  June, 

1887 98 

Feamley^  Thomas,  bora  in  Frederikshold,  27th  December,  1802 ;  died  in 

Muhich,  i6th  January,  1842 385 

Fedders,  bora  1838 442 

Fedotov^  Paul,  bora  in  Moscow,  22nd  June,  181 5;  died  14th  November, 

1852 .428 

Fehr,  Friedrich,  bora  at  Wemeck,  in  Bavaria,  1862 536 

Ferragutti,  Adolfo,  lives  m  Milan 103 

Fildes,  Luke,  bora  in  London,  October,  1844 '  '99 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  837 

PAGE. 

Filippini,  Francesco,  born  in  Brescia,  November,  1853  ....  106 
Firle,  Walter,  born  in  Breslau,  22nd  August,  1859  J  1*^^  ^n  Munich  .  -535 
Fisher,    William    Mark,    bom    in    America;    has    lived    since    1877    in 

London 190 

/^/owVs'y^,  Constantin,  bom  1830;  died  1866 422 

Forain,  J.  L.,  lives  in  Paris 65 

Forbes,  A.  Stanhope,  bom  in  London,  1837 200 

Forsberg,  Nils,  bora  in  Riseberga,  in  Skane,  1841 355 

Forssell,  Victor,  bom  1846 373. 

Fortuny y  Carbo,  Mariano,  bom  at  Reuss,  near  Barcelona,  nth  June,  1838; 

died  in  Rome,  2 1  St  October,  1874 69 

Foster,  Birket,  born   at  North  Shields  (Northumberland),  4th  Febmary, 

1825 190- 

Fourmois,  Theodore,  born  in  Presles,  1814;  died  in  Brussels,  i6th  October, 

1871 213 

FredMCy  L^on,  bom  in  Brussels,  26th  September,  1856        ....  223 

Frewy  Alexander,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 

Frianty  bora  in  Dieuze,  loth  April,  1863 ;  lives  in  Paris        ....  46 

Frich,  Joachim,  bom  in  Bergen,  24th  July,  1810 38s 

FrithjofSmith,  Carl,  born  in  Christiania,  1859 ;  lives  in  Weimar .                .  387 

Frdhliclur,  Otto,  bom  in  Solothura,  1840 ;  died  in  Munich,  1891  497 
Fr6Uch,  Lorenz,  born  in  Copenhagen,  25th  October,  1820    .                         -335 

Fuller,  George,  bora  in  Deerfield  (Massachusetts),  1822  ;  died  1884    .        .  483 

Fulton,  David 193 

Furse,  Charles  W.,  lives  in  London 173. 

Gabriel,  Paul  Joseph  Constantin,  born  in  Amsterdam,  5th  July,  1828;  lives 

in  Scheveningen 259> 

GalakHonov,  Stephan,  born  1779 ;  died  1854 441 

Gandara,  Antonio,  bom  in  Spain  ;  lives  in  Paris 733 

Gaugengigl,  Ignaz  Marcel    .        .        , 49a 

Gauld,  David,  born  in  Glasgow,  1866 698 

Gay,  Edward,  bom  in  Ireland,  1837  ;  studied  under  Schirmer  and  Lessing ; 

has  worked  since  1867  in  New  York 459- 

Gay,  Nikolaus,  born  1831 451 

Gay,  Walter,  bom  in  Boston,  1846;  lives  in  Paris 471 

Gebauer,  Christian  David,  born  in  Christiansfeldt,  15th  October,  1777;  died 

in  Copenhagen,  15th  September,  1831 269- 

Gebhardt,  Eduard  von,  bom  at  St.  Johann  (Esthland),  13th  June,  1838 ;  lives 

in  Dusseldorf 269- 

Gegerfelt,  Wilhelm  de,  bom  in  Gothenburg,  1844 364 

Gelli,  Eduardo,  bom  in  Savona,  5th  September,  1852  ;  lives  in  Florence  10 1 
Gertner,  Johan  Vilhelm,  bom   in  Borgerfolk,   loth  May,   1818;   died  in 

Copenhagen,  29th  March,  1871 302 

Gervcx,  Henri,  bom  in  Paris,  1852 46 

Gifford,  R.   Swain,  born  in   Naushon  (Massachusetts),   23rd  December, 

1840 459 

Gignoux,  Francois  Regis,  bom  in  Lyons,  1816;  worked  from  1844-70  in 

America;  died  in  France,  1882 461 


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«38  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PACE 

GleicheH'Russwumtt  Ludwig  Freiherr  von,  bom  at  Greifenstein  ob  Bonn- 
land  in  Bavaria,  25th  October,  1836 ;  lives  in  Weimar  .  -$19 

Goeneutte,  Robert,  lives  in  Paris 46 

Goethals,  Jules,  bom  in  Brussels,  loth  August,  1844 219 

Gola,  Emilio,  bom  in  Milan,  1852 106 

GoKckel^  Vital  Jean  de,  bom  in  Lennico,  St.  Quentin,  1820;  died  in  Schaer- 

beeck-Bmssels,  1890 225 

Graham^  Peter,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  1836;  lives  in  London  .  .678 

Graham^  Thomas,  bom  in  Edinburgh ;  lives  in  London  .678 

Gray,  Heniy  Peters,  bom  in  New  York,  23rd  June,  1819;  died  1877   .        .    4$^ 

Greef,  Jean  de,  bom  in  Brussels,  1852 220 

Greenaway,  Kate 137 

Gregory,  Edward  John,  bom  in  Southampton,  1850 193 

Grciner,  Otto,  bom  in  Leipzig,  1871      .        .       ^ 798 

Grimelund,  Johannes  Martin,  bom  15th  March,  1842 387 

Grdnvold,  Marcus,  born  in  Bergen  (Norway) ;  lives  in  Munich   .  .387 

Grooth,  Georg  Christoph,  bom  17 16;  came  to  St.  Petersburg,  1741 ;  died 

1749 4" 

Groux,  Charles  de,  bom  in  Comines,  1825 ;  died  in  Brussels,  30th  March, 

1870 202 

Gutherz,  Karl,  bom  in  SchOftland  (Canton  Aargau),  1844     ....  462 

Guthrie,  James,  born  in  Glasgow,  1859 692 

Haanen,    Cecil    van,    bom    in   Vienna,    3rd  November,   1844;    lives    in 

Venice 479 

Haas,  Frederick  William  de,  bom  in  Rotterdam,  1830 ;  came  to  New  York, 

1854;  died  1880 460 

Haas,  Johan  Hubert  Leonardus  de,  bora  at  Hedel  (North  Brabant),  1832; 

lives  in  Brussels 259 

Habermann,  Hugo  Freiherr  von,  born  in  Dillingen,  14th  June,  1849  •    53^ 

Hagborg,  August,    bom    in  Gdteborg,   1852 ;    has    lived  in  Paris  from 

1875 362 

Hagen,  Theodor,  born  in  DQsseldorf,  24th  May,  1842;  lives  in  Weimar      .  519 

Hamilton,  James,  bom  in  Ireland,  1819 ;  died  in  Philadelphia,  1878   .        .  4^ 

HamilUm,  James  Whitelaw,  lives  in  Glasgow 698 

//<ii»;/i^xA^,  v.,  born  15th  May,  1864 336 

Hansen,  Carl  Frederik,  bora  in  Stavanger,  30th  Januaiy,  1841  ;  lives  in 

Copenhagen ,386 

Hansen,  Constantin,  born  in  Rome,  3rd  November,  1804;  died  in  Copen- 
hagen, 27th  March,  1880 283 

Hansen,  Hans  Nicolai,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  5th  May,  1853  •  324 
Hansteen,  Nils,  bom  in  Rauen  (Norway),  27th  April,  1855  .  .401 
Harding,  Chester,  born  in  Conway  (Massachusetts),  1792 ;  died  in  Boston, 

ist  April,  1866 456 

Hardy,  Dudley,  bom  in  SheflBeld,  15th  January,  1866 200 

Harrison,  Alexander,  bom  in  Philadelphia ;  lives  in  Paris  ....  4^ 
//itxr/,  James  M.,  born  at  Kilmamock  (Scotland),  1828;  has  lived  since  1856 

in  New  York 460 

Hartwich,  Hermann,  bora  in  New  York,  1853 479 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  839 

PAGE 

Harvey,  George,  bom  1806 ;  died  in  Edinburgh,  22nd  January,  1876    .        .671 

HaselUne,  William  Stanley,  bom  in  Philadelphia ;  studied  in  Dtlsseldorf    .  460 

//inj/j/M//,  Otto,  born  in  Copenhagen,  4th  November,  1842    ....  324 

Hassam^  Childe,  lives  in  New  York 489 

Haug,  Robert,  bom  in  Stuttgart,  27th  May,  1857  ;  lives  in  Stuttgart    .        .518 

Haverman 264 

Hedlinger^  Johann  Karl,  bora  in  1692  ;  died  in  177 1 339 

Heffner,  Karl,  bom  in  Wurzburg,  1849;  ^*^^  "^  Florence  ....  498 
Heilbuih,  Ferdinand,  bom  in  Hamburg,  1829 ;  died  in  Paris,  19th  Novem- 
ber, 1889 43 

Heim^  Heinz,  bom  in  Darmstadt,  12th  December,  1859        ....  536 

Heine ^  Thomas  Theodor,  born  in  Leipzig,  28th  February,  1867  .  536 
Hellquistf  Carl  Gustav,  bora  in  Kungsor  (Sweden),  185 1 ;  died  in  Munich, 

19th  November,  1890 354 

Helsted^  Axel,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  nth  April,  1847 302 

^i^^^Z^,  Adolf,  born  in  Kempton,  nth  February,  1863  .  -537 

Henkes,  Gerk,  lives  at  Voorburg,  near  The  Hague 246 

Henningsen,  Erik,  bora  in  Copenhagen,   29th  August,   1855  ;    lives  in 

Copenhagen 325 

Henry,  George,  lives  in  Glasgow 693 

Herbst,  Thomas,  born  in  Hamburg,  July,  1848 518 

Herkofner,  Hubert,  bom  at  Waal,  in  Bavaria,  1849;  'i^^  ^  London  .  173 
Hermans,  Charles,  bom  in  Brussels,  17th  August,  1839  .211 
Herrmann,  Curt,  bora  in  Mersebiu^,  ist  February,  1854                               .516 

Herrmann,  Hans,  bora  in  Berlin.  8th  March,  1858 516 

Herterich,  Ludwig,  lives  in  Munich 535 

Heyden,  Hubert  von,  bora  in  Berlin  ;  lives  in  Munich 536 

//ifj'Wflf^j,  Joseph,  bora  in  Antwerp,  nth  June,  1839 218 

Hierl-Deronco,  Otto,  bora  in  Memmingen,  28th  July,  1859  ....  536 
Hilker,  Georg  Christian,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  5th  June,  1807;  died  13th 

January,  1875 283 

Hill,  Thomas,  born  in  Birmingham,  1829;  came  to  America,  1841  458 

Hillestrdm,  M.  Per,  Professor  at  the  Academy  of  Stockholm  1805-23  .  339 
Hitchcock,  Geoige,  bora  in  Providence  (Rhode  Island,  America),  September, 

1850;  lives  in  Egmond  (Holland) 473 

Hoecker,  Paul,  bora  at  Oberlangenau  (Glatz),  nth  August,  1854;  lives  in 

Munich 533 

Hocckert,  Jean  Fredrik,  born  at  Jonkoping,  26th  August,  1826;   died  at 

Gotenborg,  i6th  September,  1866 348 

Hoelzel,  Adolf,  bora  in  Olmutz,  13th  May,  1853 536 

Hoese,  Jean  de  la,  bora  at  St.  Jans  Molenbeeck  (Brussels),  1846  .                .  222 

Hocteriks,  Emile,  bora  in  Bmssels,  1853 223 

HoU,  Frank,  bora  in  Camden  Town,  4th  July,  1845  ;  died  in  London,  31st 

July,  1888 165 

Holliday,  Henry,  lives  in  London 623 

Holsoi,  Carl,  bora  21st  December,  1866 324 

Homer,  Winslow,  born  in  Boston,  1836 482 

Hook,  James  Clarke,  bora  in  London,  21st  November,  1819  .186 

Horavsky,  Apollinaris,  bora  1833 440 


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840  IND^X  OF  ARTISTS 

PAGE 

HomtU^  Edward,  lives  in  Glasgow 693 

Hubbard,  Richard  W.,  bom  in  Middleton  (Connecticut)       ....  459 

Hubert,  Alfred,  born  in  Lotticb,  28th  March,  1830 223 

Hughes,  Arthur,  bom  in  London,  1832 621 

Hummely  Theodor,  bora  at  Schliersee,  15th  November,  1864  536 
Hunt,  William  Morris,    born    at  Brattleborough  (America),    1824;    died 

1879 461 

Hunter,  Colin,  bom  in  Glasgow,  1842 189 

Huntingdon,  Daniel,  bom  in  New  York,  14th  October,  18 16  458 

Impens,  Josse,  bom  in  Brussels,  1840 222 

Inchbold,  John  W.,  bora  in  Leeds,  1830;  died  in  Leeds,  1888                       -  190 

Inness,  George,  bora  in  Newburgh  (New  York),  ist  May,  1825     .                 .  484 

Inness,  George,  jun.,  has  been  represented  in  exhibitions  since  1877  .  489 
Irminger,  Valdemar  Henrik  Nicolai,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  29th  December, 

1850        ...                 324 

Israels,  Izaak,  lives  at  The  Hague 259 

Israels,  Josef,  bora  at  Groeningen  (North  Holland),  27th  January,  1824; 

lives  at  The  Hague 233 

/r/^xif^TT^,  Alexander,  bora  1806;  died  3rd  July,  1858 423 

Ivanov,  Andreas,  bora  1775  »  ^^^^  1^8 413 

Jacomb-Hood,  George  Percy,  bora  at  Redhill,  6th  July,  1857  .  200 
Jacob-Jacobs,  Jacques  Albert  Michel,  bora  in  Antwerp,  I9tb  May,  1812 ;  died 

1880 213 

Jacoby,  Valerius,  bora  1834 451 

Jensen,  Karl,  bora  22nd  November,  185 1  336 
JerichoM'Bautnann,  Elisabeth,  born  in  Warsaw,  27th  November,  18 19;  died 

in  Copenhagen,  nth  July,  1 88 1 302 

Jemberg,  Olaf,  bora  in  DOsseldorf,  23rd  May,  1855 518 

Jemdarff,  August,  bora  in  Oldenburg,  25th  January,  1846    .  -319 

Jimenez,  Louis,  born  in  Seville,  1845 88 

Johannson,  Carl 372 

Johansen,  Viggo,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  31st  January,  1851  .  .  320 
Jongkind,  Johann  Barthold,  bora  at  Latrop,  near  Rotterdam,  18 19;  died  at 

C6te  Saint  Andr6  (Is^re),  1891 249 

Jdrgensen 391 

/c?^<^Ara»,  Erast,  bora  in  Stockholm,  185 1 379 

Juel,  Jens,   bora  at  Gamborg,    12th   May,    1745 ;    died  27th  December, 

1802 269 

Kalckreutkf  Leopold  Graf  von,  bora  in  Dusseldorf,  25th  May,  1855  531 
A a//;vf^/;g'^ff,  Friedrich,  born  in  Altona,  15th  November,  1856  .518 
Kampf,  Arthur,  bora  in  Aix-la-Chapelle,  26th  September,  1864  .  .518 
Kampffer,  Eduard,  bora  at  MOnster  (Westphalia),  13th  May,  1859;  lives  in 

Munich 518 

^<!z/>&^  Jacob,  bora  1 816;  died  1854 422 

Kappes,  Alfred,  lives  in  New  York 482 

Karpen 26$ 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  841 

PAGE 

Kate,  Hermann  ten,  born  at  The  Hague,  i6th  February,  1822 ;  lives  at  The 

Hague 229 

Keller^  Albert,  bom  at  Gais,  in  Switzerland,  27th  April,  1845  526 

Keller-Reutlingen^  Wilhelm,  bom  at  Reutlingen,  2nd  Febmary,  1854  .  536 

Kennedy^  William,  born  in  Glasgow,  i860 697 

Kensett,  J.  F.,  bom  in  Cheshire  (Connecticut),  1818  ;  died  1873    •                •  459 
Khnopff,  Fernand,  born  in  Grembergen  (West  Flanders),  12th  September, 

1858 738 

Kielland^  Kitty,  bom  in  Stavanger,  3rd  October,  1844 401 

Kindborg,  John,  born  1861 372 

Kindermans,  Jean  Baptiste,  born  in  Antwerp,  1805  ;  died  1876    .  .213 

Kiprensky,  Orest,  born  1783 ;  died  1836 414 

Klinger,  Max,  bom  in  Leipzig,  i8th  February,  1856 794 

Klinkenberg,  Johannes  Christian  Karel,  born  at  The  Hague,  1852;  lives  in 

Amsterdam 259 

Klodt,  Baron  von  Jurgensburg,  born  1832 442 

Knight,  F.  Ridgway,  bom  in  Philadelphia ;  lives  in  Poissy  ....  49a 

Knight,  Joseph,  lives  in  London    ....                ....  193 

^«X^  Alfred  de,  bom  in  Brussels .                                 214 

Kdbke,  Christen,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  26th  May,  18 10;  died  7th  February, 

1848 276 

Koehler,  Robert,  bom  in  Milwaukee,  1854;  lives  in  Munich.                         .  479 
Koekkoek,  Bernard  Cornelius,  born  at  Middelburg,  nth  October,  1803;  died 

in  Cleve,  5th  April,  1862 229 

Kolstoe^  Frederik,  born  at  Hongsund,  5th  March,  i860;  lives  in  Bergen  391 

Kdnig,  Hugo,  born  in  Dresden,  12th  May,  1856 536 

Korsuchin,  AlexeY,  bom  1835 434 

Kotzebue^  Alexander,  born  1815 ;  died  1889 437 

Krafft,  Johan  August,  bom  in  Altona,  26th  April,  1798 ;  died  in  Rome,  29th 

December,  1829 283 

Krafft,  Per,  vras  working  in  1830  in  Stockholm 340 

A>«»w^<?/,  Ivan,  born  1837;  died  1887 444 

Kreuger,  Nils,  bom  1858 37a 

Krohg,    Christian,    bom    in    Christiania,    13th    August,    1852;    lives    in 

Berlin 391 

Kronberg,  Julius,  born  in  Kariskrona,  nth  December,  1850;  lives  in  Stock- 
holm          353 

KroutheUf  Johann,  born  1858 372 

Krdyer,  Peter  S.,  bom  in  Stavanger,  24th  June,  1851 310 

Kruseman  van  Elten^  H.   D.,  born  in  Alkmaar    (North   Holland),    14th 

November,  1829;   lives  in  New  York 460 

Kubierschky,  Erich,  born  in  Francken stein,  Silesia,  loth  June,  1854              .  536 

KiUhler,  ^bert,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  2nd  May,  1803 276 

Kuehl,  Gotthard,  born  in  Lubeck,  1851 ;  lives  in  Munich      ....  532 

Kuindshi,  Archip,  bom  1842 443 

^«//f,  Axel,  born  1846;  lives  in  Stockholm 375 

Kuschel,  Max,  lives  in  Munich 536 

Kuytenbrouwer^  Martin,  bom  1816  ;  died  1850 230 

Kyhn,  Peter  Vilhelm  Karl,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  30th  March,  18 19               .  296 
VOL.  III.                                                                                                  54 


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842  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PACE 

Lafrensen^  Niklas  (known  as  Lavreince),  bom  in  Stockholm,  1746;  died  in 

Stockholm,  1808 339 

Lagorio^  Leone,  born  in  the  Crimea       ....  ...    440 

Lambrichs,  Edmond  Alphonse  Charles^  bom  in  St.  Joost-ten-Oode  (Bmssels), 

1830;  lives  in  Bmssels 223 

Lamoriniir€y  Francois,  bom  in  Antwerp,  28th  April,  1828  .214 

Langhammer,  Arthur,  bom  in  LOtzen,  6th  July,  1855 535 

LarseHi  Emanuel,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  15th  September,  1823;  died  24th 

September,  1859 297 

Larsson^  Carl,  bom  in  Stockholm,  1855 377 

Larsson^  Marcus,  born  in  Atvidaberg,  1825  ;  died  in  London,  1864  .    356 

Lauder,  Robert  Scott,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  1803;  died  1869  .  .672 

Z^«i^f7,  Paul,  born  1806;  died  in  Brussels,  1875 213 

Lavery,  John,  bom  in  Glasgow,  1858 691 

Lawson,  Cecil,  born  in  Wellington  (Shropshire),  185 1 ;  died  in  London,  i  ith 

June,  1882 186 

Letider,  Benjamin  William,  bora  in  Worcester,  1831     .  190 

Lehedev,  Michael,  bom  in  Dorpat,  1815;  died  in  Naples,  1837      .        .        -410 
Ltemans,   Egide   Francois,    born    in  Antwerp,   1839;    died    in  Antwerp, 

1876 221 

Leemputten,  Frans  van,  born  at  Werchter,  near  Louvain,   1850;  lives  in 

Antwerp 220 

Leighton^  The  Lord,  bora  in   Scarborough,  3rd  December,   1830;    died 

January,  1896 118 

Leistikow,  Walter,  bora  in  Bromberg,  25th  October,  1865     .        .  .516 

Ltmoch^  Carl,  born  1841 434 

Ltpsius,  Reinhold,  bora  in  Berlin,  14th  June,  1857 516 

Lerche,  Vincent    Stoltenberg,  bora    5th   September,    1837,   in   T5nsbeig 

(Norway);  died  in  DQsseldorf,  28th  December,  1892         .  .386 

Leslie,  George,  born  in  London,  2nd  July,  1835 ;  lives  in  London  .161 

Leutze,  Emanuel,  born  at  Gmund,  in  WQrtemberg,  24th  May,  1816;  died  in 

Washington,  1 8th  July,  1868 457 

Levitan,  Izaak 443 

i>z///ir>t>',  born  1735  ;  died  1822 4^ 

Lkermitte,  L6on,  bora  in  Mont.  St.  P^re  (Aisne),  near  Chateau-Thierry,  3rd 

July,  1844;  lives  in  Paris 30 

LUbermann,  Max,  born  in  Berlin,  29th  July,  1849;  lives  in  Berlin  .    501 

Lder,  Adolf,  bora  at  Herrenhut,  21st  May,   1827;    died  in  Brixen,  30th 

September,  1882 497 

Z/'^'.^/^j,  Brano,  born  i860;  lives  in  Upsala 373 

Idndegren,  Amalia,  bora  in  Stockholm,   18 14;    died  in  Stockholm,  27th 

December,  1891 345 

Linden,  Felix  ter,  born  in  Lodelinsart  (Hennegau),  12th  August,  1836.        .    223 

Undholm,  Lorenz  August,  bora  in  Stockholm,  1819 344 

Undman,  Axel,  born  1848 372 

Lipps,  Richard,  bora  in  Berlin,  26th  October,  1857 536 

Locker,  Carl,  bora  in  Flensburg,  21st  November,  1851 328 

LogsdcUl,  Walter,  lives  in  London         .  199 

/^;f2'tf,  Antonio,  born  in  Triest,  1846;  lives  in  Venice loi 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  843 

PAGE 

Loudan^  ^\o\\2X\  lives  in  London 173 

Lundbergt  Gustav,  born  in  Stockholm,  1695;  died  in  Stockholm,  1786  .  339 
LuftdbySf  Johann  Tomas,  born  in  Kallundborg,  ist  September,  181 8;  fell  in 

battle  near  Flensburg,  26th  April,  1848 293 

Lundgren^  Egron,  born  in  Stockholm,  i8th  December,  181 5  ;  died  in  Stock- 
holm, i6th  December,  1875 343 

Lundstrdntf  Ernst,  born  1853 373 

Macallum^  Hamilton,  born  at  Kyles  (Scotland),  1843 680 

Macbeth^  James,  bom  in  Glasgow,  1847 189 

Macbeth,  Robert,  born  in  Glasgow,  1848 679 

MacCallum,  Andrew,  born  in  Nottingham,  1828 189 

MacCulloch,  Horatio,  born  in  Glasgow,  1805  ;  died  1867      ....  672 

MacEwen,  Walter,  bom  in  Chicago,  13th  Febmary,  i860;  lives  in  Paris     .  471 

Macgregor,  Robert 677 

MacWhirter,    John,    born    at    CoUinton,    near    Edinburgh,    27th   March, 

1839 679 

Madrazo,  Federico,  born  in  Rome,  12th  Februar>',  181 5  -69 

Madrazo,  Jos6,  born  1781 ;  died  1859 69 

Madrazo,  Raimundo,  bom  in  Rome,  24th  July,  1841 86 

Maffei,  Guido  von,  born  in  Munich,  ist  July,  1838 536 

Makffusky,  Constantin,  bom  in  Moscow,  1839;  lives  in  Paris       .  445 

Makovskyt  Vladimir,  born  in  Moscow,  1846 446 

Malmstrdm^  Johan  August,  born  at  Vestra  Ny  (OstgOtland),  14th  August, 

1829;  lives  in  Stockholm 350 

ManH^  Harrington ;  lives  in  Glasgow    ....                 ...  699 

MarSeSf  Georg  de  (also  Desmar6es),  bom  in   Stockholm,   1697;  died  in 

Munich,  1776 339 

Maries,  Hans  von,  born  in  Elberfeld,  24th  December,  1837 ;  died  in  Rome, 

5th  June,  1887 761 

Maris,  Jacob,  born  at  The  Hague,  25th  August,  1837 253 

Maris,  Matthew 260 

^((im,  Willem,  born  at  The  Hague,  1815 253 

Mameffe,  Fran9ois  de,  born  in  Brussels,  1793;  died  at  St.  Joost-ten-Oode 

(Brussels),  1877 212 

Marr,  Carl,  bom  at  Milwaukee  (Wisconsin),  14th  February,  1858  .  478 
Marshall,  Robert  Angelo  Kittermaster,  bom  in  London,  1849  -193 
Marstrand,  Vilhelm,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  24th  December,  18 10;  died  in 

Copenhagen,  25th  March,  1873 278 

Martin,  Elias,  bom  in  Stockholm,  1740;  died  in  Stockholm,  1804  340 

Martin,  Henri,  lives  in  Paris 733 

Mas  y  Fondevilla,  Arcadio,  lives  in  Barcelona 84 

Mason,  George  Hemming,  born  in  Wetley  Abbey  (Staffordshire),  nth  March, 

1818;  died  in  Hammersmith,  22nd  October,  1872 142 

J/EZ.f.fa»;i:,  L^on,  born  in  Ghent,  2 1st  March,  1845 220 

Mauve,  Anton,  born  in  Zaandam 255 

Mcerts,  Frans,  bom  in  Ghent,  1837 222 

Melbye,  Anton,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  13th  February,  1818;  died  in  Paris, 

10th  January,  1875 297 


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844  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PAGE 

Melchers^  Julius  Gari,  born  in  Detroit  (America),  i860 472 

Mellery^  Xavier,  bom  in  Laeken  (Brussels),  9th  August,  1845  223 

MehHlle,  Arthur,  lives  in  London 690 

Mesdag,  Hendrik  Willem,  bom  in  GrOmsingen,  25th  February,  1831 ;  lives 

at  The  Hague 255 

Mestschersky,  Arseny,  bom  1834 440 

Meunier^  Constantin,  bora  in  Brussels,  1831 .                207 

Meyer,  Ernst,  born  in  Altona,  nth  May,  1797;  died  in  Rome,  ist  February, 

1861 285 

Meyer  von  Bremen,  Johann  Georg,  born  in  Bremen,  28th  October,  181 3; 

died  in  Berlin,  24th  December,  1886 483 

Meytens,  Martin,  bom  in  Stockholm,  1699;  ^*^d  *"  Vienna,  1770                  .  339 

Michetth  Francesco  Paolo,  bom  at  Chieti,  1852 94 

Moemer,  Hjalmar,  born  in  Stockholm,  181 2;  died  before  1841     .                 .  343 

if/((7//fr,  Theodor  von,  born  1812;  died  1875 4^2 

Monchablon,  Jan,  born  in  Chatillon,  6th  September,  1854    .  -51 

Montalba,  Qara,  bom  in  Cheltenham,  1842 198 

Montenard,  Frederic,  bom  in  Paris,  17th  May,  1849 52 

Montei>erde,  Luigi,  born  in  Lugano,  1845  ;  lives  in  Milan                               .103 
Monticelli,  Adolphe,  born  in  Marseilles,  14th  October,  1824;  died  in  Mar- 
seilles, 26th  May,  1886 664 

Moore,  Albert,  born  in  York,  1841 ;  died  in  London,  1892  .  .127 

Moore,  Henry,  born  in  York,  1831 193 

Moore,  Henry  Humphrey,  born  in  New  York,  1844 4^5 

Moron,  Edward,  bom  in  Bolton  (Lancashire),  1829 488 

Moran,  Peter,  bom  in  Bolton,  4th  March,  1842 487 

Morattt  Thomas,  born  in  Bolton,  1837 483 

Moreau,  Gustave,  bom  in  Paris,  6th  April,  1826 703 

Morelli,  Domenico,  born  in  Naples,  26th  August,  1826          ....  91 

Morgan,  Matthew,  bom  1840 460- 

Morgan,  WiUiam,  bom  in  London,  1826 460 

Morosov,  Alexander,  born  1835 4^7 

Morris,  Philip  Richard,  bora  at  Devonport,  4th  December,  1838;  lives  in 

London 161 

Morris,  William,  bom  in  London,  1834 620- 

Morton,  Thomas  Corsan,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 

Mosler,  Henry,  bom  in  New  York,  6th  June,  1841 462 

Mount,  William  Sydney,  bom  in  Long  Island,  1806;  died  1868    .  458 

Muhrmann,  Henry,  lives  in  Hastings 478 

Mailer,  Peter  Paul,  bom  in  Berlin,  ist  Febmary,  1853  •••53^ 

Munkacsy,  Michael,  bora  at  MunkAcs,  loth  October,  1846;  lives  in  Paris    .  774 
Munthe,  Gerhard,  bom  at  Skanshagen,  in  Norway,  17th  July,  1849;   lives 

in  Christiania 399 

Murphy^  John  Francis 488 

iVoww^M,  Alexander,  bom  1758;  died  1814 671 

Nasmyth,  Patrick,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  7th  January,  1787 ;  died  in  Lambeth, 

17th  August,  1831 671 

Neff,  Timotheus  von,  born  in  Estland,  1805;  died  1876                                 .  425 


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INDEX   OF  ARTISTS  845 

PAGE 

Netti,  Francesco,   born    in  SanfEramo,   2nd  December,    1834;    lives   in 

Naples 97 

Neubertt  Louis,  born  1846;  died  in  Sonnenstein,  near  Pima,  25th  March, 

1892 497 

NeuhauSf  Hermann,  bom  in  Barmen,  29th  February,  1864  ....  536 

Neuhuys,  Albert,  born  in  Utrecht,  loth  June,  1844;  lives  at  The  Hague       .  247 

Nicol^  Erskine,  bom  in  Leith,  1825 671 

Nigris^  Giuseppe  de,  bom  in  Naples,  18 12 97 

Nilson,  Amandus,  bora  in  Mandal  (Norway),  1833 ;  lives  in  Christiania  397 

Nisen,  Felix,  bom  in  LOttich,  1850;  died  in  Lmtich,  1889    ....  225 

Niss,  Thorvald,  born  in  Assens,  7th  May,  181 2 330 

Nittis,  Giuseppe  de,  bom  in  Barletta,  near  Naples,  1846;  died  in  Paris, 

22nd  August,  1884 38 

A^<9«<?,  Luigi,  bom  in  Fusina ;  lives  in  Venice '.103 

Nordenberg,  Bengt 346 

Nordlmg,  Adolf,  born  in  Karlshamm,  1840;  died  1888                  .                 .  372 

iV<?n&/r<3>«,  Karl,  born  1855  ;  lives  in  Varberg  (Sweden)  371 

Norton,  William  E.,  bom  in  Massachusetts 460 

Nyberg,  Ivar,  born  1855 376 

Nys,  Carl,  born  in  Antwerp,  1858 223 

OesUrlind,  Allan,  born  1853 376 

Olde,  Hans,  lives  in  Friedrichsort  (Schleswig-Holstein)  ....  535 
Oldham,  William  Stott  of,  bom  in  Oldham,  20th  November.  1857;  lives  in 

London 200 

Omtneganck^  Balthazar  Paul,  bom  in  Antwerp,  I7S5;  died  in  Antwerp, 

1826 219 

6!^/fr,  Ernst,  born  in  Hanover,  1867    .  .        .  -536 

Orchardson^  William  Quiller,  born  in  Edinburgh,  1835 674 

Orlovsky,  Alexander,  bom  in  Warsaw,  1777;  came  to  Russia,  1802;  died 

2nd  March,  1832 414 

Ou/ess,  Walter  William,  born  at  St.  Helier,  in  Jersey,  21st  September,  1848 ; 

lives  in  London 170 

Oyens,  Pieter,  born  in  Amsterdam,  1842 ;  lives  in  Brussels  ....  247 

Paim,  Gustave  Wilhelm,  bom  in  Christianstad,  14th  March,  18 10;  died  in 

Stockholm,  20th  September,  1890 342 

Parmentier,  Georges,  bom  at  Ostend,  1870 220 

Parsons,  Alfred,  bom  in  Somersetshire,  2nd  December,  1847  .481 

Parton,  Ernest,  born  at  Hadson,  1845 ^93 

Passini,  Ludwig,  born  in  Vienna,  1832 479 

Paterson,  James,  lives  in  Glasgow 695 

Pauli,  Georg,  born  1855  ;  'i^^s  in  Stockholm 379 

Paulsen,  Julius,  bom  22nd  October,  i860;  lives  in  Copenhagen  .  •  33^ 
Pauwels^  Ferdinand,  born  at  Eckeren,  near  Antwerp,  15th  August,  1830; 

lives  in  Dresden 502 

Pcale^  Charles  Wilson,  born  in  Chesterton  (America),  1741 ;  died  1826        .  456 

Pearcc,  Charles  Sprague,  bom  in  Boston ;  lives  in  Paris       ....  467 

Pcck^  Orrin,  born  in  America ;  lives  in  Munich 479 


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846  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PACE 

/^^/^rjr//,  Viggo,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  II  th  March,  1854       ....  329 

Pcnnelly  Joseph 481 

-P^nw,  Vassily,  born  1833;  died  1882 432 

Peske,  G^za,  born  in  Kelecs6ny  (Hungary),  22nd  January,  1859    .  536 

Petersseity  Eilif,  born  in  Christiania,  4th  September,  1852     ....  395 
PettU,  John,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  1839;  <^^  ^  Hastings,  21st  February, 

1893 673 

/^^/ar^^/^/,  Ernst  Christian,  born  in  Copenhagen,  ist  January,  1805;  died  in 

Patras,  1st  August,  1838 283 

Philipsen^  Theodor,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  loth  June,  1840    ....  330 

Picard^  Louis,  born  in  Paris,  1850 733 

Picot,  Fran9ois  Edouard,  bora  in  Paris,  17th  October,  1786;  died  in  Paris, 

15th  March,  1868 237 

Pienemanny  Jan  Willem,  born  at  Abcoude,  near  Amsterdam,  1779;  died  in 

Amsterdam.  1853 230 

Piglhein,    Bruno,    born    in    Hamburg,    19th    Febmary,    1848;    lives    in 

Munich 523 

PissanVy  Lucien,  lives  in  Paris 51 

Plagemann^  Karl,  born  in  Sodertelje,  1805 340 

Poftztlberger,  Robert,  bora  in  Vienna,  1856;  lives  in  Carlsrahe   .  519 

/'^>i/^//>y,  Auguste  Emanuel,  bora  at  Arbois  (Jura),  1839               .                 •  S^ 

Pop<n\  AndrcT,  bora  1832 427 

PortaelSy    Jean    Fran9ois,    born    at    Vilvorde,  near    Brassels,    ist    May, 

1818 247 

Powell,  William  Henry,  bom  in  Ohio,  1824;  died  1879  45^ 

PoynUr,  Edward,  bora  in  Paris,  20th  March,  1836 124 

Pradilla,  Francisco,  bora  in  Villanueva  da  Gallago  (Province  of  Saragossa), 

1847  ;  lives  in  Rome 7^»^ 

Prikker,  Thora 264 

Prinsep,  Val,  bora  in  India,  14th  February,  1836 123 

Prjaiiischnikov,  Ilarion,  bora  1839 .         .  434 

Pukirev,  Vassily,  bora  1832 434 

Puvis  dt  Chepvannes,  Pierre,  born  in  Lyons,  14th  December,  1826  710 

Pyle,  Howard 481 

Rabendfng,  Fritz,  born  in  Vienna,  22nd  February,  1862         ....  536 

RabtiSthoin  1800;  died  1857 440 

Raffoflli,  Francisque  Jean,  born  in  Paris,  1845 35 

Ramirez ,  Manuel,  lives  in  Madrid  .                          78 

Ratnsay,  Allan,   bora   in   Edinburgh,  1713;  died   in  Dover,  loth  August, 

178^ 669 

Rangci;  H.  W.,  lives  in  New  York 489 

Rduber,  Wilhelm,  born  in  Marienwcrder,  1849 536 

Ravet,  Victor,  bora  in  Elscne  (Brussels),  1840 222 

Redon,  Odilon,  bora  in  Paris,  1862 733 

Reid,  Sir  George,  born  in  Aberdeen ;  President  of  the  Edinburgh  Academy  680 
Reid,  John  Robertson,  born   in   Edinburgh,  6th  August,    1851 ;    lives  in 

London 165 

Rcid'Murray,  J.,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  847 

PACE 

Reinhart,  Charles  S.,  born  in  America;  lives  in  Paris 481 

Reinicke,  R6n6,  born  in  Streuz-Naundorf,  22nd  March,  i860                          •  53^ 

Reiniger,  Otto,  born  in  Stuttgart,  27th  February,  1863 518 

Renan^  Ary,  born  in  Paris,  1855 733 

Renouardt  Paul,  born  in  Cour-Cheverny,  1845 ;  lives  in  Paris       ...  64 

Repin,  Elias.  born  in  Tschuguev,  25th  July,  1844 446 

Ribera^  Cario  Luis,  born  in  Rome,  1812 69 

Richards,  W.  T..  born  in  Philadelphia 4S9 

Richmond,  William  Blake,  born  in  York,  29th  November,  1843    .                .  623 

Rico,  Martin 85 

Ring,  Lauritz,  born  15th  August,  1854;  lives  in  Copenhagen  -  3^5 
Riinere,  Briton,  born  in  London,  14th  August,  1840 ;  lives  in  London  .        .132 

Robbe,  Louis,  born  in  Courtrai,  17th  November,  1807 220 

Roche,  Alexander,  bom  in  Glasgow,  1862 694 

Rochussen,  Charles 230 

Roed,  Jorgen,  born  in  Ringsted,  13th  January,  1808  278 
Roelofs,  Willem,  born  in  Amsterdam,  loth  March,  1822                                 .214 

Rohde,  Johan,  bom  ist  November,  1856 336 

Rokotov,  Theodor,  Court  painter  to  Catherine  IL  ;  died  18 10  .412 

Roll,  Alfred,  born  in  Paris,  10th  March,  1847 32 

Rolshoven,  Julius,   born  in   Detroit  (Michigan,   America),   28th  October, 

1858 491 

Rops,  F6liden,  bom  in  Namur,  1845  »  ^^ves  in  Paris 733 

Rdrbye,  Martinus  Christian,  born  in  Drammen  (Norway),  17th  May,  1803; 

died  29th  August,  1848 276 

Rosales,  Edoardo,  died  in  Rome,  1873 69 

Rosen,  Georg  Graf  von,   bom  in   Paris,    13th   February,   1843;   lives  in 

Stockholm 35© 

i?^^^«^^^,  Ed vard,  born  1854;  lives  in  Stockholm 373 

^<?j^»r/to»^/,  Vilhelm,  born  in  Copenhagen,  31st  July,  1838    ....  302 

Roslin,  Alexander,  bom  17^8  ;  died  1793 339 

Rosseels,  Jacques,  bom  in  Antwerp,  1828 218 

Rosset'Granget,  Edouard,  born  in  Viucennes 52 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  bom  in  London,  12th  May,  1828;  died  at  Birchington- 

on-Sea,  9th  April,  1882 572 

Rotta,  Antonio,  bom  in  Gorz,  28th  February,  1828 ;  lives  in  Venice  103 

Rump,  Gotfred,  born  in  Hillerod,  8th  December,  18 16 297 

Runciman,  Alexander,  bom    in    Edinburgh,    1736;    died    21st    October, 

1785 669 

Runciman,  John,  bom  in  Edinburgh,  1744  ;  died  in  Naples,  1766  669 
Rydberg,  Gustav  Fredrik,  bom  in  Malmo,  13th  September,  1835  .                 -358 

Sala  y  Frances,   Emilio,   born  in  Alcov,  near  Valencia,    1850 ;    lives   in 

Paris ' 88 

Salmson,    Hugo,    bom  in    Stockholm,    1843 ;    has    lived    since    1868    in 

Paris 361 

Samberger,  Leo,  born  in  Ingolstadt,  14th  August,  1861                          .  535 

Sandberg,  Johan  Gustav,  bom  in  Stockholm,  1782 ;    died  in  Stockholm, 

1854 344 


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848  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PAGS 

Sant^  James,  born  in  Croydon,  23rd  April,  1820   » 173 

Santoro,  Rubens,  born  in  Mongrasseno,  near  Cosenza,  1843  ...  96 
Sargent^  John  Singer,  bom  in  Florence,  1856 ;  lives  in  London    .  -474 

Sarjanko,  Sergei,  bom  1818  ;  died  1870 426 

Sauerweid,  Alexander,  bom  1783  ;  died  in  St.  Petersburg,  1849  .  -437 

Saviizky,  Konstantin,  born  1845 434 

Savrassov 443 

SchampheUer,  Edmond  de,  bora  in  Brussels,  1825 213 

Schamschin^  Peter,  born  181 1 422 

Schelfhout,  Andreas,  born  at  The  Hague,  i6th  February,  1787;  died  19th 

April,  1870 230 

Schendely  Petrus  van,  bora  in  Terheyden  (North  Brabant),  21st  April,  1806 ; 

died  in  Brussels,  28th  December,  1870 229 

SchischkiHi  Ivan,  bom  181 1 441 

Schlittgen^  Hermann,  born  in  Roitzsch  (Saxony),  23rd  June,  1859  •    53^ 

Schmaedelt  Max  von,  bom  in  Augsburg,  14th  May,  1856  -53^ 

Schoenchen^  Leopold,  born  in  Augsburg,  ist  Febraar}',  185$  -53^ 

Schdnleber^  Gustav,  born  at  Bietigheim,  in  Wurtemberg,  3rd  December, 

185 1 ;  lives  in  Carlsruhe 518 

Schroeter^  Alfred  von,  bom  in  Vienna,  12th  Febmary,  1856  .  -536 

Schwabe^  Carlos,  lives  in  Paris 733 

^<r^te'<zrar,  Wjaceslaus,  born  1838;  died  1869 451 

Scott,  David,  bom  in  Edinburgh,   loth  October,   1806;  died   5th  March, 

1849 568 

Scymanovski,  Vaclav,  lives  in  Munich 535 

Segantini,  Giovanni,  bom  in  Arco,  15th  January,  1858;  lives  in  Val  d*Albola, 

in  Switzerland 103 

Seligmann,  Georg,  born  22nd  April,  1866;  lives  in  Copenhagen  .  -336 

Seuratf  George,  bom  in  Paris,  1859;  died  in  Paris,  1891      .  -50 

Shannon,    J.    J.,    born    in    America,    1863 ;     has    lived    since    1878    in 

London 173 

Shirlaw,  Walter,  bom  in  Paisley  (Scotland),  1837 483 

Shuravlev,  Thirsus,  bom  1836 427 

Siemiradzky,  Hendrik,  born  near  Charkow,  1843;  Ji^'^s  in  Rome.  .    422 

.Si^«^K:,  Paul,  born  in  Paris,  nth  November,  1863 51 

Simonsen,  Niels,  bora  in  Copenhagen,  loth  December,  1807 ;  died  in  Copen- 
hagen, 1 2th  December,  1885 284 

Sinding,  Otto  Ludwig,  born  in  Drontheim  (Norway),  i6th  December,  1842; 

lives  in  Christiania 387 

Skanberg,  Karl,  born  1850 ;  died  1883 3^5 

Skarbinay  Franz,  bora  in  Berlin,  24th  Febmary,  1849  .        .  •    SU 

Skovgaard,  Joachim,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  i8th  November,  1856.  .    334 

Skovgaard,  Niels,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  2nd  November,  1858  -334 

Skovgaard,  Peter  Christian,  bom  in  Hammerhus,  near  Ringsted,  4th  April, 

1817 ;  died  in  Copenhagen,  13th  April,  1876 294 

Skramstad,  Ludwig,  born  in  Hamar  (Norway),  30th  December,  1855  .  .  400 
Skredsvig,  Christian,  bora  in  Modu  (Norway),  12th  March,  1854 .  -393 

67(9//- J/<)7/^,  Agnes,  bora  1862;  lives  in  Copenhagen 335 

Slott-Mdller,  Harald,  bora  17th  August,  1864 33S 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  849 

PAGE 

Smith,  Carl  Frithjof,  born  in  Drontheim  (Norway),  1859       .        .                 .  387 
Soedermark,  Johan  Per,  born  in  Stockholm,  3rd  June,  1822  ;  died  in  Stock- 
holm, 1889 343 

Soerensen,  Frederik,  bom  in  Bcsserby,  near  Copenhagen,  8th  February, 

1818 297 

SokoUrv .  427 

Sonne,  Jorgen  Valentin,  born  at  Birkerod,  in  Zealand,  24th  June,  1801  ; 

died  in  Copenhagen,  beginning  of  October,  1890 277 

Soot,  Eilif,  born  in  Aremark,  24th  April,  1858 \o\ 

Spartali,  Marie  (Mrs.  Stillman),  born  in  London  ;  lives  in  Rome  .                 .  623 

Speekaert,  Leopold 209 

Spence,  Harry,  lives  in  Glasgow 699 

Sprague-Pcarce,  Charles,  bom  in  Boston  ;  lives  in  Paris      ....  467 

Staebli,  Adolf,  born  in  Winterthur,  31st  May,  1842 497 

Stahl,  Friedrich,  born  in  Munich,  27th  December,  1863  .516 

Stanhope,  R.  Spencer,  has  exhibited  since  i860 619 

Stauffer-Bem,  Karl,  bom  in  Trubschachen,  2nd  September,  1857 ;  died  in 

Florence,  25th  January,  1891 798 

Steinhausen^  Wilhelm,  bom  in  Sorau,  2nd  February,  1846;  lives  in  Frank- 

fort-on-Main 774 

5/^r/f^^r^,  Vassily,  born  181 8;  died  in  Rome,  1845 427 

Stevens,  Alfred,  bom  in  Brussels,  nth  May,  1828  ;  lives  in  Bmssels   .        .210 

Stevenson,  Macaulay  R.,  lives  in  Glasgow 698 

Stewart,  Julius  L.,  born  in  Philadelphia  ;  lives  in  Paris        ....  466 

Stobhaerts,  Jan,  born  in  Antwerp,  i8th  March,  1838 209 

Stone,  Marcus,  bom  in  London,  1840 158 

Strobentz,  Fritz,  born  in  Buda-Pesth,  25th  July,  1 856 536 

Strudwick,  J.  M.,  bom  in  Clapham,  1849 ^21 

Stschedrin,  Sylvestr,  bora  1791  ;  died  in  Sorrento,  28th  October,  1830.        .  434 

Stschedrovsky 427 

Stuart,  Charles  Gilbert,  born    in    Narraganset,    1756;    died    in    Boston, 

1828 456 

Stuck,  Franz,  born  in  Tettenweis,  23rd  Febmary,  1863  -791 

•S«^/-^<?z/j^>',  Rutin,  bom  1850;  died  1885 443 

Surikov,  Vassily,  bora  1848 451 

Svertschkov,  Nikolaus,  bora  1817 443 

Svjetoslavsky,  Sergius 443 

Syberg,  Fritz,  born  28th  July,  1862 32$ 

Tarbell,  Charles  Edmund,  lives  in  New  York 491 

Taurel,  Charles  Edouard,  bom  in  Paris,  15th  March,  1824  ....  230 

Tegner,  Hans,  bom  30th  November,  1854 282 

Tejedor,  Alcazar,  bom  in  Madrid,  1852 84 

Thaulow,  Fritz,  born  in  Christiania,  20th  October,  1847 ;  lives  in  Christiania  398 

Thegerstrdm,  Robert,  born  1854 372 

Thierbach,  Richard,  bom  in  Stollberg,  9th  June,  i860 520 

Tholen,  Willem  Bastiaan,  bom  in  Amsterdam,  13th  Febmary,  1850             .  265 
Thoma,  Hans,  bom  in  Bernau,  in  the  Black  Forest,  2nd  October,  1839 1  J*^^^ 

in  Frankfort-on-Main 767 


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850  INDEX   OF  ARTISTS 


FACE 


Thomas^  Grosvenor,  lives  in  Glasgow 697 

Thomsen,  Carl,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  6th  April,  1847 3x4. 

Thome,  Alfred,  bom  1850 372 

Thumoftn,  Paul,  bora  in  Tschacksdorf,  in  Lausitz,  5th  October,  1834  .  .  502 
Tidemand,  Adolf,  born  at  Mandal  (Norway),  14th  August,  18 14;  died  in 

Christiania,  25th  August,  1876 386 

Tj^tfiiy,  Louis  C,  bora  in  New  York,  1848 488 

Timm,  Wilhelm,  bom  in  Riga 427 

Tirin^  Johan,  bom  1853 37^ 

Tito,  Ettore,  bom  at  Castellamare,  on  the  Gulf  of  Naples,  1859;  lives  in 

Venice 103 

Tocqui,  Louis,    bom    in    Paris,    1696;    died    in    Paris,    loth    February, 

1772 411 

Tolstoi,  Count  Theodor,  bom  1783 ;  Vice-President  of  the  St.  Petersburg 

Academy,  1828 413 

Toorop,  Jan,  bom  in  Poerworedjo  (Java),  20th  December,  i860    .  .264 

Trumbull,  John,  bom  in  Lebanon,  6th  June,   1756;   died  in  New  York, 

1843 456 

Trutoi'sky,  Konstantin,  bom  in  Little  Russia,  1826;  died  1893  .427 

Tryon,  Dwight  William,  bom  in  New  York,  1824 486 

75^^«^^^«y,  Charles,  bom  in  Brussels,  181 5 220 

TsckermzoVf  Grigorij,  bom  1801 ;  died  1865 44i 

Tuhemezav,  Nikanor,  bom  1804;  died  1879 441 

Tschemyschcv 427 

TschistjakoVy^wX^hoitVLiZii 451 

Tuxen,  Laurits  Regner,  bom  in  Copenhagen,  9th  December,  1853;  lives  in 

Copenhagen 317 

Ubbelohdc,  Otto,  bom  in  Marburg  (Hessen),  5th  Januar>,  1867     .  536 
Uckermann,  Carl,  born  in  the  Lofoten,  31st  January,  1855  ;  lives  in  Chris- 
tiania         401 

^^g'r^^^w^,  Grigorij,  born  1764;  died  1823 4i3 

Uhde,  Fritz  von,  bom  in  Wolkenburg  (Saxony),  22nd  May,  1848  .                 .  in 

Ulrich,  Charles  Frederick,  bom  in  New  York,  18th  October,  1859                  .  479 

Ury,  Lesser,  lives  in  Berlin 516 

Vail,  Eugene,  bom  in  Saint-Servan,  29th  September,  1857;  lives  in  Paris    .  47  ^ 

Van  Elten,  Kruseman,  bom  in  Alkmaar  (Holland),  1829  ....  460 
F/i/rifir/^///,  Scipione,  bom  in  Rome,  1834;  lives  in  Rome   .                          .103 

Vassiliet',  Theodor,  bom  in  1850;  died  in  the  Crimea,  1873.  4+2 

Vassenetzov,  Victor,  bom  in  Viaska,  1848 443 

Vedder,  Elihu,  bom  in  New  York,  February,  1836 490 

Velten,  Wilhelm,  bom  in  St.  Petersburg,  nth  June,  1847     .  -536 

Venezianov,  Alexel,  born  in  Vjeshin,  1779;  died  5th  December,  1845  .         •  41S 

V^era,  Alejo,  bom  in  Vifluela  (Province  of  Malaga) 78 

Verboeckkoven,  Eugen,  bom  in  Wameton,  in  West  Flanders,  9th  June, 

1798;  died  in  Brussels,  19th  January,  1881 219 

Vcrcstchagin,  Vassily,  born   in   Tscherepovet  (Novgorod),  26th  October, 

1842        .- 434 


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INDEX  OF  ARTISTS  851 

PACE 

VerAaSf  Frans,  bom  in  Termonde,  1827;  lives  in  Paris         .  .211 

Verhas,  Jan,  born  in  Termonde,  1834;  lives  in  Brussels  .211 

Verlat^  Charles,  born  in  Antwerp,  1824;  died  in  Antwerp,  23rd  October, 

1890 •     .        .  208 

Vemiehren,  John   Frederik,   born    at    Ringsted,   in  Zealand,    12th  May, 

1823 287 

J^j/i?/^^  Martinus,  bom  in  Antwerp,  1773 ;  died  1840  .212 

Verstraete^  Theodor,  born  in  Ghent,  1852  ;  lives  in  Antwerp  225 

Verwie^  Alfred,  bom  in  St.  Joost-ten-Oode  (Brussels),  23rd  April,  1838  220 

Veth,  Jan 264 

Vierge  (Daniel  UrrabietaX  bora  1847 ;  died  1882 67 

F/7/f^^jj,  Jos^,  bom  in  Seville,  24th  August,  1848 84 

Villevalde,  Gottfried,  bom  1818 437 

Villodas^  Ricardo,  born  in  Madrid,  1846;  lives  in  Rome        .  .        .81 

Vinea,  Francesco,  bom  in  Forli,  in  the  Romagna,  1845  i  ^^^^s  ^^  Florence    .  loi 

F/«w'^<z_y  Z<wj<?,  Sal vadore,  bom  in  Cadiz,  1862 84 

Vinnen^  Karl,  bora  in  Bremen,  28th  August,  1863 536 

Vogel,  Hugo,  bora  in  Magdeburg,  15th  February,  1855  ;  lives  in  Berlin  516 

Volkov,  Efim,  bora  1848 31 

Volz,  Wilhelm,  bora  in  Carlsrahe,  8th  December,  1855          ....  787 

Vonnoh,  Robert  William,  lives  in  Philadelphia 490 

Vorobiev^  Maxim,  bora  1787 ;  died  1855 440 

K<7w,  Carl,  bora  in  Rome,  19th  July,  1856 536 

IVaAlderg,  Alfred,  born  in  Stockholm,  6th  August,  1834  -357 

IVahlbom,  Karl,  born  1810;  died  21st  April,  1858 344 

WahUt  Fritz,  bora  in  Prague,  1861 537 

Wcddorp,  Anton,  bora  in  Basch,  1803  ;  died  1867 230 

Walker t  Frederick,  bora  in  Marylebone,  1840;  died  at  St.  Fillans  (Perth- 
shire), 5th  June,  1875 146 

Wallander,  Alf,  born  1862 376 

Wallander,'^\!L\i^\m 346 

Walton,  Edward  Arthur,  lives  in  Glasgow 698 

Watts,  George  Frederick,  bora  in  London,  181 8 629 

Wauters,  Emile,  bora  in  Brussels,  29th  November,  1849       ....  223 

Weeks,  Edwin,  bora  in  Boston,  1849  i  ^^^'^^  in  Paris 464 

Weir,  Julian  Alden,  bora  at  West  Point  (New  York),  1843  .                         .  489 

Weir,  Robert  Walter,  bora  at  West  Point  (New  York),  1841                         •  4S9 

Wcishaupt,  Victor,  bora  in  Munich,  6th  March,  1848 534 

Weissenbruch,  Jan,  bora  at  The  Hague,  1822 ;  lives  at  The  Hague  230 

Wenban,  Sion  L.,  bora  in  Cincinnati  (Ohio),  9th  March,  1848  479 

Wenglein,  Joseph,  bora  in  Munich,  5th  October,  1845 497 

Wenzel,  Nils  Gustav,  born  in  Christiania,  7th  October,  1859  390 
Werenskiold,  Erik,  bora  in  Kongsvinger,   nth  February,   1855;    lives  in 

Sandviken,  near  Christiania .  402 

Westin 340 

W^<r//(^r//«^,  Alexander  Clemens,  born  1796;  died  1858         ....  343 
Whistler,  James  McNeill,  bom  in  Lowell  (Massachusetts),  1834 ;  lives  in 

London 646 


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352  INDEX  OF  ARTISTS 

PACI 

Whittredge,  Worthington,  born  in  Ohio,  1820 459 

Wickenberg,  Per,  born  in  Malmo,  18 12;  died  in  Pahs,  19th  December,  1846  344 

WilUtte,  Adolf e,  bom  in  Chalous-sur-Mame,  1857 61 

lyillumsen,  J.  F.,  bom  7th  September,  1863 33$ 

Wilson^  P.  Macgregor,  lives  in  Glasgow 698 

Wilwarih,  Lemuel  Everett,  bom  in  Massachusetts;  has  been  since  1870 

teacher  at  the  New  York  Academy 461 

Winget  Marten  Eskil,  bom  in  Stockholm,  21st  September,  1825  .  .349 

WinnCt  Lievin  de,  bom  in  Ghent,  1821 ;  died  in  Bmssels,  13th  May,  1880  .  225 

IVoodSf  Henry,  bom  in  Warrington,  23rd  April,  1846;  lives  in  Venice .       .  199 

Wright,  Joseph,  bora  in  Bordentown,  1756 ;  died  in  Philadelphia,  1793      .  456 

Wyllie,  William  Lionel,  bom  in  London,  185 1 194 

Zacho^  Christian,  bom  in  Aarhus,  31st  March,  1843 339 

Zahrtmann,  Christian,  bom  in  Rome,  31st  March,  1843 ;  lives  in  Copenhagen  304 
Zamofois^  Edoardo,  born  in  Bilboa,  about  1840;  died  1871  .                        .86 

Zimmertnann,  Ernst,  bom  in  Munich,  24th  April,  1852 ;  lives  in  Munich    .  777 

Zam,  Anders,  boro  in  Dalame,  i860 380 

ZUgel,  Heinrich,  bom  at  Muhhardt,  in  Suabia,  22nd  October,  1850;  lives  in 

Munich 534 


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LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


Alma  Tadema.  page 

Sappho ...  123 

The  Apodyterium 124 

Pleading 125 

Aman-Jean. 

Venice 731 

Anna  Ancher, 

A  Funeral 327 

Michael  Ancher, 

Fishers  watching  a  Ship  sailing  by  in  a  Storm 32S 

Artz. 

The  Goatherd 249 

Aublet. 

Studying  the  Score 43 

Aumonier, 

The  Silver  Lining  of  the  Cloud 195 

Marie  Baskirtscheff, 

A  Meeting 26 

Bastien-Lcpage , 

Portrait  of  Bastien-Lepage •  ^3 

Portrait  by  Bastien-Lepage  of  his  Grandfather 14 

Sarah  Bernhardt 15 

The  Flower-Girl 16 

Madame  Drouet 17 

The  Hay  Harvest 18 

Joan  of  Arc 19 

853 


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854  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BastUn^Lepage  (continued).  page 

Pdre  Jacques 20 

The  Beggar 21 

The  Pond  at  Damvillers 22 

Love  in  the  Village 23 

The  Haymaker 24 

Bastien-Lepage  on  his  Sick-bed    .  ^ 25 

Bendz. 

In  the  Studio 277 

Benliurey  GiL 

A  Vision  in  the  Colosseum 87 

E.  Bergh. 

A  Pond  in  the  Forest                     359 

Under  the  Birches 360 

Richard  Bergh. 

Portrait  of  Richard  Bergh 374 

At  Evenfall 375 

Portrait  of  his  Wife       ...                376 

Besnard. 

Evening 728 

A  Vision  of  Woman 729 

Portrait  of  the  Mademoiselles  D 730 

BillotU. 

Portrait  of  Billotte  (by  Carolus  Duran) 57 

Paris  Twilight 58 

Bisschop. 

Sunshine  in  Home  and  Heart 247 

Bjdrck. 

In  the  Cowshed 371 

Blake. 

The  Queen  of  Evil 564 

From  a  Water-Colour  at  the  British  Museum 565 

Bloch. 

Portrait  of  Bloch 301 

A  Roman  Street-Barber                                 302 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  855 

Boecklin,  page 

Portrait  of  Himself 743 

Portrait  of  Boecklin        ...                 744 

A  Summer  Day 745 

A  Rocky  Chasm 746 

The  Penitent 747 

Pan  startling  a  Goat                       748 

The  Herd 749 

A  Sacred  Grove 750 

Regions  of  Joy 751 

Silence  in  the  Forest 754 

The  Shepherd's  Plaint 755 

Flora 756 

Centaurs  Fighting 757 

Vita  Somnium  Breve 759 

In  the  Trough  of  the  Waves 760 

An  Idyll  of  the  Sea 761 

The  Isle  of  the  Dead 762 

BoldinL 

Giuseppe  Verdi -59 

Portrait  of  a  Boy 60 

Portrait  of  a  Little  Girl 61 

Portrait  of  a  Lady 62 

Borovikovsky. 

The  Empress  Catherine  II.    .        .                 413 

Bosboam, 

A  Church  Interior 231 

Boudin. 

The  Port  of  Trouville 56 

BoughUm, 

Snow  in  Spring 1 54 

Green  Leaves  among  the  Sere 155 

The  Bearers  of  the  Burden 156 

A  Breath  of  Wind 1 57 

Brdtncr, 

Horse  Artillery  in  the  Downs                                  256 

Bridgman, 

In  the  Harem 463 

BrUlov, 

Portrait  of  Brtilov 418 

The  Fall  of  Pompeii 419 


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856  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

BumC'Jones,  pace 

Portrait  of  Bume-Jones  (by  Watts) 594 

King  Copbetua  and  tbe  Beggar-Maid 595 

Chant  d* Amour 596 

Circe 597 

The  Days  of  Creation 59^  599 

Pygmalion  (The  Soul  Attains) 600 

Perseus  and  Andromeda 601 

Tbe  Enchantment  of  Merlin .        .  603 

Tbe  Annunciation 604 

Tbe  Golden  Stairs .  605 

Sibylla  Delphica 607 

The  Sea-Nymph 610 

Tbe  Wood-Nymph 611 

Butin, 

Portrait  of  Butin  (by  Duez) 4$ 

Tbe  Departure 44 

Caldecott. 

The  Girl  I  left  behind  me 135 

Cameron, 
Going  to  the  Hay .682 

Carolus  Duron, 

Portrait  of  R6n6  Billotte 57 

Carri^e. 

Alpbonse  Daudet  and  his  Daughter  Esm6e   .......  726 

Motherhood 727 

Casado, 

The  Bells  of  Hucsca 88 

Cox  in. 

Portrait  of  Cazin 721 

Dusk 722 

A  Dead  City 723 

Hagar  and  Ishmael 724 

Judith 725 

Chalmers. 

Tbe  Legend 686 

Chase. 

Portrait  of  Chase 489 

In  the  Park 490 

Conii. 

The  Lute  Player loi 

Courtens, 

Golden  Laburnum 226 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  857 

Cox,  PAGE 

Evening 487 

Crane, 

The  Knight  of  the  Silver  Fish 627 

The  Chariots  of  the  Fleeting  Hours 628 

A  Water-Lily 629 

Dc^nan^Bouveret 

Consecrated  Bread 50 

Bretonnes  au  Pardon 51 

The  Nuptial  Benediction 52 

DcUsgaard, 

Children  on  the  Doorstep 292 

Waiting 293 

Dannat, 
Spanish  Women 468 

Dantan, 
A  Plaster-Cast  from  Nature 4^ 

Dewing, 
At  the  Piano 488 

Douglas, 
The  Bibliomaniac 680 

Duez, 

Portrait  of  Butin 45 

On  the  Cliff 48 

The  End  of  October 49 

DUrr, 
Madonna 7^ 

Eckersberg. 

The  Nathanson  Family 275 

A  Seascape 276 

Edelfelt, 

Pasteur  in  his  Laboratory 404 

Christ  appearing  to  Mary  Magdalene 405 

Prince  Eugene  of  Sweden, 
A  Landscape 367 

Exner. 

The  Little  Convalescent 286 

VOL.  III.  55 


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858  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Exter,  PAci 

The  Wave 788 

Favretto, 

Portrait  of  Favretto 97 

On  the  Piazzetta ^ 

Susanna  and  the  Elders 99 

Fedotov, 
The  Newly  Decorated  Knight 429 

Fildes. 
Venetian  Women 198 

Forain. 
At  the  Folics-Berg^res 65 

Stanhope  Forbes, 
The  Lighthouse 199 

Forshtrg, 
The  Death  of  a  Hero 3S6 

Fortuny, 

Portrait  of  Fortuny 70 

The  Spanish  Marriage 71 

Moors  plajring  with  a  Vulture 72 

The  Snake-Charmers 73 

The  Trial  of  the  Model 74 

The  Rehearsal 75 

The  China  Vase 76 

Furse, 
The  Bat  and  the  Devil  (Frontispiece  to  Stories  and  Interludes)  175 

Gay, 
The  Sewing-School 470 

Von  Gebhardt, 

Portrait  of  Von  Gebhardt 774 

Pieti 775 

Gervex, 
Dr.  P6an  at  La  Salp^tridre 47 

Peter  Graham. 
Where  Deep  Seas  Moan 683 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  859 

De  Groux.  page 

The  Deathbed 204 

Grace  before  Meat 205 

Guthrie, 

In  the  Orchard 693 

Portrait  of  a  Lady 694 

De  Haas. 

Cows  in  a  Meadow 255 

Baron  von  Habermann, 

Portrait  of  Himself 527 

A  Child  of  Misfortune 528 

Hagborg, 

Portrait  of  Hagborg ...  362 

The  Return  Home ...  363 

Harrison, 

In  Arcady       .        .        . 469 

Harvey, 

The  Covenanters'  Preaching 670 

Hassam, 

Seventh  Avenue,  New  York 485 

Heilbuth. 

In  the  Grass 42 

HelsUd, 

The  Deputation 303 

The  Timid  Lover 304 

Herkomer, 

John  Ruskin 177 

The  Makers  of  my  House 179 

Hard  Times 182 

The  Last  Muster 183 

Miss  Grant 185 

An  American  Lady 186 

Hitchcock, 

Portrait  of  Hitchcock     .        % 473 

Maternity 472 


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86o  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Hoecker.  pace 

Before  the  Hearth 533 

Hoeckert. 
Divine  Service  in  Lapland 348 

Von  Hofmann, 
Daphnis  and  Chloe 787 

Holl, 

**  The  Lord  gave,  the^Lord  hath  taken  away ;  blessed  be  the  name  of  the 

Lord" 163 

No  Tidings  from  the  Sea 167 

Leaving  Home 169 

Winslow  Homer, 
The  Negro  School 482 

William  Morris  Hunt, 
Sheep  in  a  Meadow 460 

Holman  Hunt, 
Portrait  of  Rossetti 57o 

Colin  Hunter. 
The  Herring  Market  at  Sea 191 

Inness. 
A  Landscape 483 

Israels, 

Portrait  of  Josef  Israels  i^y  Veth) 263 

Portrait  of  Joset  Israels  and  his  Son  Isaac 234 

A  Son  of  God's'People 235 

The  Toilers  of  the  Sea 237 

Weary 238 

A  Mother's  Care 239 

Alone  in  the  World 240 

Returning  from  Work  241 

Ivanov. 

The  Appearance  of  the  Messiah  amongst  the  People 424 

Study  for  the  Heads  of  two  Slaves  in  the  *'  Appearance  of  the  Messiah  "     .    425 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  86i 

Johansen,  page 

Portrait  of  Johansen 320 

The  Morning  Sleep 321 

At  the  Piano 322 

A  Landscape 323 

Count  Leopold  von  Kalckreuth, 

Portrait  of  Count  von  Kalckreuth 529 

Homewards 530 

Keller. 

Portrait  of  Keller 523 

Portrait  of  a  Lady 524 

The  Sleep  of  a  Witch 525 

Supper 526 

Khnopff, 

An  Angel 737 

Kiprensky, 

Captain  Davydov 414 

Klinger, 

Portrait  of  Klinger 795 

Time  and  Fame 796 

The  Evocation 797 

Temptation 798 

Mother  and  Child 799 

To  Beauty 800 

Dedicatory  Piece  .  802 

Kramskoi, 

Portrait  of  Kramskoi 444 

Kreuger, 

Twilight 366 

Krohg, 

The  Struggle  for  Existence 391 

Kronberg, 

A  Nymph 353 

KrOyer. 

The  Sardine  Packers 312 

Skagen  Fishers  at  Sunset 313 

The  Committee  for  the  French  Section  of  the  Copenhagen  Exhibition  of  1 888  3 1 5 


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862  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Kuehl.  PACE 

Lubeck  Orphan  Girls 531 

A  Church  Interior 532 

Kyhn, 

l^andscape 296 

Larsson. 

Portrait  of  Himself 372 

The  Wife  of  the  Viking .373 

Lavery, 

A  Girl  in  White 691 

A  Tennis  Party 692 

LawsoH. 

The  Minister's  Garden 187 

Lord  Leighton. 

Portrait  of  Leighton  (by  Watts) 112 

Sir  Richard  Burton 113 

The  Arts  of  Peace 114 

Captive  Andromache 11$ 

Psyche's  Bath 117 

The  Last  Watch  of  Hero 118 

Lepsins, 

Ernest  Curtius *        .  515 

Lhermitte, 

Portrait  of  L'hermitte 27 

Paying  the  Reapers 30 

Resting  from  Work 31 

Liehermann, 

Portrait  of  Liebermann  (by  Uhde) 501 

The  Cobbler's  Shop 502 

The  Seamstress 503 

Women  plucking  Geese 504 

The  Courtyard  of  the  Orphanage  in  Amsterdam 505 

The  Net-Menders 506 

The  Woman  with  Goats 507 

A  Village  Street  in  Holland 508 

The  Flax-Spinners 509 

Labourers  in  a  Turnip-Field 510 

Christ  in  the  Temple ']^^ 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  863 

Liljefars,  page 

Portrait  of  Bruno  Liljefors 369 

Blackcocks  at  Pairing-Time 368 

Lundbye, 

Cows  in  a  Meadow 294 

MacWkirter, 

A  Glimpse  of  Loch  Katrine 685 

Makavsky, 

A  Bankruptcy 446 

A  Duet 447 

Maries. 

Portrait  of  Himself 763 

The  Hesperides 764 

Three  Youths 765 

St.  Hubert 766 

Jacod  Maris. 

View  of  a  Town 251 

Matthew  Maris, 

"He  is  Coming" 257 

Marstrand, 

Sunday  on  the  Siljansee 279 

Erasmus  Montanus 280 

The  Visit 281 

Mason, 

The  Harvest  Moon 139 

The  Milkmaid 141 

The  Unwilling  Playmate 142 

Return  from  Ploughing 143 

Mauve, 

A  Flock  of  Sheep 253 

Melbye, 

The  Lighthouse 298 

Melchers, 

The  Sermon 471 

Melville, 

The  Snake-Charmers 690 


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864  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

AfenzeU  page 

Christ  in  the  Temple 776 

Mesdag, 

Evening 254 

Mtunier. 

The  Peasants*  Rebellion 208 

MichetH, 

The  Corpus  Domini  Procession  at  Chieti 93 

Going  to  Church 94 

MoU. 

October 333 

MonticelU, 

Portrait  of  Monticelli     ...                663 

A  Spring  Morning 664 

Italian  Festival 665 

Albert  Moore. 

Portrait  of  Albert  Moore 127 

Yellow  Daffodils 128 

Companions 129 

Midsummer 131 

Reading  Aloud 132 

Waiting  to  Cross 133 

Henry  Moore, 

Mount's  Bay 197 

Gustave  Moreau, 

Death  and  the  Young  Man 702 

Galatea 703 

A  Design  for  Enamel 704 

Death  of  Orpheus 705 

The  Plaint  of  the  Poet 706 

An  Apparition 707 

MorelU, 

The  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony 92 

Mosler, 

The  Prodigal  Son 461 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  865 

Alexander  Nasmyth,  paci 

Landscape 671 

Neuhuys^ 

A  Rustic  Interior 248 

De  Nittis, 

Portrait  of  De  Nittis 39 

Paris  Races 40 

The  Place  du  Carrousel 41 

Oesterlind, 

A  Baptism  in  Brittany   .        .                                 ......  370 

OrchardsoH, 

Portrait  of  Himself ....  674 

First  Dance 676 

Voltaire . 677 

Hard  Hit 678 

Maitre  B6b6 679 

Oriovsfy. 

A  Cossack  Bivouac 41$ 

Pater  son. 

Landscape      . 696 

Paulsen. 

Adam  and  Eve 33^ 

Pearce. 
The  Shepherdess .4^7 

Perov. 

A  Funeral  in  the  Country 431 

The  Village  Sermon       .                 432 

Petite, 

"Dost  know  this  Water-fly?" 672 

Edward  VI.  signing  a  Sentence  of  Death 673 

Piglhein. 

Portrait  of  Piglhein 519 

La  Diva 520 

From  the  Panorama  •*  The  Crucifixion  of  Christ  " 521 


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866  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lucien  Pissarro,  page 

Solitude  (Woodcut) 54 

Ruth  (Woodcut) 55 

Poynter. 

The  Ides  of  March 119 

Idle  Fears 121 

A  Visit  to  iEsculapius 122 

Pradilla. 

The  Surrender  of  Granada 79 

A  Fresco  at  the  Murga  Palace 81 

On  the  Beach 82 

Puvis  de  Chavannes. 

Portrait  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes 710 

The  Girlhood  of  St.  Genevieve 711 

A  Vision  of  Antiquity 712 

Christian  Inspiration 713 

The  Beheading  of  St.  John  the  Baptist 714 

The  Threadspinner 71$ 

Autumn 717 

The  Grove  sacred  to  the  Arts  and  Muses 718 

Raffaellt. 

The  Grandfather 35 

Paris  4*  1 36 

The  Old  Convalescents 37 

The  Midday  Soup 38 

The  Rival  Grandfathers 166 

Sir  George  Reid, 

Portrait  of  Sir  George  Reid 687 

RSpin, 

Portrait  of  R^pin 448 

Men  towing  a  Ship  along  the  Volga 449 

The  Cossacks'  Jeering  Reply  to  the  Sultan 450 

The  Miracle  of  St.  Nicholas 451 

Count  Leo  Tolstoi 452 

Roche. 

Good  King  Wenceslaus 695 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  867 

Roll.  PACE 

The  Strike 32 

Manda  Lam6trie,  Fermi^re 33 

The  Woman  with  a  Bull 34 

Rops, 

Portrait  of  Rops 734 

The  Woman  and  the  Sphinx 735 

Rosen, 

King  Eric  in  Prison  visited  by  Karin  Mansdotter 351 

NordenskjOld 352 

Rossetd, 

Portrait  of  Rossetti  (by  Holman  Hunt) 570 

Portrait  of  Rossetti  (by  Watts) 571 

The  Title-Page  to  The  Early  Italian  Poets 572 

Ecce  Ancilla  Domini 573 

Lilith 575 

Beata  Beatrix 576 

Monna  Rosa 577 

The  Blessed  Damosel 579 

Sancta  Lilias 580 

Sibyl 581 

Study  for  *♦  Astarte  Syriaca  " 582 

Astarte  Syriaca 583 

Study  for  ••  Dante's  Dream  " 585 

Dante's  Dream 586 

Rosa  Triplex 587 

Study  for  "  The  Salutation  of  Beatrice  " 588 

Mary  Magdalene  at  the  House  of  Simon  the  Pharisee 589 

Silence 59' 

Rump, 

A  Spring  Landscape 297 

Salnison, 

Portrait  of  Salmson 361 

Sant, 

A  Floral  Offering 171 

Sargent 

Portrait  of  Himself 475 

A  Venetian  Street-Scene 474 

Eljaleo 476 

Carmencita 477 


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868  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Sarjanko.  pagc 

Mrs.  Sokurova 426 

Schischkin, 

A  Forest  Landscape 441 

A  Woody  Landscape 442 

SegoHiini, 
The  Punishment  of  Luxury 103 

Skarbina, 

Portrait  of  Skarbina 513 

The  Fish-Market  at  Blankenberge 514 

Skovgaard, 
Sunday  Morning  at  the  Thiergarten 295 

Skredsvig, 
Midsummer  Night 393 

Sonne. 
The  Sick  at  the  Grave  of  St  Helen 278 

Stanhope, 
The  Waters  of  Lethe 617 

Stewart. 
The  Hunt  Ball 46$ 

Marcus  Stofu, 
The  Gambler's  Wife 159 

Strudwick. 

"  Thy  Tuneful  Strings  wake  Memories " 621 

The  Gentle  Music  of  a  Bygone  Day 622 

Elaine 623 

The  Ramparts  of  God's  House 624 

The  Ten  Virgins 625 

Stschedrin. 
Sorrento 439 

Stuck. 

Portrait  of  Stuck 789 

Fauns  Fighting 790 

Crucifixion 791 

Lucifer 792 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  869 

Thaulow.  PACE 

Thaw  in  Norway 399 

Thoma. 

Portrait  of  Himself 767 

Flora 768 

Twilight  in  the  Beech  Forest 769 

A  Taunus  Landscape 77© 

Tito, 

The  Slipper-Seller 102 

Toorop, 

Time  (a  Fragment) 261 

Tuxen, 

Susanna  and  the  Elders 318 

Von  Uhde, 

Portrait  of  Von  Uhde 778 

Portrait  of  Liebermann 501 

The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 779 

*'  Come,  Lord  Jesus,  be  our  Guest  *' 780 

The  Holy  Night 781 

The  Last  Supper 782 

"  Suffer  Little  Children  to  come  unto  Me  " 783 

Venezianov, 

The  Threshing-Floor 416 

Verestchagin. 

Portrait  of  Verestchagin 435 

The  Pyramid  of  Skulls 436 

The  Emir  of  Samarcand  visiting  the  Trophies 437 

VerhcLS, 

The  Schoolgirls*  Review 211 

Vermehren, 

A  Farmyard 288 

The  Shepherd  on  the  Heath 289 

The  Peasant's  Cottage 290 

Visiting  the  Sick 291 


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87©  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Veth,  PACE 

Portrait  of  Josef  Israels 263 

VilUgas. 

The  Death  of  the  MaUdor 84 

Vinea, 

Hothouse  Flowers 100 

Vonnoh. 

A  Poppy  Field 486 

Walker. 

Marlow  Ferry 146 

A  Flood  in  the  Fens 148 

The  Bathers 149 

The  Harbour  of  Refuge 151 

Walton. 

The  Girl  in  Browm 697 

Watts. 

Portrait  of  Watts 630 

Portrait  of  Leighton 112 

Portrait  of  Rossetti 571 

Portrait  of  Bume-Jones 594 

Portrait  of  Lady  Lindsay 631 

Hope 632 

Paolo  and  Francesca 633 

Artemis  and  Endymion 635 

Love  and  Life 636 

Love  and  Death 637 

Orpheus  and  Eurydice 638 

Ariadne 639 

Wauters, 

The  Madness  of  Hugo  van  der  Goes 222 

Lieutenant-General  Goffinet 223 

Weeks, 

The  Last  Journey 464 

WemeL 

Morning          .............  390 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  87c 

Werenskiold.  pace 

A  Norwegian  Peasant  Girl 400 

Bjornstjerne  Bjornson 40' 

From  Asbjorason's  Faiiy  Tales 402 

From  Asbjdrnson's  Fairy  Tales 403 

Whistler, 

Symphony  in  White  No.  i. :  The  White  Girl 647 

Symphony  in  White  No.  2. :  The  Little  White  Girl 648 

Symphony  in  White  No.  3 649 

Miss  Alexander 651 

Thomas  Carlyle 652 

Portrait  of  his  Mother 653 

Portrait  of  Lady  Meux 654 

Pablo  Sarasate 655 

Harmony  in  Grey  and  Green :  The  Ocean 656 

Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold :  The  Falling  Rocket 657 

WilletU, 

The  Golden  Age 63 

Zahrtmann, 

The  Death  of  Queen  Sophia  Amelia 305 

Eleonora  Christina  reading  the  Bible 306 

Eleonora  Christina  in  Prison 307 

Eleonora  Christina 308 

Zorn, 

Portrait  of  Himself        .     ' 378 

Portrait  of  his  Mother  and  Sister 379 

The  Omnibus 380 

The  Ripple  of  the  Waves .381 

ZUgeL 

In  the  Autumn 534 


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PRINTED  BY 

HAZBLL,  WATSON,  AND  VINBT,   LD.» 

LONDON  AND  AYLESBURY. 


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THE  BORROWER  WILL  BE  CHARGED 
AN  OVERDUE  FEE  IF  THIS  BOOK  IS  NOT 
RETURNED  TO  THE  LIBRARY  ON  OR 
BEFORE  THE  LAST  DATE  STAMPED 
BELOW.  NON-RECEIPT  OF  OVERDUE 
NOTICES  DOES  NOT  EXEMPT  THE 
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3  2044  034  801  183 


FA  3357.2.1  C3) 


History  nf  Modem  Painting 


History 


I    D*te 


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hSSU  E  0  TO 


-f 


FA  3357.2.1  C3) 


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