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Modern  Painting 


Central  University  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 

MAR  1  8  1994 

MAR    1   fi   1994 

n/APR  1  1  1995 

FEB  2  6  1995 

Courtesy  Worcester  Art  Museum 

FEMME    ACCROUPIE 


GAUGUIN 


Modern  Painting 

Its  Tendency  and  Meaning 

By 

W^illard  Huntington  Upright 


New  York 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 
1922 


COPYRIGHT, 
BY    JOHN    LANE    COMPANY 


THE     PLIMPTON     PRESS  •  NOR  WOOD   •  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED     IN     THE     UNITED    STATES     OF    AMERICA 


FOREWORD 

THAT  beneath  all  great  art  there  has 
been  a  definite  animating  purpose,  a 
single  and  profound  desire  to  reach  a 
specific  goal,  has  been  but  vaguely 
sensed  by  the  general  public  and  by  the  great 
majority  of  critics.  And  there  are,  I  believe, 
but  very  few  persons  not  directly  and  seriously 
concerned  with  the  production  of  pictures,  who 
realise  that  this  animating  purpose  has  for  its 
aim  the  solution  of  the  profoundest  problems  of 
the  creative  will,  that  it  is  rooted  deeply  in  the 
aesthetic  consciousness,  and  that  its  evolution 
marks  one  of  the  most  complex  phases  of  human 
psychology.  The  habit  of  approaching  a  work 
of  art  from  the  naif  standpoint  of  one's  personal 
temperament  or  taste  and  of  judging  it  hap- 
hazardly by  its  individual  appeal,  irrespective 
of  its  inherent  aesthetic  merit,  is  so  strongly 
implanted  in  the  average  spectator,  that  any  at- 
tempt to  define  the  principles  of  form  and 
organisation  underlying  the  eternal  values  of 
art  is  looked  upon  as  an  act  of  gratuitous  ped- 
antry. But  such  principles  exist,  and  if  we  are 
to  judge  works  of  art  accurately  and  consist- 
ently these  principles  must  be  mastered.  Other- 
wise we  are  without  a  standard,  and  all  our 
opinions  are  but  the  outgrowth  of  the  chaos 
of  our  moods. 

Any  attempt  to  democratise  art  results  only 
in  the  lowering  of  the  artistic  standard.  Art 
cannot  be  taught;  and  a  true  appreciation  of 


8  FOREWORD 

it  cannot  grow  up  without  a  complete  under- 
standing of  the  aesthetic  laws  governing  it. 
Those  qualities  in  painting  by  which  it  is  ordi- 
narily judged  are  for  the  most  part  irrelevan- 
cies  from  the  standpoint  of  pure  aesthetics. 
They  have  as  little  to  do  with  a  picture's  infixed 
greatness  as  the  punctuation  in  Faust  or  the 
words  of  the  Hymn  to  Joy  in  the  Ninth  Sym- 
phony. Small  wonder  that  modern  art  has 
become  a  copious  fountain-head  of  abuse  and 
laughter;  for  modern  art  tends  toward  the 
elimination  of  all  those  accretions  so  beloved  by 
the  general  —  literature,  drama,  sentiment,  sym- 
bolism, anecdote,  prettiness  and  photographic 
realism. 

This  book  inquires  first  into  the  function  and 
psychology  of  all  great  art,  and  endeavours  to 
define  those  elements  which  make  for  genuine 
worth  in  painting.  Next  it  attempts  to  explain 
both  the  basic  and  superficial  differences  between 
"ancient"  and  "modern"  art  and  to  point  out, 
as  minutely  as  space  will  permit,  the  superiority 
of  the  new  methods  over  the  old.  By  this 
exposition  an  effort  is  made  to  indicate  the 
raison  d'etre  of  the  modern  procedure.  After  that, 
modern  painters  are  taken  up  in  the  order  of 
their  importance  to  the  evolution  of  painting 
during -the  last  hundred  years.  I  have  tried  to 
answer  the  following  questions:  What  men  and 
movements  mark  the  milestones  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  new  idea?  What  have  been  the 
motivating  forces  of  each  of  these  schools?  To 
what  extent  are  their  innovations  significant: 
what  ones  touch  organically  on  the  vital  prob- 
lems of  aesthetics;  and  what  was  their  influence 


FOREWORD  9 

on  the  men  who  came  later?  Out  of  what  did 
the  individual  men  spring;  what  forces  and 
circumstances  came  together  to  make  their  exist- 
ence possible?  What  were  their  aims,  and  what 
were  their  actual  achievements?  What  relation 
did  they  bear  to  one  another,  and  in  what  way 
did  they  advance  on  one  another?  Where  has 
modern  art  led,  and  what  inspirational  possi- 
bilities lie  before  it? 

Before  setting  out  to  solve  these  problems, 
all  of  which  have  their  roots  in  the  very  organ- 
isms of  the  science  of  aesthetics,  I  have  posed 
a  definite  rationale  of  valuation.  My  principles 
are  based  on  the  quickening  ideals  of  all  great 
art,  and,  if  properly  understood,  I  believe,  they 
will  answer  every  question  which  arises  in  the 
intelligent  spectator  when  he  stands  before  a 
piece  of  visual  art,  be  it  a  Byzantine  mosaic,  a 
complicated  organisation  by  Rubens,  a  linear 
arrangement  by  Picasso  or  an  utterly  worthless 
anecdote  in  paint  by  an  English  academician. 
Necessarily  preoccupied  with  the  application  of 
my  critical  standard,  I  have  had  but  little  time 
and  space  to  devote  to  its  elucidation.  Yet  I 
have  striven  in  this  indirect  process  of  state- 
ment to  make  my  fundamental  postulate  suffi- 
ciently clear  to  enable  the  reader  to  recognise 
its  truth  and  unity.  Two  years  ago  when  I 
crowded  my  hypothesis  into  7000  words  in  the 
Forum,  and  early  last  winter  when  I  stated  it 
in  even  briefer  space  in  the  New  Age,  I  found 
that,  although  it  took  a  new  and  difficult  stand, 
there  were  many  who  grasped  its  essentials. 
Therefore  I  feel  myself  entitled  to  hope  that  in 
its  present  form  it  will  be  comprehensible  even 


io  FOREWORD 

to    those    whose    minds    are    not    trained    in    the 
complexities  of  aesthetic  research. 

In  stripping  art  of  its  intriguing  charm  and 
its  soothing  vagueness  it  is  not  my  intention 
to  do  away  with  its  power  to  delight.  To  the 
contrary,  I  believe  that  only  by  relieving  paint- 
ing of  its  dead  cargo  of  literature,  archaeology 
and  illustration  can  it  be  made  to  function 
freely.  Painting  should  be  as  pure  an  art  as 
music,  and  the  struggles  of  all  great  painters 
have  been  toward  that  goal.  Its  medium — 
colour  —  is  as  elemental  as  sound,  and  when 
properly  presented  (with  the  same  scientific 
exactness  as  the  harmonies  of  the  tone-gamut) 
it  is  fully  as  capable  of  engendering  aesthetic 
emotion  as  is  music.  Our  delight  in  music, 
no  matter  how  primitive,  is  not  dependent  on 
an  imitation  of  natural  sounds.  Music's  pleas- 
urable significance  is  primarily  intellectual.  So 
can  painting,  by  its  power  to  create  emotion 
and  not  mere  sensation,  provoke  deep  aesthetic 
feeling  of  a  far  greater  intensity  than  the  delight 
derived  from  transcription  and  drama.  Modern 
painting  strives  toward  the  heightening  of  emo- 
tional ecstasy;  and  my  esthetique  is  intended  to 
pave  the  way  for  an  appreciation  of  art  which 
will  make  possible  the  reception  of  that  ecstasy. 
With  this  object  ever  in  view  I  have  weighed 
the  painting  of  the  last  century,  and  have 
judged  it  solely  by  its  ability  or  inability  to 
call  forth  a  profound  aesthetic  emotion.  Almost 
any  art  can  arouse  pleasing  sentiments.  Only 
great  art  can  give  us  intellectual  rapture. 

W.  H.  W. 

Paris,  1915 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART     .     .     .     .     .     .  17 

II.     PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA 34 

III.  EDOUARD  MANET      .     ,  •"  . 64 

IV.  THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS 83 

V.    AUGUSTS  RENOIR 107 

VI.  PAUL  CEZANNE 129 

VII.    THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS    .......  164 

VIII.  GAUGUIN  AND  THE  PONT-AVEN  SCHOOL  .  .  .  187 

IX.  DEGAS  AND  His  CIRCLE 207 

X.  HENRI-MATISSE 222 

XL  PICASSO  AND  CUBISM 237 

XII.  FUTURISM 263 

XIII.  SYNCHROMISM 277 

XIV.  THE  LESSER  MODERNS 305 

XV.    CONCLUSION         *     .                327 

INDEX  .     .     .     ... 343 


Modern  Painting 


Modern  Painting 


ANCIENT  AND   MODERN  ART 

THROUGHOUT  the  entire  history  of  the 
fine  arts,  no  period  of  aesthetic  inno- 
vation and  endeavour  has  'suffered  from 
public  malignity,  ridicule  and  ignorance 
as  has  painting  during  the  last  century.  The 
reasons  for  this  are  many  and,  to  the  serious 
student  of  art  history,  obvious.  The  change 
between  the  old  and  the  new  order  came  swiftly 
and  precipitously,  like  a  cataclysm  in  the  serenity 
of  a  summer  night.  The  classic  painters  of  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  such  as 
David,  Ingres,  Gros  and  Gerard,  were  busy  with 
their  rehabilitation  of  ancient  traditions,  when 
without  warning,  save  for  the  pale  heresies  of 
Constable,  a  new  and  rigorous  regime  was  ushered 
in.  It  was  Turner,  Delacroix,  Courbet  and 
Daumier  who  entered  the  sacred  temple,  tore 
down  the  pillars  which  had  supported  it  for  cen- 
turies, and  brought  the  entire  structure  of  estab- 
lished values  crashing  down  about  them.  They 
survived  the  debacle,  and  when  eventually  they 
laid  aside  their  brushes  for  all  time  it  was  with 
the  unassailable  knowledge  that  they  had  accom- 
plished the  greatest  and  most  significant  meta- 
morphosis in  the  history  of  any  art. 

But    even   these   hardy   anarchists   of  the   new 
order  little   dreamed    of   the    extremes   to   which 


18  MODERN  PAINTING 

their  heresies  would  lead.  So  precipitous  and 
complex  has  been  the  evolution  of  modern  paint- 
ing that  most  of  the  most  revolutionary  moderns 
have  failed  to  keep  mental  step  with  its  develop- 
ments and  divagations.  During  the  past  few 
years  new  modes  and  manners  in  art  have  sprung 
up  with  fungus-like  rapidity.  "Movements"  and 
"schools"  have  followed  one  another  with  as- 
tounding pertinacity,  each  claiming  that  finality 
of  expression  which  is  the  aim  of  all  seekers  for 
truth.  And,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the  men 
who  have  instigated  these  innovations  have  been 
animated  by  a  serious  purpose  —  that  of  master- 
ing the  problem  of  aesthetic  organisation  and 
of  circumscribing  the  one  means  for  obtaining 
ultimate  and  indestructible  results.  But  the 
problems  of  art,  like  those  of  life  itself,  are  in 
the  main  unsolvable,  and  art  must  ever  be  an 
infinite  search  for  the  intractable.  Form  in  paint- 
ing, like  the  eternal  readjustments  and  equilib- 
ria of  life,  is  but  an  approximation  to  stability. 
The  forces  in  all  art  are  the  forces  of  life,  co- 
ordinated and  organised.  No  plastic  form  can 
exist  without  rhythm:  not  rhythm  in  the  super- 
ficial harmonic  sense,  but  the  rhythm  which 
underlies  the  great  fluctuating  and  equalising 
forces  of  material  existence.  Such  rhythm  is 
symmetry  in  movement.  On  it  all  form,  both  in 
art  and  life,  is  founded. 

Form  in  its  artistic  sense  has  four  interpreta- 
tions. First,  it  exhibits  itself  as  shallow  imita- 
tion of  the  surface  aspects  of  nature,  as  in  the 
work  of  such  men  as  Sargent,  Sorolla  and  Simon. 
Secondly,  it  contains  qualities  of  solidity  and  com- 
petent construction  such  are  as  found  in  the 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART         19 

paintings  of  Velazquez,  Hogarth  and  Degas. 
Thirdly,  it  is  a  consummate  portrayal  of  objects 
into  which  arbitrary  arrangement  has  been  intro- 
duced for  the  accentuation  of  volume.  Raphael, 
Poussin  and  Goya  exemplify  this  expression  of 
it.  Last,  form  reveals  itself,  not  as  an  object- 
tive  thing,  but  as  an  abstract  phenomenon  cap- 
able of  giving  the  sensation  of  palpability.  All 
great  art  falls  under  this  final  interpretation. 
But  form,  to  express  itself  aesthetically,  must  be 
composed;  and  here  we  touch  the  controlling 
basis  of  all  art:  —  organisation.  Organisation  is 
the  use  put  to  form  for  the  production  of  rhythm. 
The  first  step  in  this  process  is  the  construction 
of  line,  line  being  the  direction  taken  by  one  or 
more  forms.  In  purely  decorative  rhythm  the 
lines  flow  harmoniously  from  side  to  side  and  from 
top  to  bottom  on  a  given  surface.  In  the  greatest 
art  the  lines  are  bent  forward  and  backward  as 
well  as  laterally  so  that,  by  their  orientation  in 
depth,  an  impression  of  profundity  is  added  to 
that  of  height  and  breadth.  Thus  the  simple 
image  of  decoration  is  destroyed,  and  a  micro- 
cosmos  is  created  in  its  place.  Rhythm  then  be- 
comes the  inevitable  adjustment  of  approaching 
and  receding  lines,  so  that  they  will  reproduce 
the  placements  and  displacements  to  be  found  in 
the  human  body  when  in  motion. 

To  understand,  and  hence  fully  to  appreciate, 
a  painting,  we  must  be  able  to  recognise  its  in- 
herent qualities  by  the  process  of  intellectual 
reasoning.  By  this  is  not  implied  mechanical 
or  scientific  observation.  Were  this  necessary, 
art  would  resolve  itself  into  a  provable  theory 
and  would  produce  in  us  only  such  mental  pleas- 


20  MODERN  POINTING 

ure  as  we  feel  before  a  perfect  piece  of  intricate 
machinery.  But  once  we  comprehend  those  con- 
stitutional qualities  which  pervade  all  great  works 
of  art,  plastic  and  graphic,  the  sensuous  emotion 
will  follow  so  rapidly  as  to  give  the  effect  of 
spontaneity.  This  process  of  conscious  observa- 
tion in  time  becomes  automatic  and  exerts  itself 
on  every  work  of  art  we  inspect.  Once  adjusted 
to  an  assimilation  of  the  rhythmic  compositions 
of  El  Greco  and  Rubens,  we  have  become  sus- 
ceptible to  the  tactile  sensation  of  form  in  all 
painting.  And  this  subjective  emotion  is  keener 
than  the  superficial  sensation  aroused  by  the 
prettiness  of  design,  the  narrative  of  subject-matter, 
or  the  quasi-realities  of  transcription.  More  and 
more  as  we  proximate  to  a  true  understanding 
of  the  principles  of  art,  shall  we  react  to  those 
deeper  and  larger  qualities  in  a  painting  which  are 
not  to  be  found  in  its  documentary  and  technical 
side.  Also  our  concern  with  the  transient  senti- 
ments engendered  by  a  picture's  external  aspects 
will  become  less  and  less  significant.  Technique, 
dramatic  feeling,  subject,  and  even  accuracy  of 
drawing,  will  be  relegated  to  the  subsidiary  and 
comparatively  unimportant  position  they  hold  in 
relation  to  a  painting's  esthetic  purpose. 

The  lack  of  comprehension  —  and  consequently 
the  ridicule  —  which  has  met  the  efforts  of  mod- 
ern painters,  is  attributable  not  alone  to  a  mis- 
understanding of  their  seemingly  extragavant 
and  eccentric  mannerisms,  but  to  an  ignorance  of 
the  basic  postulates  of  all  great  art  both  ancient 
and  modern.  Proof  of  this  is  afforded  by  the 
constant  statements  of  preference  for  the  least 
effectual  of  older  painters  over  the  greatest  of 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART         21 

the  moderns.  These  preferences,  if  they  are 
symptomatic  of  aught  save  the  mere  habit  of  a 
mind  immersed  in  tradition,  indicate  an  imma- 
turity of  artistic  judgment  which  places  prettiness 
above  beauty,  and  sentimentality  and  documen- 
tary interest  above  subjectivity  of  emotion.  The 
fallacies  of  such  judgment  can  best  be  indicated 
by  a  parallel  consideration  of  painters  widely 
separated  as  to  merit,  but  in  whom  these  different 
qualities  are  found.  For  instance,  the  prettiness 
of  Reynolds,  Greuze  and  Murillo  is  as  marked  as 
the  prettiness  of  Titian,  Giorgione  and  Renoir. 
The  latter  are  by  far  the  greater  artists;  yet, 
had  we  no  other  critical  standard  save  that  of 
charm,  the  difference  between  them  and  the 
others  would  be  indistinguishable.  Zuloaga, 
Whistler,  Botticelli  and  Bocklin  are  as  inspira- 
tional of  sentiment  as  Tintoretto,  Corot,  Raphael 
and  Poussin;  but  by  no  authentic  criterion  are 
they  as  great  painters.  Again,  were  drama  and 
simple  narrative  aesthetic  considerations,  Reg- 
nault,  Brangwyn,  and  Antonino  Molineri  would 
rank  with  Valeric  Castello,  Rubens  and  Ribera. 

In  one's  failure  to  distinguish  between  the 
apparent  and  the  organic  purposes  of  art  lies 
the  greatest  obstacle  to  an  appreciation  of  what 
has  come  to  be  called  modern  painting.  The 
truths  of  modern  art  are  no  different  from  those 
of  ancient  art.  A  Cezanne  landscape  is  not  dis- 
similar in  aim  to  an  El  Greco.  The  one  is  merely 
more  advanced  as  to  methods  than  the  other. 
Nor  do  the  canvases  of  the  most  ultra-modern 
schools  strive  toward  an  aesthetic  manifestation 
radically  unlike  that  aspired  to  in  Michelangelo's 
Slaves.  Serious  modern  art,  despite  its  often 


22  MODERN  PAINTING 

formidable  and  bizarre  appearance,  is  only  a 
striving  to  rehabilitate  the  natural  and  unalter- 
able principles  of  rhythmic  form  to  be  found 
in  the  old  masters,  and  to  translate  them  into 
relative  and  more  comprehensive  terms.  We 
have  the  same  animating  ideal  in  the  pictures 
of  Giotto  and  Matisse,  Rembrandt  and  Renoir, 
Botticelli  and  Gauguin,  Watteau  and  Picasso, 
Poussin  and  Friesz,  Raphael  and  Severini.  The 
later  men  differ  from  their  antecedents  in  that 
they  apply  new  and  more  vital  methods  to  their 
work.  Modern  art  is  the  logical  and  natural 
outgrowth  of  ancient  art;  it  is  the  art  of  yester- 
day heightened  and  intensified  as  the  result  of 
systematic  and  painstaking  experimentation  in 
the  media  of  expression. 

The  search  for  composition  —  that  is,  for  per- 
fectly poised  form  in  three  dimensions  —  has 
been  the  impelling  dictate  of  all  great  art.  Giotto, 
El  Greco,  Masaccio,  Tintoretto  and  Rubens,  the 
greatest  of  all  the  old  painters,  strove  continually 
to  attain  form  as  an  abstract  emotional  force. 
With  them  the  organisation  of  volumes  came 
first.  The  picture  was  composed  as  to  line.  Out 
of  this  grew  the  subject-matter  —  a  demonstra- 
tion a  posteriori.  The  human  figure  and  the 
recognisable  natural  object  were  only  auxiliaries, 
never  the  sought-for  result.  In  all  this  they  were 
inherently  modern,  as  that  word  should  be  under- 
stood; for  the  new  conception  of  art  strives  more 
and  more  for  the  emotion  rather  than  the  appear- 
ance of  reality.  The  objects,  whether  arbitrary 
or  photographic,  which  an  artist  uses  in  a  picture 
are  only  the  material  through  which  plastic  form 
finds  expression.  They  are  the .  means,  not  the 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART         23 

end.  If  in  the  works  of  truly  significant  art 
there  is  a  dramatic,  narrative  or  illustrative  in- 
terest, it  will  be  found  to  be  the  incidental  and 
not  the  important  concomitant  of  the  picture. 

Therefore  it  is  not  remarkable  that,  with  the 
introduction  of  new  methods,  the  illustrative  side 
of  painting  should  tend  toward  minimisation. 
The  elimination  of  all  the  superfluities  from  art  is 
but  a  part  of  the  striving  toward  defecation. 
Since  the  true  test  of  painting  lies  in  its  sub- 
jective power,  modern  artists  have  sought  to 
divorce  their  work  from  all  considerations  other 
than  those  directly  allied  to  its  primary  function. 
This  process  of  separation  advanced  hand  in 
hand  with  the  evolution  of  new  methods.  First 
it  took  the  form  of  the  distortion  of  natural 
objects.  The  accidental  shape  of  trees,  hills, 
houses  and  even  human  figures  was  altered  in 
order  to  draw  them  into  the  exact  form  demanded 
by  the  picture's  composition.  Gradually,  by  the 
constant  practice  of  this  falsification,  objects  be- 
came almost  unrecognisable.  In  the  end  the 
illustrative  obstacle  was  entirely  done  away 
with.  This  was  the  logical  outcome  of  the  ster- 
ilising modern  process.  To  judge  a  picture  com- 
petently, one  must  not  consider  it  as  a  mere 
depiction  of  life  or  as  an  anecdote:  one  must 
bring  to  it  an  intelligence  capable  of  grasping  a 
complicated  counterpoint.  The  attitude  of  even 
such  men  as  Celesti,  Zanchi,  Padovanino  and 
Bononi  is  never  that  of  an  illustrator,  in  no 
matter  how  sublimated  a  sense,  but  of  a  com- 
poser whose  aim  is  to  create  a  polymorphic 
conception  with  the  recognisable  materials  at 
hand. 


24  MODERN  PAINTING 

Were  art  to  be  judged  from  the  pictorial  and 
realistic  viewpoint  we  might  find  many  metic- 
ulous craftsmen  of  as  high  an  objective  efficiency 
as  were  the  men  who  stood  at  the  apex  of  genuine 
artistic  worth  —  that  is,  craftsmen  who  arrived 
at  as  close  and  exact  a  transcription  of  nature, 
who  interpreted  current  moods  and  mental  as- 
pects as  accurately,  and  who  set  forth  superficial 
emotions  as  dramatically.  Velazquez's  Philip  IV, 
Titian's  Emperor  Charles  V,  Holbein's  The  Am- 
bassadors, Guardi's  The  Grand  Canal  —  Venice, 
Mantegna's  The  Dead  Christ  and  Diirer's  Four 
Naked  Women  reproduce  their  subjects  with  as 
much  painstaking  exactitude  as  do  El  Greco's 
The  Resurrection  of  Christ,  Giotto's  Descent  from 
the  Cross,  Masaccio's  Saint  Peter  Baptising  the 
Pagans,  Tintoretto's  The  Miracle  of  Saint  Mark, 
Michelangelo's  Creation  of  the  Sun  and  Moon, 
and  Rubens's  The  Earl  and  Countess  of  Arundel. 
But  these  latter  pictures  are  important  for  other 
than  pictorial  reasons.  Primarily  they  are  or- 
ganisations, and  as  such  they  are  of  aesthetic 
value.  Only  secondarily  are  they  to  be  appraised 
as  representations  of  natural  objects.  In  the 
pictures  of  the  former  list  there  is  no  synthetic 
co-ordination  of  tactile  forms.  Such  paintings 
represent  merely  "subject-matter"  treated  capably 
and  effectively.  As  sheer  painting  from  the 
artisan's  standpoint  they  are  among  the  finest 
examples  of  technical  dexterity  in  art  history.  But 
as  contributions  to  the  development  of  a  pure  art 
form  they  are  valueless. 

In  stating  that  the  moderns  have  changed  the 
quality  and  not  the  nature  of  art,  there  is  no 
implication  that  in  many  instances  the  great 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART    25 

men  of  the  past,  even  with  limited  means,  have 
not  surpassed  in  artistic  achievement  the  men  of 
today  who  have  at  hand  more  extensive  means. 
Great  organisers  of  plastic  form  have,  because 
of  their  tremendous  power,  done  with  small 
means  more  masterly  work  than  lesser  men  with 
large  means.  For  instance,  Goya  as  an  artist 
surpasses  Manet,  and  Rembrandt  transcends 
Daumier.  This  principle  holds  true  in  all  the 
arts.  Balzac,  ignorant  of  modern  literary  meth- 
ods, is  greater  than  George  Moore,  a  master  of 
modern  means.  And  Beethoven  still  remains 
the  colossal  figure  in  music,  despite  the  vastly 
increased  modern  scope  of  Richard  Strauss's 
methods.  Methods  are  useless  without  the  cre- 
ative will.  But  granting  this  point  (which  un- 
consciously is  the  stumbling  block  of  nearly  all 
modern  art  critics),  new  and  fuller  means,  even 
in  the  hands  of  inferior  men,  are  not  the  proper 
subject  for  ridicule. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  division 
between  old  and  modern  art  is  not  an  equal  one. 
Modern  art  began  with  Delacroix  less  than  a 
hundred  years  ago,  while  art  up  to  that  time  had 
many  centuries  in  which  to  perfect  the  possi- 
bilities of  its  resources.  The  new  methods  are 
so  young  that  painters  have  not  had  time  to 
acquire  that  mastery  of  material  without  which 
the  highest  achievement  is  impossible.  Even  in 
the  most  praiseworthy  modern  art  we  are  con- 
scious of  that  intellectual  striving  in  the  handling 
of  new  tools  which  is  the  appanage  of  immaturity. 
Renoir,  the  greatest  exponent  of  Impressionistic 
means,  found  his  artistic  stride  only  in  his  old  age, 
after  a  long  and  arduous  life  of  study  and  exper- 


26  MODERN  PAINTING 

imenting.  His  canvases  since  1905  are  the  first 
in  which  we  feel  the  fluency  and  power  which 
come  only  after  a  slow  and  sedulous  process  of 
osmosis.  Compare,  for  instance,  his  early  and 
popular  Le  Moulin  de  la  Galette  with  his  later 
portraits,  such  as  Madame  T.  et  Son  Fils  and  La 
Fillette  a  1'Orange,  and  his  growth  is  at  once 
apparent. 

The  evolution  of  means  is  answerable  to  the 
same  laws  as  the  progressus  in  any  other  line  of 
human  endeavour.  The  greatest  artists  are  always 
culminations  of  long  lines  of  experimentations. 
In  this  they  are  eclectic.  The  organisation  of 
observation  is  in  itself  too  absorbing  a  labour  to 
permit  of  a  free  exercise  of  the  will  to  power. 
The  blinding  burst  of  genius  at  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance  was  the  breaking  forth  of  the  accrued 
power  of  generations.  Modern  art,  having  no 
tradition  of  means,  has  sapped  and  dispersed  the 
vitality  of  its  exponents  by  imposing  upon  them 
the  necessity  for  empirical  research.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  we  have  no  men  in  modern  art 
who  approximate  as  closely  to  perfection  as  did 
many  of  the  older  painters.  But  had  Rubens, 
with  his  colossal  vision,  had  access  to  modern 
methods  his  work  would  have  been  more  power- 
ful in  its  intensity  and  more  far-reaching  in  its 
scope. 

However,  in  the  brief  period  of  modern  art 
two  decided  epochs  have  been  brought  to  a  close 
through  this  accumulation  and  eruption  of  exper- 
imental activities  in  individuals.  Cezanne  brought 
to  a  focus  the  divergent  rays  of  his  predecessors 
and  incorporated  into  his  canvases  both  the  as- 
pirations and  achievements  of  the  art  which  had 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART    27 

preceded  him.  This  would  have  been  impossible 
had  he  been  born  —  even  with  an  equally  great 
talent  —  fifty  years  before.  And  a  more  recent 
school  of  art,  by  making  use  of  the  achievements 
of  both  Cezanne  and  Michelangelo,  and  by  add- 
ing to  them  new  discoveries  in  the  dynamics 
of  colour,  has  opened  up  a  new  vista  of  possibil- 
ities in  the  expressing  of  form.  This  step  also 
would  have  been  impossible  without  Cezanne  and 
the  men  who  came  before  and  after  him.  Once 
these  new  modes,  which  are  indicative  of  modern 
art,  become  understood  and  pass  into  the  common 
property  of  the  younger  men,  we  shall  have 
achievement  which  will  be  as  complete  as  the 
masterpieces  of  old,  and  which  will,  in  addition, 
be  more  poignant. 

Although  the  methods  of  the  older  painters 
were  more  restricted  than  those  of  the  moderns, 
the  actual  materials  at  their  disposal  were  fully 
as  extended  as  ours  of  today.  But  knowledge 
concerning  them  was  incomplete.  As  a  conse- 
quence, all  artists  antecedent  to  Delacroix  found 
expression  only  in  those  qualities  which  are 
susceptible  of  reproduction  in  black  and  white. 
In  many  cases  the  sacrifice  of  colour  enhances  the 
intrinsic  merit  of  such  reproductions,  for  often 
the  characteristics  of  the  different  colours  oppose 
the  purposes  of  a  picture's  planes.  Today  we 
know  that  certain  colours  are  opaque,  others 
transparent;  some  approach  the  eye,  others 
recede.  But  the  ancients  were  ignorant  of  these 
things,  and  their  canvases  contained  many  con- 
tradictions: there  was  a  continuous  warring 
between  linear  composition  and  colour  values. 
They  painted  solids  violet,  and  transpicuous 


28  MODERN  PAINTING 

planes  yellow  —  thereby  unconsciously  defeating 
their  own  ends,  for  violet  is  limpid,  and  yellow 
tangible.  In  one-tone  reproductions  such  in- 
consistencies are  eliminated,  and  the  signification 
of  the  picture  thereby  clarified.  It  was  Rubens 
who  embodied  the  defined  attributes  of  ancient 
art  in  their  highest  degree  of  pliability,  and  who 
carried  the  impulse  toward  creation  to  a  point 
of  complexity  unattained  by  any  other  of  the 
older  men.  In  him  we  see  the  culmination  of 
the  evolution  of  linear  development  of  light  and 
dark.  From  his  time  to  the  accession  of  the 
moderns  the  ability  to  organise  was  on  the  de- 
crease. There  was  a  weakening  of  perception, 
a  decline  of  the  aesthetic  faculty.  The  chaotic 
condition  of  this  period  was  like  the  darkness 
which  always  broods  over  the  world  before  some 
cleansing  force  sweeps  it  clean  and  ushers  in  a 
new  and  greater  cycle. 

The  period  of  advancement  of  these  old 
methods  extends  from  prehistoric  times  to  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  On  the 
walls  of  the  caverns  in  Altamira  and  the  Dor- 
dogne  are  drawings  of  mammoths,  horses  and 
bison  in  which,  despite  the  absence  of  details, 
the  actual  approach  to  nature  is  at  times  more 
sure  and  masterly  than  in  the  paintings  of  such 
highly  cultured  men  as  Botticelli  and  Pisanello. 
The  action  in  some  of  them  is  pronounced;  and 
the  vision,  while  simple,  is  that  of  men  conscious 
of  a  need  for  compactness  and  balance.  Here 
the  art  is  simply  one  of  outline,  heavy  and  prom- 
inent at  times,  light  and  almost  indistinguishable 
at  others;  but  this  grading  of  line  was  the  result 
of  a  deeper  cause  than  a  tool  slipping  or  refusing 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART         29 

to  mark.  It  was  the  consequence  of  a  need  for 
rhythm  which  could  be  obtained  only  by  the 
accentuation  of  parts.  The  drawings  were  gen- 
erally single  figures,  and  rarely  were  more  than 
two  conceived  as  an  inseparable  design.  Later, 
the  early  primitives  used  symmetrical  groupings 
for  the  same  purpose  of  interior  decorating.  Then 
came  simple  balance,  the  shifting  and  disguise 
of  symmetry,  and  with  it  a  nearer  approach  to 
the  imprevu  of  nature.  This  style  was  employed 
for  many  generations  until  the  great  step  was 
taken  which  brought  about  the  Renaissance. 
The  sequential  aspect  of  line  appeared,  permitting 
of  rhythm  and  demanding  organisation.  Cima- 
bue  and  Giotto  were  the  most  prominent  expon- 
ents of  this  advance.  From  that  time  forward 
the  emotion  derived  from  actual  form  was  looked 
upon  by  artists  as  a  necessary  adjunct  to  a  pict- 
ure. With  this  attitude  came  the  aristocracy 
of  vision  and  the  abrogation  of  painting  as  mere 
exalted  craftsmanship. 

After  that  the  evolution  of  art  was  rapid.  In 
the  contemplation  of  solidly  and  justly  painted 
figures  the  artist  began  to  extend  his  mind  into 
space  and  to  use  rhythm  of  line  that  he  might 
express  himself  in  depth  as  well  as  surfacely. 
Thus  he  preconised  organisation  in  three  dimen- 
sions, and  by  so  doing  opened  the  door  on  an 
infinity  of  aesthetic  ramifications.  From  the  be- 
ginning, tone  balance — that  is,  the  agreeable 
distribution  of  blacks,  whites  and  greys  —  had 
gone  forward  with  the  development  of  line,  so 
that  at  the  advent  of  depth  in  painting  the 
arrangement  of  tones  became  the  medium  through 
which  all  the  other  qualities  were  made  manifest. 


30  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  the  strict  sense,  the  art  of  painting  up  to 
a  hundred  years  ago  had  been  only  drawing. 
Colour  was  used  only  for  ornamental  or  dramatic 
purposes.  After  the  first  simple  copying  of 
nature's  tints  in  a  wholly  restricted  manner,  the 
use  of  colour  advanced  but  little.  It  progressed 
toward  harmony,  but  its  dramatic  possibilities 
were  only  dimly  felt.  Consequently  its  primitive 
employment  for  the  enhancement  of  the  decora- 
tive side  of  painting  was  adhered  to.  This  was 
not  because  the  older  painters  were  without  the 
necessary  pigments.  Their  colours  in  many  in- 
stances were  brighter  and  more  permanent  than 
ours.  But  they  were  satisfied  with  the  effects 
obtained  from  black  and  white  expression.  They 
looked  upon  colour  as  a  delicacy,  an  accessory, 
something  to  be  taken  as  the  gourmet  takes 
dessert.  Its  true  significance  was  thus  obscured 
beneath  the  artists'  complacency.  As  great  an 
artist  as  Giorgione  considered  it  from  the  con- 
ventional viewpoint,  and  never  attempted  to 
deviate  toward  its  profounder  meanings.  The 
old  masters  filled  their  canvases  with  shadows 
and  light  without  suspecting  that  light  itself  is 
simply  another  name  for  colour. 

The  history  of  modern  art  is  broadly  the  his- 
tory of  the  development  of  form  by  the  means 
of  colour  —  that  is  to  say,  modern  art  tends 
toward  the  purification  of  painting.  Colour  is 
capable  of  producing  all  the  effects  possible  to 
black  and  white,  and  in  addition  of  exciting  an 
emotion  more  acute.  It  was  only  with  the  advent 
of  Delacroix,  the  first  great  modern,  that  the 
dramatic  qualities  of  colour  were  intelligently 
sensed.  But  even  with  him  the  conception  was 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART         31 

so  slight  that  the  effects  he  attained  were  but 
meagrely  effective.  After  Delacroix  further  ex- 
periments in  colour  led  to  the  realistic  translation 
of  certain  phases  of  nature.  The  old  static 
system  of  copying  trees  in  green,  shadows  in 
black  and  skies  in  blue  did  not,  as  was  commonly 
believed,  produce  realism.  While  superficially 
nature  appeared  in  the  colours  indicated,  a  close 
observation  later  revealed  the  fad:  that  a  green 
tree  in  any  light  comprises  a  diversity  of  colours, 
that  all  sunlit  skies  have  a  residue  of  yellow, 
and  hence  that  shadows  are  violet  rather  than 
black.  This  newly  unearthed  realism  of  light 
became  the  battle  cry  of  the  younger  men  in  the 
late  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
reached  parturition  in  the  movement  erroneously 
called  Impressionism,  a  word  philologically  op- 
posed to  the  thing  it  wished  to  elucidate.  The 
ancients  had  painted  landscape  as  it  appeared 
broadly  at  a  first  glance.  The  Impressionists, 
being  interested  in  nature  as  a  manifestation  in 
which  light  plays  the  all-important  part,  trans- 
ferred it  bodily  onto  canvas  from  that  point  of 
view. 

Cezanne,  looking  into  their  habits  more  coolly, 
saw  their  restrictions.  While  achieving  all  their 
atmospheric  aims,  he  went  deeper  into  the  me- 
chanics of  colour,  and  with  this  knowledge 
achieved  form  as  well  as  light.  This  was  another 
step  forward  in  the  development  of  modern 
methods.  With  him  colour  began  to  near  its 
true  and  ultimate  significance  as  a  functioning 
element.  Later,  with  the  aid  of  the  scientists, 
Chevreul,  Bourgeois,  Helmholtz  and  Rood,  other 
artists  made  various  departures  into  the  field 


32  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  colour,  but  their  enterprises  were  failures. 
Then  came  Matisse  who  made  improvements 
on  the  harmonic  side  of  colour.  But  because  he 
ignored  the  profounder  lessons  of  Cezanne  he 
succeeded  only  in  the  fabrication  of  a  highly 
organised  decorative  art.  Not  until  the  advent 
of  the  Synchromists,  whose  first  public  exhibition 
took  place  in  Munich  in  1913,  were  any  further 
crucial  advances  made.  These  artists  completed 
Cezanne  in  that  they  rationalised  his  dimly  fore- 
shadowed precepts. 

To  understand  the  basic  significance  of  paint- 
ing it  is  necessary  to  revise  our  method  of  judg- 
ment. As  yet  no  aesthetician  has  recorded  a 
rationale  for  art  valuation.  Taine  put  forth 
many  illuminating  suggestions  regarding  the  fun- 
damentals of  form,  but  the  critics  have  paid 
scant  heed.  Prejudice,  personal  taste,  meta- 
physics and  even  the  predilections  of  sentiment, 
still  govern  the  world's  judgments  and  apprecia- 
tions. We  are  slaves  to  accuracy  of  delineation, 
to  prettiness  of  design,  to  the  whole  suite  of  ma- 
terial considerations  which  are  deputies  to  the 
organic  and  intellectual  qualities  of  a  work  of 
art.  It  is  the  common  thing  to  find  criticisms 
—  ever  from  the  highest  sources  —  which  praise 
or  condemn  a  picture  according  to  the  nearness 
of  its  approach  to  the  reality  of  its  subject.  Such 
observations  are  confusing  and  irrelevant.  Were 
realism  the  object  of  art,  painting  would  always 
be  infinitely  inferior  to  life  —  a  mere  simulacrum 
of  our  daily  existence,  ever  inadequate  in  its 
illusion.  The  moment  we  attach  other  than 
purely  aesthetic  values  to  paintings  —  either  an- 
cient or  modern  —  we  are  confronted  by  so  exten- 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  ART   33 

sive  and  differentiated  a  set  of  tests  that  chaos 
or  error  is  unavoidable.  In  the  end  we  shall  find 
that  our  conclusions  have  their  premises,  not  in 
the  work  of  art  itself,  but  in  personal  and  ex- 
traneous considerations.  A  picture  to  be  a  great 
work  of  art  need  not  contain  any  recognisable 
objects.  Provided  it  gives  the  sensation  of  rhyth- 
mically balanced  form  in  three  dimensions,  it 
will  have  accomplished  all  that  the  greatest 
masters  of  art  have  ever  striven  for. 

Once  we  divest  ourselves  of  traditional  integu- 
ments, modern  painting  will  straightway  lose  its 
mystery.  Despite  the  many  charlatans  who  clothe 
their  aberrations  with  its  name,  it  is  a  sincere 
reaching  forth  of  the  creative  will  to  find  a  me- 
dium by  which  the  highest  emotions  may  most 
perfectly  be  expressed.  We  have  become  too 
complex  to  enjoy  the  simple  theatre  any  longer. 
Our  minds  call  for  a  more  forceful  emotion  than 
the  simple  imitation  of  life  can  give.  We  require 
problems,  inspirations,  incentives  to  thought. 
The  simple  melody  of  many  of  the  old  masters 
can  no  longer  interest  us  because  of  its  very 
simplicity.  As  the  complicated  and  organised 
forces  of  life  become  comprehensible  to  us,  we 
shall  demand  more  and  more  that  our  analytic 
intelligences  be  mirrored  in  our  enjoyments. 


II 

PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW   ERA 

THE  nineteenth  century  opened  with 
French  art  in  a  precarious  and  de- 
cadent condition.  To  appreciate  the 
prodigious  strides  made  by  Gericault 
and  Delacroix,  even  by  Gerard  and  Gros,  one 
must  consider  the  rabid  antagonism  of  the  public 
toward  all  ornament  and  richness  in  painting  and 
toward  all  subject-matter  which  did  not  inspire 
thoughts  of  inflexible  simplicity.  This  attitude 
was  attributable  to  the  social  reaction  against 
the  excesses  of  the  voluptuous  Louis  XV.  Vien 
it  was  who,  suppressing  the  eroticism  of  Boucher, 
instigated  the  so-called  classic  revival  founded  on 
Graeco-Roman  ideals.  The  public  became  so  vehe- 
ment in  its  praise  of  this  hypocritical  and  austere 
art,  that  Fragonard,  that  delicious  painter  of 
boudoirs,  was  dismissed  as  indecent.  Even  the 
demure  Greuze,  who  tried  to  rehabilitate  himself 
by  making  his  art  a  vehicle  for  a  series  of  parental 
sermons,  died  a  pauper.  He  too  lacked  the  arid- 
ity requisite  for  popular  taste.  Chardin,  the  Le 
Nains  and  Fouquet  were  set  aside:  they  were 
considered  too  trivial,  too  insufficiently  archae- 
ological. Watteau's  canvases  were  stoned  by  Reg- 
nault,  Girodet  and  the  other  pupils  of  David. 
Lancret,  Pater,  Debucourt,  Olivier,  Gravelot, 
La  Tour,  Nattier  and  others  met  similar  fates 
at  the  hands  of  the  new  classicists. 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      35 

Such  men  as  these  could  not  find  approbation 
in  a  public  which  demanded  only  allegorical, 
political  and  economic  art.  But  David  met  all 
its  requirements.  He  represented  the  antithesis 
of  the  sound  freedom  of  the  French  tempera- 
ment; and  forthwith  became  the  Elija  of  the 
new  degeneracy.  He  apotheosised  all  that  is 
false  and  decadent  in  art.  But  the  adulation 
of  him  was  short-lived.  The  French  imagina- 
tion is  too  fecund  for  only  thorns.  Ingres  super- 
seded him.  This  new  idol,  going  to  the  Greeks 
for  inspiration,  made  David  fluent  and  charming. 
He  studied  the  Italian  primitives  and  simplified 
them  with  Byzantine  and  Raphaelic  addenda. 
He  had  a  genuine  instinct  for  silhouette  entirely 
lacking  in  his  forerunner,  and  soon  struck  the 
first  blow  which  marked  the  disintegration  of 
David's  cult. 

Gerard  and  Gros  took  a  further  step  by  loos- 
ening slightly  Ingres's  drawing;  and  Gericault 
and  Guerin  completed  the  disruption  of  the 
David  tradition.  Gericault's  Radeau  de  la 
Meduse  brought  its  young  and  highly  talented 
creator  immediately  into  the  public  gaze,  not 
only  because  of  its  implied  blasphemy  in  deviat- 
ing from  the  methode  David,  but  because  the 
tragedy  of  its  subject  was  still  fresh  in  the  na- 
tional mind.  Was  this  a  clever  device  on  the 
part  of  the  painter  to  circumvent  hostile  criti- 
cism by  clothing  his  innovations  with  a  sympa- 
thetic theme?  Perhaps;  but  the  picture's  value 
to  us  lies  in  that  it  foreshadowed  the  new  idea 
in  art.  It  forced  the  gate  which  made  easier 
Delacroix's  entrance  several  years  later. 

In  retrospect  the  reaction  against  an  established 


36  MODERN  PAINriNG 

order  appears  simple,  but  the  world's  innovators 
have  required  for  their  task  an  intellectual  cour- 
age amounting  to  rare  heroism.  Heretics  are 
regarded  as  dangerous  madmen,  and  generally 
their  only  reward  is  the  pleasure  of  revolt.  The 
credit  for  greatness  falls  on  those  later  men  who 
avail  themselves  of  the  principles  of  past  reac- 
tionary enterprise.  So  much  of  the  energy  of 
pioneers  is  spent  in  combating  hostile  criticism 
and  indifference,  that  their  fund  of  creative  force 
is  depleted.  This  was  true  in  the  case  of  Dela- 
croix. Like  all  the  greater  painters  he  was  self- 
taught.  The  essence  of  knowledge  is  untrans- 
mittable.  True,  he  occasionally  visited  the  studio 
of  Guerin,  but  his  real  education  came  from  the 
Louvre  where  he  copied  Veronese,  Titian  and 
Rubens.  His  insight  was  keen  but  not  deep, 
and  at  first  he  did  little  more  than  absorb  the 
surface  aspects  of  others,  though  he  did  this 
with  intelligence.  Later,  by  devious  steps  both 
forward  and  back,  he  became  the  bridge  from 
the  eighteenth  century  to  Impressionism,  just 
as  Cezanne  became  the  stepping  stone  from  Im- 
pressionism to  art's  latest  manifestations. 

In  1822  Delacroix  exposed  his  first  canvas, 
Dante  et  Virgile  aux  Enfers,  one  of  the  finest 
debut  pictures  ever  recorded.  Superficially  it 
is  his  most  obvious  influence  of  Rubens  whom 
he  deeply  respected;  and  in  it  are  also  discov- 
erable the  exaggerations  and  disproportions  of 
Michelangelo.  Thiers  lauded  it,  and  so  great 
was  its  popularity  that  the  government  bought 
it  for  2,000  francs.  Rubens  still  held  him  firmly 
two  years  later  in  the  Massacre  de  Scio,  although 
there  were  in  the  picture  indubitable  indications 


PRECURSORS  OF   THE  NEW  ERA      37 

of  the  advent  of  Venice.  This  picture  was  to 
be  hung  in  the  famous  Salon  of  1824,  where 
Lawrence,  Bonington,  Fielding,  and  Constable 
(who  were  to  have  such  a  great  influence  on  his 
later  work)  exposed.  The  Massacre  de  Scio  was 
ready  for  shipment  when,  just  before  the  vernis- 
sage,  Delacroix  saw  a  canvas  by  Constable  done 
in  the  divisionistic  method.  At  once  he  felt  the 
necessity  for  colour  expression,  and  going  home 
he  entirely  repainted  his  picture. 

This  was  the  turning-point  in  his  art.  He  had 
admired  the  green  in  Constable's  landscape,  and 
had  spoken  of  it  to  the  other.  Constable  ex- 
plained that  the  superiority  of  the  green  in  his 
prairies  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  composed 
it  with  a  multitude  of  different  greens.  Here 
Delacroix's  keen  perception  got  to  work.  In 
his  Journal  he  wrote:  "What  Constable  says 
of  the  green  of  his  prairies  can  be  applied  to  all 
the  other  tones  as  well."  By  this  method,  prim- 
itive as  it  seems  today,  he  beheld  a  way  of 
augmenting  the  dramatic  significance  of  his  con- 
ceptions. The  next  year,  1825,  he  went  to  Lon- 
don to  study  the  English  painters  at  closer  range. 
There  he  learned  much  from  Bonington,  as  he 
did  from  Constable,  and  in  one  of  his  letters 
he  wrote:  "Grey  is  the  enemy  of  all  painting. 
.  .  .  Let  us  banish  from  our  palette  all  earth 
colours."  And  later  he  forecasted  the  Impres- 
sionistic methods  by  writing:  "It  is  good  not  to 
let  each  brush  stroke  melt  into  the  others;  they 
will  appear  uniform  at  a  certain  distance  by  the 
sympathetic  law  which  associates  them.  Colour 
obtained  thus  has  more  energy  and  freshness. 
The  more  opposition  in  colour,  the  more  brilliance." 


38  MODERN  PAINTING 

Delacroix's  intelligence,  reconnoitring  along 
these  lines,  formulated  other  principles.  Among 
many  observations  concerning  colour,  he  wrote: 
"If  to  a  composition,  interesting  in  its  choice 
of  subject,  you  add  a  disposition  of  lines,  which 
augments  the  impression,  a  chiaroscuro  which 
seizes  the  imagination,  and  a  colour  which  is 
adapted  to  the  characters,  it  is  then  a  harmony, 
and  its  combinations  are  so  adapted  that  they 
produce  a  unique  song.  ...  A  conception,  having 
become  a  composition,  must  move  in  the  milieu 
of  a  colour  peculiar  to  it.  There  seems  to  be  a 
particular  tone  belonging  to  some  part  of  every 
picture  which  is  a  key  that  governs  all  the  other 
tones.  .  .  .  The  art  of  the  colourist  seems  to 
be  related  in  certain  ways  to  mathematics  and 
music."  That  he  believed  in  the  exact  science 
of  colour  is  further  attested  to  by  the  fact  that 
he  made  a  dial  on  which  noon  represented  red, 
six  o'clock  green,  one  o'clock  blue,  seven  o'clock 
orange  —  and  so  on  through  the  hours  with  the 
opposition  of  complementaries. 

Evidences  of  these  experimentations  are  dimly 
discerned  in  a  number  of  his  minor  canvases 
done  between  1827  and  the  Revolution.  In  1832, 
after  he  had  painted  the  admirable  La  Liberte 
Guidant  le  Peuple  sur  les  Barricades,  he  visited 
Morocco.  Before  this  event  his  work  had  con- 
tained many  of  the  elements  of  sumptuousness 
and  sensuality;  but  in  this  eastern  land  his 
colour  reached  maturity.  Studying  the  produc- 
tions of  the  native  crafts  in  their  relation  to 
colour,  he  dreamed  of  making  pictures  as  varie- 
gated as  rugs  and  vases.  In  this  he  was  tres- 
passing on  the  precincts  of  Veronese  who  had 


H 

Z 

— 

s 

- 


CO 

- 

s 

s 

W 
fa 

CO 

W 

_ 


PRECURSORS  OF   THE  NEW  ERA      39 

made  pictorial  use  of  the  products  of  the  Orient 
and  of  Africa.  On  his  return  he  painted  Les 
Femmes  d'Alger  dans  Leur  Appartement.  This 
picture,  one  of  his  best,  embodies  most  of  his 
colour  theories.  In  it  we  find  cold  shadows 
opposed  to  hot  lights,  and  the  contiguous  placing 
of  complementaries. 

Delacroix  looked  upon  himself  as  a  colourist. 
But  while  his  theories  were  in  the  main  sound 
they  did  not  go  far  enough.  They  were  impor- 
tant only  as  a  starting  point.  His  colour  is  hardly 
noticeable  today,  and  in  no  wise  does  it  sum  up 
his  artistic  interest  for  us.  Gauguin  once  said 
that  we  get  Delacroix's  full  significance  in  black- 
and-white  reproduction.  This  comes  perilously 
near  being  true.  Today  his  pictures  appear  as 
devoid  of  brilliancy  as  those  of  the  Venetians. 
Yet,  when  he  first  exhibited,  he  was  reproached 
for  his  raucous  tones.  The  critics  called  his 
Massacre  de  Scio  the  "massacre  of  painting," 
and  added,  "il  court  sur  les  toits."  His  men  and 
women,  the  shadows  of  whose  flesh  were  coloured 
with  blues  and  greens,  were  stigmatised 
"corpses,"  and  he  was  accused  of  having  used  the 
morgue  for  his  studio. 

All  this  mattered  little.  Delacroix's  real  sig- 
nificance as  an  artist  lay  in  his  drawing  which 
was  his  greatest  asset.  What  raised  him  above 
the  general  run  of  painters,  baroque  and  other- 
wise, was  his  slight  talent  for  composition.  Often 
in  his  Journal  he  speaks  of  the  "balance  of 
lines."  He  knew  that  with  the  masters  of  the 
Renaissance  it  was  common  property,  and  that 
modern  painting  had  lost  it;  and  he  strove  to 
reintroduce  it  into  art.  But  he  never  got  beyond 


40  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  simplest  synthesis  of  the  least  compounded 
of  Rubens's  figure  pieces.  For  instance,  in  the 
Bataille  de  Taillebourg  —  an  excellent  example 
of  his  dramatic  method  —  it  will  be  noted 
that  the  canvas  opens  at  the  bottom-centre 
to  form  a  triangle  of  struggling  forms,  and 
that  in  the  breach  thus  made  the  rearing 
charger  looms  white.  The  identical  composition 
can  be  found  in  La  Justice,  La  Liberte,  the 
Janissaires  a  1'Attaque,  La  Lutte  de  Jacob  avec 
1'Ange,  the  Enlevement  de  Rebecca  and  the 
Entree  des  Croises  a  Jerusalem.  In  this  last 
canvas,  his  most  masterful,  the  triangle  is  com- 
plicated by  a  curved  line  running  inward  from  the 
centre.  This  picture  recalls,  almost  to  every 
detail,  Rubens's  The  Adoration  of  the  Wise  Men 
of  the  East,  in  the  Antwerp  Museum.  However, 
it  marks  a  great  progress  from  the  symmetricality 
of  his  toile  de  debut,  and  though  in  it  Rubens  is 
consciously  imitated  —  if  not  indeed  plagiarised, 
Delacroix  gets  nearer  to  the  spirit  of  Veronese 
than  to  that  of  the  Flemish  master. 

Among  the  paintings  wherein  the  simple,  three- 
sided  composition  does  not  appear,  the  most 
notable  are  his  animal  pictures  (in  which  he  sub- 
stituted the  S  design)  and  those  canvases  in  which 
his  momentary  admiration  for  others  (as  for 
Veronese  in  the  Retour  de  Christophe  Colomb,  and 
for  the  Dutch  in  Cromwell  au  Chateau  de  Wind- 
sor) made  him  forget  himself.  Even  this  primitive 
comprehension  of  linear  balance  had  passed  out 
of  French  painting  with  the  death  of  Poussin, 
and  its  reapparition  in  Delacroix  is  analogous 
to  the  impetus  toward  rhythm  which  was  given 
to  the  stiff  Byzantine  painting  of  Venice  by 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      41 

Nicolo  di  Pietro  and  Giovanni  da  Bologna  in  the 
fourteenth  century. 

In  Rubens  we  find  turbulent  movement,  as 
great  as  in  life  itself,  organised  in  such  a  way 
that  all  the  emotions,  exalted,  depressive,  dra- 
matic, are  expressed.  But  in  Delacroix  there 
is  merely  co-ordinated  action.  And  this  action, 
even  in  the  busiest  centres  of  his  canvases,  is 
more  suggestive  of  unrest  than  of  movement. 
However,  the  real  cause  for  his  failure  to  express 
a  spirit  as  modern  as  Rubens's  lay  in  his  inability 
to  understand  the  opposition  in  rhythmic  line- 
balance  of  three  dimensions  which  is  to  be  found 
in  even  the  slightest  of  Rubens's  canvases.  His 
details  are  always  interesting,  but  he  never  suc- 
ceeded in  welding  them  into  a  sequacious  and 
interrelated  whole.  His  high  gift  of  invention 
was  inadequate  equipment  for  so  difficult  a  feat. 
Compare  Rembrandt's  exquisite  bathing  girl  in 
the  London  National  Gallery  and  Delacroix's 
La  Grece  Expirant  sur  les  Ruines  de  Missolonghi. 
In  technical  treatment  these  two  paintings  are 
not  unlike,  but  the  scattered  feeling  and  lack  of 
plastic  concentration  in  the  latter  emphasises  the 
superior  force  of  the  Dutchman. 

Delacroix's  work  fell  between  flat  decoration 
and  deep  painting.  Although  in  his  small  draw- 
ings and  details  he  exhibits  a  genuine  feeling  for 
volume,  as  his  Lion  Dechirant  un  Cadavre  shows, 
his  constant  refinements  of  reasoning  nearly 
always  resulted  in  his  form  being  flattened  out 
until  it  sometimes  became  commonplace.  Simple 
balance  of  line  defined  the  limits  of  his  ability 
for  organisation.  If  he  had  carried  out  in  other 
pictures  the  compositional  elements  of  his  Pieta, 


42  MODERN  POINTING 

which  had  distinct  movement,  his  work  would 
have  taken  a  higher  place  in  the  history  of  art. 
In  many  canvases  his  seeming  fullness  of  form 
is  only  a  richness  of  line  —  a  richness,  however, 
which  had  seldom  been  found  in  painting  since 
Masaccio.  This  voluptuousness  in  Delacroix 
(analogous  to  Wagner's  music)  results  from  the 
balance  of  large  dark  and  light  masses  —  the 
fullness  of  chiaroscuro.  It  is  particularly  appre- 
ciable in  La  Justice  de  Trajan,  La  Captivite  de 
Babylone,  Repos  (reminiscent  of  Goya's  La  Maja 
Desnuda)  and  his  animal  compositions. 

Delacroix's  greatest  deficiency  lay  in  his  in- 
ability to  recognise  the  difference  between  the 
inventive  intelligence  and  the  imaginative  in- 
stinct. Had  he  understood  this  he  could  have 
seen  that  his  limitless  ambition  was  incom- 
mensurate with  his  comparatively  small  capa- 
bilities. But  his  mind  was  not  sufficiently  open. 
In  fadl  his  viewpoint  at  times  was  a  petty  one. 
Even  his  patriotism  was  chauvinistic.  He  was 
rabidly  anti-Teutonic  and  attempted  to  compress 
all  the  great  masters  of  art  into  the  French  mould. 
He  inveighed  against  style  in  painting  because 
France  had  always  been  barren  of  it.  He  pre- 
tended to  detest  Wagner,  his  musical  prototype, 
and  ignoring  the  latter's  dramatic  undulations, 
criticised  him  severely  for  his  methods.  Beet- 
hoven was  too  long  for  Delacroix,  and  II  Trova- 
tore  too  complicated.  However,  he  had  a  pro- 
found admiration  for  Titian  and  Mozart;  and 
in  these  preferences  we  have  the  man's  psychol- 
ogy. Both  were  great  classicists,  but  both  lacked 
that  genuine  and  magistral  fullness  which  was 
the  propre  of  Beethoven  and  Michelangelo. 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      43 

Delacroix's  thoughts  were  on  deep  things 
rather  than  deep  in  themselves.  Among  the 
romanticists  he  was  at  home:  all  his  life  Byron 
and  Walter  Scott  provided  him  with  themes.  And 
though  he  had  sufficient  foresight  to  see  the  hope- 
less trend  of  the  painting  of  his  day,  and  com- 
bated it,  he  did  not  advance.  His  muse  was  the 
corpse  of  Venetian  art.  He  was  the  brake  which 
put  an  end  to  the  reactionary  tendencies  of  art. 
His  discoveries  did  not  reach  fruition  until  Im- 
pressionism, twenty  years  after  his  death. 

In  all  his  struggles  destiny  seemed  to  con- 
spire to  bring  about  his  fame.  In  1824,  the  very 
year  he  brought  colour  into  his  painting,  Geri- 
cault,  who  gave  promise  of  outstripping  him, 
died.  Constable  and  Turner  came  forward  with 
their  achievements.  David's  influence  had  died 
out,  and  the  painter  himself  was  an  exile  in 
Brussels.  Fromentin  tells  us  that  Gericault 
helped  paint  Delacroix's  first  canvas.  Certain 
it  is  that  several  of  the  great  Englishmen  painted 
some  of  his  second.  This,  no  doubt,  taught 
Delacroix  much.  In  1827  the  government  ordered 
Justinien  Composant  les  Institutes.  All  France 
rallied  round  his  standard.  He  was  decorated 
by  Louis  Philippe;  and  at  the  age  of  thirty  he 
was  proclaimed  a  great  master  by  one  of  the 
leading  critics  of  the  day. 

From  the  first  he  had  had  the  backing  of  men 
respected  as  authorities.  But  though  they 
helped  make  his  position  tenable,  they  obfus- 
cated his  true  significance  by  their  purely  liter- 
ary appreciations.  Gautier,  Dumas,  Baudelaire, 
Stendhal  and  Merimee  —  there  was  none  whose 
temperament  was  not  either  romantic  or  ideal- 


44  MODERN  POINTING 

istic.  They  could  not  see  that,  though  he  strove 
with  them  for  modernity  of  expression,  his  lan- 
guage was  unmodern.  However,  Ernest  Ches- 
neau,  Theophile  Silvestre,  Eugene  Veron  and 
C.  P.  Landon  have  all  given  us  side-lights  on  his 
methods,  and,  in  this,  their  expositions  are  of 
value. 

But,  though  the  men  of  letters  did  not  under- 
stand him  thoroughly,  several  of  his  fellow 
painters  recognised  his  eclecticism.  Among  them 
was  Thomas  Couture  who,  in  his  highly  instruct- 
ive booklet,  Methodes  et  Entretiens  d'Atelier, 
had  the  audacity  to  point  out  the  painter's  se- 
lective habits.  In  the  main  his  charge  was  just. 
Delacroix's  first  canvas  contains  influences  of 
both  Rubens  and  Michelangelo.  His  second 
picture  echoes  Rubens,  the  Venetians  and  Goya. 
Later  came  more  prominent  evidences  of  Titian 
and  Veronese.  Delacroix  was  museum-bred.  He 
absorbed  impressions  avidly,  and  did  his  best 
work  only  after  he  had  undergone  an  intellectual 
experience.  Had  his  art  been  truly  expressive  of 
all  that  was  within  him,  he  would  have  been  in 
turn  —  diluted,  to  be  sure  —  a  Giotto,  a  Car- 
avaggio,  a  Rubens,  a  Rembrandt.  He  felt  the 
call  of  these  men,  but  instead  of  halting  at  appre- 
ciation, he  tried  to  use  them.  But  the  old 
masters,  like  the  lords  of  the  earth,  are  not  amen- 
able to  high-handed  demands. 

The  diversity  of  his  pursuits,  which  sprang 
from  a  desire  to  compete  with  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  smacks  of  the  dilettante.  His  great  mis- 
take was  that  he  did  not  separate  his  capabil- 
ities from  his  desires.  Had  he  done  so  he  would 
have  produced  small  figure  pieces  of  gem-like 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA     45 

richness  and  voluminous  composition.  Enthu- 
siasm is  not  the  proper  equipment  for  extended 
labour.  It  burns  out  too  soon,  and  is  kept  alive 
only  by  quick  and  brilliant  results.  For  this 
reason  his  pictures  are  viewed  to  better  effect 
framed  and  in  galleries  than  as  mural  decorations. 
In  trying  to  paint  monumental  subjects  on  exten- 
sive canvases  he  lost  that  spirit  of  organisation 
which  would  have  been  his  on  more  limited  sur- 
faces. One  of  his  finest  expositions  of  colour, 
La  Lutte  de  Jacob  avec  1'Ange,  in  a  chapel  at 
Saint  Sulpice,  is  ineffective  because  its  surface  is 
too  large  for  his  treatment  of  the  theme.  Dela- 
croix in  reality  was  a  painter  of  still-life  in  the 
broad  meaning  of  the  term,  just  as  Rembrandt 
and  Cezanne  were  still-life  painters.  He  failed 
in  the  accomplishment  of  his  larger  programme 
because  his  vision  was  too  restricted  to  permit 
him  to  weld  his  details  into  great  ensembles,  as 
Rubens  did.  His  ambition  outstripped  his  power, 
and  strive  as  he  might,  he  could  not  make  up 
the  discrepancy  by  reasoning.  Undoubtedly  he 
sensed  his  own  weakness,  for  all  his  days  he  was 
in  continual  pursuit  of  system.  System  was  to  him 
what  law  was  to  the  old  masters.  Herein  he  was 
reflecting  the  rationalistic  philosophers  of  his  day 
who  substituted  theory  for  observation. 

Were  all  Delacroix's  paintings  destroyed  and 
his  Journal  and  drawings  saved,  his  apport  to  art 
would  be  but  imperceptibly  decreased.  We  should 
still  possess  his  linear  compositions  and  his  colour 
theories  —  his  two  significant  gifts  to  modern 
art.  Without  the  liberation  of  draughtsmanship 
expressed  in  the  former,  Courbet's  struggle  would 
have  been  more  difficult,  and  rhythm  in  drawing 


46  MODERN  PAINTING 

would  have  had  to  wait  for  another  resuscitator. 
Without  his  colour  theories  Impressionism  would 
have  been  postponed  for  half  a  century;  Van 
Gogh  could  not  have  done  his  best  pictures;  and 
the  Pointillists,  with  their  system  of  comple- 
mentaries,  might  never  have  existed.  Delacroix 
was  the  first  to  speak  of  simultaneity  in  painting, 
on  which  phrase  has  recently  been  founded  a 
school;  and  he  sketched  a  dictionary  of  art  terms 
and  definitions  which  even  now,  after  fifty  years, 
is  far  more  intelligent  than  present-day  academic 
precepts. 

Let  us  regard  Delacroix  as  a  great  pioneer  who 
fought  against  the  zymotic  formalism  of  his  day 
and  by  so  doing  opened  up  a  new  era  of  expres- 
sion. He  is  the  link  in  the  chain  which  holds 
the  brilliant  gems  of  painting.  If  he  himself  fell 
short  of  genius,  he  nevertheless  fulfilled  a  destiny 
which  intrinsically  is  in  many  ways  more  fine:  he 
made  genius  possible  for  those  who  were  to  come 
after  him. 

The  other  man  who  contributed  vitally  to 
modern  colour  theories  was  J.  M.  W.  Turner, 
born  in  1775,  one  year  before  Constable.  Like 
Delacroix  he  had  ardent  and  influential  defenders; 
and  the  coincidence  is  emphasised  by  the  fad: 
that  between  these  two  great  colour  innovators 
there  existed  a  striking  thematic  similarity. 
Ruskin  took  care  that  Turner  should  taste  those 
beneficent  honours  which  the  world  generally 
withholds  from  a  painter  during  his  lifetime.  He 
accomplished  this  feat  by  praise  which  was  largely 
enthusiasm  and  by  criticism  which  spelled  par- 
tiality. But  a  panegyric  not  founded  on  accuracy 
and  authenticity  defeats  its  own  object  in  the 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      47 

end.  Turner  himself  remarked  that  Ruskin  dis- 
covered recondite  points  in  his  painting  of  which 
he,  as  the  artist,  was  ignorant.  This  might  have 
been  true,  or  it  might  have  been  sarcasm.  But 
whether  Ruskin  or  Turner  knew  more  about  the 
latter's  art,  the  fact  remains  that  the  author  of 
Modern  Painters  overestimated  the  painter  for  a 
reason  totally  inapposite  to  aesthetic  considera- 
tion :  —  the  almost  photographic  perfection  of  his 
canvases.  Later,  when  the  spirituel  Whistler 
tarnished  this  English  didactician's  reputation  for 
infallibility,  the  latter's  pronunciamentos  were 
questioned,  in  some  quarters  ridiculed.  And 
Turner,  accepted  because  of  Ruskin's  assurances, 
became  suspect. 

But  no  amount  of  effulgent  literary  criticism 
can  obscure  the  authentic  accomplishments  of 
this  poor  barber's  son.  Turner's  contributions 
to  the  colour  methods  of  the  eighties  were  too 
large,  and  his  imitators  too  bold,  for  the  fact  to 
be  longer  ignored.  In  his  Ulysses  Deriding  Poly- 
phemus, The  Fighting  Temeraire  and  especially 
in  Rain,  Steam  and  Speed,  he  had  begun  to  divide 
the  surfaces  of  his  objects  into  minute  touches  of 
different  colours —  not,  perhaps,  for  the  purpose 
of  heightening  the  emotional  qualities  of  the 
paintings  as  a  whole,  but  for  the  primitive  reason 
that  the  device  gave  accuracy  to  them  as  repre- 
sentations of  nature.  These  pictures  Monet  and 
Pissarro  studied  closely  during  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian War,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  result  of 
this  study  determined  the  direction  taken  by  the 
Impressionists.  Turner's  earlier  pictures  had  been 
too  sombre  to  meet  the  demand  for  brilliancy 
in  that  first  great  modern  school,  and  the  can- 


48  MODERN  POINTING 

vases  in  which  his  vision  of  sunlight  began  to  take 
form  had  not  yet  been  painted.  These  later 
pictures,  with  their  light  tonality  and  their  full 
use  of  misty  blue  and  gold,  had  a  further  influ- 
ence on  the  Impressionists'  conception  of  colour. 

When  Monet  and  Pissarro  went  to  London  in 
1871  they  had  been  habituated  to  the  use  of 
broad  flat  tones,  and  were  astonished  at  Turner's 
extraordinary  snow  and  ice  effects  which  were 
obtained  by  juxtaposing  little  spots  of  diverse 
colour  and  by  the  gradating  of  tones.  On  their 
return  to  France  they  both  made  use  of  this 
striking  artifice,  and  developed  it,  in  conjunction 
with  Delacroix's  theories,  into  what  later  an 
unknown  humorist  of  the  Charivari  named  Im- 
pressionism. This  process  was  given  further 
impetus  by  another  Frenchman,  Jongkind,  called 
the  European  Hiroshige.  There  is  more  than  a 
superficial  analogy  between  Jongkind  and  Turner; 
and  the  Impressionists,  first  under  the  influence 
of  Corot  and  Courbet,  found  the  effects  they 
sought  by  using  the  purity  of  Turner  with  the 
faflure  of  Jongkind.  It  was  thus  they  were 
brought  back  to  the  theories  of  Delacroix  which 
they  had  partially  abandoned.  This  return  had 
a  profound  raison  d'etre,  for  between  the  last 
phase  of  Delacroix  and  the  later  sketches  of 
Turner  there  is  a  similarity  which  was  apparent 
even  to  their  contemporaries.  But  though  the 
resemblance  was  as  pronounced  as  that  between 
Turner  and  the  Impressionists,  the  eulogists  of 
that  movement  chose  to  ignore  and,  in  some  cases, 
to  deny  it. 

This  new  method  of  using  colour  did  not  con- 
stitute the  only  debt  the  Impressionists  owed 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      49 

Turner.  They  also  found  in  him  an  added  in- 
spiration toward  freedom  of  arrangement  and 
unconventionality  of  design.  The  landscape 
painters  before  Turner's  day  conceived  their  out- 
of-door  pictures  in  more  or  less  definite  moulds. 
A  tree  in  one  man's  canvas,  being  an  idealistic 
conception,  was  difficult  of  differentiation  from 
a  tree  in  another's.  All  their  pictures  were  per- 
meated by  the  same  motif.  But  Turner,  along 
with  Constable  and  Bonington,  began  putting 
character  into  landscapes.  As  a  consequence 
their  pictures  exuded  a  new  freedom  of  arrange- 
ment. 

To  appreciate  Turner  fully  we  must  overlook 
his  astonishing  ability  for  transcription  —  a  heri- 
tage from  his  architectural  days  —  and  consider 
him  as  a  man  who  loved  nature  so  ardently  that 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  approach  it  intel- 
lectually. His  sketches,  both  in  water-colour  and 
oil,  were,  unlike  those  of  the  Impressionists,  rarely 
done  in  the  open.  He  conceived  them  in  pencil, 
wrote  upon  his  clouds,  trees  and  stones  the 
colours  he  saw  in  them,  and  later,  in  the  solitude 
of  his  studio,  "worked  them  up."  Had  the 
Impressionists,  after  their  frenzied  seances  before 
models,  taken  their  canvases  home,  organised  and 
modified  them,  they  would  no  doubt  have  pro- 
duced greater  net  results  artistically.  Organisa- 
tion, in  its  finest  sense,  comes  only  through 
contemplation  and  reflection;  and  while  Turner 
did  not  possess  the  genius  for  rhythm  in  any  of 
its  manifestations,  he  nevertheless  realised  that 
mere  truth  does  not  make  a  picture.  The  Sun  of 
Venice  Going  to  Sea  is  as  excellent  as  anything 
Monet  or  Sisley  has  ever  done.  In  Turner  there 


50  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  a  feeling  for  the  grandiose  such  as  few  moderns 
possess.  Did  this  gift  come  from  Claude  whom 
he  delighted  in  imitating?  Even  Constable  spoke 
of  a  Turner  canvas  as  the  most  complete  work  of 
genius  he  ever  saw.  But  this  was  the  beau  geste 
of  a  contemporary  who  wished  to  appear  broad- 
minded.  The  truth  lay  further  down  the  slope. 
Turner  undoubtedly  showed  genius  in  his  com- 
petent copying  of  even  the  most  insignificant  of 
of  nature's  accidents.  The  composition  of  The 
Devil's  Bridge  is  the  foundation  on  which  are 
built  many  of  Monet's  pictures;  and  the  Rain, 
Steam  and  Speed  canvas  can  hang  beside  La 
Gare  St.  Lazare  without  loss  to  either. 

Delacroix  re-established  an  Italian  mode  of 
expression  and  tried  to  make  of  it  a  modern  lan- 
guage. Turner,  in  a  new  language,  spoke  of 
ancient  things.  But  Courbet  ignored  all  method, 
and  withal  became  the  father  of  latter-day  art. 
In  him  was  the  embryo  of  that  distinctly  modern 
spirit  which  demands  visible  proof  before  believ- 
ing. Like  William  of  Orange,  he  arose  trium- 
phant above  every  opposition.  His  art  stemmed 
temperamentally  from  the  Dutch  and  Spaniards, 
for  while  he  imitated  no  one,  he  was  uncon- 
sciously influenced  by  many.  So  complete  was 
his  assimilation  of  great  men  that  in  his  expres- 
sion they  all  had  a  place.  He  himself  says  that 
he  studied  antiquity  as  a  swimmer  crosses  a  river. 
The  academicians  were  drowned  there.  So  was 
Delacroix.  Courbet  learned  in  his  passage  that 
in  adaptation  is  the  confession  of  sterility.  But 
though  he  avoided  paraphrasing  and  copying  the 
old  masters,  we  find  throughout  his  life  recur- 
ring traces  of  Van  Dyke,  Zurbaran,  Delacroix, 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      51 

Rembrandt,  El  Greco,  Gericault,  Ribera,  Velaz- 
quez and  that  little  known  Valencian  master, 
Juan  de  Juanes. 

Courbet  was  considered  an  ignorant,  vulgar 
and  brutal  peasant.  But  this  judgment  was  the 
outgrowth  of  public  miscomprehension  rather 
than  of  any  authentic  evidence  in  the  man  him- 
self. Courbet  was  the  epitome  of  that  unstudied 
naturalism  which  is  antipodal  to  the  hypocrisies 
of  society.  France,  during  his  day,  was  governed 
by  the  dictates  of  theatricalism.  Its  ideals  were 
those  of  Renaissance  Italy,  and  its  artistic  atti- 
tude reflected  a  refinement  of  vision  approaching 
decadence.  Courbet's  deportmental  crudities 
alone  were  a  source  of  antagonism,  and  when  to 
these  were  added  scorn  and  indifference  the  hos- 
tility against  him  became  violent.  But  tem- 
peramentally he  was  aristocratic.  The  peasant 
mind  is  fundamentally  traditional:  Courbet  was 
violently  revolutionary.  Nor  did  he  lack  fineness 
of  mind.  His  early  portraits  embodied  the  sub- 
tleties of  modelling  in  Rembrandt  as  well  as  the 
extraordinary  niceties  of  characterisation  in  El 
Greco.  The  compositions  of  his  pictures  alone 
belie  any  coarseness  of  fibre  in  the  man.  They 
are  founded  on  a  weakened  S  which,  since  the 
decay  of  Byzantine  art,  had  done  valiant  service 
for  the  most  exalted  painters  such  as  Rubens  and 
Tinteretto.  This  compositional  figure  appears, 
either  exact  or  varied,  in  his  Le  Combat  de 
Cerfs,  Le  Retour  de  la  Conference,  Chien  et 
Lievres,  and  L'Enterrement  a  Ornans. 

Courbet's  reputation  for  vulgarity  was  derived 
more  from  his  lack  of  facile  fluency,  so  common  in 
the  French  tradition,  than  from  a  basic  under- 


52  MODERN  PAINTING 

standing  of  the  structural  synthesis  of  his  work. 
And  this  misconception  of  him  was  aggravated  by 
his  being  the  first  painter  unwilling  to  accept 
praise  as  the  public  chose  to  dole  it  out.  He 
was  a  self-advertiser,  and  such  men  as  George 
Bernard  Shaw  are  but  echoes  of  his  methods.  He 
pushed  his  way  to  the  front  unceasingly,  and 
continually  theorised  as  a  means  of  silencing  his 
adversaries.  He  regarded  all  public  demonstra- 
tion as  blague,  and  later  in  life  carried  this  atti- 
tude into  politics.  Whistler,  his  pupil,  was  quick 
to  sense  the  advantage  of  his  teacher's  methods; 
and  it  is  the  irony  of  fate  that  this  ineffectual 
American  was  believed  and  respected  while  Cour- 
bet  was  abused  and  ridiculed  and  forced  to  die 
in  exile.  He  had  carried  his  assaults  too  far. 
"To  be  not  only  a  painter  but  a  man,"  he  wrote 
at  one  time.  "To  create  a  living  art  —  this  is 
my  aim."  It  is  a  masterly  statement  of  his  real 
ambitions.  He  was  intensely  interested  in  life, 
as  were  Rubens  and  Cellini.  'You  want  me  to 
paint  a  goddess?"  he  exclaimed.  "Show  me 
one!"  In  this  mot  he  summed  up  the  very  spirit 
of  modern  times.  It  expressed  the  new  realism 
found  in  such  widely  separated  men  as  Dos- 
toievsky, Zola,  George  Moore,  Conrad,  Andreiev, 
Theodore  Dreiser,  Gerhart  Hauptmann,  Richard 
Strauss,  Debussy,  Korngold,  Sibelius,  Manet,  Re- 
noir, Sorolla  and  Zorn. 

It  is  strange  how  Courbet,  so  far  removed 
from  the  French  temperament,  should,  at  the 
crucial  period  of  his  life,  have  reverted  to  a 
French  gesture  by  refusing  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor.  But  in  that  famous  letter  of  rejection, 
written  in  a  cafe  and  mailed  with  a  grandiloquent 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      53 

toss  in  the  presence  of  Fantin-Latour,  he  summed 
up  aptly  the  man  of  genius  who,  though  avid 
for  honour,  throws  it  away  at  the  moment  of 
attainment.  Not  even  Napoleon  was  more 
concerned  with  the  thoughts  of  posterity  than 
Courbet,  and  some  of  the  artist's  letters  are  not 
dissimilar  in  tone  to  the  bombastic  manifestos  of 
certain  ultra-modern  schools.  At  the  time  of  his 
first  exhibition  he  wrote  to  Bruyas:  "I  stupefy 
the  entire  world.  I  am  triumphant  not  only 
over  the  moderns  but  the  ancients  as  well.  Here 
is  the  Louvre  gallery.  The  Champs  Elysees  does 
not  exist,  nor  the  Luxembourg.  There  is  no 
more  Champs  de  Mars.  I  have  thrown  con- 
sternation into  the  world  of  art."  This  spirit 
of  monumental  self-confidence,  so  startling  to  a 
generation  whose  taste  was  measured  by  the 
decadent  poetry  of  Beaudelaire,  brought  frantic 
sarcasm  hurtling  about  his  head.  This  troubled 
Courbet  little.  He  valued  friendships  only  in 
so  far  as  they  were  useful.  It  was  Meissonier  who 
said  in  a  Paris  salon,  when  standing  before  the 
famous  Femme  de  Munich  which  Courbet  had 
painted  in  a  few  hours  for  Baron  Remberg:  "It 
is  no  longer  a  question  of  art,  but  of  dignity. 
From  now  on  Courbet  must  be  as  one  dead  to  us." 
Charles  Beaudelaire,  who  helped  fight  the  battle 
for  Wagner,  Poe,  Delacroix,  Manet  and  Monet, 
tentatively  praised  him  at  first,  but  later  allied 
himself  with  the  public  and  became  his  bitterest 
assailant.  It  was  not  surprising.  A  poet  so 
superficial  as  to  call  Delacroix  "a  haunted  lake 
of  blood"  could  not  be  expected  to  appreciate 
the  terre  a  terre  qualities  of  this  master  of  Ornans. 
And  Courbet  was  so  little  French  that  he  was 


54  MODERN  PAINTING 

incomprehensible  to  his  national  contemporaries. 
He  disclaimed  all  tradition,  swore  he  had  no 
forerunners,  and  struck  blindly  into  the  unknown. 
For  a  man  without  genius  this  would  have  been 
fatal,  but,  after  all,  only  a  genius  would  attempt 
such  things. 

Courbet  was  disgusted  with  the  allegory  and 
romance  of  his  time.  His  nature  cried  aloud  for 
a  pose  that  was  natural,  for  a  landscape  that  re- 
sembled the  out-of-doors,  for  objects  in  which 
life  was  discernible.  Consequently  the  critics 
and  painters  of  his  day  put  him  aside  either 
indifferently  or  insolently.  They  could  not  under- 
stand a  work  of  art  which  did  not  delineate  a 
literary  episode  or  in  which  the  postures  were 
not  taken  direct  from  the  theatre.  Courbet 
needed  no  literature  to  paint  great  pictures.  He 
went  straight  to  nature,  and  his  compositions 
grew  out  of  his  sheer  enjoyment  in  visible  objects, 
whether  they  were  dramatic  or  not.  To  the 
public  his  pictures  appeared  ugly,  even  repellent. 
Here  was  a  man  who  painted  a  funeral  realistic- 
ally —  Dieu  men  garde!  With  only  the  example 
of  canvases  rilled  with  familiar  gods  and  goddesses 
and  melting  nudes  in  golden  pink,  he  dared  set 
forth,  in  a  sacred  theme,  peasants'  faces  and 
peasants'  shoes,  cloudy  skies,  and  holes  in  the 
brown  earth.  To  those  who  had  come  to  look 
upon  art  as  something  ethereal  and  evanescent, 
L'Enterrement  a  Ornans  was  more  than  blas- 
phemy. It  was  this  picture,  falling  like  a  bomb 
into  the  midst  of  the  vagaries  of  his  time,  that 
sounded  the  death  knell  of  romanticism.  It  was 
the  last  spade  of  earth  on  the  graves  of  the  clas- 
sicists. The  mere  picture  was  sensation  enough, 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      55 

but  Courbet  was  not  content  to  let  the  matter 
rest  there.  At  the  time  of  his  exhibition  in  1855, 
held  in  a  barrack  of  his  own  building  on  the 
Rond  Point  de  1'Alma,  he  wrote  a  defensive  and 
provocative  preface  to  his  catalogue.  In  it  he 
proclaimed  himself  not  only  the  first  realist,  but 
realism  itself. 

Gericault's  Radeau  de  la  Meduse  and  Dela- 
croix's Dante  et  Virgile  aux  Enfers  were  accept- 
able to  the  public,  the  one  because  of  its  dramatic 
interest,  the  other  because  of  its  literature.  But 
L'Enterrement  a  Ornans  entirely  lacked  the  pop- 
ular qualities  of  these  two  other  pictures.  It  was 
full  of  rugged  and  hardy  precision.  Its  insolent 
ugliness  of  subject-matter  and  its  implied  indif- 
ference to  all  tradition,  seemed  to  express  the 
quintessence  of  artistic  degradation  and  sordid- 
ness.  At  first  view  the  picture  appears  to  have 
been  inspired  by  El  Greco's  Obsequies  of  the 
Count  of  Orgaz,  but  it  is  more  likely  that  these 
peasants  of  Ornans,  each  a  notable  of  the  town, 
with  their  indifferent  expressions  and  awkward 
gestures,  were  attributable  to  The  Martyrdom  of 
Saint  Bartholomew  of  Ribera  and  La  Folle  of 
Gericault,  rather  than  to  the  master  of  Toledo. 
But  that  the  Spanish  helped  paint  it  is  evident: 
some  parts  of  the  landscape  are  taken  bodily 
from  their  canvases.  Meier-Graefe  states  that 
this  funeral  picture,  like  most  of  the  representa- 
tive pictures  of  the  nineteenth  century,  is  not 
representative  of  the  artist  himself.  But  did 
Meier-Graefe  understand  more  profoundly  the 
synthesis  of  composition  found  in  individual 
painters,  he  would  have  seen  that  here  was  the 
famous  S  composition  which  was  used  throughout 


56  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  painter's  life.  Instead  of  being  set  on  end, 
as  was  the  practice  of  the  Italians,  it  is  used  later- 
ally and  extends  from  left  to  right  in  depth. 

In  colour  also  this  picture  is  representative  of 
Courbet,  for  it  shows  his  limitations  in  that 
medium.  Delacroix  brought  a  new  palette  to 
painting,  but  could  not  use  it.  Courbet  con- 
tented himself  with  a  palette  as  meagre  as  that 
of  Caravaggio  and  Guercino.  And  yet,  though 
colour  has  come  latterly  to  mean  tactile  form  in 
its  highest  sense,  this  black  canvas,  when  placed 
beside  either  an  Ingres,  a  David,  a  Delacroix  or 
a  Gerard,  appears  less  flat  and  inconsequential 
than  the  latter.  The  form  is  even  suggestive  of 
Rembrandt,  Giotto,  Cezanne  and  Renoir. 

Champfleury  was  the  only  friend  of  Courbet 
who  dared  defend  him.  Delacroix  was  set  against 
him,  and  the  critics,  without  understanding  him, 
obscured  the  true  importance  of  his  art  by  talking 
of  his  want  of  transcendentalism  and  sentiment. 
Especially  were  his  landscapes  the  butt  of  their 
ridicule,  for  painters  up  to  that  time  had  made 
use  of  conventional  arrangements  of  dainty  trees 
copied  for  their  drawing  and  tone.  In  Courbet 
all  this  was  changed.  He  organised  landscapes 
as  he  did  still-lives  and  nudes.  Objects,  as  such, 
meant  nothing  to  him.  In  this  he  struck  a  new 
and  modern  note  which  the  good  people  of  his 
day  considered  not  only  bad  art  but  a  slur  upon 
the  spiritual  meanings  of  nature.  Even  in  Les 
Baigneuses,  where  the  figures  are  unimportant, 
the  trees  are  superb.  In  La  Grotte  he  went 
further,  for  here  the  figure  was  part  of  the  whole. 
His  paintings  of  the  hills  about  Ornans  had  a 
movement  which  gave  off  a  sensation  of  weight 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      57 

entirely  new  in  painting.  In  Les  Grands  Cha- 
taigniers  he  reached  his  apogee  in  landscape 
painting.  This  picture  is  greater  than  those  of 
any  of  the  Englishmen. 

Though  many  critics  have  written  that  Mil- 
let influenced  Courbet,  the  reverse  is  the  truth. 
The  former's  life  work  was  largely  a  repetition 
of  the  lights  and  darks  found  in  Courbet's  earlier 
pictures.  Les  Casseurs  de  Pierres  is  far  greater 
than  anything  Millet  has  ever  done,  despite  the 
vast  popularity  of  such  purely  sentimental  pict- 
ures as  The  Angelus  and  The  Man  with  the  Hoe. 
Courbet  could  never  have  been  satisfied  with 
the  angularity  and  absence  of  rhythm  in  the 
other's  work.  In  Millet's  best  canvases  one 
finds  at  most  only  a  parallelism  of  lines,  and  in 
his  lesser  pictures  even  this  amateurish  attempt 
at  organisation  is  lacking.  But  in  Les  Casseurs 
de  Pierres  the  arrangement  is  one  which  recalls 
the  competency  of  linear  balance  and  develop- 
ment in  Tintoretto's  Minerva  Expelling  Mars. 

When  Courbet  entered  painting,  he  had  neither 
prejudices  nor  a  parti  pris.  He  tested  his  ability 
before  engaging  his  full  complement  of  resources. 
Though  untutored,  he  had  that  cast  of  intel- 
ligence which  no  amount  of  study  can  produce 
and  no  amount  of  adverse  criticism  influence. 
Delacroix,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  archetype  of 
the  highly  cultured  and  educated  man.  He  fore- 
saw the  necessity  for  radical  reform,  but  was 
unable  to  bring  it  about  significantly.  Courbet 
instinctively  projected  himself  into  that  void  at 
the  brink  of  which  tradition  halts  and  the  un- 
known begins.  And  because  he  was  a  man  of 
genius  he  did  not  return  empty-handed. 


58  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  art  of  Courbet  was  too  aristocratic  to  be 
appreciated.  Not  aristocratic  in  the  Delacroix 
sense,  but  isolated  and  superior.  Rejecting  the 
colour  discoveries  of  his  day,  he  created  his  own 
materials.  Delacroix  foreshadowed  the  medium 
which  was  to  serve  as  a  vehicle  for  the  achieve- 
ment of  future  generations,  but  it  was  Courbet 
who  brought  to  art  a  new  mental  attitude  without 
which  there  would  be  no  excuse  for  modern 
painting.  By  turning  men's  thoughts  from 
ancient  Italy  to  the  actualities  of  their  own  day, 
and  by  expelling  the  literary  canvas  from  art, 
he  left  those  who  came  after  him  free  to  evolve 
a  medium  which  would  translate  the  new  vision. 
Delacroix's  heritage  to  art  was  intellectual,  Cour- 
bet's  dynamic.  And  though  objectively  the 
work  of  Courbet  is  the  uglier  and  less  gracious, 
in  it  there  is  more  of  the  sublime.  But  both  men 
are  indispensable,  and  have  a  just  claim  to  the 
eternal  respect  of  posterity. 

The  construction  of  form  as  voluminous  phe- 
nomena —  that  integer  of  modern  painting  which 
was  lacking  in  Delacroix,  Turner  and  Courbet, 
but  which  has  become  one  of  the  leading  pre- 
occupations of  present-day  artists  —  was  intro- 
duced by  Honore  Daumier.  This  painter  who, 
unlike  his  three  great  contemporaries,  fought  for 
the  pure  love  of  the  fight,  was  celebrated  as  a 
caricaturist  at  twenty-five.  Such  fame  was  war- 
ranted, for  he  was  unquestionably  the  greatest 
and  most  trenchant  caricaturist  the  world  has 
ever  produced.  From  1835  to  1848  he  made 
capital  of  all  those  many  catastrophes  which 
overtook  France.  Only  the  curtailing  of  the 
freedom  of  the  press  on  December  2,  1848,  put  an 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      59 

end  to  his  career  as  publicist.  This  culmination 
of  his  editorial  activities  was  a  beneficial  thing 
for  both  Daumier  and  the  world,  for  it  permitted 
him  freedom  to  devote  himself  wholly  to  the 
development  of  the  larger  side  of  his  genius.  He 
endeavoured  to  interest  his  friends  in  his  painting; 
but  too  long  had  he  been  known  as  a  critic  of 
current  topics  for  them  to  look  with  serious  eyes 
upon  his  more  solid  endeavours. 

But  though  neglected  by  his  friends,  Daumier 
holds  a  position  of  tremendous  importance  in 
relation  to  the  moderns.  His  work  developed 
along  lines  unthought-of  by  either  Delacroix  or 
Courbet.  Even  his  cartoons  were  more  than 
clever  pictorial  comments  on  national  events. 
Intrinsically  they  were  great  pieces  of  rugged 
flesh  which  had  all  the  appearance  of  having  been 
chiselled  out  of  a  solid  medium  with  a  dull  tool. 
The  richness  of  his  line  is  as  complete  as  in 
Rembrandt's  etchings;  and  his  economy  of  means 
reached  a  point  to  which  painters  had  not  yet 
attained.  His  significance,  however,  lies  more 
especially  in  his  new  method  of  obtaining  volume 
than  in  the  flexibility  of  his  line  drawings.  He 
built  his  pictures  in  tone  first.  The  drawing 
came  afterward  as  a  direct  result  of  the  tonal 
volumes.  This  new  manner  of  painting  permitted 
him  a  greater  subtlety  and  fluency  than  Courbet 
possessed.  In  fact,  Daumier's  comprehension  of 
form  in  the  subjective  sense  was  greater  than  that 
of  any  Frenchman  up  to  his  time.  Compare, 
for  instance,  Daumier's  canvas,  Les  Lutteurs, 
with  Courbet's  picture  of  the  same  name.  The 
massiveness  of  the  one  is  monumental.  One  feels 
the  weight  of  the  two  struggling  men,  heavy  and 


60  MODERN  POINTING 

shifting,  clinging  and  panting.  They  are  mod- 
elled by  a  craftsman  who  can  juggle  deftly  with 
his  means.  In  Courbet's  picture  the  figures  are 
seen  carefully  copied  in  a  strained  pose  by  one 
who  has  not  the  complete  mastery  of  his  tools. 
In  Daumier's  picture  we  also  sense  that  elusive 
but  vital  quality  called  mental  attitude.  Su- 
perficially it  is  almost  indistinguishable  from 
its  negation,  but  to  those  who  know  its  significance, 
it  is  of  permeating  importance. 

Contour  and  shading  to  his  forerunners  had 
meant  two  separated  and  distinct  steps  in  the 
construction  of  form.  Daumier  created  both 
qualities  simultaneously  as  one  emotion.  Depth 
with  other  painters  was  obtained  by  carrying 
their  figures  into  the  background  by  the  means 
of  line  and  perspective.  With  Daumier  it  meant 
a  plastic  building  up  of  volume  from  the  back- 
ground forward.  The  feeling  we  have  before  his 
canvases  that  we  are  looking  at  form  itself  and 
not  merely  an  excellent  representation  of  it,  is  as 
strong  as  it  is  in  a  greater  way  when  we  stand 
before  a  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  In  this  he  gave 
proof  that  he  was  a  draughtsman  in  the  most 
vital  sense.  Unless  he  had  felt  form  uniquely, 
Le  Repos  des  Saltimbanques  and  Le  Bain  would 
have  been  impossible  of  creation.  This  last 
picture  sums  up  what  Carriere  aspired  to  but 
failed  to  attain. 

Recalling  the  great  masters  of  form  we  instinc- 
tively visualise  Michelangelo  first.  For  this  rea- 
son perhaps  Michelangelo  is  regarded  the  major 
influence  in  Daumier.  "//  avait  du  Michel  Ange 
dans  la  peau,"  say  the  French:  and  certain  it 
is  that  Daumier's  colossal  simplicity  and  feeling 


w 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      61 

for  tadtility  were  derived  from  the  Renaissance 
master.  But  only  in  one  picture,  a  composition 
called  La  Republique  —  1848,  do  we  find  any 
direct  and  conscious  influence.  Frankly  this  is 
but  a  modernisation  of  one  of  the  sibyls  on  the 
ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  The  truth  is 
Daumier  is  more  akin  to  Rembrandt  than  to 
Michelangelo.  But  there  is  in  him  none  of  the 
conscious  copying  of  Rembrandt  that  we  find, 
for  instance,  in  Joshua  Reynolds.  The  latter, 
admiring  Rembrandt,  essayed  to  equal  his  power 
by  imitating  his  externals  with  academic  pro- 
cesses. Daumier,  temperamentally  affiliated  with 
his  master,  went  deeper.  Putting  aside  the 
results  of  Rembrandt's  final  brush  strokes,  he 
studied  the  very  functioning  procedure  of  his 
art.  Both  used  the  human  figure  as  a  terrain 
for  the  unceasing  struggle  of  light  against  dark. 
In  the  process  of  painting  the  infinite  play  and 
by-play  of  opposed  values  on  a  given  theatre, 
they  produced  form  as  an  inevitable  result. 

A  critic  has  stated  of  Daumier:  "He  left 
hardly  anything  but  sketches,  splashes  of  colour 
that  resolve  themselves  into  faces.  ...  It  is 
said  without  attempt  at  profundity.  Neverthe- 
less the  remark  unsuspectingly  touches  the  crucial 
point  of  Daumier's  significance.  The  very  reso- 
lution of  those  "splashes  of  colour"  into  faces  is 
the  prefiguration  of  the  modern  conception  of 
form.  In  this  particular  Daumier,  even  more 
than  Rembrandt,  was  the  avant-courier  of 
Cezanne.  This  latter  artist,  through  his  concern 
with  the  play  of  one  colour  on  another,  gave 
birth  to  form  more  intensely  than  did  either 
of  the  older  men.  Too  much  stress  cannot  be 


62  MODERN  POINTING 

laid  on  Daumier's  contribution  to  modern  paint- 
ing. f  By  regarding  the  two  drawings,  La  Vierge 
a  1'Ecuelle  and  Renaude  et  Angelique —  the  one 
by  Correggio  in  chalk,  the  other  by  Delacroix 
in  water-colour  —  we  perceive  the  attainment  of 
form  by  less  profound  methods.  But  neither 
possesses  the  significance  of  Daumier's  work. 

Of  Daumier's  colour  little  need  be  said.  At 
times  it  emerges  from  its  sombreness  and  blossoms 
forth  in  all  the  hot  softness  of  now  the  Venetians, 
of  again  the  Spaniards;  but  compared  with  the 
artist's  genius  for  plastic  form  it  is  of  subsidiary 
importance. 

Although  the  inception  of  Daumier's  greatness 
can  be  traced  to  Rembrandt,  he  reacted  to  many 
influences.  Suggestions  of  Monnier  and  Gran- 
ville  are  to  be  found  in  his  work.  Decamps's 
Sonneurs  de  Cloches  was  studied  by  him  and 
emulated.  His  simplifications  stemmed  from 
Ingres,  and  his  caricature  of  Guizot  had  the  same 
qualities  as  that  master's  portraits.  Delacroix 
also  had  some  trifling  influence  on  him  in  such 
paintings  as  Don  Quichotte.  But  Daumier's 
influence  on  others  is  more  direct  and  far-reaching 
than  his  own  garnerings  of  inspiration.  He  fore- 
shadowed the  formal  abbreviations  of  Toulouse- 
Lautrec,  Forain  and  Steinlen,  and  he  affected, 
more  than  is  commonly  admitted,  the  works  of 
Manet,  Degas,  and  Van  Gogty.  In  his  sculptured 
pieces,  Ratapoil  and  Les  Emigrants,  he  paved 
the  way  for  Meunier  and  Rodin.  Even  such 
minor  men  as  Max  Beerbohm  learned  much  from 
him  without  understanding  him.  And  apart  from 
the  vital  new  methods  he  brought  to  painting, 
the  originality  of  his  subject-matter  led  modern 


PRECURSORS  OF  THE  NEW  ERA      63 

men  to  copy  him  thematically.  Le  Drame  fath- 
ered a  whole  series  of  Degas's  paintings. 

Daumier  is  only  beginning  to  receive  the  intel- 
ligent appreciation  which  in  time  may  engulf 
his  eminent  contemporary,  Courbet.  For  if 
choice  there  is  between  the  intrinsically  artistic 
achievements  of  the  painter  of  L'Enterrement  a 
Ornans  and  the  creator  of  Silene,  the  preference 
rests  with  Daumier. 

The  forces  underlying  the  development  of 
genius,  working  in  conjunction  with  the  right 
circumstances,  produce  the  fertilising  methods 
which  nature  uses  to  bring  about  a  final  flower- 
ing of  a  long  period  of  intense  germination. 
Before  the  greatest  eras  of  all  art  the  battles 
have  been  fought  and  won.  The  descendants 
of  the  pioneers  become  the  introspective  and 
creative  souls  who  open,  free  from  the  stain  of 
combat,  to  the  sun  of  achievement.  Delacroix, 
Turner,  Courbet,  Daumier  —  these  are  the  men 
who  cleared  the  ground  and  thereby  made  pos- 
sible a  new  age  of  aesthetic  creation.  To  Dela- 
croix belongs  the  credit  for  giving  an  impetus  to 
the  vitalisation  of  colour,  and  for  freeing  drawing 
from  the  formalisms  of  the  past.  Turner  raised 
the  tonality  of  colour,  and  introduced  a  new 
method  for  its  application.  Courbet  heightened 
uniformly  the  signification  of  objects  in  painting, 
and  handed  down  a  mental  attitude  of  untra- 
ditional  relativity.  And  Daumier  conceived  a 
new  vision  of  formal  construction.  These  men 
were  the  pillars  of  modern  painting. 


Ill 

EDOUARD  MANET 

THE  purely  pictorial  has  always  been  rel- 
ished by  the  public.  The  patterns  of 
the  mosaicists  and  very  early  primitives, 
the  figured  stuffs  of  the  East  and 
South,  the  vases  of  China  and  Persia,  the 
frescos  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii,  the  drawings 
and  prints  of  old  Japan  —  all  are  examples  of 
utilitarian  art  during  epochs  when  the  public 
took  delight  in  the  contemplation  of  images. 
Even  the  delicate  designs  on  Greek  pottery,  the 
rigid  and  ponderous  arts  of  architectural  Egypt 
and  the  drawings  and  adorned  totem  poles  of 
the  North  American  Indians  are  relics  of  times 
when  the  demand  for  art  was  created  by  the 
masses.  For  the  most  part  all  these  early  crafts 
were  limited  to  simple  designs,  wholly  obvious 
to  the  most  rudimentary  mind.  The  ancients 
were  content  with  a  representation  of  a  natural 
object,  the  likeness  of  a  familiar  animal,  the 
symmetry  of  an  ornamental  border,  an  effigy  of 
a  god  in  which  their  abstract  conceptions  were 
given  concrete  form.  At  that  time  the  artist 
was  only  a  craftsman  —  a  man  with  a  commun- 
istic mind,  content  to  follow  the  people's  dictates 
and  to  reflect  their  taste.  Art  was  then  demo- 
cratic, understood  and  admired  by  all.  It  did 
not  raise  its  head  about  the  mean  level;  it  was 
abecedary,  and  consequently  comprehensible. 


EDOUARD  MANET  65 

When  the  Greek  ideal  of  fluent  movement  took 
birth  in  art  and,  became  disseminated,  drawing, 
painting  and  sculpture  began  to  grow  more 
rhythmic  and  individual.  Slowly  at  first  and 
then  more  and  more  swiftly,  art  became  insulated. 
The  popular  joy  in  the  native  crafts,  despite  the 
impetus  of  centuries  behind  it,  decreased  steadily. 
The  antagonism  of  the  masses  to  the  artist  sprang 
up  simultaneously  with  the  disgust  of  the  artist 
for  the  masses.  It  was  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  artist's  mind  developing  beyond  them.  He 
could  not  understand  why  they  were  no  longer 
in  accord  with  him;  and  they,  finding  him  in 
turn  unfathomable,  considered  him  either  irra- 
tional or  given  over  to  fantastic  buffoonery.  So 
long  had  they  been  the  dictator  of  his  vision  that 
his  emancipation  from  their  prescriptions  left 
them  astounded  and  angered  at  his  audacity. 
The  nobles  then,  feeling  it  incumbent  upon  them 
to  defend  this  new  luxury  of  art,  stepped  into  the 
breach,  and  for  a  time  the  people  blindly  pat- 
terned their  attitude  on  that  of  their  superiors. 
Later  came  the  disintegration  of  the  nobility; 
its  caste  being  lost,  the  people  no  more  imitated 
it.  From  that  time  on,  although  there  were  a 
few  connoisseurs,  the  large  majority  was  hostile 
to  the  artist,  and  made  it  as  difficult  as  possible 
for  him  to  live.  He  was  looked  upon  as  a  mad- 
man who  threatened  the  entire  social  fabric. 
His  isolation  was  severe  and  complete;  and  while 
many  painters  strove  to  effect  a  reinstatement  in 
public  favour,  art  for  300  years  forced  its  way 
through  a  splendid  evolution  in  the  face  of  neg- 
lect, suspicion  and  ridicule. 

For  so  many  generations  had  the  public  looked 


66  MODERN  PAINTING 

upon  art  as  the  manifestation  of  a  disordered 
and  dangerous  brain  that  they  found  it  difficult 
to  recognise  a  man  in  whose  work  was  the  very 
pictorial  essense  they  had  originally  admired. 
This  man  was  Edouard  Manet.  Instead  of 
being  welcomed  for  his  reversion  to  decoration, 
strangely  enough  he  was  considered  as  dangerous 
as  his  contemporary  heretics,  Delacroix  and 
Courbet.  Courbet  was  at  the  zenith  of  his  un- 
popularity when  Manet  terminated  his  appren- 
ticeship under  Couture.  The  young  painter 
had  had  numerous  clashes  with  his  academic 
master,  and  the  latter  had  prophesied  for  him  a 
career  as  reprehensible  as  Daumier's.  Spurred  on 
by  such  incompetent  rebukes,  Manet  determined 
to  launch  himself  single-handed  into  the  vortex 
of  the  aesthetic  struggle.  This  was  in  1857.  For 
two  years  thereafter  he  put  in  his  time  to  good 
purpose.  He  travelled  in  Holland,  Germany 
and  Italy,  and  copied  Rembrandt,  Velazquez, 
Titian  and  Tintoretto.  These  youthful  prefer- 
ences give  us  the  key  to  his  later  developments. 
In  1859  he  painted  his  Le  Buveur  d'Absinthe, 
a  canvas  which  showed  all  the  ear-marks  of  the 
romantic  studio,  and  which  exemplified  the  pro- 
pensities of  the  student  for  simplification.  It  was 
a  superficial,  if  enthusiastic,  piece  of  work,  and 
the  Salon  of  that  year  was  fully  justified  in  re- 
jecting it.  Two  years  later  Manet  had  another 
opportunity  to  expose.  In  the  meantime  he  had 
painted  his  La  Nymphe  Surprise  which,  though 
one  of  his  best  canvases,  contained  all  the  influ- 
ence of  a  hurriedly  digested  Rembrandt  and  a 
Dutch  Titian. 

In    1861    these    influences    were    still    at    work, 


EDOUARD  MANET  67 

but  the  Salon  not  only  accepted  his  Le  Guitarrero 
but,  for  some  unaccountable  reason,  awarded  it 
with  an  honourable  mention.  In  this  picture, 
Manet's  first  Spanish  adaptation,  are  also  traces 
of  other  men.  Goya  and  even  Murillo  are  here 
—  the  greys  of  Velazquez  and  Courbet's  modern 
attitude  toward  realism.  In  this  canvas  one  sees 
for  the  first  time  evidences  of  its  creator's  tech- 
nical dexterity,  a  characteristic  which  later  he 
was  to  develop  to  so  astonishing  a  degree.  But 
this  picture,  while  conspicuously  able,  is,  like 
L'Enfant  a  1'Epee  and  also  Les  Parents  de  1'Ar- 
tiste,  the  issue  of  immaturity.  Such  paintings 
are  little  more  than  the  adroit  studies  of  a  highly 
talented  pupil  inspired  by  the  one-figure  arrange- 
ments of  Velazquez,  Mazo  and  Carreno.  Where 
Manet  improved  on  the  average  student  was  in  his 
realistic  methods.  While  he  did  not  present  the 
aspect  of  nature  in  full,  after  the  manner  of 
Daubigny  and  Troyon,  he  stated  its  generalisa- 
tions by  painting  it  as  seen  through  half-closed 
eyes,  its  parts  accentuated  by  the  blending  of 
details  into  clusters  of  light  and  shadow.  This 
method  of  visualisation  gives  a  more  forceful 
impression  as  an  image  than  can  a  mere  accurate 
transcription.  As  slight  an  innovation  as  was 
this  form  of  painting,  it  represented  Manet's  one 
point  of  departure  from  tradition,  although  it 
was  in  truth  but  a  modification  of  the  traditional 
manner  of  copying  nature.  The  public,  however, 
saw  in  it  something  basically  heretical,  and 
derided  it  as  a  novelty.  The  habit  of  ridicule 
toward  any  deviation  from  artistic  precedent  had 
become  thoroughly  fixed,  ever  since  Delacroix's 
heterodoxy. 


68  MODERN  PAINTING 

It  was  not  until  1862  that  Manet,  as  the  in- 
dependent and  professional  painter,  was  felt.  Up 
to  this  time  his  talent  and  capabilities  had  out- 
stripped his  powers  of  ideation.  But  with  the 
appearance  of  Lola  de  Valence  the  man's  solidar- 
ity was  evident.  This  picture  was  exposed  with 
thirteen  other  works  at  Martinet's  the  year  follow- 
ing. It  was  hung  beside  the  accepted  and  fam- 
iliar Fontainbleau  painters,  Corot,  Rousseau  and 
Diaz;  and  almost  precipitated  a  riot  because  of 
its  informalities.  In  these  fourteen  early  Manets 
are  discoverable  the  artist's  first  tendencies 
towards  simplification  for  other  than  academic 
reasons.  Here  the  abbreviations  and  economies, 
unlike  those  in  Le  Buveur  d'Absinthe,  constitute 
a  genuine  inclination  toward  emphasising  the 
spontaneity  of  vision.  By  presenting  a  picture, 
free  from  the  stress  of  confusing  items,  the  eye 
is  not  seduced  into  the  by-ways  of  detail,  but 
permitted  to  receive  the  image  as  an  ensemble. 
This  impulse  toward  simplification  was  prefigured 
in  his  Angelina  now  hanging  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gallery.  Here  he  modelled  with  broad,  flat 
planes  of  sooty  black  and  chalky  white,  between 
which  there  were  no  transitional  tones.  While 
in  this  Manet  was  imitating  the  externals  of 
Daumier,  he  failed  to  approach  that  master's 
form.  Consequently  he  never  achieved  the  plas- 
ticity of  volume  which  Daumier,  alone  among  the 
modern  men,  had  possessed.  However,  despite 
Manet's  failure  to  attain  pliability,  these  early 
paintings  are,  in  every  way,  sincere  efforts  toward 
the  creation  of  an  individual  style.  It  was  only 
later,  after  his  first  intoxicating  taste  of  notoriety, 
that  the  arriviste  spirit  took  possession  of  him  and 


EDOUARD  MANET  69 

led  him  to  that  questionable  and  unenviable 
terminus,  popularity.  One  can  imagine  him, 
drunk  with  eulogy,  reading  some  immodest  dec- 
laration of  Courbet's  in  which  was  set  forth  that 
great  man's  egoistic  confidence,  and  saying  to 
himself:  "  Tiens!  II  faut  que  faille  plus  loin." 

The  famous  Salon  des  Refuses,  called  by  some 
critics  of  the  day  the  Salon  des  Reprouves,  gave 
Manet  his  chance  to  state  in  striking  fashion  his 
beliefs  in  relation  to  aesthetics.  For  whereas 
mere  realism  could  no  longer  excite  the  animosity 
of  the  official  Salon  jury,  as  it  had  done  twenty 
years  before,  immorality  —  or,  as  Manet  chose 
to  put  it,  franchise  —  could.  Therefore  Manet 
was  barred  from  the  company  of  the  Barbizon 
school  and  the  other  favourites  of  the  day.  In  the 
Salon  des  Refuses,  which  must  be  held  to  the 
credit  of  Napoleon  III,  those  painters  who  had 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  academic  judges 
were  allowed  a  hearing.  Whistler,  Jongkind, 
Pissarro  and  Manet  here  made  history.  Manet 
sent  Le  Bain,  which,  through  the  insistence  of 
the  public,  has  come  to  be  called  Le  Dejeuner 
sur  1'Herbe.  But  despite  the  precedent  of  Gior- 
gione's  Rural  Concert  (the  Concert  Champetre 
in  the  Louvre),  it  was  looked  upon  only  as  the 
latest  manifestation  of  degeneracy  in  a  man  who 
gave  every  promise  of  becoming  a  moral  pariah. 
The  nude,  contrasted  as  it  was  with  attired  fig- 
ures, was  too  suggestive  of  sheer  nakedness.  Had 
the  nude  stood  alone,  as  in  Ingres's  La  Source, 
or  among  other  nudes,  as  in  Ingres's  Le  Bain 
Turc,  the  picture  would  have  caused  no  com- 
ment. Its  departures  in  method  were  not  extrav- 
agant. The  scene  is  laid  out  of  doors,  yet  it 


yo  MODERN  PAINTING 

bears  all  the  evidences  of  the  studio  conception; 
and  those  lights  and  reflections  which  later  were 
brought  to  such  perfection  in  the  pictures  of  the 
Impressionists  and  Renoir,  are  wholly  absent. 
But  in  one  corner  is  a  beautifully  painted  still- 
life  of  fruits,  a  basket  and  woman's  attire,  which 
alone  should  have  made  the  picture  acceptable. 
This  branch  of  painting  Manet  was  to  develop 
to  its  highest  textural  possibilities. 

From  this  time  on  Manet  no  longer  used  the 
conventional  chiaroscuro  of  the  academicians. 
Instead  he  let  his  lights  sift  and  dispel  themselves 
evenly  over  the  whole  of  his  groupings.  This 
mode  of  procedure  was  undoubtedly  an  influence 
of  the  Barbizon  painters  who  had  done  away 
with  the  brown  sauce  of  the  soi-disant  classicists. 
In  his  rejection  of  details  and  his  discovery  of  a 
means  whereby  effects  could  be  obtained  by  broad 
planes,  Manet  was  forced  by  necessity  to  take 
the  step  toward  this  simplification  of  light.  Were 
colour  to  be  used  consistently  in  conjunction  with 
his  technique,  it  must  be  spread  on  in  large  flat 
surfaces.  By  diffusing  his  light  the  opportunity 
was  made.  He  might  have  omitted  the  element 
of  colour  from  his  work  and  contented  himself 
with  black  and  white,  as  in  the  case  of  Courbet; 
but  he  was  too  sensitive  to  its  possibilities.  He 
had  observed  it  in  the  Venetians  and  Franz 
Hals,  as  well  as  in  nature;  and  in  its  breadth 
and  brilliance  he  had  recognised  its  utility  in 
enhancing  a  picture's  decorative  beauty.  Even 
the  colour  of  Velazquez  was  at  times  sumptuous. 
Manet,  because  his  simplicity  of  manner  per- 
mitted a  liberal  application  of  colour,  was  able 
to  augment  its  ornamental  power.  It  is  true 


EDOUARD  MANET  71 

that  today  his  large  and  irregular  patches  of 
tints  appear  grey,  but,  to  his  contemporaries,  their 
very  extension  made  them  seem  blatant  and 
bold. 

Courbet  remained  in  great  part  the  slave  to 
the  common  vision  of  reality.  In  his  efforts  to 
attain  results  he  sacrificed  little.  This,  in  itself, 
delimited  his  accomplishments.  Nature  to  him 
appeared  nearly  perfect,  and  he  painted  with 
all  the  wonderment  of  a  child  opening  its  eyes 
on  the  world  for  the  first  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  Manet  realised  that  nature's  forces  become 
objective  only  through  an  intellectual  process. 
This  attitude  marked  a  decided  step  in  advance 
of  Courbet.  Manet  painted  single  figures  and 
simple  images  devoid  of  all  anecdotal  significance, 
out  of  his  pure  love  of  his  medium  and  his  sheer 
delight  in  tone  and  contour.  In  other  words,  he 
represented  the  modern  spirit  which  repudiates 
objects  conducive  to  reminiscence,  and  cares 
only  for  "qualities"  in  art.  His  intentions  were 
those  of  Courbet  pushed  to  greater  freedom. 
Unlike  his  master  he  was  a  virtuoso  of  the  brush. 
His  very  facility  perhaps  accounts  for  his  satisfac- 
tion with  flat  decoration,  for  it  concentrated  his 
interest  on  the  actual  pate  and  thereby  precluded 
a  deeper  research  into  the  psychology  of  aesthetic 
emotion.  But  in  his  insistence  on  the  aesthetic 
rather  than  the  illustrative  side  of  painting  he 
carried  forward  the  ideals  which  were  to  epitomise 
modern  methods. 

In  this  lay  the  impetus  he  gave  to  painting. 
Even  with  Rubens  the  necessities  of  the  day 
forced  him,  in  his  choice  of  themes,  to  adopt 
a  circumscribed  repertoire,  the  subjects  of  which 


72  MODERN  PAINTING 

he  repeated  constantly.  In  him  we  have  mastery 
of  composition  with  the  substance  as  an  after- 
thought. Delacroix  conceived  his  canvases  in 
the  romantic  mould,  and  adapted  his  composi- 
tions so  as  to  bring  out  the  salient  characteristics 
of  his  chosen  theme.  This  was  illustration  with 
the  arriere  pensee  of  organisation.  Daumier 
struck  the  average  between  these  two  and  con- 
ceived his  subject  in  the  form  he  was  to  use. 
Courbet  minimised  the  importance  of  objects  as 
such  by  raising  them  all  to  the  same  level  of 
adaptability:  but  he  invariably  chose,  as  with  an 
idee  fixe,  his  subjects  from  the  life  about  him. 
Manet  cared  nothing  for  any  subject  whether 
traditional  or  novel.  That  he  generally  chose 
modern  themes  was  indicative  of  that  new  mental 
attitude  which  recognises  the  unimportance  of 
subject-matter  and  urges  the  painter  to  abandon 
thematic  research  and  utilise  the  things  at  hand. 
He  made  his  art  out  of  the  materials  nearest  him, 
irrespective  of  their  intrinsic  topical  value. 

This  was  certainly  an  important  step  in  the 
liberating  of  art  from  convention.  It  proclaimed 
the  right  of  the  artist  to  paint  what  he  liked. 
Courbet  would  have  painted  goddesses  if  he  had 
seen  them.  Manet  would  have  painted  them 
without  having  seen  them,  provided  he  had 
thought  the  result  warranted  the  effort.  Courbet, 
the  father  of  naturalism,  extended  the  scope  of 
subject-matter,  while  Manet  tore  away  the  last 
tie  which  bound  it  to  any  tradition,  whether 
Courbet's  or  Titian's.  After  him  there  was 
nothing  new  to  paint.  It  is  therefore  small 
wonder  that  artists  should  now  have  become 
interested  in  the  forces  of  nature  rather  than  in 


EDOUARD  MANET  73 

nature's  mien.  Manet,  by  his  consummation  of 
theme,  foreshadowed  the  concern  with  abstrac- 
tions which  has  now  swept  over  the  world  of 
aesthetics.  Zola,  like  him  in  other  ways,  never 
equalled  him  in  this.  L'Assommoir  and  Fecon- 
dite  portrayed  only  the  extremes  of  realism. 
Manet  painted  all  things  with  equal  pleasure. 
Here  again  is  evident  the  continuation  of  that 
mental  attitude  which  Courbet  introduced  into 
painting.  The  qualities  in  Manet  which  inclined 
toward  abstraction  have  secured  him  the  reputa- 
tion for  being  a  greater  generaliser  than  Courbet 
whose  brutal  naturalism  could  not  be  disso- 
ciated in  the  public  mind  from  concrete  and 
stridl  materialism.  For  this  contention  there  is 
substantiation  of  a  superficial  nature.  But  a 
mere  tendency  toward  generalisation,  with  no 
other  qualifications,  does  not  indicate  greatness. 
In  fadl,  were  this  purely  literal  truth  concerning 
Manet  conclusive,  it  would  tend  to  disqualify  him 
in  his  claim  to  an  importance  greater  than  Cour- 
bet's.  Carriere  is  an  example  of  a  painter  who 
is  general  and  nothing  more.  Manet  had  other 
titles  to  consideration. 

What  Manet's  enduring  contributions  to  paint- 
ing were  have  never  been  surmised  by  the  public. 
His  recognition,  coming  as  it  did  years  after  his 
most  significant  works  had  been  accomplished 
and  set  aside,  was  due  to  a  reversion  of  the  pub- 
lic's, mind  to  its  aboriginal  admirations.  Manet 
is  popular  today  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
lesser  works  of  Hokusai  and  Hiroshige  are  popu- 
lar, namely:  they  present  an  instantaneous  image 
which  is  at  once  flat  and  motionless.  As  in  the 
days  of  the  mosaicists  and  early  primitives,  the 


74  MODERN  PAINTING 

appreciation  of  such  works  demands  no  intel- 
lectual operation.  Their  recognisable  subjects 
only  set  in  motion  a  simple  process  of  memory. 
The  Olympia,  Manet's  most  popular  painting, 
illustrates  the  type  of  picture  which  appeals 
strongly  to  minds  innocent  of  aesthetic  depth. 
Its  mere  imagery  is  alluring.  As  pure  decoration 
it  ranks  with  Puvis  de  Chavannes.  But  in  it 
are  all  the  mistakes  of  the  later  Impressionists. 
Manet  consciously  attempted  the  limning  of 
light,  but  brilliance  alone  resulted.  He  did  not 
realise  that,  in  order  for  one  to  be  conscious  of 
illumination,  shadow  is  necessary.  This  latter 
element,  with  its  complementary,  produces  in 
us  the  sensation  of  volume.  True,  there  is  in 
the  Olympia  violent  contrast  between  the  nude 
body,  the  bed  and  the  flowers,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  background,  the  negress  and  the  cat,  on 
the  other;  but  it  is  only  the  contrast  of  dis- 
similar atmospheres.  The  level  appearance  of 
the  picture  is  not  relieved. 

The  cardinal  shortcoming  in  a  painting  of 
this  kind  is  that  it  fails  to  create  an  impression 
of  either  the  aspects  or  the  forces  of  nature. 
Such  pictures  are  only  flat  representations  of 
nature's  minor  characteristics.  The  most  resilient 
imagination  cannot  endow  them  with  form:  the 
intelligence  is  balked  at  every  essay  to  penetrate 
beyond  their  surface.  In  contemplating  them 
one  is  irritated  by  the  emptiness,  or  rather  the 
solidity,  of  the  neant  which  lies  behind.  Courbet 
called  the  Olympia  "the  queen  of  spades  coming 
from  her  bath."  Titian,  had  he  lived  today, 
would  have  styled  it  a  photograph.  Goya  (who 
is  as  much  to  blame  for  it  as  either  Courbet  or 


EDOUARD  MANET  75 

Titian)  would  have  considered  its  shallowness  an 
inexcusable  vulgarity.  In  painting  it  undoubt- 
edly Manet's  intention  was  to  modernise  Titian's 
Venus  Reclining  now  hanging  in  the  Uffizi;  just 
as  later  it  was  Gauguin's  intention,  in  his  La 
Femme  aux  Mangos,  to  endow  the  Olympia  with 
a  South  Sea  Island  setting.  Such  adaptations  are 
indefensible  provided  they  do  not  improve  upon 
their  originals.  There  is  no  improvement  in 
Gauguin's  Venus;  and  Manet's  picture,  while  it 
advances  on  Titian  in  attitude,  is  a  decided 
retrogression  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of 
form. 

In  such  pictures  as  the  Olympia,  Nana  and  La 
Jarretiere  we  recognise  Manet's  effort  to  obtain 
notoriety.  He  was  not  an  aristocrat  as  was 
Courbet  or  Goya  or  Titian.  It  was  not  a  need 
for  freer  expression  that  induced  him  to  paint 
pictures  which  shocked  by  their  unconvention- 
ality,  but  a  desire  to  abasourdir  les  bourgeois.  In 
choosing  his  subject-matter  he  always  had  a 
definite  end  in  view  in  relation  to  the  public; 
but  his  conceptions  were  spontaneous  and  were 
recorded  without  deliberation.  He  painted  with 
but  little  thought  as  to  his  method.  This  fact 
is  no  doubt  felt  by  the  public  and  held  in  his 
favour  by  those  who  believe  in  the  involuntary 
inspiration  of  the  artist.  But  art  cannot  be 
judged  by  such  childish  criteria.  Can  one  ima- 
gine Giotto,  Michelangelo  or,  to  come  nearer 
our  day,  Cezanne  painting  without  giving  the 
closest  and  most  self-conscious  study  to  his 
procedure?  Credence  in  the  theopneusty  of  the 
painter,  the  poet  and  the  musician,  should  have 
passed  out  with  the  advent  of  Delacroix;  but 


76  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  seeming  mystery  of  art  is  so  deeply  rooted 
in  public  ignorance  that  many  generations  must 
pass  before  it  can  be  eradicated. 

The  truth  is  that  Manet  himself  had  no  precise 
idea  of  what  he  really  wished  to  accomplish. 
Up  to  the  last  year  of  his  life  he  groped  tenta- 
tively toward  a  goal,  the  outlines  of  which  were 
never  quite  distinct.  We  today,  looking  back 
upon  his  efforts,  can  judge  his  motivating  influ- 
ences with  some  degree  of  surety.  In  bringing 
about  the  paradox  of  staticising  Courbet,  Manet 
feminised  him.  He  turned  Courbet's  blacks  and 
greys  into  pretty  colours,  and  thereby  turned  his 
modelling  into  silhouette  and  flattened  his 
volumes.  Thus  was  Courbet  not  only  made 
effeminate  but  popularised.  Compare  the  super- 
ficially similar  pictures,  Le  Hamac  of  Courbet 
and  Manet's  Le  Repos.  In  the  former  the  move- 
ment in  composition  accords  with  the  landscape 
and  is  carried  out  in  the  pose  of  the  woman's  arms 
and  in  the  disposition  of  the  legs.  The  figure 
in  the  latter  picture  is  little  more  than  an  orna- 
ment —  a  symmetrical  articulation.  Manet  has 
here  translated  the  rhythm  of  depth  into  linear 
balance.  In  this  levelling  process  all  those  quali- 
ties which  raise  painting  above  simple  mosaics 
are  lost.  A  picture  thus  treated  becomes  a  pat- 
tern, incapable  of  embodying  any  emotional 
significance.  Manet's  paintings  are  remembered 
because  they  are  so  instantaneous  a  vision  of 
their  subjects.  For  this  same  reason  Goya  is 
remembered;  but  beneath  the  Spaniard's  broad 
oppositions  of  tone  is  a  limpid  depth  in  which 
the  intelligence  darts  like  a  fish  in  an  aquarium. 
In  Manet  the  impassable  barrier  of  externals 


EDOUARD  MANET  77 

shuts  out  that  world  which  exists  on  the  further 
side  of  a  picture's  surface. 

In  Manet  we  have  the  summing  up  of  the 
pictorial  expression  of  all  time.  His  love  for 
decoration  never  left  him  long  enough  for  him 
to  experiment  with  the  profounder  phases  of 
painting.  In  many  of  his  canvases  he  was  little 
more  than  an  exalted  poster-maker.  His  Rendez- 
vous de  Chats  was  frankly  a  primitive  arrange- 
ment of  flat  drawing,  as  flat  as  a  print  by  Mit- 
suoki.  Even  details  and  texture  were  eliminated 
from  it.  It  was  a  statement  of  his  theories  re- 
duced to  their  bare  elements.  Yet,  though  exag- 
gerated, the  picture  was  representative  of  his 
aims.  A  pattern  to  him  was  form.  Courbet's 
ability  to  model  an  eye  was  the  cause  of  Manet's 
repudiating  the  painter  of  L'Enterrement  a  Ornans. 
The  two  men  were  antithetical;  and  in  that 
antithesis  we  have  Manet's  aspirations  fully 
elucidated.  Even  later  in  life  when  he  took  the 
figure  out  of  doors  he  was  unable  to  shake  off 
the  influence  of  the  silhouette.  But  the  silhouette 
cannot  exist  en  plein  air.  Light  volatilises  design. 
This  knowledge  accounts  for  Renoir's  early  sun- 
light effects.  Manet  never  advanced  so  far. 

The  limitations  and  achievements  of  Manet 
are  summed  up  in  his  painting,  Le  Dejeuner  sur 
1'Herbe.  This  picture  is  undoubtedly  interest- 
ing in  its  black-and-white  values  and  in  its  free- 
dom from  the  conventions  of  traditional  composi- 
tion. At  first  view  its  theme  may  impress  one 
as  an  attempt  at  piquancy,  but  on  closer  inspec- 
tion the  actual  subject  diminishes  so  much  in 
importance  that  it  might  have  been  with  equal 
effect  a  simple  landscape  or  a  still-life.  There 


78  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  no  attempt  at  composition  in  the  classic  sense. 
Even  surface  rhythm  is  entirely  missing:  the 
tonal  masses  decidedly  overweigh  on  the  left. 
But  the  picture  nevertheless  embodies  the  dis- 
tinguishing features  of  all  Manet's  arrangements. 
It  is  built  on  the  rigid  pyramidal  plan.  From 
the  lower  left-hand  corner  a  line,  now  light,  now 
dark,  reaches  almost  to  the  upper  frame  at  a 
point  directly  above  the  smaller  nude;  and  an- 
other line,  which  begins  in  the  lower  right-hand 
corner  at  the  reclining  man's  elbow,  runs  upward 
to  his  cap,  and  is  then  carried  out  in  the  shadow 
and  light  of  the  foliage  so  that  it  meets  the  line 
ascending  from  the  other  side.  The  base  of  these 
two  converging  lines  is  formed  by  another  line 
which  runs  from  the  man's  elbow  along  his  ex- 
tended leg.  This  is  the  picture's  important  tri- 
angle. But  a  secondary  one  is  formed  by  a  line 
which  begins  at  the  juncture  of  the  tree  and 
shadow  in  the  lower  right-hand  corner,  extends 
along  the  cane  and  the  second  man's  sleeve  to 
his  head,  and  then  drops,  by  way  of  the  large 
nude's  head  and  shoulder,  to  the  basket  of  fruit 
at  the  bottom.  This  angularity  of  design  is 
seen  in  the  work  of  all  primitive-minded  peoples, 
and  is  notably  conspicuous  in  the  early  Egyptians, 
the  archaic  Greeks  and  the  Assyrians  of  the  eighth 
century  B.C.  It  is  invariably  the  product  of  the 
static  intelligence  into  which  the  comprehension 
of  aesthetic  movement  has  never  entered.  It  is 
the  result  of  a  desire  to  plant  objects  solidly  and 
immovably  in  the  ground.  Those  artists  who 
express  themselves  through  it  are  men  whose 
minds  are  incapable  of  grasping  the  rhythmic 
attributes  of  profound  composition.  Manet  re- 


EDOUARD  MANET  79 

peats  this  triangular  design  in  the  Olmypia  where 
the  two  adjoining  pyramids  of  contour  are  so 
obvious  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  describe  them. 
The  figures  in  canvases  such  as  La  Chanteuse 
des  Rues,  ,La  Femme  au  Perroquet,  Eva  Gon- 
zales  and  Emile  Zola  are  constructed  similarly; 
and  in  groups  like  En  Bateau  and  Les  Anges  au 
Tombeau  (the  latter  of  which  recalls,  by  its 
arrangement  and  lighting,  the  Thetis  et  Jupiter 
of  Ingres)  is  expressed  the  mental  immobility 
which  characterised  Conegliano,  Rondinelli,  Ro- 
busti  and  their  seventeenth-century  exemplars,  de 
La  Fosse,  Le  Moyne  and  Rigaud. 

If,  however,  Manet  failed  in  the  larger  tests, 
he  excelled  in  his  ability  to  beautify  the  surfaces 
of  his  models.  His  painting  of  texture  is  perhaps 
the  most  competent  that  has  ever  been  achieved. 
In  his  flesh,  fruits  and  stuffs,  the  sensation  of 
hard,  soft,  rough  or  velvety  exteriors  reaches  its 
highest  degree  of  pictorial  attainment.  These 
many  and  varied  textures  are  reunited  in  his 
Le  Dejeuner  —  a  canvas  which  must  not  be  con- 
fused with  Le  Dejeuner  sur  1'Herbe.  Here  we 
have  a  plant,  a  vase,  four  different  materials  in 
the  boy's  clothing,  a  straw  hat,  a  brass  jug  with 
all  its  reflections,  a  table  cloth,  a  wall,  an  old 
sword,  glassware,  fruit  and  liquid  It  is  an  orgy 
of  textures,  and  Manet  must  have  gloried  in  it. 
One  critic  of  the  day  wondered  why  oysters  and 
a  cut  lemon  lay  on  the  breakfast  table.  But  we 
wonder  why  a  cat  with  fluffy  fur  is  not  there 
also.  Castagnary  suggested  that  Manet,  feeling 
himself  to  be  the  master  of  still-life,  brought 
every  possible  texture  into  a  single  canvas  for 
purposes  of  contrast  and  because  he  delighted 


80  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  the  material  quality  of  objects.  But  the  reason 
goes  deeper.  Manet  was  a  superlatively  con- 
scious technician,  and  that  sacree  commodite  de  la 
brosse,  so  displeasing  to  Delacroix,  was  his  great- 
est intoxication.  Hals  also  was  seduced  by  it. 
Later,  when  the  new  vision  of  light  was  com- 
municated to  Manet  by  the  Impressionists,  his 
obsession  for  the  purely  technical  diminished  in 
intensity.  In  that  topical  bid  for  popularity, 
the  Combat  du  Kerseage  et  de  TAlabama,  we 
detecl:  his  interest  in  a  new  economy  of  means 
which  would  facilitate  his  search  for  broader 
illumination.  This  method  took  a  step  forward 
in  Le  Port  de  Bordeaux,  and  later  reached  matur- 
ity in  his  canvases  painted  in  1882,  of  which  Le 
Jardin  de  Bellevue  is  a  good  example.  But 
despite  his  heroic  efforts,  these  last  pictures, 
painted  a  year  before  he  died  when  paralysis 
had  already  claimed  him  and  he  was  devoting 
his  time  almost  entirely  to  still-life,  were  without 
fulgency,  and  never  approached  the  richness  of 
even  so  slight  a  colourist  as  Monet. 

Repose  is  a  word  used  overmuch  by  modern 
critics  to  designate  the  dominant  quality  of 
Manet's  painting.  From  an  entirely  pictorial 
point  of  view  the  word  is  applicable,  but  in  the 
precise  aesthetic  sense  it  is  a  misnomer.  The 
illusion  of  repose  in  Manet  is  accounted  for  by 
his  even  use  of  greys,  as  in  Le  Chemin  de  Fer, 
Le  Port  de  Bordeaux,  the  Execution  de  Maxi- 
milien  and  the  Course  de  Taureaux.  Even  in  Les 
Bulles  de  Savon,  the  Rendez-vous  de  Chats,  Le 
Clair  de  Lune  and  Le  Bar  des  Folies-Bergere 
—  canvases  in  which  is  exhibited  Manet's  great- 
est opposition  of  tones  —  the  ensemble  is  expres- 


8i 

sive  of  monotony.  Real  repose,  however,  is 
something  much  more  recondite  than  uniformity 
or  tedium.  It  is  created  by  a  complete  harmon- 
ious organisation,  not  by  an  avoidance  of  move- 
ment. Giotto's  Death  of  Saint  Francis  and  El 
Greco's  Annunciation  have  a  simultaneity  of  pre- 
sentation as  unique  as  in  Manet;  but,  because  their 
compositions  are  so  rhythmically  co-ordinated,  they 
present  an  absolute  finality  of  movement  and  thus 
engender  an  emotional  as  well  as  an  ocular  repose. 
Manet's  actual  innovations  are  small,  smaller 
even  than  Courbet's.  However,  many  critics 
credit  him  with  grotesque  novelties.  There  are 
very  few  books  dealing  with  modern  painting 
which  do  not  assert  that  he  was  the  first  to 
note  that  flesh  in  the  light  is  dazzlingly  bright 
and  of  a  cream-and-rose  colour.  But  in  this 
particular  there  is  no  improvement  in  Manet  on 
the  pictures  of  Rubens.  He  may  have  unearthed 
this  illustrative  point;  certain  it  is  he  did  not 
originate  it.  Yet  no  matter  how  slight  his  depar- 
tures, we  enjoy  his  pictures  for  their  inherent 
aesthetic  qualities,  and  not  for  their  approximation 
to  nature.  Manet  made  many  mistakes,  but  this 
was  natural  when  we  remember  that  in  the  whirl- 
pool of  new  ambitions  one  is  prone  to  forget  the 
lessons  of  the  past.  Only  by  profiting  by  them 
can  one  go  on  toward  the  ever  advancing  goal 
of  achievement.  We  must  not  forget  that  this 
new  spirit  of  endeavour  is  only  an  impulse  towards 
something  greater,  a  rebellion  against  arbitrarily 
imposed  obstacles.  If  men  like  Manet  lost  track 
of  the  fundamentals  of  the  great  art  which  had 
preceded  them,  it  was  only  that  their  vision  was 
clouded  by  new  experiments. 


82  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  actual  achievements  of  Manet  epitomise 
the  secondary  in  art.  His  attempt  to  combine 
artistic  worth  with  popularity  restricted  him. 
That  he  was  misunderstood  at  first  was  his  own 
fault  in  continually  changing  his  style.  But 
acceptance  or  rejection  by  popular  opinion  does 
not  indicate  the  measure  of  a  painter's  signifi- 
cance. And  Manet  is  to  be  judged  by  his  contri- 
butions to  the  new  idea.  His  importance  lay  in 
that  he  took  the  second  step  of  the  three  which 
were  to  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  realism.  In 
art  every  genuine  method  is  consummated  before 
a  new  one  can  take  its  place.  Michelangelo 
brought  architecture  to  its  highest  point  of  de- 
velopment; Rubens,  linear  painting;  the  Impres- 
sionists, the  study  of  light;  Beethoven,  the  classic 
ideal  in  music;  Swinburne,  the  rhymed  lyric. 
In  fact,  only  after  the  epuisement  of  a  certain 
line  of  endeavour,  is  felt  the  necessity  to  seek  for  a 
new  and  more  adequate  means  of  expression. 
Manet  helped  bring  to  a  close  a  certain  phase  of 
art,  thus  hastening  the  advent  of  other  and 
greater  men.  His  accomplishments  now  stand 
for  all  that  is  academic  and  student-like;  and 
although  his  interest  as  an  innovator  passed  out 
with  the  appearance  of  Pissarro  and  Monet, 
men  go  on  imitating  his  externals  and  using  his 
brushing.  In  the  same  sense  that  Velazquez  is 
a  great  painter,  so  is  Manet.  His  influence  has 
served  the  purpose  of  helping  turn  aside  the 
academicians  from  their  emulation  of  Italian 
painting. 


COURBET  was  the  first  painter  to  turn 
his  attention  to  naturalism.  Manet 
carried  forward  Courbet's  standard.  Im- 
pressionism took  the  last  step,  and 
brought  to  a  close  the  objectively  realistic  con- 
ception in  painting.  By  this  final  development 
of  naturalistic  means  unlimited  opportunities 
for  achievement  were  offered.  Impressionistic 
methods  are  now  employed  by  a  vast  army  of 
painters  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  the  num- 
ber of  canvases  which  owe  their  existence  to  these 
discoveries  is  countless.  Specifically  Impression- 
ism is  ocular  realism.  It  represents  that  side  of 
actuality  which  has  to  do  with  light  expressed 
by  colour;  and  deals  with  a  manner  of  approach- 
ing natural  valuations  whereby  the  painter  is 
permitted  to  transfer  a  scene  or  subject  to  his 
canvas  in  such  a  way  that  it  will  give  the 
spectator  the  sensation  of  dazzling  light,  broad  at- 
mosphere and  truthful  colours.  To  accomplish 
this  Impressionism  confines  itself  to  the  play  of 
a  light  from  a  given  source  —  its  reflections  and 
distributions  on  an  object  or  a  landscape.  There- 
fore, it  is  the  restricted  study  of  the  disappearance 
of  the  local  colour  in  a  model,  and  of  the  lumin- 
osity and  divergencies  of  tones  to  be  found  in 
shadow.  It  approximates  to  a  nature  which  be- 
comes, for  the  moment,  a  theatre  of  chromatic  light 


84  MODERN  PAINTING 

sensations.  Subject-matter  gave  the  Impression- 
ists no  concern.  They  advanced  materially  on 
the  spirit  in  Manet  which  led  him  to  paint  any 
object  at  hand  because  of  its  susceptibility  to 
artistic  treatment.  The  Impressionists  painted 
anything,  not  alone  for  aesthetic  reasons,  but 
because  all  objects  make  themselves  visible  by 
means  of  light  and  shadow.  This  manner  of 
painting  was  the  ultimate  divorce  of  the  picture 
from  any  convention,  whether  of  arrangement,  of 
drawing  or  of  a  fixed  palette.  Herein  it  was  an 
elastic  process  par  excellence,  with  no  defined 
limitations. 

Impressionism,  though  analytic  and  self-con- 
scious, was  not  based  on  science.  One  may  look 
in  vain  for  parallels  between  its  theories  and  those 
of  Dove,  Thomas  Young  and  Chevreul.  It  was 
the  imitation,  pure  and  simple,  of  the  disintegra- 
tions of  colour  in  nature's  broad  planes.  And  this 
achievement  of  diversity  in  simplicity  was  brought 
about  by  the  only  method  possible:  —  the  juxta- 
position of  myriad  tints.  In  other  words,  Im- 
pressionism was  a  statement  that  vision  is 
the  result  of  colour  forces  coming  into  contact 
with  the  retina.  However,  the  men  of  the  move- 
ment did  not  see  nature  as  an  agglomeration  of 
coloured  spots,  but  as  a  series  of  planes  made 
vibrant  by  light.  To  reproduce  this  vibration 
they  were  necessitated  to  use  nature's  methods: 
they  broke  up  surfaces  into  sensitive  parts,  each 
one  of  which  was  a  separate  tint.  There  are 
no  broad  planes  of  unified  colour  in  nature.  In 
each  natural  atom  are  absorption  and  reflection; 
and  the  preponderance  of  either  of  these  two 
attributes  results  in  a  specific  colour.  Before 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         85 

the  advent  of  this  new  school  painters  had  made 
warm  or  cold  green  by  combining  green  with 
yellow  ochre  or  raw  sienna,  or  by  the  admixture 
of  blues  and  purples.  But  the  Impressionists 
laid  on  these  colours,  pure  or  modified,  side  by 
side,  and  let  the  eye  do  the  work  of  blending. 
They  discovered  not  only  that  in  green  the 
shadow  is  tinged  with  blue,  but  that  blue  is  the 
direct  result  of  the  yellow-orange  of  light.  Every 
one  nowadays  has  noticed  that,  in  looking  fixedly 
at  a  green,  it  appears  now  bluish,  now  yellowish; 
just  as  in  listening  to  an  orchestra  we  can,  by 
focusing  our  attention,  hear  predominantly  the 
bass  or  the  treble.  So  the  Impressionists  ob- 
served that  in  the  most  luminous  colour  there  is 
a  proportion  of  absorption,  and  that  in  the 
darkest  shadow  there  exists  some  reflection.  The 
association  of  these  molecular  properties  is  what 
produces  vibration  in  nature.  By  the  application 
of  these  observations  the  Impressionists  generated 
a  feeling  of  grouillement;  —  the  movement  by 
contrast  in  the  smallest  parts. 

In  attempting  to  explain  their  canvases  many 
commentators  have  credited  them  with  systems 
of  complementaries  which  resulted  in  grey,  and 
with  other  exorbitant  theories  of  oppositions.  But 
one  may  look  in  vain  in  their  work  for  any 
synthesis  of  scientific  discoveries.  Colour,  not 
neutrality,  was  their  aim;  and,  as  they  themselves 
admitted,  they  painted  comme  I'oiseau  cbante. 
Birds  are  not  conscious  of  the  metallic  dissonance 
of  diminished  fifths;  and  the  Impressionists  were 
equally  unaware  of  the  harshness  of  red  with 
green,  blue  with  orange,  yellow  with  violet.  They 
only  substituted  a  balance  of  cold  and  warm 


86  MODERN  PAINTING 

colours  for  the  balance  of  lines  which  the  older 
painters  had  used.  They  copied  the  tints  they 
found  in  nature  after  analysing  nature's  processes, 
in  order  to  arrive  closer  to  its  visual  effect.  In 
one  way  they  almost  achieved  colour  photography, 
for  their  study,  in  its  narrow  character,  was  deep, 
and  their  vision  was  highly  realistic.  But  whereas 
they  depicted  nature,  they  could  call  it  up  only 
in  its  instantaneous  aspects.  In  this  ephemerality 
alone  were  they  impressionists;  indeed,  their 
methods  were  the  most  exact  and  probing  of  any 
painters  of  that  time.  Each  hour  of  the  day 
raises  or  lowers  the  colour  values  in  nature;  and 
he  who  would  copy  nature's  form  as  a  permanent 
interpretation  must  ignore  the  exactitude  of  its 
reflections  and  approximate  only  to  its  local 
colours.  This  latter  method  is  more  truly  im- 
pressionism than  the  theories  of  the  Impressionists. 
They  repudiated  local  colours  as  being  too 
illusory,  holding  that  the  most  highly  coloured 
object  modifies  its  tint  under  the  influence  of  the 
least  variation  of  light.  The  point  is  technically 
true,  but  it  is  an  observation  in  objective  re- 
search, and  the  word  Impressionism  must  not 
be  accepted  as  explanatory  of  the  methods  of 
the  school  it  designates. 

By  decomposing  the  parts  of  a  surface,  in  order 
to  represent  objects  in  their  atmospheric  material- 
ity, the  Impressionists  were  impelled  by  a  force 
stronger  than  a  mere  desire  for  superficial  accu- 
racy: they  felt  the  need  for  complete  and  minute 
organisation  in  a  work  of  art.  In  landscape, 
where  the  many  accidentals  appeared  to  lack 
cohesion,  the  Impressionists  achieved  co-ordina- 
tion by  a  unity  of  light  which  welded  all  the 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         87 

objects  into  an  interdependent  group.  Plasticity 
of  form  had  resulted  from  the  efforts  of  preceding 
painters,  but  here  for  the  first  time  was  a  plastic- 
ity of  method  which  moulded  itself  like  putty 
with  the  slightest  change  of  illumination.  Pre- 
occupation in  this  new  compositional  element 
made  its  users  forget,  for  the  time  being,  the 
older  precepts  for  obtaining  composition.  This 
forgetfulness  however  was  not  due  entirely  to 
exuberance  over  a  novel  procedure.  The  painters 
antecedent  to  Delacroix  had  used  landscape  as 
unimportant  backgrounds  for  figures,  and  there  was 
no  precedent  for  its  adaptation  to  organisation. 
Courbet  had  composed  landscape  by  the  linear 
balance  of  black  and  white  volumes.  The  Barbi- 
zon  artists  had  brought  out-of-door  painting  into 
more  general  notice;  but  their  greys  were  in- 
sufficient to  give  it  more  than  a  factitious  and 
purely  conventional  unity.  The  Impressionists, 
feeling  the  urgency  for  a  more  virile  expression 
in  landscape  work,  saw  a  solution  to  their  problem 
in  the  depiction  of  light  through  colour.  Thus 
their  conceptions  took  birth. 

Their  technique,  like  Manet's,  was  wholly  con- 
sistent with  their  objective.  To  the  Impression- 
ists this  objective  seemed  possessed  of  the  merit 
of  finality.  Since  Corot  had  carried  painting 
out  of  doors  and  Manet  had  portrayed  studio 
light  from  every  vantage  point,  what  indeed 
was  left  for  this  new  group  of  men?  They  might 
have  organised  Manet  or  Corot,  but  even  the 
most  competent  of  such  modifications  would  have 
presented  an  appearance  like  that  of  a  Rubens  or 
a  Tiepolo.  They  were  too  avid  for  genuine 
novelty  to  content  themselves  with  slight  innova- 


88  MODERN  PAINTING 

tion;  and  they  were  too  modern  to  derive  satis- 
faction from  the  stereotyped  teachings  of  an 
antiquity  whose  tones  were  unemotional  and 
whose  themes  were  hackneyed.  The  spirit  of 
servility  which  is  willing  to  learn  second-hand 
lessons  and  adopt  indoor  conceptions  spelled 
decadence  to  them.  Their  attitude  was  a  healthy 
and  correct  one,  for  the  cup  of  linear  tone- 
composition  had  been  drained.  They  were  wrong 
in  that  they  threw  aside  the  cup:  they  should 
have  filled  it  with  more  powerful  concepts.  Their 
attitude  was  indicative  of  immaturity.  The  Im- 
pressionists in  truth  were  the  adolescents  of  the 
modern  art  which  was  born  with  Delacroix  and 
Turner,  and  which  only  recently  has  become  a 
concrete  engine  for  the  projection  of  inspiration 
into  an  infinity  of  possibilities. 

Impressionism  was  more  important  than  any 
preceding  departure,  for  it  turned  the  thoughts 
of  artists  from  mere  results  to  motivating  forces, 
from  the  ripples  on  the  surface  to  the  power  which 
causes  the  tides.  It  foreshadowed  the  philosoph- 
ical idea  in  art  which  concerns  itself  with  causes 
rather  than  effects,  and  thereby  brought  about  a 
fundamental  reform  which  made  of  painting,  not 
a  mere  vision,  but  an  idea.  The  Impressionists, 
it  is  true,  worked  from  the  surface  down,  but  they 
had  the  depths  ever  in  mind;  and  the  posing 
of  their  problem  set  in  motion  in  all  serious 
painters  that  intellectual  process  which  eventually 
would  begin  with  foundations  and  build  upward. 
Impressionism  was  the  undeniable  implication 
that  the  possibilities  of  the  older  art  methods 
had  been  exhausted,  and  that  a  substitution  of  a 
new  method,  however  fragmentary,  was  of  greater 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         89 

importance  than  the  sycophantic  imitations  of 
an  unapproachable  past.  Beneath  this  attitude 
we  feel  the  broadness  of  mind  which,  when  a 
mistake  has  been  made,  does  not  ignore  causes 
but  attaches  to  them  different  interpretations  in 
an  effort  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  The  Impression- 
ists kept  their  palette  intact;  but  they  employed 
its  parts  in  a  way  that  made  new  combinations 
possible.  By  doing  this  they  unconsciously  re- 
acted against  the  mere  dexterity  of  brushing  with 
which  so  many  painters,  like  Hals,  Velazquez 
and  Raeburn,  became  obsessed  and,  as  a  con- 
sequence, failed  to  heed  the  deeper  demands  of 
aesthetic  research.  By  thus  facilitating  technique 
they  not  only  reduced  the  difficulties  attached 
to  the  production  of  a  picture,  but  made  the  thing 
expressed  of  greater  relative  significance. 

Pissarro,  Monet,  Sisley  and  Guillaumin  who, 
with  Bazille,  composed  the  original  group  of 
Impressionists,  had  all  been  influenced  in  youth 
by  the  revolutionary  doctrines  of  Corot  and 
Courbet,  and  to  a  great  extent  had  adopted  the 
palette  of  these  two  men.  Landscape  painting 
at  that  time  was  almost  a  new  development,  and 
these  four  readily  succumbed  to  its  inspiration. 
There  is  little  of  the  strictly  picturesque  and  still 
less  of  the  grandiose  in  the  French  landscape. 
Consequently  a  school  which  worked  along  the 
line  of  old  conventions  could  not  have  existed 
in  France.  But  when  Rousseau  and  Diaz,  strik- 
ing out  in  a  new  direction,  poetised  the  charm 
of  the  hills  and  forests  about  Fontainbleau,  the 
painting  of  the  out-of-doors  was  liberated  both 
as  to  purpose  and  to  freedom  of  arrangement. 
The  object  of  Turner's  work  had  been  to  astonish 


90  MODERN  POINTING 

and  charm  the  spectator  with  nature's  vastness 
and  complexity.  But,  with  the  men  of  1830, 
landscape  art  took  on  softness,  introspection, 
stillness,  solemnity.  In  fine,  it  became  more 
intimate.  Each  tree  and  stone  hid  a  nymph; 
each  stream  and  hill,  a  mystery.  With  the 
Impressionists  all  this  was  changed.  They  had 
seen  and  admired  the  work  of  Manet.  They 
applauded  his  reactions  against  studio  lighting, 
and  later  became  his  personal  friends.  Manet 
was  then  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes  in  the  art  world 
of  Paris,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  he  should 
have  been  the  dominating  figure  in  a  sort  of 
cenacle  held  in  the  Cafe  Guerbois  in  the  quarter 
of  the  Batignolles.  Here  the  revolutionists  of 
the  day  forgathered,  and,  by  their  uncompromis- 
ing spirit,  inspired  one  another  to  practical  pro- 
testations against  the  routine  of  the  academies. 
Manet's  eloquence  argued  away  the  older  idea 
of  lighting  as  a  type;  and  the  younger  men,  using 
this  negotiation  as  a  starting  point,  gave  birth  to 
the  methods  which  congealed  into  Impressionism. 
Although  Monet  and  Pissarro  were  the  first 
to  profit  by  Manet's  teachings,  there  is  no  definite 
history  to  tell  who  was  the  first  of  the  group  to 
blossom  into  colour.  However,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  Pissarro  was  the  man.  He  was  a  Jew 
with  a  philosophic  turn  of  mind,  and  possessed 
more  genuine  intelligence  than  his  confreres. 
Monet  was  the  cleverest  and  the  most  enthusi- 
astic, and  when  the  new  process  was  outlined  it 
was  he  who  first  developed  it  to  its  ultimate 
consequences.  Pissarro,  compared  with  Monet, 
was  conservative,  and  his  practicality  did  not 
permit  him  so  great  an  elan.  His  canvases  beside 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         91 

those  of  Monet's  appear  almost  tentative,  and 
the  greys  he  had  adopted  from  Corot  never 
entirely  forsook  him.  Both  these  painters  went 
to  London  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  and 
we  may  take  it  for  granted  that  the  works  of 
Turner  had  an  enormous  influence  on  them. 
They  had  already  seen  Jongkind  who,  despite  his 
adherence  to  the  sombre  greys  of  the  older  men, 
had,  five  years  previous,  more  than  foreshadowed 
the  later  divisionistic  technique.  But  in  Turner 
they  discovered  not  only  all  that  Jongkind  had 
to  offer,  but  the  additional  quality  of  joyous  and 
dazzling  colour.  After  their  return  their  palettes 
became  rapidly  cleaner. 

In  1874,  in  an  effort  to  bestir  the  public,  the 
Impressionists  held  an  exhibition.  The  excite- 
ment was  all  they  could  have  desired,  but  it 
led  rather  to  obloquy  than  to  sales.  Again  and 
again  they  exposed  in  the  hope  of  obtaining 
recognition,  but  not  until  1888  were  they  success- 
ful. The  average  spectator  did  not  recognise 
nature  in  their  canvases.  The  vision  was  an 
unusual  one,  and  bore  but  slight  resemblance 
to  what  had  gone  before.  But  gradually  things 
underwent  a  change.  Friends  of  the  Impression- 
ists launched  a  campaign  of  proselytising.  Now 
and  then  a  picture  was  sold  to  a  collector;  form- 
erly restaurant  keepers  and  bricklayers  had  been 
the  only  buyers  of  their  work.  The  popular 
press  softened  its  criticisms  and  in  many  instances 
went  so  far  as  to  defend  their  pictures.  As  a 
result  of  these  numerous  indications  of  a  growing 
approval  among  connoisseurs,  the  public,  that 
almost  immovable  mass  of  reactionary  impulses, 
began  to  look  with  favour  on  the  new  works  it 


92  MODERN  PAINTING 

had  so  recently  ridiculed.  The  great  majority 
of  people  had  cared  only  for  such  canvases  as 
those  in  which  the  intellect  might  jump  from  one 
familiar  object  to  another,  recognising  it  wholly, 
comprehending  its  uses,  but  without  giving 
thought  to  its  meaning.  Being  thus  interested 
primarily  in  a  picture's  conventionally  painted 
details,  they  were  opposed  to  any  innovations 
which  tended  to  obscure  the  actualities  of  deline- 
ation. Later  their  attitude,  influenced  by  acts 
of  authoritative  sanction,  relaxed.  Instead  of 
seeing,  as  formerly,  only  a  series  of  raucously 
coloured  spots  in  these  new  pictures,  the  public 
began  to  sense  the  deep  reverence  for  nature 
that  emanated  from  them.  Thus  has  it  always 
been  the  case  with  art:  appreciation  for  anything 
newly  vital  lags  far  behind  the  achievement. 

The  true  significance  of  Impressionism,  however 
—  like  the  true  significance  of  all  emotion-pro- 
voking art  —  remained  undiscovered  to  the  gen- 
eral. When  the  mean  intelligence  of  mankind 
brings  itself  to  bear  on  a  work  of  art,  it  applies 
itself  through  the  channels  of  literature,  archae- 
ology, photography,  botany,  mineralogy  and 
physiology.  To  be  a  popular  artist  a  painter 
must  be  something  of  a  professor  in  all  these 
sciences.  With  all  other  considerations  —  such 
as  psychology  and  aesthetics  —  he  need  not 
trouble  himself.  The  public,  even  after  centuries 
of  rigorous  training  and  constant  association 
with  art,  is  no  nearer  a  comprehension  of  rhythmic 
ensembles  —  perfectly  synthesised  form  in  three 
dimensions  —  than  it  was  during  the  Renaissance. 
The  two  major  requisites  to  an  understanding 
of  the  formal  relations  in  momentous  art  are  a 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS        93 

highly  developed  sensitivity  and  an  active  in- 
telligence. An  eye  and  a  nervous  system  are 
not  enough.  Society  as  a  whole  may,  after  a 
long  course  of  training  and  sedulous  study,  reach 
that  perceptive  point  where  it  can  grasp  the 
simple  aesthetic  hypothesis  founded  on  two  dimen- 
sions. But  such  a  hypothesis  is  but  a  beginning. 
It  embraces  only  the  rudimentary  aesthetic  or- 
ganisations that  are  found  in  Japanese  art, 
the  works  of  the  Byzantine  masters,  the  primi- 
tives of  France  and  the  pictures  of  Botticelli, 
Manet  and  Gauguin.  The  form  in  art  of  this 
kind  is,  strictly  speaking,  not  form  at  all.  It  is 
balance,  harmonious  rhythm,  linear  adjustment, 
parallelism,  co-ordinated  silhouette,  sensitive  ar- 
rangement, outline  melody  —  in  fact,  whatever 
is  possible  in  two  dimensions.  Significant  form 
must  move  in  depth  —  backward  and  forward, 
as  well  as  from  side  to  side.  Furthermore  it 
must  imply  an  infinity  of  depth.  This  third 
(and  sometimes  fourth)  dimension  informs  all 
truly  great  art. 

While  the  Impressionists  did  not  attain  to 
depth  in  the  aesthetic  connotation  of  the  word, 
they  nevertheless  went  beyond  mere  linear 
balance,  for  by  the  means  of  a  higher  emotional 
element  —  light  —  they  organised,  in  a  superficial 
manner,  all  the  objects  in  their  canvases.  There 
were  no  dissevered  objects,  unrelated  backgrounds, 
no  concessions  to  the  hagiographa  or  other 
literature.  What  chance,  therefore,  had  they  of 
being  understood?  Their  subject-matter  was 
too  abstract;  their  effects  were  too  general.  No 
line  was  accentuated  above  another.  There  were 
no  modifications  to  achieve  vastness  or  splendour. 


94  MODERN  PAINTING 

Impressionism  was  the  unadulterated  reproduction 
of  atmosphere,  the  smile  or  frown  of  a  mood  in 
nature.  It  is  small  wonder  that  the  unaesthetic 
found  it  obscure:  in  it  there  was  too  much  rap- 
ture, too  much  frankness,  too  much  exultation 
in  mere  living,  and  too  little  restraint.  It  was 
the  false  dawn  in  the  great  modern  Renaissance 
of  colour  —  the  most  ecstatically  joyful  style  of 
painting  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  was  fem- 
inine in  that  it  was  a  reflection,  and  its  hysteria 
may  also  be  attributed  to  this  fact.  The  Im- 
pressionists seated  themselves,  free  from  all  tram- 
mels, before  the  face  of  nature.  Nature  dictated: 
they  transcribed.  Nature  smiled;  and  they, 
completely  blent  with  it,  smiled  also.  This  very 
enthusiasm  is  what  kept  them  young  and  held 
them  to  their  initial  path.  To  paint  as  they  did 
was  an  intoxication,  subtler  and  stronger  than 
a  drug  and  more  elating  than  young  love. 

The  vital  history  of  the  individual  men  who 
formed  this  group  reduces  itself  to  a  record  of 
their  temperamental  tastes  in  subject  selection 
and  to  a  statement  of  the  degree  to  which  each 
developed  the  new  method.  The  individualities 
of  the  units  of  an  experimental  school  are  always 
unimportant.  Temperament  can  dictate  to  the 
artist  only  two  phases  of  variation:  what  he  is 
to  use  in  his  composition,  and  those  tran- 
scendental qualities,  such  as  joy  and  sorrow, 
drama  and  comedy,  which  reflect  the  timbre  of 
his  predispositions.  Rhythm,  form,  balance, 
organisation,  drawing  —  all  these  aesthetic  con- 
siderations spring  from  deeper  matrices  in  a 
man's  nature  than  do  his  temperamental 
predilections.  Whether  one  man  is  intrigued 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         95 

by  sunlight  or  another  by  mist,  mankind  is,  after 
all,  so  similar  in  externals,  that  one  individual's 
slight  departure  from  a  predecessor,  or  his  trifling 
deviation  from  a  contemporary,  is  of  little  mo- 
ment. The  true  key  to  a  man's  genius  lies  in 
his  ability  to  organise  as  well  as,  or  better  than, 
others.  The  compositional  figure  on  which  he 
builds  will  alone  give  us  the  substance  of  his 
character.  We  are  all  capable  of  receiving 
sensations:  we  have  our  personal  likes  and 
dislikes  for  subjects,  even  for  actions  and  smells. 
But  these  choices  are  the  outgrowths  of  our 
instincts,  mere  habits  of  association.  In  nowise 
are  they  fundamental.  They  are  the  physio- 
logical recognition  of  pleasant  or  unpleasant 
impressions.  Their  importance  is  limited  to  the 
individual  who  experiences  them.  Being  the 
results  of  receptivity,  they  have  no  more  to 
do  basically  with  the  aesthetic  expression  of  an 
artist  whose  work  is  pure  creation,  than  phono- 
graph disks  with  the  sounds  they  receive.  By 
the  intelligence  alone  can  a  man  be  judged.  Here 
there  is  order,  extensive  in  artists  like  Michelangelo, 
partially  restricted  in  such  painters  as  El  Greco 
and  Giorgione,  and  severely  limited  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Impressionists.  However,  it  must  not  be 
implied  that  the  intelligence  alone  can  create.  Such 
a  contention  would  be  preposterous;  but  it  is  true 
that  impressions  must  first  be  consciously  organ- 
ised before  they  can  be  given  concrete  expression. 
The  intelligence  of  Pissarro  was  synthetic  to  a 
small  extent,  but  not  once  did  it  exhibit  signs  of 
extended  apperception.  He  thought  clearly  up 
to  a  certain  point  beyond  which  his  art  never 
went.  His  temperament  was  not  an  uncommon 


96  MODERN  PAINTING 

one  among  Hebrews.  He  viewed  life  as  a  social 
reformer  who  regards  the  world  as  a  sad  place, 
but  one  susceptible  of  improvement.  From  this 
psychological  standpoint  he  painted.  His  pictures 
depict  ubiquitous  greys,  occasionally  brightened 
by  a  stream  of  lurid  light;  sombre  scenes  in  which 
the  impression  is  one  of  late  afternoon;  peasants 
who  seem  wearied  of  their  unceasing  and  thankless 
labours;  gaunt  trees  which  epitomise  the  decay 
of  the  year.  His  technique  is  not  dissimilar  to 
that  of  Jongkind,  and  his  drawing  is  allied  to  the 
construction  found  in  the  Dutch  landscapists  of 
the  early  nineteenth  century  rather  than  in  those 
of  his  own  group.  That  he  was  the  transition 
from  Jongkind  to  Monet  is  a  plausible  conten- 
tion; in  him  are  found  qualities  of  both  these 
other  painters.  But  he  was  too  conscientious 
ever  to  attain  to  the  technical  heights  Monet 
reached.  If  one  aspires  to  innovation  of  means, 
graphic  traits  have  to  be  sacrificed:  steps  must 
be  taken  in  the  dark.  Those  who  cling  with 
one  hand  to  the  old  while  groping  toward  the 
new  can  never  reach  their  desires.  Pissarro's 
lack  of  constructive  genius  was  too  evident,  his 
timidity  too  great,  his  intelligence  too  literal 
for  him  ever  to  effectuate  new  plastic  forms.  His 
instincts  were  those  of  a  teacher,  and  he  displayed 
indubitable  traits  of  an  exalted  doctrinaire.  But 
his  art,  with  these  limitations,  was  able  and 
complete.  Cezanne  says  he  learned  all  he  knew 
of  colour  from  him.  This  is  not  wholly  true; 
but  it  is  certain  that  Guillaumin  and  Sisley  are 
greatly  indebted  to  his  clarity  of  reason. 

Although  Pissarro  is  the  greater  artist,  Monet 
is    the    finer    craftsman.     He    is    widely    credited 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS         97 

with  the  invention  of  divisionistic  methods;  but 
in  this  conclusion  an  inaccurate  syllogism  has 
played  havoc  with  the  fads.  None  of  the 
Impressionists  invented  the  precede  de  la  tdcbe; 
and  not  having  invented  it  detracts  nothing 
from  their  achievement.  Liszt  did  not  invent 
the  pianoforte,  yet  he  was  its  greatest  master. 
The  practice  of  crediting  Frenchmen  with  the 
invention  and  development  of  methods  has  scant 
authority  with  which  to  justify  itself.  Poussin 
was  an  offshoot,  and  a  weak  one,  of  the  great 
Titian.  Watteau  and  Boucher  come  to  us  direct 
out  of  the  corners  of  Rubens's  pictures.  Daumier 
and  Courbet,  temperamentally  unrelated  to  the 
French  tradition,  stem  from  the  Dutch  and  the 
Spaniards.  Cezanne  emanated  from  the  Dutch 
and  the  Italians  via  Impressionism.  Matisse's 
procedure  is  little  more  than  a  modification  of 
that  of  the  Persians  and  the  early  Italians. 
Cubism  was  imported  from  Spain  by  a  Spaniard. 
Futurism  is  strictly  Italian:  there  is  not  a  French 
name  among  its  originators.  Synchromism  was 
brought  into  the  world  by  Americans.  And 
Impressionism,  which,  like  all  these  other 
departures,  has  come  to  be  looked  upon  as 
French,  is  incontrovertibly  of  English  parentage. 
True,  there  is  small  credit  due  the  inventor. 
The  man  capable  of  employing  new  discoveries 
(as  Marconi  employed  the  principles  of  wireless 
telegraphy)  is  the  truly  important  figure.  But  we 
should  not  confuse  discovery  with  employment. 
Since  Monet  was  French,  France  has  a  perfect 
right  to  claim  the  results  of  colour  division.  The 
honours  attaching  to  its  discovery  are  Turner's 
and  Constable's. 


98  MODERN  PAINTING 

Monet,  like  many  great  men,  had  little  school- 
ing.    He  went  direct  to  nature,  impelled  by  the 
new  impetus  toward  landscape.     His  first  pictures 
in    the    Impressionist    manner    resemble    Manet's 
except  for  trivial  innovations  in  the  differentiation 
of  shadows;    but  in  this  difference  we  divine  the 
later    Monet.     Viewed    cursorily    these    paintings 
appear  to  be  conventional  figure  pieces.     But  they 
are  more  than  that.     The  figures  have  no  other 
significance  than  that  which  attaches  to  a  vase 
or    a    landscape.     "Facial    expression,"    "sympa- 
thetic gestures,"   the   "appeal"  —  all   are   absent 
from  them.     In  these  pictures  the  costume  plays 
the  hero's  part.     La  Japonaise  is   representative 
of  that  treatment  of  subject  wherein  the  figure  is 
only    an    excuse    for    a    pattern    of   colour.     The 
modern    attitude    toward    theme    which    Manet 
handed    down    is    again    in    evidence    in    Monet. 
Its   reduftio  ad  absurdum  was   the  late   epidemic 
of  illustrative  pictures  by  such  men  as  Whistler, 
Shannon,    Sargent,    Zuloaga    and    Alexander,    the 
titles  of  which  were  derived  from  the  flowers  held 
in  the  hands  of  the  principals,  a  bowl  of  goldfish 
in  the  background,  or  the  colour  of  a  lace  shawl. 
Monet,    however,    soon   tired    of  figure   pieces. 
His  true  penchant  lay  toward  landscape.     In  this 
field  he  found  an  infinity  of  colour  possibilities, 
innumerable    subtleties    of    light    gradation,    and 
ready-to-paint  arrangements  as  appealing  as  the 
ones  he  had  formerly  had  to  pose  in  his  interiors. 
At    first    his    technique   was    broad    and    radiant, 
much    like    a    dispersed    Manet.     The    large    flat 
planes    of    unified    colour    which    later    were    to 
disintegrate  into  a  thousand  touches,  were  laid  on 
silhouetted  forms.     His  boat  pieces  in  the   Cail- 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS        99 

lebotte  collection  in  the  Luxembourg  gallery, 
appear,  in  their  simplicity  and  breadth  of  treat- 
ment, like  the  unfinished  underpainting  of  a 
Turner  or  a  Rembrandt.  Much  of  the  bare 
canvas  is  visible;  and  in  them  one  feels  the 
presence  of  the  experimenter.  At  this  time  the 
war  drove  Monet  to  London,  and  his  exile  proved 
a  salutary  one.  On  his  return  his  pictures 
bloomed  with  a  new  brilliance,  and  his  flat 
surfaces  became  fragmentised.  Racial  character- 
istics no  doubt  establish  a  bond  between  Sisley 
and  the  English  landscapists,  but  nothing  less 
than  an  active  influence  could  have  made  so 
typical  ja  Frenchman  as  Monet  paint  a  canvas 
like  L'Eglise  a  Varengeville  in  which  Turner  is  so 
much  in  evidence.  Turner  is  also  unmistakably 
present  in  Pissarro  at  times,  as  witness  Sydenham 
Road,  but  never  to  any  great  extent. 

Despite  his  great  debt  to  Turner,  Manet  and 
Pissarro,  Monet  owed  even  more  to  the  Japanese. 
They  influenced  his  style  and  his  selection  of 
subjects.  From  them  he  lifted  the  idea  of  paint- 
ing a  single  object  many  times  in  its  varied 
atmospheric  manifestations.  But  where  the  Jap- 
anese shifted  their  vantage-ground  with  each 
successive  picture,  Monet's  observation  point 
remained  stationary.  His  composition  too, 
superficial  as  it  is,  is  frankly  Japanese.  It  is 
generally  represented  by  a  straight  line  which 
runs  near  the  lower  frame  from  one  side  to  the 
other  of  the  canvas,  and  which  supports  the 
principal  objects  of  the  work.  This  line  slants, 
now  up  to  the  left,  now  up  to  the  right;  but 
seldom  is  it  curved  as  in  the  more  advanced 
drawings  of  Hiroshige  or  Hokusai.  His  kinship 


ioo  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  the  Japanese  is,  after  all,  a  natural  one,  for 
the  temperaments  of  France  and  Japan  are  as 
similar  as  is  possible  between  east  and  west.  The 
Japanese  artists  presented  atmospheric  conditions 
by  means  of  gradating  large  colour  planes  into 
white  or  dark.  The  consequent  effects  of  rain, 
snow,  wind  and  sun  are  as  vivid  as  Monet's, 
but  they  differ  from  the  Frenchman's  in  that 
they  are  concerned  principally  with  nature's  dec- 
orative possibilities.  Monet  adheres  to  graphic 
transcription  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  the 
dynamics  of  a  mood-producing  phase  of  nature. 
But  though  differing  as  to  aims,  they  both  reach 
very  similar  visual  results.  Compare,  for  instance, 
Monet's  suite  of  Les  Peupliers  with  Hiroshige's 
series  of  the  Tokaido  or  with  Hokusai's  Views  of 
Fuji.  Many  of  the  pictures  are  alike  in  composi- 
tion and  choice  of  subject;  but  the  European  has 
achieved  a  living  light,  while  the  Oriental  has 
presented  a  more  lucid  and  intensive  vision. 
These  differences  of  purposes  and  similarities  of 
appearance  are  again  discernible  in  Monet's 
Coins  de  Riviere  and  Shiubun's  Setting  Sun.  A 
further  proof  of  this  Impressionist's  affinities  with 
the  Japanese  will  be  found  by  collating  Monet's 
figure  pieces  with  those  of  Utamaro. 

There  is  one  important  point  of  divergence, 
however,  between  the  arts  of  Japan  and  Monet's 
canvases.  Whereas  the  Japanese  ignored  texture, 
Monet  at  all  times  devoted  himself  more  or  less 
sedulously  to  its  portrayal.  The  Falaise  a  Etretat 
and  The  Houses  of  Parliament  —  London  are 
examples  of  his  freedom  from  a  rigid  system  of 
scientific  application.  In  both  pictures  the  sky 
is  drawn  with  broad  intersecting  strokes  in  order 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS       101 

to  achieve  transparency  and  vastness.  The  water, 
in  the  former,  is  painted  with  long  curved  strip- 
pings  to  give  the  wave  effect,  as  in  Courbet's 
La  Vague;  and,  in  the  latter,  ripples  are  formed 
by  minute  touches.  Monet's  architecture  is  often 
built  up  with  colour-spots  as  a  man  lays  bricks; 
and  the  cliffs  in  the  Falaise  a  Etretat  are  cor- 
rugated in  exactly  the  same  way  the  strata  lie 
in  nature.  Later  this  preciosity  of  style  disap- 
peared, except  in  his  treatment  of  slightly  ruffled 
water.  His  brushing  became  irregular  and 
elongated,  and  he  applied  his  stroke  so  that  it 
would  merge  into  the  other  innumerable  touches 
of  diverse  colour.  His  eyesight  was  highly 
trained,  and  after  years  of  labour  in  the  conscious 
analysis  of  colour  planes,  he  was  able  to  divide 
these  planes  unconsciously. 

Monet  was  artistic  in  that  he  felt  deeply  what 
was  before  him.  Henri  Martin,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  painted  with  independent  touches 
in  the  hope  of  obtaining  flickering  sunlight,  and 
who  knew  his  palette  fully  as  well  as  Monet, 
laboured  mechanically.  His  work  is  more  optical 
than  emotional.  He  is  a  realist  in  the  same  sense 
that  Roll  is  a  realist;  but  both  these  men  present 
only  the  husk  of  reality.  Monet,  to  the  contrary, 
experienced  and  expressed  nature's  ecstasy.  He 
is  like  a  string  which  vibrates  to  any  harmony: 
Martin  is  little  more  than  an  eye.  Both  finished 
their  work  in  the  open;  and  both  stippled.  But 
here  the  parallelism  ends,  for  where  Monet  com- 
pleted the  effects  of  the  Japanese,  Martin  only 
took  light  into  the  academies.  Perhaps  this 
is  why  Martin  was  at  once  acclaimed  by  the 
public,  and  why  Monet,  during  those  first  dark 


102  MODERN  PAINTING 

years  of  struggle  and  poverty,  was  compelled 
to  sell  his  canvases  for  practically  nothing.  Duret 
confesses  to  having  obtained  one  for  eighty  francs. 
Martin  was  early  accorded  academic  honours,  and 
received  numerous  government  orders. 

Monet  found  himself  at  home  wherever  there 
was  light  and  water.  His  canvases  describe 
scenes  from  all  over  Europe.  But  his  most 
famous  pictures  are  his  two  series,  Les  Meules 
and  Les  Nympheas.  In  the  first,  a  single  hay- 
stack is  set  forth  in  a  diversity  of  illuminations 
and  seasons;  and  the  second  repeats  a  small  pond 
of  water-lilies,  in  shade  and  in  sun,  ruffled  and 
calm.  His  La  Cathedrale,  Venice  and  London 
series  are  also  widely  known.  These  represent 
acute  observation  and  an  implacable  inspiration 
to  work,  for  they  had  to  be  finished  simultane- 
ously. Their  accomplishment  was  a  stupendous 
tour  de  force.  At  sunrise  Monet  would  go  forth 
with  twenty  blank  canvases  so  that  the  changes 
of  sunlight  and  mist  might  be  caught  from  hour 
to  hour.  They  seem  infantile  to  us  today  — 
these  imitations  of  the  subtleties  of  light,  these 
meteorological  histories  of  haystacks  and  lilies, 
these  atmospheric  personalities  of  cathedrals  and 
canals.  Yet  it  is  by  just  such  self-burials  in 
data  that  one  exhausts  the  aesthetic  possibilities 
of  nature's  actualities.  And  not  until  this  probing 
to  the  bottom  has  been  accomplished  does  the 
artist  possess  that  complete  knowledge  which 
impels  him  to  push  forward  to  something  newer 
and  more  vital. 

Sisley  was  the  last  of  the  original  five  to  adopt 
Impressionistic  methods.  He  had  long  had  an 
admiration  for  the  exploits  of  the  more  revolu- 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS       103 

tionary  painters,  but  a  comfortable  income  had 
acted  as  a  sedative  on  his  ambitions.  He  did 
not  feel  the  necessity  for  difficult  endeavour.  But 
when,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  he  found  himself 
penniless  and  with  a  family  to  care  for,  he  joined 
the  ranks  of  Pissarro,  Monet,  Guillaumin  and 
Bazille.  He  had  talent  and  an  accurate  eye, 
and  his  earlier  academic  work,  done  in  the  sixties, 
served  as  a  practical  foundation.  After  he  had 
adopted  the  more  modern  technique  of  Pissarro 
and  Monet,  he  was  prepared  for  the  achievement 
of  new  art.  If  we  had  no  other  proof  that 
Impressionism  at  its  inception  was  a  shallow 
craft,  Sisley's  immediate  mastery  of  it  would  be 
conclusive,  for  his  appropriation  of  its  means  was 
not  an  aesthetic  impulse  but  a  financial  expedient. 
But  more  extensive  corroboration  can  be  found 
in  a  score  of  academies  where  Impressionism  is 
taught  and  taught  conclusively. 

There  is  no  more  or  less  actual  composition  in 
Sisley  than  in  other  of  the  Impressionists.  He 
supplied  no  innovations,  and  he  differed  from  his 
fellows  only  in  so  far  as  his  temperament  indicated 
variation.  In  Monet  and  Guillaumin  there  is  a 
concentration  and  precision  which  the  English- 
man fell  short  of.  His  nature  was  less  akin  to 
these  Impressionists  than  to  the  Turner  of  wide 
and  open  skies,  of  the  softness  and  dreaminess  of 
summer,  of  that  perfect  satisfaction  which  is 
content  with  inaction.  Sisley's  very  colour  pref- 
erence for  which  the  public  reproached  him  — 
light  lilac  —  indicates  his  penchant  for  prettiness 
and  repose.  His  choice  of  theme  was  invariably 
dictated  by  a  poetical  and  sentimental  need  for 
the  intimate. 


104  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  Guillaumin  we  have  a  man  who  gave 
promise  of  good  work  but  who,  up  to  the  last, 
failed  in  its  fulfilment.  Indubitably  talented,  he 
never  succeeded  in  reaching  that  point  where 
talent  is  only  a  means  to  an  end.  But  neverthe- 
less there  was  in  him  a  solidity  of  modelling,  a 
real  feeling  for  the  ponderous  hardness  of  hills 
and  plains.  He  was  a  friend  of  Cezanne,  and 
undoubtedly  learned  much  from  that  master  of 
form.  At  first  he  had  painted  in  sombre  tones, 
but  later,  after  meeting  Cezanne  and  Pissarro  in 
the  Academic  Suisse,  he  adopted  their  lighter  and 
more  joyous  colour  schemes.  There  is  a  canvas 
in  the  Caillebotte  Collection  in  the  Luxembourg 
which,  in  its  broadness  of  treatment  and  extensive 
planes,  suggests  Gauguin  both  as  to  gamut  and 
conception.  Guillaumin  was  the  most  masculine 
talent  of  the  early  Impressionist  group.  He  cared 
less  for  the  transient  views  of  nature  than  for  its 
eternal  aspect.  His  colour,  by  its  liberality  of 
application,  counts  more  forcibly  than  that  of 
Pissarro,  Monet  or  Sisley.  His  contributions  to 
the  new  idea,  however,  were  comparatively  small. 
He  was  not  an  explorer,  but  followed  diligently 
in  the  path  others  had  marked  out.  Only  after 
he  had  won  a  fortune  in  a  lottery  did  he  break 
away  from  his  environment.  But  this  release 
came  to  him  too  late.  His  formative  period  of 
development  had  passed,  and  his  work,  from  that 
time  on,  did  not  alter  in  technique.  Only  in  his 
picturesque  and  bizarre  subject-matter  is  notice- 
able any  deviation  from  his  habitual  routine. 

The  individual  achievements  of  the  Impression- 
ists, however,  no  matter  how  competent,  are  of  minor 
importance.  Impressionism  was  a  new  weapon  in 


J 
_] 

5 


THE  EARLY  IMPRESSIONISTS       105 

the  hands  of  art's  anarchists.  It  has  come  to  be 
regarded  as  a  faultless  faith  whose  devotees  can  do 
no  wrong.  There  has  been  little  or  no  adequate 
literature  devoted  to  its  exposition,  its  causes  and 
influence;  and  the  exaggeration  of  its  attainments 
are  as  grotesque  as  the  calumny  with  which  it  was 
at  first  received.  It  was  not  an  ultimate  and 
isolated  movement,  but  a  simple  and  wholly 
natural  offshoot  in  the  evolution  of  new  means. 
The  artists  who  fathered  it  were,  except  in  one 
instance,  men  whose  enthusiasm  outstripped  their 
abilities  as  composers.  Their  greatest  good  lay 
in  that  they  turned  the  thoughts  of  painters 
toward  colour,  and  outlined,  summarily  to  be 
sure,  the  uses  to  which  this  new  and  highly 
intense  element  might  be  put.  They  expressed 
just  what  their  desires  permitted  them:  —  nature 
in  all  its  visible  changes.  Those  exquisite  mo- 
ments of  full  sunlight  on  land  and  water,  of  cloud 
shadows  over  the  hills,  of  the  warm  brilliancy  of 
a  blue  sky  on  the  upturned  faces  of  flowers;  the 
stillness  of  summer  amid  the  woods;  the  cold 
serenity  of  snow-clad  fields  —  all  were  seen  and 
captured  and  immortalised  by  these  men.  They 
were  the  greatest  painters  of  effects  the  world 
has  ever  known.  They  never  strove  to  evoke 
the  sensation  of  weight  in  the  objects  they 
painted;  and  that  organisation  of  parts,  which 
is  a  replica  of  the  cosmos,  they  were  too  busy  to 
attempt.  Their  very  deficiencies  were  what  per- 
mitted them  so  complete  a  vision  of  the  only  side 
of  realism  which  still  remained  for  painting  to 
investigate. 

The  Impressionists  did  not  embody  concretely 
the  teachings  of  their  forerunners,  but  used  them 


io6  MODERN  PAINTING 

all  in  the  abstract.  Delacroix  had  sacrificed 
photographic  truth  in  drawing  in  order  to  present 
a  more  intense  impression  of  truth.  Daumier 
had  built  form  as  nature  builds  it,  colour  aside. 
Courbet  had  turned  painters  from  the  poetic 
contemplation  of  a  great  past  to  the  life  about 
them.  Manet  had  made  images  of  whatever 
was  at  hand  for  the  pure  love  of  painting.  The 
Impressionists  turned  to  the  things  nearest  them, 
paid  scant  heed  to  scholastic  drawing,  translated 
Daumier's  doctrine  of  form  into  light,  and  like 
Manet  painted  for  the  joy  of  the  work.  As 
experimenters  they  were  valuable;  but  their 
pictures,  to  those  unsentimental  persons  whose 
appreciations  of  art  are  wholly  aesthetic,  mean 
little  more  than  records  of  how  a  cabbage  patch 
appears  at  sunrise,  a  lily  pond  at  midday,  or  a 
country  lane  at  twilight.  The  Impressionists  did 
not  amalgamate  and  express  the  dreams  of  their 
forerunners.  They  were  one  of  those  transitional 
generations  whose  vitality  is  spent  in  a  stupendous 
endeavour  to  conceive  before  the  time  is  ripe. 
The  need  for  a  great  birth  had  not  yet  made 
itself  felt;  for  only  when  the  period  of  embryo 
is  complete  can  great  art  be  born.  Renoir 
brought  forth  that  issue;  and  with  him  evolution 
seems  to  halt  a  moment  before  plunging  onward. 
The  meagre  aesthetics  of  the  early  Impressionists 
could  not  lead  to  the  highest  artistic  results. 
Indeed,  their  animating  aims  had  to  be  abandoned 
before  Renoir  could  attain  to  true  significance. 


V 
AUGUSTE   RENOIR 

THE  entire  past  progress  of  painting  is 
condensed  and  expressed  in  each  of  its 
great  men.  The  creation  of  new  art 
cannot  be  accomplished  overnight,  any 
more  than  that  of  a  new  organism;  it  must 
stem  from  first  impulses  and  be  formed  on  the 
differentiations  of  the  past.  Those  men  who 
declare  themselves  primitives  and  seek  to  acquire 
the  eyes  and  minds  of  the  Phoenicians  or  Aztecs 
are  as  conscious  of  their  inability  to  create  new 
art  forms  as  are  those  visionaries  who  live  in  a 
mythical  future  and  try  to  prophesy  the  forms 
that  are  to  come.  No  man  is  born  too  soon  or  too 
late.  There  are  those  who  strive  toward  classic 
intellectual  ideals,  toward  Utopian  economic  states, 
toward  new  orders  of  society:  but  such  reformers 
are  only  the  malcontents.  The  truly  great  and 
practical  men  quickly  assimilate  the  impulses  of 
their  own  epochs  and  push  the  frontiers  of  the 
mind's  possibilities  further  into  the  unknown. 
These  latter  comprise  the  maligned  vanguard  of 
heroic  thinkers  who  fight  the  battles  for  their 
weaker  followers.  Often,  however,  these  followers 
rise  to  great  heights,  for  in  the  world  of  endeavour 
two  conspicuous  types  exist  —  the  man  who 
experiments  and  the  man  who  achieves.  Dela- 
croix, Manet  and  the  Impressionists  belong  to 
the  first;  Courbet  and  Renoir  are  of  the  second. 


io8  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  Renoir's  life  story,  as  in  that  of  Titian, 
Rubens  and  Rembrandt,  we  see  in  miniature  the 
evolution  of  all  the  painting  that  preceded  him  — 
the  bitter  struggles  with  the  chimeras  of  con- 
vention, and  each  slow  change  that  came  over 
drawing,  style,  colour  and  composition.  In  the 
end,  after  a  life  full  of  near  defeats,  strife,  yearn- 
ing and  anxiety,  we  behold  the  great  man  emerge 
triumphantly  from  his  broken  fetters  and  take  his 
place  beside  the  masters  of  the  past.  Some 
painters  have  more  arduous  rights  than  others, 
for  the  odds  against  them  are  greater.  Rubens 
and  Delacroix  seemed  the  pampered  favourites  of 
a  high  destiny:  Courbet  and  Renoir  had  to  cleave 
and  chisel  each  step  of  the  way  through  the 
adamant  of  public  suspicion.  The  world  appears 
incapable  of  recognising  either  an  intensification 
or  a  modification  of  an  old  and  accepted  formula. 
Hence  Courtois  and  Puget  were  preferred  to 
Delacroix;  Ribera  and  Rembrandt  to  Courbet; 
the  Avignon  painters  to  Manet;  Corot,  Diaz 
and  Rousseau  to  the  Impressionists;  and  Rubens 
and  Ingres  to  Renoir.  In  all  of  these  parallelisms, 
the  latter  had  their  roots  in  the  former.  They 
were  complications  and  variations  of  their  fore- 
runners —  dissimilar  only  in  method  and  manner. 

Renoir  began  to  paint  at  an  early  age.  The 
poverty  of  his  family  necessitated  him  to  make 
his  own  living,  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  he  was 
in  a  factory  painting  porcelains.  Five  years  later 
he  applied  for  work  at  a  place  given  over  to  the 
decoration  of  transparent  screens.  Here  his  un- 
usual facility  permitted  him  to  paint  ten  times 
as  fast  as  his  fellow  decorators,  and  since  he  was 
paid  by  the  piece,  he  soon  saved  enough  money 


AUGUSTS  RENOIR  109 

to  give  himself  an  education  in  the  art  which 
had  now  become  with  him  a  conscious  instinct  — 
painting.  From  his  earliest  youth  he  had  evinced 
a  discontent  with  the  slow-moving  minds  about 
him,  and  it  was  natural  that  he  should  first  look 
upon  art  through  the  eyes  of  his  great  revolution- 
ary contemporary,  Courbet.  His  earliest  work, 
of  which  Le  Cabaret  de  la  Mere  Anthony  and 
Diane  Chasseresse  are  the  best-known  examples, 
reflected  Courbet  in  both  palette  and  conception. 
Even  later,  when  Manet  claimed  him,  he  clung 
to  his  first  influence.  For  while  his  work  now 
reached  out  toward  the  substance  of  light  to  be 
found  in  La  Musique  aux  Tuileries,  it  revealed 
at  the  same  time  all  the  form  of  the  Ornans 
master.  Le  Menage  Sisley  and  Lise  strikingly 
combine  these  two  early  influences. 

Since  humanity  has  emerged  from  the  darkness 
of  unconsciousness  and  the  individual  from  the 
darkness  of  the  womb,  it  is  consistent  with  nature 
that  in  a  man's  creative  development  —  the 
route  of  which  lies  between  dark  and  dark  —  the 
use  of  black  should  be  his  first  instinct.  Renoir, 
like  all  painters  of  great  promise,  started  with 
this  negation  of  colour.  But  wherein  his  intel- 
lectual distinction  manifested  itself  was  his  innate 
proclivity  for  the  rhythm  of  surface  lines  which 
he  alone  of  all  his  contemporaries  recognised  in 
Courbet.  In  Lise,  painted  in  1867,  a  year  after 
his  Diane  Chasseresse,  both  of  these  early  pen- 
chants are  evident.  Black  is  the  keynote  of  his 
sunlight;  and  while  in  conception  the  canvas  is 
akin  to  Manet,  it  is  a  Manet  made  dexterous  and 
masterly.  It  contains  a  balance  and  a  linear 
rhythm  of  which  that  painter  was  ignorant.  Lise 


i  io  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  one  of  the  few  Renoirs  into  which  the  influence 
of  Velazquez  and  Goya  can  be  imagined.  Even 
in  its  pyramidal  form,  which  when  used  by  most 
painters  becomes  a  static  figure,  there  is  a  move- 
ment at  its  apex  which  opens  into  a  shape  like  a 
lily.  This  is  brought  about  by  the  tilt  of  the 
sunshade  and  the  continuation  of  the  line  of  the 
sash  outward  in  the  tree  trunk.  By  just  such 
obvious  and  simple  signs  as  these  in  early  works, 
can  we  foretell  an  artist's  later  developments. 

The  next  year,  1868,  Renoir's  work  is  more 
net,  more  able  in  its  balance,  more  sure  in  its 
effect  Le  Menage  Sisley  is  one  of  his  finest 
early  examples  of  how  this  rhythmic  continuity 
of  line  obsesses  a  mind  avid  for  form,  colour, 
vitality.  At  first  glance  we  see  only  an  irregular 
pyramid  formed  by  the  outline  of  the  two  figures; 
but  after  a  minute's  study  we  notice  that  on  the 
right  the  line  of  the  skirt  curves  gracefully  inward 
to  the  waist-line,  sweeps  up  to  the  woman's  neck, 
then  begins  an  outward  flexure,  and  finally  dis- 
perses itself  amid  the  tree's  slanting  branches  in 
the  right-hand  upper  corner.  On  the  left,  the 
outline  of  the  man's  right  leg  and  arm  and  hair 
forms  another  curve  which  bends  back  the  line 
of  the  opposing  curve  of  the  woman's  dress,  and 
completes  the  figure  of  the  pyramid.  But  the 
first  curve,  the  force  of  which  is  seemingly  ended 
at  the  woman's  waist,  is  continued  in  the  outline 
of  the  light  tonality  which  begins  at  the  man's  right 
elbow,  curves  outward  to  the  frame,  then  inward, 
and  ends  on  the  upper  frame  a  little  to  the  left  of 
the  man's  head.  Furthermore,  the  volume  made 
by  the  light  tonality  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner 
serves  as  a  balance  to  the  form  of  the  woman's 


AUGUSTS  RENOIR  in 

tunic.  This  composition  is,  in  all  essentials,  the 
same  as  in  Lise,  and  embraces  that  rhythm  in 
two  dimensions  which  Manet  did  not  know,  and 
that  balance  of  tonal  form  of  which  Manet  was 
never  capable.  Manet's  mind  was  that  of  the 
lesser  Dutch  and  Spaniards.  Renoir's  was  the 
plastic  and  flowing  mind  of  the  Latin  races,  never 
satisfied  with  angularity  and  immobility,  but  need- 
ful of  the  smooth  progression  of  sequence  and 
movement. 

The  recognition  of  the  artistic  necessity  for 
linear  rhythm  led  Renoir  to  search  for  it  in  others 
than  Courbet.  Among  the  painters  by  whom  he 
might  profit,  Delacroix  stood  nearest  his  own 
time.  To  him  Renoir  turned;  and  it  was  out  of 
him  that  Renoir's  greatness  was  to  grow.  Dela- 
croix's organisations  appealed  to  him  —  especially 
the  triangular  one  which  opens  at  the  top.  His 
admiration  for  this  artist's  talent  led  him  to  paint 
in  1872  a  canvas  called  Parisiennes  Habillees  en 
Algeriennes,  an  ambitious  essay  to  compete  with 
Les  Femmes  d'Alger  dans  Leur  Appartement.  In- 
trinsically the  picture  was  a  failure,  but  it  taught 
its  creator  more  than  he  had  heretofore  learned 
concerning  colour  and  drawing.  In  it  are  dis- 
cernible indications  of  the  formal  unconvention- 
alities  and  the  chromatic  brilliancies  which  later 
were  to  be  such  dominant  qualities  in  Renoir's 
work.  Although  for  two  years  he  had  used 
Impressionistic  methods,  it  was  through  this 
picture  that  Delacroix  introduced  him  to  the 
Impressionists'  colour.  Manet  had  already  in- 
troduced him  to  Ingres:  and  these  two  incidents 
went  far  toward  laying  the  foundation  for  his 
greatness.  On  neither  the  Impressionists  nor 


ii2  MODERN  PAINTING 

Ingres  did  he  build  a  style;  but  from  both  he 
learned  something  of  far  more  value :  —  freedom 
from  the  dictates  of  style.  Here  again  Delacroix 
had  a  hand,  for  by  studying  this  artist's  uses  of 
Ingres's  simplifications,  Renoir  was  able  to  make 
these  simplifications  plastic. 

Renoir's  colour  up  to  this  time  had  been  re- 
strained by  the  dictates  of  his  epoch.  But  with 
the  inspiration  and  encouragement  given  him  by 
Les  Femmes  d'Alger  dans  Leur  Appartement,  it 
burst  forth  with  all  the  force  of  long-imprisoned 
energy,  and  drove  him  out  of  doors.  In  this 
picture  he  found  excuse  to  carry  colour  to  any 
extreme  he  desired.  At  once  the  instincts  of 
the  porcelain  painter,  ever  latent  in  him,  came 
uppermost.  Delacroix,  in  giving  him  the  Impres- 
sionists' freedom  of  colour,  had  brought  him  back 
to  those  rich  and  full  little  designs  he  had  painted 
on  china  between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  eighteen. 
In  this  early  training  alone  lies  the  explanation 
of  his  later  matiere  which  has  for  so  long  puzzled 
the  critics.  Many  attribute  his  colour  effects  to 
Watteau.  But  Renoir  had  developed  his  tech- 
nique before  he  knew  the  older  master.  Years 
previous  he  had  been  intensely  interested  in  the 
very  material  of  his  models.  In  Le  Menage 
Sisley,  La  Baigneuse  au  Griffon  and  La  Femme  a 
la  Perruche  is  evinced  the  love  of  the  connoisseur 
for  rare  and  rich  stuffs.  Furthermore  he  had 
begun  to  turn  his  eyes  toward  Impressionist 
methods  two  years  before  he  painted  Les 
Parisiennes  Habillees  en  Algeriennes.  Up  to  that 
time  his  brushing  had  been  broad  like  Manet's 
or  Courbet's;  immediately  afterward  it  tended 
toward  spotting,  and  Monet  took  the  upper  hand. 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  113 

Watteau's  manner  of  application  served  only  to 
substantiate  Renoir  in  his  choice  of  method. 

The  years  from  1865  to  1876  constitute  a  period 
of  Renoir's  life  rich  in  its  promise  of  splendid 
things.  His  keen  admirations  and  high  enthusi- 
asms made  of  him  throughout  this  time  a  disciple. 
But  his  achievements,  small  as  they  were,  were 
more  sumptuous  and  effectual  than  either  Manet's 
or  Monet's.  Their  true  significance,  though,  lay 
in  their  assurance  of  what  was  to  come  after  he 
had  completed  that  unlearning  process  through 
which  all  great  men  must  pass.  Only  by  sitting 
at  a  master's  feet  can  one  acquire  the  knowledge 
that  informs  one  which  influences  should  be 
utilised  and  which  cast  aside.  One  cannot  learn 
from  experience  the  total  lessons  of  many  men, 
each  one  of  whom  has  given  a  lifetime  to  the 
study  of  a  different  side  of  a  subject.  If  these 
men  are  to  be  surpassed  their  life  work  must  be 
used  as  a  starting  point.  Renoir  began  thus. 
He  had  fallen  under  the  sway  of  Courbet,  Manet, 
Delacroix  and  Monet;  but  after  eleven  years  he 
had  exhausted  his  creative  interest  in  both  their 
theories  and  their  attainments.  These  men  had 
expressed  all  that  was  in  them.  For  Renoir  to 
cling  to  them  was  to  stand  still.  If  he  was  to 
go  down  in  history  as  a  constructive  genius  and 
not  merely  as  an  able  imitator,  it  was  time  for 
him  to  strike  out  alone. 

He  did  not  hesitate.  The  portrait  of  Mile. 
Durand-Ruel,  done  in  1876,  marks  his  transfor- 
mation. In  it  he  achieved  the  scintillation  of 
light  which  is  not  linked  with  colour  or  painting, 
but  which  seems  to  arise,  by  some  mysterious 
alchemy,  from  the  surface  of  the  canvas.  In 


ii4  MODERN  PAINTING 

this  picture,  and  also  in  the  Moulin  de  la  Galette, 
finished  in  the  same  year,  he  consummated  the 
fondest  ambition  of  the  Impressionists,  namely: 
to  make  the  spectator  feel  a  picture,  not  as  a 
depiction  of  nature's  light,  but  as  a  medium  from 
which  emanates  the  very  force  of  light  itself. 
But  Renoir  did  not  stop  here:  to  this  achieve- 
ment he  added  form  and  rhythm  —  two  attributes 
which  the  Impressionists,  preoccupied  with  ob- 
jectivity, were  too  busy  to  attempt.  And  in 
addition  he  displayed  a  technique  so  perfect  in 
its  adaptability  to  any  expression,  that  its 
mannerisms  were  completely  submerged  in  the 
picture's  total  effect.  These  were  the  qualities 
which  Renoir  was  to  develop  to  so  superlative 
a  degree.  He  had  begun  to  express  form  in 
1870  in  his  Portrait  de  Dame.  Two  years  later 
in  his  Delacroix  adaptation  he  had  branched  out 
into  colour.  And  in  his  very  first  canvases  there 
was  rhythmic  balance  of  lines.  In  1876  all  these 
tendencies  coalesced.  In  consequence  Renoir 
blossomed  forth  free  from  aggressive  influences, 
knowing  his  own  limitations  and  possibilities. 
This  cannot  be  said  even  of  those  excellent  works, 
La  Loge,  La  Danseuse  and  La  Fillette  Attentive, 
done  the  two  preceding  years.  It  is  only  by 
contemplating  such  pictures  as  the  portrait  of 
Mile.  Durand-Ruel,  La  Chevelure  and  La  Source 
that  we  can  perceive  the  path  along  which  his 
development  was  to  take  place.  For  these  can- 
vases, though  far  more  significant  than  the 
works  of  Pissarro  and  Monet,  are  almost  negli- 
gible beside  his  later  work.  He  was  a  man 
never  satisfied  with  results,  no  matter  how 
exalted.  His  every  new  achievement  was  only 


w 


w 


AUGUSrE  RENOIR  115 

a  higher  elevation  from  which  his  horizon  ever 
receded. 

One  of  Renoir's  important  advances  in  method 
is  his  liberation  from  the  circumscribed  use  of 
black.  Although  in  some  of  his  work  of  1876 
there  are  still  traces  of  that  tone  used  organically, 
they  are  so  slight  that  they  may  be  disregarded. 
Black  was  the  very  keynote  of  the  paintings  of 
his  day.  It  was  looked  upon  as  a  necessity  in 
the  creation  of  volumes.  Courbet  did  little  with- 
out it,  and  Manet  brightened  it  only  with 
occasional  flashes  of  colour.  Today  we  know 
that  it  is  not  a  technical  necessity,  that  pure 
colours,  in  fact,  when  properly  used,  can  produce 
the  most  solid  forms.  But  whereas  we  have  been 
able  to  profit  by  the  teachings  of  Cezanne  and 
the  Synchromists,  Renoir  had  to  learn  this  fact 
by  bitter  experiments  in  a  new  element.  In  La 
Balancoire,  done  in  the  same  year  as  the  Moulin 
de  la  Galette  and  now  hanging  with  that  picture 
in  the  Luxembourg,  black  is  entirely  absent. 
This  little  canvas  was  probably  an  experiment 
actuated  by  Monet,  for  never  afterward  did  he 
on  principle  lay  black  aside.  While  he  realised 
its  unimportance  as  a  fundamental  for  construct- 
ing volume,  he  nevertheless  felt  its  need  as  a 
complement  to  colour  —  the  need  of  the  static 
and  the  dead  to  accentuate  the  plastic  and  alive. 

It  is  during  this  period  that  critics  are  prone 
to  see  Gainsborough  in  Renoir.  But  their  rea- 
sons for  such  a  comparison  are  superficial,  and 
go  no  further  than  the  fact  that  both  painters 
dealt  with  feminine  themes  in  a  similarly  intimate 
manner.  No  genuinely  artistic  likeness  can  be 
found  between  Mrs.  Siddons,  for  instance,  and 


ii6  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  Ingenue.  The  one  is  merely  a  spirited  por- 
trait without  composition  or  tactility:  the  other 
is  an  exquisite  bit  of  form  and  colour,  which  we 
feel  would  be  as  solid  to  the  touch  as  it  appears 
to  the  eye.  If  we  are  to  compare  Renoir  to 
English  painters  at  all,  let  us  designate  Hogarth 
and  Romney,  although  any  such  comparative 
method  of  criticism  is  apt  to  lead  at  once  to 
misunderstanding.  However,  even  these  two  men 
are  distinctly  inadequate  as  measures  for  Renoir. 
In  the  graphic  arts  Englishmen  exhibit  no  feeling 
for  rhythm.  Indeed,  it  may  correctly  be  said 
they  possess  no  graphic  arts.  Rhythm  is  a  factor 
which  has  made  itself  felt  only  in  their  poetry, 
and  here  it  can  hardly  be  called  more  than  a 
division  of  interval,  or  tempo.  Rossetti  in  his 
paintings  is  seemingly  more  conscious  of  its 
power  than  any  other  Englishman,  and  occa- 
sionally attempted  to  produce  it  by  the  primi- 
tive device  of  curved  lines.  But,  after  all,  Ros- 
setti was  Italian.  On  the  whole  Renoir  and  the 
English  artists  are  two  fundamentally  dissimilar 
to  be  estimated  relatively.  The  finest  qualities  of 
Renoir's  art  grew  out  of  his  instinct  for  fluent 
movement,  for  intense  undulations,  for  hot  gor- 
geous colour,  for  freedom  from  all  traditional  pre- 
scriptions. 

The  evolution  of  these  instincts  was  by  no 
means  a  mechanical  one.  After  he  had  amal- 
gamated the  leading  qualities  of  his  art,  his 
interest  would  often  reveal  itself  more  strongly 
in  one  direction  than  another.  Thus  many  of 
his  canvases  show  a  retrogression  toward  emphasis 
of  light;  others  toward  form;  still  others  toward 
linear  rhythm.  Yet  no  matter  which  one  of  these 


AUGUSrE   RENOIR  117 

qualities  predominated,  the  others  also  remained 
intact.  More  importance,  however,  attached  to 
his  preoccupation  with  the  treatment  of  light. 
His  experiments  and  consequent  development  in 
this  field  are  of  initial  significance  in  judging 
his  later  work.  In  1878  he  had  evidently  fore- 
seen the  cul-de-sac  into  which  the  natural  dis- 
tribution of  light  would  lead.  The  very  volatility 
and  translucency  of  illumination  and  its  matter- 
dispelling  qualities,  constituted  the  greatest  draw- 
back to  its  use  in  the  creation  of  form.  In  other 
words  its  sheer  beauty  nullified  the  deeper  aims 
of  painting.  In  two  decorative  Panneaux  of 
reclining  nudes,  done  in  the  same  year,  Renoir 
makes  his  first  attempt  to  escape  from  the 
naturalism  of  light.  The  use  of  light  is  here 
restricted  to  a  colour  force  which  serves  only  to 
bring  form  into  relief.  From  that  time  on, 
although  he  had  many  struggles  with  its  power 
over  him,  he  had  conquered  its  insidious  influ- 
ence. It  became  his  servant,  whereas  before  it 
had  been  his  master.  In  his  earlier  canvases, 
wherein  sunlight  had  played  a  leading  part,  he 
had  placed  the  sun  patches,  gleaming  and  vibrant, 
wherever  they  naturally  fell.  After  1878  he 
began  placing  them  arbitrarily  on  points  where 
formal  projection  was  needed. 

The  subtle  manner  in  which  he  constructed 
and  posed  these  patches  precluded  any  discovery 
of  his  reasons  for  altering  their  natural  location. 
But  Renoir  was  not  fully  satisfied,  and  soon 
abandoned  this  phase  of  pleinairisme.  Later  the 
spots  of  sunlight  appeared  on  cheeks,  shoulders, 
knees,  or  any  other  salients  which  called  for 
powerful  relief,  thereby  losing  their  flat  and  de- 


ii8  MODERN  PAINTING 

tached  appearance.  This  moulding  of  them  into 
intense  aggregations  had  much  to  do  with  Renoir's 
fullness  of  form.  His  long  experience  had  given 
him  a  complete  knowledge  of  their  naturalistic 
effect.  He  knew  it  was  impossible  to  make  them 
remain  on  the  same  plane  with  the  surrounding 
shadow,  and  he  understood  the  reasons  for  this 
phenomenon.  It  was  not  therefore  remarkable 
that,  in  his  later  method  of  applying  them,  he 
was  sure  of  his  results.  As  soon  as  he  realised 
that  sunlight  dispersed  matter  by  obscuring  some 
points  and  accentuating  others,  he  knew  that  by 
an  intelligent  employment  of  this  factor  of  lumi- 
nosity he  could  at  will  accentuate  certain  parts 
of  his  canvas  and  obscure  others.  This  knowl- 
edge led  him  naturally  to  create  his  own  light, 
irrespective  of  how  it  actually  existed.  This  was 
an  important  step  toward  its  complete  abroga- 
tion, and  brought  arbitrary  means  in  painting 
just  so  much  nearer.  He  had  already  distorted 
volumes  for  purposes  of  organisation  in  the  same 
manner  that  he  now  distorted  light.  Indeed 
every  great  painter  has  taken  this  liberty  with 
form;  but  each  one  has  to  learn  the  device  anew 
in  its  relation  to  his  own  separate  vision. 

There  are  few  shadows,  as  such,  in  Renoir. 
We  find  darks  and  lights  in  scintillating  succes- 
sion, but  we  may  search  in  vain,  even  in  his 
canvases  of  1878  or  1879,  for  those  shadowed  out- 
lines which  are  the  result  of  light.  If  light  there 
is,  it  is  only  the  light  which  springs  from  our  own 
eyes  —  light  which  seems  to  come  from  the 
direction  of  the  beholder,  like  the  reflection  of  a 
light  in  water.  Move  as  you  will  before  his 
pictures,  it  follows  you,  for  it  is  the  illumination 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  119 

of  that  part  of  the  picture  nearest  the  eyes  of  the 
painter.  Where  a  form  is  full,  there  Renoir  con- 
trives to  have  a  light  fall.  This  artifice  may 
strike  us  today  as  childish,  since  we  have  out- 
grown our  concern  with  light;  but  let  us  remem- 
ber that  from  the  beginning  the  depiction  of 
lights  and  shadows  had  been  a  fixed  practice, 
and  that  their  tones  had  formed  the  only  basis 
for  chiaroscuro.  With  the  Impressionists  light 
became  the  atout  of  painting.  Renoir  made  of  it 
a  vital  form-creating  element.  Herein  we  have 
its  evolution:  first,  a  convention;  next,  an 
obsession;  last,  a  utility.  So  were  the  aesthetic 
possibilities  of  light  exhausted,  just  as  the  aes- 
thetic possibilities  of  the  human  form  were 
exhausted  by  Michelangelo. 

In  this  last  step  of  liberating  light  from  con- 
vention, Renoir  approached  nearer  to  nature  than 
any  antecedent  painter.  After  all,  a  human 
being  in  the  sunlight  appears  to  us  as  a  solid 
moving  mass.  Only  those  who  look  upon  nature 
as  a  flat  pattern  of  shades  and  lights  are  misled 
by  sun  patches.  So,  in  Renoir's  adapting  the 
source  of  light  for  the  purpose  of  producing 
solidity  of  form,  we  are  cognisant  of  the  palpa- 
bility of  his  figures  whether  they  are  in  light  or 
shadow,  or  both.  Thus  he  created  the  actual 
impression  of  volume  we  all  get  before  a  moving 
form.  This  arbitrary  disposition  of  light  and 
shadow  also  gave  fullness  and  intensity  to  his 
form,  and  accentuated  the  poise,  so  subtle  and 
unexpected,  we  feel  in  even  his  slightest  works. 
But  while  this  was  the  secret  of  his  attainment 
of  volume,  the  compositional  use  to  which  he  put 
this  volume  requires  another  explanation  —  one 


izo  MODERN  POINTING 

which  has  its  roots  in  the  very  depths  of  the 
man's  genius.  There  had  never  been  such  form 
in  the  French  school  as  that  which  Renoir  gave 
it  in  1880.  The  Tete  de  Jeune  Fille  and  Les 
Enfants  en  Rose  et  Bleu,  done  about  this  time, 
must  have  been  the  despair  of  even  the  sculptors 
of  his  day.  And  these  were  but  the  beginning. 
Many  phases  of  his  art  were  yet  to  be  emphasised 
and  developed  before  the  Renoir  we  know  today 
was  to  be  perfected. 

It  was  in  1884  that  he  began  to  "apprendre 
le  dessin."  For  four  years  he  continued  this 
self-training  in  the  precision  of  draughtsmanship. 
As  a  boy  he  had  begun  his  painting  in  a  manner 
more  competent  than  the  most  advanced  style  of 
the  average  artist,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  able 
use  of  colour  as  design  in  his  early  porcelains. 
And  although  he  was  driven  to  this  work  by 
necessity,  the  incident  was  a  salutary  one.  It 
turned  his  thoughts  toward  those  abstract  organi- 
sations of  colour  which  always  afterward  haunted 
him.  Later  he  learned  all  the  tricks  of  the  day 
in  the  school  of  the  realists,  and  succeeded  in 
surpassing  his  masters.  Next  he  studied  the 
Impressionists  and  went  beyond  them  also.  Then 
he  co-ordinated  his  knowledge  and  established  his 
individual  greatness.  This  period  of  his  develop- 
ment gave  France  much  of  its  finest  painting,  and 
his  Baigneuse  done  at  this  time  is  an  undoubted 
masterpiece.  His  reversion  to  the  rudiments  of 
drawing  was  the  result  of  a  burning  desire  to 
develop  rhythm  and  form.  His  technical  diffi- 
culties had  been  conquered  at  an  early  date: 
he  needed  only  dexterity  in  drawing  to  achieve  his 
end.  Not  only  did  Renoir  attain  to  his  objective, 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  121 

but,  by  comprehending  the  principle  of  the  place- 
ments and  displacements  of  volumes,  he  learned 
the  advantages  of  line  accentuation  in  obtaining 
movement. 

We  now  come  to  those  pictures  which  show 
Renoir's  intimate  relation  to  Rubens  through 
Boucher  and  Watteau:  to  his  alfresco  bathing 
figures.  Some  one  has  pointed  out  that  his 
Baigneuses  of  1885,  one  year  after  he  had  devoted 
himself  to  drawing,  was  inspired  by  Girardon's 
lead-reliefs  in  the  gardens  at  Versailles.  The 
commentary  is  undoubtedly  true;  but  even  so, 
of  what  significance  is  it  ?  Aside  from  the  super- 
ficial fact  that  in  the  works  of  both  appear 
bathing  women  in  more  or  less  abandoned  poses, 
Renoir  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  school 
of  Largilliere,  Pater,  Fragonard,  Le  Moyne, 
Santerre  and  Girardon.  In  all  such  observations 
one  senses  the  restriction  of  the  critic's  viewpoint 
to  illustration.  An  artist  may  find  inspiration  in 
any  visual  form,  but  this  form  is  of  no  more 
aesthetic  importance  to  him  than  a  photograph. 
In  Picasso's  paintings  of  violin  fragments  we  are 
scarcely  permitted  to  deduce  an  inspiration  from 
Stradivarius.  Grotesque  as  this  analogy  may 
seem,  it  is  applicable  to  the  contention  that 
Renoir  stemmed  from  Girardon.  For  there  is 
nothing  whatever  in  Renoir's  bathing  girls  to 
suggest  a  psychological  parallel  between  them  and 
the  leaden  frieze  at  Versailles.  If  Renoir  saw  in 
that  frieze  an  attractive  pose,  it  was  with  an  eye 
to  its  adaptability  to  composition.  In  Girardon 
there  is  only  a  pretty  and  sensual  chaos.  In 
Renoir  we  have  a  masterly  organisation  wherein 
the  actual  positions  of  the  young  women  are  not 


122  MODERN  PAINTING 

even  remarked.  Compare,  for  instance,  Girar- 
don's  version  of  the  figure  of  the  girl  throwing 
water  on  her  playmates,  with  the  corresponding 
figure  in  Renoir's  drawing.  The  body  of  the 
former  is  without  doubt  a  more  faithful  replica 
of  its  model;  in  Renoir  it  has  become  impossibly 
elongated  and  voluminous.  Its  head  is  too  small; 
its  back  too  long;  its  hips  are  too  large  —  and 
yet  withal  it  is  an  exquisite  bit  of  rich  form  which 
has  as  concrete  a  tangibility  as  that  of  a  real 
body.  One  cannot  judge  it  by  its  contour;  one 
must  bury  oneself  in  its  very  weight. 

Had  Renoir  advanced  no  further  than  his  mas- 
terly Baigneuse  of  1884,  he  would  nevertheless 
have  gone  down  in  history  as  a  great  artist.  But 
compared  with  the  same  subject  done  in  1888,  it 
appears  stiff.  We  feel  in  it  the  rigidity  of  a 
master  whose  great  qualities  are  without  a  direct- 
ing intelligence.  In  the  later  canvas,  Renoir  is 
less  preoccupied  with  details.  As  a  result  there 
is  a  greater  plenitude  of  bulging  form,  a  purer 
rhythm.  And  there  is  also  an  added  movement 
caused  by  the  linear  harmony  of  the  background, 
by  the  hair  over  the  shoulder,  and  above  all  by 
the  turning  of  the  head  so  that  its  weight  is 
shifted  over  a  hollow.  An  apparently  simple 
thing  —  this  turning  of  a  head.  Yet  Michel- 
angelo's genius,  as  well  as  that  of  all  great 
artists,  is  dependent  on  the  knowledge  of  when 
a  head  should  be  turned  or  a  limb  advanced. 
This  knowledge  is  what  transforms  action  into 
movement,  tempo  into  rhythm,  the  static  into 
the  plastic,  the  dead  into  the  living.  It  is  the 
final  penetration  into  composition;  on  it  all 
aesthetic  form  is  built.  Renoir  acquired  it  in  his 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  123 

period  of  so-called  dry  drawing.  Its  dawn  came 
in  La  Natte  and  Mere  et  Enfant.  It  was  still 
developing  in  the  Baigneuse;  and  in  La  Baigneuse 
Brune  and  Nu  a  1'Etoffe  Vert  et  Jaune,  both 
done  after  1900,  this  knowledge  was  becoming 
sure  of  itself.  Between  1884  and  1892,  however, 
Renoir's  new  strength  was  not  wholly  mastered. 
There  was  conscious  effort  in  its  employment. 
This  is  seen  in  La  Fillette  a  la  Gerbe  and  Les 
Filles  de  Catulle  Mendes  and  in  that  otherwise 
miraculous  canvas,  Au  Piano.  In  Le  Croquet, 
1892,  he  begins  to  exhibit,  in  his  use  of  new 
means,  the  same  prodigious  adroitness  he  displayed 
in  his  earlier  and  slighter  works.  And  in  Les 
Deux  Soeurs  the  effects  of  labour  entirely  vanish, 
and  he  once  more  paints  with  magistral  unconcern. 
From  that  time  forward  Renoir's  complete  gen- 
ius was  but  a  matter  of  evolution.  And  here  let 
it  be  remembered  that  his  transcendent  compe- 
tency was  the  result  of  academic  training,  for  of 
late  we  have  heard  many  objections  to  this  kind 
of  discipline.  We  have  been  invited  to  behold 
the  water-colour  and  crayon  works  of  the  untu- 
tored, assured  that  they  were  as  fine  as  Matisse's 
drawings.  And  we  have  been  asked  to  accept, 
as  a  corollary,  the  statement  that  all  painters  are 
better  off  without  the  pernicious  influence  of 
schools.  We  have  had  modern  paintings  pointed 
out  to  us  as  examples  of  what  inspiration  and 
freedom  from  convention  can  do.  We  have  heard 
the  constantly  reiterated  assertion  that  academies 
cramp  genius,  restrict  vision  and  force  all  expres- 
sion into  stipulated  moulds.  To  concede  to  these 
extravagant  assertions  would  be  to  ignore  the 
history  of  great  painting,  for  during  all  the 


124  MODERN  PAINTING 

significant  epochs  of  art  the  school  was  at  its 
zenith.  Without  it  there  could  be  no  genuine 
achievement.  No  amount  of  mere  inspiration 
has  ever  enabled  an  artist  to  paint  an  eminent 
canvas.  No  amount  of  uncontrolled  emotion- 
alism has  ever  permitted  one  to  make  an  aestheti- 
cally moving  work  of  art.  No  untrained  man, 
no  matter  how  high  his  natural  gifts,  has  yet 
been  able  to  record  adequately  his  feelings.  All 
the  records  of  past  accomplishment  go  to  show 
that  no  person  who  has  not  been  profoundly 
educated  in  the  purely  objective  (not  utilitarian) 
forms,  and  in  the  abstract  qualities  of  painting, 
such  as  anatomy  and  technique,  has  succeeded 
in  conceiving  an  artistic  organisation. 

The  school  has  never  obscured  or  dwarfed 
genius,  nor  is  it  probable  it  ever  will.  To  the 
contrary  it  assists  the  truly  great  man  in  his 
self-fulfilment  and  weeds  out  the  mediocre  man. 
It  turns  the  student's  thoughts  to  methods  rather 
than  to  inspiration.  It  directs  the  attention  of 
incompetent  and  merely  talented  persons,  incapa- 
ble of  rising  above  its  teachings,  into  side  issues. 
Thus  it  relegates  their  work  to  the  soupentes  of 
the  world:  whereas,  if  they  had  been  permitted 
to  labour  at  random,  they  would  only  have  choked 
the  market  of  genuinely  aesthetic  production. 
The  school  teaches  discipline,  precision,  and  the 
control  of  wayward  impulses,  without  all  of 
which  the  greatest  artist  could  only  incompletely 
express  himself.  These  are  the  things  which 
Renoir  felt  he  lacked;  and  in  the  midst  of  his 
career  he  halted  long  enough  to  acquire  them. 
It  may  be  argued  that  his  was  intelligent  train- 
ing, while  that  of  the  schools  is  unintelligent. 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  125 

But  all  discipline  is  beneficial  to  the  artist. 
Only  slavish  minds,  hopeless  from  the  first, 
succumb  to  it.  The  fact  that  a  man  capitulates 
to  academic  training  attests  to  an  incompetency 
so  great  that,  under  no  circumstances,  however 
favorable,  could  it  have  arisen  to  a  point  capable 
of  producing  great  art.  Giotto,  El  Greco  and 
Rubens  passed  through  rigid  training  and  rose 
above  it.  And  the  apprenticeship  demanded  of 
the  old  Egyptian,  Chinese  and  Greek  artists  was 
longer  and  more  tedious  than  any  of  our  school 
courses  today. 

Renoir's  scholastic  training  was  his  salvation. 
With  the  advent  of  the  twentieth  century  he 
struck  his  pace.  All  his  qualities  converged 
toward  the  construction  of  rhythm.  In  1900  he 
painted  a  large  and  ambitious  canvas  of  an  attired 
maid  combing  a  nude's  hair,  La  Toilette  de  la 
Baigneuse,  which  is  more  extended  and  conclusive 
than  any  of  his  previous  works.  The  forms  lean 
in  opposition  and  complete  each  other.  In 
them  is  a  perfect  poise  which  subjectively  evokes 
an  emotion  of  movement.  Even  the  lights  and 
darks  are  separated  so  as  to  give  the  strongest 
effect.  The  very  hat  and  tree  trunk  are  integral 
parts  of  the  whole,  and  there  is  not  a  line  in  the 
picture  which  does  not  develop  logically  to  a 
harmonic  completion.  The  luscious  plenitude  of 
form  is  equalled  only  by  the  finality  of  the  rhythm. 

Another  picture  of  the  same  period  is  the 
Baigneuses  in  the  Vollard  collection,  a  duplicate 
of  his  Baigneuses  of  fifteen  years  before.  Now 
all  the  hardness  is  gone  from  the  contours.  The 
differentiation  of  texture  between  the  flesh  and 
water  and  foliage  is  absent.  The  lines  are  less 


126  MODERN  PAINTING 

angular  and  true,  and  both  the  distant  nudes' 
attitudes  are  changed.  The  first  canvas  recalled 
Ingres;  but  the  second  brings  up  Cezanne,  for 
it  is  pure  composition  with  every  nugatory 
quality  eliminated.  It  demonstrates  the  possi- 
bility of  creating  abstract  unity  in  three  dimen- 
sions with  the  objective  reality  at  hand.  The 
picture  contains  movement  in  the  vital  sense, 
and  possesses  a  tactility  as  great  as  a  Giorgione 
done  with  modern  means.  In  fact,  comparison 
of  these  two  Baigneuses  will  straightway  divulge 
the  advantages  that  lie  in  modern  methods. 
The  first  is  extremely  able,  and  has  the  unfinished 
foundation  of  a  great  composition.  The  second, 
because  of  what  Renoir  had  learned  of  freedom, 
is  as  intense  as  a  Rubens  in  that  painter's  own 
manner;  and  in  addition  it  has  an  emotional 
element  to  which  the  Antwerp  master  never 
attained. 

Two  years  later  this  obsession  to  create  form 
as  an  impregnable  block,  no  matter  in  how  many 
integers  it  might  be  divided,  made  him  turn  his 
attention  to  Daumier;  and  in  Le  Jardin  d'Essoyes 
and  his  heads  of  Coco  he  surpasses  even  this 
master  of  organisation.  Having  assimilated  this 
new  influence  Renoir  added  it  to  his  own  store  of 
knowledge,  and  four  years  later  painted  his 
greatest  picture,  Le  Petit  Peintre.  After  this 
there  was  little  more  to  be  done  in  Renoir's  style 
unless  he  extended  his  vision  to  greater  surfaces. 
This  he  has  not  done.  But  he  has  added  other 
masterpieces  to  the  ones  already  mentioned. 
His  Ode  aux  Fleurs  (d'apres  Anacreon),  the  two 
decorative  Panneaux  of  the  tambourine  player 
and  the  dancer,  Coco  et  les  Deux  Servantes,  La 


BAIGNEUSES,    1885 


RENOIR 


BAIGNEUSES,    1902 


RENOIR 


AUGUSTE  RENOIR  127 

Rose  dans  les  Cheveux  and  La  Femme  au  Miroir 
are  all  worthy  of  a  place  beside  the  greatest 
pictures  of  all  time.  In  these  last  paintings 
nature's  form  is  transcribed  in  a  purely  arbitrary 
manner.  Many  of  the  parts  are  exaggerated  to 
create  greater  projection  or  more  perfect  propor- 
tion in  relation  to  the  whole.  Texture  has 
developed  into  a  unified  surface,  and  simple 
linear  balance  has  become  poise  in  depth.  The 
colouring  has  grown  so  subtle  that  it  is  impossible 
in  many  places  to  tell  just  what  it  is,  for  in  it  is 
a  whole  spectrum  that  makes  it  living. 

Renoir  was  a  man  who  fundamentally  was  not 
revolutionary,  an  artist  who  was  shown  the  way 
by  others,  a  genius  who  culminated  a  great  and 
febrile  epoch.  His  beginnings  were  imitative  of 
the  painters  of  his  day.  He  climbed  the  ladder 
from  dark  to  light,  from  the  stiff  to  the  mobile. 
His  first  works  under  Courbet  and  Manet  were  no 
better  than  those  of  Hankwan.  Later  his  pictures 
began  to  flow  rhythmically  in  simple  lines  as  in 
the  Head  of  a  Chinese  Lady  by  Ririomin.  Then 
they  began  to  extend  into  depth,  and  as  early  as 
1 88 1  they  surpassed  Titian.  From  then  on  they 
approached  steadily  to  the  completeness  of  a 
modernised  Rubens.  That  Renoir  never  reached 
that  master's  greatness  is  due,  not  to  his  lack  of 
acute  and  complete  vision,  but  to  his  restriction 
of  it  to  small  works.  A  composer  who  writes  a 
symphony  in  which  each  minute  part  is  an  inti- 
mate factor  of  the  whole,  is  greater  than  he  who 
writes  only  an  overture  whose  entirety  is  no 
greater  than  one  of  the  symphony's  movements. 
Renoir,  in  so  far  as  he  went,  was  as  great  as  the 
greatest. 


128  MODERN  PAINTING 

One  cannot  think  of  a  Renoir  canvas  merely 
as  a  painting.  It  is  a  new  and  visually  complete 
cosmos.  In  looking  at  his  work  the  intelligence 
enters  a  world  in  which  every  form  has  interest, 
every  line  completion,  every  space  a  plasticity: 
in  short,  a  world  in  which  everything  is  visibly 
interrelated.  A  host  of  influences  have  been 
read  into  Renoir,  and  indeed  there  were  many  in 
his  development.  But  they  were  only  the  steps 
by  which  he  mounted  to  high  achievement.  So 
unimportant  are  the  works  of  most  of  these  other 
men  when  compared  with  Renoir's  personal  ac- 
complishments, that  one  may  visualise  this  artist 
as  a  raindrop  on  a  window,  which,  as  it  flows 
downward,  consumes  and  embodies  all  those  in 
its  path.  Courbet,  Monet,  Delacroix  and  Manet, 
had  they  no  other  claim  on  posterity  than  as 
instructors  of  Renoir,  would  not  have  lived  in 
vain.  The  Chinese,  the  Greeks,  the  Renaissance, 
even  that  full  Indian  sculpture  in  the  Chaitya  of 
Karli  of  the  eleventh  century  B.  c.  —  are  all 
within  him.  That  they  are  temperamental 
affinities  rather  than  direct  influences  none  can 
deny;  but,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  he  has  traits 
which  directly  recall  each  one  of  them.  They  all 
have  the  ineradicable  germ  of  genius  in  them; 
and  that  germ,  being  changeless  and  eternal,  lies 
at  the  root  of  all  aesthetic  creation.  For  this 
reason  a  great  man  belongs  to  all  time.  He 
embraces  all  the  results  of  the  struggles  which 
have  gone  before.  In  the  possession  of  Renoir 
we  have  no  apologies  to  make  to  antiquity,  any 
more  than  in  having  produced  Cezanne  must  we 
abase  ourselves  before  the  artists  who  are  yet  to 
come. 


VI 
PAUL  CEZANNE 

THE  dilettante,  avid  for  accounts  of  an 
artist's  eccentricities,  will  find  abundant 
and  varied  material  of  this  nature  in 
half  a  hundred  books  written  by  critics 
of  almost  every  nationality  on  that  astound- 
ing and  grotesque  colossus,  Cezanne.  Perhaps 
no  great  artist  in  the  world's  history  has  been 
so  wantonly  libelled,  maligned  and  ridiculed  as 
he.  Nor  has  there  ever  been  a  painter  of  such 
wide  influence  so  grossly  misunderstood.  Cezanne 
has  been  endowed  with  most  fantastic  powers,  dis- 
missed with  a  coup  d' esprit  for  attributes  he  never 
possessed,  and  canonised  for  qualities  he  would 
have  repudiated.  Like  Michelangelo  he  has 
been  both  the  admiration  and  the  mystery  of 
critics.  And  he  is  at  once  the  idol  and  the 
incubus  of  present-day  artists.  His  letters  alone 
have  formed  the  technical  basis  of  one  great 
modern  art  school.  A  fragmentary  phrase  of 
his  mentioning  geometrical  figures  was  seized 
upon  by  a  Spaniard  and  made  the  foundation  for 
another  school.  His  mention  of  Poussin  drove  a 
horde  of  Scandinavians,  Austrians  and  Bohemians 
to  a  contemplation  of  that  artist.  Cezanne's 
very  limitations  have  been  the  inspiration  for 
an  army  of  hardy  imitators  who  believe  it  is 
more  vital  to  imitate  modernity  than  to  recon- 


i3o  MODERN  PAINTING 

struct  the  past.  Indeed  it  may  be  said  that  all 
art  since  Impressionism  is  divided  into  two 
groups,  one  which  endeavours  to  develop  some 
quality  or  qualities  in  Cezanne,  the  other  which 
attempts  the  anachronism  of  resuscitating  the 
primitive  art  of  a  simple-minded  antiquity.  For 
even  this  latter  group,  Cezanne  is  in  part  responsi- 
ble. Did  he  not  say  that  we  must  become 
classicists  again  by  way  of  nature?  And  did 
this  not  give  reactionary  and  servile  minds  ample 
excuse  to  cling  with  even  greater  passion  to  a 
dead  and  rigid  past?  In  his  great  sense  of  order 
his  disciples  saw  only  immobility;  their  minds, 
redundant  with  parallels,  harked  back  to  the 
Egyptians.  Thus  has  he  been  emulated:  but, 
among  all  these  branches  shot  out  from  the 
mother  trunk,  it  can  be  stated  incontestably  that 
only  one  has  understood  him,  has  penetrated 
beneath  the  surface  of  his  canvases,  has  realised 
his  true  gift  to  the  art  of  the  future.  And  this 
one,  strangely  enough,  is  the  furthest  removed 
from  imitation. 

Cezanne's  biography  is  of  value  to  the  art 
student,  for  it  embodies  in  concrete  form  the 
factors  which  motivated  his  aesthetic  appercep- 
tions. By  Cezanne's  biography  is  meant,  not 
the  distorted  interpretations  of  the  incidents  of 
his  life,  now  so  well  known,  or  the  superficial 
conclusions  deduced  by  his  biographers  from 
hearsay;  but  those  actions  and  temperamental 
characteristics  which  are  impartially  set  down  at 
first  hand  by  Emile  Bernard.  To  this  chronicler 
we  are  indebted  for  practically  all  the  authentic 
personal  anecdotes  of  the  artist.  He  had  always 
admired  Cezanne,  and  in  1904  a  personal  friend- 


PAUL  CEZANNE  131 

ship  was  established  between  them,  which  endured 
until  the  latter's  death.  After  Cezanne  had 
overcome  parental  objections  and  had  definitely 
decided  on  an  artist's  career,  he  spent  much  of 
his  time  in  Paris.  Many  influences  entered  into 
his  early  life.  He  had  met  Zola  at  school  and 
had  been  intimate  with  him.  Through  him  he 
had  become  acquainted  with  Manet,  and  while 
he  appreciated  Manet's  friendliness,  he  could 
never  understand  that  artist's  great  popularity. 
He  preferred  Courbet  as  a  painter,  and  studied 
him  sedulously.  His  great  influence,  however, 
came  from  Pissarro.  For  that  persuasive  Jew's 
memory  he  always  harboured  a  deep  respect. 

Cezanne's  youth,  if  one  may  call  forty  years  a 
youth,  was,  as  he  himself  put  it,  filled  mostly 
with  "literature  and  laziness."  Not  until  his 
final  renunciation  of  city  life  and  his  return  to 
the  south  did  his  best  work  begin.  At  first  he 
made  friends  timidly.  He  was  a  man  who  could 
not  brook  opposition,  who  was  extremely  sensi- 
tive to  rebuffs;  and  those  good  people  of  pro- 
vincial France  were  brusquely  aggressive  in  all 
their  beliefs  and  traditions.  At  every  thought  he 
expressed  they  sneered.  He  clashed  violently  and 
disastrously  with  the  local  celebrities  who  had 
the  sanction  of  the  established  schools.  In  Paris 
he  had  been  a  frank  and  even  garrulous  com- 
panion; but  at  each  contact  with  the  narrow, 
self-centered  and  righteous  community  of  Aix, 
he  withdrew  into  himself.  His  natural  spontane- 
ity and  good-fellowship  turned  inward,  became 
restrained  and  pent-up.  He  grew  sensitive  and 
wary,  and  in  later  life  this  defensive  attitude 
developed  into  abnormal  irritability.  To  those 


132  MODERN  PAINTING 

who  could  understand,  however,  he  unburdened 
himself  on  all  subjects,  and  his  opinions  were 
always  the  result  of  profound  thought.  But  he 
never  entirely  divulged  his  methods.  If  questions 
became  too  pertinent,  he  consciously  led  his 
interrogators  astray.  "They  think  I've  got  a 
trick,"  he  would  cry,  "and  they  want  to  steal 
it.  But  nobody  will  ever  put  his  hooks  on  me 
(pas  un  ne  me  mettra  le  grappin  dessus)"  He 
had  already  suffered  enough  at  the  hands  of  self- 
seekers.  He  had  been  extravagantly  ridiculed 
by  his  boyhood  friends.  He  had  been  robbed 
and  bullied  by  his  hired  architect;  and  having 
money  he  had  been  considered  prey  by  the  village 
widows.  He  permitted  himself  to  be  browbeaten 
because  of  his  antipathy  to  any  kind  of  friction. 
It  is  small  wonder  he  became  misanthropic. 

The  popular  opinion  of  Aix  was  that  he  was 
crazy,  and  his  chroniclers,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, have  echoed  this  belief.  But,  to  the  con- 
trary, his  was  the  highest  type  of  the  creative 
mind,  always  in  search  for  something  better, 
never  satisfied  with  present  results;  the  type  of 
mind  which  gives  no  thought  to  the  acquisition 
or  retention  of  property.  His  joy  lay  in  his 
creations  of  the  moment,  but  his  desires  were  far 
ahead.  Some  one  who  showed  him  one  of  his 
early  treasured  canvases  was  ridiculed  for  liking 
"such  things."  Every  day  Cezanne  watched  his 
evolution:  to  him  this  progress  was  the  essential 
thing.  He  left  his  unfinished  works  in  the 
meadows,  in  studio  corners,  in  the  nursery. 
They  have  been  found  in  the  most  out-of-the- 
way  places.  He  had  given  large  numbers  of 
them  to  chance  friends  on  the  impulse  of  the 


PAUL  CEZANNE  133 

moment.  His  son  cut  out  the  windows  of  his 
masterpieces  for  amusement,  and  his  servant  and 
his  wife  used  his  canvases  for  stove  cleaners. 
He  saw  his  work  put  to  these  uses  tranquilly, 
knowing  that  later  he  would  do  better,  that  he 
would  "realise"  more  fully.  His  mind  was  too 
exalted  to  be  impatient  with  the  pettinesses  of 
life.  His  great  aversion  was  politics,  and  unlike 
Delacroix,  he  was  above  nationality.  During 
the  Franco-Prussian  War  he  hid  with  a  relative 
that  he  might  pursue  his  own  ideal  rather  than 
sacrifice  himself  for  the  protection  of  his  tor- 
mentors. What  did  he  care  for  France  when  his 
whole  admiration  was  for  Italy  and  Holland? 
Painting,  not  the  preservation  of  nationality,  was 
his  innermost  concern.  In  evading  conscription 
he  called  down  upon  him  the  public  abuse  which 
such  actions  evoke.  But  it  passed  him  by:  he 
was  too  absorbed  in  his  work  to  heed,  just  as 
later  he  was  too  engrossed  to  follow  his  mother's 
hearse  to  the  funeral  or  to  seek  a  market  for  his 
pictures.  At  every  step  he  paused  to  study  the 
rapports  of  line,  of  light,  of  shadow,  of  colour. 
At  table,  in  conversation  or  at  church,  he  never 
for  a  moment  lost  sight  of  his  desire.  One  can 
find  a  parallel  for  this  intellectually  ascetic 
creature  only  in  the  old  martyrs.  He  was  the 
type  that  renounces  all  the  benefits  and  usufructs 
of  life  in  order  to  follow  the  face  of  a  dream. 

With  such  self-confidence  no  adversity  could 
daunt  him,  no  logic  draw  from  him  a  compromise, 
no  flourish  of  enthusiasm  distract  him  from  his 
course.  Zola  says  of  him:  "He  is  made  in  one 
piece,  stiff  and  hard  under  the  hand;  nothing 
bends  him;  nothing  can  wrench  from  him  a 


i34  MODERN  POINTING 

concession."  This  quality  of  character  was  a 
thing  which  Zola,  the  slave  of  words,  could  not 
understand.  Cezanne,  through  much  contact 
with  letters,  saw  the  danger  of  literature  to  the 
painter.  "Literature,"  he  wrote,  "expresses  it- 
self through  abstractions,  while  painting,  by 
means  of  drawing  and  colour,  makes  concrete 
the  artist's  sensations  and  perceptions."  Zola 
libelled  him  at  great  length  in  L'QEuvre.  Ce- 
zanne's reply  was  simply  that  Zola  had  a 
"mediocre  intelligence"  and  was  a  "detestable 
friend."  In  their  youth  Cezanne  took  the  as- 
cendency over  Zola  in  Latin  and  French  verse; 
even  in  his  old  age  he  could  recite  long  passages 
from  Virgil,  Lucretius  and  Horace.  He  knew 
literature  and  was  able  to  judge  it.  His  criti- 
cisms of  Zola  are  as  penetrating  as  any  that 
realist  has  called  forth.  His  reputation  for  bar- 
barism, vulgarity  and  ignorance  has  little 
foundation  in  fact.  To  be  sure,  he  did  not  desert 
his  work  for  social  activities:  he  despised  the 
polished  and  shallow  wit  of  men  like  Whistler: 
and  he  bitterly  attacked  those  painters  who 
strove  for  salon  popularity.  It  is  therefore  not 
incredible  that  the  accusations  against  him  were 
but  the  world's  retaliation  for  having  been  ignored 
by  him. 

Cezanne's  work  from  the  first  contained  the 
undeniable  elements  of  greatness.  In  his  first, 
almost  black-and-white  still-lives,  executed  under 
the  influence  of  Courbet  (it  is  not  tenable  that 
they  were  done  under  Manet,  as  is  commonly 
believed:  they  are  too  solidly  formed  for  that), 
there  is  exhibited  a  passionate  admiration  for 
volume  and  for  full  and  rich  chiaroscuro.  We 


PAUL  CEZANNE  135 

are  conscious  of  the  artist's  gropings  for  those 
fundamentals  he  was  finally  to  discover  in  the 
seclusion  of  his  rugged  country  of  the  south. 
Even  his  early  figure  pieces  carry  this  sensual 
delight  in  objectivity  to  a  greater  height  than 
did  Delacroix  by  whom  they  were  inspired. 
And  they  attest  to  a  freedom  from  academic 
principles  which  was  not  surpassed  by  the  Im- 
pressionists. These  paintings  are  classic  in  the 
best  sense;  in  them  is  an  orderliness  which 
Manet  and  the  Impressionists  never  possessed. 
Yet,  withal,  they  are  only  the  results  of  the 
literary  influences  from  Delacroix  and  of  his 
admirations  for  other  painters.  They  are  not 
purely  creative,  but  the  qualities  of  creation  are 
there.  To  those  who  can  read  the  signs,  they 
unmistakably  indicate  the  beginnings  of  a  full 
and  masterly  growth. 

His  potentialities  began  to  adtualise  with  his 
comprehension  of  El  Greco  and  the  Venetians. 
From  that  period  on  his  power  for  organisation 
steadily  developed,  and  it  was  still  advancing  at 
the  time  of  his  death.  But  organisation  touched 
only  the  compositional  side  of  his  work:  it  was 
the  resultant  element.  His  inspiration  toward 
colour  which  emanated  from  Pissarro  was  what 
precipitated  him  irrevocably  into  painting. 
Colour,  by  presenting  so  many  problems,  claimed 
him  entirely.  To  that  Impressionist  he  owes 
much,  not  to  that  artist's  actual  achievement, 
but  to  the  incentive  he  furnished.  During  his 
intimacy  with  Pissarro,  Cezanne  completed  his 
assimilation  of  all  the  traits  in  others  which  were 
relative  to  himself.  His  beliefs  and  intransi- 
gencies  became  crystallised.  The  road  opened 


136  MODERN  POINTING 

into  fields  where  that  new  element  of  colour, 
which  had  taken  on  so  vital  a  significance,  led  to 
an  infinitude  of  emotional  possibilities.  Though 
Cezanne  never  completely  became  a  defender  of 
Pissarro's  theories,  he  always  looked  upon  the 
Impressionists  as  innovators  whose  importance 
as  such  could  not  be  overestimated.  He  realised 
that  without  them  he  himself  would  not  have 
existed,  and  that  they  had  sketched  out  a  preface 
to  all  the  great  art  which  was  to  come.  Without 
them  there  undoubtedly  would  have  been  great 
artists,  but  he  knew  that  a  painter  with  the  means 
of  a  Renoir  is  greater  than  one  who,  though 
equally  competent  in  organisation,  is  limited  in 
the  mechanics  of  method.  Restricted  means  per- 
mit only  of  restricted  expression.  The  Impres- 
sionists, having  made  an  advance  in  aesthetic 
procedure,  facilitated  the  experimentations  of 
Cezanne.  But  he  in  turn  recognised  the  restric- 
tions of  the  Impressionists'  methods:  indeed,  he 
saw  that  their  theories  could  apply  only  to  a 
very  circumscribed  aesthetic  field;  and  he  was 
not  content  with  them.  He  studied  assiduously 
in  the  Louvre  and  absorbed  the  myriad  impulses 
which  had  impelled  the  great  masters  of  the 
past.  The  Louvre  and  Pissarro  constituted  his 
primer.  From  the  one  he  got  his  impetus  toward 
voluminous  organisation;  from  the  other,  his 
impetus  toward  colour.  From  their  fragmentary 
teachings  he  went  on  to  greater  achievements. 

There  is  little  or  no  documentary  history  of 
Cezanne's  early  years.  Consequently  his  youth- 
ful admirations  are  not  recorded  in  detail.  But 
we  know  enough  to  gauge  his  early  tastes.  He 
travelled  in  Holland  and  Belgium,  and  though 


PAUL  CEZANNE  137 

he  never  went  to  Italy,  he  greatly  admired 
Tintoretto  and  Veronese.  He  had  a  high  esteem 
for  that  master  of  style,  Luca  Signorelli,  who, 
had  he  not  gone  into  architecture,  might  have 
become  one  of  the  world's  great  painters.  In 
his  studio  Cezanne  kept  a  water-colour  by  Dela- 
croix —  hung  face  to  the  wall  that  it  might 
not  fade,  and  beside  it  a  lithograph  by  Daumier 
whom  he  regarded  highly.  We  may  be  sure  he 
fully  understood  the  limitations  of  these  men 
aside  from  their  ambitions.  To  him  they  were 
points  of  departure  rather  than  goals  to  aspire 
to.  Both  of  them  he  surpassed  early  in  his 
career.  Cezanne  admired  also  the  Dutch  and 
Flemish  masters.  He  had  an  old  and  dilapidated 
book  of  their  reproductions  full  of  bad  lithographs 
done  by  inferior  craftsmen.  But  he  overlooked 
all  their  defects  in  his  remembrance  of  the 
originals.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  ignored  those 
details  which  to  another  would  have  militated 
against  enjoyment.  His  mind  was  too  compre- 
hensive and  analytic  to  be  led  astray  by  the 
flaws  on  an  otherwise  perfect  work:  it  penetrated 
to  the  essentials  first  and  remained  there. 

Thus  it  was  in  his  work.  The  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  nature  in  any  of  its  manifestations  never 
held  him  for  a  moment.  He  saw  its  eternal 
aspect  aside  from  its  accidental  visages  caused  by 
fluctuating  lights.  In  this  he  was  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  Impressionists  who  recorded  only 
nature's  temporary  phases.  They  captured  and 
set  down  its  atmosphere  and  were  satisfied. 
Cezanne,  regarding  its  atmosphere  as  an  ephem- 
erality,  portrayed  the  lasting  force  of  light. 
"One  is  the  master  of  one's  model  and  above  all 


138  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  one's  means  of  expression,"  he  wrote.  "  Pene- 
trate what  is  before  you,  and  persevere  in  ex- 
pressing yourself  as  logically  as  possible.'*  It  is 
this  penetration  which  separates  Cezanne  by  an 
impassable  gulf  from  those  purely  sensitive  artists 
who  are  content  with  the  merely  physiological 
effects  of  an  emotion.  In  the  process  of  pene- 
trating he  became  familiar  with  those  under- 
currents of  causation  from  which  has  sprung  the 
greatest  art  of  all  ages. 

In  a  Cezanne  of  the  later  years  not  only  is  the 
form  poised  in  three  dimensions,  but  the  very 
light  also  is  poised.  We  feel  in  Cezanne  the 
same  completion  we  experience  before  a  Rubens 
—  that  emotion  of  finality  caused  by  the  forms 
moving,  swelling  and  grinding  in  an  eternal  order; 
and  added  to  this  completion  of  form,  heightening 
its  emotive  power,  is  the  same  final  organisation 
of  illumination.  The  light  suggests  no  particular 
time  of  day  or  night;  it  is  not  appropriated  from 
morning  or  afternoon,  sunlight  or  shadow.  So 
delicate  and  perfectly  balanced  is  this  light  that, 
with  the  raising  or  the  lowering  of  the  curtain  in 
the  room  where  the  picture  hangs,  it  will  darken 
or  brighten  perfectly,  logically,  proportionately 
with  the  outer  light.  It  lives  because  it  is 
painted  with  the  logic  of  nature.  Whether  the 
picture  be  hung  in  a  bright  sunlight  or  in  half 
gloom,  it  is  a  creature  of  its  environment.  Its 
planes,  like  those  of  nature,  advance  and  recede, 
swell  and  shrink.  In  short,  they  are  dynamic. 

If  this  feat  of  Cezanne's  seems  to  border  on 
metaphysics,  the  reason  is  that  there  has  been  no 
precedent  for  it  in  history.  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
purely  technical  accomplishment  based  wholly 


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PAUL  CEZANNE  139 

on  the  most  stringently  empirical  research.  The 
manner  in  which  he  arrived  at  this  achievement 
may  not  be  entirely  insusceptible  of  explanation. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  how  the  Impressionists 
broke  up  surfaces  into  minute  sensitive  parts, 
some  of  which  reflected  or  absorbed  more  than 
others.  That  which  gives  us  our  sensation  of 
colour  is  the  atomic  preponderance  of  one  of 
these  attributes.  Thus  if  an  atom  or  combination 
of  atoms  reflects  highly  it  translates  itself  through 
the  retina  into  our  brains  as  a  high  force,  namely, 
as  a  yellow.  If  an  atom  absorbs  more  than  it 
reflects,  it  takes  and  retains  the  reflective  force 
of  light,  and,  in  discharging  this  limited  power, 
produces  in  us  the  sensation  of  blue.  Now,  that 
point  on  a  round  object  where  the  light  is 
strongest  is  the  point  nearest  the  light.  As  the 
planes  of  the  object  curve  away  from  the  light 
they  diminish  in  brilliancy.  The  further  the 
plane  from  the  point  nearest  the  illumination, 
the  less  light  it  has  to  reflect.  Consequently  it 
will  appear  bluish.  The  Impressionists  were 
satisfied  with  recording  this  blue  of  shadow 
merely  as  the  complement  of  the  light  which  was 
yellow.  But  Cezanne  studied  each  degradation 
of  tone  from  yellow  to  blue.  In  this  study  he 
discovered  that  light  always  graduates  from 
warm  to  cold  in  precisely  the  same  way;  and, 
that,  provided  the  model  is  white,  each  step 
down  the  tonic  scale  is  the  same  on  no  matter 
what  object.  But  this  discovery  was  little  more 
than  a  premise.  He  was  now  necessitated  to 
solve  the  problem  of  just  how  much  the  local 
colour  of  an  object  modifies  the  natural  colours 
of  the  light  and  shadow  which  reveal  that  object. 


i4o  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  all  coloured  objects  the  modifications  are 
different,  according  to  the  laws  of  colour  com- 
plementaries  and  admixtures.  By  keeping  these 
laws  always  in  mind,  and  by  applying  his  dis- 
covery of  the  consistent  gradations  of  the  colours 
of  light,  he  was  able  to  paint  in  such  a  way  that, 
no  matter  how  much  or  how  little  outside  light 
of  a  uniform  quality  fell  on  his  canvas,  the 
colours  he  had  applied  would,  as  they  retreated 
from  the  most  highly  illuminated  point  on  the 
picture,  absorb  a  graduatingly  smaller  quantity 
of  actual  light,  and  would  thus  create  emotional 
form  in  the  same  manner  that  nature  creates 
visual  form.  Hence,  the  planes  in  a  Cezanne 
canvas  advance  or  recede  en  masse,  retaining 
their  relativity,  as  the  eye  excludes  or  receives 
a  greater  or  a  lesser  quantity  of  light;  and  since 
the  light  never  remains  the  same  for  any  period 
of  time,  the  planes  bulge  toward  the  spectator 
and  retract  from  him  with  each  minute  variation 
of  illumination. 

In  all  painting  prior  to  Cezanne,  the  natural 
variations  of  light  distorted  the  objects  of  a 
picture:  that  is  to  say,  the  colours  of  external 
light  changed  the  character  of  the  applied  colours, 
making  some  advance  and  others  retreat;  and 
because  these  applied  colours  were  not  put  on 
with  the  exact  logic  of  natural  gradations,  the 
proportions  between  them  could  not  be  main- 
tained. Thus  in  one  light  certain  objects  ad- 
vanced more  than  others,  and  in  another  light 
certain  objects  receded  more  than  others.  Their 
relativity  was  lost.  Hence,  not  only  was  the 
picture's  composition  and  balance  altered,  but 
the  appearance  of  its  objects  belied  the  actual 


PAUL  CEZANNE  141 

measurements.  These  variations  were  so  small 
that  the  untrained  eye  might  not  have  seen 
them,  any  more  than  an  untrained  ear  may  not 
detect  the  slight  variations  of  pitch  in  music. 
But  to  the  man  whose  eye  is  trained,  even  to  the 
degree  that  a  good  musician's  ear  is  trained, 
pictures  appear  "off"  in  the  same  way  that  a 
poorly  tuned  piano  sounds  "off"  to  the  sensitive 
musician.  Cezanne,  had  he  never  achieved  any 
intrinsically  great  art,  would  still  be  a  colossal 
figure  in  painting  because  of  this  basic  and 
momentous  discovery.  The  Impressionists  had 
been  content  with  the  mere  discovery  of  light. 
Their  theory  was,  not  that  one  can  enjoy  the 
natural  light  of  out-of-doors  more  than  the 
abstract  light  in  a  canvas,  but  that,  since  every 
one  of  nature's  moods  is  the  result  of  degrees  of 
illumination,  these  moods  can  only  be  recorded 
by  the  depiction  of  natural  light;  and  therefore 
out-of-door  light  is  an  aesthetic  means.  Cezanne 
recognised  the  limitations  of  this  theory,  but 
considered  it  an  admirable  opening  for  higher 
achievement.  He  thereupon  stripped  the  Im- 
pressionists' means  of  their  ephemeral  plasticity, 
and,  by  using  the  principles,  and  not  the  results, 
of  nature's  method,  gave  them  an  eternal  plas- 
ticity which  no  great  art  of  the  future  can  afford 
to  ignore,  and  which  in  time,  no  doubt,  will  lead 
to  the  creation  of  an  entirely  new  art. 

Although  Cezanne  had  many  times  given  out 
broad  hints  of  his  methods,  his  friends  and 
critics  were  too  busy  trying  to  discover  other  less 
concise  qualities  in  his  work  to  appreciate  the 
full  significance  of  his  occasional  words.  Herein 
lies  the  main  reason  why  an  untechnical  onlooker 


I42  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  admirer  can  never  sound  the  depths  of  art. 
He  is  too  detached,  for,  not  having  followed  its 
logical  evolution  from  the  simplest  forms  to  the 
most  complex,  he  is  unable  to  understand  the 
complicated  mechanism  on  which  it  is  built. 
Critics  for  the  most  part  are  writers  whose 
admiration  for  art  has  been  born  in  front  of  the 
completed  works  of  the  great  masters.  Unable 
to  comprehend  them  fully,  they  turn  to  a  con- 
templation of  the  simple  and  naif.  Their  process 
of  valuation  is  thus  reversed.  Great  art  is  as 
a  rule  too  compounded  for  their  analytical  powers, 
and  they  end  by  imagining  that  the  primitives 
and  the  mosaicists  represent  the  highest  and  most 
conscious  type  of  the  creative  will.  What  to 
them  is  incomprehensible  appears  of  little  value; 
and  here  we  find  the  explanation  for  the  popular 
theory  that  the  test  of  great  art  is  its  simplicity, 
its  humanitas,  its  obviousness.  Persons  who 
would  not  pretend  to  grasp  without  study  the 
principles  of  modern  science,  still  demand  that 
art  be  sufficiently  lucid  to  be  comprehended  at 
once  by  the  untutored  mind.  A  physician  may 
tell  them  of  profundities  in  medical  experimenta- 
tion, and  they  will  accept  his  views  as  those  of 
an  expert  in  a  science  of  which  they  are  ignorant. 
But  when  an  artist  tells  them  of  recondite 
principles  in  aesthetics  they  accuse  him  of  an 
endeavour  to  befuddle  them.  The  isolation  of 
bacilli  and  the  application  of  serums  and  anti- 
toxins are  mysteries  which  call  for  respect.  The 
equally  scientific  and  obscure  principles  of  colour 
and  form  are  absurd  imaginings.  And  yet  with- 
out a  scientific  basis  art  is  merely  an  artifice  — 
the  New  Thought  in  aesthetics.  Readily  com- 


PAUL  CEZANNE  143 

prehensible  painting  is  no  further  advanced  than 
readily  comprehensible  therapeutics. 

Emile  Bernard  was  little  different  from  the 
average  critic.  In  attributing  to  Cezanne  his 
own  limitations,  he  restricted  what  he  might 
otherwise  have  learned.  But  the  literalness  with 
which  he  recorded  the  artist's  sayings  makes  his 
book  of  paramount  interest.  We  read  for  in- 
stance that  Cezanne  once  remarked:  "Here  is 
something  incontestable;  I  am  most  affirmative 
on  this  point:  An  optical  sensation  is  produced 
in  our  visual  organ  by  what  we  class  as  light, 
half  tone  or  quarter  tone,  each  plane  being  repre- 
sented by  colour  sensations.  Therefore  light  as 
such  does  not  exist  for  the  painter."  By  this 
he  broadly  hinted  at  an  absolute  relativity  be- 
tween the  degrees  of  light  forces  —  a  relativity 
which  translates  itself  to  us  as  colour  gradations. 
Again  Cezanne  said:  "One  should  not  say  model 
but  modulate.  .  .  .  Drawing  and  colour  are  not 
distinct;  as  one  paints  one  draws.  The  more 
the  colours  harmonise  [namely:  follow  nature's 
logical  sequences],  the  more  precise  is  the  draw- 
ing." Precision  in  drawing  to  Cezanne  meant 
among  other  things  the  ability  to  produce  volume. 
Again:  "When  colour  is  richest,  form  is  at  its 
plenitude.  In  the  contrasts  and  rapports  of 
tones  lies  the  secret  of  drawing  and  of  modelling." 
In  a  letter  he  wrote:  "Lines  parallel  to  the 
horizon  create  vastness  (donnent  Vetendue),  whether 
it  be  a  section  of  nature,  or  if  you  choose,  of  the 
spectacle  that  the  Pater  omnipotens  ceternus  Deus 
spreads  before  our  eyes.  Lines  perpendicular  to 
this  horizon  give  depth.  And  since  nature  for  us 
human  beings  exists  in  depth  rather  than  sur- 


144  MODERN  PAINTING 

facely,  the  painter  is  necessitated  to  introduce 
into  light  vibrations,  represented  by  reds  and 
yellows,  a  sufficient  amount  of  blue  to  make  the 
air  felt." 

These  observations  are  of  paramount  interest 
because  they  touch  on  the  essential  principles  of 
his  estbetique.  They  are  at  once  an  explanation 
and  a  measure  of  his  significance.  Like  all  great 
truths  they  appear  simple  after  we  know  them, 
or  rather  after  we  have  experienced  them.  Dau- 
mier  might  have  stated  with  certitude  the  same 
principles  in  relation  to  tone,  for  he  always 
practised  them  qualifiedly.  Though  his  means 
were  limited,  he  employed  those  means  as  fully 
as  his  materials  permitted.  Cezanne,  because  he 
possessed  the  greater  element  —  colour,  con- 
structed his  canvases  as  nature  presents  its  ob- 
jects to  the  sight,  as  a  unique  whole.  With  all 
of  the  older  painters  drawing  came  first,  chiaro- 
scuro second  and  colour  third  —  three  distinct 
steps,  each  one  conceived  separately.  Daumier 
was  the  first  painter  to  approach  simultaneity  in 
execution.  Ignorant  of  colour,  he  conceived  his 
drawing  and  chiaroscuro  together.  Cezanne  went 
a  step  beyond,  and  conceived  his  drawing,  form 
and  colour  as  one  and  the  same,  in  the  exact 
manner  that  these  qualities,  united  in  each 
natural  object,  present  themselves  to  the  eye. 
His  method  was  the  same  as  the  mechanism  of 
human  vision.  Compared  with  Cezanne,  Monet 
was  only  fragmentary.  Not  only  in  methods  did 
they  differ  but  in  objective  as  well.  The  Im- 
pressionists' aim  was  to  reproduce  nature's  exter- 
nals: Cezanne's  desire  was  to  reproduce  its 
solidity.  Both  achieved  their  ends.  Cezanne's 


PAUL  CEZANNE  145 

pictures  are  as  impenetrable  as  sculpture.  Every 
object  seems  hewn  out  of  marble. 

Solidity  alone,  however,  though  a  high  and 
necessary  virtue  of  painting,  is  a  limited  quality. 
Unless  it  is  made  mobile  it  gives  off  the  impres- 
sion of  rigidity.  It  is  to  painting  what  the 
rough  clay  is  to  sculpture  —  the  dead  material  of 
art.  In  order  for  it  to  engender  aesthetic  em- 
pathy it  must  be  organised,  that  is,  it  must  be 
harmonised  and  poised  in  three  dimensions  in 
such  a  way  that,  should  we  translate  our  bodies 
into  its  spacial  forms,  we  should  experience  its 
dynamism.  This  Cezanne  did,  and  therein  lay 
his  claim  to  greatness.  In  his  best  canvases  there 
seems  no  way  of  veering  a  plane,  of  imagining 
one  plane  changing  places  with  another,  unless 
every  plane  in  the  picture  is  shifted  simultane- 
ously. Cezanne's  solidity  is  organised  like  the 
volumes  in  Michelangelo's  best  sculpture.  Move 
an  arm  of  any  one  of  these  statues,  and  every 
other  part  of  the  figure,  down  to  the  smallest 
muscle,  must  change  position.  Their  plasticity, 
like  Cezanne's,  is  perfect.  There  is  a  complete 
ordonnance  between  every  minute  part,  and 
between  every  group  of  parts.  Nothing  can  be 
added  or  taken  away  without  changing  the 
entire  structure  in  all  its  finest  details.  Cezanne 
once  said  to  Ambroise  Vollard,  a  picture  mer- 
chant, who  had  called  attention  to  a  small 
uncovered  spot  on  a  canvas  which  the  artist  had 
pronounced  finished:  "You  will  understand  that 
if  I  were  to  put  something  there  haphazardly,  I 
should  have  to  start  the  whole  picture  over  from 
that  point." 

The    individual    solidity    of    Cezanne's    colour 


146  MODERN  PAINTING 

planes  is  due  to  the  eternalism  and  absolutism 
of  his  light.  But  it  was  the  other  qualities  which 
entered  into  his  art  which  brought  about  the 
interdependence  of  the  parts  and  evoked  the 
sensation  of  unity  we  feel  before  them.  One  of 
these  qualities  was  a  perfect  rapport  of  lines. 
Cezanne,  better  than  any  other  painter  up  to  his 
day,  understood  how  one  slanting  line  modifies 
its  direction  when  coming  in  contact  with  another 
line  moving  from  a  different  direction.  When 
colour  was  first  investigated  realistically,  artists 
saw  that  two  pure  complementary  tints,  when 
juxtaposed,  tended  to  draw  away  from  each 
other  and  to  differentiate  themselves.  Therefore 
they  set  about  to  study  the  influence  that  one 
colour  has  upon  another,  assuming  that  lines 
were  more  static  and  absolute  and  consequently 
did  not  change  at  contact  with  other  lines. 
Cezanne  recognised  the  fallacy  of  this  assumption, 
and  wrote:  "I  see  the  planes  criss-crossing  and 
overlapping,  and  sometimes  the  lines  seem  to 
fall."  He  realised  that  the  laws  governing  the 
opposition  of  line  are  most  important  in  the 
production  of  the  emotion  of  movement.  In  all 
the  old  painters  this  emotion  was  engendered  by 
just  such  devices,  but  with  them  the  laws  were 
only  dimly  suspected  —  instincts  rather  than 
applied  science.  In  contemplating  their  work 
we  seem  torn  by  some  physical  impulse  to  follow 
one  line,  but  cannot,  because  the  lure  of  the 
other  line  is  equally  great. 

To  the  man  of  sensitive  and  trained  eyesight 
this  physical  emotion  is  incited   also  by  nature, 
only   nature   is    more    complex   than    art    and    is 
without  aesthetic  finality.     Thus  in  regarding  the 


PAUL  CEZANNE  147 

rapports  of  two  lines  in  nature,  one  leaning  to 
the  right  and  one  to  the  left,  the  highly  sensitive 
person  feels  unrest  and  strife,  and  subconsciously 
produces  order  and  calm  by  imagining  a  third 
line  which  harmonises  the  original  two.  Cezanne 
looked  upon  nature  with  perhaps  the  most  deli- 
cate and  perceptive  eye  a  painter  has  ever 
possessed,  and  his  vision  became  a  theatre  for 
the  violent  struggles  of  some  one  line  against 
terrible  odds,  for  the  warring  clashes  of  inhar- 
monious colours.  He  saw  in  objective  nature  a 
chaos  of  disorganised  movement,  and  he  set 
himself  the  task  of  putting  it  in  order.  In 
studying  the  variations  and  qualifications  of 
linear  directions  in  his  model,  he  discovered 
another  method  of  accentuating  the  feeling  of 
dynamism  in  his  canvases.  He  stated  lines,  not 
in  their  static  character,  but  in  their  average  of 
fluctuation.  We  know  that  all  straight  lines  are 
influenced  by  their  surroundings,  that  they  appear 
bent  or  curved  when  related  to  other  lines.  The 
extent  to  which  a  line  is  thus  optically  bent  is  its 
extreme  of  fluctuability.  Cezanne  determined  this 
extreme  in  all  of  his  lines,  and  by  transcribing 
them  midway  between  their  actual  and  optical 
states,  achieved  at  once  their  normality  and 
their  extreme  abnormality.  The  character,  direc- 
tion and  curve  of  all  lines  in  a  canvas  change 
with  every  shifting  of  the  point  of  visual  contact. 
Since  the  unity  of  a  picture  is  different  from  every 
focus,  all  the  lines  consequently  assume  a  slightly 
different  direction  every  time  our  eye  shifts 
from  one  spot  to  another.  Cezanne,  by  recording 
the  mean  of  linear  changeability,  facilitated  and 
hastened  this  vicissitude  of  mutation. 


i48  MODERN  PAINTING 

Another  contribution  he  made  to  painting  was 
his  application  of  the  stereoscopic  function  of  the 
eye  to  all  models  by  means  of  colour.  From  the 
earliest  art  to  Cezanne,  objects  have  been  por- 
trayed as  if  conceived  in  vacuo,  with  absolute  and 
delimited  contours.  Such  portrayals  are  directly 
opposed  to  our  normal  vision,  for  whenever  we 
focus  our  sight  on  any  natural  object  whatever, 
each  eye  records  a  different  perspective  repre- 
sentation of  that  object;  there  is  a  distinct  binocu- 
lar parallax.  Certain  parts  are  seen  by  one  eye 
which  are  invisible  to  the  other.  But  these  two 
visual  impressions  are  perceived  simultaneously, 
combined  in  one  image;  that  is  to  say:  the  optic 
axes  converge  at  such  an  angle  that  both  the 
right  and  left  monocular  impressions  are  superim- 
posed. The  single  impression  thus  produced  is 
one  of  perspective  and  relief.  This  is  a  rudi- 
mentary law  of  optics,  but  on  it  our  accuracy  of 
vision  has  always  depended.  In  the  lenticular 
stereoscope  the  eye-glasses  are  marginal  portions 
of  the  same  convex  lens,  which,  when  set  edge  to 
edge,  deflect  the  rays  from  the  picture  so  as  to 
strike  the  eyes  as  if  coming  from  an  intermediate 
point.  By  this  bending  of  the  rays  the  two 
pictures  become  one  impression,  and  present  the 
appearance  of  solid  forms  as  in  nature.  The 
problem  of  how  to  transcribe  on  a  flat  surface  in 
a  single  picture  the  effect  later  produced  by  a 
stereoscope  with  two  pictures,  has  confronted 
painters  for  hundreds  of  years.  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  in  his  Trattato  della  Pittura  recorded  the 
fact  that  our  vision  encompasses  to  a  slight 
degree  everything  that  passes  before  it;  that  we 
see  around  all  objects;  and  that  this  encircling 


PAUL  CEZANNE  149 

sight  gives  us  the  sensation  of  rotundity.  But 
neither  he,  nor  any  artist  up  to  Cezanne,  was 
able  to  make  aesthetic  use  of  the  fad:.  The 
vision  of  all  older  painting  (although  by  the  use 
of  line  and  composition  it  became  plastic  because 
used  as  a  detail)  was  the  vision  of  the  man  with 
one  eye,  for  a  one-eyed  man  sees  nature  as  a 
flat  plane:  only  by  association  of  the  relative 
size  of  objects  is  he  capable  of  judging  depth. 
Cezanne  saw  the  impossibility  of  producing  a 
double  vision  by  geometric  rules,  and  approached 
the  problem  from  another  direction.  By  under- 
standing the  functioning  elements  of  colour  in  their 
relation  to  texture  and  space,  he  was  able  to 
paint  forms  in  such  a  way  that  each  colour  he 
applied  took  its  relative  position  in  space  and 
held  each  part  of  an  object  stationary  at  any 
required  distance  from  the  eye.  As  a  result  of 
his  method  we  can  judge  the  depth  and  sense  the 
solidity  of  his  pictures  the  same  as  we  do  in 
nature. 

Cezanne  was  ever  attempting  to  solve  the 
problem  of  the  dynamics  of  vision.  An  analysis 
of  his  pictures  often  reveals  a  uniform  leaning 
of  lines  —  a  tendency  of  all  the  objects  to  pre- 
cipitate themselves  upon  a  certain  spot,  like  the 
minute  flotsam  on  a  surface  of  water  being  sucked 
through  a  drain-hole.  We  find  an  explanation 
for  this  convergence  in  one  of  his  letters.  He 
says:  "In  studying  nature  closely,  you  will 
observe  that  it  becomes  concentric.  I  mean  that 
on  an  orange,  an  apple,  a  ball  or  a  head  there  is 
a  culminating  point;  and  this  point,  despite  the 
strong  effects  of  light  and  shadow  which  are 
colour  sensations,  is  always  the  nearest  to  our 


ISO  MODERN  PAINTING 

eye.  The  edges  of  objects  retreat  toward  a 
centre  which  is  situated  on  our  horizon."  It  is 
small  wonder  that  Cezanne,  obsessed  with  the 
idea  of  form  and  depth,  should  have  had  little 
admiration  for  his  contemporaries,  Van  Gogh 
and  Gauguin,  both  of  whom  were  workmen  in 
the  flat.  He  let  pass  no  opportunity  of  express- 
ing himself  on  these  artists  who  of  late  years 
have  become  so  popular.  Van  Gogh  was  to  him 
only  another  Pointillist;  and  he  called  Gauguin's 
work  " des  images  Chinoises,"  adding,  "I  will 
never  accept  his  entire  lack  of  modelling  and 
gradation."  Does  not  this  explain  his  aversion 
to  the  primitives  in  whom  he  saw  but  the  rudi- 
ments of  art?  How  could  Cezanne,  preoccupied 
with  the  most  momentous  problems  of  aesthetics, 
take  an  interest  in  enlarged  book  illuminations, 
when  the  most  superficial  corner  of  his  slightest 
canvas  had  more  organisation  and  incited  a 
greater  aesthetic  emotion  than  all  the  mosaics  in 
S.  Vitale  at  Ravenna? 

Cezanne  was  never  attracted  by  the  facial 
expressions,  the  manual  attitudes,  or  the  graceful 
poses  of  his  models.  The  characteristics  of  ma- 
teriality meant  nothing  to  him.  He  was  per- 
petually searching  for  something  more  profound, 
and  began  his  art  where  the  average  painter 
leaves  off.  Realistic  attributes  are  interesting 
only  as  decoration;  they  are  indicative  of  the 
simplicity  of  man's  mind;  they  are  unable  to 
conduce  to  an  extended  aesthetic  experience.  Van 
Gogh  and  Gauguin  said  well  what  they  had  to 
say,  but  it  was  so  slight  that  it  is  of  little  interest 
to  us  today.  We  demand  a  greater  stimulus 
than  an  art  of  two  dimensions  can  give;  our 


PAUL  CEZANNE  151 

minds  instinctively  extend  themselves  into  space. 
So  it  was  with  Cezanne.  He  left  no  device 
untried  which  would  give  his  work  a  greater 
depth,  a  more  veritable  solidity.  He  experi- 
mented in  colour  from  this  standpoint,  then  in 
line,  then  in  optics.  With  the  results  of  this 
research  he  became  possessed  of  all  the  necessary 
factors  of  colossal  organisation.  He  knew  that, 
were  these  factors  rightly  applied,  they  would 
produce  a  greater  sensation  of  weight,  of  force 
and  of  movement  than  any  artist  before  him  had 
succeeded  in  attaining. 

Their  application  presented  to  Cezanne  his 
most  difficult  problem.  He  must  use  his  dis- 
coveries in  these  three  fields  in  such  a  way  that 
the  very  disposition  of  weights  would  produce 
that  perfect  balance  of  stress  and  repose,  out  of 
which  emanates  all  aesthetic  movement.  The 
simplest  manifestation  of  this  balance  is  found 
in  the  opposition  of  line;  but  in  order  to  complete 
this  linear  adjustment  there  must  be  an  opposi- 
tion of  colours  which,  while  they  must  function 
as  volumes,  must  also  accord  with  the  character 
of  the  natural  object  portrayed.  In  short,  there 
must  be  an  opposition  of  countering  weights,  not 
perfectly  balanced  so  as  to  create  a  dead  equality, 
but  rhythmically  related  so  that  the  effect  is  one 
of  swaying  poise.  Obviously  this  could  not  be 
accomplished  on  a  flat  surface,  for  the  emotion 
of  depth  is  a  necessity  to  the  recognition  of 
equilibrium.  Cezanne  finally  achieved  this  poise 
by  a  plastic  distribution  of  volumes  over  and 
beside  spacial  vacancies.  He  mastered  this  basic 
principle  of  the  hollow  and  the  bump  only  after 
long  and  trying  struggles  and  tedious  experi- 


152  MODERN  PAINTING 

mentations.  He  translated  it  into  terms  of  his 
own  intellection:  to  the  extent  that  there  was 
order  within  him  so  was  he  able  to  put  order 
into  his  pictures.  This  vision  of  his  was  intel- 
lectual rather  than  optical;  and  M.  Bernard 
unnecessarily  tells  us  that,  so  sure  was  Cezanne 
of  his  justification,  he  placed  his  colours  on 
canvas  with  the  same  absolutism  he  used  in 
expressing  himself  verbally.  His  art  was  his 
thought  given  concrete  form  through  the  medium 
of  nature.  His  painting  was  the  result  of  a 
mental  process  —  an  intellectual  conclusion  after 
it  had  been  weighed,  added  to,  substracted  from, 
modified  by  exterior  considerations,  and  at  last 
brought  forth  purged  and  clarified  and  as  nearly 
complete  as  was  his  development  at  the  time. 

For  this  reason  Cezanne  resented  the  presence 
of  people  while  he  worked.  To  attain  his  ends 
his  mind  had  to  be  concentrated  on  its  ultimate 
ambition.  It  could  support  no  disturbing  factors. 
Even  though  he  had  no  trick  which  might  be 
copied,  he  once  said  to  a  friend:  "I  have  never 
permitted  anyone  to  watch  me  while  I  work. 
I  refuse  to  do  anything  before  anyone."  Had  he 
allowed  spectators  to  stand  over  him  he  probably 
would  have  fatigued  them,  for  his  work  pro- 
gressed by  single  strokes  interspersed  by  long 
periods  of  reflection  and  analysis.  M.  Bernard 
would  hear  him  descend  to  the  garden  a  score 
of  times  during  the  day's  work,  sit  a  moment 
and  rush  back  to  the  studio  as  if  some  solution 
had  presented  itself  to  him  suddenly.  At  other 
times  he  would  walk  back  and  forth  before  his 
picture  awaiting  the  answer  to  a  problem  before 
him.  It  is  such  deliberateness  in  great  artists 


PAUL  CEZANNE  153 

that  has,  curiously  enough,  acquired  for  them 
a  reputation  for  esotericism.  Their  moments  of 
deep  contemplation  and  their  sudden  plunges  into 
labour  have  been  interpreted  as  periods  of  intel- 
lectual coma  shot  through  occasionally  by  "divine 
flashes  of  inspiration"  coming  from  an  outside 
agent.  The  reverse  is  true,  however.  An  artist 
retains  his  sentiency  at  all  times.  He  necessarily 
works  consciously,  with  the  same  intellectual 
labours  as  a  scientist.  A  painter  can  no  more 
produce  a  great  picture  unwittingly  than  an 
inventor  can  construct  an  intricate  machine 
unwittingly.  They  are  both  labourers  in  the 
most  plebeian  sense. 

Cezanne's  hatred  for  facile  and  thoughtless 
workmen  who  continually  entertain  amateurs, 
was  monumental.  To  him  they  were  pupils  who, 
by  learning  a  few  rules,  were  able  to  paint  con- 
ventional pieces  after  the  manner  of  thousands 
who  had  preceded  him.  They  represented  the 
academicians  with  whom  every  country  is  over- 
run —  the  suave  and  satisfied  craftsmen  who 
epitomise  mediocrity,  whose  appeal  is  to  minds 
steeped  in  pedantry  and  conservatism.  In  France 
they  come  out  of  the  government-run  Beaux- 
Arts  school  to  which  the  incompetents  of  both 
America  and  England  flock.  Cezanne  harboured 
a  particular  enmity  for  that  school;  anyone  who 
had  passed  through  it  aroused  his  scorn.  "With 
a  little  temperament  anyone  can  be  an  academic 
painter,"  he  said.  "One  can  make  pictures  with- 
out being  a  harmonist  or  a  colourist.  It  is 
enough  to  have  an  art  sense  —  and  even  this 
art  sense  is  without  doubt  the  horror  of  the 
bourgeois.  Thus  the  institutes,  the  pensions  and 


iS4  MODERN  POINTING 

the  honours  are  only  made  for  cretins,  farceurs 
and  drolls." 

In  writing  of  Cezanne  one  is  led  to  make  a 
comparison  between  him  and  his  great  com- 
patriot, Renoir,  for  it  is  almost  unbelievable  that 
one  century  could  have  produced  two  such  radi- 
I  cally  different  geniuses.  Renoir,  first  of  all,  was 
/  not  an  innovator:  he  was  the  consummation  of 
[  Impressionistic  means.  In  Cezanne,  to  the  con- 
trary, we  see  a  man  dissatisfied  with  the  greatest 
results  of  others,  ever  tortured  by  the  search  for 
something  more  final,  more  potent.  "Let  us  not 
be  satisfied  with  the  formulas  of  our  wonderful 
antecedents,"  he  said  many  times,  and  he  might 
have  added,  "and  of  our  wonderful  contempo- 
raries." Renoir  was  the  apex  of  an  art  era,  while 
Cezanne  was  the  first  segment  of  a  greater  and 
vaster  cycle.  Renoir,  by  mastering  his  means  at 
an  early  date,  acquired  a  technical  facility  to 
which  Cezanne,  ever  on  the  hunt  for  deeper  con- 
fptions,  never  attained.  Renoir's  genius  was  for 
linear  rhythm.  In  the  acquisition  of  this  there 
entered,  in  varying  degree,  form,  colour  and  light; 
but  the  line  itself  was  his  preoccupation.  Cezanne's 
genius  was  for  plastic  volume  out  of  which  the 
rhythmic  line  resulted.  That  is:  the  one  con- 
structed his  creations  out  of  colour  and  made 
colour  appear  like  form;  while  in  the  other's 
creations,  which  are  the  result  of  colour,  the 
colour  is  felt  to  be  form.  In  Renoir  is  recognised 
the  solidity  and  depth  of  form,  while  in  Cezanne 
the  colour  is  a  functional  element  whose  dyna- 
mism gives  birth  to  form  which  is  felt  subjectively. 
Renoir  synthesises  nature's  forms,  by  grouping 
them  in  such  a  way  that  the  lines  move  and  are 


PAUL  CEZANNE  155 

harmonious.  Cezanne  looks  for  the  synthesis  in 
each  subject  he  sits  before,  and  instead  of  group- 
ing his  forms  arbitrarily,  he  penetrates  to  their 
inherent  synthesis.  This  is  why  almost  every  one 
of  his  pictures  is  built  on  a  different  synthetic 
form.  His  penetration  gave  him  at  each  essay  a 
different  vision  of  the  organisms  of  a  particular 
subject,  a  vision  which  varied  as  the  subject 
varied.  In  Renoir  movement  is  attained  by 
relating  the  lines:  Cezanne  has  produced  harmony 
by  accentuating  their  differences.  In  the  former 
the  lines  lead  smoothly  and  fluently  into  others, 
until  they  all  culminate  in  a  line  which  carries 
the  movement  to  a  finality;  while  in  the  latter 
we  feel  little  of  that  suavity  of  sequence:  the  lines 
are  formed  by  the  spaces  between  his  volumes 
rather  than  by  linear  continuation.  Cezanne, 
if  less  pleasing,  is  the  more  powerful;  and  with 
all  his  lack  of  suavity  he  is  the  more  complex 
and  less  monotonous.  The  extraordinary  imprevu 
of  his  formal  developments  and  his  unique  man- 
ner of  stating  parallels  recall  the  symphonic  works 
of  Beethoven.  The  ensembles  of  both  are  made 
up  of  an  infinitude  of  smaller  forms,  and  both 
display  a  colossal  power  of  absoluteness  in  set- 
ting forth  each  smallest  form.  Renoir's  work  is 
more  on  the  lines  of  Haydn. 

After  Michelangelo  there  was  no  longer  any 
new  inspiration  for  sculpture.  After  Cezanne 
there  was  no  longer  any  excuse  for  it.  He  has 
made  us  see  that  painting  can  present  a  more 
solid  vision  than  that  of  any  stone  image.  Against 
modern  statues  we  can  only  bump  our  heads:  in 
the  contemplation  of  modern  painting  we  can 
exhaust  our  intelligences.  Cezanne  is  as  much  a 


I56  MODERN  PAINTING 

reproach  to  sculptors  as  Renoir  is  to  those  who 
continue  to  use  Impressionist  methods.  He  is  the 
great  prophet  of  future  art,  as  well  as  the  con- 
summator  of  the  realistic  vision  of  his  time.  Both 
men  deformed  nature's  objects  —  Renoir  slightly 
to  meet  the  demands  of  consistency  in  his  pre- 
conceived compositions;  Cezanne  to  a  greater 
extent  in  order  to  make  form  voluminous.  Some 
of  his  deformations  resulted  from  extraneous  line 
forces  which,  when  coming  in  contact  with  an 
object's  contour,  made  it  lean  to  the  right  or  left, 
or  in  some  other  way  take  on  an  abnormal 
appearance  as  of  convexity  or  concavity. 

M.  Bernard  thinks  these  irregularities  in  Cezanne 
the  result  of  defective  eyesight.  But  such  an 
explanation  is  untenable.  There  is  abundant 
evidence  to  show  that,  to  the  contrary,  they  are 
the  result  of  a  highly  sensitised  sight  —  a  sight 
which  simultaneously  calls  up  the  complementary 
of  the  thing  viewed,  whether  it  be  a  line,  a  colour 
or  a  tone.  This  double  vision  is  only  a  depen- 
dency of  the  plastic  mind  which,  instead  of  ap- 
proaching a  problem  from  the  nearest  side,  throws 
itself  automatically  to  the  opposite  side,  and,  by 
thus  obtaining  a  double  approach,  arrives  at  a 
fuller  comprehension.  While  slanting  his  line 
and  distorting  his  volumes  Cezanne  was  uncon- 
sciously moulding  the  parts  to  echo  the  organisa- 
tion of  the  whole.  In  turning  his  pictures  into 
block-manifestations,  he  strove  for  a  result  which 
would  conduce  to  a  profounder  aesthetic  pleasure 
than  did  the  linear  movements  of  Renoir.  After 
we  have  enjoyed  Renoir's  rhythms  we  can  lay 
them  aside  for  the  time  as  we  can  a  very  beauti- 
ful but  simple  melody.  The  force  of  Cezanne 


POMMES   SUR  UNE   TABLE 


CEZANNE 


PAUL  CEZANNE  157 

strikes  us  like  that  of  a  vast  bulk  or  a  mountain. 
Contemplating  his  work  is  like  coming  suddenly 
face  to  face  with  an  ordered  elemental  force.  At 
first  we  are  conscious  only  of  a  shock,  but  when 
our  wonder  has  abated,  we  find  ourselves  studying 
the  smaller  forms  which  go  into  the  picture's 
making.  In  the  1902  Baigneuses  of  Renoir  each 
separate  figure  is  a  beautiful  and  complete  form 
which  fits  into  and  becomes  part  of  the  general 
rhythm.  In  Cezanne  the  importance  of  parts  is 
entirely  submerged  in  the  effect  of  the  whole. 
Here  is  the  main  difference  between  these  two 
great  men:  we  enjoy  each  part  of  Renoir  and  are 
conducted  by  line  to  a  completion;  in  Cezanne 
we  are  struck  simultaneously  by  each  interrelated 
part.  Viewing  a  canvas  of  the  latter  is  like 
going  out  into  the  blazing  sunlight  from  the  cool 
sombreness  of  a  house.  At  first  we  are  aware 
only  of  the  force  of  the  light,  but  as  we  gradually 
become  accustomed  to  the  glare,  we  begin  to  per- 
ceive separately  objects  which  before  had  been 
only  a  part  of  the  general  impression.  The  fact 
that  Cezanne  invariably  spoke  of  the  "motif" 
should  have  given  his  friends  a  clue  to  his  con- 
ception of  composition.  Before  him  composition 
had  been  to  a  great  extent  the  formation  of  a 
simple  melody  of  line  in  three  dimensions,  con- 
structed by  the  forms  of  objects.  It  corresponded 
to  the  purely  melodious  in  music,  the  opening  of 
the  theme,  its  sequence  of  phrasing  and  the 
finale.  Cezanne  chose  a  motif,  and  in  each  move- 
ment of  his  picture  it  is  to  be  found,  varied, 
elaborated,  reversed  and  developed.  Each  part 
of  his  canvas  is  a  beginning,  yet  each  part,  though 
distinct  as  a  form,  is  perfectly  united  both  with 


158  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  opening  motif  and  with  every  variation 
of  it. 

In  this  little-understood  side  of  Cezanne's  gen- 
ius lies  an  infinitude  of  possibilities.  Without 
an  ability  to  organise,  all  his  knowledge  is  worth- 
less to  the  painter.  He  himself  could  apply  it, 
and  his  understanding  of  the  exact  adaptability 
of  a  form  to  a  hollow  permitted  him  to  express 
his  knowledge  with  a  force  his  followers  lack. 
His  sensitiveness  to  spaces  and  the  characters  of 
his  forms  recall  at  times  the  works  of  Mokkei 
who  used  protuberances  and  hollows  (namely: 
accidents  of  portraiture  and  landscape)  to  enrich 
and  diversify  form.  Nature  to  Cezanne  was  not 
simple,  and  he  never  depicted  it  thus.  Even  in 
his  bathing  pieces,  whose  disproportions  are  de- 
plored by  many,  the  composition  is  minutely 
conceived,  not  on  a  simple  harmonic  figure,  but 
on  complicated  oppositional  planes.  Not  only 
are  the  surface  forms  perfectly  adapted  to  a  given 
space,  but  the  directions  taken  by  these  forms  are 
as  solidly  indicated  and  the  vacancies  made  by  them 
are  as  solidly  filled  in,  as  in  a  Rubens.  Indeed 
these  canvases,  as  block-manifestations,  are  nearly 
as  perfect  as  the  pictures  of  El  Greco  who  was 
the  greatest  master  of  this  kind  of  composition. 

Cezanne  should  be  numbered  among  the  experi- 
menters in  art.  With  him,  as  with  the  Impres- 
sionists, the  desire  was  to  learn  rather  than  to 
utilise  discoveries.  The  painters  from  Courbet 
to  Cezanne  were  the  first  to  usher  in  an  authen- 
tically realistic  art  mode,  and  they  were  also  the 
first  who  sensed  the  possibilities  of  inanimate 
reality  for  aesthetic  organisation.  Others  before 
them  had  regarded  nature  strictly  en  amateur,  using 


PAUL  CEZANNE  159 

only  the  human  body  for  abstract  purposes.  Even 
Michelangelo  said  that  aside  from  it  there  was 
nothing  worth  while.  These  modern  innovators 
refuted  his  assertion  by  proving  the  contrary, 
namely:  by  introducing  order  into  chaotic  nature. 
Their  simple  arrangements,  however,  would  not 
have  satisfied  Michelangelo  who,  like  all  men  who 
come  at  a  florescence  when  the  lessons  have 
been  learned  and  it  remains  only  to  apply  them, 
demanded  an  arbitrary  organisation  which  should 
be  not  only  ordered  but  composed.  Cezanne  did 
little  composing  in  the  melodic  sense  of  the  word. 
He  stopped  at  the  gate  of  great  composition  which, 
after  pointing  the  future  way,  he  left  for  his 
successors  to  enter.  His  synthetic  interest  was 
limited  to  the  eternal  fugue  qualities  of  nature. 
He  undoubtedly  saw  the  futility  of  creating  poly- 
phonic composition  from  lemons  and  napkins, 
but  he  had  not  found  a  menstruum  in  which  the 
qualities  of  his  materials  would  disappear.  The 
old  masters  had  done  all  that  was  possible  with 
the  recognisable  human  body;  Cezanne's  desires 
for  the  purification  of  painting  kept  him  from 
attempting  to  improve  on  their  medium. 

Among  a  great  scope  of  oil  subjects  one  cannot 
say  through  which  of  them  Cezanne  has  exerted 
the  strongest  influence.  His  landscapes  have 
made  as  many  disciples  as  his  portraits,  and  his 
figure  pieces  and  still-lives  are  universally  copied. 
But  his  greatest  work,  his  water-colours,  has 
almost  no  following.  In  these  he  found  his  most 
facile  and  fluent  expression.  His  method  of  work- 
ing in  oil  had  always  been  the  posing  of  small, 
slightly  oblong  touches  of  colour  which  gave  his 
canvases  the  appearance  of  perfect  mosaics.  In 


160  MODERN  PAINTING 

his  water-colour  pictures  these  touches  are  placed 
side  by  side  with  little  or  no  thought  of  their 
ultimate  objective  importance,  and  they  become 
larger  planes  of  unmixed  tints  juxtaposed  in  such 
a  way  that  voluminous  form  results.  His  work 
in  this  most  difficult  medium  has  an  abstract 
significance,  for  in  it  even  the  objective  colouring 
of  natural  objects  is  unnoticeable.  The  colours 
stand  by  themselves;  and  while  the  aspect  of 
Cezanne's  pictures  in  this  medium  is  flat  and  al- 
most transparent,  the  subjective  emotion  we 
feel  before  them  is  greater  than  in  his  oil  work. 
In  these  pictures  there  was  no  going  back  to  re- 
touch. They  had  to  be  visualised  as  a  whole 
before  they  could  be  commenced.  Each  brush 
stroke  had  to  be  a  definite  and  irretrievable  step 
toward  the  completion  of  the  ensemble.  As  we 
study  them  a  slow  shifting  of  the  planes  is  felt: 
an  emotional  reconstruction  takes  place,  and  at 
length  the  volumes  begin  their  turning,  advancing 
and  retreating  as  in  his  oil  paintings,  only  here 
the  purely  aesthetic  quality  is  unadulterated  by 
objective  reality.  In  these  water-colours,  more 
than  in  any  of  his  other  work,  has  he  posed  the 
question  of  aesthetic  beauty  itself.  When  we 
contemplate  them,  we  are  more  than  ever  con- 
vinced that  Cezanne  was  the  first  painter,  that  is, 
the  first  man  to  express  himself  entirely  in  the 
medium  of  his  art,  colour.  Unfortunately  these 
pictures  are  difficult  of  access.  Only  occasionally 
are  they  exposed  in  a  group.  Bernheim-Jeune 
has  a  magnificent  collection  of  them,  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  they  will  soon  find  their  way  into  public 
museums.  Eventually,  when  a  true  comprehen- 
sion of  this  great  man  comes,  they  will  supplant 


PAUL  CEZANNE  161 

his  other  efforts.     His  desires  for  a  pure  art  are 
here  expressed  most  intensely. 

Cezanne,  however,  is  not  always  able  to 
"realise,"  as  he  put  it.  Even  in  these  water- 
colours  he  did  not  attain  his  desire.  He  started 
too  late  in  life  to  acquire  complete  mastery  over 
his  enormous  means.  "One  must  be  a  workman 
in  one's  art,  must  know  one's  method  of  realisa- 
tion," he  said.  "One  must  be  a  painter  by  the 
very  qualities  of  painting,  by  making  use  of  the 
rough  materials  of  art."  He  failed  to  gain  that 
great  facility  by  which  supreme  realisation  is 
achieved,  because  the  span  of  life  accorded  him 
was  too  short.  He  was  old  when  his  best  work 
was  begun,  and  like  Joseph  Conrad,  he  had 
passed  his  youth  before  the  great  ambition  fired 
him.  "Realising"  to  him  meant  the  handling  of 
his  stupendous  means  as  easily  as  the  academicians 
handled  their  puny  ones.  This  he  could  never  do, 
and  his  age  haunted  him  to  the  end.  Many  have 
taken  him  literally  when  he  said  he  desired  to 
expose  in  Bouguereau's  Salon,  but  though  he 
earnestly  wished  it,  he  desired  to  be  received  there 
as  Bouguereau  was:  as  one  who  had  mastered 
his  expression.  "The  exterior  appearance  is 
nothing,"  he  explained.  "The  obstacle  is  that  I 
don't  realise  sufficiently."  In  other  words,  he 
did  not  have  great  enough  fluency  to  permit  only 
the  highest  qualities  of  his  art  to  be  felt.  In  his 
gigantic  efforts  to  "realise,"  his  pictures  changed 
colour  and  form  many  times  before  they  were 
finished.  His  respect  and  admiration  for  inferior 
men  like  Bouguereau  and  Couture  was  due  to 
their  enviable  facility  in  handling  their  means. 
He  knew  that  the  fundamental  and  unalterable 


162  MODERN  PAINTING 

laws  of  organisation  had  been  found  and  perfected 
by  the  old  masters,  and  that,  so  long  as  we  were 
human,  we  must  build  on  their  discoveries. 
"Only  to  realise  like  the  Venetians!"  he  cried. 
And  later:  "We  must  again  become  classicists 
by  way  of  nature,  that  is  to  say,  by  sensation. 
...  I  am  old,  and  it  is  possible  I  shall  die  with- 
out having  attained  this  great  end."  A  year 
before  his  death  he  said:  'Yes,  I  am  too  old;  I 
have  not  realised,  and  I  shall  never  realise  now. 
I  shall  remain  the  primitive  of  the  way  I  have 
discovered." 

The  prediction  proved  true,  but  his  destiny  was 
none  the  less  a  glorious  one.  Deprived  of  the 
phrenetic  impulse  which  took  him  in  all  weathers 
over  country  roads  to  the  "motif"  from  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning  until  dark,  he  would 
never  have  achieved'  what  he  did.  The  facT:  of 
this  great  modern  genius  going  to  work  in  a  hired 
carriage,  too  weak  to  walk,  should  be  a  lesson  to 
those  painters  who  are  always  awaiting  the  com- 
bination of  propitious  circumstances  which  will 
provide  them  with  a  perfecT:  studio,  a  perfect 
model  and  a  perfect  desire.  Cezanne,  however, 
knew  his  high  place  in  art  history.  Once  when 
Balzac's  Le  Chef-d'CEuvre  Inconnu  was  brought 
up  in  conversation  and  the  name  of  its  hero, 
Frenhofer,  was  mentioned,  he  arose  with  tears  in 
his  eyes  and  indicated  himself  with  a  single 
gesture.  So  sure  was  he  of  what  he  wanted  to  do 
that  when  he  failed  he  discarded  his  canvases. 
Many  of  them  are  only  half  covered.  He  could 
never  pad  merely  to  fill  out  an  arbitrary  frame. 

With    Cezanne's    death    came    his    apotheosis. 
As   he   had   predicted,  thousands   rushed   in   and 


PAUL  CEZANNE  163 

cleverly  imitated  his  surfaces,  his  colour  gamuts, 
his  distortions  of  line.  His  white  wooden  tables 
and  ruddy  apples  and  twisted  fruit-dishes  have 
lately  become  the  etiquette  of  sophistication. 
But  all  this  is  not  authentic  eulogy.  Derain, 
his  most  ardent  imitator,  is  as  ignorant  of  him  as 
Nadelmann  is  of  the  Greeks  or  Archipenko  is  of 
Michelangelo.  And  the  majority  of  those  who 
have  written  books  concerning  him  merely  echo 
the  unintelligent  commotion  that  goes  on  about 
his  name.  Cezanne's  significance  lies  in  his  gifts 
to  the  painters  of  the  future,  to  those  in  whom 
the  creative  instinct  is  a  sacred  and  exalted  thing, 
to  those  serious  and  solitary  men  whose  insati- 
ability makes  of  them  explorers  in  new  fields. 
To  such  artists  Cezanne  will  always  be  the  primi- 
tive of  the  way  that  they  themselves  will  take,  for 
there  can  be  no  genuine  art  of  the  future  without 
his  directing  and  guiding  hand.  His  postulates 
are  too  solidly  founded  on  human  organisms  ever 
to  be  ignored.  He  may  be  modified  and  developed: 
he  can  never  be  set  aside  until  the  primal  emotions 
of  life  are  changed.  Only  today  is  he  beginning 
to  be  understood,  and  even  now  his  claim  to  true 
greatness  is  questioned.  But  Cezanne,  judged 
either  as  a  theorist  or  as  an  achiever,  is  the  pre- 
eminent figure  in  modern  art.  Renoir  alone 
approaches  his  stature.  Purely  as  a  painter  he  is 
the  greatest  the  world  has  produced.  In  the 
visual  arts  he  is  surpassed  only  by  El  Greco, 
Michelangelo  and  Rubens. 


VII 
THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS 

THE  Impressionists,  although  they  turned 
their  backs  upon  casual  selectivism  and 
branched  out  into  analytic  research,  had 
—  contrary  to  the  generally  accepted 
opinion  —  no  precise  and  scientific  method  of 
colour  application.  This  came  later  with  the 
advent  of  a  group  of  painters  who  have  been 
called,  in  turn,  Pointillists,  Divisionists,  Chromo- 
luminarists  and  Neo-Impressionists,  but  who 
chose  to  regard  themselves  only  as  the  last  of 
these  four  designations.  And  there  is  perhaps 
more  logic  in  this  nomenclature,  for  it  is  not 
limited  technically;  it  contains  no  claim  to  achieve- 
ment as  does  Chromo-luminarism;  and  it  suggests 
this  new  school's  consanguinity  with  the  move- 
ment out  of  which  it  grew.  With  Delacroix's 
Journal,  the  pictures  of  Claude  Monet  and  Chev- 
reul's  pioneer  treatise  on  colour,  De  la  Loi  du 
Contraste  Simultane  des  Couleurs,  the  Neo- 
Impressionists  evolved  a  coldly  scientific  method 
of  technique.  By  carrying  a  simple  premise  to 
its  ultimate  conclusion,  regardless  of  everything 
save  the  exacting  demands  of  logic,  they  endeav- 
oured to  heighten  the  emotional  effect  of  the 
Impressionist  vision.  In  this  movement,  as  in 
other  similar  ones,  can  be  detected  the  spirit 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          165 

which  animates  the  ardent  visionary  when  he 
contemplates  a  novel  method  —  the  spirit  which 
invites  him  to  go  to  even  greater  extremes.  In 
it  there  is  as  much  enthusiasm  as  serious  purpose, 
as  much  of  the  essence  of  youth  as  of  the  arri- 
viste. In  no  instance  has  such  a  spirit  led  to 
significant  results;  and  the  Neo-Impressionists 
prove  no  exception.  In  looking  too  fixedly  at 
means,  they  lost  sight  of  their  ends.  Their  debut 
took  place  at  the  last  concerted  exhibition  of  the 
Impressionists  in  1886  where  the  canvases  of 
Seurat  and  Signac  were  hung  beside  those  of 
Cassatt,  Bracquemond,  Morisot,  Camille  and 
Lucien  Pissarro,  Gauguin,  Guillaumin,  Redon, 
Schuffenecker,  Tillot,  Degas,  Forain  and  Vignon. 
Here  was  seen  for  the  first  time  the  logical  exten- 
sion of  the  earlier  methods  of  Monet  and  Pissarro. 
Georges  Seurat  had  once  been  a  good  student  at 
the  Beaux-Arts,  but  his  quick,  precise  and  ques- 
tioning intelligence  had  saved  him  from  falling 
under  the  professorial  injunctions.  Most  of  his 
studying  was  done  in  the  art  museums  where  he 
contemplated  for  long  the  old  masters.  Here  he 
discovered  that  "there  are  analogous  laws  which 
govern  line,  tone,  colour  and  composition,  as 
much  with  Rubens  as  with  Raphael,  with  Michel- 
angelo as  with  Delacroix:  rhythm,  measure  and 
contrast.'*  (By  rhythm,  measure  and  contrast 
he  meant  curved  lines,  space  and  opposition.) 
Still  searching  for  the  secrets  of  art  he  studied  the 
works  of  the  Orient  and  the  writings  of  Chevreul, 
Superville,  Humbert,  Blanc,  Rood  and  Helmholtz. 
Then,  by  analysing  Delacroix,  he  found  substan- 
tiation for  his  discoveries.  The  result  of  this 
study  was,  as  Signac  tells  us,  his  "judicious  and 


i66  MODERN  PAINTING 

fertile  theory  of  contrasts."  From  1882  on  he 
applied  it  to  all  his  canvases.  The  theory  in 
brief  was  to  use  scientifically  opposed  spots  of 
colour  of  more  or  less  purity.  This  method  he 
might  have  learned  dired:  from  the  first  modern 
French  master,  for  in  that  artist's  Journal  are 
discussed  at  length  colour  division;  optical  admix- 
ture; the  dramatic  unity  of  colour,  line  and  sub- 
ject; and  the  juxtaposition  of  complementaries 
for  brilliancy. 

Paul  Signac's  evolution  was  different.  He  had 
first  been  under  the  influence  of  Pissarro,  Renoir, 
Monet  and  Guillaumin,  and  though  being  a 
zealous  pupil  of  their  methods,  he  knew  little  of 
their  motives.  It  was  only  after  he  had  observed 
the  interplay  and  contrast  of  colours  in  nature 
that  he  sought  explanation  in  the  works  of  his 
masters,  the  Impressionists.  Failing,  he  turned 
again  to  nature.  In  copying  it,  he  discovered 
that  in  the  gradation  from  one  colour  to  another, 
let  us  say  from  blue  to  orange,  the  transition  was 
always  muddy  and  disagreeable  when  mixed  on 
the  palette,  although  if  distinct  spots  of  these 
two  colours  were  juxtaposed  in  alternating  ratio, 
the  modulation  would  be  smooth  and  clean. 
This  observation  impelled  him  to  seek  a  method 
whereby  this  "passage"  could  be  highly  clarified. 
Consequently  he  completely  divided  the  Impres- 
sionists' spots  so  that  each  individual  touch 
remained  pure  and  at  the  same  time  left  patches 
of  the  white  canvas  showing  for  purposes  of 
brilliancy.  His  next  step  led  him  to  Chevreul 
whose  theory  of  complementaries  he  committed 
to  memory.  His  technical  education  he  now 
deemed  complete. 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          167 

Seurat  and  Signac  first  met  at  the  Salon  des 
Artistes  Independants  in  1884,  and  their  dis- 
coveries were  at  once  mutually  appropriated. 
Signac's  colour  divisions,  combined  with  Seurat's 
more  scholarly  equilibrium  of  elements,  formed 
the  nucleus  from  which  evolved  the  Neo-Impres- 
sionists  who  later  repudiated  Impressionism,  using 
it  only  as  the  point  from  which  they  leapt  off 
into  a  morass  of  set  formulas.  It  was  a  laudable 
desire  on  the  part  of  these  new  men,  especially  of 
Seurat,  to  try  to  snatch  from  a  purely  inspirational 
school  its  halo  of  mystery  and  to  place  painting 
methods  on  a  sound  rationalistic  basis.  But 
while  they  were  right  in  believing  a  picture  should 
be  more  than  the  visual  accompaniment  to  senti- 
ments, they  should  have  gone  deeper  than  the 
mere  exterior  of  painting.  For  example,  they 
should  have  tried  to  see  in  what  plastic  way  their 
colour  theories  could  be  used,  instead  of  limiting 
themselves  to  the  synthetic  unity  of  aesthetic 
illustration.  And  they  should  have  tried  to  make 
a  form-producing  faculty  of  their  light  instead  of 
introducing  into  it  another  poetic  element  in  the 
shape  of  dramatic  line.  But  they  were  more 
concerned  with  the  clothes  in  the  wardrobe  of  art 
than  in  its  body.  Their  painting,  as  a  result,  was 
without  sustaining  structure. 

With  the  Impressionists,  as  with  all  significant 
art  movements,  the  desire  for  change  and  for 
higher  emotional  power  came  first:  the  method 
came  later.  With  the  Neo-Impressionists  this 
order  was  reversed.  Their  canvases  for  this 
reason  are  less  emotional  than  those  of  their 
forerunners.  By  limiting  their  palettes  to  certain 
pure  colours  they  restricted  their  diversity  of 


i68  MODERN  PAINTING 

interest.  Even  their  aim  at  a  scientific  art  has 
gone  far  of  the  mark  because  their  science  was  in 
many  instances  faulty.  By  conditioning  their 
methods  on  the  observations  of  inaccurate  writers 
they  were  able  to  progress  only  so  far  as  these 
observations  went.  Chevreul  is  far  from  authori- 
tative today:  in  fact  there  is  no  comprehensive 
scientific  work  on  colour  in  existence.  Tudor-Hart, 
the  greatest  of  all  colour  scientists,  has  blasted 
many  of  the  older  accepted  theories  of  such  men 
as  Helmholtz,  Rood  and  Chevreul,  and  his 
experiments  have  shown  conclusively  that  many 
of  their  postulates  are  unreliable.  The  Neo- 
Impressionists  were  unaware  of  ChevreuFs  errors, 
and  their  minds  were  too  literal  to  enable  them  to 
make  new  and  more  advanced  observations  in  the 
realm  of  colour.  The  meagre  attention  paid 
them  is  not  due  to  their  novelty,  but  to  the  fad: 
that  they  have  done  nothing  the  Impressionists 
did  not  do  better.  They  are  like  a  cartridge 
which,  having  all  the  combustible  ingredients, 
fails  to  explode  because  it  is  wet. 

The  Neo-Impressionists  may,  in  refutation, 
point  to  music  as  a  scientific  art.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  taste  brought  about  the  con- 
struction of  chords  and  that  the  mathematical 
explanation  came  later.  The  primitive  peoples 
who  found  an  aesthetic  pleasure  in  broken-up 
major  chords  were  ignorant  of  nodal  points  and 
the  laws  of  vibration.  The  early  Assyrians  had 
a  pipe  of  three  notes,  C,  E  and  G,  perfectly 
attuned,  yet  they  were  ignorant  of  the  science  of 
harmony.  Taste  in  the  arts  has  always  come 
first:  science  follows  with  its  interpretations. 
The  Impressionists,  through  instinct,  created  their 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          169 

marvels  of  light  and  atmosphere.  Afterward  the 
science  of  optics  explained  their  efforts.  Personal 
taste  was  their  only  criterion,  and  no  books  could 
have  taught  them  their  lesson,  because  their 
methods  were  so  plastic  that  whatever  was  to 
them  artistically  consistent  was  right.  Had  they 
been  familiar  with  science,  it  still  would  have 
remained  to  be  applied:  and  it  is  only  by  the 
superimposition  of  taste  that  knowledge  in  the 
artist  becomes  pregnant.  The  Divisionists,  by 
making  a  hard  and  fast  code  of  science,  enslaved 
themselves  to  the  demands  of  theories.  The 
functioning  of  their  tastes  was  nullified.  They 
therefore  fell  short  of  art. 

In  Signac's  book,  D'Eugene  Delacroix  au  Neo- 
Impressionnisme,  are  explained  many  points  of 
divergence  between  this  school  and  that  of  the 
Impressionists.  The  difference  of  the  two  methods 
may  be  exemplified  by  describing  the  manner  in 
which  each  approached  a  landscape  wherein  the 
grass  and  foliage  were  partly  in  shadow  and  partly 
in  sunlight.  In  such  a  landscape  the  artist's  eye 
records  a  fleeting,  dimly-felt  impression  of  red  in 
that  part  of  the  green  of  the  shadow  which  is 
nearest  the  light  region.  The  Impressionists, 
satisfied  with  having  experienced  this  sensation, 
hastened  to  put  a  touch  of  red  on  their  canvas, 
while  the  actual  colour  in  nature  might  have  been 
an  orange,  a  vermilion,  or  even  a  purple.  In  this 
haphazard  choice  of  a  red  Signac  detected  sloven- 
liness. He  says  that  the  shadow  of  any  colour 
is  always  lightly  tinted  with  the  colour's  comple- 
mentary; that  if  the  light  is  yellow-green  the 
shadow  will  be  touched  with  violet ;  if  orange,  the 
shadow  will  contain  blue-green.  Had  the  Impres- 


170  MODERN  PAINTING 

sionists  known  this  fact  and  cared  to  use  it,  says 
Signac,  they  could  have  made  their  pictures 
scientifically  correct  by  posing  the  exact  comple- 
mentary of  light  in  their  shadow.  And  he  adds 
that  it  is  difficult  to  see  in  just  what  way  this 
process  would  have  harmed  their  work. 

It  is,  however,  not  so  difficult  as  he  imagines. 
If,  in  copying  nature  by  a  strictly  scientific  vision 
as  the  Neo-Impressionists  advocate,  we  closely 
study  the  light,  we  will  discover  not  only  that  a 
local  colour  is  modified  by  the  colour  of  the  sun's 
rays,  but  that  an  added  suite  of  colours  is  intro- 
duced by  the  absorption  of  some  of  the  object's 
particles,  by  the  encompassing  air,  and  by  the 
circumjacent  reflections.  We  may  have  (i)  the 
local  colour  which,  let  us  say,  is  green,  (2)  the 
colour  of  sunlight,  (3)  the  colour  caused  by 
atmospheric  conditions,  (4)  the  reflection  of  sky, 
and  (5)  the  reflection  of  the  ground.  Further- 
more, if  the  object  has  any  indentures  their 
shadows  will  lower  to  a  limited  degree  the  whole 
tone  of  the  object.  At  the  least  calculation  then 
we  have  (i)  green,  (2)  yellow-orange,  (3)  any 
colour  in  the  cold  region  of  the  spectrum,  (4) 
blue  or  violet,  and  (5)  green,  brown,  Venetian  red 
or  any  colour  in  the  warm  region  of  the  spectrum: 
—  all  of  which  colours  change  and  shift  unceasingly, 
dependent  on  the  density  of  the  air  which  obscures, 
to  a  lesser  or  greater  degree,  the  sun's  rays  and 
hence  changes  the  reflection  from  sky  and  ground, 
thereby  modifying  the  local  colour.  Thus  it  is 
impossible  when  copying  nature  even  to  determine 
the  colour  of  its  lightened  parts.  And  if  a  colour 
premise  cannot  be  established,  it  is  obviously 
impossible  to  find  its  exact  complementary. 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          171 

Suppose  we  admit  that  an  approximate  colour 
can  be  recorded  for  that  part  of  the  landscape's 
green  which  is  in  the  light,  that  is,  the  green 
whose  complement  is  to  be  placed  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  shadow.  Let  us  say  that  this  green 
is  technically  a  yellow-green,  since  it  is  in  the  sun. 
Now  the  complement  of  yellow-green  is  not,  as 
the  Neo-Impressionists  hold,  violet,  but  red-violet 
or  purple.  But,  were  red-violet  used  in  the 
shadow,  its  effect  would  be  false,  because,  in  order 
for  yellow-green  to  call  up  its  pure  complementary, 
the  light  itself  must  be  an  intense  yellow-green  — 
so  intense  in  fact  that  the  local  colour  of  the 
object  (whatever  it  is)  is  entirely  absorbed  and 
unable  to  influence  the  light.  Then,  and  only 
then,  would  the  shadow  be  pure  purple,  for  the 
local  colour,  being  nullified,  would  not  interfere 
with  the  optical  sensation  of  complementaries. 
But  on  an  object  which  appears  yellow-green  in 
the  light,  the  yellow  of  which  is  the  sun's  rays  and 
the  green  the  local  colour,  the  shadow  also  is 
modified  by  the  local  colour  in  the  same  propor- 
tion that  the  light  is  modified,  only  its  modifica- 
tion is  in  an  opposite  direction;  that  is,  the  yellow 
of  the  sun's  rays,  in  raising  green  to  yellow-green, 
lowers  the  green  of  the  shadow  to  blue-green. 
Therefore  the  shadow  is  not  the  complementary 
of  the  light  colour.  But  in  the  darkest  part  of 
the  shadow,  which  is  the  boundary  dividing  it 
from  the  light,  there  is  a  sensation  of  red  derived 
from  purple,  purple  being  the  complementary  of 
the  yellow-green.  Thus  in  a  blue  object,  though 
the  pure  complementary  of  the  lighted  part  would 
be  orange,  the  shadow  in  sunlight  is  merely  dark 
blue  with  that  fugitive  sensation  of  red  through  it. 


172  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  the  shadow  on  such  an  object  Signac  calls  for 
pure  orange,  claiming  that  a  vermilion,  a  lake  or 
a  purple  is  out  of  place.  His  colour  science  in 
the  abstract  may  be  unimpeachable,  but  his 
physics  is  faulty.  The  sensation  caused  by  the 
complementary  of  the  lighted  part  is  that  of  a 
reddish  tint;  and  so  long  as  the  painter  introduces 
a  colour  into  the  shadow  so  as  to  give  this  impres- 
sion of  red,  he  is  at  least  empirically,  though  not 
scientifically,  correct.  There  is  only  a  sensation 
of  red,  not  a  definite  spot  where  red  can  be  placed ; 
and  for  the  canvas  to  be  truthful  emotionally 
there  must  be  only  that  sensation  of  red  in  the 
painted  shadow.  And  the  only  way  to  produce  it 
without  making  a  spot  of  orange,  which  is  a  light 
colour  and  which  in  its  pure  state  has  no  prop- 
erties in  common  with  shadow,  is  to  use  a  colour 
which  is  intimately  connected  with  shadow  and 
which  contains  the  elements  of  both  light  and 
shadow.  Thus  in  the  cold  bluish-orange  shadow 
of  a  blue  object  there  must  be  placed  a  cold  lake 
or  a  purple  which  partakes  of  both  the  light  and 
shadow  and  therefore  does  not  offend  the  eye  by 
its  isolation.  In  the  bluish  or  blue-green  shadow 
of  a  yellow-green  object,  a  purple  is  too  aggres- 
sive and  blatant,  while  a  blue-violet  or  an  atten- 
uated violet  is  doubly  harmonious. 

Indeed  there  is  another  reason  why  comple- 
mentaries  should  not  be  used,  but  merely  their 
approximations  set  down.  Perfect  complemen- 
taries  neutralise  each  other  and,  when  optically 
mixed  or  applied  in  such  small  particles  in  a  pure 
state  that  at  a  short  distance  the  eye  cannot  dis- 
tinguish their  limitations,  produce  a  metallic  and 
acid  grey  which  is  to  colour  harmony  what  noise 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          173 

is  to  music.  When  C  and  G^  are  struck  together 
the  sensitive  ear  revolts  in  the  same  way  a  sensi- 
tive eye  revolts  at  complementaries  in  colour. 
But  while  in  music  a  minor,  or  diminished,  fifth 
is  displeasing,  by  increasing  or  reducing  the  in- 
terval a  semitone,  by  making  it,  for  instance, 
C  —  F  or  C  —  G,  a  pleasing  effect  can  be  obtained. 
In  colour  also  this  principle  holds  good.  The 
complementary  combination  of  red  and  green  is 
harsh,  but  by  placing  red  with  one  of  the  spec- 
trum tones  on  either  side  of  green  a  pleasurable 
harmony  is  at  once  established.  The  Impres- 
sionists through  instinct  generally  made  use  of 
colours  which  primitively  or  softly  harmonised, 
again  proving  the  ascendency  of  taste  over  sys- 
tem, for  if  taste  is  sensitive  it  will  be  verified  by 
science.  Science,  however,  cannot  create  taste. 
When  we  consider  the  Neo-Impressionists*  antag- 
onistic and  neutralising  complementaries,  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  their  criticism  of  Impres- 
sionism. The  Impressionists,  they  said,  "put  a 
little  of  everything  everywhere,  and  in  the  result- 
ing polychromatic  tumult  there  were  antagonistic 
elements:  in  neutralising  each  other,  they  deadened 
the  ensemble  of  the  picture."  Now  in  the  entire 
range  of  colour  from  violet  to  yellow  there  is 
hardly  a  possible  dual  combination  which  cannot 
be  made  harmonious  by  the  addition  of  one  or 
two  other  colours.  In  this  process  of  compli- 
cation lie  the  infinite  harmonic  possibilities  of 
sound  as  well  as  of  colour.  There  are  no  two 
notes  in  music  which,  though  when  struck  to- 
gether are  jarring,  cannot  be  drawn  into  a  perfect 
chord  by  the  introduction  of  certain  other  notes. 
And  any  two  lines,  no  matter  how  inapposite,  can 


174  MODERN  PAINTING 

be  aesthetically  related  by  other  lines  properly 
placed.  Even  were  the  Neo-Impressionists,  in 
their  criticism,  referring  to  the  placing  of  blue  in 
light  and  of  yellow  in  shadow,  they  would  still 
be  open  to  refutation,  for  their  predecessors,  by 
placing  on  their  canvases  the  colours  they  had 
felt  in  contemplating  their  models,  were  once  more 
emotionally  right  although  not  exactly  right  from 
the  standpoint  of  abstract  science. 

With  all  the  brilliancy  of  their  pure  pigments 
the  Neo-Impressionists  have  yet  to  produce  a 
canvas  as  brilliant  or  as  harmonious  as  those  of 
the  Impressionists.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 
In  an  Impressionist  picture  there  is  a  certain 
amount  of  neutrality  caused  by  mixing  the  colour 
of  light  with  that  of  blue  shadow;  and  this  mix- 
ture heightens  the  scintillation  of  the  ensemble. 
The  Divisionists,  on  the  other  hand,  went  so  far 
as  to  abolish  neutrality  altogether.  In  raising  all 
values  to  a  point  of  saturation,  they  diminished 
the  brilliancy  of  the  picture  as  a  whole.  It  is  to 
be  doubted  seriously  if  even  Signac  is  still  of  the 
belief  that  the  Pointillists'  squares  of  colour  blend 
optically.  Theoretically  they  should,  but  actually 
the  impression  we  receive  is  not  one  of  vibrant 
light.  We  see  only  an  extended  series  of  spots 
which  are  all  about  the  same  size  —  a  size  which 
was  varied  but  little  as  the  dimensions  of  the 
canvas  varied,  as  was  the  case  with  the  Impres- 
sionists. But  these  latter  artists  mixed  their 
spots  not  only  on  the  palette  but  on  the  canvas 
as  well,  and  blent  them  into  neighbouring  spots. 
The  result  was  a  richly  decorated  surface  whose 
minute  parts  do  not  foist  themselves  upon  our 
sight.  But  in  Signac,  Cross,  Van  Rysselberghe, 


w 
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as 


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CO 

H 

aS 
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THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          175 

Dubois-Pillet,  Luce,  Petitjean,  Van  de  Velde  or 
Augrand,  who  developed  these  means  to  their 
ultimate  limits,  these  spots  are  so  displeasing  and 
obtrusive  that  it  is  mentally  impossible  to  lose 
sight  of  them  in  the  contemplation  of  the  pictures. 
All  of  these  artists  produce  flat  work,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Van  Rysselberghe  who  has 
merely  superposed  this  technique  on  an  obvious 
and  insensitive  academism.  He  is  to  the  Neo- 
Impressionists  what  Henri  Martin  is  to  Monet. 

There  has  been  too  much  credit  taken  by  the 
Neo-Impressionists  for  the  discovery  of  this 
stippling  technique.  As  a  matter  of  fad:  it  is  not 
wholly  original  with  them.  Turner,  Constable, 
Delacroix,  Jongkind,  Fantin-Latour,  Cezanne  and 
the  Impressionists  were  all  interested  in  breaking 
nature  up  into  parts  in  order  to  arrive  at  a 
dynamic  representation  of  the  whole.  The  process 
with  them  was  commendable,  but  the  Chromo- 
luminarists  carried  it  to  such  an  extreme  that  they 
saw  nature  only .  in  order  to  break  it  into  spots. 
They  repudiate  vehemently  the  ^appellation  of 
Pointillists,  and  the  name  that  Emile  Bernard 
gave  them  —  Pointists  —  has  remained  beneath 
their  notice.  They  point  out  that  one  may  be  a 
Pointillist  without  being  a  Divisionist,  for  Point- 
illism  is  the  using  of  colour  in  spots  so  as  to  avoid 
its  flat  application,  while  "division"  is  the  appli- 
cation of  separated  spots  of  pure  pigment  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  about  an  optical  admixture. 
The  idea  of  optical  admixture  was  born  when 
some  one  placed  several  planes  of  different  colours 
on  a  disc  and,  by  revolving  it  rapidly,  caused 
them  to  blend  perfectly.  Immediately  the  Neo- 
Impressionists  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 


176  MODERN  PAINTING 

distance  would  accomplish  the  same  result  with 
any-sized  spots.  This  assumption  was  their 
initial  error.  There  is  a  very  definite  limit  to 
the  size  of  colour  spots  which  at  a  distance  will 
blend  optically,  and  the  artists  of  this  school,  with 
the  one  exception  of  Seurat,  made  their  spots  too 
large.  Delacroix  never  juxtaposed  large  strips 
of  complementaries  in  one  plane,  but  applied 
hachures  of  almost  the  same  tint.  The  effed: 
would  have  been  little  different  had  he  painted 
flatly,  except  for  the  richer  matiere  this  method 
produced.  The  Impressionists  mixed  their  colours 
both  on  the  palette  and  on  the  canvas,  except 
when  they  wished  to  reproduce  a  certain  texture 
that  called  for  small  lights  and  shadows  placed  side 
by  side.  And  Cezanne  modulated  his  colour  spots  so 
that  there  were  no  jumps  or  hiatuses  between  them. 
The  Neo-Impressionistic  methods  have  no  such 
subtleties.  In  applying  their  colour  these  painters 
keep  each  spot  separated  from  its  neighbour  by 
a  tiny  bit  of  white  canvas  which  is  intended  to 
give  added  light  to  each  part.  The  spots  are 
unmixed  and  are  applied  straight  from  the  palette 
in  preponderating  proportions  to  obtain  certain 
general  colour  impressions.  They  use  only  the 
seven  colours  of  the  prismatic  spectrum,  and  in 
thus  restricting  their  palette  they  have  limited 
their  range  of  greys.  Since  nature  itself  is  a 
series  of  high-pitched  greys  in  which  only  occa- 
sionally does  a  pure  colour  appear,  they  were 
inadequately  equipped  for  reproducing  it.  If,  by 
raising  all  tints  to  their  purity,  they  hoped  to 
obtain  the  maximum  of  colouration  and  therefore 
the  maximum  of  luminosity,  they  overlooked  the 
facl:  that  to  produce  any  light  whatever  there  must 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          177 

be  negation  or  shadow.  They  failed  to  achieve 
light  because  they  equalised  the  brilliancy  of  all 
colours.  Even  to  produce  colour  there  must  be 
black  or  grey.  Their  equilibrium  of  elements  led 
to  the  cold  grey  aspect  of  their  work  and  to  the 
acid  and  inharmonious  effect  of  their  colour. 

The  desire  of  the  Neo-Impressionists  to  improve 
upon  the  Impressionistic  vision  was  a  sincere  one, 
and  in  their  striving  for  dramatic  means  for 
heightening  the  already  intense  emotional  power 
of  their  forerunners'  work,  they  showed  themselves 
to  be  animated  by  an  ambition  for  change  and 
improvement  without  which  no  vital  innovation 
can  be  made.  Their  desire  was  commendable, 
but  their  science  was  inadequate.  Their  modern 
spirit  was  best  shown  in  their  search  for  the 
significance  of  line  in  its  harmonic  relation  to 
colour  and  tone.  The  impetus  to  this  search 
emanated  from  Seurat  who  dictated  to  his  biog- 
rapher, Jules  Christophe:  "Art  is  harmony; 
harmony  is  the  analogy  of  contraries  (contrasts), 
the  analogy  of  likes  (gradated),  of  tone,  of  tint, 
of  line;  —  tone,  that  is  to  say,  the  light  and  dark; 
tint,  that  is  to  say,  red  and  its  complement  green, 
orange  and  blue,  yellow  and  violet;  line,  that  is  to 
to  say,  horizonal  directions.  .  .  .  The  means  of 
expression  is  the  optical  admixture  of  tones  and 
tints  and  of  their  reactions  (shadows)  following 
fixed  laws."  Delacroix  had  already  turned  his 
eyes  in  the  direction  of  the  harmony  of  lines  and 
colours.  It  will  be  recalled  that  he  wrote  in  his 
Journal:  "If  to  a  composition,  interesting  in  its 
choice  of  subject,  you  add  a  disposition  of  lines, 
which  augments  the  impression,  a  chiaroscuro 
which  seizes  the  imagination,  and  a  colour  which 


178  MODERN  PAINTING 

is  adapted  to  the  characters,  it  is  then  a  harmony, 
and  its  combinations  are  so  adapted  that  they 
produce  a  unique  song.  ...  It  is  good  not  to  let 
each  brush  stroke  melt  into  the  others;  they  will 
appear  uniform  at  a  certain  distance  by  the 
sympathetic  law  which  associates  them." 

The  Neo-Impressionists,  taking  their  cue  from 
Seurat's  observations,  state  that  the  first  consider- 
ation of  a  painter  before  a  blank  canvas  should  be 
to  determine  what  curves  and  what  arabesques 
are  going  to  divide  the  surface,  and  what  colours 
and  tones  cover  it.  Even  in  this  aim  they  went 
further  than  the  Impressionists  who  neither 
ordered  nor  synthesised  their  works  formally. 
The  Neo-Impressionists  say  they  do  not  com- 
mence a  canvas  until  they  have  determined  its 
complete  arrangement.  Then,  guided  by  tradi- 
tion and  science,  they  harmonise  the  composition 
with  their  conception.  That  is  to  say,  they  adapt 
the  lines,  colours  and  tones  to  an  order  which 
aesthetically  expresses  the  character  of  emotion 
their  model  calls  up  in  them.  They  hold  that 
horizontal  lines  give  calm;  ascending  lines,  joy; 
descending  lines,  sorrow;  and  that  the  interme- 
diary lines  represent  the  infinite  variations  of 
emotions  that  lie  outside  these  first  three  types. 
But  they  offer  no  explanation  of  the  analogies 
between  these  intermediate  lines  and  the  kinds 
of  emotion  they  are  supposed  to  call  up.  They  go 
on  to  explain  that  hot  tints  and  light  tonalities 
should  be  applied  to  ascending  lines,  cold  tints 
and  sombre  tonalities  to  descending  lines,  and  an 
equal  amount  of  light  and  dark  to  the  horizontal 
lines.  "Thus,"  they  add,  "the  painter  becomes 
a  creator  and  a  poet." 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          179 

All  this  theorising  would  be  important  for  the 
dramatic  illustrators  were  it  entirely  true.  But 
while  a  line  placed  horizontally  may  represent 
calm,  the  same  line  made  perpendicular  or  laid 
at  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees  will  also  produce 
calm.  The  straight  line  varies  so  little  in  its 
significance,  no  matter  at  what  angle  it  is  placed, 
that  its  direction  is  negligible  from  an  emotional 
standpoint.  The  degree  of  curve  in  a  line  is  its 
emotional  element,  and  only  when  varying  curves 
come  in  contact  is  the  highest  formal  emotion 
obtained.  The  straight  line  is  the  lifeless,  the 
static,  the  immobile.  As  such  it  can  serve  only 
as  a  foil  to  the  curved  line,  for  it  is  the  straight 
that  makes  the  curved  of  value.  Their  theory 
concerning  hot  colours  and  high  tones  is  sounder 
than  their  linear  theory;  but  in  copying  a  joyous 
landscape  is  one  not  forced  to  put  on  high  tonal- 
ities and  hot  colours,  since  it  is  in  seeing  these 
high  values  that  we  experience  the  sensation  of 
joy?  And  is  it  not  from  the  low  values  in  nature 
that  we  receive  our  sensation  of  sorrow?  One 
may  accentuate  the  colours  and  tones,  but  if 
they  are  too  strongly  intensified  they  will  ap- 
proach the  other  extreme  and  produce  dead  and 
mournful  landscapes.  This  accentuation  the  Neo- 
Impressionists  carried  to  the  limit  permitted  by 
their  pigments.  Their  ideas  of  line  and  of  joyous 
and  sombre  colours  are  undoubtedly  of  value  if 
profoundly  and  extensively  comprehended  and 
properly  applied.  But,  in  order  to  become  signifi- 
cant, line  must  only  delimit  organisation  and 
become  volume;  and  colour,  instead  of  merely 
producing  joy  and  sorrow,  must  bring  about 
form.  Then  again,  there  is  that  world  lying 


180  MODERN  PAINTING 

on  the  further  side  of  flatness  which  must  be 
explored. 

With  all  their  theorising  and  attempts  to  obtain 
brilliancy,  the  Neo-Impressionists  produce  only 
grey  work.  From  the  first  these  artists  were  too 
coldly  intellectual,  and  it  matters  little  whether 
their  science  was  right  or  wrong  when  we  con- 
template their  pictures.  Were  their  science  per- 
fect they  could  never  have  created  art  which  goes 
beyond  the  arabesque  and  the  poetry  of  arrange- 
ment, for  they  were  not  fundamental  even  in 
their  aims.  They  have  all  painted  different 
subjects  in  slightly  varying  manners,  but,  apart 
from  Seurat's,  all  their  canvases  have  these 
things  in  common:  a  uniform  range  of  colour, 
a  set  method  of  technique,  and  the  hard  and 
"noisy"  contrasts  which  in  their  larger  works 
produce  a  veritable  din.  Those  of  the  Neo- 
Impressionists  who  are  still  living  claim  to  have 
completed  Cezanne,  Pissarro  and  Delacroix,  to 
have  perfected  a  method,  to  have  expanded 
logically  the  Impressionists  to  something  worth 
while,  to  be  in  accord  with  Rood  and  Chevreul, 
to  have  brought  great  harmony  into  painting, 
to  have  taken  painting  into  the  pure  realms  of 
poesy  and  symphonic  musical  composition.  Alas, 
that  their  claims  have  no  substantiation  in  our 
receptivities! 

Seurat,  the  founder,  was  the  only  genuinely 
artistic  man  of  the  movement,  and  an  early  death 
denied  him  his  chance  to  develop.  Though 
seduced  by  too  exacting  a  process,  he  has  never- 
theless given  us  some  sensitive  and  delicately 
beautiful  canvases.  Le  Chahut,  Le  Cirque  and 
Un  Dimanche  a  la  Grande-Jatte  are  saturated 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          181 

with  light,  and  in  them  is  an  undeniable  order 
of  parallel  lines.  His  colours  were  never  as  harsh 
and  acid  as  those  of  his  confreres,  and  his  pictures 
have  a  blond  tonality  which  the  other  men  of 
the  movement  entirely  lack.  His  crayon  draw- 
ings, from  the  standpoint  of  tonal  experimentation, 
are  interesting  and  seem  almost  like  paintings.  He 
had  a  great  talent,  and  had  he  lived  we  might  have 
expected  great  things  from  it.  He  was  more  vitally 
interested  in  style  than  in  technical  methods,  and  in 
his  conclusions  stemmed  directly  from  Delacroix. 
His  spottings  were  much  smaller  and  more  effective 
than  those  of  the  other  Pointillists.  His  desire  was 
to  express  an  idea  through  the  medium  of  nature, 
not  to  copy  nature  in  order  to  relate  the  sensation 
it  gave  the  artist.  His  painting  was  synthetic. 
All  details  and  accidents  of  colour  and  silhouette 
he  set  aside  as  useless.  His  is  an  art  of  parallels 
and  analogies,  of  sensitivity  and  analysis;  in 
fact,  it  has  all  those  qualities  which,  were  they 
present  in  greater  strength,  would  produce  signifi- 
cant pictures.  He  was  of  one  piece;  and  his 
development,  once  he  had  begun  to  paint,  was 
an  even  one  toward  a  definite  goal.  In  him, 
alone  of  the  members  of  the  group,  we  find  an 
artist  and  not  an  illustrator.  Those  who  liken 
him  to  Aubrey  Beardsley  have  less  reason  for 
their  comparison  than  the  ones  who  see  parallels 
between  Gainsborough  and  Renoir.  Compare  the 
quoted  remarks  of  Seurat  concerning  tone,  line 
and  colour  with  Signac's  summing  up  of  his 
method,  and  the  temperamental  differences  be- 
tween the  artist  and  the  scientist  will  at  once  be 
seen.  Signac  says  his  method  is  "observation  of 
the  laws  of  colour,  the  exclusive  use  of  pure  tints, 


1 82  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  renunciation  of  all  attenuated  mixings,  and 
the  methodical  equilibrium  of  elements." 

One  of  the  most  noted  followers  of  the  Neo- 
Impressionistic  methods  was  the  Hollander,  Vin- 
cent van  Gogh.  Although  generally  considered 
in  critical  essays  as  an  unrelated  phenomenon  in 
the  art  heavens,  he  is  closely  allied  to  Signac  and 
to  Delacroix  through  Seurat.  He  adopted  paint- 
ing, one  is  inclined  to  believe,  because  his  verbal 
eloquence  was  inadequate  to  bring  the  Belgian 
miners  to  repentance.  He  had  studied  for  the 
ministry,  but  like  most  men  who,  rinding  them- 
selves strictly  limited  in  one  vocation,  essay 
another,  he  found  himself  equally  limited  in  his 
second.  He  drifted  back  to  Holland  and  began 
to  study  painting  in  the  studio  of  Mauve,  a 
relative  of  his  by  marriage.  His  ardent,  even 
flamboyant,  desire  to  do  good  to  everyone  who 
crossed  his  path  needed  an  outlet,  and  he  found 
an  emotional  substitute  for  pamphleteering  in  the 
physical  and  mental  exertion  of  painting.  In  this 
work  he  could  preach  unchecked,  secure  from 
arrest.  He  loved  Millet  because  Millet  loved  the 
down-trodden.  He  loved  Delacroix  because  of 
that  artist's  dramatic  inspiration.  He  loved 
Daumier  because  he  imagined  he  saw  in  Daumier 
a  satire  on  the  beast  in  man.  He  loved  Monti- 
celli  because  in  that  Provencal  he  sensed  a  wild 
gypsy  mind  and  a  kindred  unrestraint  in  the  use 
of  colour.  And  he  loved  Diaz  because  Diaz  was 
a  poetic  woodman. 

Before  coming  to  Paris  Van  Gogh  had  studied 
in  the  Antwerp  Academy,  and  while  in  the  French 
capital  he  met  and  was  influenced  by  Pissarro. 
Here  he  also  became  acquainted  with  Bernard 


THE  NEO-IMPRESSIONISTS          183 

and  Gauguin,  adopting  the  Divisionistic  methods 
from  Seurat.  He  used  only  pure  colours  on  his 
palette  and  mixed  them  only  with  white  and 
black.  Later  he  went  to  Aries  where  in  two 
years,  from  1887  and  1889,  he  painted  the  great 
bulk  of  his  work,  averaging  four  canvases  a  week 
through  sickness,  drink,  insanity  and  disease. 
In  him  we  have  a  perfect  example  of  just  how 
little  can  be  done  with  pure  enthusiasm  unor- 
ganised by  intellectual  processes.  His  pictures 
display  an  entire  lack  of  order,  whether  it  be  of 
colour,  line  or  silhouette:  there  was  never  any 
form  in  them.  His  work  is  plainly  the  labour  of 
the  fanatic  who,  in  a  fury  of  pent-up  desire  to 
express  himself,  suddenly  seizes  a  palette  and 
brush  and  applies  colours  almost  at  random. 
Indeed,  some  of  his  pictures  were  completed  in  a 
few  minutes.  Even  many  of  those  in  which  the 
symbology  had  to  be  thought  out  at  length,  were 
painted  in  an  hour. 

That  Van  Gogh  was  an  illustrator  is  undenia- 
ble; but  he  was  an  illustrator  of  the  abstract 
gropings  of  an  unbalanced  mind  avid  for  dramatic 
emotions,  rather  than  of  exterior  nature.  His 
landscapes  seem  to  portend  the  calm  before 
some  great  upheaval,  or  to  express  a  supernatural 
energy  poised  for  an  ad:  of  total  annihilation. 
In  them  there  are  frenzied  lines  running  zigzag 
and  at  random,  and  rolling  clouds  of  purple  and 
lurid  yellow  hanging  over  raucously  bright  roofs. 
His  portraits  remain  with  us  as  memories  of  a 
feverish  nightmare.  They  are  too  hollow  and 
immaterial  to  appear  even  as  a  depiction  of  form. 
His  colours  carried  out  this  feeling  of  dramatic 
terror,  and  because  they  were  not  harmonised 


1 84  MODERN  PAINTING 

with  either  line  or  tone,  they  became  all  the  more 
chaotic.  He  never  kept  to  the  spots  that  Signac 
and  Seurat  had  given  him.  His  impatience  was 
too  great;  the  fire  burned  too  furiously.  He 
elongated  them  into  strips  like  straw,  and  they 
give  his  work  the  appearance  of  haystacks.  He 
covered  with  one  stroke  more  space  than  Seurat 
covered  with  twenty  strokes. 

This  has  been  called  his  own  apport  to  art. 
In  Gauguin,  however,  the  same  stroke  is  used,  not 
so  heavily  loaded  with  pure  colour,  to  be  sure, 
but  just  as  long.  But  in  Gauguin  the  strokes 
are  less  noticeable  because  they  all  have  an 
analogous  direction.  With  Van  Gogh  they  rush 
wildly  about,  now  one  way,  now  another,  some- 
times covering  the  canvas  entirely,  sometimes 
separated  to  let  the  white  show  through.  This 
separating  was  not  done  for  the  same  reasons  as 
in  Signac,  but  because  Van  Gogh's  impatience 
was  too  great  to  permit  him  to  go  back  and 
cover.  His  figures  are  outlined  in  broad  black  or 
coloured  lines,  and  colours  are  juxtaposed  with 
their  complementaries.  In  a  Portrait  d'Homme, 
done  in  1889,  the  background  is  laid  in  with  a 
bright  green  over  which  are  superimposed  polka- 
dots  of  pure  vermilion  surrounded  by  a  darker 
green,  the  whole  striped  with  yellow  and  light 
vermilion  flourishes.  On  this  is  a  yellowish  face 
whose  pompadour  hair  is  made  of  black,  vermil- 
ion and  light  violet.  The  collar  is  light  green, 
red  and  blue;  the  striped  cravat,  red  and  white; 
the  coat,  violet  and  green;  the  shirt,  pure  green 
outlined  in  pure  lake,  with  orange  buttons  on  it; 
and  the  picture's  inscription  — Vincent,  Aries, 
'89  —  is  signed  in  vermilion.  In  this  painting 


PORTRAIT  DE   I/ARTISTE 


VAN  GOGH 


THE  NED-IMPRESSIONISTS          185 

is  evidenced  his  impetuous  method.  He  seemed 
to  feel  that  the  greater  the  exertion,  the  greater 
the  relief  from  that  repressed  passion  which  egged 
him  on  to  action. 

Landscapes  he  liked,  and  he  took  pleasure  in 
doing  copies  of  other  men.  In  such  works  there 
was  no  hard  and  set  reality  to  follow  as  in  still- 
lives  and  portraiture.  Here  the  colour  could  be 
splashed  on  almost  haphazardly.  He  himself  said 
that  still-life  was  a  relaxation.  He  felt  this 
because  to  paint  still-life  his  enthusiasm  was 
restricted.  Anything  served  for  a  subject  —  an 
old  boot,  a  single  vase,  a  coffee-pot.  One  im- 
agines he  tossed  these  models  onto  a  table  from 
the  opposite  side  of  the  room,  and  painted  them 
in  whatever  position  they  fell.  In  this  careless- 
ness the  public  sees  "inspiration."  And  indeed 
his  canvases  were  inspired,  but  only  in  the  same 
way  a  starving  man  is  inspired  to  throw  himself 
upon  a  sumptuous  meal.  He  painted  because  he 
was  forced  to,  and  when  painting  is  merely  a 
physical  necessity  indulged  in  to  express  an 
unordered  religious  mania,  it  ceases  to  interest 
the  aesthetician  who  searches  for  a  complete 
cosmos  bodied  forth  in  subjective  form. 

As  a  decorator  Van  Gogh  is  too  turbulent  and 
forward;  as  a  painter  of  easel  pictures  he  is  too 
chaotic  and  unintelligible;  but  as  a  blast  of 
misdirected  enthusiasm  he  is  not  without  power. 
His  symbolism,  while  not  being  of  the  variety 
which  presents  Grecian  figures  as  abstract  virtues, 
is  nevertheless  of  the  same  order.  He  tells  us 
that  in  painting  a  young  man  he  loved,  he  would 
make  the  head  a  golden  yellow  and  orange,  and 
the  background  a  rich  and  intense  blue,  as  well 


1 86  MODERN  PAINTING 

as  transcribing  the  physical  likeness  to  epitomise 
his  love.  Thus  depicted  the  young  man  would  be 
"like  a  bright  star  in  the  boundless  infinite  taking 
on  a  mysterious  importance."  Again  he  writes: 
"Had  I  had  the  strength  to  continue,  I  would 
have  done  saints  and  holy  women  from  nature, 
who  would  have  seemed  to  belong  to  another 
age.  They  would  have  been  the  bourgeois  of  the 
present,  having  many  parallels  with  the  old 
primitive  Christians."  We  see  what  he  was  after. 
Van  Gogh  possessed  all  the  modern  socialistic 
ideals.  He  held  that  individuals  could  do  nothing 
alone,  but  should  work  in  communities,  one  doing 
the  colour,  one  the  drawing,  another  the  com- 
position, etc.  In  his  desire  for  this  democratic 
art  factory  is  seen  his  absence  of  self-confidence. 
It  is  not  strange  when  we  consider  his  adherence 
all  his  life  to  so  childish  a  technical  programme  as 
Divisionism.  This  adherence  marked  the  main 
difference  between  him  and  Gauguin.  The  latter 
detested  the  Divisionistic  method.  He  wanted 
to  adapt  nature's  colour  and  effect  to  decoration, 
while  Van  Gogh  wanted  to  make  only  abstract 
dramatic  tapestries.  They  both  succeeded;  and 
though  the  canvases  of  Gauguin  have  the  peaceful 
utilitarian  destiny  of  interior  decoration  awaiting 
them,  Van  Gogh's  work,  once  we  are  rid  of  the 
modern  habit  of  welcoming  all  disorganised  and 
purely  enthusiastic  work  as  profound,  will  be  laid 
aside  forever.  He  was  psychiatric  and  expended 
the  greater  part  of  his  feverish  energy  through 
the  channel  of  painting.  But  he  did  little  more 
than  use  a  borrowed  and  inharmonious  palette  to 
express  ideas  wholly  outside  the  realm  of  art. 


VIII 
GAUGUIN  AND  THE  PONT-AVEN  SCHOOL 

THE  descriptive  in  art  has  always  se- 
duced the  eye  of  the  superficial  majority. 
From  this  accidental  and  nugatory  side 
of  painting  the  public  has  derived  all 
its  enjoyment.  The  moment  a  depicted  object 
is  recognised,  the  general  pleasure  in  the  arts 
increases;  and  the  moment  the  accepted  vision 
of  the  object  is  modified  or  distorted,  this  pleasure 
decreases  and  in  many  instances  ceases  altogether. 
One  school  which  deals  with  a  certain  class  of 
subjects  has  its  own  admirers;  while  another 
school  which  treats  of  dissimilar  subjects  has  a 
different  following.  Furthermore,  the  manner  in 
which  subjects  are  portrayed  —  realistically  or 
impressionably,  poetically  or  prosaically  —  has  its 
individual  adherents.  Persons  whose  tempera- 
mental tastes  make  them  antipodal  to  one  method 
of  transcription  become  enthusiastic  over  another, 
irrespective  of  the  fact  that  the  aesthetic  merits  of 
the  different  procedures  are  equal.  Those  whose 
criterion  is  prettiness  are  naturally  attracted  to 
Whistlerian  and  Cubistic  modes.  Idealists  lean 
toward  the  symbolic  and  transcendental  painters 
like  Van  Gogh  and  Redon.  Hardy  persons  who 
live  largely  on  the  physical  plane  prefer  Ribera, 
Franz  Hals,  Sorolla  or  Diirer.  Simple  sensualists 
admire  Goya,  Rubens,  Bronzino,  the  erotic  prints 


1 88  MODERN  PAINTING 

of  the  Japanese,  or  the  pictures  of  the  Little 
Dutchmen.  Biblical  students  choose  the  primi- 
tives or  the  painters  of  religious  subjects.  Archi- 
tects like  Guardi,  Gentile  Bellini  and  Canaletto. 
Personal  tastes  in  life  dictate  tastes  in  art;  the 
reason  some  have  a  wider  taste  than  others  is 
because  their  interests  are  larger. 

The  average  person  forms  his  art  attachments 
in  the  same  way  he  chooses  friends.  For  this 
reason  many  art  lovers  are  passionately  attracted 
to  Gauguin,  while  others,  obsessed  with  the 
theories  of  modernity,  are  impervious  to  the  in- 
herent appeal  he  incontestably  possesses.  The 
Impressionists  were  enamoured  of  nature.  Their 
pictures  have  an  almost  human  physiognomy  and 
are  thoroughly  joyous.  In  them  one  senses  the 
abstract  love  of  beautiful  country-sides,  blue 
distances  and  scintillating  lights.  They  arouse  an 
emotion  in  the  popular  mind  because  of  the 
familiarity  of  their  themes.  Gauguin  was  not 
content  with  the  landscapes  of  civilisation.  He 
wanted  something  more  elemental  —  scenes  where 
an  unspoilt  and  untamed  nature  gave  birth  to  a 
race  of  simple  and  colourful  character.  He  felt 
the  need  of  harmonising  his  people  with  their 
milieu.  To  him  it  seemed  inconsistent  to  place  a 
fully  dressed  man  or  woman  in  a  primitive  forest 
or  on  the  banks  of  a  turbulent  stream  innocent  of 
commercial  traffic.  There  was  a  positive  im- 
modesty in  combining  a  puny  figure,  whose  body 
was  too  distorted  by  work  to  show  itself  un- 
clothed, with  the  majestic  nakedness  of  a  primeval 
landscape.  Millet's  peasants  in  plowed  fields  and 
Raffaelli's  clothed  figures  in  busy  streets  were 
not  incongruous;  but  in  most  of  the  landscapes 


THE  PONr-AVEN  SCHOOL  189 

of  Gauguin's  day  cultivated  moderns  stalked 
where  Corot  had  once  put  nymphs  and  Titian, 
Antiopes. 

Gauguin's  sense  of  harmony  in  idea  precluded 
any  such  irrelevancies  and  anachronisms.  His 
painting  was  perhaps  the  highest  and  most  con- 
sistent type  of  illustration  the  world  has  produced. 
Judged  from  this  standpoint,  on  which  it  was 
based  consciously,  his  art  was  complete.  And 
inasmuch  as  he  did  not  strive  for  profounder 
things,  it  is  from  this  standpoint  that  he  must  be 
approached.  What  impetus  he  gave  to  art  came 
out  of  his  desire  to  view  nature  simply,  like  a 
child,  at  the  same  time  equipped  with  all  the 
weapons  of  a  modern  intelligence.  His  art  conse- 
quently has  not  only  the  interest  of  historic 
reconstruction  but  an  added  interest  which,  in 
spite  of  our  veneer  of  cultivation  and  education, 
we  all  feel  at  times  for  perfect  lassitude  and 
elemental  unrestraint.  No  man  is  so  intellectual 
that  he  cannot  enjoy  occasional  recreation  and  a 
forgetfulness  of  mental  activities.  Indeed  the 
greatest  minds  react  so  completely  at  times  that 
they  demand  the  crudest  stimulants  —  melo- 
drama, wild  Arabian  chants,  romance  and  physi- 
cal intoxication.  Gauguin,  appearing  in  the  midst 
of  gigantic  and  epoch-making  aesthetic  endeavours, 
embodied  this  spirit  of  reaction.  It  was  a  grave 
and  serious  world  in  which  he  found  himself  — 
the  world  of  Cezanne,  Impressionism  and  Neo- 
Impressionism.  His  nature  was  too  timid  and 
simple  for  him  to  throw  himself  into  the  whirl- 
pool. Instinctively  he  sought  a  haven  far  re- 
moved from  the  strife  about  him. 

In  the  contemplation  of  the  canvases  of  this 


190  MODERN  POINTING 

modern  savage  we  enter  that  side  of  the  broad 
field  of  aesthetics  where  the  whole  world  can 
escape,  as  for  a  holiday,  from  the  stress  of  in- 
tellectual research,  there  to  enjoy  art  simply  and 
receptively,  as  one  enjoys  a  dream  of  strange 
lands.  In  Gauguin  there  is  a  power  which 
impels  our  interest,  hunts  out  our  instinct  for  the 
exotic  and  calls  to  the  fore  a  romantic  love  of 
adventure  and  a  desire  for  far  countries.  In  this 
appeal  no  other  painting  succeeds  like  his  —  not 
even  the  Persian  landscapes,  the  Chinese  pictorial 
visions  of  heaven,  or  the  lurid  images  of  Gustave 
Moreau.  In  Gauguin's  South  Sea  Island  can- 
vases are  crystallised  our  hopes  for  a  Utopian 
peace,  our  vague  memories  of  an  untramelled 
prehistoric  age.  Calm  and  sunlight,  the  sea  and 
wild  mountains  —  all  are  here.  And  we  find 
ourselves  amid  a  peaceful,  music-loving  and  simple 
people  who,  we  imagine,  would  welcome  the  tired 
traveller  and  gather  round  him  with  offerings  of 
fruit  and  flowers  as  he  lands  on  their  golden 
beach. 

Gauguin  is  purely  an  image-maker.  So  ab- 
stract a  painter  is  he  that  his  pictures  are  merely 
the  point  of  departure  from  which  our  thoughts 
leap  into  an  unlimited  world  of  pleasurable 
visualising.  They  move  us  emotionally,  even 
mentally,  but  never  aesthetically.  We  feel  before 
them  exactly  what  we  feel  when  reading  that 
extraordinary  and  unique  book  of  his,  Noa  Noa. 
Indeed  he  was  more  literary  than  artistic,  and 
to  appreciate  him  fully  one  should  read  first  his 
biography  written  by  Jean  de  Rotonchamp,  — 
then  Noa  Noa.  After  that  his  pictures  will  take 
on  a  new  meaning.  He  makes  his  dreams  so 


THE  PONT-AVEN  SCHOOL  191 

forceful  that  we  too  start  to  dream  before  them. 
His  art  is  of  the  same  calibre  as  that  of  Altichiero, 
Michelino  da  Bosozzo,  Ortolano,  the  Borassa 
school,  Manet  and  Degas.  All  these  men  are 
illustrators  of  a  high  order;  all  are  impelled  by 
the  complete  sincerity  of  their  visions;  and  all 
are  interesting  because  of  their  freedom  of  expres- 
sion. It  is  a  new  adventure  each  time  we  see 
one  of  their  works,  for  adventure  is  merely 
contact  with  the  unexpected.  In  Gauguin  this 
imprevu  is  not  restricted  to  unconventionality  of 
balance  and  the  extraordinary  arrangement  of 
objects;  but  expresses  itself  in  the  actual  subject- 
matter  as  well.  His  savages,  ready  to  kill  or  love 
with  equal  unconcern,  bring  up  to  us  our  child- 
hood enthusiasms  for  the  tales  of  Swift,  Defoe  and 
Pierre  Loti.  His  pictures  epitomise  the  call  of 
the  natural,  the  delight  in  perfect  freedom,  the 
ideal  of  an  unclothed  age. 

But  though  his  work  is  calm  and  outside  the 
world  of  strife  and  endeavour,  his  life  was  turbu- 
lent, and  tortured  by  reiterated  disappointments. 
Toward  the  end  he  wrote  to  a  friend  that  he  fell 
over-often,  and  arose  only  to  fall  again.  As  with 
the  sailor  new  horizons  ever  stretched  before  him, 
and  their  promise  of  better  things  was  never 
consummated.  His  energy  was  drained  by  a 
continual  struggle  against  the  forces  of  civilisation 
just  as  the  sailor's  is  weakened  by  unceasing 
battles  against  the  elements.  The  spot  where  at 
last  he  found  refuge  was  far  from  his  ideal.  But 
in  this  ideal  world  he  always  imagined  himself 
living,  and  his  painting  took  on  its  colour  and 
atmosphere.  Just  as  he  advised  his  followers  to 
draw  a  curtain  in  front  of  their  models,  so  he 


I92  MODERN  PAINTING 

drew  the  veil  of  imagination  before  his  eyes  and 
saw  only  what  he  wished  to  see.  In  this  almost 
fanatic  idealism  he  was  undoubtedly  actuated  by 
fear  of  life's  gross  realities,  for  he  was  not  content 
merely  to  live  apart:  he  was  forever  attempting 
to  ameliorate  the  trying  conditions  which  arose 
from  French  misrule  in  the  Marquesas.  For  his 
pains  he  was  condemned  to  gaol  and  later  was 
made  an  outcast.  This  friction  with  the  estab- 
lished order,  however,  had  to  do  only  with  Gau- 
guin the  man.  Gauguin  the  artist  remained  to 
the  end  a  contented  and  passionate  dreamer. 

To  understand  his  art  and  its  actuating  im- 
pulses it  is  necessary  to  know  something  of  his 
colourful  and  adventuresome  life.  Of  all  modern 
painters,  he,  more  than  any  other,  was  reflected 
in  his  work.  As  a  youth  he  had  gone  to  sea  and 
served  a  six-year  apprenticeship  before  the  mast. 
He  next  became  a  successful  banker  and  to  all 
outward  appearances  was  satisfied  with  the  status 
of  a  wealthy  citizen.  But  all  the  time  the  love 
of  change  and  the  nostalgia  for  strange  lands  were 
at  work  within  him,  and  though  spending  six 
days  a  week  in  an  office  he  painted  every  Sunday. 
It  was  Pissarro,  admired  by  Gauguin  from  the 
first,  who  persuaded  him  to  forego  everything 
save  his  art.  This  he  did  in  1883.  From  that 
time  on  he  became  a  derelict  who  had  to  seek 
support  from  his  friends.  Although  at  times  he 
was  forced  to  work  in  offices,  edit  papers  and 
grow  fruit,  the  donations  from  those  he  knew 
were  the  backbone  of  his  resources.  He  had 
met  Van  Gogh  in  Paris  in  1886,  and  two  years 
later  accepted  the  latter' s  invitation  to  visit  him 
on  the  bounty  of  Van  Gogh's  brother  Theodore 


THE  PONT-AFEN  SCHOOL  193 

at  Aries  in  the  south  of  France.  Here,  where  he 
had  expected  to  find  conditions  conducive  to 
work,  his  life  was,  according  to  his  own  accounts, 
in  constant  danger.  The  Dutchman,  he  says, 
attacked  him  often,  and  sometimes  Gauguin, 
awaking  with  a  start,  would  see  Van  Gogh  steal- 
ing across  the  room  to  him  with  a  knife.  Such  a 
life  was  impossible,  and  after  a  regrettable  inci- 
dent in  which  he  was  blamed  for  the  amputation 
of  Van  Gogh's  ear,  he  returned  to  Paris.  The 
year  before  this  he  had  made  a  short  trip  to 
Martinique,  and  while  in  Europe  had  lived  at 
Pouldu,  Copenhagen,  Rouen,  Pont-Aven,  Con- 
carneau  and  Paris.  Again  he  went  to  Brittany. 
He  wanted  quiet  and  was  ever  ill  at  ease  among 
the  superficialities  of  a  hypocritical  civilisation. 
But  there,  while  protecting  a  negress,  he  was 
attacked  by  some  sailors,  and  his  injuries  forced 
him  to  return  once  more  to  Paris.  The  negress 
had  preceded  him,  and  when  he  arrived  he 
discovered  that  she  had  robbed  him  of  his  entire 
studio  equipment. 

At  this  time,  Verlaine,  Moreas,  Aurier,  Julien 
Leclerc  and  Stuart  Merril,  who  called  themselves 
the  symbolist  poets,  saw  in  him  a  comrade.  In 
1891  they  gave  a  benefit  performance  in  the 
Vaudeville  for  him  and  Verlaine.  Maeterlinck's 
LTntruse  was  staged  for  the  first  time,  and  Gau- 
guin's share  of  the  proceeds  was  enough  to  pay 
his  passage  to  his  longed-for  tropics.  Two  years 
later  found  him  back  again  with  many  canvases 
and  a  strange  and  grotesque  costume,  heavy 
rings  on  every  finger,  wooden  shoes  and  a  cane 
of  his  own  carving.  He  was  impatient  for  praise 
and  admiration  and  large  sales;  but  none  of 


I94  MODERN  PAINTING 

these  came  to  him.  At  a  sale  of  his  work  in  the 
Hotel  Drouot  in  1895  so  small  a  sum  was  realised 
that  his  friends  again  took  pity  on  him,  and 
Carriere  secured  him  a  cheap  passage  back  to  his 
beloved  islands.  His  adventures  in  the  tropics 
make  poetic  and  romantic  reading.  His  prema- 
ture death,  at  which  only  one  old  cannibal  was 
present,  was  a  fitting  climax  to  a  life  given  over 
to  a  hopeless  search  for  the  ideal. 

While  still  in  a  banker's  office,  and  before  he 
had  met  Pissarro,  Gauguin  had  painted  as  an 
amateur;  and  as  early  as  1873  he  had  exposed 
a  landscape.  But  when  he  became  personally 
acquainted  with  Pissarro,  who  had  a  way  of 
inflaming  the  minds  of  the  younger  and  naturally 
revolutionary  men  of  his  day,  his  impulses  toward 
art  became  overpowering.  His  early  training 
under  this  violent  heretic  was  so  thorough  that 
he  never  made  a  concession  to  the  public  or 
retrogressed  toward  scholastic  formulas.  Being 
a  born  painter,  he  quickly  absorbed  the  ideas  of 
the  Impressionists,  and  exposed  with  them  in  the 
Rue  des  Pyramides  in  1880  and  1881.  His  first 
canvases  were  wholly  Impressionistic  and  much 
like  Guillaumin's.  Even  as  late  as  1887,  after  he 
had  known  Cezanne  and  had  become  imbued  with 
the  blazing  brilliancy  of  Martinique,  Gauguin  still 
clung  to  his  earlier  technique.  His  Paysage  de  la 
Martinique  is  one  of  his  best-ordered  works  and 
also  one  of  his  most  fluent.  However,  he  had 
become  dissatisfied  with  Impressionist  precepts 
and  had  gone  to  Brittany  to  get  closer  to  a  more 
natural  people,  to  a  cruder  and  more  rugged 
landscape.  There  he  had  seen  and  admired  the 
Gothic  statues,  the  simplicity  of  which  appealed 


THE  PONT-AFEN  SCHOOL  195 

to  him  intensely.  On  his  return  from  the  South 
Seas  these  statues,  direct,  stiff  and  archaic,  com- 
bined with  his  late  vision  of  scintillant  light  and 
hot,  luscious  colour,  became  active  influences  in 
his  work. 

Gauguin  had  a  considerable  amount  of  Peruvian 
Indian  blood  in  him,  and  his  desire  for  the  South 
was  not  a  superficial  one.  Rather  was  it  an  ata- 
vistic necessity  for  the  wild  that  made  him 
intolerant  of  cities  and  culture  and  highly  com- 
plex modes  of  living.  This  same  instinct,  mani- 
festing itself  through  his  art,  drove  him  toward  a 
simple  and  direct  statement  of  a  vision,  toward  an 
unrestraint  which  no  civilised  community  would 
permit  him.  He  wanted  something  naive  —  some- 
thing expressed  by  broad  planes  and  rich  colours. 
He  had  imitated  the  Impressionists,  copied 
Manet's  Olympia  and  seen  Giottos;  and  by  reduc- 
ing these  varied  influences  to  their  simplest  terms 
he  made  his  art.  Emile  Bernard,  an  indifferent 
painter  and  writer,  who  temperamentally  was  not 
unlike  Gauguin,  claims  priority  for  this  manner 
of  painting;  but  even  if  it  were  true,  it  would 
mean  nothing.  Gauguin's  canvases  of  1888  give 
undeniable  promise  of  what  he  would  eventually 
do,  and  in  1889  his  Jeunes  Bretonnes  fully  reveals 
the  trend  of  all  his  later  endeavours.  Bernard  was 
at  best  but  a  clever  imitator,  and  his  canvases  in 
Gauguin's  style  appear  inferior  and  superficial 
when  compared  with  such  pieces  as  Tahi'tiennes 
and  Ruperupe. 

The  Impressionists  went  toward  descriptive 
beauty,  but  Gauguin  searched  for  and  found  an 
emotional  interpretation  of  nature  adapted  to 
large  decoration.  It  is  problematical  whether  or 


196  MODERN  POINTING 

not  he  is  artistically  indebted  to  Van  Gogh,  for 
one  can  attribute  the  fact  that  he  painted  his 
best  European  pictures  immediately  after  his 
return  from  Aries  either  to  Van  Gogh's  teachings 
or  to  the  effects  of  southern  colour  and  atmos- 
phere. The  question  though  is  of  little  impor- 
tance. Every  man,  no  matter  how  great  or  small, 
goes  through  a  formative  period  in  which  he 
receives  numerous  influences.  At  any  rate,  just 
before  Van  Gogh  died  he  called  Gauguin  "maitre." 
During  their  final  periods,  however,  we  know 
that  the  two  men  differed  totally;  and  in  1891 
Gauguin  showed  that  he  was  under  no  man's 
influence.  In  the  Femmes  Assises  a  1'Ombre  des 
Palmiers  and  Vai'raoumati  Tei  Oa,  he  was  already 
the  Gauguin  we  know  so  well.  The  first  is  a 
sunlit  landscape  with  the  hills  and  palm-trees 
broadly  and  flatly  painted.  The  women  who  are 
seated  in  the  great  pool  of  cool  shade  have  all  the 
sagely  childish  drawing  that  we  find  later  in  his 
more  complete  pictures.  In  the  second,  the 
flowered  stuffs,  the  heavy  limbs  and  the  per- 
pendicularity of  design,  which  appear  so  frequently 
later  on,  are  more  than  suggested;  and  the  colour 
has  all  the  beauty  of  his  best  efforts. 

It  was  after  Gauguin's  first  sojourn  to  the  Is- 
lands that  he  came  back  to  France  a  barbarian, 
eager  to  stupefy  the  world  of  arts  not  only  by 
his  pictures  but  by  his  very  attire.  In  this  he 
failed.  The  public  had  barely  recovered  from  its 
Impressionist  shock,  and  Gauguin  went  to  Brit- 
tany. Here  he  gathered  about  him  many  of  the 
painters  he  had  known  before,  as  well  as  some 
new  ones,  and  formed  a  group  of  young  men  who 
were  ready  to  react  against  the  pettiness  of  the 


THE  PONT-AVEN  SCHOOL  197 

Neo-Impressionistic  methods  and  to  establish  a 
new  art  school.  They  called  themselves  Syn- 
thesists,  afterward  Cloisonnists,  and  some  of  them 
later  became  Classicists.  Here  forgathered  Seru- 
sier,  Maurice  Denis,  Filiger,  De  Hahn,  Seguin, 
Verkade,  Anquetin,  Laval,  Louis  Ray,  Chamail- 
lard,  Fauche,  Bernard  and  Schuffenecker,  few  of 
whom  are  discoverable  today.  Among  these 
painters  the  slightest  tendency  toward  division- 
istic  methods  was  looked  upon  as  heresy;  and 
religious  pictures  were  in  the  ascendant,  especially 
with  Verkade.  The  enthusiasm  of  these  young 
men  for  their  simple  and  "synthetic"  retrogres- 
sion to  the  elemental  led  them  to  decorate  tavern 
walls  and  ceilings,  to  paint  windows  and  barn 
doors,  and  to  proclaim  themselves  on  all  occasions 
as  the  only  authoritative  and  vital  artists  of  the 
day.  They  had  forgotten  Renoir  and  Cezanne 
because  they  detested  all  intellectual  and  scientific 
accuracy.  And  they  had  not  known  the  latter 
with  sufficient  intimacy  to  be  directly  influenced 
by  his  work.  Under  the  sway  of  Gauguin's 
unsophisticated  aesthetics  and  Bernard's  rhetorical 
eloquence  they  went  far  afield  in  their  search  for 
a  simple  and  elemental  synthesis.  Zeal  was  not 
wanting.  They  argued,  caroused  and  fought 
continually.  This  last  activity  was  the  cause  of 
Gauguin's  lameness  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  Little 
or  nothing  of  lasting  merit  came  out  of  this  group 
which,  though  it  moved  from  Pont-Aven  to 
Pouldu,  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  Pont-Aven 
School.  Most  of  its  members  are  dead  or  have 
been  swallowed  up  in  the  commercial  currents  of 
today.  A  few,  like  Bernard,  Fauche  and  Schuf- 
fenecker, are  doing  indifferent  art.  They  con- 


198  MODERN  PAINTING 

tributed  nothing  to  the  modern  idea  outside  of 
the  impetus  they  gave  to  the  anti-academic  spirit. 
There  was  among  them  more  enthusiasm  than 
talent,  more  polemical  energy  than  genius. 

Gauguin,  though  he  talked  as  loudly  as  the 
others,  painted  also.  At  length  their  conversa- 
tions lost  their  novelty  for  him.  He  felt  once 
more  the  call  of  his  Islands.  He  was  still  after 
an  ideal,  a  congenial  setting.  These  things 
France  could  not  give  him.  Again,  the  necessity 
of  accepting  charity  from  his  friends  was  too 
humiliating  a  trial  for  a  nature  so  timid.  His 
high-handed  attitude  was  only  a  mask  to  hide  his 
desire  to  shrink  away.  He  was  always  uneasy  in 
cities  and  unhappy  among  people  who  did  not 
try  to  understand  him.  He  detested  the  artifi- 
cialities of  Parisian  women.  His  robust  sensuality 
craved  a  more  solid  and  artless  Eve.  In  France 
his  nature,  so  responsive  to  the  glow  of  colour 
and  the  primitive  lure  of  archaic  forms,  saw  only 
chill  tints  and  inutile  complications.  To  him  the 
South  meant  the  richness  and  heat  of  romantic 
emotions,  the  satiety  of  the  senses.  It  appealed 
to  his  deep  love  of  chaotic  and  untrammelled 
nature.  He  had  tasted  it  before  in  his  seafaring, 
and  he  turned  to  it  now  as  to  an  only  salvation. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  Carriere  arranged  the 
passage.  Gauguin  was  never  to  see  Europe 
again. 

The  Impressionists  had  made  infinitesimal  spots 
of  colour  in  order  to  imitate  as  exactly  as  possible 
the  colour  effect  of  nature  and  to  increase  the 
dynamic  power  of  a  canvas  by  making  it  give  off 
a  light  of  its  own.  By  this  technique  they  had 
incorporated  both  air  and  sunlight  into  their  art. 


THE  PONT-AFEN  SCHOOL  199 

The  Neolmpressionists  made  mathematical  the 
Impressionists'  haphazard  stippling  and  had 
turned  the  spots  into  almost  symmetrical  squares. 
The  squares  were  slightly  separated,  and  the  bare 
canvas  was  permitted  to  show  between  them  in 
order  to  achieve  a  greater  brilliance  and  a  more 
vivid  light.  Van  Gogh  later  elongated  these 
squares  into  threads  until  his  pictures  resembled 
tapestries.  There  was  no  longer  the  technical 
unconcern  in  painting  which  Pissarro  and  Monet 
had  prescribed.  Paradoxically  enough,  while  art 
was  growing  more  scientific  it  was  also  becoming 
less  significant.  With  the  men  of  Pont-Aven  the 
reaction  against  a  too  technically  self-conscious 
painting  began  to  set  in.  Their  ardent  advocacy 
of  primitive  conception  and  method  was  the  re- 
bound from  the  pseudo-scientific  verbiage  which, 
in  the  "advanced"  studios,  took  the  place  of  good 
painting.  Consequently  they  favoured  the  broad 
arrangement  of  surfaces;  classic,  if  the  artist 
leaned  temperamentally  in  that  direction;  bar- 
baric, if  his  tastes  so  inclined  him;  Gothic, 
Chinese,  Japanese  or  primitive  —  all  according 
to  which  his  inclination  led  him.  But  all  work 
had  to  be  completed  during  the  first  fury  of  in- 
spiration, conceived  imaginatively,  and  executed 
from  the  decorative  standpoint.  Gauguin,  by  his 
quick  wit  and  youthful  impetuosity,  easily  domi- 
nated the  circle  and  developed,  through  the 
constant  interchange  of  opinions,  his  vague  ideas 
concerning  a  "synthetic"  art.  On  his  third  and 
last  voyage  to  the  Islands  his  greatest  work  was 
done.  Here  he  carried  out  those  ideas  which  had 
had  their  inception  at  Aries  and  which  had 
become  crystallised  at  Pont-Aven.  He  made  his 


200  MODERN  POINTING 

art  entirely  out  of  colour,  but  instead  of  profiting 
by  the  teachings  of  Daumier  and  Cezanne  whose 
visions  were  the  most  simultaneous  in  the  history 
of  art,  he  chose  rather  to  emulate  the  early  and 
ingenuous  schools  of  plastic  expression.  In  this 
his  painting  was  retrogressive. 

But  there  was  another  and  more  important  side 
to  Gauguin.  He  at  least  strove  for  a  larger  and 
more  purely  emotional  interpretation  of  nature 
than  had  been  attempted  before:  and  our  interest 
in  him  is  due  largely  to  the  broad  and  peaceful 
vision  he  gives  us.  Monet  put  many  greens  in 
one  tree.  Gauguin  saw  the  tree  as  green,  but  by 
depicting  it  in  broad  planes  of  pure  pigment,  he 
made  it  a  more  intense  green  than  Monet  could 
ever  have  done.  "A  metre  of  green  is  greener 
than  a  centimetre  of  green,"  said  Gauguin;  and 
this  principle  he  applied  to  all  his  work.  Instead 
of  portraying  light  by  colour  as  the  Impressionists 
did,  he  interested  himself  only  in  the  colour  which 
resulted  from  light.  Thus  he  was  able  to  raise 
his  paintings  to  the  highest  possible  pitch  of 
purity,  while  still  being  preoccupied  with  nature. 
In  painting  a  landscape  where  a  woman  with  a 
cerulean  blue  dress  was  seated  among  green  trees 
on  an  ochre  beach  with  purple  hills  in  the  rear, 
and  where  the  yellow  sunlight  shone  on  the  tree 
trunks  and  in  the  woman's  hair,  Gauguin  would 
first  of  all  draw  apart  the  blues  as  much  as 
possible.  The  woman's  dress  would  be  painted 
almost  blue-green,  and  in  order  to  contrast  this 
colour  with  the  other  blue  in  his  subject,  he  would 
paint  the  sky  blue-violet-violet.  Thus  he  would 
produce  a  greater  range  of  emotional  colour  than 
if  the  two  blues  had  been  pale  and  similar  in 


THE  PONr-AFEN  SCHOOL  201 

tint.  Furthermore,  he  would  make  the  sunlight  a 
yellow-orange-orange  and  the  sand  a  spectrum 
yellow.  The  trees  would  then  be  recorded  as 
yellow-green  and  the  hills  as  red-red-purple.  By 
this  process  all  the  parts  of  the  picture  were 
differentiated,  with  the  result  that  the  canvas 
had  a  strong  carrying  power.  This  power  was 
further  increased  by  the  figures  being  sharply 
outlined. 

Gauguin's  composition  has  little  importance. 
It  takes  the  form  of  perpendicularities,  and 
rarely  is  any  rhythmic  order  discernible.  It  is  of 
a  piece  with  the  Romanesque  painting  in  Saint- 
Savin  near  Poitiers.  All  his  objects  are  personi- 
fications of  calm,  and  are  rooted  in  their  environ- 
ment as  well  as  in  the  earth.  They  do  not  seem 
merely  to  pose  there:  Gauguin's  work  is  not 
superficial  to  this  extent,  —  but  they  grow 
naturally  out  of  their  matrix  like  flowers  or  trees, 
unconscious  but  immovable.  The  passivity  which 
pervades  them  is  not  the  calm  of  completion  or 
of  the  perfect  rest  which  comes  after  mental 
exercise,  but  rather  the  calm  of  the  lethargic 
mind  which  avoids  thought,  dislikes  action  and  is 
content  to  dream.  Technically  this  feeling  is 
caused  by  lines  at  right  angles  to  the  horizon,  by 
big  simple  planes  on  which  the  eye  can  rest  free 
from  the  disturbance  of  line  opposition,  by  large 
flat  patterns  of  dark  tonality  conducive  to  peace 
and  introspection.  Even  the  contoured  volumes 
have  a  greater  extent  of  base  than  of  apex  and 
thus  add  to  the  picture's  aspect  of  immobility. 
Gauguin's  drawing  is  interesting  in  that  it  por- 
trays a  race  highly  susceptible  of  picturisation. 
His  models  are  impelling  because  it  is  an  adven- 


202  MODERN  PAINTING 

ture  to  explore  their  parts,  their  joints,  their 
distortions  and  disproportions.  Their  beauty  is 
heavy  and  cumbersome,  like  that  of  the  stone 
images  of  the  Aztecs. 

That  which  interests  us  most  in  Gauguin  how- 
ever is  his  colour.  In  this  medium  he  arrived 
at  a  sumptuousness  unsurpassed  by  preceding 
painters.  His  art  was  a  new  application  of  the 
old  principle  of  wall  decoration.  Many  had 
made  use  of  broad  planes  of  colour  before  his 
advent,  but  none  had  heightened  the  significance 
of  these  planes  sufficiently  to  express  nature.  He 
was  the  first  realist  in  decoration,  and  from  him 
come,  by  direct  descent,  Matisse  and  a  horde  of 
lesser  men  like  Fritz  Erler,  Leo  Putz,  R.  M. 
Eichler,  Adolf  Miinzer,  Rodolphe  Fornerod,  Alcide 
Le  Beau  and  Gustave  Jaulmes.  The  aesthetic 
import  of  a  Puvis  de  Chavannes  is  almost  equal 
to  that  of  Gauguin,  but  the  former's  greys  and 
grey-blues  appear  washed-out  and  dead,  while 
Gauguin's  pictures  vibrate  with  the  heat  of  tropi- 
cal sunlight  and  the  richness  of  tropical  colour. 
Gauguin,  however,  could  get  no  orders.  His  work 
was  too  sensuous.  Interior  decoration  would 
have  had  to  be  far  more  joyous  than  it  was  at 
that  time  for  his  exotic  creations  to  find  a  place 
on  walls  and  ceilings. 

Gauguin's  animating  desire  was  to  synthesise 
his  pictures  —  to  make  each  part  of  them  relative 
to  all  the  other  parts,  to  order  them  as  to  colour, 
line  and  tone  in  such  a  way  that  they  would  give 
forth  the  impression  of  a  simple  -vision,  a  perfect 
ensemble.  This  desire  was  in  the  air  of  the  day. 
The  Impressionists  had  unconsciously  approached 
synthesis  by  using  light  and  air  as  a  solvent. 


THE  PONr-AVEN  SCHOOL  203 

Cezanne  had  gone  much  deeper  and  ordered  form 
by  means  of  colour.  In  Seurat  Gauguin  saw 
almost  completely  set  forth  an  expression  which 
by  its  simplicity  satisfied  him.  Some  assert  that 
he  was  also  influenced  by  Degas.  But  whether 
this  is  so  or  not,  certain  it  is  that  there  is  more 
of  Ingres  in  him  than  of  Giotto.  With  Seurat  as 
a  starting-point  —  that  is,  the  linear  Seurat  of 
La  Baignade  and  Un  Dimanche  a  la  Grande- 
Jatte  —  Gauguin  quickly  abolished  the  tiny  and 
labourious  spotting  which  Impressionism  and 
Pointillism  had  taught  him,  and  branched  out 
into  simpler  design  and  greater  chromatic  bril- 
liancy. By  these  departures  he  achieved  his 
synthesis.  But  this  triumph  must  not  be  over- 
estimated. There  are  degrees  of  synthesis. 
Rubens,  Giotto,  Degas,  Ingres,  Bocklin,  Botti- 
celli —  all  are  synthetic,  but  all  are  by  no  means 
of  equal  importance.  While  synthesis  is  necessary 
to  art,  it  is  not  the  ear-mark  of  great  art  alone. 
The  order  which  is  obtained  by  three  harmonious 
lines  is  not  so  extended  an  order  as  that  found  in 
the  multilinear  drawings  of  Pollaiuolo:  and  this 
complication  of  aesthetic  ordonnance  is  what 
makes  a  Donatello  more  significant  than  a  piece 
of  negro  sculpture,  a  Scarsellino  greater  than  a 
Matisse,  and  an  El  Greco  more  puissant  than  a 
Mazzola-Bedoli.  Furthermore,  when  this  com- 
plete surface  order  extends  itself  into  three  dimen- 
sions it  becomes  an  infinitely  greater  moving 
power.  When  from  simple  straight  lines  on  a 
flat  surface  the  artist  carries  his  creation  into 
opposition,  development  and  finality,  he  is  push- 
ing the  frontiers  of  his  painting  to  art's  extreme 
limits. 


204  MODERN  PAINTING 

Gauguin's  temperament  was  simple  in  the 
extreme.  He  had  fallen  under  the  sway  of 
Manet:  he  had  gone  to  a  rugged  country  of 
primitive  instincts  where  singular  costumes  were 
a  part  of  the  landscape:  he  had  studied  the  stone 
and  wooden  figures  in  the  old  churches  and  cross- 
roads of  Brittany,  and  had  found  the  elemental  to 
his  liking.  Consequently  in  synthesising  his  art 
he  used  simple  forms,  straight  lines  and  large 
planes  of  shadow  and  light,  all  of  which  were 
presented  on  a  flat  surface,  so  that  all  the  paral- 
lelisms and  elementary  curves  of  the  picture 
would  deliver  themselves  to  the  average  spectator 
at  first  glance.  His  method  of  filling  or  balancing 
a  canvas  was  little  more  than  primitive,  and  the 
curved  lines  of  light  and  shadow,  which  are  in- 
tended to  entice  the  eye,  are  so  isolated  that  when 
we  at  length  arrive  at  their  end  we  discover  they 
are  without  rhythmic  intention.  Nor  is  there  a 
generating  line  out  of  which  the  others  grow. 

Gauguin's  linear  harmony  is  no  greater,  if  a 
trifle  more  diverse,  than  in  the  Byzantine  mosaic 
decorations  in  S.  Vitale.  Indeed  the  emotion  we 
experience  before  each  of  them  is  to  all  purposes 
the  same.  The  richness  of  medium  in  the  mosaics 
is  amply  compensated  for  by  Gauguin's  richness 
of  foliage  forms  and  floral  designs.  The  decora- 
tive colours  in  both  are  equally  effective.  As 
moderns  we  might  get  more  enjoyment  out  of 
Gauguin's  heat  and  brilliance  and  the  diversity 
of  his  silhouette,  but  at  the  same  time  there  is  a 
greater  archaeological  attraction  and  a  more  spirit- 
ual interest  for  us  in  the  ancient  work.  Intrinsi- 
cally one  is  as  great  as  the  other.  Those  seeking 
for  calm  will  find  it  in  equal  degree  in  both,  for 


DEUX  TAHITIENS 


GAUGUIN 


THE  PONT-AVEN  SCHOOL  205 

in  each  it  is  produced  by  the  same  method:  by 
the  static  representation  of  form  rather  than  by 
a  sequence  of  movement.  Gauguin's  sculpture 
has  the  same  qualities  as  his  paintings,  and 
resembles  the  religious  effigies  of  some  barbaric 
tribe.  The  figures  are  upright  and  rigid,  their 
backs  against  a  straight  support,  as  in  Egyptian 
architectural  art. 

Gauguin  said  many  times  that  when  a  painter 
was  before  his  easel  he  must  not  be  the  slave 
either  of  nature  or  the  past.  This  is  true,  but 
as  a  principle  it  is  too  limited.  Although  he 
himself  lived  up  to  it,  he  did  not  go  far  enough 
beyond  it  to  do  truly  significant  work.  He 
arrived  at  the  brilliancy  of  nature  by  a  method 
distinctly  different  from  nature's;  and  while 
refusing  to  be  dominated  by  the  past,  his  tempera- 
ment was  such  that  he  fabricated  an  art  much 
closer  to  antiquity  than  that  of  the  Zaks  and  the 
Rousseaus  wrio  servilely  imitated  it.  He  accom- 
plished what  he  set  out  to  accomplish.  His 
failure  to  give  birth  to  great  art  was  due  to  the 
intellectual  limitations  of  his  ambitions.  His 
place  in  modern  painting,  however,  is  secure. 

That  great  cycle  of  aesthetic  endeavour  which 
was  set  in  motion  by  the  discovery  of  oil  paint- 
ing found  its  termination  in  Rubens.  The  cycle 
which  Delacroix  and  Turner  ushered  in  was  less 
extended.  Being  more  concrete  in  its  aims,  it 
took  only  five  decades  to  reach  completion  in  the 
works  of  Renoir.  The  first  cycle,  born  with 
fixed  materials,  was  based  on  an  absolute  and 
physiological  law  of  composition  which  can  never 
radically  change,  and  therefore  permitted  of  an 
extensive  development  and  variation.  Decadence 


206  MODERN  POINTING 

naturally  set  in  after  its  means  had  lost  their 
ability  to  inspire  artists.  The  second  cycle  was 
one  of  research,  and  during  it  artists  were  so 
narrowly  focused  on  nature  that  they  lost  sight 
of  the  foundation  laid  down  during  the  first 
cycle.  Had  their  concentration  not  been  rudely 
disturbed  their  data  hunting  would  have  carried 
them  hopelessly  afield.  Gauguin  exposed  the 
futility  of  the  meticulous  imitation  of  nature's 
effects,  and  by  so  doing  took  a  step  forward 
toward  liberty  of  method.  For  this  reason  he  is 
of  importance.  Painters  were  rapidly  becoming 
scientists.  By  turning  men's  minds  away  from 
nature  to  broadly  natural  pictures  Gauguin  in- 
vited them  once  more  to  become  artists.  He 
was  the  link  which  joined  experimental  research 
to  pure  creation.  The  first  cycle  gave  us  an 
absolute  composition:  the  second  furnished  a 
scientific  hypothesis  for  art:  the  third,  of  which 
Cezanne  was  the  primitive,  combined  the  first 
two  and  thus  opened  the  door  on  an  infinity 
of  achievement.  Gauguin  prevented  the  second 
from  running  into  decadence  by  showing  its 
uselessness  as  an  isolated  procedure. 


IX 
DEGAS  AND   HIS   CIRCLE 

THE  development  of  art  itself  is  no  more 
mechanical  than  the  artistic  development 
of  the  individual:  in  both  there  are  ir- 
regularities, retrogressions,  forward  spurts, 
divagations.  Renoir  first  appeared  with  a  rhyth- 
mic line-balance  which  first  grew  luminous,  then 
voluminous,  until  it  blossomed  forth  into  his  full 
form  and  line  and  colour.  Sometimes  he  leapt 
ahead  in  one  quality  and  deterioriated  in  another, 
abandoned  one  for  the  glory  of  the  other,  and 
sacrificed  continually  until  by  experience  he  knew 
his  limitations.  Then  consciously,  with  all  the 
reins  in  hand,  he  progressed  steadily  to  his  highest 
point  of  efficiency.  Art  in  general  also  advances 
sporadically.  Delacroix  gave  a  new  freedom  to 
subject  and  drawing,  resuscitated  composition  and 
found  a  new  use  for  colour.  He  was  the  em- 
bryonic statement  of  the  ends  of  modern  art. 
Courbet,  ignoring  colour,  totally  divorced  subject- 
matter  from  antiquity  and  liberated  drawing  from 
the  accepted  style.  He  carried  art  forward,  but 
not  in  a  direct  line.  Daumier  gave  us  a  new  con- 
ception of  form,  but  contented  himself  with 
Spanish  colour:  his  art,  though  fragmentary,  was 
another  step  toward  a  unique  vision.  Then  came 
Manet  who,  forgetting  composition,  exalted  the 
documentary  freedom  of  Courbet  and  began  the 


208  MODERN  PAINTING 

study  of  light.  He,  also,  was  a  continuation 
of  the  modern  art  impulse,  but  in  his  struggle 
for  the  new  he  forgot  the  foundations.  The 
Impressionists  accepted  passively  all  that  had 
come  before.  They  raised  colour  to  an  im- 
portant place  in  painting  and  brought  it  to 
the  consideration  of  all  artists  by  showing  its 
potency  in  the  production  of  intense  emotion. 
Renoir  used  their  inspiration;  reverted  to  the 
past  through  Delacroix,  Courbet  and  Daumier; 
combined  all  that  had  preceded  him;  and 
in  an  incomparable  flourish  closed  up  the  possi- 
bilities of  his  experimental  forerunners.  In  him 
was  a  consummation.  But  there  had  to  be  a 
transition  also,  unless  art  was  to  stand  still. 
Gauguin,  though  he  went  so  far  back  that  he 
passed  to  a  time  when  composition  did  not 
exist,  interpreted,  but  did  not  imitate,  nature. 
The  Neo-Impressionists  continued  the  impetus 
of  Pissarro.  Cezanne  unearthed  secrets  from 
nature  which  linked  him  to  Impressionism,  and 
by  applying  them  arbitrarily  to  classic  organisa- 
tions, became  an  interpreter  of  the  past  as  well 
as  of  the  future. 

At  each  step  of  this  broad  and  prolific  advance 
there  were  those  painters  who,  profiting  by  the 
teachings  of  the  great,  set  themselves  to  imitate 
and  ornament  the  exteriors  of  their  faintly-under- 
stood masters  and  to  emphasise  the  qualities  of 
texture,  matiere  and  prettiness.  So  rapid  was  the 
evolution  of  modern  endeavour  that  nearly  every 
painter  overlapped  his  seemingly  remote  prede- 
cessor. Edgar  Degas  was  born  more  than  twenty 
years  before  the  death  of  Delacroix.  He  was  one 
of  those  painters  who,  content  to  remain  stagnant, 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  209 

employ  the  qualities  which  have  been  handed 
down  to  them  and  breathe  into  old  inspirations 
the  flame  of  individual  idiosyncrasy.  He  was  a 
man  who  impressed  everyone  by  the  strength  of 
his  personality  and  by  the  power  of  his  caustic 
wit.  In  his  youth  he  travelled  in  Italy  and 
America  and  went  to  school,  not  for  artistic 
training,  but  merely  as  a  concession  to  the 
conventions  of  the  day.  He  copied  Holbein  and 
Lawrence.  In  his  earlier  portraits  there  are 
undeniable  traces  of  the  German  master:  the 
Lawrence  influence  exhibited  itself  in  his  feminin- 
ity more  than  in  actual  technical  innovations. 
He  was  an  enthusiastic  visitor  to  the  Cafe 
Guerbois  on  the  Avenue  de  Clichy  where,  from 
1865  until  the  war,  Manet  was  the  dominating 
figure,  and  where  the  Impressionists  and  such 
men  as  Lhermitte,  Cazin,  Legros,  Whistler  and 
Stevens  came  to  discuss  aesthetics. 

Although  never  radically  opposed  to  scholasti- 
cism, as  were  these  other  men,  Degas  was  never- 
theless persuaded  to  share  in  a  joint  exhibition  in 
1867  with  his  revolutionary  companions.  But 
the  ridicule  of  the  public  disgusted  him  so 
thoroughly  that  he  never  exposed  again.  He 
shut  himself  up  in  his  studio,  and  there,  isolated 
from  his  fellow  painters  and  the  vulgar  populace, 
worked  out  his  own  salvation.  He  instinctively 
hated  the  brummagem  show  of  popularity  and  put 
into  his  every  subject  this  disgust  with  life's 
hypocrisies.  Even  in  his  prancing  ballet  figures, 
though  they  are  in  full  light  and  amid  joyous 
settings,  one  senses  the  satire  which  led  to  the 
depiction  of  their  apparent  sans-souci.  One  reads 
in  them  the  sordid  misery  of  their  home  life,  the 


210  MODERN  PAINTING 

long  trying  hours  of  muscular  strain,  and  the 
deceit  of  their  simulated  smiles.  His  synthetic 
figures  —  synthetic  in  that  they  were  without 
details  and  accidents  of  contour  which  would 
detract  from  the  vision  of  the  whole  —  came  to 
him  direct  and  with  little  variation  from  Ingres 
—  not  the  Ingres  of  Stratonice  but  the  Ingres  of 
the  drawings  in  the  Musee  Ingres  at  Montauban. 
His  study  of  this  master  gave  him  a  greater 
insight  into  the  academic  construction  of  the 
human  figure  than  any  school  could  have  done. 
It  permitted  him  to  set  forth  a  firmly  drawn 
body  in  any  pose  with  equal  ease.  This  facile 
mastery  of  action  is  one  of  his  greatest  claims  to 
popularity. 

Gauguin  held  that  nothing  should  be  moving 
in  a  canvas,  that  all  the  figures  should  be  static, 
arrested  in  their  pose,  and  calm.  Degas  repre- 
sented Gauguin's  antithesis.  He  strove  to  catch 
his  model  in  flight.  He  immobilised  their  elan, 
and  registered  those  characteristics  of  a  model 
which  express  action  at  its  intensest  dynamic 
instant.  In  all  his  racecourse  pictures  the  very 
horses  have  that  delicate  balance  of  mincing 
tread  that  we  first  feel  when  we  look  at  their 
prototypes  in  life  —  that  dainty  and  slight  re- 
siliency as  of  weight  on  springs.  Monet,  on  the 
one  hand,  caught  the  ephemeral  effect  of  light  on 
nature:  Degas,  on  the  other,  recorded  the  fleeting 
movement  of  objects,  that  is,  the  physical  poise 
of  a  granted  image,  not  the  (esthetic  poise  which 
transmits  itself  to  our  subjectivities.  He  surprised 
the  actional  segment  which  epitomises  the  entire 
cycle  of  movement.  Everything  he  touches  be- 
comes as  charming  and  interesting  as  a  well- 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  211 

staged  scene.  His  sympathies  with  the  Im- 
pressionist colour  methods  and  his  manner  of 
handling  his  material  add  to  this  charm  and 
make  pleasurable,  fresh  and  adventuresome  what 
would  otherwise  be  banal  and  sometimes  even 
ugly  and  devoid  of  interest.  He  paints  the 
racehorse,  which  Gericault  first  introduced  into 
French  art,  and,  by  surrounding  it  with  a  vernal 
spring  atmosphere,  violet  hills  and  green  and 
ochre  stubble,  and  by  catching  its  instantaneous 
action,  makes  of  it  a  picture  with  a  rich  and 
colourful  surface  —  a  surface  beside  which  a 
Gericault,  judged  from  the  same  illustrative 
standpoint,  appears  stiff  and  black. 

Degas,  in  short,  paints  the  kind  of  pictures 
which  the  general  public  calls  "artistic"  —  a 
word  which,  though  loosely  used,  has  come  to 
have  a  distinct  connotation  when  applied  to  arts 
and  crafts.  Vases,  plaques,  panels,  screens,  deco- 
rations, posters  and  book-plates  are  all  "artistic" 
provided  they  fulfil  certain  simple  requirements. 
The  bizarre  exteriors  of  German  art  have  given 
great  impetus  to  this  qualitative  adjective.  The 
word  is  used  indeterminately,  and  its  popular 
meaning  has  not  been  defined.  But  in  Degas 
we  find  it  exemplified;  and  by  studying  him  we 
may  discover  its  exact  limitations.  "Artistic" 
commonly  refers  to  paintings  in  which  the  exacti- 
tude of  drawing  is  lost  in  a  nonchalant  sensibilite, 
and  in  which  the  matiere  takes  on  a  seductive 
interest  merely  as  a  stuff  or  a  substance,  the  love 
of  which  lies  deep  in  the  most  intellectual  of 
men.  The  tactile  sense  will  be  found  at  the  roots 
of  the  average  person's  idea  of  an  "artistic" 
work.  This  desire  for  superficial  and  material 


212  MODERN  PAINTING 

beauty,  as  of  a  rare  porcelain  or  of  scintillating 
old  silk,  is  a  part  of  the  same  physical  sensuality 
which  makes  some  men  choose  rough-grained 
canvas,  others  the  stone  of  the  lithographer, 
others  the  fluid  brushing  of  a  Whistler  or  a 
Velazquez.  The  desire  for  texture  is  what  led 
Degas  to  pastels.  His  pictures  have  something 
more  than  an  illustrative  value;  they  are  highly 
attractive  as  objets  d? art  as  well.  But  while  this 
attractiveness  heightened  the  popular  value  of  his 
work,  it  indicated  the  inherent  decadence  of  his 
aims. 

Nor  was  it  the  only  sign  of  his  retrogression. 
There  is  not  even  pictorial  finality  in  his  work. 
He  never  painted  subjects  as  such,  but  used  them 
only  as  bases  for  arabesques.  Surface-covering 
was  his  forte,  and  it  is  not  remarkable  that  one 
so  sensitive  to  objective  action  should  have  been 
such  a  master  of  balance.  He  could  never  have 
achieved  such  perfect  balance  had  he  not  realised 
that  a  work  of  art  must  be  done  coldly  and 
consciously  and  without  passion  for  the  model, 
and  that  all  enthusiasm  should  come  only  from 
the  progressing  work  itself.  His  arrangements 
are  wholly  natural  ones,  and  we  feel  that  no 
studio  posing  has  gone  into  their  making.  In 
this  naturalistic  attitude  he  was  continuing  the 
modern  spirit  of  arbitrary  subject  selection  found 
in  Courbet,  Manet  and  Pissarro.  But  where 
these  men  painted  with  colour,  Degas  only  tinted 
his  drawings.  Consequently  his  colour,  as  well 
as  composition,  was  a  reversion  to  a  sterile  past. 
Although  we  may  admire  his  Apres  le  Bain,  La 
Toilette,  the  Trois  Danseuses,  Femme  au  Tub, 
La  Sortie  du  Bain,  Torse  de  Femme  S'Essuyant, 


DANSEUSES  A   LEUR  TOILETTE 


DEGAS 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  213 

Musicians  a  1'Orchestre  for  their  verisimilitude 
and  lightness  of  treatment,  their  imprevu  of 
arrangement  and  balance  and  their  charm  of 
colour,  we  can  never  credit  their  creator  with 
even  a  slight  genius,  for  all  his  pictures  lack  the 
rich  volumes  of  a  Daumier  and  the  order  of  a 
Renoir. 

Degas  was  neither  academic  nor  revolutionary. 
He  struck  a  middle  course  in  which  the  scholastic 
and  the  heretical  blent,  and  in  blending  neutral- 
ised each  other's  characteristics.  In  his  canvases 
he  tells  inherently  commonplace  stories,  but  he 
does  it  with  the  force  and  the  graceful  ease  of 
one  on  whom  all  the  visions  of  the  world  have 
made  a  powerful  impression.  Life  meant  to  him 
a  pageant,  neither  moral  nor  immoral,  but  real, 
and  as  such  interesting.  If  in  what  he  tells  us 
there  seems  a  bit  of  the  cynical  indifference  of  a 
mind  too  fully  disillusioned,  it  never  obtrudes 
itself.  He  himself  might  have  been  surfeited  and 
bitter,  but  his  work  contains  only  the  barest  hint 
of  his  temperamental  retrospection.  His  com- 
prehension of  life's  tragedies  did  not  spoil  his 
enjoyment  in  depicting  them.  Louis  Legrand 
reveals  the  metropolitan  lust  of  mankind;  Forain, 
its  bestiality;  Toulouse-Lautrec,  its  viciousness. 
Each  was  prejudiced  in  some  direction.  Degas 
merely  goes  behind  the  scenes  and  by  stripping 
his  characters  of  their  pretences  shows  them  to 
us  as  they  are,  intimately  and  unsentimentally. 

The  other  men  in  this  circle  of  illustrators  of 
which  Degas  was  the  dominant  figure  had 
distinctly  individual  traits.  In  no  sense  were 
they  followers  of  one  leader.  Their  preoccupa- 
tion with  illustration  alone  held  them  together. 


214  MODERN  PAINTING 

Degas  has  given  us  well-balanced  patterns  with 
fragilely  lovely  surfaces.  He  was  little  interested 
in  the  traits  of  his  models:  he  cared  more  for  the 
picture  than  for  individual  character.  With  Henri 
de  Toulouse-Lautrec  this  mental  attitude  was 
reversed.  In  his  work  are  specific  members  of 
the  demi-monde,  marionettes  who  have  all  the 
accentuated  vices,  vulgarities,  fatigues  and  pre- 
tensions of  their  trade.  In  their  faces,  moulded 
by  unrestrained  indulgences,  joys  and  sorrows, 
we  can  read  their  innermost  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions. We  can  reconstruct  their  entire  day's 
activities.  In  order  to  study  his  characters 
Lautrec  went  to  the  milieu  where  gaiety  was 
unchecked,  where  the  denizens  of  the  under- 
world —  those  unreal  beings  who  live  like  fantas- 
tic flowers  nourished  by  artificial  light  and 
colour  —  come  to  work  and  play.  He  saw  and 
set  down  the  principals  in  the  Bohemian  music 
halls,  the  cafes-concerts  and  the  cirques,  and  those 
daylight  moralists  who  come  to  relax  viciously  at 
night  with  all  the  laisser-aller  of  violent  reaction. 
His  search  was  for  character;  and  in  these 
establishments  character  did  not  masquerade  in 
the  hypocritical  garb  of  pride  and  dignity. 
Passions  were  aired  frankly,  even  proudly. 

Lautrec  had  personal  as  well  as  artistic  reasons 
for  choosing  this  sphere.  He  had  an  ardent, 
almost  febrile,  desire  to  live  fully  and  furiously. 
He  was  deformed;  he  had  a  man's  head  and  body 
on  a  child's  legs  —  the  result  of  incompetent 
bone-setting  in  his  youth.  His  family  was  a  very 
old  and  noble  one:  his  father  was  a  sportsman, 
a  lover  of  horses,  a  sculptor  in  his  leisure  moments. 
All  the  pride  of  race  and  dignity  of  class  tumbled 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  215 

from  its  pedestal  in  this  young  artist.  He  had 
worked  in  the  schools  of  Bonnat  and  Cormon, 
had  met  and  admired  Forain,  and  had  finally 
been  revealed  to  himself  by  Degas  who  led  him 
to  the  theatre.  He  drank  much,  one  suspects,  to 
forget  his  deformity,  just  as  Van  Gogh  drank  to 
forget  disease.  He  sought  solace  in  the  ephem- 
eral, visionary  life  of  the  cafes;  and  no  action, 
no  type,  no  expression  escaped  his  probing 
notice.  He  had  many  friends  to  whom  he 
confided.  "I  am  only  half  a  bottle,"  he  would 
say.  He  adored  women  impersonally  and  roman- 
tically, but  in  his  own  station  of  life  they  looked 
upon  him  askance.  Consequently  he  lived  where 
money  would  always  buy  attention  and  where 
good-fellowship  was  repaid  with  good-fellowship. 

Lautrec  was  an  indefatigable  worker,  but  his 
pictures  possess  little  of  the  surface  beauty  of  a 
Degas.  Rather  do  they  attest  to  a  love  of 
exaggerated  and  uncommon  form,  as  do  Chinese 
paintings.  But  in  him  is  more  order  than  in 
Degas.  Compare  Une  Table  au  Moulin-Rouge 
with  Degas's  Cafe-Concert.  In  the  first  the 
character  in  the  physiques  of  the  principals 
harmonises  with  the  character  of  the  faces;  and 
the  female  figure's  hair,  hat  and  fur-trimmed  coat 
indicate  the  artist's  love  for  grotesque  and 
beautiful  abstract  form.  There  is  more  than 
balance  here:  there  is  the  rudiment  of  an  instinc- 
tive composition  which  Degas  never  had.  Beside 
this  picture  the  Cafe-Concert  seems  flat  silhouette, 
sprightly  and  entertaining,  but  far  from  profound. 
The  nucleus  of  composition  can  be  found  in  all  of 
Lautrec's  best  canvases,  especially  those  he 
painted  after  his  return  from  Spain.  Toward  the 


216  MODERN  PAINTING 

end  of  his  life  he  worked,  for  the  most  part,  with 
a  full  brush  and  rich  colours.  Before  this,  how- 
ever, pencil,  chalk,  lithographs  and  water-colours 
had  claimed  him.  His  greatest  fluency  was  in 
the  use  of  separated  hachures  of  rich  greyish 
colour  on  neutral  backgrounds.  This  method  of 
application  permitted  him  line  as  well  as  colour; 
and  with  his  lines,  summary  and  economical 
though  they  were,  he  caught  the  animality  of  his 
subjects  with  as  sure  a  hand  as  Monet  caught  the 
light  and  Degas  the  action. 

Lautrec,  with  Cheret,  revolutionised  the  poster 
art.  There  are  few  men  today  in  this  field  who 
do  not  owe  much  to  him.  His  love  of  the 
eccentricities  of  his  model  was  an  ideal  gift  for 
the  poster-maker,  and  he  had  himself  sufficiently 
in  hand  not  to  be  led  into  the  grotesque.  He 
was  a  caricaturist  in  that  he  exaggerated  char- 
acteristic traits,  just  as  Matisse  did  in  his  sculp- 
ture. He  always  noted  fully  the  uncommon,  and 
his  love  of  every  manifestation  of  life  gave  him 
a  wide  range  of  inspiration.  Life  was  his  great 
adventure;  his  art  was  merely  his  diary.  He  is 
a  historian  of  the  theatre  of  his  time  and  has 
left  salient  portraits  of  Loie  Fuller,  Polaire, 
Sarah  Bernhardt,  Mounet-Sully,  Yahne  and  Anna 
Held.  His  types  of  the  raptorial  woman  of  the 
past  —  the  kind  that  today  is  found  in  the 
hidden  corners  of  Les  Halles,  at  the  fortifications 
and  about  the  "Rue  de  la  Joie"  —  are  as  real  as 
the  female  characters  of  Balzac,  Daudet,  Augier 
and  Prevost.  They  live  in  his  pictures  because 
one  feels  that  they  once  were  realities:  his 
caricaturisations  of  them,  as  of  his  clowns  and 
dancers,  only  intensify  their  intimate  humanity. 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  217 

To  some  it  may  seem  strange  that  Lautrec  should 
have  liked  Massys  and  Memling.  But  in  the 
first  he  found  trenchant  characterisation,  espe- 
cially in  such  things  as  Head  of  an  Old  Man, 
The  Courtesan  and  Portrait  of  a  Canon.  And  he 
was  temperamentally  akin  to  Memling  in  such 
arrangements  as  the  latter' s  The  Casting  of  the 
Lots  (a  detail  of  Calvary)  and  Our  Lord's  Passion, 
at  the  Museum  in  Turin. 

That  the  illustrators  of  this  group  were  deca- 
dent is  borne  out  in  their  subject-matter  as  well 
as  in  their  methods.  Since  the  earliest  recorded 
antiquity  artists  have  been  attracted  to  the 
moving,  the  glittering,  the  brilliant;  and  the 
human  occupation  which  embodies  these  three 
qualities  most  obviously  is  dancing.  The  men 
who  are  in  love  with  life  and  not  art  and  who 
paint  and  draw  pictures  merely  to  record  their 
impressions,  have  always  been  hypnotised  by  the 
colour,  the  grace,  the  fluent  movement  and  the 
rhythmic  shiftings  of  dancers.  These  men,  unable 
to  analyse  their  emotions,  have  dreamed  only  of 
depicting  objectively  their  photographic  impres- 
sions of  the  dance.  The  artists  who  penetrated 
to  the  fundamental  causes  of  rhythm  used  the 
dance  only  arbitrarily,  whereas  the  superficial 
painters  of  the  past  saw  in  it  merely  the  mosaic, 
the  pattern,  the  arabesque.  They  thought  that 
in  portraying  the  dance  literally  they  would 
arrive  at  its  motive  significance.  But  in  this 
they  failed.  Had  they  done  their  figures  in  clay 
or  stone  they  would  have  approached  nearer 
their  desire.  But  even  this  more  masculine 
medium  has,  with  few  exceptions,  resulted  in 
failure.  The  dancing  girls  in  the  Grottoes  of 


2i 8  MODERN  PAINTING 

Mahavelipore  were  used  only  by  those  puissant 
masters  of  form  as  friezes  or  shapes  to  fill  in  and 
ornament  a  vacant  space.  The  Tanagra  figurines 
are  a  purely  decorative  endeavour.  In  Greece 
it  was  not  the  men  of  Praxiteles's  calibre,  but  the 
smaller  talents  like  the  potters  who  used  the 
dance  in  their  designs.  Even  a  man  as  slight  as 
Hokusai  leaves  it  to  a  Toba  Sojo  to  make  his 
models  caper.  But  the  feminine  talent  of  Degas 
finds  in  the  dance  absolute  and  unordered  expres- 
sion; and  Lautrec  and  Legrand,  both  more  robust 
than  Degas,  though  minor  and  ornamentally 
illustrative  artists,  are  seduced  into  portraying  it 
often. 

Louis  Legrand  was  more  of  the  "maker"  of 
pictures  than  were  his  two  contemporaries.  His 
nature  leaned  toward  the  heavy  and  boisterous 
Sodoma  rather  than  toward  the  Latin  ideal  of 
Tiepolo.  This  almost  Teutonic  racial  penchant 
in  him  explains  why  the  bestiality  of  his  subject- 
matter  is  so  often  done  in  the  manner  of  Goya, 
with  broad  black  and  white  masses,  not  with  the 
suggested  line  and  the  attractive  matiere  of  his 
master,  Degas.  There  is  much  Teutonic  blood 
in  Spain,  and  Goya,  while  being  far  the  greater 
artist  even  in  his  slightest  etchings,  is  the  nearest 
approach  to  Legrand  in  the  treatment  of  themes. 
Goya  paints  moral  decay  with  disgust  and  genius, 
whereas  Legrand,  with  his  slight  gropings  after 
order  of  a  surface  variety,  glories  in  it  as  in  a 
pursuit,  and  paints  it  with  a  leer.  The  Spaniard 
uses  it  as  a  temperamental  means.  The  French- 
man, whose  whole  talent  lies  in  a  formula  of 
draughtsmanship,  works  toward  its  creation  as  an 
end.  His  shallowness  is  at  once  apparent  when 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  219 

we  compare  his  Maitresse  or  his  illustrations  for 
Edgar  Allan  Poe's  tales  with  etchings  like  Donde 
Va  Mama  or  Buen  Viaje.  Psychologically  he  is 
intimately  related  to  the  fin  de  siecle  movement 
in  England;  and,  although  a  better  and  more 
healthy  workman,  he  has  a  temperament  singu- 
larly akin  to  that  ineffectual  Victorian  academi- 
cian, Walter  Sickert. 

In  J.-L.  Forain  we  have  a  man  of  different 
stamp,  one  who,  knowing  his  ability  for  certain 
things,  clings  to  them  and  does  not  attempt  to 
thrust  himself  into  the  rank  of  artist.  By 
developing  his  small  potentialities  to  their  highest 
actuality  he  has  achieved  as  much  as  his  con- 
freres have  by  extraneous  tricks  and  appearances. 
And  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  comprehends  art 
much  better  than  they.  His  iconoclastic  and 
acidulous  cynicism,  his  ability  to  wrench  from 
behind  the  veil  of  mundane  hypocrisy  the  real 
motivation  of  an  action,  and  his  probing  analysis 
which  cannot  be  imposed  upon  by  pretence,  have 
touched  on  many  sides  of  contemporary  life  — 
politics,  extortion,  courts,  merchants,  the  beau 
monde,  prostitution,  religion,  the  theatre  and 
the  tawdry  Bohemianism  of  Montparnasse.  With 
a  few  straight  and  fluent  strokes  of  the  pencil  he 
builds  up  a  type  of  the  blustering  parvenu  Jew, 
the  mercenary  picture  dealer,  the  childish  and 
vain  actor  who  is  avid  for  praise  and  obsessed 
with  his  vocation.  Forain  calls  the  actor  a 
"  M'as-tu-vu?"  and  depicts  him  as  with  that 
phrase  ever  on  his  lips.  Baudelaire  Chez  les 
Mufles  is  one  of  the  world's  greatest  monuments 
to  human  hypocrisy.  A  chlorotic  bourgeoise  is 
standing  in  the  centre  of  a  small  gathering 


220  MODERN  POINTING 

reciting  Baudelaire's  verses.  Around  her  are 
grouped  types  of  self-satisfied  and  vicious  mascu- 
linity, all  pretending,  like  the  speaker  herself, 
to  be  feeling  deeply  the  hidden  spirituality  of  the 
poem.  Some  of  the  men  have  their  heads  raised 
high,  others  bowed  low,  for  purposes  of  con- 
centration. The  whole  picture  is  rough-hewn  as 
though  done  with  an  axe  in  a  square  of  clay. 
With  the  simplest  means  the  artist, gives  us  the 
impression  of  rugged  stone  and,  at  the  same 
time,  completion.  The  titles  to  his  drawings 
are  in  the  exact  spirit  of  the  pictures  themselves, 
succinct,  brutal  and  penetrating.  Forain  is  the 
second  greatest  caricaturist  the  world  has  pro- 
duced. He  was  not  the  artist  that  Daumier  was, 
but  as  a  serious  creator  of  types  and  as  a  highly 
intelligent  critic  of  contemporary  shams,  he  is  a 
master,  even  as  Daumier  was  a  master  of  a  realm 
far  above  him. 

Forain  perfected  what  he  set  out  to  do,  and 
for  this  praise  is  due  him.  That  his  ambition 
A  ran  along  a  subpassage  of  aesthetic  endeavour,  as 
did  that  of  his  three  confreres,  he  would  be  the 
first  to  admit.  As  artists  these  men  cannot  be 
judged  either  by  the  surface  quality  of  their 
works  or  by  their  penetration  into  life  and  char- 
acter. Such  considerations  have  nothing  to  do 
with  aesthetic  emotion.  No  matter  how  much  we 
may  eulogise  such  painters  —  for  they  must  be 
judged  by  their  own  standard  rather  than  by  a 
criterion  set  by  a  Rubens  —  our  praise  will  never 
place  them  in  the  rank  of  plastic  creators.  They 
.'  will  ever  remain  in  the  realm  of  nearly  perfect 
workmen  with  literary  apperceptions.  Toulouse- 
Lautrec,  because  of  his  love  of  formal  distortion 


DEGAS  AND  HIS  CIRCLE  221 

for  its  own  sake,  probably  comes  nearer  the 
higher  level:  there  is  in  his  work  a  slight  aesthetic 
element.  Degas  will  ever  remain  the  piece  of  old 
velvet  in  a  frame;  Louis  Legrand,  the  illustrator 
of  the  bachelor  clubs;  Forain,  the  expositor  of 
life's  pretensions. 

It  is  these  men  who  have  given  the  greatest 
impetus  to  realistic  illustration  in  all  countries. 
Viewed  from  this  standpoint  they  were  a  salutary, 
as  well  as  a  diverting,  manifestation.  By  burrow- 
ing down  into  the  depths  of  material  existence 
they  made  unimportant  such  poetic  men  as 
Beardsley,  Rossetti  and  Moreau.  All  good  illus- 
tration after  them  took  on  a  deeper  meaning. 
It  ignored  the  mendacious  surfaces  of  things  and 
strove  to  reproduce  the  undercurrents  which  lie 
at  the  bottom  of  human  actions  and  reactions. 
Its  mere  prettiness  was  supplanted  by  subcutane- 
ous characteristics.  It  sought  for  motives  rather 
than  emotions,  for  causes  rather  than  effects. 
It  became  critical  where  once  it  had  been  only 
photographic.  From  Degas,  Lautrec,  Legrand 
and  Forain  comes  directly  the  best  illustrative 
talent  in  both  Europe  and  America.  Without 
these  four  men  we  would  not  possess  the  best 
work  of  Max  Beerbohm,  Hermann  Paul,  Bellows, 
Maxime  Dethomas,  Roubille,  Carlopez,  Carl  Lar- 
son, Albert  Engstrom,  C.  D.  Gibson,  E.  M.  Ashe, 
Boardman  Robinson,  Cesare,  Blumenschein  and 
Wallace  Morgan,  the  last  of  whom  is  unques- 
tionably the  most  artistic  illustrator  in  either 
America  or  England. 


X 

HENRI-MATISSE 

WHILE  the  bitter  struggle  against  the 
narrow  dictates  of  a  retrospective 
and  so-called  classic  academy  was 
in  progress,  and  before  the  older 
scholastic  forces  had  finally  been  put  to  rout, 
the  Impressionists  calmly  arrogated  to  them- 
selves the  authority  of  their  dumbfounded 
predecessors.  Their  pictures,  because  more  re- 
stricted and  not  based  on  the  fundamentals  of 
art,  soon  became  as  familiar  and  commonplace 
as  the  paintings  of  Gerome,  Cabanel  and  Bougue- 
reau,  and  in  becoming  familiar  settled  into  the 
groove  of  a  new  academism  as  immobile  and 
self-satisfied  as  the  old.  The  Neo-Impressionists 
were  the  first  to  react  against  them,  and  later 
Gauguin  and  his  fellow  synthesists  openly  de- 
clared war.  Cezanne  at  that  time  was  little 
known  and  less  understood.  Living  apart  and 
alone,  he  was  counted  out  of  the  main  struggle. 
The  decadents  of  the  movement,  Degas  and  his 
circle,  continued  their  popularising  process:  their 
eyes  were  so  fixedly  turned  inward  that  they  saw 
little  of  what  was  going  on  about  them.  Gau- 
guin, putting  aside  imitation  of  nature  for  inter- 
pretation, began  the  great  movement  which  was 
to  culminate  in  the  most  extreme  reaction  against 
Impressionism — Cubism.  And  Matisse  who,  arous- 


HENRI-MATISSE  223 

ing  public  interest  in  the  new,  is  responsible 
for  the  popular  Cezanne  discussions  of  today, 
was  the  next  man  to  carry  on  Gauguin's  work  of 
pigeon-holing  Monet  and  his  followers.  But  where- 
as the  Impressionists  had  completely  forgotten 
the  classics,  Gauguin  wished  to  recommence  the 
entire  cycle  by  reverting  to  the  forefathers  of 
those  very  classics.  He  also  had  his  decadent 
followers,  but  there  was  no  one  to  continue  his 
methods  and  inspiration.  If  it  is  difficult  to 
perceive  an  analogy  between  him  and  a  painter 
like  Jacopo  dei  Barbari,  compare  the  works  of 
these  men  with  a  later  drawing  by  Matisse. 
The  similarity  of  the  first  two,  by  being  con- 
trasted with  the  latter,  will  at  once  become 
apparent.  Gauguin  clung  close  to  the  drawing 
of  the  primitive  Christians;  and  the  classic  seed 
within  him,  though  it  never  flowered,  was  never 
dead. 

While  the  form  in  Matisse  at  times  has  all  the 
suavity  of  contour  of  a  Liombruno  or  a  Roma- 
nelli,  there  is  a  more  purely  sensitive  reason  for  it 
than  in  the  well-taught  decadents  of  the  later 
Renaissance.  In  the  classes  of  Bouguereau  and 
Carriere  at  the  Beaux-Arts  he  had  seen  to  what 
an  impasse  a  too  great  love  of  antiquity  would 
lead.  Furthermore,  with  his  many  copies  in  the 
Louvre,  by  command  of  the  state,  he  began 
gradually  to  realise  that  the  classics  had  become 
a  fetich,  and  that  the  only  salvation  for  a  painter 
was  to  seek  a  different  and  less-known  inspiration. 
This  course  was  not  so  difficult  as  it  had  once 
been,  for  the  younger  men  had  already  liberated 
themselves  from  popular  mandates.  The  freedom 
of  the  artist  was  now  an  assured  thing,  and  while 


224  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  public  still  scoffed  and  offered  suggestions,  it 
no  longer  felt  that  a  man's  expression  was  its 
personal  concern.  To  be  sure,  popular  rage 
against  things  which  appeared  incomprehensible 
was  still  evident,  but  it  was  the  impotent  rage 
which  sneers  because  it  can  no  longer  strike. 
The  Salon  des  Artistes  I nde pendants  was  in  full 
swing,  and  the  new  artists  who  had  ideas  rather 
than  tricks  and  who  were  intent  on  discovering 
new  fields  through  devious  experimentation,  found 
therein  a  refuge  where  they  could  expose  as 
conspicuously  as  could  the  academicians.  In  this 
healthful  Salon  Matisse  has  exhibited  regularly 
up  to  a  few  years  ago,  and  it  was  here  and  in 
the  Salon  d'Automne  —  another  exhibition  which 
at  first  was  animated  by  high  ideals  but  which 
has  lately  fallen  into  the  hands  of  cliques  and 
picture  merchants  —  that  his  fame  took  birth. 

With  Matisse's  advent  we  behold  the  paradox 
of  an  artist  who  is  in  full  reaction  against  the 
Impressionistic  and  classic  doctrines  and  who 
at  the  same  time  reveals  a  certain  composition 
and  makes  colour  of  paramount  interest.  The 
Matisse  of  exotic  inspiration  came  from  the 
studio  of  Gustave  Moreau  who,  by  his  intelligent 
toleration  of  the  virile  enthusiasms  of  his  pupils, 
facilitated  the  way  toward  complete  self-expres- 
sion. There  are  Matisse  drawings  extant  which 
are  impeccable  from  the  academic  standpoint  — 
drawings  in  which  is  found  all  the  cold  "right 
drawing"  of  the  school.  There  are  paintings 
in  the  Neo-Impressionistic  manner,  except  that 
they  display  a  sensitive  use  of  harmonious  colours, 
which  should  have  shown  Signac  and  Cross  the 
error  of  their  rigid  science.  Also  there  are  still- 


HENRI-MATISSE  225 

lives  which  recall  Chardin,  one  of  Matisse's  great 
admirations;  and  at  least  one  study  of  a  head, 
done  in  Colorossi's  old  academy  on  the  Rue  de  la 
Grande  Chaumiere,  in  which  a  love  of  Cezanne's 
form  and  colour  mingles  with  a  respect  for 
Manet's  method  of  applying  paint. 

Gauguin  too  served  as  a  provenance  for  the 
later  colour  vision  of  Matisse.  Indeed  it  is  as 
much  from  Gauguin  as  from  Cezanne  that  he 
stems.  The  broad  planes  of  rich  tones  and  the 
decorative  employment  of  form  in  the  former 
had  as  great  an  influence  in  Matisse's  art  as  did 
the  perfect  displacement  of  spaces  in  the  canvases 
of  the  Provencal  master.  Gauguin,  while  still 
leaning  to  the  classic,  desired  a  fresher  impetus. 
He  therefore  sought  distortion  in  exotic  inspira- 
tion; but  the  man  who  was  led  to  distortion 
through  a  pure  love  of  unfamiliar  form  and  to 
whom  Matisse  owes  the  deciding  influence  toward 
a  new  body,  was  the  Spaniard  Goya.  The 
deformed,  the  grotesque  and  the  monstrous  were 
with  Goya  a  passion.  In  his  Caprichos  it  is  easily 
seen  that  he,  too,  was  tired  of  the  established 
formulas  regarding  the  human  body,  and  strove 
to  vary  and  enrich  it.  By  emphasising  a  char- 
acteristic trait,  by  shifting  a  certain  form,  by 
exaggerating  a  certain  proportion,  he  sought  to 
obtain,  as  did  Matisse,  the  complete  expression 
of  what  he  felt  to  be  essential  in  his  model. 
The  deformations  in  Gauguin  came  as  a  result 
of  an  outline  which  after  the  first  drawing  was 
left  unchanged  for  the  sake  of  its  naif  effect. 
But  in  Goya  and  Matisse  the  deformations  are 
the  result  of  a  highly  developed  plastic  sense 
which  glories  in  new  and  unusual  forms.  With 


226  MODERN  PAINTING 

them  the  human  body  is  treated  as  the  means 
through  which  an  idea  is  expressed  —  an  idea  of 
form,  not  of  literature.  Compare,  for  instance, 
the  drawing  called  Deux  Tahi'tiens,  one  of  Gau- 
guin's best  works,  with  Matisse's  Baigneuses,  a 
canvas  of  three  nudes  one  of  which  is  playing 
with  a  turtle.  In  the  former  the  proportions  are 
distorted  as  much  as  in  the  latter,  but  these 
proportions  are  flat  and  are  an  end  in  them- 
selves. They  have  no  intellectual  destiny.  In 
the  Matisse  picture  the  exaggerations  grow  out 
of  a  desire  to  express  more  fully  the  form  which 
the  artist  has  felt  to  be  important  and  character- 
istic. In  the  seated  woman  the  torso  and  neck 
constitute  a  personal  and  original  vision,  and  the 
crouching  woman's  back  has  as  much  solidity  as 
the  Venus  Accroupie  of  the  Louvre. 

Matisse's  simplified  vision  of  form  came,  as  did 
all  synthetic  modern  art,  from  Ingres  and  Dau- 
mier  through  Seurat,  Degas  and  Gauguin.  That 
Ingres,  the  master  of  so  classic  a  school,  should 
have  unconsciously  felt  the  need  for  modifying 
and  simplifying  an  object  is  a  significant  indica- 
tion of  the  fatigue  which  is  always  produced  by 
an  adherence  to  a  set  form.  In  his  drawings  the 
details  are  omitted  merely  because  they  do  not 
further  the  achievement  of  his  own  particular 
kind  of  beauty.  In  Daumier  they  are  absent 
because  they  detract  from  the  spontaneous  emo- 
tion of  the  whole;  in  Degas  and  Manet,  because 
they  hinder  the  fluency  of  action  and  obscure  the 
complete  and  direct  image;  in  Seurat,  because 
they  interfere  with  the  suavity  of  line  itself;  and 
in  Gauguin,  because  they  preclude  that  naivete 
of  appearance  he  wished  to  obtain.  In  Matisse 


BAIGNEUSES 


HENRI-MATISSE 


HENRI-MATISSE  227 

began  the  conscious  process  of  making  form 
arbitrary,  of  bending  it  to  the  personal  require- 
ment of  expression.  In  Cubism  form  became 
even  more  abstract.  In  Ingres's  drawings  there 
is  an  entire  lack  of  suppleness:  his  figures  appear 
like  a  first  sketch  in  wood  for  a  German  carving. 
In  Gauguin  this  wooden  look  becomes  a  trifle 
more  fluent;  the  proportions  are  artistically 
improved.  And  in  Matisse  there  is  no  trace  of 
the  awkward  or  the  stiff.  While  his  form  is  more 
simplified  than  that  of  the  two  other  painters, 
the  simplifications  come  as  a  result  of  that 
artistic  Tightness  of  proportion  which  is  an  out- 
growth of  the  ultimate  refinement  of  knowledge 
and  taste. 

The  trick  of  drawing  of  a  Louis  Legrand  has 
no  parallel  in  Matisse.  In  the  work  of  the  latter 
each  figure  or  object,  no  matter  how  many  times 
he  has  already  drawn  it,  has  a  distinctively  novel 
construction  and  presents  a  new  vision.  All 
familiar  joints  and  hackneyed  interpretations  are 
absent.  We  have  seen,  for  instance,  the  deltoids 
drawn  in  every  conceivable  pose  of  stress  or  calm. 
When  one  speaks  of  a  nude  we  immediately 
visualise  it  with  the  angular  shoulders,  with  the 
accustomed  bulges  over  the  upper  arm  which 
have  been  painted  there  in  the  same  manner  since 
the  early  Renaissance.  In  the  delineation  of 
deltoids  the  painter  had  become  stagnant,  accept- 
ing their  conventional  appearance  as  an  external 
truth  and  recording  them  without  thought. 
Matisse  revolted  against  this  fixed  standard. 
Glance  through  his  later  nudes  —  and  there  are 
many  of  them  —  and  every  shoulder  will  present 
a  different  appearance;  every  arm  will  take  on  a 


228  MODERN  PAINTING 

novel  form.  We  speak  here  of  these  particular 
muscles  because  they  seem  to  obtrude  themselves 
upon  the  sensitive  sight  more  than  any  others. 
Matisse,  seeking  to  overcome  this  structural 
monotony,  made  each  shoulder  he  drew  a  new 
form,  a  new  adventure,  by  expressing,  not  the 
actual  bone  and  muscle  of  the  clinic,  but  the 
salient  meaning  of  that  shoulder  in  a  given 
milieu.  It  is  this  same  desire  to  do  away  with 
the  hackneyed  forms  of  art  that  has  driven  the 
modern  poets  away  from  classic  metres  and 
caused  them  to  seek  a  more  plastic  and  adaptable 
medium  in  vers  libre.  Rondeaux,  ballades,  quat- 
rains, octaves  and  the  like  are  today  as  intrinsi- 
cally perfect  forms  as  they  ever  were,  but  the 
significance  of  their  beauty  has  been  lost  through 
overuse,  through  too  great  familiarity.  Our 
minds  pass  over  them  as  over  well-learned  lessons 
committed  to  memory. 

It  is  thus  Matisse  felt  about  the  classic  forms 
of  his  predecessors.  These  forms  had  once  been 
beautiful;  intrinsically  they  were  still  beautiful; 
but  they  had  been  habitualised  by  constant  repe- 
tition; and  new  ones  were  needed.  In  order  to 
find  them  Matisse  says  that,  when  before  a  model, 
he  tried  to  forget  that  he  had  even  seen  a  nude 
before  and  to  look  upon  it  with  the  eyes  of  one 
who  had  never  seen  a  picture.  By  this  he  does 
not  mean  that  his  vision  was  naive,  but  that  it 
was  innocent  of  set  rules  and  preconceived  ideas 
of  how  form  should  be  obtained.  As  a  theory 
this  attitude  proved  fruitful  because,  while  he 
did  not  succeed  in  setting  aside  memory,  he  was 
nevertheless  led  to  a  conscious  thrusting  aside  of 
his  first  impulses  to  depict  form  as  he  saw  it.  All 


HENRI-MATISSE  229 

painters,  even  the  greater  artists  of  the  past,  had 
copied  form  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  eye,  but 
Matisse  forced  himself,  through  painstaking 
analysis,  .to  express  form  in  a  totally  novel  man- 
ner; and  to  a  certain  extent  he  succeeded.  One 
might  well  ask  why,  in  modifying  the  human 
body,  he  did  not,  for  instance,  omit  a  leg  or  a 
head,  thus  making  his  expression  at  once  purer 
and  more  abstract.  The  answer  is  that  he  real- 
ised that  the  spectator,  after  the  first  shock  at 
seeing  the  unexpected  form  and  the  consequent 
mental  readjustment  to  the  new  vision,  would 
nevertheless  recognise  the  picture  as  a  depiction 
of  the  human  figure.  Therefore  a  complete 
recognisability  must  be  maintained.  If  the  ar- 
tist omitted  an  eye  or  a  mouth,  for  example,  the 
spectator  would  experience  physically  the  incom- 
pleteness of  the  vision.  He  would  feel,  through 
personal  association,  the  blindness  or  the  suffo- 
cation as  suggested  in  the  picture;  and  these 
shocks,  being  secondary  physiological  sensations, 
would  detract  from  the  esthetic  pleasure  provoked 
by  the  work.  The  point  is  an  important  one,  for 
it  demonstrates  the  impossibility  of  appreciating 
art  purely  as  abstract  form  so  long  as  recognisable 
objects  are  presented.  As  modern  painting  pro- 
gressed the  illustrative  gradually  became  relegated. 
Much  impetus  for  his  abbreviations  and  accen- 
tuations of  form  came  to  him  with  his  personal 
discovery  of  the  wood  carvings  of  the  African 
negroes,  the  sculpture  of  natives  of  Polynesia 
and  Java  and  of  the  Peruvian  and  Mexican 
Indians.  During  the  last  five  years  we  have 
heard  much  of  these  unknown  artists  and  of  their 
superlative  ability  for  organisation  and  rhythm. 


230  MODERN  PAINTING 

But  they  have  been  a  little  too  quickly  and 
enthusiastically  accepted  as  criteria  at  the  expense 
of  those  greater  artists,  the  Greeks,  the  Egyptians, 
the  East  Indians  and  the  Chinese.  .  Matisse 
found  in  them  an  inspiration  toward  synthesis 
and  also  a  substantiation  for  his  own  desire  to 
emphasise  salient  characteristics.  They  influ- 
enced his  motives  in  depicting  only  what  was 
personally  important  and  in  doing  away  with 
unnecessary  details.  After  him  there  came  a 
horde  of  imitators  who  saw  in  negro  sculpture  the 
quintessence  of  artistic  expression,  who  looked 
upon  it  as  a  finality  of  organisation  and  rhythmic 
composing.  Such  judgment,  however,  contains 
more  of  enthusiasm  than  of  critical  acumen. 
Negro  sculpture  has  an  interest  for  us  only  in  so 
far  as  it  is  novel  and  untutored.  Its  organisation 
is  of  the  most  primitive  kind,  symmetrical  rather 
than  rhythmic,  architectonic  rather  than  plastic. 
It  is  the  work  of  slightly  synthetic  artists  who 
were  without  models  and  whose  visions  encom- 
passed only  certain  traits  of  form  which,  when 
expressed,  became  not  composed  but  balanced, 
not  imitative  but  abstract.  The  abstractness  of 
negro  sculpture,  its  bending  of  all  human  forms  to 
an  ornament,  its  archaic  rigidity  which  is  the 
antithesis  of  fluent  movement  —  these  are  the 
qualities  which  have  so  gripped  the  imaginations 
of  minor  modern  artists.  In  reality  the  negro 
sculptors  did  not  seek  these  qualities  consciously. 
Their  lack  of  realistic  observation  was  due  to 
their  partial  isolation  from  exterior  influences  such 
as  the  Greeks  and  Egyptians,  and  to  their  desire 
to  make  an  ornament  of  all  images. 

It  was  the  Persians,  however,  who  influenced 


HENRI-MAriSSE  231 

Matisse  more  than  did  negro  sculpture.  He 
found  in  these  artists  a  practical  lesson  in  the 
application  of  his  beliefs  —  a  lesson  which  sub- 
stantiated the  tonic  division  and  formal  im- 
provisation of  Goya  and  the  decorative  colour 
application  of  Gauguin.  Besides  he  learned  from 
them  a  more  direct  method  of  image  making,  a 
method  which  was  at  once  more  delicate  and  more 
femininely  sensitive.  After  seeing  the  pictures 
done  by  Matisse  in  Algiers,  and  such  paintings 
as  La  Glace  sans  Tain,  and  after  looking  at  the 
vistas  through  the  open  doors  and  windows  in 
some  of  his  large  interiors,  one  realises  at  once 
the  great  influence  these  exquisitely  delicate 
painters  of  ancient  Persia  had  on  him.  The 
decorative  illustrations  of  the  Mille  et  Une  Nuits, 
published  in  Paris  by  Fasquelle,  are  so  similar 
to  some  of  his  pictures  that  one  is  inclined  to 
believe  he  studied  this  book  before  painting  them. 
His  superiority  lies  in  his  finer  comprehension  of 
the  human  form  and  in  the  great  diversity  he 
exhibited  in  the  repetition  of  its  component  parts. 
Persia,  like  other  nations,  had  an  academy,  and 
while  its  yield  was  more  charming  and  less  given 
to  complex  reproductions,  it  had  no  more  aesthetic 
importance  than  have  the  art  schools  of  our  own 
day.  But  unlike  ours  it  had  not  forgotten  the  neces- 
sity of  formal  distribution  in  the  making  of  artistic 
arrangements.  This  distribution  in  its  flat  sense 
Matisse  appropriated  to  his  own  ends,  and  by 
applying  to  it  freer  modern  means,  made  his  art 
more  aesthetically  significant  than  that  of  the 
Persians. 

His  modern  means  were  the  outgrowth  of  his 
understanding  of  colour  in  its  capacity  to  incite 


232  MODERN  PAINTING 

emotion.  His  first  essays  in  this  field  were 
greyish.  Later,  through  divisionistic  methods, 
they  grew  brighter;  and  finally  his  colour  became 
pure  and  was  applied  in  large  planes.  His  works 
of  this  period  shine  as  a  source  of  light,  and  with 
his  development  of  exaggerated  forms  his  colour 
interpretations  also  become  exaggerated.  Where 
he  saw  a  green  in  a  shadow  he  painted  it  a  pure 
green;  where  he  saw. a  yellow  in  light  he  made  it 
a  pure  yellow;  and  so  on  with  the  other  colours. 
But  in  these  interpretations  there  is  more  than  a 
mere  desire  to  record  hastily  an  optical  vision. 
Each  colour  is  pondered  at  length  in  its  relation 
to  the  others.  It  is  changed  a  score  of  times, 
modified  and  adjusted;  and  when  it  is  finally 
posed  it  is  artistically  "right."  In  other  words, 
it  fills  harmoniously  an  important  part  in  a 
picture  where  understanding  and  taste  are  the 
creators.  In  the  work  of  Matisse  sensibilite  plays 
the  all-important  role,  and  while  his  results  are 
satisfying  as  far  as  they  go,  there  are  times  when 
we  could  wish  for  a  greater  rhythmic  sense,  a 
more  conscious  knowledge  of  the  profundities  of 
composition,  and  a  less  dominating  desire  to  free 
each  form  and  line  from  classic  dictates. 

With  his  colour  we  can  find  no  such  fault. 
Though  here  his  knowledge,  like  that  of  all  other 
artists  before  him,  is  limited,  the  perfect  harmony 
between  tints,  which  in  him  reaches  a  more 
advanced  stage  than  in  any  preceding  artist,  is 
the  result  of  a  highly  sensitive  eye  and  an  impec- 
cable taste.  The  beauty  of  his  colour  alone 
makes  him  of  paramount  importance.  Every  one 
of  his  canvases  is  a  complete  colour  gamut  created 
by  taste  and  authenticated  by  science  not  only  as 


HENRI-MATISSE  233 

to  pure  colour  but  also  as  to  greys  and  tone.  In 
his  still-lives  he  chooses  objects  alone  for  their 
colour  and  form,  and  his  sense  of  proportion  is  so 
developed  and  his  reduction  of  line  is  carried  to 
so  final  an  economy  that,  as  flat  as  these  objects 
are,  they  seem  to  have  a  rich  consistency  and  to 
extend  themselves  into  visual  depth.  As  in  the 
case  of  all  men  who  deviate  from  the  narrow  and 
well-worn  path  of  monotonous  tonality,  Matisse 
is  accused  of  dealing  in  raucous  and  blatant 
colours  which  set  the  head  aching  and  the  eyes 
smarting.  But  the  accusation  is  true  only  of  his 
followers  who  display  little  sensitivity  and  even 
less  artistry,  and  who,  in  imitating  the  superficial 
aspects  of  his  work,  see  only  grotesque  distortions 
and  pure  colour.  Matisse  once  had  a  school 
where  he  endeavoured  to  develop  the  native  talents 
of  the  Americans,  Poles,  Russians  and  Germans; 
but  when  a  Bohemian  woman,  in  reply  to  his 
question  as  to  what  she  wished  to  do,  answered, 
"Je  veux  faire  le  'neuf',"  he  abandoned  the  enter- 
prise and  retired  to  Clamart.  She  unwittingly 
summed  up  the  desire  of  those  meagre  painters 
who,  on  seeing  something  novel,  immediately 
throw  themselves  into  imitating  it.  Matisse's 
followers  approach  his  colour  gamut,  but  they 
never  bridge  that  lacuna  which  separates  a  pre- 
cise art  from  one  which  is  a  pen  pres.  It  is  the 
last  delicate  refinement  of  perfect  harmony  which 
Matisse  possesses  and  which  his  imitators  can 
not  attain  to,  which  places  him  in  the  rank  of 
greatness. 

Matisse  is  called  the  Chef  des  Fauves,  and  his 
art  has  been  catalogued  and  labeled,  turned  into 
a  "school"  and  has  come  to  be  known  in  many 


234  MODERN  PAINTING 

quarters  as  Post-Impressionism,  although  that 
title,  as  well  as  the  one  of  Fauvism,  was  originally 
intended  to  designate  all  the  art  movements  after 
Impressionism  and  Neo-Impressionism  and  in- 
cluded such  widely  dissimilar  men  as  Cezanne, 
Van  Gogh,  Picasso,  Kandinsky,  Matisse  and 
Friesz.  It  stood  for  the  new  vitality  in  art,  for 
the  contemporary  animating  spirit,  and  implied 
an  epoch  rather  than  a  movement.  It  was  not 
sufficiently  specific,  however;  and  while  modern 
art  in  the  main  is  a  homogeneous  development 
of  new  means,  its  forces  are  too  diverse  and  its 
evolution  too  complex  to  permit  of  its  being 
described  by  a  blanket  term.  It  was  therefore 
natural  that  in  an  endeavour  to  understand  the 
underlying  forces  of  modern  painting  a  process  of 
critical  differentiation  should  have  been  insti- 
tuted. But  labels  are  offensive  and  impertinent 
when  attached  to  serious  aesthetic  endeavours, 
and  are  apt  to  lead  to  misunderstanding  and 
errors  of  judgment.  The  canvases  themselves 
must  be  the  final  test  of  a  movement's  enduring 
vitality.  Matisse  is  himself  the  whole  impetus 
of  the  movement  he  represents.  With  the  one 
exception  of  Cezanne,  he  is  more  remote  from  his 
followers  than  any  other  modern  leader.  He 
repeats  himself  so  little  that  his  disciples  cannot 
make  a  fetich  of  his  canons.  Indeed,  he  does  not 
work  by  rote  or  law,  except  in  so  far  as  there  is 
a  law  governing  his  personal  impressions  and 
prediled:  ons. 

Although  Matisse's  greatest  impetus  to  modern 
art,  after  his  carrying  form  nearer  to  an  abstract 
conception,  is  the  harmonising  of  colour,  his 
finest  canvases  are  those  in  which  the  form  pre- 


HENRI-MAriSSE  235 

dominates,  as  for  instance  the  Jeu  de  Dalles, 
La  Musique  —  esquisse,  La  Musique  (panneau 
decoratif)  and  Baigneuses.  In  these  pictures, 
however,  there  is  an  entire  absence  of  rhythm  in 
the  Renoir  sense,  but  they  possess  a  perfect 
disposition  of  forms  to  fill  a  given  space,  a  har- 
mony of  subject  with  its  frame,  a  dazzling  succes- 
sion of  uncommon  and  beautifully  proportioned 
spaces  and  an  amazing  feeling  for  two-dimensioned 
form.  Where  with  Matisse  the  distinct  parti  pris 
of  reverting  to  a  primitive  inspiration  was  excus- 
able, such  an  attitude  was  worse  than  folly 
for  those  who  came  after  him.  With  him  it  was 
a  manifestation  of  the  disgust  of  an  impatient 
and  experimental  mind  for  stereotyped  expression: 
with  his  followers  it  was  only  an  imitation  of  his 
motives,  and  hence  it  was  decadent.  If  Matisse 
partially  understood  Giotto  and  Michelangelo, 
the  understanding  contributed  little  to  his  art. 
His  greatest  claim  to  consideration  is  that  he 
gave  painting  its  final  impulse  toward  abstraction. 
But  his  canvases,  while  being  aesthetically  just, 
are  not  aesthetically  satisfying,  because  in  compo- 
sition he  never  penetrated  further  than  the 
surface.  And  even  on  the  surface  he  did  not 
attain  to  a  greater  fluency  than  that  permitted  by 
parallelisms  and  simple  oppositions,  although 
there  has  never  been  an  artist  who  more  perfectly 
adapted  his  expression  to  the  shape  and  size  of 
his  canvas. 

That  all  great  artists  worked  like  him  from  the 
standpoint  of  creating  recognisable  form  by  ab- 
stract thought,  does  not  detract  from  his  fine 
destiny.  Where  other  artists  failed  to  drag  art 
from  the  quicksands  of  literary  instantaneity, 


236  MODERN  PAINTING 

Matisse  succeeded.  His  evolution  was  direct 
and  logical,  as  a  close  study  of  his  work  will  show; 
and  those  who  see  in  him  an  arriviste  may  with 
equal  justice  bring  the  same  charge  against 
Michelangelo.  His  aesthetic  sources  and  admira- 
tions, of  which  so  much  has  been  written,  are 
important  in  understanding  the  genealogical  foun- 
dations of  art,  but  they  are  of  little  moment  in 
the  actual  enjoyment  of  his  pictures.  Looking 
impartially  at  his  classic  influences  on  the  one 
hand  and  his  Persian  and  negro  influences  on  the 
other,  it  is  difficult  to  see  just  where  the  benefits 
of  the  latter  lie.  Matisse  merely  shifted  his 
inspiration  from  the  greatest  masters  of  form  to 
the  slighter  masters  —  from  a  well-known  and 
great  antiquity  to  a  little-known  and  less  sig- 
nificant one.  However,  if  negro  sculpture  can 
help  produce  a  man  like  Picasso,  and  the  Persian 
stuffs  and  enamels  one  like  Matisse,  they  serve 
after  all  a  high  purpose. 


XI 
PICASSO  AND  CUBISM 

CUBISM  first  and  foremost  is  an  attempt 
to  make  art  more  arbitrary  in  its  se- 
lection of  compositional  forms.  In  all 
ancient  painting  only  the  human  figure 
was  used  as  a  basis  for  organisation.  Later 
landscape  widened  the  scope  of  the  painter's 
material  possibilities;  but  even  the  introduction 
of  this  new  element  merely  extended  the  boundary 
of  subject-matter.  The  essence  of  art  remained 
the  same.  Landscape  permitted  new  forms  to  be 
interwoven  with  the  old  ones,  without  making 
the  old  more  plastic.  The  elasticising  process  was 
what  the  painter  had  always  desiderated,  but  his 
literalness  was  such  that  he  never  went  beyond 
primary  distortions  of  the  human  body  —  distor- 
tions so  small  that  they  were  almost  unnoticeable. 
With  the  Greeks  and  Chinese  these  deformations 
were  practised  in  order  to  beautify  the  body's 
relative  proportions;  with  the  East  Indians  and 
Michelangelo,  to  accentuate  the  emotion  of  force- 
ful movement;  with  Renoir,  to  express  form  fully 
in  its  relation  to  the  generating  line  of  each 
picture;  and  with  Matisse  the  distortions  were  the 
the  result,  first,  of  a  reaction  against  a  hackneyed 
classic  system,  and  later,  of  a  desire  to  divorce 
aesthetic  pleasure  from  mental  association,  in 
other  words,  to  make  form  abstract  rather  than 


238  MODERN  PAINTING 

personal.  In  him  there  is  no  rhythmic  composi- 
tion, and  while,  as  in  the  case  of  Renoir,  his 
pictures  are  great  as  ensembles,  each  part  of  them 
is  a  separate  item  which  does  not  depend,  for 
appreciation,  on  its  rapport  to  the  whole.  His  is 
an  art  of  colour,  of  sensitive  and  inspiring  form 
in  two  dimensions  —  a  decorative  art  of  a  high 
order.  As  such  it  is  at  once  a  derivation  of 
Impressionism  and  a  development  of  Impression- 
istic colour  through  the  channels  of  taste. 

Cubism  is  a  far  more  arbitrary  art  than 
Matisse's.  In  its  extreme  expression  it  depends, 
not  so  much  on  the  artist's  adroitness  at  inter- 
preting nature,  as  on  his  ability  to  express  pure 
aesthetic  emotion  in  its  relation  to  form  —  form 
being  used  here  in  its  extended  sense  to  connote 
the  solidity  of  the  entire  picture  and  the  block 
relation  of  each  part  to  the  other  parts.  Compo- 
sition prior  to  the  Cubists  had  been  the  rhythmic 
organisation  of  a  picture's  integral  parts  by  line, 
volume,  chiaroscuro  and  colour.  A  totally  unre- 
lated set  of  objective  figures  or  forms  was  drawn 
together  into  an  ensemble  by  these  abstract 
aesthetic  means.  Cubism  retained  the  older 
methods  of  form  and  conception,  and  added  to 
them  the  illustrative  device  of  disorganising  and 
rearranging  objectivity  so  that  the  separated  parts 
would  intersect,  overlap  and  partly  obscure  the 
image.  Thus  was  presented  a  picture  replete 
with  all  aspects  of  the  model,  that  is,  a  picture 
in  which  the  expression  presented  not  only  the 
vision  of  reality  as  it  discloses  itself  to  our  eyes, 
but  the  vision  which  delivers  itself  to  our  intelli- 
gences, with  its  actions  and  reactions,  its  many 
and  changing  miens,  its  linear  and  voluminous 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  239 

struggles,  its  solidity  and  its  transparency.  In 
Cubism  the  details  of  this  ubiquitous  and  omni- 
farious vision  are  subjugated  to  arbitrary  order 
and  expressed  in  tones  of  warm  and  cold. 

At  the  outset  Cubism  was  a  Dionysian  reaction 
against  the  flowing  and  soft  decoration  of  the 
schools  of  Bouguereau  and  the  Impressionists. 
The  precise  and  masculine  minds  of  a  new  cycle 
could  not  rest  satisfied  with  the  single  melody 
of  their  immediate  predecessors.  Courbet,  the 
Cubists'  prototype  on  the  side  of  painting  which 
dealt  entirely  with  objectivity,  readied  against 
corresponding  feminine  tendencies  in  the  schools 
of  David  and  Ingres;  and  the  decisive  blow  he 
struck  in  1850  with  his  L'Enterrement  a  Ornans 
had  a  psychological  parallel  in  the  Cubists' 
exhibit  in  1911.  While  Manet  seemed  to  continue 
Courbet  he  in  reality  retrogressed  to  a  classic 
prettiness.  His  achievements  may  be  compared 
to  those  of  the  Orphists  who,  while  seeming  to 
carry  on  the  principles  of  Cubism,  nullified  the 
effect  of  that  school  by  the  misapplication  of 
colour.  Cubism  itself  ignored  colour  and  curved 
lines.  It  was  a  further  step  toward  a  more 
intellectual  type  of  painting.  The  modern  artist's 
mind,  in  becoming  more  self-conscious,  was 
consequently  growing  more  precise  in  its  expres- 
sion. And  since  the  Cubists  were  the  primitives 
of  a  new  era,  it  was  natural  that  this  precision 
should  express  itself  in  straight  lines  and  angular 
forms.  The  inconsistency  of  these  artists  lay  in 
the  fact  that,  while  their  first  desire  was  to  make 
their  art  arbitrary,  they  were  so  preoccupied  with 
the  dynamism  of  objectivity  that  the  main  object 
of  their  work  was  deputised.  In  the  canvases  of 


240  MODERN  PAINTING 

Picasso's  followers  naturalism  is  the  first  consider- 
ation. As  a  result  the  organisation  of  emotion- 
impelling  form  is  obscured.  It  was  from  Cezanne 
that  the  Cubists  garnered  the  greater  part  of  their 
theories,  and  even  the  appearance  of  their  work 
is  not  unlike  his.  Cezanne  realised  that  a  mere 
imitation  of  reality,  no  matter  how  interesting, 
could  never  set  in  motion  the  wheels  of  aesthetic 
ecstasy;  and  so  he  translated  nature  into  a  sub- 
jective impression  of  reality  by  expressing  it  in  a 
complete  order  which  was  itself  dynamic.  The 
Cubists,  profiting  by  his  discoveries  of  linear  and 
tonal  modification,  essayed  to  found  a  school  on 
certain  of  his  better-known  and  more  easily 
grasped  practices.  The  spirit  of  precision,  the 
need  for  a  renovation,  and  the  example  of  Picasso 
who  at  one  period  copied  the  angularities  of  negro 
sculpture  —  all  gave  momentum  to  the  movement. 
Later  were  introduced  the  philosophical  reasonings 
and  scientific  explanations  of  which  there  has 
recently  been  so  much  discussion. 

The  total  absence  of  colour  in  the  Cubists  is 
ascribable  to  the  same  revolt  against  prettiness 
and  ambiguity  that  made  them  alter  their  line 
and  form.  They  felt  the  subjective  solidity  of 
Cezanne  without  understanding  that  it  was 
brought  about  by  the  use  of  colour  whose  emo- 
tional possibilities  he  had  profoundly  penetrated. 
In  fact  his  art  was  composed  entirely  of  minute 
chromatic  planes  which,  by  their  complete  adapt- 
ability to  a  given  position  in  space,  produced  the 
intensest  form.  The  Cubists'  planes  are  based, 
not  on  colour,  but  on  objective  form  itself,  and 
are  expressed  by  tone.  In  this  respect  Cubism 
is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  conception  of 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  241 

Cezanne.  With  him  form  was  a  result  of  the 
plastic  employment  of  colour.  With  the  Cubists 
even  tone  is  subjugated  to  formal  planes.  In 
them  we  do  not  experience  the  subjectivity  of 
emotion  which  can  be  produced  alone  by  colour. 
Their  pictures  represent  a  recognisable  solidity 
which,  by  an  image,  expresses  subjective  processes. 
Cezanne's  simultaneous  vision  of  reality  had  to  do 
purely  with  the  most  mobile  element  of  art;  the 
Cubists  attempted  to  express  psychological  phe- 
nomena by  the  limited  methods  of  the  early  primi- 
tives. Their  inability  to  sound  (not  in  theory  but 
actually)  the  possibilities  of  colour  in  the  creation 
of  aesthetic  form,  has  caused  them  to  diverge  from 
the  direct  path  in  the  development  of  means,  and 
has  restricted  permanently  their  initial  desire  for 
concentrated  composition.  The  Impressionists  ex- 
perimented in  a  highly  dynamic  element;  but 
the  Cubists  have  only  dabbled  in  mental  processes 
which,  even  should  they  become  perfected,  could 
give  us  only  the  sequential  vision  of  a  human 
action.  The  Cubist  doctrine  embraces  no  more 
than  a  side  issue  in  an  art  which  primarily  has  to 
do  with  the  organisation  of  form.  In  the  effort 
of  the  Cubists  to  create  a  pure  art  they  merely 
disguise  objectivity  by  abstract  thought.  This  is 
by  no  means  the  same  as  creating  abstract  form 
—  that  is,  form  which  is  not  reminiscent  of  a 
particular  natural  object;  and  by  failing  in  this 
they  let  pass  the  great  opportunity  of  taking  the 
final  step  from  Matisse  to  purity.  They  took 
only  a  half  step,  for  in  their  exultation  they  forgot 
the  preceding  advances  in  composition. 

In  such  forgetfulness  there  was  nothing  unusual. 
Every  new  movement  in  the  progress  of  art  has 


242  MODERN  PAINTING 

about  it  a  certain  isolation  of  ambition.  The  first 
innovators  push  out  the  boundary  on  one  side; 
their  followers,  on  another;  and  the  final  expo- 
nents of  a  method,  having  fully  assimilated  what 
has  preceded  them,  combine  the  endeavours  and 
accomplishments  of  their  forerunners  and  go 
forward  to  new  achievements.  Cezanne  had  rec- 
ognised that  he  could  never  round  out  his  own 
cycle.  No  stricture  can  attach  to  his  incomplete- 
ness: his  life  was  too  short  for  realisation.  That 
the  Cubists  did  not  altogether  achieve  their  desire 
does  not  detract  from  the  importance  of  their 
departure  from  established  precedent.  Their  re- 
action was  a  salutary  event  in  the  evolution  of 
modern  painting.  The  field  of  art  was  being 
overrun  by  the  decadents  of  Impressionism  and 
Cezanne,  by  the  imitators  of  Toulouse-Lautrec 
and  Degas,  by  those  academicians  who  follow 
in  the  wake  of  every  movement  long  after  its 
methods  have  been  accepted  as  vital.  These 
scholastic  men  were  incorporating  spots  and  bright 
colours  into  their  school-room  drawings  when 
Cubism  came  forward.  By  its  unequivocal  ex- 
pression of  opinions  and  by  its  neat  delimitations 
of  planes  it  has  revealed  the  futility  and  petti- 
ness of  academic  alterations.  Besides  their  purely 
psychological  innovations  the  Cubists  have 
achieved  all  the  ambitions  of  the  academies  in  a 
way  so  net,  so  sure,  so  precise,  that  they  have 
reduced  the  school,  if  not  to  silence,  at  least  to 
ineffecfhialness.  No  longer  can  the  admirers  of 
scholastic  art  stand  before  a  canvas  exclaiming 
on  the  feeling,  the  atmosphere  or  the  spirituality 
of  the  work.  One  must  now  use  concrete  terms 
and  speak  of  those  qualities  which  have  to  do 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  243 

with  profound  order;  for  although  the  theories  of 
Cubism  state  one  thing,  the  application  of  them 
has  taken  another  and  definite  aesthetic  form.  In 
the  Cubists'  work  lies  their  greatest  importance. 
We  may  without  loss  lay  aside  their  explanations, 
their  manifestos  and  the  reports  of  their  lectures. 

The  idea  of  synthesis  in  painting  had  been  so 
thoroughly  assimilated  through  familiarity  with 
successive  movements  that,  with  the  advent  of 
Cubism,  it  was  an  accepted  and  unquestioned  law 
of  painting.  Synthesis  had  in  fact  become  an 
almost  unconscious  knowledge.  Ingres,  Daumier, 
Manet,  Seurat  and  Matisse  had,  in  quick  succes- 
sion, proclaimed  its  value  in  eliminating  the 
unimportant  and  unessential  from  models.  With 
Cubism,  as  with  Matisse  and  Gauguin,  synthesis 
was  the  supreme  ambition  —  synthesis  which  had 
for  its  goal  the  artistic  consistency  of  all  the 
picture's  qualities.  Subject-matter,  colour  and 
the  method  of  expression  were  all  harmonised  in 
Gauguin:  with  him  the  synthesis  was  illustrative. 
In  Matisse  it  manifested  itself  in  the  reduction  of 
form  and  colour  to  their  simplest  and  most  per- 
sonal expression,  and  was  therefore  a  step  toward 
a  pure  art.  With  Picasso  synthesis  went  still 
further.  It  became  almost  basic.  We  know  that 
the  curved  line  stands  for  life,  colour  and  move- 
ment; that  the  straight  line  represents  the  dead, 
the  sombre  and  the  static.  A  solid  dark  is  con- 
ducive to  peace,  while  quickly  succeeding  light 
and  dark  promote  liveliness.  Bearing  these  funda- 
mental postulates  in  mind  we  can  easily  analyse 
Picasso's  quality  of  synthesis.  The  straight  line 
which  predominates  in  Cubism  repudiates  colour: 
—  the  Cubists  were  not  colourists.  The  curved 


244  MODERN  PAINTING 

line,  when  profoundly  comprehended,  expresses 
movement  and  fluidity;  when  used  haphazardly 
mere  prettiness  results.  There  are  seldom  any 
curves  in  Cubism,  and  then  only  for  relieving  the 
monotony,  for  the  sake  of  ornament.  In  the 
Cubists'  scintillating  succession  of  darks  and 
lights,  like  a  photographic  negative  of  a  Cezanne 
or  an  early  Renoir,  there  is  an  unescapable  femi- 
nine prettiness  in  which  the  twinkling  of  tone 
serves  the  same  purpose  as  pretty  colour.  By 
their  straight  lines,  subfuse  tones  and  rigid  forms, 
on  the  one  hand,  they  achieve  immobility.  By 
their  lights  and  darks,  their  curves  and  their 
dependence  on  nature,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
reveal  their  emotional  kinship  to  the  illustrative 
schools  of  Whistler,  Fragonard  and  Tiepolo. 
Now  when  we  combine  properly  these  two  widely 
separated  aspects  of  art  —  the  one  almost  Egyptian 
and  the  other  almost  English  —  we  obtain  a  com- 
bination of  temperamental  characteristics  capable 
of  the  greatest  achievements,  for  we  have  brought 
about  the  coalition  of  the  purely  masculine  and 
the  purely  feminine.  In  Cubism,  however,  these 
two  aspects  are  mingled  disproportionately.  The 
static  predominates.  The  pretty  is  merely  super- 
imposed because  of  temperamental  dictation: 
instead  of  functioning,  it  only  attracts.  But 
though  in  Cubism  we  do  not  find  the  perfect 
fusion  of  these  creative  sex  impulses,  the  simul- 
taneous presence  of  the  two  elements  produces 
nevertheless  a  fundamental  synthesis. 

In  order  to  bring  about  the  greatest  art,  the 
form  and  order  (which  constitute  the  masculine 
side)  must  be  all-pervading.  Objective  ornament 
and  external  beauty  (which  constitute  the  femi- 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  245 

nine  side)  must  be  only  the  inspiration  to  creation. 
This  is  an  important  principle,  for  all  art,  like  all 
life,  falls  into  either  the  masculine  or  the  feminine 
category.  All  personal  preferences  for  certain 
forms  of  art  are  imputable  to  the  predomina- 
tion of  the  male  or  the  female  in  the  individual. 
Necessarily  all  creation  is  to  a  certain  extent 
masculine  —  in  it  there  has  to  be  order;  and  by 
the  predomination  of  the  male  or  female  is  meant 
simply  the  accentuation  of  one  of  these  qualities 
in  their  relative  combination  in  each  of  the  sexes. 
For  instance,  should  the  feminine  "predominate" 
in  a  man,  the  fact  would  merely  indicate  that  the 
percentage  of  femininity  in  his  bisexuality  had  over- 
balanced the  normal  ratio.  Decoration,  which  is 
an  ornamental  art,  is  feminine,  and  it  will  appeal 
to  men  who  have  a  subnormal  amount  of  the  creator 
in  them.  The  colossally  ordered  art  of  a  Rubens 
will  be  understood  and  enjoyed  only  by  one  highly 
capable  of  creation,  for  in  the  contemplation  and 
comprehension  of  a  profound  work  of  art  the 
spectator  reconstructs  the  artist's  mind  after  his 
own  formula,  and  thus  recreates  the  work  for 
himself.  That  side  of  art  which  is  the  recording 
of  some  emotion  the  artist  has  experienced  so 
intensely  that  it  demands  concrete  expression,  is 
feminine.  It  is  merely  an  overflow  of  receptivity 
into  objectivity.  To  the  contrary,  when  great 
art  is  produced  it  is  not  dependent  on  a  specific 
exterior  impulse.  It  grows  abstractly  out  of  a  col- 
lection of  assimilated  impressions.  When  the  will 
dominates  the  expression,  these  impressions  must 
take  plastic  form.  The  desire  to  create  is  in  itself 
feminine.  The  constructive  ability  is  masculine. 
The  first  desire  always  is  to  decorate  and  beautify, 


246  MODERN  PAINTING 

but  the  masculine  will  dictates  and  rules  the  ex- 
pression. In  feminine  art  the  will  to  co-ordinate 
is  absent.  Consequently  the  expression  is  only 
the  direct  result  of  the  reception.  The  Cubists 
realise  that  the  will  must  play  a  large  part  in  paint- 
ing, but  they  exert  their  will  on  the  analysis  of 
thought  rather  than  on  their  actual  productions. 
The  result  is  that,  while  their  expression  is  highly 
restrained  and  reasoned,  the  will  is  exercised  only 
on  the  emotion  of  the  received  impression,  and  is 
not  manifested  on  their  canvases'  surface.  In  all 
their  work  they  are  decorators  first  and  significant 
artists  afterward.  They  belong  distinctly  to  the 
lighter  side  of  artistic  tradition.  They  are  the 
lyric  poets  of  the  plastic. 

This  is  markedly  true  of  Picasso  who  instigated 
the  movement.  When  he  first  came  to  Paris 
he  threw  himself  into  a  style  of  painting  which 
recalled  Steinlen  at  his  best.  From  Steinlen  he 
went  to  Toulouse-Lautrec  and  Impressionistic 
colour.  Next  he  did  carefully  drawn  portraits 
which  proclaimed  him  a  greater  Gauguin.  Later 
he  become  infatuated  with  the  rhythm  and  skele- 
ton-like creations  of  El  Greco.  It  was  at  this 
period  that  he  began  to  do  his  significant  work. 
His  pictures  for  the  most  part  were  painted  in 
blue.  They  were  sensitive  to  a  high  degree,  and 
were,  in  the  sculptural  sense,  sometimes  ordered 
into  a  solid  block  form.  Then,  adopting  a  reddish 
colour  gamut,  he  began  to  create  full  figures  of 
nudes,  portraits  and  animal  studies.  At  this 
time  he  commenced  his  research  in  precise  form. 
He  organised  copies  of  negro  sculpture  of  which 
he  had  heard  much  from  Matisse,  and  it  was  a 
result  of  his  studying  these  rigid  figures  that 


FEMME   A  LA  MANDOLINE 


PICASSO 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  247 

angularities  began  to  creep  into  his  art.  Other 
artists  set  to  work  along  the  same  lines,  and  from 
the  friction  of  ideas  which  followed  the  theory 
of  Cubism  was  evolved.  Picasso's  still-lives  then 
became  more  precise,  more  hard-cut,  more  per- 
sonal, more  completely  ordered.  It  is  from  this 
period  we  receive  some  of  his  greatest  work. 

Shortly  after  came  the  Cubist  theory  of  simul- 
taneity. The  authorship  of  this  theory  is  in 
doubt.  There  has  been  much  controversy  as  to 
whether  it  originated  with  Picasso  or  with  one  of 
his  followers.  But  it  was  straightway  adopted  by 
the  entire  group  and  made  one  of  the  dominating 
principles  of  the  movement.  Simultaneity  to 
these  painters  meant  the  combined  presentation 
of  a  number  of  aspects  of  the  same  object  from 
many  different  angles.  In  the  visualisation  of  an 
object  in  nature  during  the  absence  of  that  object, 
we  conceive  it,  not  only  as  a  silhouette  or  as  a 
form  with  three  dimensions,  but  as  a  congeries 
of  silhouettes  which,  when  imagined  simultane- 
ously, constitute  the  appearance  of  the  object 
from  every  known  angle.  In  short,  our  minds 
envelop  it  and  all  its  attributes  at  the  same  in- 
stant. Such  a  vision  is  the  result  of  collected  and 
concentrated  memory.  In  a  desire  to  disarm 
criticism  the  Cubists  offered  as  a  theory  the 
picturisation  of  this  multilateral  vision;  but  in 
reality  it  was  little  more  than  an  excuse  to  make 
the  utilisation  of  natural  forms  more  arbitrary 
than  in  the  case  of  Matisse,  Cezanne  and  Gauguin 
and  also  to  rid  themselves  entirely  of  the  illus- 
trative obstacle.  Their  ingrained  weakness  lay 
in  that  they  did  not  possess  sufficient  genius  to 
alienate  themselves  entirely  from  document  and 


248  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  create  new  abstract  compositions.  Nor  did 
their  instinct  permit  them  to  throw  document 
aside  when  they  sensed  their  inability  to  replace 
it  with  something  more  vital.  Their  spirit  of 
revolution  worked  on  the  form  which  illustration 
would  take,  rather  than  on  the  discontinuance  of 
illustration.  But  even  in  this  attitude  they 
marked  a  decided  progress,  for  while  in  the  paint- 
ings of  their  predecessors  the  disposition  of  line 
and  form  had  made  a  unity  of  many  separated 
figures,  these  figures,  even  to  a  mind  unusually 
free  from  the  taint  of  anecdote  and  objectivity 
in  art,  presented  themselves  separately  as  integers 
of  a  whole.  The  Cubists,  by  breaking  up  a 
model  into  parts  which  separately  bore  little 
resemblance  to  nature,  proved  that  they  not  only 
recognised  the  demands  of  pure  organisation  but 
that  they  knew  those  demands  could  never  be 
met  so  long  as  there  were  recognisable  objects  in 
a  painting. 

The  presentation  of  a  nude  or  a  landscape  from 
many  different  viewpoints  was  in  itself  no  more 
important  than  the  methods  of  the  Impressionists. 
Indeed  the  pleasure  derived  from  so  constructing 
a  picture  is  similar  to  the  pleasure  derived  from 
copying  light.  It  represents  the  nearest  approach 
of  the  enthusiastic  painter  of  form  to  the  enthusi- 
astic painter  of  light.  They  are  both  interested 
in  recording  a  rather  puzzling  and  interesting 
phenomenon:  the  one  is  after  that  which  creates 
the  impressions  of  form;  the  other,  that  which 
creates  the  impressions  of  colour.  Both,  in  the 
broad  sense,  derive  the  same  enjoyment  in  deci- 
phering the  work  after  it  is  finished.  The  one  re- 
cords only  broad  waves  of  scintillating  colours 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  249 

with  no  demarcation  of  silhouettes;  and  these 
colours  gradually  resolve  themselves  into  a  sunny 
and  ambiguous  landscape.  The  other  makes  a 
number  of  broad  planes  of  brown  and  white  which, 
when  diligently  studied  in  their  parts,  become  the 
angular  representation  of  water,  ships,  sky-lines 
which  run  into  and  through  houses,  trees  which 
obscure  near-by  objects,  and  houses  which  melt 
into  distant  skies.  Both  schools  of  painting  are 
impressionistic;  each  treats  of  exactly  what  the 
other  neglects.  No  artist  as  yet  has  seen  the 
distinct  advantage  of  uniting  the  two  methods. 
Cezanne  might  be  suggested  as  having  approached 
this  alliance,  but  his  means  were  too  profound  for 
him  to  be  led  into  portraying  by  concrete  symbols 
his  impressions  of  a  model. 

In  painting  the  enveloping  mental  vision  of  a 
model,  however,  the  Cubists  actually  failed  in  the 
synchronism  for  which  they  strove.  In  reality 
they  extended  the  effect  of  their  pictures  into 
time  more  than  ever  before.  To  grasp  their 
illustrative  import,  long  and  arduous  search  must 
be  made.  While  their  canvases  present  a  simul- 
taneous vision,  each  picture  as  a  whole  is  incapable 
of  creating  a  unified  impression.  A  Cubist  paint- 
ing is,  let  us  say,  like  the  momentary  blare  of  a 
hundred  musical  instruments  all  of  which  play 
consecutive  bars.  By  approaching  each  performer 
in  order  and  studying  his  particular  notes,  until 
every  musical  detail  is  learned,  we  might  intel- 
lectually construct  from  our  memory  an  impression 
of  a  related  musical  composition.  But  should  the 
blare  be  repeated,  even  after  our  research,  the 
music's  meaning  would  be  no  clearer  than  before. 
On  the  other  hand,  if,  having  first  heard  the  com- 


2so  MODERN  PAINTING 

position  in  its  natural  development,  we  had 
studied  its  parts  and  motifs  and  then  heard  it 
repeated  sequentially,  a  greater  enjoyment  and 
comprehension  would  result.  In  breaking  up 
nature,  either  for  the  sake  of  extending  the 
aesthetic  appreciation  into  time  like  music,  or  for 
simultaneity  of  presentation,  all  the  parts  must 
answer  to  an  organisation;  —  in  the  first  case,  so 
that,  after  the  spectator's  first  fleeting  vision  of 
the  whole,  his  eye  will  be  carried  from  one  part 
to  another  by  the  rhythmic  balance  of  volume, 
linear  opposition  and  harmony  of  colour;  and  in 
the  second  case,  so  that  the  canvas  will  be  an 
interdependent  block-manifestation. 

In  constructing  formal  planes  with  definite  tones 
whose  values  are  mechanical  and  absolute,  the 
Cubists  have  missed  that  possible  subjectivity 
of  movement  which,  in  its  highest  degree,  colour 
alone  can  give.  They  have  constructed  only 
primitively  ordered  bas-reliefs  each  plane  and 
line  of  which  has  a  distinct  direction.  And  this  di- 
rection, no  matter  what  is  added  to  or  subtracted 
from  the  work,  will  remain  the  same.  The  planes 
are  consequently  static  and  absolute.  In  the 
great  art  of  Cezanne  there  is  only  a  relative  abso- 
lutism. By  any  alteration  in  one  of  his  pictures, 
the  entirety  is  shattered:  the  direction  of  each 
plane  and  line  is  changed  to  concur  with  the  needs 
of  a  different  order.  This  is  because  Cezanne's 
work  possesses  the  poise  which  is  demanded  in 
the  highest  art.  And  this  poise  is  what  Cubism, 
with  its  rigid  lines  and  planes,  has  entirely  missed. 
Illustratively  the  Cubists'  conception  was  new, 
compositionally  it  was  old;  and  an  art  cannot 
be  significantly  renovated  save  from  the  bottom 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  251 

upward.  The  foundation  of  all  art  is  composition, 
and  the  only  means  which  can  be  accepted  as 
vital  are  those  which  increase  the  artist's  power 
to  express  that  which  is  more  inherent  in  painting 
than  in  any  of  the  other  arts,  namely:  rhythmic 
form  in  three  dimensions.  That  the  Cubists 
failed  to  develop  such  means  may  be  perceived 
by  comparing  the  compositions  of  Picasso's  "red" 
period,  which  were  but  slightly  cubic  and  which 
contain  a  certain  amount  of  arbitrary  form,  with 
his  late  and  wholly  cubic  black-and-white  draw- 
ings and  paintings  such  as  are  seen  at  Kahn- 
weiler's  back  of  the  Madeleine.  The  latter  are 
almost  wholly  flat.  His  Femme  a  la  Mandoline 
marks  the  transition  from  the  early  period  to  the 
late  one.  In  all  his  pictures  one  finds  a  charming 
rhythm  of  lights  and  darks  and  a  slight  compre- 
hension of  surface  form.  But  he  never  goes  very 
deep.  Even  in  his  sculptured  heads,  while  there 
is  order,  there  is  no  form  in  the  compositional 
sense. 

To  ascribe  Picasso's  Cubism  to  so  childish  an 
impulse  as  a.  desire  to  square  an  academic  draw- 
ing is  both  untrue  and  unjust.  Some  have 
pointed  to  Diirer  as  his  artistic  forbear  merely 
because  Diirer  once  described  a  number  of  curves 
which  he  said  could  be  made  into  a  human  body 
and  drew  a  block-diagram  of  box-like  forms  which 
he  said  was  the  basis  for  the  body's  construction. 
But  no  relationship  exists  between  these  two 
artists.  Cubism's  first  consideration  was  to  cover 
the  surfaces  of  its  canvases  with  form,  thus  doing 
away  with  the  empty  spaces  so  prevalent  in  all 
art  works,  spaces  which  Cezanne  left  blank.  To 
accomplish  this  logically  it  was  necessary  either 


252  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  introduce  superfluous  figures,  or  to  stretch  the 
ones  already  present  into  impossible  distortions. 
Since  the  elimination  of  all  -unessentials  was  the 
keynote  of  the  day,  Picasso  decided  to  make 
multiplex  his  essentials.  Herewith  was  born  the 
Cubist  conception  of  breaking  up  the  model  for 
the  attainment  of  a  more  complete  work  and  one 
in  which  there  would  be  no  dead  planes.  At  first 
an  extensive  linear  direction,  which  started  at 
the  lower  frame,  was  carried  up  into  the  back- 
ground by  the  demarcation  of  a  shadow  or  an 
object,  for  the  purpose  of  holding  tightly  together 
two  or  more  forms.  Later,  in  order  to  facilitate 
this  procedure  of  multiplying  their  models,  the 
Cubists  began  to  walk  round  them.  This  pro- 
cess unchained  them  from  the  slavery  to  a  single 
model  and  from  the  given  contour  of  an  absolute 
subject.  At  the  same  time  it  permitted  them  a 
fantastically  arbitrary  composition,  and  made 
their  expression  more  dependent  on  the  personal- 
ity of  the  artist,  and  less  contingent  on  precon- 
ceived ideas,  than  ever  before. 

Cubism  expressed  a  laudable  tendency  toward 
an  aristocratic  vision  as  opposed  to  the  popular 
vision  of  reality.  Its  pictures  therefore  became 
doubly  complex,  for  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
picturisation  of  our  mental  process,  another  pro- 
cess is  started  which  is  far  more  complicated  than 
the  first.  Herein  we  have  an  explanation  for  the 
fact  that  Cubism  is  incomprehensible  to  the 
untutored  person  who  regards  art  as  an  imitation 
of  nature.  The  very  word  "form"  is  aestheti- 
cally meaningless  to  the  average  spectator.  In 
order  to  experience  its  meaning,  aside  from 
organisation,  one's  attention  has  to  be  given  over 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  253 

to  the  object's  weight,  its  force,  its  circum- 
ferential volume.  A  form  in  a  picture  cannot  be 
considered  merely  as  to  its  employment  and  its 
utilitarian  destiny,  or  from  the  standpoint  of 
one's  experience  with  it.  To  the  great  artist  an 
object  exists  as  a  volume  with  which  to  fill  a 
given  space.  He  completely  forgets  its  raison 
d'etre  in  life,  and  views  it  only  as  a  means  for 
tightening  a  picture's  order.  To  this  extreme  of 
pure  artistic  conception  the  Cubists  never  at- 
tained. And  while  Cezanne  advanced  from  Cour- 
bet's  surface  realism  to  the  realism  of  causes, 
the  Cubists  were  unable  to  progress  along  similar 
lines.  They  simply  translated  abstraction  into 
terms  of  concrete  expression.  The  profound 
reasons  for  dynamism  in  art  were  left  untouched 
by  them.  They  endeavoured  to  portray  objec- 
tively an  abstract  process,  expecting  its  mere 
portrayal  to  be  dynamic. 

The  dynamic,  however,  cannot  be  rendered  by 
imitation.  It  is  as  impossible  of  attainment  by 
this  method  as  in  the  dancing-girl  canvases  of 
Degas.  Behind  the  emotional  power  of  nature 
there  is  a  great  abstract  force;  and  the  effect  of 
dynamism  can  be  got  only  when  this  force  is 
expressed.  Then  the  result  is  a  natural  outgrowth 
of  a  cause.  Otherwise  we  have  only  a  detached 
effect  which  does  not  lead  us  back  into  the 
undercurrents  of  causation.  When  a  Cubist  pic- 
ture is  interesting  it  will  at  most  make  us  puzzle 
over  the  application  of  its  theories;  it  can  never 
move  us  aesthetically  by  the  sheer  power  of  its 
methods.  The  one  dynamic  element  which  the 
Cubists  have  in  common  with  Cezanne  —  namely: 
the  modification  of  lines  and  forms  through 


254  MODERN  PAINTING 

contact  with  other  lines  and  forms  —  they  have 
nullified  by  constructing  with  rigid  tones  the 
planes  which  the  lines  delimit,  thereby  making 
their  planes  frozen  and  immovable.  Because 
ignorant  of  the  functionality  of  colour  the  Cubists 
were  unable  to  present,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
perfect  mobility,  planar  solidity  and  indefinite 
depth.  As  a  result  of  too  much  study  of  Ce- 
zanne's and  El  Greco's  composition  and  too  little 
study  of  Michelangelo  and  Rubens,  they  failed 
to  achieve,  even  with  the  great  arbitrariness  and 
convenience  of  their  means,  a  profound  composi- 
tion which  is  a  rhythmic  order  of  volume,  as 
distinguished  from  a  simple  organisation  of  parts. 
Their  accomplishments  do  not  realise  the  promises 
of  their  programme  because  their  theories  were 
too  inflexible.  Cubism  was  too  tightly  bound 
by  rigid  systems  and  methods  to  produce  plasti- 
cally significant  results. 

The  Cubists'  greatest  apport  to  art  (not  in 
theory  but  in  achievement)  is  their  almost  total 
abolition  of  the  painter's  slavery  to  nature.  It 
was  but  a  step  from  Matisse  to  the  complete 
elimination  of  recognisable  objects,  and  though 
Cubism  did  not  cover  the  entire  distance,  it 
nevertheless  made  an  advance  toward  that  pure 
expression  which  Cezanne  saw  was  inevitable. 
Even  today  the  followers  of  this  school  are 
beginning  to  realise  their  early  mistakes  and  to 
throw  off  their  self-imposed  restrictions.  They 
are  launching  forth  into  colour  and  are  seeking 
expression  in  purely  arbitrary  form.  But  these 
new  developments  have  not  yet  been  productive 
of  a  new  artistic  worth.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful 
if  they  will  lead  to  important  results  so  long  as 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  255 

the  geometrical  phase  of  Cubism  is  adhered  to, 
and  so  long  as  the  Cubists  ignore  the  dynamic 
possibilities  of  colour.  In  its  present  status 
Cubism  can  only  continue  striving  toward  a  style 
that  goes  deeper  than  tonal  prettiness  and  lyric 
immobility.  Already  Picasso  has  passed  out  of 
painting  altogether.  An  artist  with  his  extraordi- 
nary gift  to  do  anything  superficially  well  could 
not  remain  anchored  to  an  idea  after  the  novelty 
of  its  method  had  worn  off.  He  is  not  a  man 
who  is  the  slave  of  thought,  but  rather  an  obsti- 
nate artist  with  a  spark  of  genius  who  has  passed 
through  many  different  stages  with  a  rapidity 
born  of  astounding  dexterity  and  cleverness. 
Many  of  his  early  female  heads  rival  in  sheer 
classic  beauty  the  best  of  the  Renaissance 
painters.  Some  of  his  pen-and-ink  drawings  are 
the  most  sensitive  of  modern  times.  There  are 
caricatures  done  by  him  which  closely  approach 
the  fantasy  of  a  Goya.  Indeed  it  may  be  justly 
said  that  he  is  as  great  an  illustrator  as  Raphael. 
And  in  this  analogy  lie  both  his  glory  and 
his  limitation.  Like  Raphael  he  lacks  that  pro- 
found penetration  of  exteriors  which  would  per- 
mit him  a  comprehension  of  his  greater  influences 
—  of  El  Greco,  for  instance.  But,  with  a  glance, 
he  can  sound  the  depths  of  a  Toulouse-Lautrec, 
a  Steinlen  or  a  piece  of  negro  sculpture. 

Picasso's  inability  to  conceive  two  elements  at 
once  and  to  construe!:  a  complicated  development 
of  composition,  is  exemplified  in  his  earlier  work, 
first,  by  his  adherence  to  certain  single  colours 
at  different  stages  of  his  career,  secondly,  by  the 
extreme  simplicity  of  his  circus  folk,  and  thirdly, 
by  his  figure  compositions  which,  though  they 


256  MODERN  PAINTING 

are  never  tedious  or  dull  and  possess  an  almost 
nervous  sensibilite,  are  limited  to  one  or  two 
human  forms.  Again  Picasso's  limitation  of  com- 
positional conception  is  attested  to  by  his  stub- 
born use  of  brown  and  white  in  his  latest  Cubist 
pictures,  by  his  employment  of  line  alone  in  the 
drawings  of  his  architectural-plan  stage,  and  by 
his  application  of  objects  at  hand  to  the  clay 
blocks  which  mark  his  latest  metamorphosis. 
But  no  matter  what  his  medium  or  style,  he 
remains  essentially  unchanged.  In  all  his  work 
is  felt  the  superficial  lightness  of  one  who  con- 
ceives order  only  as  an  ornament  to  decoration 
and  who  is  interested  in  three-dimensional  form 
merely  as  an  after-thought.  His  sculpture  is  but 
his  painting  in  a  solider  medium.  It  is  broken 
up  into  planes  and  organised  as  to  each  contour 
in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  is  his  work  in 
oils.  The  difference  between  Picasso,  the  sculp- 
tor, and  Matisse,  the  sculptor,  is  the  difference 
between  a  man  who  has  a  slight  genius  for 
rhythm  and  a  block  order,  and  one  who  has  a 
slight  genius  for  characterisation  and  a  perfect 
ensemble.  The  art  of  Picasso,  having  to  do  with 
form  as  decoration,  is  admirably  adapted  to 
sculpture.  The  art  of  Matisse,  being  flat  and 
dealing  with  colour  as  decoration,  is  inexpressible 
in  clay. 

Fernand  Leger,  with  the  exception  of  Picasso, 
is  the  most  genuinely  talented  artist  of  the 
Cubist  movement.  His  work  at  first  was  much 
less  radical  than  that  of  his  confreres  and  gave 
greater  evidence  of  depth  because  it  had  never 
completely  shaken  off  perspective.  His  canvases, 
Les  Toits  and  Maisons  et  Fumees,  represent 


FUMEUR  ET  PAYSAGE 


LEGER 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  257 

little  more  than  a  highly  artistic  angularisation 
of  a  subject  which,  being  angular  in  itself,  lends 
itself  admirably  to  Cubistic  treatment.  Leger's 
method  is  to  place  in  the  foreground  large  planes 
which  serve  as  a  frame  for  the  actual  picture 
which  is  seen  between  them  as  through  a  tunnel. 
By  this  device  he  creates  a  diversity  of  form  and 
with  it  a  recognisable  depth.  His  paint  at  first 
was  light  in  tone,  but  is  now  taking  on  colour. 
Since  his  first  Cubist  exhibits  he  has  made  a 
logical  progress  in  rhythmic  conception,  and  if 
his  past  development  can  be  assumed  as  a 
criterion  of  the  future  it  is  safe  to  prophesy  that 
eventually  he  will  be  the  most  significant  man  of 
the  original  group.  Albert  Gleizes,  Jean  Met- 
zinger,  Marcel  Duchamp,  Georges  Braque  and 
Francis  Picabia  are  all  prominent  figures  in  the 
Cubist  movement.  Gleizes  manifested  his  first 
Cubist  tendencies  by  giving  form  a  solid  angu- 
larity, thereby  making  it  precise.  His  canvases 
are  devoid  of  interest  because  so  slightly  creative. 
His  well-known  L'Homme  au  Balcon  appears  to 
us  today  almost  Futuristic  in  conception.  In 
fact,  it  was  exposed  at  the  Salon  d'Automne  in 
1912  one  year  after  the  Futurist  show;  and 
when  we  compare  it  with  his  early  and  less 
significant  Les  Baigneuses,  with  which  it  was 
hung,  it  gives  the  impression  of  having  been  the 
result  of  a  sudden  and  enthusiastic  inspiration 
from  the  newer  men.  Later  his  work  grew 
broader  and  simpler,  but  in  it  there  is  little  or  no 
composition.  Even  the  order  is  that  of  the 
straight  line.  Metzinger  is  a  better  artist.  In 
him  is  a  greater  order,  although,  as  in  Gleizes,  it 
is  produced  by  the  straight  line.  During  his 


258  MODERN  PAINTING 

artistic  beginnings  he  was  under  the  sway  of 
negro  sculpture  and  painted  in  small  planes  of 
light  and  dark.  Later,  turning  from  the  influence 
of  negro  antiquity,  he  directed  his  talent  on 
nature  and  began  to  interpret  form  into  angu- 
larities. His  La  Femme  au  Cheval,  done  in 
1912,  was  a  distinct  step,  both  as  to  form  and 
composition,  in  advance  of  the  naturalistic  vision; 
and  his  Le  Port  is  one  of  the  finest  examples  of 
the  Cubist  theory  of  synchronous  picturisation 
and  interpenetrating  lines  and  masses.  Duchamp, 
a  slighter  talent  than  either  Leger  or  Gleizes, 
is  the  Whistler  of  the  movement.  In  his  pictures 
are  less  form,  less  composition  and  less  comprehen- 
sion of  volume  than  in  any  other  Cubist  work 
except  that  of  Juan  Gris  whose  lethargic  canvases 
have  not  even  the  interest  of  an  Aime  Morot. 
Braque  has  added  nothing  to  Cubism.  He  fol- 
lowed Picasso  closely,  and  his  whole  creative 
impetus  seems  derived  from  the  latter' s  canvases. 
Picabia,  despite  his  popularity,  is  but  a  second- 
rate  Cubist.  He  was  quick  to  grasp  the  fact 
that  the  Cubists  were  working  away  from  illus- 
tration, and  attempted  to  step  beyond  them. 
Where  they  had  endeavoured  to  bring  about  the 
precise  stylisation  of  form,  he  merely  dealt  in 
ribbon-like  patches  of  colour  which  were  without 
contour,  shape,  proportion  or  volume.  His  can- 
vases wherein  many  of  these  strange  amorphous 
hachures  are  grouped,  have  a  highly  bizarre 
appearance  but  are  only  remotely  intelligible. 
He  used  almost  monochromatic  schemes,  as  did 
his  master  Picasso,  and  continued  this  style  of 
work  until  his  fellow  Cubists,  by  diligent  research 
and  serious  study,  had  approached  the  abstract 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  259 

appearance  of  his  surfaces.  Picabia  then  found 
a  new  impetus  in  the  works  of  the  Futurists  — 
an  impetus  toward  movement  expressed,  not  by 
bodies,  but  by  line.  This  Futurist  influence 
resulted  in  his  making  flat  pictures  of  many 
sharply  defined  silhouettes  tinted  red,  green,  blue 
and  grey.  His  lines  serve  only  to  accentuate 
the  chaos  of  his  ensemble,  for  in  his  work  there 
is  no  definite  conception  of  the  whole. 

Cubism's  possibilities  as  a  dynamic  illustrative 
art  have  never  been  adequately  exhausted,  and, 
since  the  angular  mode  is  rapidly  disappearing  as 
a  result  of  newer  and  more  vital  visions,  they 
probably  never  will.  Picasso  was  its  high  priest 
up  to  two  years  ago,  at  which  time  colour,  coming 
back  on  the  wave  of  a  counter-revolution,  threw 
most  of  the  Cubists  into  its  application.  Robert 
Delaunay  was  responsible  for  this  reaction. 
Early  in  1912  he  came  forward  with  a  very 
large  canvas  entitled  Ville  de  Paris,  whose  surface 
was  broken  up  into  many  angular  planes  after 
the  Cubist  fashion.  But  instead  of  depicting 
forms  and  formal  relations,  the  picture  was 
painted  in  greys  and  high  colours  solely  as  a 
means  of  surface  filling.  Its  contours  recalled 
El  Greco  despite  their  being  disguised  by  triangu- 
lar dislocations.  The  picture  represented  three 
mammoth  Graces  standing  before  a  distant  Paris 
landscape,  and  so  transparent  and  ethereal  was 
it  that  it  seemed  as  though  a  breath  could  have 
dispersed  it  into  mist.  It  possessed  the  delicate 
loveliness  of  a  butterfly,  and  the  eye,  in  running 
over  its  glittering  and  pretty  array  of  colours, 
was  fascinated  as  in  the  contemplation  of  a 
kaleidoscope.  But  the  canvas,  while  provoking  a 


26o  MODERN  PAINTING 

distinct  visual  pleasure,  failed  to  arouse  any 
aesthetic  enjoyment. 

Delaunay's  L'Equipe  de  Cardiff  the  following 
year  was  equally  unemotional.  Fundamentally 
this  picture  was  the  same  as  his  Ville  de  Paris, 
though  treated  differently  as  to  surface.  The 
same  up-shooting  type  of  svelte  beauty  as  for- 
merly bodied  forth  in  his  three  Graces  was  here 
repeated  in  the  bodies  of  the  athletes,  but  there 
was  in  addition  a  very  slight  surface  rhythm; 
and  the  colour,  because  its  application  was 
broader,  had  a  greater  fascination.  In  his  Ville 
de  Paris,  not  daring  to  paint  a  naturally  drawn 
nude  with  the  colours  his  sense  of  prettiness  and 
ornament  dictated,  he  fragmentised  the  surface 
by  luxating  the  lines.  Thus,  while  the  sensitive 
contour  was  retained,  the  picture  appeared  as  if 
viewed  through  a  polygonal  prism.  In  the  second 
canvas  this  artifice  for  the  sake  of  charm  was 
discarded.  The  players  were  dressed  in  solid 
colours  of  bright  pigment;  the  sky  was  blue- 
violet;  the  Eiffel  tower,  eminently  appreciable, 
stood  to  the  right ;  down  the  centre  of  the  canvas 
was  a  large  affiche  in  yellow;  and  overhead  soared 
an  aeroplane.  The  transition  from  a  hackneyed 
theme  to  a  modern  one  was  the  result  of  the 
artist's  desire  to  pass  beyond  the  methods  of  the 
day  to  more  vigorous  ones. 

Before  Delaunay's  decisive  work  was  done  he 
had  been  influenced  by  the  Neo-Impressionists, 
Cezanne,  the  Cubists  and,  in  his  two  mentioned 
early  works,  by  the  Impressionists.  Indeed  these 
pictures  are  the  expression  of  Impressionist 
methods  broadened  and  extended  to  suit  the 
dimensions  of  his  canvases.  His  cityscapes  with 


PICASSO  AND  CUBISM  261 

the  Eiffel  tower  as  the  principal  object  are  in- 
teresting though  not  profound,  and  such  canvases 
as  the  Route  de  Laon  and  Les  Tours  are  so 
dainty  they  seem  breathed  onto  the  canvas. 
He  is  essentially  a  decorator  in  that  he  works 
always  in  two  dimensions.  This  surface  quality 
enters  into  all  art,  but  in  itself  it  is  never  signifi- 
cant. Only  when  it  is  a  result  of  ordered  plastic- 
ity does  it  have  power  to  move  us.  In  Delaunay, 
however,  there  exists  no  fundamental  order.  Con- 
sequently his  power  is  strictly  limited.  His  desire 
is  to  make  decoration  which  will  be  profound,  in- 
stead of  profound  composition  which  will  result  in 
decoration.  By  thus  reversing  the  natural  order, 
effects  are  considered  before  causes;  and  only  by 
the  dynamism  of  causes  can  we  be  made  to  feel 
beauty.  Beauty  such  as  his  is  merely  prettiness: 
it  is  only  the  objective  mask  of  beauty,  and  is 
of  no  more  aesthetic  importance  than  a  view 
of  nature.  The  true  beauty  of  a  work  of  art 
is  subjective;  it  is  the  effect  of  one's  having 
sensed  the  accumulated  and  sequential  aspects 
of  co-ordinated  expression.  Herein  lies  the  dif- 
ference between  aesthetic  emotion  and  the  pleasure 
aroused  by  a  sunset,  a  stage  setting  or  a  dramatic 
story.  When  one  is  able  to  penetrate  finally  into 
art,  neither  dolour  nor  depression  results,  but 
always  a  feeling  of  exultation  and  joy,  for  by 
one's  intellectual  comprehension  one  has  been 
physically  aroused  by  a  dynamic  force,  not 
merely  moved  by  a  scene  or  story  which  sets  in 
motion  the  associative  processes. 

To  the  inadequate  comprehension  of  this  psy- 
chological truth  is  attributable  the  failure  of  the 
Cubists  and  of  Delaunay.  The  latter  strove  to 


262  MODERN  PAINTING 

preserve  the  individuality  of  his  work  under  the 
name  of  Orphism,  and  later  under  the  designation 
of  Simultaneism.  But  his  temperamental  kinship 
to  Picasso  and  the  Cubists  is  too  obvious  to  be 
denied  by  nomenclature.  Even  his  latest  work, 
while  more  abstract  and  more  luminous,  is  at 
most  secessionistic.  His  canvas  hung  in  the 
Salon  des  Independants  in  1914  was  Cubism 
translated  into  light  colours  and  twisted  into 
curves  and  circles.  Delaunay's  wife,  Madame 
Delaunay-Terk,  follows  him  closely  in  inspira- 
tion and  application,  but  her  pictures  are  less 
ordered  than  his.  The  American,  Bruce,  once 
an  imitator  of  Matisse  and  later  of  Cezanne,  has 
joined  the  Simultaneist  ranks;  and  Frost,  another 
American,  is  an  ardent  disciple  of  Delaunay. 
The  orthodox  Cubists  had  passed  colour  by,  but 
its  reappearance  in  the  Orphists-Simultaneists 
was  a  significant  augury.  Though  it  was  not 
understood  by  them  as  an  element  capable  of 
organic  functioning,  its  mere  presence  was  an 
inspiration  and  a  call  to  all  genuine  artists  to 
penetrate  its  meaning  in  relation  to  the  intensifi- 
cation of  form. 


XII 
FUTURISM 

THE  dramatic  enhancement  of  painting 
by  line  so  well  understood  by  the 
ancients,  and  the  literary  intensifica- 
tion of  subject-matter  by  colour  fore- 
shadowed by  the  primitives  and  made  more 
conscious  by  Delacroix,  reached  their  highest 
development  in  the  theories  of  Kandinsky  and 
the  Futurists.  With  Delacroix's  comments  con- 
cerning the  harmonising  of  line  and  colour  with 
subject  and  Seurat's  and  Signac's  subsequent 
addenda  to  these  comments,  began  scientific 
observation  in  painting.  So  long  as  these  theories 
remained  secondary  to  the  great  truths  of  com- 
position they  were  admissible,  because  they  had 
to  do  only  with  the  unimportant  ornamentation 
of  an  aesthetic  organisation.  But  when,  as  in 
Kandinsky  and  the  Futurists,  they  became  the 
all  in  all  of  the  artist's  ambitions,  they  ceased  to 
produce  painting,  and  gave  birth  only  to  bad 
music,  as  in  the  Russian,  and  to  bad  poetry,  as 
in  the  Italians.  But  while  the  Futurists'  work 
had  little  to  commend  it  to  the  discriminating 
spectator,  their  ideas  were  interesting  and  in- 
spiring, and  it  is  from  their  manifestos  that  has 
come  what  little  influence  they  have  exerted. 
Their  pictures  are  neither  pretty  nor  agreeable, 
while  Kandinsky's,  to  the  contrary,  possess  dainty 


264  MODERN  PAINTING 

and  pleasing  traits.  In  both  cases  the  pictures 
are  puzzles  to  be  deciphered  at  length:  they  are 
expressions  of  moods  brought  about  by  half 
veiling  reality  and  by  making  symbolically  con- 
crete an  abstract  force  or  cause. 

In  music  where  the  form  is  an  abstract  result 
of  concrete  causes  and  in  literature  where  the 
form  is  wholly  abstract  and  represented  by 
symbols,  moods  can  be  easily  expressed,  for  they 
are  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  media  of  these 
two  arts.  But  in  painting  and  sculpture,  which 
are  the  visual  arts  wherein  the  form  itself  is 
concrete,  emotion  can  be  provoked  only  by  a 
plastic  poise  of  subjective  weights.  The  balance 
and  opposition  of  such  weights  or  volumes  when 
rhythmically  organised  give  rise  to  complete 
aesthetic  satisfaction  and  engender  a  feeling  of 
finality  which  encompasses  both  line  and  colour. 
The  Futurists,  as  did  Delacroix  and  Seurat, 
count  on  "force-lines"  to  express  an  emotion, 
thereby  branding  themselves  two-dimensional 
artists.  And  their  desire  to  represent  an  emotion 
of  objectivity  on  canvas  places  them  at  once  in 
the  ranks  of  illustrators.  The  highest  art  has 
nothing  to  do  with  objective  reality  whether  as 
a  spectacle  or  as  a  means  to  sensation.  It  is 
true  that  painting,  in  becoming  pure,  will  even- 
tually incorporate  the  associative  emotions,  but 
these  emotions  will  be  the  psychological  results 
of  abstract  form,  not  memorial  experiences  pro- 
duced by  cognitive  objects.  And  the  line,  of 
which  we  have  heard  so  much,  will  then  become 
a  direction  and  equality  of  pure  form;  it  will  no 
longer  be  simply  an  indication  on  a  flat  surface 
by  means  of  a  mark.  The  Futurists  did  not 


FUTURISM  265 

strive  for  purity.  Rather  did  they  emphasise  an 
irrelevant  side  of  painting.  They  declared  them- 
selves the  renovators  of  subject-matter.  Their 
whole  ambition  worked  toward  that  end;  and 
it  is  from  that  standpoint  they  must  be  judged. 

In  arriving  at  their  conclusions  many  necessities 
of  aesthetic  emotion  were  sensed.  Their  most 
important  statement,  and  one  which,  because  of 
the  dearth  of  significant  art  criticism,  had  not 
previously  been  set  down,  is  that  the  person  who 
contemplates  a  picture  should  not  feel  himself  a 
mere  observer  of  the  events  taking  place  in  the 
painted  work,  but  one  of  the  principal  actors  in 
the  canvas.  In  illustration  such  empathy  is 
impossible  unless  the  work  is  wholly  and  ulti- 
mately synthesised  as  to  volume,  colour,  line, 
direction,  size  and  subject.  No  such  work  has 
ever  been  produced  because  all  the  dramatic 
uses  of  these  elements  have  never  been  under- 
stood by  one  man.  That  there  are  hundreds  of 
canvases  which  entrain  us  into  their  ramifications 
is  indisputable,  but  the  aesthetic  emotion  we  feel 
in  them  has  to  do  with  formal  line  alone,  not 
with  the  perfect  concord  of  line,  form  and  subject. 
Marinetti  and  his  group  have  striven  earnestly 
to  accomplish  this  difficult  feat,  but  in  every 
instance  have  failed.  The  explanation  of  their 
theories  has  far  more  to  do  with  the  emotion 
their  pictures  arouse  in  us,  than  has  the  actual 
application  of  these  theories  to  canvas.  They 
state  that  perpendicular,  undulating  and  worn-out 
lines  attached  to  hollow  bodies  express  languor 
and  discouragement;  that  confused,  somersaulting 
lines,  straight  or  curved,  confounded  into  sug- 
gested gestures  of  appeal  or  haste,  express  the 


266  MODERN  PAINTING 

chaotic  agitation  of  sentiments;  that  horizontal, 
jerky  lines  which  brutally  cut  into  semi-obscured 
faces,  and  bits  of  broken,  irregular  landscape  give 
us  the  sensation  of  one  departing  on  a  journey. 
But  while  all  this  may  be  true,  it  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  aesthetic  emotion  which  in  painting 
grows  entirely  out  of  the  dynamic  use  of  the 
elements  inherent  in  that  art. 

The  desire  of  many  modern  painters  and  theo- 
rists to  introduce  into  their  own  art  emotions 
derived  from  the  other  arts  results,  first,  from 
the  modern  ambition  to  intensify  each  of  the 
arts,  and  secondly,  from  certain  observations  in 
aesthetic  fundamentals,  which  have  led  artists 
little  by  little  toward  a  vague  realisation  that  the 
basis  of  all  the  arts  is  identical.  But  in  this 
synthesis  of  the  arts  there  is  nothing  new.  The 
Futurists,  in  attempting  to  fuse  poetry  and  paint- 
ing, are  many  decades  too  late  to  lay  claim  to 
originality.  Numerous  attempts  —  all  of  them 
failures  —  have  been  made  along  similar  lines. 
Wagner's  was  the  most  conspicuous.  Then  there 
were  Sadikichi  Hartmann,  Madame  Mary  Hal- 
lock,  Rene  de  Ghil,  Arthur  Rimbaud  and  recently 
Alexander  Scriabine,  all  of  whom  commingled  the 
different  arts  in  an  attempt  to  produce  intensity. 
Commendable  as  these  efforts  for  a  hybrid  expres- 
sion may  be,  they  are  a  futile  expenditure  of 
energy  until  the  arts  have  been  more  precisely 
understood;  and  it  is  worth  noting  that  those 
who  have  tried  to  coalesce  them  have  been,  in 
nearly  every  instance,  the  ones  who  understand 
none  of  them  profoundly.  The  Futurists  prove 
no  exception.  Their  misapprehension  of  paint- 
ing is  analogous  to  that  of  Degas  who,  in  picturing 


FUTURISM  267 

the  dance,  imagined  that  the  spectator,  by 
contemplating  its  static  representations,  would 
experience  its  rhythm. 

The  emotion  of  movement  which  the  Futurists 
wish  to  call  up  can  never  be  produced  by  dis- 
ordered and  tumbling  lines.  The  effect  is  chaos. 
Movement  grows  out  of  the  placement  and 
displacement  of  volumes.  It  is  a  result  of 
rhythmic  organisation.  We  are  conscious  of 
movement  in  a  human  body  when  a  position  or 
pose  is  shifted,  and  we  are  conscious  of  it  only 
during  the  process  of  shifting.  Should  we  look  at 
a  body  in  one  position,  close  our  eyes  during  its 
change  of  attitude,  and  then  behold  it  completely 
altered,  we  should  not  experience  a  sensation  of 
action  at  all.  But  if  the  static  points  of  move- 
ment present  themselves  to  us  with  sufficient 
rapidity  they  produce  the  effect  of  continuous 
movement,  as  in  the  simulacra  of  the  kinemato- 
graph.  Otherwise  we  record  merely  the  result 
of  the  change  of  position  —  not  the  act  of  chang- 
ing itself.  In  a  Michelangelo  statue  we  see  at 
first  glance  only  a  solid  rigid  mass;  but  the  mo- 
ment we  begin  mentally  to  reconstruct  the  form, 
we  sense  the  opposition  of  volume-direction  and 
the  delicate  poise  of  weights  which  overhang 
hollows  and  which  are  proportionally  exaggerated 
in  order  to  give  a  greater  emotion  of  struggling 
forces.  Then,  our  will  guiding  our  eye,  the 
mind  translates  to  us  physically  the  statue's 
expansion  and  contraction,  the  withheld  com- 
pletion of  absolute  balance,  the  approximation  to 
equilibrium:  and  it  is  only  after  we  have  passed 
through  discords  and  struggles  and  complicated 
developments  —  in  other  words,  after  we  have 


268  MODERN  PAINTING 

striven  for  physical  completion  —  that  the  finality 
comes  as  a  satisfying  consummation,  like  the 
knowledge  of  a  tremendous  task,  long  laboured 
over,  brought  to  perfect  and  final  accomplishment. 
Is  not  the  desire  for  an  emotion,  so  completely 
reflective  of  the  very  undercurrents  of  life's 
forces,  worthier  of  an  artist's  aim  than  the 
desire  for  the  momentary  sensation  that  someone 
is  going  away  or  that  one  is  looking  on  at  a 
dance?  The  emotional  depictions  of  such  episodes 
are  at  best  but  remote  reflexes  of  reality.  Our 
participation  in  a  dance,  for  instance,  is  infinitely 
more  intense  than  the  Futurists'  kinematic  repre- 
sentation of  it.  In  the  actual  experience  one  not 
only  sees  chaos  but  can  touch  the  swirling  forms, 
blink  at  the  lights,  smell  the  perfumes  and  hear 
the  noise  and  music.  In  other  words,  one  is 
moved  to  sensation  or  feeling  by  the  physical 
forces  themselves.  To  the  true  artist  these  physi- 
cal forces  are  only  his  weapons,  never  his  ends. 
And  it  is  only  through  their  intelligent  use  in 
the  production  of  form  that  aesthetic  emotion 
results.  The  superficial  portrayal  of  effects, 
whether  mental  or  physical,  can  never  lead  us 
inward  to  their  causes.  Any  result  is  simply 
the  dead  end  of  a  force,  like  the  sea-weed  a 
submarine  volcano  has  thrown  to  the  surface  of 
the  ocean.  Art,  being  the  causative  force  itself, 
should  bring  about  the  upheaval  whose  final 
manifestation  is  complete  and  satisfying.  In 
great  painting  the  spectator  is  led  through  every 
step  of  kinetic  energy  from  chaos  to  order. 
When  he  emerges  he  has  undergone  a  colossal 
dynamic  experience.  After  all,  energy  is  the 
ultimate  physical  reality. 


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FUTURISM  269 

The  Futurists,  it  is  true,  strove  sedulously  for 
dynamism.  Several  of  the  titles  of  their  later 
canvases  contain  the  word.  But  their  consistent 
misinterpretation  of  Leibniz's  doctrine  led  them 
into  the  most  superficial  statements  of  the  laws  of 
force.  By  confusing  action  with  movement  and 
tempo  with  rhythm,  and  by  constantly  juggling 
causes  and  effects,  they  never  arrived  at  a  basic 
exposition  of  energy.  In  contemplating  their 
pictures  we  experience  only  visual  confusion. 
There  is  no  movement  because  there  is  no  static 
foil,  no  consummation.  There  is  no  dynamism 
because  there  is  no  suggestion  of  the  inherent 
force  which  all  substance  involves.  Let  us 
assume  the  hypothesis  that  it  is  possible  to 
photograph  a  kinematic  force  in  movement. 
The  Futurists'  pictures  wherein  the  representation 
of  dynamism  is  attempted,  as  in  Dynamisme 
d'une  Auto,  there  is  a  series  of  these  hypotheti- 
cal photographs  each  of  which  has  caught  a 
segment  of  immobility,  as  any  snap-shot  catches 
some  static  pose  of  a  moving  object.  By  super- 
imposing each  of  these  images  successively  on 
the  other  the  Futurists  imagine  that  a  state  of 
action  is  created.  But  even  were  this  the  case 
the  picture  would  be  innocent  of  dynamism. 
Again,  Futurism  claims  not  to  paint  maladies 
but  their  symptoms  and  results.  Admittedly 
therefore  it  works  against  its  own  gropings  for 
dynamism,  for  symptoms  and  results  are  the 
outgrowth  of  causes,  and  as  such  can  have  only 
an  objective  interest.  Would  the  Futurists  main- 
tain, for  instance,  that,  by  portraying  a  head 
from  many  viewpoints  on  the  same  canvas,  they 
can  give  us  the  emotion  of  a  head  turning? 


2/o  MODERN  POINTING 

Even  were  it  possible  thus  to  extend  the  con- 
templation of  pictures  into  time,  the  effect  of  a 
series  of  dissimilar  profiles  would  be  no  more 
convincing  than  that  obtained  by  a  slowly 
moving  cinematograph  film.  Should  we  grant 
that  by  such  a  device  the  effect  of  movement 
resulted,  it  would  depend  entirely  upon  which 
end  of  the  movement  the  eye  alighted  first 
whether  the  head  moved  one  way  or  the  other. 
And  if  the  picture  was  a  perfect  organisation  the 
change  of  direction  would  throw  every  part  of 
the  canvas  out  of  gear. 

Considering  Futurism  purely  from  the  stand- 
point of  illustration  we  still  are  unable  to  justify 
its  aims.  In  painting  a  picture  of  a  person 
setting  forth  upon  a  journey  from  a  railway 
station,  the  Futurist  represents  the  departure 
by  means  of  horizontal,  fleeting  and  jerky  lines, 
half-hidden  profiles,  the  station's  interior,  the 
engine,  etc.  Then  by  introducing  into  the  canvas 
bits  of  landscape  and  other  incidentals  which 
depict  the  thoughts  of  the  person  about  to 
depart,  the  artist  endeavours  to  call  up  the  same 
mental  state  in  the  spectator  of  the  canvas. 
The  associative  process  of  the  human  mind, 
however,  makes  such  a  proceeding  unnecessary, 
because  in  beholding  a  simple,  even  an  academi- 
cally pictured,  scene  of  someone  entering  a  train 
amid  the  confusion  and  haste  of  passengers  and 
guards,  the  spectator  involuntarily  calls  up  the 
landscape  running  past,  the  telegraph  poles  jerk- 
ing by,  the  clanging  of  the  bell,  the  shouts  of 
attendants,  the  shuffling  of  many  feet  and  the 
hiss  of  steam.  In  setting  these  things  down  the 
Futurists  succeed  only  in  limiting  a  highly 


FUTURISM  271 

imaginative  person's  thoughts  by  restricted  visions 
of  objectivity,  just  as  in  the  theatre  a  producer, 
by  placing  many  papier  mache  trees  and  rocks 
and  fibre  grass  about  the  stage,  circumscribes 
the  onlooker's  imagination.  The  Greeks,  whose 
theatrical  presentations  were  sufficiently  intense 
to  evoke  an  imaginative  milieu,  did  not  need 
factitious  properties:  but  the  theatrical  Belascos 
must  necessarily  make  their  settings  absolute  and 
meticulously  realistic.  A  Tintoretto  needs  no 
such  tricks  to  strengthen  its  emotive  power;  but 
the  Futurists,  unable  to  move  us  by  dynamic 
canvases,  need  recourse  to  dramatic  tricks.  At 
most  their  pictures  could  be  significant  only  as 
auxiliaries  to  literary  texts. 

The  Futurists'  contention  that  all  modern  art 
should  have  as  a  point  of  departure  an  entirely 
modern  sensation  is  wholly  tenable,  but  they 
mistake  the  fact  that  a  modern  sensation  is  merely 
the  sensation  which  pertains  specially  to  the 
contemporary  man.  It  has  nothing  to  do 
innately  with  the  delineation  of  an  automobile  or 
an  aeroplane.  The  modern  aesthetic  spirit  goes 
deeper.  It  implies  the  expression  of  an: emotion 
by  use  of  the  latest  refinements  and  researches 
in  the  medium  of  an  art.  In  painting  it  is  not 
limited  to  the  illustrative  portrayal  of  a  novelty. 
Were  this  the  case  any  painter  who  confined 
himself  to  the  picfhirisation  of  the  latest  dread- 
naughts  and  the  highest  skyscrapers  would  be 
the  pioneer  of  a  new  expression.  In  order  to 
express  himself  in  a  modern  manner,  an  artist 
needs  only  to  have  divested  himself  of  all  predi- 
lections for  antiquity,  to  have  subdued  all  con- 
scious desire  to  will  himself  into  the  bodies  of 


272  MODERN  PAINTING 

an  ancient  people,  and  to  have  seen  the  error  of 
the  childish  maxim  that  there  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun.  Any  painter  free  from  tradition, 
with  a  comprehension  of  aesthetic  movement  and 
an  ability  to  apply  it,  will  produce  canvases 
which,  though  they  have  no  radical  theory  behind 
them,  will  be  as  distinctly  modern  as  those  of 
the  Futurists.  Modernity  has  to  do  with 
methods  and  mental  attitude.  It  is  in  no  wise 
related  to  subject-matter. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  famous  Futurist 
statement  that  "a  running  horse  has  not  four 
legs,  but  twenty."  Then  contemplate  Balla's 
picture,  Dog  and  Person  in  Movement,  to  which 
this  theory  is  applied.  Neither  the  dog  nor  the 
person  seems  to  move  at  all.  They  are  static 
figures  with  blurred  triangles  resembling  lace 
where  their  legs  should  be.  Such  a  juvenile 
artifice  to  give  the  effect  of  movement  is  certainly 
not  modern  or  even  novel.  Long  prior  to  the 
Futurists,  caricaturists  and  comic  journalistic 
draughtsmen  sought  to  express  action  by  placing 
circular  lines  round  the  wagging  tails  of  dogs 
or  by  drawing  long  sweeping  lines  behind  a 
swiftly  moving  figure  to  indicate  from  what 
direction  it  had  come  and  the  rapidity  of  locomo- 
tion. Such  inventions  are  outside  the  field  of 
aesthetics.  They  have  to  do  only  with  slow 
optical  action.  But  the  modification  of  objects 
in  contact  with  others,  of  which  Cezanne  wrote, 
is  a  profound  postulate  of  organisation.  It 
creates  a  poise  of  volume  which  causes  us  to 
experience  an  emotion  of  movement.  The  Fu- 
turists' contrivance  of  endowing  a  horse  with 
twenty  legs  precludes  any  possibility  of  their 


FUTURISM  273 

calling  up  forcibly  a  running  horse,  for  only  the 
legs  seem  to  move,  as  of  a  horse  in  a  treadmill. 
Save  for  the  pictorial  side  of  a  picture  so  pre- 
sented there  is  nothing  in  it  of  interest  to  us: 
and  our  memory  of  an  actual  horse  clashes  with 
the  vision  of  a  multipedalian  one. 

The  Futurists*  statement,  however,  that  a 
picture's  lines  should  subjectively  drag  the  specta- 
tor into  the  centre  of  the  canvas,  where  he  will 
personally  experience  the  rhythmic  interplay  of 
forms,  is  not  only  pertinent  but  expresses  an 
absolute  aesthetic  necessity.  Pictures  which  do 
not  so  affect  the  beholder  have  failed  as  great 
art.  But  though  the  Futurists  were  the  first  to 
give  succinct  utterance  to  this  shibboleth,  the 
practice  of  constituting  a  work  of  art  so  that  the 
spectator  was  transposed  into  its  stress  and 
strain,  had  been  going  on  ever  since  great  com- 
position came  into  painting.  One  cannot  study 
a  Michelangelo  or  a  Rubens  without  feeling,  even 
to  the  point  of  physical  fatigue,  the  struggle  of 
their  finally  harmonised  volumes.  This  does  not 
hold  true  of  the  Futurists'  work.  In  studying 
their  pictures  our  eyes  alone  become  tired;  and, 
though  we  succeed  in  unravelling  the  involutions 
of  their  pictures,  there  is  for  us  no  recompense  of 
emotional  satisfaction.  Action  in  itself  has  little 
charm  for  us,  and  action  is  what  the  paintings  of 
Futurism,  in  their  ultimate  expression,  are 
founded  on.  But  while  action  may  attract  us 
when  expressed  by  an  interesting  and  sympathetic 
personality,  as  in  the  paintings  of  Henri  and  in 
the  sculpture  of  Rude,  there  is  in  Futurism  no 
actional  sensation  or  explicit  element  of  deep 
enjoyment  that  we  cannot  obtain  in  greater 


274  MODERN  PAINTING 

intensity  by  gazing  upon  a  busy  thoroughfare, 
or  by  watching  the  landscape  from  a  swiftly 
moving  train,  or  by  attending  a  dance.  Even  the 
chaos  of  a  Futurist  painting  does  not  present 
the  interest  of  the  Flight  Turning  a  Corner  from 
Keion's  panoramic  roll  of  the  Hogen  Heiji  war, 
or  the  prints  of  Moronobu,  or  even  The  Heavenly 
Host  by  the  primitive  Guariento.  All  these 
works,  while  they  represent  action,  are  also 
ordered.  And  order,  which  the  Futurists  lack, 
is  more  than  an  arbitrary  ingredient  in  art. 
Just  as  the  eternal  desire  in  life  is  for  something 
positive  and  absolute,  so  the  attempt  at  order 
in  painting  is  an  outgrowth  of  the  desire  to  make 
a  picture  complete  and  satisfying. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Futurists  exerted 
much  good  in  imbuing  the  artists  of  the  day  with 
a  greater  consciosity  and  in  showing  them,  by  an 
elaborate  critical  prospectus,  the  error  of  their 
ways.  Futurism  quieted  the  animadversions  the 
modernist  painters  were  hurling  at  Monet  and  his 
school,  by  pointing  out  that,  to  react  against 
Impressionism  by  adopting  pictorial  laws  which 
antedated  it,  was  futile,  and  that  the  only  way 
to  combat  it  seriously  was  to  surpass  it.  The 
Futurists,  however,  were  unable  to  fulfil  their 
proposition.  They  were,  in  fact,  the  abstract 
perpetuators  of  Impressionism  through  the  Cubists 
who  represented  its  formal  side.  The  man  who 
surpassed  Impressionism  was  Cezanne.  Further- 
more, the  Futurists  chided  the  Cubists  for  paint- 
ing from  models,  whether  in  squares,  cubes  or 
circles;  and  thus  turned  the  light  of  analysis  on 
the  actual  achievements,  and  away  from  the  theo- 
ries, of  Picasso  and  his  followers.  The  conse- 


HIEROGLYPHE   DYNAMIQUE   DU   BAL  TABARIN          SEVERINI 


FUTURISM  275 

quence  was  that  for  a  short  time  the  Cubists 
became  somewhat  Futuristic.  Then,  the  strong 
impetus  slowly  ebbing  out,  the  two  schools  grad- 
ually approached  each  other.  Futurism  has  taken 
on  a  somewhat  Cubistic  mien;  and  the  Cubists, 
having  profited  by  the  Futurists'  teachings  and 
having  partially  divorced  themselves  from  the 
model,  have  begun  to  seek  expression  in  Orphism 
and  Synchromism.  The  work  of  Boccioni  and 
Carra  has  assumed  a  wholly  abstract  appearance, 
and  is  much  more  interesting  than  formerly. 

The  methods  of  Futurism  have  their  pro- 
venience in  many  preceding  art  movements.  One 
finds  in  this  school's  canvases  cubes,  spots,  divi- 
sionistic  technique  and  wholly  academic  drawing; 
some  of  the  pictures  are  monotonously  brown  and 
grey,  while  others  possess  the  acid  colouring  of 
Neo-Impressionism.  But  aside  from  their  work 
the  Futurists  proved  a  salutary  event  in  modern 
art.  The  painting  of  the  day  needed  just  such 
a  cataclysm  to  turn  its  eyes  from  the  contempla- 
tion of  partial  traits  to  a  more  encompassing 
vision.  Their  motto  might  be  the  saying  of 
Mallarme:  "To  name  is  to  destroy,  but  to  sug- 
gest is  to  create."  Their  art  is  largely  one  of 
suggestion.  Their  initial  mistake  was  in  suppos- 
ing that  the  depiction  of  mental  states  would 
recall  the  causes  of  those  states.  Life  would 
indeed  be  monotonous  if  in  it  there  was  no 
struggle.  We  could  never  appreciate  its  consum- 
mations were  we  ignorant  of  the  travail  which 
brought  them  about.  The  Futurists  present,  as 
it  were,  the  conclusion  of  an  oration  in  which 
has  been  developed  a  colossal  thought,  and  ask  us 
to  applaud.  This  we  cannot  do,  for  not  having 


276  MODERN  POINTING 

followed  the  struggle  of  the  new  idea  against 
opposing  forces,  we  are  unable  to  appreciate  the 
import  of  the  results. 

Notwithstanding  their  many  failures  the  Futu- 
rists have  greatly  widened  the  field  of  illustration; 
by  a  word  they  have  given  birth  to  a  school, 
Simultaneism;  and  they  have  forever  turned 
Cubism  from  its  narrow  formalism.  But  in  them- 
selves they  were  not  significant.  They  were  too 
stringently  literary,  and  in  attempting  to  advance 
their  own  theories  at  the  expense  of  profounder 
doctrines,  they  have  succeeded  only  in  assisting 
other  painters  toward  a  greater  purity  of  expres- 
tion,  despite  the  fad:  that  they  advocated  a  retro- 
gressive objectivity.  Marinetti,  a  poet,  is  the 
spiritual  (and  monetary)  father  of  Futurism;  and 
the  names  signed  to  the  original  manifesto  were 
Umberto  Boccioni,  a  sculptor  as  well  as  a  painter; 
Carlo  D.  Carra,  the  most  genuine  artist  of  the 
group ;  Luigi  Russolo,  its  most  orthodox  exponent ; 
Gino  Severini,  its  illustrator  par  excellence;  and 
Giacomo  Balla,  its  high  priest  of  prettiness.  In 
an  attempt  to  preclude  all  censure,  they  closed 
their  manifest  with  these  words:  " There  will  be 
those  who  will  accuse  our  art  of  being  cerebrally 
distorted  and  decadent.  But  we  will  answer 
simply  that  we  are,  to  the  contrary,  the  primitives 
of  a  new  and  centuple  sensitivity,  and  that  our 
art  is  drunk  with  spontaneity  and  power.''  With 
the  slight  change  of  "theory"  for  "art"  we  would 
heartily  agree  with  them. 


XIII 
SYNCHROMISM 

IN  order  to  understand  the  last  step  in  the 
evolution  of  present-day  art  methods,  it  is 
necessary  to  be  thoroughly  cognizant  not 
only  of  what  has  taken  place  before  but  of  the 
chronological  development  of  all  the  qualities  of 
modern  painting,  for  Synchromism  embraces 
every  aesthetic  aspiration  from  Delacroix  and 
Turner  to  Cezanne  and  the  Cubists.  At  the 
same  time  it  reverts  to  the  compositions  of 
Rubens,  complicating  them  further  to  satisfy  the 
needs  of  the  modern  mind.  Delacroix  took  the 
first  decided  step  toward  making  colour  an  organic 
factor  in  art  —  a  factor  which  would  help  present 
a  more  homogeneous  emotion  of  the  picture  as  a 
whole,  and  which  would  be  intimately  connected 
with  the  picture's  vital  expression.  He  was  a 
decided  advance  on  those  painters  to  whom 
colour  was  as  arbitrary  a  means  of  adorning  a 
good  work  as  the  gilt  frame  they  placed  about  it. 
Colour  with  them  was  dictated  by  the  demands  of 
an  age  of  voluptuousness  and  unrestrained  living. 
The  great  art  nations  of  Spain,  Italy  and  Flanders 
were  then  passing  through  a  sensuous  epoch,  and 
the  painters  reflected  in  their  work  the  tone  of  the 
national  temperament.  The  primitives  of  these 
countries  and  of  Germany  had  used  colour  be- 
cause the  religious  qualities  in  their  pictures 


278  MODERN  PAINTING 

became  more  realistic  when  nature's  general  tints 
were  employed.  By  making  their  work  more 
dramatic  they  were  able  to  set  forth  more  forcibly 
the  lesson  they  strove  to  teach.  The  art  of  the 
primitives  was  primarily  dogmatic.  In  it  was 
none  of  those  subtleties  of  composition  which 
come  only  with  the  conscious  artist's  delight  in 
bringing  order  out  of  chaos:  it  contained  only 
that  simple  and  instinctive  order  which  is  the 
avoidance  of  chaos.  That  which  the  primitives 
had  to  say  was  so  rudimentary  and  well-learned 
that  it  took  a  definite  visional  form  in  their 
minds.  When  dogmatism  began  to  lose  its  charm 
for  the  painter  his  forms  gradually  became  more 
suave,  and  his  colour  likewise  grew  gracious  and 
ornamental.  The  lessons  were  forgotten,  and  com- 
position as  an  element  of  first  importance,  dressed 
in  a  robe  of  rich  and  varied  hue,  supplanted  them. 
Such  was  the  employment  of  colour  at  the 
advent  of  Delacroix  whose  probing  mind  sensed 
not  only  its  importance  as  drama,  but  also  its 
potentialities  for  brilliance.  With  him,  however, 
it  remained  an  adjunct  to  drawing  —  something 
to  be  applied  when  the  rest  of  the  picture  had 
been  laid  in,  an  element  with  which  to  intensify 
the  importance  of  subject.  He  gave  a  great  and 
necessary  impetus  to  its  study,  but  he  outlined 
no  directions  for  its  significant  application:  indeed, 
by  following  out  his  original  concepts  one  is  led 
into  the  impasse  of  Neo-Impressionism.  But 
at  so  early  a  stage  the  impetus  is  the  important 
thing,  and  to  Delacroix  belongs  the  credit  for 
having  set  in  motion  the  wheels  of  colour  inquisi- 
tion. It  was  Daumier,  however,  who,  apparently 
ignoring  it,  brought  its  exclusive  use  appreciably 


STNCHROMISM  279 

nearer.  By  conceiving  contour  and  form  as  one, 
he  disposed,  as  it  were,  of  these  two  elements 
which,  in  the  scale  of  pictorial  importance,  had 
always  been  placed  before  colour.  Had  each 
successive  painter  profited  by  all  the  apports  and 
qualities  of  his  direct  predecessor's  art,  the 
progress  of  painting  might  have  been  more  rapid, 
but  it  would  never  have  been  so  perfect.  Each 
painter  would  have  inherited  both  the  short- 
comings and  the  merits  of  his  forerunner.  Thus 
one  side  of  his  art  would  have  developed  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  other.  Daumier,  going 
back  to  tone,  discovered  a  wholly  natural  method 
for  the  achievement  of  intense  form.  His  pictures 
present  themselves  as  great  bulks  of  flesh  and 
matter,  crude  but  vital,  which  have  about  them 
a  force  of  actual  weight.  In  nowise  was  he  a 
colourist.  He  lived  in  a  time  when  prettiness 
was  the  keynote  of  the  day,  and  his  whole  life 
was  a  revolt  against  it.  His  reaction  was  so 
extreme  that  he  disregarded  the  capabilities  of 
colour. 

The  Impressionists,  on  the  other  hand,  over- 
emphasised its  objective  uses.  They  held  that 
the  colour  seen  in  nature  is  all-important  for 
picture  making,  and  proceeded  to  copy  it.  As 
a  result  their  work  is  highly  emotional,  but  only 
in  the  same  way  that  a  sunny  landscape  is  emo- 
tional. These  artists  were  the  slaves  of  nature, 
doing  its  bidding;  Gauguin  bent  everything  into 
the  mould  of  his  own  personality:  and  it  is  only 
when  these  two  types  of  creative  impulse  combine 
and  modify  each  other  that  great  naturalistic  art 
is  possible.  The  Impressionists,  being  receptive, 
believed  all  that  nature  openly  proclaimed.  They 


280  MODERN  PAINTING 

unearthed  none  of  its  formal  secrets;  they  probed 
none  of  its  causes.  Theirs  was  only  the  joy  of 
the  discoverer.  But  their  insistence  upon  the 
discovery  was  important,  because  it  helped  give 
birth  to  Cezanne.  He  was  a  direct  outgrowth  of 
Impressionism,  but  he  was  also  an  outgrowth  of 
art's  entire  history.  Superficially  he  may  seem 
more  closely  akin  to  Pissarro's  school  than  to 
the  older  painters,  since  it  was  from  Pissarro  he 
learned  his  first  colour  lessons;  but  in  reality  he 
was  more  intimately  related  to  a  Giotto  or  a 
Rembrandt,  because  his  knowledge  of  colour  was 
used  only  to  heighten  the  emotion  of  volume;  and 
this  volume,  which  Monet  or  Sisley  would  not 
have  understood,  was  the  chief  concern  of  the  old 
masters. 

With  the  Impressionists  colour  was  an  end  in 
itself.  They  looked  upon  it  not  merely  as  expres- 
sive of  light,  but  as  synonymous  with  light, 
whereas  Cezanne,  ignoring  colour's  dramatic  possi- 
bilities, used  it  to  express  and  intensify  the  funda- 
mentals of  organisation,  just  as  Giotto,  disregard- 
ing the  dramatic  possibilities  of  line,  employed 
line  as  a  means  to  ordinate  volume.  Cezanne  is 
related  to  Daumier  and  Rembrandt  in  that  while 
these  men  created  their  art  (which  was  primarily 
one  of  tone)  by  building  up  volume  simultaneously 
with  contour,  he  created  his  art  (which  was  pri- 
marily one  of  colour)  by  presenting  his  visions  as 
nature  presents  itself  to  our  eyes  and  intelligences, 
that  is,  as  forms  in  which  tone,  contour  and  colour 
are  inseparable.  That  he  has  been  little  under- 
stood is  due  to  the  facl:  that  his  profoundly 
logical  methods  took  birth  in  an  age  of  "inspira- 
tional" painting.  Matisse  who  came  later  made 


STNCHROMISM  281 

of  Cezanne's  still-lives  a  highly  enjoyable  decora- 
tion whose  destiny  can  rise  no  higher  than  that 
of  tasteful  and  complete  ornament.  Cezanne's  art 
is  dynamic,  while  Matisse's  is  exaltedly  excitatory. 
The  former  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  latter 
that  a  Beethoven  symphonic  movement  bears  to 
a  ballet  by  Delibes.  One  inspires  thought:  the 
other  incites  to  action,  to  spontaneous  admiration 
and  joy.  Matisse  loves  and  knows  colour  in  its 
harmonic  relations.  He  and  Gauguin,  by  the 
broad  beauty  of  their  work,  have  given  an  impetus 
toward  large  planes  of  pure  pigment.  In  brief 
the  evolution  of  colour  is  as  follows:  it  was  used 
first  for  verity;  secondly,  for  ornament;  thirdly, 
for  drama;  fourthly,  for  its  inherent  beauty  as 
light;  and  last,  for  intensifying  natural  form. 

All  this  has  to  do  only  with  the  concrete  side 
of  art's  progress.  There  is  also  a  progress  of  the 
mental  attitude  which  is  inseparable  from  art's 
concrete  development  and  without  which  its 
material  evolution  could  not  have  gone  forward 
significantly.  This  mental  progress  resulted  in 
the  emancipation  of  the  artist  from  the  intellectual 
limitations  of  his  public.  Up  to  Gericault  and 
Delacroix  painting  had  idealised  contemporary 
life,  had  held  itself  to  the  interpretation  of  biblical 
history,  or  had  spoken  in  legend  and  allegory.  It 
had  expressed  itself  in  the  Italian  mode  of  draw- 
ing; it  had  followed  set  rules  of  balance  and 
chiaroscuro;  and  above  all  it  had  possessed  a  very 
definite  finish.  Naturally  the  art  historians  ex- 
pected this  style  of  painting  to  continue  indefi- 
nitely. But  with  Delacroix  it  began  to  change. 
The  hard  contours  grew  freer.  The  depiction 
of  the  human  form  halted  at  approximation. 


282  MODERN  POINTING 

Drawing  became  more  arbitrary.  Then  came 
Courbet  who  insisted  that  there  was  beauty  in 
everything  if  one  knew  how  to  bring  it  forth. 
He  turned  to  the  commonplace  life  about  him  for 
inspiration,  repudiated  the  suavities  of  David,  the 
romance  of  Delacroix,  the  elegance  of  Velazquez 
and  the  colour  of  Veronese;  and  began  to  order 
realistic  nature.  About  his  name  there  grew  up 
a  tempest  of  adverse  criticism;  but  no  man  so 
sure  of  his  own  genius  as  was  Courbet  could  be 
weakened  by  public  condemnation;  and  he  made 
no  compromise.  Manet  continued  Courbet's  free- 
dom of  selection  and  painted  nimporte  quoi. 
The  Impressionists  also  carried  forward  this 
modern  attitude.  They  sought  for  that  which 
generally  was  considered  ugly,  and  made  it  artis- 
tically enjoyable  by  drenching  it  with  light  and 
colour.  Then  came  Cezanne,  Matisse,  the  Cubists 
and  the  Futurists,  with  each  of  whom  subject- 
matter  became  more  and  more  emancipated. 
Natural  objects  gradually  lost  their  importance 
and  grew  more  abstract.  Form  was  considered 
for  its  own  sake,  and  models  were  not  copied 
merely  because  they  filled  certain  utilitarian 
destinies  in  the  spectator's  mind.  Objects  were 
used  by  Cezanne  to  create  abstract  ensembles. 
In  Matisse  the  form  itself  became  more  purely 
aesthetic,  though  with  him  there  was  a  residue  of 
objectivity  for  the  sake  of  illustrative  consistency. 
With  the  Cubists  natural  form  was  an  echo,  a 
memory  of  life,  retained  because  they  were  not 
sure  of  how  to  turn  their  minds  away  from  it. 
Futurism  attempted  a  rehabilitation  of  illustra- 
tion, but  lately  it  has  been  converted  into  a  purer 
vision  by  the  Cubists. 


STNCHROMISM  283 

To  sum  up:  colour  reached  its  highest  develop- 
ment in  Cezanne;  composition  attained  its  highest 
intensity  in  Rubens;  and  the  greatest  freedom  in 
material  form  was  represented  by  the  Cubists. 
Thus  the  art  of  painting  stood  in  1912.  But  at 
that  time  the  development  of  modern  means  had 
not  reached  its  highest  point.  The  purification  of 
painting  had  not  been  attained.  The  tendencies 
of  the  past  century  fell  short  of  realisation.  As 
yet  there  had  been  no  abstract  coalition  of  colour, 
form  and  composition.  Colour  had  not  been 
carried  to  its  ultimate  purity  as  a  functioning 
element.  Form  had  become  almost  unrecog- 
nisable but  had  just  missed  abstraction,  its  inevi- 
table goal.  And  composition,  the  basis  of  all 
great  art,  had  been  temporarily  abjured  in  the 
feverish  search  for  new  methods.  The  step  from 
the  condition  of  art  in  1912  to  its  final  purity, 
in  which  would  be  embodied  all  the  qualities 
necessary  to  the  greatest  compositional  painting, 
was  not  a  long  one,  but  until  it  was  taken  the 
cycle  must  remain  incomplete.  The  last  advance 
in  modern  methods  was  made  by  the  Synchro- 
mists  at  Der  Neue  Kunstsalon  of  Munich  in 
June,  1913.  This  movement  was  fathered  by 
Morgan  Russell  and  S.  Macdonald-Wright,  both 
of  whom,  though  native  Americans,  were  partially 
European  in  parentage  and  education.  Russell 
is  more  than  half  French,  and  Macdonald-Wright, 
whose  family  name  is  Van  Vranken,  is  directly 
descended  from  the  Dutch. 

Russell  first  studied  in  New  York  under  Robert 
Henri,  one  of  the  most  sincere  and  intelligent 
products  of  American  art.  There  he  acquired  a 
sound  and  capable  foundation  for  his  later  work 


284  MODERN  POINTING 

both  in  clay  and  paint.  He  then  went  to  Paris,  still 
feeling  nature  through  the  inspiration  of  Manet, 
and  like  Manet  fell  under  the  sway  of  Monet. 
From  the  Impressionists  he  was  attracted  to 
Matisse  with  whom  he  was  personally  acquainted. 
He  did  many  canvases  attractive  in  colour 
and  competent  as  to  form,  as  well  as  a  number 
of  synthetic  and  obviously  disproportioned  statues 
which  recall  the  modern  "Fauve"  to  a  marked 
degree.  Later  he  began  to  take  an  interest  in 
Cezanne,  and  to  his  study  of  this  master  and  of 
Michelangelo  is  attributable  his  later  development 
in  colour  and  composition.  These  men  consti- 
tuted his  main  influences;  but  in  the  course  of 
his  development  he  had  cast  a  glance  at  Picasso 
and  even  at  the  Futurists;  and  it  is  a  significant 
commentary  on  their  methods  that  they  are  more 
susceptible  of  understanding  than  either  Renoir 
or  Matisse.  Leo  Stein,  an  astute  and  discerning 
connoisseur  of  the  more  modern  art  movements 
and  a  man  who  can  see  with  occasional  flashes  of 
genius  through  the  aspects  of  a  canvas  to  its  basic 
cause,  no  doubt  had  much  to  do  with  Russell's 
rapid  intellectual  progress  through  the  discipleship 
of  the  student  to  the  creation  of  individual 
endeavours. 

Macdonald-Wright,  to  the  contrary,  had  little 
art  training  in  the  accepted  sense  of  the  word. 
Primarily  interested  in  the  purely  technical  side 
of  painting,  as  were  Renoir,  Cezanne  and  Courbet, 
he  had  been  influenced  first  by  Hals,  Rembrandt 
and  Velazquez  and  later  by  their  successors, 
Manet  and  the  Barbizon  school.  Hoping  to  find 
help  in  the  schools  he  studied  at  many  academies, 
but  after  a  brief  period  retired  to  the  seclusion  of 


STNCHROMISM  285 

his  studio.  About  this  time  he  began,  with  the 
aid  of  Chevreul,  Helmholtz  and  Rood,  to  make 
experiments  in  colour  in  its  relation  to  luminosity. 
Quite  naturally  the  influence  of  Monet  followed, 
and  it  was  not  until  a  year  later  that  his  enthu- 
siasm for  the  Impressionists  disappeared.  He 
then  began  the  construction  of  form  by  large  and 
crude  planes,  building  his  figures  with  light  and 
dark  chromatic  blocks.  It  was  this  broader 
application,  coupled  with  his  love  of  pure  colour, 
that  led  him  to  an  eager  admiration  for  Gauguin. 
At  this  period  of  his  development  he  met  Russell, 
his  senior  by  three  years,  to  whom  he  has  always 
admitted  his  debt  for  his  early  appreciation  of 
Michelangelo  as  well  as  of  the  modern  masters. 
From  then  on,  through  many  struggles  with  light, 
he  made  rapid  progress.  When  Futurism  blinded 
the  eyes  of  the  younger  men  he  went  straight 
ahead  in  the  path  he  had  chosen. 

Shortly  after  their  meeting,  Russell  and 
Macdonald-Wright  reached  the  end  of  their 
appreciative  and  formative  period  of  imitation. 
They  were  both  too  intensely  desirous  of  self- 
expression  in  its  broadest  and  most  precise  sense 
to  vary  an  already  well-learned  precept  or  theory. 
They  were  colourists,  and  had  been  even  when 
passing  through  their  most  sombre  stage.  Now 
both  turned  to  colour  as  to  a  longed-for  goal. 
The  art  world  at  that  time  was  being  flooded  with 
the  mournful  browns  and  whites  of  Cubism;  and 
Matisse  was  too  slight  an  inspiration  to  attract 
them,  for  they  had  consistently  conceived  form 
in  three  dimensions.  Their  desire  was  to  create 
canvases  of  richly  harmonious  colour;  but  the 
difficulty  lay  in  finding  a  new  method  of  applica- 


286  MODERN  PAINTING 

tion.  Neither  of  them  was  content  merely  to 
place  suites  of  pure  hues  on  the  canvas,  as  an  end 
in  themselves.  This  would  be  to  sacrifice  organised 
volume  for  an  ephemeral  pleasure.  Colour  must 
have  a  formal  and  compositional  significance,  other- 
wise it  would  be  but  shallow  decoration.  The 
fact  that,  like  all  painters  of  the  day,  they  were 
still  bound  to  the  depiction  of  natural  objects, 
added  difficulty  to  the  solution  of  their  problem. 
Their  individual  interpretation  of  Cezanne,  how- 
ever, little  by  little  showed  them  the  method  by 
which  they  might  eventually  open  the  door  on 
their  desires.  Russell  approached  form  through 
light,  combining  both  qualities  in  a  simultane- 
ous vision.  Macdonald- Wright  approached  light 
through  form,  regarding  them  as  an  inseparable 
and  inevitable  unity.  Both  painters  expressed 
their  vision  in  the  purest  gamut  of  colour  which 
painting  up  to  that  time  had  seen.  Colour  with 
them  became  the  totality  of  art,  the  one  element 
by  which  every  quality  of  a  canvas  was  to  be 
expressed.  Even  their  lines  were  obtained  by  the 
differentiation  of  colours  in  the  same  way  that 
tempo  delimits  sound. 

Russell  began  his  Synchromism  by  extending 
and  completing  the  methods  of  the  Impressionists 
who  had  observed  that  one  always  has  an  illusion 
of  violet  in  shadows  when  the  sunlight  is  yellow, 
and  who  in  their  painting  represented  the  full 
force  of  light  as  yellow,  and  its  opposite  extreme 
of  shadow  as  violet.  Russell,  in  observing  that 
the  strong  force  of  light  gives  us  a  sensation  of 
yellow  and  that  shadow  produces  its  complemen- 
tary of  violet,  went  further  and  discovered  that 
quarter  and  half  tones  also  possess  colours  by 


STNCHROMISM  287 

which  they  can  be  interpreted.  He  thus  arrived 
at  a  complete  colour  interpretation  of  the  degrees 
of  light  forces  or  tones.  This  method  he  aptly 
called  the  orchestration  of  tones  from  black  to 
white.  For  it  he  made  no  hard  and  set  rules. 
From  the  first  it  was  a  highly  plastic  and  arbi- 
trary manner  of  depicting  objectivity.  By  modu- 
lating from  light  to  dark  (from  yellow  to  violet) 
not  only  was  light  conceived  forcibly,  but  form 
resulted  naturally  and  inevitably.  This  was  the 
principle  by  which  Cezanne,  although  he  did  not 
completely  grasp  its  import,  achieved  his  eternal 
light  which  brought  form  into  being.  But  the 
principle  with  him  was  subjugated  to  the  influence 
of  local  colours,  varying  milieu,  reflections,  etc. 
Russell  stated  the  principle  frankly  and  applied 
it  purely.  Since  his  form  at  that  period  resulted 
from  a  sensitive  depiction  of  light  values  expressed 
by  colour,  his  canvases  had  much  the  same  beauty 
of  strongly  lighted  natural  objects  seen  through 
the  three-sided  prism  by  which  the  transition 
from  tone  to  colour  is  automatically  brought 
about. 

Macdonald-Wright  approached  his  conception 
of  Synchromism  from  the  opposite  direction.  He 
had  always  been  dissatisfied  with  the  endless 
alternation  of  small  shadows  and  lights  which  the 
Impressionists  had  introduced  into  painting,  and 
with  the  tiny  planes  and  spots  which  artists  used 
for  verisimilitude.  He  desired  a  method  whereby 
the  elements  of  shadow  and  light  could  be  differ- 
entiated and  drawn  together  in  simple  masses. 
He  had  studied  pure  colour  more  from  the  stand- 
point of  form  than  from  that  of  light,  and  during 
1912  began  to  take  note  of  the  fluctuations  of 


288  MODERN  PAINTING 

colours,  their  mobility  when  juxtaposed  with  other 
colours,  their  densities  and  transparencies.  In 
fine,  he  recorded  their  inherent  tendency  to  ex- 
press degrees  of  material  consistency.  Thus  with 
him  a  yellow,  instead  of  meaning  an  intense  light, 
represented  an  advancing  plane,  and  a  blue,  while 
having  all  the  sensation  of  shadow  about  it, 
receded  to  an  infinity  of  subjective  depth.  The 
relative  spacial  extension  of  all  the  other  colours 
was  then  determined,  and  a  series  of  colour  scales 
was  drawn  up  which  gave  not  only  the  sensation 
of  light  and  dark  but  also  the  sensation  of  per- 
spective. Thus  it  was  possible  to  obtain  any 
degree  of  depth  by  the  use  of  colour  alone,  for 
all  the  intermediate  steps  from  extreme  projection 
to  extreme  recession  were  expressible  by  means 
of  certain  tones  and  pure  hues. 

The  first  Synchromist  canvas  was  exposed  by 
Russell  in  the  Salon  des  Independants  early  in 
the  spring  of  1913.  It  was  called  Synchromie  en 
Vert  and  recorded  a  large  interior  in  which  all  the 
light  forces  were  treated  in  their  purely  emotional 
phases.  The  canvas  lacked  the  complete  visuali- 
sation and  the  solid  space-construction  which 
characterise  his  later  work,  and  furthermore  it 
revealed  many  traces  of  the  academic  composi- 
tion. However,  had  there  been  critics  possessed 
of  artistic  prescience  they  straightway  would  have 
sensed  in  it  a  new  force  in  painting.  But  the 
picture's  defects  obscured  their  recognition  of  its 
potential  vitality.  This  was  due  in  part  to  the 
fact  that  the  work  lost  much  of  its  effect  by  piece- 
painting,  that  is,  by  the  minute  treatment  of 
details  each  of  which  constituted  an  end  in  itself 
regardless  of  the  total.  Russell  counted  on  the 


STNCHROMISM  289 

line  of  the  different  bodies  holding  it  together; 
but  he  reckoned  falsely,  for  if,  in  a  work  where 
colour  is  so  important  a  part  of  line,  the  colour 
and  line  are  not  in  complete  harmony,  the  line 
alone  is  inadequate  to  effect  the  liaison  of  forms. 
In  this  same  Salon  Macdonald-Wright,  not  yet 
having  arrived  at  a  defined  conception,  exposed 
two  canvases  in  which  his  later  developments 
were  but  vaguely  foreshadowed.  Both  pictures 
were  formal  compositions  of  nude  figures  painted 
in  three  or  four  flat  planes  of  pure  colour,  and 
recalled  Matisse  and  Cezanne  more  strongly  than 
they  presented  a  new  vision.  From  the  stand- 
point of  efficient  visualisation  all  three  Syn- 
chromist  works  were  failures,  or  at  least  they 
were  indications  of  incomplete  progress.  In 
Russell's  canvas  the  diminutive  breaking  up  of 
colour  negatived  what  otherwise  would  have  been 
the  picture's  brilliant  effect;  and  Macdonald- 
Wright's  large  application  of  colour  served  only 
to  place  him  under  the  banner  of  an  established 
school.  But  both  men  realised  that  this  was  only 
a  start,  and  set  diligently  to  work  on  the  canvases 
for  their  first  exhibition  which  was  booked  in 
Munich  for  June  of  that  year. 

Between  their  first  pictures  and  those  of  a  few 
months  later  there  was  to  be  noted  an  advance 
both  in  conception  and  in  application.  Russell's 
small  colour  planes,  applied  wholly  from  the 
standpoint  of  light,  expanded  and  took  on  a  new 
effectiveness.  His  form  became  more  abstract, 
and  his  colour  more  harmonious.  Also  his  com- 
positions were  more  compact,  though  they  were 
ordered  rather  than  rhythmically  organised. 
Macdonald-Wright's  progress  was  similar.  In  an 


290  MODERN  PAINTING 

interpretation  of  one  of  Michelangelo's  Slaves, 
used  as  the  dominant  form  in  an  arrangement  of 
three  figures,  all  the  academism  which  had  marked 
his  earlier  expression  had  disappeared.  His 
method  had  been  liberated  from  the  exactitudes 
of  static  principles,  and  had  become  consistent, 
not  with  the  new  colour  knowledge,  but  within 
itself.  The  theory  of  defined  colour  gamuts, 
which  from  the  first  had  been  applied  by  these 
two  men,  had  now  become  a  scientific  principle. 
Though  the  truth  of  it  had  always  been  vaguely 
sensed  by  them,  it  had  not  become  a  definitely 
comprehended  formula  until  they  had  worked 
out  the  naturalistic  laws  governing  colour.  The 
Synchromist  pictures  in  which  these  laws  were 
boldly  applied  were  first  brought  together  at  13, 
Prannerstrasse,  Munich,  in  June,  1913. 

In  November  of  the  same  year  their  work  was 
again  exposed,  this  time  at  the  Bernheim-Jeune 
galleries  in  Paris.  The  show  in  Munich,  widely 
advertised  by  coloured  posters,  had  attracted 
considerable  interest,  but  in  Paris  the  exhibition 
created  a  two-weeks'  sensation.  Though  the 
more  discriminating  critics  saw  its  importance, 
there  was  considerable  adverse  comment  due 
largely  to  the  Synchromists'  spectacular  and 
over-enthusiastic  methods  of  putting  forward 
their  views  and  discoveries.  In  their  two  speci- 
fically worded  prospectuses  they  devoted  much 
space  to  the  shortcomings  of  Orphism,  then  in 
vogue;  and  although  their  criticisms  of  that  school, 
coupled  with  the  statement  of  their  own  tangible 
and  logical  aims,  had  much  to  do  with  Orphism's 
demise,  the  impropriety  of  the  attack  created  a 
feeling  antagonistic  to  the  new  men.  The  appear- 


STNCHROMISM  291 

ance  of  their  pictures  was  entirely  different  from 
any  paintings  hitherto  exposed;  and  their  concep- 
tion, while  being  a  normal  and  direct  outgrowth 
of  Cezanne,  marked  a  revolution  in  formal  con- 
struction. The  inspiration  of  both  these  new 
artists  was  classic  in  that  they  recognised  the 
absolute  need  of  organisation  which,  if  it  was  not 
melodiously  and  sequentially  composed,  should 
at  least  be  rhythmic.  Both  were  striving  to 
create  a  pure  art  —  one  which  would  express 
itself  with  the  means  alone  inherent  in  that  art, 
as  music  expresses  itself  by  means  of  circumscribed 
sound. 

There  was  no  precedent  for  purely  abstract 
form  —  that  is,  form  which  has  no  antitype  in 
nature  —  any  more  than  there  was  a  precedent 
for  the  construction  of  painting  solely  by  means 
of  colour  and  line.  This  was  not  due  to  an 
absence  of  desire  in  the  artist  for  an  abstract 
language  of  form,  but  to  a  natural  diffidence  on 
his  part  to  break  once  and  for  all  with  centuries 
of  tradition,  and  with  one  imperious  gesture  to 
cast  aside  the  accepted  raison  d'etre  of  the  visual 
arts.  We  have  seen  how  form  from  the  first  had 
been  an  imitation  of  natural  objects,  how  it  de- 
developed  into  synthesis,  then  into  pure  composi- 
tion, how  it  reached  a  high  degree  of  arbitrariness 
in  Matisse,  how  it  disintegrated  in  Cubism,  and 
how  in  Futurism  and  Orphism  there  was  a  valiant 
attempt  to  convert  it  once  more  into  pictorialism, 
to  check  its  elan  toward  perfect  freedom  of  crea- 
tion. It  is  not  therefore  strange  that  the  Syn- 
chromist  exhibition  should  have  comprised,  with 
the  exception  of  one  canvas,  figure  pieces,  studies 
of  landscape  and  still-lives  (some  almost  archaic 


292  MODERN  PAINTING 

in  their  direct  and  simple  statement),  and  not 
canvases  which  abandoned  all  semblance  to  natural 
form.  Russell  and  Macdonald-Wright  were  still 
occupied  tentatively  in  expressing  the  forms  they 
knew  best,  each  by  his  own  individual  method. 
But  despite  this  compromise  with  tradition  their 
exhibition  presented  a  highly  novel  impression. 
There  were  human  figures  distorted  almost  out 
of  recognition  for  the  compositional  needs  of  the 
canvas  and  painted  in  bars  of  pure  colour;  still- 
lives  which  seemed  to  be  afire  with  chromatic  bril- 
liance; fantastic  fruits;  life-sized  male  figures  in 
pure  yellow-orange;  and  mountains  of  intense  reds 
and  purples,  warm  greens  and  violets.  All  the 
pictures,  however,  displayed  decided  organisa- 
tional ability,  and  they  possessed  a  more  complete 
harmony  of  colour  and  line  than  had  been  achieved 
by  any  of  the  other  younger  painters. 

But  that  quality  of  Synchromism  which  struck 
the  discerning  spectator  more  than  any  other  was 
the  force  of  volume  resulting  from  the  relation- 
ship of  colours.  For  years  painters  had  realised 
that  certain  colours  when  applied  to  certain  forms 
rebelled  at  the  combination,  that  they  refused 
to  remain  passively  on  the  planes  assigned  them. 
But  this  phenomenon  had  never  been  given  any 
penetrating  study.  The  more  sensitive  painters 
had  merely  changed  their  colours  to  more  tract- 
able ones,  and  had  thus  avoided  the  inevitable 
conflict  that  followed  the  fallacious  commingling 
of  two  highly  affirmative  elements.  Such  chro- 
matic inconsistencies  should  have  taught  artists 
the  necessity  of  harmony  for  the  sake  of  perfect 
order;  but  the  matter  was  left  to  personal  instinct. 
The  clash  between  colour  and  form,  however,  was 


STNCHROMISM  293 

not  due  to  any  error  or  idiosyncrasy  of  taste,  but 
to  the  absolute  character  of  each  separate  hue 
which  demanded,  for  its  formal  affinity,  a  fixed 
and  unalterable  spacial  extension.  At  an  early 
date  artists  had  recognised  that  blue  and  violet 
were  cool  and  mournful  colours,  and  that  yellow 
and  orange  were  warm  and  joyful  ones.  They 
applied  this  primitive  discovery  with  the  feeble 
results  to  be  found  in  Neo-Impressionism.  That 
these  colours  had  any  further  character  they 
never  suspected.  Their  insight  extended  only  to 
the  emotional  and  associative  characteristics  of 
the  colours;  the  physical  side  was  overlooked. 
Had  the  painters  been  more  scientifically  minded 
they  would  have  known  that  these  characteristics, 
which  were  the  feminine  traits,  could  not  have 
existed  in  isolation;  and  they  would  have  searched 
for  the  colours'  dominating  and  directing  prop- 
erties which  represented  the  masculine  traits. 
Such  a  search  would  have  led  them  to  the  mean- 
ing of  colours  in  relation  to  volumes,  that  is,  to 
colours'  formal  vibrations  which  alone  are  capable 
of  expressing  plastic  fullness. 

This  vibratory  quality  Macdonald- Wright  found 
and  applied.  By  it  he  achieved  light  and  shadow 
which  resulted  naturally  by  the  juxtaposition  of 
warm  and  cold  colours.  Russell,  working  alto- 
gether from  the  standpoint  of  light  as  revealed 
by  form,  attained  practically  the  same  results  so 
long  as  his  light  came  from  the  direction  of  the 
spectator,  for  in  such  a  case  the  highest  illumina- 
tion was  the  most  intense  salient  and,  as  with 
Macdonald-Wright,  had  therefore  to  be  painted 
with  a  warm  and  highly  opaque  colour.  But 
where  the  light  came  from  a  source  at  right  angles 


294  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  the  line  of  vision,  the  expression  reverted  to  an 
intensification  of  the  Impressionistic  method. 
Later  this  accident  of  light  disappeared  from 
Russell's  work,  and  consequently  his  treatment 
became  less  restricted.  This  setting  aside  of  light 
as  the  motif  was  a  necessary  departure,  for  when 
Russell  carried  his  work  into  the  higher  elements 
of  pure  form,  a  realistic  source  of  illumination 
would  have  made  his  suites  of  abstract  volumes 
appear,  not  poised  and  relatively  solid,  but  as 
paterae  attached  to  an  impenetrable  substance. 
Under  such  conditions  painting  would  merely  be 
another  and  perhaps  more  beautiful  way  of  making 
effective  the  ordonnances  of  ,surface  form.  But  it 
would  have  no  more  power  to  create  in  us  an 
aesthetic  emotion  than  an  exquisitely  composed 
bas-relief. 

The  ambitions  of  the  Synchromists  went  deeper. 
They  desired  to  express,  by  means  of  colour,  form 
which  would  be  as  complete  and  as  simple  as  a 
Michelangelo  drawing,  and  which  would  give 
subjectively  the  same  emotion  of  form  that 
the  Renaissance  master  gives  objectively.  They 
wished  to  create  images  of  such  logical  structure 
that  the  imagination  would  experience  their 
unrecognisable  reality  in  the  same  way  our  eyes 
experience  the  recognisable  realities  of  life.  They 
strove  to  bring  about  a  new  and  hitherto  unper- 
ceived  reality  which  would  be  as  definite  and 
moving  as  the  commonplace  realities  of  every  day, 
in  short,  to  find  an  abstract  statement  for  life 
itself  by  the  use  of  forms  which  had  no  definable 
aspects.  The  Synchromists' chief  technical  method 
of  obtaining  this  abstract  equivalent  for  material- 
ity was  to  make  use  of  the  inherent  and  absolute 


SYNCHROMIE   COSMIQUE 


MORGAN   RUSSELL 


STNCHROMISM  295 

movement  of  colours  toward  and  away  from  the 
spectator,  by  placing  colours  on  forms  in  exact: 
accord  with  the  propensities  of  those  colours  to 
approach  or  recede  from  the  eye.  The  Futurists 
had  spoken  of  drawing  the  spectator  into  the 
centre  of  the  picture,  there  to  struggle  with  the 
principals  of  the  work.  They  failed  in  this  ambi- 
tion because  their  canvases  lacked  the  intense 
tactility  of  volume.  The  Synchromists,  by  mak- 
ing the  enjoyment  of  form  purely  subjective,  and 
by  expressing  form  both  by  objectivity  of  line 
and  the  subjectivity  of  colour,  achieved  the 
ambition  of  both  the  Futurists  and  Cezanne.  The 
latter' s  desire  was  ever  toward  a  pure  and  sub- 
jective art.  Although  his  colour  viewed  objectively 
is  much  like  the  Impressionists',  the  pleasure  of 
the  Impressionistic  vision  disappears  when  the 
eye  is  satisfied,  whereas  our  emotions  begin  to 
work  on  a  Cezanne  only  after  the  visual  enjoy- 
ment has  run  its  course. 

Where  Cezanne  obtained  a  block  solidity  by 
the  intelligent  addition  of  local  colour  to  light 
and  by  the  subtraction  of  light  from  local  colour, 
the  Synchromists  reject  all  local  colour  and  paint 
only  with  hues  which  express  the  desired  form. 
The  position  of  a  given  volume  in  space  dictates 
to  them  the  colour  with  which  it  is  to  be  painted. 
Consequently  a  receding  volume  whose  position 
is  behind  the  other  volumes  is  never  painted  a 
pure  yellow,  for  that  colour  advances  toward  the 
spectator's  eye;  and  a  solid  volume  which  projects 
further  than  the  others  is  never  painted  violet, 
for  violet  expresses  not  solidity  but  a  quality  of 
space,  something  intangible  and  translucent.  All 
colours  and  tones  and  admixtures  are  answerable 


296  MODERN  PAINTING 

to  the  law  of  natural  placement.  This  law  is  not 
absolute;  it  does  not  anchor  each  colour  at  a 
specific  and  unchangeable  distance  from  the  eye, 
but  it  determines  the  relative  position  of  colours 
in  space  according  to  the  influence  of  environ- 
mental colours,  thereby  making  their  position 
both  dependent  and  directing  but  none  the  less 
inevitable.  The  perfecting  of  this  principle  by 
the  Synchromists  introduced  an  added  element  of 
poise  and  a  new  emotion  in  painting  —  poise, 
because,  by  changing  a  line  or  a  colour,  the 
formal  solid  constructed  by  interdependent  hues 
would  shift  and  adopt  another  position  answering 
to  the  needs  of  the  new  order:  —  a  new  emotion, 
because  colour  in  all  painting  before  Cezanne  had 
been  used  for  ornament  or  for  the  dramatic 
reinforcement  of  the  drawing  or  subject,  and  in 
Cezanne  colour  had  been  employed  to  express 
subjectively  the  emotions  of  volumes  found  in 
nature. 

In  Synchromism,  which  was  first  inspired  by 
natural  forms,  all  considerations  other  than  light 
forces  (as  with  Russell)  and  form  (as  with 
Macdonald-Wright)  and  composition  (as  used 
by  both)  were  abolished.  Colour  was  made  a 
functioning  element  out  of  which  grew  all  the 
qualities  of  the  pictures.  At  first,  adverse  criti- 
cisms were  aimed  at  the  Synchromists'  polychro- 
matic nudes,  still-lives  and  landscapes.  The  press 
remarked  that  the  nudes  appeared  as  if  adorned 
in  Harlequin  suits;  the  landscapes,  as  if  they  were 
intended  for  theatre  drops;  and  the  still-lives, 
as  if  painted  through  a  prism.  The  Synchromists 
answered  that,  in  order  to  achieve  a  strong 
emotion  of  force  and  weight,  they  would  "will- 


STNCHROMISM  297 

ingly  sacrifice  the  lovely  tints  of  the  flesh  and  the 
joy  of  searching  for  coloured  pots  in  the  shops  of 
the  second-hand  merchants."  But,  despite  all 
they  could  say,  there  was  justice  in  the  public's 
criticism.  So  long  as  there  was  a  natural  form  in 
a  picture,  the  spectator  would  unconsciously  judge 
it  from  a  naturalistic  standpoint.  To  be  sure, 
there  were  canvases  in  the  Munich  exhibition 
which  were  almost  unrecognisable  as  nature; 
but,  before  the  aims  of  this  new  movement  could 
be  fully  attained,  a  style  of  arbitrary  and  pure 
form  was  necessary.  In  the  Bernheim-Jeune 
show  Russell  exposed  one  wholly  abstract  canvas. 
As  an  indication  of  a  deflection  toward  pure 
composition,  it  was  important,  but  the  picture 
itself  was  as  manifestly  an  artistic  failure  as  had 
been  his  first  large  Synchromie  en  Vert  hung  in 
the  Salon  des  Independants  of  that  year.  It  was 
not  the  only  failure  exposed,  however.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  complete  and  organised  concep- 
tion all  the  early  Synchromist  pictures  were  to 
a  certain  extent  fragmentary  and  tentative.  The 
large  canvas  by  Macdonald- Wright,  Synchromie 
en  Bleu,  was  a  flagrant  example  of  a  totally  new 
vision  unsuccessfully  struggling  with  the  objectively 
classic  inspiration  of  a  defunct  antiquity.  The 
group  of  three  males  in  its  foreground,  while 
competently  and  intelligently  built,  had  the 
appearance  of  allegorical  figures  struggling  against 
a  toppling  world.  Although  their  position  and 
organisation  were  dictated  by  the  needs  of  an  al- 
most El  Greco-like  composition,  one  was  too  con- 
scious of  natural  objects  to  accept,  with  a  clear 
aesthetic  conscience,  the  seeming  chaos  of  the 
elements. 


298  MODERN  PAINTING 

In  bringing  together  in  a  unified  emotion  all 
the  impressions  of  form,  the  Synchromists  at  first 
overlooked  the  fad:  that  purity  of  expression,  in 
order  to  be  highly  potent,  must  embody  a  pure 
conception.  Their  early  canvases  demonstrated 
many  new  formal  possibilities,  but,  while  they 
were  composed  more  compactly  than  those  of  the 
other  moderns,  the  forms  themselves  were  ob- 
viously naturalistic.  Herein  the  Synchromists  at 
their  debut  failed  to  take  the  step  from  Cezanne 
to  abstraction.  Cezanne  conceived  all  nature's 
qualities  —  form,  colour  and  tone  —  simultane- 
ously. He  was  the  first  great  realist,  because 
nature  dictated  to  him  the  colour  he  was  to  use. 
The  Synchromists,  on  the  other  hand,  used 
natural  objects  to  create  organisations  of  pure 
colour,  thus  making  formal  expression  a  wholly 
subjective  performance.  This  method  contained 
greater  emotional  potentialities  than  Cezanne's, 
because  where  the  latter's  palette  was  necessarily 
much  subdued  in  order  to  approximate  to  the 
attenuated  gamut  found  in  nature,  the  Syn- 
chromists' palette  was  keyed  to  its  highest  pitch 
of  saturation.  Cezanne's  choice  of  colour  was 
never  absolute  in  the  harmonic  sense,  because  he 
depended  for  accuracy  entirely  on  taste  and 
sensitivity.  With  Macdonald-Wright  and  Russell 
the  palette  was  completely  and  scientifically 
rationalised  so  that  one  could  strike  a  chord  upon 
it  as  surely  and  as  swiftly  as  on  the  keyboard  of 
a  piano:  the  element  of  hazard  in  harmony  was 
eliminated.  This  knowledge  of  colour  gamuts 
was  not  employed  for  ornamental  niceties,  but 
was  converted  into  a  method  of  creating  an 
aesthetic  finality  other  than  that  of  form  and  line. 


STNCHROMISM  299 

If,  in  a  complete  balance  of  line  and  volume,  the 
colour  overweighs  at  any  point  into  warm  or 
cold,  the  poise  of  the  whole  is  jeopardised  and 
the  finality  obscured.  The  perfect  poise  of  all 
the  elements  of  a  painting,  expressed  by  the 
single  element  of  colour,  is  the  final  technical  aim 
of  Synchromism. 

In  the  first  arbitrary  formal  composition  by 
Russell  the  desire  was  to  carry  out  the  continua- 
tions of  form  from  one  chosen  generating  colour 
and  at  the  same  time  to  create  linear  development 
as  well.  His  compositional  theory  was  that, 
through  the  inevitable  evolution  of  line  from  an 
arbitrarily  chosen  centre,  the  artist  would  nat- 
urally and  consciously  create  form  which  would 
definitely  approximate  to  the  human  body.  In 
his  Synchromie  en  Bleu  Violace  the  composition 
was  very  similar  to  that  of  the  famous  Michel- 
angelo Slave  whose  left  arm  is  raised  above  the 
head  and  whose  right  hand  rests  on  the  breast. 
The  picture  contained  the  same  movement  as 
the  statue,  and  had  a  simpler  ordonnance  of 
linear  directions;  but,  save  in  a  general  way,  it 
bore  no  resemblance  to  the  human  form.  The 
sketch  for  this  canvas  was  a  greater  success  than 
the  final  presentation,  for  its  realisation  was  more 
complete,  its  order  more  contracted  and  intense. 
In  both  there  was  but  one  very  simple  rhythm 
with  two  movements;  and  the  size  of  the  large 
picture,  which  was  twelve  feet  high,  was  incom- 
mensurate with  the  slightness  of  the  expression. 

His  second  large  Synchromie,  exposed  in  the 
Salon  des  Independants  in  March  1914,  was  more 
complicated  and  more  sensitively  organised,  both 
as  to  movement  and  to  colour,  than  his  first. 


300  MODERN  PAINTING 

By  his  colour  rhythms  he  strove  to  incorporate 
into  his  painting  the  quality  of  duration:  that  is, 
he  sought  to  have  his  picture  develop  into  time 
like  music.  The  ambition  was  commendable 
although  he  wrongly  asserted  that  older  painting 
extends  itself  strictly  into  space.  A  Rubens, 
while  presenting  itself  to  the  spectator  at  one 
glance,  is  nevertheless  more  than  a  block-mani- 
festation of  forms,  for  it  never  reveals  itself  fully 
until  after  many  periods  of  study.  In  the  old 
painters  there  is  a  definite  formal  foundation  on 
which  the  canvas  is  rhythmically  built,  and  as  a 
rule  this  formal  figure  is  repeated  in  miniature 
many  times  throughout  the  canvas.  These  form- 
echoes  are  defined  and  complete  linear  orders, 
and  into  them  rhythm  is  introduced.  In  Russell 
the  process  is  reversed:  with  him  the  rhythm 
brings  about  the  order.  In  Rubens  there  is  a 
distinct  and  conscious  development  of  line,  but 
no  development  of  form.  Russell,  in  his  later 
canvases,  sets  down  a  central  form  which  dictates 
both  the  continuity  of  the  picture  and  its  formal 
complications.  His  generating  centre  is  not  like 
a  motif  whose  character  imprints  itself  on  all  its 
developments,  but  rather  like  a  seed  out  of  which 
the  different  forms  grow  —  a  directing  centre 
which  inspires  and  orders  its  environment.  In 
fine,  the  surrounding  forms  are  not  a  development 
of  the  central  one,  but  a  result  of  it.  This  type 
of  composition  corresponds  to  the  melodic  com- 
position in  music. 

In  the  later  works  of  Macdonald-Wright  the 
motif  form  of  composition  is  achieved.  In  Ce- 
zanne there  are  forms  whose  parallels  are  repeated 
in  varied  development  throughout  the  work  and 


STNCHROMISM  301 

are  rhythmically  ordered  into  blocks.  But  while 
these  forms  resemble  motif  repetition,  they  are 
not  generated  by  rhythm  but  united  by  it.  In 
Macdonald-Wright's  canvases  the  rhythmic  con- 
tinuation of  a  central  form  constitute  the  move- 
ment of  the  picture  as  well  as  the  final  character 
of  it.  In  his  Arm  Organisation  in  Blue-Green 
one  can  discern  near  the  centre  a  small  and 
arbitrary  interpretation  of  the  constructional  form 
of  the  human  arm.  The  movement  of  these 
forms  throws  off  other  lines  and  forms  which, 
through  many  variations  and  counter-statements, 
reconstruct  the  arm  in  a  larger  way.  Again  these 
lines  of  the  larger  arm,  in  conjunction  with  the 
lines  of  the  smaller  one,  evoke  a  further  set  of 
forms  which  break  into  parts  each  of  which  is  a 
continuation  or  a  restatement  of  the  original  arm 
motif,  varied  and  developed. 

Macdonald-Wright  holds  that  the  forms  which 
we  have  experienced  in  our  contact  with  nature 
are  more  expressive  and  diverse  than  those  which 
are  born  of  the  inventive  intelligence.  But,  while 
it  is  true  that  every  realisation  of  cesthetic  move- 
ment or  of  the  rhythm  of  form  is  based  on  the 
movement  of  the  human  body,  it  is  not  true  that 
the  human  body  is  a  necessary  foundation  for 
form  alone.  However,  Macdonald-Wright,  in  in- 
terpreting the  human  form,  makes  use  merely 
of  the  direction  and  counterpoise  of  volume;  he 
does  not  indulge  in  the  depiction  of  limbs  and 
torso:  the  body  is  only  his  inspiration  to  abstrac- 
tion. He  changes  and  shifts  its  forms  out  of  any 
superficial  resemblance  to  nature.  In  his  desire 
to  cling  to  a  solid  and  immutable  foundation  we 
recognise  an  artist  who  realises  how  meagre  is 


302  MODERN  PAINTING 

the  incentive  to  create  abstract  compositions. 
With  centuries  of  tradition  urging  him  to  a 
realistic  rendering  of  the  life  about  him,  he  finds 
it  difficult  to  break  entirely  with  realism  and  to 
create  without  referring  to  materiality.  Perhaps 
some  day  he  will  even  forgo  the  inspiration 
found  in  the  combined  forms  in  nature.  His 
work  is  tending  toward  that  ultimate  freedom, 
as  also  is  Russell's. 

Such  a  development,  however,  cannot  be  defi- 
nitely predicted,  but  one  can  say,  without  dog- 
matism, that  in  the  future  their  work  will  become 
surer,  their  compositions  of  a  higher  and  more 
complete  order.  With  their  knowledge  of  the 
fundamentals  of  rhythmic  organisation,  which  is 
well  in  advance  of  that  of  the  other  painters  of 
today,  their  progress  seems  assured.  Their  postu- 
lates are  too  definite  to  permit  of  the  introduction 
of  literary  or  musical  transcendentalism;  and 
their  apports  are  too  significant  to  permit  of  any 
retrogression  toward  metaphysics  or  drama. 
Their  palette  has  become  co-ordinated  and  ra- 
tionalised. Their  composition  is  founded  on  the 
human  body  in  movement.  And  their  colour,  in 
its  plastic  sense,  takes  into  consideration  space, 
light  and  form.  These  factors  represent  their 
technical  assets.  With  these  painters  comes  into 
being  an  art  divorced  from  all  the  entanglements 
of  photography,  of  piecemeal  creation,  of  inhar- 
monic gropings,  of  literature  and  of  data  hunting. 

But  they  must  not  be  regarded  merely  as 
inventors  of  new  pictorial  methods,  for  their 
discoveries  have  already  taken  significant  aesthetic 
form.  As  Renoir  completed  the  first  cycle  of 
modern  art  which  was  ushered  in  by  Turner  and 


STNCHROMISM  303 

Delacroix,  so  have  the  Synchromists  completed 
the  cycle  of  which  Cezanne  is  the  archaic  father. 
They  have  discovered  the  concrete  means  where- 
with to  bring  about  his  desires.  It  remains  now 
for  the  painters  of  today  and  of  the  future  to 
realise  more  fully  the  dreams  of  a  higher  art 
history.  With  the  Synchromists  there  is  no 
system  or  method  other  than  a  purely  personal 
one.  The  word  Synchromism,  adopted  by  them 
to  avoid  obnoxious  classification  under  a  foreign 
banner,  means  simply  "with  colour."  It  does  not 
explain  a  mannerism  or  indicate  a  special  trait,  as 
do  Cubism,  Futurism  and  Neo-Impressionism. 
It  is  as  open  as  the  term  musician.  As  a  school 
it  can  never  exist.  Indeed  it  is  the  first  graphic 
art  the  application  of  whose  principles  cannot 
be  learned  by  a  course  of  instruction.  Artists 
employing  its  means  must  depend  entirely  on 
their  own  ability  to  create.  In  Synchromist 
pictures  the  good  or  bad  results  cannot  be  ob- 
scured by  the  introduction  of  foreign  elements,  as 
in  the  case  of  pictures  wherein  nature  is  copied. 
Russell  and  Macdonald-Wright  have  already  re- 
pudiated the  appellation  of  Synchromist  and  call 
themselves  merely  "painters,"  for,  since  Cezanne, 
painting  means,  not  the  art  of  tinting  drawing 
or  of  correctly  imitating  natural  objects,  but  the 
art  which  expresses  itself  only  with  the  medium 
inherent  in  it  —  colour. 

All  significant  painting  to  come  must  neces- 
sarily make  use  of  Synchromist  means,  although 
form  and  composition  —  that  is,  the  creative 
expression  —  may  be  as  arbitrary  or  personal  as 
the  artist  desires.  In  the  Synchromists'  latest 
prospectus  are  to  be  found  the  following  com- 


304  MODERN  PAINTING 

ments:  "In  our  painting  colour  becomes  the 
generating  function.  Painting  being  the  art  of 
colour,  any  quality  of  a  picture  not  expressed  by 
colour  is  not  painting.  An  art  whose  ambition 
it  is  to  be  pure  should  express  itself  only  with 
means  inherent  in  that  art.  The  relation  of 
spacial  emotions  and  of  the  emotions  of  density 
and  transparency  which  we  wish  to  express, 
dictates  to  us  the  colours  most  capable  of  trans- 
mitting these  sensations  to  the  spectator.  In 
thus  creating  the  subjective  emotion  of  depth 
and  rhythm  we  achieve  the  dreams  of  painters 
who  talk  of  drawing  the  spectator  into  the  centre 
of  the  picture;  but  instead  of  his  being  drawn 
there  merely  by  intellectual  processes  he  is  en- 
veloped in  the  picture  by  tactile  sensation.  We 
limit  ourselves  to  the  expression  of  plastic  emo- 
tions. We  can  no  longer  conceive  of  the  stupid 
juxtapositions  of  colours  devoid  of  any  rhythmic 
interlinking  as  art  organisations."  The  Synchro- 
mists  do  not  pretend  to  have  invented  new 
qualities  for  art  but  to  have  brought  to  painting 
a  new  vision  which  permits  them  to  express  the 
old  qualities  with  a  greater  potency  than  formerly. 


XIV 
THE  LESSER   MODERNS 

DECADENCE  is  simply  the  inability  to 
create  new  tissue.  In  painting  it  man- 
ifests itself  in  two  ways:  either  in 
the  endeavour  of  an  artist  to  turn  the 
attention  from  new  and  precise  procedures  to 
antiquated  and  irrelevant  ones;  or  in  the  artist's 
desire  to  base  his  inspiration  on  the  great  work  of 
an  immediate  forerunner  rather  than  on  the 
foundation  of  all  vitality,  nature.  In  neither  case 
is  new  material  being  added  to  the  sum  of  art. 
Decadence  usually  takes  the  form  of  a  facile 
imitation  of  the  surface  aspect  of  a  master,  not 
infrequently  making  that  master's  results  prettier, 
more  fluent  and  more  attractive.  This  is  a 
natural  and  inevitable  consequence  of  copying 
the  objective  side  of  a  great  work  which  originally 
was  the  outgrowth  of  a  profound  aesthetic  philoso- 
phy. Decadents,  as  a  general  rule,  are  suffi- 
ciently analytic  to  sense  their  own  paucity  of 
constructive  genius.  In  recognising  that  nature 
can  never  inspire  them  to  significant  co-ordina- 
tions, they  are  content  to  accept,  with  slight 
modifications,  the  artistic  standards  of  their 
predecessors.  They  vary  the  art  that  has  gone 
before  to  meet  the  needs  of  their  own  tempera- 
ments. In  many  cases  highly  meritorious  work 
results. 


306  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  word  decadent  is  not  wholly  deprecatory. 
Often  the  decadent  is  a  competent  composer  in 
the  abstract.  By  presenting  in  an  attractive 
way  his  own  personal  tastes,  he  sometimes  makes 
his  art  both  interesting  and  beautiful.  His  deca- 
dence lies  in  his  retrogression  from  the  point  to 
which  the  art  of  his  day  has  arrived  and  in  his 
inability  to  introduce  a  new  element  to  com- 
pensate for  this  retrogression.  No  amount  of 
individuality  can  bridge  this  gap.  Many  painters, 
like  Gauguin,  have  readied  against  achievement 
but  have  possessed  a  tangential  vitality  which  in 
itself  has  been  a  new  contribution  to  aesthetic 
endeavour.  Other  painters,  like  Renoir,  while 
introducing  no  innovations,  have,  by  talented 
and  comprehensive  efforts,  duplicated  and  im- 
proved upon  the  art  of  the  latest  creative  masters 
and  thereby  pushed  forward  the  highest  stand- 
ards. They  are  not  decadents,  for  their  work 
exhibits  no  deterioration.  Even  decadents  may 
be  excellent  artists.  Caspar  de  Grayer  was 
undoubtedly  a  great  artist  though  an  offshoot  of 
Rubens;  and  Giampietrino  and  Cesare  da  Sesto 
were  both  solid  and  intelligent  painters,  though 
they  did  not  rival  their  master,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci.  There  has  undoubtedly  been  great  sculp- 
ture since  the  Renaissance;  but  Michelangelo 
closed  up  for  all  time  the  plastic  possibilities  of 
clay  and  marble,  and  consequently,  there  being 
no  new  functioning  element  to  be  introduced  into 
it,  all  sculpture  since  his  day  has  been  in  the 
broad  sense  decadent. 

Modern  painting  has  had  its  decadents  also  — 
men  who  have  attempted  to  revert  to  a  sterile 
past  or  who  have  followed  in  the  paths  blazed 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  307 

by  others  without  approaching  the  achievements 
of  the  painters  imitated.  This  latter  class  has  its 
usages,  for  it  tends  to  lend  impetus  to  the  move- 
ment it  follows.  The  men  composing  it  are 
popularly  called  exponents,  and  the  appellation  is 
just.  There  are  painters  in  all  countries  today 
who  adhere  to  Impressionist  methods,  and  thereby 
keep  ever  before  us  one  of  the  great  steps  in  the 
development  of  modern  painting.  Cezanne  has 
undoubtedly  been  given  greater  consideration 
because  of  the  many  artists  who  follow  his 
precepts.  And  the  numerous  imitators  of  Cubism 
have  done  much  to  focus  on  that  movement  the 
consideration  it  deserves.  In  a  general  way  all 
the  lesser  modern  painters,  by  their  feverish 
activities,  expositions  and  pamphleteering,  have, 
despite  their  inherent  lack  of  genuine  importance, 
kept  the  world  conscious  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  aesthetic  upheaval,  that 
new  forces  are  at  work,  that  the  older  order  is 
being  supplanted. 

Today  nearly  every  country  has  a  group  of 
men  striving  toward  the  new  vision.  They  can- 
not all  be  innovators  of  new  methods.  They 
cannot  all  carry  forward  the  evolution  of  modern 
painting.  But  they  can  at  least  give  momentum 
to  the  current  ideals  and  turn  out  work  which 
bears  so  much  personal  merit  that  it  becomes 
deserving  of  more  or  less  serious  consideration. 
Degas  and  his  circle  are  of  this  class,  as  are  the 
Futurists  who,  though  at  bottom  decadent,  inas- 
much as  they  turn  their  art  back  to  illustration, 
are  a  force  which  cannot  be  ignored.  In  Dresden, 
Munich  and  Berlin  are  groups  of  modern  men 
who  have  repudiated  the  academies  and  struck 


308  MODERN  PAINTING 

out  into  new  fields.  Russia  has  contributed 
many  young  artists  to  the  present  ideal.  Eng- 
land has  not  been  altogether  impervious  to  the 
modern  doctrines.  America  is  represented  by 
fully  a  score  of  artists  animated  by  the  new 
vitality.  And  in  France  there  are  a  hundred 
painters  at  work  tearing  down  the  older  idols. 
While  few  of  these  men  can  lay  claim  to  intro- 
ducing any  intrinsically  new  and  significant 
methods  or  forms  into  modern  painting,  their 
work  in  many  instances,  while  being  decadent  in 
the  strict  sense,  is  nevertheless  commendable. 
They  are  not  great  artists  even  in  the  sense  that 
Monet,  Manet,  Gauguin,  Matisse  and  Picasso 
are  great;  but  many  of  them  are  at  least  genuine 
artists. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  figures  among 
the  decadents  is  Wassily  Kandinsky.  In  an  age 
when  all  art  was  being  arraigned  before  the 
tribunal  of  biology,  physiology,  and  psychology, 
he  came  forward  and  attempted  to  drag  it  back 
into  the  murky  medium  of  metaphysics.  The 
generating  forces  of  modern  painting,  however, 
rest  on  no  metaphysical  hypothesis.  To  attempt 
to  define  form  by  transcendental  terms,  or  even 
to  credit  form  with  esoteric  significance,  reveals 
an  ignorance  of  the  principles  of  aesthetic  emotion. 
Form  in  the  art  sense  is  a  demonstrable  proposi- 
tion; it  is  answerable  to  physical  laws.  Michel- 
angelo, El  Greco,  Giotto,  Rubens,  Cezanne  and 
Renoir  based  composition  on  natural  causes,  and 
as  each  successive  artist  has  approached  intensity 
in  organisation,  he  has  come  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  rhythm  which  animates  and  controls 
corporeal  existence.  ^Esthetic  form,  in  order  to 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  309 

become  emotion-producing,  must  reflect  the  form 
which  is  most  intimately  associated  with  our 
sensitivities.  It  must  primarily  be  physical. 
There  is  nothing  mysterious  about  aesthetic 
rhythm,  and  any  attempt  to  "spiritualise"  the 
harmonies  of  art  carries  art  so  much  further  from 
the  truth.  The  modern  tendency  to  make  objects 
abstract  and  to  divest  subject-matter  of  all  its 
mimetic  qualities,  has  led  some  critics  and 
painters  to  the  false  conclusion  that  form  itself 
is  unrelated  to  recognisable  phenomena.  But 
even  in  the  most  abstract  of  the  great  painters, 
the  form  is  concrete.  In  a  broad  sense  it  is 
susceptible  of  geometrical  demonstration;  and 
its  intensity  is  in  direct  ratio  to  its  proximation  to 
human  organisms.  In  fact,  there  are  no  moving 
forms  in  an  aesthetic  organisation  which  do  not 
have  their  prototypes  in  the  human  body  in 
action.  Were  this  not  true  empathy  would  be 
impossible,  and  without  empathy  an  artistic 
emotion  is  purely  intellectual  and  associative. 
The  greatest  painters,  past  and  present,  have 
recognised  this  principle;  and  art  which  does  not 
adhere  to  it  is  decadent  both  in  the  aesthetic  and 
the  intellectual  sense. 

Kandinsky  exemplifies  this  kind  of  decadence. 
While  the  innovators  up  to  Matisse  had  tried  to 
discover  in  nature  secrets  which  would  aid  them 
in  plastic  expression,  Kandinsky  has  tried,  by 
numerous  articles  and  at  least  one  complete  book, 
to  turn  back  the  minds  of  painters  to  the  sup- 
posedly mystical  elements  of  form  and  colour. 
But  although  this  artist  is  to  be  commended 
on  his  effort  to  make  colour  significant  in  a  day 
when  angular  forms  of  brown  and  black  were  the 


3io  MODERN  POINTING 

keynote,  his  study  of  colour  should  have  begun 
where  Cezanne  left  off  and  not  with  the  writings 
of  Maeterlinck  and  the  symbolist  poets.  Kan- 
dinsky  recognises  that  colour  has  possibilities, 
but  he  ignores  the  fact  that  colour  is  one  of  the 
physical  sciences,  as  definite  as  those  of  the 
quadrivium,  that  its  inductive  qualities  have 
become  classified  and  that  its  functioning  is 
precise  and  answerable  to  natural  laws.  Conse- 
quently he  cannot  co-ordinate  its  governing 
principles,  and  in  an  attempt  to  rationalise  it  he 
has  sought  refuge  in  music,  an  art  which  presents 
to  him  the  same  mystical  difficulties.  So  long 
as  he  was  under  the  healthy  influence  of  Matisse 
his  symbology  was  less  evident;  but  when  he 
adopted  a  metaphysical  programme  it  all  came 
to  the  surface. 

Kandinsky's  early  "impressions"  are  heavy 
and  insensitive  "Fauve"  pictures.  His  "com- 
positions" for  the  most  part  are  general  state- 
ments of  some  rural  scene  in  Matisse's  manner; 
and  his  "improvisations"  represent  semi-abstract 
lines  delimiting  scientifically  meaningless  colours. 
In  his  book,  The  Art  of  Spiritual  Harmony, 
he  presents  an  elaborate  explanation  of  the 
metaphysical  basis  for  colour,  but  he  fails  to 
contribute  any  ideas  not  to  be  found  in  Dela- 
croix and  Seurat.  And  the  pictures  with  which 
he  complements  the  text  have  been  surpassed, 
in  their  own  manner,  by  the  Chinese.  There  are 
isolated  comments  on  colour  theories  which  are 
separately  sound,  and  there  are  explanatory 
generalisations;  but  a  diligent  search  fails  to 
reveal  any  statement  which  is  precise  and  at  the 
same  time  new.  The  book  refers  constantly  to 


THE  LESSER   MODERNS  311 

music,  and  there  are  undeniable  evidences  of 
literary  thought;  but  nowhere  is  there  an  ex- 
planation of  the  plastic  significance  of  colour. 
Kandinsky  is  a  painter  of  moods,  and  as  such 
encroaches  upon  the  domain  of  music.  He  is  a 
painter  of  the  vision  of  an  action  without  its 
objective  integument,  and  as  such  he  enters  the 
realm  of  poetry.  He  is  essentially  pretty,  and 
despite  his  idealistic  nomenclature,  he  is  at 
bottom  illustrative  and  decorative.  What  he 
designates  the  "soul"  is  only  associative  memory, 
and  his  conception  of  composition  is  the  breaking 
up  of  a  flat  surface  into  irregular  compartments 
by  lines  and  more  or  less  pure  colour.  Like 
Scriabine  he  has  overlooked  the  formal  possi- 
bilities of  colour  and  consequently  has  failed  in 
any  aesthetically  emotional  expression. 

Kandinsky's  attempts  to  create  moods  are 
largely  failures  because  of  the  inherent  limitations 
of  his  art  medium.  The  arts  may  be  synthesised 
when  a  profounder  understanding  of  them  has 
come  about,  but  their  functionality  can  never  be 
interchanged.  The  art  of  literature  will  always 
be  able  to  tell  a  story  better  than  the  greatest 
sculpture;  and  even  a  primitive  song  is  more 
capable  of  producing  a  mood  than  the  most 
highly  organised  painting.  Kandinsky,  for  in- 
stance, fails  to  achieve  what  the  Marseillaise 
achieves  in  music,  namely:  the  dramatic  presenta- 
tion of  an  exortation  to  action.  Separate,  for 
instance,  the  phrases  of  the  original  version. 
The  first  verse  opens  with  a  rousing  appeal  which 
culminates  on  "patrie,"  a  word  always  welcome 
to  the  ear  and  heart  of  a  Frenchman.  Then  the 
song  acclaims  the  glory  of  the  occasion  and 


3 1 2  MODERN  PAINTING 

repeats  dramatically  the  cause  of  the  struggle  — 
"Centre  nous  de  la  tyrannic  Velendard  sanglant 
est  leve."  Then  it  recounts  the  tragedies  which 
are  befalling  relatives  and  friends  at  the  hands 
of  the  growling  soldiers  of  the  enemy;  and 
suddenly,  in  an  unexpected  voice  it  calls,  "  Aux 
armes,  citoyens!"  ending  in  a  patriotic  and  deci- 
sive flourish.  The  music  throughout  is  subtly 
harmonised  with  the  words:  lively  during  the 
opening  call;  abated  during  the  first  statement 
of  the  cause;  animated  with  its  repetition;  minor 
when  the  tragic  words  occur;  vibrant  and  imita- 
tive of  bugles  during  the  call  to  arms;  and 
highest  in  pitch  at  the  end.  This  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  mood  intensified. 

Could  painting  extend  itself  into  time  and 
present  singly  and  in  sequence  the  visions  of 
objective  nature,  dramatically  synthesised  with 
colour  and  line,  it  could  perhaps  influence  people 
to  emotion  in  the  way  music  does.  But  the 
musical  quality  of  time-extension  is  impossible  in 
painting.  And  since  a  picture  presents  a  simul- 
taneous vision,  which  cannot  be  otherwise  except 
through  a  subjective  process,  it  is  incapable  of 
working  from  a  prelude  to  a  finale  like  music. 
Music  is  abstract,  though  firmly  based  on  the 
rhythmic  movement  of  all  nature,  yet  it  can 
produce  moods  by  far  more  distant  and  far  less 
tangible  associations  than  can  painting.  But 
mood  in  music  is  no  higher  a  quality  than 
illustration  in  painting,  and  the  highly  creative 
artists  ignore  them  both.  The  great  composer  is 
the  one  who,  seeing  beyond  the  associative  theory 
in  music,  feels  the  deeper  plasticity  of  movement 
and  form:  and  his  plasticity  is  this  only  pre- 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  313 

occupation,  just  as  the  plastic  element  of  colour 
is  the  great  modern  painter's  chief  concern. 
Kandinsky  has  only  tried  to  introduce  an  unim- 
portant element  of  one  art  into  another  art. 
While  the  procedure  has  a  superficial  taste  of 
novelty  it  is  no  more  creditable  than  if  he  had 
declared  himself  frankly  for  illustration  and 
joined  the  ranks  of  Degas  and  his  school.  He 
has  not  probed  into  the  pregnant  recesses  of 
painting  and  attempted  to  discover  the  meaning 
of  form.  He  has  contented  himself  with  obscur- 
ing the  delineations  of  natural  objects  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  beholder  feels  led  to  decipher 
his  cryptic  realities.  The  suggestion  of  actuality 
is  there,  but  there  being  no  other  strong  attraction 
in  the  picture,  aesthetic  or  otherwise,  the  spectator 
sets  to  work  to  penetrate  its  objective  meaning. 
In  the  majority  of  cases  he  succeeds,  and  gains 
thereby  a  satisfaction  similar  to  that  of  having 
solved  a  simple  problem  in  fractions. 

In  painting  moods,  which  he  refers  to  as 
"spiritual  impressions,"  "internal  harmonies," 
"psychic  effects"  and  "soul  vibrations,"  Kan- 
dinsky does  not  attempt  to  depict  the  dynamic 
forces  which  produce  moods,  but  strives  to  inter- 
pret his  own  emotional  impressions  by  means 
of  semi-symbolic  and  semi-naturalistic  visions 
and  by  inspirational  methods.  Unable  to  ally  the 
elements  of  colour  and  line  to  a  given  theme,  he 
contents  himself  with  giving  us  a  chaotic  impres- 
sion by  such  means  as  he  personally  associates 
with  his  mood :  and  since  this  kind  of  association 
is  largely  individual,  his  depiction  of  the  mood 
is  incomprehensible  to  anyone  not  tempera- 
mentally and  mentally  at  one  with  him.  Did  he 


3i4  MODERN  PAINTING 

understand  the  inherent  psychological  dramatic 
significance  of  colours  and  lines  he  could  represent 
a  universally  moving  vision,  and  thereby  attain 
in  a  small  degree  the  end  for  which  he  aims. 
But  his  feeling  for  colour  especially  is  so  vague 
and  unscientific  that  it  is,  after  all,  a  personal 
thing,  and  his  graphic  representation  of  a  mood  is 
little  more  than  an  individual  and  purely  otiose 
expression.  Even  Carra,  in  his  colourless  Funeral 
of  the  Anarchist  Galli,  approaches  nearer  the 
creation  of  a  mood  than  does  Kandinsky  in  his 
best  canvases,  for  in  Carra  there  is  exhibited  a 
certain  knowledge  of  the  dramatic  use  of  line 
which,  when  combined  with  recognisable  subject- 
matter,  augments  the  thematic  drama. 

Despite  his  complete  preoccupation  with  colour 
Kandinsky  is  decadent  more  than  Van  Gogh  to 
whom  artistically  he  is  closely  related,  because 
the  progress  of  modern  painting  is  toward  purity, 
toward  creation  by  means  of  a  unique  element, 
toward  an  art  which  expresses  only  the  qualities 
of  which  that  art  is  the  most  highly  capable. 
When  other  considerations  enter  into  it,  it  is  at 
once  drawn  back  toward  illustration,  and  its 
final  defecation  is  postponed.  Happily  Kandin- 
sky, an  explorer  of  the  limitless  realms  of  meta- 
physics, has  given  us  no  more  specific  a  postulate 
than  that  colour  has  meaning.  Though  he  formu- 
lates many  vaguely  associative  theories  (such  as 
"keen  yellow  looks  sour  because  it  recalls  the  taste 
of  a  lemon/5  "a  shade  of  red  will  cause  pain  or 
disgust  through  association  with  running  blood," 
and  "in  the  hierarchy  of  colours  green  is  the 
bourgeoisie  —  self-satisfied,  immovable,  narrow"); 
he  nevertheless  relies  largely  on  instinct  for  their 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  315 

application.  While  attempting  to  turn  painters' 
minds  from  the  precise  discoveries  of  colourists  to 
a  pseudo-philosophical  consideration  of  colour,  he 
is  too  general  and  ambiguous  to  inspire  extensive 
imitation.  Already  painters  since  him  have  gone 
forward  in  the  great  work  of  research  begun  by 
the  Impressionists. 

If  Kandinsky,  as  a  theorist,  is  cabalistic  and 
illusory,  he  achieves  a  certain  decorative  pretti- 
ness  in  his  work.  Though  his  ideas  are  old,  the 
appearance  of  his  canvases  is  new:  and  it  is 
merely  this  novelty  of  conception,  coupled  with 
his  tendency  toward  abstraction,  which  makes 
him  of  interest,  and  then  only  as  a  theoretical 
deviation  from  the  work  of  Gauguin,  Matisse  and 
the  Orientals.  His  colour  is  not  without  visual 
charm,  and  his  composition  often  has  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  delicate  patterns  found  in  the  Chinese. 
In  fact,  Kandinsky's  compositional  debt  to  the 
Chinese  is  large.  His  Improvisation  No.  29  is 
almost  identical  with  a  painting  by  Rin  Teikei, 
and  many  of  his  pictures  appear  like  curved-line 
generalisations  of  Chinese  groupings,  or  the  forms 
in  Chinese  backgrounds.  Like  the  Cubists  Kan- 
dinsky is  a  step  toward  arbitrariness  in  formal 
composition,  but  his  advance  is  less  significant 
than  theirs.  In  his  desire  to  illustrate  a  mood 
and  produce  a  corresponding  psychic  emotion  in 
the  spectator  he  is  a  transcendentalised  Futurist. 
His  ontological  terminology  has  given  an  impetus 
to  his  popularity,  but  it  has  tended  unfortunately 
to  obscure  his  worth  as  a  maker  of  arabesques. 

Of  a  different  decadent  type  are  Bonnard, 
Vuillard  and  K.-X.  Roussel  who  call  themselves 
the  Intimists.  These  artists  descend  in  large 


3i6  MODERN  PAINTING 

measure  from  Matisse,  and  though  other  and 
sometimes  stronger  influences  enter  their  work, 
they  are  in  a  general  way  more  closely  akin  to 
him  than  any  other  modern  painter.  Their 
appearance  is  more  academic  and,  in  the  decora- 
tive sense,  prettier  than  that  of  Matisse.  Also, 
there  is  in  their  pictures  a  greater  perpendicularity 
than  in  the  work  of  their  master.  The  angular 
and  the  perpendicular  always  represent  the  second 
compositional  step  from  symmetricality  to  order: 
they  are  indicative  of  the  earliest  stage  of  aesthetic 
consciousness.  They  are  found  in  the  Egyptians, 
Phoenicians,  Assyrians,  Chaldeans,  and  in  all  the 
primitive  Christians,  and  in  Gauguin  and  Puvis 
de  Chavannes.  The  artists  who  use  them  have 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  chaos  is  not  conducive 
to  emotional  satisfaction.  In  perpendicular  lines 
there  is  a  primitive  sense  of  fitness,  for  one  feels 
they  are  both  well-planted  and  immovable.  Not 
infrequently  they  are  employed  by  the  decadents 
of  a  movement  or  an  epoch  because  they  har- 
monise so  neatly  and  unostentatiously  with  pretty 
colours  and  delicate  themes.  The  Futurists  found 
in  them  a  ready  means  to  a  decorative  order. 

Bonnard,  the  most  genuine  artist  of  the  group, 
uses  perpendicularity  of  arrangement  more  con- 
sciously than  does  either  of  the  others.  He  stu- 
died in  the  same  class  with  Maurice  Denis  at  the 
Academic  Julien,  and  his  association  with  this 
painter  no  doubt  explains  his  compositional  pre- 
dilection. He  is  strongly  influenced  by  Renoir, 
although  he  has  never  penetrated  beyond  Renoir's 
surface.  His  greys  are  always  rich  and  sombre, 
and  even  his  simplest  works  are  as  artistically 
opulent  and  lovely  as  the  finest  tapestry.  Indeed 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  317 

his  large  paintings  are  more  appropriately  wall 
coverings  than  panels,  ornaments  rather  than 
decorations.  In  them  are  hot  sunlight  and  cold 
shadow  in  scintillating  succession;  and  every 
object  is  put  to  genuine  ornamental  use.  They 
seem  to  exhibit  an  unconscious  fluency  in  the 
employment  of  bafflingly  diverse  greys  which  are 
saturated  with  colour  and  applied  so  as  to  reveal 
highly  their  attentuated  purity.  There  are  also 
in  his  work  harmoniously  horizontal  lines  and 
pleasing  sequences  of  curves.  In  Le  Jardin  a  line 
starts  with  the  head  of  a  man  on  the  left,  con- 
tinues along  his  arm  and  leg  and  the  sofa  back, 
and  reaches  an  apex  in  the  child's  head  to  the 
right  of  the  centre,  sinks  by  way  of  the  head  of 
the  woman  on  the  right  to  the  man's  arm,  is  then 
caught  up  again  by  the  contour  of  his  legs,  is 
paralleled  by  the  outline  of  the  nearest  standing 
child's  dress  and  face  and  the  face  of  the  kneeling 
girl,  is  continued  in  the  bottom  of  the  skirt  of  the 
child  seated  on  the  sofa,  and  then  becomes 
horizontal  in  a  perfect  continuation  of  the  table's 
surface.  The  line  is  beautiful  and  studiously 
made,  and  is  pointed  out  here  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  the  simple  ordonnance  often  found  in 
the  lesser  artists.  Nor  is  it  the  only  line  in  the 
canvas.  There  are  others  as  harmonious  and  as 
beautiful;  but  what  keeps  the  picture  from  being 
a  great  composition,  although  its  forms  are  solid 
and  well  adapted  to  their  spaces,  is  its  lack  of 
opposition  or  solution  of  warring  elements.  If 
we  do  not  try  to  class  Bonnard  with  the  greatest 
artists,  we  are  forced  to  praise  him.  He  is 
unpretentious,  highly  gifted,  has  a  well-developed 
sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  is  possessed  of  a  most 


318  MODERN  PAINTING 

sensitive  eye.  He  is  neither  an  illustrator  of 
nature  nor  of  moods,  but  an  artist  who  paints  to 
obtain  aesthetic  expression,  without  the  arriere 
pensee  of  a  theoretical  method.  He  is  one  of  the 
most  purely  pleasing  painters  of  modern  times. 

Vuillard,  a  painter  of  interiors,  owes  his  inspira- 
tion as  much  to  Toulouse-Lautrec  as  to  Gauguin. 
Like  Bonnard  he  uses  greys  of  dry  and  mat 
colour,  but  his  harmonies  are  slighter  and  of 
lighter  tonality  than  those  of  Bonnard.  Profiting 
by  the  Impressionists'  light  discoveries  he  has 
done  some  very  admirable  interiors;  some  of  his 
works  are  more  modern  and  artistic  Whistlers. 
His  art  is  one  in  which  the  spotting  of  masses  for 
the  sake  of  balance  supplants  any  attempt  to 
produce  generating  lines.  As  with  Bonnard  and 
Roussel  there  is  in  him  a  striving  after  beautiful 
surfaces,  matieres  which  in  themselves  will  tempt 
the  amateur.  In  this  common  pursuit  the  Inti- 
mists  show  themselves  to  be  the  successors  of 
Degas;  but  they  are  successors  who,  having  taken 
to  heart  the  teachings  of  more  significant  fore- 
runners, represent  a  sturdier  decadence  than  that 
of  Degas.  K.-X.  Roussel  is  a  feminised  Poussin. 
He  searches  solely  for  effecT:,  and  his  canvases 
have  the  singular  charm  of  enamel.  Were  they 
smaller  they  would  make  admirable  brooches  and 
vases.  He  too  has  made  tapestries,  but  in  spirit 
they  are  less  modern  than  the  corresponding 
efforts  of  his  contemporaries.  His  compositions 
embody  reddish  satyrs  and  nymphs,  intense  blue 
sky,  yellow-green  foliage  and  yellow  ground. 
His  drawing  never  has  more  than  the  rudimentary 
charm  of  school-room  talent,  while  that  of 
Vuillard  is  subjugated  to  his  colour  application, 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  319 

and  that  of  Bonnard  is  instinctively  deformed  to 
the  needs  of  line  and  decorative  necessity. 

Maurice  Denis  is  more  directly  an  outcome  of 
the  school  of  Pont-Aven  than  are  the  three  pre- 
ceding men.  His  synthetic  figures  were  first  seen 
in  Courbet,  then  in  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  then  in 
Besnard  and  Gauguin.  In  Denis  they  have  lost 
much  of  their  significance  and  have  once  more 
become  primarily  academic.  There  was  a  time 
about  1890  when  Denis's  colour  was  not  aggres- 
sively disagreeable.  It  was  subjugated  to  a 
certain  greyness  which  was  applied  in  little  spots 
resembling  the  black-and-white  stippling  of  some 
of  Seurat's  drawings.  Now  his  colour  has  grown 
acid  and  unpleasant.  His  line  is  stiff  and  vitiated 
and  lacks  even  the  quality  of  a  pleasing  silhouette. 
He  has  written  a  book  of  theories,  but  it  has 
helped  him  little  in  his  artistic  achievements.  He 
is  the  antithesis  of  Bonnard,  and  his  colours  possess 
almost  no  harmonious  interrelation.  In  him  there 
are  a  few  perpendicular  lines,  but  one  may  seek  in 
vain  for  evidences  of  co-ordination.  Many  of  his 
figures  are  appropriated  from  the  works  of  the 
old  masters,  but  because  he  fails  to  adapt  them 
sensitively  to  his  needs,  they  lose,  rather  than 
gain,  in  beauty  by  the  transfer.  He  is  at  times 
symbolic  and  allegoric,  and  while  one  might 
overlook  this  literary  phase  of  his  art,  provided 
there  were  other  qualities  to  compensate  for  it, 
he  fails  to  exhibit  a  complete  appreciation  of  the 
aesthetic  possibilities  of  his  models,  and  conse- 
quently becomes  merely  an  exponent  of  adopted 
mannerisms.  His  popularity  has  entirely  to  do 
with  qualities  unrelated  to  painting.  Judged  by 
a  purely  aesthetic  standard  he  is  inferior  to  an 


320  MODERN  PAINTING 

Augustus  John,  a  Desvallieres,  a  Bourdelle  or  a 
Wyndham  Lewis. 

The  highly  talented  Andre  Derain  is  another 
synthetic  painter.  He  is  sincerely  moved  by 
multiramose  tree  forms  and  the  sunlight  effects  of 
Provence,  and  his  admiration  for  Cezanne  led 
him  into  certain  mannerisms  which  have  for  their 
object  a  facilitation  of  the  Aix  master's  methods. 
In  his  use  of  soft  yellows,  hot  earth  tones,  deep 
warm  greens  and  light  blues,  he  reveals  his  debt 
to  the  modern  tendency  toward  colour.  By  out- 
lining his  objects  with  heavy  contours,  he  has 
acquired  erroneously  a  reputation  for  virility, 
and  though  he  aspires  to  composition,  he  only 
achieves  pattern.  He  is  much  like  the  Scandi- 
navian, Othon  Friesz,  who,  having  absorbed  the 
exteriors  of  Matisse  and  Cezanne,  and  having 
read  Cezanne's  letter  recommending  Poussin  re- 
made on  nature,  has  turned  his  attention  to  this 
old  Titian  offshoot  and  endeavours  to  give  us  a 
reversion  to  style.  At  one  time  he  used  colour 
freely,  but  he  now  paints  with  ochres,  blues, 
blacks,  greens  and  an  occasional  red  —  a  gamut 
like  Derain's,  only  yellower.  He  too  has  a  heavy 
technique  and  a  reputation  for  virility.  Maurice 
de  Vlaminck  is  another  painter  of  similar  inspira- 
tion and  palette.  He  is  much  prettier  and  has  a 
finer  sense  of  soft  harmonies  than  either  of  the 
other  two.  He  reveals  a  genuine  feeling  for  his  sub- 
jects, and  always  tries  to  introduce  into  his  works 
a  simple  oppositional  line.  He  comes  direct  from 
Cezanne,  and  it  is  from  paintings  such  as  his  that 
Cezanne  has  acquired  a  reputation  as  a  maker  of 
arabesques.  De  Vlaminck  has  a  rich  and  impelling 
matiere  and  an  art  sense  which  is  almost  coquettish. 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  321 

Kees  van  Dongen  has  studied  the  sensual 
drawings  of  Toulouse-Lautrec  and  the  broad 
exteriors  of  Matisse,  and  in  combining  his  two 
admirations  has  made  eminently  effective  posters 
of  nearly  harmonious  colours  in  very  broad  planes. 
De  Segonzac  also  uses  attenuated  colours  in  a 
broad  manner  after  Matisse.  Manguin,  another 
Matisse  imitator,  is  too  academic  to  appeal 
strongly  to  those  who  have  acquired  the  modern 
vision,  despite  the  primitive  order  his  canvases 
at  times  possess.  Flandrin  is  more  decorative. 
His  works  reveal  a  classic  perpendicularity  of 
composition,  and  though  they  are  without  a 
sense  of  form,  we  feel  in  them  a  certain  charm  of 
space  and  air.  He  brushes  in  his  landscapes 
broadly  by  planes  of  light  and  dark,  somewhat 
in  the  very  early  manner  of  Matisse.  Pierre 
Laprade  has  arrived  at  a  style  of  surface  which 
may  best  be  characterised  as  bad  tapestry.  Jean 
Puy  applies  his  pictures  in  a  broad,  somewhat 
bold,  manner,  and  his  light  tonality  and  angular- 
ities point  to  his  having  lingered  over  the  work 
of  Cezanne.  Lebasque  is  the  feminine  prototype 
of  Puy.  His  colour  is  faded  and  unemotional, 
and  his  exteriors  are  as  flat  as  the  simplest 
decorations.  Madame  Marval  differs  from  La- 
basque  only  in  theme. 

Modern  decadence  in  Zak,  Rousseau,  Vallotton, 
Prendergast  and  Simon  Bussy  manifests  itself 
in  a  retrogression  to  primitive  ideals.  Though 
using  the  modern  methods  of  simplification,  these 
men  revert  to  a  static  and  dead  past.  Their  aim 
is  to  revive  the  most  ancient  manner  of  painting. 
Of  all  the  modern  decadents  they  are  perhaps 
the  most  devitalising  for  they  tacitly  repudiate  the 


322  MODERN  POINTING 

discoveries  of  the  new  men,  and  strive  to  turn  the 
minds  of  the  public  and  of  painters  alike  to  the 
sterilities  of  antiquity.  They  even  ignore  the 
aesthetic  principles  of  the  Renaissance,  and  by 
pushing  creative  expression  to  its  furthest  limits 
of  artlessness,  turn  to  naught  the  entire  achieve- 
ments of  the  great  plastic  composers.  At  best 
these  men  are  dealers  in  decorative  material. 
Simple  arrangement  is  absent  from  their  works, 
and  colour,  which  for  nearly  a  century  has  fought 
for  its  true  place  in  painting,  is  once  more  used  as 
an  instinctive  means  for  rilling  in  drawings. 

Vallotton,  though  a  modern  primitive,  is  not 
allied  to  any  recent  school.  In  appearance  his 
work  is  unlike  that  of  the  other  moderns.  He 
disdains  all  save  the  simplest  means  and  the  most 
restricted  colours.  In  him  there  are  no  delicate 
plays  of  light,  but  broad  and  heavy  shadings 
which  are  not  without  subtlety.  He  is  a  Teutonic 
Ingres  —  a  Flandrin  made  serious  as  to  precision 
and  reduced  colour.  At  a  distance  his  nude 
studies  are  interesting,  for  there  one  loses  the 
dryness  and  hardness  of  their  technical  manner 
—  a  heritage  of  Vallotton's  days  of  wood  engrav- 
ings. Other  modern  painters  who  elude  classifica- 
tion, but  who  are  intimately  related  in  a  general 
way  to  the  new  movements  are  Charles  Guerin, 
Piot,  Spiro,  Alcide  Le  Beau,  Gustave  Jaulmes  and 
d'Espagnat.  Though  they  differ  markedly  from 
Vallotton  they  are  all  preoccupied  with  self- 
expression  by  means  of  colour.  By  making  it  a 
dominant  element  in  their  work,  they  have 
admitted  their  susceptibility  to  the  modern  ideal 
and  thereby  have  given  an  impetus  to  the  spirit 
which  tends  toward  purification.  Guerin  is  a 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  323 

professor  of  the  Academie  Moderne;  and  though 
clinging  close  to  conventional  drawing,  he  attains 
a  slightly  novel  aspect  in  all  his  tapestry-like 
canvases.  He  is  eminently  of  the  Beaux-Arts 
tradition,  is  artificial  and  monotonous,  and  paints 
very  large  pictures  with  both  idealistic  and  realis- 
tic themes. 

Of  the  modern  men  who  have  found  in  Cubism 
their  strongest  aesthetic  fascination  de  la  Fresnay 
is  a  noteworthy  example.  So  well  does  he  under- 
stand the  demands  of  the  Picasso  tradition  that 
he  has  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Cubist  group.  His  arrangements 
are  soft  and  pretty  and  his  colour  is  harmonious. 
He  has  in  fact  surpassed  in  merit  several  of  the 
original  Cubists.  Frederick  Etchells  and  W. 
Roberts  are  English  exponents  of  Cubism,  and 
the  latter  has  done  some  work  which  rivals  that 
of  Picabia.  Wyndham  Lewis,  another  English- 
man, strives  for  an  individual  expression,  but  his 
angularities  reveal  his  debt  to  Picasso,  although 
the  general  impression  of  his  pictures  is  Futuristic. 
The  hand  of  the  Cubists  can  be  found  in  many  of 
the  canvases  of  the  modern  Americans.  Arthur 
B.  Davies,  the  most  popular  of  the  new  men  in 
the  United  States,  is  at  bottom  a  superficial 
academician,  but  he  superimposes  shallow  Cubist 
traits  on  his  two-dimensional  drawings,  giving 
them  a  spuriously  modern  appearance.  Maurice 
Stern  treats  Gauguin  themes  with  a  pale  reflec- 
tion of  the  early  geometrical  Picasso;  and  similar 
means  are  employed  by  C.  R.  Sheeler,  Jr.,  though 
both  Matisse  and  Delaunay  have  contributed  to 
his  art. 

To  name  all  the  modern  painters  who  are  con- 


324  MODERN  PAINTING 

scientiously  battling  against  formalism  and  the 
dry-rot  of  the  academies  would  be  impossible. 
The  field  is  too  broad:  the  activities  are  too 
numerous.  Few  civilised  countries  have  escaped 
the  insistence  of  the  new  impetus.  By  some 
painters  the  new  methods  are  adopted  tentatively 
and  by  degrees.  Others  fly  to  the  latest  phases 
of  art  and  move  forward  with  the  epoch.  Today 
there  are  numerous  representatives  of  all  the 
movements  from  Impressionism  to  Synchromism. 
Kroll  and  Childe  Hassam,  both  Americans,  are 
emulators  of  Monet,  though  Hassam,  who  appears 
less  modern  than  Kroll,  is  by  far  the  more  sensi- 
tive painter.  Marquet  has  done  more  than 
imitate  Impressionism.  He  has  synthesised 
Monet  into  a  more  masculine  expression.  His 
planes  are  broad  and  luminous,  and  he  achieves 
a  distinct  feeling  for  air  and  distance  by 
simpler  and  more  direct  means  than  did  the  Im- 
pressionists. W.  S.  Glackens  combines  a  Renoir 
technique  with  a  modern  purity  of  colour.  J.  D. 
Ferguson,  the  Scotchman,  also  reverts  to  the  Im- 
pressionists but  has  learned  much  from  Matisse. 
Duncan  Grant,  an  Englishman,  is  much  more 
modern  than  Ferguson  and  more  competently 
expressive  of  the  new.  Roger  Fry  has  contributed 
much  to  the  modern  impetus.  His  writings  reveal 
a  wide  comprehension  of  present-day  paintings 
and  his  insight  into  aesthetics  is  at  times  profound. 
Every  year  adds  to  the  ranks.  Besides  the 
modern  artists  already  named  may  be  men- 
tioned Bechteiev,  Bolz,  Lhote,  Chagall,  Chamail- 
lard,  Zawadowsky,  Hayden,  Ottmann,  Lotiron, 
Utrillo,  Hartley,  Peckstein,  Valensi,  Jawlensky, 
Knauerhase,  Miinter,  Tobeen,  Bloch,  Dove,  de 


THE  LESSER  MODERNS  325 

Chirico,  Walkowitz,  Boussingault,  Kanoldt  and 
Granzow. 

One  of  the  healthiest  movements  of  the  day, 
though  without  novelty,  is  Vorticism  whose  head- 
quarters are  London.  The  Vorticists  are  unre- 
stricted as  to  theories,  and  have  for  their  aim  the 
final  purification  of  painting  as  well  as  of  the 
other  arts.  Their  creed  is  an  intelligent  one, 
and  is  in  direct  line  with  the  current  tendencies. 
As  yet  they  have  produced  no  pictures  which 
might  be  called  reflective  of  their  principles,  but 
they  have  kept  before  English  artists  the  necessity 
of  eliminating  the  unessentials.  Their  main  doc- 
trines, so  far  as  painting  is  concerned,  were  set 
forth  by  the  Synchromists  long  before  the  Vorti- 
cists came  into  public  being;  but  by  their  in- 
sistence on  the  basic  needs  of  purification,  they 
have  done  valuable  service.  The  Synchromists  in 
their  manifesto  wrote:  "An  art  whose  ambition 
it  is  to  be  pure  should  express  itself  only  in  the 
means  inherent  in  that  art.  .  .  .  Painting  being 
the  art  of  colour,  any  quality  of  a  picture  not 
expressed  by  colour  is  not  painting."  A  year 
later  in  Blast,  the  Vorticists'  publication,  we 
read:  "The  Vorticist  relies  on  this  alone;  on  the 
primary  pigment  of  his  art,  and  nothing  else.  .  .  . 
Every  concept,  every  emotion  presents  itself  to 
the  vivid  consciousness  in  some  primary  form. 
It  belongs  to  the  art  of  this  form.  If  sound, 
to  music,  if  formed  words,  to  literature;  colour  in 
position,  to  painting.  .  .  ." 

All  these  painters  are  the  leaders  of  the  secon- 
dary inspirations  in  modern  art,  and  out  of  them 
grow  other  painters  in  Europe  and  America. 
They  do  not  as  a  rule  go  by  the  name  of  any 


326  MODERN  PAINTING 

school,  but  they  can  be  classed  together  because 
in  them  all  is  the  same  desire  to  create  the 
novel,  to  present  a  strikingly  different  aspect 
from  the  academies,  and  to  differentiate  them- 
selves individually  from  their  fellows.  They  all 
feel  their  incompetency  to  create  new  forms,  the 
necessity  to  follow,  the  timidity  which  only 
permits  them  to  modify  the  surfaces  of  other 
greater  men.  They  are  the  creative  exponents 
and  the  decadents  of  vital  movements,  and  they 
in  turn  have  their  own  imitators  and  decadents. 
They  have  felt  the  need  for  change,  but  lack  the 
genius  for  new  organisations.  That  many  of 
them  are  sound  artists  it  would  be  folly  to  deny. 
But  they  are  in  no  sense  of  the  word  innovators. 
Some  of  them  in  fact  are  failures,  but  theirs  is 
the  consolation  of  having  failed  in  attempting 
something  vital  and  representative  of  the  age  in 
which  they  live. 


XV 
CONCLUSION 

IN  conclusion  there  are  several  points  which 
require  accentuation  if  the  significance  of 
modern  painting  is  to  be  fully  grasped. 
There  have  been  three  epochs  in  the  visual 
arts.  The  first  was  the  longest,  and  extended 
through  more  than  two  centuries.  The  last  two 
epochs  have  required  less  than  a  hundred  years 
for  their  fulfilment.  Each  epoch  dealt  with  a 
specific  phase  of  painting  and  developed  that 
phase  until  its  possibilities  were  exhausted.  The 
ultimate  aim  of  all  great  painting  was  purifica- 
tion, but  before  that  could  come  about  many 
theories  had  to  be  tested;  many  consummations 
had  to  take  place;  many  problems  had  to  be 
solved.  The  laws  of  formal  organisation  were 
first  discovered  and  applied  with  the  limited 
means  at  hand.  Then  came  experimentation  and 
research  in  the  mechanics  of  expression  —  the 
search  for  new  and  vital  methods  wherewith  these 
principles  of  composition  might  be  bodied  forth 
more  intensely.  Later  the  functioning  properties 
of  colour  were  unearthed  and  employed.  In  the 
course  of  this  evolution  many  irrelevant  factors 
found  their  way  into  painting.  The  men  of  the 
first  epoch  used  primitive  and  obvious  materials 
to  express  their  forms.  When  the  new  means  — 
means  inherent  in  painting  —  were  ascertained, 


328  MODERN  PAINTING 

it  was  necessary  to  eliminate  the  former  media. 
The  subject-matter  of  painting  —  that  is,  the 
recognisable  object,  the  human  obstacle  —  had  to 
be  forced  out  to  permit  of  the  introduction  of 
colour  which  had  become  an  inseparable  adjunct 
of  form.  To  effect  the  coalition  of  pure  composi- 
tion and  the  newer  methods  was  a  difficult  feat, 
for  so  long  had  the  world  been  accustomed  to  the 
pictorial  aspect  of  painting,  that  it  had  come  to 
look  upon  subject-matter  as  a  cardinal  requisite 
to  plastic  creation. 

The  first  epoch  began  with  the  advent  of  oil 
painting  about  1400,  and  went  forward,  building 
and  developing,  until  it  reached  realisation  early 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  Knowing  that  organ- 
ised form  is  the  basis  of  all  aesthetic  emotion,  the 
old  masters  strove  to  find  the  psychological 
principles  for  co-ordinating  volume.  Their  means 
v/ere  naturally  superficial,  for  their  initial  concern 
was  to  determine  what  they  should  do,  not  how 
they  should  do  it.  In  expressing  the  form  they 
deemed  necessary  to  great  art  they  used  the 
material  already  at  their  disposal,  namely:  objec- 
tive nature.  They  organised  and  made  rhythmic 
the  objects  about  them,  more  especially  the 
human  body  which  permitted  of  many  variations 
and  groupings  and  which  was  in  itself  a  complete 
ensemble.  And  furthermore  they  had  discovered 
that  movement  —  an  indispensable  attribute  of 
the  most  highly  emotional  composition  —  was 
best  expressed  by  the  poise  of  the  human  figure. 
Colour  to  these  early  men  was  only  an  addendum 
to  drawing.  They  conceived  form  in  black  and 
white,  and  sought  to  reinforce  their  work  by  the 
realistic  use  of  pigments.  That  colour  was  an 


CONCLUSION  329 

infixed  element  of  organisation  they  never  sus- 
pecfted.  Their  preoccupation  was  along  different 
lines.  The  greatest  exponents  of  intense  composi- 
tion during  this  first  epoch  were  Tintoretto, 
Giorgione,  Masaccio,  Giotto,  Veronese,  El  Greco 
and  Rubens.  These  men  were  primarily  inter- 
ested in  discovering  absolute  laws  for  formal 
rhythm.  The  mimetic  quality  of  their  work  was 
a  secondary  consideration.  In  Rubens  were  con- 
summated the  aims  of  the  older  painters;  that  is, 
he  attained  to  the  highest  degree  of  compositional 
plasticity  which  was  possible  with  the  fixed  means 
of  his  period.  In  him  the  first  cycle  terminated. 
There  was  no  longer  any  advance  to  be  made  in 
the  art  of  painting  until  a  new  method  of  expres- 
sion should  be  unearthed.  However,  the  princi- 
ples of  form  laid  down  by  these  old  masters  were 
fundamental  and  unalterable.  Upon  them  all 
great  painting  must  ever  be  based.  They  are 
intimately  connected  with  the  very  organisms  of 
human  existence,  and  can  never  be  changed  until 
the  nature  of  mankind  shall  change. 

After  Rubens  a  short  period  of  decadence  and 
deterioration  set  in.  The  older  methods  no 
longer  afforded  inspiration.  About  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  second  cycle  of 
painting  was  ushered  in  by  Turner,  Constable  and 
Delacroix.  These  men,  realising  that  until  new 
means  were  discovered  art  could  be  only  a 
variation  of  what  had  come  before,  turned  their 
attention  to  finding  a  procedure  by  which  the 
ambition  of  the  artist  could  be  more  profoundly 
realised.  This  second  cycle  was  one  of  research 
and  analysis,  of  scientific  experimentation  and 
data  gathering.  To  surpass  Rubens  in  his  own 


330  MODERN  PAINTING 

medium  was  impossible:  he  had  reached  the 
ultimate  outpost  of  aesthetic  possibilities  with 
what  materials  he  possessed.  The  new  men  first 
made  inquiry  into  colour  from  the  standpoint  of 
its  dramatic  potentialities.  Naturalism  was  born. 
While  Delacroix  was  busy  applying  the  rudiments 
of  colour  science  to  thematic  romanticism,  Cour- 
bet  was  busy  tearing  down  the  tenets  of  conven- 
tionalism in  subject-matter,  and  Daumier  was 
experimenting  in  the  simultaneity  of  form  and 
drawing.  Manet  liberated  the  painter  from  set 
themes,  and  thereby  broadened  the  material  field 
of  composition.  The  Impressionists  followed,  and 
by  labourious  investigations  into  nature's  methods, 
probed  the  secrets  of  colour  in  relation  to  light. 
The  Neo-Impressionists  went  further  afield  with 
scientific  observations;  and  finally  Renoir,  assimi- 
lating all  the  new  discoveries,  rejected  the  fallacies 
and  co-ordinated  the  valuable  conclusions.  In 
him  was  brought  to  a  close  the  naturalistic  con- 
ception of  painting.  He  was  the  consummation 
of  the  second  cycle.  During  this  period  the  older 
laws  of  composition  were  for  the  most  part  for- 
gotten. The  painters  were  too  absorbed  in  their 
search  for  new  means.  They  forgot  the  founda- 
tions of  art  in  their  enthusiasm  for  a  fuller  and 
less  restricted  expression.  The  essential  character 
of  colour  and  light  and  the  new  freedom  in  subject 
selection  so  intoxicated  them  that  they  lost 
sight  of  all  that  had  preceded  them.  But  their 
gifts  to  painting  cannot  be  overestimated.  By 
finding  new  weapons  with  which  future  artists 
might  achieve  the  highest  formal  intensity,  they 
opened  up  illimitable  fields  of  aesthetic  endea- 
vour: they  made  possible  the  third  and  last 


CONCLUSION  331 

cycle  which  resulted  in  the  final  purification  of 
painting. 

Of  this  cycle  Cezanne  was  the  primitive. 
Profiting  by  the  Impressionist  teachings,  he 
turned  his  attention  once  more  to  the  needs  of 
composition.  He  realised  the  limitations  of  the 
naturalistic  conception,  and  created  light  which, 
though  it  was  as  logical  as  nature's,  was  not 
restricted  to  the  realistic  vision.  Colour  with  him 
became  for  the  first  time  a  functional  element 
capable  of  producing  form.  The  absolute  freedom 
of  subject  selection  —  a  heritage  from  the  second 
cycle  —  permitted  him  extreme  distortions,  and 
with  these  distortions  was  opened  up  the  road  to 
abstraction.  Matisse  made  form  even  more  arbi- 
trary, and  PicasSo  approached  still  nearer  to  the 
final  elimination  of  natural  objectivity,  though 
both  men  ignored  colour  as  a  generator  of  form. 
They  carried  forward  the  work  of  Cezanne  only 
on  its  material  side.  Then  Synchromism,  com- 
bining the  progress  of  both  Cezanne  and  the 
Cubists,  took  the  final  step  in  the  elimination  of 
the  illustrative  object,  and  at  the  same  time  put 
aside  the  local  hues  on  which  the  art  of  Cezanne 
was  dependent.  Since  the  art  of  painting  is  the 
art  of  colour,  the  Synchromists  depended  entirely 
on  primary  pigment  for  the  complete  expression 
of  formal  composition.  Thus  was  brought  about 
the  final  purification  of  painting.  Form  was 
entirely  divorced  from  any  realistic  consideration: 
and  colour  became  an  organic  function.  The  meth- 
ods of  painting,  being  rationalised,  reached  their 
highest  degree  of  purity  and  creative  capability. 

The  evolution  of  painting  from  tinted  illustra- 
tion to  an  abstract  art  expressed  wholly  by  the 


332  MODERN  PAINTING 

one  element  inherent  in  it  —  colour,  was  a 
natural  and  inevitable  progress.  Music  passed 
through  the  same  development  from  the  imitation 
of  natural  sounds  to  harmonic  abstraction.  We  no 
longer  consider  such  compositions  as  The  Battle 
of  Prague  or  Monastery  Bells  aesthetically  com- 
parable to  Korngold's  Symphonietta  or  Schon- 
berg's  Opus  u.  And  yet  in  painting  the  great 
majority  confines  its  judgment  to  that  phase  of  a 
picture  which  is  irrelevant  to  its  aesthetic  impor- 
tance. So  long  have  form  and  composition  ex- 
pressed themselves  through  recognisable  phenomena 
that  the  cognitive  object  has  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  an  end,  whereas  it  is  only  a  means  to  a 
subjective  emotion.  The  world  still  demands 
that  a  painting  shall  represent  a  natural  form, 
that  is,  that  the  basis  of  painting  shall  be  illustra- 
tion. The  illustrative  object  was  employed  by 
the  older  painters  only  because  their  means  were 
limited,  because  they  had  no  profounder  method 
wherewith  to  express  themselves.  And  even  with 
them  the  human  body  was  deliberately  dispropor- 
tioned  and  altered  to  meet  the  needs  of  composi- 
tion. When  the  properties  of  colour  began  to  be 
understood,  the  older  methods  were  no  longer 
required.  Colour  itself  became  form.  But  so 
deeply  rooted  was  the  illustrative  precedent  that 
no  one  painter  had  the  courage  to  eliminate 
objectivity  at  one  stroke.  Cezanne  took  the 
first  great  step;  Matisse,  the  second;  Cubism  the 
next;  and  Synchromism  the  final  one. 

So  long  as  painting  deals  with  objective  nature 
it  is  an  impure  art,  for  recognisability  precludes 
the  highest  aesthetic  emotion.  All  painting,  an- 
cient and  modern,  moves  us  aesthetically  only  in 


CONCLUSION  333 

so  far  as  it  possesses  a  force  over  and  beyond  its 
mimetic  aspect.  The  average  spectator  is  unable 
to  differentiate  his  literary  and  associative  emo- 
tions from  his  aesthetic  ecstasy.  Form  and 
rhythm  alone  are  the  bases  of  aesthetic  enjoy- 
ment: all  else  in  a  picture  is  superfluity.  There- 
fore a  picture  in  order  to  represent  its  intensest 
emotive  power  must  be  an  abstract  presentation 
expressed  entirely  in  the  medium  of  painting: 
and  that  medium  is  colour.  There  are  no  longer 
any  experiments  to  be  made  in  methods.  Form 
and  colour  —  the  two  permanent  and  inalienable 
qualities  of  painting  —  have  become  synonymous. 
Ancient  painting  sounded  the  depths  of  composi- 
tion. Modern  painting  has  sounded  the  depths  of 
colour.  Research  is  at  an  end.  It  now  remains 
only  for  artists  to  create.  The  means  have  been 
perfected :  the  laws  of  organisation  have  been  laid 
down.  No  more  innovatory  "movements"  are 
possible.  Any  school  of  the  future  must  neces- 
sarily be  compositional.  It  can  be  only  a  varia- 
tion or  a  modification  of  the  past.  The  methods 
of  painting  may  be  complicated.  New  forms  may 
be  found.  But  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  add 
anything  to  the  means  at  hand.  The  era  of  pure 
creation  begins  with  the  present  day. 

Those  who  go  to  painting  for  anecdote,  drama, 
archaeology,  illustration  or  any  other  quality  which 
is  not  strictly  aesthetic,  would  do  well  to  confine 
their  attention  and  their  comments  to  the  acade- 
micians of  whom  there  is  and  always  has  been  an 
abundant  supply.  Let  them  keep  their  hands 
off  those  artists  who  strive  for  higher  and  more 
eternal  manifestations.  The  greatest  artists  of 
every  age  have  never  sought  to  appeal  to  the 


334  MODERN  POINTING 

lovers  of  reality  and  sentiment.  Nor  have  they 
wished  to  be  judged  by  standards  which  con- 
sidered only  verisimilitude  and  technical  profi- 
ciency. It  is  the  misfortune  of  painting  that 
literary  impurities  should  have  accompanied  its 
development,  and  it  is  the  irony  of  serious 
endeavour  that  on  account  of  these  impurities 
there  has  been  an  indefinite  deferment  of  any 
genuine  appreciation  of  painting.  It  is  difficult 
to  convince  a  man  who  has  not  experienced  the 
great  aesthetic  emotions  which  art  is  capable  of 
producing,  that  there  is  an  intoxication  to  be 
derived  from  the  contemplation  of  art  keener  than 
that  of  association,  sentiment  or  drama.  Not 
knowing  that  greater  delights  await  him  once  he 
has  penetrated  beneath  the  surface,  he  has 
doggedly  combated  every  effort  to  eliminate  the 
irrelevant  accretions.  But  if  painting  was  to 
reach  its  highest  point  of  artistic  creation,  its 
realistic  aspect  had  to  go.  When  colour  became 
profoundly  understood,  no  longer  could  the  artist 
apply  it  according  to  the  dictates  of  nature.  It 
lost  its  properties  as  decoration  and  as  an  en- 
hancement of  the  naturalistic  vision.  Its  de- 
mands freed  the  artist  from  the  tyranny  of 
nature.  In  becoming  pure,  painting  drew  further 
and  further  away  from  mimicry;  and  the  superfi- 
cial lover  of  painting,  enslaved  by  the  ignorant 
and  rigid  standards  of  the  past,  protested  with 
greater  and  greater  vehemence. 

The  misunderstanding  which  has  attached  to 
modern  painting  has  been  colossal.  The  newer 
men,  because  they  have  dared  search  for  means 
of  expression  superior  to  those  of  the  past,  have 
met  with  ridicule  and  abuse.  From  Delacroix 


CONCLUSION  335 

to  Synchromism  the  critics  and  public  have  fought 
every  advance.  Immured  in  tradition,  their  minds 
have  been  unable  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the 
new  activities  or  to  sense  the  artist's  need  for 
pure  creation.  No  school  has  escaped  the  oblo- 
quy of  the  professional  critic  who,  judging  art 
from  its  superficial  and  unimportant  side,  has 
failed  to  penetrate  to  its  fundamentals.  Dela- 
croix was  declared  crazy  by  the  leading  critics. 
The  Journal  des  Artistes  said  of  him,  "We  do 
not  say  this  man  is  a  charlatan,  but  we  do  say 
this  man  is  the  equivalent  of  a  charlatan."  The 
Observateur  des  Beaux-Arts,  commenting  on  this 
artist's  failure  to  procure  an  award,  remarked, 
"Delacroix,  the  leader  of  the  new  school,  received 
no  honours,  but  in  order  to  recompense  him,  he 
was  accorded  a  two  hours'  seance  each  day  in  the 
morgue."  Gros,  Delecluze  and  Alfred  Nettement 
are  conspicuous  among  the  academicians  and 
critics  who  bitterly  opposed  Delacroix's  innova- 
tions. Courbet  met  with  a  similar  reception. 
Gautier,  after  studying  one  of  his  pictures,  wrote, 
"One  does  not  know  whether  to  weep  or  laugh. 
There  are  heads  which  recall  the  ensigns  of 
tobacconists  and  of  the  menagerie."  Clement  de 
Ris  said  of  Courbet's  work,  "It  is  the  glorification 
of  vulgar  ugliness;"  and  de  Chennevieres  called 
one  of  his  finest  pictures  "an  ignoble  and  impious 
caricature."  Even  Manet,  whose  radicalism  was 
slight,  brought  down  upon  himself  the  abuse  of 
the  critics  for  daring  to  paint  modern  themes. 
Claretie  drew  the  following  conclusion  from  the 
Olympia:  "One  cannot  reproach  Manet  for 
idealising  vierges  folles,  for  he  makes  of  them 
merges  sales"  The  remark  was  characteristic. 


336  MODERN  PAINTING 

Manet  revolted  against  classic  subjects,  and  for 
his  modernity  was  excoriated  by  the  moral 
traditionalists. 

The  early  Impressionists,  as  pretty  as  they 
were,  did  not  escape  critical  abuse.  Benjamin 
Constant  called  them  "the  school  of  snobs,  the 
conscious  or  unconscious  enemies  of  art,"  and 
added,  "Their  days  are  numbered."  Albert  Wolff 
was  more  venomous.  "  These  soi-disant  artists," 
he  wrote,  "call  themselves  the  intransigents.  They 
take  canvases,  colours  and  brushes,  fling  at 
hazard  several  tones,  and  then  sign  the  work. 
It  is  thus  that  the  wandering  spirits  at  Ville- 
Evrard  pick  up  pebbles  on  the  highway  and 
think  they  have  found  diamonds.  Hideous 
spectacle  of  human  vanity  straying  toward  de- 
mentia!" Paul  Mantz's  remarks  were  similar. 
His  criticism  in  part  read:  "Before  the  works  of 
certain  members  of  the  group  one  is  tempted  to 
ascribe  to  them  a  defect  of  the  eyes,  singularities 
of  vision  which  would  be  the  joy  of  ophthal- 
mologists, and  the  terror  of  families."  (How  like 
the  recent  criticisms  of  the  very  modern  men 
does  all  this  sound  —  these  accusations  of  in- 
sanity, these  hints  of  defective  vision!  Such 
comments  would  seem  to  have  been  lifted  almost 
bodily  by  the  detractors  of  Cubism,  Futurism  and 
Synchronism.)  Renoir  shared  a  similar  fate. 
One  leading  critic  said  it  was  futile  to  "try  to 
explain  to  Renoir  that  the  female  torso  is  not  a 
mass  of  decomposing  flesh  with  spots  of  green 
and  violet  which  denote  the  state  of  complete 
putrefaction  in  a  cadaver."  Roger  Ballu  ex- 
plained the  appearance  of  Renoir's  work  thus: 
"At  first  view  it  seemed  that  his  canvases,  during 


CONCLUSION  337 

their  trip  from  the  studio  to  the  exhibition,  had 
undergone  an  accident."  With  the  exception  of 
Manet  two  years  prior  to  his  death  and  Renoir 
at  the  age  of  sixty-eight,  not  one  of  the  Impres- 
sionists was  decorated  by  the  French  government. 
They  were  banished  from  official  Salons,  and 
compelled  to  expose  in  private  galleries. 

To  quote  from  the  critics  who  denounced 
Cezanne  would  be  an  endless  task.  When  he 
exposed  at  the  Impressionist  exhibition  in  the 
Rue  Peletier  in  1877  he  was  universally  regarded 
with  disgust  and  horror  and  considered  a  bar- 
barian. The  venom  of  the  critics  was  appalling. 
They  attacked  him  from  every  standpoint,  though 
on  one  point  they  seemed  in  agreement,  namely: 
that  he  was  a  communard.  Nor  did  the  abuse 
cease  with  his  early  works.  His  greatness  has 
consistently  evaded  critics  and  painters  alike. 
Recently  the  American  painter,  William  M.  Chase, 
offered  the  suggestion  that  Cezanne  did  not  know 
how  to  paint.  Chase's  opinion  is  not  an  isolated 
one:  it  is  typical  of  the  minor  academic  painters 
and  the  critics  who  view  art  through  the  eyes  of 
the  past.  Henri-Matisse  is  another  painter  who 
has  received  short  shrift  from  the  reviewers. 
One  need  not  have  a  long  memory  to  recall  the 
adverse  criticisms  he  provoked.  His  distortions 
have  served  as  a  basis  for  a  display  of  ignorance 
which  has  few  parallels  in  art  history.  Matisse 
himself  has  fed  fuel  to  the  fire.  In  his  interview 
with  newspaper  men  he  indulged  in  much  high 
jesting,  and  the  remarks  attributed  to  him  were 
in  many  instances  blague.  Others,  judging  him 
by  his  words,  have  pinned  on  him  the  labels  of 
charlatan  and  degenerate. 


338  MODERN  PAINTING 

The  Cubists,  misunderstood  from  the  first, 
have  been  a  source  of  ridicule  rather  than  of 
contumely.  Systematisers  have  sought  to  trace 
them  to  Diirer,  forgetting  that  Cezanne  once 
wrote:  "Treat  nature  by  the  cylinder,  the  sphere 
and  the  cone;  the  whole  put  in  perspective,  so 
that  each  side  of  an  object  and  of  a  plane  directs 
itself  toward  a  central  point."  Even  today,  after 
the  vital  contributions  of  the  Cubists  have  altered 
the  whole  trend  of  modern  art,  there  are  few  who 
see  in  them  aught  but  the  material  for  laughter. 
The  critics  who  have  accepted  the  Impressionists 
and  Cezanne  deny  the  merits  of  Cubism,  venting 
their  derision  in  a  manner  which  recalls  the  de- 
tractors of  the  very  schools  which  these  critics 
now  uphold.  Synchromism  has  perhaps  called 
forth  the  bitterest  protests.  It  was  the  last  step 
in  the  evolution  of  modern  means.  It  had  no 
affinities  with  the  academies.  There  was  no 
foothold  in  this  new  school  for  the  conservatives 
and  reactionaries.  The  Munich  critics  were  first 
to  attack  it.  Later  in  Paris  Andre  Salmon 
wrote,  "The  public  will  believe  that  Synchromism 
is  the  final  movement  of  which  it  has  learned. 
Synchromism  is  the  worst  of  backward  move- 
ments, a  vulgar  art,  without  nobility,  unlikely  to 
live,  as  it  carries  the  principles  of  death  in  itself." 
Les  Arts  et  Les  Artistes  summed  up  Synchromists 
with:  "The  house  painter  at  the  corner  can, 
when  he  wishes,  claim  that  he  belongs  to  this 
school."  La  Plume  discovered  the  fact  that 
"  Macdonald-Wright  copies  with  a  dirty  broom 
the  Slave  of  Michelangelo."  Charles  H.  Caffin 
declared,  "The  whole  tenor  of  their  foreword  and 
introduction  is  one  of  egregious  self-exploitation 


CONCLUSION  339 

and  self-advertisement.  This  .  .  .  raises  the  very 
obvious  question:  'Are  these  men  megalo- 
maniacs or  charlatans?'  Possibly  they  are 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  I  am  not  in  a 
position  to  decide." 

These  quotations  and  comments  are  set  down 
to  reveal  the  opposition  which  the  genuine  modern 
painters  have  had  to  contend  with.  The  criti- 
cisms of  each  movement  repeat  themselves  with 
the  following  one,  even  to  a  point  of  verbal 
similarity.  The  attacks  on  Synchromism  are 
strangely  like  those  which  companioned  Impres- 
sionism. The  same  facetiousness,  the  same  irrel- 
evant denunciation,  the  same  opposition  to  the 
new,  the  same  antipathy  for  progress  are  manifest 
in  all  the  critics  of  the  new  painting  from  Dela- 
croix to  date.  All  arise  out  of  ignorance,  out  of 
that  immobility  of  mind  which  cannot  judge 
clearly  until  a  thing  is  swathed  in  the  perspective 
of  the  years.  Art  has  grown  faster  than  the 
critic's  ability  to  comprehend.  Its  problems  are 
a  closed  book  to  him,  for,  not  being  a  painter 
himself,  he  requires  a  longer  period  in  which  to 
assimilate  the  new  ideals.  Gradually  as  the  new 
methods  establish  themselves,  and  become 
accepted  (as  in  the  case  of  Impressionism),  the 
critic  at  last  comes  abreast  of  a  movement;  but  by 
that  time  art  has  gone  forward  and  left  him  in  the 
rear.  Again  he  attacks  the  new.  All  innovations 
are  as  poison  to  his  system,  until  he  again  becomes 
adjusted.  Thus  can  we  account  for  the  animosity 
and  ridicule  with  which  each  modern  movement  has 
been  met. 

Nor  are  the  animadversions  of  academic  critics 
the  only  obstacles  in  the  path  of  aesthetic  develop- 


340  MODERN  PAINTING 

ment.  Those  who  sympathise  with  the  new  with- 
out understanding  it  do  more  harm  than  good. 
There  are  those  who  always  accept  the  latest 
men  irrespective  of  their  individual  merit.  But 
modernity  in  itself  is  not  a  merit,  and  the  modern 
enthusiasts,  in  defending  the  newest  painters, 
very  often  expend  their  energies  on  the  undeserv- 
ing. Thus  the  mediocrities  are  given  prominence 
over  the  truly  great;  and  the  lesser  artists  are 
looked  upon  as  representative  of  the  epoch. 
Again,  those  who  admire  without  comprehending 
are  given  to  emphasising  the  less  important  points 
of  departure  in  the  new  men,  and  of  ignoring  the 
deeper  qualities  which  represent  the  primary 
importance  of  modern  art.  The  true  meaning  of 
the  late  movements  is  thereby  obscured.  Of  this 
class  of  critic  Arthur  Jerome  Eddy  may  be 
mentioned  as  representative.  By  crediting  the 
distinctly  second-rate  moderns  with  qualities  they 
have  only  absorbed  from  greater  men,  and  by 
misunderstanding  the  animating  ideals  of  today's 
painting,  he  presents  so  disproportionate  and 
biased  a  history  that  the  entire  significance  of 
modern  art  is  lost.  England,  France  and  Ger- 
many possess  critics  who  feel  the  grandeur  but 
miss  the  meaning  of  the  new  ideals,  and  their 
books  and  articles,  while  crediting  the  modern 
painters  with  vitality,  go  little  beneath  the 
surface. 

However,  there  are  a  few  men  to  whom  the 
modernist  owes  much  for  intelligent  assistance. 
One  may  name  Meier-Graefe  as  one  of  these, 
despite  his  being  in  reality  a  pioneer.  He  has 
shown  an  eager  attitude  to  do  justice,  and  has 
succeeded  in  bringing  the  modern  men  to  the 


CONCLUSION  341 

attention  of  the  world.  Guillaume  Apollinaire, 
editor  of  Les  Soirees  de  Paris,  has  done  more 
intelligent  service  for  the  younger  heretics  in 
France  than  any  other  man.  Clive  Bell  and 
Roger  Fry  represent  the  ablest  and  most  discern- 
ing defenders  of  the  modern  spirit  in  England; 
although  Mr.  A.  R.  Orage,  by  opening  up  the 
columns  of  the  New  Age,  has  permitted  a  healthy 
discussion  and  exposition  of  the  radical  art 
theories.  In  America  much  credit  is  due  Mr. 
Alfred  Stieglitz  for  his  insistent  demands  that  the 
later  men  be  given  a  respectful  hearing.  By  his 
sympathetic  attitude  and  his  ceaseless  labours  he 
has  brought  before  the  American  public  the  work 
of  many  prominent  modern  artists;  and  his 
sincerity  and  understanding  have  done  much 
toward  ameliorating  the  conventional  scoffs  of 
American  critics. 

But  were  there  no  far-seeing  defenders  of 
modern  painting,  the  signs  of  the  awakening  are 
too  numerous  and  too  conspicuous  to  be  ignored. 
On  every  hand  we  are  conscious  of  the  struggle 
for  new  methods  and  forms.  Not  all  the  inertia 
of  the  critics  and  the  public  has  succeeded  in 
suppressing  the  vital  spirit.  Nor  will  it  succeed. 
The  modern  tendency  in  painting  cannot  be 
dismissed  as  charlatanism  or  extremism.  The 
ignorant  and  reactionary  may  laugh  and  hurl 
philippics.  Such  opposition,  if  it  has  any  effecl:, 
will  only  prove  a  stimulus  to  those  who  have 
experienced  the  ecstasy  of  the  new  work.  The 
old  dies  hard.  Even  when  the  corpse  is  buried 
(as  it  has  been)  the  ghost  lingers.  But  the  light 
will  soon  grow  too  strong.  The  ghost  in  time  will 
be  dissolved.  For  centuries  painting  has  been 


342  MODERN  PAINTING 

reared  on  a  false  foundation,  and  the  criteria  of 
aesthetic  appreciation  have  been  irrelevant. 
Painting  has  been  a  bastard  art  —  an  agglomera- 
tion of  literature,  religion,  photography  and 
decoration.  The  efforts  of  painters  for  the  last 
century  have  been  devoted  to  the  elimination  of 
all  extraneous  considerations,  to  making  painting 
as  pure  an  art  as  music.  But  so  widespread  is 
the  general  ignorance  regarding  art's  funda- 
mentals that  the  modern  men  have  been  opposed 
at  every  step.  Public  and  critical  illiteracy  in  the 
arts,  however,  matters  little.  The  painter's  joy 
lies  in  the  rapture  of  creation,  in  the  knowledge 
that  he  is  carrying  forward  the  banner  of  a  high 
ideal. 


INDEX 


Adoration  of  the  Wise  Men,  40. 

Alexander,  John  W.,  98. 

Altichiero,  191. 

Ambassadors,  The,  24. 

Andreiev,  52. 

Angelina,  68. 

Angelus,  The,  57. 

Anges  au  Tombeau,  Les,  79. 

Annunciation,  81. 

Anquetin,  197. 

Antwerp  Museum,  40. 

Apollinaire,  Guillaume,  341. 

Apres  le  Bain,  212. 

Archipenko,  163. 

Arm  Organisation  in  Blue-Green,  301. 

Art  of  Spiritual  Harmony,  The,  3 10. 

Arts  et  Les  Artiste s}  Les,  338. 

Ashe,  E.  M.,  221. 

Assommoir,  L',  73. 

Assyrian  art,  78. 

Augier,  216. 

Augrancf,  175. 

Au  Piano,  123. 

Aurier,  193. 

Avignon  painters,  108. 

Baignade,  La,  203. 
Baigneuse,  1884,  (Renoir),  I2O. 
Baigneuse,  1888,  (Renoir),  122,  123. 
Baigneuse  au  Griffon,  La,  112. 
Baigneuse  Brunt,  La,  123. 
Baigneuses,  1885,  (Renoir),  121,  125. 
Baigneuses,   1902,  (Renoir),   125-126, 

1.57- 

Baigneuses,  (Matisse),  226,  235. 
Baigneuses,  Les,  (Courbet),  56. 
Baigneuses,  Les,  (Gleizes),  257. 
Bain,  Le,  (Daumier),  60. 
Bain,  Le,  (Manet),  see  Dejeuner  sur 

FHerbe,  Le. 
Bain  Turc,  Le,  69. 
Balanfoire,  La,  115. 
Balla,  Giacomo,  276;  Dog  and  Person 

in  Movement,  272. 
Ballu,  Roger,  336. 
Balzac,    25,    216;     Le    Cbef-d'(Euvre 

Inconnu,  162. 
Barbizon  school,  69,  70,  87,  284. 


Bar  des  Folies-Begere,  Le,  80. 

Bataille  de  Taillebourg,  40. 

Battle  of  Prague,  The,  332. 

Baudelaire,  43,  53. 

Baudelaire  Chez  les  Mufles,  219-220. 

Bazille,  89,  103. 

Beardsley,  Aubrey,  181,  221. 

Beaux-Arts,  153,  165,  223,  323. 

Beerbohm,  Max,  62,  221. 

Beethoven,    25,    42,    82,    155,    281; 

Ninth  Symphony,  8. 
Bechteiev,  324. 
Bell,  Clive,  341. 
Bellini,  Gentile,  188. 
Bellows,  221. 
Bernard,  fimile,  130,  143,  152,    156, 

175,  182,  195,  197. 
Bernnardt,  portrait  of  Sarah,  216. 
Bernheim-Jeune  galleries,  290,  297. 
Besnard,  319. 

Boccioni,  Umberto,  275,  276. 
Bocklin,  21,  203. 
Bolz,  324. 
Bonington,  37,  49. 
Bonnard,  315,  316-318,  318,  319;    Le 

Jardin,  317. 
Bonnat,  215. 
Bononi,  23. 
Borassa  school,  191. 
Botticelli,  21,  22,  28,  93,  203. 
Boucher,  34,  97,  121. 
Bouguereau,  161,  222,  223,  239. 
Bourdelle,  320. 
Bourgeois,  31. 
Boussingault,  325. 
Blanc,  165. 
Blast,  325. 
Bloch,  324. 
Blumenscnein,  221. 
Bracquemond,  165. 
Brangwyn,  21. 
Braque,  Georges,  257,  258. 
Bronzino,  187. 
Bruce,  262. 
Bruyas,  53. 
Buen  Viaje,  219. 
Bulks  de  Savon,  Les,  80. 
Bussy,  Simon,  321-322. 


344 


INDEX 


Buveur  d' Absinthe,  Le,  66,  68. 

Byron,  43. 

Byzantine  art,  9,  35,  40,  51,  93,  204. 

Cabanel,  222. 

Cabaret  de  la  Mere  Anthony,  Le,  109. 

Cafe-Concert,  215. 

Caffin,  Charles  ft.,  338. 

Caillebotte  Collection,  98-99,  104. 

Calvary  (Memlinc),  217. 

Canaletto,  188. 

Caprichos,  225. 

Captivite  de  Baby  lone,  La,  42. 

Caravaggio,  44,  56. 

Carlopez,  221. 

Carra,  Carlo  D.,  275,  276;  Funeral  oj 
the  Anarchist  Galli,  314. 

Carreno,  67. 

Carriere,  60,  73,  194,  198,  223. 

Cassatt,  165. 

Casseurs  de  Pierres,  Les,  57. 

Castagnary,  79. 

Castello,  Valerio,  21. 

Cathedral,  La,  102. 

Cazin,  209. 

Celesti,  23. 

Cellini,  52. 

Cesare,  221. 

Cezanne,  21,  26,  27,  31,  32,  36,  45, 
56,  61,  75,  96,  97,  104,  115,  126, 
128,  129-163,  175,  176,  180,  189, 
197,  200,  203,  206,  208,  222,  223, 
225,  234,  240,  241,  242,  244,  247, 
249,  250,  251,  253,  254,  260,  262, 
272,  274,  277,  280,  281,  282,  283, 
284,  286,  287,  289,  291,  295,  296, 
298,  300,  303,  307,  308,  310,  320, 

321,  33L  332,  337>  338. 
Chagall,  324. 
Chahut,  Le,  180. 
Chamaillard,  197,  324. 
Champfleury,  56. 
Chanteuse  des  Rues,  La,  79. 
Chardin,  34,  225. 
Charivari,  48. 
Chase,  William  M.,  137. 
Chavannes,  Puvis   de,  74,  202,  316, 

3I9- 

Chef-d'CEuvre  Inconnu,  Le,  162. 
Chemin  de  Per,  Le,  80. 
Cheret,  216. 
Chesneau,  Ernest,  44. 
Chevelure,  La,  114. 
Chevreul,  31,  84,  165,  166,  168,  180, 

285;  De  la  Loi  du  Contraste  Simul- 

tane  des  Couleurs,  164. 
Chien  et  Lievres,  51. 


Chinese  art,  64,  125,  128,  190,  215, 

3*5- 

Christophe,  Jules,  177. 
Chromo-luminarists,  see  Neo-Impres- 

sionism. 
Cimabue,  29. 
Cirque,  Le,  180. 
Claire  de  Lune,  Le,  80. 
Claretie,  335. 
Claude,  50. 
Coco,  heads  of,  126. 
Coco  et  les  Deux  Servantes,  126. 
Coins  de  Riviere,  100. 
Combat  de  Cerfs,  Le,  51. 
Combat  du  Kerseage  et  de  I' Alabama,  80. 
Concert  Champetre,  see  Rural  Concert. 
Conegliano,  79. 
Conrad,  Joseph,  52,  161. 
Constable,  17,  37,  43 ,  46,  49,  50,  97, 

i?S»  329- 

Constant,  Benjamin,  336. 

Cormon,  215. 

Corot,  21,  48,  68,  87, 89,  91,  108,  189. 

Correggio;  La  Vierge  a  f&cuelle,  62. 

Courbet,  17,  45,  48,  50-58,  59,  63, 
66,  67,  69,  70,  71,  72,  73,  74,  75, 
76,  77,  81,  83,  87,  89,  97,  106,  107, 
108,  109,  in,  112,  113,  115,  127, 

128,    131,    134,    158,   207,   208,   212, 

239»  253,  282,  284,  319,  330,  355; 
Les  Baigneuses,  56;  Les  Casseurs 
de  Pierres,  57;  Chien  et  Lievres,  51; 
Le  Combat  de  Cerfs,  5 1 ;  Femme  de 
Munich,  53;  Les  Grands  Chataign- 
iers,  57;  La  Grotte,  56;  Le  Hamac, 
76;  V Enterrement  a  Ornans,  51,  54, 
55. 63.  77. 239;  Les  Lutteurs,  59-60; 
Le  Retour  de  la  Conference,  51;  La 
Vague,  101. 

Course  de  Taureaux,  80. 

Courtesan,  The,  217. 

Courtois,  108. 

Couture,  Thomas,  66,  161;  Methodes 
et  Entretiens  d' Atelier,  44. 

Grayer,  Caspar  de,  306. 

Creation  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  24. 

Cromwell  au  Chateau  de  Windsor,  40. 

Croquet,  Le,  123. 

Cross,  174,  224. 

Cubism  (Cubists),  97,  187,  222,  227, 
237-262,  274,  275,  277,  282,  283, 
285,  291,  3°3»  307.  3IS»  323»  33i» 
332.  336,  338. 

da  Bologna,  Giovanni,  41. 
da  Bosozzo,  Michelino,  191. 
Danseuse,  La,  114. 


INDEX 


345 


Dante  et  Virgile  aux  Enftrs,  36,  55. 

da  Sesto,  Cesare,  306. 

Daubigny,  67. 

Daudet,  216. 

Daumier,  17,  25,  58-63,  66,  68,  72, 
97,  106,  126,  137,  144,  182,  200, 
207,  208,  213,  220,  226,  243,  278, 
279,  280,  330;  Le  Bain,  60,  Don 

f  \iichotte,  62;    Le  Dramf,  63;    Les 
migrants,  62;  Les  Lutteurs,  59-60; 

Ratapoil,  62;   Le  Repos  des  Saltim- 

banques,   60;     La   Republique,   61; 

Silene,  63. 

David,  17,  34,  35,  43,  56,  239,  282. 
Davies,  Arthur  B.,  323. 
da    Vinci,    Leonardo,    44,    60,    306; 

Trattato  della  Pittura,  148. 
Dead  Christ,  The,  24. 
Debucourt,  34. 
Debussy,  52. 

Decamps;  Sonneurs  de  Cloches,  62. 
de  Chennevieres,  335. 
de  Chirico,  325. 
Defoe,  191. 
Degas,    19,    62,  63,    165,    191,   203, 

2O7-22I,  222,  226,  242,  253,  266, 
3°7>  3!3»  3i8;  Apres  le  Bain,  212; 
Cafe-Concert,  215;  Femme  au  Tub, 
212;  Musiciens  a  I'Orchestre,  213; 
La  Sortie  du  Bain,  212;  La  Toilette, 
212;  Torse  de  Femme  S'Essuyant, 
212;  Trois  Danseuses,  212. 

De  Hahn,  197. 

dei  Barbari,  Jacopo,  223. 

Dejeuner,  Le,  79. 

Dejeuner  sur  I'Herbe,  Le,  69-70,  77-78, 

79- 

Delacroix,  17,  25,  27,  30,  34,  35-46, 
48,  50,  S3.  56,  57.  58,  59.  62,  63, 
66,  67,  72,  75,  80,  8 1,  87,  88,  106, 
107,  108,  in,  112,  113,  114,  128, 

133.  135.  137.  165,  175,  176,  177, 

180,  181,  182,  201,  205,  207,  264, 
277,  278,  281,  282,  303,  310,  329, 
330,  334.  335.  3395  Satailk  de 
Taillebourg  40;  La  Captivite  de 
Babylone,  42;  Cromwell  au  Chateau 
de  Windsor,  40;  Dante  et  Pirgile 
aux  Enfers,  36,  45;  Enlevement  de 
Rebecca,  40;  Entree  des  Croises  a 
Jerusalem,  40;  Les  Femmes  d'Alger 
dans  Leur  Appartement,  39,  III, 
112;  La  Grece  Expirant  sur  les 
Ruines  de  Missolonghi,  41;  Janis- 
saires  a  I'Attaque,  40;  La  Justice  de 
Trajan,  40,  42;  Justinien  Com- 
posant  les  Institutes,  43 ;  La  Liberte 


Guidant  le  Peuple  sur  les  Barricades, 

38,  40;   Lion  Dechirant  un  Cadavre, 

41;   La  Lutte  de  Jacob  avec  I'Ange, 

40,  45;    Massacre  de  Scio,  36,  39; 

Pieta,  41;    Renaude  et  Angelique, 

62;  Repos,  42. 
de  la  Fresnay,  323. 
De  la  Loi  du  Contraste  Simultane  des 

Couleurs,  164. 
Delaunay,  259-162,  323;   L'&quipe  de 

Cardiff,  260;    Route  de  Laon,  261; 

Les   Tours,   261;     Fille  de   Paris, 

259-260,  260. 

Delaunay-Terk,  Madame,  262. 
Delecluze,  335. 
Delibes,  281. 

Denis,  Maurice,  197,  216,  319-320. 
Derain,  Andre,  163,  320. 
de  Ris,  Clement,  335. 
Descent  from  the  Cross,  24. 
De  Segonzac,  321. 
d'Espagnat,  322. 
Desvallieres,  320. 
Dethomas,  Maxime,  221. 
D 'Eugene  Delacroix  au  Neo-Impres- 

sionnisme,  169. 
Deux  Sazurs,  Les,  123. 
Deux  Tahitiens,  226. 
Devil's  Bridge,  The,  50. 
Diane  Chasseresse,  109. 
Diaz,  68,  89,  108,  182. 
Dimanche  a  la  Grande-Jatte,  Un,  180, 

203. 

di  Nicolo,  Pietro,  41. 
Divisionists,  see  Neo-Impressionism. 
Dog  and  Person  in  Movement,  272. 
Don  at  ello,  203. 
Donde  Vd  Mama,  219. 
Don  Quichotte,  62. 
Dostoievsky,  52. 
Dove,  84,  324. 
Dramf,  Le,  63. 
Dreiser,  Theodore,  52. 
Dubois-Pillet,  175. 
Duchamp,  Marcel,  257,  258. 
Dumas,  43. 
Diirer,   187,  251,  338;    Four  Naked 

Women,  24. 
Duret,  102. 

Dutch  landscapists,  96. 
Dynamisme  d'une  Auto,  269. 

Earl  and  Countess  of  Arundel,   The, 

24. 

East  Indian  art,  237. 
Eddy,  Arthur  Jerome,  340. 
&glise  a  Varengeville,  L',  99. 


34^ 


INDEX 


Egyptian  art,  64,  78,  205. 

Eichler,  R.  M.,  202. 

El  Greco,  20,  21,  22,  51,  95,  125, 
135,  158,  163,  203,  246,  254,  255, 
259,  297,  308,  329;  Annunciation, 
81;  Obsequies  of  the  Count  of 
Orgaz,  55;  The  Resurrection  of 
Christ,  24. 

Emigrants,  Les,  62. 

JLmile  Zola,  79. 

Emperor  Charles  V,  24. 

En  Bateau,!*)- 

Enfant  a  I'Epee,  L',  67. 

Enfants  en  Rose  et  Bleu,  Les,  1 20. 

English  painters,  99,  116. 

Engstrom,  Albert,  221. 

Enlevement  de  Rebecca,  40. 

Enterrement  a  Ornans,  L',  51,  54,  55, 

63,  77.  239-  . 

Entree  des  Croises  a,  Jerusalem,  40. 
Equipe  de  Cardiff,  L  ,  260. 
Erler,  Fritz,  202. 
Etchells,  Frederick,  323. 
Eva  Gonzales,  79. 
Execution  de  Maximilien,  80. 

Falaise  a.  Etretat,  100,  101. 

Fantin-Latour,  53,  175. 

Fauche,  197. 

Faust,  8. 

Fauves,  Chef  des,  233. 

Fauvism,  234. 

Fecondite,  73. 

Femme  a  la  Mandoline,  25 1 . 

Femme  a  la  Perruche,  La,  112. 

Femme  au  Cbeval,  La,  258. 

Femme  au  Miroir,  La,  127. 

Femme  au  Perroquet,  La,  79. 

Femme  au  Tub,  212. 

Femme  aux  Mangos,  La,  75. 

Femme  de  Munich,  53. 

Femmes  Assises  a  I' Ombre  des  Palmiers, 

196. 
Femmes  d'Alger  dans  Leur  Apparte- 

ment,  Les,  39,  ill,  112. 
Ferguson,  J.  D.,  324. 
Fielding,  37. 

Fighting  Temeraire,  The,  47. 
Finger,  197. 

Filles  de  Catulle  Mendes,  Les,  123. 
Fillette  a  la  Gerbe,  La,  123. 
Fillette  a  I' Orange,  La,  26. 
Fillette  Attentive,  La,  114. 
fin  de  siecle  movement,  219. 
Flandrin,  321,  322. 
Flemish  masters,  137. 
Flight  Turning  a  Corner,  274. 


Folle,  La,  55. 

Forain,J.-L.,62,i6s,  213, 219-221,221; 

Baudelaire   Chez    les    Mufles,  219- 

220. 

Fornerod,  Rodolphe,  202. 
Forum,  The,  9. 
Fouquet,  34. 
Four  Naked  Women,  24. 
Fragonard,  34,  121,  244. 
French  art,  211. 
Friesz,  Othon,  22,  234,  320. 
Frost,  262. 
Fry,  Roger,  324,  -541. 
Fuller,  portrait  of  Loie,  216. 
Funeral  of  the  Anarchist  Galli,  314. 
Futurism  (Futurists),  257,  259,  264- 

276,  282,  284,  285,  291,  295,  303, 

316,  323,  336. 

Gainsborough,  ill,  181;  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons,  115. 

Gare  St.  Lazare,  La,  50. 

Gauguin,  22,  39,  93,  104,  150,  165, 
183,  184,  186,  187-206,  208,  210, 
222,  223,  225,  226,  227,  231,  243, 
246,  247,  279,  281,  285,  306,  308, 
315,  316,  318,  319,  323;  Deux 
Tabitiens,  226;  Femmes  Assises  a 
I' Ombre  des  Palmiers,  196;  La 
Femme  aux  Mangos,  75;  Jeunes 
Bretonnes,  195;  Noa  Noa,  190; 
Pay  sage  de  la  Martinique,  194; 
Ruperupe,  195;  Tahitiennes,  195; 
Fairaoumati  Tei  Oa,  196. 

Gautier,  43,  335. 

Gerard,  17,  34,  35,  56. 

Gericault,  34,  35,  51,  113,  211,  281; 
La  Folle,  55;  Radeau  de  la  Meduse, 

35.55- 

German  art,  211. 
Gerome,  222. 
Ghil,  Rene  de,  266. 
Giampietrino,  306. 
Gibson,  C.  D.,  221. 
Giorgione,  21,  30,  95,  126,  329;  Rural 

Concert  (Concert  Cbampetre),  69. 
Giotto,  22,  29,  44,  56,  75,  125,  195, 

203,  235,  280,  329;   Death  of  Saint 

Francis,     81;      Descent    from    the 

Cross,  24. 

Girardon,  121,  121-122. 
Girodet,  34. 

Glace  sans  Tain,  La,  231. 
Glackens,  W.  S.,  324. 
Gleizes,  Albert,  257,  258;  Les  Bai- 

gneuses,  257;  L'Homme  au  Balcon, 

257- 


INDEX 


347 


Goethe;  Faust,  8. 

Goya,  19,  25,  44,  67,  74,  75,  76,  no, 

187,    218,    225,    231,    255;     Buen 

Viaje,  219;   Caprichos,  225;   Donde 

Vd  Mama,  219;   La  Maya  Desnuda, 

42. 

Grand  Canal —  Venice,  The,  24. 
Grands  Chdtaigniers,  Les,  57. 
Grant,  Duncan,  324. 
Granville,  62. 
Granzow,  325. 
Gravelot,  34. 
Greet    Expirant    sur    les    Ruines    de 

Missolonghi,  La,  41. 
Greek  artists,  35,  125,  128,  163. 
Greuze,  21,  34. 
Gris,  Jean,  258. 
Gros,  17,  34,  35,  335. 
Grotte,  La,  56. 
Guardi,    188;     The    Grand   Canal — 

Venice,  24. 

Guariento;  The  Heavenly  Host,  274. 
Guercino,  56. 

Guerin,  Charles,  35,  36,  322,  322-323. 
Guillaumin,    89,   96,    103,    104,    165, 

1 66,  194. 

Guitarrero,  Le,  67. 
Guizot,  caricature  of,  62. 

Hallock,  Madame  Mary,  266. 
Hals,  Franz,  70,  80,  89,  187,  284. 
Hamac,  Le,  76. 
Hankwan,  127. 
Hartley,  324. 

Hartmann,  Sadikichi,  266. 
Hassam,  Childe,  324. 
Hauptmann,  Gerhart,  52. 
Hayden,  324. 
Haydn,  155. 

Head  of  a  Chinese  Lady,  1 27. 
Head  of  an  Old  Man,  217. 
Heavenly  Host,  The,  274. 
Held,  portrait  of  Anna,  216. 
Helmholtz,  31,  165,  168,  285. 
Henri,  Robert,  273,  281. 
Henri-Matisse.     See  Matisse. 
Hiroshige,  73,  99;    Series  of  the  To- 

kaido,  IOO. 
Hogarth,  19,  116. 
Hokusai,  73,  99,  218;    Views  of  Fuji, 

IOO. 

Holbein,  209;  The  Ambassadors,  24. 
Homme  au  Balcon,  L',  257 
Horace,  134. 
Houses  of  Parliament  —  London,  The, 

IOO. 

Humbert,  165. 


Impressionism  (Impressionists),  31, 
36,  43,  46,  47,  48,  49,  70,  74,  80, 
82,  83-106,  107,  108,  in,  112, 

H4,    119,    120,    129,    135,    136,    137, 

139,  141,  144,  156,  158,  165,  166, 
167,  168,  169,  173,  174,  175,  176, 
177,  188,  189,  194,  195,  196,  198, 

199,   202,    203,    208,    209,    211,    222, 

223,  224,  238,  239,  241,  246,  248, 
274,  279,  280,  282,  284,  285,  286, 
287,  294,  295,  315,  318,  324,  330, 

33L  336,  337.  338,  339- 

Improvisation  No.  29,  315. 

Ingenue,  115. 

Ingres,  17,  35,  56,  62,  108,  in,  112, 
126,  203,  210,  226,  227,  239,  243, 
322;  Le  Bain  Turc,  69;  La  Source, 
69;  Stratonice,  210;  Thetis  et 
Jupiter,  79. 

Intimists,  315-319. 

Intruse,  L',  193. 

Italian  art,  56,  82,  97. 

Janissaires  a  I'Attaque,  40. 
Japanese  art,  64,  93,  99,  100,  188. 
Japonaise,  La,  98. 
fardin,  Le,  317. 
fardin  de  Bellevue,  Le,  80. 
fardin  d'Essoyes,  Le,  126. 
Jarretiere,  La,  75. 
faulmes,  Gustave,  202,  322. 
Jawlensky,  324. 
Jeu  de  Balles,  235. 
Jeunes  Bretonnes,  195. 
John,  Augustus,  320. 
Jongkind,  48,  69,  91,  96,  175. 
Journal,  Delacroix's,  37,  39,  45,  164, 

1 66,  177. 

Journal  des  Artistes,  335. 
Juanes,  Juan  de,  51. 
Justice  de  Trajan,  La,  40,  42. 
Justinien  Composanl  les  Institutes,  43 . 

Kandinsky,  234,  264,  308-315;  The 
Art  of  Spiritual  Harmony,  3 10;  Im- 
provisation No.  2p,  315. 

Kanoldt,  325. 

Keion;  Flight  Turning  a  Corner,  274. 

Knauerhase,  324. 

Korngold,  52;   Symphonietta,  332. 

Kroll,  324. 

La  Fosse,  79. 
Lancret,  34. 
Landon,  C.  P.,  44. 
Laprade,  Pierre,  321. 


INDEX 


Largilliere,  121. 

Larson,  Carl,  221. 

La  Tour,  34. 

Lautrec,  see  Toulouse-Lautrec. 

Laval,  197. 

Lawrence,  37,  209. 

Lebasque,  321. 

Le  Beau,  Alcide,  202,  322. 

Leclerc,  Julien,  193. 

Leger,  Fernand,  256-257,  258;  Mai- 
sons  et  Fumees,  256;  Les  Toils,  256. 

Legrand,  Louis,  213,  218,  218-219, 
221,  227;  Maitressf,  219. 

Legros,  209. 

Leibniz,  269. 

Le  Moyne,  79,  121. 

Le  Nains,  the,  34. 

Lewis,  Wyndham,  320,  323. 

Lhermitte,  209. 

Lhote,  324. 

Liberte  Guidant  le  Peuple  sur  ~les 
Barricades,  La,  38,  40. 

Liombruno,  223. 

Lion  Dechirant  un  Cadavre,  41. 

List,  109,  109-110,  in. 

Liszt,  97. 

Little  Dutchmen,  the,  188. 

Loge,  La,  114. 

Lola  de  Faience,  68. 

London  series  (Monet),  102. 

Loti,  Pierre,  191. 

Lot  iron,  324. 

Louis  Philippe,  43. 

Louis  XVI,  34. 

Louvre,  the,  36,  53,  69,  136,  223,  226. 

Luce,  175. 

Lucretius,  134. 

Lutte  de  Jacob  avec  I'Ange,  La,  40,  45. 

Lutteurs,  Les  (Courbet),  59-60. 

Lutteurs,  Les  (Daumier),  59. 

Luxembourg  gallery,  53,  68,  99,  104, 
115. 

Macdonald-Wright,  S.,  283,  284-285, 
286,  287-288,  289,  289-290,  292, 
293,  296,  298,  300-302,  303,  338; 
Arm  Organisation  in  Blue-Green, 
301;  Syncbromie  en  Bleu,  297. 

Madame  T.  et  Son  Fils,  26. 

Mile.  Durand-Ruel,  113,  114. 

Maeterlinck,  310;  L'Intruse,  193. 

Maisons  et  Fumees,  256. 

Maitresse,  219. 

Mallarme,  275. 

Manet,  25,  52,  53,  62,  64-82,  83,  87, 
90,  93.  98,  99.  106,  107,  108,  109, 
in,  112,  113,  115,  127,  128,  131, 


134.  I3S»  i9i»  204,  207,  212,  225, 
226,  239,  243,  282,  283,  308,  330, 
335»  336,  337J  Angelina,  68;  Les 
Anges  au  Tombeau,  79;  Le  Bar  des 
Folies-Bergere,  80;  Les  Bulles  de 
Savon,  80;  Le  Buveur  a" Absinthe, 
66,  68;  La  Chanteuse  des  Rues,  79; 
Le  Chemin  de  Fer,  80;  Le  Claire  de 
Lune,  80;  Combat  du  Kerseage  et 
de  I' Alabama,  80;  Course  de  Tau- 
reaux,  80;  Le  Dejeuner,  79;  Le  De- 
jeuner sur  I'Herbe,  69-70,  77-78,  79; 
Emile  Zola,  79;  En  Bateau,  79; 
L'Enfant  d  lEpee,  67;  Eva  Gon- 
zales,  79;  Execution  de  Maximilien, 
80;  La  Femme  au  Perroquet,  79; 
Le  Guiterrero,  67;  Le  Jardin  de 
Bellevue,  80;  La  Jarretiere,  75; 
Lola  de  Valence,  68;  Nana,  75; 
La  Nympbe  Surprise,  66;  Olympia, 
74-7S.  79.  335 5  Les  Parents  de 
I' Artiste,  67;  Le  Port  de  Bordeaux, 
80;  Rendez-vous  de  Chats,  77,  80; 
Le  Repos,  76. 

Manguin,  321. 

Mantegna;   The  Dead  Christ,  24. 

Mantz,  Paul,  336. 

Man  with  the  Hoe,  The,  57. 

Marconi,  97. 

Marinetti,  265,  276. 

Marquet,  324. 

Marseillaise,  311-312. 

Martin,  Henri,  101,  102,  175. 

Martinet's  gallery,  68. 

Martyrdom  of  Saint  Bartholomew,  The, 

Marval,  Madame,  321. 

Masaccio,  22,  42,  329;  Saint  Peter 
Baptising  the  Pagans,  24. 

Massacre  de  Scio,  36,  39. 

Massys,  217;  The  Courtesan,  217; 
Head  of  an  Old  Man,  217;  Por- 
trait of  a  Canon,  217. 

Matisse,  22,  32,  97,  123,  202,  203, 
216,  222-236,  237,  238,  241,  243, 
246,  247,  254,  256,  262,  280,  281, 
282,  284,  285,  289,  291,  308,  309, 
310,  315,  316,  320,  321,  323,  324, 
331.  332.  3375  Baigneuses,  226, 
235;  La  Glace  sans  Tain,  235;  Jeu  de 
Balles,  235;  La  Musique  —  esguisse, 
235;  La  Musique  (panne  au  dec  or a- 
<(/)>  235. 

Mauve,  182. 

Maya  Desnuda,  La,  42. 

Mazo,  67. 

Mazzola-Bedoli,  203. 


INDEX 


349 


Meissonier,  53. 

Meier-Graefe,  55,  340. 

Memlinc,  217;  The  Casting  of  the 
Lots,  217;  Our  Lord's  Passion,  217. 

Menage  Sisley,  Le,  109,  no-ill,  112. 

Mere  et  Enfant,  123. 

Merimee,  43. 

Merril,  Stuart,  193. 

Met  bodes  et  Entretiens  d' Atelier,  44. 

Metzinger,  Jean,  257,  257-258;  La 
Femme  au  Cbeval,  258;  Le  Port,  258. 

Meules,  Les,  102. 

Meunier,  62. 

Michelangelo,  27,  36,  42,  44,  60,  61, 
75.  82,  95,  119,  122,  129,  145,  155, 
IS9»  163,  165,  235,  236,  237,  254, 
267,  273,  284,  285,  294,  306,  308; 
Creation  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  24; 
Slaves,  21,  290,  299,  338. 

Mille  et  Une  Nuits,  231. 

Millet,  57,  182,  188;  The  Angelus, 
57;  The  Man  with  the  Hoe,  57. 

Minerva  Expelling  Mars,  57. 

Miracle  of  Saint  Mark,  The,  24. 

Mitsuoki,  77. 

Modern  Painters,  47°. 

Mokkei,  158. 

Molineri,  Antonino,  21. 

Monastery  Bells,  332. 

Monet,  47,  48,  49,  50,  53,  80,  82,  90, 
91,  96,  96-102,  103,  104,  112,  113, 
114,  115,  128,  144,  165,  166,  175, 
199,  200,  210,  216,  223,  274,  280, 
283,  285,  308,  324;  La  Cathedral, 
102;  Coins  de  Riviere,  100;  L'figlise 
a  Varengeville,  99;  Falaise  a  Atretat, 
loo,  101;  La  Care  St.  Lazare,  50; 
The  Houses  of  Parliament —  London, 
loo;  La  Japonaise,  98;  London 
series,  102;  Les  Meules,  102;  Les 
Nympheas,  102;  Les  Peupliers,  100; 
Venice  series,  102. 

Monnier,  62. 

Moore,  George,  25,  52. 

Monticelli,  182. 

Moreas,  193. 

Moreau,  Gustave,  190,  221,  224. 

Morgan,  Wallace,  221. 

Morisot,  165. 

Moronobu,  274. 

Morot,  Aime,  258. 

Moulin  de  la  Gallette,  Le,  26,  114,  115. 

Mounet-Sully,  portrait  of,  216. 

Mozart,  42. 

Mrs.  Siddons,  115. 

Miinter,  324. 

Miinzer,  Adolf,  202. 


Murillp,  21,  67. 
Musiciens  a  I'Orchestre,  213. 
Musique  aux  Tuileries,  La,  109. 
Musique  —  esquisse,  La,  235. 
Musique  (panneau  decoratif),  La,  235. 

Nadelmann,  163. 

Nona,  75. 

Napoleon,  53. 

Napoleon  HI,  69. 

National  Gallery,  London,  41. 

Natte,  La,  123. 

Nattier,  34. 

Negro  sculpture,  229,  230,  231,  236. 

Neo-Impressionism  (Neo-Impression- 
ists),  164-186,  189,  197,  199,  203, 
208,  222,  224,  234,  260,  275,  278, 
293.  303,  330. 

New  Age,  The,  9,  341. 

Ninth  Symphony,  8. 

Noa  Noa,  190. 

Nu  a  I'&offe  Vert  et  Jaune,  123. 

Nympbe  Surprise,  La,  66. 

Nympheas,  Les,  102. 

Obsequies  of  the  Count  of  Orgaz,  55. 

Observateur  des  Beaux-Arts,  335. 

Ode  aux  Fleurs   (d'apres  Anacreon), 

126. 

(Euvre,  L',  134. 
Olivier,  34. 

Olympia,  74-75,  79,  195,  335. 
Opus  II  (Schonberg),  332. 
Orage,  A.  R.,  341. 
Orphism   (Orphists),   239,   262,   275, 

290,  291. 
Ortolano,  191. 
Ottmann,  324. 
Our  Lord's  Prayer,  217. 

Padovanino,  23. 

Panneaux,  decorative  (Renoir),  117. 

Panneaux    (tambourine    player    and 

dancer),  (Renoir),  126. 
Parisiennes  Habillees  en  Algeriennes, 

III,  112. 

Pater,  34,  121. 

Paul,  Hermann,  221. 

Pay  sage  de  la  Martinique,  194. 

Peckstein,  324. 

Persian  art,  64,  190,  230,  231,  236. 

Petitjean,  175. 

Petit  Peintre,  Le,  126. 

Peupliers,  Les,  loo. 

Philip  IV,  24. 

Picabia,  Francis,  257,  258-259,  323. 


350 


Picasso,  9,  22,  121,  234,  236,  240, 
243,  246,  247,  251,  252,  255-256, 
258,  259,  262,  274,  284,  308,  323, 
331;  Femme  a  la  Mandoline,  251. 

Pitta,  41. 

Plot,  322. 

Pisanello,  28. 

Pissarro,  47,  48,  69,  82,  89,  90,  95-96, 
99,  104,  107,  114,  131,  135,  136, 
165,  166,  180,  182,  192,  194,  199, 
208,  212,  280;  Sydenham  Road,  99. 

Pissarro,  Lucien,  165. 

Plume,  La,  338. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  53. 

Poe,  tales  of  Edgar  Allan,  219. 

Pointillism  (Pointillists),  see  Neo- 
I  impressionism. 

Polaire,  portrait  of,  216. 

Pollaiuolo,  203. 

Pont-Aven  school,  187-206,  319. 

Port  de  Bordeaux,  Le,  80. 

Port,  Le,  258. 

Portrait  de  Dame,  1 14. 

Portrait  d'Homme,  184-185. 

Portrait  of  a  Canon,  217. 

Post-Impressionism  (Post-Impressio- 
nists), 234.  See  also  Matisse. 

Poussin,  19,  21,  22, 40,  97,  129,  320. 

Praxiteles,  218. 

Prendergast,  321-322. 

Prevost,  216. 

Puget,  108. 

Putz,  Leo,  202. 

Puy,  Jean,  321. 

Radeau  de  la  Meduse,  35,  55. 

Raeburn,  89. 

Rafaelli,  188. 

Rain,  Steam  and  Speed,  47,  50. 

Raphael,  19,  21,  22,  165,  255. 

Ratapoil,  62. 

Ray,  Louis,  197. 

Rembrandt,  22,  25,  41,  44,  45,  51, 
56,  61,  62,  66,  99,  108,  280,  284; 
etchings,  59. 

Redon,  165,  187. 

Regnault,  21,  34. 

Remberg,  Baron,  53. 

Renaissance,  the,  26,  29,  39,  51, 
92,  128,  223,  227,  255,  306,  322. 

Renaude  it  Angelique,  62. 

Rendez-vous  de  Chats,  77,  80. 

Renoir,  21,  22,  25,  26,  52,  56,  70,  77, 
106,  107-128,  136,  154,  155,  156, 
163,  166,  181,  197,  205,  207,  208, 
213.  235.  237.  238,  244,  284,  302, 
306,  308,  316,  324,  330,  336,  337; 


Au  Piano,  123;  Baigneuse  (1884), 
I2O,  122;  Baigneuse  (1888),  122, 
123;  La  Baigneuse  au  Griffon,  112; 
La  Baigneuse  Brune,  123;  Baign- 
euses  (1885),  121,  125;  Baigneuses 
(1902),  125, 126, 157;  La  Balanfoire, 
115;  Le  Cabaret  de  la  Mere  Anthony, 
109;  LaChevelure,in;  Coco,  heads 
of,  126;  Coco  et  les  Deux  Senantes, 
126;  Le  Croquet,  123;  La  Danseuse, 
114;  Les  Deux  Sceurs,  123;  Diane 
Cbasseresse,  109;  Les  Enfants  en 
Rose  et  Bleu,  120;  La  Femme  a  la 
Perruche,  112;  La  Femme  au 
Miroir,  127;  Les  Filles  de  Catulle 
Mendes,  123;  La  Fillette  a  la  Gerbe, 
123;  La  Fillette  Attentive,  114;  La 
Fillet  et  V Orange,  26;  Ingenue,  115; 
Le  Jardin  d' Essay es,  126;  La  Loge, 
114;  Lise,  109,  109-110,  in; 
Madame  T.  et  Son  Fils,  26;  Mere 
et  Enfant,  123;  Le  Menage  Sisley, 
109,  no-ill,  112;  Mile.  Durand- 
Ruel,  113,  114;  Le  Moulin  de  la 
Colette,  26,  114,  115;  La  Musique 
aux  Tuileries,  109;  La  Natte,  123; 
Nu  d  I'&tofe  Vert  et  Jaune,  123; 
Ode  aux  Fleurs  (d'apres  Anacreon), 
126;  Panneaux,  decorative,  117; 
Panneaux  (tambourine  player  and 
dancer),  126;  Parisiennes  Habitt.ee s 
en  Algeriennes,  ill,  112;  Le  Petit 
Peintre,  126;  Portrait  de  Dame,  114; 
La  Rose  dans  les  Cbeveux,  126;  La 
Source,  114;  Tete  de  Jeune  Fille, 
1 20;  La  Toilette  de  la  Baigneuse,  125. 

Repos,  42. 

Repos  des  Saltimbanques,  Le,  60. 

Repos,  Le,  (Manet),  76. 

Republique — 1848,  La,6l. 

Resurrection  of  Cb  ist,  The,  24. 

Retour  de  Chris tophe  Colomb,  40,  51. 

Reynolds,  Joshua,  21,  61. 

Ribera,  21,  51,  108,  187;  The  Martyr- 
dom of  Saint  Bartholomew,  55. 

Rigaud,  79. 

Rimbaud,  Arthur,  266. 

Rin  Teikei,  315. 

Ririomin;  Head  of  a  Chinese  Lady, 
127. 

Roberts,  W.,  323. 

Robinson,  Boardman,  221. 

Robusti,  79. 

Rodin,  62. 

Roll,  101. 

Romanelli,  223. 

Romney,  116. 


INDEX 


Rondinelli,  79. 

Rood,  31,  165,  168,  180,  285. 

Rose  dans  Its  Cbeveux,  La,  127. 

Rossetti,  1 1 6,  221. 

Rotonchamp,  Jean  de,  190. 

Roubille,  221. 

Rousseau,  68,  89,  108, 205,  321-322. 

Roussell,  K.-X.,  315,  318,  318-319. 

Route  de  Laon,  251. 

Rubens,  9,  20,  21,  22,  26,  28,  36,  40, 
4»»  44»  4S>  5i»  52>  7i>  81,  82,  87, 
97,  108,  121,  125,  126,  127,  138, 
158,  163,  165,  187,  203,  205,  220, 
245,  254,  273,  277,  283,  300,  306, 
308,  329;  The  Adoration  of  the 
Wise  Men  of  the  East,  40;  The  Earl 
and  Countess  of  Arundel,  24. 

Rude,  273. 

Ruperupe,  195. 

Rural  Concert,  69. 

Ruskin,  46,  47;  Modern  Painters,  47. 

Russell,  Morgan,  283,  283-284,  285, 
286,  286-287,  288»  289,  292,  293, 
294,  296,  297,  298,  299,  300,  302, 
294,  296,  297,  298,  299,  300,  302, 
303;  Synchromie,  299;  Syncbromie 
en  Bleu-Violace,  299;  Synchromie 
en  Vert,  288-289,  297- 

Russolo,  Luigi,  276. 

Saint  Peter  Baptising  the  Pagans,  24. 

Salmon,  Andre,  338. 

Salon  d'Automne,  224,  257. 

Salon  des  Artistes  Independents,  167, 
224,  262,  288,  297,  299. 

Salon  des  Refuses,  69. 

Salon  des  Reprowes,  69. 

Santerre,  121. 

S.  Vitale,  mosaics  in,  150,  204. 

Sargent,  18,  98. 

Scarsellino,  203. 

Schonberg;   Opus  II,  332. 

Schuffenecker,  165,  197. 

Scott,  Walter,  43. 

Scriabine,  Alexander,  266,  311. 

Seguin,  197. 

Serusier,  197. 

Setting  Sun,  ioo.'1 

Seurat,  165,  165-166,  167,  176,  177, 
178,  180,  180-181,  181,  182,  183, 
184,  203,  226,  243,  264,  265,  310, 
319;  La  Baignade,  203;  Le  Chahut, 
1 80;  Le  Cirque,i8o;  Un  Dimancbe  a 
la  Grande-Jatte,  1 80,  203. 

Severini,  22,  276. 

Shannon,  98. 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  52. 


Sheeler,  Jr.,  C.  R.,  323. 

Shiubun;  Setting  Sun,  ioo. 

Sibelius,  52. 

Sickert,  Walter,  219. 

Signac,  165,  166,  167,  169,  170,  174, 

181,  182,  184,  224,  264;    D'Eugene 

Delacroix  au  Neo-Impressionnisme, 

169. 

Signorelli,  Luca,  137. 
Silene,  63. 

Silvestre,  Theophile,  44. 
Simon,  18. 

Simultaneism,  262,  276. 
Sisley,  49,  89,  96,  99,  102-103,  ™4> 

280. 

Slaves,  21,  290,  299,  338. 
Sodoma,  218. 
Soirees  de  Paris,  Les,  341. 
Sonneurs  de  Cloches,  62. 
Sorolla,  18,  52,  187. 
Sortie  du  Bain,  La,  212. 
Source,  La  (Ingres),  69. 
Source,  La  (Renoir),  114. 
Spanish  art,  62,  97,  HI. 
Spiro,  322. 
Stein,  Leo,  284. 
Steinlen,  62,  246,  255. 
Stendhal,  43. 
Stern,  Maurice,  323. 
Stevens,  Alfred,  209. 
Stieglitz,  Alfred,  341. 
Stradivarius,  121. 
Strauss,  Richard,  25,  52. 
Stratonice,  210. 

Sun  of  Venice  Going  to  Sea,  The,  49. 
Superville,  165. 
Swift,  191. 
Swinburne,  82. 
Sydenbam  Road,  99. 
Symphonietta,  332. 
Synchromie,  299. 
Synchromie  en  Bleu,  297. 
Synchromie  en  Bleu-Fiolace,  299. 
Synchromie  en  Vert,  288-289,  297. 
Synchronism  (Synchromists),  32,  97, 

115,  275,  277-304,   324,  325,  331, 

332,  3.35.  336,  338,  339- 
Synthesists,  see  Pont-Aven  school. 

Table  au  Moulin- Rouge,  Une,  215. 

Tahitiennes,  195. 

Taine,  32. 

Tanagra  figurines,  218. 

Tete  de  Jeune  Fille,  I2O. 

Thetis  et  Jupiter,  79. 

Thiers,  36. 

Tiepolo,  87,  218,  244. 


35* 


INDEX 


Tillot,  165. 

Tintoretto,  21,  22,  51,  66,  137,  271, 

329;    Minerva  Expelling  Mars    57; 

The  Miracle  of  Saint  Mark,  24. 
Titian,  21,  36,  42,  44,  66,  72,  74,  75, 

97,   108,   127,   189,   320;    Emperor 

Charles  V,  24;    Venus   Reclining, 

Toba  Sojo,  218. 

Tobeen,  324. 

Toilette,  La,  212. 

Toilette  de  la  Baigneuse,  La,  125. 

Toils,  Les,  256. 

Tokaido,  series  of  the,  100. 

Tonr  de  Femme  S'Essuyant,  212. 

Toulouse-Lautrec,  62,  213,  214-218, 
220,  221,  242,  246,  255,  318,  321; 
Une  Table  au  Moulin- Rouge,  215; 
Portraits  of  Loie  Fuller,  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  Mounet-Sully,  Yahne, 
Anna  Held,  216. 

Tours,  Les,  261. 

Trattato  della  Pittura,  148. 

Trois  Danseuses,  212. 

Trovatore,  II,  42. 

Troyon,  67. 

Tudor-Hart,  168. 

Turner,  17,  43,  46-50,  58,  63,  88,  89, 
9i»  97,  99.  103,  175,  205,  277,  302, 
329;  The  Devil's  Bridge,  50;  The 
Fighting  Temeraire,  47;  Rain, 
Steam  and  Speed,  47,  50;  The  Sun 
of  Venice  Going  to  Sea,  49;  Ulysses 
Deriding  Polyphemus,  47. 

Ulysses  Deriding  Polyphemus,  47. 
Utamaro,  100. 
Utrillo,  324. 

Vague,  La,  101. 

Vairaoumati  Tei  Oa,  196. 

Valensi,  324. 

Vallotton,  321-322,  322. 

Van  de  Velde,  175. 

Van  Dongen,  Kees,  321. 

Van  Dyke,  50. 

Van  Gogh,  46,  62,  150,  182-186,  187, 

192,  193,   196,  199,  215,  234,  314; 

Portrait  d'Homme,  184-185. 


Van  Rysselberghe,  174,  175. 

VanVranken,j^Macdonald-Wright,S. 

Vaudeville,  the,  193. 

Velazquez,  19,  51,  66,  67,  70,  82,  89, 

110,212,282,284;  Philip  1 7,24. 
Venetians,  39,  43,  44,  62,  70,  135,  162. 
Venice  series  (Monet),  102. 
Venus  Accroupie,  226. 
Venus  Reclining,  75. 
Verdi;  //  Trovatore,  42. 
Verkade,  197. 
Verlaine,  193. 

Veronese,  36,  38,  40, 44,  137,  282,  329. 
Veron,  Eugene,  44. 
Vien,  34. 

Vierge  a  l'£,cuelle,  La,  62. 
Views  of  Fuji,  100. 
Vignon,  165. 

Ville  de  Paris,  259-260,  260. 
Virgil,  134. 

Vlaminck,  Maurice  de,  320-321. 
Vollard,  Ambroise,  145. 
Vollard  collection,  125. 
Vorticism  (Vorticists),  325. 
Vuillard,  315,  318,  318-319. 

Wagner,  42,  53,  266. 

Walkowitz,  325. 

Watteau,  22,  34,  97,  112,  113,  121. 

Whistler,  21,  47,  52,  69,  98,  134,  187, 

209,212,  244,258,318. 
William  of  Orange,  50. 
Wolff,  Albert,  336. 
Wright,    S.    Macdonald.     See    Mac- 

donald-Wright,  S. 

Yahne,  portrait  of,  216. 
Young,  Thomas,  84. 

Zak,  205,  321-322. 

Zanchi,  23. 

Zawadowsky,  324. 

Zola,  52,  73,  131,  133,  134;  L'Assom- 

moir,  73;   Fecondite,  73;    L'GSuvre, 

134. 

Zorn,  52. 
Zuloaga,  21,  98. 
Zurbaran,  50. 


OTHER  BOOKS  BT  WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


WHAT  NIETZSCHE  TAUGHT 

A  comprehensive  exposition  of  Nietzsche's  philosophy,  book 
by  book,  with. a  complete  biographical  sketch  and  a  frontis- 
piece of  Professor  Karl  Donndorf's  bust  of  Nietzsche. 

The  best  book  of  its  sort  I  have  ever  seen. — James  Huneker. 

We  know  of  no  other  book  just  like  Mr.  Wright's,  nor  any- 
one that,  on  the  whole,  we  can  recommend  more  heartily. 

—  The  Nation. 

As  a  presentation  in  compact  form  of  biographical  data  and 
certain  extracts  from  the  philosopher's  writings,  the  book  is 
admirable.  —  Review  of  Reviews. 

It  offers  a  better  and  truer  report  of  Nietzsche's  ideas  than 
any  other  book  either  in  English  or  German.  —  H .  L.  Mencken 
in  the  Baltimore  Evening  Sun. 

An  excellent  survey  of  the  life  and  philosophy  of  Nietzsche 
.  .  .  The  best  summary  of  Nietzsche  that  has  yet  appeared  in 
English.  —  Springfield  Republican. 

Just  as  one  should  begin  the  study  of  Nietzsche's  works 
with  "  Human,  All-too-Human,"  so  could  one  most  advanta- 
geously undertake  the  study  of  Nietzsche  with  Mr.  Wright's 
volume.  —  The  Dial. 

Mr  Wright's  compilation  may  be  warmly  recommended. 

—  Boston  Transcript. 

Mr.  Wright  knows  thoroughly  what  he  is  talking  about, 
and  his  book  is  excellent.  —  New  York  Evening  Sun. 


THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  AESTHETIC  FORM 
AND  ORGANISATION 

(In  Preparation) 

An  inquiry  into  the  laws  governing  aesthetic  appreciation  in 
all  the  arts.  The  first  basic  co-ordination  of  the  factors  which 
make  for  empathy  and  aesthetic  emotion,  and  the  only  funda- 
mental rationale  for  criticism  in  existence.  Mr.  Wright,  in  this 
new  and  important  work,  defines  aesthetic  form  and  rhythmic 
composition,  and  establishes  a  definite  foundation  for  artistic 
judgment.  "The  Principles  of  ^Esthetic  Form  and  Organi- 
sation" is  by  far  the  most  profound  and  important  contribution 
to  the  science  of  aesthetics  since  Kant. 


BOOKS  BT  WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  BRIGHT 
THE  MAN  OF  PROMISE 

(To  be  published  January,  1916) 

Mr.  Wright  has  here  written  one  of  the  most  penetrating  and  unusual 
novels  of  this  generation.  Its  conception,  its  point  of  view,  its  frankness, 
its  freedom  from  all  prejudice,  and  its  form  are  in  accord  with  the 
highest  standards  of  the  best  Continental  fiction.  The  central  character  — 
"the  man  of  promise,"  despite  his  potentialities  of  genius,  is  an  intensely 
appealing  and  sympathetic  figure.  In  his  nature  are  combined  weakness 
and  strength,  cruelty  and  tenderness,  virtue  and  viciousness.  In  short,  he  is 
inherently  human,  capable  of  ascending  the  heights,  yet  capable  also  of  sink- 
ing to  the  depths  of  life's  degradations. 

The  story,  which  takes  him  from  early  boyhood  to  middle  age,  is  centred 
about  his  affairs,  phsycological  and  sexual,  with  the  many  women  who  touch 
his  life.  Not  one  of  these  women  is  able  to  assist  him  in  his  great  work  or 
to  attain  to  his  high  and  solitary  ideals.  In  not  one  of  them  can  he  find  an 
"  inspiration."  They  are  not  necessary  to  his  intellectual  development.  To 
the  contrary,  each  tends  to  drag  him  down  to  the  mediocre  level  of  the 
world's  criterion  of  greatness,  to  sap  his  vitality,  to  curb  his  heresies,  to  make 
of  him  a  commonplace  man.  The  book,  in  short,  is  an  undogmatic  refutation 
of  the  theory  that  great  men  need  the  influence  of  women.  It  shows  how 
women,  by  their  conservatism  and  social  conventionality,  interfere  with  true 
greatness  and  conspire  instinctively  and  unconsciously  against  the  higher 
nature  of  the  men  they  love. 

First  Mr.  Wright  shows  the  cramping  influence  of  mother  love,  the  maternal 
efforts  to  inculcate  conventional  and  religious  ideals  into  the  child.  Then  we 
are  given  a  glimpse  of  the  influence  of  the  man's  boyhood  romance.  Next 
we  see  his  college  sweetheart,  in  love  with  life's  pleasures  and  gaieties,  turning 
his  mind  from  his  work.  Later  we  have  the  young  man's  mistress,  a  selfish 
and  calculating  woman,  ready  to  sacrifice  his  career  to  her  personal  ends. 
Still  later,  his  wife,  a  sweet,  loving  and  admirable  woman,  hinders  him  by 
her  conservatism  and  constant  attentions.  In  a  final  attempt  to  find  a  woman 
who  can  wholly  appreciate  his  exalted  desires  and  follow  him  to  the  heights 
he  has  in  mind,  he  deserts  his  wife  for  what  he  thinks  is  an  advanced 
and  intellectual  woman.  But  she  in  the  end  proves  little  different  from  the 
others.  She  exhibits  the  same  petty  jealousies  and  makes  the  same  demands 
on  him,  and  he  sends  her  away  in  a  last  desperate  attempt  to  consummate 
his  aspirations.  But  at  this  time  his  daughter,  now  a  young  woman,  appears; 
and  he  is  forced  to  make  the  final  sacrifice  to  her  future. 

"The  Man  of  Promise"  goes  deep  into  the  undercurrents  of  life,  and  it  is 
not  a  novel  any  man  or  woman  can  afford  to  miss  reading.  It  is  a  powerful 
story  and  in  many  ways  a  ruthless  one;  but  both  in  conception  and  execution 
it  marks  a  new  epoch  in  American  fiction. 


A     000  707  240     8 


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