Six Centuries of Painting Part 21

_France._

David.

Gericault.

Ingres.

Delacroix.

Corot.

Millet.

Daubigny.

Courbet.

Daumier.

Decamps.

Manet.

Degas.

Among these Turner stands out conspicuously from the rest, and he would be included by anyone in a list of twenty, or perhaps a dozen, of the greatest painters in the world. But oddly enough his influence on the art in general has been comparatively small, if we are to judge by its effects on other painters up to the present, while that of Constable has been considerably greater. Manet, again, and Delacroix, have accomplished far more for the history of painting than any other two in our lists--and yet their names are scarcely known outside the circle of those who know anything at all about painting.

For the English public at large an entirely different list would probably prove the superiority of their own race to their complete satisfaction--in spite of Meissonier, Dore, and Bouguereau on the other side. But that is only because the British public, owing to the monopoly

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XLIV.--JACQUES LOUIS DAVID

PORTRAIT OF MME. ReCAMIER

_Louvre, Paris_]

enjoyed by the Royal Academy, have never had a chance of judging for themselves what they approve of and what they do not, and their taste has been vitiated for generations by the exhibition of what this self-const.i.tuted authority, no doubt unconsciously, conceives to be best for them--and which, as might be expected, is usually found to coincide pretty nearly with the sort of thing they are capable of producing themselves. Hogarth's predictions at the time the Academy was inst.i.tuted have in a great measure come perfectly true, and the only benefit that it has been to the English School of painting is that it has kept it going. How far this may be called a benefit is at least arguable, but in the main it is probable that if so many bad pictures had not been painted, there would not have been so many good ones. On the other hand, the removal of a man like Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from his native sphere of influence is quite enough to account for the unlooked-for flowering of blossoms like the brothers Maris, Bosboom, Israels, and Mauve in the Dutch garden, and if that is so, one need not grudge him his interment amongst Nelson, Wellington, and other heroes of our own.

In a word, the history of painting in the nineteenth century is Revolt.

What it is going to be in the twentieth I am fortunately not called upon to say; but if I may throw out an opinion based upon what is already happening, I should say that no word has yet been coined which will adequately express it.

In the last century the issues were simple, and can be easily expressed.

On the one side was the complacent body of pract.i.tioners following to the best of their ability the practice of painting as handed down to them in a variety of different forms, just as the Byzantine craftsmen earned their living when they were so rudely disturbed by Cimabue and his school. On the other was a small but ever-increasing number of individuals who, like Cimabue, began to think things out for themselves, but, unlike him, did not succeed in effecting a popular triumph without--if at all--first raising both the painters and the public to a pitch of fury. It is indeed curious to read Vasari and modern historians side by side, and to wonder if, after all, Vasari knew or told everything, in his desire to glorify the art, or whether Giotto and other innovators were not in fact burnt at the stake. Probably not.

Gallileo, as we know, and Savonarola suffered for their crimes. But they were working against the Church, and the artists were working for it.

In the nineteenth century, painting had altogether broken away from the Church, and so it had to fight its own battles out in the street, or in the law courts. That is what has given it such a swagger and strength.

It no longer looks to its protector, it will hit you in the face before you know where you are. The feeble kind, only, looks to Academies for support, and thereby becomes feebler still.

In the present chapter, accordingly, we shall hear no more of the Madonnas, the Holy Families, and all the sacred and profane subjects on which the old masters exercised their genius. Five centuries of painting had established the art in a position of independence; and in a sixth--that is to say, the nineteenth--it began to a.s.sert itself, and to prove that its education was not in itself an end, but only a means to various ends. Instead of following out the fortunes of each painter, therefore, and attempting to set in any sort of order the reputations of artists before sufficient time has elapsed for them to cool, I propose to confine myself in the remaining pages to the broad issues raised during this period between the painters, the critics, and the public.

II

EUGeNE DELACROIX

The man who began all this street fighting was a Frenchman--Eugene Delacroix. While still a youth he was bullied, and the bully was such a redoubtable giant that it took somebody with the grit and genius of Delacroix to tackle him, but tackle him he did. The story of the fight, which is a long and glorious one, is so admirably told in Madame Bussy's life of Delacroix, that I have obtained permission to give the essence of it in her own words.

In the Salon of 1822 was exhibited Delacroix's picture of _Dante and Virgil_, which is now in the Louvre, and evoked the first of those clamours of abuse which were barely stilled before the artist's death.

For nearly thirty years all French painters, with the exception of Gros and Prudhon; had shown themselves unquestioning disciples of the school founded by Jacques Louis David, whose masterful character and potent personality had reduced all art to a system; and Delacroix himself spoke of him with sympathy and admiration. The chief dogma of David's school was that the nearest approach to the _beau ideal_ permitted to the human race had been attained by the Greeks, and that all art must conform as closely as possible to theirs. Unfortunately, the chief specimens of Greek art known at that time were those belonging to a decadent period--neither the Elgin marbles nor the Venus of Milo were accessible before 1816--so that the works from which they drew their inspiration were without character in themselves, or merely the feeble and attenuated copies of ancient Rome. In the pictures of this school, accordingly, we find only the monotonous perfection of rounded and well-modelled limbs, cla.s.sical features and straight noses. Colour, to the sincere Davidian, was a vain and frivolous accessory, serving only to distract attention from the real purpose of the work, which was to aim at moral elevation as well as at ideal beauty. Everything in the picture was to be equally dwelt upon; there was no sacrifice, no mystery. "These pictures," says Delacroix, "have no epidermis ...they lack the atmosphere, the lights, the reflections which blend into an harmonious whole, objects the most dissimilar in colour."

By the untimely death of Gericault, whose _Raft of the Medusa_ had already caused a flutter in 1819, Delacroix was left at the head of the revolt against this pseudo-cla.s.sicism; and amid the storm that greeted the _Dante and Virgil_ it is interesting to find Thiers writing of him in the following strain:--"It seems to me that no picture [in the Salon]

reveals the future of a great painter better than M. Delacroix's, in which we see an outbreak of talent, a burst of rising superiority which revives the hopes that had been slightly discouraged by the too moderate merits of all the rest.... I think I am not mistaken; M. Delacroix has genius; let him go on with confidence, and devote himself to immense labour, the indispensable condition of talent." Delecluze, by the by, the critic-in-chief of the Davidian School, had characterised the picture as _une veritable tartouillade_.

In 1824 the Salon included two pictures which may be regarded as important doc.u.ments in the history of painting. One of these was Constable's _Hay Wain_--now

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XLV.--EUGeNE DELACROIX

DANTE AND VIRGIL

_Louvre, Paris_]

in our National Gallery--which had been purchased by a Frenchman; the other was Delacroix's _Ma.s.sacre of Scio_, the first to receive the enlightenment afforded by the Englishman's methods, which spread so widely over the French School. It was said that Delacroix entirely repainted his picture on seeing Constable's; but his pupil, La.s.salle Bordes, is probably nearer the truth in saying that the master being dissatisfied with its general tone, which was too chalky, transformed it by means of violent glazings. The critics were no less noisy over this picture than the last. "A painter has been revealed to us," said one, "but he is a man who runs along the housetops." "Yes," answered Baudelaire, "but for that one must have a sure foot, and an eye guided by an inward light."

When the Salon opened again in 1827, after an interval of three years, the public were astonished to find how large a number of painters had abandoned Davidism and openly joined the ranks of the enemy. Delacroix himself exhibited the _Marino Faliero_ (now at Hertford House) and eleven others. The gauntlet was flung down, and war began in deadly earnest between the opposing parties. It was at this time that the terms Romanticism and Romantic came into common use. Delacroix always resented being labelled as a Romantic, and would only acknowledge that the term might be justly applied to him when used in its widest signification.

"If by my Romanticism," he wrote, "is meant the free expression of my personal impressions, my aversion from the stereotypes invariably produced in the schools, and my repugnance to academic receipts, then I must admit I am Romantic."

Here we have the plain truth about the painting of the nineteenth century--and after! The critics were unanimous in their violent condemnation of Delacroix's works: "the compositions of a sick man in delirium," "the fanaticism of ugliness," "barbarous execution," "an intoxicated broom"--such are some of the terms of abuse showered upon him. The gentlest among them commiserate the talent which here and there can be seen "struggling with the systematic _bizarrerie_ and the disordered technique of the artist, just as gleams of reason and sometimes flashes of genius may be seen pitiably shining through the speech of a madman." The final touch to Delacroix's disgrace was given by the Directeur des Beaux Arts sending for him and recommending him to study drawing from casts, warning him at the same time that unless he could change his style he must expect neither commissions nor recognition from the State!

The year 1830 has given its name to that brilliant generation of poets, novelists, painters and philosophers which, as Theophile Gautier says with just pride, "will make its mark on the future and be spoken of as one of the climacteric epochs of the human mind." The revolution of July inspired Delacroix with one of his most interesting pictures. _Le 28 Juillet_ is the only one of his works in which he depicts modern life, and was a striking refutation to those who complained that modern costume is too ugly or prosaic to be treated in painting. "Every old master," Baudelaire usefully pointed out, "has been modern in his day.

The greater number of fine portraits of former times are dressed in the costume of their period. They are perfectly harmonious because the costumes, the hair, and even the att.i.tude and expression (each period has its own), form a whole of complete vitality." _Le 28 Juillet_ gives us the very breath and spirit of modern street fighting. Though the public

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XLVI.--JOHN CONSTABLE

THE HAY WAIN

_National Gallery, London_]

remained hostile and the jury bestowed none of its prizes, as before, the Government acknowledged the artist's talent and politics by making him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Further, from 1833 to 1853 he was intermittently employed in decorating the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, and other public buildings. In 1855 he showed at the Great Exhibition a series of thirty-five of his most important pictures, the effect of which was immense. For the first and only time in his life he enjoyed a triumph, none the less great because his life-long rival Ingres also took the opportunity of exhibiting a selection of his works in the same building. But in spite of this success, and in spite of his being elected an Academician in 1857, the critics remained incorrigible.

His pictures in the Salon of 1859 once more called forth one of those storms of abuse that Delacroix had the gift of arousing. Weary and disheartened--"All my life long I have been livre aux betes," was his bitter exclamation--he vowed to exhibit no more, and kept his word.

III

RUSKIN AGAINST THE PHILISTINES

IN England, meantime, great things were being accomplished amid peaceful surroundings. In portraiture Lawrence soon became supreme, and what excellence he possessed was accentuated on his death in 1830 by the appointment of Sir Martin Archer Shee as his successor in the Presidency of the Royal Academy. That was the end of portraiture in England until a new school arose. But it was in landscape that our country occupied the field in the first half of the nineteenth century, and tilled it with the astonishing results that are usually the effect of doing much and saying little. The work accomplished by Turner, Constable, and Cotman, in the first half of the century, to say nothing of Crome and one or two of the older men who were still alive, has never been equalled in any country, and yet less was heard about the execution of it than would keep a modern journalist in bread and cheese for a week. Turner, who wouldn't sell his pictures, and Constable, who couldn't, between them filled up the measure of English art without any other aid than that of the materials with which they recorded their gorgeous communion with nature. When Ruskin stepped in with the "Modern Painters," originally designed as a vindication of Turner against certain later-day critics, Turner's comment was, "He knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do. He puts things into my head and points out meanings in them that I never intended." That was in 1843, when Turner was well on in his third manner--within eight years of his death. But let us go back to the beginning.

Until he developed his latest manner, Turner was about the most popular artist that ever lived. His pictures were not above the comprehension of the public, educated or otherwise, and no effort was either needed or demanded to understand them. In the diary of a provincial amateur, Thomas Greene, are recorded an impression of Turner's work as early as 1797:--"Visited the Royal Exhibition. Particularly struck with a sea-view by Turner ...the whole composition bold in design and masterly in execution. I am entirely unacquainted with the artist, but if he proceeds as he has begun, he cannot fail to become the first in his department." And again in 1799:--"Was again struck and delighted with Turner's landscapes.... Turner's views are not mere ordinary transcripts of nature,--he always throws some peculiar and striking _character_ into the scene he represents."

Brought up as a topographical draughtsman, he made no departure till quite late in life from the conventional method of depicting scenery; but being a supremely gifted artist, he was capable of utilising this method as no other before or since has ever succeeded in doing. The accepted method was good enough for him, and he laid his paint upon the canvas as anybody else had done before him, and as many of our present-day painters would do well to do after him--if only they had the genius in them to "make the instrument speak." The impressions created on our mind by Turner's earlier pictures are not conveyed by dots, cubes, streaks, or any device save that of pigment laid upon the canvas in such a manner as seemed to the artist to reproduce what he saw in nature. That he did this with surprising and altogether exceptional skill is the proof of his genius. Unflagging energy and devotion to his art enabled him to realise, not all, but a wonderful number of the beauties he saw in the world, with an experience that few beside him have ever taken the trouble to acquire. When barely thirty years old--in 1805--he was already considered as the first of living landscape painters, and was thus noticed by Edward Dayes (the teacher of Girtin):--"Turner may be considered as a striking instance of how much may be gained by industry, if accompanied with perseverance, even without the a.s.sistance of a master. The way he acquired his professional powers was by borrowing when he could a drawing or picture to copy; or by making a sketch of any one in the exhibition early in the morning and finishing it up at home. By such practice, and a patient perseverance, he has overcome all the difficulties of the art." Turner himself used to say that his best academy was "the fields and Dr Monro's parlour"--where Girtin and other young artists met and sketched and copied the drawings in the doctor's collection. Burnet, in his notice of "Turner and his Works," suggests that John Robert Cozens had paved the way for both Girtin and Turner in striking out a broad effect of light and shade.

"The early pictures of Turner," he observes, "possess the breadth, but are dest.i.tute of the brilliant power of light and colour afterwards pervading his works, and ultimately carried to the greatest extreme in his last pictures. Breadth of light seems to have been latterly his chief aim, supported by the contrast of hot and cold colour; two of his unfinished pictures exemplified the principle; they were divided into large ma.s.ses of blue where the water or sky was to come and the other portions laid out in broad orange yellow, falling into delicate brown where the trees and landscapes were to be placed. This preparation, while it secured the greatest breadth, would have shone through the other colours when finished, giving the luminous quality observable in his pictures. In many instances his works sent for exhibition to the British Inst.i.tution had little more than this brilliant foundation, which was worked into detail and completed in the varnishing days, Turner being the first in the morning and the last to leave; his certainty in the command over his colour, and the dexterity in his handling, seemed to convert in a few hours 'an unsubstantial pageant'

into a finished landscape. These _ad captandum_ effects, however, are not what his fame will depend on for perpetuity; his finest pictures are the production of great study in their composition, careful and repeated painting in the detail, and

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XLVII.--J. M. W. TURNER