The Enchanted Island iss 7 r Digitized by the Internet Arcinive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/enchantedislandOObaylrich Second Edition, post Svo., Price 6s. THE WITNESS OF ART; OR, THE LEGEND OF BEAUTY. By WYKE BAYLISS, F.S.A. Containing : I. The Legend, i. The King's Messenger. 2. The Message. II. The Witness of Art. i. The Antique. 2. The Renascence. 3. The Modern Schools. III. Blessing the Cornfields; or, Landscape Art in Poetry. I. Ceres. 2. The King's Garden. IV. Seeing the Invisible ; or, the use of the Supernatural IN Art. I. The Sons of God. 2. The Unknown Quantity. 3. Men and Angels. 4. The Son of Man. 5. Kissing Carrion. 6. Witnessing Again. '• The manfully-stated hypothesis or ' argument ' of the book would alone make it valuable as an appeal from spirit to spirit. Mr. Bayliss does seem to have faith in Art still, as the gift of God to man, in order that man may be drawn nearer to Him by the sight of beauty, which is the symbol of His unknown perfection. . . For it may do some hearts good, at least, to have a man of ripe experience in Art, and wide range of knowledge, who will give God the glory in it, and set his word to the belief that it is not merely ornamental. . . . It is a work which must give sincere pleasure to those who believe in spiritual things, and reckon Art among them." — Contemporary Review. " A book suffused with a genuine artistic spirit, and which shows that Art is a witness to truth and righteousness." — British Quarterly Review. " The legend of Beautv and the Beast has been turned to good account. The ethics of zesthetics is certainly a subject with a very scant literature, especially when we consider how important a function the ' King's Messenger Beauty ' performs in the world ; and how closely related she is to those other messengers. Virtue and Truth. The idea of the legend is well worked out in glancing over the history of Art, and the terrible lapse it underwent in the dark ages : and the chapter entitled ' The Message ' is a very pleasant discursive roam through some of the phases of the art influence of Mythology. The chapters on the Antique, the Renascence, and the Modern Schools are well worthy of an attentive perusal. ' Kissing Carrion,' is a thoughtfully-written criticism on the debased use of the supernatural in Art ; and the vigorous and trenchant onslaught on such productions as some of the ' Ingoldsby Legends,' when viewed from a true artist's point of view, is deserving of high commendation " — Spectator. " How exquisitely this is worked out must be left for the book itself to show ; partial quotation would give no adequate notion of the subtlety of the idea. ' The Witness of Art ' will be a welcome friend and companion." — Morning Post. " We cannot pay a higher compliment than to say that it is worthy to have thoughtful readers."— Scotsman. " Mr. Bayliss's work will be a welcome guest in every studio where the English language is understood, and in every drawing-room where poetry and art are understood."— Whitehall Review. " We have found unusual pleasure in the perusal of this book. Its writer possesses a correct, thoughtful, and exquisite taste, and is gifted with a style that is at once striking and poetical."— Li^cmry World. " The book must be read from the first word to the last. Read it will be by all people of taste, and we affirm that it cannot be read without profit." — Reliquary Quarterly Review. "A charm which would render it difficult for anyone to lay the book aside, till the last page is reached." — Art Journal. " We heartily welcome a second edition. It is impossibe to peruse this book without the keenest pleasure." — Magazine of Art. " Richly imaginative and full of eloquent and frequently highly poetical thought." — Standard. " A curious and deeply interesting work. The author has eloquence of expression, and a keen sense of humour, and he uses both." — Echo. *' The book will interest not merely Art students, but also readers of all classes, for there is little that is technical about it." — Daily Free Press. " Mr. Bayliss is one of the few artists who can think as well as pamt, and write as well as think. His pages teem with terse and practical criticism on well-known artists." — Liverpool Daily Post. " With the great mass of Mr. Bayliss's brilliant criticism we heartily agree. Art is the ideal element in human life, and he has said so in a truly worthy and artistic form." — Literary Churchman. " A work which will fully repay a careful and intelligent perusal, and serve as a pleasant companion to the Art student." — Record. " Under the title of ' Ceres ' there is a really cleverly-drawn distinction between the limitations of the painter and the poet — perhaps the best that we have ever read." — Nonconformist. " We cannot but welcome this contribution to the literature of an important and interesting subject." — The Rock. "May be greatly welcomed ; it is the work of an artist who does not talk Art, but Nature ; who does not write only for brothers of his craft, but for mankind generally."— TAg Inquirer. " A clever lecturer might pick more than one chapter as a good bit for evening readings." — Graphic. " Good books on Art are not too plentiful. A most welcome addition to the literature of Art." — North British Daily Mail. " A difficult and very interesting subject is treated with considerable critical insight and some novelty of illustration. The main conclusions are not only true, but such as are to some extent overlooked."— TA^ Builder. •' Such books as this give us a new hope." — Edinburgh Daily Review. Second Edition, post 8vo., Price 6s. THE HIGHER LIFE IN ART, WITH A CHAPTER ON HOBGOBLINS BY THE GREAT MASTERS. By WYKE BAYLISS, F.S.A. Contents : I. My Lady the Prologue. II. Three Sunsets. III. A Winter's Tale. IV. Art for Art's Sake. V. Leaves from a Sketch- book. VI. The Wars of the Hob- goblins. VII. Seen through a Cloud. VIII. Before the Council. IX. The Story of a Dado. X. XI. XII. Hobgoblins by the Great Masters. (i) Lancelot-Lictor. (2) Pandora's Box. (3) The Fount of Tears. XIII. Dualism in Art. I. XIV. XV. The Alter Ego. (i) Cecil to Reginald. (2) Reginald to Cecil. XVI. Dualism in Art. II. XVII. My Lord the Epilogue. " Mr. Wyke Bayliss is at the same time a practical artist and a thoughtful writer. The combination is, we regret to say, as rare as it is desirable. . . He deals ably and clearly — notably so in this present book — with questions of the day of practical and immediate importance to artists and to the Art public. . . . We prefer to send the reader to the volume itself, where he will find room for much reflection." — The Academy. *' The writing is that of a scholar and a gentleman, and though the critical faculty is often evinced in a subtle and discriminating form, all allusions to individuals are made with so much of the kindliness of true good-taste, that we are almost conscious of a reluctance in disagreeing with the author."— r/i^ Spectator. " It is almost impossible to forbear continual quotation of definitions such as these, which are scattered broadcast over this volume. In point of definition, of clear-cut epigrammatic statement of thought, in mastery of a certain rounded perfection of expression, Mr. Bayliss has a special and marvellous facility. Over and over again he sums up his thought in a sentence that may be recognised as the most entirely fitting expression into which his thought could shape itself. The effect is exceedingly striking. The idea which has been carefully elaborated through, perhaps, an entire page is suddenly summed-up into a line in which a fine thought is married to noble wording, and the definition clings to the memory by reason of its aptness." — Literary World. *' Mr. Wyke Bayliss is already favourably known as an author by ' The Witness of Art,' and ' The Higher Life in Art.' ''—Daily News. '* One of the most humorous and valuable of the general articles on Art, is Mr. Wyke Bayliss' ' Story of a Dado.' ''—The Standard. " The style has the grace which comes by culture, and no small share of the eloquence bred of earnest conviction. Mr. Bayliss writes as a man who, having seen much, has also read and thought much on fine art questions. His views are therefore entitled to that respectful attention which the pleasant dress in which he has clothed them renders it all the easier to accord." — The Scotsman. " This book is written wisely and well." — The Literary Churchman. " Altogether this is a very fascinating and delightful book, and one which every one should read. The style is singularly eloquent and attractive ; and, as we remarked of its predecessor, a lecturer could easily find two or three chapters which would form a highly-interesting and instructive reading." — The Graphic. '* We have heard happiness described by a bookish man to be the reading of Charles Lamb by the light of a good fire. Beside such a fire this work of Mr. Bayliss would be a very good substitute for Elia in the hands of the art-student. The chapter on Literary Hobgoblins is laughable in the extreme. The great aim of the book, however, is to inculcate breadth of view in Art. It is full of a tender, catholic, artistic, sentiment, exhibiting sympathies not merely with pencil and paint, but with everything that the human soul can call beautiful. Every page contains delightful thowght.'" —Glasgow Herald. *' Mr. Bayliss is a determined and resolute champion, who can write a good sonnet, make a good drawing, and lay vigorously about him in a great variety of directions in prose." — The Guardian. " We do not quote at greater length because we wish our readers to .ead the book, as a whole — for themselves. As a genial, considerate, appreciative message from the artist to the non-artistic public, it is likely to be of especial value ; and we prefer interesting our readers in the book itself, to interesting them by extracts from it." — The Inquirer. " Those who have read Mr. Bayliss' work entitled ' The Witness of i^rt,' will not need that we should describe to them the peculiar charm of style which is again so conspicuous in the book whose title is given above ; to those who have not read the former work, it is, we think, impossible to describe that charm. But if anyone, having an interest in Art, reads one chapter of either of these books without reading all the rest, he will be, we think, strangely insensible to that subtle element of beauty in writing which makes some men's prose close akin to poetry."— TA^ Artist. " Mr. Bayliss is versatile, ingenious, suggestive, and we have read his clever book with not a little pleasure and profit." — British Quarterly. Review. " His admirers are many, and amongst many school^.'''' —Liverpool Albion. " Mr. Wyke Bayliss has nobly achieved a noble object, and his work is one which the world will not willingly let dUt.''''— Morning Post. r-f, TC THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, BY THE SAME AUTHOR Uniform with " The Enchanted Island.'' THE WITNESS OF ART OR, THE LEGEND OF BEAUTY. AND THE HIGHER LIFE IN ART WITH A CHAPTER ON HOBGOBLINS BY THE GREAT MASTERS. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND THE VENICE OF TITIAN AND OTHER STUDIES IN ART. WYKE BAYLISS, F.S.A., PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OP BRITISH ARTISTS. Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ! " Eonlron: W. H. ALLEN & CO. 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 1888. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. Florence, i! 326005 PREFACE TT is not difficult to surmise how England became -*- The Enchanted Island. The hardy fishermen pushing out from the western shores of the great con- tinent of Europe would see our white cliffs, at dawn flushed with roseate light, at night-fall glorified by the setting sun. Such a line on the horizon — beautiful to look upon, perhaps dangerous to approach, certainly unexplored — might well be the land of which even Heine dreamed. Myth first ; then History ; then Religion ; always the struggle going on between good and evil. Now Science with its clear eyes ; and the common-place work-a-day world with its dull eyes ; and Nature with eyes as of a god — a sun-god — so bright. And over all the spell of an Enchanter's wand. That is the subject of this little book. To " The Enchanted Island " I have added some viii. PREFACE. further Studies of Books. They should be read with the Studies which have preceded them in *' The Wit- ness of Art " and '* The Higher Life in Art." Kissing Carrion, Men and Angels, Landscape Art in Poetry, Launcelot Lictor, Hobgoblins by the Great Masters, The Painter's Reward, are chapters of the same series. If I have seemed to bear hardly upon the pessimist literature of the day, it is because I believe it to be a serious and growing evil. The " Studies for Pictures " have been my compan- ions during many happy hours of labour. They are leaves from my sketch-book — notes in pen and pencil of subjects which have grown into pictures. Separated from the paintings for which they have hitherto spoken, they must now learn to speak for them- selves. CONTENTS I. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. 1. The Island 13 2. Anno Domini ig 3. The World, The Flesh, and The Devil 37 4. The Robe of Amethyst 50 5. The Commonplace in Art 56 6. The Sun-God— Easter in the Studio ... 73 7. The Sun-God— The Waning of the Year 88 8. St. Ouen of Rouen 99 II. STUDIES OF BOOKS. 1. The Venice of Titian iii 2. Text Books on Art 136 3. The Book of Lives 151 4. Decline or Progress 165 CONTENTS. III. STUDIES FOR PICTURES. PAGE 1. St. Lawrence, Nuremberg 201 2. To Adam Kraft 202 3. La Sainte Chapelle 203 4. Chartres Cathedral 204 5. St. Mark's, Venice 205 6. Westminster Abbey 206 7. Treves Cathedral 207 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. THE ISLAND. A MONG the myths of the morning there is one ^ ^ that has always seemed to me more lovely than the rest. It describes how on the long line of the Scandinavian coast, every night, when darkness has folded the land in sleep, there comes to one of the rude fishermen who dwell by the sea-shore a sudden awake- ning from his slumber, and a recognition of a presence which he cannot see, and a will which he cannot resist. In storm or calm, summer or winter, it is all the same; every night throughout the long year the visitor comes, — and when he comes there is nothing to do but to arise, and follow, and obey. The bridegroom must leave his bride in her new home; the father his children; the old man his desolate hearth. Following the strange messenger he is led down to the shore. There he enters his boat, casting it loose from its moorings ; and as he B 14 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. does so the boat sinks slowly down in the water as though freighted with many passengers. Silently he pushes out from the land, into the darkness, with his invisible company, towards an Enchanted Island ; and as the boat touches its sands voices are heard, like the reading of a roll of names ; the boat becomes lighter as one by one the passengers leave it ; and the fisherman is permitted to return to his home — whither, indeed, he is carried by a fair wind — but the unseen passengers return no more. How should they return ? The bride has a new life to live, too full of love and duty for her to miss those who have passed away. The children will grow up with but a dim remembrance of the smiles that first- greeted their young eyes. The old man will himself very soon be of their company. Why should they return ? Besides, it is no more morning. The sun is high in the heavens of the nineteenth century, and everybody knows that we have no myths now. These Western shores of Europe, from the Maelstrom to the Bay of Biscay, are busy with Art and Commerce. The Is- land is Great Britain — no more enchanted, but always listening for the thunder that is to break someday from Cherbourg or Kronstadt — while the Channel is daily crossed by an innumerable fleet of steamers, amongst THE ISLAND. 15 all the captains of which it would be impossible to find one who would so much as know how to reckon the freightage of a ghost. Now here is a strange thing. The same stretch of sea coast — the same race of seafaring men — the same crossing to and fro — and yet, by an enchantment greater than that of any morning mist, for it has been wrought in the full light of day, the old and the new have become different worlds. The Tyndalls of the Victorian age, and the MerHns of the Arthurian, are each occult to the other. It is as though the past and the future, like our dreams, formed no part of our actual lives. The story of the Enchanted Island is not more incredible to the new world, than the story that our " Iron horses of the steam, Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke — " would have been incredible to the old. We have one word that settles everything, — and so had they. The story they tell us we call a myth. If they could have heard our story they would have called it a vision. But now — here is a thing still more strange. If we look closely into the matter we perceive that it is just those elements which at first sight seem most chimerical and unstable, that are essentially true and abiding. B 2 i6 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. The sinking of the wale of the fisherman's boat, though established by the strictest laws of evidence, would still be only part of the mechanism of the story, of no more account than the wobbling of the neck of Lohengrin's swan, as it is hitched across the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre. Our "iron horses" may yet be driven by some motive power other than steam. All that is a matter of shifting detail. But the forces we use — or shall ever use — are constant, and were lying from the first at the fisherman's feet ; only he did not know, nor could Merlin teach him, how to stoop and take them up- And what is happening to us ? Every day a crowd of ghosts sweep past us. To-day it is Arnold — yesterday it was Darwin — the day before it was Rossetti. The mechanism is indeed changed. We can render them no friendly aid. We do not know, nor does Tyndall tell us, whither they are going. On the verge of an unknown land we leave them, bringing back only the remembrance of their names. But they return no more. . As in the ruins of an ancient temple one might come upon a broken mosaic, and perceive it to be a fragment of a picture of the saint or god whose shrine was there ; and then, examining the separate tesserae, might determine that these which formed the aureole round the head are of gold, that the blood-stains on the hands THE ISLAND. 17 are rubies, and that the purple robe is of amethyst — so, looking again at this dual story we may perceive that it is a fragment of a greater story, and that many elements go to the perfect telling of it. There is the record of the event— that is History. There is faith in an unseen World — that is Religion. There is the falling of night on land and sea — that is Nature. There is the subduing of the earth — that is Science. There is action — that is Life. There is separation — that is Death. And last of all there is the bringing of these things together, the naming of them, the fashioning out of them a new Paradise — that is Art. But the new Paradise that Art fashions is like the old, at least in this — that it is always slipping from under our feet. Where now is the Enchanted Island ? We have reached its shores; but the dead are still trooping past us, we know not whither, and we seem further than ever from — '• The island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly," Where is the river that went out from Eden to water the garden ? Upon its littoral are — crocodiles, but its waves reflect no more the Tree of Life. The gold of Havilah may be good, but there is very little of it left. The mosaic may have been lovely — but it is broken. i8 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. We are told indeed that there will yet be a Tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of the nations, and a River of the Water of Life. For these we wait. Mean- while Art goes on re-arranging for us her scattered tesserae — History, Religion, Nature, Science, Death, Life. What will the great mosaic be like when it is finished ? For that also we must wait ; content if only we can find amethyst for the purple robe, rubies for the bloody sweat, and gold for the aureole, which is the hope of the future. H II. ANNO DOMINI. OW long does the morning last? Till Odin's time ? or Merlin's ? When may the myths be said to end, and history fairly to begin ? While Merlin was flirting with Vivien on the Breton sands Arthur — in the Enchanted Island — was still marking time by the Roman calendar, having heard very little of Christ, and absolutely nothing of " Anno Domini." Yet the worship of Odin — who ceased to be the Prince of Denmark and was discovered to be a god about the year when Christ was born — had flared its course through our heavens, and was already fading into dark- ness. How swiftly the hours move ! Since Odin came there has been time for three or four religions such as that he gave us. How slowly the hours move ! Since Christ came we have not found time to shake off all the myths that shroud our morning in a blinding mist. Surely it is only sunrise with us still. And then, how many mornings history has seen — and THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. evenings, too. The first faint flushings in the East that broke over India and Persia ; the meridian splen- dour that made Athens for a time the acropohs of the world; the darkness that fell upon Rome just when day was beginning to dawn upon Britain. So many and so varied are the lights that one cannot always discern precisely the direction in which the shadows lie. To read history is like recalling the scenes of our childhood. Much is forgotten, much is exaggerated, or confused, or has taken a new shape or colour in our minds. Not until we actually revisit the long-deserted home do we realise its true proportions. Then, though familiar faces may be missing, though landmarks may have disappeared, and the fields where we gathered buttercups may have become hideous with brick and mortar, yet the little that does remain possesses a reality strong enough to correct our dreams of the past, to awaken dormant memories, and to give cohesion and substance to associations that were otherwise but fragmentary and elusive. It is thus with History and Art. In History we read the record of the event ; in Art we revisit the scene. History may tell us more than Art can show us — just as memory may recall things which have ceased to exist and incidents which have left no visible trace. But what Art does show us is not a shadow, it is the substance itself, of which History is only the ANNO DOMINI. 21 word-picture. The artist is, indeed, a historian, and the historian is an artist. For the vanishing point of History is found in mythology — which is the creation of the imagination ; and the vanishing point of Art is found in hieroglyph — which is the earlist record of fact. If History is the living soul of the past. Art is its visible incarnation. But the definition I seek is not one that shall divide myth from history, or picture-writing from picture- painting; it is rather one that shall differentiate the motive underlying two representations of the same thing. Take for instance, the ninth book of the " Odyssey," where Ulysses recounts his adventures in the land of the Cyclops. " Now off at sea, and from the shallows clear, As far as human voice could reach the ear, With taunts the distant giant I accost. Hear me, O Cyclop ! hear, ungracious host ! Thy barbarous breach of hospitable bands, The god, the god revenges by my hands. These words the Cyclop's burning rage provoke; From the tall hill he rends a pointed rock ; High o'er the billows flew the massy load. And near the ship came thundering on the flood. It almost brush'd the helm — " That is the story, as Ulysses tells it to Alcinoiis and his court. Compare it now with Turner's great paint- ing in the National Gallery of the same scene. The 22 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. poem is a drama recited in our ears ; the picture is the same drama acted before us in dumb show. But the reciter speaks as one whose eyes are filled with visions of beauty or terror ; and the actor's face is a revelation of his voiceless passion. Is not the motive the same, then, in each ? By no means. In the poem it arises in the narrative and springs to the event. Will the huge rock hurled by the Cyclops sink Ulysses' ship ? In the painting it is purely aesthetic, and asks for no event beyond the perfect correlation of light and darkness and colour in a splendid sunrise. But now turn from this picture of Ulysses' ship to ANNO DOMINI. 23 one that hangs side by side with it — " The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last Berth." The motive, so far as Art is concerned, is the same in the two pictures — it is aesthetic : it is the perfect correlation of light and darkness and colour in a splendid sunset. But there is something in the picture of the "Temeraire" which we do not discover in the " Ulysses," and which goes far beyond it ; something not founded on imagina- tion, or tradition, or research. It is the witness of an epoch in our national life — of the passing away of the old order and the bringing in of the new. While the picture of Ulysses' ship is only a historical painting the picture of the " Temeraire " is Historic Art. 24 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. These definitions are indeed somewhat defiant of the old traditions, which lay down that " historical painting is that highest branch of the art which can embody a story in a picture and invest it with the warmth of poetry," and that " histrionism " is "stage-playing." But I am not afraid of breaking away from old tradi- tions, if by so doing I can give to the terms in which my subject must be stated clearer and truer values. The closer the alliance between History and Art, the more necessary it is that these values should be clear and true. History, Historic Art, and Histrionic Art are three things as distinct from each other as three children of one family bearing the same name. I have said that History is the living soul of the past, and that Art is its visible incarnation. Now this, which is the primary, is also the noblest relationship that can exist between the two. They are co-ordinate and complemental to each other ; and Art thus related to History is Historic Art. But there is also a secondary relationship existing between them, in which Art, abandoning its higher function of speaking with original, independent, un- divided authority, from one age to another, accepts the humbler role of emphasising or illustrating the speech of the historian. A historical painting (as the term is generally understood) is not a real voice speaking ANNO DOMINI. 25 to us ; it is only the echo of a voice. Art thus related to History is Histrionic Art. This is a distinction of which very little has been said by writers upon Art ; but it is one we should do well to consider. In the light of it the old lines of classification disappear, as of small account. Here are two pictures by the same painter — the one claims to be historical, but it is only histrionic ; the other claims simply to be landscape, but it is historic. See now how this distinction touches sculpture. The beautiful statuary which enriches the west front of Lichfield Cathedral is an epitome of the history of Christianity for eighteen hundred years ; but it has no historic value ; and that, not because it is modern — for the last treasure added to the cathedral, the recumbent figure of Bishop Selwyn — being the actual portrait of the man — is, and will remain for ever, true Historic Art. It has no historic value because it is not contemporary with the events of which it is the chronicle. See also how the same distinction touches architecture. The new Law Courts, though built upon lines of the purest Gothic, are a histrionic semblance only of a past age. But the Temple Church, hard by, is not a semblance at all — any more than the rainbow is a semblance of the rain, or snow the semblance of cold. The rainbow is the rain falling in drops ; and the Temple Church is the passion of an age crystallised into a beautiful 26 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. shape — just as under certain conditions of the atmo- sphere the water which is in it crystalHses into a snowflake. See, last of all, how this distinction between Historic and Histrionic Art touches the drama. We call " Coriolanus " a historical play, " Romeo and Juliet " a tragedy, and " The Merry Wives of Windsor " a comedy. But which of them is really historic? Which of them stands co-ordinate with history ? Which of them shows us the thing itself of which history is the word-picture ? Surely not the one we call historical. The play of " Coriolanus " adds nothing to our know- ledge of the Roman nobles, or the tribunes of the people. If there is in it a touch of true historic art it is where it shows us the mutinous, vacillating crowd of citizens : " Let us kill him and we will have corn at our own price.'' Shakespeare may have actually heard these words — in the streets of London. And then, in " Romeo and Juliet," just so far as the art of it hangs upon history it is not historic. The story, may indeed be true. Narrated at first by an Italian novelist, it was repeated by many poets and story-tellers of Italy and France. At last it was translated into English, and from this translation Shakespeare seems to have taken not the plot only, but many of the vsentiments and expressions. How small a residue of actual fact remains when the record is sifted. Only a tomb in the ANNO DOMINI. 27 Vicolo Franceschino, and an old house in the Via- Capello. But when Shakespeare makes old Capulet say to his daughter : — " Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest. An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend; An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i' the streets, For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee" — and Juliet to her mother — that first and last refuge of the child-soul in distress — "Is there no pity sitting in the clouds ? O, sweet my mother, cast me not away ! " — here Art becomes at once the revelation of the spirit of an age. As to Justice Shallow, and the Welsh Parson, and Mistress Anne Page — "sweet Anne Page," " who has brown hair and speaks small like a woman " it matters very little that their names are not written in the books of the chronicles of the Kings of England. If the people, and not the camp or court alone, are the nation, and if History is the record of a nation's life, then the Art which brings us face to face with generations that have passed away — that makes us laugh with them, and weep with them, and think their thoughts — the Art that does this, whether it be land- scape or figure, painting or architecture, sculpture or the drama, tragedy or comedy, is before all things and above all things Historic Art. 28 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. I note then (ist) that Art to have historic value must be Contemporary Art. If we would realise the degradation to which King Solomon sank in worship- ing the goddess of the Zidonians, we should look, not at the Aphrodite of the Greek sculptors, but at the Astarte of the Assyrians. There we see, not the trans- cendentalism of an exalted ideal of human beauty, but the incarnation of real human lust. If we care to know what the early Christians thought of the Master, we must look, not at the " Crucifixions " and " Holy Families " of the Renaissance, but at the rude frescoes on the walls of the catacombs. There we never see Him either as a baby or as a dead man, but always as the living Christ. I note (2nd) that though the Art which is historic possesses a worth apart from, and altogether incom- mensurate with, its artistic merits, yet there is no splendour of genius, or refinement of knowledge, or mastery in craftsmanship that the artist can bring to his labour that does not add its full value to his work. There are in the Museum of the Vatican, small medallions of the first century, engraved with slender outlines of the likenesses of three of the Apostles — St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul. Comparing these outlines with the cartoons of Raphael, we perceive how very closely the great painter followed them. Slight as they are, they were sufficient to control his ANNO DOMINI. 29 ,(S. Peter f S. jfohn &> S. Paul, from Relics found in the Catacombs.) imagination. He was content to learn from them. It is much to possess even these faint records of men, of whom we wish in vain to know more now, but whose faces were once familiar enough in the streets of Athens and Rome. What might we not have possessed if those little medallions had been engraved by the hand of a Raphael ? 30 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. I note (3rd) the extreme reticence of true Historic Art. The fine painting which deHghted London a few years ago of a Babylonian marriage market is a poem, a satire, a fable — what you will — but it is not historic. Like the play of " Coriolanus," it is based on our knowledge of History, but it adds nothing to that knowledge, nor can it correct it in the least particular. We know so much of the past — if we believe all that History tells us. We know so little of the past — if we believe only what we know. " The land where now the Sultan rules " has seen many dynasties, since the time when it was governed by a woman. — What was she like ? — that " Empress of many languages." Look at the walls of the royal palace of the " Great City." There we shall see Art — again rude in draughtsman- ship, but Historic — Semiramis by the side of Ninus, her husband, she killing a panther, he piercing a lion with his dart. Of Semiramis herself the Poets and Historians — Herodotus, Diodorus, Ovid — have much to tell us, and each tells us a different story : — that she was born of a goddess, that she became a goddess after her death, that she was nurtured by doves, that she was metamorphosed into a dove — with many other minutiae, even to such trifling details as the dressing of her beautiful hair, and the murder of her husband. Dante knows exactly where to find her in Hell ; where, indeed, with Virgil, he saw her, in that long line of ANNO DOMINI. 31 shadowy forms, castigated by the black air, uttering wild cries of lamentation ; where — *' The infernal hurricane that never rests Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, Whirling them round and smiting.' Compared with all this, how reticent is Art ! It tells us only that Semiramis was a woman, and that, like many a sweet-eyed English girl, she followed the chase and loved to be in at the death. Not of her husband — Art says nothing about that — but of the panther. Perhaps Semiramis never killed Ninus after all. If she did, however, it is not likely that she would have commissioned her Court painter to portray the deed upon the walls of her palace ; so the silence of Art must not be taken to contradict the utterance of History. Art does not deny that Semiramis slew her husband and was a goddess. It only affirms that she was a woman. And we believe it. If a woman can be both human and divine, then we may believe History too. Otherwise we are tempted to think that History has dealt with Semiramis very much as Mr. Richard Swiveller dealt with the " small servant " at Bevis Marks — when he said, trimming the candle and depositing his stake of sixpence in the saucer, " To make things seem more real and pleasant I shall call you the Marchioness — Do you hear ? " The simile is a bold one — but it is not without c 2 32 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. justification : and it will even bear to be carried a little further. To make things more real — that is the purpose of History : to make things more pleasant — that is the purpose of Art. The Queen of Babylon and the "small servant" stand very far apart. Not so far, however, but that Art can lay its hand upon both. And Art deals with both in the same way. For whether it is Dante who shows us the one in the Second Circle of Hell, or Dickens, who shows us the other in Miss Brass's back kitchen — whether we move, that is to say, in a great arc with the stars, or are tethered in the narrowest field — the circumference of our circle will always bear the same ratio to its radius. See how easily the phantasmagoria of History fall into order with the longer procession of the phantasmagoria of Art. Mr. Swiveller, knowing nothing of the child's parentage, called her " the Marchioness." When it became necessary to designate her by a proper name he was content for her to be known as " Miss So- phronia Sphynx," that being, as he said, euphonious and genteel, and, furthermore, indicative of mystery; but he himself called her " the Marchioness " to the last. And so History. It begins, for example, by telling us precisely when England became converted to Christianity ; it presently discovers that we are not exactly followers of Christ — but it calls us Christians still. This is not being real. And Art goes on making ANNO DOMINI. 33 statues to be placed in the streets of London, and to get smoked there, as black, and as surely, as a flitch of bacon gets smoked in a farm-house chimney. Surely this is not making things pleasant. Can nothing be done to make History more true and Art more lovely ? If the day has not fully dawned there is yet light enough to show us our path ; and the light is brightening. If Christianity has still a little more to accomplish in us before it has quite conformed us to the pattern of Christ, we are, nevertheless, a nation with high aspira- tions, ready and strong to do great deeds which shall be worth recording. And we have an Academy capable of drawing pictures on a wall. Let the nation, through its representatives, choose the event, and the artists choose from among themselves the man who shall paint it. One picture every year — of the chief event of the year, or the most noble deed done, or the highest good achieved. In the choice of subjects there should be no boastfulness of petty princes blazoning their puny exploits. Nothing should be recorded that had not stirred the heart of the people. In the choice of painters there should be no voluntary display of raw ambition, or fashionable frivolity, or senile declension ; they should be chosen by the suffrages of their fellow- painters, in their prime — so that their work would become in itself a true historic record, not only of the 34 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. executive power, but of the collective judgment of a living school of Art. There is no genius of which the nation is proud that would be waste material, or might not take its share in such an enterprise. The pencil of Leighton would not be too refined, nor that of Watts too serious, nor that of Millais too robust. Landscape — the glory of English Art — would find its place, as we have seen in the picture of " The Temeraire." Even the sculptor need not stand idly by, for the sequence of glowing canvasses might well be varied by a group or a bas-relief in bronze or marble. The selected subject, and the name of the artist chosen, might be announced annually with the opening of the Exhibitions of the year, and the artist should be allowed one year in which to produce the cartoon or study of his picture. At the next Academy this cartoon should be exhibited, to bear the criticisms of the people. Few errors of historical importance would escape such an ordeal. Then the work should be completed by the artist, under no control save the influence those criticisms may have wrought upon his mind. There would be no risk of failure in such an enterprize. The events will come — the Nation may be trusted for that. The men will come — some are with us even now ready to begin the work. This would indeed be Historic Art : — the true marriage of Art with History. And think what would be the issue — in ten years, in fifty years, in a century 1 ANNO DOMINI, 35 We look with wistful eyes into the future, and what do we see ? Unless the future altogether belie the past, we see such scenes as these : — The hospital at Scutari — the sick and wounded of our soldiers on their pain-stricken beds, and then — " Lo ! in this house of misery A lady with a lamp we see Pass through the glimmering gloom, And flit from room to room. And slow, as in a dream of bliss, The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow as it falls Upon the darkening walls." It is " Santa Filomena." It is Florence Nightingale — herself — not an imaginary suggestion of what she might have been, but she herself — "As if a door in heaven should be Opened, and then closed suddenly." And then we see the interior of a class-room in London, with a few grave men and thoughtful women, and the pale faces of many children — large-eyed, wondering children — who shall grow up to see themselves in this picture, and to know that they were painted there because the opening of the first Board School was a revolution — a revolution mightier in its results and 36 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. more far-reaching than any that has yet been chronicled in England. And then we see the Senate House at Cambridge, and the first " girl-graduate " receiving her degree, that shall acknowledge her to be as wise as Merlin himself, and leave her still as beautiful as Vivien. We look for scenes like these, because, although the past returns no more, yet the future shall be like it. Do we look for them in vain ? That is a question that can only be answered by a nation. III. THE WORLD, THE FLESH, & THE DEVIL. T T NDER the influence of strong religious feeling ^-^ a man determines to devote a portion of his wealth to sacred uses. The church — that is the building in which he worships — is magnificent in the extreme ; it is itself a rriemorial of the piety and munificence of men who have felt as he feels, given as he is disposed to give, and now sleep quietly beneath its marble floor, or in high pomp within its stately mausoleums. But what shall his gift be ? He has fought such a hard fight with evil — against temptations from without, temptations from within, assaults of the wicked one — and yet, by the grace of God, his feet are still within the precints of the temple. He dare not approach the sanctuary to lay his gift upon the altar. Only at the door will he stand, and with humility and gratitude will place there a font, asking for himself no higher a position in the church than that of the little children. And the font shall bear the marks of his life, 38 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. carved upon it in this fashion : — facing the sanctuary the figure of himself — behind him, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. The gift is tendered and accepted. The architect is consulted, and the design approved. It only remains for the sculptor to carry out the work. The sculptor is not a Flaxman or a Canova ; but he carved the corbels in the choir, and the gargoyles above the windows ; and the result is awaited with interest and satisfaction. The result is interesting — but whether it is satisfactory is another question. It may be seen, however, any day in Stafford Church, and I have made a sketch of it here. The figure in the margin is one of three designed to represent the World, the Flesh, and the Devil — which of the three I will not pretend to determine. It is clear- ly intended for the figure of a woman. But as the companion figures are also women, that appears to be only a matter of ecclesiastical detail. It maybe noted, however, that "tentatio " is a noun feminine. But the pious founder — was he satisfied ? If he lived to see the work completed, might he not have felt at least a misgiving as to whether his intention had been quite realised ? Was that the World which had been so hard to overcome ? Was that the Flesh that had allured him ? Was that It is too late now to ask these questions ; we must THE WORLD, THE FLESH, & THE DEVIL. 39 take things as they are — and we note two facts. We note (i) that the font is exquisitely carved, its lines are laid out in beautiful proportions, it is as a work of art perfect — as perfect as the words of the priest, who administers the sacrament of baptism before it, are orthodox. We note (2) that Religion and Art say the same thing, " Listen," says the priest, " this infant must faithfully promise that he will renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, and the carnal desires of the flesh." " Look," says the sculptor, "it is not much to renounce — the world 40 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. has a very sinister eye, and as to the flesh — see what the pretty face of a woman may become if the devil of an evil temper gets into it." What has happened is this. Religion, having a baby to baptize, asks for a font. Art supplies the font, and receives in return a motive. The alliance is voluntary and complete, and the font in Stafford Church is a true though of course limited expression of the relationship existing between Art and Religion. A limited expression, because (i) Sculpture is only one of the many forms in which Art becomes associated with Religion. Painting, and Architecture, and Poetry, and Music, and Rhetoric, and the Drama, are co- partners with Sculpture on equal terms. And (2) because the alliance between Religion and Art strikes far deeper than the occasional inspiration by the one, or application of the other to purposes of decoration. It is an alliance of two forces, moving in the same plane, to the same end, against a common enemy. The insignia of the two forces are, indeed, at times so similar and so intermingled that it is difficult to dis- tinguish between them, and the question seems to arise whether " Religion " and " Art " are not two names for the same thing ; whether Religion is not Art — and Art, Religion. It is true our gods are not now made in the artist's THE WORLD, THE FLESH, & THE [DEVIL. 41 studio. They are for the most part made in the minister's library, or leap from the fervid imagination of extemporary rhetoricians as Minerva leaped from the brain of Jupiter. But still, in its ordinary, every- day alliance with Religion, Art finds enough to do. For Religion is the recognition of a relationship existing between ourselves and God, by which we owe to Him the performance of certain duties, and submission to His will. And do we not submit to that will, and perform those duties, in the most artistic manner? We are not quite sure, indeed, whether the sense of reverence that comes upon us when we enter a great cathedral, is reverence towards the Lord of the temple, or the temple itself, or the architect who built it — but at all events we are satisfied that the architect must have possessed fine religious feeling. And then, our dead await their resurrection beneath such finely- chiselled marbles and polished brass ! Our children are baptized in fonts which are such miracles of beauty — or of humour — according to the bent of the artist's mind ! Our souls are ravished with such sweet music in the choir ! And though — when Whit-Sunday comes round — we miss the passion-play that used to be enacted in the nave, and the flight of a white pigeon from the little chink high up in the groining of the roof, to represent the " descent of the Holy Ghost " — yet we are still strong at stage drill, and march through 42 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. the market-place pleasing our eyes and our ears by firing volleys of "Amens," and shouting "Hallelujahs" to the accompaniment of a brass band and the waving of red cotton pocket-handkerchiefs. We need not miss even the mummers. We have only to run over to Catholic Spain, or Protestant Germany, to see the miracle-plays still acted ; at Ober Ammergau, the Cross — without the passion ; at Barce- lona, clown and pantaloon making love to the Virgin Mary. Let us look for a moment at one of these " mysteries " as they are performed on Sunday after- noons about Christmas time. It is the eve of the Nativity, and a company of people, with Mary and Joseph, are on their way to Bethlehem. The crowd is sufficiently representative, for it includes not only very much of the World and the Flesh, but, in propria persona, the Devil too. Among the company is a man who is tempted with an evil desire. He takes the Devil as his counsellor, and an agreement is made between them. The man shall have his desire, but in return he shall himself become a devil. At once his tail begins to grow. He can conceal it at first, but inch by inch it lengthens till presently it cannot be hidden from his companions. A consultation is held by the company as to what they shall do. They decide to pull the tail oif. They fasten the man to the wall, and begin to pull ; first one, and then another — but the tail THE WORLD, THE FLESH, & THE DEVIL. 43 only lengthens the faster. Instead of inch by inch it is now yard by yard ; but still they pull, and pull, and pull, like sailors hauling at a ship's cable, till the whole stage is covered with the hideous coil, and there begins to be no standing room. There is a momentary pause, and a fresh consultation, resulting in a final and strong effort — the whole company, men and women and children, pulling together, and with all their might. Suddenly the tail comes off, the devil is cast out, and the man is himself again. But when the Sunday performances are over ; when the thunder of the organ has died away in the aisles of the cathedral, and the laughter of the people in the stalls of the theatre, and we find leisure to reflect a little on what we have seen — thoughts which have been all the while latent in our minds take definite shape, and we begin to ask ourselves whether we have not been witnessing a mystery within a mystery — whether the same thing has not befallen Religion, in this its alliance with Art, that befell the hero of the play ; whether Art has not grown, inch by inch, and yard by yard, till it threatens to fill the Church as the tail filled the stage ; whether by any mighty effort the two can ever be separated ; and finally whether, if the two were separated. Religion would, like the man in the play, be quite itself again. A formidable array of questions. Yet it is only the 44 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. » _^____ old question — '* Can two walk together unless they are agreed ? " — applied specifically instead of generally, and expressed in the concrete instead of the abstract form. But are they not agreed — Religion and Art ? If exception is to be taken to the miracle-play it must be on other grounds than that of its teaching. The moral of it cannot be impugned ; it is of the highest order. The evil of yielding to evil is the becoming evil ; the tail grows. But when we see it grow, it is not for us to ignore the evil, nor to abandon our fellow. We must extirpate the evil. How ? By united, and yet individual, action. The first effort may not succeed — it may even seem to increase the mischief — but let us try again : with faith, with courage, with determination, and together. The World and the Flesh are strong : the Devil is stronger than either ; but Love is strongest of them all. Can Religion, single-handed, teach us a nobler lesson than this ? The two, then, are agreed — why should they not walk together ? I think they should walk together, but not in masks. The objection to a mask, like the advantage of a mask, is that we cannot tell what face is behind it. But when we meet with religious Art, or aesthetic Religion, that is precisely the thing we most THE WORLD, THE FLESH & THE DEVIL. 45 desire to know — what face is behind it ? is there any- thing behind it ? or are we, after all, face to face only with a simulacrum ? Let us distinguish clearly between Art and Religion, and give to each its proper place in the economy of life. Is it, then, so very easy to distinguish between them ? The Mercy Seat, and the Ark of the Covenant, for instance — were they simply works of art ? The sacred narrative claims for the sculptor the most direct and personal inspiration. *' See, saith the Lord, I have called Bezaleel by name and I have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom and understanding to devise cunning works. And Bezaleel made two cherubims of gold, and the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one towards another." If the Lord put it in his heart to " devise " these things, Bezaleel was in all points an artist, however closely he may have followed the pattern shown to Moses on the Mount. But the record goes further : " The Lord hath put in his heart that he may teach — to work all manner of work of the engraver, and of the cunning workman and of the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet." This is nothing less than the establishment of a School of Art in the wilderness. Now observe a contrast. Four hundred years later D 46 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. King Solomon determines to build a temple to the Lord at Jerusalem. He also claims direct personal communication with God. But he makes no claim of inspiration for his artists. The beautiful works of Bezaleel are still in the tabernacle. Upon the brazen altar that he made the king offers a thousand burnt- offerings. But when Solomon begins to build he writes to a heathen king, " Send me now a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue." The School of Art, born and nurtured in the wilderness, having accomplished its purpose in the enunciation of the Jewish faith, and finding under the severe restrictions of that faith no scope for further development, had passed from the tents of the wandering tribes of Israel to its natural domicile, the great commercial city of the world. Thus Art can become religious, and still be Art ; but Religion cannot become aesthetic, or it ceases to be Religion. For Religion is the placing of everything in the hand of God, and the surrendering of our will to His; while Art is the taking of everything into our own hands, and controlling it according to our own will. See now, how this simple formula will resolve any amalgam of the two into its constituent elements. I will take two instances in which religious emotion and THE WORLD, THE FLESH & THE DEVIL. 47 aesthetic feeling are very closely allied, and they shall be drawn not from distant lands or past ages, but from the commonest environments of our own lives. The first shall be Music. The chorister, performing his daily duty, may find his heart go up to heaven with his song. The fine note that thrills us as we listen may mean to him the perfect surrender of his being to God, while to us it may mean only the enharmonic employ- ment of the flat seventh on C. He may be the real worshipper, while we, whose worship he is supposed to be assisting, may be only amateur aesthetes. The second instance shall be Poetry. In Keble's Christian Year we have a singularly close blending of Religion and Art. Apply this test and we shall see precisely how much, and which part of it, is Art — and how much, and which part of it, is Religion. No doubt Keble bent all the faculties of his fine mind, as a theologian to the truth of his divinity, and as an artist to the beauty of his poetry. When he wrote : — O come to our Communion Feast : There present in the heart, Not in the hands, th' eternal Priest Will his true self impart. — — he was enshrining in a casket of the choicest art workmanship what he believed to be a jewel of religious D 2 48 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. truth. A few weeks before his death he altered the words thus : — O come to our Communion Feast : There present in the heart, As in the hands, th' eternal Priest Will his true self impart. — Now here is a startling change. The casket is the same, but the jewel it contains is of quite a different colour. To Religion the change is a matter of life and death ; to Art it is a matter of absolute indifference. Art is as ready to make a casket for a sapphire as for an emerald. Keble the theologian would have searched heaven and earth to know the will of God as to the use of those little monosyllables ''as" and "not," and having found it would have surrendered his own will. But in deciding upon the structure of his verse, its rhythm and cadence, Keble the poet would have been content to please himself, not so much as considering whether God was likely to have any preference for iambics or trochaics, long metre or short. This, then, is the sum of the matter. Religion and Art are two forces, spiritual and aesthetic ; moving in the same plane, human life and action ; to the same end, the subduing of evil ; against a common enemy, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. But they move under different sanctions. In our fight against the THE WORLD, THE FLESH, & THE DEVIL. 49 World, Art does not look to the promise of another, but to the purifying of this. In our struggle with the Flesh, Art strengthens us, not by deadening our senses, nor by lifting us above them, but by quickening them to truer perception. In our conflict with evil — or the Devil, Art animates us with visions of beauty of which it, or he, is the destroyer. But it happens sometimes that Religion and Art go into action together — and we hear a mighty shouting, and we think that surely the World, the Flesh, and the Devil are overcome at last. When the smoke of battle has cleared away we see the old enemy still in force ; and then we remember — that what Art seeks in Religion is motive, and that what Religion seeks in Art is articulate expression ; — that Religion, although bearing the lamp of divine truth, carries false lights also ;— that in either case it is itself dumb ; — and that Art, through which truth finds expression, can give expression as articulately and as definitely to a lie. IV. THE ROBE OF AMETHYST. NO doubt the aureole is of gold, for Hope knows nothing of dross. But is the robe of amethyst ? or is it purple only with the stain of wine spilled as a libation to the gods ? That is not to be discerned by the lamplight of any religion — even though it burns with the flame of divine truth. For Religion has no formula to determine what is true in Art, any more than Art has a formula to determine what is true in Religion. And yet Art has been so much in the company of the immortals, and has poured out so many libations — propitiatory and adoring — that we are apt to forget that she is not in one of the priest's offices. Always and everywhere Religion and Art seem to have been tied together in the relationship of mistress and handmaid. Among the Jews, Religion being the stronger of the two con- trolled Art ; among the Greeks, Art being the stronger controlled Religion. The history of Art in Palestine, THE ROBE OF AMETHYST. 51 in India, in Persia, in Assyria, in Egypt, in Athens, in Rome, in Christendom, is the history of so many conflicting creeds. It is only in very modern times that Art seems to have found an independent existence, or to have possessed any robes of her own at all. But now Art has found an independent existence ; and comes to us, not in the vesture of a sibyl or an acolyth, but in her own sober garment. Art is no longer the cup-bearer of the gods. Like Hebe she has been dismissed, and for the same oifence. Is her robe now really of amethyst ? or is it purple only with the stain of wine spilled by her unsteady hand ? Of course I take the word {afjueOva-ros:) in its simple and primary meaning. The beautiful crystal of silica, tinged violet-blue with iron and manganese, which we call amethyst, is so named because of an ancient belief that it protected its wearer from the frenzy induced by excessive indulgence ; and for that purpose it was worn upon the neck by revellers at their wine-feast. But that is a secondary use of the word, with which I am not concerned. I claim for Art that its robe is of amethyst because I claim for Art no occult inspiration, no divine authority, no sacred privilege, no super- natural mission. From first to last, in its inception, in its mandate, in its rights, in its aim, I believe it to 52 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. be very and altogether human, and amenable only to the human standard of what is pleasant and good to human eyes. And yet Art still finds itself perpetually in contact with Religion — ^just because Religion is in part human too. Where the human element ceases, and the divine begins — there the connection between Art and Religion ceases also. If the pages of history closed with the record of to-day, Art would take up the story of our lives to-morrow ; and if Religion had nothing further to tell us, Art would still go on, like the heavens, declaring the glory of God and showing his handiwork. The court of appeal is changed — that is all — but still there is a court of appeal. Art is now judged by its con- formity not to theological but to scientific tests. The sculptured angels overshadowing the Mercy Seat must submit the articulation of their wings to the anatomist. The blue heaven of the painter must appear no more as a firmament, but must satisfy the astronomer that it has unfathomable depths. The light and shadows of the sky are no longer to be confused together under the family name of " clouds," they must be distinguished, even to the flightiest sister of the group, as nimbus, or cumulus, or stratus, or cirrus. The " brown tree " that used to figure as a matter of course in every land- scape, blossoms — like Aaron's rod that budded — into THE ROBE OF AMETHYST. 53 ash, and oak, and elm, and all the rest of the beautiful children of the forest in their own natural variety of colour. Even the Roman toga and sandals, that used to adorn the statues of English statesmen and soldiers, are giving place to the robes of office and regulation boots and swords. It is like a transformation scene in a pantomime. The curtain rises. Tableau. Proserpina, a beautiful maiden, attended by nymphs, gathering flowers. On the left her mother, the stately Ceres, in garments of green which sweep across the foreground. In the middle distance, the grim figure of Pluto in his chariot, with sceptre and keys. He approaches Proserpina to carry her off to be his Queen in the infernal regions. More distant still, Apollo, also in his chariot, pursuing Aurora, whose white horses are now scarcely visible in the brightness of his coming. On the margin of a stream, among the rushes, bearded Pan, fashioning a flute, to the music of which the nymphs will presently dance. Slowly the scene changes. There is a tremor in the garment of Ceres — and lo ! we see a field of corn with the breath of the wind upon it. The white horses of Aurora quite disappear in the pale mist of morning. Dazzled by the brightness of Apollo's face we close our eyes for an instant ; — when we open them again we see the sun rising beyond the hills, and instead of his fiery steeds the patient cattle yoked to the 54 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, plough. We look for Pluto and his trident — and behold a lake, and a sail flapping idly in the breeze. We look for Pan — and there is nothing but a shepherd lad crossing a brook to help a company of girls who are gathering flowers for a festival. Even the beautiful Proserpina we see no more ; for the wind that bent the tender blades of wheat lifted her hair as it passed, and before it could fall again on her white bosom she had become a may-tree. The transformation is complete. Tableau. The curtain falls. This, and nothing less than this, is the change that has been wrought in Art, by the simple transfer of the venue from the golden sands of the Enchanted Island to the white cliffs of England — from the fisherman's boat and its invisible passengers to the busy traffic of the channel — from the dreamland of imagination to the real world of visible nature. Is the change salutary ? I think it is most salutary ; because the range of the Artist's vision is enlarged ; and the vision itself is clearer. But in rendering his vision clearer, and in widening its range. Science has led the artist into temptation. The old simple paths have been forsaken, and in the new paths new dangers have to be faced. The robe of amethyst is the garment of truth. That is easily THE ROBE OF AMETHYST. 55 said — but then comes the old and ever recurring ques- tion " What is truth ? " The microscope adds to our knowledge; but it does not help the artist; it rather conflicts with his sense of proportion. The telescope seems to bring things nearer ; but the painter loves to see the hills in the blue distance. It is quite possible to see too much. It is even possible to know too much— if knowledge holds us in its meshes when we should abandon ourselves to our imagination. Already to the average sight more is visible than can be ex- pressed in Art. To increase the intensity of his vision, therefore, or to enlarge its range, is only to add to the artist's embarrassment and the difficulty of his choice; unless — Unless the increased intensity and enlarged range enable him to penetrate and grasp the higher, as distinct from the lesser truths. Then only does the iron and manganese of Science strike the royal colour into the vesture of Art. V. THE COMMONPLACE IN ART, A MONG the perpetual changes which affect the -^ ^ world of Art, there is one element which appears to be unchanging. The artist himself may change — aiming at one thing to-day, at another thing to-morrow, he may find at last that he has grasped at everything, and holds nothing — but this element, if once it fastens upon him or upon his work, will never yield possession. It colours his whole life. Like the clouds in a dull day in February, which have no silver lining, it will neither be provoked to storm nor persuaded to lift for a moment even when the sun is going down. Again, the artist may stand in many different relationships to Nature — Turner was at first obedient to her as a servant, then faithful to her as a friend, and at last arbitrary to her as a usurper — but this element neither obeys, nor loves, nor rules. And yet once more — great painters may succeed each other, as Turner succeeded Reynolds, and Millais succeeded Turner, each changing the current of THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 57 a nation's thought — but side by side with this succession the element of which I speak will be perpetuated in forms as multitudinous as they are uninteresting. Nor is this all — schools may rise and decline — the classic, content with eclecticism and the gods ; the mediaeval, with passion and the saints ; the modern, seeking a new life in the catholicity of Nature — but from this element nothing is evolved either of good or evil. It has no life in it either to develop or decay. There is no enchant- ment, new or old, that can work a spell upon it. It seems to be the one thing in Art which is eternal — and it is called the " Commonplace." Now this quality of perpetuity, of endurance, of irre- pressibility, of ubiquity, is so rare a thing, at least in Art, that any manifestation of it must be worthy of consideration. And this whether we like it or not. If our steps are for ever to be dogged by some shape, it is well for us to turn round and look it straight in the face, and determine once for all whether it is the face of an enemy or of a friend. Perhaps this thing which we call the Commonplace is really our guardian angel, always hovering near us to steady us at our work, and to protect us against rash enterprise or erratic follies. Perhaps it is an evil influence, always ready to trip us up where our path is narrow and the corners a little dark. But then, also, perhaps it is only our own 58 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. shadow, of which it would be as useless to attempt to rid ourselves as with which it would be absurd to quarrel. In any case, if there is a mask, let us strip it off, by making quite sure that at least we know what we mean when we use the word in question. And for this, of course, we turn to the dictionary. There we find the word thus defined: "Anything common; not new or striking." If, not content with this, we look further, we learn that, as a verb transitive, it signifies "To reduce to general heads;" and, finally, pursuing the inquiry to the bitter end, we come upon the word in its applied form, " Commonplace-book— one in which things to be remembered are recorded." Well, now, if this is all that is to be said about it, we have not succeeded in unmasking a very terrible enemy. If the Commonplace in Art is simply that which is not new or striking ; if it is the reducing to general heads, and the recording of things to be remembered — it would seem that our fear of it is uncalled for ; that our dislike to it is unreasonable ; that the language we use about it is unnecessarily strong ; in a word — that we might with perfect safety let it follow our steps, or run before us, or walk by our side, even where our path is narrowest and the corners we have to turn as dark as they may be difficult. But the truth is, the word means much more than THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 59 this to the artist — much more indeed to the artist than to any one else. It means the failure of all his hopes and aspirations. It means the defeat of all his high aims. It means the scattering of all his forces. It is the confession that he is not an artist at all, however skilful he may be as a painter ; that he may live and toil, but the world will not be the richer for his life ; that he may die and his works perish with him, and the world will not be the poorer for his loss. If this be the true meaning of the Commonplace in Art, it becomes a grave matter for the artist if he finds that it is quietly dogging his steps ; that it comes into his studio in the morning when he opens the door for his model, and remains with* him upon his canvas, though the tired model has passed out into the afternoon sunshine ; that it meets him in the fields and woods, and by the river's side, where, without knowing it — even in the very presence of Nature — he still paints its hateful features into his landscape, to be recognised with bitterness of soul when he shall come upon his picture in a London exhibition side by side with truer work. It is worth while, then, for the artist to consider the question seriously ; to take courage and face the enemy ; and this I propose to do. And I would ask, first of all. Why should the Common- place be the veritable loup-garou of Art ? Is not Art 6o THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. the reflex of Nature— the sum and record of our daily life ? And Nature is full of common things ; our lives are made up of them — commonplace bricks for the walls of our houses ; commonplace beasts with which to plough our fields ; commonplace pussy-cats to blink at the fire and to purr on our hearths. We would no more banish the commonplace from our lives than we would banish the wild rose from our hedges, or the forget-me-nots from the way-side. And the same thing is true not only of our life, but of the phenomena of Nature. The eye never wearies of the perpetual succession of the seasons ; of day and night ; of the multitudinous repetition of the same forms in leaves of trees or blades of grass. It is quite clear that the commonplace is no bar sinister to anything in Nature. May we not even go further ? Is not the common- ness of beauty the very crown and glory of Nature ? Yes ; but then Nature and Art cannot be dealt with in the form of an equation. Let us begin at the beginning, and differentiate step by step the elements which go to make up a picture from the corresponding elements of that which the picture represents. I have before me a fine landscape, in which a cluster of fir-trees shows dark against a clouded sky. That is the subject of the picture, however, not the picture THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 6i itself. As to the picture — the sky of it is blue, the clouds are white, the trees are green ; and, as Hamlet said of his reading, " words, words, words," so we may say of these, paint, paint, paint. The sky is paint, the clouds are paint, the trees are paint. But in Nature, how different ! There, the sky, apart from the delicate sense it gives us of beauty, is itself the eternal mystery — of space — without beginning, without end, into which we may look and look for ever, only to lose ourselves at last. The clouds are a second mystery — of force — they threaten or bless. The trees are a greater mystery still — for they live. See, then, how wide apart are Nature and Art in the materials with which they work. But now I look into the picture and find that the blue of the sky is of many varying tints, that the clouds are distinct- ive in their shapes, that the trees are painted leaf by leaf; and in imagination I follow the painter at his work. Each leaf separately, what is it ? a little blot of colour shaped by the pencil of the artist. These blots of colour approach no nearer to the mystery of life which is in the tree, than does the blue paint of the sky to the mystery of space. Yet the differentiation of colour in the sky, and the shaping of the clouds and leaves, are the first steps of Art towards Nature. But what a little way they carry the artist. A thousand tender gradations of colour, a thousand tremulous movements of light and shade, a thousand intricacies 62 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. of graceful shapes are yet to follow — and still, how much he has to put into his picture ; things that he cannot get out of his paint-box — the drooping of a line here or the subtle change of a curve there ; things as real as his paints — as real as "The fir-trees dark and high" which he is painting — and yet which no other eye but his has ever seen or looked for. And then — What is this strange thing which happens ? As the artist adds touch upon touch to his canvas new thoughts are awak- ened in his heart. Nature who was so very far off at first, comes to meet him half way. The canvas itself which he bought at the colourman's yesterday is for- gotten — the paint is transfigured before his eyes — it is no more a picture that he is looking at, but " The fir-trees dark and high ; " the very fir-trees that long years ago shook his child- soul, as they shook the young birds in their nests high up among the branches — " The fir-trees dark and high — He used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky." Is it a dream ? or is the artist simply caught in his own trap ? Let him answer for himself. His friend the critic — who, unperceived, has just entered the studio, and is now looking over his shoulder, and whose THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 63 thoughts have been running in quite a different channel — his friend the critic has nothing to say except that he " does not understand that sort of thing." And this is probably true — but it affords no answer to the question. Let the artist answer for himself. If I dared to answer for him I should say that this, expressed in a very few words, is the history of Art. Art beginning with Paint ends with Passion. But Passion is a fourth mystery of Nature and greater than them all. And Passion is a term common to Nature and to Art. When Art has reached this term it has fulfilled its mission. It may be common, as everything in Nature is common. It may be imperfect, as everything the artist does is imperfect — it may be feeble, or violent, or vulgar, or coarse ; but there is one thing it cannot be — it cannot be Commonplace. It will be seen that I use the word " Paint " in its broadest meaning — to express, that is, any material with which the artist may work, whether he shades his picture with colour, or etches it with a needle, or cuts it in marble, or writes it with words. And I have used the word " Passion " also in its broadest meaning, to express the motive of the work, and the impression -of it on the mind. These two words describe Art as seen from two different points of view. E 2 64 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. 1st. That of the Artist. His tendency is to see too vividly, to judge too severely, to admire too exclusively, the process or manner of painting. He cares very little for the story. He sees, indeed, the motive and receives the impression ; but the Passion somehovy^ seems to be too far off, and the Paint too clamourous for his attention. 2nd. That of the ordinary spectator ; one, that is, who has no technical acquaintance with or interest in the process, but sees in a picture only that which it represents. His tendency is to realise the Passion and ignore the Paint. The story is to him everything. He sees, and may be pleased or dissatisfied with, the colours brought together on the canvas and the method with which they have been laid on ; but his judgment of the picture from first to last will be based on the emotion it awakens in his mind. The appeal in the first instance is to knowledge, in the second to feeling ; and this dual appeal represents a difference not of degree only, but of kind. There are of course degrees of knowledge and of susceptibility to emotional impression ; but the knowledge is distinct from the susceptibility, and either may exist without the other. It is impossible to lay too great a stress upon this point. Not only does Art claim to be the manifestation of human life and its interests, as well as of everything THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 65 which is lovely in the natural world. Not only is the artist poet, and dramatist, and historian, and story- teller, and traveller, and naturalist, and satirist, and humorist — but he is also the master workman of all guilds, whose workmanship is the very crown and glory of all finesse, and patience, and skill in labour. The art — or the artist — that is not this, is nothing. And in Art the synonym for "nothing" is "The Com- monplace." The Commonplace in Art, then, is a negation. Let us consider it for a moment in its effects. And I will take a very simple instance. A girl is standing at a cottage door. See how many elements go to make the subject complete. First the individuality — this girl is not quite like any other girl. Then there is the type — this girl is like every other girl. Then the limitation of the type — this is the kind of girl you meet in a French village. Then her life, her relationships, the circumstances which have environed her and made her what she is. And besides all this — shall I say it, for she is a woman ? — there is her temper. Now, in Nature, whether we have the vision to discern it or not, all these elements are existing. They are as essential to the subject, and of as much account to the figure-painter, as are the winds, and rain, and sunshine, that have shaped the growth of the slender ash or 66 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. silver birch, to the painter of landscape. But then, it is not for every one to see everything. We may see the individual, perhaps, and yet fail to perceive the type; nevertheless the type is there. Or we may be touched with the pathos, while we know nothing of the environment ; yet the environment is as real as the pathos. In a word, no one can claim to have seen quite all that is to be seen even in the simplest manifes- tation of natural life. But the artist does claim to have seen more than other men ; and we acknowledge his claim when he sets before us something which en- larges, or corrects, or strengthens our vision. It is not sufficient, however, for him to give us Paint when we ask for Passion. If he shows neither individuality, nor type, nor pathos, nor humour — but only a girl standing at a cottage door, however skilfully the colour may have been laid on, we turn from his work with contempt, for it is Commonplace. The mystery of Space, the mystery of Force, the mystery of Life, the mystery of Passion — of all these things then Art must give account. For the artist is not a seer only, but a revealer ; and every work of Art is not a sight only, but a revelation. Like the delicate instrument through which we can hear the lost sounds of Nature, so Art should show us her hidden sights. Seven hundred years ago a cathedral church was built THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 67 at Canterbury. So beautiful was it in its proportions and workmanship, so scientific in its construction, that even the great architects of France learned from it how to build their own abbey of St. Denis. Since then, how many generations have been educated by its loveliness — ♦' Its height, its space, its gloom, its glory." But now an artist, whose special mission it is to see more than we can see and to show us beautiful things, condescends to vary his usual repertory of rustic cot- tages and tumble-down pigstyes by making a picture of it. The height — he guesses at that, and, of course, guesses wrongly. The space he finds it difficult to express, and so contents himself with a corner. The gloom he mistakes for obscurity, and represents it by a smudge. The glory — that is too much to expect from one who does not even know in what it consists. And what is the result. The cottage is better in his hands than the cathedral, for it comes within his range of knowledge. He can paint the cottage, for he under- stands it. Even the old pigstye, fully understood — as Morland understood it — and washed in water-colours, becomes an ornament for the drawing-room. For the science of Art is the alchemy, not the chem- istry, of Nature ; and Morland was one of Nature's chief alchemists. But who can transmute the choir of 68 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. Canterbury into an element more precious than itself ? What new revelation can the painter give us of the loveliness of a cathedral church ? He cannot add a splendour to St. Mark's, nor a grace to Amiens. No, — but he can learn to understand the splendour and grace which are there, and then teach us to understand them too. If he fails to do this, even the loveliness of a cathedral church, filtered through a common mind, will subside into the commonplace. Last of all, let us take an example in which the Passion is true, but the Paint, or mode of expression at fault. A group of emigrants stand on the deck of a ship just sailing for a distant land. Amongst them are men and women and children, not to mention particu- larly the baby, which is inevitable to all great crowds. It is not difficult to surmise why they are going — their pinched faces and wasted forms tell us that — nor to hope with them for a future brighter than the past. But there is one figure that seems strange amongst the rest. It is that of an old man bent with years ; so frail, indeed, that the mind involuntarily begins to measure the distance and to count the days of travel— questioning whether his journey will not end before that of his companions. Turning to a stalwart fellow who stands near, and whose kind eyes rest tenderly from time to time on the bowed head, we ask who the old man is. THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 69 and why he is going. " Oh," says our friend with the kind eyes, '* that's old feyther ! we're taking him out with us to start the new cemetery." The reply seems a little startling at first ; until, indeed, we recollect that the man was not an artist, except in the elementary sense that he used words to express thought. The reply was bad Art from the point of view of one who is accustomed to measure his words and balance his sentences so that they shall express precisely what he means, and no more than he means. But the fault lies in the Paint, not in the Passion. For what does the man mean, except that which men in all ages have meant when they refuse to part with their kindred even in death. If he had said, *' We take him with us that our bones may rest by his bones," he would have spoken the language of prophets and kings — as he thought their thoughts. Let us be just. The emigrant ship with its heavy freight of troubled souls is as legitimate a subject for Art as the waggons which Pharaoh sent up from Egypt to Beer- sheba for Jacob and his sons and his sons' wives and their little ones. The careworn faces of the emigrant women are as full of pathos as the faces of Naomi and her daughter. The man meant precisely what Ruth meant when she said, *' Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee ; " and yet ! — Half a dozen gentleman are seated round the table 70 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. after dinner. The ladies have withdrawn. The host is telling a capital story. It is about an emigrant ship, the British '' rough," and the singular purpose for which " old feyther " is being taken out ; and the story ends with an appropriate peal of merry laughter. As the laughter ceases, and there is silence for a moment, a sweet sound is heard. It is singing. It is a low contralto voice. It is in the next room. The gentle- men rise, and move quietly to the door. The door is half open, so they can hear the singer's words, and they are these : " Entreat me not to leave thee ; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried." But that is the very thing at which they have just been laughing ; and they are not laughing now. It is true our host did not tell his story in a contralto voice, sweet and low ; but that is not sufficient to account for the change ; for he, too, can move men to passion or to tears. What is this strange difference between the words of these two emigrants, the rough Englishman and the Moabitish woman, who mean the same thing ? Is it only the difference of their way of putting it ? It is, after all, only the difference in the way of putting it. The Commonplace in Art, in posse, is the looking at the face of Nature and seeing only a mask. The Commonplace in Art, in esse, is the mask presented to us instead of the face. It is the putting of the THE COMMONPLACE IN ART. 71 secondary truth in the place of the primary. The Commonplace in Art is the attempt to tell a story — a true story — and missing the point. Take for instance that oldest of old stories, — the supplanting of the elder brother by the younger, and the stealing of his blessing. Men have wept over it, have trembled, have revolted. It is indeed pathetic, or terrible, or revolting, according to the point from which it is viewed. The helplessness of brute force against craft — and yet strength and cunning alike looking for a supernatural intervention in its favour. The low conception these people must have had of the Divine Nature, in thinking that God could be tricked into blessing the wrong man. But though these thoughts grow out of the story, they are not of the essence of it. To realise them only is to miss the real point. The real point of it is that the blessing of one does not exhaust the source of blessing — is not at the cost of another, who must for ever remain unblessed. The cry is always going up from weak hearts that somebody has " taken away my birthright." Who is this smooth fellow, this polished Greek, that has robbed us of our inheritance — the splendour of the human form ? Surely that was the birthright of us all ! What are these hands, covered with goodly raiment which should be mine, that have cheated me of my blessing ? Were women beautiful only in the time of 72 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. Helen ? Were men the sons of God only during the Renaissance ? Is there but one blessing ? Is there not a blessing for me also ? There is. And the two blessings are curiously alike. The first is '' the fatness of the earth and the dew of heaven " — the second is " the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth " — not a great difference, nor one for the artist to fret over. Who then is this that comes so late to claim the inheritance which has already been given to the sculptors of the gods and the painters of the saints ? — this rough fellow, fresh from the fields and hills and crowded streets of the great city? — this modern painter of the common aspects of nature, the common life of men and women, the common sufferings of humanity? — this rebel to the authority of Classic Art ? — this outlaw of the schools ? He is one of whom the final promise stands thus : *^ It shall come to pass when thou shall break loose that thou shall shake his yoke from off thy neck,^' VI. THE SUN GOD, I. — EASTER IN THE STUDIO. npHE painter has indeed " broken loose, and shaken ^ from off his neck the yoke " of the schools. But though there may be only one birthright, there are many blessings — and of these there are two which he cannot forfeit. So long as there are sentient beings on the Earth, with perceptions limited to time and space, there will be the mystery of the unknown force which governs all things. So long as there is sum- mer and winter there will be the loveliness of growth and decay. There is no Enchanted Island without an Enchanter. What Baldur was to the Norseman, what Osiris was to the Egyptian, what Adonis was to the Greek — that Christ is to the Christian. And to the Church that bears his name Christ is what the Sun is to the natural world. It is thus that Easter has become not only the chief festival of Christendom, marking as it does the rising of our Sun-God, but the central theme of religious Art 74 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. — the theme fullest of inspiration to the artist. There appears, indeed, to be nothing in heaven, or earth, or hell, that does not yield tribute to the painter, or that he does not attempt in some form to place upon his canvas ; so that the w^ords, " The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force," acquire in the studio a new and strange meaning — a meaning quite unknow^n to the theologian. But still, Easter is the centre of light to w^hich all eyes turn who seek the expression of the passion of human life exalted to the divine, or the divine life made manifest for a moment through its contact with humanity. There is Whitsuntide ; but the painter who tries to represent the Pentecostal flame will either know not what to say, or will soon find himself speaking in an unknown tongue. There is Trinity ; but even the imagination of Michael Angelo quailed before that subject, and in his famous fresco in the Sistine chapel, of the creation of Adam, he ventures upon no real representation of the Triune God. There is Advent, the theme of poets from the time when a contemporary of our first parents wrote, " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints." And this, Michael Angelo — after thinking it over for nearly half a century — did essay to paint, and his painting of it is the eighth wonder of the world. But how many are there amongst men born of women who could enter upon such a trial of strength as that, THE SUN-GOD. 75 and even so much as hope to come off victorious ? And last of all there is Christmas, with all its happy associations and bright visions — the " star-led wizards on the eastern road," the " meek-eyed Peace crowned with olive green." No picture ever has been painted — no, nor shall be — more beautiful than that described by Milton: " But see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest, Time is our tedious song should here have ending." Ah ! would to God such song as his should have no ending : — " Heaven's youngest teemed star Hath fix'd her polish'd car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending: And all about the courtly stable Bright harness'd angels sit, in order serviceable." I said no more beautiful picture could be painted, and that is true : but beauty is of many orders ; and, as Christmas passes into the Epiphany, and the Epiphany into Lent, the painter finds that there are greater subjects for his pencil than angel, or woman, or child — that in the life, and passion, and death of Christ are to be found the strongest, the fullest, the most divine, inspiration that Art can receive from Religion. For by the word "Easter " I do not mean the Paschal feast alone, but the whole group of events clustering 76 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. round the " three days." Passion week is but a minor chord in the prelude to the great Easter anthem, which ends with the Ascension. In Art we have to take the shade with the Hght — indeed, without shadow we can have no light. Good Friday and Easter Day together are like one of Rembrandt's etchings the blackness of Erebus, pierced by a shaft from Heaven. It is by virtue of this that Easter arrests and holds the imagination of the artist. For between the extreme light and the extreme dark, there is room for every degree of shade and tender colour. It is as though the whole dramatis personce of the Divine tragedy moved upon the stage at once. The Mother is there, as she was at Christmas. But she is a little aged now, and has learned the meaning of the strange words, that a sword should pierce through her own soul also. The angels are there — not singing the babe to rest, but strengthening the man for suffering. The twelve are there — let the painter think for a moment of those twelve faces, and differentiate them from each other in his mind — the beloved disciple, the impetuous Peter, the " one which was a devil." The Magdalen is there — the priests — the thieves — the soldiers — the people. But the great Easter figure, no doubt, is that of Christ. How shall that be painted ? How is it that when we speak of Christ the same form arises before EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 77 the minds of us all, as if we knew Him, or, at least, had seen Him in our dreams ? How is it that if one should draw for us a face, we should be able to say whether we recognised it as that of the Master? There is no question of deeper interest to the his- torical painter than this. Let us see if we can give to it any reasonable answer. That the fact is so is beyond dispute. The face of Christ is known in our midst. And we have done strange things with it. In France, for instance, it was removed from the high altar of Notre Dame, and its place taken by the beautiful Madame Maillard, as the personification of the Deity. In England, with a different sense of propriety, we wrenched it down from the west front of one of the loveliest of our cathedrals, and put up in its stead a bust of George the Third. But these things are not to be laid to the charge of Art, It is not Art — but rather the negation of Art — that blasphemes. Let us turn from the iconoclast to the artist. Think then of any of the great Easter pictures with which the mind is stored. They may be by men of different nationalities, men endued with widely different traditions of Art. The "Ecce Homo" in our National Gallery — is a head only; but, apart from all consideration of style or quality or merit or de- F 78 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. merit in the work itself, nobody who has lived in Christendom looking upon that picture could question for whom it was intended. Criticise it as much as you like, object to its tenderness, say that the mouth is weak, the hair effeminate ; that only makes the thing the more curious — because if you look into your own mind 3^ou will see that unconsciously you attribute all its faults to the painter, while the type, in its strength and nobility, remains as the likeness which you recognise as that which the painter ought to have realised more perfectly. Or think of two other well known paintings — one, the supreme moment of Christ's earthly triumph. His entry into Jerusalem amidst the plaudits of the multitude — the other, the lifting of His lifeless body from the cross, with torn hands and pierced side. There could be no greater contrast than these two subjects, and yet there is again no doubt as to the likeness of the man in each. Nor would it be conceivable to us that the painter should have given Christ's face another form, or have used that likeness for a different person. Observe also the contrast between the two artists. The painter of the " Descent from the Cross," which hangs in the cathedral of Antwerp, was Rubens, — a German, trained in the Flemish school, but visiting Venice and Rome, and coming in his early life under EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 79 the immediate influence of Titian. The painter of the " Entry into Jerusalem," — which is one of the famous mural decorations in the church of St. Germain des Pres — was Hippolyte Flandrin, a Frenchman, trained in what M. Taine calls "the great pagan school" of France. When Rubens painted in Antwerp, the cries of the martyrs of the Reformation were still ringing through the century. He may have made studies for the faces of lost souls in purgatory from the faces he had himself seen wreathed in flames. When Flandrin painted in St. Germain des Pres, hearing the traffic of the streets of Paris, which in a cathedral sounds like distant thunder, he might have mistaken it for the rolling of the guillotine or the rattle of musketry of a revolution. In either case it was a time when the painter might well pause and wonder how long there would be any altar-pieces to paint, or churches to decorate. But the sun may go down in blood — or hidden by clouds may seem to have no setting — and yet next morning it will arise fair and bright in the heavens. And so the great Easter festival comes round, and the Church calls to her sons, and Rubens answers with his " Descent from the Cross," and Flandrin answers with his " Entry of Christ into Jerusalem." And we have seen that their answer is the same, so far as it touches the likeness of the chief figure. F 2 8o THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. And If instead of these two men we had taken painters of all schools, and of all ages, and of all countries, still the answer would have been the same. Cimabue, Giotto and Fra Angelico, Raphael and Michael Angelo, Titian and Tintoretto, Correggio, Da Vinci, Veronese, Durer, Holbein, Hemling, Murillo, and the rest, have but one conception of Christ's face. Varying as they do in their infinite changes of style, and force, and choice of subject, and method of handling, yet they all observe the same type — because they all take it from a tradition that they received, but did not invent, and that they accept as higher and truer than anything they could themselves create. But these great painters of the Renaissance suc- ceeded to a time when there were no great painters — when Art was dead, and had been dead for a thousand years — and for the matter of that, buried too, with the beautiful statues of ancient Greece. There were, indeed, workers in mosaic, and metal, and glass, who made ornaments for the churches ; but these men wrought on narrow lines of thought, and knew nothing of the imagination of a Fra Angelico, an Angelo, or a Raphael. Here, then, is a strange thing. Art is re- born — the classic statues are discovered, imagination is set free to revel in every conceivable form of beauty and splendour and passion of life. And yet the great- EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 8i est painters of the world take up this old tradition of the mosaic and metal workers of the dark ages, and cannot invent for themselves anything more divine, more worthy to represent the face of Him who is to be for ever the Sun of their Easter. This general consensus of the great painters in their treatment of the likeness of Christ is all the more remarkable from the fact that there is no parallel to it in their treatment of other characters included in the sacred narrative. Of S. Paul, indeed, and S. Peter, and S. John, there are, as we have seen, portraits of which the authenticity can scarcely be questioned ; but they are very slight. For the Mother of Christ there is not so much as this. There is not only no likeness, there is not even a recognised type. Raphael, who was so careful to follow the earliest records of the likenesses of the Apostles, found no such inspiration for his draw- ings of the Blessed Virgin. The most beautiful of his Madonnas, the " Madonna di San Sisto," now in the Dresden gallery, is said to have been painted as the portrait of a lady who died in child-birth. It is from that picture of mother and child, perhaps the loveliest picture in the world, that Raphael was named " the divine." But Raphael's Madonnas are always Italian ladies ; and in like manner the artists of France and Spain, and Germany found their highest inspiration of 82 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. feminine beauty in the faces of their own country- women. Their paintings claim to be no more than the artist's conception of what the " Mater Dolorosa " might have been. But there is another thought that arises in the mind in thinking of these Easter pictures, viz., the influence upon Art of the learning that comes, ist, from the study of Art itself; and 2nd, from the accumulated results of modern research. Looking at the work of Rubens, we may say that the art of painting, as an art, could no further go. The consummate mastery of effect — in composition, in line, in light and shade — astonishes and delights. See how these figures are grouped, so that every incident, whether of the most violent strain of action, as in the case of the young man bearing the chief weight of the body, or the pathetic lifting up of the hands of the mother to her dead son, or the drooping of the lifeless limbs of the Saviour of the world, shall each contribute, not only to tell the story, but to emphasize the line of beauty, and give a sense of strength and repose to the picture. Observe how the light is flashed upon the pallid side — not the side where the wound is, that would be too terrible — and then on the still whiter linen, so that the painter shall have scope to render the death pallor with the more realistic fidelity. That is art — con- EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 83 summate art — from the painter's point of view. For the rest, it does not matter to Rubens that the real cross was not the shape he has drawn it — that the Maries were not Dutchwomen, and did not dress in the garments of his daughters. The learning of the school of Rubens comes, not from the world outside the studio, but from handling the brush in the studio. But the learning displayed by the more modern school is of a different kind. The painter now must paint the real scene — the real city, the very breed of ass on which Christ rode, the very palms the people carried, the very garments they strewed in the way. How far this modern requirement strengthens or weakens Art is a great and difficult question. It strengthens it by adding to its resources, but it weakens it by expending part of its resources in a new direction. There is a degree of historical and topographical knowledge that is no doubt essential to the grave representation of religious subjects, and some will hold that Rubens at- tained it. At any rate his knowledge of these things carried him considerably further than some of the old German painters. In the museum at Nuremberg there is a quaint old painting of the Nativity of our Lord. The blessed mother is sitting up in bed, on an orthodox if somewhat uncomfortable spring mattress and bedstead of strictly German make. The child is attended by some old gossips, one of whom is bringing 84 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. in refreshment, apparently of the nature of a caudle, suitable for the invalid. This is realism to a vengeance —the realism of a painter who is conscious of his power of painting pots and pans — and we turn from it with thankfulness to the reverential observance of the unities of time and place. But no amount of learning displayed in the unities of time and place will satisfy us if the essential element of Art is missing. For, to the artist, time and place are but accessories. The passion of Art is in the life — the life of Art is in the passion. The sunlight that falls on the dead Christ at Jerusalem is the same that falls on the models in Rubens' studio at Antwerp. Tears and blood are very much alike, east and west. And just as it would still be Easter, though St. Germain were laid in ashes, so the artist would still be ready to paint the passion of Christ, though there were no archaeologist or traveller to explain the historical data, or to arrange the mise en scene. That is the meaning of the words which stand at the head of these pages. " The Enchanted Island " — where there is an Enchanted Island there must be an Enchanter. " Easter in the Studio " — where there is an Easter there must be a Sun-God. We cannot eliminate the Sun-God from the moral world, any more than we can blot out the solar light from the sky. EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 85 The thing we call Religion is an essential element of life ; and therefore it is an essential element of Art. We may indeed mistake a mock-sun for the real sun ; but it is only in the light of some sun that we can live. Like the cave-men we may burrow from it ; but its radiance penetrates even to the inmost re- cesses of our retreat. We may call it the Religion of Humanity — but it is still Religion. Without it there never was an Enchanted Island; the star-lit passage in Charon's boat could have been purchased by no golden bough ; the dead would have asked only for six- foot of earth. Without it the Enchanted Island would not have had the history — which is our history, and, whatever we may think or hope for the future, cannot now be annihilated or changed in the least particular. Without it the World, and the Flesh, and the Devil, would be all one — and we should be one with them. Without it the Robe of Amethyst would be only silica and iron and manganese. Without it the Common- place would be eternal. Without it there would be no Easter in the Studio. Who then refuses to take part in this great festival ? Not the Sculptor — for " See, saith the Lord, I have called him by name, and filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge, to devise cunning works, even cherubims of gold that shall spread out their wings, and cover with their 86 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. wings — with their faces one towards another." And so the Sculptor is called, and he brings to God— his chisel. And then the Poet follows ; and lo ! God touches his lips — and he becomes the " Chief-singer to the Chief Captain." And then the Architect. " Send me now a man, cunning to work in brass, and in gold, and in silver, and in iron, and in timber ; for the house that I build is great, for great is our God above all Gods." And the man comes— the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan — for the inheritance of Art is generally on the mother's side. The Architect seems to have strayed into a heathen land. There was a great deal of build- ing going on in Tyre. But the moment the Lord's house is to be built he must be brought back — this son of a woman of the daughters of Dan. And then the Musician. Ah ! these players upon instruments ; these singers ; these light hearted min- strels ; who won't always play the tune we want ; who sulk by the rivers of Babylon. Come now— take down your harps — give us a song now ! *'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? " I like the splendid loyalty of those words. " How shall I sing the Lord's song in a strange land ? " EASTER IN THE STUDIO. 87 So, then, it is the Lord's song — and the Musician is also of the blessed company. But where is the Painter ? Is it not Easter ? Is he not in his studio ? Have we not seen how he lays at the Master's feet his tribute of love and praise ? Do our thoughts of Easter end here? Is Easter only for the painter of historical and religious subjects ? Is there nothing in the season to awake an echo in the landscape painter's mind ? Consider a moment. What is Easter but the returning of the Sun after the long darkness of winter ? To the Church of Christ the Sun is Christ Himself. But the lanscapist has his Sun also. And as the days lengthen, and the fields put on their beautiful garments, and the painter turns his face towards the growing brightness — is it not possible that he may, in his mind, if not through theology, then perhaps through science, trace its source to the same Divine fountain of light ? If so, he also will have found an Easter. VII. I THE SUN-GOD. ! II. — THE WANING OF THE YEAR. ^ I ^HE questions that I would now raise are amongjst ^ the gravest that a painter can ask himself: and I do not claim to give them an exhaustive answer. I do not know, indeed, that I need answer them at all, for the simple asking of them may be sufficient to change the whole current of a man's thoughts ; and the answer to them should be wrought out in a life of patient study. The year is waning. As the days grow shorter for work, so the evenings grow longer for thinking ; and I am writing from a little village in Normandy where, if any- where out of the Enchanted Island, the waning of the year is full of tender beauty. A broad river, where the ships, proud of their three tall masts, come sailing lazily down, laden with stuffs from Rouen, to the busy port of Havre ; a level sweep of corn-fields, and then hills at either side ; a village of quaint timbered houses of many centuries ago, with its church of transcendent THE WANING OF THE YEAR. 89 beauty reflected in the placid stream. Ah ! that church is one of the jewels of " La Belle France ; " its tracery is as delicate as the fretwork of forest-trees, its stained glass as translucent as the river, its walls and founda- tions as strong as the rocks from which they are cut. If I were a landscape-painter I would not be content only to ask questions, but would illustrate them with sketches too. That, however, is not to be ; nor — O artist, cunning in the craft — do I need the enchantments of your pencil. It is enough for me to think of the Enchanted Island — to picture to myself a village farm in Eng- land, with its gabled roofs, and stacked chimneys, and out-buildings, and moat, and trees already thinned of leaves but not quite bare, and rank rushes, and soft- glimmering sky — while I " lie i' the sun " on the long grass by the Seine, and ask questions about the wan- ing of the year, and what it means to the artist and to the lover of Art. For if it is well for the historical painter to know something of the passion of life ; if it is well for the painter of a cathedral church to know something of the associations which cling to his subject, and to under- stand the subtle influence upon the mind of simple lines in their infinite combinations of proportion and curvature ; if it is well for the painter of animal life to be able to differentiate the brutes by their fine instindts, go THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. and for the painter of flowers to perceive the laws by which their symmetry is maintained ; then it is well also for the landscapist to discern the difference be- tween the sound of the wind in a plantation of poplars and in a forest of pine-trees, and to know wherein Autumn is less sad than Spring. To know wherein Autumn is less sad than Spring — these last half-dozen words, which I have italicised, lead to a whole string of questions at once. Is it true that Autumn is less sad than Spring ? In what sense is Autum less sad than Spring? And if it be so — what then ? This is a very simple formula of cross-examin- ation, but the " what then " includes a great deal. To the painter it includes the whole question whether there is in Nature any expression of the passion of our lives, and how far it is desirable or possible to embody that expressicn in his work. The question, then, is first of all a painter's question; though it is not so certain that it is one which he can himself, unaided, answer. But it is more than a painter's question : the answer to it affects every phase of Art that claims to take Nature as its theme and the representation of Nature as its manifestation. The painter brings visions before our eyes which raise thoughts in our minds ; the poet raises thoughts in our minds which bring visions before our eyes. That is the affinity, as it is also the difference, between them ; and THE WANING OF THE YEAR. 91 it is not for one to challenge for himself a higher standing-ground than he will concede to the other. Each of them should be both a teacher and a learner, until he knows all that the other knows. Each should be an independent interpreter of Nature, to whom the other may look when he comes upon a difficult passage. Each should help the other to work out his paradise. Each should strengthen the other in his work. And if Autumn is less sad than Spring, each should declare it, and should be able to tell the other why. But the year is waning — is the painter sorry or glad? Is it not just what he has been waiting for? The leaves on the oak, have they not budded in the spring, and grown green and full in the long days of summer, all that they may strew the ground a little later, or flutter in crimson and gold for him against the sky ? The gabled roof is jewelled with delicate lichen and purple moss. The rank grass is full of happy life. The barns will soon be full of wheat. The cattle are lowing in the fields. The wain stands laden at the gate. October may be chill, but it is not sad ; at least it is not in the Surrey farmyard which--dreaming, I see far off on the Enchanted Island. Is Autumn less sad than Spring ? Take this as a first rough answer to the question. But then, as I have said, the question belongs not to 92 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. the painter only, but to the poet also. And as these two, alike in so many respects, approach Nature in so very different a manner, it is almost certain that the answer brought by one will be at least helpful to the other. Is Autumn less sad than Spring ? Let us ask Robert Burns — " In vain to me the cowslips blaw, In vain to me the violets spring; In vain to me, in glen or shaw, The mavis and the lintwhite sing. And when the lark, 'tween light and dark, Blithe waukens by the daisy's side, And mounts and sings on flittering wings, A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide." It may be doubted whether there can be found in literature words more vividly realistic of the tender loveliness of Spring, or words touched with a deeper melancholy. And then, listen to Shelley — " Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves." Surely, to our first question, Shelley and Burns give no uncertain answer. But if that is what the poets have to say of Spring, let us see what they can tell us of Autumn. In the " Faerie Queene " Spring bears in his hand a javelin, and on his head a morion, because he is feared also, THE WANING OF THE YEAR. 93 even as he is loved. But jolly Autumn carries a sickle, and is crowned with a wreath enrolled with ears of corn of every sort. And this gladness, common to our earlier poets, is in strict agreement with the spirit of one of the last of the band who have passed into the " blind world " of Dante. Hood has left us an autumn sketch, Ruth gleaning, which if not " full of glee " like the merry October of Spenser, is yet full of gladness that comes with the beauty of the ripening year. " She stood breast high amid the corn, Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun Who many a glowing kiss had won. On her cheek an Autumn flush Deeply ripen'd ; such a blush In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn. Round her eyes her tresses fell, Which were blackest none could tell ; But long lashes veil'd a light, That had else been all too bright. Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean. Where I reap thou shouldst but glean." — and this is Autumn. What is there in Spring that shall compare with it for gladness ! Again then the question is answered. Burns, from the ploughshare and the rough weather of the north ; Shelley, from the classic associations and sunny ski^s G 94 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, of Italy ; Spenser from the Court of Elizabeth and the companionship of Raleigh ; Hood, from the busy life of a great city — these, and a hundred more beside — " Who dare not trust a larger lay, But only loosen from the lip Short swallow flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away " — have confessed, not only that they have no bitter lamentations for the declining year, but — " That in the very temple of delight Veil'd melancholy has her sovran shrine " ^n a word, that Autumn is less sad than Spring. But in answering the first question the second is answered too. While I, on the Seine, am questioning Burns and Shelley, a friend who has been sketching all the summer far away in the Island, comes to me with his folio full of drawings ; of blue hills, and breezy downs covered with sheep — you can almost hear the tinkle of bells ; of forest glades strewn with rustling leaves ; of sea coast with ripling waves or surging breakers ; of pale moonlight and a shadowy sail — that might be returning solitary from the enchanted shore ; sketches of everything in Nature on which the great Sun-God shines. I know not what may have been in my friend's heart while he was sketching — but there THE WANING OF THE YEAR. 95 is no sadness in his sketches. He may have been grave as the melancholy heron that mopes on one leg among the rushes, or light-hearted as the squirrel that scuds across the pathway. But he does not show it. His sketches are of Autumn, of Surrey, of the Enchanted Island, of a hundred things, hut not of him- self. If Autumn is to me sad, then I shall be sad in looking on these sketches — as I should be sad in look- ing on the scenes of which they are the presentment. But the sadness will be esoteric. For if the very brightest scenes of Nature are thus touched with melancholy, it is a melancholy " born of the secret soul's distrust." Burns, woe-worn amidst the violets and cowslips, listening sadly to the linnet and thrush, gliding homeward like a ghost because he cannot bear to hear the singing of the lark, was not painting from Nature. If the picture he has given us of a May morning is landscape at all, it is like one of those fantastic creations of the imagination in which the lines of the mountains and the branches of the trees are made to serve a double purpose. They represent more than we see in them at first. We look, and look again, until we perceive that they trace out a distinct figure. The figure in this instance is that of a man. We look more closely still, and lo ! the man is Burns himself. This is anthropomorphism pure and simple. But is it an isolated case ? Is it peculiar to Burns that he G 2 96 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, should thus paint himself when he thinks that he is painting Nature ? Let us examine a companion picture to that which Burns has given us. Instead of Spring it shall be Autumn ; for the javelin that Spring carries is of young wood, and may perhaps bend to the poet's fancy, but the sickle of Autumn is of sharp steel. Instead of the banks and braes of bonnie Scotland it shall be a stern forest in the far west. Instead of Burns it shall be Bryant. " The woods of Autumn, all around our vale, Have put their glory on. The mountains that infold In their wide sweep the colour'd landscape round Seem groups of giant kings in purple and gold That guard enchanted ground. I roam the woods that crown The upland, where the mingled splendours glow, Where the gay company of trees look down On the green fields below. My steps are not alone In these bright walks ; the sweet south-west at play. Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown Along the winding way. And far in heaven the while The sun that sends the gale to wander here Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile. The sweetest of the year." Again the occult figure of a man. A man who sees himself projected as a giant on the distant horizon. THE WANING OF THE YEAR. 97 He lifts his hand — it lifts its hand. He would guard the enchanted ground — it is guarded by the mountains as by giant kings. He looks down with a glad heart on the green fields ; the trees are glad with him, and look down also. He smiles with tranquil hap- piness on the fair earth, and lo ! the sun is smiling too. It is Autumn, and he is not sad. Let Burns go home like a ghost on a Spring morning ! As for him, in this, the sweetest of the year — " It were a lot too blest For ever in its colour'd shades to stay ; Amid the kisses of the soft south-west, To rove and dream for aye." And if this is anthropomorphism in Art, what then ? Only this. The painter must fight against it as the most terrible temptation that can assail him. What- ever the poet may do, the painter must not paint himself into Nature. Why, when the year is waning, does he shut up his studio in London, and go to the woods, and fields, and rivers, and hills, except that he may get face to face with a presence that is greater than himself, that he cannot find by introspection, that he cannot live without, that when he does find he must reverence and obey ? Why does he take with him his easel and canvas, and set them up in that presence, unless he does so with a true heart, as a worshipper before the shrine of One greater than Pan ? 98 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, Let him leave at home his fancies, and his habits, and his methods, and his tricks, and for once clothe himself with humility. It is only thus that he will ever become exalted. For what we ask of the artist is not Nature as she seems to him, but Nature as she is. I know he can never give us this absolutely, but he can be always striving after it, and the nearer his work approaches it the better it will be. And to approach it he must keep his vision clear. There must be no Brocken upon his horizon. He must so paint that looking upon his pictures we may still question, and at the same time find in them the answer to the question, wherein Autumn may be less sad than Spring. VIII. ST. OUEN OF ROUEN. npHERE had been a great thunder-storm in Paris, ■^ and I was staying with a friend at one of those pleasant hotels that lie between the Rue Ste. Honore and the Rue de Rivoli. We had been visiting the Salon, and intended to return home next day. During the night the war of the elements had been so fierce that we felt some misgiving lest in the morn- ing our hotel might be left by Jupiter Prsedator, in the condition in which the Tuileries on the other side of the street had been left by the Communists. But the storm passed over ; the summer sun rose strong and fair; and before it was very high in the heavens we were playing hide-and-seek with the beautiful Seine, on our way to Havre. How lovely is the country in the freshness of a summer morning after rain. And such a country ! Poissy, and Mantes, and Vernon, and Oissel — you may THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. be sure that my companion (who was an English landscape painter, and had recently won high honours at the Royal Academy) was not tongue-tied as to the glory of Landscape Art. But presently we stopped at Rouen — and then it was my turn. " I never pass Rouen " I said, " without just looking into the Cathedral at least, to say nothing of the Abbey of St. Ouen, which is about half-a-mile up the town." " How long will it take ? " questioned my friend ; ** Shall I have time to smoke a cigarette ? " ** No " said I resolutely — " for you will have to go with me ! " Well, he went with me, and brought away the text of the last chapter of **The Enchanted Island." How that came about I will explain presently — but I must first point out a strange thing. Here was an artist — an accomplished painter, who had been taught all that London and Paris and Dussel- dorf are supposed to teach — who was dexterous in manipulation, full of the learning of the schools, in sympathy with the beautiful aspects of the natural world — and who had yet never, in all his studies of Art, given an hour to the study of Architecture — had never, in all his visits to the continent, so much as crossed the threshold of a cathedral church. When Sr. OUEN OF ROUEN. we passed together from the dazzHng sunHght into the cool shadows of St. Ouen at Rouen, he confessed that he reaHsed for the first time that a world of beauty of which he had no adequate conception, had until then been practically shut out of his life. But can any of us afford thus to shut out of our lives the perception of anything that is beautiful ? The painting of History, of Landscape, of Genre, of the Sea, of Animals, of Flowers, will always find due recognition in our studios and exhibitions; but without Architecture the range of Art would be no more com- plete than the rainbow would be complete without its seventh colour. If in a great library we come upon a rare and precious manuscript of the Middle Ages, are we content simply to admire its vellum cover, curiously wrought ? Ah ! no. We unclasp it. We find that its pages are enriched with exquisite illuminations. The book will not unfold to us its full treasure unless we understand its language. If it is a strange language to us, do we not turn away with a sense of shame and regret? And yet, after all, the book itself may not be worth reading. But these cathedrals are worth read- ing. The story they have to tell deserves and will repay a little study. There is no element wanting to make it interesting. There is the sunlight that falls upon them ; the stress and strain of weather they 102 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. have borne; the human interests associated with them; the visible mark of Time's hand, that has touch- ed them. There are the tenderest and most stirring memories clustering round them. Here, at Rouen, lies the " Lion Heart ; " at Caen, the Conqueror ; at Aachen, Charlemagne. Titian and Tintoretto still live in the mosaics of St. Mark's ; Durer and Adam Kraft in the paintings and sculptures of Nuremberg. At home there is not a cathedral, or village church, but is associated with some person or event that makes it dear to us. There is scarcely a stone in the pavement of any one of them but has been worn for centuries with kneeling worshippers, or bears the name of some dead hero, or has been wet with tears or blood. And yet, strip them of all memories of the past, and regard them simply as they stand — beautiful in proportion and contour and colour, dim with half-veiled flashes of sun- light, fretted and grey with age — and they are surely amongst the loveliest visions that make the world beautiful. We had seen the beautiful spires of St. Ouen far off across the fields. We had crossed the river, crowded with tall masts. We had passed the straggling out- skirts and quaint streets of the old city. We were within the precints. The great west door stood open. Before us was the long vista of the nave, the distant ST. OUEN OF ROUEN. 103 choir, the delicate groining of the roof, the eastern windows — like opals and emeralds and amethysts hung in mid-air — glimmering through the darkness. All this, and yet we could not see it, — our eyes were so blinded by the dazzling sunlight. Our eyes generally are dazzled with one thing or another, or — to put it in plain words — are so preoccupied that they fail to see some of the loveliest sights, not in Art only, but in Nature also. It matters very little how the sight be- comes confused, whether by actual darkness or excess of light : if it is confused, the vision is imperfect. And he who visits a cathedral without some knowledge of Art — sees, indeed, but with a confused vision, and knows not what he sees. But then, a visit to a cathedral church, is an Art education in itself. Westminster has given us more than a catechism, and Rheims more than a dynasty of kings. Canterbury, and York, and Durham, and Win- chester, are not only churches for theologians ; they are, in their subtle forms and finely balanced propor- tions, schools of Art, which none of us can afford to disregard. For the beautiful and intricate curves of a vaulted roof are not random or arbitrary shapes. They are the result of artistic design, disciplined and con- trolled by natural laws. As creations of the imagin- ation, they are full of strength and tenderness ; as 104 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. wrought in solid masonry, they are stern and true as the rocks from which they were quarried. They train the eye to the perfect knowledge of beauty of line in relation to stability and force. And besides all this, these cathedrals are the record of the transitions in Art during the centuries of its rise and culmination, and decadence. The massive pillars of Durham, the lofty and slender columns of Salisbury, the intricate tracery of Henry the Seventh's chapel, — each is a manifestation of some ideal of strength, or grace, or richness of decoration, that has in its time held mastery over men's minds. And as there are characteristics of age, so also are there characteristics of place. The difference between the solemn beauty of Westminster Abbey, and the glittering splendour of St. Mark's Venice, is the simple corollary of the differ- ence between the grey light of London, and the radiant glory of the Queen of the Adriatic. But we were in the Abbey of St. Ouen at Rouen, and our eyes, now accustomed to its light, could see that it had a loveliness altogether its own. After the nave, the choir; after the choir, the apse; after the apse, the transept and aisles ; and then we climbed to the roof, and ascended the spire. And there we found that the storm of the preceding night had anticipated our visit. The spire had been struck with lightning ; and on the ST. OUEN OF ROUEN, 105 floor of one of the highest pinnacles lay the debris of the wreck it had made. Fragments of stone car- ving wrenched from its place, choked the gutters of the roof. Ah ! how I wished for one of those fragments ! But I had no right to take anything, and there was no one in authority to whom I could appeal. The ma- sons who would repair the pinnacle would only grind the old stuff into his cement. It did seem an un- fortunate moment in which to be troubled with a conscience ; but there was no help for it. We left St. Ouen, and were again on our way to Havre, when lo ! I noticed a curious change in my friend's face. The corners of his mouth went up, and the light of laughter filled his eyes : — " Look," said he, " I saw that you wanted it, and here it is ! " " It " was one of the fragments of carving that had for six centuries decorated the south-east spire of the Abbey, — one of a thousand delicately chiselled figures, natural, grotesque, imaginary, that the sculptor had seen, or heard of, or dreamed about, and then wrought into his work. This particular fragment was not larger than an oak-leaf, and at the great height where it was placed must have been as undistinguishable from its companions, as an oak-leaf would be amongst io6 THE ENCHANTED ISLNAD. the leaves of a forest. Since the architect pronounced it very good, and the scaffolding on which the sculptor stood to carve it was taken down, no eye had ever really seen it. And yet it was designed and modelled with exquisite taste, and finished with masterly skill and unsparing labour. It represented a young fawn ; the head thrown back, that it might gaze upwards, the muscles of the neck and throat, the eyes, the teeth, the little hoof divided, even the furry texture of the coat, where the stress of weather through long years had not effaced it, were indicated with tenderness and precision. We had lingered so long at Rouen, that darkness fell on land and sea while we were still admiring the beauty of this little creature, and reading in it the message that it seemed to bring us from some unknown artist of the thirteenth century. See now, how all things seem to move in a great circle, and to bring us again to the same point at last. As our thoughts run back through the long centuries, we cannot stay them at the thirteenth, or the third — we cannot stay them at all, till they are lost once more in the myths of the morning. As we travel towards the sunset, through the soft twilight, into the shadows of the night, we find ourselves upon the very shore from whence, so long ago, the boatmen pushed out into the darkness with their strange freight. Let me be the ST. OUEN OF ROUEN. 107 ferryman to-night ; and if voices should be heard as of the reading of a roll-call, I will listen. Hark ! have they not begun already ? " I am a young fawn six hundred years old. The Professor who crossed with us says that I am sileXy but I do not know. The old Abb6 laid his hand upon me tenderly. and said I was consacre ; but again I do not know. An officer in a braided coat turned >me over curiously and said I was nothing, and owed no duty. That seems strange to one who for six hundred years has never ceased to gaze steadfastly up to heaven — like the larger beasts round the Throne — waiting for Christ to come and set things right. When first I was fashioned like one of God's little creatures there were to be no more sacrifices of the people to the gods — God was to be sacrificed every day for the people. But the killing went on all the same. After a hundred years of it I could not see into heaven at all, for the sky was red with flames as the English soldiers burned a woman in the market-place. After two hundred years of it the French priests slew the heretics so much faster than they could bury them, that I think I should have died from the pestilence which followed — 'had I not been silex. Storms have raged round me — of passions fiercer than the elements ; but I — being out of reach of human hands — have been io8 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. safe. Yesterday God spoke to me in the lightning, and my work is done. I am now only a dream of the past." " I am a young painter — full of courage and hope. The Professor does not know me ; he only knows artists who have Greek names. The Abbe does not see how a landscape can be used as an altar-piece ; the great painters always painted saints. The custom-house officer says there is no duty for me to pay for my sketches — which is fortunate, for I could not afford to pay it if there were. I am one in a great army — an army that moves to victory. I am only a single tessera in the great mosaic of life; but my place is in the aureole — which is the hope of the future. I do not know what the mosaic will be like when it is finished — '* The day was breaking. At that moment a delicate line of white appeared on the horizon. It was the Enchanted Island. STUDIES OF BOOKS. H STUDIES OF BOOKS. THE VENICE OF TITIAN, T DO not know how many are the sons of Italy; ^ but, writing as an artist, I know that she is the mother of many daughters. Are there not first, the twin sisters Florence and Siena — to say nothing of Rome, and Padua, and Bologna, and Naples — each in itself an alma mater of a school of Art ? And last — the youngest of them all, and loveliest — Venice, with garments woven of the sea and sky, cinctured with hills blue as the lapis-lazuli of her shrines — where the sun rises and sets crowning her twice daily with rubies and gold, and the stars every night string a necklace of pearls as the gondolas rock idly on the silent highway that winds amidst her sleeping palaces. Venice — ^it is one of those little words which the lips refuse to utter alone ; or rather, the utterance of which •* Th& Life of Titian " — by Messrs, Crowe and Cavalcaselle. H 2 112 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. wakes so many echoes that there is no telling where they begin or end — echoes that bring to our remem- brance happy days of travel, that chase each other through the pages of our favourite authors, that play hide-and-seek among the chapters of history. For Venice is to each of her visitors a different city. There are Shylocks, to whom she is only the Rialto ; there are Bassanios, to whom she is a place of per- petual festival ; there are Antonios, to whom she is an altar of sacrifice; there are Jessicas, who run from her for love; and Portias, who visit her by stealth. There are poets — See now, how even men of the same craft will differ from each other in their account of her! Dante, casting about for a simile for the blackness of his Malebolge, can think of nothing grim enough but — " The great arsenal of the Venetians, where Seethes in its furnaces the burning pitch." Nor, except in two very uncomplimentary passages in the " Paradiso," does he care to make of Venice any- thing better than a background for a picture of " A black devil of ferocious aspect Running along a crag " — and yet Dante knew Venice in the very zenith of her greatness ; when her Doges had just given shelter to a Pope flying from the fury of a Barbarossa, had FROM DANTE TO BYRON. 113 held Otho prisoner, had dictated terms at the gates of Constantinople, had annexed the islands of Greece, and claimed entire dominion of the sea. But hear now what another poet says of her : " A sea Of glory streams along the Alpine heights Of blue Friuli's mountains." And again : "A dying glory smiles O'er the far times when many a subject land Looked to the winged lion's marble piles Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles " — and yet Lord Byron knew her only in her desolation, despoiled and trampled underfoot by Napoleon, ceded as merchandise to the Austrians, her children sealing their own shame by the abdication of her senators with the declaration, amidst tears and blood, that " Venice was no more." So, standing apart from each other by the space of six centuries, these two men looked upon our beautiful city. But neither of them beheld Venice. The one saw only her cradle, rocked by the tempests of passion and war ; the other — her empty place, after that she had arisen, and had reigned a queen, and had passed away. The Venice of which I write, however, is the Venice, not of the poet, the statesman, or the soldier, but of 114 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. the painter. In a word, it is the Venice of Titian. It is the busy world — full of peril, but full also of life and light and action, and therefore bright with hope — to which he came, a simple lad, from the Alpine village of Cadore. It is the school where he found a master in Bellini, and companions in Giorgione and Palma Vecchio. It is the home where he entertained his friends in a pleasant garden, or showed them the beautiful pictures that filled his house, or feasted them with rare viands and costly wines. It is the arena where he struggled hard for mastery with craftsmen only less great than himself. It is the exchange where he made the world rich — Paris and Madrid, London and Rome competing for the treasures of his studio. It is the court where he, a prince among painters, received the visits of Angelo and Diirer, princes also by the same right of pre-eminence in their own lands. It is the city of palaces that he made more splendid ; of shrines that he made more sacred ; and having chosen for himself a grave there, in the stately Church of the Frari, and fallen stricken by the plague, it is now his mausoleum, where, after nearly a hundred years of toil, and ambition, and defeat, and glory, he at last sleeps. The Venice of Titian is the Venice of a century; and, in Art at least, that century was the epoch of her greatest splendour. If the discovery of the passage to THE CHILD ARTIST. 115 India by the Cape, a few years after his birth, marked the beginning of her decline, that decline can scarcely be said to have become manifest when, a few years before his death, the Moslem fleet was scattered and destroyed at the battle of Lepanto. During the life of Titian Venice was a great power in Europe, both on land and sea. Let us take the century of his life, decade by decade, illustrating each by a characteristic sketch, as one would develop a story by a series of outlines. At the best they must be slight, but the value of a sketch does not depend on its elaboration — it is sufficient for its purpose if it be true. I. Our first sketch shall be of the child's home, a village in the mountainous district of Cadore, about seventy miles from Venice. There, at Pieve, Titian was born in the year 1477, and the earliest years of his childhood were passed face to face with Nature in perhaps the grandest of the many aspects she can assume. The castellated rocks of porphyry, the weird dragon's-teeth of the dolomites, the snow mingled with fire as the sun rose or set beyond the hills, the rushing waters of the Piave, the dark forests from which the trees came crashing down to be floated away in rafts for the ship-builders of the lagoons, the low murmur of ii6 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. the wind creeping up the valleys, or the thunder of it when tempests brake upon the mountains — these were among the sights and sounds familiar to his boyhood, and they form the background of our picture. If our picture seems altogether background, we must remem- ber that in such scenery the small figure of a child is but of little account. Not much is known of the childhood of Titian. There is a legend of a Madonna painted by him, with colours expressed from flowers, on the walls of his father's cottage ; but of this it is sufficient to say that it is a legend. We know only that at the age of nine the story of his child-life may be said to close, for he was then sent to Venice to be apprenticed as a painter ; but we may well believe that the impressions he received during these the first nine years of his life were of a nature that the ninety years which followed served rather to deepen than to efface. II. Our second sketch is of a youth at Venice. Titian was of a good family, and it was not without due con- sideration that he was permitted to pursue the study of art, instead of arms or law. This in itself indi- cates that the Painter held no mean position in the Republic. At the time of his apprenticeship there were many masters in Venice of great eminence. YOUNG GIANTS. 117 The two Bellini, Antonello, Cima, Sebastian Zuccato (engaged in the restoration, which was even then going on, of the mosaics of St. Mark's), Carpaccio, and Vivarini — these were among the chief painters, not of the place only, but of the age. And just as in our own day we may hear the students at Heatherly's, in Newman Street, or at the schools of the Academy, talk over the " Daphnephoria " of Leighton, or the " North-West Passage " of Millais, so in the work- shops of the Bellini we may see the youthful Titian and Giorgione and Palma Vecchio, with their com- panions, descanting on the merits of Gentile's " Pro- cession of the Relic," or Carpaccio's " St. Ursula." But besides the merits of the masters, these students near the Rialto have subject for discussion in the question of the styles. Tempera is still taught in the schools, but the great painters are beginning to discard it. Some of the old frescoes are still standing on the walls of the great council chamber. The pale " Paradise " of Guariento has not been covered by the more splendid *' Paradise " of Tintoretto ; but Vivarini has exhibited the first oil-painting in Venice, and the old style, so long clung to by the Venetians, is fast giving place to the new. In the midst of such a move- ment, among companions so worthy of him — and of whom one at least, if only he might live, will prove a formidable rival— taught by such masters as Zuccato ii8 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. and the Bellini, fascinated with the beauty of the love- liest city in the world, filled with tender memories of the home which lies hidden in the blue line of the distant Alps, it is thus that Titian begins his artist- life. And if in this second sketch, as in the first, we see but little of Titian himself, yet for the sake "Of the fair town's face, yonder river's line, The mountains round it and the sky above," the sketch must stand. There will not presently be wanting the interest that attaches to the living man. III. If In the later schools of Venetian art we see the scattering of the gifts of Titian amongst his successors, we see in the art of Titian himself the gathering into one of the many excellencies of his contemporaries and of those who preceded him. And it is in the works of his early manhood that this gathering of his forces is most apparent. The daring and dangerous facility that seemed natural to him was held in check, but not destroyed, by the careful and minute draughtsmanship insisted upon by Giovanni Bellini. The result was strength, with refinement, based upon knowledge. How much the similarity between his work and that of Giorgione or of Palma Vecchio is due to mastery, EARLY SUCCESSES. 119 or to assimilation, would be impossible to determine. A corresponding agreement will often be found between young painters who work much together. Millais and Rossetti and Holman Hunt, whose names were once associated in this manner, are wide enough apart now, nevertheless they have not been without influence up- on each other. We know that Titian and Giorgione entered early into partnership, and that though Giorgione (the senior of Titian by two years) took the lead, yet Titian before he was thirty years old was recognised as a master even amongst the great painters of Venice. He had visited the court of Ferrara, and painted the picture of the "Tribute- money," now in the gallery at Dresden, and the " Bacchus and Ariadne " of our own national col- lection. We must think of him also in connection with the stirring events of the time. Now, there were leagues with Rome and Milan against France ; now, leagues with France against Milan and Naples. So called Christian popes and emperors and kings were intriguing with the Turks to let loose the hell of slaughter upon Christendom. Crusades were preached on the piazza of St. Mark's, and fifty thou- sand voices yelled for the slaughter of the Turks. Can we conceive of these things, and the young painter in the midst of them, without seeing the colour they would give to his life ? So our third i^o THE VENICE OF TITIAN. sketch should close, but that against the lurid glare of it appears one beautiiul figure. It is said that he loved Violante, the daughter of his friend Palma Vecchio. The story is not verified, and it is difficult to reconcile it with certain dates which appear to be sufficiently attested ; nevertheless, we trace the deli- cate outline of a woman, like the dream that comes to most men at some time of their lives, the dream that is not always realised. Violante, however, did not become the wife of Titian, and we know her only by the soft lustre of her eyes and the white garments folded across her bosom. IV. At the age of thirty Titian was assisting Giorgione in the decoration of the Fondaco, a government building that had been re-constructed after a great fire. They painted in fresco ; but Venice, with its burning sum- mers and keen winters, its humid and salt atmosphere, can be as cruel as our London of yellow fog and black smoke. There is little left at the Fondaco to tell us whether, while working together as friends, they were pursuing the same path as painters, or were gradually differentiating their styles. It is said that Giorgione drew his inspiration from the antique, while Titian relied less on classic beauty and more on the faithful TITIAN AND ALBERT DURER. 121 representation of Nature. We know what Titian accomplished, but to what splendours his companion might have attained we shall never know. The face of Giorgione fades out of our picture at this time. He died in 151 1, at the early age of thirty-three. But if the Venice of Titian in the first years of the century is touched with the melancholy of the death of one great painter, it rings with the lighthearted laughter of another. At the very time that Giorgione and Titian were preparing for the last work they should execute together, Albert Diirer, then on a visit to Venice, was corresponding with his friend, " good master Pirk- heimer," of Nuremberg. " My French mantle and my Italian coat greet you, both of them," he writes ; " I wish you were in Venice. There are many fine fellows here among the painters, who get more and more friendly with me ; it holds one's heart up. Well brought-up folks, good lute-players, skilled pipers, and many noble and excellent people are in the company. On the other hand, there are the falsest, most lying, thievish villains in the whole world, I believe, appearing to the unwary the pleasantest possible fellows. I laugh to myself when they try it with me. They say my art is not on the antique, and therefore not good. But Giovanni Bellini, who has praised me much before many gentlemen, wishes to have something from my hand. He has come himself and asked me, and he will 122 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. pay me handsomely for it. I understand he is a pious man. He is very old indeed, and yet the best amongst them. But what pleased me eleven years ago does not give me the same pleasure now; there are better painters here." Thus writes Albert Diirer, of the Venice of Titian, living amongst the people, visiting the studios, quarrelling with the painters ; and we can find no picture more faithful than that which he has thus sketched for us, and playfully signed — " Given at Venice, at 9 of the evening, Saturday after Candlemas in the year 1506." How he did quarrel, how carefully he counted his ducats, how bright a place Venice seemed to him, how keenly he felt the splendour of Venetian colour, how susceptible he was as an artist, how intractable as a man — all this comes out so naively in his correspondence with his friend, and at the same time gives so vivid an impression of Venice as he knew it, that I will lay down my pen for the moment that he may finish the sketch in his own words : — " The painters are becoming very obnoxious to me. They have had me before the courts three times, and com- pelled me to pay four good florins to their guild. All the world wishes me well except the painters 1 You would give a ducat to see my picture, it is so good and rich in colour. I have silenced all the painters who say * he composes well, but knows little about colour.' Indeed, every one praises my colour. But I must tell TITIAN IN HIS STUDIO. 123 you, I have actually been to learn dancing here, and have been twice to the school. I must pay the master a ducat. Nobody could get me into it, however, so I have lost all my trouble, and can do nothing, alas 1 How shall I live in Nuremberg after the bright sun of Venice ? " Our fifth sketch shows us a painter's studio in Venice, into which the sunshine of a spring morning is streaming. A man of grave mien is standing there ; he is reading a letter, and as he reads, his brow knits, and he is angry. It is Titian, and the letter in his hand is from Alphonso, the great Duke of Ferrara, upbraiding him wrathfully, and threatening the direst displeasure if he does not make haste to finish a picture he has promised. Presently the painter turns to some canvases and unfinished sketches, and bringing them to the light, examines them carefully. There is the portrait of Lucretia Borgia, and of Laura Dianti, and of the Duke himself, with " black, curly locks, pointed moustache, and well-trimmed beard of chestnut, with broad forehead, arched brow, and clear eye, altogether noble in attitude and proportion." As Titian looks at the face, his anger cools, and he resolves to propitiate his friend. But there are other portraits there, of 124 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. senators, doges, fair youths, beautiful women, and chief amongst them that of Ariosto the poet, dignified, serene, yet full of the brilliancy of intellectual life — " a figure of noble port, with neck and throat exposed, fine features, handsomely set off by a spare beard and long chestnut hair divided in the middle." Suddenly is heard the sound of church bells clashing through the bright air, and Titian, hastily replacing the can- vases and laying aside the Duke's letter, prepares to leave the studio. Passing through the busy crowds on the Rialto, he enters a gondola, which, threading its way amongst the pleasure-boats on the Grand Canal, turns into one of the narrow water-ways on the right, and soon reaches the steps of a great church. It is the Church of the Frari, and a great company are assem- bled to witness the unveiling of a new altar-piece. There, in the rich gloom of the great chancel-arches, is the figure of the Virgin, borne on a cloud of angels, her face uplifted to the Eternal, who bends over her from the Empyrean ; beneath are the Apostles, lost in wonder at the glory of her Assumption. It is a master- piece of art, and the people are stirred to enthusiasm. The music thunders through the aisles of the Fran, and creeps along the vaulted roof, where the incense has already climbed to meet it. And as Titian stands amongst the crowd, looking at his own painting, and listening to their murmurs of delight, he knows that THE PAINTERS' GUILD. 125 after the patient toil of nearly half a century he has reached the first great triumph of his life. VI Let us picture to ourselves a meeting of the guild of painters in the Venice of Titian. It is about the year 1532, and their new Hall has just been built through the munificent bequest of Catena, a painter who has just died. In this Hall are assembled not painters only, but designers, gilders, embroiderers, and men of every craft in which the leading idea is Art. Among the first to enter we may imagine the young Moroni, and per- haps Bassano ; they are of the same age, about twenty- two years ; and they have caught so much of the spirit of Titian that the time may come when some of their work may be mistaken for that of the great master. As they enter, they are speaking of the recent death of Palma Vecchio, in whose workshops they were perhaps students. They are presently joined by Paris Bordone, their senior by a few years, but still young — one who had studied under Giorgione, and can tell them much about the splendid young genius who, had he lived, would have made the greatest tremble for their laurels ; as to himself, he is expecting shortly to be invited to the French Court. And if he asks them "whether Pordenone is coming to-night," they may perhaps tell 126 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. him "no," for he is at Piacenza, painting frescoes for the Church of Santa Maria ; and one of them may suggest the question whether he, Pordenone, may not get himself into trouble with the pious monks there, if he persists in mixing up his virgins and nymphs, satyrs and saints, all on the same canvas. And now other painters crowd into the assembly — Bonifazio, who is late, for he has been working long hours at his painting of " The Cleansing of the Temple " in the Ducal Palace — and, it may be, Carpaccio and Tin- toretto ; but if so, the one will be a venerable senior, and the other a stripling not yet out of his teens, but such a stripling in art as was David in war. There are many more of the guild, but we take note only of the painters. Of all the company, however, painters or craftsmen of whatever sort, there are two men standing in their midst to whom we turn with the deepest interest. They are nearly of the same age, between fifty and sixty, and both of them are of grave countenance. The one is Titian, the glory of Venice ; the other is Michael Angelo, the glory of Florence and Rome. Titian is a man strongly built, full of life and movement ; the proportions of his face are perfect, the forehead high, the brow bold and projecting, the features finely chiselled. Round his neck is the chain which indicates his knightly rank. He is dressed in a closely-buttoned doublet, over which is cast an ample TITIAN AND MICHAEL ANGELO. i27 cloak, showing beneath it a broad white collar, and sleeves of silver damask. There is a marked likeness between these two men — Titian and Angelo — in the fire of their eyes, the boldness of their brows, even in the lines of their beards, worn a little short and pointed, and the fineness of the hands which grasp each other in friendship. Angelo is visiting Venice, and is greeted by Titian, as Gerome or Meissonier might be greeted by Leighton or Watts if they visited us. And when the last gracious words have been spoken, and the assembly is dissolved, these two return to Titian's house. They stand for a moment looking into each other's eyes before they separate for the night, and Angelo says some words which we cannot hear. If we could hear them we should know why Titian turns so sadly away to his solitary chamber, for they would tell us that another face has faded out of the picture of his life, that the years which have brought riches and honour have taken from him his wife and the mother of his children. VII. Extract from a letter written by Priscianese to a friend in Rome, in the year 1540, Priscianese being at that time a visitor in Venice. " I was invited on the day of the calends of August to I 2 128 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. celebrate a sort of Bacchanalian feast in a pleasant garden belonging to Messer Tiziano Vecellio, an excel- lent painter, as every one knows, and a person really fitted to season by his courtesies any distinguished entertainment. There were assembled with the said M. Tiziano, as like desires like, some of the most celebrated characters that are now in this city, and of ours; chiefly M. Pietro Arentino, a new miracle of nature; and next to him as great an imitator of nature with the chisel as the master of the feast is with the pencil, Messer Jacopo Tatti, called II Sansovino ; and M. Jacopo Nardi, and I ; so that I made the fourth amidst so much wisdom. Here, before the tables were set out, because the sun, in spite of the shade, still made his heat much felt, we spent the time in looking at the lively figures in the excellent pictures of which the house was full, and in discussing the real beauty and charm of the garden, with singular pleasure and note of admiration of all of us. It is situated in the extreme part of Venice, upon the sea, and from it one sees the pretty little island of Murano and other beautiful places. This part of the sea, as soon as the sun went down, swarmed with gondolas adorned with beautiful women, and resounded with the varied har- mony and music of voices and instruments, which till midnight accompanied our delightful supper. But to return to the garden. It was so well laid out and so TITIAN IN HIS GARDEN. 129 beautiful, and consequently so much praised, that the resemblance which it offered to the delicious retreat of St. Agata refreshed my memory and my wish to see you, and it was hard for me dearest friend, during the greater part of the evening to realise whether I was at Rome or at Venice. In the meanwhile came the hour for supper, which was no less beautiful and well arranged than copious and well provided. Besides the most delicate viands and precious wines, there were all those pleasures and amusements that are suited to the season, the guests, and the feast. Having just arrived at the fruit, your letter came, and because in praising the Latin language the Tuscan was reproved, Arentino became exceedingly angry, and, if he had not been prevented, he would have indited one of the most cruel invectives in the world, calling out furiously for paper and inkstand, though he did not fail to do a good deal in words. Finally the supper ended most gaily." VIII. And still the Venice of Titian is growing more beautiful under the touch of this magician's hand. " Justitia " with the waving sword has for a long time been a familiar sight at the Fondaco. The " Assump- tion of the Virgin " over the altar in the Church of the Frari, lighted by a thousand tapers, glows with a 130 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. splendour almost inconceivable. But how many more splendours have been added to these. The " Christ Bearing the Cross " at the monastery of St. Andrea ; the organ frontal at the Gesuati, long since, like so many other of his works, destroyed by fire ; the "Jerome" of St. Fantino ; the "Annunciation" and the "St. Peter Martyr" at SS. Giovanni e Paolo; the "Angel and Tobit " at Santa Caterina ; the " Descent of the Holy Ghost " in San Spirito ; to say nothing of the mosaics of St. Mark's, for which he made the cartoons, and the great canvases of the Ducal Palace. Titian, during the eighth decade of his life, is like a star in a constellation still shining after its fellows have set. Raphael has died, Correggio has died, Da Vinci has died, and though Angelo lingers in Rome, he has for a long time painted only for the Imperial city. Madrid and Paris and Augsburg clamour for the work of Titian, now threatening, now persuading, because his pencil cannot satisfy all their demands. The grave ecclesiastics at the Council of Trent turn from their anathemas to scan the last canvas from his hand ; while in London a foreign prince, mated to an English Queen, whom he loves not, amuses himself with the "Magdalenes" and "Antiopes," who do not fret him with complainings. As for Titian himself, he is getting old ; his house has been twice desolated, first by the marriage -of his daughter, then by her death. And his A LETTER FROM VASARI. 131 son, Pomponio, the canon — there is trouble in store, for he is a spendthrift. And then, that young painter Tintoretto, who is at work in the Ducal Palace ! — is it not time to begin to ask what will the end be ? IX. But the end is not yet. Ten more years have passed away, and Vasari is a visitor in Venice. As we have read from the letters of Diirer the painter, and of Priscianese the scholar, so let us turn for a moment to the record of the historian. " Titian has enjoyed health and happiness unequalled, and has never received from Heaven anything but favour and felicity. His house has been visited by all the princes, men of letters, and gentlemen who ever came to Venice. Besides being excellent in art, he is pleasant company, of fine deportment and agreeable manners. He has had rivals in Venice, but none of any great talent. His earnings have been large, because his works were always well paid : but it would have been well for him if in these the later years of his life he had only laboured for a pastime, in order not to lose, by works ol declining value, the reputation gained in earlier days When Vasari, writer of this history, came to Venice in 1566, he went to pay a visit to Titian as a friend, and he found him, though very aged, with the brushes in 132 THE VENICE OF TITIAN, his hand painting, and had much pleasure in seeing his pictures and conversing with him. Titian having decorated Venice, and indeed Italy and other parts of the world with admirable pictures, deserves to be loved and studied by artists, as one who has done and is still doing works deserving of praise, which will last as long as the memory of illustrious men." X. The last sketch — and it is once more in the Church of the Frari. Troubles are gathering heavily on the Venice of Titian. The Great Council have, indeed, ordered that a picture of the victory of Lepanto shall be painted ; but that victory has cost Venice her life-blood. And now Pestilence, following the footsteps of War, is wielding its bloody scourge, and nearly a third of the citizens have been swept into the charnel-house. An old man, bent with the weight of ninety-nine years, is in the sacristy, talking with the monks. He is plead- ing with them, he is disputing with them. '' Dear to me," he says — "dear to me are the mountains of Cadore, and the rushing waters of the Piave, and the murmur of the wind in the pine-trees, where my home lies far away. But not there ! In the city where I have laboured ; in the church where I achieved my first triumph — bury me there 1 Promise to bury me there, THE LAST SCENE. 133 and I will yet live to paint for you another * Christ,' a * Christ of Pity,' that shall be more near to what he is than any that has yet been painted, even as I am by so many years the nearer to seeing Him myself." The plague struck him down before the " Pieta " was finished, but the promise was redeemed. Titian lies beneath the crucifix in the Church of the Frari at Venice. With Titian died the glory of Venetian Art. But as the setting sun is sometimes followed by an after-glow — a lingering that is of light, not really brighter than the horizon has been during the day, but seeming brighter because the rest of the firmanent is darkening into night — so, after Titian, we still turn towards Venice for the sake of two painters who were at least worthy to be his companions to the last, and who, in surviving him, arrested for another decade the extinc- tion of the great Venetian school. Twelve years after Titian, in 1588, Paul Veronese died, and in another six years, Tintoretto. Then even the short after-glow faded, and the night set in. A night that the pale star- light of Salviati, Giovane, Padovanino, Canaletto, and 134 THE VENICE OF TITIAN. Tiepolo could not illuminate ; a night not pleasant to look back upon ; a night disturbed by evil dreams ; but happily a night that has at last ended. In 1645 Venice was again at war. The old enemy, the Turk, had descended upon Candia, and for twenty-four years the nation which had been so great in art became the cynosure of Europe for its feats in arms. Volunteers from every country came there to exercise their valour, to acquire the military art, and to assist a brave people. The siege cost the lives of two hundred thousand Moslems, but the Venetians capitulated at last. A few years of respite followed, and then another war, in which, though the Republic was victorious, her re- sources were exhausted ; and finally, while the dawn was still far distant, at the close of the eighteenth century, Venice, which had sold its nobility as mer- chandise, was itself sold as merchandise to the Austrians. It is a terrible story, and belongs rather to the pages of History than to the literature of Art. But when the unworthy descendants of a Dandolo surrender without a struggle the independence of a thousand years, it is vain to look amongst them for men more worthy to be the successors of a Titian. When the Queen of the Adriatic is content to see her " Golden Book," the record of her senators, burned in the market-place, it is time for " three ships of the line and two frigates " to V.ENICE REDEEMED. 135 sail out of her harbours laden with spoils of the richest of her treasures of Art. Is there — can there be — an ending to such a night as this ? Yes, the dawn has come at last. Venice has been redeemed. It is indeed no more the Venice of Titian, any more than it is the Venice of Dante or Byron. It is the Venice of the new world, not of the old. It is the Venice of Italy. All that is beautiful in the eyes of the painter is still there ; all that is dear to the poet is to be remembered of her. But the glory which streams along the heights of blue Friuli's mountains is no longer a dying glory, but a living. For the sons of Italy are once more united and strong. How then can it be otherwise with her daughters than that they shall be happy and safe ? TEXT^BOOKS ON ART. n^HERE IS no true work of art upon which might ■^ not be written the famous words still to be read on the great bell of the minster of Schaffhausen : Vivos voco — Mortuos plango — Fulgura frango. Art is a perpetual call to the living, a mourning of the dead ; and the artist, in his own person, appears to be the natural conductor for all the lightnings of the critic's wrath. But before Art can have any voice with which to ring out the changes of our lives, like the bell of Schiller's Lay, it must be subjected to two forces — the lire to fuse, the mould to shape. Which of these forces IS the greater or nobler, where both are necessary, I will not now inquire ; it is sufficient for my purpose " A New Series of Illustrated Text-Books of Art Education." — Edited by Edward J. Poynter, R.A. " Classic and Italian Painting.'' — By Edward J. Poynter, R.A . and Percy R. Head. Architecture. Classic and Early Christian — Gothic and Renais- sance.''— By T. Roger Smith, F.R.I. B.A. THE TWO FORCES. 137 to draw attention to the essential difference of the two in their nature, and in their influence upon Art in our own time. To make the distinction clear I would say that the first of these forces — the element of fire, the power to subdue — is to be found pre-eminently in the writings of Mr. Ruskin. He has, indeed, lit a flame in England, which I hope and believe will never be extinguished — the flame of a true and generous passion for Art. But the fire which is strong to fuse is powerless to shape. I do not mean that the teaching of Mr. Ruskin is shapeless ; but rather that, like a flame of fire which it resembles, its shape is always changing. Mr. Ruskin has softened our hearts, he has melted us; but the Bell is not yet cast :^- " Fast, in its prison-walls of earth, Awaits the mould of baked clay ; Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth^ — The Bell that shall be born to-day ! " Dare we complete the simile ? Dare we speak of the Art that shall be born to-day ? If we would have it so we must look for it in the perfect correlation of these two forces — the fire to fuse, the mould to shape ; the first to burn out the dross of a spurious dilettanteism by a truer appreciation of all that Art has done and still can do for us ; the second, to control the eccentricities of an aesthetic craze, by the earnest and steady endeavour 138 TEXT BOOKS ON ART. to improve the instruction in our schools of Art, and to introduce the teaching of Art in its highest forms into the general system of our national education. Now, books on Art are of two classes, corresponding with these two forces ; and the distinction between them cannot be too clearly marked. A man who knows nothing of Art, and cares nothing for it, may take up the work of one author and be amazed to find that he cannot lay it down unread — a new interest will have been added to his life ; while he may take up the work of another author, on the same subject, only to drop it as if it burned his fingers. And yet both books may be perfect of their kind — the purpose of one being to awaken the aesthetic passion which is latent in the mind of every man, the purpose of the other to give to that aesthetic feeling a definitely beautiful shape, which can be effected only when it is no longer la- tent, but expressed. I plead with all lovers of Art that in their studies of books they should balance their reading by attention to both kinds. Let us take up a volume that belongs to the dry — the scientific side — of Art literature, and see what Art looks like in the cool light of the dissecting room. It shall be one of a Series of Text- Books on Art, written by various authors, of which Mr. Poynter undertakes THE SCHEME. 139 the responsibility of editorship — books not intended to entertain us with speculative fancies, nor even to en- kindle an enthusiasm for Art, but to lay for us a solid foundation of knowledge, and to mould our thoughts into definite and perfect shape. Like the series of Biographies of the Great Artists, which we will examine at the same time, the scheme is admirably conceived ; and the name of the Editor is a guarantee that it will be carried through with fine judgment and faithful ad- herence to its high purpose. What this purpose is we gather from a few thoughtful and interesting pages with which Mr. Poynter has himself prefaced the book. He says : — " Most boys, on leaving school, know at least who Homer, iEschylus, Virgil, and Horace were and what they did. They have probably learnt also how Virgil's epic is founded on Homer's; how ^schylus led the way to Sophocles and Euripides; they have learnt from Horace the various forms of versification which he used, and whence they were derived, and much more of the same kind — in fact, unless more than the usual amount of time has been devoted to athletics, they come away with sufficient general acquaintance with fine literature to form their taste, and to enable them to pursue the subject in after life, if so inclined. But it is doubtful whether the large majority of boys would not be puzzled by any allusion to the names of 140 TEXT-BOOKS ON ART. Phidias or Michel-angelo. There are very few who would come well out of an examination as to any works of these great artists. As regards the rise, progress, culmination, and hardly-contested decline of the various schools of art — Greek, Roman, Italian, Spanish, German, Flemish, French, English — for aught that the well-educated school-boy knows of their history, the great men might as well have existed in the Eocene period or in the planet Mars, rather than in our own globe, and in times with whose history he is otherwise familiar." And then, in a succession of brilliant paragraphs, Mr Poynter shows what a different aspect might be given to the study of languages and history if an intelligent interest were awakened in the history of ancient art ; how an acquaintance with their handiwork humanises a people for us, and brings them within the range of our sympathies ; how some nations are indeed known to us only through their art ; how ignorance of these things has falsified or clouded our conceptions of the character of men like Pericles — that stumbling block to historians who cannot make up their minds whether he was a patriotic citizen or an ambitious demagogue — or Mummius, who threatened his soldiers that if they broke any of the statues of which he had despoiled Corinth they would have to provide new ones ; how our own statesmen would be the better for a wise HOW IT IS, i4r perception of them by at least indulging no more in a playful fancy for collecting marble noses of 'the antique; how our generals might have been taught to spare the inestimable records of past ages ; how even our archi- tects need not, only a century ago, have cast the ancient stained-glass from the windows of Salisbury Cathedral into the town ditch ; how many a celebrated picture is now a wreck, like Leonardo's " Last Supper," the result of neglect and restoration, working, like Sin and Death, in complete accord ; and, last of all, how absurd it is to expect that a mere desultory wandering among cases of pottery and metal-work, or a rapid survey of picture galleries on an occasional holiday, should have an educational effect — without some basis for compari- son and discrimination. In considering a dual performance of this kind we need not separate the work of the editor from that of the author. If we have listened, so far, especially to Mr. Poynter, it is because it is he who begins by un- folding the general nature and purpose of the work in its entirety. With whom the design originated we are not told, but it is admirably worked out by Mr. Percy Head who is the author of the main portion of the book. After a preliminary chapter by Mr Poynter on Egyptian art, Mr. Head takes up the subject of Greek painting, its origin and development, its zenith and 142 TEXT -BOOKS ON ART. decline. From this he passes to the Roman period, and gives an interesting account of Etruscan art, the mural paintings of Pompeii, the works of the early Christians in mosaic and fresco, the miniature painting in manuscripts, and the growth of the Byzantine school. Then he brings us to the Renaissance, and marshalls before us, school by school, man by man, always in chronological order, the great army of painters whose names are familiar to us, from Cimabue to Canaletto. The sequence is maintained with much literary skill ; the accessories of time and place are wrought in with a light yet careful and firm hand ; and each painter stands out in more or less relief according to his relative importance, but always " masterly done," whether indicated by a few delicate touches, or deline- ated as a finely-drawn portrait. Of course such a work partakes of the nature of compilation as well as of authorship, and a frank acknowledgement is given of indebtedness to various sources. But this does not detract from the credit due to Mr. Head for the admir- able use he has made of his material. It is as though in building a temple to Art he had enriched its walls with a frieze like that of the Parthenon. In this frieze he has given us two or three hundred figures. Each figure may be the work of a different sculptor, but the design is the architect's. And Mr. Head has so arrang- ed it that, without losing the individuality of any figure, FINENESS OF LINE. 143 we yet see each as one of a group ; without breaking the continuity of the procession, we yet see the separation of the schools ; without confounding the periods in which Art has flourished, we yet see the unity of Art even in its own diversity. In this little volume we have at once a readable history and a book of reference. Its style is succinct and graceful ; its information full, accurate, and well-arranged. If the light of the dis- secting room is cool, at least it is not dull. A fair example of the thoughtful care with which detail is treated may be found in the telling of the old story of the visit of Apelles to the studio of a contem- porary painter — Protogenes. Protogenes being absent from his studio, Apelles dipped a pencil in colour and drew on a tablet a line of exceeding fineness. Protoge- nes, on his return, recognised by this pretty visiting card that Apelles had been there ; and taking a pencil dipped in a different colour drew another line over that which Apelles had drawn of more exceeding fineness. This was shown to Apelles — who in his turn drew a third line, with yet another colour, so fine that further refinement was impossible, and Protogenes confessed himself in the presence of his master. So runs the familiar story. But what is meant by " fineness " of line ? The common acceptation of thin- ness — slenderness — attenuation — would reduce the tale K 2 144 TEXT-BOOKS ON ART. to something between a childish boast and a house- decorator's tour de force, Mr. Head suppHes the true interpretation. Apelles drew an outHne — perhaps some lovely profile. Protogenes, taking another colour to distinguish his work from that of Apelles drew a finer version of the subject over it — as one might with pen and ink correct or improve a pencil sketch. Upon this, finally, Apelles superimposed the corrections of the master, whosis work was then beyond correction. Thus even the cold marble of the antique is made to glow with life, and if the book takes the form of a biographical dictionary rather than a dissertation on Art, it is none the less valuable on that account. For what are " schools," but men ? To bring us into the presence of the painters themselves is to make us ac- quainted with the schools. Many of us have some favourite picture dear to our memory, or a little special knowledge of some master we particularly reverence. But how small is the field of vision to most of us. We have seen a swallow, and lo ! we say it is Spring. But how many of us can tell a swallow from a linnet ? In this Text-Book of Classic and Italian Painting we see a whole flight — of birds of Paradise. If we would examine particularly the plumage of any one of them we have only to turn to the Biographies of the Great Artists. Ah, yes— that would be interesting of course. The ONLY FOR STUDENTS? 145 lives of great men are always attractive. To see the man grow from a boy before our eyes ; to witness his struggles with the world ; to share at last in the sense of triumph in his victory — that is worth reading a book for. But these Text-Books ! Do you really expect us to read them ? Are they not for the student ? They are for the student. But who would not be a student if he knew how full of interest the Text-Book may be to an intelligent reader. It is not men only who grow, and struggle, and conquer. Men's lives merged together give us nations, and the record of a nation's life is history. Men's works, classed according to their aim, give us schools ; and to trace the rise and development of a great principle in Art, so as to see and understand its final mastery over men's minds, is not to lose touch with the human heart, but rather to get into closer sympathy with it. Let us look for a moment at another of these Text-Books and see what we can discover of human interest in, say bricks and mortar. There is no doubt that the architect who first dared to go beyond the felling of trees, and ranging them as pillars to support an entablature of timber, must have been considered a very venturesome fellow. The fibre of wood enables it to bear a lateral strain ; but if stones L 146 TEXT-BOOKS ON ART, are piled one upon another, will they not topple over ? And so the first idea of the builder is to build strongly. That is the primary concept of all the earliest forms of architecture, in every country, in every age — the build- ing for Strength, Among the Greeks we find it in the Doric, the First of the Classic Orders. But with ex- perience came confidence. The columns did not topple over; and the architect was ready to assimilate another principle. The new idea was Grace, We see it in the Ionic — the Second Order of Classic architecture — in which the capital is shaped into a scroll, and decorated with an enriched moulding. But now, with an in- creased desire for ornament, and at the same time higher scientific knowledge, and improved mechanical appliances, the architect still further developes his aims. To strength he has added grace : to grace he EVOLUTION IN ARCHITECTURE. 147 must add the richness of Decoration, This we see in the Corinthian — the Third Order — and it completes the trinity of loveHness. It completes it, because, not only has no new con- cept of beauty appeared, but the mind seems incapable of imagining a fourth — any more than of imagining a new colour for the rainbow. The Tuscan is but a variation of the Doric ; the Composite, as its name implies, is only a combination of the Ionic and the Corinthian. For a thousand years the world knew no standard apart from these orders, and they are still the unrivalled models on which we form our taste. But although Classic architecture cannot be sur- passed in the science of construction or the beauty of form, there has grown up another school, just as a rose might grow and blossom beside a lily. The evolution of Gothic architecture is as simple, and as interesting as the evolution of the Classic. In the Classic it began with the column ; in the Gothic it begins with the window. The theatres of Greece might be open to the sky ; the churches of France and England must give shelter from the inclemency of a northern winter. Thus the Greek architect had to deal with a facade, and he made it glorious with pillars. But the Norman or early English Architect had to make windows, and he made them glorious with tracery. L 2 148 TEXT-BOOKS ON ART. This is the way it all came about. Just as the Englishman and the Greek speak different languages and yet may utter the same thoughts— so the Gothic architect spells out the same three words that the Classic spelled — Strength, Grace, Ornament. And he spells them in the same order. First Strength. The earliest form of Gothic is the round arch. We see it at Durham, at Caen, at Treves. It means the building for strength ; and corresponds with the first Order of the Classic. Then, in the 13th century, came the con- ception of, and the desire for, a more delicate form of beauty. We find it in the pointed arch, at West- minster, and Amiens, and York. Like the beauty of the Ionic, it is expressed by the word Grace. And last THE PLEA JUSTIFIED. 149 of all, for the old story is repeated, to strength and grace is added Ornament — that is the richness of decoration — and the trinity of loveliness is again complete. Now, of these three great principles — Strength, Grace, Ornament — the natural order is as I have placed them. Unless we build strongly v^e had better not build at all. If to strength we can add grace we do well. If to grace we add richness, we do again well. But just as strength comes before grace, so grace must come before decoration. If the lines of a building are ugly, the decoration of them can only emphasize their ugliness. And yet, after all, the greatest of the three is Grace. Only to be strong is not Art. Strength is the means to the end. Decoration is the triumphant assertion that the end has been accomplished — the glorying in its accomplishment. But the end is Beauty. Recurring for a moment to Mr. Poynter's plea for a more general culture in the Fine Arts ; it is more than justified by evidence to be found even within the pages of the book itself. If Mr. Poynter had mastered the companion volumes on Architecture, he would not perhaps, in his preface have confounded the re-polishing of marble decorations (which should never have been allowed to tarnish) with the so-called restoration of I50 TEXT-BOOKS ON ART. paintings. And if Mr. Head had looked up the subject of perspective, he would not have told us that the Greek painters '* never quite hit on the simple law which directs that all parallel lines in perspective con- verge to one point of the horizon." There is no such law in perspective. And the Greeks, who under the teaching of Euclid and his predecessors must have had more than a " glimmering " of the science of geometry, were probably content to believe that all receding lines parallel to each other appear to converge to the same point, and that if they are horizontal that point is on the horizon. To both authors and editor, however, the thanks of all lovers of Art are due. If Art is to ring out the changes of our lives, let it ring with a note sweet and true. That is the meaning of these books. Vivos voco — Mortuos plango — Fulgura frango ; and yet the Bell is still only in the process of casting. For, however old the world may be, Art is always young. THE BOOK OF LIVES. 'TpHE series includes the lives of about twenty of -^ the greatest painters of Italy, France, Germany and England. To name only a few of the men whose lives are thus brought before us — Da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, Holbein, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Turner — should suffice to arrest the attention of all lovers of Art, and to remind those who care little for the traditions of the studio, how wide a world it is from the interests of which they have shut themselves out. As for the writers of these biographies they are for the most part men qualified for the task of telling in simple language the story of simple lives, and tracing the specialite of genius that marks each painter with his own peculiar stamp — every one different, and yet every one alike, in that all seem fresh from the mint of heaven. " Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists.'^ — Michael Angelo. — By Charles Clement. 152 THE BOOK OF LIVES, These books are valuable also because of their con- densed form. Even amidst the press of business — which seems to grow more severe every day we live — it is possible to take up a small volume of a hundred pages and to master its contents with some degree of thoroughness. With one of these books in one's hand, the train that carries us to London in the morning might seem to take us through the little Tuscan town where Michael Angelo was born ; to Florence, where he was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio, who was then busy upon the great frescoes of S. Maria Novella ; through the narrow streets of Bologna, lying under the shadow of the Apennines ; into the dazzling splendour of Venice, where the silent streets are as of crystal. And then, leaving the city in the afternoon, we might, before we get home to dinner, see a little of the marble quarries of Carrara, where he was engineer ; visit the fortifications, where he was soldier ; follow his grave footsteps into the Sistine chapel, where he was painter; linger with him at his books, where he was poet and scholar; watch him in his studio, where he was sculptor ; examine his model of St. Peter's, of which he was architect. And through all this we might learn to love and reverence him for his integrity, his filial tenderness, his fraternal faithfulness, his kindness to dependents, his loyalty to duty ; and to understand a little of his meaning when he wrote, " Borne away ANGELO'S HOPE. - 153 upon a fragile barque, amid a stormy sea, I am reach- ing the common haven to which every man must come, to give account of the good and evil he has done. Now I see how my soul fell into the error of making Art her idol and her sovereign lord. Thoughts of love, fond and sweet fancies, what will become of you, now that I am near to a double death — one certain, the other threatening? Neither painting nor sculpture can avail to calm a soul which turns to Thee, O God, who hast stretched out Thy arms upon the Cross for us." The author who ventures, however, to deal with a large subject in a small space will inevitably run the risk of being favoured with the familiar advice to ** re-paint his principal figures, and put in a new background." Now, the life of Michael Angelo is a large subject, and a hundred pages is a very limited space in which to deal with it, and yet one of the merits of this little book is its completeness. The chief figure moves before us, not as a marionette, but as a living man. The incidents of his life are all characteristic of himself, and of the time in which he lived. We feel that we are judging him, not by M. Clement's opinion of him, but by his own actions and words ; and when the story is ended it is difficult to believe that we do not know much more of him than we know of many great men of whom we have read 154 7'HE BOOK OF LIVES. much more elaborate memoirs. Perhaps this vivid- ness of impression which the book produces is the result, in a measure, of the marked individuality of the man ; nevertheless, commendation is due to the author for it, since it shows that he has really put the man before us. Our author's estimate of Michael Angelo is noble, and justly expressed when he calls him " one of those giants whom antiquity would have made into gods." And again : — " In him, character is on a par with genius. His life, of almost a century, and marvellously active, is spotless. As an artist, we cannot believe that he can be surpassed. He unites in his wondrous individuality the two master faculties which are, so to speak, the poles of human nature, whose combination in the same individual creates the sovereign greatness of the Tuscan school — invention and judgment — a vast and fiery imagination, directed by a method, precise, firm and safe." The book is divided into seven chapters, and is prefaced with a few pages on the subject of the Renais- sance. The birth and infancy of the great artist occupy but a few paragraphs. As in his actual life, so in this record of it, we soon come to the days of work. His apprenticeship to Ghirlandaio, the early patronage of the Medici, his life at Florence, Lorenzo's death, his studies in science and literature, his first visit to Rome, ANGELO AND THE CRITICS. 155 and his first great work, *'The Pieta," complete the opening chapter of his life. In the next chapter we have the interesting story of his " David," cut from an enormous block of marble that other sculptors had tried to make use of, but had only succeeded in spoiling. We are amused with the " stormy debate " as to where it should be placed, and the naive suggestion of Filip- pino Lippi (specially interesting as coming from him) that " the man who made the statue " should be in- vited to give his opinion. And then we are told of the cruel jest that Angelo made upon the Gonfaloniere, Soderini — who ventured to criticise the statue's nose. '* It is too large," said the Gonfaloniere. " I will see what I can do," replied the sculptor. Angelo ascended the scaffolding, taking with him a handful of marble dust. This he gently sprinkled over the critic who was watching him from below, while seeming to be reducing the nose with his chisel. Soderini was de- lighted. "Admirable! " he exclaimed, as the sculptor descended. " What a quantity you have taken off — you have given it life." "But," says Michael Angelo — and he seems to have spoken with almost prophetic vision of modern times — " But," says Michael Angelo, "it is the natural fate of critics to speak of things which they do not understand." And so the story moves on — never without a sense of the humour which seems to be an essential element in 156 THE' BOOK OF LIVES^ creative genius — and yet with all swiftness and gravity, and we quickly recognise that this Angelo — " Will in- crease in greatness and surpass every one who has gone before him ; his giant imagination will hurl forth upon the world new forms truer than life. He will climb the loftiest summits of art. But from his first steps, it is a giant who is striding onwards ; one who has never known the uncertainty, the feebleness, the groping after a road, which generally make the setting out into life so bewildering." The fifth chapter is especially interesting. There is a singular parallel between the lives of Michael Angelo and Dante. Vittoria Colonna was Angelo's Beatrice. It was his love of this woman, and the passionate remembrance of her which he retained to extreme old age, that brightens the closing period of his life. The gentle yet stately form of the Mar- chioness of Pescara remains shrouded in a sort of mystery. Researches and recently discovered docu- ments, however, throw some light upon this noble lady and her relations to Angelo. And with a few touches, exquisitely delicate and picturesque, our author tells us the little that is known. Widowed while yet in the bloom of beauty, she found refuge from her despair (according to Giannone) in the new spiritual life that came with the Reformation, though she never actually abandoned the Catholic Church to VITTORIA COLONNA. 157 embrace the reformed faith. Writing to her, Angelo says : — " I am going in search of truth with uncertain step. My heart, floating unceasingly between vice and virtue, suffers, and finds itself failing like a weary traveller wandering in the dark. Ah ! do thou become my counsellor. Thy advice shall be sacred ; clear away my doubts, teach me in my wavering how my un- enlightened soul may resist the tyranny of passion unto the end. Do thou thyself, who hast directed my steps towards heaven by ways of pleasantness, prescribe a course for me." There are some interesting pages of conversation between these two, in which Angelo compares Flemish and Italian Art. We may not, perhaps, say with him that " it is only to works which are executed in Italy that the name of true painting can be given, and that is why good painting is called Italian " — but we do accept his faith that good painting is in itself noble and religious. That nothing elevates a good man's spirit, and carries it farther on towards devotion, than the difficulty of reaching that state of perfection nearest to God which unites us to Him. '' Now good painting," says Angelo, "is an imitation of His perfection, the shading of His pencil, the rendering of His music ; and it is only a refined intellect which can appreciate the difficulty of this. That is why good painting is so rare, and why so few men can get near to or produce it." 158 THE BOOK OF LIVES. Happy is the student of Art, who, even in his Text- Books, hears not the rattling of the dry bones of criticism but the living voice of a great painter. The life of Michael Angelo is not so much the telling of a story as the movement of a drama. It is he himself who speaks, and meditates, and acts before us ; now laughingly to his friends; now sternly or in wise counsel with princes ; now pitifully to the widow and orphan of his old servant ; now fiercely to the mad multitude ; always with tenderness and reverence to the woman he loved. " Sometimes," says Michael Angelo, "while I am talking to the Pope, without thinking of it I put on-my old hat, and talk freely to his Holiness. How- ever, he does not kill me for it." " I hope," says Vittoria, *' should I talk to you about painting, you won't box my ears to prove that great men are reasonable and not eccentric." To one (his brother) who had wronged his family he writes, " By the body of Christ ! but you shall find that I will confound ten thousand such as you if needs be." To another (his father), who had unjustly doubted him, he writes, ** I hold it to be my duty to submit when you reprove me — therefore I beseech you to put away your anger and come back." Irritable, impetuous, quick in resolution, he took counsel with no one but himself. It was the manly character which he displayed, far more than his frescoes and his statues, which won for him the THE SIXTEEN YEARS. 159 swift popularity and enthusiastic admiration which follow upon public services. The Florentines saw in him the defender of the independence of the Republic of Florence. During the siege he remained almost continually in the fortress, directing every thing in person. When he did come dow^n into the city it was only to work stealthily at his statues. At last the end came. He had survived Vittoria Colonna for sixteen years — sixteen years of regret that when she lay dead he had ventured only to kiss her hand when he might have kissed her lips. Years of unremitting labour — he was upwards of eighty years old when he made the calculations for the dome of St. Peter's, and the beautiful model which is preserved in the Clementine chapel. Years of exile, for the battered old republican refused to return to Florence. Years of declining health, the springs of life decreasing day by day, the heaven sent frenzy which makes everything seem easy to youth flickering and going out. Years of silence and reserve: — "I go my way alone. For myself I have at least this satisfaction, that no one can read in my face the story of my weariness and longing." Years in which to do justice to his rivals — "Bramante" he wrote "was as great an architect as any who have appeared from antient times to our own. It was he who laid the first foundations of St. Peter's. Raphael i6o THE BOOK OF LIVES. painted a masterpiece in Rome which would have a just title to the first rank " — Years, nevertheless, in which, when the great work of his life was in question, the building of St. Peter's, his character resumed all its ruggedness and determination — *' Your business " said he to the great council — " Your business is to give me money, and to get rid of knaves. As to the building, that is my affair." — Then, turning to Julius III. "You see. Holy Father, what I get. If the fatigue which I endure is of no use to my soul, I am losing time and trouble." The Pope, who was fond of him, put his hands upon his shoulders and said, '' You are doing much both for soul and body." Body and soul were, however, separated on the i8th February, 1564. The man with " the broad square forehead with seven lines straight across it," would be seen no more in the streets of Rome, or leaning on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence. The soul of Angelo remains for us — but his body had still to be fought for, like the body of Moses. Rome and Florence disputed for its possession. Immediately after his death the Pope had the great painter carried to the church of the SS. Apostoli, to remain there until a tomb should be raised for him in St. Peter's. But the Florentines contrived to steal his body from the church and convey it by stealth to Florence. There it was received at midnight, the oldest and most distinguished of the NICHT AND SLEEP. i6i academicians — painters, and sculptors, and architects — bearing torches, the younger men carrying the bier Although the greatest secrecy had been observed the news passed quickly from mouth to mouth and the citizens crowded in thousands to the church of Santa Croce. There Michael Angelo still sleeps. The life of Michael Angelo as a painter, and sculp- tor, and architect, might be paralleled by the life of Michael Angelo as an engineer, as a scholar, as a philosopher, as a poet. The " seven lines straight across his forehead " — are they not a cypher of the sevenfold gifts of his genius ? We are concerned with his life as one of the great torch-bearers that flash light upon the Text-Book of the student. But before closing this brief review of his splendid career there is one episode of singular beauty to be recalled, in which he stands before us for a moment crowned with laurel, against the dark background of the troub- lous times in which he lived. Amongst the sculptures which adorn the tombs of the Medici, the figure of "Night" made so powerful an impression that many poets vied with each other in celebrating it in verse. A stanza, attributed to Strozzi, is thus translated by our author. " This " Night,'* whom thou seest slumbering in such sweet abandon- ment, was sculptured by an Angel, in this marble. M i62 THE BOOK OF LIVES. She is alive, although asleep. If thou wilt not believe it, wake her, she will speak." To this Michael Angelo replied, in verses equally polished, and with an exaltation of thought that lifts him as a poet to his own level as a sculptor : — " Sweet to me is slumber, and still sweeter to be in marble. Not to see, not to feel, is happiness in these days of baseness and dishonour. Wake me not, then, I pray thee, but speak low." There is but little space left for fault-finding. For- tunately, however, but little space is needed. There are some quaintnesses of style, arising from the fact that the work is a translation. But the reader will, I think, be more than content with the chief figure, and by no means disposed to quarrel with the back- ground. The irregularities will not trouble him much after the first few pages. But the remark that "Such giants " (M. Clement is too fond of the word " giant ") ** Such giants are thus thrown far and wide on the pages of history " is to say the least incongruous. And what can be the meaning of all this? "He stands forth among Dante, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Raphael, like a Titan, the last surviving scion of a perished race, lordly commander of that army of giants." The four names appear to be thrown together without consider- ation, and neither represent his contemporaries, nor THE COMPLETE LIFE. 163 a line in succession. Angelo may have been a greater architect than Brunelleschi, but as painters Raphael and Da Vinci were at least his equals ; while in no sense can he be said to have commanded Dante, who, as a poet, was not only his master, but died a century and a half before Angelo was born. And now let us ask ourselves one question. Is the artist's life complete without the study of such books as these ? Can the lover of Art know the full splen- dour of his Mistress' face if he never ventures to lift her veil ? I plead for the study of Art in the lives of the great Artists. The mind of the true artist is at the same time the simplest and the most complex : — the simplest because it deals with nothing except as unity; the most complex because this unity must con- tain everything. And the formation of such a mind is not a slight process. To draw from the antique — that is well. To draw from the life — that is essential. But to see the soul — that is the culminating glory of the artist. There is a beautiful story told by Theo- dore Watts, in his brief mongraph on the painter-poet Rossetti. When our first parents were driven from the garden of Eden, God— always tempering his judg- ment with mercy — made dim within their minds the memory of that blissful place. And when sons and daughters were born to them, these were content with M 2 i64 THE BOOK OF LIVES. their heritage, not knowing what they had lost ; and Eve was content with their contentment. But at last, after many years of a mother's joys and sorrows, Eve gave birth to a child unlike the others — and her heart was troubled ; for this poor little child would be found listening with a rapt face to strains of divine music, uncaught by Eve's ear now, and in the pupils of his eyes she saw waving branches that she remem- bered now to be the long-forgotten trees of Eden. We have read the life of Michael Angelo in vain if we fail to understand the story. Do we not forget? Are not poets and painters born amongst us that they may see, and that we may remember ? If our sight is dim for these things, is it not well for us to look into the eyes of such men? It is to enable us to do this that these books are written. DECLINE OR PROGRESS. T S judgment to go by default ? — or is there anything -■- to be said in defence of Art against the stigma cast upon it by the wagging of pessimist heads over its so-called Decline ? Before surrendering our hope of the future, let us at least examine the credentials of the Oracle which has spoken evil from Apollo's Shrine. Mr. Francis Turner Palgrave, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, has given to the world his views upon the subject. His purpose is " to set forth a long series of historical facts, ancient and modern, the consider- ation of which might, to those who accept his version, be of use both to artists and spectators, by showing what we may and what we cannot expect in Art in these days." And he does this by arguing that Art is, ''The Decline of Art." By Francis Turner Palgrave, M.A., Professor of Poetry at Oxford. " Nineteenth Century" Jan. 1888. i66 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. and has been for nearly two thousand five hundred years " in a state of constant, inevitable, and natural decline." Now two-and-a-half millenniums measure a pretty considerable length of time in the history of Art ; and the word " Decline " has a very definite meaning. It was about four hundred years before Christ that Zeuxis, reputed the greatest of the Greek painters, confessed himself defeated by his rival, Parrhasius, because, while Zeuxis " had painted a bunch of grapes so natu- rally that it deceived the birds — for they pecked at the picture, Parrhasius painted a curtain that deceived Zeuxis himself, for he stretched out his hand to draw it aside." Would Turner have confessed, or would Leighton or Millais now confess themselves beaten by such a test ? or would they submit to such a test at all ? Two things are obvious, alike to artists and spectators : (i), that the standard by which painting was judged in the time of Zeuxis is not the same as that to which we now appeal ; and (2), that if the transition from the standard of Zeuxis and Parrhasius to that of Leighton and Millais represents a decline in Art, the decline has been very slow indeed. But the word " decline " means failure, decay, the tendency to a less perfect state : whereas, if the Professor's facts are to be accepted (and, for a reason which will presently appear, it is not for me to contest them) Art has suffered during that period THE PYTHON. 167 at least one death, and a resurrection, and for about three centuries after its new birth " declined " steadily upwards. The truth is, the Professor has visited a field where there is a succession of crops, and — forget- ting that the ground has been ploughed up between each sowing — has compared the second and third harvests with the first, not taking into account that the value and the beauty of them differ not so much in degree as in kind. Having spent much of my life in the study of the subject, and written a book on the question whether there is, or is not, a great future before us in Art, I turned to Professor Palgrave's article with considerable interest. But, as I read, a strange succession of images passed before my mind — like scenes dissolving in a magic lantern. Chief among them was that of a man being swallowed by a python — his shape still visible amidst its convolutions — the man struggling to extricate himself before the process of assimilation should be complete. And I laid down the book with the sincere hope that the struggle would not prove to be too late. It did not take long to resolve the mixed images into their component parts. Taking from my bookshelf " The Witness of Art," a volume I had published twelve years ago, I recognised in it no less than seventy of the i68 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. slides that went to make up the Professor's phantas- magoria. Let me place a few of them side by side, and then proceed to examine them a little in detail. Those on the right are from Mr. Palgrave's article ; those on the left are from " The Witness of Art." It is not without a sense of peril that I venture to differ from the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. But differing as we do on the main issue, it is the more consoling to find that on many points we are in perfect agreement. If we do not say the same thing in the same words, at least we contrive to say the same thing in the same place. Thus we begin by remarking : — " But then the brute is born " Art humanises, art edu- a brute, with instincts savage, cates, art elevates, we often or gentle, or noble ; while we hear. Culture finds in art one are born children — and have of its most powerful aids and to acquire our knowledge by instruments." patient study and careful cul- ture. — And Art is one of the highest means of culture we possess." again — Art is not for the Artist only, but for us all — —"To refine "Hence we have that little us, to ennoble us, to raise us school of writers, in whose from baser pleasures, to fill creed art is the principal agent our eyes with beauty and our to train, refine and comfort hearts with gladness." our souls." and yet again — for it is quite touching to see how our SECTARIAN CRITICISM. 169 minds, while working out such different results, con- ceive the same ideas, and how we happen to quote the same authors at the same moment : — " Is there an evil in the hard, pitiless, grinding competition of life ? It was a saying of Goethe that every man should see every day at least one fine work of Art."— 44. " The many gifted Goethe, whom some beautiful lines des- cribe as vexed by the conflicts and perplexities of life, saying to himself, * Art still has truth, take refuge there.' "—72. We then proceed to divide the subject into " The Greek, the Mediaeval or Renaissance, and the Modern Schools," introducing it thus : — "If Polycletus was greater than Michael Angelo in ideal- ity, Michael Angelo was greater than Polycletus in fervour ; but this implies that an ex- cellence is conceivable that should surpass both." — 49. " The answer will be that if we cannot exactly name the Phidias or the Michel Angelo of the hour, yet that in some other province art stands on a level with past generations." —72. Here I venture to caution the student against the danger of sectarian criticism, with special reference to Catholic and Protestant claims. Professor Palgrave does the same : — " How common, for example, is the idea that Church music suffered at the Reformation. Such a proposition, however, will not bear examination." " Modern criticism, misled by a morbid and essentially sectarian hatred of the so- called Catholic revival, does great injustice." -but while I say hopefully, Professor Palgrave (who it I70 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. is true has had twelve years longer to consider the question) says despondingly : — "In the broad human sym- " This doctrine of the widen- pathies of the religion with ing influence of the fine arts in which it is allied, Modern Art the modern world has every- has everything to hope for and thing to recommend itself in nothing to fear." — 51. our eyes — if it be true." — 73. The *' fear that it may not be true," however, does not deter the Professor from following me in the historical argument. We both begin by touching slightly on Assyrian Art : — "The Assyrian, dwelling in "The evidence is very full the great city of Nineveh, and strong that their art did patiently working with mallet embody and express the high- and chisel at the winged bull, er thoughts and aspirations of will cut into it the thoughts these countries, Assyria and that fill his mind." — 105.* Egypt." — 76. Of course this reference to Assyrian Art is essential to my argument, which is, that Art is always the reflex of the age ; that amongst the Assyrians its theme was action ; amongst the Greeks its theme was beauty ; amongst the Mediaevalists its theme was the passion of heroism and saintly virtue. I am glad, therefore, that * The sequence of the references occasionally is broken. This arises from the fact that " The Witness of Art " is written in three sections, ist, a poetical outline or forecast of the subject; 2nd, the historical argument; and 3rd, the parallel in Landscape Art in Poetry. Professor Palgrave appears to have followed it in his digressions into the subsidiary sections. THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 171 the Professor confirms my view so far. But what Assyria has to do with the Decline of Art is not quite clear. We both refer however to the wealth of our museums in relics of Egyptian and Assyrian Art. And then we trace the rise and development of Greek Art: — **Two blocks of stone were all very well for Castor and Pollux, and Homer may have been content to worship them thus; but when he came to sing about their sister Helen, he gave to her all the supreme loveliness of real womanhood. — And then the sculptors fol- lowed. Greek Art has but one and the same symbol for gods and men." — 55, 158. " A fragment of Greek sculp- ture is the highest rendering of it in Art the world has ever seen." — 157. " The Greeks, then, rising above the efforts of earlier races, throwing aside their monstrous images of Deity, imaged their Gods in idealised human form ; whilst when treating humanity itself, they aimed at representing 'men as they are men within them- selves". — 76. " These fragments, as models for true treatment and grace, are yet confessedly ' the master light of all our seeing." — 78. Thus the Art of Greece reaches its culmination through the splendour of the intellectual life ; — " The eftect upon Art was to raise it from the dust to a throne of intellectual great- ness, the like of which has been seen in no other country, and at no other period of the world's history." — 56. " In the field of intellectual art the world no longer pro- duces work which can be set by Greek sculpture. The world has never seen the like, no, nor near the like, for ex- quisite invention." — 74, 75. In illustration of this association of the highest forms of Art with the highest manifestation of intellectual 172 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. force — the conjunction of the genius of the artist with the inspiration of the philosopher — we both happen to refer to Matthew Arnold ; — " The eftect — for it is more than a coincidence, that the century which embraced the Hves of Socrates and Aristotle, embraced also the lives of Phidias and Praxitiles. — The story of Adonis, as Arnold tells it, is full of pathos and beauty ; and to the intellectual athlete such an interpretation may have been possible." — 61. " Matthew Arnold has a fine remark that ' for the creation of a master-work in literature two powers must concur — the power of the man and the power of the moment.' The same is true of Art. Nowhere have these happy conditions coincided so largely, so geni- ally, or for so long a time as in Greece." — 77. After such perfect concord, even in our references, it might be supposed that we should go on together to the end, and so we do — in one vsense. " If however the realisation of the Beautiful is the one aim of Art, there is an end of the matter, — Classic Art has ac- hieved that aim." — 57. " To the Greeks it is hardly too much to say, the world owes the creation of the Beau- tiful — that first and last word in art." — 77. Is this *' the little rift within the lute, that bye-and- bye will make the music mute ? " It may be — for to one of us " Beauty " is the first and last word in Art ; to the other Art has aims not included in that word — aims that do not, however, exclude it, but add to it a glory greater even than its own. But we do not part company yet. See — with what precision a series of NO COLLUSION. 173 thoughts may be echoed, without repeating the words in which they were originally expressed : — " They rewarded Socrates with a draught of hemlock, and Phryne with a niche in the temple of the gods." — 57. '* It told everything of the human frame in the splendour of its physical development, but nothing of that other life of man — the life of sorrow, of suffering, of fear, of hope, ot love, of immortality." — 61. " Thus Art became a witness of the people, of their lives, and their religion." — 61. "Men who instinctively rated the Beautiful as equivalent or convertible with the good." —77. " It was not indeed so de- finitely religious an influence — nor so closely entwined with morality — it gained a com- pensating power through the supreme sensitiveness of the Hellenic race to beauty." "The fine arts, which are always the expression of their age, changed with it." — 85. So far in the mouth of two witnesses the facts are established; and that there is no collusion is seen in the fact that even when we agree in our ideas, and use identically the same illustrations, we express them a little differently in words. Thus, in likening the de- cadence to a retreat after battle, we say : — " Then came the decadence of Classic Art ; inevitable, ter- rible, irretrievable; like the demoralization that seizes upon an army, wasted by fam- ine, decimated by pestilence, and whose leaders are divided in their counsels." — 62. " Before these advancing forces of modern life, art, like a primitive people retreating in face of one armed with the powers of civilization, has, I hold, been inevitably giving way since the beginning of its third period." — 84. It is as if a mosaic had been broken, and in the 174 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. putting together of the pieces, twelve years afterwards, some were a little displaced. But why does Art retreat before civilization ? I know not. I thought, indeed, that in the time of Pericles there was civilization in Greece, and that during the Renaissance there was civilization in Italy. But still, the decadence did come — and the argument proceeds : — " The last great sculptors of the classic period must have been engaged upon the famous statue of Laocoon about the time when St. John was writ- ing the Apocalypse." " Vespasian, for whom these sculptors wrought, has passed away with the mighty Empire of Rome." — 64. "After the ten dark and 'silent centuries,' Poetry and Art were, indeed, very nearly dead." " At last out of the darkness we hear the voice of Dante, we see the quaint devices of the Italian painters ; and the first great Christian poem is like a burst of solemn music." — 65. — " With the arts of Greece transferred to Rome our first period closes, and we now turn to the second period, that of Christian, Mediaeval, and Re- naissance." — 79. " In Vespasian's time 3000 statues were counted — things which should have been 'joys for ever,' but are not." " From the fourth to the thirteenth centuries the Hel- lenic impulse had indeed died out." "The obscure centuries of Christian art, say between a.d. 500 and 1200, and then the outburst which followed in Italy."— 80. It was Dante who called them the ''silent" centuries; because for so long a time there had not been heard the music of a poet's song. And, not irreverently, but writing as an artist, and thinking of the long, blind THE SILENT CENTURIES. 175 years, I ventured to add that to the painter they were dark. But why does the Professor of Poetry at Oxford make them " obscure " ? History does not cease with the Roman Empire, and begin again with the Renais- sance. But we often differ in the choice of a word — as also we do in the placing of an episode ; for instance — Mr. Palgrave uses the following incident as an intro- duction to the general subject, whereas I had placed it as an introduction to the Renaissance. "How little was known of Art when these men lived. A painting by Cimabue was car- ried in solemn pomp and pro- cession to the Church of the Virgin at Florence, amidst the acclamations of the citizens." "The gieat Madonna pic- ture by Cimabue was carried in state and triumph through Florence to the Church. — The modern spectator comes to en- joy where the mediaeval crowd came to reverence." But the application is the same in either case. " For what was their theme but Christ ? The one central figure in the splendour of its divine beauty which has con- secrated Art for ever — was it not that of the Master ? For the Religion of Christ is a living flame, and Art must express it passionately." — 67. "All that Art was founded on Christianity :— its first main object was simply to set before men the religious idea, and, especially, the life of our Blessed Lord, with all the intensity that an age which on all things felt intensely could command." — 81. So that where I use the word " passion," Mr. Palgrave uses the word " intense " — not a very serious difference. In illustration of this passion, or intensity, we both refer to Dante. Of course we do. Everybody refers to 176 DECLINE OR PROGRESS, Dante. But what delights one is the thought that men of different minds should find in him the same thing — the same simile — the same divine flame — — " Who can forget Dante's first vision of his Beatrice The wall of fire through which he will pass, because she is at the other side."— 88. "In Dante's beautiful phrase, these artists were men *on fire with that flame which gives birth to holy flowers and holy fruits.'"— 81. Then occurs a wonderful amplification : — "The learning of Da Vinci, the versatility of Michael An- gelo, the impetuosity of Tinto- retto, the patience of Carlo Dolce — were all bent to the same purpose — the direct aim at religious emotion."— 70. "The inventive force of Gi- otto, the spiritual intensity of Angelico, the mystic beauty of the Umbrian school, the Ver- gilian grace of Raphael, the indefinable fascination (sic) of Michel Angelo, the tenderness of the Lombards, the splen- dours of Venice these are powerful influences for lifting the heart, if we will, to high, holy and happy thoughts." If the Professor did not care to cut loose from " The Witness of Art " for a moment, would it not have saved trouble to have quoted it as it stood, without "improving the occasion " as Matthew Arnold says. The name of Fra Angelico is sufficiently suggestive of the religious character of his art. But what is the meaning of " the mystic beauty of the Umbrian school ? " Is it that Franceschi devoted himself to the mathematics of perspective ? or that the works of Raphael Sanzio and ''INDEFINABLE FASCINATION:' 177 Pinturicchio are striking examples of art applied to decorative purposes ? All this we learn in Mr. Poynter*s excellent Treatise on Italian Painting ; but nothing is said there about " the mystic beauty" of the Umbrian school. Perhaps it was only a " happy thought," to use the Professor's own words, to which " his heart was lifted " by the contemplation of the '^ indefinable fascination of Michel Angelo." But now I ask very seriously — What is there in all these facts, and inferences, and illustrations, and similes (in which we are so curiously agreed), that can justify the expression " The Decline of Art ; " — at least so far as the Christian art of the Renaissance is compared with the Pagan art of Greece ? Is " Decline " the right word ? Should it not rather be " Transfiguration ? " — or at least *' Transformation ? " The art of painting, as practised by the Greeks, may be eliminated from the question, for we have no means of making a fair com- parison between it and the work of the Renaissance. The only comparison we can make is between the sculptors of Greece and the painters of Italy. But the evidence which satisfies us that the art of sculpture culminated in the time of Phidias, does not touch the question whether the art of painting did not culminate during the life of Titian. Still less does it decide the greater question whether the true "art feeling" of the N 178 DECLINE OF PROGRESS, Renaissance was an advance, or a decline. The mere change in the form of the manifestation of that feeHng is nothing, — or, if it has any bearing on the issue, it would give the palm to Christian Art rather than to Pagan, since painting is a more advanced form of Art than is sculpture. But Professor Palgrave himself admits that Christian Art "rose to a spiritual height and expressiveness; which the world never saw before." Is it a small thing for Art thus to have taken into itself the life and passion of Christianity ? What more shall be asked of it ? To what greater height can it aspire ? To have become the Witness of faith in the One Eternal God, who in His wisdom created all things very good — is this Decline ? But let us gather a few more historical facts, and in- ferences, and illustrations, and similes, from the transi- tion of the Renaissance to the Modern Schools. "But the saints on canvas, like the gods in marble, de- generated. The supernatural virtue of Raphael's St. Cathe- rine finds no counterpart in the works of Raphael's favour- ite pupil. Guercino is more earthly than the Caracci." — 73. " Yet these glories conceal the gradual loss of truth to the subjects the artists professed to present. The later religious pictures of Italy are ineffective to our minds. The names of the Caracci, for example, are spells to us no longer." — 83. This is indeed decline ; but not — as Professor Palgrave supposes — the long, hopeless, endless decline of Art. THE LOT OF THE IMITATOR. 179 It is the decline of a school; it is the decHne of the Renaissance — " Content to do again what others had done already — they followed where others had led, and followers cannot be lead- ers."— 81. " There came a time at last when there was not one worthy to be named with those mas- ters." — 73. " There is a monotony about the Renaissance — but such is the natural, the inevitable, lot of the imitator," — 82. *' During this whole period, only one artist can be named in the loftiest rank."— 84. This is death, rather than decHne. But to deny the possibiHty or the hope of a new Renaissance would be a petitio principii. Whether a new Renaissance ever came we have yet to see. In the meanwhile — " We cease to wonder that Classic Art should have perish- ed, remembering the words (of Tennyson) 'He that shuts Love out in turn shall be from Love shut out.'" — 76. " To Mediaeval Art we may apply, with a little change, the beautiful lines of Tennyson— ' Had men one sorrow and she shared it not ? ' "—87. It is fortunate that we did not work together in the same library, or we should have been perpetually stum- bling over each other in reaching for the same book, at the same moment. The conflict was going on between the skill of the craftsman in imitative realism, and the higher aspira- tions of the poetic faculty. In illustration of this I refer to Browning, and Professor Palgrave refers to N 2, i8o DECLINE OR PROGRESS Rossetti, so that for once we stretch out our hands for different books. But the difference is not very material. My reference to Browning is the hope that soul would win — "paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ; " his reference to Rossetti is the lament that soul had lost — ** hand no longer painted soul.'* "Art had sunk to a degra- dation from which nothing could redeem it except a new creation of social and religious life. And this came with the Reformation." — 78. " In the meantime Claude and Poussin were begin- ning to lead the way into the School where Nature should be supreme mistress-" — 81. "The effect of the Reforma- tion was to break up the de- generated school of Mediaeval Art."— 83 " It inspired the painter with a spirit analagous to what Theologians call the right of private judgement. Hitherto men had worked in schools." -84. " For the deep underlying cause we must look to that great change which accom- panied the Renaissance in literature and the Reformation in religion." — 83. " Passing by subordinate schools we find first in the work of Claude and Poussin the true beginnings of land- scape art." — 84. "The religious revolution destroyed at a blow the great function of religious art." — 83. "All fine art is a delicate compromise between Freedom and Necessity. — In old days it was a national movement; in ours it is the private aim of the individual."— 88. It is in this breaking up of the schools and models long established — this independent interpretation of Nature — that I see hope for the future of Art. Why should Professor Palgrave see in it only decline ? It is THE RETURN OF BEAUTY. i8i a new thing for the painter to take his canvas out into the fields, and as the cattle munch the clover or gaze dreamily into his face, to paint meadow and cattle simply as he sees them, without reference to how they should be painted according to the schools. But is this decline ? If in Nature there is ideal beauty, is it not for the painter ? If majesty and power, if tenderness and passion, is it not for Art ? When Nature declines, or our apprehension of her fails — then, and not till then, shall Art, which is the record of our communion with her, fail and decline also. Before passing altogether from the consideration of Mediaeval Art some reference must be made to Archi- tecture. The subject is so great that Professor Pal- grave and myself glance at it but slightly. I do not say that Gothic Architecture surpasses the Classic. The Greeks filled their land with temples to the gods. And such temples ! The Doric — strong as the youthful Hippomenes ready for the race. The Ionic — graceful as Atalanta as she stoops to gather the apples. The Corinthian — imperial as the Cyprian queen bringing the golden fruit from the Hesperides. But has not Christian Art filled the land with temples too ? For a thousand years Beauty had been banished from the world. If the Greek sculptors were the last to see the splendour of her face — if Virgil heard the sweeping of i82 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. her garments as she passed away— surely the cathedral builders of England, and Germany, and Italy, and France, were swift to greet her as she returned. For she did return — as in the legend of our childhood— she did return. The solemn minsters, the quaint statues, the sweet pictures, were but her shadow, as she visited us once more. The night had ended ; she had left the dark forest and the howling w^olves behind ; she had passed up the long avenue ; the doors rolled back, she entered, and behold! the palace of the Beast had be- come the temple of Christian Art. And was that Decline ? I think not. Nor, indeed, was it change only; it was growth. To the simple aim and desire for beauty had been added a new aim and desire — the expression of passion — an aim that did not exclude beauty, but gave to it a glory greater than its own. ^ So much for Architecture. As to Music, we only mention it to disniss it from the argument. And then we both turn to Poetry. The Professor dismisses that also, as having a history of its own, while I reserve it fo»* ^ separate chapter. But though Professor Pal- grave says that he dismisses the subject it makes no difference to our companionship. Again we turn to the same page — a beautiful passage in the Second Georgic, where Virgil, sighing for a country life, forsakes for a little while — but only for a " VIRGIL " OR " VERGIL » 183 little while — pastoral and heroic verse. Writing simply as an artist I was content with a free rendering of it. But Mr. Palgrave, as becomes a Professor of Poetry, supplies the text. " The billows thundering on " Rura mihi ei rigui placeant the shore, or the yellow corn in valUhus amnes ; and crystal streams of Virgil Flumina amem silvasque in- are forgotten in the cry of La- glorius.'" ocoon or the pipe of Daphnis." The great tidal wave breaking upon the littoral (vi maria alta tu'mescant objicibus ruptis) immediately pre cedes, and the sheaves of harvest {aut Cerealis mergite culmi) follow — it is the very heart of the passage I had quoted — so that, whether we think in English, or German, or Italian, or Latin, it is all alike — we think the same thoughts. " And yet Virgil was a land- " The artist may turn to the scape poet, and Claude was a wide field of landscape, and landscape painter, only neither find consolation for himself of them knew the full glory of and for us in nature, as Ver- landscape Art."— loi. gil was consoled."— 91. Now here is a curious thing. At this point, breaking away for a moment from descriptive verse, I take a new method of illustrating the subject, by making a few pen and ink sketches. One is of a fragment of Greek decorative Art ; another is a mosaic from St. Mark's, Venice ; and the two are placed side by side for comparison. Mr. Palgrave also happens to com- 184 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. pare a fragment of Greek Art with the mosaic of St. Mark's, Venice. Interesting as this coincidence of thought must be to the philosophic mind we must not linger over it, or we shall lose the thread of the argument : — " Mediaeval Art had reached its culmination, through the splendid genius and patient labour of three centuries." — 112. " But observe, among them all there was not one true land- scape painter. Great things were accomplished if great- ness can be measured by the yard. Paul Brill painted a landscape 68 feet long."— 112. " And marvellous things if we are to be content with the grotesque. Breughel ornamen- ted his landscapes with little devils."— 112. " If we place its beginning about 1250 A.D., within two centuries its vital force was waning; by 1550 it was all but exhausted." — 81. " Observe here how the pro- gress is from the art in which a fine human sentiment pre- dominates, to that which strives at little more than a skilful imitation of common life or landscape." — 84. "Their pictures were not classed in their own age in the range of serious work ; they bore the significant name of Drolleries."— 84. The gods and saints had passed away and the new life had not yet come. "We see no more the face of Aurora, no more Apollo in his chariot, no more Diana stooping to kiss Endymion, no more Ceres." — 113. " Except in a faint symboli- cal sense the religion of Hellas has long ceased to be. Pan is dead, and all the gods are dead with him." — 81. The face of Nature has taken the place of the gods and saints in the artist's studio ; but how does this affect LANDSCAPE ART IN POETRY. 185 the poet in his library ? This is a question quite dis- tinct from the Professor's subject. Here then is a crucial test of the faithfulness of our companionship. It bears the test fairly well : — " Landscape is to be rele- gated no more to perpetual background, or to be used only in illustration." " How deep the passion that it stirs ! Yet it is pure Land- scape Art. Turner could not so paint a face that it should win reverence or love. But he could so place before our eyes rock and cloud, and sea, and tempest." — 120. " But in the association of nature with the imagination, the poet has a power beyond that of the painter." " For the painter must lay down his palette in despair, and leave it altogether to the Laureate to tell the story of ♦The Talking Oak.'"— 124. — "The true beginnings of landscape— as an interest by and for itself, not treated as a background for man." " Landscape art can move us much and move us long, when the spectator's soul feels that the artist's soul is speak- ing through his canvas. This was the secret of our great landscapists from Gainsbor- ough to Turner." " In landscape, the higher office, as in other forms of art, seems to have passed from the painter to the poet." " The pages of Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson amply and delightfully supply us with what we rarely find expressed through canvas."— 88. There is much in the word " amply." Not that Professor Palgrave really quotes either of these poets, but in " The Witness of Art " the next eight pages are devoted to an analysis of every variety of illustration from Tennyson and Wordsworth ; so that if the Pro- fessor had been seriously reviewing the book, instead i86 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. of apparently amusing himself by paraphrasing it, he could have made his investigations without going be- yond its covers. — " But life is the central theme of Art — the life of man. Like the tree of life we stand in the midst of the garden." " But the hold of landscape on the human mind is of itself insecure — man is the one per- manent interest to man." We say this without hesitation, for we are sure that it is true. But when we are not so sure it is safer to put it in the form of a question. It is said that nobody should prophecy unless he knows — but any- body may ask a question. Thus, reverting to the main argument, the position of Modern Art in rela- tion to the past, and venturing upon a forecast of the future, we ask : — *• But still, the great schools of Classic and Mediaeval Art have perished, and shall Mod- ern Art endure ? "—91. " It is in vain to look back to the time when the gods reigned in the studio. We cannot re- store Pagan Art without the Pantheon. Apollos, Nymphs, and Cupids might have inspir- ed the Greek, but they came a thousand years too late, when Dryden or Spenser made them dance to English verse."— 133. " Does it (modern art) dur- ably touch the heart ? I have set forth the sway over the soul, which was held by the art of the classical and mediae- val world."— 87. "In this loss of 'the vision and the faculty ' the later Ren- aissance movement, turning men's minds to Greek and Roman literature and art — bringing the mythology of classical times into favour, and thus demoralizing art by a kind of bastard paganism — doubtless had its share." — 83. THE CHILD IN ART. 187 '* And yet there is progress in Art. Not that Angelo ex- celled Phidias, or that Turner surpassed Raphael. Each school not copying its predecessor, but adding a new domain." — 133. " Progress is but a relative term. It is in a recurrent curve, not a hyperbolic, that Advance moves. — Everything has its com- pensation. New losses balance new gains." — 90. Agreement comes no more as a surprise, or the fol- lowing cluster of four thoughts, within the compass of a few lines, would be a little startling : — "The painter is concerned only with the present and the past : — {Here quote from ^Locksley Hall.') "It is for poetry to lift our eyes — to show us the rest that is to come — until the voice of Christ once more says, * Peace.' " But this rest is not ours yet."— 115. — " At any rate, in regard to art, it is the old age of the world : — {Here quote from * Locksley Hall.') — " Civilization cannot any longer supply the essential at- mosphere of peace. In the words of a highly-gifted poet, — "We say that repose has fled."— 92. There are some curious statements made by the Pro- fessor of Poetry — which do indeed cause surprise, but upon which it is not necessary to comment. For in- stance, he remarks that " The Child in Art, was the invention of Reynolds." And he says this— although he must be aware that there is a '' Holy Family," by Correggio, in the National Gallery, and a *' Madonna di San Sisto," in the museum at Dresden. Perhaps the Professor had in his eye Sir Joshua's " Age of 1 88 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. Innocence," a portrait of a little girl with her shoe off. Pretty as the picture is, it can scarcely be ex- pected to efface from our memories the lovely Child- Christs of Italy and France, and Spain. What — through the long centuries of Christian Art — have the painters been painting? Has Mr. Palgrave never heard why Raphael was called '' The Divine?" But after such little divergencies it is never very long before we find ourselves at one again. How then could it be otherwise than that we should close, each with practically the same summary ; — I. — "The theme of Greek Art was beauty." 2.—" The theme of Mediaeval Art was the passion of heroism and saintly virtue." 3. — "The theme of Modern Art should be as limitless as is the splendour of the crea- tion."— 133. I. — "The sense of beauty belonged to the Greek race." 2. — " Inspired by Christian- ity it rose to a spiritual height of expressiveness — which the world never saw before, and has never seen since." 3. — "Art has enlarged its boundaries." — 91, It appears to me that the Professor of Poetry at Oxford, in turning from the collation of verse to the collation of a long series of historical facts, ancient and modern, relating to Art, has enlarged his boundaries, at the cost, however, of treading on dangerous ground. To a Professor of Poetry the progress or decline of Art LIFE OR DEATH. may be a very interesting question of dilettanteism — but to the working artists of our day it is a question of life or death. Life — not in the lowest sense of their daily living, death — not in the sense of any loss they may directly sustain by the proving of his thesis — but life and death as regards their attitude to the future. It is the question whether they are living members of a living organism, that, by a process of evolution, shall yield higher results — or whether they are the disinteg- rated atoms of an organism in decay. Why should it be decay ? Is it the law of Nature, that anything good should perish ? or not rather that from "good " should be evolved *' better " ? Is it the law of social life, that with more noble environments men should become more base? Is it the law of Christ, that the religion He has given us should strengthen us in civil liberty, in knowledge, in the perception of moral truth, that it should " make for righteousness," that it should tend towards " sweetness and light," and that it should weaken us and drag us down only in Art ? I do not believe it. But that is sentiment. Well, sentiment has a good deal to do with Art as regards its progress or decline. Let us then come to facts. Michael Angelo was sculp- tor and painter, and poet and architect. But the splendour of his genius affects Professor Palgrave only as an '^ indefinable fascination." If so, upon what igo DECLINE OR PROGRESS. authority does he assume that mediaeval painting is inferior to classic sculpture ? Could Professor Palgrave in a museum of Greek statues, without reference to the names upon the pedestals, discriminate the touch of Scopas from that of the other sculptors who may have worked with Phidias upon the Parthenon ? Could he distinguish the method and style of Polycletus from that of Praxiteles, as any artist of our own time could tell the name of the painter of every picture in the great Manchester Exhibition without referring to a catalogue ? Until he can do that he has not himself mastered even half the question upon which he writes — he can at the best only speak second-hand. For the rest, I have already met his argument for the Decline of Art, twelve years before he propounded it. But the Professor puts forward two new ideas which are not to be found in the " Witness of Art." The first is, that " a sure sign of a high and healthy art-period has always been that the two functions of art — the intellectual and the decorative — have been kept separate — ornament satisfied to be simply orna- ment ; intellectual art never lapsing into decoration." The second is, that " the fertility of fine art has pro- gressively diminished," that " fine art has fallen away in quantity as well as in quality," and that ''this was inevitable because of the smallness of the art-soil— Italian art covering a far less area than the Greek." NEW IDEAS. 191 Both these propositions are based on incorrect data. But that is not of much consequence, because if the data were correct, the inference would not be as Pro- fessor Palgrave supposes. The data are incorrect. The work of Phidias, who is esteemed by modern critics the greatest of classic sculptors, (though the Greeks only rated him second to Polycletus) was chiefly decorative. The friezes, and metopes, and pediment of the Parthenon, were purely accessory to the design of the architect. They were ornament — pure and simple — and they were ornament not satisfied to be ornament only — but rising to a splendour of intellectual and inventive force that adds a lustre even to the age of Pericles. But Mr. Palgrave says that in the best period intellectual art never lapses into decoration ! The sculptures of the Parthenon were of the best period. Was the work of Phidias intellectual but not decorative ? or decorative but not intellectual ? Let the Professor of Poetry take his choice of the dilemma. Every artist knows that it was superlatively both. But if we turn to the Renaissance — that was the best period too— in painting. Did the masters, from Giotto to Raphael, never lapse into decoration ? If so, by what unknown or forgotten hands were the churches and palaces made lovely with frescoes and mosaics that are still a glory in the world ? Was the work of 192 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. Michael Angelo intellectual but not decorative ? or was it decorative but not intellectual ? Let the Professor of Poetry take his choice of the dilemma. Every artist knows that it was superlatively both. But what is the genius of Michael Angelo to one, whom it affects only as an " indefinable fascination " ? Then, as to the limitation of the area. The Pro- fessor defines the districts peopled by the Greeks with statues, and tell us that 3000 could be counted in the Island of Rhodes — but he does not give us a map. If he did, I suppose it could not cover a larger territory than that of the then known world. But what is the area now ? England, and France, and Germany and Italy, and Spain, and Belgium, and Holland ; to say nothing of Russia — that is coming in ; or of America, that would claim to take part in the reckoning ; and Australia — that claps her hands in welcome to the painters of the old countries, and builds for them a National Gallery in her new capital. While as to the " out put," has Professor Palgrave ever served on a Hanging-Committee in a great London Exhibition ? There is as much cant in Art, as there is in Religion. In Religion it takes the form of the assumption of a virtue one does not possess ; in Art it takes the form of the assumption of a knowledge one does not possess. Oxford has spoken — but does Oxford know ? The Pro- CANT IN ART. 193 fessor of Poetry, looking into the future, can see no higher destiny for Art than that it should be something " to remind the world of ancient and better days." It is a dismal forecast. But let us not be without hope. One — not indeed from the Isis, but from the Cam — wrote, long ago : — " The oracles are dumb ; No voice of hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving : Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine ; With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving." If it was too late in Milton's time, it is still more too late now, for the gods to escape an examination ol their credentials. The forecast is indeed dismal — but what shall be said of the reason assigned for it ? viz. that "civilization can no longer supply the essential element of peace." Is then an atmosphere of peace necessary to the free development of Art ? What peace did Torquemada bring to the painters of the Renais- sance ? They may have caught the expression of the faces of their souls in Purgatory from the faces they had seen wreathed with flame at the stake. Durer was the friend of Luther, when he nailed his thesis to the church door. There were stirring times during the life of Titian — when Venice stood in arms, alone, against the world. Rome and Florence were not without o 194 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. their troubles in the time of Michael Angelo. Dante did indeed sigh for peace — but that was when his work was done. I do not know what Professor Palgrave thinks of Dante — but Michael Angelo is to him an " indefinable fascination." Let us therefore turn to Hellas. Had the Athenians peace while Phidias was designing "The Battles of the Amazons ? " During his life there was — in Greece — an earthquake, a pestilence, the revolt of two provinces, a rebellion, and thirteen great battles — from the defence of the pass of Thermopylae, to the first Peloponnesian war. And afterwards ? Within thirty years of his death Athens itself was forced by famine to surrender to its enemies, and its walls were razed to the ground. Is it necessary to recount the conspiracies, the tyrannies, the revolutions, the blood- shed, the disasters, the civil wars, that followed the building of the Parthenon, for nearly three hundred years — until Greece submitted finally to Rome ? That period of three hundred years embraced the lives not only of Phidias, but of Scopas (b.c. 450), Praxiteles (B.C. 324), and Polycletus (b.c. 232), — who, according to the Professor's own argument, were the greatest artists the world has ever known. It represents con- fessedly the noblest period of Greek art. The name of Hellas falls pleasantly on the ear — but had Hellas peace ? TWELVE YEARS AGO. 195 Let us suppose, however, that Professor Palgrave is right in his premises. If then, living in these degene- rate days of the nineteenth century, he is in a position to fully appreciate the relative merits of the best art of Greece, and the best art of Italy, and comparing one with the other to give the palm to either — is not that in itself evidence that he, at least, sees with clearer eyes, and larger vision, than did the Greek sculptor or the Italian painter ? But if that be so, where is the " Decline of Art ? " And now I have done with Professor Palgrave. It has been like the game of " paper-chase " in which we used to delight at school. The twelve years stand very well for a twelve minutes start. Off we go ! Now straight ahead, now winding, now doubling back — but always on the scent — over crystal streams, through cornfields, round the old village church, past the college library — followed and following. The surprising thing is that my pursuer never caught sight of me from first to last. . He cannot say that I failed to scatter traces — I cannot say that he failed to follow them. Why have we arrived at such different goals — I, claiming for Art a place in the van of civilization — he, content to leave Art to perish in a ditch ? Happily, the future of Art does not depend on the wagging of learned heads. For, however old the world o 2 196 DECLINE OR PROGRESS. may be, Art is always young. We may recognise with Professor Palgrave that the sense of beauty belonged to the Greek, and that, inspired by Christianity, Art rose (not declined) to a spiritual height of expressive- ness which the world never saw before, and has never seen since. But we need not stop there. The ideal is one element in the natural, the emotional is another element in the natural — but Nature is broader than either and includes both. This breadth, this comprehensive grasp of human life — not only in its material beauty, or its high aspira- tions, but in its every phase — not isolated from the other works of God, but knit together with the whole creation — this breadth has been the strength of the poet in all ages. It is expressed by Schiller when he says : — " Whate'er is human to the human being Do I allow, and to the vehement And striving spirit readily I pardon The excess of action." This is more than a canon of Art ; and in proportion as the artist has learned it will he find himself strong. Strong with the strength of Homer, who with his choir of singing boys sang from house to house the immortal verse that in his blindness must have been inspired by other than material beauty ; and with the strength of BREADTH, 197 Milton, who, although to him also Nature lay in dark- ness, made our rough language splendid with visions of the unseen world. It is thus that Art progresses. Not that Angelo excelled Phidias, or that Turner surpassed Raphael ; not that the poets of our age write better than did the masters of the great schools. The disciple does not begin where the master ends. There is none that can take up the palette of Raphael after his too early death ; and the hundred years of Titian did not suffice for him to impart his power to another. The poet or the painter dies, and — " Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's golden bough." And yet there is progress in Art. The Assyrian, with everything to concentrate his thoughts on war and human action, learned to depict the human form, while still utterly ignorant of Landscape Art. The Greek, absorbed in the realisation of ideal forms of beauty, and the Mediaevalist in the realisation of the life of human passion, missed altogether any adequate con- ception of that other life, the life of Nature, where only we find beauty without sensuality, and passion without suffering or sin. Thus the theme of Assyrian Art was Action ; the igS DECLINE OR PROGRESS. theme of Greek Art was Beauty ; the theme of Mediaeval Art was Passion : each school not copying its predecessor, but adding a new domain to the Empire of Art. If Greek Art limited itself to a few grand types of human beauty, and Mediaeval Art added new types in heroism and saintly virtue, it remains for the Modern school to show that the theme of Art should be as limitless as is the splendour of the creation. STUDIES FOR PICTURES. STUDIES PICTURES. ST. LAWRENCE, NUREMBERG. Beautiful Shrine ! that in the olden days Didst rise to guard the consecrated bread From violent hands, or the unhallow'd gaze Of eyes profane ; but now untenanted, With doors flung wide, a grave from whence the dead Hath passed — though still upon thy marble cross With pierced side, and thorn-crowned, drooping head Christ suffers to redeem our souls from loss ! He is risen ! hath rent thy bars ; thou canst not hold The Lord, the Lord of Hosts — at whose command All things created were ; before whose face The gates of Heaven or Hell alike unfold — Who, dwelling in the illimitable space, Holds all things in the hollow of his hand. 202 STUDIES FOR PICTURES. TO ADAM KRAFT. O Adam Kraft— with thy disciples twain — It needs strong shoulders and stout hearts to bear This burden, self-imposed ! Even Atlas fain Would rest sometimes, and get a friend to share His labour, else perchance, in sheer despair. He had fallen, and let the World go all to wrack: But neither he nor Hercules would care To poise a Church for ever on his back. See now ! The incense climbs its snowy height ; Can stone dissolve and vanish in a minute ? How like a ghost the thing slips out of sight ! Ah, no 1 'tis but a dream, the mischief's in it ; The west door opens — puff ! a little draught — Vanish the smoke, and lo ! poor Adam Kraft. STUDIES FOR PICTURES, 203 LA SAINTE CHAPE LLE. Like to a Virgin Queen in robes of state, August in presence, delicately fair As the fair girl that by her side doth wait Uncrown'd save with her golden-tressed hair ; Regal in splendour, yet withal as chaste As among flowers the lily : as though some power The treasures of the whole world there had placed To build again Medea's blissful bower. With new enchantments. Soft the sunlight falls On the inlay'd floor ; the groined roof hangs dim In its own splendour ; on the emblazoned walls Glow shapes celestial, winged cherubim, With heraldries of heaven, occult, unknown — And, in the midst. One, on a sapphire throne. 204 STUDIES FOR PICTURES. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL. A forest of tall pillars, autumn stained, Purple and russet gray, through which there glows A crimson splendour when the day hath waned And the great orb goes down in calm repose ; High through the vaulted darkness the great Rose Drifts like a setting sun beyond a zone Of silyery light where a pale window shows The story of Christ's Passion writ in stone. O glory of Art ! not thou alone dost wear These sacred symbols of the Love Divine ; We are His temples also, and do bear His image in our hearts, as on a shrine Where the light burns for ever clear and bright. Though the world drift into eternal night. STUDIES FOR PICTURES. 203 ST. MARK'S, VENICE. From Christ who sits upon the great white throne, To Christ in the little shrine where pilgrims kneel, It is Christ first, Christ last, and Christ alone : The Dragon writhes beneath His bruised heel ; The Mother holds the Child in mute appeal For worship — veiled with incense, lost in light. Drowned in sweet music — till the mystic Seal Is broken, and there is silence in God's sight. This is none other than the House of God, This is the gate of Heaven ! The Apostles stand With Mary and Mark, Christ in their midst, to greet Those who will enter. Come — with naked feet — Fearless — while yet the golden measuring rod, And not the sword, is in the angel's hand. 206 STUDIES FOR PICTURES. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. When the first arrow from Apollo's bow Doth pierce the narrow casement of the east, And from the ghostly shade bright visions grow Transfix'd upon thy walls — king, saint, or priest ; Or when the heights have all been scaled, and Day Shakes over thee its golden fleece of light ; Or when, arrayed in robes of solemn gray, Thou dost await the footsteps of the Night And Dian's coming, bending down her face To thee, Endymion like :— 'If the dead rise. Why lie they now so still, each in his place. And wake not, nor arise, nor lift their eyes To see thee in thy beauty ? — They await The coming of their Lord, who tarrieth late. STUDIES FOR PICTURES. 207 'y^ 8.y; u . ^ TREVES CATHEDRAL. Strong with the savage splendour of rude walls, And yet, with memories of a thousand years. Tender as the first flush of dawn that falls Silver and crimson on the massive piers : Argent and gules upon a field of gray — That is the vision — sounds are in my ears As of a river's tide — Beautiful Treves ! 'Tis the Moselle that thus doth lingering stay To kiss thy feet, and cool its restless wave Beneath the shadows of thy towers to-day. O treacherous stream ! to flatter and pass by, Nor whisper how the ancient gods were hurl'd From the strong altars of the Pagan world, And now forgotten in thy bosom lie. LONDON : T. BRETTELL AND CO. PRINTERS, 5I, RUPERT STREET, W. UNIVEESITY OF CALIFOENIA LIBRAEY BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing to $1.00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in demand may be renewed if application is made before expiration of loan period^ _ OEG 2t vm m 6 FEB 18 19!>0 AUG 291^21 JUN m- '^245 50m-7,'16 YC 22561 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRAR'^