1. »' •■■iVi'«- ■ / =v»vr>ifm-u -■;■>'■ ^^;:^i^.'^-■^;-• '■'■ -K.'r* ^-. - ■' UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES GIFT OF I.Irs. Ancelita Dennis 5^^lS U-.t>u-'U-^^VX '-^'^^^^"^ KwV^; STUDIES IN PICTURES Books by Prof. John C. Van Dyke ART FOR ARTS SAKE University Lectures on the Technical Beauties of Paint- ing. With Z4 Illustrations. i2mo. $1.50. THE MEANING OF PICTURES University Lectures at the Metropolitan Museum, New York. With 51 Illustrations. i2mo. $1.23 net. STUDIES IN PICTURES An Introduction to the Famous Galleries. With 40 Il- lustrations. i2mo. $1.25 net. TEXT BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF PAINTING With 1 10 Illustrations. i2nio. $i.so. OLD DUTCH AND FLEMISH MASTERS With Timothy Cole's Wood-engravings. Superroyal 8vo. $7.50. OLD ENGLISH MASTERS With Timothy Cole's Wood-engravings. Superroyal 8vo. $8.00. MODERN FRENCH MASTERS Written by American artists and edited by Professor Van Dyke. With 66 full-page Illustrations. Super- royal 8vo. $10.00. NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE First Studies in Natural Appearances. With Portrait. i2mo. $1.50. THE DESERT Further Studies In Natural Appearances. With Frontis- piece. i2mo. $1.25 net. THE OPAL SEA Continued Studies in Impressions and Appearances. With Frontispiece. i2mo. $1.25 net. CORREGGIO C), St. Sebastian. Vi^r.r.a Gallery. STUDIES IN PICTURES AW INTRODUCTION TO THE FAMOUS GALLERIES BY JOHN C. VAN DYKE AUTHOR OF "AKT FOR ART'S SAKE," "THE MEANING OF PICTURES," "a history OF PAINTING," "old ENGLISH MASTERS," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1907 t J J * J * * » i i * » » t J 4 » J > Copyright, 1907, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published March. 1907 TROW omecTonv PBINTIHO AND lOOrniNOINa COHPANV New YO«K NV C^v^/^S PREFACE The masterpieces of painting need no apologies; if they did they would not be masterpieces. Some- times, however, a word of explanation puts them in a better light. Gallery visitors are disposed to jump at conclusions about them, to exalt or debase them in advance of the evidence. That is why so many tourists return from Europe each season with mixed or violent opinions about the old masters. They have not seen truly nor comprehended adequately nor judged justly. For them, or for the newer and younger flight that goes over seas each summer to Hudy art, possibly this little volume may prove of service. It is not put forth as the final word ; in fact, it is only the first word — something designed to in- troduce the subject to further consideration. J. C. V. D. Rutgers College, February, 1907. S;i828 CONTENTS PART I Chapter I. Old Masters Out of Place. — The modem gallery — Painting for exhibition — Galleries unknown to the old masters — - Where the old pictures were shown — How removed from, original settings in church, chapel, and palace — Replacing in modern gal- leries — Distortion of purpose thereby — How pictures are hung in a gallery — Hurt by neighboring pictures — Casting of reflec- tions — Optical mixture and confusion thereby — Too much com- pany — Weariness of the eye and the imagination — Pictures in their original settings — Distorted by gold frames — Bad framing — Distortions of lighting — Gallery light never contemplated by the old masters — The famous galleries badly lighted — The Sis- tine Madonna — Insufficient distance at which large pictures are seen — Rubens — The Friedrich Wilhelm Museum, Berlin — The Louvre — Italian ceiling pieces — The old pictures rightly planned and painted for their original places 3 Chapter II. Pictures Ruined, Restored, and Repainted. — State of preservation of gallery pictures — Many almost destroyed by time and bad restoration — The "Mona Lisa " — The "Assumption" by Titian — Titian's "Presentation" and Rembrandt's "Night Watch" — Old masters not always what they seem — Correggio's "Holy Night" much injured — The reasons for restoration — Cleaning of pictures — Safe and unsafe methods — Results of un- safe cleaning — Use of alcohol and its results — Repainting and toning — Rubbing of painted surface is injurious — Necessity for restoration — Destruction of pictures by time — Relining and re- painting — Not all old pictures restored — The smaller ones better preserved than the larger — Bad care of pictures in old galleries — Detecting repainting — Painters' experiments cause of much vii viii CONTENTS trouble — Mediums and fugitive colors — Changes in pictures through fugitive colors — Italian and English pictures bleached — Turner's pictures — liitumen and black underbasing — Many things that may distort the painter's original meaning IG Chapter III. False Attributions, Copies, Forgeries. — Cele- brated names on inferior canvases — Names in gallery catalogues — Their attractive qualities — The thirteen Raphaels in the Louvre — Only five of them genuine — Raphael's portrait of himself — Its artistic value — Correggio's "Reading Magdalene" at Dresden — Its fate — Velasquez in American galleries — Good pictures under wrong names — Falsifying art history — Old copies as originals or replicas — How they were made in England — Copies of Rej'uolds, Leonardo, Raphael — Copies of V'elasquez's "Philip" — Detecting the copy — Copies by first-rate artists — School pieces — How they are painted — The Bellini workshop — Raphael's helpers — Detect^ ing the school piece — The forgery in Europe and America — De- tecting the forgery — Guides to follow in the matter of attribu- tions 29 Chapter IV. Themes of the Masters. — What pictures mean — The old church pictures — Mantegna's "Madonna of the Victory" — Religion and art to believing Italians — Absence of church meaning to us — Names and symbolism not art — Palma Vecchio'a "St. Barbara" — Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" and Bot- ticelli's "Spring" equally meaningless to u.s — What they are as art — The figures, costumes, colors, workmanship — Illustration and history as art — How art gives history — Botticelli's " Adora- tion" with its Medici portraits — Tintoretto's "Marriage in Cana" — Old masters painted their own age and people — Sacred and classic characters in Italian garb — .Anachronisms of dress and type — Archipological vs. pictorial truth — Pre-Raphaelites and Alma-Tademas — Hypercritical exactions — The value of painting what is seen — Carpaccio — Modern historical art — Value of a na- tion's art — Value of art independent of name — Portraits of un- known men and women — Fine types, profound truth, grace, charm, power, splendor, earnestness, honesty are pictorial qual- ities to be admired — Sincerity and "feeling" of the old mas- ters 43 CONTENTS ix Chapter V. Workmanship of the Old Masters. — Subjects be- come obsolete, but skill of artist lives — Apprenticeship under the Italian guilds — Work in the hottega — Painting an "Annunciation" ■ — Preparation from the decorative side — The materials, compo- sition, workmanship required — Something beautiful as decora- tion — Benozzo Gozzoli and the fresco in Riccardi palace — Beauty of the work — The Byzantine and Romanesque panels — The Vivarini at Murano — Botticelli's "Spring" again — Its decorative charm — Drawing and painting the figure with Raphael and Michael Angelo — Leonardo's "sfumato" — Giorgione and Cor- reggio — Rembrandt's light-and-shade — The Venetian color — The. decorative aim with the Dutch, Flemish, and English — Mr. Sargent's Boston decorations — Decorative beauty with the Im- pressionists — The artist's point of view to be considered. ... 55 PART II Chapter VI. Figure Painting. — Kinds of subjects painted — Figure pieces, historical canvases, portraits, genre painting, land- scape, still-life, marines — The human interest — Predominance of the figure piece — The narrative or story part of pictures not dealt with — Character in the figure — Drawing the hand — The "Delphic Sibyl" by Michael Angelo — The hands of the "Mona Lisa" — Kneller and Van Dyck hands — Van der Heist's hands — Mr. Sargent and the moderns — Drawing the foot with the ancients and mod- erns — Bouguereau's foot compared with Millet's — The "Gleaners" and the "Man with a Hoe" — Drawing by Legros, Courbet, Daumier, Frans Hals, Velasquez — Truth of character with the Dutchmen — Beauty of the ugly vs. beauty of the comely— Peas- ants and princes in art — Clothes and types — Ideal figures and faces — Pure decorative painting by Baudry and others 71 Chapter] VII. Portrait-Painting. — Scope of portraiture — Supposed origin of portrait-painting — Earliest portraits in Egypt and Assyria — -The portrait in Greece — The ideal and iconic por- traits — Realistic portraiture in Rome and in Italy — What the portrait should reveal — The surface portrait — The physical life X CONTENTS portrait — The character portrait — Painting of character — The ar- tist's view of reading character in or out of faces — What the painter sees — The face as an index of character — How a man's thoughts or occupation cliango his physique — The painter us an expert in physiognomy — The abnormal vision — Emphasis of feat- ures and caricature— Tlip small vx. the large view — Tlie great portrait painters — The high rank of portraiture — Nothing better in art — The "ugly" and the "handsome" in faces — Heauty in character — Costumes and their limitations in portraiture — Main- taining the proper balance — Titian and Velasiiucz S5 Chapter VIII. Genre Painting. — The small figure in art- Difference between historical and genre painting — Definition of genre — What it includes — Subordination of the figures to the general effect — Commonplace and intimate life on canvas — Genre implies something done from the model — Quite the opposite of classic or historic painting — Painters' views aboiit it — Genre painting deals with social life and is history — Opportunity for sentiment and imagination — But skill of artist in color, textures, light, and handling usually predominant — Art not judged by size — Painting of familiar life not a new thing — Known in Greece and Rome — The Venetian, Bassani — The Dutchmen Brouwer, Steen, Terburg, De Hooch, Teniers — F.nglish genre painters, Ho- garth, Wilkie, Morland — Watteau, Pater, Chardin, Fragonard — Oriental genre, Decamps, Marilhat, Fromentin — Peasant genre of Millet and Breton — Military genre of Meissonier — Impressionist genre — Modern use — Painting of still-life, flowers, china, dead game — Beauty of the familiar things 99 CnAPTER IX. The Animal in Art. — Place of the animal in painting — Study of animal life — Fitness of the theme for art — Domestic and wild animals — Egyptian and Assyrian practice — Excellence of Assyrian lions, dogs, horses, goats — The Greeks and their horses — The animal in early Christian art — Early Re- naissance horses and cattle — The Flemish and Dutch painters of animals — Paul Potter, Cuyp, lierchem, their limitations— Oudry and Desportes — Tlie animal with the Romanticists — Delacroix, G<5ricault, Barv'e — Delacroix's tigers — Decamps and Fromentin — Oriental camels and horses — Charact O < OLD MASTERS OUT OF PLACE 9 frame? And the frames are generally of bright gold, so bright that they are obtrusive. You keep seeing them, feeling their presence. This is a dis- turbance again, because in good framing one should look through-4he frame and not at it. It is at best merely a setting for the picture and you should not be made violently aware of its existence. The Dres- den Gallery is better off in this respect than any other in Europe, because its frames are old, dull, and keep their place. But the gold frame is, at best, only a relic borrowed from the old Italian altar-piece; and while it helps some pictures, it almost destroys others. The dark portraits by a Eembrandt, a Titian, a Velasquez would perhaps appear to greater advan- tage if framed in ebony; a blue-green Boucher, originally set in a wall panel and surrounded by tapestries, would perhaps gain by a blue-green fram- ing of Japanese silk ; and many a pale Tiepolo would look the better for a setting of ivory-white and dull gold. But gallery tradition has hung and hanged them all in bright golden fetters — a mode of execu- tion never contemplated by their producers. Then there is the additional abomination of coats of var- nish, added in the restoring room, which produce spots and glares of light on the surface. Perhaps there is still more distortion in the shape of a glass over the picture, in which you see your own reflection and almost anything else you please except the pic- ture itself. 10 STUDIES 1\ PICTURES And again liavo you over paused in your admira- tion or condemnation of these old pictures to tli ink- that not one of them was painted for the light under wliich you see it? Some M'cre done for church chapels; some for convent cells as Ghirlandajo's "Last Supper" (Plate 1); some for palace walls as the "Industry" (Plate 2) attributed to Paolo A^'eronese; some for hall and boudoir; but all were done for the dimly lighted buildings of three or four hundred years ago. Do you wonder, then, that they perhaps blink a little under the strong sky-lights of the Louvre, or look somewhat dull and mournful pushed into the little pocket cabinets of the Brera? The famous pictures of the Pitti are seen only by the light of side windows, and in consequence many a one has never been seen properly. The manage- ment of the gallery has done its best to obviate the diiliculty by having the larger pictures hung on hinges so that they may be swung in or out to catch the light from the windows; but nothing seems to change the directness of the light — its want of diffu- sion. It is hopelessly bad for gallery purposes. That portrait of the so-called "Young Englishman" — supposed to be the Duko of Xorfolk — (]*Iate 2C>), by Titian, is without doubt one of his finest canvases, and as noble a portrait as ever painter produced; but it cannot he seen to advantage in its room in the Pitti. Pocontly it has been placed upon an easel and pushed into a window recess where the light is even Ill,— TITIAN, La Bella (Duchess of Urbino). Pitti, Florence. OLD MASTERS OUT OF PLACE 11 more disastrous than bclorc. This is equally true of Titian's "La Bella" (Plate 3), of the splendid altarpicces by Andrea del Sarto, the great canvases by Fra Bartolommeo and Perugino, and many a smaller work by Eaphael that hangs there. The " Sistine Madonna " at Dresden is another illustration to the point. It was executed, as you know, for the church of San Sisto in Piacenza and painted to be seen by the dim light falling upon the high altar. Perhaps for that very reason it was " laid in " with rather high, primary tones of color that it might be seen clearly from all parts of the church. It is now in a small room of the Dresden Gallery where it is seen only by the glaring light from a side window; and people standing within ten feet of it wonder that the color is not more " subtle," as with Whistler, and the brush work more like the handling of Velasquez and Manet! Even artists of high rank in our own day, being quite unable to make allowance for the distortion of its meaning, placing, and lighting, have referred to it as " a shoddy piece of commercialism." True enough it does not in its present place look the great masterpiece people have chosen to think it; nor did Achilles look the great hero to Ulysses when seen in the drear gloom of Tartarus ; but I am willing to believe that Achilles before the walls of Troy was far from being the pale shade that Ulysses saw in the nether world, and I am sure that Raphael's altar-piece in the church of San 12 STUDIES IN PICTURES Sisto was a very difforeut ihing Trom the " Sistiue Madonna " in the Dresden Gallery. More fatal perlia])s in its results than the distor- tion caused by conflicting lights is the false impres- sion created by the insufficient distance at which we see these gallery pictures. A painter always, even to this day, scales his picture, adapts his composition, regulates the size of his figures, and paints broadly or minutely in exact conformity to the distance at which the canvas is to be seen. If you cannot see it at the distance the painter intended you should see it, then you are missing his point of view, and are out of focus. And for putting you out of focus I know of nothing more effective than the long, nar- row galleries of the Louvre or the Prado at ^ladrid. There has always been a gallery mania for hanging large allegorical or decorative pictures in just such places, and more than all others these are the ones lliat should not be hung there. Nothing could illustrate this better than the series of twenty-one pictures painted by Rubens for ]\Iarie de' Medici and placed in the grand room of the palace of the Luxembourg. The palace was afterwards de- stroyed and the pictures taken to the Louvre. For years they hung in that passage-way gallery through wliich bands of tourists continually do file; and for years every tourist, whether artist, connoisseur, or art-ignoramus, filed by and rejoiced to abuse " those big bad pictures by Rubens." Of course he could OLD MASTERS OUT OF PLACE 13 see nothing from his position save foreshortened legs and feet, yet that never influenced his denunciation in the least. But within the last few years a large room, corresponding in size to the room for which the pictures were originally designed, has been built in the Louvre, and now, framed in separate panels in their new home, the " big bad pictures by Kubens " have turned out to be superb masterpieces — marvels of decorative splendor. Painters and amateurs can- not now find enough to say in praise of them. Have the pictures themselves undergone any change? Not in the least. They are merely seen from a proper distance — the distance they were originally designed to be seen from — that is all. Eubens's pictures are not the only ones that have suffered thus. The fine Italian pictures, with the statues, bronzes, and bas-reliefs in Berlin, were never seen in the old galleries there except at a great dis- advantage. Within the last three years they have been removed to the new Friedrich Wilhelm Museum, which has been fitted up with lighting, background, wall space, and surroundings to suggest, if not to reproduce, the ancient setting of these works of art. On the main floor a church interior with chapels and altars has been erected, and some altar-pieces have been placed there in the chapels, to give an idea of how the pictures might have looked in their original homes. Everywhere in this new museum there has been the 14 STUDIES I\ PICTURES attempt to give plenty of room, the proper illumina- tion, and to create harmonious surroundings for the pictures hy placing near them Italian tapestries, cas- soni, tables, chairs, bronzes, terra-cottas. The effect is really quite wonderful. The pictures appear now much finer in quality, much more important than ever before. The whole new arrangement is a most suc- cessful attempt to obviate the disadvantages of trans- planting, to do away with the distortions of purpose produced by the old museums. Mrs. Gardner's Fen- way Court in Boston is another successful attempt at reconstructing a setting for pictures, at making an ensemble, a harmonious unity of art objects; and in this connection it is worthy of note that the Metro- politan Museum in Xew York has undertaken a simi- lar enterprise with its pictures. Of course a narrow gallery like that in the Louvre does little harm to a snuill picture as big as your hand, by Gerard Don or Meissonier. They are like miniatures, and need a microscope rather than set- ting and distance. Nor is a portrait by Van Dyck or Holbein either greatly harmed or helped by gal- lery light; but it is very different with a wall picture by Tintoretto, or a series of foreshortened ceiling pieces by Paolo Veronese. Seen at shoit range the figur(>s in the Tintoretto seem great lumpy giants falling out of the canvas, and the foreshortening of Paolo's figures and architecture you, perhaps, think some egregious blunder, because you are seeing them (V —PAOLO VERONESE (?), Triunriph of Mordecai. S. Sebastiano, Venice. OLD MASTERS OUT OF PLACE 15 placed upright on the wall instead of flattened on the ceiling (Plate 4). In Venice, when you saw Paolo and Tintoretto on the walls and ceilings of the Ducal Palace did you have any protest to make about foreshortening or large figures? In Antwerp, when you saw Eubens's " Descent from the Cross " at long range in the Cathedral, did you think anything about his figures being "gigantic, coarse, and Flemish"? The truth is that all the pictures by these great masters are rightly planned, scaled, and painted for the places they were originally-intGnded. to occupy. If we do not see them to-day from the proper point of view the fault is ours, not theirs. And the gist of what I would say just now is that the galleries are largely responsible for our false vision. We must make allowance then in picture viewing, as in almost every other pursuit or study in life, for our own blun- derings — the obstacles that we unwittingly put in our pathway, and over which we are continually stum- bling. We shall meet many of them in our study of pictures; and, indeed, if we ever arrive at an ap- preciation of any worthy thing it must be largely by a process of eliminating all the unworthy things that surround it. CHAPTER II PICTURES RUINED, RESTORED, AND REPAINTED Does it ever occur to the average person in a gallery to inquire into the state of preservation of the famous old masters that hang upon the walls — the masters that are looked at with so much delight perhaps? Practically all of them have been torn from church and chapel and palace, taken away by conquerors of one sort or another and given a home, after many wanderings, in public collections ; but are they in the same condition as when they first went forth from their makers' workshops ? These rare things of Leo- nardo or Titian or Romljrandt that are now the pride of this or that gallery, have they been transferred and kept witliout injury? Is the jewel the same, and is it only the setting we have lost? , Ah, no ! Many of the noblest and the best of pic- tures have l)ccn almost doslroycd by time and liad restoration. 'J'he canvas hanging upon the wall in bright frame with famous name attached is often only a pretence — a thing of shreds and patches. Let me bogin at once by being specifif. The " Mona Lisa'' is far removed from tho picture Leonardo let pass from his hands. Jt is only a pale ghost of its PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 17 former self. All the carnations of the face that Vasari tells us about have flown and given place to leaden hues. The subtlety of the lights and shades, the flow of graceful contours, the beautiful drawing of the cheeks, the forehead, and the throat, the charm of the costume, and the perspective of the background have been worn away, almost scrubbed out of exist- ence by cleaners' hands and a what-not of chemicals. It is a wreck, a precious thing to be sure, because we have so little left to us by Leonardo, but only a beautiful wreck ! The famous " Assumption " by Titian, in Venice, that every one goes into ecstasies over, is another wreck. There is hardly a square inch of its sur- face that now shows the brush of Titian. It might at one time have been a masterpiece, but to-day it is only a good illustration of how deceivingly the restoring-room can patch up a picture. It is re- painted almost solidly from top to bottom, and little more than the design — the outline drawing of the figures and the composition — is Titian's. That glori- ous glow of color that you have perhaps innocently enough raved^ about is largely the work of a second- rate modern painter who, perhaps failing to paint successful pictures of his own, long ago turned his talent in the direction of " restoring " old masters and making them " as good as new." He has restored Titian's " Presentation " (Plate ■5) as well as the " Assumption." Few large canvases 18 STUDIES IN PICTURES have escaped him. lie or his type i.s the genius of the gallery repair-shop to whom sooner or later al- most every old master is sent. As for the celehratcd " Night Watch " by Eeml)randt, I was looking at it only a few months ago with the director of the gal- lery where the picture is now placed, and in the course of the talk he said with a little smile: " If you could see the * Night Watch' without the deceptive varnishes and glazes you would be very much sur- prised." I answered that I had seen it in that con- dition, in the cleaning-room many years before, and had indeed been surprised. It was a sorry-looking afTair. The drawing and modelling were uncertain; the lights and colors were distorted, bleached, inhar- monious, alinosl impossible because of the old at- tempts at restoration and repainting. It was a clear case of another archangel ruined. I'erhaps you are startled by these statements and disturbed to find that some of the world's master- pieces are little more than ashes of roses, but you need not be. The information is not new, though it may not have hitherto found its way into print. Those mIio have studied the galleries thoroughly know that many of Ibc old pictures are hopelessly injured, ricnso note now ibal T say "many," not "all." ^'ou are not to conclude because some pic- tures are in bad shape that every one is a false pre- tence, and that consequently the appreciation of art is an nfTectation and its history a specious lie. On PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 19 the contrary, the great majority of small pictures are still well preserved, and some of the large ones are but slightly damaged. There is enough left of the uninjured to judge from and to enjoy. Why, then, do I mention the things that are patched together and restored? Simply and solely that you may not misjudge the dead masters. You are not to sum up the genius of a Coleridge from a fragment like " Kubla Khan," nor the genius of a Eembrandt from a wreck like the " Night Watch." Such pictures as the " Assumption " of Titian, and the " Holy Night " of Correggio, are very popular, and you may conclude that they are the best pic- tures their painters ever put forth. They may have been when originally painted, but they are not now. You are misjudging those great masters. If you would know them truly you must study Titian in such pictures as the early " Sacred and Profane Love " or " The Tribute Money," and Correggio in the pictures at Parma. Even the " Madonna of St. Francis " at Dresden is far better preserved, and better to study as an example of Correggio than his more mature but much injured " Holy Night." " But why are ' restorers ' allowed to ruin the old pictures ? " you may ask. The question requires an explanatory answer. The harm done is, of course, not intentional. Some of it is brought about through ignorance, some through want of skill in restoration, and some could not be helped in the nature of things. 20 STUDIES IN PICTURES Every director of a gallery likes to have a reputation for " doing things " — keeping things clean, if noth- ing else. He is usually a government ollicial and subject to inspection and criticism. When the mem- bers of a government commission march tlirough his gallery they may know nothing about art, but if they see all the pictures looking bright and fresh, and the premises wearing a " spick-and-span " look, they conclude that the director is doing his duty, and make report accordingly. The result is that some gallery directors like to have clean-looking pictures. Now the cleaning of a picture is always fraught with danger — especially in ignorant hands. The sur- face is coated with varnish, and it is the varnish that catches the dirt and has to be removed. The safe method of removing it is with the thumlj — that is, rubbing it with the bare thumb until the varnish grinds into white powder and is blown away with the breath. This takes time and labor. The quick, the lazy, and the unsafe way of cleaning is with a ball of cotton saturated with alcohol. The alcohol removes the varnish almost instantly; and it will remove the painting underneath almost as instantly, if not watched and checked by washing away. You can imagine thai this easy method of working is the one oftcner followed, and that accidents liappen when inexperienced operators handle the alcohol. The fluid eats swiftly, and, perhaps l)efore the cleaner knows it, the legs of a figure by Watteau, or the nose VI.— CRIVELLI, Madonna and Child. Brera, Milan. PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 21 and mouth of a Madonna by Raphael, have disap- peared from view — have been literally absorbed by the alcohol. But that does not give the cleaner more than a momentary palpitation of the heart. The blunder is to be covered up, hidden from the public by all means. So the picture goes into the hands of the " restorer," who with brush and paints calmly paints the legs and nose and mouth on again ! Once more you can imagine how the drawing of the " re- storer " would match and carry out the drawing of Eaphael, and how his painting would tally with the vivacious handling of Watteau ! But the work is done, the surface is somehow " toned down " with neutral tints, then varnished anew; and the picture is sent back to the gallery to be hung, in a dark cor- ner perhaps, where you will not notice its patching. But the patches never match the original piece. You cannot make new paint match old paint. The picture is injured forever. Even when the removal of varnish is carefully done, the subsequent cleaning and rubbing of the painted surface are often attended with injury. The tender surface touches, the delicate flesh tints, the more subtle shadows that give the modelling of a hand or a cheek, are often destroyed ; and the picture forever after wears a pallid look, like so many of the existing portraits by Gainsborough. Cleaning, no matter who does it, always works harm ; and restora- 22 STUDIES IX PICTURES tion is always a patching up, however skilful the hand that rcj^torcs. Yet in many cases they are justified and, indeed, eannot he avoided. They are necessary evils. Let me explain that a little farther. A picture, let us suppose by Crivelli (Plate (>), is painted in distemper — that is, with wliite of egg or honey instead of oil — upon a prepared gesso or plaster ground. The plaster is laid upon a chestnut panel. After two hundred years the wood of the panel warps and cracks, the painted surface parts, the plaster disintegrates. Something has to be done to save the picture from complete destruction. A fresco by Mantcgna, say in the Church of the Ere- mitani at Padua, begins to scale and crumble away. The wall has become dampened by water soaking up from the foundations. The picture is being de- stroyed. Again something has to be done. A great oil canvas, say by Tiepolo (Plate 7), hangs on the wall for many years. After a time the canvas begins to sag in the middle and break with its own weight. The varnishes crack, the pigments break asunder, the threads of the canvas part. Once again something has to be done. Whon such a thing happens — as happen it will — the picture is taken down after having been covered across its face with many pasted strips of gauze cloth like mosquito netting. It is placed face down- ward on a flat surface, and all the back of it, whether of wood, canvas, or plaster, is removed, planed or PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 23 chiseled away, down to the very paint itself. Then a new canvas back is put in, glued firm and fast to the paint, and the whole duly placed upon a new wooden stretcher. Then the picture is turned over upon its new back and the temporary gauze strips across the face are removed. The front or surface of the picture now has to be cleaned or at least restored where it has been broken. There is no help for it. And there is no way of making the new tones exactly match the old. Perhaps, in an amateur- ish way, you have painted pictures yourself; and perhaps you have tried at times to patch up or add to a sky that you had painted in only the day before. You will remember that you could not do it, and that finally you had to go back and repaint the whole sky. If such has been your experience with new work you can imagine the difficulty of touching up robes by Giorgione, or flesh by Kubens, or skies by Claude, that are several hundred years old. The re- sult is always something false in value. The old picture is always the sufferer. But again let me say that not all old pictures are injured. The smaller canvases will not break with their own weight; the little pictures on wood and copper that the Dutchmen painted do not crack like the large chestnut panels of Italy; and there are frescoes — the famous one by Benozzo in the Eiccardi Palace, Florence, for example — that seem almost as perfect as when first placed upon the wall. The 24 STUDIES IN PICTURES Miialler works may be hurt by knocks or rubbings or cleanings, but thoy are more likely to be in good condition than the larger pictures. Yet they are not impeccable. Sometimes, because they are small, they are hung on screens in the full, blazing sunlight to be ultimately bleached, or placeil on panels near steam pipes or over registers to be scorched out of all recognition. Such things could hardly happen in any first-class gallery to-day; yet it was only a few decades ago that almost all the gal- leries were given over to dust and spiders, the tourist went straight away from Ihcm instead of toward them, and the j)ictures themselves fared no better than any other abandoned furniture. Of course pic- tures do not recover from such bad treatment. They always wear scars; and restorations may patch and cover and hide, but they do not really restore or atone for injuries. At first you will not find it easy to detect injuries by repainting and restoration. The surface will all look alike. You may stand in front of Titian's "Man with the Glove" and see nothing peculiar about it. But when one at your olljow tells you that the neck is repainted you will inimediately notice that the repainting creates a false value just there. The eye is easily trained and soon begins to notice inconsistencies and inetjualities in a painted surface. And about the time the eye becomes very sensitive it is necessary to exerci.se it with caution. Jt amy be u o >^ 6 _i o CL PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 25 too keen, see too much, lead you into making too many sweeping conclusions. Painters themselves frequently make bad blunders, are unequal, uneven, and inconsistent, or paint in different styles that often lead wise critics on false trails. The poor re- storer in tlie cleaning-room is not to be charged up with all the ills that may be apparent in the picture. And the restorer frequently meets with ills that nei- ther he nor any one else can remedy — ills that are due directly to the folly or the carelessness of the artist himself. I refer now to the use in painting of pigments that change color, of mixed or insecure mediums, and of that painter's pest called bitumen. Experimenting with different mediums has been the bane of many an artist, and the ruin of many a fine picture. Did not Leonardo, defying all guild tradition, paint in S. M. delle Grazie in Milan the celebrated "Last Supper" on a plaster wall, in oils in- stead of fresco ; and did it not begin to scale off before the painter died? There is nothing left of it to-day but restoration — nothing of Leonardo's but the bare outline of the composition. There were many uneasy Leonardos among the old painters, seeking new ways and means of painting. The sound oil method of the Van Ej^cks, the excellent tempera method of Crivelli, were not always followed by Tintoretto or Caravaggio or Poussin. The result is that many a Tintoretto is blackened or bleached to-day, as you may notice in his sketch work in the Scuola San Eocco 26 STUDIES IN PICTURES at Venice, or liis pictures, such as the " Adam and Eve" (Plate 8) in the Venice Academy. Caravag- gio suffers in the same way from excessive blacken- ing of the shadows, though he was designedly deep pitched in his darks; and Poussin's colors you will frequently find changed, or bleached out of value, or with a stained look about them which no doubt came from using some mixed medium that affected the coloring matter unfavorably. Often in the large pic- tures of Paolo Veronese you will see skies of a dull lead color, or brown, or turned to a pea-green through the use perhaps of a blue that has changed color; and careful as Titian was with pigments he occasion- ally employed reds that darkened and yellows that lightened, much to the detriment of the color scheme of his picture. The English pictures of the late eighteenth cen- tury have suffered perhaps worse than any others in the matter of fugitive colors. Many an otherwise fine portrait by Keynolds or Romney is to-day as pallid as ashes in the face, its flesh notes all gone, and its shadows turned hot and foxy. Sir Joshua's work suffered severely through his unfortunate use of unstable color; and as for the work in oil of Turner, the collection in the National Gallery is elo- quent of disaster. Turner thought that " vagueness " was his forte, but he never could have anticipated such obliteration through fading color and crumblinir surface. Half his skies have changed from blue to PICTURES RESTORED AND REPAINTED 27 lemon-yellow or chalk-white, and his other tones have no doubt suffered in corresponding degree. This doubtless came about through his use of any coloring matter that would answer the momentary need, and any medium that happened to be handy. He used oils, water-color, egg, India-ink, lead-pencil — any- thing he could lay hands upon — and sometimes all of them upon one canvas. To-day the Turner room in the National Gallery is something appalling to contemplate. But it should be remembered that it is something Turner is responsible for, and not the restorer in the cleaning-room. Just so with the bitumen-painted portraits of Eae- burn, some of which have darkened almost beyond recognition. The forehead curls of the beautiful " Mrs. Scott-Moncrieff," at Edinburgh, have almost slipped over the eyes, owing to the running of the bitumen with which they were saturated. Bitumen will not dry on a canvas any more than on an asphalt pavement. And eventually it ruins whatever it touches, as you may see by some of the pictures of Wilkie or Opie, or even our own William Page. Some of the works of Munkacsy, painted but a few years ago, are growing black almost beyond recogni- tion; and many a reckless modern painter, who de- lights in the way his brush slips through a bitumen background, is preparing his canvases for a speedy exit into darkness and oblivion. Even a black underbasing sometimes plays havoc 28 STUDIES IN PICTURES with a picture by working through to the surface and disintegrating the upper pigments. Van Dyck fre- quently painted hands, with white cufrs at the wrists, over a background tliat he had carelessly brushed in with black, in connection perhaps with the painting of a black dress. The hands to-day often look as though they had been handling coal, and the white cuffs are sadly soiled. The works of Kibera and IJibot are suffering from the same care- lessness. Black has proved destructive to numerous pictures, and even a precise Dutchman like Terburg lias left portraits that now look sooty in the face and grimy in the linen because of the dark background upon which they were painted. So you see there are many causes for pictures not being to-day what they were when originally painted — causes for which the painter is sometimes as re- sponsible as the restorer. But, again, you are not to infer that all old pictures are injured by bitumen and fugitive pigments. The great bulk of them were painted with sound mediums and durable pigments, and are to-day in comparatively good condition. But it is perhaps necessary you should know that acci- dents have happened in the best of painters' studios; and that occasionally a chemical change has dis- torted a painter's meaning and turned his canvas into nonsense. CHAPTER III FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES Every one who comes to know the famous gal- leries and their pictures sooner or later finds out that all is not gold that glitters, and pictures are not always what they seem. Celebrated names are often tacked upon inferior canvases, and many an old master has had to stand sponsor for work which he never knew, never saw. This false attribution of pictures is one of the worst stumbling blocks in the student's pathway. You, for instance, are looking at a " Holy Family " by Titian. Does the mere fact that it is under his name in the catalogue of the Louvre, or the Pitti, or the Prado, prove its genuine- ness? So far from doing so it may almost make its genuineness suspicious. And that statement is so liable to misinterpretation that it requires immediate explanation. The directors of galleries are not loath to have great names in their catalogues. The names sound well upon the ear; they look well to the eye; they give rank and importance to the gallery. It becomes a boast of admirers that such-and-such a gallery has 29 30 STUDIES IN PICTURES twenty Kembrandts or a dozen Correggios, and peo- ple Hock to the gallery because of this attraction. The student world, as well as tlie tourist contingent, is impressed by the show of names. Almost every one holds his breath and exclaims : " A}\ ! a Ra- phael ! " when he comes up to the " St. John in the Desert " in the Louvre. Would he hold his breath and exclaim if the picture bore the name of Sebas- tiano del Piombo ? Certainly not. That is one reason why it does not bear Sebastiano's name, as it should. Raphael never painted the picture, and you, when you are studying the picture as a Raphael, are gain- ing a false impression of that painter. The Louvre has upon its catalogue no less than thirteen pictures set down under the name of Ra- phael. Of these there is a boyish " St. C.eorge," a small and early " St. Michael," " La Belle Jardi- niere," the " Holy Family of Francis I," and a portrait — five in all — that are genuine enough. But not one of the five is an important example of the painter. The other eight pictures attributed to him are by pupils, imitators, or painters who painted in a style somewhat similar to his. That the direction of the Louvre should mend its catalogue by crossing off eight Raphaels is, of course, expecting too much. It would lower the importance of the collection in the eyes of Europe. The truth must be suppressed and false art history continue to be taught. How misleading and provocative of harm all this is may IX.— VELASQUEZ ('), Unknown Man. Berlin Gallery. FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 31 be suggested by considering one more of these alleged Kaphaels in the Louvre. The catalogue calls for a portrait of Raphael by himself. When found it proves to be the likeness of a stupid young boy, with eyes and nose ill-drawn, leaning his head upon a dropsical hand, and trying his very best to fall out of the picture-frame. Ar- tistically, it is next to worthless, no matter who painted it. There is hardly a commendable quality about it. And yet it is astonishing how people gather in front of that picture and praise its wonderful qualities, thinking it a Eaphael. Even art students, who should know something about drawing, copy the picture ; and every art shop in Paris has a reproduc- tion of it for sale. Poor Eaphael ! No wonder some modern artists are beginning to question his title to fame ! If he has to father such pictures as this noth- ing can keep him in the empyrean. But he is mis- represented. The picture is of an unknown youth, and was painted by Bacchiacca. Again could you expect the Louvre people to give up the pretty tradi- tion of Eaphael by Raphael? How many years did the direction of the Dresden Gallery fight its critics about that " Eeading Mag- dalene," supposed to be by Correggio — the figure in a blue robe lying on the ground with the skull and the book ? Was not Morelli abused as an ignoramus when he said it was not even an Italian picture, but belonged to a degenerate Flemish school? And all 32 STUDIES IN PICTURES tlie time the Dresden Ciallury people must have kiio\ni that the picture was not by Correggio, to say the least. Finally, they gave up under public pres- sure, and now the picture is relegated to the follow- ing of Van dcr Wcrff. When heavy enough pressure is brought to bear against the Louvre direction, il, too, will give up about its supposititious Raphaels, Leonardos, and Ilolboins. In the meantime the pub- lic must wait while art history continues to be dis- torted, and art students are mystified. But the Louvre is not to be singled out for special delinquency. Indeed, we need not go across the water. Our own museums furnish excellent exam- ples of short-comings in this respect. Perhaps some day you may go to your municipal gallery in Boston or New York or Chicago, after reading up on Velas- quez, prepared to enjoy that master. You may find pictures attributed to liiin in the catalogue, and vet not one of them be by him. This " Infanta," for ex- ample, may be by a pupil, possibly Velasquez's son- in-law Mazo; and this "Portrait of a Prince" by Carreno de Miranda, an imitator. BotJi of them may be good pictures, and suggest Velasquez without be- ing his work. And how can you expect the authori- ties of a rather thinly furnished American gallery to take down the celebrated name of Velasquez and put in its stead the little-known names of Mazo and Carreno ? If you should look up liolbein or Hals or Eubens FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 33 or Terbnrg you might again meet with pictures under those names that are of questionable authen- ticity. And they might be good pictures, too. It does not at all follow because a picture is by Backer, instead of by Eembrandt, that it is a bad picture. The only fault to be found with it may lie in its mistaken label. In the National Gallery, London, there is a " Christ Bound to the Column " set down to Velasquez that is an excellent picture, in fact, quite worthy of Velasquez; as again in the Berlin Gallery a "Portrait of a Young Man" (Plate 9) ; but neither is by him, and when attributed to him gives people a false idea of his method and style. Likewise in the Vienna Gallery there is a " St. Se- bastian " attributed to Correggio (Frontispiece) that shows none of the characteristics of Correggio, but is (to me at least) an unusual example of Giorgione. Mr. Berenson thinks it by Cariani, an imitator of Giorgione; and possibly there are others who might place it elsewhere. But the attribution or name does not render it the less or the more beautiful. It is a fine picture in itself. All the galleries of Europe and America are more or less open to criticism for the names they append to pictures. And they are also more or less ex- cusable. The absence of record or documents, or perhaps the existence of false tradition, together with the resemblances of school work and imitators, make the matter of attribution anything but an easy task. 34 STUDIES IX PICTURES Oftentimes the direclors of galleries arc at loss to know where a picture belongs. Some of them are very anxious to get at the truth, but are confused by the conflicting opinions of connoisseurs, who are prone to quarrel among themselves. There is agree- ment now among the critics that the so-called For- narina picture (Plate 10), for instance, is neither of the Fornarina nor by Raphael. It is the portrait of an unknown lady by Sebastiano del Piombo. But pictures like the " Madonna, Child, and St. John " in the Louvre (Plate 11), given to Botticelli, for another instance, are still questioned by some. This particular picture seems more characteristic of Fra Filippo than of Botticelli — at least a good argument can be made for him. The student can know what is true and what is false only after years of long wrestling with the pros and cons of each case. Con- tradictions and inconsistencies beset him at every step. There is another fruitful source of error that may bother the student. There are old copies that come down to us of celebrated works, and these are handed out by their possessors as replicas — that is, repeti- tions of the same su])ject by the same artist; when, as stated, they are only copies by indifferent hands. In the days of, say, Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a bright l)oy wished to become a painter he applied for admission to Sir Joshua's " painting room " more as an apprentice than as an " art student." After X.- SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, Portrait. U^fizi, Florence. FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 35 grinding color and doing general work about the studio for many months. Sir Joshua would, perhaps, set him at work copying some of his paintings for practice. Let us suppose that after a time the youth makes a very acceptable copy of, for example, the " Strawberry Girl." Some friend of Sir Joshua's happens in the studio, admires the copy, buys it for ten pounds; and takes it up to his country place, where it is hung in the hallway as the " Strawberry Girl " by Reynolds. Several generations die off, the story of the copy is forgotten; but the title still clings to the picture. After a hundred years of this forgetfulness, as the result of family bankruptcy, perhaps, the picture suddenly turns up in a London auction room as a Reynolds — " a replica of the one in the possession of Her Majesty the Queen," or words to that effect. It is an old, old story, made up half of ignorance and the other half of direct fabrication; but it is not the less puzzling to the student. The copy looks like an old master, and in every respect except draw- ing, handling, and general quality, is like the origi- nal. And frequently there are long and wordy wars about them. There is a " Madonna of the Eocks " attributed to Leonardo da Vinci in both the Louvre and the National Gallery, London; and the dispute still goes on as to which is the original and which the copy. There are no less than three Raphael por- traits of Julius IL one each in the Pitti, the Uffizi, 36 STUDIES IN PICTURES and the National Ciallciy, Jjondon; and there are two dozen portraits of Philip by Velasquez scattered through various galleries in Europe. The existence of these repeated portraits by Velasquez is quite as casil}' explained as the copy of the " Strawberry Girl." In Philip's days there was no such thing as photography, and when he wished a likeness of himself to give to a brother sovereign of Austria, France, or England, he simply ordered Velasquez to have a copy made from a former portrait that had proved acceptable. Velasquez in turn probably or- dered Mazo or Carreno or some other pupil to make the copy, merely satisfying himself that the work was well done, and putting his ofhcial stamp of ap- proval upon it. The recipient of the portrait was no doubt told that " Velasquez did it " ; and in that way the picture was handed down in its royal gallery as a Velasquez, " Presented by the King of Spain." Xow the copy when done by an inferior pupil or common copyist is rather easily detected. The origi- nal is perhaps painted freely and boldly by a man who is not afraid of making a blunder. In his draw- ing he knows that if he slips over a line or pushes a light too hard, or deepens a sliadow or a lone too much he can easily rub it out, do it over again, mend it quickly enough with a few strokes of the brush. People like Kubens, Hals, and A^elasquez drew swiftly and handled surely; but the poor copy- ist who comes after Ihcni trica to reproduce their XL— BOTTICELLI (?), Madonna, Child and SL John. Louvre, Paris. FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 37 work a sixteenth of an inch at a time, and is always fearful that his brush will go astray and produce a false light, or give an abnormal modelling. The result is, the copy shows, timidity, especially in the outline drawing and the handling of the brush. The picture is weak, spiritless, wanting in individuality; and, above all, wanting in the qualities of body, bulk, and substance which distinguish a genuine ar- ticle from an imitation. If the picture is a portrait, the sitter in the copy will want the live look of the original, and will appear as though done from a photograph after death ; if the original is a landscape by Corot, the trees in the copy will lack in branch- drawing, the leaves will look heavy, and the sky woolly ; if the original is a blaze of color by Eubens, the copy will have flesh notes that arc hectic and apoplectic, the robes will lack in depth and reso- nance, and the handling will lack in fluency. On the contrary a copy made by a first-rate artist may not deceive an expert, but it ^^n\\ often lead an amateur astray. To the expert a picture after Eembrandt by a pupil like Bol proves itself a copy because it reveals the methods and mannerisms of Bol. The individuality of the copyist protrudes in color, drawing, and handling. I have in mind at this moment a copy of a Titian Madonna by Manet which, of course, suggests Titian, but also reveals Manet. His peculiar palette, patch painting, and handling could not be suppressed. In the same way 38 STUDIES IN PICTURES two portraits of liic Infanta Maria Theresa in the Velasquez Eoom of the I'rado at Madrid are almost surely by some follower of Velasquez, simply because they do not show the palette and brush of the greater master. They reveal another and a different per- sonality. The beginner does not read such pictures easily, and is continually deceived by them ; and so, too, on occasion, are experts and artists. We are told that Andrea del Sarto's copy of Raphael's " T^eo X " de- ceived even Giulio Eoniano, w'ho had a hand in paint- ing the original. And many times have altar-pieces been spirited out of Italy and copies put up in their places that were not detected until long years after- ward. But usually the copy betrays itself either by its timidity or by its boldness. ^\'hat are called " school pieces " are often more deceptive than copies, because they are done with the assistance, or at least general supervision, of the mas- ter himself. A great painter like "Rul)cns with half a hundred pupils and witli many large orders for church pictures, was compelled to maintain some- thing like a picture factory. He himself was too busy designing and planning to do the entire work of executing. He probably did the outlining and his pupils filled in, painting the draperies, the landscape, the animals, the accessories. Possibly as a final care Eubens; did some finishing strokes, amending an error here and there. Then the picture went forth FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 39 as from the Eubens shop with his stamp of approval, like any other merchandise. In those days it was not considered at all dishon- orable to hand out school work under the master's name. Giovanni Bellini sent forth altar-pieces and small Madonnas, with his own signature upon them, that were executed almost entirely by his pupils. And he meant no deception thereby. His name was only a hall-mark, giving the stamp of excellence to art goods going out from his studio. Sometimes even portraits were worked upon by pupils or copied by them, so that there is some mystery as to where they came from (Plate 12*). All painters of importance whose services were in much demand availed themselves of their pupils' help, and none more than " the divine Kaphael." The very " Leo X," of which we have been speaking, was done in part by Giulio Romano; and most of the pictures of his Eoman period were executed in whole or in part by his followers. Just so, no doubt, with Paolo Veronese and Tintoretto and Tiepolo. It would seem as physically impossible for them to do every- thing that is placed under their names as for Phidias to have cut all the sculptures of the Parthenon. No doubt they often contented themselves with merely supervising the work. As for the school * This portrait has been attributed to Piero della Fran- cesca but it is not quite his drawing, which leads Mr. Beren- son to suggest that it is by Verrocchio. 40 STUDIES IN PICTURES piece itself, it is frequently so good that it is dilfi- tult to say whether the master has not done it in a period of weariness, sickness, or haste. Usually, however, it shows the inannerisins or peculiarities of the pupils, and may be detected in that way. It is not to be despised by any means, for at least it is likely to exhibit the traditions and teachings of the master. Nor is the forgery to be despised, not because it hands down good teaching; but because it can be, and often is, so very deceptive. There are, to be sure, plenty of clumsy efforts that deceive no one, but there are also clever efforts that have deceived the very elect, A forger working recently in Sienna suc- ceeded in fabricating old Siennese pictures that mis- led the best experts in Italian painting. The forged Corot that came up in the Dumas case in Paris a few years ago is another illustration to the point. Critics and experts and gallery directors have been victim- ized more than once by the forger; and the number of forgeries that have crept into private collections in America is something astonishing, bewildering, appalling. Our American millionaires, whose brains have stood them in such good stead in the accumula- tion of money, seem to part with their common sense when it comes to the buying of pictures. They are a shining mark for the European sharpers, who have found out that an enormous price asked is considered a guarantee of genuineness in America. A forgery ■ r T »ti* 9hR ^M H^^^^^tt H ^^9 1 ^m^^lM XII.— PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA (?), Unknown Lady. Poldi Museunn, Milan. FALSE ATTRIBUTIONS, COPIES, FORGERIES 41 that is not worth fifty dollars becomes an authentic masterpiece when held at fifty thousand dollars — a process of reasoning sometimes followed in London and Paris auction rooms, as well as here in America, If closely examined the forgery can usually be de- tected even by the amateur, A man's drawing or painting is very much like a man's handwriting; it has an individuality about it that is characteristic. The imitation may deceive the ignorant or the care- less, but not the person familiar with the handwriting or the brush stroke. For there is the same exactness and cramped timidity about the forgery as about the copy. It lacks freedom and spontaneity. The man^ behind the brush is afraid and hence over-careful. He tries to turn himself into a machine and repro- duce exactly, with the result once more of a lifeless product. It lacks quality in the drawing, coloring, handling; and has not the slightest tang of distinc- tion about it. When you know it is a forgery you can see its shortcomings readily enough, but when you believe it is genuine, it is astonishing how blind you are to its imperfections. The clumsiest, stupid- est forgeries imaginable have more than once de- ceived people of intelligence in art matters. In all this matter of what is true or false, what is a copy or a school piece, what is repainted and what erroneously attributed, you would better follow the guidance of such experts as Morelli, Berenson, Frizzoni — men who have made a life-long study of 42 STUDIES IN PICTURES pictures. You will lioar Ihem denounced by those who difror with them, and, true enough, they are fre- quently in error, yet they are more likely to be right than others of less experience. Morelli, who died some years ago, was practically the first to take up with what has been called " connoisseurship," and his books are to this day indispensable to the student. His method has been followed and much improved by Mr. Berenson, a very competent critic who has written several short introductions to Italian paint- ing containing lists of genuine works by the Italian painters that will be found serviceable. But with any guide, and in any event, it will re- quire time and much experience to enable you to sift the chaff from the wheat. In reality connoisseur- ship in art is not more snarled and confused than expert knowledge in law, medicine, or the sciences, but it appears so at first blush. CHAPTER IV THEMES OF THE MASTERS Every picture, as it hangs in a gallery, undergoes cross-examination, has questions asked of it by the mob that passes before it. Perhaps the question that is asked oftener than any other is, " What does it mean ? " People will have it that a picture must appeal to the reason, must have some meaning that even a blind man can_-understand ; whereas, painting primarily appeals to the senses, and is, perhaps, the one thing a blind man cannot understand. But, be that as it may, the average person in a gallery makes his first inquiry about the subject of a picture : " Who are these people? What are they doing? What are they saying ? " If you insist upon asking such questions of the old church pictures of the Renaissance time, the proper answer is that they mean almost nothing to you and to me. To be sure, we know the meaning they once had. Here, for example, is Mantegna's " Madonna of the Victory " in the Louvre. We know that the picture was painted in honor of the victory of For- nova, that the woman and child enthroned ar6 the Madonna and Infant Christ, that the Archangel Mi- 43 44 STUDIES IN PICTURES chael on one side and St. Maurice on the other side are holding uj) iior robe, that back of her are St. Andrew and St. Longinus, the protecting saints of Mantua, that St. Elizabeth, the mother of the ^la- donna, is kneeling in front; and opposite her, also kneeling, is Francesco (ionzaga. Marquis of ^lantua, in full armor. All that seems simple enough, and no doubt meant something to the ^lantuans who knelt before the picture in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in, say, 1490; but what does it mean to you and to me, born in another land, in another age, per- haps in another faith? A Madonna and Child with hands outstretched in blessing from some chapel recess, signified something to the worshipper kneeling below — the believing P'lorentine of the Early Renaissance. Religion to that person was not a thing read of in a book, but something seen upon painted walls in life-like forms. Christ on the cross was a realilv in bronze or silver, instead of an abstraction conjured up in the brain; and heaven, far from being a vague abode of di- aphanous spirits, was an actual city with gates of gold and flowery meadows, where angels sang and danced, as in the pictures of Fra Angelico. But what do such representations, such picturings, mean to you and to me? Are we in a position to under- stand them? Is not the sjmibolism of Christian art almost as much of a closed book to us as the funeral rites of Egypt or the Eleusinian mysteries of Greece? _l UJ o (- I- o CQ THEMES OF THE MASTERS 45 There are pictures, plenty of them, still standing upon church altars in Italy to-day; and there are worshippers, plenty of them, still kneeling before them; but not one of the kneelers ever asks, "What does the picture mean ? " They Tcnow. We of an alien race, Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians — Protestants of one sort or another, people not to the manner born — keep pressing that question. And we continue complainingly that we " do not care for the old Madonnas and St. Sebastians, and St. Chris- tophers, and cannot understand what people see in those altar-pieces." Might we not say, with equal truth, that we do not care for Hermes and Zeus and the Graces ? And could we not add with equal force, that we cannot see what the Greeks admired in those stupid old Nymphs and Yenuses ? How much, really, has the name to do with our like or dislike? Do we admire the " Marble Faun " because it is a Faun ; and do we love the " Venus of Milo " because it is said to be a Venus ? We are told that this Enthroned Madonna, for instance, is La Bella Simonetta, posed with a child in her lap ; and that this dancing daugh- ter of Herodias is one of the Tornabuoni; but what does either name really signify to us? Why is not each of these women beautiful just as a woman, and each figure beautiful merely as a figure? I do not mean to say that giving the name and attributes of St. Barbara to a handsome figure by Palma Veechio hurts the picture. Indeed, it helps 46 STUDIES IX PICTURES the picture to those who know and understand and believe in St. Barbara; but for you and for me the saint no longer lives. She is almost as far removed from our ken as a Ilathor or an Astartc. The literal significance of statue and tabernacle and altar-piece died with those for whom they wore executed ; but the types and workmanship live, because the deatldess spirit of art is still with them. This is our real quest. It is not the teaching in the altar-piece, but the art in it that kettpe-itTrHve for us to-day. The allegories of the time that found their way upon canvas are now even more meaningless to us than the stories of the religious pictures. We may read the story of the finding of the l)ody of St. Mark and understand the meaning of Tintoretto's picture (Plate 15) if we will; but what shall we make out of Titian's so-called " Sacred and Profane Love." and Botticelli's "Spring"? They no doul)t had a meaning to their painters, and were intelligible to the people of the time; but the key in each instance is lost, and the tale, even to its very' name, is no longer read or readable. And yet how very little the pictures suffer by the loss. They are to-day among the most interesting canvases of those masters purely and simply because of their visible art — because of what they look. Many a picture by Rubens is none the better for our knowing what all the mythical fig- ures are intended to represent ; anv and «t^-8tiipid as the pictures by Tissot ; but we should not have had Italian or German or Flemish art. Many of the modern painters have tried this reconstruction of the past on canvas, and have abun- dantly demonstrated what a soulless heaping together of bric-a-brac it may become. Alma-Tadcma's pict- ures of Greek temples and houses and peoples or Holman Hunt's reconstruction of Jewish life in the time of Christ, are examples to the point. They are unbelieval)lo, impossible things, simply because their authors did not feel them, di < Q X X THEMES OF THE MASTERS 53 ing but a portrait, Antoncllo da Messina's " Un- known Man " in the Louvre, Titian's " Man with the Glove," Eembrandt's " Staalmeesters," Van Dyck's " Van der Geest " — alL^seea-ift-tlKrltfe, And what splendid representatives of their land and people they are ! With what supreme command and repose this Doge looks at you, with what dignity this sena- tor or warrior carries himself, with what grace and loveliness this lady pauses in her walk and stands gazing from the canvas ! It may lend a slight in- terest to know that we are looking at the Doge Loredano or one of the Morosini or the Duchess of Urbino (Plate 3) ; but the real charm of the picture lies in the type and the nobility of the carriage. We are now perhaps coming a little nearer to the meaning of these old masters. They count for much in art because of their fine types, their wonderful dignity and repose, their grace and charm and loveli- ness, and their profound truth. We may add other qualities of a lofty nature, such as power 4n Michael Angelo or imagination in Tiatoxetto or infinite grace in .Leonardo or supreme spleador in Paolo. Veronese or world-wide pathos in Eembrandt. N'or should we overlook the earnestness, the honesty, the frank- ness that seemed to be characteristic of almost every painter in the schools. No matter what the subject, the Bellinis, the Carpaccios, the Ghirlandajos (Plate 16), the Van Eycks, the Clouets, the Diirers, always painted with sincerity. There is an " I believe " 54 STUDIES IX PICTURES written across all their works which no one can fail to respect and admire. As a result of that " I believe " the old painters came to have what has been called " feeling " al)out their subjects ; and this " feeling " foumTits 'way into their pictures, and is apparent even in their work- manship. We speak of it to-day as " religious feel- ing,'' and insist upon it that it has to do solely with the sentiment of religion; but it appears in profane subjects and in portraits as well as altar-pieces. Fil- ippino, Costa, Francia, Lorenzo di Credi show it in all themes ; Botticelli has it in his Madonna, but also in his " Pallas " and in his " Venus " ; Perugino de- picts it upon angel faces, but also upon the faces of the people of_Pcrwgia. Perhaps it had better be con- sidered in some measure an expression of the paint- er's sinceriiy. It is a pliase, a manifestation of the earnestness, the intensity of purpose, that abounded in the workshops of the Renaissance. With other finalities that I have mentioned it may suggest one distinct message, at least, that the old masters may have for us — the message of faith and truth. /) i^ CHAPTER Y-^ WORKMANSHIP OF THE OLD MASTERS The pictures by the old masters that line the walls of the European galleries, as we have already con- cluded, were not painted for us, were not meant for tourists and art students and twentieth-century con- noisseurs with jaded appetites. All the Madonnas and Magdalenes and Dianas of the Italian painters, with their portraits of lords and ladies, belong to a by-gone age; and our sympathy with them can go little further than an admiration for a type or a liking for a sentiment. But if the subjects are ob- solete the skill of the artist still lives, the workman- ship of the pictures is still of vital interest. They may mean little to us, but they look superb things. For the old masters were excellent craftsmen — ^bet- ter, if perhaps less complex, than the masters of to- day. They wrought with knowledge and taste, as well as with sincerity; and it was their grasp of craftsmanship, their ability to execute as well as plan, that made possible the splendid art of the Renaissance. In Italy, every painter had to serve an apprentice- ship under the rules of the guilds. He began as a 65 56 STUDIES IN PICTURES boy in the bottega or workshop, and was, perhaps, not a master painter until he was a full-grown man. He was there taught, not to paint pretty faces or af- fecting stories, but to prepare panels and gesso back- grounds, to grind colors, lay gold, beat metal, model plaster, fill spaces with orn«niHiiial pat inns and fig- ures. He learned the guild traditions of litness and proportion, color harmony, decorative circct. When he left the hottega to work for himself he was a skilled workman with a knowledge of materials and methods — a man who could do almost anything in his department. Perhaps the first order that came to him was from some church that asked him to paint a picture in a lunette or half-arch over a door. The church peo- ple wanted the empty space filled with something ornamental. As for tlic subject an " Annunciation " would probably be called for on account of its popu- larity. With the " Annunciation " for a theme it might be thought that the painter would " read up " on his sub- ject to get all the details correct, then seek out some sweet-faced girl for a Madonna, and her brown-eyed little brother for an angel, and finally, after casting himself into a religious ecstasy, paint the picture in an inspirational trance. Such is sometimes fancied to be the manner of painting great pictures; but nothing could be furtlier removed from the actual truth. The painter would never forget for a moment XVII.— BENOZZO GOZZOLI, Head of Lorenzo de' Medici (detail). Riccardi Palace, Florence. WORKMANSHIP OF THE OLD MASTERS 57 that there was a space to be filled with something beautiful to look at — something decorative and ap- propriate to a half-arch over a door. There would be forms as forms and colors as colors to be treated. They would demand pictorial arrangement, and what names the priests and brothers chose to give them afterward would be of no great moment to the painter. Perhaps the disposition of the figures would place the Madonna kneeling at the right, the outline of her curved back and bowed head following the upward sweep of the half-arch. The angel with the message would be opposite the Madonna, kneeling; and with lilies in hand and bent figure comple- menting the opposite curve of the arch. In between the figures might be the desk at which the Virgin was praying, the white dove, a door opening at the back upon a landscape, and in the distance the towers and domes of fair Florence. As for coloring, cool blues and greens might balance warm reds and yel- lows, and neutral tones of dull orange, red, lilac, brown, gray, might mingle to make a composition harmonious to the eye. And through all the work, from start to finish, would be employed the greatest skill and the richest and best materials. The halo about the Madonna's head might be of gjlded mosaic, or of radiant lines cut through^laid, gold ; the lights upon her hair, and the lines upon her floating veil, might be given again in threads of gold ; and the pattern of her dress, the 58 STUDIES IN PICTURES border of her robe, might be touched with the same precious metal. Every color would be quite perfect in its purity, and every pattern of embroidery de- lightful in its design. The angel, too, would perhaps have wings with golden peacock eyes upon tliein, as in the Eiccardi frescoes of Benozzo, a crown of glory, bright with jewels, upon the head, and garments of wondrous light and gorgeous borderings. The white dove, with its trail of sunlight, the doorway, with its inlays of colored marble, the mosaic pavement, and the distant city, with its domes and campanili shin- ing in the sun, would perhaps complete the picture. As a result, you might have something so beauti- ful as decoration, so appropriate in its architectural niche, so attractive just for what it looked, that you would not think about what it meant, any more than you would ask the meaning of the mosaics in the domes of San Marco at Venice. At least, if you saw such a picture to-day in such a place, you should be able to admire it and understand it regardless of its being an " Annunciation," regardless of its being a church picture, regardless of its having a S}Tnbolic meaning of any kind. It would be difficult to exaggerate the exquisite workmanship or the beauty of_the -Biaterials used by the Italians of the Early Renaissance. In the little chapel of the old Medici palace (now called the Eiccardi) at Florence there is an " Adoration of the Magi " by Benozzo Gozzoli, covering three WORKMANSHIP OF THE OLD MASTERS 59 walls of the room, and showing the Magi and their attendants with horses and leopards and dogs wind- ing through a valley landscape up to the stable where the Child was laid. Unfortunately the Madonna and Child, originally on the fourth wall, have been taken away; but the other three walls are almost as perfect in condition as when originally painted. Along them a grand procession of richly garmented Florentines, with caparisoned steeds, moves in glitter- ing splendor. Many of the people are portraits from life, and all have a character and dignity, a nobility of bearing that make one wonder (Plate 17). They move like kings and princes, and are really impres- sive for what they represent. But aside from that, aside from any meaning the fresco may have as religion or as history, the mechanical workmanship of it is as perfect as a piece of cloisonne. The pat- terns of brocade, the embroideries of the mantles, the reliefs of spur and bridle and sword in gilded stucco are superb in their design and their richness. It is to-day an amazing fresco, and yet, when done, it was perhaps not more amazing than any other work of the time. It has had the good fortune to be well preserved — that is about all. There is hardly an Italian picture of the Eenais- sance time or before that will not show similar ma- terial beauties-©f-^werfenanship. The early distem- per panels of the Byzantine and Eomanesque periods, wretched as the figures were in drawing, perspective. 60 STUDIES I.\ PICTURES light and shade, and ignorant as the painters were of landscape, of blue sky and sunlight, were never- theless masterpieces of artistic method. The gold grounds with their incised designs, the boautifiil aureoles and halos, the jewelled and gilded reliefs, the coloring and patterning of robes, the borderings of chairs and tables, the arabesques of fruits and flowers, were wrougUtwi4l*-«n exactness and an hon- esty unparallel ed in the history of art. This splendid workmanshij) in gold and colors was carried on and down in Italian art as a tradition. In Florence all the Giotto followers practised it ; Gentile da Fabriano, Fra Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli continued to u.se it into the Early Renaissance; and at the north the Vivarini of ]\Iurano showed it in the gilded altar-pieces made for the A'cnetian churche.'i before the time of Titian and Giorgione. Some of these altar-pieces, still existent in Venice, are to-day little short of marvellous in the proportions of their framing, the fineness of the gilding, and the pattern- ing and coloring of the garments (Plates 18 and 19). The painter in those days was a master craftsman at least. When the Early Renaissance came in, and people began to look more at nature and think more about realism in art, the gilded halos and jewelling began to disappear. Botticelli still used gold to line a robe n trying to show you ibo beauty of sunligb.t, col- ored air, and colored sliadows upon haystacks, Kourn Cathedral, and Westminster Towers ; but you worry about Rouen and Westminster and what they mean, and never see the sunlight, the air, or the shadow. Lest you misunderstand, perhaps it should be said XX.— BOTTICELLI, Spring (detail). Academy, Florence. WORKMANSHIP OF THE OLD MASTERS 67 again that subject and meaning in painting are by no means to be despised. Ideas in art, the significance of things, must always exist to lend coherence; but, as I have tried to explain, these may be perishable features. They keep slipping away like the teaching of the " Sistine Madonna " or the story in Botticelli's " Spring," leaving only the figures^^the colors, the workmanship behind. These latter, which make up the material and decorative look of the picture, are the enduring features. They live for us to-day in a decorative sense if we will but accept them and look at them in the proper way. So it is that the painter — the artist-workman as distinguished from the pietist or the historian or the novelist with the paint brush — must be reckoned with in all our study of art. Heretofore in history and criticism he has been overlooked in favor of some teller of a pretty story or some recorder of a pretty face. But the work cannot be properly understood without considering the worker; and while we are studying pictures in the gallery we should not fail to regard art from the artist's point of view, and give the decorative the consideration it deserves. STUDIES IN PICTURES PART II CHAPTER VL- ^ FIGURE PAINTING (] /- We may now leave generalizations and speak spe- cifically of the kind of pictures that one meets with in the various galleries. Pictures are divisible into groups, and may be treated according to the themes they present. The groups are generally spoken of as figure pieces, historical canvases, portraits, land- scapes, still-life, and the like. Of these there will be found in almost every collection a predominance of figure pictures. Humanity has always been more interested in itself than in anything else ; and artists, from the beginning of history, have been busy per- petuating the likeness of their own people, and re- cording with chisel and paint brush the doings of their own race. It is a piece of egoism with which it is hardly worth while to quarrel. Besides, with the human figure for a subject, many things of im- portance have been said, some of them wise, some of them splendid, some of them powerful, some of them graceful. Yes: and a great many foolish things have been said also. There were shallow old masters, as there are silly young masters, and no- where is the gallery of art of uniform excellence 71 72 STUDIES IX PICTURES from entrance to exit. We must use discrimination in what we admire, and some pictures should per- haps be passed by with no admiration whatever. The narrative or story that is told liy a picture need not keep us long. That is not what I meant by the " thing said." With a piece of coal on a white- wa.-^hed wall any one can, after a fashion, tell the tale of the Nativity or the Crucifixion or Achilles in his Tent or Charlotte Corday in Prison ; but the telling of it would not necessarily make art. There are pic- tures of battles, of princely pageants, of coronations and marriages, of Niebelungen happenings, and Holy Grail incidents, wherein all the facts are faithfully set forth; and there are interiors with seventeenth- century cavaliers playing at cards, or twentieth-cen- tury 3'oung women seated at gossip; t)ut again, in either or in any case, the story told is not the pic- ture. It is not ditBcult to draw with measurable success, a man in Empire uniform standing on a ship's deck, and to call the result " Napoleon on the Bellerophon " ; but to draw and paint a figure that stands and looks and ii^thfe-dethroned emperor, as Orchardson has done, that is quite another thing. That a figure .should have defimte_character is vitally important. It is this very quality of character in the figure, when forcibly given, that brings conviction as truth, and creatos a sense not only of reality but of beauty. And character does not rest alone in a scowling brow UJ _1 X FIGURE PAINTING 73 or a furrowed clieek. I shall have something to say about that when I come to speak of the portrait; but there may be a portraiture of the figure quite as effective as of the face, and character may be ex- pressed in finger tips as well as in nose tips. There is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Eome a seated figure of the Delphic Sibyl by Michael Angelo with a fore-shortened right arm and a limp half- opened hand resting upon the knee that speaks char- acter quite as forcefully as the solemn face. The hand has power, though it is not clenched; and it has beauty, though it is not what would be called " select." There is about it a something of the mys- tery that wraps the whole figure. It belongs to the figure, and has in itself a Sibylline quality, an austerity, a wonderful dignity. Compare it for a moment with the hand of the Samian Sibyl by Guer- cino in the Uffizi, and you will note a great differ- ence. The Guercino picture shows simply the non- descript hand of a pretty model, and would fit as well the figure of a Juno or a Beatrice Cenci as a Sibyl. It is weak and lacks character. Consider the hands in the " Mona Lisa " by Leo- nardo da Vinci, and what wonderful truth and beauty they reveal ! They, on the contrary, are very " se- lect," quite ideal in proportions, lovely in their sym- metry and softness. And how perfectly they belong to the wrist, the arm, the whole figure ! That smil- ing face and the riddle that lies back of the dark 74 STUDIES IN PICTURES eyes are supplemented and complemented by those beautifully drawn liand.s. They are in themselves something of an enigma. Compare them again with the so-called " aristocratic ' ' hands of some noble lady by Sir Godfrey Kneller (or even by so excellent a painter as Van Dyck), and you cannot but feel the difference. The Kneller (or Van Dyck) hands may be adjusted to almost any lady, and are only a de- gree removed from those of Cabanel, with their manicured finger-nails, and their suspicion of scented soap. The drawing of the hand is considered the very hardest problem the draftsman has to solve, so you will see that some value attaches to its portrayal. If truthfully rendered, it may be not only a revela- tion in itself, but it may reveal the person back of it. And for the illustration of this I refer you to the characteristic hands in Van der Heist's " Ban- (juet of the Civic Guard" in the Ryks Museum, Am- sterdam, It has been said that if every one of them were cut off and thrown into a basket there would be no trouble in putting them on their respective owners again, so absolutely do they belong to the figures. Our modem pictures do not show such careful realization of the model. Indeed, the hands are now often hidden or merely brushed in, " blocked in." And that, too, with a designed slnr, as thougli to emphasize their want of importance. Mr. Sargent FIGURE PAINTING 75 can, if he will, paint them superbly; but he and many of his contemporaries often dismiss them sum- marily. It was just so in the days of the old mas- ters. The Dutch museums will bear witness that Eembrandt delighted in painting hands, and did them beautifully, while the same museums intimate that Frans Hals was often careless and impatient with both hands and feet. The foot is something usually not noticed by visitors in the picture gallery. The average person never gives it a thought. The painter on the con- trary thinks much of it, and sometimes wonders how he can hide it or get rid of painting it alto- o;ether. The tradition still runs that the Venetian Bassani put sheep and cooking utensils in the fore- ground of their biblical pictures to shut out the feet of their men and women. The reason for this seems to be that it is not easy to make the pictorial man stand on his feet and stand firmly. The whole poise of the body, its weight, bulk, and carriage, depend upon how the feet are placed upon the earth. They seem to impart the sense of life, the power of action, the ability to move and bend. This was one of the last things learned by the old masters. Giotto and Duccio and Gentile da Fabriano often drew people that tilted upon their heels like wooden mani- kins; and the Early Eenaissance men were given to types smitten with stiffness in all their joints. Eaphael, Andrea del Sarto, and the Venetians (Plate 70 STUDIES IN PICTURES 22) comprehended matters better, but they were not always perfect. Even to this day the painter worries about the plantin": of the foot. Whistler was con- cerned about it, and never wearied in asking whetlier his figures stood firmly or not. Well he might, for the character of the figure may often be determined by that spring of action. Not that there is any one specific character whicli, if given, will answer for each and every foot. On the contrary, tliat member is almost as individual as the hand and must complement the figure in a similar manner. It cannot be expected that a city girl should have the same kind of feet as a bare-footed peasant girl of France. Their occupa- tions give to each a special fitness for a special purpose. Therefore, when you see a picture by Bou- guereau called "The Little (Jleaner," it should not take you long to conclude that the feet and hands and face are too soft and pretty and clean for the fields; and that, in spite of the costume and the property wheat held in the hand so gracefully, Bouguereau is merely giving a variation of the same studio model that poses for "Spring" or " Psyche." What you miss in th e feet.j ind for that matter, in the whole figure, is chftracter. And this is precisely wliat you gain in Millet's " Cleaners." The feet of the bending women are coarse and heavy; but is not that the way labor — contact with the earth — has FIGURE PAINTING 77 fashioned them ? The shoes make the feet look un- usually large, but does that not help out the firm manner in which the fimiros stand or move? Have you any doubt about the feet belonging to the fig- ures, or is there any question that these are real peasants pictured as they actually live and have their being? The "Man with a Hoe" (Plate 21) may be a falsehood politically and socially — or at least the thoughts put into his mouth by Millet commen- tators may be all wrong — but physically he is a fact. He stands on his feet, he bends, he leans, he rests from labor. It is t his truth of ch aracterization that Millet has given his peasants that makes them con- vincing — makes- them great in art. There is just as much truth, though of a different kind, in the jaunty pose of a soubrette by Watteau, or the upward spring of a ballet dancer by Degas, or the shuffle of a Dutch boor by Ostade, or the swing forward of the Captain and his Lieutenant in Eem- brandt's " Night Watch." In the drawings by these masters, hand and foot, arm and leg, head and body, are all of a piece; each fitted to each, and each in- tensifying and making virile the character portrayed. Look again at Millet's " Gleaners." What arms and backs and heads they have! How they bend and gather and bend again! The feeling of life and motion is everywhere present. You cannot choose but believe in such wonderful types. The same kind of humanity, that is, peasants, 78 STUDIES IN PICTURES stone breakers, workmen of the town, were painted many times by Courbet, Legros, Daumier. These painters knew the gait, the stoop, the lift of labor; and they portrayed it with telling effect. And what splendid life was imparted by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Velasquez ! When they drew an arm or a back or a neck or a waist, it was not with any classic line or cut-and-dried proportions. They did not bother with petty realisms, nor yet again with aca- demic traditions. They painted wluit they saw be- fore them and endeavored to give the clwracter of the whole figure. How well they succeeded you may see by the pictures in the galleries at Amsterdam, Haar- lem, and Madrid, which are to-day the wonder of the art student. It is precisely due to the truth of character given them by their painters that such rough uncouth people as Hals depicted became beautiful in art. If it were not so who would care for his jolly men or for the brawling peasants of Brouwer or the brutal soldiers of Goya? They were not graceful or beautiful types in the life. They became beauti- ful in art because of the superior insiglit of the artist, and his revelation of their fitness-to a designed end. The character of them is given so impres- sively that they become admirable even though re- pulsive. The beauty of the ugly is not a paradox but a fact (I'late 2:i}. On the contrary, the beauty of the comely is often FIGURE PAINTING 79 open to question. In the hands of painters like Carlo Dolci, Sassoferrato, Eaphael Mengs, or Cabanel types of elegance and refinement became affected, senti- mentfiij-^i'celsss. Eegularity of feature and per- fect symmetry of form could not save them from a feeling of pretence and insincerity. The figures failed to convince any one of their reality, because they lacked a fitness for a purpose, and were wanting in positive character. The suspicious individual in art, as in life, is usually the one of smooth appear- ance and indefinite description. From this, hoM'ever, it is not to be inferred that art consists solely in peasants by Millet or fish-wives by Hals or dwarfs and hoop-skirted Infantas by Velasquez (Plate 25). True enough, the picturesque is often somewhat removed from the regular and the symmetrical. It has been said more than once that a straw-thatched cottage makes up a better picture than the most perfect Greek temple. In the same sense a blue-frocked peasant from Barbizon might be better material for the painter than a dandy from a Paris club. But lords and ladies and fine clothes have appeared in art many times and with superb effect. Ghirlandajo, Mantegna, the Bellini, Car- paccio, all painted them; and with such integrity of character as has not been seen since their day. After them came the fine, dignified types of Palma Vecchio, the regal creations of Tintoretto, and the splendidly costumed figures of Paolo Veronese. 80 STUDIES IN PICTURES There is no lack of integrity or drawing with such men. Paolo's noblemen stand or move or turn as truthfully and easily as ]\Iillct's peasants, l)ut quite differently. A duchess by Paris Bordone sits as real- istically as a housewife by Teniers, but the attitude is not the same. The duchess rests like a duchess, and the nobleman stands like a nol)leman. To each is given the attributes that are significant of rank and individuality. There may be as much, if not more, character in the figures of the great as in those of the humble. Titian's "Charles V" rides like a king, and the little " Don Balthasar " of Velas- quez like the child that would be king. Both of them are as characteristic and as typical of their kind as a Dutch boor by Steen or a chasseur by ]\reissonicr. In a general way the choice of clothes and figures and faces are matters of liking, matters of tempera- ment with painters. The master can create the mas- terpiece out of l)eggar or king, as he chooses. It made small differonee to Velasquez whether he were painting Philip or ihe court buffoon; and Rembrandt could make a picture from nii Amsterdam Jew in rags as readily as from a bnrgomasfor in velvet. Thry were l)oth intent upon giving ^ht^+mth of lifi; before them. That, indeed, absorbed them. But in modern times there are not so many supreme masters, nor have they such singleness of aim as the masters of the past. And, besides, the weaker breth- XXIII.— TORBIDO, Old Woman. Venice Academy. FIGURE PAINTING 81 ren of the brush to-day are rather impressed with the idea that fine art means fine faces and fine clothes. They do not like the laborer, the peasant, the com- mon people as models. The Bouguereaus and Le- febvres care little for naturalistic drawing and less for characteristic types. They admire what is called "Jhe.id£al'^'' Now the ideal is no new thing under the sun. It is a conventional type which has been handed down by tradition; and it consists of a selection and a combination of the fine qualities of the many in the one. By a process of elimination, taking only the most perfect parts, a figure is constructed which is supposed to approximate in proportions the Greek ideal. In appearance it usually has a predetermined height and weight and a preternatural elegance of bearing, both of which are quite impressive at first; but after a time we begin to see that they are artifi- cial — that is, machine-made — and that the whole is merely an em,pt;[_ pretence. Instinctively we feel that such a type is I " Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." T It is not true to human experience ; its life is simu- lated life, and its movement is arrested movement. Like those exotics that grow in houses, its bloom is hectic and its odor calls up memories of a per- fumery shop. 82 STUDIES IN PICTURES You cannot clioosc but sec this ideal li;iure in every gallery you enter. After Raphael and with the painters of the Decadence in Italy it was freely adopted. The Italianized Flemings and Dutchmen used it ; Murillo consistently and persistently em- ployed it to the point -of -vrcakness (Plate 24) ; the academic element in French art has always exploited it; David, Ingres, Flandrin, Cabanel, Bouguereau, are names that suggest it. Empty, and forceless, it is nevertheless popular, patronized, and regarded by many as a paragon. And, indeed, considered dec- oratively, it may be very far from worthless; but as an expression of life, t,ruth, and character, it is weak and without value. Such an insipid formula could never express true feeling in art. The accompaniment of the ideal figure is usually the ideal face. It is constructed by the same table of elegant proportions as the figure, reckoning that the nose shall i)e of such a length, the cheeks and chin of such an oval, the brow of such an arch, the forehead of such a height. In the hands of the artist-mechanic it becomes merely pretty, and it is difficult to keep it from falling into pretlincss in the hands of any painter. You often sec this face employed in fashion ])lates, on handkerchief boxes, on placques. It smiles and tries to look engaging, but it takes no phrenologist to see that there is not a brain in the head or a line of character in the countenance. It is an empty formu^-a again, and yet XXIV.— MURILLO, Madonna and Child. Pitti, Florence. FIGURE PAINTING 83 when painted by Lefebvre or Madrazo or Chartran, it is astonishing how readily people accept it. It al- ways was popular with the unthinking mob, just as the pretty face in life attracts more attention than the strong one; yet there never was any question about which possessed the real beauty. Strength of character will carry farther than any grace of regu- larity. And just here, while I am Insisting that figures and faces shall show character, it may be worth while to say that not all figures, not all pictures, are to be judged by this standard. The kind of drawing which gives the realistic appearance is sometimes called naturalistic drawing; but there is also classic or academic drawing that may be extremely graceful and fill space decoratively with no great attempt at strength of characterization. Baudry's ceiling pieces in the Opera House at Paris are of this stamp. The figures are half Greek, half Italian, but exceedingly well-drawn and well-placed. So, too, the gods and goddesses by Boucher and Fragonard are not to be tried by the realistic law\ They are figures found in no man's land, and have faces beaming with mirth, or, if you please, a trifle silly with laughter; but for all that they form charming decorations for panel and ceiling. Wattcau, Pater, and Lancret you may think frivolous again, but consider that there may be character even in frivolity; and Alfred Stevens may strike you as a man-milliner in paint, and yet no 84 STUDIES IN PICTURES modern over painted silks and satins witli such a fine swing of the brush and such charming color. We are not to forget the merely decorative. Tt is possible for painting to look quite beaiitiinl I lioiii^h. meaning little..«e-«««a»to, and counting for little as char- acterization. CHAPTER VII PORTRAIT PAINTING The portraits by the old masters, as those by more modern painters, may and often do include the half- length or whole-length of the figure; but, of course, their chief interest as portraitur e lies in the, heads. The hands, the arms, the shoulders, the whole figure, are sometimes generalized, or merely suggested in- stead of completed, or made up from memory, or taken from different models; but the face is, or should be, in modern work at least, peculiar to some one person. This we may suppose forms the history of an individual which, if associated with other in- dividuals in a group, might make an historical pic- ture such as Velasquez's " Surrender of Breda," or David's " Coronation of Josephine " ; but standing alone it becomes the portrait — a branch of art which must be spoken of separately. There is a Greek myth going about the world which gives the supposed origin of portraiture, and also incidentally of sculpture. Butades, a Greek pot- ter, had a daughter who had a lover. One night, as they all sat by the firelight, the daughter outlined with charcoal on the wall the silhouette of her lover, 85 86 STUDIES IN PICTURES and afterward induced her father to fill it m witli wet clay and model the face. From that, say the Greeks, portraiture and sculpture were developed. Unfortunately for the pretty story the Egyptians and Chaldeans made stone portraits before Greek walls were built or Greek girls had lovers. A cer- tain style of portraiture began with the first man who carved with a flint a sandstone block into a rude-shaped idol. It was not our style of portraiture, by any means. Our teaching has led us to asso- ciate a portrait with an exact facial likeness, but that was not the teaching of the ancients. There are different kinds of portraits scattered through gal- leries and museums, and we may as well begin by examining them. The earliest portraits made in Egypt were of a realistic nature — that is, the Egyptians cut in gran- ite and painted upon walls, as accurately as they could, the likenesses of their people, their kings, and their gods. Most of them were intended for the tomb and the temple; and during the first four dynasties there was much of this work. Later on in Egyptian history, however, the realistic art was succeeded by a conventional art which makes up the bulk of what remains to us. This conventional art made portraits, too; but they were ideal, not realistic. I do not now mean " ideal " in any modern sense. The Egyptian ideal was an aiistraction — a gathering iogethcr of race attributes, heroic attributes, kingly attributes. XXV.— VELASQUEZ, Infanta Maria Theresa. Vienna Gallery. PORTRAIT PAINTING 87 When a Eameses commanded a portrait of himself to be made, his exact features and expression were not given, except in a vague way. It was an Egyp- tian face with a calm smile, great dignity and repose, and a serenity, that not even the gods could ruffle. All the kingly qualities were there; it had majesty, wisdom, power, austerity; and yet it was only a type, and not the likeness of the king himself. All that made it his, as distinguished from any other Pharaoh, was his name cut on the base or pilaster. When he died his successor sometimes had the dead king's name chiselled from the statue and his own name put in its place. This ideal portraiture was not confined to Egypt. Assyrian art is full of it. There has yet to be dis- covered in all the countless bas-reliefs of Assyria a distinctly individual portrait. There are but two faces, one with a beard, and one without a beard. The king is told from his followers only by size, po- sition, the richness of his robe, and the inscriptions that accompany. We have no exact likeness of Assur-banipal or Shalmanezer, or any other Assy- rian potentate. The great bulk of Greek portrait sculpture before Phidias repeated the same thing. An abstraction was given — that is, the attributes and features typi- cal, not of any one Greek, but of the Greek race. Pliny tells us that athletes when once victorious in the games were awarded an ideal statue in the Olym- 88 STUDIES IN PICTURES pic grove; and when thrice victorious a portrait statue. But what did a Greek with his race liking for ideals mean by a portrait? We cannot conclude that it meant the same thing to him that it does to us. It is true that after the time of Alexander Greek art became more realistic than ever before, but it was hardly our realism. The Hellenic artist was more or less idealistic from beginning to end. When he attempted the portrait he always gave the ideal figure, and he made the face ideal, too, with some ex- ceptions. The heads of Alexander, for example, are merely Greek types, with the exception of a fulness over the eyes and a brushing up of the hair from the forehead — peculiarities which were no doubt char- acteristic of the man. The sculptors doubtless made the heads from memory, taking the Greek ideal as a foundation, and giving a few striking features to dis- tinguish them as representations of Alexander. The so-called iconic portraits of Homer and Anacreon belong in the same category. They were portraits not so much of individual Greeks as of kleal poets with such qualities of type as poets were likely to possess. All the portraits of the philosophers, gen- erals, and orators of Greece, \\nth the exception of the late ones, were largely of this same kind, with here and there a feature that possibly belonged \o the original. They were neither realistic nor purely ideal, but half-way between, or semi-ideal. This second kind of portraiture was not char- XXVI.— TITIAN, Young Englishman. Pitti, Florence. PORTRAIT PAINTING 89 acteristic of Greece alone, but of Eome; and yet, side by side with it in late Greco-Roman times, there began to show a realistic art that left generaliza- tions, so far as the face was concerned, and tried to reproduce the exact features. If you recall the face of Julius Caesar, with its sharp nose and chin, thin lips, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes, you will understand what I mean by the realistic portrait. It is not a generic type or a Roman ideal, but the literal rendering of peculiar features. It is the face of an individual. All through the Rome of the Cssars the realistic portrait existed, but it was not unalloyed by the ideal, as you may see by a glance at the busts of Augustus, Nero, and Tiberius. Realistic portraiture never held complete sway until long after the Roman, the Mediaeval, and the Gothic ages had passed away and the Early Renaissance began. Then Donatello and his school in sculpture, Botticelli, Mantegna, Dlirer, and Van Eyck in painting, began the portrayal of men and women precisely as they saw them ; and the result was a strong, realistic portraiture which has remained with us ever since. Now all the portraits of the last four hundred years are real enough in the sense of a likeness to an in- dividual; but they are far from being all alike in point of view or manner of treatment. They all ren- der peculiarities of feature, coloring, or dress; but a portrait should reveal something more than the 90 STrOIES IN PICTURES texture of a man's skin, the coloring of his hair and eyes, or the style of his clothing. It is true that man is a good animal and represents physical life, but it is also true that he is a thinker and represents in- tellectual life. He shows intelligence not only in words and acts, but in looks; and it is necessary that the painter should reveal that intelligence in his por- trait. But there are many painters of many kinds, and the result is there are many portraits showing many different views of humanity. To start with there is the work of the man who thinks the aim of portrait painting is the exact imi- tation of the physical man, and that the best way to get a likeness of him is to portray wrinkles, eyelashes, and three-days-old beard. This is the small and narrow view of the man, the indulgence in petty truths at the expense of great ones. It sometimes calls for applause from the multitude, because people always wonder at minute work. But such workman- ship is merely a piece of mechanical dexterity not unlike the engraving of the Lord's Prayer on a ten- cent piece. Neither exploit is art, nor anything other than a trick of the hand. A man's portrait is no more valuable for its wrinkles than the sun for its spots. Both can be overlooked by the person who is seeking greater truths. Denner and a host of other painters followed this minute style of work ; but their portraits are only gallery curiosities to-day, and were never anything else at any time. Any PORTRAIT PAINTING 91 painter who tries to rival the detail of the photo- graph may be safely set down as mistaken as to the province of art. Art is- not an imitation but an interpretation of nature — " nature seen through the prism of an emotion/' as Alfred Stevens has put it, rather than nature seen through a microscope. The microscopic has never taken high rank as art. Far above the Denners comes a second kind of portrait painter who still paints more of the physical than the mental in his sitter, but he does so in a broad, elevated and dignified manner. He does not fathom the inmost recesses of the mind, and indeed it is not his business to do so. He does not read the hidden character of the man, any more than the so-called mind-readers. But he sees his sitter as a substantial piece of physical life, breathing, living, exulting in animal spirits, a creature surrounded by light and color and air and belonging to all of them. Moreover he sees him as a whole, a complete person unspotted by emphasized wrinkles and petty deformities. The salient points of physical existence, such as bulk. body, and the unity of the color masses, he draws and paints in a broad, free way. This class of portrait painters includes a great many living men and a large number of the old mas- ters. Frans Hals is an excellent example of it, and for painting the purely human he never had a supe- rior. Almost all the portraits by Terburg, Moroni, Antonello da Messina, and even Holbein and Velas- 92 STUDIES IN PICTURES quez belong in this category; though with each one of these men we find examples that go beyond the merely physical and belong with the highest and the best portraiture. This last class of portraiture is, as you have doubt- less anticipated, that whicli not only gives the physi- cal but also tlie mental and periiaps the moral char- acter. And just here is a poiul ovit wliieh the painter and the public agree to disagree. The painter assures us (in words not always gentle) that he has nothing to do with the mental and moral nature of the man. He is to paint only his pictorial ap- pearance, only what he sees before him. As for this subtle analysis of a man's character, this shrewd di.s- cernment of a nobleman, a poet, a statesman, or a murderer, the painter thinks it is more in the specta- tor's imagination than in the picture. Well, the painter is right; but the public is not entirely wrong. The difference may be largely one of words — a great many differences are. It is true that the painter has nothing to do witli the man's life or history, his achievement or his lack of achieve- ment aside from what shows in the physical make-up ; but can it be doubted that what a man has done or is doing, what he thinks, what he endures, what he enjoys, what he suffers, will somehow make its im- press upon his face and be an index to his character for those who are keen-sighted enough to see it ? We have heard of reading character by hands or clothing XXVII.— REMBRANDT, Elizabeth Bas. Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. PORTRAIT PAINTING 93 or movements, but after all can it not be read best in the human face? The face is the mirror of the thoughts, the beliefs, the passions, the emotions. Certainly the man of books will after years of study wear the student's thoughtful expression, the pastor of the flock will finally show the ministerial air; the soldier the martial bearing; the servant, subserviency; and the beggar mock humility. We may not always see these features obtruding upon us in actual life. If we try to guess at people's occupations in a crowd we are often puzzled. But that may be because we are not good readers of the human face. There is precisely where the portrait-painter comes in with his training and experience. He has become an expert in just that very thing. It would be strange, indeed, if after studying faces all his life he should not see more in them than we who merely glance at them casually to recognize an acquaint- ance, and sometimes have difficulty even in doing that. Let us not misunderstand about this. I do not mean that the painter sees more scholarship, more poetry, more humility, or more brutality in the faces ; but merely that he sees the physical conformation more completely than we do. This for the same reason that a landscape-painter sees more in a blue sky, a shaft of light, or a single tree than one who is not a landscape-painter. There is usually at the 94 STUDIES IN PICTURES dining-room entrance of each one of the large New York hotels an attendant who takes the hats of peo- ple entering the room. Without checks or numbers he seldom fails to return every man his own hat. Now he does not do so by saying to himself, " Tliat man looks like a judge, this one like a merchant, and this one like a physician "; but by noticing some peculiarity of face or figure characteristic of each man. The result of his practice is that he has a very superior knowledge of physiognomy. Just so with the portrait-painter. When a man comes into his studio he does not look at him in solemn study and mentally conclude, " You look as though you might be a professor; I'll give you a thoughtful brow." He simply studies tlie man's physique, tries to imagine him as he would look in a picture, and finally puts down his imagination on canvas. Of course he emphasizes the marked fea- tures just as a caricaturist exaggerates them. Some- times the caricature resembles the man more strongly than a photograph, and .sometimes the painter gets " that thoughtful look," or " that nervous quality " more pronounced than in the original. He sees abnormal or protrusive features in the sitter (such features as thin lips, high cheek bones, delicate nos- trils, overhanging brows, all become a little abnor- mal in people who have done things) and he seizes upon them, painting them strongly because they ap- peal to him strongly. The result is the peculiar look PORTRAIT PAINTING 95 that betrays the character of the man appears in the painting. And that, too, perhaps without the paint- er's thinking about it consciously, or doing anything other than portraying strongly what he saw before him. That is about all there is to the character por- trait. The painter is right in his contention. He cannot go beyond the surface. If a great statesman looks like a butcher, it is his business to paint him as he looks. Of course much depends upon the way in which he sees his sitter, whether he produces a good portrait or not. According to Mr. Henry James, " Art is a point of view, and genius a way of look- ing at things." The definition has been well-worn, but still has some force. Your little men in por- traiture see little things, wrinkles and buttons and cocked hats; they paint them in a small way, and are sometimes, but mistakenly, referred to as " real- ists." Your great men see the larger and more important things, physical life and characteristic fea- tures; they paint them in a large way and are some- times, but just as mistakenly, referred to as " ideal- ists." The difference is largely one of degree — of view-point. Denner could find nothing in the face of a sitter but freckles and wrinkles; but Titian could see.-ar-physitrai' and" intellectual being possessed of a personality and a distinct character. As for the distorted meaning of the word " real- ism," by which people usually mean the painting 96 STUDIES IN PICTURES of peanuts and postage-stamps to be picked up, a truth is no truer because it is petty and easily dis- cerned. A man's character, be it true or false, is just as true and real as his nose or his forehead, and the great portrait-painters like Titian and Hom- brandt were Just as realistic in a large way as Denner, Dou, Meissonier, and all the little men of the paint brush were in a small way. There is a characteristic look or appearance that distinguishes a man from his fellows, and that is precisely the important por- trait-truth that the painter should see and portray. He is not to put character in a man, not to make him look noble when he has no nobility about him; but he is to make the most of what he finds by seiz- ing upon the prominent features. This, in the hands of genius, produces the highest kind of portraiture, best seen perhaps in such men as Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Rubens — in short the great painters of all time. And please notice that the great painters of all time did not despise painting the portrait, that they really took pleasure in painting it, and that their great masterpieces are portraits. There is a notion prevalent in uninlolligont circles that portrait- painting is a perfunctory affair, a following of the model requiring no great imagination, a kind of work not to be mentioned in the same breath with historical or ideal creation. Do not believe any such nonsense. A portrait by Titian (Plate 2C^) or l?em- XXVIIL— PlERO DELLA FRANCESCA (?), Unknown Lady. Pitti, Florence. PORTRAIT PAINTING 97 brandt (Plate 37) is about the best that painting has to offer us. Let me suggest also that in studying the great portraits you do not allow yourself to be bothered by the " ugly " or the " handsome." You may think that Mantegna's men and Piero della Francesca's women (Plate 28) are "ugly," because they are not sweet-faced like the saints of Perugino ; but consider what superb force and truth they have, and how nobly they represent their clime and time and race ! They are wonderful revelations of character — epitomes of the best in the Italian people. There is very little in nature that is " ugly " when seen in its proper environment. And again, do not allow yourself to be worried by costumes that you may think hideous because difEer- ent from our ovm. — the ruffs of Antonio Moro, the brocades of Mierevelt, the hoop-skirts of Velasquez. If you will forget their form and look at them merely as color in a decorative pattern, you will see how very beautifully they answer their purpose in filling space and pleasing the eye. The three chil- dren's portraits by Velasquez in the Vienna Gal- lery, in spite of the balloon-quality of their nether garments, are the most superb pieces of painting in all the world (Plate 25). The portrait does not consist in the pretty face and the tailor-made suit, otherwise the fashion plates of the women's journals would have a monopoly of that branch of art. 98 STUDIES IN PICTURES Of course there is danger in too great a display of either costume or color. The painter may make the picture of these, combined with sunlight and pirin nir; but in doing so he may lose the portrait, ^lany a modern painter is open to that very criti- cism. He overlooks the fact that in portraiture the subject is more exacting than in any other l)ranch of painting. The iflpntity pnc\ ppri-iprinlity of tlic sitter must be preserved. A free personal inter- pretation, such as Delacroix or Millet gave with their figure pictures, will not answer. Some feeling must be put in the work, some sympathy with the model must I)e apparent ; but too great a license may falsify the likeness and romance the character. Again, there is or should be a limit to the use of gorgeous accessories. Too many splendid furnishings may rob the king himself of importance. There is a nice balance to be maintained in portraiture; and because they maintained the balance exactly and perfectly is perhaps one reason why we keep hark- ing back to Titian and A^'elasquez as the great mas- ters. They do not reproduce the sitter with photo- graphic exactness and nothing more; neither do they leave him struggling in a fog-bank of color, light, and silken splendor. They have a knowledge of lim- itations and are gifted with a sense of proportion. CHAPTER VIII GENRE PAINTING We have not yet finished with tlie human figure in art. There are otlier phases of it than the portrait and the historical scene — phases that you will not see too much of in the Italian galleries, but M^hich will be greatly in evidence in the Dutch, English, and French collections, especially among the modern pictures. I mean now the genre painting — some- thing that we must labor over in illustration if we would define. In historical painting the figure is of primary im- portance; and the landscape, the room, the street, the court, or wherever the figure may be placed, is usually a subordinate background, a mere setting or framework. In genre painting the figure is usually reduced in size so that it sometimes plays no more of a part than a house or an animal or a spot of color; and the scene is painted as a whole without the sacrifice of any part. That distinction may prove suggestive, but it is not by any means definite or final. It is the distinction between man as a mere human being and man as an individual. 99 100 STUDIES IN PICTURES There are those wlio undcrsiand by genre paint- ing the painting of the commonplace; hut that, again, hardly describes it. Meissonier was at one time considered the prince of genre painters, as Terburg before him ; and yet, in a sense, neither of them painted commonplace subjects. In fact they were rather elegant seventeenth- and eighteenth- century cavaliers and Imrghers. If we mean by "commonplace" the ordinary events or intimate scenes of every-day life, as distinguished from scenes of historic or national importance, we may be nearer \ the truth and yet still be in something of a mental tangle. Perhaps we shall understand its meaning better if we try to define its scope or extent. Cxenro painting, then, includes pictures of interiors, street scenes, housesy^mtjh figures; it deals with f^ia<, stories, do- mestic events, incidents of high or low life; it shows manners, usages, and every-day occupations, and is, in measure, an illustration of the sociai -M^e-of the people. It does not include the portrait or the land- scape or the animal piece as such; nor does it prop- erly include still-life or flower painting, though these are usually priKlucod by genre painters. Dealing, as it does, largely with contemporary events and familiar life, genre painting seems to imply something done from the model — something reajistic in appearance. Such an inference is correct enough, but is subject to some exceptions. As a rule GENRE PAINTING 101 its producers do paint what they see before them oftener than what they fancy or imagine. Actual life being the theme models are easily obtainable; and the painter, working directly from the fact, tries to give his picture the look of reality. This very feature, to which you are perhaps readily drawn in the gallery, has been cast in the face of the genre painters as a reproach. The historical painters — the grave academicians who have never had any compunctions of conscience about casting the first stone — have been kind enough to say that the genre painters are mere imitators of set forms, that they have no great knowledge or imagination and do no thinking, that they work entirely from the fingers and gain effects by bright color, flashy textures, and dex- terous manipulation of the brush. And to tell the truth there is something in that assertion. The genre painters, being put to their wits for answer, have abused the historical painters for concocting dreams on canvas; for picturing people they have never seen, and reciting events they have never known, for distorting the truth of natural appear- ance, and for neglecting the truly poetic in the humble things of every-day life. And to tell a fur- ther truth there is something in that assertion. It is an odd chapter in art history that does not contain a quarrel of some sort. But genre painting is not wholly an imitation of given models, nor a case of mere technical fire- 102 STl DIES IN PICTURES works. The little incidents of life — family groups in interiors, tavern scenes, street processions, court squares with huckster stalls and passing people — are as much history as Xenophon and the Ten Thousand or Napoleon at Marengo, though they may not ap- pear so important in the eyes of the political world. They are the evcnt'i of sooial-Iife, and as such are entitled to consideration. Time was when history was no more than the biographies of kings, but to- day we are beginning to think it means the sociologi- cal doings of all the people. Moreover, these domestic subjects offer abundant opportunity for the display of imagination and pic- torial poetry. It is true that the painters usually do not strive for those qualities. There is no great imagination in Pietcr de Hooch's interiors (Plate 21)) or Mcissonier's readers or Alfred Stevens' fash- ionable women. The skill of the artist is predomi- nant, and an artistic feeling for light or color is about all there is to the picture. But the fisher-folk of Is- raels, the workers of Bonvin, or the children of Char- din or (!ainsborough are full of true poetry, and are quite as important contributions to art and life as pictures of more pretentious size. The value of sen- timent is not appraised i)y the extent of either verse or canvas. A single couplet by Burns or a single spader or shepherdess by Millet is worth a volume by Tupper, or a whole wall panel by Kaulbach or Cornelius. Q < O X X X GENRE PAINTING 103 As for skill the genre painting requires just as much as any other painting, and is subject to just as severe criticism from the public. The mob that surges through the Louvre on Sundays may pass uncriticised Couture's " Eomans of the Decadence," because it knows little about the subject; but let a genre painting of a concierge sitting in a doorway appear, and every shopkeeper and cabman in the throng will be able to tell you whether it is true or not. The genre is not to be despised because it is small in scale or incidental in subject. And again let me say that a picture should not be measured by size, nor the remoteness of its subject from our knowledge; but by the lifa-that-is kt-it and the life which it is able to awaken in us. Of course this painting of familiar life is no new thing invented in modern times to please a fashion- able world. Indeed, it is very old. The ancient Egyptians pictured the every-day events of their life, but not in a manner distinct from their more formal historical presentations. In Greece there was an art of the grotesque that approximated modern genre; and in later times the small things in Greek and in Roman life all found their way upon wall and panel. After Rome there was little of it for a thousand years; and then, at the end of the Renaissance, it came into notice again with the pictures of the Vene- tian Bassani and their contemporaries. At the north almost all the art of the little Dutchmen belongs in 104 STUDIES IN PICTURES this department. In fact the Netherlanders were the first who gave definite rank and importance to the picture of humble life and commonplace story. Brouwor, Teniers, Terburg, Steen, Van der Meer of Delft, De Hooch, Van Mieris, all painted the small panel with the small subject, but often in a very large way. And Yery lione^^tly. They were not at all ashamed of their home life. It was the influence of the Dutchmen that had something to do with making " the picture with a story " in English art. Hogarth, Wilkie, Morland (Plate 30), and hosts of lesser lights such as Mul- ready, took up the humble theme, })ainting it in a peculiarly English manner. Even figure painters like Gainsljorough used it occasionally and effec- tively; though most of the English painters aspired to the historical picture of exalted theme — with which, however, they never succeeded. The French, too, have always been painters of the figure, though much genre has come out of Paris. Tn early years Watteau, Pater, and Lancret pro- duced a most charming quality of small art; and after them Chard in. Fragonard, and Greuze depicted themes of city and country life that at least re- ceived a warm welcome from the people. When David and Classicism came at the l)eginning f)f the French Revolution, these domestic themes passed under a cloud. They were not forceful enough for people in the throes of revolution, ami David rather GENRE PAINTING 105 led the artistic mind toward scenes of Greek and Roman heroism. Genre painting came to the sur- face again with Eomanticism when Napoleon had made his exit and France had" once more turned to the plough and the spindle; and the chief form it took upon itself under Eomanticism was the por- trayal of Oriental life. The picturing of the Orient is quite a distinct branch of genre. In fact, it is hardly genre at all, if compared with the interiors of Steen or the peasants of Ostade. It has apparently impinged at times upon figure- and landscape-painting, and yet it has shown truly enough the manners and customs of the every-day East without any heroic pose or grandilo- quence, except perhaps in the hands of painters like Benjamin-Constant. Decamps, with his Turkish courts and schools, his bashi-bazouks, camels, wind- ing caravans, and shining minarets, saw with roman- tic eyes perhaps ; but he nevertheless had the point of view of the genre painter, and painted the scene " all of a piece," regarding his figures more for color and light than as figures, and the landscape more as an envelope than a setting. Marilhat was of the same cast of mind. He did many scenes from Egyptian life, was in love with the East, and used to sign him- self " Marilhat the Egyptian." Some of the works of these men, with those of Fromentin, painter and critic, are to be seen in the upper galleries (Thierry Collection) of the Louvre in Paris. In more modern 106 STUDIES IX PICTURES times Cerome, Bargue, and Huguet have used the East as a storehouse of properties useful in pictorial representations, and with more or less success. At about the same time that the painters of the Orient were flourishing there came into existence what has been called the "peasant genre" of Millet, C'ourbet, Breton, and otliers. Perhaps the only thing that puts it in the genre classification is the subject. In treatment these men were really figure painters, ^hough they did scenes from intimate life that i.re unmistakenly genre in character. After a long period of viewing the peasant with indifference the ]>ublic gradually awakened to the fact that he was really quite picturesque, and Millet's Sowers, Clean- er.s, and Woodsmen came into popular favor. Of course when the subject proved attractive there were j)lenty of painters to adojjt it. As a result tlie peas- antry of France has crowded the walls of the Salons for the last thirty years. Bastien-Lepage was one of the best of the younger men, and L'Hermitte, Lerolle, Dagnan-Bouveret have all produced a good quality of peasant genre, but always with some re- minder of figure painting about it. This is true of the military genre of Meissonier (Plate 31). It is figure painting in the little; his- torical work on a microscopic scale. No doubt Meis- sonier got much of his initiative from such Dutch- men as Terburg and Dou. He liked their technique, but not their subject. He cared little for humble XXXI.— MEISSONlER, The Sergeant's Portrait. GENRE PAINTING 107 life, and never painted boors or kitchen interiors or pots and pans, preferring the courtier in powdered wig, the soldier in his uniform, the scholar sur- rounded by his library. For these fine figures he rather sacrificed the rest of his picture, which is the reason for saying he was a figure painter in little. Later on he gave the proof of this in his Napoleonic battle pictures, which are historical pictures, and yet are little larger in size than his other works. Every- thing he did was diminutive in scale. He saw the world through the small end of an opera-glass, and was a painter great in little things. Whistler used to sneer at him and call his pictures " snuff-box paint- ing " ; but they were more than that. He was a fine craiteman, but perhaps not a great artist. " There were a number of painters who followed Meissonier in the military genre; and a still larger body who accepted his technique and applied it to fashionable life, boulevard life, gay life, low life. Moreover, with these followers the work became more genre-like, more materialistic. The figure came to have little more importance than a rug, a tapestry, a silk dress, or a piece of Empire furniture. Sub- jects began to be painted for their color, light, or texture; and, finally, to show how clever the painter was in handling the brush. In 1853 and 1855 the French Minister of Fine Arts publicly protested against this realistic genre as tending to do away with the ideal and the historical; but the protest 108 STUDIES IN PICTURES was unlieeded. Realism was in the air, and the intimate life upon canvas expressed the gossipy spirit of tiie a^re. People for a time really believed that the millinery effects of Toulmoiiche, Heilbiith, Kiim- merer, and others were great art. Then the tapestry, rug, and mirror pictures of Louis Leloir, and the red-robed cardinals of Yibcrt caught the fancy. Amid all this demonstration of ))ad taste there were a few who had the good sense to admire the superbly painted fashionable genre of Alfred Stevens. It is not easy to trace the many ramifications of modern genre painting. It has pervaded all depart- ments of life, told of things in all tenses, and ran- sacked the four quarters of the glol)e for the mate- rial of the telling. Effort is so individual in these days that it is almost impossible to classify painters by schools or even subjects. Every painter is a searcher after novelty on his own account, and independent of what others may do or think. Impressionism is no exception to this, though the impressionistic brother- hood holds together better than some others. They are regarded as the " outs " in art, and that may have something to do with their unity. Opposition often brings strange people into one camp. As re- gards genre painting the impressionists long ago adopted it. Manet, Degas, Beraud, Kaffaelli, Renoir (Plate 32), Pissarro, have produced it many times with subjects taken from low life and middle life, and with a realism often too true for general acceptance. GENRE PAINTING 109 The changes in genre painting which I have out- lined in France have been repeated with more or less distinctness in Holland, Scandinavia, England, and America. Germany has rather held aloof with an art of its own, but if you visit the modern gal- leries at Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, you will find them filled with genre pictures. Austria, too, is producing a new and quite astonishing kind of genre. Paris, however, has been the center of art for many years, and the reflection of its doings is seen in other countries. In this age there is a ten- dency to lose nationality in a universal cosmopoli- tanism. Painters are now great travellers, and pick up not only subjects but ideas in every land. And the genre picture that tells the manners and cus- toms of foreign people was never in greater demand than at present. That is why every Eoyal Academy or Society or Salon shows its quota of paintings made in Japan or the South Sea Islands or Egypt or India. If the world continues to grow demo- cratic and cosmopolitan, there is a decided future for genre painting. The painting of still-life — fruits, flowers, china, pans, pots, dead game — is so closely related to genre painting that it may be spoken of in the same breath. Painters have at all times delighted in painting morsels — scraps of light or color or texture — just for the pure love of manipulating the brush and pleasing the eye with an efEect. Teniers was as much 110 STUDIES IN PICTURES deliglited witli a brass pot, a stone jug, or a steel breast-plate as Chardin with a decanter of wine and a china cup, or Diaz with a bunch of carnations. In the same way and for a similar reason Vollon painted his yellow pumpkin, as Monet his dead pheasants, and our own Mr. Chase his dead fish on a mari^et table. Such pictures do not " mean " much, if you arc seeking a story or a history in the pic- ture; but they mean a great deal if you are clever enough to see in them tlie love, the verve, the en- thusiasm of the painter in liis work. They lend themselves to the most delightful of color schemes, and they may reveal the very best quality of feeling and pictorial poetry. There is something to admire in almost every kind of painting, if we have but the eyes to see it. XXXII.- RENOIR, Yourg Girls. CHAPTER IX THE ANIMAL IN ART After humanity as a subject in art other things are given place as they are closely or remotely re- lated to man. Naturally, therefore, the animal life about us has come in for some recognition. Indeed, the study of it has been the passion of the present age. Lives of toil have been given to it, libraries of books have been written about it, portfolios and even galleries have been filled with photographs of it. Art has not lagged far behind in this field. The ffisthetic view has kept pace with the scientific. From the earliest ages the artist has been beside the his- torian in recreating the animal in form and color; some of the finest pieces of ancient art represent the dumb brute; and to-day the scientific knowledge of a Cvivier or a Darwin is complemented by the artistic knowledge of a Barye or a Troyon. And why not animals in art? Why not pictures of cattle and horses and dogs and donkeys? Are they not just as perfect in their way as other forms of life ? We have passed that stage of enlightenment that arrogated to the human form all the beauty of the world. We have come to recognize that there is 111 112 STUDIES IN PICTURES something more to beauty than proportion, regu- larity, and symmetry. We now know aesthetic pleas- ure in strength, movef««al»._relationship, yes, even in awkwardness, clumsiness, and what the world has been pleased to call the ugly. A4xuth of char- acter, a fitness to -a-tiesigueji end, a proper embodi- ment of vital energy, may make animal life attractive in spite of classic laws of proportion and academic formulas of what should constitute an ideal. This is not applicable to the domestic animals alone — the ones that are gentle and patient. The wild beasts of the forest and the desert, even in their brutal strength and cruel ferocity, have about them a something to be admired. Delacroix and Barye have shown it to us in a lion crushing a serpent, and in a jaguar devouring a hare. The idea of such scenes seems repulsive at first, but was not the ani- mal designed for that end, fitted for that purpose? Does not that very act of brutality betray the char- acter of the brute? And is not c haracter the very essence of such art ? For this theory the ancients supplied the practice, and as a rather exceptional thing the Egyptians nnd Assyrians did such fine things that the moderns, with all their knowledge nnd facility, have scarcely improved upon them. The great sphinxes of black granite, with their lion's body and king's head, the crouching rams that lined the avenues of Karnak, look like curiously heavy and incomplete sculptures; THE ANIMAL IN ART 113 but delicacy of cutting would have chipped away that strength of mass which was the very quality the sculptors wished to show. The same largeness in modelling is met with in Assyria ; but what strength, what action, what keen artistic sense of character lie in their bas-reliefs? Some of the best of these reliefs are preserved in the British Museum, and there, to this day, the wounded lioness drags herself forward on her forelegs, roaring out defiance at the bowman, the great mastiffs tug and strain at the leash, the ibex and the goat skulk amid the bushes, the wild ass kicks at an imaginary foe in his flight. Superb in life and power are these sculptures of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. People to-day do a more finical, fussy, polished-and-rubbed sort of work than those who lived in the days of Assur-banipal ; but it can hardly be called an improvement upon the rendering of animal life. Even the Greeks, with all their technical skill in sculpture, improved but little upon the Assyrians, though the prancing steeds along the Parthenon frieze are full of "pmver trnd-lif e. If we may believe Pliny, the painters of animal life in Greece must have been wonderful. He tells us that Apelles painted a troop of cavalry so realistically that other horses neighed at the sight of the picture; and that Protogenes rivalled him by the foam on a dog's mouth, and the wonder in the eye of a startled pheas- ant. The only facts, however, that we have about 114 STUDIES IN F'lfTURES Greek genre painting are to be found in Roman and Ponipeian imitations, and they are in no way re- markable. After Rome and under Early Christianity the ani- mal was used only to illustrate Bible story or as Christian symbolism. The fantastic forms of the Roman world were revised and enlarged, so that a whole kingdom of demons, griffins, and leviathans of monstrous shape came into existence as a terror to evil-doers. Eventually the whole representation passed into the bizarre and was lost in the gold back- ground of Byzantine art. When life and landscape again came to be studied in the Early Renaissance time the animal was given a share of attention, but it was a very slight share. The flock around St. Joachim's shecpfold was a sorry-looking collection of wooden shcop; and the cows and horses that appeared in the " Adoration of the Magi " were grotesque-looking beasts, with a semi-human expression of countenance, and most astonishing bodies. Jn sculpture some of the Italians, like Donatello and Verrocchio, were simply superb with their horses; but the painters were in no way re- markable. Rnphael's horse was about ns wooden as Paolo Uccello's, and even Leonardo used a horse that travelled on his hind legs, in true mcrry-go-round fashion. The Venetians were much better. Paolo Veronese, for example, painted wonderful dogs, Tin- toretto handled all animal life with knowledge and THE ANIMAL IN ART 115 skill, and the Bassani were among the first to paint cows and sheep with a proper appreciation of their purely animal qualities. The galleries of Italy, and Italian pictures wher- ever found, have the animal more or less in evidence ; but unfortunately people do not often see beyond the figures. The " Flight into Egypt " is remarkable for the pretty face of the young Madonna or the accom- panying children; the little donkey is usually not noticed at all. So, again, in the " Adoration of the Magi " it is the people that are seen ; few there are who stop to look at the caparisoned steeds, the at- tendent dogs, the cattle at the manger, though they may be the most telling features of the picture. At the north the chief merit of the Flemings and Dutchmen in animal representation seems to have been a wearisome fidelity to exterior facts. They never grasped the meaning of brute life like the modern Frenchmen. There are, of course, some ex- ceptions to that statement — Kubens, for example. And then we must not forget that the careful study of both animal life and landscape really began in the Netherlands, Both were emancipated from dec- orative servitude there, and in both cases a measure of success was reached without any wonderful mas- terpieces being produced. One hears many rhapso- dies over Paul Potter's "Young Bull" at The Hague; but the " Young Bull " is not the last word in art about the bovine family. It is a good piece of hard 116 STUDIES IN PICTURES drawing wliich has resulted in a dead museum bull that fcigus life with glass eyes and a stull'cd body. Cuyp's cattle are much better as smaller, and shar- ing the interest with landscape; but neither he nor Adrien van de Vclde nor Berchem nor l)u Jardin ever reached that sympathetic "truth of cattle paint- ing attained by such moderns ag. Troyon ( I'late 3."?) and Jacquc, or such contemporary painters as Mols and Bjorck — to go far afield in Scandinavia for illustration. The Dutch were perhaps too liieral in their cattle painting, getting little more from the representation in art than is obvious to the ordinary observer in nature. Aside from Oudry and Desportes the animal did not flourish in French art until about the time of Eomanticism. The classicists, under the leader- ghip of David, had little use for anything so inelegant as dumb, driven cattle; and a horse was only a rearing platform upon which a hero posed for his picture. It was probably not until Clericault came, with his passion for the horse, that the animal became of importance in art. The sleekness, the swiftness, the beauty of movement in the horse he painted many times and with excellent results. He admired also the brutal strength of such beasts as lions and tigers, as his many drawings in the Louvre attest to this day. It was this admiration of Geri- cault for the purely physical, for the graceful action of the horse, for th<' " jaw on four ])aws," as the THE ANIMAL IN ART . 117 lion has been described, that was handed down in influence from Gericault to Delacroix, to Decamps, and to that superb worker in bronze, Barye, who probably carried it further and with better results than any artist of modern times. Delacroix was a naturalistic rather than an aca- demic draftsman, and he very often slurred line to gain an eifect of unity, mass, life, and motion. With no subjects did he do this more than with lions, tigers, and horses. His horse is a bit artificial and rather melodf^maT!?^in action. He never quite un- derstood that animal, but, probably with less study, he caught the true character of the tiger. A snap- ping, snarling, yellow-eyed mass of energy, willowy as a serpent and just as treacherous, Delacroix felt the sense of power in his long body and ponderous muscles, the fascination of his skulking, stealthy tread, and the crushing blow of his enormous paw. These he gave on canvas with such energy, such tell- ing effects of color and motion, that we instantly feel the force of the impression. In such a case slurred drawing — any kind of draw- ing — seems justifiable. Dozens of painters have given tiger anatomy better than Delacroix, but what one of them ever gave such tiger life! They frit- tered away the character of the beast in attention to the petty details of a glossy coat or the minutiae of eyes, mouth, and claws. Delacroix went straight at the salient points and was content with an effect, re- 118 STUDIES IN PICTURES gardlcss of tlic means whoroby it wa,s attained. In the same way Decamps and Fromentin gave to the camel his stilt-like legs, his spare body and long swinging tread, to the donkey his quick step and patient look, to the Arab horse his sleekness of limb and dashing action. They were all g^'^k'^g ^^" nmnnjii^ic that describe rather than the details that bewilder — they were seeking the charactei -joi i ho ani mal. This grasp of character seems to me the very es- sence of animal painting. Each animal of the field or of the forest has a distinct peculiarity which shows not only in its physical contour, but in its habit<^dTsp6^rtionj--uiQScinents; and if these qualities be truly given there will be a beauty about the beast. Consider the frightened, apprehensive look of the hyena, his bunched body and restless, sliulHing tread; the sharp keen look of the fox, his cocked ears, open mouth and light footfall; the long, slim nose and briglit eyes of the Scotch stag hound, his spare body and great loping spring; and almost in the same family, notice the distinct nature of eacli kind. It is the clumsiness of the elephant, the ferocity of the tiger, the docility and mild indolence of the cow that in each case makes for the nature of-44ie beast. Every species of the animal kingdom, whether do- mestic or wild, has a distinct. xhanrctcr marking it apart ; and whether tljat^hTrnrct«r,comes to us in art with weakness or force is just in proportion as it is discerned and recorded by the painter. liJ o < > X X THE ANIMAL IN ART 119 Now it is wortli while noticing that animal char- acter may be of two kinds. There is the true char- acter given animals by nature; and there is a false character occasionally given them by men when they seek to poetize or paint them. The true character I take to be just what the name " animal " implies. We speak of the " brute creation," and what do we mean by that if not something distinctly lower than humanity, a something not of mental, moral, or aes- thetic nature, but of physical and animal organiza- tion? Without either the logical or the emotional faculty to any great extent, animal character is largely a result of physical conditions — a something in direct opposition to man, whose physical nature is supposed to be controlled by his- reasoning powers. I am aware that there are cases of exceptional in- telligence in animals, but because a dog may be trained to walk on his hind legs or a pig to play cards is no argument for the inference that it is the nature of dogs to walk on two legs, or the nature of pigs to gamble; and any painter who sought to give such a nature to either dog or pig would simply be falsifying the character. The exceptions do not make the rule. It is the general run of the race that gives the stamp of the race, and where one picks the exception he may be specially true and yet gen- erally false. Sir Edwin Landseer is an example of one who has falsified the animal kingdom by giving it too much 120 STUDIES L\ PICTURES reasoning power and ©iHotional nature. He has pret- tified and humanized the dog until the animal of him lies only in his hair. His strength, ferocity, and pure dog-like nature have all gone out in sad eyes, facial expressions, xind attitudes. Uiat ape hu- manity. The attempt of the painter in sucli pictures as "Dignity and Impudence/' or "The Wounded Knight," was to he humorous or pathetic hy telling a story proper only to mankind. The dog in either case is put in a false face and made to play at being human. And this is what I should call giving the false character of the animal. On the contrary, if we turn from Landseer's dogs to the great yellow hounds of Velasquez we shall find that the Spaniard accepted the animal as an ani- mal, without any sentimentality or funny caricature, and simply because he was worth painting for his true nature. His was the purely physical portrait of the dog, different in kind, but not in method of treatment from the hounds of Theseus that Shake- speare tells us were " Bred out of the Spartan kind, So flewod, so sanded; and their heads are hung Witli ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-kneed and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls." In h(jth Shakespeare and Velasquez you have the true canine character without distortion. There is THE ANIMAL IN ART 121 no human element about it, though it may have a certain intelligence, approximating our own, as we may see in the shepherd dogs of Troyon and Jacque. These long, wiry-looking beasts understand their duty thoroughly, and there is very acute comprehen- sion in the sharp ear and eye, and the head always turning to the shepherd for instruction by hand or voice. It seems to be intelligence coupled with phys- ical and animal qualities, but it is not the abstract half-human intelligence that Landseer gave to the shepherd dog. All the modern painters who have had success with the animal have not tried in any way to disguise the beast in him. Van Marcke, Mauve, Mols, Lilje- fors — even the somewhat overrated Rosa Bonheur — have dealt largely with the material side, believ- ing that the creatures of the earth needed no apology from the painter for the place they occupy in the plan of the world. Sometimes they require apology for the place they occupy on canvas. For success in animal painting has been vouchsafed to only a few. A popular success has been accorded such painters as Verboeckhoven with his sheep, as, be- fore him, Wouverman with his horses, but neither of them deserved it. Verboeckhoven was a most persistent recorder of the tomb-stone- and porcelain sheep, and could sometimes paint a very fair sheep- skin; but for portraying the character of the ani- mal he was never in the same class with men like 122 STUDIES IN PICTURES Millet or Jacque or Mauve or Segautini. The last- named was somewhat niaunered iu method, and Mauve was often lacking technically, hut hy one means or another they succeeded in giving tin' feel- ing of life. In our own country some years ago Audubon made a great reputation as a painter of birds, but his success was more ornithological than artistic. His drawings are faithful records of fact, but as art they are not to be compared with the black-and- white illustrations of Charles Livingston Bull that appear from time to time in the American maga- zines. Perhaps the ablest painter of birds and wild animals at the present day is the Swedish artist, Bruno Liljefors. His ducks and geose and pheas- ants are life-like to a startling degree; and his painting of such animals as foxes trotting through the woods or jumping over fences is worthy of the highest praise, not only for its originality of theme but for its skill in execution. An American painter of high rank, Wiuslow Homer, occasionally does some- thing of this kind (Plate 35) that is comparable in its strength and beauty to the work of Liljefors. Aside from the recording of churaeter in beast and bird there is, or should be, a deajxati^^jnotive behind all animal painting. Cattle, for instance, apart from indolence, or cud-chewing, or stamping flies, or standing in pools of water, often have beau- tiful color, with forms that lend themselves to iiu- UJ ■^ o 5: o 5: I. >' X X X THE ANIMAL IN ART 123 pressive drawing. Troyon (as also Willem Maris), saw in the shadowed sides of Holland cattle spots of red that were as deep and as fine in quality as old mahogany; and his barnyard chickens, painted in huddled groups at feeding time, are often charm- ing combinations of variegated hues. Just so with the horses that Degas has shown us on the race track, and that Besnard has painted wading in the water, or moving along the red hills under the bright sunlight of Morocco. They are not only beautiful in form and graceful in move- ment, but they have hTre-«iid texture, and make up decorative patterns on canvas quite as worthy to be framed in gold and hung in the drawing-room as pictures of landscape or of humanity. Why not? We may arrogantly take away all reason from the brute, but we cannot change the beauty of the leopard's spots, nor deny the serpentine grace of his finely modelled body. The animal has and holds a distinct place in nature. Why not a distinct place in art? CHAPTER X LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTING A KNOWLEDGE of landscape seems to have been about the last thing arrived at by man. Hills, woods, and plains have been his dwelling ])lace in all generations, but not until modern times did he study them or try pictorially to understand them. He believed they were all made for his mate- rial needs — the hills for fortresses, the woods for timber, the meadows for cattle and agriculture. He thought them gay or sad as he was gay or sad; he twisted them, worked them, destroyed them; but when before the fifteenth century did he ever think them beautiful in themselves and indi^pcndcnt of Ins own mood or condition? In art the landscape has been the very latest word, the most modern subject with which the painter's brush has dealt; and yet, as a matter of fact, it has existed from the beginning. That contradiction may be e.xplained by saying that it was, at first, merely a background for-figHFes. All ancient painting was fig- ure painting, and landscape was poor trumpery un- less it pieced out the story about the man, or lielpcd the decorative quality of the picture. At best it was merely a symbol and not the apparent thing. One 124 LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTING 125 tree did service for a forest, a round line represented a mountain top, three zigzags symbolized a river or an ocean. Even the Greeks employed this short- hand in their vase paintings (though they also pro- duced a more realistic background in their wall frescoes), and after Eome the Christians accepted the tradition, or at least produced a symbolic land- scape of their own. Thus in the tenth century a blue tree with red apples, a snake wound about it, a man on one side and a woman on the other, with four zigzag lines about the whole, symbolized the Garden of Eden, the Four Elvers, the Temptation, and the Fall. The coloring of these landscapes was generally arbitrary, not natural ; there were no shad- ows, no relief,-iiQ perspective, no sky, no sunlight. When Giotto and the Lorenzetti at Sienna came, this symbolic landscape began to totter. They tried to introduce something truer to nature in sky, trees, and hills, but were always hampered by the im- portance of their figures. This is true of all Early Eenaissance painting. The landscape, however fine, never got beyond a bat;kground. Even with Peru- gino (Plate 36), Leonardo, and Eaphael the trees were of the willow-switch variety, the rocks fan- tastic, the sky and clouds hard, the distance blue, the foreground walnut-brown. Very beautiful are the landscapes by Costa and Francia at Bologna; they are quite charming in their feeling for space and light, but always commanding figures occupy 126 STUDIES IN PICTURES the foreground. The Venetians were far ahead of the Florentines and Bolognese in this, and some of the landscapes back of the figures in pictures by Titian, Giorgione, and Moretto are of incompara- ble excellence; but again the figures absorb the chief attention. This held true until after the time of Giulio Komano. In (Jiulio's wake came two Ro- manized P'renchnien, I'oussin. and Claude Lorraine, who conceived the idea of a landsca])e that should match the classic figures then produced in the Roman school. If heroic figures, why not heroic landscapes? If men were of Olympian magnificence, why not grandeur in the Olympian mountain, grove, and meadow? In the hands of Claude the classic Arcadia became something more than a background. His figures were much reduced in size and, though they gave the title to the picture, the greater interest hung upon the landscape. The whole conception -w«»- elegant and granxlitJ5cr-( Plate 37). There were long views of hill and valley, sylvan groves, flowing streams, peopled harbors, Corinthian temples, Roman aqueducts, mythological groups; and, of course, the object of it all was to suggest the ideal spot of earth, the for- mer Garden of the Gods. The work was panoramic, slightly theatrical; and yet not devoid of poetry, shrewd knowledge of nature, and considerable skill in execution. Claude was an exceedingly clever artist, and in many ways a remarkable man for his time; XXXVI.— PERUGINO, Madonna and St. Bernard (detail). S. M. Maddalena, Florence. LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTING 127 but hardly the greatest landscape painter in all art, as some would have us think. And yet he was a JLeader, arid an inaugurator of something new. Poussin's conception took the same general direc- tion as that of Claude. If anything, it was more limited in resource and conventional in material, though such a superb landscape as the large one in the Salle Carre of the Louvre is not limited in any way. Both of them threw much force into sweep- ing hill lines and elegant tree-forms; and both of them painted a generalized type of what nature might or could or should be, which was somewhat removed from the real thing. These two men formed the basis of what is known in art as the classic, landscape, and their example, when taken up later on, became known as " the Claude-Poussin tradition." It had a powerful influ- ence in all directions for many years, and, indeed, is not quite forgotten to-day. Many of the Dutch- men — Wynants, Euisdael, Both — were influenced by it, in spite of the local subjects which they portrayed ; in England Wilson and Turner adopted it with modi- fications ; and in France it was taken up anew by the academicians at the time of the French Eevolution. But the academicians did not improve it. David used it as a mere background for his Greek figures, while Aligny, Bertin, and others, made of it a beau- tiful example of seliect"ieTiiptiness. Like all classic art, the classic landscape was ideal, 128 STUDIES IN riCTI'RES with na local or iiulividiial charaftor. The tree, with that peculiarity about it that marks the oak, the eltn, or the pine, was seldom seen. Natuic was acade- mized, exalted, expanded, glorified. Of course it be- came only so much lifeless stage setting. And yet like stage scenery it had a great. show of grandeur and magnificence about it. A certain mock-heroism found its way amid the quiet hills and valleys until even the skies and trees and brooks put on an heroic stare. And, after all, it was done with a good deal of skill. The classicists were learned enough in the methods of art, but when they began to turn nature into a stage setting, it became apparent that the learning was there but nature was not. They fol- lowed a tradition and produced only a — tradition. Wliat else could have been expected ? About 1825 there came about a revolt from the classic standard. The grand landscape of the academicians, of which there are enough and to spare in every French museum, did not satisfy. It was palpably artificial, bloodless, colorless. The .sentiment as well as the form of it was a distor- L,^ tion. The whole conception needed reformation. Those who advocated a revolt — Gericault, Delacroix, and others — were called romanticists, and tlie new movement they inaugurated was known a.s Roman- ticism. It was in reality not so much a reform as a rushing to the other extreme. The classicists had manufactured an ideal tree, perfect in trunk. LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTING 129 limb, and branch; the romanticists produced a twisted^iorn, and ragged tree. Classic skies were serene, streams and lakes were placid, groves were peaceful, temples were majestic; romantic skies were overcg,st and dismal, waters were dark and myste- rious, groves were ghostly haunts of robbers, castles were ruined monuments of tragic history. Again Classicism had insisted upon outline drawing, but Eomanticism slurred it in favor of color in patches of solid pigment, was weird in lights, and mysteri- ous in shadows. By throwing its strength into color and ensemble, Eomanticism sought to convey a senti- ment or ieeliag-aiieut nature, rather than the appear- ance of nature itself. But for all that Poussin had tried to make of nature something heroic, and Delacroix had given it romance, sadness, weirdness, mystery, it is in real- ity neither one nor the other. Both men and both schools were distorting trees and hills and skies to make them chime with the sentiment of the stories told. What cares nature for the lonely rider by night, the storm-beaten cavalier on the desert heath, the Knight-Templar carrying away Eebecca from the burning castle ? Why should the trees bend like sad willows, the foliage droop, the grass wave dirge- like along the gorge of Eoncesvalles when '' Roland bold and Oliver And every paladin and peer On Roncesvalles died " ? 130 STUDIES IN PICTURES Both points of view were untrue. Nature has no sentiment. " The last of thy brothers might vanish from the face of the earth and not a needle of the pine branches would tremble." To make nature emo- tional is to endow it with human characteristics, which it docs not possess. The man behind tlie brush may become emotional, and in his landscape show a sentiment, a poetic feeling, which is perfectly proper; but to make the landscape itself the possessor of a subjective sentiment, as in the work of some of the classicists and romanticists, is quite another thing. The one gives a poetic view such as we asso- ciate with the landscapes of Corot; the other simply puts nature ^iB-A-fftiflfrface. Romanticism did not last long. It was too extrav- agant for permanent acceptance, and yet out of it came good. The generati(m that followed — the Fon- taincbleau-Barbizon painters — saw that both Classi- cism and Romanticism were false in sentiment; and nothing could be more natural than the flight to the forest of Fontainebleau for inspiration. But the flight was not immediate nor hasty. We are told that Constal5TelTie Englishman set the pace by exhibiting his "Hay-Wain" in the Salon of 1824, and that he was responsible for the direction Rousseau, Dupre, and others took. It is not probable. Rousseau and Pupre were only twelve years old in 1824, and others of the band were proportionately young. There was no "school" until long after 1824. The French XXXVIII.— COROT, Landscape. ■^ LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTING 131 painters, when they began to paint, went to the Louvre and studied Hobbema and Ruisdael, just as Constable and Gainsborough before them had done in England. It was the study of the Dutchmen for technique, and Fontainebleau forest for a model, that finally produced the celebrated school of French landscapists. It was not until after 1835 that the new point of view began to make itself apparent. The new landscape was not an academic invention nor a ro- mantic concoction, but a discovery. The painters of Fontainebleau and Barbizon found out that nature was beautiful quite aside from man and his doings — beautiful, all by itself, with never a thought of hu- manity. To them the charm of the hills and valleys, the grandeur of the forest, the lowliness of the mead- ows, the mists moving over the ponds and marshes, the radiance of dawn and dusk, the flame of sunlight, the passage of companies of clouds, -the harmony of light, air, and color, all constituted a new faith, a new religion of art, taken up with sincerity and followed with the ardor of true belief. The nature of the Dutchmen was enlarged and recreated, the true character of landscape was established, and great art was the final result. There was nothing distorted about this new land- scape. Rousseau would have no twisting of nature to suit the sentiment of classic or mediseval heroes. His trees did not grow dignified when Caesar passed. 132 STUDIES IN PICTURES nor inolanolioly wlien liolaiid diod. Thcv changod only with nature's wimlt-i, lights, and colors, lie and his contemporaries took nature as they found her, not as they imagined her; but owing to tlieir keen perceptions they found her ^ groat po em — a sorae- tliing they could translate into form and color and thus recreate upon canvas. They were wrapped up in the sentiment of light, air, and color ; and unless we look at their work from that point of view we shall fail to understand them as did the people of their day. Theirs was the poetry, not of history nor of romance, but of visual Jieauties. There was no factitious or literary character about it. It was a reality seen from a poetic point of view, with an en- thusiasm and a feeling in its portrayal that made of it poetic art. Corot, Kousseau, Diaz, Duprc, Daubigny are not easily understood even at the present day. That may be l)ecause the majority of their pictures suggest rather than realize. By that I mean they are done broadly with a full free brush which blurs out all the little features and emphasizes the gtcaLianes (Plate 38). If v'lu pa in I leaves you will never see the trees, if you insist u|)nn grass blades you will lose the breadth and depth of the meadows, if you draw every pebble on the beacli you will have a collection of stones, but not a seashore. All the Fontaincblcau painters painted in a small way at first. Jt took them years to get over it. Finally they foun«fii^ is DUE on the last date stamped below 'm FEB 7 1963 RETD BOOK BOX JAN 3 1 19(53 JOSH 3it9e»t % \ ID VJRL 3011 R E C E I V ifo"! MAIN LOAN OE$k I AUG 9 I96i A.M. 7l8l9 'l(Mllft»iii?J3 ft Form L-0 DEClOjWl 41516 UNlVKK^iTY of CAUFOHMii AT LOS ANCELES AA 000 286 984 3 1158 01027 6862 r I PLEA*?p DO NOT REMOVE THIS BOOK CARDj ^ ^^^l•LIBRARYQ^ ^^ University Research Library Z o < 00 1