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diff --git a/43894-8.txt b/43894-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1cbc87c..0000000 --- a/43894-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16142 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Modern Painting, Volume 2 -(of 4), by Richard Muther - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The History of Modern Painting, Volume 2 (of 4) - Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX century - -Author: Richard Muther - -Release Date: October 5, 2013 [EBook #43894] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING *** - - - - -Produced by Marius Masi, Albert László, P. G. Máté and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -THE HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING - -[Illustration: _Mansell Photo_ - - LESLIE MY UNCLE TOBY AND THE WIDOW WADMAN] - - THE HISTORY OF - MODERN PAINTING - - - BY RICHARD MUTHER - PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY - AT THE UNIVERSITY - OF BRESLAU - - - IN FOUR - VOLUMES - - [Illustration] - - VOLUME - TWO - - - - - REVISED EDITION - CONTINUED BY THE AUTHOR - TO THE END OF THE XIX CENTURY - - LONDON: PUBLISHED BY J. M. DENT & CO. - NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. MCMVII - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix - -BOOK III - - THE TRIUMPH OF THE MODERNS - -CHAPTER XVI - - THE DRAUGHTSMEN - - The general alienation of painting from the interests of life - during the first half of the nineteenth century.--The draughtsmen - and caricaturists the first who brought modern life into the - sphere of art.--England: Gillray, Rowlandson, George Cruikshank, - "Punch," John Leech, George du Maurier, Charles Keene.--Germany: - Johann Adam Klein, Johann Christian Erhard, Ludwig Richter, Oscar - Pletsch, Albert Hendschel, Eugen Neureuther, "Die Fliegende - Blätter," Wilhelm Busch, Adolf Oberländer.--France: Louis - Philibert Debucourt, Carle Vernet, Bosio, Henri Monnier, Honoré - Daumier, Gavarni, Guys, Gustave Doré, Cham, Marcellin, Randon, - Gill, Hadol, Draner, Léonce Petit, Grévin.--Need of a fresh - discovery of the world by painters.--Incitement to this by the - English 1 - -CHAPTER XVII - - ENGLISH PAINTING TO 1850 - - England little affected by the retrospective tendency of the - Continent.--James Barry, James Northcote, Henry Fuseli, William - Etty, Benjamin Robert Haydon.--Painting continues on the course - taken by Hogarth and Reynolds.--The portrait painters: George - Romney, Thomas Lawrence, John Hoppner, William Beechey, John - Russell, John Jackson, Henry Raeburn.--Benjamin West and John - Singleton Copley paint historical pictures from their own - time.--Daniel Maclise.--Animal painting: John Wootton, George - Stubbs, George Morland, James Ward, Edwin Landseer.--The painting - of _genre_: David Wilkie, W. Collins, Gilbert Stuart Newton, - Charles Robert Leslie, W. Mulready, Thomas Webster, W. Frith.--The - influence of these _genre_ pictures on the painting of the - Continent 53 - -CHAPTER XVIII - - THE MILITARY PICTURE - - Why the victory of modernity on the Continent came only by - degrees.--Romantic conceptions.--Æsthetic theories and the - question of costume.--Painting learns to treat contemporary - costume by first dealing with uniform.--France: Gros, Horace - Vernet, Hippolyte Bellangé, Isidor Pils, Alexander Protais, - Charlet, Raffet, Ernest Meissonier, Guillaume Régamey, Alphonse de - Neuville, Aimé Morot, Edouard Détaille.--Germany: Albrecht Adam, - Peter Hess, Franz Krüger, Karl Steffeck, Th. Horschelt, Franz - Adam, Joseph v. Brandt, Heinrich Lang 92 - -CHAPTER XIX - - ITALY AND THE EAST - - Why painters sought their ideal in distant countries, though they - did not plunge into the past.--Italy discovered by Leopold Robert, - Victor Schnetz, Ernest Hébert, August Riedel.--The East was for - the Romanticists what Italy had been for the Classicists.--France: - Delacroix, Decamps, Prosper Marilhat, Eugène Fromentin, Gustave - Guillaumet.--Germany: H. Kretzschmer, Wilhelm Gentz, Adolf - Schreyer, and others.--England: William Muller, Frederick Goodall, - F. J. Lewis.--Italy: Alberto Pasini 118 - -CHAPTER XX - - THE PAINTING OF HUMOROUS ANECDOTE - - After seeking exotic subjects painting returns home, and finds - amongst peasants a stationary type of life which has preserved - picturesque costume.--Munich: The transition from the military - picture to the painting of peasants.--Peter Hess, Heinrich Bürkel, - Carl Spitzweg.--Hamburg: Hermann Kauffmann.--Berlin: Friedrich - Eduard Meyerheim.--The influence of Wilkie, and the novel of - village life.--Munich: Johann Kirner, Carl Enhuber.--Düsseldorf: - Adolf Schroedter, Peter Hasenclever, Jacob Becker, Rudolf Jordan, - Henry Ritter, Adolf Tidemand.--Vienna: Peter Krafft, J. Danhauser, - Ferdinand Waldmüller.--Belgium: Influence of Teniers.--Ignatius - van Regemorter, Ferdinand de Braekeleer, Henri Coene, Madou, Adolf - Dillens.--France: François Biard 140 - -CHAPTER XXI - - THE PICTURE WITH A SOCIAL PURPOSE - - Why modern life in all countries entered into art only under the - form of humorous anecdote.--The conventional optimism of these - pictures comes into conflict with the revolutionary temper of the - age.--France: Delacroix' "Freedom," Jeanron, Antigna, Adolphe - Leleux, Meissonier's "Barricade," Octave Tassaert.--Germany: - Gisbert Flüggen, Carl Hübner.--Belgium: Eugène de Block, Antoine - Wiertz 175 - -CHAPTER XXII - - THE VILLAGE TALE - - Germany: Louis Knaus, Benjamin Vautier, Franz Defregger, Mathias - Schmidt, Alois Gabl, Eduard Kurzbauer, Hugo Kauffmann, Wilhelm - Riefstahl.--The Comedy of Monks: Eduard Grützner.--Tales of the - Exchange and the Manufactory: Ludwig Bokelmann, Ferdinand - Brütt.--Germany begins to transmit the principles of _genre_ - painting to other countries.--France: Gustave Brion, Charles - Marchal, Jules Breton.--Norway and Sweden stand in union with - Düsseldorf: Karl D'Uncker, Wilhelm Wallander, Anders Koskull, - Kilian Zoll, Peter Eskilson, August Jernberg, Ferdinand Fagerlin, - V. Stoltenberg-Lerche, Hans Dahl.--Hungary fructified by Munich: - Ludwig Ebner, Paul Boehm, Otto von Baditz, Koloman Déry, Julius - Aggházi, Alexander Bihari, Ignaz Ruskovics, Johann Jankó, Tihamér - Margitay, Paul Vagó, Arpad Fessty, Otto Koroknyai, D. - Skuteczky.--Difference between these pictures and those of the old - Dutch masters.--From Hogarth to Knaus.--Why Hogarth succumbed, and - _genre_ painting had to become painting pure and simple.--This new - basis of art created by the landscapists 194 - -CHAPTER XXIII - - LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN GERMANY - - The significance of landscape for nineteenth-century - art.--Classicism: Joseph Anton Koch, Leopold Rottmann, Friedrich - Preller and his followers.--Romanticism: Karl Friedrich Lessing, - Karl Blechen, W. Schirmer, Valentin Ruths.--The discovery of - Ruysdael and Everdingen.--The part of mediation played by certain - artists from Denmark and Norway: J. C. Dahl, Christian - Morgenstern, Ludwig Gurlitt.--Andreas Achenbach, Eduard - Schleich.--The German landscape painters begin to travel - everywhere.--Influence of Calame.--H. Gude, Niels Björnson Möller, - August Cappelen, Morten-Müller, Erik Bodom, L. Munthe, E. A. - Normann, Ludwig Willroider, Louis Douzette, Hermann Eschke, Carl - Ludwig, Otto v. Kameke, Graf Stanislaus Kalkreuth, Oswald - Achenbach, Albert Flamm, Ascan Lutteroth, Ferdinand Bellermann, - Eduard Hildebrandt, Eugen Bracht.--Why many of their pictures, - compared with those of the old Dutch masters, indicate an - expansion of the geographical horizon, rather than a refinement of - taste.--The victory over interesting-subject-matter and - sensational effect by the "_paysage intime_" 230 - -CHAPTER XXIV - - THE BEGINNINGS OF "PAYSAGE INTIME" - - Classical landscape painting in France: Hubert Robert, Henri - Valenciennes, Victor Bertin, Xavier Bidault, Michallon, Jules - Cogniet, Watelet, Théodore Aligny, Edouard Bertin, Paul Flandrin, - Achille Benouville, J. Bellel.--Romanticism and the resort to - national scenery: Victor Hugo, Georges Michel, the Ruysdael of - Montmartre, Charles de la Berge, Camille Roqueplan, Camille Flers, - Louis Cabat, Paul Huet.--The English the first to free themselves - from composition and the tone of the galleries: Turner.--John - Crome, the English Hobbema, and the Norwich school: Cotman, Crome - junior, Stark, Vincent.--The water colour artists: John Robert - Cozens, Girtin, Edridge, Prout, Samuel Owen, Luke Clennel, Howitt, - Robert Hills.--The influence of aquarelles on the English - conception of colour.--John Constable and open-air - painting.--David Cox, William Muller, Peter de Wint, Creswick, - Peter Graham, Henry Dawson, John Linnell.--Richard Parkes - Bonington as the link between England and France 257 - -CHAPTER XXV - - LANDSCAPE FROM 1830 - - Constable in the Louvre and his influence on the creators of the - French _paysage intime_.--Théodore Rousseau, Corot, Jules Dupré, - Diaz, Daubigny and their followers.--Chintreuil, Jean Desbrosses, - Achard, Français, Harpignies, Émile Breton, and others.--Animal - painting: Carle Vernet, Géricault, R. Brascassat, Troyon, Rosa - Bonheur, Jadin, Eugène Lambert, Palizzi, Auguste Lançon, Charles - Jacque 294 - -CHAPTER XXVI - - JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET - - His importance, and the task left for those who followed - him.--Millet's principle _Le beau c'est le vrai_ had to be - transferred from peasant painting to modern life, from Barbizon to - Paris 360 - - -BOOK IV - - THE REALISTIC PAINTERS AND THE MODERN IDEALISTS - -CHAPTER XXVII - - REALISM IN FRANCE - - Gustave Courbet and the modern painting of artisan life.--Alfred - Stevens and the painting of "Society."--His followers Auguste - Toulmouche, James Tissot, and others.--In opposition to the - Cinquecento the study of the old Germans, the Lombards, the - Spaniards, the Flemish artists, and the _Rococo_ masters becomes - now a formative influence.--Gustave Ricard, Charles Chaplin, - Gaillard, Paul Dubois, Carolus Duran, Léon Bonnat, Roybet, Blaise - Desgoffe, Philippe Rousseau, Antoine Vollon, François Bonvin, - Théodule Ribot 391 - -BIBLIOGRAPHY 435 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - -PLATES IN COLOUR - - - PAGE - LESLIE: My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman _Frontispiece_ - ROMNEY: Serena 53 - LAWRENCE: Caroline of Brunswick, Queen of George IV 60 - MACLISE: The Waterfall, Cornwall 64 - MORLAND: Horses in a Stable 69 - LANDSEER: Jack in Office 76 - FROMENTIN: Algerian Falconers 132 - ROTTMANN: Lake Kopaïs 234 - TURNER: The old Téméraire 268 - CONSTABLE: Willy Lott's House 275 - BONINGTON: La Place de Molards, Geneva 290 - COROT: Landscape 316 - MILLET: The Wood-Sawyers 370 - - -IN BLACK AND WHITE - - ACHENBACH, ANDREAS. - Sea Coast after a Storm 247 - Fishing Boats in the North Sea 249 - - ADAM, ALBRECHT. - Albrecht Adam and his Sons 112 - A Stable in Town 113 - - BAADE, KNUT. - Moonlight Night on the Coast 253 - - BECKER, JACOB. - A Tempest 165 - - BERGE, CHARLES DE LA. - Landscape 263 - - BOILLY, LEOPOLD. - The Toilette 2 - The Newsvendor 3 - The Marionettes 4 - - BONHEUR, ROSA. - The Horse-Fair 351 - Ploughing in Nivernois 353 - - BONINGTON, RICHARD PARKES. - The Windmill of Saint-Jouin 290 - Reading Aloud 291 - Portrait of Richard Parkes Bonington 293 - - BONNAT, LÉON. - Adolphe Thiers 423 - Victor Hugo 424 - - BONVIN, FRANÇOIS. - The Cook 427 - The Work-Room 428 - - BRETON, ÉMILE. - The Return of the Reapers 225 - The Gleaner 226 - - BRION, GUSTAVE. - Jean Valjean 221 - - BUNBURY, WILLIAM HENRY. - Richmond Hill 9 - - BÜRKEL, HEINRICH. - Portrait of Heinrich Bürkel 143 - Brigands Returning 144 - A Downpour in the Mountains 145 - A Smithy in Upper Bavaria 146 - - BUSCH, WILHELM. - Portrait of Wilhelm Busch 29 - - CABAT, LOUIS. - Le Jardin Beaujon 264 - - CALAME, ALEXANDRE. - Landscape 250 - - CHAPLIN, CHARLES. - The Golden Age 418 - Portrait of Countess Aimery de la Rochefoucauld 419 - - CHARLET, NICOLAS TOUISSAINT. - Un homme qui boît seul n'est pas digne de vivre 95 - - CHINTREUIL, ANTOINE. - Landscape: Morning 343 - - CONSTABLE, JOHN. - Portrait of John Constable 274 - Church Porch, Bergholt 275 - Dedham Vale 277 - The Romantic House 278 - The Cornfield 279 - Cottage in a Cornfield 283 - The Valley Farm 285 - - COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON. - The Death of the Earl of Chatham 65 - - COROT, CAMILLE. - Portrait of Camille Corot 306 - The Bridge of St. Angelo, Rome 307 - Corot at Work 308 - Daphnis and Chloe 309 - Vue de Toscane 310 - At Sunset 311 - The Ruin 312 - Evening 313 - An Evening in Normandy 314 - The Dance of the Nymphs 315 - A Dance 316 - La Route d'Arras 317 - - COURBET, GUSTAVE. - Portrait of Gustave Courbet 393 - The Man with a Leather Belt. Portrait of Himself as - a Youth 394 - A Funeral at Ornans 395 - The Stone-Breakers 397 - The Return from Market 400 - The Battle of the Stags 401 - A Woman Bathing 402 - Deer in Covert 403 - Girls lying on the Bank of the Seine 404 - A Recumbent Woman 405 - Berlioz 406 - The Hind on the Snow 407 - My Studio after Seven Years of Artistic Life 409 - The Wave 412 - - COX, DAVID. - Crossing the Sands 286 - The Shrimpers 287 - - CROME, JOHN (OLD CROME). - A View near Norwich 273 - - CRUIKSHANK, GEORGE. - Monstrosities of 1822 6 - - DANHAUSER, JOSEF. - The Gormandizer 179 - - DAUBIGNY, CHARLES FRANÇOIS. - Portrait of Charles François Daubigny 335 - Springtime 336 - A Lock in the Valley of Optevoz 337 - On the Oise 338 - Shepherd and Shepherdess 339 - Landscape: Evening 341 - - DAUMIER, HONORÉ. - Portrait of Honoré Daumier 37 - The Connoisseurs 38 - The Mountebanks 39 - In the Assize Court 40 - "La voilà ... ma Maison de Campagne" 41 - Menelaus the Victor 42 - - DEBUCOURT, LOUIS PHILIBERT. - In the Kitchen 33 - The Promenade 34 - - DECAMPS, ALEXANDRE. - The Swineherd 127 - Coming out from a Turkish School 129 - The Watering-Place 131 - - DEFREGGER, FRANZ. - Portrait of Franz Defregger 208 - Speckbacher and his Son 209 - The Wrestlers 210 - Sister and Brothers 211 - The Prize Horse 213 - Andreas Hofer appointed Governor of the Tyrol 215 - - DÉTAILLE, EDOUARD. - Salut aux Blessés 111 - - DIAZ, NARCISSE VIRGILIO. - Portrait of Narcisse Diaz 328 - The Descent of the Bohemians 329 - Among the Foliage 331 - The Tree Trunk 332 - Forest Scene 333 - - DUBOIS, PAUL. - Portrait of my Sons 421 - - DUPRÉ, JULES. - Portrait of Jules Dupré 318 - The House of Jules Dupré at L'isle-Adam 319 - The Setting Sun 320 - The Bridge at L'isle-Adam 321 - Near Southampton 322 - The Punt 323 - Sunset 324 - The Hay-Wain 325 - The old Oak 326 - The Pool 327 - - DURAN, CAROLUS. - Portrait of Carolus Duran 422 - - ENHUBER, CARL. - The Pensioner and his Grandson 163 - - ERHARD, JOHANN CHRISTOPH. - Portrait of Johann Christoph Erhard 21 - A Peasant Scene 22 - A Peasant Family 23 - - FLÀMM, ALBERT. - A Summer Day 251 - - FLÜGGEN, GISBERT. - The Decision of the Suit 186 - - FRITH, WILLIAM POWELL. - Poverty and Wealth 89 - - FROMENTIN, EUGÈNE. - Portrait of Eugène Fromentin 133 - Arabian Women returning from drawing Water 134 - The Centaurs 135 - - GAILLARD, FERDINAND. - Portrait 420 - - GAVARNI (SULPICE GUILLAUME CHEVALIER). - Portrait of Gavarni 43 - Thomas Vireloque 44 - Fourberies de Femmes 45 - Phèdre at the Théâtre Français 48 - "Ce qui me manque à moi? Une t'ite mère comme ça, - qu'aurait soin de mon linge" 49 - - GILLRAY, JAMES. - Affability 5 - - GRÉVIN, ALFRED. - Nos Parisiennes 51 - - GRÜTZNER, EDUARD. - Twelfth Night 219 - - GUILLAUMET, GUSTAVE. - The Séguia, near Biskra 136 - A Dwelling in the Sahara 137 - - GURLITT, LUDWIG. - On the Sabine Mountains 245 - - GUYS, CONSTANTIN. - Study of a Woman 50 - - HARPIGNIES, HENRI. - Moonrise 344 - - HÉBERT, ERNEST. - The Malaria 123 - - HESS, PETER. - The Reception of King Otto in Nauplia 114 - A Morning at Partenkirche 142 - - HÜBNER, CARL. - July 187 - - HUET, PAUL. - Portrait of Paul Huet 265 - The Inundation at St. Cloud 266 - - HUGO, VICTOR. - Ruins of a Mediæval Castle on the Rhine 261 - - JACQUE, CHARLES. - The Return to the Byre (Etching) 355 - A Flock of Sheep on the Road 356 - Millet at Work in his Studio 365 - Millet's House at Barbizon 366 - - KAUFFMANN, HERMANN. - Woodcutters Returning 154 - A Sandy Road 155 - Returning from the Fields 156 - - KEENE, CHARLES. - The Perils of the Deep 17 - From "Our People" 19 - - KIRNER, JOHANN. - The Fortune Teller 162 - - KLEIN, JOHANN ADAM. - A Travelling Landscape Painter 20 - - KNAUS, LOUIS. - Portrait of Louis Knaus 195 - In great Distress 196 - The Card-Players 197 - The Golden Wedding 199 - Behind the Scenes 201 - - KOBELL, WILLIAM. - A Meeting 141 - - KOCH, JOSEPH ANTON. - Portrait of Josef Anton Koch 231 - - KRAFFT, PETER. - The Soldier's Return 170 - - LANDSEER, SIR EDWIN. - A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society 72 - The last Mourner at the Shepherd's Grave 73 - High Life 74 - Low Life 75 - - LAWRENCE, SIR THOMAS. - Mrs. Siddons 57 - Princess Amelia 58 - The English Mother 59 - The Countess Gower 61 - - LEECH, JOHN. - The Children of Mr. and Mrs. Blenkinsop 11 - Little Spicey and Tater Sam 11 - From "Children of the Mobility" 12 - - LELEUX, ADOLPHE. - Mot d'ordre 181 - - LESLIE, CHARLES ROBERT. - Sancho and the Duchess 87 - - LESSING, CARL FRIEDRICH. - Portrait of Carl Friedrich Lessing 239 - The Wayside Madonna 240 - - MACLISE, DANIEL. - Noah's Sacrifice 67 - Malvolio and the Countess 68 - - MADOU, JEAN BAPTISTE. - In the Ale-house 172 - The Drunkard 173 - - MARCHAL, CHARLES. - The Hiring Fair 223 - - MARCKE, EMILE VAN. - La Falaise 354 - - MARILHAT, PROSPER. - A Halt 132 - - DU MAURIER, GEORGE. - The Dancing Lesson 13 - A Recollection of Dieppe 14 - Down to Dinner 15 - A Wintry Walk 16 - - MEISSONIER, ERNEST. - Portrait of Ernest Meissonier 101 - 1814 103 - The Outpost 105 - - MEYERHEIM, FRIEDRICH EDUARD. - Portrait of Friedrich Eduard Meyerheim 157 - Children at Play 158 - The King of the Shooting Match 159 - The Morning Hour 160 - The Knitting Lesson 161 - - MICHEL, GEORGES. - A Windmill 262 - - MILLAIS, SIR JOHN EVERETT. - George du Maurier 12 - - MILLET, JEAN FRANÇOIS. - Portrait of Himself 361 - The House at Gruchy 363 - The Winnower 367 - A Man making Faggots 368 - The Gleaners 369 - Vine-dresser Resting 371 - At the Well 373 - Burning Weeds 375 - The Angelus 377 - The Shepherdess and her Sheep 378 - The Shepherd at the Pen at Nightfall 379 - A Woman feeding Chickens 380 - The Shepherdess 381 - The Labourer Grafting a Tree 383 - A Woman Knitting 384 - The Rainbow 385 - The Barbizon Stone 387 - - MONNIER, HENRI. - A Chalk Drawing 35 - Joseph Proudhomme 36 - - MORGENSTERN, CHRISTIAN. - A Peasant Cottage (Etching) 243 - - MORLAND, GEORGE. - The Corn Bin 69 - Going to the Fair 70 - The Return from Market 71 - - MULLER, WILLIAM. - Prayer in the Desert 138 - The Amphitheatre at Xanthus 288 - - MULREADY, WILLIAM. - Fair Time 88 - Crossing the Ford 91 - - DE NEUVILLE, ALPHONSE. - Portrait of Alphonse de Neuville 107 - Le Bourget 109 - - NEWTON, GILBERT STUART. - Yorick and the Grisette 83 - - OBERLÄNDER, ADOLF. - Variations on the Kissing Theme. Rethel 30 - Variations on the Kissing Theme. Gabriel Max 30 - Variations on the Kissing Theme. Hans Makart 31 - Portrait of Adolf Oberländer 31 - Variations on the Kissing Theme. Genelli 32 - Variations on the Kissing Theme. Alma Tadema 32 - - PETTENKOFEN, AUGUST VON. - A Hungarian Village (Pencil Drawing) 224 - - PRELLER, FRIEDRICH. - Portrait of Friedrich Preller 235 - Ulysses and Leucothea 237 - - RAEBURN, SIR HENRY. - Sir Walter Scott 63 - - RAFFET, AUGUSTE MARIE. - Portrait of Auguste Marie Raffet 96 - The Parade 97 - 1807 98 - Polish Infantry 99 - The Midnight Review 100 - - REID, SIR GEORGE. - Portrait of Charles Keene 18 - - RIBOT, THÉODULE. - The Studio 429 - At a Norman Inn 430 - Keeping Accounts 431 - St. Sebastian, Martyr 432 - - RICARD, GUSTAVE. - Madame de Calonne 417 - - RICHTER, LUDWIG. - Portrait of Ludwig Richter 24 - Home 25 - The End of the Day 26 - Spring 27 - After Work it's good to rest 28 - - RIEDEL, AUGUST. - The Neapolitan Fisherman's Family 124 - Judith 125 - - ROBERT, HUBERT. - Monuments and Ruins 259 - - ROBERT, LEOPOLD. - Portrait of Leopold Robert 119 - Fishers of the Adriatic 120 - The Coming of the Reapers to the Pontine Marshes 121 - - ROMNEY, GEORGE. - Portrait of George Romney 55 - Lady Hamilton as Euphrosyne 56 - - ROTTMANN, KARL. - Portrait of Karl Rottmann 232 - The Coast of Sicily 233 - - ROUSSEAU, THÉODORE. - Portrait of Théodore Rousseau 295 - Morning 296 - Landscape, Morning Effect 297 - The Village of Becquigny in Picardy 299 - La Hutte 301 - Evening 302 - Sunset 303 - The Lake among the Rocks at Barbizon 304 - A Pond, Forest of Fontainebleau 305 - - ROWLANDSON, THOMAS. - Harmony 7 - - SCHIRMER, JOHANN WILHELM. - An Italian Landscape 241 - - SCHNETZ, VICTOR. - An Italian Shepherd 122 - - SPITZWEG, CARL. - Portrait of Carl Spitzweg 147 - At the Garret Window 148 - A Morning Concert 149 - The Postman 151 - - STEVENS, ALFRED. - The Lady in Pink 413 - La Bête à bon Dieu 414 - The Japanese Mask 415 - The Visitors 416 - - TASSAERT, OCTAVE. - Portrait of Octave Tassaert 182 - After the Ball 183 - The Orphans 184 - The Suicide 185 - - TIDEMAND, ADOLF. - The Sectarians 167 - Adorning the Bride 169 - - TROYON, CONSTANT. - Portrait of Constant Troyon 345 - In Normandy: Cows Grazing 346 - Crossing the Stream 347 - The Return to the Farm 348 - A Cow scratching Herself 349 - - TURNER, JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM. - Portrait of J. M. W. Turner 267 - A Shipwreck 268 - Dido building Carthage 269 - Jumièges 270 - Landscape with the Sun rising in a Mist 271 - Venice 272 - - VAUTIER, BENJAMIN. - Portrait of Benjamin Vautier 202 - The Conjurer 203 - The Dancing Lesson 205 - November 207 - - VERNET, HORACE. - The Wounded Zouave 93 - - VOLLON, ANTOINE. - Portrait of Antoine Vollon 425 - A Carnival Scene 426 - - WALDMÜLLER, FERDINAND. - The First Step 171 - - WALLANDER, WILHELM. - The Return 227 - - WEBSTER, THOMAS. - The Rubber 85 - - WEST, BENJAMIN. - The Death of Nelson 64 - - WIERTZ, ANTOINE. - The Orphans 189 - The Things of the Present as seen by Future Ages 191 - The Fight round the Body of Patroclus 192 - - WILKIE, DAVID. - Blind-Man's-Buff 77 - A Guerilla Council of War in a Spanish Posada 79 - The Blind Fiddler 80 - The Penny Wedding 81 - The First Earring 82 - - DE WINT, PETER. - Nottingham 289 - - - - -BOOK III - -THE TRIUMPH OF THE MODERNS - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE DRAUGHTSMEN - - -Inasmuch as modern art, in the beginning of its career, held commerce -almost exclusively with the spirits of dead men of bygone ages, it had -set itself in opposition to all the great epochs that had gone before. -All works known to the history of art, from the cathedral pictures of -Stephan Lochner down to the works of the followers of Watteau, stand in -the closest relationship with the people and times amid which they have -originated. Whoever studies the works of Dürer knows his home and his -family, the Nuremberg of the sixteenth century, with its narrow lanes -and gabled houses; the whole age is reflected in the engravings of this -one artist with a truth and distinctness which put to shame those of the -most laborious historian. Dürer and his contemporaries in Italy stood in -so intimate a relation to reality that in their religious pictures they -even set themselves above historical probability, and treated the -miraculous stories of sacred tradition as if they had been commonplace -incidents of the fifteenth century. Or, to take another instance, with -what a striking realism, in the works of Ostade, Brouwer, and Steen, has -the entire epoch from which these great artists drew strength and -nourishment remained vivid in spirit, sentiment, manners, and costume. -Every man whose name has come down to posterity stood firm and unshaken -on the ground of his own time, resting like a tree with all its roots -buried in its own peculiar soil; a tree whose branches rustled in the -breeze of its native land, while the sun which fell on its blossoms and -ripened its fruits was that of Italy or Germany, of Spain or the -Netherlands, of that time; never the weak reflection of a planet that -formerly had shone in other zones. - -It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that this -connection with the life of the present and the soil at home was lost to -the art of painting. It cannot be supposed that later generations will -be able to form a conception of life in the nineteenth century from -pictures produced in this period, or that these pictures will become -approximately such documents as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -possess in the works of Dürer, Bellini, Rubens, or Rembrandt. The old -masters were the children of their age to the very tips of their -fingers. They were saturated with the significance, the ideals, and the -aims of their time, and they saturated them with their own aims, ideals, -and significance. On the other hand, if any one enters a modern picture -gallery and picks out the paintings produced up to 1850, he will often -receive the impression that they belong to earlier centuries. They are -without feeling for the world around, and seem even to know nothing of -it. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ BOILLY. THE TOILETTE.] - -Even David, the first of the moderns, has left no work, with the -exception of his "Marat," which has been baptized with the blood of the -French Revolution. To express the sentiment of Liberty militant he made -use of the figures of Roman heroes. The political freedom of the people, -so recently won, so fresh in men's minds, he illustrated by examples -from Roman history. At a later time, when the allied forces entered -Paris after the defeat of Napoleon, he made use of the story of Leonidas -at Thermopylæ. Only in portrait painting was any kind of justice done to -modern life by the painters in "the grand style." True it is that there -lived, at the time, a few "little masters" who furtively turned out for -the market modest little pictures of the life around them, paintings of -buildings and kitchen interiors. The poor Alsatian painter _Martin -Drolling_, contemptuously designated a "dish painter" by the critics, -showed in his kitchen pictures that, in spite of David, something of the -spirit of Chardin and the great Dutchmen was still alive in French art. -But he has given his figures and his pots and pans and vegetables the -pose and hard outline of Classicism. A few of his portraits are better -and more delicate, particularly that of the actor Baptiste, with his -fine head, like that of a diplomatist. At the exhibition of 1889, this -picture, with its positive and firmly delineated characterisation, made -the appeal of a Holbein of 1802. Another "little master," _Granet_, -painted picturesque ruins, low halls, and the vaults of churches; he -studied attentively the problem of light in inner chambers, and thereby -drew upon himself the reproach of David, that "his drawing savoured of -colour." In _Leopold Boilly_ Parisian life--still like that of a country -town--and the arrival of the mail, the market, and the busy life of the -streets, found an interpreter,--_bourgeois_ no doubt, but true to his -age. In the time of the Revolution he painted a "Triumph of Marat," the -tribune of the people, who is being carried on the shoulders of his -audience from the _palais de justice_ in Paris, after delivering an -inflammatory oration. In 1807, when the exhibition of David's Coronation -picture had thrown all Paris into excitement, Boilly conceived the -notion of perpetuating in a rapid sketch the scene of the exhibition, -with the picture and the crowd pressing round it. His speciality, -however, was little portrait groups of honest _bourgeois_ in their stiff -Sunday finery. Boilly knew with accuracy the toilettes of his age, the -gowns of the actresses, and the way they dressed their heads; he cared -nothing whatever about æsthetic dignity of style, but represented each -subject as faithfully as he could, and as honestly and sincerely as -possible. For that reason he is of great historical value, but he is not -painter enough to lay claim to great artistic interest. The execution of -his pictures is petty and diffidently careful, and his neat, Philistine -painting has a suggestion of china and enamel, without a trace of the -ease and spirit with which the eighteenth century carolled over such -work. The heads of his women are the heads of dolls, and his silk looks -like steel. His forerunners are not the Dutchmen of the good periods, -Terborg and Metsu, but the contemporaries of Van der Werff. He and -Drolling and Granet were rather the last issue of the fine old Dutch -schools, rather descendants of Chardin than pioneers, and amongst the -younger men there was at first no one who ventured to sow afresh the -region which had been devastated by Classicism. Géricault certainly was -incited to his "Raft of the Medusa" not by Livy or Plutarch, but by an -occurrence of the time which was reported in the newspapers; and he -ventured to set an ordinary shipwreck in the place of the Deluge or a -naval battle, and a crew of unknown mortals in the place of Greek -heroes. But then his picture stands alone amongst the works of the -Romanticists, and is too decidedly transposed into a classical key to -count as a representation of modern life. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ BOILLY. THE NEWSVENDOR.] - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ BOILLY. THE MARIONETTES.] - -In its striving after movement and colour, Romanticism put forward the -picturesque and passionate Middle Ages in opposition to the stiff and -frigid neo-Greek or neo-Roman ideal; but it joined with Classicism in -despising the life of the present. Even the political excitement at the -close of the Restoration and the Revolution of July had but little -influence on the leading spirits of the time. Accustomed to look for the -elements of pictorial invention in religious myths, in the fictions of -poets, or in the events of older history, they paid no attention to the -mighty social drama enacted so near to them. The fiery spirit of -Delacroix certainly led him to paint his picture of the barricades, but -he drew his inspiration from a poet, from an ode of Auguste Barbier, and -he gave the whole an air of romance and allegory by introducing the -figure of Liberty. He lived in a world of glowing passions, amid which -all the struggles of his age seemed to have for him only a petty -material interest. For that reason he has neither directly nor -indirectly drawn on what he saw around him. He painted the soul, but not -the life of his epoch. He was attracted by Teutonic poets and by the -Middle Ages. He set art free from Greek subject-matter and Italian form, -to borrow his ideas from Englishmen and Germans and his colour from the -Flemish school. He is inscrutably silent about French society in the -nineteenth century. - -[Illustration: Queen Charlotte. George III. - - GILLRAY. AFFABILITY. - - "Well, Friend, where a' you going, hay?--what's your name, hay?--where - d'ye live, hay?--hay?"] - -And this alienation from the living world is even more noticeable in -Ingres. His "Mass of Pius VII in the Sistine Chapel" is the only one of -his many works which deals with a subject of contemporary life, and it -was blamed by the critics because it deviated so far from the great -style. As an historical painter, and when better employed as a painter -of portraits, Ingres has crystallised all the life and marrow of the -past in his icy works, and he appears in the midst of the century like a -marvellous and sterile sphinx. Nothing can be learnt from him concerning -the needs and passions and interests of living men. His own century -might writhe and suffer and struggle and bring forth new thoughts, but -he knew nothing about them, or if he did he never allowed it to be seen. - -[Illustration: CRUICKSHANK. MONSTROSITIES OF 1822.] - -Delaroche approached somewhat nearer to the present, for he advanced -from antiquity and the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century; and the -historical picture, invented by him, virtually dominated French art -under Napoleon III, in union with the dying Classicism. Even then there -was no painter who yet ventured to portray the manners and types of his -age with the fresh insight and merciless observation of Balzac. All -those scenes from the life of great cities, their fashion and their -misery, which then began to form the substance of drama and romance, had -as yet no counterpart in painting. - -[Illustration: ROWLANDSON. HARMONY.] - -[Illustration: BUNBURY. RICHMOND HILL.] - -The Belgians preserved the same silence. During the whole maturity of -Classicism, from 1800 to 1830, François, Paelinck, van Hanselaere, -Odevaere, de Roi, Duvivier, etc., with their coloured Greek statues, -ruled the realm of figure painting as unmitigated dictators; and amongst -the historical painters who followed them, Wappers, in his "Episode," -was the only one who drew on modern life for a subject. There was a -desire to revive Rubens. Decaisne, Wappers, de Keyzer, Bièfve, and -Gallait lit their candle at his sun, and were hailed as the holy band -who were to lead Belgian art to a glorious victory. But their original -national tendency deviated from real life instead of leading towards it. -For the sake of painting cuirasses and helmets they dragged the most -obscure national heroes to the light of day, just as the Classicists had -done with Greeks and Romans. German painting wandered through the past -with even less method, taking its material, not from native, but from -French, English, and Flemish history. From Carstens down to Makart, -German painters of influence carefully shut their eyes to reality, and -drew down the blinds so as to see nothing of the life that surged below -them in the street, with its filth and splendour, its laughter and -misery, its baseness and noble humanity. And from an historical point of -view this alienation from the world is susceptible of an easy -explanation. - -[Illustration: LEECH. THE CHILDREN OF MR. AND MRS. BLENKINSOP.] - -[Illustration: LEECH. LITTLE SPICEY AND TATER SAM.] - -In France, as in all other countries, the end of the _ancien régime_, -the tempest of the Revolution, and the consequent modification of the -whole of life--of sentiments, habits, and ideas, of dress and social -conditions--at first implied such a sudden change in the horizon that -artists were necessarily thrown into confusion. When the monarchy -entered laughingly upon its struggle of life and death, the survivors -from the time of Louis XVI, charming "little masters" who had been great -masters in that careless and graceful epoch, were suddenly made -witnesses of a revolution more abrupt than the world had yet seen. -Savage mobs forced their way into gardens, palaces, and reception-rooms, -pike in hand, and with the red cap upon their heads. The walls echoed -with their rude speech, and plebeian orators played the part of oracles -of freedom and brotherhood like old Roman tribunes of the people. What -was there yesterday was no longer to be seen; a thick powder-smoke hung -between the past and the present. And the present itself had not yet -assumed determinate shape; it hovered, as yet unready, between the old -and the new forms of civilization. The storms of the Revolution put an -end to the comfortable security of private life. Thus it was that the -ready-made and more easily intelligible shapes and figures of a world -long buried out of sight, with which men believed themselves to have an -elective affinity, at first seemed to the artists to have an infinitely -greater value than the new forms which were in the throes of birth. -Painters became Classicists because they had not yet the courage to -venture on the ground where the century itself was going through a -process of fermentation. - -[Illustration: LEECH. FROM "CHILDREN OF THE MOBILITY."] - -[Illustration: _Magazine of Art._ - - SIR JOHN MILLAIS PINXT. GEORGE DU MAURIER.] - -The Romanticists despised it, for they thought the fermenting must had -yielded flat lemonade instead of fiery wine. The artist must live in art -before he can produce art. And the more the life of nations has been -beautiful, rich, and splendid, the more nourishment and material has art -been able to derive from it. But when they came the Romanticists -found--in France as in Germany--everything, except a piece of reality -which they could deem worthy of being painted. The whole of existence -seemed to this generation so poor and bald, the costume so inartistic -and so like a caricature, the situation so hopeless and petty, that they -were unable to tolerate the portrayal of themselves either in poetry or -art. It was the time of that wistfully sought phantom which, as they -believed, was to be found only in the past. The powerful passions of the -Middle Ages were set in opposition to a flaccid period that was barren -of action. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DU MAURIER. THE DANCING LESSON.] - -And then came the overwhelming pressure of the old masters. After the -forlorn condition of colouring brought about by David and Carstens, it -was so vitally necessary to restore the artistic tradition and technique -of the old masters, that it was at first thought necessary to adopt the -old subject-matter also--especially the splendid robes of the city of -the lagoons--in order to test the newly acquired secrets of the palette. -Faltering unsteadily under influences derived from the old artists, -modern painting did not yet feel itself able to create finished works of -art out of the novel elements which the century placed at its disposal. -It still needed to be carried in the arms of a Venetian or Flemish -nurse. - -And æsthetic criticism bestowed its blessing on these attempts. The -Romanticists had been forced to the treatment of history and the -deification of the past by disgust with the grey and colourless present; -the younger generation were long afterwards held captive in this -province by æsthetic views of the dignity of history. To paint one's own -age was reckoned a crime. One had to paint the age of other people. For -this purpose the _prix de Rome_ was instituted. The spirit which -produced the pictures of Cabanel and Bouguereau was the same that -induced David to write to Gros, that the battles of the empire might -afford the material for occasional pictures done under the inspiration -of chance, but not for great and earnest works of art worthy of an -historical painter. That æsthetic criticism which taught that, whatever -the subject be, and whatever personages may be represented, if they -belong to the present time the picture is merely a _genre_ picture, -still held the field. Whilst the world was laughing and crying, the -painter, with the colossal power of doing everything, amused himself by -trying not to appear the child of his own time. No one perceived the -refinement and grace, the corruption and wantonness, of modern life as -it is in great cities. No one laid hold on the mighty social problems -which the growing century threw out with a seething creative force. -Whoever wishes to know how the men of the time lived and moved, what -hopes and sorrows they bore in their breasts, whoever seeks for works in -which the heart-beat of the century is alive and throbbing, must have -his attention directed to the works of the draughtsmen, to the -illustrations of certain periodicals. It was in the nineteenth century -as in the Middle Ages. As then, when painting was still an -ecclesiastical art, the slowly awakening feeling for nature, the joy of -life was first expressed in miniatures, woodcuts, and engravings, so -also the great draughtsmen of the nineteenth century were the first who -set themselves with their whole strength to bring modern life and all -that it contained earnestly and sincerely within the range of art, the -first who held up the glass to their own time and gave the abridged -chronicle of their age. Their calling as caricaturists led them to -direct observation of the world, and lent them the aptitude of rendering -their impressions with ease; and that at a time when the academical -methods of depicting physiognomy obtained elsewhere in every direction. -It necessitated their representing subjects to which, in accordance with -the æsthetic views of the period, they would not otherwise have -addressed themselves; it led them to discover beauties in spheres of -life by which they would otherwise have been repelled. London, the -capital of a free people ruling in all quarters of the globe, the home -of millions, where intricate old corners and back streets left more -space than in other cities for old-fashioned "characters," for odd, -eccentric creatures and better-class charlatans of every description, -afforded a ground peculiarly favourable for caricature. In this -province, therefore, England holds the first place beyond dispute. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DU MAURIER. A RECOLLECTION OF DIEPPE.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DU MAURIER. DOWN TO DINNER.] - -Direct from Hogarth come the group of political caricaturists, in whom -the sour, bilious temper of John Bull lives on in a new and improved -edition. Men like _James Gillray_ were a power in the political warfare -of their time; bold liberals who fought for the cause of freedom with a -divine rage and slashing irony, while at the same time they were -masterly draughtsmen in a vehement and forceful style. The worst of it -is, that the interest excited by political caricature is always of a -very ephemeral nature. The antagonism of Pitt and Fox, Shelburne and -Burke, the avarice and stupidity of George III, the Union, the conjugal -troubles of the Prince of Wales, and the war with France, seem very -uninteresting matters in these days. On the other hand, _Rowlandson_, -who was not purely a politician, appeals to us in an intelligible -language even after a hundred years have gone by. - -Like Hogarth, he was the antithesis of a humorist. Something bitter and -gloomily pessimistic runs through all he touches. He is brutal, with an -inborn power and an indecorous coarseness. His laughter is loud and his -cursing barbarous. Ear-piercing notes escape from the widely opened lips -of his singers, and the tears come thickly from the eyes of his -sentimental old ladies who are hanging on the declamation of a tragic -actress. His comedy is produced by the simplest means. As a rule any -sort of contrast is enough: fat and thin, big and little, young wife and -old husband, young husband and old wife, shying horse and helpless rider -on a Sunday out. Or else he brings the physical and moral qualities of -his figures into an absurd contrast with their age, calling, or -behaviour: musicians are deaf, dancing masters bandy-legged, servants -wear the dresscoats and orders of lords, hideous old maids demean -themselves like coquettes, parsons get drunk, and grave dignitaries of -state dance the cancan. And so, when the servant gets a thrashing, and -the coquette a refusal, and the diplomatist loses his orders by getting -a fall, it is their punishment for having forgotten their proper place. -They are all of them "careers on slippery ground," with the same -punishments as Hogarth delighted to depict. But Rowlandson became -another man when he set himself to represent the life of the people. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DU MAURIER. A WINTRY WALK.] - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - KEENE. FROM "OUR PEOPLE." THE PERILS OF THE DEEP.] - -Born in July 1756, in a narrow alley of old London, he grew up amidst -the people. As a young man he saw Paris, Germany, and the Low Countries. -He went regularly to all clubs where there was high play. As man, -painter, and draughtsman alike, he stood in the midst of life. Street -scenes in Paris and London engage his pencil, especially scenes from -Vauxhall Gardens, the meeting-place of fashionable London, and there is -often a touch of Menzel in the palpitating life of these pictures--in -these lords and ladies, fops and ballad-singers, who pass through the -grounds of the gardens in a billowy stream. His illustrations include -everything: soldiers, navvies, life at home and in the tavern, in town -and in village, on the stage and behind the scenes, at masquerades and -in Parliament. When he died at seventy, on 22nd April 1827, the -obituaries were able to say of him with truth that he had drawn all -England in the years between 1774 and 1809. And all these leaves torn -from the life of sailors and peasants, these fairs and markets, beggars, -huntsmen, smiths, artizans, and day labourers, were not caricatures, but -sketches keenly observed and sharply executed from life. His countrymen -have at times a magnificent Michelangelesque stir of life which almost -suggests Millet. He was fond of staying at fashionable watering-places, -and came back with charming scenes from high life. But his peculiar -field of observation was the poor quarter of London. Here are the -artizans, the living machines. Endurance, persistence, and resignation -may be read in their long, dismal, angular faces. Here are the women of -the people, wasted and hectic. Their eyes are set deep in their sockets, -their noses sharp and their skin blotched with red spots. They have -suffered much and had many children; they have a sodden, depressed, -stoically callous appearance; they have borne much, and can bear still -more. And then the devastations of gin! that long train of wretched -women who of an evening prostitute themselves in the Strand to pay for -their lodging! those terrible streets of London, where pallid children -beg, and tattered spectres, either sullen or drunken, rove from -public-house to public-house, with torn linen and rags hanging about -them in shreds! The cry of misery rising from the pavement of great -cities was first heard by Rowlandson, and the pages on which he drew the -poor of London are a living dance of death of the most ghastly veracity. - -But, curiously enough, this same man, who as an observer could be so -uncompromisingly sombre, and so rough and brutal as a caricaturist, had -also a wonderfully delicate feeling for feminine charm. In the pages he -has devoted to the German waltz there lives again the chivalrous -elegance of the period of Werther, and that peculiarly English grace -which is so fascinating in Gainsborough. His young girls are graceful -and wholesome in their round straw hats with broad ribbons; his pretty -little wives in their white aprons and coquettish caps recall Chardin. -One feels that he has seen Paris and appreciated the fine fragrance of -Watteau's pictures. - -[Illustration: _Mag. of Art._ - - SIR GEO. REID. PORTRAIT OF CHARLES KEENE.] - -Mention should also be made of _Henry William Bunbury_, who excelled in -the drawing of horses and ponies. "A long Story" is an excellent example -of his powers as a caricaturist pure and simple. The variations rung on -the theme of boredom and the self-centred and animated stupidity of the -narrator have been vividly observed, and are earnestly rendered. -Rowlandson has the savage indignation of Swift; Bunbury is not savage, -but he has the same English seriousness and something of the same -brutality. The faces here are crapulous and distorted, and the subject -is treated without lightness or good-nature. Perhaps the English do not -take their pleasures so very seriously, but undoubtedly they jest in -earnest. Yet Bunbury's incisiveness and his thorough command of what it -is his design to express assure him a distinct position as an artist. -His "Richmond Hill" shows the pleasanter side of English character. The -breeze billowing in the trees, the little lady riding by on her cob, the -buxom dames in the shay, and the man spinning past on his curricle, -give the scene a spirit of life and movement, besides rendering it an -historical document of the period of social history that lies between -_The Virginians_ and _Vanity Fair_. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - KEENE. FROM "OUR PEOPLE."] - -As a political caricaturist _George Cruikshank_ has the same -significance for England as Henri Monnier has for France, and the -drawings of the latter often go straight back to the great English -artist. But his first works in 1815 were children's books, and such -simple delineations from the world of childhood and the life of society -have done more to preserve his name than political caricatures. Their -touch of satire is only very slight. Cruikshank's ladies panting under -heavy chignons, his serious and exceedingly prosy dames pouring out tea -for serious and not less ceremonious gentlemen, whilst the girls are -galloping round Hyde Park on their thoroughbreds, accompanied by a -brilliant escort of fashionable young men--they are all of them not so -much caricatures as pictures freshly caught from life. He had a great -sense for toilettes, balls, and parties. And he could draw with -artistic observation and tender feeling the babbling lips and shining -eyes of children, the shy confidence of the little ones, their timid -curiosity and their bashful advances. And thus he opened up the way -along which his disciples advanced with so much success. - -[Illustration: KLEIN. A TRAVELLING LANDSCAPE PAINTER.] - -The style of illustration has adapted itself to the altered character of -English life. What at first constituted the originality of English -caricaturists was their mordant satire. Everything was painted in -exceedingly vivid colours. Whatever was calculated to bring out an idea -in comic or brutal relief--great heads and little bodies, an absurd -similarity between persons and animals, the afflorescence of -costume--was seized upon eagerly. These artists fought for the weary and -heavy-laden, and mercilessly lashed the cut-throats and charlatans. They -delighted in spontaneous obscenity, exuberant vigour, and undisguised -coarseness. Men were shaken by a broad Aristophanic laughter till they -seemed like epileptics. At the time when the Empire style came into -England, Gillray could dare to represent by speaking likenesses some of -the best-known London beauties, in a toilette which the well developed -Madame Tallien could not have worn with more assurance. Such things were -no longer possible when England grew out of her awkward age. After the -time of Gillray a complete change came over the spirit of English -caricature. Everything brutal or bitterly personal was abandoned. The -clown put on his dress-clothes, and John Bull became a gentleman. Even -by Cruikshank's time caricature had become serious and well-bred. And -his disciples were indeed not caricaturists at all, but addressed -themselves solely to a delicately poetic representation of subjects. -They know neither Rowlandson's innate force and bitter laughter, nor the -gallows humour and savagery of Hogarth; they are amiable and tenderly -grave observers, and their drawings are not caricatures, but charming -pictures of manners. - -_Punch_, which was founded in 1841, has perhaps caught the social and -political physiognomy of England in the middle of the nineteenth century -with the greatest delicacy. It is a household paper, a periodical read -by the youngest girls. All the piquant things with which the Parisian -papers are filled are therefore absolutely excluded. It scrupulously -ignores the style of thing to which the _Journal Amusant_ owes -three-fourths of its matter. Every number contains one big political -caricature, but otherwise it moves almost entirely in the region of -domestic life. Students flirting with pretty barmaids, neat little -dressmakers carrying heavy bonnet-boxes and pursued by old -gentlemen--even these are scenes which go a little too far for the -refined tone of the paper which has been adapted to the drawing-room. - -[Illustration: JOHANN CHRISTOPH ERHARD.] - -Next to Cruikshank, the Nestor of caricature, must be mentioned _John -Leech_, who between 1841 and 1864 was the leading artist on _Punch_. In -his drawings there is already to be found the high-bred and fragrant -delicacy of the English painting of the present time. They stand in -relation to the whimsical and vigorous works of Rowlandson as the fine -_esprit_ of a rococo abbé to the coarse and healthy wit of Rabelais. The -mildness of his own temperament is reflected in his sketches. Others -have been the cause of more laughter, but he loved beauty and purity. -Men are not often drawn by him, or if he draws them they are always -"pretty fellows," born gentlemen. His young women are not coquettish and -_chic_, but simple, natural, and comely. The old English brutality and -coarseness have become amiable, subtle, refined, mild, and seductive in -John Leech. He is a fine and delicate spirit, who seems very ethereal -beside Hogarth and Rowlandson, those giants fed on roast-beef; he -prefers to occupy himself with sport and boating, the season and its -fashions, and is at home in public gardens, at balls, and at the -theatre. Here a pretty baby is being taken for an airing in Hyde Park by -a tidy little nurse-maid, and there on mamma's arm goes a charming -schoolgirl, who is being enthusiastically greeted by good-looking boys; -here again a young wife is sitting by the fireside with a novel in her -hand and her feet out of her slippers, while she looks dreamily at the -glimmering flame. Or a girl is standing on the shore in a large straw -hat, with her hand shading her eyes and the wind fluttering her dress. -Even his "Children of the Mobility" are little angels of grace and -purity, in spite of their rags. The background, be it room, street, or -landscape, is merely given with a few strokes, but it is of more than -common charm. Every plate of Leech has a certain fragrance and lightness -of touch and a delicacy of line which has since been attained only by -Frederick Walker. His simplicity of stroke recalls the old Venetian -woodcuts. There is not an unnecessary touch. Everything is in keeping, -everything has a significance. - -[Illustration: ERHARD. A PEASANT SCENE.] - -Leech's successor, _George du Maurier_, is less delicate--that is to -say, not so entirely and loftily æsthetic. He is less exclusively -poetic, but lives more in actual life, and suffers less from the raw -breath of reality. At the same time, his drawing is pithier and more -incisive; one discerns his French training. In 1857 du Maurier was a -pupil of Gleyre, and returned straight to England when Leech's place on -_Punch_ became vacant by his death. Since that time du Maurier has been -the head of the English school of drawing--of the diarists of that -society which is displayed in Hyde Park during the season, and found in -London theatres and dining-rooms, and in well-kept English pleasure -grounds, at garden parties and tennis meetings, the leaders of clubs and -drawing-rooms. His snobs rival those of Thackeray, but he has also a -special preference for the fair sex--for charming women and girls who -race about the lawn at tennis in large hats and bright dresses, or sit -by the fire in fashionable apartments, or hover through a ball-room -waltzing in their airy skirts of tulle. The coquettishness of his little -ones is entirely charming, and so too is the superior and comical -exclusiveness of his æsthetically brought-up children, who will -associate with no children not æsthetic. - -[Illustration: ERHARD. A PEASANT FAMILY.] - -But the works of _Charles Keene_ are the most English of all. Here the -English reveal that complete singularity which distinguishes them from -all other mortals. Both as a draughtsman and as a humorist Keene stands -with the greatest of the century, on the same level as Daumier and -Hokusai. An old bachelor, an original, a provincial living in the vast -city, nothing pleased him better than to mix with the humbler class, to -mount on the omnibus seat beside the driver, to visit a costermonger, or -sit in a dingy suburban tavern. He led a Bohemian life, and was, -nevertheless, a highly respectable, economical, and careful man. Trips -into the country and little suppers with his friends constituted his -greatest pleasures. He was a member of several glee clubs, and when he -sat at home played the Scotch bagpipes, to the horror of all his -neighbours. During his last years his only company was an old dog, to -which he, like poor Tassaert, clung with a touching tenderness. All the -less did he care about "the world." Grace and beauty are not to be -sought in his drawings. For him "Society" did not exist. As du Maurier -is the chronicler of drawing-rooms, Keene was the fine and unsurpassed -observer of the people and of humble London life, and he extended -towards them a friendly optimism and a brotherly sympathy. An endless -succession of the most various, the truest, and the most animated types -is contained in his work: mighty guardsmen swagger, cane in hand, burly -and solemn; cabmen and omnibus drivers, respectable middle-class -citizens, servants, hairdressers, the City police, waiters, muscular -Highlanders, corpulent self-made City men, the seething discontent of -Whitechapel; and here and there amidst them all incomparable old -tradesmen's wives, and big, raw-boned village landladies in the -Highlands. Keene has something so natural and self-evident in his whole -manner of expression, that no one is conscious of the art implied by -such drawing. Amongst those living in his time only Menzel could touch -him as a draughtsman, and it was not through chance that each, in spite -of their differences of temperament, greatly admired the other. Keene -bought every drawing of Menzel's that he could get, and Menzel at his -death possessed a large collection of Keene's sketches. - -[Illustration: LUDWIG RICHTER.] - -In the beginning of the century Germany had no draughtsmen comparable -for realistic impressiveness with Rowlandson. At a time when the great -art lay so completely bound in the shackles of the Classic school, -drawing, too, appeared only in traditional forms. The artist ventured to -draw as he liked just as little as he ventured to paint anything at all -as he saw it; for both there were rules and strait-waistcoats. Almost -everything that was produced in those years looks weak and flat to-day, -forced in composition and amateurish in drawing. Where Rowlandson with -his brusque powerful strokes recalls Michael Angelo or Rembrandt, the -Germans have something laboured, diffident, and washed out. Yet even -here a couple of unpretentious etchers rise as welcome and surprising -figures out of the tedious waste of academic production, though they -were little honoured by their contemporaries. In their homely sketches, -however, they have remained more classic than those who put on the -classical garment as if for eternity. What the painter refused to paint, -and the patrons of art who sought after ideas would not allow to count -as a picture, because the subject seemed to them too poor, and the form -too commonplace and undignified--military scenes at home and abroad, -typical and soldierly figures from the great time of the war of -Liberation, the life of the people, the events of the day--was what the -Nuremberg friends, _Johann Adam Klein_ and _Johann Christoph Erhard_, -diligently engraved upon copper with sympathetic care, and so left -posterity a picture of German life in the beginning of the century that -seems the more sincere and earnest because it has paid toll neither to -style in composition nor to idealism. This invaluable Klein was a -healthy and sincere realist, from whom the æsthetic theories of the time -recoiled without effect, and he had no other motive than to render -faithfully whatever he saw. Even in Vienna, whither he came as a young -man in 1811, it was not the picture galleries which roused him to his -first studies, but the picturesque national costumes of the Wallachians, -Poles, and Hungarians, and their horses and peculiar vehicles. A sojourn -among the country manors of Styria gave him opportunity for making a -number of pretty sketches of rural life. In the warlike years 1813 and -1814, with their marching and their bivouacs, he went about all day long -drawing amongst the soldiers. Even in Rome it was not the statues that -fascinated him, but the bright street scenes, the ecclesiastical -solemnities, and the picturesque caravans of country people. And when he -settled down in Nuremburg, and afterwards in Munich, he did not cease to -be sensitive to all impressions that forced themselves on him in varying -fulness. The basis of his art was faithful and loving observation of -life as it was around him, the pure joy the genuine artist has in making -a picture of everything he sees. - -[Illustration: L. RICHTER. HOME.] - -Poor Erhard, who at twenty-six ended his life by suicide, was a yet more -delicate and sensitive nature. The marching of Russian troops through -his native town roused him to his first works, and even in these early -military and canteen scenes he shows himself an exceptionally sharp and -positive observer. The costumes, the uniforms, the teams and waggons, -are drawn with decision and accuracy. From Vienna he made walking tours -to the picturesque regions of the Schneeberg, wandered through Salzburg -and Pinzgau, and gazed with wonder at the idyllic loveliness of nature -as she is in these regions, on the cosy rooms of the peasants with their -great tiled stoves and the sun-burnt figures of the country people. He -had a heart for nature, an intimate, poetic, and profound love for what -is humble and familiar--for homely meadows, trees, and streams, for -groves and hedgerows, for quiet gardens and sequestered spots. He -approached everything with observation as direct as a child's. Both -Klein and he endeavoured to grasp a fragment of nature distinctly, and -without any kind of transformation or generalisation; and this fresh, -unvarnished, thoroughly German feeling for nature gives them, rather -than Mengs and Carstens, the right to be counted as ancestors of the -newer German art. - -[Illustration: L. RICHTER. THE END OF THE DAY.] - -Klein and Erhard having set out in advance, others, such as Haller von -Hallerstein, L. C. Wagner, F. Rechberger, F. Moessmer, K. Wagner, E. A. -Lebschée, and August Geist, each after his own fashion, made little -voyages of discovery into the world of nature belonging to their own -country. But Erhard, who died in 1822, has found his greatest disciple -in a young Dresden master, whose name makes the familiar appeal of an -old lullaby which suddenly strikes the ear amid the bustle of the -world--in _Ludwig Richter_, familiar to all Germans. Richter himself has -designated Chodowiecki, Gessner, and Erhard as those whose contemplative -love of nature guided him to his own path. What Leech, that charming -draughtsman of the child-world, was to the English, Ludwig Richter -became for the Germans. Not that he could be compared with Leech in -artistic qualities. Beside those of the British artist his works are -like the exercises of a gifted amateur: they have a petty correctness -and a _bourgeois_ neatness of line. But Germans are quite willing to -forget the artistic point of view in relation to their Ludwig Richter. -Sunny and childlike as he is, they love him too much to care to see his -artistic failings. Here is really that renowned German "_Gemüth_" of -which others make so great an abuse. - -[Illustration: L. RICHTER. SPRING.] - -"I am certainly living here in a rather circumscribed fashion, but in a -very cheerful situation outside the town, and I am writing you this -letter (it is Sunday afternoon) in a shady arbour, with a long row of -rose-bushes in bloom before me. Now and then they are ruffled by a -pleasant breeze--which is also the cause of a big blot being on this -sheet, as it blew the page over." This one passage reveals the whole -man. Can one think of Ludwig Richter living in any town except Dresden, -or imagine him except in this dressing-gown, seated on a Sunday -afternoon in his shady arbour with the rose-bushes, and surrounded by -laughing children? That profound domestic sentiment which runs through -his works with a biblical fidelity of heart is reflected in the -homeliness of the artist, who has remained all his life a big, -unsophisticated child; and his autobiography, in its patriarchal -simplicity, is like a refreshing draught from a pure mountain spring. -Richter survived into the present as an original type from a time long -vanished. What old-world figures did he not see around him as a boy, -when he went about, eager for novelty, with his grandfather, the -copperplate printer, who in his leisure hours studied alchemy and the -art of producing gold, and was surrounded by an innumerable quantity of -clocks, ticking, striking, and making cuckoo notes in his dark workroom; -or as he listened to his blind, garrulous grandmother, around whom the -children and old wives of the neighbourhood used to gather to hear her -tales. That was in 1810, and two generations later, as an old man -surrounded by his grandsons, he found once more the old, merry child -life of his own home. And it was once more a fragment of the good old -times, when on Christmas Eve the little band came shouting round the -house of gingerbread from _Hansel and Gretel_ which grandfather had -built out of real gingerbread after his own drawing. - -[Illustration: L. RICHTER. AFTER WORK IT'S GOOD TO REST.] - -"If my art never entered amongst the lilies and roses on the summit of -Parnassus, it bloomed by the roads and banks, on the hedges and in the -meadows, and travellers resting by the wayside were glad of it, and -little children made wreaths and crowns of it, and the solitary lover of -nature rejoiced in its colour and fragrance, which mounted like a prayer -to Heaven." Richter had the right to inscribe these words in his diary -on his eightieth birthday. - -Through his works there echoes a humming and chiming like the joyous cry -of children and the twitter of birds. Even his landscapes are filled -with that blissful and solemn feeling that Sunday and the spring produce -together in a lonely walk over field and meadow. The "_Gemüthlichkeit_," -the cordiality, of German family-life, with a trait of contemplative -romance, could find such a charming interpreter in none but him, the old -man who went about in his long loose coat and had the face of an -ordinary village schoolmaster. Only he who retained to his old age that -childlike heart--to which the kingdom of heaven is given even in -art--could really know the heart of the child's world, which even at a -later date in Germany was not drawn more simply or more graciously. - -His illustrations present an almost exhaustive picture of the life of -the German people at home and in the world, at work and in their -pleasure, in suffering and in joy. He follows it through all grades and -all seasons of the year. Everything is true and genuine, everything -seized from life in its fulness: the child splashing in a tub; the lad -shouting as he catches the first snowflake in his hat; the lovers seated -whispering in their cosy little chamber, or wandering arm in arm on -their "homeward way through the corn" amid the evening landscape touched -with gold; the girl at her spinning-wheel and the hunter in the forest, -the travelling journeyman, the beggar, the well-to-do Philistine. The -scene is the sitting-room or the nursery, the porch twined with vine, -the street with old-fashioned overhanging storeys and turrets, the -forest and the field with splendid glimpses into the hazy distance. -Children are playing round a great tree, labourers are coming back from -the field, or the family is taking its rest in some hour of relaxation. -A peaceful quietude and chaste purity spread over everything. Certainly -Richter's drawing has something pedantic and unemphatic, that weak, -generalising roundness which, beside the sharp, powerful stroke of the -old artists, has the spirit of a drawing-master. But what he has to give -is always influenced by delicate and loving observation, and never -stands in contradiction to truth. He does not give the whole of nature, -but neither does he give what is unnatural. He is one of the first of -Germans whose art did not spring from a negation of reality, produced by -treating it on an arbitrary system, but rested instead upon tender -reverie, transfigured into poetry. When in the fifties he stayed a -summer in pleasant Loschwitz, he wrote in his diary: "O God, how -magnificent is the wide country round, from my little place upon the -hill! So divinely beautiful, and so sensuously beautiful! The deep blue -heaven, the wide green world, the bright and fair May landscape alive -with a thousand voices." - -[Illustration: WILHELM BUSCH.] - -In all that generation, to whom existence seemed so sad, Ludwig Richter -is one of the few who really felt content with the earth, and held the -life around them to be the best and healthiest material for the artist. -And that is the substance of the plate to which he gave the title "Rules -of Art." A wide landscape stretches away with mighty oaks slanting down, -and a purling spring from which a young girl is drawing water, whilst a -high-road, enlivened by travellers young and old, runs over hill and -dale into the sunny distance. In the midst of this free rejoicing world -the artist is seated with his pencil. And above stands the motto written -by Richter's hand-- - - "Und die Sonne Homer's, siehe sie lächelt auch uns." - -By the success of Richter certain disciples were inspired to tread the -same ground, although none of them equalled him in his charming human -qualities. And least of all _Oskar Pletsch_, whose self-sufficient smile -is soon recognised in all its emptiness. Everything which in Richter was -genuine and original is in him flat, laboured, and prearranged. His -landscapes, which in part are very pretty, are derived from R. Schuster; -what seems good in the children is Richter's property, and what Pletsch -contributed is the conventionality. _Albert Hendschel_ also stood on -Richter's shoulders, but his popularity is more justifiable. Even in -these days one takes pleasure in his sketch-books, in which he -immortalised the joy and sorrow of youth in such a delicious way. - -[Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ - - OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. - - RETHEL.] - -_Eugen Neureuther_ worked in Munich, and as an etcher revelled in the -charming play of arabesques and ornamental borders, and told of pleasant -little scenes from the life of the Bavarian people in his pretty peasant -quatrains. - -[Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ - - OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. - - GABRIEL MAX.] - -The rise of caricature in Germany dates from the year 1848. Though there -are extant from the first third of the century no more than a few -topical papers of no artistic importance, periodical publications, which -soon brought a large number of vigorous caricaturists into notice, began -to appear from that time, owing to the political agitations of the -period. _Kladderadatsch_ was brought out in Berlin, and _Fliegende -Blätter_ was founded in Munich, and side by side with it _Münchener -Bilderbogen_. But later generations will be referred _par excellence_ to -_Fliegende Blätter_ for a picture of German life in the nineteenth -century. What the painters of those years forgot to transmit is here -stored up: a history of German manners which could not imaginably be -more exact or more exhaustive. From the very first day it united on its -staff of collaborators almost all the most important names in their own -peculiar branch. Schwind, Spitzweg, that genial humorist, and many -others whom the German people will not forget, won their spurs here, and -were inexhaustible in pretty theatre scenes, satires on German and -Italian singing, memorial sketches of Fanny Elsler, of the inventor of -the dress coat, etc., which enlivened the whole civilized world at that -time. This elder generation of draughtsmen on _Fliegende Blätter_ were, -indeed, not free from the guilt of producing stereotyped figures. The -travelling Englishman, the Polish Jew, the counter-jumper, the young -painter, the rich boor, the stepmother, the housemaid, and the nervous -countess are everywhere the same in the first volumes. In caricature, -just as in "great art," they still worked a little in accordance with -rules and conventions. To observe life with an objective unprejudiced -glance, and to hold it fast in all its palpitating movement, was -reserved for men of later date. - -[Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ - - OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. - - HANS MAKART.] - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ ADOLF OBERLÄNDER.] - -Two of the greatest humorists of the world in illustrative art, _Wilhelm -Busch_ and _Adolf Oberländer_, stand at the head of those who ushered in -the flourishing period of German caricature. They are masters, and take -in with their glance the entire social world of our time, and in their -brilliant prints they have made a history of civilisation for the epoch -which will be more vivid and instructive for posterity than the most -voluminous works of the greatest historians. Their heads are known by -Lenbach's pictures. One has an exceptionally clever, expressive -countenance--a thorough painter's head. The humorist may be recognised -by the curious narrowing of one eye, the well-known eye of the humorist -that sees everything, proves everything, and holds fast every absurdity -in the gestures, every eccentricity in the bearing of his neighbour. -That is Wilhelm Busch. - -[Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ - - OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. - - GENELLI.] - -[Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ - - OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. - - ALMA TADEMA.] - -In the large orbs of the other--orbs which seem to grow strangely wide -by long gazing as at some fixed object--there is no smile of deliberate -mischief, and it is not easy to associate the name of Oberländer with -this Saturnian round face, with its curiously timid glance. One is -reminded of the definition of humour as "smiling amid tears." - -Even in those days when he came every year to Munich and painted in -Lenbach's studio, Busch was a shy and moody man, who thawed only in the -narrowest circle of his friends: now he has buried himself in a -market-town in the province of Hanover, in Wiedensahl, which, according -to Ritter's _Gazetteer_, numbers eight hundred and twenty-eight -inhabitants. He lives in the house of his brother-in-law, the clergyman -of the parish, and gives himself up to the culture of bees. His laughter -has fallen silent, and it is only a journal on bees that now receives -contributions from his hand. But what works this hermit of Wiedensahl -produced in the days when he migrated from Düsseldorf and Antwerp to -Munich, and began in 1859 his series of sketches for _Fliegende -Blätter_! The first were stiff and clumsy, the text in prose and not -particularly witty. But the earliest work with a versified text, _Der -Bauer und der Windmüller_, contains in the germ all the qualities which -later found such brilliant expression in _Max und Moritz_, in _Der -Heilige Antonius_, _Die Fromme Helene_, and _Die Erlebnisse Knopps,_ -_des Junggesellen_, and made Busch's works an inexhaustible fountain of -mirth and enjoyment. - -Busch unites an uncommonly sharp eye with a marvellously flexible hand. -Wild as his subjects generally are, he solves the greatest difficulties -as easily as though they were child's play. His heroes appear in -situations of the most urgent kind, which place their bodily parts in -violent and exceedingly uncomfortable positions: they thrash others or -get thrashed themselves, they stumble or fall. And in what a masterly -way are all these anomalies seized, the boldest foreshortenings and the -most flying movements! Untrained eyes see only a scrawl, but for those -who know how to look, a drawing by Busch is life itself, freed from all -unnecessary detail, and marked down in its great characteristic lines. -And amid all this simplification, what knowledge there is under the -guise of carelessness, and what fine calculation! Busch is at once -simpler and more inventive than the English. With a maze of flourishes -run half-mad, and a few points and blotches, he forms a sparkling -picture. With the fewest possible means he hits the essential point, and -for that reason he is justly called by Grand Cartaret the classic of -caricaturists, _le roi de la charge et la bouffonnerie_. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - DEBUCOURT. IN THE KITCHEN.] - -_Oberländer_, without whom it would be impossible to imagine _Fliegende -Blätter_, has not fallen silent. He works on, "fresh and splendid as on -the first day." A gifted nature like Busch, he possesses, at the same -time, that fertility of which Dürer said: "A good painter is inwardly -complete and opulent, and were it possible for him to live eternally, -then by virtue of those inward ideas of which Plato writes he would be -always able to pour something new into his works." It is now thirty -years ago that he began his labours for _Fliegende Blätter_, and since -that time some drawing of his, which has filled every one with delight, -has appeared almost every week. Kant said that Providence has given men -three things to console them amid the miseries of life--hope, sleep, and -laughter. If he is right, Oberländer is amongst the greatest benefactors -of mankind. Every one of his new sketches maintains the old precious -qualities. It might be said that, by the side of the comedian Busch, -Oberländer seems a serious psychologist. Wilhelm Busch lays his whole -emphasis on the comical effects of simplicity; he knows how to reduce an -object in a masterly fashion to its elemental lines, which are comic in -themselves by their epigrammatic pregnancy. He calls forth peals of -laughter by the farcical spirit of his inventions and the boldness with -which he renders his characters absurd. He is also the author of his own -letterpress. His drawings are unimaginable without the verse, without -the finely calculated and dramatic succession of situations growing to a -catastrophe. Oberländer gets his effect purely by means of the pictorial -elements in his representation, and attains a comical result, neither by -the distorted exaggeration of what is on the face of the matter -ridiculous, nor by an elementary simplification, but by a refined -sharpening of character. It seems uncanny that a man should have such -eyes in his head; there is something almost visionary in the way he -picks out of everything the determining feature of its being. And whilst -he faintly exaggerates what is characteristic and renders it distinct, -his picture is given a force and power of conviction to which no -previous caricaturist has attained, with so much discretion at the same -time. No one has attained the drollness of Oberländer's people, animals, -and plants. He draws _à la_ Max, _à la_ Makart, Rethel, Genelli, or -Piloty, hunts in the desert or theatrical representations, Renaissance -architecture run mad or the most modern European mashers. He is as much -at home in the Cameroons as in Munich, and in transferring the droll -scenes of human life to the animal world he is a classic. He sports with -hens, herrings, dogs, ducks, ravens, bears, and elephants as Hokusai -does with his frogs. Beside such animals all the Reinecke series of -Wilhelm Kaulbach look like "drawings from the copybook of little -Moritz." And landscapes which in their tender intimacy of feeling seem -like anticipations of Cazin sometimes form the background of these -creatures. One can scarcely err in supposing that posterity will place -certain plates from the work of this quiet, amiable man beside the best -which the history of drawing has anywhere to show. - -[Illustration: DEBUCOURT. THE PROMENADE.] - -The _Charivari_ takes its place with _Punch_ and _Fliegende Blätter_. - -In the land of Rabelais also caricature has flourished since the opening -of the century, in spite of official masters who reproached her with -desecrating the sacred temple of art, and in spite of the gendarmes who -put her in gaol. Here, too, it was the draughtsmen who first broke with -æsthetic prejudices, and saw the laughing and the weeping dramas of life -with an unprejudiced glance. - -Debucourt and Carle Vernet, the pair who made their appearance -immediately after the storms of the Revolution, are alike able and -charming artists, who depict the pleasures of the salon in a graceful -style; and they rival the great satirists on the other side of the -Channel in the incisiveness of their drawing, and frequently even -surpass them by the added charm of colour. - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - MONNIER. A CHALK DRAWING.] - -_Carle Vernet_, originally an historical painter, remembered that he had -married the daughter of the younger Moreau, and set himself to portray -the doings of the _jeunesse dorée_ of the end of the eighteenth century -in his _incroyables_ and his _merveilleuses_. Crazy, eccentric, and -superstitious, he divided his time afterwards between women and his -club-fellows, horses and dogs. He survives in the history of art as the -chronicler of sport, hunting, racing, and drawing-room and café scenes. - -_Louis Philibert Debucourt_ was a pupil of Vien, and had painted _genre_ -pictures in the spirit of Greuze before he turned in 1785 to colour -engraving. In this year appeared the pretty "Menuet de la Mariée," with -the peasant couples dancing, and the dainty châtelaine who laughingly -opens the ball with the young husband. After that he had found his -specialty, and in the last decade of the eighteenth century he produced -the finest of his colour engravings. In 1792 there is the wonderful -promenade in the gallery of the Palais Royal, with its swarming crowd of -young officers, priests, students, shop-girls, and _cocottes_; in 1797 -"Grandmother's Birthday," "Friday Forenoon at the Parisian Bourse," and -many others. The effects of technique which he achieved by means of -colour engraving are surprising. A freshness like that of water colour -lies on these yellow straw hats, lightly rouged cheeks, and rosy -shoulders. To white silk cloaks trimmed with fur he gives the -iridescence of a robe by Netscher. If there survived nothing except -Debucourt from the whole art of the eighteenth century, he would alone -suffice to give an idea of the entire spirit of the time. Only one note -would be wanting, the familiar simplicity of Chardin. The smiling grace -of Greuze, the elegance of Watteau, and the sensuousness of Boucher--he -has them all, although they are weakened in him, and precisely by his -affectation is he the true child of his epoch. The crowd which is -promenading beneath the trees of the Palais Royal in 1792 is no longer -the same which fills the drawing-rooms of Versailles and Petit Trianon -in the pages of Cochin. The faces are coarser and more plebeian. Red -waistcoats with _breloques_ as large as fists, and stout canes with -great gold tops, make the costume of the men loud and ostentatious, -while eccentric hats, broad sashes, and high coiffures bedizen the -ladies more than is consistent with elegance. At the same time, -Debucourt gives this democracy an aristocratic bearing. His prostitutes -look like duchesses. His art is an attenuated echo of the _rococo_ -period. In him the _décadence_ is embodied, and all the grace and -elegance of the century is once more united, although it has become more -_bourgeois_. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - MONNIER. JOSEPH PROUDHOMME.] - -The Empire again was less favourable to caricature. Not that there was -any want of material, but the censorship kept a strict watch over the -welfare of France. Besides, the artists who made their appearance after -David lived on Olympus, and would have nothing to do with the common -things of life. Neither draughtsmen nor engravers could effect anything -so long as they saw themselves overlooked by a Greek or Roman phantom as -they bent over their paper or their plate of copper, and felt it their -duty to suggest the stiff lines of antique statues beneath the folds of -modern costume. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ HONORÉ DAUMIER.] - -_Bosio_ was the genuine product of this style. Every one of his pictures -has become tedious, because of a spurious classicism to which he adhered -with inflexible consistency. He cannot draw a grisette without seeing -her with David's eyes. It deprives his figures of truth and interest. -Something of the correctness of a schoolmistress is peculiar to them. -His grace is too classic, his merriment too well-bred, and everything in -them too carefully arranged to give the idea of scenes rapidly depicted -from life. Beauty of line is offered in place of spontaneity of -observation, and even the character of the drawing is lost in a pedantic -elegance which envelopes everything with the uniformly graceful veil of -an insipidly fluent outline. - -As soon as Romanticism had broken with the classic system, certain great -draughtsmen, who laid a bold hand on modern life without being shackled -by æsthetic formulæ, came to the front in France. _Henri Monnier_, the -eldest of them, was born a year after the proclamation of the Empire. -Cloaks, plumes, and sabretasches were the first impressions of his -youth; he saw the return of triumphant armies and heard the fanfare of -victorious trumpets. The Old Guard remained his ideal, the inglorious -kingship of the Restoration his abhorrence. He was a supernumerary clerk -in the Department of Justice when in 1828 his first brochure, _Moeurs -administratives dessinées d'aprés nature par Henri Monnier_, disclosed -to his superiors that the eyes of this poor young man in the service of -the Ministry had seen more than they should have done. Dismissed from -his post, he was obliged to support himself by his pencil, and became -the chronicler of the epoch. In Monnier's prints breathes the happy -Paris of the good old times, a Paris which in these days scarcely exists -even in the provinces. His "Joseph Proudhomme," from his shoe-buckles to -his stand-up collar, from his white cravat to his blue spectacles, is as -immortal as _Eisele und Beisele_, _Schulze und Müller_, or Molière's -_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_. Monnier himself is his own Proudhomme. He is -the Philistine in Paris, enjoying little Parisian idylls with a -_bourgeois_ complacency. With him there is no distinction between -beautiful and ugly; he finds that everything in nature can be turned to -account. How admirably the different worlds of Parisian society are -discriminated in his _Quartiers de Paris_! How finely he has portrayed -the grisette of the period, with her following of young tradesmen and -poor students! As yet she has not blossomed into the fine lady, the -luxurious _blasée_ woman of the next generation. She is still the -bashful _modiste_ or dressmaker's apprentice whose outings in the -country are described by Paul de Kock, a pretty child in a short skirt -who lives in an attic and dresses up only when she goes to the theatre -or into the country on a Sunday. Monnier gives her an air of -good-nature, something delightfully childlike. In the society of her -adorers she is content with the cheapest pleasures, drinks cider and -eats cakes, rides on a donkey or breakfasts amid the trees, and hardly -coquets at all when a fat old gentleman follows her on the boulevards. -These innocent flirtations remind one as little of the more recent -_lorettes_ of Gavarni as these in their turn anticipate the drunken -street-walkers of Rops. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DAUMIER. THE CONNOISSEURS.] - -Under Louis Philippe began the true modern period of French caricature, -the flourishing time when really great artists devoted themselves to it. -It never raised its head more proudly than under the _bourgeois_ king, -whose onion head always served the relentless Philippon as a target for -his wit. It was never armed in more formidable fashion; it never dealt -more terrible blows. Charles Philippon's famous journal _La Caricature_ -was the most powerful lever that the republicans used against the "July -government"; it was equally feared by the Ministry, the _bourgeoisie_, -and the throne. When the _Charivari_ followed _La Caricature_ in 1832, -political cartoons began to give way to the simple portraiture of -manners in French life. The powder made for heavy guns exploded in a -facile play of fireworks improvised for the occasion. - -French society in the nineteenth century has to thank principally -_Daumier_ and _Gavarni_ for being brought gradually within the sphere of -artistic representation. These men are usually called caricaturists, yet -they were in reality the great historians of their age. Through long -years they laboured every week and almost every day at their great -history, which embraced thousands of chapters--at a true zoology of the -human species; and their work, drawn upon stone in black and white, -proves them not merely genuine historians, but really eminent artists -who merit a place beside the greatest. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DAUMIER. THE MOUNTEBANKS. - - (_By permission of M. Eugène Montrosier, the owner of the picture._)] - -When in his young days Daubigny trod the pavement of the Sistine Chapel -in Rome, he is said to have exclaimed in astonishment, "That looks as if -it had been done by Daumier!" and from that time Daumier was aptly -called the Michael Angelo of caricature. Even when he is laughing there -is a Florentine inspiration of the terrible in his style, a grotesque -magnificence, a might suggestive of Buonarotti. In the period before -1848 he dealt the constitutional monarchy crushing blows by his -drawings. "Le Ventre legislatif" marks the furthest point to which -political caricature ever ventured in France. But when he put politics -on one side and set himself free from Philippon, this same man made the -most wonderful drawings from life. His "Robert Macaire" giving -instructions to his clerk as a tradesman, sending his patients -exorbitant bills as doctor to the poor, lording it over the bourse as -banker, taking bribes as juryman, and fleecing a peasant as land-agent, -is the incarnation of the _bourgeois_ monarchy, a splendid criticism on -the money-grubbing century. Politicians, officials, artists, actors, -honest citizens, old-clothes-mongers, newspaper-boys, impecunious -painters, the most various and the basest creatures are treated by his -pencil, and appear on pages which are often terrible in their depth and -truthfulness of observation. The period of Louis Philippe is accurately -portrayed in these prints, every one of which belongs to the great -volume of the human tragicomedy. In his "Émotions parisiennes" and -"Bohémiens de Paris" he deals with misfortune, hunger, the impudence of -vice, and the horror of misery. His "Histoire ancienne" ridiculed the -absurdity of Classicism _à la_ David at a time when it was still -regarded as high treason to touch this sacred fane. These modern figures -with the classical pose, which to some extent parodied David's pictures, -were probably what first brought his contemporaries to a sense of the -stiffness and falsity of the whole movement; and at a later period -Offenbach also contributed his best ideas with much the same result. -Moreover, Daumier was a landscape-painter of the first order. No one has -more successfully rendered the appearance of bridges and houses, of -quays and streets under a downpour, of nature enfeebled as it is in the -precincts of Paris. He was an instantaneous photographer without a -rival, a physiognomist such as Breughel was in the sixteenth century, -Jan Steen and Brouwer in the seventeenth, and Chodowiecki in the -eighteenth, with the difference that his drawing was as broad and -powerful as Chodowiecki's was delicate and refined. This inborn force of -line, suggestive of Jordaens, places his sketches as high, considered as -works of art, as they are invaluable as historical documents. The -treatment is so summary, the outline so simplified, the pantomime, -gesticulation, and pose always so expressive; and Daumier's influence on -several artists is beyond doubt. Millet, the great painter of peasants, -owes much to the draughtsman of the _bourgeois_. Precisely what -constitutes his "style," the great line, the simplification, the -intelligent abstention from anecdotic trifles, are things which he -learnt from Daumier. - -During the years when he drew for the _Charivari_, _Gavarni_ was the -exact opposite of Daumier. In the one was a forceful strength, in the -other a refined grace; in the one brusque and savage observation and -almost menacing sarcasm, in the other the wayward mood of the butterfly -flitting lightly from flower to flower. Daumier might be compared with -Rabelais; Gavarni, the _spirituel_ journalist of the _grand monde_ and -the _demi-monde_, the draughtsman of elegance and of _roués_ and -_lorettes_, might be compared with Molière. Born of poor parentage in -Paris in 1801, and in his youth a mechanician, he supported himself from -the year 1835 by fashion prints and costume drawings. He undertook the -conduct of a fashion journal, _Les Gens du Monde_, and began it with a -series of drawings from the life of the _jeunesse dorée_: _les -Lorettes_, _les Actrices_, _les Fashionables_, _les Artistes_, _les -Étudiants de Paris_, _les Bals masqués_, _les Souvenirs du Carnaval_, -_la Vie des Jeunes Hommes_. A new world was here revealed with bold -traits. The women of Daumier are good, fat mothers, always busy, -quick-witted, and of an enviable constitution; women who are careful in -the management of their household, and who go to market and take their -husband's place at his office when necessary. In Gavarni the women are -piquant and given to pouting, draped in silk and enveloped in soft -velvet mantles. They are fond of dining in the _cabinet particulier_, -and of scratching the name of their lover, for the time being, upon -crystal mirrors. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DAUMIER. IN THE ASSIZE COURT.] - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - DAUMIER. "LA VOILÀ ... MA MAISON DE CAMPAGNE."] - -Gavarni was the first who seized the worldly side of modern life; he -portrayed elegant figures full of _chic_, and gave them a garb which -fitted them exactly. In his own dress he had a taste for what was -dandified, and he plunged gaily into the enjoyment of the Parisian life -which eddied around in a whirl of pleasure. The present generation feels -that the air in such old journals of fashion is heavy. In every work of -art there is, in addition to what endures, a fine perfume that -evaporates after a certain number of years, and is no longer perceptible -to those who come afterwards. What is fresh and modern to-day looks -to-morrow like the dried flowers which the botanist keeps in a -herbarium. And those who draw the fashions of their age are specially -liable to this swift decay. Thus many of Gavarni's lithographs have the -effect of pallid pictures of a vanished world. But the generation of -1830 honoured in him the same _charmeur_, the same master of enamoured -grace, which that of 1730 had done in Watteau. He was sought after as an -inventor of fashions, whom the tailor Humann, the Worth of the "July -Monarchy," regarded as his rival. He was the discoverer of all the fairy -costumes which formed the chief attraction at masquerades and theatres, -the delicate _gourmet_ of the eternal feminine; and having dangled much -after women, he knew how to render the wave of a petticoat, the -seductive charm of a well-proportioned leg, and the coquettishness of a -new _coiffure_ with the most familiar connoisseurship. He has been -called the Balzac of draughtsmen. And the sentences at the bottom of his -sketches, for which he is also responsible, are as audacious as the -pictures themselves. Thus, when the young exquisite in the series "La -Vie des Jeunes Hommes" stands with his companion before a skeleton in -the anthropological museum, the little woman opines with a shudder, -"When one thinks that this is a man, and that women love _that_"! - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - DAUMIER. MENELAUS THE VICTOR.] - -But that is only one side of the sphinx. He is only half known when one -thinks only of the draughtsman of ladies' fashions who celebrated the -free and easy graces of the _demi-monde_ and the wild licence of the -carnival. At bottom Gavarni was not a frivolous butterfly, but an artist -of a strangely sombre imagination, a profound and melancholy philosopher -who had a prescience of all the mysteries of life. All the mighty -problems which the century produced danced before his spirit like -spectral notes of interrogation. - -The transition was made when, as an older man, he depicted the cold, -sober wakening that follows the wild night. _Constantin Guys_ had -already worked on these lines. He was an unfortunate and ailing man, who -passed his existence, like Verlaine, in hospital, and died in an -almshouse. Guys has not left much behind him, but in that little he -shows himself the true forerunner of the moderns, and it is not a mere -chance that Baudelaire, the ancestor of the _décadence_, established -Guys' memory. These women who wander aimlessly about the streets with -weary movements and heavy eyes deadened with absinthe, and who flit -through the ball-room like bats, have nothing of the innocent charm of -Monnier's grisettes. They are the uncanny harbingers of death, the -demoniacal brides of Satan. Guys exercised on Gavarni an influence which -brought into being his _Invalides du sentiment_, his _Lorettes -vieilles_, and his _Fourberies de femmes_. "The pleasure of all -creatures is mingled with bitterness." The frivolous worldling became a -misanthrope from whom no secret of the foul city was hidden; a pessimist -who had begun to recognise the human brute, the swamp-flower of -over-civilisation, the "bitter fruit which is inwardly full of ashes," -in the queen of the drawing-room as in the prostitute of the gutter. -Henceforth he only recognises a love whose pleasures are to be reckoned -amongst the horrors of death. His works could be shown to no lady, and -yet they are in no sense frivolous: they are terrible and puritanic. - -If Daumier by preference showed mastery in his men, Gavarni showed it in -his women as no other has done. He is not the powerful draughtsman that -Daumier is; he has not the feeling for large movement, but with what -terrible directness he analyses faces! He has followed woman through all -seasons of life and in every grade, from youth to decay, and from -brilliant wealth to filthy misery, and he has written the story of the -_lorette_ in monumental strophes: café chantant, villa in the Champs -Elysées, equipage, grooms, Bois de Boulogne, procuress, garret, and -radish-woman, that final incarnation which Victor Hugo called the -sentence of judgment. - -[Illustration: GAVARNI.] - -And Gavarni went further on this road. His glance became sharper and -sharper, and the seriousness of meditation subdued his merriment; he -came to the study of his age with the relentless knife of a -vivisectionist. Fate had taught him the meaning of the struggle for -existence. A journal he had founded in the thirties overwhelmed him with -debts. In 1835 he sat in the prison of Clichy, and from that time he -meditated on the miserable, tattered creatures whom he saw around him, -with other eyes. He studied the toiling masses, and roamed about in -slums and wine-caves amongst pickpockets and bullies. And what Paris had -not yet revealed to him, he learnt in 1849 in London. Even there he was -not the first-comer. Géricault, who as early as 1821 dived into the -misery of the vast city, and brought out a series of lithographs, showed -him the way. Beggars cowering half dead with exhaustion at a baker's -door, ragged pipers slouching round deserted quarters of the town, poor -crippled women wheeled in barrows by hollow-eyed men past splendid -mansions and surrounded by the throng of brilliant equipages--these are -some of the scenes which he brought home with him from London. But -Gavarni excels him in trenchant incisiveness. "What is to be seen in -London gratis," runs the heading of a series of sketches in which he -conjures up on paper, in such a terrible manner, the new horrors of this -new period: the starvation, the want, and the measureless suffering that -hides itself with chattering teeth in the dens of the great city. He -went through Whitechapel from end to end, and studied its drunkenness -and its vice. How much more forcible are his beggars than those of -Callot! The grand series of "Thomas Vireloque" is a dance of death in -life; and in it are stated all the problems which have since disturbed -our epoch. By this work Gavarni has come down to us as a contemporary, -and by it he has become a pioneer. The enigmatical figure of "Thomas -Vireloque" starts up in these times, following step by step in the path -of his prototype: he is the philosopher of the back streets, the ragged -scoundrel with dynamite in his pocket, the incarnation of the _bête -humaine_, of human misery and human vice. Here Gavarni stands far above -Hogarth and far above Callot. The ideas on social politics of the first -half of the century are concentrated in "Thomas Vireloque." - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - GAVARNI. THOMAS VIRELOQUE.] - -Of course the assumption of government by Napoleon III marked a new -phase in French caricature. It became more mundane and more highly -civilised. All the piquancy and brilliance, waywardness and corruption, -looseness and amenity, mirth and affectation of this refined city life, -which in those days threw its dazzling splendour over all Europe, found -intelligent and subtle interpreters in the young generation of -draughtsmen. The _Journal pour rire_ comes under consideration as the -leading paper. It was founded in 1848, and in 1856 assumed the title of -_Journal amusant_, under which it is known at the present day. - -[Illustration: _Hetzel, Paris._ - - GAVARNI. FOURBERIES DE FEMMES. - - _Au premier Mosieu._--"Attendez-moi ce soir, de quatre à cinq heures, - quai de l'Horloge du Palais.--_Votre_ AUGUSTINE." - - _Au deuxième Mosieu._--"Ce soir, quai des Lunettes, entre quatre et - cinq heures.--_Votre_ AUGUSTINE." - - _Au troisième Mosieu._--"Quai des Morfondus, ce soir, de quatre heures - à cinq.--_Votre_ AUGUSTINE." - - _À un quatrième Mosieu._--"Je t'attends ce soir, à quatre - heures.--_Ton_ AUGUSTINE."] - -_Gustave Doré_, to the lessening of his importance, moved on this ground -only in his earliest period. He was barely sixteen and still at school -in his native town Burg, in Alsace, when he made an agreement with -Philippon, who engaged him for three years on the _Journal pour rire_. -His first drawings date from 1844: "Les animaux socialistes," which were -very suggestive of Grandville, and "Désagréments d'un voyage -d'agrément"--something like the German _Herr und Frau Buchholz in der -Schweiz_--which made a considerable sensation by their grotesque wit. In -his series "Les différents publics de Paris" and "La Ménagerie -Parisienne" he represented with an incisive pencil the opera, the -_Théâtre des Italiens_, the circus, the _Odéon_ and the _Jardin des -Plantes_. But since that time the laurels of historical painting have -given him no rest. He turned away from his own age as well as from -caricature, and made excursions into all zones and all periods. He -visited the Inferno with Dante, lingered in Palestine with the -patriarchs of the Old Testament, and ran through the world of wonders -with Perrault. The facility of his invention was astonishing, and so too -was the aptness with which he seized for illustration on the most vivid -scenes from all authors. But he has too much Classicism to be -captivating for very long. His compositions dazzle by an appearance of -the grand style, but attain only an outward and scenical effect. His -figures are academic variations of types originally established by the -Greeks and the Cinquescentisti. He forced his talent when he soared into -regions where he could not stand without the support of his -predecessors. Even in his "Don Quixote" the figures lose in character -the larger they become. Everything in Doré is calligraphic, judicious, -without individuality, without movement and life, composed in accordance -with known rules. There is a touch of Wiertz in him, both in his -imagination and in his design, and his youthful works, such as the -"Swiss Journey," in which he merely drew from observation without -pretensions to style, will probably last the longest. - -In broad lithographs and charming woodcuts, _Cham_ has been the most -exhaustive in writing up the diary of modern Parisian life during the -period 1848-78. The celebrated caricaturist--he has been called the most -brilliant man in France under Napoleon III--had worked in the studio of -Delaroche at the same time as Jean François Millet. After 1842 he came -forward as Cham (his proper name was Count Amadée de Noë) with drawings -which soon made him the artist most in demand on the staff of the -_Charivari_. Neither so profound nor so serious as Gavarni, he has a -constant sparkle of vivacity, and is a draughtsman of wonderful _verve_. -In his reviews of the month and of the year, everything which interested -Paris in the provinces of invention and fashion, art and literature, -science and the theatre, passes before us in turn: the omnibuses with -their high imperials, table-turning and spirit-rapping, the opening of -the _Grands Magasins du Louvre_, Madame Ristori, the completion of the -Suez Canal, the first newspaper kiosks, New Year's Day in Paris, the -invention of ironclads, the tunnelling of Mont Cenis, Gounod's _Faust_, -Patti and Nilsson, the strike of the tailors and hat-makers, jockeys and -racing. Everything that excited public attention had a close observer -in Cham. His caricatures of the works of art in the Salon were full of -spirit, and the International Exhibition of 1867 found in him its -classic chronicler. Here all the mysterious Paris of the third Napoleon -lives once more. Emperors and kings file past, the band of Strauss -plays, gipsies are dancing, equipages roll by, and every one lives, -loves, flirts, squanders money, and whirls round in a maëlstrom. But the -end of the exhibition betokened the end of all that splendour. In Cham's -plates which came next one feels that there is thunder in the air. -Neither fashions nor theatres, neither women nor pleasure, could prevent -politics from predominating more and more: the fall of Napoleon was -drawing near. - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - GAVARNI. PHÈDRE AT THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS.] - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - GAVARNI. "CE QUI ME MANQUE À MOI? UNE 'TITE MÈRE COMME ÇA, QU'AURAIT - SOIN DE MON LINGE."] - -There was a greater division of labour amongst those who followed Cham, -since one chose "little women" as a speciality, another the theatre, -and another high-life. Assisted by photography, _Nadar_ turned again to -portraiture, which had been neglected since Daumier, and enjoyed a great -success with his series "Les Contemporains de Nadar." _Marcellin_ is the -first who spread over his sketches from the world of fashions and the -theatre all the _chic_ and fashionable glitter which lives in the novels -of those years. He is the chronicler of the great world, of balls and -_soirées_; he shows the opera and the _Théâtre des Italiens_, tells of -hunting and racing, attends the drives in the Corso, and at the call of -fashion promptly deserts the stones of Paris to look about him in -châteaux and country-houses, seaside haunts in France, and the little -watering-places of Germany, where the gaming-tables formed at that time -the rendezvous of well-bred Paris. Baden-Baden, where all the lions of -the day, the politicians and the artists and all the beauties of the -Paris salons, met together in July, offered the draughtsman a specially -wide field for studies of fashion and _chic_. Here began the series -"Histoires des variations de la mode depuis le XVI siècle jusqu'à nos -jours." In a place where all classes of society, the great world and the -_demi-monde_, came into contact, Marcellin could not avoid the latter, -but even when he verged on this province he always knew how to maintain -a correct and distinguished bearing. He was peculiarly the draughtsman -of "society," of that brilliant, pleasure-loving, tainted, and yet -refined society of the Second Empire which turned Paris into a great -ball-room. - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - GUYS. STUDY OF A WOMAN.] - -_Randon_ is as plebeian as Marcellin is aristocratic. His speciality is -the stupid recruit who is marched through the streets with his "squad," -or the retired tradesman of small means, as Daudet has hit him off in M. -Chèbe, the old gentleman seated on a bench in the Bois de Boulogne: "Let -the little ones come to me with their nurses." His province includes -everything that has nothing to do with _chic_. The whole life of the -Parisian people, the horse-fairs, the races at Poissy, and all the more -important occurrences by which the appearance of the city has been -transformed, may be followed in his drawings. When he travelled he did -not go to watering-places, but to the provinces, to Cherbourg and -Toulon, or to the manufacturing towns of Belgium and England, where he -observed life at the railway stations and the custom-house, at markets -and in barracks, at seaports and upon the street. Goods that are being -piled together, sacks that are being hoisted, ships being brought to -anchor, storehouses, wharfs, and docks--everywhere there is as much life -in his sketches as in a busy beehive. Nature is a great manufactory, and -man a living machine. The world is like an ant-hill, the dwelling of -curious insects furnished with teeth, feelers, indefatigable feet, and -marvellous organs proper for digging, sawing, building, and all things -possible, but furnished also with an incessant hunger. - -Soon afterwards there came _Hadol_, who made his début in 1855, with -pictures of the fashions; _Stop_, who specially represented the -provinces and Italy; _Draner_, who occupied himself with the Parisian -ballet and designed charming military uniforms for little dancing girls. -_Léonce Petit_ drew peasants and sketched the charms of the country in a -simple, familiar fashion--the mortal tedium of little towns, poor -villages, and primitive inns, the gossip of village beldames before the -house-door, the pompous dignity of village magistrates or of the head of -the fire brigade. He is specially noteworthy as a landscape artist. The -trees on the straight, monotonous road rise softly and delicately into -the air, and the sleepy sameness of tortuous village streets is -pregnantly rendered by a few strokes of the pencil. The land is like a -great kitchen garden. The fields and the arable ground with their dusty, -meagre soil chant a mighty song of hard labour, of the earnest, toilsome -existence of the peasant folk. - -[Illustration: _Journal Amusant._ - - GRÉVIN. NOS PARISIENNES. - - "Tiens! ne me parle pas de lui, je ne peux pas le souffrir, même en - peinture!" - - "Cependant, s'il t'offrait de t'epouser?" - - "Ça, c'est autre chose."] - -_Andrieux_ and _Morland_ discovered the _femme entretenue_, though -afterwards her best known delineator was _Grévin_, an able, original, -facile, and piquant draughtsman, whom some--exaggerating beyond a -doubt--called the direct successor of Gavarni. Grévin's women are a -little monotonous, with their ringleted chignons, their expressionless -eyes which try to look big, their perverse little noses, their defiant, -pouting lips, and the cheap toilettes which they wear with so much -_chic_. But they too have gone to their rest with the grisettes of -Monnier and Gavarni, and have left the field to the women of Mars and -Forain. In these days Grévin's work seems old-fashioned, since it is no -longer modern and not yet historical; nevertheless it marks an epoch, -like that of Gavarni. The _bals publics_, the _bals de l'Opéra_, those -of the _Jardin Mabille_, the _Closerie des Lilas_, the races, the -promenades in the _Bois de Vincennes_, the seaside resorts, all places -where the _demi-monde_ pitched its tent in the time of Napoleon III, -were also the home of the artist. "How they love in Paris" and "Winter -in Paris" were his earliest series. His finest and greatest drawings, -the scenes from the Parisian hotels and "The English in Paris," appeared -in 1867, the year of the Exhibition. His later series, published as -albums--"Les filles d'Ève," "Le monde amusant," "Fantaisies -parisiennes," "Paris vicieux," "La Chaîne des Dames"--are a song of -songs upon the refinements of life. - -It does not lie within the plan of this book to follow the history of -drawing any further. Our intention was merely to show that painting had -to follow the path trodden by Rowlandson and Cruikshank, Erhard and -Richter, Daumier and Gavarni, if it was to be art of the nineteenth -century, and not to remain for ever dependent on the old masters. -Absolute beauty is not good food for art; to be strong it must be -nourished on the ideas of the century. When the world had ceased to draw -inspiration from the masterpieces of the past merely with the object of -depicting by their aid scenes out of long-buried epochs, there was for -the first time a prospect that mere discipleship would be overcome, and -that a new and original painting would be developed through the fresh -and independent study of nature. The passionate craving of the age had -to be this: to feel at home on the earth, in this long-neglected world -of reality, which hides the unsuspected treasure of vivid works of art. -The rising sun is just as beautiful now as on the first day, the streams -flow, the meadows grow green, the vibrating passions are at war now as -in other times, the immortal heart of nature still beats beneath its -rough covering, and its pulsation finds an echo in the heart of man. It -was necessary to descend from ideals to existing fact, and the world had -to be once more discovered by painters as in the days of the first -Renaissance. The question was how by the aid of all the devices of -colour to represent the multifarious forms of human activity: the phases -and conditions of life, fashion as well as misery, work and pleasure, -the drawing-room and the street, the teeming activity of towns and the -quiet labour of peasants. The essential thing was to write the entire -natural history of the age. And this way, the way from museums to -nature, and from the past to the world of living men, was shown by the -English to the French and German painters. - -[Illustration: _Mansell Photo._ - - ROMNEY. SERENA.] - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -ENGLISH PAINTING TO 1850 - - -"The English school has an advantage over others in being young: its -tradition is barely a century old, and, unlike the Continental schools, -it is not hampered by antiquated Greek and Latin theories. What -fortunate conditions it has for breaking away into really modern work! -whereas in other nations the weight of tradition presses hard on the -boldest innovators. The English do not look back; on the contrary, they -look into life around them." So wrote Burger-Thoré in one of his Salons -in 1867. - -Yet England was not unaffected by the retrospective tendency on the -Continent. Perhaps it might even be demonstrated that this movement had -its earliest origin on British soil. England had its "Empire style" in -architecture fifty years before there was any empire in France; it had -its Classical painting when David worked at Cupids with Boucher, and it -gave the world a Romanticist at the very time when the literature of the -Continent became "Classical." _The Lady of the Lake_, _Marmion_, _The -Lord of the Isles_, _The Fair Maid of Perth_, _Old Mortality_, -_Ivanhoe_, _Quentin Durward_, who is there that does not know these -names by heart? We have learnt history from Walter Scott, and that -programme of the artistic crafts which Lorenz Gedon drew up in 1876, -when he arranged the department _Works of our Fathers_ in the Munich -Exhibition, had been carried out by Scott as early as 1816. For Scott -laid out much of the money he received for his romances in building -himself a castle in the style of the baronial strongholds of the Middle -Ages: "Towers and turrets all imitated from a royal building in -Scotland, windows and gables painted with the arms of the clans, with -lions couchant," rooms "filled with high sideboards and carved chests, -targes, plaids, Highland broadswords, halberts, and suits of armour, and -adorned with antlers hung up as trophies." Here was a Makartesque studio -very many years before Makart. - -Amongst the painters there were Classicists and Romanticists; but they -were neither numerous nor of importance. What England produced in the -way of "great art" in the beginning of last century could be erased from -the complete chart of British painting without any essential gap being -made in the course of its development. Reynolds had had to pay dear for -approaching the Italians in his "Ugolino," his "Macbeth," and his "Young -Hercules." And a yet more arid mannerism befell all the others who -followed him on the way to Italy, among them _James Barry_, who, after -studying for years in Italy, settled down in London in 1771, with the -avowed intention of providing England with a classical form of art. He -believed that he had surpassed his own models, the Italian classic -painters, by six pompous representations of the "Culture and Progress of -Human Knowledge," which he completed in 1783, in the theatre of the -Society for the Encouragement of Arts. The many-sided _James Northcote_, -equally mediocre in everything, survives rather by his biographies of -Reynolds and Titian than by the great canvases which he painted for -Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. That which became best known was "The -Murder of the Children in the Tower." _Henry Fuseli_, who was also much -occupied with authorship and as _preceptor Britanniæ_, always mentioned -with great respect by his numerous pupils, produced a series of -exceedingly thoughtful and imaginative works, to which he was incited by -Klopstock and Lavater. By preference he illustrated Milton and -Shakespeare, and amongst this series of pictures his painting of -"Titania with the Ass," from Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, in -the London National Gallery, is probably the best. His pupil _William -Etty_ was saturated with the traditions of the Venetian school; he is -the British Makart, and followed rather heavily and laboriously in the -track of Titian, exploring the realms of nude beauty, and toiling to -discover that secret of blooming colour which gleams from the female -forms of the Venetians. The assiduous _Benjamin Robert Haydon_, a spirit -ever seeking, striving, and reflecting, became, like Gros in France, a -victim of the grand style. He would naturally have preferred to paint -otherwise, and more simply. The National Gallery possesses a charming -picture by him of a London street (for some years past on loan at -Leicester), which represents a crowd watching a Punch and Judy show. -But, like Gros, he held it a sin against the grand style to occupy -himself with such matters. He thought it only permissible to paint -sacred subjects or subjects from ancient history upon large spaces of -canvas; and he sank ever deeper into his theories, reaching the -profoundest abyss of abstract science when he made diligent anatomical -studies of the muscles of a lion, in order to fashion the heroic frames -of warriors on the same plan. His end, on 26th June 1846, was like that -of the Frenchman. There was found beside his body a paper on which he -had written: "God forgive me. Amen. Finis," with the quotation from -Shakespeare's _Lear_: "Stretch me no longer on the rack of this rough -world." All these masters are more interesting for their human qualities -than for their works, which, with their extravagant colour, forced -gestures, and follies of every description, contain no new thing worthy -of further development. Even when they sought to make direct copies from -Continental performances, they did not attain the graceful sweep of -their models. The refinements which they imitated became clumsy and -awkward in their hands, and they remained half _bourgeois_ and half -barbaric. - -The liberating influence of English art was not found in the province of -the great painting, and it is probably not without significance that the -few who tried to import it came to grief in the experiment. There can be -no doubt that such art goes more against the grain of the English -nature than of any other. Even in the days of scholastic philosophy the -English asserted the doctrine that there are only individuals in nature. -In the beginning of modern times a new era, grounded on the observation -of nature, was promulgated from England. Bacon had little to say about -beauty: he writes against the proportions and the principle of selection -in art, and therefore against the ideal. Handsome men, he says, have -seldom possessed great qualities. And in the same way the English stage -had just as little bent for the august and rhythmical grandeur of -classical literature. When he stabbed Polonius, Garrick never dreamed of -moving according to the taste of Boileau, and was probably as different -from the Greek leader of a chorus as Hogarth from David. The peculiar -merits of English literature and science have been rooted from the time -of their first existence in their capacity for observation. This -explains the contempt for regularity in Shakespeare, the feeling for -concrete fact in Bacon. English philosophy is positive, exact, -utilitarian, and highly moral. Hobbes and Locke, John Stuart Mill and -Buckle, in England take the place of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and -Kant upon the Continent. Amongst English historians Carlyle is the only -poet: all the rest are learned prose-writers who collect observations, -combine experiences, arrange dates, weigh possibilities, reconcile -facts, discover laws, and hoard and increase positive knowledge. The -eighteenth century had seen the rise of the novel as the picture of -contemporary life; in Hogarth this national spirit was first turned to -account in painting. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, again, -the good qualities of English art consisted not in bold ideality, but in -sharpness of observation, sobriety, and flexibility of spirit. - -[Illustration: GEORGE ROMNEY.] - -Their proper domain was still to be found in portraiture, and if none of -the new portrait painters can be compared with the great ancestors of -English art, they are none the less superior to all their contemporaries -on the Continent. _George Romney_, who belongs rather to the eighteenth -century, holds the mean course between the refined classic art of Sir -Joshua and the imaginative poetic art of Thomas Gainsborough. Less -personal and less profound in characterisation, he was, on the other -hand, the most dexterous painter of drapery in his age: a man who knew -all the secrets of the trade, and possessed, at the same time, that art -which is so much valued in portrait painters--the art of beautifying his -models without making his picture unlike the original. Professional -beauties beheld themselves presented in their counterfeit precisely as -they wished to appear, and accorded him, therefore, a fervent adoration. -And after his return from Italy in 1775 his fame was so widespread that -it outstripped Gainsborough's and equalled that of Reynolds. Court -beauties and celebrated actresses left no stone unturned to have their -portraits introduced into one of his "compositions"; for Romney eagerly -followed the fashion of allegorical portraiture which had been set by -Reynolds, representing persons with the emblem of a god or of one of the -muses. Romney has painted the famous Lady Hamilton, to say nothing of -others, as Magdalen, Joan of Arc, a Bacchante, and an Odalisque. - -[Illustration: _Mag. of Art._ - - ROMNEY. LADY HAMILTON AS EUPHROSYNE.] - -Great as his reputation had been at the close of the eighteenth century, -it was outshone twenty years later by that of _Sir Thomas Lawrence_. -Born in Bristol in 1769, Lawrence had scarcely given up the calling of -an actor before he saw all England in raptures over his genius as a -painter. The catalogue of his portraits is a complete list of all who -were at the time pre-eminent for talent or beauty. He received fabulous -sums, which he spent with the grace of a man of the world. In 1815 he -was commissioned to paint for the Windsor Gallery the portraits of all -the "Victors of Waterloo," from the Duke of Wellington to the Emperor -Alexander. The Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle gave him an opportunity for -getting the portraits of representatives of the various Courts. All the -capitals of Europe, which he visited for this purpose, received him with -princely honours. He was member of all the Academies under the sun, and -President of that in London; but, as a natural reaction, this -over-estimation of earlier years has been followed by an equally -undeserved undervaluation of his works in these days. Beneath the -fashionable exterior of his ceremonial pictures naturalness and -simplicity are often wanting, and so too are the deeper powers of -characterisation, firm drawing, and real vitality. A feminine coquetry -has taken the place of character. His drawing has a banal effect, and -his colouring is monotonous in comparison with that realism which -Reynolds shares with the old masters. It is easy to confound the -majority of his pictures of ceremonies with those of Winterhalter, and -his smaller portraits with pretty fashion plates; yet one cannot but -admire his ease of execution and nobility of composition. Several of his -pictures of women, in particular, are touched by an easy grace and a -fine charm of poetic sensuousness in which he approaches Gainsborough. -Not many at that time could have painted such pretty children's heads, -or given young women such an attractive and familiar air of life. With -what a girlish glance of innocence and melancholy does Mrs. Siddons look -out upon the world from the canvas of Lawrence: how piquant is her white -Greek garment, with its black girdle and the white turban. And what -subtle delicacy there is in the portrait of Miss Farren as she flits -with muff and fur-trimmed cloak through a bright green summer landscape. -The reputation of Lawrence will rise once more when his empty formal -pieces have found their way into lumber-rooms, and a greater number of -his pictures of women--pictures so full of indescribable fascination, so -redolent of mysterious charm--are accessible to the public. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - LAWRENCE. MRS. SIDDONS.] - -As minor stars, the soft and tender _John Hoppner_, the attractively -superficial _William Beechey_, the celebrated pastellist _John Russell_, -and the vigorously energetic _John Jackson_ had their share with him in -public favour, whilst _Henry Raeburn_ shone in Scotland as a star of the -first magnitude. - -He was a born painter. Wilkie says in one of his letters from Madrid, -that the pictures of Velasquez put him in mind of Raeburn; and certain -works of the Scot, such as the portrait of Lord Newton, the famous _bon -vivant_ and doughty drinker, are indeed performances of such power that -comparison with this mighty name is no profanation. At a time when there -was a danger that portrait painting would sink in the hands of Lawrence -into an insipid painting of prettiness, Raeburn stood alone by the -simplicity and naturalistic impressiveness of his portraiture. The three -hundred and twenty-five portraits by him which were exhibited in the -Royal Scottish Academy in 1876, gave as exhaustive a picture of the life -of Edinburgh at the close of the century as those of Sir Joshua gave of -the life of London. All the celebrated Scotchmen of his time--Robertson, -Hume, Ferguson, and Scott--were painted by him. Altogether he painted -over six hundred portraits; and, small though the number may seem -compared with the two thousand of Reynolds, Raeburn's artistic qualities -are almost the greater. The secret of his success lies in his vigorous -healthiness, in the indescribable _furia_ of his brush, in the harmony -and truth of his colour-values. His figures are informed by a startling -intensity of life. His old pensioners, and his sailors in particular, -have something kingly in the grand air of their calm and noble -countenances. Armstrong has given him a place between Frans Hals and -Velasquez, and occasionally his conception of colour even recalls the -modern Frenchmen, as it were Manet in his Hals period. He paints his -models, just as they come into contact with him in life, in the frank -light of day and without any attempt at the dusk of the old masters; of -raiment he gives only as much as the comprehension of the picture -demands, and depicts character in large and simple traits. - -[Illustration: LAWRENCE. PRINCESS AMELIA.] - -The importance of West and Copley, two Americans who were active in -England, is that they were the first to apply the qualities acquired in -English portrait painting to pictures on a large scale. - -_Benjamin West_ has undoubtedly been over-praised by his contemporaries, -and by a critic of the present day he has, not unfairly, been designated -"the king of mediocrity." At his appearance he was interesting to -Europeans merely as an anthropological curiosity,--as the first son of -barbaric America who had used a paint brush. A thoroughly American puff -preceded his entry into the Eternal City in 1760. It was reported that -as the son of a quaker farmer he had grown up amongst his father's -slaves in the immediate neighbourhood of the Indians, and had painted -good portraits in Philadelphia and New York without having ever seen a -work of art. People were delighted when, on being brought into the -Vatican, he clapped his hands and compared the Apollo Belvidere to an -Indian chief. In the art of making himself interesting "the young -savage" was ahead of all his patrons; and as he followed the ruling -classical tendency with great aptitude, within the course of a year he -was made an honorary member of the Academies of Parma, Bologna, and -Florence, and praised by the critics of Rome as ranking with Mengs as -the first painter of his day. In 1763, at a time when Hogarth and -Reynolds, Wilson and Gainsborough, were in the fulness of their powers, -he went to London; and as people are always inclined to value most -highly what they do not possess, he soon won an important position for -himself, even beside these masters. Hogarth produced nothing but -"_genre_ pictures," Wilson only landscapes, and Reynolds and -Gainsborough portraits: West brought to the English what they did not as -yet possess--a "great art." - -[Illustration: LAWRENCE. THE ENGLISH MOTHER.] - -His first picture--in the London National Gallery--"Pylades and Orestes -brought as Hostages before Iphigenia," is a tiresome product of that -Classicism which upon the Continent found its principal representatives -in Mengs and David: it is stiff in drawing, its composition is -suggestive of a bas-relief, and its cold grey colouring is classically -academic. His other pictures from antique and sacred history stand much -on the same level as those of Wilhelm Kaulbach, with whose works they -share their stilted dignity, their systematically antiquarian structure, -and their mechanical combination of forms borrowed in a spiritless -fashion from the Cinquecentisti. - -Fortunately West has left behind him something different from these -ambitious attempts; for on the occasions when he turned away from the -great style he created works of lasting importance. This is specially -true of some fine historical pictures dealing with his own age, which -will preserve his name for ever. "The Death of General Wolfe" at the -storming of Quebec on 13th September 1759--exhibited at the opening of -the Royal Academy in 1768--is by its very sobriety a sincere, honest, -and sane piece of work, which will maintain its value as an historical -document. It was just at this time that so great a part was played by -the question of costume, and West encountered the same difficulties -which Gottfried Schadow was obliged to face when he represented Ziethen -and the Old Dessauer in the costume of their age. The connoisseurs held -that such a sublime theme would only admit of antique dress. If West in -their despite represented the general and his soldiers in their -regulation uniform, it seems at the present time no more than the result -of healthy common sense, but at that time it was an artistic event of -great importance, and one which was only accomplished in France after -the work of several decades. In that country Gérard and Girodet still -clung to the belief that they could only raise the military picture to -the level of the great style by giving the soldiers of the Empire the -appearance of Greek and Roman statues. Gros is honoured as the man who -first ceased from giving modern soldiers an air of the antique. But the -American Englishman had anticipated him by forty years. As in -Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa," it was only the pyramidal composition -in West's picture that betrayed the painter's alliance with the -Classical school; in other respects it forecast the realistic programme -for decades to come, and indicated the course of development which leads -through Gros onwards. If in Gros men are treated purely as accessories -to throw a hero into relief, in West they stand out in action. They -behave in the picture spontaneously as they do in life. That is to say, -there is in West's work of 1768 the element through which Horace -Vernet's pictures of 1830 are to be distinguished from those of Gros. - -This realistic programme was carried out with yet greater consistency by -West's younger compatriot _John Singleton Copley_, who after a short -sojourn in Italy migrated to England in 1775. His chief works in the -London National Gallery depict in the same way events from contemporary -history--"The Death of the Earl of Chatham, 7th April 1778" and "The -Death of Major Pierson, 6th January 1781,"--and it is by no means -impossible that when David, in the midst of the classicising tendencies -of his age, ventured to paint "The Death of Marat" and "The Death of -Lepelletier," he was led to do so by engravings after Copley. In the -representation of such things other painters of the epoch had draped -their figures in antique costume, called genii and river-gods into -action, and given a Roman character to the whole. Copley, like West, -offers a plain, matter-of-fact representation of the event, without any -rhetorical pathos. And what raises him above West is his liquid, massive -colour, suggestive of the old masters. In none of his works could West -set himself free from the dead grey colour of the Classical school, -whereas Copley's "Death of William Pitt" is the result of intimate -studies of Titian and the Dutch. The way the light falls on the perukes -of the men and the brown, wainscoted walls puts one in mind of -Rembrandt's "Anatomical Lecture"; only, instead of a pathetic scene from -the theatre, we have a collection of good portraits in the manner of the -Dutch studies of shooting matches. - -[Illustration: _Mansell Photo_ - - LAWRENCE. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, QUEEN OF GEORGE IV.] - -[Illustration: LAWRENCE. THE COUNTESS GOWER.] - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - RAEBURN. SIR WALTER SCOTT.] - -That this unhackneyed conception of daily life has its special home in -England is further demonstrated by the work of _Daniel Maclise_, who -depicted "The Meeting of Wellington and Blücher," "The Death of Nelson," -and other patriotic themes upon walls and canvases several yards square, -with appalling energy, promptitude, and expenditure of muscle. By these -he certainly did better service to national pride than to art. -Nevertheless, with their forcible, healthy realism they contrast -favourably with the mythological subjects so universally produced on the -Continent at that time. - -Beside the portrait painters of men stand the portrait painters of -animals. Since the days of Elias Riedinger animal painting had fallen -into general disesteem on the Continent. Thorwaldsen, the first of the -Classicists who allowed animals to appear in his works (as he did in his -Alexander frieze), dispensed with any independent studies of nature, and -contented himself with imitating the formal models on the frieze of the -Parthenon; or, in lack of a Grecian exemplar, simply drew out of the -depths of his inner consciousness. Especially remarkable is the sovran -contempt with which he treated the most familiar domestic creatures. -German historical painting knew still less what to make of the brute -creation, because it only recognised beauty in the profundity of ideas, -and ideas have nothing to do with beasts. Its four-footed creatures have -a philosophic depth of contemplation, and are bad studies after nature. -Kaulbach's "Reinecke" and the inclination to transplant human -sentiments into the world of brutes delayed until the sixties any -devoted study of the animal soul. France, too, before the days of -Troyon, had nothing to show worth mentioning. But in England, the land -of sport, animal painting was evolved directly from the old painting of -the chase, without being seduced from its proper course. Fox-hunting has -been popular in England since the time of Charles I. Racing came into -fashion not long after, and with racing came that knowledge of -horseflesh which has been developed in England further than elsewhere. -Since the seventeenth century red deer have been preserved in the -English parks. It is therefore comprehensible that English art was early -occupied with these animals, and since it was sportsmen who cared most -about them, the painter was at first their servant. He had not so much -to paint pictures as reminiscences of sport and the chase. His first -consideration in painting a horse was to paint a fine horse; as to its -being a fine picture, that was quite a secondary matter. _John Wootton_ -and _George Stubbs_ were in this sense portrayers of racehorses. The -latter, however, took occasion to emancipate himself from his patrons by -representing the noble animal, not standing at rest by his manger, or -with a groom on his back and delighting in the consciousness of his own -beauty, but as he was in action and amongst pictorial surroundings. - -[Illustration: WEST. THE DEATH OF NELSON.] - -[Illustration: _Mansell Photo_ - - MACLISE. THE WATERFALL, CORNWALL.] - -[Illustration: COPLEY. THE DEATH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM.] - -[Illustration: MACLISE. NOAH'S SACRIFICE.] - -Soon afterwards _George Morland_ made his appearance. He made a -specialty of old nags, and was perhaps the most important master of the -brush that the English school produced at all. His pictures have the -same magic as the landscapes of Gainsborough. He painted life on the -high-road and in front of village inns--scenes like those which Isaac -Ostade had represented a century before: old horses being led to water -amid the sunny landscape of the downs, market carts rumbling heavily -through the rough and sunken lanes, packhorses coming back to their -stalls of an evening tired out with the day's exertions, riders pulling -up at the village inn or chatting with the pretty landlady. And he has -done these things with the delicacy of an old Dutch painter. It is -impossible to say whether Morland had ever seen the pictures of Adriaen -Brouwer; but this greatest master of technique amongst the Flemings can -alone be compared with Morland in verve and artistic many-sidedness; and -Morland resembled him also in his adventurous life and his early death. -To the spirit and dash of Brouwer he joins the refinement of -Gainsborough in his landscapes, and Rowlandson's delicate feeling for -feminine beauty in his figures. He does not paint fine ladies, but women -in their everyday clothes, and yet they are surrounded by a grace -recalling Chardin: young mothers going to see their children who are -with the nurse, smart little tavern hostesses in their white aprons and -coquettish caps busily serving riders with drink, and charming city -madams in gay summer garb sitting of a Sunday afternoon with their -children at a tea-garden. Over the works of Morland there lies all the -chivalrous grace of the time of Werther, and that fine Anglo-Saxon aroma -exhaled by the works of English painters of the present day. Genuine as -is the fame which he enjoys as an animal painter, it is these little -social scenes which show his finest side; and only coloured engraving, -which was brought to such a high pitch in the England of those days, is -able to give an idea of the delicacy of hue in the originals. - -[Illustration: MACLISE. MALVOLIO AND THE COUNTESS.] - -[Illustration: _Mansell & Co._ - - MORLAND. HORSES IN A STABLE.] - -Morland's brother-in-law, the painter and engraver _James Ward_, born in -1769 and dying in 1859, united this old English school with the modern. -The portrait which accompanies the obituary notice in the _Art Journal_ -is that of a very aged gentleman, with a grey beard and thick, white, -bristly hair. The pictures which he painted when he had this -appearance--and they are the most familiar--were exceedingly weak and -insipid works. In comparison with Morland's broad, liquid, and -harmonious painting, that of Ward seems burnished, sparkling, flaunting, -anecdotic, and petty. But James Ward was not always old James Ward. In -his early days he was one of the greatest and manliest artists of the -English school, with whom only Briton Rivière can be compared amongst -the moderns. When his "Lioness" appeared in the Royal Academy Exhibition -of 1816 he was justly hailed as the best animal painter after Snyders, -and from that time one masterpiece followed another for ten long years. -What grace and power there are in his horses and dogs! In pictures of -this sort Stubbs was graceful and delicate; Ward painted the same horse -in as sporting a manner and with the same knowledge, but with an -artistic power such as no one had before him. His field of work was -wide-reaching. He painted little girls with the thoroughly English -feeling of Morland, and had the whole animal world for his domain. -Lions, snakes, cats, pigs, oxen, cows, sheep, swans, fowls, frogs are -the characters in his pictures. And characters they were, for he never -humanised the looks of his four-footed models, as others did later. The -home of his animals is not the drawing-room, but the woods and meadows, -the air and the gardens. His broad, weighty manner was transformed first -into extravagant virtuosity and then into pettiness of style during the -last thirty years of his life, when he became senile. His reputation -paled more than he deserved before the star of the world-famous -Landseer. - -[Illustration: MORLAND. THE CORN BIN.] - -The most popular animal painter, not merely of England but of the whole -century, was _Edwin Landseer_. For fifty years his works formed the -chief features of attraction in the Royal Academy. Engravings from him -had such a circulation in the country that in the sixties there was -scarcely a house in which there did not hang one of his horses or dogs -or stags. Even the Continent was flooded with engravings of his -pictures, and Landseer suffered greatly from this popularity. He is -much better than the reproductions with their fatal gloss allow any one -to suppose, and his pictures can be judged by them just as little as can -Raphael's "School of Athens" from Jacobi's engraving. - -[Illustration: _Portfolio._ - - MORLAND. GOING TO THE FAIR.] - -Edwin Landseer came of a family of artists. His father, who was an -engraver, sent him out into the free world of nature as a boy, and made -him sketch donkeys and goats and sheep. When he was fourteen he went to -Haydon, the prophet on matters of art; and, on the advice of this -singular being, studied the sculptures of the Parthenon. He "anatomised -animals under my eyes," writes Haydon, "copied my anatomical drawings, -and applied my principles of instruction to animal painting. His genius, -directed in this fashion, has, as a matter of fact, arrived at -satisfactory results." Landseer was the spoilt child of fortune. There -is no other English painter who can boast of having been made a member -of the Royal Academy at twenty-four. In high favour at Court, honoured -by the fashionable world, and tenderly treated by criticism, he went on -his way triumphant. The region over which he held sway was narrow, but -he stood out in it as in life, powerful and commanding. The exhibition -of his pictures which took place after his death in 1873 contained three -hundred and fourteen oil paintings and one hundred and forty-six -sketches. The property which he left amounted to £160,000; and a further -sum of £55,000 was realised by the sale of his unsold pictures. Even -Meissonier, the best paid painter of the century, did not leave behind -him five and a half million francs. - -One reason of Landseer's artistic success is perhaps due to that in him -which was inartistic--to his effort to make animals more beautiful than -they really are, and to make them the medium for expressing human -sentiment. All the dogs and horses and stags which he painted after -1855, and through which he was made specially familiar to the great -public, are arrayed in their Sunday clothes, their glossiest hide and -their most magnificent horns. And in addition to this he "Darwinises" -them: that is to say, he tries to make his animals more than animals; he -lends a human sentimental trait to animal character; and that is what -distinguishes him to his disadvantage from really great animal painters -like Potter, Snyders, Troyon, Jadin, and Rosa Bonheur. He paints the -human temperament beneath the animal mask. His stags have expressive -countenances, and his dogs appear to be gifted with reason and even -speech. At one moment there is a philosophic dignity in their behaviour, -and at another a frivolity in their pleasures. Landseer discovered the -sentimentality of dogs, and treated them as capable of culture. His -celebrated picture "Jack in Office" is almost insulting in its -characterisation: there they are, Jack the sentry, an old female dog -like a poor gentlewoman, another dog like a professional beggar, and so -on. And this habit of bringing animals on the stage, as if they were the -actors of tragical, melodramatic, or farcical scenes, made him a -peculiar favourite with the great mass of people. Nor were his -picture-stories merely easy to read and understand; the characteristic -titles he invented for each of them--"Alexander and Diogenes," "A -Distinguished Member of the Humane Society," and the like--excited -curiosity as much as the most carefully selected name of a novel. But -this search after points and sentimental anecdotes only came into -prominence in his last period, when his technique had degenerated and -given way to a shiny polish and a forced elegance which obliged him to -provide extraneous attractions. His popularity would not be so great, -but his artistic importance would be quite the same, if these last -pictures did not exist at all. - -[Illustration: MORLAND. THE RETURN FROM MARKET.] - -But the middle period of Landseer, ranging from 1840 to 1850, contains -masterpieces which set him by the side of the best animal painters of -all times and nations. The well-known portrait of a Newfoundland dog of -1838; that of the Prince Consort's favourite greyhound of 1841; "The -Otter Speared" of 1844, with its panting and yelping pack brought to a -standstill beneath a high wall of rock; the dead doe which a fawn is -unsuspectingly approaching, in "A Random Shot," 1848; "The Lost Sheep" -of 1850, that wanders frightened and bleating through a wide and lonely -landscape covered with snow,--these and many other pictures, in their -animation and simple naturalness, are precious examples of the fresh and -delicate observation peculiar to him at that time. Landseer's portrait -reveals to us a robust and serious man, with a weather-beaten face, a -short white beard, and a snub bulldog nose. Standing six feet high, and -having the great heavy figure of a Teuton stepping out of his aboriginal -forest, he was indeed much more like a country gentleman than a London -artist. He was a sportsman who wandered about all day long in the air -with a gun on his arm, and he painted his animal pictures with all the -love and joy of a child of nature. That accounts for their strength, -their convincing power, and their vivid force. It is as if he had become -possessed of a magic cap with which he could draw close to animals -without being observed, and surprise their nature and their inmost life. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - LANDSEER. A DISTINGUISHED MEMBER OF THE HUMANE SOCIETY.] - -Landseer's subject-matter and conception of life are indicated by the -pictures which have been named. Old masters like Snyders and Rubens had -represented the contrast between man and beast in their boar and lion -hunts. It was not wild nature that Landseer depicted, but nature tamed. -Rubens, Snyders, and Delacroix displayed their horses, dogs, lions, and -tigers in bold action, or in the flame of passion. But Landseer -generally introduced his animals in quiet situations--harmless and -without fear--in the course of their ordinary life. - -[Illustration: _Mag. of Art._ - - LANDSEER. THE LAST MOURNER AT THE SHEPHERD'S GRAVE.] - -Horses, which Leonardo, Rubens, Velasquez, Wouwerman, and the earlier -English artists delighted to render, he painted but seldom, and when he -painted them it was with a less penetrating comprehension. But lions, -which had been represented in savage passion or in quiet dignity by -artists from Rubens to Decamps, were for him also a subject of long and -exhaustive studies, which had their results in the four colossal lions -round the base of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square. Here the -Englishman makes a great advance on Thorwaldsen, who designed the model -for the monument in Lucerne without ever having seen a lion. Landseer's -brutes, both as they are painted and as they are cast in bronze, are -genuine lions, cruel and catlike, although in savageness and bold -passion they are not to be compared with those of Delacroix, nor with -those of his elder compatriot, James Ward. On the other hand, stags and -roes were really first introduced into painting by Landseer. Those of -Robert Hills, who had previously been reckoned the best painter of -stags, are timid, suspicious creatures, while Landseer's are the true -kings of the forest, the shooting of which ought to be punished as an -act of assassination. His principal field of study was the Highlands. -Here he painted these proud creatures fighting on the mountain slopes, -swimming the lake, or as they stand at a gaze in their quiet beauty. -With what a bold spirit they raise their heads to snuff the mountain -air, whilst their antlers show their delight in battle and the joy of -victory. And how gentle and timid is the noble, defenceless roe in -Landseer's pictures. - -[Illustration: LANDSEER. HIGH LIFE.] - -He had also a delight in painting sheep lost in a snow-storm. But dogs -were his peculiar specialty. Landseer discovered the dog. That of -Snyders was a treacherous, snarling cur; that of Bewick a robber and a -thief. Landseer has made the dog the companion of man, an adjunct of -human society, the generous friend and true comrade who is the last -mourner at the shepherd's grave. Landseer first studied his noble -countenance and his thoughtful eyes, and in doing so he opened a new -province to art, in which Briton Rivière went further at a later period. - -But yet another and still wider province was opened to continental -nations by the art of England. In an epoch of archæological -resuscitations and romantic regrets for the past, it brought French and -German painters to a consciousness that the man of the nineteenth -century in his daily life might be a perfectly legitimate subject for -art. Engravings after the best pictures of Wilkie hang round the walls -of Louis Knaus's reception-room in Berlin. And that in itself betrays to -us a fragment of the history of art. The painters who saw the English -people with the eyes of Walter Scott, Fielding, Goldsmith, and Dickens -were a generation in advance of those who depicted the German people in -the spirit of Immermann, Auerbach, Gustav Freytag, and Fritz Reuter. The -English advanced quietly on the road trodden by Hogarth in the -eighteenth century, whilst upon the Continent the nineteenth century had -almost completed half its course before art left anything which will -allow future generations to see the men of the period as they really -were. Since the days of Fielding and Goldsmith the novel of manners had -been continually growing. Burns, the poet of the plough, and -Wordsworth, the singer of rustic folk, had given a vogue to that poetry -of peasant life and those village tales which have since gone the round -of all Europe. England began at that time to become the richest country -in the world, and great fortunes were made. Painters were thus obliged -to provide for the needs of a new and wealthy middle class. This fact -gives us the explanation both of the merits and the faults which are -characteristic of English _genre_ painting. - -[Illustration: LANDSEER. LOW LIFE.] - -In the first quarter of the nineteenth century _David Wilkie_, the -English Knaus, was the chief _genre_ painter of the world. Born in 1785 -in the small Scotch village of Cults, where his father was the -clergyman, he passed a happy childhood, and possibly had to thank his -youthful impressions for the consistent cheerfulness, the good-humour -and kindliness that smile out of his pictures, and make such a contrast -with Hogarth's biting acerbity. At fourteen he entered the Edinburgh -School of Art, where he worked for four years under the historical -painter John Graham. Having returned to Cults, he painted his -landscapes. A fair which he saw in the neighbouring village gave the -impulse for his earliest picture of country life, "Pitlessie Fair." He -sold it for five and twenty pounds, and determined in 1805 to try his -luck with this sum in London. In the very next year his "Village -Politicians" excited attention in the exhibition. From that time he was -a popular artist. Every one of his numerous pictures--"The Blind -Fiddler," "The Card Players," "The Rent Day," "The Cut Finger," "The -Village Festival"--called forth a storm of applause. After a short -residence in Paris, where the Louvre gave him a more intimate knowledge -of the Dutch, came his masterpieces, "Blind-Man's Buff," "Distraining -for Rent," "Reading the Will," "The Rabbit on the Wall," "The Penny -Wedding," "The Chelsea Pensioners," and so forth. Even later, after he -had become an Academician, he kept to plain and simple themes, in spite -of the reproaches of his colleagues, who thought that art was vulgarised -by the treatment of subjects that contained so little dignity. It was -only at the end of his life that he became untrue to himself. His -reverence for Teniers and Ostade was not sufficient to outweigh the -impression made on him during a tour taken in 1825 through Italy, Spain, -Holland, and Germany, by the artistic treasures of the Continent, and -especially Murillo and Velasquez. He said he had long lived in darkness, -but from that time forth could say with the great Correggio: "_Anch' io -sono pittore._" He renounced all that he had painted before which had -made him famous, and showed himself to be one of the many great artists -of those years who had no individuality, or ventured to have none. He -would have been the Burns of painting had he remained as he was. And -thus he offered further evidence that the museums and the Muses are -contradictory conceptions; since the modern painter always runs the risk -of falling helplessly from one influence into another, where he is bent -on combining the historical student of art with the artist. Of the -pictures that he exhibited after his return in 1829, two dealt with -Italian and three with Spanish subjects. The critics were loud in -praise; he had added a fresh branch of laurel to his crown. Yet, -historically considered, he would stand on a higher pedestal if he had -never seen more than a dozen good pictures of Teniers, Ostade, Metsu, -Jan Steen, and Brouwer. Now he began to copy his travelling sketches in -a spiritless fashion; he only represented _pifferari_, smugglers, and -monks, who, devoid of all originality, might have been painted by one of -the Düsseldorfers. Even "John Knox Preaching," which is probably the -best picture of his last period, is no exception. - -"He seemed to me," writes Delacroix, who saw him in Paris after his -return from Spain,--"he seemed to me to have been carried utterly out of -his depth by the pictures he had seen. How is it that a man of his age -can be so influenced by works which are radically opposed to his own? -However, he died soon after, and, as I have been told, in a very -melancholy state of mind." Death overtook him in 1841, on board the -steamer _Oriental_, just as he was returning from a tour in Turkey. At -half-past eight in the evening the vessel was brought to, and as the -lights of the beacon mingled with those of the stars the waters passed -over the corpse of David Wilkie. - -[Illustration: _Mansell Photo_ - - LANDSEER. JACK IN OFFICE.] - -[Illustration: WILKIE. BLIND-MAN'S BUFF.] - -In judging his position in the history of art, only those works come -into consideration which he executed before that journey of 1825. Then -he drew as a labour of love the familiar scenes of the household hearth, -the little dramas, the comic or touching episodes that take place in the -village, the festivals, the dancing, and the sports of the country-folk, -and their meeting in the ale-house. At this time, when as a young -painter he merely expressed himself and was ignorant of the efforts of -continental painting, he was an artist of individuality. In the village -he became a great man, and here his fame was decided; he painted -rustics. Even when he first saw the old masters in the National Gallery -their immediate effect on him was merely to influence his technique. And -by their aid Wilkie gradually became an admirable master of technical -detail. His first picture, "Pitlessie Fair," in its hardness of colour -recalled a Dutch painter of the type of Jan Molenaer; but from that time -his course was one of constant progress. In "The Village Politicians" -the influence of Teniers first made itself felt, and it prevailed until -1816. In this year, when he painted the pretty sketch for "Blind-Man's -Buff," a warm gold hue took the place of the cool silver tone; and -instead of Teniers, Ostade became his model. The works in his Ostade -manner are rich in colour and deep and clear in tone. Finally, it was -Rembrandt's turn to become his guiding-star, and "The Parish Beadle," in -the National Gallery--a scene of arrest of the year 1822--clearly shows -with what brilliant success he tried his luck with Rembrandt's dewy -_chiaroscuro_. It was only in his last period that he lost all these -technical qualities. His "Knox" of 1832 is hard and cold and -inharmonious in colour. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - WILKIE. A GUERILLA COUNCIL OF WAR IN A SPANISH POSADA.] - -So long as he kept from historical painting, art meant for him the same -thing as the portrayal of domestic life. Painting, he said, had no other -aim than to reproduce nature and to seek truth. Undoubtedly this must be -applied to Wilkie himself with considerable limitation. Wilkie painted -simple fragments of nature just as little as Hogarth; he invented -scenes. Nor was he even gifted with much power of invention. But he had -a fund of innocent humour, although there were times when it was in -danger of becoming much too childlike. "Blind-Man's Buff," "The Village -Politicians," and "The Village Festival," pictures which have become so -popular through the medium of engraving, contain all the characteristics -of his power of playful observation. He had no ambition to be a -moralist, like Hogarth, but just as little did he paint the rustic as he -is. He dealt only with the absurdities and minor accidents of life. His -was one of those happy dispositions which neither sorrow nor dream nor -excite themselves, but see everything from the humorous side: he enjoyed -his own jests, and looked at life as at a pure comedy; the serious part -of it escaped him altogether. His peasantry know nothing of social -problems; free from want and drudgery, they merely spend their time over -trifles and amuse themselves--themselves and the frequenters of the -exhibition, for whom they are taking part in a comedy on canvas. If -Hogarth had a biting, sarcastic, scourging, and disintegrating genius, -Wilkie is one of those people who cause one no lasting excitement, but -are always satisfied to be humorous, and laugh with a contented -appreciation over their own jokes. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - WILKIE. THE BLIND FIDDLER.] - -And in general such is the keynote of this English _genre_. All that was -done in it during the years immediately following is more or less -comprised in the works of the Scotch "little master"; otherwise it -courts the assistance of English literature, which is always rich in -humorists and excellent writers of anecdote and story. In painting, as -in literature, the English delight in detail, which by its dramatic, -anecdotic, or humorous point is intended to have the interest of a short -story. Or perhaps one should rather say that, since the English came to -painting as novices, they began tentatively on that first step on which -art had stood in earlier centuries as long as it was still "the people's -spelling-book." It is a typical form of development, and repeats itself -constantly. All painting begins in narrative. First it is the subject -which has a fascination for the artist, and by the aid of it he casts a -spell over his public. The simplification of motives, the capacity for -taking a thing in at a single glance, and finding a simple joy in its -essentially pictorial integrity, is of later growth. Even with the -Dutch, who were so eminently gifted with a sense for what is pictorial, -the picture of manners was at first epical. Church festivals, skating -parties, and events which could be represented in an ample and detailed -fashion were the original materials of the _genre_ picture, which only -later contented itself with a purely artistic study of one out of -countless groups. This period of apprenticeship, which may be called the -period of interesting subject-matter, was what England was now going -through; and England had to go through it, since she had the -civilisation by which it is invariably produced. - -[Illustration: WILKIE. THE PENNY WEDDING.] - -Just as the first _genre_ pictures of the Flemish school announced the -appearance of a _bourgeoisie_, so in the England of the beginning of the -century a new plebeian, middle-class society had taken the place of the -patrons of earlier days, and this middle class set its seal upon manners -and communicated its spirit to painting. Prosperity, culture, travel, -reading, and leisure, everything which had been the privilege of -individuals, now became the common property of the great mass of men. -They prized art, but they demanded from it substantial nourishment. That -two colours in connection with straight and curved lines are enough for -the production of infinite harmonies was still a profound secret. "You -are free to be painters if you like," artists were told, "but only on -the understanding that you are amusing and instructive; if you have no -story to tell we shall yawn." When they comply with these demands, -artists are inclined to grow fond of sermonising and develop into -censors of the public morals, almost into lay preachers. - -Or, if the aim of painting lies in its narrative power, there is a -natural tendency to represent the pleasant rather than the unpleasant -facts of life, which is the cause of this one-sided character of _genre_ -painting. Everything that is not striking and out of the way--in other -words, the whole poetry of ordinary life--is left untouched. Wilkie only -paints the rustic on some peculiar occasion, at merry-making and -ceremonial events; and he depicts him as a being of a different species -from the townsman, because he seeks to gain his effects principally by -humorous episodes, and aims at situations which are proper to a novel. - -[Illustration: WILKIE. THE FIRST EARRING.] - -Baptisms and dances, funerals and weddings, carousals and bridal visits -are his favourite subjects; to which may be added the various contrasts -offered by peasant life where it is brought into contact with the -civilisation of cities--the country cousin come to town, the rustic -closeted with a lawyer, and the like. A continual roguishness enlivens -his pictures and makes comical figures out of most of these good people. -He amuses himself at their expense, exposes their little lies, their -thrift, their folly, their pretensions, and the absurdities with which -their narrow circle of life has provided them. He pokes fun, and is sly -and farcical. But the hard and sour labour of ordinary peasant life is -left on one side, since it offers no material for humour and anecdote. - -[Illustration: NEWTON. YORICK AND THE GRISETTE.] - -Through this limitation painting renounced the best part of its -strength. To a man of pictorial vision nature is a gallery of -magnificent pictures, and one which is as wide and far-reaching as the -world. But whoever seeks salvation in narrative painting soon reaches -the end of his material. In the life of any man there are only three or -four events that are worth the trouble of telling; Wilkie told more, and -he became tiresome in consequence. We are willing to accept these -anecdotes as true, but they are threadbare. Things of this sort may be -found in the gaily-bound little books which are given as Christmas -presents to children. It is not exhilarating to learn that worldly -marriages have their inconveniences, that there is a pleasure in talking -scandal about one's friends behind their backs, that a son causes pain -to his mother by his excesses, and that egoism is an unpleasant failing. -All that is true, but it is too true. We are irritated by the -intrusiveness of this course of instruction. Wilkie paints insipid -subjects, and by one foolery after another he has made painting into a -toy for good children. And good children play the principal parts in -these pictures. - -As a painter, one of George Morland's pupils, _William Collins_, threw -the world into ecstasies by his pictures of children. Out of one hundred -and twenty-one which he exhibited in the Academy in the course of forty -years the principal are: the picture of "The Little Flute-Player," "The -Sale of the Pet Lamb," "Boys with a Bird's Nest," "The Fisher's -Departure," "Scene in a Kentish Hop-Garden," and the picture of the -swallows. The most popular were "Happy as a King"--a small boy whom his -elder playmates have set upon a garden railing, from which he looks down -laughing proudly--and "Rustic Civility"--children who have drawn up like -soldiers, by a fence, so as to salute some one who is approaching. But -it is clear from the titles of such pictures that in this province -English _genre_ painting did not free itself from the reproach of being -episodic. Collins was richer in ideas than Meyer of Bremen. His children -receive earrings, sit on their mother's knee, play with her in the -garden, watch her sewing, read aloud to her from their spelling-book, -learn their lessons, and are frightened of the geese and hens which -advance in a terrifying fashion towards them in the poultry-yard. He is -an admirable painter of children at the family table, of the pleasant -chatter of the little ones, of the father watching his sleeping child of -an evening by the light of the lamp, with his heart full of pride and -joy because he has the consciousness of working for those who are near -to him. Being naturally very fond of children, he has painted the life -of little people with evident enjoyment of all its variations, and yet -not in a thoroughly credible fashion. Chardin painted the poetry of the -child-world. His little ones have no suspicion of the painter being near -them. They are harmlessly occupied with themselves, and in their -ordinary clothes. Those of Collins look as if they were repeating a -copybook maxim at a school examination. They know that the eyes of all -the sightseers in the exhibition are fixed upon them, and they are doing -their utmost to be on their best behaviour. They have a lack of -unconsciousness. One would like to say to them: "My dear children, -always be good." But no one is grateful to the painter for taking from -children their childishness, and for bringing into vogue that codling -which had its way for so long afterwards in the pictures of children. - -_Gilbert Stuart Newton_, an American by birth, who lived in England from -1820 to 1835, devoted himself to the illustration of English authors. -Like Wilkie, he has a certain historical importance, because he devoted -himself with great zeal to a study of the Dutchmen of the seventeenth -century and to the French painters of the eighteenth, at a time when -these masters were entirely out of fashion on the Continent and sneered -at as representatives of "the deepest corruption." Dow and Terborg were -his peculiar ideals; and although the colour of his pictures is -certainly heavy and common compared with that of his models, it is -artistic, and shows study when one thinks of contemporary productions on -the Continent. His works ("Lear attended by Cordelia," "The Vicar of -Wakefield restoring his Daughter to her Mother," "The Prince of Spain's -Visit to Catalina" from _Gil Blas_, and "Yorick and the Grisette" from -Sterne), like the pictures of the Düsseldorfers, would most certainly -have lost in actuality but for the interest provided by the literary -passages; yet they are favourably distinguished from the literary -illustrations of the Düsseldorfers by the want of any sort of idealism. -While the painters of the Continent in such pictures almost invariably -fell into a rounded, generalising ideal of beauty, Newton had the scene -played by actors and painted them realistically. The result was a -theatrical realism, but the way in which the theatrical effects are -studied and the palpableness of the histrionic gestures are so -convincingly true to nature that his pictures seem like records of stage -art in London about the year 1830. - -[Illustration: WEBSTER. THE RUBBER.] - -[Illustration: C. R. LESLIE. SANCHO AND THE DUCHESS.] - -_Charles Robert Leslie_, known as an author by his pleasant book on -Constable and a highly conservative _Handbook for Young Painters_, had a -similar _repértoire_, and rendered in oils Shakespeare, Cervantes, -Fielding, Sterne, Goldsmith, and Molière, with more or less ability. The -National Gallery has an exceedingly prosaic and colourless picture of -his, "Sancho Panza in the Apartment of the Duchess." Some that are in -the South Kensington Museum are better; for example, "The Taming of the -Shrew," "The Dinner at Mr. Page's House" from _The Merry Wives of -Windsor_, and "Sir Roger de Coverley." His finest and best-known work is -"My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman," which charmingly illustrates the -pretty scene in _Tristram Shandy_: "'I protest, madam,' said my Uncle -Toby, 'I can see nothing whatever in your eye.' 'It is not in the -white!' said Mrs. Wadman. My Uncle Toby looked with might and main into -the pupil." As in Newton's works, so in Leslie's too, there is such a -strong dose of realism that his pictures will always keep their value as -historical documents--not for the year 1630 but for 1830. As a colourist -he was--in his later works at any rate--a delicate imitator of the -Dutch _chiaroscuro_; and in the history of art he occupies a position -similar to that of Diez in Germany, and was esteemed in the same way, -even in later years, when the young Pre-Raphaelite school began its -embittered war against "brown sauce"--the same war which a generation -afterwards was waged in Germany by Liebermann and his followers against -the school of Diez. - -[Illustration: MULREADY. FAIR TIME.] - -_Mulready_, thirty-two of whose pictures are preserved in the South -Kensington Museum, is in his technique almost more delicate than Leslie, -and he has learnt a great deal from Metsu. By preference he took his -subjects out of Goldsmith. "Choosing the Wedding Gown" and "The -Whistonian Controversy" would make pretty illustrations for an _édition -de luxe_ of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. Otherwise he too had a taste for -immortalising children, by turns lazy and industrious, at their tea or -playing by the water's edge. - -From _Thomas Webster_, the fourth of these kindly, childlike masters, -yet more inspiriting facts are to be obtained. He has informed the world -that at a not very remote period of English history all the agricultural -labourers were quite content with their lot. No one ever quarrelled with -his landlord, or sat in a public-house and let his family starve. The -highest bliss of these excellent people was to stay at home and play -with their children by the light of a wax-candle. Webster's rustics, -children, and schoolmasters are the citizens of an ideal planet, but the -little country is a pleasant world. His pictures are so harmless in -intention, so neat and accurate in drawing, and so clear and luminous in -colour that they may be seen with pleasure even at the present day. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - FRITH. POVERTY AND WEALTH.] - -The last of the group, _William Powell Frith_, was the most copious in -giving posterity information about the manners and costumes of his -contemporaries, and would be still more authentic if life had not seemed -to him so genial and roseate. His pictures represent scenes of the -nineteenth century, but they seem like events of the good old times. At -that period people were undoubtedly good and innocent and happy. They -had no income-tax and no vices and worries, and all went to heaven and -felt in good spirits. And so they do in Frith's pictures, only not so -naturally as in Ostade and Beham. For example, he goes on the beach at a -fashionable English watering-place during the season, in July or August. -The geniality which predominates here is quite extraordinary. Children -are splashing in the sea, young ladies flirting, niggers playing the -barrel-organ and women singing ballads to its strains; every one is -doing his utmost to look well, and the pair of beggars who are there for -the sake of contrast have long become resigned to their fate. In his -racecourse pictures everything is brought together which on such -occasions is representative of London life: all types, from the baronet -to the ragman; all beauties, from the lady to the street-walker. A -rustic has to lose his money, or a famished acrobat to turn his pockets -inside out to assure himself that there is really nothing in them. His -picture of the gaming-table in Homburg is almost richer in such examples -of dry observation and humorous and spirited episode. - -[Illustration: MULREADY. CROSSING THE FORD.] - -This may serve to exemplify the failures of these painters of _genre_. -Not light and colour, but anecdote, comedy, and genial tale-telling are -the basis of their labours. And yet, notwithstanding this attempt to -express literary ideas through the mediums of a totally different art, -their work is significant. While continental artists avoided nothing so -much as that which might seem to approach nature, the English, revolting -from the thraldom of theory, gathered subjects for their pictures from -actual life. These men, indeed, pointed out the way to painters from -every country; and they, once on the right road, were bound ultimately -to arrive at the point from which they no longer looked on life through -the glasses of the anecdotist, but saw it with the eye of the true -artist. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -THE MILITARY PICTURE - - -While English painting from the days of Hogarth and Wilkie embraced -rustic and middle-class life, the victory of modernity on the Continent -could only be accomplished slowly and by degrees. The question of -costume played an important part in it. "Artists love antiquated costume -because, as they say, it gives them greater sweep and freedom. But I -should like to suggest that in historical representations of their own -age an eye should be kept on propriety of delineation rather than on -freedom and sweep. Otherwise one might just as well allow an historian -to talk to us about phalanxes, battlements, triarii, and argyraspids in -place of battalions, squadrons, grenadiers, and cuirassiers. The -painters of the great events of the day ought, especially, to be more -true to fact. In battle-pieces, for example, they ought not to have -cavalry shooting and sabreing about them in leather collars, in round -and plumed hats, and the vast jack-boots which exist no longer. The old -masters drew, engraved, and painted in this way because people really -dressed in such a manner at the time. It is said that our costume is not -picturesque, and therefore why should we choose it? But posterity will -be curious to know how we clothed ourselves, and will wish to have no -gap from the eighteenth century to its own time." - -[Illustration: VERNET. THE WOUNDED ZOUAVE.] - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - CHARLET. UN HOMME QUI BOÎT SEUL N'EST PAS DIGNE DE VIVRE.] - -These words, which the well-known Vienna librarian Denis wrote in 1797 -in his _Lesefrüchte_, show how early came the problem which was at -high-water mark for a generation afterwards. The painting of the -nineteenth century could only become modern when it succeeded in -recognising and expressing the characteristic side of modern costume. -But to do that it took more than half a century. It was, after all, -natural that to people who had seen the graceful forms and delicate -colours of the _rococo_ time, the garb of the first half of the century -should seem the most unfortunate and the least enviable in the whole -history of costume. "What person of artistic education is not of the -opinion," runs a passage in Putmann's book on the Düsseldorf school in -1835,--"what person of artistic education is not of the opinion that the -dress of the present day is tasteless, hideous, and ape-like? Moreover, -can a true style be brought into harmony with hoop-petticoats and -swallow-tail coats and such vagaries? In our time, therefore, art is -right in seeking out those beautiful fashions of the past, about which -tailors concern themselves so little. How much longer must we go about, -unpicturesque beings, like ugly black bats, in swallow-tail coats and -wide trousers? The peasant's blouse, indeed, can be accepted as one of -the few picturesque dresses which have yet been preserved in Germany -from the inauspicious influence of the times." The same plaint is sung -by Hotho in his history of German and Netherlandish painting; the -costume of his age he declares to be thoroughly prosaic and tiresome. It -is revolting to painters and an offence to the educated eye. Art must -necessarily seek salvation in the past, unless it is to wait, and give -brush and palette a holiday, until that happy time when the costume of -nations comes to its pictorial regeneration. Only one zone, the realm of -blouse and military uniform, was beyond the domain of tail-coat and -trousers, and still furnished art with rich material. - -Since it was by working on uniform that plastic artists first learnt how -to treat contemporary costume, so it was the military picture that first -entered the circle of modern painting. By exalting the soldier into a -warrior, and the warrior into a hero, it was here possible, even in the -times of David and Carstens, to effect a certain compromise with the -ruling classical ideas. Gérard, Girodet--to some extent even Gros--made -abundant use of the mask of the Greek or Roman warrior, with the object -of admitting the battle-piece into painting in the grand style. The real -heroes of the Napoleonic epoch had not this plastic appearance nor these -epic attitudes. Classicism altered their physiognomies and gave them, -most illogically, the air of old marble statues. It was Horace Vernet -who freed battle painting from this anathema. This, but little else, -stands to his credit. - -Together with his son-in-law Paul Delaroche, _Horace Vernet_ is the most -genuine product of the _Juste-milieu_ period. The king with the umbrella -founded the Museum of Versailles, that monstrous depôt of daubed canvas, -which is a horrifying memory to any one who has ever wandered through -it. However, it is devoted _à toutes les gloires de la France_. In a few -years a suite of galleries, which it takes almost two hours merely to -pass through from end to end, was filled with pictures of all sizes, -bringing home the history of the country, from Charlemagne to the -African expedition of Louis Philippe, under all circumstances which are -in any way flattering to French pride. For miles numberless -manufacturers of painting bluster from the walls. As _pictor celerrimus_ -Horace Vernet had the command-in-chief, and became so famous by his -chronicle of the conquest of Algiers that for a long time he was held by -trooper, Philistine, and all the kings and emperors of Europe as the -greatest painter in France. He was the last scion of a celebrated -dynasty of artists, and had taken a brush in his hand from the moment he -threw away his child's rattle. A good deal of talent had been given him -in his cradle: sureness of eye, lightness of hand, and an enviable -memory. His vision was correct, if not profound; he painted his pictures -without hesitation, and is favourably distinguished from many of his -contemporaries by his independence: he owes no one anything, and reveals -his own qualities without arraying himself in those of other people. -Only these qualities are not of an order which gives his pictures -artistic interest. The spark of Géricault's genius, which seems to have -been transmitted to him in the beginning, was completely quenched in his -later years. Having swiftly attained popularity by the aid of -lithography which circulated his "Mazeppa" through the whole world, he -became afterwards a bad and vulgar painter, without poetry, light, or -colour; a reporter who expressed himself in banal prose and wounded all -the finer spirits of his age. "I loathe this man," said Baudelaire, as -early as 1846. - -[Illustration: AUGUSTE MARIE RAFFET.] - -Devoid of any sense of the tragedy of war, which Gros possessed in such -a high degree, Vernet treated battles like performances at the circus. -His pictures have movement without passion, and magnitude without -greatness. If it had been required of him, he would have daubed all the -boulevards; his picture of Smala is certainly not so long, but there -would have been no serious difficulty in lengthening it by half a mile. -This incredible stenographical talent won for him his popularity. He was -decorated with all the orders in the world. The _bourgeois_ felt happy -when he looked at Vernet's pictures, and the paterfamilias promised to -buy a horse for his little boy. The soldiers called him "_mon colonel_," -and would not have been surprised if he had been made a Marshal of -France. A lover of art passes the pictures of Vernet with the sentiment -which the old colonel owned to entertaining towards music. "Are you fond -of music, colonel?" asked a lady. "Madame, I am not afraid of it." - -[Illustration: RAFFET. THE PARADE.] - -The trivial realism of his workmanship is as tedious as the unreal -heroism of his soldiers. In the manner in which he conceived the -trooper, Vernet stands between the Classicists and the moderns. He did -not paint ancient warriors, but French soldiers: he knew them as a -corporal knows his men, and by this respect for prescribed regulation he -was prevented from turning them into Romans. But though he disregarded -Classicism, in outward appearance, he did not drop the heroic tone. He -always saw the soldier as the bold defender of his country, the warrior -performing daring deeds, as in the "Battle of Alexander"; and in this -way he gave his pictures their unpleasant air of bluster. For neither -modern tactics nor modern cannon admit of the prominence of the -individual as it is to be seen in Vernet's pictures. The soldier of the -nineteenth century is no longer a warrior, but the unit in a multitude; -he does what he is ordered, and for that he has no need of the spirit of -an ancient hero; he kills or is killed, without seeing his enemy or -being seen himself. The course of a battle advances, move by move, -according to mathematical calculation. It is therefore false to -represent soldiers in heroic attitudes, or even to suggest deeds of -heroism on the part of those in command. In giving his orders and -directing a battle a general has to behave pretty much as he does at -home at his writing-table. And he is never in the battle, as he is -represented by Horace Vernet; on the contrary, he remains at a -considerable distance off. Therefore, even with the dimensions of which -Vernet availed himself, the exact portrait of a modern battle is -exclusively an affair for panorama, but never for the flat surface of a -picture. A picture must confine itself, either to the field-marshal -directing the battle from a distance upon a hill in the midst of his -staff, or else to little pictorial episodes in the individual life of -the soldier. The gradual development from unreal battle-pieces to simple -episodic paintings can be followed step by step in the following works. - -[Illustration: RAFFET. 1807.] - -What was painted for the Versailles Museum in connection with deeds of -arms in the Crimean War and the Italian campaign kept more or less to -the blustering official style of Horace Vernet. In the galleries of -Versailles the battles of Wagram, Loano, and Altenkirche (1837-39), and -an episode from the retreat from Russia (1851), represent the work of -_Hippolyte Bellangé_. These are huge lithochromes which have been very -carefully executed. _Adolphe Yvon_, who is responsible for "The -Taking of Malakoff," "The Battle of Magenta," and "The Battle of -Solferino," is a more tedious painter, and remained during his whole -life a pupil of Delaroche; he laid chief stress on finished and rounded -composition, and gave his soldiers no more appearance of life than could -be forced into the accepted academic convention. The fame of _Isidor -Pils_, who immortalised the disembarkation of the French troops in the -Crimea, the battle of Alma, and the reception of Arab chiefs by Napoleon -III, has paled with equal rapidity. He could paint soldiers, but not -battles, and, like Yvon, he was too precise in the composition of his -works. In consequence they have as laboured an effect in arrangement as -they have in colour. He was completely wanting in sureness and -spontaneity. It is only his water-colours that hold one's attention; and -this they do at any rate by their unaffected actuality, and in spite of -their dull and heavy colour. _Alexandre Protais_ verged more on the -sentimental. He loved soldiers, and therefore had the less toleration -for war, which swept the handsome young fellows away. Two pendants, "The -Morning before the Attack" and "The Evening after the Battle," founded -his reputation in 1863. The first showed a group of riflemen waiting in -excitement for the first bullets of the enemy; the second represented -the same men in the evening delighted with their victory, but at the -same time--and here you have the note of Protais--mournful over the loss -of their comrades. "The Prisoners" and "The Parting" of 1872 owed their -success to the same lachrymose and melodramatic sensibility. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - RAFFET. POLISH INFANTRY.] - -[Illustration: RAFFET. THE MIDNIGHT REVIEW. - - C'est la grande revue - Qu'aux Champs-Elysées - A l'heure de minuit - Tient César décédé.] - -A couple of mere lithographists, soldiers' sons, in whom a repining for -the Napoleonic legend still found its echo, were the first great -military painters of modern France. "Charlet and Raffet," wrote -Bürger-Thoré in his _Salon_ of 1845, "are the two artists who best -understand the representation of that almost vanished type, the trooper -of the Empire; and after Gros they will assuredly endure as the -principal historians of that warlike era." - -_Charlet_, the painter of the old bear Napoleon I, might almost be -called the Béranger of painting. The "little Corporal," the "great -Emperor" appears and reappears in his pictures and drawings without -intermission; his work is an epic in pencil of the grey coat and the -little hat. From his youth he employed himself with military studies, -which were furthered in Gros' studio, which he entered in 1817. The -Græco-Roman ideal did not exist for him, and he was indifferent to -beauty of form. His was one of those natures which have a natural turn -for actual fact; he had a power for characterisation, and in his many -water-colours and lithographs he was merely concerned with the proper -expression of his ideas. How it came that Delacroix had so great a -respect for him was nevertheless explained when his "Episode in the -Retreat from Russia," in the World Exhibition of 1889, emerged from the -obscurity of the Lyons Museum; it is perhaps his best and most important -picture. When it appeared in the Salon of 1836, Alfred de Musset wrote -that it was "not an episode but a complete poem"; he went on to say that -the artist had painted "the despair in the wilderness," and that, with -its gloomy heaven and disconsolate horizon, the picture gave the -impression of infinite disaster. After fifty years it had lost none of -its value. Since the reappearance of this picture it has been recognised -that Charlet was not merely the specialist of old grey heads with their -noses reddened with brandy, the Molière of barracks and canteens, but -that he understood all the tragical sublimity of war, from which Horace -Vernet merely produced trivial anecdotes. - -[Illustration: _Mag. of Art._ - - ERNEST MEISSONIER.] - -Beside him stands his pupil _Raffet_, the special painter of the _grande -armée_. He mastered the brilliant figure of Napoleon; he followed it -from Ajaccio to St. Helena, and never left it until he had said -everything that was to be said about it. He showed the "little Corsican" -as the general of the Italian campaign, ghastly pale and consumed with -ambition; the Bonaparte of the Pyramids and of Cairo; the Emperor -Napoleon on the parade-ground reviewing his Grenadiers; the triumphal -hero of 1807 with the Cuirassiers dashing past, brandishing their sabres -with a hurrah; the Titan of Beresina riding slowly over the waste of -snow, and, in the very midst of disaster, spying a new star of fortune; -the war-god of 1813, the great hypnotiser greeted even by the dying with -a cry of "Long life to the Emperor"; the adventurer of 1814, riding at -the head of shattered troops over a barren wilderness; the vanquished -hero of 1815, who, in the midst of his last square, in the thick of his -beloved battalions, calls fickle fate once more into the lists; and the -captive lion who, from the bridge of the ship, casts a last look on the -coast of France as it fades in the mist. He has called the Emperor from -the grave, as a ghostly power, to hold a midnight review of the _grande -armée_. And with love and passion and enthusiasm he has followed the -instrument of these victories, the French soldiers, the swordsmen of -seven years' service, through bivouac and battle, on the march and on -parade, as patrols and outposts. The ragged and shoeless troops of the -Empire are portrayed in his plates, with a touch of real sublimity, in -defeat and in victory. The empty inflated expression of martial -enthusiasm has been avoided by him; everything is true and earnest. - -In a masterly fashion he could make soldiers deploy in masses. No one -has known in the same way how to render the impression of the multitude -of an army, the notion of men standing shoulder to shoulder, the welding -of thousands of individuals into one complete entity. In Raffet a -regiment is a thousand-headed living being that has but one soul, one -moral nature, one spirit, one sentiment of willing sacrifice and heroic -courage. His death was as adventurous as his life; he passed away in a -hotel in Genoa, and was brought back to French soil as part of the cargo -of a merchant ship. For a long time his fame was thrown into the shade, -at first by the triumphs of Horace Vernet, and then by those of -Meissonier, until at length a fitting record was devoted to him by the -piety of his son Auguste. - -Never had _Ernest Meissonier_ to complain of want of recognition. After -his _rococo_ pictures had been deemed worth their weight in gold he -climbed to the summit of his fame, his universal celebrity and his -popularity in France, when he devoted himself in the sixties to the -representation of French military history. The year 1859 took him to -Italy in the train of Napoleon III. Meissonier was chosen to spread the -martial glory of the Emperor, and, as the nephew was fond of drawing -parallels between himself and his mighty uncle, Meissonier was obliged -to depict suitable occasions from the life of the first Napoleon. His -admirers were very curious to know how the great "little painter" would -acquit himself in such a monumental task. First came the "Battle of -Solferino," that picture of the Musée Luxembourg which represents -Napoleon III overlooking the battle from a height in the midst of his -staff. After lengthy preparations it appeared in the Salon of 1864, and -showed that the painter had not been untrue to himself: he had simply -adapted the minute technique of his _rococo_ pictures to the painting of -war, and he remained the Dutch "little master" in all the battle-pieces -which followed. - -Napoleon III had no further deeds of arms to record, so the intended -parallel series was never accomplished. It is true, indeed, that he took -the painter with the army in 1870; but after the first battle was lost, -Meissonier went home: he did not wish to immortalise the struggles of a -retreat. Henceforward his brush was consecrated to the first Napoleon. -"1805" depicts the triumphant advance to the height of fame; "1807" -shows Napoleon when the summit has been reached and the soldiers are -cheering their idol in exultation; "1814" represents the fall: the star -of fortune has vanished; victory, so long faithful to the man of might, -has deserted his banners. There is still a look of indomitable energy on -the pale face of the Emperor, as, in utter despair, he aims his last -shot against the traitor destiny; but his eyes seem weary, his mouth is -contorted, and his features are wasted with fever. - -[Illustration: MEISSONIER. 1814. - - (_By permission of M. Georges Petit, the owner of the copyright._)] - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - MEISSONIER. THE OUTPOST. - - (_By permission of M. Georges Petit, the owner of the copyright._)] - -Meissonier has treated all these works with the carefulness which he -expended on his little _rococo_ pictures. To give an historically -accurate representation of Napoleon's boots he did not content himself -with borrowing them from the museum. Walking and riding--for he was a -passionate horseman--he wore for months together boots of the same make -and form as those of the "little Corporal." To get the colour of the -horses of the Emperor and his marshals, in their full-grown winter coat, -and to paint them just as they must have appeared after the hardships -and negligence of a campaign, he bought animals of the same race and -colour as those ridden by the Emperor and his generals, according to -tradition, and picketed them for weeks in the snow and rain. His models -were forced to wear out the uniforms in sun and storm before he painted -them; he bought weapons and harness at fancy prices when he could not -borrow them from museums. And there is no need to say that he copied all -the portraits of Napoleon, Ney, Soult, and the other generals that were -to be had, and read through whole libraries before beginning his -Napoleon series. To paint the picture "1814," which is generally -reckoned his greatest performance--Napoleon at the head of his staff -riding through a snow-clad landscape--he first prepared the scenery on a -spot in the plain of Champagne, corresponding to the original locality, -just as he did in earlier years with his interiors of the _rococo_ -period; he even had the road laid out on which he wished to paint the -Emperor advancing. Then he waited for the first fall of snow, and had -artillery, cavalry, and infantry to march for him upon this snowy path, -and actually contrived that overturned transport waggons, discarded -arms, and baggage should be decoratively strewn about the landscape. - -From these laborious preparations it may be understood that he spent -almost as many millions of francs upon his pictures as he received. In -his article, _What an Old Work of Art is Worth_, Julius Lessing has -admirably dealt with the hidden ways of taste and commerce applied to -art. Amongst all painters of modern times Meissonier is the only one -whose pictures, during his own lifetime, fetched prices such as are only -reached by the works of famous old masters of the greatest epochs. And -yet he sold them straight from his easel, and never to dealers. -Meissonier avenged himself magnificently for the privations of his -youth. In 1832, when he gave up his apprenticeship with Menier, the -great chocolate manufacturer, to become a painter, he had fifteen francs -a month to spend. He had great difficulty in disposing of his drawings -and illustrations for five or ten francs, and was often obliged to -console himself with a roll for the want of a dinner. Only ten years -later he was able to purchase a small place in Poissy, near St. Germain, -where he went for good in 1850, to give himself up to work without -interruption. Gradually this little property became a pleasant country -seat, and in due course of time the stately house in Paris, in the -Boulevard Malesherbes, was added to it. His "Napoleon, 1814," for which -the painter himself received three hundred thousand francs, was bought -at an auction by one of the owners of the "Grands Magasins du Louvre" -for eight hundred and fifty thousand francs; "Napoleon III at Solferino" -brought him two hundred thousand, and "The Charge of the Cuirassiers" -three hundred thousand. And in general, after 1850, he only painted for -such sums. It was calculated that he received about five thousand francs -for every centimetre of painted canvas, and left behind him pictures -which, according to present rate, were worth more than twenty million -francs, without having really become a rich man; for, as a rule, every -picture that he painted cost him several thousand. - -And Meissonier never sacrificed himself to money-making and the trade. -He never put a stroke on paper without the conviction that he could not -make it better, and for this artistic earnestness he was universally -honoured, even by his colleagues, to his very death. As master beyond -dispute he let the Classicists, Romanticists, Impressionists, and -Symbolists pass by the window of his lonely studio, and always remained -the same. A little man with a firm step, an energetic figure, eyes that -shone like coals, thick, closely cropped hair, and the beard of a -river-god, that always seemed to grow longer, at eighty years of age he -was as hale and active as at thirty. By a systematic routine of life he -kept his physique elastic, and was able to maintain that unintermittent -activity under which another man would have broken down. During long -years Meissonier went to rest at eight every evening, slept till -midnight, and then worked at his drawings by lamplight into the morning. -In the course of the day he made his studies from nature and painted. -Diffident in society and hard of access, he did not permit himself to be -disturbed in his indefatigable diligence by any social demands. A sharp -ride, a swim or a row was his only relaxation. In 1848, as captain of -the National Guard, he had taken part in the street and barricade -fighting; and again in 1871, when he was sixty-six, he clattered through -the streets of the capital, with the dangling sword he had so often -painted and a gold-laced cap stuck jauntily on one side, as a smart -staff-officer. Even the works of his old age showed no exhaustion of -power, and there is something great in attaining ripe years without -outliving one's reputation. As late as the spring of 1890, only a short -time before his death, he was the leader of youth, when it transmigrated -from the Palais des Champs Elysées to the Champ de Mars; and he -exhibited in this new Salon his "October 1806," with which he closed his -Napoleonic epic and his general activity as a painter. Halting on a -hill, the Emperor in his historical grey coat, mounted on a powerful -grey, is thoughtfully watching the course of the battle, without -troubling himself about the Cuirassiers who salute him exultantly as -they storm by, or about the brilliant staff which has taken up position -behind him. Not a feature moves in the sallow, cameo-like face of the -Corsican. The sky is lowering and full of clouds. In the foreground lie -a couple of dead soldiers, in whose uniform every button has been -painted with the same conscientious care that was bestowed on the -buttons of the _rococo_ coats of fifty years before. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ ALPHONSE DE NEUVILLE.] - -Beyond this inexhaustible correctness I can really see nothing that can -be said for Meissonier's fame as an artist. He, whose name is honoured -in both hemispheres, was most peculiarly the son of his own work. The -genius for the infinitesimal has never been carried further. He knew -everything that a man can learn. The movements in his pictures are -correct, the physiognomies interesting, the delicacy of execution -indescribable, and his horses have been so exactly studied that they -stand the test of instantaneous photography. But painter, in the proper -sense, he never was. Precisely through their marvellous minuteness of -execution--a minuteness which is merely attractive as a trial of -patience and as an example of what the brush can do--his pictures are -wanting in unity of conception, and they leave one cold by the hardness -of their contours, the aridness of their colour, and the absence of all -vibrating, nervous feeling. In a cavalry charge, with the whirling dust -and the snorting horses, who thinks of costume? And who thinks of -anything else when Meissonier paints a charge? Here are life and -movement, and there a museum of military uniforms. When Manet saw -Meissonier's "Cuirassiers" he said, "Everything is iron here except the -cuirasses." - -His _rococo_ pictures are probably his best performances; they even -express a certain amount of temperament. His military pictures make one -chilly. Reproduced in woodcuts they are good illustrations for -historical works, but as pictures they repel the eye, because they lack -air and light and spirit. They rouse nothing except astonishment at the -patience and incredible industry that went to the making of them. One -sees everything in them--everything that the painter can have seen--to -the slightest detail; only one does not rightly come into contact with -the artist himself. His battle-pieces stand high above the scenic -pictures of Horace Vernet and Hippolyte Bellangé, but they have nothing -of the warmth of Raffet or the vibrating life of Neuville. There is -nothing in them that is contagious and carries one away, or that appeals -to the heart. Patience is a virtue: genius is a gift. Precious without -originality, intelligent without imagination, dexterous without verve, -elegant without charm, refined and subtile without delicacy, Meissonier -has all the qualities that interest, and none of those which lay hold of -one. He was a painter of a distinctness which causes astonishment, but -not admiration; an artist for epicures, but for those of the second -order, who pay the more highly for works of art in proportion as they -value their artifice. His pictures recall the unseasonable compliment -which Charles Blanc made to Ingres: "_Cher maître, vous avez deviné la -photographie trente ans avant qu'il y eut des photographes._" Or else -one thinks of that malicious story of which Jules Dupré is well known as -the author. "Suppose," said he, "that you are a great personage who has -just bought a Meissonier. Your valet enters the salon where it is -hanging. 'Ah! Monsieur,' he cries, 'what a beautiful picture you have -bought! That is a masterpiece!' Another time you buy a Rembrandt, and -show it to your valet, in the expectation that he will at any rate be -overcome by the same raptures. _Mais non!_ This time the man looks -embarrassed. 'Ah! Monsieur,' he says, '_il faut s'y connaître_,' and -away he goes." - -_Guillaume Regamey_, who is far less known, supplies what is wanting in -Meissonier. Sketchy and of a highly strung nervous temperament, he could -not adapt himself to the picture-market; but the history of art honours -him as the most spirited draughtsman of the French soldier, after -Géricault and Raffet. He did not paint him turned out for parade, ironed -and smartened up, but in the worst trim. Syria, the Crimea, Italy, and -the East are mingled with the difference of their types and the -brightness of their exotic costumes. He had a great love for the -catlike, quick-glancing chivalry of Turcos and Sapphis; but especially -he loved the cavalry. His "Chasseurs d'Afrique" are part and parcel of -their horses, like centaurs, and many of his cavalry groups recall the -frieze of the Parthenon. Unfortunately he died at thirty-eight, shortly -before the war of 1870, the historians of which were the younger -painters, who had grown up in the shadow of Meissonier. - -[Illustration: DE NEUVILLE. LE BOURGET. - - (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil, the owners of the copyright._)] - -[Illustration: DÉTAILLE. SALUT AUX BLESSÉS. - - (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil, the owners of the copyright._)] - -The most important of the group, _Alphonse de Neuville_, had looked at -war very closely as an officer during the siege of Paris, and in this -way he made himself a fine illustrator, who in his anecdotic pictures -specially understood the secret of painting powder-smoke and the -vehemence of a fusillade. The "Bivouac before Le Bourget" brought him -his first success. "The Last Cartridges," "Le Bourget," and "The -Graveyard of Saint-Privat" made him a popular master. Neuville is -peculiarly the French painter of fighting. He did not know, as Charlet -did, the soldier in time of peace, the peasant lad of yesterday who only -cares about his stomach and has little taste for martial adventure. His -soldier is an elegant and enthusiastic youthful hero. He even neglected -the troops of the line; his preference was for the Chasseur, whose cap -is stuck jauntily on his head and whose trousers fall better. He loved -the plumes, the high boots of the officers, the sword-knots, canes, and -eye-glasses. Everything received grace from his dexterous hand; he even -saw in the trooper a gallant and ornamental _bibelot_, which he painted -with chivalrous verve. - -The pictures of Aimé Morot, the painter of "The Charge of the -Cuirassiers," possibly smell most of powder. Neuville's frequently -over-praised rival, Meissonier's favourite pupil, _Edouard Détaille_, -after he had started with pretty little costume pictures from the -_Directoire_ period, went further on the way of his teacher with less -laboriousness and more lightness, with less calculation and more -sincerity. The best of his works was "Salut aux Blessés"--the -representation of a troop of wounded Prussian officers and soldiers on a -country road, passing a French general and his staff, who with graceful -chivalry lift their caps and salute the wounded men. Détaille's great -pictures, such as "The Presentation of the Colours," and his panoramas -were as accurate as they were tedious and arid, although they are far -superior to most of the efforts which the Germans made to depict scenes -from the war of 1870. - -[Illustration: _Soldan, Nürnberg._ ALBRECHT ADAM AND HIS SONS.] - -In Germany the great period of the wars of liberation first inspired a -group of painters with the courage to enter the province of -battle-painting, which had been so much despised by their classical -colleagues. Germany had been turned into a great camp. Prussian, French, -Austrian, Russian, and Bavarian troops passed in succession through the -towns and villages: long trains of cannon and transport waggons came in -their wake, and friends and foes were billeted amongst the inhabitants; -the Napoleonic epoch was enacted. Such scenes followed each other like -the gay slides in a magic lantern, and once more gave to some among the -younger generation eyes for the outer world. There was awakened in them -the capacity for receiving impressions of reality and transferring them -swiftly to paper. Two hundred years before, the emancipation of Dutch -art from the Italian house of bondage had been accomplished in precisely -the same fashion. The Dutch struggle for freedom and the Thirty Years' -War had filled Holland with numbers of soldiery. The doings of these -mercenaries, daily enacted before them in rich costume and with manifold -brightness, riveted the pictorial feeling of artists. Echoes of war, -fighting scenes, skirmishes and tumult, the incidents of camp life, -arming, billeting, and marauding episodes are the first independent -products of the Dutch school. Then the more peaceable doings of soldiers -are represented. At Haarlem, in the neighbourhood of Frans Hals, were -assembled the painters of social pieces, as they are called; pieces in -which soldiers, bold and rollicking officers, make merry with gay -maidens at wine and play and love. From thence the artist came to the -portrayal of a peasantry passing their time in the same rough, free and -easy life, and thence onward to the representation of society in towns. - -[Illustration: ADAM. A STABLE IN TOWN.] - -German painting in the nineteenth century took the same road. Eighty -years ago foreign troops, and the extravagantly "picturesque and often -ragged uniforms of the Republican army, the characteristic and often -wild physiognomies of the French soldiers," gave artists their first -fresh and variously hued impressions. Painters of military subjects make -their studies, not in the antiquity class of the academy, but upon the -parade-ground and in the camp. Later, when the warlike times were over, -they passed from the portrayal of soldiers to that of rustics; and so -they laid the foundation on which future artists built. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - HESS. THE RECEPTION OF KING OTTO IN NAUPLIA.] - -In Berlin Franz Krüger and in Munich Albrecht Adam and Peter Hess were -figures of individual character, belonging to the spiritual family of -Chodowiecki and Gottfried Schadow; and, entirely undisturbed by -classical theories or romantic reverie, they penetrated the life around -them with a clear and sharp glance. They lacked, indeed, the temperament -to comprehend either the high poetic tendencies of the old Munich school -or the sentimental enthusiasm of the old Düsseldorf. - -On the other hand, they were unhackneyed artists, facing facts in a -completely unprejudiced spirit: entirely self-reliant, they refused to -form themselves upon any model derived from the old masters; they had -never had a teacher and never enjoyed academic instruction. This naïve -straightforwardness makes their painting a half-barbaric product; -something which has been allowed to run wild. But in a period of -archæological resuscitations, pedantic brooding over the past and -slavish imitation of the ancients, it seems, for this very reason, the -first independent product of the nineteenth century. As vigorous, -matter-of-fact realists they know nothing of more delicate charms, but -represented fact for all it was worth and as honestly and -conscientiously as was humanly possible. They are lacking in the -distinctively pictorial character, but they are absolutely untouched by -the Classicism of the epoch. They never dream of putting the uniforms -of their warriors upon antique statues. It is this downright honesty -that renders their pictures not merely irreplaceable as documents for -the history of civilisation, and in spite of their unexampled frigidity, -hardness, and gaudiness, lends them, even from the standpoint of art, a -certain innovating quality. In a pleasantly written autobiography -_Albrecht Adam_ has himself described the drift of historical events -which made him a painter of battles. - -He was a confectioner's apprentice in Nördlingen when, in the year 1800, -the marches of the French army began in the neighbourhood. In an inn he -began to sketch sergeants and Grenadiers, and went proudly home with the -pence that he earned in this way. "Adam, when there's war, I'll take you -into the field with me," said an old major-general, who was the -purchaser of his first works. That came to pass in 1809, when the -Bavarians went with Napoleon against Austria. After a few weeks he was -in the thick of raging battle. He saw Napoleon, the Crown-Prince Ludwig, -and General Wrede, was present at the battles of Abensberg, Eckmühl, and -Wagram, and came to Vienna with his portfolios full of sketches. There -his portraits and pictures of the war found favour with the officers, -and Eugène Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, took him to Upper Italy and -afterwards to Russia. He was an eye-witness of the battles at Borodino -and on the Moskwa, and saved himself from the conflagration of Moscow by -his courage and determination. A true soldier, he mounted a horse when -he was sixty-two years of age to be present on the Italian expedition of -the Austrian army under Radetzky in 1848. His battle-pieces are -therefore the result of personal experience. When campaigning he led the -same life as the soldiers whom he portrayed, and as he proceeded in this -portrayal with the objective quietness and fidelity of an historian, his -artistic productions are invaluable as documents. Even where he could -not draw as an eye-witness he invariably made studies afterwards, -endeavouring to collect the most reliable material upon the spot, and -preparing it with the utmost conscientiousness. The ground occupied by -bodies of troops, the marshalling of them, and the conflict of masses, -together with the smallest episodes, are represented with simplicity and -reality. In the portrayal of the soldier's life in time of peace he was -inexhaustible. Just as vividly could he render horses undergoing the -strain of the march and in the tumult of battle as in the stall, the -farm-horse of the transport waggon no less than the noble creature -ridden for parade. That his colour was sharp and hard, and his pictures -therefore devoid of harmony, is to be explained by the helplessness of -the age in regard to colouring. Only his last pictures, such as "The -Battle on the Moskwa," have a certain harmony of hue; and there is no -doubt that this is to be set to the account of his son Franz. - -After Adam, the father of German battle-painters, _Peter Hess_ made an -epoch by the earnestness and actuality of his pictures. He too -accompanied General Wrede on the 1813-15 campaigns, and has left behind -him exceedingly healthy, sane, and objectively viewed Cossack scenes, -bivouacs, and the like, belonging to this period; though in his great -pictures he aimed at totality of effect just as little as Adam. Confused -by the complexity of his material, he only ventured to single out -individual incidents, and then put them together on the canvas after the -fashion of a mosaic; and, to make the nature of the action as clear as -possible, he assumed as his standpoint the perspective view of a bird. -Of course, pictures produced in this way make an effect which is -artistically childish, but as the primitive endeavours of modern German -art they will keep their place. The best known of his pictures are those -inspired by the choice of Prince Otto of Bavaria as King of Greece, -especially "The Reception of King Otto in Nauplia," which is to be found -in the new Pinakothek in Munich. In spite of its hard, motley, and quite -impossible colouring, and its petty pedantry of execution, this is a -picture which will not lose its value as an historical source. - -Vigorous _Franz Krüger_ had been long known in Berlin, by his famous -pictures of horses, before the Emperor of Russia in 1829 commissioned -him to paint, on a huge canvas, the great parade on the _Opernplatz_ in -Berlin, where he had reviewed his regiment of Cuirassiers before the -King of Prussia. From that time such parade pictures became Krüger's -specialty; especially famous is the great parade of 1839, with the -likenesses of those who at the time played a political or literary part -in Berlin. In these works he has left a true reflection of old Berlin, -and bridged over the chasm between Chodowiecki and Menzel: this is -specially the case with his curiously objective water-colour portrait -heads. Mention should be made of Karl Steffeck as a pupil of Krüger, and -Theodor Horschelt--in addition to Franz Adam--as a pupil of Adam. By -_Steffeck_, a healthy, vigorous realist, there are some well-painted -portraits of horses, and by _Th. Horschelt_, who in 1858 took part in -the fights of the Russians against the Circassians in the Caucasus, -there survive some of the spirited and masterly pen-and-ink sketches -which he published collectively in his _Memories from the Caucasus_. -_Franz Adam_, who first published a collection of lithographs on the -Italian campaign of 1848 in connection with Raffet, and in the Italian -war of 1859 painted his first masterpiece, a scene from the battle of -Solferino, owes his finest successes--although he had taken no part in -it--to the war of 1870. In respect of harmony of colouring he is perhaps -the finest painter of battle-pieces Germany has produced. As I shall -later have no opportunity of doing so, I must mention here the works of -_Josef Brandt_, the best of Franz Adam's pupils. They are painted with -verve and chivalrous feeling. There is a flame and a sparkle, both in -the forms of his warriors and of his horses, in his pictures of old -Polish cavalry battles. Everything is aristocratic: the distinction of -the grey colouring no less than the ductile drawing with its chivalrous -sentiment. In everything there breathes life, vigour, fire, and -freshness: the East of Eugène Fromentin translated into Polish. -_Heinrich Lang_, a spirited draughtsman, who had the art of seizing the -most difficult positions and motions of a horse, embodied the wild -tumult of cavalry charges ("The Charge of the Bredow Brigade," "The -Charge at Floing," etc.) in rapid pictures of incisive power, though -otherwise the heroic deeds of the Germans in 1870 resulted in but few -heroic deeds in art. - -[Illustration] - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -ITALY AND THE EAST - - -In the beginning of the century the man who did not wear a uniform was -not a proper subject for art unless he lived in Italy as a peasant or a -robber. That is to say, painters were either archæologists or tourists; -when they did not dive into the past they sought their romantic ideal in -the distance. Italy, where monumental painting had first seen the light, -was the earliest goal for travellers, and satisfied the desire of -artists, since, for the rest of the world, it was still enveloped in -poetic mystery. Only in Rome, in Naples, and in Tuscany was it thought -possible to meet with human beings who had not become vulgar and hideous -under the influence of civilisation. There they still preserved -something of the beauty of Grecian statues. There artists were less -afraid of being diverted from absolute beauty by the study of nature, -and thus an important principle was carried. Instead of copying directly -from antique statues, as David and Mengs had done before them, painters -began to study the descendants of those who had been the models of the -old Roman sculptors; and so it was that, almost against their will, they -turned from museums to look rather more closely into nature, and from -the past to cast a glance into the present. - -To _Leopold Robert_ belongs the credit of having opened out this new -province to an art which was enclosed in the narrow bounds of -Classicism. He owes his success with the public of the twenties and his -place in the history of art entirely to the fact that in spite of his -strict classical training he was one of the first to interest himself, -however little, in contemporary life. Hundreds of artists had wandered -into Italy and seen nothing but the antique until this young man set out -from Neufchâtel in 1818 and became the painter of the Italian people. -What struck him at the first glance was the character of the people, -together with their curious habits and usages, and their rude and -picturesque garb. "He wished to render this with all fidelity," and -especially "to do honour to the absolute nobility of that people which -still bore a trace of the heroic greatness of their forefathers." Above -all, he fancied that he could find this phenomenon of atavism amongst -the bandits; and as Sonnino, an old brigand nest, had been taken and the -inhabitants removed to Engelsburg shortly after his arrival, a -convenient opportunity was offered to him for making his studies in this -place. The pictures of brigand life which he painted in the beginning of -the twenties soon found a most profitable market. "Dear M. Robert," -said the fashionable guests who visited his studio by the dozen, "could -you paint a little brigand, if it is not asking too much?" Robbers with -sentimental qualms were particularly prized: for instance, at the moment -when they were fondling their wives, or praying remorsefully to God, or -watching over the bed of a sick child. - -From brigands he made a transition to the girls of Sorrento, Frascati, -Capri, and Procida, and to shepherd lads, fishers, pilgrims, hermits, -and _pifferari_. Early in the twenties, when he made an exhibition of a -number of these little pictures in Rome, it effectually prepared the way -for his fame; and when he sent a succession of larger pictures to the -Paris Salon in 1824-31 he was held as one of the most brilliant masters -of the French school, to whom Romanticists and Classicists paid the same -honour. In the first of these pictures, painted in 1824, he had -represented a number of peasants listening to a Neapolitan fisherman -improvising to the accompaniment of a harmonica. "The Return from a -Pilgrimage to the Madonna dell' Arco" of 1827 is the painting of a -triumphal waggon yoked with oxen. Upon it are seated lads and maidens -adorned with foliage, and in their gay Sunday best. An old _lazzarone_ -is playing the mandolin, and girls are dancing with tambourines, whilst -a young man springs round clattering his castanets, and a couple of -boys, to complete the seasons of life, head the procession. His third -picture, "The Coming of the Reapers to the Pontine Marshes," was the -chief work in the Salon of 1831 after the "Freedom" of Delacroix. Heine -accorded him a classical passage of description, and the orthodox -academical critics were liberal with most unmerited praise, treating the -painter as a dangerous revolutionary who was seducing art into the -undignified naturalism of Ribera and Caravaggio. Robert, the honest, -lamblike man, who strikes us now as being a conscientious follower of -the school of David! - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - LEOPOLD ROBERT.] - -How little did the artistic principles which he laid down in his letters -accord with his own paintings! "I try," he wrote to a friend in 1819, -"to follow Nature in everything. Nature is the only teacher who should -be heard. She alone inspires and moves me, she alone appeals to me: it -is Nature that I seek to fathom, and in her I ever hope to find the -special impulse for work." She is a miracle to him, and one that is -greater than any other, a book in which "the simple may read as well as -the great." He could not understand "how painters could take the old -masters as their model instead of Nature, who is the only great -exemplar!" What is to be seen in his pictures is merely an awkward -transference of David's manner of conception and representation to the -painting of Italian peasants--a scrupulously careful adaptation of -classical rules to romantic subjects. He looked at modern Italians -solely through the medium of antique statuary, and conducts us to an -Italy which can only be called Leopold Robert's Italy, since it never -existed anywhere except in Robert's map. All his figures have the -movement of some familiar work of antique sculpture, and that expression -of cherished melancholy which went out of fashion after the time of Ary -Scheffer. Never does one see in his pictures a casual and unhackneyed -gesture in harmony with the situation. It seems as if he had dressed up -antique statues or David's Horatii and his Sabine women in the costume -of the Italian peasantry, and grouped them for a _tableau vivant_ in -front of stage scenery, and in accordance with Parisian rules of -composition. His peasants and fishers make beautiful, noble, and often -magnificent groups. But one can always give the exact academic rules for -any particular figure standing here and not there, or in one position -and not in another. His pictures are much too official, and obtrusively -affect the favourite pyramid form of composition. - -[Illustration: L. ROBERT. FISHERS OF THE ADRIATIC.] - -But as they are supposed to be pictures of Italian manners, the contrast -between nature and the artificial construction is almost more irritating -than it is in David's mythological representations. It is as if Robert -had really never seen any Italian peasants, though he maintains all the -while that he is depicting their life. The hard outlines and the sharp -bronze tone of his works are a ghastly evidence of the extent to which -the sense of colour had become extinct in the school of David. It was -merely form that attracted him; the sun of Italy left him indifferent. -The absence of atmosphere gives his figures an appearance of having been -cut out of picture sheets. O great artists of Holland, masters of -atmospheric effect and of contour bathed in light, what would you have -said to such heartless silhouettes! In his youth Robert had been a line -engraver, and he adapted the prosaic technique of line engraving to -painting. However, he was a transitional painter, and as such he has an -historical interest. He was a modern Tasso, too, and on the strength of -the adventurous relationship to Princess Charlotte Napoleon, which -ultimately drove him to suicide, he could be used with effect as the -hero of a novel. Through the downfall of the school of David his star -has paled--one more proof that only Nature is eternal, and that -conventional painting falls into oblivion with the age that saw it rise. -"I wished to find a _genre_ which was not yet known, and this _genre_ -has had the fortune to please. It is always an advantage to be the -first." With these words he has himself indicated, in a way which is as -modest as it is accurate, the ground of his reputation amongst -contemporaries, and why it is that the history of art cannot quite -afford to forget him. - -[Illustration: L. ROBERT. THE COMING OF THE REAPERS TO THE PONTINE - MARSHES.] - -Amongst the multitude of those who, incited by Robert's brilliant -successes, made the Spanish staircase in Rome the basis of their art, -_Victor Schnetz_, by his "Vow to the Madonna" of 1831, specially -succeeded in winning public favour. At a later time his favourite themes -were the funerals of children, inundations, and the like; but his arid -method of painting contrasts with the sentimental melancholy of these -subjects in a fashion which is not particularly agreeable. - -[Illustration: SCHNETZ. AN ITALIAN SHEPHERD.] - -It was _Ernest Hébert_ who first saw Italy with the eyes of a painter. -He might be called the Perugino of this group. He was the most romantic -of the pupils of Delaroche, and owed his conception of colour to that -painter. His spiritual father was Ary Scheffer. The latter has -discovered the poetry of sentimentality; Hébert the poetry of disease. -His pictures are invariably of great technical delicacy. His style has -something femininely gracious, almost languishing: his colouring is -delicately fragrant and tenderly melting. He is, indeed, a refined -artist who occupies a place by himself, however mannered the melancholy -and sickliness of his figures may be. In "The Malaria" of 1850 they were -influenced by the subject itself. The barge gliding over the waters of -the Pontine Marshes, with its freight of men, women, and children, seems -like a gloomy symbol of the voyage of life; the sorrow of the passengers -is that of resignation: dying they droop their heads like withering -flowers. But later the fever became chronic in Hébert. The interesting -disease returned even where it was out of place, as it does still in the -pictures of his followers. The same fate befell the painters of Italy -which befalls tourists. What Robert had seen in the country as the first -comer whole generations saw after him, neither more nor less than that. -The pictures were always variations on the old theme, until in the -sixties Bonnat came with his individual and realistic vision. - -[Illustration: _Portfolio._ - - HÉBERT. THE MALARIA.] - -In Germany, where "the yearning for Italy" had been ventilated in an -immoderate quantity of lyrical poems ever since the time of -Wackenroder's _Herzensergiessungen_, _August Riedel_ represented this -phase of modern painting; and as Leopold Robert is still celebrated, -Riedel ought not to be forgotten. Riedel lived too long (1800-1883), -and, as he painted nothing but bad pictures during the last thirty -years of his life, what he had done in his youth was forgotten. At that -time he was the first apostle of Leopold Robert in Germany, and as such -he has his importance as an innovator. When he began his career in the -Munich Academy in 1819 Peter Langer, a Classicist of the order of Mengs, -was still director there. Riedel also painted classical subjects and -church pictures--"Christ on the Mount of Olives," "The Resurrection of -Lazarus," and "Peter and Paul healing the Lame." But when he returned -from Italy in 1823 he reversed the route which others had taken: the -classic land set him free from Classicism, and opened his eyes to the -beauty of life. Instead of working on saints in the style of Langer, he -painted beautiful women in the costume of modern Italy. His "Neapolitan -Fisherman's Family" was for Germany a revelation similar to that which -Robert's "Neapolitan Improvisator" had been for France. The fisherman, -rather theatrically draped, is sitting on the shore, while his wife and -his little daughter listen to him playing the zither. The blue sea, -dotted with white sails, and distant Ischia and Cape Missene, form the -background; and a blue heaven, dappled with white clouds, arches above. -Everything was of an exceedingly conventional beauty, but denoted -progress in comparison with Robert. It already announced that search for -brilliant effects of light which henceforward became a characteristic of -Riedel, and gave him a peculiar position in his own day. "Even hardened -connoisseurs," wrote Emil Braun from Rome about this time, "stand -helpless before this magic of colouring. It is often long before they -are able to persuade themselves that such glory of colour can be -produced by the familiar medium of oil painting, and with materials that -any one can buy at a shop where pigments are sold." Riedel touched a -problem--diffidently, no doubt--which was only taken up much later in -its full extent. And if Cornelius said to him, "You have fully attained -what I have avoided with the greatest effort during the course of my -whole life," it is none the less true that Riedel's Italian girls in the -full glow of sunlight have remained, in spite of their stereotyped -smile, so reminiscent of Sichel, better able to stand the test of -galleries than the pictures of the Michael-Angelo of Munich. Before his -"Neapolitan Fisherman's Family," which went the world over like a melody -from Auber's _Masaniello_, before his "Judith" carrying the head of -Holofernes in the brightest light of morning, before his "Girls Bathing" -in the dimness of the forest, and before his "Sakuntala," painted "with -refined effects of light," the cartoon painters mumbled and grumbled, -and raised hue and cry over the desecration of German art; but Riedel's -friends were just as loud in proclaiming the witchery of his colour, and -"the Southern sunlight which he had conjured on to his palette," to be -splendid beyond the powers of comprehension. It is difficult at the -present day to understand the fame that he once had as "a pyrotechnist -in pigments." But the results which he achieved by himself in colouring, -long before the influence of the Belgians in Germany, will always give -him a sure place in the history of German art. And these qualities were -unconsciously inherited by his successors, who troubled their heads no -further about the pioneer and founder. - -[Illustration: RIEDEL. THE NEAPOLITAN FISHERMAN'S FAMILY.] - -[Illustration: RIEDEL. JUDITH.] - -Those who painted the East with its clear radiance, its interesting -people, and its picturesque localities, stand in opposition to the -Italian enthusiasts. They are the second group of travellers. Gros had -given French art a vision of that distant magic land, but he had had no -direct disciples. Painters were as yet in too close bondage to their -classical proclivities to receive inspiration from Napoleon's expedition -into Egypt. But the travels of Chateaubriand and the verse of Byron, and -then the Greek war of liberation, and, above all, the conquest of -Algiers, once more aroused an interest in these regions, and, when the -revolution of the Romanticists had once taken place, taught art a way -into the East. Authors, journalists, and painters found their place in -this army of travellers. The first view of men and women standing on the -shore in splendid costume, with turbans or high sheepskin hats, and -surrounded by black slaves, or mounted upon horses richly caparisoned, -or listening to the roll of drums and the muezzin resounding from the -minarets, was like a scene from _The Arabian Nights_. The bazaars and -the harems, the quarters of the Janizaries and gloomy dungeons were -visited in turn. Veiled women were seen, and mysterious houses where -every sound was hushed. At first the Moors, obedient to the stern laws -of the Koran, fled before the painters as if before evil spirits, but -the Moorish women were all the more ready to receive these conquerors -with open arms. Artists plunged with rapture into a new world; they -anointed themselves with the oil of roses, and tasted all the sweets of -Oriental life. The East was for the Byronic enthusiasts of 1830 what -Italy had been for the Classicists. Could anything be imagined more -romantic? You went on board a steamer provided with all modern comforts -and all the appliances of the nineteenth century, and it carried you -thousands of years back in the history of the world; you set foot on a -soil where the word progress did not exist--in a land where the -inhabitants still sat in the sun as if cemented to the ground, and wore -the same costumes in which their forefathers had sat there two thousand -years ago. Here the Romanticists not only found nature decked in the -rich hues which satisfied their passion for colour, but discovered a -race of people possessed of that beauty which, according to the -Classicists, was only to be seen in the Italian peasants. They beheld -"men of innate dignity and remarkable distinction of pose and gesture." -Thus a new experience was added to life. There was the East, where -splendour and simplicity, cruelty and beauty, softness of temper and -savage austerity, and brilliant colour and blinding light are more -completely mingled than anywhere else in the world; there was the East, -where rich tints laugh in the midst of squalor and misery, the -brightness of earlier days in the midst of outworn usages, and the pride -of art in the midst of ruined villages. It was so great, so -unfathomable, and so like a fairy tale that it gave every one the chance -of discovering in it some new qualities. - -For _Delacroix_, the Byron of painting, it was a splendid setting for -passion in its unfettered wildness and its unscrupulous daring. He, who -had lived exclusively in the past, now turned to the observation of -living beings, as may be seen in his "Algerian Women," his "Jewish -Wedding," his "Emperor of Morocco," and his "Convulsionaries of -Tangier." Amongst the Orientals he also found the hotly flaming -sensuousness and primitive wildness which beset his imagination with its -craving for everything impassioned. - -The great _charmeur_, the master of pictorial caprice, _Decamps_, found -his province in the East, because its sun was so lustrous, its costume -so bright, and its human figures so picturesque. If Delacroix was a -powerful artist, Decamps was no more than a painter,--but painter he was -to his finger-tips. He was indifferent to nothing in nature or history: -he showed as much enthusiasm for a pair of tanned beggar-boys playing in -the sunshine at the corner of a wall as for Biblical figures and -old-world epics. He has painted hens pecking on a dung-heap, dogs on the -chase and in the kennel, monkeys as scholars, and musicians in all the -situations which Teniers and Chardin loved. His "Battle of Tailleborg" -of 1837 has been aptly termed the only picture of a battle in the -Versailles Museum. He looked on everything as material for painting, and -never troubled as to how another artist would have treated the subject. -There is an individuality in every one of his works; not an -individuality of the first order, but one that is decidedly charming and -that assures him a very high place amongst his contemporaries. - -Having made a success in 1829 with an imaginary picture of the East, he -had a wish to see how far the reality corresponded with his ideas of -Turkey, and in the same year--therefore before Delacroix--he went on -that journey to the Greek Archipelago, Constantinople, and Asia Minor -which became a voyage of discovery for French painting. In the Salon of -1831 was exhibited his "Patrol of Smyrna," which at once made him one of -the favourite French painters of the time. Soon afterwards came the -picture of the "Pasha on his Rounds," accompanied by a lean troop of -running and panting guards, that of the great "Turkish Bazaar," in which -he gave such a charming representation of the gay and noisy bustle of an -Oriental fair, those of the "Turkish School," the "Turkish Café," "The -Halt of the Arab Horsemen," and "The Turkish Butcher's Shop." In -everything which he painted from this time forward--even in his Biblical -pictures--he had before his eyes the East as it is in modern times. Like -Horace Vernet, he painted his figures in the costume of modern Arabs and -Egyptians, and placed them in landscapes with modern Arab buildings. But -the largeness of line in these landscapes is expressive of something so -patriarchal and Biblical, and of such a dreamy, mystical poetry, that, -in spite of their modern garb, the figures seem like visions from a far -distance. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - DECAMPS. THE SWINEHERD.] - -Decamps' painting never became trivial. All his pictures soothe and -captivate the eye, however much they disappoint, on the first glance, -the expectations which the older descriptions of them may have excited. -Fifty years ago it was said that Delacroix painted with colour and -Decamps with light; that his works were steeped in a bath of sunshine. -This vibrating light, this transparent atmosphere, which contemporaries -admired, is not to be found in Decamps' pictures. Their brilliancy of -technique is admirable, but he was no painter of light. The world of -sunshine in which everything is dipped, the glow and lustre of objects -in shining, liquid, and tremulous air, is what Gustave Guillaumet first -learnt to paint a generation later. Decamps attained the effect of -light in his pictures by the darkening of shadows, precisely in the -manner of the old school. To make the sky bright, he threw the -foreground into opaque and heavy shade. And as, in consequence of the -ground of bole used to produce his beautiful red tones, the dark parts -of his pictures gradually became as black as pitch, and the light parts -dead and spotty, he will rather seem to be a contemporary of Albert Cuyp -than of Manet. - -As draughtsman to a German baron making a scientific tour in the East, -_Prosper Marilhat_, the third of the painters of Oriental life, was -early in following this career. He visited Greece, Asia Minor, and -Egypt, and returned to Paris in 1833 intoxicated with the beauties of -these lands. Especially dear to him was Egypt, and in his pictures he -called himself, "Marilhat the Egyptian." Decamps had been blinded by the -sharp contrast between light and shadow in Oriental nature, by the vivid -blaze of colour in its vegetation, and by the tropical glow of the -Southern sky. Marilhat took novelties with a more quiet eye, and kept -close to pure reality. He has not so much virtuosity as Decamps, and in -colour he is less daring, but he is perhaps more poetic, and on that -account, in the years 1833-44, he was prized almost more. The exhibition -of 1844, in which eight of his pictures appeared, closed his career. He -had expected the Cross of the Legion of Honour, but did not get it, and -this disappointment affected him so deeply that he became first -hypochondriacal and then mad. His early death at thirty-six set Decamps -free from a powerful rival. - -_Eugène Fromentin_ went further in the same direction as Marilhat. He -knew nothing of the preference for the glowing hues of the tropics nor -of the fantastic colouring of the Romanticists. He painted in the spirit -of a refined social period in which no loud voice is tolerated, but only -light and familiar talk. The East gave him his grace; the proud and -fiery nature of the Arab horse was revealed to him. In his portraits -Fromentin looks like a cavalry officer. In his youth he had studied law, -but that was before his acquaintance with the landscape painter Cabat -brought him to his true calling, and a sojourn made on three different -occasions--in 1845, 1848, and 1852--on the borders of Morocco decided -for him his specialty. By his descriptions of travels, _A Year in -Sahel_, which appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, he became known -as a writer: it was only after 1857, however, that he became famous as a -painter. Fromentin's East is Algiers. While Marilhat tried to render the -marvellous clearness of the Southern light, and Decamps depicted the -glowing heat of the East, its dark brooding sky in the sultry hours of -summer and the grand outlines of its landscape, Fromentin has tried--and -perhaps with too much system--to express the grace and brilliant spirit -of the East. Taste, refinement, ductility, distinction of colouring, and -grace of line are his special qualities. His Arabs galloping on their -beautiful white horses have an inimitable chivalry; they are true -princes in every pose and movement. The execution of his pictures is -always spirited, easy, and in keeping with their high-bred tone. -Whatever he does has the nervous vigour of a sketch, with that degree of -finish which satisfies the connoisseur. There is always a coquetry in -his arrangement of colour, and his tones are light and delicate if they -are not deep. In the landscape his little Arab riders have the effect of -flowers upon a carpet. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DECAMPS. COMING OUT FROM A TURKISH SCHOOL. - - (_By permission of Mme. Moreau-Nélaton, the owner of the picture._)] - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - DECAMPS. THE WATERING PLACE.] - -Afterwards, when naturalism was at its zenith, Fromentin was much -attacked for this wayward grace. He was accused of making a superficial -appeal to the eye, and of offering everything except truth. And for its -substantive fidelity Fromentin's "East" cannot certainly be taken very -seriously. He was a man of fine culture, and in his youth he had studied -the old Dutch masters more than nature; he even saw the light of the -East through the Dutch _chiaroscuro_. His pictures are subtle works of -art, nervous in drawing and dazzling in brilliancy of construction, but -they are washed in rather than painted, and stained rather than -coloured. In his book he speaks himself of the cool, grey shadows of the -East. But in his pictures they turn to a reddish hue or to brown. An -effort after beauty of tone in many ways weakened his Arab scenes. He -looked at the people of the East too much with the eyes of a Parisian. -And the more his recollections faded, the more did he begin to create -for himself an imaginary Africa. He painted grey skies simply because he -was tired of blue; he tinted white horses with rosy reflections, -chestnuts with lilac, and dappled-greys with violet. The grace of his -works became more and more an affair of affectation, until at last, -instead of being Oriental pictures, they became Parisian fancy goods, -which merely recalled the fact that Algiers had become a French town. - -[Illustration: MARILHAT. A HALT.] - -But after all what does it matter whether pictures of the East are true -to nature or not? Other people whose names are not Fromentin can provide -such documents. In his works Fromentin has expressed himself, and that -is enough. Take up his first book, _L'été dans la Sahara_: by its grace -of style it claims a place in French literature. Or read his classic -masterpiece, _Les maîtres d'autrefois_, published in 1876 after a tour -through Belgium and Holland: it will remain for ever one of the finest -works ever written on art. A connoisseur of such refinement, a critic -who gauged the artistic works of Belgium and Holland with such subtlety, -necessarily became in his own painting an epicure of beautiful tones. -This man, who never made an awkward movement nor uttered a brutal word, -this sensitive, distinguished spirit could be no more than a subtle -artist who had eyes for nothing but the aristocratic side of Eastern -life. As a painter, however, he might wish to be true to nature; he -could be no more than this. His art, compact of grace and distinction, -was the outcome of his own nature. He is a descendant of those -delicately feminine, seductively brilliant, facile and spontaneous, -sparkling and charming painters who were known in the eighteenth century -as _peintres des fêtes galantes_. He is the Watteau of the East, and in -this capacity one of the most winning and captivating products of French -art. - -[Illustration: E. FROMENTIN. ARABIAN FALCONERS.] - -Finally, _Guillaumet_, the youngest and last of the group, found in the -East peace: a scion of the Romanticists, there is none the less a -whole world of difference between him and them. While the Romanticists, -as sons of a flaccid, inactive period, lashed themselves into enthusiasm -for the passion and wild life of the East, Guillaumet, the child of a -hurried and neurotic epoch, sought here an opiate for his nerves. Where -they saw contrasts he found harmony; and he did not find it, like -Fromentin, in what is understood as _chic_. Manet's conception of colour -had taught him that nature is everywhere in accord and harmoniously -delicate. - -He writes: "_Je commence à distinguer quelques formes: des silhouettes -indécises bougent le long des murs enfumés sous des poutres luisantes de -sui. Les détails sortent du demi-jour, s'animent graduellement avec la -magie des Rembrandt. Même mystère des ombres, mêmes ors dans les -reflets--c'est l'aube.... Des terrains poudreux inondés de soleil; un -amoncellement de murailles grises sous un ciel sans nuage; une cité -somnolente baignée d'une lumière égale, et dans le frémissement visible -des atomes aériens quelques ombres venant ça et là détacher une forme, -accuser un geste parmi les groupes en burnous qui se meuvent sur les -places ... tel m'apparait le ksar, vers dix heures du matin...._ - -"_L'oeil interroge: rien ne bouge. L'oreille écoute: aucun bruit. Pas un -souffle, si ce n'est le frémissement presque imperceptible de l'air -au-dessus du sol embrasé. La vie semble avoir disparu, absorbée par la -lumière. C'est le milieu du jour.... Mais le soir approche.... Les -troupeaux rentrent dans les douars; ils se pressent autour des tentes, à -peine visibles, confondus sous cette teinte neutre du crépuscule, faite -avec les gris de la nuit qui vient et les violets tendres du soir qui -s'en va. C'est l'heure mystérieuse, où les couleurs se mèlent, où les -contours se noient, où toute chose s'assombrit, où toute voix se tait, -où l'homme, à la fin du jour, laisse flotter sa pensée devant ce qui -s'éteint, s'efface et s'evanouit._" - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ EUGÈNE FROMENTIN.] - -This description of a day in Algiers in Guillaumet's _Tableaux -algériens_ interprets the painter Guillaumet better than any critical -appreciation could possibly do. For him the East is the land of dreams -and melting softness, a far-off health-resort for neurotic patients, -where one lies at ease in the sun and forgets the excitements of Paris. -It was not what was brilliant and pictorial in sparkling jewels and -bright costume that attracted him at all, but the silence, the mesmeric -spell of the East, the vastness of the infinite horizon, the imposing -majesty of the desert, and the sublime and profound peace of the nights -of Africa. "The Evening Prayer in the Desert" was the name of the first -picture that he brought back with him in 1863. There is a wide and -boundless plain; the straight line of the horizon is broken by a few -mountain forms and by the figures of a party belonging to a caravan; -but, bowed as they are in prayer, these figures are scarcely to be -distinguished. The smoke of the camp ascends like a pillar into the air. -The monotony of the wilderness seems to stretch endlessly to the right -and to the left, like a grand and solemn Nirvana smiting the human -spirit with religious delirium. - -[Illustration: FROMENTIN. ARABIAN WOMEN RETURNING FROM DRAWING WATER.] - -For Decamps and Marilhat the East was a great, red copper-block beneath -a blue dome of steel; a beautiful monster, bright and glittering. -Guillaumet has no wish to dazzle. His pictures give one the impression -of intense and sultry heat. His light is really "_le frémissement -visible des atomes aériens_." Moreover, he did not see the chivalry of -the East like Fromentin. The latter was fascinated by the nomad, the -pure Arab living in tent or saddle, the true aristocrat of the desert, -mounted on his white palfrey, hunting wild beasts through fair blue and -green landscapes. Poor folk who never owned a horse are the models of -Guillaumet. With their dogs--wild creatures who need nothing--they squat -in the sun as if with their own kin: they are the lower, primitive -population, the pariahs of the wilderness; tattered men whose life-long -siesta is only interrupted by the anguish of death, animal women whose -existence flows by as idly as in the trance of opium. - -After the French Romanticists had shown the way, other nations -contributed their contingent to the painters of Oriental subjects. In -Germany poetry had discovered the East. Rückert imitated the measure and -the ideas of the Oriental lyric, and the Greek war of liberation -quickened all that passionate love for the soil of old Hellas which -lives in the German soul. _Wilhelm Müller_ sang his songs of the Greeks, -and in 1825 _Leopold Schefer_ brought out his tale _Die Persierin_. But -just as the Oriental tale was a mere episode in German literature, an -exotic grafted on the native stem, so the Oriental painting produced no -leading mind in the country, but merely a number of good soldiers who -dutifully served in the troops of foreign commanders. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - FROMENTIN. THE CENTAURS.] - -_Kretszchmer_ of Berlin led the way with ethnographical representations, -and was joined at a later time by Wilhelm Gentz and Adolf Schreyer of -Frankfort. _Gentz_, a dexterous painter, and, as a colourist, perhaps -the most gifted of the Berlin school in the sixties, is, in comparison -with the great Frenchmen who portrayed the East, a thoroughly arid -realist. He brought to his task a certain amount of rough vigour and -restless diversity, together with North German sobriety and Berlin -humour. _Schreyer_, who lived in Paris, belonged to the following of -Fromentin. The Arab and his steed interested him also. His pictures are -bouquets of colour, dazzling the eye. Arabs in rich and picturesque -costume repose on the ground or are mounted on their milk-white steeds, -which rear and prance with tossing manes and wide-stretched nostrils. -The desert undulates away to the far horizon, now pale and now caressed -by the softened rays of the setting sun, which tip the waves of sand -with burnished gold. Schreyer was--for a German--a man with an -extraordinary gift for technique and a brilliantly effective sense of -life. The latter remark is specially true of his sketches. At a later -date--in 1875, after being with Lembach and Makart in Cairo--the -Viennese _Leopold Müller_ found the domain of his art beneath the clear -sky, in the brightly coloured land of the Nile. Even his sketches are -often of great delicacy of colour, and the ethnographical accuracy which -he also possessed has long made him the most highly valued delineator of -Oriental life and a popular illustrator of works on Egypt. The learned -and slightly pedantic vein in his works he shares with Gérôme, but by -his greater charm of colour he comes still nearer to Fromentin. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - GUILLAUMET. THE SÉGUIA, NEAR BISKRA.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - GUILLAUMET. A DWELLING IN THE SAHARA.] - -The route to the East was shown to the English by the glowing landscapes -of _William Müller_; but the English were just as unable to find a Byron -amongst their painters. _Frederick Goodall_ has studied the classical -element in the East, and endeavoured to reconstruct the past from the -present. Best known amongst these artists was _J. F. Lewis_, who died in -1876 and was much talked of in earlier days. For long years he wandered -through Asia Minor, filling his portfolios with sketches and his trunks -with Oriental robes and weapons. When he returned there was a perfect -scramble for his pictures. They revealed a new world to the English -then, but no one scrambles for them now. John Lewis was exceedingly -diligent and conscientious; he studied the implements, the costumes, and -the popular types of the East with incredible industry. In his harem -pictures as in his representations of Arabian camp life everything is -painted, down to the patterns of embroidery, the ornaments of turbans, -and the pebbles on the sand. Even his water-colours are triumphs of -endurance; but patience and endurance are not sufficient to make an -interesting artist. John Lewis stands in respect of colour, too, more or -less on a level with Gentz. He has seized neither the dignity of the -Mussulman nor the grace of the Bedouin, but has contented himself with a -faithful though somewhat glaring reproduction of accessories. _Houghton_ -was the first who, moving more or less parallel with Guillaumet, -succeeded in delicately interpreting the great peace and the mystic -silence of the East. - -[Illustration: W. MÜLLER. PRAYER IN THE DESERT.] - -The East was in this way traversed in all directions. The first comers -who beheld it with eager, excited eyes collected a mass of gigantic -legends, with no decided aim or purpose and driven by no passionate -impulse, merely eager to pluck here or there an exotic flower, or -lightly to catch some small part of the glamour that overspread all that -was Eastern, piled up dreams upon dreams, and gave it a gorgeous and -fantastic life. There were deserts shining in the sun, waves lashed by -the storm, the nude forms of women, and all the Asiatic splendour of the -East: dark-red satin, gold, crystal, and marble were heaped in confusion -and executed in terrible fantasies of colour in the midst of darkness -and lightning. After this generation had passed like a thunderstorm the -_chic_ of Fromentin was delicious. He profited by the taste which others -had excited. Painters of all nationalities overran the East. The great -dramas were transformed into elegies, pastorals, and idylls; even -ethnographical representations had their turn. Guillaumet summed up the -aims of that generation. His dreamy and tender painting was like a -beautiful summer evening. The radiance of the blinding sky was -mitigated, and a peaceful sun at the verge of the horizon covered the -steppes of sand, which it had scorched a few hours before, with a -network of rosy beams. - -They were all scions of the Romantic movement. The yearning which filled -their spirits and drove them into distant lands was only another symptom -of their dissatisfaction with the present. - -Classicism had dealt with Greek and Roman history by the aid of antique -statues, and next used the colours of the Flemish masters to paint -Italian peasantry. Romanticism had touched the motley life of the Middle -Ages and the richly coloured East; but both had anxiously held aloof -from the surroundings of home and the political and social relations of -contemporaries. - -It was obvious that art's next task was to bring down to earth again the -ideal that had hovered so long over the domain of ancient history, and -then winged its flight to the realms of the East. "_Ah la vie, la vie! -le monde est là; il rit, crie, souffre, s'amuse, et on ne le rend pas._" -In these words the necessity of the step has been indicated by Fromentin -himself. The successful delivery of modern art was first accomplished, -the problem stated in 1789 was first solved, when the subversive -upheaval of the Third Estate, which had been consummating itself more -and more imperiously ever since the Revolution, found distinct -expression in the art of painting. Art always moves on parallel lines -with religious conceptions, with politics, and with manners. In the -Middle Ages men lived in the world beyond the grave, and so the subjects -of painting were Madonnas and saints. According to Louis XIV, everything -was derived from the King, as light from the sun, and so royalty by the -grace of God was reflected in the art of his epoch. The royal sun -suffered total eclipse in the Revolution, and with this mighty change of -civilisation art had to undergo a new transformation. The 1789 of -painting had to follow on the politics of 1789: the proclamation of the -liberty and equality of all individuals. Only painting which recognised -man in his full freedom, no privileged class of gods and heroes, -Italians and Easterns, could be the true child of the Revolution, the -art of the new age. Belgium and Germany made the first diffident steps -in this direction. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -THE PAINTING OF HUMOROUS ANECDOTE - - -At the very time when the East attracted the French Romanticists, the -German and Belgian painters discovered the rustic. Romanticism, driven -into strange and tropical regions by its disgust of a sluggish, -colourless and inglorious age, now planted a firm foot upon native soil. -Amid rustics there was to be found a conservative type of life which -perpetuated old usages and picturesque costume. - -It is not easy for a dilettante to enter into sympathetic relationship -with these early pictures of peasant life. They are gaudy in tone, -smooth as metal, and the figures stand out hard against the atmosphere, -as if they had been cut from a picture-sheet. But the historian has no -right to be merely a dilettante. It would be unfair of him to make the -artistic conceptions of the present time the means of depreciating the -past. For, after all, works of the past are only to be measured with -those of their own age, and when one once remembers what an importance -these modest "little masters" had for their time it is no longer -difficult to treat them with justice. In an age when futile and aimless -intentions lost their way in theory and imitation of the "great -painting" there blossomed here, and for the first time, a certain -individuality of mind and temper. While Cornelius, Kaulbach, and their -fellows formed a style which was ideal in a purely conventional sense, -and epitomised the art of the great masters according to method, the -"_genre_ painters" seized upon the endless variety of nature, and, after -a long period of purely reproductive painting, made the first diffident -attempt to set art free from the curse of system and the servile -repetition of antiquated forms. - -Even as regards colour they have the honour of preparing the way for a -restoration in the technique of painting. Their own defects in technique -were not their fault, but the consequence of that fatal interference of -Winckelmann through which art lost its technical traditions. They did -not enjoy the advantages of issuing from a long line of ancestors. In a -certain sense they had to make a beginning in the history of art by -themselves; for between them and the older German painting they only met -with men who held the ability to paint as a shame and a disgrace. With -the example of the old Dutch and Flemish masters before them, they had -to knit together the bonds which these men had cut; and considering the -æsthetic ideas of the age, this reference to Netherlandish models was an -event of revolutionary importance. In doing this they may have been -partially influenced by Wilkie, who made his tour in Germany in 1825, -and whose pictures had a wide circulation through the medium of -engraving. And from another side attention was directed to the old Dutch -masters by Schnaase's letters of 1834. While the entire artistic school -which took its rise from Winckelmann gave the reverence of an empty, -formal idealism to classical antiquity and the Cinquecento, applying -their standards to all other periods, Schnaase was the first to give an -impulse to the historical consideration of art. In this way he revealed -wide and hitherto neglected regions to the creative activity of modern -times. The result of his book was that the Netherlandish masters were no -longer held to be "the apes of vulgar nature," but took their place as -exquisite artists from whom the modern painter had a great deal to -learn. - -[Illustration: KOBELL. A MEETING.] - -In Munich the conditions of a popular, national art were supplied by the -very site of the town. Since the beginning of the century Munich had -been peculiarly the type of a peasant city, the capital of a peasant -province; it had a peasantry abounding in old-fashioned singularities, -gay and motley in costume as in their ways of life, full of bright and -easy-going good-humour, and gifted with the Bavarian force of character. -Here it was, then, that "the resort to national traits" was first made. -And if, in the event, this painting of rustic life produced many -monstrosities, it remained throughout the whole century an unfailing -source from which the art of Munich drew fresh and vivid power. - -Even in the twenties there was an art in Munich which was native to the -soil, and in later years shot up all the more vigorously through being -for a time cramped in its development by the exotic growths of the -school of Cornelius. It was as different from the dominant historical -painting as the "_magots_" of Teniers from the mythological machinery of -Lebrun, and it was treated by official criticism with the same contempt. -Cornelius and his school directed the attention of educated people so -exclusively to themselves, and so entirely proscribed the literature of -the day, that what took place outside their own circle in Munich was -but little discussed. The vigorous group of naturalists had not much to -offer critics who wished to display their knowledge by picking to pieces -historical pictures, interpreting philosophical cartoons, and pointing -to similarities of style between Cornelius and Michael Angelo. But for -the historian, seeking the seeds of the present in the past, they are -figures worthy of respect. Setting their own straightforward conception -of nature against the eclecticism of the great painters, they laid the -foundation of an independent modern art. - -The courtly, academic painting of Cornelius derived its inspiration from -the Sistine Chapel; the naturalism of these "_genre_ painters" was -rooted in the life of the Bavarian people. The "great painters" dwelt -alone in huge monumental buildings; the naturalists, who sought their -inspiration in the life of peasants, in the life of camps, and in -landscape, without troubling themselves about antique or romantic -subjects, furnished the material for the first collections of modern -art. Both as artists and as men they were totally different beings. -Cornelius and his school stand on the one side, cultured, imperious, -fancying themselves in the possession of all true art, and abruptly -turning from all who are not sworn to their flag; on the other side -stand the naturalists, brisk and cheery, rough it may be, but sound to -the core, and with a sharp eye for life and nature. - -[Illustration: PETER HESS. A MORNING AT PARTENKIRCHE.] - -Painting in the grand style owed its origin to the personal tastes of -the king and to the great tasks to which it was occasionally set; -independent of princely favour, realistic art found its patrons amongst -the South German nobility and, at a later date, in the circle of the -Munich Art Union, and seems the logical continuation of that military -painting which, at the opening of the century, had its representatives -in Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Munich. The motley swarm of foreign soldiers -which overran the soil of Germany incited Albrecht Adam, Peter Hess, -Johann Adam Klein, and others, to represent what they saw in a fashion -which was sincere and simple if it was also prosy. And when the warlike -times were over it was quite natural that some of the masters who had -learnt their art in camps should turn to the representation of peasant -life, where they were likewise able to find gay, pictorial costumes. -_Wilhelm Kobell_, whose etchings of the life of the Bavarian people are -more valuable than his battle-pieces, was one of the first to make this -transition. In 1820 sturdy _Peter Hess_ painted his "Morning at -Partenkirche," in which he depicted a simple scene of mountain -life--girls at a well in the midst of a sunny landscape--in a homely but -poetic manner. When this breach had been made, Bürkel was able to take -the lead of the Munich painters of rustic subjects. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ HEINRICH BÜRKEL.] - -_Heinrich Bürkel's_ portrait reveals a square-built giant, whose -appearance contrasts strangely with that of his celebrated -contemporaries. The academic artists sweep back their long hair and look -upwards with an inspired glance. Bürkel looks down with a keen eye at -the hard, rough, and stony earth. The academic artists had a mantle--the -mantle of Rauch's statues--picturesquely draped about their shoulders; -Bürkel dressed like anybody else. No attribute is added which could -indicate that he was a painter; neither palette, nor brush, nor picture; -beside him on the table there is--a mug of beer. There he sits without -any sort of pose, with his hand resting on his knee--rough, athletic, -and pugnacious--for all the world as if he were quite conscious of his -peculiarities. Even the photographer's demand for "a pleasant smile" had -no effect upon him. This portrait is itself an explanation of Bürkel's -art. His was a healthy, self-reliant nature, without a trace of romance, -sentimentality, affected humour, or sugary optimism. Amongst all his -Munich contemporaries he was the least academic in his whole manner of -feeling and thinking. - -Sprung from the people, he became their painter. He was born, 29th May -1802, in Pirmasens, where his father combined a small farm with a -public-house and his mother kept a shop; and he had been first a -tradesman's apprentice, and then assistant clerk in a court of justice, -before he came to Munich in 1822. Here the Academy rejected him as -without talent; but while it shut the door against the pupil, life -revealed itself to the master. He went to the Schleissheimer Gallery, -and sat there copying the pictures of Wouwerman, Ostade, Brouwer, and -Berghem, and developed his powers, by the study of these Netherlandish -masters, with extraordinary rapidity. His first works--battles, -skirmishes, and other martial scenes--are amateurish and diffident -attempts; it is evident that he was without any kind of guidance or -direction. All the more astonishing is the swiftness with which he -acquired firm command of abilities, admirable for that age, and the -defiant spirit of independence with which he went straight from pictures -to nature, though hardly yet in possession of the necessary means of -expression. He painted and drew the whole new world which opened itself -before him: far prospects over the landscape, mossy stones in the -sunlight, numbers of cloud-pictures, peasants' houses with their -surroundings, forest paths, mountain tracks, horses, and figures of -every description. The life of men and animals gave him everywhere some -opportunity for depicting it in characteristic situations. And later, -when he had settled down again in Munich, he did not cease from -wandering in the South German mountains with a fresh mind. Up to old age -he made little summer and winter tours in the Bavarian highlands. -Tegernsee, Rottach, Prien, Berchtesgaden, South Tyrol, and Partenkirche -were visited again and again, on excursions for the week or the day; and -he returned from them all with energetic studies, from which were -developed pictures that were not less energetic. - -[Illustration: BÜRKEL. BRIGANDS RETURNING.] - -[Illustration: BÜRKEL. A DOWNPOUR IN THE MOUNTAINS.] - -For, as every artist is the result of two factors, of which one lies in -himself and the other in his age and surroundings, the performances of -Bürkel are to be judged, not only according to the requirements of the -present day, but according to the conditions under which they were -produced. What is weak in him he shares with his contemporaries; what is -novel is his own most peculiar and incontestable merit. In a period of -false idealism worked up in a museum--false idealism which had aped from -the true the way in which one clears one's throat, as Schiller has it, -but nothing more indicative of genius--in a period of this -accomplishment Bürkel preferred to expose his own insufficiency rather -than adorn himself with other people's feathers; at a time which prided -itself on representing with brush and pigment things for which pen and -ink are the better medium, he looked vividly into life; at a time when -all Germany lost itself aimlessly in distant latitudes, he brought to -everything an honest and objective fidelity which knew no trace of -romantic sentimentalism; and by these fresh and realistic qualities he -has become the father of that art which rose in Munich in a later day. -Positive and exact in style, and far too sincere to pretend to raise -himself to the level of the old masters by superficial imitation, he -was the more industrious in penetrating the spirit of nature and showing -his love for everything down to its minutest feature; weak in the -sentiment for colour, he was great in his feeling for nature. That was -Heinrich Bürkel, and his successors had to supplement what was wanting -in him, but not to wage war against his influence. - -[Illustration: BÜRKEL. A SMITHY IN UPPER BAVARIA.] - -The peculiarity of all his works, as of those of the early Dutch and -Flemish artists, is the equal weight which he lays on figures and on -landscape. In his eyes the life of man is part of a greater whole; -animals and their scenic surroundings are studied with the same love, -and in his most felicitous pictures these elements are so blended that -no one feature predominates at the expense of another. Seldom does he -paint interiors, almost always preferring to move in free and open -nature. But here his field is extraordinarily wide. - -Those works in which he handled Italian subjects form a group by -themselves. Bürkel was in Rome from 1829 to 1832, the very years in -which Leopold Robert celebrated his triumphs there; but curious is the -difference between the works of the Munich and those of the Swiss -painter. In the latter are beautiful postures, poetic ideas, and all -the academical formulas; in the former unvarnished, naturalistic -bluntness of expression. Even in Italy he kept romantic and academic art -at a distance. They had no power over the rough, healthy, and sincere -nature of the artist. He saw nothing in Italy that he had not met with -at home, and he painted things as he saw them, honestly and without -beatification. - -To find material Bürkel did not need to go far. Picture to yourself a -man wandering along the banks of the Isar, and gazing about him with a -still and thoughtful look. A healthy peasant lass with a basket, or a -plough moving slowly in the distance behind a sweating yoke of horses, -is quite enough to fill him with feelings and ideas. - -His peculiar domain was the high-road, which in the thirties and the -forties, before the railways had usurped its traffic, was filled with a -much more manifold life than it is to-day. Waggons and mail-carts passed -along before the old gateways; in every village there were taverns -inviting the wayfarer to rest, and blacksmiths sought for custom on the -road. There were vehicles of every description, horses at the forge, -posting-stages, change of teams, the departure of marketing folk, and -passengers taking their seats or alighting. Here horses were being -watered, and an occasion was given for brief dialogues between the -coachman and his fares. There travellers surprised by a shower were -hurrying under their umbrellas into an inn; or, in wintry weather, they -were waiting impatiently, wrapped up in furs, whilst a horse was being -shod. - -[Illustration: CARL SPITZWEG.] - -The beaten tracks through field and forest offered much of the same -sort. Peasants were driving to market with a cart-load of wood. Horses -stood unyoked at a drinking-trough whilst the driver, a muscular fellow -with great sinews, quietly enjoyed his pipe. Along some shadowy woodland -path a team drew near to a forge or a lonely charcoal-burner's hut, -where the light flickered, and over which there soared a bare and snowy -mountain peak. - -Such pictures of snow-clad landscape were a specialty of Bürkel's art, -and in their simplicity and harmony are to be ranked with the best that -he has done. Heavily freighted wood-carts passing through a drift, -waggons brought to a standstill in the snow, raw-boned woodmen -perspiring as they load them in a wintry forest, are the accessory -objects and figures. - -[Illustration: _Albert, Munich._ - - SPITZWEG. AT THE GARRET WINDOW.] - -But life in the fields attracted him also. Having a love of representing -animals, he kept out of the way of mowers, reapers, and gleaners. His -favourite theme is the hay, corn, or potato harvest, which he paints -with much detail and a great display of accessory incidents. Maids and -labourers, old and young, are feverishly active in the construction of -hay-cocks, or, in threatening weather, pile up waggons, loaded as high -as a house, with fresh trusses. - -In this enumeration all the rustic life of Bavaria has been described. -It is only the Sunday and holiday themes, the peculiar motives of the -_genre_ painter, that are wanting. And in itself this is an indication -of what gives Bürkel his peculiar position. - -By their conception his works are out of keeping with everything which -the contemporary generation of "great painters" and the younger _genre_ -painters were attempting. The great painters had their home in museums; -Bürkel lived in the world of nature. The _genre_ painters, under the -influence of Wilkie, were fond of giving their motive a touch of -narrative interest, like the English. Cheerful or mournful news, country -funerals, baptisms, and public dinners offered an excuse for -representing the same sentiment in varying keys. Their starting-point -was that of an illustrator; it might be very pretty in itself, but it -was too jovial or whimpering for a picture. Bürkel's works have no -literary background; they are not composed of stories with a humorous or -sentimental tinge, but depict with an intimate grasp of the subject the -simplest events of life. He neither offered the public lollipops, nor -tried to move them and play upon their sensibilities by subjects which -could be spun out into a novel. He approached his men, his animals, and -his landscapes as a strenuous character painter, without gush, -sentimentality, or romanticism. In contradistinction from all the -younger painters of rustic subjects, he sternly avoided what was -striking, peculiar, or in any way extraordinary, endeavouring to paint -everyday life in the house or the farmyard, in the field or upon the -highway, in all plainness and simplicity. - -At first, indeed, he thought it necessary to satisfy the demands of the -age by, at any rate, painting in a broad and epical manner. The public -collections chiefly possess pictures of his which contain many figures: -"The Return from the Mountain Pasture," "Coming Back from the Bear -Hunt," "The Cattle Show," and "From the Fair"; scenes before an inn at -festivals, or waggoners setting out, and the like. But in these works -the scheme of composition and the multitude of figures have a somewhat -overladen and old-fashioned effect. On the other hand, there are -pictures scattered about in private collections which are of a -simplicity which was unknown at the time: dusty roads with toiling -horses, lonely charcoal burners' huts in the dimness of the forest, -villages in rain or snow, with little figures shivering from frost or -damp as they flit along the street. From the very beginning, free from -the vices of _genre_ and narrative painting and the search after -interesting subjects, he has, in these pictures, renounced the epical -manner of representing a complicated event. Like the moderns, he paints -things which can be grasped and understood at a glance. - -[Illustration: SPITZWEG. A MORNING CONCERT.] - -But, after all, Bürkel occupies a position which is curiously -intermediate. His colour relegates him altogether to the beginning of -the century. He was himself conscious of the weakness of his age in this -respect, and stands considerably above the school of Cornelius, even -where its colouring is best. Yet, in spite of the most diligent study of -the Dutch masters, he remained, as a colourist, hard and inartistic to -the end. Having far too much regard for outline, he is not light enough -with what should be lightly touched, nor fugitive enough with what is -fleeting. What the moderns leave to be indistinctly divined he renders -sharp and palpable in his drawing. He trims and rounds off objects which -have a fleeting form, like clouds. But although inept in technique, his -works are more modern in substance than anything that the next -generation produced. They have an intimacy of feeling beyond the reach -of the traditional _genre_ painting. In his unusually fresh, simple, and -direct studies of landscape he did not snatch at dazzling and -sensational effects, but tried to be just to external nature in her -work-a-day mood; and, in the very same way, in his figures he aimed at -the plain reproduction of what is given in nature. - -The hands of his peasants are the real hands of toil--weather-stained, -heavy, and awkward. There are no movements that are not simple and -actual. Others have told droller stories; Bürkel unrolls a true picture -of the surroundings of the peasant's life. Others have made their -rustics persons suitable for the drawing-room, and cleaned their nails; -Bürkel preaches the strict, austere, and pious study of nature. An -entirely new age casts its shadow upon this close devotion to life. In -their intimacy and simplicity his pictures contain the germ of what -afterwards became the task of the moderns. All who came after him in -Germany were the sons of Wilkie until Wilhelm Leibl, furnished with a -better technical equipment, started in spirit from the point at which -Bürkel had left off. - -_Carl Spitzweg_, in whose charming little pictures tender and discreet -sentiment is united with realistic care for detail, must likewise be -reckoned with the few who strove and laboured in quiet, apart from the -ruling tendency, until their hour came. Thrown entirely on his own -resources, without a teacher, he worked his way upwards under the -influence of the older painters. By dint of copying he discovered their -secrets of colour, and gave his works, which are full of poetry, a -remarkable impress of sympathetic delicacy, suggestive of the old -masters. One turns over the leaves of the album of Spitzweg's sketches -as though it were a story-book from the age of romance, and at the same -time one is astonished at the master's ability in painting. He was a -genius who united in himself three qualities which seem to be -contradictory--realism, fancy, and humour. He might be most readily -compared with Schwind, except that the latter was more of a romanticist -than a realist, and Spitzweg is more of a realist than a romanticist. -The artists' yearning carries Schwind to distant ages and regions far -from the world, and a positive sense of fact holds Spitzweg firmly to -the earth. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - SPITZWEG. THE POSTMAN.] - -Like Jean Paul, he has the boundless fancy which revels in airy dreams, -but he is also like Jean Paul in having a cheery, provincial -satisfaction in the sights of his own narrow world. He has all Schwind's -delight in hermits and anchorites, and witches and magic and nixies, and -he plays with dragons and goblins like Boecklin; but, for all that, he -is at home and entirely at his ease in the society of honest little -schoolmasters and poor sempstresses, and gives shape to his own small -joys and sorrows in a spirit of contemplation. His dragons are only -comfortable, Philistine dragons, and his troglodytes, who chastise -themselves in rocky solitudes, perform their penance with a kindly -irony. In Spitzweg a fine humour is the causeway between fancy and -reality. His tender little pictures represent the Germany of the -forties, and lie apart from the rushing life of our time, like an -idyllic hamlet slumbering in Sunday quietude. Indeed, his pictures come -to us like a greeting from a time long past. - -There they are: his poor poet, a little, lean old man, with a sharp nose -and a night-cap, sits at his garret window scanning verses on his frozen -fingers, enveloped in a blanket drawn up to his chin, and protected from -the inclemency of the weather by a great red umbrella; his clerk, grown -grey in the dust of parchments, sharpens his quill with dim-sighted -eyes, and feels himself part of a bureaucracy which rules the world; his -book-worm stands on the highest ladder in the library, with books in his -hand, books in his pockets, books under his arms, and books jammed -between his legs, and neglects the dinner-hour in his peaceful -enjoyment, until an angry torrent of scolding is poured over his devoted -head by the housekeeper; there is his old gentleman devoutly sniffing -the perfume of a cactus blossom which has been looked forward to for -years; there is his little man enticing his bird with a lump of sugar; -the widower glancing aside from the miniature of his better half at a -pair of pretty maidens walking in the park; the constable whiling away -the time at the town-gate in catching flies; the old-fashioned bachelor, -solemnly presenting a bouquet to a kitchen-maid who is busied at the -market-well, to the amusement of all the gossips watching him from the -windows; the lovers who in happy oblivion pass down a narrow street by -the stall of a second-hand dealer, where amidst antiquated household -goods a gilded statuette of Venus reposes in a rickety cradle; the -children holding up their pinafores as they beg the stork flying by to -bring them a little brother. - -Spitzweg, like Jean Paul, makes an effect which is at once joyous and -tender, _bourgeois_ and idyllic. The postillion gives the signal on his -horn that the moment for starting has arrived; milk-maids look down from -the green mountain summit into the far country; hermits sit before their -cells forgotten by the world; old friends greet each other after years -of separation; Dachau girls in their holiday best pray in woodland -chapels; school children pass singing through a still mountain valley; -maidens chatter of an evening as they fetch water from the moss-grown -well, or the arrival of the postman in his yellow uniform brings to -their windows the entire population of an old country town. - -The little man with the miserable figure of a tailor had been an -apothecary until he was thirty years of age, but he had an independent -and distinctive artistic nature which impresses itself on the memory in -a way that is unforgettable. It is only necessary to see his portrait as -he sits at his easel in his dressing-gown with his meagre beard, his -long nose, and the droll look about the corners of his eyes, to feel -attracted by him before one knows his works. Spitzweg reveals in them -his own life: the man and the painter are one in him. There is a pretty -little picture of him as an elderly bachelor, looking out of the window -in the early morning and nodding across the roofs to an old sempstress -who had worked the whole night through without noticing that the day had -broken; that is the world he lived in, and the world which he has -painted. As a kind-hearted, inflexible Benedick, full of droll -eccentricities, he lived in the oldest quarter of Munich in a -fourth-storey attic. His only visitor was his friend Moritz Schwind, who -now and then climbed the staircase to the little room that looked over -the roofs and gables and pinnacles to distant, smoky towers. His studio -was an untidy confusion of prosaic discomfort and poetic cosiness. - -[Illustration: KAUFFMANN. WOODCUTTERS RETURNING.] - -Here he sat, an ossified hermit, _bourgeois_, and book-worm, as if he -were in a spider's nest, and here at a little window he painted his -delightful pictures. Here he took his homely meal at the rickety little -table where he sat alone in the evening buried in his books. A pair of -heavy silver spectacles with keen glasses sparkled on his thick nose, -and the great head with its ironically twinkling eyes rested upon a huge -cravat attached to a pointed stand-up collar. When disturbed by -strangers he spoke slowly and with embarrassment, though in the society -of Schwind he was brilliant and satirical. Then he became as mobile as -quicksilver, and paced up and down the studio with great strides, -gesticulating and sometimes going through a dramatic performance in -vivid mimicry of those of whom he happened to be talking. - -His character has the same mixture of Philistine contentment and genial -comedy which gleams from his works with the freshness of dew. A touch of -the sturdy Philistinism of Eichendorf is in these provincial idylls of -Germany; but at the same time they display an ability which even at the -present day must compel respect. The whole of Romanticism chirps and -twitters in the Spitzweg Album, as from behind the wires of a birdcage. -Everything is here united: the fragrance of the woods and the song of -birds, the pleasures of travelling and the sleepy life of provincial -towns, moonshine and Sunday quiet, vagabonds, roving musicians, and the -guardians of law, learned professors and students singing catches, -burgomasters and town-councillors, long-haired painters and strolling -players, red dressing-gowns, green slippers, night-caps, and pipes with -long stems, serenades and watchmen, rushing streams and the trill of -nightingales, rippling summer breezes and comely lasses, stroking back -their hair of a morning, and looking down from projecting windows to -greet the passers-by. In common with Schwind he shows a remarkable -capacity for placing his figures in their right surroundings. All these -squares, alleys, and corners, in which his provincial pictures are -framed, seem--minutely and faithfully executed as they are--to be -localities predestined for the action, though they are painted freely -from memory. Just as he forgot none of the characteristic figures which -he had seen in his youth, so he held in his memory the whimsical and -marvellous architecture of the country towns of Swabia and Upper Bavaria -which he had visited for his studies, with such a firm grip that it was -always at his command; and he used it as a setting for his figures as a -musician composes an harmonious accompaniment for a melody. - -[Illustration: KAUFFMANN. A SANDY ROAD.] - -[Illustration: KAUFFMANN. RETURNING FROM THE FIELDS.] - -To look at his pictures is like wandering on a bright Sunday morning -through the gardens and crooked, uneven alleys of an old German town. At -the same time one feels that Spitzweg belonged to the present and not -to the period of the ingenuous Philistines. It was only after he had -studied at the university and passed his pharmaceutical examination that -he turned to painting. Nevertheless he succeeded in acquiring a -sensitiveness to colour to which nothing in the period can be compared. -He worked through Burnett's _Treatise on Painting_, visited Italy, and -in 1851 made a tour, for the sake of study, to Paris, London, and -Antwerp, in company with Eduard Schleich. In the gallery of -Pommersfelden he made masterly copies from Berghem, Gonzales Coquez, -Ostade, and Poelenburg, and lived to see the appearance of Piloty. But -much as he profited by the principles of colour which then became -dominant, he is like none of his contemporaries, and stands as far from -Piloty's brown sauce as from the frigid hardness of the old _genre_ -painters. He was one of the first in Germany to feel the really sensuous -joy of painting, and to mix soft, luxuriant, melting colours. There are -landscapes of his which, in their charming freshness, border directly on -the school of Fontainebleau. Spitzweg has painted bright green meadows -in which, as in the pictures of Daubigny, the little red figures of -peasant women appear as bright and luminous patches of colour. His -woodland glades penetrated by the sun have a pungent piquancy of colour -such as is only to be found elsewhere in Diaz. And where he diversified -his desolate mountain glens and steeply rising cliffs with the fantastic -lairs of dragons and with eccentric anchorites, he sometimes produced -such bold colour symphonies of sapphire blue, emerald green, and red, -that his pictures seem like anticipations of Boecklin. Spitzweg was a -painter for connoisseurs. His refined cabinet pieces are amongst the -few German productions of their time which it is a delight to possess, -and they have the savour of rare delicacies when one comes across them -in the dismal wilderness of public galleries. - -Bürkel's realistic programme was taken up with even greater energy by -_Hermann Kauffmann_, who belonged to the Munich circle from 1827 to -1833, and then painted until his death in 1888 in his native Hamburg. -His province was for the most part that of Bürkel: peasants in the -field, waggoners on the road, woodmen at their labour, and hunters in -the snowy forest. For the first few years after his return home he used -for his pictures the well-remembered motives taken from the South German -mountain district. A tour in Norway, undertaken in 1843, gave him the -impulse for a series of Norwegian landscapes which were simple and -direct, and of more than common freshness. In the deanery at Holstein he -studied the life of fishers. Otherwise the neighbourhood of Hamburg is -almost always the background of his pictures: Harburg, Kellinghusen, -Wandsbeck, and the Alster Valley. Concerning him Lichtwark is right in -insisting upon the correctness of intuition, the innate soundness of -perception which one meets with in all his works. - -[Illustration: FRIEDRICH EDUARD MEYERHEIM.] - -In Berlin the excellent _Eduard Meyerheim_ went on parallel lines with -these masters. An old tradition gives him the credit of having -introduced the painting of peasants and children into German art. But in -artistic power he is not to be compared with Bürkel or Kauffmann. They -were energetic realists, teeming with health, and in everything they -drew they were merely inspired by the earnest purpose of grasping life -in its characteristic moments. But Meyerheim, good-humoured and -childlike, is decidedly inclined to a sentimentally pathetic compromise -with reality. At the same time his importance for Berlin is -incontestable. Hitherto gipsies, smugglers, and robbers were the only -classes of human society, with the exception of knights, monks, noble -ladies, and Italian women, which, upon the banks of the Spree, were -thought suitable for artistic representation. Friedrich Eduard -Meyerheim sought out the rustic before literature had taken this step, -and in 1836 he began with his "King of the Shooting Match," a series of -modest pictures in which he was never weary of representing in an honest -and sound-hearted way the little festivals of the peasant, the happiness -of parents, and the games of children. - -He had grown up in Dantzic, and played as a child in the tortuous lanes -of the old free imperial city, amid trumpery shops, general dealers, and -artisans. Later, when he settled down in Berlin, he painted the things -which had delighted him in his youth. The travels which he made for -study were not extensive: they hardly led him farther beyond the -boundaries of the Mark than Hesse, the Harz district, Thüringen, -Altenburg, and Westphalia. Here he drew with indefatigable diligence the -pleasant village houses and the churches shadowed by trees; the cots, -yards, and alleys; the weather-beaten town ramparts, with their -crumbling walls; the unobtrusive landscapes of North Germany, lovely -valleys, bushy hills, and bleaching fields, traversed by quiet streams -fringed with willows, and enlivened by the figures of peasants, who -still clung to so much of their old costume. His pictures certainly do -not give an idea of the life of the German people at the time. For the -peasantry have sat to Meyerheim only in their most pious mood, in Sunday -toilette, and with their souls washed clean. Clearness, neatness, and -prettiness are to be found everywhere in his pictures. But little as -they correspond to the truth, they are just as little untrue through -affectation, for their idealism sprang from the harmless and cheerful -temperament of the painter, and from no convention of the schools. - -[Illustration: MEYERHEIM. CHILDREN AT PLAY.] - -A homely, idyllic poetry is to be found in his figures and his -interiors. His women and girls are chaste and gracious. It is evident -that Meyerheim had a warm sympathy for the sorrows and joys of humble -people; that he had an understanding for this happy family life, and -liked himself to take part in these merry popular festivals; that he did -not idealise the world according to rules of beauty, but because in his -own eyes it really was so beautiful. His "King of the Shooting Match" -of 1836 (Berlin National Gallery) has as a background a wide and -pleasant landscape, with blue heights in the distance and the cheerful -summer sunshine resting upon them. In the foreground are a crowd of -figures, neatly composed after studies. The crowned king of the match, -adorned for a festival, stands proudly on the road by which the -procession of marksmen is advancing, accompanied by village music. An -old peasant is congratulating him, and the pretty village girls and -peasant women, in their gay rustic costumes, titter as they look on, -while the neighbours are merrily drinking his health. Then there is the -"Morning Lesson," representing a carpenter's house, where an old man is -hearing his grandson repeat a school task; "Children at Play," a picture -of a game of hide-and-seek amongst the trees; "The Knitting Lesson," and -the picture of a young wife by the bed of a naked boy who has thrown off -the bedclothes and is holding up one of his rosy feet; and "The Road to -Church," where the market-place is shadowed with lime trees and the -fresh young girlish figures adorned in their Sunday best. These are all -pictures which in lithograph and copperplate engraving once flooded all -Germany and enraptured the public at exhibitions. - -[Illustration: MEYERHEIM. THE KING OF THE SHOOTING MATCH.] - -But the German _genre_ picture of peasant life only became universally -popular after the village novel came into vogue at the end of the -thirties. Walter Scott was not only a Romanticist, but the founder of -the peasant novel: he was the first to study the life and the human -character of the peasantry of his native land, their rough and healthy -merriment, their humorous peculiarities, and their hot-headed love of -quarrelling; and he led the Romanticists from their idyllic or sombre -world of dreams nearer to the reality and its poetry. A generation later -Immermann created this department of literature in Germany by the -Oberhof-Episode of his _Münchhausen_. "The Village Magistrate" was soon -one of those typical figures which in literature became the model of a -hundred others. In 1837 Jeremias Gotthelf began in his _Bauernspiegel_ -those descriptions of Bernese rustic life which found general favour -through their downright common sense. Berthold Auerbach, Otto Ludwig, -and Gottfried Keller were then active, and Fritz Reuter lit upon a more -clear-cut form for his tales in dialect. - -[Illustration: MEYERHEIM. THE MORNING HOUR.] - -The influence which these writers had upon painting was enormous. It now -turned everywhere to the life of the people, and took its joy and -pleasure in devoting itself to reality. And the rustic was soon a -popular figure much sought after in the picture market. Yet this -reliance on poetry and fiction had its disadvantage. For in Germany, -also, a vogue was given to that "_genre_ painting" which, instead of -starting with a simple, straightforward representation of what the -artist had seen, offered an artistically correct composition of what he -had invented, and indulged in a rambling display of humorous narrative -and pathetic pieces. - -In Carlsruhe _Johann Kirner_ was the first to work on these lines, -adapting the life of the Swabian peasantry to the purposes of humorous -anecdote. In Munich _Carl Enhuber_ was especially fertile in the -invention of comic episodes amongst the rustics of the Bavarian -highlands, and his ponderous humour made him one of the favourite heroes -of the Art Union. Every one was in raptures over his "Partenkirche -Fair," over the charlatan in front of the village inn, who (like a -figure after Gerhard Dow) is bringing home to the multitude by his -lofty eloquence the fabulous qualities of his soap for removing spots; -over that assembly of peasants which gave the painter an opportunity for -making clearly recognisable people to be found everywhere in any little -town, from the judge of the county court and the local doctor down to -the watchmen. His second hit was "The Interrupted Card Party": the -blacksmith, the miller, the tailor, and other dignitaries of the village -are so painfully disturbed in their social reunion by the unamiable wife -of the tailor that her happy spouse makes his escape under the table. -The house servant holds out his blue apron to protect his master, whilst -the miller and the blacksmith try to look unconcerned; but a small boy -who has accompanied his mother with a mug discovers the concealed sinner -by his slipper, which has come off. The "Session Day" contains a still -greater wealth of comical types: here is the yard of a country assize -court, filled with people, some of them waiting their turn, some issuing -in contentment or dejection. Most contented, of course, are a bridal -pair from the mountains--a stout peasant lad and a buxom maiden--who -have just received official consent to their marriage. Disastrous -country excursions--townspeople overtaken by rain on their arrival in -the mountains--were also a source of highly comical situations. - -[Illustration: MEYERHEIM. THE KNITTING LESSON.] - -In Düsseldorf the reaction against the prevailing sentimentality -necessarily gave an impulse to art on these humorous lines. When it -seemed as if the mournfulness of the thirties would never be ended, -_Adolf Schroedter_, the satirist of the band of Düsseldorf artists in -those times, broke the spell when he began to parody the works of the -"great painters." When Lessing painted "The Sorrowing Royal Pair," -Schroedter painted "The Triumphal Procession of King Bacchus"; when -Hermann Stilke produced his knights and crusaders, Schroedter -illustrated _Don Quixote_ as a warning; and when Bendemann gave the -world "The Lamentation of Jeremiah" and "The Lamentation of the Jews," -Schroedter executed his droll picture "The Sorrowful Tanners," in which -the tanners are mournfully regarding a hide carried away by the stream. -Since he was a humorist, and humour is rather an affair for drawing than -painting, the charming lithographs, "The Deeds and Opinions of Piepmeyer -the Delegate," published in conjunction with Detmold, the Hanoverian -barrister, and author of the _Guide to Connoisseurship_, are perhaps to -be reckoned as his best performances. _Hasenclever_ followed the -dilettante Schroedter as a delineator of the "stolid Peter" type, and -painted the "Study" and similar pictures for Kortum's _Jobsiade_ with -great technical skill, and, at the same time, with little humour and -much complacency. By the roundabout route of illustration artists were -gradually brought more directly into touch with life, and painted side -by side with melodramatic brigands, rustic folk, or a student at a -tavern on the Rhine, absurd people reading the newspapers, comic men -sneezing, or the smirking Philistine tasting wine. - -[Illustration: KIRNER. THE FORTUNE TELLER.] - -[Illustration: ENHUBER. THE PENSIONER AND HIS GRANDSON.] - -[Illustration: JACOB BECKER. A TEMPEST.] - -_Jacob Becker_ went to the Westerwald to sketch little village -tragedies, and won such popularity with his "Shepherd Struck by -Lightning" that for a long time the interest of the public was often -concentrated on this picture in the collection of the Staedel Institute. -_Rudolf Jordan_ of Berlin settled on Heligoland, and became by his -"Proposal of Marriage in Heligoland" one of the most esteemed painters -of Düsseldorf. And in 1852 _Henry Ritter_, his pupil, who died young, -enjoyed a like success with his "Middy's Sermon," which represents a -tiny midshipman with comical zeal endeavouring to convert to temperance -three tars who are staggering against him. A Norwegian, _Adolf -Tidemand_, became the Leopold Robert of the North, and, like Robert, -attained an international success when, after 1845, he began to present -his compatriots, the peasants, fishers, and sailors of the shores of the -North Sea, to the public of Europe. There was no doubt that a true -ethnographical course of instruction in the life of a distant race, as -yet unknown to the rest of Europe, was to be gathered from his pictures, -as from those of Robert, or from the Oriental representations of Vernet. -In Tidemand's pictures the Germans learnt the Norwegian usage of -Christmas, accompanied the son of the North on his fishing of a night, -joined the bridal party on the Hardanger Fjord, or listened to the -sexton giving religious instruction; sailed with fishing girls in a -skiff to visit the neighbouring village, or beheld grandmother and the -children dance on Sunday afternoon to father's fiddle. Norwegian peasant -life was such an unknown world of romance, and the costume so novel, -that Tidemand's art was greeted as a new discovery. That the truth of -his pictures went no further than costume was only known at a later -time. Tidemand saw his native land with the eyes of a Romanticist, as -Robert saw Italy, and, in the same one-sided way, he only visited the -people on festive occasions. Though a born Norwegian, he, too, was a -foreigner, a man who was never familiar with the life of his country -people, who never lived at home through the raw autumn and the long -winter, but came only as a summer visitor, when nature had donned her -bridal garb, and naturally took away with him the mere impressions of a -tourist. As he only went to Norway for recreation, it is always -holiday-tide and Sabbath peace in his pictures. He represents the same -idyllic optimism and the same kindly view of "the people" as did -Björnson in his earliest works; and it is significant that the latter -felt himself at the time so entirely in sympathy with Tidemand that he -wrote one of his tales, _The Bridal March_, as text to Tidemand's -picture "Adorning the Bride." - -To seek the intimate poetry in the monotonous life of the peasant, and -to go with him into the struggle for existence, was what did not lie in -Tidemand's method of presentation; he did not live amongst the people -sufficiently long to penetrate to their depths. The sketches that -resulted from his summer journeys often reveal a keen eye for the -picturesque, as well as for the spiritual life of this peasantry; but -later in Düsseldorf, when he composed his studies for pictures with the -help of German models, all the sharp characterisation was watered down. -What ought to have been said in Norwegian was expressed in a German -translation, where the emphasis was lost. His art is Düsseldorf art with -Norwegian landscapes and costumes; a course of lectures on the manners -and customs of Norwegian villages composed for Germans. The only thing -which distinguishes Tidemand to his advantage from the German -Düsseldorfers is that he is less humorously and sentimentally disposed. -Pictures of his, such as "The Lonely Old People," "The Catechism," "The -Wounded Bear Hunter," "The Grandfather's Blessing," "The Sectarians," -etc., create a really pleasant and healthy effect by a certain actual -simplicity which they undoubtedly have. Other men would have made a -melodrama out of "The Emigrant's Departure" (National Gallery in -Christiania). Tidemand portrays the event without any sort of emphasis, -and feels his way with tact on the boundary between sentiment and -sentimentality. There is nothing false or hysterical in the behaviour of -the man who is going away for life, nor in those who have come to see -him off. - -In Vienna the _genre_ painters seem to owe their inspiration especially -to the theatre. What was produced there in the province of grand art -during the first half of the century was neither better nor worse than -elsewhere. The Classicism of Mengs and David was represented by -_Heinrich Füger_, who had a more decided leaning towards the operatic. -The representative-in-chief of Nazarenism was _Josef Führich_, whose -frescoes in the Altlerchenfeld Church are, perhaps, better in point of -colour than the corresponding efforts of the Munich artists, though they -are likewise in a formal way derivative from the Italians. Vienna had -its Wilhelm Kaulbach in _Carl Rahl_, its Piloty in _Christian Ruben_, -who, like the Munich artist, had a preference for painting Columbus, and -was meritorious as a teacher. It was only through portrait painting -that Classicism and Romanticism were brought into some sort of relation -with life; and the Vienna portraitists of this older régime are even -better than their German contemporaries, as they made fewer concessions -to the ruling idealism. Amongst the portrait painters was _Lampi_, after -whom followed _Moritz Daffinger_ with his delicate miniatures; but the -most important of them all was _Friedrich Amerling_, who had studied -under Lawrence in London and under Horace Vernet in Paris, and brought -back with him great acquisitions in the science of colour. In the first -half of the century these assured him a decided advantage over his -German colleagues. It was only later, when he was sought after as the -fashionable painter of all the crowned heads, that his art degenerated -into mawkishness. - -[Illustration: TIDEMAND. THE SECTARIANS.] - -_Genre_ painting was developed here as elsewhere from the military -picture. As early as 1813 _Peter Krafft_, an academician of the school -of David, had exhibited a great oil-painting, "The Soldier's -Farewell"--the interior of a village room with a group of life-size -figures. The son of the family, in grey uniform, with a musket in his -hand, is tearing himself from his young wife, who has a baby on her arm -and is trying in tears to hold him back. His old father sits in a corner -with folded hands beside his mother, who is also crying, and has hid her -face. In 1820 Krafft added "The Soldier's Return" as a pendant to this -picture. It represents the changes which have taken place in the family -during the warrior's absence: his old mother is at rest in her grave; -his grey-headed father has become visibly older, his little sister has -grown up, and the baby in arms is carrying the musket after his father. -They are both exceedingly tiresome pictures; the colour is cold and -grey, the figures are pseudo-classical in modern costume, and the pathos -of the subject seems artificial and forced. Nevertheless a new principle -of art is declared in them. Krafft was the first in Austria to recognise -what a rich province had been hitherto ignored by painting. He warned -his pupils against the themes of the Romanticists. These, as he said, -were worked out, since no one would do anything better than the "Last -Supper of Leonardo da Vinci or the Madonnas of Raphael." And he warmly -advocated the conviction "that nothing could be done for historical -painting so long as it refused to choose subjects from modern life." -Krafft was an admirable teacher with a sober and clear understanding, -and he invariably directed his pupils to the immediate study of life and -nature. The consequence of his career was that _Carl Schindler_, -_Friedrich Treml_, _Fritz L'Allemand_, and others set themselves to -treat in episodic pictures the military life of Austria, from the -recruiting stage to the battle, and from the soldier's farewell to his -return to his father's house. A further result was that the Viennese -_genre_ painting parted company with the academical and historic art. - -Just at this time Tschischka and Schottky began to collect the popular -songs of the Viennese. Castelli gave a poetic representation of -_bourgeois_ life, and Ferdinand Raimund brought it upon the stage in his -dramas. Bauernfeld's types from the life of the people enjoyed a rapid -popularity. Josef Danhauser, Peter Fendi, and Ferdinand Waldmüller went -on parallel lines with these authors. In their _genre_ pictures they -represented the Austrian people in their joys and sorrows, in their -merriment and heartiness and good-humour; the people, be it understood, -of Raimund's popular farces, not those of the pavement of Vienna. - -_Josef Danhauser_, the son of a Viennese carpenter, occupied himself -with the artisan and _bourgeois_ classes. David Wilkie gave him the form -for his work and Ferdinand Raimund his ideas. His studio scenes, with -boisterous art students caught by their surly teacher at the moment when -they are playing their worst pranks, gave pleasure to the class of -people who, at a later date, took so much delight in Emanuel Spitzer. -His "Gormandizer" is a counterpart to Raimund's _Verschwender_; and -when, in a companion picture, the gluttonous liver is supping up the -"monastery broth" amongst beggars, and his former valet remains true to -him even in misfortune, Grillparzer's _Treuer Diener seines Herrn_ -serves as a model for this type. Girls confessing their frailty to their -parents had been previously painted by Greuze. Amongst those of his -pictures which had done most to amuse the public was the representation -of the havoc caused by a butcher's dog storming into a studio. In his -last period he turned with Collins to the nursery, or wandered through -the suburbs with a sketch-book, immortalising the doings of children in -the streets, and drawing "character heads" of the school-teacher tavern -_habitués_ and the lottery adventurer. - -[Illustration: TIDEMAND. ADORNING THE BRIDE.] - -And this was likewise the province to which _Waldmüller_ devoted -himself. Chubby peasant children are the heroes of almost all his -pictures. A baby is sprawling with joy on its mother's lap, while it is -contemplated with proud satisfaction by its father, or it is sleeping -under the guardianship of a little sister; a boy is despatched upon the -rough path which leads to school, and brings the reward of his conduct -home with rapturous or dejected mien, or he stammers "Many happy returns -of the day" to grandpapa. Waldmüller paints "The First Step," the joys -of "Christmas Presents," and "The Distribution of Prizes to Poor School -Children"; he follows eager juveniles to the peep-show; he is to be met -at "The Departure of the Bride" and at "The Wedding"; he is our guide to -the simple "Peasant's Room," and shows the benefit of "Almsgiving." -Though his pictures may seem old-fashioned in subject nowadays, their -artistic qualities convey an entirely modern impression. Born in 1793, -he anticipated the best artists of later days in his choice of material. -Both in his portraits and in his country scenes there is a freshness -and transparency of tone which was something rare among the painters of -that time. - -[Illustration: PETER KRAFFT. THE SOLDIER'S RETURN.] - -_Friedrich Gauermann_ wandered in the Austrian Alps, in Steiermark, and -Salzkammergut, making studies of nature, the inhabitants, and the animal -world. In contradistinction from Waldmüller, painter of idylls, and the -humorist Danhauser, he aimed above all at ethnographical exactness. With -sincere and unadorned observation Gauermann represents the local -peculiarities of the peasantry, differentiated according to their -peculiar valleys; life on the pasture and at the market, when some -ceremonial occasion--a shooting match, a Sunday observance, or a church -consecration--has gathered together the scattered inhabitants. - -_Genre_ painting in other countries worked with the same types. The -costume was different, but the substance of the pictures was the same. - -In Belgium Leys had already worked in the direction of painting everyday -life; for although he had painted figures from the sixteenth century, -they were not idealised, but as rough and homely as in reality. When the -passion for truthfulness increased, as it did in the following years, -there came a moment when the old German tradition, under the shelter of -which Leys yet took refuge, was shaken off, and artists went directly to -nature without seeking the mediation of antiquated style. At that time -Belgium was one of the most rising and thriving countries in Europe. It -had private collections by the hundred. Wealthy merchants rivalled one -another in the pride of owning works by their celebrated painters. This -necessarily exerted an influence on production. Pretty _genre_ pictures -of peasant life soon became the most popular wares; as for their -artistic sanction, it was possible to point to Brouwer and Teniers, the -great national exemplars. - -At first, then, the painters worked with the same elements as Teniers. -The common themes of their pictures were the ale-house with its thatched -roof, the old musician with his violin, the mountebank standing in the -midst of a circle of people, lovers, or drinkers brawling. Only the -costume was changed, and everything coarse, indecorous, or unrestrained -was scrupulously excluded _ad usum Delphini_. That the deep colouring of -the old masters became meagre and motley was in Belgium also an -inevitable result of the helplessness in regard to colour which had been -brought on by Classicism. The pictorial _furia_ of Adriaen Brouwer gave -way to a polished porcelain painting which hardly bore a trace of the -work of the hand. Harsh and gaudy reds and greens were especially -popular. - -[Illustration: WALDMÜLLER. THE FIRST STEP.] - -The first who began a modest career on these lines was _Ignatius van -Regemorter_. As one recognises the pictures of Wouwerman by the -dappled-grey horse, Regemorter's may be recognised by the violin. Every -year he turned out one picture at least in which music was being played, -and people were dancing with a rather forced gaiety. Then came -_Ferdinand de Braekeleer_, who painted the jubilees of old people, or -children and old women amusing themselves at public festivities. Teniers -was his principal model, but his large joviality was transformed into a -chastened merriment, and his broad laughter into a discreet smile. -Braekeleer's peasantry and proletariat are of an idyllic mildness; -honest, pious souls who, with all their poverty, are as moral as they -are happy. _Henri Coene_ elaborated such themes as "Oh, what beautiful -Grapes!" or "A Pinch of Snuff for the Parson!" - -[Illustration: MADOU. IN THE ALE-HOUSE.] - -Madou's merit lies in having extended Belgian _genre_ painting somewhat -beyond these narrow bounds; he introduced a greater variety of types -verging more on reality than that everlasting honest man painted by -Ferdinand de Braekeleer. _Madou_ was a native of Brussels. There he was -born in 1796, and he died there in 1877. When he began his career -Wappers had just made his appearance. Madou witnessed his successes, but -did not feel tempted to follow him. Whilst the latter in his large -pictures in the grand style aimed at being Rubens _redivivus_, Madou -embodied his ideas in fleeting pencil sketches. A great number of -lithographs of scenes from the past bore witness to his conception of -history. There was nothing in them that was dignified, nothing that was -stilted, no idealism and no beauty; in their tabards and helmets the -figures moved with the natural gestures of ordinary human beings. By the -side of great seigneurs, princes, and knights, and amid helmets and -hose, drunken scoundrels, tavern politicians, and village cretins -started into view, and grimaced and danced and scuffled. In Belgium his -plates occupy a position similar to that of the first lithographs of -Menzel in Germany. But Madou lingered for a still briefer period in the -Pantheon of history; the tavern had for him a yet greater attraction. -The humorous books which he published in Paris and Brussels first showed -him in his true light. Having busied himself for several years -exclusively with drawings, he made his _début_ in 1842 as a painter. It -is difficult to decide how much Madou produced after that date. The long -period between 1842 and 1877 yields a crowded chronicle of his works. -Even in the seventies he was just as vigorous as at the beginning, and -though he was regarded as a jester during his lifetime he was honoured -as a great painter after his death. At the auction of his unsold works, -pictures fetched 22,000 francs, sketches reached 3200, water-colours -2150, and drawings 750. The present generation has reduced this -over-estimation to its right measure, but it has not shaken Madou's -historical importance. He has a firm position as the man who conquered -modern life in the interests of Belgian art, and he is the more -significant for the _genre_ painting of his age, as he eclipsed all his -contemporaries, even in Germany and England, in the inexhaustible fund -of his invention. - -[Illustration: MADOU. THE DRUNKARD.] - -A merry world is reflected in his pictures. One of his most popular -figures is the ranger, a sly old fox with a furrowed, rubicund visage -and huge ears, who roves about more to the terror of love-making couples -than of poachers, and never aims at any one except for fun at the rural -justice, a portly gentleman in a gaudy waistcoat, emerging quietly at -the far end of the road. He introduces a varied succession of braggarts, -poor fellows, down-at-heel and out-at-elbows, old grenadiers joking with -servant girls, old marquesses taking snuff with affected dignity, -charlatans at their booth, deaf and dumb flute-players, performing dogs, -and boys sick over their first pipe. Here and there are fatuous or -over-wise politicians solemnly opening a newly printed paper, with their -legs astraddle and their spectacles resting on their noses. Rascals with -huge paunches and blue noses fall asleep on their table in the -ale-house, and enliven the rest of the company by their snoring. At -times the door is opened and a scolding woman appears with a broom in -her hand. On these occasions the countenance of the toper is a comical -sight. At the sound of the beloved voice he endeavours to raise -himself, and anxiously follows the movements of his better half as he -clings reeling to the table, or plants himself more firmly in his chair -with a resigned and courageous "_J'y suis, j'y reste_." - -Being less disposed to appear humorous, _Adolf Dillens_ makes a more -sympathetic impression. He, too, had begun with forced anecdotes, but -after a tour to Zealand opened his eyes to nature; he laid burlesque on -one side, and depicted what he had seen in unhackneyed pictures: sound -and healthy men of patriarchal habits. Even his method of painting -became simpler and more natural; his colouring, hitherto borrowed from -the old masters, became fresher and brighter. He emancipated himself -from Rembrandt's _chiaroscuro_, and began to look at nature without -spectacles. There is something poetic in his method of observation: he -really loved these good people and painted them in the unadorned -simplicity of their life--cheery old age that knows no wrinkles and -laughing youth that knows no sorrows. He is indeed one-sided, for a good -fairy has banished all trouble from his happy world; but his pictures -are the product of a fresh and amiable temperament. His usual themes are -a friendly gathering at the ale-house, a conversation beneath the porch, -skating, scenes in cobblers' workshops, a gust of wind blowing an -umbrella inside out; and if he embellishes them with little episodic -details, this tendency is so innocent that nobody can quarrel with him. - -In France it was _François Biard_, the Paul de Kock of French painting, -who attained most success in the thirties by humorous anecdote. He -devoted his whole life to the comical representation of the minor -trespasses and misfortunes of the commonplace _bourgeoisie_. He had the -secret of displaying his comicalities with great aptitude, and of -mocking at the ridiculous eccentricities of the Philistine in an obvious -and downright fashion. Strolling players made fools of themselves at -their toilette; lads were bathing whilst a gendarme carried off their -clothes; a sentry saluted a decorated veteran, whose wife gratefully -acknowledged the attention with a curtsey; the village grandee held a -review of volunteers with the most pompous gravity; a child was -exhibited at the piano to the admiration of its yawning relatives. One -of his chief pictures was called "Posada Espagnol." The hero was a monk -winking at a beauty of forty who was passing by while he was being -shaved. Women were sitting and standing about, when a herd of swine -dashing in threw everything over and put the ladies to flight, and so -called forth one of those comic effects of terror in which Paul de Kock -took such delight. - -Biard was inexhaustible in these expedients for provoking laughter; and -as he had travelled far he had always in reserve a slave-market, a -primeval forest, or an ice-field to appease the curiosity of his -admirers when there was nothing more to laugh at. From the German -standpoint he had importance as an artist whose flow of ideas would have -furnished ten _genre_ painters; and if he is the only representative of -the humorously anecdotic picture in France, the reason is that there -earlier than elsewhere art was led into a more earnest course by the -tumult of ideas on social politics. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -THE PICTURE WITH A SOCIAL PURPOSE - - -That modern life first entered art, in all countries, under the form of -humorous anecdote is partly the consequence of the one-sided æsthetic -ideas of the period. In an age that was dominated by idealism it was -forgotten that Murillo had painted lame beggars sitting in the sun, -Velasquez cripples and drunkards, and Holbein lepers; that Rembrandt had -so much love for humble folk, and that old Breughel with a strangely -sombre pessimism turned the whole world into a terrible hospital. The -modern man was hideous, and art demanded "absolute beauty." If he was to -be introduced into painting, despite his want of _beauté suprême_, the -only way was to treat him as a humorous figure which had to be handled -ironically. Mercantile considerations were also a power in determining -this form of humour. At a time when painting was forced to address -itself to a public which was uneducated in art, and could only -appreciate anecdotes, such comicalities had the best prospect of favour -and a rapid sale. The object was to provoke laughter, at all hazards, by -drollness of mien, typical stupidity, and absurdity of situation. The -choice of figures was practically made according as they were more or -less serviceable for a humorous purpose. Children, rustics, and -provincial Philistines seemed to be most adapted to it. The painter -treated them as strange and naïve beings, and brought them before the -public as a sort of performing dogs, who could go through remarkable -tricks just as if they were human beings. And the public laughed over -whimsical oddities from another world, as the courtiers of Louis XIV had -laughed in Versailles when M. Jourdain and M. Dimanche were acted by the -king's servants upon the stage of Molière. - -Meanwhile painters gradually came to remark that this humour _à l'huile_ -was bought at too dear a price. For humour, which is like a soap-bubble, -can only bear a light method of representation, such as Hokusai's -drawing or Brouwer's painting, but becomes insupportable where it is -offered as a laborious composition executed with painstaking realism. -And ethical reasons made themselves felt independently of these artistic -considerations. - -The drollness of these pictures did not spring from the characters, but -from an effort to amuse the public at the expense of the painted -figures. As a general rule a peasant is a serious, square-built, angular -fellow. For his existence he does battle with the soil; his life is no -pleasure to him, but hard toil. But in these pictures he appeared as a -figure who had no aim or purport; in his brain the earnestness of life -was transformed into a romping game. Painters laughed at the little -world which they represented. They were not the friends of man, but -parodied him and transformed life into a sort of Punch and Judy show. - -And even when they did not approach their figures with deliberate irony, -they never dreamed of plunging with any sincere love of truth into the -depths of modern life. They painted modern matter without taking part in -it, like good children who know nothing of the bitter facts that take -place in the world. When the old Dutch painters laughed, their laughter -had its historical justification. In the pictures of Ostade and Dirk -Hals there is seen all the primitive exuberance and wild joy of life -belonging to a people who had just won their independence and abandoned -themselves after long years of war with a sensuous transport to the -gladness of existence. But the smile of these modern _genre_ painters is -forced, conventional, and artificial; the smile of a later generation -which only took the trouble to smile because the old Dutch had laughed -before them. They put on rose-coloured glasses, and through these gaudy -spectacles saw only a gay masque of life, a fair but hollow deception. -They allowed their heroes to pass such a merry existence that the -question of what they lived upon was never touched. When they painted -their tavern pictures they anxiously suppressed the thought that people -who drained their great mugs so carelessly possibly had sick children at -home, hungry and perishing with cold in a room without a fire. Their -peasants are the favoured sons of fortune: they sowed not, neither did -they reap, nor gathered into barns, but their Heavenly Father fed them. -Poverty and vice presented themselves merely as amiable weaknesses, not -as great modern problems. - -Just at this time the way was being paved for the Revolution of 1848: -the people fought and suffered, and for years before literature had -taken part in this struggle. Before the Revolution the battle had been -between the nobility and the middle class; but now that the latter had -to some extent taken the place of the nobility of earlier days, there -rose the mighty problem of strife between the unproductive and the -productive, between rich and poor. - -In England, the birthplace of the modern capitalistic system, in a -country where great industry and great landed property first ousted the -independent yeomanry and called forth ever sharper division between -those who possessed everything and those who possessed nothing, the -unsolved problem of the nineteenth century found its earliest utterance. -More than sixty years ago, in the year of Goethe's death, a new -literature arose there, the literature of social politics. With Ebenezer -Elliott, who had been himself a plain artisan, the Fourth Estate made -its entry into literature; a workman led the train of socialistic poets. -Thomas Hood wrote his _Song of the Shirt_, that lyric of the poor -sempstress which soon spread all over the Continent. Carlyle, the -friend and admirer of Goethe, came forward in 1843 as the burning -advocate of the poor and miserable in _Past and Present_. He wrote there -that this world was no home to the working-man, but a dreary dungeon -full of mad and fruitless plagues. It was an utterance that shook the -world like a bomb. Benjamin Disraeli's _Sybil_ followed in 1845. As a -novel it is a strange mixture of romantic and naturalistic chapters, the -latter seeming like a prophetic announcement of Zola's _Germinal_. As a -reporter Charles Dickens had in his youth the opportunity of learning -the wretchedness of the masses in London, even in the places where they -lurked distrustfully in dark haunts. In his Christmas stories and his -London sketches he worked these scenes of social distress into thrilling -pictures. The poor man, whose life is made up of bitter weeks and scanty -holidays, received his citizenship in the English novel. - -In France the year 1830 was an end and a beginning--the close of the -struggles begun in 1789, and the opening of those which led to the -decisive battle of 1848. With the _roi bourgeois_, whom Lafayette called -"the best of republicans," the Third Estate came into possession of the -position to which it had long aspired; it rose from the ranks of the -oppressed to that of the privileged classes. As a new ruling class it -made such abundant capital with the fruits of the Revolution of July -that even in 1830 Börne wrote from Paris: "The men who fought against -all aristocracy for fifteen years have scarcely conquered--they have not -yet wiped the sweat from their faces--and already they want to found for -themselves a new aristocracy, an aristocracy of money, a knighthood of -fortune." To the same purpose wrote Heine in 1837: "The men of thought -who, during the eighteenth century, were so indefatigable in preparing -the Revolution, would blush if they saw how self-interest is building -its miserable huts on the site of palaces that have been broken down, -and how, out of these huts, a new aristocracy is sprouting up which, -more ungraciously than the old, has its primary cause in money-making." - -There the radical ideas of modern socialism were touched. The -proletariat and its misery became henceforward the subject of French -poetry, though they were not observed with any naturalistic love of -truth, but from the romantic standpoint of contrast. Béranger, the -popular singer of _chansons_, composed his _Vieux Vagabond_, the song of -the old beggar who dies in the gutter; Auguste Barbier wrote his Ode to -Freedom, where _la sainte canaille_ are celebrated as immortal heroes, -and with the scorn of Juvenal "lashes those who drew profit from the -Revolution, those _bourgeois_ in kid gloves who watched the sanguinary -street fights comfortably from the window." In 1842-43 Eugène Sue -published his _Mystères de Paris_, a forbidding and nonsensical book, -but one which made an extraordinary sensation, just because of the -disgusting openness with which it unveiled the life of the lower strata -of the people. Even the great spirits of the Romantic school began to -follow the social and political strife of the age with deep emotion and -close sympathy. Already in the course of the thirties socialistic ideas -forced their way into the Romantic school from every side. Their source -was Saint Simon, whose doctrines first found a wide circulation under -Louis Philippe. - -According to Saint Simon, the task of the new Christianity consisted in -improving as quickly as possible the fate of the class which was at once -the poorest and the most numerous. His pupils regarded him as the -Messiah of the new era, and went forth into the world as his disciples. -George Sand, the boldest feminine genius in the literature of the world, -mastered these seething ideas and founded the artisan novel in her -_Compagnon du Tour de France_. It is the first book with a real love of -the people--the people as they actually are, those who drink and commit -deeds of violence as well as those who work and make mental progress. In -her periodical, _L'Éclaireur de l'Indre_, she pleads the cause both of -the artisan in great towns and of the rustic labourer; in 1844 she -declared herself as a Socialist, without qualification, in her great -essay _Politics and Socialism_, and she brought out her celebrated -_Letters to the People_ in 1848. - -The democratic tide of ideas came to Victor Hugo chiefly through the -religious apostle Lamennais, whose book, written in prison, _De -l'Esclavage Moderne_, gave the same fuel to the Revolution of 1848 as -the works of Rousseau had done to that of 1789. "The peasant bears the -whole burden of the day, exposes himself to rain and sun and wind, to -make ready by his work the harvest which fills our barns in the late -autumn. If there are those who think the lighter of him on that account, -and will not accord him freedom and justice, build a high wall round -them, so that their noisome breath may not poison the air of Europe." -From the forties there mutters through Hugo's poems the muffled sound of -the Revolution which was soon to burst over Paris, and thence to move, -like a rolling thunderstorm, across Europe. In place of the tricolor -under which the _bourgeoisie_ and the artisan class had fought side by -side eighteen years before, the banner of the artisan was hoisted -blood-red against the ruling _bourgeoisie_. - -This _Zeitgeist_, this spirit of the age which had grown earnest, -necessarily guided art into another course; the painted humour and -childlike optimism of the first _genre_ painters began to turn out a -lie. In spite of Schiller, art cannot be blithe with sincerity when life -is earnest. It can laugh with the muscles of the face, but the laughter -is mirthless; it may haughtily declare itself in favour of some -consecrated precinct, in which nothing of the battles and struggles of -the outside world is allowed to echo; but, for all that, harsh reality -demands its rights. Josef Danhauser's modest little picture of 1836, -"The Gormandizer," is an illustration of this. In a sumptuously -furnished room a company of high station and easy circumstances are -seated at dinner. The master of the house, a sleek little man, is -draining his glass, and a young dandy is playing the guitar. But an -unwelcome disturbance breaks in. The figure of a beggar, covered with -rags and with a greasy hat in his hand, appears at the door. The ladies -scream, and a dog springs barking from under a chair, whilst the flunkey -in attendance angrily prepares to send the impudent intruder about his -business. That was the position which art had hitherto taken up towards -the social question. It shrank peevishly back as soon as rude and brutal -reality disturbed its peaceful course. People wished to see none but -cheerful pictures of life around them. - -[Illustration: DANHAUSER. THE GORMANDIZER.] - -For this reason peasants were invariably painted in neat and cleanly -dress, with their faces beaming with joy, an embodiment of the blessing -of work and the delights of country life. Even beggars were harmless, -peacefully cheerful figures, sparkling with health and beauty, and -enveloped in æsthetic rags. But as political, religious, and social -movements have always had a vivid and forcible effect on artists, -painters in the nineteenth century could not in the long run hold -themselves aloof from this influence. The voice of the disinherited made -itself heard sullenly muttering and with ever-increasing strength. The -parable of Lazarus lying at the threshold of the rich man had become a -terrible reality. Conflict was to be seen everywhere around, and it -would have been mere hardness of heart to have used this suffering -people any longer as an agreeable subject for merriment. A higher -conception of humanity, the entire philanthropic character of the age, -made the jests at which the world had laughed seem forced and tasteless. -Modern life must cease altogether before it can be a humorous episode -for art, and it had become earnest reality through and through. Painting -could no longer affect trivial humour; it had to join issue, and speak -of what was going on around it. It had to take its part in the struggle -for aims that belonged to the immediate time. - -Powerfully impressed by the Revolution of July, it made its first -advance. The Government had been thrown down after a blood-stained -struggle, and a liberated people were exulting; and the next Salon -showed more than forty representations of the great events, amongst -which that of _Delacroix_ took the highest place in artistic -impressiveness. The principal figure in his picture is "a youthful -woman, with a red Phrygian cap, holding a musket in one hand and a -tricolor in the other. Naked to the hip, she strides forward over the -corpses, giving challenge to battle, a beautiful vehement body with a -face in bold profile and an insolent grief upon her features, a strange -mixture of Phryne, _poissarde_, and the goddess of Liberty." Thus has -Heine described the work while still under a vivid impression of the -event it portrayed. In the thick of the powder smoke stands "Liberty" -upon the barricade, at her right a Parisian gamin with a pistol in his -hand, a child but already a hero, at her left an artisan with a gun on -his arm: it is the people that hastens by, exulting to die the death for -the great ideas of liberty and equality. - -The painter himself had an entirely unpolitical mind. He had drawn his -inspiration for the picture, not from experience, but out of _La Curée_, -those verses of Auguste Barbier that are ablaze with wrath-- - - "C'est que la Liberté n'est pas une comtesse - Du noble faubourg Saint-Germain, - Une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse, - Qui met du blanc et du carmin; - C'est un forte femme aux puissantes mamelles, - À la voix rauque, aux durs appas, - Qui, du brun sur la peau, du feu dans les prunelles, - Agile et marchant à grands pas, - Se plait aux cris du peuple, aux sanglantes mêlées, - Aux longs roulements des tambours, - À l'odeur de la poudre, aux lointaines volées - Des cloches et des canons sourds." - -And by this allegorical figure he has certainly weakened its grip and -directness; but it was a bold, naturalistic achievement all the same. By -this work the great Romanticist became the father of the naturalistic -movement, which henceforward, supported by the revolutionary democratic -press, spread more and more widely. - -The critics on these journals began to reproach painters with troubling -themselves too little about social and political affairs. "The actuality -and social significance of art," it was written, "is the principal -thing. What is meant by Beauty? We demand that painting should influence -society, and join in the work of progress. Everything else belongs to -the domain of Utopias and abstractions." The place of whimsicalities is -accordingly taken by sentimental and melodramatic scenes from the life -of the poor. Rendered enthusiastic by the victory of the people, and -inspired by democratic sentiments, some painters came to believe that -the sufferings of the artisan class were the thing to be represented, -and that there was nothing nobler than work. - -[Illustration: LELEUX. MOT D'ORDRE.] - -One of the first to give an example was _Jeanron_. His picture of "The -Little Patriots," produced in connection with the Revolution of July, -was a glorification of the struggle for freedom; his "Scene in Paris" a -protest against the sufferings of the people. He sought his models -amongst the poor of the suburb, painted their ragged clothes and their -rugged heads without idealisation. For him the aim of art was not -beauty, but the expression of truth--a truth, no doubt, which made -political propaganda. It was Jeanron's purpose to have a socialistic -influence. One sees it in his blacksmiths and peasants, and in that -picture "The Worker's Rest" which in 1847 induced Thoré's utterance: "It -is a melancholy and barren landscape from the neighbourhood of Paris, a -plebeian landscape which hardly seems to belong to itself, and which -gives up all pretensions to beauty merely to be of service to man. -Jeanron is always plebeian, even in his landscapes: he loves the plains -which are never allowed to repose, on which there is always labour; -there are no beautiful flowers in his fields, as there is no gold -ornament on the rags of his beggars and labourers." - -And afterwards, during the early years of the reign of Louis Philippe, -when the tendency became once more latent, the Revolution of February -worked out what the Revolution of July had begun. Mediocre painters like -_Antigna_ became famous because they bewailed the sorrows of the "common -man" in small and medium-sized pictures. Others began to display a -greater interest in rustics, and to take them more seriously than they -had done in earlier works. _Adolphe Leleux_ made studies in Brittany, -and discovered earnest episodes in the daily life of the peasant, which -he rendered with great actuality. And after sliding back into -Romanticism, as he did with his Arragon smugglers, he enjoyed his chief -success in 1849 with that picture at the Luxembourg to which he was -incited by the sad aspect of the streets of Paris during the rising of -1848. The men who, driven by hunger and misery, fought upon the -barricades may be found in Leleux's "Mot d'Ordre." - -After the _coup d'état_ of 1851 even _Meissonier_, till then exclusively -a painter of _rococo_ subjects, encroached on this province. In his -picture of the barricades (2 December 1851) heaps of corpses are lying -stretched out in postures which could not have been merely invented. The -execution, too, has a nervous force which betrays that even so -calculating a spirit as Meissonier was at one time moved and agitated. -In his little smokers and scholars and waiting-men he is an adroit but -cold-blooded painter: here he has really delivered himself of a modern -epic. His "Barricade" (formerly in the Van Praet Collection) is the one -thrilling note in the master's work, which was elsewhere so quiet. -_Alexandre Antigna_, originally an historical painter, turned from -historical disasters to those which take place in the life of the lower -strata of the people. A dwelling of a poor family is struck by -lightning; poor people pack up their meagre goods with the haste of -despair on the outbreak of fire; peasants seek refuge from a flood upon -the roof of their little house; petty shopkeepers are driving with their -wares across the country, when their nag drops down dead in the shafts; -or an old crone, cowering at the street corner, receives the pence which -her little daughter has earned by playing on the fiddle. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ OCTAVE TASSAERT.] - -But the artist in whose works the philanthropic if sentimental humour of -the epoch is specially reflected is that remarkable painter, made up of -contradictions, _Octave Tassaert_. Borrowing at one and the same time -from Greuze, Fragonard, and Prudhon, he painted subjects mythological, -ribald, and religious, boudoir pictures, and scenes of human misery. -Tassaert was a Fleming, a grandson of that Tassaert who educated -Gottfried Schadow and died as director of the Berlin Academy in 1788. -His name has been for the most part forgotten; it awakes only a dim -recollection in those who see "The Unhappy Family" in the Luxembourg -_Musée_. But forty years ago he was amongst the most advanced of his -day, and enjoyed the respect of men like Delacroix, Rousseau, Troyon, -and Diaz. He took Chardin and Greuze as his models, and is a real master -in talent. He was the poet of the suburbs, who spoke in tender -complaining tones of the hopes and sufferings of humble people. He -painted the elegy of wretchedness: suicide in narrow garrets, sick -children, orphans freezing in the snow, seduced and more or less -repentant maidens--a sad train. He was called the Correggio of the -attic, the Prudhon of the suburbs. His labours are confined to eleven -years, from 1846 to 1857. After that he sent no more to the Salon and -sulkily withdrew from artistic life. He had no wish ever to see his -pictures again, and sold them--forty-four altogether--to a dealer for -two thousand francs and a cask of wine. With a glass in his hand he -forgot his misanthropy. He lived almost unknown in a little house in the -suburbs with a nightingale, a dog, and a little shop-girl for his sole -companions. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - TASSAERT. AFTER THE BALL.] - -But his nightingale died, and then the dog, who should have followed at -his funeral. He could not survive the blow. He broke his palette, threw -his colours into the fire, lit a pan of charcoal that he might die like -"The Unhappy Family," and was found suffocated on the following day. On -a scrap of paper he had written, without regard to metre or orthography, -a few verses to his nightingale and his dog. - -There is much that is magniloquent and sentimental in Tassaert's -pictures. His poor women perish with the big eyes of the heroines of Ary -Scheffer. Nevertheless he belongs to the advance line of modern art, and -suffered shipwreck merely because he gave the signal too early. The sad -reality prevails in his work. Merciless as a surgeon operating on a -diseased limb, he made a dissecting-room of his art, which is often -brutal where his brush probes the deepest wounds of civilisation. There -is nothing in his pictures but wretched broken furniture, stitched rags, -and pale faces in which toil and hunger have ploughed their terrible -furrows. He painted the degeneration of man perishing from lack of light -and air. Himself a Fleming, he has found his greatest follower in -another Netherlander, _Charles de Groux_, whose sombre pessimism -dominates modern Belgian art. - -In Germany, where the socialistic writings of the French and English had -a wide circulation, _Gisbert Flüggen_, in Munich known as the German -Wilkie, was perhaps the first who as early as the forties went somewhat -further than the humorous representation of rustics, and entered into a -certain relation with the social ideas of his age in such pictures as -"The Interrupted Marriage Contract," "The Unlucky Gamester," "The -_Mésalliance_," "Decision of the Suit," "The Disappointed Legacy -Hunter," "The Execution for Rent," and the like. Under his influence -Danhauser in Vienna deserted whimsicalities for the representation of -social conflicts in middle-class life. To say nothing of his -"Gormandizer," he did this in "The Opening of the Will," where in a -somewhat obtrusive manner the rich relations of the deceased are grouped -to the right and the poor relations to the left, the former rubicund, -sleek, and insolent, the latter pale, spare, and needily clad. An -estimable priest is reading the last testament, and informs the poor -relatives with a benevolent smile that the inheritance is theirs, -whereon the rich give way to transports of rage. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - TASSAERT. THE ORPHANS.] - -Yet more clearly, although similarly transposed into a sentimental key, -is the mood of the time just previous to 1848, reflected in the works of -_Carl Hübner_ of Düsseldorf. Ernest Wilkomm in the beginning of the -forties had represented in his sensational _genre_ pictures, -particularly in the "White Slaves," the contrast between afflicted serfs -and cruel landlords, between rich manufacturers and famishing artisans; -Robert Prutz had written his _Engelchen_, in which he had announced the -ruin of independent handicraft by the modern industrial system. Soon -afterwards the famine among the Silesian weavers, the intelligence of -which in 1844 flew through all Germany, set numbers of people reflecting -on the social question. Freiligrath made it the subject of his verses, -_Aus dem Schlesischen Gebirge_, the song of the poor weaver's child who -calls on Rübezahl--one of his most popular poems. And yet more -decisively does the social and revolutionary temper of the age find an -echo in Heine's _Webern_, composed in 1844. Even Geibel was impelled to -his poem _Mene Tekel_ by the spread of the news, though it stands in -curious opposition to his manner of writing elsewhere. Carl Hübner -therefore was acting very seasonably when he likewise treated the -distress of the Silesian weavers in his first picture of 1845. - -Hübner knew the life of the poor and the heavy-laden; his feelings were -with them, and he expressed what he felt. This gives him a position -above and apart from the rest in the insipidly smiling school of -Düsseldorf, and sets his name at the beginning of a new chapter in the -history of German _genre_ painting. His next picture, "The Game Laws," -sprang from an occasion which was quite as historical: a gamekeeper had -shot a poacher. In 1846 followed "The Emigrants," "The Execution for -Rent" in 1847, and in 1848 "Benevolence in the Cottage of the Poor." -These were works in which he continued to complain of the misery of the -working classes, and the contrast between ostentatious wealth and -helpless wretchedness, and to preach the crusade for liberty and human -rights. In opposition to the usual idyllic representations, he spoke -openly for the first time of the material weight oppressing large -classes of men. Undoubtedly, however, the artistic powers of the painter -corresponded but little to the good intentions of the philanthropist. - -[Illustration: TASSAERT. THE SUICIDE.] - -In 1853 even the historical painter Piloty entered this path in one of -his earliest pictures, "The Nurse": the picture represents a peasant -girl in service as a nurse in the town, with her charge on her arm, -entering the dirty house of an old woman with whom she is boarding her -own child. The rich child, already dressed out like a little lady, is -exuberant in health, whilst her own is languishing in a dark and cold -room without food or warm clothing. - -In Belgium _Eugène de Block_ first took up these lines. The artistic -development of his character is particularly interesting, inasmuch as he -went through various transformations. First he had come forward in 1836 -with the representation of a brawl amongst peasants, a picture which -contrasted with the tameness of contemporary painting by a native power -suggestive of Brouwer. Then, following the example of Madou and -Braekeleer, he occupied himself for a long time with quips and jests. At -a time when every one had a type to which he remained true as long as he -lived, Block chose poachers and game-keepers, and represented their -mutual cunning, now enveloping them, after the example of Braekeleer, in -the golden light and brown shadows of Ostade, now throwing over them a -tinge of Gallait's cardinal red. But this forced humour did not satisfy -him long; he let comicalities alone, and became the serious observer of -the people. A tender compassion for the poor may be noticed in his -works, though without doubt it often turns to a tearful sentimentalism. -He was an apostle of humanity who thundered against pauperism and set -himself up as spokesman on the social question; a tribune of the people, -who by his actions confirmed his reputation as a democratic painter. -This it is which places him near that other socialistic agitator who in -those days was filling Brussels with his fame. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - FLÜGGEN. THE DECISION OF THE SUIT.] - -It was in 1835 that a young man wrote to one of his relatives from Italy -the proud words: "I will measure my strength with Rubens and Michael -Angelo." - -[Illustration: HÜBNER. JULY.] - -Having gained the _Prix de Rome_, he was enabled to make a sojourn in -the Eternal City. He was thinking of his return. He was possessed of a -lofty ambition, and dreamt of rivalling the fame of the old masters. As -a victor he made an entry into his native land, into the good town of -Dinant, which received him like a mother. He was accompanied by a huge -roll of canvas like a declaration of war. But he needed a larger -battle-field for his plans. "I imagine," said he, "that the universe has -its eyes upon me." So he went on to Paris with his "Patroclus" and a few -other pictures. No less than six thousand artists had seen the work in -Rome: a prince of art, Thorwaldsen, had said when he beheld it: "This -young man is a giant." And the young man was himself of that opinion. -With the gait of a conqueror he entered Paris, in the belief that -artists would line the streets to receive him. But when the portals of -the _Salon_ of 1839 were opened he did not see his picture there. It was -skied over a door, and no one noticed it. Théophile Gautier, Gustave -Planché, and Bürger-Thoré wrote their articles without even mentioning -it with one word of praise or blame. - -For one moment he thought of exhibiting it out of doors in front of the -Louvre, of calling together a popular assembly and summoning all France -to decide. But an application to the minister was met with a refusal, -and he returned to Brussels hanging his head. There he puffed his -masterpiece, "The Fight round the Body of Patroclus," in magniloquent -phrases upon huge placards. A poet exclaimed, "Hats off: here is a new -Homer." The _Moniteur_ gave him a couple of articles. But when the -Exhibition came, artists were again unable to know what to make of it. -The majority were of an opinion that Michael Angelo was brutally -parodied by these swollen muscles and distorted limbs. And no earthquake -disturbed the studios, as the painter had expected. However, he was -awarded a bronze medal and thanked in an honest citizen-like fashion -"for the distinguished talent which he had displayed." Then his whole -pride revolted. He circulated caricatures and cried out: "This medal -will be an eternal blot on the century." Then he published in the -_Charivari_ an open letter to the king. "Michael Angelo," he wrote, -"never allowed himself to pass final judgment on the works of -contemporary artists, and so His Majesty, who hardly understands as much -about art as Michael Angelo, would do well not to decide on the worth of -modern pictures after a passing glance." - -_Antoine Wiertz_, the son of a gendarme who had once been a soldier of -the great Republic, was born in Dinant in 1806. By his mother he was a -Walloon, and he had German blood in him through his father, whose family -had originally come from Saxony. German moral philosophy and treatises -on education had formed the reading of his youthful years. He had not to -complain of want of assistance. At the declaration of Belgian -independence he was five-and-twenty; so his maturity fell in the proud -epoch when the young nation laid out everything to add artistic to -political splendour. Even as a boy, their only child, he was idolised by -his parents, the old gendarme and the honest charwoman. His first -attempts were regarded by his relations as marvels. The neighbours went -into raptures over a frog he had modelled, "which looked just as if it -were alive." The landlord of a tavern ordered a signboard from him, and -when it was finished the whole population stood before it in admiration. -A certain Herr Maibe, who was artistically inclined, had his attention -directed to the young genius, undertook all the expenses of his -education, and sent him to the Antwerp Academy. There he obtained a -government scholarship, and gained in 1832 the _Prix de Rome_. From the -first he was quite clear as to his own importance. - -[Illustration: _American Art Review._ - - WIERTZ. THE ORPHANS.] - -Even as a pupil at the Antwerp Academy he wrote in a letter to his -father contemptuously of his fellow-students' reverence for the old -masters. "They imagine," said he, "that the old masters are invincible -gods, and not men whom genius may surpass." And instead of admonishing -him to be modest, his father answered with pride: "Be a model to the -youth of the future, so that in later centuries young painters may say, -'I will raise myself to fame as the great Wiertz did in Belgium.'" Such -dangerous flattery would have affected stronger characters. It needed -only the Italian journey to send him altogether astray. Michael Angelo -made him giddy, as had been the case with Cornelius, Chenavard, and many -another. With all the ambition of a self-taught man he held every touch -of his brush to be important, and was indignant if others refused to -think the same. After his failures in Paris and Brussels he began to -find high treason in every criticism, and started a discussion on "the -pernicious influence of journalism upon art and literature." We find him -saying: "If any one writes ill of me when I am dead, I will rise from -the grave to defend myself." - -In his hatred of criticism he resolved to exhibit no more, lived a -miserable existence till his death in 1865, and painted hasty and -careless portraits, _pour la soupe_, when he was in pressing need of -money. These brought him at first from three to four hundred, and later -a thousand francs. He indulged in colossal sketches, for the completion -of which the State built him in 1850 a tremendous studio, the present -_Musée Wiertz_. It stands a few hundred paces from the Luxembourg -station, to the extreme north of the town, in a beautiful though rather -neglected little park, a white building with a pillared portico and a -broad perron leading up to it. Here he sat in a fantastically gorgeous -costume, for ever wearing his great Rubens hat. Philanthropic lectures -on this world and the next, on the well-being of the people and the -diseases of modern civilisation, were the fruits of his activity. -Whoever loves painting for painting's sake need never visit the museum. - -There there are battles, conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes; heaven -and earth are in commotion. Giants hurl rocks at one another, and try, -like Jupiter, to shake the earth with their frown. All of them delight -in force, and bring their muscles into play like athletes. But the -painter himself is no athlete, no giant as Thorwaldsen called him, and -no genius as he fancied himself to be. _Le singe des génies_, he -conceived the notion of "great art" purely in its relation to space, and -believed himself greater than the greatest because his canvases were of -greater dimensions. When the ministry thought of making him Director of -the Antwerp Academy, after the departure of Wappers, he wrote the -following characteristic sentences: "I gather from the newspapers that I -may be offered the place of Wappers." If in the moment when the profound -philosopher is pondering over sublime ideas people were to say to him, -"Will you teach us the A, B, C? I believe that he whose dwelling-place -is in the clouds would fall straight from heaven to earth." Living in an -atmosphere of flattery at home, and overpowered by the incense which was -there offered to his genius, he could not set himself free from the -fixed idea of competing with Michael Angelo and Rubens. Below his -picture of "The Childhood of Mary" he placed the words: "Counterpart to -the picture by Rubens in Antwerp treating the same subject." He offered -his "Triumph of Christ" to the cathedral there under the condition of -its being hung beside Rubens' "Descent from the Cross." "The Rising up -of Hell" he wished to exhibit of an evening in the theatre when it was -opened for a performance. During the waits the audience were to -contemplate the picture while a choir sang with orchestral -accompaniment. But all these offers were declined with thanks. - -Such failures make men pessimists; but it was through them that Wiertz, -after being an historical painter, became the child of his age. He began -to hurl thunderbolts against the evils of modern civilisation. He -preaches and lashes and curses and suffers. The forms of which he makes -use are borrowed from the old masters. The man of Michael Angelo, with -his athletic build, his gigantic muscles, his nude body, the man of the -Renaissance and not the man of the nineteenth century, strides through -his works; it is only in the subject-matter of his pictures that the -modern spirit has broken through the old formula. All the questions -which have been thrown out by the philosophy and civilisation of the -nineteenth century are reflected as vast problems in his vast pictures. -He fashions his brush into a weapon with which he fights for the -disinherited, for the pariahs, for the people. He is bent on being the -painter of democracy--a great danger for art. - -[Illustration: WIERTZ. THE THINGS OF THE PRESENT AS SEEN BY FUTURE - AGES.] - -He agitates in an impassioned way against the horrors of war. His -picture "Food for Powder" begins this crusade. A cannon is lying idle on -the wall of a fortress, and around this slumbering iron monster children -are playing at soldiers, with no suspicion that their sport will soon be -turned into bitter earnest, and that in war they will themselves become -food for this demon. In another picture, "The civilisation of the -Nineteenth Century," soldiers intoxicated with blood and victory have -broken into a chamber by night and are stabbing a mother with her child. -A third, "The Last Cannon Shot," hints dimly at the future pacification -of the world. "A Scene in Hell," however, is the chief of the effusions -directed against war. The Emperor Napoleon in his grey coat and his -historical three-cornered hat is languishing in hell; wavering flames -envelop him as with a flowing purple mantle, and an innumerable -multitude of mothers and sisters, wives and betrothed maidens, children -and fathers, from whom he has taken their dearest are pressing round -him. Fists are clenched against him, and screams issue from toothless, -raging mouths. He, on the other hand, with his arms crossed on his -breast, and his haughty visage stern and gloomy, stands motionless, -looking fixedly with satanic eyes upon the thousands whose happiness he -has destroyed. - -[Illustration: WIERTZ. THE FIGHT ROUND THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.] - -In his "Thoughts and Visions of a Decapitated Head", Wiertz, moved by -Victor Hugo's _Le dernier jour d'un condamné_, makes capital punishment -a subject of more lengthy disquisition. The picture, which is made up of -three parts, is supposed to represent the feelings of a man, who has -been guillotined, during the first three minutes after execution. The -border of the picture contains a complete dissertation: "The man who has -suffered execution sees his body dried up and in corruption in a dark -corner; and sees also, what it is only given to spirits of another world -to perceive, the secrets of the transmutation of matter. He sees all the -gases which have formed his body, and its sulphurous, earthy, and -ammoniacal elements, detach themselves from its decaying flesh and serve -for the structure of other living beings.... When that abominable -instrument the guillotine is one day actually abolished, may God be -praised," and so on. - -Beside this painted plea against capital punishment hangs "The Burnt -Child," as an argument in favour of _crêches_. A poor working woman has -for one moment left her garret. Meanwhile a fire has broken out, and she -returns to find the charred body of her boy. In the picture "Hunger, -Madness, and Crime" he treats of human misery in general, and touches on -the question of the rearing of illegitimate children. There is a young -girl forced to live on the carrots which a rich man throws into the -gutter. In consequence of a notification to pay taxes she goes out of -her mind, and with hellish laughter cuts to pieces the baby who has -brought her to ruin. Cremation is recommended in the picture "Buried too -soon": there is a vault, and in it a coffin, the lid of which has been -burst open from the inside; through the cleft may be seen a clenched -hand, and in the darkness of the coffin the horror-stricken countenance -of one who is piteously crying for help. - -In the "Novel Reader" he endeavours to show the baneful influence of -vicious reading upon the imagination of a girl. She is lying naked in -bed, with loosened hair and a book in her hand; her eyes are reddened -with hysterical tears, and an evil spirit is laying a new book on the -couch, _Antonine_, by Alexandre Dumas _Fils_. "The Retort of a Belgian -Lady"--an anticipation of Neid--glorifies homicide committed in the -defence of honour. A Dutch officer having taken liberties with a Belgian -woman, she blows out his brains with a pistol. In "The Suicide" the -fragments of a skull may be seen flying in all directions. How the young -man who has just destroyed himself came to this pass may be gathered -from the book entitled _Materialism_, which lies on his table. And thus -he goes on, though the spectator feels less and less inclined to take -any serious interest in these lectures. For although the intentions of -Wiertz had now and then a touch of the sublime, he was neither clear as -to the limits of what could be represented nor did he possess the -capacity of expressing what he wished in artistic forms. Like many a -German painter of those years, he was a philosopher of the brush, a -scholar in disguise, who wrote out his thoughts in paint instead of ink. - -Wiertz made painting a vehicle for more than it can render as painting: -with him it begins to dogmatise; it is a book, and it awakens a regret -that this rich mind was lost to authorship. There he might, perhaps, -have done much that was useful towards solving the social and -philosophical questions of the day; as he is, he has nothing to offer -the understanding, and only succeeds in offending the eye. A human brain -with both great and trivial ideas lays itself bare. But, like Cornelius, -from the mere fulness of his ideas he was unable to give them artistic -expression. He groped from Michael Angelo to Rubens, and from Raphael to -Ary Scheffer, without realising that the artistic utterance of all these -masters had been an individual gift. The career of Wiertz is an -interesting psychological case. He was an abnormal phenomenon, and he -cannot be passed over in the history of art, because he was one of the -first who treated subjects from modern life in large pictures. Never -before had a genuinely artistic age brought forth such a monster, yet it -is impossible to ignore him, or deny that he claims a certain degree of -importance in the art history of the past century. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -THE VILLAGE TALE - - -During the decade following the year 1848 _genre_ painting in Germany -threw off the shackles of the anecdotic style, and continued a -development similar to that of history, which, in the same country, -flourished long after it was moribund elsewhere. After the elder -artists, who showed so much zeal in producing perfectly ineffective -little pictures, executed with incredible pains and a desperate veracity -of detail, there followed, from 1850, a generation who were technically -better equipped. They no longer confined themselves to making tentative -efforts in the manner of the old masters, but either borrowed their -lights directly from the historical painters in Paris, or were -indirectly made familiar with the results of French technique through -Piloty. Subjects of greater refinement were united with a treatment of -colour which was less offensive. - -The childlike innocence which had given pleasure in Meyerheim and -Waldmüller was now thought to be too childlike by far. The merriment -which radiated from the pictures of Schroedter or Enhuber found no echo -amidst a generation which was tired of such cheap humour: the works of -Carl Hübner were put aside as lachrymose and sentimental efforts. When -the world had issued from the period of Romanticism there was no -temptation to be funny over modern life nor to make socialistic -propaganda; for after the Revolution of 1848 people had become -reconciled to the changed order of affairs and to life as it actually -was--its cares and its worries, its mistakes and its sins. It was the -time when Berthold Auerbach's village tales ran through so many -editions; and, hand in hand with these literary productions, painting -also set itself to tell little stories from the life of sundry classes -of the people, amongst which rustics were always the most preferable -from their picturesqueness of costume. - -At the head of this group of artists stands _Louis Knaus_, and if it is -difficult to hymn his praises at the present day, that is chiefly -because Knaus mostly drew upon that sarcastic and ironical -characteristic which is such an unpleasant moral note in the pictures of -Hogarth, Schroedter, and Madou. The figures of the old Dutch masters -behave as if the glance of no stranger were resting upon them: it is -possible to share their joys and sorrows, which are not merely acted. We -feel at our ease with them because they regard us as one of themselves. -In Knaus there is always an artificial bond between the figures and the -frequenters of the exhibition. They plunge into the greatest -extravagances to excite attention, tickle the spectator to make him -laugh, or cry out to move him to tears. With the exception of Wilkie, no -_genre_ painter has explained his purpose more obtrusively or in greater -detail. Even when he paints a portrait, by way of variation, he stands -behind with a pointer to explain it. On this account the portraits of -Mommsen and Helmholtz in the Berlin National Gallery are made too -official. Each of them is visibly conscious that he is being painted for -the National Gallery, and by emphasis and the accumulation of external -characteristics Knaus took the greatest pains to lift these -personalities into types of the nineteenth-century scholar. - -[Illustration: L. Knaus.] - -Since popular opinion is wont to represent the philologist as one -careless of outward appearance, and the investigator of natural -philosophy as an elegant man of the world,--Mommsen must wear boots -which have seen much service, and those of Helmholtz must be of polished -leather; the shirt of the one must be genially rumpled, and that of the -other must fit him to perfection. By such obvious characterisation the -Sunday public was satisfied, but those who were represented were really -deprived of character. It is not to be supposed that in Mommsen's room -the manuscripts of all his principal works would lie so openly upon the -writing-table and beneath it, so that every one might see them: it is -not probable that his famous white locks would flutter so as he sat at -the writing-table. Even the momentary gesture of the hand has in both -pictures something obtrusively demonstrative. "Behold, with this pen I -have written the history of Rome," says Mommsen. "Behold, there is the -famous ophthalmometer which I invented," says Helmholtz. - -But as a _genre_ painter Knaus has fallen still more often into such -intolerable stage gesticulation. The picture "His Highness upon his -Travels" is usually mentioned as that in which he reached his zenith in -characterisation. Yet is not this characterisation in the highest degree -exaggerated? Is not the expression apportioned to every figure, like -parts to a theatrical company, and does not the result seem to be -strained beyond all measure? Just look at the children, see how each -plays a part to catch your eye. A little girl is leaning shyly on her -elder sister, who has bashfully thrust her finger into her mouth: some -are looking on with rustic simplicity, others with attention: a child -smaller than the others is puckering up its face and crying miserably. -The prince, in whose honour the children are drawn up, passes the group -with complete indifference, while his companion regards "the people" -haughtily through his eyeglass. The schoolmaster bows low, in the hope -that his salary may be raised, whilst the stupid churchwarden looks -towards the prince with a jovial smile, as though he were awaiting his -colleague from the neighbouring village. Of course, they are all very -intelligible types; but they are no more than types. For the painter the -mere accident of the moment is the source of all life. Would that -six-year-old peasant child who stands with the greatest dignity in -Knaus's picture as "The Village Prince" have ever stood in that fashion, -with a flower between his teeth and his legs thrust apart, unless he had -been carefully taught this self-conscious pose by the painter himself? -So that there may not be the slightest doubt as to which of the -shoemaker's apprentices is winning and which is losing, one of them has -to have a knowing smirk, whilst the other is looking helplessly at his -cards. And how that little Maccabee is acting to the public in "The -First Profit!" The old man in threadbare clothes, who stands in an -ante-chamber rubbing his hands in the picture "I can Wait"; the -frightened little girl who sees her bit of bread-and-butter imperilled -by geese in "In Great Distress,"--they have all the same deliberate -comicality, they are all treated with the same palpable carefulness, the -same pointed and impertinently satirical sharpness. Even in "The -Funeral" he is not deserted by the humorous proclivity of the -anecdotist, and the schoolmaster has to brandish the bâton with which he -is conducting the choir of boys and girls as comically as possible. -Knaus uses too many italics, and underlines as if he expected his public -to be very dull of understanding. In this way he appeals to -simple-minded people, and irritates those of more delicate taste. The -peasant sits in his pictures like a model; he knows that he must keep -quiet, and neither alter his pose nor his grimace, because otherwise -Knaus will be angry. All his pictures show signs of the superior and -celebrated city gentleman, who has only gone into the country to -interest himself in the study of civilisation: there he hunts after -effectively comical features, and, having arranged his little world in -_tableaux vivants_, he coolly surrenders it to the derision of the -cultivated spectator. - -[Illustration: KNAUS. IN GREAT DISTRESS. - - (_By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., the owners of the - copyright._)] - -[Illustration: KNAUS. THE CARD PLAYERS. - - (_By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., the owners of the - copyright._)] - -But such a judgment, which seems like a condemnation, could not be -maintained from the historical standpoint. Germany could not forget -Knaus, if it were only for the fact that in the fifties he sided with -those who first spread the unusual opinion that painting was -incomprehensible without sound ability in the matter of colour. He was -not content, like the elder generation, to arrange the individual -characters in his pictures in well-disposed groups. He took care to make -his works faultless in colouring, so that in the fifties he not only -roused the enthusiasm of the great public by his "poetic invention," but -made even the Parisian painters enthusiastic by his easy mastery of -technique. - -To the following effect wrote Edmond About in 1855: "I do not know -whether Herr Knaus has long nails; but even if they were as long as -those of Mephistopheles, I should still say that he was an artist to his -fingers' ends. His pictures please the Sunday public and the Friday -public, the critics, the _bourgeois_, and (God forgive me!) the -painters. What is seductive to the great multitude is the clearly -expressed dramatic idea, while artists and connoisseurs are won by his -knowledge and thorough ability. Herr Knaus has the capacity of -satisfying every one. His pictures attract the most incompetent eyes, -because they tell pleasant anecdotes; but they likewise fascinate the -most jaded by perfect execution of detail. The whole talent of Germany -is contained in the person of Herr Knaus. So Germany lives in the Rue de -l'Arcade in Paris." - -In the fifties all the technical ability which was to be gained from the -study of the old Dutch masters and from constant commerce with the -modern French reached its highest point in Knaus. Even in his youth the -great Netherlandish painters, Ostade, Brouwer, and Teniers, must have -had more effect upon him than his teachers, Sohn and Schadow, since his -very first pictures, "The Peasants' Dance" of 1850 and "The Card -Sharpers" of 1850, had little in common with the Düsseldorf school, and -therefore so much the more with the Netherlandish _chiaroscuro_. "The -Card Sharpers" is precisely like an Ostade modernised. By his migration -to Paris in 1852 he sought to acquire the utmost perfection of finish; -and when he returned home, after a sojourn of eight years, he had at his -command such a sense for effect and fine harmony of tone, such a -knowledge of colour, and such a disciplined and refined taste, that his -works indicate an immeasurable advance on the motley harshness of his -predecessors. His "Golden Wedding" of 1858--perhaps his finest -picture--had nothing of the antiquated technique of the older type of -Düsseldorf pictures of peasant life; technically it stood on a level -with the works of the French. - -[Illustration: KNAUS. THE GOLDEN WEDDING. - - (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil & Co., the owners of the - copyright._)] - -And Knaus has remained the same ever since: a separate personality which -belongs to history. He painted peasant pictures of tragic import and -rustic gaiety; he recognised a number of graceful traits in child-life, -and, having seen a great deal of the world, he made a transition, after -he had settled in Berlin, from the character picture of the Black Forest -to such as may be painted from the life of cities. He even ventured to -touch on religious subjects, and taught the world the limitations of his -talent by his "Holy Families," composed out of reminiscences of all -times and all schools, and by his "Daniel in the Lions' Den." Knaus is -whole-heartedly a _genre_ painter; though that, indeed, is what he has -in common with many other people. But thirty years ago he had a genius -for colour amid a crowd of narrative and character painters, and this -makes him unique. He is a man whose significance does not merely lie in -his talent for narrative, but one who did much for German art. It may be -said that in giving the _genre_ picture unsuspected subtleties of colour -he helped German art to pass from mere _genre_ painting to painting pure -and simple. In this sense he filled an artistic mission, and won for -himself in the history of modern painting a firm and sure place, which -even the opponent of the illustrative vignette cannot take from him. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - KNAUS. BEHIND THE SCENES.] - -_Vautier_, who must always be named in the same breath with Knaus, is in -truth the exact opposite of the Berlin master. He also is essentially a -_genre_ painter, and his pictures should not be merely seen but studied -in detail; but where Knaus has merits Vautier is defective, and where -Knaus is jarring Vautier has merits. In technique he cannot boast of -similar qualities. He is always merely a draughtsman who tints, but has -never been a colourist. As a painter he has less value, but as a _genre_ -painter he is more sympathetic. In the pictures of Knaus one is annoyed -by the deliberate smirk, by his exaggerated and heartlessly frigid -observation. Vautier gives pleasure by characterisation, more delicately -reserved in its adjustment of means, and profound as it is simple, by -his wealth of individual motives and their charm, and by the -sensitiveness with which he renders the feelings and relationship of his -figures. A naïve, good-humoured, and amiable temperament is betrayed in -his works. He is genially idyllic where Knaus creates a pungently -satirical effect, and a glance at the portraits of the two men explains -this difference. - -[Illustration: _Kunst für Alle._ - - BENJAMIN VAUTIER.] - -Knaus with his puckered forehead, and his searching look shooting from -under heavy brows, is like a judge or a public prosecutor. Vautier, with -his thoughtful blue eyes, resembles a prosperous banker with a turn for -idealism, or a writer of village tales _à la_ Berthold Auerbach. Knaus -worried himself over many things, brooded much and made many -experiments; Vautier was content with the acquisition of a plain and -simple method of painting, which appeared to him a perfectly sufficient -medium for the expression of that which he had realised with profound -emotion. The one is a reflective and the other a dreamy nature. Vautier -was a man of a happy temperament, one with whom the world went well from -his youth upwards, who enjoyed an existence free from care, and who had -accustomed himself as a painter to see the world in a rosy light. There -is something sound and pure in his characters, in his pictures something -peaceful and cordial; it does not, indeed, make his paltry pedantic -style of painting any the better, but from the human standpoint it -touches one sympathetically. His countrymen may be ashamed of Vautier as -a painter when they come across him amongst aliens in foreign -exhibitions, but they rejoice in him none the less as a _genre_ painter. -It is as if they had been met by the quiet, faithful gaze of a German -eye amid the fiery glances of the Latin nations. It is as if they -suddenly heard a simple German song, rendered without training, and yet -with a great deal of feeling. A generation ago Knaus could exhibit -everywhere as a painter; as such Vautier was only possible in Germany -during the sixties. But in Knaus it is impossible to get rid of the -impress of the Berlin professor, while from Vautier's pictures there -smiles the kindly sentiment of German home-life. Vautier's world, no -doubt, is as one-sided as that of old Meyerheim. His talkative Paul -Prys, his brides with their modest shyness, his smart young fellows -throwing amorous glances, his proud fathers, and his sorrow-stricken -mothers are, it may be, types rather than beings breathing positive and -individual life. Such a golden radiance of grace surrounds the pretty -figures of his bare-footed rustic maidens as never pertained to those of -the real world, but belongs rather to the shepherdess of a fairy tale -who marries the prince. His figures must not be measured by the standard -of realistic truth to nature. But they are the inhabitants of a dear, -familiar world in which everything breathes of prettiness and lovable -good-humour. It is almost touching to see with what purity and beauty -life is reflected in Vautier's mind. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - VAUTIER. THE CONJURER.] - -How dainty are these brown-eyed Swabian peasant girls, how tender and -sympathetic the women, and how clean and well-behaved the children! You -could believe that Vautier mixed with his peasants like a friend or a -benevolent god-father, that he delighted in their harmless pleasures, -that he took part in their griefs and cares. In his pictures he does not -give an account of his impressions with severity or any deliberate -attempt to amuse, but with indulgence and cordiality. It is not his -design to excite or to thrill, to waken comedy through whimsicalities or -mournfulness by anything tragical. Life reveals to him "merely pleasant -things," as it did to Goethe during his tour in Italy, and even in its -tragedies only people "who bear the inevitable with dignity." He never -expressed boisterous grief: everything is subdued, and has that -tenderness which is associated with the mere sound of his Christian -name, Benjamin. Knaus has something of Menzel, Vautier of Memlinc: he -has it even in the loving familiarity with which he penetrates minute -detail. In their religious pictures the old German and Netherlandish -masters painted everything, down to the lilies worked on the Virgin's -loom, or the dust lying on the old service-book; and this thoroughly -German delight in still life, this complacent rendering of minutiæ, is -found again in Vautier. - -Men and their dwellings, animated nature and atmosphere, combine to make -a pleasant world in his pictures. Vautier was one of the first to -discover the magic of environment, the secret influence which unites a -man to the soil from which he sprang, the thousand unknown, magnetic -associations existing between outward things and the spirit, between the -intuitions and the actions of man. The environment is not there like a -stage scene in front of which the personages come and go; it lives and -moves in the man himself. One feels at home in these snug and cosy -rooms, where the Black Forest clock is ticking, where little, tasteless -photographs look down from the wall with an honest, patriarchal air, -where the floor is scoured so clean, and greasy green hats hang on -splendid antlers. There is the great family bed with the flowered -curtains, the massive immovable bench by the stove, the solid old table, -around which young and old assemble at meal-times. There are the great -cupboards for the treasures of the house, the prayer-book given to -grandmother at her confirmation, the filigree ornaments, the glasses and -coffee-cups, which are kept for show, not for daily use. Over the -bedstead are hung the little pictures of saints painted on glass, and -the consecrated tokens. From the window one overlooks other -appurtenances of the house; gaudy scarlet runners clamber in from the -little garden, blossoming fruit-trees stand in its midst, and the gable -of the well-filled barn rises above it. Everything has an air of peace -and prosperity, the mood of a Sunday forenoon; one almost fancies that -one can catch the chime of the distant church bells through the blissful -stillness. But completeness of effect and pictorial harmony are not to -be demanded: the illustrated paper is better suited to his style than -the exhibition. - -[Illustration: VAUTIER. THE DANCING LESSON. - - (_By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., the owners of the - copyright._)] - -The third member of the alliance is _Franz Defregger_, a man of splendid -talent; of all the masters of the great Munich school of Piloty, he is -at once the simplest and the healthiest. True it is, no doubt, that when -posterity sifts and weighs his works, much of him, also, will be found -too light. Defregger's art has suffered from his fame and from the -temptations of the picture market. Moreover, he had not Vautier's fine -sense of the limitations of his ability, but often represented things -which he did not understand. He was less of a painter than any of the -artists of Piloty's school, and more completely tethered by the size of -his picture. He could not go beyond a certain space of canvas without -suffering for it; and he bound his talent on the bed of Procrustes when -he attempted to paint Madonnas, or placed himself with his Hofer -pictures in the rank of historical painters. But as a _genre_ painter he -stands beside Vautier, in the first line; and by these little _genre_ -pictures--the simpler and quieter the better--and some of his genially -conceived and charming portrait studies, he will survive. Those are -things which he understood and felt. He had himself lived amid the life -he depicted, and so it was that what he depicted made such a powerful -appeal to the heart. - -[Illustration: VAUTIER. NOVEMBER.] - -The year 1869 made him known. The Munich Exhibition had in that year a -picture on a subject from the history of the Hofer rising of 1809. It -represented how the little son of Speckbacher, one of the Tyrolese -leaders, had come after his father, armed with a musket; and at the side -of an old forester he is entering the room in which Speckbacher is just -holding a council of war. The father springs up angry at his -disobedience, but also proud of the little fellow's pluck. From this -time Defregger's art was almost entirely devoted to the Tyrolese people. -To paint the smart lads and neat lasses of Tyrol in joy and sorrow, love -and hate, at work and merry-making, at home or outside on the mountain -pasture, in all their beauty, strength, and robust health, was the -life-long task for which he more than any other man had been created. He -had, over Knaus and most other painters of village tales, the enormous -advantage of not standing personally outside or above the people, and -not regarding them with the superficial curiosity of a tourist--for he -belonged to them himself. Others, if ironically disposed, saw in the -rustic the stupid, comic peasant; or, if inclined to sentimentalism, -introduced into the rural world the moods and feelings of "society," -traits of drawing-room sensitiveness, the heavy air of the town. Models -in national costume were grouped for pictures of Upper Bavarian rustic -life. But Defregger, who up to the age of fifteen had kept his father's -cattle on the pastures of the Ederhof, had shared the joys and sorrows -of the peasantry long enough to know that they are neither comic nor -sentimental people. - -The roomy old farmhouse where he was born in 1835 lay isolated amid the -wild mountains. He went about bare-footed and bare-headed, waded through -deep snow when he made his way to school in winter, and wandered about -amid the highland pastures with the flocks in summer. Milkmaids and -wood-cutters, hunters and cowherds, were his only companions. At fifteen -he was the head labourer of the estate, helped to thresh the corn, and -worked on the arable land and in the stable and the barn like others. -When he was twenty-three he lost his father and took over the farm -himself: he was thus a man in the full sense of the word before his -artistic calling was revealed to him. And this explains his qualities -and defects. When he came to Piloty after the sale of his farm and his -aimless sojourn in Innsbruck and Paris he was mature in mind; he was -haunted by the impressions of his youth, and he wanted to represent the -land and the people of Tyrol. But he was too old to become a good -"painter." On the other hand, he possessed the great advantage of -knowing what he wanted. The heroes of history did not interest him; it -was only the Tyrolese woodmen who persisted in his brain. He left -Piloty's studio almost as he had entered it--awkward, and painting -heavily and laboriously, and but very little impressed by Piloty's -theatrical sentiment. His youth and his recollections were rooted in the -life of the people; and with a faithful eye he caught earnest or -cheerful phases of that life, and represented them simply and cordially: -and if he had had the strength to offer a yet more effectual resistance -to the prevalent ideal of beauty, there is no doubt that his stories -would seem even more fresh and vigorous. - -[Illustration: FRANZ DEFREGGER.] - -"The Dance" was the first picture which followed that of "Speckbacher," -and it was circulated through the world in thousands of reproductions. -There are two delightful figures in it: the pretty milkmaid who looks -around her, radiant with pleasure, and the wiry old Tyrolese who is -lifting his foot, cased in a rough hobnail shoe, to dance to the -_Schuhplattler_. At the same time he painted "The Prize Horse" -returning to his native village from the show decked and garlanded and -greeted exultantly by old and young as the pride of the place. "The Last -Summons" was again a scene from the Tyrolese popular rising of 1809. All -who can still carry a rifle, a scythe, or a pitchfork have enrolled -themselves beneath the banners, and are marching out to battle over the -rough village street. The wives and children are looking earnestly at -the departing figures, whilst a little old woman is pressing her -husband's hand. Everything was simply and genially rendered without -sentimentality or emphasis, and the picture even makes an appeal by its -colouring. As a sequel "The Return of the Victors" was produced in 1876: -a troop of the Tyrolese levy is marching through its native mountain -village, with a young peasant in advance, slightly wounded, and looking -boldly round. Tyrolese banners are waving, and the fifes and drums and -clarionet players bring up the rear. The faces of the men beam with the -joy of victory, and women and children stand around to welcome those -returning home. Joy, however, is harder to paint faithfully than sorrow. -It is so easy to see that it has been artificially worked up from the -model; nor is Defregger's picture entirely innocent on this charge. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - DEFREGGER. SPECKBACHER AND HIS SON.] - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - DEFREGGER. THE WRESTLERS.] - -"Andreas Hofer going to his Death" was his first concession to Piloty. -Defregger had become professor at the Munich Academy, and was entered in -the directory as "historical painter." The figures were therefore -painted life size; and in the grouping and the choice of the "psychic -moment" the style aimed at "grand painting." The result was the same -emptiness which blusters through the historical pictures of the school -of Delaroche, Gallait, and Piloty. The familiar stage effect and stilted -passion has taken the place of simple and easy naturalism. Nor was he -able to give life to the great figures of a large canvas as he had done -in the smaller picture of the "Return of the Victors." This is true of -"The Peasant Muster" of 1883--which represented the Tyrolese, assembled -in an arms manufactory, learning that the moment for striking had -arrived--and of the last picture of the series, "Andreas Hofer receiving -the Presents of the Emperor Francis in the Fortress of Innsbruck." All -the great Hofer pictures, which in earlier days were honoured as his -best performances, have done less for his memory than for that of the -sturdy hero. The _genre_ picture was Defregger's vocation. There lay his -strength, and as soon as he left that province he renounced his fine -qualities. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - DEFREGGER. SISTER AND BROTHERS.] - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - DEFREGGER. THE PRIZE HORSE.] - -And a holiday humour, a tendency to beautify what he saw, is spread over -even his _genre_ pictures. They make one suppose that there is always -sunshine in the happy land of Tyrol, that all the people are chaste and -beautiful, all the young fellows fine and handsome, all the girls smart, -every household cleanly and well-ordered, all married folk and children -honest and kind; whereas in reality these milk-maids and woodmen are far -less romantic in their conduct; and so many a townsman who avoids -contact with the living people goes into raptures over them as they are -pictures. With Vautier he shares this one-sidedness as well as his -defective colour. Almost all his pictures are hard, dry, and diffident -in colouring, but, as with Vautier, the man atones for the painter. From -Defregger one asks for no qualities of colour and no realistic Tyrolese, -since he has rendered himself in his pictures, and gives one a glimpse -into his own heart; and a healthy, genial, and kindly heart it is. His -idealism is not born of laboriously acquired principles of beauty; it -expresses the temperament of a painter--a temperament which -unconsciously sees the people through a medium whereby they are -glorified. A rosy glow obscures sadness, ugliness, wretchedness, and -misery, and shows only strength and health, tenderness and beauty, -fidelity and courage. He treasured sunny memories of the cheerful -radiance which rested on his home in the hour of his return; he painted -the joy which swelled in his own breast as he beheld again the rocks of -his native country, heard once more the peaceful chime of its Sabbath -bells. And this is what gives his works their human, inward truth, -little as they may be authentic documents as to the population of Tyrol. - -Later this will be more impartially recognised than it possibly can be -at present. The larger the school of any artist, the more it will make -his art trivial; and thus for a time the originality of the master -himself seems to be mere trifling. The Tyrolese were depreciated in the -market by Defregger's imitators; only too many have aped his painting of -stiff leather breeches and woollen bodices, without putting inside them -the vivid humanity which is so charming in a genuine Defregger. But his -position in the history of art is not injured by this. He has done -enough for his age; he has touched the hearts of many by his cheerful, -fresh, and healthy art, and he would be certain of immortality had he -thrown aside his brush altogether from the time when the progress of -painting left him in the rear. - -With Defregger, the head of the Tyrolese school, Gabl and Mathias -Schmidt, standing at a measurable distance from him, may find a -well-merited place. _Mathias Schmidt_, born in the Tyrolese Alps in the -same year as Defregger, began with satirical representations of the -local priesthood. A poor image-carver has arrived with his waggon at an -inn, on the terrace of which are sitting a couple of well-fed -ecclesiastics, and by them he is ironically called to account as he -offers a crucifix for sale. A young priest, as an austere judge of -morals, reproves a pair of lovers who are standing before him, or asks a -young girl such insidious questions at the bridal examination that she -lowers her eyes, blushing. His greatest picture was "The Emigration of -the Zillerthal Protestants." Amongst later works, without controversial -tendencies, "The Hunter's Greeting" and "The Lathered Parson" may be -named. The latter is surprised by two pretty girls while shaving. To -these may be added "The Parson's Patch," a picture of a robust -housekeeper hastily mending a weak spot in the pastor's inexpressibles -just before service. - -Shortly after Defregger had painted his picture of "Speckbacher," _Alois -Gabl_ came forward with his "Haspinger preaching Revolt," and followed -it up by smaller pictures with a humorous touch, representing a levy of -recruits in Tyrol, the dance at the inn interrupted by the entrance of -the parson, magnates umpiring at the shooting butts, a bar with laughing -girls, and the like. - -In 1870, _Eduard Kurzbauer_, who died young, in his "Fugitives -Overtaken" executed a work representing an entire class of painted -illustrations. A young man who has eloped with a girl is discovered with -her by her mother in a village inn. The old lady is looking -reproachfully at her daughter, who is overwhelmed by shame and -penitence; the young man is much moved, the old servant grave and -respectful, the young landlady curious, and the postilion who has driven -the eloping pair has a sly smirk. Elsewhere Kurzbauer, who is a fresh -and lively anecdotist, painted principally episodes, arraying his -figures in the peasant garb of the Black Forest: a rejected suitor takes -a sad farewell of a perverse blonde who disdains his love; or the -engagement of two lovers is hindered by the interference of the father. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - DEFREGGER. ANDREAS HOFER APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF THE TYROL.] - -_Hugo Kauffmann_, the son of Hermann Kauffmann, planted himself in the -interior of village taverns or in front of them, and made his dressed-up -models figure as hunters, telling incredible tales, dancing to the -fiddle, or quarrelling over cards. - -Another North German, _Wilhelm Riefstahl_, showed how the peasants in -Appenzell or Bregenz conduct themselves at mournful gatherings, at their -devotions in the open air, and at All Souls' Day Celebrations, and -afterwards extended his artistic dominion over Rügen, Westphalia, and -the Rhine country with true Mecklenburg thoroughness. He was a careful, -conscientious worker, with a discontent at his own efforts in his -composition, a certain ponderousness in his attempts at _genre_; but his -diligently executed pictures--full of colour and painted in a peculiarly -German manner--are highly prized in public galleries on account of their -instructive soundness. - -After the various classes of the German peasantry had been naturalised -in the picture market by these narrative painters, _Eduard Grützner_, -when religious controversy raged in the seventies, turned aside to -discover drolleries in monastic life. This he did with the assistance of -brown and yellowish white cowls, and the obese and copper-nosed models -thereto pertaining. He depicts how the cellarer tastes a new wine, and -the rest of the company await his verdict with anxiety; how the entire -monastery is employed at the vintage, at the broaching of a wine cask or -the brewing of the beer; how they tipple; how bored they are over their -chess or their dice, their cards or their dominoes; how they whitewash -old frescoes or search after forbidden books in the monastery library. -This, according to Grützner, is the routine in which the life of monks -revolves. At times amidst these figures appear foresters who tell of -their adventures in the chase, or deliver hares at the cloister kitchen. -And the more Grützner was forced year after year to make up for his -decline as a colourist, by cramming his pictures with so-called humour, -the greater was his success. - -It was only long afterwards that _genre_ painting in broad-cloth came -into vogue by the side of this _genre_ in peasant blouse and monastic -cowl, and stories of the exchange and the manufactory by the side of -village and monastic tales. Here Düsseldorf plays a part once more in -the development of art. The neighbourhood of the great manufacturing -towns on the Rhine could not but lead painters to these subjects. -_Ludwig Bokelmann_, who began by painting tragical domestic scenes--card -players, and smoking shop-boys, in the style of Knaus--made the pawnshop -a theme for art in 1875, and dexterously crowded into his picture all -the types which popular fancy brings into association with the -conception: business-like indifference, poverty ashamed, fallen -prosperity, bitter need, avarice, and the love of pleasure. In 1877, -when the failure of the house of Spitzeder made a sensation in the -papers, he painted his picture "The Savings Bank before the Announcement -of Failure," which gave him another opportunity for ranging in front of -the splendid building an assembly of deluded creditors of all classes, -and of showing how they expressed their emotion according to temperament -and education, by excited speeches, embittered countenances, gloomy -resignation, or vivid gesticulation. Much attention was likewise excited -by "The Arrest." In this picture a woman was being watched for by a -policeman, whilst the neighbours--male and female--loitered round with -the requisite expression of horror, indignation, sympathy, or -indifferent curiosity. The opening of a will, the last moments of an -electioneering struggle, scenes in the entrance hall of a court of -justice, the emigrants' farewell, the gaming-table at Monte Carlo, and a -village fire, were other newspaper episodes from the life of great towns -which he rendered in paint. - -His earlier associate in Düsseldorf, _Ferdinand Brütt_, after first -painting _rococo_ pictures, owed his finest successes to the Stock -Exchange. It, too, had its types: the great patrician merchants and -bankers of solid reputation, the jobbers, break-neck speculators, and -decayed old stagers; and, as Brütt rendered these current figures in a -very intelligible manner, his pictures excited a great deal of -attention. Acquittals and condemnations, acts of mortgage, emigration -agents, comic electors, and prison visits, as further episodes from the -social, political, and commercial life of great towns, fill up the odd -corners of his little local chronicle. - -Thus the German _genre_ painting ran approximately the same course as -the English had done at the beginning of the century. At that time the -kingdom of German art was not of this world. Classicism taught men to -turn their eyes on the art of a past age. Art in Germany had progressed -slowly, and at first with an uncertain and hesitating step, before it -learnt that what blossoms here, and thrives and fades, should be the -subject of its labours. Gradually it brought one sphere of reality after -the other into its domain. Observation took the place of abstraction, -and the discoverer that of the inventor. The painter went amongst his -fellow-creatures, opened his eyes and his heart to share their fortunes -and misfortunes, and to reproduce them in his own creation. He -discovered the peculiarities of grades of life and professional classes. -Every one of the beautiful German landscapes with its peasantry, every -one of the monastic orders and every manufacturing town found its -representative in _genre_ painting. The country was mapped out. Each one -took over his plot, which he superintended, conscientiously, like an -ethnographical museum. And just as fifty years before, Germany had been -fertilised by England, so it now gave in its turn the principles of -_genre_ painting to the powers of the second rank in art. - -Even France was in some degree influenced. As if to indicate that Alsace -would soon become German once more, after 1850 there appeared in that -province certain painters who busied themselves with the narration of -anecdote from rustic life quite in the manner of Knaus and Vautier. - -_Gustave Brion_, the grand-nephew of Frederica of Sesenheim, settled in -the Vosges, and there gave intelligence of a little world whose life -flowed by, without toil, in gentle, patriarchal quietude, interrupted -only by marriage feasts, birthdays, and funeral solemnities. He appears -to have been rather fond of melancholy and solemn subjects. His -interiors, with their sturdy and honest people, bulky old furniture, and -large green faïence stoves, which are so dear to him, are delightful in -their familiar homeliness and their cordial Alsatian and German -character, and recall Vautier; in fact, he might well be termed the -French Vautier. He lives in them himself--the quiet old man, who in his -last years occupied himself solely with the management of his garden and -the culture of flowers, or sat by the hour in an easy-chair at the -window telling stories to his old dog Putz. But pictorial unity of -effect must be asked from him as little as from Vautier. - -_Charles Marchal_, too, was no painter, but an anecdotist, with a bias -towards the humorous or sentimental; and so very refined and superior -was he that he saw none but pretty peasant girls, who might easily be -mistaken for "young ladies," if they exchanged their kerchiefs and -bodices for a Parisian toilette. His chief picture was "The Hiring Fair" -of 1864: pretty peasant girls are standing in a row along the street, -bargaining with prospective masters before hiring themselves out. - -[Illustration: GRÜTZNER. TWELFTH NIGHT.] - -The most famous of this group of artists is _Jules Breton_, who after -various humorous and sentimental pieces placed himself in 1853 in the -front rank of the French painters of rustics by his "Return of the -Reapers" (Musée Luxembourg). His "Gleaners" in 1855, "Blessing the -Fields" in 1857, and "The Erection of the Picture of Christ in the -Churchyard" were pretty enough to please the public, and sufficiently -sound in technique not to be a stumbling-block to artists. After 1861 he -conceived an enthusiasm for sunsets, and was never weary of depicting -the hour when the fair forms of peasant maidens stand gracefully out -against the quiet golden horizon. Jules Breton wrote many poems, and a -vein of poetry runs through his pictures. They tell of the sadness of -the land when the fields sleep dreamily beneath the shadows of the -evening, touched by the last ray of the departing sun; but they tell of -it in verses where the same rhymes are repeated with wearisome monotony. -Breton is a charming and sympathetic figure, but he never quite -conquered Classicism. His gleaners moving across the field in the -evening twilight bear witness to an attentive, deliberate study of the -works of Leopold Robert; and unfortunately much of the emphasis and -classical style of Robert has been transmitted to Breton's rustic -maidens. They have most decidedly a lingering weakness for pose, and a -sharp touch of the formula of the schools. There is an affectation of -style in their garb, and their hands are those of _bonnes_ who have -never even handled a rake. Breton, as Millet said of him, paints girls -who are too beautiful to remain in the country. His art is a well-bred, -idyllic painting, with gilt edges; it is pleasing and full of delicate -figures which are always elegant and always correct, but it is a little -like flat lemonade; it is monotonous and only too carefully composed, -destitute of all masculinity and seldom avoiding the reef of -affectation. - -Norway and Sweden were fructified from Düsseldorf immediately. When -Tidemand had shown the way, the academy on the Rhine was the high school -for all the sons of the North during the fifties. They set to -translating Knaus and Vautier into Swedish and Norwegian, and caught the -tone of their originals so exactly that they almost seem more -Düsseldorfian than the Düsseldorfers themselves. - -_Karl D'Uncker_, who arrived in 1851 and died in 1866, was led by the -influence of Vautier to turn to little humorous incidents. After "The -Two Deaf Friends" (two old people very hard of hearing, who are making -comical efforts to understand each other) and "The Vagabond Musician and -his Daughter before the Village Magistrates" there followed in 1858 the -scene in "The Pawnshop," which divided the honours of the year with -Knaus's "Golden Wedding." He is an artistic compromise between Knaus and -Schroedter, a keen observer and a humorous narrator, who takes special -pleasure in the sharp opposition of characteristic figures. In his -"Pawnshop" and his "Third Class Waiting Room" vagabonds mingle in the -crowd beside honest people, beggars beside retired tradesmen, old -procuresses beside pure and innocent girls, and heartless misers beside -warm-hearted philanthropists. In these satirically humorous little -comedies Swedish costume has been rightly left out of sight. This -ethnographical element was the _forte of Bengt Nordenberg_, who as a -copyist of Tidemand gradually became the Riefstahl of the North. His -"Golden Wedding in Blekingen," his "Bridal Procession," his "Collection -of Tithes," "The Pietists," and "The Promenade at the Well," are of the -same ethnographical fidelity and the same anecdotic dryness. He gets his -best effects when he strikes an idyllic, childlike note or one of -patriarchal geniality. The "Bridal Procession" received in the village -with salvoes and music, "The Newly Married Pair" making a first visit to -the parents of one of them, the picture of schoolboys playing tricks -upon an old organist, that of children mourning over a lamb slain by a -wolf, are, in the style of the sixties, the works of a modest and -amiable anecdotist, who had a fine sense for the peaceful, familiar side -of everyday life in town and country. - -[Illustration: BRION. JEAN VALJEAN.] - -In _Wilhelm Wallander_, as in Madou, noise and frolic and jest have the -upper hand. His pictures are like saucy street ditties sung to a -barrel-organ. The crowd at the market-place, the gossip in the -spinning-room on a holiday evening, hop-pickings, dances, auctions on -old estates, weddings, and the guard turning out, are his favourite -scenes. Even when he came to Düsseldorf he was preceded by his fame as a -jolly fellow and a clever draughtsman, and when he exhibited his "Market -in Vingaker" he was greeted as another Teniers. His "Hop-Harvest" is -like a waxwork show of teasing lads and laughing lasses. He was an -incisive humorist and a spirited narrator, who under all circumstances -was more inclined to jest than to touch idyllic and elegiac chords. In -his pictures peasant girls never wander solitary across the country, for -some lad who is passing by always has a joke to crack with them; it -never happens that girls sit lonely by the hearth, there is always a -lover to peep out laughing from behind the cupboard door. - -_Anders Koskull_ cultivated the _genre_ picture of children in a more -elegiac fashion; he has poor people sitting in the sun, or peasant -families in the Sunday stillness laying wreaths upon the graves of their -dear ones in the churchyard. _Kilian Zoll_, like Meyer of Bremen, -painted very childish pictures of women spinning, children with cats, -the joys of grandmother, and the like. _Peter Eskilson_ turned to the -representation of an idyllic age of honest yeomen, and has given in his -best known work, "A Game of Skittles in Faggens," a pleasant picture -from peasant life in the age of pig-tails. The object of _August -Jernberg's_ study was the Westphalian peasant with his slouching hat, -long white coat, flowered waistcoat, and large silver buttons. He was -specially fond of painting dancing bears surrounded by a crowd of amused -spectators, or annual fairs, for which a picturesque part of old -Düsseldorf served as a background. _Ferdinand Fagerlin_ has something -attractive in his simplicity and good-humour. If he laughs, as he -delights in doing, his laughter is cordial and kind-hearted, and if he -touches an elegiac chord he can guard against sentimentalism. In -contrast with D'Uncker and Wallander, who always hunted after character -pieces, he devotes himself to expression with much feeling, and -interprets it delicately even in its finer _nuances_. Henry Ritter, who -influenced him powerfully in the beginning of his career, drew his -attention to Holland, and Fagerlin's quiet art harmonises with the Dutch -phlegm. Within the four walls of his fishermen's huts there are none but -honest grey-beards and quiet women, active wives and busy maidens, -vigorous sailors and lively peasant lads. But his pictures are -sympathetic in spite of this one-sided optimism, since the sentiment is -not too affected nor the anecdotic points too heavily underlined. - -Amongst the Norwegians belonging to this group is _V. -Stoltenberg-Lerche_, who with the aid of appropriate accessories adapted -the interiors of cloisters and churches to _genre_ pictures, such as -"Tithe Day in the Cloister," "The Cloister Library," and "The Visit of a -Cardinal to the Cloister," and so forth. _Hans Dahl_, a _juste-milieu_ -between Tidemand and Emanuel Spitzer, carried the Düsseldorf village -idyll down to the present time. "Knitting the Stocking" (girls knitting -on the edge of a lake), "Feminine Attraction" (a lad with three peasant -maidens who are dragging a boat to shore in spite of his resistance), "A -Child of Nature" (a little girl engaged to sit as model to a painter -amongst the mountains, and running away in alarm), "The Ladies' Boarding -School on the Ice," "First Pay Duty," etc., are some of the witty titles -of his wares, which are scattered over Europe and America. Everything is -sunny, everything laughs, the landscapes as well as the figures; and if -Dahl had painted fifty years ago, his fair maidens with heavy blond -plaits, well-bred carriage, and delicate hands that have never been -disfigured by work, would undoubtedly have assured him no unimportant -place beside old Meyerheim in the history of the development of the -_genre_ picture. - -An offshoot from the Munich painting of rustics shot up into a vigorous -sapling in Hungary. The process of refining the raw talents of the -Magyar race had been perfected on the shores of the Isar, and the -Hungarians showed gratitude to their masters by applying the principles -of the Munich _genre_ to Magyar subjects when they returned home. The -Hungarian rooms of modern exhibitions have consequently a very local -impress. Everything seems aboriginal, Magyar to the core, and purely -national. Gipsies are playing the fiddle and Hungarian national songs -ring forth, acrobats exhibit, slender sons of Pusta sit in Hungarian -village taverns over their tokay, muscular peasant lads jest with buxom, -black-eyed girls, smart hussars parade their irresistible charms before -lively damsels, and recruits endeavour to imbibe a potent enthusiasm for -the business of war from the juice of the grape. Stiff peasants, limber -gipsies, old people dancing, smart youths, the laughing faces of girls -and bold fellows with flashing eyes, quarrelsome heroes quick with the -knife, tipsy soldiers and swearing sergeants, drunkards, suffering women -and poor orphans, pawnshops and vagabonds, legal suits, electioneering -scenes, village tragedies and comic proposals, artful shop-boys, and -criminals condemned to death, the gay confusion of fairs and the merry -return from the harvest and the vintage, waxed moustaches, green and red -caps and short pipes, tokay, Banat wheat, Alfoeld tobacco, and Sarkad -cattle,--such are the elements worked up, as the occasion demanded, -either into little tales or great and thrilling romances. And the names -of the painters are as thoroughly Magyar as are the figures. Beside -_Ludwig Ebner_, _Paul Boehm_, and _Otto von Baditz_, which have a German -sound, one comes across such names as _Koloman Déry_, _Julius Aggházi_, -_Alexander Bihari_, _Ignaz Ruskovics_, _Johann Jankó_, _Tihamér -Margitay_, _Paul Vagó_, _Arpad Fessty_, _Otto Koroknyai_, _D. -Skuteczky_, etc. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - MARCHAL. THE HIRING FAIR.] - -But setting aside the altered names and the altered locality and garb, -the substance of these pictures is precisely the same as that of the -Munich pictures of twenty years before: dance and play, maternal -happiness, wooing, and the invitation to the wedding. Instead of the -_Schuhplattler_ they paint the Czarda, instead of the drover's cottage -the taverns of Pesth, instead of the blue Bavarian uniform the green of -the Magyar Hussars. Their painting is tokay adulterated with Isar -water, or Isar water with a flavour of tokay. What seems national is at -bottom only their antiquated standpoint. It is a typical development -repeating itself in the nineteenth century through all branches of art; -the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. Any other progress than -that of the gradual expansion of subject-matter cannot be established in -favour of the productions of all this _genre_ painting. In colour and in -substance they represent a phase of art which the leading countries of -Europe had already left behind about the middle of the century, and -which had to be overcome elsewhere, if painting was again to be what it -had been in the old, good periods. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - PETTENKOFEN. A HUNGARIAN VILLAGE (PENCIL DRAWING).] - -For as yet all these _genre_ painters were the children of Hogarth; -their productions were the outcome of the same spirit, plebeian and -alien to art, which had come into painting when the middle classes began -to hold a more important position in society. Yet their artistic -significance ought not to be and cannot be contested. In an age which -was prouder of its antiquarian knowledge than of its own achievements, -which recognised the faithful imitation of the method of all past -periods, the mere performance of a delicate task, as the highest aim of -art, these _genre_ painters were the first to portray the actual man of -the nineteenth century; the first to desert museums and appeal to -nature, and thus to lay the foundation of modern painting. They wandered -in the country, looked at reality, sought to imitate it, and often -displayed in their studies a marvellous directness of insight. But these -vigorous initial studies were too modest to find favour and esteem with -a public as yet insufficiently educated for the appreciation of art. -Whilst in England the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and in France -those of the Paris Salon created, comparatively early, a certain ground -for the comprehension of art, the _genre_ painters of other countries -worked up to and into the sixties without the appropriate social -combinations. After 1828 the Art Unions began to usurp the position of -that refined society which had formerly played the Mæcenas as the -leading dictators of taste. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - BRETON. THE RETURN OF THE REAPERS.] - -Albrecht Adam, who was chiefly responsible for the foundation of the -Munich Union, has himself spoken clearly in his autobiography of the -advantages and disadvantages of this step. "Often," he writes, "often -have I asked myself whether I have done good or not by this scheme, and -to this hour I have not been able to make up my mind. The cultivation of -art clearly received an entirely different bias from that which it had -in earlier days. What was formerly done by artistic and judicious -connoisseurs was now placed for the most part in the hands of the -people. Like so much else in the world, that had its advantages, but in -practice the shady side of the matter became very obvious." The -disadvantages were specially these: "the people" for a long time could -only understand such paintings as represented a story in a broad and -easy fashion; paintings which in the narrative cohesion of the subject -represented might be read off at a glance, since the mere art of reading -had been learnt at school, rather than those which deserved and required -careful study. The demand for anecdotic subject was only waived in the -case of ethnographical painting, in Italian and Oriental _genre_; for -here the singular types, pictorial costumes, and peculiar customs of -foreign countries were in themselves enough to provoke curiosity. What -was prized in the picture was merely something external, the subject of -representation, not the representation itself, the matter and not the -manner, that which concerned the theme, that which fell entirely beyond -the province of art. The illustrated periodicals which had been making -their appearance since the forties gave a further impetus to this phase -of taste. The more inducement there was to guess charades, the more -injury was done to the sensuous enjoyment of art; for the accompanying -text of the author merely translated the pictures back into their -natural element. Painters, however, were not unwilling to reconcile -themselves to the circumstances, because, as a result of their technical -insufficiency, they were forced, on their side, to try to lend their -pictures the adjunct of superficial interest by anecdotic additions. -Literary humour had to serve the purpose of pictorial humour, and the -talent of the narrator was necessary to make up for their inadequate -artistic qualities. As the historical painters conveyed the knowledge of -history in a popular style, the _genre_ painters set up as agreeable -tattlers, excellent anecdotists: they were in turn droll, meditative, -sentimental, and pathetic, but they were not painters. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - BRETON. THE GLEANER.] - -And painters, under these conditions, they could not possibly become. -For though it is often urged in older books on the history of art that -modern _genre_ painting far outstripped the old Dutch _genre_ in -incisiveness of characterisation, depth of psychological conception, and -opulence of invention, these merits are bought at the expense of all -pictorial harmony. In the days of Rembrandt the Dutch were painters to -their fingers' ends, and they were able to be so because they appealed -to a public whose taste was adequately trained to take a refined -pleasure in the contemplation of works of art which had sterling merits -of colour. Mieris painted the voluptuous ruffling of silken stuffs; Van -der Meer, the mild light stealing through little windows into quiet -chambers, and playing upon burnished vessels of copper and pewter, on -majolica dishes and silver chattels, on chests and coverings; De Hoogh, -the sunbeam streaming like a golden shaft of dust from some bright -lateral space into a darker ante-chamber. Each one set before himself -different problems, and each ran through an artistic course of -development. - -[Illustration: WALLENDER. THE RETURN.] - -The more recent masters are mature from their first appearance; the -Hungarians paint exactly like the Swedes and the Germans, and their -pictures have ideas for the theme, but never such as are purely -artistic. Like simple woodland birds, they sing melodies which are, in -some ways, exceedingly pretty; but their plumage is not equal to their -song. No man can be painter and _genre_ painter at the same time. The -principal difference between them is this: a painter sees his picture, -rather than what may be extracted from it by thought; the _genre_ -painter, on the other hand, has an idea in his mind, an "invention," and -plans out a picture for its expression. The painter does not trouble his -head about the subject and the narrative contents; his poetry lies in -the kingdom of colour. There reigns in his works--take Brouwer, for -example--an authentic, uniformly plastic, and penetrative life welling -from the artist's soul. But the leading motive for the _genre_ painter -is the subject as such. For example, he will paint a children's festival -precisely because it is a children's festival. But one must be a Jan -Steen to accomplish such a task in a soundly artistic manner. The -observation of these more recent painters meanwhile ventured no further -than detail, and did not know what to do with the picture as a whole. -They got over their difficulties because they "invented" the scene, made -the children pose in the places required by the situation, and then -composed these studies. The end was accomplished when the leading heroes -of the piece had been characterised and the others well traced. The -colouring was merely an unessential adjunct, and in a purely artistic -sense not at all possible. For a picture which has come into being -through a piecing together from separate copies of set models, and of -costumes, vessels, interiors, etc., may be ever so true to nature in -details, but this mosaic work is bound systematically to destroy the -pictorial appearance, unity, and quietude of the whole. Knaus is -perhaps the only one who, as a fine connoisseur of colour, concealed -this scrap-book drudgery, and achieved a certain congruity of colour in -a really artistic manner by a subtilised method of harmony. But as -regards the pictures of all the others, it is clear at once that, as -Heine wrote, "they have been rather edited than painted." The -effectiveness of the picture was lost in the detail, and even the truth -of detail was lost in the end in the opulence of subject, seductive as -that was upon the first glance. For, as it was held that the incident -subjected to treatment--the more circumstantial the better--ought to be -mirrored through all grades and variations of emotion in the faces, in -the gestures of a family, of the gossips, of the neighbours, of the -public in the street, the inevitable consequence was that the artist, to -make himself understood, was invariably driven to exaggerate the -characterisation, and to set in the place of the unconstrained -expression of nature that which has been histrionically drilled into the -model. Not less did the attempt to unite these set figures as a -composition in one frame lead to an intolerable stencilling. The rules -derived from historical painting in a time dominated by that form of art -were applied to our chequered and many-sided modern life. Since the -structure of this composition prescribed laws from which the undesigned -manifestation of individual objects is free, the studies after nature -had to be readjusted in the picture according to necessity. There were -attitudes in a conventional sense beautiful, but unnatural and strained, -and therefore creating an unpleasing effect. An arbitrary construction, -a forced method of composition, usurped the place of what was flexible, -various, and apparently casual. The painters did not fit the separate -part as it really was into the totality which the coherence of life -demands: they arranged scenes of comedy out of realistic elements just -as a stage manager would put them together. - -And this indicates the further course which development was obliged to -take. When Hogarth was left behind, painting had once more gained the -independence which it had had in the great periods of art. The painter -was forced to cease from treating secondary qualities--such as humour -and narrative power--as though they were of the first account; and the -public had to begin to understand pictures as paintings and not as -painted stories. An "empty subject" well painted is to be preferred to -an "interesting theme" badly painted. Pictures of life must drive out -_tableaux vivants_, and human beings dislodge character types which -curiosity renders attractive. Rather let there be a moment of breathing -reality rendered by purely artistic means of expression than the most -complete village tale defectively narrated; rather the simplest figure -rendered with actuality and no thought of self than the most suggestive -and ingenious characterisation. A conception, coloured by the -temperament of the artist, of what was simple and inartificial, -expressing nature at every step, had to take the place of laborious -composition crowded with figures, the plainness and truth of sterling -art to overcome what was overloaded and arbitrary, and the fragment of -nature seized with spontaneous freshness to supplant episodes put -together out of fragmentary observations. Only such painting as confined -itself, like that of the Dutch, "to the bare empirical observation of -surrounding reality," renouncing literary byplay, spirited anecdotic -fancies, and all those rules of beauty which enslave nature, could -really become the basis of modern art: and this the landscape painters -created. When once these masters resolved to paint from nature, and no -longer from their inner consciousness, there inevitably came a day when -some one amongst them wished to place in the field or the forest, which -he had painted after nature, a figure, and then felt the necessity of -bringing that figure into his picture just as he had seen it, without -giving it an anecdote mission or forcing it arbitrarily into his -compositions. The landscapist found the woodcutter in the forest, and -the woodcutter seemed to him the ideal he was seeking; the peasant -seemed to him to have the right to stand amid the furrows he had traced -with his plough. He no longer drove the fisher and the sailor from their -barks, and had no scruple in representing the good peasant woman, laden -with wood, striding forwards in his picture just as she strode through -the forest. And so entry was made into the way of simplicity; the -top-heavy burden of interesting subject-matter was thrown aside, and the -truth of figures and environments was gained. The age contained all the -conditions for bringing landscape painting such as this to maturity. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN GERMANY - - -That landscape would become for the nineteenth century even more -important than it was for the Holland of the seventeenth century had -been clearly announced since the days of Watteau and Gainsborough, and -since this tendency, in spite of all coercive rules, could be only -momentarily delayed by Classicism, it came to pass that the era which -began with Winckelmann's conception of "vulgar nature" ended a -generation later with her apotheosis. The thirty years from 1780 to 1810 -denoted no more than a brief imprisonment for modern landscape, the -luxuriantly blooming child being arbitrarily confined meanwhile in the -strait-waistcoat of history. At first the phrase of Gotthold Ephraim -Lessing, which declared that landscape was no subject for painting -because it had no soul, held painters altogether back from injuring -their reputation by such pictures. And when, after the close of the -century, some amongst them overcame this dread, Poussin the Classicist -was of course set up as the only model. For an age which did not paint -men but only statues, nature was too natural. As the figure painter -subordinated everything to style and moulded the human body accordingly, -landscape became mannered to suit an historical idea, and was used -merely as a theatrical background for Greek tragedies. As the -draughtsmen of the age freed the human figure from all "individual -blemishes," and thereby abandoned the most essential points of life and -credibility which are bound up with personality, the landscapists wished -to purify nature from everything "accidental," with the result that -dreary commonplaces were produced from her, the infinitely manifold. As -the former sought the chief merit of their works in "well-balanced -composition," the latter regarded trees and mountains, temples and -palaces, clouds and rivers, merely as counters which only needed to be -changed in their mutual position according to acquired rules of -composition to make new pictures. They did not reflect that nature -possesses a more original force than the most able self-conscious work -of man, or, as Ludwig Richter has so well expressed it, that "what God -Almighty has made is always more beautiful than what men can invent." -There were summary rules for landscapes in the Poussin style, the beauty -of which was sought above all in an opulent play of noble lines, -corresponding to the fine and flowing lines of Carstens' figures. But -the conception was all the more pedantic whilst the drawing was hard and -dry and the colour feeble and vitreous. The most familiar of the group -is the old Tyrolese _Josef Anton Koch_, who came to Rome in 1796, and, -during two years, had an opportunity of allying himself with Carstens. -His pictures are usually composed with motives taken from the Sabine -Mountains. A landscape with "The Rape of Hylas" is possessed by the -Staedel Institute in Frankfort, a "Sacrifice of Noah" by the Museum in -Leipzig, and a landscape from the Sabine Mountains by the New Pinakothek -in Munich. All three show little promise in technique; it was only in -water-colour that he painted with more freedom. - -[Illustration: JOSEF ANTON KOCH.] - -Without a doubt nature in Italy is favourable to this "heroic" style of -landscape. In South Italy the country is at once magnificent and -peaceful. The naked walls of rock display their majestic lines with a -sharp contour; the sea is blue, and there is no cloud in the sky. As far -as the eye reaches everything is dead and nugatory in its colour, and -rigid and inanimate in form: a plastic landscape, full of style but -apparently devoid of soul. Nowhere is there anything either stupendous -or familiar, though, at the same time, there is no country on the earth -where there is such a sweep of proud majestic lines. It was not the -composition of Poussin, but the classic art of Claude--which aimed at -being nothing but the transparent mirror of sunny and transparent -nature--that gave perfect expression to this classic landscape; and in -the nineteenth century _Karl Rottmann_, according to what one reads, has -most completely represented this same classical form of art. His -twenty-eight Italian landscapes in the arcades of the Munich Hofgarten -are said to display a sense of the beauty of line and a greatness of -conception paralleled by few other landscape works of the century. And -those who draw their critical appreciations from books will probably -continue to make this statement, with all the greater right since the -world has been assured that the Arcade pictures are but a shadow of -earlier splendour. To a spectator who has not been primed and merely -judges with his own eyes without knowing anything about Rottmann's -celebrity, these pictures with their hard, inept colouring and their -pompous "synthetic" composition seem in the majority of cases to be -excessively childish, though it is not contested that before their -restoration by Leopold Rottmann and their present state of decay they -may very possibly have been good. Rottmann's Grecian landscapes in the -New Pinakothek are not ranked high even by his admirers. Standing in the -beginning entirely upon Koch's ground, he was led in these pictures to -give more importance to colour and light, and even to introduce unusual -phenomena, such as lowering skies, with rainbows, sunsets, moonlight -scenes, thunderstorms, and the like. This mixture of classical -principles of drawing with effect-painting in the style of Eduard -Hildebrandt brought a certain confusion into his compositions, to say -nothing of the fact that he never got rid of his harsh and heavy colour, -Bengal lights, and a crudeness of execution suggestive of tapestry. His -water-colours, probably, contain the only evidence from which it may be -gathered that Rottmann really had an eminent feeling for great -characteristic lines, and did not unsuccessfully go through the school -of Claude with his finely moulded, rhythmically perfected, and yet -simple conception of nature. - -[Illustration: _Gräphische Künst._ - - KARL ROTTMANN.] - -Otherwise _Friedrich Preller_ is the only one of all the stylists -deriving from Koch who rose to works consistent in execution. To him -only was it granted to assure his name a lasting importance by -exhaustively working out a felicitous subject. The _Odyssey_ landscapes -extend through his whole life. During a sojourn in Naples in 1830 he was -struck by the first idea. After his return home he composed for Doctor -Härtel in Leipzig the first series as wall decoration in tempera in -1832-34. Then there followed his journeys to Rügen and Norway, where he -painted wild strand and fell landscapes of a sombre austerity. After -this interruption, so profitably extending his feeling for nature, he -returned to the _Odyssey_. The series grew from seven to sixteen -cartoons, which were to be found in 1858 at the Munich International -Exhibition. The Grand Duke of Weimar then commissioned him to paint the -complete sequence for a hall in the Weimar Museum. In 1859-60 Preller -prepared himself afresh in Italy, and as an old man completed the work -which he had planned in youth. This Weimar series, executed in encaustic -painting, is artistically the maturest that he ever did. Of the entire -school he only had the secret of giving his figures a semblance of life, -and concealed the artificiality of his compositions. Nature in his -pictures has an austere, impressive sublimity, and is the worthy home of -gods and heroes. During his long life he had made so many and such -incessant studies of nature in North and South--even at seventy-eight he -was seen daily with his sketch-book in the Campagna--that he could -venture to work with great, simple lines without the danger of becoming -empty. - -At the time when these pictures were painted the rendering of still-life -in landscape had in general been long buried, although even to-day it -has scattered representatives in the younger Preller, Albert Hertel, and -Edmund Kanoldt. As antique monuments came into fashion with Classicism, -German ruins became the mode at the beginning of the romantic period and -the return to the national past. For Koch and his followers landscape -was only of value when, as the background of classical works of -architecture, it directed one's thoughts to the antique: shepherds had -to sit with their flock around them on the ruins of the temple of Vesta, -or cows to find pasture between the truncated pillars of the Roman -Forum. But now it could only find its justification by allying itself -with mediæval German history, by the portrayal of castles and -strongholds. - -[Illustration: ROTTMANN. THE COAST OF SICILY.] - -"What is beautiful?--A landscape with upright trees, fair vistas, -atmosphere of azure blue, ornamental fountains, stately palaces in a -learned architectural style, with well-built men and women, and well-fed -cows and sheep. What is ugly?--Ill-formed trees with aged, crooked, and -cloven stems, uneven and earthless ground, sharp-cut hills and mountains -which are too high, rude or dilapidated buildings, with their ruins -lying strewn in heaps, a sky with heavy clouds, stagnant water, lean -cattle in the field, and ungraceful wayfarers." - -In these words Gérard de Lairesse, the ancestor of Classicism, defined -his ideal of landscape, and in the last clause, where he speaks of -ugliness, he prophetically indicated the landscape ideal of the -Romanticists, as this is given for the first time in literature in -Tieck's _Sternbald_. For the young knight in _Sternbald_ who desires to -become a painter exclaims with enthusiasm: "Then would I depict lonely -and terrible regions, rotting and broken bridges, between two rough -cliffs facing a precipice, through which the forest stream forces its -foaming course, lost travellers whose garments flutter in the moist -wind, the dreaded figures of robbers ascending from the gully, waggons -fallen upon and plundered, and battle against the travellers." Which is -all exactly the opposite to what Lairesse demanded from the landscapist. -Alexander Humboldt has shown that the men of antiquity only found beauty -in nature so far as she was kindly, smiling, and useful to them. But to -the Romanticists nature was uncomely where she was the servant of -civilisation, and beautiful only in tameless and awe-inspiring -savageness. The light, therefore, was never to be that of simple day, -but the gloom of night and of the mountain glens. Such phenomena are -neither to be seen in Berlin nor in Breslau, and to be a Romanticist was -to love the opposite of all that one sees around one. Tieck, who lived -in the cold daylight of Berlin with its modern North German rationalism, -has therefore--and not by chance--first felt the yearning for moonlight -landscapes of primæval forest; _Lessing_, from Breslau, was the first to -give it pictorial expression. - -[Illustration: K. ROTTMANN. LAKE KOPAÏS.] - -Even in the twenties Koch's classical heroic landscapes, executed with -an ideal sweep of line, were contrasted with castle chapels, ruins, and -cloister courts composed in a similarly arbitrary manner. Landscape was -no longer to make its appeal to the understanding by lines, as in the -work of the Classicists, but to touch the spirit by colour. The various -hues of moonlight seemed specially made to awaken sombre emotions. But -as yet the technique of painting was too inadequately trained to express -this preconceived "mood" through nature itself. To make his intentions -clearer, therefore, the painter showed the effect of natural scenery on -the figures in his pictures, illustrating the "mood" of the landscape in -the "accessories." Lessing's early works represent in art that -self-consciously elegiac and melancholy sentimental rendering of a mood -introduced into literature by _Sternbald_, in his knights, squires, -noble maidens, and other romantic requisites. The melancholy lingers -upon rocks savagely piled upon each other, tumble-down chapels and -ruined castles, in swamps and sombre woods, in old, decaying trees, -half-obliterated paths, and ghostly gravestones; it veils the sky with a -dark grey cerement. Amid hills and glens with wayside crosses, mills, -and charcoal-burners' huts may be seen lonely wanderers, praying -pilgrims, priests hurrying from the cloister to bring the last -consolation to the dying, riders who have lost their way, and mercenary -soldiers lying dead. His first picture of 1828 revealed a desolate -churchyard beneath a dark and lowering heaven, from which a solitary -sunbeam bursts forth to illumine a grave-stead. Then followed the castle -by the sea standing upon strangely moulded cliffs heaped in confusion; -the churchyard in the snow where the nuns in the cloisters are following -a dead sister to the grave; the churchyard cloister, likewise in -snow, where an old man has dug a fresh grave; the cloister in the light -of evening with a priest visiting the sick; the landscape with the -weary, grey-headed crusader, riding on a weary horse through a lonely -mountain district, probably meant as an illustration to Uhland's ballad -_Das Rosennest_-- - - "Rühe hab ich nie gefunden, - Als ein Jahr im finstern Thurm"; - -and then came the desolate tableland with the robbers' den burnt to -ashes, and the landscape with the oak and the shrine of the Virgin, -before which a knight and noble lady are making their devotions. As yet -all these pictures were an arbitrary _potpourri_ from Walter Scott, -Tieck, and Uhland, and their ideal was the Wolf's Glen in the -_Freischütz_. - -[Illustration: FRIEDRICH PRELLER.] - -The next step which Romanticism had to take was to discover such -primæval woodland scenes in actual nature, and as Italian landscape -seems, as it were, to have been made for Claude, nature, as she is in -Germany, makes a peculiar appeal to this romantic temperament. In -certain parts of Saxon Switzerland the rocks look as if giants of the -prime had played ball with them or piled them one on top of the other in -sport. Lessing found in 1832 a landscape corresponding to the romantic -ideal of nature in the Eifel district, whither he had been induced to go -by a book by Nöggerath, _Das Gebirge im Rheinland und Westfalen nach -Mineralogischem und Chemischem Bezuge_. Up to that time he had only -known the romantic ideal of nature through Scott, Tieck, and Uhland, -just as the Classicists had taken their ideal from Homer, Theocritus, -and Virgil: in the Eifel district it came before him in tangible form. -Flat, swampy tracts of shrub and spruce alternated with dark woods, -where gigantic firs, weird pines, and primæval oaks raised their -branches to the sky. At the same time he beheld the rude and lonely -sublimity of nature in union with a humanity which was as yet -uncultivated, and for that reason all the simpler and the healthier, -judged by the Romanticist's distaste for civilisation. Defiant cones of -rock and huge masses of mountain wildly piled upon each other overlooked -valleys in which a stalwart race of peasants passed their days in -patriarchal simplicity. Here, for the first time, a sense for actual -landscape was developed in him; hitherto it had been alloyed by a taste -for knights, robbers, and monks. "Oh, had I been born in the seventeenth -century," he wrote, "I would have wandered after the Thirty Years' War -throughout Germany, plundered, ruined, and run wild as she then was." -Hitherto only "composed" Italian landscapes had been painted, the soil -of home ostensibly offering no _sujets_, or, in other words, not suiting -those tendencies which subordinated everything to style: so Lessing was -now the first painter of German landscape. His "Eifel Landscape" in the -Berlin National Gallery, which was followed by a series of such -pictures, introduces the first period of German landscape painting. The -forms of the ground and of the rough sides of rock are rendered sharply -and decisively, from geological knowledge. On principle he became an -opponent of all artistic influence derived from Italy, and located -himself in the Eifel district. The landscapes which he painted there are -founded on immediate studies of nature, and are sustained by large and -earnest insight. He draws the picture of this quarter in strong and -simple lines: the sadness of the heath and the dark mist, the dull -breath of which rises from swampy moorland. Still he painted only scenes -in which nature had taken the trouble to be fantastic. The eye of the -painter did not see her bright side, approaching her only when she -looked gloomy or was in angry humour. Either he veils the sky with vast -clouds or plunges into the darkness of an untrodden forest. Gnarled -trees spread around, their branches stretching out fantastically -twisted; the unfettered tumult of the powers of nature, the dull sultry -atmosphere before the burst of the storm or its moaning subsidence, are -the only moments which he represents. But the whole baggage of -unseasonable Romanticism, the nuns and monks, pious knights and -sentimental robbers, at first used to embody the mood of nature, were -thrown overboard. A quieter and more melancholy though thoroughly manly -seriousness, something strong and pithy, lies in the representations of -Lessing. The Romanticists had lost all sense of the dumb silent life of -nature. They only painted the changing adornment of the earth: heroes -and the works of men, palaces, ruins, and classic temples. Nature served -merely as a stage scene: the chief interest lay in the persons, the -monuments, and the historical ideas associated with them. Even in the -older pictures of Lessing the mood was exclusively given by the lyrical -accessories. But now it was placed more and more in nature herself, and -rings in power like an organ peal, from the cloudy sky, the dim lights, -and the swaying tree-tops. For the first time it is really nature that -speaks from the canvas, sombre and forceful. In this respect his -landscapes show progress. They show the one-sidedness, but also the -poetry of the Romantic view of nature. And they are no less of an -advance in technique; for in making the discovery that his haunting -ideal existed in reality, Lessing first began to study nature apart from -preconceived and arbitrary rules of composition, and--learnt to paint. - -[Illustration: _Albert, Munich._ - - PRELLER. ULYSSES AND LEUCOTHEA.] - -Up to 1840 there stood at his side a master no less powerful, the -refractory, self-taught _Karl Blechen_, who only took up painting when -he was five-and-twenty, and became one of the most original of German -landscapists, in spite of a ruined life prematurely closing in mental -darkness and suicide. He possessed a delicate feeling for nature, -inspiration, boldness, and a spirited largeness of manner, although his -technique was hard, awkward, and clumsy to the very end. He might be -called the Alfred Rethel of landscape painting. He was not moved by what -was kindly or formally beautiful in nature, but by loneliness, -melancholy, and solitude. Many of his landscapes break away from -peaceful melancholy, and are like the pictures in some horrible -nightmare, ghastly and terrifying; on the other hand, he often surprises -us by the pleasure he takes in homely everyday things, a characteristic -hitherto of rare occurrence. Whereas Lessing never crossed the Alps for -fear of losing his originality, Blechen was the first who saw even -modern Italy without the spectacles of ideal style. From his Italian -pictures it would not be supposed that he had previously studied the -landscapes of the Classicists, or that beside him in Berlin Schinkel -worked on the entirely abstract and ideal landscape. As a painter -Blechen has even discovered the modern world. For Lessing landscape -"with a purpose" was something hideous and insupportable. He cared -exclusively for nature untouched by civilisation, painted the murmuring -wood and the raging storm, here and there at most a shepherd who -indicated the simplest and the oldest employment on the earth's surface. -But the Blechen Exhibition of 1881 contained an entirely singular -phenomenon as regards the thirties, an evening landscape before the iron -works in Eberswald: a long, monotonous plain with a sluggish river, -behind which the dark outlines of vomiting manufactory chimneys rise -sullenly into the bright evening sky. Even in that day Blechen painted -what others scarcely ventured to draw: nature working in the service of -man, and thereby--to use Tieck's expression--"robbed of her austere -dignity." - -[Illustration: CARL FRIEDRICH LESSING.] - -Lessing's most celebrated follower, _Schirmer_, appears in general as a -weakened and sentimental Lessing. He began in 1828 with "A Primæval -German Forest," but a journey to Italy caused him in 1840 to turn aside -from this more vigorous path. Henceforth his efforts were directed to -nobility of form and line, to turning out Southern ideal landscapes with -classically romantic accessories. The twenty-six Biblical landscapes -drawn in charcoal, belonging to the Düsseldorf Kunsthalle, the four -landscapes in oil with the history of the Good Samaritan in the -Kunsthalle of Carlsruhe, and the twelve pictures on the history of -Abraham in the Berlin National Gallery, are the principal results of -this second period--his period of ideal style. They are tame efforts at -a compromise between Lessing and Preller, and therefore of no -consequence to the history of the development of landscape painting. -Amongst the many who regarded him as a model, _Valentin Ruths_ of -Hamburg is one of the most natural and delicate. His pictures, however, -did not display any new impulse to widen the boundary by proceeding more -in the direction of healthy and honestly straightforward observation of -nature, or by emancipating himself from the school of regular -composition and the rendering of an arbitrary mood. - -[Illustration: LESSING. THE WAYSIDE MADONNA.] - -Meanwhile this impulse came from another quarter. At the very time when -the _genre_ artists were painting their earliest pictures of rustic life -under the influence of Teniers and Ostade, the landscapists also began -to return to the old Dutch masters, following Everdingen in particular. -Thus another strip of nature was conquered, another step made towards -simplicity. The landscape ideal of the Classicists had been -architecture, that of the Romanticists poetry; from this time forward it -became pure painting. Little Denmark, which fifty years before had -exercised through Carstens that fateful influence on Germany which led -painters from the treatment of contemporary life and sent them in -pursuit of the antique, now made recompense for the evil it had done. -During the twenties and thirties it produced certain landscapists who -guided the Germans to look with a fresh and unfettered gaze, undisturbed -by the ideal, at nature in their own country, after the aberrations of -Classicism and the one-sidedness of the Romanticists. Under Eckersberg -the Academy of Copenhagen was the centre of a healthy realism founded on -the Dutch, and some of the painters who received their training there -and laboured in later years in Dresden, Düsseldorf, and Munich spread -abroad the principles of this school. - -[Illustration: SCHIRMER. AN ITALIAN LANDSCAPE.] - -_J. C. Dahl_ taught as professor in the Academy of Dresden. At the -present time his Norwegian landscapes seem exceedingly old-fashioned, -but in the thirties they evidently must have been something absolutely -new, for they raised a hue and cry amongst the German painters as "the -most wild naturalism." In 1788 Johann Christian Clausen Dahl was born in -Bergen. He was the son of one of those Norwegian giants who are one day -tillers of the soil and on the morrow fishers or herdsmen and hunters, -who cross the sea in their youth as sailors and clear the waste land -when they return home. As he wandered with his father through the dense, -solitary pine forests, along abrupt precipices, sullen lakes, rushing -waterfalls, silvery shining glaciers, the majesty of Northern nature was -revealed to him, and he rendered them in little coloured drawings, -which, in spite of their awkward technique, bear witness to an -extraordinary freshness of observation. The course of study at the -Copenhagen Academy, whither he proceeded in his twentieth year, enabled -him to become acquainted with Everdingen and Ruysdael, and these two old -masters, who had also painted Norwegian landscapes, stimulated him to -further efforts. - -Dahl became the first representative of Norwegian landscape painting, -and remained true to his country even when in 1819 he undertook a -professorship in Dresden. Italy and Germany occupied his brush as much -as Norway, but he was only himself when he worked amongst the Norwegian -cliffs. Breadth of painting and softness of atmosphere are wanting in -all his pictures. They are hard and dry in their effect, and not seldom -entirely conventional; especially the large works painted after 1830. In -them he gave the impression of a bewildering, babbling personality. They -have been swiftly conceived and swiftly painted, but without artistic -love and fine feeling. In his later years Dahl did not allow himself the -time to bury himself in nature quietly and with devotion, and -finally--especially in his moonlight pictures--took to using a -violet-blue, which has a very conventional effect. Everdingen sought by -preference for what was forceful and violently agitated in nature; -Ruysdael felt an enthusiasm for rushing mountain streams. But for Dahl -even these romantic elements of Northern nature were not enough. He -approached nature, not to interpret her simply, but to arrange his -effects. In his picture the wild Norwegian landscape had to be wilder -and more restless than in reality it is. Not patient enough to win all -its secrets from the savage mountain torrent, he forced together his -effects, made additions, brought confusion into his picture as a whole, -and a crudeness into the particular incidents. His large pictures have a -loud effect contrasted with the simple intuition of nature amongst the -Netherlanders. Many of them are merely fantastically irrational -compositions of motives which have been learned by heart. - -But there were also years in which Dahl stood in the front rank of his -age, and even showed it the way to new aims. He certainly held that -position from 1820 to 1830 in those pictures in which, instead of making -romantic adaptations of Ruysdael and Everdingen, he resembled them by -rendering the weirdness and eeriness and the rough and wild features of -Norwegian scenery: red-brown heaths and brownish green turf-moors, -stunted oaks and dark pine forests, erratic blocks sown without design -amid the roots of trees, branches snapped by the storm and hanging as -they were broken, and trunks felled by the tempest and lying where they -fell. In certain pictures in the Bergen and Copenhagen Galleries he -pointed out the way to new aims. The tendency to gloom and seriousness -which reigns in those Dutch Romanticists has here yielded to what is -simple and familiar, to the homely joy of the people of the North in the -crisp, bright day and the wayward sunbeams. He loves the glimmer of -light upon the birch leaves and the peacefully rippling sea. Like Adrian -van der Neer, he studied with delight the wintry sky, the snow-clad -plains, and the night and the moonshine. He began to feel even the charm -of spring. Poor peasant cots are brightly and pleasantly perched upon -moist, green hills, as though he had quite forgotten what his age -demanded in "artistic composition." Or the summer day spreads opulent -and real between the cliffs, and the warm air vibrates over the fields. -Peasants and cattle, glimmering birches and village spires, stand -vigorously forth in the landscape; even the execution is so simple that -with all his richness of detail he succeeds in attaining a great effect. -It is felt that this painting has developed amid a virgin nature, -surrounded by the poetry of the fjord, the lofty cliff, and the torrent. -In the same measure the Dutch had not the feeling for quietude and -habitable, humble, and familiar places. And perhaps it was not by chance -that this reformer came from the most virgin country of Europe, from a -country that had had no share in any great artistic epoch of the past. - -[Illustration: MORGENSTERN. A PEASANT COTTAGE (ETCHING).] - -_Caspar David Friedrich_, that singular painter who carried on his -artistic work in Greifswald, and later in Dresden also, is, if anything, -almost more original and startling. Like Dahl, he studied under -Eckersberg, at the Academy in Copenhagen, and it was this elder artist -who opened his eyes to nature, in which he saw moods and humours as -romantic as they were modern. His work was not seen in a right light -until shown in the German Centenary Exhibition of 1906, when his just -place was first, in the history of art, assigned to him. - -For Munich a similar importance was won by the Hamburg painter -_Christian Morgenstern_, who, like all artists of this group, imitated -the Dutch in the tone of his colour, though as a draughtsman he remained -a fresh and healthy son of nature. Even what he accomplished in all -naïveté between 1826 and 1829, through direct study of Hamburg -landscape, is something unique in the German production of that age. His -sketches and etchings of these years assure him a high place amongst the -earliest German "mood" painters, and show that as a landscapist he had -at that time made the furthest advance towards simplicity and intimacy -of feeling. A journey to Norway, undertaken in 1829, and a sojourn at -the Copenhagen Academy, where he worked up his Norwegian studies, only -extended his ability without altering his principles; and when he came -to Munich in the beginning of the thirties his new and personal -intuition of nature made a revolution in artistic circles. The landscape -painters learnt from him that Everdingen, Ruysdael, and Rembrandt were -contemporaries of Poussin, that foliage need not be an exercise of -style, and is able properly to indicate the nature of the tree. He -discovered the beauty of the Bavarian plateau for the Munich school. - -Even the first picture that he brought with him from Hamburg displayed a -wide plain shadowed by clouds--a part of the Lüneberg heath--and to this -type of subject he remained faithful even in later days. Himself a child -of the plains, he sought for kindred motives in Bavaria, and found them -in rich store on the shore of the Isar, in the quarries near Polling, at -Peissenberg, and in the mossy region near Dachau. His pictures have not -the power of commanding the attention of an indifferent spectator, but -when they have been once looked into they are seen to be poetic, quiet, -harmless, sunny, and thoughtful. He delighted in whatever was ordinary -and unobtrusive, the gentle nature of the wood, the surroundings of the -village, everything homely and familiar. If Rottmann revelled in the -forms of Southern nature, Morgenstern abided by his native Germany; -where Lessing only listened to the rage of the hurricane, Morgenstern -hearkened to the quiet whisper of the breeze. The shadows of the clouds -and the radiance of the sun lie over the dark heath, the moonlight -streams dreamily over the quiet streets of the village, the waves break, -at one moment rushing noisily and at another gently caressing the shore. -Later, when he turned to the representation of the mountains, he lost -the intimacy of feeling which was in the beginning peculiar to him. In -mountain pictures, often as he attempted ravines, waterfalls, and snowy -Alpine summits, he never succeeded in doing anything eminently good. -These pictures have something petty and dismembered, and not the great, -simple stroke of his plains and skies. - -What Morgenstern was for Munich, _Ludwig Gurlitt_ was for -Düsseldorf--the most eminent of the great Northern colony which migrated -thither in the thirties. His name is not to be found in manuals, and the -pictures of his later period which represent him in public galleries -seldom give a full idea of his importance. After a journey to Greece in -1859 he took to a brown tone, in which much is conventional. Moreover, -his retired life--he resided from 1848 to 1852 in a Saxon village, and -from 1859 to 1873 in Siebleben, near Gotha--contributed much to his -being forgotten by the world. But the history of art which seeks -operative forces must do him honour as the first healthy, realistic -landscape painter of Germany, and--still more--as one who opened the -eyes of a number of younger painters who have since come to fame. - -Gurlitt was a native of Holstein, and, like Morgenstern, received his -first instruction in Hamburg, where at that time Bendixen, Vollmer, the -Lehmanns, and the Genslers formed an original group of artists. After -this, as in the case of Morgenstern also, there followed a longer -sojourn in Norway and Copenhagen. In Düsseldorf, where he then went, a -Jutland heath study made some sensation on his arrival. It was the first -landscape seen in Düsseldorf which had not been composed, and Schadow is -said to have come to Gurlitt's studio, accompanied by his pupils, to -behold the marvel. In 1836 he migrated to Munich, where Morgenstern had -worked before him, and here he produced a whole series of works, which -reveals an artist exceedingly independent in sentiment, and one who even -preserves his individuality in the presence of the Dutch. His pictures -were grey in tone, and not yellowish, like those of the Dutch; moreover, -they were less composed and less "intelligently" dressed out with -accessories than the pictures of Dahl; they were glances into nature -resulting from earnest, realistic striving. Even when he began to paint -Italian pictures, as he did after 1843, he preserved a straightforward -simplicity which was not understood by criticism in that age, though it -makes the more sympathetic appeal at the present day. The strength of -his realism lay, as was the case with all artists of those years, rather -in drawing; but at times he reaches, even in painting, a remarkable -clearness and delicacy, which at one time verges on the silver tone of -Canaletto, at another on the fine grey of Constable. - -[Illustration: GURLITT. ON THE SABINE MOUNTAINS.] - -Realism begins in German art with the entry of these Northern painters -into Düsseldorf and Munich. They were less affected by æsthetic -prejudices, and fresher and healthier than the Germans. Gurlitt was -specially their intellectual leader, the soul, the driving force of the -great movement which now followed. Roused by him, _Andreas Achenbach_ -emancipated himself from the landscape of style, and, in the years from -1835 to 1839, painted Norwegian pictures even before he knew Norway. -Roused by Gurlitt, Achenbach set forth upon the pilgrimage thither, the -journey which was a voyage of discovery for German landscape painting. - -Until Achenbach's death in 1905 he yearly exhibited works which were no -longer in touch with the surrounding efforts of younger men, and there -was an inclination to make little of his importance as a pioneer. What -is wanting in his pictures is artistic zeal; what he seems to have too -much of is routine. Andreas Achenbach is, as his portrait shows, a man -of great acuteness. From his clear, light blue eyes he looks sharply and -sagaciously into the world around; his short, thick-set figure, proud -and firm of carriage, in spite of years, bears witness to his tough -energy. His forehead, like Menzel's, is rather that of an architect than -of a poet; and his pictures correspond to his outward appearance. Each -one of his earlier good pictures was a battle fought and won. Realism -incarnate, a man from whom all visionary enthusiasm lay at a world-wide -distance, he conquered nature by masculine firmness and unexampled -perseverance. He appears as a _maître-peintre_, a man of cool, exact -talent with a clear and sober vision. The chief characteristic of his -organism was his eminent capacity for appreciating the artistic methods -of other artists, and adapting what was essential in them to his own -manner of production. One breathes more freely before the works of the -masters of Barbizon, and merely sees good pictures in those of -Achenbach. The former are captivating by their intimate penetration, -where he is striking by his bravura of execution. His landscapes have no -chance inspiration, no geniality. Everything is harmonised for the sake -of pictorial effect. The structure and scaffolding are of monumental -stability. Yet fine as his observation undoubtedly is, he has never -surprised the innermost working of nature, but merely turned her to -account for the production of pictures. For the French artists colour is -the pure expression of nature and of her inward humour, but for -Achenbach it is just the means for attaining an effectiveness similar to -that of the Dutch. Penetrating everything thoroughly with those -sparkling blue eyes of his, he learnt to render conscientiously and -firmly the forms of the earth and its outward aspect, but the moods of -its life appealing to the spirit like music were never disclosed to him. -The paintings of the Dutch attracted him to art, not the impulse to give -token to his own peculiar temperament. He thinks more of producing -pictures which may equal those of his forerunners in their merits than -of rendering the impression of nature which he has himself received. His -intelligence quickens at the study of the rules and theories set up by -the Dutch, and he seeks for spots in nature where he may exercise these -principles, but remains chill at the sight of sky and water, trees and -mountains. It is not mere love of nature that has guided his brush, but -a refined calculation of pictorial effect; and as he never went beyond -this endeavour after rounded expression, as it was understood by the -Dutch, though he certainly set German landscape free from a romantic -subjection to style like Schirmer's, he never led it to immediate -personal observation of nature. It is not the fragrance of nature that -is exhaled from his pictures, but the odour of oil and varnish; and as -the means he made use of to attain his effects never alter, the result -is frequently conventional and methodic. - -[Illustration: ACHENBACH. SEA COAST AFTER A STORM.] - -But this does not alter the fact that, when the development of German -landscape painting is in question, the name of Andreas Achenbach will be -always heard in connection with it. He united technical qualities of the -higher order with the capacity of impressing the public, and therefore -he completed the work that the Danes had begun. He was the reformer who -gave evidence that it was not alone by cliffs and baronial castles and -murmuring oaks that sentiment was to be awakened; he hated everything -unhealthy, mawkish, and vague, and by showing the claws of the lion of -realism in the very heart of the romantic period he came to have the -significance of a hero in German landscape painting. He forced demure -Lower German landscape to surrender to him its charms; he revealed the -fascination of Dutch canal scenes, with their quaint architecture and -their characteristic human figures; he went to the stormy, raging North -Sea, and opposed the giant forces of boisterous, unfettered nature to -the tame pictures of the school of Schirmer. Achenbach's earliest North -Sea pictures were exhibited at the very time when Heine's North Sea -series made its appearance, and they soon ousted the wrecks of the -French painter Gudin, which, up to that time, had dominated the picture -market. For the first time in the nineteenth century sea-pieces were so -painted that the water really seemed a fluent, agitated element, the -waves of which did not look as if they had been made of lead, and the -froth and foam of cotton wool. The things which he was specially -felicitous in painting were Rhine-land villages with red-tiled roofs, -Dutch canals with yellow sandbanks and running waves breaking at the -wooden buttresses of the harbour, Norwegian scenes with stubborn cliffs -and dark pines, wild torrents and roaring waterfalls. He did not paint -them better than Everdingen and Ruysdael had done, but he painted them -better than any of his contemporaries had it in their power to do. - -As Gurlitt is connected with the present by Achenbach, Morgenstern is -connected with it by _Eduard Schleich_. The Munich picture rendering a -mood took the place of Rottmann's architectural pictures. Instead of the -fair forms of the earth's surface, artists began to study the play of -sunlight on the plain and amid the flight of the clouds, and instead of -the build of the landscape they turned to notice its atmospheric mood. -Through Morgenstern Schleich was specially directed to Ruysdael and -Goyen. In Ruysdael he was captivated by that profound seriousness and -that sombre observation of nature which corresponded to something in his -own humour; in Goyen by the pictorial harmony of sunlight, air, water, -and earth. Schleich has visited France, Belgium, Hungary, and Italy, yet -it is only by exception that he has painted anything but what the most -immediate vicinity of Munich might offer. He chose the plainest spot in -nature--a newly tilled field, a reedy pond, a stretch of brown moorland, -a pair of cottages and trees; and under the guidance of Goyen he -observed the changes of the sky with great care--the retreat of -thunderclouds, the sun shrouded by thin veils of haze, the tremulous -moonlight, or the hovering of the morning and evening mists. The Isar -district and the mossy Dachauer soil were his favourite places of -sojourn. He had a special preference for rain and moonlight and the mood -of autumn, in rendering which he toned brown and grey hues to fine Dutch -harmonies. His keynote was predominantly serious and elegiac, but he -also loved scenes in which there was a restless and violent change of -light. Over a wide plateau the sunlight spreads its radiance, whilst -from the side an army of dense thunderclouds approaches, threatening -storm and casting dark shadows. Over a monotonous plain, broken by -solitary clumps of trees, the warm summer rain falls dripping down. -Trees and shrubs throw light shadows, and the plain glistens in the -beams of the sun. Or else there is a wide expanse of moor. Darkling the -clouds advance, the rushes bend before the wind, and narrow strips of -moonlight glitter amid the slender reeds. By such works Schleich became -the head of the Munich school of landscape without having ever directed -the study of pupils. Through him and through Achenbach capacity for the -fresh observation of the life of nature was given to German painters. - -[Illustration: ACHENBACH. FISHING BOATS IN THE NORTH SEA.] - -Undoubtedly amongst the younger group of artists there was a great -difference in regard to choice of subject. The modern rendering of mood -has only had its origin in Germany; it could not finally develop itself -there. Just as figure painting, after making so vigorous a beginning -with Bürkel, turned to _genre_ painting in the hands of Enhuber and -Knaus, until it returned to its old course in Leibl, landscape also went -through the apprentice period of interesting subject, until it once more -recognised the poetry of simpleness. The course of civilisation itself -led it into these lines. When Morgenstern painted his first pictures the -post-chaise still rattled from village to village, but now the whistle -of the railway engine screams shrill as the first signal of a new age -throughout Europe. Up to that time the possibility of travelling had -been greatly circumscribed by the difficulties of traffic. But -facilitated arrangements of traffic brought with them such a desire for -travel as had never been before. In literature the revolution displayed -itself by the rise of books of travels as a new branch of fiction. -Hackländer sent many volumes of touring sketches into the market. -Theodor Mügge made Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the scene of his tales. -But America was the land where the Sesame was to be found, for Germany -had been set upon the war-trail with Cooper's Indians, it had Charles -Sealsfield to describe the grotesque mountain land of Mexico, the magic -of the prairie, and the landscapes of Susquehannah and the Mississippi, -and read Gerstäcker's, Balduin Möllhausen's, and Otto Ruppius' -transatlantic sketches with unwearying excitement. The painters who -found their greatest delight in seeing the world with the eyes of a -tourist also became cosmopolitan. - -[Illusration: CALAME. LANDSCAPE.] - -In Geneva _Alexander Calame_ brought Germany to the knowledge of what is -to be seen in Switzerland. Calame was, indeed, a dry, unpoetic -landscapist. He began as a young tradesman by making little coloured -views of Switzerland which foreigners were glad to bring away with them -as mementoes of their visits, just as they now do photographs. Even his -later pictures can only lay claim to the merit of such "mementoes of -Switzerland." His colour is insipid and monotonous, his atmosphere -heavy, his technique laborious. By painting he understood the -illumination of drawings, and his drawing was that of an engraver. An -excellent drawing-master, he possessed an unusual mastery of -perspective. On the other hand, all warmth and inward life are wanting -in his works. Sentiment has been replaced by correct manipulation, and -in the deep blue mirror of his Alpine lakes, as in the luminous red of -his Alpine summits, there is always to be seen the illuminator who has -first drawn the contours with a neat pencil and pedantic correctness. -His pictures are grandiose scenes of nature felt in a petty way--in -science too it is often the smallest spirit that seeks the greatest -heroes. "The Ruins of Pæstum," like "The Thunderstorm on the Handeck" -and "The Range of Monte-Rosa at Sunrise," merely attain an external, -scenical effect which is not improved by crude and unnatural contrasts -of light. And as, in later years, when orders accumulated, he fell a -victim to an astounding fertility, many of his works give one the -impression of a dexterous calligrapher incessantly repeating the same -ornamental letters. "_Un Calame, deux Calame, trois Calame--que de -calamités_," ran the phrase every year in the Paris Salon. - -[Illustration: FLAMM. A SUMMER DAY.] - -But if France remained cool he found the more numerous admirers in -Germany. When, in 1835, he exhibited his first pictures in Berlin, a -view of the Lake of Geneva, his appearance was at once hailed with the -warmest sympathy. The dexterity, the rounded form, the finish of his -pictures, were exactly what gave pleasure, and the distinctness of his -drawing made its impression. His lithograph studies of trees and his -landscape copies attained the importance of canonical value, and for -whole decades remained in use as a medium of instruction in drawing. -Amongst German painters _Carl Ludwig_, _Otto von Kameke_, and _Count -Stanislaus Kalkreuth_ were specially incited by Calame to turn to the -sublimity of Alpine nature. Desolate wastes of cliffs, still, clear blue -lakes, wild, plunging torrents, and mountain summits covered with -glaciers and glowing to rose colour in the reflection of the setting sun -are the elements of their pictures as of those of the Genevan master. - -After Achenbach there came a whole series of artists from the North who -began to depict the mountains of their native Norway under the strong -colour effects of the Northern sun. The majestic formations of the -fjords, the emerald green walls of rock, the cloven valleys, the -terrible forest wildernesses, and the mountains of Norway dazzlingly -illuminated and reflecting themselves like glittering jewels in the -quiet waters of sapphire blue lakes, were interesting enough to afford -nourishment for more than one landscapist. - -_Knud Baade_, who worked from 1842 in Munich, after a lengthy sojourn at -the Copenhagen Academy and with Dahl in Dresden, delighted in moonlight -scenes, gloomy fir forests, and midnight suns. The sea rises in waves -mountain high, and tosses mighty vessels like withered leaves or dashes -foaming against the cliffs of the shore. Fantastic clouds chase each -other across the sky, and the wan moonlight rocks unsteadily upon the -waves. More seldom he paints the sea lit up afar by the moon, or the -fjord with its meadows and silver birches; and in such plain pictures he -makes a far more attractive effect than in those which are wild and -ambitious, for his diffident, petty execution is, as a rule, but little -suited to restless and, as it were, dramatic scenes of nature. - -Having come to Düsseldorf in 1841, _Hans Gude_ became the Calame of the -North. Achenbach taught him to approach the phenomena of nature boldly -and realistically, and not to be afraid of a rich and soft scale of -colour. Schirmer, the representative of Italian still landscape, guided -him to the acquisition of a certain large harmony and sense for style in -the structure of his pictures, to beauty of line and effective -disposition of great masses of light and shade. This quiet, sure-footed, -and robust realism, which had, at the same time, a gift of style, became -the chief characteristic of his Northern landscapes, in which, however, -the mutable and fleeting moods of nature were all the more neglected. -Here are Norwegian mountain landscapes with lakes, rivers, and -waterfalls, then pictures of the shore under the most varied phases of -light, or grand cliff scenery with a sombre sky and a sea in commotion. -Hans Gude, living from 1864 in Carlsruhe, and from 1880 in Berlin, is -one of those painters whom one esteems, but for whom it is not possible -to feel great enthusiasm--one of those conscientious workers who from -their very solidity run the risk of becoming tedious. His landscapes are -good gallery pictures, soberly and prosaically correct, and never -irritating, though at the same time they seldom kindle any warm feeling. - -Like Gude, _Niels Björnson Möller_ devoted himself to pictures of the -shore and the sea. Undisturbed by men in his sequestered retreat, -_August Capellen_ gave way to the melancholy charms of the Norwegian -forest. He represented the tremulous clarity of the air above the -cliffs, old, shattered tree-trunks and green water plants, sleepy ponds, -and far prospects bounded by blue mountains; but he would have made an -effect of greater originality had he thought less of Schirmer's noble -line and compositions arranged in the grand style. _Morten-Müller_ -became the specialist of the fir forest. His native woods where the -valleys stretch towards the high mountain region offered him motives, -which he worked up in large and excessively scenical pictures. His -strong point was the contrast between sunlight playing on the mountain -tops and mysterious darkness reigning in the forest depths, and his -pictures have many admirers on account of "their elegiac melancholy, -their minor key of touching sadness." The Norwegian spring changing the -earth into one carpet of moorland, broken by marshes, found its -delineator in _Erik Bodom_. _Ludwig Munthe_ became the painter of wintry -landscape in thaw, when the snow is riddled with holes and a dirty brown -crust of earth peeps from the dazzling mantle. A desolate field, a pair -of crippled trees stretching their naked branches to the dark-grey sky, -a swarm of crows and a drenched road marked with the tracks of wheels, a -tawny yellow patch of light gleaming through the cloud-bank and -reflected in the wayside puddles, such are the elements out of which one -of Munthe's landscapes is composed. Through _Eilert Adelsten Normann_ -representations of the fjords gained currency in the picture market. His -specialty was the delineation of the steep and beetling rocky fastnesses -of Lofodden with their various reflections of light and colour, the -midnight sun glaring over the deep clear sea, the contrast between the -blue-black masses of the mountains and the gleaming fields of snow. - -[Illustration: BAADE. MOONLIGHT NIGHT ON THE COAST.] - -Others, such as _Ludwig Willroider_, _Louis Douzette_, and _Hermann -Eschke_, set themselves to observe the German heath and the German -forest from similar points of view; the one painted great masses of -mountain and giant trees, the other the setting sun, and the third the -sea. _Oswald Achenbach_, _Albert Flamm_, and _Ascan Lutteroth_ set out -once more on the pilgrimage to the South, where, in contrast to their -predecessors, they studied no longer the classic lines of nature in -Italy, but the splendour of varied effects of colour in the -neighbourhood of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. The most enterprising -turned their backs on Europe altogether, and began to paint the primæval -forests of South America, to which Alexander Humboldt had drawn -attention, the azure and scarlet wonders of the tropics, and the gleam -and sparkle of the icy world at the ultimate limits of the Polar -regions. _Ferdinand Bellermann_ was honoured as a new Columbus when in -1842 he returned home with his sketches, botanically accurate as they -were, of the marvels of the virgin forest. _Eduard Hildebrandt_, who in -1843 had already gone through the Canary Islands, Italy, Sicily, North -Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Sahara, and the Northern sea of ice, at the -mandate of Frederich Wilhelm IV in 1862 undertook a voyage round the -world "to learn from personal view the phenomena that the sea, the air, -and the solid earth bring forth beneath the most various skies." _Eugen -Bracht_ traversed Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, and returned with a -multitude of studies from the sombre and majestic landscape of the -desert, and from that world of ruins and mountains in the East, and -developed them at home into as many pictures. - -A modicum of praise is due to all these masters for having continually -widened the circuit of subject-matter, and gradually disclosed the whole -world; and if their works cannot be reckoned as the products of a -delicate landscape painting, that is a result of the same taste which -prescribed anecdotic and narrative subjects to the _genre_ picture of -those years. The landscape painters conquered the earth, but, above all, -those parts of it which were geographically remarkable. This they did in -the interest of the public. They went with a Baedeker in their pocket -into every quarter of the globe, brought with them all the carmine -necessary for sunsets, and set up their easels at every place marked -with an asterisk in the guidebook. And in these fair regions they noted -everything that was to be seen with the said Baedeker's assistance. -Through satisfying the interest of the tourist by a rendering, faithful -to a hair's breadth, of topographically instructive points, they could -best reckon on the sale of their productions. - -At the same time, their pictures betray that, during this generation, -historical painting was throned on a summit whence it could dictate the -æsthetic catechism. The historical picture represented a humanity that -carried about with it the consciousness of its outward presence, draped -itself in front of the glass, and made an artificial study of every -gesture and every expression of emotion. _Genre_ painting followed, and -rendered the true spirit of life, illustrating it histrionically, but -without surprising it in its unconstrained working. And so trees, -mountains, and clouds also were forced to lay aside the innocence of -unconscious being and wrap themselves in the cloak of affectation. -Simple reality in its quiet, delicate beauty, the homely "mood" of -nature, touching the forms of landscape with the play of light and air, -had nothing to tell an age overstrained by the heroics of history and -the grimaces of _genre_ painting. A more powerful stimulus was -necessary. So the landscapists also were forced to seek nature where she -was histrionic and came forth in blustering magnificence; they were -forced to send off brilliant pyrotechnics to fire out sun, moon, and -stars in order to be heard, or, more literally, seen. - -Instruction or theatrical effect--the aim of historical painting--had -also to be that of the landscape painter. And as railroads are -cosmopolitan arrangements, he was in a position to satisfy both demands -with promptitude. As historical painters in the chase of striking -subjects directed their gaze to the farthest historical horizon, and the -_genre_ painters sought to take their public captive principally through -what was alien and strange, Oriental and Italian, the landscape -painters, too, found their highest aim in the widest possible expansion -of the geographical horizon. "Have these good people not been born -anywhere in particular?" asked Courbet, when he contemplated the German -landscapes in the Munich Exhibition of 1869. What would first strike the -inhabitant of a Northern country in foreign lands was made the theme of -the majority of the pictures. But as the historical painting, in -illustrating all the great dramatic scenes from the Trojan War to the -French Revolution, yielded at one time to a pædagogical doctrinaire -tendency and at another to theatrical impassionedness, so landscape -painting on its cosmopolitan excursions became partly a dry synopsis of -famous regions, only justifiable as a memento of travel, partly a -tricked-out piece of effect which, like everything obtrusive, soon lost -its charm. Pictures of the first description which chiefly borrowed -their motives from Alpine nature, so imposing in its impressiveness of -form--grand masses of rock, glaciers, snow-fields, and abrupt -precipices--only needed to have the fidelity of a portrait. Where that -was given, the public, guided by the instinct for what is majestic and -beautiful in nature, stood before them quite content, while Alpine -travellers instructed the laity that the deep blue snow of the picture -was no exaggeration, but a phenomenon of the mountain world which had -been correctly reproduced. In all these cases there can be no possible -doubt about geographical position, but there is seldom any need to make -inquiries after the artist. The interest which they excite is purely of -a topographical order; otherwise they bear the stamp of ordinary prose, -of the aridity and unattractiveness which always creeps in as a -consequence of pure objectivity. Works of the second description, which -depict exotic regions, striking by the strangeness of various phenomena -of light and the splendour and glow of colour, are generally irritating -by their professional effort to display "mood." The old masters revealed -"mood" without intending to do so, because they approached nature -piously and with a wealth of feeling. The new masters obtain a purely -external effect, because they strain after a "mood" in their painting -without feeling it; and though art does not exclude the choice of exotic -subjects, it is not healthy when a tendency of this sort becomes -universal. Really superior art will, from principle, never seek the -charm of what is strange and distant, since it possesses the magical -gift of bestowing the deepest interest on what lies nearest to it. In -addition to this, such effects are as hard to seize as the moment of -most intense excitement in the historical picture. As an historical -painter Delacroix could render it, and Turner as a landscape painter, -but geniuses like Delacroix and Turner are not born every day. As these -phenomena were painted at the time in Germany, the right "mood" was not -excited by them, but merely a frigid curiosity. Almost all landscapes of -these years create an effect merely through their subject; they are -entertaining, astonishing, instructive, but the poetry of nature has not -yet been aroused. It could only reveal itself when the preponderance of -interest in mere subject was no longer allowed. As the figure painters -at last disdained through narrative and "points" to win the applause of -those who had no sensitiveness for art, so the landscape painters were -obliged to cease from giving geographical instruction by the -representation of nature as beloved by tourists, and to give up forcing -a "mood" in their pictures by a subterfuge. The necessary degree of -artistic absorption could only go hand in hand with a revolt against -purely objective interest of motive, and with a strenuous effort at the -representation of familiar nature in the intimate charm of its moods of -light and atmosphere. It was necessary for refinement of taste to follow -on the expression of subject-matter; and this impulse had to bring -artists back to the path struck by Dahl, Morgenstern, and Gurlitt. To -unite the simple, moving, and tender observation of those older artists -with richer and more complex methods of expression was the task given to -the next generation in France, where _paysage intime_, the most refined -and delicate issue of the century, grew to maturity in the very years -when German landscape painting roamed through the world with the joy of -an explorer. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -THE BEGINNINGS OF "PAYSAGE INTIME" - - -How it was that the secrets of _paysage intime_ were reserved for our -own century--and this assuredly by no mere accident--can only be -delineated in true colours when some one writes a special history of -landscape painting, a book which at the present time would be the most -seasonable in the literature of art. Wereschagin once declared that in -the province of landscape the works of the old masters seem like the -exercises of pupils in comparison with the performances of modern art; -and certain it is that the nineteenth century, if it is inferior to -previous ages in everything else, may, at any rate, offer them an -equivalent in landscape. It was only city life that could produce this -passionately heightened love of nature. It was only in the century of -close rooms and over-population, neurosis and holiday colonies, that -landscape painting could attain to this fulness, purity, and sanctity. -It was only our age of hurry and work that made possible a relation -between nature and the human soul, which really has something of what -the Earth Spirit vouchsafed to Faust: "to gaze into her heart as into -the bosom of a friend." - -In France also, the tendency which since the eighteenth century had made -itself felt in waves rising ever higher, had been for a short time -abruptly interrupted by Classicism. Of the pre-revolutionary -landscapists _Hubert Robert_ was the only one who survived into the new -era. His details of nature and his _rococo_ savour were pardoned to him -for the sake of his classic ruins. At first there was not one of the -newer artists who was impelled to enter this province. A generation -which had become ascetic, and which dreamed only of rude, manly virtue, -expressed through the plastic and purified forms of the human body, had -lost all sense for the charms of landscape. And when the first -landscapes appeared once more, after several years, they were, as in -Germany, solemn stage-tragedy scenes, abstract "lofty" regions such as -Poussin ostensibly painted. Only in Poussin a great feeling for nature -held together the conventional composition, in spite of all his -straining after style; whereas nothing but frigid rhetoric and sterile -formalism reigns in the works of these newer painters, works which were -created at second-hand. The type of the beautiful which had been -borrowed from the antique was worked into garden and forest with a -laboured effort at style, as it had been worked into the human form and -the flow of drapery. A _prix de Rome_ was founded for historical -landscapes. - -_Henri Valenciennes_ was the Lenôtre of this Classicism, the admired -teacher of several generations. The beginner in landscape painting -modelled himself upon Valenciennes as the figure painter upon Guérin. -His _Traité élémentaire de perspective pratique_, in which he formulated -the principles of landscape, contains his personal views as well as the -æsthetics of the age. Although, as he premises, he "is convinced that -there is in reality only one kind of painting, historical painting, it -is true that an able historical painter ought not entirely to neglect -landscape." Rembrandt, of course, and the old Dutch painters were -without any sort of ideal, and only worked for people without soul or -intelligence. How far does a landscape with cows and sheep stand below -one with the funeral of Phocion, or a rainy day by Ruysdael below a -picture of the Deluge by Poussin! Hardly does Claude Lorrain find grace -in the eyes of Valenciennes. "He has painted with a pretty fidelity to -nature the morning and evening light. But just for that very reason his -pictures make no appeal to the intelligence. He has no tree where a -Dryad could dwell, no spring in which nymphs could splash. Gods, -demigods, nymphs, satyrs, even heroes are too sublime for these regions; -shepherds could dwell there at best." Claude, indeed, loved Italy, but -knew the old writers all too little, and they are the groundwork for -landscape painters. As David said to his pupil Gros, "Look through your -Plutarch," Valenciennes advised his own pupils to study Theocritus, -Virgil, and Ovid: only from these authors might be learnt what were the -regions suitable for gods and heroes. - - "Vos exemplaria græca - Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna." - -If, for example, the landscapist would paint Morning, let him portray -the moment when Aurora rises laughing from the arms of her aged spouse, -when the hours are yoking four fiery steeds to the car of the sun-god, -or Ulysses kneels imploring before Nausicaa. For Noon the myth of Icarus -or of Phaëton might be turned to account. Evening may be represented by -painting Phoebus hastening his course as he nears the horizon in flaming -desire to cast himself into the arms of Thetis. Having once got his -themes from the old poets, the landscape painter must know the laws of -perspective to execute his picture; he must be familiar with Poussin's -rules of composition, and occasionally he ought even to study nature. -Then he needs a weeping willow for an elegy, a rock for the death of -Phaëton, and an oak for the dance of the nymphs. To find such motives he -should make journeys to the famed old lands of civilisation; best of all -on the road which art itself has traversed--first to Asia Minor, then to -Greece, and then to Italy. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - HUBERT ROBERT. MONUMENTS AND RUINS.] - -These æsthetics produced _Victor Bertin_ and _Xavier Bidault_, admired -by their contemporaries for "richness of composition and a splendid -selection of sites." Their methodical commonplaces, their waves and -valleys and temples, bear the same relation to nature as the talking -machine of Raimundus Lullus does to philosophy. The scholastic landscape -painter triumphed; a school it was which nourished itself on empty -formulas, and so died of anæmia. Bidault, who in his youth made very -good studies, is, with his stippled leaves and polished stems, his grey -skies looking sometimes like lead and sometimes like water, the peculiar -essence of a tiresome Classicism; and he is the same Bidault who, as -president of the hanging committee, for years rejected the landscapes of -Théodore Rousseau from the Salon. It is only the figure of _Michallon_, -who died young, that still survives from this group. He too belongs to -the school of Valenciennes, through his frigid, meagre, and pedantically -correct style; but he is distinguished from the rest, for he endeavoured -to acquire a certain truth to nature in the drawing of plants, and was -accounted a bold innovator at the time. He did not paint "the plant in -itself," but burs, thistles, dandelions, everything after its kind, and -through this botanical exactness he acquired in the beginning of the -century a fame which it is now hard to understand. In the persons of -_Jules Cogniet_ and _Watelet_ the gates of the school were rather more -widely opened to admit reality. Having long populated their classic -valleys with bloodless, dancing nymphs and figurants of divine race, -they abandoned historical for picturesque landscape, and "dared" to -represent scenes from the environs of Paris, castles and windmills. But -as they clung even here to the classical principles of composition, it -is only nature brushed and combed, trimmed and coerced by rules, that is -reflected in their painting. Even in 1822, when Delacroix exhibited his -"Dante's Bark," the ineffable Watelet shone in his full splendour. -Amongst his pictures there was a view of Bar-sur-Seine, which the -catalogue appropriately designated not simply as a _vue_, but as a _vue -ajustée_. Till his last breath Watelet was convinced that nature did not -understand her own business, and was always in need of a painter to -revise her errors and correct them. - -Beside this group who adapted French localities for classical landscapes -there arose in the meantime another group, and they proceeded in the -opposite direction. Their highest aim was to go on pilgrimage to sacred -Italy, the classic land, which, with their literary training and their -one-sided æsthetics, they invariably thought more beautiful and more -worthy of veneration than any other. But they tried to break with -Valenciennes' arbitrary rules of composition, and to seize the great -lines of Italian landscape with fidelity to fact. In going back from -Valenciennes to Claude they endeavoured to pour new life into a style of -landscape painting which was its own justification, compromised as it -had been by the Classic school. They made a very heretical appearance in -the eyes of the strictly orthodox pupils of Valenciennes. They were -called the Gothic school, which was as much as to say Romanticists, and -the names of _Théodore Aligny_ and _Edouard Bertin_ were for years -mentioned with that of Corot in critiques. They brought home very pretty -drawings from Greece, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and Bertin did -this especially. Aligny is even not without importance as a painter. He -aimed at width of horizon and simplicity of line more zealously than the -traditional school had done. He is, indeed, a man of sombre, austere, -and earnest talent, and the solemn rhythm of his pictures would have -more effect if the colour were not so dry, and if a fixed and monotonous -light were not uniformly shed over everything in place of a vibrating -atmosphere. - -_Alexandre Desgoffe_, _Paul Flandrin_, _Benouville_, _Bellel_, and -others drew from the same sources with similar conviction and varying -talent. Paul Flandrin, in particular, was in his youth a good painter in -the manner of 1690. His composition is noble and his execution certain, -recalling Poussin. Ingres, his master, said of him, "If I were not -Ingres I would be Flandrin." It was only later that the singular charm -of Claude Lorrain and the Roman majesty of Poussin were transformed -under the brush of Flandrin into arid still-life, into landscapes of -pasteboard and wadding. - -But not from this quarter could the health of a school which had become -anæmic be in any way restored. French landscape had to draw a new power -of vitality from the French soil itself. It was saved when its eyes were -opened to the charms of home, and this revelation was brought about by -Romanticism. In the Salon notices, from 1822 onwards, the complaints of -critics are repeated with increasing violence--complaints that, instead -of fair regions, noble character, and monumental lines, nothing but -"malarious lakes, desolate wastes, and terrible cliffs" should be -painted, which, in the language of Classicism, means that French -landscape painting had taken firm hold of the soil in France. The day -when Racine was declared by the young Romanticists to be a maker of fine -phrases put an end to the whole school of David and to Classical -landscape at the same time. It fell into oblivion, as, sooner or later, -every artistic movement which does not rest on the nature and -personality of the artist inevitably must. The young revolutionaries no -longer believed that an alliance with mythological subjects and "grand -composition" could compensate for the lack of air and light. They were -tired of pompous, empty, and distant scenery. They only thought of -nature, and that amid which they lived seemed the less to forego its -charms the more Italy came under suspicion as the home of all these -ugly, unpleasant, and academical pictures. That was the birthday of -French landscape. At the very time when Delacroix renewed the -_répertoire_ of grand painting, enriching art with a world of feeling -which was not merely edited, a parallel movement began in landscape. -"Dante's Bark" was painted in 1822, "The Massacre of Chios" in 1824. -Almost at the same hour a tornado swept through the branches of the old -French oaks, and bent the rustling corn; the sky was covered with -clouds, and the waters, which had been hard-bound for so long, sped -purling once more along their wonted course. The little paper temples, -built on classic heights, toppled down, and there rose lowly rustic -cottages, from the chimneys of which the smoke mounted wavering to the -sky. Nature awoke from her wintry sleep, and the spring of modern -landscape painting broke with its sadness and its smiles. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - VICTOR HUGO. RUINS OF A MEDIÆVAL CASTLE ON THE RHINE.] - -This is where the development of French art diverges from that of -German. After it had stood under the influence of Poussin, the German -long continued to have a suspicious preference for scenery that was -devoid of soul, for beautiful views, as the phrase is, and it penetrated -much later into the spirit of familiar nature. But as early as the -twenties this spirit had revealed itself to the French. It was only in -the province of poetry that they went through the period of enthusiasm -for exotic nature--and even there not to the same extent as Germany. -Only in Chateaubriand's _Atala_ are there to be found pompously -pictorial descriptions of strange landscapes which have been in no -degree inwardly felt. Chiefly it was the virgin forests of North America -that afforded material for splendid pictures, which he describes in -grandiloquent and soaring prose. A nature which is impressive and -splendid serves as the scenery of these dramas of human life. But with -Lamartine the reaction was accomplished. He is the first amongst the -poets of France who conceived landscape with an inward emotion, and -brought it into harmony with his moods of soul. His poetry was made -fervent and glorified by love for his home, for his own province, for -South Burgundy. Even in the region of art a poet was the first -initiator. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - MICHEL. A WINDMILL.] - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DE LA BERGE. LANDSCAPE.] - -_Victor Hugo_, the father of Romanticism in literature, cannot be passed -over in the history of landscape painting. Since 1891, when that -remarkable exhibition of painter-poets was opened in Paris--an -exhibition in which Théophile Gautier, Prosper Merimée, the two de -Goncourts, and others were represented by more or less important -works--the world learnt what a gifted draughtsman, what a powerful -dramatist in landscape, was this great Romanticist. Even in the -reminiscences of nature--spirited and suggestive of colour as they -are--which he drew with a rapid hand in the margin of his manuscripts, -the fiery glow of Romanticism breaks out. The things of which he speaks -in the text appear in black shadows and ghostly light. Old castles stand -surrounded by clouds of smoke or the blinding glare of fire, moonrise -makes phantom silhouettes of the trees, waves lashed by the storm dash -together as they spout over vessels; and there are gloomy seas and dark -unearthly shores, fairy palaces, proud citadels, and cathedrals of -fabled story. Whenever one of his finished drawings is bequeathed to the -Louvre, Hugo is certain to receive a place in the history of art as one -of the champions of Romanticism. - -The movement was so universal amongst the painters that it is difficult -at the present time to perceive the special part that each individual -played in the great drama. This is especially true of _Georges Michel_, -a genius long misunderstood, a painter first made known in wider circles -by the World Exhibition in 1889, and known to the narrower circle of art -lovers only since his death in 1843. At that time a dealer had bought at -an auction the works left behind by a half-famished painter--pictures -with no signature, and only to be identified because they collectively -treated motives from the surroundings of Paris. A large, wide horizon, a -hill, a windmill, a cloudy sky were his subjects, and all pointed to an -artist schooled by the Dutch. Curiosity was on the alert, inquiry was -made, and it was found that the painter was named Georges Michel, and -had been born in 1763; that at twelve years of age he had shirked school -to go drawing, had run away with a laundress at fifteen, was already the -father of five children when he was twenty, had married again at -sixty-five, and had worked hard to his eightieth year. Old men -remembered that they had seen early works of his in the Salon. It was -said that Michel had produced a great deal immediately after the -Revolution, but exceedingly tedious pictures, which differed in no -respect from those of the other Classicists; for instance, from Demarne -and Swebach, garnished with figures. It was only after 1814 that he -disappeared from the Salon; not, as has been now discovered, because he -had no more pictures to exhibit, but because he was rejected as a -revolutionary. During his later years Michel had been most variously -employed: for one thing, he had been a restorer of pictures. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - CABAT. LE JARDIN BEAUJON.] - -In this calling many Dutch pictures had passed through his hands, and -they suggested to him the unseasonable idea of looking more closely into -nature in the neighbourhood than he had done in his youth--nature not as -she was in Italy, but in the environs of the city. While Valenciennes -and his pupils made so many objections to painting what lay under their -eyes, Georges Michel remained in the country, and was the first to light -on the idea of placing himself in the midst of nature, and not above -her; no longer to arrange and adapt, but to approach her by painting her -with directness. If any one spoke of travelling to Italy, he answered: -"The man who cannot find enough to paint during his whole life in a -circuit of four miles is in reality no artist. Did the Dutch ever run -from one place to another? And yet they are good painters, and not -merely that, but the most powerful, bold, and ideal artists." Every day -he made a study in the precincts of Paris, without any idea that he -would count in these times among the forerunners of modern art. He -shares the glory of having discovered Montmartre with Alphonse Karr, -Gérard de Nerval, and Monselet. After his death such studies were found -in the shops of all the second-hand dealers of the Northern Boulevard; -they were invariably without a frame, as they had never seemed worth -framing, and when they were very dear they were to be had for forty -francs. Connoisseurs appreciated his wide horizons, stormy skies, and -ably sketched sea-shores. For, in spite of his poverty, Michel had now -and then deserted Montmartre and found means to visit Normandy. -Painfully precise in the beginning, while he worked with Swebach and -Demarne, he had gradually become large and bold, and employed all means -in giving expression to what he felt. He was a dreamer, who brought into -his studies a unison of lights, and, now and then, beams of sun which -would have delighted Albert Cuyp. A genuine offspring of the old Dutch -masters--of the grand and broad masters, not of those who worked with a -fine brush--already he was aiming at _l'expression par l'ensemble_, and -since the Paris Universal Exhibition he has been fittingly honoured as -the forerunner of Théodore Rousseau. His pictures, as it seems, were -early received in various studios, and there they had considerable -effect in setting artists thinking. But as he ceased to date his -pictures after 1814 it is, nevertheless, difficult to be more precise in -determining the private influence which this Ruysdael of Montmartre -exerted on men of the younger generation. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ PAUL HUET.] - -One after the other they began to declare the Italian pilgrimage to be -unnecessary. They buried themselves as hermits in the villages around -the capital. The undulating strip of country, rich in wood and water, -which borders on the heights of Saint-Cloud and Ville d'Avray, is the -cradle of French landscape painting. In grasping nature they proceeded -by the most various ways, whilst they drew everything scrupulously and -exactly which an observing eye may discern, or wedded their own -temperament with the moods of nature. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - HUET. THE INUNDATION AT ST. CLOUD.] - -That remarkable artist _Charles de la Berge_ seems like a forerunner of -the English Pre-Raphaelite school. He declared the ideal of art to -consist in painting everything according to nature, and overlooking -nothing; in carrying drawing to the most minute point, and yet -preserving the impression of unison and harmony in the picture--which is -as easy to say as it is difficult to perform. His brief life was passed -in this struggle. His pictures are miracles of patience: to see that it -is only necessary to know the "Sunset" of 1839, in the Louvre. There is -something touching in the way this passionate worker had branches and -the bark of trees brought to his room, even when he lay on his deathbed, -to study the contortions of wood and the interweaving of fibres with all -the zeal of a naturalist. The efforts of de la Berge have something of -the religious devotion with which Jan van Eyck or Altdorfer gazed at -nature. But he died too young to effect any result. He copied the -smallest particulars of objects with the utmost care, and in the -reproduction even of the smallest aimed at a mathematical precision, -neutralising his qualities of colour, which were otherwise of serious -value, by such hair-splitting detail. - -_Camille Roqueplan_, the many-sided pupil of Gros, made his first -appearance as a landscape painter with a sunset in 1822. He opposed the -genuine windmills of the old Dutch masters to those everlasting -windmills of Watelet, with their leaden water and their meagre -landscape. In his pictures a green plain, intersected by canals, -stretches round; a fresh and luminous grey sky arches above. That -undaunted traveller _Camille Flers_, who had been an actor and ballet -dancer in Brazil before his appearance as a painter, represented the -rich pastures of Normandy with truth, but was diffident in the presence -of nature where she is grand. His pupil, _Louis Cabat_, was hailed with -special enthusiasm by the young generation on account of his firm -harmonious style. His pictures showed that he had been a zealous student -of the great Dutch artists, and that it was his pride to handle his -brush in their manner, expressing as much as possible without injuring -pictorial effect. He is on many sides in touch with Charles de la Berge. -Later he even had the courage to see Italy with fresh eyes, and in a -simple manner to record his impressions without regard for the rules and -theories of the Classicists. But the risk was too great. He became once -more an admirer of imposing landscape, an adherent of Poussin, and as -such he is almost exclusively known to us of a younger generation. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ J. M. W. TURNER.] - -_Paul Huet_ was altogether a Romanticist. In de la Berge there is the -greatest objectivity possible, in Huet there is impassioned expression. -His heart told him that the hour was come for giving passion utterance; -he wanted to render the energy of nature, the intensity of her life, -with the whole might of vivid colouring. In his pictures there is -something of Byronic poetry; the conception is rich and powerful, the -symphony of colour passionately dramatic. In every one of his landscapes -there breathes the human soul with its unrest, its hopelessness, and its -doubts. Huet was the child of an epoch, which at one moment exulted to -the skies and at another sorrowed to death in the most violent contrast; -and he has proclaimed this temper of the age with all the freedom and -power possible, where it is only earth and sky, clouds and trees that -are the medium of expression. Most of his works, like Romanticism in -general, have an earnest, passionate, and sombre character; nothing of -the ceremonial pompousness peculiar to Classical landscapes. He has a -passion for boisterous storms and waters foaming over, clouds with the -lightning flashing through them, and the struggle of humanity against -the raging elements. In this effort to express as much as possible he -often makes his pictures too theatrical in effect. In one of his -principal works, the "View of Rouen," painted in 1833, the breadth of -execution almost verges on emptiness and panoramic view. Huet was in the -habit of heaping many objects together in his landscapes. He delighted -in expressive landscapes in the sense in which, at that time, people -delighted in expressive heads. This one-sidedness hindered his success. -When he appeared in the twenties his pictures were thought bizarre and -melancholy. And later, when he achieved greater simplicity, he was -treated by the critics merely with the respect that was paid to the Old -Guard, for now a pleiad of much brighter stars beamed in the sky. - -[Illustration: TURNER. A SHIPWRECK.] - -[Illustration: J. M. W. TURNER. THE OLD TÉMÉRAIRE.] - -But we must not forget that Michel and Huet showed the way. Rousseau and -his followers left them far behind, as Columbus threw into oblivion all -who had discovered America before him, or Gutenberg all who had -previously printed books. The step on which these initiators had stood -was more or less that of Andreas Achenbach and Blechen. They are good -and able painters, but they still kept the Flemish and Dutch masters too -much in their memory. It is easy to detect in them reminiscences of -Ruysdael and Hobbema and the studies of gallery pictures grown dim with -age. They still coloured objects brown, and made spring as mournful as -winter, and morning as gloomy as evening; they had yet no sense that -morning means the awakening of life, the youth of the sun, the -springtide of the day. They still composed their pictures and finished -and rounded them off for pictorial effect. The next necessary step was -no longer to look at Ruysdael and Cuyp, but at nature--to lay more -emphasis on sincerity of impression, and therefore the less upon -pictorial finish and rounded expression--to paint nature, not in the -style of galleries, but in its freshness and bloom. And the impulse to -this last step, which brought French landscape painting to its highest -perfection, was given by England. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TURNER. DIDO BUILDING CARTHAGE.] - -The most highly gifted work produced in this province between the years -1800 and 1830 is of English origin. At the time when landscape painting -was in France and Germany confined in a strait-waistcoat by Classicism, -the English went quietly forward in the path trodden by Gainsborough in -the eighteenth century. In these years England produced an artist who -stands apart from all others as a peculiar and inimitable phenomenon in -the history of landscape painting, and at the same time it produced a -school of landscape which not only fertilised France, but founded -generally the modern conception of colour. - -That phenomenon is _Joseph Mallord William Turner_, the great -pyrotechnist, one of the most individual and intellectual landscape -painters of all time. What a singular personality! And how vexatious he -is to all who merely care about correctness in art! Such persons divide -the life of Turner into two halves, one in which he was reasonable and -one in which he was a fool. They grant him a certain talent during the -first fifteen years of his activity, but from the moment when he is -complete master of his instrument, from the moment when the painter -begins in glowing enthusiasm to embody his personal ideal, they would -banish him from the kingdom of art, and lock him up in a madhouse. When -in the forties the Munich Pinakothek was offered a picture by Turner, -glowing with colour, people, accustomed to the contours of Cornelius, -knew no better than to laugh at it superciliously. It is said that in -his last days he sent a landscape to an exhibition. The committee, -unable to discover which was the top or which the bottom, hung it -upside-down. Later, when Turner came into the exhibition and the mistake -was about to be rectified, he said: "No, let it alone; it really looks -better as it is." One frequently reads that Turner suffered from a sort -of colour-blindness, and as late as 1872 Liebreich wrote an article -printed in _Macmillan_, which gave a medical explanation of the alleged -morbid affection of the great landscape painter's eyes. Only thus could -the German account for his pictures, which are impressionist, although -they were painted about the middle of the century. The golden dreams of -Turner were held to be eccentricities of vision, since no one was -capable of following this painter of momentary impressions in his -majesty of sentiment, and the impressiveness and poetry of his method of -expression. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - TURNER. JUMIÈGES.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TURNER. LANDSCAPE WITH THE SUN RISING IN A MIST.] - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - TURNER. VENICE.] - -In reality Turner was the same from the beginning. He circled round the -fire like a moth, and craved, like Goethe, for more light; he wanted to -achieve the impossible and paint the sun. To attain his object nothing -was too difficult for him. He restrained himself for a long time; placed -himself amongst the followers of the painter of light _par excellence_; -studied, analysed, and copied Claude Lorrain; completely adopted his -style, and painted pictures which threw Claude into eclipse by their -magnificence and luminous power of colour. The painting of "Dido -building Carthage" is perhaps the most characteristic of this phase of -his art. One feels that the masses of architecture are merely there for -the sake of the painter; the tree in the foreground has only been -planted in this particular way so that the background may recede into -farther distance. The colour is splendid, though still heavy. By the -union of the principles of classic drawing with an entirely modern -feeling for atmosphere something chaotic and confused is frequently -introduced into the compositions of these years. But at the hour when it -was said to him, "You are the real Claude Lorrain," he answered, "Now I -am going to leave school and begin to be Turner." Henceforth he no -longer needs Claude's framework of trees to throw the light beaming into -the corners of his pictures. At first he busied himself with the -atmospheric phenomena of the land of mist. Then when the everlasting -grey became too splenetic for him he repaired to the relaxing, luxuriant -sensuousness of Southern seas, and sought the full embodiment of his -dreams of light in the land of the sun. It is impossible in words to -give a representation of the essence of Turner; even copies merely -excite false conceptions. "Rockets shot up, shocks of cannon thundered, -balls of light mounted, crackers meandered through the air and burst, -wheels hissed, each one separately, then in pairs, then altogether, and -even more turbulently one after the other and together." Thus has -Goethe described a display of fireworks in _The Elective Affinities_, -and this passage perhaps conveys most readily the impression of Turner's -pictures. To collect into a small space the greatest possible quantity -of light, he makes the perspective wide and deep and the sky boundless, -and uses the sea to reflect the brilliancy. He wanted to be able to -render the liquid, shining depths of the sky without employing the earth -as an object of comparison, and these studies which have merely the sky -as their object are perhaps his most astonishing works. Everywhere, to -the border of the picture, there is light. And he has painted all the -gradations of light, from the silvery morning twilight to the golden -splendour of the evening red. Volcanoes hiss and explode and vomit forth -streams of lava, which set the trembling air aglow, and blind the eyes -with flaring colours. The glowing ball of the sun rises behind the mist, -and transforms the whole ether into fine golden vapour; and vessels sail -through the luminous haze. In reality one cannot venture on more than a -swift glance into blinding masses of light, but the impression remained -in the painter's memory. He painted what he saw, and knew how to make -his effect convincing. And at the same time his composition became ever -freer and easier, the work of his brush ever more fragrant and -unfettered, the colouring and total sentiment of the picture ever more -imaginative and like those of a fairy-tale. His world is a land of sun, -where the reality of things vanishes, and the light shed between the eye -and the objects of vision is the only thing that lives. At one time he -took to painting human energy struggling with the phenomena of nature, -as in "Storm at Sea," "Fire at Sea," and "Rain, Steam, and Speed"; at -another he painted poetic revels of colour born altogether from the -imagination, like the "Sun of Venice." He is the greatest creator in -colour, the boldest poet amongst the landscape painters of all time! In -him England's painting has put forth its greatest might, just as in -Byron and Shelley, those two great powers, the English imagination -unrolled its standard of war most proudly and brilliantly. There is only -one Turner, and Ruskin is his prophet. - -[Illusration: _L'Art._ - - OLD CROME. A VIEW NEAR NORWICH.] - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ JOHN CONSTABLE.] - -As a man, too, he was one of those original characters seldom met with -nowadays. He was not the fastidious _gourmet_ that might have been -expected from his pictures, but an awkward, prosaic, citizen-like being. -He had a sturdy, thick-set figure, with broad shoulders and tough -muscles, and was more like a captain in the merchant service than a -disciple of Apollo. He was sparing to the point of miserliness, unformed -by any kind of culture, ignorant even of the laws of orthography, silent -and inaccessible. Like most of the great landscape painters of the -century, he was city-bred. In a gloomy house standing back in a foggy -little alley of Old London, in the immediate vicinity of dingy, -monotonous lodging-houses, he was born, the son of a barber, on 23rd -April 1775. His career was that of a model youth. At fifteen he -exhibited in the Royal Academy; when he was eighteen, engravings were -already being made after his drawings. At twenty he was known, and at -twenty-seven he became a member of the Academy. His first earnings he -gained by the neat and exact preparation of little views of English -castles and country places--drawings which, at the time, took the place -of photographs, and for which he received half a crown apiece and his -supper. Thus he went over a great part of England, and upon one of his -excursions he is said to have had a love-affair _à la_ Lucy of -Lammermoor, and to have so taken it to heart that he resolved to remain -a bachelor for the rest of his life. In 1808 he became Professor of -Perspective at the Academy, and delivered himself, it is said, of the -most confused utterances on his subjects. His father had now to give up -the barber's business and come to live with him, and he employed him in -sawing, planing, and nailing together boards, which were painted yellow -and used as frames for his pictures. The same miserly economy kept him -from ever having a comfortable studio. He lived in a miserable lodging -where he received nobody, had his meals at a restaurant of the most -primitive order, carried his dinner wrapped up in paper when he went on -excursions, and was exceedingly thankful if any one added to it a glass -of wine. His diligence was fabulous. Every morning he rose on the stroke -of six, locked his door, and worked with the same dreadful regularity -day after day. His end was as unpoetic as his life. After being several -times a father without ever having had a wife, he passed his last years -with an old housekeeper, who kept him strictly under the yoke. If he was -away from the house for long together he pretended that he was -travelling to Venice for the sake of his work, until at last the honest -housekeeper learnt, from a letter which he had put in his overcoat -pocket and forgotten, that the object of all these journeys was not -Venice at all, but Chelsea. There she found him in an attic which he had -taken for another mistress, and where he was living under the name of -Booth. In this little garret, almost more miserable than the room in the -back street where he was born, the painter of light ended his days; and, -to connect an atom of poetry with so sad a death, Ruskin adds that the -window looked towards the sunset, and the dying eyes of the painter -received the last rays of the sun which he had so often celebrated in -glowing hymns. He left countless works behind him at his death, several -thousands of pounds, and an immortal fame. This thought of glory after -death occupied him from his youth. Only thus is it possible to -understand why he led the life of a poor student until his end, why he -did things which bordered on trickery in the sale of his _Liber -Studiorum_, and kept for himself all those works by which he could have -made a fortune. He left them--taken altogether, three hundred and -sixty-two oil-paintings and nineteen thousand drawings--to the nation, -and £20,000 to the Royal Academy, and merely stipulated that the two -best pictures should be hung in the National Gallery between two Claude -Lorrains. Another thousand pounds was set aside for the erection of a -monument in St. Paul's. There, in that temple of fame, he lies buried -near Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great ancestor of English painting, and -he remains a phenomenon without forerunners and without descendants. - -[Illustration: CONSTABLE. WILLY LOTT'S HOUSE.] - -[Illustration: CONSTABLE. CHURCH PORCH, BERGHOLT.] - -For it does not need to be said that Turner, with his marked -individuality, could have no influence on the further development of -English painting. The dramatic fervour of Romanticism was here expressed -just as little as Classicism. It was only the poets who fled into the -wilderness of nature, and sang the splendour and the mysteries of the -mountains, the lightning and the storm, the might of the elements. In -painting there is no counterpart to Scott's descriptions of the -Highlands or Wordsworth's rhapsodies upon the English lakes, or to the -tendency of landscape painting which was represented in Germany by -Lessing and Blechen. Wordsworth is majestic and sublime, and English -painting lovely and full of intimate emotion. It knows neither ancient -Alpine castles nor the sunsets of Greece. Turner, as a solitary -exception, represented nature stately, terrible, stormy, glorious, -mighty, grand, and sublime; all the others, like Gainsborough, loved -simplicity, modest grace, and virginal quietude. England has nothing -romantic. At the very time when Lessing painted his landscapes, Ludwig -Tieck experienced a bitter disappointment when he trod the soil where -Shakespeare wrote the witch scenes in _Macbeth_. A sombre, melancholy, -primæval maze was what he had expected, and there lay before him a soft, -luxuriant, and cultivated country. What distinguishes English landscape -is a singular luxuriance, an almost unctuous wealth of vegetation. Drive -through the country on a bright day on the top of a coach, and look -around you; in all directions as far as the eye can reach an endless -green carpet is spread over gentle valleys and undulating hills; -cereals, vegetables, clover, hops, and glorious meadows with high rich -grasses stretch forth; here and there stand a group of mighty oaks -flinging their shadows wide, and around are pastures hemmed in by -hedges, where splendid cattle lie chewing the cud. The moist atmosphere -surrounds the trees and plants like a shining vapour. There is nothing -more charming in the world, and nothing more delicate than these tones -of colour; one might stand for hours looking at the clouds of satin, the -fine ærial bloom, and the soft transparent gauze which catches the -sunbeams in its silver net, softens them, and sends them smiling and -toying to the earth. On both sides of the carriage the fields extend, -each more beautiful than the last, in constant succession, interwoven -with broad patches of buttercups, daisies, and meadowsweet. A strange -magic, a loveliness so exquisite that it is well-nigh painful, escapes -from this inexhaustible vegetation. The drops sparkle on the leaves like -pearls, the arched tree-tops murmur in the gentle breeze. Luxuriantly -they thrive in these airy glades, where they are ever rejuvenated and -bedewed by the moist air of the sea. And the sky seems to have been made -to enliven the colours of the land. At the tiniest sunbeam the earth -smiles with a delicious charm, and the bells of flowers unfold in rich, -liquid colour. The English look at nature as she is in their country, -with the tender love of the man nurtured in cities, and yet with the -cool observation of the man of business. The merchant, enveloped the -whole day long in the smoke of the city, breathes the more freely of an -evening when the steam-engine brings him out into green places. With a -sharp practical glance he judges the waving grain, and speculates on the -chances of harvest. And this spirit of attentive, familiar observation -of nature, which is in no sense romantic, reigns also in the works of -the English landscape painters. They did not think of becoming -cosmopolitan like their German comrades, and of presenting remarkable -points, the more exotic the better, for the instruction of the public. -Like Gainsborough, they relied upon the intimate charm of places which -they knew and loved. And as a centre Norwich first took the place of -Suffolk, which Gainsborough had glorified. - -[Illustration: CONSTABLE. DEDHAM VALE.] - -_John Crome_, known as Old Crome, the founder of the powerful Norwich -school of landscape, is a healthy and forcible master. Born poor, in a -provincial town a hundred miles from London, in 1769, and at first an -errand boy to a doctor, whose medicines he delivered to the patients, -and then an apprentice to a sign-painter, he lived completely cut off -from contemporary England. Norwich was his native town and his life-long -home. He did not know the name of Turner, nor anything of Wilson, and -perhaps never heard the name of Gainsborough. Thus his pictures are -neither influenced by the contemporary nor by the preceding English art. -Whatever he became he owed to himself and to the Dutch. Early married, -and blessed with a numerous family, he tried to gain his bread by -drawing-lessons, given in the great country-houses in the neighbourhood, -and in this way had the opportunity of seeing many Dutch pictures. In -later life he came to know Paris at a time when all the treasures of the -world were collected in the Louvre, and this enthusiasm for the Dutch -found fresh nourishment. Even on his deathbed he spoke of Hobbema. -"Hobbema," he said, "my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!" Hobbema is -his ancestor, the art of Holland his model. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - CONSTABLE. THE ROMANTIC HOUSE.] - -His pictures were collectively "exact" views of places which he loved, -and neither composed landscapes nor paintings of "beautiful regions." -Crome painted frankly everything which Norfolk, his own county, had to -offer him--weather-beaten oaks, old woods, fishers' huts, lonely pools, -wastes of heath. The way he painted trees is extraordinary. Each has its -own physiognomy, and looks like a living thing, like some gloomy -Northern personality. Oaks were his peculiar specialty, and in later -years they only found a similarly great interpreter in Théodore -Rousseau. At the same time his pictures of the simplest scenes have a -remarkable largeness of conception, and a subtlety of colour recalling -the old masters, and reached by no other painter in that age. An -uncompromising realist, he drew his portraits of nature with almost -pedantic pains, but preserved their relation of colour throughout. And -as a delicate adept in colouring he finally harmonised everything in the -manner of the Dutch to a juicy brown tone, which gives his beautiful -wood and field pictures a discreet and refined beauty, a beauty in -keeping with the art of galleries. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - CONSTABLE. THE CORNFIELD.] - -Crome took a long time before he made a way for himself. His whole life -long he sold his work merely at moderate prices: for no picture did he -ever receive more than fifty pounds. Even his end was uneventful. He had -begun as a manual worker, and he died in 1821 as a humble townsman whose -only place of recreation was the tavern, and who passed his leisure in -the society of sailors, shopkeepers, and artisans. Yet the principles of -his art survived him. In 1805 he had founded in Norwich, far from all -Academies, a society of artists, who gave annual exhibitions and had a -common studio, which each used at fixed hours. _Cotman_, whose specialty -was ash-trees, _the younger Crome_, _Stark_, and _Vincent_, are the -leading representatives of the vigorous school of Norwich; and by them -the name of this town became as well known as an art-centre in Europe as -Delft and Haarlem had been in former times. - -Their relation to the Dutch was similar to that of Georges Michel in -France, or that of Achenbach in Germany. They painted what they saw, -rounded it with a view to pictorial effect, and harmonised the whole in -a delicate brown tone. They felt more attracted by the form of objects -than by their colour; the latter was, in the manner of the Dutch, merely -an epidermis delicately toned down. The next step of the English -painters was that they became the first to get the better of this Dutch -phase, and to found that peculiarly modern landscape painting which no -longer sets out from the absolutely concrete reality of objects, but -from the _milieu_, from the atmospheric effect; which values in a -picture less what is ready-made and perfectly rounded in drawing than -the freshly seized impression of nature. - -Hardly twenty years have gone by since "open-air painting" was -introduced into Germany. At present, things are no longer painted as -they are in themselves but as they appear in their atmospheric -environment. Artists care no longer for landscapes which float in a -neutral brown sauce; they represent objects flooded with light and air. -People no longer wish for brown trees and meadows, for the eye has -perceived that trees and meadows are green. The world is no longer -satisfied with the indeterminate light of the studio and the -conventional tone of the picture gallery; it requires some indication of -the hour of the day, since it is felt that the light of morning is -different from the light of noon. And it is the English who made these -discoveries, which have lent to modern landscape painting its most -delicate and fragrant charm. - -The very mist of England, the damp and the heaviness of the atmosphere, -necessarily forced English landscape painters, earlier than those of -other nations, to the observation of the play of light and air. In a -country where the sky is without cloud, in a pure, dry, and sparkling -air, nothing is seen except lines. Shadow is wanting, and without shadow -light has no value. For that reason the old classical masters of Italy -were merely draughtsmen; they knew how to prize the value of sunshine no -more than a millionaire the value of a penny. But the English understood -the charm even of the most scanty ray of light which forces its way like -a wedge through a wall of clouds. The entire appearance of nature, in -their country, where a damp mist spreads its pearly grey veil over the -horizon even upon calm and beautiful summer days, guided them to see the -vehicle of some mood of landscape in the subtlest elements of light and -air. The technique of water-colour painting which, at that very time, -received such a powerful impetus, encouraged them to give expression to -what they saw freshly and simply even in their oil-paintings, and to do -so without regard for the scale of colour employed by the old masters. - -_John Robert Cozens_, "the greatest genius who ever painted a -landscape," had been the first to occupy himself with water-colour -painting as understood in the modern sense. _Tom Girtin_ had -experimented with new methods. _Henry Edridge_ and _Samuel Prout_ had -come forward with their picturesque ruins, _Copley Fielding_ and _Samuel -Owen_ with sea-pieces, _Luke Clennel_ and _Thomas Heaphy_ with graceful -portrayals of country life, _Howitt_ and _Robert Hills_ with their -animal pictures. From 1805 there existed a Society of Painters in -Water-Colours, and this extensive pursuit of water-colour painting could -not fail to have an influence upon oil-painting also. The technique of -water-colour accustomed English taste to that brightness of tone which -at first seemed so bizarre to the Germans, habituated as they were to -the prevalence of brown. Instead of dark, brownish-green tones, the -water-colour painters produced bright tones. Direct study of nature, and -the completion of a picture in the presence of nature and in the open -air, guided their attention to light and atmosphere more quickly than -that of the oil-painters. An easier technique, giving more scope for -improvisation, of itself suggested the idea that rounded finish with a -view to pictorial effect was not the final aim of art, but that it was -of the most immediate importance to catch the first freshness of -impression, that flower so hard to pluck and so prone to wither. - -The first who applied these principles to oil-painting was _John -Constable_, one of the greatest pioneers in his own province and one of -the most powerful individualities of the century. - -East Bergholt, the pretty little village where Constable's cradle stood, -is fourteen miles distant from Sudbury, the birthplace of Gainsborough. -Here he was born on 11th June 1776, at the very time when Gainsborough -settled in London. His father was a miller, a well-to-do man, who had -three windmills in Bergholt. The other famous miller's son in the -history of art is Rembrandt. At first a superior career was chosen for -him; it was intended that he should become a clergyman. But he felt more -at home in the mill than in the schoolroom, and became a miller like his -fathers before him. Observation of the changes of the sky is an -essential part of a miller's calling, and this occupation of his youth -seems to have been not without influence on the future artist; no one -before him had observed the sky with the same attention. - -[Illustration: CONSTABLE. COTTAGE IN A CORNFIELD.] - -A certain Dunthorne, an eccentric personage to whom the boy often came, -gave him--always in the open air--his first instruction; and another of -his patrons, Sir George Beaumont, as an æsthetically trained -connoisseur, criticised what he painted. When Constable showed him a -study he asked: "Where do you mean to place your brown tree?" For the -first law in his æsthetics was this: a good painting must have the -colour of a good fiddle; it must be brown. Sojourn in London was without -influence on Constable. He was twenty-three years of age, a handsome -young fellow with dark eyes and a fine expressive countenance, when, in -1799, he wrote to his teacher Dunthorne: "I am this morning admitted a -student at the Royal Academy; the figure which I drew for admittance was -the Torso. I am now comfortably settled in Cecil Street, Strand, No. -23." He was known to the London girls as "the handsome young miller of -Bergholt." He undertook the most varied things, copied pictures of -Reynolds, and painted an altar-piece, "Christ blessing Little Children," -which was admired by no one except his mother. In addition he studied -Ruysdael, whose works made a great impression on him, in the National -Gallery. In 1802 he appears for the first time in the Catalogue of the -Royal Academy as the exhibitor of a landscape, and from this time to the -year of his death, 1837, he was annually represented there, contributing -altogether one hundred and four pictures. In the earliest--windmills and -village parties--every detail is carefully executed; every branch is -painted on the trees, and every tile on the houses; but as yet one can -breathe no air in these pictures and see no sunshine. - -But he writes, in 1803, a very important letter to his old friend -Dunthorne. "For the last two years," he says, "I have been running after -pictures, and seeking the truth at second-hand. I have not endeavoured -to represent nature with the same elevation of mind with which I set -out, but have rather tried to make my performance look like the work of -other men. I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this -summer, nor to give up my time to commonplace people. I shall return to -Bergholt, where I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of -representing the scenes that may employ me. There is little or nothing -in the exhibition worth looking up to. _There is room enough for a -natural painter._" He left London accordingly, and worked, in 1804, the -whole summer "quite alone among the oaks and solitudes of Helmingham -Park. I have taken quiet possession of the parsonage, finding it empty. -A woman comes from the farmhouse, where I eat, and makes my bed, and I -am left at liberty to wander where I please during the day." And having -now returned to the country he became himself again. "Painting," he -writes, "is with me but another word for feeling; and I associate 'my -careless boyhood' with all that lies upon the banks of the Stour; those -scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful." He had passed his whole -youth amid the lovely valleys and luxuriant meadows of Bergholt, where -the flocks were at pasture and the beetles hummed; he had wandered about -the soft banks of the Stour, in the green woods of Suffolk, amongst old -country-houses and churches, farms and picturesque cottages. This -landscape which he had loved as a boy he also painted. He was the -painter of cultivated English landscape, the portrayer of country life, -of canals and boats, of windmills and manor-houses. He had a liking for -all simple nature which reveals everywhere the traces of human -activity--for arable fields and villages, orchards and cornfields. A -strip of meadow, a watergate with a few briars, a clump of branching, -fibrous trees, were enough to fill him with ideas and feelings. -Gainsborough had already painted the like; but Constable denotes an -advance beyond Gainsborough as beyond Crome. Intimate in feeling as -Gainsborough undoubtedly was, he had a tendency to beautify the objects -of nature; he selected and gave them a delicacy of arrangement and a -grace of line which in reality they did not possess. Constable was the -first to renounce every species of adaptation and arbitrary arrangement -in composition. His boldness in the rendering of personal impressions -raises him above Crome. Crome gets his effect principally by his -accuracy: he represented what he saw; Constable showed how he saw the -thing. While the former, following Hobbema, has an air reminiscent of -galleries and old masters, Constable saw the world with his own eyes, -and was the first entirely independent modern landscape painter. In his -young days he had made copies after Claude, Rubens, Reynolds, Ruysdael, -Teniers, and Wilson, which might have been mistaken for the originals, -but later he had learnt much from Girtin's water-colour paintings. From -that time he felt that he was strong enough to trust his own eyes. He -threw to the winds all that had hitherto been considered as the chief -element of beauty, and gave up the rounding of his pictures for -pictorial effect; cut trees right through the middle to get into his -picture just what interested him, and no more. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - CONSTABLE. THE VALLEY FARM.] - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - COX. CROSSING THE SANDS.] - -He set himself right in the midst of verdure; the nightingales sang, the -leaves murmured, the meadows grew green, and the clouds gleamed. In the -fifteenth-century art there were the graceful spring trees of Perugino; -in the seventeenth, the bright spring days of those two Flemings Jan -Silberecht and Lucas Uden; in the nineteenth, Constable became the first -painter of spring. If Sir George Beaumont now asked him where he meant -to put his brown tree, he answered: "Nowhere, because I don't paint -brown trees any more." He saw that foliage is green in summer, -and--painted it so; he saw that summer rain and morning dew makes the -verdure more than usually intense, and--he painted what he saw. He -noticed that green leaves sparkle, gleam, and glitter in the sun--and -painted them accordingly; he saw that the light, when it falls upon -bright-looking walls, dazzles like snow in the sunshine--and painted it -accordingly. There was a good deal of jeering at the time about -"Constable's snow," and yet it was not merely all succeeding English -artists who continued to put their faith in this painting of light, but -the masters of Barbizon too, and Manet afterwards. - -[Illustration: _Mansell_ - - BONINGTON. LA PLACE DES MOULARDS, GENEVA.] - -The problem of painting light and air, which the older school had left -unsolved, was taken up by him first in its complete extent. Crome had -shown great reserve in approaching the atmospheric elements. Constable -was the first landscape painter who really saw effects of light and air -and learnt to paint them. His endeavour was to embody the impression of -a mood of light with feeling, without lingering on the reproduction of -those details which are only perceptible to an analytical eye. Whereas -in the old Dutch masters the chief weight is laid on the effect of the -drawing of objects, here it rests upon light, no matter upon what it -plays. Thus Constable freed landscape painting from the architectonic -laws of composition. They were no longer needed when the principle was -once affirmed that the atmospheric mood gave greater value to the -picture than subject. He not only studied the earth and foliage in their -various tones, according as they were determined by the atmosphere, but -observed the sky, the air, and the forms of cloud with the -conscientiousness of a student of natural philosophy. The comments which -he wrote upon them are as subtle as those in Ruskin's celebrated -treatise on the clouds. A landscape, according to him, is only beautiful -in proportion as light and shadow make it so; in other words, he was the -first to understand that the "mood" of a landscape, by which it appeals -to the human spirit, depends less on its lines and on objects in -themselves than on the light and shadow in which it is bathed, and he -was the first painter who had the secret of painting these subtle -gradations of atmosphere. In his pictures the wind is heard murmuring in -the trees, the breeze is felt as it blows over the corn, the sunlight is -seen glancing on the leaves and playing on the clear mirror of the -waters. Thus Constable for the first time painted nature in all its -freshness. His principle of artistic creation is entirely opposed to -that which was followed by the Pre-Raphaelites at a later date. Whilst -the latter tried to reconstruct a picture of nature by a faithful, -painstaking execution of all details--a process by which the expression -of the whole usually suffers--Constable's pictures are broadly and -impressively painted, often of rude and brutal force, at times solemn, -at times elegant, but always cogent, fresh, and possessing a unity of -their own. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - COX. THE SHRIMPERS.] - -A genius in advance of its age is only first recognised in its full -significance when following generations have come abreast with it. And -that Constable was made to feel. In 1837 he died in poverty at -Hampstead, in the modest "country retreat" where he spent the greatest -part of his life. He said that his painting recalled no one, and was -neither polished nor pretty, and asked: "How can I hope to be popular? -I work only for the future." And that belonged to him. - -[Illustration: _Portfolio._ - - MÜLLER. THE AMPHITHEATRE AT XANTHUS.] - -Constable's powerful individuality has brought forth enduring fruit, and -helped English landscape painting to attain that noble prime which it -enjoyed during the forties and fifties. - -With his rich, brilliant, bold, and finely coloured painting, _David -Cox_ stands out as perhaps the greatest of Constable's successors. Like -Constable, he was a peasant, and observed nature with the simplicity of -one who was country-bred. He was born in 1783, the son of a blacksmith, -in a humble spot near Birmingham, and, after a brief sojourn in London, -migrated with his family to Hereford, and later to Harborne, also in the -neighbourhood of Birmingham. The strip of country which he saw from his -house was almost exclusively his field of study. He knew that a painter -can pass his life in the same corner of the earth, and that the scene of -nature spread before him will never be exhausted. "Farewell, pictures, -farewell," he is reported to have said when he took his last walk, on -the day before his death, round the walls of Harborne. He has treated of -the manner in which he understood his art in his _Treatise on Landscape -Painting_, written in 1814. His ideal was to see the most cogent effect -in nature, and leave everything out which did not harmonise with its -character; and in Cox's pictures it is possible to trace the steps by -which he drew nearer to this ideal the more natural he became. The magic -of his brush was never more captivating than in the works of his last -years, when, fallen victim to a disease of the eye, he could no longer -see distinctly and only rendered an impression of the whole scene. - -Cox is a great and bold master. The townsman when he first comes into -the country, after being imprisoned for months together in a wilderness -of brick and mortar, does not begin at once to count the trees, leaves, -and the stones lying on the ground. He draws a long breath and exclaims, -"What balm!" Cox, too, has not painted details in the manner of the -Pre-Raphaelites. He represented the soft wind sweeping over the English -meadows, the fresh purity of the air, the storms that agitate the -landscape of Wales. A delicate silver-grey is spread over most of his -pictures, and his method of expression is powerful and nervous. By -preference he has celebrated, both in oil-paintings and in boldly -handled water-colours, the boundless depths of the sky in its thousand -variations of light, now deep blue in broad noon and now eerily gloomy -and disturbed. The fame of being the greatest of English water-colour -painters is his beyond dispute, yet if he had painted in oils from his -youth upwards he would probably have become the most important English -landscapist. His small pictures are pure and delicate in colour, and -fresh and breezy in atmospheric effect. It is only in large pictures -that power is at times denied him. In his later years he began to paint -in oils, and in this medium he is a less important artist, though a very -great painter. _William Müller_, who died young, stood as leader at his -side. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - DE WINT. NOTTINGHAM.] - -He was one of the most dexterous amongst the dexterous, next to Turner -the greatest adept of English painting. Had he been simpler and quieter -he might be called a genius of the first order. But he has sometimes a -touch of what is theatrical; it does not always break out, but it does -so occasionally. He has an inclination for pageantry, and nothing of -that self-sufficiency and quiet tenderness with which Constable and Cox -devoted themselves to home scenery. He was at pains to give a trace of -largeness and sublimity to modest and unpretentious English landscape, -to give to the most familiar subject a tinge of preciosity. His pictures -are grandiose in form, and show an admirable lightness of hand, but -light and air are wanting in them, the local colour of England and its -atmosphere. As a foreigner--he was the son of a Danzig scholar, who had -migrated to Bristol--Müller has not seen English landscape with -Constable's native sentiment. He was not content with an English -cornfield or an English village; the familiar homeliness of the country -in its work-a-day garb excited no emotion in him. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - BONINGTON. THE WINDMILL OF SAINT-JOUIN.] - -Something in Müller's imagination, which caused him to love decided -colours and sudden contrasts rather than delicate gradations, attracted -him to Southern climes. His natural place was in the East, which had not -at that time been made the vogue. Here, like Decamps and Marilhat, he -found those vivid rather than delicate effects which appealed to his -eye. He was twice in the South--the first time in Athens and Egypt in -1838, and once again in Smyrna, Rhodes, and Lycia in 1843-44. In the -year during which he had yet to live he collected those Oriental -pictures which form his legacy, containing the best that he did. Certain -of them, such as "The Amphitheatre at Xanthus," are painted with -marvellous verve; they are not the work of a day, but of an hour. All -these mountain castles upon abrupt cliffs, these views of the Acropolis -and of Egypt, are real masterpieces of broad painting, their colour -clear and their light admirable. Not one of the many Frenchmen who were -in the South at this time has represented its sunshine and its brilliant -atmosphere with such flattering, voluptuous tones. - -_Peter de Wint_, who was far more true and simple, was, like Constable -and Cox, entirely wedded to his own birthplace. At any rate, his sojourn -in France lasted only for a short time, and left no traces in his art. -From youth to age he was the painter of England in its work-a-day -garb--of the low hills of Surrey, of the plains of Lincolnshire, or of -the dark canals of the Thames, which he specially portrayed in -unsurpassable water-colour paintings. His ancestor in art is Philips de -Koning, the pupil of Rembrandt, the master of Dutch plains and wide -horizons. - -[Illustration: _Studio._ - - BONINGTON. READING ALOUD.] - -After Cox and de Wint came _Creswick_, more laborious, more patient, -more studious of detail, furnished perhaps with a sharper eye for the -green tones of nature, though with less feeling for atmosphere. It -cannot be said that he advanced art, but merely that he added a regard -for light and sunshine, unknown to the period before 1820, to the study -of Hobbema and Waterloo. With those who would not have painted as they -did but for Constable, _Peter Graham_ and _Dawson_ may be likewise -ranked; and these artists peculiarly devoted themselves to the study of -sky and water. Henry Dawson painted the most paltry and unpromising -places--a reach of the Thames close to London, or a quarter in the smoky -precincts of Dover, or Greenwich; but he painted them with a power such -as only Constable possessed. In particular he is unequalled in his -masterly painting of clouds. Constable had seldom done this in the same -way. He delighted in an agitated sky, in clouds driven before the wind -and losing their form in indeterminate contours; in nature he saw merely -reflections of his own restless spirit, striving after colour and -movement. Dawson painted those clouds which stand firm in the sky like -piles of building--cloud-cathedrals, as Ruskin has called them. There -are pictures of his consisting of almost nothing but great clouds. But -that wide space, the earth, which our eyes regard as their own peculiar -domain, is wanting. Colours and forms are nowhere to be seen, but only -clouds and undulating yellowish mist in which objects vanish like pallid -spectres. _John Linnell_ carried the traditions of this great era on to -the new period: at first revelling in golden light, in sunsets and rosy -clouds of dusk, and at a later time, in the manner of the -Pre-Raphaelites, bent on the precise execution of bodily form. - -The young master, who died at twenty-seven, _Richard Parkes Bonington_, -unites these English classic masters with the French. An Englishman by -birth and origin, but trained as a painter in France, where he had gone -when fifteen years of age, he seems from many points of view one of the -most gracious products of the Romantic movement in France, though at the -same time he has qualities over which only the English had command at -that period, and not the French. He entered Gros's studio in France, -which was then the favourite meeting-place of all the younger men of -revolutionary tendencies, but repeated journeys to London did not allow -him to forget Constable. In Normandy and Picardy he painted his first -landscapes, following them up with a series of Venetian sea-pieces and -little historical scenes. Then consumption seized him and took but a -brief time in striking him down. On 23rd September 1828 he died in -London, whither he had gone to consult a specialist. In consequence of -his early death his talent never ripened, but he was a simple, natural, -pure, and congenial artist for all that. "I knew him well and loved him -much. His English composure, which nothing could disturb, robbed him of -none of the qualities which make life pleasant. When I first came across -him I was myself very young, and was making studies in the Louvre. It -was about 1816 or 1817. He was in the act of copying a Flemish -landscape--a tall youth who had grown rapidly. He had already an -astonishing dexterity in water-colours, which were then an English -novelty. Some which I saw later at a dealer's were charming, both in -colour and composition. Other modern artists are perhaps more powerful -and more accurate than Bonington, but no one in this modern school, -perhaps no earlier artist, possessed the ease of execution which makes -his works, in a certain sense, diamonds by which the eye is pleased and -fascinated, quite independently of the subject and the particular -representation of nature. And the same is true of the costume pictures -which he painted later. Even here I could never grow weary of marvelling -at his sense of effect, and his great ease of execution. Not that he was -quickly satisfied; on the contrary, he often began over again perfectly -finished pieces which seemed wonderful to us. But his dexterity was so -great that in a moment he produced with his brush new effects, which -were as charming as the first." With these words his friend and comrade, -the great Eugène Delacroix, drew the portrait of Bonington. Bonington -was at once the most natural and the most delicate in that Romantic -school in which he was one of the first to make an appearance. He had a -fine eye for the charm of nature, saw grace and beauty in her -everywhere, and represented the spring and the sunshine in bright and -clear tones. No Frenchman before him has so painted the play of light on -gleaming costumes and succulent meadow grasses. Even his lithographs -from Paris and the provinces are masterpieces of spirited, impressionist -observation--qualities which he owed, not to Gros, but to Constable. He -was the first to communicate the knowledge of the great English classic -painters to the youth of France, and they of Barbizon and Ville d'Avray -continued to spin the threads which connect Constable with the present. - -[Illustration: RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON.] - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -LANDSCAPE FROM 1830 - - -That same Salon of 1822 in which Delacroix exhibited his "Dante's Bark" -brought to Frenchmen a knowledge of the powerful movement which had -taken place on the opposite side of the Channel. English water-colour -painting was brilliantly represented by Bonington, who sent his "View of -Lillebonne" and his "View of Havre." Copley Fielding, Robson, and John -Varley also contributed works; and these easy, spirited productions, -with their skies washed in broadly and their bright, clear tones, were -like a revelation to the young French artists of the period. The horizon -was felt to be growing clear. In 1824, at the time when Delacroix's -"Massacre of Chios" appeared, the sun actually rose, bringing a flood of -light. The English had learnt the way to France, and took the Louvre by -storm. John Constable was represented by three pictures, and Bonington, -Copley Fielding, Harding, Samuel Prout, and Varley were also accorded a -place. This exhibition gave the deathblow to Classical landscape -painting. Michallon had died young in 1822; and men like Bidault and -Watelet could do nothing against such a battalion of colourists. -Constable alone passed sentence upon them of eternal condemnation. -Familiar neither with Georges Michel nor with the great Dutch painters, -the French had not remarked that a landscape has need of a sky -expressive of the spirit of the hour and the character of the season. -Even what was done by Michel seemed a kind of diffident calligraphy when -set beside the fresh strand-pieces of Bonington, the creations of the -water-colour artists, bathed as they were in light, and the bold -pictures of the Bergholt master, with their bright green and their -cloudy horizon. The French landscape painters, who had been so timid -until then, recognised that their painting had been a convention, -despite all their striving after truth to nature. - -Constable had been the first to free himself from every stereotyped -rule, and he was an influence in France. The younger generation were in -ecstasies over this intense green, the agitated clouds, this -effervescent power inspiring everything with life. Though as yet but -little esteemed even in England, Constable received the gold medal in -Paris, and from that time took a fancy to Parisian exhibitions, and -still in 1827 exhibited in the Louvre by the side of Bonington, who had -but one year more in which to give admirable lessons by his bright -plains and clear shining skies. At the same time Bonington's friend and -compatriot, William Reynolds, then likewise domiciled in Paris, -contributed some of his powerful and often delicate landscape studies, -the tender grey notes of which are like anticipations of Corot. This -influence of the English upon the creators of _paysage intime_ has long -been an acknowledged fact, since Delacroix himself, in his article -"Questions sur le Beau" in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1854, has -affirmed it frankly. - -The very next years announced what a ferment Constable had stirred in -the more restless spirits. The period from 1827 to 1830 showed the -birth-throes of French landscape painting. In 1831 it was born. In this -year, for ever marked in the annals of French, and indeed of European -art, there appeared together in the Salon, for the first time, all those -young artists who are now honoured as the greatest in the century: all, -or almost all, were children of Paris, the sons of small townsmen or of -humble artisans; all were born in the old quarter of the city or in its -suburbs, in the midst of a desolate wilderness of houses, and destined -for that very reason to be great landscape painters. For it is not -through chance that _paysage intime_ immediately passed from London, the -city of smoke, to Paris, the second great modern capital, and reached -Germany from thence only at a much later time. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - THÉODORE ROUSSEAU.] - -"Do you remember the time," asks Bürger-Thoré of Théodore Rousseau in -the dedicatory letter to his _Salon_ of 1844,--"do you still recall the -years when we sat on the window-ledges of our attics in the Rue de -Taitbout, and let our feet dangle at the edge of the roof, contemplating -the chaos of houses and chimneys, which you with a twinkle in your eye -compared to mountains, trees, and outlines of the earth? You were not -able to go to the Alps, into the cheerful country, and so you created -picturesque landscapes for yourself out of these horrible skeletons of -wall. Do you still recall the little tree in Rothschild's garden, which -we caught sight of between two roofs? It was the one green thing that we -could see; every fresh shoot of the little poplar wakened our interest -in spring, and in autumn we counted the falling leaves." - -From this mood sprang modern landscape painting with its delicate -reserve in subject, and its vigorously heightened love of nature. Up to -the middle of the century nature was too commonplace and ordinary for -the Germans; and it was therefore hard for them to establish a -spiritual relationship with her. Landscape painting recognised its -function in appealing to the understanding by the execution of points of -geographical interest, or exciting a frigid curiosity by brilliant -fireworks. But these children of the city, who with a heartfelt sympathy -counted the budding and falling leaves of a single tree descried from -their little attic window; these dreamers, who in their imagination -constructed beautiful landscapes from the moss-crusted gutters of the -roof and the chimneys and chimney smoke, were sufficiently schooled, -when they came into the country, to feel the breath of the great mother -of all, even where it was but faintly exhaled. Where a man's heart is -full he does not think about geographical information, and no roll of -tom-toms is needed to attract the attention of those whose eyes are -opened. Their spirit was sensitive, and their imagination sufficiently -alert to catch with ecstasy, even from the most delicate and reserved -notes, the harmony of that heavenly concert which nature executes on all -its earthly instruments, at every moment and in all places. - -[Illustration: ROUSSEAU. MORNING.] - -[Illustration: ROUSSEAU. LANDSCAPE, MORNING EFFECT.] - -Thus they had none of them any further need for extensive pilgrimage; to -seek impulse for work they had not far to go. Croissy, Bougival, -Saint-Cloud, and Marly were their Arcadia. Their farthest journeys were -to the banks of the Oise, the woods of L'Isle Adam, Auvergne, Normandy, -and Brittany. But they cared most of all to stay in the forest of -Fontainebleau, which--by one of those curious chances that so often -recur in history--played for a second time a highly important part in -the development of French art. A hundred years before, it was the -brilliant centre of the French Renaissance, the resort of those Italian -artists who found in the palace there a second Vatican, and in Francis I -another Leo X. In the nineteenth century, too, the Renaissance of French -painting was achieved in Fontainebleau, only it had nothing to do with a -school of mannered figure painters, but with a group of the most -delicate landscape artists. From a sense of one's duty to art one -studies in the palace the elegant goddesses of Primaticcio, the laughing -bacchantes of Cellini, and all the golden, festal splendour of the -Cinquecento; but the heart is not touched till one stands outside in the -forest on the soil where Rousseau and Corot and Millet and Diaz painted. -How much may be felt and thought when one saunters of a dreamy evening, -lost in one's own meditations, across the heath of the _plateau de la -Belle Croix_ and through the arching oaks of _Bas Bréau_ to Barbizon, -the Mecca of modern art, where the secrets of _paysage intime_ were -revealed to the Parisian landscape painters by the nymph of -Fontainebleau! There was a time when men built their Gothic cathedrals -soaring into the sky, after the model of the majestic palaces of the -trees. The dim and sacred mist of incense hovered about the lofty -pointed arches, and through painted windows the broken daylight shone, -inspiring awe; the fair picture of a saint beckoned from above the -altar, touched by the gleam of lamps and candles; gilded carvings -glimmered strangely, and overwhelming strains from the fugues of Bach -reverberated in the peal of the organ throughout the consecrated space. -But now the Gothic cathedrals are transformed once more into palaces of -trees. The towering oaks are the buttresses, the tracery of branches the -choir screen, the clouds the incense, the wind sighing through the -boughs the peal of the organ, and the sun the altar-piece. Man is once -more a fire-worshipper, as in his childhood; the church has become the -world, and the world has become the church. - -How the spirit soars at the trill of a blackbird beneath the leafy roof -of mighty primæval oaks! One feels as though one had been transplanted -into the Saturnian age, when men lived a joyous, unchequered life in -holy unison with nature. For this park is still primæval, in spite of -all the carriage roads by which it is now traversed, in spite of all the -guides who lounge upon the granite blocks of the hollows of Opremont. -Yellowish-green ferns varying in tint cover the soil like a carpet. The -woods are broken by great wastes of rock. Perhaps there is no spot in -the world where such splendid beeches and huge majestic oaks stretch -their gnarled branches to the sky--in one place spreading forth in -luxuriant glory, and in another scarred by lightning and bitten by the -wintry cold. It is just such scenes of ravage that make the grandest, -the wildest, and the most sombre pictures. The might of the great forces -of nature, striking down the heads of oaks like thistles, is felt -nowhere in the same degree. - -Barbizon itself is a small village three miles to the north of -Fontainebleau, and, according to old tradition, founded by robbers who -formerly dwelt in the forest. On both sides of the road connecting it -with the charming little villages of Dammarie and Chailly there stretch -long rows of chestnut, apple, and acacia trees. There are barely a -hundred houses in the place. Most of them are overgrown with wild vine, -shut in by thick hedges of hawthorn, and have a garden in front, where -roses bloom amid cabbages and cauliflowers. At nine o'clock in the -evening all Barbizon is asleep, but before four in the morning it awakes -once more for work in the fields. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - ROUSSEAU. THE VILLAGE OF BECQUIGNY IN PICARDY.] - -Historians of after-years will occupy themselves in endeavouring to -discover when the first immigration of Parisian painters to this spot -took place. It is reported that one of David's pupils painted in the -forest of Fontainebleau and lived in Barbizon. The only lodging to be -got at that time was in a barn, which the former tailor of the place, a -man of the name of Ganne, turned into an inn in 1823. Here, after 1830, -Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Brascassat, and many others alighted when they -came to follow their studies in Barbizon from the spring to the autumn. -Of an evening they clambered up to their miserable bedroom, and fastened -to the head of the bed with drawing-pins the studies made in the course -of the day. It was only later that Père Copain, an old peasant, who had -begun life as a shepherd with three francs a month, was struck with the -apt idea of buying in a few acres and building upon them small houses to -let to painters. By this enterprise the man became rich, and gradually -grew to be a capitalist, lending money to all who, in spite of their -standing as celebrated Parisian artists, did not enjoy the blessings of -fortune. But the general place of assembly was still the old barn -employed in Ganne's establishment, and in the course of years its walls -were covered with large charcoal drawings, studies, and pictures. Here, -in a patriarchal, easy-going, homely fashion, artists gathered together -with their wives and children of an evening. Festivities also were held -in the place, in particular that ball when Ganne's daughter, a godchild -of Madame Rousseau, celebrated her wedding. Rousseau and Millet were the -decorators of the room; the entire space of the barn served as -ball-room, the walls being adorned with ivy. Corot, always full of fun -and high spirits, led the polonaise, which moved through a labyrinth of -bottles placed on the floor. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - ROUSSEAU. LA HUTTE.] - -They painted in the forest. But they did not take the trouble to carry -the instruments of their art home again. They kept breakfast, canvas, -and brushes in holes in the rocks. Never before, probably, have men so -lost themselves in nature. At every hour of the day, in the cool light -of morning, at sunny noon, in the golden dusk, even in the twilight of -blue moonlight nights, they were out in the field and the forest, -learning to surprise everlasting nature at every moment of her -mysterious life. The forest was their studio, and revealed to them all -its secrets. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - ROUSSEAU. EVENING.] - -The result of this life _en plein air_ became at once the same as it had -been with Constable. Earlier artists worked with the conception and the -technique of Waterloo, Ruysdael, and Everdingen, and believed themselves -incapable of doing anything without gnarled, heroic oaks. Even Michel -was hard-bound in the gallery style of the Dutch, and for Decamps -atmosphere was still a thing unknown or non-existent. He placed a harsh -light, opaque as plaster, against a background as black as coal. Even -the colours of Delacroix were merely tones of the palette; he wanted to -create preconceived decorative harmonies, and not simply to interpret -reality. Following the English, the masters of Fontainebleau made the -discovery of air and light. They did not paint the world, like the other -Romanticists, in exuberantly varying hues recalling the old masters: -they saw it _entouré d'air_, and tempered by the tones of the -atmosphere. And since their time the "harmony of light and air with that -of which they are the life and illumination" has become the great -problem of painting. Through this art grew young again, and works of art -received the breathing life, the fresh bloom, and the delicate harmony -which are to be found everywhere in nature itself, and which are only -reached with much difficulty by any artificial method of tuning into -accord. After Constable they were the first who recognised that the -beauty of a landscape does not lie in objects themselves, but in the -lights that are cast upon them. Of course, there is also an -articulation of forms in nature. When Boecklin paints a grove with tall -and solemn trees in the evening, when he forms to himself a vision of -the mysterious haunts of his "Fire-worshippers," there is scarcely any -need of colour. The outline alone is so majestically stern that it makes -man feel his littleness utterly, and summons him to devotional thoughts. -But the subtle essence by which nature appeals either joyously or -sorrowfully to the spirit depends still more on the light or gloom in -which she is bathed; and this mood is not marked by an inquisitive eye: -the introspective gaze, the imagination itself, secretes it in nature. -And here a second point is touched. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - ROUSSEAU. SUNSET.] - -The peculiarity of all these masters, who on their first appearance were -often despised as realists or naturalists, consists precisely in this: -they never represented, at least in the works of their later period in -which they thoroughly expressed themselves,--they never represented -actual nature in the manner of photography, but freely painted their own -moods from memory, just as Goethe when he stood in the little house in -the Kikelhahn near Ilmenau, instead of elaborating a prosaic description -of the Kikelhahn, wrote the verses _Ueber allen Wipfeln ist Ruh_. In -this poem of Goethe one does not learn how the summits looked, and there -is no allusion to the play of light, and yet the forest, dimly -illuminated by the rays of the setting sun, is presented clearly to the -inward eye. Any poet before Goethe's time would have made a broad and -epical description, and produced a picture by the addition of details; -but here the very music of the words creates a picture of rest and -quietude. The works of the Fontainebleau artists are Goethe-like poems -of nature in pigments. They are as far removed from the æsthetic -aridness of the older landscape of composition, pieced together from -studies, as from the flat, prosaic fidelity to nature of that "entirely -null and void, spuriously realistic painting of the so-called guardians -of woods and waters." They were neither concerned to master nature and -compose a picture from her according to conventional rules, nor -pedantically to draw the portrait of any given region. They did not -think of topographical accuracy, or of preparing a map of their country. -A landscape was not for them a piece of scenery, but a condition of -soul. They represent the victory of lyricism over dry though inflated -prose. Impressed by some vision of nature, they warm to their work and -produce pictures that could not have been anticipated. And thus they -fathomed art to its profoundest depths. Their works were fragrant poems -sprung from moods of spirit which had risen in them during a walk in the -forest. Perhaps only Titian, Rubens, and Watteau had previously looked -upon nature with the same eyes. And as in the case of these artists, so -also in that of the Fontainebleau painters, it was necessary that a -genuine realistic art, a long period of the most intimate study of -nature, should have to be gone through before they reached this height. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - ROUSSEAU. THE LAKE AMONG THE ROCKS AT BARBIZON.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - ROUSSEAU. A POND, FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU.] - -In the presence of nature one saturates one's self with truth; and after -returning to the studio one squeezes the sponge, as Jules Dupré -expressed it. Only after they had satiated themselves with the knowledge -of truth, only after nature with all her individual phenomena had been -interwoven with their inmost being, could they, without effort, and -without the purpose of representing determined objects, paint from -personal sentiment, and give expression to their humour, in the mere -gratification of impulse. Thence comes their wide difference from each -other. Painters who work according to fixed rules resemble one another, -and those who aim at a distinct copy of nature resemble one another no -less. But each one of the Fontainebleau painters, according to his -character and his mood for the time being, received different -impressions from the same spot in nature, and at the same moment of -time. Each found a landscape and a moment which appealed to his -sentiment more perceptibly than any other. One delighted in spring and -dewy morning, another in a cold, clear day, another in the threatening -majesty of storm, another in the sparkling effects of sportive sunbeams, -and another in evening after sundown, when colours have faded and forms -are dim. Each one obeyed his peculiar temperament, and adapted his -technique to the altogether personal expression of his way of seeing -and feeling. Each one is entirely himself, each one an original mind, -each picture a spiritual revelation, and often one of touching -simplicity and greatness: _homo additus naturæ_. And having dedicated -themselves, more than all their predecessors, to personality creating in -and for itself, they have become the founders of the new creed in art. - -That strong and firmly rooted master _Théodore Rousseau_ was the epic -poet, the plastic artist of the Pleïades. "_Le chêne des roches_" was -one of his masterpieces, and he stands himself amid the art of his time -like an oak embedded in rocks. His father was a tailor who lived in the -Rue Neuve-Saint Eustache, Nr. 4 _au quatrième_. As a boy he is said to -have specially devoted himself to mathematics, and to have aimed at -becoming a student at the Polytechnic Institute. Thus the dangerous, -doctrinaire tendency, which beset him in his last years, of making art -more of a science than is really practicable, and of referring -everything to some law, lay even in his boyish tastes. He grew up in the -studio of the Classicist Lethière, and looked on whilst the latter -painted both his large Louvre pictures, "The Death of Brutus" and "The -Death of Virginia." He even thought himself of competing for the _Prix -de Rome_. But the composition of his "historical landscape" was not a -success. Then he took his paint-boxes, left Lethière's studio, and -wandered over to Montmartre. Even his first little picture, "The -Telegraph Tower" of 1826, announced the aim which he was tentatively -endeavouring to reach. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ CAMILLE COROT.] - -At the very time when Watelet's metallic waterfalls and zinc trees were -being drawn up in line, when the pupils of Bertin hunted the Calydonian -boar, or drowned Zenobia in the waves of the Araxes, Rousseau, set free -from the ambition of winning the _Prix de Rome_, was painting humble -plains within the precincts of Paris, with little brooks in the -neighbourhood which had nothing that deserved the name of waves. - -His first excursion to Fontainebleau occurred in the year 1833, and in -1834 he painted his first masterpiece, the "Côtés de Grandville," that -picture, replete with deep and powerful feeling for nature, which seems -the great triumphant title-page of all his work. A firm resolve to -accept reality as it is, and a remarkable eye for the local character of -landscape and for the structure and anatomy of the earth--all qualities -revealing the Rousseau of later years--were here to be seen in their -full impressiveness and straightforward actuality. He received for this -work a medal of the third class. At the same time his works were -excluded from making any further appearance in the Salon for many years -to come. Concession might be made to a beginner; but the master seemed -dangerous to the academicians. Two pictures, "Cows descending in the -Upper Jura" and "The Chestnut Avenue," which he had destined for the -Salon of 1835, were rejected by the hanging committee, and during twelve -years his works met with a similar fate, although the leading critical -intellects of Paris, Thoré, Gustave Planché, and Théophile Gautier, -broke their lances in his behalf. Amongst the rejected of the present -century, Théodore Rousseau is probably the most famous. At that period -he was selling his pictures for five and ten louis-d'or. It was only -after the February Revolution of 1848, when the Academic Committee had -fallen with the _bourgeois_ king, that the doors of the Salon were -opened to him again, and in the meanwhile his pictures had made their -way quietly and by their unassisted merit. In the sequestered solitude -of Barbizon he had matured into an artistic individuality of the highest -calibre, and become a painter to whom the history of art must accord a -place by the side of Ruysdael, Hobbema, and Constable. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COROT. THE BRIDGE OF ST. ANGELO, ROME.] - -He painted everything in Barbizon--the plains and the hills, the river -and the forest, all the seasons of the year and all the hours of the -day. The succession of his moods is as inexhaustible as boundless nature -herself. Skies gilded by the setting sun, phases of dewy morning, plains -basking in light, woods in the russet-yellow foliage of autumn: these -are the subjects of Théodore Rousseau--an endless procession of poetic -effects, expressed at first by the mere instinct of emotion and later -with a mathematical precision which is often a little strained, though -always irresistibly forcible. Marvellous are his autumn landscapes with -their ruddy foliage of beech; majestic are those pictures in which he -expressed the profound sentiment of solitude as it passes over you in -the inviolate tangle of the forest, inviting the spirit to commune with -itself; but especially characteristic of Rousseau are those plains with -huge isolated trees, over which the mere light of common day rests -almost coldly and dispassionately. - -[Illustration: COROT AT WORK.] - -It is an artistic or psychological anomaly that in this romantic -generation a man could be born in whom there was nothing of the -Romanticist. Théodore Rousseau was an experimentalist, a great worker, a -restless and seeking spirit, ever tormented and unsatisfied with itself, -a nature wholly without sentimentality and impassionless, the very -opposite of his predecessor Huet. Huet made nature the mirror of the -passions, the melancholy and the tragic suffering which agitate the -human spirit with their rage. Whilst he celebrated the irresistible -powers and blind forces, the elemental genii which rule the skies and -the waters, he wanted to waken an impression of terror and desolation in -the spirit of the beholder. He piled together masses of rock, lent -dramatic passion to the clouds, and revelled with delight in the -sharpest contrasts. Rousseau's pervasive characteristic is absolute -plainness and actuality. Such a simplicity of shadow had never existed -before. Since the Renaissance artists had systematically heightened the -intensity of shadows for the sake of effect; Rousseau relied on the true -and simple doctrine that may be formulated in the phrase: the more light -there is the fainter and more transparent are the shadows, not the -darker, as Decamps and Huet painted them. Or, to speak more generally, -in nature the intensity of shadows stands in an inverse relation to the -intensity of the light. - -[Illustration: COROT. DAPHNIS AND CHLOE.] - -Rousseau does not force on the spectator any preconceived mood of his -own, but leaves him before a picture with all the freedom and capacity -for personal feeling which he would have received from the spectacle of -nature herself. The painter does not address him directly, but lets -nature have free play, just as a medium merely acts as the vehicle of a -spirit. So personal in execution and so absolutely impersonal in -conception are Rousseau's pictures. Huet translated his moods by the -assistance of nature; Rousseau is an incomparable witness, confining -himself strictly to the event, and giving his report of it in brief, -virile speech, in clear-cut style. Huet puts one out of humour, because -it is his own humour which he is determined to force. Rousseau seldom -fails of effect, because he renders the effect which has struck him, -faithfully and without marginal notes. Only in the convincing power of -representation, and never in the forcing of a calculated mood, does the -"mood" of his landscape lie. Or, to take an illustration from the -province of portrait painting, when Lenbach paints Prince Bismarck, it -is Lenbach's Bismarck; as an intellectual painter he has given an -entirely subjective rendering of Bismarck, and compels the spectator so -to see him. Holbein, when he painted Henry VIII, proceeded in the -opposite way: for him characterisation depended on his revealing his own -character as little as possible; he completely subordinated himself to -his subject, surrendered himself, and religiously painted all that he -saw, leaving it to others to carry away from the picture what they -pleased. And Théodore Rousseau, too, was possessed by the spirit of the -old German portrait painter. He set his whole force of purpose to the -task of letting nature manifest herself, free from any preconceived -interpretation. His pictures are absolutely without effective point, but -there is so much power and deep truth, so much simplicity, boldness, and -sincerity in his manner of seeing and painting nature, and of feeling -her intense and forceful life, that they have become great works of art -by this alone, like the portraits of Holbein. More impressive tones, -loftier imagination, more moving tenderness, and more intoxicating -harmonies are at the command of other masters, but few had truer or more -profound articulation, and not one has been so sincere as Théodore -Rousseau. Rousseau saw into the inmost being of nature, as Holbein into -Henry VIII, and the impression he received, the emotion he felt, is a -thing which he communicates broadly, boldly, and entirely. He is a -portrait painter who knows his model through and through; moreover, he -is a connoisseur of the old masters who knows what it is to make a -picture. Every production of Rousseau is a deliberate and -well-considered work, a cannon-shot, and no mere dropping fusilade of -small arms; not a light _feuilleton_, but an earnest treatise of strong -character. Though a powerful colourist, he works by the simplest means, -and has at bottom the feeling of a draughtsman; which is principally the -reason why, at the present day, when one looks at Rousseau's pictures, -one thinks rather of Hobbema than of Billotte and Claude Monet. - -His absolute mastery over drawing even induced him in his last years to -abandon painting altogether. He designated it contemptuously as -falsehood, because it smeared over the truth, the anatomy of nature. - -[Illustration: COROT. VUE DE TOSCANE.] - -In Rousseau there was even more the genius of a sculptor than of a -portrait painter. His spirit, positive, exact, like that of a -mathematician, and far more equipped with artistic precision than -pictorial qualities, delighted in everything sharply defined, plastic, -and full of repose: moss-grown stones, oaks of the growth of centuries, -marshes and standing water, rude granite blocks of the forest of -Fontainebleau, and trees bedded in the rocks of the glens of Opremont. -In a quite peculiar sense was the oak his favourite tree--the mighty, -wide-branching, primæval oak which occupies the centre of one of his -masterpieces, "A Pond," and spreads its great gnarled boughs to the -cloudy sky in almost every one of his pictures. It is only Rembrandt's -three oaks that stand in like manner, firm and broad of stem, as though -they were living personalities of the North, in a lonely field beneath -the hissing rain. To ensure the absolute vitality of organisms was for -Rousseau the object of unintermittent toil. - -[Illustration: COROT. AT SUNSET.] - -Plants, trees, and rocks were not forms summarily observed and clumped -together in an arbitrary fashion; for him they were beings gifted with a -soul, breathing creatures, each one of which had its physiognomy, its -individuality, its part to play, and its distinction of being in the -great harmony of universal nature. "By the harmony of air and light with -that of which they are the life and the illumination I will make you -hear the trees moaning beneath the North wind and the birds calling to -their young." To achieve that aim he thought that he could not do too -much. As Dürer worked seven times on the same scenes of the Passion -until he had found the simplest and most speaking expression, so -Rousseau treated the same motives ten and twenty times. Restless are his -efforts to discover different phases of the same subject, to approach -his model from the most various points of view, and to do justice to it -on every side. He begins an interrupted picture again and again, and -adds something to it to heighten the expression, as Leonardo died with -the consciousness that there was something yet to be done to his -"Joconda." Sometimes a laboured effect is brought into his works by this -method, but in other ways he has gained in this struggle with reality a -power of exposition, a capacity of expression, a force of appeal, and -such a remarkable insight for rightness of effect that every one of his -good pictures could be hung without detriment in a gallery of old -masters; the nineteenth century did not see many arise who could bear -such a proximity in every respect. His landscapes are as full of sap as -creation itself; they reveal a forcible condensation of nature. The only -words which can be used to describe him are strength, health, and -energy. "It ought to be: in the beginning was the Power." - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - COROT. THE RUIN.] - -From his youth upwards Théodore Rousseau was a masculine spirit; even as -a stripling he was a man above all juvenile follies--one might almost -say, a philosopher without ideals. In literature Turgenief's conception -of nature might be most readily compared with that of Rousseau. In -Turgenief's _Diary of a Sportsman_, written in 1852, everything is so -fresh and full of sap that one could imagine it was not so much the work -of a human pen as a direct revelation from the forest and the steppes. -Though men are elsewhere habituated to see their joys and sorrows -reflected in nature, the sentiment of his own personality falls from -Turgenief when he contemplates the eternal spectacle of the elements. He -plunges into nature and loses the consciousness of his own being in -hers; and he becomes a part of what he contemplates. For him the majesty -of nature lies in her treating everything, from the worm to the human -being, with impassiveness. Man receives neither love nor hatred at her -hands; she neither rejoices in the good that he does nor complains of -sin and crime, but looks beyond him with her deep, earnest eyes because -he is an object of complete indifference to her. "The last of thy -brothers might vanish off the face of the earth and not a needle of the -pine branches would tremble." Nature has something icy, apathetic, -terrible; and the fear which she can inspire through this indifference -of hers ceases only when we begin to understand the relationship in -which we are to our surroundings, when we begin to comprehend that man -and animal, tree and flower, bird and fish, owe their existence to this -one Mother. So Turgenief came to the same point as Spinoza. - -[Illustration: COROT. EVENING.] - -And Rousseau did the same. The nature of Théodore Rousseau was devoid of -all excitable enthusiasm. Thus the world he painted became something -austere, earnest, and inaccessible beneath his hands. He lived in it -alone, fleeing from his fellows, and for this reason human figures are -seldom to be found in his pictures. He loved to paint nature on cold, -grey impassive days, when the trees cast great shadows and forms stand -out forcibly against the sky. He is not the painter of morning and -evening twilight. There is no awakening and no dawn, no charm in these -landscapes and no youth. Children would not laugh here, nor lovers -venture to caress. In these trees the birds would build no nests, nor -their fledglings twitter. His oaks stand as if they had so stood from -eternity. - - "Die unbegrieflich hohen Werke - Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag." - -Like Turgenief, Rousseau ended in Pantheism. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - COROT. AN EVENING IN NORMANDY.] - -He familiarised himself more and more with the endless variety of plants -and trees, of the earth and the sky at the differing hours of the day: -he made his forms even more precise. He wished to paint the organic life -of inanimate nature--the life which heaves unconsciously everywhere, -sighing in the air, streaming from the bosom of the earth, and vibrating -in the tiniest blade of grass as positively as it palpitates through the -branches of the old oaks. These trees and herbs are not human, but they -are characterised by their peculiar features, just as though they were -men. The poplars grow like pyramids, and have green and silvered leaves, -the oaks dark foliage and gnarled far-reaching boughs. The oaks stand -fixed and immovable against the storm, whilst the slender poplars bend -pliantly before it. This curious distinction in all the forms of nature, -each one of which fulfils a course of existence like that of man, was a -problem which pursued Rousseau throughout his life as a vast riddle. -Observe his trees: they are not dead things; the sap of life mounts -unseen through their strong trunks to the smallest branches and shoots, -which spread from the extremity of the boughs like clawing fingers. The -soil works and alters; every plant reveals the inner structure of the -organism which produced it. And this striving even became a curse to him -in his last period. Nature became for him an organism which he studied -as an anatomist studies a corpse, an organism all the members of which -act one upon the other according to logical laws, like the wheels of a -machine; and for the proper operation of this machine the smallest -plants seemed as necessary as the mightiest oaks, the gravel as -important as the most tremendous rock. - -[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl._ - - COROT. THE DANCE OF THE NYMPHS.] - -Convinced that there was nothing in nature either indifferent or without -its purpose, and that everything had a justification for its existence -and played a part in the movement of universal life, he believed also -that in everything, however small it might be, there was a special -pictorial significance; and he toiled to discover this, to make it -evident, and often forgot the while that art must make sacrifices if it -is to move and charm. In his boundless veneration for the logical -organism of nature he held, as a kind of categorical imperative, that it -was right to give the same importance to the infinitely small as to the -infinitely great. The notion was chimerical, and it wrecked him. In his -last period the only things that will preserve their artistic reputation -are his marvellously powerful drawings. No one ever had such a feeling -for values, and thus he knew how to give his drawings--quite apart from -their pithy weight of stroke--an effect of light which was forcibly -striking. Just as admirable were the water-colours produced under the -influence of Japanese picture-books. The pictures of petty detail which -belong to these years have only an historical interest, and that merely -because it is instructive to see how a great genius can deceive himself. -One of his last works, the view of Mont Blanc, with the boundless -horizon and the countless carefully and scrupulously delineated planes -of ground, has neither pictorial beauty nor majesty. In the presence of -this bizarre work one feels astonishment at the artist's endurance and -strength of will, but disappointment at the result. He wanted to win the -secret of its being from every undulation of the ground, from every -blade of grass, and from every leaf; he was anxiously bent upon what he -called _planimétrie_, upon the importance of horizontal planes, and he -accentuated detail and accessory work beyond measure. His pantheistic -faith in nature brought Théodore Rousseau to his fall. Those who did not -know him spoke of his childish stippling and of the decline of his -talent. Those who did know him saw in this stippling the issue of the -same endeavours which poor Charles de la Berge had made before him, and -of the principles on which the landscape of the English Pre-Raphaelites -was being based about this time. If one looks at his works and then -reads his life one almost comes to have for him a kind of religious -veneration. There is something of the martyr in this insatiable -observer, whose life was one long struggle, and to whom the study of the -earth's construction and the anatomy of branches was almost a religion. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - COROT. A DANCE.] - -[Illustration: J. B. C. COROT. LANDSCAPE.] - -At first he had to struggle for ten years for bread and recognition. It -seems hardly credible that his landscapes, even after 1848, when they -had obtained entry into the Salon, were a source of irritation there for -years, simply because they were green. The public was so accustomed to -brown trees and brown grass, that every other colour in the landscape -was an offence against decency, and before a green picture the -Philistine immediately cried out, "Spinage!" "_Allez, c'était dur -d'ouvrir la brêche_," said he, in his later years. And at last, at the -World Exhibition of 1855, when he had made it clear to Europe who -Théodore Rousseau was, the evening of his life was saddened by pain and -illness. He had married a poor unfortunate creature, a wild child of the -forest, the only feminine being that he had found time to love during -his life of toil. After a few years of marriage she became insane, and -whilst he tended her Rousseau himself fell a victim to an affection of -the brain which darkened his last years. Death came to his release in -1867. As he lay dying his mad wife danced and trilled to the screaming -of her parrot. He rests "_dans le plain calme de la nature_" in the -village churchyard at Chailly, near Barbizon, buried in front of his -much-loved forest. Millet erected the headstone--a simple cross upon an -unhewn block of sandstone, with a tablet of brass on which are inscribed -the words: - -[Illustration: _Hanjstaengl._ - - COROT. LA ROUTE D'ARRAS.] - - -THÉODORE ROUSSEAU, PEINTRE. - -"_Rousseau c'est un aigle. Quant à moi, je ne suis qu'une alouette qui -pousse de petites chansons dans mes nuages gris._" With these words -_Camille Corot_ has indicated the distinction between Rousseau and -himself. They denote the two opposite poles of modern landscape. What -attracted the plastic artists, Rousseau, Ruysdael, and Hobbema--the -relief of objects, the power of contours, the solidity of forms--was not -Corot's concern. Whilst Rousseau never spoke about colour with his -pupils, but as _ceterum censeo_ invariably repeated, "_Enfin, la forme -est la première chose à observer_," Corot himself admitted that drawing -was not his strong point. When he tried to paint rocks he was but -moderately effective, and all his efforts at drawing the human figure -were seldom crowned with real success, although in his last years he -returned to the task with continuous zeal. Apart from such peculiar -exceptions as that wonderful picture "The Toilet," his figures are -always the weakest part of his landscapes, and only have a good effect -when in the background they reveal their delicate outlines, half lost in -rosy haze. He was not much more felicitous with his animals, and in -particular there often appear in his pictures great heavy cows, which -are badly planted on their feet, and which one wishes that he had left -out. Amongst trees he did not care to paint the oak, the favourite tree -with all artists who have a passion for form, nor the chestnut, nor the -elm, but preferred to summon, amid the delicate play of sunbeams, the -aspen, the poplar, the alder, the birch with its white slender stem and -its pale, tremulous leaves, and the willow with its light foliage. In -Rousseau a tree is a proud, toughly knotted personality, a noble, -self-conscious creation; in Corot it is a soft tremulous being rocking -in the fragrant air, in which it whispers and murmurs of love and joy. -His favourite season was not the autumn, when the turning leaves, hard -as steel, stand out with firm lines, quiet and motionless, against the -clear sky, but the early spring, when the farthest twigs upon the boughs -deck themselves with little leaves of tender green, which vibrate and -quiver with the least breath of air. He had, moreover, a perfectly -wonderful secret of rendering the effect of the tiny blades of grass and -the flowers which grow upon the meadows in June; he delighted to paint -the banks of a stream with tall bushes bending to the water, and he -loved water itself in undetermined clearness and in the shifting glance -of light, leaving it here in shadow and touching it there with -brightness; the sky in the depths beneath wedded to the bright border of -the pool or the vanishing outlines of the bank, and the clouds floating -across the sky, and here and there embracing a light shining fragment of -the blue. He loved morning before sunrise, when the white mists hover -over pools like a light veil of gauze, and gradually disperse as the sun -breaks through, but he had a passion for evening which was almost -greater: he loved the soft vapours which gather in the gloom, thickening -until they become pale grey velvet mantles, as peace and rest descend -upon the earth with the drawing on of night. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ JULES DUPRÉ.] - -In contradistinction from Rousseau his specialty was everything soft and -wavering, everything that has neither determined form nor sharp lines, -and that, by not appealing too clearly to the eye, is the more conducive -to dreamy reveries. It is not the spirit of a sculptor that lives in -Corot, but that of a poet, or still better, the spirit of a musician, -since music is the least plastic of the arts. It is not surprising to -read in his biography that, like Watteau, he had almost a greater -passion for music than for painting, and that when he painted he had -always an old song or an opera aria upon his lips, that when he spoke of -his pictures he had a taste for drawing comparisons from music, and that -he had a season-ticket at the _Conservatoire_, never missed a concert, -and played upon the violin himself. Indeed, there is something of the -tender note of this instrument in his pictures, which make such a -sweetly solemn appeal through their delicious silver tone. Beside -Rousseau, the plastic artist, Père Corot is an idyllic painter of -melting grace; beside Rousseau, the realist, he seems a dreamy musician; -beside Rousseau, the virile spirit earnestly making experiments in art, -he appears like a bashful schoolgirl in love. Rousseau approached nature -in broad daylight, with screws and levers, as a cool-headed man of -science; Corot caressed and flattered her, sung her wooing love-songs -till she descended to meet him in the twilight hours, and whispered to -him, her beloved, the secrets which Rousseau was unable to wring from -her by violence. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ THE HOUSE OF JULES DUPRÉ AT L'ISLE-ADAM.] - -_Corot_ was sixteen years senior to Rousseau. He still belonged to the -eighteenth century, to the time when, under the dictatorship of David, -Paris transformed herself into imperial Rome. David, Gérard, Guérin, and -Prudhon, artists so different in talent, were the painters whose works -met his first eager glances, and no particular acuteness is needed to -recognise in the Nymphs and Cupids with which Corot in after-years, -especially in the evening of his life, dotted his fragrant landscapes, -the direct issue of Prudhon's charming goddesses, the reminiscences of -his youth nourished on the antique. He, too, was a child of old Paris, -with its narrow streets and corners. His father was a hairdresser in the -Rue du Bac, number 37, and had made the acquaintance of a girl who lived -at number 1 in the same street, close to the Pont Royal, and was -shop-girl at a milliner's. He carried on his barber's shop until 1778, -when Camille, the future painter, was two years old. Then Madame Corot -herself undertook the millinery establishment in which she had once -worked. There might be read on the front of the narrow little house, -number 1 of the Rue du Bac, _Madame Corot, Marchande de Modes_. M. -Corot, a polite and very correct little man, raised the business to -great prosperity. The Tuileries were opposite, and under Napoleon I -Corot became Court "modiste." As such he must have attained a certain -celebrity, as even the theatre took his name in vain. A piece which was -then frequently played at the Comédie Française contains the passage: "I -have just come from Corot, but could not speak to him; he was locked up -in his private room occupied in composing a new spring hat." - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - DUPRÉ. THE SETTING SUN.] - -Camille went to the high school in Rouen, and was then destined, -according to the wish of his father, to adopt some serious calling "by -which money was to be made." He began his career with a yard-measure in -a linen-draper's establishment, ran through the suburbs of Paris with a -book of patterns under his arm selling cloth--_Couleur olive_--and in -his absence of mind made the clumsiest mistakes. After eight years of -opposition his father consented to his becoming a painter. "You will -have a yearly allowance of twelve hundred francs," said old Corot, "and -if you can live on that you may do as you please." At the Pont Royal, -behind his father's house, he painted his first picture, amid the -tittering of the little dressmaker's apprentices who looked on with -curiosity from the window, but one of whom, Mademoiselle Rose, remained -his dear friend through life. This was in 1823, and twenty years went -by before he returned to French soil in the pictures that he painted. -Victor Bertin became his teacher; in other words, Classicism, style, and -coldness. He sought diligently to do as others; he drew studies, -composed historical landscapes, and painted as he saw the academicians -painting around him. To conclude his orthodox course of training it only -remained for him to make the pilgrimage to Italy, where Claude Lorrain -had once painted and Poussin had invented the historical landscape. In -1825--when he was twenty-eight--he set out with Bertin and Aligny, -remained long in Rome, and came to Naples. The Classicists, whose circle -he entered with submissive veneration, welcomed him for his cheerful, -even temper and the pretty songs which he sang in fine tenor voice. -Early every morning he went into the Campagna, with a colour-box under -his arm and a sentimental ditty on his lips, and there he drew the ruins -with an architectural severity, just like Poussin. In 1827, after a -sojourn of two years and a half in Italy, he was able to make an -appearance in the Salon with his carefully balanced landscapes. In 1835 -and 1843 he stayed again in Italy, and only after this third pilgrimage -were his eyes opened to the charms of French landscape. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ THE BRIDGE AT L'ISLE-ADAM.] - -One can pass rapidly over this first section of Corot's work. His -pictures of this period are not without merit, but to speak of them with -justice they should be compared with contemporary Classical productions. -Then one finds in them broad and sure drawing, and can recognise a -powerful hand and notice an astonishing increase of ability. Even on his -second sojourn in Italy he painted no longer as an ethnographical -student, and no longer wasted his powers on detail. But it is in the -pictures of his last twenty years that Corot first becomes the -Theocritus of the nineteenth century. The second Corot has spoilt one's -enjoyment for the first. But who would care to pick a quarrel with him -on that score! Beside his later pictures how hard are those studies from -Rome, which the dying painter left to the Louvre, and which, as his -maiden efforts, he regarded with great tenderness all through his life. -How little they have of the delicate, harmonious light of his later -works! The great historical landscape with Homer in it, where light and -shadow are placed so trenchantly beside each other, the landscape -"Aricia," "Saint Jerome in the Desert," the picture of the young girl -sitting reading beside a mountain stream, "The Beggar" with that team in -mad career which Decamps could not have painted with greater -virtuosity,--they are all good pictures by the side of those of his -contemporaries, but in comparison with real Corots they are like the -exercises of a pupil, in their hard, dry painting, their black, coarse -tones, and their chalky wall of atmosphere. There is neither breeze nor -transparency nor life in the air; the trees are motionless, and look as -if they were heavily cased in iron. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DUPRÉ. NEAR SOUTHAMPTON. - - (_By permission of M. Jules Beer, the owner of the picture._)] - -Corot was approaching his fortieth year, an age at which a man's ideas -are generally fixed, when the great revolution of French landscape -painting was accomplished under the influence of the English and of -Rousseau. Trained in academical traditions, he might have remained -steadfast in his own province. To follow the young school he had -completely to learn his art again, and alter his method of treatment -with the choice of subjects, and this casting of his slough demanded -another fifteen years. When he passed from Italian to French landscape, -after his return from his third journey to Rome in 1843, his pictures -were still hard and heavy. He had already felt the influence of -Bonington and Constable, by the side of whose works his first exhibited -picture had hung in 1827. But he still lacked the power of rendering -light and air, and his painting had neither softness nor light. Even in -the choice of subject he was still undecided, returning more than once -to the historical landscape and working on it with unequal success. His -masterpiece of 1843, "The Baptism of Christ," in the Church of Saint -Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris, is no more than a delicate imitation of -the old masters. The "Christ upon the Mount of Olives" of 1844, in the -Museum of Langres, is the first picture which seems like a convert's -confession of faith. In the centre of the picture, before a low hill, -Christ kneels upon the ground praying; His disciples are around Him, and -to the right, vanishing in the shadows, the olive trees stretch their -gnarled branches over the darkened way. A dark blue sky, in which a star -is flickering, broods tremulously over the landscape. One might pass the -Christ over unobserved; but for the title He would be hard to recognise. -But the star shining far away, the transparent clearness of the night -sky, the light clouds, and the mysterious shadows gliding swiftly over -the ground,--these have no more to do with the false and already -announce the true Corot. From this time he found the way on which he -went forward resolute and emancipated. - -[Illustration: DUPRÉ. THE PUNT.] - -For five-and-twenty years it was permitted to him to labour in perfect -ripeness, freedom, and artistic independence. One thinks of Corot as -though he had been a child until he was fifty and then first entered -upon his adolescence. Up to 1846 he took from his father the yearly -allowance of twelve hundred francs given him as a student, and in that -year, when he received the Cross of the Legion of Honour, M. Corot -doubled the sum for the future, observing: "Well, Camille seems to have -talent after all." About the same time his friends remarked that he went -about Barbizon one day more meditatively than usual. "My dear fellow," -said he to one of them, "I am inconsolable. Till now I had a complete -collection of Corots, and it has been broken to-day, for I have sold one -for the first time." And even at seventy-four he said: "How swiftly -one's life passes, and how much must one exert one's self to do anything -good!" The history of art has few examples to offer of so long a spring. -Corot had the privilege of never growing old; his life was a continual -rejuvenescence. The works which made him Corot are the youthful works of -an old man, the matured creations of a grey-headed artist, who--like -Titian--remained for ever young; and for their artistic appreciation it -is not without importance to remember this. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DUPRÉ. SUNSET. - - (_By permission of M. Jules Beer, the owner of the picture._)] - -Of all the Fontainebleau painters Corot was the least a realist: he was -the least bound to the earth, and he was never bent upon any exact -rendering of a part of nature. No doubt he worked much in the open air, -but he worked far more in his studio; he painted many scenes as they lay -before him, but more often those which he only saw in his own mind. He -is reported to have said on his deathbed: "Last night I saw in a dream a -landscape with a sky all rosy. It was charming, and still stands before -me quite distinctly; it will be marvellous to paint." How many -landscapes may he not have thus dreamed, and painted from the -recollected vision! - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DUPRÉ. THE HAY-WAIN.] - -For a young man this would be a very dangerous method. For Corot it was -the only one which allowed him to remain Corot, because in this way no -unnecessary detail disturbed the pure, poetic reverie. He had spent his -whole life in a dallying courtship with nature, ever renewed. As a child -he looked down from his attic window upon the wavering mists of the -Seine; as a schoolboy in Rouen he wandered lost in his own fancies along -the borders of the great river; when he had grown older he went every -year with his sister to a little country-house in Ville d'Avray, which -his father had bought for him in 1817. Here he stood at the open window, -in the depth of the night, when every one was asleep, absorbed in -looking at the sky and listening to the plash of waters and the rustling -of leaves. Here he stayed quite alone. No sound disturbed his reveries, -and unconsciously he drank in the soft, moist air and the delicate -vapour rising from the neighbouring river. Everything was harmoniously -reflected in his quick and eager spirit, and his eyes beheld the -individual trait of nature floating in the universal life. He began not -merely to see nature, but to feel her presence, like that of a beloved -woman, to receive her very breath and to hear the beating of her heart. - -One knows the marvellous letter in which he describes the day of a -landscape painter to Jules Dupré: "_On se lève de bonne heure, à trois -heures du matin, avant le soleil; on va s'asseoir au pied d'un arbre, on -regarde et on attend. On ne voit pas grand'chose d'abord. La nature -ressemble à une toile blanchâtre où s'esquissent à peine les profils de -quelques masses: tout est embaumé, tout frisonne au souffle fraîchi de -l'aube. Bing! le soleil s'éclaircit ... le soleil n'a pas encore déchiré -la gaze derrière laquelle se cachent la prairie, le vallon, les collines -de l'horizon.... Les vapeurs nocturnes rampent encore commes des flocons -argentés sur les herbes d'un vert transi. Bing!... Bing!... un premier -rayon de soleil ... un second rayon de soleil.... Les petites fleurettes -semblent s'éveiller joyeuses.... Elles out toutes leur goutte de rosée -qui tremble ... les feuilles frileuses s'agitent au souffle du matin ... -dans la feuillée, les oiseaux invisibles chantent.... Il semble que ce -sont les fleurs qui font la prière. Les Amours à ailes de papillons -s'ébattent sur la prairie et font onduler les hautes herbes.... On ne -voit rien ... tout y est. Le paysage est tout entier derrière la gaze -transparente du brouillard, qui, au reste ... monte ... monte ... aspiré -par le soleil ... et laisse, en se levant, voir la rivière lamée -d'argent, les prés, les arbres, les maisonettes, le lointain fuyant.... -On distingue enfin tout ce que l'on divinait d'abord._" - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DUPRÉ. THE OLD OAK.] - -At the end there is an ode to evening which is perhaps to be reckoned -amongst the most delicate pages of French lyrics: "_La nature s'assoupit -... cependant l'air frais du soir soupire dans les feuilles ... la rosée -emperle le velours des gazons.... Les nymphes fuient ... se cachent ... -et désirent être vues.... Bing! une étoile du ciel qui pique une tête -dans l'étang.... Charmante étoile, dont le frémissement de l'eau -augmente le scintillement, tu me regardes ... tu me souris en clignant -de l'oeil.... Bing! une seconde étoile apparaît dans l'eau; un second -oeil s'ouvre. Soyez les bienvenues, fraîches et charmantes étoiles.... -Bing! Bing! Bing! trois, six, vingt étoiles.... Toutes les étoiles du -ciel se sont donné rendez-vous dans cet heureux étang.... Tout -s'assombrit encore.... L'étang seul scintille.... C'est un fourmillement -d'étoiles.... L'illusion se produit.... Le soleil étant couché, le -soleil intérieur de l'âme, le soleil de l'art se lève.... Bon! voilâ mon -tableau fait_." - -[Illustration: DUPRÉ. THE POOL.] - -Any one who has never read anything about Corot except these lines may -know him through them alone. Even that little word "Bing" comprises and -elucidates his art by its clear, silvery resonance. The words vibrate -like the strings of a violin that have been gently touched, and they -want Mozart's music as an accompaniment. I do not know any one who has -described all the feminine tenderness of nature, the dishevelled leaves -of the birches, the heaving bosom of the air, the fresh virginity of -morning, the weary, sensuous charm of evening, with such seductive -tenderness and such highly strung feeling, so voluptuously and yet so -coyly. - -To these impressions of Rouen, Ville d'Avray, and Barbizon were added -finally those of Paris. For Corot was born in Paris, and, often as he -left it, he always came back; he passed the greatest part of his life -there, and there it was, perhaps, that in his last period he created his -most poetic works. In these years he had no more need of actual -landscapes; he needed only a sky and they rose before him. Every evening -after sundown he left his studio just at the time when the dusk fell -veiling everything. He raised his eyes to the sky, the only part of -nature which remained visible. And how often does this twilight sky of -Paris recur in Corot's pictures! At the end of his life he could really -give himself over to a dream. The drawings and countless studies of his -youth bear witness to the care, patience, and exactitude of his -preparation. They gave him in after-years, when he was sure of his -hand, the right to simplify, because he knew everything thoroughly. Thus -Boecklin paints his pictures without a model, and thus Corot painted his -landscapes. The hardest problems are solved apparently as if he were -improvising; and for that very reason the sight of a Corot gives such -unspeakable pleasure, such an impression of charming ease. It is only a -hand which has used a brush for forty years that can paint thus. All -effects are attained with the minimum expenditure of strength and -material. The drawing lies as if behind colour that has been blown on to -the canvas; it is as if one looked through a thin gauze into the -distance. Whoever has studied reality so many years, with patient and -observant eye, as Corot did, whoever has daily satiated his imagination -with the impressions of nature, may finally venture on painting, not -this or that scenery, but the fragrance, the very essence of things, and -render merely his own spirit and his own visions free from all earthly -and retarding accessories. There is a temptation to do honour to Corot's -pictures merely as "the confessions of a beautiful soul." - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ NARCISSE DIAZ.] - -But Corot was as great and strong as a Hercules. In his blue blouse, -with his woollen cap and the inevitable short Corot pipe in his mouth--a -pipe which has become historical--one would have taken him for a carter -rather than a celebrated painter. At the same time he remained during -his whole life--a girl: twenty years senior to all the great landscape -painters of the epoch, he was at once a patriarch in their eyes and -their younger comrade. His long white hair surrounded the innocent face -of a ruddy country girl, and his kind and pleasant eyes were those of a -child listening to a fairy-tale. In 1848, during the fighting on the -barricades, he asked with childish astonishment: "What is the matter? -Are we not satisfied with the Government?" And during the war in 1870 -this great hoary-headed child of seventy-four bought a musket, to join -in fighting against Germany. Benevolence was the joy of his old age. -Every friend who begged for a picture was given one, while for money he -had the indifference of a hermit who has no wants and neither sows nor -reaps, but is fed by his Heavenly Father. He ran breathlessly after an -acquaintance to whom, contrary to his wont, he had refused five thousand -francs: "Forgive me," he said; "I am a miser, but there they are." And -when a picture-dealer brought him ten thousand francs he gave him the -following direction: "Send them," he said, "to the widow of my friend -Millet; only, she must believe that you have bought pictures from -_him_." His one passion was music, his whole life "an eternal song." -Corot was a happy man, and no one more deserved to be happy. In his -kind-hearted vivacity and even good spirits he was a favourite with all -who came near him and called him familiarly their Papa Corot. Everything -in him was healthy and natural; his was a harmonious nature, living and -working happily. This harmony is reflected in his art. And he saw the -joy in nature which he had in himself. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - DIAZ. THE DESCENT OF THE BOHEMIANS.] - -Everything that was coarse or horrible in nature he avoided, and his own -life passed without romance or any terrible catastrophes. He has no -picture in which there is a harassed tree vexed by the storm. Corot's -own spirit was touched neither by passions nor by the strokes of fate. -There is air in his landscapes, but never storm; streams, but not -torrents; waters, but not floods; plains, but not rugged mountains. All -is soft and quiet as his own heart, whose peace the storm never -troubled. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DIAZ. AMONG THE FOLIAGE.] - -No man ever lived a more orderly, regular, and reasonable life. He was -only spendthrift where others were concerned. No evening passed that he -did not play a rubber of whist with his mother, who died only a little -before him, and was loved by the old man with the devoted tenderness of -a child. From an early age he had the confirmed habits which make the -day long and prevent waste of time. The eight years which he passed in -the linen-drapery establishment of M. Delalain had accustomed him to -punctuality. Every morning he rose very early, and at three minutes to -eight he was in his studio as punctually as he had been in earlier years -at the counter, and went through his daily task without feverish haste -or idleness, humming with that quietude which makes the furthest -progress. - -For that reason he had also an aversion to everything passionate in -nature, to everything irregular, sudden, or languid, to the feverish -burst of storm as to the relaxing languor of summer heat. He loved all -that is quiet, symmetrical, and fresh, peaceful and blithe, everything -that is enchanting by its repose: the bright, tender sky, the woods and -meadows tinged with green, the streamlets and the hills, the regular -awakening of spring, the soft, quiet hours of evening twilight, the dewy -laughing morning, the delicate mists which form slowly the over surface -of still waters, the joy of clear, starry nights, when all voices are -silent and every breeze is at rest; and the cheerfulness of his own -spirit is reflected in everything. - -[Illustration: DIAZ. A TREE TRUNK.] - -One might go further, and say that Corot's goodness is mirrored in his -pictures. Corot loved humanity and wished it well, and he shrank from no -sacrifice in helping his friends. And even so did he love the country, -and wished to see it animated, enlivened, and blest by human beings. -That is the great distinction between him and Chintreuil, who is -otherwise so like him. Chintreuil also painted nature when she quivers -smiling beneath the gentle and vivifying glance of spring, but figures -are wanting in his pictures. As a timid, fretful, unsociable man, he -imagined that nature also felt happiest in solitude. The scenery in -which Chintreuil delighted was thick, impenetrable copse, lonely haunts -in the tangle of the thicket, from which now and then a startled hind -stretches out its head, glancing uneasily. Corot, who could not endure -solitude, being always the centre of a cheery social gathering, made -nature a sociable being. Men, women, and children give animation to his -woods and meadows. And at times he introduces peasants at work in the -fields, but how little do they resemble the peasants of Millet! The -rustics of the master of Gruchy are as hard and rough as they are -actual; the burden of life has bowed their figures and lined their faces -prematurely; they are old before their time, and weary every evening. -Corot's labourers never grow weary: lightly touched in rather than -painted, dreamt of rather than seen, they carry on an ethereal existence -in the open air, free and contented; they have never suffered, just as -Corot himself knew no sufferings. But as a rule human beings were -altogether out of place in the happy fields conjured up by his fairy -fantasy; and then came the moment when Prudhon lived again. The nymphs -and bacchantes whom he had met as a youth by the tomb of Virgil visited -him in the evening of life in the forest of Fontainebleau and in the -meadows of Ville d'Avray. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - DIAZ. FOREST SCENE.] - -In his pictures he dreamed of pillars and altars near which mythical -figures moved once more, dryads sleeping by the stream, dancing fauns, -_junctæque nymphis gratiæ decentes_ in classical raiment. In this sense -he was a Classicist all his life. His nymphs, however, are no mere -accessories; they have nothing in common with the faded troop of classic -beings whose old age in the ruins of forsaken temples was so long tended -by the Academy. In Corot they are the natural habitants of a world of -harmony and light, the logical complement of his visions of nature: in -the same way Beethoven at the close of the Ninth Symphony introduced the -human voice. No sooner has he touched in the lines of his landscapes -than the nymphs and tritons, the radiant children of the Greek idyllic -poets, desert the faded leaves of books to populate Corot's groves, and -refresh themselves in the evening shadows of his forests. - -[Illustration: CHARLES FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY.] - -For the evening dusk, the hour after sunset, is peculiarly the hour of -Corot; his very preference for the harmonious beauty of dying light was -the effluence of his own harmonious temperament. When he would, Corot -was a colourist of the first order. The World Exhibition of 1889 -contained pictures of women by his hand which resembled Feuerbach in -their strict and austere beauty of countenance, and which recalled -Delacroix in the liquid fulness of tone and their fantastic and -variously coloured garb. But, compared with the orgies of colour -indulged in by Romanticism, his works are generally characterised by the -most delicate reserve in painting. A bright silvery sheet of water and -the ivory skin of a nymph are usually the only touches of colour that -hover in the pearly grey mist of his pictures. As a man Corot avoided -all dramas and strong contrasts; everything abrupt or loud was repellent -to his nature. Thus it was that the painter, too, preferred the clear -grey hours of evening, in which nature envelops herself as if in a -delicate, melting veil of gauze. Here he was able to be entirely Corot, -and to paint without contours and almost without colours, and bathe in -the soft, dusky atmosphere. He saw lines no longer; everything was -breath, fragrance, vibration, and mystery. "_Ce n'est plus une toile et -ce n'est plus un peintre, c'est le bon Dieu et c'est le soir._" Elysian -airs began to breathe, and the faint echo of the prattling streamlet -sounded gently murmuring in the wood; the soft arms of the nymphs clung -round him, and from the neighbouring thicket tender, melting melodies -chimed forth like Æolian harps-- - - "Rege dich, du Schilfgeflüster; - Hauche leise, Rohrgeschwister; - Säuselt, leichte Weidensträuche; - Lispelt, Pappelzitterzweige - Unterbroch'nen Träumen zu." - -His end was as harmonious as his life and his art. "_Rien ne trouble sa -fin, c'est le soir d'un beau jour._" His sister, with whom the old -bachelor had lived, died in the October of 1874, and Corot could not -endure loneliness. On 23rd February 1875--when he had just completed his -seventy-ninth year--he was heard to say as he lay in bed drawing with -his fingers in the air: "_Mon Dieu_, how beautiful that is; the most -beautiful landscape I have ever seen." When his old housekeeper wanted -to bring him his breakfast he said with a smile: "To-day Père Corot will -breakfast above." Even his last illness robbed him of none of his -cheerfulness, and when his friends brought him as he lay dying the medal -struck to commemorate his jubilee as an artist of fifty years' standing, -he said with tears of joy in his eyes: "It makes one happy to know that -one has been so loved; I have had good parents and dear friends. I am -thankful to God." With those words he passed away to his true home, the -land of spirits--not the paradise of the Church, but the Elysian fields -he had dreamt of and painted so often: "_Largior hic campos æther et -lumine vestit purpureo._" - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - DAUBIGNY. SPRINGTIME.] - -When they bore him from his house in the Faubour-Poissonière and a -passer-by asked who was being buried, a fat shopwoman standing at the -door of her house answered: "I don't know his name, but he was a good -man." Beethoven's Symphony in C minor was played at his funeral, -according to his own direction, and as the coffin was being lowered a -lark rose exulting to the sky. "The artist will be replaced with -difficulty, the man never," said Dupré at Corot's grave. On 27th May -1880 an unobtrusive monument to his memory was unveiled at the border of -the lake at Ville d'Avray, in the midst of the dark forest where he had -so often dreamed. He died in the fulness of his fame as an artist, but -it was the forty pictures collected in the Centenary Exhibition of 1889 -which first made the world fully conscious of what modern art possessed -in Corot: a master of immortal masterpieces, the greatest poet and the -tenderest soul of the nineteenth century, as Fra Angelico was the -tenderest soul of the fifteenth, and Watteau the greatest poet of the -eighteenth. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - DAUBIGNY. A LOCK IN THE VALLY OF OPTEVOZ.] - -_Jules Dupré_, a melancholy spirit, who was inwardly consumed by a -lonely existence spent in passionate work, stands as the Beethoven of -modern painting beside Corot, its Mozart. If Théodore Rousseau was the -epic poet of the Fontainebleau school, and Corot the idyllic poet, Dupré -seems its tragic dramatist. Rousseau's nature is hard, rude, and -indifferent to man. For Corot God is the great philanthropist, who -wishes to see men happy, and lets the spring come and the warm winds -blow only that children may have their pleasure in them. His soul is, as -Goethe has it in _Werther_, "as blithe as those of sweet spring -mornings." Jules Dupré has neither Rousseau's reality nor Corot's -tenderness; his tones are neither imperturbable nor subdued. "_Quant -derrière un tronc d'arbre ou derrière une pierre, vous ne trouvez pas un -homme à quoi ça sert-il de faire du paysage._" In Corot there is a charm -as of the light melodies of the _Zauberflöte_; in Dupré the ear is -struck by the shattering notes of the _Sinfonie Eroica_. Rousseau looks -into the heart of nature with widely dilated pupils and a critical -glance. Corot woos her smiling, caressing, and dallying; Dupré courts -her uttering impassioned complaint and with tears in his eyes. In him -are heard the mighty fugues of Romanticism. The trees live, the waves -laugh and weep, the sky sings and wails, and the sun, like a great -conductor, determines the harmony of the concert. Even the two pictures -with which he made an appearance in the Salon in 1835, after he had left -the Sèvres china manufactory and become acquainted with Constable -during a visit to England--the "Near Southampton" and "Pasture-land in -the Limousin"--displayed him as an accomplished master. In "Near -Southampton" everything moves and moans. Across an undulating country a -dark tempest blusters, like a wild host, hurrying and sweeping forward -in the gloom, tearing and scattering everything in its path, whirling -leaves from the slender trees. Clouds big with rain hasten across the -horizon as if on a forced march. The whole landscape seems to partake in -the flight; the brushwood seems to bow its head like a traveller. In the -background a few figures are recognisable: people overtaken by the storm -at their work; horses with their manes flying in the wind; and a rider -seeking refuge for himself and his beast. A stretch of sluggish water -ruffles its waves as though it were frowning. Everything is alive and -quaking in this majestic solitude, and in the mingled play of confused -lights, hurrying clouds, fluttering branches, and trembling grass. - -[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ - - DAUBIGNY. ON THE OISE.] - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - DAUBIGNY. SHEPHERD AND SHEPHERDESS.] - -"Pasture-land in the Limousin" had the same overpowering energy; it was -an admirable picture in 1835, and it is admirable still. The fine old -trees stand like huge pillars; the grass, drenched with rain, is of an -intense green; nature seems to shudder as if in a fever. And through his -whole life Dupré was possessed by the lyrical fever of Romanticism. As -the last champion of Romanticism he bore the banner of the proud -generation of 1830 through well-nigh two generations, and until his -death in 1889 stood on the ground where Paul Huet had first placed -French landscape; but Huet attained his pictorial effects by combining -and by calculation, while Dupré is always a great, true, and convincing -poet. Every evening he was seen in L'Isle Adam, where he settled in -1849, wandering alone across the fields, even in drenching rain. One of -his pupils declares that once, when they stood at night on the bridge of -the Oise during a storm, Dupré broke into a paroxysm of tears at the -magnificent spectacle. He was a fanatic rejoicing in storms, one who -watched the tragedies of the heaven with quivering emotion, a passionate -spirit consumed by his inward force, and, like his literary counterpart -Victor Hugo, he sought beauty of landscape only where it was wild and -magnificent. He is the painter of nature vexed and harassed, and of the -majestic silence that follows the storm. The theme of his pictures is at -one time the whirling torture of the yellow leaves driven before the -wind in eddying confusion; tormented and quivering they cleave to the -furrows in the mad chase, fall into dykes, and cling against the trunks -of trees, to find refuge from their persecutor. At another time he -paints how the night wind whistles round an old church and whirls the -screaming weather-cock round and round, how it moans and rattles with -invisible hand against the doors, forces its way through the windows, -and, once shut in its stony prison, seeks a way out again, howling and -wailing. He paints sea-pieces in which the sea rages and mutters like -some hoarse old monster; the colour of the water is dirty and pallid; -the howling multitude of waves storms on like an innumerable army before -which every human power gives way. Stones are torn loose and hurled -crashing upon the shore. The clouds are dull and ghostly, here black as -smoke, there of a shining whiteness, and swollen as though they must -burst. He celebrates the commotion of the sky, nature in her angry -majesty, and the most brilliant phenomena of atmospheric life. -Rousseau's highest aim was to avoid painting for effect, and Corot only -cared for grace of tone; a picture of his consists "of a little grey and -a certain _je ne sais quoi_." Jules Dupré is peculiarly the colour-poet -of the group, and sounds the most resonant notes in the romantic -concert. His light does not beam in gently vibrating silver tones, but -is concentrated in glaring red suns. "_Ah, la lumière, la lumière!_" -Beside the flaming hues of evening red he paints the darkest shadows. He -revels in contrasts. His favourite key of colour is that of a ghostly -sunset, against which a gnarled oak or the dark sail of a tiny vessel -rises like a phantom. - -Trembling and yet with ardent desire he looks at the tumult of waters, -and hears the roll and resonance of the moon-silvered tide. He delights -in night, rain, and storm. Corot's gentle rivulets become a rolling and -whirling flood in his pictures, a headlong stream carrying all before -it. The wind no longer sighs, but blusters across the valley, spreading -ruin in its path. The clouds which in Corot are silvery and gentle, like -white lambs, are in Dupré black and threatening, like demons of hell. In -Corot the soft morning breeze faintly agitates the tender clouds in the -sky; in Dupré a damp, cold wind of evening blows a spectral grey mist -into the valley, and the hurricane tears apart the thunderclouds. - - "Wenn ich fern auf nackter Haide wallte, - Wo aus dämmernder Geklüfte Schooss - Der Titanensang der Ströme schallte - Und die Nacht der Wolken mich umschloss, - Wenn der Sturm mit seinen Wetterwogen - Mir vorüber durch die Berge fuhr - Und des Himmels Flammen mich umflogen, - Da erscheinst du, Seele der Natur." - -[Illustration: DAUBIGNY. LANDSCAPE: EVENING.] - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - CHINTREUIL. LANDSCAPE: MORNING.] - -The first of the brilliant pleiad who did not come from Paris itself is -_Diaz_, who in his youth worked with Dupré in the china manufactory of -Sèvres. Of noble Spanish origin--Narciso Virgilio Diaz de la Peña ran -his high-sounding name in full--he was born in Bordeaux in 1807, after -his parents had taken refuge from the Revolution across the Pyrenees, -and in his landscapes, too, perhaps, his Spanish blood betrays him now -and then. Diaz has in him a little of Fortuny. Beside the great genius -wrestling for truth and the virile seriousness of Rousseau, beside the -gloomy, powerful landscapes of Dupré with their deep, impassioned -poetry, the sparkling and flattering pictures of Diaz seem to be rather -light wares. For him nature is a keyboard on which to play capricious -fantasies. His pictures have the effect of sparkling diamonds, and one -must surrender one's self to this charm without asking its cause; -otherwise it evaporates. Diaz has perhaps rather too much of the talent -of a juggler, the sparkle of a magic kaleidoscope. "You paint stinging -nettles, and I prefer roses," is the characteristic expression which he -used to Millet. His painting is piquant and as iridescent as a peacock's -tail, but in this very iridescence there is often an unspeakable charm. -It has the rocket-like brilliancy and the glancing chivalry which were -part of the man himself, and made him the best of good company, the -_enfant terrible_, the centre of all that was witty and spirited in the -circle of Fontainebleau. - -He, too, was long acquainted with poverty, as were his great -brother-artists Rousseau and Dupré. Shortly after his birth he lost his -father. Madame Diaz, left entirely without means, came to Paris, where -she supported herself by giving lessons in Spanish and Italian. When he -was ten years old the boy was left an orphan alone in the vast city. A -Protestant clergyman in Bellevue then adopted him. And now occurred the -misfortune which he was so fond of relating in after-years. In one of -his wanderings through the wood he was bitten by a poisonous insect, and -from that time he was obliged to hobble through life with a wooden leg, -which he called his _pilon_. From his fifteenth year he worked, at first -as a lame errand boy, and afterwards as a painter on china, together -with Dupré, Raffet, and Cabat, in the manufactory of Sèvres. Before long -he was dismissed as incompetent, for one day he took it into his head to -decorate a vase entirely after his own taste. Then poverty began once -more. Often when the evening drew on he wandered about the boulevards -under cover of the darkness, opened the doors of carriages which had -drawn up at the pavement, and stretched out his hand to beg. "What does -it matter?" he said; "one day I shall have carriages and horses, and a -golden crutch; my brush will win them for me." He exhibited a picture on -speculation at a picture-dealer's, in the hope of making a hundred -francs; it was "The Descent of the Bohemians," that picturesque band of -men, women, and children, who advance singing, laughing, and shouting by -a steep woodland road, to descend on some neighbouring village like a -swarm of locusts. A Parisian collector bought it for fifteen hundred -francs. Diaz was saved, and he migrated to the forest of Fontainebleau. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - HARPIGNIES. MOONRISE.] - -His biography explains a great deal in the character of the painter's -art. His works are unequal. In his picture "Last Tears," which appeared -in the World Exhibition of 1855, and which stands to his landscapes as a -huge block of copper to little ingots of gold, he entered upon a course -in which he wandered long without any particular artistic result. He -wanted to be a figure-painter, and with this object he concocted a style -of painting by a mixture of various traditions, seeking to unite -Prudhon, Correggio, and Leonardo. From the master of Cluny he borrowed -the feminine type with a snub nose and long almond-shaped eyes, treated -the hair like da Vinci, and placed over it the _sfumato_ of Allegri. His -drawing, usually so pictorial in its light sweep, became weak in his -effort to be correct, and his colouring grew dull and monotonous by its -imitation of the style of the Classicists. But during this period Diaz -made a great deal of money, sold his pictures without intermission, and -avenged himself, as he had determined to do, upon his former poverty. -He, who had begged upon the boulevards, was able to buy weapons and -costumes at the highest figure, and build himself a charming house in -the Place Pigalle. In all that concerns his artistic position these -works, which brought him an income of fifty thousand francs, and, for a -long time, the fame of a new Prudhon, are nevertheless without -importance. Faltering between the widely divergent influences of the old -masters, he did not get beyond a wavering eclecticism, and was too weak -in drawing to attain results worth mentioning. It is as a landscape -painter that he will be known to posterity. He is said to have been the -terror of all game as long as he was the house-mate of Rousseau and -Millet in Fontainebleau, and wandered through the woods there with a gun -on his arm to get a cheap supper. It is reported, too, that when his -pictures were rejected by the Salon in those days he laughingly made a -hole in the canvas with his wooden leg, saying: "What is the use of -being rich? I can't have a diamond set in my _pilon_!" It was however in -the years before 1855, when he had nothing to do with any -picture-dealer, that the immortal works of Diaz were executed. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ CONSTANT TROYON.] - -The mention of his name conjures up before the mind the recesses of a -wood, reddened by autumn, a wood where the sunbeams play, gilding the -trunks of the trees; naked white forms repose amid mysterious lights, or -on paths of golden sand appear gaily draped odalisques, their rich -costume glittering in the rays of the sun. Few have won from the forest, -as he did, its beauty of golden sunlight and verdant leaves. Others -remained at the entrance of the forest; he was the first who really -penetrated to its depths. The branches met over his head like the waves -of the sea, the blue heaven vanished, and everything was shrouded. The -sunbeams fell like the rain of Danaë through the green leaves, and the -moss lay like a velvet mantle on the granite piles of rock. He settled -down like a hermit in his verdant hollow. The leaves quivered green and -red, and covered the ground, shining like gold in the furtive rays of -the evening sun. Nothing was to be seen of the trees, nothing of the -outline of their foliage, nothing of the majestic sweep of their boughs, -but only the mossy stems touched by the radiance of the sun. The -pictures of Diaz are not landscapes, for the land is wanting; they are -"tree scapes," and their poetry lies in the sunbeams which dance playing -round them. "Have you seen my last stem?" he would himself inquire of -the visitors to his studio. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TROYON. IN NORMANDY: COWS GRAZING.] - -These woodland recesses were the peculiar specialty of Diaz, and he but -seldom abandoned them to paint warm, dreamy pictures of summer. For, -like a true child of the South, he only cared to see nature on beautiful -days. He knows nothing of spring with its light mist, and still less of -the frozen desolation of winter. The summer alone does he know, the -summer and the autumn; and the summers of Diaz are an everlasting song, -like the springs of Corot. Beautiful nymphs and other beings from the -golden age give animation to his emerald meadows and his sheltered woods -bathed in the sun: here are little, homely-looking nixies, and there are -pretty Cupids and Venuses and Dianas of charming grace. And none of -these divinities think about anything or do anything; they are not -piquant, like those of Boucher and Fragonard, and they know neither -coquetry nor smiles. They are merely goddesses of the palette; their -wish is to be nothing but shining spots of colour, and they love nothing -except the silvery sunbeams which fall caressingly on their naked skin. -If the painter wishes for more vivid colour they throw around them -shining red, blue, yellowish-green, or gold-embroidered clothes, and -immediately are transformed from nymphs into Oriental women, as in a -magic theatre. A fragment of soft silk, gleaming with gold, and a red -turban were means sufficient for him to conjure up his charming and -fanciful land of Turks. Sometimes even simple mortals--wood-cutters, -peasant girls, and gipsies--come into his pictures, that the sunbeams -may play upon them, while their picturesque rags form piquant spots of -colour. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TROYON. CROSSING THE STREAM.] - -Diaz belongs to the same category as Isabey and Fromentin, a fascinating -artist, a great _charmeur_, and a feast to the eyes. - -When in the far South, amid the eternal summer of Mentone, he closed his -dark, shining eyes for ever, at dawn on 18th November 1876, a breath of -sadness went through the tree-tops of the old royal forest of -Fontainebleau. The forest had lost its hermit, the busy woodsman who -penetrated farthest into its green depths; and it preserves his memory -gratefully. Only go, in October, through the copse of Bas Bréau, lose -yourself amid the magnificent foliage of these century-old trees that -glimmer with a thousand hues like gigantic bouquets, dark green and -brown, or golden and purple, and at the sight of this brilliant gleam of -autumn tones you can only say, A Diaz! - -The youngest of the group, _Daubigny_, came when the battle was over, -and plays a slighter _rôle_, since he cannot be reckoned any longer -among the discoverers; nevertheless he has a physiognomy of his own, and -one of peculiar charm. The others were painters of nature; Daubigny is -the painter of the country. If one goes from Munich to Dachau to see the -apple trees blossom and the birches growing green, to breathe in the -odour of the cow-house and the fragrance of the hay, to hear the tinkle -of cow-bells, the croaking of frogs, and the hum of gnats, one does not -say, "I want to see nature," but "I am going into the country." Jean -Jacques Rousseau was the worshipper of nature, while Georges Sand, in -certain of her novels, has celebrated country life. In this sense -Daubigny is less an adorer of nature than a man fond of the country. His -pictures give the feeling one has in standing at the window on a country -excursion, and looking at the laughing and budding spring. One feels no -veneration for the artist, but one would like to be a bird to perch on -those boughs, a lizard to creep amongst this green, a cockchafer to fly -humming from tree to tree. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TROYON. THE RETURN TO THE FARM.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - TROYON. A COW SCRATCHING HERSELF.] - -Daubigny, possibly, has not the great and free creative power of the -older artists, their magnificent simplicity in treating objects: the -feminine element, the susceptibility to natural beauty, preponderates in -him, and not the virile, creative power of embodiment, which at once -discovers in itself a telling force of expression for the image received -from nature. He seeks after no poetic emotions, like Dupré; he has not -the profound, penetrative eye for nature, like Rousseau; in his charm -and amiability he approaches Corot, except that mythological beings are -no longer at home in his landscapes. They would take no pleasure in this -odour of damp grass, the smell of the cow-byres, and the dilapidated old -skiffs which rock, in Daubigny's pictures, fastened to a swampy bank. -Corot, light, delicate, and simple as a boy, sitting on a school-bench -all his life, is always veiled and mysterious. Daubigny, heavier and -technically better equipped, has more power and less grace; he dreams -less and paints more. Corot made the apotheosis of nature: his silvery -grey clouds bore him to the Elysian fields, where nothing had the -heaviness of earth and everything melted in poetic vapour. Daubigny, -borne by no wings of Icarus, seems like Antæus beside him; he is bodily -wedded to the earth. Dupré made the earth a mirror of the tears and -passions of men. Corot surprised her before the peasant is up of a -morning, in the hours when she belongs altogether to the nymphs and the -fairies. In Daubigny the earth has once more become the possession of -human beings. It is not often that figures move in his pictures. Even -Rousseau more often finds a place in his landscapes for the rustic, but -nature in him is hard, unapproachable, and deliberately indifferent to -man. She looks down upon him austerely, closing and hardening her heart -against him. In Daubigny nature is familiar with man, stands near him, -and is kindly and serviceable. The skiffs rocking at the river's brink -betray that fishers are in the neighbourhood; even when they are empty -his little houses suggest that their inhabitants are not far off, that -they are but at work in the field and may come back at any moment. In -Rousseau man is merely an atom of the infinite; here he is the lord of -creation. Rousseau makes an effect which is simple and powerful, Dupré -one which is impassioned and striking, Corot is divine, Diaz charming, -and Daubigny idyllic, intimate, and familiar. He closed a period and -enjoyed the fruits of what the others had called into being. One does -not admire him--one loves him. - -He had passed his youth with his nurse in a little village, surrounded -with white-blossoming apple trees and waving fields of corn, near L'Isle -Adam. Here as a boy he received the impressions which made him a painter -of the country, and which were too strong to be obliterated by a sojourn -in Italy. The best picture that he painted there showed a flat stretch -of land with thistles. A view of the island of St. Louis was the work -with which he first appeared in the Salon in 1838. - -Daubigny is the painter of water, murmuring silver-grey between ashes -and oaks, and reflecting the clouds of heaven in its clear mirror. He is -the painter of the spring in its fragrance, when the meadows shine in -the earliest verdure, and the leaves but newly unfolded stand out -against the sky as bright green patches of colour, when the limes -blossom and the crops begin to shoot. A field of green corn waving -gently beneath budding apple trees in the breeze of spring, still rivers -in which banks and bushy islands are reflected, mills beside little -streams rippling in silvery clearness over shining white pebbles, -cackling geese, and washerwomen neatly spreading out their linen, are -things which Daubigny has painted with the delicate feeling of a most -impressionable lover of nature. At the same time he had the secret of -shedding over his pictures the most marvellous tint of delicate, -vaporous air; especially in those representations, at once so poetic and -so accurate, of evening by the water's edge, or of bright moonlight -nights, when all things are sharply illuminated, and yet softly shrouded -with a dream-like exhalation. His favourite light was that of cool -evening dusk, after the sun and every trace of the after-glow has -vanished from the sky. Valmandois, where he passed his youth, and -afterwards the Oise, with its green banks and vineyards and hedged -gardens, the most charming and picturesque river in North France, are -most frequently rendered in his pictures. Every day, when nature put on -her spring garb, he sailed along the banks in a small craft, with his -son Charles. His most vigorous works were executed in the cabin of this -vessel: spirited sketches of regions delicately veiled in mist and bound -with a magical charm of peace, regions with the moon above them, -shedding its clear, silver light--refined etchings which assure him a -place of honour in the history of modern etching. The painter of the -banks of the Oise saw everything with the curiosity and the love of a -child, and remained always a naïve artist in spite of all his dexterity. - -[Illustration: ROSA BONHEUR. THE HORSE-FAIR. - - (_By permission of Mr. L. H. Lefèvre, the owner of the copyright._)] - -[Illustration: ROSA BONHEUR. PLOUGHING IN NIVERNOIS.] - -After these great masters had opened up the path a tribe of landscape -painters set themselves to render, each in his own way, the vigorous -power, the tender charm, and the plaintive melancholy of the earth. Some -loved dusk and light, the simple reproduction of ordinary places in -their ordinary condition; others delighted in the struggle of the -elements, the violent scudding of clouds, the parting glance of the sun, -the sombre hours when nature shrouds her face with the mourning veil of -a widow. - -Although he never tasted the pleasures of fame, _Antoine Chintreuil_ was -the most refined of them all--an excessively sensitive spirit, who -seized with as much delicacy as daring swiftly transient effects of -nature, such as seldom appear: the moment when the sun casts a fleeting -radiance in the midst of clouds, or when a shaft of light quivers for an -instant through a dense mist; the effect of green fields touched by the -first soft beams of the sun, or that of a rainbow spanning a fresh -spring landscape. His pupil _Jean Desbrosses_ was the painter of hills -and valleys. _Achard_ followed Rousseau in his pictures of lonely, -austere, and mournful regions. _Français_ painted familiar corners in -the neighbourhood of Paris with grace, although more heavily than Corot, -and without the shining light which is poured through the works of that -rare genius. The pictures of _Harpignies_ are rather dry, and betray a -heavy hand. He is rougher than his great predecessors, less seductive -and indeed rather staid, but he has a convincing reality, and is loyal -and simple. He is valuable as an honest, genial artist, a many-sided and -sure-footed man of talent, somewhat inclined to Classicism. _Émile -Breton_, the brother of Jules, delighted in the agitation of the -elements, wild, out-of-the-way regions, and harsh climate. His -execution is broad, his tones forcible, and he has both simplicity and -largeness. Apart from his big, gloomy landscapes, _Léonce Chabry_ has -also painted sea-pieces, with dark waves dashing against the cleft -rocks. - -[Illustration: VAN MARCKE. LA FALAISE.] - -The representation of grazing animals plays a great part in the art of -almost all of these painters. Some carried the love of animal painting -so far that they never painted a landscape without introducing into the -foreground their dearly loved herds of cows or flocks of sheep. The key -of the landscape, the cheerful and sunny brilliancy of colour or the -still melancholy of the evening dusk, is harmoniously repeated in the -habits and being of these animals. Thus, too, new paths were opened to -animal painting, which had suffered, no less than landscape, from the -yoke of conventionality. - -Up to the close of the eighteenth century French artists had contented -themselves with adapting to French taste the light and superficial art -of Nicolaus Berghem. Demarne, one of the last heirs of this Dutch -artist, brought, even in the period of the Revolution, a little -sunshine, blitheness, and country air amongst the large pictures in the -classical manner. The animal painting of the _ancien régime_ expired in -his arms, and the "noble style" of Classicism obstructed the rise of the -new animal painting. The fact that the great Jupiter, father of gods and -men, assumed the form of a four-footed creature when he led weak, -feminine beings astray had no doubt given a certain justification to -the animal picture during the reign of the school of David. But the -artists preferred to hold aloof from it, either because animals are hard -to idealise in themselves, or because the received antique sculpture of -animals was difficult to employ directly in pictures. In landscapes, -which gods and heroes alone honoured with their presence, idealised -animals would have been altogether out of place. Only animals which are -very difficult to draw correctly, such as sphinxes, sirens, and winged -horses--beings which the old tragedians were fond of turning to -account--are occasionally allowed to exist in the pictures of Bertin and -Paul Flandrin. _Carle Vernet_, who composed cavalry charges and hunting -scenes, had not talent enough seriously to make a breach, or to find -disciples to follow his lead. _Géricault_, the forerunner of -Romanticism, was likewise the first eminent painter of horses; and -although his great "Raft of the Medusa" is heavily fettered by the -system of Classicism, his jockey pictures and horse races are as fresh, -as vivid, and as unforced as if they had been painted yesterday instead -of seventy years ago. In dashing animation, verve, and temperament -Géricault stands alone in these pictures; he is the very opposite of -Raymond Brascassat, who was the first specialist of animal pieces with a -landscape setting, and was much praised in the thirties on account of -his neat and ornamental style of treatment. _Brascassat_ was the -Winterhalter of animal painting, neither Classicist nor Romanticist nor -Realist, but the embodiment of mediocrity; a man honestly and sincerely -regarding all nature with the eyes of a Philistine. His fame, which has -so swiftly faded, was founded by those patrons of art who above all -demand that a picture should be the bald, banal reproduction of fact, -made with all the accuracy possible. - -[Illustration: CHARLES JACQUE. THE RETURN TO THE BYRE (ETCHING). - - (_By permission of M. Frédéric Jacque, the owner of the copyright._)] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - CHARLES JACQUE. A FLOCK OF SHEEP ON THE ROAD. - - (_By permission of M. Frédéric Jacque, the owner of the copyright._)] - -It was only when the landscape school of Fontainebleau had initiated a -new method of vision, feeling, and expression that France produced a new -great painter of animals. As Dupré and Rousseau tower over their -predecessors Cabat and Flandrin in landscape, so _Constant Troyon_ rises -above Brascassat in animal painting. In the latter there may be found a -scrupulous pedantic observation in union with a thin, polished, -academic, and carefully arranged style of painting; in the former, a -large and broad technique in harmony with wild nature, and a directness -and force of intuition without parallel in the history of art. -Brascassat belongs to the same category as Denner, Troyon to that of -Frans Hals and Brouwer. - -There would be no purpose in saying anything of his labours in the china -manufactory of Sèvres, of his industrial works, and of the little -classical views with which he made a first appearance in the Salon in -1833, or of the impulse which he received from Roqueplan. He first found -his own powers when he made the acquaintance of Théodore Rousseau and -Jules Dupré, and migrated with them into the forest of Fontainebleau. At -the headquarters of the new school his ideas underwent a revolution. -Here, in the first instance, as a landscape painter, he was attracted by -the massive forms of cattle, which make such a harmonious effect of -colour in the atmosphere and against verdure, and the philosophic -quietude of which gives such admirable completion to the dreamy spirit -of nature. A journey to Holland and Belgium in 1847, in the course of -which he became more familiar with the old animal painters, confirmed -him in the resolve of devoting himself exclusively to this province. He -was captivated not so much by Paul Potter as by Albert Cuyp, with his -rich and powerful colouring, and his technique, which is at once so -virile and so easy. But above all Rembrandt became his great ideal, and -filled him with wonder. In his first masterpiece of 1849, "The Mill," -the influence of the great Dutch artist is clearly recognisable, and -from that time up to 1855 it remained dominant. In this year, during a -prolonged sojourn in Normandy, he became Troyon, and painted "Oxen going -to their Work," that mighty picture in the Louvre which displays him in -the zenith of his creative power. Till then no animal painter had -rendered with such a combination of strength and actuality the long, -heavy gait, the philosophical indifference, and the quiet resignation of -cattle, the poetry of autumnal light, and the mist of morning rising -lightly from the earth and veiling the whole land with grey, silvery -hues. The deeply furrowed smoking field makes an undulating ascent, so -that one seems to be looking at the horizon over the broad face of the -earth. A primitive, Homeric feeling rests over it. - -Troyon is perhaps not so correct as Potter, nor so lucid as Albert Cuyp, -but he is more forcible and impressive than either. No one has ever -seized the poetry of these heavy masses of flesh, with their strong -colour and largeness of outline, as he has done. What places him far -above the old painters is his fundamental power as a landscapist, a -power unequalled except in Rousseau. His landscapes have always the -smell of the earth, and they smack of rusticity. At one time he paints -the atmosphere, veiling the contours of objects with a light mist -recalling Corot, and yet saturated with clear sunshine; at another he -sends his heavy, fattened droves in the afternoon across field-paths -bright in the sunlight and dark green meadows, or places them beneath a -sky where dense thunderclouds are swiftly rolling up. Troyon is no poet, -but a born painter, belonging to the irrepressibly forceful family of -Jordaens and Courbet, a _maître peintre_ of strength and plastic genius, -as healthy as he is splendid in colour. His "Cow scratching Herself" and -his "Return to the Farm" will always be counted amongst the most -forcible animal pictures of all ages. - -When he died in 1865, after passing twelve years with a clouded -intellect, _Rosa Bonheur_ sought to fill the place which he had left -vacant. She had already won the sympathies of the great public, as she -united in her pictures all the qualities which were missed in Troyon, -and had the art of pleasing where he was repellent. For a long time -Troyon's works were held by _amateurs_ to be wanting in finish. They did -not acknowledge to themselves that "finish" in artistic creations is, -after all, only a work of patience, rather industrial than artistic, and -at bottom invented for the purpose of enticing half-trained -connoisseurs. Rosa Bonheur had this diligence, and is indebted to it for -the spread of her fame through all Europe, when Troyon was only known -as yet to the few. The position has now been altered. Without doubt it -is a pleasure to look at her fresh and sunny maiden picture of 1840, -"Ploughing in Nivernois," with its yoke of six oxen, its rich red-brown -soil turned up into furrows, and its wide, bright, simple, and laughing -landscape beneath the clear blue sky. She had all the qualities which -may be appreciated without one's being an epicure of art--great -anatomical knowledge, dexterous technique, charming and seductive -colouring. And it is an isolated fact in the history of art that a woman -has painted pictures so good as the "Hay Harvest in Auvergne" of 1853, -with its brutes which are almost life-size, or the "Horse Fair" of 1855, -which is perhaps her most brilliant work, and for which she made -studies, going in man's clothes for eighteen months, at all the Parisian -_manèges_, amongst stable-boys and horse-dealers. Until her death, from -the Château By, between Thomery and Fontainebleau, she carried on an -extensive transpontine export, and her pictures are by no means the -worst of those which find their way from the Continent to England and -America. She was perhaps the only feminine celebrity of the century who -painted her pictures, instead of working at them like knitting. But -Troyon is a strong master who suffers no rival. His landscapes, with -their deep verdure, their powerful animals, and their skies traversed by -heavy clouds, are the embodiment of power. Rosa Bonheur is an admirable -painter with largeness of style and beauty of drawing, whose artistic -position is between Troyon and Brascassat. - -Troyon's only pupil was _Émile van Marcke_, half a Belgian, who met the -elder master in Sèvres, and for a long time worked by his side at -Fontainebleau. He united the occupation of a painter with that of a -landed proprietor. The cattle which he bred on an extensive scale at his -property, Bouttencourt in Normandy, had a celebrity amongst French -landowners, as he had the reputation of rearing the best fat cattle. He -too had not the impressiveness of Troyon, though he was, none the less, -a healthy and forcible master. His animals have no passions, no -movement, and no battles. They seem lost in endless contemplation, -gravely and sedately chewing the cud. Around them stretch the soft green -Norman pastures, and above them arches the wide sky, which at the -horizon imperceptibly melts into the sea. - -_Jadin_ is a painter of horses and dogs who had once a great reputation, -though to-day his name is almost, if not entirely forgotten. He was fond -of painting hunting scenes, and is not wanting in life and movement; but -he is too impersonal to play a part in the history of painting. Having -named him, some mention must likewise be made of _Eugène Lambert_, the -painter of cats, and _Palizzi_, who painted goats. Lambert, who was fond -of introducing his little heroes as the actors of comical scenes, is by -admission the chief amongst all those who were honoured amongst the -different nations with the title of "Raphaels of the Cat." Palizzi, an -incisive master of almost brutal energy, a true son of the wild Abruzzo -hills, delighted, like his compatriots Morelli and Michetti, in the -blazing light of noon, shining over rocky heights, and throwing a -dazzle of gold on the dark green copse. _Lançon_, a rather arid painter, -though a draughtsman with a broad and masculine stroke, was the greatest -descendant of Delacroix in the representation of tigers, lions, bears, -and hippopotamuses. An unobtrusive artist, though one of very genial -talent, was _Charles Jacque_, the Troyon of sheep. He has been compared -with the _rageur_ of Bas Bréau, the proud oak which stands alone in a -clearing. A man of forcible character, over whom age had no power, he -survived until 1894 as the last representative of the noble school of -Barbizon. He has painted sheep in flocks or separately, in the pasture, -on the verge of the field-path, or in the fold; and he loved most of all -to paint them in the misty hours of evening twilight, at peace and amid -peaceful nature. But in spirited etchings he has likewise represented -old weather-beaten walls, the bright films of spring, the large outlines -of peasant folk, the tender down of young chickens, the light play of -the wind upon the sea, murmuring brooks, and quiet haunts of the wood. -Like Millet, he had in an eminent degree the gift of simplification, the -greatest quality that an artist can have. With three or four strokes he -could plant a figure on its feet, give life to an animal, or construct a -landscape. He was the most intimate friend of Jean François Millet, and -painted part of what Millet painted also. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET - - -Whence has _Millet_ come? - -It was the time when art, still blind to the life around, could find no -subjects worthy of it except in the past and in the distance. Then -Millet came and overthrew an art vegetating in museums or astray in -tropical countries. It was the time when Leopold Robert in Italy tested -the noble pose of the school of David upon the peasant, and when the -German painters of rustics recognised in the labourer an object for -pleasantries and pathetic little scenes. Then Millet stepped forward and -painted, with profound simplicity, the people at work in the field, or -in their distress, without sentimentality and without beautifying or -idealising them. That great utterance, "I work," the utterance of the -nineteenth century, is here spoken aloud for the first time. Rousseau -and his fellow-artists were the painters of the country. Millet became -the painter of the labourer. He, the great peasant, is the creator of -that painting of peasants which is entwined with the deepest roots of -intimate landscape. Misunderstood in the beginning, it proclaimed for -the first time the new gospel of art before which the people of all -nations bow at the present date. What others did later was merely to -advance on the path opened by Millet. And as time passes the figure of -this powerful man shines more and more brilliantly. The form of Jean -François Millet rises so powerfully, so imperiously, and so suddenly -that one might almost imagine him to have come from Ibsen's third -kingdom; for he is without forerunners in art. An attempt has been made -to bring him into relation with the social and political movement of -ideas in the forties, but certainly this is unjust. Millet was in no -sense revolutionary. During his whole life he repudiated the designs -which some of the democratic party imputed to him, as well as the -conclusions which they drew from his works. - -Millet's life in itself explains his art. Never have heart and hand, a -man and his work, tallied with each other as they did in him. He does -not belong to those painters who, even when one admires them, give one -nevertheless a sense that they could just as easily have produced -something different. Let any one consider his works and read the letters -published in Sensier's book: the man whom one knows from the letters -lives in his works, and these works are the natural illustration of the -book in which the man has depicted himself. In the unity of man and -artist lies the source of his strength, the secret of his greatness. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ - - JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF.] - -Even the circumstances over which he triumphed necessitated his being -the painter that he actually was, if he became one at all. He was not -born in a city where a child's eyes are everywhere met by works of -art--pictures which no doubt early awaken the feeling for art, but which -just as easily disturb a free outlook into nature. Moreover, he did not -spring from one of those families where art is itself practised, or -where art is discussed and taste early guided upon definite lines. He -was a peasant, whose father and grandfather were peasants before him, -and whose brothers were farm labourers. He was born in 1814, far away -from Paris, in a little Norman village hard by the sea, and there he -grew up. The regular and majestic plunge of the waves against the -granite rocks of the coast, the solemn murmurs of the ebb and flow of -the sea, the moaning of the wind in the apple trees and the old oaks of -his father's garden, were the first sounds which struck upon the ear in -Gruchy, near Cherbourg. It has been adduced that his father loved music, -and had had success as the leader of the village choir. But though there -may have always been a dim capacity for art in the youngster's blood, -there was nothing calculated to strengthen it in his education. Millet's -sturdy father had no idea of making an artist of his son; the boy saw no -artist at work in the neighbourhood; nature and instinct guided him -alone. - -For a man brought up in a city and trained at an academy all things -become hackneyed. Many centuries of artistic usage have dimmed their -original freshness; and he finds a ready-made phrase coined for -everything. Millet stood before the world like the first man in the day -of creation. Everything seemed new to him; he was charmed and -astonished, and a wild flood of impressions burst in upon him. He did -not come under the influence of any tradition, but approached art like -the man in the age of stone who first scratched the outline of a mammoth -on a piece of ivory, or like the primæval Greek who, according to the -legend, invented painting by making a likeness of his beloved with a -charred stick upon a wall. No one encouraged him in his first attempts. -No one dreamt that this young man was destined to any life other than -that of a peasant. From the time he was fourteen until he was eighteen -he did every kind of field labour upon his father's land in the same way -as his brothers--hoeing, digging, ploughing, mowing, threshing, sowing -the seed, and dressing the ground. But he always had his eyes about him; -he drew upon a white patch of wall, without guidance, the picture of a -tree, an orchard, or a peasant whom he had chanced to meet on a Sunday -when going to church. And he drew so correctly that every one recognised -the likenesses. A family council was held upon the matter. His father -brought one of his son's drawings to a certain M. Mouchel in Cherbourg, -a strange personage who had once been a painter and had the reputation -of being a connoisseur; and he was to decide whether François "had -really enough talent for painting to gain his bread by it." So Millet, -the farm-hand, was twenty when he received his first lessons in drawing. -He was learning the A B C of art, but humanly speaking he was already -Millet. What had roused his talent and induced him to take a stump of -charcoal in his hand was not the study of any work of art, but the sight -of nature--nature, the great mother of all, who had embraced him, nature -with whom and through whom he lived. Through her, visions and emotions -were quickened in him, and he felt the secret impulse to give them -expression. - -[Illustration: MILLET. THE HOUSE AT GRUCHY.] - -Of what concerned the manual part of his art he understood nothing, and -his two teachers in Cherbourg, Mouchel and Langlois, who were -half-barbarians themselves, gave him the less knowledge, as only two -months later, in 1835, his father died, and the young man returned to -his own people as a farm-labourer once more. And it was only after an -interruption of three years that a subsidy from the community of -Cherbourg, which was collected by his teacher Langlois, and a small sum -saved by his parents--six hundred francs all told--enabled him to -journey up to Paris. He was twenty-three years of age, a broad-chested -Hercules in stature, for till that time he had breathed nothing but the -pure, sharp sea air; his handsome face was framed in long fair locks, -which fell wildly about his shoulders. What had this peasant to do in -the capital! In Delaroche's school he was called _l'homme des bois_. He -had all the awkwardness of a provincial, and the artist was only to be -surmised from the fire in the glance of his large dark blue eyes. At -first Delaroche took peculiar pains with his new pupil. But to submit to -training is to follow the lead of another person. A man like Millet, who -knew what he wanted, was no longer to be guided upon set lines. The -pictures of Delaroche made no appeal to him. They struck him as being -"huge vignettes, theatrical effects without any real sentiment." And -Delaroche soon lost patience with the clumsy peasant, whom he--most -unfairly--regarded as stiff-necked and obstinate. - -Other aims floated before Millet, and he _could_ not now learn to -produce academical compositions, so, as these were alone demanded in the -school of Delaroche, he never cleared himself from a reputation for -mediocrity. It was the period of the war between the Classicists and the -Romanticists. "An Ingres, a Delacroix!" was the battle-cry that rang -through the Parisian studios. For Millet neither of these movements had -any existence. His memory only clung to the plains of Normandy, and the -labourers, shepherds, and fishermen of his home, with whom he mingled in -spirit once more. Incessantly he believed himself to hear what he has -called "_le cri de la terre_," and neither Romanticists nor Classicists -caught anything of this cry of the earth. He lived alone with his own -thoughts, associating with none of his fellow-artists, and indeed -keeping out of their way. Always prepared for some scornful attempt at -witticism, he turned his easel round whenever he was approached, or -gruffly cut all criticism short with the remark: "What does my painting -matter to you? I don't trouble my head about your bread and grease." -Thus it was that Delaroche certainly taught him very little of the -technique of painting, though, at the same time, he taught him no -mannerism. He did not learn to paint pretty pictures with beautiful -poses, flattering colour, and faces inspired with intellect. He left the -studio as he had entered it in 1837, painting with an awkward, thick, -heavy, and laborious brush, though with the fresh, untroubled vision -which he had had in earlier days. He was still the stranger, the -incorrigible Norman peasant. - -For a time he exerted himself to make concessions to the public. At -seven-and-twenty he had married a Cherbourg girl, who died of -consumption three years afterwards. Without acquaintances in Paris, and -habituated to domestic life from his youth upwards, he married a second -time in 1845. He had to earn his bread, to please, to paint what would -sell. So he toiled over pretty pictures of nude women, like those which -Diaz had painted with such great success--fair shepherdesses and gallant -herdsmen, and bathing girls, in the _genre_ of Boucher and Fragonard. -And he who did this spoke of both of them afterwards as pornographists. -But the attempt was vain, for he satisfied neither others nor himself. -The peasant of Gruchy could not be piquant, easy, and charming; on the -contrary, he remained helpless, awkward, and crude. "Your women bathing -come from the cow-house" was the appropriate remark of Diaz in reference -to these pictures. When Burger-Thoré, who was the first to take notice -of Millet, declared, on the occasion of "The Milkmaid" being exhibited -in 1844, that Boucher himself was surpassed in this picture, the critic -took a literary licence, because he had a human pity for the poor -painter. How little the picture has of the fragrance of the old masters! -how laboured it seems! how obvious it is that it was painted without -pleasure! Millet was not long at pains to conceal his personality. An -"Oedipus" and "The Jewish Captives in Babylon" were his last rhetorical -exercises. In 1848 he came forward with a manifesto--"The Winnower," a -peasant in movement and bearing, in his whole character and in the work -on which he is employed. Millet returns here to the thoughts and -feelings of his youth; for the future he will paint nothing but peasants -in all the situations of their rude and simple life. In 1849 he made a -great resolve. - -[Illustration: F. JACQUE. MILLET AT WORK IN HIS STUDIO. - - (_By permission of M. F. Jacque, the owner of the copyright._)] - -The sale of his "Winnower" had brought him five hundred francs, and -these five hundred francs gave him courage to defy the world. "Better -turn bricklayer than paint against conviction." Charles Jacque, the -painter of animals, who lived opposite to him in the Rue Rochechouard, -wanted to quit Paris in 1849 on account of the outbreak of cholera. He -proposed that Millet should go with him into the country for a short -time; he did so, and the peasant's son of former times became once more -a peasant, to end his days amongst peasants. "In the middle of the -forest of Fontainebleau," said Jacque, "there is a little nest, with a -name ending in 'zon'--not far off and cheap,--Diaz has been telling me a -great deal about it." Millet consented. One fine June day they got into -a heavy, rumbling omnibus, with their wives and their five children, and -they arrived in Fontainebleau that evening after two hours' journey. -"To-morrow we are going in search of our 'zon.'" And the next day they -went forward on foot to Barbizon, Millet with his two little girls upon -his shoulders, and his wife carrying in her arms the youngest child, a -boy of five months old, having her skirt drawn over her head as a -protection against the rain. - -[Illustration: F. JACQUE. MILLET'S HOUSE AT BARBIZON. - - (_By permission of M. F. Jacque, the owner of the copyright._)] - -As yet the forest had no walks laid out as it has to-day; it was virgin -nature, which had never been disturbed. "_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, que c'est -beau!_" cried Millet, exulting. Once more he stood in the presence of -nature, the old love of his youth. The impressions of childhood rushed -over him. Born in the country, he had to return to the country to be -himself once again. He arrived at Ganne's inn just as the dinner-hour -had assembled twenty persons at the table, artists with their wives and -children. "New painters! The pipe, the pipe!" was the cry which greeted -the fresh arrivals. Diaz rose, and, in spite of his wooden leg, did the -honours of the establishment to the two women with the dignity of a -Spanish nobleman, and then turned gravely to Millet and Jacque, saying: -"Citizens, you are invited to smoke the pipe of peace." Whenever the -colony of Barbizon received an addition this was always taken down from -its sacred place above the door. An expressly appointed jury had then to -decide from the ascending rings of smoke whether the new-comer was to be -reckoned amongst the "Classicists" or the "Colourists." Jacque was with -one voice declared to be a "Colourist." As to Millet's relation to the -schools, there was a discrepancy of opinion. "_Eh bien_," said Millet, -"_si vous êtes embarrassés, placez-moi dans la mienne_." Whereupon -Diaz, as the others would not let this pass, cried: "Be quiet; it is a -good retort, and the fellow looks powerful enough to found a school -which will bury us all." He was right, even though it was late before -his prophecy was fulfilled. - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - MILLET. THE WINNOWER. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -Millet was thirty-five when he settled in Barbizon; he had reached the -age which Dante calls the middle point of life. He had no further tie -with the outward world; he had broken all the bridges behind him, and -relied upon himself. He only went back to Paris on business, and he -always did so unwillingly and for as short a time as possible. He lived -at Barbizon in the midst of nature and in the midst of his models, and -to his last day unreservedly gave himself up to the work which in youth -he had felt himself called to fulfil. Neither criticism, mockery, nor -contempt could lead him any more astray; even if he had wished it, he -would have been incapable of following the paths of official art. "_Mes -critiques_," said he as though by way of excuse, "_sont gens instruits -et de goût, mais je ne peux me mettre dans leur peau, et comme je n'ai -jamais vu de ma vie autre chose que les champs, je tâche de dire comme -je peux ce que j'y ai éprouvé quand j'y travaillais_." When such a man -triumphs, when he succeeds in forcing upon the world his absolutely -personal art, it is not Mahomet who has come to the mountain, but the -mountain to Mahomet. - -Millet's life has been, in consequence, a continuous series of -renunciations. It is melancholy to read in Sensier's biography that such -a master, even during his Paris days, was forced to turn out copies at -twenty francs and portraits at five, and to paint tavern signs or -placards for the booths of rope-dancers and horse-dealers, each one of -which brought him in a roll of thick sous. When the Revolution of June -broke out his capital consisted of thirty francs, which the owner of a -small shop had paid him for a sign, and on this he and his family lived -for a fortnight. In Barbizon he boarded with a peasant and lived with -his family in a tiny room where wheat was stored and where bread was -baked twice in the week; then he took a little house at a hundred and -sixty francs a year. In winter he sat in a workroom without a fire, in -thick straw shoes and with an old horse-cloth over his shoulders. Living -like this he painted "The Sower," that marvellous strophe in his great -poem on the earth. By the produce of a vegetable garden he endeavoured -to increase his income, lived on credit with grocer and butcher, and at -last had creditors in every direction--in particular Gobillot, the baker -of Chailly, from whom he often hid at his friend Jacque's. - -He was forced to accept a loaf from Rousseau for his famishing family, -and small sums with which he was subsidised by Diaz. "I have received -the hundred francs," he writes in a letter to Sensier, "and they came -just at the right time; neither my wife nor I had tasted food for -four-and-twenty hours. It is a blessing that the little ones, at any -rate, have not been in want." - -[Illustration: _Neurdein Frères, photo._ - - MILLET. A MAN MAKING FAGGOTS.] - -[Illustration: _Levy et ses Fils, photo._ - - MILLET. THE GLEANERS.] - -All his efforts to exhibit in Paris were vain. Even in 1859 "Death and -the Woodcutter" was rejected by the Salon. The public laughed, being -accustomed to peasants in a comic opera, and, at best, his pictures were -honoured by a caricature in a humorous paper. Even the most delicate -connoisseurs had not the right historical perspective to appreciate the -greatness of Millet, so far was it in advance of the age. And all this -is so much the sadder when one thinks of the price which his works -fetched at a later period, when one reads that drawings for which he -could get with difficulty from twenty to forty francs are the works for -which as many thousands are now offered. It was only from the middle of -the fifties that he began to sell at the rate of from two hundred and -fifty to three hundred francs a picture. Rousseau was the first to offer -him a large sum, buying his "Woodcutter" for four thousand francs, on -the pretext that an American was the purchaser. Dupré helped him to -dispose of "The Gleaners" for two thousand francs. An agreement which -the picture-dealer Arthur Stevens, brother of Stevens the painter, -concluded with him had to be dissolved six months afterwards, since -Millet's time had not yet come. At last, in 1863, when he painted four -large decorative pictures--"The Four Seasons," which are, by the way, -his weakest works--for the dining-room of the architect Feydau, -superfluity came in place of need. He was then in a position, like -Rousseau and Jacque, to buy himself a little house in Barbizon, close to -the road by which the place is entered and opposite Ganne's inn. Wild -vine, ivy, and jessamine clambered round it, and two bushes of white -roses twisted their branches around the window. It was surrounded by a -large garden, in which field-flowers bloomed amongst vegetables and -fruit-trees, whilst a border of white roses and elders led to another -little house which he used as a studio. Behind was a poultry-yard, and -behind that again a thickly grown little shrubbery. Here he lived, -simple and upright, with his art and his own belongings, as a peasant -and a father of a family, like an Old Testament patriarch. His father -had had nine children, and he himself had nine. While he painted the -little ones played in the garden, the elder daughters worked, and when -the younger children made too much noise, Jeanne, who was seven years -old, would say with gravity, "_Chut! Papa travaille._" After the -evening meal he danced his youngest boy upon his knee and told Norman -tales, or they all went out together into the forest, which the children -called _la forêt noire_, because it was so wild, gloomy, and -magnificent. - -Millet's poverty was not quite so great as might be supposed from -Sensier's book. Chintreuil, Théodore Rousseau, and many others were -acquainted with poverty likewise, and bore it with courage. It may even -be said that, all things considered, success came to Millet early. The -real misfortune for an artist is to have had success, to have been rich, -and later to see himself forgotten when he is stricken with poverty. -Millet's course was the opposite. From the beginning of the sixties his -reputation was no longer in question. At the World Exhibition of 1867 he -was showered with all outward honours. He was represented by nine -pictures and received the great medal. The whole world knew his name, -subsistence was abundantly assured to him, and all the younger class of -artists honoured him like a god. In the Salon of 1869 he was on the -hanging committee. The picture-dealers, who had passed him by in earlier -days, now beset his doors; he lived to see his "Woman with the Lamp" for -which he had received a hundred and fifty francs, sold for thirty-eight -thousand five hundred at Richard's sale. "_Allons, ils commencent à -comprendre que c'est de la peinture serieuse._" M. de Chennevières -commissioned him to take part in the paintings in the Panthéon, and he -began the work. But strength was denied him; he was prostrated by a -violent fever, and on 20th January 1875, at six o'clock in the morning, -Millet was dead. He was then sixty. - -[Illustration: _Mansell & Co._ - - MILLET. THE WOOD SAWYERS.] - -His funeral, indeed, was celebrated with no great parade, for it took -place far from Paris. It was a cold, dull morning, and there was mist -and rain. Not many friends had come, only a few painters and critics. At -eleven o'clock the procession was set in order. And it moved in the rain -quickly over the two _centimètres_ from Barbizon to Chailly. Even those -who had hastened from various villages, drawn by curiosity, could not -half fill the church. But in Paris the announcement of death raised all -the greater stir. When forty newspapers were displayed in a -picture-dealer's shop on the morning after his demise, all Paris -assembled and the excitement was universal. In the critical notices he -was named in the same breath with Watteau, Leonardo, Raphael, and -Michael Angelo. The auction which was held soon afterwards in the Hôtel -Drouot for the disposal of the sketches which he had left behind him -brought his family three hundred and twenty-one thousand francs. And in -these days, the very drawings and pastels which were bought for six -thousand francs immediately after his death have on the average risen in -value to thirty thousand, while the greater number of his pictures rose -to a figure beyond the reach of European purchasers, and passed across -the ocean to the happy land of dollars. Under such circumstances to -speak any longer of Millet being misunderstood, or to sing hymns of -praise upon him as a counterblast to the undervaluation of Millet in the -beginning, would be knocking at an open door. It is merely necessary -to inquire in an entirely objective spirit what position he occupies in -the history of modern painting, and what future generations will say of -him. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - MILLET. VINE-DRESSER RESTING. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -Millet's importance is to some extent ethical; he is not the first who -painted peasants, but he is the first who has represented them -truthfully, in all their ruggedness, and likewise in their -greatness--not for the amusement of others, but as they claim a right to -their own existence. The spirit of the rustic is naturally grave and -heavy, and the number of his ideas and emotions is small. He has neither -wit nor sentimentalism. And when in his leisure moments he sometimes -gives way to a broad, noisy merriment, his gaiety often resembles -intoxication, and is not infrequently its consequence. His life, which -forces him to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, always reminds -him of the hard fundamental conditions of existence. He looks at -everything in a spirit of calculation and strict economy. Even the earth -he stands on wakens in him a mood of seriousness. It is gravely sublime, -this nature with its wide horizon and its boundless sky. At certain -seasons it wears a friendly smile, especially for those who have escaped -for a few hours from town. But for him who always lives in its midst it -is not the good, tender mother that the townsman fancies. It has its -oppressive heats in summer and its bitter winter frosts; its majesty is -austere. And nowhere more austere than in Millet's home, amid those -plains of Normandy, swept by the rude wind, where he spent his youth as -a farm labourer. - -From this peasant life, painting, before his time, had collected merely -trivial anecdotes with a conventional optimism. It was through no very -adequate conception of man that peasants, in those earlier pictures, had -always to be celebrating marriages, golden weddings, and baptisms, -dancing rustic dances, making comic proposals, behaving themselves -awkwardly with advocates, or scuffling in the tavern for the amusement -of those who frequent exhibitions. They had really won their right to -existence by their labour. "The most joyful thing I know," writes Millet -in a celebrated letter to Sensier in 1851, "is the peace, the silence, -that one enjoys in the woods or on the tilled lands. One sees a poor, -heavily laden creature with a bundle of faggots advancing from a narrow -path in the fields. The manner in which this figure comes suddenly -before one is a momentary reminder of the fundamental condition of human -life, toil. On the tilled land around one watches figures hoeing and -digging. One sees how this or that one rises and wipes away the sweat -with the back of his hand. 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat -bread.' Is that merry, enlivening work, as some people would like to -persuade us? And yet it is here that I find the true humanity, the great -poetry." - -Perhaps in his conception of peasant life Millet has been even a little -too serious; perhaps his melancholy spirit has looked too much on the -sad side of the peasant's life. For Millet was altogether a man of -temperament and feelings. His family life had made him so even as a boy. -To see this, one needs only to read in Sensier's book of his old -grandmother, who was his godmother likewise, to hear how he felt in -after-years the news of his father's death and of his mother's, and how -he burst into tears because he had not given his last embrace to the -departed. Of course, a man who was so sad and dreamy might be expected -to lay special stress on the dark side of rustic life, its toil and -trouble and exhaustion. He had not that easy spirit which _amara lento -temperat risu_. The passage beneath the peasant-picture in Holbein's -"Dance of Death" might stand as motto for his whole work-- - - "À la sueur de ton visage - Tu gagneras ta pauvre vie; - Après travail et long usage - Voici la mort qui te convie." - -[Illustration: _Mansell, photo._ - - MILLET. AT THE WELL.] - -[Illustration: _Neudein Frères, photo._ - - MILLET. BURNING WEEDS.] - -This grave and sad trait in Millet's character sets him, for example, in -abrupt contrast with Corot. Corot had a cheerful temperament, which -noticed what was kindly in nature everywhere. His favourite hour was -morning, when the sun rises and the lark exults, when the mists are -dissipated and the shining dew lies upon the grass like pearls. His -favourite season was spring, bringing with the new leaves life and joy -upon the earth. And if he sometimes peopled this laughing world with -peasant lads and maidens in place of the joyous creatures of his fancy, -they were only those for whom life is a feast rather than a round of -hard toil. Compared with so sanguine a man as Corot, Millet is -melancholy all through; whilst the former renders the spring, the latter -chooses the oppressive and enervating sultriness of summer. From -experience he knew that hard toil which makes men old before their time, -which kills body and spirit, and turns the image of God into an ugly, -misshapen, and rheumatic thing; and perhaps he has been one-sided in -seeing only this in the life of the peasant. Nevertheless, it is -inapposite to cite as a parallel to Millet's paintings of the peasant -that cruel description of the rustic made in the time of Louis XIV by -Labruyère: "One sees scattered over the field dwarfed creatures that -look like some strange kind of animal, black, withered, and sun-burnt, -fastened to the earth, in which they grub with invincible stubbornness; -they have something resembling articulate language, and when they raise -themselves they show a human countenance,--as a matter of fact they are -men. At night they retire to their holes, where they live on black -bread, water, and roots. They save other men the trouble of sowing, -ploughing, and gathering in the harvest, and so gain the advantage of -not themselves being in want of the bread that they have sown." Yes, -Millet's peasants toil, and they toil hard, but in bowing over the earth -at their work they are, in a sense, proudly raised by their whole -peasant nature. Millet has made human beings out of the manikins of -illustrated humour, and in this lies his ethical greatness. - -As his whole life passed without untruth or artificiality, so his whole -endeavour as an artist was to keep artificiality and untruth at a -distance. After a period of _genre_ painting which disposed of things in -an arbitrary manner, he opened a way for the new movement with its -unconditional devotion to reality. The "historical painters" having -conjured up the past with the assistance of old masterpieces, it was -something to the credit of the _genre_ painters that, instead of looking -back, they began to look around them. Fragments of reality were -arranged--in correspondence with the principle of Classical landscape -painting--according to the rules of composition known to history to make -_tableaux vivants_ crowded with figures; and such pictures related a -cheerful or a moving episode of the painter's invention. Millet's virtue -is to have set emotion in the place of invention, to have set a part of -nature grasped in its totality with spontaneous freshness in the place -of composition pieced together from scattered observation and forcing -life into inconsistent relations--to have set painting in the place of -history and anecdote. As Rousseau and his fellows discovered the poetry -of work-a-day nature, Millet discovered that of ordinary life. The -foundation of modern art could only be laid on painting which no longer -subjected the world to one-sided rules of beauty, but set itself piously -to watch for the beauty of things as they were, and renounced all -literary episodes. Millet does not appear to think that any one is -listening to him; he communes with himself alone. He does not care to -make his ideas thoroughly distinct and salient by repetitions and -antitheses; he renders his emotion, and that is all. And thus painting -receives new life from him: his pictures are not compositions that one -sees, but emotions that one feels; it is not a painter who speaks -through them, but, a man. From the first he had the faculty of seeing -things simply, directly, and naturally; and to exercise himself in this -faculty he began with the plainest things: a labourer in the field, -resting upon his spade and looking straight before him; a sower amid the -furrows, on which flights of birds are settling down; a man standing in -a ploughed field, putting on his coat; a woman stitching in a room; a -girl at the window behind a pot of marguerites. He is never weary of -drawing land broken up for cultivation, and oftener still he draws -huddled flocks of sheep upon a heath, their woolly backs stretching with -an undulatory motion, and a shepherd lad or a girl in their midst. - -"The Sower" (1850), "The Peasants going to their Work," "The -Hay-trussers," "The Reapers," "A Sheep-shearer," "The Labourer grafting -a Tree" (1855), "A Shepherd," and "The Gleaners" (1857) are his -principal works in the fifties. And what a deep intuition of nature is -to be found in "The Gleaners"! They have no impassioned countenances, -and their movements aim at no declamatory effect of contrast. They do -not seek compassion, but merely do their work. It is this which gives -them loftiness and dignity. They are themselves products of nature, -plants of which the commonest is not without a certain pure and simple -beauty. Look at their hands. They are not hands to be kissed, but to be -cordially pressed. They are brave hands, which have done hard work from -youth upwards--reddened with frost, chapped by soda, swollen with toil, -or burnt by the sun. - -[Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ - - MILLET. THE ANGELUS. - - (_By permission of M. Georges Petit, the owner of the copyright._)] - -"The Labourer grafting a Tree" of 1855 is entirely idyllic. In the midst -of one of those walled-in spaces which are half courtyard and half -garden, separating in villages the barns from the house, there is -standing a man who has cut a tree and is grafting a fresh twig. His wife -is looking on, with their youngest child in her arms. Everything around -bears the mark of order, cleanliness, and content. Their clothes have -neither spot nor hole, and wear well under the anxious care of the wife. -Here is the old French peasant, true to the soil, and living and dying -in the place of his birth: it is a picture of patriarchal simplicity. In -1859 appeared "The Angelus," that work which chimes like a low-toned and -far-off peal of bells. "I mean," he said--"I mean the bells to be heard -sounding, and only natural truth of expression can produce the effect." -Nothing is wanting in these creations, neither simplicity nor truth. The -longer they are looked at, the more something is seen in them which goes -beyond reality. "The Man with the Mattock," the celebrated picture of -1863, is altogether a work of great style; it recalls antique statues -and the figures of Michael Angelo, without in any way resembling them. -In his daring veracity Millet despised all the artificial grace and -arbitrary beatification which others introduced into rustic life; and -while, in turning from it, he rested only on the most conscientious -reverence for nature, his profound draughtsmanlike knowledge of the -human form has given a dignity and a large style to the motions of the -peasant which no one discovered before his time. There is a simplicity, -a harmony, and a largeness in the lines of his pictures such as only the -greatest artists have had. He reached it in the same way as Rousseau and -Corot reached their style in landscape: absorbed and saturated by -reality, he was able, in the moment of creation, to dispense with the -model without suffering for it, and to attain truth and condensation -without being hindered by petty detail. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - MILLET. THE SHEPHERDESS AND HER SHEEP. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -He himself went about in Barbizon like a peasant. And he might have been -seen wandering over the woods and fields with an old, red cloak, wooden -shoes, and a weather-beaten straw hat. He rose at sunrise, and wandered -about the country as his parents had done. He guarded no flocks, drove -no cows, and no yokes of oxen or horses; he carried neither mattock nor -spade, but rested on his stick; he was equipped only with the faculty of -observation and poetic intuition. He went about like the people he met, -roamed round the houses, entered the courtyards, looked over the hedges, -knew the gleaners and reapers, the girls who took care of the geese, and -the shepherds in their big cloaks, as they stood motionless amongst -their flocks, resting on a staff. He entered the wash-house, the -bake-house, and the dairies where the butter was being churned. He -witnessed the birth of a calf or the death of a pig, or leant with -folded arms on the garden wall and looked into the setting sun, as it -threw a rosy veil over field and forest. He heard the chime of vesper -bells, watched the people pray and then return home. And he returned -also, and read the Bible by lamplight, while his wife sewed and the -children slept. When all was quiet he closed the book and began to -dream. Once more he saw all that he had come across in the course of the -day. He had gone out without canvas or colours; he had merely noted down -in passing a few motives in his sketch-book: as a rule he never took his -pencil from his pocket, but merely meditated, his mind being compelled -to notice all that his eye saw. Then he went through it again in his -memory. On the morrow he painted. - -[Illustration: _Quantin, Paris._ - - MILLET. THE SHEPHERD AT THE PEN AT NIGHTFALL. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -His study seems to have been an incessant exercise of the eye to see and -to retain the essential, the great lines in nature as in the human body. -Advancing upon Daumier's path, he divested figures of all that is merely -accidental, and simplified them, to bring the character and ground-note -more into relief. This simplification, this marvellous way of expressing -forcibly as much as possible with the smallest means, no one has ever -understood like Millet. There is nothing superfluous, nothing petty, and -everything bears witness to an epic spirit attracted by what is great -and heroic. His drawing was never encumbered by what was subsidiary and -anecdotic; his mind was fixed on the decisive lines which characterise a -movement, and give it rhythm. It was just this feeling for rhythm which -his harmonious nature possessed in the very highest degree. He did not -give his peasants Grecian noses, and he never lost himself in arid and -trivial observation; he simplified and sublimated their outlines, making -them the heroes and martyrs of toil. His figures have a majesty of -style, an august grandeur; and something almost resembling the antique -style of relief is found in his pictures. It is no doubt characteristic -that the only works of art which he had in his studio were plaster casts -of the metopes of the Parthenon. He himself was like a man of antique -times, both in the simplicity of his life and in his outward -appearance--a peasant in wooden shoes who had, set upon his shoulders, -the head of the Zeus of Otricoli. And as his biography reads like an -Homeric poem, so his great and simple art sought for what was primitive, -aboriginal, and heroic. Note the Michelangelesque motions of "The -Sower." The peasant, striding on with a firm tread, seems to show by his -large movements his consciousness of the grandeur of his daily toil: he -is the heroic embodiment of man, swaying the earth, making it fruitful -and subservient to his own purposes. - - "Il marche dans la plaine immense, - Va, vient, lance la graine au loin, - Rouvre sa main et recommence; - Et je médite, obscur témoin, - Pendant que déployant ses voiles - L'ombre où se mêle une rumeur - Semble élargir jusqu'aux étoiles - Le geste auguste du semeur." - -Note the epical quietude of "The Gleaners," the three Fates of poverty, -as Gautier called them, the priestly dignity of "The Woodcutter," the -almost Indian solemnity of "The Woman leading her Cow to Grass." She -stands in her wooden shoes as if on a pedestal, her dress falls into -sculpturesque folds, and a grave and melancholy hebetude is imprinted on -her countenance. Millet is the Michael Angelo of peasants. In their -large simplicity his pictures make the appeal of religious painting, at -once plastic and mystical. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - MILLET. A WOMAN FEEDING CHICKENS.] - -But it is in no sense merely through instinct that Millet has attained -this altitude of style. Although the son of a peasant, and himself a -peasant and the painter of peasants, he knew thoroughly well what he -wanted to do; and this aim of his he has not only formulated practically -in his pictures, but has made theoretically clear in his letters and -treatises. For Millet was not simply a man who had a turn for dreaming; -he had, at the same time, a brooding, philosophic mind, in which the -ideas of a thinker were harboured beside the emotions of a poet. In the -portrait of himself, given on the title-page of Sensier's book, a -portrait in which he has something sickly, something ethereal and tinged -with romance, only one side of his nature is expressed. The great -medallion of Chappu reveals the other side: the keen, consecutive -thinker, to be found in the luminous and remorselessly logical letters. -In this respect he is the true representative of his race. In opposition -to the _esprit_ and graceful levity of the Parisian, a quieter and more -healthy human understanding counts as the chief characteristic of the -Norman; and this clear and precise capacity for thought was intensified -in Millet by incessant intellectual training. - -[Illustration: _Mansell, photo._ - - MILLET. THE SHEPHERDESS.] - -Even as a child he had received a good education from his uncle, who was -an ecclesiastic, and he learnt enough Latin to read the _Georgics_ of -Virgil and other ancient authors in the original text. He knows them -almost by heart, and cites them continually in his letters. When he came -to Paris he spent long hours in the galleries, not copying this or that -portion of a picture, but fathoming works of art to their inmost core -with a clear eye. In Cherbourg he devoured the whole of Vasari in the -library, and read all he could find about Dürer, Leonardo, Michael -Angelo, and Poussin. Even in Barbizon he remained throughout his whole -life an eager reader. Shakespeare fills him with admiration; Theocritus -and Burns are his favourite poets. "Theocritus makes it evident to me," -he says, "that one is never more Greek than when one simply renders -one's own impressions, let them come whence they may." When not painting -or studying nature he had always a book in his hand, and knew no more -cordial pleasure than when a friend increased his little library by the -present of a fresh one. Though in his youth he tilled the ground and -ploughed, and in later days lived like a peasant, he was better -instructed than most painters; he was a philosopher, a scholar. His -manner in speaking was leisurely, quiet, persuasive, full of conviction, -and impregnated by his own peculiar ideas, which he had thoroughly -thought out. - -"My dear Millet," wrote a critic, "you must sometimes see good-looking -peasants and pretty country girls." To which Millet replied: "No doubt; -but beauty does not lie in the face. It lies in the harmony between man -and his industry. Your pretty country girls prefer to go up to town; it -does not suit them to glean and gather faggots and pump water. Beauty is -expression. When I paint a mother I try to render her beautiful by the -mere look she gives her child." He goes on to say that what has been -once clearly seen is beautiful if it is simply and sincerely -interpreted. Everything is beautiful which is in its place, and nothing -is beautiful which appears out of place. Therefore no emasculation of -characters is ever beautiful. Apollo is Apollo and Socrates is Socrates. -Mingle them and they both lose, and become a mixture which is neither -fish nor flesh. This was what brought about the decadence of modern art. -"_Au lieu de naturaliser l'art, ils artialisent la nature._" The -Luxembourg Gallery had shown him that he ought not to go to the theatre -to create true art. "_Je voudrais que les êtres que je représente aient -l'air voués à leur position; et qu'il soit impossible d'imaginer qu'il -leur puisse venir à l'idée d'être autre chose que ce qu'ils sont. On est -dans un milieu d'un caractère ou d'un autre, mais celui qu'on adopte -doit primer. On devrait être habitué à ne recevoir de la nature ses -impressions de quelque sorte qu'elles soient et quelque temperament -qu'on ait. Il faut être imprégné et saturé d'elle, et ne penser que ce -qu'elle vous fait penser. Il faut croire qu'elle est assez riche pour -fournir à tout. Et où puiserait-on, sinon à la source? Pourquoi donc à -perpétuité proposer aux gens, comme but suprême à atteindre, ce que de -hautes intelligences ont découvert en elle. Voila donc qu'on rendrait -les productions de quelques-uns le type et le but de toutes les -productions à venir. Les gens de génie sont comme doués de la baguette -divinatoire; les uns découvrent que, dans la nature, ici se trouve cela, -les autres autre chose ailleurs, selon le temperament de leur flair. -Leurs productions vous assurent dans cette idée que celui-là trouve qui -est fait pour trouver, mais il est plaisant de voir, quand le trésor est -déterré et enlevé, que des gens viennent à perpétuité gratter à cette -place-là. Il faut savoir découvrir où il y a des truffes. Un chien qui -n'a pas de flair ne peut que faire triste chasse, puisqu'il ne va qu'en -voyant chasser celui qui sent la bête et qui naturellement va le -premier.... Un immense orgueil ou une immense sottise seulement peut -faire croire à certains hommes qu'ils sont de force à redresser les -prétendus manques de goût et les erreurs de la nature. Les oeuvres que -nous aimons, ce n'est qu'à cause qu'elles procèdent d'elle. Les autres -ne sont que des oeuvres pédantes et vides. On peut partir de tous les -points pour arriver au sublime, et tout est propre à l'exprimer, si on a -une assez haute visée. Alors ce que vous aimez avec le plus -d'emportement et de passion devient votre beau à vous et qui s'impose -aux autres. Que chacun apporte le sien. L'impression force l'expression. -Tout l'arsenal de la nature est à la disposition des hommes. Qui oserait -décider qu'une pomme de terre est inférieure à une grenade._" - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - MILLET. THE LABOURER GRAFTING A TREE. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -Thus he maintains that when a stunted tree grows upon sterile soil it is -more beautiful in this particular place, because more natural, than a -slender tree artificially transplanted. "The beautiful is that which is -in keeping. Whether this is to be called realism or idealism I do not -know. For me, there is only one manner of painting, and that is to paint -with fidelity." In what concerns poetry old Boileau has already -expressed this in the phrase: "Nothing is beautiful except truth"; and -Schiller has thrown it into the phrase, "Let us, ultimately, set up -truth for beauty." For the art of the nineteenth century Millet's words -mean the erection of a new principle, of a principle that had the effect -of a novel force, that gave the consciousness of a new energy of -artistic endeavour, that was a return to that which the earth was to -Antæus. And by formulating this principle--the principle that -everything is beautiful so far as it is true, and nothing beautiful so -far as it is untrue, that beauty is the blossom, but truth the tree--by -clearly formulating this principle for the first time, Millet has become -the father of the new French and, indeed, of European art, almost more -than by his own pictures. - -For--and here we come to the limitations of his talent--has Millet as a -painter really achieved what he aimed at? No less a person than -Fromentin has put this question in his _Maîtres d'autrefois_. On his -visit to Holland he chances for a moment to speak of Millet, and he -writes:-- - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - MILLET. A WOMAN KNITTING. - - (_By permission of M. Charles Millet._)] - -"An entirely original painter, high-minded and disposed to brooding, -kind-hearted and genuinely rustic in nature, he has expressed things -about the country and its inhabitants, about their toil, their -melancholy, and the nobleness of their labour, which a Dutchman would -never have discovered. He has represented them in a somewhat barbaric -fashion, in a manner to which his ideas gave a more expressive force -than his hand possessed. The world has been grateful for his intentions; -it has recognised in his method something of the sensibility of a Burns -who was a little awkward in expression. But has he left good pictures -behind him or not? Has his articulation of form, his method of -expression, I mean the envelopment without which his ideas could not -exist, the qualities of a good style of painting, and does it afford an -enduring testimony? He stands out as a deep thinker if he is compared -with Potter and Cuyp; he is an enthralling dreamer if he is opposed to -Terborch and Metsu, and he has something peculiarly noble compared with -the trivialities of Steen, Ostade, and Brouwer. As a man he puts them -all to the blush. Does he outweigh them as a painter?" - -[Illustration: _Neurdein Frères, photo._ - - MILLET. THE RAINBOW.] - -If any one thinks of Millet as a draughtsman he will answer this -question without hesitation in the affirmative. His power is firmly -rooted in the drawings which constitute half his work. And he has not -merely drawn to make sketches or preparations for pictures, like -Leonardo, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Watteau, or Delacroix; his drawings -were for him real works of art complete in themselves; and his enduring -and firmly grounded fame rests upon them. Michael Angelo, Raphael, -Leonardo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Prudhon, Millet; that is, more or less, the -roll of the greatest draughtsmen in the history of art. His pastels and -etchings, his drawings in chalk, pencil, and charcoal, are astonishing -through their eminent delicacy of technique. The simpler the medium the -greater is the effect achieved. "The Woman Churning" in the Louvre; the -quietude of his men reaping, and of his woman-reaper beside the heaps of -corn; "The Water Carriers," who are like Greek kanephoræ; the peasant -upon the potato-field, lighting his pipe with a flint and a piece of -tinder; the woman sewing by the lamp beside her sleeping child; the -vine-dresser resting; the little shepherdess sitting dreamily on a -bundle of straw near her flock at pasture,--in all these works in black -and white he is as great as he is as a colourist and as a painter in -open air. There are no sportive and capricious sunbeams, as in Diaz. -Millet's sun is too serious merely to play over the fields; it is the -austere day-star, ripening the harvest, forcing men to sweat over their -toil and with no time to waste in jest. And as a landscape painter he -differs from Corot in the same vital manner. - -Corot, the old bachelor, dallies with nature; Millet, nine times a -father, knows her only as the fertile mother, nourishing all her -children. The temperament of the brooding, melancholy man breaks out in -his very conception of nature: "Oh, if they knew how beautiful the -forest is! I stroll into it sometimes of an evening, and always return -with a sense of being overwhelmed. It has a quiet and majesty which are -terrible, so that I have often a feeling of actual fear. I do not know -what the trees talk about amongst themselves, but they say to each other -something which we do not understand, because we do not speak the same -language. That they are not making bad jokes seems certain." He loved -what Corot has never painted--the sod, the sod as sod, the sod which -steams beneath the rays of the fertilising sun. And yet, despite all -difference of temperament, he stands beside Corot as perhaps the -greatest landscape painter of the century. His landscapes are vacant and -devoid of charm; they smell of the earth rather than of jessamine, yet -it is as if the Earth-Spirit itself were invisibly brooding over them. A -few colours enable him to attain that great harmony which is elsewhere -peculiar to Corot alone, and which, when his work was over, he so often -discussed with his neighbour Rousseau. With a few brilliant and easily -executed shadings he gives expression to the vibration of the -atmosphere, the lustre of the sky at sunset, the massive structure of -the ground, the blissful tremor upon the plain at sunrise. At one time -he renders the morning mist lying over the fields, at another the haze -of sultry noon, veiling and as it were absorbing the outlines and -colours of all objects, the light of sunset streaming over field and -woodland with a tender, tremulous glimmering, the delicate silver tone -which veils the landscape on clear moonlight nights. - -There is not another artist of the century who renders night as Millet -does in his pastels. One of the most charming and poetic works is the -biblical and mystical night-piece "The Flight into Egypt." As he strides -forward Saint Joseph holds upon his arm the Child, whose head is -surrounded by a shining halo, whilst the Mother moves slowly along the -banks of the Nile riding upon an ass. The stars twinkle, the moon throws -its tremulous light uncertainly over the plain. Joseph and Mary are -Barbizon peasants, and yet these great figures breathe of the Sistine -Chapel and of Michael Angelo. And which of the old masters has so -eloquently rendered the sacred silence of night as Millet has done in -his "Shepherd at the Pen"? The landscapes which he has drawn awaken the -impression of spaciousness as only Rembrandt's etchings have done, and -that of fine atmosphere as only Corot's pictures. A marvellously -transparent and tender evening sky rests over his picture of cows coming -down to drink at the lake, and a liquid moonlight washes over the crests -of the waves around "The Sailing Boat." The garden in stormy light with -a high-lying avenue spanned by a rainbow--the motive which he developed -for the well-known picture in the Louvre--is found again and again in -several pastels, which progress from a simple to a more complicated -treatment of the theme. Everything is transparent and delicate, full of -air and light, and the air and light are themselves full of magic and -melting charm. - -[Illustration: _S. Low & Co._ THE BARBIZON STONE.] - -But it is a different matter when one attempts to answer Fromentin's -question in the form in which it is put. For without in any way -detracting from Millet's importance, one may quietly make the -declaration: No, Millet was _not_ a good painter. Later generations, -with which he will no longer be in touch through his ethical greatness, -if they consider his paintings alone, will scarcely understand the high -estimation in which he is held at present. For although many works which -have come into private collections in Boston, New York, and Baltimore -are, in their original form, withdrawn from judgment, they are certainly -not better than the many works brought together in the Millet Exhibition -of 1886 or the World Exhibition of 1889. And these had collectively a -clumsiness, and a dry and heavy colouring, which are not merely -old-fashioned, primitive, and antediluvian in comparison with the works -of modern painters, but which fall far below the level of their own time -in the quality of colour. The conception in Millet's paintings is always -admirable, but never the technique; he makes his appeal as a poet only, -and never as a painter. His painting is often anxiously careful, heavy, -and thick, and looks as if it had been filled in with masonry; it is -dirty and dismal, and wanting in free and airy tones. Sometimes it is -brutal and hard, and occasionally it is curiously indecisive in effect. -Even his best pictures--"The Angelus" not excepted--give no æsthetic -pleasure to the eye. The most ordinary fault in his painting is that it -is soft, greasy, and woolly. He is not light enough with what should be -light, nor fleeting enough with what is fleeting. And this defect is -especially felt in his treatment of clothes. They are of a massive, -distressing solidity, as if moulded in brass, and not woven from flax -and wool. The same is true of his air, which has an oily and material -effect. Even in "The Gleaners" the aspect is cold and gloomy; it is -without the intensity of light which is shed through the atmosphere, and -streams ever changing over the earth. - -And this is a declaration of what was left for later artists to achieve. -The problem of putting real human beings in their true surroundings was -stated by Millet, solved in his pastels, and left unsolved in his oil -paintings. This same problem had to be taken up afresh by his -successors, and followed to its furthest consequences. At the same time, -it was necessary to widen the choice of subject. - -For it is characteristic of Millet, the great peasant, that his art is -exclusively concerned with peasants. His sensitive spirit, which from -youth upwards had compassion for the hard toil and misery of the country -folk, was blind to the sufferings of the artisans of the city, amid whom -he had lived in Paris in his student days. The _ouvrier_, too, has his -poetry and his grandeur. As there is a cry of the earth, so is there -also a cry, as loud and as eloquent, which goes up from the pavement of -great cities. Millet lived in Paris during a critical and terrible time. -He was there during the years of ferment at the close of the reign of -Louis Philippe. Around him there muttered all the terrors of Socialism -and Communism. He was there during the February Revolution and during -the days of June. While the artisans fought on the barricades he was -painting "The Winnower." The misery of Paris and the sufferings of the -populace did not move him. Millet, the peasant, had a heart only for the -peasantry. He was blind to the sufferings, blind to the charms of modern -city life. Paris seemed to him a "miserable, dirty nest." There was no -picturesque aspect of the great town that fascinated him. He felt -neither its grace, its elegance and charming frivolity, nor remarked the -mighty modern movement of ideas and the noble humanity which set their -seal upon that humanitarian century. The development of French art had -to move in both of these directions. It was partly necessary to take up -afresh with improved instruments the problem of the modern conception of -colour, touched on by Millet; it was partly necessary to extend from the -painting of peasants to modern life the principle formulated by Millet, -"_Le beau c'est le vrai_," to transfer it from the forest of -Fontainebleau to Paris, from the solitude to life, from the evening -gloom to sunlight, from the softness of romance to hard reality. - - * * * * * - -The fourth book of this work will be devoted to the consideration of -those masters who, acting on this principle, extended beyond the range -of Millet and brought the art which he had created to fuller fruition. - - - - -BOOK IV - -THE REALISTIC PAINTERS AND THE MODERN IDEALISTS - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -REALISM IN FRANCE - - -To continue in Paris what Millet had begun in the solitude of the forest -of Fontainebleau there was need of a man of the unscrupulous animal -power of _Gustave Courbet_. The task assigned to him was similar to that -which fell to Caravaggio in the seventeenth century. In that age, when -the eclectic imitation of the Cinquecento had reached the acme of -mannerism, when Carlo Dolci and Sassoferato devoted themselves in -mythological pictures to watering down the types of Raphael by -idealising, Caravaggio painted scenes amongst dregs of the people and -the unbridled soldiery of his age. At a period when these artists -indulged in false, artificial, and doctrinaire compositions, which, on a -barren system, merely traced the performances of classic masters back to -certain rules of art, Caravaggio created works which may have been -coarse, but which had an earnest and fruitful veracity, and gave the -entire art of the seventeenth century another direction by their healthy -and powerful naturalism. - -When Courbet appeared the situation was similar: Ingres, in whose frigid -works the whole Cinquecento had been crystallised, was at the zenith of -his fame. Couture had painted his "Decadent Romans" and Cabanel had -recorded his first successes. Beside these stood that little Neo-Grecian -school with Louis Hamon at its head--a school whose prim style of china -painting had the peculiar admiration of the public. Courbet, with all -his brutal weight, pushed between the large symmetrical figures of the -thoroughbred Classicists and the pretty confectionery of the Neo-Grecian -painters of beauty. But the old panacea is never without effect: in all -periods when art has overlived its bloom and falls into mannerism it is -met by a strong cross-current of realism pouring into it new life-blood. -In painting, nature had been made artificial, and it was time for art to -be made natural. Painters still strayed in the past, seeking to awaken -the dead, and give life once more to history. The time had come for -accentuating the claims of the present more sharply than before, and for -setting art amid the seething life of modern cities: it was a -development naturally and logically following that of political life; it -is historically united with the unintermittent struggle for universal -suffrage. Courbet merely fought the decisive battle in the great fight -which Jeanron, Leleux, Octave Tassaert, and others had begun as -skirmishing outposts. As a painter he towered over these elder artists, -whose sentimental pictures had not been taken seriously as works of -art, and challenged attention all the more by painting life-size. In -this manner the last obstacle was removed which had stood in the way of -the treatment of modern subjects. Scanty notice had been taken of -Millet's little peasant figures, which were merely reckoned as -accessories to the landscape. But Courbet's pictures first taught the -Academy that the "picture of manners," which had seemed so harmless, had -begun to usurp the place of historical painting in all its pride. - -At the same time--and this made Courbet's appearance of still more -consequence than that of his predecessors--a most effective literary -propaganda went hand in hand with that which was artistic. Millet had -been silent and was known only by his friends. He had never arranged for -an exhibition of his works, and quietly suffered the rejections of the -hanging committee and the derision of the public. Courbet blustered, -beat the big drum, threw himself into forcible postures like a strong -man juggling with cannon-balls, and announced in the press that he was -the only serious artist of the century. No one could ever _embêter le -bourgeois_ with such success, no one has called forth such a howl of -passion, no one so complacently surrendered his private life to the -curiosity of the great public, with the swaggering attitude of an -athlete displaying his muscles in the circus. As regards this method of -making an appearance--a method by which he became at times almost -grotesque--one may take whatever view one pleases; but when he came he -was necessary. In art revolutions are made with the same brutality as in -life. People shout and sing, and break the windows of those who have -windows to break. For every revolution has a character of inflexible -harshness. Wisdom and reason have no part in the passions necessary for -the work of destruction and rebuilding. Caravaggio was obliged to take -to his weapons, and make sanguinary onslaughts. In our civilised -nineteenth century everything was accomplished according to law, but not -with less passion. One has to make great demands to receive even a -little; this has been true in all times, and this is precisely what -Courbet did. He was a remarkable character striving for high aims, an -eccentric man of genius, a modern Narcissus for ever contemplating -himself in his vanity, and yet he was the truest friend, the readiest to -sacrifice himself; for the crowd a cynic and a reckless talker; at home -an earnest and mighty toiler, bursting out like a child and appeased the -very next moment; outwardly as brutal as he was inwardly sensitive, as -egotistic as he was proud and independent; and being what he was, he -formulated his purposes as incisively by his words as in his works. Full -of fire and enthusiasm, destroying and inciting to fresh creation--a -nature like Lorenz Gedon, whom he also resembled in appearance--he -became the soul and motive power of the great realistic movement which -flooded Europe from the beginning of the fifties. Altogether he was the -man of whom art had need at that time: a doctor who brought health with -him, shed it abroad, and poured blood into the veins of art. Both as man -and artist his entry upon the arena is in some degree like the breaking -in of an elemental force of nature. He comes from the country in wooden -shoes, with the self-reliance of a peasant who is afraid of nothing. He -is a great and powerful man, as sound and natural as the oxen of his -birthplace. He had broad shoulders, with which he pushed aside -everything standing in his way. His was an instinct rather than a -reflecting brain, a _peintre-animal_, as he was called by a Frenchman. -And such a plebeian was wanted to beat down the academic Olympus. In -making him great and strong, nature had herself predestined him for the -part he had to play: a man makes a breach the more easily for having big -muscles. Furnished with the strength of a Samson wrecking the temple of -the Philistines, he was himself "The Stone-breaker" of his art, and, -like the men he painted, he has done a serviceable day's work. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ GUSTAVE COURBET.] - -Gustave Courbet, the strong son of Franche-Comté, was born in 1819, in -Ornans, a little town near Besançon. Like his friend and -fellow-countryman Proudhon, the socialist, he had a strain of German -blood in his veins, and in their outward appearance it gave them both -something Teutonic, rugged, and heavy, contrasting with French ease and -elegance. On his massive frame was set a thick, athletic neck, and a -broad countenance with black hair, and big, strong eyes like those of a -lion-tamer, which sparkled like black diamonds. A strong man, who had -never been stinted, he was of medium height, broad-shouldered, bluff, -ruddy like a slaughterman, and, as the years passed, disposed to acquire -a more liberal circumference of body. He went about working like -Sisyphus, and never without a short pipe in his mouth, the classic -_brûle-gueule_, loaded with strong caporal. His movements were broad and -heavy, and, being a little short in his breathing, he wheezed when he -was excited, and perspired over his painting. His dress was comfortable, -but not elegant; and his head was formed for a cap rather than the -official tall hat. In speech he was cynical, and often broke into a -contemptuous laugh. Both in his studio and at his tavern he moved more -freely in his shirt-sleeves, and at the Munich Exhibition of 1869 he -seemed to the German painters like a thorough old Bavarian, when he sat -down to drink with them at the _Deutsches Haus_ in his jovial way, and, -by a rather Teutonic than Latin capacity for disposing of beer, threw -the most inveterate of the men of Munich into the shade. - -Originally destined for the law, he determined in 1837 to become a -painter, and began his artistic studies under Flageoulot, a mediocre -artist of the school of David, who had drifted into the provinces, and -boastfully called himself _le roi du dessin_. In 1839 he came to Paris, -already full of self-reliance, fire and strength. On his first turn -through the Luxembourg Gallery he paused before Delacroix's "Massacre of -Chios," glowing as it is in colour, and said it was not bad, but that he -could do that style of thing whenever he liked. After a short time he -acquired a power of execution full of bravura by studying the old -masters in the Louvre. Self-taught in art, he was in life a democrat and -in politics a republican. In 1848, during a battle in June, he had a -fair prospect of being shot with a party of insurgents whom he had -joined, if certain "right-minded" citizens had not interceded for their -neighbour, who was popular as a man and already much talked about as a -painter. In the beginning of the fifties he was to be found every -evening at a _brasserie_ much frequented by artists and students in the -Rue Hautefeuille in the _Quartier Latin_, in the society of young -authors of the school of Balzac. He had his studio at the end of the -street, and is said to have been at the time a strong, fine, spirited -young man, who made free use of the drastic slang of the studios. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. THE MAN WITH A LEATHER BELT. - - PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF AS A YOUTH.] - -"His notable features," writes Théophile Silvestre of Courbet at this -time,--"his notable features seem as though they had been modelled from -an Assyrian bas-relief. His well-shaped and brilliant dark eyes, -shadowed by long silken lashes, have the soft quiet light of an -antelope's. The moustache, scarcely traceable beneath his slightly -curved aquiline nose, is joined by a fan-shaped beard, and borders his -thick, sensuous lips; his complexion is olive-brown, but of a changing, -sensitive tone. The round, curiously shaped head and prominent -cheek-bones denote stubbornness, and the flexible nostrils passion." - -A great dispute over realism usually took the place of dessert at -meal-times. Courbet never allowed himself to be drawn into controversy. -He threw his opinion bluntly out, and when he was opposed cut the -conversation short in an exceedingly forcible manner. It was another -murder of the innocents when he spoke of the celebrities of his time. He -designated historical painting as nonsense, style as humbug, and blew -away all ideals, declaring that it was the greatest impudence to wish to -paint things which one has never seen, and of the appearance of which -one cannot have the faintest conception. Fancy was rubbish, and reality -the one true muse. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - COURBET. A FUNERAL AT ORNANS.] - -"Our century," he says, "will not recover from the fever of imitation by -which it has been laid low. Phidias and Raphael have hooked themselves -on to us. The galleries should remain closed for twenty years, so that -the moderns might at last begin to see with their own eyes. For what can -the old masters offer us? It is only Ribera, Zurbaran, and Velasquez -that I admire; Ostade and Craesbeeck also allure me; and for Holbein, I -feel veneration. As for M. Raphael, there is no doubt that he has -painted some interesting portraits, but I cannot find any ideas in him. -And the artistic kin, the heirs, or more properly the slaves of this -great man, are really preceptors of the lowest art. What do they teach -us? Nothing. A good picture will never come from their _École des -Beaux-Arts_. The most precious thing is the originality, the -independence of an artist. Schools have no right to exist; there are -only painters. Independently of system and without attaching myself to -any party, I have studied the art of the old masters and of the more -modern. I have tried to imitate the one as little as I have tried to -copy the other, but out of the total knowledge of tradition I have -wished to draw a firm and independent sense of my own individuality. My -object was by gaining knowledge to gain in ability; to have the power of -expressing the ideas, the manners, and the aspect of our epoch -according to an appreciation of my own, not merely to be a painter, but -a man also--in a word, to practise living art is the compass of my -design. I am not only a socialist, but also a democrat and a -republican--that is to say, a supporter of every revolution; and -moreover, a sheer realist, which means a loyal adherent to the _vérité -vraie_. But the principle of realism is the negation of the ideal. And -following all that comes from this negation of the ideal, I shall arrive -at the emancipation of the individual, and, finally, at democracy. -Realism, in its essence, is democratic art. It can only exist by the -representation of things which the artist can see and handle. For -painting is an entirely physical language, and an abstract, invisible, -non-existent object does not come within its province. The grand -painting which we have stands in contradiction with our social -conditions, and ecclesiastical painting in contradiction with the spirit -of the century. It is nonsensical for painters of more or less talent to -dish up themes in which they have no belief, themes which could only -have flourished in some epoch other than our own. Better paint railway -stations with views of the places through which one travels, with -likenesses of great men through whose birthplace one passes, with -engine-houses, mines, and manufactories; for these are the saints and -miracles of the nineteenth century." - -These doctrines fundamentally tallied with those which the Neapolitan -and Spanish naturalists vindicated in the seventeenth century against -the eclectics. For men like Poussin, Leseur, and Sassoferato, Raphael -was "an angel and not a man," and the Vatican "the academy of painters." -But Velasquez when he came to Rome found it wearisome. "What do you say -of our Raphael? Do you not think him best of all, now that you have seen -everything that is fair and beautiful in Italy?" Don Diego inclined his -head ceremoniously, and observed: "To confess the truth, for I like to -be candid and open, I must acknowledge that I do not care about Raphael -at all." There are reported utterances of Caravaggio which correspond -almost word for word with those of Courbet. He, too, declaimed against -the antique and Raphael, in whose shadow he saw so many shallow -imitators sitting at their ease, and he declared, in a spirit of sharp -opposition, that the objects of daily life were the only true teachers. -He would owe all to nature and nothing to art. He held painting without -the model to be absurd. So long as the model was out of sight, his hands -and his spirit were idle. Moreover, he called himself a democratic -painter, who brought the fourth estate into honour; he "would rather be -the first of vulgar painters than second amongst the superfine." And -just as these naturalists in the seventeenth century were treated by the -academical artists as rhyparographists, Courbet's programme did not on -the whole facilitate his acceptance in formal exhibitions as he desired -that it should. A play must be acted, a manuscript printed, and a -picture viewed. So Courbet had no desire to remain an outsider. When the -picture committee of the World Exhibition of 1855 gave his pictures an -unfavourable position, he withdrew them and offered them to public -inspection separately in a wooden hut in the vicinity of the Pont de -Jena, just at the entry of the exhibition. Upon the hut was written in -big letters: REALISM--G. COURBET. And in the interior the theories which -he had urged hitherto by his tongue and his pen, at the tavern and in -his pamphlets, were demonstrated by thirty-eight large pictures, which -elucidate his whole artistic development. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - COURBET. THE STONE-BREAKERS.] - -"Lot's Daughters" and "Love in the Country" were followed in 1844 by the -portrait of himself and the picture of his dog, in 1845 by "A -Guitarrero," in 1846 by the "Portrait of M. M----," and in 1847 by "The -Walpurgisnacht"; all works in which he was still groping his way. "The -Sleeping Bathers," "The Violoncello Player," and a landscape from his -native province, belonging to the year 1848, made a nearer approach to -his realistic aim, and with the date 1849 there are seven portraits, -landscapes, and pictures from popular national life: "The Painter," "M. -H. T---- looking over Engravings," "The Vintage in Ornans below the -Roche du Mont," "The Valley of the Bue seen from the Roche du Mont," -"View of the Château of Saint-Denis," "Evening in the Village of -Scey-en-Varay," and "Peasants returning from Mass near Flagey." All -these works had passed the doors of the Salon without demur. - -The first picture which brought about a collision of opinion was "A Fire -in Paris," and, according to the account given by contemporaries, it -must have been one of his finest works. Firemen, soldiers, artisans in -jacket and blouse, were exerting themselves, according to Paul d'Abrest -who describes the picture, around a burning house; even women helped in -the work of rescue, and formed part of the chain handing buckets from -the pump. Opposite stood a group of young dandies with girls upon their -arms looking inactively upon the scene. An artillery captain, who was -amongst Courbet's acquaintances, had through several nights sounded the -alarm for his men and exercised them on the scaffolding of a wall, so -that the painter could make his studies. Courbet transferred his studio -to the barracks and made sketches by torch-light. But he had reckoned -without the police; scarcely was the picture finished before it was -seized, as the Government recognised in it, for reasons which did not -appear, "an incitement to the people of the town." This was after the -_coup d'état_ of 1851. - -So Courbet's manifesto was not "The Fire in Paris." "The -Stone-breakers," two men in the dress of artisans, in a plain evening -landscape, occupied once more the first place in the exhibition of 1855, -having already made the effect, amongst its classical surroundings in -the Salon of 1851, of a rough, true, and honest word, spoken amid -elaborate society phrases. There was also to be seen "Afternoon at -Ornans,"--a gathering of humble folk sitting after meal-time at a table -laid out in a rustic kitchen. A picture which became celebrated under -the title of "Bonjour, M. Courbet" dealt with a scene from Courbet's -native town. Courbet, just arrived, is alighting from a carriage in his -travelling costume, looking composedly about him with a pipe in his -mouth. A respectable prosperous gentleman, accompanied by a servant in -livery, who is carrying his overcoat, is stretching out his hand to him. -This gentleman is M. Bryas, the Mæcenas of Ornans, who for long was -Courbet's only patron, and who had a whim for having his portrait taken -by forty Parisian painters in order to learn the "manners" of the -various artists. And there was further to be seen the "Demoiselles de -Village" of 1852, three country beauties giving a piece of cake to a -peasant-girl. Finally, as masterpieces, there were "The Funeral at -Ornans," which now hangs in the Louvre, and that great canvas, -designated in the catalogue as "a true allegory," "My Studio after Seven -Years of Artistic Life," the master himself painting a landscape. Behind -him is a nude model, and in front of him a beggar-woman with her child. -Around are portrait figures of his friends, and the heroes of his -pictures, a poacher, a parson, a sexton, labourers, and artisans. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - COURBET. THE RETURN FROM MARKET.] - -The exhibition was, at all events, a success with young painters, and -Courbet set up a teaching studio, at the opening of which he again -issued a kind of manifesto in the _Courrier du Dimanche_. "Beauty," he -wrote, "lies in nature, and it is to be met with under the most various -forms. As soon as it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the -artist who discovers it. But the painter has no right to add to this -expression of nature, to alter the form of it and thereby weaken it. The -beauty offered by nature stands high above all artistic convention. That -is the basis of my views of art." It is said that his first model was an -ox. When his pupils wanted another, Courbet said: "Very well, gentlemen, -next time let us study a courtier." The break-up of the school is -supposed to have taken place when one day the ox ran away and was not to -be recaptured. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. THE BATTLE OF THE STAGS.] - -Courbet did not trouble himself over such ridicule, but painted quietly -on, the many-sidedness of his talent soon giving him a firm seat in -every saddle. After the scandal of the separate exhibition of 1855 he -was excluded from the Salon until 1861, and during this time exhibited -in Paris and Besançon upon his own account. "The Funeral at Ornans" was -followed by "The Return from Market," a party of peasants on the -high-road, and in 1860 by "The Return from the Conference," in which a -number of French country priests have celebrated their meeting with a -hearty lunch and set out on the way back in a condition which is far too -jovial. In 1861, when the gates of the Champs Elysées were thrown open -to him once more, he received the medal for his "Battle of the Stags," -and regularly contributed to the Salon until 1870. In these years he -attempted pictures with many figures less frequently, and painted by -preference hunting and animal pieces, landscapes, and the nude figures -of women. "The Woman with the Parrot," a female figure mantled with -long hair, lying undressed amid the cushions of a couch playing with her -gaudily feathered favourite, "The Fox Hunt," a coast scene in Provence, -the portrait of Proudhon and his family, "The Valley of the Puits-Noir," -"Roche Pagnan," "The Roe Hunt," "The Charity of a Beggar," the picture -of women bathing in the gloom of the forest, and "The Wave," afterwards -acquired by the Luxembourg, belong to his principal works in the -sixties. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. A WOMAN BATHING. - - (_By permission of M. Sainctelette, of Brussels, the owner of the - picture._)] - -These works gradually made him so well known that after 1866 his -pictures came to have a considerable sale. The critics began to take him -seriously. Castagnary made his début in the _Siècle_ with a study of -Courbet; Champfleury, the apostle of literary realism, devoted to him a -whole series of _feuilletons_ in the _Messager de l'Assemblée_, and from -his intercourse with him Proudhon derived the fundamental principles of -his book on Realism. The son of Franche-Comté triumphed, and there was a -beam in his laughing eyes, always like those of a deer. His talent began -more and more to unfold its wings in the sun of success, and his power -of production seemed inexhaustible. When the custom arose of publishing -in the Parisian papers accounts of the budget of painters, he took care -to communicate that in six months he had made a hundred and twenty-three -thousand francs. Incessantly busy, he had in his hand at one moment the -brush and at another the chisel. And when he gave another special -exhibition of his works in 1867, at the time of the great World -Exhibition--he had a mania for wooden booths--he was able to put on view -no less than a hundred and thirty-two pictures in addition to numerous -pieces of sculpture. In 1869 the committee of the Munich Exhibition set -apart a whole room for his works. With a self-satisfied smile he put on -the Order of Michael, and was the hero of the day whom all eyes followed -upon the boulevards. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. DEER IN COVERT.] - -The nature of the bullfighter was developed in him more strongly than -before, and he stretched his powerful limbs, prepared to do battle -against all existing opinions. Naturally the events of the following -years found no idle spectator in such a firebrand as Courbet; and -accordingly he rushed into those follies which embittered the evening of -his life. The _maître peintre d'Ornans_ became Courbet _le colonnard_. -First came the sensational protest with which he returned to the Emperor -Napoleon the Order of the Legion of Honour. Four weeks after Courbet had -plunged into this affair the war broke out. Eight weeks later came Sedan -and the proclamation of the Republic, and shortly afterwards the siege -of Paris and the insurrection. On 4th September 1870 the Provisional -Government appointed him Director of the Fine Arts. Afterwards he became -a member of the Commune, and dominated everywhere, with the -_brûle-gueule_ in his mouth, by the power of his voice; and France has -to thank him for the rescue of a large number of her most famous -treasures of art. He had the rich collections of Thiers placed in the -Louvre, to protect them from the rough and ready violence of the -populace. But to save the Luxembourg he sacrificed the column of the -Vendôme. When the Commune fell, however, Courbet alone was held -responsible for the destruction of the column. He was brought before the -court-martial of Versailles, and, although Thiers undertook his -defence, he was condemned to six months' imprisonment. Having undergone -this punishment he received his freedom once more, but the artist had -still to suffer a mortal blow. The pictures which he had destined for -the Salon of 1873 were rejected by the committee, because Courbet was -held morally unworthy to take part in the exhibition. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - COURBET. GIRLS LYING ON THE BANK OF THE SEINE.] - -Soon after this an action was brought against him, on the initiative of -certain reactionary papers, for the payment of damages connected with -the overthrow of the Vendôme column, and the painter lost his case. For -the recovery of these damages, which were assessed at three hundred and -thirty-four thousand francs, the Government brought to the hammer his -furniture and the pictures that were in his studio, at a compulsory sale -at the Hôtel Drouot, where they fetched the absurdly trifling figure of -twelve thousand one hundred and eighteen francs fifty centimes. The loss -of his case drove him from France to Switzerland. He gave the town of -Vevay, where he settled, a bust of Helvetia, as a mark of his gratitude -for the hospitality it had extended towards him. But the artist was -crushed in him. "They have killed me," he said; "I feel that I shall -never do anything good again." And thus the jovial, laughing Courbet, -that honoured leader of a brilliant pleiad of disciples, the friend and -companion of Corot, Decamps, Gustave Planché, Baudelaire, Théophile -Gautier, Silvestre, Proudhon, and Champfleury; the enthusiastic patriot -and idol of the fickle Parisians, passed his last years in melancholy -solitude, forgotten by his adherents and scorned by his adversaries. He -was attacked by a disease of the liver, and privation, disillusionment, -and depression came all at once. Moreover, the French Government began -again to make claims for indemnification. His heart broke in a prolonged -mortal struggle. Shortly before his death he said to a friend: "What am -I to live upon, and how am I to pay for the column? I have saved Thiers -more than a million francs, and the State more than ten millions, and -now they are at my heels--they are baiting me to death. I can do no -more. To work one must have peace of spirit, and I am a ruined man." And -Champfleury writes, referring to the last visit which he paid to the -dying exile on 19th December 1877: "His beard and hair were white, and -all that remained of the handsome, all-powerful Courbet whom I had known -was that notable Assyrian profile, which he raised to the snow of the -Alps, as I sat beside him and saw it for the last time. The sight of -such pain and misery as this premature wreck of the whole man was -overwhelming." - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. A RECUMBENT WOMAN.] - -The Lake of Geneva, over which he looked from his window in Vevay, was -the subject of the last picture that he painted in Switzerland. Far from -home and amid indifferent strangers he closed his eyes, which had once -been so brilliant, in endless grief of spirit. The apostle of Realism -died of a broken heart, the herculean son of Franche-Comté could not -suffer disillusionment. Courbet passed away, more or less forgotten, -upon New Year's Eve in 1877, in that chilly hour of morning when the -lake which he had learnt to love trembles beneath the first beams of the -sun. It was only in Belgium, where he had often stayed and where his -influence was considerable, that the intelligence of his death woke a -painful echo. In Paris it met with no word of sympathy. Courbetism was -extinguished; as impressionists and independents his adherents had -gathered round new flags. Zola has done him honour in _L'Oeuvre_ in the -person of old Bongrand, that half-perished veteran who is only mentioned -now and then with veneration. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. BERLIOZ.] - -And the course of development has indeed been so rapid since Courbet's -appearance that in these days one almost fails to understand, apart from -historical reasons, the grounds which in 1855 made his separate -exhibition of his works an event of epoch-making importance. It was not -Cham alone who at that time devoted a large cartoon to Courbet, as he -did in "The Opening of Courbet's Studio and Concentrated Realism." All -the comic journals of Paris were as much occupied with him as with the -crinoline, the noiseless pavement, the new tramways, or the balloon. -Haussard, the principal representative of criticism, in discussing "The -Funeral at Ornans," spoke of "these burlesque masks with their fuddled -red noses, this village priest who seems to be a tippler, and the -harlequin of a veteran who is putting on a hat which is too big for -him." All this, he continued, suggested a masquerade funeral, six metres -long, in which there was more to laugh at than to weep over. Even Paul -Mantz declared that the most extravagant fancy could not descend to such -a degree of jejune triviality and repulsive hideousness. In a _revue -d'année_ produced at the Odéon, the authors, Philoxène Hoyer and -Théodore de Banville, make "a realist" say-- - - "Faire vrai ce n'est rien pour être réaliste, - C'est faire laid qu'il faut! Or, monsieur, s'il vous plait, - Tout ce que je dessine est horriblement laid! - Ma peinture est affreuse, et, pour qu'elle soit vraie, - J'en arrache le beau comme on fait de l'ivraie. - J'aime les teints terreux et les nez de carton, - Les fillettes avec de la barbe au menton, - Les trognes de Varasque et de coquecigrues, - Les dorillons, les cors aux pieds et les verrues! - Voilà le vrai!" - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - COURBET. THE HIND ON THE SNOW.] - -So it went on through the sixties also. When the Empress Eugénie passed -through the exhibition on the opening day of the Salon of 1866, with an -elegant walking-stick in her hand, she was so indignant at Courbet's -"Naked Women" that the picture had to be immediately removed. In the -beginning of the seventies, when he exhibited in Germany, a few young -Munich painters recognised in his pictures something like the cry of a -conscience. But otherwise "artists and laymen shook their heads, not -knowing what to make of them. Some smiled and went indifferently on, -while others were indignant in their condemnation of this degradation of -art." For "Courbet went to the lowest depths of society, and took his -themes from a class where man really ceases to be man, and the image of -God prolongs a miserable existence as a moving mass of flesh. Living -bodies with dead souls, which exist only for the sake of their animal -needs; in one place sunk in misery and wretchedness, and in another -having never risen from their brutal savagery--that is the society from -which Courbet chooses his motives, to gloss over the debility of his -imagination and his want of any kind of training. Had he possessed the -talent for composition, then perhaps his lifeless technique would have -become interesting; as it is he offers a merely arbitrary succession of -figures in which coherence is entirely wanting." In "The Stone-breakers" -it was an offence that he should have treated such "an excessively -commonplace subject" at all as mere artisans in ragged and dirty -clothes. And by "The Funeral at Ornans" it was said that he meant to -sneer at the religious ceremony, since the picture had a defiant and -directly brutal vulgarity. The painter was alleged to have taken pains -to expose the repulsive, ludicrous, and grotesque elements in the -members of the funeral party, and to have softened no feature which -could excite an unseasonable merriment. In the "Demoiselles de Village" -the design had been to contrast the stilted, provincial nature of these -village misses with the healthy simplicity of a peasant child. In the -picture, painted in 1857, of the two grisettes lying in the grass on the -bank of the Seine he had "intentionally placed the girls in the most -unrefined attitudes, that they might appear as trivial as possible." And -umbrage was taken at his two naked wrestlers because he "had not painted -wrestlers more or less like those of classic times, but the persons who -exhibit the strength of their herculean frames at the Hippodrome," and -therefore given "the most vulgar rendering of nudity that was at all -possible." And in his naked women it was said that this love of ugly and -brutal forms became actually base. - -All these judgments are characteristic symptoms of the same sort of -taste which rose in the seventeenth century against Caravaggio. Even his -principal work, the altar-piece to St. Matthew, which now hangs in the -Berlin Museum, excited so much indignation that it had to be removed -from the Church of St. Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Annibale Carracci has -a scornful caricature in which the Neapolitan master appears as a hairy -savage, with a dwarf at his side and two apes upon his knees, and, in -this fashion, intended to brand the hideousness of his rival's art and -his ape-like imitation of misshapen nature. Francesco Albani called him -the "Antichrist of Painting," and "a ruination to art." And Baglione -adds: "Now a number of young men sit down to copy a head after nature; -they study neither the foundations of drawing, nor concern themselves -about the more profound conditions of art, merely contenting themselves -with a crude reproduction of nature, and therefore they do not even know -how to group two figures appropriately, nor to bring any theme into an -artistic composition. No one any longer visits the temples of art, but -every one finds his masters and his models for a servile imitation of -nature in the streets and open places." The nineteenth century formed a -different estimate of Caravaggio. In opposing his fortune-telling -gipsies, his tipplers, gamblers, musicians, and dicing mercenaries to -the noble figures of the academical artists, with their generalised and -carefully balanced forms, their trivial, nugatory countenances, and -their jejune colouring, he accomplished the legitimate and necessary -reaction against a shallow and empty idealistic mannerism. No one is -grateful to the eclectic artists for the learned efforts which it cost -them to paint so tediously: in Caravaggio there is the fascination of a -strong personality and a virile emphasis in form, colour, and light. The -Carracci and Albani were the issue of their predecessors; Caravaggio is -honoured as a fearless pioneer who opened a new chapter in the history -of art. - -[Illustration: COURBET. MY STUDIO AFTER SEVEN YEARS OF ARTISTIC LIFE.] - -Courbet met with a similar fate. - -If one approaches him after reading the criticisms of his pictures -already cited, a great disillusionment is inevitable. Having imagined a -grotesque monster, one finds to one's astonishment that there is not the -slightest occasion either for indignation or laughter in the presence of -these powerful, sincere, and energetic pictures. One has expected -caricatures and a repulsive hideousness, and one finds a broad and -masterly style of painting. The heads are real without being vulgar, and -the flesh firm and soft and throbbing with powerful life. Courbet is a -personality. He began by imitating the Flemish painters and the -Neapolitans. But far more did he feel himself attracted by the actual -world, by massive women and strong men, and wide fertile fields smelling -of rich, rank earth. As a healthy and sensuously vigorous man he felt a -voluptuous satisfaction in clasping actual nature in his herculean arms. -Of course, by the side of his admirable pictures there are others which -are heavy and uncouth. But if one is honest one paints according to -one's inherent nature, as old Navez, the pupil of David, was in the -habit of saying. Courbet was honest, and he was also a somewhat unwieldy -being, and therefore his painting too has something bluff and cumbrous. -But where in all French art is there such a sound painter, so sure of -his effects and with such a large bravura, a _maître peintre_ who was so -many-sided, extending his dominion as much over figure-painting as -landscape, over the nude as over _nature morte_? There is no artist so -many of whose pictures may be seen together without surfeit, for he is -novel in almost every work. He has painted not a few pictures of which -it may be said that each one is _sui generis_, and on the variations of -which elsewhere entire reputations might have been founded. With the -exception of Millet, no one had observed man and nature with such -sincere and open eyes. With the great realists of the past Courbet -shares the characteristic of being everywhere and exclusively a portrait -painter. A pair of stone-breakers, kneeling as they do in his picture, -with their faces protected by wire-masks, were figures which every one -saw working at the street corner, and Courbet represented the scene as -faithfully as he could, as sincerely and positively as was at all -possible. "Afternoon in Ornans" is a pleasant picture, in which he took -up again the good tradition of Lenain. And in "The Funeral at Ornans" he -has painted exactly the manner in which such ceremonies take place in -the country. The peasants and dignitaries of a little country -town--portrait figures such as the masters of the fifteenth century -brought into their religious pictures--have followed the funeral train, -and behave themselves at the grave just as peasants would. They make no -impassioned gesticulations, and form themselves into no fine groups, but -stand there like true rustics, sturdy and indifferent. They are men of -flesh and blood, they are like the people of real life, and they have -been subjected to no alteration: on the one side are the women tearfully -affected by the words of the preacher, on the other are the men bored by -the ceremony or discussing their own affairs. In the "Demoiselles de -Village" he gives a portrait of his own sisters, as they went to a dance -of a Sunday afternoon. The "Girls lying on the Bank of the Seine" are -grisettes of 1850, such as Gavarni often drew; they are both dressed in -doubtful taste, one asleep, the other lost in a vacant reverie. His -naked women make a very tame effect compared with the colossal masses of -human flesh in that cascade of nude women of the plumpest description -who in Rubens' "Last Judgment" plunge in confusion into hell, like fish -poured out from a bucket. But they are amongst the best nude female -figures which have been created in the nineteenth century. Courbet was a -painter of the family of Rubens and Jordaens. He had the preference -shown by the old Flemish artists for healthy, plump, soft flesh, for -fair, fat, and forty, the three F's of feminine beauty, and in his -works he gave the academicians a lesson well worth taking to heart; he -showed them that it was possible to attain a powerful effect, and even -grace itself, by strict fidelity to the forms of reality. - -[Illustration: _Neuerdein, photo._ - - COURBET. THE WAVE.] - -His portraits--and he had the advantage of painting Berlioz and -Baudelaire, Champfleury and Proudhon--are possibly not of conspicuous -eminence as likenesses. As Caravaggio, according to Bellori, "had only -spirit, eyes and diligence for flesh-tints, skin, blood, and the natural -surface of objects," a head was merely a _morceau_ like anything else -for Courbet too, and not the central point of a thinking and sensitive -being. The physical man, Taine's human animal, was more important in his -eyes than the psychical. He painted the epidermis without giving much -suggestion of what was beneath. But he painted this surface in such a -broad and impressive manner that the pictures are interesting as -pictorial masterpieces if not as analyses of character. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - STEVENS. THE LADY IN PINK.] - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - STEVENS. LA BÊTE À BON DIEU.] - -To these his landscapes and animal pieces must be added as the works on -which his talent displayed itself in the greatest purity and most -inherent vigour: "The Battle of the Stags," that most admirable picture -"The Hind on the Snow," "Deer in Covert," views of the moss-grown rocks -and sunlit woods of Ornans and the green valleys of the Franche-Comté. -He had the special secret of painting with a beautiful tone and a broad, -sure stroke dead plumage and hunting-gear, the bristling hide of -wild-boars, and the more delicate coat of deer and of dogs. As a -landscape painter he does not belong to the family of Corot and Dupré. -His landscapes are green no doubt, but they have limitations; the leaves -hang motionless on the branches, undisturbed by a breath of wind. -Courbet has forgotten the most important thing, the air. Whatever the -time of the year or the day may be, winter or summer, evening or -morning, he sees nothing but the form of things, regarding the sun as a -machine which has no other purpose than to mark the relief of objects by -light and shade. Moreover, the lyricism of the Fontainebleau painters -was not in him. He paints without reverie, and knows nothing of that -tender faltering of the landscape painter in which the poet awakes, but -has merely the equanimity of a good and sure worker. In regard to -nature, he has the sentiments of a peasant who tills his land, is never -elegiac or bucolic, and would be most indignant if a nymph were to tread -on the furrows of his fields. He paints with a pipe in his mouth and a -spade in his hand, the plain and the hills, potatoes and cabbages, rich -turf and slimy rushes, oxen with steaming nostrils heavily ploughing the -clods, cows lying down and breathing at ease the damp air of the meadows -drenched with rain. He delights in fertile patches of country, and in -the healthy odour of the cow-house. A material heaviness and a prosaic -sincerity are stamped upon all. But his painting has a solidity -delightful to the eye. It is inspiriting to meet a man who has such a -resolute and simple love of nature, and can interpret her afresh in -powerful and sound colour without racking his brains. His attachment to -the spot of earth where he was born is a leading characteristic of his -art. He borrowed from Ornans the motives of his most successful -creations, and was always glad to return to his parents' house. The -patriotism of the church-spire, provincialism, and a touching and vivid -sense of home are peculiar to all his landscapes. But in his sea-pieces, -to which he was incited by a residence in Trouville in the summer of -1865, he has opened an altogether new province to French art. _Eugène Le -Poittevin_, who exhibited a good deal in Berlin in the forties, and -therefore became very well known in Germany, cannot count as a painter. -_Théodore Gudin_, whose signature is likewise highly valued in the -market, was a frigid and rough-and-ready scenical painter. His little -sea-pieces have a professional manner, and the large naval battles and -fires at sea which he executed by the commission of Louis Philippe for -the Museum of Versailles are frigid, pompous, and spectacular sea-pieces -parallel with Vernet's battle-pieces. _Ziem_, who gave up his time to -Venice and the Adriatic, is the progenitor of Eduard Hildebrandt. His -water and sky take all the colours of the prism, and the objects -grouped between these luminous elements, houses, ships, and men, equally -receive a share of these flattering and iridescent tones. This gives -something seductive and dazzling to his sketches, until it is at last -perceived that he has only painted one picture, repeating it -mechanically in all dimensions. Courbet was the first French painter of -sea-pieces who had a feeling for the sombre majesty of the sea. The -ocean of Gudin and Ziem inspires neither wonder nor veneration; that of -Courbet does both. His very quietude is expressive of majesty; his peace -is imposing, his smile grave; and his caress is not without a menace. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - STEVENS. THE JAPANESE MASK.] - -Courbet has positively realised the programme which he issued in that -pamphlet of 1855. When he began his activity, eclectic idealism had -overgrown the tree of art. But Courbet stripped off the parasitic -vegetation to reach the firm and serviceable timber. And having once -grasped it he showed the muscles of an athlete in making its power felt. -Something of the old Flemish sturdiness lived once more in his bold -creations. If he and Delacroix were united, the result would be Rubens. -Delacroix had the fervour and passionate tamelessness, while Courbet -contributed the Flemish weight. Each made use of blood, purple, thrones, -and Golgothas in composing the dramas they had imagined. The latter -pictured creation with the absolutism of complete objectivity. Delacroix -rose on the horizon like a brilliant meteor catching flame from the -light of vanished suns; he reflected their radiance, had almost their -magnitude, and followed the same course amid the same coruscation and -blaze of light. Courbet stands firm and steady upon the earth. The -former had the second sight known to visionaries, the latter opened his -eyes to the world that can be felt and handled. Neurotic and -distempered, Delacroix worked feverishly. As a sound, full-blooded being -Courbet painted, as a man drinks, digests, and talks, with an activity -that knows no exertion, a force that knows no weariness. Delacroix was a -small, weakly man, and his whole power rested in his huge head. That of -Courbet, as in animals of beauty and power, was dispersed through his -whole frame; his big arms and athletic hands render the same service to -his art as his eyes and his brain. And as, like all sincere artists, he -rendered himself, he was the creator of an art which has an -irrepressible health and overflows with an exuberant opulence. His -pictures brought a savour of the butcher's shop into French painting, -which had become anæmic. He delighted in plump shoulders and sinewy -necks, broad breasts heaving over the corset, the glow of the skin -dripping with warm drops of water in the bath, the hide of deer and the -coat of hares, the iridescent shining of carp and cod-fish. Delacroix, -all brain, caught fire from his inward visions; Courbet, all eye and -maw, with the sensuousness of an epicure and the satisfaction of a -_gourmet_, gloats over the shining vision of things which can be -devoured--a Gargantua with a monstrous appetite, he buried himself in -the navel of the generous earth. Plants, fruit, and vegetables take -voluptuous life beneath his brush. He triumphs when he has to paint a -_déjeuner_ with oysters, lemons, turkeys, fish, and pheasants. His mouth -waters when he heaps into a picture of still-life all manner of -delicious eatables. The only drama that he has painted is "The Battle of -the Stags," and this will end in brown sauce amid a cheerful clatter of -knives and forks. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - STEVENS. THE VISITORS. - - (_By permission of M. Faure, the owner of the picture._)] - -Even as a landscape painter he is luxurious and phlegmatic. In his -pictures the earth is a corpulent nurse, the trees fine and well-fed -children, and all nature healthy and contented. His art is like a -powerful body fed with rich nourishment. In such organisms the capacity -for enthusiasm and delicacy of sentiment are too easily sacrificed to -their physical satisfaction, but their robust health ensures them the -longer life. Here is neither the routine and external technique and the -correct, academic articulation of form belonging to mannerists, nor the -strained, neurotic, sickly refinement of the decadents, but the -powerful utterance of inborn, instinctive talent, and the strong cries -of nature which rise out of it will be understood at all times, even the -most distant. It is hardly necessary to add that the appearance of a -genius of this kind was fraught with untold consequences to the further -development of French painting. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - RICARD. MADAME DE CALONNE.] - -What is held beautiful in nature must likewise be beautiful in pictorial -art when it is faithfully represented, and nature is beautiful -everywhere. In announcing this and demonstrating it in pictures of -life-size, Courbet won for art all the wide dominion of modern life -which had hitherto been so studiously avoided--the dominion in which it -had to revel if it was to learn to see with its own eyes. One fragment -of reality after another would then be drawn into the sphere of -representation, and no longer in the form of laboriously composed -_genre_ pictures, but after the fashion of really pictorial works of -art. - -What Millet had done for the peasant, and Courbet for the artisan, -_Alfred Stevens_ did for "society": he discovered the _Parisienne_. -Until 1850 the graceful life of the refined classes, which Gavarni, -Marcellin, and Cham had so admirably drawn, found no adequate -representation in the province of painting. The _Parisienne_, who is so -_chic_ and piquant, and can hate and kiss with such fervour, fascinated -every one, but Grecian profile was a matter of prescription. _Auguste -Toulmouche_ painted little women in fashionable toilette, but less from -any taste he had for the graceful vision than from delight in _genre_ -painting. They were forced to find forbidden books in the library, to -resist worldly marriages, or behave in some such interesting fashion, to -enter into the kingdom of art. It was reserved for a foreigner to reveal -this world of beauty, _chic_, and grace. - -Alfred Stevens was a child of Brussels. He was born in the land of -Flemish matrons on 11th May 1828, and was the second of three children. -Joseph, the elder brother, became afterwards the celebrated painter of -animals; Arthur, the youngest, became an art-critic and a -picture-dealer; he was one of the first who brought home to the public -comprehension the noble art of Rousseau, Corot, and Millet. Stevens' -father fought as an officer in the great army at the battle of Waterloo, -and is said to have been an accomplished critic. Some of the ablest -sketches of Delacroix, Devéria, Charlet, and Roqueplan found their way -into his charming home. Roqueplan, who often came to Brussels, took the -younger Stevens with him to his Parisian studio. He was a tall, graceful -young man, who, with his vigorous upright carriage, his finely chiselled -features, and his dandified moustache, looked like an officer of -dragoons or cuirassiers. He was a pleasure-loving man of the world, and -was soon the lion of Parisian drawing-rooms. The grace of modern life in -great cities became the domain of his art. The _Parisienne_, whom his -French fellow-artists passed by without heed, was a strange, interesting -phenomenon to him, who was a foreigner--an exotic and exquisitely -artistic _bibelot_, which he looked upon with eyes as enraptured as -those with which Decamps had looked upon the East. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - CHAPLIN. THE GOLDEN AGE. - - (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil & Co., the owners of the - copyright._)] - -His very first picture, exhibited in 1855, was called "At Home." A -charming little woman is warming her feet at the fire; she has returned -from visiting a friend, and it has been raining or snowing outside. Her -delicate hands are frozen in spite of her muff, her cheeks have been -reddened by the wind, and she has a pleasant sense of comfort as her -rosy lips breathe the warm air of the room. From the time of this -picture women took possession of Stevens' easel. His way was prescribed -for him, and he never left it. Robert Fleury, the president of the -judging committee in the Salon, said to him: "You are a good painter, -but alter your subjects; you are stifling in a sphere which is too -small; how wide and grand is that of the past!" Whereon Stevens is said -to have showed him a volume of photographs from Velasquez. "Look here at -Velasquez," he said. "This man never represented anything but what he -had before his eyes--people in the Spanish dress of the seventeenth -century. And as the justification of my _genre_ may be found in this -Spanish painter, it may be found also in Rubens, Raphael, Van Dyck, and -all the great artists. All these masters of the past derived their -strength and the secret of their endurance from the faithful -reproduction of what they had themselves seen: it gives their pictures a -real historical as well as an artistic value. One can only render -successfully what one has felt sincerely and seen vividly before one's -eyes in flesh and blood." In these sentences he is at one with Courbet, -and by not allowing himself to be led astray into doing sacrifice to the -idols of historical painting he continues to live as the historical -painter of the _Parisienne_. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - CHAPLIN. PORTRAIT OF COUNTESS AIMERY DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.] - -In his whole work he sounds a pæan to the delicate and all-powerful -mistress of the world, and it is significant that it was through woman -that art joined issue with the interests of the present. Millet, the -first who conquered a province of modern life, was at the same time the -first great painter of women in the century. Stevens shows the other -side of the medal. In Millet woman was a product of nature; in Stevens -she is the product of modern civilisation. The woman of Millet lives a -large animal life, in the sweat of her brow, bowed to the earth. She is -the primæval mother who works, bears children, and gives them -nourishment. She stands in the field like a caryatid, like a symbol of -fertile nature. In Stevens woman does not toil and is seldom a mother. -He paints the woman who loves, enjoys, and knows nothing of the great -pangs of child-birth and hunger. The one woman lives beneath the wide, -open sky, _dans le grand air_; the other is only enveloped in an -atmosphere of perfume. She is ancient Cybele in the pictures of Millet; -in those of Stevens the holy Magdalene of the nineteenth century, to -whom much will be forgiven, because she has loved much. The pictures of -Stevens represent, for the first time, the potent relations of woman to -the century. Whilst most works of this time are silent concerning -ourselves, his art will speak of our weaknesses and our passions. In a -period of archaic painting he upheld the banner of modernity. On this -account posterity will honour him as one of the first historians of the -nineteenth century, and will learn from his pictures all that Greuze has -revealed to the present generation about the civilisation of the -eighteenth century. - -[Illustration: _Baschet._ - - GAILLARD. PORTRAIT.] - -And perhaps more, for Stevens never moralised--he merely painted. -Painter to his finger tips, like Delacroix, Roqueplan, and Isabey, he -stood in need of no anecdotic substratum as an adjunct. The key of his -pictures was suggested by no theme of one sort or another, but by his -treatment of colour. The picture was evolved from the first tone he -placed upon the canvas, which was the ground-note of the entire scale. -He delighted in a thick pasty handling, in beautiful hues, and in finely -chased detail. And he was as little inclined to sentimentality as to -pictorial novels. Everything is discreet, piquant, and full of charm. He -was a delicate spirit, avoiding tears and laughter. Subdued joy, -melancholy, and everything delicate and reserved are what he loves; he -will have nothing to do with stereotyped arrangement nor supernumerary -figures, but although a single person dominates the stage he never -repeats himself. He has followed woman through all her metamorphoses--as -mother or in love, weary or excited, proud or humbled, fallen or at the -height of success, in her morning-gown or dressed for visiting or a -promenade, now on the sea-shore, now in the costume of a Japanese, or -dallying with her trinkets as she stands vacantly before the glass. The -surroundings invariably form an accompaniment to the melody. A world of -exquisite things is the environment of the figures. Rich stuffs, -charming _petit-riens_ from China and Japan, the most delicate ivory and -lacquer-work, the finest bronzes, Japanese fire-screens, and great vases -with blossoming sprays, fill the boudoir and drawing-room of the -_Parisienne_. In the pictures of Stevens she is the fairy of a paradise -made up of all the most capricious products of art. A new world was -discovered, a painting which was in touch with life; the symphony of the -salon was developed in a delicate style. A tender feminine perfume, -something at once melancholy and sensuous, was exhaled from the pictures -of Stevens, and by this shade of _demi-monde haut-goût_ he won the great -public. They could not rise to Millet and Courbet, and Stevens was the -first who gave general pleasure without paying toll to the vicious taste -for melodramatic, narrative, and humorous _genre_ painting. Even in the -sixties he was appreciated in England, France, Germany, Russia, and -Belgium, and represented in all public and private collections; and -through the wide reception offered to his pictures he contributed much -to create in the public a comprehension for good painting. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - DUBOIS. PORTRAIT OF MY SONS. - - (_By permission of the Artist._)] - -In the same way _James Tissot_ achieved the representation of the modern -woman. Stevens, a Belgian, painted the _Parisienne_; Tissot, a -Frenchman, the Englishwoman. It was not till they went into foreign -countries that these artists perceived the grace of what was not deemed -suitable to art at home. In Paris from the year 1859 Tissot had painted -scenes from the fifteenth century, to which he was moved by Leys, and he -studied with archæological accuracy the costume and furniture of the -late Gothic period. When he migrated to England in 1871 he gave up the -romantic proclivities of his youth, and devoted himself to the -representation of fashionable society. His oil paintings fascinate us by -their delicate feeling for cool transparent tone values, whilst his -water-colours--restaurant, theatre, and ball scenes--assure him a place -among the pioneers of modernity. - -At first Stevens found no successors amongst Parisian painters. A few, -indeed, painted interiors in graceful Paris, but they were only frigid -compositions of dresses and furniture, without a breath of that delicate -aroma which exhales from the works of the Belgian. The portrait painters -alone approached that modern grace which still awaited its historian and -poet. - -An exceedingly delicate artist, _Gustave Ricard_, in whose portraits the -art of galleries had a congenial revival, was called the modern Van Dyck -in the sixties. Living nature did not content him; he wished to learn -how it was interpreted by the old masters, and therefore frequented -galleries, where he sought counsel sometimes from the English -portrait-painters, sometimes from Leonardo, Rubens, and Van Dyck. In -this way Ricard became a _gourmet_ of colour, who knew the technique of -the old masters as few others have done, and his works have an -attractive golden gallery-tone of great distinction. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ CAROLUS DURAN.] - -In _Charles Chaplin_ Fragonard was revived. He was the specialist of -languishing flesh and _poudre de riz_, the refined interpreter of -aristocratic beauty, one on whose palette there might still be found a -delicate reflection of the _fêtes galantes_ of the eighteenth century. -In Germany he was principally known by those dreamy, frail, and sensual -maidens, well characterised by the phrase of the Empress Eugénie. "M. -Chaplin," she said, "I admire you. Your pictures are not merely -indecorous, they are more." But Chaplin had likewise the other qualities -of the _rococo_ painter. He was a decorative artist of the first rank, -and, like Fragonard, he carelessly scattered round him on all sides -grace and beauty, charm and fascination. In 1857 he decorated the _Salon -des Fleurs_ in the Tuileries, in 1861-65 the bathroom of the Empress in -the _Palais de l'Elysée_, and from 1865 a number of private houses in -Paris, Brussels, and New York; and there is in all these works a refined -_haut-goût_ of modern Parisian elegance and fragrant _rococo_ grace. He -revived no nymphs, and made no pilgrimage to the island of Cythera; he -was more of an epicurean. But Fragonard's fine tones and Fragonard's -sensuousness were peculiar to him. He had a method of treating the hair, -of introducing little patches, of setting a dimple in the chin, and -painting the arms and bosom, which had vanished since the _rococo_ -period from the power of French artists. Rosebuds and full-blown roses -blossom like girls _à la_ Greuze, and fading beauties, who are all the -more irresistible, are the elements out of which his refined, -indecorous, and yet fragrant art is constituted. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - BONNAT. ADOLPHE THIERS. - - (_By permission of the Artist._)] - -The great engraver _Gaillard_ brought Hans Holbein once more into -honour. He was the heir of that method of painting, the eternal matrix -of which Jan van Eyck left to the world in unapproachable perfection. -His energetic but conscientiously minute brush noted every wrinkle of -the face, without doing injury to the total impression by this labour of -detail. Indeed, his pictures are as great in conception and as powerful -in characterisation as they are small in size. Gaillard is a profound -physiognomist who attained the most vivid analysis of character by means -of the utmost precision. - -_Paul Dubois_ takes us across the Alps; in his portraits he is the same -great quattrocentist that he was from the beginning in his plastic -works. His ground is that of the excellent and subtle period when -Leonardo, who had been in the beginning somewhat arid, grew delicate and -allowed a mysterious sphinx-like smile to play round the lips of his -women. Manifestly he has studied Prudhon and had much intercourse with -Henner in those years when the latter, after his return from Italy, -directed attention once more to the old Lombards. From the time when he -made his début in 1879, with the portrait of his sons, he received great -encouragement, and stands out in these days as the most mature painter -of women that the present age has to show. Only the great English -portrait painters Watts and Millais, who are inferior to him in -technique, have excelled him in the embodiment of personalities. - -As the most skilful painter of drapery, the most brilliant decorator of -feminine beauty, _Carolus Duran_ was long celebrated. The studies which -he had made in Italy had not caused him to forget that he took his -origin from across the Flemish border; and when he appeared with his -first portraits, in the beginning of the seventies, it was believed that -an eminent colourist had been born to French painting. At that time he -had a fine feeling for the eternal feminine and its transitory phases of -expression, and he was as dexterous in seizing a fleeting gesture or a -turn of the head as he was in the management of drapery and the play of -its hues. Then, again, he made a gradual transition from delicate and -discreetly coquettish works to the crude arts of upholstery. Yet even in -his last period he has painted some masculine portraits--those of -Pasteur, and of the painters Français, Fritz Thaulow, and René -Billotte--which are striking in their vigorous simplicity and unforced -characterisation after the glaring virtuosity of his pictures of women. - -[Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ - - BONNAT. VICTOR HUGO. - - (_By permission of the Artist._)] - -_Léon Bonnat_, the pupil of Madrazos, brought about the fruitful -connection between French painting and that of the old Spaniards. By -this a large quantity of the fresh blood of naturalism was poured into -it once more. Born in the South of France and educated in Spain, he had -conceived there a special enthusiasm for Ribera, and these youthful -impressions were so powerful that he remained faithful to them in Paris. -As early as his residence in Italy, which included the three years from -1858 to 1860, his individuality had been fortified in a degree which -prevented him from wasting himself on large academical compositions like -the holders of the _Prix de Rome_; on the contrary, he painted scenes -from the varied life of the Roman people. Several religious pictures, -such as "The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew" (1863), "Saint Vincent de Paul" -(1866), and the "Job" of the Luxembourg, showed that he was steadily -progressing on the road paved by Spagnoletto. He had a virtuosity in -conjuring on to the canvas visages furrowed by the injustices of -life--grey hair, waving grey beards, and the starting sinews and muscles -of old weather-beaten frames. In the beginning of the seventies, when he -had to paint a Crucifixion for the jury-chamber in the Paris Palais de -Justice, he executed a virile figure, the muscles and anatomy of which -were as clearly marked as the buttresses in a Gothic cathedral. As in -the paintings of Caravaggio, a sharp, glaring light fell upon certain -parts of the body, whilst others remained dark and colourless in the -gloomy background. He applied the same principles to his portraits. A -French Lenbach, he painted in France a gallery of celebrated men. With -an almost tangible reality he painted Hugo, Madame Pasta, Dumas, Gounod, -Thiers, Grévy, Pasteur, Puvis de Chavannes, Jules Ferry, Carnot, -Cardinal Lavigerie, and others. Over two hundred persons, famous or not, -have sat to him, and he has painted them with an exceedingly intelligent -power, masculine taste, and a learning which never loses itself in -unnecessary detail. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ ANTOINE VOLLON.] - -The delicate physiognomy of women, the _frou-frou_ of exquisite -toilettes, the dreaminess, the fragrance, the coquetry of the modern -Sphinx, were no concern of his. On the other hand, his masculine -portraits will always keep their interest, if only on historical -grounds. In all of them he laid great stress on characteristic -accessories, and could indicate in the simplest way the thinker, the -musician, the scholar, and the statesman. One remembers his pictures as -though they were phrases uttered with conviction, though a German does -not hesitate to place Lenbach far above Bonnat as a psychologist. The -latter has not the power of seizing the momentary effect, the intimacy, -the personal note, the palpitating life peculiar to Lenbach. With the -intention of saying all things he often forgets the most important--the -spirit of the man and the grace of the woman. His pictures are great -pieces of still-life--exceedingly conscientious, but having something of -the conscientiousness of an actuary copying a tedious protocol. The -portrait of Léon Cogniet, the teacher of the master, with his aged face, -his spectacled eyes, and his puckered hands (Musée Luxembourg), is -perhaps the only likeness in which Bonnat rivals Lenbach in depth of -characterisation. His pictorial strength is always worthy of respect; -but, for the sake of variety, the _esprit_ is for once on the side of -the German. - -Ruled by a passion for the Spanish masters, such as Bonnat possessed, -_Roybet_ painted cavaliers of the seventeenth century, and other -historical pictures of manners, which are distinguished, to their -advantage, from older pictures of their type, because it is not the -historical anecdote but the pictorial idea which is their basis. All the -earlier painters were rather bent upon archæological accuracy than on -pictorial charm in the treatment of such themes. Roybet revelled in the -rich hues of old costumes, and sometimes attained, before he strained -his talent in the Procrustean bed of pictures of great size, a bloom and -a strong, glowing tone which rival the old masters. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - VOLLON. A CARNIVAL SCENE.] - -In all periods which have learnt to see the world through a pictorial -medium, still-life has held an important place in the practice of art. A -technical instinct, which is in itself art, delights in investing -musical instruments, golden and silver vessels, fruit and other -eatables, glasses and goblets, coverings of precious work, gauntlets and -armour, all imaginable _petit-riens_, with an artistic magic, in -recognising and executing pictorial problems everywhere. After the -transition from historical and _genre_ painting had been made to -painting proper there once more appeared great painters of still-life in -France as there did in Chardin's days. - -Yet _Blaise Desgoffe_, who painted piecemeal and with laborious patience -goldsmith's work, crystal vases, Venetian glass, and such things, is -certainly rather petty. In France he was the chief representative of -that precise and detailed painting which understands by art a deceptive -imitation of objects, and sees its end attained when the holiday public -gathers round the pictures as the birds gathered round the grapes of -Zeuxis. - -It is as if an old master had revived in _Philippe Rousseau_. He had the -same earnest qualities as the Dutch and Flemish Classic masters--a -broad, liquid, pasty method of execution, a fine harmony of clear and -powerful tones--and with all this a marvellous address in so composing -objects that no trace of "composition" is discernible. His work arose -from the animal picture. His painting of dogs and cats is to be ranked -with the best of the century. He makes a fourth with Gillot, Chardin, -and Decamps, the great painters of monkeys. As a decorator of genius, -like Hondekoeter, he embellished a whole series of dining-halls with -splendidly coloured representations of poultry, and, like Snyders, he -heaped together game, dead and living fowl, fruit, lobsters, and oysters -into huge life-size masses of still-life. Behind them the cook may be -seen, and thievish cats steal around. But, like Kalf, he has also -painted, with an exquisite feeling for colour, Japanese porcelain bowls -with bunches of grapes, quinces, and apricots, metal and ivory work, -helmets and fiddles, against that delicate grey-brown-green tone of -background which Chardin loved. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - BONVIN. THE COOK.] - -_Antoine Vollon_ became the greatest painter of still-life in the -century. Indeed, Vollon is as broad and nervous as Desgoffe is precise -and pedantic. Flowers, fruit, and fish--they are all painted in with a -firm hand, and shine out of the dark background with a full liquid -freshness of colour. He paints dead salt-water fish like Abraham van -Beyeren, grapes and crystal goblets like Davids de Heem, dead game like -Frans Snyders, skinned pigs like Rembrandt and Maes. He is a master in -the representation of freshly gathered flowers, delicate vegetables, -copper kettles, weapons, and suits of armour. Since Chardin no painter -depicted the qualities of the skin of fresh fruit, its life and its play -of colour, and the moist bloom that rests upon it, with such fidelity to -nature. His fish in particular will always remain the wonder of all -painters and connoisseurs. But landscapes, Dutch canal views, and -figure-pictures are also to be found amongst his works. He has painted -everything that is picturesque, and the history of art must do him -honour as, in a specifically pictorial sense, one of the greatest in the -century. A soft grey-brown wainscoting, a black and white Pierrot -costume, and a white table-cloth and dark green vegetables--such is the -harmony of colour which he chiefly loved in his figure-pictures. - -On the same purely pictorial grounds nuns became very popular in -painting, as their white hoods and collars standing out against a black -dress gave the opportunity for such a fine effect of tone. This was the -province in which poor _François Bonvin_ laboured. Deriving from the -Dutch, he conceived an enthusiasm for work, silence, the subdued shining -of light in interiors, cold days, the slow movements and peaceful faces -of nuns, and painted kitchen scenes with a strong personal accent. -Before he took up painting he was for a long time a policeman, and was -employed in taking charge of the markets. Here he acquired an eye for -the picturesqueness of juicy vegetables, white collars, and white hoods, -and when he had a day free he studied Lenain and Chardin in the Louvre. -Bonvin's pictures have no anecdotic purport. Drinkers, cooks, orphan -children in the schoolroom, sempstresses, choristers, sisters of mercy, -boys reading, women in church, nuns conducting a sewing-class--Bonvin's -still, picturesque, congenial world is made up of elements such as -these. What his people may think or do is no matter: they are only meant -to create an effect as pictorial tones in space. During his journey to -Holland he had examined Metsu, Frans Hals, Pieter de Hoogh, Terborg, and -Van der Meer with an understanding for their merits, but it was Chardin -in both his phases--as painter of still-life and of familiar events--who -was in a special sense revived in Bonvin. All his pictures are simple -and quiet; his figures are peaceful in their expression, and have an -easy geniality of pose; his hues have a beauty and fulness of tone -recalling the old masters. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - BONVIN. THE WORK-ROOM.] - -Even _Théodule Ribot_, the most eminent of the group, one of the most -dexterous executants of the French school, a master who for power of -expression is worthy of being placed between Frans Hals and Ribera, made -a beginning with still-life. He was born in 1823, in a little town of -the department of Eure. Early married and poor, he supported himself at -first by painting frames for a firm of mirror manufacturers, and only -reserved the hours of the evening for his artistic labours. In -particular he is said to have accustomed himself to work whole nights -through by lamplight, while he nursed his wife during a long illness, -watching at her bedside. The lamplight intensified the contrasts of -light and shadow. Thus Ribot's preference for concentrated light and -strong shadows is partially due, in all probability, to what he had -gone through in his life, and in later days Ribera merely bestowed upon -him a benediction as his predecessor in the history of art. - -[Illustration: RIBOT. THE STUDIO.] - -His first pictures from the years 1861 to 1865 were, for the most part, -scenes from household and kitchen life: cooks, as large as life, -plucking poultry, setting meat before the fire, scouring vessels, or -tasting sauces; sometimes, also, figures in the streets; but even here -there was a strong accentuation of the element of still-life. There were -men with cooking utensils, food, dead birds, and fish. Then after 1865 -there followed a number of religious pictures which, in their hard, -peasant-like veracity and their impressive, concentrated life, stood in -the most abrupt contrast with the conventionally idealised figures of -the academicians. His "Jesus in the Temple," no less than "Saint -Sebastian" and "The Good Samaritan"--all three in the Musée -Luxembourg--are works of simple and forceful grandeur, and have a -thrilling effect which almost excites dismay. Sebastian is no smiling -saint gracefully embellished with wounds, but a suffering man, with the -blood streaming from his veins, stretched upon the earth; yet -half-raising himself, a cry of agony upon his lips, and his whole body -contorted by spasms of pain. In his "Jesus in the Temple," going on -parallel lines with Menzel, he proclaims the doctrine that it is only -possible to pour new life-blood into traditional figures by a tactful -choice of models from popular life around. And in "The Good Samaritan," -also, he was only concerned to paint, with naturalistic force, the body -of a wounded man lying in the street, a thick-set French peasant robbed -of his clothes. From the seventies his specialty was heads--separate -figures of weather-beaten old folk, old women knitting or writing, old -men reading or lost in thought; and these will always be ranked with the -greatest masterpieces of the century. Ribot attains a remarkable effect -when he paints those expressive faces of his, which seem to follow you -with their looks, and are thrown out from the darkness of his canvas. A -black background, in which the dark dresses of his figures are -insensibly lost, a luminous head with such eyes as no one of the -century has ever painted, wrinkled skin and puckered old hands rising -from somewhere--one knows not whence--these are things which all lend -his figures something phantasmal, superhuman, and ghostly. Ribot is the -great king of the under-world, to which a sunbeam only penetrates by -stealth. Before his pictures one has the sense of wandering in a deep, -deep shaft of some mine, where all is dark and only now and then a -lantern glimmers. No artist, not even Ribera, has been a better painter -of old people, and only Velasquez has painted children who have such -sparkling life. Ribot worked in Colombes, near Paris, to which place he -had early withdrawn, in a barn where only tiny dormer-windows let in two -sharp rays of light. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - RIBOT. AT A NORMAN INN.] - -By placing his canvas beneath one window and his model beneath the -other, in a dim light which allowed only one golden ray to fall upon the -face, he isolated it completely from its surroundings, and in this way -painted the parts illuminated with the more astonishing effect. No one -had the same power in modelling a forehead, indicating the bones beneath -the flesh, and rendering all the subtleties of skin. A terrible and -intense life is in his figures. His old beggars and sailors especially -have something kingly in the grand style of their noble and quiet faces. -An old master with a powerful technique, a painter of the force and -health of Jordaens, has manifested himself once more in Ribot. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - RIBOT. KEEPING ACCOUNTS.] - -Courbet's principles, accordingly, had won all down the line, in the -course of a few years. "It is only Ribera, Zurbaran, and Velasquez that -I admire; Ostade and Craesbeeck also allure me; and for Holbein I feel -veneration. As for M. Raphael, there is no doubt that he has painted -some interesting portraits, but I cannot find any ideas in him." In -these words he had prophesied as early as 1855 the course which French -art would take in the next decade. When Courbet appeared the grand -painting stood in thraldom to the _beauté suprême_, and the æsthetic -conceptions of the time affected the treatment of contemporary subjects. -Artists had not realism enough to give truth and animation to these -themes. When Cabanel, Hamon, and Bouguereau occasionally painted beggars -and orphans, they were bloodless phantoms, because by beautifying the -figures they deprived them of character in the effort to give them, -approximately, the forms of historical painting. Because painters did -not regard their own epoch, because they had been accustomed to consider -living beings merely as elements of the second and third rank, they -never discovered the distinctiveness of their essential life. Like a -traveller possessed by one fixed mania, they made a voyage round the -world, thinking only how they might adapt living forms to those which -their traditional training recommended as peculiarly right and alone -worthy of art. Even portrait painting was dominated by this false -method, of rendering figures as types, of improving the features and the -contour of bodies, and giving men the external appearance of fair, ideal -figures. - -But now the sway of the Cinquecento has been finally broken. A fresh -breeze of realism from across the Pyrenees has taken the place of the -sultry Italian sirocco. From the pictures of the Neapolitans, the -Spaniards, and the Dutch it has been learnt that the joys and sorrows of -the people are just as capable of representation as the actions of gods -and heroes, and under the influence of these views a complete change in -the cast has taken place. - -[Illustration: _L'Art._ - - RIBOT. ST. SEBASTIAN, MARTYR.] - -The figures which in 1855 filled Courbet's picture "The -Studio"--beggar-women, agricultural labourers, artisans, sailors, -tippling soldiers, buxom girls, porters, rough members of the -proletariat of uncouth stature--now crowd the stage of French art, and -impart even to the heroes of history, bred through centuries from -degenerated gods, something of their full-blooded, rough, hearty, and -plebeian force of life. The artists of Italian taste only gave the -rights of citizenship to "universal forms"; every reminiscence of -national customs or of local character was counted vulgar; they did not -discover the gold of beauty in the rich mines of popular life, but in -the classic masters of foreign race. But now even what is unearthly is -translated into the terms of earth. If religious pictures are to be -painted, artists take men from the people for their model, as Caravaggio -did before them--poor old peasants with bones of iron, and bronzed, -weather-beaten faces, porters with figures bowed and scarred by labour, -men of rough, common nature, though of gnarled and sinewy muscles. The -pictures of martyrs, once artificial compositions of beautiful gesture -and vacant, generalised countenances, receive a tone local to the -scaffold, a trait of merciless veracity--the heads the energy of a -relief, the gestures force and impressiveness, the bodies a science in -their modelling which would have rejoiced Ribera. As Caravaggio said -that the more wrinkles his model had the more he liked him, so no one -is any longer repelled by horny hands, tattered rags, and dirty feet. In -the good periods of art it is well known that the beauty or uncomeliness -of a work has nothing to do with the beauty or uncomeliness of the -model, and that the most hideous cripple can afford an opportunity for -making the most beautiful work. The old doctrine of Leonardo, that every -kind of painting is portrait painting, and that the best artists are -those who can imitate nature in the most convincing way, comes once more -into operation. The apotheosis of the model has taken the place of -idealism. And during these same years England reached a similar goal by -another route. - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Leopold Boilly: - - Jules Houdoy: "L'Art," 1877, iv 63, 81. - -On the History of Caricature in General: - - J. P. Malcolm: An Historical Sketch of the Art of Caricaturing. - London, 1813. - - Th. Wright: A History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and - Art. London, 1875. - - Arsène Alexandre: L'Art du rire. Paris, 1892. - - E. Bayard: La caricature et les caricaturistes. Paris, 1900. - - Fuchs und Krämer: Die Karikatur der europäischen Völker vom Altertum - bis zur Neuzeit. Berlin, 1901. - -On the English Caricaturists: - - Victor Champier: La caricature anglaise contemporaine, "L'Art," 1875, - i 29, 293, ii 300, iii 277 and 296. - - Ernest Chesneau: Les livres à caricatures en Angleterre, "Le Livre," - Novembre 1881. - - Augustin Filon: La caricature en Angleterre, W. Hogarth, "Revue des - Deux Mondes," 15 Janvier 1885. - - Graham Everitt: English Caricaturists and Graphic Humorists of the - Nineteenth Century. How they illustrated and interpreted their Times. - With 67 Illustrations. London, 1886. - -Rowlandson: - - C. M. Westmacott: The Spirit of the Public Journals. 3 vols. - 1825-1826. - - Joseph Grego: Thomas Rowlandson, the Caricaturist. A selection from - his works, with anecdotal descriptions of his famous Caricatures and a - sketch of his Life, Times, and Contemporaries. With about 400 - Illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1880. - - F. G. Stephens: Thomas Rowlandson the Humorist, "Portfolio," 1891, - 141. - -Cruikshank: - - Cruikshankiana. Engravings by Richard Dighton. London, 1855. - - F. G. Stephens: G. Cruikshank, "Portfolio," 1872, 77. - - G. W. Reid: Complete Catalogue of the Engraved Works of George - Cruikshank. London, 1873. - - G. A. Sala: George Cruikshank, a Life Memory, "Gentleman's Magazine," - 1878. - - William Bates: George Cruikshank, the Artist, the Humorist, and the - Man. With Illustrations and Portraits. London and Birmingham, 1878. - - Frederick Wedmore: Cruikshank, "Temple Bar," April 1878. - - W. B. Jerrold: The Life of George Cruikshank. 2 vols. 1882. - - H. Thornber: The Early Work of George Cruikshank. 1887. - - F. G. Stephens: A Memoir of George Cruikshank. London, 1891. - - R. F. H. Douglas: Catalogue of Works by Cruikshank. London, 1903. - -John Leech: - - Ernest Chesneau: Un humoriste anglais, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1875, - i 532. - - John Brown: John Leech, and Other Papers. Edinburgh, 1882. - - F. G. Kitton: John Leech, Artist and Humorist. London, 1884. - - <b>George Du Maurier:</b> - - "L'Art," 1876, iv 279. See also English Society at Home. Fol. London, - 1880. - -Charles Keene: - - Claude Phillips: Charles Keene, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1891, i 327. - - G. L. Layard: The Life and Letters of Charles Keene. London, 1892. - -On the German Draughtsmen: - - Beiträge zur Geschichte der Caricatur, "Zeitschrift für Museologie," - 1881, 13 ff. - - J. Grand-Carteret: Les moeurs et la caricature en Allemagne, en - Autriche, en Suisse. Paris, 1885. - - R. v. Seydlitz: Die moderne Caricatur in Deutschland, "Zur guten - Stunde," Mai 1891. - - Hermann: Die deutsche Karikatur im 19 Jahrhundert. Bielefeld, 1901. - -Johann Christian Erhard: - - Alois Apell: Das Werk von Johann Christian Erhard. Leipzig, 1866-75. - -Johann Adam Klein: - - F. M.: Verzeichniss der von Johann Adam Klein gezeichneten und - radirten Blätter. Stuttgart, 1853. - - John: Das Werk von Johann Adam Klein. Munich, 1863. - -Ludwig Richter: - - Richter-Album. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1861. - - Jahn, in Richter-Album, and in the Biographische Aufsätze. Leipzig, - 1867. - - W. Heinrichsen: Ueber Richters Holzschnitte. Carlsruhe, 1870. - - Johann F. Hoff: Adrian Ludwig Richter, Maler und Radirer. List and - description of his works, with a biographical sketch by H. Steinfeld. - Dresden, 1871. - - L. Richter's Landschaften. Text by H. Lücke. Leipzig, 1875. - - Georg Scherer: Aus der Jugendzeit. Leipzig, 1875. Ernst und Scherz. - Leipzig, 1875. - - Deutsche Art und Sitte. Published by G. Scherer. Leipzig, 1876. - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts, i. Nördlingen, - 1877, pp. 57 ff. - - A. Springer: Zum 80 Geburtstag Ludwig Richter's, "Zeitschrift für - bildende Kunst," 1883, pp. 377-386. - - J. E. Wessely: Adrian Ludwig Richter zum 80 Geburtstag. A Monograph. - "Graphische Künste," 1884, vi 1. - - Obituary: "Allgemeine Zeitung," 1884, No. 175; "Allgemeine - Kunst-Chronik," 1884, 26; G. Weisse, "Deutsches Künstlerblatt," iii 1. - - Lebenserinnerungen eines deutschen Malers: Autobiography of Ludwig - Richter. Published by Heinrich Richter. Frankfurt a. M., 1886. - - Robert Waldmüller: Ludwig Richter's religiöse Entwickelung. - "Gegenwart," 37, pp. 198, 218. - - Veit Valentin: Kunst, Künstler, und Kunstwerke. 1889. - - Richard Meister: Land und Leute in Ludwig Richter's - Holzschnitt-Bildern. Leipzig, 1889. - - Die vervielfältigende Kunst der Gegenwart. Edited by C. v. Lützow. - Vol. i. Woodcut Engravings. Wien, 1890. - - H. Gerlach: Ludwig Richters Leben, dem deutschen Volke erzählt. - Dresden, 1891. - - Budde: Ludwig Richter, "Preussische Jahrbücher." Bd. 87. Berlin, 1897. - - P. Mohn: Ludwig Richter, "Künstlermonographien," Edited by Knackfuss. - Bd. 14. 2 Aufl. Bielefeld, 1898. - - J. Erler: Ludwig Richter, der Maler des deutschen Hauses. Leipzig, - 1898. - - David Ludwig Koch: Ludwig Richter. Stuttgart, 1903. - -Albert Hendschel: - - J. E. Wessely: Aus Albert Hendschels Bildermappe, "Vom Fels zum Meer," - 1883, iii 3. - - Obituary: "Le Portefeuille," 1884, 30. - - F. Luthmer: Albert Hendschel. "Vom Fels zum Meer," December 1884. - -W. Busch: - - Paul Lindau: "Nord und Süd," 1878, iv 257. - - Eduard Daelen: W. Busch, "Kunst für Alle," 1887, ii 217. - - See Busch-Album, Humoristischer Hausschatz. Collection of the twelve - most popular works, with 1400 pictures. München, 1885. - -Adolf Oberländer: - - Adolf Bayersdorfer: Adolf Oberländer, "Kunst für Alle," 1888, iv 49. - - Robert Stiassny: Zur Geschichte der deutschen Caricatur, "Neue Freie - Presse," 20th August 1889. - - Hermann Essenwein: Adolf Oberländer, "Moderne Illustratoren." Bd. 5. - Munich, 1903. - - See Oberländer-Album. 7 vols. Munich, Braun & Schneider, 1881-89. - -On the French Draughtsmen: - - Champfleury: Histoire générale de la caricature. 5 vols. Paris, - 1856-80. - - J. Grand-Carteret: Les moeurs et la caricature en France. Paris, 1888. - - Armand Dayot: Les Maîtres de la caricature au XIX siècle. 115 - facsimilés de grand caricatures en noir, 5 facsimilés de lithographies - en couleurs. Paris, 1888. - - Henri Béraldi: Les graveurs du XIX siècle. Paris, 1885. - - Paul Mantz: La caricature moderne, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1888, i - 286. - - Augustin de Buisseret: Les caricaturistes français, "L'Art," 1888, ii - 91. - -Moreau: - - J. F. Mahérault: L'oeuvre de Moreau le jeune. Paris, 1880. - - A. Moureau: Les Moreau in "Les artistes célèbres." 1903. - - Emanuel Bocher: Jean Michel Moreau le jeune. Paris, 1882. - -Debucourt: - - Roger Portalis and Henri Béraldi: Les graveurs du XVIII siècle, vol. - i. Paris, 1880. - - Henri Bouchot, in "Les artistes célèbres." 1905. - -Carle Vernet: - - Amédée Durande: Joseph Carle, et Horace Vernet. Paris, 1865. - - A. Genevay: Carle Vernet, "L'Art," 1877, i 73, 96. - -Henri Monnier: - - Philippe Burty: "L'Art," 1877, ii 177. - - Champfleury: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1877, i 363. - - Champfleury: Henri Monnier, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1879. - -Daumier: - - Champfleury: L'oeuvre de Daumier, Essai de catalogue, "L'Art," 1878, - ii 217, 252, 294. - - Eugène Montrosier: La caricature politique, H. Daumier, "L'Art," 1878, - ii 25. - - H. Billung: H. Daumier, "Kunstchronik," 24, 1879. - - Arsène Alexandre: Honoré Daumier, l'homme et son oeuvre. Paris, 1890. - - H. Frantz: Daumier and Gavarni. London, 1904. - - Erich Klossowski: H. Daumier. Stuttgart, 1906. - -Guys: - - Baudelaire: Le peintre de la vie moderne, in the volume "L'Art - romantique" of his complete works. Paris, 1869. - -Gavarni: - - Manières de voir et façons de penser, par Gavarni, précédé d'une étude - par Charles Yriarte. Paris, 1869. - - Edmond et Jules de Goncourt: Gavarni, l'Homme et l'Oeuvre. Paris, - 1873. - - Armelhault et Bocher: Catalogue raisonné de l'Oeuvre de Gavarni. - Paris, 1873. - - G. A. Simcox: "Portfolio," 1874, p. 56. - - Georges Duplessis: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1875, ii 152, 211. - - Georges Duplessis: Gavarni, Étude, ornée de 14 dessins inédits. Paris, - 1876. - - Ph. de Chennevières: Souvenirs d'un Directeur des Beaux-Arts, IIIième - partie. Paris, 1876. - - Bruno Walden: "Unsere Zeit," 1881, ii 926. - - Eugène Forgues: Gavarni, in "Les artistes célèbres." Paris, 1887. - - See also Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis. Henri Béraldi, Graveurs du XIX - siècle. Oeuvres choisies de Gavarni. 4 vols. Paris, 1845-48. - -Gustave Doré: - - K. Delorme, Gustave Doré, peintre, sculpteur, dessinateur, graveur. - Avec gravures et photographies hors texte. Paris, Baschet, 1879. - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 105. - - Obituary: "Magazine of Art," March 1883; Fernand Brouet: "Revue - artistique," March 1883; Dubufe: "Nouvelle Revue," March and April - 1883; A. Michel: "Revue Alsacienne," February 1883; "Chronique des - Arts," 1883, p. 4; "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1883; A. Hustin, - "L'Art," 1883, p. 424. - - Van Deyssel: Gustave Doré, "De Dietsche Warande," iv 5. - - Blanche Roosevelt: Life and Reminiscences of Gustave Doré. London, - 1885. - - Claude Phillips: Gustave Doré, "Portfolio," 1891, p. 249. - -Cham: - - Marius Vachon: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1879, ii 443. - - Felix Ribeyre: Cham, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1884. - - Cham-Album. 3 vols. Paris. Without date. - -Grévin: - - Ad. Racot: Portraits d'aujourd'hui. Paris, 1891. - - -CHAPTER XVII - -Barry: - - The Works of James Barry, Esq.--to which is prefixed some account of - the Life and the Writings of the Author. 2 vols. London, 1809. - - J. J. Hittorf: Notice historique et biographique de Sir J. Barry. - 1860. - - - Alfred Barry: The Life and Works of Sir J. Barry. London, 1867. - - Sidney Colvin: James Barry, "Portfolio," 1873, p. 150. - - H. Trueman Wood: Pictures of James Barry at the Society of Arts. - London, 1880. - -Benjamin West: - - John Galt: The Life, Studies, and Works of Benjamin West. London, - 1820. Second Edition, 1826. - - Sidney Colvin: "Portfolio," 1873, p. 150. - - See also Cornelius Gurlitt: Die amerikanische Malerei in Europa, "Die - Kunst unserer Zeit," 1893. - -Fuseli: - - J. Knowles: Life and Works of Henry Fuseli. 3 vols. London, 1831. - - Sidney Colvin: Henry Fuseli, "Portfolio," 1873, p. 50. - -Stothard: - - Anna Eliza Bray: Life of Thomas Stothard. London, 1851. - -Opie: - - John J. Rogers: Opie and his Works, being a Catalogue of 760 Pictures - by John Opie, R. A. Preceded by a biographical sketch. London, 1878. - - Claude Phillips: John Opie, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1892, i 299. - -Northcote: - - John Thackeray Bunce: James Northcote, R. A., "Fortnightly Review," - June 1876. - -Copley: - - A. T. Perkins: A Sketch of the Life and a List of the Works of John - Singleton Copley. London, 1873. - -Haydon: - - Life of B. R. Haydon, Historical Painter, from his Autobiography, - edited by Tom Taylor. 3 vols. London, 1853. - -Maclise: - - James Dafforne: Pictures by Maclise. London, 1871. - - James Dafforne: Leslie and Maclise. London, 1872. - -Etty: - - A. Gilchrist: Life of W. Etty, R. A. 2 vols. London, 1855. - - P. G. Hamerton: Etty, "Portfolio," 1875, p. 88. - - W. C. Monkhouse: Pictures by William Etty, with Descriptions. London, - 1874. - -Edward Armitage: - - J. Beavington-Atkinson: "Portfolio," 1870, p. 49. - -Romney: - - William Hagley: The Life of George Romney. London, 1809. - - Rev. John Romney (son of the painter): Memoirs of the life and - Writings of George Romney. London, 1830. - - P. Selvatico: Il pittore Sir Giorgio Romney ed Emma Lyon, "Arte ed - Artisti," p. 143. Padova, 1863. - - Sidney Colvin: George Romney, "Portfolio," 1873, pp. 18 and 34. - - Lord Ronald Gower: Romney and Lawrence. London, 1882. - - T. H. Ward and W. Roberts: Romney, A biographical and critical essay, - with a catalogue raisonné of his works. London, 1904. - - G. Paston: George Romney, etc. (Little Books on Art). London, 1903. - -Thomas Lawrence: - - D. E. Williams: The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence. 2 - vols. With 3 Portraits. London, 1831. - - F. Lewis: Imitations of Sir Thomas Lawrence's Finest Drawings. 1 vol. - Reproductions in crayon. London, 1839. - - A. Genevay: "L'Art," 1875, iii 385. - - Th. de Wyzewa: Thomas Lawrence et la Société anglaise de son temps, - "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1891, i 119, ii 112, 335. - - Lord Ronald Gower: Romney and Lawrence. London, 1882. - -Raeburn: - - Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn, photographed by Thomas Asman, with - biographical sketches. Fol. Edinburgh. No date. - - Exhibition of Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn, "Art Journal," 1876, p. - 349. - - Alexander Fraser: Henry Raeburn, "Portfolio," 1879, p. 200. - - Andrew William Raeburn: Life of Sir Henry Raeburn. With 2 Portraits. - London, 1886. - - Sir W. Armstrong: Sir Henry Raeburn, etc. London, 1901. - -George Morland: - - John Hassell: Life of the late George Morland. London, 1804. - - William Collins, Memoirs of George Morland. London, 1806. - - F. W. Blagdon: Authentic Memoirs of the late George Morland. London, - 1806. - - G. Dawe: The Life of George Morland. London, 1807. - - Walter Armstrong: George Morland, "Portfolio," 1885, p. 1. - - Some Notes on George Morland: From the Papers of James Ward, R. A., - "Portfolio," 1886, p. 98. - - Other Biographies by R. Richardson, 1895. J. T. Nettleship, 1898; and - Williamson, 1904. - -James Ward: - - F. G. Stephens: "Portfolio," 1886, pp. 8, 32, 45. - -Landseer: - - F. G. Stephens: The Early Works of Edwin Landseer. 16 Photographs. - London, 1869. New Edition under the title: Memoirs of Sir Edwin - Landseer. London, 1874. - - F. G. Stephens: "Portfolio," 1871, p. 165. - - James Dafforne: Pictures by Sir Edwin Landseer, R. A. With - descriptions and a biographical sketch of the painter. London, 1873. - - James Dafforne: Studies and Sketches by Sir Edwin Landseer, "Art - Journal," 1875, passim. - - Catalogue of the Works of Sir Edwin Landseer, "Art Journal," 1875, p. - 317. - - J. Beavington-Atkinson: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1875, pp. - 129 and 163. - - M. M. Heaton: "Academy," 1879, p. 378. - - Edw. Leonidas: Sir Edwin Landseer, "Nederlandsche Kunstbode," 1881, p. - 50. - - F. G. Stephens: Sir Edwin Landseer. London, 1881. - - F. G. Stephens: Landseer, the Dog Painter, "Portfolio," 1885, p. 32. - - J. A. Manson: Sir Edwin Landseer. London, 1902. - - <f><b>On the English Genre Painters:</f></b> - - Frederick Wedmore: The Masters of Genre Painting. With 16 - Illustrations. London, 1880. - -Wilkie: - - Allan Cunningham: Life of Wilkie. 3 vols. London, 1843. - - Mrs. C. Heaton: The Great Works of Sir David Wilkie. 26 Photographs. - London and Cambridge, 1868. - - A. L. Simpson: The Story of Sir David Wilkie. London, 1879. - - J. W. Mollet: Sir David Wilkie. London, 1881. - - Feuillet de Conches: Sir David Wilkie, "Artiste," August 1883. - - F. Rabbe, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - E. Pinnington: Sir David Wilkie, etc. (Famous Scots Series). London, - 1900. - - W. Bayne: Sir David Wilkie, etc. (Makers of British Art). London, - 1903. - -William Collins: - - W. Wilkie Collins: Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq. 2 - vols. London, 1848. - -William Powell Frith: - - My Autobiography and Reminiscences. London, 1887. - - Further Reminiscences. London, 1898. - -Mulready: - - Sir Henry Cole: Biography of William Mulready, R. A. Notes of - Pictures, etc. No date. - - F. G. Stephens: Memorials of Mulready. 14 Photographs. London, 1867. - - James Dafforne: Pictures by Mulready. London, 1873. - - F. G. Stephens: William Mulready, "Portfolio," 1887, pp. 85 and 119. - - R. Liebreich: Turner and Mulready. London, 1888. - -Leslie: - - James Dafforne: Pictures by Leslie. Plates. London, 1873. - - Autobiographical recollections, edited by Tom Taylor. London, 1860. - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -In General: - - Arsène Alexandre: Histoire de la peinture militaire en France. Paris, - 1890. - -Horace Vernet: - - L. Ruutz-Rees: Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche. Illustrations. - London, 1879. - - Amédée Durande: Josephe, Carle, et Horace Vernet, Correspondence et - Biographies. Paris, 1865. - - Theophile Silvestre: Les artistes français, p. 355. - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains. Paris, 1873, p. - 65. - - A. Dayot: Les Vernet. Paris, 1898. - -Charlet: - - De la Combe: Charlet, sa vie et ses lettres. Paris, 1856. - - Eugène Veron: "L'Art," 1875, i 193, 217. - - F. L'homme, in "Les artistes célèbres." Paris, 1893. - -Raffet: - - Auguste Bry: Raffet, sa vie et ses oeuvres. Paris, 1874. - - Georges Duplessis: "L'Art," 1879, i 76. - - Notes et croquis de Raffet, mis en ordre et publiés par Auguste Raffet - fils. Paris, Amand-Durand, 1879. - - Henri Béraldi: Raffet, Peintre National. Paris, 1891. - - F. L'homme, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - A. Dayot: Raffet et son oeuvre, etc. Paris, 1892. - - <f><b><b>On the Young Military Painters:</b></f> - - Eugène Montrosier: Les Peintres militaires, contenant les biographies - de Neuville, Detaille, Berne-Bellecour, Protais, etc. Paris, 1881. - - Jules Richard: En campagne. Tableaux et dessins de Meissonier, - Detaille, Neuville, etc. 2 vols. Paris, 1889. - -Bellangé: - - Francis Wey: Exposition des oeuvres d'Hippolyte Bellangé, Étude - biographique. Paris, 1867. - - Jules Adeline: Hippolyte Bellangé et son oeuvre. Paris, 1880. - -Protais: - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains. Paris, 1873, p. - 150. - -Pils: - - L. Becq de Fouquières: Isidore Pils, sa vie et ses oeuvres. Paris, - 1876. - - Roger-Ballu: L'oeuvre de Pils, "L'Art," 1876, i 232-258. - -Neuville: - - Alfred de Lostalot: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1885, ii 164. - -Detaille: - - Jules Claretie: L'Art et les artistes français contemporains. Paris, - 1876, p. 56. - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 249. - - G. Goetschy: Les jeunes peintres militaires. Paris, 1878. - -Régamey: - - E. Chesneau: Notice sur G. Régamey. Paris, 1870. - - Eugène Montrosier: "L'Art," 1879, ii 25. - -Albrecht Adam: - - Albrecht Adam: Autobiography, 1786-1862. Edited by H. Holland. - Stuttgart, 1886. - - Das Werk der Münchener Künstlerfamilie Adam. Reproductions after - originals by the painters Albrecht, Benno, Emil, Eugen, Franz and - Julius Adam. Text by H. Holland. Nuremberg, Soldan, 1890. - -P. Hess: - - H. Holland: P. v. Hess. München, 1871. Originally in "Oberbayerisches - Archiv," vol. xxxi. - -F. Krüger: - - A. Rosenberg: Aus dem alten Berlin, Franz Krüger-Ausstellung, - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1881, xvi 337. - - H. Mackowski, in "Das Museum," vi 41. See Vor 50 Jahren, - Porträtskizzen berühmter und bekannter Persönlickkeiten von F. Krüger. - Berlin, 1883. - -Franz Adam: - - Friedrich Pecht: Franz Adam, "Kunst für Alle," 1887, ii 120. - -Théodor Horschelt: - - Ed. Ille: Zur Erinnerung an den Schlachtenmaler Théodor Horschelt. - München, 1871. - - H. Holland: Théodor Horschelt, sein Leben und seine Werke. München, - 1889. - -Heinrich Lang: - - H. E. von Berlepsch: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1892. - -On the more recent Düsseldorf Painters: - - Adolf Rosenberg: Düsseldorfer Kriegs- und Militärmaler, "Zeitschrift - für bildende Kunst," 1889, xxiv 228. - - -CHAPTER XIX - -Leopold Robert: - - E. J. Delécluze: Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Leopold Robert. - Paris, 1838. - - Feuillet de Conches: Leopold Robert, sa vie, ses oeuvres, et sa - correspondance. Paris, 1848. - - Charles Clement: Leopold Robert d'après sa correspondance inédite. - Paris, 1875. - -Riedel: - - H. Holland, in the "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie," 1889, and books - which are there cited. - -On the Painters of the East in General: - - Charles Gindriez: L'Algérie et les artistes, "L'Art," 1875, iii 396; - 1876, i 133. - - Hermann Helferich: Moderne Orientmaler, "Freie Bühne," 1892. - -Decamps: - - Marius Chaumelin: Decamps, sa vie et son oeuvre. Marseilles, 1861. - - Ernest Chesneau: Mouvement moderne en peinture: Decamps. Paris, 1861. - - Ad. Moreau: Decamps et son oeuvre, avec des gravures en facsimilé des - planches originales les plus rares. Paris, 1869. - - M. E. Im-Thurn: Scheffer et Decamps. Nîmes, 1876. (Extr. des Mém. de - l'Académie du Gard, année 1875.) - - Charles Clement, in "Les artistes célèbres." Paris, 1886. - -Marilhat: - - G. Gonnot: Marilhat et son oeuvre. Clermont, 1884. - -Fromentin: - - Jean Rousseau: "L'Art," 1877, i 11, 25. - - L. Gonse: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1878-1880. Published separately - under the title "Eugène Fromentin peintre et écrivain. Ouvrage - augmenté d'un Voyage en Egypte et d'autres notes et morçeaux inédits - de Fromentin, et illustré de 16 gravures hors texte et 45 dans le - texte." Paris, Quantin, 1881. - -Guillaumet: - - Paul Leroi: "L'Art," 1882, iii 228. - - Exposition des oeuvres de Guillaumet. Préface par Roger-Ballu. Paris, - 1888. - - Gustave Guillaumet: Tableaux algériens. Précédé d'une notice sur la - vie et les oeuvres de Guillaumet. Paris, 1888. - - Adolphe Badin: "L'Art," 1888, i 3, 39, 53. - - Ary Renan: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1887, i 404. - -Wilhelm Gentz: - - L. v. Donop: Ausstellung der Werke von Gentz in der Berliner - Nationalgalerie. Berlin, Mittler, 1890. - - Obituary in "Chronique des Arts," 1890, 29. - - Adolf Rosenberg: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1891, p. 8. - -Adolf Schreyer: - - Richard Graul: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1888, xxiii 153. - - Richard Graul, in "Graphische Künste," 1889, xii 121, and in "Velhagen - und Klasings Monatshefte," 1893. - - -CHAPTER XX - -H. Bürkel: - - C. A. R.: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1870, v 161. - - Alfred Lichtwark: Hermann Kauffmann und die Kunst in Hamburg. München, - 1893. - -Spitzweg: - - C. A. Regnet: "Münchener Künstler," 1871, ii 268-276. - - Graf Schack: "Meine Gemäldegalerie," 1881, pp. 189-191. - - O. Berggruen: "Graphische Künste," 1883, v. - - F. Pecht, Supplement "Allgemeine Zeitung," October 1885, and - "Geschichte der Münchener Kunst," 1888, p. 154. - - "Münchener Kunstvereinsbericht," 1885, p. 69. - - C. A. Regnet: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1886, xxi 77. - - Spitzweg-Album. München, Hanfstaengl, 1890. - - Spitzweg-Mappe, with preface by F. Pecht. München, Braun & Schneider, - 1890. - - H. Holland: Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 1893. - -Hermann Kauffmann: - - Alfred Lichtwark: Hermann Kauffmann und die Kunst in Hamburg, - 1800-1850. München, 1893. - -Eduard Meyerheim: - - Autobiography, supplemented by P. Meyerheim. Introduction by L. - Pietsch. With preface by B. Auerbach and the likeness of Eduard - Meyerheim. Berlin, Stilke, 1880. - - A. Rosenberg: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1881, xvi 1. - - Ludwig Pietsch: Die Künstlerfamilie Meyerheim, "Westermanns - Monatshefte," 1889, p. 397. - -Enhuber: - - Friedrich Pecht: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1868, iii 53 - -On the Viennese Genre Picture: - - C. v. Lützow: Geschichte der k. k. Akademie der bildenden Künste. - Vienna, 1877. - - R. v. Eitelberger: Das Wiener Genrebild vor dem Jahre 1848, - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1877, xii 106. Also in his collected - studies on the history of art, i 66. - - Dr. Cyriak Bodenstein: Hundert Jahre Kunstgeschichte Wiens, 1788-1888. - Wien, 1888. - - Albert Ilg: Kunstgeschichtliche Charakterbilder aus Oesterreich-Ungarn - (The Nineteenth Century, by A. Nossig). Wien, 1893. - - Ludwig Hevesi: Die österreichische Kunst im 19 Jahrhundert. Leipzig, - 1902. - -Danhauser: - - Albert Ilg: Raimund und Danhauser, in Kabdebo's - "Osterreichisch-ungarische Kunstchronik." Vienna, 1880, iii 161. - -Waldmüller: - - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1866, i 33. - - Oskar Berggruen: "Graphische Künste," x 57. - - R. v. Eitelberger: J. Danhauser und Ferdinand Waldmüller, in "Kunst - und Künstler Wiens," p. 73. (Vol. i of his works on the history of - art. Vienna, 1879.) - -Gauermann: - - R. v. Eitelberger: Friedrich Gauermann, in "Kunst und Künstler Wiens," - 1878, p. 92. (Vol. i of his works on the history of art. Vienna, - 1879.) - -Schrödter: - - Obituary by Kaulen in the "Deutsches Kunstblatt," 1884, 11 and 12. - - M. G. Zimmermann, in the "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie." - -Hasenclever: - - A. Fahne: Hasenclevers Illustrationen zur Jobsiade. Bonn, 1852. - -Rudolf Jordan: - - Friedrich Pecht: "Kunst für Alle," 1887, ii 241. - -Tidemand: - - C. Dietrichson: Adolf Tidemand, hans Liv og hans Vaerker. 2 vols. - Christiania, 1878-79. - - Adolf Tidemand, utvalgte Vaerker. 24 etchings by L. H. Fischer. - Christiania, 1878. - -Madou: - - Camille Lemonnier: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1870, i 385. - -Ferdinand de Braekeleer: - - L. v. Keymeulen: Ferdinand de Braekeleer, "Revue artistique," 1883, - pp. 170, 171. - -Biard: - - L. Boivin: Notice sur M. Biard, ses aventures, son voyage en Japonie - avec Mme. Biard, Examen critique de ses tableaux. Paris, 1842. - - Obituary in the "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," ix 1874. - Supplementary Sheet, p. 769. - - -CHAPTER XXI - -In General: - - Emil Reich: Die bürgerliche Kunst und die besitzlosen Klassen. - Leipzig, 1892. - -Tassaert: - - Bernard Prost: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1886, i 28. - -Carl Hübner: - - M. Blanckarts: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," xv 1312. - -Wiertz: - - Louis Labarre: Antoine Wiertz, étude biographique. Brussels, 1866. - - Ed. F.: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1866, i 273. - - H. Grimm: Der Maler Wiertz, in "15 Essays," New Series, Berlin, 1875, - p. 1. - - J. Beavington-Atkinson: "Portfolio," 1875, pp. 124, 133, 152. - - C. E. Clement: Antoine Jos. Wiertz, "American Art Review," 1881, 13. - - Catalogue du Musée Wiertz, précédé d'une notice biographique par Em. - de Laveleye. Brussels, 1882. - - L. Schulze Waldhausen: Anton Wiertz, "Deutsches Kunstblatt," 1882, 5; - 1883, 12. - - W. Claessens: Wiertz. Brussels, L. Hochsteyn, 1883. - - L. Dietrichson: En abnorm Kunstner. Fra Kunstverden, Kopenhagen, 1885, - p. 209. - - Max Nordau: Vom Kreml bis zur Alhambra. Leipzig, 1886, pp. 201-250. - - Robert Mielke: Antoine Wiertz, "Das Atelier," 1893, No. 66. - - -CHAPTER XXII - -Knaus: - - Alfred de Lostalot: Louis Knaus, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1882, i - 269, 316. - - V. K. Schembera: Louis Knaus, "Die Heimath," vii 40. - - L. Pietsch: Ludwig Knaus. Photographs after originals by the master. - Berlin Photographische Gesellschaft. - - Friedrich Pecht: Zu Knaus 60 Geburtstag, "Kunst für Alle," 1890, v 65. - - G. Voss: "Tägliche Rundschau," 1889, p. 233. - - L. Pietsch, Louis Knaus in the "Künstlermonographien," ed. by - Knackfuss. Bielefeld, 1896. - -Vautier: - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts. Third Series. - Nördlingen, 1881, p. 351. - - E. Heilbuth: Knaus und Vautier. Text to Behrens' work upon the - gallery, reprinted in "Kunst für Alle," 1892, 2. - - Adolf Rosenberg, Vautier in the "Künstlermonographien," ed. by - Knackfuss. Bd. 23. Bielefeld, 1897. - -Defregger: - - P. K. Rosegger: Wie Defregger Maler wurde. "Oesterr.-ungarische - Kunstchronik," 1879, iii 2. - - Friedrich Pecht: Franz Defregger, sein Leben und Wirken, "Vom Fels zum - Meer," iii 1. - - K. Raupp: Franz Defregger und seine Schule, "Wartburg," viii 4, 5. - - Ludwig Pietsch: Franz Defregger, "Westermanns Monatshefte," February - 1889. - - F. Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts. München, 1888. - - Adolf Rosenberg, in the "Künstlermonographien," ed. by Knackfuss. Bd. - 18. Bielefeld, 1893. - - Franz Hermann Meissner in the "Kunstlerbuch." Berlin, 1901. - - See also Karl Stieler und F. Defregger, Von Dahoam. München, 1888. - -Riefstahl: - - H. Holland: Wilhelm Riefstahl. Altenburg, 1889. - - M. Haushofer: "Kunst für Alle," 1889, iv 97. - - W. Lübke: "Nord und Süd," 1890, 163. - - H. E. v. Berlepsch: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1890, 8. - -Grützner: - - G. Ramberg: "Vom Fels zum Meer," 1890, 2. - - Friedrich Pecht: "Kunst für Alle," 1890, 12. - - J. Janitsch: "Nord und Süd," 1892, 182. - - Fritz von Ostini, in the "Künstlermonographien," ed. by Knackfuss. Bd. - 58. Leipzig, 1902. - -Bokelmann: - - Adolf Rosenberg: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1892. - -Gustave Brion: - - Paul Leroi: "L'Art," 1878, i 10. - -Jules Breton: - - Autobiography. Vie d'un artiste. Paris, 1891. - -The Swedish Genre Painters: - - Georg Nordensvan: Svensk Konst och Svenska Konstnärer i 19^de - Arhundradet. Stockholm, 1892. (German Translation:) Die schwedische - Kunst im 19 Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1903. - -The Hungarian Genre Painters: - - A. Ipolyi: Die bildende Kunst in Ungarn, "Ungarische Revue," 1882, 5. - - Szana Tamáz: Magyar Müvészek. Budapest, 1887. - - Heinrich Glücksmann: Die ungarische Kunst der Gegenwart, "Kunst für - Alle," 1892, vii 129, 145. - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -J. A. Koch: - - David Friedrich Strauss: Kleine Schriften biographischen, - literarischen, und kunstgeschichtlichen Inhalts. Leipzig, 1862, p. - 303. - - Th. Frimmel, in Dohmes Kunst und Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts, No. 9. - Leipzig, 1884. - - C. v. Lützow: Aus Kochs Jugendzeit, "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," - 1874, ix 65. - - See also J. A. Koch: Moderne Kunstchronik. Briefe zweier Freunde in - Rom und in der Tartarei über das moderne Kunstleben. Karlsruhe, 1834. - -Reinhart: - - Otto Baisch: Johann Christian Reinhart und seine Kreise, ein Lebens- - und Kulturbild. Leipzig, 1882. - - Friedrich Schiller und der Maler Johann Christian Reinhart. Supplement - to the "Leipziger Zeitung," 1883, 89, 90. - -Rottmann: - - A. Teichlein: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1869, iv 7, 72. - - A. Bayersdorfer: Karl Rottmann. München, 1871. Reprinted in A. - Bayersdorfer's Leben und Schriften. München, 1902. - - O. Berggruen: Die Galerie Schack, "Graphische Künste," v 1. - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts. Nördlingen, - 1879, ii pp. 1-26. - - C. A. Regnet, in Dohmes Kunst und Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts, No. - 10. - - See also Rottmann's Italienische Landschaften. After the Frescoes in - the Arcades of the Royal Garden in Munich, carried out by Steinbock. - München, Bruckmann, 1876. - -Preller: - - R. Schöne: Fr. Preller's Odysseelandschaften. Leipzig, 1863. - - L. v. Donop: Der Genelli-Fries von Fr. Preller. "Zeitschrift für - bildende Kunst," 1874, ix 321. - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts. Nördlingen, - 1877, vol. i pp. 271-289. - - C. Ruland: Zur Erinnerung an Friedrich Preller. Weimar, 1878. - - Obituary in "Unsere Zeit," 1879, 8. - - M. Jordan: Katalog der Preller Ausstellung in der Berliner - Nationalgalerie, 1879. - - A. Dürr: Preller und Goethe, "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1881, - xvi 357-365. - - J. Beavington-Atkinson: Frederick Preller, "Art Journal," 1881, 9. - - W. Lübke: Friedrich Preller, "Allgemeine Zeitung," 1882, No. 117. - - Preller und Goethe, "Allgemeine Zeitung," 1882, No. 342. - - O. Roquette: Preller und Goethe, "Gegenwart," 1883, 42. - - Friedrich J. Frommann: Zur Charakteristik Friedrich Prellers, - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1884, No. 31. - - See also Homer's Odyssee mit 40 Original compositionen von Friedrich - Preller. Leipzig, 1872. Popular edition with biography, Leipzig, 1881. - Italienisches Landschaftsbuch, zehn Originalzeichnungen von Friedrich - Preller. Carried out in wood-cut by H. Kaeseberg and K. Oertel, with - Text by Max Jordan. Leipzig, 1875. Friedrich Prellers Figurenfries zur - Odyssee. 16 Compositions reproduced in 24 coloured lithographs. - Leipzig, 1875. - -K. F. Lessing: - - Karl Koberstein: Karl Friedrich Lessing, "Nord und Süd," 14, 1880, p. - 312. - - K. F. Lessing's Briefe mitgetheilt von Th. Frimmel, "Zeitschrift für - bildende Kunst," 1881, 6. - - Rudolf Redtenbacher: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1881, xvi 2. - - M. Schasler: "Unsere Zeit," 1880, 10. - - W. Dohme: "Westermanns illustrierte Monatshefte," 1880, ix 729. - - A. Rosenberg: Lessing-Ausstellung in der Berliner Nationalgalerie, - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1880, No. 5. - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts, iii. - Nördlingen, 1881, p. 294. - -Blechen: - - Robert Dohme, in "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie," 1875. - - Ludwig Pietsch: Wie ich Schriftsteller wurde. Berlin, 1893, _passim_. - - H. Mackowsky, in the "Museum," viii. Berlin, Spemann. - -Schirmer: - - Johann Wilhelm Schirmer: Düsseldorfer Lehrjahre, "Deutsche Rundschau," - 1878. - - Alfred Woltmann, in "Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie." Works cited in - it. - -Dahl: - - Andreas Aubert: Maleren Professor Dahl 1788-1857, et Stykke av - aarhundredets Kunst- og Kulturhistorie. Kristiania, Aschehoug, 1893. - -Morgenstern: - - Obituary by Pecht: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1867, ii 80. - - Alfred Lichtwark: Hermann Kauffmann und die Kunst in Hamburg von 1800 - _bis_ 1850. München, 1893. - -Andreas Achenbach: - - Ludwig Pietsch: "Nord und Süd," 1880, xv 381. - - Friedrich Pecht: Deutsche Künstler des 19 Jahrhunderts. Third Series. - Nördlingen, 1881, p. 328. - - Theodor Levin: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1886, xxi, No. 1. - -Eduard Schleich: - - C. A. Regnet: Zu Eduard Schleichs Gedächtniss, "Zeitschrift für - bildende Kunst," 1874, ix 161. - - O. Berggruen: Die Galerie Schack, "Graphische Künste," v 1. - -Alexander Calame: - - E. H. Gaullier: Alexander Calame. Genève, 1854. (Le Musée Suisse, vol. - i.) - - H. Delaborde: La peinture de paysage en Suisse; Alexander Calame: - "Revue des Deux Mondes," Février, 1865. - - J. M. Ziegler: Mittheilungen über den Landschaftsmaler Alexander - Calame. Zurich, 1866. - - C. Meyer: Alexander Calame, "Dioskuren." Stuttgart, 1866. - - A. Bachelin: Alexander Calame. Lausanne, 1880. - - Wilhelm Rossmann, in the text to work of engravings from the Dresden - Gallery. 1881, etc. - - E. Rambert: Alexander Calame, sa vie et son oeuvre d'après les sources - originales. Paris, 1884. - - Adolf Rosenberg: "Grenzboten," 1884, ii 371. - -Gude: - - A. Rosenberg: Die Düsseldorfer Schule. "Grenzboten," 1881, 35. - - Af. Dietrichson: H. Gude liv og voerker. Kristiania, 1899. - -Eduard Hildebrandt: - - Bruno Meyer: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1869, iv 261, 336. - - F. Arndt: Eduard Hildebrandt, der Maler des Kosmos, Sein Leben und - seine Werke. Second Edition. Berlin, 1869. - - Ada Pinelli: Hildebrandt und Schirmer. Berlin, 1871. - -Louis Douzette: - - Adolf Rosenberg: "Graphische Künste," 1891, xiv 13. - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -In General: - - Victor de Laprade: Le sentiment de la nature chez les modernes. Second - Edition. Paris, 1870. - -Aligny: - - Aligny et la paysage historique, "L'Art," 1882, i 251; ii 33. - - See also the etchings Vues des Sites les plus célèbres de la Grèce - antique. Paris, 1845. - -Victor Hugo: - - Les dessins de Victor Hugo, "L'Art," 1877, i 50. - - H. Helferich: Malende Dichter, "Kunst für Alle," 1891, 21. - -Paul Huet: - - Philippe Burty: Paul Huet, Notice biographique. Paris, 1869. - - E. Legouvé: Notice sur Paul Huet. Paris, 1878. - - Ernest Chesneau: Peintres et statuaires romantiques. Paris, 1880. - - Léon Mancino: Un précurseur, "L'Art," 1883, i 49. - -On the English: - - William Bell Scott: Our British Landscape-Painters, from Samuel Scott - to D. Cox. With 16 Engravings. London, 1876. - - J. Comyns Carr: Modern Landscape. With Illustrations. Paris and - London, 1883. - -Turner: - - Alice Watts: J. M. W. Turner. London, 1851. - - John Burnet and Peter Cunningham: Turner and his Works. London, 1852. - Edition of Henry Murray. London, 1859. - - John Ruskin: Notes on the Turner Collection. London, 1857. - - Walter Thornbury: J. M. W. Turner. 2 vols. London, 1862. New Edition, - 1897. - - Philip G. Hamerton: Turner et Claude Lorrain, "L'Art," 1876, iv pp. - 270, 289. - - Philip G. Hamerton: Turner, "Portfolio," 1876, pp. 28-188; 1877, pp. - 44-145; 1878, pp. 2-178. - - A. Brunet-Desbaines: The Life of Turner. London, 1878. - - John Ruskin: Notes on his Collection of Drawings by the late J. M. W. - Turner, also a list of the engraved works of that master. London. Fine - Art Society, 1878. - - F. Wedmore: Turner's Liber Studiorum, "Academy," 1879, Nos. 377, 389, - 399, and in "L'Art," 1879, 232-234. - - Philip G. Hamerton: J. M. W. Turner. London, 1879. - - Cosmo Monkhouse: J. M. W. Turner. London, 1879. - - Hart: Turner, the Dream-Painter. London, 1879. - - A. W. Hunt: Turner in Yorkshire, "Art Journal," 1881, New Series, 1, - 2. - - W. G. Rawlinson: Turner's Liber Studiorum, "Art Journal," 1881, New - Series, 4. - - James Dafforne: The Works of J. M. W. Turner. With a biographical - sketch. London, 1883. - - G. Radford: Turner in Wharfedale, "Portfolio," May, 1884. - - Philip G. Hamerton: J. M. W. Turner, in "Les artistes célèbres." - Paris, 1889. - - Robert de la Sizeranne: Deux heures à la Turner Gallery. Paris, 1890. - - F. Wedmore: Turner and Ruskin. 2 vols. London, 1900. - -_Reproductions:_ - - The Harbours of England. London, 1856. - - Liber Studiorum, illustrative of Landscape Composition. London, - 1858-59. - - The Turner Gallery. London, 1862. - - Turner's Celebrated Landscapes. Reproduced by the Autotype Process. - London, 1870. - -A. W. Callcott: - - Sir A. W. Callcott's Italian and English Landscapes. Lithographed by - T. C. Dibdin. London, 1847. - - James Dafforne: Pictures by Sir A. W. Callcott, R. A. With - descriptions and a biographical sketch of the painter. London. No - date. - -John Crome: - - Etchings of Views in Norfolk. With a biographical memoir by Dawson - Turner. Norwich, 1838. - - J. Wodderspoon: John Crome and his Works. Norwich, 1858. - - Frederick Wedmore: John Crome, "L'Art," 1876, iii 288. - - Mary M. Heaton: John Crome, "Portfolio," 1879, pp. 33 and 48. - - R. L. Binyon: John Crome and John Sell Colman. London, 1897. - -On English Water-Colour Painting: - - Cosmo Monkhouse: The Earlier English Water-Colour Painters. London, - Seeley & Co., 1890. - - John Lewis Roget: A History of the "Old Water-Colour Society." 2 vols. - London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1891. - -Samuel Palmer: - - The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher. Edited by - A. H. Palmer. With Illustrations. 1891. - -Constable: - - Charles Robert Leslie: The Memoirs of John Constable. London, 1845. - - H. Perrier: De Hugo v. d. Goes à Constable, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," - March, 1873. - - Frederick Wedmore, "L'Art," 1878, ii 169. - - G. M. Brock-Arnold: Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable, in - "Illustrated Biographies of the Great Artists." London, Low, 1881. - - P. G. Hamerton: Constable's Sketches, "Portfolio," 1890, p. 162. - - Robert Hobart: in "Les artistes célèbres." - -_Reproductions:_ - - Various subjects of Landscape, characteristic of English Scenery, from - pictures painted by John Constable. 22 Plates. London, 1830. Second - Edition, London, 1833. - - English Landscape, from pictures painted by John Constable. 20 Plates - engraved by D. Lucas. London. No date. - - English Landscape Scenery: 40 mezzotinto engravings from pictures - painted by John Constable. Fol. London, 1855. - -David Cox: - - N. Neal Solly: Memoir of the Life of David Cox. London, 1873. - - Basil Champneys: David Cox, "Portfolio," 1873, p. 89. - - J. Beavington-Atkinson, "Portfolio," 1876, p. 9. - - Frederick Wedmore: "Gentleman's Magazine," March, 1878. - - W. Hall: David Cox. London, 1881. - -William J. Muller: - - N. Neal Solly: Memoir of the Life of William James Muller. London, - 1875. - - J. Beavington-Atkinson: William Muller, "Portfolio," 1875, pp. 164, - 185. - - Frederick Wedmore: W. Muller and his Sketches, "Portfolio," 1882, p. - 7. - -Peter de Wint: - - Walter Armstrong: Memoir of Peter de Wint. Illustrated by 24 - Photogravures. London, Macmillan & Co., 1888. - -Henry Dawson: - - Alfred Dawson: The Life of Henry Dawson, Landscape Painter, 1811-1878. - London, 1891. - -John Linnell: - - F. G. Stephens: "Portfolio," 1872, p. 45. - -Bonington: - - Al. Bouvenne: Catalogue de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié de R. P. - Bonington. Paris, 1873. - - Paul Mantz: "Gazette des Beaux Arts," 1876, ii 288. - - Edmond Saint-Raymond: Bonington et les côtes normandes de Saint Jouin, - "L'Art," 1879, i 197. - - P. G. Hamerton: A Sketchbook of Bonington at the British Museum, - "Portfolio," 1881, p. 68. - - -CHAPTER XXV - -In General: - - Roger-Ballu: Le paysage français au XIX siècle, "Nouvelle Revue," - 1881. - - John W. Mollet: The Painters of Barbizon. (1. Corot, Daubigny, Dupré; - 2. Millet, Rousseau, Diaz.) In "Illustrated Biographies of the Great - Artists." London, Low, 1890. - - David Croal Thomson: The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, - Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, etc. With One Hundred and Thirty - Illustrations. London, 1891. - - See also the articles by G. Gurlitt in "Die Gegenwart," 1891, the Text - of H. Helferich to Behrens' work on the gallery, etc. - -Théodore Rousseau: - - A. Teichlein: Théodore Rousseau und die Anfänge des Paysage intime, - "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1868, iii 281. - - Alfred Sensier: Souvenirs sur Théodore Rousseau, suivis d'une - conférence sur le Paysage et orné du portrait du maître. Paris, 1872. - - Philippe Burty: Théodore Rousseau, paysagiste, "L'Art," 1881, p. 374. - - Emile Michel, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - Walter Gensel: Millet und Rousseau, Bd. 57 in the - "Künstlermonographien" ed. by Knackfuss. Bielefeld, 1902. - -Corot: - - Edmond About: Voyage à travers L'Exposition des Beaux-Arts. Paris, - 1855. - - Henri Dumesnil: Corot, souvenirs intimes: avec un portrait dessiné par - Aimé Millet, gravé par Alphonse Leroy. Paris, Rapilly, 1875. - - Charles Blanc: Les Artistes de mon temps. Paris, 1879. - - Leleux: Corot à Montreux, "Bibliothèque universelle et Revue suisse," - September 1883. - - Alfred Robaut: Corot, peintures décoratives, "L'Art," 1883, p. 407. - - Jean Rousseau: Camille Corot: avec gravures. Paris, 1884. - - Armand Silvestre: Galerie Durand-Ruel: avec 28 gravures à l'eauforte - d'après des tableaux de Corot. Paris. No date. - - Albert Wolff: La capitale de l'Art. Paris, 1886. - - Charles Bigot: Peintres contemporains. Paris, 1888. - - L. Roger-Milès: Corot, in "Les artistes célèbres." Paris, 1891. - - Album classique des chefs d'oeuvre de Corot. Paris, 1896. - - Julius Meier-Gräfe: Corot und Courbet. Stuttgart, 1906. - -Dupré: - - Les hommes du jour: M. Jules Dupré, 1811-1879, par un critique d'art. - Paris, 1879. - - R. Ménard: "L'Art," 1879, iii 311; iv 241. - - A. Michel: "L'Art," 1883, p. 460. - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 177. - - A. Hustin, in "Les artistes célèbres." - -Diaz: - - Jules Claretie: Narcisse Diaz, "L'Art," 1875, iii 204. - - Exposition des oeuvres de Narcisse Diaz à l'école des Beaux-Arts. - Notice biographique par M. Jules Claretie. Paris, 1877. - - Roger-Ballu: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1877, i 290. - - Jean Rousseau: "L'Art," 1877, i 49. - - T. Chasrel: L'exposition de Narcisse Diaz, "L'Art," 1877, ii 189. - - Hermann Billung: Narcisse Virgilio Diaz, ein Lebensbild, "Zeitschrift - für bildende Kunst," 1879, xiv 97. - - A. Hustin, in "Les artistes célèbres." - -Daubigny: - - Karl Daubigny: Ch. Daubigny et son oeuvre. Paris, 1875. - - Frédéric Henriet: Charles Daubigny et son oeuvre. Paris, 1878. - - Frédéric Henriet, in "L'Art," 1881, p. 330. - - A. Hustin, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - Robert J. Wickenden: Charles François Daubigny, "Century Magazine," - July 1892. - -Chintreuil: - - Frédéric Henriet: Chintreuil: Esquisse biographique. Paris, 1858. - - A. de la Fisèliere, Champfleury, et F. Henriet: La vie et l'oeuvre de - Chintreuil. Paris, 1874. - - "Portfolio," 1874, p. 99. - -Harpignies: - - Charles Tardieu: Henry Harpignies, "L'Art," 1879, xvi 269, 281. - -Français: - - J. G. Prat: François Louis Français, "L'Art," 1882, i 48, 81, 368. - -Brascassat: - - M. Cabat: Notice sur Brascassat. Paris, 1862. - - Charles Marionneau: R. Brascassat, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1872. - -Troyon: - - Henri Dumesnil: Constant Troyon, Souvenirs intimes. Paris, 1888. - - A. Hustin: "L'Art," 1889, i 77; ii 85. - - A. Hustin, in "Les artistes célèbres." Paris, 1893. - -Rosa Bonheur: - - Laruelle: Rosa Bonheur, sa vie, ses oeuvres. Paris, 1885. - - René Peyrol: Rosa Bonheur, her Life and Work. With three engraved - Plates and Illustrations, "The Art Annual." London, 1889. - - Roger-Milès: Rosa Bonheur. Paris, 1901. - -Emile van Marcke: - - Emile Michel: "L'Art," 1891, i 145. - -Eugène Lambert: - - Chiens et chats, Text by G. de Cherville. Paris, 1888. - -Lancon: - - Alfred de Lostalot: Un peintre animalier, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," - 1887, ii 319. - -Charles Jacque: - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 297. - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - Ernest Chesneau: Jean François Millet, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1875, - i 429. - - Ph. L. Couturier: Millet et Corot. Saint-Quentin, 1876. - - A. Piedagnel: Jean François Millet. Souvenirs de Barbizon. Avec 1 - portrait, 9 Eaux-fortes, et un facsimilé d'autographe. Paris, 1876. - - A. Sensier: La vie et l'oeuvre de Jean François Millet. Manuscrit - publié par P. Mantz, avec de nombreux fascimilés, 12 heliographies - hors texte, et 48 gravures. Paris, Quantin, 1881. - - W. E. H.: Millet as an Art-Critic, "Magazine of Art," 1883, p. 27. - - Charles Yriarte: Jean François Millet. Portrait et 24 Gravures. Paris, - 1885. - - André Michel: Jean François Millet et l'exposition de ses oeuvres a - l'école des Beaux-Arts, "Gazette des Beaux Arts," 1887, ii 5. - - Charles Bigot: Peintres contemporains. Paris, 1888. - - R. Graul: Jean François Millet, "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," New - Series, ii 29. - - Le livre d'or de Jean François Millet. Illustré de 17 Eaux-fortes par - Frédéric Jacque. Paris, 1892. - - Emile Michel, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - H. Naegely: Millet and Rustic Art. London, 1897. - - W. Gensel: Millet und Rousseau. Leipzig, 1902. - - Julia Cartwright: Jean François Millet, His Life and Letters. London, - 1901. German Edition. Leipzig, 1902. - - Arthur Thomson: Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon School. London, - 1903. - - Richard Muther in his series "Die Kunst." Berlin, 1904. - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -Courbet: - - Champfleury: Grandes figures d'hier et d'aujourd'hui. (Balzac, Wagner, - Courbet.) Paris, Poulet-Malassis, 1861. - - Th. Silvestre: Les artistes français, p. 109. Paris, 1878. - - P. d'Abrest: Artistische Wanderungen durch Paris, "Zeitschrift für - bildende Kunst," 1876, xi 183, 209. - - Comte H. d'Jdeville: Gustave Courbet: Notes et documents sur sa vie et - son oeuvre. Paris, 1878. - - T. Chasrel: "L'Art," 1878, i 145. - - Paul Mantz: Gustave Courbet, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1878, i 514; ii - 17, 371. - - Émile Zola: Mes Haines. Proudhon et Courbet. Paris, 1879, p. 21. - - Gros-Kost: Courbet, Souvenirs intimes. Paris, 1880. - - H. Billung: Supplement to the "Allgemeine Zeitung," 1880, p. 240. - - Eug. Véron: G. Courbet, Un enterrement à Ornans, "L'Art," 1882, i 363, - 390; ii 226. - - A. de Lostalot: L'exposition des oeuvres de Courbet, "Gazette des - Beaux-Arts," 1882, i 572. - - Carl v. Lützow: "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1889. - - Camille Lemonnier: Les peintres de la vie. Cap. I, Courbet et son - oeuvre. Paris, 1888. - - Abel Patoux, in "Les artistes célèbres." - - Julius Meier-Gräfe: Corot und Courbet. Stuttgart, 1906. - -Stevens: - - Paul d'Abrest: Artistische Wanderungen durch Paris. Ein Besuch bei - Alfred Stevens, "Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," 1875, x 310. - - L. Cardon: Les modernistes: Alfred Stevens, "La fédération - artistique," 23-26. - - Camille Lemonnier: Alfred Stevens, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1878, i - 160, 335. - - Camille Lemonnier: Les peintres de la vie. Cap. II, Alfred Stevens. - Paris, 1888. - -Ricard: - - Moriz Hartmann: Büsten und Bilder. Frankfurt-a-M., 1860. - - Paul de Musset: Notice sur la vie de Gustave Ricard. Paris, 1873. - - Louis Brés: Gustave Ricard et son oeuvre. Paris, 1873. - -Bonvin: - - L. Gauchez, "L'Art," 1888, i 249, ii 41, 61. - - Paul Lefort: Philippe Rousseau et François Bonvin, "Gazette des - Beaux-Arts," 1888, i 132. - -Charles Chaplin: - - Paul Lefort: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1891, i 246. - -Gaillard: - - G. Dargenty: "L'Art," 1887, i 149, 179. - - L. Gonse: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1887, i 221. - - V. Guillemin: F. Gaillard, graveur et peinture, originaire de la - Franche-Comté, 1834-1887. Notice sur sa vie et son oeuvre. Besançon, - 1891. - - Georges Duplessis, in "Les artistes célèbres." - -Bonnat: - - Roger Ballu: Les peintures de M. Bonnat, "L'Art," 1876, iii p. 122. - - B. Day: L'atelier Bonnat, "Magazine of Art," 1881, p. 6. - - Jules Claretie, Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 129. - -Carolus Duran: - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 153. - -Vollon: - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 201. - -Philippe Rousseau: - - Paul Lefort: "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1888, i 132. - -Paul Dubois: - - Jules Claretie: Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains, II Série. Paris, - 1884, p. 321. - -Delaunay: - - Georges Lafenestre: Elie Delaunay, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1891, ii - 353, 484. - -Ribot: - - E. Véron: Théodule Ribot, Exposition générale de ses oeuvres, "L'Art," - 1880, p. 281. - - Firmin Javel: Théodule Ribot, "Revue des Musées," 1890, iii 55. - - L. Fourcaud: Maîtres modernes: Théodule Ribot, sa vie et ses oeuvres. - With Illustrations. Paris, 1890. - - Paul Lefort: Théodule Ribot, "Gazette des Beaux-Arts," 1891, ii 298. - - - - - _Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Modern Painting, Volume -2 (of 4), by Richard Muther - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF MODERN PAINTING *** - -***** This file should be named 43894-8.txt or 43894-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/8/9/43894/ - -Produced by Marius Masi, Albert László, P. G. 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