xt73xs5j9t3x https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt73xs5j9t3x/data/mets.xml Anderson, Margaret Steele, 1867-1921. 1914  books b92-275-32007885 English Century, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Painting History. Painters. Study of modern painting  / by Margaret Steele Anderson ; with illustrations of the work of European and American artists. text Study of modern painting  / by Margaret Steele Anderson ; with illustrations of the work of European and American artists. 1914 2002 true xt73xs5j9t3x section xt73xs5j9t3x 














    THE STUDY
OF MODERN PAINTING

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       THE STUDY

OF MODERNT PAINTING


               lBY
   MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON




        WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE
        WORK OF EUROPEAN AND
           AMERICAN ARTISTS



  NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
    1914

 












Copyright, 1914, by
  THE CENTURY CO.


Published, October, 1914

 






























         TO
     MY MOTHER
       AND TO
MY SISTER, ELIZABETH,
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME

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PREFACE



  The aim of this book is to find out, and to set down
as briefly as possible, the various currents or trends
of modern painting, showing each one of these trends
as illustrated by the work of a few eminent men. It
is addressed to laymen in general, and primarily to the
reader who knows something of famous work-some-
thing, let us say, of Titian, Watteau, Corot, Turner,
and even of a few American painters-but who knows
very little as to the various tendencies of modern art
and is not yet familiar with. the names of its leaders.
To this layman I have endeavored to bring the move-
ments and the significance of modern painting, to-
gether with some idea of the work of the great men
who stand for it.
  As America is still too young for any variety of
movements, I have considered her art by forms and
not by currents, taking, first, landscape painting, the
form peculiar to the American genius, and then, in
due order, figure-painting, portraiture, the idyl, and
mural decoration.
  The argument of the book is three-fold. It main-
tains, first, that the particular achievement of nine-
teenth century painting is its solving of the problem
of light, its conquest of the secrets of the air. It
maintains, secondly, that the aim of the last twenty
years has been towards decorative painting, the best
and most appropriate subject of which is the idyl-
and this, as is noted more than once, results in a form

 

                   PREFACE
of expression which I have named "the idyllic-deco-
rative." Then, thirdly, it maintains that of later
years-let us say, since the rise of Manet as an influ-
ence-the great aim, technically speaking, has been
a fine synthesis, a gathering up of essentials, of fun-
damentals, even at the expense of details. With
these three matters-the triumph over light, the rise
and progress of an ideal purely decorative, and the
aim at synthetic presentation-this study is espe-
cially concerned as the matters of most significance
in the history of modern painting.
                                        MNI. S. A.

 










                   CONTENTS


                      PART ONE

            MODERN FRENCH PAINTING
CHAPTER                                          PAGE
I THE MODERN CONCEPT-RACIAL QUALITIES . . . . .     3

II NATURALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

III THE IDYLLIC DECORATIVE. . . . . . . . . . . 43

IV EXTREMISM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62





                     PART TWO



            MODERN GERMAN PAINTING

 I BASIC FACTS AND GENERAL TENDENCIES . . . . . . 79

 II THE GREAT REALISM-THE GREAT ROMANTICISMS . . . 90

III PLEIN-AIRISM.-LIEBERMANN AND SOM.E FOLLOWERS . . 110

IV  VARIETY, TENDING TO ECLECTICISM . . . . . . . . 119





                    PART THREE

            MODERN ENGLISH PAINTING

 I NINETEENTH CENTURY TYPES . . . . . . . . . . 145

 II NEW MOVEMENTS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

 




                   CONTENTS


                     PART FOUR

           MODERN AMERICAN PAINTING
CHAPTER                                          PAGE
I A FORM PECULIARLY AMERICAN . . . . . . . . . 197

II THE LANDSCAPISTS OF TO-DAY.. . . . . . . . . 215

III OTHER FORMS OF PAINTING... . . . .  .   . . . 226





                     PART FIVE


MODERN SPANISHI AND MODERN ITALIAN PAINTING



I MODERN SPANISH PAINTING. . . . . . . . . . . 257

II MODERN ITALIAN PAINTING.. . . . . . . . . . 286





                     PART SIX


  MODERN PAINTING IN THE LESSER COUNTRIES



INHOLLAND  . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . 309

INBELGIUM  . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . 321

INSCANDINAVIA. .  . . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . 327

IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY-BOHEMIA   . . . . . . . . 335

INRZUSSIA. . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . 346

INFINLAND  . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . . . .  . 354



INDEX. . . . . . . . . . I . . . . . . . . 359

 









LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS



BATHING  ...............
LA LOGE................
THE GUITARIST...........
DECORATION .............
THE BATHERS............
TAHITI .................
THE GODDESS OF FORTUNE I
DISTRESS.
STUDY OF A WOMAN.......
AM WALDQUELL..........
SPATZIERRITT ............



George Seurat.........
Pierre Auguste Renoir..
.Edouard Manet........
.Maurice Denis........
.EEmile Rene Ml nard ....
.Paul Gauguin........
N
.Gaston La Touche.....
.Henri Matisse .........
Ernst Liebermann .....
Franz von Stuck.......



THE ISLE OF THE DEAD ......A r-nold Boec/lin ......
      From a photogravure by Bruckmann.
THE NET-M1ENTDERS .......L.Max Liebermaunn.......
      By permission of Dodd. M'ead aiid  Company.
TIlE SIREN ............... Arnold Boecklin.
ADAM AND EVE ............ Ludwig von Hofmann. .
BURGOMASTER KLEIN ....... Wilhelm Leibl.
MASTER BABY ............. W. Q. Orchardson.
SUMMER NIGHT ............. lbert Moore    . .
THE SCULPTRESS ........... Charles H. Shannon.. ..
A BLOOMISBURY FAMILY .    J.i. . William Orpen.
      From a photograph by Paul Laib, Drayton Gardens, London.
THE GREEN FEATHER ...    . Laura Knight ......
THE COMING OF SPRING ..... Charles Sims.
AN INTERIOR .............. James Pryde.



PAGE
   6
   15
   26
   35
   46
   55

 68
 73
 86
 - 95
 106

 115

 121
 128
 137
 144
 150
 159
 169

 180
 186
 191

 




          LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
                                                      PAGE
THE LAW OF REMOTE AN-
  TIQUITY ................ E. H. Blashfield.       202
       By permission of the artist.
PORTRAIT STUDY ........... Cecilia Beaux ......... 207
       From a photograph by Peter A. Juley, N. Y.
FISHERMEN AND GULLS ..... George W. Bellows ..... 212
       By permission of the artist.
THE PARRAKEETS .......... Frederick C. Frieseke... 223
       By permission of William Macbeth.
THE MIRROR.       .......... Robert Reid.              230
       By permission of A. E. Montross.
THE PORTER AND THE LADIES
  OF BAGDAD ......   ....... Bryson Burroughs ..    36
      By permission of the artist.
LIFE AND DEATH ..........  . E, H. Blashleld ..... ... 245
       By permission of the artist.
THE GREAT MOTHER ....... Arthur B. Davies ....... 251
       By permission of William Macbeth.
DANIEL ZULOAGA AND HIS
  DAUGHTERS ............ Ignacio Zuloaga ....... 274
PLOUGHING IN THE ENGA-
  DINE .................. Giovanni Segantini ..... 283
       By permission of Dodd, AMead and Company.
THE TOILET .......   ....... Camillo Innocenti ...... 294
PORTRAIT ................A rturo Noci ..........3 03

WINTER AFTERNOON ........ Carlo Fornara ..... 3....  14
      By permission of Count Alberto Gubricy de Dragon, Milan.
THE HOLY FAMILY ......... Gaetano    Previati ...... 323
      By permission of Count Alberto Gubricy de Dragon, Milan.
CONVALESCENCE ........... Einar Nielsen ......... 330
      Photograph by Paulsen, Copenhagen.
THE OLD SCRIBE .....  ...... Josef Israels ......8.... 38
      From the collection of Dr. Leslie D. Ward, by permission.
SWEDISH PEASANT GIRL IN
  WINTER COSTUME ........ Anders L. Zorn ..      . 343
       Photograph by Blomberg, Stockholm.
RUSSIAN PEASANT DANCERS.. Ilya I. Rtpin .........3 51

 












       PART ONE

MODERN FRENCH PAINTING

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             THE STUDY
   OF MODERN PAINTING


      MODERN FRENCH PAINTING

                 CHAPTER I
   THE MODERN CONCEPT-RACIAL QUALITIES
A Logical Division.-Change in the Conception of Painting
   Brought About by Impressionism.-Matters of Interest to
   the Layman: Racial Qualities, Latin and Gothic; Imagina-
   tion and Idealism.-Modern Currents Defined.
I N a study of modern French painting-no matter
   whether the audience be of artists or of laymen-
it is possible to use one line of division, to part the
time roughly, but with some degree of certainty, into
the period before the great Impressionists and the
period since their arrival. Such a division we main-
tain to be wholly legitimate; for, with the rise, prac-
tice, and influence of Impressionism, there has come
a marked change in the French conception of paint-
ing-a conception, it is needless to say, that has made
its way from France into all other countries of mod-
ern civilization.
  Under the older regime, painting made much of
                       3

 

  THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING
design and of the linear, and accepted, unquestioning,
the supposition of fixed color. It was, moreover, an
expression of emotion or of belief, a portrayal of
character, or a setting forth of episode, fact, or situa-
tion. Impressionism, on the contrary, is wholly in-
different to subject. To the Impressionist, painting
is a matter of optics, the very basis of which implies
a denial of fixed color and fixed line, and for which,
we safely affirm, design exists not of itself but only
as a thing that is born of color and of light. While
the older painters may be said to draw and paint,
one may almost say that the Impressionists merely
paint. The art of the former appeals to the human
intellect and the human sensibility, but the art of the
latter appeals to the eye alone, or to such intellect
as may be called purely optical. The older men
endeavored to say something; the Impressionists have
endeavored to find harmonies. Monet's theory of
Impressionism, it is true, has not been taken bodily
into the practice of all modern Frenchmen, or even
into that of the greater number; but the men are few,
indeed, whose work bears no sign of the larger Im-
pressionism. Even to the general public, reluctant
to accept such a change, there has come a vague notion
that painting is primarily an appeal to the eye, re-
placing the older notion of the art as in some measure
illustrating life and character.
  This one clean division, however, is not of first in-
                         4

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zs
11

 

      MODERN FRENCH PAINTING
terest to the layman; his concern is with matters quite
different, though of much less importance to the
painter. He has questions as to racial quality and
national quality; he is concerned with such elements
as idealism, subjectivity, passion, imagination; he has
reached out of late to the significant and fascinating
matter of comparative criticism. In the layman's
study of an art there is always the factor of philos-
ophy, for art, to his thinking, is at once a part of life
and its witness. It is unwise, therefore, for him to
approach the subject on the basis of a technical divi-
sion, no matter how important this line of division
in the history and the conception of painting.
  A knowledge of this changing of ideals, however,
is essential to his criticism and his enjoyment-of
what he sees by chance and. of what he goes forth to
see. Selecting an example from home, we may im-
agine him in the Metropolitan Museum of New York
and intent upon a painting by Besnard, which was
loaned, a few years ago, to the French paintings in
that gallery. It is the figure of a naked woman,
sitting on the floor, idle and listless-and hereto-
fore he has seen no beauty in it and has wondered,
rather gravely, at its acquirement by the Museum.
This knowledge of a changed ideal, while it does not
answer his question as to morals, will enable him to
understand the raison de'tre of the painting. It is
not an expression of sentiment or of emotion, it por-
                        7

 

  THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING
trays no character, it sets forth no dogma; it is merely
an experiment with flesh in a certain light, an achieve-
ment in an art which is purely optic. The layman
will understand, now, such pictures as the new Alex-
ander of the Hearn collection, which is entitled "The
Ring" and has nothing to do with any ring ever
forged by any jeweler-being, like the other, the
achievement of an optic art, an exquisite game or
frolic, with light as the most important player. He
will know now, as he did not know before, the reason
for a host of "Interiors"-those of Tarbell in Amer-
ica, those of Bail in France, those of the new de Hoog
in Holland-some of them quite shut-in and showing
reflected light, others with the light from an open
casement on the faces and figures of women, sitting
at some household task. He will understand, with
the aid of this knowledge, why we have from mod-
ern painters so many a naked figure in green boscage
with the play of the sunlight upon it; it is less, as he
will see, to paint us the nymph in the brake, the oread
on the mountain, than to exhibit a wonderful dex-
terity, to snatch at some fleeting effect of light on
naked flesh, or to show us color as "the procreatrix of
design."
  The layman, when he sees the new conception, will
compare it, no doubt, with that of an older type of
artist. He will recall, perhaps, the severely ethical
Millet and his description of one of his own paintings
                        8

 

MODERN FRENCH PAINTING



as designed to appeal to the spirit, the emotions, the
sense of morality and of duty. Again, he will recall
the feeling of the simple and devout Corot for the
spiritual quality of his morning or evening landscape.
To these, of course, he may oppose the famous dic-
tum of Manet, "The principal person in the picture
is the light"; or, perhaps, some trenchant remark
from "Ten O'Clock," embodying the disdain of Whis-
tler for all that looks like subject or emotion. At
first, no doubt, he will be confused and wearied, un-
able to accept either one of these opinions in its en-
tirety. With patience, however, he will find a golden
mean, and will see that the ideal conception is the
balanced conception-that; he cannot have always an
expression of the spirit, nor always a mere lovely ren-
dering of the ways and caprices of the light. It may
be long, indeed, before this balance is achieved, for
the love of experiment and the fancy for idyllic dec-
oration have all but cast aside and brought to dis-
favor the picture of a spiritual intention. This, how-
ever, is not strange. The conquest of light is the
great and magnificent triumph of modern painting,
and the decorative purpose is a purpose peculiar to
the twentieth century-an era which desires, al-
ternately, to experience the joys of living and to
escape into a world of golden dream. It is natural,
therefore, that the painters of this era should be di-
vided between two aims, and natural, also, that the
                        9

 

THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING



picture of another order should be temporarily neg-
lected. The tendency of extremes, however, is to
meet, and we hope to see, at no very distant date, a
fusion of two ideals: the ideal of Watts, the teacher
and messenger, the painter distinctly ethical, and the
ideal of Whistler, who disdained all subject, all mes-
sage and all interpretation.
  We may turn now, without more ado, to matters
which are of interest to the layman, and which, indeed,
are not without interest to the painter. "Man and
the intention of his soul," said Leonardo, "are the su-
preme themes of the artist." To such a sublime pro-
fession, the profession of a very great master, there
would seem to be no lawful contradiction. Man and
the intention of his soul must still have some meaning
for the painter, even for him who despises all "sub-
ject." However that may be, such elements as we
have named-the racial and the national, idealism,
imagination, passion-are elements of supreme inter-
est to the layman. First, then, let us consider the
racial quality of French painting.
  It is claimed, now and then, that great art has no
race and shows no signs of a physical environment.
For answer, we call attention, briefly, to Italian art
of the various provinces. The painting of the Tuscan
is his Tuscany; it is Florence, it is the Apennines, it
is a mingling of austerity and delicacy, of the sweet
and the stem, of the reserved and the plainly ex-
                        10

 


      MODERN FRECTCH PAINTING
quisite. Venetian art is evidently Venice, splendid,
sumptuous and earthly; 'Umbrian art has the calm of
the Umbrian landscape; and Roman art, even in the
hands of Raphael, has the qualities of imperial Rome.
It is so with the art of the North, with Rembrandt
and Hals on the one hand and the Little Dutch Mas-
ters on the other-in all of which we have the broad
and solid sobriety of the Northern country, and that
wonderful mundane painting which followed the
adoption of the Protestant faith and the expulsion of
art from the churches into the world.
  In all French painting, we maintain, the racial is a
very marked element, but it is idle to make such a
claim without some discussion of racial qualities. We
may say at once, then, that the Frenchman is not pri-
marily subjective, that he is not by first intention the
idealist. Imaginative lie is, but between imagination
and idealism the distinction is as firm as it is delicate.
Imagination is connected with material-with words
or notes or marble or pigment-but idealism is inde-
pendent of material and belongs to the infinite spirit.
To illustrate from literature, we may say that the
work of Poe is merely imaginative while that of Haw-
thorne, his compeer, is not only imaginative but su-
perbly idealistic. We may take a much better ex-
ample and say that the Elizabethan lyric-beautiful
and passionate as it is, and charged with the joy of
new life-has imagination but has not idealism, while
                        11

 

THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING
the lyric of the nineteenth century is notable as pos-
sessing both qualities. Again, we may contrast the
"Creation," that marvel of the Sistine Chapel, with
Bareau's statue, "The Awakening of Humanity."
The first is idealistic, is charged with a sense of the
divine, but the second is merely imaginative realism.
Another example we may take from the Rodin mar-
bles in New York. That terrible figure, "The Old
Courtesan," is simply imaginative, a thing all piteous-
ness and shame; the "Balzac" is that consummate
man of the world who gave us the "Comendie Hu-
maine"; but "The Hand of God" is idealistic, be-
longing to the ultimate divine Will, which cannot be
explained yet is felt to be tranquil and compassionate.
These examples will emphasize the distinction and
will bring it home, perhaps, to the younger and the
less experienced reader.
  The French imagination, then, is objective and
stylistic, dealing with concrete things. This is be-
cause of a strong Latin element, a blood which makes
for form, the very blood which shaped our modern
Europe and brought her savage forces into order.
The Gothic element, on the other hand, is concerned
less with form than with vision, with the great shape-
less dream of the universe or of humanity, with the
immanent mystery of life. Now, in the veins of the
Frenchman the blood of the two is commingled. He
has all the energy, all the individualism of the North,
                       12

 

       MODERN FRENCH PAINTING
and we find in his marbles the Northern capacity for
the vision; but his painting, like the body of his litera-
ture, is dominated by the Latin sense of form, the
desire, implacable and stern, for the perfect expres-
sion of his thought. To turn to his sculpture, we see
a straight heritage fromr the Gothic, a something
which existed before the Roman and is traceable from
Rheims and Amiens, with their vivid, dramatic, al-
most flamboyant figures, through such work as that
of Michel Colomb, Goujon, Richier, Clodion, Hou-
don in his portrait busts, RLude, Barye, and Carpeaux,
on through the years to the marbles of Auguste Rodin.
There is never a time, even in the worst of a false
classicism, when the sharp, personal, visionary strain
of the indigenous Gothic is not to be seen in French
sculpture.
  With painting the case is very different. Taken
over partly from Flanders but chiefly from Italy,
French painting has far less of the indigenous, and
we miss, therefore, that intense and glowing individ-
ualism, that vivid expression, that quality sharply
personal, which marks the line of sculpture to which
we have just called attention. The painting of the
late seventeenth century, as that of the century pre-
ceding it, was a painting distinctly eclectic, and the
Gothic qualities, it is needless to say, are not the quali-
ties that lend themselves to eclecticism. The paint-
ing of these centuries is not a romantic art, and the
                        13

 

  THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING
sense of high illusion, like that of a flaming intensity,
is wanting to it, as it is never wanting to sculpture,
where the Northern blood is so much more in evidence.
When the Frenchman is himself and unconscious, he
shows the mingled bloods. When he borrows, he is
conscious and deliberate-he is critical, sophisticated,
imitative-and, borrowing from Italy with a firm be-
lief in the greatness of the Caracci and of Caravaggio,
he used his borrowings with fine style but with little
of the old Frankish spirit. In Clouet, himself of
Flemish origin, and in painters of his order there is
clearly a strain of the Northern, but the general effect
is Italianate, and the dominating factor is the classic
sense of form.
  On the element of desire all art is more or less de-
pendent, and the desire of the French genius is
clearly towards painting and sculpture, as the desire
of the German is towards music and that of the Eng-
lish towards poetry. The Frenchman, moreover, is
enamored of his craft. He, above all other peoples,
has a feeling for that side of his art to which belongs
the mere workmanship. The men of other races
have regarded their meaning more passionately than
the Frenchman, but it is he who performs with whitest
ardor. This, however, is a fact that we have already
intimated; to say that a genius is stylistic is to say
that it does its work devoutly, with the flaming pa-
tience of a young devotee.
                        14

 




















































LAt LOG(E                         PIERRE AUGU STE RENOIR

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MODERN FRENCH PAINTING



  In the quality of imagination French painting is a
leader of the moderns. Since Watteau and Frago-
nard, with a brief interregnum of David and pseudo-
classicism, its imagination appears to the world as at
once the richest and most delicate, the subtlest and
most various-as great in the classic Ingres as in the
romantic MIonticelli, as marked in the diabolism of
Degas as in the sad humanity of Millet. The French-
man, we repeat, makes for form-and imagination is
nothing more or less than a great mental forming, the
mind's concrete vision. The modern French artist is
no seer of the spiritual type, but in the realm of
imagination he adventures magnificently and without
the least shadow of a rival. His material matters not
at all; from myth to history,, from nature to dream,
from the domestic scenes of Chardin to the latest
decorative panel of Maurice Denis, the French imagi-
nation is peculiar and unapproachable. Here is the
racial delicacy and verve, the glow of the Gothic, the
selectiveness of the Latin, the exquisite notion of fit-
ness, the poignant apprehension of concrete beauty.
In the orderly domain of Apollo, which is distinct
from the Dionysian domain of emotion, the French-
man is splendidly at home.
  As to the matter of comparative criticism, this is
of less moment to the present chapter than to others,
since the Frenchman, in his modern career, is giving
much more than he receives. We admit, indeed, cer-
                       17

 


THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING



tain debts to the Spaniards and to the Dutchmen,
but the Spaniards are Velasquez and Goya and the
Dutchmen are Rembrandt and Hals, while the debt
to the moderns is almost negligible. We shall touch
necessarily, however, upon points of resemblance and
of difference, while in the remaining chapters we shall
note the French influence as it acts upon the art of
other countries. In technique the French have been
leaders and have sailed uncharted seas-and the booty
of their voyages, though a very strange booty of late,
they have shared with all who have asked of them.
  The currents of modern French art are currents
of one great democratic movement, the tendency
towards freedom of thought and of form. This ten-
dency is well termed "romantic"; for the spirit of
freedom, the spirit of illimitable aspiration, is exactly
opposed to the classic qualities of order and restraint,
while the infinite wonder, the sense of the mystery of
life, is the antithesis of a pseudo-classic complacency.
This great movement, we repeat, embraces the lesser
movements, but for the sake of clearness the lesser
shall be separately considered.
  There is first, then, the tendency towards natural-
ism. This is a phase so broad that it includes the
romantic spirit of the Barbizon men as well as the
brutal realism of Courbet, and may even be said to
include our modern Impressionism-not, indeed, as a
whole, but in so far as the term means the theory of
                        18

 


      MODERN FRENCH PAINTING
Monet and his followers. There is, second, the trend
towards the decorative with its two very notable con-
comitants-the wish for the tjoy of life and the urgent
desire for escape, the desire for repose in the lost
world of dream. There is, third, that later form of
Impressionism  which is reactionary, the exponents
of which are painting the effects of in-door light.
Such effects, we note, are many and various, ranging
from that of the foot-lights on a dancing-girl to that
of the Bethlehem   stable-lamp on Mary and the
heavenly Child. The fourth and last movement, that
of the Post-Impressionists, Cubists, and their kind,
we define as a curious blend. On one hand, it is an
attempt at the expression of emotion, to be achieved
by a return to the primitive-to the Egyptian, As-
syrian, Byzantine, Etruscari, or another-with the
simplicity, sincerity, naivete' and originality inherent
in the early forms of art. On the other hand, it is an
effort at abstract design, an effort which has been ac-
claimed as "classic" and is, in reality, akin to the Ori-
ental. These various trends we must now follow in
due order.



19

 








CHAPTER II



                   NATURALISM
a. The Beginnings: Watteau, the Fore-runner; The Pseudo-
   Classic Re-action; Delacroix; Courbet; The Barbizon Men.
b. Impressionism: Monet and His Theory; Manet, the Classic
   among Impressionists; Renoir, the Most Gallic of the
   Group; Degas, Independent Ally.
c. Japanese Influence.-Conclusions as to Impressionism.

T HE trend towards freedom of form, which, we
Trepeat, is a part of the democratic movement of
the nineteenth century, is expressed first by Antoine
Watteau, who anticipates the moderns in more ways
than one. Watteau is highly individual-that is,
free-alike in his spirit and in his form. He is a ro-
mantic who follows a reign of would-be classicism, a
painter allied by technique to the Venetians when
such alliance was practically unknown. He is, more-
over, an airy and exquisite prophet, who foretold the
weariness of the moderns and their desire for the
world of golden dream-and who did it, not by any
expression of grief or of sadness, but by a pensive
gaiety, a sort of ethereal wistfulness, which intimated,
though in an eighteenth-century fashion, the heart-
sickness that is possible to humanity. After Wat-
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MODERN FRENCH PAINTING



teau the cause of freedom languished, for the period
which followed was the period of David and pseudo-
classicism. France was newborn and born republi-
can-and she, like other young folk, was enamored
of the sterner virtues. In the limits of practical life
this was admirable, but in art it took the form of
rigidity, of a classicism that was not really classic but
stiff, and inimical by its vely nature to freedom.
This period, however, is relieved by the purer classi-
cism of Ingres, who is akin to the Greeks bv his se-
vere and absolute beauty of line, and to whose
example, indeed, our moderns trace their purity of
drawing.
  Pseudo-classicism, however, is short-lived. Writh
the opening of the nineteenth century comes the tidal-
wave of the democratic spirit, which brings us both
naturalism and romanticism. So far as painting is
concerned, the new spirit finds its first advocate in
that big romanticist, Eugene Delacroix, the brilliant
Victor Hugo of his art, who comes with new passion,
new rhythm, new significance. It is followed into
its beautiful youth by the men of the Barbizon School,
with their simple, noble, and wholly uplifting natu-
ralism, a romantic naturalism, the finest and most
delicate in all modern painting. In the Barbizon
men-Rousseau, Daubigny, Troyon, Corot, Millet,
Diaz-we have painters who go back to nature, but to
nature in her pleasantest aspects. Even in the fields
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THE STUDY OF MODERN PAINTING



of Millet, with their solemn, peasant figures, there is
nothing ungentle or unlovely. For Corot-that ten-
der spirit, who has been called the Fra Angelico of
modern landscape-the morning comes down from
God out of heaven, divinely veiled, and adorned like
a bride for her husband. For Daubigny the green
earth is earthy, but is also very sweet and very dear;
for Rousseau it has some of the old, dark, Flemish,
Ruisdael spirit, but is none the less beautiful for that;
and for Troyon it is quite big and simple, charged
with the breath of the kine, and lying broad and pa-
tient beneath a patient sky. These men of the Barbi-
zon forest-with whom we count Corot, though he is
really too classic for this company-stand together at
one end of the naturalistic movement and form its
romantic group. At the other end is Gustave Cour-
bet, an able draughtsman, with whom the natural
is almost invariably the ugly, the dreary, the com-
monplace. He is the stern and savage realist, whose
genius turns less often to beauty than to the transcript
of a terrible plainness. We cannot do better here
than to contrast his "Funeral at Ornans," a poor,
rugged, peasant funeral, with Troyon's "Close of the
Day," such a contrast being more effective than criti-
cism. In Troyon's great painting, though it is some-
thing almost poignant, we see only the world of out-
ward nature and of animal existence, while in the
"Funeral at Ornans" we have something that belongs
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       MODERN FRENCH PAINTING
to human life, its last and its most impressive scene, at
once so simple and so profound. It is partly for this
reason, doubtless, that Courbet stands out boldly in
the history of modern French painting. He is the
realist, not merely of nature but of human life, and
he is this, moreover, quite consciously and by profes-
sion. "I am not only a socialist," says the rough and
sturdy fellow, "but also a democrat and a republican
. . .and I am a sheer realist, which means a loyal
adherent to the verite vraie."' Realism he fiercely de-
clares to be "the negation of the ideal," and with this
feeling he paints us his peasants and his market-
women, his stone-breakers and his Paris firemen. A
spade he sees as a spade, and for him a naked woman
is neither a Daphne nor a Flora but a naked woman
merely, though drawn with a big and powerful skill.
That the ideal also is truth, and truth in its highest
form, is something that he never understands. To
Courbet and his stark realism, however, French paint-
ing owes a debt of gratitude, for it was he who em-
phasized the fact that the material of art includes the
ugly and the commonplace as well as the beautiful
and unusual. He is t