FOOTNOTES:
Head-quarters, Beaufort, S.C.,
March 5, 1863.
Colonel,—You will please proceed with your command, the 1st and 2d Regts. S.C. Volunteers, which are now embarked upon the steamers John Adams, Boston, and Burnside, to Fernandina, Florida.
Relying upon your military skill and judgment, I shall give you no special directions as to your procedure after you leave Fernandina. I expect, however, that you will occupy Jacksonville, Florida, and intrench yourselves there.
The main object of your expedition are to carry the proclamation of freedom to the enslaved; to call all loyal men into the service of the United States; to occupy as much of the State of Florida as possible with the forces under your command; and to neglect no means consistent with the usages of civilized warfare to weaken, harass, and annoy those who are in rebellion against the Government of the United States.
Trusting that the blessing of our Heavenly Father will rest upon your noble enterprise,
I am yours, sincerely,
R. Saxton,
Brig-Gen., Mil. Gov. Dept. of the South.
Colonel ——, Comdg. Expeditionary Corps.
Flag Ship Wabash,
Port Royal Harbor, S.C., March 6, 1863.
Sir,—I am informed by Major-General Hunter that he is sending Colonel ---- on an important mission in the southerly part of his Department.
I have not been made acquainted with the objects of this mission, but any assistance that you can offer Colonel ——, which will not interfere with your other duties, you are authorized to give.
Respectfully your obedient servant,
S.F. Dupont,
Rear-Adm. Comdg. S. Atl. Block. Squad.
To the Senior Officer present at the different Blockading Stations on the Coast of Georgia and Florida.
[D] "The effect was electrical. The Rebels were the best men in Ford's command, being Lieutenant-Colonel Showalter's Californians, and they are brave men. They had dismounted and sent their horses to the rear, and were undoubtedly determined upon a desperate fight, and their superior numbers made them confident of success. But they never fought with artillery, and a cannon has more terror for them than ten thousand rifles and all the wild Camanches on the plains of Texas. At first glimpse of the shining brass monsters there was a visible wavering in the determined front of the enemy, and as the shells came screaming over their heads the scare was complete. They broke ranks, fled for their horses, scrambled on the first that came to hand, and skedaddled in the direction of Brownsville."—New York Evening Post, Sept 25, 1864.
[E] "The colored regiments had nothing at all to do with it; they behaved with propriety throughout."—Boston Journal Correspondence. ("Carleton.")
"The negro troops took no part whatever in the perpetration of this Vandalism."—New York Tribune Correspondence. ("N. P.")
"We know not whether we are most rejoiced or saddened to observe, by the general concurrence of accounts, that the negro soldiers had nothing to do with the barbarous act."—Boston Journal Editorial, April 10, 1863.
A NEW ART CRITIC.[F]
It has been said that our painters merely continue tendencies that have had their origin in Europe, and just as English and French painters are abandoning theories which they have exhausted, we are entertaining those theories as new discoveries, and repeating a discord that abroad has been outgrown. There is some truth in the charge, and we are not always well enough informed to anticipate the next development in the artistic world. While we are overrun by the maggots that have crawled out of the literary body of John Ruskin, the English painters, already emancipated from the bondage of that powerful sectarian, are working under new influences, and showing tendencies that, without subverting the truths so eloquently expounded by Ruskin, supplement them. Under the form of a continuation of the work begun by the great sectarian of English Art criticism, we have a literary exponent of the reaction; and the pictures of Mr. Whistler, an American almost unknown on this side of the Atlantic, have been taken by the late "London Fine Arts Quarterly Review" as examples of this reaction in practice. Mr. Whistler has been called the man of highest genius and most daring eccentricity in the new school; and Tom Taylor amiably writes that he is equally capable of exquisite things and gross impertinences. We give place to Mr. Whistler's name merely to indicate that artists anticipate critics. In the latest literature of Art we do not find positive reaction, but continuation. Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, however, meets conditions and covers ground not treated by Ruskin, and more practical, but less eloquent, defines the relation of the painter to Nature and the limitations of imitation. Ruskin splendidly opened the campaign for modern Art, and he has found servile and ignorant executive officers; but Hamerton is an independent officer, who crosses the enemy's country, beats his foe in detail, and according to his own method. Ruskin is superb in his combinations; Hamerton exact in his method, and careful to protect his rear. Therefore the most useful books that could be placed in the hands of the American Art public at present are Hamerton's "Painter's Camp" and "Thoughts about Art." The latter volume is most carefully considered, and is the result of unwearied practice in the study of Art and Nature. For Mr. Hamerton has studied Nature as a man indoctrinated with the ideas of Ruskin; he has generalized about Art as one who has emancipated himself from a master in thought; and he has enlarged his views by varied reading and familiarity with ancient and modern painting. In some respects Mr. Hamerton's books may be taken as the literary proof of a school which is said to include "many men of rare gifts and uncommon culture," and which, profiting by the reform introduced by Millais, Hunt, and Rossetti, yet also supplements that reform with a more catholic taste and a less ascetic manner than were shown by the immediate agents of the first great revolution in English Art. It follows that some account of Mr. Hamerton's writings is called for, and will be welcomed. He is at once able, useful, and representative of the latest tendencies of Art criticism.
Mr. Hamerton's first volume, entitled "A Painter's Camp in the Highlands," we regret to say, is not a felicitous introduction to the valuable "Thoughts about Art," which give the title to the second. It is unpleasantly inlaid with egotism and enamelled with self-consciousness. Mr. Hamerton's critics cannot withhold attention from so prominent a feature of his book. The obtrusiveness of his personality invites attention. He seems not to have learned the art of existing fully in his work, without dreaming to speak of himself. True, any account of a painter's camp necessarily solicits much consideration of its occupant; but it does not follow that we should be bored with trivial details, and anecdotes simply flattering to the personal appearance of the painter. If Mr. Hamerton proposed to write a book of gossip, if he were ambitious of the honors of a Montaigne, he might tell us how he ties his shoe-strings and how he shapes his moustache; but since we know that Mr. Hamerton is a cultivated gentleman and serious student, we regret that he exposes himself to the charge of being an English snob. Our simple American Thoreau was endowed with better taste; for, though he wrote a very detailed account of his hermit-life on the shore of Walden Pond, his book is entirely free from vulgarity. Thoreau knew how to elevate the trivial and confer dignity on the meanest. But Mr. Hamerton, hearty, healthful, self-reliant Englishman that he is, contrives to let us know that he is also a very elegant fellow even in camp. The personality revealed in Mr. Hamerton's "Painter's Camp" is very English; and when we have said this, we have said all. But let no one be deterred from making the acquaintance of Mr. Hamerton even in his "Painter's Camp"; for he is young, he is hearty, he is interesting, and he is manly.
We know of no books which are the result of more faithful study and practical consideration of the painter's function, and which, at the same time, are so free from technical jargon. Mr. Hamerton is preëminently a useful writer on Art; he is certainly accurate and comprehensive. Carefully going over the ground which he occupies with his "Thoughts about Art," we have been surprised and delighted by the seriousness and conscientiousness of his expositions. He spares no pains to make his reader understand the present condition of Art, and he fairly states and answers some of the most puzzling questions that have agitated modern painters and confused simple students. He at all times escapes cheap rhetoric and that facile enthusiasm begotten in some by the very name of Art. He leaves all that to the dilettanti, and addresses in a simple business-like style men who are not less serious and earnest than himself. Yet Mr. Hamerton does not write a bald and meagre style, nor is he insensible to the poetic and imaginative elements of his theme. He can quicken a glow and arouse an emotion, when he writes of the mighty poetry of Turner's Téméraire, or of the mysterious, the melancholy charm of a portrait opposite the great Veronese in the Louvre. Mr. Hamerton's literary skill is considerable; but he does not abound in verbal felicities, nor has he any affluence of style. He is at all times clear, he is at all times exact, and he is often a vigorous writer. Common-sense, patience, and no ordinary talent for analysis are manifest in every chapter of his "Thoughts about Art." If we were asked where the most intelligent, the most trustworthy, the most practical, and the most interesting exposition of modern Art and cognate subjects is to be found, we should point to Hamerton's writings. As a critic he is not seduced by novelty, and he is free from the exaggerations of Ruskin; but he does not attain the eloquence and power of exposition of John Ruskin. Mr. Hamerton is an admirable critic, but Ruskin is a great advocate. The former is a man of talent; the latter is a man of genius. In the consideration of Art Mr. Hamerton is as fair, serious, and exact as is Matthew Arnold in his "Essays in Criticism," and, like him, faithfully represents the modern spirit. He does not show the artistic skill and nicety which distinguish Mr. Arnold; he is not witty, like Edmond About; he is not concise and masterly, like Eugène Fromentin; but he is honest, and he covers his ground. We repeat, therefore, that Mr. Hamerton's writings on Art are useful books, useful even to artists, and sure to instruct a serious public. Ruskin's writings aroused attention; they made people think. He stimulated many to profitable study; but he also created prejudices, and he has subjected quite as many minds as he has emancipated. Great men are great tyrants. We escape the great man and the great writer in Hamerton. We have in him an instructor, not a dictator. John Ruskin came, and, like John the Baptist, cried, "Repent! repent!"—but Hamerton comes to us as the apostle of a doctrine that needs exposition more than enunciation, and he speaks the words of truth and soberness. Those who did not follow Ruskin laughed and railed at him, and literary executioners hastened to lay violent hands on him. Hamerton's public was prepared by a powerful forerunner, and he is therefore neither assailed nor neglected. Mr. Hamerton's reception in England reflects the nature of his books. He enters the world of letters not as a great and daring rival, not as an irresistible iconoclast, not as an affluent and unhesitating genius,—but as a hearty, cultivated, earnest gentleman who has something worth communicating. He comes to increase knowledge; he comes to throw a light on the obscurity and bring order into the chaos of English Art. For the splendid and misty Turner, the exact and terrible photograph, the great and inconsistent Ruskin, and the vagaries of modern English painters provoked questions and excited conflicts in the world of Art; they seldom reconciled anything among painters, critics, and connoisseurs, too often incapable of a generalization, and therefore incapable of a philosophy of Art. Neither Ruskin nor Hamerton has created a philosophy of Art; they have but contributed invaluable materials. Ruskin, like Buckle, indicated a plan for which no single life is adequate.
The drift of Hamerton's Art criticism will best be appreciated in his chapter on "The Relation between Photography and Painting," and that which treats of transcendentalism in painting. We cannot forbear quoting a few paragraphs from the former chapter. The force of the following is obvious.
"Photography represents facts isolated from their natural companions, and without any hint of their relation to the human mind.
"Now it is only the unity of relation that can satisfy the artistic sense, not isolated fragments; and therefore, so long as the artistic sense remains in the human organization, the demand for pictures will certainly continue.
"I wish I could make perfectly clear what is that unity of relation which is so satisfactory to the artistic sense; but that, in these limits, is impossible. It is enough to say here that any perfect "whole" in a pictorial representation of Nature must include delicate colors and beautiful forms, all helping each other to the utmost, like a chorus of well-trained singers, and that in the arrangement of it all a great human soul must manifest itself, just as the soul of Handel does in a chorus from the 'Messiah.'
"But in the photograph we have only a fact or two clearly stated, but not in their natural connection with other facts; far less their deeper and more mysterious connection, which the genius of great imaginative artists is alone able to apprehend.
"Therefore the division of labor likely to take place between photography and painting is this: photography will record isolated facts, of which an infinite number always need recording; painting will concern itself with the relations of associated truths and beauties.
"And let each keep to its own task. The photograph can never successfully encroach on the province of painting; and henceforth let us hope that painters will never again commit the rash imprudence of attempting to intrude upon the peculiar domain of the photograph.
"In the few instances where photographers have attempted to produce something resembling historical pictures, by arranging models and furniture, and photographing the tableaux vivants so obtained, the effect produced on the spectator was always the simple fact that he was looking at a photograph of dressed-up models and carefully arranged furniture. Anything farther from a true picture it would be impossible to conceive. The naïveté of the mistake on which this spurious Art was founded is really amusing. The photographers fancied that the painters merely copied their models, and so thought it easy to rival them. Why, even the very severest and most rigid pre-Raphaelites use the model as little more than a stimulus, an authority, or a suggestion. Copy the model, indeed! I should like to know where on earth Hunt could have found a woman capable of assuming and retaining that marvellous expression of beatitude that illuminates the sweet face of Mary when she finds Jesus in the temple. That expression which is the most mighty thing in the whole picture—the mightiest, I mean, over the hearts of all men and women who can really feel anything—was gotten out of the painter's own soul, not from any hired model whatever. And the other intense expression of maternal love in the 'Rescue,' by Millais,—whence came it? From the model, think you, or the mind of the painter?"—Thoughts, p. 230.
"And what a lamentable waste of labor it is, when artists forget all about the mutual relation of things, to copy unmeaning details in long months of labor, which any good photographer would obtain in infinitely greater perfection with an exposure of as many minutes! The mere fact that photography does this sort of work so unapproachably well should be enough of itself to warn our young painters from engaging it. Anybody who wants a plain fact about a piece of cliff or castle-wall can get it in a photograph for a few shillings; then why should he spend pounds for a picture which will give him nothing more? But the relation of the castle or cliff to the heaven above or the water beneath, and to the minds of men,—the significant stains of color upon it, the grandeur of its enduring strength, the deep human feelings that it ought to kindle in the spectator's heart,—these things are the exclusive domain of the painter, and he should never sacrifice the least of these to mere literal fidelity of detail."—Thoughts, p. 232.
To our purely literary readers we may say, that Mr. Hamerton is sure to interest them with his chapter on "Word-Painting and Color-Painting," and that on "The Painter in his Relation to Society." Mr. Hamerton shows himself to be an acute and manly essayist in the treatment of these subjects. His chapter on "Word-Painting and Color-Painting" is fresh and direct in treatment, and therein he breaks new ground. He presents the truths of his subject so felicitously, that, as in reading Emerson's essays, we are surprised it has not occurred to another to say the same things equally well.
But even here we are disposed to find fault with Mr. Hamerton. In mentioning the masters of the much-abused art, the much-discredited art of word-painting, he forgets Robert Browning! Can Mr. Hamerton find any poet more decisive, more exact, more rapid and effective in suggestion of Nature than Browning? In the development of this very happy essay, we have examples or characterizations of the peculiar talent of Scott, of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Keats, of Byron, of Shelley, and of Tennyson, among poets,—of George Sand, of Lamartine, of Charlotte Bronté, of Marian Evans, and of John Ruskin, among prose-writers. In this essay, while awarding to Tennyson among poets, and to Ruskin among prose-writers, the honor of good preëminence in the art of word-painting, he at the same time subjects the latter to a criticism perhaps unexpected, certainly effective. Mr. Hamerton points out Mr. Ruskin's poetic fallacies, and forcibly demonstrates the crushing power of common-sense,—that is to say, unimpassioned sense,—when acting upon whatever has grown out of an emotion. It is somewhat cruel, if not brutal, to cry havoc over Mr. Ruskin's tender "lichens that lay quiet finger on the trembling stones, to teach them rest."
Mr. Hamerton's essay is not artistic or symmetrical, but it is the direct expression of much thought. Yet it certainly lets him escape being classed among masters of style. He tells us that Ruskin was annoyed because people paid no attention to his arguments, but were always admiring his language. Has Mr. Hamerton avoided the affluent and felicitous of written words, has he disowned arrangement and proportion, that he might secure a public to regard his thought as more than its medium of communication? Very well; we discover that he is never obscure, that he is no word-monger, that he is seldom seduced by the example of writers whose literary talent overrides their honesty. Among Art writers, among all writers, we welcome him, and we hope to see the best of his book, which is its thoughts, appropriated by the large and restless class of critics, connoisseurs, and patrons of Art, which has multiplied so rapidly in this country during the last four years. Our patrons of Art will find matter of great importance to them in the chapter entitled, "Picture Buying, Wise and Foolish." It is true that they will be taught to correct some errors, that they will be convicted of mistakes of judgment, and forced to admit that they own much worthless Art-work in pictures that have come from the easels of famed painters; but they will also be made to know certain general truths which will profit them, whenever applied. In our examination of the nature and quality of Mr. Hamerton's writings about Art we have had frequent occasion to observe an absence of taste in its most just measure, and the dominance of the conversational in the style and tone of his communications. This is so striking a characteristic, that we might almost say that he is often caught in undress. He makes us sure that he has no mental toilette and robes for great or public occasions. We do not reproach Mr. Hamerton that he is so frank; we do not regret that he is honest, and scorns literary padding and stilts and stays, when he appears in public. We simply regret that he does not care to add to his clearness and force of statement a literary artist's appreciation of the appropriate and beautiful. A more just taste would have removed much matter purely personal; and more artistic skill would have made the same more agreeable, if retained. In reading the chapter called "Transcendentalism in Painting," which is a very skilful and convincing application of the matter of Emerson's essay on that subject to Art and artists, we were impressed with the downright earnestness and force of exposition of the writer. The chapter is a sufficient explanation of the inactivity of great, and of the extravagant demand and unrest of young painters, and it contains superb tributes to Ruskin and Holman Hunt. Mr. Hamerton also shows that the transcendental tendency belongs necessarily to all men, in some stage of their career, who have reached commanding eminence. He briefly glances at the life and works of the great Leonardo, and declares that he is the prince of transcendentalists,—that, unhappily, he always remained more or less in subjection to the transcendental tendency. He mourns that Leonardo never wholly escaped that tendency, that he never attained the intelligently practical. He establishes that the only salutary action of transcendentalism is an intermittent one, and by epochs; that it is always critical; that it is necessary to progress; that, abused, it is disastrous to the mind, and, like sensual excesses upon the body, produces lassitude and debility. We cordially commend this admirable chapter to the attention of thinkers and workers. In treating of the three stages of "all labors, the mechanical or imitative, the transcendental or reflective, and the intelligently practical," we are entertained with great, brilliant, and yet mournful illustrations; and the thoughtful and exact language of our own Emerson is returned to us from over the seas. And here we may remark, that Emerson is the most frequently quoted, except Ruskin. Mr. Hamerton seems to have a genuine appreciation of Mr. Emerson's contributions to a department of literature which is not occupied, and which represents a mental condition that has scarcely found expression in English literature since Wordsworth.
In the course of our remarks we have mentioned Mr. Hamerton's chapter on "The Painter in his Relation to Society." In that admirable paper Mr. Hamerton starts with the assumption that society respects nothing but power, or that which leads to power; and because the artist does not represent power in an obvious sense, therefore he is considered of little consequence. Mr. Hamerton enforces his statements by illustrations taken from the works of novelists who have treated of the artist in his social relations. He makes his chapter interesting and ingenious by quotations from, or references to, the works of Scott, Thackeray, Tennyson, Goethe, Balzac, Ponsard, and Edmond About. In the course of a masterly synopsis and partial analysis of one of Balzac's novels, he writes,—"Though Balzac shows how much he loves artists by describing the artistic nature with tenderness and kind feeling, yet he also plainly declares that people generally cannot understand a painter, and do not respect him, unless he is famous." Mr. Hamerton also gives us the saying of Thackeray about Reynolds,—"I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman." Also Ruskin's remark about Rubens,—"Rubens was an honorable and entirely well-intentioned man, earnestly industrious, simple, and temperate in his habits of life, high-bred, learned, and discreet."
Taken as a whole, Mr. Hamerton's two volumes have very much the character of an autobiography, which explains at once the striking merits and faults of the writings considered as contributions to the literature of Art. The plan of his work is well understood. The first volume very truly represents Practice, and the second represents Reflection. The first concerns "the active life of a landscape-painter"; the second contains reflections that naturally occurred to that painter, or were suggested by his work. The first chapter of the second volume of his essays is a conclusive statement of the necessity "that certain artists should write about Art."
We hope our introduction of Mr. Hamerton will increase the number of serious and patient readers, and that the American Art public will make haste to profit by his thoughts. He is a landscape-painter, and one of the ablest contributors to the "London Fine Arts Quarterly Review." W. M. Rossetti has paid a tribute to his worth as a painter and critic, and even the "Saturday Review" greeted him as a writer of ability. Certainly we take his book to be the latest and best contribution to the literature of Art published since Ruskin's "Modern Painters." Mr. Hamerton's writings are the work of a man who does not decline the free expression of his opinions before accredited masters in Art or Literature. He relies upon himself, when those masters contradict the teachings of his own experience. In this we have the proof of mental manhood, which, among writers, is sufficiently rare, unknown even, to be remarked, and at all times welcomed.