We are far more particular now about the arrangement, or what the French call the mise en scène, of a picture, than the old masters ever were. We may not be able to paint like Titian or Correggio, but we attempt an approximation to truth which they never did; and not only is a modern historical painter more truthful about the costumes of his personages and the architecture of his backgrounds, but in the disposition and action of his figures he honestly endeavors to represent the scene as it actually may have occurred. When I say that the modern painter does this, I mean that in my opinion he ought to do it. I am quite aware that many artists prefer to look at nature through the spectacles of the old masters, but it appears to me that all art should be in some measure representative of the age in which it exists. When we come upon a Romanesque, Umbrian, Venetian, Flemish, or eighteenth-century work of art, we can tell at a glance to what period it belongs, and I think that our own time, being one of original thought and research, should in some measure be similarly reflected in our painting.
I have no objection to Gothic architects repeating in modern buildings the narrow staircases, the dim lighting, and other inconvenient peculiarities of the style.
Were they to give us large plate-glass windows and noble flights of steps, they would cease to be Gothic architects; but I don’t think that, however much we painters may admire the old masters, we ought to adopt their modes of composition when we know them to be the result of ignorance, error, or carelessness.
The present graphic method of treating figure-pictures is of quite modern growth, and the innovation extends to all kinds of subjects. Compare any of Giulio Romano’s, Rubens’, or Lebrun’s battle-pieces with those of Raffet, Horace Vernet, or, better still, De Neuville. How unreal the old masters appear!
Recall to mind the Romans of David and his school, and compare them with the best modern representations of Roman manners and customs. In the one case we may admire the noble drawing and even the classical lines of the composition, but we are never transported back to the scene; whereas in certain modern pictures we feel on much more intimate terms with the personages. We fancy we are actually a spectator at the Colosseum or a participator in a fête intime.
The realism of modern art is due partly to a greater knowledge of, and a greater attention to, costume, architecture, furniture, and all the properties of the stage on which we place our personages, but it is also due to our making truth a primary object.
An incident may be treated truthfully in fifty different ways, but some of these versions of it will be dull, some obscure, and some vulgar, and it is for the artist to select a rendering which, though perfectly truthful, shall be neither dull, obscure, nor vulgar. As soon as he loses sight of truth he ceases to be a realistic painter. He may produce a beautiful picture, but it will partake more or less of what I call semi-decorative work. It is sometimes very difficult to fix a boundary-line between realistic and decorative painting. To which class, for instance, belong the cartoons of Raffaelle? Although designed for tapestry, and therefore for decorative purposes, there is too much truth and reality about them to allow of their being classed among purely decorative works; whilst, on the other hand, we can hardly admit that they are like the scenes they are meant to represent.
The heads are Italian rather than Jewish or Oriental, and sometimes (as, for instance, in the “Miraculous Draught of Fishes”) pictorial liberties are taken which are quite inadmissible in realistic work.
I may here observe that in this lecture I shall not use the word realistic in the bad sense in which it has generally come to be used.
The term is now generally employed to designate some ugly or offensive piece of reality which is prominently thrust upon our notice by the artist; as when Quintin Matseys gives us wrinkled and abnormally ugly old men, or when a modern French painter throws all his talent into depicting the thick viscosity of a pool of arterial blood. Reality is only in rare instances repellent, and I can see no good reason for confining the word to these exceptional cases.