Coasting Bohemia

by J. Comyns Carr

So at least it seemed to me then. And yet, rightly viewed, the very vehemence of such opposition was in its own way a tribute to his power. Any new artistic growth that passes without challenge may perhaps be justly suspected of being produced without individuality, and certainly such work as his, that bears so clearly the stamp of a strong individual presence, could hardly escape a disputed welcome. It must even now in a measure repel many of those whom it does not powerfully attract and charm; for it cannot be regarded with the sort of indifference that is the fate of work less certainly inspired; it must therefore always find both friends and foes. But so does much else in the world of art that speaks with even higher authority than his. There are many to whom the matchless spell of Lionardo’s genius remains always an enigma; many again who yield only a respectful assent to the verdict which would set Michael Angelo above all his fellows.

We may be patient, then, if the genius of Burne-Jones wins not yet the applause of all. It bears with it a special message, and is secure of homage from those for whom that message is written. They are many to-day, who at the first numbered only a few: they are many, and I think even the earliest of them would say that their debt to him was greatest at the last. In praise and love they followed him without faltering to the close of a life that knew no swerving from its ideal; a life of incessant labour spent in loyal service to the mistress he worshipped; and even though he had won no wider reward, this, I believe, would have seemed to him enough.

Painting is perhaps the only art which offers in its practice opportunities of social converse. The writer and musician work alone, or, if their solitude is invaded, it is only by way of interruption. But the practice of the painter’s art admits a measure of comradeship, and the progress of his work is sometimes even advanced rather than hindered by the presence of a friend. The element of manual labour that enters into painting leaves the painter free at many points of his work to enjoy friendly converse with the visitor to his studio; and I have known many an interesting discussion carried on for several hours without the painter ceasing for a moment from his work upon the canvas before him. This might not apply to every stage in the growth and structure of a picture. There are times which demand entire concentration both of brain and hand, and when the painter needs to be as solitary as the poet. But these tenser moments yield to longer intervals wherein the manual element in the painter’s calling holds for a season a more dominating place; and it is at such times that an intimate friend may safely invade the artist’s sanctuary.

Some of the most enjoyable hours of my life have been passed in this intimacy of the studio, and it is interesting to recall, as it was always interesting to note, the different ways in which the individuality of the artist expresses itself in the processes of his work—interesting also to observe how the litter of the studio in its varying degrees of disorder reflects something of the mind of the man. There are studios which seem deliberately fashioned for an effect of beauty—rooms so ornate and so adorned, that the picture in progress upon the easel seems the last thing calculated to arrest the gaze of the spectator. And there are others again, so completely barren of all decoration, and so deliberately stripped of every incident in the way of bric-à-brac or collected treasures, of carven furniture or woven tissue, that were it not for the half-finished canvas, it would be impossible to guess the vocation of its inhabitant. Between these two extremes there is room for every degree of careless or conscious environment; and although it is not always possible to define the exact measure of association between the workman and his surroundings, the visitor becomes gradually aware of a certain element of fitness in the seemingly accidental accumulation of the varied objects which find their way into a painter’s workshop.

It would certainly, however, be erroneous to assume that the disorder of the studio is to be taken as the direct reflex of the habit of an artist’s mind. No man, in the conduct of his work, ever surrendered himself to a stricter discipline of labour than Burne-Jones, though his studio in many respects was a model of apparent disorder. No man certainly in his work ever aimed at a more settled and nicely balanced beauty of design supported by deliberate harmonies of colour; and yet the bare white-washed walls of his studio in the North End Road gave no hint of the coloured glories of the invention that he was seeking to fix upon his canvas; while the litter that scattered the floor or was unceremoniously hustled into the corners of the room seemed strangely inconsistent with the ordered completeness of design that marked every picture from his hand.

There were few more delightful companions in the studio—none, according to my experience, whose talk leapt with such easy alertness from the gravest to the gayest themes. His almost child-like spirit invited humour; and yet his lightest moods of laughter left you never in doubt of the sense of deep conviction that lay at the root of his character. As he stood beside you at his work, his figure relieved against three or four half-completed designs, it was sometimes difficult to find the link which joined the lighter moods of his comradeship with the wistful beauty of the faces that he sought to image in his pictures. But almost at the next moment the difficulty would be solved by a sudden transition to a graver train of thought, and before either of us would be well aware of the swift change of tone, our converse had wandered off to the consideration of some larger ideal of art or life. It was a unique attraction of Burne-Jones’s studio that it nearly always contained a rich and varied record of his work, for the chosen method of his painting rendered it necessary for him to keep several pictures in almost equal states of progress, each being put aside in turn till the surface of pigment was so fixed and hardened as to render it ready for the added layer of colour which was to form the next stage in its progress.

Very often on these occasions our talk was not directly concerned with painting at all, but strayed away into many worlds of the present or the past. As a painter every artist must stand or fall by his command of the particular aspect of beauty which can be rendered by that art, and by no other. If a picture fails, it is no excuse that its author is a poet. If a poet fails, it is idle to plead in his defence that he is an accomplished musician. What added burdens of the spirit the worker in any art chooses to carry, concerns himself alone; what concerns the world is that the result—whatever other message it may undertake to convey—must be perfect according to the laws of the medium he has chosen. In speaking, therefore, of the deep poetic impulse that lay at the back of all Burne-Jones’s achievement in design, I have no thought of seeking to rest the reputation which he will ultimately hold upon any other considerations than those which are proper to the field in which he laboured. He has left enough, and more than enough, to vindicate his high claim to rank among the masters of art, but it is certain, none the less, that his profound interest in those other fields of expression in which the imagination finds utterance, gave him infinite charm as a man.

There was little lovable in literature that he did not keenly love, though in regard to the literature of the past, I think his heart turned by preference to the legendary beauty of the earlier romances, where the story, freshly emerging from its mythical form, may still be captured with equal right of possession by the poet, the musician, or the painter. Great drama, even the drama of Shakespeare, never so strongly appealed to him; and, indeed, I have always noticed in my companionship with painters that in their judgment of the work of the theatre what is most essentially dramatic in drama is not, as a rule, that upon which their imagination most eagerly fixes itself. And yet, in the case of Burne-Jones, it was curious to observe that among the narrative writers of our time the highly dramatised work of Charles Dickens most strongly appealed to him. For Dickens’s genius, its pathos, not less than its humour, he owned an unbounded admiration; and I suppose there were few of the worshippers of the great novelist, except, perhaps, Mr. Swinburne, who could boast so full and so complete a knowledge of his work. The sense of humour, which was a dominating quality in the character of Burne-Jones, could, perhaps, scarcely be surmised by those who know the man only through his painting. His claims in this regard, which could not be ignored by those who knew him, must always be received with a sense of surprise—even of incredulity—by those to whom he was a stranger. And yet, when he was so minded, his pencil could give proof of it in many essays in caricature; while in conversation it was an ever-present quality that lay in wait for the fit occasion.

When Burne-Jones spoke of his own art it was always with complete understanding of its many and divergent ideals, and I have heard him appraise at its true value the genius of men with whom he himself had little in common. Among his contemporaries he could speak with generous appreciation of the great gifts of Millais, and of the acknowledged masters of the past. However little their ideals sorted with his own, his power of appreciation was too liberal and too keen to permit him to ignore or to belittle their claims though his heart’s abiding-place was as I have said with the Florentines of the fifteenth century.

My visits to Burne-Jones’s studio began very early in our acquaintance, and the several errands which took me there varied as time went on. While he was painting his picture of King Cophetua, he asked that my eldest son—who was then a child—should be allowed to serve as model for one of the heads in the picture. I am afraid that, like most children, my boy gave some trouble to the master, who one day rebuked him as being an incorrigibly bad sitter, and the boy, who had been kept standing during the whole of the morning, promptly replied with the indignant inquiry as to whether Burne-Jones called standing sitting—a response that immensely delighted the painter himself, who recognised the justice of the claim by at once releasing him from further service for the day. At a later time I saw much of him in his studio while he was designing the scenery and costumes for my play of King Arthur. I read him the play one afternoon while he was at work upon his own great design of King Arthur’s sleep in Avalon, in the lower studio, which stood at the foot of his garden; and the task, which he straightway accepted, of assisting in the production of the drama at the Lyceum Theatre, led to many later meetings, at which our talk turned constantly on that great cycle of romance—one phase of which I had sought to illustrate.