If Turner was a painter of “golden dreams,” Corot was a painter of silver dreams; the pearly haze of early morning, the pale sky and misty tree-forms of a gray day, and the soft, low tones of a still, cloudy afternoon attracting his loving devotion and commanding the conscientious exercise of his skill. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) was certainly one of the happiest artists that ever lived. Like the other “men of 1830,” he was ostracized by the Academy, and he was never allowed to receive the first medal of the Salon, but he had every other honor and compensation, and, late in life, was given a magnificent gold medal by popular subscription. For many years he could not sell a single picture, but, being fortunately independent, in a modest way, he continued to paint the subjects which, as he said, delighted his heart, and to treat them, as he again said, “with truth to your own instincts, to your own method of seeing, with what I call conscientiousness and sincerity.” In due time Corot conquered his world and, in the height of his career, was earning not less than $50,000 a year by his brush. He was a constant visitor at Barbizon, maintained a close intimacy with his friends, there, and studied in the vicinity many of the hundreds of landscapes his industrious and tireless hand rejoicingly produced.
Jules Dupré (1812–1889) and Charles François Daubigny (1817–1878) are distinguished members of the “1830” group, each standing at the head of the department of landscape art to which he was especially devoted. Narcisse-Virgil Diaz de la Peña, called Diaz (1807–1876), another of the fraternity, was not technically so thoroughly trained as his fellows, but he was a stronger colorist than any of them and a romanticist of the most pronounced type. Constant Troyon (1810–1865) was the most eminent cattle-painter of the century. He came on the scene after the revolt of Géricault was accomplished, but was in full sympathy with the movement, and is usually accounted as one of the revolutionists. So also with Jean Leon Gérôme (1824), an artist surviving to the close of the century.
He first exhibited in 1847, but he took up the line of Oriental romance, following Delacroix, and made so strong an impression with his illustrations of the splendors and glories of the East that his influence in art will be felt for generations to come. After attaining fame as a painter, Gérôme also developed marked ability as a sculptor.
In strict chronological order the birth of the pre-Raphaelite movement in art preceded the “revolution of 1830,” as the event actually occurred in Rome, about 1812. The movement was not originally known by the name subsequently given it, and it did not attain to more than local importance until it was fully developed in England, about 1850. It is to the great German artist, Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867), that the honor of originating the pre-Raphaelite revolution must be given. In 1811 Cornelius went to Rome and soon became the master spirit of the “Brotherhood of Painters,” popularly called “Nazarites,” banded together for the study of the thirteenth-century Italians, Cimabue and Giotto, and their successors in the century following, Gaddi, Simoni, and Orcagna. This Brotherhood was afterward imitated by Rossetti in London, and its purposes more fully developed; but it was the young German enthusiasts of the previous generation who affected a revival of the pure religious spirit, the devout simplicity, and the absolute sincerity of the Italian artists before the era of Raphael.
GREEK GIRLS PLAYING AT BALL. (LEIGHTON.)
Cornelius returned to Germany in 1816, became the founder of what is known as the Munich school of painting, and was made director of the Art Institute of that city. He exercised a controlling influence in the evolution of modern German art and, indirectly, on art in England and in America. His pupil and successor, Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805–1874), imparted vitality and power to the Munich school, attracting to his classes students from all civilized countries. During the second and third quarters of this century, Kaulbach reigned as the first artist of Germany and one of the first in the world.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) founded his pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in London, with John Everett Millais—subsequently president of the Royal Academy—and William Holman Hunt, in 1848. The pre-Raphaelite movement gave a richer and stronger color to English painting in the latter half of the century, and also awakened general interest in early Christian art, that is, the art of the Italian Renaissance. Beyond this, Rossetti’s new departure, though widely advertised by John Ruskin, had very little permanent effect. Millais soon left the Brotherhood and produced his master-works, the greatest historic-genre pictures of his time, in England, after outliving pre-Raphaelite influences.
Little known outside of England, that movement did not entirely absorb British art, as proved by such a man as G. F. Watts, a master of portraiture, who made studies of many of the most notable men of the century in England, besides many imaginative works of great interest. Others were Holman Hunt, with his powerful religious conceptions, and the talented Landseer family, the youngest member of which, Edwin, is world-famous for his animal pictures. The critic and philosopher, John Ruskin, studied art and became a proficient draughtsman, although never using his skill professionally. His literary works on art, however, have had so wide an influence that it seems just to include him in the list of contributors to art’s progress in this era. His criticism of the fantastic productions of James McNeill Whistler brought forth a controversy and law suit, resulting in a verdict of damages of one farthing to the injured artist, and enough advertising gratis to secure his fame. The genius of the latter for achieving artistic effects and personal notoriety are equal to his skill in avoiding oblivion. He is a unique and interesting figure, despite his abnormal vanity, for his unquestionable talent in many lines of art, and is American by birth, English by adoption, and now French by force of circumstances. Edwin Abbey is also an adopted son of Britain, although born in America. He is better known through illustrative work in black and white, but his superb decorations in the Boston Public Library testify to his great skill as a colorist. The most illustrious growth of foreign seed on British soil has been Lorenz Alma Tadema, whose wonderful representations of Greek and Roman life place him hors concours as an artist, and hold before our eyes a mirror of ancient days. Sir Frederick Leighton, the recently deceased president of the Royal Academy, was a true Briton and a leader of modern art in England, as also was Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson Butler, with her patriotic war pictures, as vigorous as any man’s could be. A talented young artist, whose untimely death cut short a promising career, was Frederick Walker, who is said to have been the original of “Little Billee” in Du Maurier’s famous novel of student life in the Latin Quarter, “Trilby.” That masterpiece takes us into the art atmosphere of Paris, and we readily understand why there is the centre of the artistic circle.
