LANDSEER AND HIS FAVORITES. (BY HIMSELF.)
From thence have risen most of the great modern names, one of the greatest and most honored being that of Rosa Bonheur, who has received all possible distinction as an artist and reverence as a woman. Her animal pictures, especially horses and cattle, are known the world over, and the story of her early struggle for study, disguised as a boy, that she might work unmolested where a girl could hardly have gone, is well known, yet she never renounced an atom of her womanliness in adopting masculine attire. It is hard to avoid dwelling on the lives and works of the modern masters, but we must pass over the intermediate period between the revolt of 1830 and our own day, touching only an especially shining light here and there, such as Jules Breton, with his sturdy peasants; Léon Bonnat, Alexandre Cabanel, and Carolus Duran, with their elegant distingué portraiture. Besides these are Edouard Détaille and Alphonse de Neuville, showing faithful studies of soldier life and action; Eugène Fromentin, with his picturesque Arabs; and the decorative allegories of Puvis de Chavannes. The brilliant Spaniards, Mariano Fortuny and Don Frederick Madrazo, are practically Frenchmen in their art, although each is distinctly individual in manner. We must also mention Vibert, with his delightful little satires on the human frailities of the holy fathers of the Church, and Meissonier, the master of exquisite finish in detail, and Passini, with his small canvases crowded with Oriental figures glowing with color. In addition to the great French names of this time are Defregger, of the Munich School; Israels of Amsterdam, Schreyer of Frankfort, whose works all hold that quality dear to the popular heart, but despised by the high priests of lofty criticism nowadays, that is, they have a story to tell, and they tell it.
At the time these men were telling their artistic tales in Europe, such men as Washington Allston, the first great painter in this country; Thomas Sully, whose rare works in portraiture entitled him to paint the Queen of England, Victoria, when a girl; Henry Inman, also a great portrait painter; George Fuller, a painter of poetic dreams; and many others of talent, had said their say in America. Almost with the beginning of the new country, public interest had been roused in the fine arts by the efforts of such men as Gilbert Stuart and the Peales, Charles and Rembrandt, who bridged the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries together, and labored to advance the cause of art. Schools and academies, with adequate galleries for exhibition purposes, became necessary; and such institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design in New York were established. The latter was started in 1802, but did not receive its charter until 1808; so the Pennsylvania Academy, which was incorporated in Philadelphia in 1806, was really the first of its kind in the country. In 1807, the minutes bearing the date of October 8 record as follows: “Until the funds of the institution will admit of opening a school on a more extended plan, persons of good character shall be permitted to make drawings from the statues and busts belonging to the Academy,” thus showing the humble beginning of art education in America. Naturally, for many years the facilities for learning were too limited to supply more than rudimentary instruction, and the pilgrimage to Paris was a necessity before an artist could feel qualified to launch out professionally. In these latter days that need no longer exists, for the great art schools of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis can amply provide all that is required; but the charm of the Latin Quarter still draws as a magnet all who can afford to go there.
THE HORSE FAIR. (ROSA BONHEUR.)
In that centre is a constant mingling of ideas from all sources seeking new forms of expression, out of which proceed the impulses that vibrate through the world of current art. Naturally enough many of the new departures are futile experiments, short lived and not sufficiently important to discuss; but within recent years the movement known as impressionism has been so widespread in influence, so radical in method, and so vital in result, that it has doubtless produced a permanent effect on art. Like its predecessor, the renaissance after the dark ages, this mouvement moderne was an upheaval of all forms of expression; and in painting it seemed as if a wave of dazzling color had burst over the studios, drenching the canvases with rainbow tints, flooding the exhibition galleries with bewildering brilliance. The unaccustomed eye was overwhelmed, and the confused and wondering public burst into loud outcry against the insane folly of these mad young painters, who showed purple and green gridirons, speckled with green and streaked with scarlet, and called them landscapes, marines, and figure studies as they chose. Of course the pendulum swung to its limit, the radicals carrying things to extremes after the fashion of their kind, and making foolish caricatures of work that was really great. By degrees, however, sober sense prevailed, the new ideas became better understood, the public point of view changed, and it was seen that there was method in this madness. The new movement was intended simply to interpret what the artist saw most forcibly expressed by any given subject, or, as the name implies, to record his first impression and convey the idea rather by suggestion than by explicit statement and detail. Applied to out-of-door subjects, these principles were carried out by the plein air colorists, as they were styled, from their efforts to suggest atmosphere glowing with light, a feeling of space and sunshine. Edouard Manet was the leader of the new school in figure work, and Claude Monet in landscape. No two styles could be more widely different save in their mutual abhorrence of detail; the first dark, heavy, and sombre in color; the latter luminous and palpitating, every conceivable tint vibrating into harmony, an example which is followed in this country by Childe Hassam, often successfully, but sometimes with extravagance. After reaching extreme high-water mark, the flood of brilliance has somewhat subsided, and latter-day painters do not find it necessary to observe the world through a prism. While returning to more sober statements of simple truth, without trying to copy a kaleidoscope, the vision men have had of pure color sparkling with light has given them an insight into Mother Nature’s method that has left a lasting impression upon the minds and manners of the best workers and lifted the whole tone of modern painting. Whether one was prepared to enjoy truly impressionistic pictures or not, the force of them in a collection of works in the old manner of hard outline and heavy shadow could not fail to be felt like a beam of light in a dark room. However one might protest against the invader, the old friends looked dull and flat after a time, in spite of the most determined loyalty. The style of the Hudson River school was narrow and petty, full of trifling little details, the color often being forced and theatrical in effect. The striking scenery of that noble stream inspired the efforts of American landscape painters of the two decades from 1830 to 1850. Asher B. Durand was a leader among them, and for many years the manner of a generation past held sway until the new method forced a place for itself. It was an amusing experience in following exhibitions of late years to see, one after another, the leaders, long established in their own particular methods, finally breaking away from lifelong habits and coming into line with the new movement, some keeping step bravely with the vigorous newcomers, some halting along with pitiful attempts at a jaunty stride. The strong men neither hung back in sulky indifference nor flung themselves wildly about in exuberant freedom, but kept quietly on the even tenor of their way, absorbing what was best in the new, holding fast to what was best in the old, and producing the kind of work that is independent of schools and eras, but intrinsically great in itself. In Paris, the younger workers who began sending strange wild landscape and figure pictures to the exhibition at the Salon of the Champs Elysées, the most important annual exhibition in the world, were indignantly rejected by the horrified jury of selection. Equally indignant at their treatment, the young painters, who felt themselves to be the coming men, gathered their rejected treasures together in an independent exhibition of their own, and established a rival salon in the Champ de Mars, which has come to hold an equal footing in the world of art with the older institution.
By reference to “men” we do not at all exclude women, for there is no sex in art, and women of our time paint as well as men, folding equal rank in the exhibitions, equal places on the juries of selection, and receiving equal honors and awards. One of the foremost women of the day is a Philadelphian, Miss Cecilia Beaux, whose portraiture ranks among the highest. Miss Mary D. Cassatt is also a Philadelphian, although long resident in Paris, and highly esteemed there. Her name is mentioned in a recent notice of a Salon exhibition among those of distinguished men, which concluded with the words “and other strong men,” meaning thereby no grain of disrespect to the woman, but only honor to the artist, classifying her as among the first painters of the time. Important exhibitions nowadays are likely to contain strong works by many women, such as portraits by Mrs. Sarah Sears of Boston or Mrs. Rosina Emmet Sherwood of New York, child studies by Ellen K. Baker, or animal studies by Mrs. Helen C. Hovenden, widow of the late master of modern genre, Thomas Hovenden, whose untimely death the art-loving public of this country has not ceased to mourn. His faithful studies of American domestic life have touched the people, who are, after all, the final art critics, despite the claims of those who feel themselves especially qualified by taste and training to tell others what they must and must not like. Many times public opinion has been unduly slow in setting the seal of its approval on worthy works, but once established in the heart of the populace, immortality is assured, and that place belongs preëminently to Thomas Hovenden, as proved by the throngs that stood before his picture “Breaking the Home Ties,” at the World’s Fair in Chicago. That cosmopolitan collection showed, among other interesting developments, a strong school of vigorous young Norsemen, hardy vikings of art from Scandinavia, of whom Anders Zorn was the leader, with a variety of figure subjects, studied indoors and out, with an unconventional freedom and dash as inspiring as the breezes of his native fjords. Prince Eugene, the handsome popular second son of the King of Sweden, was no mean contributor to this school. Fritz von Thaulow is a Norwegian by birth, but being well recognized in France he has taken up his abode at Dieppe, although still finding inspiration in his native land. He is an exponent of the theory of tone in painting, as it is technically termed. This refers to the quality of harmony, or perfect balance of light and shade and color. It does not depend upon the key of the picture, whether light and bright or dark and sombre, but consists in keeping the relations of the different masses of color true to each other, the small details subdued to their proper places, yet each having its correct value in the whole.
The Scotch painters, stimulated no doubt by the success of their literary brethren, have established the Glasgow school of art, most original in its methods, and in some cases highly peculiar in its results, but with unquestionable strength in its more serious and less fantastic work. John Lavery is a leader among these men. Germany prides herself on one of the greatest painters of modern times in the person of Adolph Friedrich Menzel, a Prussian, born 1815, contemporary with Meissonier. As the latter was devoted to the Emperor of the French, so was Menzel to his hero, Frederick the Great, and their vivid portrayals of their respective sovereigns will keep the personality of these conquerors fresh as long as art lasts. For many years Menzel has been artist laureate to the court at Berlin, painting Hohenzollern family portraits, battle pieces and scenes of court splendor in the most masterly manner. The Hungarian, Munkacsy, has been widely known by his huge religious works, lately exhibited in this country,—“Christ before Pilate” and the “Crucifixion.” His work shows great power and much originality in conception, although often somewhat morbid, a not unnatural condition, as the unfortunate artist has become hopelessly insane. The opposite extreme of expression is to be found in the gorgeous coloring and superb compositions of Hans Makart of Vienna, notably his “Coronation of Catherine Cornaro at Venice.” A revival of interest in religious subjects has recently appeared, possibly stimulated by the work of Mr. James Tissot, a Parisian, who has given ten years to the production of a series of careful studies of the life of Christ. These little paintings, numbering some five hundred in all, are the result of close research in the Holy Land into the conditions of life and customs which prevailed at the time of Christ, and are a tribute of religious devotion. Whether through this influence or not, Dagnan-Bouveret has been inspired to paint a number of strong scenes of biblical subjects, two conceptions of the Last Supper being very powerful. A young colored man, H. O. Tanner, has achieved success on similar lines, an “Annunciation” recently shown giving evidence of deep and original thought. Curiously enough, the women painters of distinction do not seem to be given to religious subjects. One serious lack in most of the work exhibited in recent years is the absence of any importance in subject. The artists have been so concerned to express what they saw in the simplest manner, that they have carefully avoided seeing or thinking about anything but the simplest things to be expressed. While some powerful work has resulted, it has often been labor worthy of a better cause, for the pictures produced have had little to tell beyond the skill of the painter. A nobly painted cabbage field, or a superbly handled stone wall with the tail of a woman’s skirt disappearing around a corner, may be masterly painting, but it is not great art; and it is to be hoped that the day of meaningless canvases will soon pass, and the coming painters will not be content to discourse grandly about nothing.
AT THE SHRINE OF VENUS. (ALMA TADEMA.)