The meaning of pictures

by John C. Van Dyke

XXVIII.—RAPHAEL, Sistine Madonna. Dresden Gallery.

But, to return to our original contention, expressive painting cannot get on without a thought and a theme. It must represent or illustrate something. And if we should cast out all the pictures that have an expressive meaning we should do away with almost all the art of the past. Certainly all descriptive art would have to go. Historical canvases, we are told, are only “illustrative” anyway, and not art pure and simple. But just where shall the line be drawn between what is historical and what is not historical? A canvas of Napoleon retreating from Russia is illustrative—historical beyond doubt; but how does Meissonier’s portrait of Napoleon riding at the head of his bedraggled columns differ from Mr. Whistler’s picture of a blacksmith at his forge? One is the likeness of a famous general in time of war, the other is the likeness of a common blacksmith in time of peace; but both canvases are biographical, and therefore historical. A picture of the field of Gravelotte or the palace at Versailles might serve as an illustration of the political history of France; but a wheat stack and a row of poplars by Monet, a wood-chopper or a gleaner by Millet, why do they not equally well illustrate the social and agricultural history of France? There is really no point where one can stop. Everything that can be recognized at all in a painting is more or less illustrative of history, fact or incident. And there is no reason why modernity should strain at an interesting subject because it happens to be political history, and swallow a stupid one because it happens to be social history. Titian, Rubens, and Velasquez did not do it. Each one of them painted the life and history of his time, not in portraiture alone, but in battle scene and court ceremony. And famous canvases they made of them, too. Can it be thought for a moment that the subjects were detrimental to the artists or their art? Evidently the painters themselves did not think so.

And is the church art of Italy to go, too, because it illustrates the biblical narratives? Without doubt it is the most complete expression of painting we have ever known, the most perfect in decorative charm, the most satisfactory in expressive meaning. What if it did teach the Bible to those who could not read! Did it not also adorn the interior of churches, and fulfil the modern requirements of painting by its beauty of form and color? And if it be true that art consists not in devotion or patriotism, but in drawing the nude figure, what difference does it make whether you draw that of Adam lying upon the edge of the world as Michael Angelo, or that of a dead unknown lying upon a hospital slab as Rembrandt? If the female figure be insisted upon as the acme of graceful line and delicate color, why cannot these be shown in a “Susanna at the Bath” as well as in a “Venus” or an “Olympe”? Some years ago Mr. Whistler painted the figure of a girl in white standing at full length upon a white bear-skin, and the result was called “The White Girl.” It is a study in whites, and his followers might count it a symphony in white without making much more of it than a clever exposition of painter’s values. In Venice, some centuries ago, Palma Vecchio painted the figure of a girl in rich browns standing at full length upon guns, and called the result “Santa Barbara.” (Frontispiece.) As a symphony, as a study in color-harmony, as a piece of drawing and painting, it is irreproachable. It is decoratively all that could be desired. Yes; and there is something more to it. The figure expresses superb dignity, nobility, and repose; it is the perfect type of woman; and in addition the picture has illustrated to the mob for many years the story of Santa Barbara the martyr. Both pictures are true enough art, delightful each in its way; but which is the more complete? And would you have the meaning knocked out of Palma’s picture, would you have it reduced to a mere symphony of brown and gold—something you might catalogue as “The Brown Girl”? Suppose, for argument’s sake, we admit that calling it Santa Barbara does not help it in any way; but does it injure it in any way? Certainly not.

Nor is it worth while to accept an allegorical figure by Fantin-Latour or a nursing mother by Degas and then quarrel with the meaning of a “Madonna” by Bellini (Plate [7]) or a “St. Catherine” by Sodoma. The use of the latter pictures by the Church to point a moral or adorn a tale does not invalidate their art, nor does the name attached to them blind anyone to their harmony of form, light, and color. We may be certain that those Renaissance men were just as much interested in the decorative side of their art as the moderns. They were expert technicians with a fine sense of line and color. Every feature of the Madonna’s face, form or costume, the fall of a robe, the sparkle of a gem, the play of light upon hair or nude shoulder, the depth and resonance of colors, were seized upon for decorative effect; but the emotions of “devotion, pity and the like,” which Mr. Whistler insists are quite foreign to art, did not disturb them in any way. They used them as they pleased and still made beautiful pictures.

Just so with the Dutchmen at the north. They painted portraits, interiors, fête scenes, marines—all things that related to Holland—and they were very intent upon giving the realistic appearance of everything so that anyone could divine the meaning; but they did not neglect the decorative nor quarrel about the subjects of their canvases. The fine conversation-pictures of Terburg or the interiors of Steen or the portraits of Hals (Plate [22]) need no apology for their purely artistic qualities. Every face or hand or figure, every scrap of light or color, has the most made of it. The painters wrung all the hues possible out of silks and satins, caught all the sparkle of glass, all the sheen of pots and dishes; but they did not think to win entirely by virtue of these qualities. They cared something for their subject and insisted upon its truth of representation and illustration, too.

XXIX.—BOTTICELLI, Allegory of Spring. Academy, Florence.

And what of the landscape? Are we to cast out the historical productions of Claude and Turner (Plates 11 and 26) because they are supposed to represent ancient Italy or classic Greece? What if Turner does paint a picture of Venice in which people may recognize some things Venetian, does that mar his painting of light, air, sky, and color, or dim the decorative splendor of the landscape in any way? Those splendid Venetian sunsets with scarlet clouds waving and flaming far up the zenith, their crimson reflection in the waters of the lagoons, the golden atmosphere that never painter yet painted, how are they harmed by the stray sunshafts that flush pink the familiar top of the San Marco campanile or gild into recognition the great silver domes of the Salute? And if a modern paint a patch of mid-ocean without a name how much greater as art are his sea-waves than the waves of Claude shown in a seaport of France? What harm does the “seaport” and “France” do the picture? We have recently had some very beautiful studies of color, light, and air by Claude Monet which he has called “Rouen Cathedral” and “Westminster Bridge.” They are much vaguer in outline than Turner or Claude would have painted them; but they picture historical structures and might be called historical landscapes with as much reason as Turner’s “Bay of Baiæ” or Claude’s “Queen of Sheba.”

But the chief quarrel of the modern is with the story-telling subject—the sentimental or funny incident in paint—of which we see enough and to spare at every new exhibition. This too is historical art in a way. For the genre subjects of the present time are history in the little—personal incidents usually, but nevertheless the history of the people. And yet it must be acknowledged that there is some reason for waging war against this kind of art as we find it to-day. Not that the story in itself is necessarily objectionable. If we are not interested in its incident perhaps we can enjoy its decorative qualities. The “Sacred and Profane Love” by Titian, which I have already mentioned, certainly had a literary meaning at one time, but to-day the allegory is lost to us and the picture lives by virtue of its fine form and color—the allegory in no way injuring its decorative qualities. Nor are the stories of Jan Steen or Van der Meer of Delft or Teniers objectionable in their pictures. You will hear no modern railing against them, for the very good reason that the pictures are excellent pieces of workmanship and exceptionally beautiful in surfaces, handling, color, light and atmosphere. But the present-day story-teller with a paint-brush is not so good a workman as the Dutchmen. He slurs the decorative and throws all the interest of his picture upon the incident portrayed, and lets form and color go lame, blind and halt if they choose. There is little to be said in praise of his work. The tawdry colors and the card-board figures with which his stories are told condemn them at the start. Yet the public, seeing not the cheapness of the method, applauds the incident portrayed and thus endorses a lame and halting art. It is this that stirs the wrath of the art-for-art’s-sake advocates and leads to their extravagance of statement.

It is the Marcus Stones, the Viberts, and the Defreggers of painting who have brought the story into contempt and caused the opposition to it. That the “unco guid” Sunday-school incident or the horse-play of the grinning Tyrolean peasant, or the red-robed monk story should pass current as art while the peasants of Millet, the landscapes of Corot, the marines of Whistler should be sneered at as impressionistic or “faddish,” was more than the artistic brotherhood could bear. It took up the cudgels for more art and less literature, and in knocking the silly incident in the head, it also tried to knock in the head every other incident in the art-world. This was perhaps an error. For the subject is not necessarily silly except in the hands of the whipper-snapper painter. There is nothing silly about the “Moses saved from the Nile” (Plate [23]) by Bonifazio, or the “Miracle of the Slave” (Plate [15]) by Tintoretto, or the “Good Samaritan” by Rembrandt, or the “Garden of Love” by Rubens, or the “Shepherds in Arcadia” (Plate [30]) by Poussin. Oh, yes; the old masters could paint stories when it pleased them to do so. They were religious and classic stories—themes hallowed by tradition—but not differing in other respects from the stories of to-day. They painted them well and with great decorative skill and therefore you never hear any painter decrying them; but, so far as their legitimacy or illegitimacy is concerned, they were not different from the “Love and Death” of Mr. Watts or the “Beguiling of Merlin” by Sir Edward Burne-Jones or the “Blind Fiddler” by Sir David Wilkie.