(Pall Mall Gazette, October 15, 1887.)
Through the exertions of Sir Charles Newton, to whom every student of classic art should be grateful, some of the wonderful treasures so long immured in the grimy vaults of the British Museum have at last been brought to light, and the new Sculpture Room now opened to the public will amply repay the trouble of a visit, even from those to whom art is a stumbling-block and a rock of offence. For setting aside the mere beauty of form, outline and mass, the grace and loveliness of design and the delicacy of technical treatment, here we have shown to us what the Greeks and Romans thought about death; and the philosopher, the preacher, the practical man of the world, and even the Philistine himself, cannot fail to be touched by these ‘sermons in stones,’ with their deep significance, their fertile suggestion, their plain humanity. Common tombstones they are, most of them, the work not of famous artists but of simple handicraftsmen, only they were wrought in days when every handicraft was an art. The finest specimens, from the purely artistic point of view, are undoubtedly the two stelai found at Athens. They are both the tombstones of young Greek athletes. In one the athlete is represented handing his strigil to his slave, in the other the athlete stands alone, strigil in hand. They do not belong to the greatest period of Greek art, they have not the grand style of the Phidian age, but they are beautiful for all that, and it is impossible not to be fascinated by their exquisite grace and by the treatment which is so simple in its means, so subtle in its effect. All the tombstones, however, are full of interest. Here is one of two ladies of Smyrna who were so remarkable in their day that the city voted them honorary crowns; here is a Greek doctor examining a little boy who is suffering from indigestion; here is the memorial of Xanthippus who, probably, was a martyr to gout, as he is holding in his hand the model of a foot, intended, no doubt, as a votive offering to some god. A lovely stele from Rhodes gives us a family group. The husband is on horseback and is bidding farewell to his wife, who seems as if she would follow him but is being held back by a little child. The pathos of parting from those we love is the central motive of Greek funeral art. It is repeated in every possible form, and each mute marble stone seems to murmur χαιρε. Roman art is different. It introduces vigorous and realistic portraiture and deals with pure family life far more frequently than Greek art does. They are very ugly, those stern-looking Roman men and women whose portraits are exhibited on their tombs, but they seem to have been loved and respected by their children and their servants. Here is the monument of Aphrodisius and Atilia, a Roman gentleman and his wife, who died in Britain many centuries ago, and whose tombstone was found in the Thames; and close by it stands a stele from Rome with the busts of an old married couple who are certainly marvellously ill-favoured. The contrast between the abstract Greek treatment of the idea of death and the Roman concrete realisation of the individuals who have died is extremely curious.
Besides the tombstones, the new Sculpture Room contains some most fascinating examples of Roman decorative art under the Emperors. The most wonderful of all, and this alone is worth a trip to Bloomsbury, is a bas-relief representing a marriage scene. Juno Pronuba is joining the hands of a handsome young noble and a very stately lady. There is all the grace of Perugino in this marble, all the grace of Raphael even. The date of it is uncertain, but the particular cut of the bridegroom’s beard seems to point to the time of the Emperor Hadrian. It is clearly the work of Greek artists and is one of the most beautiful bas-reliefs in the whole Museum. There is something in it which reminds one of the music and the sweetness of Propertian verse. Then we have delightful friezes of children. One representing children playing on musical instruments might have suggested much of the plastic art of Florence. Indeed, as we view these marbles it is not difficult to see whence the Renaissance sprang and to what we owe the various forms of Renaissance art. The frieze of the Muses, each of whom wears in her hair a feather plucked from the wings of the vanquished sirens, is extremely fine; there is a lovely little bas-relief of two cupids racing in chariots; and the frieze of recumbent Amazons has some splendid qualities of design. A frieze of children playing with the armour of the god Mars should also be mentioned. It is full of fancy and delicate humour.
On the whole, Sir Charles Newton and Mr. Murray are warmly to be congratulated on the success of the new room. We hope, however, that some more of the hidden treasures will shortly be catalogued and shown. In the vaults at present there is a very remarkable bas-relief of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, and another representing the professional mourners weeping over the body of the dead. The fine cast of the Lion of Chæronea should also be brought up, and so should the stele with the marvellous portrait of the Roman slave. Economy is an excellent public virtue, but the parsimony that allows valuable works of art to remain in the grime and gloom of a damp cellar is little short of a detestable public vice.
THE UNITY OF THE ARTS: A LECTURE AND A FIVE O’CLOCK
(Pall Mall Gazette, December 12, 1887.)
Last Saturday afternoon, at Willis’s Rooms, Mr. Selwyn Image delivered the first of a series of four lectures on Modern Art before a select and distinguished audience. The chief point on which he dwelt was the absolute unity of all the arts and, in order to convey this idea, he framed a definition wide enough to include Shakespeare’s King Lear and Michael Angelo’s Creation, Paul Veronese’s picture of Alexander and Darius, and Gibbon’s description of the entry of Heliogabalus into Rome. All these he regarded as so many expressions of man’s thoughts and emotions on fine things, conveyed through visible or audible modes; and starting from this point he approached the question of the true relation of literature to painting, always keeping in view the central motive of his creed, Credo in unam artem multipartitam, indivisibilem, and dwelling on resemblances rather than differences. The result at which he ultimately arrived was this: the Impressionists, with their frank artistic acceptance of form and colour as things absolutely satisfying in themselves, have produced very beautiful work, but painting has something more to give us than the mere visible aspect of things. The lofty spiritual visions of William Blake, and the marvellous romance of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, can find their perfect expression in painting; every mood has its colour and every dream has its form. The chief quality of Mr. Image’s lecture was its absolute fairness, but this was, to a certain portion of the audience, its chief defect. ‘Sweet reasonableness,’ said one, ‘is always admirable in a spectator, but from a leader we want something more.’ ‘It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art,’ said another; while a third sighed over what he called ‘the fatal sterility of the judicial mind,’ and expressed a perfectly groundless fear that the Century Guild was becoming rational. For, with a courtesy and a generosity that we strongly recommend to other lecturers, Mr. Image provided refreshments for his audience after his address was over, and it was extremely interesting to listen to the various opinions expressed by the great Five-o’clock-tea School of Criticism which was largely represented. For our own part, we found Mr. Image’s lecture extremely suggestive. It was sometimes difficult to understand in what exact sense he was using the word ‘literary,’ and we do not think that a course of drawing from the plaster cast of the Dying Gaul would in the slightest degree improve the ordinary art critic. The true unity of the arts is to be found, not in any resemblance of one art to another, but in the fact that to the really artistic nature all the arts have the same message and speak the same language though with different tongues. No amount of daubing on a cellar wall will make a man understand the mystery of Michael Angelo’s Sybils, nor is it necessary to write a blank verse drama before one can appreciate the beauty of Hamlet. It is essential that an art critic should have a nature receptive of beautiful impressions, and sufficient intuition to recognise style when he meets with it, and truth when it is shown to him; but, if he does not possess these qualities, a reckless career of water-colour painting will not give them to him, for, if from the incompetent critic all things be hidden, to the bad painter nothing shall be revealed.
ART AT WILLIS’S ROOMS
(Sunday Times, December 25, 1887.)
Accepting a suggestion made by a friendly critic last week, Mr. Selwyn Image began his second lecture by explaining more fully what he meant by literary art, and pointed out the difference between an ordinary illustration to a book and such creative and original works as Michael Angelo’s fresco of The Expulsion from Eden and Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. In the latter case the artist treats literature as if it were life itself, and gives a new and delightful form to what seer or singer has shown us; in the former we have merely a translation which misses the music and adds no marvel. As for subject, Mr. Image protested against the studio-slang that no subject is necessary, defining subject as the thought, emotion or impression which a man desires to embody in form and colour, and admitting Mr. Whistler’s fireworks as readily as Giotto’s angels, and Van Huysum’s roses no less than Mantegna’s gods. Here, we think that Mr. Image might have pointed out more clearly the contrast between the purely pictorial subject and the subject that includes among its elements such things as historical associations or poetic memories; the contrast, in fact, between impressive art and the art that is expressive also. However, the topics he had to deal with were so varied that it was, no doubt, difficult for him to do more than suggest. From subject he passed to style, which he described as ‘that masterful but restrained individuality of manner by which one artist is differentiated from another.’ The true qualities of style he found in restraint which is submission to law; simplicity which is unity of vision; and severity, for le beau est toujours sévère.