Crome has expressed his view of art in the following remarks, which we read in his life:—“The man who would place an animal where the animal would not place itself, would do the same with a tree, a bank, a human figure—with any object, in fact, that might occur in Nature; and therefore such a man may be a good colourist or a good draughtsman, but he is no artist.” At the National Gallery is to be seen a very good specimen of his work, and one well worth studying. Vincent, another East Anglian, did some wonderful work, quite equal to Van der Veldes'.
Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise.
We now pass over the names of Callcott, Nasmyth, Müller, and Maclise, none masters, though they have been called “great colourists,” whatever that may mean. A great colourist should be a true colourist, and Müller is almost chromographic in originality in this respect.
Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke.
Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke, are names that stand out at this period, and the greatest of them is Cooke; his painting of “Lobster Pots,” at South Kensington, being wonderfully fresh and true; but none are poets; they have but little insight into nature, though Linnell at times shows the true feeling. A long list of well-known names follows, such as Hilton, Haydon, Etty, and Eastlake, but none are masters, and we only mention them to caution against them. |Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason.| Of considerable power were Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Landseer, and Mason, but none of them was really good, although much has been written and said in praise of their works. They are all false in sentiment, and all lack insight into the poetry of nature. |Wilkie and Landseer.| In technique Wilkie and Landseer are often strong, and they will always appeal to a certain class of people. |Mason.| Mason’s work is a fine example of the folly of introducing the so-called “imaginative” into landscape. Take his “Harvest Moon,” when and where did ever men exist with such limbs? the whole picture smacks of the model and of the “stage idealism;” there is no nature there, but a laughable parody of it. |F. Walker.| The next really great name in English art is that of Frederick Walker, a naturalist, and above all an artist who had a great grip of and insight into nature. But in his work the traditions of the idyllic peasants of the golden age lingers, and we find his ploughman merrily running along with a plough as though it were a toy cart; and what a ploughman! he never saw a field in his life. This is a grave fault, and takes away from the greatness of Walker, yet notwithstanding this his name will always be a landmark in English art. The reader will be able to study one of his works in the National Gallery. The date of Walker’s death brings us down to the actual present. Regarding living English painters we will remain discreetly silent. It must be remembered that English art is young, beginning as it practically does in the eighteenth century, for the miniature-painters cannot count for much, and we must therefore not expect too much. Great men, especially great artists, are rare as Koh-i-noors. England can boast of a few, such as Gainsborough, and Constable and Crome. |American Art.| Of American art there is but little to say. |Whistler.| No name stands out worthy of record till J. M. Whistler appears, and he, though an American by birth, can hardly be called an American painter, for the life and landscape of his own country he neglects, as also do|Sargent and Harrison.| Sargent and Harrison, two strong painters, both French by education. Whistler’s name rises far above any artist living in England, his portrait of his mother and those of Carlyle and Sarasate are works good for all time and worthy to be ranked with the best. Mr. Whistler’s influence, too, has been great and good. As a pioneer he led the revolt against ignorant criticism by his attack on Ruskin. Vide “Art and Art Criticism, Whistler v. Ruskin.” His life in England has been a long battle for art, and though many do not approve of all his methods, and still less of his brilliant but illogical “Ten o'Clock,” his work and influence have been for good. Another great step in advance, introduced by Mr. Whistler, has been the reform in hanging pictures; though he has not been allowed to carry out his plans thoroughly, yet he has managed his exhibitions much more artistically than any others in the country. In landscape his night-scene at Valparaiso is marvellous, and we doubt whether paint ever more successfully expressed so difficult a subject. But even as Homer nods, so does at times Mr. Whistler, and sometimes “impressions[impressions]” in oil, water-colour, and etching appear with his name, an honour of which they are unworthy. Yet so long as art lives will Mr. Whistler live in his Carlyle, his portrait of his mother, Lady Campbell, and some smaller works. |Sargent.| Mr. Sargent’s Carnations and Lilies must be fresh in our readers' minds. We will only say of it that we never saw the actual physical facts of nature so truthfully and subtly rendered. It is indeed a picture whose title to admiration will be lasting, and if the reader has not already seen it or, having seen it, has listened to ignorant critics, and passed it over as being “ugly,” let him go to South Kensington and view it again, for the nation is its fortunate possessor. Let him look well at it, and consider what it is. It represents a garden at the time of day when the sunlight is fading but has not quite gone—crepuscule in fact, and with the dying light of day is represented the artificial light of Chinese lanterns. This is indeed a masterpiece. |Harrison.| Mr. Harrison’s “In Arcady” is wonderful in its effect of sunshine through trees, though the picture is marred by the low type of the models introduced and by the painting of the figures. Had it but been pure landscape it would have been a wonderful piece of work. Never have we seen the effect of noontide heat so well rendered. This, then, brings us to the end of American art, and it is to be hoped that men strong as these will go back to their own country and paint the life of their own land and time. |Hunt.| William Hunt is a man much thought of in America, but we have never seen any of his paintings, though his book shows him to be a naturalist to the heart, and the reader will do well to read it.
Here, then, we must leave England and America, only remarking that things look bad for the education of the American public when the best Americans stay away, and when rich sausage-makers buy Herbert’s works with which to educate themselves, and when catalogue compilers take over boat-loads of English water-colours with which still further to lead them wrong. America wants no such education as can be given by Herbert’s senilities or English water-colours. She wants a band of earnest young men, who, having learned their technique in the best schools in the world, namely those of Paris, shall return to America and paint the scenes of their own country, and therein only lies the hope for American art.
Dutch Art.
Rembrandt.
The first mighty name of the modern period is that of Rembrandt Van Ryn. Holland, by her bravery, had thrown off the Spanish yoke, and with it the crushing yoke of Catholicism, and stood free to follow her own bent. As a result of this freedom a body of Naturalists arose who did more for modern art than any body of painters in the world. Rembrandt, though a giant and fit for the company of the immortals, Van Eyck, Velasquez, &c., was not perfect, for sometimes the power of tradition lurks in his work, and he forces his portraits by warm colours in the background, an artifice which was not at all necessary, and which Mr. Whistler has done without. There are a number of his works in the National Gallery, and a good one in the Dulwich Gallery, where is also a great Velasquez, so that the reader should not fail to go there. Rembrandt was inspired by the simple life around him, portraits and interiors satisfied him. It is a significant fact that the greatest painters, Durer, Da Vinci, Velasquez, and Rembrandt have been content to paint the life of their own times and not to draw upon their imagination. The learned painter, it cannot be too often repeated, is he who is learned in all the resources of his art, and we question very much whether one great reason why so few great painters have arisen is not that artists as a rule are so poorly and narrowly educated. At any rate, the opposite holds good, that the most highly and soundly educated artists, men who moved and held their own in the best intellectual societies of their time, were naturalists. But to return to Rembrandt. Perhaps his mastery, his grip of nature, show forth as much in his etchings as in his paintings. |Etchings.| He, like all great etchers, and there are few enough, used etching only within its legitimate limits, that is, as a method of expression by line, in a simple, direct and brief manner. An etching by a master may be looked upon in the same light as an epigram,[[6]] sonnet or ode by a poet. Many of Rembrandt’s etchings can be seen in the British Museum, and should be thoroughly well studied; after which study, pick up some of the unmeaning work of Seymour Haden or any other modern etcher, except Mr. Whistler and Rajon,[[7]] and you will, without doubt, distinguish the difference. Most modern works are good examples of how not to etch. Line after line is put in without any meaning at all; there is no evidence of the study of nature in the work and the subjects are trivial and commonplace. One of the greatest evils commercialism has done to art is to ruin modern etching, by having pictures of the old masters copied slavishly by the etcher, and elaborated and worked up, so that one wearies of them. Such work can scarcely be said to rise to the dignity of fine art at all, and Rembrandt, we think, would rise in horror from his grave, if he could see his paintings reproduced by etchers. Any reproduction of a picture is unsatisfactory and does not become fine art at all, but is only useful to publish reflections of the mind whose work it is intended to represent, and for our part we think a good photo-etching does this better, because more faithfully, than any other process. It is difficult to imagine the mind that can set itself to work for months, even years, at an engraving or etching from another man’s work when the world is so full of pathos and poetry, and subjects abound on all sides. No great man was ever found in this category.