Mr. Hamerton's first volume, entitled "A Painter's Camp in the Highlands," we regret to say, is not a felicitous introduction to the valuable "Thoughts about Art," which give the title to the second. It is unpleasantly inlaid with egotism and enamelled with self-consciousness. Mr. Hamerton's critics cannot withhold attention from so prominent a feature of his book. The obtrusiveness of his personality invites attention. He seems not to have learned the art of existing fully in his work, without dreaming to speak of himself. True, any account of a painter's camp necessarily solicits much consideration of its occupant; but it does not follow that we should be bored with trivial details, and anecdotes simply flattering to the personal appearance of the painter. If Mr. Hamerton proposed to write a book of gossip, if he were ambitious of the honors of a Montaigne, he might tell us how he ties his shoe-strings and how he shapes his moustache; but since we know that Mr. Hamerton is a cultivated gentleman and serious student, we regret that he exposes himself to the charge of being an English snob. Our simple American Thoreau was endowed with better taste; for, though he wrote a very detailed account of his hermit-life on the shore of Walden Pond, his book is entirely free from vulgarity. Thoreau knew how to elevate the trivial and confer dignity on the meanest. But Mr. Hamerton, hearty, healthful, self-reliant Englishman that he is, contrives to let us know that he is also a very elegant fellow even in camp. The personality revealed in Mr. Hamerton's "Painter's Camp" is very English; and when we have said this, we have said all. But let no one be deterred from making the acquaintance of Mr. Hamerton even in his "Painter's Camp"; for he is young, he is hearty, he is interesting, and he is manly.
We know of no books which are the result of more faithful study and practical consideration of the painter's function, and which, at the same time, are so free from technical jargon. Mr. Hamerton is preëminently a useful writer on Art; he is certainly accurate and comprehensive. Carefully going over the ground which he occupies with his "Thoughts about Art," we have been surprised and delighted by the seriousness and conscientiousness of his expositions. He spares no pains to make his reader understand the present condition of Art, and he fairly states and answers some of the most puzzling questions that have agitated modern painters and confused simple students. He at all times escapes cheap rhetoric and that facile enthusiasm begotten in some by the very name of Art. He leaves all that to the dilettanti, and addresses in a simple business-like style men who are not less serious and earnest than himself. Yet Mr. Hamerton does not write a bald and meagre style, nor is he insensible to the poetic and imaginative elements of his theme. He can quicken a glow and arouse an emotion, when he writes of the mighty poetry of Turner's Téméraire, or of the mysterious, the melancholy charm of a portrait opposite the great Veronese in the Louvre. Mr. Hamerton's literary skill is considerable; but he does not abound in verbal felicities, nor has he any affluence of style. He is at all times clear, he is at all times exact, and he is often a vigorous writer. Common-sense, patience, and no ordinary talent for analysis are manifest in every chapter of his "Thoughts about Art." If we were asked where the most intelligent, the most trustworthy, the most practical, and the most interesting exposition of modern Art and cognate subjects is to be found, we should point to Hamerton's writings. As a critic he is not seduced by novelty, and he is free from the exaggerations of Ruskin; but he does not attain the eloquence and power of exposition of John Ruskin. Mr. Hamerton is an admirable critic, but Ruskin is a great advocate. The former is a man of talent; the latter is a man of genius. In the consideration of Art Mr. Hamerton is as fair, serious, and exact as is Matthew Arnold in his "Essays in Criticism," and, like him, faithfully represents the modern spirit. He does not show the artistic skill and nicety which distinguish Mr. Arnold; he is not witty, like Edmond About; he is not concise and masterly, like Eugène Fromentin; but he is honest, and he covers his ground. We repeat, therefore, that Mr. Hamerton's writings on Art are useful books, useful even to artists, and sure to instruct a serious public. Ruskin's writings aroused attention; they made people think. He stimulated many to profitable study; but he also created prejudices, and he has subjected quite as many minds as he has emancipated. Great men are great tyrants. We escape the great man and the great writer in Hamerton. We have in him an instructor, not a dictator. John Ruskin came, and, like John the Baptist, cried, "Repent! repent!"—but Hamerton comes to us as the apostle of a doctrine that needs exposition more than enunciation, and he speaks the words of truth and soberness. Those who did not follow Ruskin laughed and railed at him, and literary executioners hastened to lay violent hands on him. Hamerton's public was prepared by a powerful forerunner, and he is therefore neither assailed nor neglected. Mr. Hamerton's reception in England reflects the nature of his books. He enters the world of letters not as a great and daring rival, not as an irresistible iconoclast, not as an affluent and unhesitating genius,—but as a hearty, cultivated, earnest gentleman who has something worth communicating. He comes to increase knowledge; he comes to throw a light on the obscurity and bring order into the chaos of English Art. For the splendid and misty Turner, the exact and terrible photograph, the great and inconsistent Ruskin, and the vagaries of modern English painters provoked questions and excited conflicts in the world of Art; they seldom reconciled anything among painters, critics, and connoisseurs, too often incapable of a generalization, and therefore incapable of a philosophy of Art. Neither Ruskin nor Hamerton has created a philosophy of Art; they have but contributed invaluable materials. Ruskin, like Buckle, indicated a plan for which no single life is adequate.
The drift of Hamerton's Art criticism will best be appreciated in his chapter on "The Relation between Photography and Painting," and that which treats of transcendentalism in painting. We cannot forbear quoting a few paragraphs from the former chapter. The force of the following is obvious.
"Photography represents facts isolated from their natural companions, and without any hint of their relation to the human mind.
"Now it is only the unity of relation that can satisfy the artistic sense, not isolated fragments; and therefore, so long as the artistic sense remains in the human organization, the demand for pictures will certainly continue.
"I wish I could make perfectly clear what is that unity of relation which is so satisfactory to the artistic sense; but that, in these limits, is impossible. It is enough to say here that any perfect "whole" in a pictorial representation of Nature must include delicate colors and beautiful forms, all helping each other to the utmost, like a chorus of well-trained singers, and that in the arrangement of it all a great human soul must manifest itself, just as the soul of Handel does in a chorus from the 'Messiah.'
"But in the photograph we have only a fact or two clearly stated, but not in their natural connection with other facts; far less their deeper and more mysterious connection, which the genius of great imaginative artists is alone able to apprehend.
"Therefore the division of labor likely to take place between photography and painting is this: photography will record isolated facts, of which an infinite number always need recording; painting will concern itself with the relations of associated truths and beauties.
"And let each keep to its own task. The photograph can never successfully encroach on the province of painting; and henceforth let us hope that painters will never again commit the rash imprudence of attempting to intrude upon the peculiar domain of the photograph.
"In the few instances where photographers have attempted to produce something resembling historical pictures, by arranging models and furniture, and photographing the tableaux vivants so obtained, the effect produced on the spectator was always the simple fact that he was looking at a photograph of dressed-up models and carefully arranged furniture. Anything farther from a true picture it would be impossible to conceive. The naïveté of the mistake on which this spurious Art was founded is really amusing. The photographers fancied that the painters merely copied their models, and so thought it easy to rival them. Why, even the very severest and most rigid pre-Raphaelites use the model as little more than a stimulus, an authority, or a suggestion. Copy the model, indeed! I should like to know where on earth Hunt could have found a woman capable of assuming and retaining that marvellous expression of beatitude that illuminates the sweet face of Mary when she finds Jesus in the temple. That expression which is the most mighty thing in the whole picture—the mightiest, I mean, over the hearts of all men and women who can really feel anything—was gotten out of the painter's own soul, not from any hired model whatever. And the other intense expression of maternal love in the 'Rescue,' by Millais,—whence came it? From the model, think you, or the mind of the painter?"—Thoughts, p. 230.