"And what a lamentable waste of labor it is, when artists forget all about the mutual relation of things, to copy unmeaning details in long months of labor, which any good photographer would obtain in infinitely greater perfection with an exposure of as many minutes! The mere fact that photography does this sort of work so unapproachably well should be enough of itself to warn our young painters from engaging it. Anybody who wants a plain fact about a piece of cliff or castle-wall can get it in a photograph for a few shillings; then why should he spend pounds for a picture which will give him nothing more? But the relation of the castle or cliff to the heaven above or the water beneath, and to the minds of men,—the significant stains of color upon it, the grandeur of its enduring strength, the deep human feelings that it ought to kindle in the spectator's heart,—these things are the exclusive domain of the painter, and he should never sacrifice the least of these to mere literal fidelity of detail."—Thoughts, p. 232.
To our purely literary readers we may say, that Mr. Hamerton is sure to interest them with his chapter on "Word-Painting and Color-Painting," and that on "The Painter in his Relation to Society." Mr. Hamerton shows himself to be an acute and manly essayist in the treatment of these subjects. His chapter on "Word-Painting and Color-Painting" is fresh and direct in treatment, and therein he breaks new ground. He presents the truths of his subject so felicitously, that, as in reading Emerson's essays, we are surprised it has not occurred to another to say the same things equally well.
But even here we are disposed to find fault with Mr. Hamerton. In mentioning the masters of the much-abused art, the much-discredited art of word-painting, he forgets Robert Browning! Can Mr. Hamerton find any poet more decisive, more exact, more rapid and effective in suggestion of Nature than Browning? In the development of this very happy essay, we have examples or characterizations of the peculiar talent of Scott, of Wordsworth, of Coleridge, of Keats, of Byron, of Shelley, and of Tennyson, among poets,—of George Sand, of Lamartine, of Charlotte Bronté, of Marian Evans, and of John Ruskin, among prose-writers. In this essay, while awarding to Tennyson among poets, and to Ruskin among prose-writers, the honor of good preëminence in the art of word-painting, he at the same time subjects the latter to a criticism perhaps unexpected, certainly effective. Mr. Hamerton points out Mr. Ruskin's poetic fallacies, and forcibly demonstrates the crushing power of common-sense,—that is to say, unimpassioned sense,—when acting upon whatever has grown out of an emotion. It is somewhat cruel, if not brutal, to cry havoc over Mr. Ruskin's tender "lichens that lay quiet finger on the trembling stones, to teach them rest."
Mr. Hamerton's essay is not artistic or symmetrical, but it is the direct expression of much thought. Yet it certainly lets him escape being classed among masters of style. He tells us that Ruskin was annoyed because people paid no attention to his arguments, but were always admiring his language. Has Mr. Hamerton avoided the affluent and felicitous of written words, has he disowned arrangement and proportion, that he might secure a public to regard his thought as more than its medium of communication? Very well; we discover that he is never obscure, that he is no word-monger, that he is seldom seduced by the example of writers whose literary talent overrides their honesty. Among Art writers, among all writers, we welcome him, and we hope to see the best of his book, which is its thoughts, appropriated by the large and restless class of critics, connoisseurs, and patrons of Art, which has multiplied so rapidly in this country during the last four years. Our patrons of Art will find matter of great importance to them in the chapter entitled, "Picture Buying, Wise and Foolish." It is true that they will be taught to correct some errors, that they will be convicted of mistakes of judgment, and forced to admit that they own much worthless Art-work in pictures that have come from the easels of famed painters; but they will also be made to know certain general truths which will profit them, whenever applied. In our examination of the nature and quality of Mr. Hamerton's writings about Art we have had frequent occasion to observe an absence of taste in its most just measure, and the dominance of the conversational in the style and tone of his communications. This is so striking a characteristic, that we might almost say that he is often caught in undress. He makes us sure that he has no mental toilette and robes for great or public occasions. We do not reproach Mr. Hamerton that he is so frank; we do not regret that he is honest, and scorns literary padding and stilts and stays, when he appears in public. We simply regret that he does not care to add to his clearness and force of statement a literary artist's appreciation of the appropriate and beautiful. A more just taste would have removed much matter purely personal; and more artistic skill would have made the same more agreeable, if retained. In reading the chapter called "Transcendentalism in Painting," which is a very skilful and convincing application of the matter of Emerson's essay on that subject to Art and artists, we were impressed with the downright earnestness and force of exposition of the writer. The chapter is a sufficient explanation of the inactivity of great, and of the extravagant demand and unrest of young painters, and it contains superb tributes to Ruskin and Holman Hunt. Mr. Hamerton also shows that the transcendental tendency belongs necessarily to all men, in some stage of their career, who have reached commanding eminence. He briefly glances at the life and works of the great Leonardo, and declares that he is the prince of transcendentalists,—that, unhappily, he always remained more or less in subjection to the transcendental tendency. He mourns that Leonardo never wholly escaped that tendency, that he never attained the intelligently practical. He establishes that the only salutary action of transcendentalism is an intermittent one, and by epochs; that it is always critical; that it is necessary to progress; that, abused, it is disastrous to the mind, and, like sensual excesses upon the body, produces lassitude and debility. We cordially commend this admirable chapter to the attention of thinkers and workers. In treating of the three stages of "all labors, the mechanical or imitative, the transcendental or reflective, and the intelligently practical," we are entertained with great, brilliant, and yet mournful illustrations; and the thoughtful and exact language of our own Emerson is returned to us from over the seas. And here we may remark, that Emerson is the most frequently quoted, except Ruskin. Mr. Hamerton seems to have a genuine appreciation of Mr. Emerson's contributions to a department of literature which is not occupied, and which represents a mental condition that has scarcely found expression in English literature since Wordsworth.
In the course of our remarks we have mentioned Mr. Hamerton's chapter on "The Painter in his Relation to Society." In that admirable paper Mr. Hamerton starts with the assumption that society respects nothing but power, or that which leads to power; and because the artist does not represent power in an obvious sense, therefore he is considered of little consequence. Mr. Hamerton enforces his statements by illustrations taken from the works of novelists who have treated of the artist in his social relations. He makes his chapter interesting and ingenious by quotations from, or references to, the works of Scott, Thackeray, Tennyson, Goethe, Balzac, Ponsard, and Edmond About. In the course of a masterly synopsis and partial analysis of one of Balzac's novels, he writes,—"Though Balzac shows how much he loves artists by describing the artistic nature with tenderness and kind feeling, yet he also plainly declares that people generally cannot understand a painter, and do not respect him, unless he is famous." Mr. Hamerton also gives us the saying of Thackeray about Reynolds,—"I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman." Also Ruskin's remark about Rubens,—"Rubens was an honorable and entirely well-intentioned man, earnestly industrious, simple, and temperate in his habits of life, high-bred, learned, and discreet."
Taken as a whole, Mr. Hamerton's two volumes have very much the character of an autobiography, which explains at once the striking merits and faults of the writings considered as contributions to the literature of Art. The plan of his work is well understood. The first volume very truly represents Practice, and the second represents Reflection. The first concerns "the active life of a landscape-painter"; the second contains reflections that naturally occurred to that painter, or were suggested by his work. The first chapter of the second volume of his essays is a conclusive statement of the necessity "that certain artists should write about Art."
We hope our introduction of Mr. Hamerton will increase the number of serious and patient readers, and that the American Art public will make haste to profit by his thoughts. He is a landscape-painter, and one of the ablest contributors to the "London Fine Arts Quarterly Review." W. M. Rossetti has paid a tribute to his worth as a painter and critic, and even the "Saturday Review" greeted him as a writer of ability. Certainly we take his book to be the latest and best contribution to the literature of Art published since Ruskin's "Modern Painters." Mr. Hamerton's writings are the work of a man who does not decline the free expression of his opinions before accredited masters in Art or Literature. He relies upon himself, when those masters contradict the teachings of his own experience. In this we have the proof of mental manhood, which, among writers, is sufficiently rare, unknown even, to be remarked, and at all times welcomed.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] A Painter's Camp in the Highlands, and Thoughts about Art. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. London: Macmillan & Co.