he is so strongly gifted, that one might almost say he succeeds in
revealing himself as a painter of great merit in spite of this dry and
charmless method. All his works are supported by broad and learned
drawing and his colour is naturally brilliant. M. Van Rysselberghe, a
prolific and varied worker, has painted nudes, large portraits,
landscapes with figures, seascapes, interiors and still-life, and in all
this he evinces faculties of the first order. He is a lover of light and
understands how to make it vibrate over flesh and fabrics. He is an
artist who has the sense of style. He has signed a certain number of
portraits, whose beautiful carriage and serious psychology would suffice
to make him be considered as the most significant of the
Neo-Impressionists. It is really in him that one has to see the young
and worthy heir of Monet, of Sisley, and of Degas, and that is why we
have insisted on adding here to the works of these masters the
reproduction of one of his. M. Van Rysselberghe is also a very delicate
etcher who has signed some fine works in this method, and his seascapes,
whether they revel in the pale greys of the German Ocean or in the warm
sapphire and gold harmonies of the Mediterranean, count among the finest
of the time; they are windows opened upon joyous brightness.
To these painters who have never taken part at the Salons, and are only
to be seen at the exhibitions of the _Indépendants_ (except M. Denis),
must be added M. Pierre Bonnard, who has given proof to his charm and
fervour in numerous small canvases of Japanese taste; and M. Edouard
Vuillard, who is a painter of intimate scenes of rare delicacy. This
artist, who stands apart and produces very little, has signed some
interiors of melancholic distinction and of a colouring which revels in
low tones. He has the precision and skill of a master. There is in him,
one might say, a reflection of Chardin's soul. Unfortunately his works
are confined to a few collections and have not become known to the
public. To the same group belong M. Ranson, who has devoted himself to
purely decorative art, tapestry, wall papers and embroideries; M.
Georges de Feure, a strange, symbolist water-colour painter, who has
become one of the best designers of the New Art in France; M. Félix
Vallotton, painter and lithographer, who is somewhat heavy, but gifted
with serious qualities. It is true that M. de Feure is Dutch, M.
Vallotton Swiss, and M. Van Rysselberghe Belgian; but they have settled
down in France, and are sufficiently closely allied to the
Neo-Impressionist movement so that the question of nationality need not
prevent us from mentioning them here. Finally it is impossible not to
say a few words about two pupils of Gustave Moreau's, who have both
become noteworthy followers of Impressionism of very personal
individuality. M. Eugène Martel bids fair to be one of the best painters
of interiors of his generation. He has the feeling of mystical life and
paints the peasantry with astonishing psychologic power. His vigorous
colouring links him to Monticelli, and his drawing to Degas. As to M.
Simon Bussy who, following Alphonse Legros's example, is about to make
an enviable position for himself in England, he is an artist of pure
blood. His landscapes and his figures have the distinction and rare tone
of M. Whistler, besides the characteristic acuteness of Degas. His
harmonies are subtle, his vision novel, and he will certainly develop
into an important painter. Together with Henri le Sidaner and Jacques
Blanche, Simon Bussy is decidedly the most personal of that young
generation of "Intimists" who seem to have retained the best principles
of the Impressionist masters to employ them for the expression of a
psychologic ideal which is very different from Realism.
Outside this group there are still a few isolated painters who are
difficult to classify. The very young artists Laprade and Charles Guérin
have shown for the last three years, at the exhibition of the
_Indépendants_, some works which are the worthy result of Manet's and
Renoir's influence. They, too, justify great expectations. The
landscapists Paul Vogler and Maxime Maufra, more advanced in years, have
made themselves known by some solid series of vigorously presented
landscapes. To them must be added M. Henry Moret, M. Albert André and M.
Georges d'Espagnet, who equally deserve the success which has commenced
to be their share. But there are some older ones. It is only his due,
that place should be given to a painter who committed suicide after an
unhappy life, and who evinced splendid gifts. Vincent Van Gogh, a
Dutchman, who, however, had always worked in France, has left to the
world some violent and strange works, in which Impressionism appears to
have reached the limits of its audacity. Their value lies in their naïve
frankness and in the undauntable determination which tried to fix
without trickery the sincerest feelings. Amidst many faulty and clumsy
works, Van Gogh has also left some really beautiful canvases. There is a
deep affinity between him and Cézanne. A very real affinity exists, too,
between Paul Gauguin, who was a friend and to a certain extent the
master of Van Gogh, and Cézanne and Renoir. Paul Gauguin's robust talent
found its first motives in Breton landscapes, in which the method of
colour-spots can be found employed with delicacy and placed at the
service of a rather heavy, but very interesting harmony. Then the artist
spent a long time in Tahiti, whence he returned with a completely
transformed manner. He has brought back from these regions some
landscapes with figures treated in intentionally clumsy and almost wild
fashion. The figures are outlined in firm strokes and painted in broad,
flat tints on canvas which has the texture almost of tapestry. Many of
these works are made repulsive by their aspect of multi-coloured, crude
and barbarous imagery. Yet one cannot but acknowledge the fundamental
qualities, the beautiful values, the ornamental taste, and the
impression of primitive animalism. On the whole, Paul Gauguin has a
beautiful, artistic temperament which, in its aversion to virtuosoship,
has perhaps not sufficiently understood that the fear of formulas, if
exaggerated, may lead to other formulas, to a false ignorance which is
as dangerous as false knowledge. Gauguin's symbolical intentions, like
those of his pupil Emile Bernard, are sincere, but are badly served by
minds which do not agree with their technical qualities, and both
Gauguin and Emile Bernard are most happily inspired when they are
painters pure and simple.
Next to Gauguin, among the seniors of the present generation and the
successors of Impressionism, should be placed the landscapist Armand
Guillaumin who, without possessing Sisley's delicate qualities, has
painted some canvases worthy of notice; and we must, finally, terminate
this far too summary enumeration by referring to one of the most gifted
painters of the French School of the day, M. Louis Anquetin. His is a
most varied talent whose power is unquestionable. He made his _début_
among the Neo-Impressionists and revealed the influence upon him of the
Japanese and of Degas. It may be seen that these two influences
predominate in the whole group. Then M. Anquetin became fascinated by
the breadth and superb freedom of Manet's works, and signed a series of
portraits and sketches, some of which are not far below so great a
master's. They are works which will surprise the critics, when our
contemporary painting will be examined with calm impartiality. After
these works, M. Anquetin gave way to his impetuous nature which led him
to decorative painting, and he became influenced by Rubens, Jordaens,
and the Fontainebleau School. He painted theatre curtains and
mythological scenes, in which he gave free rein to his sensual
imagination. In spite of some admirable qualities, it seems as though
the artist had strayed from his true path in painting these brilliant,
but somewhat declamatory works, and he has since returned to a more
modern and more direct painting. In all his changed conditions Anquetin
has shown a considerable talent, pleasing in its fine vigour,
impetuosity, brilliancy and sincerity. His inequality is perhaps the
cause of his relative want of success; it has put the public off, but
nevertheless in certain of this brave and serious painter's canvases can
be seen the happy influence of Manet.
It seems to us only right to sum up our impartial opinion of
Neo-Impressionism by saying that it has lacked cohesion, that
Pointillism in particular has led painting into an aimless path. It has
been wrong to see in Impressionism too exclusive a pretext for technical
researches, and a happy reaction has set in, which leads us back to-day,
after diverse tentative efforts (amongst others some unfortunate
attempts at symbolist painting), to the fine, recent school of the
"Intimists" and to the novel conception which a great and glorious
painter, Besnard, imposes upon the Salons, where the elect draw
inspiration from him. We can here only indicate with a few words the
considerable part played by Besnard: his clever work has proved that the
scientific colour principles of Impressionism may be applied, not to
realism, but to the highest thoughts, to ideologic painting most nobly
inspired by the modern intellectual preoccupations. He is the
transition between Impressionism and the art of to-morrow. Of pure
French lineage by his portraits and his nudes, which descend directly
from Largillière and Ingres, he might have restricted himself to being
placed among the most learned Impressionists. His studies of reflections
and of complementary colours speak for this. But he has passed this
phase and has, with his decorations, returned to the psychical domain of
his strangely beautiful art. The "Intimists," C. Cottet, Simon, Blanche,
Ménard, Bussy, Lobre, Le Sidaner, Wéry, Prinet, and Ernest Laurent, have
proved that they have profited by Impressionism, but have proceeded in
quite a different direction in trying to translate their real
perceptions. Some isolated artists, like the decorative painter Henri
Martin, who has enormous talent, have applied the Impressionist
technique to the expression of grand allegories, rather in the manner of
Puvis de Chavannes. The effort at getting away from mere cleverness and
escaping a too exclusive preoccupation with technique, and at the same
time acquiring serious knowledge, betrays itself in the whole position
of the young French School; and this will furnish us with a perfectly
natural conclusion, of which the following are the principal points:--
What we shall have to thank Impressionism for, will be moral and
material advantages of considerable importance. Morally it has rendered
an immense service to all art, because it has boldly attacked routine
and proved by the whole of its work that a combination of independent
producers could renew the aesthetic code of a country, without owing
anything to official encouragement. It has succeeded where important but
isolated creators have succumbed, because it has had the good fortune of
uniting a group of gifted men, four of whom will count among the
greatest French artists since the origin of national art. It has had the
qualities which overcome the hardest resistance: fecundity, courage and
sure originality. It has known how to find its strength by referring to
the true traditions of the national genius, which have happily
enlightened it and saved it from fundamental errors. It has, last, but
not least, inflicted an irremediable blow on academic convention and has
wrested from it the prestige of teaching which ruled tyrannically for
centuries past over the young artists. It has laid a violent hand upon a
tenacious and dangerous prejudice, upon a series of conventional notions
which were transmitted without consideration for the evolution of modern
life and intelligence. It has dared freely to protest against a
degenerated ideal which vainly parodied the old masters, pretending to
honour them. It has removed from the artistic soul of France a whole
order of pseudo-classic elements which worked against its blossoming,
and the School will never recover from this bold contradiction which has
rallied to it all the youthful. The moral principle of Impressionism has
been absolutely logical and sane, and that is why nothing has been able
to prevent its triumph.
Technically Impressionism has brought a complete renewal of pictorial
vision, substituting the beauty of character for the beauty of
proportions and finding adequate expression for the ideas and feelings
of its time, which constitutes the secret of all beautiful works. It has
taken up again a tradition and added to it a contemporary page. It will
have to be thanked for an important series of observations as regards
the analysis of light, and for an absolutely original conception of
drawing. Some years have been wasted by painters of little worth in
imitating it, and the Salons, formerly encumbered with academic
_pastiches_, have been encumbered with Impressionist _pastiches_. It
would be unfair to blame the Impressionists for it. They have shown by
their very career that they hated teaching and would never pretend to
teach. Impressionism is based upon irrefutable optic laws, but it is
neither a style, nor a method, likely ever to become a formula in its
turn. One may call upon this art for examples, but not for receipts. On
the contrary, its best teaching has been to encourage artists to become
absolutely independent and to search ardently for their own
individuality. It marks the decline of the School, and will not create a
new one which would soon become as fastidious as the other. It will only
appear, to those who will thoroughly understand it, as a precious
repertory of notes, and the young generation honours it intelligently by
not imitating it with servility.
Not that it is without its faults! It has been said, to belittle it,
that it only had the value of an interesting attempt, having only been
able to indicate some excellent intentions, without creating anything
perfect. This is inexact. It is absolutely evident, that Manet, Monet,
Renoir and Degas have signed some masterpieces which did not lose by
comparison with those in the Louvre, and the same might even be said of
their less illustrious friends. But it is also evident that the time
spent on research as well as on agitation and enervating controversies
pursued during twenty-five years, has been taken from men who could
otherwise have done better still. There has been a disparity between
Realism and the technique of Impressionism. Its realistic origin has
sometimes made it vulgar. It has often treated indifferent subjects in a
grand style, and it has too easily beheld life from the anecdotal side.
It has lacked psychologic synthesis (if we except Degas). It has too
willingly denied all that exists hidden under the apparent reality of
the universe and has affected to separate painting from the ideologic
faculties which rule over all art. Hatred of academic allegory,
defiance of symbolism, abstraction and romantic scenes, has led it to
refuse to occupy itself with a whole order of ideas, and it has had the
tendency of making the painter beyond all a workman. It was necessary at
the moment of its arrival, but it is no longer necessary now, and the
painters understand this themselves. Finally it has too often been
superficial even in obtaining effects; it has given way to the wish to
surprise the eyes, of playing with tones merely for love of cleverness.
It often causes one regret to see symphonies of magnificent colour
wasted here in pictures of boating men; and there, in pictures of café
corners; and we have arrived at a degree of complex intellectuality
which is no longer satisfied with these rudimentary themes. It has
indulged in useless exaggerations, faults of composition and of harmony,
and all this cannot be denied.
But it still remains fascinating and splendid for its gifts which will
always rouse enthusiasm: freedom, impetuousness, youth, brilliancy,
fervour, the joy of painting and the passion for beautiful light. It is,
on the whole, the greatest pictorial movement that France has beheld
since Delacroix, and it brings to a finish gloriously the nineteenth
century, inaugurating the present. It has accomplished the great deed of
having brought us again into the presence of our true national lineage,
far more so than Romanticism, which was mixed with foreign elements. We
have here painting of a kind which could only have been conceived in
France, and we have to go right back to Watteau in order to receive
again the same impression. Impressionism has brought us an almost
unhoped-for renaissance, and this constitutes its most undeniable claim
upon the gratitude of the race.
It has exercised a very appreciable influence upon foreign painting.
Among the principal painters attracted by its ideas and research, we
must mention, in Germany, Max Liebermann and Kuehl; in Norway, Thaulow;
in Denmark, Kroyer; in Belgium, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Emile Claus,
Verheyden, Heymans, Verstraete, and Baertson; in Italy, Boldini,
Segantini, and Michetti; in Spain, Zuloaga, Sorolla y Bastida, Dario de
Regoyos and Rusiñol; in America, Alexander, Harrison, Sargent; and in
England, the painters of the Glasgow School, Lavery, Guthrie and the
late John Lewis Brown. All these men come within the active extension of
the French movement, and one may say that the honour of having first
recognised the truly national movement of this art must be given to
those foreign countries which have enriched their collections and
museums with works that were despised in the land which had witnessed
their birth. At the present moment the effects of this new vision are
felt all over the world, down to the very bosom of the academies; and at
the Salons, from which the Impressionists are still excluded, can be
witnessed an invasion of pictures inspired by them, which the most
retrograde juries dare not reject. In whatever measure the recent
painters accept Impressionism, they remain preoccupied with it, and even
those who love it not are forced to take it into account.
The Impressionist movement can therefore now be considered, apart from
all controversies, without vain attacks or exaggerated praise, as an
artistic manifestation which has entered the domain of history, and it
can be studied with the impartial application of the methods of
critical analysis which is usually employed in the study of the former
art movements. We shall not pretend to have given in these pages a
complete and faultless history; but we shall consider ourselves well
rewarded for this work, which is intended to reach the great public, if
we have roused their curiosity and sympathy with a group of artists whom
we consider admirable; and if we have rectified, in the eyes of the
readers of a foreign nation, the errors, the slanders, the undeserved
reproaches, with which Frenchmen have been pleased to overwhelm sincere
creators who thought with faith and love of the pure tradition of the
national genius, and who have for that reason been vilified as much as
if they had in an access of anarchical folly risen against the very
common sense, taste, reason and clearness, which will remain the eternal
merits of their soil. This small, imperfect volume will perhaps find its
best excuse in its intention of repairing an old injustice and of
affirming a useful and permanent truth: that of the authenticity of the
classicism of Impressionism, in the face of the false classicism of the
academic world which official honours have made the guardian of a French
heritage, whose soul it denied and whose spirit it deceived with its
narrow and cold formulas.