1856.
Specialities in painting.--Wyld's practice.--Projected voyage on the
Loire.--Birth of the Prince Imperial.--Scepticism about his inheritance
of the crown.--The Imperial family.--I return home.--Value of the French
language to me.
Being entirely absorbed in the study of French during my first visit to
Paris, I did little in the practice of art. My Lancashire neighbor, who
was studying in Paris, worked in Colin's atelier, and I have since
regretted that I did not at that time get myself entered there, the more
so that it was a decent and quiet place kept under the eye of the master
himself, who had long been accustomed to teaching. My friend had
certainly made good progress there. I was unfortunately influenced by
two erroneous ideas, one of them being that the studies of a
figure-painter could be of no use in landscape, [Footnote: This idea had
been strongly confirmed by Mr. Pettitt.] and the other that it was wiser
to be a specialist, and devote myself to landscape exclusively. It is
surprising that the notion of a limited speciality in painting should
have taken possession of me then, as in other matters I have never been
a narrow specialist, or had any tendency to become one.
The choice of a narrow speciality may be good in the industrial arts,
but it is not good in painting, for the reason that a painter may at any
time desire to include something in his picture which a specialist could
not deal with. To feel as if the world belonged to him a painter ought
to be able to paint everything he sees. There is another sense in which
speciality may be good: it may be good to keep to one of the graphic
arts in order to effect that intimate union between the man and his
instrument which is hardly possible on any other terms.
Wyld would have taught me landscape-painting if I had asked him, and I
did at a later period study water-color with him; but his practice in
oil did not suit me, for this reason: it was entirely tentative, he was
constantly demolishing his work, so that it was hard to see how a pupil
could possibly follow him. The advantage in working under his eye would
have been in receiving a great variety of sound artistic ideas; for few
painters know more about _art_ as distinguished from nature. However, by
mere conversation, Wyld has communicated to me a great deal of this
knowledge; and with regard to the practical advantages of painting like
him they would probably not have ensured me any better commercial
success, as his style of painting has now for a long time been
completely out of fashion.
My scheme in 1856 was to make a great slow boat voyage on the Loire,
with the purpose of collecting a quantity of sketches and studies in
illustration of that river; and my ardor in learning to speak French had
for an immediate motive the desire to make that voyage without an
interpreter. I have often regretted that this scheme was never carried
out. I have since done something of the same kind for the Saône, but my
situation is now entirely different. I am now obliged to make all my
undertakings _pay_, which limits them terribly, and almost entirely
prevents me from doing anything on a great scale. For example, these
pages are written within a few miles of Loire side; the river that flows
near my home is a tributary of the Loire; I have all the material outfit
necessary for a great boating expedition, and still keep the strength
and the will; but no publisher could prudently undertake the
illustration of a river so long as the Loire and so rich in material, on
the scale that I contemplated in 1856.
It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with my crude impressions of
European painting in the Universal Exhibition of that year. I no more
understood French art at that time than a Frenchman newly transplanted
to London can understand English art. The two schools require, in fact,
different mental adjustments. Our National Gallery had sufficiently
prepared me for the Louvre, which I visited very frequently; and there I
laid the foundations of a sort of knowledge which became of great use
many years afterwards, though for a long time there was nothing to show
for it.
No historical event of importance occurred during my stay in Paris,
except the birth of the Prince Imperial. I was awakened by the cannon at
the Invalides, and having been told that if there were more than
twenty-one guns the child would be a boy, I counted till the
twenty-second, and then fell asleep again. There existed, even then, the
most complete scepticism as to the transmission of the crown. Neither M.
Gindriez, nor any other intelligent Frenchman that I met, believed that
the newly born infant had the faintest chance of ever occupying the
throne of France. Before the child's birth I had seen his father and
mother and all his relations at the closing ceremony of the Universal
Exhibition, and thought them, with the exception of the Empress, a
common-looking set of people. They walked round the oblong arena in the
Palais de l'Industrie exactly as circus people do round the track at the
Hippodrome. The most interesting figure was old Jerome--interesting, not
for himself, as he was a nonentity, but as the brother of the most
famous conqueror since Caesar.
Being called back to England on a matter of business, I cut short my
stay in Paris, and arrived at Hollins without having advanced much as an
artist, but with an important linguistic acquirement. The value of
French to me from a professional point of view is quite incalculable.
The best French criticism on the fine arts is the most discriminating
and the most accurate in the world, at least when it is not turned aside
from truth by the national jealousy of England and the consequent
antipathy to English art. At the same time, there are qualities of
delicacy and precision in French prose which it was good for me to
appreciate, even imperfectly.