[1] For instance, all the members of the diet might serve as
Urtheilsfinder in a case like the condemnation of Henry the Lion,
duke of Saxony, in the 12th century.
[2] The attempt to create a new and official council ultimately
failed.
[3] More exactly, the emperor nominates, according to the regular
usage of later times, a certain number of members, partly as emperor,
and partly as the sovereign of his hereditary estates; while the
rest, who form the majority, are nominated partly by the electors and
partly by the six ancient circles.
IMPERIAL CITIES OR TOWNS, the usual English translation of
_Reichsstädte_, an expression of frequent occurrence in German history.
These were cities and towns subject to no authority except that of the
emperor, or German king, in other words they were immediate; the
earliest of them stood on the demesne land of their sovereign, and they
often grew up around his palaces. A distinction was thus made between a
_Reichsstadt_ and a _Landstadt_, the latter being dependent upon some
prince, not upon the emperor direct. The term _Freie Reichsstadt_, which
is sometimes used in the same sense as _Reichsstadt_, is rightly only
applicable to seven cities, Basel, Strassburg, Spires, Worms, Mainz,
Cologne and Regensburg. Having freed themselves from the domination of
their ecclesiastical lords these called themselves _Freistädte_ and in
practice their position was indistinguishable from that of the
_Reichsstädte_.
In the middle ages many other places won the coveted position of a
_Reichsstadt_. Some gained it by gift and others by purchase; some won
it by force of arms, others usurped it during times of anarchy, while a
number secured it through the extinction of dominant families, like the
Hohenstaufen. There were many more free towns in southern than in
northern Germany, but their number was continually fluctuating, for
their liberties were lost much more quickly than they were gained. Mainz
was conquered and subjected to the archbishop in 1462. Some free towns
fell into the hands of various princes of the Empire and others placed
themselves voluntarily under such protection. Some, like Donauwörth in
1607, were deprived of their privileges by the emperor on account of
real, or supposed, offences, while others were separated from the Empire
by conquest. In 1648 Besançon passed into the possession of Spain, Basel
had already thrown in its lot with the Swiss confederation, while
Strassburg, Colmar, Hagenau and others were seized by Louis XIV.
Meanwhile the free towns had been winning valuable privileges in
addition to those which they already possessed, and the wealthier among
them, like Lübeck and Augsburg, were practically _imperia in imperio_,
waging war and making peace, and ruling their people without any outside
interference. But they had also learned that union is strength. They
formed alliances among themselves, both for offence and for defence, and
these _Städtebünde_ had an important influence on the course of German
history in the 14th and 15th centuries. These leagues were frequently at
war with the ecclesiastical and secular potentates of their district and
in general they were quite able to hold their own in these quarrels. The
right of the free towns to be represented in the imperial diet was
formally recognized in 1489, and about the same time they divided
themselves into two groups, or benches, the Rhenish and the Swabian. By
the peace of Westphalia in 1648 they were formally constituted as the
third college of the diet. A list drawn up in 1422 mentions 75 free
cities, another drawn up in 1521 mentions 84, but at the time of the
French Revolution the number had decreased to 51. At this time the
Rhenish free cities were: Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Lübeck, Worms,
Spires, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Goslar, Bremen, Hamburg, Mühlhausen,
Nordhausen, Dortmund, Friedberg and Wetzlar. The Swabian free cities
were: Regensburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Ulm, Esslingen, Reutlingen,
Nördlingen, Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, Schwäbisch-Hall, Rottweil,
Ueberlingen, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Gmünd, Dinkelsbühl, Lindau, Biberach,
Ravensburg, Schweinfurt, Kempten, Windsheim, Kaufbeuern, Weil, Wangen,
Isny, Pfullendorf, Offenburg, Leutkirch, Wimpfen, Weissenburg, Giengen,
Gengenbach, Zell, Buchorn, Aalen, Buchau and Bopfingen. But a large
proportion of them had as little claim to their exceptional positions as
the pocket boroughs of Great Britain and Ireland had before the passing
of the Reform Bill of 1832.
By the peace of Lunéville in 1801 Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Worms and
Spires were taken by France, and by the decision of the imperial
deputation of 1803 six cities only: Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Augsburg,
Frankfort-on-Main and Nuremberg, were allowed to keep their
_Reichsfreiheit_, or in other words to hold directly of the Empire. This
number was soon further reduced. On the dissolution of the Empire in
1806 Augsburg and Nuremburg passed under the sovereignty of Bavaria, and
Frankfort was made the seat of a duchy for Karl Theodor von Dalberg,
elector and archbishop of Mainz, who was appointed prince primate of the
Confederation of the Rhine. When the German Confederation was
established in 1815 Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfort were
recognized as free cities, and the first three hold that position in the
modern German empire; but Frankfort, in consequence of the part it took
in the war of 1866, lost its independence and was annexed by Prussia.
In the earlier years of their existence the free cities were under the
jurisdiction of an imperial officer, who was called the _Reichsvogt_ or
imperial advocate, or sometimes the _Reichsschultheiss_ or imperial
procurator. As time went on many of the cities purchased the right of
filling these offices with their own nominees; and in several instances
the imperial authority fell practically into desuetude except when it
was stirred into action by peculiar circumstances. The internal
constitution of the free cities was organized after no common model,
although several of them had a constitution drawn up in imitation of
that of Cologne, which was one of the first to assert its independence.
For the history of the free cities, see J. J. Moser,
_Reichsstädtisches Handbuch_ (Tübingen, 1732); D. Hänlein,
_Anmerkungen über die Geschichte der Reichsstädte_ (Ulm, 1775); A.
Wendt, _Beschreibung der kaiserlichen freien Reichsstädte_ (Leipzig,
1804); G. W. Hugo, _Die Mediatisirung der deutschen Reichsstädte_
(Carlsruhe, 1838); G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_ (Kiel,
1844 fol.); G. L. von Maurer, _Geschichte der Städteverfassung in
Deutschland_ (Erlangen, 1869-1871); W. Arnold, _Verfassungsgeschichte
der deutschen Freistädte_ (Gotha, 1854); P. Brülcke, _Die Entwickelung
der Reichsstandschaft der Städte_ (Hamburg, 1881); A. M. Ehrentraut,
_Untersuchungen über die Frage der Frei- und Reichsstädte_ (Leipzig,
1902); and S. Rietschel, _Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen
Stadtverfassung_ (Leipzig, 1905). See also the article COMMUNE.
(A. W. H.*)
IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH (1732-1809), chief justice of Bengal, was born on the
13th of June 1732, and educated at Westminster with Warren Hastings, who
was his intimate friend throughout life. In 1773 he was appointed the
first chief justice of the new supreme court at Calcutta, and in 1775
presided at the trial of Nuncomar (q.v.) for forgery, with which his
name has been chiefly connected in history. His impeachment was
unsuccessfully attempted in the House of Commons in 1787, and he is
accused by Macaulay of conspiring with Hastings to commit a judicial
murder; but the whole question of the trial of Nuncomar has been
examined in detail by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who states that "no
man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than Nuncomar, and Impey in
particular behaved with absolute fairness and as much indulgence as was
compatible with his duty."
See E. B. Impey, _Sir Elijah Impey_ (1846); and Sir James Stephen,
_The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey_
(1885).
IMPHAL, the capital of the state of Manipur (q.v.) in eastern Bengal and
Assam, on the north-east frontier of India, situated at the confluence
of three rivers. Pop. (1901) 67,903. It is really only a collection of
villages buried amid trees, with a clearing containing the palace of the
raja, the cantonments, and the houses of the few European residents.
IMPLEMENT (Lat. _implementum_, a filling up, from _implere_, to fill),
in ordinary usage, a tool, especially in the plural for the set of tools
necessary for a particular trade or for completing a particular piece of
work (see TOOLS). It is also the most general term applied to the
weapons and tools that remain of those used by primitive man. The Late
Lat. _implementum_, more usually in the plural, _implementa_, was used
for all the objects necessary to stock or "fill up" a house, farm, &c.;
it was thus applied to furniture of a house, the vestments and sacred
vessels of a church, and to articles of clothing, &c. The transition to
the necessary outfit of a trade, &c., is easy. In its original Latin
sense of "filling up," the term survives in Scots law, meaning full
performance or "fulfilment" of a contract, agreement, &c.; "to
implement" is thus also used in Scots law for to carry out, perform.
IMPLUVIUM, the Latin term for the sunk part of the floor in the atrium
of a Greek or Roman house, which was contrived to receive the water
passing through the compluvium (q.v.) of the roof. The impluvium was
generally in marble and sunk about a foot below the floor of the atrium.
IMPOSITION (from Lat. _imponere_, to place or lay upon), in
ecclesiastical usage, the "laying on" of hands by a bishop at the
services of confirmation and ordination as a sign that some special
spiritual gift is conferred, or that the recipient is set apart for some
special service or work. The word is also used of the levying of a
burdensome or unfair tax or duty, and of a penalty, and hence is applied
to a punishment task given to a schoolboy. From "impose" in the sense of
"to pass off" on some one, imposition means also a trick or deception.
In the printing trade the term is used of the arrangement of pages of
type in the "forme," being one of the stages between composing and
printing.
IMPOST (through the O. Fr. from Lat. _impositum_, a thing laid upon
another; the modern French is _impôt_), a tax or tribute, and
particularly a duty levied on imported or exported merchandise (see
TAXATION, CUSTOMS DUTIES, EXCISE, &c.). In architecture, "impost" (in
German _Kaempfer_) is a term applied in Italian to the doorpost, but in
English restricted to the upper member of the same, from which the arch
springs. This may either be in the same plane as the arch mould or
projecting and forming a plain band or elaborately moulded, in which
case the mouldings are known as impost mouldings. Sometimes the complete
entablature of a smaller order is employed, as in the case of the
Venetian or Palladian window, where the central opening has an arch
resting on the entablature of the pilasters which flank the smaller
window on each side. In Romanesque and Gothic work the capitals with
their abaci take the place of the impost mouldings.
IMPOTENCE (Lat. _impotentia_, want of power), the term used in law for
the inability of a husband or wife to have marital intercourse. In
English matrimonial law if impotence exists in either of the parties to
a marriage at the time of its solemnization the marriage is voidable _ab
initio_. A suit for nullity on the ground of impotence can only be
brought by the party who suffers the injury. Third persons--however
great their interest--cannot sue for a decree on this ground, nor can a
marriage be impeached after the death of one of the parties. The old
rule of the ecclesiastical courts was to require a triennial
cohabitation between the parties prior to the institution of the suit,
but this has been practically abrogated (_G._ v. _G._, 1871, L.R. 2
P.C.D. 287). In suits for nullity on the ground of impotence, medical
evidence as to the condition of the parties is necessary and a
commission of two medical inspectors is usually appointed by the
registrar of the court for the purpose of examining the parties; such
cases are heard _in camera_. In the United States impotence is a ground
for nullity in most states. In Germany it is recognized as a ground for
annulment, but not so in France.
IMPRESSIONISM. The word "Impressionist" has come to have a more general
application in England than in France, where it took currency as the
nickname of a definite group of painters exhibiting together, and was
adopted by themselves during the conflict of opinion which the novelty
of their art excited. The word therefore belongs to the class of
nicknames or battle-names, like "Romanticist," "Naturalist," "Realist,"
which preceded it, words into which the acuteness of controversy infuses
more of theoretical purport than the work of the artists denoted
suggests to later times. The painters included in such a "school" differ
so much among themselves, and so little from their predecessors compared
with the points of likeness, that we may well see in these recurring
effervescences of official and popular distaste rather the shock of
individual force in the artist measured against contemporary mediocrity
than the disturbance of a new doctrine. The "Olympia" of Manet, hooted
at the Salon of 1865 as subversive of all tradition, decency and beauty,
strikes the visitor to the Luxembourg rather as the reversion to a theme
of Titian by an artist of ruder vision than as the demonstration of a
revolutionary in painting. Later developments of the school do appear to
us revolutionary. With this warning in a matter still too near us for
final judgment, we may give some account of the Impressionists proper,
and then turn to the wider significance sometimes given to the name.
The words _Impressioniste_, _Impressionisme_, are said to have arisen
from a phrase in the preface to Manet's catalogue of his pictures
exhibited in 1867 during the Exposition Universelle, from which he was
excluded. "It is the effect," he wrote, "of sincerity to give to a
painter's works a character that makes them resemble a protest, whereas
the painter has only thought of rendering his impression." An
alternative origin is a catalogue in which Claude Monet entitled a
picture of sunrise at sea "Une Impression." The word was probably much
used in the discussions of the group, and was caught up by the critics
as characteristic.[1] At the earlier date the only meaning of the word
was a claim for individual liberty of subject and treatment. So far as
subject went, most, though not all of Manet's pictures were modern and
actual of his Paris, for his power lay in the representation of the
thing before his eye, and not in fanciful invention. His simplicity in
this respect brought him into collision with popular prejudice when, in
the "Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (1863), he painted a modern _fête champêtre_.
The actual characters of his painting at this period, so fancifully
reproached and praised, may be grouped under two heads. (1) The
expression of the object by a few carefully chosen values in flattish
patches. Those patches are placed side by side with little attenuation
of their sharp collision. This simplification of colour and tone recalls
by its broad effects of light and silhouette on the one hand Velasquez,
on the other the extreme simplification made by the Japanese for the
purposes of colour-printing. Manet, like the other painters of his
group, was influenced by these newly-discovered works of art. The image,
thus treated, has remarkable hardiness and vigour, and also great
decorative breadth. Its vivacity and intensity of aspect is gained by
the sacrifice of many minor gradations, and by the judgment with which
the leading values have been determined. This matching of values
produces, technically, a "solid" painting, without glazing or elaborate
transparency in shadows. (2) During this period Manet makes constant
progress towards a fair, clear colour. In his early work the patches of
blond colour are relieved against black shadows; later these shadows
clear up, and in place of an indeterminate brown sauce we find shadows
that are colours. A typical picture of this period is the "Musique aux
Tuileries," refused by the Salon of 1863. In this we have an actual
out-of-doors scene rendered with a frankness and sharp taste of
contemporary life surprising to contemporaries, with an elision of
detail in the treatment of a crowd and a seizing on the chief colour
note and patch that characterize each figure equally surprising, an
effort finally to render the total high-pitched gaiety of the spectacle
as a banquet of sunlight and colour rather than a collection of separate
dramatic groups.
For life of Édouard Manet (1832-1883) see Edmond Bazire, _Manet_
(Paris, 1884). An idea of the state of popular feeling may be gained
by reading Zola's eloquent defence in _Mon Salon_, which appeared in
_L'Événement_ (1866) and _Édouard Manet_ (1867), both reprinted in
_Mes Haines_ (Paris, 1880). The same author has embodied many of the
impressionist ideals in Claude Lantier, the fictitious hero of
_L'Oeuvre_. Other writers belonging to Manet's group are Théodore
Duret, author of _Les Peintres français en 1867_ and _Critique
d'avant-garde_, articles and catalogue-prefaces reprinted 1885. See
also, for Manet and others, J. K. Huysman's _L'Art moderne_ (1883) and
_Certains_. Summaries of the literature of the whole period will be
found in R. Muther, _The History of Modern Painting_ (tr. London,
1896), not always trustworthy in detail, and Miss R. G. Kingsley, _A
History of French Art_ (1899). For an interesting critical account see
W. C. Brownell, _French Art_ (1892).
The second period, to which the name is sometimes limited, is
complicated by the emergence of new figures, and it is difficult as yet,
and perhaps will always remain difficult, to say how much of originality
belongs to each artist in the group. The main features are an intenser
study of illumination, a greater variety of illuminations, and a
revolution in _facture_ with a view to pressing closer to a high pitch
of light. Manet plays his part in this development, but we shall not be
wrong probably in giving to Claude Monet (b. 1840) the chief rôle as the
instinctive artist of the period, and to Camille Pissarro (b. 1830) a
very large part as a painter, curious in theory and experiment. Monet at
the early date of 1866 had painted a picture as daring in its naïve
brutality of out-of-door illumination as the "Déjeuner sur l'herbe." But
this picture has the breadth of patch, solidity and suavity of paste of
Manet's practice. During the siege of Paris (1870-71) Monet and Pissarro
were in London, and there the study of Turner's pictures enlarged their
ideas of the pitch in lighting and range of effect possible in painting,
and also suggested a new handling of colour, by small broken touches in
place of the large flowing touches characteristic of Manet. This method
of painting occupied much of the discussion of the group that centred
round Manet at the Café Guerbois, in the Batignolles quarter (hence
called _L'École de Balignolles_). The ideas were: (1) Abolition of
conventional brown tonality. But all browns, in the fervour of this
revolt, went the way of conventional brown, and all ready-made mixtures
like the umbers, ochres, siennas were banished from the palette. Black
itself was condemned. (2) The idea of the spectrum, as exhibiting the
series of "primary" or "pure" colours, directed the reformed palette.
Six colours, besides white, were admitted to represent the chief hues of
the spectrum. (3) These colours were laid on the canvas with as little
previous mixture on the palette as possible to maintain a maximum of
luminosity, and were fused by touch on the canvas as little as possible,
for the same reason. Hence the "broken" character of the touch in this
painting, and the subordination of delicacies of form and suave
continuity of texture to the one aim of glittering light-and-colour
notation. Justification of these procedures was sought in occasional
features of the practice of E. Delacroix, of Watteau, of J. B. Chardin,
in the hatchings of pastel, the stipple of water-colour. With the
ferment of theory went a _parti pris_ for translating all effects into
the upper registers of tone (cf. Ruskin's chapter on Turner's practice
in _Modern Painters_), and for emphasizing the colour of shadows at the
expense of their tone. The characteristic work of this period is
landscape, as the subject of illumination strictly observed and followed
through the round of the day and of the seasons. Other pictorial motives
were subordinated to this research of effect, and Monet, with a
haystack, group of poplars, or church front, has demonstrated the
variety of lighting that the day and the season bring to a single scene.
Besides Pissarro, Alfred Sisley (1840-1899) is a member of the group,
and Manet continues his progress, influenced by the new ideas in
pictures like "Le Linge" and "Chez le Père Lathuille."
Edmond Degas (b. 1834), a severe and learned draughtsman, is associated
with this landscape group by his curiosity in the expression of
momentary action and the effects of artificial illumination, and by his
experiments in broken colour, more particularly in pastel. The novelty
of his matter, taken from unexplored corners of modern life, still more
the daring and irony of his observation and points of view, and the
strangeness of his composition, strongly influenced by Japanese art,
enriched the associations now gathering about the word "impressionist."
Another name, that of Auguste Renoir (b. 1841), completes the leading
figures of the group. Any "school" programme would be strained to
breaking-point to admit this painter, unless on the very general grounds
of love of bright colour, sunlit places and independence of vision. He
has no science of drawing or of tone, but wins a precarious charm of
colour and expression.
The landscape, out-of-doors line, which unites in this period with
Manet's line, may be represented by these names: J. B. Corot, J. B.
Jongkind, Boudin, Monet. Monet's real teacher was Eugène Boudin
(1824-1898), (See Gustave Cahen's _Eugène Boudin_, Paris, 1900). They,
and others of the group, worked together in a painters' colony at
Saint Simeon, near Honfleur. It is usual to date the origin of
_plein-air_ painting, i.e. painting out-of-doors, in an out-of-doors
key of tone, from a picture Manet painted in the garden of de Nittis,
just before the outbreak of war in 1870. This dates only Manet's
change to the lighter key and looser handling. It was Monet who
carried the practice to a logical extreme, working on his canvas only
during the effect and in its presence. The method of Degas is
altogether different, viz., a combination in the studio from
innumerable notes and observations. It will be evident from what has
been said above that impressionistic painting is an artistic ferment,
corresponding to the scientific research into the principles of light
and colour, just as earlier movements in painting coincided with the
scientific study of perspective and anatomy. Chevreul's famous book,
already referred to, _De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs_
(1838), established certain laws of interaction for colours adjacent
to one another. He still, however, referred the sensations of colour
to the three impossible "primaries" of Brewster--red, blue and yellow.
The Young-Helmholtz theory affected the palette of the Impressionists,
and the work of Ogden Rood, _Colour_ (Internat. Scientific Series,
1879-1881), published in English, French and German, furnished the
theorists with formulae measuring the degradation of pitch suffered by
pigments in mixture.
The Impressionist group (with the exception of Manet, who still fought
for his place in the Salon) exhibited together for the first time as
L'Exposition des Impressionistes at Nadar's, Boulevard des Capucines,
in 1874. They were then taken up by the dealer Durand-Ruel, and the
succeeding exhibitions in 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886
were held by him in various galleries. The full history of these
exhibitions, with the names of the painters, will be found in two
works: Félix-Fénéon, _Les Impressionistes en 1886_ (Paris, 1886), and
G. Geffroy, _La Vie artistique_ ("Histoire de l'impressionisme," in
vol. for 1894). See also G. Lecomte, _L'Art impressionists d'après la
collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel_ (Paris, 1892); Duranty, _La
Peinture nouvelle_ (1876). Besides the names already cited, some
others may be added: Madame Berthe Morisot, sister-in-law of Manet;
Paul Cézanne, belonging to the Manet-Pissarro group; and, later,
Gauguin. J. F. Raffaëlli applied a "characteristic" drawing, to use
his word, to scenes in the dismal suburbs of Paris; Forain, the
satiric draughtsman, was a disciple of Degas, as also Zandomeneghi.
Miss Mary Cassatt was his pupil. Caillebotte, who bequeathed the
collection of Impressionist paintings now in the Luxembourg, was also
an exhibitor; and Boudin, who linked the movement to the earlier
schools.
The first exhibitions of the Impressionists in London were in 1882 and
1883, but their fortunes there cannot be pursued in the present
article, nor the history of the movement beyond its originators. This
excludes notable figures, of which M. Besnard may be chosen as a type.
In Manet's painting, even in the final steps he took towards "la
peinture claire," there is nothing of the "decomposition of tones" that
logically followed from the theories of his followers. He recognized the
existence in certain illuminations of the violet shadow, and he adopted
in open-air work a looser and more broken touch. The nature of his
subjects encouraged such a handling, for the painter who attempts to
note from nature the colour values of an elusive effect must treat form
in a summary fashion, still more so when the material is in constant
movement like water. Moreover, in the river-side subjects near Paris
there was a great deal that was only pictorially tolerable when its tone
was subtracted from the details of its form. Monet's painting carries
the shorthand of form and broken colour to extremity; the flowing touch
of Manet is chopped up into harsher, smaller notes of tone, and the
pitch pushed up till all values approach the iridescent end of the
register. It was in 1886 that the _doctrinaire_ ferment came to a head,
and what was supposed to be a scientific method of colour was
formulated. This was _pointillisme_, the resolution of the colours of
nature back into six bands of the rainbow or spectrum, and their
representation on the canvas by _dots_ of unmixed pigment. These dots,
at a sufficient distance, combine their hues in the eye with the effect
of a mixture of coloured _lights_, not of pigments, so that the result
is an increase instead of a loss of luminosity. There are several
fallacies, however, theoretical and practical, in this "spectral
palette" and pointillist method. If we depart from the three primaries
of the Helmholtz hypothesis, there is no reason why we should stop at
six hues instead of six hundred. But pigments follow the spectrum series
so imperfectly that the three primaries, even if we could exactly locate
them, limit the palette considerably in its upper range. The sacrifice
of black is quite illogical, and the lower ranges suffer accordingly.
Moreover, it is doubtful whether many painters have followed the laws of
mixture of lights in their dotting, e.g. dotting green and red together
to produce yellow. It may be added that dotting with oil pigment is in
practice too coarse and inaccurate a method. This innovation of
_pointillisme_ is generally ascribed to George Seurat (d. 1890), whose
picture, "La Grande Jatte," was exhibited at the Rue Laffitte in 1886.
Pissarro experimented in the new method, but abandoned it, and other
names among the _Pointillistes_ are Paul Signac, Vincent van Gogh, and
van Rysselberghe. The theory opened the way for endless casuistries, and
its extravagances died out in the later exhibition of the _Indépendants_
or were domesticated in the Salon by painters like M. Henri Martin.
The first modern painter to concern himself scientifically with the
reactions of complementary colours appears to have been Delacroix (J.
Leonardo, it should be remembered, left some notes on the subject). It
is claimed for Delacroix that as early as 1825 he observed and made
use of these reactions, anticipating the complete exposition of
Chevreul. He certainly studied the treatise, and his biographers
describe a dial-face he constructed for reference. He had quantities
of little wafers of each colour, with which he tried colour effects, a
curious anticipation of pointillist technique. The pointillists claim
him as their grandfather. See Paul Signac, "D'Eugène Delacroix au
Néo-Impressionnisme" (_Revue Blanche_, 1898). For a fuller discussion
of the spectral palette see the _Saturday Review_, 2nd, 9th and 23rd
February and 23rd March 1901.
In England the ideas connected with the word Impressionism have been
refracted through the circumstances of the British schools. The
questions of pitch of light and iridescent colour had already arisen
over the work of Turner, of the Pre-Raphaelites, and also of G. F.
Watts, but less isolated and narrowed, because the art of none of these
limited itself to the pursuit of light. _Pointillisme_, after a fashion,
existed in British water-colour practice. But the Pre-Raphaelite school
had accustomed the English eye to extreme definition in painting and to
elaboration of detail, and it happened that the painting of James
M'Neill Whistler (Grosvenor Gallery, 1878) brought the battle-name
Impressionism into England and gave it a different colour. Whistler's
method of painting was in no way revolutionary, and he preferred to
transpose values into a lower key rather than compete with natural
pitch, but his vision, like that of Manet under the same influences,
Spanish and Japanese, simplified tone and subordinated detail. These
characteristics raised the whole question of _the science and art of
aspect in modern painting_, and the field of controversy was extended
backwards to Velasquez as the chief master of the moderns.
"Impressionism" at first had meant individualism of vision, later the
notation of fugitive aspects of light and of movement; now it came to
mean breadth in pictorial vision, all the simplifications that arise
from the modern analysis of aspect, and especially the effect produced
upon the parts of a picture-field by attending to _the impression of the
whole_. Ancient painting analyses aspect into three separate acts as
form, tone and colour. All forms are made out with equal clearness by a
conventional outline; over this system of outlines a second system of
light and shade is passed, and over this again a system of colours. Tone
is conceived as a difference of black or white added to the tints, and
the colours are the definite local tints of the objects (a blue, a red,
a yellow, and so forth). In fully developed modern painting, instead of
an object analysed into sharp outlines covered with a uniform colour
darkened or lightened in places, we find an object analysed into a
number of surfaces or planes set at different angles. On each of these
facets the character of the object and of the illumination, with
accidents of reflection, produces a patch called by modern painters a
"value," because it is colour of a particular value or tone. (With each
difference of tone, "value" implies a difference of hue also, so that
when we speak of a different tone of the same colour we are using the
word "same" in a loose or approximate sense.) These planes or facets
define themselves one against another with greater or less sharpness.
Modern technique follows this modern analysis of vision, and in one act
instead of three renders by a "touch" of paint the shape and value of
these facets, and instead of imposing a uniform ideal outline at all
their junctions, allows these patches to define themselves against one
another with variable sharpness.
Blurred definition, then, as it exists in our natural view of things, is
admitted into painting; a blurring that may arise from distance, from
vapour or smoke, from brilliant light, from obscurity, or simply from
the nearness in value of adjacent objects. Similarly, much detail that
in primitive art is elaborated is absorbed by rendering the aspect
instead of the facts known to make up that aspect. Thus hair and fur,
the texture of stuffs, the blades of grass at a little distance, become
patches of tone showing only their larger constructive markings. But the
blurring of definitions and the elimination of detail that we find in
modern pictorial art are not all of this ready-made character. We have
so far only the scientific analysis of a field of view. If the painter
were a scientific reporter he would have to pursue the systems of
planes, with their shapes and values, to infinity. Impressionism is the
art that surveys the field and determines which of the shapes and tones
are of chief importance to the _interested_ eye, enforces these, and
sacrifices the rest. Construction, the logic of the object rendered,
determines partly this action of the eye, and also decoration, the
effects of rhythm in line and harmony in fields of colour. These motives
belong to all art, but the specially impressionist motive is the act of
_attention_ as it affects the aspect of the field. We are familiar, in
the ordinary use of the eye, with two features of its structure that
limit clearness of vision. There is, first, the spot of clear vision on
the retina, outside of which all falls away into blur; there is,
secondly, the action of _focus_. As the former limits clear definition
to one spot in the field extended vertically and laterally, so focus
limits clear definition to one plane in the third dimension, viz. depth.
If three objects, A, B and C, stand at different depths before the eye,
we can at will fix A, whereupon B and C must fall out of focus, or B,
whereupon A and C must be blurred, or C, sacrificing the clearness of A
and B. All this apparatus makes it impossible to see everything at once
with equal clearness, enables us, and forces us for the uses of real
life, to frame and limit our picture, according to the immediate
interest of the eye, whatever it may be. The painter instinctively uses
these means to arrive at the emphasis and neglect that his choice
requires. If he is engaged on a face he will now screw his attention to
a part and now relax it, distributing the attention over the whole so as
to restore the bigger relations of aspect. Sir Joshua Reynolds describes
this process as seeing the whole "with the dilated eye"; the commoner
precept of the studios is "to look with the eyes half closed"; a third
way is to throw the whole voluntarily out of focus. In any case the
result is that minor planes are swamped in bigger, that smaller patches
of colour are swept up into broader, that markings are blurred. The
final result of these tentative reviews records, in what is blurred and
what is clear, the attention that has been distributed to different
parts, and to parts measured against the whole. The Impressionist
painter does not allot so much detail to a face in a full-length
portrait as to a head alone, nor to twenty figures on a canvas as to
one. Again, he indicates by his treatment of planes and definitions
whether the main subject of his picture is in the foreground or the
distance. He persuades the eye to slip over hosts of near objects so
that, as in life, it may hit a distant target, or concentrate its attack
on what is near, while the distance falls away into a dim curtain. All
those devices by which attention is directed and distributed, and the
importance in space of an object established, affect impressionistic
composition.
It is an inevitable misunderstanding of painting which plays the game of
art so closely up to the real aspects of nature that its aim is that of
mere exact copying. Painting like Manet's, accused of being realistic in
this sense, sufficiently disproves the accusation when examined. Never
did painting show a _parti pris_ more pronounced, even more violent. The
elisions and assertions by which Manet selects what he finds significant
and beautiful in the complete natural image are startling to the stupid
realist, and the Impressionist may best be described as the painter who
out of the completed contents of vision constructs an image moulded upon
his own interest in the thing seen and not on that of any imaginary
schoolmaster. Accepting the most complex terms of nature with their
special emotions, he uses the same freedom of sacrifice as the man who
at the other end of the scale expresses his interest in things by a few
scratches of outline. The perpetual enemy of both is the eclectic, who
works for possible interests not his own.
Some of the points touched on above will be found amplified in
articles by the writer in _The Albemarle_ (September 1892), the
_Fortnightly Review_ (June 1894), and _The Artist_ (March-July 1896).
An admirable exposition of Impressionism in this sense is R. A. M.
Stevenson's _The Art of Velasquez_ (1895). Mr Stevenson was trained in
the school of Carolus Duran, where impressionist painting was reduced
to a system. Mr Sargent's painting is a brilliant example of the
system. (D. S. M.)