I cannot for the moment get away from Rubens--one of the most direct
painters in all art and yet a great colorist and a splendid painter of
textures, especially the texture of flesh. Sargent is no such colorist
as Rubens, but the lack is perhaps inherent in the man rather than in
the method. At the same time Mr. Cox is right in degree. Perhaps the
most engaging quality of flesh coloring, to return to the illustration,
can be obtained only by additions and overlayings of paint which give
the feeling of the coloring coming up from below to the surface. The
direct method will not answer save in the hands of a Rubens.
But the end justifies the means with Sargent. Precision in drawing
immediately begins to evaporate when one starts to knead or overlay
the surface; and to weaken Sargent’s accuracy in drawing would be
to imperil his authority and dispel such a thing as conviction. One
cannot imagine it. If he should now deliberately try for subtlety or
depth of color or seek to obtain a mysterious or illusory or enamelled
surface, his friends in art would immediately declare him in decline
and roll their eyes heavenward in despair. But fortunately there is
no immediate prospect of such a thing. The painter’s inclination seems
well settled, and neither his eye nor his hand has lost its cunning.
On the contrary, since he practically abandoned portrait-painting
more than a dozen years ago and turned his attention to landscape and
effects of direct sunlight, he has been producing the most astonishing
pictures of his career. The things that he sees and draws would have
been thought as wild as cubist fancies thirty years ago. And yet they
are the most positive pronouncements of elemental truths that he has
yet put forth.
That does not mean that there is anything weird or queer about these
later doings. They are merely appearances of form, color, and light
presented with astonishing breadth, force, and simplicity. Sargent has
never evidenced any liking for things queer. He is too intelligent
for fads and fancies, too sane for mad movements in art. There is not
the slightest indication of impressionism, futurism, or cubism in his
work. The fashions have never interested him; but style--the best way
of presenting a thought or theme--has no doubt been in his thought
since boyhood. Perhaps it was his early acquaintance with the works of
painters like Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese that led him to
base his own style in largeness, simplicity, and directness. He could
not have built on a better foundation. Whatever gimcrack or scrollwork
bad taste may add at the top, there never yet has been any great art
that did not have a plain and firm foundation at the bottom.
And in these days, when all painting seems going to the dogs with
new and incomprehensible conventions put forth by first one group of
painters and then another, it is a pleasure and a relief to know that
there is a large body of the younger men who subscribe to Sargent’s
formulas and methods. So far as I know he has never done any teaching
nor had any pupils, and yet the influence of his works has been great
not only in England but in France and America. For many years his
method of handling has been held up for admiration in the schools and
every new work of his shown in an exhibition has had its chorus of
students to pay it homage. They could not follow a better master.
Sargent, Alexander, Chase, with many other painters who came to the
front with the founding of the Society of American Artists, have helped
form the new American tradition of the craft. As I have indicated many
times in the course of these pages, that tradition is not based in any
mere theory or fancy of art but primarily in the calm, cold practice of
good workmanship. In other words, the craftsman first; the great artist
afterward--if such thing may be. There could be no wiser teaching, no
more enduring tradition. With it the painter can rise to what eerie
heights he will; without it he forever moves on leaden wings.
It remains to be seen what the present generation will do in art.
So many strange idols are set up in art places from day to day that
one wonders if faith and purpose shall last. But whatever path the
new group may follow or movement it may pursue, it cannot complain
that its hands and eyes have not been trained; it cannot say that it
inherited no artistic patrimony, was given no schooling, was taught no
craftsmanship. The men of 1878 were perhaps handicapped by starting
late and having to get their technical education in foreign lands,
but the men of to-day have no such excuse. They can be technically
well educated on their own native heath; they are practically not
handicapped at all.
Will their success be the greater for that? Who can tell? There
is always a tearing-down process going on in art almost exactly
commensurate with the building-up process, and our country and its
art may be on the threshold of such an epoch. Again, who knows?
Many a generation has prepared and builded for its succeeding
generation--prepared and builded apparently in vain. But whether
the period is one of progress or recession it will not be the worse
for the presence of competent builders. The tradition of art is now
deep-rooted. It will continue to grow and assert itself even though
there be no historic sequence in its results. And so the thought is
perhaps worth reiterating that the men of 1878 really have builded and
prepared, with a will and in a way that will not soon be forgotten.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
Repetative chapter headings have been removed.