it is due to him to say that he was a conscientious artist, and a firm
upholder of the tradition of Reynolds, so far as in him lay. The old
King had always disliked Reynolds, and Hoppner was not well enough
advised to hold his tongue on the subject of the master: worse than
this, he openly accepted the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and by so
doing opened the door for the admission of Lawrence as royal painter
much sooner than was at all necessary. The story of their rivalry is
thus--in substance--sketched by Allan Cunningham, their
contemporary:--The light of the Prince of Wales's countenance was of
itself sufficient to guide the courtly and beautiful to Hoppner's easel.
Suffice it to say that before he was forty years of age (he was born in
1759), he had been enabled to exhibit no less than fifteen ladies of
quality--for so are they named in the catalogues--a score of ladies of
lower degree, and noblemen unnumbered. But by this time another star had
arisen, destined to outshine that of Hoppner; though some at that
period, willing to flatter the older practitioner, called it a meteor
that would but flash and disappear--we allude to Lawrence. Urged upon
the Academy by the King and Queen, and handed up to public notice by
royal favour, this new aspirant rose rapidly in the estimation of the
public; and by the most delicate flattery, both with tongue and pencil,
became a formidable rival to the painter whom it was the Prince's
pleasure to befriend. The factions of Reynolds and Romney seemed revived
in those of Hoppner and Lawrence. If Hoppner resided in Charles Street,
at the gates of Carlton House, and wrote himself "portrait painter to
the Prince of Wales," Lawrence likewise had his residence in the Court
end of the town, and proudly styled himself--and that when only
twenty-three years old--"portrait painter in ordinary to His Majesty."
In other respects, too, were honours equally balanced between them; they
were both made Royal Academicians, but in this, youth had the start of
age--Lawrence obtained that distinction first. Nature, too, had been
kind--some have said prodigal--to both; they were men of fine address,
and polished by early intercourse with the world and by their trade of
portrait painting could practise all the delicate courtesies of
drawing-room and boudoir; but in that most fascinating of all flattery,
the art of persuading, with brushes and fine colours, very ordinary
mortals that beauty and fine expression were their portions, Lawrence
was soon without a rival.
The preference of the King and Queen for Lawrence was for a time
balanced by the affection of the Prince of Wales for Hoppner; the Prince
was supposed to have the best taste, and as he kept a court of his own
filled with the young nobility, and all the wits of that great faction
known by the name of Whig, Hoppner had the youth and beauty of the land
for a time; and it cannot be denied that he was a rival in every way
worthy of contending with any portrait-painter of his day. The bare list
of his exhibited portraits will show how and by whom he was supported.
It is well said by Williams, in his _Life of Lawrence_, that "the more
sober and homely ideas of the King were not likely to be a passport for
any portrait-painter to the variety of ladies, and hence Mr. Hoppner for
a long time almost monopolised the female beauty and young fashion of
the country."
This rivalry continued for a time in the spirit of moderation--but only
for a time. Lawrence, the gentler and the smoother of the two, kept
silence longest; the warm nature of Hoppner broke out at last. "The
ladies of Lawrence," he said, "show a gaudy dissoluteness of taste, and
sometimes trespass on moral as well as professional decorum." For his
own he claimed, by implication, purity of look as well as purity of
style. This sarcastic remark found wings in a moment, and flew through
all the coteries and through both courts; it did most harm to him who
uttered it; all men laughed, and then began to wonder how Lawrence,
limner to perhaps the purest court in Europe, came to bestow indecorous
looks on the meek and sedate ladies of quality of St. James's and
Windsor, while Hoppner, limner to the court of a gallant young prince,
who loved mirth and wine, the sound of the lute and the music of ladies'
feet in the dance, should to some of its gayest and giddiest ornaments
give the simplicity of manner and purity of style which pertained to the
Quaker like sobriety of the other. Nor is it the least curious part of
the story that the ladies, from the moment of the sarcasm of Hoppner,
instead of crowding to the easel of him who dealt in the loveliness of
virtue, showed a growing preference for the rival who "trespassed on
moral as well as on professional decorum." After this, Lawrence had
plenty of the fairest sitters.
_THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_
I
THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT
In the preceding chapters we have traced the development of painting for
five centuries--from the beginning of the fourteenth, that is to say, to
the end of the eighteenth--in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in
Spain, and lastly in France and England. In the nineteenth the story is
confined to the last two alone, as with one or two minute exceptions the
art of painting had by this time entirely ceased to be worth
consideration in any of the others. Only in France and England, where it
had been most recently established, was it to continue; and besides
continuing, reach out with the most astonishing vigour to snatch at and
grasp fruits that no one before would have dreamt of being within its
reach.
Between France and England--if by the latter we may be taken to mean
Great Britain, and include within its artists those who have
acclimatised themselves within her shores--the honours of the
achievement are pretty equally divided, though it will have to be left
to individual choice to decide exactly on which side the balance of
credit is due. A mere list of the greatest names is not sufficient to
apportion the praise, though as a preliminary step it may be of value in
clearing the issue. Let us take a dozen on either side, and see how they
look.
_England._
Lawrence.
Constable.
Turner.
De Wint.
Nasmyth.
Stevens.
Whistler.
Cotman.
Cox.
Watts.
Rossetti.
Hunt.
_France._
David.
Gericault.
Ingres.
Delacroix.
Corot.
Millet.
Daubigny.
Courbet.
Daumier.
Decamps.
Manet.
Degas.
Among these Turner stands out conspicuously from the rest, and he would
be included by anyone in a list of twenty, or perhaps a dozen, of the
greatest painters in the world. But oddly enough his influence on the
art in general has been comparatively small, if we are to judge by its
effects on other painters up to the present, while that of Constable has
been considerably greater. Manet, again, and Delacroix, have
accomplished far more for the history of painting than any other two in
our lists--and yet their names are scarcely known outside the circle of
those who know anything at all about painting.
For the English public at large an entirely different list would
probably prove the superiority of their own race to their complete
satisfaction--in spite of Meissonier, Dore, and Bouguereau on the other
side. But that is only because the British public, owing to the
monopoly
[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.--JACQUES LOUIS DAVID
PORTRAIT OF MME. RECAMIER
_Louvre, Paris_]
enjoyed by the Royal Academy, have never had a chance of judging for
themselves what they approve of and what they do not, and their taste
has been vitiated for generations by the exhibition of what this
self-constituted authority, no doubt unconsciously, conceives to be best
for them--and which, as might be expected, is usually found to coincide
pretty nearly with the sort of thing they are capable of producing
themselves. Hogarth's predictions at the time the Academy was instituted
have in a great measure come perfectly true, and the only benefit that
it has been to the English School of painting is that it has kept it
going. How far this may be called a benefit is at least arguable, but in
the main it is probable that if so many bad pictures had not been
painted, there would not have been so many good ones. On the other hand,
the removal of a man like Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from his native
sphere of influence is quite enough to account for the unlooked-for
flowering of blossoms like the brothers Maris, Bosboom, Israels, and
Mauve in the Dutch garden, and if that is so, one need not grudge him
his interment amongst Nelson, Wellington, and other heroes of our own.
In a word, the history of painting in the nineteenth century is Revolt.
What it is going to be in the twentieth I am fortunately not called upon
to say; but if I may throw out an opinion based upon what is already
happening, I should say that no word has yet been coined which will
adequately express it.
In the last century the issues were simple, and can be easily expressed.
On the one side was the complacent body of practitioners following to
the best of their ability the practice of painting as handed down to
them in a variety of different forms, just as the Byzantine craftsmen
earned their living when they were so rudely disturbed by Cimabue and
his school. On the other was a small but ever-increasing number of
individuals who, like Cimabue, began to think things out for themselves,
but, unlike him, did not succeed in effecting a popular triumph
without--if at all--first raising both the painters and the public to a
pitch of fury. It is indeed curious to read Vasari and modern historians
side by side, and to wonder if, after all, Vasari knew or told
everything, in his desire to glorify the art, or whether Giotto and
other innovators were not in fact burnt at the stake. Probably not.
Gallileo, as we know, and Savonarola suffered for their crimes. But they
were working against the Church, and the artists were working for it.
In the nineteenth century, painting had altogether broken away from the
Church, and so it had to fight its own battles out in the street, or in
the law courts. That is what has given it such a swagger and strength.
It no longer looks to its protector, it will hit you in the face before
you know where you are. The feeble kind, only, looks to Academies for
support, and thereby becomes feebler still.
In the present chapter, accordingly, we shall hear no more of the
Madonnas, the Holy Families, and all the sacred and profane subjects on
which the old masters exercised their genius. Five centuries of painting
had established the art in a position of independence; and in a
sixth--that is to say, the nineteenth--it began to assert itself, and to
prove that its education was not in itself an end, but only a means to
various ends. Instead of following out the fortunes of each painter,
therefore, and attempting to set in any sort of order the reputations of
artists before sufficient time has elapsed for them to cool, I propose
to confine myself in the remaining pages to the broad issues raised
during this period between the painters, the critics, and the public.
II
EUGENE DELACROIX
The man who began all this street fighting was a Frenchman--Eugene
Delacroix. While still a youth he was bullied, and the bully was such a
redoubtable giant that it took somebody with the grit and genius of
Delacroix to tackle him, but tackle him he did. The story of the fight,
which is a long and glorious one, is so admirably told in Madame Bussy's
life of Delacroix, that I have obtained permission to give the essence
of it in her own words.
In the Salon of 1822 was exhibited Delacroix's picture of _Dante and
Virgil_, which is now in the Louvre, and evoked the first of those
clamours of abuse which were barely stilled before the artist's death.
For nearly thirty years all French painters, with the exception of Gros
and Prudhon; had shown themselves unquestioning disciples of the school
founded by Jacques Louis David, whose masterful character and potent
personality had reduced all art to a system; and Delacroix himself spoke
of him with sympathy and admiration. The chief dogma of David's school
was that the nearest approach to the _beau ideal_ permitted to the human
race had been attained by the Greeks, and that all art must conform as
closely as possible to theirs. Unfortunately, the chief specimens of
Greek art known at that time were those belonging to a decadent
period--neither the Elgin marbles nor the Venus of Milo were accessible
before 1816--so that the works from which they drew their inspiration
were without character in themselves, or merely the feeble and
attenuated copies of ancient Rome. In the pictures of this school,
accordingly, we find only the monotonous perfection of rounded and
well-modelled limbs, classical features and straight noses. Colour, to
the sincere Davidian, was a vain and frivolous accessory, serving only
to distract attention from the real purpose of the work, which was to
aim at moral elevation as well as at ideal beauty. Everything in the
picture was to be equally dwelt upon; there was no sacrifice, no
mystery. "These pictures," says Delacroix, "have no epidermis ...they
lack the atmosphere, the lights, the reflections which blend into an
harmonious whole, objects the most dissimilar in colour."
By the untimely death of Gericault, whose _Raft of the Medusa_ had
already caused a flutter in 1819, Delacroix was left at the head of the
revolt against this pseudo-classicism; and amid the storm that greeted
the _Dante and Virgil_ it is interesting to find Thiers writing of him
in the following strain:--"It seems to me that no picture [in the Salon]
reveals the future of a great painter better than M. Delacroix's, in
which we see an outbreak of talent, a burst of rising superiority which
revives the hopes that had been slightly discouraged by the too moderate
merits of all the rest.... I think I am not mistaken; M. Delacroix has
genius; let him go on with confidence, and devote himself to immense
labour, the indispensable condition of talent." Delecluze, by the by,
the critic-in-chief of the Davidian School, had characterised the
picture as _une veritable tartouillade_.
In 1824 the Salon included two pictures which may be regarded as
important documents in the history of painting. One of these was
Constable's _Hay Wain_--now
[Illustration: PLATE XLV.--EUGENE DELACROIX
DANTE AND VIRGIL
_Louvre, Paris_]
in our National Gallery--which had been purchased by a Frenchman; the
other was Delacroix's _Massacre of Scio_, the first to receive the
enlightenment afforded by the Englishman's methods, which spread so
widely over the French School. It was said that Delacroix entirely
repainted his picture on seeing Constable's; but his pupil, Lassalle
Bordes, is probably nearer the truth in saying that the master being
dissatisfied with its general tone, which was too chalky, transformed it
by means of violent glazings. The critics were no less noisy over this
picture than the last. "A painter has been revealed to us," said one,
"but he is a man who runs along the housetops." "Yes," answered
Baudelaire, "but for that one must have a sure foot, and an eye guided
by an inward light."
When the Salon opened again in 1827, after an interval of three years,
the public were astonished to find how large a number of painters had
abandoned Davidism and openly joined the ranks of the enemy. Delacroix
himself exhibited the _Marino Faliero_ (now at Hertford House) and
eleven others. The gauntlet was flung down, and war began in deadly
earnest between the opposing parties. It was at this time that the terms
Romanticism and Romantic came into common use. Delacroix always resented
being labelled as a Romantic, and would only acknowledge that the term
might be justly applied to him when used in its widest signification.
"If by my Romanticism," he wrote, "is meant the free expression of my
personal impressions, my aversion from the stereotypes invariably
produced in the schools, and my repugnance to academic receipts, then I
must admit I am Romantic."
Here we have the plain truth about the painting of the nineteenth
century--and after! The critics were unanimous in their violent
condemnation of Delacroix's works: "the compositions of a sick man in
delirium," "the fanaticism of ugliness," "barbarous execution," "an
intoxicated broom"--such are some of the terms of abuse showered upon
him. The gentlest among them commiserate the talent which here and there
can be seen "struggling with the systematic _bizarrerie_ and the
disordered technique of the artist, just as gleams of reason and
sometimes flashes of genius may be seen pitiably shining through the
speech of a madman." The final touch to Delacroix's disgrace was given
by the Directeur des Beaux Arts sending for him and recommending him to
study drawing from casts, warning him at the same time that unless he
could change his style he must expect neither commissions nor
recognition from the State!
The year 1830 has given its name to that brilliant generation of poets,
novelists, painters and philosophers which, as Theophile Gautier says
with just pride, "will make its mark on the future and be spoken of as
one of the climacteric epochs of the human mind." The revolution of July
inspired Delacroix with one of his most interesting pictures. _Le 28
Juillet_ is the only one of his works in which he depicts modern life,
and was a striking refutation to those who complained that modern
costume is too ugly or prosaic to be treated in painting. "Every old
master," Baudelaire usefully pointed out, "has been modern in his day.
The greater number of fine portraits of former times are dressed in the
costume of their period. They are perfectly harmonious because the
costumes, the hair, and even the attitude and expression (each period
has its own), form a whole of complete vitality." _Le 28 Juillet_ gives
us the very breath and spirit of modern street fighting. Though the
public
[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.--JOHN CONSTABLE
THE HAY WAIN
_National Gallery, London_]
remained hostile and the jury bestowed none of its prizes, as before,
the Government acknowledged the artist's talent and politics by making
him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Further, from 1833 to 1853 he
was intermittently employed in decorating the Chamber of Deputies, the
Senate, and other public buildings. In 1855 he showed at the Great
Exhibition a series of thirty-five of his most important pictures, the
effect of which was immense. For the first and only time in his life he
enjoyed a triumph, none the less great because his life-long rival
Ingres also took the opportunity of exhibiting a selection of his works
in the same building. But in spite of this success, and in spite of his
being elected an Academician in 1857, the critics remained incorrigible.
His pictures in the Salon of 1859 once more called forth one of those
storms of abuse that Delacroix had the gift of arousing. Weary and
disheartened--"All my life long I have been livre aux betes," was his
bitter exclamation--he vowed to exhibit no more, and kept his word.
III
RUSKIN AGAINST THE PHILISTINES
IN England, meantime, great things were being accomplished amid peaceful
surroundings. In portraiture Lawrence soon became supreme, and what
excellence he possessed was accentuated on his death in 1830 by the
appointment of Sir Martin Archer Shee as his successor in the Presidency
of the Royal Academy. That was the end of portraiture in England until a
new school arose. But it was in landscape that our country occupied the
field in the first half of the nineteenth century, and tilled it with
the astonishing results that are usually the effect of doing much and
saying little. The work accomplished by Turner, Constable, and Cotman,
in the first half of the century, to say nothing of Crome and one or two
of the older men who were still alive, has never been equalled in any
country, and yet less was heard about the execution of it than would
keep a modern journalist in bread and cheese for a week. Turner, who
wouldn't sell his pictures, and Constable, who couldn't, between them
filled up the measure of English art without any other aid than that of
the materials with which they recorded their gorgeous communion with
nature. When Ruskin stepped in with the "Modern Painters," originally
designed as a vindication of Turner against certain later-day critics,
Turner's comment was, "He knows a great deal more about my pictures than
I do. He puts things into my head and points out meanings in them that I
never intended." That was in 1843, when Turner was well on in his third
manner--within eight years of his death. But let us go back to the
beginning.
Until he developed his latest manner, Turner was about the most popular
artist that ever lived. His pictures were not above the comprehension of
the public, educated or otherwise, and no effort was either needed or
demanded to understand them. In the diary of a provincial amateur,
Thomas Greene, are recorded an impression of Turner's work as early as
1797:--"Visited the Royal Exhibition. Particularly struck with a
sea-view by Turner ...the whole composition bold in design and masterly
in execution. I am entirely unacquainted with the artist, but if he
proceeds as he has begun, he cannot fail to become the first in his
department." And again in 1799:--"Was again struck and delighted with
Turner's landscapes.... Turner's views are not mere ordinary transcripts
of nature,--he always throws some peculiar and striking _character_ into
the scene he represents."
Brought up as a topographical draughtsman, he made no departure till
quite late in life from the conventional method of depicting scenery;
but being a supremely gifted artist, he was capable of utilising this
method as no other before or since has ever succeeded in doing. The
accepted method was good enough for him, and he laid his paint upon the
canvas as anybody else had done before him, and as many of our
present-day painters would do well to do after him--if only they had the
genius in them to "make the instrument speak." The impressions created
on our mind by Turner's earlier pictures are not conveyed by dots,
cubes, streaks, or any device save that of pigment laid upon the canvas
in such a manner as seemed to the artist to reproduce what he saw in
nature. That he did this with surprising and altogether exceptional
skill is the proof of his genius. Unflagging energy and devotion to his
art enabled him to realise, not all, but a wonderful number of the
beauties he saw in the world, with an experience that few beside him
have ever taken the trouble to acquire. When barely thirty years old--in
1805--he was already considered as the first of living landscape
painters, and was thus noticed by Edward Dayes (the teacher of
Girtin):--"Turner may be considered as a striking instance of how much
may be gained by industry, if accompanied with perseverance, even
without the assistance of a master. The way he acquired his professional
powers was by borrowing when he could a drawing or picture to copy; or
by making a sketch of any one in the exhibition early in the morning and
finishing it up at home. By such practice, and a patient perseverance,
he has overcome all the difficulties of the art." Turner himself used to
say that his best academy was "the fields and Dr Monro's parlour"--where
Girtin and other young artists met and sketched and copied the drawings
in the doctor's collection. Burnet, in his notice of "Turner and his
Works," suggests that John Robert Cozens had paved the way for both
Girtin and Turner in striking out a broad effect of light and shade.
"The early pictures of Turner," he observes, "possess the breadth, but
are destitute of the brilliant power of light and colour afterwards
pervading his works, and ultimately carried to the greatest extreme in
his last pictures. Breadth of light seems to have been latterly his
chief aim, supported by the contrast of hot and cold colour; two of his
unfinished pictures exemplified the principle; they were divided into
large masses of blue where the water or sky was to come and the other
portions laid out in broad orange yellow, falling into delicate brown
where the trees and landscapes were to be placed. This preparation,
while it secured the greatest breadth, would have shone through the
other colours when finished, giving the luminous quality observable in
his pictures. In many instances his works sent for exhibition to the
British Institution had little more than this brilliant foundation,
which was worked into detail and completed in the varnishing days,
Turner being the first in the morning and the last to leave; his
certainty in the command over his colour, and the dexterity in his
handling, seemed to convert in a few hours 'an unsubstantial pageant'
into a finished landscape. These _ad captandum_ effects, however, are
not what his fame will depend on for perpetuity; his finest pictures are
the production of great study in their composition, careful and repeated
painting in the detail, and
[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.--J. M. W. TURNER
CROSSING THE BROOK
_National Gallery of British Art, London_]
a natural arrangement of the colour and breadth of the chiaroscuro."