The argument continually carries us away into a seeming denial to the
graphic arts of all subject of any sort other than the painter's subject
pure and simple, that is to say, form expressed on a flat surface,
light and shade, tints and gradations, and color. And yet we cannot
be quite satisfied with this conclusion in view of the fact that the
great painters of the past, the men whom Mr. Moore cites throughout his
article named above as regardless of "the subject in the modern sense,"
still painted humanity, and that with interest. The thought expressed in
the discussion given above, if it stands alone and by itself, is likely
to mislead the student in this way, that he will suppose that the artist
in color or light and shade is indifferent to human interest. But this
is not exactly so, and an anecdote, nothing in itself, may illustrate
this fact. It is only a few days ago that a certain wide reader, one
who has much knowledge of men and of affairs, a traveller, too, and a
student, but an artist always and primarily, an artist of forty years'
constant practice, meditation, and severe training, alone with a friend,
was talking to him of Mr. Kipling's recent poem about the torpedo-boats,
and the destruction of the enemy's ships by night—and, as this seemed
to interest neither party very much, our artist's friend turned to that
other poem of Mr. Kipling's which begins with the couplet:
This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps.
Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war.
To the second poem the instantaneous response was made that that indeed
was worth reading, that there was human interest in that. Now, this
remark would have been of no special value to our present argument
had it come from the lips of a literary man, or of a sociologist, a
philanthropist, or what you please, except the man who did actually say
it, namely, an artist with the brush and with colors. That this painter,
living almost exclusively the life of a painter, should have felt the
need of human interest in the one case and the presence of it, even
in the rough soldiering and coarse-grained emotions of the other, is
notable, in a way. But observe that the comment was made upon two poems
and not upon two paintings. Had the same two subjects been painted, the
case might have been very different, because the picture of the great
fleet and the destroying torpedo-boats might have been immeasurably
more powerful from every point of view from which a picture should
be judged than the picture which would illustrate the incident on the
battle-field.
Nearer the wheeling beams that spell
The council of our foes.——
What those two lines in the poem express, and express well for a piece
of wording, the picture might easily make a principal incident and a
principal part of its subject—its artistical subject. The blaze of
the search-lights half illuminating the ocean and leaving the rest
of it the darker by contrast, while the fatal torpedo-boat eludes the
light and is dimly recognized by the path it has drawn of ripples and
foam which themselves catch what little light is diffused through the
damp atmosphere from the white beams which pierce the darkness; all
this would be a picture, and this which is here described would be the
sufficient subject of the picture. On the other hand, the battle-field
scene might easily be the stupidest thing possible; red uniforms, with
dust and horses of several colors, the gleam of light on the guns and
accoutrements; all of this is artistic subject, indeed, but it is of the
slightest and most commonplace kind, and unless treated with wonderful
technical skill, would fail to command much respect. Unquestionably, the
"human interest," if strongly felt by the painter in this case, might be
effective to give personality to the driver, to the driver's brother,
and even to the slaughtered horse, and a dramatic composition might
possibly be made out of that which, in almost any painter's hands, would
become a mere narrative picture of the kind most commonly in evidence
and most to be deprecated.
And yet there is "human interest" to be found in pictures which are
none the worse for having it. The discussion of these is simply the
most difficult task that is set to one who would write about the art
of painting. Let us take Paul Baudry's picture of Charlotte Corday.
The scene is a very small room with a low dado for the protection
of the wall, as befits a bath-room. On the left is the bath-tub with
high straight sides, and filled with the sheet, the _fond de bain_,
so commonly in use even now on the continent of Europe. Beside the
bath-tub, a rough wooden box has been "up-ended" and carries, like a
little table, an old-fashioned round ink-stand, a sheet of paper, and
a quill pen. A short plank which has been lying across the foot of the
bath-tub has tipped into the tub, carrying with it some sheets of paper.
A chair which has been standing by the side of the bath-tub is overset.
With the chair has fallen a garment which still partly covers it; and
a plumed hat fills the extreme right-hand lower corner of the picture.
A map of France, as large as the wall of the small chamber allows,
hangs opposite to the spectator and to the eye of the person occupying
the bath-tub. The well-known facts are that Marat, while following
the prescription of his physicians and taking the long-continued bath
prescribed, was occupied in writing, and that Charlotte Corday, on
her persistent demand, was admitted that she might lodge with him
some complaint, and that she then stabbed him to the heart. Of the
dying or the dead Marat, nothing is seen but the foreshortened face,
one shoulder, and the long bare arms; the handle of the deadly knife
projects and is relieved against the livid flesh. The resolute woman
stands against the window-jamb, and in full light, relieved by her
own and the wall's shadow cast upon the map and the dado behind. Her
figure is tall and massive; she is dressed in a gown with strongly
marked stripes and wears a voluminously folded handkerchief around
her shoulders and neck; her hair is loosened; her figure dominates the
picture and seems to reduce everything else to an accessory. The face
of the slayer is set, as if with the resolution she has just acted on,
and with terror as to what is now to follow. The eyes are wide open
and the action of the right hand, with clenched fingers, shows how,
in relinquishing the haft of the knife, the muscles have convulsively
closed again as if it were still retained by their clutch.
The thing to observe here is the presence of the human interest
demanded, and that in a very concentrated form, indeed; but also the
relatively larger value of the artistic language in which the story has
been told, and of the smaller value, relatively, of the human interest
itself. Let us admit that the picture is a nobler work of art because
of this expression of human interest—the striking down of the tyrant,
the momentary victory of the heroine, the approaching cruel punishment
of that heroine—patience, resignation, resolution, patriotism, and just
enough of questioning as to the glory and value of the great French
Revolution. All this, which in a poem would be insisted on, dwelt upon,
which would form the one "subject" of the work of art, here, in the
picture, forms but a part of the subject, and in the opinion of every
artist, the inferior, secondary part. The chief subject is, after all,
form, line and mass, light and shade, and color. The result is better
for having the human interest; the work of art is nobler than if the
same light and shade and color were investing walls and draperies where
no human interest existed; and the conclusion seems to be that what is
valuable in the picture is primarily the two human beings as visible
objects, and the strong contrast between them in their represented
action, their pose, their coloring—that is, in the outward aspect
of their life; and, secondly, the organized light and shade of which
these human figures form the chief and ruling part. And the lesson to
learn seems to be that the language of painting is so immensely more
important, relatively, than the language of literature, that the rules
of judgment, applied to the one art, fail lamentably when they are tried
upon the other.