THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE
It is generally acknowledged that the greatest masters of painting that the
world has known are Titian, Velasquez, and Rembrandt, and to each of the
triumvirate we apply the word genius. Among the many definitions of that
abused word is one which states that genius consists not in seeing more
than other people, but in seeing differently. We acknowledge genius in a
painter when, over and above masterly technical power, he presents to us a
view of life or of nature which we may never have seen, but which we are
convinced is the vision of deeper eyes than our own, and is true. The seer
has seen it, and it is only because of the dimness or narrowness or
worldliness of our outlook that we do not perceive it also.
A great painter writes us a letter, tells us of the things he has seen or
heard or felt, gives us news of the world wherein he lives. He expresses
his personality to us, and personality in art is a thing incalculable.
Corot's _Arcadia_ landscape delights us because it is the distilled essence
of the vision, heart, and character of the personality called Corot.
Personality may be expressed by a Rembrandt, abundantly. It may also be
expressed by a Velasquez, negatively.
We must be vigilant, in judging a painter, to distinguish between his own
personality and the personality of those who interpret him to us. The more
we give of ourselves to a painter or an author, the greater is the return
of his appeal and interest. Cleave the wood of your brain and you find him
brimming with communications, raise the stone of your imagination and he is
revealed.
A certain critic, who had devoted his life to the study of Reynolds, while
lecturing upon the achievement of that master, threw upon the screen a
certain large subject-picture, not one of Reynold's happiest efforts, but a
laboured and unattractive design which, we know, gave Reynolds an infinity
of trouble.
So scientific, so interesting was this critic's analysis of the picture, so
absorbing the attributes he read into it, that many of his audience were
persuaded that they were looking upon a Reynolds masterpiece, whereas they
were but hypnotised by the subtleties of the critic's mind working upon
Reynolds.
Conversely the criticism of some writers tends towards depreciation because
of their predilection for objective as opposed to subjective criticism. The
late P.G. Hamerton, writing upon Rembrandt, says, "The chiaroscuro of
Rembrandt is often false and inconsistent, and in fact he relied largely on
public ignorance. But though arbitrary, it is always conducive to his
purpose."
"Conducive to his purpose!" There is much virtue in those four words.
Rembrandt probably knew as well as anybody that his lighting of a picture
was not a facsimile of the lighting of nature, or rather not the
chiaroscuro as seen by the average eye; but he had an aim, a vision before
him, and he did not hesitate to interpret that vision in his own way. Who
dares to say that Rembrandt was disloyal to nature? Our concern is not what
we should have done, but what Rembrandt did, seeing with his own eyes. And
the questions we should ask ourselves are:--Is the interpretation of the
world as seen through his eyes beautiful, suggestive, profound, and
stimulating? Does the statement of his personality in paint add to our
knowledge, educate our æsthetic perceptions, and extend our horizon by
showing us things that our imperfect vision does not see except through
him?
[Illustration: A YOUNG WOMAN IN A RED CHAIR HOLDING A PINK IN HER RIGHT
HAND
1656. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]
Comparisons are not only odious, but foolish. No sensible critic attempts a
comparison between Titian, Velasquez, and Rembrandt. He accepts them as
they are, and is grateful. But even the most obscure of mortals may have
his preferences, and a curious chapter in the lives of individuals who
have concerned themselves with painting would be the bewildering way in
which the pendulum of their appreciation and admiration has swung backwards
and forwards from Titian to Velasquez, from Velasquez to Rembrandt, and
sometimes back to Titian. It is often a question of mood.
There are moods when the regal abundance, the consummate craftsmanship of
Titian, the glow and splendour of his canvases, the range of them from _The
Man with the Glove_ in the Louvre to the _Bacchus and Ariadne_, force us to
place him on the summit of Parnassus. We are dazzled by this prince of
painters, dominating Venice at the height of her prosperity, inspired by
her, having around him, day by day, the glorious pictures that the genius
of Venice had produced. We follow his triumphant career, see him courted
and fêted, recognise his detachment from the sorrow and suffering of the
unfortunate and unclassed, and amid the splendour of his career note his
avidity for the loaves and fishes of the world. Unlike Rembrandt, fortune
favoured Titian to the end. His career was a triumphal progress. We stand
in that small room at the Prado Museum at Madrid and gaze upon his
canvases, sumptuous and opulent, diffusing colour like a sunset,
indifferent to their story or meaning, happy and content with the flaming
feast outspread for our enjoyment. We stand before his _Entombment_ at the
Louvre, dumb before its superlative painting, with hardly a thought for the
tragedy that it represents. Titian accepts the literary motive, and the
artist in him straight forgets it. We walk from _The Entombment_ to the
little chamber where Rembrandt's _Christ at Emmaus_ hangs, and the heart of
Rembrandt is beating there. To Titian the glory of the world, to Rembrandt
all that man has felt and suffered, parting and sorrow, and the awakening
of joy. We do not compare the one painter with the other; we say: "This is
Titian, that is Rembrandt; each gives us his emotion." Foolish indeed it
seems in the face of these two pictures, and a thousand others, to say that
art should be this or that,--that a picture should or should not have a
literary or a philosophical motive. Painters give us themselves. We amuse
ourselves by placing them in schools, by analysing their achievement, by
scientific explanations of what they did just by instinct, as lambs
gambol--and behind all stands the Sphinx called Personality.
There are moods when the appeal of Velasquez is irresistible. Grave and
reticent, a craftsman miraculously equipped, detached, but not with the
Jovian detachment of Titian, this Spanish gentleman stalks silently across
the art stage. Hundreds of drawings of Rembrandt's exhibit evidence of the
infinite extent of his experiments after perfection. The drawings of
Velasquez can be counted on the fingers of one hand. He drew in paint upon
the canvas. From his portraits and pictures we gather not the faintest idea
of what he felt, what he thought, what he believed. One thing we know
absolutely--that he saw as keenly and as searchingly as any painter who has
ever lived. What he saw before him he could paint, and in the doing of it
he was unrivalled. His hand followed and obeyed his eye. When the object
was not before him, he falls short of his superlative standard. The figures
of Philip IV., of Olivares, and of Prince Baltazar Carlos in the three
great equestrian portraits are as finely drawn as man could make them.
Velasquez saw them; he did not see the prancing horses which they ride,
consequently our eyes dropping from the consummate figures are disappointed
at the conventional attitudes of the steeds. Velasquez, like Titian, moved
from success to success; both were friends of kings, both basked in royal
favour, neither had the disadvantage, or perhaps the great advantage, like
Rembrandt, of the education of adversity. Velasquez made two journeys into
Italy; he knew what men had accomplished in painting, and if he was not
largely influenced by Titian and Tintoretto, their work showed him what man
had done, what man could do, and indicated to him his own dormant powers.
Rembrandt was sufficient unto himself. There are moods when one is sure
that he stands at the head of the painting hierarchy. In spite of his
greatness, we feel that he is very near to our comprehension. What a
picture of the old painter towards the end of his life that saying of
Baldinucci presents. We are told that near the close of his career,
absorbed in his art, indifferent to the world, "when he was painting at his
easel he had come to wipe his brushes on the hinder portions of his dress."
Rembrandt looms out like some amorphous boulder, stationary,
lichen-stained, gathering time unto itself. He travelled so little that it
can be said he was untravelled. The works of other painters affected him
not at all. We are without proof that he was even interested in the work of
his contemporaries or predecessors. Life was his passion. One model was as
good as another. He looked at life, and life fired his imaginations. He
painted himself fifty times; he painted his friends, his relations, and the
people he met while prowling about the streets. His pencil was never idle.
Imagination, which confuses the judgment of so many, aided him, for his
imagination was not nourished by vanity, or the desire to produce an
effect, but flowed from the greatness of his brooding heart. He stood alone
during his life, an absorbed man, uninfluenced by any school; he stands
alone to-day. The world about him, and his thoughts and reflections, were
his only influences. He read few books, and the chief among them was the
Bible. Mr. Berenson has written an exhaustive and learned work on Lorenzo
Lotto, analysing his pictures year by year, and exhuming the various
painters who influenced Lotto at the different periods of his life. Mr.
Berenson's book extends to nearly three hundred pages. The influences of
the painting fraternity upon Rembrandt would not provide material for the
first paragraph of the first page of such a book.
His fame is assured. He is one of the great triumvirate. "He was greater,
perhaps," says Mr. Clausen, "than any other painter in human feeling and
sympathy, in dramatic sense and invention; and his imagination seemed
inexhaustible."
The Ryks Museum at Amsterdam may be said to have been designed as a shrine
for his _Night Watch_. Near by it hangs _The Syndics of the Cloth Company_,
excelled, in this particular class of work, by no picture in the world; but
it is by the portraits and the etchings that the sweep, profundity, and
versatility of Rembrandt's genius is exemplified. Truly his imagination was
inexhaustible.
It is an education to stand before his portraits in the National Gallery.
Observe the _Old Lady_, aged 83, the massive painting of her face, and the
outline of her figure set so firmly against the background. Here is
Realism, frank and straightforward, almost defiant in its strength. Turn
to the portrait of _A Jewish Rabbi_. Here is Idealism. You peer and peer,
and from the brown background emerges a brown garment, relieved by the
black cap, and the black cloak that falls over his left shoulder. Luminous
black and luminous brown! Brown is the side of the face in shadow, brown is
the brow in shadow. All is tributary to the glory of the golden brown on
the lighted portion of the face. The portrait composes into a perfect
whole. The dim blacks and browns lead up to the golden brown illuminating
the old weary head, that wonderful golden brown--the secret of Rembrandt.
This old Jew lives through the magic art of Rembrandt. He crouches in the
frame, wistful and waiting, the eternal type, eternally dreaming the Jews'
dream that is still a dream.
THE END
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