Part 22
Here, then, we have two movements, to which “the intellectuals” have promised a future. One of them is as dead as a door-nail and buried, the other dying. He who did not let himself be cheated, or want to cheat others, could predict this outcome with certainty. Debased realism was a misunderstanding of the impulse towards truth displayed by the Manet School. This School held itself bound in conscience to record minutely even the unessential and the ugly accessories. Their limited imitators sought only that which was ugly and unessential in the world of phenomena. They thereby wandered far from the eternal aim of art—to excite an emotion by a work of art; for the mere imitation of a sight either actually indifferent or frankly repulsive can never excite an emotion. It was, therefore, easy to recognise that this tendency could not be lasting. The pseudo-idealism of Puvis de Chavannes showed the other infallible mark of morbidity, viz., impersonality and dishonesty. He tried, by an artificial bleaching of colours and a semi-transparent white-wash, to produce the effect of old and faded frescoes, in which their age of several hundred years is an element of æsthetic effect, by reason of the dim depictment of what is remote, dead and gone, and unknown; by reason of the longing they awake for what has for ever passed away and will never appear again. It was imitation; it was an attempt to deceive. It was not the honest revelation of personality, but its disguise in a strange, historical costume. That had no future, and it could not last.
What justified the primitive naturalism of the pioneers, the convinced fervent service of truth, this survives victoriously every change in fashion, and, in fact, is developing strongly further. True naturalism, which grows enthusiastic for the poetry of unpretentious sights, and was the logical development of Rousseau’s return to nature, and of Greuze’s village stories inspired by that return (the “Village Bride,” the “Father’s Curse,” the “Son’s Punishment,” etc.), has held its ground. On the other hand, loathsome painting, which is naturalism run mad, has been finally conquered, and the spectral painting of Puvis is about to follow it into oblivion.
These much-extolled tendencies have, then, no future in them. They were not buds which were to develop into blossom and fruit. They were wild suckers in which a generation of artists fruitlessly squandered its best strength, and which are now withered and blown away by the wind.
And that, too, will be the lot of other aberrations which have not yet quite run their riotous course. That may be predicted with quiet confidence, without any being taught by the future of another.
A great philosophical doctrine is deducible from these facts. All development—including that of art, which is a part of nature and a part of human nature, and obeys the common laws of nature—all development is constant, and will be diverted from its logical course by no power. Its great procession always goes through a main street, and sudden turnings aside branch off only into blind alleys. Extreme forms have no stability; they remain individual monstrosities without issue. The strenuous life is always making efforts back towards the typical constitution of the species. In art this law may be found deplorable up to a certain point; for it is inimical to strong individualities, even to honest and justifiable ones, and favourable to the indifferent average, whilst in art the absolutely untypical individualities are full of charm. But, as things are, it is the iron law of development which no living thing can escape.
It is not easy to oppose successfully the opportunistic criticism which always professes to see, even in the maddest and silliest things, at any rate, “germs of artistic development”; but it is, nevertheless, a duty of subjective morality to do so. My verdict on many notabilities of fashion stands in sharp contrast to that which one generally hears and reads about them nowadays. He who does not suffer from the delusion of greatness, or a morbid distemper of contradiction, feels a position of this kind painfully. I have earnestly and conscientiously tried whether my adversaries were justified in demanding that I, as an individual, should submit to their huge majority. Well, I cannot concede this right to them. In dozens of instances, I have too closely observed how the unanimity of contemporary opinion about an artist arises. It is enough for an artist to invent a whim and obstinately cling to it, without letting himself be put out by indifference, vexation, or scorn. Very soon some ass of a critic will come and explain this whim as an inspiration of genius. This he will do out of vanity, affectation of originality, or an itch for sensation. He will do it to give the impression that he is of more brilliant intellect than the common herd, and that he alone can appreciate a beauty which the Philistines stupidly pass by. If the humbug of a critic has some skill in coining phrases, a little perseverance, and a fairly sonorous pulpit, he will infallibly, in course of time, collect a congregation around him; for it is easy to gain adherents to a chapel which one designates as a place of worship for the intellectual _élite_, men of fine feelings, and those gifted with understanding. Provided that this sham lasts only a few years, it must needs triumph over all opposition. A young generation grows up which takes it for granted. No one puts to the test what has come into his possession, but takes it as a matter of course. It attains iron permanence. What was a paradox yesterday has attained the rights of dogma to-day by mere lapse of time. Busy pens now vie in outbidding each other in the elegance and wittiness of the phrases with which they express the prescribed admiration for the great man. If an independent person steps forward, and shows the worthlessness of the puffed up celebrity, the devotees of the little chapel, which has grown into a great church, feel an honest indignation against the heretic. “How does this man dare to doubt, when we, who are certainly better and cleverer than he, piously believe.” That is the history of every religion: when it is organised it becomes intolerant and endeavours to assert itself by means of violence. But, to the honour of mankind, there are, nevertheless, always independent spirits who will not let themselves be intimidated, and on whom authority does not impose. They test the dogma, and kick it away if it is not firmly based. The stake has not protected religion from these independent critics; still less can the Corybants of art-reporting guard a fashionable idol from them.
The right of criticising the views even of the most overwhelming majority must be maintained. A final proof in disputed questions regarding æsthetics is, I admit, not to be supplied. All artistic influence rests on suggestion. The work of art, itself and, originally, exercises the suggestion on a minority endowed with delicate sensibilities. On the great majority an opinion of others, delivered with firmness does so. The great majority of people admire one who is praised because it is suggested to them by his trumpeters that it is their duty to admire him. As a matter of fact, they feel the admiration, without being conscious that not the work of art has inspired them with it, but the enthusiastic gossip which they have read and heard about it. These people refuse to believe me when I tell them that they are admiring something which is an aberration. The prior suggestion prevents them from tolerating a fresh suggestion from me. No one, however, can contest this so far as he is quite certain only of his own feelings. In art, effect is an infallible criterion, even if of only subjective value. If a man feels definitely as regards certain pictures that they are valueless and unmeaning, he has a right to express it as strongly and honestly as he feels it, even if millions declare that they discover all kinds of loveliness and depth of meaning in them. One will perhaps fail to convince a single creature, and will, as likely as not, long remain a preacher in the wilderness. But perhaps not for ever. The inventors of a fashionable _culte_, whom their selfishness obliges to stand up for their own work, will not remain in arms for ever and live. Those who worship after them have not the same strong, effective grounds, the originator’s vanity, for defending that _culte_ desperately. The snobs who thronged to it because it was the singularity and they were the exceptions, necessarily abandon it as it becomes commonplace and they find themselves in a vulgar majority. Then the uninfluenced art-conscience again faces the work; it becomes susceptible to the warning of him who was, up to then, “the one voice crying in the wilderness,” and in a short time all lips murmur: “That was indeed a swindle.”
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: In the department of Doubs.]
[Footnote 2: Ps. xc. 10 in Luther’s version.]
[Footnote 3: _Tchin_ is Russian official _noblesse_.]
[Footnote 4: _I.e._, of joy or suffering.]
[Footnote 5: Faust: II. Theil; _sub fin._]
INDEX
Æsthetes, School of, 32
Alexander, John W., 217-8
Aman-Jean, 218-20
Angelo, Michael, 23
Art, emancipation of, 16-22
“—— for art’s sake,” criticism of, 1-5, 12-5
——, future of, 27-9
——, prettiness in, 227-9
——, religious, 296-7
——, utilitarianism in, 11-2
Artist, psychology of the, 5-9
Artists, influence of the Byzantine, 59
Balzac Memorial, 285-8
Barbizon, School of, 97-8
Bartholdi, 299
Bartholomé, 294-307
Baudelaire, 162
Besnard, Albert, 220-3
Böcklin, 326
Boilly, 81
Boldini, Jean, 154, 223-5
Bonheur, Rosa, 92-3
Botticelli, 220, 275
Bouchot, Henri, 57
Bouguereau, William, 225-30
Bourdichon, 58
Brangwyn, Frank, 230-6, 274
Bruniquel, 4
Caillebotte Room, 93
Carpeaux, 278
Carrière, Eugène, 166-84
Carriès, Jean, 308-19
Castiglione’s “Cortegiano,” 24
Catholics, New, 307
Cellini, Benvenuto, 23, 33
Century Exhibition, 70-81, 93-4
Cézanne, Paul, 236-9, 259
Charonton, Enguerrand, 67
Chassériau, 83-4
Chauchard, 91
Chauvinism, 11
Chavannes, Puvis de, 185-200, 343
Cimabue, 60, 121, 339
Clouet, 67-8
Cone, Jacques, 67
Conti, 145
Corneille of Lyons, 67
Corot, 100-3, 131
Cottet, Charles, 201-16
Courbet, 91-2
Couture, 122
Criticism, opportunism in, 336-9
Dante, 18
Daubigny, 104
Daumier, 88-9, 265
Degas, 119
Delacroix, 84-6, 104-5
Delisle, Leopold, 57
Della Robbia, 319
Donner, 299
Drolling, 79
Dupré, 340
Dürer, Albrecht, 188
Enamels, Carriès’, 318
Exhibition, the Century, 70-95
Fountains, 298-9
Fouquet, Jehan, 67-8
Fragonard, 74-5
Frédéric, Léon, 239-244
Froment, Nicolas, 64
_Genre_ painting, 16-7
Gérard, 79
Géricault, 98
Giotto, 60, 121, 339
Girard of Orleans, 60
Gleyre, 148
Gorki, Maxim, 261
Gretchen, 193
Greuze, 74-6
Gross, Baron, 98
Hals, Franz, 209
Hebbel, Friedrich, 144
Höllen-Breughel, 265-6
Huddleston, Judge, 150
Hundred Years’ War, Effects of, 56
Icons, Russian, 59
_Inferno_, Dante’s, 277
John of Orleans, 63-4
Kipling, Rudyard, 93
Lafenestre, George, 57
La Tours, 168
Landscape, literary, 136-7
——, lyrical, 137-9
——, optical, 139-40
Laurens, Jean Paul, 244-6
Leempoels, Jef, 246-50
Leonardo, 188
Lessing, a remark of, 145
Lieberman, Max, 120
Lorrain, Claude, 327
Maeterlinck, 109
Mallarmé, 275
Malouel, Jean, 67
Manet, Eduard, 105, 108, 112, 121, 123, 327-8
Mantegna, 15
Martin, Henri, 250-6
Meissonier, 105
Meunier, Constantin, 33, 34-40
Mignot, Jean, 67
Millet, 89-91, 103-4, 333
Monet, Claude, 105-8, 112, 115-9, 121, 123
Montenard, 256
Moreau, Gustave, 93-4, 155-65
Mouthe, caves of, 3
Museum, the Luxembourg, 110-1
Nietzsche, 275
“Open Air” movement, 93, 100, 102
Palissy, Bernard de, 319
Pavilion de Marsan, 56
Père Lachaise, “Resurrection” at, 300-7
Perréal, Jean, 66-7
Pissarro, Camille, 132-144
Plane, mediæval, 49-51
Poussin, 132
Præ-Raphaelites, 324
Prudhon, 77
Raffaelli, Jean, 114, 119, 256-8
Redon, Odilon, 258
Renaissance, 15, 23-4, 297-9
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 120-1, 259
Renouard, 123
Reuter, Fritz, 290
Ribera, 209
Ribot, 209
Riesener, 79
Rodin, Auguste, 275-93
Roll, Alfred, 260-2
Rops, Félicien, 154, 266
Rubens, 268
Rude, 278
Ruskin, 149-50
Scheffer, Ary, 86
Sculpture in early Middle Ages, 65
“Secession,” 334
Simon, Lucien, 262-4
Sisley, Alfred, 123-30
Sluter, 299
Solutré, 4
Stuck, Prof. Franz, 320-1
Sweden, rock pictures in, 4
Thiéry, 96-7
—— Salon, 101
Thoma, Hans, 326
Trutat, 81-3
Van Eyck, the brothers, 60-2
Veber, Jean, 264-8
Velasquez, 209
Vernet, Horace, 87
Vigée-Lebrun, 74, 76-7
Watteau, 74-5, 261
Wéry, Emil, 269
Whistler, James, 144-54
Wierz, 155
Wilczek, Count, 68
Worms, Jules, 272
Zorn, Anders, 120, 154, 270-1
Zuloaga, Ignacio, 270-4
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