Part 20

"_The Souvenir._ An interesting female, about fifteen years of age, pressing fondly to her bosom a little red and white spaniel dog; the pet animal appears to remind her of some favourite object, for whose safety and return she is breathing an earnest wish; her fair oval countenance and melting eyes are directed upwards, and her ruby lips are slightly open; her light hair falls negligently on her shoulder, and is tastefully braided

[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.--JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE

THE BROKEN PITCHER

_Louvre, Paris_]

with a crimson riband and pearls. She is attired in a morning dress, consisting of a loose gown and a brownish scarf, the latter of which hangs across her arm. Upon a tree behind her is inscribed the name of the painter. This beautiful production of art abounds in every attractive charm which gives interest to the master's works."

Very different, and far superior to Greuze, was JEAN HONORÉ FRAGONARD, born at Grasse, in the Alpes Maritimes, in 1732. In England his name was almost unknown until within quite recent years, and the National Gallery has only one picture by him, which was bequeathed by George Salting in 1910. Fortunately he is well represented in the Wallace Collection, three at least of the nine examples being in his most brilliant manner.

Fragonard's father was a glover. In 1750 the family moved to Paris, and the boy was put into a notary's office. The usual signs of disinclination for office work and a passion for art having duly appeared, he was sent to Boucher, who advised him to go and study under Chardin. This he did for a short time, but finding it dull--for Chardin was not as great a teacher as he was a painter--he went back to Boucher as an assistant. In 1752 he won the Prix de Rome, although he had never attended the Academy Schools, and in 1756 started for Italy.

Reynolds had just returned from Rome at the date of Fragonard's capture of the opportunity of going there, and we know from the _Discourses_ how he spent his time there and what direction his studies took. Fragonard pursued an exactly opposite course, being advised thereto by Boucher, who said to him, "If you take Michelangelo and Raphael seriously, you are lost." Feeling that the advice was suitable to himself, if not sound on general principles, Fragonard devoted himself to the lighter and more sparkling works of Tiepolo and others of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He also made a tour in South Italy and Sicily with Hubert Robert, the landscape painter, and the Abbé Saint Non, the latter of whom published a number of etchings he made after Fragonard's drawings, under the title of _Voyages de Naples et de Sicile_.

On returning to Paris in 1761 his first success was the large composition of _Callirhoé and Coresus_, which was exhibited at the Salon in 1765, and is now in the Louvre. But he soon abandoned the grand style, chiefly, it is probable, owing to the patronage of the idle or industrious rich who showered commissions upon him, for smaller and more sociable pictures with which to adorn and enliven their houses. The beautiful, but exceedingly improper picture at Hertford House, called _The Swing_--or in French, _Les Hazards heureux de l'Escarpolette_, appears to have been commissioned by the Baron de St. Julien, within the next year or two, for in the memoirs of Cotté a conversation is recorded which shows that the Baron had asked another painter, Doyen, to paint it. "Who would have believed," says the indignant Doyen, "that within a few days of my picture of Ste. Geneviéve being exhibited at the Salon, a nobleman would have sent for me to order a picture on a subject like this." He then goes on to relate how the Baron explained to him exactly what he required. We cannot entirely acquit Fragonard of all blame in accepting such a commission, but he was a young man, just starting as a professional artist, with the example of Boucher before him, and it would hardly have seemed wise to begin his career by offending a noble patron. The whole incident throws a glaring light on the conditions under which the art of France flourished in the Louis Quinze period, when Boucher was everybody and Chardin nobody.

For the real Fragonard we may turn to _Le Chiffre d'Amour_, or the "Lady carving an initial," as the prosaic diction of the Wallace Collection has it (No. 382). In this the equal delicacy of the sentiment and of the painting combine to effect a little masterpiece of Louis Quinze art. It is simple and natural, and entirely free from the besetting sins of so slight a picture triviality, affectation, empty prettiness, or simply silliness. In its way it is perfect, and for that perfection is for ever reserved the popularity which we find temporarily accorded to pictures like Frith's _Dolly Varden_ or Millais' _Bubbles_.

Another of the Hertford House examples, the portrait of a Boy as Pierrot, is equally entitled to be popular for all time, and like Reynolds's _Strawberry Girl_, might well be called "one of the half-dozen original things" which no artist ever exceeded in his life's work. A comparison between the two pictures, which were probably painted within a few years of each other, will serve to show the difference between the English and French Schools at this period. On the one hand--to put it very shortly indeed--we see Fragonard influenced by Tiepolo, France, and Louis XV.; on the other, Sir Joshua, influenced by Michelangelo and Raphael, England, and George III.

The mention of JEAN BAPTISTE SIMEON CHARDIN among this brilliant and frivolous galaxy seems almost out of place. "He is not so much an eighteenth-century French artist," Lady Dilke says of him, "as a French artist of pure race and type. Though he treated subjects of the humblest and most unpretentious class, he brought to their rendering not only deep feeling and a penetration which divined the innermost truths of the simplest forms of life, but a perfection of workmanship by which everything he handled was clothed with beauty." That the Wallace Collection includes no work from his hand is perhaps regrettable, but truly Chardin was someone apart from all the magnificence that dazzles us there. His was the treasure of the humble.

The effects of the Revolution upon French painting were as surprising as they were great. That the gay and frivolous art of Boucher and Fragonard should have suddenly ceased might have been considered inevitable; but whereas in Holland, when the Spanish yoke had been thrown off, and a Republic proclaimed, a vigorous democratic school arose under Frans Hals; and in England during the Commonwealth the artistic influence which was beginning to be spread by Charles I. and Buckingham utterly ceased; in France an artistic Dictator arose, as we may well call him, in the person of JACQUES LOUIS DAVID, who not only made painting a part of the revolutionary propaganda, but succeeded under the Emperor Napoleon also in maintaining his position as painter to the Government, and thereby imposing on his country a style of art which had a great influence on the whole course of French painting for many years to come. But the most remarkable thing was that it was to the classics that this revolutioniser went for inspiration. The explanation is to be found in the fact that he was bitterly aggrieved by the attitude of the Academy to him as a young man, and in the accident of his famous picture of Brutus synchronising with the events of 1789. He was at once hailed as a deliverer, and made, as it were, painter to the Revolution.

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.--FRAGONARD

L'ÉTUDE

_Louvre, Paris_]

But what was even more important in the influence he exerted at this time was his actual appointment as President of the Convention, which gave him the power to revenge himself upon the Academy, which he did by extinguishing it in 1793, and to remove any inconvenient rivals by indicting them as aristocrats. Of the older painters, Fragonard and Greuze were the only important ones left, and as they could not under the altered circumstances be considered as rivals to the classical David, they both saw the century out. Fragonard simply ceased painting for want of patrons, and David was good enough to procure him a post in the Museum des Arts, or he would have starved. Unfortunately he attempted to adapt himself to the new style, and was promptly ejected from his post--ostensibly on his previous connection with royalty--and was wise enough to fly to his native town in the south.

During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the dictatorship of David was supreme. How it was finally overthrown we shall see in another chapter.

_THE ENGLISH SCHOOL_

I

THE EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS

In the preface to the _Anecdotes of Painting_ written in 1762, Horace Walpole observes that this country had not a single volume to show on the works of its painters. "In truth," he continues, "it has very rarely given birth to a genius in that profession. Flanders and Holland have sent us the greatest men that we can boast. This very circumstance may with reason prejudice the reader against a work, the chief business of which must be to celebrate the art of a country which has produced so few good artists. This objection is so striking, that instead of calling it _The Lives of English Painters_, I have simply given it the title of _Anecdotes of Painting in England_."

As Walpole's work was merely a compilation from the voluminous notes of George Vertue, a painstaking antiquary who had collected every scrap of information he could acquire in the early years of the eighteenth century, his conclusions can hardly be questioned, and the foundation of the English school of painting is therefore generally assumed to have been effected by Reynolds. But as Wren's Cathedral replaced an older one which was destroyed by the fire of London, and as that was reared on the foundation of a Roman temple, so we find that the art of painting in England was certainly practised in earlier times, and but for certain circumstances much more of it would have survived than is now to be found.

In other countries, as we have seen, the Church was in earlier times the greatest if not the only patron of the arts, and there is plenty of evidence to show that in England, too, from the reign of Henry III. onwards till the Reformation, our churches were decorated with frescoes. This evidence is of two kinds; first, entries in royal and other accounts, directing payment for specified work; and secondly, the remains of fresco painting in our cathedrals and churches. The former is of little interest except to the antiquary. The latter has suffered so much from neglect or actual destruction as to be considered unworthy of the attention of either the artist in search of inspiration or the critic in pursuit of anything to criticise; but when every inconsiderable production in the little world of English art has had its bulky quarto written upon it, it is curious that no one has yet discovered what a splendid harvest awaits the investigation of these old frescoes all over the country.

As it is, we have only to note that as religion was so important an influence on painting in other countries so was it in England, only unfortunately as a destroying and not a cherishing influence. Granting the probability that there were few, if any, of our English frescoes which would be comparable in artistic interest with those in Italy, where the art was so sedulously cultivated, it must nevertheless be remembered that only a fragment remains here and there out of all the work which must have been produced, and that after the Reformation even those works which did survive were treated with positive as well as negative obloquy, so that where they have been preserved at all it is only by having been whitewashed over or otherwise hidden and damaged.

Even worse than the Reformation in 1530, was the Puritan outburst a century later, which not only destroyed works of art, but extinguished all hope of their being created. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the foundation of the English School of painting should have been postponed for a century more?

At the same time it is interesting to note that the little painting which did creep into England in the sixteenth century, was of the very kind that formed the chief feature of the English School when it was finally established, namely portraiture. Here again we see the influence of religion; for to the reformed church, at least as interpreted by the English temperament, the second commandment was and is still second only in number, not in importance. To Protestant or Puritan the idea of a picture in a church was anathema. As late as 1766, when Benjamin West offered to decorate St. Paul's Cathedral with a painting of Moses receiving the tables of the law on Mount Sinai, the Bishop exclaimed, "I have heard of the proposition, and as I am head of the Cathedral of the Metropolis, I will not suffer the doors to be opened to introduce popery."

The painting of a portrait, however, was a very different matter, and from the earliest times appears to have appealed with peculiar strength to the vanity of Britons. Loudly as they protested against the iniquity of bowing down to and worshipping the likeness of anything in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth, they were never averse to giving others an opportunity of bowing down to and worshipping the likenesses of themselves; and while religion fostered the arts in other countries, self-importance kept them alive in this. The portrait of Richard II. in Westminster Abbey, if not actually an instance of this, certainly happens to seem like one.

With the exception of Jan de Mabuse, who is said to have been in England for a short time during the reign of Henry VII., the first painter of any importance in this country was Hans Holbein. Hearing that money was to be made by painting portraits at the English Court, he forsook his native town, his religious art, and his wife, and came to stay with Sir Thomas More at Chelsea, with an introduction from Erasmus. Arriving in 1527, he started business by making a sketch in pen and ink of More's entire family, with which marvellous work, still preserved in the Museum at Basle, the history of modern English painting may fairly be said to have begun; for though it was long before a native of England was forthcoming who was of sufficient force to carry on the tradition, the seed was sown, and in due course the plant appeared, and after many vicissitudes, at last flourished.

The immediate effect may be noted by mentioning here the names of GUILLIM STREETES, who was possibly English born, and JOHN BETTES who certainly was. To the former is attributed the large whole-length portrait at Hampton Court of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, in a suit of bright red. Another portrait of Howard belongs to the Duke of Norfolk, having been presented to his ancestor by Sir Robert Walpole. Both were exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition in 1892. Streetes was painter to King Edward VI., and according to Stype he was paid fifty marks, in 1551, "for recompense of three great tables whereof two were the pictures of his Highness sent to Sir Thomas Hoby and Sir John Mason (ambassadors abroad), the third a picture of the late Earl of Surrey attainted, and by the Councils' commandment fetched from the said Guillim's house." Horace Walpole was under the impression that this was the Duke of Norfolk's picture, but the Hampton Court Catalogue claims the other one as the work of Streetes.

In the National Gallery is a bust portrait of Edmund Butts, physician to Henry VIII., which is inscribed _faict par Johan Bettes Anglois_, and with the date 1545. In this the influence of Holbein is certainly discernible, though not all pervading. There were two brothers, THOMAS and JOHN BETTES who are mentioned by Meres with several other English painters in _Palladis Tamia_, published in 1598--"As Greece had moreover their painters, so in England we have also these, William and Francis Segar, brethren, Thomas and John Bettes, Lockie, Lyne, Peake, Peter Cole, Arnolde, Marcus (Mark Garrard)," etc. Walpole, quoting this, adds, "I quote this passage to prove to those who learn one or two names by rote that every old picture you see is not by Holbein." At the same time it must be admitted that until some considerable fund of information concerning these early days of painting is brought to light, there is very little to be said about any one except Holbein till almost the end of the sixteenth century.

That Holbein was "a wonderful artist," as More wrote to Erasmus, is not to be denied. But in placing him among the very greatest, we must not forget that his range was somewhat limited. We might nowadays call him a specialist, for in England he painted nothing but portraits, and very few of his pictures contained anything besides the single figure, or head, of the subject. The famous exception is the large picture called _The Ambassadors_, which was purchased at an enormous price from the Longford Castle collection, and is now in the National Gallery. Important and interesting as this is as showing us how Holbein could fill a large canvas, there is no doubt that he is far happier in simple portraiture, and that the £60,000 expended on _Christina Duchess of Milan_ was, relatively, a better investment for the nation. In the famous half-lengths like the _George Gisze_ at Berlin (which was painted in London) and the _Man with the Hawk_, where the portrait is surrounded by accessories, Holbein is perhaps at his very best; but it is as a painter of heads, simply, that he influenced the English School, and set an example which, alas! has never been attainable since.

For one thing, which is apart altogether from talent or genius, Holbein's method was never followed in later times, namely, the practice of making carefully finished drawings in crayon before painting a portrait in oils. He was a wonderful draughtsman, and in the series of over eighty drawings at Windsor we have even more life-like images of the persons represented than their finished portraits. I am not aware that any portrait drawings exists of Holbein's contemporaries or successors in England earlier than one or two by Van Dyck. There are a good many belonging to the seventeenth century, but with one or two exceptions they are little more than sketches. And though sketches have only survived by accident, as it were, not being intended for anything more than the artist's own purposes, finished drawings would have been kept, like Holbein's, with much greater care.

In a word, then, Holbein's first and chief business was in rendering the likeness of the sitter. Being a

[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.--HANS HOLBEIN

ANNE OF CLEVES

_Louvre, Paris_]

born genius, he accomplished far more than this; but it is important in tracing the development of the English School of painting to remember that its origin was not in the idealization of religious sentiment, but in the realization of the human features. From the time of the first great genius to that of the next, exactly a century later, there is hardly a portrait in existence that is valued for anything but its historic or personal interest. Between Holbein and Van Dyck is a great gap, in which the only names of Englishmen are those of the miniaturists, Hilliard and Oliver, who were veritably of the seed of Holbein, but only in little.

Van Dyck struck deeper into the English soil, and loosened it sufficiently for the growth of larger stuff, if still somewhat coarse, like the work of William Dobson and Robert Walker. To Van Dyck succeeded Peter Lely, who boldly and worthily assumed the mantle of Van Dyck, and kept English portraiture alive throughout the dismal period of the Commonwealth. After the Restoration he was still in power, and under him flourished one or two painters of English birth, like Greenhill and Riley, who in turn gave way to others under Kneller without ceding the monopoly to foreigners. From these came Jervas, Richardson, and, most important, Hudson, who was Reynolds's master, and so we arrive at the beginning of what is now generally known as the English School.

Another source, however, must here be mentioned as joining the main stream, and contributing a solid body of water to it, chiefly below the surface, namely the art of WILLIAM HOGARTH. Being essentially English, and without any artistic forefathers, it is not surprising that he left less perceptible impressions on his immediate successors than the more accomplished and educated Reynolds; but the solid force of his character, as exemplified in his career and his works, is hardly a less important factor in the development of the English School, while from his outspoken opinions on the state of the arts in his time he is one of the most valuable sources of its history.

II

WILLIAM HOGARTH

WILLIAM HOGARTH occupies a curious position in the history of English painting. There was nothing ever quite like him in any country--except Greuze in France; for though a comparison between two such opposites, seems at first sight absurd, it must be remembered that French and English painting in the middle of the eighteenth century were no less far apart. Both Greuze and Hogarth, in their own fashion, tried to preach moral lessons in paint, the one in the over-refined atmosphere of French surroundings, the other in the coarse language of England in his time.

Hogarth's chief characteristic was his blunt, honest, bull-dog Englishness, which at the particular moment of his appearance on the artistic stage was a quality which was eminently serviceable to English painting. Though of humble parents, his honest and forceful character won for him the daughter of Sir James Thornhill in marriage (by elopement) and his sturdy talent in painting secured for him his father-in-law's forgiveness and encouragement. Thornhill came of a good, old Wiltshire family, and had been knighted by George I. for his sterling merits as much as for his skill in painting and decorating the royal palaces and the houses of noblemen. His place among English artists is not a very high one, but he deserves the credit of having stood out against the monopoly that was being established by foreigners in this country in every department of artistic work, and in this sense he is a still earlier forerunner of the great English painters, than his more forcible son-in-law.