Art-Thoughts. The Experiences and Observations of an American Amateur in Europe
By . New York : Hurd and Houghton.
THERE are two ways of educating the public in a knowledge and appreciation of the Fine Arts : one, by making it actually familiar with the best works of art ; the other, by right statement and criticism of what has been done, and speculation on what should be done, by artists in their several departments of work. The first is indispensable, if any high standard of excellence in art is to be attained. The second is of less importance, but still highly useful. The beautiful in art, no less than in nature, “ is its own excuse for being,” and will sooner or later find a response in the popular mind. Still, so long as some people will say of a work of art, “This is so,” and others, “ It is not so,” we owe a debt always to those who, combining a love and knowledge of art with the capacity of writing well about it, publish the results of their thoughts, and help us to some means of judging it.
We confess to never having got much satisfaction from mere theorizing and philosophizing about art. Mr. Ruskin did excellent service in deposing some of the idols of the past, and placing Claude, Salvator Rosa, Gaspar Poussin, and others, just where they belong; but we could not accompany this iconoclast when he lifted up Turner as a greater idol, and offered incense to him alone, as the completest genius of the age. And as to those didactic essays in the second volume of his Modern Landscape Painters, such efforts are little better, it seems to us, than most treatises of doctrinal theology. The true artist will find his art-creed expressed in a very few words, just as the Christian believer may sum up his faith in the simple formula of the New Testament, “Love to God and man.”
We hear it frequently asserted by artists, provoked by the stings and arrows of outrageous criticism in the papers, that no person but an artist should undertake to be an art critic. There may be some truth in this assertion. So far as criticism is concerned with the form, the style, and execution of the work, artists should be the best critics, for the very good reason, namely, that their knowledge is experimental. But art is idea as well as expression. And it may be said that, of the idea embodied in a work of art, those who are “ outsiders ” may he as competent to judge as the artist. It is even argued that they may be better qualified, for the very reason that they are not tempted, as the artist is, to sink the idea in the sensuous expression. However this may be, it is clear enough that those who write of art should at least have a natural love of it; they must have the artistic temperament and eye, and a long familiarity, through observation and study, with what they propose to talk about. Certainly, if the artist be intelligent and cultivated, in a larger than a mere professional way, his thoughts about art should have special weight. The artists at any rate should take the initiative in the field of criticism. It we could collect all that is said candidly and without prejudice by all of them, say at sojne public exhibition, and have it clearly expressed, we should come nearer getting the cream of criticism than in any other way.
This, however, does not seem to be the popular notion. Anybody, it is thought, who can write well, and uses his eyes, can write about art. None but scientific students should criticise a work on science ; none but financiers are held qualified to speak of finance ; none but musical people may speak authoritatively of music; none but literary people, with a love for poetry, and capacity for appreciating it, should review a poem. But any scribbler in the daily papers can rush into the artist’s studio, or the Academy of Design, and dash off a popular bit of art criticism. It only needs good eyes, and a little familiarity with sculpture and painting, it seems, to judge of art. Why should it require more than is needed to judge of the aspects of nature ?
In America, unfortunately, very few persons of literary power trouble themselves with writing about art. It is not yet made a specialty as in Europe. Here the standard of art is not fixed. It has entirely changed during the last quarter of a century, and is still changing. Names and reputations which then loomed up as the brightest have been eclipsed by those of younger men. In the landscape department especially, our painters have gone far ahead of what passed for excellent when Cole, Durand, and Doughty were the fashion. In every department of art there is a demand for higher themes and better works. The conventional, the academic, pale before subjects drawn fresh from nature, and embodying some original idea or sentiment, in exactness and finish of execution. Besides, American art has to compete with European art. Our best private collections of pictures are drawn chiefly from France, Belgium, and Germany.
Art criticism with us is very much inferior to the average criticism on books, far behind that on music and musical performers. Such is the prevalent uncertainty in the public mind as to what is really good in art, that editors and their readers are apt to welcome any clever writer who undertakes to do the “ art notices ” for them. Mr. Jarves’s books are about the only earnest and authoritative works of this kind we know of in America. In the papers and magazines we have had a great deal of socalled criticism, from the soft “ mush-ofconcession ” style to the intensely patronizing, the satirical, the carping, the savage ; of genuine, wise, large, appreciative art criticism, almost nothing. We are disposed, therefore, to make the most of a writer who enters this difficult field with sound and various knowledge, and a zeal nearly always balanced by a sense of justice.
The author of “ Art-Thoughts ” has long been known, here and abroad, as a learned connoisseur and collector, chiefly of pictures by the old masters, and as a writer whose opinions are enlightened, earnest, and independent. Though not, like Mr. Raskin, an artist, he shows that he is familiarly acquainted with art, old and new ; and his evident knowledge and appreciation of his subject, his usually excellent criticisms, his clear and vigorous style, entitle him to a high rank as a writer in this department. In this, his latest book, he goes over a very wide space historically, treating of the Pagan and Christian idea in art, tire art and religion of Etruria, comparing classical and Christian art, and discussing architecture, modern Italian art, life and religion, the art of Holland, Belgium, Spain, Germany, England, Japan, China, France. He has something, but not much, to say of American art; and his closing chapters treat of Minor Arts, Amateurship, and the Art of the Future. On all these topics he has excellent things to say. His tone is thoughtful and discriminating. He is not unduly biassed by any clique or school. He shows a healthy tendency to appreciate the idea in art, and yet a delicate and acute sense of what is best in style and execution. We find ourselves agreeing with him generally in his thoughts about the old masters, and in his characterization of most of the modern French and English painters. There is truth, too, in what he says of American art. Yet there is here a tone of depreciation which Shows less thorough acquaintance with our best works. Such observations as the following we regard as out of keeping with Mr, Jarves’s usual sound judgment: —
“ Indeed, it is not uncommon to find successful artists, as regards making money, who have begun life as traders, mechanics, or writers. There is so little real artistic fibre as yet, that most of those engaged in the one career would have met with equal success in the other, had circumstances drawn them to it. Of art, as genius, we have none; as the expression of an æsthetic constitution and ambition, very little ; of conscientious study and profound knowledge, even less ; but, as the fruit of the demand-and-supply principle of business, much. An increasing number of persons engage in art for no sincere purpose except speedily to become rich ; their credit, like that of merchants, being based on the amount of business they do.”
There is no doubt a certain amount of truth in these statements, but it is exaggerated. Besides, it applies no less to European than to American artists. The mercantile spirit among artists is peculiar to no one country. And we regret to see Mr. Jarves make the mistake of asserting that it exists any more among Americans than among any other people. He has been misled by having his attention drawn too exclusively to the pecuniary successes of a few of, our painters and sculptors, whose works happen to be very popular. Then, as to money-making, how can Mr. Jarves suppose that art as a business, bringing sure and solid pecuniary profit, can be, except in very rare cases, in the remotest degree comparable with the thousand other avenues to wealth, open to enterprise and industry in America ?
Another error we think he falls into, namely, that artists in general are not the best judges of art. We have already indicated our views on this point. Mr. Jarves says: —
“ The best judges of objects of art in general are found, not among artists, but those who stake their money and reputation on them as dealers, restorers, or connoisseurs. Most artists limit their instruction to a speciality of their epoch. Seldom do they interest themselves in what does not immediately concern their own studies or aims. As a class, they are more indifferent to old art of any kind, and less versed in its history, character, motives, and methods, than amateurs.”
But in his subsequent observations he indirectly admits that amateurs and collectors are apt to fall into mistakes about the real value of objects of art. Artists, it is true, may be easily deceived as to the authenticity of this or that “ old master”; for to become a sharp detective in this line requires a training rather outside an artist’s legitimate education. This is the connoisseur’s work. But as to the genuine worth of objects of art, old and new, irrespective of names and reputations, it seems to us educated artists are far less liable to err, because with them a perception of form, drawing, color, tone, style, composition, light and shade, and in fine all that goes to make up a picture (and the same applies to sculpture), is the result of mental constitution and long and habitual training in the direction of nature and art, and not, as with the collector, founded on mere study and comparison of works of this or that school, or age, or country.
Among the small mistakes of the author is that of classing William Page with the idealists in painting. To our mind Mr. Page stands as one of our foremost realists. He does nothing well unless the original is always before his eye. Again, Mr. Jarves makes Messrs. Moore and Farrer exact literalists as to “truth in design and hue” Now, whatever excellence maybe claimed for them as draughtsmen, few have discovered that they succeed in getting anywhere near the color of natural forms. This literal color of the landscape is just where they fail. Nor are we any better satisfied with what seems to us an underestimate of Mr. Story, and an over-estimate of Miss Hosmer, as sculptors.
Not the least of .Mr. Jarves’s merits as a critic is the constant prominence he gives to the idea in art, as well as to the harmony which should subsist between it and the expression.
We feel that though the formula of soul and body, substance and form, idea and expression, applicable to all art, is trite enough, it has nearly always been practically ignored, and especially in this age, which is so fertile in easy material for thought to work in. In art the idea or sentiment most be embodied in a definite and prescribed form, which form is imposed with unyielding strictness. Yet by these limitations art is not fettered, but rather assisted. The painter is not restrained by the size, shape, and flatness of his canvas. The sculptor is not balked by his sticky clay or his hard marble. The musician uses his rules of counterpoint as so many necessary steppingstones, piers, or abutments for the golden bridge of his divine symphony. The poet blesses the fourteen-line prison of the sonnet. The form must be impregnated with the idea, but must always remain perfect as form. So, in proportion as thought scorns its limits and overflows its dikes and breaks down its barriers, it degenerates from true art, no less than when it fails to fill out the form, and dribbles away in puny rills or stagnates in dull pools.
The artist’s work differs from that of the prophet, the preacher, the political editor, the reformer, the philosopher, and all who seek to impress by the simple enunciation of an idea, or by a process of ratiocination. Theirs is the blast of the bugle or the play of a melody, — the meaning uttered almost anyhow, so that it be understood. But the artist is concerned about harmonious utterance. He presides not over the speaking-trumpet or the Alpine horn,—though a thousand echoes answer, — but over some grand organ, or Whatever instrument may best represent the complete orchestral beauty and harmony of inspired thought. From a necessity of his aesthetic constitution, he must hold his thought in suspense till it is fitly embodied in a beautiful form ; and, this done, the form must not prove so fascinating as to enervate and subjugate the fresh vigor and truth of his thought.
When we come to apply this test to the works of art of the century, it will be found that those which fulfil the large requirements hoped for in respect to truth and beauty of expression are but a slender proportion of the whole.
Somehow the age seems to groove out channels for art in a material, rather than an intellectual and æsthetic, direction. The idea and sentiment are lost in the embodiment, till the body is gradually vitiated by hopeless mannerism.
Powers makes us a statue or bust which is a faultless form, no more. The French painters carry cleverness of manipulation to intolerable excess. The triumph of the English school in water-colors makes mannerists of them, and infects their oil-painting with feebleness and falsity. The German landscapes seem nearly all ground out of the same mill. Music runs into strained effects, and excessive flourish and ornament; and those are accounted the best performers who astonish most by musical gymnastics and pyrotechnics. Poetry loses its simplicity of thought and feeling, and degenerates into exquisiteness of rhythm, or stilted and artificial diction. The artist’s hand gets the better of his thought, and runs away with him, the thought being too puny to inspire and guide it. And so, as Emerson says, “ Man is subdued by his instruments.”
Go into our galleries, and you will see line after line of pictures where there is absolutely the washiest dilution of thought, the feeblest gleam of feeling, while in many cases the painting may be perfect as painting. You will see the same sort of thing repeated over and over again, with little variation, till you wonder if there be any originality or freshness, any force of invention, left among the painters. Exceptions, of course, there are. We only speak now of the general tendency to tame, monotonous levels of thought. We would rather see the artists content themselves with sketches, rough and vigorous, or soft and tender, where there is nevertheless a sentiment expressed, or, on the other hand, adopt the extreme hard realistic style of treating nature, than have this perpetual surfeit of mannerism, — these annually recurring réchauffés of something already done, — these crowds of eye-pleasing canvases, signifying nothing, exciting no thrill of delight, and having no magnetic attraction for us after we have once passed them.
For the test of a true work of art is the power it has to draw us again and again into its presence. This holds in painting and sculpture, as in music and poetry. Something must be there which, over and above the material form, fascinates the soul. Without this, the beautiful body of art can never fulfil to the mind its promise to the eye.
The artists seem generally more occupied with their vocabulary than their idea. The old complaint against them comes up continually, that they tend to be too academic. They need the influence of a more realistic school. While they grapple with the difficulties of art, they must, Antæus-like, touch earth again and again, forever drawing new strength and refreshment from Nature.
The reaction toward realism has shown itself to some extent in America ; but its decided exhibition has been confined to certain peculiar little pictures, by a few young landscapists, who have apparently spurned all the rules and teachings of the masters, and have struck out what they call a “new path ” for themselves. If we take any pleasure in their works, it is solely that we see an earnest attempt to get at the literal truth of nature, in a way entirely outside all accepted canons. After our surfeit of vapid and conventional pictures, there is refreshment even in some of these raw productions. But there are signs of a healthier and more enlightened realism among us, — a realism which accepts those rules in art founded on law (the laws of color and tone, for instance, which are quite as imperative as the laws of harmony in music), and rejects only rules derived from a pedantic academicism.
On the other hand, we are not insensible of the value of the old masters to the artist. For we do not think any artist has completed his education till he has attained some familiarity with the best of them. But even their value is to be tested by the same law by which we test all art. Here, we think, Mr. Jarves shows a tendency to confound the connoisseur with the critic in art. The connoisseur may live so long among the old masters, genuine or copies, as to come to imagine the learning of the expert and the knowledge and perception of the artist to be one and the same thing. However, the broad and healthy tone of Mr. Jarves’s book shows that he is generally free from undue bias in the direction of the old masters solely on the ground of their reputation.
We cannot conclude this notice without testifying to the fresh and elevated tone of thought running through this book. Mr. Jarves’s theological views are enlightened and humane ; his idea of man’s nature and destiny large and cheering; and the future he foresees for America is one of the highest culture and development.