Chapter II: Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art (1)

[Sidenote: An inquiry into the influence of the study of nature on art.]

In this chapter we shall endeavour to trace the influence of the study of nature on all the best art up to the present day. [Sidenote: Woltmann and Woermann.] In order to do this it will be necessary to follow in chronological order the development of art, and we propose taking as our guide in this matter Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, who seem the most trustworthy and are the most recent of art historians. We feel, however, that we must state our attitude towards them as historians of art. For the main historical facts, we willingly accept as authorities these writers, since they have studied the matter, but when these historians try to trace the causes and effects of different phases of art on contemporary life then we entirely part company from them, for there are so many wheels within wheels in this complex comedy of life that we cannot with patience listen to searchers of manuscripts and students of autographs, who trace the fall of an empire to an oil painting, or the decadence of painting to the cheapness of wheat: such dreams may still serve, as they have always served, as a peg whereon to hang rhetorical rhapsodies, but they can have no attraction for rational minds. What we propose, then, is briefly to compile a short outline, consisting of the salient facts in the history of art, in so far as they bear on our subject, that is, how far the best artists have been naturalistic, and how true in impression their interpretation of nature. When we agree with any of the critical remarks of these gentlemen, we shall quote them in full, acknowledging them in the usual way, but we reserve to ourselves the right to differ entirely from them on artistic points. We ourselves feel much diffidence in advancing any critical remarks of our own upon these arts, for we are convinced, after a long and practical study of the subject, that no one can criticize any branch of art _and the criticism be authoritative_, unless he be a _practical master artist_ in the branch of art which he is criticizing; but as our opinions have been put to the touchstone of some first-rate practical artists in other branches than our own, we offer them, standing always ready to be corrected by any good practical artist on any point. As to who are good artists is again another wide question. Certainly their name is not legion.

[Sidenote: Criticism.]

Our object in traversing all this ground, then, is one of inquiry, to really see how far “naturalism” is the only wear for all good art, and we have done it in an impartial spirit, arriving at the conclusion that in all the glyptic and pictorial arts the touchstone answers. How far this is the case with the arts of Fiction, Poetry, &c., is a more complex matter, and one we cannot now deal with, but we feel that in the literary arts the matter is very different, for in these arts we are not confined, as we are in the pictorial and glyptic arts, to physical facts and their representation; for there is no such thing as abstract beauty of form or colour. Art has served as a peg on which to hang all sorts of fads—fine writing, very admirable in its place—morality, not to be despised—classical knowledge and literature generally, both of the highest æsthetic value, but in no way connected with the glyptic and pictorial arts. Naturalistic art has been found and lost, and lost and found time after time, and it is because the Dutch, French, English and American artists of to-day are finding it again that we feel hopeful for the art of the future.

[Sidenote: Our aim.]

Our object is, by these notes, to lead our readers to the works of art themselves, hoping that by this means they will, to some extent, educate themselves and finally form independent judgments on art matters. Much of the lamentable ignorance existing on these subjects is due to the acceptance of the dicta of writers on pictures, without the readers seeing the pictures themselves. We earnestly beg, therefore, of any one who may be sufficiently interested in the subject as to read this book, that he will go and see the original pictures and sculptures cited; all of which are within easy reach. It was our original intention to introduce photographic reproductions of the best pieces of sculpture, and the best pictures into this work, but we have decided against so doing, fearing that the reader might be tempted to look at the reproductions and neglect the originals, and a translation, however good it may be, is but a small part of the truth. In thus expressing our conclusions on naturalism in art, we do not set up as the preacher of any new gospel. Such opinions as ours are as old as the art of ancient Greece, nay older, for from the early days of Egypt downwards these ideas have been held, we shall find, by great artists in all ages. It is only in the application of these ideas to photography, and in attempting to reduce them to scientific first principles that we presume to claim any originality.

EGYPTIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Egyptian art.]

On examining specimens of Egyptian art, whether it be their paintings, architecture, sculpture or book illustrations (the papyri), one is struck by the wonderful simplicity, decision and force with which they expressed themselves. The history of Egypt has been so little studied, save by students of history, and the old popular stories concerning the nations of the past are so inaccurate and misleading, that one is at first surprised to find such power in the works of those whom we were taught, not so long ago, to look upon as Philistines; so that we might gaze on the Pyramids of Gizeh, the statues of Rameses, and the granite lions, with the wonderment of incomprehension. But now, of course, every one knows that the Egyptians were masters in certain directions, where we are but in our infancy. Even in their _cavi relievi_ and wall paintings, though these latter are but tinted outlines, they are not the outlines of childish draughtsmen, weak and unmeaning, but they show the force of a powerful skill that in one bold outline can give all the essentials of a man, bird or beast, so that the picture looks living and doing. All through their work there is a bigness of conception, a solid grip of nature which makes their work surpass many of the elaborately finished and richly detailed pictures of our modern art galleries.

[Sidenote: Works to be studied.]

Let us call the reader’s attention to such examples as are easily to be seen, namely, [Sidenote: The lions.]the granite lions, the _cavi relievi_ and the papyri in the British Museum. The lions, which are remarkable for strength of character and truthfulness of impression, may be taken as representative of the greatest period of Egyptian art, a period which ended about the time of Rameses II.; for after that time the artist began to neglect the study of nature, and gradual decadence set in.

[Sidenote: Landseer’s lions.]

We strongly advise all our readers to go to the British Museum and look well at these lions. They are hewn from granite, or porphyry, the hardest of stones, they have conventional moustaches, and are lying in conventional positions, yet withal, there is a wonderful expression of life and reserved strength about them which makes you respect them, stone though they be; and they convey to you, as you look on their long lithe flanks so broadly and simply treated, the truthful impression of strong and merciless _animals_. Your thoughts involuntarily turn from them to Landseer’s bronze lions guarding Trafalgar Square. In them you remember all the tufts of hair correctly rendered, even to the wool in the ears, the mane, the moustaches. Even the claws are there, and yet you feel instinctively you would rather meet those[2] tame cats of Trafalgar Square, with all their claws, than the Egyptian lions in the British Museum. The reason of this is that the Egyptians knew how to epitomize, so as to express the fundamental characteristics of the lion, they cared not to say how many hairs went to make up the tufted tail, nor yet how many claws each paw should have, but what they tried to do, and succeeded in doing, was to convey a sense of his power and animalism, or to convey, in short, an impression of _his nature_.

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Footnote 2:

Since this was written Mr. Frith has published that Landseer modelled
these lions from a tame cat.

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These lions were the outcome of the best period of Egyptian sculpture. The Egyptian artists who carved those lions had been striving to interpret Nature, and hence their great success; but as soon as their successors began to neglect nature, and took to drawing up rules, they went wrong, and produced caricatures. [Sidenote: Rameses II. and decadence.] We read that after the time of Rameses II. “every figure is now mathematically designed according to a prescribed canon of numerical proportions between the parts.”

[Sidenote: Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians.”]

All this we can trace for ourselves in the plates supplied with Wilkinson’s learned work, entitled, “The Ancient Egyptians.” We see in those plates that something has happened to the people and objects represented, something that makes them no longer tell their own story, they no longer look alive, but are meaningless; the reason of this falling off was that the artist no longer used his eyes to any purpose, but did what was then supposed to be the right thing to do, namely, followed the laws laid down by some men of narrow intellect—laws called as now the “canons of art.” The very life of the Egyptian artists of that period was against good work, for they were incorporated into guilds, and the laws of caste worked as harmfully as they now do in the Orient. [Sidenote: Artists' status.] There is, then, distinct evidence that on the one hand the Egyptian artists of the best period, when untrammelled by conventionality, created works which, though lacking the innumerable qualities of later Greek art, yet possessed, _so far as they went_, the first essential of all art—truth of impression. Again, on the other hand, directly anything like “rules of art” appeared, and the study of nature was neglected, their art degenerated into meaningless conventionality, and as this conventionality and neglect of nature were never cast aside, the art of Egypt never developed beyond the work done by the artists who carved the stone lions.

MONARCHIES OF WESTERN ASIA.

[Sidenote: Assyrian art.]

Assyrian art differed from that of Egypt in that the outline of the figures was much stronger, and that they painted their bas-reliefs; but the “imitation of nature was the watchword” in Assyria, as it was in Babylon.

[Sidenote: Assyrian bas-reliefs.]

In studying the Assyrian bas-reliefs, those interested in the subject should go to the Assyrian rooms in the basement of the British Museum, and look at the reliefs of Bani-Pal—the famous lion-hunting scenes. [Sidenote: The lion-hunt.] There is, of course, much conventionality in the work, as there was in that of the Egyptians; but no observer can fail to detect that the Assyrians were naturalistic to a degree that strikes us as marvellous when we consider the subjects they were treating. Note the lioness, wounded in the spine, dragging her hindquarters painfully along. Does this not give a powerful impression of the wounded animal? and does it not occur to you how wonderful was the power of the man who in so little expressed and conveys to you so much. Consider when those Assyrian sculptors lived. Look, too, at the bas-reliefs numbered 47 and 49; and in 50 note the marvellous truthfulness of impression of the horseman, who is riding at a gallop. There is life and movement in the work, though there is much scope for improvement in the truth of the movements. Look, too, at the laden mules in bas-reliefs numbers 70 and 72. Such works as these were done by great men in art, and though crudeness of methods prevented them from rivalling some of the later work, their work is at least honest, and, as far as it goes, naturalistic. The work does not say all that there is to say about the subject; but it does say much of what is _most essential_, and by doing that is artistically greater than work done by scores of modern men. [Sidenote: Historical value of the bas-reliefs.]In addition to their artistic value, how interesting are these works as records of history. Indisputable, as written history can never be, they are to us a valuable record of the life and times. They constitute historical art in its only good sense.

ANCIENT GREEK AND ITALIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Ancient]

Greek and Italian art.

In discussing Greek _painting_ we shall rely entirely upon the erudite historical work of Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, giving a short _résumé_ of their remarks on the subject. [Sidenote: No Greek paintings extant.] This is absolutely necessary, as not one specimen of Greek painting has come down to us.[3] But on the other, hand, in dealing with Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture we shall base our remarks on the Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture in the British Museum.

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Footnote 3:

Some paintings quite recently discovered in Egypt are apparently the
work of Greek artists, and tend to confirm this written testimony.

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[Sidenote: History of Greek painting.]

Beginning then with Greek painting, let us see what the historians tell us. They begin by saying, in painting “the Greeks effected nothing short of a revolution ... by right of which they deserve the glory of having first made painting a truthful mirror of realities.” This fact, that their pictorial art reached such perfection, is not generally known, for the reason that the assertion rests on written testimony,—but it is reliable testimony. The historians “insist on the fact that no single work of any one of the famous painters recognized in the history of Greek art has survived to our time.” Let us then briefly trace the rise of Greek painting till it culminated in Apelles. [Sidenote: Polygnotos.] Polygnotos (B.C. 475-55) is the first name we hear of, and of his works we are told, “they were just as far from being really complete pictorial representations as the wall-pictures of the Assyrians and Egyptians themselves,” although in some particulars there must have been a distinct advancement on the work of the orientals. For example, we are told Polygnotos painted the “fishes of Acheron shadowy grey, and the pebbles of the river-bed so that they could be seen through the water.” Polygnotos fell, however, into a pitfall which has entrapped many painters since, he painted imaginative pictures. We are told he “was a painter of heroes,” some of his school attempted portraiture, “but painting though in this age was still a mere system of tinted outline design.” [Sidenote: Agatharchos.] Then followed Agatharchos, “the leader of a real revolution, a revolution by which art was enabled to achieve great and decisive progress towards a system of representation corresponding with the laws of optics and the full truth of nature.” Agatharchos was a scene-painter, and was no doubt led by striving for naturalism in his scenery to study naturalism in painting generally. [Sidenote: Scene-painting.] As the historians remark, “In scene-painting as thus practised, we find the origins not only of all representations of determinate backgrounds, but also, and more especially, of landscape painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the invention of scene-painting as the most decisive turning-point in the entire history of the art, and Agatharchos is named as the master who, at the inspiration of Æschylus, first devoted himself to practising the invention.” [Sidenote: Perspective.] This painter, it is said, also paid great attention to perspective, and left a treatise which was afterwards used in drawing up the laws of perspective. It is said his manner of treatment was “comparatively broad and picturesque.” [Sidenote: Apollodoros.] Next came Apollodoros, a figure-painter, who also combined landscape and figure subjects, and of whom Pliny says “that he was the first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures, the first to bring the brush into just repute, [Sidenote: Easel-pictures.] and even that before him no easel-picture (_tabula_) had existed by any master fit to charm the eye of the spectator.” [Sidenote: Chiaro-oscuro.] Apollodoros was the first to give his pictures a natural and definite background in true perspective; he was the first, it is emphatically stated, “who rightly managed chiaro-oscuro and the fusion of colours.... He will have also been the first to soften off the outlines of his figures.... [Sidenote: Brunn.] For this reason we may, with Brunn, in a certain sense call Apollodoros “the first true painter.” We are told, however, that his “painting was, in comparison with his successors, hard and imperfect,” and that the innovations made by him in the relation of foreground and background cannot be compared to the improvements effected by the brothers Van Eyck in modern times. [Sidenote: Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes.] We now read of Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes, who, we are told, “perfected a system of pictorial representation, adequately rendering on the flat surface the relief and variety of nature, in other particulars if not in colour.” The endeavour of Zeuxis was “by the brilliant use of the brush to rival nature herself,” and from anecdotes related of him and of Parrhasios, we gather that they “laid the greatest stress on carrying out to the point of actual illusion the deceptive likeness to nature.” Many of Zeuxis' subjects were taken from everyday life—another step in the right direction. [Sidenote: Eupompos.] We now come to the Dorian school, with Eupompos as its founder; and here we find a determination to study painting scientifically, and to conscientiously observe nature, for we are told Eupompos expressed the opinion “that the artist who wished to succeed must go first of all to nature as his teacher.” [Sidenote: Pamphilos.] Pamphilos, a pupil of Eupompos, brought this school to maturity, and insisted on the “necessity of scientific study for the painter.” [Sidenote: Melanthios.] He was followed by Melanthios, who pursued the same lines of scientific investigation; and was in his turn succeeded by Pausias, of whom we hear, [Sidenote: Pausias.] “It is quoted as a novel and striking effect, that in one of his pictures the face of Methê (or personified Intoxication) was visible through the transparent substance of the glass out of which she drank.” His work was considered to have great technical excellence, his subjects were taken from everyday life, and his pictures were all on a small scale. Pliny says “his favourite themes were ‘boys,’ that is, no doubt, scenes of child-life.... He developed, it seems, a more natural method of representing the modelling of objects by the gradations of a single colour.” We read, too, that his paintings drawn fresh from life “were much appreciated by the Romans.” Such is the case with all good naturalistic works, they always interest posterity, whereas the so-called imaginative works only interest the age for which they are painted. We should to-day prefer and treasure as beyond price one of Pausias' studies of familiar Greek life, whereas the heroes of Polygnotos would lack interest for us, and excite but little enthusiasm. [Sidenote: The Theban-Attic school.] There was a third school of Greek painting, that called the Theban-Attic, and of this we read that there was “a great ease and versatility, and an invention more intent upon the expression of human emotion,” but no painter of this school made any very great advance. [Sidenote: Apelles.] At length we come to Apelles, the most famous of all Greek painters. He, although already well known and highly thought of, went to the Sikyonian school, to study under Pamphilos, and we afterwards hear of him as court painter to Alexander the Great. We are told that at court his “mission was to celebrate the person and the deeds of the king, as well as those of his captains and chief men.” This was at any rate legitimate historical painting. Woltmann and Woermann say, “In faithful imitation of nature he was second to none; he was first of all in refinement of light and shade, and consequent fulness of relief and completeness of modelling.” And again we read, “Astonishing technical perfection in the illusory imitation of nature” distinguished Apelles. Thus we see that the great aim of the greatest of Greek painters was to paint nature exactly as she is, or as glib critics would say, to paint “mere transcripts of nature.” [Sidenote: Protogenes.] Contemporary with Apelles was Protogenes, whose aim was to reach the “highest degree of illusion in detail.” The cycle of development seemed now to have reached its highest point, and as the naturalistic teachings fell into the hands of inferior men, they were abused, and Woltmann and Woermann tell us the imitative principle was not kept subservient to artistic ends, and in the hands of Theon of Samos the principle of illusion became an end in itself, and art degenerated into _legerdemain_. This same tendency is now showing its hydra head, and in London, Brussels, and other places are to be seen inferior works hidden in dark rooms, or to be viewed through peep-holes. [Sidenote: Theon.] We only want the trumpets of Theon or the music of the opera bouffe to complete the degradation.Following Theon, and probably disgusted with his phantasies, came painters of small subjects;[Sidenote: The rhyparographi.] the rhyparographi of Pliny, or the rag-and-tatter painters, “who painted barbers' shops, asses, eatables, and such-like.” “We see, therefore, that about B.C. 300 ... Greek painting had already extended its achievements to almost all conceivable themes, with the single exception of landscape. Within the space of a hundred and fifty years the art had passed through every technical stage, from the tinted profile system of Polygnotos to the properly pictorial system of natural scenes, enclosed in natural backgrounds, and thence to the system of trick and artifice, which aimed at the realism of actual illusion by means beyond the legitimate scope of art.”

“The creative power of Greek painting was as good as exhausted by this series of efforts. In the following centuries the art survived indeed as a pleasant after-growth, in some of its old seats, but few artists stand out with strong individuality from among their contemporaries. Only a master here and there makes a name for himself. [Sidenote: Timomachos.] The one of these whom we have here especially to notice is Timomachos, of Byzantium, an exception of undeniable importance, since even at this late period of Greek culture he won for himself a world-wide celebrity.”

Decadence, however, had already set in, and we find that Timomachos neglected the study of familiar subjects, and returned to the so-called imaginative style, producing such works as “Ajax and Medea,” and “Iphigenia in Taurus.” [Sidenote: Greek landscape painting.] Curiously enough, it was during this period that the only branch of painting not yet tried by the Greeks, namely, landscape painting, was attempted. Woltmann and Woermann suggest a reason for this new departure when they say, “We can gather with certainty from poetry and literature that it was in the age of the Diadochi (the kings who divided amongst them the kingdom of Alexander) that the innate Greek instinct of anthropomorphism, of personifying nature in human forms, from a combination of causes was gradually modified in the direction of an appreciation of natural scenes for their own sake, and as they really are.” Landscape painting, however, did not reach any great perfection, for we are told it “scarcely got beyond the superficial character of decorative work.” [Sidenote: Decadence.] With this period ends the true history of Greek painting, though it still lingers on, and becomes so far merged into that of Roman art that between the two it is not possible to draw a line of distinction. [Sidenote: Fabius and Ludius.] Roman art had a character of its own, and even two painters, whose names, Fabius and Ludius, and in the case of the latter whose works, have been handed down to us; but the works of Ludius do not appear to have been more than decorative work.

[Sidenote: Vases, mosaics, &c., &c.]

Besides the written testimony referred to, the state of art can be gathered from the vases, bronzes, mosaics, paintings on stone, and mural decorations which have come down to us. These were chiefly the work of Greek journeymen, and though there is much that is excellent in these productions, their period of decadence very soon set in. [Sidenote: Antiques for tourists.] It is a gauge of the art knowledge of to-day to watch the gullible English and Americans purchasing third-rate copies of the works of Greek journeymen house-decorators, and taking them home and hoarding them as works of art,—works which were only valuable in their own time, in connection with the life and architecture then existing, but which at the present day are interesting merely from an historical point of view, for no really artistic mind can possibly find satisfaction in such work for its own sake. Did these uncultured buyers but reflect and study for a while the natural beauties around them, they would soon see the error of their ways.

In their conclusion on Græco-Roman art Woltmann and Woermann say that they “have no doubt that Greek painting had at last fully acquired the power to produce adequate semblances of living fact and nature,” which could not be said of any painting up to that time. Here then we have traced a quick development of Greek painting, and an almost equally quick decline, and all through we find the never-failing truth,—that so long as nature was the standard, and all efforts were directed towards interpreting her faithfully, so long did the national art grow and improve till it culminated in the statues of Pheidias and the paintings of Apelles; but that directly nature was neglected, as it was in the time of Theon, art degenerated, till at last it fell, as we shall see, into the meaningless work of the early Christian artists. [Sidenote: Art criticism.]We find even thus early that the pedantic writer who knows nothing of practical art had begun to fill the world with his mysterious nonsense. [Sidenote: Rhetoricians.] Such were the rhetoricians of the empire who describe works “purely anonymous, indeed in many cases it is clear that the picture has been invented by the man of letters, as a peg whereon to hang his eloquence.”

It cannot be too often repeated that technical criticism is not authoritative unless made by masters of the several arts.

[Sidenote: Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture.]

Let us now proceed to the British Museum, and look at the best specimens of Greek and Græco-Roman sculpture as exhibited there.

[Sidenote: The British Museum collection.]

Taking for examination the specimens nearest at hand; we refer to those to be seen in the gallery leading out of the entrance-hall of the British Museum. [Sidenote: Nero’s bust.] The busts which strike us most forcibly are those of Nero, Trajan, Publius Hevius Pertinax, Cordianus Africanus, Caracalla, Commodus, and Julius Cæsar. The bust of Nero (No. 11) strikes one by the simplicity and breadth of its treatment, combined as these qualities are with the expression of great strength and energy. The sculptor has evidently gone at his work with a thorough knowledge of the technique, and hewn the statue straight from the marble, a custom, by the way, followed by only one modern sculptor, namely, J. Havard Thomas. Look at the broad treatment of the chin and neck of this bust of Nero. Nowadays one rarely meets with even living awe-inspiring men, but that marble carries with it such force, that, all cold and stony as it is, it creates in you a feeling of respect and awe. It should be studied from various distances and coigns of vantage, and if well studied it can surely never be forgotten. It gives the head of a domineering, cruel, sensual, yet strong man. [Sidenote: Trajan’s bust.] In the bust of Trajan (No. 15), we have the same powerful technique employed this time in rendering the animal strength of a powerful man. With his low forehead, small head, and splendid neck, the embodiment of strength, Trajan looks down on us somewhat scornfully. [Sidenote: Bust of Publius Pertinax.] Then, too, No. 35, the bust of Publius Hevius Pertinax, is no mask, but a face with a _brain behind it_. You feel this man might speak, and if he did, what he had to say would be worth listening to. Perhaps for grip of the impression of life this is the best of all these busts. Compare it with the mask (it can be called nothing else) on the shelf above it, and you will see the difference. [Sidenote: Busts of Cordianus and Caracalla.] The portrait busts of Cordianus Africanus (No. 39) and Caracalla are also marvellous for life-like expression. Look well at the cropped head and beard of Cordianus from a little distance, and see how true and life-like the _impression_ is; then go up close and see how the hair of the beard is rendered. It is done by chipping out little wedges of the marble. Here is a very good example of the distinction between what is called _realism_ and _naturalism_ or _impressionism_, for the two last we hold to be synonymous, though for lucidity we have defined them differently. If all the detail of that beard had been rendered, every hair or curl correctly cut to represent a hair or curl, and this is what the modern Italian sculptor would have done, we should have had realism and bad work. This should be borne in mind in portrait photography, that the essence, the true impression, is what is required; the fundamental is all that counts; the rest is small, niggling, contemptible.

[Sidenote: Bust of Commodus.]

Let us turn to No. 33,—the sensual face of Commodus,—he re-lives in the marble. [Sidenote: Bust of Homer.] Another very notable bust is that of Homer (No. 117), in the corner of the gallery at right angles to that we are leaving. Look how truly the impression is rendered of the withered old literary man; how the story of his long life is stamped on his face, the unmistakable look of the studious, contemplative man.

Pass we now to the next gallery, and stop at the wonderfully fine torso, No. 172. [Sidenote: Torso, and boy and thorn.] Look well at this beautiful work, so feelingly, sympathetically, and simply treated by the sculptor. You can almost see the light glance as the muscles glide beneath the skin. This is a marvellous natural work, as is also the boy pulling out a thorn from his foot. [Sidenote: Young satyr.]The young satyr (No. 184) is also a wonderfully fine piece of sculpture, and well worth close study. The student will have ample opportunity for studying, side by side, in this gallery, bad stone cutting and fine sculpture, for many of the fine marbles have been barbarously restored. As an example, we cite the lifeless, stony arms of No. 188, which compare with the rest of the figure, look at the india-rubber finger of the right hand, and you will understand what bad work is, if you did not know it already. [Sidenote: Apotheosis of Homer.] Before leaving this gallery let the reader look at No. 159, the Apotheosis of Homer. Now, as can be imagined, this is the delight of the pedantic critic, and more ignorant rhapsodies have been written on this work than perhaps on any other piece of sculpture. Of course, as any candid and competent observer will see, this is, as a work of art, very poor, and hardly worth talking about, except as a warning. In passing into the gallery where are the remains of the Parthenon frieze, notice an archaic nude torso which stands on the left, and see how the artist was feeling his way to nature. [Sidenote: Parthenon frieze.] All portions of the Parthenon frieze should be most carefully studied. The animals in 60 and 61 are fairly true, as in fact is the whole work. [Sidenote: Muybridge and his cantering horse.] It was on seeing one of Muybridge’s photographs of a man cantering on a bare-backed horse, that a sculptor remarked to us, “I wonder if the Greeks knew of photography.” And yet critics and feeble artists call this work ideal, and declare they discover imaginary groupings according to geometrical laws, and heaven knows what; all of which the best sculptors deny. [Sidenote: Horse of Selene.] The student must now look at the “Horse of Selene,” one of the most marvellous pieces of work ever done by man. It was a long time before we could see the full beauty and truthfulness of impression of this great work, and the reason was due to a simple physical fact. We stood too near to it. To see it well you should stand about twenty or thirty feet off, and out of the grey background you will see the marble horse tossing its living head, and you will be spell-bound. Having observed the truthfulness of impression, go to it close up, and note the wonderful truth with which the bony structure of the skull is suggested beneath the skin. We can say no more than that it is a true impression taken direct from nature, for in no other way could it have been obtained. Nothing ideal about it at all, simply naturalism.

Much nonsense has been written, too, about “idealism” in Greek coins. [Sidenote: Greek coins.] To us they seem simply impressions taken from busts or other works; but to make assurance doubly sure, we have taken the opinion of two of the very best modern sculptors, who are, we venture to prophesy, going to show us as good work as any done by the Greeks, and in many ways even better work.[4] Well, their opinion as to “idealism” in Greek sculpture is emphatically that it existed not. They say that the Greeks were naturalistic, the study of nature was the mainspring of their art, and the truthful expression of the poetry of nature their sole end and aim. That they attained this end in many ways we know, and in certain ways they will never be surpassed, but in other directions their work will one day appear childish.

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Footnote 4:

All old work is to be surpassed, and that in the fundamental matter of
movement. This advance is entirely due to Photography.

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[Sidenote: Technical criticism.]

We do not attempt to give a detailed technical criticism of sculpture as executed by the Greeks, for, as we have said before, none but a _first-rate sculptor_ can do that; and as there are not half a dozen such in England, and as they have quite enough work to do at present, we fear the public will have to wait some time for such criticism. In the meantime those interested in the subject cannot do better than study the works mentioned, and let them leave all others alone; let them spend days in studying those pointed out, and they will soon find themselves able to distinguish good work from bad. [Sidenote: Gibson gallery.] Then, if they want a good shock, let them walk into the Gibson Gallery at Burlington House, for there they will see _nothing_ but bad work.

There is one point to be borne in mind when we look at the surpassing beauty of the Greek statues, and that is the natural beauty of the Greek race, and the number of excellent models the Greek sculptors had before them to choose from. [Sidenote: Taine.] Taine, in his charming but atechnical volume on “La Philosophie de l’art Grec,” goes as thoroughly into this question as a historian and philosopher can enter into the life of the past, and into art questions, which in our opinion is to a very limited extent. Nevertheless, his book is full of suggestions, and if our sculptors do not to-day equal in beauty the antiques, the cause, in our opinion, lies in the lack of perfect models, for the best technical work of to-day we think is superior to that of the Greeks. We have seen impressionistic renderings of nature by some modern sculptors which we think more natural in _all points_ than anything of the kind to be found in Greek sculpture.

[Sidenote: Modern French school.]

Like the Greeks have the leading men of the modern French school adhered to nature,—a school in our mind more akin to the Greek school at its best than any other, and for the simple reason that it is more loyal to nature than any art has been since the time of Apelles. [Sidenote: Horizon-line.] As an example of the kinship between the two schools we quote Woltmann and Woermann, who tell us the Greeks “placed their horizon abnormally high according to our ideas; and distributed the various objects over an ample space in clear and equable light.” Now modern painters have happily discarded all laws for the position of the horizon-line, and common sense shows that the height of the horizon naturally depends on how much foreground is included in the picture. The angle included by the eye vertically as well as horizontally varies with the distance of the object from us, and the only law therefore is to include in the picture as much as is included by the eye; and this of course varies with the position of the _motif_ or chief point of interest. [Sidenote: Millet.] Millet has a good many high horizons, and we feel they are normal not abnormal. On this point therefore we think the Greeks were very advanced.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.

[Sidenote: Early Christian art.]

Leaving Greek art, we now come to the art of the early Christians. Woltmann and Woermann tell us that “Early Christian art does not differ in its beginnings from the art of antiquity.... The only perceptible differences are those differences of subject which betoken the fact that art has now to embody a changed order of religious ideas, and even from this point of view the classical connection is but gradually, and at first imperfectly, severed.... At the outset Christianity, as was inevitable from its Jewish origin, had no need for art. In many quarters the aversion to works of material imagery ...—the antagonism to the idolatries of antiquity—remained long unabated. Yet when Christianity, far outstepping the narrow circle of Judaism, had been taken up by classically educated Greeks and Romans, the prejudice against works of art could not continue to be general, nor could Christendom escape the craving for art which is common to civilized mankind. The dislike of images used as objects of worship did not include mere chamber decorations, and while independent sculpture found no footing in the Christian world, or at least was applied only to secular and not to religious uses, painting, on the other hand, found encouragement for purely decorative purposes, in the execution of which a characteristically Christian element began to assert itself by degrees.”

[Sidenote: The catacombs.]

The pure Christian element began to assert itself silently in decorative work in the catacombs, and “these cemeteries are the only places in which we find remains of Christian paintings of earlier date than the close of the fourth century.” These works, however, “constituted no more than a kind of picture writing,” as any one who has seen them can certify. But this symbolism got very mixed with pagan stories, and we get Orpheus in a Phrygian cap, and Hermes carrying a ram, both representing the Good Shepherd. At other times the artists seem to have set themselves to represent a Christ constructed on their knowledge of the attributes ascribed to him, and we get a beardless youth approaching “closely to the kindred types of the classical gods and heroes.” “Mary appears as a Roman matron, generally praying with uplifted hands.” [Sidenote: St. Peter’s statue at Rome.]Peter and Paul “appear as ancient philosophers,” and the well-known bronze statue of St. Peter, in the cathedral dedicated to him at Rome, is no less than a _bonâ fide_ antique statue of a Roman consul. Here we have the same neglect of nature, and the bad work always to be expected from this neglect and from enslaved minds.

[Sidenote: Mosaics.]

The mosaics of Christian art were also handed down from classical antiquity. Though rarely found in the catacombs, this art was being much used above ground for architectural decoration. This art, as Woltmann and Woermann rightly say, was “only a laborious industry, which by fitting together minute coloured blocks produces a copy of a design, which design the workers are bound by. They may proceed mechanically, but not so flimsily and carelessly as the decorative painters.” From about A.D. 450 we are told that church pictures become no longer only decorative, but also instructive. Here then was a wrong use of pictorial art—it is not meant to be symbolic and allegorical, or to teach, but to interpret the poetry of nature.

A new conception of Christ it seems now appeared in the mosaics,—a bearded type,—and this time we get the features of Zeus represented. [Sidenote: The emperors' school.] By means of the mosaics a new impulse was given to art, and in A.D. 375 a school was founded by the Emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, of which we read, “The schools of art now once more encourage the observance of traditions; strictness of discipline and academical training were the objects kept in view; and the student was taught to work, not independently by study from nature, but according to the precedent of the best classical models.”

[Sidenote: Byzantine art.]

At this time art, though lying under the influence of antique traditions, held its own for a longer time in Byzantium, where the decorative style of the early Christians lived on after the iconoclastic schism in the eighth century, and where we read that this ornamental style began to be commonly employed. [Sidenote: Justinian.]After the age of Justinian (which itself has left no creation of art at Rome), many poor and conventional works were executed at Ravenna. We read that for “lack of inner life and significance, amends are attempted to be made by material splendour, brilliancy of costume, and a gold groundwork, which had now become the rule here as well as in Byzantium.” Thus we see the artists became completely lost in confusion since they had left nature, and they knew not what to do, but, like many weak painters of the present day, tried to make their work attractive by meretricious ornaments, and true art there was none. This is carried out to-day to its fullest development by many men of medium talent, who make pictures in far countries, or of popular resorts, or religious subjects, and strive to appeal, and do appeal to an uneducated class, through the _subject_ of their work, which in itself may be a work of the poorest description.

[Sidenote: Mosaics.]

We read that in the year 640, “the superficial and unequal character of mosaic workmanship increased quickly.” [Sidenote: Miniatures.] The miniatures of the early Christians, however, we are told, showed considerable power, but the iconoclastic schism brought all this to an end. [Sidenote: Mohammedans.] “The gibes of the Mohammedans” were the cause of Leo the Third’s edict against image worship in A.D. 726. All the pictures in the East were destroyed by armed bands, and the painters thrown into prison, and so ended Byzantine art. This movement did not affect Italian art.

MEDIÆVAL ART.

[Sidenote: Mediæval.]

We have followed Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann closely in their account of the decadence of art from the greatest days of Greek sculpture and painting to the end of the Christian period; but as our object is avowedly only to deal with the best art—that which is good for all time—and to see how far that is naturalistic or otherwise, we shall speak but briefly of (the main points connected with) mediæval art, which has but little interest for us until we come to Niccola Pisano, and Giotto. [Sidenote: Miniaturists.] During the early years of what are called the Middle Ages, miniaturists were evolving monstrosities from their own inner consciousness, but with Charlemagne, who said, [Sidenote: Charlemagne.] “We neither destroy pictures nor pray to them,” the standard adopted was again classical antiquity. [Sidenote: Ivan the Terrible.]So art continuously declined until it became a slave to the Church, and the worst phase of this slavery was to be seen in the East, under Ivan the Terrible, for we read that “artists were under the strictest tutelage to the clergy, who chose the subjects to be painted, prescribed the manner of the treatment, watched over the morality of the painters, and had it in their power to give and refuse commissions. Bishops alone could promote a pupil to be a master, and it was their duty to see that the work was done according to ancient models.” Here was indeed a pretty state of things, a painter to be watched by a priest; to have his subjects selected for him! One cannot imagine anything more certain to degrade art. Religion has ever been on the side of mental retrogression, has ever been the first and most pertinacious foe to intellectual progress, but perhaps to nothing has she been so harmful as to art, unless it has been to science.

During the period of this slavery, the Church used art as a tool, as a disseminator of her tenets, as a means of imparting religious knowledge. Very clever of her, but very disastrous for poor art.

[Sidenote: Glass paintings.]

How conventional art was during the Romanesque period can be seen in the glass paintings that decorate many of the old churches, to admire which crowds go to Italy and waste their short time in the unhealthy interiors of churches, instead of spending it at Sorrento or Capri. These go back to their own country, oppressed with dim recollections of blue and red dresses, crude green landscapes, and with parrot-like talks of “subdued lights,” “rich tones mellowed by time,” and such cant.

The Romanesque style of architecture was superseded in the fourteenth century by the Gothic. [Sidenote: Gothic.] A transformation took place in art and France now took the lead. The painters of this period emancipated themselves from the direction of the priesthood—a great step indeed. [Sidenote: The guilds.] The masters of this age were specialists; the guilds now ruled supreme in art matters. We read that “now popular sentiment began to acknowledge that the artist’s own mode of conceiving a subject had a certain claim, side by side with tradition and sacerdotal prescription.... They took their impressions direct from nature,” but their insight into nature was scanty. As Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann very truly remark, “If for the purpose of depicting human beings, either separately or in determined groups and scenes, the artist wishes to develop a language for the expression of emotion, there is only one means open to him—a closer grasp and observation of nature. In the age which we are now approaching, the painter’s knowledge of nature remains but scanty. He does not succeed in fathoming and mastering her aspects; but his eyes are open to them so far as is demanded by the expressional phenomena which it is his great motive to represent; since it is not yet for their own sakes, but only for the sake of giving expression to a particular range of sentiments that he seeks to imitate the realities of the world.”

There was a struggle at this period for the study of nature, and the tyranny of the Church was being thrown off; there was then hope that art would at last advance, and advance it did. What was wanting was a deeper insight into nature, for nature is not a book to be read at a glance, she requires constant study, and will not reveal all her beauties without much wooing. [Sidenote: Thirteenth century sketch-book.] And though we read of a sketch-book of this time, the thirteenth century, in which appears a sketch of a lion, which “looks extremely heraldic,” and to which the artist has appended the remark, “N.B.—Drawn from life,” this in no way surprises us, for have we not been seriously told in this nineteenth century by the painters of catchy, meretricious water-colours, with reds, blues and greens such as would delight a child, that they had painted them from nature; pictures in which no two tones were correct, in which detail, called by the ignorant, finish, had been painfully elaborated, whilst the broad facts of nature had been ignored. Such work is generally painted from memory or photographs. Happily work of this kind will never live, however much the gullible public may buy it. Next we read that “the germs of realism already existing in art by degrees unfold themselves further, and artists venture upon a closer grip of nature.” [Sidenote: Niccola Pisano.] Here, then, were the signs of coming success, and the great effect of these gradual changes was first manifested in the work of Niccola Pisano, who “made a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique.” All honour to this man, who was an epoch-maker, who based his conception “upon a sudden and powerful return to the example of the antique, of the Roman relief.” His work is by no means naturalistic or perfect, but it was enough for one man to do such a herculean task as to ignore his own times and rise superior to them. [Sidenote: Cimabue.] Painting, however, took no such quick turn, but Cimabue was the first of those who were to bring it into the right way. The principal works ascribed to him, however, are not authenticated.

[Sidenote: Giotto.]

Another epoch-maker, Giotto, now appears. He seems to have been a remarkable man in himself, which however hardly concerns us. The historian of his works says, “The bodies still show a want of independent study of nature; the proportions of the several members (as we know by the handbook of Cemieno hereafter to be mentioned) were regulated by a fixed system of measurement;” again, “The drawing is still on the whole conventional, and the modelling not carried far.” His trees and animals are like toys. Yet we read that “their naturalism is the very point which the contemporaries of Giotto extol in his creations,” but, as Woltmann and Woermann say, this must be accepted according to the notion entertained of what nature was, and we are by this means able to see how crude the notions of nature can become in educated men when they neglect the study of it. But from all this evidence we gather that Giotto’s intellect was great, and that his strides towards the truthful suggesting of nature were enormous. His attempts too at expression are wonderful for his age, see his “Presentations,” the figures are almost _natural_ notwithstanding their crude drawing; he got some of the charm and life of the children around him. We read that in some of his pictures, he took his models direct from nature, as also did Dante in his poetry, but like Dante he attempted at times the doctrinal in his pictures, as in the “Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty,” he tried in fact what many moderns are still trying to do, and daily fail to do, namely, to teach by means of their pictures—a fatal error. Doctrinal subjects are unsuitable for pictorial art, and will never live. Who cares now for Giotto’s “Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty”? but who would _not_ care for a landscape or figure subject taken by Giotto from the life and landscape of his own times?—it would be priceless. Owing to circumstances, we hear that he had to put “much of his art at the service of the Franciscans,” and though not a slave to them, yet we read this disgusted him with the monkish temper. In 1337 Giotto died, but he had done much. Without Kepler there might have been no Newton, so without Giotto there might have been no Velasquez.

[Sidenote: The guilds.]

Artists at this time belonged to one of the seven higher of the twenty-one guilds into which Florentine craftsmen were divided, namely, that of the surgeons and apothecaries (medici and speziali). Here art and science were enrolled in the same guild, and so were connected, as they always will be, for the study of nature is at the foundation of both, the very first principle of both. Together they have been enslaved, persecuted, and their progress hampered; together they have endured; and now to-day together they stand out glorious in their achievements, free to study, free to do. The one is lending a hand to the other, and the other returns the help with graceful affection. Superstition, priestcraft, tyranny, all their old persecutors are daily losing power, and will finally perish, as do all falsehoods.

[Sidenote: Summary.]