Halt (^allege of Agrirulture At (Sarncll Untaeraitg 3tljaca, ». $. Uibtarg N 8350.C6 Orne " Unive ' s «yUbrary J** tine art s> The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014079465 VOCATIONS SETTING FORTH THE VARIOUS PHASES OF THE MECHANIC ARTS, HOME-MAKING, FARMING AND WOODCRAFT, BUSI- NESS, THE PROFESSIONS OF LAW, MINISTRY AND MEDICINE, PUBLIC SERVICE, LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM, TEACHING, MUSIC, PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT AND THE FINE ARTS .-. WITH PRACTICAL INTRODUCTIONS BY A CORPS OF ASSOCI- ATE EDITORS WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE, D.D., LL.D. Editor-in-Chief NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, CAROLINE TICKNOR AND ALBERT WALTER TOLMAN, A.M. ASSISTANT EDITORS TEN VOL UMES RICHL Y ILL USTRA TED BOSTON HALL AND LOCKE COMPANY PUBLISHERS EDITORIAL BOARD WILLIAM DeWITTHYDE, D.D., LL.D., Editor-in-chief, Author, President Bowdoin Col- lege; Brunswick, Maine. RICHARD COCKBURN MACLAURIN, Sc.D., LL.D., Author, President Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Boston, Massachusetts. MARION HARLAND (Mrs. Mary Virginia Terhune), Author, Lecturer; New York City. LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY, A.M., Author, Editor, Director New York State College of Agriculture, Cornell University; Ithaca, New York. ANDREW CARNEGIE, LL.D., Author, Lord Rector St. An- drew's University ; New York City. The HON. MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, LL.D., Chancellor Smithsonian Institute, Member Permanent Court of Ar- bitration at The Hague, Chief Jus- tice of the United States; Wash- ington, District of Columbia. The HON. JAMES RUDOLPH GARFIELD, LL.D., Former Secretary of the Interior; Mentor, Ohio. MARY EMMA WOOLLEY, Litt.D., L.H.D., President Mt. Holyoke College; South Hadley, Massachusetts. HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D., LL.D., Author, Professor of English Lit- erature, Princeton University; Princeton, New Jersey. HORATIO PARKER, Mus.Doc, Composer, Professor of the Theory of Music, Yale University; New Haven, Connecticut. KENYON COX, A.N.A., N.A., Author and Artist; New York City. NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, Author, Lecturer, Editor; Boston, Massachusetts. CAROLINE TICKNOR, Author, Editor; Boston, Massa- chusetts. ALBERT WALTER TOLMAN. A.M. Author; Portland, Maine. LIST OF VOLUMES Volume I. THE MECHANIC ARTS Edited by Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, ScD., LL.D. Volume II. HOMEMAKING Edited by Marion Harland Volume III. FARM AND FOREST Edited by Liberty Hyde Bailey, A.M. Volume IV. BUSINESS Edited by Andrew Carnegie, LL.D. Volume V. THE PROFESSIONS Edited by Melville Weston Fuller, LL.D. Volume VI. PUBLIC SERVICE Edited by James Rudolph Garfield, LL.D. Volume VII. EDUCATION Edited by Mary Emma Woolley, Litt.D., L.H.D. Volume VHI. LITERATURE Edited by Henry Van Dyke, D.D., LL.D. Volume IX. MUSIC AND PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT Edited by Horatio Parker, Mus. Doc. Volume X. THE FINE ARTS Edited by Kenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. Hope amx> Memory VOCATIONS, in Ten Volumes William Tie Witt Hyde, Editor-in-Chief THE FINE ARTS v.rv. EDITED BY KENYON COX, A.N.A., N.A. VOL UME X BOSTON HALL AND LOCKE COMPANY PUBLISHERS r o, ' x; COPTBIGHT, 1911 Br HALL & LOCKE COMPANY Boston, U. S. A. @.I7353 Stanbope lprcsa F. H. GILSON COMPANY BOSTON. U.S.A. CONTENTS PAGB List of Photogravure Illustrations . . . . xi Introduction xiii By Kenton Cox, A.N.A., NA. THE ARTS AND THEIR PURSUIT The Artist's Ideal ... 1 By G. F. Watts, R.A. Artist and Amateur . . ... 11 By Sm Martin Conway. Workers in Art 18 By Samuel Smiles. The American Art Student in Paris . . 34 By Will H. Low, N.A. Painting in the Nineteenth Century 44 By Kenton Cox, A.N.A., N.A. Mural Painting in America ... 56 By Charles H. Caffin. Progress in American Portraiture . 72 By Elizabeth Luther Cart. Architecture as a Profession 79 By John Merven Carrere, Fellow American Institute of Archi- tects. The Alhambra 90 By Henry W. Longfellow. Modeling a Colossal Statue . . . 94 By Thomas Ball. Stained Glass .... . 106 By Somers Clarke. John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass . 110 By Cecilia Waern. On Painting . 124 By John La Fabge, LL.D., N.A. Book Illustration and Book Decoration 136 By Reginald Blomfield. Bookbinding ... 142 By T. J. Cobden Sanderson. The Equipment of the Illustrator . 149 By Jobeph Pennell, A.N.A., N.A. ix x Contents PAGE Pbinting 156 Br William Mohbis and Emery Walkeb. Ornament 166 By Lewis Foreman Dat. The Decokatob 180 By Ebnest Chesneau. The Art Expert 190 By Sib Mabtin Conway. The Arts and Crafts Movement 200 By Frederic Allen Whiting, Secretary, Society of Arts and Crafts. Architecture in the United States 214 By Claude Bbagdon. Portrait Painting 227 By Francois Flameno. William Morris the Man 235 By George Wharton James. Louis Prang, Popularizer of Art 247 By Benjamin Fay Mills, D.D. ARTISTS Edmund C. Tarbell 256 By Zenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 261 By Ernest Knaufft. Rembrandt and His Etchings 273 By Louis A. Holman. The Life of Michelangelo 287 By C. Edwards Lester. Meissonier 302 By Kenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. John Singer Sargent 310 By Kenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 319 By Kenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. A Personal Study of Rodin 347 By William G. Fitz-Gerald. Daniel Chester French 358 By Edwin A. Rockwell. Frederic Remington 365 By Giles Edgehton. The Art of Millet 375 By Kenyon Cox, A.N.A., N.A. How I Learned to Paint 390 By Chester Harding. Supplementary Readings 400 LIST OF PHOTOGRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS Hope and Memory Frontispiece By Kenyon Cox. Love and Death Face page 8 By George Frederick. Watts. Washington Laying Down His Commission 64 By Edwin Howland Blabhfield. The Muse of Painting 128 By John La Faroe. Thomas Carlyle . ... 192 By James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Rabbi 280 By Remdbandt. Shaw Memorial 320 By Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Age of Bronze 352 By Augtjste Rodin. Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor 360 By Daniel Chester French. The Gleaners 376 By Jean Francois Millet. INTRODUCTION By KENYON COX, A.N.A., N.A. The contents of this book have been selected with a view to the presentation of different aspects of the fine arts as a calling or profession: I have reserved for myself the discussion, in this Introduction, of the temper in which one should enter upon a life devoted to art. In no other calling, except that of the priesthood or ministry, is the presence of a real "vocation," in the original sense of that word, more necessary than in that of an artist; and the young man or woman who thinks of adopting art as a profession should begin with a seri- ous self-examination as to the existence of such a voca- tion. I do not mean by this that the young artist must be certain of the possession of such talents as will insure success, — -success itself is the only proof of the existence of such talents, — I mean that he must be so in love with art and so full of joy in the pursuit of it that failure or half failure in art would prove more tolerable to him than success in anything else. He who is not willing to live poor and work hard, not in the hope of material reward or ultimate fame, but for delight in the work itself, has no call to be an artist. For the life of an artist is neither a romantic nor an easy life; its material rewards, at the best, are relatively meager; and the chances for posthumous fame are, for any one artist, so small as to be negligible. It is in the xiv Introduction work itself and in the pleasure he takes in it that the artist must be content to find his reward. For the artist born this pleasure is so great that no other is comparable to it. The glamour of the unknown is woven about the art- ist's studio, and the romance of an imagined Bohemia has tempted many into the paths of art who had no need and no right to walk there. The glamour fades early, and the atmosphere of Bohemia is not that in which masterpieces are wrought. The studio of the true artist is a workshop where long hours are spent in exhausting labor, — a workshop where there are few holidays and no vacations. No solid success in art was ever won easily, and no lasting reputation made that was not earned by untiring industry and indomitable perseverance. In its demand for hard work and rigorous devotion the profession of art does not differ from the professions of law or medicine. Like them, also, it asks for a long novitiate, and generally for a struggle with poverty and discouragement. Unlike them, it offers no great rewards. In this country, at least, no man can earn with brush or chisel anything approaching the income of a great lawyer or a great surgeon. If he can live in decency and comfort and give his children a fair education and a start in life, he is among the lucky. He can rarely hope to leave much behind him but his unsold works. And if the artist is desirous of fame he must be content to enjoy it by faith alone. Notoriety he may, perhaps, easily achieve. By strenuous endeavor he may possibly attain some measure of celebrity. But if he is to be famous he can never know it, nor can any one else know it until he has been dead a hundred years. Fame will be worth little to him then, wherever he is. Introduction xv The artist has not even the satisfaction which the cobbler may have, of knowing that he is of use to his own generation. Disguise it as we may, the fact remains, that for most people art is a kind of luxury. It may add somewhat to their pleasure, but they can be per- fectly comfortable and happy without it. We must, in- deed, believe that it has its higher utility, and that man would not have produced art in all ages and in all nations if there were no need for it in human nature. But the need may as well have been that of the artist himself as that of the community in which he lived. And, what- ever the usefulness of art, bad art is of no use to any one. Who shall assure us that our art is good? No, for the artist, "art for art's sake" is the only motto; and the only reason for being an artist is that one can not help it. And yet the artist should be, and is, a happy man. The next best thing to being able to do what you like is to like what you are able to do; and the artist is a man who does for a livelihood that which he would prefer to do for his pleasure if he had nothing but his pleasure to think of. His labor is the most exciting of games; the accomplishment of each daily task is the most enjoyable of exercises. His drudgery is entertainment, and when drudgery is no longer needed he goes on doing for fun what he has done from necessity. If, then, you have no illusions about a happy-go-lucky existence, free from the burdens of ordinary life; if you have an unlimited appetite for hard work and "an in- finite capacity for taking pains;" if you care little for reputation and less for money; if you are so constituted that the pursuit of beauty and the exercise of self-expres- sion are the highest pleasures you can know; and if you are content to ask nothing of the world but the oppor- xvi Introduction tunity to enjoy these pleasures, — then you may enter upon the vocation of art, and whether you fail or whether you succeed you will have "come the primrose way." If this description does not fit you, you had best try something else. )^ ^.»>*.»«tfV» ^"^>3 New York City, Oct. 15, 1910. THE FINE ARTS THE ARTIST'S IDEAL 1 By G. F. WATTS, R.A. T is only as a student speaking to students that one can presume to speak of an artist's ideal. It is a difficult standpoint for sev- eral reasons : 1. Because there almost always exists a necessity for making money a first consideration, for unlike the great artists of old, we can not nowadays live on bread and onions, followed by a few grapes. I must not be under- stood to say that skilled workmen were not paid in those days, or that artists did not like to sell their pictures; all I do maintain is that money was never the inspiring motive. Artists in bygone ages were in the service of the Church and State, and had something serious to say which gave character to' their art. They did not paint in order to produce an effect in exhibitions. 2. The whole environment of the Old Masters was favorable to Art, and their pictures represented the feel- ing of a nation. If surrounded by wealth and beauty, this environment was quite naturally respected in their work; they lived in artistic times, consequently what they had to say was expressed in an artistic manner. Our modern conditions are quite the reverse. In old days artists were not divided into landscape painters, portrait painters, or animal painters. The an- 1 From " Unwritten Laws and Ideals.'' 1 2 The Fine Arts cient Greek artists were, strictly speaking, workmen who desired to give utterance to ideas on great subjects by means of symbols. It was natural, therefore, that they should deal with the great problems of human life around them. In Egypt all art was symbolic, and had refer- ence to the physical and intellectual state of things then existing. In Greece the Acropolis, with the Parthenon and other buildings, epitomize the history of the nation. In the temple dedicated by the Athenians the great figure of Zeus embodied the spiritual element; the "-pedi- ment," the presiding spirit of the nations; the "palm" and "olives" touched their daily life; the "frieze," the story of their habits. In Italy, during the Middle Ages, we have the strong life and sentiment of the particular period represented by the Roman Catholic Church, to which its art was dedi- cated. Devotional pictures were the natural outcome of religious feeling; many artists at this time could not have symbolized anything else. In Venice it was equally a matter of course that art should reflect its wealth of beauty. The greatness of medieval art in Northern Italy culminated and ceased with Michel- angelo, in Venice with Tintoretto; schools were subse- quently formed on what had been done by these great men. Later, a race of professionals grew up — men who were not content to live in their workshops on very plain fare. The specialist was unknown, just as in Shake- speare's time men were not called dramatists, writers of odes, sonnets, or articles. The whole thing is different now, for the professional element in which these rami- fications always exist is conspicuous in literature as in art. We must regret that a nation so distinguished ma- The Artist's Ideal 3 terially, intellectually, and morally, has created no poetic art, on a level with its other achievements, for the national heart beats right. We desire to act justly, and are uneasy at wrongdoing. These qualities inspire our literature; they ought also to inspire our art, which should be a real intellectual utterance. If we make money a primary consideration, we shall lose both freedom and insight. A young artist is sometimes obliged to paint what will catch the public taste, in order to live, especially if others depend upon him, but he must not regard it as his art. On the other hand, there are many with real talent who do not lack the necessaries of life, yet fail to carry out their own ideal. Unless abso- lutely unavoidable it is fatal to give up study; we shall have far more lasting pleasure by waiting for a com- petence. A great school can not exist unless beauty is loved for its own sake. In our modern life this vital spark is con- sidered a trifle by the majority. Men will cut down a tree, or grub up a hedgerow, if twenty shillings a year can be added to their income. Utility and charm appear to be intentionally disconnected; we want beauty only in playthings, just as many of us want religion only for Sundays; the love and untiring interest formerly be- stowed on objects of daily use is one of the striking points of difference between ancient and modern life. The language of high intellectual art is dead, for noble beauty pervades life no more. With the exception of sky, trees, and sea, we have little that is beautiful around us. There are men in all times who are gifted, but the nature of the conditions under which they live must direct their thoughts, and develop or repress peculiari- ties of intellectual activity. Beauty is as essential to a picture as harmony and melody to music. Some modern 4 The Fine Arts French pictures of the dissecting room, or ribald row in a cafe may be true to life, but this can be said of much else that is disagreeable. They shock the finer sensibilities and consequently are not fitted to be represented in art. The highest art in intention and admirable embodiment is to be found in Hogarth; but the material conditions not permitting of an appeal to a sense of nobility, no loudly expressed opinion by the best writers will ever place him beside the greatest painters, for he was forced to speak in a dialect. Literature that does not add to our intellectual store, poetry that does not make us feel like poets for the moment, the picture that does not fan into a glow our sense of beauty (whether connected with charm or glory), has insufficient claim -on the highest intellectual faculty of the artist. Heroic art must be noble in its treatment of the means at its disposal; line, color, and texture must have a correspondingly great subject. The San Sisto, at Dresden, may be cited as the highest example of art, awakening our best and most reverential feelings. It is an ideal subject treated in an ideal manner which disposes us to seriousness. In Michelangelo and Raphael, Titian and Turner, we have high art. Man ever longs to ascend heights human footsteps may not tread, to lift the veil that shrouds the enigma of being, and he will most prize the echo of this longing in literature, music, and art. Cennini's quaint book on painting gives the following receipt for producing a picture: "Before beginning a painting go down on your knees and pray," and in those days of unquestioning faith this was probably the actual habit of the workman. In old days, while Dante found nothing but brown horror in a forest, they imitated the sacred majesty of gloom and saw the glory of clouds and The Artist's Ideal 5 mountain tops, and loved the grace of flower and tendril, tenderly caressing them into our ancient churches. It is, however, a curious fact that, as literature and poetry opened their eyes to the beauty of nature, de- signers and builders of cathedrals closed theirs. Why is this? Partly because there is so much to be seen and, in consequence, little concentration or originality. Un- less by extravagance, a young artist hardly knows whether his picture is his own or not, and, apart from this consideration, it is no matter of surprise that great works of art are few and far between, for there is literally no demand for them. The earnest endeavor of Cen- nini was not called for by Englishmen. With a few rare and conspicuous exceptions artists spend their time in making toys for the annual exhibition, which few people consider to be more important than a maypole. If the world cared what we did, art could not help speaking; demand creates supply, man can obtain nothing he does not ask for. What a man really desires and asks for, whether it be good or evil, he usually obtains. The habit of gathering immense numbers of pictures together is partly responsible for this decadence in art. Artists are tempted to make their work tell among new frames and crude colors, in order to produce an immedi- ate and transient effect. I do not say that hasty judgment is always mistaken, but it may be; the artist must not quarrel with unfavorable criticism, but he may rightly feel dissatisfied]with crude opinion, expressed with an assur- ance which only the most consummate taste and knowl- edge could justify. On the other hand, we often profit by the opinions of the uncultivated who care for pictures. Again, our modern houses are not adapted for hanging pictures of a very serious character, and, to a great ex- tent, literature has taken the place of this method of 6 The Fine Arts expressing deep thought. It is important, however, that our work should be a lasting monument of the purest and subtlest thought and highest feeling of our own day. Will men be able three or four centuries hence to read what is best in our English history of the nineteenth century by the light of the art now produced, just as anyone may read the history of Egypt, Greece, and Italy in the precious legacies bequeathed to them by master workmen of old times? But we must never for- get that the artist, no less than the poet, must speak the language of his time. Only thus can he directly appeal to those whom he addresses. With regard to portrait painting, no one need hide his head because this is his especial metier. Unless he only wants to paint a slavish likeness, rendering every shadow and wrinkle, it is the best and severest school for the man who wishes to cultivate idealism on a firm basis. True, some artists will always paint a nose with the same touch, the shadows of which are always thrown with the same color — consequently the particular artist's hand can be at once recognized. This is not the ideal pic- ture. The noses of no two portraits ought to be painted in exactly the same manner, or the nostrils modeled in a precisely similar way; the artist who paints portraits thus can not avoid falling into mannerisms. A faithful likeness should Certainly be aimed at, but it must not end there; the sitter's character, his disposition, his pro- fession should be portrayed, thus making the face the window of the mind. An endeavor should be made to find out, by conversation, the highest thoughts, dispo- sitions, and characteristics of the sitter. At the same time the smallest physical minutiae should be carefully observed and studiously reproduced. If successful, the artist will be forgotten. The Artist's Ideal 7 If the painting of portraits is the best possible disci- pline for the earnest student of truth we should, as much as possible, throw ourselves into the interests of the sitter, and the study of his character. By this means not only is our work better done but we are ourselves laying in a stock of knowledge about subjects of which our companions are sure to know more than we do. Unconsciously our mind takes a wider view of many things, as we are brought face to face with the reality of other men's lives. With regard to designing subjects, it is preferable to study the picture on the actual canvas rather than pre- pare dummies; to think the subject well over, and if, having worked it out mentally, the idea should prove too thin, or otherwise deficient, it is better to put it away for a time. One should make a subject so entirely part of oneself that it can be returned to even after an interval of years. In regard to color, it should always bear a direct rela- tion to the subject. It is desirable to preserve the influence of the ground as much as possible, therefore a light one is best. If the picture is solemn, low tones and somber colors should be used; if the reverse, stronger and brighter ones. Extravagance of effect is always to be deprecated. It is best to avoid an outline, and paint up to the edge of the form with a full brush. After having put on any color and waited until it is thor- oughly dry and hardened, one can then soften it. There must always be a sense of balance and proportion. In Titian's great portrait in Florence there are these qualities in the highest degree. The subject is a man with gray eyes, black clothes, and ordinary features; but you do not think of the shape of his nostrils or the lines of his forehead, it is his character which attracts you. 8 The Fine Arts That painting makes a lasting impression on everyone. It is true art, for the whole man is portrayed. Perhaps perfect workmanship ceased with Van Dyck. For pure beauty, study Van Dyck and Filipino Lippi. Bellini and his school are noted for purity of color and serene pre- cision of touch. This disappears even in the later works of the great Titian, for in the arrogance of power the serene perfection that can only accompany humility altogether retires. Too much should never be sacrificed to a sense of strength. The sustaining power which gives a sense of reticence is the quality that retains a permanent hold upon the spectator. For Reynolds the most profound admiration must be entertained. There are examples of flesh painted by him that neither Titian nor any other could excel. But neither Reynolds nor Gainsborough could draw, — both were mannerists, — and it certainly seems as if one might take almost any number of eyes from their portraits and transfer them to other can- vasses, providing one has due regard to light and shade. Now, similar as eyes are, no two are quite the same, and this quite apart from the expression. Reynolds's eyes are put in with a direct and masterly touch, but with little or no attention to the actual individual form. With Gainsborough there is more attention to form, but his eyes might also be transferred to almost any other person. Now notice the eyes in the portrait of Cornelius van der Geest called "Gevartius," by Van Dyck, in the National Gallery. The eyes are a miracle of drawing, character, and painting, and no one could fit them into any other portrait; they show signs of fatigue and overwork, they do not so much appear to see, as to indicate the thoughts of the brain. Notice, also, how wonderful is the flexible mouth, how tremulously yet LoTra: jskd Death The Artist's Ideal 9 firmly painted. Then the ear is so set that it could not be moved by a hair's breadth, or transferred to any other head. Students should examine that part of this won- derful portrait, and take special note that there is not a touch put in for effect; there is not a meretricious dab doing duty for honorable work, although it is a marvel of dexterity. It is right at every distance, even if examined with microscopic attention. Some portraits by Raphael and Titian are monumentally greater, but a modern student will learn more from the former picture. It accords more with modern tendencies, and the study of it can never mislead. It must not be forgotten that any work well done only shows excellence to be attained — it can not be imitated. Peculiarities can be repeated, but he who copies others will always lag behind. Whatever be his mission, the artist can hope for real suc- cess only through thorough conscientiousness. He must cultivate sincere convictions, and strive to carry them out; whether the results are abundant or not will depend upon his thoughtful industry. If art is to have any worthy influence in the world, it must not be trifled with. Let the student demand and strive after heroic art, noble and beautiful both in idea and execution. There is certainly a want of veneration in affecting carelessness, which is never a characteristic of real great- ness. Conscious effort, however, is as great an enemy to art as to poetry. Light, amusing writing and playful art should not be underrated, for their wholesome in- fluence can be ill spared in a hard-working world; but all intellectual work, whether literary or artistic, is to be valued in proportion as it supplies us with ideas or de- lights us by its beauty. The picture that fails to attain this end and speak to the beholder is certainly not a 10 The Fine Arts great work of art. If clouds or sea are painted, even these natural objects should wear a new aspect to the spectator. Art in its natural domain is probably a thing of the past. Child of the sun and of loveliness, she was a. princess in old times; later she became the handmaid of reality, and busied herself tenderly in the cottage, the hospital, and the workhouse. Hogarth and Francois Millet have proved how she can tell the story of every- day life, with its human needs and suffering. It is not probable that art will ever take root in England until the " people " at large get to care about it. This they will never do until it is presented to them habitually. But a people whose favorite composer is Handel can not long be indifferent to the noblest art. To accomplish this end, the very best work should be scattered abroad as widely as possible. Satisfactory results might be ex- pected soon to follow, for the love of beauty is inherent in the human mind. Those whose life work is art, and to whom it is a vocation, should make it endeavor to fulfill its mission of inspiring men with lofty aims. Let us hope that in the coming age Art will play a great part, and in stronger hands than ours, speak as she has never done before, with the majestic ring of the Hebrew prophets of old, demanding noble aspirations and strongly condemning all that is unlovely and of bad repute. Young students on whom the realization of these hopes will depend may well have ambition if their chief aim is to be useful in their generation, for this is surely the ideal of all high art. ARTIST AND AMATEUR 1 By SIR MARTIN CONWAY RT may be defined as the manner in which a material is used for the production of beauty. The material may be language, ^ or the movements of the body, or sound, or life itself, as well as stone, or plaster, or paint, or ink and paper. In the molding of all these things art may arise, so that there lives no human being, how poor soever, who may not beautify his life by art. Whatever is done for the sake of giving pleasure to someone else belongs to the category of art. That which a man does solely to please himself is not art. Herein lies the distinction between art and sport. A man plays cricket for the delight he feels in the exer- cise of his powers and skill, not for the joy of the onlookers. Twenty-two men would enjoy playing a cricket match without a soul to look on, except the umpires and the scorer; but a company of actors would find no satis- faction in performing to an empty house. Art, therefore, is not the mere exercise of skill, but it is the exercise of skill to a definite end, and that end is, in the strictest sense of the word, pleasure. Pleasure in our loose English usage has come to be thought of as something received; but that is not its true meaning. Pleasure is the English form of the old French plaisir, modern plaire, to please. It is some- thing given, something produced by one person for others; it implies both a giver and a receiver. So does 1 From " The Domain of Arts," John Murray. 11 12 The Fine Arts art. There must be the artist, and there must be the person or persons sensitive to his art, before that art can be said really to exist. No great painter ever painted a picture for the pur- pose of living in delighted * contemplation of his own finished work, no sculptor would care to spend his life in a gallery of his own statues. Painters and sculptors must work for others. Dimly in the background of their mind, throughout their work, they must have some ideal recipient in view — an ideal recipient, the counter- part of themselves, capable of fully perceiving the beauty it is their aim to render, capable of thrilling responsive to the thrill of conception that they themselves experi- enced. The emotion of delight, which it is the artist's specific function to produce, arises through an appeal to the sense of beauty. There must therefore be a conception of the beautiful in the artist's mind before he can transfer it to the mind of another. This is true whatever be the art. No literal copying of natural objects, no mere imitation of anything, however skillful, can be artistic. It is the imitation of a thing for the sake of its beauty, or rather it is the attempt to shadow forth the beauty of the thing, that makes the artist. Not a chance beauty but an intended beauty is the purpose of artistic pro- duction. Correspondingly, it is the part of the recipient to behold in a work of art not mere technical skill but the idea of beauty intended by the artist. Probably no man is responsive to every kind of beauty. Each of us is doubtless blind to whole categories, and an honest man admits his blindness. All Art is not for the enjoyment of all men any more than it is for the creation of one artist. He that can find beauty anywhere in the wide world of nature or man has the root of the Artist and Amateur 13 artistic disposition within him, though the technical skill to realize it may be absent. He to whom any work of art has ever appealed, awakening in him the unmis- takable thrill of joy, has the capacity of artistic recip- ience, which only time, opportunity, and will are needed to develop. It is not enough for a landscape painter to set him- self down to the first view that opens before him and laboriously to transfer its every feature to his canvas, even were such transference possible. By the nature of things he can not transfer the whole of what he sees on to any canvas however big. Though he work with the minuteness of a Jan van Eyck, he is compelled to select, compelled to omit infinitely more than he includes. The first essential thing is that the view should have struck the artist as beautiful. The artist must have beheld instinctively, in the infinite complexity of the view, certain features, be they grouping of forms, effects of .light, harmony of color, charm of texture, or whatever you please, which cause the feeling to arise within him, "How beautiful!" The whole of any landscape is never beautiful. It may be interesting, wonderful, or what not; but beauty resides in the human mind, not in the landscape. Only he that possesses it in himself can project it into any external world. When the artist in contact with Nature has this sense of beauty alive within him, and projects it forth upon the objects by which he conceives himself to be surrounded, it seems indeed to him that the beauty is'in those objects. We are accustomed to speak as if this were so. Whether it be so or not, this is certain — and every person can verify the observation for himself — that of whatever he beholds, he beholds not the whole but only some part. 14 The Fine Arts He does not see at one moment all the leaves on a tree, or all the pebbles on a shore. He is not equally conscious at one and the same instant of beauty of form and beauty of color. It is the business of the artist to realize clearly what the elements are in any scene that combine to appeal to him simultaneously as beautiful. Only these elements is he called upon to depict. The most perfect artist is he who, with the most un- erring certainty, selects from the infinite complex of Nature what for h\vn are the elements of beauty, and depicts them and them only with strict veracity and least expenditure of means. A work of art thus pro- duced will not of course appeal to everybody, but there are always some to whom it will appeal, be they many or few. To such persons the artist will succeed in trans- ferring the thrill of delight which he himself experienced at the moment of perception or conception, and that transference is the whole purpose of any work of art. It may well happen that the percipient of beauty in a work of landscape art may be led to realize some quality of beauty in Nature that he never dreamt of before, and thenceforward in the presence of Nature he may find a similar sense of beauty arising in his own mind. This is true not merely of the landscape painter's art but of all arts whatsoever, and herein lies the artist's supreme power. It is the fashion in our day to decry the art teaching of John Ruskin; but his transcendent merit stands firmly rooted, not in his art theories, but in the unrivaled awakening power of his literary art. It was not merely the keenness with which he saw beauty in many forms, though like all men he was blind to it in some ; it was not merely the clearness with which he realized beauty when he did see it; or the power, vividness, and Artist and Amateur 15 splendor with which he expressed it; but it was that his expression took such forms as were easily perceived and absorbed by multidudes of men, so that he availed to give, as it were, sight to the blind and to quicken the stonyhearted into sympathy. How many men, I won- der, of his own and later generations have owed to the stimulus he applied their first clear vision of worlds of loveliness, to whose very existence they were previously unborn? The modern school of landscape art arose side by side with the growth of natural science. The study of Nature made men love her in a new way. Landscape painting and landscape poetry were the result. The beauties enshrined in picture and poem sent men back to Nature, alert to find their like ; and thus, by action and reaction between artists and persons sensitive to the language of art, the growth of the love of Nature was fostered and all the arts of landscape expanded with it. It is of course impossible to preate in any person an emotion of pleasure in a thing which does not please him; but where the emotion exists in however rudi- mentary a form, experience shows that much can be done to develop it. For one thing, the emotion is con- tagious. It is difficult to stand by an individual who is taking keen delight in something, and to be in com- munion with him, without feeling some trace of the emotion oneself. If this be true of individuals, much more is it true of crowds. Few men can form part of an enthusiastic crowd without partaking of its enthusiasm. The thrill runs from man to man, overriding preposses- sions and submerging individualities; and the emotion once aroused in an individual tends to grow. It is similar with ^enthusiasm for art. Few, if any, men are born with it. In the life of each who grows 16 The Fine Arts to be an art lover there is a moment when the emotion is first experienced, and many remember that moment for the rest of their days. Sometimes it arises in the presence of Nature, sometimes in contact with a work of art not necessarily of a high order. Oftenest, per- haps, it comes through an emotional transference from one to another; it may be in the atmosphere of affection. Once the emotion of beauty has been quickened in a man, to however limited an extent and by whatever means, he will enjoy a similar experience better next time; then one less similar. His delight will spread over a whole category of experiences, and thus he will become receptive to one form of art. From that, his joy may spread to other forms; so that in a short time, what was a mere Philistine may be transformed into an enthusiast of art. I well remember the late Mr. Grant Allen describing to me how such a change took place in his own nature. He had been a mere man of science, interested in all kinds of reasoning about Nature, but blind to the beauty of art. Art, he said, was to him mere foolishness and the talk about it aesthetic twaddle (as in fact it often is). It happened, however, one day, when he was taking a holiday in Italy, that rain drove him to take shelter in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. He said that his emotion on entering was a sense of wonder what sensible people could find to interest them in such a place. He strolled into the picture gallery quite aimlessly and in a few minutes found himself standing before some picture and enjoying it. He bought a catalogue to find out more about it, whom it was painted by, when, what for, and under what conditions. Then he hunted out other pictures by the same painter, looked up the work of his master and of some of his contemporaries. Long before Artist and Amateur 17 any symptons of boredom came upon him, the gallery closed and he was turned out into the street. "After all," he soliloquized, "art is quite interesting!" and he devoted the remainder of his life to her. The two human faculties which a work of art implies, the creative and the receptive, are thus both capable of development. The primary purpose of art schools is to equip artists with the requisite technical skill to enable them to express such emotions of beauty as may arise in them. The secondary purpose, often far too much neglected, is, by bringing the student in contact with noble works of art of various kinds, and under the influence of as stimulating a teacher as possible, to feed and develop his sense of beauty and thus provide mate- rial for his skill to express. It is a remarkable fact that the other faculty, equally essential to the life of art in a country, the perceptive faculty, receives hardly any attention at the hands of educationists. Governments and municipalities will spend money enough on making artists, who when made will be unable to live, unless each of them can find a consider- able body of amateurs to buy his work. Yet the same governments and municipalities which subsidize art schools are by no means correspondingly intent on developing the perceptive faculty in the purchasing public. They will hold an occasional exhibition and even, perhaps, form a permanent gallery of paintings, as though pictures were the only art, whilst in the in- competent planning of new streets and erection of public monuments and buildings, in the obliteration of open spaces, the destruction of scenes of natural beauty, and such other perverse object lessons, they more than counteract the educational effect of their vaunted ex- hibitions. WORKERS IN ART 1 By SAMUEL SMILES XCELLENCE in art, as in everything else, can be achieved only by dint of painstaking labor. There is nothing less accidental than the painting of a fine picture or the chisel- ing of a noble statue. Every skilled touch of the artist's brush or chisel, though guided by genius, is the product of unremitting study. Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry that he held that artistic excellence, "how- ever expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired." Writing to Barry he said: "Who- ever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed. " And on another occasion he said: "Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night; they will find it no play, but very hard labor." But although diligent application is, no doubt, abso- lutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted education of the schools. Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upwards in the face of poverty and manifold obstruc- 1 From " Self Help." 18 Workers in Art 19 tions. Illustrious instances will at once flash upon the reader's mind. Claude Lorraine, the pastry-cook; Tin- toretto, the dyer; the two Caravaggios, the one a color grinder, the other a mortar carrier at the Vatican; Sal- vator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto, the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gypsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors to beg by his father; Canova, the stonecutter; these and many other well-known artists succeeded in achiev- ing distinction by severe study and labor, under cir- cumstances the most adverse. Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been born in a position of life more than ordi- narily favorable to the culture of artistic genius. Gains- borough and Bacon were the sons of cloth workers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a banker's apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones, were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie were the sons of clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a barber. Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some connection with art, though in a very humble way, such as Flaxman, whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea trays; Martin, who was a coach painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox, Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene painters. These men achieved distinction not by luck or accident but by sheer industry and hard work. Though some achieved wealth, yet this was rarely, if ever, their ruling motive. Indeed, no mere love of money could sustain the efforts of the artist in his early career of self-denial and application. The pleasure of the pursuit has always 20 The Fine Arts been its best reward; the wealth which followed but an accident. Many noble-minded artists have preferred following the bent of their genius to chaffering with the public for terms. Spagnoletto verified in his life the beautiful fiction of Xenophon, and after he had acquired the means of luxury, preferred withdrawing himself from their influence, and voluntarily returned to poverty and labor. When Michelangelo was asked his opinion respecting a work which a painter had taken great pains to exhibit for profit, he said, "I think he will be a poor fellow as long as he shows such an extreme eagerness to become rich." Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Michelangelo was a great believer in the force of labor; and he held that there was nothing which the imagination conceived that could not be embodied in marble if the hand were made vigor- ously to obey the mind. He was himself one of the most indefatigable of workers; and he attributed to his spare habits of living his power of studying for a greater num- ber of hours than most of his contemporaries. A little bread and wine was all he required for the chief part of the day when employed at his work, and very frequently he rose in the middle of the night to resume his labors. On these occasions it was his practice to fix the candle, by the light of which he chiseled, on the summit of a pasteboard cap which he wore. Sometimes he was too wearied to undress, and he slept in his clothes, ready to spring to his work as soon as refreshed by sleep. He had a favorite device of an old man in a go-cart, with an hourglass upon it bearing the inscription, "Ancora imparo!" — "Still I am learning." Titian, also, was an indefatigable* worker. His cele- brated "Pietro Martire" was eight years in hand and his "Last Supper" seven. In his letter to Charles V Workers in Art 21 he said, "I send your Majesty the "Last Supper," after working at it almost daily for seven years." Few think of the patient labor and long training involved in the greatest works of the artist. They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how great difficulty has this ease been acquired. "You charge me fifty sequins," said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, "for a bust that cost you only ten days' labor." "You forget," said the artist, "that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust in ten days. " Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, "I am continually paint- ing it within myself. " It was eminently characteristic of the industry of the late Sir Augustus Callcot that he made not fewer than forty separate sketches in the composition of his famous picture of "Rochester." This constant repetition is one of the main conditions of success in art, as in life itself. No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous labor. Many artists have been pre- cocious, but without diligence their precocity would have come to nothing. The anecdote related of West is well known. When only seven years old, struck with the beauty Of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister, while watching by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper, and forthwith drew its portrait in red and black ink. The little incident revealed the artist in him, and it was found impossible to draw him from his bent. West might have been a greater painter had he not been injured by too early success; his fame, though great, was not purchased by study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not been enduring. Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged himself 22 The Fine Arts with tracing figures of men and animals on the walls of his father's house with a burnt stick. He first directed his attention to portrait painting; but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of Zucarelli, and growing weary with waiting, he began painting the scene on which his friend's chamber window looked. When Zucarelli arrived he was so charmed with the picture that he asked if Wilson had not studied landscape, to which he replied that he had not. "Then I advise you," said the other, "to try; for you are sure of great success." Wilson adopted the advice, studied and worked hard, and became our first great English landscape painter. Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to rebuke him. The boy was destined for the profession of physic, but his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a schoolboy, in the woods of Sudbury, and at twelve he was a confirmed artist: he was a keen observer and a hard worker — no picturesque feature of any scene he had once looked upon escaping his diligent pencil. William Blake, a hosier's son, employed himself in drawing designs on the backs of his father's shop bills, and making sketches on the counter. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years old, would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, which he called French and English soldiers. A box of colors was purchased for him, and his father, desirous of turning his love of art to account, put him apprentice to a maker of tea trays! Out of this trade he gradually raised himself, by study and labor, to the rank of a Royal Academician. Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took pleasure in making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, Workers in Art 23 and his school exercises were more remarkable for the ornaments with which he embellished them than for the matter of the exercises themselves. In the latter respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the school, but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him apprentice to a silversmith, where he learned to draw, and also to engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver chasing he went on to teach him- self engraving on copper, principally griffins and monsters of heraldry, in the course of which practice he became ambitious to delineate the varieties of human character. The singular excellence which he reached in this art was mainly the result of careful observation and study. He had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of commit- ting to memory the precise features of any remarkable face, and afterward reproducing them on paper; but if any singularly fantastic form or outre face came in his way, he would make a sketch of it on the spot upon his thumb-nail, and carry it home to expand at his leisure. Everything fantastical and original had a powerful attraction for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the- way places for the purpose of meeting with character. By this careful storing of his mind, he was afterward enabled to crowd an immense amount of thought and treasured observation into his works. Hence Hogarth's pictures are so truthful a memorial of the character, the manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in which he lived. True painting, he himself observed, can be learned in only one school, and that is kept by Nature. But he was not a highly cultivated man, except in his own walk. His school education had been of the slenderest kind, scarcely even perfecting him in the art of spelling; his self-culture did the rest. For a long time he was in very 24 The Fine Arts straitened circumstances, but, nevertheless, worked on with a cheerful heart. Poor though he was, he contrived to live within his small means, and he boasted with becoming pride that he was a "punctual paymaster." When he had conquered all his difficulties and become a famous and thriving man, he loved to dwell upon his early labors and privations, and to fight over again the battle which ended so honorably to him as a man and so glori- ously as an artist. "I remember the time," said he on one occasion, "when I have gone moping into the city with scarce a shilling, but as soon as I have received ten guineas there for a plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out with all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pockets. " "Industry and perseverance" was the motto of the sculptor Banks, which he acted on himself, and strongly recommended to others. His well-known kindness in- duced many aspiring youths to call upon him and ask for his advice and assistance; and it is related that one day a boy called at his. door to see him with this object, but the servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and was about sending him away, when Banks, overhearing her, himself went out. The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his hand. "What do you want with me?" asked the sculptor. "I want, sir, if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy." Banks explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he asked to look at the boy's drawings. Examining them, he said, "Time enough for the Academy, my little man! go home, mind your schooling, try to make a better drawing of the Apollo, and in a month come again and let me see it." The boy went home, Sketched and worked with re- Workers in Art 25 doubled diligence, and, at the end of the month, called again on the sculptor. The drawing was better; but again Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and Banks bade him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply fulfilled. The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly explained by his indefatigable industry. Born at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor parents, he was first apprenticed to a pastry cook. His brother, who was a wood carver, afterward took him into his shop to learn that trade. Having there shown indications of artistic skill, a travel- ing dealer persuaded the brother to allow Claude to accompany him to Italy. He assented, and the young man reached Rome, where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Tassi, the landscape painter, as his house servant. In that capacity Claude first learned landscape painting, and in course of time he began to produce pictures. We next find him making the tour of Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally resting by the way to paint landscapes, and thereby replenish his purse. On returning to Rome he found an increasing demand for his works, and his reputation at length became European. He was unwearied in the study of Nature in her various aspects. It was his practice to spend a great part of his time in closely copying buildings, bits of ground, trees, leaves, and such like, which he finished in detail, keeping the drawings by him in store for the purpose of introducing them in his studied landscapes. He also gave close attention to the sky, watching it for whole days from morning till night, and noting the various changes occasioned by the passing clouds and the increas- 26 The Fine Arts ing and waning light. By this constant practice he ac- quired, although it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape painters. Turner, who has been styled "the English Claude," pursued a career of like laborious industry. He was destined by his father for his own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day the sketch which the boy had made of a coat-of-arms on a silver salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a profession. Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances were so straitened. But he was always willing to work, and to take pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be. He was glad to hire himself out at half a crown a night to wash in skies in Indian ink upon other people's drawings, getting his supper into the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired expertness. Then he took to illus- trating guidebooks, almanacs, and any sort of books that wanted cheap frontispieces. "What could I have done better?" said he afterward; "it was first-rate practice." He did everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his work because he was ill-remunerated for it. He aimed at learning as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a drawing without hav- ing made a step in advance upon his previous work. A man who thus labored was sure to do much; and his growth in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin's words, "as steady as the increasing light of sunrise." But Turner's genius needs no panegyric; his best monu- m nt is the noble gallery of pictures bequeathed by him Workers in Art 27 to the nation, which will ever be the most lasting memo- rial of his fame. To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest ambition of the art student. But the journey to Rome is costly, and the student is often poor. With a will resolute to overcome difficulties, Rome may, however, at last be reached. Thus Francois Perrier, an early French painter, in his # eager desire to visit the Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind va- grant. After long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous. Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his determination to visit Rome. Though opposed by his father in his wish to be an artist, the boy would not be balked, but fled from home to make his way to Italy. Having set out without means, he was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of gypsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from, one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures. During this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that ex- traordinary knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterward reproduced, sometimes in such exag- gerated forms, in his wonderful engravings. When Callot at length reached Florence, a gentleman, pleased with his ingenious ardor, placed him with an artist to study; but he was not satisfied to stop short of Rome, and we find him shortly on his way thither. At Rome he made the acquaintance of Porigi and Thomassin, who, on seeing his crayon sketches, predicted for him a brilliant career as an artist. But a friend of Callot's family having accidentally encountered him, took steps to compel the fugitive to return home. By this time he had acquired such a love of wandering that he could not rest; so he ran away a second time, and a second 28 The Fine Arts time he was brought back by his elder brother, who caught him at Turin. At last the father, seeing resistance was in vain, gave his reluctant consent to Callot's prosecuting his studies at Rome. Thither he went accordingly; and this time he remained, diligently studying design and engraving for several years, under competent masters. On his way back to France, he was encouraged by Cosmo II to remain at Florence, where he studied and worked for several years more. On the death of his patron he returned to his family at Nancy, where, by the use of his burin and needle, he shortly acquired both wealth and fame. When Nancy was taken by siege during the civil war, Callot was requested by Richelieu to make a design and engraving of the event, but the artist would not commemorate the disaster which had befallen his native place, and he refused point-blank. Richelieu could not shake his resolution, and threw him into prison. There Callot met with some of his old friends the gypsies, who had relieved his wants on his first journey to Rome. When Louis XIII heard of his imprisonment, he not only released him, but offered to grant him any favor he might ask. Callot immediately requested that his old companions, the gypsies, might be set free and permitted to beg in Paris without molestation. This odd request was granted on condition that Callot should engrave their portraits, and hence his curious book of en- gravings entitled "The Beggars." Louis is said to have offered Callot a pension of three thousand livres pro- vided he would not leave Paris; but the artist was now too much of a Bohemian, and prized his liberty too highly to permit him to accept it; and he returned to Nancy, where he worked till his death. His industry may be inferred from the number of his engravings and etchings, Workers in Art 29 of which he left not fewer than sixteen hundred. He was especially fond of grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial delicacy and wonderful minuteness. Still more romantic and adventurous was the career of Benvenuto Cellini, the marvelous goldworker, painter, sculptor, engraver, engineer, and author. His life, as told by himself, is one of the most extraordinary auto- biographies ever written. Giovanni Cellini, his father, was one of the Court musicians to Lorenzo de' Medici at Florence; and his highest ambition concerning his son Benvenuto was that he should become an expert player on the flute. But Giovanni having lost his appointment, found it necessary to send his son to learn some trade, and he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. The boy had already displayed a love of drawing and of art; and, applying himself to his business, he soon became a dex- terous workman. Having got mixed up in a quarrel with some of the townspeople, he was banished for six months, during which period he worked with a goldsmith at Siena, gaining further experience in jewelry and goldworking. His father still insisting on his becoming a flute- player, Benvenuto continued to practice on the instru- ment, though he detested it. His chief pleasure was in art, which he pursued with enthusiasm. Returning to Florence, he carefully studied the designs of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; and, still further to improve himself in goldworking, he went on foot to Rome, where he met with a variety of adventures. He returned to Florence with the reputation of being a most expert worker in the precious metals, and his skill was soon in great request. But being of an irascible temper, he was constantly getting into scrapes, and was frequently 30 The Fine Arts under the necessity of flying for his life. Thus he fled from Florence in the disguise of a friar, again taking refuge at Siena, and afterward at Rome. During his second residence at Rome, Cellini met with extensive patronage, and he was taken into the Pope's service in the double capacity of goldsmith and musician. He was constantly studying and improving himself by acquaintance with the works of the best masters. He mounted jewels, finished enamels, engraved seals, and designed and executed works in gold, silver, and bronze, in such a style as to excel all other artists. Whenever he heard of a goldsmith who was famous in any particu- lar branch, he immediately determined to surpass him. Thus it was that he rivaled the medals of one, the enamels of another, and the jewelry of a third; in fact, there was not a branch of his business that he did not feel impelled to excel in. Working in this spirit, it is not so wonderful that Cellini should have been able to accomplish so much. He was a man of indefatigable activity, and was constantly on the move. At one time we find him at Florence, at another at Rome; then he is at Mantua, at Rome, at Naples, and back to Florence again; then at Venice, and in Paris, making all his long journeys on horseback. He could not carry much luggage with him; so, wherever he went, he usually began by making his own tools. He not only designed his works, but executed them him- self — hammered and carved, and cast and shaped them with his own hands. Indeed, his works have the impress of genius so clearly stamped upon them that they could never have been designed by one person and executed by another. The humblest article — a buckle for a lady's girdle, a seal, a locket, a brooch, a ring, or a button — became in his hands a beautiful work of art. Workers in Art 31 Cellini was remarkable for hi6 readiness and dexterity in handicraft. One day a surgeon entered the shop of Raffaello del Moro, the goldsmith, to perform an oper- ation on his daughter's hand. On looking at the surgeon's instruments, Cellini, who was present, found them rude and clumsy, as they usually were in those days, and he asked the surgeon to proceed no further with the oper- ation for a quarter of an hour. He then ran to his shop, and taking a piece of the finest steel, wrought out of it a beautifully finished knife, with which the oper- ation was successfully performed. Among the statues executed by Cellini the most im- portant are the silver figure of Jupiter, executed at Paris for Francis I, and the Perseus, executed in bronze for the Grand Duke Cosmo of Florence. He also executed statues in marble of Apollo, Hyacinthus, Narcissus, and Neptune. The extraordinary incidents connected with the casting of the Perseus were peculiarly illustrative of the remarkable character of the man. The Grand Duke having expressed a decided opinion that the model, when shown to him in wax, could not possibly be cast in bronze, Cellini was immediately stimulated by the predicted impossibility, not only to attempt, but to do it. He first made the clay model, baked it, and covered it with wax, which he shaped into the perfect form of a statue. Then coating the wax with a sort of earth, he baked the second covering, during which the wax dissolved and escaped, leaving the space between the two layers for the reception of the metal. To avoid disturbance, the latter process was conducted in a pit dug immediately under the furnace, from which the liquid metal was to be introduced by pipes and aper- tures into the mold prepared for it. Cellini had purchased and laid in several loads of pine- 32 The Fine Arts wood, in anticipation of the process of casting, which now began. The furnace was filled with pieces of brass and bronze, and the fire was lit. The resinous pine- wood was soon in such a furious blaze that the shop took fire, and part of the roof was burnt; while at the same time the wind blowing and the rain falling on the furnace kept down the heat, and prevented the metals from melting. For hours Cellini struggled to keep up the heat, continually throwing in more wood, until at length he became so exhausted and ill that he feared he should die before the statue could be cast. He was forced to leave to his assistants the pouring in of the metal when melted, and betook himself to his bed. While those about him were condoling with him in his distress, a workman suddenly entered the room, lamenting that "poor Benvenuto's work was irretrievably spoiled!" On hearing this, Cellini immediately sprang from his bed, and rushed to the work-shop, where he found the fire so much gone down that the metal had again become hard. Sending across to a neighbor for a load of young oak which had been more than a year in drying, he soon had the fire blazing again and the metal melting and glitter- ing. The wind was, however, still blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood into the furnace. A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long poles, the whole soon became completely melted. At this juncture, when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before Cellini's eyes. The cover of the furnace had Workers in Art 33 burst, and the metal began to flow! Finding that it did not' run with the proper velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of copper and pewter that it contained — some two hundred porringers, dishes and kettles of different kinds — and threw them into the furnace. Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the splendid statue of Perseus was cast. The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes ■ of his furnace will remind the reader of the like act of Palissy in breaking up his furniture for the purpose of baking bis earthenware. THE AMERICAN ART STUDENT IN PARIS 1 By WILL H. LOW ]OU have won your scholarship and "have elected to study in Paris — a wise choice in my view; and from my experience you seek counsel. This I count it a privilege to give; but if, in my practical advice to you as a typical young artist going abroad for the first time, you find some con- sideration of your immediate past, you must take it as part of the whole, for from this environment you spring, and to it I trust you will return to hold up the hands of an older generation; to continue and perfect the effort to implant a worthy growth of art in our own country. In many practical ways your path will be made easy to you on your arrival in Paris. You very probably know some one or more of the fifteen hundred art students from these shores who enjoy the hospitality of the capital of France. Lacking such acquaintance, you have but to apply to the American Art Association in the Rue Notre- Dame-des-Champs, a club which has a membership of four hundred of your countrymen, art students, to secure a compatriot's aid in finding lodgings. Choice of a school will probably prove more embarrassing, for at the club or in the restaurants to which you will be convoyed you will meet many of your future associates, and find almost as many conflicting opinions as to the best school. 1 By permission of the Author and Gharles Scribner's Sons. Copy- right, 1903. 34 The American Art Student in Paris 35 In reality it matters little, for your first choice may very probably be supplanted by another as soon as you have taken a settled place in your new environment. From my view, which I warn you may not be shared by your new associates, I should advise one of the government schools, for reasons which I will develop later. You will be told that they are not "up to date," none of the "strong men" are there, that the instructors are "old fogies," that Americans are not popular and are subjected to strange tortures within their walls; and again, quite prob- ably your own inclination will lead you to some one of the ateliers established by private enterprise, which have the business cunning to attract the young student by en- rolling among their instructors the" men whose names have appeared the latest on the ever-shifting list of Salon success. Against such temptation it is wise to study the antecedents of the newly successful men, and more often than not you will find that they owe their training to men or schools at which the irreverential fledgling art student looks askance. When one has changed his country and his habits, and, after sedulously taking advantage of all that can profit him in his native land, has gone abroad to study, the part of wis- dom is to seek further knowledge in the differences rather than in the resemblances which may east between his old environment and the new. The most obvious aid to the knowledge of a new country is to speak its language; and yet so easy has it become to five in Paris and find suf- ficient companionship among one's own compatriots, that it is the rule rather than the exception for our students to return home with only such smattering of French as suf- fices to order a dinner. Modern art owes so much to France that it would ap- pear obvious that the first concern of the student should 36 The Fine Arts be to acquaint himself with the causes of this beneficial influence, and without the language, without companion- ship with its people of all degrees, — and no one feature of its extreme civilization is more marked than the ease with which the inquiring student can approach even its greatest men, — this is clearly impossible. Therefore, study the language with the same zealous interest that you bestow on the life school. In further- ance of the same object, seek companions among your French comrades, for you will find it easy, in the uncon- ventional society of the atelier, to choose your associates, and you will do wisely to choose them from the people of the country. Entrance to the governmental schools is less easy than to the independent ateliers, where ability to pay the fee is the chief qualification. Beyond a bienvenue, or treat,off ered by the newcomer to his fellow students, at an expense of about twenty francs, there is no fee in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, where the student in any branch of fine art has the choice of three different ateliers, or masters. There is an examination, however, which demands a certain knowledge of the language in which it is naturally conducted, and some slight acquaintance with the history of art, includ- ing a few rudimentary principles of architecture, perspec- tive, anatomy, and a drawing from the antique or life to show technical proficiency. None of this, however, is beyond the power of an ordi- narily intelligent youth, and even 1 by a total stranger to the language can be prepared in a couple of months. Should the student fail in his first examination, there are preparatory schools, one in the Rue de l'Ecole de Mede- cine, another at the Gobelins, under governmental pat- ronage, where the conditions for entrance are less.difficult and facilities for study are nearly as great, where your The American Art Student in Paris 37 time could be profitably spent awaiting your entrance to one of the ateliers of the Beaux-Arts. In my view, however, your time for two months follow- ing your arrival in Paris could be more profitably spent than in the school. You have had at home, for two or three years at least, almost daily attendance in the an- tique and life schools. With the model before you, you draw reasonably well and have even exercised your talent for composition to the scanty degree for which our schools provide. Here you are to realize, perhaps for the first time, how elementary your studies have been and how many of the elements of a thorough artistic education can never be acquired in an academy. The examination for entrance to the Ecole des Beaux- Arts is a proof of this, for you may be the most brilliant pupil of our schools, have won your scholarship, and yet never have encountered half the problems there set out in a program carefully devised to meet an average grade of scholastic attainment. Address yourself, therefore, for half your time for two months, to prepare for this examination. Tuition in French is extremely cheap, and you can easily find an older student in some one of the advanced schools with which Paris teems — - very probably a student of the Beaux- Arts — who will be able to help you in all the branches of art in which you are to be examined, and with the language as well. Give your mind most earnestly to this and you will have laid the foundation of a proper enjoyment of the advantages which you have crossed the Atlantic to seek. The remainder of your time of probation you can make at once a pure delight and a most beneficial experience. You are now set down in the richest capital of art of the old world, and this profusion of riches is yours for the ask- ing. Profit, then, by this privilege; and that there may 38 The Fine Arts be no doubt of its profit, direct your steps through this great labyrinth of art in orderly and consecutive fashion. The museums in Paris are many. The Louvre and the Luxembourg comprise the great collections of ancient and modern art, and in the former a student of art might pass a life well spent. I can well forgive, and envy you, your first plunge into these delights. You will find art on every hand, and will begin to comprehend that it means vastly more than a picture on the line at the Society of Ameri- can Artists or the "double page" of our best remunerated illustrator! But remember that you are but at the threshold, your taste all untrained, and your gold of to-day may prove the dross of the morrow. And here, I own, my task of counselor becomes difficult. Temperaments vary, and to the artist well advised the most precious of his possessions is his personality, which leads him instinctively in a path where none may direct him; where direction, implied or absolute, is an imperti- nence. This much, however, may be said: no artist was ever harmed by knowledge and comprehension of the various manifestations of the art spirit; and the habit of reflection and comparison should be early formed and cultivated. To this, habitual reading is the greatest aid. The constant practice of drawing and painting has prob- ably given you little time, and has not awakened a taste for reading of your art. But the very nature of the ex- amination for which you are preparing proves its neces- sity, and the habit once formed, if you love your art, you will find in the story of your predecessors, in their reflection on their art, much aid and counsel. France has a literature particularly rich in this direction, and before you read its tongue with facility you can find among the two million volumes of the BibliotheqUe Na- The American Art Student in Paris 39 tionale translations or original works in English, among which I would fain turn you out to browse. When this or that man interests you in the Louvre, ask from the cour- teous attendants at the Bibliotheque Nationale for works relating to him. Read prejudiced Vasari, and of nearly every man there mentioned you can find fuller information in the many works published since his day. Endeavor to follow the sequence of schools and masters as laid down in the larger catalogues of the Louvre in study- ing the galleries after your first hurried examination. In this way you will learn to know yourself, and, far from deviating from the path where your natural temperament would lead you, you will separate the wheat from the chaff, and seek the work which will help you the most. All this you will not accomplish in what I have termed your two months of probation; but I have indicated to you a most precious possession for all your future life, if in this short time you have formed a habit of reading and reflection. As you have no doubt noted, I have written at some length, with little reference to the life school — which has preoccupied your life for the past few years, and which undoubtedly appears to you the chief reason for your seek- ing Paris for a prolongation of the delights of technical study under instruction of a higher grade than you could enjoy at home. Here, to a degree, you are doomed to dis- appointment. The technical proficiencies of our craft are, above all, the fruit of assiduous and continuous effort on our own part. Consequently the superiority of the Paris schools over those in our chief cities lies less in the comparatively higher technical proficiency of the class as a whole — though that exists in some cases — than in the incomparably higher aim of the average French art student. 40 The Fine Arts This is the chief reason why I counsel you to avoid cer- tain of the ateliers which have sprung up these later years in Paris, in which the great majority of students are Amer- icans. In these your home standards of the aim of art are rife, and in some cases advanced students of our own nationality have established and maintain schools in Paris largely attended by their compatriots, and in all these you may study for years without receiving a tithe of the bene- fits which are yours for the price of resolutely putting away from you the lower standards and the contentment with partial achievement which characterize, naturally enough, the art effort of our new country, but which, thus transplanted to a land of fuller comprehension, become absurd. [*;. Your eyes, very properly, have been glued to your draw- ing board in your studies here, but you have seen some of the more advanced of your- fellows disappear from the school at a critical period of their career, on the eve of further progress, to make a short apparition a few weeks later, with a high hat and a large cigar, to announce their engagement, at a good salary, as the artist of the "Daily Screecher." The enormous and, possibly, temporary use of illustra- tion in our daily press is thus responsible for blighting the future of men capable of better things and for lowering the standard of our schools, which, for the most part de- pendent upon the fees of students for their very exist- ence, are forced, however indirectly, to recognize this new demand for a cheap and limited achievement. You are too young to remember that twenty years ago there was a most hopeful and promising school of etchers here. Lack of standard enabled any one who could scratch a copper plate to put his wares on the market, the print sellers and department stores saw the business opportunity, and The American Art Student in Paris 41 to-day etching here is virtually dead, with none to do it honor. Almost at the same time the art of the glass stainer was reinvented, to all intents and purposes, in our new land, and there was promise that this most delightful of arts would flourish in the pious desire to commemorate our dead, translated through the sympathetic art of the de- signer. But no sooner had some notable results been achieved than the business sense of the American saw again his opportunity, and to-day, discredited by archi- tects in their buildings though it may be, great business organizations turn out vast quantities of colored glass, while in their offices stacks of alleged designs, appropriately assorted to the needs of widows, orphans, or building com- mittees, await the moment when their commercial trav- eler, akin to the cheerful person known as the "ambulance chaser," can present himself in the house of mourning with his already prepared "appropriate" design. Again, in my extreme youth there was a race of men known as "draftsmen-on-wood," working for the most part in obscure offices in the business districts of the town or housed in publishing offices, having no part or parcel of recognition in the art of the day. Without models or recourse to nature these men produced the illustrations which served for books and magazines. Art took a higher flight, and for a time illustration be- came of serious importance. In our nascent art no one stood so high but that the publisher found him willing to lend his best effort to the embellishment of book or maga- zine. To name but one result, which must be known to you, the "Rub&iydt" of Omar Khayydm, by Elihu Vedder, is likely to remain as one of our greatest achievements in art. Since then the profusion of quantity rather than quality 42 The Fine Arts has taken the place of the measured and masterly work for which we might have hoped. The desire for quick results has sent embryotic youths — often enough super- ficially clever in an imitative sense — to the doors of publishers, where, unfortunately, they have been met half- way. Hence our profusion of illustrations, which, served ad nauseam in our daily press, our magazines and books, make's an easy transition from a year or two of school for the young artist whose practical papa is more often than not pleased with the boy's earning capacity and his name writ large in our current publications. The time will come as we grow older, and — let me hazard the word — more civilized when the "delightful sketchy quality" with which the half-educated artist and the half-educated public are satisfied to-day will cease to please, and then, too late to acquire a knowledge of good drawing and sound construc- tion, our fledgling artist will regret his early flight before his wings could carry him far. You will find little of this in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Since 1688 this school has followed its placid existence, conscious that art is long. Fixing the limit of the age for competition for the Prix du Rome, its final recompense, at thirty, entailing, four years' residence in Rome, the fortu- nate few who win this prize may begin their life work at thirty-four. This, as you may readily see, gives a serious aspect to the vocation of an artist, which, if better under- stood in our country, would singularly diminish the num- bers of those who enter the career here "from a notion of its ease." You will also find that your French comrades avail themselves of the many lectures and subsidiary courses of art education established in their school, which will be equally open to you. In many of the independent ateliers in Paris you would find, as prevails here, the belief that the means of tech- The American Art Student in Paris 43 nical assiduity with brush and pencil in the life school is the end and aim of art; but no such heresy has as yet invaded the halls of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where in- structors and pupils can look back two hundred years and find among their predecessors the names which make France to-day the aim of your pilgrimage. Permit me in conclusion, and as a moral, to tell you a true story. A friend of mine, a French artist, who reached his present high position some time after forty, has a son of great talent. In the relaxation of his studies the son produced a number of etchings which, printed in color, appealed to a prevailing fad of print collectors, and a dealer in the Rue Lafitte bought them freely and encour- aged the youth to produce others. They were charming things, and the youth of twenty was fairly launched to attain the rather difficult prize of a Parisian success. Here, I fear, the result would not have been doubtful; but the youth's father, appreciating the gravity of the situation, paid a visit to the dealer, calling his attention to the fact that his son was a minor and that, unwilling to jeopardize his art career by the interruption of his studies, no further encouragement was to be given to the young artist. The son on his part recognized readily enough the justice of his father's decision, and the youth returned to his studies, this year only, at twenty-four, making a most brilliant debut in the Salon. That in this spirit you may work, and on the completion of your term of study return here to join and aid the men who, with little encouragement, are yet visibly though slowly raising the standard of our home achievement, is my sincere hope. PAINTING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1 By KENYON COX JESIDES the inherent difficulty of properly estimating contemporary work, there is an especial difficulty in dealing with the paint- ing of the nineteenth century. Art in the past has been traditional, national, and homogeneous; art in our day has been individual, international, and chaotic. At the beginning of the century the so-called " classical revival" destroyed what remained of the traditions of the Renaissance, and almost destroyed the art of paint- ing as such. When men again began to wish to paint, each had to experiment for himself and to find what methods he could. Modern means of communication and modern methods of reproduction have brought the ends of the earth together, and placed the art of all times and countries at the disposal of every artist. The quan- tity of painting produced has been enormous; the num- ber of individual artists of some distinction has been remarkable; and the succession of "movements" and revolutions, each rapidly extending its influence over the civilized world, has been most puzzling. From this tangled skein it may, however, be possible to pluck a few threads. Most of the characteristic tendencies of modern paint- ing have had their origin or attained their highest devel- opment in France, and France has certainly held the 1 From " Old Masters and New." New York: Copyright, 1908, by Duffield & Company. 44 Painting in the Nineteenth Century 45 primacy of art in the past century, as did England in the eighteenth, Holland and Flanders in the seventeenth, and Italy in the sixteenth. The history of modern paint- ing is largely the history of painting in France. Yet in the first third of the century there is really only one name in France, or, for that matter, on the continent of Europe, that takes a very high rank. David was a man of force, but neither he nor his followers were painters, and still less were the cartoonists of Germany; Prudhon alone was a really great artist. He was deeply influenced by Correggio, but he had an individuality of his own, and, in spite of the ruin wrought by bitumen, his best canvases are singularly lovely, and of all modern work approach nearest, perhaps, to the power of flesh painting of the old masters. Later the classical school produced another artist of high rank, however little of a painter, in Ingres. In him the classical tradition was profoundly modified by study of Raphael. He was not a great draftsman in the sense of mastery of significant form, but he had rare feeling for beauty of line. His drawings are exquisite, and a few of his portraits will prove immortal. His contemporary, Delacroix, was the head of the romantic revolution. Delacroix was a man of great intellectual power, but hardly an altogether successful painter. What he did was to break down the classical tradition and make room for modern art rather than himself create it. He and . his contemporaries were greatly influenced by English painting, and in the first third of the century English painting was still the most vital in Europe. Affected as are the works of Sir Thomas Lawrence, he was still a continuer of the traditions of Reynolds and Gainsborough, and, through them, of Van Dyck and Rubens. England was the latest coun- 46 The Fine Arts try to be reached by the Renaissance, and the country that longest retained the traditions of painting; and in England the classical school had hardly existed. When painting began to revive, it was first to England and then to Rubens that it turned for its examples. The greatest achievement of painting in the past century is the creation of modern landscape; and the most singular phenomenon, as Fromentin pointed out long ago, is the extension of the methods of the landscape painter to other branches of art. Now, the history of modern landscape begins in England. Turner can not be neglected; he was indubitably a powerful and original genius. But he stands alone. It was Constable, the inheritor of the tradition of Gainsborough and of Rubens, who first stimulated the study of landscape in France. It was in France that under this stimulus grew up a school of painters of landscape, and of figures and animals in their relation to landscape, — the so-called "Barbizon School," — which produced the art of the century that most nearly equals the great art of the past. If any painters of our day are to be ranked as indubitable masters, these painters are certainly Millet, Corot, Rousseau, and Troyon. The others commonly named with them are so inferior to them that they need not here be separately considered. Rousseau's art is founded on Rubens and the Dutch, Corot's on Claude. What they added was a profound study of nature, and particularly of natural light and what painters call "values." Rousseau is naturalistic and rugged, while Corot is lyric. His best landscapes are perhaps the most delicately poetical and beautiful ever produced. In a lansdcape almost as fine as theirs Troyon placed cattle and Millet the rustic man. How wonderful as a pure landscapist Millet was is perhaps Painting in the Nineteenth Century 47 hardly understood. His peculiar distinction is that he was the first painter to study man in nature, and to give the relation of the figure to its surroundings. But be- sides this modern quality he had in large measure the qualities of all great art. He was a master of simple and dignified composition, a noble colorist, and the greatest master of drawing as expressive of the action of the human figure since Michelangelo. Perhaps no other master, certainly no other modern master, has shown such capacity to express the essential nature of a move- ment and to resume it in a permanent type — to paint "The Sower," not a sower. The successors of the Barbizon School were those who have been called the "Impressionists." With them the study of light and the painting of everything as if it were landscape reached its extreme. Composition, drawing, even color for its own sake, were more and more neglected, while the analysis of light became the one essential, and the relations of things seemed vastly more important than the things themselves. Manet, who is generally considered the founder of this school, did not really carry its peculiar manner very far. He began with a rather unsuccessful attempt to paint like Velasquez; in his last days he was influenced by younger men and attempted something like the parti-colored manner of Monet, but his most characteristic work is blackish in color, flat, and with heavy outlines. He had, how- ever, a genius for the beautiful handling of oil paint as a material. More or less associated with the school was an original painter of considerable power, Degas, but its most in- fluential exponent is Claude Monet. It is he who has carried farthest the experiment of dissecting and recom- bining the solar spectrum and of producing light by 48 The Fine Arts "ocular mixture" of colors. The permanent influence of the school will probably not be very great. It will have somewhat broadened the aims and enriched the palettes of other painters; but its neglects were too many, and it was bound to be succeeded by an art that should again take up the study of beauty, of composition, of form, and of decorative color. The great bulk of French painting has always been and still remains academic. The officially recognized painters of France — the medalists and members of the Institute — are generally men of the schools, trained in draftsmanship, feeble in color, conventional in compo- sition. Some of them have attained great power and distinction, notably Ger6me, Meissonier, Elie Delaunay in his wonderful portraits, and Baudry (who, however, be- longs rather with the decorators); but they have added little that was new to art. Their output and that of their followers has been much modified by two influ- ences: that of the great modern exhibitions and that of photography. The "exhibition" is distinctly modern — a child of the nineteenth century. From putting into museums those things of beauty which had outlived their original pur- pose we have come to make things especially for museums and to get together temporary museums each year for their exhibition. Hence- the gallery picture and the machine du Salon. The Barbizon men were often kept out of the Salon and the Salon had not in their time reached its present proportions. The Impressionists have largely kept themselves out. For those who have regularly participated in the annual exhibitions, the desire to be seen in the crowd has resulted in a steady increase in the size of canvases, with no justification in subject or decorative intention; in constantly growing Painting in the Nineteenth Century 49 sensationalism of subject; and, finally, in all sorts of fads and technical extremes. There have always been naturalists in painting, but photography has shown us, as nothing else ever could, what nature is actually like. Almost with the inven- tion of photography came the Pre-Raphaelite movement in England, a short-lived attempt to abandon all artistic conventions and to substitute for them the painstaking and accurate portraiture of natural fact. A similar ideal attained more nearly its realization in France at a much later date. With Bastien-Lepage the tendency to consider man as a part of landscape and the tendency to minute naturalism were combined. The model was posed out of doors, and both the figure and its surroundings were patiently studied and realized. All fleeting effects had to be abandoned in favor of the gray daylight that alone permits long study in the open air, and composition, style in drawing, and even beauty were sacrificed to fidelity. At his best the result was amazingly like the still unre- alized photography in colors. Some of his portraits and pictures are masterpieces in their own way, and before his death he did some beautiful landscapes. With the general mass of painters the influence of photography has been almost wholly for evil, and its result a dead level of commonplace. Outside of all the schools there have been, meanwhile, here and there, independent artists who have, each in his own way, kept alive this or that quality of more ancient art. Rossetti, more poet than painter, soon abandoned Pre-Raphaelitism for a decorative formula and the study of color and sentiment. His friend and pupil, Burne-Jones, modified while he carried on the Ros- settian tradition, and he and his numerous followers have 50 The Fine Arts been, in our day, the especial champions of the Floren- tine ideal decorative line. Beside them but apart from them, and tracing his inspiration to the Venetians, was George Frederick Watts. In spite of uncertain drafts- manship and a fumbling technique, his dignity of com- position, elevation of feeling, and occasionally grave splendor of color, raise him to a rather lonely height among nineteenth-century painters, and he more Often reminds one of the great old masters than any other modern. Gustave Moreau was a sort of French Rossetti, enveloping a purely personal sentiment in a form unlike any other, while in Germany the profoundly original and imaginative genius of, Boecklin has kept up the pro- test against mere realism. In these men, and in others their contemporaries, the various elements of painting as an art — imagination of subject, beauty of drawing, intricacy of pattern, richness of color, gravity and simplicity of tone, even brilliancy of handling and the manipulation of material — have had their exponents. But perhaps the most characteristic phase of the art of the end of the century, in its reaction against naturalism, has been the revival of pure decora- tion. In England this has led to the arts-and-crafts movement, with its somewhat eccentric medievalism, and it has had its somewhat comic phase throughout the civilized world in the poster mania. Its more serious results have been mainly confined to France and the United States. In France the decorative tradition was never quite lost, and it was revived in its fullest splendor by Paul Baudry in his paintings for the foyer of the Paris Opera House. As a master of significant form, Baudry was one of the greatest of the moderns, and he was a charming colorist also, but he was preeminently a master of dec- Painting in the Nineteenth Century 51 orative composition, and, as a vast scheme of ordered line and space for the decoration of a public building, his great work is perhaps the most notable achievement since the Renaissance. His Reputation has suffered some eclipse in these later days, but it is safe to predict that it will, sooner or later, shine forth again; and it will be seen that he was none the less a great artist for that academic training which it has been something too much the fashion to decry. Indisputably, however, the most influential master of decorative painting in the latter part of the nineteenth century has been Puvis de Chavannes. In him, to a noble simplicity and a great feeling for composition, rather in spaces than lines, have been added a strong sense of lansdcape and a mastery of light and values, so that his work, while as "mural" as Giotto's, is as modern as Monet's. Originally a very fair academic drafts- man, he came more and more to sacrifice form and detail to monumental gravity and breadth of treatment, until his work, always austere, reached at last perilously near to the verge of emptiness and lack of interest. It is always saved by decorative fitness and by great beauty of tone and quiet color. In our day France has pro- duced much bad decoration as well as some good, but in the Hemicycle of the Sorbonne it has left to future ages an undoubted masterpiece. America's serious contribution to the art of the world has been made mainly in the last quarter of the past century. Our earliest painters were entirely British in training, and some of them became British in nationality as well. Stuart, Copley, West, and Allston are merely second-rate painters of the English school. The influence of France first made itself felt in Hunt, who was a pupil of Couture and greatly influenced by Millet. He was a 52 The Fine Arts man of powerful personality, but what he has left be- hind him is extremely fragmentary. His contemporary, George Fuller, was a self-educated genius who, in spite of an insufficient training, and through a strange tech- nique, gave glimpses of a valid talent. These are the names of greatest importance until the awakening caused by the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the return to this country shortly thereafter of the American students from Paris and Munich studios. The work of these younger men was, for some time, reflective of that of their foreign masters, and American exhibitions showed in succession the latest fashions of foreign work. The International Exposition of 1900 for the first time triumphantly demonstrated to tne world that a real American school exists, and that it is cer- tainly second only to the French. Yet of the artists whose work makes up this showing the two most distinguished are men to whom America can make but slight and doubtful claim. The name of Whistler belongs to the history of art at large rather than to that of art in America. A contemporary of Manet and an exhibitor with him in the famous Salon des Refuses of 1863, he never returned to America, but lived in Paris or London, surviving long enough to see work which was first laughed at finally accepted as among the most accomplished of the century. Always intensely individual, hardly a draftsman or a colorist, and least of all a naturalist, he devoted his art to refine- ments of tone and delicate division of space. His work is now as indiscriminately praised as it was formerly attacked, but his best things have an abiding charm, and he is to-day one of the most widely influential of modern painters. John Sargent is even less American than Whistler, Painting in the Nineteenth Century 53 for, though of American parentage, he was born abroad and his training was, as his art remains, wholly French. His sense of color is, like that of most French painters, rather mediocre, and beauty of tone is not especially his province. His distinctive qualities are a profound mas- tery of drawing, as expressed by planes rather than by lines, and a wonderful manual dexterity. These two qualities, in combination, have made him one of the most brilliant of modern technicians, and, added to them, a strong sense of character has made him perhaps the first of living portrait painters. No other of the many able and clever Americans residing abroad has reached the degree of distinction attained by these two, nor has any of them, unless it be Mr. Vedder, given any distinctively national or personal note. It has been otherwise with painters who have either remained at home, or, once their apprenticeship finished, have returned to this country and have been forced to rely upon themselves. Two Americans, Inness and Wyant, will surely take high rank among the land- scape painters of the century; the first a master of passionate and powerful color, the second a gentler and more delicate nature; both were influenced by the men of Barbizon, yet each struck a note of his own, and each had something national as well as personal to add to the art of the world. With the landscape painters also may most conven- iently be classed one more intensely American than either of these, Winslow Homer. Possessing no foreign training, showing no foreign influence, always himself, Homer has steadily pursued his way, attaining year by year more nearly to his own ideal. His drawing is not always sure, his coloring is rather neutral, his handling is never brilliant, but a strong personality marks every- 54 The Fine' Arts thing he does, and figure or landscape is seen with a true artist's vision. No marines ever painted give a greater sense of the weight and power of water than do his, and he has painted some figure pieces of marvelous vigor. After these came a whole school of younger men who have absorbed the training of Europe and have felt all contemporary influences, but whose work in accent, as in subject, remains American, and who are to-day the most vital landscape painters in the world. Among them may be specially mentioned D. W. Tryon and Horatio Walker, the first more influenced by French methods, the second by Dutch, but each an individual artist of great force. That America has something to say in figure painting as well as in landscape is evident when one thinks of the exquisite' sentiment of Thayer, the scholarly and clean- cut drawing of Brush, the delicate charm of Dewing, and the brilliant craftsmanship of Chase. In the work of these men and their fellows there is a sincerity, a scorn of sensationalism, a true pursuit of art for its own sake, that are rare in the painting of to-day. Finally, America has done and is doing something interesting and valuable in pure decoration. Years ago John La Farge, whose work in stained glass is as new in kind as it is supreme in merit, so that he may almost be called the inventor of a new art, did some admirable painting in Trinity Church, Boston, as he has since done in other places. After that, little was attempted until the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 gave an opportunity to several of our painters to show what they could do in that line. Since then one public building after another has been decorated with paintings, and the results are familiar to us all. Such men as Simmons, Blashfield, Mowbray, and H. 0. Walker have each developed a dec- Painting in the Nineteenth Century 55 orative style of his own, while they have managed to work together and to preserve the general harmony of a great decorative scheme in a way which contrasts most favorably with the decoration of such foreign buildings as the Paris h6tel de ville or the Pantheon. If we have produced no single work of the value of some of those by Baudry or Puvis de Chavannes, yet our mural paint- ing has been marked by reticence, dignity, and true decorative spirit. Since the wave of the Renaissance first started from Italy, the country last reached by it has been the coun- try that at any time has produced the best art. The wave has barely reached us, and it is not impossible that it is to America we must look for the best art of the twentieth century. MURAL PAINTING IN AMERICA 1 By CHARLES H. CAFFIN r N 1817 Congress gave Trumbull a commission for four paintings to adorn the Capitol. These, completed some years later, repre- sented the Declaration of Independence, the Surrender of Burgoyne, the Surrender of Cornwallis, and the Resignation of Washington at Annapolis. The in- tention of Congress in appropriating thirty-two thou- sand dollars for this work was to commemorate certain important events in the history of the new Republic, and the artist conceived and treated his subjects in the manner of historical pictures. Fidelity to the incident, rather than any ideas of making his paintings decorative, influenced him; though attached to wall spaces, they are not in the true sense mural paintings. Why they are not may perhaps be un- derstood by a comparison of the first commission in this country given and accepted as advisedly a work of mural decoration. The date was 1876; the building, Trinity Church, Boston, and the immediate principals in the trans- action were H. H. Richardson, the architect, and the painter, John La Farge. Two points are of importance: first, that it was the ar- chitect, then engaged in building the church, who realized that its interior effect would be improved by a scheme of painted decoration; secondly, that although the scheme might involve the representation of certain persons or 1 By courteous permission of the Author and Dodd, Mead & Company. Copyright, 1908. 56 Mural Painting in America 57 incidents of the Bible, its primary and final purpose was to be complementary to the architecture. To these points another may be added, not perhaps essential, but certainly conducive to a successful result, that the whole scheme of interior coloring, its smallest details as well as the impor- tant figure compositions, was intrusted to one man. Here we get an inkling of what mural painting really is. It is not the affixing of a picture to the walls, as we hang a picture on the wall of a living-room to embellish it or for the separate interest and value of the picture, but rather an integral part of an architectural unit. Trinity Church, for example, is in design an adaptation of the Romanesque style, which in addition to vaulted roofs has an excess of wall over window spaces. These surfaces in the medieval churches were frequently over- laid with marble veneer and mosaic. Richardson deter- mined to substitute a painted decoration, that should at once relieve the barrenness of the interior and unite all its parts into an ensemble of rich harmoniousness. It is indeed as a whole that the interior affects us. Within, as outside, the culmination of the design is the center tower, crowned with a low spire. To it converge the short nave and side aisles, the transepts and apse- ended chancel. The plan, in fact, is more apparent inside than outside, and while the stained-glass windows make intervals of brilliant splendor, the general effect is one of subdued dignity of tone, out of the mystery of which, if you are minded to look for them, the details of the deco- ration may be discerned. But as I have said, the first and chief impression is of an organic unity of color grow- ing out of the architecture, the very dimness of the effect seeming characteristic of this particular architectural style, which in its origin belonged to the south and was designed to exclude rather than to admit the light. 58 The Fine Arts Moreover, the Romanesque style of Southern France, which was the particular brand of the Romanesque that Richardson had adopted, had been itself an adaptation by the comparatively unskilled western builders of Vari- ous influences, only partly digested — the Byzantine, the Roman, and the Greek. There was a peculiar fitness, which probably presented itself to Richardson's mind and was certainly present in La Farge's, in choosing this char- acter of construction for the first attempt in the New West- ern World, to combine the labors of the architect and decorator in some scheme that might reach the traditions of the past. In La Farge's own words: "It would permit, as long ago it has permitted, a wide range of skill and artistic training: the rough bungling of the native and the ill-digested culture of the foreigner. I could think myself back to a time when I might have employed some cheap Byzantine of set habits, some ill- equipped Barbarian, some Roman dwelling nearby for a time — perhaps even some artist keeping alive both the tradition and culture of Greece." And it was under similar conditions of limited experience on the part of the artist, of habits comprised in a wrong direction on the part of available workmen, of low trade ideals and indifferent materials, that the beginnings of a new movement in America were inaugurated. For although La Farge had been giving some attention to decorative problems, especially to those of color, his opportunities of practical experience had been small indeed as compared with the magnitude of this one; he was at a moment's notice launched into what was under the circumstances a huge experiment; the subordinates on whom he had to rely were inexperienced, and as a climax to these limitations he was compelled to work amidst the discomfort and confusion of a windowless, unfinished build- Mural Painting in America 59 ing, under the severe strain of having to conceive, elabo- rate and conclude this big scheme in a short space of time. This tendency to "rush" the artist, which is not infre- quently characteristic of decorative commissions in this country, was illustrated again two years later in the case of William M. Hunt. He was requested to paint two deco- rations of considerable size for the Capitol at Albany, the time allotted him for their inception and completion being thirteen weeks! He produced the "Flight of Night" and "The Discoverer," but at what cost? The mental and physical strain proved too much for him; after ending it he noticeably declined and died the following year. The work, too, has perished, for the plaster had not been allowed to dry out, it was still "green," and the paintings have since decayed and crumbled away. La Farge, having completed the work in Trinity Church, was almost immediately commissioned to decorate the apse of St. Thomas's in New York. Here he worked in collaboration not only with the architect, but with the sculptor, thus for the first time in this country asserting practically the interdependence and kinship of these three arts of construction and decoration. Its reredos was modeled by St. Gaudens, and on each side of it the painter installed a scene from the Resurrection, enshrining all three in a scheme of color and of molded and carved work, designed and partly executed by himself, though the design in its entirety was never completed. Nevertheless, as it stood, it was the most completely noble of La Farge's schemes of decoration, and its destruc- tion by fire was a national calamity, for there is lost to us, not only a great artistic achievement, but one that in the course of years would have had increasing historic interest as a landmark in the progress of American art, and might eventually have had an influence in checking what I ven- 60 The Fine Arts ture to call "department-store tendencies" that charac- terize so largely the present manifestations of our decorative movement. For, as we pursue the study of the latter, we shall find that instead of the mind of a master decorator, such as La Farge is by instinct and training, being not only per- mitted but encouraged, to control the whole scheme of internal embellishment, circumstances bring it about that the architects, whose talent and metier are primarily of the constructive order, have become also the decorative de- signers of the interiors, deputing the execution of their schemes to a variety of subordinates. It is a highly organ- ized system, capable of turning out an immense quantity of work, of creditable quality, but of little personal dis- tinction. But if we study the matter, we shall find that the system has grown inevitably out of existing conditions. Little more than a quarter of a century ago the ground in our development now occupied by architecture and decoration was a prairie wilderness, spotted here and there with beautiful survivals of a past taste, such as the exam- ples of colonial mansions and churches and of the later public edifices, like the White House and the Capitol. For the rest it was a waste upon which modem disfigurements had encroached. Two men appeared as pioneers : H. H. Richardson, already mentioned, and William Morris Hunt; both architects, who, like some of our painters, had studied in Paris at the famous Ecole des Beaux- Arts. The move- ment they inaugurated was from its inception one of archi- tecture; Hunt representing the constructive logical phase of the art, Richardson its more notably aesthetic possibili- ties. The latter, as we have seen, hastened to secure the cooperation of La Farge. But decorators such as he are not to be found by the wayside. There was no other painter in the country to whom an architect could safely Mural Painting in America 61 have intrusted an important scheme of decoration in its entirety. Moreover, La Farge has always been too much of an investigator and experimenter to adapt himself to the "driving hurry" of American methods, and further- more he very soon turned aside into a special department of decoration, that of decorated windows. How in this direction he proved himself to be an original genius, sub- stituting for the usual stained glass the use of opalescent glass, until gradually a new kind of window, distinguished by richness and subtlety of color, was evolved, is a story of intense interest but not strictly belonging to out present one of painted decorations. Yet an allusion to it was nec- essary to explain one of the reasons that interfered with La Farge's continuing the r61e in which he had already qualified as a painter who could undertake and carry through an ensemble of mural decoration. There was still another reason. When he was in the prime of his vigor, the period of opportunity in the shape of great public buildings had scarcely begun, and by the time that it was fairly afoot the architects were from the cir- cumstances of the case, not only the initiators but the controllers of the movement. The event from which this movement has gone on ad- vancing with steadily increasing bulk and momentum was the World's Fair at Chicago. Previously to this there had been divers instances of mural decoration in the pri- vate houses of the rich, and at least one public building, the new Hotel Ponce de Leon at St Augustine, had been elaborately decorated, while the trustees of the Boston Public Library had already given commissions for mural paintings to the French artist, Puvis de Chavannes, and to Sargent and Abbey. But the effect of this and other sporadic efforts was multiplied ad infinitum by the con- solidated grandeur of the "White City." It was an 62 The Fine Arts object lesson the virtue of which, though it has been fre- quently described, may well be continually enforced. It taught, in the first place, the desirableness and the commercial value of beauty. The shrewd, large-minded citizens of a city which is essentially the product and assertion of commerce discovered that they could give expression to their own local pride and attract business from outside, not only by following the old crude idea of attempting ".the biggest show on earth," but by trying to make it the most beautiful. They succeeded; for while millions of tired bodies testified to the former, as many hearts were gladdened and as many imaginations stimu- lated by the presentation of the latter motive. In the second place, it exhibited the mutual interde- pendence of the arts of construction and design; the value of combination. Buildings which might have been con- structed solely with a view to separate utility, were treated also as monuments of architectural design, enriched by sculpture and painting, borrowing extra dignity from one another, and placed in a worthy setting by the coopera- tion of the landscape designer. In a word, the natural beauties of the spot had been utilized and increased; formal features, such as terraces, fountains, and bridges, had been added, and the culminating motive had been the creation of a series of magnificent or alluring ensembles. The result was a triumph, alike for the architects and land- scape designers, for the various artists who cooperated in the details of the plan and for the capitalists of Chicago who permitted its inception and provided for its comple- tion. Scarcely more than a decade has elapsed since the pass- ing of that temporarily realized dream of artistic beauty, yet already, in thousands of instances throughout the country, its influence has borne fruit. It is true that its Mural Painting in America 63 biggest lesson has scarcely been recognized. Municipali- ties either are not as yet aroused to the value of a combina- tion of efforts into an ensemble or have not as yet had the courage or opportunity to realize it. There have been certain notable exceptions, as in the lay- ing out of water fronts in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, and in attention given to the regulation of the sky line of buildings, as in Boston; yet, notwithstanding these indications of a civic sense of pride and responsibility, little or nothing has been done toward an organic allevia- tion of the dire monotony of our gridiron street plans or toward a systematic treatment of such open spaces as they niggardly present. In failing to realize the value of ensembles, whether regarded as conveniences' or embellish- ments, we are still far behind the modern activities of the Old World cities. On the other hand, in respect of the separate building, asserting itself as an independent unit, the activities of this country during the past ten years have been phenomenal. It would be very interesting, if space permitted, to sketch the story of what our architects have accomplished; how in federal and state buildings, in city halls and libra- ries, in churches, hotels, office and trade buildings, and in city and country residences, the motives of utility and beauty have jointly inspired the design; how the skill of the architects, trained in the knowledge of the Old World, has displayed itself both in adopting the various styles and principles to the American requirement, and in inventing new methods of construction to comply with the special conditions that exist here. If adequately told, the story would have the interest and surprise of a romance. But for our present purpose, we can only note that the hand of the movement has been toward a superior logic and dignity of the character of the whole, and toward a more sump- 64 The Fine Arts tuous and at the same time more tactful use of embellish- ments in the details; and that in these latter the archi- tects have more and more enlisted the cooperation of the painters. During these ten years the practice of mural painting in America has spread rapidly. At first it found the majority of the painters unprepared for the particular requirements of this kind of painting. They had been trained in the principles of the easel picture, within the frame of which the painter may adopt any method of treatment which he chooses, intent solely upon making his picture an independent unit, complete and self-sufficient, and in its character not necessarily decorative. But a mural painting, on the contrary, does not fulfill the pur- poses of its existence unless it be decorative, and at the same time subsidiary to the general scheme of its sur- roundings, in which it does not occupy the position of a separate unit but of an integral factor. The character of its subject will partake of that of the building, solemn, serious, elegant, and sportive according to the spirit in which the architecture, attuned to the pur- pose of the building, has been planned; the character of its composition will be determined by the shape and position of the space that it is intended to adorn, the choice of it? color regulated to the prevailing color scheme of the inte- rior. In a word, the mural painting besides being decora- tive should be functional. The meaning of this may be readily grasped, if one re- members that the various parts of the architectural struc- ture are not used arbitrarily, but that each has its separate function to perform in the complex arrangement of sup- ports and resistances that make up the whole system. For example, in the rotunda of the Library of Congress, the eight ribs supporting the dome terminate in the broad, Mural Painting in America 65 smooth surface of the "collar," whose function it is to clamp them all together, and at the same time to form a support for the superincumbent cupola. Recognizing this, the decorator of the "collar," Edwin H. Blashfield, devised a composition which should form a compact and continuous circle of decoration, and simultaneously, by the introduction of eight principal figures, recall the eight ribs which the circle terminates. On the other hand, in the delivery room of the Boston Public Library, Edwin A. Abbey, commissioned to deco- rate the frieze, and choosing for subject the Quest of the Holy Grail, has ignored the function of a frieze which is to counteract the various interruptions down-below of win- dows, doors, and fireplaces by an effect of continuity and unity, and whereas he might have treated the space as a continuous whole or obtained a similar effect by dividing it into a series of panels that should succeed one another in a rhythmic sequence, has chopped it up into a variety of different measurements. The more strictly functional treatment of a frieze may be studied in the same building, in the fine example of John S. Sargent's "Prophets." In them, besides a collec- tive effect of continuity, we find the added charm of noble lines and dignity of simple masses, and, moreover, a choice of subject so readily comprehensible as to offer no inter- ference to one's immediate appreciation of the painting as a decoration. The panels above them, however, in the lunette and soffit of the arch, are confused in treatment. The forms are associated with a great deal of abstruse symbolism, unintelligent to most people, so that all but a few visitors mis s the docorative intention of the paintings and devote the greater portion of their study to the printed key. Sargent himself would seem to have realized that he has 66 The Fine Arts here overdone the literary allusiveness of his subject, for in his latest work, " The Dogma of Redemption," the sym- bolism is comparatively simple, and he has reverted also to simplicity of forms, largely basing his composition upon the examples of the old Byzantine decorators, in many respects the finest in the Western World. For their forms were very simple and simply handled; not modeled into relief, but kept as a pattern of masses, of colored masses harmonized into a rich tone, so that the whole painting was very flat, it clung to the wall, proclaimed the fact of the wall beneath, and was in a very strict sense mural. A consciousness of the value of such principles of paint- ing for the purpose of mural decoration is one of the notable characteristics of the panels by Puvis de Chavannes in the Boston Library. In the Library of Congress it has also prompted the method of Kenyon Cox. So far, in the mural paintings of America, there is little or no indication even of the modern, much less of the American, spirit. The opportunity is abundant, the in- spiration should be emphatic, but as yet our painters seem to have missed both. There are, however, hints of an attempt to compass our own environment. In his decoration in the Manhattan Hotel, New York, C. Y. Turner has represented the city in triumph, attended on the one hand by Indians and early colonists and on the other by various scientists who have been contributors to her progress. E. H. BJashfield also has commemorated Washington's relinquishment of au- thority, the steel industries of Pittsburg, and in the Capitol at St. Paul the agricultural triumphs of the West; while in the State House at Boston, subjects of historical import have been presented by Robert Reid and Edward Simmons. Yet I doubt if any of these mural paintings makes one's Mural Painting in America 67 blood run swifter. The motive of the last two is, with cer- tain decorative embellishments, of lighting and color in the case of Reid's and of line and mass in that of Simmons's, a realistic one, to represent the incident as it may have happened; while in the other examples there is a mingling of portraiture with ideal groups of figures. And from this it may be inferred that neither the realistic, illustrative motive, nor the symbolic, has any virtue or disability in itself; but that the ultimate result must depend entirely upon the presence or absence of creative force in the painter. And it is just this creative force, kindling itself with the fire of modern American conditions, pride and aspiration, that seems lacking. There is no lack of work, knowing and skillful in a purely decorative sense, by others besides those already men- tioned: by George R. Barse, Walter Shirlaw, Frank D. Millet, W. B. Van Ingen, Siddons Mowbray, Walter Mc- Ewen, George Mayward, W. de Liftwich Dodge, Frank Lathrop, Will H. Low, Robert V. V. Sewell, Frank W. Benson, and Henry Oliver Walker. The panels of the last named in the Library of Congress share with those of John W. Alexander in the same build- ing the largest amount of attention from the visitors. The reason, I think, is clear; both painters, just as Abbey did in Boston, whatever may have been their conscious motive, have produced what is practically a series of illustrations. Walker in his largest panel has represented the masses as a number of nude forms, charming in their gracious purity, grouped around the Pierian Spring, while the smaller spaces are filled with such subjects as the "Rape of Gany- mede" and the "Sleep of Endymion." Alexander, on the other hand, has taken for his theme the "Evolution of the Record " from the heaps of the stone age to the inven- tion of printing. The one series is ideally treated, the 68 The Fine Arts other literally; yet each, as I have said, is essentially illustrative. To assert this of their work is to condemn it in the eyes of some painters, who seem to forget how large a part of the Italian mural painting was illustrative both in fact and in intention. It made and was meant to make a vivid appeal to the popular interest. And why not now? It is objected that when the majority of people could not read, that visual way of reaching their sympathy and intelligence was perhaps necessary and therefore to be conceded as fit and proper. But it is extraordinary how little essential conditions change. Our present age is one of reading, of an insatiable hunger for reading; yet was there ever a time when there was so much illustration? Those whose business it is to keep a touch upon the public's pulse and diagnose the symptons of its tastes or diseases, according as you regard it, assert that it craves illustra- tions and must have them. Certainly, it gets them, and one hears no protest from it. That on the part of those who commission mural paint- ings demand does exist for some commemoration of the facts and conditions of our actual life, past and present, may be gathered from several recent works; for example, F. D. Millet's lunette, "The Treaty of the Traverse des Sioux," painted for the Minnesota State Capitol; C. Y. Turner's "Opening of the Erie Canal," for the De Witt Clinton High School; and Albert Herter's panels of "Agri- culture" and "Commerce," for the National Park Bank, New York. Each of these has the merit of being based upon a recognition of the importance of fact; each also represents the fact without any embellishment, or figura- tive embroidery of symbolism or allegory, which in itself is a courageous and timely thing to have done. Whether the sense of fact overpowers the feeling of deco- Mural Painting in America 69 ration I will not attempt to discuss here; merely raising the question as one that should affect our judgment of these panels as mural decorations. And to this another ques- tion may fairly be added: Does the manner in which the fact is represented stir our imagination to see beyond the fact and grasp at its significance, to discover, in a word, the soul within the fact? How this result may be achieved by a mingling of alle- gory with, fact may be seen in the panel of "Good and Bad Government," by Elihu Vedder, in the Library of Con- gress. Perhaps the most remarkable of the series is the one that illustrates corruption. I use the word advisedly, for there are two kinds of illustration: one that seeks to render, as it were, a literal translation, and the other that grasps the fact or idea as it may be stated in words, and reconstructs it into an interpretation of the text, having an independent and additional value of its own. The latter motive inspired this painter's famous illustrations of Omar Khayyam, probably the most notable in this inter- pretative, creative sense that have ever adorned an American publication. A similar capacity to take the written or spoken thought and make it live afresh in the terse, arresting comprehensiveness of a pictorial arrange- ment inspired these panels of Vedder's at Washington. I would cite especially the one that deals with Corrupt Government. The sleek respectability of the pious-faced briber, the slatternly wantonness of the women whom he prostitutes, the mute protest of the smokeless chimney- stack, the piteous appeal of the destitute haggard child — at a glance is revealed the hideous loathsomeness of the whole dirty business. It is the work of a man who has a mind to comprehend the fact, an imagination that can invest it with a new force of meaning, and who is a born decorator. 70 The Fine Arts These are unusual qualities, especially in combination, and the lack of them is too conspicuous in American mural decoration. Nowhere do conditions, present and past, offer more abundant suggestions to the imagination; and nowhere are mural painters receiving such encouragement of opportunity. Yet, with slight exceptions, they have not risen to the occasion. If we seek a reason, we may find it first- of all in the fact that the most of them are not decorators. The latter are born, not made; their gift is primarily one of exuberant inventiveness. Now American art, in all its branches, is so far singularly barren of originality. The painters have been trained in a good school, but one which did not include any separate consideration of mural decoration; nor in this direction is any real provision being made even now for younger students, notwithstanding that this offers them a very large field and a rich one. Moreover, our older men have not recovered from the paralyzing effects of the art for art's sake formula; taught in their youth to be afraid of an idea, their ability to conceive or express one has been stunted. They have nothing of the dare-devil in their conception. And there is another reason. The best development in our painting has been along the lines of the small canvas, intimately treated. The excessive influence of the Barbi- zon pictures, the preciosity that Whistler's example fos- tered, and the mild domesticity of American fiction, only now just yielding place to the romantic imagining of the red-blooded writers, have helped to confine our painting within very sincere but very limited methods of expres- sion. As compared with this propriety, which is the distin- guishing feature of American painting, the country itself presents a crudity of contrasts. A virility not without its Mural Painting in America 71 flavor of brutality characterizes the active life of the com- munity, while its leisure is gilded and brocaded with a luxuriousness that recalls the splendor of monarchical France or of imperial Rome. And underlying all the multifarious lights and shades of this surface showing is a depth of tremendous earnestness, of pride in the past and present, of confidence in the future of the race in which the light of personal and national possibility is without a paral- lel in history Some day, upon the walls of the buildings that embody this grandeur, there will be mural decorations which in magnitude of conception and splendor of decorative treat- ment will adequately represent the theme. PROGRESS IN AMERICAN PORTRAITURE 1 By ELIZABETH LUTHER CARY i HE present age is not one of great portraiture, and in America especially we have felt the absence of the long and patient technical drill in the art of painting which preceded the triumphs of the great portrait painters of the past. Nowhere, certainly, does insufficient training show more clearly than in this branch of art; the painter needs to know his craft so well that he can afford to forget it and concentrate his attention upon the truths he has to convey. He should be able to make us feel not only the modeling of the human form beneath its draperies, but the modeling of the human mind beneath the momentary expression. Unless he can do both he is not a portrait painter in the old, magnificent sense of the term as it was applied to Titian and Rembrandt and Van Dyck, or even to Gainsborough and Reynolds and Romney. But though we have not reached the point of produc- ing masterpieces worthy to stand with the consummate few, we have, during the last few years, shown portraiture of positive importance and of increasing promise. For one thing, we seem now to display a definite tendency, which for many years we lacked. We seem to be moving in the direction of the English rather than the Dutch, Flemish, or Italian ideal. In recent portraiture it is quite impossible to detect the influence of the stately 1 From "The Cosmopolitan Magazine." Copyright, 1909, by the International Magazine Company. 72 Progress in American Portraiture 73 and opulent Venetian or of the somber dreamer of Holland, but it is quite possible to find traces of the English eighteenth-century school. There is the same love of vivacity of expression and gesture, of decorative poses, and there are the same freedom and spontaneity of execution. Mr. Sargent is, of course, the most distinguished por- trait painter of this modern class — it is difficult to realize that he is now one of our older masters, so far in the front has he kept in point of style and method. For a number of years past his portraits have followed, for all their un-English competency and precision, the English tradition. In passing from the work of Mr. Sargent to that of Mr. Alexander we are conscious of a complete change in the point of view. Subtle rhythms of line and sim- plifications of color take the place of a brilliant staccato touch and the harmonious mingling of high-keyed blues and pinks and yellows. Nor are we often so poign- antly aware with Mr. Alexander as with Mr. Sargent of an intensity of interest in the personality of the subject — the kind of ferreting instinct that leads its owner straight to the lair of a significant trait, good or bad, and causes him to drag it in triumph to the fight. Nevertheless, it is obvious that Mr. Alexander's pleas- ure in the abstract qualities of art does not prevent his feeling a lively concern for the veracity of his report on human character. In one respect, and in one only, he resembles the English masters more closely than Mr. Sar- gent does. All his fair ladies are fair in truth; he manages to touch them all with a special grace, a special beauty, which brings them into a kind of kinship. But he does not neglect to search out, with a modest and guarded interrogation, their psychological features and to include 74 The Fine Arts these in his scheme of portraiture. He appears, indeed, to have grown increasingly interested in the personality of his sitters, and his later portraits are richly charac- terized. In the matter of decorative value joined to intelligent characterization Mrs. Albert Herter must be counted in the front ranks of American portrait painters. Her work is not widely known because it seldom appears in exhibitions, but when it does appear it wears a partic- ular and incontestable charm. The carefully considered disposition of the forms, the unaffected gesture, the agreeable weaving together of colors rich in themselves into a tissue of beautiful tone, the spirit and intelligence and variety in the expressions, go to make up portraiture dominated by that indefinable good taste which makes the difference between grace and affectation, and which we are not, perhaps, far wrong in finding characteristically American. But the American painter, thoroughly in earnest over his task, shows no disposition to make his work look less honest than it is. He takes no pains to impose upon it an appearance of simplicity, nor does he emphasize artifice. In contrast with the work of these painters, strongly diversified, yet holding in common a certain vigor of intention and freshness of vision, is Mr. J. J. Shannon's languid, decorous, and effective art. Although Mr. Shannon was born in this country his work has been so long identified with England and so little suggests American traits that to the larger part of his public he is an Englishman, an impression which will be deepened by his recent election to the Royal Academy. He has a happy manner of representing his sitters as wholly at their ease; they are never eager, never hurried, never Progress in American Portraiture 75 particularly interested in anything, always slightly with- drawn and always endowed with the look of breeding, the ability to produce which is one of the most valuable and one of the rarest qualities to be found among a painter's assets. The hands are apt to be charmingly drawn, and there is no vain pretense of giving them any- thing to do. Their limp beauty is half of the effect; and the faces are those of men and women who think and feel without betraying either emotion or thought except to their intimates. In the costumes a decent respect is shown for rich materials; the luster of satin is not that of silk, the lace is of the right weight and intricacy of pattern, the velvets are deep and soft, and the ornaments are touched in with an appreciation of their intrinsic as well as their pictorial value. It would be easy to think of Mr. Shan- non as a fashionable painter of little depth, so adroitly does he conceal the seriousness of his workmanship beneath a superficial preoccupation with the external aspect. One needs to know him well to gather from his discreet interpretations of the personalities before him the detached criticism of the contemporary social world that he embodies in his portraits. Mr. Funk also manages to convey a sense of light- hearted spontaneity in his execution, which hardly con- ceals, however, the fundamental soundness of his tech- nical training. Especially in his portraits of the last two or three years he has striven for and achieved the look of momentariness which contributes an agreeable gaiety and naturalness to his effects. Mr. W. T. Smedley's particular quality is that of human sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men. Confronted by a personality, however unmarked by sig- nificant characteristics, he succeeds in making of it not 76 The Fine Arts merely a type but an individuality appealing to our interest and usually to our liking. Of no portraitist is it truer that nothing human is alien to him. And when the subject, as in the portrait of his family, called "Book- lovers, " is one that especially rewards intimate research, his observation becomes peculiarly keen and penetrates below the superficial aspect to the living springs of char- acter. Mr. William Thome's work also shows interest in character, but an interest more subdued by decorative convention. His portrait heads are on the border- line between the ideal and the real, and his portraits of young girls invariably suggest beauty in the subject. The work of the late Louis Loeb was characterized in a very high degree by frankness and sincerity, in spite of the fact that imaginative and romantic subjects ap- pealed to him most strongly. In his portraiture his straightforward vision had its opportunity, and his paint- ings and drawings — particularly his drawings — of per- sons of distinctly marked character and temperament are valuable human records, distinguished by a certain gravity of manner curiously at variance with the wild freedom of the painter's imaginative compositions. At the opposite pole in sentiment, vision, and workman- ship is the portraiture of Mr. Dana Pond, in which the figure and features appear like evocations of spirits from the vasty deep and waver in a fluent atmosphere as if on the point of sinking again into the veiled obscurity from which they came. That the typical portrait of our modern school is psy- chological can hardly be denied, reluctant as many a modern artist would be to affirm it. The natural instinct of a good workman is to ignore all but his craftsmanship, and as a rule the artists who are most successful in search- Progress in American Portraiture 77 ing the depths of the human mind and temperament are least inclined to talk of anything beyond the technical side of their accomplishment. They disclaim interest in the moral and intellectual problems with which they are confronted in even the most commonplace of their sitters and are prodigiously interested in juxtapositions of color, in glazes, in anatomy, in brush strokes. [This is precisely as it should be. All that the greatest painter of this- or any other age can do is to set before us what he sees in his sitter, and his power of expression is what chiefly concerns him. Without the gift of ex- pression his seeing does little good to any but himself. But the power to see deeply and truly more often than is realized accompanies the power to produce a work of technical and aesthetic beauty. The scriptural promise, to him that hath much shall be given, is rarely more strikingly fulfilled than in the domain of art. Mr. Brownell, in a recently published article on Edgar Allan Poe, says of that arch-conjurer, "His aim was to mystify — one impossible to the mystic. " It is equally true that the aim of the moralist never is to moralize, nor does the reader of souls aim at publishing his dis- coveries. But, striving for beauty and lucidity, the artist is bound to reveal the extent of his own penetration and human sympathy. It provides the material with which he works; he builds up his image in the likeness of his vision, and if his vision is mean or defective his image will reveal the weakness. There is every indication that the younger American portrait painters who are preoccupied with technical problems, and are bent upon achieving competency of workmanship, let what will go to the wall, are also happily endowed with penetration. Among their later works one finds many interpretations of personality which 78 The Fine Arts attest a far from insignificant power of analysis and criticism in the painter. Even the slightest comment on the field covered by modern portraiture must include a word for the portraits of children which appear in increasing numbers in our annual exhibitions, and which constitute effective touch- stones of the efficiency of our painters. Almost invariably they are rewarding. The delicate psychology of a child presents every possible difficulty to an interpreter, and when we find such serious renderings as the child portraits of Mrs. Cox, Mr. Herter, Mr. Benson, Miss Cecilia Beaux, Mrs. Lydia Field Emmet, Mr. Smedley, we can not but regard it as a sign of promise for the future of American art. ARCHITECTURE AS A PROFESSION 1 By JOHN M. CARRERE JHE choice of a career is necessarily the turn- ing point in every man's life, and it is un- fortunate that a decision upon which his own happiness and his usefulness to his fellow men so largely depends should have to be made when he is immature and unable to decide for himself, and when he is so impressionable that he is easily influ- enced by others, whose judgment is not always to be depended upon. This is especially true if a young man is intending to prepare himself for a professional life which is of necessity restricted in its field of action and its opportunities for ultimate success. In architecture, perhaps more than in any other pro- fession, it is difficult for the would-be architect to decide wisely, because the nature of his studies and his duties in after life are so complex that it is not only perplexing for him to secure a full realization of the obstacles which he will have to overcome, but it is as hard for him or for his most intimate advisers to be sure that he is intellectu- ally, temperamentally, and physically qualified to make a good architect. If he should intend to adopt the ministry, the law, medicine, or engineering as a profession, or to follow a military or a naval career, or even if he were inclined to become a sculptor, painter, or musician, his natural incli- nation toward any one of these careers would probably 1 From "The Cosmopolitan Magazine." Copyright, 1903, by Inter- national Magazine Company. 79 80 The Fine Arts be well defined during his early life, and would have asserted itself during his school days. If he were a thoughtful young man, and were approaching the sub- ject seriously, he could, himself, or with the assistance of competent advisers, obtain a very complete idea of the profession which he was thinking of adopting — of its possibilities and limitations — and he would be in a position to decide with some certainty whether he was really fitted to undertake the task. 'The choice becomes very much more difficult in the case of architecture because of the wide range of knowl- edge which he will have to acquire to become a master in his profession. During the course of his practice he will be confronted with problems of law, with problems of engineering in all of the various branches which enter into a building, whether in matters of construction, heat- ing, ventilation, sanitation, acoustics, or other scientific problems. He will also be confronted with problems of color, mural decoration, and sculpture, and, though he may not be called upon to solve any of these problems personally, he must be prepared to assist in their solution, and to be the guiding mind that will decide to what extent com- promises, in any of these branches or in his architecture, will have to be made to bring them together harmoni- ously as one complete, useful, and beautiful whole. In addition to these problems, his knowledge of busi- ness will have to be sufficient to enable him to do justice to his client, whose money he is helping to invest, and to enable him also to manage his own office judi- ciously. In his relations to the contractors who will execute his work, he must possess sufficient judgment and experience to guide and direct, bearing in mind that each one of these men to whom he will have to issue Architecture as a Profession 81 instructions is making a life work of his specialty, and that most of them are unable to take into account the true relation of their work to the rest of the building. Their vision is limited to the execution of their particu- lar branch. The architect must therefore possess tact, in addition to knowledge and judgment, to enable him to obtain the confidence, not only of those who are working under him but of those who are working with him, and for whom he is working, so that at all times they will be willing to listen to his advice. He must also be sufficiently pliable and reasonable, to be willing to receive advice and to modify his views, to adapt them to new conditions and to personal preferences, and still maintain the standard of excellence or the ideal for which he is striving. But all of these considerations, however important they may be in their relation to the practice of architec- ture, are nevertheless subservient and secondary to the creative faculties which transform every structure, how- ever useful and solid it may be, into a work of architec- ture, and, in its highest sense, a work of art. When an architect is given a problem to solve, be it a residence, a commercial building, or a public monument, his first duty is to become intimately acquainted with every phase of his problem. The practical requirements must be fully understood and met in the solution of the problem, as the building would otherwise be without meaning; but the artistic conception — that is to say, the design in plan and elevation, of interior and ex- terior — must be made to express these practical- con- ditions which make the building necessary, in a manner that will be harmonious and beautiful, and a true expres- sion of the ideals to be obtained. His problem is similar to that existing in all creative 82 The Fine Arts work which consists in taking the conditions as they exist, and then expressing them in an idealized form; and the architect, to be an artist, must fully under- stand these conditions and be able to idealize them. The difficulties of his task from this point of view are greatly increased by the fact that he is not dealing with simple and direct problems, but that the solution of his problem is complicated by the many conditions surround- ing it, and also by the fact that he is dependent on the work of others, working under his direction, to express his thought in the completed building. The painter, the sculptor, the musician, or the man of letters conceives and executes his work, and presents it to you in the finished form. The architect conceives it, with all its complexities, and must then depend upon others to execute it under his direction. This brings us to a condition which is generally mis- understood — that the drawing which the architect pro- duces is not the ultimate end which he is seeking, but is only the means toward that end, and when the drawing has been produced, its real purpose is to convey the architect's thought to others, and to enable them in turn to execute the work as an expression of that thought. The architect must be a draftsman, in order to express his thoughts according to the accepted methods, and it goes without saying it is most essential, if his imagina- tion is not to be hindered, that he should be a facile draftsman. When the architect has conceived his scheme, and has carried it through the preliminary process of study and development to the point where the drawing is completed and ready for execution, his work is only half done, and the fact that the second half of the work is to be done by proxy makes his share in it all the more important. His Architecture as a Profession 83 drawings, however complete, can only be partial expres- sions of the finished work, and, even with the greatest experience and care, it is only by following the work from day to day, by modifying it as it progresses, to correct omissions or errors of judgment, that anything approaching perfection of design and execution can be obtained. In the days of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, the architect did less drawing. He was also the master builder. He probably did one thing at a time, and lived with it, and the very apt definition of an architect "as a modeler in materials" applies with special force to his work. In his imagination, at least, he had the opportunity to mold his work, and to see it before him as the sculptor sees his clay, and to have inti- mate association with every phase of the work, its crea- tion and actual execution. The fact -that the problems in those days were very much simpler, and few in variety, made each successive building practically a restudy of the preceding one, which undoubtedly accounts for the Parthenon and other buildings of unsurpassed beauty. It also accounts for the wonderful and intricate struc- tural developments of the Gothic period. It is much to be regretted that the conditions under which we are building to-day make it impossible for an architect to follow his work as closely and as intimately as the Greek and Roman architects had an opportunity of doing. This is a misfortune which the architect should minimize as much as possible by devoting every moment of his time, even at the sacrifice of other con- siderations, to following the execution of his work. Much of our modern work demonstrates the value of such supervision. We can daily see beautiful designs ruined in the execution, and indifferent designs made 84 The Fine Arts not only bearable but beautiful because of the wonder- ful care, intelligence, and art with which they have been executed. In selecting architecture as a profession, it is therefore necessary that the would-be student should be made to realize all the difficulties to which I have referred, and to appreciate the fact that, to make a successful archi- tect, he must master as many of these problems as pos- sible. His temperament and natural inclination will soon lead him in one direction or another, for it is hardly possible for any one man to master all of these problems equally well. The field of his work will probably extend over problems so widely differing in their character that association or collaboration may become necessary to ultimate success. When considered from the material point of view, or the possible profit to be made, the architect's opportunity of success is greatly increased by the very fact of the great variety of work within the range of architecture which presents itself for his selection, as he may develop efficiency in one of many directions, and by association with others may be able to meet every requirement of a successful architect of the present age. In my practice it has been my privilege to advise many young men about to embrace architecture as a profession and it has been my duty to guide others in their studies from the beginning to the point where they have become established, and sometimes in the course of their prac- tice. A few have been successful beyond measure; the others have drifted in one direction or another — accord- ing to their tendencies — but have found it possible, when not successful in the regular practice of the pro- fession, to drift according to their natural bent into occupations which were entirely congenial and where they have succeeded beyond their most sanguine expec- Architecture as a Profession 85 tations, owing to the fact that the professional knowl- edge which they had obtained was of immense value to them in their work. Considered from the material point of view, the finan- cial reward which the architect may expect is slight as compared with other professions. The amount of work which may be intrusted to him may be very large, but the commissions received by him will be modest in comparison to the responsibility involved, and to the attainments which he must have to fulfill them. The expenses of his organization are so large that the ulti- mate profit is comparatively small, and it may be truly said that no architect has become rich through the prac- tice of his profession. Yet it is equally true that in few professions is the practitioner more assured of a com- petency which will permit him to live in relative comfort, or to be happier in his work, than in the practice of archi- tecture. It seems to me that there are few occupations which are more attractive and where a man can enjoy his work more fully, no matter in what branch of the work he may be engaged. Every phase of the work is full of variety, novelty and interest; his association with his fellow men, whether working with them, or in his rela- tion as architect to client, or as architect to the work and those who are performing it, offers the fullest oppor- tunities for profitable and interesting intercourse and exchange of views. He is constantly in touch with things and with men, with new conditions and new problems to be solved, and every opportunity is offered to him, no matter how small his share may be in the work, of widen- ing his knowledge and experience, and improving his mind. His life is full of activity, and he is in touch with most of the activities around him. 86 The Fine Arts When he combines with the true nature of an artist good judgment, character, strong personality, the cour- age of his convictions, integrity, enthusiasm born of the true love for his art, he is bound to attain distinction, and achieve that sort of success which must have as much meaning to him as corresponding success can possibly have to men in any other profession. In achieving this success he has touched on more phases of human nature than is common with other professions, and his work is enduring as well as useful; it adds to the comfort and happiness of mankind, and during its execution it has been the means of furnishing a livelihood to the many employed thereon. The student of architecture has a long and tedious road to travel. His studies must be arduous and pro- tracted, and he will require both perseverance and cour- age to lead him to success. He must, in the first place, possess, as a foundation, a good general education before he begins to specialize; and, whether he will then imme- diately enter a school of architecture, and follow this step by a number of years of study and practice in an architect's office, and eventually drift to Paris, or to some other foreign school, ending his education by a period of travel, or whether he will arrange these studies — all of which are valuable and complementary to one another — in some other sequence, he must be prepared to devote eight or ten years of his fife to study and preparation before he can think of entering upon the independent practice of his profession with justice to himself or to his work. When a man once assumes the full title of architect, and hangs out his shingle, he may have the good for- tune to receive an important commission, and of making an immediate start and an early success, but this is the Architecture as a Profession 87 exception rather than the rule. He must expect to work on, patiently, and to be satisfied to have his practice and his reputation grow slowly, and not be too easily disappointed if the work does not come so fast as he might well wish to have it, or if other difficulties arise in his path. Even under the best of conditions he must expect disappointments, very frequently through no fault of his, from the necessity of working with people or for people whose views are rather narrow, whose ideals are rather low, and whose enthusiasm it is difficult to arouse; people who lack education, and who can not be easily made to appreciate the true value of the beautiful; people whose prejudices are so strong that, however reasonable you may be, or however earnestly you may strive to meet their views, are totally unsympathetic to your ideals. The architect must rise above these diffi- culties, realizing that in most cases his work is one of education, that the people for whom he is working have not had the same advantages that he has, and that only by gradual process of assimilation can they fully under- stand him, and eventually appreciate the possibilities of his art. But, on the other hand, he must be patient and recep- tive, and must endeavor to understand his client's point of view, and to assimilate everything that is good and personal and individual in it, and then put it into his work. What may be unreasonable prejudice on the part of an individual constitutes public opinion when held by the public at large, and, though it is his duty to mold public opinion, to guide, direct, and suggest, he must not make the mistake of ignoring public opinion to the extent of trying to work against a well-defined public prejudice or in spite of it. In architecture, as in every other calling, influence and 88 The Fine Arts position, as well as merit, will tell; and every sort of temptation to compromise with his judgment and his principles as a man and as an artist will also be thrown in the way of the architect, but in the same measure the opportunity is given to him to assert his character, and to live up to his convictions, never compromising with his ideals, either for the sake of personal gain or for that sort of applause which can be but temporary and with- out true value. It is natural that temperament and natural ability should have much to do in determining in what field of work the architect is capable of making his greatest success, whether in the picturesque or the monumental; whether with problems more or less practical in their character, or those which are more or less ideal in their purpose, and to this extent it is legitimate that an archi- tect should specialize. Any other specialization is un- justifiable and unwise, as we can see from the very unsat- isfactory results so far produced. Nothing, I believe, is less attractive and less architectural in its true sense, whether from the practical or artistic point of view, than most of our railway stations, churches and theaters, which are essentially the work of so-called specialists. The position of the architect as a professional man to-day is recognized as the equal of that of any other professional man. His opinion as an expert is not sought so often as it should be, but his advice is becoming better appreciated by private individuals, business men, municipalities, and the Federal Government. It is some- what surprising that he has not yet been duly recognized when public honors are to be conferred, but the time will surely come before long when the architect will receive all of the recognition and honors to which he is duly entitled. It can not fail to be otherwise, when our Architecture as a Profession 89 most distinguished architect has received the greatest honors that can be conferred by a foreign government but has not as yet been adequately recognized in his own country. At the International Congress of Architects held in Belgium recently, the architect was officially denned as "an artist, a gentleman, and a man of affairs." In my humble judgment, this comes very near to describing the ideal man, and to recommending architecture as an ideal profession. THE ALHAMBRA 1 By HENRY W. LONGFELLOW r S this reality and not a dream? Am I indeed in Granada? Am I indeed within the walls of that earthly paradise of the Moorish kings? How my spirit is stirred within me! How my heart is lifted up! How my thoughts are rapt away in the visions of other days! Ave, Maria purissima! It is midnight. The bell has tolled the hour from the watchtower of the Alhambra; and the silent street echoes only to the watchman's cry, Aye, Maria purissima! I am alone in my cham- ber, sleepless, spellbound by the genius of the place, entranced by the beauty of the star-lit night. As I gaze from my window, a sudden radiance brightens in the east, It is the moon, rising behind the Alhambra. I can faintly discern the dusky and indistinct outline of a massive tower, standing amid the uncertain twilight, like a gigantic shadow. It changes with the rising moon, as a palace in the clouds, and other towers and battlements arise, — every moment more distinct, more palpable, till now they stand between me and the sky, with a sharp outline, distant, and yet so near that I seem to sit within their shadow. Majestic spirit of the night, I recognize thee! Thou hast conjured up this glorious vision for the votary. Thou hast baptized me with thy baptism. Thou hast nourished my soul with fervent thoughts and holy aspi- rations, and ardent longings, after the beautiful and the 1 From " Outre Mer," by permission of Houghton, Mifflin Company. 90 The Alhambra 91 true. Majestic spirit of the past, I recognize thee! Thou hast bid the shadow go back for me upon the dial plate of time. Thou hast taught me to read in thee the present and the future, — a revelation of man's destiny on earth. Thou hast taught me to see in thee the principle that unfolds itself from century to century in the progress of our race, — the germ in whose bosom lie unfolded the bud, the leaf, the tree. Generations perish, like the leaves of the forest, passing away when their mission is completed; but at each succeeding spring, broader and higher spreads the human mind unto its perfect stature, unto the fulfillment of its destiny, unto the perfection of its nature. And in these high revelations, thou hast taught me more, — thou hast taught me to feel that I, too, weak, humble, and unknown, feeble of purpose and irresolute of good, have something to accomplish upon earth, — like the falling leaf, like the passing wind, like the drop of rain. O glorious thought! that lifts me above the power of time and chance, and tells me that I can not pass away, and leave no mark of my existence. I may not know the purpose of my being, the end for which an all- wise Providence created me as I am, and placed me where 1 am; but I do know — for in such things faith is knowl- edge — that my being has a purpose in the omniscience of my Creator, and that all my actions tend to the com- pletion, to the full accomplishment, of that purpose. Is this fatality? No. I feel that I am free, though an infinite and invisible power overrules me. Man pro- poses and God disposes. This is one of the many mys- teries in our being which human reason can not find out by searching. Yonder towers that stand so huge and massive in the midnight air, the work of human hands that have long 92 The Fine Arts since forgotten their cunning in the grave, and once the home of human beings immortal as ourselves, and filled like us with hopes and fears, and powers of good and ill, — are lasting memorials of their builders; inanimate mate- rial forms, yet living with the impress of a creative mind. These are landmarks of other times. Thus, from the distant past the history of the human race is telegraphed from generation to generation, through the present of all succeeding ages. These are manifes- tations of the human mind at a remote period of its history, and among a people who came from another clime, — the children of the desert. Their mission is accomplished, and they are gone; yet leaving behind them a thousand records of themselves and of their ministry, not as yet fully manifest, but "seen through a glass darkly," dimly shadowed forth in the language, the character, and manners, and history of the nation, that was by turns the conquered and the conquering. The Goth sat at the Arab's feet; and athwart the cloud and storm of war streamed the light of oriental learning upon the Western world, — As when the autumnal sun, Through traveling rain and mist, Shines on the evening hills. This morning I visited the Alhambra, an enchanted palace, whose exquisite beauty baffles the power of language to describe. Its outlines may be drawn, its halls and galleries, its courtyards and its fountains, num- bered; but what skillful limner shall portray in words its curious architecture, the grotesque ornaments, the quaint devices, the rich tracery of the walls, the ceilings inlaid with pearl and tortoise shell? What language paint the magic hues of light and shade, the shimmer of the sunbeam as it falls upon the marble pavement, and The Alhambra 93 brilliant panels inlaid with many-colored stones? Vague recollections fill the mind, — images dazzling but un- defined, like the memory of a gorgeous dream. They crowd my brain confusedly, but they will not stay; they change and mingle, like the tremulous sunshine on the wave, till imagination itself is dazzled, bewildered, over- powered! What most arrests the stranger's foot within the walls of the Alhambra is the refinement of luxury which he sees at every step. He lingers in the deserted bath, he pauses to gaze upon the now vacant saloon, where, stretched upon its gilded couch, the effeminate monarch of the East was wooed to sleep by softly breathing music. What more delightful than this secluded garden, green with the leaf of the myrtle and the orange, and freshened with the gush of fountains, beside whose basin the night- ingale still woos the blushing rose? What more fanci- ful, more exquisite, more, like a creation of Oriental magic, than the lofty tower of the Tocador, — its airy sculpture resembling the fretwork of wintry frost, and its window overlooking the romantic valley of the Darro; and the city, with its gardens, domes, and spires, far, far below? Cool through this lattice comes the summer wind, from the icy summits of the Sierra Nevada. Softly in yonder fountain falls the crystal water, dripping from its marble vase with never-ceasing sound. On every side comes up the fragrance of a thousand flowers, the murmur of innumerable leaves; and overhead is a sky where not a vapor floats, — as soft and blue and radiant as the eye of childhood! Such is the Alhambra of Granada; a fortress, a palace, an earthly paradise, a ruin, wonderful in its fallen greatness! MODELING A COLOSSAL STATUE * By THOMAS BALL ]0T long before we left Florence, I read in an American paper that a project was on foot in Boston to erect in that city an equestrian statue of Washington. I immediately began to study the anatomy of the horse, intending on my return home, to make a model, hoping the commission might come my way. But I soon learned from another journal that a committee had been formed to raise money for the purpose of engaging Thomas Crawford to make the equestrian statue; upon which I gave up the idea I had contemplated. I never saw Crawford but once, and that was when he was passing through Florence for the last time, on his way to Paris; he called on me at my studio. I have always remembered his visit most pleasantly; not because he praised my work, but because his criticisms, from his kind manner, seemed to be com- pliments. He congratulated me upon my Napoleon and Allston, and left me feeling that I could work better and happier for having seen him. . . . I think it was in 1857 the news came of the death of poor Crawford, in consequence of which the idea of the equestrian statue was given up by its original projectors. Feeling quite sure it would come up again, I resolved that I would be prepared for such an event. The next year I had finished a model half life-size, which, when finished, pleased so much that the artists 1 From " My Three Score Years and Ten." Copyright, Boston, 1891, by Roberts Brothers. 94 Modeling a Colossal Statue 95 held a meeting, April 8, 1859, Benjamin Champney, chairman; William Willard, secretary; at which the fol- lowing resolutions were unanimously adopted: First, That it is desirable to adorn the metropolis of New England with an equestrian statue of Washington, to be erected in some suitable public place. Second, That the statue should be the work of a resi- dent artist, and should be cast in Massachusetts. Third, That the model of an equestrian statue of Washington by T. Ball is a work of great artistic ex- cellence, which, enlarged to colossal proportions and cast in bronze, would be an enduring honor to the city. Fourth, That a committee of ten be chosen for the purpose of procuring such a statue, executed by Thomas Ball, and placed by them on some appropriate site. Fifth, That we will heartily aid the Committee in any method which they may desire to raise funds for the object. By this time my big barn of a studio was about ready to be entered. It was simply a wooden shell, sixty by forty feet, and thirty feet high; built directly on the top of the ground, merely a few timbers being laid down for a foundation. A big turntable like those used on rail- roads for turning locomotives, and a derrick at one side, strong enough to lift the man off and on the horse if necessary, completed the studio equipments. The first time I entered, I had not been there an hour, before I heard a rap on the door. Upon opening it, I was met by a bright-looking boy who wished to know if I took pupils. I told him no; that I had never received pupils in my studio, although I was always happy to tell them anything and to impart to them any instruction in my power. He said he was very anxious to learn to model: he could not afford to pay much, but would give 96 The Fine Arts me all he could, if I would let him come. This I told him I must positively decline to do, as I was about to begin an important work which would occupy all my time and attention. At this he seemed so disappointed and begged so persistently that I finally told him I would think of it and let him know the next day. He had previously told me he had drawn a little; so I told him to bring his drawings with him when he returned. When he came back the next day, as his drawings looked promising, I told him if he would like to come to me for a year, I would do all I could to help him on, and charge him nothing; but if he would keep my studio tidy (which I never could) and attend to the fires, I would furnish his fuel, clay, and all his necessary studio utensils in a room by himself, which I had partitioned off as an ingresso to the big studio. Of course he was delighted, came, and remained with me the next four years on these terms. This boy was Martin Millmore, the future sculptor of the Soldiers' Monument on Boston Common. The Washington statue was modeled in plaster instead of clay, for the reason that I knew it would be impossible to keep the temperature of the studio above freezing- point during the coldest winter nights. I had a melan- choly proof of this after I entered. I had modeled a bust of a lady nearly to completion without accident; but there came a cold snap, and although I wrapped it up as warmly as possible, one morning upon uncovering I found it frozen solid; and when it thawed, all the prom- inent features — the nose, the ears, and the back hair — dropped off, and I was obliged to do it all over again. This would have been a serious affair with my colossal; but, fortunately, plaster, although a most obstinate material to manage, is not injured by freezing, and will stay where you leave it, and as you leave it, without a Modeling a Colossal Statue 97 thought about its drying other than that it may do so as quickly as possible. Now, a few words as to my method of proceeding may not be without interest to the general reader, and advan- tage to the artist who may have to model a colossal in plaster with as little previous experience as I had had. He may get some hints from my inventions, the children of my necessities. Screwed firmly to my platform was an iron post, about ten feet high and four or five inches square; a horizontal timber, about the length of the body of the horse, rested upon the top of the iron post, which entered and passed through the middle of it, the two forming a T, — the timber intended to lie along just under the lowest part of the back, and together with the iron post support the entire weight. I then formed of plaster a series of rough slabs, ten inches wide, three inches thick, and in the form of a half-circle of the diameter of the body of the horse. As soon as they were hard, I simply hung them up — a dozen on each side — to the timber, their lower ends coming together under the belly, supporting each other till I could join them with plaster. Thus I had a hollow cylinder, the ends of which I closed in the same manner, forming a foundation upon which to build the "barrel" of my horse. I next drew on the floor the outlines of the legs in their right proportions and positions; bending a strong iron to lay in the middle of each leg, I raised them about an inch from the floor, with a bit of plaster under each end, then filled in the outlines with plaster, covering the irons over and under, — these irons long enough to project six or eight inches under the hoof and over the top, to enter the plinth below and the barrel above. In this way I had the legs solidly roughed out, with an iron exactly in the 98 The Fine Arts middle of each, and ready to be placed under the horse. Of course, my small model told me where to place the hoofs. After this the building up of the neck and head of the horse was a simple matter. Now the modeling began in earnest; and when I tell you that this whole colossal group, and at least one-third more plaster wasted, passed through a two-quart bowl, you can imagine how that bowl and spoon had to work, and how many miles I must have walked backward and forward the length of my studio. My barrel of plaster — I forget how many dozen I used in the course of the work — I kept at one extreme end of the room, while the statue was fifty feet away at the other. Every bowlful was mixed with one eye on the distant group. I had half a minute after each mixing, while it was partially "setting," to study my work at this distance, and determine where this bowl- ful was to go, for it must be put on rapidly or be wasted. As the work approached completion, this operation became more complicated; after finding at a distance the exact spot that required the little addition, I must walk up with my eye fixed upon it, and with a bit of charcoal on the end of a long stick mark the spot that could not be discovered at close quarters; then plant my ladder, and mix my plaster now in smaller quantities than at first, and when ready, climb up and spread it on quickly. At this stage of the work, the large mass having become dry, the small quantities added each day would dry during the night, and be in good condition to work on with rasps and scrapers the next day. Oh, how I did then long for some of Friend Powers's perforated files! Having given you a pretty good insight (if I have written intelligibly) into the manner of building the horse, I will now say a few words in regard to the man. Modeling a Colossal Statue 99 When the horse was well advanced toward the finish, the saddle in its place and ready to receive the General, I took a quantity of hay, and having twisted it into a long wisp, threw it across the saddle, bringing it down in each side to the length and into the position his legs were to occupy, forming a core upon which to build them, as it was expedient to make all parts that required no great strength hollow, to avoid unnecessary weight. After having oiled the saddle, that the new plaster might not adhere to it, I spread plaster over the hay, roughed out the legs, and went on to build up from the saddle, hollow, the "torso," covering it in at the shoulders, and making the arms in the same manner as the legs. In this way I had the entire figure of the man blocked out hollow. This when dry I could lift with my derrick off the horse, and lower to the floor for the better convenience of modeling the head, which of course was posed while the figure was on the horse. As I have before said, this barn of a studio was sixty feet long, and, on the whole, very conveniently arranged with a big folding-door at the end. I could walk off fifty feet from my group in the studio; and by opening these big doors retreat as far again into the grounds, so that I had ample distance to view my work and to judge properly of the effect. I had some difficulties to encounter, however; the principal one being the impossi- bility of heating such a shell in winter. It was with the greatest effort at times that I could raise the temper- ature above the freezing point. Another annoyance I had to meet when the statue was nearly completed, but which was, however, happily remedied. At this time (during the civil war) rifles were of course in great demand for our Government troops, and the well-known Cheney Brothers had built on these 100 The Fine Arts grounds a temporary structure for proving the strength of the rifle barrels which they were manufacturing. They would lay out a battery of these barrels, two or three hundred at a time, all loaded to the muzzle, and fire them all off at once, making a terrific explosion. On the first trial of this battery the concussion was so severe that my great barn was shaken as if by an earthquake, and every leg of my horse resting on the ground was cracked through the middle. There was no danger of its falling, but it gave me a good deal of trouble to repair the damage. A few days after, another crash came, with the same effect upon the legs of my poor horse. The Cheneys hearing of this came into the studio, to witness for themselves the effect of the next explosion. They were perfectly satisfied, and like the perfect gentlemen they were, insisted upon sending men capable of moving the statue into the middle of the room, and replacing it on an independent foundation; which they did in a masterly manner, isolating it from the floor of the studio by a space of two inches all round it. After this, the old studio could quake to its heart's content; which I rather enjoyed, as long as the statue stood firm and independent. There were several brothers of these Cheneys, but I had the pleasure of knowing only the two artists, John and Seth; the former one of the best steel-engravers in the country, and Seth — what angelic female portraits he used to make with a bit of charcoal or crayon! I well remember his deep-set, dreamy eyes, that seemed ever studying the angels while he still walked the earth. I remember, too, his kind criticism of my first work, — the Webster head, — and of meeting his wife, Mrs. Ednah Dow Cheney, a few days after, and her telling me Modeling a Colossal Statue 101 that Seth feared he had not said enough in praise of my work when he visited me. I have always kept a particularly soft corner in my heart, where I treasure up the criticism of such men as Cheney, Fuller, Allston, Crawford, and Powers. How often these dear old friends have stepped in and made me forget, almost, what I was telling you about! Well, so I worked away for upward of three years, all sole alone, — for I could not endure the presence of any one in the room with me, not even a laborer to move my ladder and steps back and forth. I had a great deal of this to do, I assure you, as I at no time permitted myself the luxury of a staging; for I must see my work at any and every moment from a distance, free from the obstruction of any intervening object; conse- quently, I was continually mounting and descending and traveling back and forth. Here I found one great advan- tage in plaster over clay for such a work; and that was, that I could plant my ladder against the side of my horse as if it were a house, without fear of damage. I soon became quite expert at changing my step- ladders; one ten feet high, which at first I could scarcely move, in a very little while I was able, by stepping behind and taking it upon my back, to convey to any part of the studio with the greatest ease. So that at the end, by the aid of these gymnastic exercises, I came out much stronger in the arms and back, but weaker in the knees; in fact, for more than a year afterward I could feel, and fancy I could hear, them creak every time I went upstairs. It may seem strange that I did not employ some manual assistance all this time; but as I said before, I could not endure the presence of any one, not even my pupil, when I was at work. And then, again, I felt a (perhaps foolish) 102 The Fine Arts jealousy that any other hand but my own should touch or have anything to do with this work. When the model was entirely finished and to be seen in my studio, it created a decided sensation. You must remember that the stay-at-home Bostonians had never seen, an equestrian statue, and those who had traveled, never one in the studio where it was modeled, and where it appeared twice as large as it ever would again. The children of all the public schools visited the studio in procession, each school in its turn. I wonder how many of them remember it, or what their sensations were at the time, now that they are men and women ; or whether they ever think of their visit, or notice the statue as they pass to and from their daily vocations. It delights me now occasionally to hear a visitor to my studio in Florence say that he or she was among those school children. There! I have said quite enough about this statue. I trust you have been able to follow me with interest ; but nothing I have said or can say will affect its merits one way or the other. There it stands, with all its faults, to speak for itself. The principal life model I had for my horse was "Black Prince," belonging to T. Bigelow Lawrence, Esq., who most kindly sent him to me by his groom as often as I wanted him. But I neglected no opportunity outside of my studio to study the action of the horse, leading sometimes to awkward mistakes in regard to my mental condition. On my way to the studio every morning I passed a club stable on Tremont Street, and made a practice of going in for a few moments to study the horse that Pat happened to be rubbing down at the time, and so refresh my memory for the work of the day. As the big door stood open to the street, I did not think it necessary to say anything, but silently walked about Modeling a Colossal Statue 103 the horse, occasionally feeling of the muscles, when my eyes were in doubt, not thinking how absurd it must look to Patrick, or supposing that he took any notice of me. But one day I met the proprietor of the stable, who said he had a capital joke for me, and related it as follows: "The other morning, when you were going out as I came in, Pat asked me if I knew ' that gintleman. ' ' Oh, yes,' I said. 'Ah,' said he, 'he isn't right in his head, poor fellow!' 'Why do you think so?' 'Well, he comes in here ivery morning, and no matter what hoss I have out, he walks round and round him, and looks at him all over, and watches his huffs ivery step he takes, and he fales of him all over, and niver a word does he say. Yes- terday, when I had Ould Whitey out, I thought he niver would be done gazing at him. Then I made bowld to tell him that we had better-looking hosses than that in the stable. "Yes, I know," he said; "but they are not white, and I can't see the muscles so well." And I made up me mind that a man that could n't see a hoss that was n't white, without faling of him, must either be blind or cracked; and he is n't blind."' Speaking of horses reminds me that when I was passing through Via Cerretani, a magnificent-looking span of horses attached to a private carriage came prancing along, tossing their heads and tails about in the most conceited manner. But pride, that goes before a fall, failed to give them warning, and the smooth pavement caused the feet of one of them to slip from under him, and down he went, tripping his companion, who followed him to the ground; and as they both fell out, their legs became very much mixed. In an instant the driver and footman were off their box and at the horses' heads, and in another a crowd had collected. As if by magic, a 104 The Fine Arts man appeared with a bundle of straw, which he threw down among the feet of the horses, to prevent their injuring each other; then the harness was unbuckled and the carriage moved back, when two strong men took hold of the head of the horse that first fell, and another stalwart fellow seized hold of the tail, in order to draw him out bodily from his mate. When all was ready the word was given, "Ora! insieme!" and with one terrible wrench — oh, horror of horrors! — the beautiful tail came out in the man's hand as if by the roots. A shudder- ing thrill ran through the open-mouthed crowd; but the next moment a howl went up that wakened every echo in the neighborhood and started up a flock of pigeons from the roof of the palace opposite; for lo! the stump was there intact and firm, but bare as a rat's tail! That beautiful switch had been skillfullyattached to the crupper of the harness, proving that not all flowing tails are to be depended upon, any more than all fashionable ladies' chignons. I had intended to depart again for Italy as soon as my equestrian was done; but I found that at the time the premium on gold was so high — every dollar costing two and a half or more — I should be obliged to post- pone my departure till the next year. In the meantime> as there was no money in the treasury of the committee, Mr. Mossman came on from the Ames Foundry in Chico- pee, — where the statue was to be cast, — and cut the model in pieces, fitting them with the greatest precision as he proceeded, ready to be molded without loss of time, and also for convenience of packing and trans- ferring to the foundry. When this was done and the parts packed in. a dozen or more cases, they, together with a load of my old canvases, frames, easels, and other painting utensils and furniture of my old profession, Modeling a Colossal Statue 105 were all carted over to Beacon Street to the private stable of Mr. Turner Sargent, who generously tendered the use of two large rooms to the committee for that purpose. I was now making my arrangements to leave as soon as exchange should be low enough to warrant me in so doing, when I was applied to to furnish models for three figures for the front of the new Horticultural Building, then in process of construction. These I declined, as they were required immediately, and I did not wish to delay further my departure. My pupil Millmore, know- ing this to be the case, asked me if I would object to his trying to get them. I told him certainly not, and that I would recommend him, — which I did; and before I left he had the contract drawn up and signed in my studio. This was his first commission, and it proved a most fortunate launch in his profession. STAINED GLASS By SOMERS CLARKE r N these days there is a tendency to judge the merits of stained glass from the standpoint of the archaeologist. It is good or bad in as far as it is directly imitative of work of the four- teenth or fifteenth century. The art had reached to a surprising degree of beauty and perfection in the fifteenth century, and although under the influence of the Renais- sance some good work was done, it rapidly declined, only to lift its head once more with the revived study of the architecture of the Middle Ages. The burning energy of Pugin, which nothing could es- cape, was directed towards this end, but the attainment of a mere archaeological correctness was the chief aim in view. The crude draftsmanship of the ancient craftsman was diligently imitated, but the spirit and charm of the origi- nal was lost, as, in a mere imitation, it must be. In the revival of the art, whilst there was an attempt to imitate the drawing there was no attempt to reproduce the qual- ity of the ancient glass. Thus, brilliant, transparent, and unbroken tints were used, lacking all the richness and splendor of color so characteristic of the originals. Under these conditions of blind imitation the modern worker in stained glass produced things probably more hideous than the world ever saw before. Departing altogether from the traditions of the medie- val schools, whether ancient or modern, there has arisen another school which has found its chief exponents at Munich. The object of these people has been, ignoring 106 Stained Glass 107 the conditions under which they must necessarily work, to produce an ordinary picture in enameled colors upon sheets of glass. The result has been the production of mere transparencies, no better than painted blinds. What, then, it may be asked, are the limiting conditions imposed upon him by the nature of the materials, within which the craftsman must work to produce a satisfactory result? In the first place, a stained glass window is not an easel picture. It does not stand within a frame, as does the easel picture, in isolation from the objects surrounding it, it is not even an object to be looked at by itself; its duty is not only to be beautiful, but to play its part in the adorn- ment of the building in which it is placed, being subordi- nated to the effect the interior is intended to produce as a whole. It is, in fact, but one of many parts that go to produce a complete result. A visit to one of our medieval churches, such as York Minster, Gloucester Cathedral, or Malvern Priory, church buildings which still retain much of their ancient glass, and a comparison of the unity of effect there experi- enced with the internecine struggle exhibited in most buildings furnished by the glass painters of to-day, will surely convince the most indifferent that there is still much to be learned. Secondly, the great difference between colored glass and painted glass must be kept in view. A colored glass win- dow is in the nature of a mosaic. Not only are no large pieces of glass used, but each piece is separated from, and at the same time joined to, its neighbor by a thin grooved strip of lead which holds the two. "Colored glass," says the author of "Industrial Arts," " is obtained by a mixture of metallic oxides whilst in a state of fusion. This coloring pervades the substance 108 The Fine Arts of the glass and becomes incorporated with it." 1 It is termed "pot metal." An examination of such a piece of glass will show it to be full of varieties of a given color, uneven in thickness, full of little air bubbles and other accidents which cause the rays of light to play in and through it with endless variety of effect. It is the exact opposite to the clear sheet of ordinary window glass. To build up a decorative work (and such a form of ex- pression may be found very appropriate in this craft) in colored glass, the pieces must be carefully selected, the gradations of tint in a given piece being made use of to gain the result aimed at. The leaded "canes" by which the whole is held together are made use of to aid the effect. Fine lines and hatchings are painted as with "silver stain," and in this respect only is there any approach to enameling in the making of a colored glass window. The glass mosaic as above described is held in its place in the window by horizontal iron bars, and the position of these is a matter of some importance, and is by no means overlooked by the artist in considering the effect of his finished work. A well-designed colored glass window is, in fact, like nothing else in the world but itself. It is not only a mosaic; it is not merely a picture. It is the honest outcome of the use of glass for making a beautiful window which shall transmit light and not look like anything but what it is. The effect of the work is obtained by the con- trast of the rich colors of the pot metal with the pearly tones of the clear glass. We must now describe a painted window, so that the dis- tinction between a colored and a painted window may be clearly made out. Quoting from the same book as before: "To paint glass the artist uses a plate of translucent 1 "Industrial Arts," — "Historical Sketches," p. 195, published for the Committee of Council on Education. Chapman and Hall. Stained Glass 109 glass, and applies the design and coloring with vitrifiable colors. These colors, true enamels, are the product of metallic oxides combined with vitreous compounds called fluxes. Through the medium of these, assisted by a strong heat, the coloring matters are fixed upon the plate of glass. " In the painted window we are invited to forget that glass is being used. Shadows are obtained by loading the sur- face with enamel colors; the fullest rotundity of modeling is aimed at; the lead and iron so essentially necessary to the construction and safety of the window are concealed with extraordinary skill and ingenuity. The spectator perceives a hole in the wall with a very indifferent picture in it — overdone in the high lights, smoky and unpleasant in the shadows, in no sense decorative. We need concern ourselves no more with painted windows; they are thor- oughly false and unworthy of consideration. JOHN LA FARGE'S WORK IN STAINED GLASS By CECILIA WAERN >HEN John La Farge began to turn his attention to improving the state of decorative art in America, he found that if he wished to include windows in his scheme he must give his per- sonal attention to the making of their material from the beginning. By working with his own hands, like the art- ist of an older day, and by means of many patient experi- ments, carried out in pursuance of a logical plan and not merely the result of chance, he succeeded in rediscovering certain processes, and inventing others in which his une- qualed power as a colorist found full expression. His ear- liest efforts were entirely successful, and his first windows as good as anything he has done since. If novelty in methods of art allows the artist to carry out more thoroughly the principles that underlie his art, then that novelty is a laudable one, it is an improvement, because while presenting what is new it keeps, or should keep, what is best of the old. A certain resemblance to ancient art, as well as extreme novelty in his work, discon- certed many people, but soon it was recognized and admired, and at once imitated by every worker in glass; so much so that there has not been an important example of this art produced by others since he began to work which does not, consciously or unconsciously, derive much of its merit from inspirations and processes which he orig- inated. To use the words of the artists who judged the 110 John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 111 window which he exhibited at the French Exhibition of 1889, and for which he was given the Legion of Honor: "His work can not be fully gauged here, where a single window represents a name the most celebrated and widely known in our sister republic. He is the great innovator, the inventor of opaline glass. He has created in all its details an art unknown before, an entirely new industry, and in a country without traditions he will begin one fol- lowed by thousands of pupils filled with the same respect for him that we ourselves have for our own masters. The share in this respect is the highest praise that we can give to this great artist." The history of the difficulties and circumstances that led to the invention is best given in the artist-workman's own words: "It was only in 1872, during a trip to Europe, that I thought much again of the question of decoration, that is to say, in so far as returning to its practice. I had naturally taken a great interest, both in early days and up to that date, in the English Pre-Raphaelite school begun by Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti, and at that time (in 1873) distinguished by Mr. Burne-Jones. I saw then something of their work and their methods in stained glass, and the ancient medieval glass again became a sub- ject of interest. " I happened on my return home to be asked by an archi- tect for the design of a stained glass window. I thought that I had noticed in 1873, in the work of the English artists in stained glass, that they seemed to have come to the end of their rope, and that their work in glass had ceased im- proving; and it seemed to me that the cause of this was mainly because the designers had become separated from the men who made the actual windows. I do not mean separated in sympathy, but that they no longer followed 112 The Fine Arts the mechanism now that they had learned it, and conse- quently that whatever they did was only expressed in the manner that had first been used for their designs. More- over, they made designs for the drawing, not for the result, thus giving beautiful designs and poorer results. "It occurred to me if I made a design for stained glass to be carried out in this country, I should follow the entire manufactufe, selecting the colors myself, and watching every detail. ... I attempted then to carry out the first design which suited the architect — and I found at once that the most ordinary English methods were all that were known, and that they were carried out in a vastly inferior manner. There were no good painters on glass, even of a fairly low degree, and the choice of glass was extremely limited. We received here only the poorer and less artistic samples of material, the better being carefully culled by the good European workers, and, moreover, as all importations were commercial, they were made, as they are always made, to appeal to the largest and widest mediocrity of taste. " I had struggled with the making of my window, hoping by ingenious balances of tones and color to meet this ques- tion of a small range of colors and material, and also by what is called 'plating,' that is to say, placing one glass upon another, so as to enrich my stock of tones. The results were not successful, to my mind, though they were enough to interest me, and to make me believe that a good deal could be done by two factors — the one a very careful designing of the leads which link the glass together, so that the general pattern involved a handsome arrange- ment of lead lines; the other factor, the use of complemen- tary color contrast, through which contrast the shadows and half tones and modeling of the figure and background were to be obtained, increased in range by this system of John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 113 'plating' or 'double' glasses. All this I had tried to use in my windows, thereby obtaining a certain character, but the difficulty of proper painting to supply gradation in the glass limited me at the very moment when I tried to get away from the very baldest methods of pictorial effect. "I had abandoned the matter for a time, when the late H. H. Richardson, the great architect, came to me with a project for painting Trinity Church, in Boston, which he had just built. I had, to make all the designs and carry out the execution of the decoration of this very big church, only four months. As Mr. Richardson was a friend, and believed in me, and hoped for something new from me, I undertook the work and carried it out upon novel lines, all of which new directions, however, I believed to be inti- mately connected with past work. Only the old methods would have been too inferior in every particular, because of the extraordinary want of time, because of having no trained workmen, and no trained artists to assist me. . . . " Though I knew beforehand that I must be dissatisfied with the result, I was comforted with the portion of success which I attained, and by the feeling that the proper way to do work was to make it meet the necessities of the country, and, if necessary, to invent such methods as would be needed. If others were used they would be necessarily inferior to European work, because, all the way from the higher designs to the last workman, we should be on a lower level, incapable of comparison with the higher. I made also for this church a certain number of designs for glass in the uppermost windows (a height of eighty feet), designs that I thought could be carried out fairly well, because at that height mere general lines and masses might be used, and the problem would so come more to a certain resemblance to medieval work. I tried, also, by painting a grisaille window, to see what effect methods of using 114 The Fine Arts mere varying opacities of paint in lines of different sizes might secure, but I had not any distinct wish to go on with glass. . . . "During the same year which had seen me busy with Trinity, I was ill, and during my illness amused myself by combining various tones of glass by plating. My mind reverted again to the poverty of the material itself as fur- nished us, when, looking at some toilet articles made of what is called ' opal glass/ in imitation of china, I noticed the beauty of quality which accompanied this fabric. I mean only in the unsuccessful pieces, which alone are opalescent. I also saw that when alongside of colored glass (what we call 'pot metal' or the usual stained glass), the opalescent quality brought out a certain harmony due to its suggestion of complementary color; that mysterious quality it has of showing a golden yellow, associated with violet ; a pink flush brought out on ground of green. " It seemed to me that all that was necessary to obtain the density which we made by painting, and at the same time be always within reach of a color harmony, would be the having material of this kind, made first without color aid, and then with variations of color. Moreover, the infinite variety of modulations possible in glass of sim- ilar makes to the opal, allowed a degree of light and shade for each piece of glass which would not only give modeling, but also increase the depth of tone sufficiently at places to make the darker parts melt softly into the harsh lead line that binds each piece. "As soon as I was out of bed, I bought a quantity of objects made in this opal glass with the idea of cutting out from them various pieces. and trying them in ordinary windows. By chance some person asked me to design a window. This I carried out, and then I amused myself by replacing certain ones of the patterns that had the or- John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 115 dinary pot metal with these pieces of opal cut from the va- rious boxes and such like. The effect of a contrast of solid- ity with relative thinness, and the play of complementary tone suggested by the opal alongside of the other colors, was so pleasant that I felt convinced that here was a pos- sible new departure which would at least give me a hand- some material irrespective of what I hoped for beyond. . . . " I then began to work glass on a very small scale, with a single workman, in the same studio where I painted. I had noticed the difference of facility in the way of cutting the different shapes of glass, and how much this was affected by the materials, their density, their irregularity of construction, and their surfaces. I felt all the more like carrying out the making of opal glass in different tones for use in windows. . . . "I found a glassmaker who was willing to try with me, at my expense, and all our first experiments were more or less successful. Within a few weeks I managed to get enough variations to justify me in accepting the making of a large window for a private house. ... I used in this first window (and I have continued more, or less in windows of mere ornament, as this was) whatever glass I could find of any manufacture whatever, English, Belgian, or American, opalescent or non-opalescent. The contrasts of density and transparency have always been very inter- esting to me, and in this first window the basis of my idea was in a large way the recall of the inlays of precious stones that are set in jade by Eastern artists. I should add, before going further, that previous to these experiments in making opalescent glass of different hues and qualities of structures, I had imported such best English glass as I could get. Had I been able to get what I knew existed, that is to say, glass of fine tone, and with some modula- tions of color, I might have delayed, but the whole basis of 116 The Fine Arts importation was so strictly commercial that I was quite unsatisfied. "Using these combinations of opalescent and non-opal- escent glass, I accepted some more orders for different varieties of windows (many for houses) and of very differ- ent character, and I entered into an arrangement with Herter and Company to make all their glass, an arrange- ment which lasted several years, — until 1882, 1 think. In 1878 1 had undertaken one of the most important windows I have ever carried out, the so-called Battle-window, a memorial of one of the classes of Harvard College, now in the Memorial Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this window I used almost every variety of glass that could serve, and even precious stones, such as amethysts and the like, and I began to represent effects of light and modula- tion of shadow by using streaked glass, glass of several colors blended, and glass wrinkled into forms, as well as glass cut into shapes or blown into forms. "I also painted the glass very much and carefully in certain places; so that in a rough way this window is an epitome of all the varieties of glass that I have seen used before or since. There was even glass into which other glass had been deposited in patterns, a beautiful form of material which has never been fully developed for these uses to my knowledge. The only method which I did not employ was one that I began shortly after, and which was the use of glass fused together in patterns without leads, a method which, not being encouraged, I have used very little, though that also is susceptible of enormous development. "Nor did I use in this window another method which I have since used in connection with glass cut into patterns and fused together, and that is a sort of variation of cloi- .sonrie made through joining glass by thin filaments of metal fused to the glass and plated on both sides with different John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 117 surfaces of glass adhering. By it I have been able to model faces in much detail, bringing pieces together so small that many of them could be placed on the nail of the little finger, and several thousand could be joined together in a surface less than a foot square. The method being costly, and necessitating personal control of the furnace, I was obliged to abandon it almost entirely, all the more because of an indifference of both the architects and the public; moreover, to any one designing himself in great detail, or seeing designs executed and carried out in the methods which I have adopted, it became more and more difficult to be at the glasshouse or direct and superintend the mak- ing of material." The preceding extracts will have shown how the inven- tion and perfecting of this new method of art was simply forced upon the artist by circumstances, as soon as he be- gan to think seriously about decoration. To what he says about the poverty of material imported and the inferiority of workmanship available at the time, I must add, that English glass must be very good indeed not to look anae- mic in the strong American light. American glass has indeed one serious drawback; it makes terrible demands on the man that touches it. Like the violin, it can be handled only by artists. But, unfor- tunately, eyes are not so susceptible to the difference be- tween discord and harmony as ears. This is especially noticeable in American windows, as all Europeans can bear witness who have puzzled over the enormous difference in their quality. Some of our work can bear comparison with the best medieval glasswork, much of it is as poor and vulgar as a cheap tune played carelessly on the piano, while some of the unpretentious ornamental glass shows real sense of color harmony. It seems inconceivable that all this can exist side by side, that people do not feel the 118 The Fine Arts discord. As I am writing of the La Farge glass, I can leave all further comparisons aside, and go on detailing the steps by which the La Farge invention was made into the splendid instrument that we now know. One of the great privileges of my life has been the oppor- tunity kindly accorded me of watching some of the proc- esses of the workshop. My account of this work is thus founded on a basis of personal observation. In some respects these mechanical methods are the same to-day as they were in the early Middle Ages. In this modern workshop preparatory sketches and studies are made, some in color, and others in black and white or pencil. Whatever the design, whether a Bible story full of meaning or a mere ornamental pattern, from these draw- ings are determined the shapes of the cutting of the glass, and they must therefore be well considered from this point of view, with an amount of care which no outsider can gauge. Since the work that is to follow is based on them, their manner of preparation must have many con- siderations, not only in the necessary selection of line for composition and arrangement of structure for the leading, but also for the complicated questions of irradiation and complementary color contrast. The problem resembles the questions of construction in architecture which are an integral part of the architect's decorative design. "Usually the drawings or cartoons, that is to say, the drawings made by artists for their windows, look much better than the windows when we see them reproduced in the magazines. This is the converse of what ought to be; it is as if the written score should have more sound than the music played from it, the pencil sketch be richer, more full of material and wealth of execution than the finished pic- ture. But this we must recognize as a general failure of modern decorative work. The design, the sketch, the John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 119 cartoon is always better than the completed work. It is again in great part the result of commercial habits. The sketch is made to sell from or to exhibit. The work may take care of itself. One of the advantages of our American materials and of their methods of use is that they render it more difficult to make a satisfactory drawing for the client, because of the evident inadequacy of the drawing to represent the richness of the material in which the com- pleted work is to be carried out. Nor could any of our drawings, not even an elaborate painting, represent the delicate relations of tone given by the American material. A window of the kind that we have inaugurated may be almost colorless in so far that it may be all white and gray. But we can produce such varieties of whites and grays, so many contrasts of dullness and brilliancy, such sugges- tions of color as white mother-of-pearl, that we can go as far in delicacy as we can in power." From these studies are prepared full-sized cartoons, often in color, giving a careful indication of the values in light and dark, and a complete set of enlarged lead lines. From these lead lines are made two transfers on paper and one tracing on glass. This is the so-called "glass frame" which is set up in the wall against the direct light from outside. Meanwhile, one of the paper transfers has been cut up into pieces representing the shapes of the pieces of glass. They are carefully numbered and put together again on the wall. The work in glass now begins. Consulting his color sketch, the artist decides what passages of color are to strike the keynote of the harmony, has his glass cut from the corresponding pieces of paper patterns, fastens the pieces of glass to the glass frame by wax, and then proceeds to build his whole scheme of color on this beginning. The work is thus from the outset a transposition, a painting 120 The Fine Arts with glass by an artist in glass. The occasional slightness of the color sketch is likely to be the first thing that strikes the layman; a thin wash of yellow running into purple is enough to indicate a rich drapery of glowing orange with long lines of purple trembling in the shadow of the folds; pale green is translated into a rich opalescence of green and silver and gold, blue into deep modulated sapphire and violet. The slighter the sketch, the better may be the result. There can be no rule. The very incomplete- ness and suggestiveness of a sketch is sometimes a source of inspiration to the executant. Contrariwise, it may be that the complete intention of the design has to be made out by many subsidiary car- toons and paintings. That is the fortune of war. "It is then necessary that the artist in charge should be a trained painter accustomed to make many supplementary studies, and the increased work will not seem to him many times more than that which he would give to painting in other materials, such as oil painting." Occasionally the color sketch only serves as a starting point, as a general indication of what the artist meant. The basis of the harmony of a color scheme is usually de- termined by the first chord struck. As this is necessarily much fuller and richer than anything that can be produced by pigment on paper, so the whole harmony aimed at is transposed into a richer and fuller key. From the begin- ning the artist and his skillful workman labor together, selecting at first the principal masses, as much in the pri- maries as seems feasible, until a basis of the whole composi- tion is chosen for the first joining by leads. In this first selection there may be a great number of changes made, with a certain amount of plating, as the different masses come together, but simplicity is aimed at, as in an under- painting on canvas. John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 121 The window is now taken down in sections and leaded together on the bench over the second drawing referred to above. Again it is put in the light, and now by means of "platings," to modify tones and bring passages together, it is rehandled and completed. The whole work is thus the result of the most intimate collaboration between the brain of the artist and the skilled hand and trained senses of the executant. Painting with enamel in the ordinary way upon the glass has thus been supplanted by painting with glass. The work has become a form of translucent mosaic held to- gether by lead instead of cement, as in mosaic. But the hands, heads, and faces of figures are usually painted upon the glass. First of all reasons, it is because in them expression, an element of design and not of color, must always be the principal aim. "However," says Mr. La Farge, "in the anxiety for the thoroughly logical system of doing without any painting, a method was invented by me of joining glass without lead, by melting, or 'of joining exceedingly minute divisions of glass, small as those cut by the jeweler, with threads of finer metal, so that these should become almost invisible at a distance. But the costliness of the process and the great risk involved in firing, with the then rude appliances of the American workshop, prevented this method from going further than a few examples. The architects also, and clients, had not enough experience and knowledge to appreciate such a refinement, and there still remains an entire division of this great art of glass to be explored." These tendencies to logical results, however, have never prevented Mr. La Farge's use of enamel painting upon all or any surfaces for certain windows, just as the same might have been employed at any previous time. The large 122 The Fine Arts windows of Trinity Church are so painted, as are also the Harvard memorials and the Vanderbilt staircase windows. We can see that the demand upon the foreman or exec- utant is great. "If I have explained what has been done and what can be done in glass, the coming men will require, not only to know the art of the past, down to its ornamen- tation, but they will have to undertake the solution, along with the new painters, of all the new problems of light and color, or else, if that be too much for them, to restudy carefully the methods of the past. "My idea of encouragement, as I said before, is that of placing great responsibilities on those who are worthy. It is true that a powerful artist will be able to employ, as he has always done, capacities covering smaller fields than his own; and in such aggregations of capacities will lie the development of the art. This is not to say that the less ambitious forms of decorative art will not be open to all sincere workers; the great point being that the limitations should be distinctly understood. One of the lessons taught us every day by Oriental art, especially by the art of Japan, is that there is a place for every one in art, provided that he keeps entirely within his. capacities and his knowledge. The humble Japanese artist who copies with love and in- telligence the design of the better designer is irreproachable. It would only be in assuming that because he could exe- cute he could also invent that he would fail. Hence the great charm of such work as the Italian workers in pottery carried on in imitation, sometimes in actual copy, of the work of the greater designers. They naturally translated the design in the course of its application to new materials, and the result was original creation. "In our work here, if nothing else had been accom- plished, I for one should feel pleased that certain artisans have been trained, owing to the difficult requirements of John La Farge's Work in Stained Glass 123 the profession, to a point of capacity and interest in artis- tic work that makes them artists without their losing the character of the workman. Of this the public can know nothing; they hear only of the artist in control. Yet the foreman answers a requirement as serious as any that are met by the foremost painter of to-day, when his sure grasp of the principles of color and design allows him not only to interpret a faint sketch so as to arrange its color in proper harmonies, but also to use the theory of complementary color contract for the modeling of surfaces, for the differ- ences of planes, for making any part of the design recede or advance. And that there are such artisans with us, who have been formed out of nothing, and with no previ- ous education, is the best hope of possible advancement." ON PAINTING 1 By JOHN LA FARGE f N writing of the art of painting I can recall within my experience the ways of looking at the art which have prevailed and disappeared, and come again, for fully a century and a half. And this last century, the nineteenth, has so worked — sometimes in a blundering, sometimes in an enlightened, manner — at this art of painting that, notwithstanding the deficiency of many of its results, the various theories, the various manners of painting, are pretty well known to any one who wishes. We can to-day cover the entire globe, so that even within the last few years the paintings of the mysterious, inaccessible Thibet can show to us their manners and connect their origins. There can be little more for us to know about. Of course, the details have to be filled up; the intentions and manners of thought, and especially the critical views of all this territory of art, are to be given to us, even if we understand fairly well what they are to be. So that to-day a survey of this art, of what it has done and how it has done it, would run from, let us say, the vase paintings of the Greeks and the black and white of the Chinese, to frescoes, — medieval or of the new Italian path, — to discoveries of methods, such as that of oils, to the Titians and the Rubenses; and finally, through the conquests of light and air in what we have called chiaroscuro, to the use of the vision of the open eye, as Sir Joshua called it, or the record of continuous succes- 1 By permission of " The New England Magazine." Copyright, 1908. 124 On Painting 125 sive different facts brought together, over beautiful sur- faces soothing to the eye, or over the polished hardness of Ger6me and others. And in this last century, with the accompaniment, the influence, the mastering direction of the photograph, and finally the application of methods more or less derived from the scientists to the use of pigments, as representing light, we could close with our last developments, — the wild arrangements of impressionist color, which already begin to look a little tame. This seems a fairly long list or rather a long statement of places and marks within the historical space implied; but even then we are perhaps falling short of what at any moment may be covered. Still more, we do not know how much further the future will carry us in the represen- tation of all that there is — either for itself, that is to say one's pleasure in it, or for a language to express feelings and meanings. None of us can feel that the representa- tions so far of nature are adequate, except perhaps in some few cases, and those perhaps chosen because of some special love. Even for me, as I go along, I see every day millions upon millions of pictures of nature, not as yet recorded either in their facts, if I may so call them, or in the light and air in which they are enveloped. This point to which we have come, of looking at painting and its methods as not merely a habit accepted, but a history which we can record, is foreseen to some extent in the saying of Constable that "Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry." We are also forced into a position of inquiry, and a position of teaching in a scien- tific way, because we are more or less the dependents of academic teaching, which replaced some centuries ago the best of all teaching: I mean the hand-to-hand teaching of the guilds — of the painters whose work was partly done 126 The Fine Arts by their assistants or their partners, and who taught by example in a still more direct way than a painter can to- day, in the usual practice of our now more selfish and secluded profession. Sir Joshua, who was placed at the head of the Royal Academy, seemed to believe that an academy would fur- nish able men to direct a student, and that an academy would be a repository for the great examples of the art. We know that the reverse has been the story, as compared to the teachings of the guilds or of men working together on some practical end; and Sir Joshua saw some deficiency in his claim, for he says, "Raphael, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an academy; but all Rome, and the works of Michelangelo in particular, were to him an academy." We of course know that the men of that time had, on the contrary, worked together, in what they called a school, or shop, or something in which to help or to be employed, and consequently Sir Joshua comes back to what we know, the ordinary teaching of schools of to-day, let us say in Paris, and that is this: "That a youth more easily receives instructions from the companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level with his own, than from those who are much his superiors; and only from his equals he catches the fire of emulation." This is the way still. At the Paris studios the master has a set of pupils who carry out the program under other and better-drilled disciples. That must be the general plan for most cases. The master can hardly take his pupils into his confidence, and yet that is the most precious of all that can be given. My belief would be that the various forms of develop- ment might be known to the student, who may be a teacher. The more we meet the question of the future, On Painting 127 which is forced upon us, the more we see that we have no longer the advantages of narrowness in the worship of a single method. For there are advantages in narrowness, as in breadth, and perhaps there are greater advantages. We do not as yet know. But the narrowness I refer to is not that of the Academy, but of the old schools — of the method which calls a method by its real name and practices that, recognizing that there are others known and unknown. As, for instance, there is perhaps no harm now done to French architects, in that they are aware, or the public for them, that their nation once had the glory of the develop- ment of an art which rivaled any that ever lived, — the art of the Middle Ages. The Academy of France, of course, tried to kill that knowledge, and as in the art of painting, it tried to ignore the eighteenth century and the examples of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Velasquez. That eighteenth century which they turned away from seemed to the first founders of the nineteenth-century Academy conventional, effeminate, and especially aristocratically affected. There is no democracy in the manner, let us say, of Sir Joshua. There is a mannerism formed on great and reasonable admiration of the manners of certain previous artists. And he studied and recommended those manner- isms. But never thereby did he mean that all other studies should not be recommended and carried out. Indeed, he has left us his strongest statements of admiration and re- spect for forms of art which seem at the other pole from his own. That general making-up of a picture as a defi- nite and recognized piece of beauty, based on nature, was an idea that shocked, later, the purist, full of superficial virtue, who opened the century in France. I have looked through some of the sketchbooks, of Sir 128 The Fine Arts Joshua, filled during his Italian experience. Had I had better luck with me, I might myself have made some copy of them. But you may know how he noted on a page, in a curious loose pattern, just what he thought must be the amount of dark and light and middle light of some of the pictures he especially studied. Naturally, they are those of the men of "chiaroscuro" and balance the makers of the oil picture within a frame, if one can so say. These pictures Sir Joshua looked for and studied, but they had their limits of choice from their nature. Just think (and it is all-important for our comprehen- sion of history) that Sir Joshua had no photographs which now, more or less well (usually less well), give us some of these facts in an authentic, impersonal manner! All things connect, and we see how these inquiries into the method of placing the facts of a picture within its frame brings us to the last efforts of the last experiments in painting of a few years ago — the day before yesterday. I am considering the framed picture. Please remember that there was a time without it, and that this little matter of a frame, or edge, even a line, is an important discovery, like the steam engine. The ultramodern scientific folly of the rendering of Nature even adequately, Nature which has no edge and is all lopsided to the eye, and then putting a rectangular frame around it, is enough to show how sane an idea was the institution of the old way of joining the picture to its frame. Of course it is possible to make a study of Nature, or a representation intended to be an adequately luminous equation, using the frame to represent a window-opening., I have so studied myself, carefully, observing that I did not see further out than what my frame represented. But such a careful observance is not the usual one of the realist, pursuer of the full rendering of color and light, The Muse of Paihtino John La Farge On Painting 129 and we feel it badly — I say we feel it badly; no, we ought to feel it, if we reason like the artist experimenter himself. No, we so adjust our eyes and mind that almost anything seen is accepted, which is partly conventional. Conven- tions we need; we need to be reminded that this is art we are treated to. We need to be confronted; we do not wish for inquiry, we, the lookers-on — inquiry beyond some- thing that we are broken into. Otherwise, every real innovation or special delivery would be hailed at once, instead of being condemned or doubted, as it usually is. The makers of pictures, then, pictures with frames, discovered the necessity of humoring the edges, of bring- ing the sky over, and making the ground to meet. To have accomplished all this Fromentin praises the great Ruysdael's works, "lis font si Men dans Vor." And only yesterday, looking at a copy of Rembrandt, which I finished fifty years ago, on his memorial week, and which I have only just seen again, I recognize how wise, how artistic, how merely conventional the dread realist was in painting within and around his picture part of a black frame to meet another real one, either black or gold. The artifice helped the reality, which, after all, was to be a thing represented as seen. And every help should be given to the eye of the looker-on, which asks as it does, in perspective arrangements, a little ease, a little inaccuracy, such as the real eye always gives us — for we see as inaccurately as we wish or we need. For example, a man, or a horse, or a house, is big or little as we may wish, at a distance — as he was and is in the pictures of the early masters. Delacroix was to represent, to be the image of, the more or less successful reaction against the schoofor influences headed by David, which hardened and purified, but in the manners of the Revolution, the painting of the eight- 130 The Fine Arts eenth century, already beginning to correct itself and certainly needing in its progression no such violent cure as David's false Greek preachments. Already Sir Joshua has spoken, even in his lectures, of the greater rigidity of the Frenchmen whom he knew. So confused, so entan- gled, is anything that we have to consider in this manifes- tation of personality which we call painting that we must stop a moment to breathe and ask ourselves, "Watteau — where is there any stiffness in him? " And yet there prob- ably is in some studies. There is* some wire or iron to hold up the loose soft clay of the statue which he has erected. One can understand why the pupils coming out from David's class threw their waste bread and odds and ends at the great Watteau, "The Embarkment for Cythera." The fierce republican desire to be the only monarchs went on in France, and is scarcely breaking up to-day before the social changes, and the scientific studies, and the practical money questions, which are beginning to change the face of the making of pictures everywhere. The acceptance of the rule of David allowed escape and evasion on its edges; and we have such a case as that of Prudhon, who brings back that terrible chiaroscuro of Correggio into the frigid domain of accurate, narrow, studio light. And, moreover, he saves from the past the methods of underpainting which make this beautiful draftsman still a real painter; while David and his in- heritors, later, are to make for the French school a hard surface painting without the merit of the actual bas-relief. This has prevailed until to-day, and has in the various forms of accepted painters given us those tedious spaces of oil painting which are so near the method and the texture and the grave solemnity of the oilcloth of the bathroom. Gros, of course, an official painter, also accepts and re- jects the domination. He prepares, both in his methods On Painting 131 and in the heroic breadth of his panegyrics of Napoleon's battles, in their accuracy and in their conventional poe- try, in their reminiscence of the older warmth, the future Gericault who will be both an accurate and anxious draftsman and a wild and fiery innovator and sensa- tionalist — to live a few brief years of youthful promise and to hand that future to Delacroix. Meanwhile, the Academic school continues. It has for its nominal head Ingres. And then we come again to the difficulty of classification — a difficulty for writing and arguing in the way that I follow this moment. But a good thing if, as I hope, — for I hope for the bigger future, — our teaching will include the contradictions in art as we are learning to accept and insist upon them in historical analyses. For Mr. Ingres — and I say Mr. Ingres, Mon- sieur Ingres — represented in my early time the Academy in its full integrity. But Mr. Ingres, the real man, wrote a pamphlet against the establishment of schools of paint- ing at the School of Beaux-Arts. He maintained that the process of painting could be taught to any one in a week. And my older acquaintances in France, in the France of fifty or sixty years ago, still felt in Mr. Ingres a sentimental innovator, who allowed himself liberties that a stricter and morejjorrect view of draftsmanship would not approve. And yet this very draftsmanship is what pleases us most to-day in his work. His studies from nature carry him a little outside the line, as he himself admits, saying that "in the matter of truth I prefer to go a little beyond, at whatever risk, for I know that the truth may seem im- probable. There is often," he continues, "only the thick- ness of a hair between right and wrong." His portrait of himself gives us the clew to these views of the establishment of a rigid theology in art, more or less centered in himself and in his admiration for Raphael, 132 The Fine Arts from whom nobody could be further. And yet in some of the details of his drawings, where he indulges a manner of his own, — a way, for instance, of seeing hands, a manner of rendering the soft form of woman, — there is something of poetry which may recall the work of the divine master. Gericault, who knew him in Rome at the Academy, admired his drawings and saw little in his paintings, much as he desired to do so. His record I have to use : inaccu- racy, a commonplace soul in a highly cultured mind, per- haps the usual teacher man. We have to dwell on this name because of the preponder- ance of French art in the world of the nineteenth century; and the life of Ingres covers a great part of that century's teaching. His name also serves to represent that closed door which has been a mark of French culture in art dur- ing a part of the nineteenth century, whatever efforts France's very best men have made to keep open doors and windows to the influences of the outside. The name of the great opponents, not a conscious one, of Ingres, Delacroix, opens these doors; and even here, with this inimical authority pressing him, the more gener- ous man, Delacroix, had pleaded the part of Ingres as against a public which did not as yet understand him. But Ingres hated the painter side of Delacroix, which brought in the dreadful question of color and of light and the possibility of there being something different from the imitators of Raphael. This open door opens on landscape art. Of course it is an exaggeration to maintain that the influence of Con- stable determined that French landscape school which definitely covered the most of continental Europe. Al- ready the influence of England had reached France through Gericault, through Delacroix, and the idea of landscape was brought up again by the suggestion of the older paint- On Painting 133 ers of far back. It seems strange and unfortunate, per- haps, as ideal development, that the paintings of Turner did not reach France and serve to encourage and widen the great return to nature, as well as to the habits of painting, which together make the great landscapists both of France and England. Rousseau and Corot — even Millet — are both students of art and students of nature in an impassioned way. Their names can serve for many- others. But only occasionally are the students of nature in con- nection with color and light studied both as a means and an aim. They did not need these new studies to state what they liked and what they chose to see. In fact, we see in Millet the gradual withdrawal from so much of nature as may interfere with the main sentiment that filled his vision. There is even the story (as I remember, a true one) of Rousseau's injuring one of his great paintings because he had just come across Japanese art in the color- prints of the later men. He had discerned what has been used very little, — the representation of some laws of the opposition of tones; the manner by which, to quote a rough instance, a pink sunset implies a related opposition against it. We know that the friendship and admiration common to several of these men has grouped them more together than should appear from their works and the tendencies behind their works, so that Delacroix on one side separates from them. He is a precursor in his wish to find general laws of color which he can use in derived manner, which still shall be laws. Such ideas influence also the gigantic development of Turner, who carried out as well the continuance of the old forms of the picture, so that to some extent he is a type of what one might hope for the entire future. But of course 134 The Fine Arts with Millet, or a similarly directed mind, the opposing question is quite as valuable. Any means, however contradictory to one's other loves, are right to secure an impassioned statement of great likings, great memories, noble thoughts — all the higher side of man which can be included in the art of painting, as well as in any of the other arts. Of course, over my shoulder the devil whispers, "But here 's what Mr. Whistler has said: 'As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the sub- ject-matter has nothing to do with harmony or sound or color. The great musicians knew this. Beethoven and the rest wrote music, simply music ; Symphony in this key, Concerto or Sonata in that.' " Nothing could be more untrue, for Beethoven has care- fully explained just the reverse. As we first saw, the artists argue against some unseen enemy, and, like lawyers or theologians, defend their personal positions at all haz- ards. And still, in the history of our art, in the education of a student or a teacher, one should not miss including the statements of Mr. Whistler as part of the training for understanding the full history of art. Wisely taken, almost all that he has said is worth listening to, especially as balancing certain other statements, also exaggerated, but not so keen and naughty. And between Mr. Whistler and the Delacroix whom I am trying to consider we shall have placed the Pre- Raphaelities of England, partly poets, partly Philistines. Their protest must in its day have had its value, and I personally am too much indebted to them for influences and for pleasure to do otherwise than speak handsomely of their love of the past, however mistaken; of their paint- ing, not always good, but sometimes at its finest just then, as we see with Rossetti, for instance; or we may remember On Painting 135 the combinations of intention and picture making, an astonishing pursuit of problems of color, in Holman Hunt, or the deliberate artificialities of Burne-Jones, not forgetting the apparent founder of them all, — I say, ap- parent, — Maddox Browne, whose early works terrified my boyhood, as I told him, for they were both so German, as I remember the ballads, and French, as Delacroix trans- lated the Middle Ages, and yet so fiercely English. This was the moment when Mr. Ruskin broke into Eng- lish literature and bullied and directed and helped the cause, explaining the Middle Ages to a Philistine audience, but still more so to young enthusiasts, who, like myself or my Oxford teacher, were already living in the wonderful past which opened out as an explanation of our origins, an incentive to greater religious emotion, and finally, but not through Mr. Ruskin, to perceiving the unity of the medieval and the Greek. We can not, however, forget that Mr. Ruskin considered questions of light and color as law at an early moment, though not so early as our great Frenchmen. As this part of my relations to Ruskin's writings is more deficient, I do not know how far he knew of the studies of Chevreul, which are said to be antedated by the experi- ence of Delacroix. But for us who began to study be- tween fifty and sixty years ago these first teachings were all important. Personally, I, the painter, have never ceased obedience to what I could understand of them. Here in Boston, before the day of the Impressionists, my friend Bancroft and myself struggled to establish con- nection between painting and what science could help us in with regard to that light and color which was both our means and our end. BOOK ILLUSTRATION AND BOOK DECORATION By REGINALD BLOMFIELD ]00K illustration is supposed to have made a great advance in the last few years. No doubt it has, but this advance has not been made on any definite principle, but, as it were, in and out of a network of cross-purposes. No attempt has been made to classify illustration in relation to the purpose it has to fulfill. Broadly speaking, this purpose is threefold. It is either utilitarian, or partly utilitarian, partly artistic, or purely artistic. The first may be dismissed at once. Such drawings as technical diagrams must be clear and accurate, but by their very nature they are nonartistic, and in regard to art it is a case of "hands off" to the draftsman. Illustration as an art, that is, book decoration, begins with the second class. From this standpoint an illus- tration involves something more than mere drawing. In the first place, the drawing must illustrate the subject, but as the drawing will not be set in a plain mount, but sur- rounded or bordered by printed type, there is the further problem of the relation of the drawing to the printed type. The relative importance attached to the printed type or the drawing is the crucial point for the illustra- tor. If all his thoughts are concentrated on his own drawing, one line to him will be much as another; but if he considers his illustration as going with the type to 136 Book Illustration and Book Decoration 137 form one homogeneous design, each line becomes a matter of deliberate intention. Now, in the early days of printing, when both type and illustration were printed off a single block, the latter standpoint was adopted as a matter of course, and as the art developed and men of genuine ability applied themselves to design, this intimate relation between printer and designer produced results of inimitable beauty. Each page of a fine Aldine is a work of art in itself. The eye can run over page after page for the simple pleasure of its decoration. No black blots in a sea of ignoble type break the quiet dignity of the page; each part of it works together with the rest for one premedi- tated harmony. But gradually, with the severance of the arts, the printer lost sight of the artist, and the latter cared only for himself; and there came the inevitable result which has followed this selfishness in all the other arts of design. Printing ceased to be an art at all, and the art of book decoration died of neglect; the illustrator made his drawing without thought of the type, and left it to the printer to pitch it into the text, and reproduce it as best he could. The low-water mark in artistic illustration was reached, perhaps, in the early part of the nineteenth century, and the greatest offender was Turner himself. The illus- trations which Turner made for Rogers's Poems show no sort of modification of his habitual practice in painting. They may have been beautiful in themselves, but it evidently never entered into Turner's head that the method, which was admirable in a picture aided by all the resources of color, was beside the mark when applied to the printed page with all the limitations of black and white and the simple line. One looks in vain in Turner's 138 The Fine Arts illustrations for any evidence that he was conscious of the existence of the rest of the page at all. 1 Something more than a landscape-painter's knowledge of drawing is necessary. The custom of getting illustra- tions from painters who have little knowledge of deco- rative design has led to the invention of all sorts of mechanical processes in order to transfer easel work direct to the printed page. The effect of this upon book decoration has been deadly. Process work of this sort has gone far to kill wood engraving; and as to its result, instead of a uniform texture of line, woven, as it were, over the entire page, the eye is arrested by harsh patches of black or gray, which show a disregard of the printed type which is little less than brutal. Leaving recent work out of account, one exception only can be made, and that is in the case of William Blake. The inherent conditions of book decoration point to the line drawn by hand, and reproduced, either by wood engraving or by direct facsimile process, as its proper method. Indeed, the ideal of paginal beauty would be reached by leaving both the text and the illustrative design to hand, if not to one hand. This, however, is out of the question; the cost alone is prohibitive. The point for the book decorator to consider is, what sort of line will range best with the type. In the case of the second division of our classification, which,' in default of a better name, may be called "record work," it is impossible to apply to the line the amount of abstraction and selection which would be necessary in pure design. To do so, for instance, in the case of an architectural illustration, would destroy the "vraisem- blance" which is of the essence of such a drawing. Even 1 Turner's vignettes were, however, separately printed as plates, so that they are not fairly to be judged as decorations of the printed page. — K. C. Book Illustration and Book Decoration 139 in this case, however, the line ought to be very carefully- considered. It is important to recollect that the type establishes a sort of scale of its own, and, taking ordi- nary lettering, this would exclude very minute work where the lines are close together and there is much crosshatching; and also simple outline work, such as Retsch used to labor at, for the latter errs on the side of tenuity and meagerness as much as process reproduction of brush work sins in the opposite extreme: The line used in architectural illustration should be free, accurate, and unfaltering, drawn with sufficient technical knowledge of architecture to enable the draftsman to know where he can stop without injury to his subject. The line should not be obstinate, but so light and subtle as to reflect without effort each thought that flits across the artist's mind. Vierge has shown how much can be done in this way. With a few free lines and the contrast of some dark piece of shading in exactly the right place, he will often tell you more of a subject than will the most elaborately finished picture. This is the method to aim at in architectural illustration. The poetry of architecture and its highest qualities of dignity of mass and outline are smothered by that laborious accuracy which covers every part of the drawing with a vain repetition of unfeeling lines. Where, however, the illustration is purely imaginative, the decorative standpoint should be kept steadily in view, and the process of selection and abstraction carried very much further. Here, at length, the illustrator can so order his design that the drawing and the printed type form a single piece of decoration, not disregarding the type, but using it as in itself a means of obtaining texture and scale and distributed effect. The type is, as it were, the technical datum of the design, which determines the 140 The Fine Arts scale of the line to be used with it. With a wiry type no doubt a wiry drawing is desirable, but the types of the great periods of printing are firm in outline and large and ample in distribution. Assuming, then, that one of these types can be used, the line of the accompanying design should be strongly drawn, and designed from end to end with full allowance for the white paper. No better model can be followed than Diirer's woodcuts. The amount of work which Diirer would get out of a single line is something extraordinary, and perhaps to us impossible; for in view of our complex modern ideas and total absence of tra- dition, probably no modern designer can hope to attain to the great German's magnificent directness and tre- mendous intensity of expression. Deliberate selection, both in subject and treatment, becomes, therefore, a matter of the first importance. The designer should reject subjects which do not admit of a decorative treatment. His business is not with science or morals, but with art for its own sake; he should, therefore, select his subject with a single eye to its artistic possibilities. As to the line itself, it is impossible to offer any sug- gestion, fof the line used is as much a part of the de- signer's idea as the words of a poem are of a poet's poetry; and the invention of these must come of itself. But once in consciousness, the line must be put under rigid control as simply a means of expression. There is an insidious danger in the line. Designers sometimes seem to be inebriated with their own cunning; they go on drawing line after line, apparently for the simple pleasure of deftly placing them side by side, or at best to pro- duce some spurious imitation of texture. As soon as the line is made an end in itself, it becomes a wearisome Book Illustration and Book Decoration 141 thing. The use of the line and the imitation of texture should be absolutely subordinated to the decorative purposes of the design, and the neglect of this rule is as bad art as if a musician, from perverse delight in the intricacies of a fugue, were to lose his theme in a chaos of counterpoint. If, then, to conclude, we are to return to the best traditions of book decoration, the artist must abandon the selfish isolation in which he has hitherto worked. He must regard the printed type, not as a necessary evil, but as a valuable material for the decoration of the page, and the type and the illustration should be considered in strict relation to each other. This will involve a self-restraint far more rigid than any required in etching, because the point to be aimed at is not so much the direct suggestion of nature as the best decora- tive treatment of the line in relation to the entire page. Thus, to the skill of the draftsman must be added the far-seeing imagination of the designer, which, instead of being content with a hole-and-corner success, involving disgrace to the rest of the page, embraces in its con- sciousness all the materials available for the beautifi- cation of the page as a whole. Only by this severe intellectual effort, by this self-abnegation, by this ready acceptance of the union of the arts can the art of book illustration again attain to a permanent value. BOOKBINDING IBy T J. COBDEN SANDERSON SS^ODERN bookbinding dates from the appli- '*" cation of printing to literature, and in essen- day, though in those outward characteristics which appeal to the touch and to the eye, and consti- tute binding in an artistic sense, it has gone through many changes for better and for worse, which, in the opinion of the writer, have resulted, in the main, in the exaggeration of technical skill and in the death of artistic fancy. The first operation of the modern binder is to fold or refold the printed sheet into a section, and to gather the sections, numbered or lettered at the foot, in their proper order into a volume. The sections are then taken, one by one, placed face downwards in a frame and sewn through the back by a continuous thread running backwards and forwards along the backs of the sections to upright strings fastened at regular intervals in the sewing frame. This process unites the sections to one another in series one after the other, and permits the perusal of the book by the simple turning of leaf after leaf upon the hinge formed by the thread and the back of the section. A volume or series of sections, so treated, the ends of the string being properly secured, is essentially "bound"; all that is subsequently done is done for the protection or for the decoration of the volume or of its cover. The sides of a volume are protected by millboards, 142 Bookbinding 143 called shortly "boards." The boards themselves and the back are wholly or in part protected by a cover of leather, vellum, silk, linen, or paper. The edges of the volume are protected by the projection of the boards beyond them at top, bottom, and fore edge, and usually by being cut smooth and gilt. A volume so bound and protected may be decorated by tooling or otherwise upon all the exposed surfaces (upon the edges, the sides, and the back), and may be designated by lettering upon the back or the sides. The degree in which a bound book is protected and decorated will determine the class to which the binding will belong. (1) In cloth binding, the cover, called a "case," is made apart from the book, and is attached as a whole after the book is sewn. (2) In half binding, the cover is built up for and on each individual book, but the boards of which it is com- posed are only partly covered with the leather or other material which covers the back. (3) In whole binding, the boards are wholly covered with leather or other durable material, which in half binding covers only a portion of them. (4) In extra binding, whole binding is advanced a stage higher by decoration. Of course in the various stages the details vary commensurately with the stage itself, being more or less elaborate as the stage is higher or lower in the scale. The process of extra binding set out in more detail is as follows: (1) First the sections are folded or refolded. (2) Then "end papers" — sections of plain paper added at the beginning and end of the volume to protect the first and last, the most exposed, sections of printed 144 The Fine Arts matter constituting the volume proper — having been prepared and added, the sections are beaten, or rolled, or pressed, to make them "solid." The end papers are usually added at a later stage, and are pasted on, and not sewn, but, in the opinion of the writer, it is better to add them at this stage, and to sew them and not to paste them. (3) Then the sections are sewn as already described. (4) When sewn the volume passes into the hands of the "forwarder," who (5) "Makes" the back, beating it round, if the back is to be round, and "backing" it, or making it fan out from the center to right and left and project at the edges, to form a kind of ridge to receive and to protect the edges of the boards which form the sides of the cover. (6) The back having been made, the "boards" (made of millboard, and originally of wood) for the protection of the sides are made and cut to shape, and attached by lacing into them the ends of the strings upon which the book has been sewn. (7) The boards having been attached, the edges of the book are now cut smooth and even at the top, bottom, and fore edge, the edges of the boards being used as guides for the purpose. In some cases the order is reversed, and the edges are first cut and then the boards. (8) The edges may now be colored and gilt, and if it is proposed to "gauffer" or to decorate them with tooling, they are so treated at this stage. (9) The headband is next worked on at head and tail, and the back lined with paper or leather or other material to keep the headband in its place and to strengthen the back itself. The book is now ready to be covered. Bookbinding 145 (10) If the book is covered with leather, the leather is carefully pared all round the edges and along the line of the back, to make the edges sharp and the joints free. (11) The book having been covered, the depression on the inside of the boards caused by the overlap of the leather is filled in with paper, so that the entire inner surface may be smooth and even, and ready to receive the first and last leaves of the end papers, which finally are cut to shape and pasted down, leaving the borders only uncovered. Sometimes, however, the first and last leaves of the "end papers" are of silk, and the "joint" of leather, in which case, of course, the end papers are not pasted down, but the insides of the boards are independently treated, and are covered, sometimes with leather, some- times with silk or other material. The book is now "forwarded," and passes into the hands of the "finisher" to be tooled or decorated, or "finished," as it is called. The decoration in gold on the surface of leather is wrought out, bit by bit, by means of small brass stamps called "tools." The steps of the process are shortly as follows : (12) The pattern having been settled and worked out on paper, it is "transferred" to, or marked out on, the various surfaces to which it is to be applied. Each surface is then prepared in succession, and, if large, bit by bit, to receive the gold. (13) First, the leather is washed with water or with vinegar. (14) Then the pattern is penciled over with "glaire" (white of egg beaten up and drained off), or the surface is wholly washed with it. (15) Next it is smeared lightly with grease or oil. 146 The Fine Arts (16) And, finally, the gold (gold leaf) is applied by a pad of cotton wool, or a flat thin brush called a "tip." (17) The pattern, visible through the gold, is now reimpressed or worked with the tools heated to about the temperature of boiling water, and the unimpressed or waste gold is removed by an oiled rag, leaving the pat- tern in gold and the rest of the leather clear. These several operations are, in England, usually dis- tributed among five classes of persons. (1) The superintendent, or person responsible for the whole work. (2) The sewer, usually a woman, who folds, sews, and makes the headbands. (3) The book-edge gilder, who gilds the edges. Usually a craft apart. (4) The forwarder, who performs all the other opera- tions leading up to the finishing. (5) The finisher, who decorates and letters the volume after it is forwarded. In Paris the work is still further distributed, a special workman (couvreur) being employed to prepare the leather for covering and to cover. In the opinion of the writer, the work, as a craft of beauty, suffers, as to the workmen, from the allocation of different operations to different workmen. The work should be conceived of as one, and be wholly executed by one person, or at most by two, and especially should there be no distinction between "finisher" and "for- warder," between "executant" and "artist." The following technical names may serve to call atten- tion to the principal features of a bound book. (1) The back, the posterior edge of the volume upon which at the present time the title is usually placed. Formerly it was placed on the fore edge or side. Bookbinding 147 The back may be (a) convex or concave or flat; (6) marked horizontally with bands, or smooth from head to tail; (c) tight, the leather or other covering adhering to the back itself, or hollow, the leather or other covering not so adhering; and (d) stiff or flexible. (2) Edges, the three other edges of the book — the top, the bottom, and the fore edge. (3) Bands, the cords upon which the book is sewn, and which, if not "let in" or embedded in the back, appear on it as parallel ridges. The ridges are, however, usually artificial, the real bands being "let in" to facilitate the sewing, and their places supplied by thin slips of leather cut to resemble them and glued on the back. This proc- ess also enables the forwarder to give great sharpness and finish to this part of his work, if he think it worth while. (4) Between bands, the space between the bands. (5) Head and tail, the top and bottom of the back. (6) The headband and headcap, the fillet of silk worked in buttonhole stitch at the head and tail, and the cap or cover of leather over it. The headband had its origin probably in the desire to strengthen the back and to resist the strain when a book is pulled by head or tail from the shelf. (7) Boards, the sides of the cover, stiff or limp, thick or thin, in all degrees. (8) Squares, the projection of the boards beyond the edges of the book. These may be shallow or deep in all degrees, limited only by the purpose they have to fulfill and the danger they will themselves be exposed to if too deep. (9) Borders, the overlaps of leather on the insides of the boards. (10) Proof, the rough edges of leaves left uncut in cut- 148 The Fine Arts ting the edges to show where the original margin was, and to prove that the cutting has not been too severe. The life of bookbinding is in the dainty mutation of its mutable elements — back, bands, boards, squares, deco- ration. These elements admit of almost endless varia- tion, singly and in combination, in kind and in degree, In fact, however, they are now almost always uniformly treated or worked up to one type or set of types. This is the death of bookbinding as a craft of beauty. The finish, moreover, or execution, has outrun inven- tion, and is the great characteristic of modern book- binding. This again, the inversion of the due order, is, in the opinion of the writer, but as the carving on the tomb of a dead art, and itself dead. A well-bound beautiful book is neither of one type nor finished so that its highest praise is that "had it been made by a machine it could not have been made better." It is individual; it is instinct with the hand of him who made it; it is pleasant to feel, to handle, and to see; it is the original work of an original mind working in free- dom simultaneously with hand and heart and brain to produce a thing of use, which all time shall agree ever more and more also to call "a thing of beauty." THE EQUIPMENT OF THE ILLUSTRATOR 1 By JOSEPH PENNELL JHREE special qualifications are absolutely indispensable to the artist who desires to become an illustrator. First, in order to make the least important illustration, the student must have a sound training in drawing, and if he has worked in color so much the better, for in the near future color work will play a very impor- tant part, even in the least costly form of books andpapers. Second, the student must thoroughly understand the use of various mediums, oil (in monochrome at least), water color, wash and body color, pen and ink, chalk, etching, lithography, and he must have ability to express himself by almost all these methods. A knowledge, too, of the appearance the drawing will present after it has been engraved on wood or metal, processed, etched, or lithographed, is necessary, because the illustrator will be held responsible for the results on the printed page; even though, as is usually the case, the fault is that of the en- graver or the printer, the public certainly will blame the artist alone. Therefore the editor or the publisher will not employ him. The engraver will blame him if only to save his own business reputation. The printer will take away in every case many valuable qualities which the drawing possessed; but for the incompetency or inability of engraver and printer, the artist will be held account- 1 From " The Illustration of Books." Copyright, 1896, by The Century Company. 149 150 The Fine Arts able, and he must therefore understand engraving and printing well enough to place the blame where it belongs, if not on his own shoulders. To be able, then, to obtain good printed results re- quires a knowledge of the reproductive arts, on the part of the illustrator, in theory at least, almost equal to the practical skill demanded in drawing. Third, but most important of all, the ability to discover the vital or characteristic motive of an author's work, and so set it forth that the public may see it too. And the power to do this well is without doubt the real test of an illustrator. Nothing is more difficult. The artist must please the author, therefore he should if possible know the writer personally; at least he must be in sympathy with, and interested in his work, else a difference arises at once'; jealousy between author and artist, nearly always the fault of the author, who usually resents the presence of the artist at all, is the cause of half the failures in illus- tration. No artist would think of dictating to an author the fashion in which the latter should write his story, but every author, and not a few editors, try to tell their own artist how it shall be illustrated. To a certain extent this is right, and it would be altogether right if only the author and the editor knew anything of art; but not infrequently they do not, and the less they know the more they dictate. It may be safely said that not once in a hundred times is the author satisfied with his illustrations, especially if they are made to decorate a story. And even the de- signs intended to illustrate a descriptive article seldom please the writer, simply because the author has no com- prehension of the limitations of graphic art. Still, with descriptive articles the case is somewhat The Equipment of the Illustrator 151 different. If the illustrator knows the author, he may undertake the journey, if to a foreign land, for example, with him, and a most delightful piece of collaboration may be the result. Or the author, having visited the spot, — sometimes he writes about it without having done so, — may make out a list of subjects, and the artist may pick and choose from them, going to the places described to do so, with more or less satisfactory results. In this way most of the better known magazines obtain their illustrated descriptive articles, but even by this method the artist and the author usually disagree as to what should be drawn, the matter being looked at from two entirely different points of view. Or the artist may be asked to work up into drawings, from photographs, views of a place, or portraits of people never seen by him; some illustrators are very successful at this, work which in most men's hands would be but the veriest drudgery and hack work, becoming interesting, attractive, and truly artistic. But in most cases such drawings, even by the most skillful men, lack the go and life obtained when the work is done direct from nature, or at least without the photo- graph; and every true artist prefers nature to any pho- tograph. There is nothing in the world more difficult to work from. One is confused by endless unimportant, unselected details; the point of view is never that which one would have selected, and the result, save in the rarest instances, is dubbed photographic even by the artless. The most awful misfortune that may occur to an illus- trator is to be compelled to use the photographs or sketches made by an author; here almost certain disaster awaits the artist. The author who can not draw but will sketch is terrible; the author who can photograph is impossible. 152 The Fine Arts Both, they are sure, could make the illustrations if they had the time; and the artist who is compelled to illus- trate them could write the story or do the description, he knows, if he only took the trouble. At least, that is the view they take of each other. The result is almost certain failure. Such people should contribute solely to the journals of actuality, where neither art nor literature find an abiding place, and the photograph, the amateur, and the personal paragraph are supreme. Despite all these things, and many more, people strug- gle to become illustrators. Another qualification for the illustrator is education; no ignorant person may become a decent illustrator. He need not possess a university degree; few do. But he must be able to understand a vital or dramatic or pic- torial point, and to arrive at this understanding may necessitate much study of literature at home and the visiting of many lands. How can one illustrate a history of Napoleon, for ex- ample, without reading everything possible about his life that the author read, and without visiting the various countries in which his life was passed? In short, the con- scientious illustrator goes through exactly the same proc- ess as the author, when collecting his materials. With this difference : . the author is, in most cases, the final judge of his own work, and of his artist's efforts, too. It is amazing that, considering that an illustrator has to submit to having his work judged by editors, rejected by authors, spoiled by engraving, injured by process, and ruined by printing, — and all this may happen to good as well as bad work, — armies of young people are rushing into an overcrowded profession, and every art school, by teaching illustration, is encouraging them to do so. The Equipment of the Illustrator 153 Seeing, then, that such is the case, my object is to endeavor to give you a start in the right way if possible, at least in the way that, up to the present, the best work has been done. That is, briefly, by drawing well, by working carefully, by expressing ideas plainly, and these desired results can only be obtained by those who regard illustration quite as seriously as any other branch of the Fine Arts; who know the good work that has been done in the past, and working on the right traditions, adapt their methods to the requirements of the present. There are many more points to be noted, not least of which is that an illustrator must learn to keep his temper; from the first drawing he submits, until he takes to paint- ing in despair, his work will almost surely be misunder- stood, his motives disbelieved. If he works in the style affected by his paper, that is, the style which the editor considers appeals to his subscribers, — for papers are published for gain, not love, — he will be asked by the critic why he does so. If he dares to be original, to fol- low his own inclinations, he will be told to efface himself and work like the rest. If he sketches he will be accused of shirking his work. If he elaborates he will be told he is ruining the proprietor. His only consolation is that he, personally, seldom sees the editor; he prepares himself for the ordeal, and as the editor has to encounter a constant succession of irate, contrite, emphatic, and even furious artists, his life can not be an altogether happy one. Still he flourishes, and so does the illustrator. But there are compensations. One may be asked to illustrate the works of a deceased author, one may treat the volume almost as one likes and discuss the result with the editor. In this case the artist will most certainly 154 The Fine Arts do his best. If he has the true illustrative spirit, he will study the period, the country, the manners, the costume; and, if let alone, to produce the work in his own way and at his leisure, he may create a masterpiece. This; how- ever, depends entirely on the artist. In this way the great illustrated works of the century have come into existence, without hurry, without worry, and, after all, the pleasure of work has been almost the only reward the artist has gained — and that seems to be enough to attract crowds. But I doubt if the business side of illus- tration means much to the student. Better still, the artist may make a series of drawings, and then get a writer, — an artist in words, — one of those people who talk of impressionism in prose, or impasto in poetry, to turn out so many yards of copy. With what a grace he does so, and with what glee the artist pounces on his lines! If it were not for the ever-present editor the author's lot would he almost as bad as the illustrator's. The best condition of all under which work may be pro- duced is when the illustrator is his own author, when he writes his own story or does his own description; this requires that one shall be doubly gifted. Much may be learned by practice, but to be really great in this has as yet scarce been granted. Still a few very talented artist- authors exist. Equally good are those magazines that publish illus- trations which are independent works of art, of equal importance with the text. Equally pleasant, too, is work- ing for the weekly illustrated press, — how long this form of publication will last is doubtful, — making drawings which will be printed of a large size and show really the ability of the artist. It is pleasant, too, when the editor is an artist or man of sympathetic intelligence. Another very important matter is the recognizing of The Equipment of the Illustrator 155 the fact that illustration at its best is equal in artistic rank with any other form of artistic expression; and that in every country save England illustrators rank with any other artists. Here one is forced to take to paint to gain admittance to the Royal Academy, though most of the distinguished members of that body won their reputa- tions, and live on them, not by color, but by the despised trade of illustrating. Critics, even the best of them, will tell you that an illustrator is just a little lower than a painter. It is false if the art of the one is as good in quality as that of the other, else Rembrandt's etchings are inferior to his paintings, which is absurd. But to-day many illustrators, in fact, the mass, do not take themselves seriously. They squabble and haggle, they hurry and push, they are as much shopkeepers as your out-of-work painter. Others must have their stuff in every paper. Others' portraits and eventless bour- geois lives appear in every magazine, especially if the por- trait is done for nothing and a few drawings are thrown in. Others crib the superficial qualities of the popular one of the moment, whether his game is eccentricity, mysticism, or primitiveness, three excellent dodges for hiding incapacity or want of training. But all the while good work is being done. You may not see the real artist's name in letters a foot long on every hoarding, or his production in every book that comes out. But once in a while he does an article, or even a drawing, and then the mystics, the hacks, the primitives, and even some few of the public, buy it and treasure it up. Therefore be serious, be earnest; and if you can not be, if you think illustration but a stepping- stone to something better, leave it alone and tackle the something better. You may never succeed in that; you will certainly fail in illustration. PRINTING By WILLIAM MORRIS and EMERY WALKER JRINTING, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts in being comparatively modern. For although the Chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the woodcutters of the Nether- lands, by a similar process, produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book, the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be con- sidered as the invention of the art of printing. And it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography, the earliest book printed with movable types, the Gutenberg, or "forty-two-line Bible," of about 1455, has never been surpassed. Printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable, types. Now, as all books not primarily intended as picture- books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress, it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form; especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters than in the same operations with ugly ones. And it was a matter of course that in the Middle Ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were, the forms of printed letters should be beauti- ful, and that their arrangement on the page should be 156 Printing 157 reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves. The Middle Ages brought caligraphy to perfection, and it was natural, therefore, that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely. The first books were printed in black letter, i.e., the. letter which was a Gothic development of the an- cient Roman character, and which developed more com- pletely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters; the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the early Middle Ages. The earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid Gutenberg Bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation of the more formal ecclesiastical writ- ing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type," and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, and other books produced by printing in the fifteenth century. But the first Bible actually dated (which also was printed at Maintz by Peter Schoeffer in the year 1462) imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less spiky, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read. On the whole the type of this book may be considered the ne plus ultra of Gothic type, especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by Schoeffer, but by printers in Strasburg, Basle, Paris, Liibeck, and other cities. But though, on the whole, except in Italy, Gothic letter was most often used, a very few years saw the birth of Roman character not only in Italy, but in Germany and France. In 1465 Sweynheim and Pannartz began printing in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome, and used an ex- ceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a 158 The Fine Arts transition between Gothic and Roman but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh-century MSS. They printed very few books in this type, 'three only; but in their very first books in Rome, beginning with the year 1468, they dis- carded this for a more completely Roman and far less beautiful letter. But about the same year Mentelin at Strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly Roman; and the next year Giinther Zeiner at Augsburg followed suit; while in 1470 at Paris Udalric Gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in France, also in Roman character. The Roman type of all these printers is similar in character, and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for use; but it is by no means without beauty. It must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of Subiaco, and though more Roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete Roman type of the earliest printers of Rome. A further development of the Roman letter took place at Venice. John of Spires and his brother Vindelin, followed by Nicholas Jenson, began to print in that city, 1469, 1470; their type is on the lines of the German and French rather than of the Roman printers. Of Jenson it must be said that he carried the development of Roman type as far as it can go; his letter is admirably clear and. regular, but at least as beautiful as any other Roman type. After his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by 1490 printing in Venice had declined very much; and though the famous family of Aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters, and pay- ing great attention to the "press work" or actual process of printing, yet their type is artistically on a much lower level than Jenson's, and, in fact, they must be considered to have ended the age of fine printing in Italy. Printing 159 Jenson, however, had many contemporaries who used beautiful type, some of which — as, e.g., that of Jacobus Rubeus or Jacques le Rouge — is scarcely distinguishable from his. These great Venetian printers, together with their brethren of Rome, Milan, Parma, and one or two other cities, produced the splendid editions of the Clas- sics, which are one of the great glories of the printer's art, and are worthy representatives of the eager enthu- siasm for the revived learning of that epoch. By far the greater part of these Italian printers, it should be men- tioned, were Germans or Frenchmen, working under the influence of Italian opinion and aims. It must be understood that through the whole of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries the Roman letter was used side by side with the Gothic. Even in Italy most of the theological and law books were printed in Gothic letter, which was generally more formally Gothic than the printing of the German work- men, many of whose types, indeed, like that of the Subiaco works, are of a transitional character. This was notably the case with the early works printed at Ulm, and in a somewhat lesser degree at Augsburg. In fact, Giinther Zeiner's first type (afterwards used by Schussler) is remarkably like the type of the before- mentioned Subiaco books. In the Low Countries and Cologne, which were very fertile of printed books, Gothic was the favorite. The characteristic Dutch type, as represented by the excel- lent printer Gerard Leew, is very pronounced and un- compromising Gothic. This type was introduced into England by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor, and was used there with very little variation all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and, indeed, into the eighteenth. Most of Caxton's own types are of 160 The Fine Arts an earlier character, though they also much resemble Flemish or Cologne letter. After the end of the fifteenth century the degradation of printing, especially in Germany and Italy, went on apace; and by the end of the sixteenth century there was no really beautiful printing done: the best, mostly French or Low Country, was neat and clear, but without any dis- tinction; the worst, which perhaps was the English, was a terrible falling off from the work of the earlier presses; and things got worse and worse through the whole of the seventeenth century, so that in the eighteenth printing was very miserably performed. In England about this time, an attempt was made (notably by Caslon, who started business in London as a type founder in 1720) to improve the letter in form. Caslon's type is clear and neat, and fairly well designed; he seems to have taken the letter of the Elzevirs of the seventeenth century for his model: type cast from his matrices is still in every- day use. In spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts, printing had still one last degradation to undergo. The seven- teenth-century fonts were bad rather negatively than positively. But for the beauty of the earlier work they might have seemed tolerable. It was reserved for the founders of the later eighteenth century to produce letters which are positively ugly, and which, it may be added, are dazzling and unpleasant to the eye, owing to the clumsy thickening and vulgar thinning of the lines, for the seventeenth-century letters are at least pure and simple in line. The Italian, Bodoni, and the French- man, Didot, were the leaders in this luckless change, though our own Baskerville, who was at work some years before them, went much on the same lines; but his letters, though uninteresting and poor, are not nearly so gross Printing 161 and vulgar as those of either the Italian or the French- man. With this change the art of printing touched bottom, as far as fine printing is concerned, though paper did not get to its worst till about 1840. The Chiswick press in 1844 revived Caslon's fonts, printing for Messrs. Longman the " Diary " of Lady Wil- loughby. This experiment was so far successful that about 1850 Messrs. Miller and Richard of Edinburgh were induced to cut punches for a series of "old-style" letters. These and similar fonts, cast by the above firm and others, have now come into general use and are obviously a great improvement on the ordinary "modern style" in use in England, which is in fact the Bodoni type a little reduced in ugliness. The design of the letters of this modern "old style" leaves a good deal to be desired, and the whole effect is a little too gray, owing to the thinness of the letters. It must be remembered, how- ever, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press, and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine proc- ess, which would not do justice to letters of more gen- erous design. To say a few words on the principles of design in typography: it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters; this is best furthered by the avoidance of irrational swellings and spiky projections, and by the using of careful purity of line. Even the Caslon type when enlarged shows great shortcomings in this respect: the ends of many of the letters, such as the t and e, are hooked up in a vulgar and meaningless way, instead of ending in the sharp and clear stroke of Jenson's letters; there is a grossness in the upper finishings of letters like the c, the 162 The Fine Arts a, and so on, an ugly pear-shaped swelling defacing the form of the letter: in short, it happens to this craft, as to others, that the utilitarian practice, though it professes to avoid ornament, still clings to a foolish, because mis- understood, conventionality, deduced from wnat was once ornament, and is by no means useful; which title can only be claimed by artistic practice, whether the art in it be conscious or unconscious. In no characters is the contrast between the ugly and vulgar illegibility of the modern type and the elegance and legibility of the ancient more striking than in the Arabic numerals. In the old print each figure has its definite individuality, and one can not be mistaken for the other; in reading the modern figures the eyes must be strained before the reader can have any reasonable assur- ance that he has a 5, an 8, or a 3 before him, unless the press work is of the best: this is awkward if you have to read Bradshaw's " Guide " in a hurry. One of the differences between the fine type and the utilitarian must probably be put down to a misappre- hension of a commercial necessity: this is the narrowing of the modern letters. Most of Jenson's letters are de- signed within a square, the modern letters are narrowed by a third or thereabout; but while this gain of space very much hampers the 'possibility of beauty of design, it is not a real gain, for the modern printer throws the gain away by putting inordinately wide spaces between his lines, which, probably, the lateral compression of his letters renders necessary. Commercialism again com- pels the use of type too small in size to be comfortable reading: the size known as "Long Primer" ought to be the smallest size used in a book meant to be read. Here, again, if the practice of "leading" were retrenched, larger type could be used without enhancing the price of a book. Printing 163 One very important matter in "setting up" for fine printing is the "spacing," that is, the lateral distance of words from one another. In good printing the spaces between the words should be as near as possible equal (it is impossible that they should be quite equal except in fines of poetry) ; modern printers understand this, but it is practiced only in the very best establishments. But another point which they should attend to they almost always disregard; this is the tendency to the for- mation of ugly meandering white lines or "rivers" in the page, a blemish which can be nearly, though not wholly, avoided by care and forethought, the desirable thing being the "breaking of the line" as in bonding masonry or brickwork. The general solidity of a page is much to be sought for: modern printers generally overdo the "whites" in the spacing, a defect probably forced on them by the characterless quality of the letters. For where these are boldly and carefully designed, and each letter is thoroughly individual in form, the words may be set much closer together, without loss of clearness. No definite rules, however, except the avoidance of "rivers" and excess of white, can be given for the spacing, which requires the constant exercise of judgment and taste on the part of the printer. The position of the page on the paper should be con- sidered if the book is to have a satisfactory look. Here once more the almost invariable modern practice is in opposition to a natural sense of proportion. From the time when books first took their present shape till the end of the sixteenth century, or, indeed, later, the page so lay on the paper that there was more space allowed to the bottom and fore margin than to the top and back of the paper, the unit of the book being looked on as the two pages forming an opening. The modern printer, in the 164 The Fine Arts teeth of the evidence given by his own eyes, considers the single page as the unit, and prints the page in the mid- dle of his paper — only nominally so, however, in many cases, since, when he uses a headline he counts that in, the result as measured by the eye being that the lower margin is less than the top one, and that the whole open- ing has an upside-down look vertically, and that later- ally the page looks as if it were being driven off the paper. The paper on which the printing is to be done is a necessary part of our subject: of this it may be said that though there is some good paper made now, it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheap- est. The paper that is used for ordinary books is ex- ceedingly bad. There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made, even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article is cheap, e.g., the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface, which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost. One fruitful source of badness in paper is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard, a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very un- pleasant to read. On the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent. The paper used for printing the small, highly ornamented French service books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect, being thin, tough, and opaque. However, the Printing 165 fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper can not in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand. The ornamentation of printed books is too wide a subject to be dealt with fully here; but one thing must be said on it. The essential point to be remembered is that the ornament, whatever it is, whether picture or pattern work, should form part of the page, should be a part of the whole scheme of the book. Simple as this proposition is, it is necessary to be stated, because the modern practice is to disregard the relation between the printing and the ornament altogether, so that if the two are helpful to each other it is a mere matter of acci- dent. The due relation of letter to pictures and other orna- ment was thoroughly understood by the old printers; so that even when the woodcuts are very rude indeed, the proportions of the page still give pleasure by the sense of richness that the cuts and letter together convey. When, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts, the books so ornamented are among the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced. Therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper, all books might be at least comely and well looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures, printed books might once again illustrate to the full the theory that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so. ORNAMENT 1 By LEWIS FOREMAN DAY JRNAMENT is the art of every day. The great picture galleries may be likened to temples of art, whither devout worshipers, and others less devout but no less anxious to pass for pious, resort only at intervals. In the same way a treasured painting may be the shrine at which a man offers up in private the incense of his admiration. But every day and all day long we breathe the atmos- phere of ornament. There is no escape from its influ- ence. Good or bad, it pervades every object with which our daily doings bring us in contact. We may, if we choose, keep away from picture gal- leries and not look at pictures; but, our attention once turned to ornament, we can no longer shut our eyes and decline to take heed of it, though there be all about us forms of it which every cultivated man would evade at any cost if he could. It may be to us a dream of beauty or a nightmare, but we can not shake it off. At every turn in life we come face to face with some fresh phase of it. The question of ornament is, therefore, neither insig- nificant nor one that has significance only for the wealthy few. Neither is it a matter which concerns only those who take some interest in art, since we are all of us, however little inclined towards the arts, alike compelled to orna- ment our dwellings, our belongings, and our persons. Imagine for a moment how a man would set about furnishing a house without ornament. In the first place, 1 From " Some Principles of Everyday Art." 166 Ornament 167 the house itself would need to be built for him, and not a door or window frame or chimney piece, not so much as a fire grate, door knocker, or area railing, but would have to be made to his express order. The furniture, from the door-scraper to his easy-chair, would in like manner have to be designed for him; and it is doubtful whether the markets of the known world would suffice to supply the necessary utensils, implements, and household vessels, all innocent of ornament. Were this at last accomplished, the first time he entered it he himself would introduce within its walls the inevitable decoration — unless, in- deed, he put off on the doorstep the clothes that society has determined to be necessary appendages to the natural man. The cut of his coat, or the rib of the cloth, the polish of his boots, the curve of his hat brim, the knot of his necktie, the pattern of his watch chain, the umbrella in his hand, even the all-necessary money in his pocket, — any one of these would be enough to destroy the artless simplicity at which he vainly aimed. A lady in every- day walking costume would introduce a small museum of ornamental detail. At bed and board we are pursued by ornament, — ■ the dinner-table is an "exposition" of art, — ■ such as it may be; the very box of plums on the dessert table is food for thought on design. The box is covered on the outside with a pattern in red and green, suggesting at once the lingering of traditional design, the satisfactory effect that may be got out of the very naivest form of color printing, and the quaint result of contradicting the circular shape by straight stripes of color. Inside the box we find a disk of perforated paper, so curiously indicative of the scissors as to set one thinking about the adaptation of de- sign to the method of its execution. We are led, further, by the barbaric decoration of the plums themselves to 168 The Fine Arts the consideration of the fitness of ornament; those gay shreds of tinsel are distinctly more pleasant to the eye than to the palate. Love of decoration is peculiar to no period. Ornament dates back to the rudimentary stage of the human race. If we were to trace it to its beginnings we should find ourselves in Eden — or wherever else the scientists will allow the human race to have had its origin. To-day it is omnipresent among us; and we can scarcely conceive a "coming race" without ornament. The association of art with every common object of daily use seems to be in the natural order of things. It was so in Ancient Greece and Rome and during the Renaissance. The ruder Gothic craftsmen and the earlier Egyptians and Assyrians were no exceptions to the rule. In the East the cunning artificer delighted to find in every branch of handiwork excuse for the elaboration of ingenious ornament. Even among the aborigines of Mexico, New Zealand, and the South Sea Islands, we find that every opportunity for ornament was seized, necessity guiding it into the way it should go. Only during a time of almost utter dearth of art amongst us (in the eighteenth and first half of the present cen- turies) was the idea ever entertained that use and orna- ment must be in some sense antagonistic. The result of attempting to draw the line between use and ornament, as if the two were not to be reconciled, was that ornament, which is irrepressible, struck out on its own account, and, unrestrained by sober use, indulged in all the extrava- gance and excess which the better taste of recent years has, we can not as yet say ended, but at all events inter- rupted. Perhaps we may assume, since there is usually some ground in fact for every fiction, that the perversion of Ornament 169 ornamental art among civilized nations, subsequent to the degradation of Renaissance design, led to the idea that use and ornament are. incompatible. It rests with us, by the sobriety and fitness of our design, to overturn this fallacy, so that not even the most practical and prosaic person shall be able to rest in the belief that use and orna- ment are independent one of the other. For decoration is, or should be, art controlled by common sense. Our everyday surroundings affect us always more or less; possibly they influence us much more than we are accustomed to suspect. That some among us should be doomed to live without beauty is one of the curses of our civilization; such unfortunates may find relief in deaden- ing the sense of beauty within them; even then it can never be quite the same thing to them whether they live in the midst of beauty or of ugliness. iEsthetic culture is not the highroad to all the virtues, and, indeed, certain of the vices have been known to infest it. I doubt very much whether it softens customs and forbids them to be savage. Neither, on the other hand, is there any special grace in ugliness, as Puritanism would have had us believe. Art is only utterance. It must express something; and the vital question is, what does it express? The daily association with honest, manly, real work, with art which, whether or not it be of the utmost refinement, is at least sincere and individual, must exert on us an influence less demoralizing than the continual contact with falsity, pretense, and affectation. The fact that we may be wholly unconscious of the in- fluence to which we are subject does not destroy its effect. The fresh air is tonic, whether we feel it to be so or not; and the germs of disease bred in a foul atmos- phere are none the less fatal, though our nostrils be not sufficiently delicate to detect the poison we breathe. 170 The Fine Arts The low condition to which ornament had fallen during the first half of the century accounts fully for the slight esteem in which it has come to be held; and nothing short of reform in design will ever restore to decoration the prestige that attached to it as a matter of course in days when art and handicraft were scarcely distinguish- able, when no artist disdained to do work which is now left to the mechanic — when in such work, very likely, he first made his mark. Of late years something like a reaction has set in towards the due appreciation of the accessory arts; and, inasmuch as this interest is no new thing, but a recurrence to that catholic appreciation of the arts which has characterized all periods when art has thriven, one is encouraged to hope that better times really have come again. To-day's interest in decorative art may be just a fashion. It is more encouraging to believe that yesterday's apathy was only an episode in the history of popular opinion. The arts may be likened to so many languages, more or less akin but never identical, and all of them differing from the utterance of nature. Each of these languages may be said to embrace a variety of dialects; and each of the various crafts which go to make decorative art, ex- presses itself most readily in its own peculiar dialect. If the same idea be expressed in several arts, in each case the form of expression will be different; and if an artist borrow a notion from some neighboring craft, he will translate it (as he would if he had borrowed it from Nature) into his own tongue. Art, inasmuch as it implies something more than literal transcript, depends upon expression. All that is asked of the decorative artist is, that he shall express himself idiomatically. This idiomatic expression in ornament has been called conventionality. But the term "conventional" is not Ornament 171 altogether a happy one. For one thing, it is associated in our thoughts with what is commonplace and insincere; and it is not desirable that the art of ornament should be bracketed in men's minds with the pretense that keeps society going. Then again, the word, even as applied to ornament, serves to express that which is traditional; and, if we trace it back to its root, it does mean literally that which has been agreed upon by mutual consent. It happens that a large proportion of ornament in any degree idiomatic is at the same time traditional, and more or less stereotyped in character; and, as a consequence, the idea of fixedness or familiarity has come to be popu- larly associated with the word "conventional." Yet it is quite possible to have apt expression in ornament not in the least according to tradition. In the very earliest instances of ornament, obedience to the law of use was a matter of course. If a savage carved the handle of his tomahawk, the carving was just sufficient to give him a tighter grip on the weapon; he would take very good care not to cut so deep as to weaken it. There was no danger of his indulging in ornament which at a critical moment might cost him his life. And to this day we find that among ourselves the only objects never overlaid with misplaced ornamentation are weapons, tools, and things of actual use, in the fashioning of which we can not afford to play the fool and sacrifice consistency to effect. It is strange that the preference for fit ornament, which comes so naturally to savages, is, among Europeans of the present day, a sure sign of culture in art. [ Between the simplicity of form suggested by utility, and the degree of elaboration which begins seriously to interfere with the first purpose of a thing, there is a very wide range of ornament. No one, it is to be presumed, 172 The Fine Arts will deny that all ornament which does so interfere over- steps its limit. The difficulty of decoration consists in hitting the exact mean between bald simplicity .and undue enrichment; and there are obvious reasons why the art of knowing where to stop is rarer among us to-day than it was among the artists of classic, medieval, and Renais- sance times, rarer than it is even now among contempo- rary nations of the East. We live in an ambitious, or rather a pretentious, age. The accessory arts are all hot to start in business on their own account. What wonder that they come to grief? The consideration of use, wherever it occurs in decora- tion, overrules all. The tyranny of the main purpose is absolute. There is no excuse for the house that is pic- turesque at the expense of convenience, or the room that is made beautiful at the cost of homeliness; for the table that is unsteady, for the chair that is uneasy, for the fender which affords no foot rest. Every breach of the simple law of common sense condemns itself. If the quaint teapot dribble, if the slender-necked flower vase hold too few flowers, if the rich pillow be harsh with embroidery, if the graceful handle hurt the fingers, — the thing is a nuisance, and a joy never. Ornament can be convicted of no graver fault than that of interfering with the use of the thing ornamented; that is an offense no merit of execution can condone. The most successful enrichment is frequently suggested by some useful purpose, and so falls into its place as a matter of course. Ornament has uses, too, quite inde- pendent of art. Not only are plain surfaces tiresomely monotonous; they are often very inconvenient as well. The slightest soil or scratch, sooner or later inevitable, betrays itself at once upon an even ground; and to dap- ple such spaces with a pattern, or to scratch them with Ornament 173 ornament, to figure the delicate silk, to carve the surface of the wood, is only to take Time by his proverbial forelock. That ornament should be beautiful is understood; it is no less essential that it should be apt. This is no fan- tastic theory or arbitrary dogma. It is the plain teach- ing of Nature, of old work, and of common sense. Nature works in no simply utilitarian spirit. Most things nat- ural are also beautiful; and the- beauty is perhaps as much another use as the usefulness is in a sense, a fresh source of beauty. The practical purpose of Nature's ornament may not always be apparent to us; but we never find in Nature ornament that is contrary to use. The harvest may not be in direct relation to the golden glow of the cornfield, or the vintage quite according to the mottled crimson of the vine leaves; but the bread is not less sustaining or the wine the less refreshing because of the beauty of field or vineyard. In many instances we find on investigation that beauty is subservient to some useful purpose; as in the case of flowers and berries which by the brightness of their color attract the bees and birds. Only "Nature's journeyman" is proud of a progeny of monstrous flowers which bear no fruit, and of which not one is to be compared, for beauty, with the simple almond blossom or the wild brier rose. One of the first functions of ornament is to compensate, correct, or qualify the simplicity or ungainliness of form dictated by necessity. It is a common mistake to sup- pose that this is to be done by overlaying it with en- richment and hiding it under a heap of ornament. The simplest and most obvious lines on which to build a house, the inevitable construction of a machine, the comfortable proportions of a piece of furniture, the convenient form of a gas pipe — each and all of these may be far from 174 The Fine Arts beautiful; but that is scarcely an argument why they should be smothered with scrollery. If the fit and proper form be indeed beyond redemption, there are two courses open to us — either to do without it, or to put up with it as it is. Happily, it is not often so hopeless as that. In most cases a little consideration will show that some of the objectionable features may be omitted or supplanted by others more presentable, and that if the actual lines of an object can not be made in themselves harmonious, their awkwardness may be to some extent relieved by decora- tive features which in no way interfere with its use or character. It is not quantity of ornament that tells, but ornament in the right place; a crossband here and there to break any disproportionate length, a few parallel stipes to counteract the appearance of thickness, an occasional rosette or flower to withdraw attention from the less interesting parts of the construction — simple devices like these are often quite enough to redeem a thing from ugliness. The defect of the thing to be ornamented is the starting point of the decorator. If it be already perfect, why, that is enough. It is because the proportion of a room is defective that we desire to give the appearance of greater height or length to it; because it is bare that we seek to enrich it; because it is dull that we wish to enliven it; because it is glaring that we do our best to subdue it; because it is cold that we want to give it warmth; be- cause, in short, it is unsatisfactory that we propose to do anything at all to the room. The motives which prompt the undertaking of decora- tion should also by rights suggest the nature and extent of the ornament. We could do very well, for example, with perfectly plain playing cards if it were not for the Ornament 175 fact that every speck on the enamel would tell tales. It is convenient, therefore, to cover the back of a card pretty evenly with ornament; and a design which left bare spaces of ground would fail of its purpose. Ornament may be in itself perfectly satisfactory and even charming, and yet so inadequate to the purpose to which it is put that it is obviously out of place. It is scarcely necessary to say that however beautiful such work may be, it is bad decoration. Whenever the con- ditions of ornament are impossible of fulfillment, ornament is better left alone; and the conditions proper to design are that it should be fit — for its purpose, for its place, and for the material in which, and the process by which, it is executed. Intelligent decoration has always some definite inten- tion in it; and that intention or idea rules everything absolutely, even to the least significant detail. Whether the motive be unpretending or ambitious, every stroke of work properly leads up to it. Every stroke that does not do so is ill done. The first step in design is to determine which shall be the culminating point of the decoration; and however lavishly the artist may dis- tribute enrichment, he reserves for that his crowning effort, making all else converge towards it. Without such emphasis of treatment ornament sinks into mo- notony. The point or points of emphasis being deter- mined, all else is subordinate; it is background, to be decorated, if at all, with ornament apt to a position com- paratively unpretending and subdued. But there are backgrounds and backgrounds. A wall surface, for example, is a background; so is a floor; yet the enrichment befitting the one would be offensive in the other. If you are content with simple monochrome, or with 176 The Fine Arts minute pattern work in tints which, however bright, lose themselves at some little distance in a haze of soft color, only revealing the design that may be there when you come closer and look for it, it is not difficult to keep a background in its place. The difficulty is in inventing a pattern that shall not be insignificant, nor yet beckon your attention. The unpardonable sin in ornament is the attempt to usurp the first place. It should simply fit its purpose, neither more nor less. It is equally at fault when it is too rich or too poor for its place. We frequently see, set in fairly good cabinet work, panels of so trivial a character as to cast suspicion over the whole work, and make it hard to believe that the workmanship has been conscientious and careful up to that point, and has failed only just where it should have culminated. Economy is pleaded in excuse for this pal- triness. True economy would suggest rather that trump- ery ornament be left out. The opposite fault of degrading good work to a posi- tion unworthy of it is less common. Yet it is committed whenever anything in the nature of a picture is used by way of background. This is no more to be condoned than uninteresting diaper or coarse ornament usurping a place of honor, say in a framework of delicate moldings. Certain objects, such as things purely ornamental, and certain portions of objects, such as the doors and panels of furniture and the like, deserve prominence; and in these posts of distinction the artist is justified in adopting a freedom of treatment not warranted elsewhere. The panel occupies a position which may be either in- significant or of the very highest importance. In the latter case there is little restraint as to the extent to which elaboration and realization may be carried. The law of fitness decrees that it shall always remain a panel — Ornament 177 however admirable in itself, still more admirable as part of the whole. The danger with pictorial work is that it may forget its dependent position, and attract too much attention, either to itself or to the object which it pre- tends to honor. But if only the artist bear in mind the condition of fitness or decorative unity, for the rest he is free to perfect his work to his heart's content; and it is neither more nor less than pedantry that would hinder the competent man from doing his utmost. There are many ways in which a decorative painting, artistically on a level with pictures on the walls, may acknowledge that it is part of the wall or cabinet in which it is framed. The evidence that it was designed to occupy the space it fills, its unobtrusive neutrality, or the fact that it forms as it were a high note of the prevailing color scheme, may suffice to show that it has no desire whatever to step forward and assert itself at the expense of oneness. Another question of fitness arises in reference to the position in which a design will be presented to view. It is generally recognized that the pattern of a carpet or any other floor covering should be designed with a view to its effect from all sides — that it should be what is called "all round"; but the Moslem, whose prayer mat was always placed facing the east, was quite justified in designing it for that one position only in which it was likely to be seen; and we might with equal consistency design a stair carpet (which is noticed chiefly as we ascend) on the principle of an upward-growing pattern. With regard to the actual shapes of things there is not often much room for question as to their appropriateness. If the consideration of use has been overlooked in their design, we very soon find out their inconvenience. However calmly we may tolerate existing inconsist- encies, there is in most of us a native preference for what 178 The Fine Arts is practical; and the suitability or unsuitability of a form to its purpose is a thing that can be proved. The fitness of applied ornament is not easy to define. Its appreciation depends to some extent upon that very intangible quality called " feeling," and to some extent upon knowledge. If a man can not see the incongruity of incongruous ornament, it is difficult to explain it to him. He lacks, perhaps, the sense of what is becoming, or the necessary knowledge of the subject: one might have to begin by educating him. There are many to whom the most elaborate and most ambitious work will always seem to be the best. Such men will sum up your objection to work that is finished too minutely for its position, or too delicately for its pur- pose, by asserting that what you find fault with is that it is "too well done." On the contrary, the contention is that the expenditure of labor not justified by the result is ill spent. That which is misplaced or ill-timed is done amiss, however thoroughly done. Fitness is essential to well-doing; and what is unfit falls far short of the height at which there would be any danger of overstepping the boundary of well-doing and doing too well. Any dis- crepancy of workmanship takes away from our enjoy- ment of it, even where the discrepancy consists in a part of the work being carried to a point of finish inconsistent with its surroundings. In admiration of the absolute excellence of the work itself, we may occasionally be in- clined to condone this offense against taste; but, all the same, it is an offense. Many a time, too, there is a temptation to shrink from the invidious task of faultfinding; and, rather than say outright that ornament is discordant and tasteless, one is inclined to wrap up the truth in soft words, and say that it is "too well done." Ornament 179 In one sense only can any part of a work be done too well, namely, as implying that all else is not done well enough' — the fault of discrepancy, that is to say, may he in the surrounding work. Art can in truth no more be too well done than it can be too beautiful. To do unwisely is not to do too well — ■ Shakespeare notwithstanding. Othello did not love too well, but too blindly, too blunderingly, and altogether too stupidly, after the manner of his brutal kind. Much good work is suffocated with false finish, the perpetrator possibly justifying the deed to his conscience by the thought that he loves his art too well to exercise restraint upon himself. A far more certain sign of devotion to his craft would be in the readiness to sacrifice to it something of his not unpardonable pride of execution. THE DECORATOR By ERNEST CHESNEAU VERY artist who makes it his business to i» create, and every artisan whose calling it is to execute a decorative work, is, in his various degree, a decorator. The distance is wide between a great artist — a painter of genius, for instance, such as Eugene Delacroix, whose two-and-twenty masterly compositions grace the library of the Palais Bourbon — and the humble journeyman who adds a few touches of color to decorate some fancy article of the Paris trade; but their function is the same. Each in his way adds adornment to a certain object, made of a given material, and intended for a particular purpose; and each must take due account of the form, the material, and the purpose, in his treatment. This subserviency to external and inevitable condi- tions constitutes of itself the chief difference between the decorator and the artist free to follow the guidance of his own inspiration; between the painter of a picture, who obeys his own will and instinct, and the painter bound to subdue the resources of his art to sumptuous harmony with the surroundings — as in a palatial ball- room; between the sculptor animating the marble in a form . born of his own consciousness and the sculptor bidden to execute figures for a monument of definite character — as a sepulcher, a triumphal arch, or a chapel. There is no need to add that neither sculptors nor painters confine their attention to decorative work, while the architect, on the contrary, is necessarily a 180 The Decorator 181 decorator, or he ceases to be an architect, and is no more than a builder. From these three parent arts proceed an endless num- ber of secondary arts which industry has attached to her service when they are not actually her offspring. These arts are of such vast importance, from a merely commercial point of view, that it may almost be said that there is no form of manufacture that is quite independent of the decorator. Every branch of industry has blos- somed into its own industrial art. Now, as has been said, in every branch of manu- facture there is every year an increasing dearth of original designers and decorators. At the same time it must be observed that this dearth of creative originality is no less marked in the decorative arts which are independent of manufactures than in works which are produced as single efforts, and which need to be, and are, the direct outcome of the artist's personal labor. Is there any remedy for this hopeless state of things, this gloomy out- look? If there is, what is it? Everyone is ready with the answer, "In teaching and training." But it is better to be frank and to speak out the whole truth, even at the cost of fighting against the stream of opinion which has, to some extent, swept off their feet the public-spirited and liberally intentioned men who have undertaken to teach drawing and the kindred arts. The truth, then, as it seems to me, is that there is too strong a tendency to separate "Art as applied to manufactures" from what is termed "High Art." The strange thing is that this tendency is equally marked in those who profess the most thorough contempt for what is called "Art Manufacture" — a most mischievous confusion of ideas and perversion of words — and in 182 The Fine Arts those who, for the last twenty years, have persistently given substantial proof of their interest in the progress of the decorative arts. Of all the generous elements to which a nation owes glory and fortune there is not one more deserving of our unfailing respect than the body of artistic craftsmen, the creators of those adjuncts to luxury which, throughout the ages, have been and are so intimately and constantly associated with the requirements and enjoyments of social life. The picture, the statue, — which we are wont to consider as works of art complete each in itself, and an independent creation, a treasure for the cabinet or gallery to be set apart or placed with others, moved into different surroundings, from the collection of one amateur to another, from a cottage to a palace or a museum, — the isolated work, in short, answers to a quite modern notion of art. The statue and the picture have become specific subdivisions of the family group which formerly comprehended all the arts of present- ment. Like those greedy offshoots of a tree which absorb all the sap of the main stem, and crowd out the rest, that they may enjoy all the light of heaven, these last- born of the arts have cast the less aspiring branches into the shade of their spreading ramifications, though in order of time the latter were their precursors. Quite surely, if man's first act on earth was to provide himself with food, and the second to construct, a shelter against the inclemency of the seasons and the attacks of wild beasts, the first impulse of nascent aestheticism was to decorate himself and his dwelling. Herbert Spencer, in his "Principles of Education," has noted the fact that decoration precedes clothing: "Decoration precedes dress. Among people who sub- The Decorator 183 mit to great physical suffering that they may have them- selves handsomely tattooed, extremes of temperature are borne with but little attempt at mitigation. Hum- boldt tells us that an Orinoco Indian, though quite re- gardless of bodily comfort, will yet labor for a fortnight to purchase pigment wherewith to make himself admired; and that the same woman who would not hesitate to leave her hut without a fragment of clothing on would not dare to commit such a breach of indecorum as to go out unpainted. Voyagers find that colored beads and trinkets are much more prized by wild tribes than are calicoes and broadcloths. And the anecdotes we have of the ways in which, when shirts and coats are given, savages turn them to some ludicrous display, show how completely the idea of ornament predominates over that of use." Man, when he builds a hovel, is not more than a car- penter or a mason; but at the moment when he tries to embellish the dwelling — or some article of course pottery, or the weapon he never can lay aside — with any adjunct that does not directly tend to its utility; when he ar- ranges the parts of his house with an eye to symmetry and proportion in no respect essential to his practical requirements; when he ornaments stone, wood, clay, or horn with clumsy carvings, gaudy colors, or feeble en- graving, he becomes an artist. Thenceforth, what is strong and useful no longer satisfies him, for he craves the superfluous, the useless, the setting; he desires that what is serviceable shall also be beautiful, that what is strong shall be handsome. This desire, which can be traced from the earliest stage of humanity, has always had the fullest play under every phase of civilization. Man cherished it and persevered in it; he surrounded himself with beautiful things, and 184 The Fine Arts carried the refinement of luxury so far as to insist that, after originating the nobler forms of architecture, art should set its stamp on every object of domestic use. From this, that group of arts took their rise which are known as the decorative arts; still, they are, after all, Art — eternal and one — giving utterance under a thousand aspects to the high aspirations, the noble feelings, the luxurious tastes, nay, the very caprices of the human soul; art lending her splendid adornment to objects meant for use, and transforming them into objects of luxury with total disregard of the costliness of materials; art devoting itself with. impartial love to the ornamentation of the dwelling and the furniture; of metal work, whether precious or no, and for whatever purpose; of pottery, glass, and hangings; of the table, or the person and its clothing; of everything made by the hand of man; all he touches or can touch and transform and beautify by means of art, whose domain and influence are in fact unlimited. The Italian invasion — the invasion of Italian painters under the House of Valois — founded the French school of "Art for Collectors" which I here contrast with the living native art of France in the fifteenth century. There were no mere pattern makers, no "Art Manufac- turers" then. The old masters of their arts did not disdain to compose an arabesque, to paint a cartoon for tapestry, to design a piece of furniture, to carve a chimney piece. In their hands art was ubiquitous; it found expression in historical painting and sculpture, no doubt, but no less in decorative painting and sculpture, in costume and in furniture, in the arrangement of the dwelling house, in the suitability and suggestiveness of objects placed in juxtaposition, in the prominence allowed to each with due reference to its importance and purpose. The Decorator 185 This has all been forgotten — this is what we must strive to recall. This the Greeks, too, had done, whose works were for a while copied with hackneyed servility, when what was really needed was an effort to compre- hend their genius and to imbibe it; and in the same way, we are now copying the works of our forefathers and of Eastern art. Now we must look for a second Renaissance in matters of taste. In the ordinary course of things we are all, or nearly all, occasionally interested in matters of art; some of us directly, as producers; others — most indeed — as judges. Quite involuntarily we are constantly called upon to decide on the choice of a color, a wall- paper, a bronze, or a picture. It must, therefore, be of use to everyone to be able, at first sight, to analyze the practical effect as well as the artistic worth of every object of which the production has involved the exercise of taste, whether it be a piece of furniture, or stuff, or a painting by a master hand, a simple outcome of in- telligence, or an effort of genius. Can this power be acquired? Yes, I reply, by constant study in permanent museums and temporary exhibitions, where the precious relics of former ages are treasured up. But we must bring to our studies an open breadth of mind, and never imagine that these noble or exquisite works were the result of such a special — and I may say narrow — training as the present system tends to give. By such a routine we upset the coach in the rut we are trying to avoid. It was well said a propos of an exhibition in Paris of old designs for decorative work, "Such drawings as these, which none but the ignorant or purblind pedants could regard as the product of inferior talents, are, in fact, the work of very great sculptors, painters, and architects, 186 The Fine Arts who worked them out to be the most elegant ornamen- tation they could devise for the palaces of kings and for the luxurious accessories of aristocratic existence in Europe during three centuries." Ought we not rather to infer, in opposition to prevalent opinion, that, as the decorative arts were always supplied with nourishment from the highest founts of artistic genius, we should do well not to specialize instruction, but, on the contrary, to generalize and elevate it as much as possible? and, instead of training designers for par- ticular branches of industry, to educate great architects, great sculptors, and great painters? Judging from appearances, it would seem that the world is coming to this better mind, and not in France alone. Drawing and the allied arts are exciting greater interest than ever before in every part of the civilized world. England, Austria, and Belgium are multiplying the opportunities of learning, and new schools are being opened every day in the United States. The fact is noteworthy; at the same time I can not indulge in any illusions as to the nature of this movement. The effort is widely spread, but it is not magnanimous; it is a strong one, but not very lofty; genuine, but not disinterested. A pure love of beauty in pictorial or plastic work, and of the aesthetic pleasure it may give, has very little to do with it. Still less is it based on a love of grand representations of human life and action, or of those sublime ideas which spring from sacred founts and are fed by grand lyrics, national epics and legends, or perennial passions. No; the movement in art at which we are looking on, and which bestirs itself to found so many schools and museums, is far from disinterested; it is commercial. The sole aim and end of it is to dress up articles of trade so as to command a better sale. The Decorator 187 There can be no doubt that the money thus laid out in England has been amply refunded. Within thirty years England has succeeded in taking a high place among the nations which shine in arts applied to manufacture (I do not say in decorative art); it has indeed shown a singular aptitude in assimilating the spirit of more crea- tive nations, more especially of Japan, and adapting it to its own requirements and means of production. Other nations have benefited by the lesson. We may note a consentaneous effort in every manufacturing people, tending to the same end, and bearing witness to the importance everywhere attributed to the adorn- ment of the dwelling and its furniture, and of the person, — to all, in short, which forms a setting, — a back- ground to human life, and exerts a pleasing influence on the eye. Every nation is henceforth eager to free itself from the control formerly held by France over the taste of Europe; each, before long, will be striving to enslave the rest to her own. Already, indeed, Austria is becom- ing a serious rival of France in the great metropolitan markets with her plate glass, pottery, and furniture of a modest type; England, too, with her "fancy trade," articles of mere fashionable luxury; and Germany, with her manufacture of heavy common furniture. What I find to lament at the present time is not so much that our designers and modelers of manufactured art, so to speak, insist on painting pictures and carving statues, as that painters and sculptors will not, unless under compulsion, paint and carve for decorative pur- poses. The great masters of the past, even in compara- tively recent times, had no such pride — which is indeed characteristic of a decadence. Did Raphael refuse to decorate the Vatican with arabesques, or Durer and Holbein to make designs for 188 The Fine Arts the goldsmiths, armorers, and printers of their day? In the French school, again, this variety and fertility of occupation was a tradition even as late as at the be- ginning of this century. Delaune and Ducerceau were the equals of the most. famous court painters, but they produced decorative designs for architects, sculptors, and goldsmiths, gunsmiths, tapestry workers, cabinet makers, and potters. At the very height of the French 'classic period, Poussin drew, in imitation of the antique, trophies of arms for triumphal arches and scrolls from bas-reliefs. Le Sueur painted for a private mansion (H6tel Lambert) some panels and mythological figures to ornament the walls and ceilings. Among the exten- sive collection of drawings by Le Brun at the Louvre, not the least interesting are his sketches for the king's tapestries and silver plate, and the groups he composed for the great fountains at Versailles, which were executed by a whole crowd of artists of mark. It must, however, at once be stated that a decorator must be prepared for a life of abnegation, of subjection; he is low down in the priesthood. He must be possessed of vast funds of knowledge, very superior, indeed, to that of the men whom he subserves — architects, painters, and amateurs; and yet he must subordinate and subject his talents to conditions over which he has no control, to difficulties of material, to peculiarities of form in the surfaces he is required to decorate, to a glare or a defi- ciency of light, not to speak of the vagaries and even bad taste of his employer. In point of fact this branch of art is so vast that what it demands is nothing short of perfect knowledge in theory and in practice of per- spective and architecture, figure painting, animals, and landscape. The draftsman's hand must be supple and free, master of every difficulty, quick to follow every The Decorator 189 prompting of the brain. After the moment of inception, when the intelligence and judgment have approved, there must be no delay caused by incompetence of eye or hand. However great the artist's genius may be, if his hand is not guided by secure knowledge, and if it is not trained to absolute and instant obedience, his work must be imperfect. We have illustrious examples in our own country to prove the fact. And how much more imper- ative is the necessity in the case of the decorative artist. A painter of history may, if he thinks fit, concentrate his studies on the human figure only; but the decorator is concerned with all nature in its most various forms. Flowers, infinite in variety of line, mold, and hue; leaves, fruits, branches in all their multiform variety of structure and drawing; animated nature, too, in endless dissimilarity, man and the lower animals each claiming a place in the decorator's stock in trade. The art of the decorator thus apprehended is indeed ars longa; and in the present state of affairs it is a thank- less career, in which the sacrifices are out of all pro- portions to the advantages. Young beginners, antici- pating no encouragement, shrink from the enormous cost of producing good work. They no sooner under- stand the difficulties that lie before them than they desert the workshop and become painters of portraits or pictures. It is difficult to blame them. But by reason precisely of the initial difficulties which can be triumphantly surmounted only by the aid of such "encyclopedic" studies, we feel that such artists deserve to be respected and honored at least as much as others — the painters of pictures and sculptors of busts and statues. In point of fact, since art is essentially decoration, decorative art includes high art. THE ART EXPERT 1 By SIR MARTIN CONWAY r N the eighteenth century a man might bring himself into the front rank of connoisseurs of any particular branch or school of art by the expenditure of very little time and trouble. It was particularly easy for a painter to make himself erudite in the history of painting without neglect- ing his own practice. This was even true down to a relatively recent period. Thus it came to pass that most of the principal picture galleries of Europe were not improperly placed under the care and direction of artists. Now, however, expertness is not so easily acquired. Competition has grown keen in this matter also, and the area of possible knowledge is immensely widened.* To become an expert in the history of painting is as much a life's work as to become a painter. Only a man en- dowed by nature with a quick eye and a retentive memory can attain to eminence in this line. The subject is no longer simple; the mass of printed material to be mastered is enormous. New discoveries are of monthly occurrence and are recorded in a variety of journals published in half a dozen languages. The mere foundation of good connoisseurship likewise involves personal inspection of the principal museums of Europe. To become a good expert in art, therefore, involves as long a preliminary training as is required to make a good lawyer or physician. Those institutions which earliest perceived these facts and obtained the best expert direc- 1 From "The Domain of Art," London: John Murray. 190 The Art Expert 191 tion possible profited by their wisdom. In this, Germany of course was ahead of England. I have been informed that the Stadel Institute at Frankfort and the Fitz- william Museum at Cambridge were founded somewhere about the same time and endowed with approximately the same sum of money. The Stadel Institute was placed under the control of experts many years sooner than the Fitzwilliam Museum, with the result that it was able to take advantage of a period, unlikely ever to return, when important old works of art could be bought at a cheap rate. Anyone who will compare the two collections as they now exist will perceive the enormous difference between the result of the two policies. The high ideal of expertness, thus set before you, as proper to the man who would make art history the work of his fife, is of course unattainable by an amateur, for whom the study of old works of art is a recreation. Yet every amateur, in proportion as he becomes inter- ested in the subject, will find himself attaining some knowledge of this branch of art criticism and will take pleasure in increasing it. The best possible way to obtain expertness, especially for a man of limited means, is to become a collector. Nothing educates the judgment so quickly as the making of costly mistakes. To spend rather more than you can afford on purchasing what you believe to be a treasure, and then to find out that you have acquired a forgery, teaches the purchaser a lesson that he will not soon forget. He will not be taken in by that particular kind of deceit again. It is not necessary to be rich in order to collect, pro- vided a man is catholic in his tastes and takes advantage of the countless opportunities which the roving nature of modern life brings within the reach of most. Works of art acquired by a parent, prized by a sen, tolerated by 192 The Fine Arts a grandson, are often neglected and scattered by his descendants. They turn up at country sales or drift into pawnshops. Thus there is provided a permanent function for the studious and relatively impecunious collector of good taste to hang on the flanks and follow in the rear of neglect, picking up and rescuing the strag- glers that keep falling from the proud army of recognized fame. Not all good art is always fashionable. Works that could have been bought five-and-twenty years ago for a few pounds or even shillings now fetch their hundreds or scores of guineas. Doubtless the same will be true twenty-five years hence, and some of you will live to cast your eyes back to the present day and regret that you did not appreciate and acquire, when they were cheap, objects since risen beyond the reach of your purse. Let me suggest, for instance, that the monthly output of illustrated journals and magazines often includes some admirable prints; and that an amateur of refined taste could fill a portfolio in course of time with a precious collection of chosen impressions, acquired one by one, at an expense altogether trifling. The man who in his youth keeps a few shillings, and later on, as he prospers in life, a few pounds, available for the purchase of a good thing whenever the opportunity occurs, who does not confine himself to one small area of art, but looks pri- marily for beauty, and buys nothing that is not absolutely good, will fill his rooms by degrees with a small selec- tion of works that will be of interest to all lovers of art and a priceless possession to himself. Not merely the things will be a pleasure to him; each one will be a connecting link with a multitude of objects similar in character or school, all of them perhaps greatly superior in value, preserved in museums, or the property Thohab Carlyle The Art Expert 193 of rich private collectors. Thus, for example, twenty- five years ago I bought for sixpence a bit of old Chinese enamel, a genuine fragment of work of the best school, and I can honestly say that having that fragment con- tinually at hand, and being able to pick it up and examine it closely without the necessary restrictions that impede the handling of precious objects in a museum, taught me more about Oriental enamel than I learned from all the fine collections in Europe. Every object you buy, however trifling an example in itself, directs your attention to other objects of the same kind, teaches you to appreciate what is better and to discern the worse. To the ordinary man of small means the suggestion that he should become a collector seems as absurd as that he should become a millionaire; but in fact pains- taking research, patient hunting, and acquired knowledge, are more important parts of a collector's equipment than is a long purse. Two of the most interesting small private collections known to me have cost their makers nothing; an occasional sale of some object of partic- ular rarity, very cheaply acquired, having covered the cost of the remainder. The ordinary new-made rich man, who has spent the first part of his life in becoming a millionaire and then turned his attention to buying works of art, is seldom a good collector, the reason being that he has grown incapable of the kind of pre- liminary study which is necessary before he can venture to trust his own judgment. He must either place him- self in the hands of a dealer or constitute himself at once the paymaster and the humble servant of an expert, who really makes the collection for him and takes a heavy toll for so doing. One thing nowadays every student must collect, more or less, — I mean photographic reproductions of 194 The Fine Arts ancient objects. Every tourist buys photographs. Few collect them on any principle. I can not urge you too strongly, if you wish to become acquainted with the art of the past, to make an organized and well-chosen collec- tion of photographs a matter of prime consideration. For the adornment of the walls of your rooms a few large framed reproductions of such works of art as you especially admire may be suitable enough; but for a student's historical collection small photographs are preferable to large. Do not mount them on cards or the collection will soon become too bulky for easy reference. It is better to keep them unmounted and to group them together in large envelopes; all of one size, and each devoted to the works of a particular master, school, or period. The ordinary photographs which you buy all over Italy for a franc apiece are the most convenient size for a student's purposes. The best way to begin the formation of such a collection is not to plunge into an indiscriminate acquisition of whatever takes your fancy but to select some particular master or school and form a faHy representative body of reproductions of authentic works. Say, for example, that you choose the works of Raphael. You should begin by reading the two or three best lives of that painter, and by making out a list of those pictures and drawings which seem to be best representative of the different periods of his art. You will find that for some pictures there still exist a con- siderable number of authentic designs, which enable the artist's process of conception to be followed. Some of these will of course find a place on your list, the more certainly because a pen-and-ink drawing, every touch of which is from the master's own hand, can be reproduced almost perfectly by. photographic process. You will The Art Expert 195 further find that the early stages of Raphael's develop- ment are to some degree obscure. There are differences of opinion as to the influence of older masters upon him and as to the order in which those influences were brought to bear. Some drawings once confidently as- cribed to him are now as confidently included in the work of other painters. You will thus be led to bring together representations of drawings by such men in order that you may be able to place them side by side with the genuine work of Raphael which resembles them. You will of course ar- range your collection in the strictest possible chronological order, without regard to the present geographical dis- tribution of the originals. On the back of each photo- graph you will pencil such notes as may seem useful, adding references to the literature of the subject. Fully to illustrate the whole of Raphael's known work would require six hundred or more photographs, many of them very difficult to come by; but a tenth of that number will suffice for a student's representative collection. The whole art of Italy in its great period can be adequately represented by a few hundreds of photographs, provided that they have been thoughtfully chosen, and above all things well arranged. Such a collection can not be made in a hurry, nor without a great deal of work. It must follow reading, not precede it. What the individual student is thus recommended to do for himself on a small scale should be done for every historical Art Museum on as large a scale as possible. In fact, there is room for a great collection of repro- ductions of all the art of all the world, organically arranged in the manner I have thus suggested. Some years ago, when I was Art Professor at Liverpool, I put forward a oroposition for the formation of a museum of 196 The Fine Arts this kind. It was very favorably received at the time. If the ends of the earth had not just then attracted me so powerfully as they did, I think I should have obtained the necessary funds for making an experimental collec- tion, at all events of one kind and period of art. To carry out the whole plan of such a museum would not be so simple a matter as may at first appear. It would be easy to write to all the chief publishers and order their entire series of photographs of Italian paint- ings and drawings, but what would be the result? A mere chaos of prints; many of them wrongly named, attributed to the wrong artists; copies put forward as originals; no distinction between school pictures and the master's own work; drawings with no indication of the pictures for which they were studies; no dates; no se- quence. There would besides be great and important gaps in the series. Many pictures in private collections or small galleries have been photographed by local pho- tographers only. Sometimes these are a master's most characteristic works. Some pictures have not been photographed at all. Drawings are even more difficult to pursue. In fact, the collecting alone is a complicated work, but the arrangement of the collection would take far more time and would involve the cooperation and advice of many experts. The great age of Italian painting from Cimabue to Tiepolo might. perhaps be fairly completely represented by twenty thousand photographs of pictures and draw- ings. Suppose the collector to be able to handle and arrange twenty-five photographs a day on an average, it would take him eight hundred days to bring this mass into order — practically more than three years of working days. These photographs would have to be mounted, boxed, and shelved for purposes of general reference by students. The Art Expert 197 Such an arrangement would enable us to produce a kind of illustrated index, chronologically classified, of all the chief paintings and drawings that have come down to us from the old Italian schools. A student would be able, by turning over the contents of a few boxes, not merely to acquaint himself with the aspect of the pictures of, say, Botticelli (in as far as photography is able to reproduce painting), but he would have them presented to him in order of production. He would see the growth of the art- ist's style He would find the genuine pictures separated from others merely produced in the workshop under the master's eye. He would find a note on the margin of a doubtful picture. If it is attributed by critics of weight to some other artist he would find that fact stated, and he would likewise find a duplicate photograph included in that master's work. He would be able to compare the work of master and pupil, or the works of a group of men affected by a common influence. The collection should be accompanied by one or more card catalogues, each card standing for a photograph. On the card should be stated the name of the artist, the title and date, or approximate date, of the picture, where it is preserved, where referred to in important books or articles, the name and place of the photographer, and any other essential facts, stated in the briefest pos- sible manner. The cards, duplicated, or triplicated if need be, might be grouped together according to any principle likely to be of use. The main catalogue would be arranged chronologically like the collection, but there might be subsidiary catalogues grouped according to type or subjects. Thus, in this section, you would find together the cards of all the pictures representing such a subject as the " Glory of St. Thomas Aquinas " or the portraits of San 198 The Fine Arts Bernardino of Sienna. It would thus be easy to refer to the collection of photographs and consult simultane- ously all representations of a single subject. The chrono- logical catalogue should be printed, and it would be advisable to adopt in it some system of indicating the relative importance of individual works. To this photographic collection of Italian paintings and drawings I would add similar collections of photo- graphs of sculpture, mosaics, miniatures, bronzes, metals, embroideries, furniture, architecture of all kinds, metal work, — in fact, the entire art production of Italy. When that had been completed we should have an illustrated index of one great school of the world's art. What was thus accomplished for one school might be done for all schools. The complete collection would begin with the simple implements and the engraved and carved bones of prehistoric times. It would follow down the stream of human activity through the polished stone age to the introduction of metals. It would reproduce the objects discovered by excavation on the most ancient Egyptian and Chaldean sites. It would bring together as complete a series as possible of the work of all kinds of artists in ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, China, Peru, — in fact, of every country where art ever existed and en- shrined the ideals of human aspiration. If such a museum of photographs were expanded to include casts of ivories and electrotype reproductions of small objects, such as coins, still more if it were linked in with a large historical collection of casts, the result would be a museum, whose contents would indeed possess a relatively trifling intrinsic value, but whose utility as contributing to the increase of an understanding of the course of evolution of the human mind would surpass that of any existing institution. The proposal may seem The Art Expert 199 a large one, but there is nothing impracticable in it. Though the sum of money ultimately required would no doubt be considerable, it would only be wanted in comparatively small amounts at a time. The main requisite would be skillful experts in sufficient number to organize and arrange the very cheap materials which already exist in countless multitude. But let us say that the proposal on this great scale is Utopian. It is not the scale but the method that I have desired to submit to your consideration. That method can be adopted on the humblest possible scale by any individual who spends a few shillings now and again in the purchase of photographs of works of art. Say that a man takes a month's holiday in France and comes back with fifty photographs of French architecture. If in the purchase of them, and afterwards in their arrange- ment, he has historical sequence and architectural de- velopment in view, he will find that he is able to endow his little collection of representative works with an interest altogether disproportionate to its size, and that the en- deavor to select wisely what is most representative is in itself a valuable education; whilst the after arrangement and annotation of his little collection will bring to his at- tention many an interesting detail that he had overlooked, and will fix in his mind not merely the memory of par- ticular objects of beauty or interest, but a general con- ception of the development of a style and the growth or decay of an artistic ideal. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT 1 By FREDERIC ALLEN WHITING JHE history of the arts and crafts movement is the record of the evolution in the methods of producing what Morris called the "lesser arts" or the "architectural arts." If we go back far enough we find a condition of practical isolation for each town not situated on the seaboard. This condi- tion required that each community should support within its limits craftsmen of skill to supply the inhabitants with all the needs of life. These craftsmen made wares of all sorts for their neighbors, receiving in earliest days other wares or produce in exchange. All work was done by the master craftsman and his apprentices in cooperation, and was known from beginning to end by the few men in the shop, while the reputation of master and apprentice alike depended upon the thoroughness with which it was done. The personal relationship was there, the pride in good workmanship, the human touch, and all other elements which affect the result in real handicraft. From these days gradual changes have completely altered conditions. The old craftsman was his own mas- ter; he owned the tools of his trade, knew his whole craft, and was bound productively to no other man. He was a responsible person in the community, proud of his crafts- manship, and, I believe, because of these conditions pro- duced work which is to-day treasured in our museums as representing the spirit of beauty. But with the advance of the centuries man's inventive faculty developed. New 1 By courteous permission of the Author. 200 The Arts and Crafts Movement 201 methods were discovered, — first, simple labor-saving de- vices, and then man-power machines. As machines became more complicated and too expensive for the average craftsman to own, the nonworking owner of machines and the necessary power plant came into exist- ence, from whom have developed the capitalist and the manufacturer of to-day. The craftsman through these instruments gradually lost his independence, because he no longer owned his tools but had become dependent for his employment and livelihood upon other men who owned the means by which he might earn his bread. Inventive ingenuity has kept consistently at its task of minimizing the need of creative human labor, until to-day in the great cotton factories, for instance, the weavers are but human appendages to a relentless loom which is in turn but one cog in that heartless organism which repre- sents the modern factory. Theworker of a few generations ago was a creative craftsman, proud of his skill, with vision enough to see the inherent beauty latent in the material in which he worked. His descendant of to-day, through the economic pressure of modern civilization, has become but a mechanical attendant upon a machine which has usurped his old functions, substituting mechanical accuracy for human feeling, and converting the weavings or wrought metal or honest cabinetwork of a past age into the ma- chine products designed for the bargain seekers of to-day. While one can not but deplore the stultifying conditions attendant upon modern factory production, with its sub- division of labor, piecework, and other evils which tend to make it more and more difficult for the modern craftsman to learn more than a fragment of his trade as formerly practiced, one must nevertheless realize that despite these facts modern machinery has come to stay and has brought with it many blessings. We do not fight the machine as 202 The Fine Arts such. Much as we deplore the conditions under which many people must work with the modern system of ex- ploiting labor; much as we regret that the time should come in any trade when to earn his living, whether in artis- tic or merely mechanical work, a man must become a spe- cialist and learn to do one single thing rather than to become a trained craftsman, it must nevertheless be stated frankly that our fight with the machine and the factory system begins when they encroach upon the province of art. The machine can and should produce many utilitarian articles in large quantities at incredibly low prices; things which should be of decent shape, frankly of machine pro- duction and made to serve an end. When, however, the exploiter of labor enters the domain of artistic production with his enormous machine, consisting of its innumerable human units, — each a necessary and useful part of the whole, but valueless without the others, — and attempts to produce, by this soulless and imagination-destroying proc- ess, works of art which are meant to replace the thought- ful, inspired production of trained men and women (each a complete unit capable of creating objects bearing evi- dence of human thought and consciousness and responsi- bility), is it not time to call a halt and to realize the heights from which we have fallen and the depths to which the modern love of display and luxury has led us? If we can consider art as being (whether consciously or unconsciously) the expression of human souls trying, through such media as they may command, to give to others a glimpse of the visions of beauty which possess them for the time being, we can readily understand that true art has no place in its making for any machine or sys- tem which takes from the artist the perfect control of his material and presumes to dictate in terms of unchanging form to the man who is striving, with all the means at his The Arts and Crafts Movement 203 control, to produce true beauty by employing all those fine differences and variations which announce the man's con- trol of his task, and are therefore entirely lacking where the machine, is master. If art means individual expression, then almost invari- ably when the machine enters at one door the spirit of art leaves by the other. The reason for this I have tried to make clear. Specialization, which is the dominant note in modern factory methods, has deprived us of the old all- round craftsman who knew his craft as a whole, and saw in each task which came to him a challenge to his knowl- edge and capacity. The team work of the modern fac- tory is developed along the lines of speed, accuracy, and economy, and I know of no case where any effort has been made to develop those qualities of cooperative vision which alone would make conceivable (in an idealistic state) the production, under the factory system, of works of art bearing the impress of a composite soul seeking thus its united expression! The arts and crafts movement must win such a recogni- tion for the modern craftsmen that intelligent people will not be satisfied without some evidence of human interest and feeling in objects capable of artistic treatment. Should this endeavor fail, our children and their children will have to be content with what we will hope they may know is less than the best, until they discover a new way of controlling modern methods of production so that at least a favored portion of its output may come forth with some evidence of artistic feeling. But how did it happen that, through the smug serenity of the Victorian era, we of the English-speaking race dis- covered that all was not well with our surroundings and our art? In England, during the early part of the nine- teenth century, the styles of the professional decorator 204 The Fine Arts without taste were rampant, and many a beautiful manor house was ruined under his ignorant directions. In America we lived through our period of scrollwork adorn- ments, the entrancing beauties of embossed wood furni- ture, and the furor for "applied decoration" which overran indiscriminately mirror, coal hod, and frying pan alike in a misdirected effort to apply to something — to anything — those naturalistic and wonderful enbellishments which were possibly the first crude signs of an awakening art instinct. But while people of intelligence and presumable taste accepted these things as simply and inevitably as the people of to-day accept the prevailing fashions in hair- dressing and headgear, regardless of personal outline or the artistic result, there were nevertheless a few great seers (men of clear sight and high thought) who showed the people how far they had gone astray. Carlyle, perhaps, led the way with his appeal for due reverence, for honest work and the beauty of things well and nobly done. He said: "All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven." Emerson stirred the soul' of man to some desire for a greater honesty and seriousness in the way of looking at life and its many responsibilities — and this matter of arts and crafts is full of responsibilities. In his lecture on ' ' Art ' ' Emerson says : "But the artist and the connoisseur now seek in art the exhibition of their talent, or any asylum from the evils of life. Art makes the same effort which a sensual prosperity makes; namely, to detach the beautiful from the useful, ^to do up the work as unavoidable and, hat- ing it, sacrificing passion to enjoyment. These solaces and compensations, this division of beauty from use, the The Arts and Crafts Movement 205 laws of nature do not permit. As soon as beauty is sought, not from religion and love but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker. High beauty is no longer attainable by him in canvas or in stone, in sound or in lyrical construction; and effeminate, prudent, sickly beauty, which is not beauty, is all that can be formed, for the hand can never execute anything higher than the character can inspire. "Beauty must come back to the useful arts and the dis- tinction between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told, if life were nobly spent, it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish the one from the other. In Nature all is useful, all is beautiful. It is there- fore beautiful because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men." Ruskin realized that all was not right with the standards by which his fellows judged the value of the objects sur- rounding them. He saw the sordidness of the current taste and the lack of intelligent human interest on the part of the purchaser toward the maker. He claimed that art did not exist in England, and that it could not be revived until conditions were such that the craftsman might become an artist and the artist a craftsman with all the opportunities for development which that implied. But the most important effect of Ruskin's preaching was the arousing of William Morris, who applied Ruskin's theories to actual work and produced artistic craftswork of a wide range, establishing with Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Maddox-Brown, and others of the Pre-Raphaelites, a busi- ness which was so successful as to encourage the establish- ment of numerous individual shops throughout England. 206 The Fine Arts I am not here to go into details. It is enough to say that, though we may not always like the artistic form which Morris's work took, we can not fail to recognize the wonder- ful results achieved. He awakened England to a realiza- tion of the stupidity of what had been and to a renewed desire for objects of use having the added charm of real and appropriate beauty. To Morris the solution of many of our economic ills was "an art made by the people and for the people as a happiness to the maker and the user." His advice to "have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" contains the whole essence of the movement in a nutshell, for with the responsibility of this decision recognized, it would not take many generations before a real and individual taste would be developed, which would do away with many of the unnecessary luxuries of our modern life and lead to a wiser and more prudent purchasing. Thus would the things of real necessity be secured in such a form as to sat- isfy the eye and, because of honest construction and suit- ability to use, at a price which would in the long run prove less expensive than the factory-made substitute of lower first cost. William Morris, Walter Crane, T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, and others, organized the London Arts and Crafts Exhibi- tion Society in 1888. The exhibitions of this society, growing constantly more varied and interesting, have done much toward educating the British public to demand the work of individual craftsmen whenever possible. As a result of these exhibitions and other activities of the sort described, and the consequent awakening of public interest a number of great schools of arts and crafts have been established in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and other places, while the development of the manual-training work in the English schools has, I understand, taken on a dis- The Arts and Crafts Movement 207 tinct tinge from these influences, and pupils are trained to enter such institutions. I was told recently of an interesting instance of the influence the movement is having in England. About two years ago a factory for the making of interior hardware found the demand for handmade hardware so great that they disposed of much of their stamping and other machin- ery and equipped a large factory with benches for hand- work entirely. This seems to me to point quite clearly to the effect which has been made upon the people of Eng- land by the works of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Morris, and by the productive efforts which these words instigated and encouraged. I shall not attempt to say what has been done on the Continent, as it is a long story and one with which I am not sufficiently familiar to speak with assurance. It is well known, however, that Germany has developed its educational work along industrial lines to a remarkable extent in the past twenty years. The German, Swiss, and French governments are all taking an intelligent notice of the awakening of the new demand for art in the practical things affecting our daily life, and are sparing no efforts or expense in the training of young people for the artistic crafts and in the encouragement and protection of the small industries which are more common in these countries than they have been for some time in the United States. But you will want to know what the arts and crafts movement has accomplished in our country. I hope to convince you that the results have been well worth while. Undoubtedly the historian of social conditions in Amer- ica will be justified in stating that the taste and artistic instinct of the American people has decreased steadily since the days of the Revolution, in reverse ratio to our physical and financial advancement. This is not unnat- 208 The Fine Arts ural, for after our independence was established and the means of intercommunication were so marvelously devel- oped through the increase of man's inventive genius, we were too busy achieving financial and economic independ- ence to have much thought for the refinements and aesthet- ics of life. The isolation of the colonial settlements, for the same reason which prevailed in England at an earlier time, led to a sense of responsibility on the part of the colo- nial craftsman who worked for his neighbors largely, — craftsmen like Paul Revere, — which inevitably resulted in honest work bearing evidence of thought and pride in its creation. It was but natural that the relief from some forms of drudgery which the machine brought with it should have made it welcome and should have emphasized its good points and led to its adoption for many kinds of work to which it was not rightly adapted. This was, how- ever, discovered too late to save the small shops, and Amer- ican art in small things disappeared with them, and we had instead the substitutes for artistic work prevalent in the seventies. In 1893 Professor Ives, as chief of the Department of Art at the Columbian Exposition, invited the craftsmen of America to exhibit their work in the Department of Art, with the paintings and sculptures. This was the first time such an opportunityhad been offered American crafts- men, and it is interesting to note that there was absolutely no response to the invitation. Either there were no in- dividual craftsmen or they were so little known as to be unreachable. The only exhibit other than painting and sculpture in the department was a case of pottery secured by special invitation from the then recently organized Rookwood pottery. It seems to me, therefore, that we have some basis for comparison, and that for the purposes of my argument we The Arts and Crafts Movement 209 may safely assume that in 1893 the production of artistic wares of an individual character was at a very low ebb. I am bold enough to claim that such changes as have oc- curred in conditions since that date may, to a large extent, be attributed to those who have been constantly working during the intervening years for the advancement of the artistic crafts. In 1893, then, such craftsmen as existed were hidden under a bushel and did not answer to the call of opportu- nity in the form of Professor Ives's invitation. In 1897 there was held in Boston the first arts and crafts exhibition in this country, which was organized largely through the efforts of Mr. Henry Lewis Johnson, now editor of "Print- ing Art." As a result of this exhibition the Society of Arts and Crafts was incorporated in Boston in 1897, with Pro- fessor Charles Eliot Norton as its first president. He was an interested member until his death, and his delight in the great advance in craftwork between this first exhi- bition and that held in the same hall ten years later is one of our pleasantest recollections. This exhibition of 1897 and the organization of the first society were welcomed by the press throughout the coun- try as promising great things for the art interests of Amer- ica. Looking over the catalogue of that exhibition one realizes how largely it was made up of factory productions ; but it at least showed that there were craftsmen, mostly in the employ of manufacturers under regular factory methods, who might with training and advice be capable of turning out really artistic work. At the second exhi- bition, held in 1899, the advance in standards and in the number of individual workers was most, encouraging. This was noted even by the reporters for the daily press, who had attended both exhibitions in search of social or news items rather than as art critics. Aside from an 210 The Fine Arts important loan exhibition of ancient work there were about eight hundred pieces of modern craftsmanship, some three hundred of which would not have been admitted at later exhibits, as they were made almost wholly under the fac- tory system. Commencing with 1897, when arts and crafts societies were organized in Chicago and Boston, hardly a year passed without the organization of a number of associa- tions for the advancement of handicraft work. Many of these soon fell by the wayside, but others on a surer foundation have arisen to take their place, so that there are now in this country, to my knowledge, sixty-five organ- ized societies, not counting a number of sewing circles, and the like, which have organized under the title, "because it sounded nice," or for some other equally good reason. Of these sixty-five societies twenty-nine are now affiliated with the National League of Handicraft Societies, while others are preparing to join when financial or other diffi- culties have been overcome. In 1904 Professor Ives was again chief of a department of art, this time at St. Louis. Those of you who know him will realize that the discouragements of Chicago would have no effect on his course at St. Louis. The same in- vitation was extended to the craftsmen of the country once more, and with a very different result. After being carefully selected by juries in Boston, New York, Phila- delphia, and St. Louis, there still remained eight hundred and sixty-one acceptable articles from one hundred and sixty-three different exhibitors, representing all sections of the country. This seems conclusive evidence of some development along the lines of artistic production dur- ing the ten preceding years. That this development was to a considerable extent the result of the handicraft revival is shown by the fact that a large number of ex- The Arts and Crafts Movement 211 hibits were secured through the cooperation of the arts and crafts societies, while the secretary of the society in Boston was appointed Superintendent of Applied Arts under Professor Ives. The splendid showing of the handicrafts at St. Louis furnished a tremendous stimulus to craftsmen thoughout the country, and the societies already in existence assumed new energy, while many others were organized. In July, 1904, the society in Boston took a momentous step in moving from its third-floor rooms over the Twentieth Century Club to the store on Park Street, with sixteen hundred dollars more rental to pay. The wisdom of the step was shown by the immediate increase in the amount of sales. Two years later an adjoining store was leased, and the entire street floor of the old Ticknor House was thrown together for the exhibition and salesroom of the society. From its small beginning of four thousand dollars for the first full year (1901) the sales have steadily grown, until they amounted in 1909 to over fifty-six thou- sand five hundred dollars, and the salesroom could at last be declared self-supporting. The success of the Boston salesroom led to the establishment of others in many cities and towns, there now being shops of this sort, conducted by societies in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Balti- more, Detroit, Hartford, Columbus, Minneapolis, and St. Louis, while salesrooms are open part of the time in many of the smaller towns, like Hingham and Deerfield. It is not my purpose to give a detailed account of wares created by the arts and crafts movement. It is my desire, rather, to make you realize that the great work which it has accomplished is the awakening of the art instinct in many people, and the raising of stand- ards of taste, not only in handicraft work, but in the productions of factories as well. For instance : in a cer- 212 The Fine Arts tain chair-making center, which for years had been pro- ducing cheap chairs of bad design, with ornament largely of embossed or pressed wood, a complete change has taken place; and while the methods are similar and piece- work and drudgery still go hand in hand, the designers are nevertheless directed to "follow the arts and crafts models," and the cheap varnished surfaces are no longer found salable. Like instances could be cited in many trades. I have tried to give you some conception of the ideals and aspirations which are the life and spirit of the arts and crafts movement, that you may realize the higher and more subtle achievements which are by far the most important factors in what has been accomplished. The movement, has inspired its followers to do innumerable little things and to do them well. It has led many a crafts- man from the confinement and drudgery of stultifying piecework in a factory to the independence and happiness of complete and intelligent creative labor at an increased wage. It has brought to hundreds of young men and women the joy of creative effort in the simpler' forms of artistic expression, and made the way clear for them to earn a living by producing objects capable of adding to the sum total of beauty and satisfaction. It has cultivated the artistic sense, the appreciation of fine differences in surface and texture, and the love of fine line and appropriate ornament, in the minds of thousands of people who are no longer satisfied with the crude and garish (though perhaps technically perfect) production of the capitalists who manufacture "art" for profit. It has compelled these manufacturers to recognize a growing improvement in the taste of the common people — to such an extent that, in externals at least, the common utensils' for daily use are constantly assuming better The Arts and Crafts Movement 213 proportions and show evidence of some thought of the appearance of the thing as an element in its commercial value. It has affected the art teaching in the schools so that its permeating influence is gradually reaching everywhere, and the great power of the educational sys- tems is being used to foster the art instincts of all the people; it has aroused the consumer to a new human interest in the producer as part of his production, and therefore of immediate importance; these things and others have come to pass through the influence of the forces governing the handicraft revival. ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES 1 By CLAUDE BRAGDON RCHITECTURE, although the least plastic and animate of the arts, images at all times a nation's character, changing as that changes. It is the mirror of the national consciousness. It can not lie. If it seems to do so it is only the more truly to betray the essential falsity of the social condition under which it had its origin. The parallel between our architecture and our national character holds good all along the line; it everywhere reflects the social tone that dictated it. The difference between Independence Hall, let us say, and a modern skyscraper, is the measure of the difference between the men and manners of Colonial days, and the men and manners of to-day. To trace, therefore, the development of architecture in the United States, from Colonial times until now, is to learn some- thing of the ramifications of the public temper and the public taste during that period, while a knowledge of that taste and that temper, gleaned from other sources, will help to clear up many obscurities which such a survey presents. Our architecture, has not undergone that slow and orderly development which has usually characterized the progress of the art in other countries and in times past. Before our War for Independence, and for a considerable time thereafter, the Georgian style, that is, the manner of 1 From "The Architectural Record," by kind permission. Copy- right, 1910. 214 Architecture in the United States 215 building prevalent in England during the reign of the four Georges, modified into what we have come to call the Colonial style, was universally employed for buildings of every size and class. The architecture of the Georgian period represents the Renaissance of Jones and Wren in its last gasp; but with all its faults, something of the grand manner of an age of taste survives in it, and it is characterized by a quiet dignity arising from a certain simplicity of motive and a justness of proportion of which the builders of that day possessed the secret or instinct, and which we appear to have lost. Certain it is that in the Colonial style we came as near as we have ever approached to achieving an American style of architec- ture; and its representative examples, for appropriateness and beauty, have never been surpassed. I hasten to qualify this statement by reminding the reader that the problems which confront the modern architect are as difficult, compared with those presented to the Colonial builders, as the problem, let us say, of living the simple life at the Waldorf-Astoria is difficult compared with living it on a New Hampshire farm. Georgian architecture gave place to that of the so- called Classic Revival. In or about 1880 the aesthetic darkness of the "Scientific Century," by being made a subject for laughter, became a subject for thought. The renascence of taste in England, inaugurated by William Morris, and the Pre-Raphaelites, and perpetu- ated by the "^Esthetes," was a fertile and perhaps a fit subject for the satire of Mr. Gilbert and "Mr. Punch," since all movements at all revolutionary are apt to have their beginnings in exaggeration and excess; but the humors of "Patience" and of "Passionate Brompton" could not blind intelligent people to the enormous sig- nificance of the fact that men were again being born into 216 The Fine Arts the world with a craving for beauty — "mere" beauty, if you will. Architecture, which is the mirror of man's mind in space, was not slow to reflect this new-born sensitiveness to beauty, but in localities and on a scale commensurate with the restricted character of the movement, which was limited to the towns and cities of the extreme East. Among the ugly and arid crags and crannies of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia streets, there began to appear some rare and delicate flowers of architectural art, the work for the most part of young Americans whose ses- thetic sense had been nourished at the bountiful breast of Italy or France. There is something touching in the refined and faded beauty of certain of those early essays in an American style, elbowed as they are on every hand by the big, florid, bedizened steel-frame skyscrapers of to-day. They seem to say to the passer-by, "You'd love us if you'd only look at us," and so we would. New York can show nothing better of their several sorts than Mr. Babb's De Vinne Press Building on Lafayette Place, Mr. Ware's Manhattan Storehouse on Forty-second Street, and Mr. White's pedestal and exedra for Saint-Gaudens's Farragut in Madison Square. Not in these directions of restrained and cultivated originality, however, were we destined to develop just then, for Richardson, a flaming comet, was already blazing in the architectural firmament, attracting and scorching up all lesser luminaries, save three or four. Richardson compelled even the Philistines to sit up and take notice; to him belongs the credit of popularizing architecture in the United States. He was a great man, and the buildings he left are worthy of his genius; but his influence was as pernicious as it was pervasive and he Architecture in the United States 217 delayed the normal evolution of architecture for many years. The style which he made his own, a modified and more massive Romanesque, neither lent itself readily to American needs and conditions, nor was it capable of expressing these with any degree of appropriateness and truth; it expressed only the powerful and romantic individuality of its creator, and in the hands of lesser men, fated, like all copyists, to seize on the idiosyncrasy and miss the essential, it degenerated into a thing more crude, false, feeble, and pretentious than anything that had gone before. A short time after Richardson's death, when it was found that only Thor could wield Thor's hammer, most of the architects in the East, even Rich- ardson's immediate pupils and disciples, turned else- where for their inspiration. Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White, who had never for one moment submitted to the Richardson obsession, con- tinued to produce charming, scholarly, refined work, based, for the most part, on early Italian Renascence models. The Villard houses, in New York, reminiscent of certain palaces in Florence, and the Boston Public Library, which, though composed of the same elements as the Library of St. Genevieve, in Paris, harks back to Alberti's Malatestian temple at Rimini, are two charac- teristic examples. The firm soon gained a substantial following, and the work produced was vastly better and more appropriate than the earlier excursions into Richard- sonian Romanesque, though perhaps a little thin and ansemic to eyes grown accustomed to the bold and virile manner affected by the men educated in the methods of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Of this manner Mr. Richard M. Hunt's old Lenox Library is perhaps the earliest ex- ample, and Mr. Whitney Warren's conception of the New York Yacht Club is among the latest. 218 The Fine Arts Meanwhile, other and different influences were at work elsewhere throughout the country. In Philadelphia and its environs the delicate and individual art of Wilson Eyre, and the more imitative but admirable work of Frank Miles Day and Cope and Stewardson, was miti- gating, in spots, the ugliness of the earlier time. At St. Augustine, in Florida, Messrs. Carrere and Hastings inaugurated their brilliant career with the wonderful Ponce de Leon Hotel, a building so original, so beautiful, so rational, so suited in every way to its environment and purpose, that it may truly be called a masterpiece. In Chicago, Richardson had built, in his happiest vein, a great warehouse. Simple, severe, utilitarian, but most impressive, the work of a poet in stone, it seemed to symbolize the city's very soul, and it furnished the in- spiration for many important buildings erected by Messrs. Burnham and Root and Messrs. Adler and Sullivan. Of these the Auditorium Building is perhaps the best example. After Richardson's death there was need of a new prophet in our architectural Israel, and to the eyes of a little circle of devotees in Chicago he presently appeared in the person of Mr. Sullivan, who early developed a style of his own, which straightway became that of a num- ber of others (with a difference, of course) — young and eager spirits, not fettered by too much knowledge — not fettered, indeed, by enough! Outside this little circle Mr. Sullivan was either unknown, ignored, or discredited by those persons on whose opinions reputations in matters of art are supposed to rest. Engaged for the most part upon intensely utilitarian problems in an intensely utili- tarian city, he had no opportunity to captivate the popu- lar imagination as Richardson captivated it in his Trinity Church, Boston. Yet by the power of his personality, and the vitality of his genius, he has exercised as great Architecture in the United States 219 an influence upon the national architecture as his illus- trious predecessor — greater, in fact, because more abid- ing, for Mr. Sullivan concerned himself with principles, not preferences. It is sufficient to say, in this connection, that Mr. Sullivan has solved the aesthetic problem of the sky- scraper more successfully than any architect before or since. This problem had always been a thorn in the side of the academically trained designer, who usually en- deavored to achieve diversity in the exterior where none existed on the plan, by a series of superimposed motives, separated by cornices or string courses which had the effect of diminishing the apparent height. Mr. Sullivan was among the first to perceive the inherent irrationality of such a treatment. He saw, moreover, a great oppor- tunity in the problem of the modern office building. Since loftiness was of necessity its chief characteris- tic, instead of suppressing he emphasized the vertical dimension. The Guaranty (now the Prudential) Building in Buffalo and the Condit Building in New York are two embodi- ments of his idea. Although these have not been paid the sincere tribute of exact imitation, the force of Mr. Sullivan's example, more than that of any other man, put an end to the meaningless piling of feature upon feature. To emphasize and not minimize the vertical dimension of a high building has come to be the accepted practice. The preoccupation of the Chicago architects with the practical and economic aspects of the tall office building, to the general exclusion of the esthetic, had the odd effect of rendering their early essays in that field superior, as a general thing, to those of about the same period in New York. The latter show ornament for the most part misapplied, and an aesthetic preoccupation misdirected. 220 The Fine Arts Mr. Root's old Monadnock Building, for example, is bet- ter architecture than Messrs. Carrere and Hastings's "Mail and Express" Building, though they stand at oppo- site extremes in the matter of cost and embellishment. The last-mentioned architects showed later, in their alto- gether admirable Blair Building, that they had learned from Mr. Sullivan or elsewhere their lesson. Such architectural graces as other Western cities could lay claim to, up to the time that I have brought this chronicle, that is, just before the Columbian Fair, they owed, for the most part, to alien talent. San Francisco in particular, before the advent of men trained in the more scholarly methods of the East, was a veritable chamber of architectural horrors. It is said that in the early days it was the custom for the builder, at a certain stage in the construction of a house, to appear upon the scene with a wagon load of miscellaneous jig-saw orna- ments, winch he would then hold up, one by one, in the presence of its owner, until the latter had selected those that pleased him best. I have heard the theory advanced that the nickel and mahogany Pullman cars of the South- ern Pacific first established the California criterion of taste, in the matter of house decoration, being the par- ticular order of magnificence with which her sons were first and most familiar. Mr. A. Page Brown's work in San Francisco, Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White's "New York Life" Building in Kansas City, Messrs. Babb, Cook and Willard's splendid office buildings for the same company, in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Mr. Sullivan's St. Nicholas Hotel and Wainwright Building in St. Louis, to mention only a few typical examples, established a standard of excellence in these cities which had an effect upon the profession throughout the entire West, and when the time came for Architecture in the United States 221 determining into what hands the exceptional architectural opportunities afforded by the World's Columbian Expo- sition should be intrusted, the most eminent Eastern architects were freely given the lion's share. A record of what has been actually accomplished since the year of the World's Fair, of the greater things assured by the purchase of land, by the acquirement of funds, and by the enactment of the necessary legislation, and of the still more considerable improvements planned for and projected, should convince the most skeptical that the civic improvement movement is national in its scope and of preeminent importance. The transformation of our splendid and squalid na- tional capital into a city which shall rank architecturally with the other great capitals of the world is now in prog- ress, and the ultimate realization is assured of L'Enfant's ambitious dream of uniting the capitol building, the gov- ernment offices, the Executive Mansion, and the Wash- ington Monument in one magnificent ensemble. The dome of the Boston State House is the hub of a vast wheel of suburbs, the' circumference of which spreads out each year farther into the country by reason of the trolley car and the automobile. In anticipation of the time when this centrifugal force will have so far overcome the centripetal that all eastern Massachusetts will be Boston, the Commonwealth has preserved for its children great tracts of beautiful country which will make this city of the future a place of health and of delight. Philadelphia can boast of her magnificent Fairmount Parkway, and sweeping improvements in the heart of the city are in contemplation. Cleveland has acquired all the land necessary for an imposing civic center, and three of the buildings are under way. Harrisburg also has carried out on the water front and elsewhere an ambitious 222 The Fine Arts scheme of beautification. In Detroit, Springfield, and Oakland matters have passed beyond the initial stage. Chicago has enacted the legislation necessary to carry out a scheme involving the expenditure of millions. If New York has seemed to lag behind other cities, it is because the attendant cost and difficulty are so much greater there than elsewhere. The problem of civic im- provement has been seriously and exhaustively consid- ered by a special commission which has had maps and drawings prepared by the best obtainable talent, and it is probable that many of the recommendations embodied in the report of this commission will be put into execu- tion within the next few years. St. Louis has authorized a bond issue for eleven mil- lions, to be devoted to civic improvement. St. Paul has reached the stage of a carefully worked out plan. New Haven has retained Olmstead and Gilbert to consider her needs in this direction, and Hartford has for a similar purpose a permanent commission. In Los Angeles, To- ledo, Columbus, and Atlantic City preliminary commit- tees are at work. Moreover, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Denver all have official municipal art commissions, with jurisdiction in the matter of the design and location of public buildings. This by no means exhausts the fist, or the subject, — but I pause, not to exhaust the reader. Civic improvement is but one manifestation of an in- terest and an activity proceeding on many parallel lines. To it we owe the newly acquired architectural beauty and dignity of many of our schools and colleges. Here the Federal government, during the Victorian time so noto- riously supine in aesthetic matters, when not actually ob- structive or destructive, leads, not follows; its present Architecture in the United States 223 policy is to employ the most competent architectural talent, selected in the most discriminating manner, and paid for on the scale which such talent elsewhere com- mands. The new buildings of Columbia College, on Morning- side Heights, in New York, encircling the splendid library, like the band of fine gold which forms the setting of a jewel, afford perhaps the most conspicuous example of the modern American idea of a seat of learning, though it might easily be contended, with every show of reason, that this ideal is more perfectly embodied in the recently completed College of the City of New York. As previously intimated, a great change for the better has taken place in the character of our government archi- tecture within the past ten or fifteen years. Writing in 1884, Mrs. Van Rensselaer said: "It is safe to say that scarcely a single building put up under Treasury direction since the days of Mr. Potter's service could by any stretch of courtesy be included in a list of our true successes." Even this is an understatement. The government buildings of that day were so great a scandal as to be con- sidered fit subjects for the satire of the comic magazine. To-day they (the new ones) are among the handsomest and best buildings in the country. The designing of many of the most important has been given into the hands of our best architects, either by direct appoint- ment or through well-arranged competitions, while those designed in the office of the government architect are of such a character as to raise the architectural standard, both in the matter of design and of construction, in the towns and cities in which they have been built. More- over, though sufficiently various, through all their varia- tion a certain governmental type is adhered to, so that 224 The Fine Arts the post office in any city might be distinguished by a discriminating eye, without reference to the sign over the door. The libraries which have been built during the past ten years, from New York's magnificent palace to the brick and terra-cotta "Carniggers" of the humblest vil- lages, testify no less to an aesthetic yearning than to an educational one; and our growing lust for sheer mag- nificence in buildings of a public and semi-public nature is being catered to alike by those obsequious servants of the public — the hotel keepers — and those arrogant ones — the railway corporations. This magnificence in the case of the hotels is a known and familiar quantity. But the grandeur of the new terminals of the Pennsylvania Railroad and of the New York Central will so far eclipse anything of the kind with which we are familiar on this side of the water that the imagination is forced to conjure up visions of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome's palmiest days; and memories (if one is so fortunate as to have them) of the Gore d 'Orleans by the Seine. As a " hand-up " to the mounting imagination, it might be mentioned that a twelve-story office building could stand beneath the vaulted and coffered ceiling of the Concourse of the Penn- sylvania Terminal without, as it were, bending its head. The skyscraper, the only indigenous architectural prod- uct to which we can lay claim, is eloquent only of the power of the purse and of the higher turn for business. In it the idea of profit everywhere triumphs over the idea of perfection. The last word of these. tall buildings is anything but their address to our sense of formal beauty. As Henry James says: "The attempt to take the aesthetic view is invariably blighted, sooner or later, by their most salient characteristic, the feature that speaks loudest for the economic idea. Window upon window, at any cost, Architecture in the United States 225 is a condition never to be reconciled with any grace of building, and the logic of the matter here happens to be on a particularly fatal front. If quiet interspaces, always half the architectural battle, exist no more in such a structural scheme than quiet tones, blest breathing spaces occur, for the most part, in New York conversa- tion, so the reason is, demonstrably, that the building can't afford them. The building can only afford lights, each light having a superlative value as an aid to the transaction of business and the conclusion of sharp bargains." In these terms James registers his final impres- sion: "Such growths, you feel, have confessedly arisen but to be 'picked' in time, with a shears, — nipped short off, by waiting fate, as soon as 'science' applied to gain has put upon the table, from far up its sleeve, some more winning card. Crowded not only with no history and consecrated by no uses save the commercial at any cost, they are simply the most piercing notes in that concert of the expensively provisional into which your supreme sense of New York resolves itself. They never begin to speak to you, in the manner of the builded majesties of the world as we have heretofore known such, — towers or temples or fortresses or "palaces, — with the authority of things of permanence, or even of things of long duration. One story is good only till another is told, and skyscrapers are the last word of economic ingenuity only till another word be written." The peculiar genius of any given race or any given period incarnates, as it were, in some architectural con- struction characteristic and therefore symbolic of it. The iron hand of Roman sovereignty, encased within the silken glove of Roman luxury, found its prototype in buildings which were stupendous, crude, brute masses of 226 The Fine Arts brick and concrete, encased in coverings of rich marbles and mosaics. The "sad sincerity" of soul, the aspiring mysticism of the Middle Ages, found embodiment in the Gothic cathedral, a thing so delicately adjusted, -so almost perilously poised, thrust against counterthrust, that like the overstrained organism of an ascetic it seems ever about to overcome that centripetal force which is never- theless the law of its being. The arrogant and artificial life of the court of Louis XIV stands as truly imaged in the palace and garden of Versailles as in the wig, the coat, the scepter, and the high-heeled shoes of that monarch, used by Thackeray to symbolize his state. In like manner, the tall office building, our most char- acteristic architectural product, is a symbol of our com- mercial civilization. Its steel framework, strong, yet economical of metal, held together at all points by thou- sands of little rivets, finds a parallel in our highly devel- oped industrial and economic system, maintained by the labor of thousands of obscure and commonplace individ- uals, each one a rivet in the social structure. And just as this steel framework is encased in a shell cf masonry, bedecked, for the most part, with the architectural imaginings of alien peoples, meaninglessly employed, so are we still encumbered by a mass of religious, political, and social ideas and ideals, which, if we but knew it, impede our free development and interfere with the frank expression of our essential nature. PORTRAIT PAINTING 1 By FRANCOIS FLAMENG > ]HE farther I advance in my career the more the art of portrait painting seems to me to be absorbing, almost bewitching. As soon as one adopts it, it seems to be superior to all other branches of painting, and one is "caught" by it as if by a piece of machinery from which it is almost impossible to disentangle one's self. Its difficulties are so great that all other things seem to you to be less interesting. There is a perpetual battle with the model, a constantly renewed struggle to grasp the model's personality in order to con- vey a suitable gesture, a familiar attitude, in order to pro- duce the charm peculiar to each individual; for all human beings, even those least favored by nature, possess beauty, the beauty of an instant, and generally revealed to the artist too late, when his work is finished. For each portrait it is necessary to invent a new arrange- ment, a mode of execution, a style of painting which is suitable to the temperament of the model, so as to reflect, as exactly as possible, the notion of his or her moral and physical personality. Painting a portrait is like compos- ing an air on a set theme, a theme not chosen by the com- poser. This complication renders the work of a portrait painter particularly absorbing. I have always thought that portraits ought to be ar- ranged as pictures. This was the idea carried out by the painters of bygone times, from the Venetians to the artists of the beginning of the nineteenth century. Titian, 1 By permission of "The Cosmopolitan Magazine." Copyright, 1910. 227 228 The Fine Arts Velasquez, Rembrandt, Hals, Van Dyck, and the French and English masters of the eighteenth century followed this method. Fashions and the style of hairdressing often change, making the resemblance of women's portraits of very short duration; after a few years the most sincere and most exact likeness is nothing more than a souvenir. It should therefore remain, at that period, a picture that is pleasant to look upon, a work of art that one would purchase to adorn the wall of a drawing-room, even if it were not the representation of one's own image. These researches for inventions complicate the task infinitely, but at the same time they extend the scope of combinations. One can, it is true, produce a masterpiece by detaching a figure on a plain background, and in many cases a picture portrait would seem inappropriate, — for instance, in the case of modest persons, who live a simple and retired life. But in such cases it is necessary that the beauty of the painter's art shall be impeccable and the ren- dering of the model absolutely sincere. In reality all methods are good, and every painter is right if he can give a beautiful and lasting form to his ideal. For many years portraits have succeeded portraits in my studio, and my experience increases daily, not only in the practice of my art but also in the social part of my task — the manner of obtaining a pose, of interesting the model and making the sittings agreeable. To make models pose properly requires quite a fund of diplomacy; one must rapidly learn their tastes and habits, what they like or dislike, what topics will put them in a good humor and make them remain in one position for a long time without noticing the fapt, remaining quite natural without preparation, without effort. It is indispensable to inspire models with confidence, to put them at their ease, to make them the artist's assistants Portrait Painting 229 by exciting their interest in the progress of the work, by- asking their advice (without following it if it seems bad), by associating them with the artist's efforts in order to pro- duce works that please them and that approximately real- ize their ideal. It is necessary not to forget that an artist should produce a work as he conceives it, without weak- ness and without compromise. It is also necessary that the work shall please not only the person whose likeness it represents, but also his or her friends and acquaintances — a much more delicate and difficult matter to achieve. The public always wants the same thing of an artist : if he has the misfortune to score a success with a portrait he is condemned to paint it again and again incessantly. Consequently, it is necessary for him to employ all his skill, all his energy, and to resort to ruses of all kinds, in order to vary his arrangements, his method of depiction, his style of composition. One will always encounter resist- ance to new and original ideas, and if a point of view is im- posed on an artist he is bound to produce a work which is either commonplace or a failure. Madame X, an enormous person, has seen the portrait of Madame Z, who is as slender as a thread, and, without saying so to the artist, desires to be portrayed in the same style. Therefore she protests as soon as she sees the arrangement selected by the artist to render her beauty — if she has any. Then the portraitist must gradually make her adopt his views, without contradicting her, without offending her, always admitting that she is in the right, but gently causing her to forget the mental image she has previously drawn of her own portrait. A portrait painter should not only be endowed with tal- ent, but should also possess the qualities of a philosopher, of a diplomatist, of an observer, of a psychologist, and be provided with inexhaustible patience — which is certainly 230 The Fine Arts not the easiest part of the program. It is indispensable to remain calm before remarks of the most extraordinary- nature,' to be courteous and at the same time unchangeable in one's views. How many portraits that were begun well have been spoiled simply because the artist wished to please the model! Many artists will not let their work be seen until it is completed. Practical experience has convinced me of the disadvantage of this method. By showing one's work from its beginning one can avoid much annoyance, for if the portrait has not been shown and does not please the model when it is finished, the artist generally has to start it all over again. By allowing the work to be seen con- stantly the portraitist avoids the concluding criticisms that are so painful to an artist. All advice-givers are the artist's natural enemies; their criticisms, which are often contradictory, wound the artist in every fiber and make him feel like a pincushion in which pins are stuck all over. When a work is shown from the beginning the remarks made about it are without grav- ity; they may, in fact, prove useful and point to the right way. The critics, returning to the studio from time to time, see the progress made on the canvas, become inter- ested in the artist's work, and finally harbor the belief that he owes them the greater share of his success. Thus he transforms them from systematic backbiters into stanch defenders. It is not easy to work before visitors; many painters find their talent absolutely paralyzed by the presence of stran- gers in the studio. But it is possible to work in the presence of visitors if one can control one's nerves, and numerous advantages can be derived from their presence. First of all, the model is interested and amused; the artist no longer needs to double his cerebral efforts and to resort to the Portrait Painting 231 difficult system of mental gymnastics which consist of thinking of his painting and, at the same time, of carrying on a conversation which must always be animated and amusing, under penalty of seeing the model fall half asleep. I became accustomed to paint in public only after a long sojourn at the Russian court. The Emperor, Alexander III, who to me was kindness and benevolence personified, had commissioned me to paint the portraits of the Empress and the Grand Duchess Xenia, his daughter. I therefore went to St. Petersburg to accomplish this noble and perilous mission, and appeared at the Anitchkof Palace at ten o'clock in the morning, on March 8, attired in my best black evening coat, for it is forbidden to appear at court without being attired in this inelegant costume unless your position entitles you to wear another uniform. The door of the room which was to be my temporary studio was guarded by a redoubtable mameluke, who seemed to have stepped from a water color by Claude Vernet. His appearance was far from reassuring, but I quickly regained my calmness, being conscious of the pu- rity of my intentions and fully realizing that my mission was quite inoffensive and pacific. The immense room in which I found myself was tapestried with buttercup satin of a terrible hue that blinded one. On the walls were some pictures, a work of my own and another by my dear regretted friend, Ger6me; against the walls were some enormous armchairs. In a corner was a canvas on an easel, a beautiful new canvas. A new canvas possesses some- thing charming, virginal, unforeseen. What will develop on its surface — a masterpiece or a horror? Will this large gray square carry your name to posterity, or will it help to diminish your reputation? I remained deeply moved amid this yellow and gold. 232 The Fine Arts The mameluke, at attention near the door, watched my slightest movements, while I placed my canvas in a good light. Oh! the agony of waiting! How long the minutes seemed! How I regretted being there! How I wished I was in the train, rushing at full speed toward dear old Paris! But suddenly a door was opened, and on the threshold appeared the majestic figure of the Emperor Alexander, by his side the empress. Behind them was the Grand Duchess Xenia, whose features I was to por- tray. Then followed a numerous suite, glittering with gold braid and decorations. I bowed and suddenly felt my courage return, like a soldier who straightens up in the face of danger, on hearing the bullets begin to whistle around him. The emperor, after having introduced all present, said to me, ' ' You may begin ! " I then tried to make my young model take an attitude, but without success, for the poor grand duchess, more frightened than myself, did not know what to do. Anticipating what would happen, I had fortunately prepared an arrangement for the portrait, and bravely began to outline something on the canvas, while the illustrious company, standing mute and impassive behind me, watched me work. I felt all those eyes directed upon me, all those glances piercing me, and I wished I were a hundred feet underground. At the end of a quarter of an hour I had sketched some- thing that gave a vague impression of a young girl seated in an armchair. I turned round to ask the empress if this partially shapeless something would satisfy her. With her customary kindly manner she replied, "It's very good," accompanying the words with a movement that almost resembled a slight courtesy. Everybody then withdrew. The next day the empress came alone with her daughter, and thereafter the empress or the hereditary Portrait Painting 233 grand duke (now His Majesty Nicholas II) always accom- panied the grand duchess. I will not undertake to explain to you the genesis of a portrait or to initiate you into the secrets of the numerous processes employed to make a work of art. That would be beyond the scope of this article, and might appear obscure and boresome. Besides, there are no infallible rules; each artist makes his own, and a method that gives excellent results to one painter may prove detestable when employed by another. I will simply say to my young brother artists that it is advisable, whenever possible, to portray people in their own homes, among their usual surroundings, and in the light to which they are accustomed Conventional studio light is too harsh, too crude. Models are not accustomed to be seen in this light, and a portrait that seems to be a good likeness when seen in the studio ceases to resemble the model when it is placed in its permanent position. In an ordinary room the light, filtered through curtains, always comes from underneath. It thus absorbs a part of the shadows and at least softens them, giving an added beauty, a charm that disappears in the harsh light of the studio. An artist can be certain of the effect produced by his work by painting it in the room in which the picture is to be hung. By doing this he can avoid the painful surprises that often await an artist when he sees his picture in its permanent place. Pictures that seem luminous on the somber background of the studio become dull and black on the bright walls of a drawing- room. Further, the model feels at ease when at home, and assumes a customary attitude without effort. He makes familiar gestures and easily surrenders his person- ality to the artist's observation. He is no longer at the photographer's before the camera. After all, those of us to whom generous nature has ac- 234 The Fine Arts corded the artistic gift — a genius or simply talent — are the lucky ones of this world. No lot is more enviable than that of the artist, if gentle Fortune permits him to succeed and to have his merits appreciated. As the creator of a work that is the outcome of his own brain, his own imagi- nation, he enjoys a satisfaction that is constantly re- newed, for his trade is an art. With a canvas that costs a dollar and colors costing but little more, he can create a masterpiece ; he can go anywhere he likes without restraint. His factory, his office, are in his brain, in his heart, at the tips of his skillful fingers, and in a color box which he can carry under his arm, easily, to the farthermost ends of the earth. WILLIAM MORRIS THE MAN 1 By GEORGE WHARTEN JAMES William Morris, beyond all question, the world owes its recent awakening to the spirit which should animate all labor. This man was one of the powerful prophets of the nine- teenth century. His life was as truly an awakening as that of Peter the Hermit, and his influence strong for the welfare of humanity. / Of William Morris, poet, teller of weird tales, illuminator, painter, decorator, church restorer, craftsman, socialist, reformer, we have had much and good writing — articles in magazines, pamphlets, and books innumerable. Yet, except to a limited number, Morris, upon the human side, is almost unknown. Therefore, I now wish to present him as a man. Necessarily I shall have to touch somewhat upon the varied work in which he was engaged, as no life can be considered apart from its labor; but I shall refer to it only as it serves to explain the per- sonal character of my subject. The casual reader, looking over the list of Morris's activities, rejects the idea of his being a simple man. And even critics have recorded that if he erred at all, it was because "in his eagerness to create the beautiful he lost sight of the value of simplicity." Yet I wish to show that his versatility, instead of being an evidence of complexity, is really a proof of his simplic- ity. For instance, he believed in the dignity of labor, and equally in the joy of the laborer, which can only exist ' By courteous permission of the Author and " The Craftsman." 235 236 The Fine Arts when his work is artistic and beautiful. To give a practi- cal coordination of these two beliefs it was necessary for him to be artist or designer, and artisan or maker. Hence, he never designed in his office a piece of work which he could not go out into his shops and make. What was his need for going into business at all? To all outward appearance, none whatever. He was born well-to-do, and with care of his inherited fortune, he could have lived a life of luxury and ease. But he looked upon life much too seriously for that. Manhood without work was impossible, hence his determination to be an architect. It is interesting and instructive to see what led him to this decision. As a child he had ridden about the country, making rubbings of ancient brasses found in the old churches, and studying the buildings themselves; so that at sixteen years of age he was well versed in the archaeol- ogy of the neighborhood. He carried on these same studies at Marlborough, and his reading for the Church made him familiar with some of the finest descriptions of the ancient buildings of the world. Ruskin's "Stones of Venice" had further awakened his love of architecture; his first holiday out of England was spent in Belgium and Northern France, where he fell in love with those poems in stone, the churches of Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Amiens, Beauvais, and Chartres; nearly four years he passed in Oxford with the wealth of its ancient buildings always in view; and finally he was roused by the destructions under the name of "restorations" in progress throughout the country, which, as a professional architect, he felt that he might have some slight influence to prevent. But before he left the university to become an archi- tect's apprentice, the Brotherhood was organized, the life and power of which show better than any comment can do the real character of the lads who composed it. What the William Morris the Man 237 Brotherhood was is too well known to need explanation here, but I can not refrain from commenting upon the dif- ference in the spirit shown by him and his comrades from that of many of the young men and women in college to-day. How often do we find Morris's earnest, all- absorbed spirit, his determination to profit by oppor- tunities, his resolutions to work for the highest and the best, and for that alone! In Morris, as a young man, there were certain qualities which challenged immediate attention. They were prom- inent features in his make-up which could not be over- looked. Of these things let us now take a careful survey, and see how they were manufactured in his later life. These prominent characteristics are three in number, namely: he loved beauty, he loved humanity, and what- ever he did he did intensely. His love of beauty is shown in everything that he did. He studied architecture because he loved the glorious old churches and other buildings of England and, later, of the world; he wrote poetry and did it well because he loved a beautiful story well told; all his craftsmanship came from this same devotion to the beautiful. As for his love of mankind, Canon Dixon, in speaking of the college days of the "set" to which he and Morris belonged, plainly states that this love of humanity was a passion in all of them: "We all had the notion of doing great things for man." In his relationship to his workmen, in his passionate pleas for true art as the only possible pathway to the hap- piness of the worker, finally, in his chivalric devotion to the cause of socialism, he justified his professions and practi- cally laid down all selfishness at the shrine of his love for the downtrodden and distressed. And now, for a clearer comprehension of his life, let us look at the spirit of intensity he showed toward every- 238 The Fine Arts thing in which he became interested! This intensity was instinctive and unconscious with him. He possessed it as a child. This is seen from the fact often noted that he never forgot, or confused with any other, a landscape, building, flower, or other object he had once seen. He was fond of certain athletic sports, chief of which was fencing with the singlestick. When he engaged in this exercise he was so impetuous that it was not an un- common thing for a table to be placed between him and his opponent. Another characteristic manifestation of this intensity, and also a proof of his determination to respond quickly to the highest spiritual demands, was that, when he had lost his temper, and failed in some evident duty, he would beat his own head fiercely with his clenched fist, and deal himself vigorous blows, to "take it out of himself." This intensity of nature made him do everything decisively, whether well or ill. He burst into poetry sud- denly, and when his work was read to his critical friends they all pronounced it "a thing entirely new, founded on nothing previous, perfectly original, whatever its value, and sounding truly striking and beautiful, extremely decisive and powerful in execution." "In my judgment," writes one of them, "he can scarcely be said to have much exceeded it afterward in anything that he did." This same spirit led him to do things thoroughly. As a lad of sixteen he visited a Druidical circle and took notes upon it. The next day he was told of something which he had not observed; so straight he went back, made new observations, and secured the needed information. This positive directness led him to hate everything vague, whether or not poetry, politics, architecture, color, or speech. This quality of mind led him to resign his treas- urership in the National Liberal League; to lose patience William Morris the Man 239 with the rich customer who came to see his "subdued" carpets; it compelled him to become weaver, dyer, and cabinetmaker. Vagueness, to him, was immoral. In later life he taught in one of his lectures: "Be careful to eschew all vagueness. It is better to be caught out in going wrong when you have had a definite purpose, than to shuffle and slur so that people can't blame you because they don't know what you are at." This intensity of nature was further demonstrated in his great power of concentration. He was able so to fix his attention upon a given subject as to master it in a time that to other men seemed impossible. For the moment, the one subject completely absorbed and dominated him. As a natural complement to this faculty, he was gifted with versatility; for the latter is but natural capacity made effective by concentration. Morris's intense nature made this the simplest thing in the world. He was always sufficient to himself. Even as a boy at school he cared little for companions. How could a man so intense in his nature be sociable with men who were more interested in frivolities than in truth? The very intensity of his nature prevented such waste of his time. When a thing displeased him he showed it with char- acteristic vehemence. Once, as the director of a certain corporation, he was persuaded into wearing a silk hat; but at the end of his directorate he walked rapidly home, put down his hat, and, with evident pleasure, sat on it. Concerning his calm way of regarding his tempests when they were over, he writes in one of his letters: "I lost my temper in the dyehouse for the first time this afternoon; they had been very trying, but I wish I had n't been such a fool; perhaps they will turn me out to-morrow morning, or put me in the blue-vat." 240 The Fine Arts He was direct in speech. He did not aim at style or fine diction. Strong thought, strongly expressed, is what we find in him, and this quality reveals a virile na- ture, ruled by essentials rather than by refinement and culture, which are secondary. In speaking of the bene- fits of a knowledge of the history of the Decorative Arts, he called his period "a time when we so long to know the reality of all that has happened, and are to be put off no longer with the dull records of the battles and intrigues of kings and scoundrels." Here he uses a word which we all have felt but have never cared to use. But he, with sim- ple directness which values truth first, states it in its force, so that the reader gains a new grasp upon the vanity of calling that "history" which deals mainly with the waste of human life and energy made by many of the rulers, statesmen, and warriors of Europe. As an example of his simplicity of statement I quote from his lecture upon "Art and Its Producers": "Shall we pretend to produce architecture and the architectural arts without having the reality of them? " He then an- swered: "To adopt this plan would show that we were too care- less and hurried about life to trouble ourselves whether we were fools (and very tragic fools) or not." This spirit made him obnoxious at times to those who did not understand him. Who is there that can not under- stand his impatience, when the lordly customer came to look at his carpets, and wanted the neutral colors which came from an unclean dye? "Are these all?" "Yes!" "But I thought your colors were subdued!" "Subdued? If you want dirt you can find it in the street!" William Morris the Man 241 And, turning on his heel, he left the astonished customer to find his way out of the shop. Morris was incorruptibly honest. He did not believe in "restoring" ancient churches, cathedrals, abbeys, cas- tles, and the like. He contended that they were too valu- able as historic examples to be spoiled by meddling. If they were needed for actual use, it were better to build another structure than ruin what should be the untouched legacy of the past. One profitable branch of his business was the designing and making of colored glass windows, so often needed in the restoration of old buildings. Yet so inflexible was he in his principles that he refused many commissions because he would not violate his conscience and, for pay, do the work which his artistic instinct told him was wrong. But it is particularly to his love for humanity, as shown in his never-ceasing efforts to dignify labor and his passion- ate devotion to the elevation of the laborer himself, that I want now to call the attention of my readers. With Morris the man was everything; convention, fash- ion, show nothing. The world was made for man, and everything must yield to his interests. Like Browning, Emerson, and all the great poets and philosophers, the world meant nothing without man; therefore he was alert to see that man got the best there is from the earth. When he saw his fellows slaving and toiling for a mere pittance, when he saw commercialism making of human beings nothing more than machines, and every good and noble thing in manhood sacrificed at the shrine of mam- mon, his very soul was roused to rebellion. Seeing the awful demoralization which possessed many of the work- ingmen of England, he sought, with characteristic energy, to discover the cause. His conclusion is summed up, practically, in one sentence: "If I were to spend ten 242 The Fine Arts hours a day at work I despised and hated, I should spend my leisure, I fear, in drinking." He was about twenty-two years of age when the social condition of the lower classes forced itself upon his notice. It must be remembered that he was a true aristocrat, not in blood, but in education and feeling. Many a born aristocrat is a boor and snob, but here was a lad with all the sentiments and ideals which we associate' with the term: "a part of his very nature." Price — his student friend "Crom" — knew all the conditions and felt them, and, through his profound sympathy, Morris soon felt as he did. Here is what Price writes : "Things were at their worst in the forties and fifties. There was no protection for the mill hand or miner — no amusements but prize fighting, dog fighting, cock fight- ing, and drinking. When a little boy I saw many prize fights, bestial scenes; at one, a combatant was killed. . . . We could not make short cuts to school without passing slums of shocking squalor and misery, and often coming across incredible scenes of debauchery and brutality. I remember one Saturday night walking five miles from Birmingham into the Black Country, and in the last three miles I counted more than thirty lying dead drunk on the ground, nearly half of them women." It is easy to see that when these facts fully entered Mor- ris's inner consciousness his intense nature was awakened to action. Something had to be done, and done speedily. With the same impetuousity that made him so powerful a reader, so fierce an opponent at singlestick, so devoted a student of old churches, he plunged heart and soul into the work of social regeneration. And how nobly he rose to the lead ! It was nothing^ to him that others of his class stood by indifferent. He took upon himself, with sublime self-effacement, the burdens of the common William Morris the Man 243 people. There are at this time a simplicity, a dignity, a power in his words which make them intensely pathetic : "As I sit at my work at home, which is at Hammer- smith, close to the river, I often hear go past the window some of that ruffianism of which a good deal has been said in the papers of late. As I hear the yells and shrieks, and all the degradation cast on the glorious town of Shakespeare and Milton, as I see the brutal, reckless faces and figures go past me, it rouses the recklessness and brutality in me also, and fierce wrath takes possesssion of me, till I remember, as I hope I mostly do, that it was only my good luck of being born respectable and rich that has put me on this side of the window among delightful books and lovely works of art, and not on the other side and the empty street, the drink-steeped liquor shops, the foul and degraded lodgings. What words can say what all that means? "Do not think, I beg of you, that I am speaking rhetor- ically in saying that when I think of all this, this great country should shake off from her all foreign and colonial entanglements, and turn that mighty force of her respect- able people, the greatest power the world has ever seen, to giving the children of these poor folk the pleasures and the hopes of men. Is that really impossible? Is there no hope of it? If so, I can only say that civilization is a delu- sion and a he; there is no such thing, and no hope of such a thing. "But since I wish to live, and even to be happy, I can not believe it impossible. I know by my own feelings and desires what these men want, what would have saved them from this lowest depth of savagery: employment which would foster their self-respect and win the praise and sympathy of their fellows, and dwellings to which they could come with pleasure, surroundings which would 244 The Fine Arts soothe and elevate them; reasonable labor, reasonable rest. There is only one thing that can give them this, and that is art." Morris saw that there was no alternative: either art must sweeten man's labor or labor will render man a machine. It is a fact not to be ignored that in all work in which man has no pleasure he has degenerated. Ruskin's aphorism is true: "Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality." This was the constant burden of Morris's plea; "I wish especially to point out that the question of popular art is a social question, involving the happiness and misery of the greater part of the commun- ity." Again: "Popular art has no chance of a healthy life, or, indeed, of a life at all, till we are on the way to fill up the terrible gulf between riches and poverty." Morris was driven to his position that we must make useful things beautiful by the stern necessity for work. "For man must work," whether he will or not. Even though machines are invented for doing everything, and doing it in the simplest, quickest, and least costly way, there is still work to be done which men must do one for another. How, then, shall this be accomplished? Grudgingly, slavishly, hatefully? Nay, let us find a better way; and that way, said Morris, is by putting art into it, and thus finding pleasure in doing it. "Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of art beside a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to make it. That is an assertion from which nothing can drive me; whatever I doubt, I have no doubt of that. And if there is anything in the business of my life worth doing, if I have any worthy aspiration, it is the hope that I may help to bring about the day when we shall be able to say, 'So it was once, so it is now.'" For years he worked toward these ends, and in the hope William Morris the Man 245 of urging on the happy day he longed for, he became a socialist. At first he felt that only by a social revolution could the change come about, and the devotion he showed to this apparently hopeless cause is most pathetic. As he said: "I could never forget that in spite of all drawbacks my work is little else than pleasure to me ; that under no con- ceivable circumstances would I give it up even if I could. Over and over again have I asked myself, Why should not my lot be the common lot? My work is simple work enough ; much of it, nor that the least pleasant, any man of decent intelligence could do if he could but get to care about the work and its results. Indeed, I have been ashamed when I have thought of the contrast between my happy working hours and the unpraised, unrewarded, monotonous drudgery which most men are condemned. to. Nothing shall convince me that such labor as this is good or necessary to civilization." Many who have appreciated Morris on all his other sides have expressed their utter disapprobation of his socialism, and their inability to understand why so clear- minded a man should have entered into so endless a conflict with coworkers so crude, so quarrelsome, so inadequate to the strife. I now wish to show that his socialism was but the result of a combination of three influences within him. These were his story-telling faculty (the vividness of imagina- tion), his high hopes for humanity, and his artistic desire to do well whatever he attempted. His sympathies were roused: he saw the wrongs, the inequalities, he felt the sorrows, the pangs of the downtrodden and oppressed; on the other hand, he knew the possibilities of joy, and his imagination, cultivated by years of story-telling, saw a new social condition in which sorrow and injustice should 246 The Fine Arts be done away, and justice and joy should take their places. If it was an unattainable dream, it showed an almost motherlike love for that portion of humanity which could not help itself. God give us more such dreamers with such a spirit! The leaven of their work will result some day in a better state of society, when men, in deed, and not in name alone, shall be brothers. And did he fail in his socialistic dreaming? Ask all the dreamers of the past, who have seen visions of highest good for the race. Did Moses dream in vain? Did David and Cyrus and Julius Caesar and Stephen Langton and John Wycliff and Cromwell and George Washington dream in vain? To the man who tries there is no such thing as failure, either for himself or his cause, For thence, — a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, — Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail? „ Even though it seemed to fail, Morris's work for hu- manity succeeded, is successful, and will continue to develop. LOUIS PRANG, POPULARIZER OF ART 1 By BENJAMIN FAY MILLS JROM his fifth year and throughout his entire youth Louis Prang was an invalid. He studied privately language, drawing, modeling, and chemistry, and was apprenticed in his father's calico works, where he learned all parts of the business; but when he was twenty-one his father failed, and Louis went out to find his world. What manner of youth he was may be inferred from the fact that an Austrian manufacturer, merely from the impression made by his conversation, engaged him for life, five years to be spent in inspecting factories in large centers, and then to found a large calico and print works at Weckelsdorf. He spent the first year in Vienna, the second in Paris, and the third in England and Scotland, and was in Manchester when the republican awakening in France and Germany called to the embryonic democratic spirit within him and caused him to hasten back to the fatherland and join with the youth of his nation in the demand for republican reforms. He was the president of the Democratic Club at Hirsch- berg, and was early marked by the government as one of its enemies. When his father besought him to give up his dangerous ideas, he drew a pistol and, handing it to him, said, "Father, you may take this pistol and kill me, but I must do this thing." It was not long before it was neces- sary for him to flee into exile to preserve his life, and he went to Bohemia, and later to Switzerland, waiting for the 1 By permission of The Fellowship Publishing Company, 247 248 The Fine Arts hour to strike for the emancipation of his native land. As there was no sign of change, he decided to emigrate to America, and in his case, as in that of Carl Schurz and others, the loss of one land became the gain of another and the greater gain of the v. r orld. He climbed the side of the mountain which divided Austria and Germany, while his father and sisters toiled up the other side and at the boundary line bade him a tender farewell. Fifty years later he returned to the place with his wife, and although then nearing the limit of fourscore years, he insisted on climbing up the path his father had taken a half century before, while at the bound- ary line he renewed these thrilling memories of youth. "Golden Rule Jones" said of himself , "I was born in Wales, but I was born an American," and then he added, "I know multitudes of people born in America who are not halfway over from Europe yet." This man in the largest sense was certainly born an American, and he came to his own when he sailed for the new world. After a journey in the steerage lasting five weeks, he arrived in Boston, but for a long time found no employ- ment. He finally secured a partner, and tried publishing works for stone carvers and sculptors, on subscription; but his partner lacked character, and after a year the firm failed and was dissolved, leaving him embarrassed with debt. The next year he tried manufacturing papeterie and leather goods, but does not seem to have accomplished any- thing in this line. In the year 1852 he learned the art of wood engraving in a week, and made a cut which he took to a man whom he thought would become a permanent customer, but was turned away with the information that the other used stereotyping processes and could not become his patron. As he passed along the street wondering what Louis Prang, Popularizer of Art 249 he would do next, he met a man who said, "What are you doing now?" He drew himself up proudly and said, "I am a wood engraver." Whereupon the other told him he was the one man he had been seeking and gave him a twenty-five dollar order; and for a time he supported himself in this fashion. A little later he went to Frank Leslie, who was the man- aging artist of the first illustrated periodical in the United States, called "Gleason's Pictorial," and asked for employ- ment on his staff of illustrators. He was turned away, but four times he came, until finally Mr. Leslie said, "I will not employ you because I want you, but I will take you because you are such a bore," and gave him the mu- nificent wage of nine dollars a week. After a few months he was called into the office of the firm and Mr. Leslie said, "I can not pay you nine dollars a week any longer," and then added, "I am going to pay you fifteen dollars." In four years his health broke down, but in 1856 we find him starting a lithographic company with a capital of two hundred and fifty dollars, buying his goods on credit, and acting as draftsman, grinder, bookkeeper, packer, and solicitor. He managed to survive the financial crisis of 1857 and moved his plant to larger quarters twice in one year, and in 1860 he bought out his partner and founded the firm of L. Prang and Company, whose renown has circled the globe. A year later, however, it seemed as if dissolution had come again. His trade had been largely from the South, and the civil conflict abrogated entirely his southern orders and caused him to receive few in the North. But his fer- tile mind was of a character that could turn disasters into advantages, so when the first gun was fired on Sumter he grasped a new idea and made a map of the fort and sur- roundings and hired boys to sell it on the streets, to such 250 The Fine Arts effect that the demand became so great that the boys would rush up the stairs, throw the quarters they had collected into the baskets, and grasp the maps as fast as they came from the press and rush down again. This led to his print- ing maps of all the battlefields and pictures of the soldier heroes, living and dead, of which millions of copies were circulated. About 1860 he saw in a store window a beautiful Ger- man color print, and said, "We ought to do that work, and better work than that, in America," and then he drew himself up and registered a vow in response to an inward inspiration as he added, "And I am the man to do it!" From this time on business prosperity seems to have been his fortune, but he earned all that came to him, and the secret of his great success is indicated by words, which might well become immortal, which he said to his wife when she was reading to him some questions which an interviewer had written out, requesting answers, and when the question was read, "What about your failures?" he said, with his peculiar emphasis: "I never had a failure. If one thing did n't go, I tried another." On the way from Switzerland to Paris he had met in the diligence a young Swiss maiden named Rosa Gerber, who was also emigrating to America, and although he had seen her for but two days, the thought of her remained in his mind for five years, at which time he seems to have determined that he needed some one to share his debts and trials with him. And so he wrote to this young woman, who had been living with her brother on an Ohio farm, proposing that she should come to Boston and marry him. It seems that Rosa Gerber was at this time considering a proposal of marriage from a young farmer of the vicinity, but upon receiving Louis's proposal she declined this other offer, and selling her cow to pay her fare, took pas- Louis Prang, Popularizer of Art 251 sage for Boston. She arrived in Boston at an unexpected hour, and when he found her the next morning neither recognized the other. He said to her, "Are you Rosa Gerber?" and she said, "Yes; are you Louis Prang?" And he said, " I am. Will you marry me?" And she said, "That is what I came for." And they went out and joined their hands together in marriage, and lived a happy life until her death in 1898. There were three ways in which Louis Prang touched the life of the whole world. The first was by his development of color printing, in response to the vow to which I have referred, in such a fashion as to reproduce oil paintings with almost deceptive exactness. In 1866 he perfected this process, and gave to the product the name of " Chromo." Both the name and the new work of art caught the public mind. Until that time throughout America the walls of the ordinary houses had been largely undecorated, or else adorned with the lugubrious paintings of dead ancestors. Louis Prang published reproductions of the best paintings procurable, and although the word "Chromo" was his trademark, others copied his work until the process was greatly dete- riorated, but never by him. I think it is safe to say that more than half the homes in America, as well as hundreds of thousands throughout the world beyond the seas, were greatly brightened and beautified by his inventive craft. The second way in which he directly touched the world was by the introduction and development of the Christmas card. Before 1874 it had been the custom in England to send somewhat similar greetings to friends at Christmas time, but in that year he introduced the American Art Christmas card to England, and the next year to America, until now there have been issued literally billions of these tasteful and artistic greetings for Christmas, New Year's, 252 The Fine Arts Easter, birthdays, and other occasions. Probably there are few homes in America that have not been visited by some of these cheerful messengers, born from his prolific and beauty-producing brain. It is almost impossible to estimate what the social influence of this development of his great genius might be. He was in the habit of giving prizes for designs for his Christmas cards of from one hundred to two thousand dollars. But probably the way in which he most directly influ- enced his generation was through that in which he was most interested — the application of the art idea to Amer- ican education. In 1874 he organized the Prang Educa- tional Company. This was not designed primarily as a commercial enterprise, but to promote the "Prang Method in Education," whose object was, first, to develop the creative impulse in the student, and, second, to train him in good taste. He not only encouraged those with artistic talent in such fashion that scores of artists owe their start in life to him, but he awakened the spirit of production and the love of the beautiful in multitudes of students. He realized that no one person could carry out this work, and he associated with him accomplished specialist in education and art. In 1875 he was fortunate enough to obtain the coopera- tion of Mrs. Mary Dana Hicks, afterwards his second wife, who at that time was superintendent of drawing in the Syracuse schools, and who became with others an enthusi- astic creator and promoter of the great plan by which art education was introduced into the American public schools. Working with the cooperation of Mrs. Hicks and others, Mr. Prang gave between two and three hundred thousand dollars more than the receipts from this educational en- deavor, and I think it is well within the mark to say that no one has ever touched our school life with so much of Louis Prang, Popularizer of Art 253 beauty and helpful inspiration as did these two great souls in their earnest and successful effort. The two crowning works of Mr. Prang's life were, first, the production of the Prang Standard of Color, on which he worked carefully for thirty years, and the other, the last great practical endeavor in connection with his well- beloved vocation, in 1898. The Messrs. Walters, father and son, of Baltimore, were extensive collectors of Oriental ceramic art, from India, Korea, China, and Japan. They desired to have colored lithographs produced of the best specimens of their price- less collection. They examined the work of every great European house, only to find that this German-American excelled the Germans and all the artist artificers of Europe in this kind of work. They placed the preliminary order of three pieces with the Prang Company, which was so perfectly filled that, just at the time when Louis Prang was seeking for the opportunity of some crowning achieve- ment for his lifework, he was offered a free hand and the possibility of unlimited expenditure in carrying out the desire of Mr. Walters. Five hundred thousand dollars were spent in producing five hundred copies of this book, and as these copies sold for five hundred dollars apiece, it will be seen that Mr. Walters spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the enterprise out of his own pocket. Under the direct supervision of Mr. Prang the artists and lithographers worked for eight years upon this unique endeavor. Some single plates required not less than fifty different stones, each supplying a little bit of color or design, and for the one hundred and sixteen plates two thousand stones were required. If these stone plates had been piled one on top of the other, they would have reached to a distance higher than the Washington monu- 254 The Fine Arts ment. The chief lithographers of Paris, when they saw the finished work, said it could not have been done with- out the marvelous pictures having been retouched. Louis Prang himself said simply, "I suppose that work will never be surpassed by man." First medals for this and other work of the kind came to him from all the great institutions and expositions of the world, and the Mikado of Japan wrote him a personal letter and bestowed upon him gifts of rare value. Three years before his death he journeyed leisurely around the world with his devoted wife, and in Tokyo and Berlin and other cities men came up to him and said, "I am one of your boys." He was a great reformer in his spirit, and never hesitated to identify himself with any cause that he regarded as worthy and needing his assistance. Especially was he an advocate of tariff reform, an earnest adherent of the tax- reform theories of Henry George. He carried with him wherever he went Mrs. Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese," Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Emerson's "Essays,"and Henry George's "Pro- gress and Poverty." His love for Nature transcended expression. Of all the products of Nature he best loved the flowers; of flowers, the most fragrant flowers; of fragrant flowers the most beautiful, the rose; of roses, the most perfect in color and perfume, the Killarney. He loved not only to listen to music, but to sing. He loved to bid the sun "Good-by!" when it had set at night, and he would rise singing in the morning. In fact, like Walt Whitman, he loved to sing to himself all day. He loved his friends, and all men and humanity as well. When leaving a city, he would say kindly, "Good-by, Town!" Louis Prang, Popularizer of Art 255 Until the very last, nothing stood in the way of his reso- lute spirit, and on his last visit to Aidenn Lair, on Fellow- ship Heights near Los Angeles, he looked up the hill and said to a friend: "There seem to be several paths. Which is the hardest?" and when he was told, this young man of fourscore years and five said, "I will take the hardest way." " I shall never forget the last time I saw Mr. Prang. He said to me, 'I have fullfilled my ideals.' " EDMUND C. TARBELL By KENYON COX r N these days of chaotic experimenting and of "isms" innumerable, in which it has seemed that every tradition of sound paint- ing has gone by the board, there is much encouragement for the lovers of older art in the success, and the consequent influence upon younger artists, of the recent work of Mr. Tarbell. Here is work essentially conservative, based on the soundest and sanest painting of the past, yet of a quality that insured the enthusiasm of brother artists and the appreciation and financial backing of intelligent collectors — work of the lineage of Vermeer and Chardin, yet with a modern and con- temporary accent — a much-needed proof that what was always good is good still, and that painting may be very much alive without being revolutionary. Mr. Tarbell's conservatism is the more interesting and the more exemplary because it has been of slow growth. Born in 1862, he was known as one of the most brilliant of our younger painters, who had taken prizes and medals, had experimented with various forms of plein air painting and was a notable virtuoso with the brush. Then, almost suddenly, came the "Girl Crochet- ing," which in its quiet perfection seemed to eclipse his own previous works, as it did those of others, making them look like mere paint, while it alone looked like nature. Since then there has been a series of pictures in the same vein: the "Girl Mending, " the "New England Interior," and "Preparing for the Matinee," and much 256 Edmund C. Tarbell 257 of the same quality has been brought into portraiture, as in his portrait of President Seeley. Without seeing these recent works side by side it is impossible to be certain whether the earliest of them is still the most perfect, or whether this is an illusion of memory. In any case, the pictures all have a large measure of the same beauty, and in the last mentioned this beauty is achieved on a larger scale, the figure being of life size. The analogy of this art to that of Vermeer is apparent at a glance. There is the same simplicity of subject, the same reliance on sheer perfection of representation; the same delicate truth of values, the same exquisite sensitiveness to gradations of light. No one since Ver- meer has made a flat wall so interesting — has so perfectly rendered its surface, its exact distance behind the figure, the play of light upon it, and the amount of air in front of it. There is much, too, of Vermeer's accuracy of draftsmanship without manner or acquired style, and there is the same willingness to use a few elements of composition — a few objects — again and again, in the confidence that slight differences of effect and a fresh observation will insure sufficient variety. In the "Girl Mending" and in the "New England Interior" we have the same room, with its triple window at the left and its open door beyond, and in both is the same gate-legged table that figured in the "Girl Crocheting." The sofa of the "New England Interior" appears again in "Pre- paring for the Matinee." Yet each is an individual picture — a change in the lighting and in the grouping and distance of the figures has sufficed to give to each as great a freshness as if the others had not existed. But if the inspiration of Vermeer is evident, there is no trace of imitation. Mr. Tarbell is trying to do what Vermeer did, not to do it as Vermeer did it — still less 258 The Fine Arts to give the superficial aspect of the Dutchman's pic- tures. It would never have occurred to him to produce a costume piece and to attempt the reconstruction of a seventeenth-century interior as Meissonier attempted it. The environment he paints is his own; his models are people of his own day. To find the pictorial elements in what he sees about him is his task, as it was that of the masters of Holland. Neither has he attempted to investigate the technical methods or to reproduce the handling of any painter of the past. As far as his pro- cesses are decipherable they seem to be those of every one else — there is nothing in the manner of laying on paint that particularly distinguishes his present work from his earlier or from the work of his contemporaries. If he has made any experiments in under-painting and glazes they are thoroughly concealed in his final result. What one sees is apparently perfectly simple and direct workmanship of the modern kind — opaque color laid on with a full brush. What Mr. Tarbell has set himself to recover is not the method of the Master of Delft, but his point of view; not his technique, but his temper. Using his own tools and his own equipment, he sees as Vermeer saw and feels as he felt, and it would be hard to find a better model. There have been greater artists than Vermeer — was there ever a better painter? He was not a man of lofty invention, not a master of the grand style or of sumptuous decoration; but no one ever saw more clearly or rendered more perfectly the infinite beauty of common things. To be exquisite in choice and infinitely elegant in arrangement, balancing space against space and tone against tone with utmost nicety; to depict the forms of Nature as they are, yet to invest them with a nameless charm while seeming only to copy them accurately; to Edmund C. Tarbell 259 color soberly yet subtly, giving each light and half-tone, each shadow and reflection, its proper hue as well as its proper value; to represent not objects merely, but the atmosphere that bathes them and the light that falls upon them, yet with no sacrifice of the solidity or the character of the objects themselves; to achieve what shall seem a transcript of natural fact yet shall be in reality a work of finest art — this is what Vermeer did as no one else has done it, and this is what Mr. Tarbell is trying to do. It seems to me that he has more nearly succeeded than any other painter of our time. The refinement of spacing in such pictures as the "Girl Crocheting" and the "Girl Mending" — the adjustment of the picture to its frame, of the figure to its background — the entire success of the design as a pattern of variously shaped and colored masses, is admirable. The best example of Mr. Tarbell's drafts- manship is perhaps the head of the "Girl Mending," in which great charm is attained without special research for beauty of feature and by dint of thoroughness of observation and sympathy of feeling. The head of the girl in "Preparing for the Matinee" is not so fine in type, but its modeling, in the delicate half-shadow cast by the hat and the upraised arms, is nothing less than masterly. In this picture, also, the drawing of the arms and hands is carried farther than in the others, and the slender and supple body is unmistakably present under the dress. The perfect tonality of these canvases, the fineness of discrimination between closely related values, is also notable. The depth of the room and the exact amount of space between the various objects in it are gauged to a nicety in each case, and one does not know whether this expression of space is more wonderful in the "New England Interior," with its many planes, or in 260 The Fine Arts the simple empty wall which remains so perfectly behind the figure in "Preparing for the Matinee. " In the latter case the problem, simple as it looks, is perhaps the more difficult of the two. In color the "Girl Mending," with the rose-geranium- colored kimono contrasting so piquantly with its sur- rounding" grays, is the most obviously decorative; but perhaps the quieter canvases, made up of grays and browns and blacks but full of quality and never suggesting mono- chrome, are the more permanently delightful. There is no surer test of the coloristic power of an artist than his treatment of whites and blacks. All these pictures are full of subtly varied whites. One of the most striking instances of the painter's ability to handle black is the academic gown of President Seeley — an admirable piece of rendering, broad and free in handling yet thorough and logical in form, fully illuminated yet never becoming slaty or chalky, filled with color, yet never suggesting purple or brown or anything but black. Such simply beautiful painting is even rarer to-day than it has been in the past. We are the more grateful for the straightforwardness and the accomplishment of Mr. Tarbell's work. ROSA BONHEUR AND HER WORK 1 By ERNEST KNAUFFT r N this country there is probably no better- known picture than Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair," the masterpiece of the artist, who died at By, near Fontainebleau, France, on May 25, 1899. The majority of tourists who pass through New York visit the Metropolitan Museum, and once there they are loath to leave the building without seeing this painting. Those who are unable to visit the museum know the composition from engravings. So wide is the popularity of this artist that every girl who studies art is assured by some 1 friend that she will one day become a Rosa Bonheur. In the story of Rosa Bonheur's life there is less that is romantic than one would surmise there would be in the life of one who at the age of thirty painted so celebrated a picture as the "Horse Fair," who worked in masculine attire, and who was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. The home life of the Bonheurs had its somber as well as its sunny side. The father of Rosa Bonheur, Raymond Bonheur, was a drawing teacher living at Bordeaux. Privations of poverty had been too great for Madame Bonheur, and in 1833 she died, leaving four children. Soon after the death of his wife Raymond Bonheur moved to Paris. The eldest child, Rosa, was only eleven years old, and being too young to have the care of her brothers and sister, they were placed in board- 1 By permission of the Author and the "Review of Reviews." Copy- right, 1899. 261 262 The Fine Arts ing schools. Thus at the threshold of her life Rosa Bonheur had experienced a tragedy never to be forgotten. To this gifted girl very early in her life there came serious obstacles as well as great opportunities. When M. Bonheur determined to permit his daughter Rosa to follow an artistic career, he met with much opposition from family and friends, who thought that the field offered but little for a woman. On the other hand, her father, being an artist, gave her special elementary in- struction at an early age — a privilege few children enjoy. At an age when, in other countries, children draw in an aimless, frivolous way, M. Bonheur guided the little Rosa's first efforts with his experienced hand, so that while still very young she became possessor of a professional technic. It is reported that Raymond Bonheur disapproved of the then prevailing method of teaching. He said: "The teaching of drawing is preeminently the training of the eye. To reproduce an engraving is but a matter of time and patience, but to copy the most simple object from a model in space proves a hundred times more valuable to the student. One learns infinitely more by copying simply and unaffectedly a glass resting on a table than by imitating the most skillful tones of a perfect and beau- tiful drawing." So with her father's counsel Rosa learned to study primarily from nature and not to rely too much upon copying in the Louvre, the second step in her education; but what copying she did, what studying of the masters she undertook, was done assiduously. It must be remembered that France is a country of museums — or rather the French are users of museums; in this respect we Americans have much to learn. The writer once mentioned to an artist who had studied in Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 263 Paris that it was remarkable that the French painter Vollon, whose work is replete with an excellence of tech- nic, had not attended an art school or received training from a master. "But he had the Louvre and the Luxembourg," the artist replied, meaning that Vollon had these museums at his disposal and that in using them he could acquaint himself with the classical in art expression. So it was with Rosa Bonheur: not only was she directed to Nature by her father, but by studying in the museums she be- came acquainted with the best forms of technical expres- sion. It is impossible to overestimate such advantages. She assisted her father in preparing drawings for the publishers, but her visits to the Louvre were kept up regularly. She arrived early in the morning and re- mained till closing hour, hardly allowing herself time to eat the morsel of bread that constituted her midday meal. She often copied Poussin, Paul Potter, and Cuyp, and in her faithful animal studies we can see evidences of the sincere Paul Potter's style. When the Louvre closed she painted in the suburbs of Paris, which at this time were open country, and the forest of Fontainebleau served her as sketching ground, as it had many artists before her day. In a new country like America the art student spends the greater part of his preparatory days in exploring, with timid steps, ground that has been well known for centuries, thus misdirecting his energies; or he chooses as a pole star some mediocre artist, imitating his manner- isms, of which in after life he finds it hard to rid himself. The French student is well tutored and is saved all this fruitless experimenting and injudicious hero worship; so if Rosa Bonheur did not reach the highest degree of ex- cellence, if she did not employ all the best methods 264 The Fine Arts sanctioned by the greatest masters of the past, it was not the fault of her education. She had the same oppor- tunity to study as had Vollon, Daubigny, Troyon, Millet, and Rousseau. Besides the two factors in the development of her art which we have mentioned — her father's technical teach- ing and the opportunity to study the classical treasures in the museums — we must consider, thirdly, the influ- ence of the reigning school. No artist except the icono- clast can avoid this factor; every artist is the product of his own age. Had Rosa Bonheur established her style before 1830 or after 1855 her methods would have been different. In the first case, it is true, her style would have been mannered, artificial, and pompous; she would have been under the influence of Vernet and Gericault, and unless she had a genius equal to theirs artificiality would have predominated in her work. Had she learned her art after 1855 the date of the Universal Exhibition in Paris, where for the first time the French saw brought together the modern art of Europe, it is probable she would have been directly influenced by the Barbizon school, and especially by Troyon. As it was, Rosa Bonheur's contemporaries, of whom Brascassat was representative, were men of an inter- mediate period who were alert enough to see that the artificial school of Vernet was doomed, and who, though they went to nature for inspiration, yet were not strong enough to form a school. Rosa Bonheur's art was of this period, a period that had its counterpart on the continent in the work of Verboeckhoven and in England in the work of Landseer. At the time of Rosa Bonheur's infancy writers and painters alike were protesting against the classical school then in vogue in literature and in Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 265 art — the painters against the school of David and other eighteenth-century artists. This protest came from the so-called "men of 1830," or "Romanticists," and in George Sand's "Mare au Diable" found feminine lit- erary expression. Rosa Bonheur is never classed with this school, but she felt its influence and was a true anti- classicist. In 1840, at eighteen years of age, fired by the ambi- tion to be represented at the Salon, Rosa Bonheur painted a picture destined for that exhibition. The common sense that characterized her whole career was shown on this occasion in her choice of subject — two ordinary rabbits eating carrots. Her second effort represented goats and sheep. Both pictures were painted from liv- ing models in her father's studio and were exhibited in the Salon of 1841. From that year till 1855 her work appeared annually at the Salon. In 1853, after the "Horse Fair" was painted, the Salon jury of admission declared her exempt from examination. Between 1841 and 1853 she worked hard, building up her reputation, securing a name for conscientious workmanship, a sym- pathetic knowledge of animal life, and a keen sense of its picturesqueness. She studied during her vacations as well as in the winters at the studio. In 1845 she visited her sister at Bordeaux, sketching en route and traveling as far as Landes, a dreary, marshy country where there were some disagreeable episodes, for the ignorant peasants, unused to seeing artists at work, regarded her with dis- trust and denounced her as a witch, and even assaulted her with stones and other missiles. In 1846 a two months' visit to the old province of Auvergne was more profitable. She painted the powerful brown cows of Salers, surrounded by the rugged mountains, with Puy de 266 The Fine Arts D6me, the Plomb du Cantal, and the Puy Griou in the background. During this time Mademoiselle Bonheur exhibited bronzes and figures in terra cotta and was awarded a gold medal of the third class in 1845, but in 1848 the first-class medal became hers. In this year the whole family of Bonheurs — Auguste, Juliette, and Rosa as painters, and Isidore as a sculptor — exhibited at the Salon. At this time the family led a sort of Swiss Family Robinson life, an ideal life for animal painters. The studio in the Rue Rumford, where they lived, became a veritable Noah's ark, with its menagerie of birds, hens, ducks, and sheep. Each day the two boys took the quadrupeds from the apartment down the six flights of stairs and to the Monceau plain, where they were pas- tured. In 1848, however, the family moved to the Rue de Touraine Saint-Germain. Here there was no space for the animals, so Rosa hired a place for them in the sub- urbs, in the Rue de l'Ouest. For sixty years she worked at her art, but never without her models about her. In 1848-49 she painted her first large canvas, "Labou- rage Nivernais," which was exhibited in the Salon of 1849 — and the reputation of Rosa Bonheur was estab- lished. The French Government bought this painting for the Luxembourg, though in view of the impoverished condition of the finances of the country they paid only three thousand francs (six hundred dollars) for it. In this same year Raymond Bonheur died and Rosa Bonheur became directress of the drawing school for young ladies over which he had presided. Assisted in her duties by her sister Juliette, she held this position until 1860, when she resigned and was appointed directrice honoraire. Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 267 As we have said, the "Labourage" was her first large canvas, and its success inspired her to undertake a second mammoth production. This second project was the "Horse Fair." For this canvas she made innumerable studies of horses, begin- ning by making portraits of horses owned by her friends, but with a desire for greater exactness she finally re- sorted to the horse market herself. At this time she first assumed male attire when working. For many years she had been in the habit of visiting the abattoirs of Paris, accompanied by her brother or by her friend and pupil Mademoiselle Micas, and there, in the presence of butchers and cowherds Rosa Bonheur made anatomi- cal studies. She was, however, subjected to the ill-man- nered inquisitiveness of the workmen, and therefore when she began her studies for the "Horse Fair" she resolved to disguise herself in man's clothes, and as she was in the habit of wearing her hair short, the masquerade was so perfect that she was enabled to make her studies unmolested. It was thus a matter of ex- pediency and not a desire for publicity that prompted Mademoiselle Bonheur to affect man's attire. The "Horse Fair," said to be the largest canvas ever pro- duced by an animal painter, was exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and awarded all the honors of the Salon. It is difficult to find out what there is in this painting to warrant its great popularity. We see a sort of ani- mated merry-go-round in front of an inclosure behind which there is evidently a track for speeding horses. There are a few onlookers in the background, but there is no suggestion of a crowd, no gala-day banners or flags. In the center of the canvas are half a dozen horses — gray, brown, and sorrel — and three or four grooms; one bronzed hostler is running beside a nervous 268 The Fine Arts horse whose tether carries the man well-nigh off his feet, so that he seems to run in mid-air, as one might run under the influence of laughing gas. Another blue- bloused groom is finding it hard to control two gray Normandy horses, his elbows beating against his body like the wings of a drumming partridge. The horses are heavy, with amply hirsute hocks; they are saddle- less and bridleless, a halter and a rope bit serving as a bridle. Their gait is the restless jerking movement of horses being led to new quarters, and not the martial nervousness of race horses. Indeed, the title "Horse Fair" conveys to the American mind more of festivity than the picture presents. The title "The Horse Mar- ket" would be more descriptive. What strikes one most forcibly about the painting is its realism. One feels sure that the artist painted from her conviction — that there are no trivial touches in- troduced for artistic effect. She must have felt that every brush mark was necessary to tell her story; that she knew thoroughly the white horses and the bay horses and was sure that they should be painted as she painted them; that their rounded' backs, their heavy hoofs, their thick necks belong to them; that they were not thor- oughbreds, and no lay criticism could have induced her to change a single detail of their anatomy. There is the same conviction in her rendering of the animals in "Weaning the Calves," also in The Metropolitan Museum, and this is the keynote of her art; we feel we can trust her statements; from a scientific point of view her facts are not to be disputed, she knew her ground. In 1855 the picture was sent by Mademoiselle Bonheur to her native town of Bordeaux and exhibited there. She offered to sell it to the town at the very low price of twelve thousand francs. Says Mr. Ernest Gambart Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 269 in a letter to Mr. S. P. Avery, printed in the Metro- politan Museum's catalogue: "At that time I asked her if she would sell it to me and let me take it to England and have it engraved. She said: 'I wish my picture to remain in France. I will once more impress on my countrymen my wish to sell it to them for twelve thousand francs. If they refuse you can have it, but if you take it abroad you must pay me forty thousand francs.' The town failing to make the purchase I at once accepted her terms, and Rosa Bonheur then placed the picture at my disposal. I ten- dered her the forty thousand francs, and she said: 'I am much gratified at your giving me such a noble price, but I do not like to feel that I have taken advantage of your liberality. Let us see how we can combine in the matter. You will not be able to have an engraving made from so large a canvas. Suppose I paint you a small one of the same subject, of which I will make you a present." Of course I accepted the gift, and thus it happened that the large work went traveling over the kingdom on exhibition while Thomas Landseer was making an engraving from the quartersize replica. After some time (in 1857, I think) I sold the original picture to Mr. William P. Wright, of New York, for the sum of thirty thousand francs, but as he claimed a share of the profits of its exhibition in New York and other cities, he really only paid me twenty-two thousand francs for it. I offered to repurchase the picture in 1870 for fifty thousand francs, but ultimately I understood that Mr. Stewart paid a much larger price for it on the dis- persion of Mr. Wright's collection. The quarter-size replica from which the engraving was made I finally sold to Mr. Jacob Bell, who bequeathed it, in 1859, to the nation, and it is now in the National Gallery in London. 270 The Fine Arts A second still smaller replica was painted a few years later and was resold some time ago in London for four thousand pounds. There is also a smaller water-color drawing of the 'Horse Fair,' which was sold to Mr. Bolckow for twenty-five hundred guineas and is now an heirloom belonging to the town of Middleborough. That is the whole history of this grand work. The Stewart canvas is the real and true original and the only large- size 'Horse Fair.' Once in Mr. A. T. Stewart's posses- sion, it never left his gallery until the auction sale of his collection, on March 25, 1887, when it was pur- chased by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for the sum of $55,500 and presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art." On the top of a hill near the edge of the forest of Fon- tainebleau, beloved by artists, not far from the valley of the Seine and the Loing, stands the little village of By (pronounced Bee). Here Rosa Bonheur made her home after 1850. Her chateau was Normandy Gothic in style, with picturesque turrets. In the atelier chimney piece the supporting caryatides are two large stone dogs carved by Isidore Bonheur. Portraits of the artist's parents, one painted by Auguste, the other by Rosa Bonheur, are near by, while on the wall hang paint- ings by Gleyre and by Raymond Bonheur, and on the mantel and tables are bronzes by Barye, Mene, Cain, and Isidore Bonheur. On the floor are spread bear and sheep skins; in nooks are stuffed birds and casts of animals. Much work was done in this studio and much open-air work in the park that surrounded the chateau. This park was the home of sheep, goats, cows from Brittany, an elk presented by Mr. Belmont of New York, deer, monkeys, and even boars and lions, that served as models. , Rosa Bonheur and Her Work 271 In 1864, when the royal court was held at Fontaine- bleau, Rosa Bonheur was visited by Napoleon III at By. The Empress Eugenie became deeply interested in the artist's work, and she requested the Emperor to bestow upon her the cross of the Legion of Honor. Up to this time the cross had never been given to a woman save for acts of exceptional bravery or charity. The Emperor was nothing loath to bestow this decoration, but was met by stony opposition from his advisers, and the matter was postponed. But the next year, when the Emperor was in Algiers and the Empress was acting as regent, she took advantage of her delegated authority to execute a sort of coup d'etat and bestow the medal upon the artist in the following romantic manner. Rosa Bonheur was informed that the Empress would visit her at By in order to inspect the picture she had ordered. "On the morn- ing of the appointed day the artist was preparing to receive her guest, when she was told that the latter had already arrived and was in the atelier. The artist, having no time to change her costume, entered to receive her guest in a blouse that she wore at work. Compliments were exchanged, when her Majesty opened a small case carried by her chamberlain and took from it the cross of the Legion of Honor, and by means of a pin which one of her ladies gave her (they had sought in vain in the atelier for one) attached it to the breast of Rosa Bonheur." Of course this exceptional honor added new luster to the artist's name, and besides she was yearly in receipt of new honors. At the Universal Exhibition of 1867 she received a second-class medal; in the same year the Em- peror Maximilian of Mexico conferred upon her the deco- ration of San Carlos; the King of Belgium created her a chevalier of his order; the Academy of Fine Arts at 272 The Fine Arts Antwerp elected her a member; she was a commander of the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic. On the event of her sending "King of the Forest" and the "Stampede" to the World's Fair, President Carnot made her an officer of the Legion of Honor. About 1855 she ceased to exhibit annually at the Salon. In 1855 Rosa Bonheur sent to the Universal Exhibition a picture which she painted at the request of the state as a companion piece to "Labourage." It represented haymaking in Auvergne. This picture re- ceived a first-class medal and hung for some time in the Luxembourg. In 1857, influenced by Walter Scott's novels and anxious to see Sir Edwin Landseer's pro- ductions, she visited England. She was well known to the English people and was enthusiastically received in England and Scotland. REMBRANDT AND HIS ETCHINGS 1 By LOUIS A. HOLMAN GOVERNOR WILLIAM BRADFORD records that when the little company of English exiles in Holland, later revered as the Pilgrim Fathers, removed to Leyden, it was "a fair & bewtifull citie, and of a sweete situation" and famous for "ye universitie wherwith it is adorned." The fame of Leyden was to be further perpetuated, although Bradford knew it not, by one who had but just been born there when the English pilgrims came to the friendly university town; one who added to the fame of his native place chiefly because he did not attend that university, which seemed so attractive to young Bradford. The father of this boy determined to give him a collegiate education so that he might sometime hold a town office, and fondly hoped that he was preparing the lad for such a position (perhaps in the very schools attended by the English children). But it soon became clear to all men that the schoolboy had no head for Latin and a very decided talent for drawing. So it came to pass that at the time Bradford and his friends set their faces toward America, and perforce turned their backs, upon that "goodly & pleasante citie which had been ther resting place near twelve years," Rembrandt van Rijn, the youngest son of a miller of Leyden, turned his face, too, from the old toward the new. They sought liberty to live and worship according 1 By courteous permission of the Author. Reprinted from " The Craftsman." Copyright, 1906. 273 274 The Fine Arts to the bright light in their hearts; he, too, took up a no less God-given task, impelled thereto by an irresistible force which, after half a century of unceasing labor, retained all its early vigor. They broke from the ways of their fathers and bore an important part in the develop- ment of the great American nation; he did a noble work in emancipating art from the thraldom of tradition and unreality, becoming the first of her great modern masters. The twelve years' truce between the humiliated Dons and the stocky Dutchmen was now nearing its end, and Bradford says, "Ther was nothing but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr." This was one of the reasons why the peaceable Pilgrims sought a new home beyond the . sea. But Rembrandt, already absorbed in his art studies, saw nothing, .heard nothing of these preparations; his ears were deaf to the drumbeats,, his eyes were seeing better things than the "pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war." There can be no question about his utter lack of interest in things military. When, at long intervals, he tried war subjects, as most men sooner or later do try to do the thing they are least fitted for, he failed pitifully. He could create a master- piece of a "Man in Armor," or a "Night Watch," where the problems were purely artistic, and swords and flags were simply bits of fine color, but the painting or etch- ing that breathed the actual spirit of war he could not produce. There is matter here for rejoicing. War and her heroes have had their full quota of the great artists to exalt their work; and now comes one who loved the paths of peace. With brush and etching needle he made record for all time of the dignity and rare beauty which he found in the ordinary man. He turned doctors and frame makers, housemaids and shop- keepers, yea, even the very street beggars, into royal Rembrandt and His Etchings 275 personages, to be sought after by the great ones of the earth. During the lifetime of Rembrandt (1606-1669) much of the wonderful development of Holland took place. She had come to her greatness gradually, but by the middle of the seventeenth century she occupied a leading place among the independent nations of Europe. Great discoverers, like Henry Hudson, had given her aew dominions east and west, and colonization had begun. On the sea her flag was supreme; her merchant marine, going to and from her own possessions, was seen in every port of the world ; her admirals, Ruyter and Tromp, had won her an illustrious place forever in the annals of naval warfare. These were the days of Milton and Ben Jonson; of Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, and Richelieu ; of Murillo, Rubens, and Van Dyck — days when Holland had within her own borders such men as Barneveldt, the great states- man; Grotius, the father of international law; Spinoza, the philosopher; and Jan de Witt, the Grand Pensioner — besides that noble group of artists, Hals, Cuyp, Ruys- dael, Potter, [Steen, and Ostade. These days, too, saw the settling of many states in America, the founding of Quebec, New York, and Boston. Strangely apart from all these history-making move- ments, and from his peers among men, dwelt Rembrandt, the great master, in Amsterdam, serenely happy to-day in painting a portrait of his loved Saskia, to-morrow in etching the features of a wandering Jew. He had given himself, body and soul, to his art, and no man or move- ment of men could distract him from his work. Year by year his busy brain and dexterous hand produced paintings, etchings, drawings, in slightly varying pro- portion but always in amazing quantity. For his forty- 276 The Fine Arts one productive years we find to his credit the average annual output of thirteen paintings, nine etchings, and twenty-four drawings. A few decades ago the ordinary person thought of Rembrandt only as a great painter; that time has for- tunately passed. Modern engraving methods have made it possible to spread broadcast reproductions of his etched work. Some of these are crude, such as those in Hamerton's "Etchings of Rembrandt"; others are surprisingly faithful to the originals; the best are those published and sold for a few marks by the German government. Thanks to these mechanical engraving processes some of Rembrandt's etchings are now familiarly known and, to a degree at] least, appreciated. No reproduction, however, can ever give the subtle quality of the orig- inal, and a revelation comes to one who looks for the first time on a good impression of a first "state" (i.e., edition). The ink is still brilliant; the Chinese or Japanese paper which Rembrandt generally used, has sometimes gone very yellow and spotted, but oftener has the fine mellowness of age. We treat it with respect, almost with reverence, for we remember that this very sheet of paper was dampened and laid upon the etched plate, already prepared by the hands of the great etcher himself. Each impression he pulled was as carefully considered as the biting of the copper plate. He varied the strength of the ink, the method of wiping, the pressure used; knowing the possibilities of his plate, he so manip- ulated it that it responded to his touch as a piano responds to the touch of a musician. The poor impressions and very late states, of which, unfortunately, many exist, are generally the work of those mercenary ones into whose hands Rembrandt's plates fell after his death — Rembrandt and His Etchings 277 sometimes even before. Like a man with no music in his soul attempting to improve upon a sonata by Bee- thoven, these people not only printed, haphazard, poor impressions having the master's name, but sometimes even undertook to rearrange the composition and rework the plate. A hundred years before Rembrandt's time acid had been used to help out the graver. Diirer, among others, used it, and he employed also, but in hesitating manner, the dry point with its accompanying burr. Rembrandt's method of utilizing the roughness thrown up on the copper by the dry-point needle was his own invention; no one else has ever equaled his use of it, even among his own pupils. It was much the same with everything else: the burin of the professional engraver he handled so skillfully that it is impossible to tell where the acid or the dry- point work stopped and the reenforcing work of the graver began. When- others tried to combine these methods they failed. The hand of Rembrandt was the obedient servant of his master mind: so well trained was it that usually no preliminary sketch was made, the needle producing at once on the smoked wax surface of the copper the picture which floated before him, doing it, too, so correctly that the brain was not diverted from the ideal picture by any crudity in the lines. If the tools, methods, and effects which the great en- gravers had used suggested anything to him, he freely took them up and bent them to his will. Making free use of all, binding hinself to none, he always remained the versatile, independent student. And the strangest thing about it all is that he appears to have recognized, grappled with, and forever solved the problems of the art while he was a mere youth. One of the two plates which bear the earliest date (1628) and signature is entitled "Bust of an 278 The Fine Arts Old Woman, lightly etched." It is a delightful little plate, drawn with all the skill and freedom of a practiced hand. Frederick Wedmore, an English authority on etching, says that "nothing in Rembrandt's work is more exhaustive or more subtle, " and S. R. Koehler, an Amer- ican authority, calls it "a magnificent little portrait, complete artistically and technically," and very truly refers to it as "a prefiguration of what was to come." A man of twenty-two years already a master etcher! This plate, undoubtedly a portrait of the artist's mother, measures not quite two and a half inches square. There are others about the size of a postage stamp, while the largest one, "The Descent from the Cross," measures over twenty by sixteen inches. The amount of manual labor on these large plates is overpowering, while the workmanship in the smaller ones is almost unbelievably fine — think of a child's face not over one-eighth of an inch wide, and hands less than one-sixteenth of an inch across, yet really eloquent with expression! Rembrandt accepted the assistance of his pupils, as who among the old masters did not? He was, however, not practical enough to profit much by them: he could work to much better advantage alone. Among his thirty or forty pupils, Frederick Bol, who came to his studio when only sixteen, and stayed for eight years, gave his master most assistance. Bol's rendering is at times very much like Rembrandt's. Some critics think, for instance, that he did most of the etching of the "Goldweigher" and "Abraham Caressing Isaac"; both, however, are signed by Rembrandt. When these pupils established studios of their own, they made free use of their old master's compositions, subjects, and figures. With Jan Lievens, his fellow student at Lastman's studio, with Van Vliet, Roddermondt, and other engravers Rembrandt and His Etchings 279 and etchers of the time, Rembrandt was on terms of great intimacy. They appear often to have worked on the same plate, and to have borrowed one another's ideas "without let or hindrance." Indeed, it is hard to comprehend the extent to which exchange of ideas was carried at that time. Here is a good illustration of the way things went without protest of any sort being raised. Hercules Seghers etched a large landscape with small figures, after a painting by Adam Elzheimer and an engraving by Count de Goudt, entitled "Tobias and the Angels." This copper plate came into Rembrandt's possession; he burnished out Tobias and his companion, and replaced them by Joseph and Mary with the Holy Child. To cover the erasure he added foliage, but the wing of the angel, the outlines of a leg, and various other unused portions of Tobias can still be seen. Rembrandt's reason for doing this is incomprehensible, for, judging by the print familiar to the writer, the result is exceedingly commonplace and reflects no credit upon any one,. John Burnet, the etcher-author, has drawn attention to the fact that the figure of Christ in "The Supper at Emmaus" (the large one) is taken from one by Raphael, who is known to have borrowed it from da Vinci, and it is thought da Vinci, in his turn, got it from a former master. Rem- brandt copied also from Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, his pupil Gerard Dou, Van de Velde, and others. Many of his contemporaries and successors extended toward him the same sort of flattery. More than half the subjects of Rembrandt's etchings are portraits and studies of the human figure; about one-quarter are scriptural or religious; there are two dozen landscapes, and the remainder are allegorical and fancy compositions. The two great sources, then, of his inspiration are the men of his day and the men of the 280 The Fine Arts Bible. This Book appears to have been the only one he knew at all well, and of it he made excellent use. Despite the incongruities of his biblical compositions, despite the broad Dutch features, the modern, gorgeous apparel and side whiskers of the patriarchs, the pugilistic proportions of his angels, his etchings have a truth and vital force which there is no withstanding. Perhaps the very fact that he clothed his people in a fashion which he knew well, made his pictures the more successful in reaching the hearts of men. In the all too realistic "Abraham's Sacrifice," in "Jacob Lament- ing the Supposed Death of Joseph," in the naive "Rest in Egypt" (of 1645), and many, many others, the story- telling quality is exceedingly strong and the artistic work above criticism. When we look at "David Praying," we can not help feeling the penitence and sincerity of the man who kneels before us. The acme of Rembrandt's religious work was reached, however, in "Christ Healing the Sick" (etched about 1650), which is probably the finest piece of etched work that has ever been produced. It is a combination of pure etching and dry point, and in the second state there is an India-ink wash in the back- ground. There are nine copies of the first state extant; the last one, sold at public auction (Christie's, 1893), brought more than eighty-five hundred dollars. The name, "Hundred Guilder Print," has attached itself to this etching from the doubtful tradition that Rembrandt exchanged one impression with a dealer for seven prints, together valued at one hundred guilders. While the Christ here is not so satisfying as the one in "Christ Preaching," which is remarkably strong and noble, it is Rembrandt's typical conception of his master — always ministering to real flesh and blood, the poor, suffering, common people. What a striking contrast with the The Rabbi Rem BRANT Rembrandt and His Etchings 281 resplendent artificiality which surrounds the Christ of the Italian masters, and how much nearer the truth! Rembrandt was his own best model. He painted about sixty portraits of himself, and among his etchings we find about twoscore more. Some of them are large and finished, as the deservedly popular "Rembrandt Leaning on a Stone Sill," which is a perfect example of the possibilities of the etching needle; others are mere thumb-nail sketches of expressions, for which he posed. He used his mother many times, and also his wife and sod. In all these is apparent a delightful sense of joy in his work. Nor is this desirable quality lacking in the wonderful series of large portraits of his friends: the doctors, the ministers, and the tradesmen of Amsterdam. These alone would assure their author his place among the greatest of etchers. It is noticeable that Rembrandt had no sittings from persons of high rank. As far as I can find, ' ' Burgomaster ' ' is the most exalted title that can be prefixed to any of his patrons. The reason is not far to seek. Rembrandt was no courtier, like Van Dyck and Rubens. A con- temporary says of him, "When he painted he would not have given audience to the greatest monarch on earth." He calmly set at naught established principles and con- ventional rules in etiquette as well as in art, and followed the bent of his genius with absolute disregard for the opinion of his fellows. The story of "The Night Watch" explains the whole situation. The members of Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the Civic Guards were flattered by the offer of Rembrandt, then at the height of his fame, to paint their portraits. The sixteen members destined to figure in the picture gladly subscribed one hundred florins each, and great were their expectations, and great their dis- 282 The Fine Arts appointment when the picture was placed on view. All but a half dozen felt that they had a distinct grievance against the painter. Had they not paid for portraits of themselves? And they got — what? Here a face in deep shadow, here one half hid by the one in front, here one so freely drawn as to be unrecognizable. The artist had made a picture, to be sure — but their portraits! Where were their portraits, the portraits they had paid for? Rembrandt had thought out every inch of his picture: he was sure it could not be bettered, and change it he would not. The resentment was bitter and deep, and the Civic Guards in future bestowed their favors elsewhere. There were, however, a few fellow citizens who recog- nized his genius and sincerity, and they stood by him. Samuel Manasseh ben Israel, whom Cromwell honored, was his neighbor on the Breedstraat, and an intimate friend. Then there were Jan Sylvius and Cornelis Anslo, the Protestant ministers; Jan Asselyn and Clement de Jonghe, who were artists; Bonus and Linden, the physi- cians; Lutma, the goldsmith; and young Jan Six, "Lover of Science, Art, and Virtue." These and a few others are known and honored to-day chiefly because they were Rembrandt's friends. His recognition of their faithful- ness to him was shown in a much more permanent form than they knew. Good impressions of his etched portraits of these men are still to be seen. They are, like all his etchings, rapidly increasing in value. A "Jan Six" sold recently for thirty-four hundred dollars; and "Ephraim Bonus" for ninety-four hundred and seventy-five dollars. To possess one of these prints of an ancestor is little short of a patent of nobility. The Six family of Amsterdam happily have not only Rembrandt's oil portraits of the Sixes of his day, but also good impressions of the etching Rembrandt and His Etchings 283 of "The Burgomaster," and even the plate itself — that famous dry-point plate which the artist worked on for weeks, and which his critics have worked over ever since. Some of these good people hold that even Rembrandt should not have attempted such complete tonality in an etching, that Jan Six urged him to it, and that, in short, as an etching, it comes near to the failure line. Other critics believe that the artist's idea was to show the utmost extent to which the art could be carried, and that in so doing he produced a masterpiece. Middleton, for instance, thinks that "it is not possible to conceive a more beautiful and more perfect triumph. of the etcher's art." Few, it is safe to say, can see a good impression of an early state of this portrait without being struck by its great originality and beauty. Upon closer study, I feel, a fair-minded person will inevitably fall under the spell of those wonderfully drawn face and hands, those deep yet transparent shadows, and that soft, tender light which envelops the whole. Although Rembrandt had a few such cultivated friends as those mentioned above, it was said of him by a con- temporary German painter that "his art suffered by his predilection for the society of the vulgar." It certainly would have been more profitable for Rembrandt if he had always portrayed people of position and wealth, but it would be hard to show that his art suffered because he many times used beggars for models. An interesting series of tramps, peddlers, and outcasts began with the beginning of his career as an etcher, and ended twenty years later with the production of one of his most popular plates, "Three Beggars at the Door of a House," a very freely handled, splendidly composed etching, in which surprisingly few lines judiciously placed have all the effect of double their number. 284 The Fine Arts A little plate which measures but three by one and a a quarter inches, entitled "The Mountebank," strikes me as the masterpiece of this series. Although Van de Velde is supposed to have given Rembrandt the idea for this drawing, his genius has made it his own in realism and movement, and in its beauties of line, color, and texture. When Rembrandt, about 1640, began landscape etching, his work at once took front rank. His etched landscapes, only about two dozen in number, are free and simple in composition and treatment; they show even greater force and more suggestive power than those of his brush. In "The Landscape with a Ruined Tower," the tower became ruined only in the third state. A first-rate print at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts shows the tower in good preservation. One of these prints sold at Christie's not long ago for over one thousand dollars. Another of his exceedingly satisfactory land- scape etchings is "A View of Omval, near Amsterdam." Its creator seemed fond of the fine old tree in this plate, for it is used several times elsewhere. " The Six's Bridge," which is almost pure outline, and the "Three Trees," with its great sweep of flat country, have a right to all the praise showered upon them, for they, too, are master- pieces. While Rembrandt's genius made itself manifest in his landscapes, it surely is absent from most of his animal drawings. We must remember that he never went out- side Holland, and that the opportunities for studying any great variety of animals inside the little Republic were not numerous. His horses, asses, hogs, etc., im- prove as the years advance. The little dog with the collar of bells surely must have been a member of the family, he appears so often. Rembrandt and His Etchings 285 It is an interesting fact, at a time when the illustrat- ing of books and magazines is such an important art, to know that Rembrandt was offered and accepted some commissions to make illustrations for books. These attempts to give form to another's ideas were not success- ful — in one case it was such a failure as to leave it still uncertain what he intended to illustrate. Vosmaer, his great biographer, believes that this print, "Adverse Fortune," pictures incidents in the life of St. Paul, while Michel, his latest biographer, thinks that it illus- trates events which gather about Mark Anthony and the battle of Actium! A score of men — Bartsch, Wilson, Blanc, Middleton, Rovinski, to mention a few — have at sundry times and in divers places compiled annotated catalogues of Rem- brandt's etchings. They, and other students like Charles Vosmaer, Seymour Haden, Phillip Gilbert Hamerton, and Emile Michel, have spent years of time and travel in connection with their books on Rembrandt. All lovers of etching respect their sincerity and are forever grateful. Nevertheless, it is amusing sometimes to com- pare the expert testimony of these men. If in the days of hardship, when his son, Titus, is said to have tried to sell his etchings from door to door, if then he could have foreseen the noble army of admirers who three centuries later should outbid each other at auctions, and make war in print over his experimental plates, his failures and his trial proofs, — now often exalted into "states," — would not the very irony of the thing have brought him certain satisfaction and relax- ation? Rembrandt has said of himself that he would submit to the laws of Nature alone, and as he interpreted these to suit himself he can not be said to have painted 286 The Fine Arts or etched or done anything according to recognized or well-grounded laws. With him it was instinct, pure and simple, from youth to old age. He had no secret process of etching, but he had an amazing genius for it. In 1669 Rembrandt van Rijn, an old man, lonely and forgotten, died and was buried in the Westerkirk, Am- sterdam. To-day we know that though taste has changed and changed again, appreciation for Rembrandt has slowly but surely grown, until now he stands among the im- mortals, the foremost painter of his day, the greatest etcher that has as yet appeared. THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO By C. EDWARDS LESTER PAINTER named Michelangelo produced the ' ' Last Judgment." A sculptor named Michel- angelo cut "The Statue of Moses." An architect named Michelangelo built "St. Peter's." A poet named Michelangelo wrote the finest " Sonnets " of the Italian tongue since Petrarch. It would perhaps be better to stop after these few lines and call them the Great Man's Biography, — for what language can convey an idea of Buonarotti so well as the simple enumeration of his works? But his life, even in its darkest parts, is so full of light and instruction, it seems almost a duty to relate it. The 6th of March, 1474, on Sunday, at eight o'clock in the evening, was born at Chiusi, in Tuscany, of Ludovico Buonarotti, mayor of the town, a man child, whom they called Michelangelo. This Buonarotti was descended from the long line of the Counts of Canossa. When the boy could hold the mallet in one hand and the chisel in the other, he told his father he would be a sculptor; but his father told him he should not; it was all idle to tell him that a sculptor was not a mason, for the good old count, who carried a sword at his side, could only think of plaster when the boy spoke of marble. But Michelangelo, like Dante and Homer and Shakespeare and Milton, had his mission to fulfill, and it mattered little what the old Count of Canossa thought of chisels and plaster — his boy's chisel was yet to give the world those mysterious creations that will excite the wonder of all coming times. But 287 288 The Fine Arts Michelangelo was not a man to dishonor the noble race he sprang from, even in the judgment of his own feudal times. Pride of race is something that never dies, even in the finest minds; and after he became illustrious, and scholars flocked to him from every part of Italy, he would receive none but gentlemen. His first master was Ghirlandaio. He was about four- teen years of age when he began, and he soon made such progress that his master used to say, "It's strange enough, but this child can already teach his master." One day the old sculptor gave his scholars a fish to copy. At the appointed time they all brought their works to the master. As usual, Michelangelo's was better than all the rest and superior to the model. The old master's curiosity was excited beyond measure, and he asked the boy how he had made his work so perfect — so much like life and nature.. The answer was given. "I tried," said he, "to make a fish like yours, and I could not, and so I went to the fisher- man's house in the evening to see his fish yet alive, and liking one of them better than yours, I thought I would copy it, and here it is." He never made a figure which he did not copy from na- ture — it was his love of the true and the beautiful which, later in life, made him perform those long and laborious works of anatomy to which he owed his immense power of. representation. He bought dead bodies of men and animals, skinned them, dissected them, and found every bone and muscle and nerve, and standing whole days and nights, chisel in hand, over their bodies, he studied their structure, traced with great care the play of the most delicate fibers, and transferred all to the canvas and the marble. In these solitary and dreadful tasks, he used to spend whole days and nights without eating, drinking, or sleeping, till he became so weak he had to give up his The Life of Michelangelo 289 work, or fall to the floor. The world has never known anything like this; and were I asked the name of the hard- est working man of whom we have any record, I would at once write down that of Michelangelo. But let us go back to his young days again, and see what they tell us of his boyhood. Garananio took the boy one day to the gardens of the Medici at San Marco. Lorenzo de' Medici had adorned the garden with the most beautiful ancient and modern statues. Michelangelo had no sooner walked round it than he could no longer bear the name of his master Ghirlandaio mentioned, or the Studio of the Artists. "This garden shall be my master," said he. And after this, for a long time, the young sculptor used to go there at daylight, and pass all the day till night stopped his work — cutting stone and marble. One day he found the head of an old faun, with a long beard and laughing mouth. This fragment, damaged as it was, he considered so beautiful and full of life that he determined to reproduce it in marble, and in a few days the work was done. He had supplied all the deficiencies of the model, and had also made a wide-open mouth, and thirty-two laughing teeth, all finished with great beauty. In the meantime, Lorenzo de' Medici, passing through his gardens, saw the child at work on the head. He ap- proached him, and gazed on the work with the greatest astonishment. Yet, in the midst of his praises he said to the child, patting his cheek: "My boy, thou hast made this faun old, and yet thou hast left him all his teeth! How is this? Art thou not aware that, at that age, there are al- ways some wanting? " This was said in a laughing mood, but the Prince had no sooner gone than young Buonarotti knocked out a tooth from his old faun — made a hole in the gum as if the tooth had fallen out by age, and waited 290 The Fine Arts with impatience for the return of Lorenzo de' Medici. He returned, and praised the docility and talent of the child, who was only fifteen years old, took him into his palace, and sent a message to his father to come and visit him. At first the old noble would not go, for he knew Lorenzo de' Medici encouraged his son "to become a mason." At last he was prevailed on to go. The Medici begged of him to leave his son with him, promising that he should one day become the most illustrious of all who had ever borne the Buonarotti name. The father only replied that he and his family were at the disposal of his Excellency — his will he would not resist, but he wanted his boy to come home! Lorenzo de' Medici asked him with kindness what were his pursuits? "I have never done anything," he answered, "but watch over the estate left me by my ancestors and wear a sword at my side." Michelangelo would not go back, and he was therefrom installed in the palace of that munificent prince, and treated by him as one of his own children. He made him sit at his table, and took pleasure in showing him all his medals, antique works of art, precious stones, interesting himself in conversing about art with this child of genius. And when Lorenzo the Magnificent died, Pietro, his son and successor, continued the same friendship and favor to Michelangelo, which caused his old father, seeing his son, the stonecutter, on a footing with the highest personages at court, to begin to think better of the business, and pro- vide him better clothes and a little money to spend. In the meantime the excesses of Pietro de' Medici had aroused the indignation of all Florence, and a revolution was daily expected to break out. One day a young man named Cardiere, attached also to the court, went all in tears, and throwing himself into the arms of Michelangelo told him that Lorenzo de' Medici had appeared to him in a The Life of Michelangelo 291 dream, in a black dress all torn, and commanded him to go and tell his son that if he did not change his conduct he would soon be driven from Florence. Michelangelo besought him to go and immediately obey the vision, but Pietro de' Medici was so violent that the young Cardiere had not the courage to do it. The next morning he re- turned to Michelangelo and told him Lorenzo had ap- peared to him again and had given him a blow on the face because he had not delivered his message. This time Buonarotti's counsel prevailed, and the young man set out on foot for Carregi, one of the villas of the Medici, and throwing himself at the feet of the prince, told him the dream. Pietro and his court mocked him, and the poor youth returned, overwhelmed with grief and shame, to cast himself once more on the bosom of his be- loved Buonarotti, who, believing the dream an intimation from Heaven, fled in a few days from Florence and went over to Bologna. A month after, the dream became a history. Florence rose in revolution, and Pietro de' Medici was driven from the halls and the birthplace of his fathers! After visiting Bologna and Venice, Michelangelo, then about twenty-four years old, went to Rome, and executed his first great work. Those who have visited St. Peter's will remember there is, on the right hand, as you enter a chapel called della Virgine delta Febbre, a group in marble which represents Mary holding her son. I know nothing more painful to gaze on than this composition. The marble weeps and suffers — there is a languor in all the members of Christ, a despair in the figure of the mother, which drains your tears if you have ever held on your shoulder the dying head of some one you loved. Certain critics have, how- ever, reproached the sculptor with having made the Virgin "too young." Anticipating all these cavils of low taste, the great master once said to his scholar Condovi: 292 The Fine Arts "Can they not remember that chaste women preserve their bloom and youth much longer than others, and above all a virgin like Mary, whose heart never throbbed with the least impure passion to fade the harmonizing beauty of her form? Moreover, this flower of youth, may it not have been preserved by Heaven, as a beautiful model of virgin- ity and purity? But her son may not be made young, for as he would take upon him the body of man, and sub- mit to all mortal miseries except sin, he ought to bear with him the distinctive traces of time. I have represented only a man — a man who has suffered more than other men. These are the reasons why I have made him old and his mother young." This group is, moreover, the only one on which Michel- angelo has inscribed his name, and the circumstances were these. Entering the church one day, he saw a large num- ber of travelers from Lombardy standing around the altar, gazing on the marble group. It was a unanimous concert of praise, so great was the admiration of the strangers. Said one of them, "Who is the author of this great work? " "It's our famous Milanese sculptor Gobo," was the reply. Michelangelo said nothing, but left the church, deter- mined it should be the last time such a mistake was made. That night he went secretly to the church with a lamp and a chisel, and cut his name on the girdle that surrounds the body of the virgin! While he was in Rome, he heard that the Republic of Florence had offered a commission for competition, and although the sum to be paid for it was only four hundred crowns, he determined to return to his country. He did, and his first work was the celebrated statue of David, which is one of his most stupendous and perfect- works. He afterwards made a Madonna in bronze, with the infant The Life of Michelangelo 293 in her arms, — the colossus of marble before the gateway of the palace of the Municipality, which is called " The Giant," — and finally he executed the famous cartoon, drawn from the war of Pisa, which was preferred to one by the great Leonardo da Vinci. A word on the history of this wonderful painting. Da Vinci was commissioned to paint the great Hall of Coun- cil. Pietro Soderini, their Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, loving and admiring Michelangelo, desired that a part of the work should be put into his hands, and it was done. He chose that portion best adapted to his genius — for his favorite subject was the human form in its most impassioned attitudes. The subject is drawn from the war of Florence against Pisa, — the time, the heat of the summer day; and the scene, the banks of the Arno. The Florentine soldiers have taken off their garments and laid aside their arms, and are bathing in the river. Suddenly a cry of war is heard on the plain; it is the battle shout of the Pisans, who are rushing upon the camp. The Florentine soldiers fly from the river to seize their arms, — some are hastily putting on their cuirasses, others throwing themselves on horseback nearly naked; the drummers appear on the field, beating the recall; it is a confusion, a general and impetuous movement, and there is an anger, a courage, a hope, a despair, and a strife for glory, that fix you like a statue to the spot while you gaze. The whole cartoon seems to tremble with the rush .of the advancing multitude, and you almost hear the groans of dying men. Among a host of figures in all positions, each bearing the marks of some strong passion, every one is distinct; every one as desperately bent upon his glorious struggle as if the weight of the whole battle hung on his arm. Who that has seen it will ever forget the old man dressing on 294 The Fine Arts the verge of the stream? He had covered his head with a wreath of ivy, to shield it from the heat of the sun while bathing. With the rest he had rushed from the river as the call to the rescue sounded, and is now pulling on his garments to^get ready for the slaughter; but his limbs are so wet he can not draw on his clothes, and hearing the shout of his countrymen as they rush on the foe, despair is mingling with firm desperation on every feature, while he draws with all the strength of a strong man. You see the muscles of his body stretched like hempen cords; he suffers as only few men can suffer; agony is painted out clear from the very ends of his hair to the soles of his feet; he fears he shall be too late for the rescue. You gaze, and gaze on, and wonder still, although it was painted by Michelangelo. When the cartoon was opened for spectators, a uni- versal shout of admiration rang through the great hall, and there was not a young painter who did not go to study it, from Raphael to Andrea del Sarto. Unfortunately, in later times, it was carried to the Palace of the Medici, and abandoned to the hands of artists, who almost stripped it to fragments to carry off pieces. Buonarotti was now twenty-nine years old, and he was regarded as the greatest master of his age. Pope Julius II, successor of Alexander VI, invited him to Rome to build his tomb. Almano, treasurer of the Pope, gave him a thousand ducats, and he set out for Carrara with two at- tendants to get the marble for what he intended should be the great work of his life. He remained at the marble quarries more than eight months, alone, subsisting on the coarsest fare, exploring the caves and ledges; happy in the midst of those huge blocks, in which his genius saw sleeping masterpieces — for Michelangelo loved marble as other men love life; and as we see in living things symmetry, The Life of Michelangelo 295 beauty, and perfection, so in every block of marble he saw human forms with all their muscles, fibers, and passions. One day, in the midst of those impressive solitudes, standing on the summit of a hill which overlooks the Medi- terranean, he conceived the grand design of erecting on that lone peak an immense colossal statue, which would appear to the sailor from afar as a protecting divin- ity; but he never found time or means to execute it. What a world would ours be if the ideals of genius could, like those of God, be executed as soon as formed; if Michelangelo could say, " Let the statue of Moses be," and see the noble form rise in majesty at his bidding; could call the mysterious temple of St. Peter into being at a word; or could conceive the Last Judgment, and with the conception behold the finished work! But such is not the province of genius; and the greatest ideals of the Michelangelos and the Raphaels can never be executed by one short-lived man. Even the Cathe- dral of Florence was almost three centuries in building. The magical Duomo at Milan has exhausted the Chris- tian tribute of six hundred years; and it not only lacks fifteen hundred statues, but it will never be completed till ages enough have rolled away to crumble the massive pile into dust. At last all the marbles were chosen and prepared, and taken to Rome to the Piazza of St. Peter — enough, says a Roman writer, to erect an impregnable castle. The pontiff was delighted when he saw the work begun;, and the great sculptor, having at last found something to do worthy of his genius, began with enthusiasm. Already the design of this gigantic work was finished. The artist had cast forty statues, without enumerating the bassi- relievi to adorn the tomb; and Julius, in his fondness for Michelangelo, caused a drawbridge to be swung from the 296 The Fine Arts artist's apartments to his laboratory, that he might more easily communicate with the workmen, and the noble structure went on prosperously, and Buonarotti reposed from his labors at the table of his munificent patron, and heard his praises uttered in the streets and court of the pontifical city. Michelangelo was a man of more than ordinary stature, , large shoulders, well-proportioned form, bony, square, and nervous. Though in infancy he was sickly and feeble, his manhood was vigorous. But old age brought him the most painful of all infirmities, the stone. His face was florid, his forehead high and spacious, his nose a little irregular, his lips thin, — the upper one a little projecting; few eyelashes, eyes small and gray, but full of fire and slightly tinged with blue and yellow. His hair was black, also his beard, which was five or six inches long, not very thick, and divided under his chin. In his old age he con- tinually wore on his naked feet shoes of dogskin, which he left on for months together; and when he took them off his own skin came off with them. The life of this man was always hard and austere, like that of a monk; for he only lived for art, and art was for him a priesthood. He did not love luxury, and though really rich, he lived like a poor man. He was very grave, and never ate or drank for pleasure. When he worked he contented himself with a piece of bread and some drops of wine; slept only three or four hours a day, often without undressing, to avoid trouble and loss of time. , In the night, when a happy thought came in his dreams, it always woke him; and leaving his bed, he transferred his concep- tions to a sheet of paper, which he kept always ready with the light falling upon it in the right direction. Very often he worked all night — and, indeed, whole days and nights in succession. The Life of Michelangelo 297 Vasari, observing he used tallow candles, which gave but a poor light, sent him forty pounds of wax candles. The servant who bore them came at a convenient hour for the desired effect — late in the evening. But Michelangelo had a principle never to receive a present from any one; "for," said he, "the giver can never be repaid," and so he refused the wax candles, although they were from a friend. "Sir," answered the servant, "my arms are already nearly broken carrying these wax candles so far; I will not take them back. You have before your door a heap of mud. I am going to stick them all in there and light them." "Well, stick them there if you like, you obstinate fel- low," said the sculptor, with one of those few smiles that lighted up his sad face. "I have no objection to your illu- minating the street, but you shall not illuminate me." While a boy he was already Michelangelo. His youth was solitary and laborious; he would see no one — shut himself up with his marbles, and thought and read and designed and worked alone — always alone. Men of talent want the contact of other men to renew themselves; but men of genius carry their own fire about with them — wherever they are, there is their world, there their inspiration. The toils of his study were inconceivable. Vasari tells us that he saw his cartoons after his death, and that by comparing them he found what immense toil his final designs had cost him; for he could trace them from the first conception up to the matchless perfection he was always so sure to bring them to at last. But the great man admitted no one to the confidence of his great works. Of too powerful and penetrating a genius to stop at the surface of things, he went to the bottom of all the sciences he began. He knew anatomy like an experienced surgeon, 298 The Fine Arts and was the best mason, as well as the greatest architect, of his age. Besides, like Shakespeare, who had only read Plutarch and some Italian romances (so they say), Michel- angelo had learned nothing in the works of others, — he studied but one master, and that was God. In art he saw but a single object worthy of being reproduced, and that was the human form; and in man only two things, — mus- cles and passions, — the body and the soul of sculpture. Costumes, landscapes, grounds, perspective, were noth- ing to him; hence nearly all his persons are naked, and even his paintings seem sculptured. We have already said he felt little enthusiasm for painting; we might add, in himself, for he loved and appreciated the great painters of his time. Vasari tells us of many little things about Michelangelo's generous love and admiration of his fellow artists, particularly of Raphael. But sculpture was his art; in it his soul lived, and moved, and had its being; there he felt at home, for he knew his magical power, which called forth from the cold, lifeless marble breathing forms. He had a saying, full of grace and beauty, of this sublimest of all the great arts. "A statue," said he, "is in a block of marble as a woman is in a bath — we must take away all that envelops and encum- bers the body, and the beautiful figure stands free." Michelangelo was modest — not in regard to other men. I do not believe in that modesty for such a man. It is not possible that a Shakespeare, a Dante, a Moliere should feel on the same footing with the people about them. But his great triumphs in art did not make him proud or vain, for he measured the immense interval between what he did and what he dreamed. His vision shot its keen glance beyond all the creations of genius, in all nations, and all times. He saw what few, if any, of earth's children have ever seen, and his soul was equal to the loftiest execution The Life of Michelangelo 299 of it all; but "the dreadful laws," as Macintosh called them, of matter and inertia and feebleness, chained his wing, and he felt humble when he thought of Nature and of God. This is the modesty, this the despair, of great geniuses. While we are kneeling before their works, and find them shining and splendid, in their eyes they are tar- nished with blemishes and imperfections. For to the man of genius there is the same difference between the idea and the execution as there is between the spiritual visions of the soul in the dreamland, and the hard, harsh certainties of the working-day life — between, as once said the golden- souled Raphael, "the focus and the reflected light." Michelangelo was always the sad and weary victim of his own spiritual dreamings. Like the wild, ideal-haunted poet's hero, who, in his uncontrolled passion for love and perfect beauty, running desperately through the world to find the being of his dreams, this Michelangelo, haunted day and night by images of perfection, pursues the phan- tom, out of breath, and thinks he sees it in every block of marble. " It 's here — it 's here," and he carries away the marble, shuts himself up with it, and cuts it, at every stroke of the chisel fancying the celestial form comes out; and when, after days and nights of hard labor and feverish hope, he returns to his sanctuary, after a little repose, looks at the work, and then sits down to weep, exclaiming, "It is not here." Rude, frank, gloomy, and of simple austere habits, he has been accused of avarice! It is well (when we have no defects others must manufacture some for us out of our good qualities), curious, too, that such blind detractors should always stumble upon the choicest points of the character to pervert. Buonarotti avaricious ! — ■ who gave his friends masterpieces that would have made him opu- lent; who cut the colossal statue of David for half the 300 The Fine Arts cost of the marble; who would refuse all stipend for the last seventeen years of his life, devoted to the service of God in the building of the wonderful St. Peter's; he who distributed regularly the fourth of his income among the unfortunate; who gave settlements and formed respectable marriages for more than ten poor maidens; he who, ask- ing his servant "What would you do if I should die?" receiving an answer, "Serve another master from neces- sity," gave him immediately two thousand crowns, a present worthy of an emperor! — no; he was not avari- cious; but he was as simple as he was chaste, for the body was nothing to him. It is said that a dishonest or low word never fell from his austere mouth; and when he spoke, his words were so full of virtue and high sentiment that they had power to smother all shameful passions in the hearts of the youth who listened to him. Michelangelo could not help being sarcastic, although he was no detractor of real merit; a single proof of this is found in his noble tribute to the genius of Ghiberti, who had made the bronze doors of the Baptistery at Florence: "They are worthy of being the gates of Paradise." One day a painter came to show him a picture, in which there was not a part he had not copied from the works of others. "It is all well done," said Buonarotti, "but I do not know what will become of your picture at the Day of Judgment, when all the members rejoin their bodies; for here is a head which belonged to the David of Cimabue, there a leg you have taken from Giotto, an arm you borrowed from what will remain for you? " Another time a sculptor went to his house with his child, and a statue of him he had just made, to ask Michelangelo's opinion of his work. Old Buonarotti looked at the statue, and then, turning to the blooming, beautiful boy, he ca- The Life of Michelangelo 301 ressed him on the cheek and said, "My little friend, you have a father who makes much better figures in flesh than in marble." His genius, his eccentricity, his lively and cutting repar- tee, made him sought for by all the most illustrious men of his times. All the pontiffs and cardinals, and barons of Rome, were proud of bis visits and his friendship. All the princes of Italy, Francis I, the Grand Council of Venice, and even the Grand Turk, disputed for the honor of his presence at their courts and capitals, to illustrate their reigns. The Grand Duke always called him his friend. He lived familiarly with four pontiffs; and in this enthusi- asm for the great man, Julius II used to say, "I would draw from my blood and I would lose years to give them to Michelangelo, to preserve so great a man to the world." Such friends and companions never made Buonarotti proud; and he always remained the friend, if not always the companion, of contemporary artists. After reaching the boundaries of the world of art, he threw away the pencil and chisel and sat down silently before the doors of eter- nity, waiting reverently for them to be opened. And they were opened: on the seventeenth of February, 1563, the great man died. MEISSONIER 1 By KENYON COX JY the average person who possesses some knowledge of modern painting, extreme mi- nuteness of detail is probably considered as the most pronounced characteristic and the greatest merit of Meissonier's art. "Finished like a Meissonier" is a proverbial phrase with such persons, and they are apt to imagine that the qualities of eye and hand which rendered such minuteness possible, and the vast industry which achieved it, are the principal elements in Meissonier's fame and the cause of the phenomenal price his works attained. That minuteness and laborious finish are a part of the commercial value of these works it would be absurd to deny, but it may be affirmed that they have practically nothing to do with the painter's artistic reputation. Mere minuteness and the evidence of labor will always have their effect on prices, but they will never make a man member of the Institute, grand officer of the Legion of Honor, or president of the SociSte' Nationale des Beaux- Arts. The extreme "finish" of Meissonier's work is in reality mainly the outcome of a physical peculiarity or defect — extreme shortness of sight. In his essay on Bonnat in Van Dyke's "Modern French Masters, " Mr. Blashfield relates how that master, sitting next to M. Maspero at a great dinner one night, said to him: "'Maspero, you who are so nearsighted, tell me how 1 Prom "Old Masters and New." New York: Copyright, 1908, by Duffield & Company. 302 Meissonier 303 does M , away down there at the foot of the table, appear to you?' "'Well,' replied M. Maspero, 'I see a white spot, which I know is his shirt front, and a flesh-colored spot, which I know is his face. ' "'Ah,' cried Bonnat, 'how I wish my pupils could see things in that way!'" Now it is noticeable that the nearsighted men who really "see things in that way" never paint them so, and the reason is not far to seek. Their manner of painting is conditioned less on what they see in nature than on what they see upon their canvas. All "broad" work in painting — all free and large handling — is intended only for distant effect, and becomes unintelligible when seen near by. The nearsighted painter can not see his picture at all at the distance for which such paint- ing is intended, and all his work is therefore calculated for close inspection, and is consequently clean, smooth, and detailed in the extreme. If the painter is exception- ally nearsighted, it may even happen that he paints pictures calculated for a nearer vision than is possible to the average human eye, and which can be seen prop- erly only by the aid of a glass. So we have the paradox that those who see least detail in nature, with unaided vision, are precisely those who paint most, and it is the shortsighted and purblind painters who astonish us with their amazing sharpness of delineation. The lengthening of the visual focus in age, as well as growth of mastery and impatience of little things, may well be one of the reasons for the greater breadth of style in the late work of all great painters. Certain it is that even Meissonier's miracles of minute- ness are works of his early time, and that while he never became a broad painter (in the purely technical sense), 304 The Fine Arts yet his later works seem more capable of imitation by a normal human being than do his earlier. Boldini, though always much freer in touch, was once as fond of a small scale and almost as minute as Meissonier himself. He now paints the size of life and with a large brush. While the small scale and microscopic workmanship of Meissonier's pictures may therefore be treated as, in a sense, accidental, and while his real merits would have been the same if he had habitually worked in the size of life, yet it is also true that the scale reacted on the manner, and in a way peculiarly suited to the genius of the artist. Meissonier has himself stated with great clearness a truth familiar to all painters, but perhaps not so well known to the public. He says: "The smaller the scale of one's picture, the more boldly the relief must be brought out; the larger the scale, the more it must be softened and diminished. This is an absolutely indispensable rule. A life-size figure treated like one of my small ones would be unendurable. " He does not attempt to give any reason for this rule, and the effort to find one would take us too far afield. The reader must be content, for the present, to accept the fact that this rule exists. Its acceptance will help in the understanding of Meissonier's work, and of the way in which the accident of scale cooperated with the temperament of the painter to produce the style we know so well. This style was formed in all its essentials singularly early. From the very first the great little pictures seem as masterly as anything their author afterwards pro- duced. His life was a long one, and was filled with untiring study and industry, yet he never did things Meissonier 305 better than he did at first; he only did other things as well. How this quite prodigious mastery was attained so early is a mystery. It would almost seem as if this artist had never had to learn, had had no period of un- certainty and struggle, had almost been born a master. His subjects change, but not his manner. From the beginning of his career to the end the conception of art is identical, the methods are the same, the achievement is almost uniform. It may even be doubted if some of Meissonier's earlier work is not the best that he has left, merely because the subjects and the scale of that work are admirably fitted for the display of his qualities and the minimizing of his limitations. It is the admirable series of "Smokers" and "Readers," "Painters" and "Connoisseurs," which give the fullest measure of his powers and the least hint of his shortcomings; which made his reputation and perhaps are likeliest to maintain it. These pictures are in the purest vein of genre painting, and immediately suggest comparison with the wonderful little masters of Holland. At first Meissonier was considered a reviver of Dutch art, and that he was a great admirer of that art there can be no doubt. Upon examination, however, it soon becomes evident that the differences between him and his models are as great as the resemblances. The first of these differences is a fundamental one of point of view. The Dutch masters were pure painters, and their subjects were strictly contemporary. They con- tented themselves with looking about them and painting what interested them in what they saw. Meissonier treated contemporary subjects only two or three times, and then when something intensely dramatic or histori- cally important attracted him. You would look in vain 306 The Fine Arts in his work for any such record of the ordinary life of the nineteenth century as the Dutchmen have given us of that of the seventeenth. Meissonier was such a master of the antiquarianism he practiced — he managed to enter so thoroughly within the skin of his two or three favorite epochs — that he almost deceives us at times; but he was nevertheless essentially an antiquarian, and therefore his art never has the spontaneity of the old work. Another difference is in the quality of drawing. Meis- sonier was a wonderfully accurate draftsman. His draw- ing is composed of equal parts of remarkably clear and accurate vision and of deep scientific acquirement. It is not the drawing of the great stylists, the masters of beautiful and significant line, but it is marvelously forceful and just. The drawing of Ter Borch is equally accurate, but seems to have no formula, no method, no ascertainable knowledge behind it. It seems unconscious and naive in a way which that of Meissonier never ap- proaches. Finally, in color and in the management of light, Meissonier can not be compared to any one of half a dozen Dutch painters. His tone is almost always a little hot and reddish, or, as the painters say, "foxy," his handling a little dry. Sometimes in interiors with only one or two figures his realistic force of imitation of that which was before him almost carried him to a fine rendering even of light and color. He built his picture before he painted it, putting every object that was to appear upon the canvas in its proper place, and had only to copy what was directly under his eye. He did this so well as almost to become a colorist and a luminist. It is only when he tries to paint open-air subjects and larger compositions that his defects become very apparent. His merits are all to be included in the two great ones Meissonier 307 of thoroughness and accuracy. He never shirked any difficulty or avoided any study, was never formless or undecided or vague. His knowledge of costume and fur- niture was only less wonderful than his grasp of character and his perfect rendering of form. He was a thorough realist, with little imagination and less sense of beauty, but with an insatiable appetite for and a marvellous diges- tion of concrete fact. His work is amazing in its industry, but his industry never becomes mere routine. His detail is never mere finikin particularity of touch, but is patient investigation of truth. At his best he is hardly sufficiently to be admired; but he awakens only admiration, never emotion. His drawing is absolute, his relief startling; he almost gives the illusion of nature, but he never evokes a vision of beauty or charms one into a dream. Meissonier's qualities are fully sufficient to account for the admiration of the public and the universal respect of his brother artists; and as long as he was content to be a genre painter they were sufficient to make him easily the first genre painter of his time, if not quite, as he has been called the "greatest genre painter of any age." In his later work they are less sufficient. He became ambitious; he wanted to be a great historical painter, to paint a "Napoleonic Cycle," to decorate the walls of the Pantheon. He transferred his personages to the open air, he enlarged his canvases and multiplied his figures, he attempted violent movement. His methods, which had been admirably suited to the production of almost perfect little pictures of tranquil indoor life, were not so adequate to the rendering of his new themes. His prodigious industry, his exhaustive accuracy, his vigor, and his conscientiousness were as great as ever, but the most exact study of nature in detail would not give the effect of open air, the most rigorous scientific 308 The Fine Arts analysis of the movements of the horse would not make him move, the accumulation of small figures would not look like an army. It was in vain that he built a railway to follow the action of a galloping horse, or bought a grain field that he might see just what it would be like when a squadron had charged through it. What he produced may possibly be demonstrably true, but it does not look true. The best of these more ambitious works is perhaps the "1814." The worst is certainly the "1807," which has found a home in the Metropolitan Museum. This picture is almost an entire failure, and yet it possesses every one of the qualities which made Meissonier's greatness in as high a degree as any earlier work. The industry, the strenuous exactness, the thoroughness, the impeccable draftsmanship, the sharpness of relief, are all here at their greatest. The amount of labor that the picture represents is simply appalling, and it is almost all wasted because it is not the kind of labor that was wanted. On all these figures not a gaiter button is wanting, and the total result of all this addition of detail is simple chaos. The idea of the composition is fine, but the effect is missed. Looked at close at hand, each head, each hand, each strap and buckle is masterly, but at a distance sufficiently great to permit the whole canvas to be taken in at one glance nothing is seen but a mean- ingless ghtter. It is not only true that a life-size figure treated like one of Meissonier's small ones "would be unendurable, " but it is equally true that a great number of such small figures will not make a large picture. The sharp and hard detail which was in place in his early canvases is fatal to the unity and breadth necessary to a large composition. It is equally fatal to the sense of movement. Meissonier 309 The "Smokers" and "Readers" were doing as little as possible, and one felt that one had plenty of time to notice their coat buttons and the smallest details of their costume; the cuirassiers of "1807" are dashing by at a furious gallop, and the eye resents the realization of detail that it could not possibly perceive. Even if the action of the horses in the picture were correct (and, for once, it is not), nothing could make them move when the eye is thus arrested by infinitesimal minutiae. Meissonier was a man. of sound common sense, and of immense strength of purpose and capacity for labor; very vigorous, very determined and tenacious, and very vain, whose bulldog pluck and energy carried him to the highest point of material success in his profession. Within his limits he was an almost perfect painter, and even when he overstepped them his terrible conscientious- ness in the exercise of great ability will always merit deep respect. He thoroughly earned the honors he received, the fortune he acquired and squandered, and the immor- tality of which he is reasonably certain. JOHN SINGER SARGENT 1 By KENYON COX IjINCE the death of Whistler, Mr. Sargent holds, by all odds, the highest and most conspicuous position before the world of any artist whom we can claim as in some sort an American; indeed, he is to-day one of the most famous artists of any country, easily the first painter of England, and one of the first wherever he may find him- self. Not only is he indubitably one of the most brilliant of living artists, but his enthusiastic admirers are ready to proclaim him one of the great artists of all times, and to invite comparison of his works with those of the greatest of his predecessors. He has painted a vast number of portraits, a few pictures, and some mural dec- orations which, from the ability displayed in them and the originality of their conception, are certainly to be reck- oned among the most considerable efforts in that branch of art produced within a century past. Recently there was issued a volume of photogravure plates of his most important works, exclusive of his mural paintings, and this volume affords an admirable opportunity for a general view of his work as a painter — not as a decorator. His mural paintings would, in any case, require separate and exhaustive treatment, not only because they are apart from the rest of his work, but because the demands of this kind of art are alto- gether different from those made upon the artist by ' From "Old Masters and New." Copyright, 1908, by Duffield & Com- pany. 310 John Singer Sargent 311 portraiture and genre painting (and Sargent's largest pictures, other than the paintings in the Boston Public Library, are still essentially genre pictures), and the whole point of view of the critic must be shifted to deal with the new considerations involved. It must be understood, then, at the outset, that noth- ing now said has any reference to these decorations. If, in the discussion of Sargent's other work it is necessary to point out those things in which he is at least great, it is because he is so large a figure in modern art that the attempt to define his limitations can only serve to accent his magnitude. To show where he is strongest it is necessary to show where he is less strong; and if any comparisons are implied, they are only with the highest. One begins by accepting him as head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries; the effort is to show wherein he resembles or differs from the great masters of other times, and to arrive at an approximate idea of the place which he may eventually hold among them. It is with this desire that one turns over the pages con- taining the record of a career already so astonishing, though we may reasonably hope that it is not more than hah run. In the first place, it becomes immediately evident that Sargent, as becomes a portrait painter, belongs to the class of observers rather than to that of the com- posers. With some exceptions, he seems at his best almost in proportion to the limitation of his subject matter, his single heads and figures being more thor- oughly satisfactory than his groups of several figures. The exceptions are extremely significant, and do, in this case, really go far to prove the rule, for they are pictures of things seen, not of things arranged. They are such pictures as "El Jaleo" or the smaller "Spanish Dance"; 312 The Fine Arts as "Carnation, Lily, Rose," or the portrait of "The Children of E. D. Boit" — things which we should call admirably and ingeniously arranged were it not for the feeling that they happened so; that the artist seized upon a fortuitous natural composition and recorded it, either from memory or directly from the thing. Of course, one does not mean that it required no sense of composition to do this, or that the natural arrangement was un- modified by the artistic sense — only that the immedi- ate inspiration of nature was necessary to stimulate the artist's sense of composition to this point, and that he is less happy when he is called upon to conceive beforehand an arrangement into which his observations of nature shall be made to fit — when he is asked to invent a natural grouping of several figures which shall after- wards be studied from the life. Instances of this relative inferiority to his own best are such groups as "Lady Elcho, Mrs. Tennant, and Mrs. Adeane" and "The Ladies Alexandra, Mary, and Theo Acheson," which, with all their brilliancy, and in spite of their great beauty in the several parts, are not altogether so satisfactory as either Mr. Sargent's single portraits or his pictures. The latter group, with its reminiscence of Reynolds or Gainsborough, is also, like the portrait of "Miss Daisy Leiter" and one or two other things in which he has experimented in the vein of eighteenth-century art, a reminder that, like other observers, he is best when most frankly of his own time. They are extremely clever, as they could not well help being, being his, but they are not the real thing; and one feels that one has lost more in losing something of his acute observation of the actual than one has gained by the addition of what are, after all, transplanted graces. It is the unexpected that we expect from Mr. Sargent John Singer Sargent 313 — his personal interpretation of what is; not the attempt to square it with other men's interpretation of what was. Sargent, then, is to be ranked with the observers and painters, — with the realists, in a sense, for there is a realism of elegance as well as of ugliness, — and his task is to show us what he sees with his bodily eyes, not what he can imagine of beautiful or august. The art of the pure painters, of whom he is one, is a mingling of obser- vation and craftsmanship, and their relative importance is determined partly by the rarity of their observations and the kind of facts observed by them, partly by the beauty which they know how to get out of the actual materials of their art and their handling of them. That Sargent is a past master of his craft it is no longer neces- sary to say, and the eulogy of his workmanship is already made. In her introduction to the Scribner volume Mrs. Meynell quotes a passage from a letter of Ruskin's to Rossetti, in which he says: "There are two methods of laying oil color which can be proved right; . . . one of them having no display of hand, the other involving it essentially and as an element of its beauty." She rather objects to the word "display," thinking that, if writing for publication, Ruskin would have changed it for one of more dignity; but the word seems the right one. With the painters whom Fromentin calls cachottier, Sargent has no affinity, whether they paint simply and beautifully, with a handling that escapes detection in its very simplicity, or whether they indulge in mysterious processes savoring at once of cookery and of alchemy. There are no tricks in his trade; he is perfectly frank, and everything is on the surface, for him who runs to 314 The Fine Arts read. It does not satisfy him that his work is right, or even that it is actually easy for him to make it so; it must look easy. He is one of the great virtuosi of the brush, and he counts upon the pleasure his virtuosity will afford you for a great part of his effect. He will spare no pains to give you the impression that he has had to take none, and will repaint any part of his picture that may have cost too much effort, giving more labor that it may seem to have needed less. In this particular and perfectly legitimate charm of art — the charm of prompt and efficient execution, the magic of the hand — Sargent is, perhaps, the equal of any one, even of the greatest. It remains to examine what are the character- istics of the vision which he fixes for us, what are the qualities of nature best observed by the eye and brain so admirably served. Of the three great classes of truths which it is the business of the painter to observe, — truths of color, of light and shade and tone, and of form, — it is the truths of form that Sargent observes most surely, and it is as a draftsman that he most entirely triumphs. He is above all a painter of the shapes of things. This is partly a matter of temperament and gift, partly a matter of training and technical method. There is nothing in which the great colorists have more delighted than in the painting of human flesh, and the technical methods which Sargent originally acquired from his master, Carolus Duran, are, in spite of modification in his hands, ill fitted to express the peculiar irradiation and coloring from beneath which are the great charm of that substance. The sweeps of opaque color laid on with a full brush are apt to give a texture as of drapery, no matter how accu- rate the particular tints may be; and if we are to have the pleasure of instantaneous execution, we must generally John Singer Sargent 315 accept with it some diminution of the pleasure derivable from beautiful flesh painting. The great painters of flesh have generally been more cachottier; and, indeed, it may be said that the highest beauty of coloring is always more or less incompatible with too great frankness of procedure, and demands a certain reticence and mystery. Whether the great tech- nicians have felt this incompatibility and contented themselves with only a relative perfection of color, or whether a less acute sensitiveness to color was a con- dition precedent to their becoming great technicians, it is certain that the highest refinement of color has not hitherto been found in conjunction with the most direct handling, and that, even with Velasquez, as his color becomes more beautiful his handling will generally be found more mysterious. Something of the same sort is true, to a lesser degree, with light and shade; and the masters of chiaroscuros, the delicate discriminators of values, the creators of tone, have generally been mys- terious technicians. Indeed, it may be said that light and shade is mystery, and has been the favorite means of expression of the painters to whom mystery makes the greatest appeal. No one would think of denying to Sargent a good natural eye for color, or that sound training in values which is the basis of so much that is best in modern painting; but these are not the elements of art in which he is strongest or those which his methods are best fitted to express. Of all those qualities of things with which the art of painting deals, form is the most concrete, the least mysterious and illusory, the least a semblance and the most a reality; and it is form, therefore, which is the most readily expressible by the direct and simple methods of the great executants. The master craftsmen 316 The Fine Arts — the painters in the more limited sense — have always been great draftsmen. There is a confusion, here, of long standing. We have been so accustomed to consider drawing a matter of line that we have confined the term " draftsman " to the line- alists, and have set them over against the painters as a separate and opposing class. The true division is between the draftsmen by line and the draftsmen by mass; and the art of painting as Hals practiced it, and as Sargent practices it, is the representation of objects in their bulk rather than by their edges (by the analysis of their projecting or retreating planes) and the rendering of the forms thus distinguished in a direct and forcible manner, each touch of the brush answering in shape and size, and, as far as possible, in color and value, to one of these natural planes. Sargent was an admirable linear draftsman before he was a painter, and is now an exquisite linear drafts- man when he cares to be so. He is a draftsman of the nude figure as well as of the head, as his "Egyptian Girl" should remind us if it were necessary. It is his profound knowledge of form that renders his virtuosity possible, as his virtuosity is the instantaneous expression of his vivid sense of form; and any attempt to imitate his manner without his matter is an invitation to dis- aster — an invitation which his great prestige leads too many to extend. If by drawing we mean the power of clearly seeing and accurately rendering the actual forms of things, — leaving aside all questions of idealization or expression by abstract line, — Sargent is probably the greatest of living draftsmen, and that is why he is a great painter. It is this power of accurate drawing, in its variety of manifestations from Van Eyck to Frans Hals, that has John Singer Sargent 317 always marked the great portrait painters as distinguished from the imaginative painters; but there is another power that has often enough been credited to them — that of insight. They have been thought to see below the surface, to form a definite conception of the character of their sitters, and to transfer that conception in some way to their canvas and to make us see it. To none of them has this power been more often credited than to Sargent, and stories are told of how this or that trait has been brought out in some picture of his which, though latent in the sitter, was unknown to the sitter's friends. On the strength of such stories, and of the impression of life likeness which his portraits make, he has ever been called a psychologist. Is he so, or was any artist ever so? One may certainly argue that it is the business of the painter to see what is and to record it, not to form theories of why it is — to have an eye for character, if you like, not an opinion of character. He may have an instinct for what is most characteristic in a face, and accent those things in it which are essentially individual, without necessarily having any clear conception of the individu- ality itself. As to Mr. Sargent, there is a story which may be neither more nor less true than the others to which I have referred. He had painted a portrait in which he was thought to have brought out the inner nature of his sitter, and to have "seen through the veil" of the external man. When asked about it, he is said to have expressed some annoyance at the idea, and to have remarked: "If there were a veil, I should paint the veil; I can paint only what I see." Whether he said it or not, I am inclined to think that this sentence expresses the truth. Sargent, like other artists, paints his impression, and he paints it more frankly and directly than many, with less brooding and 318 The Fine Arts less search for subleties — paints it strongly and with- out reservation; and he leaves the psychology to those who shall look at the picture. His affair is with shapes and external aspects, not with the meaning of them; and because he has an extraordinary organization for seeing these aspects truly and rendering them powerfully, with that slight touch of exaggeration which makes them more vivid to us than nature, and with those elimina- tions of the non-essential which are the necessity of art, we who look on can read more from the painted face than from the real one, and credit him with having written all that we have read. One need not deny that there have been artists who have done something more or something other than this, — men of a different type from Sargent, more atten- tive, more submissive, fuller of a tremulous sympathy, more ready to sink their own personality in that of the sitter, — who have given a more intimate life to their portraits than does he. Sargent is always himself, — John Sargent, painter, — quite cool and in the full possession of his powers, with the most wonderful eye and hand for receiving and recording impressions of the look of things that are now to be found in the world. The masters with whom it is inevitable that he should be compared are Hals and Velasquez; and if it must be left to posterity to say how nearly he has equaled them, we can be sure, even now, that his work is more like theirs than any other that has been produced in the past century. AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 1 By KENYON COX JGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS was born in Dublin, Ireland, on the first day of March, 1848, but was brought to America at the age of six months. His childhood and youth were passed in the city of New York, as was a great part of his working life; and though his origin was foreign, lifelong associations had stamped him indelibly an Amer- ican. The greater part of his work was done in America; almost all of it was done for America; and I do not think it is fancy that sees in his art the expression of a distinc- tively American spirit. Yet from his mixed French and Irish blood he may well have derived that mingling of the Latin sense of form with a Celtic depth of sentiment which was so markedly characteristic of his genius. His father, Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens, was a shoemaker from the little town of Aspet in Haute- Garonne, Pyrenees, only a few miles from the town of Saint-Gaudens, from which the family must have drawn its origin and its name. His mother was Mary Mc- Guinness, a native of Dublin. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was one of several children born to this couple, and not the only artist among them, for his younger brother Louis is also a sculptor of reputation. The boy attended the public schools of New York and received there all the formal education he ever had; but at thirteen it was necessary for him to face the problem of earning his living. His artistic proclivities were probably already 1 By permission of the Author. Copyright, 1908. 319 320 The Fine Arts well marked, and to give them some scope, while assuring him a regular trade at which money could be earned, he was apprenticed in the good old way to a cameo cutter named Louis Avet, said to be the first man to cut stone cameos in the United States. Thus it came about that the greatest of American sculptors had much such a practical apprenticeship as a Florentine of the fifteenth century might have had. He himself always spoke of it as "one of the most fortunate things that ever hap- pened to him," and attributed much of his success to the habit of faithful labor acquired at this time. Probably, also, the habit of thinking in terms of relief, fostered by years of work at this ancient art of gem engraving, was not without influence in the molding of his talent. His relations with Avet lasted from 1861 to 1864, when his master quarreled with him and abruptly dis- missed him from his shop. The boy was already a de- termined person; he believed that he had suffered an injustice; and though Avet went to his parents and tried to induce them to send him back, he refused to return. A new master was found for him in the person of a shell eameo cutter named Jules Le Brethon, and with him Saint-Gaudens remained three years. During his six years' apprenticeship under his two mas- ters the youth showed already that energy and power of will that made him what he was. He meant to be something more than an artisan, and he spent his even- ings in the classes, first of the Cooper Union, afterward of the National Academy of Design, in the hard study of drawing, v the true foundation of all the fine arts. It was one of the elements of his superiority in his profession that he could draw as few sculptors can, and he always felt that he owed an especial debt to the Cooper Union, which he was glad to repay when he modeled the statue Augustus Saint-Gaudens 321 of its venerable founder. Of the other institution by whose freely given instruction he had profited, the National Academy of Design, he became one of the most honored members. By 1867, when he was nineteen years old, he had saved a little money and was master of a trade that could be relied on to bring in more, and he determined to go to Paris and begin the serious study of sculpture. He worked, for a time, at the Petite Ecole, and entered the studio of Jouffroy in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in 1868, remaining until 1870. During this time, and afterwards, he was self-supporting, working half his time at cameo cutting, until his efforts at sculpture on a larger scale began to bring in an income. The time of Saint-Gaudens's study in Paris was a time of great importance in the development of modern sculpture, and although Jouffroy was not himself a sculptor of the highest rank, his studio was a center for what was then the new movement in the sculpture of France. The essential thing in this movement was the abandoning of the formal imitation of second-rate antiques, and the substitution of the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance as a source of inspiration and of the direct study of nature as a means of self-expression. There had always been individual sculptors of power and originality in France, but the movement of the French school of sculpture, as a whole, away from the pseudo- classicism which had long dominated it, was really inaugurated by Paul Dubois only a few years before Saint-Gaudens's arrival in Paris. Many of the men destined to a brilliant part in the history of modern sculp- ture were trained in the atelier of Jouffroy. Falguiere and Saint-Marceaux had but just left that studio when the young American entered it, and Mercie was his fellow student there. Dalou and Rodin have since made these 322 The Fine Arts men seeni old fashioned and academic, but they were then, and for many years afterward, the heads of the new school; and of this new school, so different from anything he had known in America, Saint-Gaudens at once, and inevitably, became a part. His own pronounced indi- viduality, and perhaps his comparative isolation during the years of this greatest productivity, gave his art a character of its own, unlike any other, but to the French school of sculpture of the third quarter of the nineteenth century he essentially belonged. With the still newer school of the end of the century he never had any sym- pathy. • When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Paris ceased to be a place for the carrying on of the serious study of art, and Saint-Gaudens went to Rome, where his asso- ciates were the French prize men of the day, of whom Mercie was one. He remained thete until 1874, except for a visit to New York in the winter of 1872-73 for the purpose of modeling a bust of Senator Evarts and one or two other busts which were put into marble upon his return to Rome. In those Roman days he executed his first statue, a Hiawatha, one of his few studies of the nude, and a Silence, a not very characteristic draped figure, which yet fills with some impressiveness her niche at the head of the grand stairway of the Masonic Temple in New York. From 1875 to 1877 he had a studio in New York, and it was at that time that he received his first commissions for important public work, those for the Farragut statue, in Madison Square, and the Randall, at Sailor's Snug Harbor. He had married Augusta F. Homer in 1877, and in that year, taking his bride and his commissions with him, he returned to Paris, feeling, as many another young Paris-bred artist has felt, that there only could Augustus Saint-Gaudens 323 such important works be properly carried out. The Farragut was completed and exhibited in the plaster at the Salon of 1880, and from that time his success was assured. For the rest of his life he was constantly busy, receiving almost more commissions for work of importance than it was possible for him to carry out. He returned to New York in 1880, and in 1881 he opened the studio in Thirty-Sixth Street, where he remained for sixteen years, and where so many of his most important works were executed. From that studio came many of his exquisite portraits in relief, his caryatids and angelic figures, such as those for the Morgan tomb, so unfortu- nately destroyed by fire in 1882, the statues of Lincoln and Chapin, the Shaw Memorial, and the Adams Memorial; and there was done all the preliminary work of the great equestrian monument to General Sherman. It is in these years of his prime that he will ever be most fondly remembered by those, and they are many, who had the privilege of his friendship. Admittedly our foremost sculptor, and one of the founders of the Society of American Artists, he became at once a person of importance in the world of art; and as his brilliant career developed he established intimate relationships with an ever widening circle of men in every walk of life, while no one who ever knew him well can have felt anything but an abiding affection for him. That long white studio became a familiar meeting place for all who were interested in any form of art; and the Sunday- afternoon concerts that were held there for many years will be looked back to with regret as long as any of their auditors remain alive. This studio was given up when Saint-Gaudens went abroad for the third time, in 1897, to execute the Sher- man group, and he never resumed his residence in New 324 The Fine Arts York. In 1885 he purchased a property at Cornish, New Hampshire, just across the Connecticut River from Windsor, Vermont, and when he returned to this country in 1900, covered with fresh honors but an ill man, he made what had been a summer home his permanent abode. He named it "Aspet," after his father's birthplace, and there he erected two studios and finished his Sherman statue. In these studios were executed the second Lincoln, the Parnell statue for Dublin, and much other work. The larger studio was burned in 1904, but was rebuilt, and the lost work rebegun and carried to a con- clusion. What can never be quite replaced were two portraits of himself. A study, of the head only, in the collection of the National Academy of Design, is now the only existing portrait of him painted from life in his best years. From the illness he brought back from Paris in 1900 Saint-Gaudens never recovered. At times he showed something of his old vigor, and was able not only to do fine work, but to indulge more in out-of-door sports than he had ever done in his youth, while a growing love for nature and for literature made his life fuller, in some respects, "than in the days when his own art more entirely absorbed him. But year by year his strength grew less and his intervals of freedom from pain grew shorter, and he was more and more forced to rely upon the corps of able and devoted assistants which he gathered about him. He developed to an extraordinary extent the faculty of communicating his ideas and desires to others, and of producing through their hands work essentially his own and of a quality entirely beyond their ability; but it was at the cost of a strain upon brain and nerve almost infinitely greater than would have been involved in work done with his own hand, Augustus Saint-Gaudens 325 In the summer of 1906 he broke down utterly, the work of his studio was interrupted, and he ceased to see even his most intimate friends'. He rallied somewhat from this attack, and began again his heroic struggle against fate, directing the work of assistants while him- self so weak that he had to be carried from the house to the studio. The end came on the evening of August 3, 1907. He died as he had lived, a member of no church, but a man of pure and lofty character. As he had wished, his body was cremated, and his ashes have been depos- ited in the cemetery at Windsor, Vermont, across the river from his home. An informal funeral service was held in his private studio on August 7, attended by friends and neighbors and by a few old friends from a distance; but the gathering could include only a few of the many who felt his death as a personal loss. The merits of Saint-Gaudens's work were fully recog- nized in his lifetime; he was an officer of the Legion of Honor, a corresponding member of the Institute of France, a member of half a dozen academies, and the bearer of honorary degrees from the universities of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But of all the honors he received there were two — one of a public, the other of a private nature — which he himself valued most highly; the one as showing the estimation in which his art was held by his fellow artists, the other as an evidence of the personal affection felt for him by his friends. At the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, upon the unanimous recommendation of the Jury of Fine Arts, composed of painters, sculptors, and architects, he was awarded a special diploma and medal of honor, "apart from and above all other awards " ; an entirely exceptional honor, which marked him as the first of American artists, 326 The Fine Arts as previously received honors had marked him one of the greatest sculptors of his time. On June 23, 1905, the artistic and literary colony which had gradually grown up about his home in Cornish celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his coming there by a fete and open-air play held in the grove of Aspet. The beauty of this spectacle has become almost legendary. The altar with its columned canopy, which served for a background to the play, still stands, though much dilapidated by weather, as it was immortalized by the sculptor himself in a commemorative plaquette which is among the most charming of his minor works. He planned, if he had lived, to perpetuate it in enduring marble, and it is not impossible that others may yet accomplish this task, dedicating the monument as a fitting memorial to a great artist and a noble man in the place he loved as his chosen home. Some part of the vivid and lovable personality Of Augustus Saint-Gaudens must have been visible, almost at a glance, to any one who ever came in contact with him — to any one, even, who ever saw his portrait. In his spare but strong-knit figure, his firm but supple hands, his manner of carrying himself, his every gesture, one felt the abounding vitality, the almost furious energy of the man. That extraordinary head with its heavy brow beetling above the small but piercing eyes, its red beard and crisp wiry hair, its projecting jaw and great, strongly modeled nose, was alive with power — with power of intellect no less than of will. His lack of early education gave him a certain diffidence and a distrust of his own gifts of expression. He was apt to overrate the mere verbal facility of others, and to underestimate him- self in the comparison; indeed, a certain humility was strongly marked in him, even as regards his art, though Augustus Saint-Gaudens 327 he was self-confident also. When he was unconstrained his great powers of observation, his shrewdness of judg- ment, his bubbling humor, and a picturesque vivacity of phrase not uncommon among artists, made him one of the most entrancing of talkers. Underneath his humor and his gayety, however, there lay a deep-seated Celtic melancholy, and beside his energy was an infinite patience at the service of an exact- ing artistic conscience. The endless painstaking of his work and the time he took over it were almost pro- verbial. He was twelve years engaged upon the Shaw Memorial, and eleven upon the Sherman, and though he did much other work while these were in progress, yet it was his constant revision, his ever-renewed striving for perfection, that kept them so long achieving. The Diana of the Madison Square Garden was taken down from her tower because he and the architect, Stanford White, thought her too large, and was entirely remodeled on a smaller scale. And with this patience went a gentleness, a sweetness, a delicate sensitiveness, and an abounding humanity and sympathy. He could be almost ruthless in the assertion of his will when the interests of his art or of justice seemed to demand it, yet there was a tender-heartedness in him which made it distressing to him to inflict pain on any one. The conflict of these elements in his nature sometimes made his actions seem inconsistent and indecipherable even to those who knew him. He would be long-suffering, compromising, dis- inclined to strike; but when he was at last roused the blow would be as staggering as it was unexpected. It was as if he struck the harder to have done with it, and to spare himself the pain of striking again. It was his whole-hearted devotion to his art which caused his rare acts of self-assertion, and it was this 328 The Fine Arts same devotion, no less than his natural kindliness, that made him ever helpful to younger artists who showed any promise of future worth. Even in his last days of un- speakable suffering he would summon what was left of his old strength to give a word of criticism and advice, above all a word of commendation, to any one who needed the one or had earned the other. The essential goodness of the man was most felt by those who stood nearest him, and most of all, perhaps, by his actual co- workers. He could command, as few have been able to do, the love and devotion of his assistants. To all who knew him the man himself seemed finer, rarer, sweeter than his work, and the gap he has left in their lives will be even more impossible to fill than his place in American art. But the personality of an artist, though he be a great one, is for the memory of his private friends. It is only as it colors his art that it is of public interest. It is his art itself, his gift to the world, that the world cares for; it is of the kind and quality of that art, the nature and the degree of its greatness, that the world wishes to hear. Because the man was my friend I have wished to give some glimpse of the manner of man he was; because the artist was the greatest our country has pro- duced I am to try to give some idea of his art, of the elements of its strength, and of the limitations which are as necessary as its qualities.^ And the first and most essential thing to note about the art of Augustus Saint-Gaudens is that it is always art of the purest — free in an extraordinary degree from the besetting sins of naturalism and the scientific temper on the one hand, and of the display of cleverness and technical brilliancy on the other. Never more than in our own day have these been the great temptations Augustus Saint-Gaudens 329 of an able artist: that he should in the absorption of study forget the end in the means, and produce demon- strations of anatomy or of the laws of light rather than statues or pictures; or that he should, in the joy of exercising great talents, seem to say, "See how well I can do it!" and invent difficulties for the sake of trium- phantly resolving them, becoming a virtuoso rather than a creator. Of the meaner temptation of mere sensational- ism — the desire to attract attention by ugliness and eccentricity lest one should be unable to secure it by truth and beauty — one need not speak. It is the temp- tation of vulgar souls. But great and true artists have yielded, occasionally or habitually, to these other two; Saint-Gaudens never does. The commonest criticism on Saint-Gaudens's art has been that it is not, primarily, sculptural in its inspiration; and, in a sense, the criticism is justified. One need not, perhaps, greatly care whether it is true or not. It is, after all, only a matter of definition, and if we were forbidden to call his work sculpture at all and required to find another name for it, the important fact that it is art — art of the finest, the most exquisite, at times the most powerful — would in nowise be altered. Ghiberti went beyond the traditions of sculpture in relief, intro- duced perspective into his compositions, modeled trees and rocks and clouds and cast them in bronze, made pic- tures, if you like, instead of reliefs. Does any one care? Is it not enough that they are beautiful pictures? If, then, the accusation that Saint-Gaudens's art is not sculptural means that he was a designer rather than a modeler, that he cared for composition more than for representation, that the ensemble interested him more than the details, I would cheerfully admit that the accu- sation is well founded. 330 The Fine Arts The modeling of the morceau was not particularly his affair. The discrimination of hard and soft, of bone and muscle and integument, the expression of tension where a fleshy tissue is tightly drawn over the framework be- neath, or of weight where it falls away from it — these were not the things that most compelled his interest or in which he was most successful. For the human figure as a figure, for the inherent beauty of its marvelous mechanism, he did not greatly care. The problems of bulk and mass and weight and movement which have occupied sculptors from the beginning were not especially his problems. It may have been due to the nature of the commissions he received that, after the Hiawatha of his student days, he modeled no nude except the Diana of the tower — a purely decorative figure, de- signed for distant effect, in which structural modeling would have been out of place because invisible. But it was not accident that in such draped figures as the Amor-Caritas, or the caryatids of the Vanderbilt mantelpiece, there is little. effort to make the figure visi- ble beneath the draperies. In the hands of a master of the figure — of one of those artists to whom the expres- siveness and the beauty of the human structure is all in all — drapery is a means of rendering the masses and the movement of the figure more apparent than they would be in the nude. In such works as these it is a thing beautiful in itself, for its own ripple and flow and ordered intricacy. The figure is there beneath the dra- pery, but the drapery is expressive of the mood of the artist and of the sentiment of the work, rather than especially explanatory of the figure. First of all, by nature and by training, Saint-Gaudens was a designer, and exquisiteness of design was the quality he most consciously strove for — the quality Augustus Saint-Gaudens 331 on which he expended his unresting, unending, persever- ing toil. From the start one feels that design is his principal preoccupation, that he is thinking mainly of the pattern of the whole, its decorative effect and play of line, its beauty of masses and spaces, its fitness for its place and its surroundings; in a word, its composition. In the beginning, as a workman in the shop of the cameo cutter, he was concerned with a kind of art in which per- fection of composition is almost the sole claim to serious consideration. Then he produces a multiplicity of small reliefs, dainty, exquisite, infallibly charming in then- arrangement, — things which are so dependent on design for their very existence that they seem scarcely modeled at all. He goes on to decorative figures in the round, to heroic statues, to monumental groups, but always it is design that he thinks of first and last — design, now, in three dimensions rather than in two; design properly sculp- tural rather than pictorial, in as much as it deals with bosses and concaves, with solid matter in space, but still design. This power of design rises to higher uses as time goes on, is bent to the interpretation of lofty themes and the expression of deep emotions, but it is in its nature the same power that produced the delicate, ethereal beauty of the reliefs. The infinite fastidious- ness of a master designer, constantly reworking and readjusting his design, that every part shall be perfect and that no fold or spray of leafage shall be out of its proper place, never satisfied that his composition is beyond improvement while an experiment remains untried, — this is what cost him years of labor. His first impor- tant statue, the Farragut, is a masterpiece of restrained and elegant yet original and forceful design — a design, too, that includes the pedestal and the bench below, 332 The Fine Arts and of which the figures in bas-relief are almost as impor- tant a part as the statue itself. In later and maturer work, with a more clarified taste and a deeper feeling, he can reach such unsurpassable expressiveness of com- position as is shown in the Shaw Memorial or the great equestrian statue of Sherman. Saint-Gaudens's mastery of low relief was primarily a matter of this power of design, but it was conditioned also upon two other qualities, — knowledge of drawing, and extreme sensitiveness to delicate modulation of sur- face. And by drawing I mean not merely knowledge of form and proportion and the exact rendering of these, in which sense a statue may be said to be well drawn if its measurements are correct — I mean that much more subtle and difficult art, the rendering in two dimensions only of the appearance of objects of three dimensions. Sculpture in the round is the simplest and, in a sense, the easiest of the arts. It deals with actual form — a piece of sculpture does not merely look like the form of an object, it is the form of an object. Leaving out of the count, for the moment, the refinements and the illusions which may be added to it, — which must be added to it to make it art, — it is the reproduction in another material of the actual forms of things. Some- thing which shall answer for it, to the uninitiate, may be produced by merely casting natural objects, and there is a great deal that is called sculpture which scarcely aims at anything more than the production, by a more difficult method, of something like a plaster cast from nature. It is the very simplicity of the art that makes its difficulty, for to avoid the look of casting and achieve the feeling of art requires the most delicate handling and the most powerful inspiration, and there is need in Augustus Saint-Gaudens 333 the art of sculpture for the rarest qualities of the greatest minds. The art of drawing is entirely different. It is all illu- sion; it deals only in appearances. Its aim is to depict on a flat surface the aspect of objects supposed to stand behind it and to be seen through it, and its means are two branches of the science of optics. It is based on the study of perspective and on the study of the way light falls upon objects and reveals their shapes and the direction of their surfaces by the varying degrees of their illumination. Of this art a sculptor in the round need not necessarily know anything, and in fact many of them, unfortunately, know altogether too little. The maker of a statue need not think about foreshorten- ings: if he gives the correct form the foreshortening will take care of itself. Sometimes it does so in a disastrous manner! Theoretically he need not worry over light and shade, although of course he does, in practice, think about it and rely upon it, more or less. If he gives the true forms they will necessarily have the true light and shade. But low relief, standing between sculpture and drawing, is really more closely related to drawing than to sculp- ture, — is really a kind of drawing, — and this is why so few sculptors succeed in it. It is a' kind of drawing, but an exceedingly difficult kind — the most delicate and difficult of any of the arts that deal with form alone. As to the contour, it stands on the same ground with drawing in any other material. The linear part of it requires exactly the same degree and the same kind of talent as linear design with a pen or with a burin. But for all that stands within the contour, for the suggestion of interior forms and the illu- sion of solidity, it depends on means of the utmost subtlety. It exists, as all drawing does, by light and 334 The Fine Arts shade, but the shadows are not produced by the mere darkening of the surface; they are produced by pro- jections and recessions, by the inclination of the planes away from or toward the light. The lower the relief the more subtle and tender must be the variation of the surface which produces them, and therefore success in relief is one of the best attainable measures of a sculptor's fineness of touch and perfection of craftsmanship. But as the light and shade is produced by actual forms which are yet quite unlike the true forms of nature, it follows that the artist in relief can never imitate either the shape or the depth of the shadow he sees in nature. His art becomes one of suggestions and equivalents, — an art which can give neither the literal truth of form nor the literal truth of aspect, — an art at the farthest re- move from direct representation. And success in it becomes, therefore, one of the best tests of a sculptor's artistry — of his ability to produce essential beauty by the treatment of his material, rather than to imitate successfully external fact. As the degree of relief varies, also, from the lowest possible to that highest relief which nearly approaches sculpture in the round, the problems involved constantly vary. At each stage there is a new compromise to be made, a new adjustment to find, between fact and illu- sion, between the real form and the desired appearance. And there may be a number of different degrees of relief in the same work, even in different parts of the same figure, so that the art of relief becomes one of the most complicated and difficult of arts. It has not, indeed, the added complications of color, but neither has it the re- sources of color, success in which will more or less com- pensate for failure elsewhere. There is no permissible failure in bas-relief, any more than in sculpture in the Augustus Saint-Gaudens 335 round, and its difficulties are far greater. Nothing but truest feeling, completest knowledge, consummate skill, will serve. This explanation may give some measure of what I mean when I say that I believe Augustus Saint-Gaudens the most complete master of relief since the fifteenth century. He has produced a series of works which run through the whole range of the art, from lowest relief to highest; from things of which the relief is so infinitesimal that they seem as if dreamed into existence rather than wrought in bronze or marble, to things which are virtually en- gaged statues; from things which you fear a chance touch might brush away, like a pastel of Whistler's, to things as solid and enduring in appearance as in actual material. And in all these things there is the same inevitable mastery of design and of drawing, the same infinite resource and the same technical perfection. The Butler Children, the Schiff Children, above all the Miss Sarah Lee, to name but a few of his masterpieces of this kind, are in their perfection of spacing, their grace of line, their exquisite and ethereal illusiveness of surface, comparable only to the loveliest works of the Florentine Renaissance; while the assured mastery of the most complicated problems of relief evinced in the Shaw Me- morial, a mastery which shows in the result no trace of the strenuous and long-continued effort that it cost, is unsurpassed — I had almost said unequaled — in any work of any epoch. One can not hope, without illustration, to give any idea of the special beauties of this or that particular work in this long series; and indeed no form of illustration could give more than the composition and the draftsman- ship. The refinement of workmanship, the sensitiveness 336 The Fine Arts and subtlety of modeling, can be appreciated only before the works themselves. And this sensitiveness and deli- cacy of workmanship, this mastery of the problems of relief, with its reliance on illusion and its necessary abstention from realization, is applied to sculpture in the round, and becomes with Saint-Gaudens, as it did with the sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, the means of escape from the matter of fact. The concrete art of sculpture becomes an art of mystery and of suggestion — an art having affinities with that of painting. Hollows are filled up, shadows are obliter- ated, lines are softened or accentuated, as the effect may require, details are eliminated or made prominent as they are less or more essential and significant, as they hinder or aid the expressiveness of the whole. It is by such methods that beauty is achieved, that the most unpromising material is subdued to the purposes of art, that even our hideous modern costume may be made to yield a decorative effect. Pure sculpture, as the ancients understood it, the art of form per se, demands the nude figure, or a costume which reveals it rather than hides it. The costume of to-day reveals as little of the figure as possible, and, unlike medieval armor, it has no form of its own. A painter may make it interesting by dwell- ing on color or tone or texture, or may so lose it in shadow that it ceases to count at all except as a space of dark- ness. A sculptor can do none of these things, and if he is to make it serve the ends of beauty he has need of all the resourcefulness and all the skill of the master of low relief. It was fortunate that the artist whose greatest task was to commemorate the heroes of the Civil War should have had the temperament and the training of such a master, and I know of no other sculptor than Saint-Gaudens who has so magnificently succeeded in Augustus Saint-Gaudens 337 the rendering of modern clothing — no other who could have made the uniform of Farragut or the frock coat of Lincoln as interesting as the armor of Colleoni or the toga of Augustus. But if the genius of Saint-Gaudens was primarily a decorative genius — if it was in his earlier work even a trifle picturesque, so that, as he said himself, he had "to fight against picturesqueness, " his work was never picto- rial. He never indulged in perspective or composed his reliefs on more than one plane; never took such liberties with the traditions of sculpture as did Ghiberti, or painted pictures in bronze or marble as more than one modern has done. His very feeling for decoration kept him from pictorial realism, and his fight against picturesqueness was nobly won. His design becomes ever cleaner* and more classic; by years of work and of experience he becomes stronger and stronger in the more purely sculp- tural qualities, attains a grasp of form and structure only second to his mastery of composition. He is al- ways a consummate artist; in his finest works he is a great sculptor in the strictest sense of the word. I have dwelt somewhat at length upon technical matters because .technical power is the first necessity for an artist; because technical mastery is that for which he consciously endeavors; because the technical language of his art is the necessary vehicle of expression for his thoughts and emotions, and determines even the nature of the thoughts and emotions he shall express. But while the technical accomplishment of an artist is the most necessary part of his art, without which his imagi- nation would be mute, it is not the highest or the most significant part of it. I have tried to show that Saint- Gaudens was a highly accomplished artist, the equal of any of his contemporaries, the superior of most. What 338 The Fine Arts made him something much more than this — something infinitely more important for us — was the vigor and loftiness of his imagination. Without his imaginative power he would have been an artist of great distinction, of whom any country might be proud ; with it he became a great creator, able to embody in enduring bronze the highest ideals and the deepest feelings of a nation and of a time. It is a penetrating and sympathetic imagination than gave him his unerring grasp of character, that enabled him to seize upon the significant elements of a personality, to divine the attitude and the gesture that should reveal it, to eliminate the unessential, to present to us the man. This is the imagination of the portrait painter, and Saint-Gaudens has shown it again and again, in many of his reliefs and memorial tablets, above all in his portrait statues. He showed it conclusively in as early a work as the Farragut, a work that remains one of the modern masterpieces of portrait statuary. The man stands there forever, feet apart, upon his swaying deck, his glass in one strong hand, cool, courageous, ready, full of determination but absolutely without bluster or braggadocio, a sailor, a gentleman, and a hero. He showed it again, and with ampler maturity, in that au- gust figure of Lincoln, grandly dignified, austerely simple, sorrowfully human, risen from the chair of state that marks his office, but about to speak as a man to men, his bent head and worn face filled with a sense of power, but even more with the sadness of responsibility — filled, above all, with a yearning, tender passion of sympathy and love. In imaginative presentation of character, in nobility of feeling and breadth of treatment, no less than in perfection of workmanship, these are among the world's few worthy monuments to its great men. Augustus Saint-Gaudens 339 And they are monuments to Americans by an Amer- ican. Saint-Gaudens had lived through the time of the Civil War, had felt, as a boy, the stir of its great happen- ings in his blood, and its epic emotions had become a part of his consciousness, deep-seated at the roots of his nature. The feelings of the American people were his feelings, and his representations of these and of other heroes of that great struggle are among the most national as they are among the most vital things that our country has produced in art. But if Saint-Gaudens's imagination was thus capable of raising the portrait to the dignity of the type, it was no less capable of endowing the imagined type with all the individuality of the portrait. In the Deacon Chapin, of Springfield, we have a • purely ideal production, the finest embodiment of New England Puritanism in our art, for no portrait of the real Chapin existed. This swift-striding, stern-looking old man, who clasps his Bible as Moses clasped the tables of the law and grips his peaceful walking stick as though it were a sword, is a Puritan of the Puritans; but he is an individual also, — a rough-hewn piece of humanity with plenty of the old Adam about him, — an individual so clearly seen and so vigorously characterized that one can hardly believe the statue an invention or realize that no such old Puritan deacon ever existed in the flesh. Something of this imaginative quality there is in almost everything Saint-Gaudens touched, even in his purely decorative figures. His angels and caryatids are not classical goddesses, but modern women, lovely, but with a personal and particular loveliness, not insisted upon but delicately suggested. And it is not the personality of the model who chanced to pose for them, but an invented personality, the expression of the nobility, the 340 The Fine Arts sweetness, and the pure-mindedness of their creator. And in such a figure as that of the Adams Memorial, in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, his imaginative power reaches to a degree of impressiveness almost unequaled in modern art. One knows of nothing since the tombs of the Medici that fills one with the same hushed awe as this shrouded, hooded, deeply-brooding figure, rigid with contemplation, still with an eternal stillness, her soul rapt from her body on some distant quest. Is she Nirvana? Is she the Peace of God? She has been given many names — her maker would give her none. Her meaning is mystery; she is the everlasting enigma. Not the greatest artist could twice sound so deep a note as this. The figure remains unique in the work of the sculptor as it is unique in the art of the century. Yet perhaps Saint-Gaudens's greatest works are two in which all the varied elements of his genius find simul- taneous expression; into which his mastery of composi- tion, his breadth and solidity of structure, his technical skill, his insight into character, and his power of imagina- tion enter in nearly equal measure: the Shaw Memorial and the great equestrian group of the Sherman monu- ment. The Shaw Memorial is a relief, but a relief of many planes. The marching troops are in three files, one behind the other, the varying distances from the specta- tor marked by differences of the degree of projection. Nearer than all of them is the equestrian figure of Shaw himself, the horse and rider modeled nearly but not quite in the round. The whole scale of relief was altered in the course of the work, after it had once been nearly completed, and the mastery of the infinitely complicated problem of relief in many degrees is supreme. But all Augustus Saint-Gaudens 341 the more because the scheme was so full and so varied, has the artist carefully avoided the pictorial in his treat- ment. There is no perspective, the figures being all on the same scale, and there is no background, no setting of houses or landscape. Everywhere, between and above the figures, is the flat surface which is the immemorial tradition of sculpture in relief; and the fact that it is a surface, representing nothing, is made more clear by the inscription written upon it — an inscription placed there, consciously or unconsciously, that it might have that very effect. The composition is magnificent, whether for its intrinsic beauty of arrangement, its balancing of lines and spaces, or for its perfect expressiveness. The rhythmic step of marching men is perfectly rendered, and the guns fill the middle of the panel in an admirable pattern, without confusion or monotony. The heads are superb in characterization, strikingly varied and individ- ual, yet each a strongly marked racial type, unmistakably African in all its forms These are merits, and merits of a very high order, enough of themselves to place the work in the front rank of modern sculpture, but they are after all its minor merits. What makes it the great thing it is is the im- aginative power displayed in it — the depth of emotion expressed, and expressed with perfect simplicity and directness and an entire absence of parade. The negro troops are marching steadily, soberly, with high serious- ness of purpose, and their white leader rides beside them, drawn sword in hand, but with no military swagger, courageous, yet with a hint of melancholy, ready not only to lay down his life, but to face, if need be, an igno- minious death for the cause he believes to be just. And above them, laden with poppy and with laurel, floats the Death Angel, pointing out the way. 342 The Fine Arts It is a work which artists may study again and again with growing admiration and increasing profit, yet it. is one that has found its way straight to the popular heart. It is not always — it is not often — that the artists and the public are thus at one. When they are it is safe to assume that the work they equally admire is truly great; that it belongs to the highest order of noble, works of art. The Sherman group, though it has been more criticized than the Shaw Memorial, seems to me, if possible, an even finer work. The main objection to it has been that it is not sufficiently "monumental," and indeed it has not the massiveness nor the repose of such a work as Donatello's "Gattamelata," the greatest of all equestrian statues. It could not well have these qualities in the same degree, its motive being what it is, but they are, perhaps, not ill exchanged for the character and the nationalism so marked in horse and rider, and for the irresistible onward rush of movement never more ade- quately expressed. In all other respects the group seems to me almost beyond criticism. The composition — composition, now, in the round, and to be considered from many points of view — builds up superbly; the flow of line in wing and limb and drapery is perfect; the purely sculptural problems of anatomical rendering, equine and human, are thoroughly resolved; the model- ing, as such, is almost as fine as the design. To the boyish Saint-Gaudens, Sherman had seemed the typical American hero. To the matured artist he had sat for an admirable bust. The sculptor had thus an unusual knowledge of his subject, a perfect sympathy with his theme; and he has produced a work of epic sweep and significance. Tall and erect, the General sits his horse, his military cloak bellying out behind him, Augustus Saint-Gaudens 343 his trousers strapped down over his shoes, his hat in his right hand, dropping at arm's length behind his knee, his bare head, like that of an old eagle, looking straight forward. The horse is as long and thin as his rider, with a tremendous stride; and his big head, closely reined in, twitches viciously at the bridle. Before the horse and rider, upon the ground yet as if new-lighted there from an aerial existence, half walks, half flies, a splendid winged figure, — one arm outstretched, the other brandishing the palm, — Victory leading them on. She has a certain fierce wildness of aspect, but her rapt gaze and half-open mouth indicate the seer of visions: peace is ahead, and an end of war. On the bosom of her gown is broidered the eagle of the United States, for she is an American Victory, as this is an American man on an American horse; and the broken pine bough beneath the horse's feet localizes the victorious march — it is the march through Georgia to the sea. Long ago I expressed my conviction that the Sher- man monument is third in rank of the great equestrian statues of the world. To-day I am not sure that that conviction remains unaltered. Donatello's Gattamelata is unapproached and unapproachable in its quiet dignity; Verrocchio's Colleoni is unsurpassed in picturesque attractiveness. Both are consecrated by the admira- tion of centuries. To-day I am not sure that this work of an American sculptor, recently dead, is not, in its own way, equal to either of them. There are those who are troubled by the introduction of the symbolical figures in such works as the Shaw Memorial and the Sherman statue; and indeed it was a bold enterprise to place them where they are, mingling thus in the same work the real and the ideal, the actual and the allegorical. But the boldness seems to me 344 The Fine Arts aoundantly justified by success. In either case the entire work is pitched to the key of these figures; the treatment of the whole is so elevated by style and so infused with imagination that there is no shock of unlikeness or difficulty of transition. And these figures are not merely necessary to the composition, an essential part of its beauty — they are even more essential to the expression of the artist's thought. Without that hovering Angel of Death the negro troops upon the Shaw Memorial might be going anywhere, to battle or to review. We should have a passing regiment, nothing more. With- out the striding Victory before him, the impetuous movement of Sherman's horse would have no especial significance. And these figures are no mere conventional allegories, they are true creations. To their creator the unseen was as real as the seen — nay, it was more so. That Shaw was riding to his death at the command of duty was the only thing that made Shaw memorable. That Sherman was marching to a victory the fruits of which should be peace was the essential thing about Sherman. Death and Duty — Victory and Peace — in each case the compound ideal found its expression in a figure entirely original and astonishingly living; a person as truly as Shaw or Sherman themselves. He could not have left them out. It were better to give up the work entirely than to do it otherwise than as he saw it. I have described and discussed but a few of the many works of this great artist, choosing those which seem to me the most significant and the most important, and in doing so I have keenly felt the inadequacy of words to express the qualities of an art which exists by forms. Fortunately, the works themselves are, for the most part, readily accessible. In the originals, in casts, or in photographs, they may be studied by every one. Noth- Augustus Saint-Gaudens 345 ing is more difficult than to estimate justly the great- ness of an object that is too near to us — it is only as it recedes into the distance that the mountain visibly overtops its neighboring hills. It is difficult to under- stand that this man, so lately familiar to us, moving among us as one of ourselves, is of the company of the immortals. Yet I believe, as we make this study of his works, as we yield ourselves to the graciousness of his charm or are exalted by the sweep of his imagination, we shall come to feel an assured conviction that Augustus Saint-Gaudens was not merely the most accomplished artist of America, not merely one of the foremost sculp- tors of his time, — we shall feel that he is one of those great, creative minds, transcending time and place, not of America or of to-day, but of the world and forever. Where, among such minds, he will take his rank we need not ask. It is enough that he is among them. Such an artist is assuredly a benefactor of his country, and it is eminently fitting that his gift to us should be acknowledged by such tribute as we can pay him. By his works in other lands and by his world-wide fame he sheds a glory upon the name of America, helping to convince the world that here also are those who occupy themselves with the things of the spirit, that here also are other capabilities than those of industrial energy and material success. In his many minor works he has endowed us with an inexhaustible heritage of beauty — beauty which is "about the best thing God invents." He is the educator of our taste, and of more than our taste — of our sentiment and our emotions. In his great monuments he has not only given us fitting present- ments of our national heroes; he has expressed, and in expressing elevated, our loftiest ideals; he has expressed, and in expressing deepened, our profoundest feelings. 346 The Fine Arts He has become the voice of all that is best in the Amer- ican people, and his works are incentives to patriotism and lessons in devotion to duty. But the great and true artist is more than a bene- factor of his country, he is a benefactor of the human race. The body of Saint-Gaudens is ashes; but his mind, his spirit, his character, have taken on enduring forms and are become a part of the inheritance of man- kind. And if in the lapse of ages his very name should be forgotten — as are the names of many great artists who have gone before him — yet his work will remain ; and while any fragment of it is decipherable the world will be the richer in that he' lived. A PERSONAL STUDY OF RODIN 1 By WILLIAM G. FITZ-GERALD |ODIN has at last come into his own, and his genius is now universally recognized. And yet but a few years ago, as he himself said, "If Paris had been Italy in the time of the Borgias I should surely have been poisoned!" Picture to yourself a thick-set, rugged, muscular figure a little below medium height, with a head of grizzled hair and bushy reddish-gray beard that seems to exaggerate the lines of the lion-like head with its keen, deep-set, bril- liant eyes and long white brows, and you have a picture of the man. He is a man of the people. Though born in Paris, he can hardly be called a Parisian, since his father was a Nor- man, his mother a woman from Lorraine; and as a boy he lived at Beauvais, returning to Paris at the age of fourteen. "My people," he has said, "were extremely poor, and they often urged me with tears and entreaties to take up a trade. I have no history; my life is simply a drab, gray record of perpetual struggle and unchanged poverty. But though I was poor, I was strong; and in the moments when I was not bitterly discouraged I felt a certain stimulus in setting myself against the world." As a boy he was sent to the Lesser School of Drawing, at No. 5 Rue de l'Ecole de Me'dicine — a school for young craftsmen, where many now celebrated artists learned their first elements. In his free hours he visited the Louvre and gained a thorough knowledge of the Old Masters, both painters and sculptors. i From " The World's Work " Copyright, 1905. 347 348 The Fine Arts He has called Michelangelo "my master and my idol," and added, "To see his works I went to Italy the first time, when I had barely enough money to keep myself alive." His unacademic methods prevented young Rodin from getting a place in drawing at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and he was forced to do whatever came his way, merely to earn enough money to supply his daily needs. For example, he worked for an ornament maker — made little terra-cotta casts which never sold. He also worked later in the studio of Barye, the animal sculptor, surrounded by models of twisted cobras, lithe tigers, crouching panthers, and the savage grace of lions at bay. We next find him as one of the craftsmen in the studio of M. Carrier-Belleuse in Brussels; and here, by living on almost starvation rations, he managed to rent a poor "studio" for himself in an out-of-the-way stable. Amid these wretched sur- roundings the much-talked-of work known as "The Man with the Broken Nose" was produced in 1864. Rodin sent it to the Paris Salon, where it was peremptorily refused — "because of its originality." It was thirteen years before he cared to court again the favor of unsympa- thetic critics with the famous "Age of Bronze," which was instantly accepted, abused, and finally bought by the French nation for the Luxembourg Museum. "During those long years," he has said, "when I gave what power I had to others, my thoughts were ever alive and keen toward my own creations. On Sunday, my only free day, I modeled with energy in my humble little room, trying to perfect 'The Age of Bronze.' Then in 1870, when the war broke out between France and Germany, I served as a corporal in the National Guard during the siege of Paris, when my wife and I had to live on horse- flesh and moldy bread, as our comrades did. We were A Personal Study of Rodin 349 near starvation; but neither then nor at any other time in our married life did we make the stupid mistake of trying to appear richer than we really were. "Physical health and freedom from debt I have always estimated to be the only two really essential elements to happiness. And even when moments have looked their very blackest — when it was borne in upon me with irre- sistible force that maybe, after all, the work I lived for would never receive recognition until after my death, and my faithful wife and I would live and die in penury — we owed not a living soul a penny. This brought, and still brings, me some little comfort." After peace was restored Rodin joined Carrier-Belleuse in Brussels and worked under him on the ornamenta- tion of the Bourse, and the Palais des Academies. His brave wife, a woman of his own humble class, kept house for him on the outskirts of the city, the couple living in one room, to which, however, was attached a small garden. Here they led a healthy, hard-working life; and when- ever he had a moment to spare he "lost himself" in the surrounding country. Twice he left Belgium to travel still farther afield — once to Italy, and again on a round of visits to the old French cathedrals from Rouen to Avignon. On his re- turn he finished the "Age of Bronze," the acceptance of which by the French Salon marks the first stage of his recognition by the world. Yet he had now reached the age of thirty-seven, and was utterly unknown to the general public. Even in the artistic world, among the men of acknowledged taste, he could count but few open admirers — save, perhaps, the artist Bastien-Lepage in Paris, and in London Robert Browning and the poet Henley. Nor must I forget Fal- guiere, that consummate artist of France who remarked 350 The Fine Arts prophetically to his disciples shortly before his death, "Rodin! Rodin! Ah, there 's the master of us all!" "Like Rembrandt," Browning used to say, "this man makes misery live, and finds beauty and poetry even in age-bowed backs, toil-wrung limbs, and faces failure- dimmed." Yet it was a long cry from the admiration of such men to the time when the art advisers of nations should be competing for his works, and the president of the British Royal Academy should be eager to choose one of his statues. His "St. John the Baptist Preaching" is now in the South Kensington Museum. In those days Rodin was at war with all the "schools," supremely indifferent to tradition and convention. "I had to fight from the very first, for I could not get the world to agree with me that the conventional ideas of beauty are false. I never passed through the Academic art schools, with their puerile, insipid, and conventional laws. I had but one teacher, Nature. Indeed, while I am on this subject I will say that I consider that the whole of what elementary education I had was a total obstacle to me, and not until I was past forty was I able to shake myself free from it, and to think and act for myself with absolute independence of spirit. "For we must seek all our impressions, if we would give them that mysterious illusion of life which engenders emo- tion, in the very heart of Nature — the only model that is infinite in its variety and in which the unforeseen and the sublime defy the flights of the boldest imagination." The famous "Age of Bronze" was no sooner exhibited at the 1877 Salon than a report was spread abroad that its wonderful effect was due to its having been made from a mold cast direct from life. This blow was the first of many that the great sculptor was to receive from a misunder- standing public; and but for the stanch friendship of a few A Personal Study of Rodin 351 men he might have been forced to bear the disgrace of this accusation for years. M. Edmond Turquet, then Under Secretary of State for Fine Arts, was determined to clear him, and sent to investigate the matter at Brussels, where the model, a soldier, was only too glad to uphold the inno- cence of the sculptor. Furthermore, a letter was sent by M. Paul Dubois, signed by several men of eminence, say- ing that "far from having made a mere mold from Nature, Monsieur Rodin has created a most beautiful piece of sculp- ture, and he himself will surely become a great artist," The turning point in Rodin's career is said to have come when M. Edmond Turquet obtained for him the commis- sion for the famous "Door" of the Museum of Decorative Arts. The first idea for this celebrated "Door" was that it should be inspired by Dante's "Inferno," but, during the twenty years that he has been working on it, he has so widened and deepened his vast scheme of thought that it is difficult to say now where Dante ends and where Rodin begins. This " Door of Hell," which is to be cast in bronze, is his masterpiece. It is twenty feet high, its panels and borders are filled with hosts of figures in high and low re- lief. Above all is a nude male figure sitting, plunged in deep contemplation, elbows on knees, head sunk on hands. This is Dante himself, before whose eyes the awful visions pass. Of this great work Mr. Ernest Beckett, M.P. (who bought a replica of Rodin's "The Thinker" for the British Museum), says, "Surely we have here the 'Inferno' of Dante made visible! For not even the fiery vivid words of the immortal Florentine make a more tremendous im- pression than Rodin's rising, falling, swaying, struggling, tense, tortured figures. There are more than one hundred and twenty of them in every conceivable attitude, and with infinitely varying expression. The three figures that support the 'Portal,' on which is written (in Italian, of 352 The Fine Arts course) 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,' are men of prodigious muscular power. The body of each is, in truth, a glorious specimen of the sculptor's art; but their faces are filled with unutterable woe and despair." But though an influential Minister of Fine Arts (and incidentally fine taste) had recognized his genius, many a disappointment still lay in store for him. He competed for the Commemoration Monument to the Franco-German War; but his terrible figure of "War," breathing death and disaster, with a noble figure of a wounded soldier at her knees, was too strong for the bons bourgeois of Paris, and he was put aside. Then there was the amazing "Balzac." Every one knows the story of that much-discussed statue. It was commissioned by the Society des Gens de Lettres, and had already been begun by Chapu, who died before his work was finished. It was then given to Rodin, mainly through the influence of Zola. For five long years Rodin studied every phase of Balzac's life; he lived long in Touraine to get the atmosphere of the native soil that the " Titian of Literature" loved so well; he read and reread all Balzac's works; he modeled many heads of the great author of "The Human Comedy" at different periods of his life; and he made many life-size nude figures, draping them in a thousand ways with patient ingenuity. "You see," Rodin said, "Balzac's figure was anything but heroic." Finally he produced the strange, magnetic figure which set one-half the world laughing and struck the other half dumb with wonder and admiration. A brilliant pamphlet, written by Arsene Alexandre, plainly told the scoffers "they would some day realize that they had laughed too soon." This statue, completed in 1898, was refused. A com- mercial man named Pellerin begged of Rodin to let him A Personal Study of Rodin 353 buy it, but the wounded artist refused and took back his masterpiece to his own studio. To this day he remembers with bitterness the storm of hostile criticism and ridicule which was hurled at him by his countrymen. Not long ago a young American girl said to him, after visiting his studio on one of his famous Saturday after- noons, when he opens his doors and puts himself at the disposition of his friends: " Monsieur, I should like to tell you that I have never seen anything to equal your wonderful 'Balzac'!" "Ah! Mademoiselle," he replied, taking her hand, "if you only knew how much I value your spontaneous appreciation, you would be so glad you had told me. You see I have suffered so much for my 'Balzac' " And so the "Balzac" stands in the beautiful studio at Meudon now, "and there," says Rodin, calmly, "it will stay until the right moment comes." Again, there is the story of the monument to Claude Lorrain at Nancy. The municipal authorities gave the commission to Rodin; but when the statue arrived they all with one voice pronounced it unsuitable. Only the indefatigable efforts of M. Roger Marx, the well-known art critic, saved it from being rejected. Indeed, almost every piece of sculpture that Rodin has produced has been greeted with jests, jibes, and hostile cries. Even the universally appreciated "Burghers of Calais" had its bad quarter of an hour, for Rodin wished it to be placed in the old, historic market square, on a fairly high pedestal; but the modern citizens insisted that it should be put in the Place de la Poste, on a low pedestal, where it certainly is not seen to the best advantage. This is a remarkable work, showing the six brave burghers of Calais who came out of the besieged city with halters on their necks to offer themselves as a sacrifice to the fury of 354 The Fine Arts Edward III of England. Their drawn faces, convulsed hands, their pride, grief, and resolution, are depicted with wondrous and subtle skill. The group has been well called a study of "Sublime Old Age and Rebellious Youth." Now that the world has agreed to call Rodin a great genius, he is besieged with commissions for portraits, and people of all nations go to him for marble busts. Many celebrities have passed through his hands. Among them are Puvis de Chavannes, Octave Mirbeau, Rochefort, Roger Marx, Falguiere; and, more recently, Henley, the English poet, and The Right Hon. George Wyndham. Mr. Balfour, England's Prime Minister, belongs to the already important roll call of Rodin's sitters. One of the most successful portraits of women that he has done is that of Miss Eve Fairfax, a well-known woman in English society, whose beauty has a touch of dainty mischief in it which Rodin has not ignored. Talking of his portraits, he has said: "I am always seek- ing the distinguishing mark in my subject — that which makes this man or woman an individual different from the rest of his or her kind. And when at length I discover this trait, this dominant characteristic, I dwell upon it — even insist upon it — until my bust has something more than a mere photographic likeness." Of Rodin's recent allegorical studies, perhaps "Ugolino" is the strongest and most tragic. The incident that he has chosen shows us the Count after his downfall from power in Pisa, when, starved almost to the point of death by his former subjects, he kneels, with two of his sons and two grandsons dying beside him, to plead for mercy where he had shown none, and for the absolution that is refused him. The figure, which is nude, expresses the most appalling mental and bodily suffering, and the grouping is a master- piece of dramatic effect. Looking at this marvelous work A Personal Study of Rodin 355 of art, comparable only to the terrible Laocoon of the Vatican, one realizes why Rodin has been called " a Shake- speare in Stone." In his villa at Meudon, simple as a workingman's cot- tage, he rests and reflects, quite apart from the bustle of the busy world. On Sundays he entertains his most inti- mate friends, strolls through the neighboring woods, or attends mass at Notre-Dame to revel in the sacred chants of which he is so fond. For though not an orthodox be- liever, yet he is profoundly religious, and he finds an intense repose in the quiet hour of vespers in the great church. In the summer evenings he sits in his garden and reads the works of the great writers which have inspired him in his art; for though, in contradictory fashion, the world has accused him of being "too literary in his sculpture," it yet looks upon him as anything but a scholar, and credits him with little knowledge of books and music. This idea is possibly due to the fact that he rarely talks of his knowl- edge of the Fine Arts; but his eyes fight up with instant sympathy and understanding whenever he does talk. Dante is his literary idol, as Michelangelo is his master in art. He loves Victor Hugo and Charles Baudelaire also. The modern philosophers and pessimists, however, he can neither understand nor tolerate; and Nietzsche he holds in especial horror. No one would accuse him of being a "small" man. "I am not made for the little things of life," he says simply, modestly. Yet he is never guilty of a discourteous action, and no great man is more particular to answer as far as possible the many calls made upon him. Both in France and in England he is much sought after in society, but only in the latter country does he consent to yield to the inevitable excitement of social functions. "France is my workshop, the country of my creations." 356 The Fine Arts But England is a holiday place where, as president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers, he is often called to combine art with social pleasures, and his quiet, dignified figure is getting to be well known in some of the most fashionable and exclusive drawing-rooms in London. Many young artists bring their work to him for criticism; and, though he is sometimes brutally truthful and never lavish in his praise, he is always quick to recognize good work. Like all truly great men, he has little sympathy with "pose" or "artistic jargon," and laughs at such words as "inspiration" and "genius" in the claptrap sense in which they are commonly used and abused in every-day talk. There is only one way to glory for him, and that is the long and difficult road of hard work and painstaking almost incredible — a road which, as he says, so few have the patience to tread to-day. "The old true tradition of work is a thing of the past," is what Anatole France said to him sadly one day, as they discussed the tendency of the times toward trickery and the false in art, and the disin- clination men showed to struggle and fight for fame — that sort of fame which alone is worth having. There is a something about Rodin, both in his work and his person- ality, which suggests very strongly great Nature herself, so infinite is his patience, so deliberate and unfaltering his purpose, and so indifferent does he remain to the smaller things of life. Although he has received the cross of the Legion of Honor, and now has a large following of admirers the world over, there is still an indefinable coolness between him and the Academies. In the midst of all this strife and contention the subject of it all calmly pursues his way, both dreaming and doing great things, leaving others to talk. There, in his garden, with his books, his dogs, an occa- A Personal Study of Rodin 357 sional cigar (until two years ago he did not smoke at all), and a few intimate friends, he spends his rare leisure hours. The rest of his time is given with whole-hearted devotion to working in his studio, surrounded by his stonecutters, hewing the marble blocks after the clay models. And that vast studio — even to the covers which protect the marble from the smoke of passing trains in the Valley of the Seine below — gives evidence of the care and thought that he bestows upon that Art which, in the opinion of the world's best judges, has not had so magical an interpreter since Michelangelo. In the following words M. Rodin tells what is his own conception of his art : "What is the principle of my figures, and what is it people like in them? It is the very pivot of art, it is bal- ance; that is to say, the oppositions of volume produced by movement. . . . The human body is like a walking temple, and like a temple it has a central point around which the volumes place and spread themselves. When one understands that, one has everything. It is simple but it must be seen, and academism refuses to seek it. Instead of recognizing that that is the key to my method, they pre- fer to say that I am a poet. The expression signifies that people feel, confusedly, the difference between an art rest- ing on conventions and one derived from truth; they call that inspiration. That is the belief that has led to the theory of genius being madness. But men of genius are just those who, by^ their trade skill, carry the essential thing to perfection. People say that my sculpture is that of an 'exalte.' I do not deny that there is exaltation in my works; but that exaltation existed not in me, but in nature, in movement. The divine work is naturally ex- alted. As for me, all I do is to be true; my temperament is not 'exalted,' it is patient." DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH 1 By EDWIN A. ROCKWELL LREADY has the morning dawned for sculp- tural art in America, and appreciation of it is mainly due to the work of American sculptors. In quality and in number of works, as well as in influence on aesthetic culture, no sculptor is more prominent than Daniel Chester French. In the loftiest meaning of the term he is an American. Nobility is perhaps the only word that indicates his special message, and nobility is a complex result of sen- sitiveness, imagination, intellectual acumen, and perfect craftsmanship. Mr. French came from a family of high-thinking, though perhaps not plain-living, New Englanders, — connections of the Websters and the Whittiers. His grandfather was a chief justice and his father a judge, and at one time assistant secretary of the treasury. As a boy Mr. French attended lectures on anatomy given in Boston by Dr. William Rimmer, who influenced him greatly and helped him to lay a good foundation for future progress. Other aid and encouragement were re- ceived from Thomas Ball, in whose studio, at Florence, Italy, Mr. French spent a year and a half. Later Mr. French studied from the model in Paris, but in the main this American Greek was practically self-taught. While he studied in Europe he was convinced that his was the message of an American to Americans. 1 From "The International Studio." Copyright, 1910, by the John Lane Company. 358 Daniel Chester French 359 In his thirty years of productiveness never has Mr. French been concerned with fluctuating tastes in the plastic art; nevertheless his works are popular through their intrinsic beauty and his power of expression in many and varied themes. He is not one of the primi- tives, struggling in suffering and sorrow in the effort to show fleeting manifestations of human life and thought. His concept is never amorphous, but with exquisite re- serve and self-control he kneads his idea until the ideal becomes the real. With precisely the feeling of the old Greeks he suppresses the immaterial, goes to the center of his thought. His constructive imagination does the rest. Mr. French's early passion was patriotism; in imagina- tion he lived in a gallery of national types that found utterance in his first and possibly only emotional work, "The Minute Man," at Concord, Mass. While strong, it is no exaggeration of the spirit of the warrior farmer of Revolutionary days. Another of his early works was the Concord, Mass., bust of Emerson, whose features he found so mobile, delicate, and sensitive, that he de- spaired of catching the likeness, so he took accurate meas- urements in Emerson's study. On seeing the completed bust the essayist said: "That is the face that I shave." Already the young sculptor had found how to voice suppressed emotion and yet to deliver his message with the vigor and strength of the subject, — a rare achieve- ment in plastic portraiture. Then followed the ideal statue of John Harvard, at Harvard University, wherein Mr. French accented Puri- tanism by leanness of drapery and perhaps too tight drawing of the lines, but there was demonstrated mastery of poise, calmness, and repose. When Mr. French's statue of General Lewis Cass, of 360 The Fine Arts Michigan, now in the Hall of Statuary at Washington, D.C., was modeled, his Americanism was oratorical and emphatic. In Paris, where the statue was made, French critics held that it was not good art to poise the figure with equal weight on the^legs, but the sculptor was amused at the criticism, especially when it was intimated that the alleged fault was one of ignorance. In repro- ducing the sturdy attitude of his subject he was true to the character of the original. In technique the statue was a revelation, with its mellow flesh, crisp and col- orful drapery, as well as its individuality of expression. Thenceforward Mr. French's American note was pro- nounced, rich and full; like the organ diapason it is never lacking when occasion offers. He created fine intellectual and commanding heads in figures for the St. Louis customhouse, the Philadelphia courthouse, and the Boston post office, all involving essential parts of large decorative works. But probably Mr. French's most popular, because most ringing, notes in patriotism have been struck in his equestrian statues. Working with E. C. Potter, an admirable sculptor, the artists freely exchanged views as to each other's work from conception to execution, Mr. French completing the man and Mr. Potter the horse. Mr. Potter, by the way, has made several standing statues as well as two equestrian statues, and has just finished a statue of General George A. Custer, the hero of the Little Big Horn. Mr. French's soldiers have martial sentiment. The carriage of General Joseph Hooker in the statue on the State House grounds at Boston is quiet but impres- sive; that of General Grant, in Fairmount Park, Phila- delphia, shows calmness and meditation in the soldier as he fixes his gaze on a critical movement on the battle- Daniel Chester French 361 field. Those of General Charles Devens, at Worcester, Massachusetts, and Washington, which stands in the Place d'lena, in Paris, are equally impressive. A replica of this equestrian statue has been erected in Washington Park, Chicago, 111. The face of the commander shows a glorified expression as he directs his gaze toward heaven in an appeal for the justification of his cause when he is about to leave the little band of Americans at Cambridge. The peaceful flower of Mr. French's love for his coun- try, however, was the gigantic statue, or perhaps monu- ment, "Republic," at the World's Fair in Chicago. The long, straight sweep of drapery gave to it archaic severity and enhanced its dignity, and all the lines led to the "stern, sweet face" that, photographed and copied on a smaller scale, still mirrors in many homes the Ameri- can's loftiest idealization of his country. It marks Mr. French's middle period, when he was most actively a part of the life about him, when his vision grew still wider. Passing to later work, Mr. French's acute and compre- hensive mind took a forward step in the groups, "Asia," "Europe," "America," and "Africa," on the new custom- house in New York. With their varied groupings they are rich in imagination and suggestion, combined with realism. Elemental ideas are enunciated with astonishing origi- nality, considering that the subjects are trite. Avoiding the mystical equally with the commonplace, Mr. French strikes a middle path. Only profound skill in arrange- ment and virility and grace in the modeling of the many figures could evoke works of such dignity and beauty. His earlier experience in decorative work in other cities gave him power in making the countries, separately typified, essential parts of the building as well as effec- tive objects in the neighboring perspective. Always difficult is the solution of the problem of giving 362 The Fine Arts unity of -effect with divers materials. In this instance, in the gathering of allegorical figures, the problem was more complex than any he had as yet attempted. In the solution of it the breadth, weight, and mass were preserved by treating each statue as if it were one block, so that in each one sees and is impressed by the altitude, the mass, the advance and retreat of figure perspective, as well as by graceful curves, from each of the three pos- sible angles of vision. In the same calm spirit and with the same sure touch have been created other works of a purely ideal char- acter, such as "Justice, Knowledge, and Force," at the courthouse of the New York Appellate Division of the Supreme Court; the heroic statues, "Greek Religion," personified in Minerva, and "Greek Lyric Poetry," soon to be placed with others on the facade of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The Richard M. Hunt memorial on Fifth Avenue, near Seventieth Street, New York City, with the virile portrait of the architect, and, on either side in bronze, "Painting," "Sculpture," and "Architecture," as incidental details, and the portrait statue of De Witt Clinton in the new Chamber of Com- merce in New York City, are other noteworthy examples of Mr. French's work. But why add to the list? Mr. French's works adorn cities from New York to California. The sculptor, who was to be distinguished for noble, tender, and poetic achievement, did not early display these qualities. One of his first efforts was a low bas- relief, the recollection of which now makes him smile, for low relief is one of the most difficult means of sculp- tural expression, requiring roundness in effect though not in fact, besides composition with foreshortening in both figure and drapery reduced to the ethereal. Daniel Chester French 363 In the fullness of his mature powers he finds in bas- relief the finest mode for his thought. This was seen long ago at the Columbian Exposition, when "The Angel of Death and the Young Sculptor" elicited the enthusiastic admiration of thousands of persons. This is now the Martin Milmore memorial in the Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston. Arrested action speaks in the figure of the young artisan, stricken to eternal silence by the outstretched hand of a mysterious winged figure at his side. Be it angel or be it Death, it appears as bringing peace and rest. Mr. French has preached a tender sermon on the immortality of the soul. There is no pagan doubt or questioning in a futile outlook across the Styx. With fixed and unflinching vision the artist gazes into the unseen world, present or hereafter, in no tremor of fear and with no sinking in despair. This mysterious mes- senger stands for love eternal, for Him who "shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." It must be added that there is a technical triumph in the economy of effort in the angel's wings, in the simplified and ethereal blending of the forms, and in the overshadowing mass of drapery that lends added solemnity. It is in the spiritual world that Mr. French finds his verities, his tenderness and strength and poetry, passion purged of its dross, transient existence passing on to and swallowed up in eternity. Honors and offices are his, but that which doubtless lies closest to his heart is the gratification of living to see a higher appreciation of sculpture in America and the feeling that none more than he has helped to bring it about. FREDERIC REMINGTON 1 By GILES EDGERTON JHEN Frederic Remington left Yale, in eighteen hundred and eighty, his art heroes were de Neuville and Detaille, and his col- lege record was largely important as a trium- phant forward in some of the greatest football games Yale has ever played for a record. And mere art prizes did not then seem nearly so significant as being lifted on the shoulders of yelling youngsters and borne aloft across college campus with music and cheers. In those wonderful days of real success, Remington's interest in a national development was muscular rather than artistic. For, after all, there were still men in Paris who could conduct the business of painting soldiers and heroes for some years longer, but when it came to college athletics and the right forward on the spot and a blue pennant always floating around victory, there was indeed work to be done for the nation, to the accom- plishment of which a national art must for the moment be subservient. And then, just at a time when these vital matters were being adjusted to the satisfaction of Yale and the universe, quite unexpectedly the problem of earning a living presented itself, abruptly and determinedly. This was solved temporarily by a political desk at Albany; but clerking, figures, and dull repetition in an office had not so great an appeal to a lad whose days had been 1 By courteous consent of the Author and " The Craftsman." Copy- right, 1909. 364 Frederic Remington 365 spent in joyous sport or with imagination thrilling at an easel. Discontent stalked in at this juncture; the one release that seemed to offer was along art lines, and so Remington planned a trip to the West and began the first steps in the development of his career. Though Remington's earliest work was technically wholly imitative, born of hero worship and absolutely without individuality or permanent value, the human side of the artist was from the start restless with old- world ideals and unconsciously struggling toward a more natural art expression. Tradition had enveloped him at the art school, as nearly all art training at that time took for its standard of excellence the Beaux-Arts and Julian's Atelier; and yet, somehow, even in the earliest days, Remington's natural bent was toward the expres- sion of a simpler, more definite condition of life, and he longed from his first dream of the West to get at those extraordinary picturesque phases of existence which were then in full flower on our plains and mountain tops. Remington's attitude toward life was always, from the time that he first put on a uniform at the Worcester Military Academy, unqualifiedly that of an American citizen. He had the temperament which makes for hot- headed patriotism, definitely chivalrous, insular; an imagination which fired readily and loyally for that stretch of land, the greatest in his geography. This was set compactly down between the Atlantic and the Pacific, bounded on the north by Canada and on the south by Mexico, Lower California, and the Gulfs, — a new land with a young history, redolent with a fresh kind of beauty, all color and vividness, and as yet unexpressed in art. And thus, while pictures most flattering to de Neuville and Detaille were produced, they really grew out of a 366 The Fine Arts supersoil and were quite unrelated to the actual funda- mental quality of the youth, which was eventually to override early training and develop an individuality of such virility and honesty that it could only satisfactorily achieve by breaking new ground, doing pioneer work in the art history of America. Not intentional pioneer work, for the self-constituted pioneer, as a self-appointed reformer, does not achieve much beyond a picturesque pose enjoyed by an immediate family and a friendly biographer, but rather the opening of new trails, the opportunity for which is occasionally given to a man in religion or art or science because of the pressure of his own creative personality — that mysterious human dy- namic force which, not understanding, we have labeled genius. And so young Mr. Lochinvar hurried out of the art schools, which were essaying to make a tidy mural dec- orator of his burning, blundering, unformulated gift, and sought the West, palette in hand. As far from the beaten track as possible he traveled on a broncho pony. He herded cattle with cowboys, shot antelope and buffalo on the trail for the provender necessary for his life. He camped with the Indians, with the real red- men who did not speak English, and made pottery deco- rated with the American flag. The Indians of the plains that Remington knew, — learned actually to know, — and that he painted, were men of fine religious ideals, dignity of life, with decency of social intercourse and often of great personal beauty and serenity of character; men with the reserve of philosophers, which they were, — great chiefs over a clean people. This pioneer artist stayed in the West long enough to learn to appreciate these people, all their ways of thinking and working, all the environment of their vast inspiring country, their Frederic Remington 367 legends and their customs. And he lived there, not as a sightseer or as one prying into their lives, but because he liked it; he wanted to see it all, to realize it as one of the nation to whom it belonged. The Indian character of those days was something worth striving to under- stand, to absorb, to glory in, and eventually to express in art. Slowly the artist side of Remington's nature began to apprehend the great final fact that this wonderful en- chanted land of limitless undulating prairies, of strange sudden blazing daybreak and slow ineffable twilight trailing off to the dawn of all creation, of opalescent mists and purple nights of abounding mystery, of a people serene, simple, loyal, moving silently, perhaps unconsciously, in picturesque accouterment, to oblivion, — all this stupendous romantic appeal was his to express on canvas for a world as yet blind to the marvels of the life which he was living. And then all that quality of national pride and devotion which might, under other circumstances, have welled up into patriotism, the making of a soldier, went once and for all into an enthusiasm for the country itself, and the purpose, to express that country in an art which should become a part of our national achievement. For it is just as true that to achieve in art men must paint with a purpose, as that purpose must stand back of scientific attainment, financial success, or the literature that locks hands with fame. Mere technique, however excellent, must be ephemeral in either art or literature when regarded as the end as well as the means to high accom- plishment. Of course, there is always danger of confusing purpose with sentiment in art, of painting stories rather than conditions, — a very different matter indeed. A senti- 368 The Fine Arts mental rehash of a universal emotional tendency is not significant to art; but the presentation of general or specific instances of definite conditions inherent in a civilization, that is vital, for it is putting on record the peculiar personality of a nation which is of interest to future generations of all nations. From an apprehen- sion of this fact we come to a fuller understanding of Remington's significance to American art history; for posterity will seek his work not only as a painter of exceptional interest, but as a pioneer worker in the pre- sentation of phases of American civilization. And from one point of view at least his work will be valued in proportion as he succeeded in portraying existing condi- tions with a fresh open mind and with a right gift for their expression. When Remington finally returned to New York from the West he found an indifferent public. The one maga- zine which would consent to consider his detour out into a country without a precedent was "Harper's Weekly," and the editor there turned his virile work over to a home-grown artist to smooth out his too individual note, conform its technique to at least a semblance of the prevailing style in art; and so, humble and chastened, this first pioneer work appeared. And no one seemed to care at all. There was no enthusiasm; scarcely enough response even for the daily bread problem. Of opportunity for painting or sculpture there was none at all. The beauty of the great West, its marvel- ous desert colors, its mystery and strangeness, found no audience. But there was occasionally a daring writer who saw in the West dramatic and venturesome oppor- tunities, and these stories required illustration, which could be done just as well by a man familiar with the country as by the staff artist. And so for time being Frederic Remington 369 Remington became an illustrator of stories of Western life, and having purpose in his work and that courage which we have already attested as being of a soldier- like quality, he became a particularly good illustrator, not only of the Indians and. aboriginal life of the West, but of the cowboys and their environment, of the Chinese Brawling stealthily in on the Northwestern frontier, of the Western miner, of every phase of life which appealed to his interest in America and to the settled purpose of bis art. Yet, although it is essential that a good illus- trator should equally be a great artist, it is also a fact that a great artist may not forever remain an illus- trator. He must give his individuality a chance, once in a, while, or perish. Thus it came about that Remington abruptly ceased to appear in the magazines. One or two small exhibits of his paintings were held. But the public was not ready, and perhaps in the main Rem- ngton himself was not ready for the public. For although he had accomplished freedom for himself in lis choice of material, he had not as yet wholly achieved a final method of handling this material. He still occa- sionally suggested the ways of Paris in color and brush jrark, and if no longer imitating his beloved Frenchmen, le was still at least not wholly free from their influence. Then these tentative exhibits of his work were with- irawn, and Remington turned his back upon his native and for a while, traveling the world well over, studying ;he significant conditions of existence wherever they lad interest or appeal for him. He entirely ceased to jaint; he even lost confidence, or thought he did, in his )wn purpose to present America in his art. He sketched Elussia's peasants, — most valuable and extraordinary iocuments, these sketches. There was in them that yhich might have been a warning to the high authori- 370 The Fine Arts ties of that land had they seen them, and chosen to un- derstand. There were other sketches of the laborers, the busy people, the sufferers of each land, which held a. genuine interest for him. At this time he also did a certain vivid, convincing, essentially American series of articles. There was a long period of this desultory roaming about, testing his skill and his impulse toward art, of uncertainty, of restless seeking after satisfaction in new channels. At the end of ten years of Wanderlust he just as abruptly turned back to his own country and to his old purpose of the presenting of America, of the great picturesque West, that and that alone, in all that he might have to say on canvas or in bronze. During the unsettled years of roaming and tenta- tive efforts along new lines, Remington devoted some time to modeling, and for this work he used only the West as his inspiration. And through that creative qual- ity which wrested him from the art schools, he made it possible, with the help of Signor Bertelli, to cast his own statues in the cire perdu process, an achieve- ment which had never been accomplished in this country. It was very typical of Remington's pioneer point of view that he should thus produce for- himself the very best possible channels of expression, recreating where necessary the finest methods of Europe in her greatest days of bronze work, accepting nothing less than the best for himself or as a medium of expression. Thus, Remington's bronzes will have a threefold interest to the student of American art: first, because of the sub- ject which he selected; second, because of the develop- ment of a technique which was suited to these subjects; and third, because he insisted that the artisan's side of the work should be done better than it had ever been done before in America. Frederic Remington 371 After Remington's return to painting in 1902, he worked only for what he considered the very best that he could achieve along those lines which he had found essential for his development as an artist, regardless of the magazines, the public, or the dealer. Having made this decision, he achieved the fullest and freest expres- sion for his individual ideas, choosing only those sub- jects which he felt are vastly significant to us as a nation and suiting his technique with infinite variety to the most sympathetic expression of these ideas. What more complete justification for such a course could an artist ask than Remington's exhibit in the winter of 1909 at Knoedler's? No advertising canvas of the country to bring people to look at his pictures; no play in any subject for popular approval; no swerv- ing to the smallest degree from his original purpose or from the development of that purpose along lines most satisfactory to himself, an artist without fear and with much reproach, yet a result of success beyond the greatest hopes of the student of years ago. In all his later work Remington portrayed the Indians of the West as they appeared to one another, and the cowboy and the scout and the traveler, each as typical as the characters in Bret Harte's stories, and as individual; all vivid, alive, illustrating the full flower and the ap- proaching death of a certain phase of our civilization. And above and beyond all his extraordinary presenta- tion of the people and their picturesque existence is the absolute quality of the West itself, — the bronze of the day, the green of the twilight, the wind that stifles, the sun that blinds, the prairies that glisten and quiver with thirst, water that is a mockery, and storms that are born and vanish in the sky. And each phase of this marvelous country expressed through a medium so fluid, 372 The Fine Arts so flexible, so finally sympathetic that you become as un- conscious of it as was the artist himself when he painted. The one influence that Remington acknowledged frankly as of value to him in these later years of work is Monet; not his subjects or his individual technique, but his theory of light in relation to his art, which much simplified is nothing more nor less than that all a man needs to see, study, and bring to his canvas is light; that paint is merely the means of transferring the sug- gestion of light to a picture, a medium which should be used almost unconsciously, through which a man's ex- pression of light becomes so fixed that a picture glows and quivers until it seems to exude the very palpitating quality which light itself holds, which is one of the mys- terious suggestions of sentient life. And in these later pictures, those recently exhibited, for instance, there was a most extraordinary variation of this quality of light flooding canvas after canvas. In one, a harsh bronze light glittered over parched prairies and alkaline waters; in another there was the silver radiance of a sparkling winter high noon; again, the tender ineffable light of a gray-green early night with stars glistening through the thick soft atmosphere. And perhaps the most extraordinary suggestion of light streamed out of a painting in which the flaunting wind- blown camp fire breaks the blackness of night and opens spaces in the dark for fear, or sorrow, or revenge to show on the faces of the men about the fire. One grows — almost always in Remington's more recent pictures — to look first for the light over the canvas, not for the detail or the color or the outline, although these also are presented with the utmost understanding of good crafts- manship; for Remington learned to paint, or rather largely taught himself to paint, from the ground up, as Frederic Remington 373 one of his cowboys would say, and the intricacies of careful drawing, the subtleties of well-related color, and the values of balanced composition he knew as a great pianist first understands his scales and his keyboard, and to a perfected knowledge of all these details he added the extraordinary and intangible quality which suggests the actual mystery of life itself. And thus while Remington is utterly remote from Monet in type and subject and manner of technique, theoretically they are most closely allied in understanding and inspiration. And now to account for the final entire acceptance of Remington's work by the American public after years of indifference, of misunderstanding and academic un- certainty. Is it because the seed that he sowed at the start was slowly taking root, pushing up through the soil of a certain national stupidity, or is it a more general awakening of the nation toward all her art possibilities? Most likely it is both of these conditions. Remington believed, with all the enthusiasm possible, in this present awakening in art matters, and that we are just now at the beginning of a development along art lines such as few nations have experienced. But as for himself, he felt that his art found recognition as he withdrew from limitations of any description, and, with all the growth and experience of years added to his early formed purpose of a definite national feeling in his work, permitted himself to express fully and freely his own individual point of view, saying what he had to say frankly and as personally as he chose. Absolute free- dom of mind and expression — these he achieved, and then the public response was immediate. And perma- nent? Assuredly permanent, if we are making the prog- ress in art development which Frederic Remington so enthusiastically prophesied for us as a nation. THE ART OF MILLET 1 By KENYON COX CAN FRANCOIS MILLET, who lived hard and died poor, is now perhaps the most famous artist of the nineteenth century. His slightest work is fought for by dealers and collectors, and his more important pictures, if they chance to change hands, bring colossal andalmostincredibleprices. And of all modern reputations his, so far as we can see, seems most likely to be enduring. If any painter of the immediate past is definitively numbered with the great masters, it is he. Yet the popular admiration for his art is based on a misapprehension almost as profound as that of those who decried and opposed him. They thought him violent, rude, ill educated, a "man of the woods," a revolutionist, almost a communist. We are apt to think of him as a gentle sen- timentalist, a soul full of compassion for the hard lot of the poor, a man whose art achieves greatness by sheer feeling rather than by knowledge and intellect. In spite of his own letters, in'spite of the testimony of many who knew him well, in spite of more than one piece of illuminating criticism, these two misconceptions endure; and, for the many, Millet is still either the painter of "The Man with the Hoe," a powerful but somewhat exceptional work, or the painter of "L'Angelus," precisely the least charac- teristic picture he ever produced. There is a legendary Millet, in many ways a very different man from the real 1 By permission of the Author and Charles Scribner's Sons. Copy- right, 1908. 374 The Art of Millet 375 one; and while the facts of his life are well known and undisputed, the interpretation of them is colored by pre- conceptions and strained to make them fit the legend. Altogether too much, for instance, has been made of the fact that Millet was born a peasant. He was so, but so were half the artists and poets who come up to Paris and fill the schools and the cafes of the student quarters. To any one who has known these young rapins, and wondered at the grave and distinguished members of the Institute into which many of them have afterwards developed, it is evident that this studious youth — who read Vergil in the original, and Homer, and Shakespeare, and Goethe in trans- lations — probably had a much more cultivated mind and a much sounder education than most of his fellow students under Delaroche. Seven years after this Norman farmer's son came to Paris, with a pension of six hundred francs voted by the Town Council of Cherbourg, the son of a Breton sabot- maker followed him there with a precisely similar pension voted by the Town Council of Roche-sur-Yon; and the pupil of Langlois had had at least equal opportunities with the pupil of Sartoris. Both cases were entirely typical of French methods of encouraging the fine arts, and the peas- ant origin of Millet is precisely as significant as the peasant origin of Baudry. Baudry persevered in the course marked out for him, and, after failing three times, received the Prix de Rome and became the pensioner of the state. Millet took um- brage at Delaroche's explanation that his support was already pledged to another candidate for the prize, and left the atelier of that master after little more than a year's work. But that he had already acquired most of what was to be learned there is shown, if by nothing else, by that master's promise to push him for the prize the year follow- 376 The Fine Arts ing. This was in 1838, and for a year or two longer Millet worked in the life classes of Suisse and Boudin without a master. His pension was first cut down, and then withdrawn altogether, and he was thrown upon his own resources. His struggles and his poverty during the next few years were those of many a young artist, aggravated, in his case, by two imprudent marriages. But during all the time that he was painting portraits in Cherbourg or little nudes in Paris he was steadily gaining a reputation and making friends. If we had not the pictures themselves to show us how able and how well trained a workman he was, the story told us by Wyatt Eaton in "Modern French Masters" would convince us. It was in the last year of Millet's life that he told the young American how, in his early days, a dealer would come to him for a picture, and "having nothing painted, he would offer the dealer a book, and ask him to wait for a little while that he might add a few touches to the picture." He would then go into his studio and take a fresh canvas, or a panel, and in two hours bring out a little nude figure, which he had painted during that time, and for which he would receive twenty or twenty-five francs." It was the work of this time that Diaz admired for its color and its "immortal flesh-painting"; that caused Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, to tell his master that Millet was the finest draftsman of the new school; that earned for its author the title of "master of the nude. " He did all kinds of work in these days, even painting signs and illustrating sheet music, and it was all capital practice for a young man, but it was not what he wanted to do. A great deal has been made of the story of his overhearing some one speak of him as "a fellow who never paints any- thing but naked women," and he is represented as under- The Art of Millet 377 going something like a sudden conversion and as resolving to "do no more of the devil's work." As a matter of fact he had, from the first, wanted to paint "men at work in the fields" with their "fine atti- tudes," and he only tried his hand at other things because he had his living to earn. Sensier saw what seems to have been the first sketch for "The Sower" as early as 1847, and it existed long before that, while "The Winnower" was exhibited in 1848; and the overheard conversation is said to have taken place in 1849. There was nothing indecent or immoral in Millet's early work, and the best proof that he felt no moral reprobation for the painting of the nude — as what true painter, espe- cially in France, ever did? — is that he returned to it in the height of his power and, in the picture of the little "Goose Girl" by the brookside, her slim, young body bared for the bath, produced the loveliest of his works. No, what happened to Millet in 1849 was simply that he resolved to do no more pot-boiling, to consult no one's taste but his own, to paint what he pleased and as he pleased, if he starved for it. He went to Barbizon for a summer's holiday and to escape the cholera. He stayed there be- cause living was cheap and the place was healthy, and because he could find there the models and the subjects on which he built his highly abstract and ideal art. At Barbizon he neither resumed the costume nor led the life of a peasant. He wore sabots, as hundreds of other artists have done, before and since, when living in the country in France. Sabots are very cheap and very dry, and not uncomfortable when you have acquired the knack of wearing them. In other respects he dressed and lived like a small bourgeois, and was monsieur to the people about him. Barbizon was already a summer resort for art- ists before he came there, and the inn was full of painters, 378 The Fine Arts while others, of whom Rousseau was one, were settled there more or less permanently. It was but a short distance from Paris, and the exhibitions and museums were readily- accessible. The life that Millet lived there was that of many poor, self-respecting, hard-working artists, and if he had been a landscape painter that life would never have seemed in any way exceptional. It is only because he was a painter of the figure that it seems odd he should have lived in the country; only because he painted peasants that he has been thought of as a peasant himself. If he accepted the name, with a kind of pride, it was in protest against the frivolity and artificiality of the fashionable art of the day. But if too much has been made of Millet's peasant origin, perhaps hardly enough has been made of his race. It is at least interesting that the two Frenchmen whose art has most in common with his, Nicolas Poussin and Pierre Cor- neille, should have been Normans like himself. In the severely restrained, grandly simple, profoundly classical work of these three men, that hard-headed, strong-handed, austere, and manly race has found its artistic expression. For Millet is neither a revolutionary nor a sentimentalist, nor even a romanticist; he is essentially a classicist of the classicists, a conservative of the conservatives, the one modern exemplar of the grand style. It is because his art is so old that it was "too new" for even Corot to under- stand it; because he harked back beyond the pseudo- classicism of his time to the great art of the past, and was classic as Phidias and Giotto and Michelangelo were classic, that he seemed strange to his contemporaries. In everything he was conservative. He hated change; he wanted things to remain as they had always been. He did not especially pity the hard lot of the peasant; he con- sidered it the natural and inevitable lot of man who "eats The Art of Millet 379 bread in the sweat of his brow." He wanted the people he painted "to look as if they belonged to their place — as if it would be impossible for them ever to think of being any- thing else but what they are." In the herdsman and the shepherd, the sower and the reaper, he saw the immemorial types of humanity whose labors have endured since the world began and were essentially what they now are when Vergil wrote his ' ' Georgics ' ' and when Jacob kept the flocks of Laban. This is the note of all his work. It is the per- manent, the essential, the eternally significant that he paints. The apparent localization of his subjects in time and place is an illusion. He is not concerned with the nine- teenth century or with Barbizon, but with mankind. At the very moment when the English Pre-Raphaelites were trying to found a great art on the exhaustive imitation of natural detail, he eliminated detail as much as possible. At the very beginning of our modern preoccupation with the direct representation of facts, he abandoned study from the model almost entirely, and could say that he "had never painted from nature." His subjects would have struck the amiable Sir Joshua as trivial, yet no one has ever more completely followed that writer's precepts. His confession of faith is in the words, "One must be able to make use of the trivial for the expression of the sublime; " and this painter of "rustic genre" is the world's greatest master of the sublime after Michelangelo. The comparison with Michelangelo is inevitable, and has been made again and again by those who have felt the elemental grandeur of Millet's work. As a recent writer has remarked, "An art highly intellectualized, so as to convey a great idea with the lucidity of language, must needs be controlled by genius akin to that which inspired the ceiling paintings of the Sistine Chapel." 380 The Fine Arts This was written of the Trajanic sculptors, whose works both Michelangelo and Millet studied and admired, and indeed it is to this old Roman art, or to the still older art of Greece, that one must go for the truest parallel of Mil- let's temper and his manner of working. He was less impa- tient, less romantic and emotional, than Michelangelo; he was graver, quieter, more serene; and if he had little of the Greek sensuousness and the Greek love of physical beauty, he had much of the antique clarity and simplicity. To express his idea clearly, logically, and forcibly; to make works of art that should be "all of a piece" and in which "things should be where they are for a purpose; " to admit nothing for display, for ornament, even for beauty, that did not necessarily and inevitably grow out of his central theme, and to suppress with an iron rigidity everything useless or superfluous — this was his constant and con- scious effort. It is an ideal eminently austere and intel- lectual — an ideal, above all, especially and eternally classic. Take, for an instance, the earliest of his masterpieces, the first great picture by which he marked his emancipa- tion and his determination, henceforth, to produce art as he understood it without regard to thepreferencesof others. Many of his preliminary drawings and studies exist, and we can trace, more or less clearly, the process by which the final result was arrived at. At first we have merely a peasant sowing grain; an everyday incident, truly enough observed, but nothing more. Gradually the background is cut down, the space restricted, the figure enlarged until it fills its frame as a metope of the Parthenon is filled. The gesture is ever enlarged and given more sweep and majesty, the silhouette is simplified and divested of all accidental or insignificant detail. A thousand previous observations are compared and resumed in one general and comprehensive The Art of Millet 381 formula, and the typical has been evolved from the actual. What generations of Greek sculptors did in their slow perfectioning of certain fixed types he has done almost at once. We have no longer a man sowing, but "The Sbwer" justifying the title he instinctively gave it by its air of per- manence, of inevitability, of universality. All the signifi- cance which there is or ever has been for mankind in that primeval action of sowing the seed is crystallized into its necessary expression. The thing is done once for all, and need never — can never be done again. Has any one else had this power since Michelangelo created his "Adam"? If even Millet never again attained quite the august impressiveness of this picture, it is because no other action of rustic man has so wide or so deep a meaning for us as this of sowing. All the meaning there is in an action he could make us feel with entire certainty, and he always proceeds by this method of elimination, concentration, simplifica- tion, insistence on the essential and the essential only. One of the most perfect of all his pictures — more per- fect than "The Sower" on account of qualities of mere painting, of color, and of the rendering of landscape, of which I shall speak later — is "The Gleaners." Here one figure is not enough to express the continuousness of the movement; the utmost simplification will not make you feel, as powerfully as he wishes you to feel it, the crawling progress, the bending together of back and thighs, the groping of worn fingers in the stubble. The line must be reinforced and reduplicated, and a second figure, almost a facsimile of the first, is added. Even this is not enough. He adds a third figure, not gathering the ear, but about to do so, standing, but stooped forward and bounded by one great, almost uninterrupted curve from the peak of the cap over her eyes to the heel which half slips out of the sabot, and the thing is done. The whole day's work is 382 The Fine Arts resumed in that one moment. The task has endured for hours, and will endure till sunset, with only an occasional break, while the back is half straightened — there is not time to straighten it wholly. It is the triumph of sig- nificant composition, as "The Sower" is the triumph of significant draftsmanship. Or, when an action is more complicated and difficult of suggestion, as is that, for instance, of digging, he takes it at the beginning and at the end, as in "The Spaders," and makes you understand everything between. One man is doubled over his spade, his whole weight brought to bear on the pressing foot which drives the blade into the ground. The other, with arms outstretched, gives the twisting motion which lets the loosened earth fall where it is to lie. Each of these positions is so thoroughly under- stood and so definitely expressed that all the other posi- tions of the action are implied in them. You feel the recurrent rhythm of the movement and could almost count the falling of the clods. So far did Millet push the elimination of non-essentials that his heads have often scarcely any features, his hands, one might say, are without fingers, and his draperies are so simplified as to suggest the witty remark that his peas- ants were too poor to afford any folds in their garments. The setting of the great bony planes of jaw and cheek and temple, the bulk and solidity of the skull, and the direction of the face — these were, often enough, all he wanted of a head. Look at the hand of the woman in "The Potato Plant- ers," or at those of the man in the same picture, and see how little detail there is in them, yet how surely the mas- ter's sovereign draftsmanship has made you feel their actual structure and function. And how inevitably the garments, with their few and simple folds, mold and ac- The Art of Millet 383 cent the figures beneath them, "becoming, as it were, a part of the body, and expressing, even more than the nude, the larger and simpler forms of nature." How explicitly the action of the bodies is registered, how perfectly the amount of effort apparent is proportioned to the end to be attained! One can feel, to an ounce, it seems, the strain upon the muscles implied by that hoeful of earth. Or look at the easier attitude of "The Grafter," engaged upon his gentler task, and at the monumental silhouette of the wife, standing there, babe in arms, a type of eternal motherhood and of the fruitfulness to come. Oftener than anything, perhaps, it was the sense of weight that interested Millet. It is the adjustment of her body to the weight of the child she carries that gives her statuesque pose to the wife of the grafter. It is the drag of the buckets upon the arms that gives her whole character to the magnificent "Woman Carrying Water" in the Vanderbilt collection. It is the erect carriage, the cau- tious, rhythmic walk, keeping step together, forced upon them by the sense of weight, which gives that gravity and solemnity to the bearers of "The New-born Calf" that was ridiculed by Millet's critics as more befitting the bearers of the bull Apis or the Holy Sacrament. The artist himself was explicit in this instance, as in that of the "Woman Carrying Water." "The expression of two men carrying a load on a fitter, ' he says, "naturally depends on the weight which rests upon their arms. Thus, if the weight is equal, their expression will be the same, whether they bear the Ark of the Covenant or a calf, an ingot of gold or a stone." Find that expression, whether in face or figure, render it clearly, "with largeness and sim- plicity," and you have a great, a grave, a classic work of art. "We are never so truly Greek," he said, "as when we are simply painting our own impressions." Certainly his 384 The Fine Arts own way of painting his impressions was more Greek than anything else in the whole range of modern art. In the epic grandeur of such pictures as these there is something akin to sadness, though assuredly Millet did not mean them to be sad. Did he not say of the "Woman Carrying Water," " I have avoided, as I always do, with a sort of horror, everything that might verge on the senti- mental?" He wished her to seem "to do her work simply and cheerfully ... as a part of her daily task, and the habit of her life." He could be idyllic as well, and if he could not see "the joyous side " of life or nature he could feel and make us feel the charm of tranquillity. Indeed, this remark of his about the joyous side of things was made in the dark early days when life was hardest for him. He broadened in his view as he grew older and conditions became more toler- able, and he has painted a whole series of little pictures of family life and of childhood that, in their smiling serious- ness, are endlessly delightful. The same science, the same thoughtfulness, the same concentration and intellectual grasp that defined for us thesuperb gesture of " The Sower," have gone to the depiction of the adorable uncertainty, between walking and falling, of those "First Steps" from the mother's lap to the outstretched arms of the father; and the result, in this case as in the other, is a thing per- fectly and permanently expressed. Whatever Millet has done, is done. He has "characterized the type," as it was his dream to do, and written "hands off" across his subject for all future adventurers. Finally he rises to an almost lyric fervor in that picture of the little "Goose Girl" bathing, which is one of the most purely and exquisitely beautiful things in art. In this smooth young body, quivering with anticipation of the coolness of the water; in these rounded, slender limbs with The Art of Millet 385 their long, firm, supple lines; in the unconscious, half- awkward grace of attitude, and in the glory of sunlight splashing through the shadow of the willows, there is a whole song of joy and youth and the goodness of the world. The picture exists in a drawing or pastel, which has been photographed by Braun, as well as in the oil painting, and Millet's habit of returning again and again to a favorite subject renders it difficult to be certain which is the earlier of the two; but I imagine this drawing to be a study for the picture. At first sight the figure in it is more obviously beautiful than in the other version, and it is only after a time that one begins to understand the changes that the artist was impelled to make. It is almost too graceful, too much like an antique nymph. No one could find any fault with it, but by an almost imperceptible stiffening of the line here and there, a little greater turn of the foot upon the ankle and of the hand upon the wrist, the figure in the painting has been given an accent of rusticity that makes it more human, more natural, and more appealing. She is no longer a possible Galatea or Arethusa; she is only a goose girl, and we feel but the more strongly on that account the eternal poem of the healthy human form. The especial study of the nineteenth century was landscape, and Millet was so far a man of his time that he was a great landscape painter; but his treatment of land- scape was unlike any other, and like his own treatment of the figure, in its insistence on essentials, its elimination of the accidental, its austere and grand simplicity. I have heard, somewhere, a story of his saying, in answer to praise of his work or inquiry as to his meaning: "I was trying to express the difference between the things that lie flat and the things that stand upright." That is the real motive of one of his masterpieces — one that in some moods seems the greatest of them all — "The Shepherdess," 386 The Fine Arts that is, or used to be, in the Chauchard collection. In this nobly tranquil work, in which there is no hint of sadness or revolt, are to be found all his usual inevitableness of composition and perfection of draftsmanship, — note the effect of repetition in the sheep, "forty feeding like one," : — but the glory of the picture is in the infinite recession of the plain that lies flat, the exact notation of the successive positions upon it of the things that stand upright, from the trees and the hay wain in the extreme distance, almost lost in sky, through the sheep and the sheep dog and the shepherdess herself, knitting so quietly, to the dandelions in the foreground, each with its "aureole" of light. Of these simple, geometrical relations, and of the enveloping light and air by which they are expressed, he has made a hymn of praise. The background of the " Gleaners," with its baking stub blefield under the midday sun, its grainstacks and labor- ers and distant farmstead all tremulous in the reflected waves of heat, indistinct and almost indecipherable yet unmistakable, is nearly as wonderful; and no one has ever! so rendered the solemnity and the mystery of night as has he in the marvelous "Sheepfold" of the Walter's collection. But the greatest of all his landscapes — one of the greatest landscapes ever painted — is his "Spring" of the Louvre,' a pure landscape this time, containing no figure. In the intense green of the sunlit woods against the black rain clouds that are passing away, in the jewel-like brilliancy of the blossoming apple trees, and the wet grass in that clear air after the shower, in the glorious rainbow drawn in danc- ing light across the sky, we may see, if anywhere in art, some reflection of the "infinite splendors" which Millet tells us he saw in nature. In the face of such results as these it seems absurd to discuss the question whether or not Millet was technically The Art of Millet 387 a master of his trade, as if the methods that produced them could possibly be anything but good methods for the purpose; but it is still too much the fashion to say and think that the great artist was a poor painter — to speak slightingly of his accomplishment in oil painting, and to seem to prefer his drawings and pastels to his pictures. We have seen that he was a supremely able technician in his pot-boiling days, and that the color and handling of his early pictures were greatly admired by so brilliant a virtuoso as Diaz. But this "flowery manner" would not lend itself to the expression of his new aims, and he had to invent another. He did so stumblingly at first, and the earliest pictures of his grand style have a certain harshness and ruggedness of surface and heaviness of color which his critics could not forgive, any more than the impressionists, who have out- done that ruggedness, can forgive him his frequent use of a warm general tone, inclining to brownness. .His ideal of form and of composition he possessed complete from the beginning; his mastery of light and color and the handling' of materials was slower of acquirement; but he did acquire it, and in the end he is as absolute a master of painting as of drawing. He did not see nature in blue and violet, as Monet has taught us to see it, and little felicities and f aciti- ties of rendering, and anything approaching cleverness or the parade of virtuosity, he hated; but he knew just what could be done with thick or thin painting, with opaque or transparent pigment, and he could make his few and simple colors say anything he chose. In his mature work there is a profound knowledge of the means to be employed and a great economy in their use, and there is no approach to indiscriminate or meaningless loading. "Things are where they are for a purpose," and if the surface of a picture is rough in any place it is because 388 The Fine Arts just that degree of roughness was necessary to attain the desired effect. He could make mere paint express light as few artists have been able to do, — "The Shepherdess" is flooded with it, — and he could do this without any sacri- fice of the sense of substance in the things on which the light falls. If some of his canvases are brown it is because brown seemed to him the appropriate note to express what he had to say; "The Gleaners" glows with almost the richness of a Giorgione, and other pictures are honey-toned or cool and silvery or splendidly brilliant. And in whatever key he painted, the harmony of his tones and colors is as large, as simple, and as perfect as the har- mony of his lines and masses. But if we can not admit that Millet's drawings are better than his paintings, we may be very glad he did them. His great epic of the soil must have lacked many episodes, perhaps whole books and cantos, if it had been written only in the slower and more elaborate method. The com- parative slightness and rapidity of execution of his draw- ings and pastels enabled him to register many inventions and observations that we must otherwise have missed, and many of these are of the highest value. His long training in seizing the essential in anything he saw enabled him, often, to put more meaning into a single rapid line than another could put into a day's painful labor, and some of his slightest sketches are astonishingly and commandingly expressive. But so instinctively and inevitably was he a composer that everything he touched is a complete whole — his merest sketch or his most elaborated design is a unit. He has left no fragments. His paintings, his countless draw- ings, his few etchings and woodcuts, are all of a piece. About everything there is that air of finality which marks the work destined to become permanently a classic. HOW I LEARNED TO PAINT 1 By CHESTER HARDING BOUT this time I fell in with a portrait painter by the name of Nelson, — one of the primitive sort. He was a sign, orna- ^ mental, and portrait painter. He had for his sign a copy of the "Infant Artists" of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with this inscription, "Sign, Ornamental, and Portrait Painting executed on the shortest notice, with neatness and dispatch." In his sanctum I first con- ceived the idea of painting heads. I saw his portraits, and was enamored at once. I got him to paint me and my wife, and thought the pictures perfection. He would not let me see him paint, nor would he give me the least idea how the thing was done. I took the pictures home, and pondered on them, and wondered how it was possible for a man to produce such wonders of art. At length my admiration began to yield to an ambition to do the same thing. I thought of it by day, and dreamed of it by night, until I was stimulated to make an attempt at painting myself. I got a board; and, with such colors as I had for use in my trade, I began a portrait of my wife. I made a thing that looked like her. The moment I saw the likeness I became frantic with delight; it was like the discovery of a new sense; I could think of nothing else. From that time sign painting became odious, and was much neglected. I next painted a razeed portrait of an Englishman who 1 From " A Sketch of Chester Harding, Artist, Drawn by His Own Hand." By permission of Eliza Orne White. Copyright, 1890. 389 390 The Fine Arts was a journeyman baker, for which I received five dollars. He sent it to his mother in London. I also painted portraits of the man and his wife with whom I boarded, and for which I received, on account, twelve dollars each. This was in the winter season: the river was closed, and there was but little to be done in sign painting. I shall always remember the friendship of an Irish apothecary, who, at this period of my history, encour- aged me in my attempts at portrait painting, and allowed me to buy any material I needed, on credit, from his paint and drug store. I had been painting a second pic- ture of my wife, and asked Nelson the painter to come to see it. He declared it to be no more like my wife than like him, and said further that it was utter nonsense for me to try to paint portraits at my time of life; he had been ten years in learning the trade. To receive such a lecture, and such utter condemnation of my work, when I expected encouragement and approval, was truly dis- heartening. He left me; and I was still sitting before the picture, in great dejection, when my friend the doctor came in. He instantly exclaimed, with much apparent delight, "That's good; first-rate, a capital like- ness," etc. I then repeated what Nelson had just said. He replied that it was sheer envy; that he never painted half so good a head, and never would. The tide of hope began to flow again, and I grew more and more fond of head painting. I now regarded sign painting merely as a necessity, while my whole soul was wrapped up in my new love, and I neglected my trade so much that I was kept pretty short of money. I resorted to every means to eke out a living. I sometimes played the clarinet for a tight-rope dancer, and on market days would play How I Learned to Paint 391 at the window of the museum to attract the crowd to the exhibition. For each of these performances I would get a dollar. My brother Horace, the chair maker, was established in Paris, Kentucky. He wrote to me that he was paint- ing portraits, and that there was a painter in Lexington who was receiving fifty dollars a head. This price seemed fabulous to me; but I began to think seriously of trying my fortune in Kentucky. I soon settled upon the idea, and acted at once. Winding up my affairs in Pittsburg, I found that I had just money enough to take me down the river. I knew a barber, by the name of Jarvis, who was going to Lexington, and I proposed to join him in the purchase of a large skiff. He agreed to it; and we fitted it up with a sort of awning or tent, and embarked, with our wives and children. Sometimes we rowed our craft; but oftener we let her float as she pleased, while we gave ourselves up to music. He, as well as I, played the clarinet; and we had much enjoyment on our voyage. We arrived in Paris with funds rather low, but, as my brother was well known there, I found no difficulty on that score. Here I began my career as a professional artist. I took a room, and painted the portrait of a very popular young man, and made a decided hit. In six months from that time I had painted nearly one hundred portraits, at twenty-five dollars a head. The first twenty-five I took rather disturbed the equanimity of my conscience. It did not seem to me that the portrait was intrinsically worth that money; now, I know it was not. Up to this time I had thought little of the profession, as far as its honors were concerned. Indeed, it had never occurred to me that it wa& more honorable or profitable 392 The Fine Arts than sign painting. I now began to entertain more elevated ideas of the art, and to desire some means of improvement. Finding myself in funds sufficient to visit Philadelphia, I did so, and spent two months in that city, devoting my time entirely to drawing in the Academy, and studying the best pictures, practicing at the same time with the brush. I would sometimes feel a good deal discouraged as I looked at the works of older artists. I saw the labor it would cost me to emulate them, working, as I should, under great disadvantages. Then again, when I had painted a picture successfully, my spirits would rise, and I would resolve that I could and would overcome every obstacle. One good effect of my visit to Philadelphia was to open my eyes to the merits of the works of other artists, though it took away much of my self-satisfaction. My own pictures did not look so well to my own eye as they did before I left Paris. I had thought then that my pictures were far ahead of Mr. Jewitt's, the painter my brother had written me about, who received such unheard-of prices, and who really was a good artist. My estimation of them was very different now: I found they were so superior to mine that their excellence had been beyond my capacity of appreciation. When I returned to Kentucky, I found that the scar- city of money, from which the state was then suffering, seriously affected my business; and after struggling on for a few months, without bettering my finances, I con- cluded to try a new field. I first tried my fortune in Cincinnati; but after waiting a week or two in vain for orders, I gave up all hope of succeeding there, and deter- mined to push on to St. Louis. But how to get there was a puzzling question. I had used up all my money; but, in my palmy days in Paris, I had bought a dozen How I Learned to Paint 393 silver spoons, and a gold watch and chain for my wife. There was no way left for me now but to dispose of these superfluities. I went with them to a broker, and pawned them for money enough to take me and my family to Missouri. I had letters of introduction to St. Louis, and set off at once for that far-off city. We went as far as Louisville on a fiatboat, and there found a steamboat ready to take passengers; and in ten days we were safely landed in St. Louis. I presented one of my letters to Governor Clarke, who was then governor of the territory, Indian agent, etc., and he kindly helped me about getting a suitable room for a studio, and then offered himself as a sitter. This was an auspicious and cheering beginning. I was decidedly happy in my likeness of him, and long before I had finished his head, I had others engaged; and for fifteen months I was kept constantly at work. In June of this year I made a trip of one hundred miles for the purpose of painting the portrait of old Colonel Daniel Boone. I had much trouble in finding him. He was living, some miles from the main road, in one of the cabins of an old blockhouse which was built for the protection of the settlers against the incur- sions of the Indians. I found that the nearer I got to his dwelling, the less was known of him. When within two miles of his house, I asked a man to tell me where Colonel Boone lived. He said he did not know any such man. "Why, yes, you do," said his wife. "It is that white-headed old man who lives on the bottom, near the river." A good illustration of the proverb, that " a prophet is not without honor save in his own country." I found the object of my search engaged in cooking his dinner. He was lying in his bunk, near the fire, and 394 The Fine Arts had a long strip of venison wound around his ramrod, and was busy turning it before a brisk blaze, and using salt and pepper to season his meat. I at once told him the object of my visit. I found that he hardly knew what I meant. I explained the matter to him, and he agreed to sit. He was ninety years old, and rather infirm; his memory of passing events was much impaired, yet he would amuse me every day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I asked him one day, just after his description of one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass. "No," said he, "I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days." He was much astonished at seeing the likeness. He had a very large progeny; one granddaughter had eighteen children, all at home near the old man's cabin: they were even more astonished at. the picture than the old man himself. I will mention in this connection the fact of my paint- ing one of the Osage chiefs. There was a deputation from this tribe on a visit to Governor Clarke. I asked some of them to go to my room, and there showed them the portrait of Governor Clarke, at the sight of which they gave several significant grunts. They were not sat- isfied with merely looking, but went close to the picture, rubbed their fingers across the face, looked behind it, and showed great wonder. The old chief was a fine- looking man, of great dignity of manner. I asked him to sit for his portrait. He did so; and, after giving evi- dent signs of pleasure at seeing himself reproduced on canvas, he said that I was a god (a great spirit), and if I would go home with him, I should be a brave, and have two wives. The deputation went to Washington, where they stayed long enough to lose much, I may say nearly all, of that How I Learned to Paint 395 which ennobles the Indian character. I saw them on their return to St. Louis. They wore, instead of their own graceful blankets, a military dress with tawdry cotton epaulettes and cotton lace, and withal had fallen into the habit of getting beastly drunk. All the interest I had felt in them was gone. While in St. Louis I bought a lot of land, for which I painted five hundred dollars' worth of pictures at their then current value. On leaving St. Louis, I left the lot in charge of an agent, with funds for the accruing taxes. I never thought of the lot or the agent for five years, when I met a gentleman in Washington who was well acquainted with real estate in St. Louis. I asked him if he knew anything about my lot; he said it had, he thought, been sold for taxes. This proved to be true; but, as the limit of redemption had not expired, I empowered this gentleman to redeem it, and to sell it at once, if he could get a fair price for it, to relieve myself from the trouble of looking after it. He sold it for seven hundred dollars. That same lot is now worth forty thousand. By such chances fortunes are made or missed! My ambition in my profession now began to take a higher flight, and I determined to go to Europe. I had accumulated over a thousand dollars in cash, and had bought a carriage and pair of horses. With these I started with my family for western New York, where my parents were still living, by whom we were warmly welcomed. My success in painting, and especially the amount of money I had saved, was the wonder of the whole neigh- borhood. My Grandfather Smith, at an advanced age, had followed his children to the West, and was living in the same place with my father. He had, as yet, said nothing congratulatory upon my success; but one day he 396 The Fine Arts began: "Chester, I want to speak to you about your present mode of life. I think it is very little better than swindling to charge forty dollars for one of those effigies. Now I want you to give up this course of living, and settle down on a farm, and become a respectable man." As I did not exactly coincide in his views, I did not become the "respectable man" according to his notions. My failure in Caledonia for four or five hundred dollars had caused as much surprise and excitement as would the failure of any of our first merchants in Boston. The surprise was, at least, as great to my creditors to find themselves paid off in full. My plan now was to leave my wife and children with my father and mother, and go to Europe. This plan was so far matured and carried out that I had my trunk packed, and was to leave on the following morning. Just before starting, my mother asked me to sit down by her, as she wished to have a serious talk with me. She began: "You are now going to Europe; and how soon — if ever — you return no one can tell. You are leaving your wife and children with very little to live upon; certainly not enough to support them in the way they have lived. To come to the point, I want you to give up your trip for the present, and buy a farm," pointing to one in the neighborhood that was for sale, "and place your family in a comfortable position. If you go to Europe and never return, they are then provided for; and this reflection will console you under any trials you may be called on to pass through." This appeal was too much for me. I yielded; and the next morning, instead of starting for Europe, I started for the farm, and before night had a deed of one hun- dred and fifty acres. I next made a contract with a How I Learned to Paint 397 carpenter to build a frame house upon it, and then started for Washington to spend the winter. I had fairly begun work before Congress assembled, and had some happy specimens for exhibition. I spent about six months in Washington; was full of business, and was able in the spring to pay for the new house, and make another payment on the farm. The following summer I spent in Pittsfield and North- ampton. Mr. Mills, United States Senator from Massa- chusetts, resided in the latter town. He had seen my pictures in Washington, and had spoken favorably of them and of me; and I found that I had already a high reputation. I at once got orders, and in a short time my room was tolerably well filled with pictures. While I was there, the annual cattle show came off. I allowed my pictures to be exhibited among the mechanic arts. They elicited great admiration, and formed one of the chief attractions. I went into the room one day when there was a great crowd, and was soon pointed out as the artist. Conversation ceased, and all eyes were turned upon me. This was altogether too much for my modesty, and I withdrew as quickly as possible. While in Northampton, I painted the portraits of two gentlemen from Boston. They encouraged me to estab- lish myself in that city. I did so, and for six months rode triumphantly on the top wave of fortune. I took a large room, arranged my pictures, and fixed upon one o'clock as my hour for exhibition. As soon as the clock struck, my bell began to ring; and people flocked in, sometimes to the number of fifty. New orders were constantly given me for pictures. I was compelled to resort to a book for registering the names of the numerous applicants. As a vacancy occurred, I had only to notify the next on the list, and it was filled. I do not 398 The Fine Arts think any artist in this country ever enjoyed more popu- larity than I did; but popularity is often easily won, and as easily lost. Mr. Stuart, the greatest portrait painter this country ever produced, was at that time in his manhood's strength as a painter; yet he was idle half the winter. He would ask his f riends, • " How rages the Harding fever?" Although I had painted about eighty portraits, I had a still greater number of applicants awaiting their turn; but I was determined to go to Europe, as I had money enough to pay for my farm, and some sixteen hundred dollars besides. I had engaged to paint a few portraits in Springfield, which I did on my way to Barre, New York, where my family were living. After spending a week or two there in arranging matters connected with their comfort, I took leave of them, and started for New York City, where I was to embark. On my way, I spent a day or two in Northampton with my friends. While there, a lady whose judgment I respected, advised me to send for my family, and establish them in that town, urging as a reason that my children would grow up wild where they were, and that my wife could not improve in the accomplishments of refined society, but would inevi- tably remain stationary, on the standard level of those she would be obliged to associate with, while I should be improving by mingling with the refined and distin- guished persons my profession would throw me among. I was impressed with the good sense of this advice and adopted it. I started at once for my wild home, and brought my family, now numbering four children, to Northampton, and saw them well settled in a very excel- lent boarding house, where they remained two years../ I have had good reason to thank my friend for her judicious suggestion. '' How I Learned to Paint 399 And now, at last, I took my departure for a foreign land, leaving wife, children, and friends, — all, indeed, that I had sympathy with, — to cast in my lot, for a time, with strangers in a strange land. My heart was full of conflicting emotions. Scores of my patrons in Boston had tried to dissuade me from taking this step, some urging as a reason that I already had such a press of business that I could lay up a considerable sum of money yearly; while others insisted that I need not go abroad, for I already painted better pictures than any artist in this country, and probably better than any in Europe. My self-esteem was not large enough, how- ever, to listen to all this, and my desire for study and improvement was too great to be overpowered by flat- tery. In spite of all advice to the contrary, I sailed for England, in the good packet ship "Canada," on the first day of August, 1823. THE FINE ARTS SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS History of Ancient Art John Winkelmann Ideals in Art Walter Crane Sacred and Legendary Art Mrs. Jameson Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Engravers, and their 'Works Clara Erskine Clement Lives of the Painters Georgio Vabari A Text-Book of the History of Painting John C. Van Dtke The History of American Painting Samuel Isham The History of American Sculp- ture Lorado Tapt A Handbook of Greek Sculp- ture Ernest Authur Gardner Apollo : A History of the Plas- tic Arts S. Reinach Old Masters and New Kenton Cox, A.N.A., N.A. A Short History of Architec- ture, Europe Russell Sturgis A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method Banister R. Fletcher A Text-Book of the History of Architecture A. D. F. Hamlin The Higher Life in Art John La Farge A Treatise on Fainting Leonardo da Vinci The Arts of Japan Edward Dillon Six Lectures on Painting George Clausen Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting W. Bode (Margaret L. Clarke, trans- lator) Artists Fast and Present Elizabeth Luther Caby Italian Cities Edwin H. Blashpield Renaissance Masters George B. Rose Art for America William Ordwat Partridge Modern Civic Art Charles Mulpord Robinson Imagination in Landscape Painting Philip Gilbert Hamerton Stones of Venice John Ruskin