«:N;\';»ss.s't.'. cn cTi cn cn cn cri c □ m fp rT^ IIP rp 1 1 ir rp rp rp TP rp I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/detaiis/contemporaryarti00benj_0 By S. G. W. benjamin AUTHOR OF “THE TURK AND THE GREEK” “WHAT IS ART” WITH ILLUSTRATIONS I! A U 1’ K \i N K W V () U K .1' r> HOT II K 1^S, HUHLISIIKHS FRANKI.IN S(ilTAKE 1877 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. TO The Rev. MARK HOPKINS, D.D., LL.D., THE REVERED PRECEPTOR AND GUIDE OF MY COLLEGE YEARS, THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY AND RESPECTFULLY Jnscribeb INTRODUCTION The articles on Contemporary Art in Europe wliicli appeared recently in Harper’s Monthly Magazine have been received by both the critics and the public with a gratifying degree of favor. This seems, therefore, to l)e ample justification for republishing these papers in their present form, with the addition of considerable fresh material. The illustrations commend themselves as excellent examples of the fine feeling for the art of engraving already reached by our best engravers. The subject is one which especially claims the attention of the Ameri- can public at the present time. At no previous period in our history has so wide and keen an interest been taken in art. We are evidently en- tering upon a period of art development that shall crystallize the still unformed and unorgariized art talent of the community into art schools such as have distinguished the Old World. All the analogy of past his- tory indicates that the* energies called forth by a great struggle for na- tional existence find in the following generation a full harvest of intel- lectual activity. In this way have been born the great schools of art and letters. We as a nation have just passed through such a crisis, and are now apparently entering upon our era of mental development. It will not come for tlie seeking alone ; nor, on the other hand, will it come if we simply wait for it. Manifest destiny is accomplished by meeting Provi- dence and harmoniously adapting ourselves to its designs. As one of many means for achieving our art destiny, it behooves us. 8 INTRODUCTION. therefore, to study the arts of other ages and races, for the better appre- hension of the principles which nnderlie art growth. This is doubtless, to some degree, inseparable from the observation of methods, which is, however, quite a different thing from imitating them : every school of good art employs methods of its own. The art whose methods and ideas are borrowed is at best a very equivocal kind of art. Spontaneity is the soul of art, individuality of expression its end. The author has endeavored, in the following pages, honestly and ear- nestly to give his own views upon the present condition of European art, without regard to sex, sect, or race, or the perhaps contrary opinions which may be held by certain distinguished art critics and artists, con- scious that criticism swayed by prejudice is no criticism at all. He has heartily tried, with candor and fairness, to be just. Art has its philosophy of growth ; and since it is no more absurd to build the roof of a house before the foundation is laid than to criticise an art -without also considering the conditions which underlie its exist- ence, the historic and ethnic principles which have caused the present European schools have necessarily received some attention. CONTENTS I.— CONTEMPORAKY ART IN ENGLAND. PAGE Characteristics of Different Schools of Art 13 Art Attractions of London 14 Social Condition of English Artists 17 Art Clubs and Exhibitions 19 Government Art Patronage 22 Results of Present System of Art Training 24 Romantic School 25 Religious Art 28 Ethics in Art 29 Genre Painters 30 Historical Art 34 Battle-painters 30 Landscape Art 40 Water-colorists 41 Marine Artists 42 Portraiture 43 Decorative Artists 44 Plastic Art , 4(i Present State of English Architecture 51 English Ceramic Art 52 Household Art 50 il_contempokary art m trance. Causes which underlie Art Growth 58 ClIAPvACTER OF PRESENT ErENCH SCHOOI 00 Rank of Paris in the Art World 01 Pecuniary Value of Erench Art.... 03 (ioVERNMENT DIRECTION OF THE EiNE ArTS 04 Institutions for Art Culture 04 Art Exhibitions 07 Private Art Schools 71 10 CONTENTS. PAGK Art Clubs and Periodicals 73 Technical Qualities op French Art 76 Engraving and Engravers 80 French Landscape Artists 83 Animal-painters 90 Genre Painting 91 Historical and Archeological School 94 Paintings of Military Subjects 99 Oriental Scenes lOo Eegnault and his Works 10 1 Sculptors of Contemporary School 103 Architecture and New Opera-house 105 Ceramic and Decorative Art no iil_co^^temporaey aet m geemany. Philosophy of Art Progress in Europe 113 Rise of Modern German Art 115 Present Art Schools of Germany 117 Munich School of Art 117 Government Patronage at Munich 119 Kaulbach and Piloty 120 Characteristics of New Munich School 125 Portrait-painters of Munich 127 Historical Painters 128 Genre Art at Munich 133 Animal-painters 137 Landscape Art 138 Marine Painters 143 Danish Marine Art 143 Architecture and Engraving 144 Vienna, Koyal Academy of 147 Historical Painters of Vienna 147 German Industrial Art 150 Dusseldorf Art School 1^0 Carlsruhe, Art School and Society of 151 Berlin, Art School of 152 Royal Academy of Berlin 152 Genre Painters op Berlin 153 Historical Art 157 Sculpture and Architecture at Berlin 158 Conclusion 159 INDEX. 161 ILLUSTRATIONS SUBJECT. Pe.asants’ Ball The Huguenot Lovers Winter J. E. Millais (Portrait) Esther’s Banquet ^none — A Sketch Holman Hunt (Portrait) The Light of the World Thomas Faed (Portrait) George H. Boughton (Portrait) The Mitherless Bairn “What d’ye lack, Madam?” H. S. Marks The Princess and the Pelicans Miss Elizabeth Thompson (Portrait) Missing ViCAT Cole (Portrait) J. C. Hook (Portrait) “Luff, Boy, Luff!” ' F. Leighton (Portrait).., The Golden Age Pillars of Terra-cotta, South Kensington Museum Landseer Plate (Tail-piece) An Entertaining Story The Oranges IIippOLYTE Adolphe Taine (Portrait) Expectation M. Bonn.1t (Portrait) JiEGGAR Giri Hunting with Falcons in Algeria Gipsy (iiRL .Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (Portrait) La Vedette ARTIST. PAGE Franz Defregger Froniispiece J. E. Millais 13 G. H. Boughton 15 18 Edward Armitagc 21 E. Biirne Jones 25 28 Holman Hunt 29 30 31 Thomas Faed 32 J. Pettie 34 From a Portrait hg Ouless 36 H. S. Marks 37 38 Elizabeth Thompson 39 40 41 J. C. Hook 42 45 Edward J. Poynicr. 47 V. Chevilliard. IF. Bouguereau A. Toulmouchc E. Merle Eugene Eromeniin . A . f 'ernet- Leeom te . 53 58 62 r>4 ()8 70 / / 79 J. L. E. Meissonier. 12 ILLUSTKATIONS. SUBJECT. ARTIST. Gustave Dore (Portrait) Peace Return of the Flock Portrait of General Prim Ploughing in the Nivernais Ros.\ Bonheur (Portrait) Constant Troyon (Portrait) Edouard Frere (Portrait) Jules Adolphe Breton (Portrait) Tittle-tatte (Coquetage) Jean Francois Millet (Portrait) Alexandre Cabanel (Portrait) Francesca di Kimini Jean Leon Gerome (Portrait) L’Eminence Grise The First Whisper The Advance Guard The Retreat L’Aurore Jean Baptiste Carpeaux (Portrait) The Dance Foot of Grand Staircase of New Opera-house, ^ Paris ^ Ceiling of the Auditorium of the New Opera- ^ HOUSE ^ Haviland Faience Danish Pottery Wilhelm Von Kaulbach (Portrait) Bush-rangers Karl Theodor Von Piloty (Portrait) Seni Discovering Wallenstein Dead Luther before Cardinal Cajetan Franz Lenbach (Portrait) Gabriel Max (Portrait) The Lion’s Bride Hochheimer Franz Defregger (Portrait) Cossacks Greeting the Steppes Calves Eeturning Home Fellah Women at the Fountain Hans Makart (Portrait) Reverie Ludwig Knaus (Portrait) In a Thousand Anxieties The Last Supper Statue of Frederick William III Gustave Dove Frangois Jacques Henri EegnauU.. Fosa Bonheur.... Jules Adolphe Breton Alexandre Cabanel. Jean Leon Gerome L. Alma Tadema Alphonse He Neuville. Edouard Detaille E. Ham on Jean Baptiste Carpeaux Wilhelm Diez Karl Theodor Von Pilotg Wilhelm Lindenschmidt . . . Gabriel Max Eduard Grutzner. Joseph Brandt. Anton Braith.. Hans MaJcart.. Gustav Bichter. Ludwig Knaus Von Gebhardt . Albert Wolff... PAGE 80 81 83 85 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 , 98 , 99 100 , 101 , 102 . 104 , 105 . 107 , 109 , 110 112 115 . 116 . 118 , 119 121 126 , 129 . 130 132 . 134 . 135 , 139 , 146 , 148 , 149 , 152 . 153 . 155 , 159 L-EN GLAND. ^^HEKE are three schools of art in Europe at present which especially commend themselves to our attention in looking at the condition of contemporary art. These are the English, the French, and the Ger- man. Each possesses marked traits of its own, but no one of them can he said to be in all respects superior to the others, for it should be dis- tinctly understood that difference between masters or schools in art does not necessarily imply inferi- ority or superiority^ The truest, highest art is the spontaneous out- growth of the tendencies of an age or of a race, one of the signs by which we are enabled to determine the character of an epoch, while, on the other hand, close resemblance in the style of the art of two dis- tinct peoples implies either that they are of one stock, or that one is the imitator of the other, and therefore inferior, to the degree that a copy is inferior to an orig- inal. Those fundamental princi- ples, which underlie all true art, i TIIK lUKUIENOT LOVERS. — MILI.AIS. ire too often forgotten, especially by many of our art amateurs and critics. We forget that what may be the best art for one age or country may not be the best for another, and alter- nately accept oi- (condemn a school or a master more by whim or desire 14 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. of change than by rational induction or intelligent knowledge. While admiring tlie old masters and condemning the modern, we fail to consider that similar subjects or treatment might now be absurd, because not sug- gested by a later civilization and different social conditions. When prais- ing the French artist and sneering at the English painter, we neglect to put ourselves in the place of each, in order to judge of their wmrks from a consideration of the differing national impulses to which they owed their creation. It may, therefore, be profitable to glance at the present state of the fine arts in France, England, and Germany. The field is vast, and witliin the limits of a single volume only a general view of each can be given. A better period to study the condition of English art could hardly be found, because sufficient time has now elapsed to enable one to judge of the value of the art impulses caused by the system of art education estab- lished by the English government about the time of the great Exhibition of 1852, and also the amount of momentum possessed by the great pre- Raphaelite movement, l^umerous as are the art attractions which London offers to the stranger, it is only on thoroughly investigating the subject that one realizes the extent of the field. Leaving out of consideration such splendid collections as the Dulwich and the National galleries and similar permanent collections, and the magnificent private galleries of the old masters which abound, one is completely overwhelmed by the enor- mous amount of labor, capital, and public interest expended upon contem- porary art in England. It is in good times^ one of the most prosperous pursuits in the United Kingdom. This is strikingly indicated by the ad- vertisements of art exhibitions posted everywhere like theatrical adver- tisements. A familiar and entertaining sight in Piccadilly last year was a woe-begone old tatterdemalion, bearing placarded on his back ‘The Man of Sorrows,’ painted by Sir Koel Patou.” We find here a distinct craft or guild, absorbing the attention of a vast army of men and women, all laboring to the same end, but naturally divided and subdivided again, ac- cording to the modern system of the division of labor, into various classes. We have, in the first place, an art directory, which contains the names and residences of nearly four thousand men and women devoted to the pursuit of the fine arts in the United Kingdom, including painters, sculp- tors, architects, and designers, and this list is far from complete. In ad- dition should be mentioned over fortv thousand art students in the art WIN'I'KK. G. II. HOUGHTON. . FI > V . J SOCIAL POSITION OF ARTISTS. 17 schools. And here it should he added that as art education is not com- pulsory in England, this number is the more significant, while the pupils are also, for the same reason, of good average maturity. [N’ot only are the artists strong in numbers, but they have also elevated the profession, in the eyes of those who estimate matters according to their money value, by making it a lucrative pursuit as well. Enormous prices are now demanded and easily obtained by successful artists. Millais gets £2000 for a portrait. He is at work on a commission for which he is to receive £15,000, and has erected a house costing £30,000. Ouless, a very young artist, in high favor, commands £800 to £1000 for a portrait. Many of the artists live very comfortably, not to say opulently. Of course there is the reverse side, for all have not equal ability, and some artists toil un- known and in poverty for many years. Still the fact remains that art in England now occupies another position than formerly. This statement has recently received corroboration by a grand dinner given to three hun- dred artists by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, at the Mansion-House, in the height of the London season. Among other things, the Lord Mayor said ‘Hie looked upon the artist as a man who, within his own mind, con- ceived a great and important phase of history and of life. The result was the production of pictures which, he said without hesitation, helped to carry on the great work of life by depicting its noblest sentiments, its highest aspirations, and its most glorious actions.” Heplies to the toasts were given by Horsley for the painters, Weekes for the sculptors, Barry for the architects, and Tenniel for periodical art. Tlie independent and important position artists now hold in England is also indicated by the Artists’ Fund Society, divdded into two branches. The Artists’ Annuity Fund has a funded capital of £17,000, and provides for members in sickness, and by annuities to those permanently unfitted for pursuing their profession. The Artists’ Benevolent Fund has an in- vested capital of £23,000, devoted to the relief of the widows and orphans of deceased members. The literature of contemporary English art is also very large, the number of periodicals relating to the subject increasing continually, while a class of professional art critics has gradually sprung up, including some men of large capacity, real art knowledge, and respect- able judgment, such as Thornycroft (who has just died), J.W. Commyns Carr, J. Beavis Atkinson, Henry Blackburn, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, and Dante Gabriel Bossetti : the last three are artists as well. Buskin has been 2 18 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. too long before the public to require mention, were it not to say that he now probably exerts a less proportionate influence than formerly. With all the extravagance of his works was blended so much that was really true and great that at one time he exerted a salutary influence on Englisli art. But he is, after all, a man of only one idea ; he cannot adapt himself to the shifting forms of art suggested by different circumstances, and has become so wild and extravagant in his more recent utterances that his opinions now carry less weight, and even those who admire the poetic fer- vor of his style are forced to acknowledge that, like most reformers, the reforms he sought to accoinj^lisli having attained their end, he must now J. E. MILLAIS. give place to a class of art critics of a more practical cast. If not wield- ing so powerful and slashing a pen as this prince of critics, they are better fitted perhaps to mould the art opinions of the present time. I^aturally connected with this great art community, either as cause or effect, and often as both, are numerous institutions and associations for the sale, exhibition, or production of w^orks of art, and for stimulating an art feeling. The chief quarter for art shops is around Piccadilly, in Old and New Bond Street, Pall Mall, and King Street. But art establishments may be also frequently found in many other leading thoroughfares. Chris- tie and Manson, art auctioneers, in King Street, often display in their ART ASSOCIATIONS. 19 rooms treasures of immense rarity and value. Twelve paintings were, for example, sold there on one afternoon recently for £2500 each. A year ago three Sevres jardinieres brought £10,000 at Christie’s. And besides the stores devoted to the sale of miscellaneous works of art, there are gal- leries permanently and exclusively established for the exhibition and sale of works of the French, the Danish, the Belgian, and the German schools respectively, and the works of Dore, and Mignot, the South Carolinian painter, who died in 1871, and so magnificently reproduced the superb scenery of Ecuador. The art clubs, associations, and museums, exclusive of private galleries, number seventy-one, of which fifty-two are in London, and the remainder in Dublin, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, and other leading cities. A large number include art schools in their organization. The art school of the London University ranks very high ; it is presided over by E. J. Poynter, A.K.A. The Dudley Gallery also holds a front position in the quality of the works it exhibits. It gives three exhibitions annually, in oil, water- colors, and black and white respectively. The old Society of Water -colors, which is now in its eighty -seventh year, maintains a high rank. The president is always knighted on election ; the present incum- bent is Sir John Gilbert, w^ell known among us by his masterly illustra- tions of old-time scenes. He has just been elevated to the Art Peerage by election, to the Poyal Academy. But the two leading art institutions of Great Britain, which yield in importance to no similar organizations in the world, are the Poyal Acad- emy and the South Kensington Museum. The former has now been es- tablished one hundred and eight years. The president is Sir Francis Grant ; like his predecessors, he was knighted upon election. lie is fa- vorably known as entitled to a prominent place among contemporary portrait artists, besides executing a number of historical works like the “Battle of Ferozeshah.” Until this year the Academy has numbered forty-two Academicians and twenty-six Associates. But ten Associates have just been added. Tliis increase has been owing to a clamor long heard and finally reaching a climax sufficient to penetrate to and arouse the attention of tlie dignified Academicians themselves, who, once re- ceived within the fold of the Academy, are liable to forget the efforts by wliich they escaped from the struggles of the art career into that haven prepared for the artist whom the people delight to honor, and 20 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. look down witli dignified silence upon the crowd of fellow - artists still outside and struggling for admission, too often rejecting good paintings in order to admit jDOor ones by Academicians, or discriminating in favor of figure pieces as against landscapes and marines. At least such is the general opinion on the subject, and there seems too much ground for it — enough, at least, to cause the matter to be brought before Parliament, where it has been liberally aired, and given rise to a cloud of pamphlets. To its surprise. Parliament discovered that the government has no au- thority to interfere with the Academy in the control of its affairs, al- though it is called the Royal Academy. George III. gave them land on which to build, and the Queen has the right to gain admission for a re- jected painting, or one that has been sent too late for inspection by the committee. There, it seems, begins and ends all the royal family or Par- liament has to say on the subject. But the voice of the public has been too much for the serene dignity of the august Forty, and they have at last so far yielded as to retire several who had held the honor long enough, electing younger men in their place, and, as Ijefore observed, adding to the permanent list of Associates, which is a mere sop to Cerberus. Another result has been the establishment of a rival institution called the Grosvenor Gallery, of which a fuller account is given in connection with the Possetti School. But the Academy has not only been attacked from without ; it has also been rent by internecine feuds, of which less is heard abroad. The Scotch and the English, the Gael and the Saxon, Sawnie and John Bull, have alternately fought for the supremacy within the sacred walls of Art, and as one or tlie other has held sway, the works of Briton or Scot have been liable to acceptance or rejection, or have been assigned accordingly either a favorable position on the line or up in a corner under the ceiling — nearer to heaven, but farther removed from the beneficent gaze of those who hold in the balance the artist’s fate by buying his works. One year every Scotch Academician had all his exhibited works hung on the line ! But after a long supremacy, the English element is again predominating, as indicated by the circumstance that a very well-known Scotch artist has been so constantly rejected of late on that very account, as to make it a threadbare joke that any one who had his natne as candidate on the same ticket with him was sure of election, the way being to put two names on one ticket, the one receiving the most votes going in. ROYAL ACADEMY. 21 The Academy has within a few years moved its quarters to Burling- ton House, a building built expressly for the purpose, on Piccadilly. It is in the form of a hollow square, and contains twelve galleries, besides the vestibules. Every department of art is theoretically included in its scope and the character of the works exhibited. Each B.A. has a right to ex- hibit eight works in the annual exhibitions, which begin May 1st, and remain open for three months. Three catalogues are issued, one on large paper and one of smaller size, besides one edited by Mr. Henry Black- burn, embracing notes on the most noteworthy works, and small pen-and- ESTHEK'S banquet. EDWARD ARMITAGE. ink sketches giving a general idea of the subject. The number of visitors is enormous ; and as the admission fee is a shilling, and many thousand catalogues are sold in addition, the revenue derived from the exhibitions is very large, aside from the value of the paintings sold. In years of commercial prosperity many artists realize much of their income from the sales at the exhibitions, not only at the Boyal Academy, but in the numerous other exhibitions. This must be a convenience to both artist and purchaser, because there are few studio buildings in London, and the artists, therefore, generally have their studios connected with their houses, CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. and these are much scattered, although chiefly, however, in South Ken- sington, St. John’s Wood, and Hampstead. Connected with the Koyal Academy is a very able art training school, ranking first in the kingdom. Armitage is the professor of painting, Weekes of sculpture, Barry and Spiers of architecture, Calder Marshall of anatomy, Barff of chemistry, and Bowler of perspective. Ko medals or prizes are given to those exhibiting in the annual exhibitions, but a gold medal is awarded to the best work produced by the pupils each year in the various branches of art. Frank Dicksee, the medallist for 1875, is a young- artist of promise. The South Kensington Museum was founded in 1852. Its scope can best be described in the language of the directors : “ The Kational Art Training School at South Kensington is established for the purpose of training art masters and mistresses for the United Kingdom, and for the instruction of students in drawing, designing, and modelling, to be applied to the requirements of trade and manufactures.” It will be impossible wdthin so brief a sj^ace to give more than a mere outline of the most ex- tensive and remarkable institution of the sort in Christendom. A sum of money is voted annually by Parliament for the promotion of instruction in art, and it is distributed in the teaching of elementary drawing in day schools, and in night schools for artisans, and the furtherance of instruc- tion in the higher branches of art, and. Anally, in the training of art teach- ers. At South Kensington we therefore find day and night schools, with two complete suites of art rooms, fully equipped with all requisite models and apparatus for instruction in every branch and stage of the fine or the industrial arts — one for each sex. Instead of having the sexes study to- gether, as some fanatics among us think feasible and proper, the directors at South Kensington consider that long experience has proved the im]3or- tance of keeping them apart, at least in the study of art ; but no distinc- tion is made in the advantages afforded to each. The competitive exam- inations are of the most thorough and searching character, in order that the instruction may not only be in the practice of art, but also in the knowledge of its scientiflc principles, the better to develop the power of conveying intelligent instruction, and apprehending the actual relations of art to trade and manufactures. E. J. Poynter is the art director and prin- cipal, assisted by a numerous corps of coadjutors. Two annual sessions, of five months each, commence March 1st and October 1st. The candidates 80UTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. 23 for admission undergo a rigid examination, and must submit works in drawing, painting, or composition, to indicate tlie relative ability and promise of the applicant. Allowances for maintenance are made to the successful applicants on a sliding scale, increasing from £30 per annum up to £78 ; after the latter has been held for a term of not more than two years, the student is considered qualified to teach in any of the art training schools of the kingdom. It may be added that the examinations are divided into six groups or departments of subjects, that women are exempt from examination in architectural drawing, and that candidates must not be over nineteen years old when applying for admission. In addition to the normal art training schools are classes for each sex, to which any one is admitted on the payment of a certain fee, according to the amount of instruction received, although none can be entered without passing an examination in free-hand drawing for the second grade, or for a less time than live months. The number of such students now at South Kensington is 829, of whom 461 are females. The fees al- ready reach an average of over £3000 per session. Connected with the art training schools at South Kensington is a very copious — in fact, exhaustive — art library intended for the students ; also superb collections of pottery, carved work, j)aintings, models of naval and civic architecture, scientific collections, and the like, covering an enor- mous extent in distinct buildings or galleries, and open to the inspection of the general public. A collection of oil and water-color paintings is also formed, which, as well as all books in the art library worth over twelve shillings, are loaned to other schools of art in the kingdom. Exclusive of the museum at Bethnal Green, which is in reality a branch of the South Kensington Museum, these art schools, including the night classes, num- ber 675, with 45,000 pupils. Such are some of the methods by which the grow th of art is fostered in Great Britain. At no time in past history lias the art student studied art under circumstances more favorable. What are the results^ Do w^e find a greater, nobler art springing up, ideas more grandiose, wmrks of more originality and permanent value, than those of the masters of olden time? or is the result, rather, as it has been Avith letters, Avith the progress of civilization — no more Homers or Shakspeares, but a Avider culture on the part of the masses, a more general capacity to appreciate good litera- ture, the Avhole literary Avorld raised to a common table-land, but no shin- 24 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. ing peaks towering magnificently but alone in the empyrean above ? It seems as if the latter were also somewhat the case with English art, at least for the present ; and yet many would differ with us. And it may be that it is passing through a transitional state from one order of methods and ideas into another. Certainly the religious and social questions agi- tating society and finding vent through the press are also very noticeable in affecting the English art of the day ; and this is more observable in English art than French art, because it includes in its theory and practice not the delineation of the beautiful alone, but also the narrative and moral elements, so that the artist becomes also a story-teller or a moralist. This makes it much more difficult to criticise English art, for it aims at a higher mark than Latin contemporary art, and no artist can be properly judged unless we look not only at what he has done, but also at what he has at- tempted to reach. We are balfied, also, because we find oil and water col- ors on nearly an equal footing, and many j^rominent artists working alter- nately in either. Thei’e have also always been, and continue to be, Eng- lish artists of originality, individuality, and note whom it is impossible to classify, and who neither belong to any school nor create any considerable following — such as Turner and Blake formerly, and others in our day whom we could mention — and yet they are included generically with the English School. The only thing they all have more or less in common seems to be the quality before mentioned of making art a medium for the expression of narrative or moral ideas, of which Hogarth was a nota- ble example. And yet, on the other hand, Etty was a painter who was essentially Latin in his pi-actice, and the number like him seems just now to be gaining, through the influence, in part at least, of Alma Tadema, who resides in London, and the growing attention given to the works of the Continental schools. The study of industrial art and the reproduc- tion of the decorative forms of antiquity aid this influence, and lead to such poems as Morris’s “ Earthly Paradise,” and such paintings as the works of Leighton or Poynter in the Academy for 1876. The religious agitation now rife in England as well as on the Continent, indicated in the former by an attempt to restore the papacy in England, and the new fervor of ritualism, with its pseudo-medigeval rites and sentiments, has led to the restoration of Gothic architecture and the formation of the so- called Pomantic School, dealing with archaic forms and legends and alle- gorical subjects, both classical and pietistic. The tendencies of this school KOSSETTI SCHOOL. 25 are well illustrated by the poems and paintings of Dante Gabriel Eossetti and E. Burne Jones. Their works rarely appear on public exhibition, but on Sunday afternoons Mr. Jones kindly allows amateurs to visit his ^NONE — A SKETCH. E. BURNE JONES. studio at his residence in Fulham. Ilis paintings, from dryness of treat- ment, appear to be in distemper on panel, and are often of a purely deco- rative character, and to the last degree ideal in treatment and subject. The drawing of the human form is masterly, and it cannot be denied that the harmonies of color are often very subtle and beautiful, and win one constantly to return and gaze long, until the inliuence of the scene steals into the soul, and wins the half - reluctant confession that these paintings are often inspired by unmistakable power, and occupy a high 26 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. if anomalous position in contemporary art, altliougli it would be as unfort- unate for all art to resemble the Homantic School as for all literature to imitate Christabel,” or The Fall of the House of Usher,” or Sweden- borg’s “Conjugial Love.” Fra Angelico, William Blake, Orcagna, the stained windows of Aix-la-Chapelle, the illuminated missals of St. Louis, are alternately suggested as one contemplates these paintings ; for, while the drawing is good and the color often fervid, and the ideas highly sub- jective and original, the forms and composition are conventional and monotonous, the repetition constant, the scene entirely out of the region of the real or the possible, and the positions and expressions mere affecta- tions, when we consider that they were done at the present day. They are not so much paintings as poems, suggested by an intense love and study of the past, and especially black-letter legendary lore, holding the same relation to art that Bossetti’s religions poems hold to literature, yet not rarely with suggestions of sensnonsness similar to the subtle volnp- tnousness of his sonnets, and possessed, probably, of as much influence in affecting society and art as his poetry enjoys compared with that of Byron. The one represents the ideas of a highly cultivated, fastidious, self-appreciative, but not very 23rofound sesthetic coterie ; the other, the vast, seething, Titanic, overwhelming passions and aspirations and yearn- ings of races and generations struggling with destiny, and surging with mighty convulsions from era to era. But whether this movement of the Bomantic or Mystic School be the result of a spontaneous inspiration destined to create a general reaction towards the ideal, or only a temporary intellectual effort emanating from a few eccentric but cultured minds imbued with a love for the forms of early Italian art, and meeting with no permanent popular response — a cpiestion which cannot be decided cpiite yet — it is at least certain that it is to-day a power in English art, commanding a position which rightly claims the serious attention of those who desire impartially to study the art tendencies of the age. The most recent manifestation of its influ- ence is in the opening this year of the Grosvenor Gallery, in Hew Bond Street, erected by Sir Coutts Lindsay at a cost of £100,000. Two objects have been kept distinctly in view in its construction, to suggest new ar- rangements in the exhibition of paintings, and to offer a means for the public display of the works of the Bomantic School. The fagade was brought from Yenice, and was the front of a palace — the work of the GROSVENOR GALLERY. 27 celebrated Palladio ; and the vestibules are supported by pillars of rich Italian marble. To the left are halls for sculpture and water-colors, and on the right is the east gallery, leading into the principal saloon. The light comes from above. The ceilings are bine, exquisitely decorated with arabesques in gold. The walls are hung with crimson damask, and divided into panels or spaces by pillars white and gilded, originally in the corridor of the old Opera Comique at Paris. The dado is hung with green velvet. Sumptuous couches and fauteuils complete the decorations of the most elegant art gallery yet erected in Great Britain. It may be questioned, however, whether there is not a suspicion of garishness ap- parent which requires the tempering touch of Time. But the most val- uable improvement has been in the allowance of a given space to each artist represented there, and the hanging of all his works together, so that they do not interfere with, nor are injured by, the juxtaposition of works in altogether a different style ; while to the beholder the arrangement of paintings surrounded by drapery, and not so crowded as to jostle against each other, necessarily reduces the weariness attendant on frequenting galleries of art. This result has been possible because Sir Coutts Lindsay, who is himself a clever artist, is the sole owner and arbiter, and receives only the works of such artists as he invites to exhibit there, and propor- tions the number of invitations to the space at his command. It is claimed that the Grosvenor Gallery is not a rival to the Poyal Academy, and in proof of the statement a number of the Academicians, including Sir Fran- cis Grant, the president, were invited to exhibit at the opening of the new gallery, and accordingly sent to it some of their most important works. But, on the other hand, the paintings of E. Burne Jones, Walter Crane, and other leaders of the Romantic School — rarely, if ever, exhib- ited elsewhere — form a majority of the canvases hung in the Grosvenor Gallery; and nothing is seen there more weirdly beautiful than the “ Yenus Mirror” by E. Burne Jones. But it is to be feared that the es- tablishment of the new gallery, while giving additional prominence to the mystics, will also tend towards increasing the intolerance, of which there is already so much at every art centre that one is almost inclined to conclude there is nothing so difficult as to be tolerant, and this unrea- soning conflict between the idealists and the realists in art seems oven more endless than the warfare between science and religion. And yet in each case the opposing parties are working for the same end, if but 28 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. they had the intellectual grasp to discern, or the fairness to acknowledge, this truth. They simply represent different organizations bearing the same banner. The highest results can only be achieved in ethics when science and religion are married— a union destined nltimately to occur ; the highest art can only be attained when the two great rival schools of art shall learn that there is really no cause for antagonism between them, and shall go hand-in-hand down the ages, harmoniously interpreting the good, the true, and the beautiful in the universe of God. But whatever may be the difference of opinion regarding the Koman- tic School, the tendencies of the age are frequently exhibited also in other HOLMAN HUNT. English paintings, belonging to what many seem to consider as the only legitimate art. Biblical or religious subjects are constantly produced by such men as Armitage, an artist rather of the past, good in composition and drawdng, but poor in color, although j>rofessor of painting at the Academy ; also Goodall, Thorburn, Boberts, and E. Long, one of the new Academicians, an artist whose paintings entitled The Pool of Bethesda ” and ‘^The Wife-Market of Babylon” have deserved the praise they have won for the artistic feeling they show and the careful study of Oriental life. Holman Hunt, who is one of the original founders of the pre-Baphaelite School, and is widely known for his masterly paintings entitled “ The SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 29 Liglit of the World” and “Christ in the Temple,” hardly seems to sus- tain the promise of his earlier years in his recent ambitious work, called the “ Shadow of the Cross,” which cost him several years of conscientious labor in Palestine, and was sold for £10,000. The difficulty seems to be in a lack of inspiration, and in devoting so much attention to the details THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. HUxNT. of things that the spirit of the scene eludes his grasp. One is thus more impressed by the skill of the teclmlque than by the central idea which should dominate the mechanical element in a great work of art. There are also a large number of artists in England who treat the social problems of the day with excellent success, both as artists and moralists. Among the most meritorious undoubtedly stands II. W. Macbeth, whose painting, 30 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. ‘‘A Lincolnshire Gang,” illustrating the sort of slavery still endured by some of the peasantry in England, is powerfully rendered in color, draw- ing, and composition. In painting it attempts what Dickeiis attempted in letters, and deserves similar success in accomplishing its purpose. G. II. Boughton, whose ‘‘ Bearers of the Burden ” attracted so much atten- tion last year, often works in this direction. His rapid success since his return to his native land has been owing undoubtedly in j^art to the fact that not only are his subjects of a popular character, but the treatment also suggests the simplicity, and consecpiently the consummate art, of the French School, while his color is generally quiet, and, if it does not im- THOMAS FAED. press at first, has the rare quality of growing in favor. Sometimes, how- ever, as in a recently painted scene from Knickerbocker^ he deals with hues as brilliant as any. In portraiture, he also wields a vigorous and effective brush, as in his likeness of Master Graham Pettie. In genre^ the English artists generally prefer domestic scenes which appeal directly to the heart of the people, and are often so judiciously chosen as to win for the artist a repute out of ]3roportion, perhaps, with his actual merits as an artist. The home, whether in high or low life, in the hall or in the cottage, and especially the simple beauty and pathos of rustic life and the quiet surroundings in which its humble drama is acted, afford an endless ENGLISH GENRE PAINTING. 31 field to the artists of Old England. With some notable exceptions, the best modern art of that country is in the treatment of this class of subjects. To mention all the artists who have achieved excellence in contemporary English genre is far beyond our scope, and we must reluctantly confine ourselves to the mention of a few noteworthy names. This school has been very largely infiuenced by George Mason, who died in 1872, and Erederick Walker, whose masterful spirit, one of the most perceptive and original of our times, left us scarce two years ago for a more exalted contemplation of the problems of existence in anotlier world. Can any one doubt that for a mind like his the exchange of worlds must be the enlargement of the sphere of sympathy with the good and the beautiful GEORGE H. BOUGHTON. in the heart of nature and humanity which he so effectively interpreted here with the imperfect materials at his command? Both of these artists were in the truest sense idyllic poets, but the former in his simple style was more an artist for artists, while the latter appealed also to the ap- preciation of the great art public. Both, by their subjects and methods, have exerted a beneficent influence on contemporary English art. Walker was first a wood draughtsman, and in that direction competed successful- ly with Millais and Tenniel ; subsecpiently he took up water -colors, but he died of consumption at the early age of thirty -five. One of his most notable works is the ‘‘ Harbor of Eefuge,” representing the inmates of a poor-house. The brothers John and Thomas Eaed, as colorists in oil, 32 CONTEMPOEARY ART IN EUROPE. won a deserved reputation years ago in genre. The latter is well known in every American household by his beautiful representation of Longfel- low’s Evangeline,” and has also moved the public heart by such pictures THE MITHERLESS BAIRN. THOMAS FAED. as his “ Sunday in the Backwoods ” and “ The Mitherless Bairn.” His color and handling are less dry and crude than those of too many English artists of this school. Frank Holl, in the painting entitled ^Hler First-born,” depicting a rustic funeral, has very touchingly represented one of the saddest hours of life below, and suggests promise of more important wmrk with a larger ex- perience ; wliile S. Luke Fildes, one of the more recent aspirants to artistic honors in England, already indicates the power of a master in dealing with similar social phases. Sometimes, as in his Simpletons,” who are two lovers idling away a delicious summer morning in a boat on a lazy stream, he suggests a comical or enjoyable episode ; but his strength seems to lie cliiedy in such works as his ‘‘Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward,” or paupers seeking admittance to a poor-house in a snow-storm. “ The Widower” is another canvas by this artist, which gives indication of large reserve power. We see before us the dusky interior of a peasant’s cottage. The widowed laborer, work-stained and heart-weary, holds on his knee a sick infant, thus early deprived of its mother. Tlie eldest daughter stands at his side ; the other children are playing on the floor, inditferent to the irreparable loss they have sustained ; and through a chink in the door steals HERKOMER— LESLIE. 33 a ray of simliglit, as if to reveal the utter wretchedness within that humble dwelling. Here we find a mind moved by a large range of sympathies, and a style indicating vigorous realism, deep pathos, and poetic sentiment. There is, perhaps, not enough left to the imagination in his manner, the multiplicity of details detracting from the force of the central idea ; but with a young artist this is a more pardonable fault than the dryness and meagreness which suggest poverty of ideas. Hubert Herkomer, by his ‘‘Last Muster,” two years ago, attracted marked attention, and in the painting entitled “At Death’s Door,” exhib- ited at the Academy in 1876, well sustained the reputation so early won, this time carrying the scene from England to the Tyrol, where a group of kneeling peasants are represented awaiting the arrival of the priest to ad- minister the last rites to one who is dying in the adjoining chalet ; in the distance the rugged purple ranges of that mountain land grandly loom and fade away. Each face has a distinct individuality of its own, and the whole scene is characterized by dramatic power. George Leslie is a son of the late Charles Leslie, the celebrated Amer- ican painter, who settled and won his laurels in London, and was the friend and contemporary of Washington Irving. He aims at combining landscape with genre^ and selects his subjects rather more from the mid- dle and upper classes than Fildes or Llerkomer. His methods of handling and color are exceedingly refined and delicate, without degenerating into mere paintiness or prettiness, and there is something very winning in the gracefulness of his figures. Somewhat similar observations would also apply to some of the canvases of A. Elmore. But there is no artist more thoroughly national now painting in England than AY. P. Frith, R. A. AYho has not seen engravings of his “ Railway Station” and “Derby Day,” unsurpassed in modern art for their popularity? The former sold for £16,000, including the list of subscribers to the engraving from it. Frith groups with the facility of Menzel of Berlin, combining much natural bustle with large variety of types of character ; but he cannot claim a high raidc as a colorist, and in all that constitutes a really great work of art must yield the palm to his illustrious j)redecessor, Sir David Wilkie, who in his special sphere has no superior, and scarcely an ecpial, in contempo- rary English art. AY. Q. Orchardson, justly considered one of the foremost of the con- temporary school in technical excellence, may be classed with a group of 34 : CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. artists who combine with genre a love of old-time bricabrac, and seek to reproduce the life of our grandfathers and grandmothers in the interesting and sometimes pathetic scenes they represent. Marcus Stone, who won a medal at Yienna for his painting of ‘‘ Edward II. and Gaveston,” and as A.E.A. was recently admitted to the vestibule which leads to the inner “WIIAT d’ye lack, madam?” PETTIE. Holy of Holies of the Academy, is also earning a prominent position by such semi-historical works as his “Appeal for Mercy,” a dramatic composi- tion borrowed from scenes only too common in the Reign of Terror. Yah C. Princep and I. Pettie also treat this class of subjects effec- tively sometimes ; the latter, however, is chiefly remarkable as being one of the strongest portrait-painters in England. H. S. Marks is an artist of GILBERT— BEAVIS. 35 much versatility^, both in oil and water colors and decorative art, dealing largely, however, with subjects of past rather than present interest, as in his interesting and faithfully rendered painting of an “Apothecary” of olden time in his laboratory, surrounded by the curious details which en- tered into the concoction of medicines in those days, all conscientiously expressed, while the face and figure of the leathern-visaged alchemist are effectively drawn and painted. There is, perhaps, a little too much elabo- ration in the style, while granting high artistic qualities to the work as a whole. A favorable example of this artist’s method in handling certain subjects is seen in the engraving of his “Princess and Pelicans,” which was painted in water-colors. There are, in fact, many paintings now done in England showing that the artists have ransacked the bazaars of Constan- tinople and the old-curiosity shops of Wardour Street for antique armor, and that the anachronisms of costume in the works of Kembrandt or Ver- onese are repeated less now, although I was surprised to see a Crusader, in a recent vivid battle scene by Sir John Gilbert, helmeted in a casque of the time of Cromwell, instead of a morion of the twelfth century. Sir John, wdio has been the corypheus of this school, although more especially in water-colors, is now past his prime. Commencing with wood-drawing, he eventually took up the pursuit of oil and water colors, being by far the most successful in the latter. He is the fifth president of the old water- color society. In style picturesque and vigorous — like a northern blast, honest and keen, bluff and sturdy as a viking — he is yet entirely want- ing in the subtle suggestiveness of the highest art. A. C. Gow and Pichard Beavis have developed a versatile ability in both oil and water colors jn the representation of semi-historical scenes re- quiring dramatic force. Beavis, a native of Devonshire, only gradually drifted into the forms of art expression he now employs. Por many years he was engaged by the Messrs. Trollope, the well-known art decorators, and by his aid they were able successfully to compete in the London and Paris exhibitions of 1852 and 18(55. Having been able by this means to steal a march on time, Beavis took up the profession of a painter, and ob- taiTied a respectable position by such Avorks as “A IMilitary Train crossing the Sands at Elizabetli Castle, »fersey.” In recent years he has travelled in the East, and has brought home some very effective studies of life among the Bedaween. In acpiarelle he de})ends, as it seems to us, too much on the use of body color, and in his works as a whole leaves the 36 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. impression of being a pleasing and clever artist of talent rather than gen- ius. A rival of Beavis in the vigorous delineation of Oriental groups is the water-colorist Carl Haag, who, although of Oerman origin, has made London his home since 1852, and resides amidst the charming haunts of Hampstead. J. F. Lewis, who died in 1876, at a good old age, had a brill- iant and highly conscientious style of painting the vivid costumes and ar- chitecture of Spain and the gorgeous East ; but it too much resembled miniature painting, and palled by the very gorgeousness of color and ex- cess of detail, thus lacking breadth and atmospheric grays. H. S. MARKS, FROM A PORTRAIT BY OULESS. Of canvases representing great historic events, especially battle-fields where the best blood of England has been shed to emblazon the pages of her chronicles, there is, of course, an abundance ; but such subjects, to be rightly and artistically treated, and elevated to a point where we feel that a great inspiration has borne the artist above the prose and staginess so ' difficult to forget amidst a mass of technical details, must be handled only by those who bring to the task a special vocation for it, including there- with a powerful imagination. Acres on acres of such paintings are con- BATTLE PAINTING. 37 stantly executed both in England and on the Continent to gratify national patriotism, and as a ride no works are so unsatisfactory to the art critic. Maclise, who died in 1870, was a jDoor colorist, but he was a tine draughts- man and a man of genius, and his fresco in the Houses of Parliament, the Meeting of Wellington and Blucher after Waterloo,” offers a pleas- THK PRINCESS AND THE PELICANS. MARKS. ing exception, and is really a great work, although even thus early does it show traces of Time’s effacing fingers. When it was first opened to the public it was equalled by very few works of tlie sort in England. And now it is a lady who carries away the palm in this department of English contemporary art. Miss Elizabeth Thompson, now Mrs. Butler — since she has been married within the year to Captain Butler, the well- known African explorer — has gained a sudden and surprising rc]uitation for military scenes, in which it is claimed that unusual power is dis])layed, especially in the action of horses. So rapid has been the rise of her fame, that within two years of her first ap])earance at the Academy she has received, it is said, £5000 for a ])ainting, while £80 or £100 is asked for a mere rough peu-and-iuk sketch of hers. The cinuimstances of her (*ase are so ])eculiar that whatever is said about her is sure to be misinterpreted by some ; for, on the one hand, those who ai*e jealous of her success, or disgusted by the possibly undue estimate placed upon her powers, are un- 38 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. willing to accord her the credit of real ability, while, on the other hand, certain persons of more zeal than discretion, who act as if they thought the relations of the sexes depended upon a similarity of intellectual force in each, instead of upon elements far more subtle and profound, are ready to cry down all just criticism of female art as the natural result of cruel prejudice against oppressed woman. The facts seem to be somewhat as follows : Miss Thompson is a lady of about thirty -two years of agb, who from early childhood has displayed a taste for drawing horses and sol- diers. She studied at South Kensington, and has enjoyed all the advan- tages now offered to art students. For a number of years she painted as an amateur, until it was proposed to her to exhibit some of her works. The Prince of Wales happened to like her first painting at the Academy, MISS ELIZABETH THOMPSON. and induced the Queen to purchase it. Any one who has the slightest acquaintance with the way English society is constructed does not need to be told that after this Miss Thompson’s fortune was secure. Well, Miss Thompson having acquired a seat on Olympus, further criticism of her paintings would for a while have little effect in depressing or enhan- cing their value. But it is to her great credit that sudden success does not seem to have turned her head or induced her to relax in the effort to improve, whioh would indicate that she is inspired by genuine art feeling. ELIZABETH THOMPSON. 39 Each successive work has shown improvement, and a disposition to profit by the suggestions of the critics. “ The Eoll-Call,” The 28th at Quatre Bras,” and Balaklava ” are all military subjects. It would be natural for some errors to appear in them : the wonder is, considering the circum- stances, that they are so few. As works of art, we should say that they display real pathos and dramatic power in parts, often with effective drawing of the horses. But the power is too scattered ; the composition lacks simplicity, breadth, concentration. While isolated groups are admi- rably conceived, and would appear well as separate paintings or episodes, tliey do not sufficiently harmonize to form the unity of one great compo- sition. The coloring is also sometimes very good, and then, again, is im- paired by crude unnatural yellows, or otlier tints out of tone with the rest. Miss Tliompson’s genius seems to be lyrical ratlier than epic. It is said slie intends to abandon war pictures and take up sacred subjects. It would not be surprising if she sliould succeed well in these, if she con- fines herself to simple compositions. The cut given above, from her painting entitled “Missing,” gives a good idea of her power in drawing and the management of single groups. 40 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Among those who make a specialty of painting a similar class of sub- jects with those so admirably handled by the late Sir Edwin Landseer, are many who might be favorably mentioned. Ansdell is one of the most prominent among them, but he is artificial in color and treatment, and is inferior to P. Graham and II. W. B. Davis, and a number of others who deserve kindly mention, without, at the same time, offering any name of commanding and jire- eminent power like that of Troy on or Eosa Bon- heur, in France. As regards landscape art in England, it cannot be said that there are any now painting in such a style as to make us forget Turner, Constable, or old Chrome ; but such men as George Cole and his son Yicat Cole, Graham, Leader, MacWhirter, Brett, and Millais, among many that we might mention in oil-painting, produce works which show a careful and loving study of nature, and, if they do not impress us like the magnificent dreams of imperial landscapists, command our respectful attention. Mil- lais has only recently taken up this branch of art; but in such works as “ Over the Hills and Far Away ” has, almost at a bound, jDlaced himself among the first of living landscapists. J. Brett, painter of the famous Stone -breaker,” may be regarded somewdiat in the light of a curious fossil or phenomenon of other days, for he is one of the few surviving VICAT COLE. LANDSCAPE ARTISTS. 41 pre-Raphaelites wlio have never swerved from their first allegiance. A good colorist, he renders nature with a photographic precision and fidelity that is so astonishing as, by arousing wonder at such patient dexterity, to interfere with our sympathy with the scene represented. His manner partakes too much of a tour de force. We respect the sturdy British faithfulness with which he clings to his first love, even if it be a false theory, hut gladly turn away to canvases that more restfully impress the observer by acknowledging the value of the ideal in art. Mark Fisher, a Boston artist, who had to leave his native land in order to find the ap- preciation he deserves, has won a front rank in the landscape art of his adopted country, and seems to have no superior there in the interpreta- J. C. HOOK. tion of certain aspects^ of nature. A too common fault wdth English landscape art at present is a certain dryness and hardness, especially in the painting of skies. In water -colors we find more who seem to the ‘^manner horn.” Frederick Walker was admirable in this line, very happily combining figure with his landscapes ; and there are, perhaps, none living to equal the matchless boldness, breadth, and tender grays of David Cox or Copley Fielding; but such men as Haftel, Dauby, Birket Foster, Mole, Wimperis, Chase, Iline, E. Jennings, and a number of others, give us work that is quite promising and satisfactory, and generally supe- rior in treatment and harmony or sweetness of tone to the average oil landscapes of the English School. There is, perha])s, not quite enough breadth of treatment in their general style, it is so ditficult to attain and 42 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. keep the juste milieu. The style of some schools and artists is broad to vagueness and blotchiness ; of others, so finished up to the nail that noth- ing is left to the fancy, and the feebleness of art in the face of nature is LUFF, BOY, LUFF !” HOOK. thus palpably demonstrated. Only the greatest masters, the founders of schools, avoid either extreme. The contemporary marine art of the country is rather disappointing, not because there is not considerable good work evident among the pro- ductions of some of the marine artists there, but because it is, on the whole, of less proportionate merit than in the other branches of English art. Many of the English marine artists work both in oil and aquarelle, but invariably — excepting Hook (who is rather a painter of marine genre^ and very clever in that line), Hayes, Cooke, Dawson, and a few others wdth more satisfactory results in the latter ; which is to be regretted, be- cause, however effective water -colors may be for landscape or the figure, the weight, the power, the grandeur, of the sea does not seem to be so well suggested by that method, while the subtle, impalpable effect of spoon- drift, or the hyaline character of the mysterious greens of sea-water, I have never yet seen satisfactorily represented in aquarelle. Besides the names alluded to above, Duncan, Moore, Jackson, Leitch (whose illustrations to MARINE— PORTRAITURE. 43 Robinson Crusoe ” are the most conscientious and effective things of the sort ever done), Mogford, Powell, Walters, Read, and Severn may be spoken of as respectable representatives of English marine art. Black- and-white drawings by the last two were among the best things of the sort I have seen in London. But there can be but little difference of opinion regarding the rank to be assigned to portraiture in England just now. The number of portrait- painters is large, and many of them leave little to be desired in that de- partment of art. There is a freshness, a vigor, a purity of color, a free- dom of touch, a resemblance to nature, in many of the portraits now produced in London which recalls the time when Reynolds and Gains- borough were the foremost artists of the English SchooL Pettie, Sant, Leighton, Leslie, Ouless, Millais, Poynter, have each an individuality of his own, and all are deserving of more notice than mere allusion. As before observed, Millais does some admirable work in landscape ; he also first achieved a high and deserved reputation in genre and historical paint- ing. Latterly he has added to his versatility, entering the field of portrai- ture, and placing himself at the head of the living portrait - painters of Great Britain. There is sometimes a suggestion of stiffness in the atti- tudes of his figures, but the treatment and texture are free from manner- ism, sometimes broad, sometimes very delicate and carefully finished, ac- cording to the subject. As a colorist it is difficult to see why he should not be assigned to a place among the foremost that Great Britain has produced. John Everett Millais was born in 1829. lie began to study art at the Royal Academy at the early age of eleven, and at eighteen obtained the gold medal for historical painting. Soon after, together Avith Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he formed the Brotherhood of the pre- Raphaelites,” from which he has gradually drifted away ; Rossetti, so far as methods are concerned, has also dropped the practice of the essential principle of that school, a realism so bald as nearly to result in the ex- clusion of the ideal, which is like the “Iliad” with the wrath of Achilles left out. At twenty-four, the earliest age permitted, Millais was elected an Associate of the Academy. “The Black Brunswicker ” is one of his most popular pictures. He has been very successful also in etching and drawing on wood. No living English artist surpasses him in versatility, wliile it may be justly said of him as of Goldsmith, “nullum tetigit quod non ornavit.” 44 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Walter W. Onless, who is now not over twenty-eight years old, is from the island of Jersey, and a pnpil of Millais, who was so overcrowded with commissions that he gave all below a certain sum to Ouless, which has enabled him to become known at an nnnsnally early age. But he deserves all the success he has won. Few artists of greater promise in this line can be found. Flis texture, handling, and coloring are of a high order. In the management of red, which has proved a stumbling-block to many an English artist, he rivals Begnault. Mr. F. Leighton, who is also strong in portraiture, is in many respects one of the most notable artists in England. His advantages have, it is true, been unusually great ; but there is never any sign, on the other hand, that he is disposed to allow these to supply the place of earnest, honest work. At thirteen he began his art studies at Florence, and con- tinued them at Berlin, Paris, and Brussels, so that he cannot be said to belong to any school, but to have adopted an eclectic style. His paint- ing of Ciniabue’s Madonna carried through Florence ” brought him prominently before the public before he was thirty. High culture, a vague mysticism, and a refined classical and scholarly feeling are natu- rally perceptible in his works, cpialities which are becoming more com- mon in English art than before he introduced them there. Grace and beauty rather than force are the prevailing characteristics of his style, and results intellectual rather than inspirational. His j)ainting called I)aph- nophoria,” in the Academy for 1876, has challenged much criticism of both sorts. Fully to understand it, one should put himself in the artist’s place, and try to see what it was lie intended to rej^resent ; for, regarded as a painting j^ure and simple, it cannot be denied that it fails of some of the qualifications generally considered essential to such a woi*k. The painting is seventeen feet long and seven feet eight inches wide, com- posed in decorative style for the country-seat of Mr. J. Stewart Hodgson. It represents the noble youth of Thebes bearing gifts to Aj^ollo at the fes- tival held in honor of the deity once in nine years. A band of maidens, the loveliest of the lovely of that glorious land, stepping in a double row, chant the sacred hymn, followed by musicians striking the loud-sounding cymbal and timbrel, and preceded by a row of singing boys. The proces- sion is led by youths carrying a suit of armor and symbolical emblems of the god, headed by the priest of Apollo — a noble youth of commanding form, drawn with consummate art. Beyond is a grove of stone-pines as a LEIGHTON— POYNTER. 45 dark background, with lookers-on, and in the distance the Acropolis. It must be admitted that at first the painting conflicts with preconceived ideas of art, and fails to receive unqualified assent, while at the same time it strangely attracts, and leads one to return again and again to it with ever-increasing admiration. And while it would be much to be regretted if all paintings imitated the style of this, yet it could be wished that all artists succeeded as well as Mr. Leighton has done in giving ocular expres- sion to their conceptions. Such drawing of the “ human form divine ” is rarely excelled, and the delicate harmony of colors displayed in the robes of the maidens impresses one like the rhythm of exquisitely modulated F. LEIGHTON. music, until, as one gazes on these strangely magical singers, the very song they are chanting seems to issue from their opened lips, and ever after, as one thinks on the painting, he appears to hear the strains they warhled on the plains of Hellas ages and ages ago. Quito recently l\rr. Leighton has taken to sculpture with excellent results. His group “An Athlete Stiaig- gling with a Serpent” was sold for £2000. kfr. Edward J. Foynter lias also achieved remarkahle success in tlie same direction as that attempted liy the “ Daphnojihoria,” but our limits foi’bid more than mere allusion to his ambitious effort, styled “Atalanta's Race’’ — a ])ainting fourteen feet long, open to criticism, while at the same time 46 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. the drawing, foreshortening, and coloring of the figure of Atalanta are worthy a very high rank in contemporary art. That these two paintings are all that could he desired may and will be questioned by many ; but these and similar works of the kind somewhat compensate for the average moderate quality of much contemporary English art, and seem, also, to indicate that it is in a transitional state, although it is as yet too early, perhaps, to forecast the final results. The accompanying engraving gives a good idea of the style of Mr. Poyiiter’s composition and power as a draughtsman. This artist is now about forty-one, and therefore in the prime of life, lie early came under the infiuence of Leighton, but has sulficient ability to follow in a path of his own. From the ]3ainting of window-glass he has passed through the various stages of book illustrating and decorating, and has in turn devoted himself to almost every form of decorative art. As an art instructor he probably holds the first place in England at the pres- ent day. But with all this versatility, combined with a masterful appre- hension of the historical and technical phases of art, which sometimes re- sult in works highly interesting and instructive, it appears to us that we here behold an imitative rather than a creative mind, a mind very active and versatile, it is true, but depending upon a study of the antique more than upon nature for its ideas. But on this point a certain reserve is per- haps best, because there is so much to be said on both sides of the ques- tion. That this style of art is, however, thoroughly un-English and alto- gether due to foreign models is beyond dispute quite as much as that the literary styles of Dryden’s time were borrowed from those of France in that age. Of tlie present condition of the plastic arts in Great Britain a great deal that is favorable can be said. Although, perhaps, in sculpture some might claim, with an appearance of justice, that there is nothing to rival the ancients, or even Thorwaldsen, or Canova, or Chantrey, yet, setting comparisons aside, it cannot be denied that such men as Foley and A. Stevens, who have but recently passed away, were men of real genius. The monument to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul’s, by the latter, is a very noble work, characterized by vigorous imagination and nervous action. Edward B. Stephens is also a sculptor of very respectable powers ; and the same may be said of Bell, Armistead, Calder Marshall, Theed, Woollier, AYeekes, and Aliss Montalba. Till'; (iOLDKN A(ii;. — I’OVMKU. -V lJ-_„ 4 ALBERT MEMORIAL. 49 The monument to the Prince Consort in Kensington Gardens gives a very good general idea of what the best English sculptors of our day are doing. The monument was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, with sugges- tions by the Queen, who has considerable artistic taste, which has been inherited by some of her cliildren. The Crown Princess of Prussia draws and paints, and the Princess Louise displays marked talent in sculpture and kindred arts. The canopy is of stone-work, profusely adorned with gilding and magnificent glass mosaics. It rests upon four clusters of sumptuous columns of polished Scotch granite, joined by gilded metallic bands embossed with massive agate. Above this springs the spire to a height of 180 feet, adorned with numerous emblematic figures. The statue of the Prince is of bronze, gilded, and colossal in dimensions. It rests on a podium, or basis, surrounded by an alto-relievo containing 169 figures above life size, the representative men of all ages who have dis- tinguished themselves as poets, painters, musicians, architects, and sculp- tors. Michael Angelo appears twice, as architect and as painter, while Pacine is omitted, and no place is found for any native of the M^estern continent. Either West or Powers, Allston or Stuart, might have been added with propriety. For a work of this kind the grouping and general effect are really very impressive, and reflect great credit on the talent of Armistead and Philip, the sculptors who designed the podium. At each angle above is a symbolical marble group representing respectively Com- merce, by Thorny croft; Agriculture, by Weekes; Manufactures, by Cal- der Marshall; and Engineering, by Lawlor. The, whole rests upon a py- ramidal platform, in two stages, at each angle of which are four colossal marble groups typifying the four continents, by Theed, Eoley, M‘Dowell, and Bell. They are all'worthy of high praise, although Asia, by the late Mr. Eoley, appears the most majestic as well as satisfactory as a work of art. The full-bosomed female form seated royally on the elephant seems the ideal Semiramis, who swaj^s empires by the irresistible influence of queenly charms joined to commanding character. A glance of fire, a wave of the matchless hand, accomplish at her bid what batfies mailed legions. The stately repose of the Persian figure is also very effective. Eoley’s Asia must be considered a masterly conception. Such is the Albert Memorial in detail ; as a whole, the design is very ini])ressive and magnificent, while (>pen to criticism in parts. AVhatever may be said of the combination of marble and gold by the ancient Greeks, they certainly 4 50 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. do not quite harmonize in a E^orthern atmosphere, while the dark color of the canopy and spire throws the marble out of tone. The statue of the Prince should, beyond question, have been of marble. As it is, it often is difficult to gain a clear view of it, so dazzling is the light upon it on a bright day, while a cloudy day confuses the outlines of the face nearly as much. As to the sitting posture, about which there has been so much adverse criticism, a great deal may be said on both sides witliout exhausting the subject. It is in the kindred branch of architecture that we learn better than in any other way the actual results of the government art training schools. It is true, we find no new and original order of architecture evolved from this training ; and in the present age of the world, and as society is now constituted, it is too much to expect a new system. What we see, amidst great activity and much really good work, is no more than an adaptation of the different schools of other lands or other days, not always with j^er- fect taste, for a style that may be good under certain conditions may be objectionable with altered conditions, if there is any authority in the un- derlying principles of all good art, and architecture especially. It may be said the Greeks borrowed their ideas from the Egyptians, the Romans from the Greeks, the Byzantines from them in turn, and the Saracens from the Christians, and so through all the history of art. But each sep- arate order, even when suggested by a previous order, was, by the genius of the people creating it, made to confonn to their climatic necessities or the native characteristics of the race to a degree that made it practically individual and distinctive. How the most enthusiastic lover of modern art cannot point to a single modern public building erected since the de- cline of the Renaissance which is not either a medley of different existing orders or a careful imitation of some one school of architecture. But so much having been granted, it may be allowed that some very handsome and noteworthy buildings have been erected of late years in the United Kingdom, often constructed on the fundamental principle of the art, that architectural ornament should be constructive, that is, an integral part of the building. The new Houses of Parliament, designed by Sir Charles Barry, form the most ambitious structure of modern times, if judged by dimensions and expense. It cannot be denied that, as seen from the river at early morning, when partially veiled by a thin gray curtain of poetic mist, while ARCHITECTURE. 51 the gilded pinnacles of the Victoria Tower catch the first flash of the ris- ing sun, the general effect of the enormous pile is very imposing. But for that very reason, when examined by the noonday sun, it loses propor- tionately, for a veil of mist hides the meaningless detailed ornaments re- peated over the wdiole building, until the effect of repose and grandeur to be expected from such dimensions is very nearly destroyed. And this is the prevailing error of modern architecture. But since the Houses of Par- liament were erected adjoining Westminster Hall and Westminster Ab- bey, as if to show the contrast between ancient and modern architecture, great strides have been made in England both in civic and domestic archi- tecture. And it must be admitted that this is owing, at least in part, to the art training in the government art schools since 1852, in addition to the influence of the Boyal Institute of British Architects and several sim- ilar institutions. St. George’s Hall, at Liverpool, in classic style, com- mends itself as a building of unusual merit. The beauty of polished Scotch granite for constructive ornamentation is very well illustrated in the pillars which support the ceiling of the hall. The same may be said of the Manchester Koyal Exchange, erected, after the Corinthian order, by Messrs. Mills and Murgatroyd, the well-known architects. The Town-hall of Manchester, scarcely yet completed, is an imposing and suc- cessful attempt to imitate the mediaeval styles. But were one to enu- merate and describe all the magnificent civic buildings constructed in Great Britain during this generation, he would require a portly volume to do it in. Much excellent work has also been accomplished in the restoration of many of the fine old cathedrals and chapels of England, and Mr. Street has gained a merited reputation for entering fully into tlie spirit of the original in his restorations and additions. That this is not always easy is strikingly illustrated by the difference between tlie plain and ugly towers which so great an architect as Sir Christo]flier Wren added to Westmin- ster Abl)ey, and the nave of Bristol Cathedral recently designed and built by Mr. Street. He is now superintending the new Inns of Court, which the city of London is erecting at an estimate of £700, OOO, Messrs. Spiers, Burgess, AVaterhonse, and Shaw may also be mentioned as architects of more than ordinary ability, wlio often show excellent feeling and poetic taste in their constructions. But the most interesting, satisfactory, and perhaps novel feature of 52 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Eiiglisli architecture at present is the use of terra-cotta for constructive decoration in combination with brick. It is found that it endures the at- mospheric acids to much greater advantage than the native stone, and the creamy white tint it has when new soon turns to pale yellows and delicate browns and grays, which give the effect of marble stained by time, and liarmonize it admirably with the bricks which form the body of the build- ing. Entire porticos, balconies, friezes, and cornices are made of this material, cast in moulds and baked, at less cost than the same ornaments could be carved out of stone, with little to choose between the two in point of beauty. Whether this is entirely according to the principles of architecture, or is likely to impair the art of stone-cutting, is a question for art casuists to settle. The library of tlie Kensington Museum is con- structed entirely in this method, after the Italian orders, and is in some respects the most noteworthy and architecturally pleasing public edifice erected in London during this century. It was designed under the super- intendence of Moodie, a graduate of the government art training school, and the decorative parts were invented by pupils of the institution, espe- cially Sykes, a young man of great 2 ^romise, whom death has unfortunate- ly snatched away just as he was entering on a great career. Our illus- tration 53) gives some idea of the rare elegance and originality of the j^illai’S of the portico, entirely of terra-cotta, in drums. Morris, an- other 2Mi}3il of South Kensington, designed terra-cotta decorations for the monument recently erected to Wedgwood at Burslem, which are ex- celled by notliing of the sort in modern art. Much of this terra-cotta art work reminds one of the so-called Manoelite style, so magnificently illustrated at the convent of Belem, at Lisbon. While often very beau- tiful, there is constant danger of sacrificing the rejDOse which is character- istic of the highest art in a wealth of detail that conceals the dignity of massive outlines. It is 2 )erfectly natural that with the architectural use of terra-cotta the manufacture of pottery -ware should keep even pace; in fact, they both date their modern success in England to the potteries of Josiali Wedg- wood at Burslem and Etruria in the last century. Wedgwood- ware is still as great a favorite as ever, a delicate wdiite ]3orcelaneous biscuit, called jas]3er-ware, being the best. The biscuit is capable of receiving the tints of oxides, the same as glass or enamel, and the figures are raised in wdiite relief. Upward of one thousand moulds w^ere made during the life I’IU,AKS OK TKUHA-COTTA, SOUTH KKNSIMiTON MUSKUM. CEEAMIC ART. 55 of the founder, and these are still in use to the present day ; in fact, no attempts have been made to improve on what was done by Wedgwood. To enumerate the numerous potteries that have sprung up in England since then is beyond our limits. But the mania, if it may be so called, seems now at its height. The prices demanded are enormous for English ware, and some of the work produced in china or majolica is little inferior to the best work of Urbino or Sevres. The prismatic lustres of De Mor- gan, marvellously produced on claret-colored grounds on vases of his own design, are quite wonderful. The designs of Coleman, painted with full artistic regard to the tints of majolica, are of exceptional grace, and dis- play good knowledge of the human figure ; but, unfortunately, Mr. Cole- man no longer favors the public with such work, having abandoned it after reaching a high degree of excellence. Mrs. E. Broughton is likewise entitled to a very high position in the art of decorating majolica and china. Mr. Goode and many amateurs also follow this pursuit at present, often successfully ; and several schools have been established for exclusive instruction in ceramic art. Among many establishments for the manufac- ture of majolica-ware, and more especially porcelains and china, Minton’s extensive works at Stoke-upon-Trent hold the first position in England. They have been able to imitate very successfully a plate from the finest set ever made at Sevres, manufactured expressly for Louis XYI., and afterward bought by George lY., and now valued at nearly half a million sterling. The dessert service made at Minton’s for the Duke of Edin- burgh is probabty the, most elegant thing of the sort that has been exe- cuted in England. But it is only fair to add that the designs were by Boullemier, who had already established his fame at Sevres. Solon, lately chief painter of the works at that place, is employed also by them. I saw two vases executed by him at the elegant pottery rooms of the Messrs. Goode, in London, which indicate the high-water mark reached in tlie decoration of ceramic -ware in this centuiy, representing respectively wrestlers and racers, most exquisitely limned in white rilievo upon a base of delicate olive-green. Four airy sprites, perched on pilasters, ])ly cym- bals and horns. The spectators are also Cupids, who in various attitudes show lively interest in the games, while one entertaining sprite is so ab- sorbed by the grapes he is discussing that he altogether neglects to notice the contest. These figures are composed in a thoroughly classical s])irit, while the way in which success is achieved through several very perilous 56 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. ordeals of fire in tlie baking process wins great credit for the British arti- san ; in fact, the extraordinary beauty of Minton’s tnrcpioise china and other porcelain wares is really dazzling for the perfection of the work- manship displayed, and the idea it gives of the degree of excellence at last reached in England in transforming dull earths and pigments, as by a magician’s wand, into objects rivalling the sj^lendor of the 02)iuni-eater’s dreams. Terra-cotta has been turned to another admirable nse in London by being moulded into elegant recej)tacles for flowers made to fit into the windows. Many are the houses, of the rich and the lowly alike, that are thus decorated in an inexpensive way by painted glazed terra-cotta boxes |flanted with a profusion of brilliant flowers. Much of this terra-cotta work is done at the potteries of the Messrs. Donlton at Lambeth, who, since 1870, have achieved a brilliant re2)iitation for the beauty of their faience wares. Dealing chiefly in sober grays and bines, tints perhaj^s well suited to the clime and race, they yet arrive at very effective results. Full emjfloyment is constantly given to a class of over fifty designers, of whom two-thirds are ladies, who find in this form of decorative art a vocation that seems especially ada^ited to develop) the artistic instincts of the feminine intellect. George Tinworth also gains at Lambeth abundant scope for his vigorous genius, which works in a vein that is entirely his own. Of soft clay as it comes from the thrower’s wheel, Tinworth models gron^^s of figures on vases, ^flctnres, ])anels, and every variety of mouldings. These compositions are borrowed from sacred or secular legends, or from every-day life, and, with beautiful modelling, are often richly suggestive of ideas pathetic or sublime. A pitcher he exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition was })ronounced to be one of the finest art results of the century. The subject of household art is one that is now demanding much at- tention in England, but it occupies a field so extensive and so j^eculiarly its own tliat we must dismiss the subject with a brief paragraph. The expense and fertile invention and good taste bestowed in decorating cliinmey-pieces and sideboards, dining and drawing rooms, rival, 2^erha2:)s, the household art of the Renaissance in excellence, while surpassing it in quantity and more general diffusion among the people, because of the superior means for creating it, and the larger wealth of the community, which is probably greater than was ever before distributed among a siini- HOUSEHOLD ART. 57 lar number of people. Modern household art, however, whatever its beauty and superiority of execution, must yield the palm to ancient art, because it is to a large degree imitative, and therefore, like most imitative art, not free from affectation, nor always in that suj)reme good taste which is the result of complete adaptation between the requiring circumstances and the objects devised to meet those requirements. But admitting these defects, it may be readily granted that there is much in contemporary English household art which worthily commands our admiration. LANDSEEK PLATE. I L-F RANGE T% TUCII has been said about the mission of art and the artist. Art lias no mission ; it is only one form by wbicb the ideas of a race or a nation find expression at certain stages of intellectual progress. That has in all ages been the truest art wbicb lias best expressed the ideas, the AN ENTERTAINING STORY, CHEVILLIARD. life, manners, and beliefs of the time, as felt by the artist whom they in- spired ; and be lias been the truest artist who lias simply used subjects and forms of expression most familiar and most in barmony with bis natural sympathies as implanted by birth or education. SOURCES OF TRUE ART. 59 It cannot be too often repeated, therefore, that art is a result rather than a cause, a mode of utterance as much as a thought expressed, a means for giving expression to certain individual or national impulses. Only thus can we best explain the reason for the wide divergences between the art of different ages and races ; while if we thus define and consider the nature of art, we also gain more mental breadth and instruction by study- ing through its art the characteristics of each race producing an art of its own, and at the same time, by accepting these conditions, on which all true art is based, we should do away with much of the narrow, vapid, arrogant art criticism on the part of those artists, art critics, and ama- teurs who confine themselves to admiring only certain schools of art and censuring what does not accord with their own art standard, instead of en- deavoring to see what is good in each school, and wherein it illustrates the history or character of the race that has given it birth. Nothing could more forcibly convey an idea of the truth of the fore- going remarks than the difference between the arts of England and France, although separated only by the English Channel, or between the three distinct stages through which art has passed in France itself since the time of David, in the French Devolution, to the artists of the late Em- pire. If one would hold the mirror up to nature — that is, study the char- acter of the people of these two countries or these different epochs — he has but to consider the art of each. No people ever portrayed themselves so candidly, without hesitation or reserv^e, as the French have done in their fine arts. What Montaigne did for himself in his chateau, centuries ago, in his entertaining, acute, egotistic, but not always elevating, autobio- graphical essays, the French artists have done for France. If their Avork is often low or demoralizing, they are scarcely more to blame than the race of which they are a part. A stream cannot rise above its source ; and while, as free agents, they may not whohy free themselves from responsibil- ity for the corrupting character of much of French art, the chief responsi- bility must finally rest with the public Avhich craves such art, and stimu- lates the influences and ideas of which the truly national artist is but the natural exponent. If we in America desire, therefore, to have not only a great but a pure school of national art, it rests Avith ourselves to regulate the question. Just so long as the public demands and encourages only an elevating art, and just so long as the national character is of a noble type, so long Avill the national art partake of the same nature, for artists do not 60 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. create public opinion, as a rule, but are created by it. How otlierwise can we explain the fact that obscene works of art are never seen on exhibition in Great Britain, and rarely in Germany ; while scenes of bloodshed, given with careful fidelity to the most harrowing details, or paintings in 'which everything is done to corrupt the morals, abound not only in the by- ways of art in Paris, but in the best galleries and in the most exposed positions ? This condition of art in France has increased since the Second Empire was founded. The nobler and purer character of literature and art under Louis Philippe passed away when Paul Delaroche, Delacroix, and Ary Schefier gave place to men of possibly equal intellect, but lower morale. It is generally conceded that the Second Empire degraded the character of the nation even below its ordinary standard, and that the terrible over- throw France suffered at the hands of Germany was owing very largely to this cause. One who returns from time to time to France finds that a gradual degeneration is coming over tlie people, out of which, perhaps, the Pe2:>ublic may save them ; but unless this moral and intellectual decay that is sapping the heart of the nation be soon arrested, it is not difficult to forecast tlie future of France. But while, with some honorable exceptions, too much can hardly be said against the depraving character of modern French art, we must be careful not to confound its moral deficiencies with its technical qualities as art. While it is to be desired, obviously, that all good art should also be pure art, it is yet quite possible to have a very high order of technical art combined with low moral character. This is a distinction too often forgotcen even by some critics of rej)ute, who, if they do not like the moral tendency of a painting or a sculpture, are liable to condemn it al- together without first considering whether it is successful or not in con- veying the artist’s conception, or fulfilling the canons of art. But it is a distinction that cannot justly be avoided by one who desires to criticise works of art without prejudice and from all points of view. The evi- dence should be heard on both sides, and the accused should have the benefit of whatever can be said in his favor. Moreover, as it is quite possible to produce works of art that may unite the high moral tone of the English school with the technical excellencies of the Erench, it be- hooves us to give the latter a very careful study wholly in the art spirit. Ho people probably ever had the art instinct more generally diffused ART TRAITS OF THE FRENCH. 61 than the French, although not to so high a degree, perhaps, as the Greeks or the Italians, for they have never yet produced anything quite equal to what those races have achieved in art, as in literature and other depart- ments of intellectual effort they have never produced any native genius quite as great as the few Titanic minds of certain other races whose genius has caused distinct epochs of progress, while there is perceptible among them a larger average of genius. This holds good especially with their artists. An eye for color and for brilliant effects is a prominent characteristic of the race ; and while singularly deficient in poets of the first order, or, in fact, in any poetry that is comparable with that of other lands, the poetic feeling, of which they must, of course, have their share, finds expression in form and color. And this artistic genius continues still in full force. While the Gallic race no longer presents us with such men of commanding intellectual strength and character as clustered around Henry lY. or Louis XI Y., or relieved the lurid horrors of the He volution and the transient glare of the wars of the First Empire by great abilities and gigantic virtues and crimes — while the French no louger present us with a Corneille or a Woliere, a Yoltaire or a Madame Roland, a Turenne or a Soult, a Bossuet or a Mira- beau — they continue to offer us an art that shows no decline in vitality, although in some respects less great than the school which died out twen- ty-five years ago, because, since art takes its rise in national infiuences, it must be nobler or inferior according to the national character whose tastes it illustrates. The artistic turn is so marked as a distinctive, and at pres- ent the most distinctive, trait, next to the greed for money now possessed by the French people, that it impresses one more and more each time he returns to their counti-y and capital, and fascinates and captivates the senses in spite of one’s more sober convictions. In London, vast as is the art field, yet the city is so enormous, and the other interests and oc- cupations engrossing the public attention are so multiplied and extensive, that art, if it is not relegated to a subordinate position, at least seems but one of many forms of expression by which the greatest race the world has seen since the days of Bericles finds vent for the utterance of its magnificent energies, teeming thought, and unsurpassed dignity of na- tional character. But it is quite otherwise in Paris. There is the art capital of Euro})e, although Munich and Berlin are pressing it hard, and threaten to be for- 62 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. midable rivals. But tlie vastness and magnificence of Paris, the vigor of its art schools, and, above all, the long - established organizations for the patronage of French art as a matter of national pride par excellence^ will enable Paris to give her rivals a long race yet. Like a vast maelstrom, it draws thither artistic minds from all parts of the world. THE ORANGES. BOUGUEREAU. Everything in the appearance of Paris indicates its character as an art emporium, where works of art are not only j)roduced and sold, but also exercise a powerful influence over the public taste. The streets are laid out with consummate perspective effect. The squares and gardens leave little to be desired. The Place de la Concorde is the central spot of a combination of architectural effects probably unsurpassed at the present ARTISTIC DISPLAYS OF PARIS. 63 daj. The eye for effect and color natural to the people is apparent in the shop-windows, wdiere various shades of drapery and other stuffs may often be seen arranged in a harmony so exquisite as to move one like a concord of sweet sounds. The jewellery shops, as, for example, those in the Palais Poyal, present an array of splendor as often artistic as dazzling. The verv meat-stalls are indications of that sensuous love of beauty for its own sake which inspired the Athenian of old, and is with the Parisian of to-day a more powerful motor than either moral or political principle. The vari- ous meats are hung in a certain order, adorned with flowers and paper cut into elaborate patterns, and the back of a hog or a sheejD is figured with designs made by cutting away the inner skin and leaving the red flesh ex- posed. At Mardi Gras the butchers’ stalls are objects of general attraction for the more than ordinary ingenuity and taste displayed in the adornment of the sheep and beeves, hung whole from the ceiling in holiday attire of greens, ribbons, and tinsel. The public galleries at the Louvre and the Luxembourg are crowded, especially on Sunday and fete days, not so much by foreign visitors as by the populace of all classes and conditions. The same is the case with the exhibitions of the clubs. When the masterpieces concentrated in the square room of the Louvre alone are considered, the influence for good or evil thus exerted must be incalculable. Art dealers’ shops, of course, abound, and one is sure to see two or three good paintings in the windows of every leading thoroughfare. These shops are generally small, and the best they contain is to be seen from the street ; but this is of little consequence, so vast is the field elsewliere. The exhibition of gold and silver wares, marbles, and bronzes in the windows on the boulevards is also astonishing. Some idea of the value of the art in Paris may be inferred from the fact that the sales of paintings alone average 40,000,000 of francs per annum — equal, by reason of the difference in values, to nearly twice tliat sum in the United States. The number of artists in the city is over eight tliousand. When we take into consideration the persons dependent upon these eight thousand artists, the army of art students — French and foreign — residing here, and the many thousands engaged in the sale of works of art, including tlie production and sale of frames, colors, engravings, bronzes, or statuary, we find tiuit art is the business engrossing the atten- tion of a larger niind)er, and employing perhaps more capital, than any other legitimate business in Paris, except that of hotels and restaurants. CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. U It should not be kept out of sight that the Government is behind all this inachinerj, and maintains a directing hand in the chief institutions. By a species of prophetic instinct, the French seem to have felt for a long time that the art talent is the peculiar gift of their race, and likely to sur- vive their other national qualities, and have therefore fostered the growth of art by organizations far-seeing in their bearing, and, if not always suited to our times, wise when first established. 'Whether at the present day, ex- cept in such countries as Bussia, government patronage of art education is the best thing for a country or for the true growth of good art, is a question about which tliere may be an honest difference of opinion. But IIIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE. Louis XIV. thought otherwise, so also Xapoleon I., and most probably very judiciously for tlieir time. Therefore we now find in France a Minister of the Fine Arts appointed as much a matter of course as a Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is his business to superintend the whole question of art in the country, to regulate government patronage of art, to adorn the public squares with statuary, to purchase works for the na- tional art galleries, to preside over the national school of art, to pay the professors, and to direct the annual exhibitions at the Salon, besides many similar matters. In addition, there is an annual budget allowed by the legislature for art purposes. The art appropriation for 187G was 7,500,000 francs, and ACADfiMIE DES BEAUX ARTS. 65 about tlie same sum is included in the budget for the year 1877, which was drawn up by M. Edouard Turquet, the Deputy for Aisne, and a mem- ber of the Commission des Beaux Arts, a gentleman of art enthusiasm and culture. Out of this amount 280,000 francs are appropriated to the purchase of works of art in the great annual exhibition at the Salon, and as such selections are intended for the double purpose of adorning the state buildings and galleries and to stimulate the growth of good art, they are made with the utmost care, and are subjected to public scrutiny. Two hundred and fifty-four thousand francs are also set apart for the succor of indigent artists or their widows and orphans — an admirable provision, al- though it is better met by such a co-oj)erative society as that existing among the artists of London, for through such a channel the poor artist can accept aid with less loss of self-respect. The first institution coming under the care of the Bureau of Fine Arts is the Academie des Beaux x\rts, corresponding to the Academy of Letters. It consists of forty members, selected from medallists in the four departments of art. They hold sessions weekly, and a grand session once a year. The institution next in rank, and of equal importance, under government supervision is the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in the Bue Bona- parte. The building it now occupies was erected in 1837. One passes from the street into a quadrangular court, whose walls are frescoed in Pompeiian style and enclose fac-similes of celebrated antiques of various schools. Two other courts are beyond, the one open and musical with the song of birds nestling in the shrubbery, the other covered with glass and containing large architectural models and colossal statues after the an- tique. On the ground-fioor are galleries of statuary most carefully copied from the best Greek and Boman marbles, including the Elgin rilievos. On the second fioor are open corridors or cloisters decorated with frescoes after Baphael, leading to the rooms of the committee, where are hung the portraits of all who have taught in the Academy from its foundation. Connected with these rooms is the semicircular hall devoted to lectures on art, which are now read twice a week by ^[. Taiue. On the walls of the amphitheatre is painted the celebrated “llemicycle des Beaux Arts,” of Paul Delaroche, representing the great artists of the various Beuais- sance schools conversing in groups. Farther on are the ateliers of the students where C7ibanel, Gerdme, Pils, and Andre give instruction, and the gallery in which the prize exhibitions are held. This is a spacious 66 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. hall enriched bj copies of the best works of Kaphael, Titian, Yelasquez, and other masters. In addition to this gallery are the rooms where the works which have obtained the first prize or the medals are pre- served. In the Ecole des Beaux Arts, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving are taught. Puj^ils are admitted between the ages of fif- teen and thirty, without distinction as to race, the requisites being an in- troduction by some French artist in good repute, a passport or a register of birth and parentage, and a drawing from life done in twelve hours and considered satisfactory evidence of capacity for the pursuit of art. As foreigners are ineligible to the first prize, they are admitted ^rhen over thirty years old. By the rules of the institution women are excluded from the advantages offered by this school, which, when everything is taken into consideration, is, on the whole, a salutary regulation. There are several prizes given annually to the successful aspirants. The most important is the Grand Prix de Pome, for painting, sculpture, architect- ure, and engraving respectively, and in each case it takes the successful candidate to Pome for four years, with a pension of 4000 francs. Madame Caen has also left a fund yielding an equal sum yearly to the artist on his return from Pome, for a similar period, and he is thus provided for and saved from pecuniary anxiety during the first eight years of his career. Here is a prize worth striving to win. The examination preliminary to admission to the institution is searching, and intended to limit its advan- tages only to the most worthy. Last year a new professorship was founded, which has been long needed, and should be added to every school of art — a chair of literature, or helles-lettres. Its establishment I consider the most hopeful sign in the present condition of French art, for it indicates a true sense of the posi- tion of the artist, and the importance that what he says should be said not as art pure and simple, but with due regard to its relations to the other departments of human pursuit and energy, as well as its responsibilities towards the society which gives it birth and sustenance. If artists would paint and design less, and study more in other branches of knowledge, their intellects, their mental range, would be rendered broader, their judg- ment sounder ; and if, as a result, they gave us fewer works, those works would be of proportionately greater value. We find that the greatest masters of antiquity were generally men of broad culture, and were dis- EXHIBITION OF THE SALON. 67 tinguislied not only in more than one branch of art, but also as soldiers, men of letters, and diplomatists. The direction of the government is also seen in the annual exhibi- tion of the Salon, held in May and June in the Palais dTndnstrie, at the Champs Elysees. This is the great artistic event of the year, to which all artists, native and foreign, are invited to contribute. The judgment is sufficiently strict to cause the rejection of three-fourths of the contribu- tions, which only enhances the honor of admission and the value of the medals aw^arded. The exhibition opens in May, and lasts two months. Its magnitude and importance may be understood from the fact that over 8000 paintings were offered for examination in 1876, and of these 2095 were accepted. In addition were sculptures, water-colors, and designs in black and white, bringing up the whole number of exhibited works to over 4000. This was the ninety-third exposition held since the founda- tion of the Institut in 1673, admission to which is the highest official honor that is accorded to an artist in France. The prizes at the exposi- tions are divided into medals of tliree classes for each department of art respectively. Above these are the Prix du Salon, and the Medaille d’llonneur, the highest of all, which entitles the winner to send there- after any work he chooses, and gain admission for it without examination. In addition to the prize medals, it is customary to decorate successful artists with various grades of the Legion of Honor. It should be added that tlie annual catalogue is a model in its way. Much needful informa- tion is therein conveyed to the visitor, not only regarding tlie title of the work exhibited, but the lull name of the artist, his birthplace, his art in- structors, his decorations, the location of his studio, and the destination of tlie painting, if commissioned, witli other items that may occur. Many of the works purchased at the Salon by the Director of Fine Arts are hung in the galleries of the Luxembourg. Tliat palace is de- voted to the permanent exhibition of representative works in painting and sculpture owned by the government, executed by artists yet living, or who have been dead not over ten years. After the lapse of that time the works are removed to the Louvre. This seems to be the most proper method for bestowing government patronage, and might be adojited in America with favorable results, for it not only enables the art student to gain a good idea of the condition of contemporary art in his country, to comjiare it with its ])ast elforts, and to learn wherein it makes jirogress or 68 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. loses ground, but, in addition, is of importance to sncli artists as find the best vent for their genius in canvases or marbles too large and important to come within the range of the private buyer. However some may j)re- fer small canvases, it is cruel to undertake to cramp every mind to the same rules of size or subject, and it is useless to deny that such men as Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Yinci, or Rubens would have fared but EXPECTATION. TOULMOUCHE. poorly if they had 1>een forced to content themselves with executing only such works as can decorate the drawing-room of a pidvate citizen. If our people really desire to stimulate the growtii of high art among us, they should inaugurate a judicious system of government patronage, in which the selection of native works of art shall be intrusted, not to a COMMITTEES FOR THE SALON. 69 committee of Congressmen or politicians ignorant in art matters, nor even to artists and connoisseurs wedded to one idea, and who can see merit only in one particular school or one set of methods, but to a carefully chosen permanent committee of men of broad cultivation, judicial minds, aesthetic tastes, unimpeachable integrity, patriotism that includes the whole coun- try in its scope, and a power of independent judgment that cannot be approached or swayed by the bribery of influence, nepotism, or money. There must be a few such men in every country, and why not also in ours? If we have none of that stamp, let us at once establish a mint wherein such standard social coin can be turned out, for no country can live, grow, and reach a noble maturity without such a standard of moral and intellectual values in every de23artment, whether of politics, business, or the flne arts. What is the French opinion of the value of the annual exhibitions of the Salon may be gathered from the remarks of the art critic of the Jour- nal Officiel^ one of the most intelligent and respectable papers j)ublished in Paris. “ Fame,” says this genuine Frenchman, may be acquired in other pursuits than that of art as well elsewhere as in France ; but fame in art can only be acquired in Paris, and only then by exhibiting at the Salon. Without this one may, perhaps, sell pictures and acquire recanta- tion, but fame never.” The writer was alluding to Fortuny, who from timidity had refrained from ever submitting anything for admission there. After reading this, one feels deep symj)athy for those great ar- tists who were not born in France. There is much conq^laint made by artists whose contributions have been refused admittance or been badly hung. Great injustice has un- doubtedly been done soinetimes. A notable instance of cn-ejudice was the constant rejection of the works of Chintreuil, whose merits were ac- knowledged only a short time before his death. But this outcry is an old story, and will probably continue as long as there are artists to paint or c:»ictures to be hung ; foi* the difliculties are inherent in the nature of things, or, rather, the weakness of human nature and the limitations of human judgment. An artist has his work rejected. It does not once occur to him that it is (juite possible he has overesti- mated its importance, and that the chief object of having exhibitions and art juries is to kee}) up the art standai'd, and to decide whether his work is yet entitled to a certain rank, lie hastily assumes that ignorance or 70 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. prejudice lias decided against him. It may sometimes; but the diffi- culty is generally the other way. If his work is accepted, perhaps he growls because it is badly hung, and nothing can convince him that any- thing but personal hostility could have assigned him such a place. In his vanity he is liable to forget that perhaps one reason his painting does not appear so well in the gallery as in the studio may be because, on being brought into comparison with works of superior merit, it loses by con- trast ; or a top liglit may not suit a picture painted by a side light. These and other considerations should sometimes temper the acerbity of the discontented exhibiter, and suggest that, since the fault may possi- bly be in himself, he may overcome it by self-analysis and renewed exer- tions to excel in subsequent works. It must be granted, however, that M. BONNAT. there is sometimes cause for some of the clamor. Judges with the best intentions in the world may find it impossible for a time to comprehend the merits of a style altogether new, and therefore apparently bizarre. And it must be conceded that prejudice, jealousy, and personal animosity are sometimes allowed more sway in the decisions of art juries than is consistent with true manhood. In view of all the difficulties of the case, it is no more than fair that artists should be tried by their peers; none but experts — that is, none but professional artists — should be permitted to sit on these juries. The system adopted at the French Salon appears to be, on the whole, the wisest yet devised for deciding upon works of art. Two-thirds of the jury is annually chosen by the vote of the artists them- HOTEL DROUOT. 71 selves ; tlie other third is designated by the Government Art Bureau ; and tliere is a separate jury for each department — fifteen for painting, nine for sculpture, six for architecture, and nine for engraving and lithogra- phy. There is still another, and quite distinct, committee appointed for awarding the prizes, subdivided like the other jury, and presided over by the Director of Fine Arts. In addition to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the government has recently established a school and manufactory for the production of mosaic pict- ures. The beauty of the mosaics in the New Opera-house, which w^ere made by Italian artists, has stimulated the emulation of the French. The Hotel Drouot is another establishment owned and controlled by the government. Although not exclusively devoted to art, it should be mentioned as an art centre. It is a building on the Hue Drouot, contain- ing eight large, lofty rooms on the ground-floor and as many in the story above, besides ample corridors and lobbies. Each of these halls is an auc- tion-room ; the goods to be sold are on exhibition for several days pre- vious to the sale ; they are arranged with taste, and opened to the pub- lic every afternoon. Sales occur in several of the rooms daily, and the building is always crowded. On Sundays the throng is almost im]3assa- ble. The sales are conducted in a very systematic manner. Steps are arranged in the back part of the room to enable the audience better to see the goods, and seats are placed around the auctioneers’ desks, where those who hold long purses and propose to buy are so seated that they can confer wdth the auctioneer, who has several assistants. Attendants, likewise, carry the articles, when possible, about the room for examination, and the bidding is often very interesting. It is common for a sale to last several days. All the art sales of Paris are held in the Hotel Drouot, and during the season many choice collections may be seen there, including not only paintings and statuary, ancient and modern, but valuable tapes- tries, ol)jets de luxe of the reign of Louis Quatorze, rare mediiuval armor. Oriental collections, valuable manuscrij^ts, and the like. As an instance may be mentioned the sale of the collection of M. Sauchon, at which one sword alone, of peculiar and exquisite workmanship, picked up at C\)ii- stantinople for 250 francs, was bid off at 50,000 francs to Baron Itoths- child, over an American who ran it up to -19,000 francs. Jlcsides the facilities afforded by the government for art instruction, there are many art schools in Paris, where the vast army of aspirants after 72 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. art knowledge can acquire tlie practice and instruction they seek. Some are simply life schools, where both sexes study from the nude at the same time — a practice which cannot be too much deprecated, and which is nei- ther demanded by the requirements of art, nor defensible under any of the line -spun theories about the impersonality of art with which some would degrade the standard of public morals, forgetting that art has eth- BEGGAR GIRL. MERLE. ical as well as sesthetical bearino^s. Besides these schools, several of the leading artists have schools, such as Chaplin and Bonnat, where, for a small annual sum, devoted to room rent, pay of models, etc., the pupils study together from models in a common atelier. The master comes in twice a week, and criticises the work gratuitously. But the advantages he gains are obviously sufficient compensation ; for he impresses his per. sonal influence and genius on his pupils, who become his enthusiastic ad- FRENCH ART STUDENTS. 73 mirers and disciples, and fight his battles, and spread his reputation far and wide. These French art students are a curious medley of seemingly discord- ant elements. Often endowed with intense art enthusiasm and wonderful art ability, their conversation in the atelier is, on the other hand, anything but intellectual — brutal and disgusting to a degree that would lead one to consider them convicts of the galleys ; while their manners, notwith- standing many of them are men of mature years, are too much in keep- ing wdth their language. A young American at the Ecole des Beaux Arts refused to submit to their insulting demands. They set upon him en masse^ wfithout any of that sense of honor which induces an English boy to see that fair play is allowed, and kicked him in the face as well as the body, producing severe injuries. One day, in the studio of Bonnat, during an interval of leisure, a French student exclaimed, out of mere deviltry, ^‘Let us turn out all Americans and foreigners — yes, and all Prussians,” looking towards an Alsatian. Up sprung the Alsatian with tiger -like fury, and rushed at the Frenchman, and, although much his inferior in size, seized him by the throat, and shook him like a dog, while he roared, “ Call me a Prussian again, you villain ! and I swear to God I’ll kill you ! I’ll kill you !” White as a sheet, the Frenchman sat down to his easel again, and nothing more w^as said on that day about expelling Americans and Prus- sians. It is w^ell known that Paul Delaroche, a man of amiable disposi- tion, closed his school and went off to Pome in sorrow and disgust, after a young artist had been 'killed in it by his fellow-pupils. And yet these untamed and untamable art students astonish one by their extraordinary perception of form and polor. There are also four art clubs in Paris, sustained by artists and con- noisseurs, not in any sense rival societies, but intended for the encour- agement of art and for the sale of paintings in the annual exliibitions. Tlie Cercle de I’TInion Artisti(pie numbers six hundred memhers. It holds its exliibitions and lectures in a spacious hall, Xo. 18 Place Ven- dbme, in February and March. The exhibitions are choice, and present a very fair idea of the high-water mark reached by contem[)orarv art in France from year to year. Admission is free to visitors on a])plicatiou to the secretary or through members. The Societe des Amis des Beaux Arts de Paris contains among its members such well-known connois- 74 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. seurs as Baron Eothscliild and Sir Bi chard Wallace. An entrance fee of one franc is required. The Cercle Artistiqne et Litteraire has its head- quarters at Bo. 29 Kne Chaussee d’Antin : as indicated by its name, it is partially literary. Its gallery is open daily, and contains a collection of paintings, sculptures, and engravings. Another association has also been formed within a year, called the Societe de I’Union des Artistes.” HUNTING WITH FALCONS IN ALGERIA. FROMENTIN. It has the laudable aim of ignoring all schools and cliques, and admitting to exhibition the works of all artists who are inspired by a genuine en- thusiasm for progress in art. The number of art publications is large and generally of great value, written by men of art culture and intellectual grasp, who command our respect, if they do not always win our assent. We need only mention ART CRITICS. 75 such writers as Taine, Fromentin, Etex, Petroz, and Gautier (who is hut recently dead). The art periodicals are also of a very high quality. L’’Art yields the precedence to no similar publication in any country. Having glanced at the methods adopted in France for the growth and patronage of national art, we naturally come next to a consideration GIPSY GIUL. LECOMPTK. of the results or the condition and quality of contemporary art in France. It may be assumed that between 1853 and 18()0 the literature and art of France yielded to the seductive but demoralizing intlueuces of the late Empire, and passed through a crisis from Avhich neither has yet recovered, and from that }>eriod we may date the rise of the present school of French art. The difference is discernible in a loss of moral 76 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. power, in the lower character of the subjects selected, in less intellectual force, less pursuit of the ideal, and consequently feebler imagination, always, he it clearly understood, with some notable exceptions, to be hereinafter mentioned. But these declensions in character have not been accompanied by a corresponding loss of an eye for color, perception of external beauty, or technical excellencies. In these respects the French School never stood higher, and still holds the first place in modern art. An able writer on art has said, “Art is the attempt to represent the invisible by the vis- ible.” This is exactly what the French artists of to-day, however, do not attempt. To be sure, there is much talk about the ideal among them ; but what they really practise is to accept the hard fact that art expression has its limitations — very narrow limits too they are, if one chooses to make them so — and they are only to endeavor to do what can be easily done within those limits ; in other words, they are content with the exterior of things, and seek not to express what those objects sug- gest. They are satisfied with the physical body, and do not strive to express the soul it contains. Physical beauty, for itself alone, without regard to its moral relations, is the highest end the modern French artist is required to hold before him. The leading art critic, M. Taine, enun- ciates this as the great art principle, and urges it against the English and the Germans that they allow themselves to be biassed in the choice of subject by the strong moral feeling of the Germanic races, which the French do not hesitate among themselves to sneer at as hypocrisy. Each kind has merits entirely its own, liowever, and to condemn one because it is not the other is manifestly absurd. The greatest school of art would naturally be that which combined both ; the world has seen some masters who have nearly blended the two, but no school. However, the present German School gives promise of approaching this supreme end of art in time. As things are now, and always have been in the domain of art, M. Taine most probably is in the right up to a certain point ; but he becomes a false guide when he goes beyond that limit. Art is in a greater degree than literature sensuous, a matter appertaining to sight, or to an eye for color and form, to mechanical processes, and sometimes to geometrical precision, and is therefore apparently rather more a ques- tion of physical than of moral beauty. But if, as is the case too often now, French art gives us so many works whose moral tendency is cor- CHARACTER OF FRENCH ART. 77 nipting, the artist is not more to blame than the great public which creates that system of influences and opinions which shapes his charac- ter. French art to-day is probably the flrst still in the world as art; while it is just as true that it is flrst in paintings of lewd scenes, mur- ders, and bloodshed. Therefore the contemporary French School, able as it is, leaves the iny^ression of declension from the rank it held when rep- resented by some of the great masters, either dead, or who, if still living, formed their style long ago, and gave it such influence and repute at home and abroad. Contemporary French artists are too often content with an art that places its standard low, although in its way almost be- yond competition. It is an art perfect of its kind, but of not so high a character as the art of Kaphael or Yelasquez, Fubens or Kembrandt. Nothing so clearly indicates the imaginative quality of an artist as the value he places on the power of light and shade, or chiaro-oscuro^ in the suggestion of the ideal. It is a point often nearly ignored by the earlier artists, while great use is made of it, and with immense eftect, by most of the masters of the great Renaissance movement in Italy and the Netherlands, and it is well understood by such modern artists as Dela- croix. Dore, who, if inferior in some respects to many of his contem- poraries, undoubtedly possesses the most remarkable imagination granted to an artist in modern times, produces extraordinary effects with chiaro- oHcuro. Rut otherwise it is not a distinguishing trait in the works of conteni})()]-ary French ])ainters. ^lany of them seem, in fact, rather to 78 CONTEMPOEARY ART IN EUROPE, disapprove of it as chw^ or reacliing after effects by illegitimate means. The reason, it is to be feared, is more likely poverty of fancy. In the technical or mechanical part of art there is mnch divergence among the leading artists of the French School. Each has his own theory and practice, and so it will continue to be the case as long as there are artists to paint and things to rej^resent in art forms. There are as many French styles of art in Paris to-day as there are artists of original capacity, each of whom has a large following of imitators. There are the styles of Gerome, of Meissonier, of Bonnat, of Daubigny, of Corot, of Ziem, all sufficiently unlike and independent. There surely is no re- semblance in either subject or color between the cool, monotonous, mono- chromatic canvases of Corot and the superb Mediterranean effects of Ziem. But what, then, is the French School of which so much is said? There must be some distinctive trait which makes the French School excel- lence. The French School of contemporary art is, then, first of all, true to national characteristics. Another reason for its strength and for the repute it enjoys at present is, that to enormous wmrk and conscientious study of nature as they see it, French artists add a natural eye for color superior to that of most German and English painters ; who, on the other hand, are often equal to them, sometimes superior, in drawing and com- position. But the final and most important cause of the high value set on French art of to-day is undoubtedly the mode of treatment^ including what is purely mechanical in art. Breadth is a quality that is now found most prominent in French painting. Even the works of Meissonier, so minutely finished, possess this characteristic in a marked degree, a trait which rendered the paintings of Turner so original, and for a while so incomprehensible, in England. A school of art in its early stages, or an artist when commencing his studies, needs to draw and paint with pre-Eaphaelite fidelity of detail. It is thus that a masterful knowledge of nature is gained, which gradually enables genius combined with experience to discriminate what is valuable and what is of secondary importance in a given subject or for a given conception, and, seizing only the more salient and characteristic traits or colors, as they appear to the artist, to combine them in an effective and suggestive w^liole. But ages of laborious feeling over an obscure pathway must often precede the epoch when the art of a nation reaches the broad style of treatment ; and years of patient, unremitting study of nature in ART METHODS, 79 all her details must first develop in the artist that power which enables him to express his thoughts in a handwriting of his own, to paint with that breadth in the rejection of the unimportant and the vivid delineation of the soul of things, which is the almost universal characteristic of con- L A KDKTTE . ,M E 1 SSON 1 E K. temporary Frencli art. But, after all, the (piestioii depends more upon men than methods. Individuality of style is one of the most ])reeious (pialities to he sought in all true art, while servile imitation even of the greatest masters cannot he too severely condemned, for in it lies the grave 80 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. of all real individual or national art progress ; and art at best is only tenta- tive so far as processes are concerned. The use of fusin or charcoal is an art in which the French may be said to have established a specialty. A. Allonge is well known abroad for tlie exquisite effects he often reaches with this simple means ; but some- times he falls into monotony and mere prettiness. Maxime Lalanne is another master in this style, who seems to show more vigor and breadth, although it may seem hypercriticism to discriminate between two excel- lent artists so evenly balanced in ability. The former prefers paper of fine grain ; the latter confines himself exclusively to large-grained paper. GUSTAVE DORE. In engraving, the highest place cannot at present be assigned to the French, except in etching, in which they excel. Fajon, Unger, and Fla- meng may be mentioned as leaders in this style of art, while Jacquemart is nearly unapproachable as an etcher of still-life. In wood-engraving the French are certainly equalled, if not surpassed, by some of our own engravers, while in designing illustrations they yield the precedence to the English, and to some of our own designers. Gavarni, who was a remarkable delineator of the scenes of every-day life in Paris, died last year. Gustave Dore, who perhaps holds the foremost rank for a certain class of illustrations, stands so entirely by himself that he forms a distinct school so different in scope and treatment from anything of the sort ever before seen in France that he can hardly be classed under the head of French art. lie is by extraction from Alsace (a province which has fur- GUSTAVE DOR]g. 81 nislied many of the most prominent artists of France), and is now about forty-five years of age. He differs in three important respects from his leading French contemporaries in art: lie lays great stress on light and shade ; has but little notion of color, although improving in that respect by practice ; and he is a great moralist. PEACE. — DOUE. With US Dore is better known as a designer on wood, an illustrator with an imagination grotesque and ])rolific beyond all precedent. But of late years he has given his attention to painting, and more recently to sculpture, and from time to time exhibits large landscapes, or figure-sub- jects of life size. To criticise these paintings, to dissect them until noth- ing is left, to show that the drawing is often defective, the coloring often G 82 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. unnatural, would be an easy task. But it is not so easy to explain away the profound impression they produce, or the conviction they give us that here is a mind standing alone in Paris — a mind Teutonic rather than French in its character, looking not so much on the surface of things as at what is hidden underneath, studying the moral of life; a French Albert Diirer, to whom existence is less a comedy than a tragedy. He seems to us in Paris like Jonah crying, “Yet forty days and Hineveh shall be over- thrown,” or like John Knox sternly admonishing Mary Queen of Scots and her licentious court of a retribution hereafter. Dore is the only man in Paris who selects subjects with a moral, as do the English and German artists. In the later phases of his genius he may be also called the Ho- garth of France. "VYhat could be more like a satire of Juvenal, written with a pen dipped in gall, than in Paris, where the fallen woman has been occasionally admitted to the best circles on a footing with virtue (as, for example, at the receptions of M. Arsene Houssaye, attended by the princes of the blood) ; the heroine, too, of the most prominent literary produc- tions of the day in France ; anything but a poor, forlorn, desolate thing of shame, whose end no one should think of but with profound pity and sorrow — what could be more tremendous in its irony than here, in Paris, to paint a woman of that class, with sunken cheeks and forsaken, dying on a cold winter night on a stone bench, under the stars so far away and dim, with her chubby infant vainly seeking milk at her breast, and to call her La Pecheresse? Ko wonder Charivari suggests that M. Hore is rather lugubrious in the choice of his subjects. Very impressive, also, are such wonderful compositions as his “ Martyrs in the Coliseum,” “ The Dream of Pilate’s Wife,” “Christ leaving the Prsetorium,” “Christ entering the Temple,” and numerous other paintings, in which are grouped scores of figures the size of life. The imagination displayed, the massing of chiaro- osGitro^ the rush and movement and grouping of vast multitudes, and the moral impressiveness of the ideas conveyed, are certainly indicative of im- mense reserve power. But the drawing is often defective ; very natu- rally there is, with enormous variety, much mannerism ; and it must be admitted that these paintings would, with two or three exceptions, appear quite as effective in black and white. His “ Keophyte,” for example, ex- ecuted in monochrome, does not seem to require the aid of color to make it what it is — one of the most tremendous invectives against the convent- ual system which has been seen since the days of Savonarola. FRENCH MARINE PAINTERS. 83 It is, then, to the colorists that we must tnrn in order to learn what is really and distinctively the best in the French art of our day. The French School has become justly celebrated for its treatment of external nature, with the exception of marine art. Isabey seems to be the only Frenchman who ever painted a marine worth looking at a second time, and he is now very old ; but he is a magnificent colorist, and did some very nice things long ago. The remainder, Jules Dupre (who is, however, a good landscape-painter), Yernier, etc., know nothing either of ships or the sea — at least, there is little in their paintings to lead one to think they RETURN OF THE FLOCK. JACQUES. do — while they all perpetrate in them the simplest errors in perspective, such as one would look for in vain in their poorest landscapes. Yot to make too bad a joke of their awkwardness, they are all, indeed, entirely ^‘at sea” on the subject. But in landscape the French artist is at home; and here, amidst pastoral scenes or representations of Oriental etfects, we find a great school of poetry that reminds us alternately of Theocritus, or the Bucolics of Virgil, or the third and fourth cantos of '“‘(diilde Harold." In landscape-painting lies the tnie field of French poetry, the al.iseiu'e of which amidst many vapid alexandrines is a])parent to those who do not prefei’, with M. Taine, the })oeins of I)e Musset to ‘On Aremoriam ” and CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Stt “ Guinevere.” Is'ot withstanding Claude and the Dutch painters of two centuries ago, landscape-painting, or genre with landscape, is essentially a modern art, springing up in sympathy with the poetry of Bernardin de St. Pierre, Burns, and Wordsworth; and while across the Channel this sympathy with nature and humble life found its best exj>ression in poetry of the most exquisite character, in France it has been interpreted by her landscape-painters. Poets they truly are, purely and entirely devoted to nature, hnding in her their greatest pleasure and reward ; and this, both in their lives and works. Jacques, of sheep-painters the first, and almost as great in landscape, leads us among the russet hollows and the rude folds of Brittany, teacliing us the poetry there is in humble things. Mil- let, in his blouse and sabots, always preferred his retreat at Barbizon. What wondrous sympathy with the various aspects of nature is evident in every canvas of Troyon, who seems the peer of the greatest, if not the first poet of rustic nature France has produced ! Then there was Chintreuil, who died in 1875. He began life as a bookseller’s clerk in a provincial town, and stole away into an attic to make his first attempts in art. Here he was discovered by the son of his employer, who urged him to continue in the pursuit for which he was Ijorn. But youth passed by, manhood and middle-age came and went, and still this real poet toiled on unrecognized except by his life-long friend, Desbrosses, who never lost faith in his genius or hope of his ultimate success. At last, as this true hero, in unfaltering devotion to nature and unswerving confidence in his own powers — one of the infallible signs of greatness when combined with humility — approached the grave, and his own lingering footsteps began to cast those long shadows he had so often delighted to paint, the world of art began to award him the fame he de- served and should have received thirty years earlier. Chintreuil has been called ‘‘ the poet of the dews and the mists.” There was great inequality in his works, but in his best things he resembled Turner, although entirely original. He excelled in atmospheric effects. The solemn lights of twi- light, the impressive glory of sunset, robing ranks of forest trees in regal splendor and throwing exquisite puiq^le gloom over the foreground slopes, the breaking-up and scattering of the vapors of early morning before the coming dawn, the sudden dash of rain with an angry gust over a gray sea — in effects like these Chintreuil revelled with Turner, and sometimes approached the excellences of that greatest of English painters. FRENCH LANDSCAPE PAINTERS, 85 Lambinet, the two Daubignys (father and son), Lansyer, Bernier, Har- pignies, and others we miglit mention, are men of great ability. Dau- hignj pere, for a certain massiveness of handling and justness in render- ing the values, stands alone. Lansyer is prominent not only for style, but for great versatility of subject, treating every variety of scenery ; while PORTRAIT OF GENERAL PRIM. REGNAULT. Ilarpignies, although not destitute of a certain stiffness or lack of mechan- ical freedom in his handling, still renders the grander effects of nature with majesty. But the three most original, we are inclined also to think the three greatest, landscape-painters France has thus far ])i*oduced are, or were, Claude Lorraine, Thomas Bousseau, and flean Baptiste Camille Co- rot, each entirely clitferent in every respect, e.\ce})tiiig that tliiw were agreed in looking at nature not only for what she seems to the visual eye, but still more for what she suggests to the soul. They were men eii- 86 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. dowed not only with exquisite keenness of vision in detecting the har- monies of the visible world, delicate perception of chromatic effects and technical ability, but they were also men of thought, of imagination, of vast poetic feeling. But they are dead. Claude came alone, and left no successors behind him for a century and a half, while the two latter may also be said to have left none after them their peers in pure landscape. Kousseau, who has now been dead over fifteen years, undoubtedly made a very careful study of Buysdael and Cuyp, and is indebted to them for some of his technical processes, while having a native genius equal to the development of a remarkable style of his own. But Corot left Paris for the other world only two years ago, and the influence of his art, a mat- ter of slow growth, increasing up to the last, is destined to be long a power in the studio. In originality of mind, and force, purity, and individuality of aim and character, he seems to be the most considerable figure that has appeared in the art world of France during this century. The life of Corot was almost the life of the ideal artist. It has been said that he was poor and neglected for many years. This is only measurably true. He was born in affluent circumstances, and was destined to carry on his fa- ther’s business. But the irresistible impulses of his genius led him to painting instead, and his father then reduced the artist’s income to 4000 francs — equal, at least, to twice that sum now. But on his father’s death Corot inherited a fortune with an income very considerable in France. It is true that for many years the fact that a new genius in landscape-painting had appeared was recognized by but few. But twenty- live years of succeeding triumph amply atoned for early neglect, and ren- dered his life, on the whole, as perfect as an artist can expect, with the ex- ception of domestic happiness, for which he seems not to have cared. It is said that one of his paintings was so badly hung at the Salon in 1851 that no one looked at it. Finally, out of pity for the offspring of his brain, Corot went and stood before it, saying, “ Men are like flies ; if one alights on a dish, others will follow.” And, indeed, a young man and woman soon came up and began to examine the picture. “ It is not bad ; there is something in it,” said the man. But she, pulling him by the sleeve said, It is horrid ; let us go !” Well, this painting, after being kept in the artist’s studio several years, was sold for 700 francs, and still later brought 12,000 francs at auction, and the purchaser was so pleased with his bargain that he gave a dinner in celebration of the event ! LIFE AND MAXIMS OF COROT, 87 Corot’s income for several years averaged 200,000 francs from liis pro- fession alone; and as lie never was married, and was a man of warm and generous instincts, lie gave much away : many a poor artist or artist’s family has occasion to bless the memory of Pere Corot. lie was twice decorated, first as chevalier, then as commander of the Legion of Honor, but he never was able to wrest the grand medal from the jurors of the annual exhibition — a striking instance of the caprice of Fortune. How- ever, a splendid gold medal was presented to him by friends, a short time before his death. He was by birtli a Parisian, and his tastes were for nature as she presents herself to those who wander into the suburbs in the early morning or towards even-tide. And this was one secret of his success : he painted scenes with which his audience were most familiar, the quiet, russet, monotonous, oft-recurring bits of landscape in the north of France, and especially around Paris. Simple they seem, but they are really simple only because his genius was in harmony witli them ; to others they might be difficult. Every artist must first of all be true to himself, whether his tastes are of the past or the present, in sjunpathy with what the people like best or otherwise; and nothing is more preju- dicial to good and true art, or more cruel to individual minds, than the prescription of a limited class of subjects such as have been the choice of certain great masters. We find no limitation of this sort in French land- scape art. The reason why the so-called ^‘simple” French landscapes are painted so generally by Frenchmen is that they paint what they know and love best. Some of the maxims of Corot give us a key to his methods and principles of art work, and are of universal application. “ Tlie artist requires, in the pursuit of art, conscientiousness, confidence in himself, and perseverance ; beihg thus equipped, the two essentials of tlie last importance to him are the most careful study of drawing and the values.” Another saying of his was, “ Above all, be true to your own instincts, to your own method of seeing ; this is what I call con- scientiousness and sincerity.” At another time he said, “ Place your- self face to face with nature, and seek to render it with precision ; paint what you see, and interpret the impression received.” Ills last works received their signature on his death -bed, and his last words, as liis liand moved against the wall with pressed fingers, as if he were painting, were, Look how beautiful it is ! I have never seen such 88 CONTEMPORAEY ART IN EUROPE. lovely landscapes !” and he died an hour before midnight, February ITth, 1875. The grand aim of the art of Corot was to harmonize manner or treat- ment, with the love of nature, or, like Turner, whom he resembled in this respect, with material substances to convey the impression made on a poetic mind by the aspects of nature — by the real to express the ideal, by the objective to translate the subjective. Ilis methods and style are still, and always will be, a matter of difference and discussion ; but no one any longer disputes the influence of his genius as an idealist with- standing the materialistic tendencies of the age, and drawing his inspira- tions from the eternal sources of nature. So far as foreign influences are perceptible in the w^orks of Corot, they are classical and Italian, but never more than faintly discernible. 'Nov did he conflne himself to land- scape : he painted numerous flgure-pieces, including some large canvases representing sacred subjects, like his “ Flight into Egypt,” and the Bap- tism of Christ.” But his reputation is founded chiefly on his landscapes. PLOUGHING IN THE NIVERNAIS. BONHEUR. of whicli he proclnced an immense mimher, at first siglit in one key, although renewed observation discovers a distinct idea and individual beauty* in each scene. He most affected the sober harmonies of dawn or twilight. When the most has been said in Corot’s favor, it must be conceded that he was great as an artist more for what he attempted than for what he achieved. But is not this the highest praise that can be awarded to the faithful worker in this imperfect existence of ours? STYLE OF COROT. 89 That there is great sameness in the canvases of Corot it is idle to deny. Like Paganini, he performed on an instrument with only one chord ; but Paganini played many tunes on that one string, while Corot ROSA RONIIEUR. played only one ; still, he rendered that single tune sometimes with vi- brations that thrilled the soul. He evoked, as only genius can, that eerie, mysterious feeling which many experience but cannot express, in ob- serving the subtler effects of nature, and sometimes almost seemed to seize the ‘^vagrant melodies” which quiver through the aspen boughs in the dawn of May, or speed the loitering march of the wandering clouds on a day in June. But only those of his admirers wlio belong to the ser- vile class are ready to accept everything that Corot painted as worthy of his reputation, or as qualified to advance art. Howhere is this fact bet- ter recognized than in Paris itself. The following, from a French paper of good standing, only expresses the general opinion there, sometimes given in stronger terms : “ Artiste, Corot laisse une oeuvre immense, dans laquelle il faut faire deux parts : les tableaux soigues, traites avec amour ; les tableaux laches, brosses a la hate, ceux, en un mot, que Ton appelle les Corots du commerce. Les amateurs mettent entre les deux categories une enorme differeiice.” It is no secret that the market is flooded with spurious Corots, which bear sufficient resemblance to his poorer works to deceive those who are not connoisseurs in art. During liis last illness the price of Ids works went up rapidly, which gave rise to a hon-mot. “Why,” said one to an art dealer, “do you not buy the 90 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. works of siicli a one as well? His reputation is rapidly increasing.” “ My dear sir,” answered the other, “ he has a constitution that will sur- vive us all !” In the held of animal -painting combined with landscape, we find the French artists holding a position in advance of anything that has been done since the days when Paul Potter painted his famous bull, done at the age of twenty-three. If he had not died at twenty-seven, he might have produced work beyond the hope of rivalry. In the Eng- lish and German schools we find individual cases of great ability in the rej)resentatioii of animal life; but the French in the last generation gave CONSTANT TROYON. US the school of Troyon, and the national genius for this branch of art has not yet passed away. Who is there that paints sheep better than Jaccpies? He is a native of Paris. So was Corot; and so was Turner a native of London. Those wdio make a study of human nature may find an interesting field for thought in looking into the causes that, in the heart of a great city, far away from green fields, produced three of the greatest delineators of rural life and scenery in modern times. De- faux, Chaigneaux, Schenck, and several others, are also worthily distin- guished in this line. Schenck was a wine-merchant at Oporto. He sold out his wine-vaults, came to Paris, and became an artist of merit. EOSA BONHEUR. 91 Yaii Marke and Mauve represent cattle with much vigor, but the greatest animal-painter now in France is probably Kosa Bonheur. There EDOUARD FREKE. is the same intense observation and sympathy with nature, the same vigor of treatment, we find in the works of Troy on and Landseer : more refinement than in Troyon, with rather less of power, but more power than in Landseer, so far as the representation of cattle is concerned. In the painting of deer and dogs, the English artist holds a position entirely alone. She was born in 1822, and belongs to a family of artists. Her father is a painter ; her brother (Isidor) is a sculptor ; another brother (Auguste) is a painter ; and her sister is married to M. Peyrol, also a painter. Ploughing* in the Hivernais,” now in the Luxembourg Gal- lery, was her first work of importance, and was followed, four years later, by her celebrated painting of a “ Horse Fair.” She is devoted to her art, and, when living in Paris in the earlier years of her career, actually kept a sheep in her rooms for a model. She is now somewhat older than when the portrait shown on page 89 was taken, and her hair is a ])ictu- resque gray. In other respects she appears as robust as ever. She habit- ually wears full male costume, donning a French working blouse when in the studio, and exchanging it for a coat at other times. Allied to this branch of art is the representation of human life in connection with rural scenes. Millet was formerly the greatest in that line in modern French art. Edouard Frere, who is still living at Ecouen, 92 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. where he founded what is called the Sympathetic School, simple and pleasing in its treatment of humble life, followed on a lower range ; and a number might be mentioned who are justly noted for success in deal- ing with the picturesque phases of peasant life. But all the living ar- tists of France must, in this respect, yield the palm to Jules Adolphe Breton. He is at once a painter of landscape and of human nature. The two are harmonized in all his works in such just proportion, and with such equal ability and care brought to the representation of each, that he occupies the rare position of excelling in two distinct branches of art ; in each he shows a deep, earnest, reverential sympathy in the presence of nature ; his eye for color is almost faultless, and his tech- nical caj)acity is beyond question. What can be more perfect than the pearly -gray transparent shadows on the ground, or the summer after- noon atmosphere, in his “ Blessing of the Grain f ’ while, at the same time, any one of the kneeling figures in the foreground would be suffi- cient to establish the reputation of any ordinary artist for its combina- tion of so many admirable and desirable art qualities. On the other hand, what a tenderly pensive and pathetic beauty he has portrayed in the face of the young peasant girl of Brittany, in his painting called Evening,” at the Luxembourg ! The exq3ression in her eyes seems to tell a whole idyl of rural life. It is noteworthy that popular and artistic opinion is more united in favor of the merits of Jules Breton than upon any other living French painter. The Germans pay him the high coinpli- BRETON— MILLET, 93 merit of assigning to him the qualities of the best German artists. In hard times he is the only one who finds the price of his paintings con- stantly rising. It is, perhaps, not too much to assign to Jules Breton the leading place in the contemporary French School. But while Jules Breton holds such a lofty rank, he stands rather alone, for he represents a class of subjects that receives less attention IITTLE-T ATTLE (COQUETAGE ). BllETON. tlian formerly in France, and is also generally considered to yield the precedence to historical painting, or tlie art which deals with the human figure, pure and simple ; and probably the French would consider the native works now done in that department of art as best representing the present condition of art in France. At the outset it may be observed that Millet, the greatest painter of humanity seen in France for forty years or more, died last year. None like him survive. To him the human body, with all its exquisite forms and retreating curves, delicate grays and reds, and soft, palpitating fiesh, was but a casket, beautiful in- deed, but enclosing a still more wonderful and beautiful soul that sj)eaks its volitions and thoughts, its emotions and sensations, with every move- ment of those lind)s, with every parting of those lii)s, and every glance of those eyes, to whose eloquent and infinite radiance the opals of the Ural or the diamonds of Golconda are but inert matter in comparison. 94 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Snell was humanity to the searching, divining spirit of Millet. But he is gone. There are many great artists still working in France who have, per- haps, faculty equal to him in detecting the physical beauty of humanity, and equal dexterity in interpreting it in art language ; but who is there JEAN FRANyOIS MILLET. among the specialists of this school who sees the soul, or makes even the attempt to discover anything more than external beauty in the lovely forms they depict with such remarkable fidelity ? Lefebvre has a paint- ing entitled Truth” at the Luxembourg. For drawing and coloring it is quite marvellous, and so it was regarded at the Yienna Exhibition, where it carried away a first prize. But there is really nothing in the picture, or even suggested in it,» beyond the qualities noted above. We see simply a nude woman, of life size and faultless proportions, holding up a lamp. If any deep thought is suggested, it is not apparent in her rather emotionless features ; the idea in her eyes does not seem to sug- gest truth so much as something else. One may look at the painting for hours without discovering in it any special signs of imagination or in- tellectual power. It is a tour de foy^ce^ a marvel of technical dexterity, and that is all. Now, we would not in the slightest degree underestimate the value of technical ability in art — quite the contrary; but a work that has only that to recommend it cannot be assigned a position by CABANEL— BOUGUEREAU. 95 tlie side of a Raphael or a Murillo that has that quality, and something more. Cabanel is another artist who has portrayed some superb representa- tions of female beauty. His “Yenus rising out of the Sea” is a repre- sentative work of this class, but, like Gerome, wdio has also paid consid- erable attention to this species of subject, he sometimes condescends to drape his studies of the human form wdth clothing that renders them less objectionable to popular contemplation. Tony Robert - Fleury, Emile Levy, Bonnat, Chaplin, Hamon (who died in 1875, one of the most orig- inal and poetic idealists of the age, moved by a delicate feeling for pearly- grays) ; Dubuffe, Carolus Duran, brilliant in portraiture, and Paul Baudry, grandiose in style and strong as a colorist, may be favorably mentioned in this connection. Toulmouche holds a high position in the combina- tion of interiors with seductive delineations of the Parisian woman of the time. Bouguereau is a very prolific artist of classic tastes, who often displays his love of beauty in semi-domestic compositions rather more ALEXANDRE CABANEL. ideal than many contemporary French works, rich in color and treatment, and highly popular. Merle sometimes aims to tell a story, as well as to give a bit of composition and coloring. Leon Escosura, a Spaniard very effective, elaborately represents interiors with groups of other days, highly colored and brilliantly successful. The classic subjects chosen by Gerdme are characteristic of a large class of paintings of the contemporary school, in which an episode of his- 96 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. toiy is Taken as a tliin disguise for exhibiting a careful study of the hu- man form with accessory draperies and architectural details, given often with extraordinary resemblance to external nature. The Wife of Can- daules,” The Gladiators bidding Farewell to Caesar,” and The Death of Caesar,” are magnificent canvases. J. L. Gerbme was born at Yesoul in lS2d. His father was a goldsmith, and the young artist was therefore not subject to the vicissitudes of poverty common to the artistic career. He failed to win the Prix de Pome, but his painting of the Cock-fight,” exhibited at twenty-four, achieved a brilliant triumph and a gold medal ; and Theophile Gautier, the famed art critic, took him under his wing, and FRANCESCA DI RIMINI. CABANEL. after that the position of the young artist was secure. ‘‘Phryne,” ‘‘Al- meh,” and Cleopatra before Caesar,” followed in rapid succession. The “ Death of Csesar ” is one of the finest of the productions of Gerome, sim- ple, dramatic, and impressive. He has won all the honors that France can bestow upon an artist, and has thus far found the path of life strewed with roses. Decently he has taken up sculpture, a department in which he has every reason to expect success, for he is a draughtsman rather than a col- orist, and excels in the management of forms. His success is doubtless TRAITS OF CONTEMPORARY ART. 97 due to the same cause as the success of Millais — the dramatic element in his compositions. On comparing the works of Gerome with “ La Deca- dence des Domains, ” hj Couture, and other paintings on similar subjects executed thirty or forty years ago, one sees almost at a glance what has been gained and lost. We find that a photographic adherence to nature is now attempted. Scarce a living French artist dares to paint in the manner of Michael Angelo, or Dubens, or Dembrandt : everything must JEAN LEON GEROME. be carefully arranged before the eye, and done directly from nature, with little assistance from the imagination. The consequence is that the ab- surdities of costume, the anachronisms and solecisms wliich possibly dis- figure the works of Veronese and otlier great masters of the past, are gen- erally avoided. The drawing of the human form is also often rendered with absolute truth, and the coloring is frequently rich and well harmo- nized. But, on tlie other hand, the rendering of thought or character in the faces is quite subordinated to the giving of forms and the texture of stuffs. There is, also, sometimes a hardness, a lack of that mellowness, juiciness, and fulness of treatment wliich is horn of the rush and fervor of a great inspiration, and is common to the works of the great masters. There is, also, with the truth of the photograph, the cruelty of the photo- graph, which gives you the truth, but not the whole nor the best part of the truth, while the tacit undervaluing of the importance of light and shade in the representation of the ideal seems actually to deprive many of these paintings of atmosphere, and, in spite of color and texture, makes 7 98 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. tliein too nearly like linear drawings. They impress one like much of the playing of some great violinists in public, done not so much in order to give expression to strong emotions or the great conceptions of a highly l’eminence grise. — gerOme. imaginative, creative mind, as to display dexterity in the merely physical and niannal department of art. In a word, they “ smell too much of the lamp.” The ablest living representative of the archseological school is un- doubtedly Lawrence Alma Tadema, who, although Dutch in origin, is Latin in practice. He was born at Doonryp, in Holland, in 1836. Intended for a profession, he received a thoroughly classical education before the art instinct awoke him, and his subsequent choice of subjects has been doubt- less due in part to the bias given to his mind by these studies. Llis art instructor was Baron Leys, one of the leaders of the modern Antwerp School, which is really but an offshoot of the French School. In 1871 Alma Tadema settled in London, where both he and Tissot have wielded a large influence on contemporary English art. To the most minute real- ism he joins fine color, texture, breadth, and a certain degree of poetic feeling ; but the marvellous dexterity of the artist impresses one more than any evidence of deep feeling or thought. Such works have a cer- ALMA TADEMA— MEISSONIER. 99 tain influence in educating the public mind regarding the social customs of past ages, and are the natural result of the investigating tendencies of the age. As such they merit careful consideration, while not entitled to so high a rank from an art point of view as they seem to command by the startling self-assertion of their intense realism. In one class of painting the French have always shown characteristic ability — nor has that ability yet deserted them — and that is in the delin- eation of war scenes. From Le Gros to the present day there has been a succession of artists eminent in the treatment of military subjects. THE miST WIIISPEK. ALMA TADEMA. Meissonier has been for long a master in executing miniature paintings of high artistic merit, althougli in liis later works we do not tliink lie equals some of the less ambitious canvases done at an earlier period. 100 CONTEMPORAEY ART IN EUROPE. THE ADVANCE GUARD. — DE NEUVILLE. Alphonse de Nenville is another vigorous military painter. His ‘‘La Derniere Cartouche,” an episode at Sedan, excited marked sensation, and is fnll of dramatic force. Those who desire to know more of the spirited style of tills artist should examine his magnificent illustrations to Gui- zot’s “ History of France.” Protais and Philippoteaux are also strong in this department. But Edouard Hetaille, a pupil of Meissonier, seems to he the coming military artist of France. “Le Pegiment qui passe” is quite a remarkable production; while the painting in the Salon for 1876, “ En Keconnaissance,” merits all the attention it has received. Artistic composition, correct color, and nervous treatment are combined with thorough perception of the war spirit and knowledge of military details. In the representation of Oriental characters and scenes the French artists have always excelled, from Hecamj^s to Ziem, Pasini, and Belly. In the vivid hues and effective fiat tints of the skies, bazaars, and cos- tumes, and the sensuous, dreamy, barbaric splendor of the gorgeous East, the French mind has found a congenial field, and this natural inclina- tion has, perhaps, been assisted by the acquisition of Algeria. Its in- fluence on the national literature can be traced in such delicious and en- ticing works as Gautier’s “ Constantinople,” and the “ Philippine Isl- ands,” by Count Beaurevoir — a nom de jplume^ by-the-way. A number of artists like Landelle and Yernet-Lecomte have made a specialty of FROMENTIN— REGNAULT. 101 painting types of Oriental female beauty, and with fascinating success. Of course no engraving can suggest the iridescent coloring of some of these paintings. Eugene Fromentin, who died in 1876, while still comparatively young, not only represented the scenes of Arab life with effect ; he was also masterful in the drawing of the Arab horse, and painted with a regard for the ideal in style and subject which was very refreshing. He was, in addition, an admirable writer and discriminating art critic, as indicated by his Une Annee dans le Sahel ” and Les Maitres d’ Autrefois.” Fromentin took up writing, partly, it is said, in order to disprove the idea, too prevalent in modern art circles, that an artist can do but one thing well ; and he succeeded in the attempt. Ilis pen is scarcely less effective and forcible than his brush. In leaving the painters of the contemporary French School, we may allude to Chevilliard, who excels in a class of subjects of which the en- graving “An Entertaining Story” gives a correct idea; and Yollon, who paints old armor and still - life with really extraordinary ability ; and we should add that Henri Hegnault, who was killed at the battle of Buzenval in 1870, when but twenty-six years of age, was the most remarkable painter of the contemporary school in point of promise, and had he lived until 'iJlK liKTUKAT. 1)KTA]U,K. 102 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. maturity would have attained a pre-eminent position. The works he left behind him remind one in fire and force of Gericault’s paintings or Schil- ler’s “ Eobbers.” But he appears to have been ever surrounded by a fatal- ity that foreboded an early doom. Nearly killed by being thrown from a horse, he was soon after poisoned, narrowly escaping with his life, and L’aURORE, — HAMON. was subsequently attacked by an assassin at Eoine. The subjects he se- lected seemed to have been in consonance with the stormy character of his brief but brilliant career. Winning the Prix de Koine at twenty-three, he sent home during his absence such works as Judith and Holof ernes,” ‘^Salome,” the famous ‘‘Portrait of General Prim,” and “An Execution under the Moors at Granada,” the last two painted during a trip to Ma- drid and Tangiers. In the portrait of Prim, which is so magnificently rendered, the horse is of Andalusian type ; the motif of the composition represents the arrival of General Prim before Madrid, with the revolu- tionary forces, October 8th, 1868. The execution scene aroused a profound sensation on the part of both EXECUTION AT GRENADA. 103 critics and public, as well it might, for the startling character of the sub- ject and the tremendous power of the treatment, greatly assisted by that simplicity which indicates large reserve strength in the artist and wonder- fully stimulates the imagination of the observer. It is marvellous that artists so rarely avail themselves of this master weapon of simplicity. A marble stairway with two or three steps leads to a Moorish court in the style of the Alhambra, which is suffused with a glowing light suggesting the burning heat of a southern sun. In the immediate foreground are the two figures composing tlie awful drama — the executioner and his victim. The former, erect, massive, inflexible, impassive as a statue, draws his cimeter across his tunic to wipe off the blood ; while the mangled trunk of what was once a man has fallen heavily down the steps, and the head lies in a pool of blood. It is not too mucli to say that this blood mantling on the marble slab is one of the finest bits of color in modern art. And yet it was a mistake to treat such a subject in this large style and realistic way, or, in fact, to choose it at all. Certain scenes are banished from the stage by the canons of dramatic taste ; literature also has similar limita- tions ; and the art of painting cannot consider itself any the less exempt from the laws of good taste or the censorship of social ethics. This paint- ing is hung in the Luxembourg, and persons have been so overcome by its horrible realism as to be seized with faintness when gazing uj^on it. There seems to be an impropriety in admitting such a work to a public national gallery, and the government is guilty of a grave mistake in al- lowing it to remain there. Either it is bad as a work of art, and should therefore be excluded, or it is good as a work of art, and should therefore be forbidden, on exactly the same grounds that the public are guarded from the demoralizing influences of a public execution. This, however, would not prevent its more private exhibition, purely as a work of art, to those who would study it only from sucli a point of view. Tlie contemporary school of French sculpture does not, on the whole, maintain relatively as high a position as the school of color and design. It suffers from the same moral causes, which lower its aims and make it too much a matter of technical dexterity. Of artists in marble and bronze the number is large, and they are often pleasing, if not great. The sub- jects are quite frequently suggested by a somewhat intimate accpiaintance with the graceful but easy-going beauties of Notre Dame de Lorette and the Quartier Latin. Guillaume is a sculptor of considerable merit. Chapu 104 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. is pi’obably entitled to the foremost rank at present, especially in the treat- ment of portrait busts. Carpeaux, who died in June, 1876, was more cel- ebrated, and, while very prolific, and adopting a mnch less severe style than that of the schools, was very brilliant, and executed some works of exceptional beanty. Ills group representing the “ Dancers,” one of the four colossal groups carved in the round on the facade of the New Opera building, is considered his chef-(Voeicvre^ although very severely criticised in some quarters. Jnles Dalon, a pupil of Carpeanx, is also a sculptor of marked origi- nality, who treats a class of subjects more in harmony with modern thought than with the antique. Temporarily resident in London, on account of political difficnlties, he will doubtless return to Paris before long. Barye, who is bnt just dead, was a sculptor of really exceptional genius, probably the greatest France has seen since David d’ Angers. Bnt he dealt chiefly with animal life, in which department he is almost without a peer. His lion in the gardens of the Tnileries certainly roars his praise as loudly as the lions in Trafalgar Square declare the fame of Landseer. The Jaguar Seizing a Hare,” a group in bronze, is one of the most tremendous things ever done in plastic art, both for consnmmate knowledge of anatomical details and for the idea of force conveyed. The nndnlating action of the spine of the jagnar, actnally quivering in bronze with the overpowering, intoxicating ra])tnre of possession as he crunches the victim in his horrible jaws, not only disarms criticism, bnt almost stupefies one with wonder at JEAN BAPTISTE CARPEAUX. FRENCH ARCHITECTURE. 105 the masterful knowledge and imagination displayed by the author of this remarkable work. Of architecture in France in our day about the same may be said as of sculpture. Much diligence, careful study, frequent good taste, a general combination of pleasing effects in the laying-out of streets, are evident, but veiy little sign of originality anywhere. In civic and domestic archi- tecture the English seem to be in advance, and also in ecclesiastical archi- tecture, if one can judge by the Church of St. Anne at Auray and the cathedral at Boulogne, both just completed with great elaboration and ex- penditure of Peter -pence, and both alike miracles of bad taste. But in the Flew Opera-house at Paris an ambitious conception, possessed of great merit in parts, if not as a whole, claims our respectful attention. It is a THE DANCE. CAIIPEAUX. genuine outgrowth of French national character during the last Empire, and seems offered to the world as a challenge to criticism. No expense has been s])ared ; the best art talent of the country was called in to aid in its com])letion, and it seems to say to the beholder, ‘AVhat can you object to this being accepted as the typical architectural style of the nineteenth 106 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. century “ Mncli every way,” we miglit reply, but neitlier room nor in- clination allows ns to expatiate on tlie subject as we slionld like ; and as the building lias been sufficiently, and sometimes too severely, criticised in many cpiarters, we shall contine ourselves to a simple sketch of a subject that might well be exjianded into a volume, and, indeed, volumes have been written upon it. The last one is an answer by M. Gamier, the archi- tect, in re2:>ly to his critics, and a very spicy work it is. The building is in the form of an irregular parallelogram, each side facing a street, and in every case more or less ornate. The chief fagade fronts the boulevards, and is surmounted at the two angles by magnifi- cent bronze gilded eagles in the act of soaring. In the rear rises the main body of the edifice, crowned by another gilded colossal group. This side, while richly ornate, is chiefly noticeable for the thirty columns which support a heavy cornice ; of these, sixteen are enormous monoliths brought from Italy, and after the Corinthian order. They are very hand- some, but are oj^en to serious criticism, because if any ornament in archi- tecture sliould, above all others, be constructive, it is a row of columns, especially if of the Greek styles. How the pillars of the Hew Opera do not seem to support, and certainly do not sustain, more than the cornice, which is in point of fact upheld by the j^iers against which these columns are placed. Ho constructive necessity for them exists in their present position, and therefore they appear there wholly for decorative purposes. Besides many minor sculptures and medallions, this fagade is embellished with four colossal allegoilcal groups, representing Lyric Poetry, by Jouf- froy ; Music, by Guillaume ; Dancing, by Carpeaux ; and the Lyric Drama, by Perraud. The vestibules, by their well-arranged and imposing dimensions, pre- pare one for the grand stairway, or series of stairways, supported by a labyrinth of caryatides and clustered columns, and surmounted by a vault adorned with four superb paintings by Pils. The general effect of this stairway is very majestic, and must be conceded to be a masterpiece of genius — one of the finest productions of modern architecture. The dec- orative details of the grand foyer and adjoining vestibules are so dazzling in splendor as almost to blind one to certain constructional errors, for which they have been severely criticised, and M. Gamier himself ac- knowledges the truth of some of these strictures. The panels between the doors are occupied with mirrors of plate-glass, the largest ever made ; FOOT OF GRAND STAIRCASE OF NEW OPERA-HOUSE, PARIS. NEW OPERA-HOUSE. 109 the ceilings are inlaid with mosaics executed by Venetian artists, that of the grand foyer is embellished with paintings which have attracted much attention in art circles : they were designed and executed by Paid Bandry, one of the finest of living colorists. The main hall designed for the performances offers nothing very orig- inal. It is, of course, radiant with the pomp and magnificence of gilded carvings in the cinque-cento style, and the ceiling is superbly frescoed ; but the hall is far too small for such vast approaches, nominally seating CEILING OP THE AUDITORIUM OP THE NEW OPERA-HOUSE, about 2000, but really inot over 1500 with comfort or possibility of en- joying the drama. In all these resjiects it must yield to the imposing dimensions and elegant simplicity of Albert Hall, in London, which seats 15,000 with comfort, and almost equal advantages to all present in gain- ing the chief ends for which such a building is constructed. It cannot be admitted that any distinct order of architecture has been even sug- gested in the Opera building of the last Empire. The details and })las- tic decorations have been borrowed from past styles, and may be called in their general effect a sort of bastard Beiiaissance ; but the grand stair 110 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. way somewhat compensates for the defects else- where apparent, and indicates that tlie techni- cal knowledge of the archi- tect has been assisted by a streak of daring or genius alto- gether uncom- mon in the ar- chitecture of the nineteenth century. In the de- partment of ce- ramic art in France to-day, we find little to blame and much to praise. The passion for pottery-w^are, for fashioning unshapely clay into graceful forms, and decorating it with the richest colors and designs the fancy can suggest, is the earliest and most widely diffused of all the art in- stincts of the race, and must therefore be re- garded as a healthful sentiment. It is blame- worthy only when it degenerates into an arti- ficial spasm of enthusiasm — a pitiful fashion — and when the folly and affectation of fashion make it conventional, and seek to elevate it to a higher position in the domain of art than it merits. Porcelain, majolica, faience, or cloisonnee ware are all admirable in their place, but it is an absurdity to claim for them a rank above that CERAMIC ART. Ill to wliicli they are entitled, or to forget that their first aim is utility, to which their beauty is subsidiary. But, after making these reservations, one may yet have an abundance of enthusiasm left to bestow upon the ceramic art of France. Sevres-ware is still manufactured at the govern- ment potteries, lovely and attractive as ever. But it is the faience of Limoges, a production of our age, and surpassed in purely artistic quali- ties by the earthenware of no other age, that here claims more than a passing allusion. Faience is a term borrowed from Faenza, in Italy, and is properly applied to pottery decorated after the object has been partially baked. Faience w^as first made at Limoges during the last century, but it is only within the past thirty years that it has acquired its present distinctive ar- tistic character, by the adoption of an entirely new set of methods, under the direction of Mr. Haviland, a native of New Hampshire. Infusing new enterprise into the establishment, he called around him artists of genius, who immediately made their mark. Foremost among these in- ventors of a new order of decorating earthenware are Braquemond, Da- mousse, and Delaplanche, who took the Grand Prix de Borne. The se- crets of their art are known only to themselves, but the results have natu- rally excited the highest enthusiasm in art circles. The form and color of the objects represented are adhered to with the closeness of a painting on canvas, instead of following the conventional rules hitherto adopted in ceramic art. The ornaments are applied either in rilievo or on a fiat sur- face. The rendering of fiesh-tints more nearly approaches nature than in other paintings on pottery, and the deep, superb azures and clouded grays surpass any effect of the sort hitherto attempted, and resemble the broad, lush richness of the hafidling and color of French landscape art. Much of the Limoges faience is done in pate tendre, or soft porcelain, one of the most difficult materials to handle in the manufacture of pottery. The shapes can only be formed by having the paste sufficiently thin to cast them in moulds, turning them afterward carefully by hand. But as a re- sult the colors, after firing, give the impression of having been absorbed into the clay, and forming one of its integral parts, instead of merely dec- orating the surface. Thus we see that, as in England, some of the best art work now done in France is decorative. Bussia and Denmark are also executing some very creditable work in this direction. Bussian silver and bronze ware 112 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. assumes national forms, sncli as the picturesque Cossack horsemen and their curiously accoutred steeds. The linear art of Russia is yet inferior in excellence to that of her artificers in metal — a sign in a rising people that her best art is yet to come. The terra-cotta of Denmark is less original than its marine jDainting ; it is rather a modern adaptation of classic forms, hut is often instinct with beauty and grace. In one respect it is wholly original — in the modelling of the quaint elves and trolls of Northern mythology. In other departments, the greatest artists of France are dead or have passed their prime, and few as yet appear who can sug- gest to us the direction that is to be followed by the next art school of France. But across the border new artists and new schools demand our attention. Let us turn towards the Germanic Empire, and take a glance at the rising art school of Europe. DANISH POTTERY. 1 1 1. -GERMANY. XN considering the present state of the fine arts in Germany, we find that while, of course, art has always been guided there by the organic laws which underlie all true art among the Germans as with other peo- ple, certain conditions have attended it quite distinct from anything in the past or present historj^ of art in either England or France. Except- ing architecture and household art, which were developed over the greater part of Europe about the same time (after the Dark Ages began to yield to the dawning light of the Renaissance), the arts received little attention in the two nations on eitlier side the Channel, for the}^ were too busily engaged in consolidating the races and provinces of which they are com- posed into two great kingdoms to attend to the amenities of civilization ; and in each, when these objects had been accomplished, it was literature which first asserted itself rather than art. Foreign artists were called in from abroad to decorate the halls and palaces of Francis I. or Henry YIII., and as late even as the time of Charles I. and Louis XIY. The example of these foreign artists — Cellini, Rubens, Holbein, Yandyck — finally had its natural results, and a desire to give expression to the na- tional tastes and emotions in art forms gradually awoke in the hearts of both these races. Jean Cousin, the first French artist of solid merit of whom we have any record, was the avowed admirer and imitator of Diirer, whom he resembled in versatility, although his inferior in ability. Rut it was not until the present century that either people produced their best art, excepting possibly in the case of Poussin, Claude Lorraine, Gains- borough, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. And when the great English and French schools finally made themselves felt, it was in London and Paris that they took up their head-quarters naturally, and without any schools of rival importance in other cities of either kingdom; and so it has con- tinued to the present day. Whatever art schools may have sprung up 8 114 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. in otlier cities exliibiting more or less promise, it is to London and Paris that we look at once in order to form an idea of the national art. There the government schools are established, there the royal patronage is be- stowed, there the great animal exhibitions are held, and thither tiock the great army of artists, buyers, and amateurs who sustain and encourage the growth of English and French contemporary art. Blit in Germany it is quite otherwise. There is a strong analogy be- tween the art manifestations, as in the political conditions, of Germany and Italy for the last six centuries. Both were long divided into nu- merous small bodies, governed each in its own way, and presenting a po- litical and intellectual activity entirely individual and distinct, and often full of liery energy, while possessing in common certain general race qual- ities. It has fallen to the lot of each to be united at last, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, under one general hegemony. During all these ages the separate states of both Italy and Germany have never en- tirely lost their individual characteristics or the national vigor, which in some cases has been contiiiued, especially in the latter, with an ever-in- creasing glow, that only serves to give greater strength to the empire composed of these different parts welded together in a solid and weighty mass. But it is to be noted that as in the republics and monarchies of Italy in the Benaissance each had an art school of its own, so in Germany the development of political and intellectual activity in the free cities was accompanied by a strong art impulse. If they did not always show the same magnificent eye for color, tlie same masterly drawing of the human form, as Titian, Baphael, Michael Angelo, and other Italian mas- ters, these early German artists at least indicated equal or more vivid imagination, and as deep an earnestness in the pursuit of art. As early as 1360 we find the school of William of Cologne and the Suabian School of Ulm exerting a powerful influence. Art schools sprung up in all parts of Germany, and the period of the Beformation, the most magnifi- cent art period of Italy, was also the most noteworthy among the German states of any that has preceded this century. Holbein the elder was fol- lowed by such men as Elans Holbein the younger, Aldegrever, and Al- brecht Dilrer — a genius rivalling the ability and versatility of Leonardo da Yinci. At this period, too, wood and copper-plate engraving in Germany were carried to a degree scarcely exceeded at the present day, as, for ex- ample, in the engraving of Diirer’s “St. Jerome and the Lion,” while EARLY GERMAN ART. 115 this art was also brought in to point a satire or a moral, as in “ The Dance of Death.” Although, with the reaction following this period of enormous intel- lectual energy succeeded by the Thirty Years’ ^yar, the War of the WILHELM TON KAULBACII. Succession, and the Seven Years’ War, art languished in Germany, it never entirely died out as an active principle in the national character. In the last century the rise of the great composers made it essentially the musical era for Germany at least ; but still we observe Angelica Kauffman painting with considerable talent, and Winch elmann writing his masterly work on anticpie art, followed by Lessing and Goethe com- posing works bearing on the art question. Thus we find tliat at the time when English and French art were just coming forth, fresh and full of the vigor of youth, Germany had already produced a noble school of artists centuries before, and it could therefore be hardly expected of lier, in the natural course of events, to keep pace in art witli tliese great rising scliools, especially since upon each was con- centrated tlie patronage of a powerful and united government. Eut notwithstanding this, the literary and scientific impulse which found a focus at Weimar, but was scattered more or less throughout the states of Germany, was accompanied by a revival of the art feeling, which, 116 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. as we all know, was chiefly developed at Diisseldorf, Berlin, and especially Mnnicli, at the latter place under the auspices of Lndwig I., the late king, the most enthusiastic royal patron art has met since Lorenzo de’ Medici. BUiSH-RANGEKS. — DIEZ. Whatever may now be thought by some critics of the sculptures of Schwanthaler, or the frescoes and canvases of Overbeck, Hess, Schnorr, Cornelius, or Kauibach, it cannot be gainsaid that they were men of great power, who, if too conventional, and borrowing their inspiration too often MUNICH SCHOOL. IIT from the styles of schools moved by different tastes and opinions and be- liefs from our own age rather than from the study of nature itself as it appears to our eyes in our time, were still impelled by a true art enthu- siasm and noble aspirations, l^othing low or demoralizing entered into the conceptions of these seekers after the ideal. And while we may pre- fer the methods and subjects of the contemporary schools of German art, we cannot in justice withhold from these masters the profound respect due to earnest pioneers, without whose previous clearing of the road mod- ern German art could not have reached its present commanding position. In looking over the field, we find several distinct schools of art ex- isting in Germany at the present day as in former ages. In no one place, as yet, is there a concentration of the national art culture ; for although an empire, Germany is also a confederation of states, each still preserving its integrity. To an American it is interesting to study this phase of Germanic art, because it is likely that, as at present, so in the immediate future, the development of the art spirit in the United States wfill be rather by States than national. Thus we see, besides the system of ai-t education in the public schools for the purj^ose of stimulating industrial art, art schools or academies and galleries, supported by government pat- ronage, at Carlsruhe, Diisseldorf, Stuttgart, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, and Yieiina, which, although not yet included in the German Empire, is es- sentially German, and is so treated in all except merely political relations. The union of the old Austrian duchy to the German Empire is consid- ered one of those natural events which must come as a matter of course, being only a question of time. Eor obvious reasons, the Munich School has been, and continues to be, not only the most famous but the best of these schools in the quality of its art. In no other city in Europe, not even excepting Paris, is the art impulse so clearly manifest ; although the greater size of Paris, ’.and the longer period during which works of art have been accumulating there as spoils of war and in other ways, combine to present such a vast mass of material that one is dazzled by the magnifi- cence of the display. But, although on a much smaller scale, there is enough of the art of the past ages collected and arranged in Munich to satisfy the most craving art ap|)etite, while the number of artists living, studying, and painting there — over two thousand — exceeds, in proportion to the population, the art guilds of any other city. One meets them at every turn, often j)icturesque enough in their appearance, with black 118 CONTEMPORAEY AET IE EUEOPE. beards and keen eyes, everlastingly puffing tlie reverie -inspiring cigar, and almost extinguished under slonclied hats wellnigh as enormous as the KARL THEODOR VON PILOTY. sombrero of the Adelantado of the Seven Cities. From time to time they give a great ball in the Opera-house. The one at the carnival of last year was attended by great splendor. Tlie costumes were all of the thirteentli and fourteenth centuries, and in some cases cost over a thou- sand dollars. For three months before it came oft, the managers were busy superintending the arrangements. The person representing the Turkish ambassador came in witli a retinue of forty, all magnificently attired. Fritz Kaulbach appeared as Charles Y., with a lady on his arm as the queen. Young Arnim, a brother of Count Yon Arnim, and a pupil of Piloty, was conspicuous in the gorgeous robes of a cardinal. The Kunstverein is an art union composed of artists in Munich. They have a commodious gallery, to which every week they send speci- mens of their latest work. By attending these exhibitions one can form a tolerable idea of art progress in Munich, althougli some of the best artists rarely send to them. At the close of the week the paintings are sent to some other city for exliibition, and a new collection takes its place. The union purchases a certain number of these works, when not exceeding ACADEMY OF MUNICH. 119 fifteen hundred marks in price. Any one is permitted to become a sub- scriber on paying twenty marks. At tiie end of the year the paintings are raffled for, and thus fall to the lot of some of the subscribers, while every one receives an engraving worth ten marks. Besides furnishing the artists with so many examples of the schools of other ages, the Bavarian government also supports an Art Academy, in which twelve professors give instruction, three for each department of art, and each having a school of his own. Piloty, Diez, Lindenschmidt, and other leading artists hold these professorships, with liberal salaries, and assisted by a number of subordinate instructors who attend to the rudimental branches of art. The Academy is located in a vast antique SKM 1)ISC()VKUIN(J WALLKNSTKJN DKAl). 1>IIA)TY. |)ile whicli was occupied as a monastery until tliis century. Hut as it is botli gloomy }ind incommodious, the government is now erecting a new academy near the Sieges Thor, at an estimated (*ost of two million llorins; it is to be coin])leted in 1ST8. TJie expense to the students occupying 120 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. studios in the Academy is merely nominal. There are no annual exhi- bitions, as in Paris and London, but generally one is held once in three or four years. What is and has for a long time been a leading trait of the Munich Academy is its cosmopolitan character. “Art has no country, it is uni- versal,” nobly said King Ludwig. In consecpience, every encouragement has been held out to induce artists from abroad to study or settle in that city. The natural result is that many an artist, like Muncazky, for exam- ple, who has made his reputation elsewhere, has received his artistic train- ing in that little Bavarian capital, while many of the best artists now ’working there are foreigners, or at least from all parts of Germany. Ba- varian, Prussian, Austrian, Suabian, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Pussian, Pole, Dane, Norwegian, Englishman, and American there meet on a com- mon ground, burying political or national differences, all united by a gen- eral einulation for success towards a common end. The civilized and art world owes a debt of gratitude to King Ludwig which should temper whatever criticisms might be passed upon the character or policy of the Bavarian line. When we look at the results of this munificent patronage, we find a vast art activity developed here during half a century, proceeding from one step to another in progress, until from extreme conventionalism a point in the scale of improvement is reached at last by a thoroughly easy and natural process, where we find the contemporary school of Munich, and we may add also of Germany, holding the foremost position in Euro- pean art at the commencement of the last quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. Kaulbach, who has just passed away, is the German artist of this century perhaps the best known abroad. Less conventional than his pred- ecessors, he undoubtedly possessed a vast genius ; and yet he was weak in color. How few can excel in all the art qualities ! Pubens, equally great in imagination, drawing, color, and technique^ presents an example so entirely alone in the combination of many qualities, that we feel how rare if is to excel in all. The works of Kaulbach, on the other hand, would be quite as impressive if rendered simply in black and white. Theodore Yon Piloty, another artist well known abroad, at least by reputation, comes later. He is still in the prime of life, and in his man- ner serves to mark another step in the advancing scale of modern German art. He was a pupil of Paul Delaroche, whom he enthusiasticalP admires. BEFORE CARDINAL CAJETAN. LINDEN C ■' X: '>■ S',:;;:. WORKS OF PILOTY. 123 Hence we find in his works constant traces of tlie master, who was, it must be confessed, the superior of the pupil. In even the best paintings of Piloty, who is pre-eminently an historical painter, there is often percep- tible a certain theatrical, sensational effect in the composition which takes away from its naturalness. His Columbus ” offends very strongly in this respect ; “ Thusnelda at the Triumph of Germanicus,” his most am- bitious work, is perhaps more satisfactory; while “ Seni discovering Wal- lenstein dead ” is more simple, and is undoubtedly a work of great j)ower. The figure of Seni is very impressive, and the prostrate corpse of the murdered general, almost colossal in its proportions, is grandly rendered. The glitter of the diamond on his finger presents one of those simple but highly suggestive effects which are only born of genius. An interesting incident in connection with the composition of this painting is told. For several days the artist had been endeavoring to arrange the drapery about the cor^^se of the dead hero, without suiting himself. At last it was adjusted somewhat to his liking, and he began to sketch it in, when a knock was heard at the door. It was King Ludwig, who was in the habit of walking about the city and the studios as a pri- vate citizen. Being a little deaf, he did not hear the remonstrances of the artist, and ruthlessly walked into the newly adjusted drapery, throw- ing it into disorder. Of course nothing could be said, but after he left, Piloty began to swear and pull his hair with vexation. Suddenly he looked around, and beheld a new fold apparent in the disordered drapery, which was exactly what he wanted. Sitting down at once, he sketched it on the canvas in the shape in which it is now seen in the finished painting. Piloty has founded a school. He achieved his fame and influence early ; but so rapidly has German art ripened of late years that he has lived to see the sceptre pass from his hand. Such is the fate of all re- formers. The genius which entitles them to our veneration, and increases the world’s stock of culture and progress, so tends to educate the rising generation that the very efforts which placed them on so high a point aid to carry their pupils still higher and beyond them. ATe cannot, ])erliaps, ascribe to Piloty original powers e(pial to those of Kaulbacli or of some of the rising school. But there is some brilliant work, notwithstanding, in a j)ainting which he is now executing for the new Ihithhaus, or City Hall, of Munidi, for which he is to receive 50,000 florins — a large sum for Ger- juany. It is an allegorical re])resentation of the city, and contains ])oi- 124 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. traits of all her citizens wlio liave been clistingnislied in her past history. It seems thus far to contain more of the good qualities of his style and less of the faults of his other works. He is painting this scene in Kanl- bach’s former studio, because his own studio, althongh a hall thirty-five feet square, is not of sufficient length for a canvas that seems over forty feet long. Professor A. Muller and Otto Seitz are also artists deservino: honora- ble mention, as holding with Piloty a position between the school imme- diately preceding and that now coming on the field. Of landscapists still painting in that method and well knoAvn in America there are a good num- ber, including also animal-painters of considerable merit, as, for example, Yoltz and Paul Weber. A number of pleasing genre painters belong to this class, imitating the style of which Meyer Yon Bremen is a well- known exemplar. But there is a general sameness in their manner, a lack of character and individuality, prettiness rather than strength, and con- ventionalism in tone and color, although often combined with real poetic feeling. To this school we are indebted for several hundred repetitions of views on the Kdnigs-see — a wild romantic lake known to most travel- lers in Germany. But one may have too much even of the Kdnigs-see, and the essential weakness of this sort of paintings becomes apj^arent when seen by the side of works of the new school of art in Munich. Let ns be just. We would not say there is not much talent evident in these paintings ; but it is talent rather than genius, conventionalism rather than originality; and while the Munich School was producing only such works, it could not conscientiously claim an equal place with the great landscapes and historical pieces of the French School. It is a curious circumstance that by a species of tacit common consent so many of the pupils of Piloty himself should have broken loose from his infiuence even while studying under him, and, as if unconsciously moved by a certain law, formed a style so different from his own. The chief points of distinction which separate contemporary German art from its predecessors seem to be the result, to a remarkable degree, of a very careful study of certain masters of the Dutch, Flemish, and German ar- tists of the Kenaissance period on the part of a few men who brought to the study a new way of using their powers of observation, and in turn influenced other artists of the age. It is, beyond question, to this cause that we must partially attribute the turn given to French art at the time NEW SCHOOL OF MUNICH. 125 wlien it began to yield to the influence of Troyon and Eonssean. Eu- bens, Eembrandt, Eiiysdael, Franz Hals, Aldegrever, Diirer, although dead ages ago, still influence art, and have proved to the greatest artists of this century what Homer and Theocritus, Dante and Spenser, have been to modern poets — not sources of inspiration, for no man of genius gains his inspiration except directly from nature, but teachers, directors in art principles, and, above all, instructors in the great truth that simplicity is a prominent feature of the highest art, whether in letters or in paint- ing, and that in the expression of the ideal itself there is no model su- perior to nature. The leading characteristics of the new Munich School seem to be, therefore, greater breadth in the treatment of details, preferring general effect to excellence in parts of a work, greater boldness and dash, and consequently more freshness in the handling of pigments, the suggestion of texture and substance by masses of paint, handling the brush in accord- ance with the nature of the object represented, and, finally, a more correct eye in perceiving the relations of colors to each other — the quality of sub- tle tints in flesh, for example — and therefore a more just representation of the mysterious harmonies of nature, while there is everywhere apparent a masterly skill in the rudimentary branches of art. These have for long been the distinguishing traits of the modern French School, but they have only recently begun to attract attention in modern Germany, and to those accustomed to the older school it requires a certain degree of art edu- cation to perceive the excelling quality of these methods. But connois- seurs or those who look at art in general need to understand that no less than in literature does the sesthetic taste require to be cultivated. Some have at an early period a capacity to appreciate Sliakspeare, but to most the growTli of their appreciation of him may be taken as the measure of their growth in intellectual culture and life experience. Of course, in Germany as in France there are artists who carry the practice of these art methods to an extreme, once they become a fashion and therefore pe- cuniarily profitable. But we do not speak here of extremists or disciples and imitators, but of masters who originate a style and demonstrate only its legitimate results. But although so far resembling the French Scliool, there is no reason to believe that the present Munich School is an imitator of that; for in the choice of subjects it is altogether at variance with it, and the leaders 126 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. in the new movement liave never studied in France, and have generally not been out of Germany. The causes seem rather to be as foreshadowed FRANZ LENBACH. on a previous page. Leibl is one of the originators of the new school, and in the rendering of some of its chief points has no superior. The texture of flesh, the myriad delicate pearly grays and pinks, and subtle lines of light and shadow playing on the human countenance or in the muscles and sinews of the hand, and indicating character, he seizes with masterly skill. An artist who introduces such study of nature and such methods of imitating it into art practice is really great, even if deficient in many other respects. In order to understand the importance of the reforms introduced by Leibl and his co-laborers in the held, one has but to visit the new Pi- nakothek, or gallery, built entirely for the permanent reception of the so-called New School of Painting, that is, of representative works pro- duced by leading Munich artists since the foundation of the Academy. The rapidity of the change is so great as almost to exceed belief. Piloty and Kaulbach, although represented by their huest works, seem already of the past, and they are giants compared with some whose works are there. The contrast is still more marked on turning to paintings by LEIBL— LENBACH. 12T Bocklin, or tlie later scliool. That we speak in such terms is not owing merely to the fact that the present school is more new, and therefore preferable in the estimation of some ; for the best painting in the collec- tion is Wilkie’s Opening of the Will,” painted some sixty years ago for the King of Bavaria. Such rendering of character or imitation of llesh- tints kills everything aronnd it, and has not been approached by modern German art until the present school came in. Leibl reveals in painting the rongh-featnred, roughly clad Banerein or peasants of the Bavarian handets, and the resnlts are sometimes quite marvellous. He can also give yon, if he chooses, the delicate beauty of a lady’s hand with a truth to nature that throws enthusiastic young artists into raptures. But he does not often so choose. And this leads us re- luctantly to say that the essential coarseness of his character prevents him from being as great an artist as his abilities might otherwise have made him. The greatest artists generally combine with strength a certain re- linement, apparent in their works, if not in their manners. Beauty in the ordinary sense of the term has no attractions for Leibl. Even amidst the homely uncouthness of German peasantry, handsome men and comely maidens are to be found. lie seems to go out of his way to give us the most repulsive specimens of both sexes that he can hnd. Franz Lenbach is another artist, who, in a style quite different from that of Leibl, is fully his equal in technical qualities ; if not superior in ability, his canvases give us more satisfaction. He chiefly devotes himself to portraiture, although sometimes making admirable copies from the mas- ters, and ideal compositions, such as, for example, his young herdsman lying on the grass on a sunny day, shading his eyes with his hand, or the three Orientals standing in a magnificent group on the brow of a hill. He makes a very careful study of character, and in this respect, at least, reminds one of Yelasquez, although his treatment is more that of Rem- brandt. Lenbach is fortunately possessed of sufticient means to allow him to paint only what he pleases, and will not attenqfl the likeness of every one who ap})lies. Having decided to take a ])ortrait, he is not satisfied with one position, but makes a full oil sketch from three or four difl'er- ent sides until he hits upon one that best re])resents the character or in- dividuality of the subject. II is portraits of Von Moltke and Liszt are strong examples among many that might he alluded to of the admirable results achieved by such earnest, conscientious methods ; and he is not less 128 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. successful in rendering the beauty or character of a woman’s face. 'Nor does Lenbach rest his efforts after art perfection liere. He works even- ings after effects both chromatic and in ehiar - oscttro, especially by the use of a frame covered with a thin black gauze. Behind this a person is placed in different positions, with the light, also behind the gauze, falling upon him ; the effect is that of an oil - painting. Ilis studio, built ex- pressly for him in a garden, consists of tliree apartments, furnished with a profusion of antique and Oriental objects such as are dear to the eye of an artist, and which often reappear in his paintings. Ludwig Loefftz is another of the rising artists of Munich, one of whose paintings at the recent national exhibition carried off a first medal. Eight years ago he was a paper-hanger ; now he has a school for draw- ing, considered one of the best ever opened in Germany, and in color, portraiture, and composition is entitled to a high position. Victor Muller, who died two or three years ago, while still young, was a painter whose compositions are full of admirable qualities of color, while reminding one of no other artist in style, quiet in effect, yet suggesting nature ; while such paintings as Hamlet ” or “ Ophelia,” entirely free from anything sensational, show also that he had a real perception of, and power of ex- pressing, the hidden springs of action which make us what we are. Fritz Kaulbach, a distant relation of the late artist, is also well deserving of similar praise. In some of his lovely female faces one can trace a genuine feeling after the ideal. Lindenschmidt, a professor in the Academy, is in- spired by noble thought and high artistic qualities in rendering character, especially in historic compositions. His scenes in the career of Luther are marked by singular power, and entitle him to rank among the fore- most living artists of Germany. Kudolph Seitz, known chiefly in frescoes and decorative work, has a remarkable feeling for the beauty of physical forms. Two armorial frescoes with which he has beautified the entrance to the new Hathhaiis well indicate tlie excellence which may be achieved in this branch of pictorial art. When we come to Gabriel Max, we find a genius, to the analysis of whose masterly conceptions we should much jmefer devoting a chapter instead of a few meagre paragraphs. In respect of mental grasp and im- agination, combined with technical ability, we should give the first place in the contemporary Munich School to Max and Bocklin. Artists and public are alike agreed upon the surpassing character of Max’s works, al- PAINTINGS OF MAX. 129 tlioiigli, of course, some prefer one painting to another, while the rather morbid tendency of his subjects makes these paintings better suited, per- haps, to exhibition in a public gallery than in a private drawing-room. In disposition he is retiring, and difficult of access to all but a few select friends, and rarely can any one be admitted to his studio ; but at the same time he is of a genial nature and of a social turn when in company with his chosen friends. Although we notice but two or three of his works, it should be added that these do not wholly convey an idea of the variety of subjects which Max has treated. The first, it is said, allegorically represents an incident from his own life. In the semi-twilight of an autumn evening we see a comjDany assembled under a wood, dancers and others, in the picturesque costume of mediseval times. Lanterns light up the scene in the distance. In the foreground, alone amidst the gay dancers circling around him, is a young man leaning pensively against a tree. This is supposed to rep- resent the artist himself. To him, on his right, advances a beautiful GA15IUKL MAX. maiden leaning on the arm of another youth. Her face is one of en- trancing loveliness : she is liis betrothed. Hut in her hand slie liolds out to him a wild crocus — a flower whose meaning, when given by a lady to her lover, is that he can never more hope for her love. In the mean 0 130 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. time, on tliis side of the tree, unseen by him, a lady approaches, with a veil over her head, but her features visible in profile. Slie is older than THE lion’s bride. MAX. tlie other lady, but in her mien is dignity combined with grace and beauty. She is tlie lady who is destined eventually to become his wife. This painting, while successful in tlie rendering of each individual char- acter, is also of pre-eminent artistic worth for the regard paid to the values, the quality of the texture and color, and the harmonious arrange- ment of the details of the composition. The other painting is taken from ‘‘Faust,” and is entitled “Gretchen.” It represents Margaret on the mountain-side on Walpurgis-night. FTotli- ing can be simpler as a composition, but it is difficult to see how the artist could have better succeeded in giving us on one canvas a more com- plete epitome of the tragic life of the pure, greatly injured, and afflicted child of destiny whom Goethe has chosen to symbolize such a vast mul- titude whose pathetic and mysterious fate cannot be explained by any human logic. A solitary figure she appears, robed in white, and still so represented as to suggest a certain ghostly impalpableness. She stands on the grass, scarcely pressed by her pale feet. Behind her, faintly dis- cernible in the gloom, are the rocks, and nearer, ravens pecking at a dia- HOCHHEIMER. — GKUTZNER. GRETCHEN— THE MARTYR. 133 mond ring. A white band around her neck conceals the inode of her bloody execution, but it is suggested with awful vividness by a faint crim- son circle saturating the linen. An empty locket hangs on her breast. A sober supernatural light shines on the upper part of this silent form, gradually fading into gray shadow. But the face it is which, after one has gazed long at the painting, continues to rivet the eye, and haunts one forever. In the eyes, which seem not of earth, there is an expression of silent horror and agony beyond language, and mingled with it a re- proachful, pleading expostulation that out of the innocency and happiness of maidenhood she should have been torn to meet such a fate, and spend eternity far from the abodes of the blessed, while on the closed ashen lips is depicted the resig*nation of despair. The color of this masterly conception is so exquisitely in harmony with the design tliat no engrav- ing or photograph can do it justice. It is said to be a favorite work with Max. There is no artist who so w^ell represents the hues and aspects of the dead. The painting of which an engraving is given on page 130, “ The Lion’s Bride,” is from one of IJhland’s poems. It is perhaps open to criticism for its color and execution in one or two parts, but is a very powerful composition, and well exhibits the great skill Max also possesses in the drawing and painting of animals. In the original work, the mel- ancholy rage, the opaque sea-green of the lion’s eye, are painted with unique resemblance to nature. Many will doubtless remember the very touching composition which has recently become known in America through a photograph taken from it. A young girl, a Christian martyr, has just been left to the tigers in the arena of the Coliseum. The wild beasts are fawning about her before tearing her to pieces, while a tiger rushes forth with o.pen jaws from the den. At this supreme moment of existence some pitying soul amidst the throng above drops a llower fui- tively at her feet, as a sign that one, at least, is there to offer up a ])rayer and drop a tear for her as she meets her doom. She, in her helpless- ness, leans against the wall, and looks up to see who it is, wondering that there is any one left in a cruel world to pity the lonely victim of a blood- thirsty generation. This painting is by Gabriel Max, one of the greatest poets of the age, for his paintings are indeed tragic poems dealing with human destiny. We ])ass, by a natural transition, to the (jenre painters of the iUunicb School, and hei’c we find a large number of very excellent artists. De- 134 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. fregger lias justly earned a foremost position for compositions taken from peasant life. Truth to nature, admirable color, texture, and character, all seem to be his in equal proportions. He selects many of his subjects from the picturesque life of tlie Tyrol, and each one of his paintings is in- rUANZ DEFREGGEK. spired by a distinct individuality of its own. We are not constantly con- fronted by the same faces doing service in different jDictures, a weakness too common with some artists, but every composition seems a new con- ception ; Defregger finds the phases of human nature so infinitely various that he rarely repeats himself. He seems also to have a keen insight into the character of animals, and the action and expression of his dogs and horses appear almost hmnan. Nicholas Gysis is by birth a Greek, but his art life and methods are so entirely German that he may with propriety be included among the ar- tists of the Munich School. His color seems scarcely inferior to that of Decamps in the rendering of Oriental scenes, while his native familiarity wdth them has given him remarkable skill in catching the traits of Eastern character. One of his paintings, “A Thief carried on a Donkey through the Bazaai’S of Smyrna,” is justly meritorious for vivid characterization and local spirit, and is deliciously mirth-inspiring, while the painting rep GRUTZNER—DIEZ— BRANDT. 13T resenting a little Greek girl at lier first confession is quite winning for its suggestions of simple pathos. Albert Keller and Alois Galb are artists of decided promise in the delineation of domestic scenes. Another of the very clever painters of the genre school of Munich is Eduard Griitzner. Like Chevilliard, of Paris, lie makes a specialty of hitting ofi the human nature wdiich church- men retain even after they have donned the cowl and cassock and for- sworn the lusts of the flesh. He is very acute in seizing certain expres- sions of the countenance, and his satire is not too severe to impair tlie exquisite sense of humor conveyed in his graphic compositions. But he is strono;er in drawing than in color. Wilhelm Diez, a professor in the Academy at Munich, in the render- ing of genre with horses and landscape holds a position entirely alone, having a style crisp and full of freshness and originality, and resembling that of no other artist. He is very difficult to please, sometimes entirely painting out a finished work. As a designer for periodicals and books, Diez show^s a fertile imagination, and has produced thousands of charm- ing illustrations. This has probably quickened a memory and observa- tion naturally strong ; and thus, like Turner and several other artists simi- larly constituted, he does not depend wholly on color studies for his com- positions, and yet few excel him in giving a feeling of nature. His horses could only be drawn by a man of genius. Joseph Brandt is another of these masters who overwhelm us with the wealth of the artistic work now turned out in Munich. He is a Pole by birth, a German in art education. His subjects are always chosen from the steppes of the Ukraine or the Crimea, desolate, but drearily pict- uresque. The Cossacks of the Don, the gaunt, nervous, wiry, many- colored steeds they spur to rapine and Avar — these are Avhat he gives us, either in groups of three or four, or whole squadrons marching across the russet ocean-like v^astes overarched by leaden skies. Ho artist of the age is his superior in the technical requirements of his art, while the spirit, in- dividuality, character, and tone Avith Avhich each horse and each rider is given disarm criticism, and magically transport one to the Avild scenes he represents so Av^ell. Of animal painters there are, besides Diez and Hrandt, a number Avorthy extended notice; Ave can allude to but one or tAvo. Wagner is Avell knoAvn in America by photogra])hs of his “ Bonian Chariot Pace," 138 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. and also by tlie coj)y, inferior in color to the original painting, which was exhibited in Philadelphia last year. He is a pupil of Piloty, and has been for some years a professor at Mnnich. ‘‘ Pacing among the Horse-herders of Hebreczin” is another highly dramatic composition by this artist, and more natural and interesting than the ambitions bnt somewliat artificial scene suggested by the arena of the Poman classic period. He seems to be encroaching on the field of that great painter of horses, Adolphe Schreyer, who resides at Frankfort on the Main, belonging to no especial school, and now past his prime. As a vigorous interpreter of certain phases of equine character, Schreyer has shown immense power. Anton Braith is somewhat unequal in his compositions, and sometimes reminds ns of Yan Marke, that great pnpil of Troy on. But in saying this we would not deny him decided originality and power of his own. He sometimes draws and paints cattle with great force and fidelity to nature. What spirit and truth are evident in the composition Calves Peturning Home,” of Avhich we give an excellent engraving. Ziigel is still a young man, like many of those already mentioned, and will give the world yet better things than he has already done : he is not yet the equal of Jacques, the Frenchman, but in a just rendering of the values, with a true feeling for nature, he deserves an excellent rank. Bodenmiiller is a rising artist, who is strong in painting battle scenes, especially of the late war. But Franz Adam is undoubtedly the ablest battle - painter of the present German School. It is not so much every strap and button, sabre or bridle, that he seeks to delineate with martinet- like precision — which seems to be the chief ambition of most battle-paint- ers — but, overcome rather by the terror, the fnry, the j:>athos, the sub- limity of a great tragedy upon which hangs the fate of men and empires, where blood and tears are shed to work out the All Father’s plans for the ultimate destiny of the race, inspired by the grand causes and results of the conflict, and the consciousness that it is souls, and not mere bayonets and guns, that are there rushing together in the tremendous rage of war, he omits the minor, non-essential details to give us an impression of the general effect. He groups in masses surging across the field with vast energy, and draws with rapid, impetuous strokes that make the scene actual to an extraordinary degree. As regards landscape-painting in Munich, there is less proportionate attention given to it than by the Euglish and French artists, and what CALVES RETURNING HOME. BRAITH LIER— BOCKLIN. 141 is done is less generally satisfactory ; it is more artificial and conventional. Bnt there are several notable exceptions. Adolf Lier is inspired by a subtle sympatliy with nature. lie has a fine feeling for her various aspects ; to him she seems to sing the everlasting minor hymn of the ages that sweeps sadly over the sere fields in the plaintive, melancholy days of October, when the birds are flown, the flowers are faded, and the dying year, drawing to its end, symbolizes the brevity of life below. Mezgoly is also deserving of more than a passing allusion as a land- scape-painter, while Ilans Thoma interprets nature with eccentric ideality. There is a strange, suggestive eeriness about his compositions. The figures he introduces into them seem to indicate the point of contact between the seen and the unseen worlds. In the painting of “ Charon ferrying Souls across the Styx,” the contrast between the solemn group and gloom in the foreground and the supernatural gleam of the Elysian fields be- yond is beautifully and impressively expressed. But Thoma appears to have been somewhat influenced by Arnold Bdcklin, who might also be nearly as well classed with some of the artists previously noticed, such is his versatility and the parity of excellence he achieves in almost every subject he undertakes. He has been painting for many years, but for long was neither understood nor appreciated. He was, as it were, born before his time. Even the artists considered him a dreamer, and his works absurd. How he ranks with the first three or four living painters of Germany. The fact is, that to a wonderful eye for form and color Bdcklin adds an imagination of extraordinary creative power, and the sympathy with the hidden suggestions of nature of a Shelley, blended with the weirdness of Poe and the startling mysteriousness of Coleridge or La Motte-Eouque. How he shall paint you an imaginary Italian villa on a rocky ledge by the sea, which in long, gray, moaning surges beats against the cliff, and sweeps for evermore into the hollow caves. Above, against a sad evening sky, stands the lonely palace, surrounded by foliage, amidst which are seen marble statues, and on the extreme edge of the low cliff a solemn row of dark, Druid-like cypresses sway in the gale. The only sign of human life is a tall, slender young girl, draped in black, standing on the beach, leaning against the cliff, with arms crossed on her breast, seemingly gazing, forlorn, on the sea, and musing on the transitoriness of human affairs, and the desolation which has left her there, the last of her line. 142 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. Then yon tnrn from this canvas and see depicted an idyllic episode from the Greek poets — a young shepherd, the size of life, playing on liis syrinx, and a wood-nymph concealed in the shrubbery behind listening to his love - song. The next scene he will give yon will be, portrayed with immense strength, an anchorite on a narrow ledge, half-way down the side of a tremendous precipice, scantily clad in a goat-skin, kneeling before a rude cross made of two bouglis bound together by a vine, and scourging his bare back with knotted cords. Another picture may be a young shepherdess reposing the live-long day amidst spring-time poppies and daisies, while her flock are cpiietly nibbling the herbage at her side. Then you turn once more to gaze, amazed, on a mermaid and a merman reposing on the oozy rocks of a reef, their limbs covered with trailing sea-weed. She, leaning over the ledge, toyiugly grasps the neck of a sea- serpent magnificently painted ; he is looking seaward and blowing on a conch-shell. Beyond, the surges of the raging, storm-beaten sea roll in from the far-off eternity of ocean with a stern, savage power, and a truth to nature such as I have never seen surpassed. At an artistic soiree in Munich, among otliQv jeux cTesjjriU a sea-serpent copied from the one above was presented to Bdcklin. Then yon shall have a windy autumn evening, the setting sun striking a golden path across the centre of the scene, a farm-house beyond, a startled horse in the foreground endeavor- ing to throw Ids rider, and, above, the trees swaying with the surging blast of an October storm. Or it is Pan piping to himself among the reeds on a river’s bank that we see before us, in the Golden Age of which the poets sing. Bdcklin has also painted with success in distemper, and rivals the Bossetti School in their peculiar held of archaic, fantastic, realistic unreal- ism. But he does not devote his talents to much of that sort of work, in which his success serves rather to display the more forcibly the ex- traordinary and versatile character of his genius. He painted a portrait of himself with a skeleton standing behind him and directing his hand. At the same time, although at last well known in Germany, and acknowl- edged to be entitled to a very high position, Bdcklin can probably never be, in the ordinary sense of the term, a popular artist, for it requires a cer- tain degree of art culture and a mind that revels in the contemplation of the ideal, to fully perceive his merits. He is like certain poets whose works, although celebrated far and wide, are caviare to the mass of read- DANISH MARINE PAINTERS. 1 . 1:3 ers — Eobert Browning, for example. But bis influence on German art is perceptible in various quarters. We slioulcl hardlj expect that marine painting would And many vo- taries in an inland city like Munich, five hundred miles from salt-water ; and such is the fact. Yet Schonleber goes down to the Yorth Sea coast sometimes, and finds material for effective compositions of marine genre with fishing -boats ; and Otto Binding is a coast painter who makes one actually hear the roar of the breakers as they chase each other in tumultu- ous masses, and lash the rocks with a power that may be felt. But like Glide, of Carlsruhe, and a number of other marine artists residing in Ger- many, Binding is a Norwegian. Early associations do indeed have more to do with the bent of genius than we are always aware. Bometimes it is a seemingly trifling incident which turns the whole current of thought at a time when it is yet flexible. The races skirting the shores of the Yorth Bea have produced the best sailors and marine art the world has seen. Hitherto the English, but more especially the Dutch, havm excelled in this department, and have produced some notable interpreters of sea- life and scenery. But it remained for Denmark to claim the finest school of marine painting that has ever existed. It is difficnlt to contain enthusiasm within bounds wdien the writer recalls the rapture and surprise with which he made the discovery that such a magnificent school of marine painters, descendants of the Yikings of old, had inherited the breezy love of the boisterous, ever-shifting ocean, still roving on the turbulent waves, and in imagination and on canvas living over the racy career of their an- cestors. To be a successful marine jiainter one should first have a pas- sion for the sea — deep, ardent, irresistible as love ; he should rave about a ship as he would about a fair woman ; the flavor of tlie salt air should fill his imagination with dreams of adventures ; he should be a jiractical seaman, crammed with sea lore, able to sail a vessel, to distinguish at a glance the points of difference between the ships of diverse nations, or between any two vessels of his own country, as a student of human nature can distinguish the peculiarities of individual faces or races; he should also have an experimental knowledge of Avave forms, or sea colors, or sea skies, according to the ever-varying conditions of hour, weather, tides, cur- rents, shoals, or geographical location. To all these indis])ensable (jnalifi- cations the sea ])ainter should add artistic genius. Barely, indeed, have CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. 1A4 marine artists existed so tlioroiiglilj equipped for tlieir work. But in Denmark we now actually find not one or two isolated marine painters of merit, but a national scliool of consummate artists wlio possess all the qualifications enumerated above, yet each with a style distinct and in- dividual. Intensely patriotic, they often choose their subjects from Danish history, and thus give us, not only sea q>ictures, but also historic paintings. This circumstance is well illustrated by Basmussen’s magnificent painting entitled The Discovery of Greenland by King Eric the Bed, A.D. 983.” The solemn twilight of the polar seas is illumined by a crim- son glow in the west, which crowns the pinnacles of the icebergs with magical splendor. Like a floor of glass, slightly undulating and refiecting berg and sky, the tranquil sea rolls away into the dim distance. Into this lone and silent scene, which has repeated itself age after age, hitherto unbroken by dash of oar or voice of man, at last appears the galley of the Horsemen majestically gliding towards an unknown land. The heroes of the sea are clustered on her decks in awe and wonder, while around the rudder in her wake the monsters of the deep roll in sportive play, curious to learn what this new monster can be which has at last intruded into their chosen domain. Besides Basmussen, a number of able artists, his equals in this department of marine painting, may be mentioned with high praise. Among the most prominent are Bille, Professor Sorensen, W. Melby, Locher, and Heimiann. Anton Melby has suffused his glori- ous compositions with the flavor of the salt waves, with the exhilarating poetry of the sea. Before leaving Munich for Yienna, it should be observed that the kin- dred arts of sculpture and architecture show us little of note doing there at present. Max M^indmann, professor of the art, is doubtless the best sculptor now there, and some of his works are deservedly praised for their spirit and grace. The architecture of Munich seems passing from the severe Italian introduced by King Ludwig to the ornate style of Yienna. The new Bathhaus, or City Hall, of Munich is, however, built in the Ger- man order of the Middle Ages, and is externally one of the most pictu- resque structures that have been erected in Europe for many years. It harmonizes well with the old town-house adjoining it on the same square. These two buildings, together with the quaint old fountain, the market- place, and the stately, majestic towers of the Cathedral dominating over FELLAH WOMEN AT THE FOUNTAIN. — MAKART. STAINED GLASS— VIENNA SCHOOL. 147 all, form one of tlie most striking and artistic architectural effects in Germany. In wood-engraving a decided improvement is noticeable, not only in Munich, but in other German art centres. The hard, cold, repelling style so long characteristic of German wood-engraving is becoming more free, flowing, and suggestive of color, allowing the engraver better to exj^ress his own feeling in the work. ITecht and Waller are two of the best en- gravers now in Munich. The royal glass manufactory, which was so ably superintended by the late Max Emmanuel Aimniiller, has been recently closed. Notwithstand- ing the beauty of some of the stained -glass work produced there, com- parison with mediseval glass windows showed too plainly that this is still one of the lost arts. Modern stained glass manufacturers attempt too much ; they strive on glass to imitate the realistic copying of things at- tempted with better success by the artist who paints on canvas, instead of accepting the bald fact that glass is transparent, and receives color in a different way from opaque surfaces. • When we come to a consideration of the other schools of contem- porary German art, it should be noted that many of them are offshoots of the Munich schools, especially in the present phase of their work. At Vienna we reach a social atmosphere resembling that of Paris, and con- sequently, according to the inevitable laws which regulate art develop- ment, there is a certain resemblance in the subjects chosen to those which distinguish contenq3orary French art. The leading men there were called by the emperor from Munich, and, doubtless without any deliberate in- tention on his part, they are just the artists in Munich who remind us most of the French, School. There is a Poyal Academy in Vienna, with a regular corps of instructors, and much good art will in time be the result. Feuerbach and Makart, both Munich men by education, and still comparatively young, are among the prominent instructors. Feuerbach reminds one somewhat of Cabanel in his style. Ilis color is cool and quiet, but exquisitely modulated, although sometimes he does himself in- justice in this respect ; and there are the same admirable modelling and delicate yet effective touch of the French artist. Their choice of subjects is also somewhat similar, although the former occasionally launches out on immense canvases with a multitude of nude figures, as in his ‘‘ Battle of the Amazons.” Ilis “ Iphigenia at Aulis” is a snperior composition. US CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. sim2:>le, low in tone, liarmonions in color, and with true pathos in the at- titude of the unfortunate heroine of poesy, who, meditating on her ap- proaching doom, gazes off on the blue Jfgean, which looks too beautiful ever to be the scene of such a tragic drama. HANS MAKART. Ilans Makart, a young man with coal-black eyes and beard, and an Oriental cast of features, reminds us in some of his subjects and treat- ment of Henri Hegnault. The ^‘gorgeous East” has furnished him many subjects. He is undoubtedly a man of very great technical ability. There is a breadth of handling, a boldness, a self-reliant power, in his paintings which command attention and respect at once. One feels at a glance that he is in the presence of a master. The massiveness of his drawing and composition, even though it be sometimes defective, the magnificent dash of his brush, the splendor of his coloring, entitle him to a ] 30 sition among the first artists of the age. What imperious majesty, what suggestion of volcanic passion, are portrayed in his ‘‘ Agrippina !” How the pomps and glories, the courtly pageants and Oriental opulence, of Venice, the cpieen city of the Middle Ages, are ushered before us when we gaze entranced on the wonderful painting representing the “Hobles of Venice paying Homage to Catherine Cornaro !” In paintings grand as these we seem to find once more that wealth of imagination, that Tinto- retto-like fury of inspiration, that rapturous revelling Avith the creations ARCHITECTUEE AT VIENNA. 1^9 of an ideal world wliicli have given immortality to the great masters of the Flemish and Italian schools of the Renaissance. "With gratitude we welcome an artist whose works are inspired by a fervor which we so often miss in the carefully studied but frigid compositions of some of the foremost artists of the contemporary English and French schools. H. Canon deservedly occupies a leading position among the portrait- painters of the Viennese School, and the same may he justly said of Pet- tenkofer, one of the best-known artists of that city ; he excels in genre^ while Brunner holds a good position in landscape art. Probably the first place in Germany must at present be assigned to IlKVKHl E. RICHTER. Vienna in architecture and the industrial arts. It cannot be said tliat a new order of arcliitecture lias been invented there. In the present style of building we see rather an adaptation of old orders, chi(dly Renaissance, 150 CONTEMPORAKY ART IN EUROPE. displaying Inxiirions riclmess, and an employment of the caryatid which is xQYj beantifnl, hnt may he carried to excess, especially when the con- structive principles of true architectural decoration are disregarded. Sempfer, the leading architect of Yienna, ranks with Yiollet-le-Duc and Gamier, of Paris, and Spiers and Street, of London. Exquisite as is much of the iiousehold art of Yienna, it rarely im- presses one like the vigorous carvings of which so many wonderful speci- mens have come down to our day from Flanders or ISluremhei’g or France, even far hack to the oaken stalls and canopies of the choirs and tomhs of the earlier periods of the Middle Ages. What living artist of this description is there who can he mentioned hy the side of Peter Yischer, whose shrine over tlie tomh of St. Sehald eclipses all modern work of the kind? But in glass-ware tlie Yiennese artists can justly claim to have jDerhaj^s surpassed the rest of the world hoth in design and execution. Lohmeyer and Co. employ artists remarkably skilled in de- sign. A set recently made for the table service of the Emjieror Francis Joseph ranks in glass-ware with the best china-ware of Sevres or the Mintons. We have seen nothing in the contemporary ceramic art of Germany to equal that of either England or France ; hut the terra-cotta works of Anton Grassl, at Munich, are very praiseworthy, and the same may he said of the majolica-Avare of Fleischmann at hTuremherg. The school at Diisseldorf is probably better known in America than any other in Germany. Twenty-five years ago it was already in its prime, and a number of its artists — men of ability they were, too — had settled in the United States, and painted some of our historic scenes. Its cele- brated gallery of paintings has always given it imjDortance, and such men as Andreas Achenbach have sustained its dignity to this day. But it has been with regret that art lovers have perceived that conventionalism was stealing into that art hold, and impairing the value of the work even of some of its best artists to that degree that it has become at last a by-word to say of an artist that he painted in the Diisseldorf style. A method which may have real merit while fresh and original becomes conventional when scores and hundreds of artists gradually settle down to copying that style, thus showing that they look at nature through the eyes of others, instead of realizing in their practice that there are innumerable truths in nature, and that each artist should interpret those truths in his own hand- writing. But the influence of Paris, on the one hand, and of Munich, DUSSELDORF— BERLIN. 151 on the other, has at last become perceptible at Dlisseldorf ; and men of perhaps no greater powers than those they supersede are now working there in a truer manner, and the resnlts are sometimes admirable. Andreas Achenbach, great alike in landscaj^e and coast scenes, is now growing old, and at the same time is so well known at home that we do not need more than to allude to him. Normann, a ^N^orwegian, gives ns the magnificent coast scenery of his native land with much vigor and freshness ; while Diicker, who is also a j)ainter of coast and landscape, is an artist whose tone and touch and resemblance to nature in his canvases place him among the foremost painters of the age in that line. Wilroider and Fahrbach are also strong in landscape ; and Mundt, in the delinea- tion of quiet, russet autumn and winter landscapes, with leafiess trees and spirited groups of cattle, rightly holds a very high position. In genre, among many, we can only allude to Yautier as an artist well known in Germany for his genius ; and we might also speak of Knaus, hut he has been recently called to the Royal Academy at Berlin, which is some indi- cation of the estimate placed on his powers by his countrymen. Oswald Achenbach also shows strength in genre with landscape. In Carlsruhe is a Royal Academy, presided over by such able artists as Ferdinand Keller, a genre painter, and Hans Gude, who excels in vigor- ous representations of coast and sea. At Stuttgart there is an Academy under government patronage, and also an art society, established for tlie purpose of encouraging historical painting in Germany. It is open to all subscribers, and the sovereigns of the different states of tlie empire are among the number. Circulars are sent annually to the artists invit- ing them to enter works for competition. Those intending to contribute send a color sketch to the superintending committee. If it is approved, the larger painting follows, and is submitted to examination. Once a year an exhibition is held, and certain paintings are purchased from the general fund, and then disposed of by lottery to the subscribei's. At Berlin we find the most interesting art school in Germany, after that of Munich — valuable not only for wdiat its artists are now doing, but for the rich promise it holds forth. Without in the least derogating from the just claims and merits of the Munich Academy, it appears to us, from the nature of the case, that the Berlin School must ere long equal it in the average quality of its art, and surpass it as a representa- tive national school. For at Munich, through a gradual process, they seem 152 CONTEMPORAEY ART IN EUROPE. to be approaching the harvest period of matiiritj according to the gen- eral laws which govern huinan affairs; the next change there must be towards a new order of things. At Berlin, on the other hand, a new school is now entering its career, and going on towards its legitimate results ; while the growing impor- tance of Berlin, tending to make it the centre of Germanic influences, will also as surely attract the artists thither more and more until it becomes in turn the art capital of Germany and, for a time perhaps, of the Con- tinent. Every attention is also employed to encourage art progress, and artists hold a social position there hardly yet granted to them in England, notwithstanding the traditional strictness with which rank distinctions are preserved in Germany. This may be partly owing to the circumstance that several members of the royal family are practical artists, and that the Crown Princess herself condescends to exhibit works from her own hand in the art expositions. The Boyal Academy has also been recently en- tirely reorganized, and furnished with an able corps of professors, includ- ing also a chair of Ijelles-lettres ; and a sj^steni of biennial exhibitions has been established that will be of great value as a stimulus to German art. These exhibitions are opened in August, and continue until l^ovember, and gold medals are awarded to the most meritorious works offered in all the departments of art. The second one was held in 1876. LUDWIG KNAUS. RICHTER— BECKER. 153 Some artists of very great power are now imparting dignity to the Berlin School, and the number is continually increasing. AVhile there is in most cases a distinct individuality preserved among them in style and subject, they are generally distinguished for a good perception of color, careful drawing, close study of nature, and an earnestness in a considera- tion of the true relations of art to society and the problems of human existence which, on the one hand, enables them to threaten French art with a powerful rivalry in its strongest point — technical art — and, on the other hand, places them above the French School, and quite on a level with the best English art. Bicliter and Becker are both professors and fellows of the Boyal Academy of Berlin, and are probably among the German artists most known in America, the former by chromos of his paintings, the latter by works in private galleries. They are men of very decided ability, and IN A THOUSAND ANXIKTIKS. KNAUS. similar in artistic traits, although generally handling different subjects: they deal chiefly with the dashing and more obvious effects of brilliant combinations of color, rather than with the more subtle and perhaps in- tellectual harmonies of quiet grays. Each style has its merits, and to de- 15i CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. cry one because it is not tlie other, is about as sensible as to rail at Italian music because it is not German. It does not aim at the same effect ; it appeals, perhaps, to a different audience, certainly to a different set of emotions ; but it has its merits, for all that. There is, however, some- times perceptible what is termed a certain ‘‘sweetness” in the style of both of these artists which is not cpiite so pleasing to the artistic eye of some as more vigorous treatment, and one soon cloys with their pictures because of a certain sensuousness apparent in most of them. Of the two, Richter seems to us the abler artist ; some of his portraits and ]3oetic studies of Oriental character are very rich, and of a nature to be more popular tlian are the works of some much greater painters. Professor Gussow, of the Academy of Berlin, ranks high in portrai- ture ; he is also successful sometimes in genre. His treatment and ren- dering of character are often just, and in some respects admirable. But in almost all his faces there is a certain spot, a gloss, where the light strikes on the countenance, which he evidently considers a great beauty, for he contrives to bring it into every painting of his we have seen. It is certainly peculiar to his works, and may perhaps be sometimes a beauty in nature ; but as he represents it with a dab of crude white, it enables the observer to realize as never before the cpiestionable advantages of the pearl-2)Owder so universally found on the toilet-table of the ladies of the nineteenth century. Ludwio; Knaus, called from Dlisseldorf to assume a chair in the Academy at Berlin, is naturally one of the ablest artists in Germany. In methods perhaps slightly behind some of the younger men of the Ger- man School, he is, notwithstanding, an artist of a very high order in genre. Older than Defregger, of Munich, it cannot be said that the younger })ainter has surpassed the former in masterly re2>resentations of human character. The humorous and the pathetic are treated by him with equal success. Take, for example, the every-day domestic scene, of which a cut is given, “ In a Thousand Anxieties,” as one j^hase of his genius ; another jhiase is well indicated by his wonderfully touching and dramatic painting entitled “A Country Funeral.” But while Knaus may be said to have made a specialty of subjects taken from peasant life, he is also successful in other directions. His “Holy Family” may be instanced as a very beau- tiful production. Here we have a mediseval subject, already painted a thousand times, but once more reproduced with a freshness of fancy, a TIIIC LAST SUPTKR. — VON GKBIIAIIDT. P: r I ill % VON WERNER— SPANGENBERG. 157 ricliiiess of color, and an adaptation to modern thought that bring the old, old story before ns as if it had never been told before. Menzel is another of the very able men vdio lend importance to the* Berlin School. In black and white, aquarelle and oil-colors, he seems equally strong. Endowed with a vivid imagination, his facility in group- ing masses of figures and seizing character is quite original and wonder- ful. He is also well known as an illustrator. Passini, who should not be confounded with Pasini of Paris, is widely and justly celebrated as a con- summate artist in water-color representations of Italian life. Camphausen and Bleibtreu are artists of ability in figure-painting. The latter, a pro- fessor in the Academy, has executed a very striking representation of the meeting of Generals Yon Moltke and AYliimpfen discussing the terms of the surrender at Sedan. Anton Yon Werner, although still a young man, is already Director of the Boyal Academy at Berlin. He is one of the first of living histor- ical painters. To a correct eye for color and drawing he adds a grandeur of style very aj^propriate in an artist who is court painter for the Ger- manic Empire. Some of his decorative works are characterized by a happy combination of breadth, harmonious color, and energetic action. But the work that has added most to his celebrity is a picture which illustrates the proclamation of the German Empire in the sumptuous Galerie des Glaces, at the palace of Yersailles. It was presented by the different sovereigns of the empire to Frederick Wilhelm on his eightieth birthday. The canvas is twenty-five feet long and fifteen feet high, and the artist spent six years in completing it. He was himself present on the occasion represented, and has introduced his own portrait into the painting, which inclpdes over two hundred figui-es, three-fourths of whom are illustrious heroes and statesmen who were 2>i‘osent at one of the most memorable events in the history of Germany. Gustave S])angenberg, also a ])rofessor in the Academy, is a man of serious as])irations, whose imagination deals with the burden of life which oppresses so many, thoroughly Germanic in his mental characteristics. His painting entitled Death’s Train,” for which he received the gold medal, is a work of singnlar originality and ])ower. On a desolate moor, overhung by a gray sky, the procession is seen. In the foreground is the grim skeleton Death in the sombre garb of a monk, the cowl drawn over his skull. By his side walk children of various ages, pathetic beauty in 158 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. their infantile faces. Behind follow the bride in her bridal veil, Kaiser and 23easant, maiden and matron, all classes and conditions, mystically robed in the costume of. the Middle Ages, until the long train gradually fades away in the dim distance. Death rings a hell for the next one to fall into the ranks, and a handsome youth in the foreground of the scene, hearing the inexorable summons, tears himself away from his weeping bride ; while on the other side of Death an aged woman, bereft of all that made earth dear, vainly stretches out her withered arms, beseeching that she might be summoned instead. Yon Gebhardt, another young ]3ainter of Berlin, has won extraordi- nary success in a similar direction, and if he continues as he lias begun, will do much to enable German art to maintain for long the position it is gaining in contemporary European art. An engraving of one of his ablest works is given on page 155. We do not remember a representa- tion of the ‘‘Last Supper” which shows a more powerful realization of the vast and conflicting emotions which shook the souls of those who met together in that memorable hour in the history of the human race. The sculpture department of the Berlin Academy includes a number of artists of distinguished ability, and in this direction Berlin seems at present to lead the other German schools. We can only allude to Begas, professor in the Academy, Brunow, Hartzer, Moser, Beusch, Simmering, and Wolff. The latter, also a professor in the Academy, designed the magnificent bronze equestrian monument to Frederick Willliam III., which has just been opened to public inspection. Architecture in Berlin offers nothing very striking; but the new Gymnasium, chiefly in red brick, indicates a step in the right direction. If not after a new order, it is a very happy adaptation of old styles to modern uses. It must be evident from this survey of contemporary German art that it is entitled to very careful and respectful consideration, both on the part of artists and amateurs. In taking a retrospect of the whole question of contemporary art in Europe, we are inclined to think that the French government, instead of offering a prize of five thousand francs for the best essay to show what renders contemporary French art pre-eminent beyond other schools of the day, might better have offered a prize for an explanation of the causes wdiich enable the art of Germany, five liundred years after she first produced an art school, to rival French art in tech- nical qualities, and to surpass it in imagination and moral grandeur. EUYOIE, 159 Further reflection uj)on the subject suggests that while there is much to admire and arouse our emulation in the present condition of European art, when the relations it holds to the future of American art are exam- ined, the characteristic which, more than all others, merits the thoughtful STATUE OF FIIEUERICK WILLIAM III. ALREIIT WOLFF. and impartial consideration of our artists is the sturdiness with wliich each Euro])can school of art preserves its own national identity. The best modern art, the truest art of all ages and climes, has been that which has 160 CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE. been most faitliful to the instincts of the period and race which gave it birth. This truth cannot be too often nor too strongly emphasized. If, therefore, we desire to see a worthy national school of art spring np in onr land, let ns first of all be true to ourselves. By all means let the study of foreign contemporary and ancient art be pursued ; but the notion that onr native methods and native ideas and culture can never equal those of the Old World should be frowned upon as not only unpa- triotic, but unreasonable, until proved by a longer experience. What for- eign or antique art had the Greeks to study when they produced the most perfect architecture and sculpture ever created ? It is by depend- ing upon their own native resources that the English, French, and Ger- man schools have ever achieved anything in art. It is by not being ashamed of home art that the governments and art patrons of Europe have given art the stimulus it required to raise it from a low, struggling condition to the point where it has become a source of wealth to a people and a crown of glory. Such an art, noble, elevating, and progressive — the art of the future — will come to us when w^e learn to concern ourselves less with the methods and more with the principles upon which the greatest art of ancient and modern times is founded. I N I) E X I._CONTEMPOEAKY AET IN ENGLAND. Albert Memorial, 49. Animal-painters, 40. Ansdell, R., 40. Areliitecture and Architects, 50. Armitage, E., 22, 28. Art Clubs and Associations of Great Britain, 18. Art Criticism, 17. Art Critics, 17. Art Directory of the United Kingdom, 14. Art Moralists, 29. Art Schools under Government Patronage, 23. Artists’ Relief Funds, 17. Atkinson, J. B., 17. Battle-painting, 37. Beavis, R., 35. Bethnal Green, Museum of, 23. Blackburn, H., 17, 21. Boughton, G. H., 29. Brett, J., 40. Broughton, Mrs. E., 55. Butler, Mrs. (Miss Elizabeth Thompson), 37. Ceramic Art, 52. Christie and Manson’s Art Rooms, 18. Cole, G., 40. Cole, V., 40. Coleman, C., 55. v Commyns Carr, J. W., 17. Cooke, E. W., 42. (h'ane, W., 27. Davis, II. W. B., UK Dawson, E., 42. I)e Morgan, G., 55. Dicksee, F., 22. Doulton Potteries, 50. Dudley Gallery, 1 9. Duncan, 1)., 4 2. Elmore, A., 33. England, Present Condition of Contemporary Art in, 14, 17. Faed, j., 31. Faed, T., 31. Fildes, S. L., 32. Fisher, M., 41. Foley, II., 49. Foster, B., 41. Frith, W. P., 33. Genre Painting, 30. Gilbert, Sir J., 19, 35. Goodall, E. A., 28. Gow, A. C., 35. Graham, P., 40. Grant, Sir F., 19, 27. Grosvenor Gallery, 26. Haag, C., 36. Ilamerton, P. G., 17. Herkomer, H., 33. Historical Painting, 33. Holl, F., 32. Hook, J. C., 41. Household Art, 50. Hunt, II., 27. Inns of Court, 51. Jennings, E., 41. .loncs, E. B., 25, 27. Eandscape Art, 40. Leighton, F., 43, 44. Leitch, J., 42. Leslie, G., 33, 43. Lewis, .1. F., 30. 11 162 INDEX. Lindsay, Sir C., 26, 27. London University, Art School of, 19. Long, E., 27. Lord Mayor’s Dinner to the Artists^ 17. Macbeth, R. W., 29. Maclise, I)., 37. Majolica, 55. Marine Fainting, 42. Marks, H. S., 34. Mason, G., 31. McWhirter, J., 40. Millais, J. E., 17, 40, 43. Minton’s Porcelain, 55. Mole, J. IL,41. Moore, H., 42. Naftel, P. j., 41. Orohardson, W. Q., 33. Unless, W. W., 17, 43, 44. Pettie, j,, 34, 43. Portrait-painting, 43. Poynter, E. J., 19, 22, 43, 45. Princep, V. C., 34. Read, S., 43. Roberts, T., 28. Romantic School, 24. Rossetti, D. G., 17, 25. Royal Academy, 19 ; Exhibitions of, 21 ; Art Training School of, 22. Ruskin, J., 17. Sant, J., 43. Sculpture and Sculptors, 46. Severn, A., 43. South Kensington Museum, 22 ; Number of Pu pils of, 23 ; Art Library of, 23. Stephens, E. B., 46. Stevens, A., 46. Stone, M., 34. Street, H., 51. Terra-cotta, LTse of, in Architecture, 52. Thompson, E., 37. Thorburn, A., 28. Tinworth, G., 56. Walker, F., 31, 41. Wedgwood, J., Monument to, 52. Wedgwood-ware, 52. IL— CONTEMPORARY ART IN FRANCE. Academie des Beaux Arts, 65. Allonge, A., 80. Alma Tadema, 24, 98. Animal-painting, 90. Architecture and Architects, 105, Art Clubs of Paris, 73. Art Critics, 75. Art Publications, 74. Art Schools of Paris, 71. Art Students, 73. Barye, a. L., 104. Battle-painters, 99. Baudry, P., 25, 109. Belly, L. A. A., 100. Bernier, C., 85. Bonheur, A., 91. Bonheur, L, 91. Bonheur, Rosa A., 91. Bonnat, L., 72, 73, 78, 95. Bouguereau, W., 95. Breton, J. A., 92. Budget for Art Purposes, 64. Cabanel, a., 65, 95. Carpeaux, J. B., 104. Ceramic Art, 110. Cercle Artisticpie et Litteraire, 74. Cercle de 1’ Union Artistique, 73. Chaplin, C., 72, 95. Chapu, H. M. A., 103. Chevilliard, V., 101. Chintreuil, A., 69, 84. Corot, J. B. C,, 85, 86, 90 ; Maxims of, 87. Dalou, j., 104. Danish Pottery, 112. Daubigny, C. F., 85. INDEX. 163 Detaille, E., 100. Dore, G., 77, 81. Dupre, J., 83. Duran, C., 95. Ecole des Beaux Arts, Go. Engraving and Engravers, 80. Escosura, L., 95. Figure-painters, 94. Frere, E., 91. Fromentin, E., 101. Fusin, Use of, 80. Garnier, a., lOG. Gavarni, P., 80. Genre Painting, 91. Gerome, J. L., 65, 78, 9G. Government Patronage of Art, G4. Guillaume, C. J. B. E., 103. Harfignies, H., 85. Ilaviland, C. F., 111. Historical Painters, 95. Hotel Drouot, 71. ISABEY, E., 83. Jacques, C. E., 84, 90. Lalanne, M., 80. Lambinet, E., 85. Landelle, C., 100. Lansyer, E., 85. Lefebvre, J. J., 94. Levy, E., 95. Limoges Faience, 111. Luxembourg, Gallery of, (>7. Marine Painters, 83. Meissonier, J. L. E., 99. Merle, H., 95. Millet, J. F., 84, 93. Mosaics, Manufactory of, 71. National Art Traits, 61. Neuville, A. de, 100. Opera-house (New), 105. Oriental Paintings, 100. Paris, Art Traits of, 62 ; Value of the Art of, 63. Pasini, A., 100. Philippoteaux, H. E. F., 100. Pils, G., 65, 106. Prix (Grand) de Borne, 66. Protais, P. A., 100. Regnault, H., 101. Robert-Fleury, T., 95. Rousseau, T., 85, 86. Russian Industrial Art, 111. Salon, Exhibitions of, 67 ; Committees of, 70. Schenck, A. F., 90. Sculpture and Sculptors, 103. Societe de TUnion des Artistes, 74. Societe des Amis des Beaux Arts, 73. Sympathetic School, 92. Taine, H. a., 65. Tissot, J., 98. Toulmouche, A., 95. Troyon, C., 90, 91. Turquet, E., 65. Van Marke, E., 91. Vernet-Lecomte, A., ion. Vollon, A., 101. Ziem, F. P., 78, 100. III._COXTEMPOKAKY ART IX GEPwlMAXV. Aciienhacii, a., 151. Achenbach, 0., 151. vVdam, F., 138. Ainmiiller, M. E., 117. Animal-painters ol’ Munich, 137. Architecture and Architects of Vienna, 119. Architecture of Munich, 1 1 1. Art Academy of Munich, 1 19. 164 INDEX. Art Growth in Germany, Conditions of, 114. Artists’ Ball, Mimich, 118. Artists of Munich, Number of, 117. Battle-painters of Munich, 138. Becker, C., 153. Berlin, Art School of, 116, 152; Royal Academy of, 152. Bleibtreu, G., 157. Bbeklin, A., 127, 128, 141. Bodenmuller, F., 138. Braith, A., 138. Brandt, J., 137. Brunner, J., 149. Brunovv, L., 158. ( ’amphausen, W., 157. Canon, H., 149. Carlsruhe, Royal Academy of, 151. (’eraraic Art of Germany, 150. Defregger, F., 134, 154. Denmark, Marine Painters of, 143. Diez, W., 137. Diieker, E., 151. Diisseldorf, Art School of, 116, 117, 150. Engraving of Munich School, 147. Fahrbach, L. L., 151. Feuerbach, 147. Fleischmann, C. W., Majolica Ware of, 150. Galb, a., 137. Gebhardt, h’ Von, 158. Genre Painters of Berlin, 154. Genre Painters of Munich, 133. Glass Manufactory at Munich, 147. Glass-ware of Vienna, 150. Grassl, A., Terra-cotta Works of, 150. Griitzner, E., 137. Glide, H., 143, 151. Gussow, C., 154. Gysis, N., 134. Hecht, W., 147. Historical Painters of Berlin, 157. Historical Painters of Munich, 128. Household xVrt of Vienna, 150. Kaulbach, F., 128. Kaulbach, W. Von, 120, 123, 126. Keller, A., 137. Keller, F., 151. Knaus, L., 151, 154. Kimstverein of Munich, 118. Landscape-painters of Munich, 138. Leibl, II., 126. Lenbach, F., 127. Lier, A., 141. Lindenschmidt, W., 128. Lobmeyer and Co., Glass-ware of, 150. Locher, A., 144. Loefftz, L., 128. Ludwig L, King, 116, 120, 123. Makart, IL, 147, 148. Marine Art of Munich, 143. Marine Painters of Denmark, 143. Max, G., 128. Melby, A., 144. Melby, W., 144. Menzel, A., 157. Meyer, Von Bremen, 124. Mezgoly, A., 141. Moser, J., 158. Muller, A., 124. Muller, V., 128. Mundt, L., 151. Munich, School of, 116, 117; Artists of, 117; Royal Academy of, 119; New School of, 125; Rathhaus of, 128, 144. Neumann, A., 144. Normann, A., 151. Passini, L., 157. Pettenkofer, A., 149. Piloty, T. Von, 120, 126. Pinakothek, the New, Paintings in, 126. Portrait-painters of Munich, 127. Rasmussen, J. E .S., 144. Reusch, F., 158. Richter, G., 153. Sciionleber, G., 143. Schreyer, A., 138. Sculpture and Sculptors of Berlin, 158, Sculpture at Munich, 144. Seitz, 0., 124. Seitz, R., 128. Simmering, R., 1 58. INDEX. 165 Sinding, 0., 143. Sorensen, C. F., 144. Spangenberg, G., 157. Stuttgart, Academy of, 151 ; Art Society of, 151. Thom A, H., 141. Vautier, B., 151. Vienna, Art School of, 147 ; Royal Academy of, 147. Voltz, F., 124. Wagner, A., 137. Weber, P., 124. Werner, A. Von, 157. Wilroider, J., 151. Windmann, M., 144. 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