Books of the Day
A Man of Fashion
Portrait of a Painter. The Authorised Life of Philip de Liszlo. By Owen Rutter. (Hodder and Stoughton. its.)
PHILIP DE Laszth, who died two years ago this week, was in terms of commercial success and fashionable esteem the most notable artist of his generation. His career was what is commonly called romantic. He was of Hungarian birth, the younger child of an unsuccessful shopkeeper. While still a child he decided, against the wishes of his relatives, to be a painter ; his teachers were encouraging, he won the necessary scholarships, he studied abroad in the correct places, and since he had the good luck to get the right introductions at the beginning of his career and the skill to make the most of them, the rest was plain sailing. His first important com- missions were among the inextricably intertwined offshoots of Central European royalty, and as a result he was established as a fashionable portraitist before he had reached the age of thirty.
De Lasz16's adult career belongs no less to the history of royal advertisement than to that of art. For his rapid advance- ment, while artists of more merit went unregarded, he had to thank chiefly the vanity and artistic ignorance of his noble sitters and his own personal charm. Unlike his older rival Sargent, who had the reputation of making an enemy out of every visitor to his studio, de Laszlo so had the knack of ingratiating himself with his clients that almost every pro- fessional visit ended with an invitation to a social meeting. The portraits which he produced with such startling facility were exactly what fashionable society at that time demanded ; the succession of monarchs, princelings and members of the nobility (and of course their wives) who were his sitters were delighted to see themselves looking so noble and handsome in their portraits, and gratified to observe that the artist had been able also to perceive the spirituality which underlay their appearances ; they compared him—to his advantage— with the great masters of the past and recommended him to their connexions ; and de Laszlo in consequence managed in ten years of work to blaze for himself a pictorial trail half- way through the Almanach de Gotha.
Had it not been for the Great War he would have painted his way right through—and through Debrett as well, for from two onwards the nobility of England followed where the crowned heads of Europe had led. The War interrupted his career. He had married a Guinness and in the last week of peace had acquired British nationality. When war came he behaved with an imprudence astonishing in a man in his position. He was interned and he suffered ; yet when he was released his success may perhaps have seemed all the sweeter, for the royal and noble patronage that was soon renewed could be taken as a rebuke to his war-time detractors, and his earnings were even larger than before. In his last years he applied himself to his profession with intimidating industry, and when he died in 1937 he left behind him, scattered through the palaces and mansions of the old world and the new, a self-monument of no fewer than 2,7oo completed portraits.
On those who possess their private fragment the monument no doubt still produces its impression. But to the untouched outside world, which has seen in exhibitions and an occasional private gallery perhaps only a twentieth part of the enormous whole, what still remains from this lifetime of popular success? It is difficult to remember six separate portraits clearly, it is impossible to recollect a dozen. All that really remains is an impression of two groups of composite figures, divided according to sex. The men—all except the aged—have the perfect complexions and lifelessness of wax models. They are all handsome, stylish and remote. The soldiers among them are stern and self-reliant. In the eyes of the statesmen are reflected the destinies of their countries. To all, by a clever but monotonous trick, has been given an expression of dormant spirituality, suggesting that they are as wise and noble In nature as they are well bred. The women embody a private ideal of feminine fascination. Like the men, they possess a lifeless elegance ; but as befits their sex, they are more etherealised, with swan-like necks, tapering fingers, and artificially posed hands. Somewhere about their persons
flutters a drape of insubstantial gauze. Through neither the noble countenances of the men nor the smooth complexions of the women pierces any spark of character or vitality ; for what is on the canvas is merely the physical exterior of creatures reduced to a uniform standard, not of manhood and womanhood, but of Laszlohood. It is not difficult to see why they appealed to their sitters, and they should not be denied their importance, which is, like the other waxworks of Madame Tussaud, not artistic but historical.
This book consists half of fragments of autobiography left by de Laszlo, half of biography written by Mr. Rutter. Mr. Rutter is a " friend of the family " and this is an "authorised life " ; but the standard of dullness which he manages to maintain, and the similarity of his prose to that of a company prospectus, are remarkable even in such a com- pilation. Mr. Rutter is not an art critic and has not chosen this book as the occasion to begin a career ; he takes de Laszlo at his own estimate of his importance, confines himself to countesses and cash and does not venture on the technical problems of painting. The merit of his forbearance is that a complete consistency of tone between the book's two elements is thereby achieved, for de Laszlo's own narrative is marked by a quite staggering complacency. Between them Mr. Rutter and de Laszlo have produced a book which, though it is in no sense good, will please de Laszlo's admirers and also appear intermittently entertaining and instructive to those who were interested in him not as a painter, but as a phenomenon.
DEREK VERSCHOYLE.
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