MR. HAMERTON ON ART CRITICISM.* Tars is a new edition,
with notes and some additional papers, of a volume of Essays which was received with deserved favour by the public. Part of its interest is derived from its enabling us to realise what Mr. Hamerton, in capacity of Art-critic, has been at different stages of his career. The middle-aged, considerate, patiently just and exhaustively sympathetic Mr. Hamerton pats on the head and admonishes and instructs the impulsive and youthful Mr. Hamerton. Mr. Hamerton's second thoughts are generally best ; and there is a certain pleasantneis, a slight, but delicate piquancy, in the correction of Hamerton the tender juvenile by Hamerton the tough senior. A natural fitness seems to commend to rightly constituted minds the snubbing of young men by middle-aged men, and no reproach of want of feeling can be founded upon our enjoyment of the reprimands which a man administers to himself. We are bound to add that, admirable as most of Mr. Hamerton's writing is, there is still room for im- provement. He sometimes throws out observations on difficult subjects which have the random volubility and inconclusiveness
• noights aboof Art. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. London Macmillan and 0o. 1813.
of table-talk. " It is not," he remarks, " too much to say that, of the great writers- of the world, at least one-half have been amateurs. Chaucer and Milton were ; and even in the case of Shakespeare, though his plays made money, his authorship was secondary to his business of theatrical manager. Scott and Talfourd were both lawyers, not specially bred to literature ; Kingsley is a clergyman, Ricardo was a banker, so was Grote ; and John Stuart Mill was a hard-working servant of the East Indian Company." If the amateur author is a man for whom literature is not the main business of life, but an occasional enter- tainment, not one of those named can be called an amateur. What pictorial artist, with the exception of Turner, and perhaps two or three others, has thrown the energies of his heart and brain into painting with the concentrated, passionate, life-long devotion with which Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, Grote, and John Stuart Mill cultivated literature ? " Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well." Pope, who said this, knew good writing, and the difficulty of producing it; and we may safely assume that, in the art of writing, not less than in the arts of sculpture and of music, amateurs produce for the most part respectable trifles.
Having mentioned Turner, we may say that Mr. Hamerton's remarks on this great artist are, on the whole, useful, and not incorrect ; but we cannot admit that Turner's vegeta- tion is " generally weak and unmeaning," and the state- ment that it would not be possible to extract from Turner's works " anything like a complete illustration of the principal English and French trees" is calculated to mislead. Mr. Hamerton himself seems, indeed, to have misgivings on the subject, for he says in a note that his criticism of Turner's " foliage and fore-ground drawing " appears to him just only " so far as truth of science is concerned." Of course, if Mr. Hamerton grants that Turner's foliage and vegetation are pictorially right, we have nothing to say ; what we know is that, as a painter of foliage, no artist ever lived who rivalled Turner. He appears to have avoided the elm, at least we cannot recollect it in his works ; but the ash, the aspen, the poplar, the fir, and above all, the willow, were his own. He subordinated the forms of treetind leaf, as he did all natural forms and hues, to the requirements of the creative imagination ; but all those trees he painted not only im- aginatively, but characteristically and recognisably. Mr. Hamerton is, we believe, expressly wrong when he says that Turner's system of drawing from nature and collecting memoranda for use in pic- tures was "rather a result of habit than reflection." We are con- vinced that it was the result of deliberate purpose and profound reflection. Mr. Hamerton is, however, perfectly correct when he says that Turner's plan depended " entirely upon invention," and that it "can be of little use to painters who have no invention to rely upon." Turner passed his life in watching for the beauty of nature ; his perception of that beauty in its subtlety and evan- escence was incomparable ; but he used the pencil as nature's sovereign, not as nature's slave, and we agree with Mr. Hamerton that he cared not one whit for photographic accuracy, or rather that he would have considered photographic accuracy in his work a proof that his imagination was losing its power.
Mr. Hamerton discusses with much carefulness the difficult and not unimportant question of Art-criticism by the Press. Newspaper criticisms "are not," he remarks, "in general, very entertaining or attractive reading." He thinks it probable that nobody reads them through. Painters may accept them as "a compliment to their profession." He is "by no means disposed to regret the existence or deny the possible utility of printed art-criticism." The most inexperienced youths are, he tells us, considered by Parisian editors qualified to do their picture criticisms, while they look out for writers of very different calibre to do their theatrical notices. The Parisians know something of theatrical merit,
and can detect the pretender who attempts to judge actors ; but they are ignorant of painting, and one opinion leas good for them on that subject as another. Mr. Hamerton evidently believes
that the picture critics of London are not superior to their brethren of Paris, and he is, likely enough, right. By way of mending matters, he gives about a dozen advioee to those who undertake to address the public on the sal?jeot
of Art. Art critics are to " utter unpopular truths," it being, of course, incumbent upon them not to utter falsehood or fallacy,
and popular truth being able to take care of itself. They are to " instruct the public in the theoretical knowledge of art,",---aa interminable business. They are to defend true artiste while alive
against malice and ignorance, and enforce the law pf jastice.among dead artists, without regard to the prejudices of the vulgar, or to the idolatry of tradition. They are to be sincere,; to be in- different to charges of inconsistency when, for good (*mei they change their opinions ; to be well informed on everything concern- ing the Fine Arts ; to have wide sympathy ; to be above preju- dice, and to despise trick. Such is the cream of Mr. Hamerton's didactic and hortatory address to critics. Much good may it .do them ! Perhaps, the counsel might have been more effective if it had been less diffuse. Here and there we find a sentence, or it may be two sentences, into which Mr. Hamerton packs an amount of common-sense and of suggestive rightness which may be enough for most newspaper critics to carry away with them. This is a sentence of the kind we mean :—" The one distinguish- ing quality of all valuable art criticism is largeness,—largeness of acquired information, to grasp the knowledge of so many thou- sands of artists ; and largeness of natural sympathy, to enter into the individual feelings and affections of so great a multitude of minds." Here are two sentences still better :—" Cold and un- sympathetic temperaments, which are so often tempted to write criticism by the love of power, are disqualified for it by their own constitution. A true critic feels with the artist, and is therefore strangely tolerant of the most opposite kinds of artistic expression ; an unfeeling nature prides itself on remaining unmoved, and actually esteems its own callousness a sort of superiority."
After the advices, which are, we presume, the work of Hamerton junior, there is a note in which the sermon is " im- proved" and concluded by Hamerton senior. The note is not so good as what precedes it. It consists of a remonstrance against " a curious habit, and a very pernicious habit," of newspaper critics, to wit, that " when an exhibition does not strike them as extraordinary, they often condemn it, as if the quality were positively defective." This, says Mr. Hamerton, is "unjust towards the artists, who are only responsible for the positive quality of their work, and not for its rarity." We think we know the kind of criticism to which Mr. Ilamerton refers ; attd our clear impression is that its way is to characterise the exhibition in question as of not more than average excellence, but to acknowledge that the level of excellence is creditable. The critic says that there is little or no genius in the pictures exhibited, but he does not upbraid the painters for not being men of genius. If he did, he would be too great a fool to deserve to be seriously argued with. Mr. Ilamerton argues with him very seriously, gliding off—half unconsciously, we fancy— into linguistic Ruekinese and logical platitude :—" Every rational person, who properly appreciates the gifts of God, delights in pure air and pure water, although there is an infinite quantity of both upon the world, and sees the beauty of a drop of dew hanging from a frond of fern, just as he sees that of a diamond glittering at the ear of an empress. Every one who has attained true wisdom, and that knowledge which belongs to wisdom only, well knows that there is an absolute value in certain gifts and posses- sions entirely independent of their rarity. Health and good looks are happily much commoner than certain rare forms of disease and deformity. Yet health and good looks have always a positive acid Substantial value of their own, and ought to be rejoiced in by all who are fortunate enough to possess them, though thousands of others may be as happily gifted. Just so in Art,—there is a positive good to whir& rarity adds nothing, from which the utmost profusion of abundance can detract nothing." This means, if it means any- thing, thatnewspaper critics, in telling the public what is worth seeing in the Academy Exhibition, should expatiate with patriotic pride and poetical effusiveness on the number of green fields which are recognisably verdant, on the three hundred portraits with which the wives (or husbands) and children of the subjects are charmed, on the sheep which malice alone could mistake for pigs, and the caws which are discriminated with exquisite artistic fidelity from horses. " Whoever produces art that is right in itself deserves fair recognition, although such art may not be in the category of rarities." True ; but the question is, what is fair recognition? and no than knows better than Mr. Hamerton, when he is not nodding, first, that "art that is right" is not common in any annual exhibition of new pictures ; and secondly, that rarity, neveltyl originality—in one word, uniquenessis essential to every work of art in the strict sense. Hear Mr. Hamerton, when, exemplifying his own views on the weakness of maintaining consistency, he comes upon this question in another part of his volume:—" Original art is not only the beat, it is the only art which has any interest." "The artistic principle is that when once a thing has been perfectly well done, there is little or no use in trying to do it again." "Good artists are almost always new." It is unnecessary for us to add a single word to Mr. Hamerton's vindication (against himself) of those newspaper critics who, when they find an exhibition lacking in originality, declare it to want interest, and to posaess little good art. On one point Mr. Hamerton is, in our opinion, demonstrably in error, namely, in affirming technical knowledge of art methods to be requisite to the critic. " The only way," he says, " to learn the rudiments of art-criticism is to draw and paint the facts of nature—that is, to produce careful studies from nature, each with the especial object of recording faithfully some particular natural fact." The essentials of art-criticism are, we maintain, these : a natural sensibility to beauty, sensibility being understood to imply keen perception, and beauty to include all that is excellent in art ; opportunity for the exercise of this natural sensibility in the con- templation of nature ; and an acquaintance with the schools of art sufficiently extensive and accurate to ensure an intelligence of what art can do and what it cannot. Let no one suppose that we say that a critic not educated to criticism can, except in the case of exceptional genius, be a sound critic. It is impossible to read art without special education. But this education is not in technical methods ; it consists in study of the works of true artists. Technical skill adds incalculably to the pleasure derived from consummate execution, but this pleasure is apt to beguile the critic from the appreciation of higher artistic excellence. A painter who has worked for twenty years without attaining much subtlety of hand, an amateur who has been baffled a hundred times in trying to strike the curve of a leaf or the tint of a shell, will break into ecatacies of despairing admira- tion at the touch by which a great painter realises a fold of drapery or a curl .of hair ; but it is really of small importance that the public should be told, by way of criticism of the picture, that only one hand in a million could have laid the colour so. We are aware that supreme inventive and imaginative power has generally, if not invariably, been com- bined in great painters with superlative skill of hand. Titian, Rubens, Turner added miracle of hand to miracle of mind. We admit further that no other execution but theirs could have done justice to their imagination. But not the leas is it the fact that what the world is concerned with is not the mode of handling by which they produced their works, but the beauty and power of those works themselves. It may be only in a particular soil and by special methods of husbandry that a wine of exquisite flavour is produced, but the businesi of the connoisseur is to till the public what the wine is, to discriminate between it and all inferior or adulterated wines, not to explain how it is grown. Perfect acquaintance with art-methods is necessary to the art-professor who lectures a class of prospective artists, but the art-critic has to know works of art, not the technical methods of pro- ducing them. As for the newspaper critic, he is never quite so insufferable as when he pretends to teach artists their business, and talks of " impasto," and " tone," and " colour," iu pitiful mimicry of the jargon of the studios. He ought to cultivate modesty, and avoid affectation ; to aim at vividness and precision in describing the pictures he criticises ; and to be able to detect by sympathetic perception any notable excellence, whether of feeling or imagination, that puts in a claim to public attention.
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