ART.
THE ART OF EUROPE.—II.
CoxmitisG my review of the countries that I grouped together in the fourth division, I will next speak of the works of Germany The first impression which I received on entering this gallery was. that the nation was not adequately represented, a notion which was not lessened by a mysterious announcement in the middle of the room that "La section Allemande est hors coneours." Why this was so I bad, and have, not the slightest idea ; whether the Germans thought that they would not be fairly treated, or whether the French objected to allowing them to compete, or whether there was the simpler and more creditable reason, that the nation did' not think its Art of sufficient merit, in any case the fact remained, and it had had a depressing effect upon the artists. Of the land- scapes of this section I can say little or nothing ; they are of the same dull uniformity of hue that I have had to notice in the works of Belgium ; the dislike of blue skies and green fields is perhaps
even more marked, and the want of any poetical or imaginative treatment quite as great. The figure painting, however, seemed to me to have more life about it, and though generally as ugly, not to be so dull as that of Belgium and Holland. There is a work here by Bockelmann, of Dusseldorf, of the "Failure of a Popular Bank," which is a good example of the elaborate furniture sort of picture which Mr. Frith has made popular in this country. The scene is taken in the street, and the miscellaneous crowd of depositors are struggling down the steps of the bank, and standing about in little groups on the pavement. There is a considerable amount of ability shown in the grouping of the figures and the variety of expression, and there are two figures of men in the foreground, which touch a higher level of expression than Mr. Frith is accus- tomed to give us ; but when all is said that can be said in its praise, we must still hold it to be but a furniture picture. It does not take the imagination captive for a moment ; it does not realise in the slightest degree any of the real pathos of the situation ; and with a few very slight alterations, it might stand as a representa- tion of the closing of a popular church. Near it hangs a large imaginative picture by Bcecklin, of Munich, entitled, " Meeres- idylle," or " Centaur au Bord de la Mer,"—I am not quite sure which, as the numbers are not to be depended upon. It is probably intended for the former, and represents a very ferocious style of Siren, who, having managed to entrap an unfortunate sailor, is proceeding to dine off him, in the moon- light. The subject, it will be acknowledged, is not a particularly pleasant one, nor is it improved by being at least life-size ; but there is a horrible joy in the Siren's face, and a powerful effect of desolation in the sky and sea-scape, which render this a very remarkable picture. I cannot conceive any one wishing to possess it, but I can fancy a good many people who would like to catch a glimpse of it now and then, as a sort of artistic caviare. If any of my readers know Noel Paton's pictures, and can imagine the sort of one he would produce if he suddenly turned mis- anthrope, they will have a tolerably good idea of this work of Bcecklin's. "The Studio," by Gussow, was a good interior, both in colour and composition ; and the best things in the way of por- traiture in the gallery were, no doubt, F. A. Kaulbach's four works. There is no doubt that they are simply imitations of Holbein, in choice of sitter, arrangement of picture, and style of work and colour, but they appeared to me so good as to justify, if anything can justify, the imitation. A peculiar flatness which there is in all Holbein's work is very noticeable in these portraits, but the re- semblance extends to the insight into character of the Old Master, and to the sober, thoughtful style of work. Kaulbach, too, has the rare merit of being able (with hardly any accessories to help him) to make a picture of each portrait ; my meaning will be quite clear to all who will take the trouble to remember any of Mr. Watts's portraits, and compare them mentally with those of, say, Sant, or even Ouless. Remarkably good as are the works of the last- mentioned painter, they are always good portraits, not good pictures. There is a small picture in this German Gallery by Lcefftz, of Munich, called "A Cardinal," which is probably the most striking piece of colour here, and which is also a fine picture, if for nothing else than the intensity of expression of its single figure. The Cardinal is seated in a crimson chair, the body bent slightly forward, the attitude and face alike expressive of concentrated and passionate thought. With the exception of two works by A. F. Werner, one a good landscape, and a strikingly clever and well-painted portrait of the "Princess Elizabeth de Carolath-Beuthen," I did not notice anything else amongst the works of Germany which called for special remark. I will now deal as briefly as possible with the contributions of Norway, Sweden, and Russia, before passing to those of my third division, Spain and Italy.
The pictures sent by Norway bring us to a new style of work, one which is practically without traditions ; and as might, perhaps, have been expected, the landscapes of this country are meri- torious, because natural,—at all events, they are not consciously imitative. I puzzled rather over the fact (for fact it undoubtedly is) that the figure works both of Norway and Sweden should be so bad ; not only inferior to the landscapes, but inferior in a very marked way, chiefly consisting of odds and ends of styles, collected from all sorts of different schools. This is a curious fact, and one well worthy of the attention of every lover of art, that while in ancient times the first artistic fruits of any nation bad always refer- ence to men and their doings, at the present day the reverse seems to be the case, and if we take the work of any nation which is compara- tively youngin Art, we find its strength invariably lying in landscape painting. I have no space to stop to discuss the subject here, but would suggest that the peculiar beauty of the human figure,
which in coarse or unworthy hands is so closely allied to all the lower part of man's nature, may possibly require the refining touch of tradition before it can be fully understood. I mean that those nations who do not look at it, as do, for instance, France and England, through the medium of great masters in whose works every hint of grosser meaning was eliminated,—nations whose artists know nothing, or comparatively nothing, of the purity of Titian, the grace of Lionardo, or the simple, innocent, strength of Albert Diirer, have no possibility of painting the figure worthily, in these later times. The Art training which comprehends the study of Grecian sculpture and of Italian painting, has another effect, besides teaching the student to draw, and to understand what good drawing, painting, and sculp- ture is, for it removes from him for ever all that semi-conscious prudery and primness of mind with re- gard to Art and Nature, which he otherwise can hardly get rid of. After such a training, an art student and a medical student stand in a similar relation to the human body, and though it be possible that coarseness should exist in the one mind, as in the other, yet the training checks rather than fosters it. So I fancy that nations removed from all such sources of knowledge, with, as Milton says,— "Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out,"
are likely to miss or misrepresent the beauty which they have never really learnt to understand, and to succeed better in that study of landscape nature, the beauty of which needs no un- veiling, and which it is impossible to misconceive.
To return for a moment to these Norwegian landscapes. They are mostly painstaking specimens of good, solid workmanship, with but little feeling, and whose great fault is the want of light in the sky, and gradation towards the horizon. One or two exceptions must be made to this rule, especially in the case of an "Autumn Landscape," by F. Borgen, of Christiania. Hero the painter has probably studied in a French school, but never- theless, the picture retains a very marked originality of treatment, and is of a pathetic, truthful beauty, which entitles it to very high rank. I do not know when I have seen a better or truer piece of painting than that of these half-leafless birches, hanging wet boughs over the dull, country road ; and the grey sky and distant landscape are quite in keeping.
In the Swedish Gallery the skies are generally utterly formless, and the clouds either brown or black ; one artist, named Wahlberg, sends six large works, every one of which have brown skies, regular leather-colour. Very evidently the Swedes have not yet learnt that there is any drawing in the sky. The figure painting here is a little better than that of Norway, and there is at all events one subject-picture of sterling merit, compared with its surroundings. This represents the body of Charles XII. being carried across the Norwegian frontier by his officers. The picture is what Mr. Whistler would call a harmony in grey and green, and is by a Baron Cederstriim, who is an Associate of the French Academy (Beaux A rts), which perhaps accounts for the somewhat French treatment of the subject. There is considerable variety of character and expression in the faces and figures of the officers, and despite a certain monotony of tone, the picture is an impres- sive one, and manages to convey the stern sadness appropriate to the subject with considerable skill.
I never was more surprised and pleased than at finding the Russian pictures to be so excessively good. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that, with the exception of the English and French schools, the landscapes of the exhibition are to be looked for in the Russian gallery. Nor is the actual painting, the brush- work, I mean, inferior to that of any school. The landscape called " Retour de la Ville," by Korzoukhine, and the "Claire de la Lune en Ukraine," by Koiiindji, are magnificent specimens of pure landscape painting ; and the latter, a low, white, thatched cottage, surrounded by heavy trees, and relieved against a sky of deepest blue, is simply the beat moonlight picture I have ever seen, it being as vivid in moonlight, as Brett at his best is in sunlight, and wanting the slight crudeness of colouring from which the English painter suffers. There is another landscape of great excellence, called " Forst en Hiver," by Mechtecherski ; an open glade in a forest, the ground covered with snow, and a large pool of water in the foreground, from which huge, square blocks of ice have been sawn, and still lie heaped about on the bank ; in the background, dense masses of tall, leafless trees, rising to a grey sky. I was glad to be told that this picture had been duly appreciated, if a buyer at £700 might be con- sidered as supplying such appreciation. As far as I know, there is no painter, either in England or France, who could have painted either this snow-scene or the moonlight above referred to. In the former picture, the dense green transparency of the ice was really a marvellous piece of work. I find by a note in my catalogue that the only great faults in the landscape work, were a certain coarseness of colouring and heaviness of treatment ; for instance, the foliage was not good, and generally speaking, all the winter subjects were better than the summer ones.
The works, however, which would attract most attention in the Russian Gallery, if only by their size and their ambitious aim, are, no doubt, two pictures by Siemiradski. These are "Les Torches Vivantes de Neron " and " La Coupe on In Femme." Of these, we will speak first of the " Nero," which is a gigantic work, cover- ing nearly the whole of one end of the gallery.
I do not know how to give my readers a clear idea of the class to which this work belongs ; as far as I have seen it, it is one which has no existence on this side of the Channel. It represents history with which most of us are tolerably familiar, thanks to Gibbon, yet it can hardly be called an historical picture, for the great mass of the canvas is filled with irrelevant figures and details, and one has to look twice before making out Nero in one corner, and the tortured Christians in another. Again, it is full of antiquarian details of various kinds, and crowded with figures and incident and character ; but neither the antiquary nor the student of human nature would feel that it was a work in which they could take much pleasure, nor would the lover of colour or chiaroscuro care for it, though there is both colour and chiaros- curo in abundance. Imagine an excited crowd of Roman ladies, courtiers, soldiers, and slaves filling the foreground of the picture, which represents the garden of Nero's palace, and reaching up the marble steps on which, in a sort of golden litter, lies the Emperor, gazing downwards to the extreme right-hand corner of the picture, where is planted a long row of tall stakes, bound to which are the Christians, one upon each pole, the head alone showing above the mass of inflammable material in which the figure is swathed. No doubt this work shows great and measured powers both of industry and thought ; but as far as I can judge, it stands in the same relation to a great picture that a super- excellent collection of wax figures dressed it /a Madame Tussaud would stand to a human being. The dress, the features, and appropriate gestures even, are all there, but the vivifying power is absent. Sir Joshua Reynolds (following, I suppose, Lensing in in " Laociion ") says in one of his lectures that the difference between poetry and painting is, that " in painting the blow must be struck at once. It is the mind, not the eye, which the painter of genius desires to address ; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects which only serve to catch the sense to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart." I must leave my readers to apply this teat to the pic- ture I am speaking of, and I think that they will then see why in such a subject the arrangement of composition above alluded must be productive of failure. Speaking roughly, Nero is in one corner, the Christians are in another, and the centre of the picture is taken up with people and things which fritter away the main interest altogether.
In the second work, "La Coupe ou la Femme," a Roman connoisseur hesitating between a chased tankard and a beautiful slave, there is much greater success in composition. This work is definitely a picture, not a panoramic display. Here the painter's intention seems to have been to rival Tadema ; indeed, the re- semblance is so great as almost to amount to imitation. The coarseness of painting, which almost escaped notice in the large work of Nero, shows here very plainly and offensively, many of the details being done with an absolute slovenliness, which could by no means be mistaken for breadth of treatment. For instance, the most noticeable thing in the foreground of the work, is the leopard's-skin on which the beautiful slave is standing, and this is simply execrably painted and coloured. To me, despite its ability of grouping, despite the cunning consideration of the old Art patron, the rude violence with which the dealer is forcing the slave to uncover herself, despite the longing admiration of the young patrician, and the helpless reluctance of the woman, de- spite all the admiration which I could not help giving to the ability which had conceived and delineated successfully these phases of emotion, I still disliked the picture ; and I close my criticism of it, and the painter, and the Russian Gallery, with affirming it to be a bit of bad, debased art, in which the ability but heightened the offensiveness, and the coarseness of the senti- ment and the execution were exactly on a par.
HARRY QUILTER.
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