Part 8 (1/2)

THE CAMERA IN ART

It is certain that the introduction of japaneseries into this country has permanently increased our sense of colour; is it therefore iraphy has modified, if it has not occasioned any very definite alteration in our general perception of the external world? It would be interesting to inquire into such recondite and illusive pheno a question has appeared in any of our art journals

True, so many papers are printed in our weekly and monthly press that it is impossible for any one to know all that has been written on any one subject; but, so far as I am aware, no such paper has appeared, and the absence of such a paper is, I think, a serious deficiency in our critical literature

It is, however, no part of my present purpose to attempt to supply this want I pass on to consider rapidly ahabit araphs in their work It will not be questioned that raphs to--well, to put it briefly, to save themselves trouble, expense, and, in some cases, to supplant defective education But the influence of photography on art is so vast a subject, so multiple, so intricate, that I e

It is, however, clear to alht about art at all, that the ever-changing colour and form of clouds, the complex variety (definite in its very indefiniteness) of every populous street, the evanescent delicacy of line and aerial effect that the hts, are the very enchantment and despair of the artist; and likewise every one who has for any short while reflected seriously on the problem of artistic workof the exquisite externality of crowded or empty street, of tumult or calm in cloud-land, is the fruit of daily and hourly observation--observation filtered through years of thought, and then fortified again in observation of Nature

But such observation is the labour of a life; and he who undertakes it must be prepared to see his skin brown and blister in the shi+ne, and feel his flesh pain hireat landscape painters suffered for the intolerable desire of Art; they were content to forego the life of drawing-roo communion with Art and Nature But artists in these days are afraid of catching cold, and i must be made easy, comfortable, and expeditious; and so it comes to pass that many an artist seeks assistance from the camera A moment, and it is done: no wet feet; no tiresome sojourn in the country when town is full of merry festivities; and, above all, hardly any failure--that is to say, no failure that the ordinary public can detect, nor, indeed, any failure that the artist's conscience will not get used to in tiory is the most celebrated artist who is said to ory has no warmer admirer than myself His picture of ”Dawn” is the most fairly famous picture of our time But since that picture his art has declined It has lost all the noble synthetical life which coradual assimilation of Nature His picture of a yachtsman in this year's Academy was as paltry, as ”realistic” as may be

Professor Herkoraphy It is even said that he has his sitter photographed on to the canvas, and the photographic foundation he then covers up with those dreadful browns and ochres which seem to constitute his palette

Report credits him with this method, which it is possible he believes to be an advance on the laborious process of drawing froenious instrued to resort It will be said that what matter how the artists work--that it is with the result, not thereport fronise all the cheap realism of the camera in Professor Herkomer's portraits; and this is certainly their characteristic, although photographyto do with their manufacture

Mr Bartlett is another artist who, it is said, raphs; and surely in soraphic effects are visible enough But although very far froory, Mr Bartlett has acquired some education, and can drahen occasion requires, very well indeed from life

Mr Mortimer Menpes is the third artist of any notoriety that rumour has declared to be a disciple of the carant, for it is said that he rarely, if ever, draws froraphs Be this as it may, his friends have stated a hundred tiraphy, and it would seem that his work shows the o he went to japan, and brought ho-rooms, and were soon sold I did not see the exhibition, but I saw soood one, I happened upon in the Grosvenor Gallery This picture, although superficial and betraying when you looked into it a radical want of knowledge, was not lacking in char phrase which expresses the meretricious char of this very expressive ter airs of capacity Now the whole of Mr Menpes' picture was comprised in this term The manner of the master who, certain of the shape and value of the shadow under an eye, will let his hand run, was reproduced; but the exact shape and value of the shadoere not to be gathered fro but a hollow mockery

And then the ”colour-notes”; hat assurance they were dashed into the little pictures from japan, and how dexterously the touch of the master who knows exactly what he wants was parodied! At the first glance you were deceived; at the second you saw that it was only such cursive taste and knowledge as a skilful photographer who had been allowed the run of a painter's studio for a few ht display

Nowhere was there any definite intention; it was so that had been well committed to memory, that had been well re floated--drawing, values, colours--for there was not sufficient knowledge to hold and determine the place of any one

Since those days Mr Menpes has continued to draw fro deficient fro abstention from Nature is apparent, even to the least critical, in the sos, and what he calls diamond-points on ivory, on exhibition at Messrs Doell's Dia public, but artists are interested in the drawing, and not what the drawing is done upon Besides the diamond-points, there is quite sufficient matter in this exhibition to astonish visitors froton, and perhaps Clapham, but not Bayswater--no, not Bayswater There are fraold tassels--and the walls have been especially prepared to receive thes purport to be representations of India, Burma, and Cashmire The diamond-points, I believe, purport to be diaenious touch of hand, but anything ined In truth, they do not call for any serious criticism; and were it not for the fact that they afforded an opportunity of --about the influence of photography in modern art, I should have left the public to find for itself the value of this atte before my countrymen the aesthetic and artistic capabilities, and the beauty in various forreat Indian Empire” To criticise the pictures in detail is iive an i with ordinary school slates, iilt, and that soold tassels instead of the usual sponge, and into each let there be introduced a don of the East

On exas thus sumptuously encased you will notice that the painter has not been able to affect with the brush any slight air of capacity; the s are _du chic_; but the paintings arethe colour into the canvas, attaining in this manner a texture which sometimes reminds you of wool, sometimes of sand, sometimes of both The poor little bits of blue sky stick to the houses; there is nowhere a breath of air, a ray of light, not even a conventionally graduated sky or distance; there is not an angle, or a pillar, or a stairway finely observed; there is not even any such eagerness in the delineation of an object as would show that the painter felt interest in his work; every sketch tells the tale of a burden taken up and thankfully relinquished Here we have white wall, but it has neither depth nor consistency; behind it a bit of sandy sky; the ground is yellow, and there is a violet shadow upon it But the colour of the ground does not show through the shadow Look, for example, at No 36 Is it possible to believe that that red-brick sky was painted from Nature, or that unhappy palm in a picture close by was copied as it raised its head over that wall? The real scene would have stirred an ee, and, however unskilful the brushwork, if theto show that the man had been in the presence of Nature There is no art so indiscreet as painting, and the story of the painter's arding these pictures would be waste of space and tio out into the streets or the fields, and there let him lose himself in the vastness and beauty of Nature Let hi of a branch or the surface of a wall, striving to give to each their character Let him try to render theor its harshness and violence in the early dawn There is no need to go to Burma, there is mystery and poetry wherever there is atmosphere In certainto drink, will furnish sufficienthour will endoithpoetry of chiaroscuro the cained; Nature is parsi it slowly, and only to those who love her best, and whose hearts are pure of ht

THE NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB

This, the ninth season of the New English Art Club, has been marked by a decisive step The club has rejected two portraits of Mr Shannon

So that the public may understand and appreciate the importance of this step, I will sketch, _a coups de crayon peu fondus_, the portrait of a lady as I iht have painted her A wo white brow; pale brown hair, tastefully arranged with flowers and a se and tender, expressive of a soul that yearns and has been ht, the nostrils well-defined, slightly dilated; the e, white, and over-modelled, with cream tints; the arms soft and rounded; diamond bracelets on the wrists; diamonds on the emotional neck Her dress is of the finest duchesse satin, and it falls in heavy folds She holds a bouquet in her hands; a pale green garden is behind her; swans are h shadoater, whereon the moon shi+nes peacefully Add to this conception the marvellous square brushwork of the French studio, and you have the lish duchesses--to paint them as they see theh Mr Shannon our duchesses realise all their aspirations, present and posthumous The popularity of these pictures is undoubted; wherever they hang, and they hang everywhere, except in the New English Art Club, couples linger ”How char, how beautifully dressed, how refined she looks!” and the ho has not married aglance, which says, ”Why can't you afford to let me be painted by Mr Shannon?”

We are here to realise our ideals, and far is it from my desire to thwart any lady in her aspirations, be they in white or violet satin, with or without green gardens If I were on the hanging comdom should be realised, and then--I would create more duchesses, and they, too, should be realised by Messrs Shannon, Hacker, and Solomon _les chefs de rayon de la peinture_ And when these painters arrived, each with a van filled with new satin duchesses, I would say, ”Go to Mr Agnew, ask hi over and above they shall have it” I would convert the Chantrey Fund into white satin duchesses, and build afor these painters and their duchesses except hang thelish Art Club

For it is entirely necessary that the public should never be left for a moment in doubt as to the intention of this club It is open to those who paint for the joy of painting; and it is entirely disassociated froirl or satin duchess itcounts with the jury but _l'idee plastique_: coain or loss, are waived The rejection of Mr Shannon's portraits will probably cost the club four guineas a year, the amount of his subscription, and it will certainly lose to the club the visits of his nuretted--in a way The club must pay its expenses, but it were better that the club should cease than that its guiding principle should be infringed

Either weis excluded I think that we should; but I know that Academicians and dealers are in favour of enforced prostitution in art Thatfor the nant to every healthy-raph described the pictures in the present exhibition as things that no one would wish to possess; he then pointed out that a great many were excellently well painted Quite so I have always lishraph_--dislikes so ht of an offence, and whatin his eyes is the difficulty of declaring it to be an immoral action; he instinctively feels that it is immoral, but somehow the crime seems to elude definition

The Independent Theatre was another hue Englishman That any one should wish to write plays that were not intended to please the public--that did not pay--was an unheard-of desire,the severest rebuke But the Independent Theatre has sole into a third year of life, and the New English Art Club has opened its ninth exhibition; so I suppose that the _Daily Telegraph_ will have to ret, that there are folk still in London who are not always ready to sell their talents to the highest bidder

For painters and those who like painting, the exhibitions at the New English Art Club are thein London We find there no anecdotes, sentiious, or historical, nor the conventional hts to honour in the nalish Art Club, from the first picture to the last, we find artistic effort; very often the effort is feeble, but nowhere, try as persistently as you please, will you find the loud stupidity of ordinary exhibitions of conte This is a plain statement of a plain truth--plain to artists and those feho possess the slightest knowledge of the art of painting, or even any faint love of it But to the uncultivated, to the ignorant, and to the stupid the New English Art Club is the very place where all the absurd and abortive atte in the course of the year are exposed on view If I wished to test aI would take hilish Art Club and listen for one or two ot to say

I the rooood For a pleasant soft colour, delicate and insinuating as an odour of flowers, pervades the rooue sensation of delicate colour, and we talk to our friends, avoiding the pictures, until gradually a pale-faced wohts It is a portrait by Mr Sargent, one of the best he has painted By the side of a fine Hals itshort of a fine Hals would affect its real beauty My adent has often hesitated, but this picture coent's best work; and it has so more: it is painted with that measure of calculation and reserve which is present in all work of the first order of merit I find the picture described with sufficient succinctness in th portrait of a woman, in a dress of shot-silk--a sort of red violet, the colour known as puce The face is pale, the chin is prominent and pointed There were some japanese characteristics in the , and their look is aslant; the eyebrows are high and -like abruptness, and the painter has atte in depth of colour--they are somewhat chalky; but what I admire so much is the exquisite selection, besides the points mentioned--the shadowed outline, so full of the fors about the eyes, so like her; and the rendering is full of the beauty of incomparable skill The neck, hoell placed beneath the pointed chin! How exact in width, in length, and how it corresponds with the ear; and the jawbone is under the skin; and the anatomies are all explicit--the collar-bone, the hollow of the ar of the boso speaks without hesitation, a beautiful, decisive eloquence, thenever in excess of the expression, nor is the expression ever redundant”

I said that we find in this portrait reserve not frequently to be ent's work What I first noticed in the picture was the admirable treatment of the hands They are upon her hips, the palms turned out, and so reduced is the tone that they are hardly distinguishable froht o Mr Sargent ht But the portrait tells us that he has learnt the last and ht on those hands would rupture the totality and jeopardise the colour-hareration or affectation