Part 11 (1/2)

Mark Fisher is a nineteenth-century Morland; the disposition of mind and character of vision seem the same in both painters, the outlook almost identical: the same affectionate interest in hu the pathos of work, the same sympathy for the life that thinks not But beyond these qualities of mind common to both painters, Morland possessed a sense of beauty and grace which is absent in Mark Fisher Morland's pig-styes are more beautifully seen than Mark Fisher could see them But is the sense of beauty, which was most certainly Morland's, so inherent and independent a possession that we ard it as his rather than the common inheritance of those who lived in his time? Surely Mark Fisher would have seen hteenth century? Or, to put the case more clearly, surely Morland would have seen very much as Mark Fisher sees if he had lived in the nineteenth? Think of the work done by Morland in the field and farmyard--it is in that work that he lives; co, of course, all that Morland owed to his time, quality of paint, and a certain easy sense of beauty, and say if you can that both men do not stand on the same intellectual plane

To tell the story of the life of the fields, and to tell it sincerely, without false sentiment, was their desire; nor do we detect in either Morland or Mark Fisher any pretence of seeing more in their subjects than is natural for them to see: in Jacques, yes Jacques tried to think profoundly, like Millet; Mark Fisher does not; nor was Morland influenced by the caustic arth to satirise the animalism of the boors he painted He saw rural life with the same kindly eyes as Mark Fisher The difference between the two men is a difference of means, of expression--I mean the exterior envelope in which the work of thelife to the painter On this point no cohteenth and nineteenth century painter We should seek in vain in Mark Fisher for Morland's beautiful s, the cos Mark Fisher draell, but he often draardly; he possesses the sentiment of proportion and the instinct of anatonise the truth, but we miss the charm of that easy and perfect expression which was current in Morland's ti to say and who says it in a sohts are ordinary, and are only saved from commonplace by his absence of affectation He is not without sentiment, but his sentiment is a little plain His hand is his worst ene or beautiful

I said that Morland saw nature with the same kindly eyes as Mark Fisher I would have another word on that point Mark Fisher's painting is optiht dozes in the orchard, his chestnut trees are in bloom The melodrama of nature never appears in his pictures; his lanes and fields reflect a gentle es of the seasons

Happy Mark Fisher! An admirable painter, the best, the only landscape-painter of our time; the one who continues the tradition of Potter and Morland, and lives for his art, uninfluenced by the clamour of cliques

A PORTRAIT BY MR SARGENT

Mr Sargent has painted the portrait of a beautiful wo-room; the picture is full of technical accomplishment But is it a beautiful picture?

She is dressed in cherry-coloured velvet, and she sits on the edge of a Louis XV sofa, one arm by her side, the other thrown a little behind her, the hand leaning against the sofa Behind her are pale yellow draperies, and under her feet is an Aubasson carpet The drawing is swift, certain, and complete The movement of the arm is so well rendered that we know the exact pressure of the long fingers that uished, or subtle, or refined? or is it e and practice of hand? The face charms us with its actuality; but is there a touch intimately characteristic of the model? or is itwhen judged by the highest standard fails to satisfy us, what shall be said of the colour? Think of a cherry-coloured velvet filling half the picture--the pale cherry pink known as cerise--with hts, and behind it pale yellowish draperies and an Aubasson carpet under the lady's feet Of course this is very ”daring”, but is it anything more? Is the colour deep and sonorous, like Alfred Stevens' red velvets; or is it thin and harsh, like Duran? Has any atteh the picture? There are a few touches of red in the carpet, none in the draperies, so the dress is practically a huge splash transferred from nature to the canvas And e ask ourselves if the picture has style, is not the answer: It is ? It is what Messrs Shannon, Hacker, and Soloent has realised their dreaeneration of Academicians want, he has revealed their souls' desire, and it is--_l'article de Paris_

The portrait is therefore a prodigious success; to use an expression which will be understood in the studios, ”it knocks the walls silly”; you see nothing else in the gallery; and it wins the suffrages of the artists and the public alike Duran never drew so fluently as that, nor was he ever capable of so pictorial an intention Chaplin, for it recalls Chaplin, was always heavier, more conventional; above all, less real For it is very real, and just the reality that ladies like, reality without grossness; in other words, without criticisoes, ”all round” He gets the ladies, because it realises the ideal they have forets the artists, because it is the realisation of the pictorial ideals of the present day

The picture has been described as , superb, but no one has described it as beautiful Whether because of the commonness of the epithet, or because every one felt that beautiful was not the adjective that expressed the sensation the picture awoke in him, I know not It is essentially a picture of the hour; it fixes the idea of the moment and reminds one somewhat of a _premiere_ at the Vaudeville with Sarah in a new part Every one is on the _qui vive_ The _salle_ is alive withhour, the delirium of the sensual present

The appeal is the same as that of food and drink and air and love But when painters are pursuing new ideals, when all that constitutes the appearance of our day has changed, I fear that many will turn with a shudder from its cold, material accoton Museum student would have drawn that flower carefully with a lead pencil; it would be washed with colour and stippled until it reached the quality of wool, which is so -school; and whenever the young lady was not satisfied with the turn her as taking, she would wash the displeasing portion out and start afresh The difference--there are other differences --but the difference we are concerned with between this hypothetical young person of Kensington education and Mr Ja which Mr James exhibits is not a faithful record of all the difficulties that arean orchid A hundred orchids preceded the orchid on the wall--so, and _vice versa_ Others were excellent in drawing and colour, but the backgrounds did not corey orchid was probably not even sketched in with a lead pencil Mr James desired an uninterrupted expression of its beauty: to first sketch it with a pencil would be to lose so of his first vividness of iht out of the brush But to attain such fluency it was necessary to paint that orchid a hundred times before its form and colour were learnt sufficiently to admit of the expression of all the flower's beauty in one painting It is not that Mr Jaton student But all the preli been discarded, it seelass, the flower drawn only in its essentials, the glass faintly indicated, a flowing tint of rey, the red heart of the flower for the centre of interest A decoration for where? I iine it in a boudoir whose walls are stretched and whose s are curtained with grey silk Frolass--pure Louis XV The furniture that I see is ueridon_, or a delicate _etagere_, filled with tiny volumes of Musset and two or three rare hteenth century And who sits in this delicate boudoir perfumed with a faint scent, a sachet-scented pocket-handkerchief? Surely one of Sargent's ladies Perhaps the lady in the shot-silk dress who sat on an eighteenth-century French sofa two years ago in the Academy, her tiny, plump, curved white hand, drawn as well in its interior as in exterior liilt arined, in a low arrey silk; her feet lie one over the other on the long-haired rug; the fire burns low in the grate, and the soft spring sunlight laps through the lace curtains, filling the room with a bland,Mr Ja at it, she does not see it; her thoughts are far away, and their iht

THE WHISTLER ALburaph of the portrait of Miss Alexander is as suggestive of the colour as a pianoforte arrangement of _Tristan_ is of the orchestration The sounds of the different instruh the thin tinkle of the piano just as the colour of the blond hair, the delicate passages of green-grey and green, coraph Truly a beautiful thing! But ”Before the Mirror” reflects perhaps a deeper beauty The influence of that strange man, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is sufficiently plain in this picture He who could execute hardly at all in paint, and whose verse is Italian, though the author wrote and spoke no language but English, foisted the character of his genius upon all the poetry and painting of his generation It is as present in this picture as it is in Swinburne's first volume of Poems and Ballads Mr Whistler took the type of woman and the sentiment of the picture fro Rossetti had soht should be lost to the world through inadequate expression, he painted this picture He did not go on painting pictures in the Rossetti sentiht he had exhausted Rossetti in one picture In this he was possibly e, white, indolent shoulders, inal Rossettis, are here in beautiful prime and plenitude; the line of the head and neck, the hair falling over the stooped shoulder --a sensuous dream it is; all her body's beauty, to borrow a phrase from Rossetti, is in that white dress; and the beauty of the ar the white chiuidly open: two fallen over the edge, two touching the blue vase

Note how beautiful is the placing of this figure in the picture; how the golden head shi+nes, high up in the right-hand corner, and the white dress and white-sleeved arms fill the picture with an exquisite rate, and the angle of black is the very happiest; it is brightened with pink sprays of azaleas, and they seem to whisper the very enchanted bloom of their life into the picture Never did Dutch or japanese artist paint flowers like these And the fluent uor and reverie which this canvas exhales: the languor of white dress and gold hair; languor and golden reverie float in the ht is thrilled with grief of present hours; the full face half lost in shadow, far away--a ghost of a dead self--is drea with half-closed eyes, unowned in white as if for drea past her, and she knows of no use to ner, but there are a purity and a passion in Ingres' line for the like of which we have to go back to the Greeks

Apelles could not have realised more exquisite simplifications, could not have dreares did into the head, arms, and torso of ”La Source” The line that floats about the -tinted sky; and none except the Greeks and Ingres have attained such elo in the rores was a Frenchman animated by the soul of an ancient Greek, an ancient Greek who lost hires' line as in Reht and shade The ar the blue cushi+ons in the Louvre are as illusive as any one of Mr Whistler's ”Nocturnes” The beautiful ”Andromeda”, head and throat leaned back al white arms uplifted, chained to the basalt,--how rare the siht flanks and slender leg advancing,--are made of lines simple and beautiful as those which in the Venus of Milo realise the architectural beauty of woman We shrink frorandeur of the Venus is not in the Andromeda: but in both is the sa for the odalisque, in her long back, wonderful as a stem of woodbine, there is the very san ease of a God speaking his creation through the harmonious universe

But the pure, unconscious love of form, inherited frores: not in ”La Source”, she is wholly Greek; but in the beautiful sinuous back of the odalisque we perceive some of the exasperation of nerves which betrays our century

If Phidias' sketches had coin filled with his hesitations, we should know more of his intimate personality You notice, my dear reader, how intolerant I aestion of imperfection, how I turn uponto bed, I often stand, candle in hand, before the Ro I auilty to an idolatrous worshi+p, but, if I have expressed reat love will seem neither vain nor unreasonable For surely for quality of beautiful line this man stands nearer to the Greeks than any other

SOME japANESE PRINTS

”Ladies Under Trees” Not japanese ladies walking under japanese trees--that is to say, trees peculiar to japan, planted and fashi+oned according to theunder trees

True that the costu on the wall is in japanese characters, the umbrellas and the idol on the tray are japanese; universality is not attained by the si all accessories that reat artist accepts the costuns of his tienius the eneration beco truths Do not ask me how this transforreat artist, a secret which he exercises unconsciously, and which no critic has explained

Looking at this yard of coloured print, I ask an no such adht A few outlines draith pen and ink or pencil, and the interspaces filled in with two flat tints-a dark green, and a grey verging on ures is marvellously beautiful But why is it beautiful? Is it because of the individual character represented in the faces? The faces are expressed by gs Are the proportions of the figure correctly ures are in the usual proportions so far as the number of heads is concerned: they are all froh; but no motion of limbs happens under the draperies, and the hands and feet, like the faces, are expressed by a set of arbitrary conventions

It is not even easy to deterht is intended for sitting or kneeling She holds a tray, on which is an idol, and to provide sufficient balance for the composition the artist has placed a yellow un from end to end, and nowhere will you find any desire to imitate nature With a line Utamaro expresses all that he deems it necessary to express of a face's contour Three or four conventional s stand for eyes, mouth, and ears; no desire to convey the illusion of a rounded surface disturbed his mind for a moment; the intention of the japanese artists was merely to decorate a surface with line and colour It was no part of their scheme to compete with nature, so it could not occur to them to cover one side of a face with shadow The japanese artists never thought to deceive; the art of deception they left to their conjurers The japanese artist thought of harmony, not of accuracy of line, and of harmony, not of truth of colour; it was therefore is, and had some one whispered the idea to him he would have answered: ”The fra at nature You would have it all heavy and black, but I want soht, and full of beauty See these lines, are they not in the, according to the necessity of the coreen sufficiently contrasted? do they not bring to your eyes a sense of repose and unity? Look at the embroideries on the dresses, are they not delicate? do not the star-flowers corey and the green? And the blossohtness of hand and delicacy of tone that you desire? Step back and see if the spots of colour and the effects of line become confused, or if they still hold their places from a distance as well as close”