Part 3 (1/2)

His ”Vintage” at the Metropolitan Museu, are excellently real and true in detail, but in idea and general expression they ht compete for the prix de Rome The same is measurably true of Lerolle, whose pictures are more sympathetic--sometimes they are _very_ sympathetic--but on the whole display less power But in each instance the advocate _a outrance_ of realism may justly, I think, maintain that a painter with a natural predisposition toward the insipidity of the academic has been saved from it by the inherent sanity and robustness of the realisticto the way in which his verisimilitude of htful Parisiennes--ainst a background of gray ularly recurring horse-chestnut trees; _elegantes_ at prayer, in somewhat distracted mood, on _prie-dieus_ in the vacant and vapid Paris churches; seated at cafe tables on the busy, leisurely boulevards, or posing _tout bonne feain their ”fetchingness”) to the faithfulness hich their portraitist has studied, and the fidelity hich he has reproduced, their differing types, more than to any personal expression of his own view of them Fancy Beraud's masterpiece, the Salle Graffard--that admirable characterization of crankdom embodied in a socialist reunion--painted by an academic painter How absolutely it would lose its pith, its force, its significance, even its true distinction And his ”Magdalen at the Pharisee's House,” which is almost equally impressive--far itinificant realism

What the illustrators of the present day owe to the naturalistic method, it is almost superfluous to point out ”Illustrators” in France are, in general, painters as well, soeneral for a contributor to illustrated journals, even such journals as _Le Petit Journal pour Rire_, was not only a genius of the first rank, but a painter of the first class Monvel and Montenard at present are masterly painters But in their illustration as well as in their painting, they show a notable change from the illustration of the days of Dauant (or perhaps rather the handsos of Bida, an artist of the utmost distinction, and that of the illustrators of the present day who are coion--is a special attestation of the influence of the realistic ideal in a sphere wherein, if anywhere, one itimately, but wherein also the conventional is especially to be expected One cannot indeed be quite sure that the temptations of the conventional are resisted by the ultra-realistic illustrators of our own time, Rossi, Beaumont, Albert Lynch, Myrbach They have certainly a very handy way of expressing the, the art-sparing kodak, behind many of their most unimpeachable successes

But the attitude taken is quite other than it used to be, and the change that has coeneral can be noted in very sharp definition by coo by Albert Lynch, with, for exauished realism of whose text is adequately paralleled--and the iy is by no means trivial--by the pictorical commentary, so to speak, which this first ofillustration of the evolution of realistic thought and feeling, as well as of rendering, is furnished by the succession of Forain to Grevin, as an illustrator of the follies of the day, the characteristic traits of the Parisian sea

Grevin is as conventional as Murger, in philosophy, and--though infinitely cleverer--as ”Mars” in drawing Forain, with the pencil of a realism truly japanese, illustrates with sympathetic incisiveness the pitiless pessimism of Flaubert, Goncourt, and Maupassant as well

VI

But to go back a little and consider the puissant individualities, the great iven its direction to and, as it were, set the pace of, the realistic movement, and for whom, in order more conveniently to consider impressionism pure and siical sequence of evolution in French painting--a sequence that, even if one care y, it is s French than in any others To go back in a word to Manet; the painter of whom M Henri Houssaye has ree has reaped”

Manet was certainly one of the most noteworthy painters that France or any other country has produced His is the great, the very rare,conceived a new point of view That he did not illustrate this in its con-post, as Albert Wolff very aptly said, rather an exe He was totally unheralded, and he was in his way superb No one before hiht of--the i, not relatively but absolutely, with the conventional Looking for the first time at one of his pictures, one says that customary notions, ordinary brushes, traditional processes of even the highest authenticity, have been thrown to the winds Hence, indeed, the scandal which he caused fro to the acceptance, with orous painters of the day, he became, as he has becoreat distinction is to have discovered that the sense of reality is achieved with a thousand-fold greater intensity by getting as near as possible to the _actual_, rather than resting content with the _relative_, value of every detail Everyone who has painted since Manet has either followed him in this effort or has appeared jejune

Take as an illustration of the contrary practice such a masterpiece in its way as Gerome's ”eminence Grise” In this picture, skilfully and satisfactorily composed, the relative values of all the colors are admirably, even beautifully, observed The correspondence of the gaht and dark scale of such an actual scene is perfect Before Manet, one could have said that this is all that is required or can be secured, arguing that exact _i to the difference between nature's highest light and lowest dark, and the potentialities of the palette In other words, one ht have said, that inasmuch as you can squeeze absolute white and absolute black out of no tubes, the thing to do is first to determine the scale of your picture and then make every note in it bear the sa note in nature bears to its fellows in its own corresponding but different scale This is what Gerome has done in the ”eminence Grise”--a scene, it will be remembered, on a staircase in a palace interior Manet inquires ould happen to this house of cards shored up into verisimilitude by mere _correspondence_, if Gerome had been asked to cut ain his staircase and adht of out-of-doors into his correspondent but artificial scene The whole thing would have to be done over again The scale of the picture running frohest palette white to the lowest palette dark, and yet the key of an actual interior scene being much nearer middle-tint than the tint of an actual out-of-doors scene, it would be impossible to paint with any verisimilitude the illumination of afro already been exhausted, every object having been given a local value solely with relation, so far as truth of representation is concerned, to the values of every other object, and no effort being et the precise value of the object as it would appear under analogous circumstances in nature

It may be replied, and I confess I think with excellent reason, that Gerome's picture has noin it, and therefore that to ask of hi a different picture, is pedantry The old h they only observed a correspondence to the actual scale of natural values, and were not concerned with imitation of it But it is to be observed that, successful as their practice is, it is successful in virtue of the unconscious co-operation of the beholder's iination become for better or worse a little old-fashi+oned, but the one thing that is insisted on as a starting-point and basis, at the very least, is the sense of reality

And it is ierate the way in which the sense of reality has been intensified by Manet's insistence upon getting as near as possible to the individual values of objects as they are seen in nature--in spite of his abandons now drop into their true place, look as they really do, and count as they count in nature, because the painter is no longer content with giving us change for nature, but tries his best to give us nature itself Perspective acquires its actual significance, solids have substance and bulk as well as surfaces, distance is perceived as it is in nature, by the actual interposition of atmosphere, chiaro-oscuro is abolished--the ways in which reality is secured being in fact legion the moment real instead of relative values are studied

So is lost, very likely--an artist cannot be so intensely preoccupied with reality as, since Manet, it has been incue of qualities that are so precious as rightly perhaps to be considered indispensable Until reality becomes in its turn an effect unconsciously attained, the painter's iination will be held more or less in abeyance And perhaps we are justified in thinking that nothing can quite atone for its absence Meantiave us this sense of reality in a measure coave to the readers of their books--a sense of actuality and vividness beside which the traditionary practice see Manet'sof out-of-doors, the _plein air_ school i reality by confining their effort to those values which it is in the power of pigments to i of course fro between twenty and eighty, we rayness of the most successful French landscapes of the present day--those of Bastien-Lepage's backgrounds, of Cazin's pictures

Sunlight being unpaintable, they confined themselves to the representation of what they could represent In the interest of truth, of reality, they narrowed the gamut of their modulations, they atte more For a time French landscape was pitched in a minor key Suddenly Claude Monet appeared

Impressionism, as it is now understood, and as Manet had not succeeded in popularizing it, won instant recognition Monet's discovery was that light is theof out-of-doors He pushed up the key of landscape painting to the highest power He attacked the fascinating, but of course deht, not illusorily, as Fortuny had done by relying on contrasts of light and dark correspondent in scale, but positively and realistically He realized as nearly as possible the effect of sunlight--that is to say, he did as well and no better in this respect than Fortuny had done--but he created a reater illusion of a sunlit landscape than anyone had ever done before hiht with the exact truth that in painting objects in shadow the palette can co is more simple Take a landscape with a cloudy sky, which ht in the old sense of the terht What is the effect where considerable portions of the scene are suddenly thrown into ht? Is the absolute value of the parts in shadoered or raised? Raised, of course, by reflected light Forht and shadow in proper scale, the painter would have painted the shadows darker than they were before the sun appeared Relatively they are darker, since their value, though heightened, is raised infinitely less than the value of the parts in sunlight Absolutely, their value is raised considerably If, therefore, they are painted lighter than they were before the sun appeared, they in themselves seem truer The part of Monet's picture that is in shadow is measurably true, far truer than it would have been if painted under the old theory of correspondence, and had been unnaturally darkened to express the relation of contrast between shadow and sunlight Scale has been lost What has been gained?

Simply truth of ie and appreciate and feel the measure of truth hich objects in shadow are represented; we are insensibly more familiar with them in nature than with objects directly sun-illuminated, the value as well as the definition of which are far vaguer to us on account of their blending and infinite heightening by a lu In a word, in sunlit landscapes objects in shadow are what customarily and unconsciously we see and note and know, and the illusion is greater if the relation between theht, whose value habitually we do not note, be neglected or falsified Add to this source of illusion the success of Monet in giving a juster value to the sunlit half of his picture than had even been syste _trompe-l'oeil_ is, I think, explained Each part is truer than ever before, and unless one have a specially developed sense of _ensemble_ in this very special ets froreater than he has ever got before, that he , and even for enthusiastically proclaiee To sum up: The first realists painted _relative_ values; Manet and his derivatives painted _absolute_ values, but in a wisely lie, plus sunlight, as nearly as he can get it_--as nearly as pigot to represent it Perforce he loses scale, and therefore artistic completeness, but he secures an incomparably vivid effect of reality, of nature--and of nature in her gayest,manifestation, illuminated directly and indirectly, and everywhere vibrant and palpitating with the light of all our physical seeing

Monet is so subtle in his oay, so superbly successful within his own limits, that it is time wasted to quarrel with the convention-steeped philistine who refuses to coes the pictures he sees by the pictures he has seen He has not only discovered a neay of looking at nature, but he has justified it in a thousand particulars Concentrated as his attention has been upon the effects of light and atmosphere, he has reproduced an infinity of nature'sin proportion to their transitoriness, and whose fleeting beauties he has caught and permanently fixed

Rousseau made the most careful studies, and then combined them in his studio Courbet made his sketch, more or less perfect, face to face with his subject, and elaborated it afterward away from it Corot painted his picture from nature, but put the Corot into it in his studio Monet's practice is in coh After thirty minutes, he says--why thirty instead of forty or twenty, I do not know; these es; he must stop and return the next day at the same hour The result is immensely real, and in Monet's hands iard to their differing degrees of success, of pissaro, who influenced him, and of Caillebotte, Renoir, Sisley, and the rest of the impressionists who followed him

He is himself the prominent representative of the school, however, and the fact that one representative of it is enough to consider, is eloquent of profound criticism of it For decorative purposes a hole in one's wall, an additionalthrough which onea period of thirty minutes, has its drawbacks A walk in the country or in a city park is after all preferable to anyone who can really appreciate a Monet--that is, anyone who can feel the illusion of nature which it is his sole ai different from imitative illusion Its essence is illusion, I think, but illusion taken in a different sense from optical illusion--_trompe-l'oeil_ Its function is to make drealy admirable mainly to the painter who envies and endeavors to i that occupies most the conscious attention of the true painter To others he must remain a little unsatisfactory, because he is not only not a drea with his reat service surely, but largely excluding the exercise of that architectonic faculty, personally directed, which is the very life of every truly aesthetic production

VII

In fine, the impressionist has his own conventions; no school can escape them, from the very nature of the case and the definition of the term

The conventions of the impressionists, indeed, are particularly salient

Can anyone doubt it who sees an exhibition of their works? In the same number of classic, or ro quite equalling the monotony that strikes one in a display of canvasses by Claude Monet and his fellows and followers? But the defect of impressionism is not mainly its technical conventionality It is, as I think everyone except its thick-and-thin advocates must feel, that pursued _a outrance_ it lacks a seriousness commensurate with its claims--that it exhibits indeed a kind of undertone of frivolity that is all the nearer to the absolutely comic for the earnestness, so to speak, of its unconsciousness The reason is, partly no doubt, to be ascribed to its _debonnaire_ self-satisfaction, its disposition to ”lightly run a,” the traditions of centuries namely, to its bumptiousness, in a word But chiefly, I think, the reason is to be found in its lack of anything properly to be called a philosophy This is surely a fatal flaw in any system, because it involves a contradiction in terms; and to say that to have no philosophy is the philosophy of the iing A theory of technic is not a philosophy, however systematic it may be It is a mechanical, not an intellectual, point of view It is not a way of looking at things, but of rendering them It expresses no idea and sees no relations; its claiht to its method is admitted The remark once made of a typically literal person--that he cared so much for facts that he disliked to think they had any relations--is intimately applicable to the whole impressionist school Technically, of course, the impressionist's relations are extremely just--not exquisite, but exquisitely just But et just values is not to occupy one's self with values ideally, emotionally, personally It isof the light and shade and color relations of objects see of them; but it is because each object is so carefully observed, so truly painted, that its relation to every other is spontaneously satisfactory; and this is a very different thing fro with its constructive appeal, its sense of _enseence and interdependence of objects focussed to a common and central effect To this impressionism is absolutely insensitive It is the ac to Mr George Moore, complained of Zola's Gervaise Coupeau, that Zola explained how she felt, never what she thought

”Qu'est que ca me fait si elle suait sous les bras, ou au milieu du dos?” he asked, with ht

Really we only care for facts when they explain truths The desultory agglomeration of never so definitely rendered details necessarily leaves the civilized appreciation cold What distinguishes the civilized froe appreciation is the passion for order The tendency to order, said Senancour, should form ”an essential part of our inclinations, of our instinct, like the tendencies to self-preservation and to reproduction” The two latter tendencies the savage possesses as completely as the civilized man, but he does not share the civilized man's instinct for correlation And in this sense, I think, a certain savagery is justly to be ascribed to the impressionist His productions have many attractions and manyhas not But they are really only by a kind of automatic inadvertence, pictures They are not truly pictorial

And a picture should be so it should give at least a hint of the painter's philosophy--his point of view, his attitude toward his reat pictures you can not only discover this attitude, but the attitude of the painter toward life and the world in general Everyone has as distinct an idea of the philosophy of Raphael as of the qualities of his designs The impressionist not only does not show you what he thinks, he does not even show you how he feels, except by betraying a fondness for violets and diffused light, and by exhibiting the temper of the radical and the rioter The order of a blithe, idyllic landscape by Corot, of one of Delacroix's pieces of concentric coloration, of an exares's purity of outline, shows not only teard to the whole intellectual world so far as he touches it at all What does a canvas of Claude Monet show in this respect? It is raph

Degas is the only other painter usually classed with the ias is hardly an impressionist at all He is one of the most personal painters, if not the inal as Puvis de Chavannes What allies hi aspects, his caring for nothing beyond aspect--for the look of things and their transitory look He is an enthusiastic adres--who, one would say, is the antithesis of impressionism He never paints from nature His studies are ed, composed, combined by his own sense of what is pictorial--by, at any rate, his own idea of the effects he wishes to create He cares absolutely nothing for what ordinarily we understand by the real, the actual, so far as its reality is concerned; he sees nothing else, to be sure, and is probably very sceptical about anything but colors and shapes and their decorative arrangement; but he sees what he likes in reality and follows this out with an inerrancy so scrupulous, and even affectionate, as to convey the idea that in his result he hi This at least ot out of the impressionist method artistically and practically e a personal point of view A uish between a Caillebotte and a Sisley, for exaas as immediately and as certainly as he does a Whistler His work is perfectly sincere and adent It has neither the pose nor the irresponsibility of the iirl is htfully, and in a very true sense naturally, decorative in ree artificial His ienuine and spontaneous as if the substance upon which it is exercised were not the aced with theindeed could be more opposed to the elementary crudity of impressionism than his distinction and refinement, which ree