Paul George Konody

“ He was articled to a Paris notary when his father’s circumstances became straitened through unsuccessful speculations, but he showed such talent and inclination for art that he was taken at the age of eighteen to Boucher, who, recognizing the youth’s rare gifts but disinclined to waste his time with one so inexperienced, sent him to Chardin’s atelier. Fragonard studied for six months under the great luminist, and then returned more fully equipped to Boucher, whose style he soon acquired so completely that the master entrusted him with the execution of replicas of his paintings. ”

“ At Amsterdam is the celebrated “Flute Player,” once in the Dupper collection at Dort; at Brussels, the patrician “Heythuysen”; at the Louvre, “Descartes”; at Dresden, the painter “Van der Vinne.” Hals’s sitters were taken from every class of society—admirals, generals and burgomasters pairing with merchants, lawyers, clerks. To register all that we find in public galleries would involve much space. There are eight portraits at Berlin, six at Cassel, five at St Petersburg, six at the Louvre, two at Brussels, five at Dresden, two at Gotha. ”

“ Even the famous “Equestrian Portrait of Tulp” in the Six collection, Amsterdam, is awkward and stiff and hard in handling. His animals are designed with careful accuracy, while the landscape backgrounds are introduced with spirit and appropriateness. His colour is clear and transparent, his execution firm and finished without being laboured. His view of nature is purely objective and unemotional ”

“ In fact the whole edifice that modern scientific criticism has built around his name is based on a single signed and dated picture (1487) in the Pinacoteca of Perugia—a niche with lunette, two wings and predella—and on the documentary evidence that he was decemvir of that city in 1472, in which year he entered into a contract to paint an altarpiece for Santa Maria Nuova—the pentatych of the “Madonna and Saints” now in the Pinacoteca. ”

“ WATTEAU, ANTOINE (1684-1721) , French painter, was born in Valenciennes, of humble Flemish origin. Comte de Caylus, his staunch friend of later years, and his first biographer, refers to Watteau's father as a hard man, strongly disinclined to accede to his son's wish to become a painter; but other accounts show him in a kinder light—as a poor, struggling man, a tiler by trade, who secured for his son the best possible education. ”

“ This Roman sojourn was decisive for the entire development of Italian art in the 15th century, for it was during this period that Brunelleschi undertook his measurements of the Pantheon dome and of other Roman buildings, which enabled him to construct the noble cupola of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence, while Donatello acquired his knowledge of classic forms and ornamentation. The two masters, each in his own sphere, were to become the leading spirits in the art movement of the 15th century. ”

“ Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder Hals, Dirk Hals, his brother (born at Haarlem, died 1656) , is a painter of festivals and ball-rooms. But Dirk had too much of the freedom and too little of the skill in drawing which characterized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fair specimen of his art is a “Lady playing a Harpsichord to a Young Girl and her Lover” in the van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam, now in the Ryks Museum. ”

“ BORDONE, PARIS (1495–1570) , Venetian painter, was born at Treviso, and entered the bottega of Titian in 1509. Vasari, to whom we are indebted for nearly all the facts of Bordone’s life—later research has not added much to our knowledge—holds that he did not spend many years with Titian and set himself to imitate the manner of Giorgione to the utmost of his power. As a matter of fact, the Giorgionesque traits in Bordone’s earlier works are derived entirely from Titian, whom he imitated so closely that to this day some of his paintings pass under Titian’s name. ”

“ HALS, FRANS (1580?–1666) , Dutch painter, was born at Antwerp according to the most recent authorities in 1580 or 1581, and died at Haarlem in 1666. As a portrait painter second only to Rembrandt in Holland, he displayed extraordinary talent and quickness in the exercise of his art coupled with improvidence in the use of the means which that art secured to him. At a time when the Dutch nation fought for independence and won it, Hals appears in the ranks of its military gilds. ”

“ After spending some time on water-colour work at Porlock and occasionally engraving for 'Once a Week,' Shields established his fame as an illustrator by his designs for Defoe's 'Journal of the Plague Year,' which were engraved in 1863. A water-colour version of his illustration of Solomon Eagle for this work is in the Manchester Art Gallery. In 1865 he was elected associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours. From 1864 onwards he spent some time each year in London, and there met Dante Rossetti and Madox Brown, as well as Ruskin, Holman Hunt, and Burne-Jones. ”

“ All the later theories of light and its effect upon the objects in nature are foreshadowed by Watteau's fêtes champêtres, which give at the same time a characteristic, though highly idealized, picture of the artificiality of the life of his time. He is the initiator of the Louis XV. period, but, except in a few rare cases, his paintings are entirely free from the licentiousness of his followers Lancret and Pater, and even more of Boucher and Fragonard. ”

“ Konody, While Not Impugning Louvre Picture's Authenticity, Thinks This the More Beautiful.
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By P. G. Konody.
Special Correspondence of The New York Times
LONDON, Feb. 3.—The news of the discovery of a new and hitherto unknown version of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is likely to be received with a good deal of skepticism. This skepticism turns into hostile incredulity, if the discovery is injudiciously exploited by some press agent who sent out the news broadcast, with wrong statements, misquotations, and other blunders galore. ”

“ It is said that this crucifix was executed in rivalry with Brunelleschi’s noble work at S. Maria Novella, and that Donatello, at the sight of his friend’s work, exclaimed, “It has been left to you to shape a real Christ, whilst I have made a peasant.” In this early group of statues, from the prophets for the cathedral door to the “St George,” can be followed the gradual advance from Gothic stiffness of attitude and draping to a forceful rendering of the human form and of movement, which is a distinct approach to the classic ideal ”

“ The earliest dated picture of importance is “Abraham Entering Into Canaan” (1642) , at the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg, in which he makes the Scriptural subject an excuse for painting the patriarch's herds, just as in his “Orpheus” of 1650 (Rijks Museum, Amsterdam) he makes similar use of the Greek myth. Among his finest works on a small scale are a cattle piece (1653) in the Duc d'Arenberg's collection, and a similar, though earlier, picture in the Munich Pinakothek. In spite of his early death Paul Potter produced a great number of works. ”

“ The rest were scattered all over the world, and to this may be due the oblivion into which his very name had fallen—partly to this, and partly to the fact that with all the beauty and soulfulness of his work he had no new page to add to the history of the progressive development of art, and even in his best work only gave new variations of the tunes sung by his great precursors and contemporaries. ”

“ Ernest received his general education at Rugby and Berlin, and subsequently studied art at Düsseldorf under Horace Vernet's pupil, Professor Hünten, and in London under Alfred Borron Clay [q. v.] . In 1874 he first exhibited at the Royal Academy, the subject of his picture being ‘A Retreat: Episode in the Franco-German War.’ From that time to the year before his death he was rarely absent from the annual exhibitions at Burlington House. ”

“ He was too young to enter the competition for the baptistery gates in 1402, from which Ghiberti issued victorious against Brunelleschi, Jacopo della Quercia, Niccolò d’Arezzo and other rivals. But when Brunelleschi in his disappointment left Florence and went to Rome to study the remains of classic art he was accompanied by young Donatello. Whilst pursuing their studies and excavations on classic soil, which made them talked about amongst the Romans of the day as “treasure seekers,” the two young men made a living by working at the goldsmiths’ shops. ”

“ The list of some fifty pictures which modern critics have ascribed to Fiorenzo includes works of such widely varied character that one can hardly be surprised to find great divergence of opinion as regards the masters under whom Fiorenzo is supposed to have studied. Pisanello, Verrocchio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Benedetto Bonfigli, Mantegna, Squarcione, Filippo Lippi, Signorelli and Ghirlandajo have all been credited with this distinguished pupil, who was the most typical Umbrian painter that stands between the primitives and Perugino ”

“ In private collections, chiefly in Paris, Haarlem and Vienna, we find an equally important number. Amongst the painter’s most successful representations of fishwives and termagants we should distinguish the “Hille Bobbe” of the Berlin Museum, and the “Hille Bobbe with her Son” in the Dresden Gallery. Itinerant players are best illustrated in the Neville-Goldsmith collection at the Hague, and the Six collection at Amsterdam. ”

“ He had all the qualifications to make him a great pictorial illustrator. He had the gift to represent the stirring episodes of past history in dramatic intensity, but was rather deficient, especially towards the end of his career, in the sensuous appreciation of colour. ”

“ In Bruges he applied himself to the study and the copying of the masterpieces by the Van Eycks, Van der Weyden, and Van der Goes, and came under the direct influence of the master whom he followed most closely, Hans Memlinc. From him he acquired the soulful intensity of expression, the increased realism in the rendering of the human form and the orderly architectonic arrangement of the figures. ”

“ He worked with feverish application, as though he were aware of the short span of life that was granted him. He executed a series of some twenty etchings, mainly of animals, which are simple and direct in method and handling. Here, as in painting, his precocity was remarkable: his large plate of the “Herdsman,” produced when he was only eighteen, and that of the “Shepherd,” which dates from the following year, show him at his best as an accomplished master of the point. ”

“ The design is altogether different. There is far more background; the spacing is infinitely more pleasing; the head is inclined at a different angle; the background is quite different and far less assertive than in the Paris picture ”

“ His principal surviving work is the “Fisherman and Doge” at the Venice Academy. The National Gallery, London, has a “Daphnis and Chloe” and a portrait of a lady, whilst a “Holy Family” from his brush is at Bridgwater House. ”

“ Having returned to London in 1876, he was sent on a purchasing tour through Turkey, Syria, and Greece, where he acquired many valuable objects for the South Kensington Museum. A similar mission took him in 1879 to Spain, Italy, and Germany, after having acted in the preceding year as architect of the Indian section and commercial agent to the Indian government at the Paris Exhibition. In 1880 he arranged the Indian collections at South Kensington, and after spending two years as special commissioner in India, became keeper of the India Museum at South Kensington in 1883. ”

“ This commission, and the reliefs and figures for the high altar, kept Donatello in Padua for ten years, though during that time he visited Venice (where he carved the wooden “St John” at the Frari) and probably Mantua, Ferrara and Modena. At least, he was in communication with of Borso d’Este of Modena about a project for an equestrian statue, and had to give expert opinion about two equestrian statues at Ferrara. In his workshop in Padua he gathered around him quite a small army of assistants, stone-carvers, metal-workers, painters, gilders and bronze-casters. ”

“ The vitality of his art was due to the rare combination of a poet's imagination with a power of seizing reality. In his treatment of the landscape background and of the atmospheric surroundings of the figures can be found the germs of impressionism. ”

“ But his mind was set upon an artist's career, and, largely owing to Holman Hunt's advice, Ms father overcame a rooted objection to his pursuit of art. Philip was soon allowed to work at the British Museum, where he applied himself particularly to drawing from the Elgin marbles. Having entered the Royal Academy Schools, Morris made striking progress, gaining three silver medals for drawing, painting, and portrait. In 1858 he won the gold medal and a travelling studentship which enabled him to visit Italy. ”

“ The Gattamelata was finished and set up in 1453—a work powerful and majestic in its very repose; there is no striving for dramatic effect, no exaggerated muscular action, but the whole thing is dominated by the strong, energetic head, which is modelled with the searching realism of the Zuccone and the Poggio heads. ”

“ Still he brought up and supported a family of ten children with success till 1652, when the forced sale of his pictures and furniture, at the suit of a baker to whom he was indebted for bread and money, brought him to absolute penury. ”

“ From the middle of the 18th century to about 1875, when Edmond de Goncourt published his Catalogue raisonné of Watteau's works and Caylus's discourse on Watteau delivered at the Academy in 1748, the discovery of which is also due to the brothers de Goncourt, Watteau was held in such slight esteem that the prices realized by his paintings at public auction rarely exceeded £100. Then the reaction set in, and in 1891 the “Occupation according to Age” realized 5200 guineas at Christie's, and “Perfect Harmony” 3500 guineas. ”

“ MacWhirter is represented at the National Gallery of British Art by 'June in the Austrian Tyrol.' In the Royal Academy diploma gallery is his 'Nature's Archway.' 'A Fallen Giant' is at the municipal art gallery, Pietermaritzburg, Natal ”

“ The Louvre contains thirteen examples of his art, among them the “Corésus,” “The Sleeping Bacchante,” “The Shift Withdrawn,” “The Bathers,” “The Shepherd’s Hour” (“L’Heure du berger”) , and “Inspiration.” ”

“ An exhibition of his works was held at the Brazenose Club, Manchester, in May 1889, and there was a memorial exhibition at the Alpine Club Gallery in October 1911.
Nearly the whole of his substantial fortune was bequeathed to foreign missionary societies. The cartoons for the windows at Eaton were presented by his executors to the Young Men's Christian Association for their new London headquarters in Tottenham Court Road. A portfolio of Shields's studies for his 'Pilgrim's Progress' designs was purchased for the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1912. ”