Charles Henry Caffin

“ A lesser artist might have conceived this way of presenting the scene, and drawn all the figures in the same positions, making, in fact, the same appeal to the eye, and yet not have affected us in the same way, because he would make no appeal to that other sense of touch, which really in most people is the more easily roused; for people more readily appreciate hard and soft, rough and smooth, stiff and limp, hot and cold, than the colors and shapes and grouping of objects. It is this sense of touch which Rubens had so wonderful a skill in suggesting. ”

“ In Michelangelo’s figures, lines of grace are for the most part replaced by lines of power—the power of vast repose or of tremendous energy, even of torment, but always of some deep thought or emotion.
In a brief study of so great a man it is possible to allude to only one more feature of Michelangelo’s greatness—namely, that he was a great architect as well as a great sculptor, painter, and poet. ”

“ Michelangelo, therefore, compels us to widen our ideas of what is beautiful. To Correggio it was physical loveliness joined to loveliness of sentiment; but Michelangelo, with a few exceptions, cared little for physical beauty. The beauty of his sculpture and paintings consists in the elevation of soul which they embody and the power they have to stir and elevate our own souls, They have the far-reaching grandeur of Beethoven’s music. ”

“ We have learned, in an earlier article, that hands are very expressive of character. In good portraits there is always a oneness of feeling and character between the hands and the head. Hals was a master in this respect. There is also an absolute oneness in the expression of the hand and that of the face in the Van Dyck, even to the curl of the forefinger, which echoes the curious, slanting glance of the eyes. ”

“ Of the fact that the woman looked in the flesh just as he has represented her on the canvas we are as sure as if we had looked over his shoulder and watched her grow beneath his brush. He has put in nothing but what he saw, and left out nothing that could complete the lifelike truth of the picture. ”

“ Moreover, placed as it is upon the most brilliantly lighted part of the picture, its own tender lighting is made more emphatic. We might say that a beautiful and solemn melody is represented by the lighter portions of the composition, while the dark supply a weighty and magnificent accompaniment.
In this distribution of light, as well as in the arrangement of the lines, there has been a careful building up of effect; everything is calculated to arouse the emotion and make at once a noble spectacle and a profound impression. ”

“ So large a subject cannot be exhausted by the comparison of any two pictures; yet from these by Titian and Holbein a considerable insight may be gained.
What is a realist ?- Naturally, one who represents things as they really are. But can anybody do that? If ten men the equals of Holbein in observation and skill of hand had sat down beside him to paint the portrait of Georg Gyze and his surroundings, would their pictures have been identical? Could any two men, even, working independently, paint the ink-pot alone so that the two representations would be exactly alike? ”

“ The fact is, a man can draw an ink-stand only as its appearance affects his eye and makes a mental impression on his brain. In one sense, we cannot say, “This is what an apple really looks like,” but only, “This is how it presents itself as real to me.”
So, in the strict sense of representing an object as it really is, no painter can be a realist; while, in the general sense of representing an object as it seems real to his eye and brain, every painter may be called a realist.
How then shall we discover the meaning of the word “realist” as used in painting? ”

“ It is not because Holbein was a. realist, however, that he is celebrated, but because of the kind of realist he was. You will find that realism often runs to commonplace; a man may see chiefly with his eye because he has no mind to see with; may take a delight in facts because he has no imagination; the material appeals to him more than the spiritual. But Holbein was a man of mind, who attracted the friendship of Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, and Holbein made his strength of mind help the keenness of his eye. ”

“ But if you compare the portrait with Velasquez’s picture, you will feel, I think, that the attention is scattered over Holbein’s picture, while in the case of Velasquez’s the eye immediately takes it in us a whole. The little princess is the center of the scene, the light being concentrated on her as it is around the principal figure in Rubens’s picture; but though our attention is centered on the child, it revolves all round her, and immediately embraces the scene as a whole. The picture gives us a single vivid impression of the scene. ”

“ Compare the treatment of the ruff in Van Dyck’s portrait—indeed, the explicit way in which the whole of the elaborate costume is rendered. Nothing is left to suggestion: everything is told with painstaking fidelity. The contrast of the Hals portrait offers an instructive example of what painters mean by the word “breadth,” and a lesson, also, in the effect of breadth on our imagination; for we get from the broad simplicity of this portrait a strong invigoration, from the other a pleasant fascination. ”

“ Bent upon independence, its artists, too, were independent of Rubens, of the great Italian traditions, of everything but what concerned themselves. A nation of burghers, busy with war and commerce, they developed out of their own lives, their love of country, and their pride in themselves, a new art. ”

“ There may be violence and martyrdom out in the world, but no echo of them disturbs the serenity of this little group, wrapped around in warm, melting, golden atmosphere. These beings arc no more troubled with cares or suffering than are lambs and fawns. ”

“ To get at the essential facts of a subject and to set them forth rapidly and precisely, so that all may understand them, represents great mental power, and places Hals in the front rank of painters. Yet, as a man, he allowed himself to appear to the world an idle fellow, overgiven to jollification, and so shiftless that in his old age he was dependent upon the city government for support. ”

“ Here, instead of delicate gracefulness, are colossal strength, ponderous mass, profound impressiveness; a bent back that has carried the burden, hands that have labored, head bowed in vast depth of thought. ”

“ The left arm is still grasped by the other man—at the elbow, observe, so that his hand not only helps to sustain the weight of the body, but keeps the forearm stiff. We feel that when he lets go, it too will fall lifeless. Compare, also, the huddled, actionless position of the Saviour’s form with the strong body of John, braced so firmly by the legs. So, one by one, we might examine the figures, feeling in our imagination the physical firmness and muscular movement that each would present to the touch, contrasting with the limpness of the dead body. ”

“ Possibly our first impression of the Rubens picture will be “How beautiful!” of the Velasquez, “How curious!” In the former the figures almost fill the canvas, and are grouped so as to decorate it with an imposing mass of light and shade and a beautiful arrangement of lines; whereas in the other the figures are all at the bottom of the canvas and do not present a similarly beautiful pattern of lines and masses. The one looks like a magnificent picture, the other seems to be rather a real scene—as, indeed, it was. ”

“ This is partly due to the actual moment in the great tragedy of the Redemption which the artist has seized, The terrible anguish of the Crucifixion is past; the poor, limp body is being tenderly cared for by the faithful few who have come, under the cover of night, to render the last office to the Dead. ”

“ Looking at the “Portrait of Marie Louise von Tassis” by Van Dyck we cease to wonder if Marie Louise were really like this. Her portrait is merely an exquisitely beautiful picture. And then again we turn to the Hals, and again we have forgotten that it is a portrait. It is a woman that we face—a stout, wholesome Dutchwoman, whose husband had a hand in the shaping of the new republic, who was the mother of sons who fought in the long struggle for freedom. Those hands!—one loves them ”

“ The student of art, when he reaches the period of the seventeenth century, turns a sharp corner. Italy is left behind, Spain attracts his attention to the west, while far to the north Holland and Belgium beckon. Immediately three of the greatest names in art rise to our notice—Rembrandt, Rubens, and Velasquez. ”

“ It is the power and depth of Michelangelo’s own thoughts that fill this figure of “Jeremiah.”
The French philosopher Taine wrote: “There are four men in the world of art and literature so exalted above all others as to seem to belong to another race—namely, Dante, Shakspere, Beethoven, and Michelangelo.” ”

“ It is not the man in his every-day character that we see; indeed, it is not the man himself that holds our attention, but rather some mood of a man—or, rather, some reflection in him of the artist’s mood at the time he painted him.
Titian found in the original of this portrait a suggestion to himself of something stately and aloof from common things ”

“ This Rubens picture presents a beautiful pattern of decoration, while in the Velasquez picture more than half the canvas is given up to empty space; the figures in the Rubens have a grand flow of line, those in the Velasquez seem stiff and awkwardly grouped; the first excites our emotion, the second our curiosity. ”

“ He painted, in his younger days, many altar-pieces, “full of a touching religious feeling and enthusiasm"; but his fame rests mainly upon his portraits. In these he invented a style of elegance and refinement which became a model for the artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, corresponding, as it did, with the genteel luxuriousness of the court life of the period.
On the other hand, during the later century, Hals was thought little of, even in Holland, whose artists forsook the traditions of their own school and went astray after the Italian “grand” style. ”

“ This portrait, while serving as a record of a woman who actually lived, is more than that: it is a type of the race to which she belonged. It is a type, too, of the whole school of Dutch painting—and, moreover, such a marvel of painting!
The Dutchmen of the seventeenth century, having abandoned the large field of decorative composition, settled down in the small space of their canvases to a perfection of craftsmanship that has never been surpassed in modern art. From the standpoint of pure painting, they formed a school of great painters ”

“ Do we not feel already that we are growing intimate with the man?
Can we feel the same toward “The Man with the Glove”? I admit that when we have once possessed ourselves of the appearance of this man’s face, we shall not forget it. But that is a very different thing from knowing the man as a man. ”

“ But do we not observe that while Titian was chiefly occupied with the impression produced upon his mind, it was the impression made upon the eye which gave greater delight to Holbein? No man who did not love the appearances of things would have painted them with so loving a patience. While to Titian the thing which appeared most real about this man—the thing most worth his while to paint—was the impression made upon his mind ”

“ For Velasquez recognized that light is elastic and illuminates the air. Hence he was the first to discover a new kind of perspective. Men long ago had learned to make lines vanish from the eye; to make the figures diminish in size and shape as they recede from the front ”

“ This great city is a great desert, for in the whole time we spent there I could never sett my eyes in the whole length of the streete uppon 49 persons at once; I never mett coach nor saw man on horseback ”