Elisabeth Luther Cary

“ As we observe the lion fastening his teeth in the flesh of the boar, the bear grappling with his human slayer, and the energy and determination of the creatures at bay, our thought involuntarily bridges a chasm of four centuries and calls up the image of the Barye bronzes in which are displayed the same detachment of vision, the same absence of sentimentality, the same vigor and intensity if not quite the same strangeness of imagination. ”

“ In striking contrast to this group are the balcony pictures in which women of ripe aggressive beauty lounge gracefully in the open-air rooms with the same freedom of pose as within doors, haughty yet frank, opulent, languid yet animated, flowers that could have bloomed nowhere else than under a scorching sun.
Then there is the group of dancers and actors and singers in each of which we find the adroit mingling of the artificial with the real, and the appreciation of the fact that with the people of the stage much that is artificial to others becomes their reality. ”

“ In this picture of Nicholas Bruyningh we cannot escape from the merry careless temperament. We cannot as in the early portrait of Saskia linger in dalliance over charming accessories and beautifully discriminated textures until we reach by moderate degrees the eloquence of the profoundly studied face. Bruyningh's face is like the "tirade" of a French play—it is rendered at white heat and in one inconceivably long breath. Its significance is so intensified as to produce a profound feeling in a sympathetic spectator. ”

“ Obviously, Miss Cassatt has come into the full possession of her art and is no longer constrained by the struggle, sharp and hard as it must have been, with her exacting method—a method that has not at any time permitted the sacrifice of truth to charm. Since art is both truth and charm, record and poetry, there is a great satisfaction in watching the flowering of a positive talent, after the inevitable stages of literalism are passed, into the beauty of intelligent generalization. ”

“ There is nothing in the plain refined features that cries out for recognition of a temperament astutely divined. They have the calm repose that indicates entire lack of self-consciousness, no quality is unduly insisted upon, there is neither sentimentality nor brutal realism in the handling, the sitter simply lives as naturally upon the canvas as we feel that she must have lived in the world. [Pg 116] It is for such sweet and logical truth-telling, such mild and strict interpretation, that we must pay our debt of appreciation to Fantin, the painter of ideal realities and of actual ideals. ”

“ In the little history, more or less authenticated, of his eventful youth is the key to his charm as an artist, a charm the essence of which is freedom, an easy, informal way of looking at the visible world, a light abandon in the method of reproducing it, an independence of the tool or medium, resulting in art which, despite its minuteness of detail, seems to "happen" as Whistler has said all true art must. ”

“ Both beauty and character have been ideals of the artist. He has not only grasped the loveliness of external things but he has delved rather deeply into the individualities of these roistering Hollanders. You do not feel as you do with Jordaens that excess of flesh and the joys of the palate are all the world holds for the revelers. The world holds, for one thing, appreciation of rich accessories. ”

“ Outside the room in the open court kneels the Angel of the Annunciation and by his side kneels St. Emedius, the patron of Ascoli, with a model of the city in his hands. These figures are realistic in gesture and expression, interested, eager, responsive, filled with quick life and joyous impulse. The richly embroidered garment of the angel, his gilded wings, his traditional attitude, neither overpower nor detract from the vivid individuality of the beautiful face so firmly yet so freely modeled within its delicate hard bounding line. ”

“ In the finished bronze the lion is calmer and in obvious possession of the field. The fierce claws pushing out from their sheathing, the eyes that seem to snarl with the mouth, the massive paw resting on the serpent's coiled body combine to give a subtle impression of certain mastery, and the serpent is unquestionably the victim and defendant in the encounter. It is by such intuitive reading of the aspect of animals of diverse kinds, that Barye awakens the imagination and leads the mind into the wilderness of the untamed world. ”

“ In spite of the assiduous study of Dutch and Italian masters, Fantin's work is characteristically French in both its fantasy and its realism. Not only the grace of the forms and the elegance of the gestures, but the sentiment [Pg 114] of the composition and the quality of the color, are undisguisedly Gallic. He is closer to Watteau than to any other painter but his firmer technic and more patient temperament give him an advantage over the feverish master of eighteenth-century idyls. His art throbs with a fuller life and in his airiest dreams his world is made of a more solid substance. ”

“ The Muse of tone is apparently whispering secrets of art into the ears of the master. His debt, therefore, to the masters of music may be considered as fully and promptly paid, and the impression of hero-worship conveyed by these ardent tributes is a reminder that the artist is young in temperament, Teutonic in origin, and untouched by the modern spirit of indifference to persons. Unlike many German artists of the present day, he did not find in Paris the atmosphere that suited him. In spite of his years there and in Rome, he has remained undisturbed by any anti-German influence. ”

“ Fully to appreciate Steen, we should know his pictures in the Louvre and at Amsterdam. They cover a wide range and comprise a considerable number of masterpieces. The life he depicts in them is not of a very high order, but he has seen the possibilities for pictorial representation in his surroundings as almost no other painter of his time. His people are alive and their living is active and fervent. What they do they do with zest. There is energy in the painter's line and vitality in his color. Nothing is dull or tame in his family drama. All has a touch of moving beauty. ”

“ This joy of motion and this continual suggestion of youth and vitality form the link that binds together the so dissimilar ideals of the old and the modern master. Sorolla's inspiration is by far the simpler. His art reflects the brilliant sunshine of the Mediterranean coast, the tonic quality of the fresh air, and the unconventionality of life by the sea. All his people use natural gestures and express in their activity the untrammeled energy of primitive life. ”

“ They are like the giant Antaeus whose strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with the earth, but who easily was strangled when lifted into the upper air. Their strength also melts into helplessness when confronted by problems of atmosphere and the delicate veils of tone which enwrap the material world for the American painter. ”

“ To turn from these to the two religious paintings executed in Rome, is to realize that eccentric as Klinger often is, both in choice of subject and treatment, his attitude toward the mysteries and problems of man's existence is that of a serious thinker with a strong artistic talent, but a still stronger intelligence. It is not, however, until we reach the period which he devotes to sculpture, that we find in his art the quality of nobility, a certain breadth, which in spite of innovations in execution and almost trivial symbolic detail, impresses upon his conceptions the classic mark. ”

“ The extreme gravity of her method is the natural result of working under a master whose intensity and austerity in the pursuit of artistic truth are perhaps unequaled in the history of modern art.
Her choice of subject is not, however, the inspiration of any mind other than her own. She has taken for the special field in which to exercise her vigorous talent that provided by the various phases of the maternal relation. Her wholesome young mothers with their animated children, comely and strong, unite the charm of great expressiveness with that of profoundly scientific execution. ”

“ The vast sweep of woodland or desert in which he places his wild creatures, the deep repose commingled with the potential ferocity of these creatures, their separateness from man in their inarticulate emotions, their inhuman passions, their withdrawn powerfully realized lives, their self-sufficiency, their part in nature—all this becomes vivid to us as we look at his paintings and we are aware that the portrayal of animal life went far deeper with Barye than a mere anatomical grasp of his subject. ”

“ Another painting of about the same time has almost the charm of Fantin-Latour's early renderings of serious women bending over their books or their sewing. In La Liseuse the girl's face is absorbed and thoughtful, the color harmony is quiet, the white dress, the dull red of the chair, the blue and yellow and green wools on the table, forming a pattern of closely related tones as various in its unity as the motley border of an old-fashioned dooryard. ”

“ If we compare Stuck with William Blake whose fancy also was haunted by Dantesque conceptions, we see how much more impressive Blake's visions of the unreal world are and we find the reason in their swift energy of conception and in the artist's tenacity in holding his conception. With both Boecklin and Stuck we feel that the manner of rendering the conception becomes more important than the initial conception, and this seldom, if ever, is true of Blake. ”

“ Occasionally, as in the picture shown at Philadelphia in 1904, and in the fine painting owned by Sir William C. Van Horne, we have a face charming in itself and modeled in a way to bring out its refinement, but in the greater number of instances the rather heavy and imperfect features of our average humanity are reproduced without compromise, with even a certain sense of triumph in the beautiful statement of sufficiently ugly facts and freedom from a fixed ideal. ”

“ Liebermann's hospitality to purely technical ideas, his interest in problems of light and air, his diligent analysis of motion, his ability to translate a scene from the life of the laboring class without sentimentality, without prettiness or eloquence or any of the attributes that catch the multitude, give to his art a touch of coldness that is not without its charm for those who care for a highly developed orderly product of the mind. ”

“ His brows are knit, his features, ascetic in mold and careworn, are eloquent of serious thought and moral conviction. By the side of St. Peter resplendent in pontifical robes and enriched with jewels, he wears the look of a young devout novice not yet so familiar with sanctity as to carry it with ease. He stands by the side of a little stream, in a landscape that combines in the true Crivelli manner direct realism with decorative formality. ”

“ There surely never was an artist whose life and environment were more faithfully illustrated by his art. To know one is to know the other, at least as they appear from the outside, for with Callot, as with the less veracious and ingenuous Watteau, it is the external aspect of things that we get and from which we must form our inferences. ”

“ Everything is more significant than in nature, yet nature has provided the elements of significance. It is in his ability to see things whole and to co-ordinate the selected details that Boecklin is most an artist. This largeness of generalization gives him power over the imagination, and is, perhaps the only, certainly the chief source of his power. His color by its very intensity overdoes the intended effect. The imagination instead of being stimulated is sated, and his obvious symbolism fails to pique the curiosity. Moreover, his handling of paint lacks sensitiveness. ”

“ He said himself, "There should be no unessentials for the artist," and he advised his pupils to finish as much as possible and not to sketch at all. This passion for completeness rarely accompanies a strong feeling for the romantic aspects of nature or for atmospheric subtleties. Neither does the painter who observes human nature closely and represents it with a detailed commentary upon its characteristics usually convey the impression of any subjective emotion.
Menzel is no exception to this rule. In his work he appears as emotionless as a machine, but his accomplishment is not mechanical. ”

“ Observing his "Flax Barn," in comparison with the work of his compatriots, its fine freedom from triviality of detail was apparent, and the beauty of its cool light, spread over large spaces and diffused throughout the interior of the low shed, made itself felt. One noted also, as elements of the picture's peculiarly dignified appeal, the severe arrangement of the figures with the long row of workers under the windows, the long threads of flax passing over their heads to the women in the foreground, and the almost straight line formed in turn by these women. ”