European art

“ When, from the busy scene of European revival and progress, of which we have remarked a few features, we turn our view to the nations of the East, how strikingly contrasted is the prospect! Instead of the turmoil of change, the hurry after new inventions, the disuse of old customs and processes, we see the life of art to be one steady, even tenor. ”

“ But before coming into contact with European forms of art they began to develop a naturalistic feeling in their art which in the present century has become the dominant note, and, joined with a certain inventive quaintness and ornamental reserve, has had so tremendous an influence upon the art of Europe, more especially modern French art. ”

“ I suspect, indeed, that the whole tradition of art in Europe, since about the end of the fifteenth century, has been against such complete expression. If we compare the great masterpieces of pure drawing such as the drawings of figures on Persian pots of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the few remaining examples of drawings by the Italian primitives of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, with the vast mass of European drawings subsequent to that date, we see, I think, the contrast of aims and purpose of the two groups. ”

“ I am at least certain that we have very constantly made too much of the supposed differences in the literature and art of the different European countries, and that we must make clear to ourselves that European art and literature are really one. ”

“ And further, we often take to be national, characteristics which happen to show themselves at one time in one place, while they may have existed at another time in another place. The history of European art is in a great measure the history of successive influences or movements which were for the most part common to all Europe, but which did not always exactly synchronize in the different European countries. ”

“ Comparison is leading them to adopt a standard of criticism; and if they will only persist in cherishing their own good traditions, and in giving play to their distinctively national genius, it will certainly be better for their art, and probably for their commerce also. At the Vienna Exhibition they made the discovery that the imitation{158} of the European had better be abandoned. ”

“ Instead of doing so, they tried to imitate the native wares, and, which was far worse, commissioned the native artists to adopt European styles and to attempt to gratify the whims of European taste and fashion. We cannot wonder that art declined, but are rather led to be surprised that the decline was not more speedy and permanent. ”

“ Wherever we find in European history a revival of decorative art, it has, I fancy, nearly always been due to Oriental influence and contact with Oriental nations. Our own keenly intellectual art has more than once been ready to sacrifice real decorative beauty either to imitative presentation or to ideal motive. ”

“ Here again we have one of the striking differences between the average American and the average European. The Italian, French, Austrian, or German laborer sees masterpieces from infancy. His earliest recollection of religious worship is associated with them. Every continental town has its art gallery or picture exhibit, and on certain days there is no admission fee. ”

“ Apart from the moral effects on European society of such a selection from the whole sphere of art of what did not deserve such a valuation, and the acknowledgment of it as important art, this perversion of art has weakened art itself, and well-nigh destroyed it. ”

“ It is fearful to think of what would befall humanity were such art to spread among the masses of the people. And it already begins to spread.
Finally, the fifth and chief result is, that the art which flourishes in the upper classes of European society has a directly vitiating influence, infecting people with the worst feelings and with those most harmful to humanity—superstition, patriotism, and, above all, sensuality. ”

“ In so literary a society it seems paradoxical almost to believe in pure painting; and, in despair, we cry out that no country can be expected to excel, at one time, in two arts. We forget Athens and Tuscany; we also forget France. For more than two hundred years France has led the visual art of Europe; and if English painting were ever to become one-tenth part as good as French literature I, for my part, should be as pleased as surprised. ”

“ Germany might follow, great in bold and brave heraldry, or with a Gothic accent in richly-scrolled mantling, and a redundant display of Renascence ornament.
France, as a more volatile Pallas Athene, might, perhaps, bear the wavering lamp of executive and imitative skill, and dramatic instinct in design. 221
Spain would look coquettishly under a fan, wrapped in faded embroidery, bearing the Alhambra, like a pendent jewel: while for England, what artistic emblems are left? Well, we have been described as inveterate colonists, even in art. ”

“ Beneath the brooding spirit of a new civilization signs of life had at length appeared, and Europe became vocal in every part with fantastic poems, lyrical in the South, epical in the North. They were wildly exuberant products, because severe art was unknown, but simple, naïve, and gay, and suited to the taste of a time when the classics were regarded as superstitiously as the heavens. Love and heroism, which somehow are the leading themes of literature in all ages, now assumed the chivalric type in the light hands of the earliest modern poets. ”

“ They are akin, fundamentally akin, in all the heights and depths of their requirements; it is Europe, the ONE Europe, whose soul presses urgently and longingly, outwards and upwards, in their multifarious and boisterous art--whither? ”

“ But Europe is familiar with their fame; and the widespread taste for their delicious art makes them independent of other record than the combination of their own exquisite touch, undying tints, and unequalled knowledge of nature. Engraving, carried at the same time to great perfection, has multiplied some of the merits of the celebrated painters, while stamping the reputation of its own professors. ”

“ The most evident proof of this triumph of American progress is the decadence or disappearance of all the schools of art. Europe was in past centuries, in harder and more difficult times than the present, the glorious mother and mistress of civilisation, because under diverse forms, she managed to create and keep going schools of literature, sculpture, painting, architecture, and music. ”

“ On the other hand, the pictorial treatment of antique literature, a world so suggestive of beautiful forms, was so little comprehended by the German mind that they only sought to express it through the medium of those fantastic ideas with very childish and even tasteless results. We must also remember that that average education of the various classes of society which the fine arts require for their protection stood on a very low footing in Germany. In Italy the favour with which works of art was regarded was far more widely extended. ”

“ Then the method by which an artist and a lover of art is to use France and Italy can be indicated; and a further important and fine question will arise: what are other nations, particularly Germany and England, to do in this period of scattering and loss, to make generally useful the manifold and widely strewn treasures of art—a task requiring the true cosmopolitan mind which is found perhaps nowhere purer than in the arts and sciences? ”

“ It is not only in the literature of the Middle Ages that we find the thought and life of the people reflected, but in the art as well, for painters, sculptors, and builders were at work in every country of western Europe. ”

“ England can do without any one of us, but not one of us can do without England. Study the question in the present, study it in the past, and you will find but one answer to your question—art is nationhood. All the great artistic epochs have followed on times of national enthusiasm, power, energy, spiritual and corporal adventure. When Greece was divided into half-a-dozen States she produced her greatest art. The same with Italy; and Holland, after having rivalled Greece in heroic effort, gave birth in the space of a single generation to between twenty and thirty great painters. ”

“ As Europe loosed its hold upon the earlier arts of Greece and Rome, was dismembered, and was for centuries plunged in darkness by the incursions and dispersal of barbarians, and then, as it revived, developed a new artistic sense and greater strength, so America passed through a precisely similar ordeal.
Two thousand years ago—possibly many more—art and civilization existed here, and continued to expand until Europeans came and checked their farther growth. America is not even singular in this, that a broad chasm divides the old from the new. ”

“ When I think how still more deplorable is the state of painting in England, how little Italy and Germany now merit their former fame, I am tempted to fear that this art will share the fate of painting on glass ”

“ Such have been the efforts to give splendour to the fine arts in this country, and such are the results which have attended these exertions; that knowing, as we do, the movements of the arts on the Continent, I may confidently say, that our annual exhibitions, both as to number and taste, engrafted on nature and the fruit of mental conception, are such that all the combined efforts in art on the continent of Europe in the same time have not been able to equal. ”

“ Thus, even though in every art the technical tradition has been interrupted, there remains in Europe what I will call the tradition of feeling; and it is this that is absent in America. Art in Europe is rooted; and there still persists into the present something of the spirit which fostered it in the past. Not only is Nature beautiful, she is humanised by the works of Man. Politics are mellowed by history, business tempered by culture. Classes are more segregated, types more distinct, ideals and aims more varied. ”

“ Such was that old Europe which created the numberless masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, and painting, now so much admired by the Americans; that old Europe which discovered America, created science, and produced the French Revolution. But what remains of that old Europe? American progress is busy to-day destroying it; in particular, the artistic spirit is rapidly disappearing from the continent which for centuries was the world’s teacher of beauty. ”

“ Great Britain's select display, representing some of its great artists, constituted the most extensive foreign section next to France.
German art was represented by 580 fine paintings, including all the German schools that have gained celebrity; as the Bavarian in Munich—the Saxon in Dresden—and many others.—Holland, Belgium, Russia, Spain, Austria, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Canada had their share in the splendid effect, likewise. ”

“ But French Art, once so widely appreciated in England, and Germany, in Russia, in Poland, now found every outlet to foreign lands closed. Amateurs of painting, dilettanti of the fine arts, great noblemen and financiers, were ruined, had emigrated or were in hiding. ”

“ But I, having never seen the beauties which Europe contains, cheerfully satisfy myself with attentively examining what my native country exhibits: if we have neither ancient amphitheatres, gilded palaces, nor elevated spires; we enjoy in our woods a substantial happiness which the wonders of art cannot communicate. ”

“ There are in Rome, Germans who give their lives to copy the great masters in the art of painting, nor ever feel that they can get deep enough into knowledge of the beauty already produced to pass out into reproduction. ”

“ No purely instinctive art can stand against the machine. And thus it comes about that, at the present moment, we have in Europe the extraordinary spectacle of a grand efflorescence of the highly self-conscious, self-critical, intellectual, individualistic art of painting amongst the ruins of the instinctive, uncritical, communal, and easily impressed arts of utility. ”

“ For what reason was Europe ready to destroy even her secular tradition of art for the sake of emulating that rapidity of execution and audacity of enterprise which I was then witnessing in the New World? ”

“ Only painting which recognised man in his full freedom, no privileged class of gods and heroes, Italians and Easterns, could be the true child of the Revolution, the art of the new age. Belgium and Germany made the first diffident steps in this direction. ”

“ The revival of classical literature in western Europe gave an impetus to the movement which was largely intended to enfold art within the shelter of an enlightened taste, and protect it from the licence of unordered enthusiasm. ”

“ Hence the general conclusion seems evident, that in Britain, the art, as compared with itself, has continued to improve.
Compared with foreign art, the distinctive character of the English school is strongly marked. Painting on the [Pg 224] Continent exhibits a striking uniformity of style, with such peculiarities as, on a general view, will not lessen the truth of a common classification. The Continental artist, then, studies to detail, but fails in power of general effect; his performances are more valuable as works of art and of imitation, than of imagination or abstract resemblance. ”

“ Art came upon France after the great revolution, after the victories of Marengo and Austerlitz, after the burning of Moscow. A unique moment of nationhood gave birth to a long list of great artists, just as similar national enthusiasm gave birth to groups of great artists in England, in Holland, in Florence, in Venice, in Athens. ”

“ Overlaid with new elements, swamped in the dull, though materially higher, Neolithic civilisation, may not the old æsthetic faculties which made Europe the earliest-known home of anything that can be called human art, as opposed to mere tools and mechanical contrivances, have finally emancipated themselves once more in the Southern regions, where the old stock most survived? ”