French painting

“ In the pictures of the modern school of French painting, this peculiarity is pushed to an extravagant length, and, fortunately for the art, displays the false principles on which the system of their composition is founded. The moment seized is uniformly that of the strongest and most violent passion; the principal actors in the piece are represented in a state of phrenzied exertion, and the whole anatomical knowledge of the artist is displayed in the endless contortions into which the human frame is thrown. ”

“ Painting will again become creative, constructive, personally expressive. Its basis having been established as scientifically impeccable, its superstructure will exhibit the taste, the elegance, the imaginative freedom, exhibited within the limits of a cultivated sense of propriety, that are an integral part of the French painter's patrimony. ”

“ The French painters of the eighteenth century were numerous, and on the whole superior to those of the same era in Italy. Throughout the whole, however, we detect the principles of the school of Louis XIV., as respects the individual qualities of the art; while in the philosophy of taste, more especially as affects painting, are discoverable the effects of the mechanical and systematic criticism—the mere pedantry of learning, which, originating with the writers of that age, spread over Europe, nor, in art, is yet entirely exploded. ”

“ Of these comparatively independent branches of art, the greatest is, as far as I know, the French sculpture of the thirteenth century. No words can give any idea of the magnificent redundance of its imaginative power, or of the perpetual [Pg 11] beauty of even its smallest incidental designs. But this very richness of sculptural invention prevented the French from cultivating their powers of painting, except in illumination (of which art they were the acknowledged masters) , and in glass-painting. ”

“ After the French Revolution of 1789, a school of neoclassical artists dominated painting, using themes of patriotic heroism and stressing severe beauty of line and firm modeling, over light and color. ”

“ The various subjects are treated entirely in the spirit of plastic art. The author's aim was, by means of vividness and careful blending of colour, perfection and delicacy of form, severe purity and general harmony of rhyme, in short by means of a skill which neglected nothing, not even the minutest trifle, to produce poetic equivalents of the miniature masterpieces in agate or onyx bequeathed to us by the ancients, or of the Italian or French enamel painting on gold of the days of the Renaissance. ”

“ The gray and stern arches, the hitherto colorless sky of the art temple, now take the azure hue of the heavens, while hovering cherubs look down from their cerulean depths; the relievos glow, and color defines, as it etherealizes, the works of man. Painting, at first absorbed in the plastic arts, scarcely begins to show symptoms of life until she is fully born, and living in her own distinctive form! As that power which develops the almost infinite variety of forms is to the universe, so is painting with its ever ready and vivid canvas to the temple of art. ”

“ On the other hand, when thought has been independently exercised, refinement, engrafted upon its bold, though perhaps rude strength, will receive novel combinations and freshness of character, while the reception of more perfect modes in the same walk, will but improve the faculties, without oppressing the powers, of native genius. Again, the fluctuations of painting observable during its progress in France, appear to have arisen chiefly from the influence which favorite masters have been able to exercise over the art universally in that country. ”

“ To animate painting by qualities purely sensual, to make a lavish display of the gorgeous splendor of brilliant stuffs, rich brocades and velvets, and gold and silver plate, to paint in glowing rosy hues and amid voluptuous surroundings the plumpness of naked flesh, aroused his indignation and his repugnance as if such art were a desecration. ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, shewed the grandeur and the grasp of ancient art more strongly than the vigour with which the old painters used the effect produced upon the human mind by the power of contrast, and the infinite skill with which they employed that power, so as never to violate those essential principles of harmony which affect painting and sculpture fully as much as they affect music and poetry. ”

“ What is the difference between absolutely decorative art and a painting? Decorative art emphasises its material: imaginative art annihilates it. Tapestry shows its threads as part of its beauty: a picture annihilates its canvas: it shows nothing of it. Porcelain emphasises its glaze: water-colours reject the paper.
A picture has no meaning but its beauty, no message but its joy. That is the first truth about art that you must never lose sight of. A picture is a purely decorative thing. ”

“ Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present to the eye, what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be remembered, that painting is not merely a gratification of the sight. ”

“ Painting, with its lovely colours blending into life, and all its "silent poesy of form," is a source of pleasure more lasting, more intellectual. Beyond both, is sculpture, the noblest, the least illusive, the most enduring of the imitative arts, because it charms us not by what it seems to be, but by what it is; because if the pleasure it imparts be less exciting, the impression it leaves is more profound and permanent; because it is, or ought to be, the abstract idea of power, beauty, sentiment, made visible in the cold, pure, impassive, and almost eternal marble. ”

“ It is not in the style he lays the ink that the poet finds the expression, its thickness or its thinness bears no resemblance to his soul, but the intimacies of a painter’s genius are expressed in the actual substance of his paint and in the touch with which he lays it. So in painting the mysterious virtue arises which among painters is called “quality,” a certain beauty of surface resultant from the perfection of method. ”

“ Motives more varied, gradations of sentiment more delicate, the fugitive and transient phases of emotion, the inner depths of consciousness, had somehow to be seized. It was here that painting asserted its supremacy. Painting is many degrees further removed than sculpture from dependence on the body in the fulness of its physical proportions. It touches our sensibilities by suggestions more indirect, more mobile, and more multiform. ”

“ The human form, the world around us, the works of man's hands, are represented in painting, not for their own sake merely, but with a view to bringing thought, feeling, action, home to the consciousness of the spectator from the artist's consciousness on which they have been impressed. Painting can tell a story better than sculpture, can represent more complicated feelings, can suggest thoughts of a subtler intricacy. Through colour, it can play, like music, directly on powerful but vague emotion. It is deficient in fulness and roundness of concrete reality. ”

“ To this power the painter of genius directs his aim; in this sense he studies Nature, and often arrives at the end, even by being unnatural, in the confined sense of the word. The grand style of painting requires this minute attention to be carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style of poetry from that of history. ”

“ In an age which was prouder of its antiquarian knowledge than of its own achievements, which recognised the faithful imitation of the method of all past periods, the mere performance of a delicate task, as the highest aim of art, these genre painters were the first to portray the actual man of the nineteenth century; the first to desert museums and appeal to nature, and thus to lay the foundation of modern painting. ”

“ But if any one desire the meretricious painting of warm light and cool yet not hard shade, the effect of colour, with the twitching of triangles, the spangles glittering, and all the arrangement contrived to take the eye, then he can have it here as well as noble sculpture. ”

“ Colour and shadow, aërial perspective and complicated grouping, denied to sculpture, but within the proper realm of painting, have their own significance, their real relation to feelings vaguer, but not less potent, than those which find expression in the simple human form. To painting, again, belongs the play of feature, indicative of internal movement, through a whole gamut of modulations inapprehensible by sculpture. ”

“ I make large allowance, therefore, for this unattractive aspect which belongs to fresco-painting; but in this case, the execution is by far too repulsive. The mind may be content, but the eye suffers. Painting, which is altogether a plastic art, can express its ideal only through forms and colors. To think is not enough ”

“ This magical result of appearance can, however, be carried to such a pitch, that in contrast to it the exhibition of content becomes a matter of indifference, and painting tends to pass over, in the mere charm and perfume of its colour tones, and the contrast, fusion, and play of their harmonies, into the art of music, precisely as sculpture, in the elaboration of its reliefs, tends to associate itself with painting. ”

“ The great creations of the painters, in modern times as well as in the ancient, are those which represent the human figure in its ideal excellence,—which of course implies what is most perfect, not in any one man or woman, but in men and women collectively. Hence the greatest of painters rarely have stooped to landscape painting, since no imaginary landscape can surpass what everybody has seen in nature. ”

“ Out of his art, which contained them both, came those twin currents of portraiture and landscape that were destined to supply all that was vital in the after development of painting in Europe. All that was vital; for though Religion and Allegory, History and Symbol, still played their formal part in many a grandiose and rhetorical design, these things were no longer of the essence of the achievement. To the painters who employed them, nature itself was already all-absorbing. The true poetry of their work, whatever other claims it may seem to advance, resides in the mastery of the craftsman ”

“ As the light, with its ceaseless variety of tints and hues, is the most spiritual element of nature, and as the eye is the most spiritual of man’s senses, so painting, as concerned about these, is the most spiritual of the arts, and the one with which the symbolical spirit readily associates itself. Painting directs itself wholly to the eye, whereas sculpture appeals indeed to the eye, but only as the necessary medium for satisfying the corporeal sense and feeling. ”

“ The Sainte-Chapelle, in Paris, by its painted windows and the mural paintings of its crypt, asserts the real vitality of an artistic feeling, which only waited for the signal of a bolder spirit to rise to loftier things. Moreover, if other examples are wanting, there are manuscripts, on the ornamentation of which the most skilful painters have concentrated their powers, that would suffice to point out the tendencies and artistic standard of every succeeding age. (See the article on Miniature-Painting.) ”

“ Moreover, painting, itself the product of a much greater interest in colour than Antiquity had known, forced upon men's attention the important influence of colour upon form. For, although the human being, if we abstract the element of colour, if we do it over with white paint, has indeed the broad, somewhat vague form, the indecision of lines which characterises antique sculpture ”

“ The extraordinarily rapid advance, both in artistic conception and in power of execution, during the preceding fifty years, fostered by the concurrent advance in sculpture and painting, hastened the vase-painter to his ruin. With the attainment of perfection in drawing, dexterity and grace are his sole aim, and in place of vigour and originality we meet with over-refinement and mannerisms, and florid pictorial compositions executed in a careless manner. ”

“ PIGMENTS
The question of the medium in which the painter shall execute his pictures is an affair of temperament. Each artist must consult his own feelings in this matter and select the medium which is to him the most sympathetic. To-day, there are practically but three systems of painting in common use, tempera having gone out of vogue, and fresco having very wisely been discarded in favor of better and sounder methods. The three remaining methods are, of course, pastel, water-color, and oil. ”

“ The introduction of an oil vehicle for the pigment material, in the fifteenth century, made possible a much greater range in gradated color, and reinforcing the increased knowledge of light and shade, aided in the evolution of decoration into the "easel picture," complete in itself. Released from its subjection to architecture, increasing its technical resources, and widening its interests in the matter of subject so as to include all life, painting becomes an independent and self-sufficing art. ”

“ So much is the artist in love with his deep reds and blues, which he nearly always uses for the backgrounds of his figures, that he seldom insults them by painting on them except in so far as is necessary to the drawing, reserving his enamel mainly for the decoration of his whites and paler colours, keeping them in their places by a delicate fret of line and pattern work. ”

“ Every effort has been made to isolate it as an independent form of art, to confine it to “easel painting” on panel or canvas, or to wall decorations conceived after the same fashion and on the same lines, to reduce it to certain schools and individuals and localities; in a word, to make it a highly specialised form of personal expression, like lyric poetry or theological heresy. This is to miss its essential character and deny its primary function.
Painting is the use of colour and the composition of lines and forms for sheer joy in this{220} particular kind of beauty ”