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CHAPTER XXXIII
6078 words | Chapter 66
PAINTING, DRAWING, ETC.
The article PAINTING (Vol. 20, p. 459; equivalent to 190 pages of this
Guide) is an elaborate “key” article which may well be the starting
point for more definite study. The art student who actually wishes to
paint or draw—as distinct from the student of the history of art—will do
well to read first in this great article its third section, _The
Technique of Painting_ (pp. 482–497), by Gerard Baldwin Brown, professor
of fine art, Edinburgh, and author of _The Fine Arts_. The main topics
in this part of the article are:
The Materials of Painting; The Surfaces Covered by the Painter;
Binding Materials or Media; The Processes of Painting, and their
Historical Uses; Painting with Coloured Vitreous Pastes (with
bibliography)—on this method and on similar processes see the separate
articles CERAMICS, with remarkably valuable and beautiful coloured
illustrations; MOSAIC; ENAMEL; GLASS, STAINED. The following sections
are Fresco Painting (with bibliography)—see Fig. 34, Plate X (facing
p. 477); Fresco-Secco (with bibliography); Stereochromy or Water-Glass
Painting (with bibliography); Spirit Fresco or the “Gambier Parry”
Process, as improved by Professor Church (with bibliography); Oil
Processes of Wall Painting; Tempera Painting on Walls; Encaustic
Painting on Walls (with bibliography); Encaustic Painting in General
(with bibliography); Tempera Painting (with bibliography); Water
Colour Painting (with bibliography).
[Sidenote: Drawing and Engraving]
In connection with this part of the article—theoretically before it,
perhaps,—the student should read the articles DRAWING and ENGRAVING.
DRAWING (Vol. 8, p. 552), by John R. Fothergill, editor of _The Slade_,
is a peculiarly interesting article in its denial of the possibility of
conveying colour by drawing or monochrome, in its tracing the
development of drawing from the “papery” and flat first attempts on
early Greek vases to the depth, length and breadth of the later Greeks
or of a Michelangelo, for its criticism of the definition of artistic
drawing as a process of selection and elimination from the forms of
nature, and for its discussion of style or personality in drawing. See
also the articles CARICATURE, CARTOON, ILLUSTRATION, POSTER, PLUMBAGO
DRAWINGS.
ENGRAVING (Vol. 9, p. 645) is a short outline article to be supplemented
by: LINE-ENGRAVING (Vol. 16, p. 721), by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, author
of _Drawing and Engraving_, and more popularly known as the author of
_The Intellectual Life_, _Human Intercourse_ and other essays, and by M.
H. Spielmann, formerly editor of the _Magazine of Art_; WOOD ENGRAVING,
by the same authors; MEZZOTINT, by Gerald Philip Robinson, president of
the Society of Mezzotint Engravers; and Etching.
Supplementing the section in the article PAINTING on _The Technique of
Painting_ are the separate articles: CRAYON, PASTEL, PALETTE; AQUATINT,
AQUARELLE, ENCAUSTIC PAINTING, FRESCO, GOUACHE, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS
(with 5 plates), by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, late director British Museum
and author of _English Illuminated Manuscripts_; MINIATURE (with 19
illustrations in halftone), by the same author, and by G. C. Williamson,
author of _History of Portrait Miniatures_, whose articles on the
miniature painters the CLOUETS, COSWAY, the HILLIARDS, GEORGE MORLAND,
PETER OLIVER, the PETITOTS, PIERRE PRIEUR, JOHN SMART, etc., should also
be read; PANORAMA, PASTEL, by M. H. Spielmann, PORTRAITURE, by Sir
George Reid, the Scotch artist and late president of the Royal Scottish
Academy, PREDELLA, TEMPERA and TRIPTYCH.
[Sidenote: History of Painting]
Although the articles enumerated in the last paragraph have primarily to
do with technique, there is in them—especially in such articles as
MINIATURE and PORTRAITURE—much historical and critical information. And
from them the student may well turn back to the article PAINTING to
pursue there those topics which he has not yet covered. These are: _Part
I.—A Sketch of the Development of the Art_ (pp. 460–478); _Part
II.—Schools of Painting_, a tabular scheme (pp. 479–481), and _Recent
Schools of Painting_ (pp. 497–518), by M. H. Spielmann, for British;
Léonce Bénédite, keeper of the Luxembourg Museum, for French; Fernand
Khnopff, painter and etcher, for Belgian; Prof. J. C. Van Dyck, Rutgers
College, author of _History of American Art_, for the United States; and
Prof. Richard Muther, Breslau University, author of _The History of
Modern Painting_, on Dutch, German, Austrian, Italian, Spanish, Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and Balkan States.
These parts of the article are illustrated with ten plates containing 36
figures, including four prehistoric incised drawings of animals found in
French caves and remarkable for their technical accuracy and life; two
paintings, a boar and a bison, reproduced in colours, from the
palaeolithic cave of Altamira—see also Plates II and III in the article
ARCHAEOLOGY (between pp. 348 and 349, Vol. 2), Figs. 6, 7 and 8 in Plate
accompanying ANTHROPOLOGY (opposite p. 118, Vol. 2), and the plates of
American antiques in the article AMERICA (Vol. 1, pp. 808–816); an
excellent Egyptian drawing of birds; the François vase (Greek); a
Pompeian wall painting—see also the reproduction in colours of a
wall-painting from a Roman villa in the article MURAL DECORATION (Vol.
20, p. 22); a wall painting from Brunswick cathedral; and typical
examples of the work of Hubert van Eyck, Giotto, Lorenzetti, Masaccio,
Uccello, Pollaiuolo, Piero della Francesca, Ghirlandajo, Mantegna,
Bellini, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Titian, Holbein, Watteau,
Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Quintin Matsys, Brouwer, Ruysdael, Turner,
Chardin.
“A rough division of the whole history of art into four main periods”
gives “first ... the efforts of the older Oriental peoples, best
represented by the painting of the Egyptians; the second includes the
classical and medieval epochs up to the beginning of the 15th century;
the third the 15th and 16th centuries, and the fourth the time from the
beginning of the 17th century onward. In the first period the endeavour
is after truth of contour, in the second and third after truth of form,
in the fourth after truth of space.”
The Egyptian artist was satisfied if he could render with accuracy,
and with proper emphasis on what is characteristic, the silhouettes of
things in nature regarded as little more than flat objects cut out
against a light background. The Greek and the medieval artist realized
that objects had three dimensions, and that it was possible on a flat
surface to give an indication of the thickness of anything, that is,
of its depth away from the spectator, as well as its length and
breadth, but they cannot be said to have fully succeeded in the
difficult task they set themselves. For this there was needful an
efficient knowledge of perspective, and this the 15th century brought
with it. During the 15th century the painter fully succeeds in
mastering the representation of the third dimension, and during the
next he exercises the power thus acquired in perfect freedom,
producing some of the most convincing and masterly presentments of
solid forms upon a flat surface that the art has to show. During this
period, however, and to a more partial extent even in the earlier
classical epoch, efforts were being made to widen the horizon of the
art and to embrace within the scope of its representations not only
solid objects in themselves, but such objects as a whole in space, in
due relation to each other and to the universe at large. It was
reserved, however, for the masters of the 17th century perfectly to
realize this ideal of the art, and in their hands painting as an art
of representation is widened out to its fullest possible limits, and
the whole of nature in all its aspects becomes for the first time the
subject of the picture.
[Sidenote: Early Painting]
Following this classification, the article PAINTING, after commenting on
primitive art among bushmen, Eskimo and Australians and on the
remarkable cave drawings and paintings of Altamira, Gourdan and
Lortet,—even the paintings are thought to be 50,000 years old,—discusses
the painting of contour in Egypt and Babylonia, in prehistoric Greece,
in ancient Greece and Italy, and in the early Christian and early
medieval periods. Of particular interest is the criticism of Greek
drawing.
It may be admitted that in many artistic qualities it was beyond
praise. In beauty, in grace of line, in composition, we can imagine
works of Apelles, of Zeuxis, of Protogenes, excelling even the efforts
of the Italian painters, or only matched by the finest designs of a
Raphael or a Leonardo.... The facts, however, remain, first, that the
Greek pictures about which we chiefly read were of single figures, or
subjects of a very limited and compact order, with little variety of
planes; and second, that the existing remains of ancient painting are
so full of mistakes in perspective that the representation of distance
cannot have been a matter to which the artists had really set
themselves.... The problem of representing correctly the third
dimension of space ... had certainly not been solved.... It is an
additional confirmation of this view to find early Christian and early
medieval painting confined to the representation of the few near
objects which the older Oriental artists had all along envisaged.
For more detailed treatment of this period see the articles: EGYPT, _Art
and Archaeology_ (Vol. 9, pp. 65–77), with many illustrations both of
painting and sculpture, by Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, the eminent
Egyptologist; BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA, particularly the two plates of
illustrations (opposite pp. 104 and 105, Vol. 3); AEGEAN CIVILIZATION,
especially the illustrations (Vol. 1, pp. 246–251); GREEK ART (Vol. 12,
pp. 470–492), by Percy Gardner, author of _Grammar of Greek Art_,—and,
mostly by the same author, the articles AGATHARCHUS, PANAENUS, MICON,
POLYGNOTUS, PROTOGENES, APELLES, ARISTIDES OF THEBES, PAUSIAS, THEON,
ZEUXIS; ROMAN ART (Vol. 23, pp. 474–486), especially Plates V (p. 481)
and VI (p. 484); and for the early Christian and early medieval periods
such articles as ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS, with illustrations, by Sir E.
Maunde Thompson, late director British Museum, and MINIATURE. The reader
should also consult the articles CHINA and JAPAN for the section on the
art of each of these countries (Vol. 6, pp. 213–216, with two plates, 17
figures; and Vol. 15, pp. 172–190, with eight plates, 30
figures—especially Plates I-IV, pp. 172–177), as Oriental art in general
may be said to belong to this phase of effort after truth of contour and
of form. See also the separate articles on Japanese artists, mostly by
E. F. Strange, author of _Japanese Illustration_, _Hokusai_,
etc.,—particularly KORIN, UTAMARO, HOKUSAI, HIROSHIGE, and YOSAI.
The first important individual names after those of the Greek painters
mentioned above are those of the Proto-Renaissance of the 13th and 14th
century.
For Italy see PIETRO CAVALLINI; in Florence, CIMABUE, by W. M. Rossetti,
author of _Fine Art, Chiefly Contemporary_; GIOTTO, by Sir Sidney
Colvin, late keeper prints and drawings, British Museum; GADDI, by W. M.
Rossetti; ORCAGNA, by the late John Henry Middleton, Slade professor of
fine arts, Cambridge, art director South Kensington Museum; SPINELLO
ARETINO (Vol. 25, p. 685), and ANGELICO, by W. M. Rossetti; in Siena,
SIMONE MARTINI; and for Flanders, the VAN EYCKS (Vol. 10, p. 90), by Sir
Joseph Archer Crowe, author with G. B. Cavalcaselle, of _Early Flemish
Painters_, etc.
[Sidenote: 15th Century: Florence]
With the 15th century, and particularly at Florence, begins the third of
the four periods in the evolution of painting. “The father of modern
painting is the Florentine Masaccio”: see the article on him (Vol. 17,
p. 833), by W. M. Rossetti, who says “he led the way in representing the
objects of nature correctly, with action, liveliness and relief.... All
the greatest artists of Italy, through studying the Brancacci chapel,
became his champions and disciples.” For the other great Florentine
names of the century see the articles: MASOLINO DA PANICALE, by
Rossetti; BRUNELLESCHI, architect, student of perspective, and, with
Masolino, master of Masaccio; the two earlier LIPPI, by Rossetti;
BOTTICELLI, by Sir Sidney Colvin; GOZZOLI, by Rossetti; ROSSELLI; PIERO
DI COSIMO (Vol. 21, p. 950); CASTAGNO; BALDOVINETTI, by Sir Sidney
Colvin; POLLAIUOLO; GHIRLANDAJO, father and son, by W. M. Rossetti; and,
marking the perfection of art on the formal side, BARTOLOMMEO, and
Rossetti’s article, ANDREA DEL SARTO (Vol. 1, p. 969).
[Sidenote: 15th Century: Other Parts of Italy]
As for the remainder of Italy, Sienese art declines in this century, but
there is an advance in Northern Italy and in Umbria. See the articles:
FRANCESCHI, by Rossetti, MELOZZO, “the first who practised
foreshortening with much success,” and SIGNORELLI; Raphael’s master,
PERUGINO, by Rossetti; MANTEGNA, by the same author; LORENZO COSTA;
FRANCIA, by Rossetti; and at Venice, GENTILE, the VIVARINI, ANTONELLO DA
MESSINA, CARPACCIO, the BELLINI (Vol. 3, p. 700), by Sir Sidney Colvin.
[Sidenote: 15th and 16th Centuries: Northern Europe]
In Germany and the Low Countries the art of the 15th and 16th centuries
may be traced in the articles: for Germany—SCHONGAUER; DÜRER, by Sir
Sidney Colvin; GRÜN; the HOLBEINS and CRANACH, by Sir Joseph Archer
Crowe; BURGKMAIR; GRÜNEWALD; and for the Low Countries—ROGER VAN DER
WEYDEN; his greater pupil MEMLINC, by Sir J. A. Crowe and P. G. Konody,
art critic of the _Observer_ and _Daily Mail_; GOES; GERARD DAVID, by P.
G. Konody; LUCAS VAN LEYDEN (Vol. 17, p. 93); HEEMSKERK; MATSYS;
BREUGHEL; MABUSE, by Sir J. A. Crowe; FLORIS; MORO; and BRIL.
[Sidenote: 16th Century: Italian Masters]
Roughly contemporary with Dürer and Holbein the younger were the even
greater masters of Italian painting. See the articles: for
Florence—LEONARDO DA VINCI (Vol. 16, p. 444, equivalent to 35 pages of
this Guide), and MICHELANGELO (Vol. 18, p. 362), both by Sir Sidney
Colvin, and VASARI, painter and biographer of painters; for Rome—RAPHAEL
SANZIO (Vol. 22, p. 900, with 7 cuts), by the late Prof. John Henry
Middleton, and GIULIO ROMANO, by W. M. Rossetti; for North Italy—LUINI,
CORREGGIO, PARMIGIANO, and MORONI, all by Rossetti, and MORETTO; and for
Venice—GIORGIONE, by Sir Sidney Colvin; LOTTO and PALMA, TITIAN,
TINTORETTO, and PAUL VERONESE (Vol. 20, p. 965), all by W. M. Rossetti.
We have now come to modern times so far as painting is concerned. The
article PAINTING says:
[Sidenote: The Fourth Period: 17th Century and After]
By the 17th century the development of painting had passed through all
its stages, and the picture was no longer a mere silhouette or a
transcript of objects against a flat background, but rather an
enchanted mirror of the world, in which might be reflected space
beyond space in infinite recession. With this transformation of the
picture there was connected a complete change in the relation of the
artist to nature. Throughout all the earlier epochs of the art the
painter had concerned himself not with nature as a whole, but with
certain selected aspects of nature that furnished him with his
recognized subjects. These subjects were selected on account of their
intrinsic beauty or importance, and as representing intrinsic worth
they claimed to be delineated in the clearest and most substantial
fashion. In the 17th century, not only was the world as a whole
brought within the artist’s view, but it presented itself as worthy in
every part of his most reverent attention. In other words, the art of
the 17th century, and of the modern epoch in general, is democratic,
and refuses to acknowledge that difference in artistic value among the
aspects of nature which was at the basis of the essentially
aristocratic art of the Greeks and Italians.... The artist who was the
first to demonstrate convincingly this principle of modern painting
was Rembrandt.... Rembrandt in his later work attended to the
pictorial effect alone, and practically annulled the objects by
reducing them to pure tone and color. Things are not there at all, but
only the semblance or effect, or “impression” of things. Breadth is in
this way combined with the most delicate variety, and a new form of
painting, now called “impressionism,” has come into being.
See: RUBENS, by Henri Hymans, author of _Rubens: sa vie et son œuvre_,
and P. G. Konody; REMBRANDT, by John Forbes White and P. G. Konody; and
FRANS HALS, by P. G. Konody. These were the leaders of the great 17th
century school—the Dutch. For the more immediate followers of Rembrandt
see the articles: DOUW, EECKHOUT, FLINCK, MAES, HOOCH, MEER. For Rubens’
great pupil and rival and his successors, the articles VAN DYCK and
TENIERS, both by Henri Hymans and P. G. Konody, SNYDERS and the great
animal painter FYT. See BROUWER for Hals’ pupil and assistant. For the
genre painters, the articles: TER BORCH, METSU, STEEN, WOUWERMANN, and
the OSTADE family, by Sir J. A. Crowe and P. G. Konody. On the
landscapists see the articles: KONINCK, GOYEN, NEER, by Sir J. A. Crowe
and P. G. Konody; RUYSDAEL, HOBBEMA, by Sir J. A. Crowe, and BERCHEM;
and, for animal and landscape, A. VANDEVELDE, CUYP, by Sir J. A. Crowe,
and POTTER, by P. G. Konody. The other important articles for the Dutch
school of the 17th century are: HEEM, HEDA, HONDECOETER, WEENIX and
HUYSUM, painters of still life, etc.; W. VANDEVELDE and BACKHUYSEN,
marine painters; and at the close of the period, or marking its decline,
MIERIS and NETSCHER.
In the article on PAINTING this summary follows the outline of the
general development of painting through the 17th century:
[Sidenote: Kinds of Painting]
The fact that the Dutch painters have left us masterpieces in so many
different walks of painting, makes it convenient that we should add
here some brief notes on characteristic modern phases of the art on
which they stamped the impress of their genius. The normal subject for
the artist, as we have seen, up to the 17th century, was the
figure-subject, generally in some connexion with religion. The
Egyptian portrayed the men and women of his time, but the pictures,
through their connexion with the sepulchre, had a quasi-religious
significance.
_Portraiture_ is differentiated from this kind of subject-picture
through stages which it would be interesting to trace, but the
portrait, though secular, is always treated in such a way as to exalt
or dignify the sitter. Another kind of figure-piece, also
differentiated by degrees from the subject-picture of the loftier
kind, is the so-called _Genre Painting_, in which the human actors and
their goings-on are in themselves indifferent, trivial, or mean, and
even repellent; and in which, accordingly, intrinsic interest of
subject has disappeared to be replaced by an artistic interest of a
different kind. _Landscape_, in modern times so important a branch of
painting, is also an outcome of the traditional figure-piece, for at
first it is nothing but a background to a scene in which human figures
are prominent. _Marine Painting_ is a branch of landscape art
differentiated from this, but supplied at first in the same way with
figure-interest. The origin of _Animal Painting_ is to be sought
partly in figure-pieces, where, as in Egypt and Assyria, animals play
a part in scenes of human life, and partly in landscapes, in which
cattle, &c., are introduced to enliven the foreground. The _Hunting
Picture_, combining a treatment of figures and animals in action with
landscape of a picturesque character, gives an artist like Rubens a
welcome opportunity, and the picture of _Dead Game_ may be regarded as
its offshoot. This brings us to the important class of _Still-life
Painting_, the relation of which to the figure-piece can be traced
through the genre picture and the portrait.
The article then proceeds to sketch the history and development of
different kinds of painting:
_Portraiture_:
It is Gentile and Giovanni Bellini ... who may be regarded as the
fathers of modern portrait painting. Venetian art was always more
secular in spirit than that of the rest of Italy, and Venetian
portraits were abundant.... Some of the finest portraits in the world
are the work of the great Venetians of the 16th century, for they
combine pictorial quality with an air of easy greatness which later
painters find it hard to impart to their creations. Though greatly
damaged, Titian’s equestrian portrait of Charles V. at Madrid (fig.
26, Plate VIII.) is one of the very finest of existing works of the
kind. It is somewhat remarkable that of the other Italian painters who
executed portraits the most successful was the idealist Raphael, whose
papal portraits of Julius II. and Leo X. are masterpieces of firm and
accurate delineation. Leonardo’s “Monna Lisa” is a study rather than a
portrait proper.
The realistic vein, which, as we have seen, runs through northern
painting, explains to some extent the extraordinary merit in
portraiture of Holbein, who represents the culmination of the efforts
in this direction of masters like Jan van Eyck and Dürer.... Frans
Hals of Haarlem, one of the most brilliant painters of the
impressionist school that he did much to found, achieved remarkable
success in the artistic grouping of a number of portraits.... As
portraitists the other great 17th-century masters fall into two sets,
Rembrandt and Velazquez contrasting with Rubens and his pupil Van
Dyck.... In the 18th century, though France produced some good limners
and Spain Goya, yet on the whole England was the home of the best
portraiture. Van Dyck had been in the service of Charles I., and
foreign representatives of his style carried on afterwards the
tradition of his essentially courtly art, but there existed at the
same time a line of native British portraitists of whom the latest and
best was Hogarth. One special form of portraiture, the _miniature_
(_q.v._), has been characteristically English throughout....
_Genre_:
Probably the most excellent painters of genre are Ter Borch, Metsu and
Brouwer, the two first painters of the life of the upper classes, the
last of peasant existence in some of its most unlovely aspects. The
pictures of Brouwer are among the most instructive documents of modern
painting.... He is best represented in the Munich Pinacotek, from
which has been selected fig. 30, Plate IX. Hardly less admirable are
Teniers in Flanders; De Hooch, Ver Meer of Delft, Jan Steen, A. van
Ostade, in Holland, while in more modern times Hogarth, Chardin, Sir
David Wilkie, Meissonier, and a host of others carry the tradition of
the work down to our own day (see Table VIII.)....
_Landscape and Marine Painting_:
Several of the Dutch masters, even before the time of Rembrandt,
excelled in the truthful rendering of the scenes and objects of their
own simple but eminently paintable country; but it was Rembrandt, with
his pupil, de Koningk, and his rival in this department Jacob
Ruysdael, who were the first to show how a perfectly natural and
unconventional rendering of a stretch of country under a broad expanse
of sky might be raised by poetry and ideal feeling to the rank of one
of the world’s masterpieces of painting. Great as was Rembrandt in
what Bode has called “the landscape of feeling,” the “Haarlem from the
Dunes” of Ruysdael (fig. 31, Plate IX.) with some others of this
artist’s acknowledged successes, surpass even his achievement....
Among Turner’s chief titles to honour is the fact that he portrayed
the sea in all its moods with a knowledge and sympathy that give him a
place alone among painters of marine....
_Animal Painting_:
In Holland, in the 17th century, the animal nature presented itself
under the more contemplative aspect of the ruminants in the lush
water-meadows. True to their principle of doing everything they
attempt in the best possible way, the Dutch paint horses (Cuyp,
Wouwerman) and cattle (Cuyp, Adrian Vandevelde, Paul Potter) with
canonical perfection, while Hondekoeter delineates live cocks and
hens, and Weenix dead hares and moor-fowl, in a way that makes us feel
that the last word on such themes has been spoken. There is a large
white turkey by Hondekoeter in which the truth of mass and of texture
in the full soft plumage is combined with a delicacy in the detail of
the airy filaments, that is the despair of the most accomplished
modern executant.
But animals have been treated more nobly than when shown in Flemish
agitation or in Dutch phlegmatic calm. Leonardo da Vinci was specially
famed for his horses, which he may have treated with something of the
majesty of Pheidias....
_Still-Life Painting_:
There is no finer Rembrandt for pictorial quality than the picture in
the Louvre representing the carcase of a flayed ox in a flesher’s
booth. As illustrating the principle of modern painting this form of
the graphic art has a value and importance which in itself it could
hardly claim.... The way was prepared for it as has been noticed, by
the minute and forcible rendering of accessory objects in the
figure-pieces and portraits of the early Flemish masters, of Dürer,
and above all of Holbein. The painting of flower and fruit pieces
without figure interest by Jan Breughel the younger, who was born in
1601, represents a stage onward, and contemporary with him were
several other Dutch and Flemish specialists in this department, among
whom Jan David de Heem, born 1603, and the rather older Willem Klaasz
Heda may be mentioned. Their subjects sometimes took the form of a
luncheon table with vessels, plate, fruit and other eatables; at other
times of groups of costly vessels of gold, silver and glass, or of
articles used in art or science, such as musical instruments and the
like; and it is especially to be noted that the handling stops always
short of any illusive reproduction of the actual textures of the
objects, while at the same time the differing surfaces of stuffs and
metal and glass, of smooth-rinded apples and gnarled lemons, are all
most justly rendered.... In this form of painting the French
18th-century artist Chardin, whose impasto was fuller, whose colouring
more juicy than those of the Dutch, has achieved imperishable fame
(see fig. 33, Plate X.); and the modern French, who understand better
than others the technical business of painting, have carried on the
fine tradition which has culminated in the work of Vollon. The Germans
have also painted still-life to good result, but the comparative
weakness in technique of British painters has kept them in this
department rather in the background.
[Sidenote: National Schools of Painting]
The history of painting since the 17th century may best be studied in
the Britannica in the order in which “recent schools” are treated (Vol.
20, pp. 497–518), and this plan will be followed here in a brief
outline, giving only a few out of many articles for each country.
[Sidenote: British]
British art in the 17th and 18th centuries is dependent largely on
foreign and particularly Flemish influences—Van Dyck in especial. See
Rossetti’s articles on LELY and KNELLER, who, like Holbein and Van Dyck,
were importations, but, unlike them, were pretty thoroughly Anglicized.
For the first purely English painter see Austin Dobson’s article HOGARTH
(Vol. 13, p. 566). For “the most prominent figure in the English school
of painting” whose _Discourses_ largely affected English notions of
aesthetics, see SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS; also the article on his rival
GEORGE ROMNEY. And read Rossetti’s article GAINSBOROUGH; and those on
the portrait painters RAEBURN and SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. On the Norwich
school of landscapists see the articles CROME, COTMAN and GEORGE
VINCENT. For foreign influences on landscape painting see RICHARD WILSON
(Vol. 28, p. 695) for French influence, and JOHN CONSTABLE (Vol. 6, p.
982), by C. J. Holmes, author of _Constable and His Influence on
Landscape Painting_, for German. With the article on the greatest of
English landscapists J. M. W. TURNER (Vol. 27, p. 474), by Sir George
Reid, the student should read Frederic Harrison’s article on JOHN
RUSKIN, himself an exquisite draughtsman, although unable to compose a
picture, whose championship of Turner and general theories of art so
strongly influenced British painting. See also the articles on the
subject painter THOMAS STOTHARD and the landscapist GIRTIN; and on the
genre painters, SIR DAVID WILKIE, by J. Miller Gray, late curator of the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, MULREADY, WILLIAM COLLINS, and
FRITH. See the article WILLIAM BLAKE, by J. W. Comyns-Carr, author of
_Essays on Art_, for an appreciation of that remarkable genius, who in
his combination of painting and poetry may be reckoned a forerunner of
the Pre-Raphaelites. On the P. R. Brotherhood see the articles: D. G.
ROSSETTI, by F. G. Stephens, former art-critic to the _Athenaeum_ and,
for Rossetti’s literary work, Theodore Watts-Dunton; SIR J. E. MILLAIS
and W. HOLMAN HUNT, by Cosmo Monkhouse, the poet and critic; and FORD
MADOX BROWN, by W. M. Rossetti, himself a member of the Brotherhood—see
the article on ROSSETTI. Of much the same school were several later men.
See, for instance, the articles: LORD LEIGHTON, by Cosmo Monkhouse;
WILLIAM MORRIS, by Arthur Waugh; BURNE-JONES, by Lawrence Binyon, poet
and author of monographs on Blake, Crome, etc.; GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS,
by Malcolm Bell, biographer of Burne-Jones; WALTER CRANE. On the
“Newlyn” school, see the article NEWLYN; on the etchers, WHISTLER, by
Frederick Wedmore, author of _Whistler’s Etchings_, and WILLIAM STRANG
and SIR F. S. HADEN, by Sir Charles Holroyd, artist and critic; on
figure painters, SIR JOHN GILBERT, ALBERT MOORE, JOHN PETTIE, G. H.
BOUGHTON, ALMA-TADEMA, SIR E. J. POYNTER and SIR W. B. RICHMOND; for
painters of sentiment, MARCUS STONE, SIR LUKE FILDES and SIR HUBERT VON
HERKOMER; among portrait painters, J. J. SHANNON, and C. W. FURSE; the
decorator FRANK BRANGWYN; the realistic landscapists, H. W. B. DAVIS,
DAVID MURRAY, SIR E. A. WATERLOW, VICAT COLE; the more imaginative and
romantic painters of landscape, ALFRED W. HUNT, CECIL GORDON LAWSON,
JOHN LINNELL, G. H. MASON, FREDERICK WALKER, SIR ALFRED EAST, J. BUXTON
KNIGHT, GEORGE CLAUSEN; the “subjective landscapist” B. W. LEADER; the
marine painters HENRY MOORE, C. NAPIER HEMY, JAMES CLARKE HOOK; the
animal-painters BRETON, RIVIERE, J. M. SWAN, and, for the earlier
period, LANDSEER; the Scottish artists ORCHARDSON, by Sir Walter
Armstrong, director of National Gallery of Ireland; JOHN PETTIE, THOMAS
FAED, DAVID MURRAY, ARTHUR MELVILLE, JOHN LAVERY, ROBERT BROUGH, SIR
JAMES GUTHRIE, and SIR GEORGE REID, of whom we have already spoken as a
contributor to the Britannica; and the water colorists SIR JOHN GILBERT,
by F. G. Stephens, former art critic of the _Athenaeum_, HENRY MOORE,
ALBERT MOORE, GEORGE CLAUSEN, E. J. GREGORY, BIRKET FOSTER, HAAG, KATE
GREENAWAY, by M. H. Spielmann, biographer of Kate Greenaway. On English
illustrators, besides those already named, Hogarth and Blake notably,
see the articles THOMAS BEWICK, BARTOLOZZI, FLAXMAN, by Sir Sidney
Colvin, CATTERMOLE, SAMUEL PROUT, JAMES WARD, GILLRAY, BUNBURY,
ROWLANDSON, CRUIKSHANK, JOHN LEECH, RICHARD DOYLE, TENNIEL, SIR JOHN
GILBERT, AUBREY BEARDSLEY, by E. F. Strange, THOMAS CRESWICK, DU
MAURIER, C. S. KEENE, FREDERICK WALKER, G. J. PINWELL, R. CALDECOTT,
HARRY FURNISS, SIR F. C. GOULD, E. LINLEY SAMBOURNE, PHIL MAY, LEONARD
RAVEN-HILL.
[Sidenote: French]
On French painting of the 17th century read: on landscape, POUSSIN, and
CLAUDE OF LORRAINE (Vol. 6, p. 463), by W. M. Rossetti; the historical
and religious painters LE BRUN and LE SUEUR; and the portraitist
PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE. For the 18th century: the articles WATTEAU and
FRAGONARD, by P. G. Konody; FRANÇOIS BOUCHER, LANCRET, VERNET the
eldest, RIGAUD, CHARDIN, and GREUZE, by Lady Dilke, author of _French
Painters of the 18th Century_.
In the 19th century came a classical reaction: see the article on its
leader JACQUES LOUIS DAVID and his pupils and imitators J. B. REGNAULT,
GIRODET, BARON GUÉRIN, PRUD’HON; then a mediate movement, on which see
INGRES, by Lady Dilke, and GROS; and then a Romantic revolt—see
DELACROIX, GÉRICAULT, ISABEY. Other important names are ZIEM, MEISSONIER
and ROSE BONHEUR, both by Henri Frantz of the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_,
CABANEL, BAUDRY, GÉRÔME, BOUGUEREAU, BENJAMIN CONSTANT, CORMON, BONNAT
and HENNER. On the Barbizon school, see the articles BARBIZON, THEODORE
ROUSSEAU, DAUBIGNY, COROT, and DIAZ, by D. Croal Thomson, author of _The
Barbizon School_, J. F. MILLET, by Lady Dilke; DUPRÉ, FRANÇAIS and
HARPIGNIES. Ranking with Corot and Millet in influence is COURBET; see
the article on Courbet, by Henri Frantz of the Paris _Gazette des Beaux
Arts_, and on Courbet’s followers, LEGROS, FANTIN-LATOUR, RIBOT, by
Frederick Wedmore, CAROLUS-DURAN. Contrasted with these nature-lovers
are the more mystic MOREAU, RICARD, DELAUNAY, FROMENTIN and CAZIN.
The later names we may classify: the decorative painter—PUVIS DE
CHAVANNES, by Henri Frantz; the impressionists—see the article
IMPRESSIONISM (Vol. 14, pp. 343–346), by D. S. MacColl, keeper of the
Tate Gallery, and author of _Nineteenth Century Art_, and in the article
PAINTING the discussion on pp. 473–474 of Vol. 20—MANET, by Henri
Frantz, MONET, DEGAS, RENOIR; the plein-airists JULES BRETON,
BASTIEN-LEPAGE, by Henri Frantz; ROLL, GERVEX; the symbolist GUSTAVE
MOREAU; the military painters ALPHONSE DE NEUVILLE and DETAILLE; and the
“neo-evangelist” CAZIN.
[Sidenote: Belgium and Holland]
The art of Belgium and Holland in the 19th century is to be studied in
Prof. Muther’s sections on these two countries (pp. 506–509) in the
article PAINTING, and in such separate articles as LEYS, ALFRED STEVENS
(to be distinguished from the English sculptor), BRAEKELEER, WILLEMS,
CLAYS, PORTAELS, WAUTERS, CONSTANTIN MEUNIER, VERLAT, the DE VRIENDTS,
KHNOPFF, already mentioned as a critic and a contributor to the
Britannica,—all these are Belgians; and, in Holland, ISRAËLS, MARIS,
MAUVE.
[Sidenote: Germany]
Going back to the close of the 18th century for German painters
influenced by Winckelmann, the important articles are MENGS and
CARSTENS. See OVERBECK, by J. Beavington Atkinson for the German
“pre-Raphaelite” movement—and the articles, PETER VON CORNELIUS, by W.
Cave Thomas, author of _Mural or Monumental Education_; the SCHADOWS, by
J. B. Atkinson; VEIT, and SCHNORR. The other more important names before
1870 are: BETHEL, SCHWIND, ACHENBACH and PRELLER. The glorification of
the Empire and of Prussia is the theme of the new historical school: see
particularly MENZEL. The study of the old masters is to be seen in
KAULBACH and LENBACH. Among the members of a more modern school are:
LIEBERMANN, KALCKREUTH, KELLER, UHDE; of another reaction, FEUERBACH,
THOMA, and BÖCKLIN, by Henri Frantz; and of a sculptural order _Klinger_
and _Stuck_.
[Sidenote: Austria-Hungary]
As for Austria-Hungary, we may here mention only three articles: MAKART,
PETTEKOFEN, and MUNKACSY, by E. F. Strange.
[Sidenote: Italy]
In Italy since the great days of the 17th century, we may mention
TIEPOLO, CANALE and GUARDI before the 19th century, and in that era
SEGANTINI, GIOVANNI COSTA, and MUZZIOLI.
[Sidenote: Spain]
The art of Spain has not been touched heretofore in this summary. For
the 16th century see the articles COELLO, BECERRA, VINCENTE JOANES,
NAVARRETE, EL GRECO; and for the 17th, _the_ Spanish century, HERRERA,
his great pupil VELAZQUEZ, by J. Forbes White and P. G. Konody; CANO,
and ZURBARAN and MURILLO, both by W. M. Rossetti. In the 18th century
the only great Spanish artist was GOYA Y LUCIENTES, painter and etcher.
On the 19th century see: FORTUNY, by Alfred Lys Baldry, art critic of
the London _Globe_; PRADILLA; BENLLIURE Y GIL; SOROLLA Y BASTIDA;
MADRAZO Y KUNT; ZULOAGA.
[Sidenote: Other European Countries]
To the other countries of Europe, fully as their painting is treated in
the Britannica, we can devote little space here. It may suffice to
mention the Norwegian HANS DAHL and the Russians REPIN and VERESCHAGIN.
[Sidenote: The United States]
On painting in the United States, see the section in the article
PAINTING, by Prof. J. C. Van Dyke of Rutgers College (Vol. 20, pp.
518–519); and the articles J. S. COPLEY, BENJAMIN WEST, JOHN TRUMBULL,
GILBERT STUART, JOHN VANDERLYN, WASHINGTON ALLSTON, REMBRANDT PEALE, J.
W. JARVIS, THOMAS SULLY, THOMAS COLE, ASHER B. DURAND, J. F. KENSETT, F.
E. CHURCH, CHESTER HARDING, HENRY INMAN, WILLIAM PAGE, G. P. A. HEALY,
DANIEL HUNTINGTON, W. S. MOUNT, W. M. HUNT, JOHN LA FARGE, GEORGE
FULLER, EASTMAN JOHNSON, ELIHU VEDDER, LEONARD OCHTMAN, WINSLOW HOMER,
A. H. WYANT, GEORGE INNESS, HOMER D. MARTIN, SWAIN GIFFORD, the MORANS,
JERVIS MCENTEE, D. W. TRYON, ALBERT BIERSTADT, W. H. BEARD, BLASHFIELD,
J. W. ALEXANDER, W. M. CHASE, DUVENECK, CECILIA BEAUX, W. H. LOW, H. S.
MOWBRAY, H. O. TANNER, E. C. TARBELL, R. W. VONNOH,—and the Americans
who have made their home and their fame in Europe, like WHISTLER,
SARGENT, E. A. ABBEY and J. J. SHANNON, and those whose work is
Continental, or even purely Parisian in tone, like W. T. DANNAT, GEORGE
HITCHCOCK, GARI MELCHERS, C. S. PEARCE, E. L. WEEKS and WALTER GAY. On
illustrators, see the articles: HOWARD PYLE, FREDERICK REMINGTON, C. S.
REINHART, W. T. SMEDLEY, ROBERT BLUM, CHARLES DANA GIBSON, W. HAMILTON
GIBSON, the wood-engraver TIMOTHY COLE, the etcher JOSEPH PENNELL; and
for caricature the article THOMAS NAST and the section on the United
States in M. H. Spielmann’s article CARICATURE (Vol. 5, pp. 334–335).
For a fuller list of articles on painting, drawing, engraving, etc.,
with articles on sculpture, see the end of the next chapter _Sculpture_.
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