The French Impressionists (1860-1900) Part 5

VIEW OF THE HAGUE]

We do not pretend to have mentioned in this chapter all the painters directly connected with the first Impressionist movement. We have confined ourselves to enumerating the most important only, and each of them would deserve a complete essay. But our object will have been achieved, if we have inspired art-lovers with just esteem for this brave phalanx of artists who have proved better than any aesthetic commentaries the vitality, the originality, and the logic of Manet's theories, the great importance of the notions introduced by him into painting, and who have, on the other hand, clearly demonstrated the uselessness of official teaching. Far from the traditions and methods of the School, the best of their knowledge and of their talent is due to their profound and sincere contemplation of nature and to their freedom of spirit. And for that reason they will have a permanent place in the evolution of their art.

VIII

THE MODERN ILl.u.s.tRATORS CONNECTED WITH IMPRESSIONISM: RAFFAeLLI, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, FORAIN, CHeRET, ETC.

Not the least important result of Impressionism has been the veritable revolution effected by it in the art of ill.u.s.tration. It was only natural that its principles should have led to it. The subst.i.tution of the beauty of character for the beauty of proportion was bound to move the artists to regard ill.u.s.tration in a new light; and as pictorial Impressionism was born of the same movement of ideas which created the naturalist novel and the impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and the Goncourts, and moreover as these men were united by close relations and a common defence, Edouard Manet's modern ideas soon took up the commentary of the books dealing with modern life and the description of actual spectacles.

The Impressionists themselves have not contributed towards ill.u.s.tration.

Their work has consisted in raising to the style of grand painting subjects, that seemed at the best only worthy of the proportion of vignettes, in opposition to the subjects qualified as "n.o.ble" by the School. The series of works by Manet and Degas may be considered as admirable ill.u.s.trations to the novels by Zola and the Goncourts. It is a parallel research in modern psychologic truth. But this research has remained confined to pictures. It may be presumed that, had they wished to do so, Manet and Degas could have admirably ill.u.s.trated certain contemporary novels, and Renoir could have produced a masterpiece in commenting, say, upon Verlaine's _Fetes Galantes_. The only things that can be mentioned here are a few drawings composed by Manet for Edgar A.

Poe's _The Raven_ and Mallarme's _L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune_, in addition to a few music covers without any great interest.

But if the Impressionists themselves have neglected actively to a.s.sist the interesting school of modern ill.u.s.tration, a whole legion of draughtsmen have immediately been inspired by their principles. One of their most original characteristics was the realistic representation of the scenes, the _mise en cadre_, and it afforded these draughtsmen an opportunity for revolutionising book ill.u.s.tration. There had already been some excellent artists who occupied themselves with vignette drawings, like Tony Johannot and Celestin Nanteuil, whose pretty and smart frontispieces are to be found in the old editions of Balzac. The genius of Honore Daumier and the high fancy of Gavarni and of Grevin had already announced a serious protest of modern sentiment against academic taste, in returning on many points to the free tradition of Eisen, of the two Moreaus and of Debucourt. Since 1845 the draughtsman Constantin Guys, Baudelaire's friend, gave evidence, in his most animated water-colour drawings, of a curious vision of nervous elegance and of expressive skill quite in accord with the ideas of the day.

Impressionism, and also the revelation of the j.a.panese colour prints, gave an incredible vigour to these intuitive glimpses. Certain characteristics will date from the days of Impressionism. It is due to Impressionism that artists have ventured to show in ill.u.s.tration, for instance, figures in the foreground cut through by the margin, rising perspectives, figures in the background that seem to stand on a higher plane than the others, people seen from a second story; in a word, all that life presents to our eyes, without the annoying consideration for "style" and for arrangement, which the academic spirit obstinately insisted to apply to the ill.u.s.tration of modern life. Degas in particular has given many examples of this novelty in composition. One of his pastels has remained typical, owing to the scandal caused by it: he represents a dance-scene at the Opera, seen from the orchestra. The neck of a double ba.s.s rises in the middle of the picture and cuts into it, a large black silhouette, behind which sparkle the gauze-dresses and the lights. That can be observed any evening, and yet it would be difficult to recapitulate all the railleries and all the anger caused by so natural an audacity. Modern ill.u.s.tration was to be the pretext of a good many more outbursts!

We must now consider four artists of great importance who are remarkable painters and have greatly raised the art of ill.u.s.tration. This t.i.tle ill.u.s.trator, despised by the official painters, should be given them as the one which has secured them the best claim to fame. They have restored to this t.i.tle all its merit and all its brilliancy and have introduced into ill.u.s.tration the most serious qualities of painting. Of these four men the first in date is M.J.F. Raffaelli, who introduced himself about 1875 with some remarkable and intensely picturesque ill.u.s.trations in colours in various magazines. He gave an admirable series of _Parisian Types_, in alb.u.m form, and a series of etchings to accompany the text of M. Huysmans, describing the curious river "la Bievre" which penetrates Paris in a thousand curves, sometimes subterranean, sometimes above ground, and serves the tanners for was.h.i.+ng the leather. This series is a model of modern ill.u.s.tration. But, apart from the book, the entire pictorial work of M. Raffaelli is a humorous and psychological ill.u.s.tration of the present time. He has painted with unique truth and spirit the working men's types and the small _bourgeois_, the poor, the hospital patients and the roamers of the outskirts of Paris. He has succeeded in being the poet of the sickly and dirty landscapes by which the capitals are surrounded; he has rendered their anaemic charm, the confused perspectives of houses, fences, walls and little gardens, and their smoke, under the melancholy of rainy skies. With an irony free from bitterness he has noted the clumsy gestures of the labourer in his Sunday garb and the grotesque silhouettes of the small townsmen, and has compiled a gallery of very real sociologic interest. M. Raffaelli has also exhibited Parisian landscapes in which appear great qualities of light. He excels in rendering the mornings in the spring, with their pearly skies, their pale lights, their transparency and their slight shadows, and finally he has proved his mastery by some large portraits, fresh harmonies, generally devoted to the study of different qualities of white. If the name "Impressionist" meant, as has been wrongly believed, an artist who confines himself to giving the impression of what he sees, then M.

Raffaelli would be the real Impressionist. He suggests more than he paints. He employs a curious technique: he often leaves a sky completely bare, throwing on to the white of the canvas a few colour notes which suffice to give the illusion. He has a decided preference for white and black, and paints very slightly in small touches. His very correct feeling for values makes him an excellent painter; but what interests him beyond all, is psychologic expression. He notes it with so hasty a pencil, that one might almost say that he writes with colour. He is also an etcher of great merit, and an original sculptor. He has invented small bas-reliefs in bronze which can be attached to the wall, like sketches or nick-nacks; and he has applied his talent even to renewing the material for painting. He is an ingenious artist and a prolific producer, a roguish, but sympathetic, observer of the life of the small people, which has not prevented him from painting very seriously when he wanted to, as is witnessed among other works by his very fine portrait of M. Clemenceau speaking at a public meeting, in the presence of a vociferous audience from which rise some hundred of heads whose expressions are noted with really splendid energy and fervour.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who died recently, insane, leaves a great work behind him. He had a kind of cruel genius. Descended from one of the greatest families of France, badly treated by nature who made him a kind of ailing dwarf, he seemed to take a bitter pleasure in the study of modern vice. He painted scenes at cafe-concerts and the rooms of wantons with intense truth. n.o.body has revealed better than he the lowness and suffering of the creatures "of pleasure," as they have been dubbed by the heartrending irony of life. Lautrec has shown the artificiality of the painted faces; the vulgarity of the types of the prost.i.tutes of low origin; the infamous gestures, the disorder, the slovenliness of the dwellings of these women; all the shady side of their existence. It has been said that he loved ugliness. As a matter of fact, he did not exaggerate, he raised a powerful accusation against everything he saw. But his terrible clairvoyance pa.s.sed for caricature.

This sad psychologist was a great painter; he pleased himself with dressing in rose-coloured costumes the coa.r.s.est and most vulgar creatures he painted, such as one can find at the cabarets and concerts, and he enjoyed the contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice and poverty; Lautrec's two great influences have been the j.a.panese and Degas. Of the former he retained the love for decorative arabesques and the unconventional grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmans.h.i.+p, expressive in its broad simplification, and one might say that the pupil has often been worthy of the masters. One can only regret that Lautrec should have confined his vision and his high faculties to the study of a small and very Parisian world; but, seeing his works, one cannot deny the science, the spirit and the grand bearing of his art. He has also signed some fine posters, notably a _Bruant_ which is a masterpiece of its kind.

Degas's deep influence can be found again in J.L. Forain, who has made himself known by an immense series of drawings for the ill.u.s.trated papers, drawings as remarkable in themselves as they are, through their legends, bitterly sarcastic in spirit. These drawings form a synthesis of the defects of the _bourgeoisie_, which is at the same time amusing and grave. They also concern, though less happily, the political world, in which the artist, a little intoxicated with his success, has thought himself able to exercise an influence by scoffing at the parliamentary regime. Forain's drawing has a nervous character which does, however, not weaken its science: every stroke reveals something and has an astonis.h.i.+ng power. In his less known painting can be traced still more clearly the style and influence of his master Degas. They are generally incidents behind the scenes and at night restaurants, where caricatured types are painted with great force. But they are insistently exaggerated, they have not the restraint, the ironical and discreet plausibility, which give so much flavour, so much value to Degas's studies. Nevertheless, Forain's pictures are very significant and are of real interest. He is decidedly the most interesting newspaper ill.u.s.trator of his whole generation, the one whose ephemeral art most closely approaches grand painting, and one of those who have most contributed towards the transformation of ill.u.s.tration for the contemporary press.

Jules Cheret has made for himself an important and splendid position in contemporary art. He commenced as a lithographic workman and lived for a long time in London. About 1870 Cheret designed his first posters in black, white and red; these were at the time the only colours used. By and by he perfected this art and found the means of adding other tones and of drawing them on the lithographic stone. He returned to France, started a small studio, and gradually carried poster art to the admirable point at which it has arrived. At the same time Cheret drew and painted and composed himself his models. About 1885 his name became famous, and it has not ceased growing since. Some writers, notably the eminent critic Roger Marx and the novelist Huysmans, hailed in Cheret an original artist as well as a learned technician. He then exhibited decorative pictures, pastels and drawings, which placed him in the first rank. Cheret is universally known. The type of the Parisian woman created by him, and the multi-coloured harmony of his works will not be forgotten. His will be the honour of having invented the artistic poster, this feast for the eyes, this fascinating art of the street, which formerly languished in a tedious and dull display of commercial advertis.e.m.e.nts. He has been the promoter of an immense movement; he has been imitated, copied, parodied, but he will always remain inimitable.

He has succeeded in realising on paper by means of lithography, the pastels and gouache drawings in which his admirable colourist's fancy mixed the most difficult shades. In Cheret can be found all the principles of Impressionism: opposing lights, coloured shadows, complementary reflections, all employed with masterly sureness and delightful charm. It is decorative Impressionism, conceived in a superior way; and this simple poster-man, despised by the painters, has proved himself equal to most. He has transformed the street, in the open light, into a veritable Salon, where his works have become famous. When this too modest artist decided to show his pictures and drawings, they were a revelation. The most remarkable pastellists of the period were astonished and admired his skill, his profound knowledge of technique, his continual _tours-de-force_ which he disguised under a s.h.i.+mmering gracefulness. The State had the good sense to entrust him with some large mural decorations, in which he unfolded the scale of his sparkling colours, and affirmed his spirit, his fancy and his dreamy art. Cheret's harmonies remain secrets; he uses them for the representation of characters from the Italian comedy, thrown with fiendish _verve_ upon a background of a sky, fiery with the Bengal lights of a fairy-like carnival, and he strangely intermingles the reality of the movements with the most arbitrary fancy. Cheret has also succeeded in proving his artistic descent by a beautiful series of drawings in sanguine: he descends from Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard; he is a Frenchman of pure blood; and when one has done admiring the grace and the happy animation of his imagination, one can only be surprised to see on what serious and sure a technique are based these decorations which appear improvised.

Cheret's art is the smile of Impressionism and the best demonstration of the decorative logic of this art.

These are the four artists of great merit who have created the transition between Impressionist painting and ill.u.s.tration. It would be fit to put aside Toulouse-Lautrec, who was much younger, but his work is too directly connected with that of Degas for one to take into account the difference of age. He produced between 1887 and 1900 works which might well have been ante-dated by fifteen years. We shall study in the next chapter his Neo-Impressionist comrades, and we shall now speak of some ill.u.s.trators more advanced in years than he. The oldest in date is the engraver Henri Guerard, who died three years ago. He had married Eva Gonzales and was a friend of Manet's, many of whose works have been engraved by him. He was an artist of decided and original talent, who also occupied himself successfully with pyrogravure, and who was happily inspired by the j.a.panese colour-prints. His etchings deserve a place of honour in the folios of expert collectors; they are strong and broad. As to the engraver Felix Buhot, he was a rather delicate colourist in black and white; his Paris scenes will always be considered charming works. In spite of his Spanish origin, the painter, _aquarelliste_, and draughtsman Daniel Vierge, should be added to the list of the men connected with Impressionism. His ill.u.s.trations are those of a great artist--admirable in colour, movement and observation; all the great principles of Impressionism are embodied in them. But there are four more ill.u.s.trators of the first rank: Steinlen, Louis Legrand, Paul Renouard and Auguste Lepere.

Steinlen has been enormously productive: he is specially remarkable for his ill.u.s.trations. Those which he has designed for Aristide Bruant's volume of songs, _Dans la rue_, are masterpieces of their kind. They contain treasures of bitter observation, quaintness and knowledge. The soul of the lower cla.s.ses is shown in them with intense truth, bitter revolt and comprehensive philosophy. Steinlen has also designed some beautiful posters, pleasing pastels, lithographs of incontestable technical merit, and beautifully eloquent political drawings. It cannot be said that he is an Impressionist in the strict sense of the word; he applied his colour in flat tints, more like an engraver than a painter; but in him too can be felt the stamp of Degas, and he is one of those who best demonstrate that, without Impressionism, they could not have been what they are.

The same may be said of Louis Legrand, a pupil of Felicien Rops, an admirably skilful etcher, a draughtsman of keen vision, and a painter of curious character, who has in many ways forestalled the artists of to-day. Louis Legrand also shows to what extent the example of Manet and Degas has revolutionised the art of ill.u.s.tration, in freeing the painters from obsolete laws, and guiding them towards truth and frank psychological study. Legrand is full of them, without resembling them.

We must not forget that, besides the technical innovation (division of tones, study of complementary colours), Impressionism has brought us novelty of composition, realism of character and great liberty in the choice of subjects. From this point of view Rops himself, in spite of his symbolist tendencies, could not be cla.s.sed with any other group, if it were not that any kind of cla.s.sification in art is useless and inaccurate. However that may be, Louis Legrand has signed some volumes resplendent with the most seductive qualities.

Paul Renouard has devoted himself to newspaper ill.u.s.tration, but with what surprising prodigality of spirit and knowledge! The readers of the "Graphic" will know. This masterly virtuoso of the pencil might give drawing-lessons to many members of the Inst.i.tute! The feeling for the life of crowds, psychology of types, spirited and rapid notation, astonis.h.i.+ng ease in overcoming difficulties--these are his undeniable gifts. And again we must recognise in Renouard the example of Degas and Manet. His exceptional fecundity only helps to give more authority to his pencil. Renouard's drawings at the Exhibition of 1900 were, perhaps, more beautiful than the rest of his work. There was notably a series of studies made from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, an acc.u.mulation of wonders of perspectives framing scenes of such animation and caprice as to take away one's breath.

Finally, Auguste Lepere appears as the Debucourt of our time. As painter, pastellist and wood-engraver he has produced since 1870, and has won for himself the first place among French engravers. It would be difficult to recount the volumes, alb.u.ms and covers on which the fancy of his burin has played; but it is particularly in wood-engraving that he stands without rival. Not only has he produced masterpieces of it, but he has pa.s.sionately devoted himself to raising this admirable art, the glory of the beautiful books of olden days, and to give back to it the l.u.s.tre which had been eclipsed by mechanical processes. Lepere has started some publications for this purpose; he has had pupils of great merit, and he must be considered the master of the whole generation of modern wood-engravers, just as Cheret is the undisputed master of the poster. Lepere's ruling quality is strength. He seems to have rediscovered the mediaeval limners' secrets of cutting the wood, giving the necessary richness to the ink, creating a whole scale of half-tones, and specially of adapting the design to typographic printing, and making of it, so to say, an ornament and a decorative extension for the type.

Lepere is a wood-engraver with whom none of his contemporaries can be compared; as regards his imagination, it is that of an altogether curious artist. He excels in composing and expressing the life, the animation, the soul of the streets and the picturesque side of the populace. Herein he is much inspired by Manet and, if we go back to the real tradition, by Guys, Debucourt, the younger Moreau and by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. He is decidedly a Realist of French lineage, who owes nothing to the Academy and its formulas.

It would be evidently unreasonable to attach to Impressionism all that is ante-academical, and between the two extremes there is room for a crowd of interesting artists. We shall not succ.u.mb to the prejudice of the School by declaring, in our turn, that there is no salvation outside Impressionism, and we have been careful to state repeatedly that, if Impressionism has a certain number of principles as kernel, its applications and its influence have a radiation which it is difficult to limit. What can be absolutely demonstrated is, that this movement has had the greatest influence on modern ill.u.s.tration, sometimes through its colouring, sometimes simply through the great freedom of its ideas. Some have found in it a direct lesson, others an example to be followed.

Some have met in it technical methods which pleased them, others have only taken some suggestions from it. That is the case, for instance, with Legrand, with Steinlen, and with Renouard; and it is also the case with the lithographer Odilon Redon, who applies the values of Manet and, in his strange pastels, the harmonies of Degas and Renoir, placing them at the service of dreams and hallucinations and of a symbolism which is absolutely removed from the realism of these painters. It is, finally, the case with the water-colour painter Henri Riviere, who is misjudged as to his merit, and who is one of the most perfect of those who have applied Impressionist ideas to decorative engraving. He has realised images in colours destined to decorate inexpensively the rooms of the people and recalling the grand aspects of landscapes with a broad simplification which is derived, curiously enough, from Puvis de Chavannes's large decorative landscapes and from the small and precise colour prints of j.a.pan. Riviere, who is a skilful and personal poetic landscapist, is not exactly an Impressionist, in so far as he does not divide the tones, but rather blends them in subtle mixtures in the manner of the j.a.panese. Yet, seeing his work, one cannot help thinking of all the surprise and freedom introduced into modern art by Impressionism.

Everybody, even the ignorant, can perceive, on looking through an ill.u.s.trated paper or a modern volume, that thirty years ago this manner of placing the figures, of noting familiar gestures, and of seizing fugitive life with spirit and clearness was unknown. This ma.s.s of engravings and of sketches resembles in no way what had been seen formerly. They no longer have the solemn air of cla.s.sic composition, by which the drawings had been affected. A current of bold spontaneity has pa.s.sed through here. In modern English ill.u.s.tration, it can be stated indisputably that nothing would be such as it can now be seen, if Morris, Rossetti and Crane had not imposed their vision, and yet many talented Englishmen resemble these initiators only very remotely. It is exactly in this sense that we shall have credited Impressionism with the talents who have drawn their inspiration less from its principles, than from its vigorous protest against mechanical formulas, and who have been able to find the energy, necessary for their success, in the example it set by fighting during twenty years against the ideas of routine which seemed indestructible. Even with the painters who are far removed from the vision and the colouring of Manet and Degas, of Monet and Renoir, one can find a very precise tendency: that of returning to the subjects and the style of the real national tradition; and herein lies one of the most serious benefits bestowed by Impressionism upon an art which had stopped at the notion of a canonical beauty, until it had almost become sterile in its timidity.

IX

NEO-IMPRESSIONISM--GAUGUIN, DENIS, THeO VAN RYSSELBERGHE--THE THEORY OF POINTILLISM--SEURAT, SIGNAC AND THE THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC CHROMATISM--FAULTS AND QUALITIES OF THE IMPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT, WHAT WE OWE TO IT, ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL--SOME WORDS ON ITS INFLUENCE ABROAD

The beginnings of the movement designated under the name of Neo-Impressionism can be traced back to about 1880. The movement is a direct offshoot of the first Impressionism, originated by a group of young painters who admired it and thought of pus.h.i.+ng further still its chromatic principles. The flouris.h.i.+ng of Impressionism coincided, as a matter of fact, with certain scientific labours concerning optics.

Helmholtz had just published his works on the perception of colours and sounds by means of waves. Chevreul had continued on this path by establis.h.i.+ng his beautiful theories on the a.n.a.lysis of the solar spectrum. M. Charles Henry, an original and remarkable spirit, occupied himself in his turn with these delicate problems by applying them directly to aesthetics, which Helmholtz and Chevreul had not thought of doing. M. Charles Henry had the idea of creating relations between this branch of science and the laws of painting. As a friend of several young painters he had a real influence over them, showing them that the new vision due to the instinct of Monet and of Manet might perhaps be scientifically verified, and might establish fixed principles in a sphere where hitherto the laws of colouring had been the effects of individual conception. At that moment the criticism which resulted from Taine's theories tried to effect a _rapprochement_ of the artistic and scientific domains in criticism and in the psychologic novel. The painters, too, gave way to this longing for precision which seems to have been the great preoccupation of intellects from 1880 to about 1889.

Their researches had a special bearing on the theory of complementary colours and on the means of establis.h.i.+ng some laws concerning the reaction of tones in such manner as to draw up a kind of tabula. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac were the promoters of this research. Seurat died very young, and one cannot but regret this death of an artist who would have been very interesting and capable of beautiful works. Those which he has left us bear witness to a spirit very receptive to theories, and leaving nothing to chance. The silhouettes are reduced to almost rigorously geometrical principles, the tones are decomposed systematically. These canvases are more reasoned examples than works of intuition and spontaneous vision. They show Seurat's curious desire to give a scientific and cla.s.sic basis to Impressionism. The same idea rules in all the work of Paul Signac, who has painted some portraits and numerous landscapes. To these two painters is due the method of _Pointillism_, _i.e._ the division of tones, not only by touches, as in Monet's pictures, but by very small touches of equal size, causing the spheric shape to act equally upon the retina. The acc.u.mulation of these luminous points is carried out over the entire surface of the canvas without thick daubs of paint, and with regularity, whilst with Manet the paint is more or less dense. The theory of complementary colours is systematically applied. On a sketch, made from nature, the painter notes the princ.i.p.al relations of tones, then systematises them on his picture and connects them by different shades which should be their logical result. Neo-Impressionism believes in obtaining thus a greater exactness than that which results from the individual temperament of the painter who simply relies on his own perception. And it is true, in theory, that such a conception is more exact. But it reduces the picture to a kind of theorem, which excludes all that const.i.tutes the value and charm of an art, that is to say: caprice, fancy, and the spontaneity of personal inspiration. The works of Seurat, Signac, and of the few men who have strictly followed the rules of Pointillism are lacking in life, in surprise, and make a somewhat tiring impression upon one's eyes. The uniformity of the points does not succeed in giving an impression of cohesion, and even less a suggestion of different textures, even if the values are correct. Manet seems to have attained perfection in using the method which consists in directing the touches in accordance with each of the planes, and this is evidently the most natural method. Scientific Chromatism const.i.tutes an _ensemble_ of propositions, of which art will be able to make use, though indirectly, as information useful for a better understanding of the laws of light in presence of nature. What Pointillism has been able to give us, is a method which would be very appreciable for decorative paintings seen from a great distance--friezes or ceilings in s.p.a.cious buildings. It would in this case return to the principle of mosaic, which is the principle _par excellence_ of mural art.

The Pointillists have to-day almost abandoned this transitional theory which, in spite of the undeniable talent of its adepts, has only produced indifferent results as regards easel pictures. Besides Seurat and Signac, mention should be made of Maurice Denis, Henri-Edmond Cross, Angrand, and Theo Van Rysselberghe. But this last-named and Maurice Denis have arrived at great talent by very different merits. M. Maurice Denis has abandoned Pointillism a few years ago, in favour of returning to a very strange conception which dates back to the Primitives, and even to Giotto. He simplifies his drawing archaically, suppresses all but the indispensable detail, and draws inspiration from Gothic stained gla.s.s and carvings, in order to create decorative figures with clearly marked outlines which are filled with broad, flat tints. He generally treats mystic subjects, for which this special manner is suitable. One cannot love the _parti pris_ of these works, but one cannot deny M.

Denis a great charm of naivete, an intense feeling for decorative arrangements and colouring of a certain originality. He is almost a French pre-Raphaelite, and his profound catholic faith inspires him n.o.bly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THeO VAN RYSSELBERGHE

PORTRAITS OF MADAME VAN RYSSELBERGHE AND HER DAUGHTER]

M. Theo Van Rysselberghe continues to employ the Pointillist method. But he is so strongly gifted, that one might almost say he succeeds in revealing himself as a painter of great merit in spite of this dry and charmless method. All his works are supported by broad and learned drawing and his colour is naturally brilliant. M. Van Rysselberghe, a prolific and varied worker, has painted nudes, large portraits, landscapes with figures, seascapes, interiors and still-life, and in all this he evinces faculties of the first order. He is a lover of light and understands how to make it vibrate over flesh and fabrics. He is an artist who has the sense of style. He has signed a certain number of portraits, whose beautiful carriage and serious psychology would suffice to make him be considered as the most significant of the Neo-Impressionists. It is really in him that one has to see the young and worthy heir of Monet, of Sisley, and of Degas, and that is why we have insisted on adding here to the works of these masters the reproduction of one of his. M. Van Rysselberghe is also a very delicate etcher who has signed some fine works in this method, and his seascapes, whether they revel in the pale greys of the German Ocean or in the warm sapphire and gold harmonies of the Mediterranean, count among the finest of the time; they are windows opened upon joyous brightness.

To these painters who have never taken part at the Salons, and are only to be seen at the exhibitions of the _Independants_ (except M. Denis), must be added M. Pierre Bonnard, who has given proof to his charm and fervour in numerous small canvases of j.a.panese taste; and M. Edouard Vuillard, who is a painter of intimate scenes of rare delicacy. This artist, who stands apart and produces very little, has signed some interiors of melancholic distinction and of a colouring which revels in low tones. He has the precision and skill of a master. There is in him, one might say, a reflection of Chardin's soul. Unfortunately his works are confined to a few collections and have not become known to the public. To the same group belong M. Ranson, who has devoted himself to purely decorative art, tapestry, wall papers and embroideries; M.

Georges de Feure, a strange, symbolist water-colour painter, who has become one of the best designers of the New Art in France; M. Felix Vallotton, painter and lithographer, who is somewhat heavy, but gifted with serious qualities. It is true that M. de Feure is Dutch, M.

Vallotton Swiss, and M. Van Rysselberghe Belgian; but they have settled down in France, and are sufficiently closely allied to the Neo-Impressionist movement so that the question of nationality need not prevent us from mentioning them here. Finally it is impossible not to say a few words about two pupils of Gustave Moreau's, who have both become noteworthy followers of Impressionism of very personal individuality. M. Eugene Martel bids fair to be one of the best painters of interiors of his generation. He has the feeling of mystical life and paints the peasantry with astonis.h.i.+ng psychologic power. His vigorous colouring links him to Monticelli, and his drawing to Degas. As to M.

Simon Bussy who, following Alphonse Legros's example, is about to make an enviable position for himself in England, he is an artist of pure blood. His landscapes and his figures have the distinction and rare tone of M. Whistler, besides the characteristic acuteness of Degas. His harmonies are subtle, his vision novel, and he will certainly develop into an important painter. Together with Henri le Sidaner and Jacques Blanche, Simon Bussy is decidedly the most personal of that young generation of "Intimists" who seem to have retained the best principles of the Impressionist masters to employ them for the expression of a psychologic ideal which is very different from Realism.

Outside this group there are still a few isolated painters who are difficult to cla.s.sify. The very young artists Laprade and Charles Guerin have shown for the last three years, at the exhibition of the _Independants_, some works which are the worthy result of Manet's and Renoir's influence. They, too, justify great expectations. The landscapists Paul Vogler and Maxime Maufra, more advanced in years, have made themselves known by some solid series of vigorously presented landscapes. To them must be added M. Henry Moret, M. Albert Andre and M.

Georges d'Espagnet, who equally deserve the success which has commenced to be their share. But there are some older ones. It is only his due, that place should be given to a painter who committed suicide after an unhappy life, and who evinced splendid gifts. Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutchman, who, however, had always worked in France, has left to the world some violent and strange works, in which Impressionism appears to have reached the limits of its audacity. Their value lies in their nave frankness and in the undauntable determination which tried to fix without trickery the sincerest feelings. Amidst many faulty and clumsy works, Van Gogh has also left some really beautiful canvases. There is a deep affinity between him and Cezanne. A very real affinity exists, too, between Paul Gauguin, who was a friend and to a certain extent the master of Van Gogh, and Cezanne and Renoir. Paul Gauguin's robust talent found its first motives in Breton landscapes, in which the method of colour-spots can be found employed with delicacy and placed at the service of a rather heavy, but very interesting harmony. Then the artist spent a long time in Tahiti, whence he returned with a completely transformed manner. He has brought back from these regions some landscapes with figures treated in intentionally clumsy and almost wild fas.h.i.+on. The figures are outlined in firm strokes and painted in broad, flat tints on canvas which has the texture almost of tapestry. Many of these works are made repulsive by their aspect of multi-coloured, crude and barbarous imagery. Yet one cannot but acknowledge the fundamental qualities, the beautiful values, the ornamental taste, and the impression of primitive animalism. On the whole, Paul Gauguin has a beautiful, artistic temperament which, in its aversion to virtuosos.h.i.+p, has perhaps not sufficiently understood that the fear of formulas, if exaggerated, may lead to other formulas, to a false ignorance which is as dangerous as false knowledge. Gauguin's symbolical intentions, like those of his pupil Emile Bernard, are sincere, but are badly served by minds which do not agree with their technical qualities, and both Gauguin and Emile Bernard are most happily inspired when they are painters pure and simple.

Next to Gauguin, among the seniors of the present generation and the successors of Impressionism, should be placed the landscapist Armand Guillaumin who, without possessing Sisley's delicate qualities, has painted some canvases worthy of notice; and we must, finally, terminate this far too summary enumeration by referring to one of the most gifted painters of the French School of the day, M. Louis Anquetin. His is a most varied talent whose power is unquestionable. He made his _debut_ among the Neo-Impressionists and revealed the influence upon him of the j.a.panese and of Degas. It may be seen that these two influences predominate in the whole group. Then M. Anquetin became fascinated by the breadth and superb freedom of Manet's works, and signed a series of portraits and sketches, some of which are not far below so great a master's. They are works which will surprise the critics, when our contemporary painting will be examined with calm impartiality. After these works, M. Anquetin gave way to his impetuous nature which led him to decorative painting, and he became influenced by Rubens, Jordaens, and the Fontainebleau School. He painted theatre curtains and mythological scenes, in which he gave free rein to his sensual imagination. In spite of some admirable qualities, it seems as though the artist had strayed from his true path in painting these brilliant, but somewhat declamatory works, and he has since returned to a more modern and more direct painting. In all his changed conditions Anquetin has shown a considerable talent, pleasing in its fine vigour, impetuosity, brilliancy and sincerity. His inequality is perhaps the cause of his relative want of success; it has put the public off, but nevertheless in certain of this brave and serious painter's canvases can be seen the happy influence of Manet.

It seems to us only right to sum up our impartial opinion of Neo-Impressionism by saying that it has lacked cohesion, that Pointillism in particular has led painting into an aimless path. It has been wrong to see in Impressionism too exclusive a pretext for technical researches, and a happy reaction has set in, which leads us back to-day, after diverse tentative efforts (amongst others some unfortunate attempts at symbolist painting), to the fine, recent school of the "Intimists" and to the novel conception which a great and glorious painter, Besnard, imposes upon the Salons, where the elect draw inspiration from him. We can here only indicate with a few words the considerable part played by Besnard: his clever work has proved that the scientific colour principles of Impressionism may be applied, not to realism, but to the highest thoughts, to ideologic painting most n.o.bly inspired by the modern intellectual preoccupations. He is the transition between Impressionism and the art of to-morrow. Of pure French lineage by his portraits and his nudes, which descend directly from Largilliere and Ingres, he might have restricted himself to being placed among the most learned Impressionists. His studies of reflections and of complementary colours speak for this. But he has pa.s.sed this phase and has, with his decorations, returned to the psychical domain of his strangely beautiful art. The "Intimists," C. Cottet, Simon, Blanche, Menard, Bussy, Lobre, Le Sidaner, Wery, Prinet, and Ernest Laurent, have proved that they have profited by Impressionism, but have proceeded in quite a different direction in trying to translate their real perceptions. Some isolated artists, like the decorative painter Henri Martin, who has enormous talent, have applied the Impressionist technique to the expression of grand allegories, rather in the manner of Puvis de Chavannes. The effort at getting away from mere cleverness and escaping a too exclusive preoccupation with technique, and at the same time acquiring serious knowledge, betrays itself in the whole position of the young French School; and this will furnish us with a perfectly natural conclusion, of which the following are the princ.i.p.al points:--

What we shall have to thank Impressionism for, will be moral and material advantages of considerable importance. Morally it has rendered an immense service to all art, because it has boldly attacked routine and proved by the whole of its work that a combination of independent producers could renew the aesthetic code of a country, without owing anything to official encouragement. It has succeeded where important but isolated creators have succ.u.mbed, because it has had the good fortune of uniting a group of gifted men, four of whom will count among the greatest French artists since the origin of national art. It has had the qualities which overcome the hardest resistance: fecundity, courage and sure originality. It has known how to find its strength by referring to the true traditions of the national genius, which have happily enlightened it and saved it from fundamental errors. It has, last, but not least, inflicted an irremediable blow on academic convention and has wrested from it the prestige of teaching which ruled tyrannically for centuries past over the young artists. It has laid a violent hand upon a tenacious and dangerous prejudice, upon a series of conventional notions which were transmitted without consideration for the evolution of modern life and intelligence. It has dared freely to protest against a degenerated ideal which vainly parodied the old masters, pretending to honour them. It has removed from the artistic soul of France a whole order of pseudo-cla.s.sic elements which worked against its blossoming, and the School will never recover from this bold contradiction which has rallied to it all the youthful. The moral principle of Impressionism has been absolutely logical and sane, and that is why nothing has been able to prevent its triumph.

Technically Impressionism has brought a complete renewal of pictorial vision, subst.i.tuting the beauty of character for the beauty of proportions and finding adequate expression for the ideas and feelings of its time, which const.i.tutes the secret of all beautiful works. It has taken up again a tradition and added to it a contemporary page. It will have to be thanked for an important series of observations as regards the a.n.a.lysis of light, and for an absolutely original conception of drawing. Some years have been wasted by painters of little worth in imitating it, and the Salons, formerly enc.u.mbered with academic _pastiches_, have been enc.u.mbered with Impressionist _pastiches_. It would be unfair to blame the Impressionists for it. They have shown by their very career that they hated teaching and would never pretend to teach. Impressionism is based upon irrefutable optic laws, but it is neither a style, nor a method, likely ever to become a formula in its turn. One may call upon this art for examples, but not for receipts. On the contrary, its best teaching has been to encourage artists to become absolutely independent and to search ardently for their own individuality. It marks the decline of the School, and will not create a new one which would soon become as fastidious as the other. It will only appear, to those who will thoroughly understand it, as a precious repertory of notes, and the young generation honours it intelligently by not imitating it with servility.

Not that it is without its faults! It has been said, to belittle it, that it only had the value of an interesting attempt, having only been able to indicate some excellent intentions, without creating anything perfect. This is inexact. It is absolutely evident, that Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas have signed some masterpieces which did not lose by comparison with those in the Louvre, and the same might even be said of their less ill.u.s.trious friends. But it is also evident that the time spent on research as well as on agitation and enervating controversies pursued during twenty-five years, has been taken from men who could otherwise have done better still. There has been a disparity between Realism and the technique of Impressionism. Its realistic origin has sometimes made it vulgar. It has often treated indifferent subjects in a grand style, and it has too easily beheld life from the anecdotal side.

It has lacked psychologic synthesis (if we except Degas). It has too willingly denied all that exists hidden under the apparent reality of the universe and has affected to separate painting from the ideologic faculties which rule over all art. Hatred of academic allegory, defiance of symbolism, abstraction and romantic scenes, has led it to refuse to occupy itself with a whole order of ideas, and it has had the tendency of making the painter beyond all a workman. It was necessary at the moment of its arrival, but it is no longer necessary now, and the painters understand this themselves. Finally it has too often been superficial even in obtaining effects; it has given way to the wish to surprise the eyes, of playing with tones merely for love of cleverness.

It often causes one regret to see symphonies of magnificent colour wasted here in pictures of boating men; and there, in pictures of cafe corners; and we have arrived at a degree of complex intellectuality which is no longer satisfied with these rudimentary themes. It has indulged in useless exaggerations, faults of composition and of harmony, and all this cannot be denied.

But it still remains fascinating and splendid for its gifts which will always rouse enthusiasm: freedom, impetuousness, youth, brilliancy, fervour, the joy of painting and the pa.s.sion for beautiful light. It is, on the whole, the greatest pictorial movement that France has beheld since Delacroix, and it brings to a finish gloriously the nineteenth century, inaugurating the present. It has accomplished the great deed of having brought us again into the presence of our true national lineage, far more so than Romanticism, which was mixed with foreign elements. We have here painting of a kind which could only have been conceived in France, and we have to go right back to Watteau in order to receive again the same impression. Impressionism has brought us an almost unhoped-for renaissance, and this const.i.tutes its most undeniable claim upon the grat.i.tude of the race.

It has exercised a very appreciable influence upon foreign painting.

Among the princ.i.p.al painters attracted by its ideas and research, we must mention, in Germany, Max Liebermann and Kuehl; in Norway, Thaulow; in Denmark, Kroyer; in Belgium, Theo Van Rysselberghe, Emile Claus, Verheyden, Heymans, Verstraete, and Baertson; in Italy, Boldini, Segantini, and Michetti; in Spain, Zuloaga, Sorolla y Bastida, Dario de Regoyos and Rusinol; in America, Alexander, Harrison, Sargent; and in England, the painters of the Glasgow School, Lavery, Guthrie and the late John Lewis Brown. All these men come within the active extension of the French movement, and one may say that the honour of having first recognised the truly national movement of this art must be given to those foreign countries which have enriched their collections and museums with works that were despised in the land which had witnessed their birth. At the present moment the effects of this new vision are felt all over the world, down to the very bosom of the academies; and at the Salons, from which the Impressionists are still excluded, can be witnessed an invasion of pictures inspired by them, which the most retrograde juries dare not reject. In whatever measure the recent painters accept Impressionism, they remain preoccupied with it, and even those who love it not are forced to take it into account.

The Impressionist movement can therefore now be considered, apart from all controversies, without vain attacks or exaggerated praise, as an artistic manifestation which has entered the domain of history, and it can be studied with the impartial application of the methods of critical a.n.a.lysis which is usually employed in the study of the former art movements. We shall not pretend to have given in these pages a complete and faultless history; but we shall consider ourselves well rewarded for this work, which is intended to reach the great public, if we have roused their curiosity and sympathy with a group of artists whom we consider admirable; and if we have rectified, in the eyes of the readers of a foreign nation, the errors, the slanders, the undeserved reproaches, with which Frenchmen have been pleased to overwhelm sincere creators who thought with faith and love of the pure tradition of the national genius, and who have for that reason been vilified as much as if they had in an access of anarchical folly risen against the very common sense, taste, reason and clearness, which will remain the eternal merits of their soil. This small, imperfect volume will perhaps find its best excuse in its intention of repairing an old injustice and of affirming a useful and permanent truth: that of the authenticity of the cla.s.sicism of Impressionism, in the face of the false cla.s.sicism of the academic world which official honours have made the guardian of a French heritage, whose soul it denied and whose spirit it deceived with its narrow and cold formulas.