FRY'S

ARGENTIC BROMIDE ENLARGEMENTS

"ARE LIKE FINE ENGRAVINGS ? -British Journal of Photography "ARTISTIC IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE."- Court Circular. Enlarging and Finishing upon PAPER.

4|.x6i, 12 x 7 l 10 x 8, 12 x 10 i

15x12

18x15

20x16

23 x 17

24 x 18 { 24 x 20 \ 30x22 30x25

§1

W

«. d.

2 6

3 0

3 6

4 0

5 0

7 6

10 0 12 6

111 lis	Cut Mounts extra any shape opening.	Finishing in Monochrome. Beyond Enlargement Charge. 3rd. 2nd. 1st.	3 11 E 'is « y; f .«
*, %	*. d.		d.	8. d.	*, d.
3 0 .	..0 9..	5	0 ..	. 10 0 ..	15 0
3 9 . 4 6 . 5 0 . 6 0 .	.10... ..13.. ..13.. ..13..	6 7 8 10	0 .. 0 .. 0 .. 0 ..	12 0 ... . 14 0 .. . 16 0 .. . 20 0 ..	18 0 21 0 24 0 30 0	i £ ^
9 0 .	..2 0..	10	0 ..	. 20 0 ..	30 0
11 6 . 15 0 .	..2 6.. ..3 0..	12 15	6 . 0 ..	. 25 0 .. . 30 0 ..	. 37 6 45 0

i

Enlarging and Finishing on OPAL.

	£ .	Finishing- in Monochrome.	Finishing
	js S		Beyond Enlargement	m			o	o
			Charge.		Water Colour and in Oils.	3	w
jg o	S	:J»i	d.	2nd.	1st-				H . &w	Q
	s. d.	s.	d.	«. d.	8. d.	s. d.	s.	d.	H? a<
8%x61 ...	4 0 .	. 5	0 .	.. 10 0 ..	. 15 0 .	. 10 0 to	30	0		ft* ■?1
10x8 ...	4 6 .	. 6	0 .	. 12 0 ..	. 24 0 .	. 12 0 „	36	0
i2x 7| ") 12x10 $	5 0..	. 7	6 .	. 15 0 ..	. 30 0 ..	. 15 0 „	45	0	<	65 O
15x12 }	7 6 .	. 10	0 .	. 20 0 ..	. 35 0 .	• 17 6 „	45	0		w o
17xlO|5				50	0
18x15 ...	15 0 .	. 14	0 .	. 25 0 ..	. 40 0 ..	. 20 0 „
20x16 ...	20 0 ..	. 16	0 .	. 27 0 ..	42 0 ..	. 22 0 „	60	0
24x18 ...	25 0 ..	. 20	0 .	. 30 0 ..	. 45 0 .	. 25 0 „	70	0

FULL PRICE LISTS OF

DRY PLATES, BROMIDE PAPERS, ENLARGEMENTS CHEMICALS, CARD MOUNTS, &c. &c.

FREE ON APPLICATION TO

SAMUEL FRY & CO.

LIMITED,

5, Ghandos St., Charing Cross, LONDON, w.c.

Works: KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. Telegraphic Address: "ENLARGEMENTS, LOND

Advertisement's.

THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY, LONDON.

FOR THE AUTISTIC DECORATION OF THE HOME,

VISIT THE

AUTOTYPE FINE ART GALLERY,

74, NEW OXFORD STREET

(20 doors west of Mudie's Library).

SPLENDID COPIES OF THE OLD MASTERS, from the most celebrated Galleries of Europe.

REPRODUCTIONS OF MODERN PAINTINGS, from the Luxembourg, " The Salon," Royal Academy, &c.

DELIGHTFUL LITTLE PICTURES, elegantly framed, after Bartolozzi, Sib Joshua Reynolds, Romney, and the Great English Portraitists.

TURNER'S "LIBER STUDIORUM," with Notes by Stopford Brooke, M.B.

A Pamphlet, " AUTOTYPE : A Decorative and Educational Art." Four Illustrations — Description of Autotype— Suggestions for Pictures and Framing, &c. Free by Post.

AUTOTYPE BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Autotype Company offer their services to Authors and Publishers to produce by the Autotype Process, Book Illustrations of the highest excellence of any subjects capable of being photographed.

Among the work recently done may be cited Wyon's " Great Seals of England ; ** Dr. Crookshank's "Micro-Photographs of Bacteria ; " "Famous Monuments of Central India," for Sir Lepel Griffin, K. C.S.I. ; "Facsimiles of Early Italian Engravings," for the Trustees of the British Museum ; " The Palseographical Society's Fasciculus for 1888;" " Illustrations for the Journal of the Hellenic Society," Lindt's " New Guinea," &c, &c.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

§bytte of t §e Woxfotb ^xoabs.

By P. H. Emerson, B.A., M.B. Twelve Plates by Auto-Gravure, in handsome Portfolio, with Descriptive Letterpress.

Proofs on India Paper (limited to 150) £1 lis. 6d.

Prints on Plate Paper .. ... £1 Is. Od.

Prospectus on application.

0£b ^arts.

Ten Etchings by C. Meryon. Reproduced on Copper by the Auto-Gravure Process, and accompanied with Preface and Illustrative Notes bv Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. The Plates are attached, by the upper edge, to Whatman 'Paper cut-out Mounts, and enclosed in an elegant Portfolio. Price Three Guineas.

THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY,

74, NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.

Advertisements.

MORGAN & KIDD,

INVENTORS OF THE

AR6ENTIG-6ELATIN0 BROHDE PROCESS

The Standard Method of Producing Permanent Enlargements and Contact Prints.

PRICE LIST OF THE ARGENTIC-GELATINO-BROMIDE PAPERS.

POSITIVE PAPER.— For Enlarging and Printing direct from the Negative.

Size.	1-doz. 1	Size.	1-doz.	^-doz.	Size.	1-doz.	^-doz.
4*x3|	(2-dz.)l/3!	10 x 8	3/-		23x17	12/6	6 9
	1/3	12^ x \0\	4/6 H-	sh	25x21	18/6	10/-
8 xo	1/9	15^x12^	4/-	30x23	24/6 26/6	12/6
8^x6|	2/3	18 xl5	9/6	5/3 !	30x25	14/-

In Rolls of 20 ft., 17 in. wide, 12s. ; 25 in. wide, 17s. 6c£.; and 30 in. wide, 21s. The Positive Paper can also be had with a rough surface, same price ; but in all cases, unless rough is specially ordered, smooth is sent.

NOTE— The Argentic-Gelatino-Bromide Papers are sent post free. SAMPLE SHEET, 23x171, 7s. 6d

ENLARGEMENTS,

By MORGAN & KIDD,

From good small Negatives, are full of Delicacy and Vigour,

AND

Equal to a Fine Engraving.

ARTISTIC, PERMANENT & INEXPENSIVE.

An Enlargement from a good Negative is A PICTURE AND A WORK OF ART, and is far better than a mere Photo-scrap.

Send for full Price List post free on application.

IMS. O JEt €3r 3ST && BZ X X> J>,

Bi\jcnttc*(3clatmc^Srcmtbc Works,

KEW FOOT ED., RICHMOND, LONDON, S.W.

PARIS— 29, Boulevard des Italians. Telegrams : "Argentic, Richmond, Surrey."

Advertisements.

PLATINOTYPE,

THE

COLD BATH PROCESS.

The attention of Photographers is called to this beautiful process, now fully introduced. Some of the advantages are here enumerated :—

1st.— High artistic rendering both of high lights and shadows.

2nd.— Prints either vigorous or soft, either cold or warm in colour,

well in command of operator. 3rd.— Prints dry up with less loss of effect than in any other process. 1th.— Short exposure required, being less than in the Hot Bath

Process.

5 th.— Economy, especially to large users.

NO LICENSE required by users of the Patented Papers manufactured by the Company.

The Sensitized Papers are now obtainable from Agents in the

principal towns.

FOR PROSPECTUS APPLY TO

The PLATINOTYPE CO.,

29, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, HOLBORN.

Advertisements.

Council Medal and Highest Award, Great Exhibition, London, 1851.— Gold Medal, Paris Exposition, 1867.— Medal and Highest Award, Exhibition, London, 1862.— Medal and Diploma, Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 1876.— Medal and Diploma, Antwerp, 1878.— Gold Medal and Diploma, Paris Exposition, 1878.— Gold Medal, Inventions Exhibition, 1885.

ROSS'

PORTRAIT AND VIEW LENSES,

Unsurpassed for Brilliancy of Definition, Flatness of Field, and Depth of Focus. Used by the leading Photographers throughout the World.

PORTRAIT LENSES.

IMPROVED.

No. 3 for Portraits 6| x 4f	... £17	10	0
3a	8|x 6|	26	15	0
.. 4	10 x 8	38	0	0
»s 5	18 xl6	42	10	0
» 6	22 x!8	54	0	0
RAPID	" CABINET."
No. 1 for Cabinets, 14 ft. distance £13	0	0
„ 2	18 „	17	10	0
3	20 „	, 19	10	0
aUICK-ACTING	C.D.V
No. 1 for Cards,	14 ft. distance... £5	15	0
>s 2	16,,	6	10	o
, j 3	19 „ „	... 11	10	0

Back Focus.

UNIVERSAL.

For Portraits, Groups, &c

View Group No. Size. Size.

1 ... 8|x6| ... 7|x4^ ... 8| in.

2 ... 10x8 ... 8^x6| ... lCf „

3 ... 12x10 ... 10x8 ... 13^ „ 12 10

4 ... 15x12 ... 12x10 ... 16^ „ ... 16 10

5 ... 18x16 ... 15x12 ... 20 „ ... 25 0

6 ... 22x18 ... 18x16 ... 24 „ ... 45 0

7 ... 25x21 ... 22x18 ... 30 „ ... 55 0

Price. 7 10 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

VIEW LENSES.

SYMMETRICAL.* For Landscapes and Architecture.

No. 1	3 x3	4 x3	5 x4	3 in. £3	(»
„ 2	4 x3	5 x4	7|x4|	4 „	3	5
„ 3	5 x4	7|x4i	8 x5	5 „	3 10
„ 4	7|x4|	8 x5	S|x6| 9 x7	6 „	4	0
„ 5	8 x5	8^x6^	7 „	5	0
„ 6	8^x6!	9 x7	10x8	8 „	6	0
„ 7	9 x7	10x8	12x10	9	7	0
„ 8	10x8	12x10	13x11	l'> ,»	8	0
„ 9	12x10	13x11	15x12	12	9	0
>, 1°	13x11	15x12	18x16	15	10	0
>, 11	15x12	18x16	22x18	18	12	0
„ 12	18x16	22x20	25x21	21 „	15	0

RAPID SYMMETRICALS.* For Groups, Views, Interiors, and Copying. The most useful Lens for all Out-door Photography.

Size of	Size of	Equivalent
View.	Group.	Focus.	Price.
4x3..	. Stereo.	... 4|in. ..	£4 0	0
5x4..	. 4x3	... 6 „ ..	4 5	0
6x5..	. 5x4	... n „ ..	5 5	0
8x5..		... 9 „ ..	5 15	0
8|x 6| .	. 8x5	... 10| „ ...	6 10	0
9x7..	. 8|x 6|	... 12 „ ..	7 10	0
10 x 8 ..	. Six 6|	... 14 „ ..	8 10	0
12 xlO ..	. 10 x 8	... 16 „ ..	10 10	0
13 xll ..	. 11 x 9	... 18 „ ...	11 10	0
15 xia ..	. 13 xll	... 20 „ ..	14 10	0
18 xl6 ..	. 15 xl2	... 24 „ ..	18 10	0
22 xl8 ..	. 18 xl6	... 30 „ ..	. 25 0	0
25 x22 .	. 22 X18	... 34 „ ..	30 0	0

* Furnished with Diaphragms on the Standard System recommended by the Photographic Society of Great Britain.

Ten per cent. Discount for Cash with Order. FURTHER PARTICULARS & CATALOGUES, with Estimates, on application.

ROSS & CO., 512, New Bond Street, LOUDON, W.

Steam Works — Brook Street.

Advertisements.

JOHN J. GRIFFIN & SONS,

MANUFACTURERS OF

Chemical and Philosophical Apparatus.

PURE CHEMICALS.

MAKERS OF APPARATUS TO

THE ADMIRALTY, WAR DEPARTMENT, INDIAN AND COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS.

GAS FURNACES FOR- IVTELTIUG AND EKAMELIIKG.

Balances and Weights, Stills, Argentometers, Graduated Measures, Mortars and Pestles, Porcelain and Glass Basins, Dishes, Finest Bohemian Glass Beakers, Flasks, Funnels, Test Tubes, Spirit Lamps, &c.

ILLUSTRATED PRICE LIST, POST FREE, 6<L

BRIN'S COMPRESSED OXYGEN IN STEEL CYLINDERS.

JOHN J. GRIFFIN &SONS,

22, GARRICK STREET, LONDON, W.G.

Advertisements.

J. H. DALLMEYER,

©ptician,

25, NEWMAN ST., OXFORD ST., W.

(Removed from 19, Bloomsbury Street).

D ALL MEYER'S

PHOTOGRAPHIC LENSES

Are used by all the leading Photographic Artists throughout the world, and have obtained the Highest Awards wherever exhibited.

DALLMEYER

"On the Choice and Use of Photographic

EIGHTH THOUSAND. LfiflSGS. ls-

This Pamphlet contains concise information for Selecting Lenses for any- particular purposes, whether in Portraiture, Landscape, or Architectural subjects, &c, the proper use of Diaphragms, Tables of Comparative Exposures, the use of the Swing Back to the Camera, a simple Explanation of the law of Conjugate Foci, and Tables for Reduction and Enlargement.

DALLMEYER'S

New Descriptive Catalogue

(Post free on application)

Contains full particulars of all Lenses and the purposes for which they are designed ; also of the latest Inventions in Photographic Lenses, viz.,

DALLMEYER'S RAPID LONG FOCUS LANDSCAPE LENS, AND DALLMEYER'S NEW RECTILINEAR LANDSCAPE LENS.

For ABRIDGES CATALOGUE see INSIDE OF BACK COVER.

NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY

FOR

• STUDENTS OF THE ART

P. EL EMERSON, B.A., M.B. (Cantab.)

OE OF "PICTURES FROM LIFE IX FIELD AND FEN," ** IDYLS OF THE NORFOLK BROADS," " PICTURES OF EAST ANGLIAN LIFE," AND JOINT AUTHOR OF " LIFE AND LANDSCAPE ON THE NORFOLK BROADS."

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,— that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Keats, u Ode on a Grecian Urn,1'

LONDON

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON

Limited

Fettek Lane, Fleet Stkeet, E.C* 1889 [All rights reserved"}

LONDON :

printed by gilbert and bivington, limited, st. John's house, cleekenwell eoad.

TO THE MEMORY

OF

ADAM SALOMON

SCULPTOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER,

Chevalier de Vordre de la legion d'honneur,

BY THE AUTHOR

AS A TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION AND RESPECT ?OR THE FIRST ARTIST OF ACKNOWLEDGED ABILITY WHO WAS ORIGINAL ENOUGH TO PRACTISE PHOTOGRAPHY FOR ITS OWN SAKE, AND WHO WAS BRAVE ENOUGH TO APPEAR BEFORE A PREJUDICED ART WORLD AS A PHOTOGRAPHER AS WELL AS A SCULPTOR.

Bonne renommee vaut mieux que ceinture doree.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE

Daguerre at a seance of the French Academy, Aug., 1839 . 1

Ketrospect of work done by Photography since 1839 . . 2 Influence of Photography on the Glyptic and Pictorial Arts,

and vice versa ......... 5

Aim of this book 8

The Naturalistic School of Photography .... 8

A word to artists 9

The three branches of Photography — Artistic, Scientific, and Industrial : —

A. Art Division .10

B. Science Division 11

C. Industrial Division 11

" Professional and Amateur " photographers .... 12

A College of Photography 13

The Future of Photography 13

BOOK I. TERMINOLOGY -AND ARGUMENT.

CHAPTER I. Terminology.

Preamble 17

Analysis 17

Art s 17

" Art- Science " 18

Artistic 18

vi Contents.

Breadth . . . . . . . . . . ^18

Colour . • . .18

Creative Artist .19

Fine Art . . 19

High Art 20

Ideal^ 20

Imaginative . 22

Impressionism . . . . . . . .22

Interpreting Nature 22

Local Colour 22

Low Art . . .22

Naturalism .22

Original Work 24

Photographic 24

Quality 24

Realism 24

Relative Tone or Yalue 25

Sentiment 25

Sentimentality . . . 25

Soul . 25

Technique . .26

Tone .26

Transcript of Nature . . . ... . . .26

CHAPTER II.

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art.

An inquiry into the influence of the study of* Nature on Art . 28

Egyptian Art 30

Monarchies of Western Asia 32

Aucient Greek and Italian Art 33

Early Christian Art 44

Mediaeval Art .47

Eastern Art — Mohammedan ... 52

Chinese and J apanese Art . 54

The Renascence 59

From the Renascence to Modern Times 66

A. Spanish Art 67

B. German Art 68

C. Flemish Art 69

D. English Art 69

E. American Art 78

F. Dutch Art 80

G. French Art . . 84

H. Sculpture 92

Retrospect 94

Contents. vii

CHAPTER III. Phenomena of Sight, and Art Principles deduced therefrom.

PAGE

Introduction and Argument 97

Optic Nerves 97

Le Conte's Classification of the subject 98

Physical characters of the eye as an optical instrument . 98

Direction of Light 102

Intensity of Light . 103

Colour % . . ,a . , . ... .108

Psychological data, and binocular vision . . . .111 Perspective, depth, size, and solidity .... . 112 Art principles deduced from the above data .... 114

BOOK II. TECHNIQUE AND PRACTICE.

CHAPTER I. The Camera and Tripod.

The Camera . . 125

Choice of a camera ; tripod and bags . . - . . .125

Manipulating the Camera . 129

Pin-hole Photography 131

Accidents to the Camera 132

Hand Cameras 132

CHAPTER II. Lenses.

Optics . . . 134

Dallmeyer's long-focus rectilinear landscape lens . . . 135

False drawing of photographic lenses 136

• Hints on the correct use of the lens 136

Lenses for special purposes 137

Diaphragms or " stops " . 138

Physical qualities of Lenses 138

Hints on lenses .140

Vlll

Contents.

CHAPTER III.

Dark Boom and Apparatus.

_ _ _ PAGE

Dark Room . . 141

A developing rule 141

Ventilation of dark room 141

Apparatus 141

CHAPTER IV.

Studio and Furniture.

Studio 144

Studio Furniture . . 145

Studio effects. A rule for studio lighting .... 147

CHAPTER V. Focussing.

How to focalize 148

The ground-glass picture 149

Examples and Illustration in point 150

CHAPTER YI. Exposure.

Ways of Exposing 154

Rule for Exposing 154

Classification of Exposures ....... 154

A. Quick Exposures . 155

B. Time Exposures 155

Exposure Shutters 156

Variation of exposure, and conditions causing them . . 157

On Exposure Tables 160

CHAPTER VII. Development and Negative Finishing.

Study of Chemistry . 162

On Plate making . . 163

Wet-plate process 163

Tonality and development 166

On developing 170

On developers 171

Local development 171

Contents. ix

PAGB

On the study of tone .173

Accidents and faults, and their remedies .... 174

Varnishing the negative . . . . . . . .179

Eoller slides and paper negatives ...... 180

Orthochromatic photography 181

CHAPTER VIII. Retouching.

Definition of retouching 184

On working up photographs 184

On retouching ......... 186

Adam Salomon and Rejlander on retouching . . . 187

CHAPTER IX. Printing.

Various printing processes 191

The Platinotype process 195

Vignetting .# 196

Combination printing . .197

On cloud negatives and printing in of clouds. . . .198

CHAPTER X. Enlargements.

On enlarging 200

CHAPTER XI.

Transparencies, Lantern and Stereoscopic Slides.

Transparencies 202

Lantern Slides 202

Stereoscopic Slides 202

CHAPTER XII. Photo-mechanical Processes.

Photo-mechanical processes 204

A. For diagrams and topographical work . . . 204

B. For pictures 204

Photogravure 207

The Typographic Etching Co. . . ... . .208

x Contents.

PAGE

Hints for those having plates reproduced by photogravure . 210 W. L. Colls on " Methods of reproducing negatives from Nature for the copper-plate press " 212

CHAPTER XIII.

Mounting and Framing.

Mountants 218

Mounts 219

Frames 219

Albums ... 220

CHAPTER XIY. Copyrighting.

On copyrighting 221

Method of copyright ; . . 221 Law of copyright 222

CHAPTER XV.

Exhibiting and Exhibition.

Exhibitions 225

Medals 226

Judges ........... 227

CHAPTER, XVI. Conclusion.

Conclusion 229

BOOK III. PICTORIAL ART.

CHAPTER I.

Educated Sight.

Men born blind 233

Education of Sight • 234

Contents. xi

CHAPTEE II.

Composition.

PAGE

On Composition 237

Burnet's " Treatise on Painting " 238

CHAPTER in. Out-door and In-door Work.

Out-door portraiture 243

Landscape 245

On picture-making 250

Figure and Landscape 251

Studio-portraiture 252

CHAPTER IY. Hints on Art. Practical hints 254

CHAPTER Y.

Decorative Art.

Decorative art 260

Naturalism in decorative art 260

Photography as applied to decorative art .... 261

Principles of decorative art 261

Practice of decorative art 261

L'ENYOI. Photography — a Pictorial Art.

On different art methods of expression 269

Answers to criticism on " Photography a pictorial Art " . 278

Artists on Photography 279

Some masters of the minor arts 289

xii Contents.

APPENDIX.

On Photographic Libraries.

PAGE

Art books 293

Art-teaching 293

Books recommended 293

Photographic Libraries 294

Index 297

NATURALISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY.

INTRODUCTION.

At a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, held Daguerre in Paris on the 19th day of August, 1839, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, in the presence of the flower of Parisian Academy, art, literature and science, gave a demonstration of his new discovery — the Daguerreotype. The success of the seance was complete, and the gathering of illustrious men was intoxicated with enthusiasm in favour of the Daguerreo- type. It is, then, almost fifty years ago that the result of the work of the father of photography, Joseph Nicephore de Niepce, who had died six years previously, and of the partner of his latter days — Daguerre — was given to the French public, for though Arago declared that ' ' Prance had adopted the discovery and was proud to hand it as a present to the whole world," Daguerre, sharp business man that he was, took out a patent for his process in England on the 15th July, 1839.

It may be said, then, that for fifty years the influence of photography has been working amongst the people for better for worse ; but a short half-century has photography had to develop in, and we naturally feel a little curious to know what it has been doing all this time. Has the art been lying idle and stagnating, or has it been developing and extending its roots into all the industrial, scientific and artistic fields of enterprise ? Let us see what this cool young goddess, born of art and science, who generally comes to stay and finally to oust the old god- de sses from their temples, has been doing these fifty years.

B

2

Naturalistic Photography.

Retro- •

sped of pro 2 less of photo- graphy in astro- nomy.

Micro- scopy.

In the fields of science she has been most busy. She has been giving us photographs of the moon, the stars, and even of the nebulse. She has recorded eclipses and a transit of Venus for us, she has drawn for us the Sun's corona, and registered those great volcanic explosions which playfully take place there periodically. She has shown us that there are stars which no telescope can find, and she has in another form registered for us the composition of the sun and of many of the stars ; and now she is busy mapping out the heavens for us. Like a goddess, she plays with the planets and records with delicate taps the stars on our plates, and she runs through the vast space of the kosmos doing our biddings with a precision and delicacy never equalled — in short she is fast becoming the right hand of the astronomer.

Not content with her vast triumphs in space over the infinitely great, she dives down to the infinitely small, and stores up for us portraits of the disease-bearing genera- tion of Schizomycetes, the stiff-necked bacteria, and the wriggling vibrio, the rolling microccus, and the fungoid actinomycosis — with deadly tresses ; these she pictures for us, so that we may either keep them on small plates, or else she throws them for us on large screens so that we are enabled to study their structure. On these screens too we can gaze on the structure of the proteus-like white cor- puscle, and we are able to study the very cells of our tongues, our eyes, our bones, our teeth, our hairs, and to keep drawings of them such as man never had before. So the kindly bright goddess stints us in nothing, for wherever the microscope leads there will she be found at our bidding. With the greatness of an all-seeing mind, it matters not to her whether she draws the protococcus or the blood-cells of an elephant, whether she depicts the eroding cancer cell or the golden scale on the butterfly's wing — anything that we ask of her she does ; if we will but be patient.

But the little goddess, the light-bearer, is not content with these sciences but she must needs go and woo chemis- try and register the belted zones of the spectrum and tell us the mysterious secrets of the composition of matter.

Introduction.

3

Meteorology, too, has claimed her, and she draws for the ^*eor" meteorologist the frowning nimbus and the bright rolling cumulus. She scratches quickly on his plate the lightning's flash, and even measures the risings and fallings of the mercuries in his long glass barometers and thin-stemmed thermometers, so that the meteorologist can go and rest in the sun ; and good-naturedly, too, she hints to him that his registerings are but fumblings after her precise and delicate work. This versatile little goddess, too, is playing with and hinting to the surveyors how she Survey- will not be coy if they will but woo her, for, says she, in£- "have I not already shown you how to measure the altitude of mountains, and how to project maps by my aid ? "

The geographer, too, is another lover well favoured by Oeogra- the dainty goddess, he always takes her on his travels now-a-days, and brings us back her inimitable drawings of skulls, savages, weapons, waterfalls, geological strata, fossils, animals, birds, trees, landscapes, and men, and we believe him when we know the light-bearer was with him, and soon in all his geographies, in all his botanies, in all his zoologies, in all his geologies, his entomologies, and all the rest of his valuable ""ologies," we will find the crisp and inimitable drawings of his dainty com- panion.

The horny-handed engineer, too, is wooing her ; he Engineer- makes love to her away down in dark caissons half-buried ing' in river beds; whilst above-ground she scatters his plans far and wide. He uses her to show how his works are growing beneath the strong arms of his horny-handed gangs, and he even uses her to determine the temperature of the depths of the sea, and the direction of oceanic cur- rents; yes, she does the work for him and he loves her. Medicine The earnest doctor and the curious biologist are amongst and Bi°- her lovers, and the dainty one does not disdain their work, log7' for she knows it to be good ; for though she is fickle, she is good at heart. For them she goes into the mysterious globe of the eye, down into the hollow larynx, and into the internal ear, and drags forth drawings. The tumour-deformed leg, the tossing epileptic, the deformed

B 2

4

Naturalistic Photography.

leprous body, the ulcerous scalp, the unsightly skin disease, the dead brain, the delicate dissection, the galloping horse, the Hying gull, and erring man does she with quick and dainty strokes draw and give her lovers the physician and biologist. Military Then like the Valkyria she too delights in dire war. and naval For her heroes she writes so finely that her letters are services. carrje(j jn a qUiH beneath a pigeon's wing into and out of beleaguered cities. She draws hasty notes of the country for the leaders of an invading army, she preserves a record of the killed and she gives truthful records of the fields of battle and of the poor torn and jaded men after a battle, whilst in peace she draws for the officer the effects of the explosion of a shell, the path of a bullet through the air, or the water thrown on high like a geyser by a hid- Forensie den torpedo. She is the warder's friend too, for she draws medicine, the skulking thief, the greedy forger, and the cruel mur- derer; she draws, too, the knife that stabbed in the dark, and the dress all blood-besmirched ; she detects the forged bank note, and draws without quibble the position of the overturned and splintered railway car, and she shows the scorched and gutted ruins of the burnt house for the Libraries, insurance agent. She has her fun, too, for she twits the librarians with the ever increasing deluga of books, and hints laughingly they must one day come to her for she will show them how to keep a library in a tea-caddy. Indus- The haggling tradesman she does not disdain, she will trial arts, draw portraits of his fabrics to be circulated all over the world, she will copy the bad paintings and drawings done for him as advertisements by the pariahs of art. She reproduces trademarks and signatures, and oh, naughty goddess, she even, on the sly, copies on old yellow paper old etchings and engravings so that the connoisseur does not know the new from the old. She helps in all kinds of advertising, reproducing the scenery by railways for the railway companies, sketching topographically for tourists, drawing mothers and fathers and children for the world, so that the loved ones can go across the seas and leave themselves in form and feature ; and so that the dead may not be forgotten she soothes the living with

Introduction.

5

their dear faces done in her pretty way. Nay, she even goes so far as to allow her works to be burnt on porcelain and sold in brooches, on plates and other ware.

Nor do the children love you in vain, pretty goddess, for you give them magic-lanterns, and invisible pictures of yourself ; to be made visible by a little secret you tell them. You give them magic cigar-holders and stereoscopes, all this out of your bountiful lap do you Art. scatter; but, pretty dainty light-bearer, have you no love dearer to you than all these, is there none amongst your lovers that you prefer ? Yes, blush not, oh, dainty one, it is the artist who sees in you a subtler, finer aid than his sorry hand, so monkey-like in its fumblings. To him you give your delicate drawings on zinc to illustrate his books, or on copper to fill his portfolios, to him you give poems of the winds whispering amongst the reed-beds, of the waves roaring in the grey gloaming, of the laughing, bright- eyed mortal sisters of yours. To him, your favoured one, your chief love, you give the subtlety of drawing of the wind-shorn and leaf-bare oak, the spirit of the wild colts on the flowery marsh, the ripple of the river and the glancing flight of the sea-fowl. Together you and he spend days and nights, mid the streams and the woods, culling the silvery flowers of nature. Oh, bright gene- rous little goddess, who has stolen the light from the sun for mortals, and brought it to them not in a narthex reed as did Prometheus bring his living spark, but in silvery drops to be moulded to your lover's wish, be he star- gazer, light-breaker, wonder-seeker, sea-fighter or land- tighter, earth-roamer, seller-of-goods, judger-of-crimes, lover-of-toys, builder-of-bridges, curer-of-ills, or lover of the woods and streams.

The influence of photography on the sister arts of sculpture, painting, engraving, etching and wood-cutting during these fifty years has been tremendous, as have they influenced in turn photography. Sculpture has been, perhaps, least influenced, although without photo- graphy thousands of posthumous statues which now grace the streets and the squares of the world could not have been modelled at all, or could only have been very

6 Naturalistic Photography.

conventionally and unsatisfactorily modelled. As it is, they are often excellent portraits. The effect of sculpture on photography has been to induce experimentalists to attempt a production of models in clay by means of an instrument called a pantograph. It is reported that these methods succeeded, but we never saw any of the produc- tions and haye little faith in the methods.

The influence of photography on painting, on the other hand, has been nothing short of marvellous, as can be seen in the great general improvement in the drawing of difficult passages. It is a common practice for painters to take photographs of their models and throw enlarge- ments of these on to a screen when the outlines are boldly sketched in. Again, it is a practice for painters to study the delicate tonality of photography, which is of course quite legitimate. Another influence of photo- graphy on painting is that the painter tries to emulate the detail of the photograph, but this was more notice- able in the early days of photography, and it had a bad effect on painting, for the painter did not know enough of photography to know that what he was striving to imitate was due to an ignorant use of photography. He thought, as mat y people think now-a-days, that there is an absolute and unvarying quality in all photographs. The effect on miniature painting was disastrous ; it has been all but killed by photography, and we think rightly. And it must be remembered that photography killed it notwith- standing the fact that many of the best miniature painters adopted photography as soon as they could. Newton and Ccsway were both photographers. Photography also killed the itinerant portrait painter who used to stump the country and paint hideous portraits for a lew shillings, or a night's lodging. Photography too, has, unfortu- nately, been the cause of a vast production of weak and feeble water-colours, oil-paintings and etchings. Second and third rate practitioners of these arts have simply copied photographs and supplied the colouring from their imagination, and thousands of feeble productions has been the result; this is a dishonest use of photography, but one by no means uncommon. We often have food

Introduction.

7

for reflection on the gullibility of man, when we see poor paintings and etchings exhibited at " one man " exhibi- tions and elsewhere, which are nothing but ruined photo- graphy the very drawing shows that, and the time in which such a collection of paintings is painted also hints at the method. All the drawing has been done by the photo- graphic lens, and transferred to the panel or canvas. These are the very men who decry photography. Such work is only admissible if confessed, but of course such people as this keep it quite secret. The etchings done in this way are simply impudent. The influence of painting on photography has been great and good as a factor in the cultivation of the assthetic faculty, but its conven- tionality has often been harmful.

As we have said, by the aid of photography feeble painters and etchers are able to produce fairly passable work, where otherwise their work would have been dis- graceful, but wood-cutters and line engravers do not gain so much help from us, and they find photography a rival that will surely kill them both. We have gone into this vexed question in detail in the body of this work. One of the best and most noted wood engravers since Bewick's time has given it as his opinion that there is no need for wood engraving now that the " processes " can so truly reproduce pictures, for, as he says, no great original genius in wood-cutting will ever be kept back by " process work," and it is a good thing that all others should be killed.

The chief thing which at present oppresses photo- graphy is " the trade." Print sellers have accumulated stocks of engravings and etchings and as they may not come down in price, they therefore give photogravures and photographs the cold shoulder.

Such, briefly, are the effects of photography on her sister . arts and of them on her.

Incredible indeed seems the all-pervading power of this light- bearing goddess. Next to printing, photography is the greatest weapon given to mankind for his intellec- tual advancement. The mind is lost in wonderment at the gigantic strides made by this art in its first fifty

8 Naturalistic Photography.

years of development, and we feel sure if any one will take the trouble to inquire briefly what photography has done and is doing in every department of life he will be astonished by the results of his inquiries. Branches From what has been said it is very evident that the of photo- practice of photography must be very different iu the different branches of human knowledge to which it is applied.

The application of its practice and principles has been very ably treated in some of these branches, especially the scientific branches, but hitherto there has been no book which gives only just sufficient science for artists and at the same time treats of the art side. Aim of We propose in this book to treat photography from fcic^pho-^" ^ne artistic standpoint. We shall give enough science tography. to lead to a comprehension of the principles which we adduce for our arguments for naturalistic photo- graphy, and we shall give such little instruction in art as is possible by written matter, for art we hold is to be learned by practice alone. That, then, is our aim, and no one knows better than ourselves how far short of our ideal we have fallen, but we trust the task as attempted may do a little good and lead some earnest wandering workers into the right path. We know that we have not accomplished our task without errors, all we plead is that we have endeavoured to reduce the number to a minimum, and where we have failed we trust those who detect our failures will kindty, not carpingly, communi- cate them to us, so that if we ever reach a second edition we may therein be regenerated. Contents The photographic student, whose aim is to make of book, pictures, will find in this book all directions, such as the choosing of apparatus, the science which must be learned, the pictures and sculpture which must be studied, the art canons which are to be avoided, the technique to be learned, including all manipulations ; the fundamental principles of art, and a critical resume of conventional art canons, including much other advice.

In addition to this the book is an argument for the Naturalistic school of photography, of which we preached

Introduction.

9

the first gospel in an address delivered in London in March, 1886 1

The necessity of this book may not be patent to artists who do not know the photographic world, but if they will consider for a moment the present position of a student of photography, whose aim is to produce artistic work, they will see the necessity for some such work. The position of the photographic world at present is this : nearly all the text-books teach how to cultivate the scientific side of photography, and they are so diffuse that we find photo-micrography, spectrum analysis and art all mixed up together, and when we assure the artistic reader that the few books and articles published with a view to teaching art, contain resumes of Burnet's teachings, as set forth in his well-known "Treatise on Painting/' and that the widest read of these books lays down laws for the sizes of pictures as advocated by that "eminent painter Norman Macbeth/' cautions the student not to take pic- tures on grey days, and contains various other erroneous ideas, we say when artists know this, and in addition that there is no book in which "tone" is even defined, they will perhaps understand the necessity for some such book as this. Lastly, the artist must remember that photo- graphers are very loath to listen to any one but photo- graphers on any subject whatever.

To give the student a clear insight into the first principles of art is of course, as we have said, the chief aim of the book, but besides that it is an attempt to start a departure from the scientific side of photography. This departure must be made, and the time is now ripe. It should be clearly and definitely understood, that although a preliminary scientific education is neces- sary for all photographers, after that preliminary educa- tion the paths and aims of the scientist, industrial photographer and artist, lie widely apart. This matter should be kept constantly in view, and specialists in one branch should not meddle with other branches. The art has so extended its fields for work that there is scope, even in a sub-branch of the scientific branch to occupy the 1 Yide Amateur Photographer for March 11, 1886.

I o Naturalistic Photography.

full energies and attention of the most able men. At exhibitions, too, the three great divisions into which photography falls should be kept rigidly separated. The writer sees in all these branches equal good and equal use, but he sees also the necessity of keeping their aims and methods separate. That this division is now possible and necessary is, from the evolutionary standpoint, the greatest sign of development. The author feels convinced that if any student is going to succeed in any branch he must not scatter his energies, but devote himself with singlemindedness to that particular branch. Directly the aims and methods of the separate branches of the art are fully recognized there will no longer be ignorance and misunderstandings of first principles. We shall not hear a first-rate lantern slide described as artistic, because it is untouched, and we shall not hear of a "high-art" photographer criticizing photo-micrographs of bacteria, matters that none but a medical microscopist can criticize. And above all, we shall not have the hack-writer talking of our " art-science."

We have drawn up a rough table of classification to illustrate our meaning, but of course it must be remem- bered that this division is arbitrary, but it would, we think, be a good working classification.

The Art of Photography. A. — Art Division.

In this division the aim of the work is to give aesthetic pleasure alone, and the artist's only wish is to produce works of art. Such work can be judged only by trained artists, and the aims and scope of such work can be fully appreciated only by trained artists. Photographers who qualify themselves by an art training, and their works alone, belong to this class. They alone are artists. Included in this class would be original artists, first-rate photo- engravers, and typo-blockmakers, whose aim is to repro- duce in facsimile all the artistic quality of original works of art Such photographers should have an artistic training without fail, as all the best have had.

Introduction.

B. — Science Division.

In this division the aim of the work is to investigate Science the phenomena of nature, and by experiment to make Division, new discoveries, and corroborate or falsify old experi- ments. The workers in this great and valuable department of photography may be divided into —

a. Scientific experimentalists in all branches of science.

b. Chemists and spectrum-analysts.

c. Astronomers.

d. Microscopists.

e. Engineers.

/. Military and naval photographers.

g. Meteorologists.

h. Biologists.

i. Geographers. j. Geologists.

k. Medical men. I. Physicists.

These sub-divisions include all that vast host of trained scientific men who are photographers in con- nection with their work. Their aim is the advancement of science.

C. — Industrial Division.

This class includes that great majority of the photo- Indus - graphic world — the craftsmen. These men have learned t^.ia.1 .

i r o -i r l i Division,

the tenets of their craft, and go on from day to day meeting the industrial requirements of the age, producing good useful work, and often filling their pockets at the same time. Their aim is utilitarian, but in some branches they may at the same time aim to give an esthetic pleasure by their productions, but this is always subordi- nated to the utility of the work. When they aim at giving this assthetic pleasure as well, they become art- craftsmen.

Amongst these craftsmen are included photographers who will take any one or anything if paid to do so, such forming what is known as "professional photographers/'

12 Naturalistic Photography.

All reproducers of pictures, patterns, &c, by photo- mechanical processes, in which the aim is not solely aesthetic pleasure, as in reproducing topographic views. All plate makers. Transparency, op;il, lantern-slide, and stereoscopic slide makers. All facsim He photographers ; photographers of pictures, statuary, &c. All makers of invisible photographs, magic cigar photographs. All operators who work under the guidance of artists or scientists for pay, they not having artistic and scientific training themselves, as in the preparation of lantern slides for a biologist, and all enlargers, operators, spotters, printers, retouchers, mounters, &c. Producers of porce- lain pictures. Producers of facsimile type blocks and copper plates, with no artistic aim, et id genus omne. All photographs produced for amusement by the un- trained in art or science. All photographers who pro- duce pattern photographs, " bits " of scenery, and animals for artists to work from.

It will thus be clear to the student that all these photo- graphers serve useful purposes and each is invaluable in his way, but we repeat the aim of the three groups of photographers is very different and quite distinct, as distinct as in the drawing world are the etchings of Rembrandt, the scientific drawings of Huxley, and the pattern plates of a store catalogue. Ml are useful in their place, and who shall dare to say which is more useful than the other ; but all are distinct, and can in no way be compared with one another or classed together any more than can the poems of Mr. Swinburne, the text of Professor TyndalPs " Light," and the Blue-books. All can be good in their way, but the aims and methods of the one must not be confounded with the aims and methods of the other, and we fear that such is the case in the photographic world at present. " Ama- There is one obstacle which we must clear from the teur " student's path in this introduction, and that is the con- fessional" fusi°n °f terms " professional" and "amateur," as used photo- in the photographic world ; for in this world it must be graphers. understood that these terms are used as in no other world. Briefly, photographers mean by " professional "

Introduction.

*3

one who gains Lis living by photography, and an "amateur" means one who does not practise photography for his living. The folly of this is obvious, for by this definition the greatest English scientific photographer, Captain Abney, is an " amateur," and the sands photographer at Margate is a " professional."

This anomalous definition of the two classes has led journalists into strange errors and mistakes. We re- member one journal, which prides itself upon its accuracy, breaking into satirical writing because the judges at a certain photographic exhibition were to be " amateurs." Of course the journalist who wrote that article used " amateur" in the ordinary English sense, and hence his amusement ; but, as we have shown, he made a great error in fact.

In reality professional photographers are those who have studied one branch of photography thoroughly, and are masters of all its resources, and no others. It is no question of £ s. d., this " professional " and " amateur " question, but a question of knowledge and capacity. An amateur is a dabbler without aim, without knowledge, and often without capacity, no matter how many of his productions he may sell. We think, then, the words "professional" and "amateur" should be abolished from the photographic world, until that day shall arise when there is a central training and examining body, that shall have the power of making real professional photo- graphers, and when all possessing a diploma would be professionals and all others amateurs.

We fondly hope that a college of photography may A college one day be instituted, where good art and science training of ph°to- may be obtained, where regular classes will be held by fndPdiplo- professors and regular terms kept, and where some sort mas. of distinguishing diploma as Member of the Royal Photo- graphic College will be given to all who pass certain examinations. The M.R.P.C. would then have a status, and the profession which would then exist — but only exists as a trade now — would be able to draw up salutary laws for the government and good be- haviour of its members, and the status of photography

1 4 Naturalistic Photography.

would be everywhere raised. The diploma of F.R.P.C. (Fellow of the Royal Photographic College) could be given to distingu:sli photographers at home and abroad as an honorary title.

But if such an institution is to have weight it must procure a charter. Money must be obtained to give honorariums to the lecturers, and the lectureships must be held by the best men. To begin with, all photographers in practice could be admitted upon passing a very simple examination in the subjects of elementary education and photography. If ever such a thing is brought about — ■ and we trust it may be — we should find many gentlemen of education would join the ranks, as indeed they are doing now; and with the taste and education they brought to the work, we should see them working quietly in studios like painters, and the " show-case " and the vulgar mounts with medals and other decorations, and the u shop-window " and the <c shop-feeling " would all disappear. We need not despair if we will all do w7hat is in us to kill " vulgarity," for painters were not so well off as most photographers are now but a very few decades ago. What gives us hope for these golden days is the fact that we number in our ranks in some branch or the other probably more intellectual men than any other calling. We have an emperor, and quite a profusion of royal-blooded wights and aristocrats, whilst every learned profession gives us of its best. Law, medicine, art, science, all contribute largely important members to swell our ranks.

Here, then, we must end our introductory remarks, and we wish the student who comes to the study of photography with capacity and earnestness all success.

P. H. E.

Chiswick, July, 1888.

BOOK I. TERMINOLOGY AND ARGUMENT.

" The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, bat the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of s?eing, is, with the mass, alone the one to be grasped, hence the delight in detail."

J. M. Whistler.

CHAPTER I

TERMINOLOGY,

It were better at the outset to define our terms, for Terrain- nothing leads more certainly to confusion in studying ol°gy- a subject than a hazy conception of the meanings of words and expressions. Perhaps in no branch of writing have words so many meanings as in writings on Art, where every expositor seems intent upon having his own word or expression. For this reason we wish clearly to define the words and art ex- pressions in use in this book. Not, be it understood, that we claim in any way for any definitions that they are the correct and final definitions of the expressions used, but we define what ive mean by certain words and terms so that the reader may understand clearly the text in which such words occur, our aim being to be clear and to avoid all empty phraseology.

Seizing the impression of natural objects, and ren- Analysis, dering this impression in its essentials has been called analyzing nature ; and the impression so rendered is an analysis.

Art is the application of knowledge for certain ends. Art. But Art is raised to Fine Art when man so applies this knowledge that he affects the intellect through the senses, and so produces aesthetic pleasure in us ; and the man so raising an art into a fine art is an artist. There- fore the real test as to whether the result of any method of expression is a fine art or not, depends upon how much of the intellectual element is required in its production. Thus Photography may be, and is, in the hands of an artist, a method of expression producing works of fine

G

Naturalistic Photography,

art, because no such works can be produced in photo- graphy by a man who is not an artist ; whereas organ- grinding is a mode of expressing music, but the result is not a fine art, because no intellect, and therefore no artist, is required to produce the expression ; a monkey might produce as good music on a hand-organ as could a Beethoven.

Art- A compound term applied by some writers to photo-

s'cience. graphy, and by others to all crafts founded upon science.

It is an absurd term, and its use should be strongly discouraged. It is to be found in no good dictionary. It is an unmeaning expression, because photography is an art founded upon science, just as is etching, and to call photography an " art-science " is to show great ignorance of the English language, and especially of the meaning of the two words of which the expression is formed — art and science. Art'stic. A word greatly misused by photographers. When applied to a person, it means one trained in art, and when applied to a work, it means leaving the impression of an artist's handiwork ; and this photographers should not forget, neither should they forget that an artist is one trained in art. This should especially be borne in mind by those who dub themselves " artist-photographers," whatever they may mean by that compound. Photo- graphers should wait for other people to call them artists, and when artists call a photographer a brother artist he will probably deserve the title, and not before. In the same way they should refrain from calling things artistic or inartistic, for it must be remembered that to use thes3 words implies that the speaker has been trained in art. Breadtk. Is a term used to describe simple arrangements of light and shade or colour, which produce a sense of the largeness and space of nature. All great work has breadth, all petty work is devoid of it ; for petty minds cannot see the breadth in nature, so they are naturally unable to get it into their work. Colour. "This theory of what constitutes fine colour is one of the peculiar traits of the old-time painters, and of the landscape critic who studies nature in the National

Terminology.

Gallery. If one may judge by their remarks or by the examples they worship, a painting to be fine in colour must first of all be brown, or at least yellow ; the shadows must all be hot and transparent; lakes and crimsons must be used freely, while a certain amount of very deep blue should be introduced somewhere, that the rest of the picture may appear the warmer by the contrast. Above all things it must not be natural, or it ceases to be fine and sinks to the level of the common- place. In fact, these colourists appear to admire a picture from just the same point of view they would an Indian carpet, a Persian rug, old tapestry, or any other con- ventional design, and seem to judge of it by similar standards ; if one suggests that it has no resemblance to what it claims to represent, they reply, 1 Ah, but it is a glorious frame, full of colour ! ' But colour in painting can only be really fine so far as it is true to nature. A grey picture may be just as fine in colour as the most gorgeous. Beauty in colour, as in form, depends on its fitness and truth/3— T. F. Goodall.

The vulgar view of fine colour is easily explained on evolutionary grounds, it is but a harking back to the instincts of the frugivorous apes — our ancestors.

There is much misconception as to the use of the word ^^ive t( creator " in the arts. Some think only those gentlemen ar 1S ' who paint mythological pictures, or story-telling pictures, are creators. Of course such distinction is absurd ; any artist is a creator when he produces a picture or writes a poem ; he creates the picture or speech by which he appeals to others. He is the author, creator, or whatever you like to call him, he is responsible for its existence.

Versifying, Prose-writing, Music, Sculpture, Painting, Filie art- Photography, Etching, Engraving, and Acting, are all arts, but none is in itself a fine art, yet each and all can be raised to the dignity of a fine art when an artist by any of these methods of expression so raises his art by his intellect to be a fine art. For this reason every one who writes verse and prose, who sculpts, paints, photographs, etches, engraves, is not necessarily an artist at all, for he

c 2

20

Naturalistic Photography.

does not necessarily have the intellect", or use it in practising his art. It has long been customary to call all painters and sculptors artists, as it has long been customary in Edinburgh to call all medical students doctors. But in both cases the terms are equally loosely applied. Our definition, then, of an artist is a person who whether by verse, prose, sculpture, painting, photo- graphy, etching, engraving, or music, raises his art to a fine art by his work, and the works of such artist alone are works of art.

High art. jn a worcl) high and low art are absurd terms, no art is high or low. Art is either good or bad art, not high or low, except when skied or floored at exhibitions. " High art " and " higher artistic sense " we shall not use because they are meaningless terms, for if they are not meaning- less then every picture falls under one or other category, high or low; if so let someone classify all pictures into these two divisions and he will find himself famous — as the laughing-stock of the world.

Ideal. A volume might be written on this word, but it would

be a volume of words with little meaning. As applied to art, the meaning of " ideal" has generally been that of something existing in fancy or in imagination, something visionary, an imaginary type of perfection. G. H. Lewes says, " Nothing exists but what is perceived;" we would say, nothing exists for us but what is perceived, and this we would make a first principle of all art. A work of pictorial art is no abstract thing, but a physical fact, and must be judged by physical laws. If a man draws a monster which does not exist, what is it ? It is but a modified form of some existing thing or combination of things, and is after all not half so terrible as many realities. What is more terrible than some of the snakes, than the octopus, than the green slimy crabs of our own waters ? Certainly none of the dragons and monsters drawn from the imagination is half so horrible. Did the great Greek artist, iEschylus, describe a dragon as gnawing at the liver of Prometheus ? No, he simply drew the picture of a vulture as being sufficiently emblematic. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the

Terminology.

dragon is more dreadful than any reality, even then the pictorial and glyptic artist cannot use it, for as he has no model to work from, the technique will necessarily be bad, there will be no subtleties of tone, of colour, of drawing, all which make nature so wonderful and beautiful. The dragon will be a pure caricature, that is all. Again, some people consider it wonderful that a painter takes a myth and renders it on canvas, and he is called " learned and " scholarly " for this work. But what does he do ? Let us say he wishes to paint the Judgment of Paris. He, if he is a good painter, will paint the background from physical matter, shaped as nearly like the Greek as possible, and he will paint the Paris and the ladies from living models. The work may be perfect technically, but where is the Greek part of it ; what, then, does the painter rely upon ? Why the Greek story, for if not why does he not call it by a modern name ? But no, he relies upon the well-known story — the Judgment of Paris — in fact he is taking the greater part of the merit which belongs to another man. The story of the Judgment of Paris is not his, yet it is that which draws the public ; and these men are called original, and clever, and learned. Jean Francois Millet, in one of his scenes of Peasant Life, has more originality than all of those others put together. Many people, not conversant with the methods of art, think artists draw and paint and sculpt things " out of their heads." Well, some do, but no good artist ever did. We have in our possession a beautiful low relief in marble, done from a well-known Italian model in London. The work is as good as any work the Greeks did, the type is most admirable, and it was done by one of the sternest naturalistic sculptors of to-day.

A highly educated friend, an old Oxford man, called on us not long ago, and was greatly taken with the head ; after looking at it a long while, he turned to us and said, "An ideal head, of course!" So it is the cant of "idealism" runs through the world. But we have heard some of the most original and naturalistic artists use the word " ideal," and on cornering them, they admitted it was misleading to others for them to use it ; but they meant by it simply

22

Naturalistic Photography.

intellectual, that is, the work of art had been done with intelligence and knowledge, but every suggestion had been taken from nature. The word ideal, to our mind, is so apt to mislead that we shall not use it.

tTiTegiDa* = Ideal = Soulful = °-

Impres- ^° us Impressionism means the same as naturalism, sionism. but since the word allows so much latitude to the artist, even to the verging on absurdity, we prefer the term Naturalism, because in the latter the work can always be referred to a standar d — Nature. Whereas if impression- ism is used, the painter can always claim that he sees so much, and only so much, of Nature ; and each individual painter thus becomes a standard for himself and others, and there is no natural standard for all A genius like Manet tried to work out new ways of looking at nature, and that was legitimate, but when weak followers took up his "manner" and had not his genius, the result was eccentricity. For these reasons, therefore, we prefer and have used the term "naturalism" throughout this work. But, as we have said, we regard the terms'* impressionism" and "naturalism" as fundamentally synonymous, although we think the work of the so-called modern 'impressionists" but a passing craze. Inter- The method of rendering a picture as it appears to the pretmg. Cye caUe(j interpreting nature. Perhaps inter-

preting is as good an expression as any, for the artist in his language (for art is only a language) interprets or explains his view of nature by his picture. Local (t The local or proper colour of an object (Korper farhe)

colour. jg £jia{. wnicn ^ shows in common white light, while the illumination colour (Licht-farbe) is that which is pro- duced by coloured light. Thus the red of some sandstone rocks, seen by common white light, is their proper local colour, that of a snow mountain in the rays of the setting sun is an illumination colour."- — E. Atkinson, Ph.D., F.R.S.

Natural- See hi£h art

ism. ' " By this term we mean the true and natural expression of the impression of nature by an art. Now it will im- mediately be said that all men see nature differently.

Terminology.

23

Granted. But the artist sees deeper, penetrates more into the beauty and mystery of nature than the common- place man. The beauty is there in nature. It has been thus from the beginning, so the artist's work is no idealizing of nature; but through quicker sympathies and training the good artist sees the deeper and more - fundamental beauties, and he seizes upon them,

" tears them our/' as Durer says, and renders them on Durer. his canvas, or on his photographic plate, or on his written page. And therefore the work is the test of the man — - for by the work we see whether the man's mind is commonplace or not. It is for this reason, therefore, that artists are the best judges of pictures, and even a trained second-rate painter will recognize a good picture far quicker than a layman, though he may not be able to produce such a one himself. Of course Naturalism pre- misses that all the suggestions for the work are taken from and studied from nature. The subject in nature must be the thing which strikes the man and moves him to render it, not the plate he has to fill. Directly he begins thinking how he can fill a certain canvas or plate he is no longer naturalistic, he may even then show he is a good draughtsman or a good colourist, but he will not show that he is an artist. Naturalistic painters know well enough that very often painting in a tree or some other subject might improve the picture in the eyes of many, but they will not put it in because they have not rhe tree before them to study from. Again, it has been said that arranging a foreground and then painting it might improve the picture, but the naturalistic painter says no, by so doing Ci all the little subtleties are lost, which give quality to the picture ! " Nature, too, is so full of surprises that, all things considered, she is best painted as she is. Aristotle of old called poetry " an imitative art," and we Aristotls do not think any one has ever given a better definition of poetry, though the word "imitative" must not in our present state of knowledge be used rigidly. The poetry is all in nature, all pathos and tragedy is in nature, and only wants finding and tearing forth. But there's the rub, the best work looks so easy to do when it is done.

24 Naturalistic Photography.

Burns. Does not Burns' "Ode to a field-mouse" look easy to write?

This, then, is what we understand by naturalism, that all" suggestions should come from nature, and all techniques should be employed to give as true an impression of nature as possible.

Original. This is a mightily misused word. Only those artists can be called original who have something new to say, no matter by what methods they say it. A photograph may be far more original than a painting.

Photo- Some of the best writers and journalists of the day

graphic, have adopted the use of the word " photographic," as applying to written descriptions of scenes which are ab- solutely correct in detail and bald fact, though they are lacking in sentiment and poetry. What a trap these literary men have fallen into will be seen in this work, for what they think so true often is utterly false. And, on the other hand, photography is capable of producing pictures full of sentiment and poetry. The word " photographic " should not be applied to anything except photography. No handwriting can be te photographic." The use of the word, when applied to writing, leads to a confusion of different phenomena, and therefore to deceptive inferences. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon, as some cul- tured writers have been guilty of the wrong use of the word " photographic," and therefore of writing bad English.

Quality. Quality -is used when speaking of a picture or work which has in it artistic properties of a special character, in a word, artistic properties which are distinctive and characteristic of the fineness and subtlety of nature.

Ecalism. By Naturalism it will be seen that we mean a very different thing from Realism. The realist makes no analy- sis, he is satisfied with the motes and leaves out the sun- beam. He will, in so far as he is able, paint all the veins of the leaves as they really are, and not as they look as a whole. For example, the realist, if painting a tree a hun- dred yards off, would not strive to render the tree as it looks to him from where he is sitting, but he would pro- bably gather leaves of the tree and place them before him, and paint them as they looked within twelve inches of his

Terminology.

25

eyes,and as the modern Pre-Rapbaelitesdid, he might even Pre-Ra- inritate the local colour of things themselves. "Whereas the pkaehtes. naturalistic painter would care for none of these things, he would endeavour to express the impression of the tree as it appeared to him when standing a hundred yards off, the tree taken as a whole, and as it looked, modified as it would be by various phenomena and accidental circum- stances. The naturalist's work we should call true to nature. The realist's false to nature. The work of the realist would do well for a botany but not for a picture, there is no scope for fine art in realism, realism belongs to the province of science. This Ave shall still further illustrate in the following pages.

Relative tone or value is the difference in the amount Relative of light received on the different planes of objects when *°"^eand compared with one another.

Artists speak of the " sentiment of nature " as a highly Senf- desirable quality in a picture. This means that natural- ment- ism should have been the leading idea which has governed the general conception and execution of the work. Thus the sentiment of nature is a healthful and highly desirable quality in a picture. Thus "true in sentiment" is a term of high praise. " Sentiment" is really normal sympathetic " feeling."

As opposed to sentiment, is a highly undesirable Senti- $ quality, and a quality to be seen in all bad work. It is mentallt7« an affectation of sentiment, and relies by artificiality and mawkishness upon appealing to the morbid and uncul- tured. It is the bane of English art. The one is normal, the other morbid.

Sonl = Yis medicatrix = Plastic force = Vital force = Soul. Vital principle = 0. The word is, however, used by some of the most advanced thinkers in art, and when asked to explain it they say they mean by it "the funda- mental. " From what we can gather, the word " soul " is the formula by which they express the sum total of qualities which make up the life of the individual. Thus a man when he has got the " soul " into a statue, has not only rendered the organic structure of the model, but also all the model's subtleties of harmony, of movement,

Naturalistic Photography.

and expression, and thought, which are due to the physical fact of his being a living organism. This u life " is of course the fundamental thing, and first thing to ob- tain in any work of art. In this way, then, we can under- stand the use of the word " soul" as synonymous with the "life" of the model. This "soul" or life is always found in nature, in the model, and the artist seizes upon it first, and subdues all things to it. " Soul,"- then, to us is a term for the expression of the epitome of the characteristics of a living thing. The Egyptians ex- pressed the " soul " or life of a lion, Landseer did not. Tech- By technique is meant a knowledge of optics and

uique. chemistry, and of the preparation and employment of the photographic materials by the means of which pictures are secured. It does in no way refer to the manner of using these materials, that is the " practice." Tone. To begin with, as this book is for photographers, we

must tell them they invariably use the word tone in a wrong sense. What photographers call tC tone " should properly be colour or tint, thus : a brown tint, a purple tint, or colour.

The correct meaning of tone is the amount of light re- ceived upon the different planes of an object. Tran- " i A mere transcript of nature ; is one of the stock

script of phrases of the art critic, and of many artists of a certain nature. sch0ol. The precise meaning attached to it puzzles us ;

were it not always used as a term of reproach, we should believe it the highest praise that could be bestowed upon a picture. What adds to our perplexity is that the phrase is generally applied by the critic to work which has nothing in common with nature about it ; and is used by artists who themselves ha ve never in their lives painted a pictnre with the simplest values correct, as though transcribing nature to canvas were a stage in the painter's development through which they had passed, and which was now beneath them. The critic must have but a very superficial acquaintance with nature who applies this term, as is frequently done, to work in which all the subtleties of nature are wanting. We have heard of pictures in which no two tones have been in right relation

Terminology.

27

to one another, in which noisy detail has been mistaken for finish, and the mingling of decision and indecision in fine opposition — the mysterious lost and found, the chief charm of nature — has been utterly unfelt, described as ' transcripts of nature.' Those artists who use the phrase, adopt it as a convenient barricade behind which they may defend their own incompetence. " — T. F. Good- all.

All photographers would do well to lay these remarks to heart. Instead of it being an easy thing to paint te a mere transcript of nature/' we shall show it to be utterly impossible. No man can do this either by painting or photography, he can only give a translation, or impression, as Leonardo Da Vinci said long ago ; but he can give this pa yinci. impression truly or falsely.

28

Naturalistic Photography.

CHAPTER II.

NATURALISM IN PICTORIAL AND GLYPTIC ART.

^uiry into In this chapter we shall endeavour to trace the influence theinflu- 0f the study of nature on all the best art up to the theltudy Presen^ day. In order to do this it will be necessary to of nature follow in chronological order the development of art, on art. and we propose taking as our guide in this matter Wolt- Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann, w7ho seem the most Woer trustworthy and most recent of art historians. We feel, maim. however, that we must state our attitude towards them as historians of art. For the main historical facts, we willingly accept as authorities these writers, since they have studied the matter, but when these historians try to trace the causes and effects of different phases of art on contemporary life then we entirely part company from them, for there are so many wheels within wheels in this complex comedy of life that we cannot with patience listen to searchers of manuscripts and students of autographs, who trace the fall of an empire to an oil painting, or the decadence of painting to the cheapness of wheat; such dreams may still serve, as they have always served, as a peg whereon to hang rhetorical rhapsodies, but they can have no attraction for scientific minds. What we propose, then, is briefly to compile a short outline, consisting of the salient facts in the history of art, in so far as they bear on our subject, that is, how far the best artists have been naturalistic, and how true in impression their interpretation of nature. When we agree with any of the critical remarks of these gentlemen, we shall quote them in full, acknowledging them in the usual way, but we reserve to ourselves the right to differ entirely

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 29

fiom them on artistic points. We ourselves feel much diffidence in advancing any critical remarks of our own upon these arts, for we are convinced, after a long and practical study of the subject, that no one can criticize any branch of art and the criticism be authoritative, unless he be a practical master artist in the branch of art which he is criticizing ; but as our opinions have been put to the touchstone of some first-rate practical artists in other branches than our own, we offer them, standing always ready to be corrected by any good practical artist on any point. As to who are good artists is again another wide question. Certainly their name is not legion.

Our object in traversing all this ground, then, is one of Criticism, inquiry, to really see how far (C naturalism 93 is the only wear for all good art, and we have done it in an impartial spirit, arriving at the conclusion that in all the glyptic and pictorial arts the touchstone answers. How far this is the case with the arts of Fiction, Poetry, &c, is a more complex matter, and one we cannot now deal with, but we feel that in the literary arts the matter is very different, for in these arts we are not confined, as we are in the pictorial and glyptic arts, to physical facts and their re- presentation; for there is no such thin gas abstract beauty of form or colour. Art has served as a peg on which to hang all sorts of fads — fine writing, very admirable in its place — morality, not to be despised — classical knowledge and literature generally, both of the highest aesthetic value, but in no way connected with the glyptic and pictorial arts. Naturalistic art has been found and lost and lost and found time after time, and it is because the Dutch, French, English and American artists of to-day are finding it again that we feel hopeful for the art of the future, and towards the idealists we feel like the sculptor Idealism, whom we heard remark, after reading an empty article on " Idealism " in Greek art, as shown by the Greek coins, " the fellow is either a crank or an imbecile, God help him."

Our object is, by our notes, to lead our readers to the Our aim. works of art themselves, hoping that by this means they will, to some extent, educate themselves and finally form independent judgments on art matters. Much of the

So

Naturalistic Photography.

lamentable ignorance existing on these subjects is due to the acceptance of the dicta of writers on pictures, with- out the readers seeing the pictures themselves. We earnestly beg, therefore, of any one who may be sufficiently interested in the subject as to read this book, that he will go and see the original pictures and sculptures cited ; all of which are within easy reach. It was our original intention to introduce photographic reproductions of the best pieces of sculpture, and the best pictures into this work, but we have decided against so doing, fearing that the reader might be tempted to look at the reproductions and neglect the originals, and a translation, however good it may be, is but a small part of the truth. In thus expressing our conclusions on naturalism in art, we do not set up as the preacher of any new gospel. Such opinions as ours are as old as the art of ancient Greece, nay older, for from the early days of Egypt downwards these ideas have been held, we shall find, by great artists in all ages. It is only in the application of these principles to photo- graphy that we presume to claim any originality.

Egyptian Art.

Egyptian On examining specimens of Egyptian art, whether it be art- their paintings, architecture, sculpture or book illustrations (the papyri), one is struck by the wonderful simplicity, decision and force with which they expressed themselves. The history of Egypt has been so little studied, save by students of history, and the old popular stories concern- ing the nations of the past are so inaccurate and mislead- ing, that one is at first surprised to find such power in the works of those whom we were taught, not so long ago, to look upon as Philistines ; so that we might gaze on the Pyramids of Gizeh, the statues of Rameses,- and the granite lions, with the wonderment of incomprehension. But now, of course, every one knows that the Egyptians were masters in certain directions, where we are but in our infancy. Even in their cavi relievi and wall paintings, though these latter are but tinted outlines, they are not the outlines of childish draughtsmen, weak and unmeaning,

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art, 31

but they show the force of a consummate skill that in one bold outline can give all the essentials of a man, bird or beast, so that the picture looks living and doing. All through their work there is a bigness of conception, a solid grip of nature which makes their work surpass many of the elaborately finished and richly detailed pictures of our modern art galleries.

Let us call the reader's attention to such examples as Works are easily to be seen, namely, the granite lions, the. can g°J^ed relievi and the papyri in the British Museum. The lions, The ]iong which are remarkable for strength of character and truth- fulness of impression, may be taken as representative of the greatest period of Egyptian art, a period which ended about the time of Rameses II. ; for after that time the artist began to neglect the study of nature, and gradual decadence set in.

We strongly advise all our readers to go to the British Museum and look well at these lions. They are hewn from granite, or porphyry, the hardest of stones, they have conventional moustaches, and are lying in conven- tional positions, yet withal, there is a wonderful ex- pression of life and reserved strength about them which makes you respect them, stone though they be ; and they convey to you, as you look on their long lithe flanks so broadly and simply treated, the truthful impression of strong and merciless animals. Your thoughts involun- tarily turn from them to Landseer's bronze lions guarding Landseer 1 Trafalgar Square. In them you remember all the tufts lions, of hair correctly rendered, even to the wool in the ears, the mane, the moustaches. Even the claws are there, and yet you feel instinctively you would rather meet those tame cats of Trafalgar Square, with all their claws, than the Egyptian lions in the British Museum. The reason of this is that the Egyptians knew how to epito- mize, so as to express the fundamental characteristics of the lion, they cared not to say how many hairs went to make up the tufted tail, nor yet how many claws each paw should have, but what they tried to do, and succeeded in doing, was to convey a sense of his power and animal- ism, or to convey, in short, an impression of his nature.

32

Naturalistic Photography.

Wilkin- son's

" Ancient Egyp- tians."

Artists'

Status.

These lions were the outcome of the best period of Egyptian sculpture. The Egyptian artists who carved those lions had been striving to interpret Nature, and hence their great success ; but as soon as their successors began to neglect nature, and took to drawing up rules, nUauddSe- ^iey went wrong, and produced caricatures. We read cadence, that after the time of Rameses II. " every figure is now mathematically designed according to a prescribed canon of numerical proportions between the parts."

All this we can trace for ourselves in the plates supplied with Wilkinson's learned work, entitled, " The Ancient Egyptians." We see in those plates that something has happened to the people and objects represented, something that makes them no longer tell their own story, they no longer look alive, but are meaningless ; the reason of this falling off was that the artist no longer used his eyes to any purpose, but did what was then supposed to be the right thing to do, namely, followed the laws laid down by some men of narrow intellect — laws called as now the " canons of art." The very life of the Egyptian artists of that period was against good work, for they were incorporated into guilds, and the laws of caste worked as harmfully as they now do in the Orient. There is, then, distinct evidence that on the one hand the Egyptian artists of the best period, when untrammelled by conventionality, created works which, though lacking the innumerable subtleties of later Greek art, yet possessed, as far as they went, the first essential of all art — truth of impression. Again, on the other hand, directly anything like " rules of art" appeared, and the study of nature was neglected, their art degenerated into meaningless conventionality, and as this conventionality and neglect of nature were never cast aside, the art of Egypt never developed beyond the work done by the artists who carved the stone lions.

Assyrian art.

Monarchies of Western Asia.

Assyrian art differed from that of Egypt in that the outline of the figures was much stronger, and that they

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 33

painted their bas-reliefs ; but the " imitation of nature was the watchword " in Assyria, as it was in Babylon.

In studying the Assyrian bas-reliefs, those interested ^asgsyrian in the subject should go to the Assyrian rooms in the reliefs, basement of the British Museum, and look at the reliefs of Bani-Pal — the famous lion-hunting scenes. There The Kan- is, of course, much conventionality in the work, as llunt- there was in that of the Egyptians ; but no observer can fail to detect that the Assyrians were naturalistic to a degree that strikes us as marvellous when we consider the subjects they were treating. Note the lioness, wounded in the spine, dragging her hindquarters painfully along. Does this not give a powerful impression of the wounded animal ? and does it not occur to yon how wonderful was the power of the man who in so little ex- pressed and conveys to you so much. Consider when those Assyrian sculptors lived. Look, too, at the bas-reliefs num- bered 47 and 49 ; and in 50 note the marvellous truthful- ness of impression of the horseman, who is riding at a gallop. There is life and movement in the work. Look, too, at the laden mules in bas-reliefs numbers 70 and 72. Such works as these were done by great men in art, and though crudeness of methods prevented them from rival- ling some of the later work, their work is at least honest, and, as far as it goes, naturalistic. The work does not say all that there is to say about the subject; but it does say what is most essential, and by doing that is artistically greater than work done by scores of modern men. In addition to their artistic value, how interesting are these works as records of history. Indisputable, as written history can never be, they are to us a true record of ^lue^of^ the life and times. They constitute historical art in its the bas- only good sense. reliefs.

Ancient Greek and Italian Aet.

In discussing Greek painting we shall rely entirely upon Qn^nt d the erudite historical work of Messrs. Woltmann and Woer- Italian**1 mann. giving a short resume of their remarks on the subject, art,

D

34 Naturalistic Photography.

No Greek This is absolutely necessary, as not one specimen of extant" gS ^vee^ Pamting has come down to us. But on the other hand, in dealing with Greek and Grseco-Roman sculpture we shall base our remarks on the Greek and Graeco- Roman sculpture in the British Museum.

Beginning then with Greek painting, let us see what ^Greek ^e historians tell us. They begin by saying, in paint- painting. *ng " the Greeks effected nothing short of a revo- lution. ... by right of which they deserve the glory of having first made painting a truthful mirror of realities/' This fact, that their pictorial art reached such perfection, is not generally known, for the reason that the assertion rests on written testimony, — but it is reliable testimony. The historians " insist on the fact that no single work of any one of the famous painters recognized in the history of Greek art has survived to our time."" Let us then briefly trace the rise of Greek painting till it Poiygno- culminated in Apelles. Polygnotos (b.c. 475-55) is the tos. first name we hear of, and of his works we are told, " they were just as far from being really complete pictorial repre- sentations as the wall-pictures of the Assyrians and Egyp- tians themselves/' although in some particulars there must have been a distinct advancement on the work of the orientals. For example, we are told Polygnotos painted the " fishes of Acheron shadowy grey, and the pebbles of the river-bed so that they could be seen through the water." Polygnotos fell, however, into a pitfall which has en- trapped many painters since, he painted imaginative pictures. We are told he " was a painter of heroes/' some of his school attempted portraiture, " but painting though in this age was still a mere system of tinted out- Agathar- line design/' Then followed Agatharchos, " the#leader of chos. a reai revolution, a revolution by which art was enabled to achieve great and decisive progress towards a system of representation corresponding with the laws of optics and the full truth of nature." Agatharchos was a scene- painter, and was no doubt led by striving for naturalism in his scenery to study naturalism in painting generally. Scene- ^ne historians remark, " In scene-painting as thus prac-

painting. tised, we find the origins not only of all representations

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic A rt. 3 5

of determinate backgrounds, but also, and more especially, of landscape painting. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of the invention of scene-painting as the most decisive turning-point in the entire history of the art, and Agatharchos is named as the master who, at the inspiration of iEschylus, first devoted himself to prac- tising the invention." This painter, it is said, also paid great attention to perspective, and left a treatise which Perspec- was afterwards used in drawing up the laws of perspective. tive* It is said his manner of treatment was " comparatively broad and picturesque."" Next came Apollodoros, a Apollo- figure-painter, who also combined landscape and figure doros- subjects, and of whom Pliny says "that he was the first to give the appearance of reality to his pictures, the first to bring the brush into just repute, and even that before him no easel-picture {tabula) had existed by any master Easel- fit to charm the eye of the spectator." Apollodoros was pictures* the first to give his pictures a natural and definite back- ground in true perspective ; he was the first, it is emphatically stated, " who rightly managed chiaro-oscuro Chiaro-

and the fusion of colours He will have also oscuro-

been the first to soften off the outlines of his figures. . . . For this reason we may, with Brunn, in a certain sense Brunn. call Apollodoros " the first true painter." We are told, however, that his " painting was, in comparison with his successors, hard and imperfect," and that the innovations made by him in the relation of foreground and background cannot be compared to the improvements effected by the brothers Yan Eyck in modern times. We now read of ^euxis Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Timanthes, who, we are told, Parrha- 4t perfected a system of pictorial representation, adequately si?s> and rendering on the flat surface the relief and variety of ^J^an" nature, in other particulars if not in colour." The endeavour of Zeuxis was " by the brilliant use of the brush to rival nature herself/' and from anecdotes related of him and of Parrhasios, we gather that they cc laid the greatest stress on carrying out to the point of actual illusion the deceptive likeness to nature." Many of Zeuxis' subjects were taken from everyday life— -another step in the right direction. We now come to the Dorian

d 2

36

Naturalistic Photography .

Eupom- pos.

Pamphi- los.

Melan- thios.

Pansias.

The The-

ban-Attic school.

Apelles.

school, with Eupompos as its founder; and here we find a determination to study painting scientifically, and to conscientiously observe nature, for we are told Eupom- pos expressed the opinion u that the artist who wished to succeed must go first of all to nature as his teacher." Pamphilos, a pupil of Eupompos, brought this school to maturity, and insisted on the " necessity of scientific study for the painter." He was followed by Melanthios, who pursued the same lines of scientific investigation : and was in his turn succeeded by Pausias, of whom we hear, " It is quoted as a novel and striking effect, that in one of his pictures the face of Methe (or personified Intoxication) was visible through the transparent substance of the glass out of which she drank." His work was considered to have great technical excellence, his subjects were taken from everyday life, and his pictures were all on a small scale. Pliny says " his favourite themes were ' boys/ that is, no

doubt, scenes of child-life He developed, it seems,

a more natural method of representing the modelling of objects by the gradations of a single colour." We read, too, that his paintings drawn fresh from life " were much appreciated by the liomans." Such is the case with all good naturalistic works, they always interest posterity, whereas the so-called imaginative works only interest the age for which they are painted. We should to-day prefer and treasure as beyond price one of Pausias' studies of familiar Greek life, whereas the heroes of Poly gnotos would lack interest for us, and excite but little enthusiasm. There was a third school of Greek painting, that called the Theban-Attic, and of this we read that there was " a great ease and versatility, and an invention more intent upon the expression of human emotion," but no painter of this school made any very great advance. At length we come to Apelles, the most famous of all Greek painters. He, although already well known and highly thought of, went to the Sikyonian school, to study under Pamphilos, and we afterwards hear of him as court painter to Alex- ander the Great. We are told that at court his tC mission was to celebrate the person and the deeds of the king, as well as those of his captains and chief men," This was

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 37

at any rate legitimate historical painting. Woltmann and Woermann say, " In faithful imitation of nature he was second to none ; he was first of all in refinement of light and shade, and consequent fulness of relief and completeness of modelling/' And again we read, u Astonishing technical perfection in the illusory imitation of nature " distinguished Apelles. Thus we see that the great aim of the greatest of Greek painters was to paint nature exactly as she is, or as glib critics would say, to paint "mere transcripts of nature/' Contemporary with Apelles was Protogenes, whose aim was to reach the "high- Proto- est degree of illusion in detail.'" The cycle of develop- genes* ment seemed now to have reached its highest point, and as the naturalistic teachings fell into the hands of inferior men, they were abused, and Woltmann and Woermann tell us the imitative principle was not kept subservient to artistic ends, and in the hands of Theon of Samos the Theon. principle of illusion became an end in itself, and art degenerated into legerdemain. This same tendency is now showing its hydra head, and in London, Brussels, and other places are to be seen inferior works hidden in dark rooms, or to be viewed through peep-holes. We only want the trumpets of Theon or the music of the opera bouffe to complete the degradation. Following Theon, and probably disgusted with his phantasies, came painters of small subjects ; the rhyparographi of Pliny, or the rag- The vhJ' and-tatter painters, " who painted barber's shops, asses, phi°gla~ eatables, and such-like." " We see, therefore, that about B.C. 300 . . . Greek painting had already extended its achievements to almost all conceivable themes, with the single exception of landscape. Within the space of a hundred and fifty years the art had passed through every technical stage, from the tinted profile system of Polygnotos to the properly pictorial system of natural scenes, enclosed in natural backgrounds, and thence to the system of trick and artifice, which aimed at the realism of actual illusion by means beyond the legiti- mate scope of art."

" The creative power of Greek painting was as good as exhausted by this series of efforts. In the following

38

Naturalistic Photography.

Timoma- chos.

Greek

landscape

painting.

Deca- dence.

Fabiua and

Ludius.

Vases, mosaics, &c, &c.

centuries the art survived indeed as a pleasant after- growth, in some of its old seats, but few artists stand out with strong individuality from among their contempo- raries. Only a master here and there makes a name for himself. The one of these whom we have here especially to notice is Timomachos, of Byzantium, an exception of undeniable importance, since even at this late period of Greek culture he won for himself a world-wide celebrity."

Decadence, however, had already set in, and we find that Timomachos neglected the study of familiar subjects, and returned to the so-called imaginative style, producing such works as "Ajax and Medea/' and "Iphigenia in Taurus/' Curiously enough, it was during this period that the only branch of painting not yet tried by the Greeks, * namely, landscape painting, was attempted. Woltmann and Woermann suggest a reason for this new departure when they say, " We can gather with certainty from poetry and literature that it was in the age of the Diadochi (the kings who divided amongst them the kingdom of Alexander) that the innate Greek instinct of anthropomorphism, of personifying nature in human forms, from a combination of causes was gradually modi- fied in the direction of an appreciation of natural scenes for their own sake, and. as they really are." Landscape painting, however, did not reach any great perfection, for we are told it " scarcely got beyond the superficial character of decorative work." With this period ends the true history of Greek painting, though it still lingers on, and becomes so far merged into that of Roman art that between the two it is not possible to draw a line of distinction. Roman art had a character of its own, and even two painters, whose names, Fabius and Ludius, and in the case of the latter whose works, have been handed down to us ; but the works of Ludius do not appear to have been more than decorative work.

Besides the written testimony referred to, the state of art can be gathered from the vases, bronzes, mosaics, paintings on stone, and mural decorations which have come down to us. These were chiefly the work of Greek journeymen, and though there is much that is excellent

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 39

in these productions, their period of decadence very soon set in. It is a gauge of the art knowledge of to-day to watch the gullible English and Americans purchasing Autiques third-rate copies of the works of Greek journeymen house- for decorators, and taking them home and hanging them up as tourists- works of art, — works which were only valuable in their own time, in connection with the life and architecture then existing, but which at the present day are interesting merely from an historical point of view, for no really artistic mind can possibly find satisfaction in such work for its own sake. Did these uncultured buyers but reflect and study for a while the natural beauties around them, they would soon see the error of their ways. In their conclusion on Grse co-Roman art Woltmannand P Woermann say that they "have no doubt that Greek painting had at last fully acquired the power to produce adequate semblances of living fact and nature," which could not be said of any painting up to that time. Here then we have traced a quick development of Greek painting, and an almost equally quick decline, and all through we find the never-failing truth, — that as long as nature was the standard, and all efforts were directed towards interpret- ing her faithfully, so long did the national art grow and improve till it culminated in the statues of Pheidias and the paintings of Apelles ; but that directly nature was neglected, as it was in the time of Theon, art degenerated, till at last it fell, as we shall see, into the meaningless work of the early Christian artists. We find even thus early Art criti- that the pedantic writer who knows nothing of practical cism* art had begun to fill the world with his mysterious non- sense. Snch were the rhetoricians of the empire who Rhetori- describe works " purely anonymous, indeed in many cases cians' it is clear that the picture has been invented by the man of letters, as a peg whereon to hang his eloquence."

It cannot be too often repeated that artistic criticism is not authoritative unless made by masters of the several arts.

Let us now proceed to the British Museum, and look Greek and at the best specimens of Greek and Graeco-Roman ^n" sculpture as exhibited there. sculpture.

4o

Naturalistic Photography.

Taking for examination the specimens nearest at hand ; we refer to those to be seen in the gallery leading ont The of the entrance-hall of the British Musenm. The busts British which strike us most forcibly are those of Nero, Trajan, conectfon. Publius Hevius Pertinax, Oordianus Africanus, Caracalla, Nero's Commodus, and J ulius Caesar. The bust of Nero (No. 11) bust. strikes one by the simplicity and breadth of its treatment, combined as these qualities are with the expression of great strength and energy. The sculptor has evidently gone at his work with a thorough knowledge of the technique, and hewn the statue straight from the marble, a custom, by the way, followed by only one modern sculptor, namely, J. Havard Thomas. Look at the broad treatment of the chin and neck of this bust of Nero. Nowadays one rarely meets with even living awe-in- spiring men, but that marble carries with it such force, that, all cold and stony as it is, it creates in you a feeling of respect and awe. It should be studied from various distances and coigns of vantage, and if well studied it can surely never be forgotten. It gives the head of a domineering, cruel, sensual, yet strong man. In the bust Trajan's 0f Trajan (No. 15), we have the same powerful technique employed this time in rendering the animal strength of a powerful man. With his low forehead, small head, and splendid neck, the embodiment of strength, Trajan looks down on us somewhat scornfully. Then, too, No. 35, Bust of ^he bust of Publius Hevius Pertinax, is no mask, but a face

Pnhlins • •

Peitinax. W1^h a brain 'behind it. You feel this man might speak, and if he did, what he had to say would be worth listening to. Perhaps for grip of the impression of life this is the best of all these busts. Compare it with the mask (it can be called nothing else) on the shelf above it, and you will see the difference. The portrait busts of Cordianus Cordianus Africanus (No. 39) and Caracalla are also marvellous for and ' life-like expression. Look well at the cropped head and Caracalla. beard of Cordianus from a little distance, and see how true and life-like the impression is ; then go up close and see how the hair of the beard is rendered. It is done by chipping out little wedges of the marble. Here is a very good example of the distinction between what is called

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 41

realism and naturalism or impressionism, for these two we hold to be synonymous, though for lucidity we have defined them differently. If all the detail of that beard had been rendered, every hair or curl correctly cut to represent a hair or curl-, and this is what the modern Italian sculptor would have done, we should have had realism and bad work. This should be borne in mind in portrait photo- graphy, that the essence, the true impression, is what is required ; the fundamental is all that counts ; the rest is small, niggling, contemptible.

Let us turn to No. 33, — the sensual face of Commodus, j?^^ — he re-lives in the marble. Another very notable bust c]us> is that of Homer (No. 117), in the corner of the gallery at Bllgfc of right angles to that we are leaving. Look how truly Homer, the impression is rendered of the withered old literary man ; how the story of his long life is stamped on his face, the unmistakable look of the studious, contemplative man.

Pass we now to the next gallery, and stop at the wonder- fully fine torso, No. 172. Look well at this beautiful Torgo ancl work, so feelingly, sympathetically, and simply treated boy and by the sculptor. You can almost see the light glance as thorn, the muscles glide beneath the skin. This is a marvellous natural work, as is also the boy pulling out a thorn from his foot. The young satyr (No. 184) is also a wonderfully Young fine piece of sculpture, and well worth close study. The satyr- student will have ample opportunity for studying, side by side, in this gallery, bad stone cutting and fine sculpture, for many of the fine marbles have been barbarously re- stored. As an example, we cite the lifeless, stony arms of No. 188, which compare with the rest of the figure, look at the india-rubber finger of the right hand, and you will understand what bad work is, if you did not know it already. Before leaving this gallery let the reader look at No. 159, the Apotheosis of Homer. Now, Apotheo- as can be imagined, this is the delight of the pedantic Homer critic, and more ignorant rhapsodies have been written on this work than perhaps on any other piece of sculpture. Of course, as any candid and competent observer will see, this is, as a work of art, very poor, and hardly worth talking about, except as a warning. In passing into the gallery

42

Naturalistic Photography.

where are the remains of the Parthenon frieze, notice an archaic nude torso which stands on the left, and see how the Parthenon ar^st was feeling his way to nature. All portions of the frieze. Parthenon frieze should be most carefully studied. The animals in 60 and 61 are wonderfully true, as in fact is the Muy- whole work. It was on seeing one of Muy bridge's photo- and his graPns of a man cantering on a bare-backed horse, that a cantering sculptor remarked to us, " I wonder if the Greeks knew of horse. photography. " And yet critics and feeble artists call this work ideal, and declare they discover imaginary groupings according to geometrical laws, and heaven knows what ; all of which the best sculptors deny. The Horse of student must now look at " Horse of Selene," one of the Selene. mos£ marvellous pieces of work ever done by man. It was a long time before we could see the full beauty and truthfulness of impression of this great work, and the reason was due to a simple physical fact. We stood too near to it. To see it well you should stand about twenty or thirty feet off, and out of the grey background you will see the marble horse tossing its living head, and you will be spell-bound. Having observed the truthfulness of impression, go close, and note the wonderful truth with which the bony structure of the skull is suggested beneath the skin. We can say no more than that it is a true im- pression taken direct from nature, for in no other way could it have been obtained. Nothing ideal about it at all, simply naturalism.

Much nonsense has been written, too, about " idealism" Greek in Greek coins. To us they seem simply impressions coins. taken from busts or other works ; but to make assurance doubly sure, we have taken the opinion of two of the very best modern sculptors, who are, we venture to prophesy, going to show us as good work as any done by the Greeks, and in many ways even better wor^:. Well, their opinion as to " idealism " in Greek sculp- ture is emphatically that it existed not. They say that the Greeks were naturalistic, the study of nature was the mainspring of their art, and the truthful expression of the poetry of nature their sole end and aim. That they attained this end in many ways we

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 43

know, and as far as they went they will never be surpassed.

We do not attempt to give a detailed technical Technical criticism of sculpture as executed by the Greeks, for, criticism, as we have said before, none but a first-rate sculptor can do that ; and as there are only about half a dozen such in England, and as they have quite enough work to do at present, we fear the public will have to wait some time for such criticism. In the meantime those interested in the subject cannot do better than study the works men- tioned, and let them leave all others alone; let them spend days in studying those pointed out, and they will soon find themselves able to distinguish good work from bad. Then, if they want a good shock, let them walk into the Gibson Gallery at Burlington House, for there Gibson they will see nothing but bad work. ga ery*

There is one point to be borne in mind when we look at the surpassing beauty of the Greek statues, and that is the natural beauty of the Greek race, and the number of excellent models the Greek sculptors had before them to choose from. Taine,in his charming but atechnical volume Taine. on " La Philosophie de Tart Grec," goes as thoroughly into this question as a historian and philosopher can enter into the life of the past, and into art questions, which in our opinion is to a very limited extent. Nevertheless, his book is full of suggestions, and if our sculptors do not to-day equal in beauty the antiques, the cause, in our opinion, lies in the lack of perfect models, for the best technical work of to-day we think is superior to that of the Greeks. We have seen impressionistic renderings of nature by some modern sculptors whicli we think more natural in all points than anything of the kind to be found in Greek sculpture.

Like the Greeks have the leading men of the modern j^0(jern French school adhered to nature, — a school in our mind French more akin to the Greek school at its best than any other, school, and for the simple reason that it is more loyal to nature than any art has been since the time of Apelles. As an example of the kinship between the two schools we quote Woltmann and Woermann, who tell us the Greeks "placed

44

Naturalistic Photography.

their horizon abnormally high according to our ideas ; and distributed the various objects over an ample space in clear and equable light." Now modern painters have happily discarded all laws for the position of the horizon- line, and common sense shows that the height of the horizon naturally depends on how much foreground is included in the picture. The angle included by the eye vertically as well as horizontally varies with the dis- tance of the object from us, and the only law therefore is to include in the picture as much as is included by the eye ; and this of course varies with the position of the picture or chief point of interest. Millet has a good many high horizons, and we feel they are normal not abnormal. On this point therefore we think the Greeks were very advanced.

Early Christian Art.

Leaving Greek art, we now come to the art of the art. early Christians. Woltmann and Woermann tell us that " Early Christian art does not differ in its beginnings from the art of antiquity. . . . The onlyp erceptible differ- ences are those differences of subject which betoken the fact that art has now to embody a changed order of religious ideas, and even from this point of view the classical connection is but gradually, and at first imperfectly, severed. ... At the outset Christianity, as was inevitable from its Jewish origin, had no need for art. In many quarters the aversion to works of material imagery . . . — the antagonism to the idolatries of antiquity — remained long unabated. Yet when Christianity, far outstepping the narrow circle of Judaism, had been taken up by classically educated Greeks and Romans, the preju- dice against works of art could not continue to be general, nor could Christendom escape the craving for art which is common to civilized mankind. The dislike of images used as objects of worship did not include mere chamber decorations, and while independent sculpture found no footing in the Christian world, or at least was applied only to secular and not to religious uses, painting, on the other hand, found encouragement for purely decorative

Horizon- liDe.

Millet.

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art, 45

purposes,, in the execution of which, a characteristically Christian element began to assert itself by degrees."

The pure Christian element began to assert itself silently in decorative work in the catacombs, and " these The cata- cemeteries are the only places in which we find remains of combR- Christian paintings of earlier date than the close of the fourth century/' These works, however, " constituted no more than a kind of picture writing," as any one who has seen them can certify. But this symbolism got very mixed with pagan stories, and we get Orpheus in a Phrygian cap, and Hermes carrying a ram, both represent- ing the Good Shepherd. At other times the artists seem to have set themselves to represent a Christ constructed on their knowledge of the attributes ascribed to Him, and we get a beardless youth approaching ei closely to the kindred types of the classical gods and heroes." " Mary appears as a Roman matron, generally praying with uplifted hands." Peter and Paul " appear as ancient philosophers/' and the well-known bronze statue of St. gt peer's Peter, in the cathedral dedicated to him at Rome, is no statue at less than a bond fide antique statue of a Roman consul. Rome- Here we have the same neglect of nature, and the bad work always to be expected from this neglect and from enslaved minds.

The mosaics of Christian art were also handed down Mosaics, from classical antiquity. Though rarely fouud in the catacombs, this art was being much used above ground for architectural decoration. This art, as Woltmann and Woermann rightly say, was " only a laborious industry, which by fitting together minute coloured blocks produces a copy of a design, which design the workers are bound by. They may proceed mechanically, but not sq flimsily and carelessly as the decorative painters." From about a.d. 450 we are told that church pictures become no longer only decorative, but also instructive. Here then was a wrong use of pictorial art — it is not meant to be symbolic and allegorical, or to teach, but to interpret the poetry of nature.

A new conception of Christ it seems now appeared in the mosaics, — a bearded type, — and this time we get the

46

Naturalistic Photography.

The

emperors' school.

Byzantine art.

Justinian.

Mosaics.

Minia- tures.

Moham- medans.

features of Zeus represented. By means of the mosaics a new impulse was given to art, and in a.d. 375 a school was founded by the Emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, of which we read, " The schools of art now once more encourage the observance of traditions ; strictness of discipline and academical training were the objects kept in view ; and the student was taught to work, not independently by study from nature, but according to the precedent of the best classical models."

At this time art, though lying under the influence of antique traditions, held its own for a longer time in Byzantium, where the decorative style of the early Christians lived on after the iconoclastic schism in the eighth century, and where we read that this ornamental style began to be commonly employed. After the age of Justinian (which itself has left no creation of art at Rome), many poor and conventional works were executed at Ravenna., We read that for " lack of inner life and significance, amends are attempted to be made by material splendour, brilliancy of costume, and a gold groundwork, which had now become the rule here as well as in Byzan- tium." Thus we see the artists became completely lost in confusion since they had left nature, and they knew not what to do, but, like many weak painters of the present day, tried to make their work attractive by meretricious ornaments, and true art there was none. This is carried out to-day to its fullest development by many men of medium talent, who make pictures in far countries, or of popular resorts, or religious subjects, and strive to appeal, and do appeal to an uneducated class, through the sub- ject of their work, which in itself may be a work of the poorest description.

We read that in the year 640, "the superficial and unequal character of mosaic workmanship increased quickly/' The miniatures of the early Christians, however, we are told, showed considerable power, but the icono- clastic schism brought all this to an end. " The gibes of the Mohammedans " were the cause of Leo the Third's edict against image worship in a.d. 726. All the pictures in the East were destroyed by armed bands, and the

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 47

painters thrown into prison, and so ended Byzantine art. This movement did not affect Italian art.

Mediaeval Art.

We have followed Messrs. Woltmann and Woermann Mediaeval, closely in their account of the decadence of art from the greatest days of Greek sculpture and painting to the end of the Christian period ; but as our object is avowedly only to deal with the best art — that which is good for all time — and to see how far that is naturalistic or otherwise, we shall speak but briefly of (the main points connected with) mediaeval art, which has but little interest for us until we come to Kiccolo Pisano, and Giotto. During the early years of what are called the Middle Ages, miniaturists were evolving monstrosities from their own Minia- inner consciousness, but with Charlemagne, who said, turist?- "We neither destroy pictures nor pray to them," the Charl°' standard adopted was again classical antiquity. So art maanc, continuously declined until it became a slave to the Church, and the worst phase of this slavery was to be seen in the East, under Ivan the Terrible, for we read that " artists ^^^ee were under the strictest tutelage to the clergy, who chose the subjects to be painted, prescribed the manner of the treatment, watched over the morality of the painters, and had it in their power to give and refuse commissions. Bishops alone could promote a pupil to be a master, and it was their duty to see that the work was done according to ancient models/' Here was indeed a pretty state of things, a painter to be watched by a priest ; to have his subjects selected for him ! One cannot imagine anything more certain to degrade art. Religion has ever been on the side of mental retrogression, has ever been the first and most pertinacious foe to intellectual progress, but perhaps to nothing has she been so harmful as to art, unless it has been to science.

During the period of this slavery, the Church used art as a tool, as a disseminator of her tenets, as a means of imparting religious knowledge. Very clever of her, but very disastrous for poor art.

48 Naturalistic Photography.

Glass How conventional art was during the Romanesque period

pamtmgs. can ^Q geen jn glass paintings that decorate many of the old churches, to admire which crowds go to Italy and waste their short time in the unhealthy interiors of churches, instead of spending it at Sorrento or Capri. These go back to their own country, oppressed with dim recollections of blue and red dresses, crude green land- scapes, and with parrot-like talks of " subdued lights," "rich tones mellowed by time/' and such cant.

The Romanesque style of architecture was superseded in the fourth century by the Gothic. A transformation Gothic. took place in art and France now took the lead. The painters of this period emancipated themselves from the direction of the priesthood — a great step indeed. The Tn.e masters of this age were specialists ; the guilds now ruled guilds. supreme in art matters. We read that "now popular sentiment began to acknowledge that the artist's own mode of conceiving a subject had a certain claim, side by side with tradition and sacerdotal prescription. . . . They took their impressions direct from nature," but their insight into nature was scanty. As Messrs. Wolt- mann and Woermann very truly remark, ee If for the purpose of depicting human beings, either separately or in determined groups and scenes, the artist wishes to develop a language for the expression of emotion, there is only one means open to him — a closer grasp and observation of nature. In the age which we are now approaching, the painter's knowledge of nature remains but scanty. He does not succeed in fathoming and mastering her aspects ; but his eyes are open to them so far as is demanded by the expressional phenomena which it is his great motive to represent; since it is not yet for their own sakes, but only for the sake of giving expres- sion to a particular range of sentiments that he seeks to imitate the realities of the world."

There was a struggle at this period for the study of nature, and the tyranny of the Church was being thrown off ; there was then hope that art would at last advance, and advance it did. What was wanting was a deeper insight into nature, for nature is not a book to be

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 49

read at a glance, she requires constant study, and will not reveal all her beauties without much wooing. And though we read of a sketch-book of this time, the teenth thirteenth century, in which appears a sketch of a lion, century which " looks extremely heraldic," and to which the j^^011" artist has appended the remark, aN,B, — Drawn from life," this in no way surprises us, for have we not been seriously told in this nineteenth century by the painters of catchy, meretricious water-colours, with reds, blues and greens such as would delight a child, that they had painted them from nature ; pictures in which no two tones were correct, in which detail, called by the ignorant, finish, had been painfully elaborated, whilst the broad facts of nature had been ignored. Such work is generally painted from memory or photographs. Happily work of this kind will never live, however much the gullible public may buy it. Next we read that "the germs of realism already existing in art by degrees unfold themselves further, and artists venture upon a closer grip of nature." Here, then, were the signs of coming success, and the great effect of these gradual changes was first manifested in the work of Niccola Pisano, who "made a sudden and Jiccola

i 1*3iI10

powerful return to the example of the antique." All

honour to this man, who was an epoch-maker, who based

his conception (e upon a sudden and powerful return to the

example of the antique, of the Roman relief." His work

is by no means naturalistic or perfect, but it was enough

for one man to do such a herculean task as to ignore his

own times and rise superior to them. Painting1, however,

took no such quick turn, but Cimabue was the first of Cimabue*

those who were to bring it into the right way. The

principal works ascribed to him, however, are not

authenticated.

Another epoch-maker, Giotto, now appears. He seems Giotto, to have been a remarkable man in himself, which however hardly concerns us. The historian of his works says, " The bodies still show a want of independent study of nature ; the proportions of the several members (as we know by the handbook of Oemieno hereafter to be men- tioned) were regulated by a fixed system of measurement ;"

E

50 Naturalistic Photography.

again, "The drawing is still on the whole conventional, and the modelling not carried far." His trees and animals are like toys. Yet we read that " their naturalism is the very point which the contemporaries of Giotto extol in his creations/' but, as Woltmann and Woermann say, this must be accepted according to the notion enter- tained of what nature was, and we are by this means able to see how crude the notions of nature can become in educated men when they neglect the study of it. But from all this evidence we gather that Giotto's intellect was great, and that his strides towards the truthful suggesting of nature were enormous. His attempts too at expression are wonderful for his age, see his " Presenta- tions/'the figures are almost natural notwithstanding their crude drawing ; he got some of the charm and life of the bambinos around him. We read that in some of his pic- tures, he took his models direct from nature, as also did Dante in his poetry, but like Dante he attempted at times the doctrinal in his pictures, as in the " Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty/' he tried in fact what many moderns are still trying to do, and daily fail to do, namely, to teach by means of their pictures — a fatal error. Doctrinal sub- jects are unsuitable for pictorial art, and will never live. Who cares now for Giotto's " Marriage of St. Francis and Poverty " ? but who would not care for a landscape or figure subject taken by Giotto from the life and landscape of his own times ? — it would be priceless. Owing to circumstances, we hear that he had to put " much of his art at the service of the Franciscans," and though not a slave to them, yet we read this disgusted him with the monkish temper. In 1337 Giotto died, but he had done much. Without Kepler there might have been no Newton, so without Giotto there might have been no Velasquez. The guilds. Artists at this time belonged to one of the seven higher of the twenty-one guilds into which Florentine crafts- men were divided, namely, that of the surgeons and apothecaries (medici and speziali). Here art and science were enrolled in the same guild, and so were connected, as they always will be, for the study of nature is at the

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 51

foundation of both, the very first principle of both. To- gether they have been enslaved, persecuted, and their pro- gress hampered ; together they have endured ; and now to-day together they stand out glorious in their achieve- ments, free to study, free to do. The one is lending a hand to the other, and the other returns the help with graceful affection. Superstition, priestcraft, tyranny, all their old persecutors are daily losing power, and will finally perish, as do all falsehoods.

We thus leave the art of the Middle Ages, as we left Summary, the catacombs, with a wish never to see any more of it. One feels the deepest sympathy for great intellects like Giotto, and his greatest followers, whose lots were cast in times of darkness, and we cannot but respect such as struggled with this darkness, and fought to gain the road to nature's fountains of truth and beauty. But at the same time, though we may in these pictures see a graceful pose here, a good expression there, or a beautiful and true bit of colour or quality elsewhere, yet we cannot get away from the subject-matter of many of the pictures, which, alle- gorical and doctrinal as they are, do not lie within the scope of art, and above all one cannot in any way get rid of the false sentiment and untruthfulness of the whole work. Such works will always be interesting to the historian and to the student of art, but beyond that, to us they are valueless, and we would far rather possess a drawing by Millet than a masterpiece by Giotto.

When abroad, and being actually persuaded of their great littleness, we have been moved with pity for the victims we have met, victims of the pedant and the guide- book, who are led by the nose, and stand gaping before middle-age monstrosities, whilst some incompetent pre- tender pours into their ears endless cant of grace, spiri- tuality, emotion, mellifluous line, idealism, et id genus omne, until, bewildered and sick at heart, they return home to retail their lesson diluted, and to swell the number of those who pay homage at the shrine of pedantry and mysti- cism. Had these travellers spent their short and valuable time in the fields of Italy, they would have " learnt more art/' whatever they may mean by that term of theirs,

e 2

52 Naturalistic Photography.

Moham- medan Art.

Art

amongst the Phi- liatines.

than they ever did in the dreary Campo Santo or dark interior of Santa Croce or Santa Maria Novella. Alas ! that the painters of the Middle Ages were unable to paint well. Had they been able to paint, as can some of the moderns, and had they painted truthfully the life and landscape around them, there is no distance some of us would not go to see a gallery full of their works, works showing men and women as they were, and as they lived, and in their own surroundings. There at once would have been the pictures, the history, and the idyllic poetry of a bygone age ; and what have we now in their place ? diluted types of repulsive asceticism, sen- timental types of ignorance and credulity, pictures hideous and untrue, and painful to gaze upon, lies and libels on our beautiful world, and on our own race. And whom have we to thank for this ? Religion — the so- called encourager of truth, charity, and all that is beautiful and good.

Easteen Art.

Before beginning the renascence we must glance through Mohammedan, Chinese, and Japanese art. With Mohammedan art we have little to do, as it was entirely decorative. It is seen at its best in the Alhambra, and was not the outcome of any study of nature. The Arabian mind seems to have been unable to rise beyond a conventional geometrical picture-writing. Such minds are seen to-day in all countries amongst the undeveloped. Quite recently we have seen some of the best modern negro work from the West Coast of Africa ; there too was the love of geometrical ornamentation as strong as in the Arabian art. We repeat, this artistically- speaking low standard of development is often seen among the people of to-day, and though highly educated in all else, in art they are uneducated ; and the mischief is, that they judge pictures by their decorative standard ; they look for bright colours placed in Persian-rug juxta- position, and talk of " glorious colouring." It never seems to occur to them what art really is, and what the artist has tried to express, and how well he has expressed it ; and

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 53

they never refer their "glorious colouring" to the in- fallible standard — nature ; but seem to imagine there are abstract standards of colour and form. " Glorious colourings''' are oftener than not meretricious lies dressed out in gaudiest, vulgarest apparel, and when compared with nature these " colourings " will be found Water- veritable strumpets. Look carefully at many of the colours- much-vaunted water-colours, and then carefully study the same scene in nature, and if many of those water- colours please you afterwards — well, in matters artistic, you have the taste of a frugivorous ape. But apply this test to the water-colours of Israels or Mauve, and you will see they interpret nature. But they have painted chiefly in oils, and wisely so, as there is more to be expressed by oil-painting, and we know of few, if any, great men who confine themselves to water-colour as a medium. But it serves the turn of a host of men — painters, but not artists, who, with their pretty paints, make pot-boilers, of which the form and idea is often stolen — stolen, perhaps, from a photograph. Do such ever study nature ? No. They sit at home, and coin vulgar counterfeits with no more of nature in them than the perpetrators have of honesty. It is time that it was clearly and distinctly understood that the man who copies a photograph is as despicable as the man who copies a painting, and it is very certain neither will ever be respected by his contemporaries, or remembered by his successors. Yet the " cheap" work of these men sells well, and the gulled public talk glibly over them of " strength " and " tone ;' and " colouring," and what not. Nature is so subtle and astonishing in her facts that but few even of those who do paint directly from her can come anywhere near her, whereas, those who do not study her at all, who do not paint coram ipse, fake and fake, and by faking they lie, and set the example to others to lie, and, if not fought against, this sort of thing would speedily take us back to the art of the Middle Ages, when we should be under the tyranny of Croesus, instead of Clericus.

It is, then, the absolute duty of every picture-buyer,

54

Naturalistic Photography.

who has any regard for truth, and any interest in the future of art, to learn to study nature carefully, and to buy only that which is true and sincere, and let the pink and white school of dishonesty die of inanition.

In short, it is high time that educated people ceased to judge painting as they often do, by the standard of coloured rugs. This talk of " colour " is one of the stum- bling-blocks of the weak-kneed in art. Colour is good so long as it is true, and no longer. A Persian rug, or Turkey carpet, is not the standard of colour whereby to judge pictures, and only those in the mental state of the frugivorous ape or the Arab craftsmen can think so.

Chinese and Japanese Aet.

China and Jn China and Japan things were very different. Fol F^rst*' lowing Mr. Anderson's invaluable work, the " Pictorial period. Arts of Japan," we find that their history of pictorial art begins about a.d. 457. Mr. Anderson thinks, however that art was only actually planted in Japan with the in troduction of Buddhism in the sixth century. Then it begins badly, for it was under the influence of religion and in fact we read that the earliest art consisted o Buddhism. Buddhist images and mural decorations. This religiou influence, together with a servile imitation of the Chinese masters, so enslaved art, that no development of import ance took place till the end of the ninth century. £k® _ „ Looking at the plate of the "Ni O" — a wooden 1 ' statue — considered the greatest work of the time, we can see the artist had really struggled to interpret nature, and no doubt studies were made from the nude, for the work on the anatomy could not otherwise have been so well expressed ; but, good as it is, it runs in the Michael Angelo spirit, is exaggerated, and lacks entirely all the greatness of the Greek sculpture. This work — the greatest of what Mr. Anderson has called the first period — shows that there had been a struggle towards the expression of nature. Second The second period, we learn, ends with the fourteenth period. century, and is parallel, therefore, with the European

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 55

mediaeval period. On comparing plates of the Japanese

work with that of the same period in Europe, we are

forced to give the palm to the Japanese artists, they

were, in fact, vastly superior. In looking at the plate

of " The Death of Kose No Hirotaka " we cannot but

feel there was much more respect for nature in Japan

than there was in Europe at that time, notwithstanding

the fact that Buddhism bore the same relation to art in

Japan as Christianity did in Europe. We read also that

in the twelfth century there was one, Nobuzane, who Nobuzane.

had a brilliant reputation for " portraits and other

studies from Nature." The specimen of Nobuzane's

work is admirable in expression, he has caught the living

expression of his model, but the rest is conventional.

We are told that the Chinese renascence began about Chinese

1275, and that the painters of this movement were renas-

naturalistic, " Ink sketches of birds and bamboos, por- cence*

traits and landscapes were the subjects chosen," and

though these were only a kind of picture-writing, yet

the movement led the artists more and more to study

nature.

Coming now to Mr. Anderson's third period, from the Third end of the fourteenth century to the last quarter of the period, eighteenth, we find that Meicho seems to have been to Meicho. Japanese art what Giotto was to European art, and at about the same period. We read further on that in the early part of the fifteenth century the revived Chinese movement referred to made its influence felt in Japan. An ex- _ ample given by Mr. Anderson of Shiubun's idealized bu^~ landscape painting, while far from satisfactory or even pleasing, is, we venture to think, superior to the work of Giotto. Therein is shown some power, and there is not the childishness which is visible in Giotto's work. Much more realistic, powerful, and pleasing are the works of Soga Jasokn, fifteenth-century Chinese school. These s°ga landscapes show the artist had a feeling for nature, and Jasoku- although he attempted in the upper plate (Plate 16) what we consider to be beyond the scope of art, yet in the lower the master-hand shows itself. There is atmo- sphere in the picture. Close observation of nature re-

Naturalistic Photography.

Soga Chokuan.

Sesshiu

Kano school.

Mataliei.

suited in a grasp of subtlest movement and expression. Witness the "Falcon and Egret" by Soga Chokuan (sixteenth century), where the power shown in depicting the grasp of the falcon's talon as it mercilessly crushes the helpless egret, is very great. Then look at the paintings of birds in any of our books, and see how wooden, how lifeless they are, compared with even the sixteenth- century Japanese representations of bird life.

Sesshiu, we are told, was another great painter, and the founder of a school (1420 — 1509). This great man, we are told, " did not follow in the footsteps of the ancients, but developed a style peculiar to himself. His power was greatest in landscape, after which he excelled most in figures, then in flowers and birds/' and later on, we are told, in animals. He preferred working in monochrome, and it is said asserted " the scenery of nature was his final teacher.""

Then came the Kano School, all of whose artists evidently struggled for Naturalism, and had great power of expression of movement but not of form. The leader, we are told, was an eclectic, and painted Chinese landscapes in Japan, so that he must have neglected nature, and his works belong to the so-called imaginative or unnatural school. The best men of this period were decidedly im- pressionists, and their chief aim seems to have been to give the impression of the scene and neglect the details, and it is perfectly marvellous how well they succeeded in depicting movement by a very few lines. The "Rain Scene " by Kano Tanyu is a fine example of this. • We read that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of decadence ; we conclude therefore that in Japan art reached its highest state during the second period, under Shiubun, Soga Jasoku, Sesshiu and Tanyu, who were all students of nature, and several of whom would have been called impressionists had they painted in these days.

We are told that Matahei tried to found a naturalistic school, whose followers should go direct to nature for their subjects, but the movement did not receive any hearty impulse. However it was taken up afterwards by

Naturalism in Pictoi'ial and Glyptic Art. 57

a series of book-illustrators. Next we read of Korin K6rin. whose <c works demonstrate remarkable boldness of in- vention, associated with great delicacy of colouring, and often .... masterly drawing and composition.'" It is quite marvellous to see the work of this seventeenth- century artist.

Winding up his account of the third period, Mr. Anderson says, " But three-quarters of the eighteenth century were allowed to pass without a struggle on the part of the older schools to elevate the standard of their art, and painting was beginning to languish into inanition when the revolutionary doctrines of a naturalistic school and of a few artisan book-illustrators brought new aims and new workers to inaugurate the last and most characteristic period of Japanese art."

Mr. Anderson says, " The fourth and last erabegan about Fourth thirty years before the close of the last century, with the Period- rise of the Shi jo naturalistic school of painting in Kioto, g^°0j and a wider development of the artisan popular school in Yedo and Osaka, two steps which conferred upon Ja- panese art the strongest of those national characteristics that have now completed its separation from the parent art of Amia."

He goes on to say " that the study of nature was ad- mitted to be the best means of achieving the highest result in art by the older painters of China and Japan, but they limited its interpretation.'"

We are told that Maruyama Okio was the first painter okio who seriously endeavoured to establish naturalistic art (1733 — 1795). He preached radical ideas in art at Kioto, the centre of Japanese conservatism, and gathered a school around him. In summing up this school, Mr. Anderson remarks, ct The chief characteristics of the Shijo school are a graceful flowing outline, freed from the arbitrary mannerisms of touch indulged in by many of the older masters ; comparative, sometimes almost ab- solute, correctness in the interpretation of the forms of animal life ; and lastly, a light colouring, suggestive of the prevailing tones of the objects depicted, and full of delicate harmonies and gradations." Their natural-

Naturalistic Photography.

Hokusai.

Japanese art at the British Museum.

The

Japanese Commis- sion.

Japanese art.

Chinese art.

istic principles do not, however, seem to have fully de- veloped, and their works show ignorance of the scientific facts of nature. Yet the work has a verve which renders it very fascinating.

One great man, Hokusai, appears as the last of the race purely Japanese and uninfluenced by European ideas, as all the Japanese artists are now.

So we find that through various phases the Japanese developed to impressionistic landscape-painting, and no doubt when they have got more scientific knowledge, they will make for themselves, by their wonderful origi- nality and patience, a position in art which will astound Europe.

Since writing this section, a collection of Japanese and Chinese art has been opened at the British Museum, which the student must by all means study, for there he will see works of most of the masters cited in these notes. In connection with this subject our readers may have seen the very interesting report on Art by the Japanese Commission that visited the galleries and schools of Europe ; wherein the conclusion of the commission on the best European ,art is very interesting, — Millet being the greatest painter to their mind. They think, too, that Japan will soon be able to show the world something better than anything yet accomplished.

We feel, however, that wonderful as Japanese art has been, yet there is a great gulf between it and the best Greek and modern art. To us Japanese art is the pro- duct of a semi- civilized race, a race in which there is strong sympathy with nature, but a very superficial acquaintance with her marvellous workings. In short, wTe feel the Japanese need a deeper and more scientific knowledge of nature, and that their work falls far short of the best European work. At the present day there is a craze for anything Japanese, but like all crazes it will end in bringing ridicule upon Japanese work; for their work, though fine for an uncivilized nation, is absurd in many points, and this stupid craze will only kill the quali- ties to be really admired by indiscriminate praise.

The earliest authentic records of Chinese painting date

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art, 59

about a.d. 251. The earliest painters were painters of Buddhist pictures. Mr. Anderson mentions as one of the best known of the early masters, one Wu-Tao-Tsz', whose ^,"Ta animals were remarkable. He thinks that the art of China of to-day is feeble compared with that which flourished 1100 years ago. We are informed too that the " artistic appreciation of natural scenery existed in China many centuries before landscapes played a higher part in the European picture thau that of an accessory," and judging from the specimens he gives in his book of the work of the Sung Dynasty (960 — 1279 a.d.), the Chinese artists had a great feeling for landscape. We are told that the painters of the thirteenth century "studied nature from the aspect of the impressionist/' and their subjects were all taken from nature, landscape especially delighting thera. In the fifteenth century we read " decadence began by their neglect of nature and their cultivation of decorative colouring, calligraphic dexterity, and a compensating dis- regard for naturalistic canons."" We are told, and can readily believe it, that in painting of bird life they were unequalled save by the Japanese, and that down to 1279 the Chinese were at the head of the world in painting, and their only rivals were their pupils, the Japanese. Korean art seems also to have degenerated since the sixteenth century.

Thus we ever find the same old story. China, when she painted from nature, was unequalled by any nation in the world ; when she neglected nature, as she does now, she fell to the lowest rank.

The Renascence.

This is a period of a return to the study of nature, of a Renas- carrying out of the feelings which seemed to be develop- cence- ing even in Giotto's time. No longer now was the artist to be separated from nature by the intervention of the Church, and though natural science was not advancing as fast as art was, still a growing regard for nature was the order of the day. This feeling first showed itself strongly The Ya in the Netherlands, with the brothers Van Eyck. We Eycks.

6o

Naturalistic Photography.

are told that the Van Eycks " mixed the colours with the medium on the palette and worked them together on the picture itself, thus obtaining more brilliant effects of light as well as more delicate gradations of tone, with an infinitely nearer approach to the truth of nature/5

The Van Eycks regarded nature lovingly, and tried truthfully to represent her, and though many of their works were of sacred subjects, yet they were evidently studied from nature with loving conscientiousness ; and so successful were they that to this day the picture by Portrait of on© °f the brothers (a portrait of a merchant and amer- his wife), in the National Gallery, remains almost unsur- hiTwife103 Passecl- ^ is wel1 worth a journey to the National Gallery on purpose to see it, and we trust all those who do not already know the picture will take the trouble to go and study it well. It is wonderful in technical perfec- tion, in sentiment, in truthfulness of impression. Note the reflection of the orange in the mirror, with what skill it is painted. In fact the whole is full of life and beauty, — the beauty of naturalism. It is a master-piece good for all time, and yet it is but the portrait of a merchant and his wife. No religious subject here inspired John Van Eyck, but a mere merchant family, yet in many ways the picture remains, and will remain, unsurpassed. Such powerful minds as the brothers Van Eyck of course influenced all art, and they had many followers ; but it does not seem that these followers had the insight into nature that characterized the Van Eycks, and the work falls off after the death of the brothers, whose names represent, and ably represent, all that was best of the fifteenth century. Quinten. In the sixteenth century Quinten Massys was the Massys, greatest and most naturalistic painter. He was said to be the a originator of a peculiar class of genre pictures, being in fact life-like studies from the citizen life of Antwerp/5 Here was an honourable departure from conventionality. His followers, however, having no mind to see how he was so great, were led away from the study of nature, and where are they now ? Their names we all

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 61

know,, but who cares to see their works ? Massys, the greatest painter of this period in the Netherlands, was content to take his subjects from the life of his own times, as all great men have been, from the Egyptians down- wards.

Turning now to Germany, we shall see what the best men Germany, there thought of naturalism. The movement towards the study of nature seems to have begun in the methods of engraving as practised by the goldsmiths, who were trained artists. The earliest plates we find are of subjects illustrating the life of the times, a hopeful augury for Germany, which was fulfilled by the work of the master, Alberfc Albert Durer. We are told he had " unlimited reverence Durer. for nature, which made him one of the most realistic painters that have ever existed." What strikes us most after an examination of his plates at the British Museum, is the wonderful strength and direction with which the man tells his tale. His engravings are, of course, without tone, and when he does natural landscapes, as was often the case, this lack of tone is a serious fault; but for draughtsmanship he is marvellous, and it is with joy we learn that such a master said, " Art is hidden in nature, those who care have only to tear it forth." Every one interested in art, and who is not already well acquainted with Duress work, should make a point of going to the Print Room in the British Museum, and studying care- fully all examples of his work. They will, perhaps, at the same time, notice what struck us, namely, that one of the best draughtsmen on Punch's staff has evidently been a great admirer of Durer.

Woltmann and Woermann, speaking of Durer's land- scapes illustrative of his travels south of the Alps, say that " he reveals himself as one of the founders of the modern school of landscape painting."

His "Mill" is remarkable. His etchings are mostly of familiar subjects of every-day life. The great danger of a man like Durer is the bad effect of his influence in later times, for inferior men imitate his faults and not his merit, as is always the case with imitators.

There are so many people who cannot understand the ^v^tl0n

62

Naturalistic Photography.

principle of development in art,andcannot distinguished appreciate, and value artists according to their periods, and as steps in development, but are now-a-days led by them, holding them up as models for modern painters, whereas they are but the undeveloped efforts of earlier times. There are numbers of young men who paint better than Durer ever did, but who lack Durer' s genius ; just as an undergraduate may know more science than Galileo, or more mathematics than Newton, but yet be incomparably less great than either Galileo or Newton. A work of art, however, is only valuable for its intrinsic merits, and much as we feel the value of Durer, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and others in their own time, for many of their works as works of art, qua art, we care but little now.

It may be asked how Durer, the Van Eycks, and others can be called u naturalists," when they painted so many religious pictures. Of course the one explana- tion of this is that they painted conscientiously from living models and natural landscapes, and not from what is called their " imagination." The influence of the times on these painters could not but be tremendous, but if a man must perforce paint an "imaginative" picture, its artistic value must always be in proportion to the truth of the picture ; and, therefore, what is good in the picture is the naturalism of it. All the rest seems to our mind — for how could Durer or any one else paint the Virgin Mary ?•— uninteresting. For Durer and the men of his day there was, of course, every excuse, but to-day there is none ; and if painters will persist in painting — from their imagination — woolly land- scapes, peopled by impossible men, women, and animals, they will pay the penalty of such vivid imagination — by quick and well-merited consignment to oblivion. The public call such men learned. Learned, forsooth ! when Lempriere or the poets have supplied the idea. " There is something great behind a picture," is another favourite expression; well, so there is behind many an impostor's work, but that greatness belongs to another man.

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 63

An artist looks at the art of the picture, a sentimen- talist at the subject alone ; to him a badly-pamted subject may bring tears to the eyes, to an artist the same subject will probably bring a laugh. What is the sense of copy- ing our predecessors ? And even as copyists, these painters of " imaginative " works fall immeasurably below their models. Boticelli towers yet like a giant over Blake and Rosetti, yet we know he was very far from perfect.

The next great German was Hans Holbein the younger. Hans He had advantages over Durer, for he was born when the Holbein, feeling for nature was strong, and thus started with a clear mind, and arrived at achievements never yet sur- passed. Hans Holbein stands out as a master for all time. His portraits are wonderful. He, again, threw all his energy into the study of nature, and his works are chiefly representative of the life of his own times, portraits of merchants and fellow-citizens. There is the full- length portrait of a gentleman in the National Gallery, whose name has not come down to us ; yet is the interest less great for that ? The dead Christ at Basle too is wonderful, as every one (with good observation, be it always said) who has seen a naked dead body, will affirm, but the anatomy of the skeleton in Holbein's " Dance of Death" would make a first year's medical student laugh.

Much of Holbein's best work was done in London, and is at present in England, and we cannot leave this part of the subject without begging our readers to take every opportunity of seeing the work of this wonderful master, who was a naturalistic painter of the first quality. Turning to Switzerland, we find no name worth men- tioning ; and here we would ask those who trace the effects of sublime mountain scenery on the character of men, why there has been no Swiss art worth mention- Swiss art. ing? Of course the explanation is simple — because art has nothing whatever to do with sublime scenery. The best art has always been done with the simplest material.

In Spain and Portugal at this time was being felt

Naturalistic Photography.

the influence of the naturalism of the Van Eycks. In France the Fontainebleau School was struggling towards nature, but no genius arose. But in Italy there arose a

Da Vinci, giant, Leonardo Da Vinci. Never has there been such an instance of the combination of scientific knowledge and artistic capacity in one man. In the Louvre is his best work, the portrait of Mona Lisa, a master- piece, but in our opinion a master-piece eclipsed by other master-pieces. Of this great man we are told that " he constantly had recourse to the direct lessons of nature, say- ing that such teaching at second hand made the artist, not the child, but the grandchild of nature ! " Again we read that " Leonardo was wholly in love with nature, and to know her through science and to mirror her by

M. Angelo. ar^ were the aims and end of his life." Michael Angelo is the next great name we come to. Woltmann and Woerman say that ee the mightiest artist soul that has lived and worked throughout Christian ages is Michael Angelo Buonarroti." Now this is a literary dogma to which we are totally opposed, and so we are to all the pedantic criticism which follows, about u strong and lofty subjec- tivity/' " purified ideal, " and what not. It is such writing as this that misleads people. Let Michael Angelo be com- pared with the standard — nature — by any student of nature, and Michael Angelo will fall immediately. Wolt- mann and Woermann tell us, " he studied man alone, and for his own sake/' the structure being to him everything. This is what we always felt to be the fault of Michael Angelo, i.e. that he was rather an anatomist, and often a lover of pathological specimens, than an artist, although he was a great sculptor. The action of the muscles in his figures may not go beyond the verge of the possible when taken separately, and as one would test them with an electric current, but we do insist that when taken as a harmonious whole, the spasmodic action of some muscles as expressed by him would have prevented the exaggerated actions of other by antagonizing their effect. Michael Angelo' s work has always given us the feeling that he had a model, on which, with an electric current, he tested the action of each muscle separately, and then

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 65

modelled each one separately whilst the current was joined ; in fact that his works are careless scientific studies and not works of art • and herein is his weakness, he passes the bounds of nature. W oltmann and Woerniann say first of all he does go beyond the bounds of nature, and that therein lies his greatness, and then they flatly contradict themselves, and say an anatomist has informed them that he does not go beyond the bounds of nature, and they quote this as a merit. Our opinion, also that of a student of anatomy, is that he goes beyond the bounds of nature, and exaggerates nature, and so spoils his work completely. He is far below the Greeks. His influence, too, has been hurtful, for he has kept all but very independent and powerful intellects within his tradi- tions.

Raphael and Correggio we will quickly dismiss, Raphael though we are fully aware of the £70,000 reputation of and P01" the one, and the literary reputation of the other. Raphael does not appeal to us, with his sickly senti- mentality, his puerile composition, his poor technique, and his lack of observation of nature. Many of the figures in his pictures, standing some feet behind the foremost, are taller and larger than those in front. We feel sure he had no independence of mind. He was a religious youth, with no great power of thought, and time will give him his true place. But as a taxpayer we must enter a mild protest against the ineptitude of authorities who pay such heavy prices for pictures such as the Raphael referred to. There was a small picture of a head— the head of a doctor — by an unknown hand, hanging near the Raphael, which, as a work of art, is infinitely its superior, but it is by an unknown hand. These pictures have since been re-hung. For that £70,000 what a splendid collection of good work by men of the present day could have been purchased, a collection every single picture of which might easily be superior to all the Raphaels in the world as works of art !

To the same period belongs Andrea del Sarto, a Del Sarfco. naturalistic painter of great power. Be had more feeling for nature than most of the men of his time, and

F

66 Naturalistic Photography.

his breadth of treatment and truthfulness of colouring are admirable. Of course he painted religious pictures, but from the naturalistic point of view they are wonderful The student must study the portrait in the National Gallery which was painted by him. Titian. The next and last great master of this period is Titian, another of the few entitled to the name of genius. His portraits are his best works. Michael Angelo is reputed to have said, " This man might have been as eminent in design as he is true to nature and masterly in counter- feiting the life, and then nothing could be desired better or more perfect." Titian's works show that he had much more love for nature than Michael Angelo ever showed, and we think it a pity for Michael Angelo's sake that he did not take a leaf from Titian's book instead of criticiz- ing his power of design. His landscape backgrounds show a feeling for nature far above anything painted up to that time. After his day art in Italy fell into evil ways, and no Italian name stands out even to this day. The study of nature was neglected and illogical traditions slipped in, and though some writers on painting talk of " Naturalists," in the period of decadence, citing Cara- vaggio and others, we would fain know what they mean by the term " Naturalists," for the painters they cite were no students of nature, as is shown by their works, which are more realistic than naturalistic, they being as much students of nature as are the " professional " photo- graphers of to-day, whose ideas of nature are sharpness and wealth of detail. Canaletto's pictures look like bad The photographs, and that he used a camera obscura is well known, for Count Algarotti has told us as much. He includes Eibera and other Tramontane masters in the list of those who used the camera obscura. Ribera however, is no small painter, although he is not a great master. The passages in some of his works are masterful, as in the dead Christ at the National Gallery.

Feom the Renascence to Modern Times.

camera obscura.

Eibera.

Preamble. We shall now glance over the works of the great

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 67

artists throughout Europe from the time of the Re- nascence period downwards, and see how and what influence Naturalism had on them, and we shall inquire whether the loving truthfulness to and study of nature and adhesion to the subjects of e very-day life was not the secret of the success of all who stand out as pre-eminent during this period. The simplest method will be to take separately the countries where art has flourished.

Beginning with Spain, we find at the outset from Spain, history that there was but little hope for art. Religion en- chained art, and that terrible stain on ignorant Spain, the Inquisition, gave rise to the office of u Inspector of Sacred Pictures." This office was no sinecure, for it controlled all the artists' movements, even prescribing how much of the virgin's naked foot should be shown. Comments are needless, for how could art flourish under such circum- stances ? One name, however, comes at last to break through all rule, and in 1599, at Seville, was born Velasquez. Velasquez, though moving from his youth Velasquez, up in the most refined society of his native town, had the might of genius to see that the falsely sentimental work of his predecessors was not the true stuff, and he, like all great workers, made Nature his watchword. He is re- puted to have said he " would rather be the first of vulgar painters than the second of refined ones/' and though he began by painting still life straight from nature, he finally became in his portraits one of the most refined, truthful, and greatest of painters the world has ever seen. Though greatly influenced by the religious tendencies of the time, we find him often painting the life around him, and we have from his brush water-carriers, and even drunkards ; but he finally reached his greatest heights and the exercise of his full powers in portraiture. All who have a chance, and all who have not should try and create one, should go to the National Gallery and study the remarkable portrait of Philip of Spain. Rarely has portraiture attained such a level as in this example, and what was the oath this painter took ? " Never to do anything without nature before him." The next name, great in some ways, but not to be compared with

f 2

Naturalistic Photography,

Dulwich G allery.

Fortuny.

Murillo. Velasquez, is Murillo ; and wlien was lie great ? Was it in his sickly sentimental religious pictures ? No, certainly not. It was in such pictures as the Spanish peasant boys, such as can be seen in the Dulwich Gallery. This gallery is open to the public, and quite easy of access, and should not be neglected. The last Spanish name of note is that of Fortuny, a Catalonian, who is often mistaken for a Frenchman, since he lived in Paris some years ago. Fortuny is deserving of much praise as having been the first to shake off the slavery of " geometrical perspective." His best pictures were homely scenes, chiefly interiors, which he painted as he saw them without any preconceived ideas of perspective. For this new departure, and on account of his work, Fortuny deserves all praise. Since his death, in 1874, no Spanish painter of note has come to the fore, but art in that country languishes in prettiness, false senti- mentality, and works done for popularity ; the ejphemeridce of art.

Gekmany.

Germany seems to have neglected the lessons taught her by Durer and Holbein, and the mystics seize her and carry her away from nature, and, therefore, from art. Since the days of Holbein no really great man has arisen. Kaulbacb. Kaulbach, who has been well described as " all litera- ture," is praised by some, but he does not seem to have had even poetic ideas. Nature to him was nothing, but the petty doings of erring man were everything. Makart was meretricious and small, and Heffner's pictures are but bad photographs in colour, just the class of photo- graphy we are now writing against. Had he been a photographer, he would never have risen above the commonplace, as he has never risen above the common- place in painting. He sees Nature smally, has no grip of her poetry and mystery, no breadth, but in a finnikmg way strives after detail, and mistakes it for finish, neglect- Mun= aji the great truths. Greater is the Hungarian,

Verert- Munkacsy ; but is he an immortal ? We doubt it. chagin. In Russia,Verestchagin is the only name that has made

Makart. Heffner.

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 69

any stir, but he, like Heffner, sees Nature meanly, and the only emotion caused by his " show " was called up by the oriental rugs.

Flemish Art.

Rubens and Van Dyck we mention only to show we Rubens have not overlooked them. The wTork of both shows ^ari more regard for " getting on " than for art : it is lacking in feeling and in truth. Van Dyck is often wood itself. Teniers the younger as an artist is a long way ahead of Teniers either of these men, and in some ways he goes very and Van far. Van Ostade is often good also. His portrait 0stade* of a man lighting his pipe, a small picture to be seen at the Dulwich Gallery, is a masterpiece of painting, and as fine as anything of the kind done up to this period. This little gem is the work of a lover of nature and an artist. It is quite a small canvas, about 10 X 6, with no " sub- ject/' nothing but a man lighting his pipe ; yet it is perfect, and far surpasses all the sentimentalities of Raphael, or the tours de force of Rubens. The student must see this picture without fail.

English Aet.

The English painters of note begin with Hogarth, Hogarth, though the bad work of Lely and Kneller is cited as English, because executed in England, yet neither of these two men was English, and no lover of art would be proud of them if they were. Hogarth, then, was the father of English painting, and he began in good healthy lines, for he was a naturalist to the backbone, choosing his subjects from his own time ; and though he affected to point a moral in his pictures, still there is the grip of reality and insight into essentials in his work which mark him as a great man. The reader will probably have seen his work at the National Gallery ; if not, he should do so at once.

We pass over Wilson, for in his work is not apparent Wilson, any love of nature or art, only feeling for money and notoriety. The next name is that of Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds.

Naturalistic Photography.

Gains- borough .

Kanffman and Jnseli. Holland.

Eewick,

He was a mannerist, and, though successful in his own time, is very mortal. Close on his baronetted heels came one of the true immortals, Thomas Gainsborough, one of the best portrait-painters the world has ever seen. His landscapes, though better than any up to his time, are not good, and his reputation rests chiefly on his power of portraiture, in which he was certainly a master. Naturalism breathes from his canvases ; he has seized the very essence of his sitters' being, and portrayed them full of life and beauty. See his portrait of Mrs. Tickell and Mrs. Sheridan in the Dulwich Gallery ; you will never forget the charm and the beauty of the ladies, wherever you go afterwards. Mrs. Siddons, in the National Gallery, too> is wonderful. Study well these two, and then go and gaze on a portrait by Eeynolds, and we doubt not you will have learnt something of the gulf that separated the two painters. Gainsborough was, to our mind, the first immortal in English art, and fit to rank with Van Eyck, Holbein, Da Vinci, Titian, and Ve- lasquez. Leaving "the Kauffman" and Fuseli to those who can admire them, we pass on to poor George Mor- land, a genius in his own branch of art. This man studied and painted from life, and his pictures bear testimony that he did so, and notwithstanding the draw- backs caused by his unfortunate temperament, his name lives and grows more respected every day, for his study was nature, and so his work will always be interesting.

Wenowcome to a great and deservedly well-known name' — that of Thomas Bewick, the engraver on wood. Here we have a man working in a humble way, humble that is as compared with painting or sculpture, yet loving and studying nature in every detail, and following her in all her mystery and charm, only daring now and then to add some quiet fancy of his own, and yet he lives and his name grows greater every day. A true naturalist and a real artist was he, and his fame will be lasting. When Wilson is archaic, Bewick will be held up for admiration, so powerful is the effect of the honest study of nature in his work. His birds and quadrupeds we all know ; but if any reader should not know them, he should at once

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 71

get a copy and study the cuts in it. Mr. Quaritch has, we believe, recently issued a reprint of the book.

Wood-cutting has degenerated. Men of little training Wood- and no artistic feeling took it up, and slowly but surely engravi1 the art decayed until it became purely mechanical, and so it has remained in England. Now it bids fair to be superseded by photo-mechanical processes, and it will un- doubtedly be entirely superseded directly a really artistic process of reproduction is discovered for printing with the type. In the United States, however, wood-engraviug took a fresh start, and brought photography to its aid, and our opinion is that the effect obtained in photographs printed on albumenized paper became the effect which the wood- cutters aimed for, and the result is a print of wonderful detail and beauty, but for our taste it is too polished and neat, the effect of overlaying is far too visible, and, in short, it does not render nature truly, and though far surpassing anything of the kind done in England, it is, as a work of art, altogether eclipsed by Bewick's work, the reason being that Bewick only took wood-engraving as a medium for the expression of the beauties of nature, every line in his blocks being full of meaning. But the hydra head of commercialism stepped in, and wood-engravers with little or no feeling for or knowledge of nature set to work turning out the blocks like machines. Photography will keep these artisans from falling utterly away from nature, yet such work is harmful and of no good to us, though it may please the public. Had there been no constant returns to nature (as there must always be in some measure when a photo- graph is used) decay would be sharp and speedy,but photo- graphy bolsters up the dying art. Lately several wood- blocks have been produced cut from photographs, wherein all the beauty of the photographs has been utterly lost by the engraver, and the results are bastard slips of trade ; but we shall have more to say on this point later on. One thing at any rate photography can claim : that is so long as it can be practised, art can never slip back to the crude work done in some eras of its decadence. Water- Now we come to a branch of art which is essentially colours,

72

Naturalistic Photography.

English, namely, painting in water-colours. It is not meant by this that water-colour is a new medium, or that the English water-colourists were the first to use the medium, for the tempera paintings were but water- colours, and Albert Durer and others used it consider- ably ; but what is implied is that the English were the first to adopt it largely and develop it, though it was reserved for the modern Dutchmen and Frenchmen to show its full capabilities. The painter in water-colour has not, of course, the same control over his medium as he has in using oils, and the work when finished even by the best artists, has an artificial look and belies nature. But to see really true water-colours the reader must not look for them in English galleries. No Englishman ever came so near to nature — to the subtleties of nature — in water-colour as do the modern Dutch and French painters, The reader would do well to go to Goupil's exhibitions of modern Dutch and French painters, which are held from time to time,' and keep a look-out for water-colours, and he should carefully study them at the Paris Salon. Prophecy is always risky and of little count, but we would like to venture a prophecy that water-colours will never take a very prominent place in art, because no great genius will ever be content with the medium. Of the bulk of English water-colours of to-day there is not one word of praise to be said, and the student in art matters will do well to avoid all exhibitions of this work until he has carefully studied the best work in art, and until he has a greater insight into nature ; and then let him go to the various water-colour exhibitions, and if he does not receive a mental shock, we shall be greatly surprised. There is but little nature in them, indeed but little anything except pounds, shillings, and pence. The best of them are nauseous, imitations of Turner, and the whole of them show an entire ignorance of the simplest phenomena of nature, which would be startling did we not remember that most of them are painted from u notes " and " memory." These remarks do not of course apply to such work as is done by a few modern painters, such as Mr. Whistler^ but these paint in oils first and water-

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 73

colour afterwards. The first man worth considering in G-irtin. this branch of art is Girtin, who was naturalistic as far as he could be, and had he not died at such an early age (under thirty) the probability is that Turner would have been eclipsed by him. Of Turner we shall speak later on. The name of David Cox rises above the D. Cox, men of his time ; but, after all, his is not the name of an immortal. He aimed well, however, for he tried to paint the life and landscape of his time. Much has been written about De Wint; but if we go to the basement of De Wint. the National Gallery and study De Wint, and then go to Norfolk and study the landscape there, we shall find Mr. De Wint is but a sorry painter. One thing, how- ever, may be said in his praise. He painted out of doors — not in his studio — and was no doubt a lover of nature. His peasants are not the fearful travesties of Hill, Barret, and Collins. Lewis and Cotman have, however, done some better things than De Wint.

Returning to oil painting, we must pass over the long list of names, including Presidents of the Royal Academy, whose names are now all but if not quite forgotten, for their peasantry of the Opera Bouffe, their landscapes after Claude, their works of the imagination can now in- terest no one, and never did interest any but the painters themselves and an uneducated public.

Then we come to Turner, that competitor in painting. Turner. To use a colloquialism — u There is a great man gone wrong/-' Had he but lived to-day, he might have been an immortal; but he does not live, and his lease of fame is not for so long a time as is generally imagined. It has had an artificial afflatus through the writings of a " splendidly false" critic, and, curiously enough, the critic, like the artist, has insight enough to see the true purpose of art, namely, that the artist should be true to nature, and should be an interpreter of the life and landscape of his own time ; and, curiously enough, the critic, like the artist, does not know what nature is. The critic has taken Turner as nature unalloyed, and hence the whole of that gigantic work of his is built on sand. The critic never had much, if any, weight with

74 Naturalistic Photography.

the best artists. Even Turner himself was amused with the reasonings of his eulogistic logic ! and gave it out as much as a man can give out about his eulogist, that all the tall talk about bis pictures was rubbish. But Turner was a great and strong man. To say of his earlier pictures that he painted in rivalry or imitation, if you like, of Wilson, Poussin, and Claude, is to say they are bad, as they undoubtedly are. This spirit of rivalry never seems to have deserted Turner, for in his will he left directions bequeathing one of his pictures to the Academy, on condition it should be hung side by side with a Claude. The spirit of this is, of course, patent. He thinks he has beaten Claude, and that is enough. No great genius would have descended to that. Art was to him an unending competition, and the result was that nature was neglected; and though he revelled in the life and landscape of his own times, yet the small spirit of competition was his ruin. Had he humbly, like Constable, had faith in his tenets, and lovingly and modestly clung to nature, his fame might have been im- mense and everlasting. His later pictures are, of course, the eccentricities of senility, and the false colourings seen by a diseased eye, as has been lately shown, and are as unlike nature as one could expect such work to be. But let us take his " Frosty Morning " at the National Gallery. Look well at it, and what do you find? Falsity everywhere, and most of the essence and poetry of a frosty morning completely missed. The truest picture by Turner that we know is a little aquarelle at South Kensington — "A View on the Thames." Here, then, when we get Turner true to the truth which he felt in himself, and not competing (that we know of), what do we find ? We find him immensely behind De Hooghe, in a truthful and poetic expression of nature, as is well possible for so great a man. The Liber Studiorum should also be carefully studied, noting the falsities ; trees drawn by rule, figures not drawn at all, the total disregard of the phenomena of nature, sometimes even the evidence of several suns in one picture. There is no truth of tone; no atmosphere ; the values are all wrong ; all the charm and

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 75

subtlety of nature completely missed. Go to De Hooghe or De Clays after this, and what a difference ! Here are no mere- an°d°|laeys> tricious adornments, but more nature and less of erring, feeble man and his mannerisms. Turner is not the man to study, and if you cannot " understand him/' well and good. Many artists cannot and do not wish to, for there is nothing to understand, and many French painters of great ability jeer at his very name. With what relief we turn from Turner to Constable and Crome. These ^stable two East Anglians are giants in the history of English c*ome. painting. All should study Constable's works at the National Gallery and South Kensington ; and his life by Leslie is well worth reading, as showing how much of a naturalist in theory he was. The best example of his work that we know is a little river scene, with some willows, which we saw at South Kensington Museum. His work is net, however, perfect. You feel that there is no atmosphere in his pictures. This is due to their being out of tone. He had not the knowledge of nature that characterized De Hooghe, and was not always faithful to • his creed : hence his failings. For though we read in his life such passages as this : — u In such an age as this, painting should be understood, not looked on with blind wonder, nor considered only as poetic inspiration, but as a pursuit — legitimate, scientific, and mechanical." . . . "The old rubbish of art, the musty, commonplace, wretched pictures which gentlemen collect, hang up, and display to their friends, may be compared to Shak- speare's ' Beggarly Account of Empty Boxes/ Nature is anything but this, either in poetry, painting, or in the fields." . . . " Observe that thy best director, thy perfect guide is nature. Copy from her. In her paths is thy triumphal arch. She is above all other teachers." ... a Is it not folly," said Mr. North- cote to me in the Exhibition, as we were standing before

's picture, " for a man to paint what he can never

see? Is it not sufficiently difficult to paint what he does see ? This delightful lesson leads me to ask, what is painting but an imitative art — an art that is to realize, not to feign. Then some dream that every man who

*/6 Naturalistic Photography.

will not submit to long toil in the imitation of nature, flies up, becomes a phantom, and produces dreams of nonsense and abortions. He thinks to save himself under a fine imagination, which is generally, and almost always in young men, the scapegoat of folly and idleness." . . . "There has never been a lay painter, nor can there be. The art requires a long apprenticeship, being mechanical, as well as intellectual." . . . "My pictures will never be popular," he said, " for they have no handling. But I see no handling in nature." . . . Blake once, on looking through Constable's sketch-books, said of a drawing of fir- trees, "Why, this is not drawing, but inspiration 1 " and Constable replied, " I never knew it before ; I meant it for drawing." ..." If the mannerists had never existed, painting would have been easily understood." ..." I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught profession ; that it is scientific, as well as poetic; that imagination alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand a comparison with realities." ..." The dete- rioration of art has everywhere proceeded from similar causes, the imitation of preceding styles, with little reference to nature." ... u It appears to me that pic- tures have been overvalued, held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged, rather than the reverse." ..." The young painter, who, regardless of present popularity, would leave a name behind him, must become the patient pupil of Nature." Yet Constable was not always true to himself.

Crome, Crome, who was, in our opinion, a better painter than Constable, was like him a naturalist, and true to his faith. There is an amusing scene in his life, which we will quote. " A brother of the art met Crome in a remote spot of healthy verdure, with a troop of young persons. Not knowing the particular object of the assembly, he ven- tured to address the Norwich painter thus : ' Why, I thought I had left you in the city engaged in your school.' c I am in my school/ replied Crome, c and teaching my scholars from the only true examples. Do you think/ pointing to a lovely distance, e either you or I can do better than that ? ; "

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 77

Orome has well expressed his view of art in the fol- lowing remarks, which we read in his life : — " The man who would place an animal where the animal would not place itself, would do the same with a tree, a bank, a human figure — with any object, in fact, that might occur in Nature ; and therefore such a man may be a good colourist or a good draughtsman, but he is no artist." At the National Gallery is to be seen a very good specimen of his work, and one well worth studying.

We now pass over the names of Cailcott, Nasmyth, Callcotfc, Miiller, and Maclise, none masters, though they have suiter ^ been called "great colourists," whatever that may mean, and A great colourist should be a true colourist, and Maclise. Miiller is almost chromographic in originality in this line.

Stansfield, Creswell, Linnell, and Cooke, are names Stansfield, that stand out at this period, and the greatest of them ^[nnell11' is Cooke ; his painting of " Lobster Pots," at South and ' Kensington, being wonderfully fresh and true ; but none Cooke, are poets ; they have but little insight into nature, though Linnell at times shows the true feeling. A long list of well-known names follows, such as Hilton, Hay- don, Etty, and Eastlake,but none are masters, and we only mention them to caution against them. Of considerable Wilk-e power were Wilkie, Stansfield, Mulready, Leslie, Land- stansfield seer, and Mason, but none of them was really good, Mulready, although much has been written and said in praise of ^esl^e' their works. They are all false in sentiment, and all and ' lack insight into the poetry of nature. In technique Mason. Wilkie and Landseer are often strong, and they [ will Wilkie and always appeal to a certain class of people. Mason's Landseer- work is a fine example of the folly of introducing the Mason- so-called " imaginative " into landscape. Take his " Harvest Moon," when and where did ever men exist with such limbs ? the whole picture smacks of the model and of the " stage idealism;'' there is no nature there, but a laughable parody of it. The next really great name in English art is that of Frederick Walker, a F- Walker, naturalist, and above all an artist who had a great grip of and insight into nature. But in his work the tradi- tions of the idyllic peasants of the golden age linger,

78

Naturalistic Photography.

and we find his ploughman merrily running along with a plough as though it were a toy cart ; and what a ploughman ! — he never saw a field in his life. This is a serious fault, and takes away from the greatness of Walker, yet notwithstanding this his name will always be a landmark in English art. The reader will be able to study his work in the National Gallery. The date of Walker's death brings us down to the actual present. Regarding living English painters we will remain dis- creetly silent. It must be remembered that English art is young, beginning as it practically does in the eighteenth century, for the miniature-painters cannot count for much, and we must therefore not expect too much. Great men, especially great artists, are rare as Koh-i-noors. England can boast of a few, such as Gainsborough, and Constable and Crome. Of American art there is but little to say. No name stands out worthy of record till J. M. Whistler appears, and he, though an American by Whistler, birth, can hardly be called an American painter, for the life and landscape of his own country he neglects, as also do Sargent and Harrison, two strong painters, Sargent both French by education. Whistler's name rises far ^d . above any artist living in England, his portrait of his arnson, mo^er an(j 0f Sarasate are works good for all time and worthy to be ranked with the best. Mr. Whistler's influence, too, has been great and good. As a pioneer he led the revolt against ignorant criticism by his attack on Euskin. Vide " Art and Art Criticism, Whistler v. Buskin." His life in England has been a long battle for art, and though many do not approve of all his methods, and still less of his brilliant but illogical " Ten o'Clock," his work and influence have been for good. Another great step in advance, introduced by Mr. Whistler, has been the reform in hanging pictures ; though he has not been allowed to carry out his plans thoroughly, yet he has managed his exhibitions much more artistically than any others in the country. In landscape his night-scene at Valparaiso is marvellous, and we doubt whether paint ever more successfuly expressed so difficult a subject. But as even Homer nods, so

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 79

does at times Mr. Whistler, and sometimes " impres- sions " in oil, water-colour, and etching appear with his name, an honour of which they are unworthy, and pos- terity will be very alert to bring up these evil %c nocturnes" against him. Yet so long as art lives will Mr. Whistler live in his Sarasate, his portrait of his mother, Lady Campbell, and some smaller works. Mr. Sargent's SarSent- Carnations and Lilies must be fresh in our readers' minds. W e will only say of it that we never saw the actual phy- sical facts of nature so truthfully and subtly rendered. It is indeed a picture whose title to admiration will be everlasting, and if the reader has not already seen it or, having seen it, has listened to ignorant critics, and passed it over as being " ugly," let him go to South Kensington and view it again, for the nation is its for- tunate possessor. Let him look well at it, and consider what it is. It represents a garden at the time of day when the sunlight is fading but has not quite gone — crepuscule in fact, and with the dying light of day is re- presented the artificial light of Chinese lanterns. This is indeed a masterpiece. Mr. Harrison's " In Arcady " Harrison, is wonderful in its effect of sunshine through trees, though the picture is marred by the low type of the models in- troduced and by the painting of the figures. Had it but been pure landscape it would have been a wonderful piece of work. Never have we seen the effect of noontide heat so well rendered. This, then, brings us to the end of American art, and it is to be hoped that men strong as these will go back to their own country and paint the life of their own land and time. William Hunt is a man much thought of in America, but we Hunt, have never seen any of his paintings, though his book shows him to be a naturalist to the heart, and the reader will do well to read it.

Here, then, we must leave England and America, only remarking that things look bad for the education of the American public when the best Americans stay away, ! and when rich sausage-makers buy Herbert's works with which to educate themselves, and when catalogue compilers take over boat-loads of English water-colours

8o

Naturalistic Photography.

with which still further to lead them wrong*. America wants no such education as can be given by Herbert's senilities or English water-colours. She wants a band of earnest young men, who, having learned their technique in the best schools in the world, namely those of Paris, shall return to America and paint the scenes of their own country, and therein only lies the hope for American art.

Dutch Art.

The first mighty name of the modern period is that of Rembrandt Van Ryn. Holland, by her bravery, Lad thrown off the Spanish yoke, and with it the crushing yoke of Catholicism, and stood free to follow her own bent. As a result of this freedom a body of Naturalists arose who did more for modern art than any body of painters in the world. Rembrandt, though a giant and fit for the company of the immortals, Van Eyck, Velasquez, &c, was not perfect, for sometimes the power of tradition lurks in his work, and he forces his portraits by warm colours in the background, an artifice which was not at all necessary, and which Mr. Whistler has done without. There are a number of his works in the National Gallery, and a good one in the Dulwich Gallery, where is also a great Velasquez, so that the reader should not fail to go there. Rembrandt was inspired by the simple life around him, portraits and interiors satisfied him. It is a significant fact that the greatest painters, Darer, Da Vinci, Velasquez, and Rembrandt have been content to paint the life of their own times and not to draw upon their imagination. The learned painter, it cannot be too often repeated, is he who is learned in all the resources of his art, and we question very much whether one great reason why so few great painters have arisen is not that artists as a rule are so poorly and narrowly educated. At any rate, the opposite holds good, that the most highly and soundly educated artists, men who moved and held their own in the best intellectual societies of their time, were naturalists. But to return to Rembrandt. Perhaps his mastery, his grip of nature, show forth as

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 81

much in his etchings as in his paintings. He, like all great etchers, and there are few enough, used etching Etchings only within its legitimate limits, that is, as a method of expression by line, in a simple, direct and brief manner. A.n etching by a master may be looked upon in the same light as an epigram,1 sonnet or ode by a poet. Many of Rembrandt's etchings can be seen in the British Museum, and should be thoroughly well studied ; after which study, pick up some of the unmeaning work of Seymour Haden or any other modern etcher, except Mr. Whistler and Rajon, and you will, without doubt, distinguish the differ- ence. Most modern works are good examples of how not to etch. Line after line is put in without any meaning at all; there is no evidence of the study of nature in the work and the subjects are trivial and commonplace. One of the greatest evils commercialism has done to art is to ruin modern etching, by having pictures of the old masters copied slavishly by the etcher, and elaborated and worked up, so that one wearies of them. Such work can scarcely be said to rise to the dignity of fine art at all, and Rembrandt, we think, would rise in horror from his grave, if he could see his paintings reproduced by etchers. Any reproduction of a picture is unsatisfactory and does not become fine art at all, but is only useful to publish reflections of the mind whose work it is intended to repre- sent, and for our part we think a good photogravure does this better, because more faithfully, than any other pro- cess. It is difficult to imagine the mind that can set itself to work for months, even years, at an engraving or etching from another man's work when the world is so full of pathos and poetry, and subjects abound on all sides. No great man was ever found in this category.

Durer and Rembrandt etched, and Mr. Whistler etches from Nature direct, not impertinently — there is no other word for it — by tampering with other men's work. But the public will buy these reproductions, and an artificial value is thus given to them, and the dealers will of course encourage whatever pays. One etching by Print' Rembrandt himself is worth all these reproductions of se ers* i Epigram here being used in the old Greek sense.

Q

82

Naturalistic Photography.

pictures by engraving, etching, mezzo-tint, or photo- gravure, because it is an original work of art, the out- come of the loving study of nature. Not long ago a letter appeared in one of the literary "weeklies," complaining of the stamping of photogravures by the Print-sellers' Association. All the press took up the cry, and much ignorance of the real methods and aims of art was dis- played. But the reader will say this letter was probably written by a real, though perhaps mistaken, lover of art. No ! ingenuous reader, it was written by a tradesman — a print-seller. Did the reader but know the wiles and practices of the print-sellers and art-publishers, he would be a sadder if not a wiser man. The obvious answer to this print-seller's letter is, of course, that with the works of living painters, the style of reproduction rests with the painter, and if the artist is satisfied with photogravure, what has any one else to say — painters are the best judges of these things. Very few painters we know would entrust the reproduction of their pictures to etchers or en- gravers, or would countenance the publication of another man's view of their work. We have seen photographs of Whistler's Sarasate, but never engravings of it. With bad paintings, on the other hand, the engraving of them has often made the painter's name as well as the engraver's. We could cite an example of a living painter who owes his reputation chiefly to the engravings of his works, and poor things they are even when embellished by the pro- cess. At the time this discussion was raging amongst the philistines, it was gravely asserted that tc engravings always rose in price," and this was given as a reason for buying them. Have the engravings of Mr. Landseer's pictures risen in price ! Ask the poor subscribers to the first copies. Will the engravings of Dore's works rise in price ? Quien sabe ? If the reader is under any such erroneous idea, let him attend a few sales of engravings in London, and he will see proofs of etchings and en- gravings knocked down for a few shillings.

Leaving with regret the great Rembrandt, we pass over Van several smaller but often-quoted names, the most influential Osfcado. name we come to is Van Ostade, another naturalist of great

Naturalism in Pic I o rial and Glyptic Art. 83

power, of whom we have already spoken. Next we come to De Hooghe. This is the man who first really gripped De thoroughly and expressed truly on canvas the mystery and Ho°glie- poetry of the open air. There are two specimens (court- yards) of this unrivalled painter's work at the National Gallery. They are an education in themselves, and are well worth long and careful study for hours, indeed there are no pictures more worthy of study. There they hang, fresh as nature and beautiful as paint can express, good, unsurpassable for all time — why ? Because the painter has known how to give the sentiment of plein air. There they hang true and lovely, pictures of Dutch life in the seventeenth century. No history can come up to them in historic value, none can be so true, and no poetry surpasses them in expression.

Cuyp we w7ill pass over with few words. A great Cayp. second-rate man he undoubtedly was, but his hot colour- ing smacks of the imagination rather than of nature. Paul Potter and Ruysdael also are men with unduly great reputations ; they are both false in sentiment, and they handled nature with impertinence. Any careful observer can see that Ruysdael played with the lighting of landscapes as did Turner, and of course it is well known that he was not particular as to painting his land- scapes on the spot. There is no nature in him, it is all Ruysdael, Ruysdael, Ruysdael, eternally Ruysdael.

Hobbema at times verged near the truth and greatness, Hobbema. as for instance in the painting of a road with trees, in the National Gallery, which our readers will do well to study ; but he is insincere and untrue all through and was not a naturalist. In sea painting, Van der Velde is van dcr wonderful in his truth and love of nature. Good speci- Velde. mens of his work can be seen in the National Gallery.

Coming down to our own times, the elder Israels stands Israel?, out a giant, a master unsurpassed. We have only been able to see a few of his pictures, but those show us the master. Hopeful, indeed, is the art of Holland and Belgium with such men as Artz, Arris, Mauve, Maas, Israels the younger, Boosboom, and others. The reader will often have opportunities of seeing works by these

G 2

84

Naturalistic Photography.

men at the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery, and Goupil's, and he should take every opportunity of study- ing their works most carefully.

Fkance.

And now, lastly, we come to France — France where art has in modern times reached its highest level. France in modern times has always been the leader of civilization in Europe, and even now she is in the van of modern progress, our intellectual mother. We may have a finer literature to show, in Germany science may be more pro- found, but in all that is greater than literature or science, that is in solving the problem of being and throwing off the yoke of religious and political despotism, France has become the leader. Practical, energetic, and thrifty, the French with all their faults, still remain m many ways the first nation of the world. France and the French have more of the Ancient Greek's esprit than any other nation has or ever has had. In all the humanizing influences that distinguish brute man from civilized man, the French are to the fore, but in histrionic, glyptic and pictorial art, she is unapproachable, and still reigns Queen of the Arts, in these branches.

Passing over Nicolas Poussin, Le Brun and other lesser names, whose works are not those of masters, we arrive at Claude Lorraine, who may claim to have an inkling of the truth and whose work shows a distinct advance on Poussin, but who after all is no master because not loyal to nature, and therefore his already doubtful reputation will go on diminishing. The first name that really stands forth as great in French art is that of Watteau. Watteau, however, cannot be ranked among the Immortals, for though his technique was marvellous, and his power of drawing unsurpassed, he like all his contemporaries, artists and otherwise, neglected nature, living as they did in the artificial times of Louis XIV. There is a picture in the National Gallery which well ex- plains what we mean. Then name after name is handed

Naturalism in Pictorial and Glyptic Art. 85

down to us, but in vain do we look for a master among them, Boucher and Greuze still have admirers, but they Boucher are not great painters, because they did not study nature ^ or at least did not succeed in painting her, as it is very easy to see from their works. De la Croix strove to rise De la from the artificial influence of the time, but he was not Croix- strong enough to become a master. It was reserved for Ingres to make a real advance. He, though imbued to Ingres, some extent with the old spirit of classicism, was a deep lover of nature, and the story of the struggle for the mastery between those two opposing tendencies is the story of his art and life. Though he rises above all pre- vious painters of his country, he cannot be ranked with the masters. With Ary Scheffer there was a retrogression which in its turn was counteracted by De la Roche. It was De la Roche who said an artist would one day have De la to use photography. Still, in vain do we look for a Koche. genius, and until Constable's pictures exhibited in 1824 an Paris, aroused the French as to the real aims of art, no really great master appears. But when practical France saw, she immediately took up naturalism. Then we have first Descamps, who took up the newly revived Deseamps. ideas, but failed, and Rousseau made the real departure— the poetry and mystery of nature roused in him an ardent sympathy, and all honour to him for struggling on at Barbizon, in the face of the neglect and contumacy of the Salon. But Rousseau, hero though he was, never Kousseau. rose to be a mighty painter, and his works fall far behind those of the best painters of to-day, but as a pioneer his name will always be remembered, and though he failed, he at least took Nature as his watchword. After Rousseau came Corot, a master good for all time. Coroe. His early works show signs of the classical spirit, from which he had not yet shaken himself free, thus we some- times see in his early works, peasants strangely habited and reminding one of the seventeenth century or ancient Greece, which is of course ridiculous; but his later work is true and great. Full of breadth and feeling for the subtle- ties and poetry of nature, he has never been surpassed. Examples of his work in England can sometimes be seen

86

Naturalistic Photography.

in the French Gallery, the Hanover Gallery and at GoupiPs, but it must be remembered that great as Corot is, there is much of his work that is bad. Another great Daubigny. painter is Daubigny, a contemporary of Corot's, and though not such a subtle observer as Corot, still he is a painter whose work has had great influence, and will live though Troy on. jj- been surpassed by younger men. Troy on was an- other who like Corot loved and studied and painted from nature, but he lacked the insight into nature that Corot had, and his work is not as true as that of his contemporary. At length, however, we arrive at an Immortal name, Millet. that of Jean Francois Millet. This great man must not be confounded with two Jean Francis Millets who lived years before, and who were not artists at all though painters. Everything about J. F. Millet the Great, is worthy of study. Let the student seize every chance of studying his works, chances which will, alas ! be rare enough as many of his best pictures are in America and most of the others in France. His pastels and water- colours are not very good, but his etchings which (repro- duced) can be seen in the British Museum, are valuable for strength and power. Here is a directness of expres- sion never surpassed. Before leaving him we will quote a few passages from his letters : — j F " I therefore conclude that the beautiful is the suit-

Millet, able. . . . Understand that I do not speak of absolute beauty, for I do not know what it is, and it seems to me only a tremendous joke. I think people who think