ernst gombrich - permanent revolution (ch. 25)

8/17/2019 Ernst Gombrich - Permanent Revolution (Ch. 25)

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expert on Gothic details, A.W.N. Pugin (1812-52), one of the mostuncompromising champions o f the Gothic revival. The collaborationanwunted more or less to this- that Barry was allowed to determine theoverall shape and grouping o f the building, while Pugin looked after thedecoration o f the fayade and the interior. To us this would hardly seem avery satisfactory procedure, but the outcon1e was not too bad. Seen fi·on

the distance, through the London mists, Barry s outli nes do not lack acertain dignity; and, seen at close quarters, the Gothic details still retainsomething of their Romantic appeal.

In painting or sculpture, the conventions of style play a less pron1inentpart, and it might thus be thought that the break in tradition affected thesearts less; but this was not the case. The life o f an artist had never beenwithout its troubles and anxieties, but there was one thing to be said forthe good old days - no artist needed to ask himself why he had come intothe world at all. In some ways his work had been as well defmed as that o f

any other calling. There were always altar-paintings to be done, portraitsto be painted; peoplc wanted to buy pictures for thei r best parlours, orcon1missioned n1urals for their villas. In a these jobs he could work onmore or less pre-established lines. He delivered the goods which thepatron expected. True, he could produce indifferent work, or do it sosuperlatively well that the job in hand was no more than the starting pointfor a transcendent masterpiece. But his position in life was n1ore or lesssecure. t was just this feeling of security that artists lost in the nineteenthcentury. }The break in tradition had thrown open to them an unlinlltedfield of choice. It was for them to decide whether they wanted to paintlandscapes or dramatic scenes from the past, whether they chose subjectsfron1 Milton or the classics, whether they adopted the restrained manner o f

David s classical revival or the fantastic manner of the Romantic masters.Dut the greater the range o f chdke had becon1e, the less likely was it thatthe artist s taste would coincide with that o f his public. Those who buypictures usually have a certain idea in mind. They want to get somethingvery similar to what they have seen elsewhere. In the past, this demandwas easily met by the artists because, even though their work differedgreatly in artistic merit, the works of a period resetnbled each other inmany respects. Now that this unity o f tradition had disappeared, theartist s relations with his patron were only too often strained. The patron staste was fixed in one way: the artist did not feel it in hin1 to satisfY thatdenund. If he was forced to do so for want of n1oney, he felt he wasmaking concessions , and lost his self-respect and the esteem of others.Ifhe decided to follow only his inner voice, and to reject any comn1issionwhich he could not reconcile with Ills idea o f art, he was in danger ofstarvation. Thus a deep cleavage developed in the nineteenth century


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5 2 P E R M i \ N ~ N Tl l E V O I UT ON

between those artists whose ten lpcrament or convictions allowed then1to fo11ow conventions and to satisfY the public s denund, and those whogloried in their self-chosen isolation. What made nutters worse was thatthe Industrial Revolution and the decline of craftsrnanship, the rise of anew middle class which often lacked tradition, and the production ofcheap and shoddy goods which rnasqueraded as Art , had brought abouta deterioration of public taste.

The distrust between artists and the publi c was generally 111utual Tothe successful businessman, an artist was little better than an irnpostorwho demanded ridiculous prices for something that could hardly becalled honest work. Arnong the artists, on the other hand, it becarne anacknowledged pastitne to shock the bourgeois but of his cmnplacencyand to leave him bewildered and bemused. Artists began to see themselvesas a race apart, they grew long hair and beards, they dressed in velvet orcorduroy, wore broad-brirnn1cd hats and loose ties, and generally stressed

their contClnpt for the conventions of the respectable . This state ofafEtirs was hardly sound, but it was perhaps inevitable. And it rnust beacknowledged that, though the career of an artist was beset with the mostdangerous pitfalls, the new conditions also had their compensations. Thepitf:tlls are obvious. The artist who sold his soul and pandered to the tasteof those who lacked taste was lost. So was the artist who dramat ized hissituation, who thought of himself as a genius for no other reason thanthat he found no buyers. But the situation was only desperate for weakcharacters. For the wide range of choice, and independence of the patron swhim, which had been acquired at such high cost, also held their advantages.For the first tirne, perhaps, it became true that art was a perfect means ofexpressing individuality- provided the artist bad an individuality to express.

To many this may sound like a paradox. They think of all art as a n1eansof expression , and to some extent they are right. But the matter is notquite so sin1ple as it is sometitnes thought to be. It is obvious that anEgyptian artist had little opportunity of expressing his personality. Therules and conventions of his style were so strict that there was very littlescope for choice. It rea1ly comes to th i s - that where there is no choicethere is no expression. A simple exarnple will nuke this clear. If we say thata woman expresses her individuality in the way she dresses, we mean thatthe choice she makes indicates her fancies and preferences. We need onlywatch an acquaintance buying a hat and try to find out why she rejects thisand selects the other. It always has sornething to do with the way she seesherself and wants others to sec her, and every such act of choice can teach

us son1ething about her personality. If she had to wear a uniform therenllght sti11 rennin smne scope for expressio n , but obviously much less.Style is such a uniform. True, we know that as time went on the scope it


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afforded the ind ividual artist increased, and with it the artist s means ofexpressing his personality. Everyone can see that Fra Angelico was adifferent character from Venneer van Delft. Yet none o f these artists wasdeliberately making his choice in order to express his personality. He did itonly incidentally, as we express ourselves in everything we o whetherwe light a pipe or run after a bus. The idea that the true purpose o f art wasto express personali ty could only gain ground when art had lost everyother purpose. Nevertheless, as things had developed, it was a true andvaluable statement. For what people who cared about art can1e to look forin exhibiti ons and studios was no longer the display of ordinary skill- thathad become too conm1on to warrant attention- they wanted art to bringthem into contact with men with whon1 it would be worth while toconverse: n1en whose work gave evidence of an incorruptible sincerity,artists who were not content with borrowed effects and who would notnuke a single str oke of the brush without asking then1selvcs whether itsatisfied their artistic conscience. In this respect the history of painting inthe nineteenth century differs very considerably from the history o f art as

we have encountered it so far In earher periods it was usually the leadingmasters, artists whose skill was supre me, who also received the nwstin1portant con1n1issions and therefore became very £1n1ous Think o fGiotto, Michelangelo, Holbein, Rubens or even Goya. This docs notn1ean that tragedies could never occur or that no painter was everinsufficiently honoured in his country, but by and large the artists and theirpublic shared certain assumptions and therefore also agreed on standards ofexcellence. It was only in the nineteenth century that the real gulf openedbetween the successful ar t is ts- who contributed to official a r t - and thenO nconformists, who were mainly appreciated after their death. The result

is a strange paradox. Even today there are few speciahsts who know muchabout the official art of the nit:itteenth century. Admittedly n1ost of us arefamiliar with son1e of its products, the nwnuments to great men in publicsquares, murals in town halls and stained-glass windows in churches orcolleges, but for tnost of us these have acquired such a musty look that wepay no more attention to then1 than we do to the engravings after oncefan1ous exhibition pieces we still encounter in old-£1shioned hotel lounges.

Maybe there is a reason for this fi·cquent neglect. In discussing Copley spainting o f Charles I confi·onting Par1ian1ent, page 48] _figure 315 Imentioned that his effort to visualize a dramatic n1omen t ofhistory as

exactly as possible made a lasting in1pression, and that for a whole centuryn1any artists expended n1uch labour on such historical costume pictures

showing famous n1en o f the past- Dante, Napoleon or GeorgeWashington- at son1e dramatic turning point in their lives. I might haveadded that such theatrical pictures generally scored a grea t success in


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exhibitions but that they soon lost their appeaL Our ideas of the past tendto change very quickly. The elaborate costumes and settings soon lookunconvincing and the heroic gestures look like hamming . It is quitelikely that the titne will cmne when these works will be rediscoveredand when it will be possible again to discriminate between the really badand the meritorious. For obviously not all o f that art was as hollow andconventional as we tend to think today. And yet, it will possibly alwaysremain true that since the Great Revolution the word Art has acquireda different n1eaning for us and that the history o f art in the nineteenthcentury can never becon1e the history o f the most successful and best-paidnusters o f that time. We see it rather as the history o f a handful oflonelyn1en who had the courage and the persistence to think for thetnsclves, toexamine conventions fearlessly and critically and thus to create newpossibilities for their art.

The most dramatic episodes in this development took place in Paris.For it was Paris that becan1e the artistic capital o f Europe in the nineteenthcentury tnttch as Florence had been in the fifteenth century and Rome inthe seventeenth. Artists from all over the world came to Paris to study withthe leading masters and, most o f all, to join in the discussion about thenature of art that never ended in the cafCs ofMontrnartre, where thenew conception o f art was painfully hamtnered out.

The leading conservative painter in the first half o f the nineteenthcentmy was Jcan-Auguste-Dominique Ingrcs (1780-1 867). He had been apupil and follower ofDavid, page 485, and like him admired the heroic art o fclassical antiquity. In his teaching he insisted on the discipline o f absoluteprecision in the life-class and despised im.provisat ion and 1nessincss. Figure3 8 shows his own rnastery in the rendering of forms and the cool clarity o f

his contposition. t is easy to understand why many artists envied Ingres histechnical assurance and respected his authority even where they disagreedwith his views. But it is also easy to understand why his nwre passionatecontcn1poraries found such sn1ooth perfection unbearable.

The rallying-point for his opponents was the art ofEugCne Dclacroix(r798-r8 63). Delacroix belonged to the long line o f great revolutionariesproduced in the country o f evolutions. He himself was a con1plex characte rwith wide and varied syn1pathies, and his beautiful diaries show that hewould not have enjoyed being typed as the [,nati cal rebeL lfhe was cast inthis role it was because he could not accept the standards o f he Acadetny.He had no patience with all the ta lk about the Greeks and Ronuns, with theinsistence on correct drawing, and the constant intitation of classical statues.

He believed that, in painting, colour was much n1ore important thandraughtsmanship, and imagination than knowledge. While Ingres and hisschool cultivated the Grand Manner and admired Poussin and Raphael,

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Jcatl-Augustc

Duminique lngrcsThe VafpilifO hathe ;r oS

Oil on ronvas, q_6 x \ 7·5C111,57\- lX41Y.in;Louvre, Pari_


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330

Jea n-B apti ste C amill eCo r enTi11o i , tlw ~ n r d e ns ifthe Vi/In d E


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achieven1ent. The reason is that colour often comes into conflict with thegradations of one on which Fragonard could rely.

We may recall the advice which Constable received and rejected, page495 to paint the foreground a mellow brown, as Claude and other paintershad done. This conventional wisdmn rested on the observation that stronggreens tend to clash with other colours. However f:Tithful a photograph(such as page 461 J1t;ture 302 tnay look to us, its intense colours would surelyhave a disruptive effect on that gentle gradation of ones that also servedCaspar David Friedrich, page 496 jigure 326 to achieve the impression ofdistance. Indeed, i f we look at Constable s Haywain , pagqgs fiRure 325we shall notice that he also muted the colour of the foreground and o f thefoliage to remain within a unified tonal range. Corot appears to havecaptured the radiant light and luminous haze o f the scene with his paletteby novel means. He worked within a key o f silvery grey that docs not quiteswallow up the colours but n1aintains then1 in harmony without departing

from the visual truth. True, like Claude and like Turner, he never hesitatedto people his stage with figures fron1 the classical or biblical past, and infact it was this poetic bent that finally secu red him internationa l fan1c.

Much as Corot s quiet tnastery was loved and admired also by his youngercolleagues, they did not wish to follow him along this path. In fact the nextrevolution was nuinly concerned with the conventions governing subjectmatter. In the academics the idea was still prevalent that dignified paintingstnust represent dignified personages, and that workers or peasants providedsuitable subjects only for genre scenes in the tradition o f the Dutchnustcrs, pages 381 428. During the time of the Revolution of rR4R a groupof artists gathered in the French village of 13arbizon to follow theprogran1n1e o f Constable and look at nature with fresh eyes. One ofthen1,

Jean-Franc;ois Millet (r814-75), decided to extend this programme fromlandscapes to figures. He wanted to paint scenes fi·om peasant life as itreally was, to paint n1en and women at work in the fields. It is curious toreflect that this should have been considered revolutionary, but in the artof the past peasants were generally seen as comic yokels as Bruegel hadpainted them, page J8z figure 246. Figure 331 represents Millet s famouspicture The gleaners . There is no dramatic incident represented here,nothing in the way of an anecdote. Just three hard-working people in a flatfield where harvesting is in progress. They arc neither beautiful norgraceful. There is no suggestion of the country idyll in the picture. Thesepeasant women n1.ove slowly and heavily. They are all intent on theirwork. Millet had done everything to emphasize their square and solidbuild and their deliberate moven1ents. He modelled the1n firmly and insin1ple outlines against the bright sunlit plain. Thus his three peasantwomen assurned a dignity more natural and more convincing than that

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Jean-Fraw;:ois MilletT h q ~ l e m r mr857

Oil on canva . g 3 ~xll em, 33 x 43-} ; in;

Mus


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511 THE NIN ~ - ~1-l-.NTII CENTURY

Gustave COlu·betThe llrcti IJZ, o ·

8 0 1 ~ ; o u ri\J{oJJsiem

Courbet , 1854Oil on canvJ,, Ll \ ) x

y em soY x 58Y in;MmCe Fabre, Montpdlier

of academic heroes. The arrangement, which looks casual at first sight,supports this impression oftrangull poise. There is a calculated rhythm inthe move1nent and distribution of the figures which gives stability to thewhole design and makes us feel that the painter looked at the work ofharvesting as a scene of solcn1n significance.

The painter who gave a name to this moverncnt was Gustave Cow·bct( di19-77). W hen he opened a one-nun show in a shack in Paris in theyear 1855, he called it Le Rfalisme G. Courbet. His rea1isn1 was to tnarka revolution in art. Courbct wanted to be the pupil of no one but nature.To some extent, his character and programme resem_bled that o fCaravaggio, page 392 jigure 252. He wanted not prettiness but truth. Herepresented hims elf walking across country with his painter s tackle on hisback, respectfully greeted by his Ii iend and patron figure 332. He called thepicture Bonjour, Monsieur Com-bet . To anyone used to the show-piecesof academic art, this picture nmst have seemed downright childish. There

are no graceful poses here, no flowing lines, no im.pressive co lours.Cmnpared with its artless arrangcn1cnt, even the con1.position of Millet sThe gleaners looks calculated. The whole idea of a painter representing

himself n shirtsleeves as a kind o f ramp nmst have appeared as an outrageto the respectable artists and their admirers. This, at any rate, was theimpression Courbet wanted to make. He wanted his pictures to be a protestagainst the accepted conventions ofhis day, to shock the bourgeois out ofhis complacency, and to proclaim the value o f uncon1.pron1.ising artisticsincerity as against the deft handling of raditional c1ich6s. Sincere Cow·bct spictures undoubtedly arc. I hope , he wrote in a characteristic letter in r 854,always to earn my living by n1.y art without having ever deviated by eve n ahair s breadth fron1 my principles, without having lied to·my conscience for

a single moment, without painting even as much as can be covered by ahand only to please anyone or to sell nwre easily. Courbet s deliberaterenunciation of easy effects, and his determination to render the world as hesaw it, encouraged many others to flout convention and to follow nothingbut their own artistic conscience.

The same concern for sincerity, the sa1ne itnpatience with the theatricalpretentiousness of official art, that led the group of the l3arbizon paintersand Courbet towards Realistn , caused a group ofEnglish painters to takea very different path. They pondered on the reasons which had led art intosuch a dangerous rut. They knew that the academie s dain1.ed to representthe tradition ofRaphael and what was known as the Grand Manner . Ifthat was true, then art had obviously taken a wrong turning with, andthrough, Raphael. It was he and his followers who had exalted themethods of idealizing nature, page 320, and of striving for beauty at theexpense of truth. If art was to be reformed, it was therefore necessary to go


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further back than Raphael, to the tirne when artists were sti11 honest toGod craftsmen, who did their best to copy nature, while thinking not ofearthly glory, but of the glory of God. Believing, as they did, that art had

become insincere through Raphael and that it behoved them_ to returnto the Age of Faith', this group of friends called themselves the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood . One of ts n1ost gifted n1embers was the sonof an Italian refugee, Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( l 828-82). F(;; reshows Rossetti's painting of the Annunciation. Usually, this then1e wasrepresented on the pattern of the n1edieval represe ntations such as page 213

_figure 141. Rossetti's intention to return to the spirit of the rnedieval nustersdid not n1ean that he wanted to copy their pictures. What he desired to dowas to enmlatc their attitude, to read the biblical narrative with a devoutheart, and to visualize the scen e when the angel came to the Virgin andsaluted her: And when she saw hirn, she was troubled at his saying and castin her mind what rnatmer of salutation this should be (Luke i. 29). We can

sec how Rossetti strove for simplicity and sincerity in his new rendering,and how much he wanted to let us see the ancient story with a freshmind. l3ut for an his intention to render nature as faithfully as the adnllrcdFlorentines of the uattrocento had done, some will feel that the PreRaphaclitc Brotherhood set itself an unattainable goal. It is one thing toadn1ire the naive and unselfconscious outlook of the 'prinlltives' as thepainters of the fifteenth centuty were then oddly cal1ed); it is quite anotherthing to strive for it oneself For this is the one virtue which the best willin the world cannot help us to attain. Thus, while their starting pointwas sinlllar to that of Millet and Courbet, I think that their honestendeavour 1anded them in a blind alley. The longing ofVictorian tnastcrsfor innocence was too self-contradictmy to succeed. The hope of theirFrench conternporaries to nuke progress in the exploration of the visibleworld proved more fiuitful for 'the next generation.

The third wave of revolution in France (after the first wave ofDelacroix and the second wave o f Courbet) was started by Edouard Manct(1832-83) and his friends. These artists took Courbet s progranune veryseriously. They looked out for conventions in painting which had becomestale and tneaninglcss. They found that the whole claim of traditional artto have discovered the way to represent nature, as we see it, was based ona misconception. At the rnost, they would concede that traditional arthad found a means of representing n1en or objects under very artificialconditions. Painters let their models pose in their studios, where the lightfalls through the window, and nude usc of the slow transition fron1light toshade to glve the in1presslon of roundness and solidity. The art students atthe acadetnies were trained frmn the beginning to base their pictures onthis interplay between light and shade. At first, they usually drew from the


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]j

Dant e (;ohri el Ro>scttiE([r / luri/111 D111i11i ,1841 5 0

Oil o ca nv; ls, IIIOUIIti.. d

on wood 72 6 x p CJ nn2 ~ W .x ~ m : Tan·

G . 1 ~ r y oncion

plaster casts tak en fi:om anti qu e statues,hatc hing their drawings carefully to ac hi evedifferent de nsities of shading. On ce they

acqui red thi s habit, they applied it toil obje c ts. Th e publi c had b ecome so

accu sto m ed to see in g thi n gs represen tedin th is manner tha t they had forgott en t h tt

in the open air we do not usu ally pe r ceivesuch eve n grad ation s fi·om dark to lig ht .Th ere arc h arsh co ntrasts in the su nlight.Ob j ects taken o ut of the artific ial conditionsof he ar t ist s s tud io do not lo ok so round orso much mo d elled as plast e r casts fi·o m thean tiqu e. T he parts whic h arc lit app ea rmuc h br ighter than in the studio, and eve n

the s hadows a re not uniforml y grey orblack, because th e refl ect io n s o f ig ht fromsurround in g objects a ffect the colour o fth ese unlit parts. If we trust o ur eyes, andnot our pr eco nce ived ideas of w ha t thingsoughr to look lik e accordi n g to acade mi cru les, we sh all make the mo st excit in gdiscoveries.

T h at suc h id eas were first conside redext ravagant heresies is hard ly surp risin g . Wehave seen throug h out this sto ry of art howmuch we are all in clin ed to judge picturesby w ha t we k11o111 ra th er th an by wh a t we see.

We rem e mb er ho w the E gypt ian artists fou nd -i t in co n ce ivab le to representa figure w ithout show in g each p art from its most ch aract eristic a ng le, page61. Th ey k11ew w hat a foot , an eye, or a ha nd looke d like , and they fi t tedth ese parts together to form a complete m an. T o re pr ese nt a fi gure w ith oneann hi dden fi·om v iew, or one foot distorted b y for eshort e nin g, wo ul d havesee rn ed ou t rageous. W e rem e mb er tha t i t was th e Gr eeks w ho succeededin breaking down this pr ejudi ce, and allowed for eshort e ni n g in pi ctures,page 81 _figure 49· We rem emb e r how the importance of knowled ge cam eto the fore aga in in early Christian a nd med ieva l art, JWJte IJ7 .fiJture 87 andremai ned so till the R e nai ssan ce . Even th en the importan ce of theo ret icalknowledge of w ha t the wo r ld Oll,( ht to look like w as enhanced rath erth an dimini shed throu gh the discover ies of scie ntifi c pe rspective and theemp h asis on anatomy, pages 229 30 . The great a r tists of subsequen tp er io ds had made on e discovery afte r anothe r w hi ch allo wed th em to


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conjure up a convincing picture of the visible world, but none o f themhad seriously challenged the conviction that each object n nature has itsdefinite fixed form and colour which must be easily recognizable in apainting. It may be said, therefore, that Manet and his followers broughtabout a revolution in the rendering o f colours which is almost comparablewith the revolution in the representation of forms brought about by theGreeks. They discovered that, i f we look at nature in the open, we do notsec individual objects each with its own colour but rather a bright medleyof tints which blend in our eye or really in our nllnd.

These discoveries were not Inadc all at once or all by one nun. But evenManet s first paintings in which he abandoned the traditional method ofn1ellow shading in favour o f strong and harsh contrasts caused an outcrya1nong the conservative artists. In r86 the academic painters refused toshow his works in the official exhibition called the Salon. An agitationfollowed which prmnpted the authorities to show all works condemned

by the jury in a special show called the Salon o f the Rejected . The publicwent there nuinly to laugh at the poor deluded tyros who had refused toaccept the verdict o f their betters. This episode marks the first stage of abattle which was to rage for nearly thirty years. It is difficult for us toconceive the violence o f these quarrels between the artists and the critic.;;,all the n1ore since the paint ings ofManet strike us today as being essentiallyakin to the great paintings o f earlier periods, such as those by Frans Hals,page 417,jigure 270. Indeed, Manet violently denied that he wanted to bea revolutionary. He quite deliberately looked for inspiration in the greattradition o f the nusters o f the brush whon1 the Pre-Raphaelites hadrejected, the tradition initiated by the great Venetians Giorgione andTitian, and carried on triumphantly in Spain by Velazquez, pa,9,cs 407-1 o,

figures 264-7, and down to the nineteenth century by Goya. It was clearlyone ofGoya s paintint >:i page'486,jigure 317, that had challenged him topaint a similar group on a balcony and to explore the contrast betweenthe fu1llight o f the open air and the dark which swallows up the forms inthe interior,fi, ure 334· But Manet in rR69 carried this explorati on n1uchfurther than Goya had done sixty years earlier. Unlike Goya s, the headsof Manct s ladies arc not modelled in the traditional manner, as we sha11discover i f we compare both with Leonardo s Mona Lisa , pa 9 e301 ,fi,f',ure193, Rubens s portrait o f his child, pa ? e 4 0 o , } ~ t l r e257, or Gainsborough sMiss Haverfield , page 469,_figurc 306. However different these painters

were in their n1ethods, they all wanted to create the in1prcssion of solidbodies, and did so through the interplay of shadow and light. Cmnparedwith theirs, Maner s heads look flat. The lady in the background has noteven got a proper nose. We can well in1aginc why this treatment lookedlike sheer ignorance to those not acquainted with Maner s intentions. But

334

Edouard MauetTlu- balwll) , 1 :l6S-9

il on f a n v a ~I


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the fact is that in the open air, and in the full light of day, round forn1ssometimes do look flat, like mere coloured patches. It was this effectwhich Manct wanted to explore. The consequence is that s we stand

before one ofhis pictures it looks more immediately real than any oldmaster. We have the illusion that we really stand flee to flee with thisgroup on the balcony. The general itnpression of the whole is not flatbut, on the contrary, that of real depth. One of the reasons for thisstriking effect is the bold colour of the balcony railing. It is painted ina bright green which cuts across the composition regardless of thetraditional rules of colour harmonics. The result is that this railingscen1s to stand out boldly in fi·ont o f he scene, which thus recedesbehind it.

T hc new theorieS did not concern only the treatment of colours inthe open air (plein air), but also that of forms in movement. Figure 335shows one of Manet s l i thographs- a method of reproducing drawings

nude directly on stone, which had been invented early in thenineteenth century. At first sight, we nuy see nothing but a confusedscrawl. It is the picture of a horse-race. Manct wants us to gain theimpression oflight, speed and nwvcmcnt by giving nothing but a barehint of the forms etnerging out of the confusion. The horses arc racingtowards us at full speed and the stands are packed with excited crowds.The example shows more clearly than any other how Manct refused tobe influenced in his representation of fonn by his knowledge. Noneof his horses has four legs. We si1nply do not sec the four legs at amomentary glance at such a scene. Nor can we take in the details ofthe spectators. o n ~ efourteen years earlier the English painter WilliamPowell Frith (r 8r9-1909) had painted his Derby Day ,fi), ure 336which was very popular in Victorian t i n ~ s sfor the Dickensian hmnourwith which be depicted the types and incidents of the event. Suchpictures are indeed best enjoyed by studying the gay variety of thesesituations one by one at our leisure. But in actual life we can only focuson one spot with our eyes- ll the rest looks to us like ajmnblc ofdisconnected forms. We tnay know what they arc, but we do not seethCin. In this sense, Manet s lithograph of a racecourse is really muchmore true than that of the Victorian humorist. It transports us for aninstant to the bustle and excitement of the scene which the artistwitnessed, and of which he recorded only s tnuch s he could vouchfor havi ng seen in an instant.

Among the painters who joined Manet and helped to develop theseideas was a poor and dogged young nun fron1 Lc Havre, Claude Monet( r 840-1926). It was Monet who urged his friends to abandon the studioaltogether and never to paint a single stroke except in front of he n1otif .


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518 l f . R M A N E N T HEVOI U T I O N

H e had a littl e bo at fitted o ut as a st udio to allow him to exp lore the m oodsan d effe cts of h e riv er scene ry Ma n et, who cam e to visit him, becameconvinced of h e soun dn ess o f th e you ng er m an s method an d paid hima tribute by painting his portrait willie at work in thi s o pen - ai r stu d io,fip u r 7· lt is at the same tim e an exercise in the n ew manner advocated byMo n et. Fo r Mo n e t s idea t h at all pa in ting of na tu re must ac tually be finish edo n th e spot not on ly deman ded a ch ang e ofhabits and a disregard of

co m fo rt , it was bound to r esult in ne w tec h nical e th o d ~ Na tur e or th emotif ch an ges from minut e to minut e as a cloud pa sses over th e sun or th e

wind breaks the reflec tion in the water. The pa in te r w ho h op es to catch ac harac teri stic asp ec t h as no leisure to mix and match his co lours, let alone to

appl y th em in laye rs on a brow n foundat io n as the old ma sters had done.H e must ftx them straight on to hi s ca nv as in rapi d strokes, caring le ss fordetail than for th e gene ral effect o f h e who le . ft was this lack o f fi nish, thisap pare ntl y slapd ash ap pr oac h , wh ich fi·eguently enra ged the critics . E ve n

33 7

Edouard ManerJ\ one t 1 1 1 1 > r k i n ~ in Iris

boar 1 8 7 4Oil 11 t." llVlS. S z 7 )

w s em pYz x 4 l in

c u ~P i n a k o t h~ k Munic


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5 1 9 TII E N J N h T h h N T H C h N T U I < Y

after Manet himself had gained a certain amount of pubHc recognitionthrough his portraits and figure con1positions, the younger landscapepainters round Monet found it exceedingly difficult to have their

unorthodox paintint,rs accepted for the Salon. A ccord ingly they bandedtogether in T R7 and arranged a show in the studio of a photographer.It contained a picture by Monet which the catalogue described asIn lpression: sunrise - it was the picture of a harbour seen through the

morning n1ists. One of the critics found this title particularly ridiculous,and he referred to the whole group of artists as The In1pressionists . Hewanted to convey that these painters did not proceed by sound knowledge,and thought that the impression of a moment was sufficient to be called apicture. The label stuck. Its mocking undertone was soon forgotten, just asthe derogatory Inea1llng of terms like Gothic , Baroque or Manneris1nis now forgotten. After a time the group of friends then1selves accepted thename Impressionists, and as such they have been known ever since.

It is interesting to read some of the press notices with which the firstexhibitions of he Impressionists were received. A humorous weeklywrote in 876:

'l11e rue le Peletier is a road of disasten;. After thefire at the OpCra, there is now yetanother disaster there. n exhibition has just hem opened at Durmul-Rue which alle,Redlycontains paintings. I e/'ltcr and my horr(fied eyes behold something terrible. Fiw or sixlunatics, amonx them a woman, have joined fOJ efher and exhibited their works. have seenpeople rock with laughter in front C?_{thesepictures, hut my heart bled when 1 saw them.'lhese would-he artists call themselves revolutionaries, "Impressionists". They take a pieceC .fcanvas, colour and brush, daub a ew patches ofpaint on it at random, and s t:n thewhole thil'lg with their /'lame. It is a delusion of he same kind as if he inmates C?.fBedlampicked up stonesfrom the wayside and ima_Rilwl they had found diamonds.

It was not only the technique ~ painting which so outraged the critics.It was also the motif these painters chose. In the past, painters wereexpected to look for a corner of nature which was by general consentpicturesque . Few people realize that this demand was son lewhat

unreasonable. We ca11 picturesque such motif as we have seen inpictures before. If painters were to keep to those they would have torepeat each other endlessly. It was Claude Lorrain who made Roman ruinspicturesque , page 396,jigure 255, and Jan van Coyen who turned Dutch

windmills into motif , page 41g,jigure 272. Constable and Turner inEngland, each in his own way, had discovered new motif for art. Turner sStearner in a snowstorm , paJ? e49J,fiJ?,ure 323, was as new in subject as it

was in manner. Claude Monet knew Turner s works. He had seen then l inLondon, where he stayed during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1), andthey had confirmed him in his conviction that the nngic effects oflight


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5 2 0 1 1-UMt\N[ N l UI-VOLUTIO

and air coun ted for more than the subject of a painting. Neve rt heless,a painting suc h as A ire 338 which represent s a Paris railway station, struckthe critics as sheer impudence. Here is a rea l impression o f a scene fi·om

everyday life. Monetis

not interested in th e railway stationas

a placewhere human beings meet or take leave- he is fascinated by the effect oflight streaming through th e glass roof on to the clouds o f steam, a nd by theforms o f en g ines and carria ges em e rgin g fi. om th e conf usion. Yet there is

nothing casu al in thi s eye-witness account by a painter. Monet balancedhis tones and colours as deliberately as any landscape pai nt er o f he past.

Th e painters o f thi s young group oflmpressionists appli ed their ne wp1;nciplcs not only to land scape painting but to any scene o f real life.Fig11re 339 shows a painting by Pie rr e Auguste Re n oir ( r84r- I9I9) whichrepresents an open-air dance in Paris, painted in 1876. When jan Steen,page 428,_figure 278, represented suc h a sce n e o f evelry, he was eage r todepict the various humorous types o f he people. Wattea u , in his dream

sce ne s of aristocratic festivals, pa, e 454,fiJ?11re 298, wanted to capture themood o f a carefi·ee existence. · rhere is some thin g of both in Renoir.He , too, has an eye for the behaviour o f th e gay c rowd and he, too, isen chanted by festive beauty. Uut hi s main interest lies elsewhere . Hewants to conjure up the gay medley ofbright colours and to study theeffect of sunlight on the whirling throng. Even compare d to Manet spainting of Monet s bo a t , the picture looks sketchy and unfinis hed.

338

C la ud e Mo netG nre St-Ln z are snOil on l n V l ~ 75 -5 x 1 4t:111 2 1Jo/ aX Il iu:Mm l:r :

c O rs.1y, Pa ri '


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JJ9

l i


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5 P E U M A N E N T R E V O L U T I O N

wooden, and that it was only the genius of Leonardo that overcame thisdifficulty by letting the forms intentionally tnerge into dark shadows t h e

device that was called .ifumato , pages 301-z,jlgures 193-4. It was their

discovery that dark shadows of the kind Leonardo used for modelling donot occur in sunlight and open air, which barred this traditional way outto the hnpressionists. Hence, they had to go farther in the intentionalblurring of outlines than any previous generation had gone. They knewthat the human eye is a marvellous instrument. You need only give it theright hint and it builds up for you the whole forn1 which it knows to bethere. But one nmst know how to look at such paintings. The peoplewho first visited the lrnpressionist exhibition obviously poked their nosesinto the pictures and saw nothing but a confusion of casual brushstrokes.That is why they thought these painters nmst be n1ad.

Faced with such paintings as.ftgure 340, in which one of the oldest andtnost ITlethodical chan1pions of the n1ovement, Camille Pissarro ( I830-

1903), evoked the ' impression' of a Paris boulevard in sunshine, theseoutraged people would ask: ' I f walk along the boulevard- do I look likethis? Do I lose my legs, n y eyes and my nose and turn into a shapelessblob? Once more it was their knowledge of what belongs to a nunwhich interfered with their judgement of what we really see.

It took son1e time before the public learned that to appreciate anIn1pressionist painting one has to step back a few yards, and enjoy themirac1e of seeing these puzzling patches suddenly fall into place and con leto life before our eyes. To achieve this miracle, and to transfer the actualvisual experience of the painter to the beholder, was the true aim of theImpressionists.

The feeling of a new freedom and a new power which these artists hadn1ust have been truly e x h i l a ~ ~ t t i n git must have compensated then1 formuch of the derision and h()stility they encountered. Suddenly the wholeworld offered fit subjects for t he paint er s brush. Wherever he discovereda beautiful cmnbination of tones, an interesting configuration of coloursand forms, a satisfying and gay patchwork of sunlight and coloured shades,he could set down his easel and try to transfer his in1pression on to thecanvas. All the old bogeys of'dignified subject-matter', of'balancedcompositions , of ' correct drawing', were laid to rest. The artist wasresponsible to no one but his own sensibilities for what he painted andhow he painted it. Looking back at this struggle it is perhaps less surprisingthat the views of these young artists encountered resistance than that theywere so soon to be taken for granted. For bitter as was the fight and hardas it was for the artists concerned, the trimnph of Impressionism wascomplete. Some of hese young rebels at least, notably Monet and Renoir,luckily lived long enough to enjoy the fruits of this victory and to becmTle


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J40

C:unill c Pissarro/11 • bmdr 'rrd des

llfrli fiS mor iuSl l l l / ~ h t ,I 897

Oil on c mv 1s 7J . l x

523

) .U C ll l .zS¥. X ] ~ in ;Na t ional G31ln y or An.\V hirlgton , DC l ~ e . . : ~ t c r

D lll C ol l ~ c t i n n

I li N N T t ~ N TI I C E N l l t Y

famous an d respected all ove r Europ e. Th ey w itn essed their worksenteJ;ng public collec tion s and being covete d po ssessions o f the wea lthy.This tr ansfo rmati on mo reover m ;de a lasting impr essi o n on t t ~andcriti cs ali k e. Th e cr iti cs w ho had laug h ed h ad proved very fallible ind ee d.H ad they bought these canvases rath er than mocked them they wo uldha ve beco me ric h. C riti cism ther efo re suf f ered a loss o f pr e stige fromwh ich it never re cov ered. The str u ggle o f th e Impressionists became thetr eas ured legend o f all innovators in ar t , who co uld alw ays point to thiscons pi c uou s failur e of he publi c to r ecog ni ze no vel m e thod s. In a sensethis not01;ous £1ilure is as impo rtant in th e hist01y of art as was the ultimat evictory of the Im pressionist pr ogranune.

Per haps this v ict01y would not hav e bee n so qui ck and so thorough hadit n ot been for two allies w hi ch he lped p eo ple of th e ninete e nth cen tu r y tosee th e worl d w ith different eyes. One of th ese allies was photography. Inthe ea rly days thi s inventio n had m ainly bee n u sed for po r trai ts. Very longex po su res we re necessa ry, and people who sat for th eir ph otogra ph s had to


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524 PERMANENT REVOI lJ II UN

be propped up in a rigid posture to be able to keep still so long . Thedevelopment of the portabl e cam era and o f the snapshot bega n d urin g thesame years w hi ch a lso saw th e rise o flmpre ssionist painting. Th e ca m e rhelp ed to discov e r the ch arm of the fortuitous view and of the unexpectedan gle. Moreover the dev elopm :; nt of photograp hy was bound to pushartists fiut h er on th eir way of ex plora tion and expe rim ent Th ere was none ed for painting to perform a task whi ch a mechani ca l devi ce co uldperform bett er and mor e c heaply. We must not forget that in the p s t theart of painting serv ed a number o f util itarian ends . ft was us ed to reco rdthe liken ess of a notable person o r th e view of a country hous e. Thepainter was a man who cou ld de f eat the transitory nature o f thin gs andpres e rve th e sp ec t of any object fo r posterity . We wou ld n ot know w hatthe dodo looked like had not a Dutch seventeenth - cent ur y pai n te r usedhis skill in portraying a specim en shortly before th ese bi rd s became ex t inct.Photo graphy in the nin e tee nth ce ntury was about to take over thisfunction of

pict o

rial art. l t was ablow

to the positionof

artistss

serio uss had been th e a bo liti on of religious images b y P rotestantism p ge 374 ·

B efore that in ve n tion nea rly eve ry self- respect in g person sat for his portraitat least once in his li fe tim e . Now p eople rarel y under we nt this ordea l

1

Katsushika Hokusaifoum Fuj i seeu behiud

a cistern 835

Woodbloc k p rim fromOne hundred c v ~of

ount F1tii , 6 x 5 •5nn 9 x 6 in


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525

J4Z

Kit l l·""" Ut:nn roa l/iug up blirul.fi•rrill p l t ~ t u - b / o . \ . 0 1 1 1, ;£J.>tc > 7YOSWood Ji oc k print 19 .7x 5 0. N em 7X x . 0 n

r H E N I N E I H N TI I C I,N T URY

unles s th ey want ed to oblige and h elp a painter-fri e nd. So it came aboutthat artists we re increasingly co mp elled to exp lore region s wh e rep hotography cou ld not follow them. ln fac t , mo d ern art wo uld hardl yhave become wha t it is without the impact of thi s in ve nti o n.

Th e seco nd ally w hi c h th e Im p ressionists found in their adven turou squest for new m ot iE and new colou r schemes was the Jap anese colour-p rint . Th e art of apan had devel ope d out of Chinese ar t , page 155 an d hadco ntinu ed alo n g t he se lin es for nea rly a thousand yea rs. In the eigh tee n thce ntur y, however, perh aps und e r the influence ofEuropean prin ts,J apan ese a rtist s had abandon ed the traditi o nal motif s o f Far Easte rn art, andhad chose n scenes from low life as a s ubj ect for colour woodc u ts, whichco mbined great bo ldn ess o f in ve nti o n with ma sterl y tec hni ca l perf ectio n.J ap an ese co n no i sse urs did not think ver y hi ghl y o f th ese cheap pr oducts.They preferred th e a uste re traditional manner. When Japan was for ced,in th e middle of the nin etee nth cen tury, to e nt er into trad e re lati ons w ith

Europe an d Am e rica, th ese print s we re ofte n used as wrappi ngs andpadding, and co uld b e p icke d up chea ply in tea- sho ps. Artists of Manet'scircle were am ong th e first to appr ec ia te th ei r bea u ty, a nd to colle ct th emeage rly. II ere t hey foun d a tradition unspoilt by those academic rules andcliches whic h the Fre n ch painters strove to get rid o f Th e Japanese p r n t ~

help ed them to sec h ow muc h of the European conve nti ons still rema inedw ith th em wi t hout th eir havin g noticed i t. Th e Jap anese relish ed everyun ex p ecte d and unconventional asp ec t of the wo rld. Th eir master,H o ku sai ( 1760 - 1849), wo uld r e pr ese nt Mount Fuji see n as by chancebehind a sca ffoldin g ,.figJJ/e 34 1; Utamaro (T753- •8oo) would not h esit ateto show some of his figures cut off by the maq >i.n of a print o r a bamb oocurtain fig ure 342 It was thi s daring disr ega rd of an e lem entar y rul e of

Europ ean pain ting that st ru ck the Imp r essio ni sts. Th ey di scove red in thi srule a last hid e out of th e anc ien t do mi n atio n of kn owledge over vision.


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526 I E M / \ N E N T R E V O L U T I O N

Why sh o ul d a pai n t in g always sh ow th e w h ole or a relevant part o f eachfi gu re in a sce ne?

T h e pa in te r w h o was most d ee p ly im pressed by these possibi lities wasEd gar D egas 183 4- T9 T7 . D egas was a li t tle o lder than M o ne t an d Renoir .H e belo n ge d to th e ge ner atio n o f M ane t and , like h im kept somew hatalo of ·om th e Imp ress io ni st g ro up thou gh he was in symp a thy w ithm ost o f th e ir aim s. D eg as was passio natel y in te res te d i n design anddr aug ht sm an sh ip and g rea tly ad m ired Ingres. l n his portrai ts,jigure 3 h ewa n ted to br ing out th e im pr ess ion o f space an d o f sol id fo rms seen fi:omth e m ost u ne x p ec ted an g les . T h at is also w h y h e liked to take h is subj e c tsfro m the b allet rat he r than from o u t-door scenes. Watc hi ng re hearsa ls,D egas had an oppo rtu n ity o f see in g bo d ies from all sides in the most va riedat t i tudes . L oo k in g do w n on to the stage from above h e would sec the girlsd an cin g, or rest in g and wo uld study the in tric ate fo resho rteni ng and the

343

Edgar D eg;osH< llri ~ ~ smrd ris

niece Lnci l , 1876

Oil on ca n v.ts 99 S: x~ y1..:111Jy ¥ x 47Yi in:

l l Art l no;;ri rut oC h iogo


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:P

'dgar Degas

Awaiti g lhewe 1879

l astd on paper, yy.X xll ). J em, 39V x 47Y> in;priva\1: \ ollection

THE NINETEENTH CENTUHY

effect of stage-lighting on the modelling of the hunun form_. F ~ u r e44

shows one of the pastel sketches made by Degas. The arrangement couldnot be more casual in appearance. O f some of the dancers we see only thelegs, of some only the body. Only one figure is seen complete, and that ina posture which is intricate and difficult to read. We sec her from above,her head bent forward, her left hand clasping her ankle, in a state ofdehberate relaxation. There is no story in D egas s pictures. He was not-interested in the ballerinas because they were pretty girls. He did notseem to care for their moods. He looked at them w-ith the dispassionateobjectivity with which the Impression-ists looked at the landscape aroundthem. What mattered to him was the interplay of light and shade on thehunun form, and the way in which he could suggest movement or space.He proved to the academic world that, far fron1 being -incmnpatible withperfect draughtstnanship, the new principles of the young artists wereposing new problems which only the n1ost consumn1ate master of design

could solve.The nuin principles of the new nwvcment could find full expressiononly in painting, but sculpture, too, was soon drawn into the battle foror against modernism . The great French sculptor Auguste Rodin(rS40-19I7) was born in the s n ~ eyear as Monet. Since he was an ardentstudent of classical statues and of Michelangelo there need have been no


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52:: PER\ · \ ANioN I R E V O l U T I O I <

fundamental conflict between him and traditional art. In fact, Rodin soonbecame an acknowledged InasfGr, and enjoyed a public £1 111e as great as,if not greater than, that of any other artist of his tin1e. But even his workswere the object of violent quarrels an1cmg the critics, and were oftenlwnped together with those of the Impressionist rebels. The reasonnuy become clear if we look at one of his portraits,_fi: ?ure345· Like theln1_pressionists, Rodin despised the outward appearance of'finish'. Ukethem, he preferred to leave smnething to the imagination of the beholder.Sometirnes he even left part of the stone standing to give the itnpressionthat his figure was just en1_erging and taking shape. To the average publicthis seen1ed to be an irritating eccentricity if not sheer laziness. Theirobjections were the same as those which had been raised againstTintoretto, page 371. To then1 artistic perfection still meant that everythingshould be neat and polished. In disregarding these petty conventions toexpress his vision of the divine act ofCreation,j7gure 346 Rodin helped to

345

Auguste RodinThe smlptorJulrsJJalou 1 S:)J

llron7t', la:iglll).U'i em,loY in; Mw;Cc l ~ o d i n ,P.1ri.1

3· 6

Auguste RodinJ1n· haw/ of Codc .S()l)

Marbk, w i g h t \ . ~ . < )em,36% in: Mmt:c Rodin,Paris


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53 P E R M A N E N T l t ~ V U I U T I O N

assert what Rembrandt had claimed as his right, pa ty e 4 todeclare his work finished when he had reached his artistic aim.As no one could say that his procedure resulted from ignorance,his influence did much to pave the way for the acceptance ofhnpressionism outside the narrow circle of its French adtnirers.

Artists fi·orn all over the world catne into contact withI n ~ p r e s s i o n i s r nin Paris, and carried away with thetn the newdiscoveries, and also the new attitude of the artlst as a rebel againstthe prejudices and conventions of the bourgeois world. One of then1ost influential apostles of this gospel outside France was theAmerican James Abbott McNeill Whistler (r8J4-T90J). Whistlerhad taken part in the first battle of the new n1ovement; he hadexhibited with Manct in the Salon of the Rejected in r863, and heshared the enthusiasm ofhis painter-colleagues for Japanese prints.He was not an Impressionist in the strict sense of the word, any

n1ore than was Degas or Rodin, for his nuin concern was not withthe effects ofHght and colour but rather with the composition ofdelicate patterns. What he had in conm1on with the Paris painterswas his conten1pt for the inte rest the public showed in sentimentalanecdotes. He stressed the point that what mattered in paintingwas not the subject but the way in which it was translated intocolours and forms. One ofWhistler s most farnous paintings,perhaps one of the nwst popular paintings ever made, is theportrait of his rnother,figure 347· t is characteristic that the titleunder which Whistler exhibited this painting in 1872 wasArrangen1ent in grey and black . He shrank fron1 any suggestion

of literary interest or sentirnentality. Actually the harmony

of forms and colours at which he airned is in no contradiction withthe feeling of the s u b j e c t m a t t ~ ] .It is the careful balance of simpleforms that gives the picture its restful quality, and the subduedtones of ts grey and black , ranging from the lady s hair and dressto the wall and setting, enhance the expression of resignedloneliness which gives the painting its wide appeal. It is strangeto realize that the painter of this sensitive and gentle picture wasnotorious for his provocative manner and his exercises in what hecalled the gentle art of making enen1ies . He had settled in Londonand felt called upon to -fight the b attle for modern art aln1ost singlehanded. His habit of giving paintings names which struck peopleas eccentric, his disregard of academic convention, brought uponhitn the wrath of ohn Ruskin (r R19-1900), the great critic whohad championed Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1 g77 Whistlerexhibited night-pieces in the Japanese nunner which he called

347

James AbbottMcNeill WhistlerArm lgcmc/1/ iu gn Jand hfark: pom·ail ( (theartist's 1/IOtl ei; 1 :71

Oil on canvas, LJ x162 em, y;Y,, x li_1 in;Mm0c t '( ry, Paris


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J I TH N I N ~ T N T HI NTURY


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53 I E i l M A N ~ N TR E V O L U T I O N


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533

'ames AbbottMcNci\1 WhistlerNoctumc ill blw mulsi/Per: old Hattrn;eaBridge, c 1::: 72-5

Oil m ra l l \ \ lS 6y

ernst gombrich - permanent revolution (ch. 25)

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