Delacroix.

CCXXV

THE ENGLISH SCHOOL

I shall never care to see London again. I should not find there my old memories, and, above all, I should not find the same men to enjoy with me what there is to be seen now. Perhaps I might find myself obliged to break a lance for Reynolds, or for that adorable Gainsborough, whom you are indeed right to love. Not that I am the opponent of the present movement in the painting of England. I am even struck by the prodigious conscientiousness that these people can bring to bear even on work of the imagination; it seems that in coming back to excessive detail they are more in their own element than when they imitated the Italian painters and the Flemish colourists. But what does the skin matter? Under this seeming transformation they are always English. Thus instead of making imitations pure and simple of the primitive Italians, as the fashion has been among us, they mix with this imitation of the manner of the old schools an infinitely personal sentiment; they put into it the interest which is generally missing in our cold imitations of the formulas and the style of schools which have had their day. I am writing without pulling myself up, and saying everything that comes into my head. Perhaps the impressions I received at that former time might be a little modified to-day. Perhaps I should find in Lawrence an exaggeration of methods and effects too closely reminiscent of the school of Reynolds; but his amazing delicacy of drawing, and the air of life he gives to his women, who seem almost to be talking with one, give him, considered as a portrait-painter, a certain superiority over Van Dyck, whose admirable figures are immobile in their pose. Lustrous eyes and parted lips are admirably rendered by Lawrence. He welcomed me with much kindness; he was a man of most charming manners, except when you criticised his pictures.... Our school has need of a little new blood. Our school is old, and the English school seems young. They seem to seek after nature while we busy ourselves with imitating other pictures. Don't get me stoned by mentioning abroad these opinions, which alas! are mine.

Delacroix.

CCXXVI

There are only two occasions, I conceive, on which a foreign artist could with propriety be invited to execute a great national work in this country, namely, in default of our having any artist at all competent to such an undertaking, or for the purpose of introducing a superior style of art, to correct a vicious taste prevalent in the nation. The consideration of the first parts of this statement I leave to those who have witnessed with what ability Mr. Flaxman, Mr. Westmacott, and the other candidates have designed their models, and with respect to the style and good taste of the English school. I dare, and am proud, to assert its superiority over any that has appeared in Europe since the age of the Caracci.

Hoppner.

CCXXVII

(Watts is) the only man who understands great art.

Alfred Stevens.

CCXXVIII

There is only Puvis de Chavannes who holds his place; as for all the others, one must gild their monuments.

Meissonier.

CCXXIX

PRUDHON

In short, he has his own manner; he is the Boucher, the Watteau of our day. We must let him do as he will; it can do no harm at the present time, and in the state the school is in. He deceives himself, but it is not given to every one to deceive themselves like him; his talent has a sure foundation. What I cannot forgive him is that he always draws the same heads, the same arms, and the same hands. All his faces have the same expression, and this expression is always the same grimace. It is not thus we should envisage nature, we who are disciples and admirers of the ancients.

L. David.

CCXXX

ON DELACROIX

Delacroix (except in two pictures, which show a kind of savage genius) is a perfect beast, though almost worshipped here.

Rossetti (1849).

CCXXXI

Delacroix is one of the mighty ones of the earth, and Ingres misses being so creditably.

Rossetti (1856).

CCXXXII

ON DELACROIX

Must I say that I prefer Delacroix with his exaggerations, his mistakes, his obvious falls, because he belongs to no one but himself, because he represents the spirit, the time, and the idiom of his time? Sickly, too highly strung, perhaps, since his art has the melodies of our generation, since in the strained note of his lamentations as in his resounding triumphs, there is always a gasp of the breath, a cry, a fever that are alike our own and his.

We are no longer in the Olympian Age, like Raphael, Veronese, and Rubens; and Delacroix's art is powerful, as a voice from Dante's Inferno.

Rousseau.

CCXXXIII

A DELACROIX EXHIBITION

Feminine painting is invading us; and if our time, of which Delacroix is the true representative, has not dared enough, what will the enervated art of the future be like?

Only paintings are exhibited just now. Two rooms scarcely hold his riches; and when one thinks that there are here but the elements of Delacroix's production, one is bewildered. What strikes one above all in his sketches is the note of nervous, contained intensity, which during all his full career he never lost; neither fashion nor the influence of others affected it; never was there a more sincere note. Plenty of incorrectness, I grant you, but with a great feeling for drawing. Whatever one may say, if drawing is an instrument of expression, Delacroix was a draughtsman. A great style, a marvellous invention, passion expressed in form as well as in colour, Delacroix is typically the artist, and not a professor of drawing who fills out weakness and mediocrity by rhetoric.

Paul Huet.

CCXXXIV

COROT'S METHOD OF WORK

Corot is a true artist. One must see a painter in his home to have an idea of his merit. I saw again there, and with a quite new appreciation of them, pictures which I had seen at the museum and only cared for moderately. His great "Baptism of Christ" is full of naive beauties; his trees are superb. I asked him about the tree I have to do in the "Orpheus." He told me to walk straight ahead, giving myself up to whatever might come in my way; usually this is what he does. He does not admit that taking infinite pains is lost labour. Titian, Raphael, Rubens, &c., worked easily. They only attempted what they knew; only their range was wider than that of the man who, for instance, only paints landscapes or flowers. Notwithstanding this facility, labour too is indispensable. Corot broods much over things. Ideas come to him, and he adds as he works. It is the right way.

Delacroix.

CCXXXV

From the age of six, I had the passion for drawing the forms of things. By the age of fifty, I had published an infinity of designs; but all that I produced before the age of seventy is of no account. Only when I was seventy-three had I got some sort of insight into the real structure of nature—animals, plants, trees, birds, fish, and insects. Consequently, at the age of eighty I shall have advanced still further; at ninety, I shall grasp the mystery of things; at a hundred, I shall be a marvel, and at a hundred and ten every blot, every line from my brush shall be alive!

Hokusai.

CCXXXVI

It takes an artist fifty years to learn to do anything, and fifty years to learn what not to do—and fifty years to sift and find what he simply desires to do—and 300 years to do it, and when it is done neither heaven nor earth much needs it nor heeds it. Well, I'll peg away; I can do nothing else, and wouldn't if I could.

Burne-Jones.

CCXXXVII

If the Lord lets me live two years longer, I think that I can paint something beautiful.

Corot at 77.



ARS LONGA

CCXXXVIII

If Heaven would give me ten years more ... if Heaven would give me only five years more ... I might become a really great painter.

Hokusai.

CCXXXIX

I will have my Bed to be a Bed of Honour, and cannot die in a better Posture than with my Pencil in my Hand.

Lucas of Leyden.

CCXL

Adieu! I go above to see if friend Corot has found me new landscapes to paint.

Daubigny (on his death-bed).

CCXLI

Leaving my brush in the city of the East, I go to gaze on the divine landscapes of the Paradise of the West.

Hiroshige (on his death-bed).

CCXLII

Much will hereafter be written about subjects and refinements of painting. Sure am I that many notable men will arise, all of whom will write both well and better about this art and will teach it better than I. For I myself hold my art at a very mean value, for I know what my faults are. Let every man therefore strive to better these my errors according to his powers. Would to God it were possible for me to see the work and art of the mighty masters to come, who are yet unborn, for I know that I might be improved. Ah! how often in my sleep do I behold great works of art and beautiful things, the like whereof never appear to me awake, but so soon as I awake even the remembrance of them leaveth me. Let none be ashamed to learn, for a good work requireth good counsel. Nevertheless, whosoever taketh counsel in the arts let him take it from one thoroughly versed in those matters, who can prove what he saith with his hand. Howbeit any one may give thee counsel; and when thou hast done a work pleasing to thyself, it is good for thee to show it to dull men of little judgment that they may give their opinion of it. As a rule, they pick out the most faulty points, whilst they entirely pass over the good. If thou findest something they say true, thou mayest thus better thy work.

Duerer.

CCXLIII

I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit; I want nothing; I am quite happy.

Blake.



INDEX OF ARTISTS

Agatharcus, 46 Alberti Leon Battista, 51, 143 Anon (Chinese), 184 Apelles, 87

Blake, 7, 26, 53, 97, 122, 173, 243 Bracquemond, 23, 61, 63, 115, 179 Brown, Ford Madox, 82, 194, 197 Burne-Jones, 19, 36, 116, 127, 131, 155, 166, 181, 236

Calvert, Edward, 25, 41, 77, 80, 137, 167 Cennini, Cennino, 126, 163 Chasseriau, 93, 146, 147, 175, 189 Constable, 81, 104, 188, 192, 199 Corot, 28, 66, 73, 74, 76, 237 Crome, 191 Courbet, 20, 21 Couture, 148

Daubigny, 240 David, Louis, 57, 229 Delacroix, 14, 16, 29, 60, 85, 88, 114, 125, 149, 168, 203, 210, 224, 225, 234 Donatello, 108 Duerer, 5, 49, 71, 242 Dutilleux, 142, 190, 202 Dyce, 24

Eupompus, 67

Fromentin, 8, 15, 30, 177, 207, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217 Furse, 132, 133, 139, 170, 172, 183, 197, 220 Fuseli, 2, 139A, 199A

Gainsborough, 90, 222 Goujon, 48 Goya, 89, 156, 157

Hilliard, 159 Hiroshige, 241 Hogarth, 118, 124, 141, 152 Hokusai, 106, 134, 141, 235, 238 Hoppner, 226 Hsieh Ho, 11, 117 Huet, 185, 233

Ingres, 52, 62, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 119, 120, 128

Keene, 69 Klagmann, 44 Ku K'ai-Chih, 12, 165 Kuo Hsi, 186, 187

Lawrence, 59, 205 Leighton, 103 Leonardo, 3, 50, 56, 65, 121, 129, 158, 160, 161, 162, 176, 196 Lucas of Leyden, 239 Lundgren, E., 164

Meissonier, 228 Michael Angelo, 4, 79, 107, 123, 212 Millais, 95, 99 Millet, 35, 47, 75, 200, 201 Monticelli, 101 Morris, William, 27, 38, 39, 43, 130, 144

Northcote, 151, 174, 178, 208

Okio, 70

Pasiteles, 138 Poussin, N., 13 Preault, 83 Puvis de Chavannes, 78, 105, 180

Raphael, 18 Rembrandt, 91, 92 Reynolds, 68, 72, 84, 218, 221 Rops, 31 Rossetti, 6, 9, 150, 216, 230, 231 Rousseau, 37, 86, 136, 232 Rubens, 55, 58, 98

Shiba Kokan, 135 Stevens, A. (the Belgian painter), 1, 204 Stevens, A. (the English sculptor), 227 Sung Ti, 195

Titian, 45, 140 Turner, 193

Velasquez, 209

Wang Wei, 198 Watts, 10, 17, 34, 40, 96, 100, 102, 169, 171, 182, 206, 223 Whistler, 32, 42, 64 Wiertz, 22, 33, 54 Wilkie, 94, 145, 153, 154, 219

Zeuxis, 46



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