French Art | Page 6

Raphael--and any painter who
suggests Raphael inevitably suffers for it--but always with an
individual, a native, a French difference, and he is as far removed in
spirit and essence from the Fontainebleau school as the French genius
itself is from the Italian which presided there. In Poussin, indeed, the
French genius first asserts itself in painting. And it asserts itself
splendidly in him.
We who ask to be moved as well as impressed, who demand
satisfaction of the susceptibility as well as--shall we say rather
than?--interest of the intelligence, may feel that for the qualities in
which Poussin is lacking those in which he is rich afford no

compensation whatever. But I confess that in the presence of even that
portion of Poussin's magnificent accomplishment which is spread
before one in the Louvre, to wish one's self in the Stanze of the Vatican
or in the Sistine Chapel, seems to me an unintelligent sacrifice of one's
opportunities.
III
It is a sure mark of narrowness and defective powers of perception to
fail to discover the point of view even of what one disesteems. We talk
of Poussin, of Louis Quatorze art--as of its revival under David and its
continuance in Ingres--of, in general, modern classic art as if it were an
art of convention merely; whereas, conventional as it is, its
conventionality is--or was, certainly, in the seventeenth century--very
far from being pure formulary. It was genuinely expressive of a certain
order of ideas intelligently held, a certain set of principles sincerely
believed in, a view of art as positive and genuine as the revolt against
the tyrannous system into which it developed. We are simply out of
sympathy with its aim, its ideal; perhaps, too, for that most frivolous of
all reasons because we have grown tired of it.
But the business of intelligent criticism is to be in touch with
everything. "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner," as the French
ethical maxim has it, may be modified into the true motto of æsthetic
criticism, "Tout comprendre, c'est tout justifier." Of course, by
"criticism" one does not mean pedagogy, as so many people constantly
imagine, nor does justifying everything include bad drawing. But as
Lebrun, for example, is not nowadays held up as a model to young
painters, and is not to be accused of bad drawing, why do we so
entirely dispense ourselves from comprehending him at all? Lebrun is,
perhaps, not a painter of enough personal importance to repay attentive
consideration, and historic importance does not greatly concern
criticism. But we pass him by on the ground of his conventionality,
without remembering that what appears conventional to us was in his
case not only sincerity but aggressive enthusiasm. If there ever was a
painter who exercised what creative and imaginative faculty he had
with an absolute gusto, Lebrun did so. He interested his contemporaries

immensely; no painter ever ruled more unrivalled. He fails to interest
us because we have another point of view. We believe in our point of
view and disbelieve in his as a matter of course; and it would be
self-contradictory to say, in the interests of critical catholicity, that in
our opinion his may be as sound as our own. But to say that he has no
point of view whatever--to say, in general, that modern classic art is
perfunctory and mere formulary--is to be guilty of what has always
been the inherent vice of protestantism in all fields of mental activity.
Nowhere has protestantism exhibited this defect more palpably than in
the course of evolution of schools of painting. Pre-Raphaelitism is
perhaps the only exception, and pre-Raphaelitism was a violent and
emotional counter-revolution rather than a movement characterized by
catholicity of critical appreciation. Literary criticism is certainly full of
similar intolerance; though when Gautier talks about Racine, or Zola
about "Mes Haines," or Mr. Howells about Scott, the polemic temper,
the temper most opposed to the critical, is very generally recognized.
And in spite of their admirable accomplishment in various branches of
literature, these writers will never quite recover from the misfortune of
having preoccupied themselves as critics with the defects instead of the
qualities of what is classic. Yet the protestantism of the successive
schools of painting against the errors of their predecessors has
something even more crass about it. Contemporary painters and critics
thoroughly alive, and fully in the contemporary æsthetic current, so far
from appreciating modern classic art sympathetically, are apt to admire
the old masters themselves mainly on technical grounds, and not at all
to enter into their general æsthetic attitude. The feeling of
contemporary painters and critics (except, of course, historical critics)
for Raphael's genius is the opposite of cordial. We are out of touch with
the "Disputa," with angels and prophets seated on clouds, with halos
and wings, with