The Mind of the Artist | Page 6

to receive this
doctrine, so convenient for me as it was--beautiful Nature, and all that
humbug? It is nothing but that. Well, the world was watching; and it
saw "The Piano," the "White Girl," the Thames subjects, the marines ...
canvases produced by a fellow who was puffed up with the conceit of
being able to prove to his comrades his magnificent gifts, qualities
which only needed a rigorous training to make their possessor to-day a
master, instead of a dissipated student. Ah, why was I not a pupil of
Ingres? I don't say that out of enthusiasm for his pictures; I have only a
moderate liking for them. Several of his canvases, which we have
looked at together, seem to me of a very questionable style, not at all
Greek, as people want to call it, but French, and viciously French. I feel
that we must go far beyond this, that there are far more beautiful things
to be done. Yet, I repeat, why was I not his pupil? What a master he
would have been for us! How salutary would have been his guidance!
Whistler.
XXXIII
It has been said, "Who will deliver us from the Greeks and Romans?"
Soon we shall be saying, "Who will deliver us from realism?" Nothing
is so tiring as a constant close imitation of life. One comes back
inevitably to imaginative work. Homer's fictions will always be
preferred to historical truth, Rubens' fabulous magnificence to all the
frippery copied exactly from the lay figure.
The painter who is a machine will pass away, the painter who is a mind
will remain; the spirit for ever triumphs over matter.
Wiertz.
XXXIV

A little book by the Russian soldier and artist Verestchagin is
interesting to the student. As a realist, he condemns all art founded on
the principles of picture-makers, and depends only on exact imitation,
and the conditions of accident. In our seeking after truth, and endeavour
never to be unreal or affected, it must not be forgotten that this
endeavour after truth is to be made with materials altogether unreal and
different from the object to be imitated. Nothing in a picture is real;
indeed, the painter's art is the most unreal thing in the whole range of
our efforts. Though art must be founded on nature, art and nature are
distinctly different things; in a certain class of subjects probability may,
indeed must, be violated, provided the violation is not disagreeable.
Everything in a work of art must accord. Though gloom and desolation
would deepen the effects of a distressing incident in real life, such
accompaniments are not necessary to make us feel a thrill of horror or
awaken the keenest sympathy. The most awful circumstances may take
place under the purest sky, and amid the most lovely surroundings. The
human sensibilities will be too much affected by the human sympathies
to heed the external conditions; but to awaken in a picture similar
impressions, certain artificial aids must be used; the general aspect
must be troubled or sad.
Watts.
XXXV
The remarks made on my "Man with the Hoe" seem always very
strange to me, and I am obliged to you for repeating them to me, for
once more it sets me marvelling at the ideas they impute to me. In what
club have my critics ever encountered me? A Socialist, they cry! Well,
really, I might answer the charge as the commissary from Auvergne did
when he wrote home: "They have been saying that I am a
Saint-Simonian: it's not true; I don't know what a Saint-Simonian is."
Can't they then simply admit such ideas as may occur to the mind in
looking at a man doomed to gain his living by the sweat of his brow?
There are some who tell me that I deny the charm of the country. I find
in the country much more than charm; I find infinite splendour; I look

on everything as they do on the little powers of which Christ said, "I
say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
these." I see and note the aureole on the dandelion, and the sun which,
far away, beyond the stretching country, spends his glory on the clouds.
I see just as much in the flat plain; in the horses steaming as they toil;
and then in a stony place I see a man quite exhausted, whose gasps
have been audible since morning, who tries to draw himself up for a
moment to take breath. The drama is surrounded by splendours. This is
no invention of mine; and it is long since that expression "the cry of the
earth" was discovered. My critics are men of learning and taste, I
imagine; but I cannot put myself into their skins,