The French Impressionists (1860 1900) written by Camille Mauclair
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Camille Mauclair >> The French Impressionists (1860 1900)
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[Illustration: MANET
OLYMPIA]
Thus it must be firmly established that from this moment Manet passed as
an innovator, years before Impressionism existed or was even thought of.
This is an important point: it will help to clear up the twofold origin
of the movement which followed. To his realism, to his return to
composition in the modern spirit, and to the simplifying of planes and
values, Manet owed these attacks, though at that time his colour was
still sombre and entirely influenced by Hals, Goya and Courbet. From
that time the artist became a chief. As his friends used to meet him at
an obscure Batignolles cafe, the cafe Guerbois (still existing), public
derision baptized these meetings with the name of "L'Ecole des
Batignolles." Manet then exhibited the _Angels at the Tomb of Christ_, a
souvenir of the Venetians; _Lola de Valence_, commented upon by
Baudelaire in a quatrain which can be found in the _Fleurs du Mal_; the
_Episode d'un combat de taureaux_ (dissatisfied with this picture, he
cut out the dead toreador in the foreground, and burnt the rest). The
_Acteur tragique_ (portrait of Rouviere in Hamlet) and the _Jesus
insulte_ followed, and then came the _Gitanos_, _L'Enfant a l'Epee_, and
the portrait of Mme. Manet. This series of works is admirable. It is
here where he reveals himself as a splendid colourist, whose design is
as vigorous as the technique is masterly. In these works one does not
think of looking for anything but the witchery of technical strength;
and the abundant wealth of his temperament is simply dazzling. Manet
reveals himself as the direct heir of the great Spaniards, more
interesting, more spontaneous, and freer than Courbet. The _Rouviere_ is
as fine a symphony in grey and black as the noblest portraits by
Bronzino, and there is probably no Goya more powerful than the _Toreador
tue_. Manet's altogether classic descent appears here undeniably. There
is no question yet of Impressionism, and yet Monet and Renoir are
already painting, Monet has exhibited at the _Salon des Refuses_, but
criticism sees and attacks nobody but Manet. This great individuality
who overwhelmed the Academy with its weak allegories, was the butt of
great insults and the object of great admiration. Banished from the
Salons, he collected fifty pictures in a room in the Avenue de l'Alma
and invited the public thither. In 1868 appeared the portrait of Emile
Zola, in 1860 the _Dejeuner_, works which are so powerful, that they
enforced admiration in spite of all hostility. In the Salon of 1870 was
shown the portrait of Eva Gonzales, the charming pastellist and pupil of
Manet, and the impressive _Execution of Maximilian at Queretaro_. Manet
was at the apogee of his talent, when the Franco-German war broke out.
At the age of thirty-eight he had put forth a considerable amount of
work, tried himself in all styles, severed his individuality from the
slavish admiration of the old masters, and attained his own mastery. And
now he wanted to expand, and, in joining Monet, Renoir and Degas,
interpret in his own way the Impressionist theory.
[Illustration: MANET
THE WOMAN WITH THE PARROT]
The _Fight of the Kearsage and the Alabama_, a magnificent sea-piece,
bathed in sunlight, announced this transformation in his work, as did
also a study, a _Garden_, painted, I believe, in 1870, but exhibited
only after the crisis of the terrible year. At that time the Durand-Ruel
Gallery bought a considerable series by the innovator, and was imitated
by some select art-lovers. The _Musique aux Tuileries_ and the _Bal de
l'Opera_ had, some years before, pointed towards the evolution of this
great artist in the direction of _plein-air_ painting. The _Bon Bock_,
in which the very soul of Hals is revived, and the grave _Liseur_, sold
immediately at Vienne, were the two last pledges given by the artist to
his old admirers; these two pictures had moreover a splendid success,
and the _Bon Bock_, popularised by an engraving, was hailed by the very
men who had most unjustly attacked the author of the portrait of Mme.
Morisot, a French masterpiece. But already Manet was attracted
irresistibly towards the study of light, and, faithful to his programme,
he prepared to face once again outbursts of anger and further sarcasms;
he was resolved once again to offer battle to the Salons. Followed by
all the Impressionists he tried to make them understand the necessity
of introducing the new ideas into this retrograde _Milieu_. But they
would not. Having already received a rebuff by the attacks directed for
some years against their works, they exhibited among themselves in some
private galleries: they declined to force the gate of the Salons, and
Manet remained alone. In 1875 he submitted, with his _Argenteuil_, the
most perfect epitome of his atmospheric researches. The jury admitted it
in spite of loud protests: they were afraid of Manet; they admired his
power of transformation, and he revolted the prejudiced, attracting them
at the same time by the charm of his force. But in 1876 the portrait of
_Desboutin_ and the _Linge_ (an exquisite picture,--one of the best
productions of open-air study) were rejected. Manet then recommenced the
experience of 1867, and opened his studio to the public. A register at
the door was soon covered with signatures protesting against the jury,
as well as with hostile jokes, and even anonymous insults! In 1877 the
defeated jury admitted the portrait of the famous singer Faure in the
part of Hamlet, and rejected _Nana_, a picture which was found
scandalising, but has charming freshness and an intensely modern
character. In 1878, 1879 and 1880 they accepted _la Serre_, the
surprising symphony in blue and white which shows Mr George Moore in
boating costume, the portrait of Antonin Proust, and the scene at the
_Pere Lathuile_ restaurant, in which Manet's nervous and luminous
realism has so curious a resemblance to the art of the Goncourts. In
1881 the portrait of Rochefort and that of the lion-killer, Pertuiset,
procured the artist a medal at the Salon, and Antonin Proust, the friend
of Manet's childhood, who had become Minister of Fine Arts, honoured
himself in decorating him with the legion of honour. In 1882 appeared a
magnificent canvas, the _Bar des Folies-Bergere_, in which there is some
sparkling still-life painting of most attractive beauty. It was
accompanied by a lady's portrait, _Jeanne_. But on April 30, 1883, Manet
died, exhausted by his work and struggles, of locomotor ataxy, after
having vainly undergone the amputation of a foot to avoid gangrene.
[Illustration: MANET
THE BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGERE]
It will be seen that Manet fought through all his life: few artists'
lives have been nobler. His has been an example of untiring energy; he
employed it as much in working, as in making a stand against prejudices.
Rejected, accepted, rejected again, he delivered with enormous courage
and faith his attack upon a jury which represented routine. As he fought
in front of his easel, he still fought before the public, without ever
relaxing, without changing, alone, apart even from those whom he loved,
who had been shaped by his example. This great painter, one of those who
did most honour to the French soul, had the genius to create by himself
an Impressionism of his own which will always remain his own, after
having given evidence of gifts of the first order in the tradition
handed down by the masters of the real and the good. He cannot be
confused either with Monet, or with Pissarro and Renoir. His
comprehension of light is a special one, his technique is not in
accordance with the system of colour-spots; it observes the theory of
complementary colours and of the division of tones without departing
from a grand style, from a classic stateliness, from a superb sureness.
Manet has not been the inventor of Impressionism which co-existed with
his work since 1865, but he has rendered it immense services, by taking
upon himself all the outbursts of anger addressed to the innovators, by
making a breach in public opinion, through which his friends have passed
in behind him. Probably without him all these artists would have
remained unknown, or at least without influence, because they all were
bold characters in art, but timid or disdainful in life. Degas, Monet
and Renoir were fine natures with a horror of polemics, who wished to
hold aloof from the Salons, and were resigned from the outset to be
misunderstood. They were, so to say, electrified by the magnificent
example of Manet's fighting spirit, and Manet was generous enough to
take upon himself the reproaches levelled, not only against his work,
but against theirs. His twenty years of open war, sustained with an
abnegation worthy of all esteem, must be considered as one of the most
significant phenomena of the history of the artists of all ages.
This work of Manet, so much discussed and produced under such tormenting
conditions, owes its importance beyond all to its power and frankness.
Ten years of developing the first manner, tragically limited by the war
of 1870; thirteen years of developing the second evolution, parallel
with the efforts of the Impressionists. The period from 1860 to 1870 is
logically connected with Hals and Goya; from 1870 to 1883 the artist's
modernity is complicated by the study of light. His personality appears
there even more original, but one may well give the palm to those works
of Manet which are painted in his classic and low-toned manner. He had
all the pictorial gifts which make the glory of the masters: full, true,
broad composition, colouring of irresistible power, blacks and greys
which cannot be found elsewhere since Velasquez and Goya, and a profound
knowledge of values. He has tried his hand at everything: portraits,
landscapes, seascapes, scenes of modern life, still-life and nudes have
each in their turn served his ardent desire of creation. His was a much
finer comprehension of contemporary life than seems to be admitted by
Realism: one has only to compare him with Courbet, to see how far more
nervous and intelligent he was, without loss to the qualities of truth
and robustness. His pictures will always remain documents of the
greatest importance on the society, the manners and customs of the
second Empire. He did not possess the gift of psychology. His _Christ
aux Anges_ and _Jesus insulte_ are obviously only pieces of painting
without idealism. He was, like the great Dutch virtuosos, and like
certain Italians, more eye than soul. Yet his _Maximilian_, the drawings
to Poe's _Raven_, and certain sketches show that he might have realised
some curious, psychological works, had he not been so completely
absorbed by the immediate reality and by the desire for beautiful paint.
A beautiful painter--this is what he was before everything else, this is
his fairest fame, and it is almost inconceivable that the juries of the
Salons failed to understand him. They waxed indignant over his subjects
which offer only a restricted interest, and they did not see the
altogether classic quality of this technique without bitumen, without
glazing, without tricks; of this vibrating colour; of this rich paint;
of this passionate design so suitable for expressing movement and
gestures true to life; of this simple composition where the whole
picture is based upon two or three values with the straightforwardness
one admires in Rubens, Jordaens and Hals.
[Illustration: MANET
DEJEUNER]
Manet will occupy an important position in the French School. He is the
most original painter of the second half of the nineteenth century, the
one who has really created a great movement. His work, the fecundity of
which is astonishing, is unequal. One has to remember that, besides the
incessant strife which he kept up--a strife which would have killed many
artists--he had to find strength for two grave crises in himself. He
joined one movement, then freed himself of it, then invented another and
recommenced to learn painting at a point where anybody else would have
continued in his previous manner. "Each time I paint," he said to
Mallarme, "I throw myself into the water to learn swimming." It is not
surprising that such a man should have been unequal, and that one can
distinguish in his work between experiments, exaggerations due to
research, and efforts made to reject the prejudices of which we feel the
weight no longer. But it would be unjust to say that Manet has only had
the merit of opening up new roads; that has been said to belittle him,
after it had first been said that these roads led into absurdity. Works
like the _Toreador_, _Rouviere_, _Mme. Manet_, the _Dejeuner_, the
_Musique aux Tuileries_, the _Bon Bock_, _Argenteuil_, _Le Linge_, _En
Bateau_ and the _Bar_, will always remain admirable masterpieces which
will do credit to French painting, of which the spontaneous, living,
clear and bold art of Manet is a direct and very representative product.
There remains, then, a great personality who knew how to dominate the
rather coarse conceptions of Realism, who influenced by his modernity
all contemporary illustration, who re-established a sound and strong
tradition in the face of the Academy, and who not only created a new
transition, but marked his place on the new road which he had opened. To
him Impressionism owes its existence; his tenacity enabled it to take
root and to vanquish the opposition of the School; his work has enriched
the world by some beautiful examples which demonstrate the union of the
two principles of Realism and of that technical Impressionism which was
to supply Manet, Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley with an object for their
efforts. For the sum total of all that is evoked by his name, Edouard
Manet certainly deserves the name of a man of genius--an incomplete
genius, though, since the thought with him was not on the level of his
technique, since he could never affect the emotions like a Leonardo or a
Rembrandt, but genius all the same through the magnificent power of his
gifts, the continuity of his style, and the importance of his part which
infused blood into a school dying of the anaemia of conventional art.
Whoever beholds a work of Manet's, even without knowing the conditions
of his life, will feel that there is something great, the lion's claw
which Delacroix had recognised as far back as 1861, and to which, it is
said, even the great Ingres had paid homage on the jury which examined
with disgust the _Guitarero_.
[Illustration: MANET
PORTRAIT OF MADAME M.L.]
To-day Manet is considered almost as a classic glory; and the progress
for which he had given the impulse, has been so rapid, that many are
astonished that he should ever have been considered audacious. Sight is
transformed, strife is extinguished, and a large, select public,
familiar with Monet and Renoir, judge Manet almost as a long defunct
initiator. One has to know his admirable life, one has to know well the
incredible inertia of the Salons where he appeared, to give him his full
due. And when, after the acceptance of Impressionism, the unavoidable
reaction will take place, Manet's qualities of solidity, truth and
science will appear such, that he will survive many of those to whom he
has opened the road and facilitated the success at the expense of his
own. It will be seen that Degas and he have, more than the others, and
with less apparent _eclat_, united the gifts which produce durable works
in the midst of the fluctuations of fashion and the caprices of taste
and views. Manet can, at the Louvre or any other gallery, hold his own
in the most crushing surroundings, prove his personal qualities, and
worthily represent a period which he loved.
An enormous amount has been written on him, from Zola's bold and
intelligent pamphlet in 1865, to the recent work by M. Theodore Duret.
Few men have provoked more comments. In an admirable picture, _Hommage a
Manet_, the delicate and perfect painter Fantin-Latour, a friend from
the first hour, has grouped around the artist some of his admirers,
Monet, Renoir, Duranty, Zola, Bazille, and Braquemond. The picture has
to-day a place of honour at the Luxembourg, where Manet is
insufficiently represented by _Olympia_, a study of a woman, and the
_Balcony_. A collection is much to be desired of his lithographs, his
etchings and his pastels, in which he has proved his diversified
mastery, and also of his portraits of famous contemporaries, Zola,
Rochefort, Desboutin, Proust, Mallarme, Clemenceau, Guys, Faure,
Baudelaire, Moore, and others, an admirable series by a visionary who
possessed, in a period of unrest and artificiality, the quality of rude
sincerity, and the love of truth of a Primitive.
[Illustration: MANET
THE HOTHOUSE]
IV
EDGAR DEGAS: HIS WORK, HIS INFLUENCE
I have said how vain it is to class artistic temperaments under a title
imposed upon them generally by circumstances and dates, rather than by
their own free will. The study of Degas will furnish additional proof
for it. Classed with the Impressionists, this master participates in
their ideas in the sphere of composition, rather than in that of colour.
He belongs to them through his modernity and comprehension of character.
Only when we come to his quite recent landscapes (1896), can we link him
to Monet and Renoir as colourist, and he has been more their friend than
their colleague.
Degas is known by the select few, and almost ignored by the public. This
is due to several reasons. Degas has never wished to exhibit at the
Salons, except, I believe, once or twice at the beginning of his
career. He has only shown his works at those special exhibitions
arranged by the Impressionists in hired apartments (rue le Peletier, rue
Laffitte, Boulevard des Capucines), and at some art-dealers. The art of
Degas has never had occasion to shock the public by the exuberance of
its colour, because he restricted himself to grey and quiet harmonies.
Degas is a modest character, fond of silence and solitude, with a horror
of the crowd and of controversies, and almost disinclined to show his
works. He is a man of intelligence and ready wit, whose sallies are
dreaded; he is almost a misanthrope. His pictures have been gradually
sold to foreign countries and dispersed in rich galleries without having
been seen by the public. His character is, in short, absolutely opposed
to that of Manet, who, though he suffered from criticism, thought it his
duty to bid it defiance. Degas's influence has, however, been
considerable, though secretly so, and the young painters have been
slowly inspired by his example.
[Illustration: DEGAS
THE BEGGAR WOMAN]
Degas is beyond all a draughtsman of the first order. His spirit is
quite classical. He commenced by making admirable copies of the Italian
Primitives, notably of Fra Angelico, and the whole first series of his
works speaks of that influence: portraits, heads of deep, mat, amber
colour, on a ground of black or grey tones, remarkable for a severity of
intense style, and for the rare gift of psychological expression. To
find the equal of these faces--after having stated their classic
descent--one would have to turn to the beautiful things by Ingres, and
certainly Degas is, with Ingres, the most learned, the most perfect
French draughtsman of the nineteenth century. An affirmation of this
nature is made to surprise those who judge Impressionism with
preconceived ideas. It is none the less true that, if a series of
Degas's first portraits were collected, the comparison would force
itself upon one's mind irrefutably. In face of the idealist painting of
Romanticism, Ingres represented quite clearly the cult of painting for
its own sake. His ideas were mediocre, and went scarcely beyond the
poor, conventional ideal of the Academy; but his genius was so great,
that it made him paint, together with his tedious allegories, some
incomparable portraits and nudes. He thought he was serving official
Classicism, which still boasts of his name, but in reality he dominated
it; and, whilst he was an imitator of Raphael, he was a powerful
Realist. The Impressionists admire him as such, and agree with him in
banishing from the art of painting all literary imagination, whether it
be the tedious mythology of the School, or the historical anecdote of
the Romanticists. Degas and Besnard admire Ingres as colossal
draughtsman, and, beyond all, as man who, in spite of the limitations of
his mind, preserved the clear vision of the mission of his art at a time
when art was used for the expression of literary conceptions. Who would
have believed it? Yet it is true, and Manet, too, held the same view of
Ingres, little as our present academicians may think it! It happens that
to-day Impressionism is more akin to Ingres than to Delacroix, just as
the young poets are more akin to Racine than to Hugo. They reject the
foreign elements, and search, before anything else, for the strict
national tradition. Degas follows Ingres and resembles him. He is also
reminiscent of the Primitives and of Holbein. There is, in his first
period, the somewhat dry and geometrical perfection, the somewhat heavy
colour which only serves to strengthen the correctness of the planes. At
the Exposition of 1900, there was a Degas which surprised everybody. It
was an _Interior of a cotton factory_ in an American town. This small
picture was curiously clear: it would be impossible to paint better and
with a more accomplished knowledge of the laws of painting. But it was
the work of a soulless, emotionless Realist; it was a coloured
photograph of unheard-of truth, the mathematical science of which left
the beholder cold. This work, which is very old (it dates back to about
1860), gave no idea of what Degas has grown into. It was the work of an
unemotional master of technique; only just the infinitely delicate value
of the greys and blacks revealed the future master of harmony. One
almost might have wished to find a fault in this aggravating perfection.
But Degas was not to remain there, and already, about that time, certain
portraits of his are elevated by an expression of ardent melancholy, by
warm, ivory-like, grave colouring which attracts one's eye. Before this
series one feels the firm will of a very logical, serious, classic
spirit who wants to know thoroughly the intimate resources of design,
before risking to choose from among them the elements which respond best
to his individual nature. If Degas was destined to invent, later on, so
personal a style of design that he could be accused of "drawing badly,"
this first period of his life is before us, to show the slow maturing of
his boldness and how carefully he first proved to himself his knowledge,
before venturing upon new things. In art the difficulty is, when one has
learnt everything, to forget,--that is, to appear to forget, so as to
create one's own style, and this apparent forgetting cloaks an
amalgamation of science with mind. And Degas is one of those patient and
reticent men who spend years in arriving at this; he has much in common
with Hokusai, the old man "mad with painting," who at the close of his
prodigious life invented arbitrary forms, after having given immortal
examples of his interpretation of the real.
[Illustration: DEGAS
THE LESSON IN THE FOYER]
Degas is also clearly related to Corot, not only in the silvery
harmonies of his suave landscapes, but also, and particularly, in his
admirable faces whose inestimable power and moving sincerity we have
hardly commenced to understand. Degas passed slowly from classicism to
modernity. He never liked outbursts of colour; he is by no means an
Impressionist from this point of view. As a draughtsman of genius he
expresses all by the precision of the planes and values; a grey, a black
and some notes of colour suffice for him. This might establish a link
between him and Whistler, though he is much less mysterious and diffuse.
Whenever Degas plays with colour, it is with the same restraint of his
boldness; he never goes to excess in abandoning himself to its charm. He
is neither lyrical, nor voluptuous; his energy is cold; his wise spirit
affirms soberly the true character of a face or an object.
Since a long time this spirit has moved Degas to revel in the
observation of contemporary life. His nature has been that of a patient
psychologist, a minute analyst, and also of a bitter ironist. The man is
very little known. His friends say that he has an easily ruffled
delicacy, a sensibility open to poetry, but jealous of showing its
emotion. They say that Degas's satirical bitterness is the reverse side
of a soul wounded by the spectacle of modern morality. One feels this
sentiment in his work, where the sharp notation of truth is painful,
where the realism is opposed by colouring of a sober distinction, where
nothing, not even the portrait of a drab, could be vulgar. Degas has
devoted himself to the profound study of certain classes of women, in
the state of mind of a philosopher and physiologist, impartially
inclined towards life.
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