The French Impressionists (1860 1900) written by Camille Mauclair
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Camille Mauclair >> The French Impressionists (1860 1900)
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Gustave Caillebotte was a friend of the Impressionists from the very
first hour. He was rich, fond of art, and himself a painter of great
merit who modestly kept hidden behind his comrades. His picture _Les
raboteurs de parquets_ made him formerly the butt of derision. To-day
his work, at the Luxembourg Gallery seems hardly a fit pretext for so
much controversy, but at that time much was considered as madness,
that to our eyes appears quite natural. This picture is a study of
oblique perspective and its curious _ensemble_ of rising lines sufficed
to provoke astonishment. The work is, moreover, grey and discreet in
colour and has some qualities of fine light, but is on the whole not
very interesting. Recently an exhibition of works by Caillebotte has
made it apparent that this amateur was a misjudged painter. The
still-life pictures in this exhibition were specially remarkable. But
the name of Caillebotte was destined to reach the public only in
connection with controversies and scandal. When he died, he left to the
State a magnificent collection of objets-d'art and of old pictures, and
also a collection of Impressionist works, stipulating that these two
bequests should be inseparable. He wished by this means to impose the
works of his friends upon the museums, and thus avenge their unjust
neglect. The State accepted the two legacies, since the Louvre
absolutely wanted to benefit by the ancient portion, in spite of the
efforts of the Academicians who revolted against the acceptance of the
modern part. On this occasion one could see how far the official
artists were carried by their hatred of the Impressionists. A group of
Academicians, professors at the _Ecole des Beaux-Arts_, threatened the
minister that they would resign _en masse_. "We cannot," they wrote to
the papers, "continue to teach an art of which we believe we know the
laws, from the moment the State admits into the museums, where our
pupils can see them, works which are the very negation of all we teach."
A heated discussion followed in the press, and the minister boldly
declared that Impressionism, good or bad, had attracted the attention of
the public, and that it was the duty of the State to receive impartially
the work of all the art movements; the public would know how to judge
and choose; the Government's duty was not to influence them by showing
them only one style of painting, but to remain in historic neutrality.
Thanks to this clever reply, the Academicians, among whom M. Gerome was
the most rabid, resigned themselves to keeping their posts. A similar
incident, less publicly violent, but equally strange, occurred on the
occasion of the admission to the Luxembourg Gallery of the portrait of
M. Whistler's mother, a masterpiece of which the gallery is proud
to-day, and for which a group of writers and art lovers had succeeded in
opening the way. It is difficult to imagine the degree of irritation and
obstruction of the official painters against all the ideas of the new
painting, and if it had only depended upon them, there can be no doubt
that Manet and his friends would have died in total obscurity, not only
banished from the Salons and museums, but also treated as madmen and
robbed of the possibility of living by their work.
The Caillebotte collection was installed under conditions which the
ill-will of the administrators made at least as deplorable as possible.
The works were crowded into a small, badly lighted room, where it is
absolutely impossible to see them from the distance required by the
method of the division of tones, and the meanness of the opposition was
such that, the pictures having been bequeathed without frames, the
keeper was obliged to have recourse to the reserves of the Louvre,
because he was refused the necessary credit for purchasing them. The
collection is however beautiful and interesting. It does not represent
Impressionism in all its brilliancy, since the works by which it is
composed had been bought by Caillebotte at a time, when his friends were
still far from having arrived at the full blossoming of their qualities.
But some very fine things can at least be found there. Renoir is
marvellously represented by the _Moulin de la Galette_, which is one of
his masterpieces. Degas figures with seven beautiful pastels, Monet with
some landscapes grand in style; Sisley and Pissarro appear scarcely to
their advantage, and finally it is to be regretted, that Manet is only
represented by a study in black in his first manner, the _Balcony_,
which does not count among his best pictures, and the famous _Olympia_
whose importance is more historical than intrinsic. The gallery has
separately acquired a _Young Girl in Ball Dress_ by Berthe Morisot,
which is a delicate marvel of grace and freshness. And in the place of
honour of the gallery is to be seen Fantin-Latour's great picture
_Hommage a Manet_, in which the painter, seated before his easel, is
surrounded by his friends; and this canvas may well be considered the
emblem of the slow triumph of Impressionism, and of the amends for a
great injustice.
It is in this picture that the young painter Bazille is represented, a
friend and pupil of Manet's, who was killed during the war of 1870, and
who should not be forgotten here. He has left a few canvases marked by
great talent, and would no doubt have counted among the most original
contemporary artists. We shall terminate this all too short enumeration
with two remarkable landscapists; the one is Albert Lebourg who paints
in suave and poetic colour schemes, with blues and greens of particular
tenderness, a painter who will take his place in the history of
Impressionism. The other is Eugene Boudin. He has not adopted Claude
Monet's technique; but I have already said that the vague and inexact
term "Impressionism" must be understood to comprise a group of painters
showing originality in the study of light and getting away from the
academic spirit. As to this, Eugene Boudin deserves to be placed in the
first rank. His canvases will be the pride of the best arranged
galleries. He is an admirable seascape painter. He has known how to
render with unfailing mastery, the grey waters of the Channel, the
stormy skies, the heavy clouds, the effects of sunlight feebly piercing
the prevailing grey. His numerous pictures painted at the port of Havre
are profoundly expressive. Nobody has excelled him in drawing
sailing-boats, in giving the exact feeling of the keels plunged into the
water, in grouping the masts, in rendering the activity of a port, in
indicating the value of a sail against the sky, the fluidity of calm
water, the melancholy of the distance, the shiver of short waves rippled
by the breeze. Boudin is a learned colourist of grey tones. His
Impressionism consists in the exclusion of useless details, his
comprehension of reflections, his feeling for values, the boldness of
his composition and his faculty of directly perceiving nature and the
transparency of atmosphere: he reminds sometimes of Constable and of
Corot. Boudin's production has been enormous, and nothing that he has
done is indifferent. He is one of those artists who have not a brilliant
career, but who will last, and whose name, faithfully retained by the
elect, is sure of immortality. He may be considered an isolated
artist, on the border line between Classicism and Impressionism, and
this is unquestionably the cause of the comparative obscurity of his
fame. The same might be said of the ingenuous and fine landscapist
Hervier, who has left such interesting canvases; and of the Lyons
water-colour painter Ravier who, almost absolutely unknown, came very
close to Monticelli and showed admirable gifts. It must, however, be
recognised that Boudin is nearer to Impressionism than to any other
grouping of artists, and he must be considered as a small master of pure
French lineage. Finally, if a question of nationality prevents me from
enlarging upon the subject of the rank of precursor which must be
accorded to the great Dutch landscapist Jongkind, I must at least
mention his name. His water-colour sketches have been veritable
revelations for several Impressionists. Eugene Boudin and Berthe Morisot
have derived special benefit from them, and they are valuable lessons
for many young painters of the present day.
[Illustration: JONGKIND
IN HOLLAND]
[Illustration: JONGKIND
VIEW OF THE HAGUE]
We do not pretend to have mentioned in this chapter all the painters
directly connected with the first Impressionist movement. We have
confined ourselves to enumerating the most important only, and each of
them would deserve a complete essay. But our object will have been
achieved, if we have inspired art-lovers with just esteem for this brave
phalanx of artists who have proved better than any aesthetic
commentaries the vitality, the originality, and the logic of Manet's
theories, the great importance of the notions introduced by him into
painting, and who have, on the other hand, clearly demonstrated the
uselessness of official teaching. Far from the traditions and methods of
the School, the best of their knowledge and of their talent is due to
their profound and sincere contemplation of nature and to their freedom
of spirit. And for that reason they will have a permanent place in the
evolution of their art.
VIII
THE MODERN ILLUSTRATORS CONNECTED WITH IMPRESSIONISM: RAFFAELLI,
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, FORAIN, CHERET, ETC.
Not the least important result of Impressionism has been the veritable
revolution effected by it in the art of illustration. It was only
natural that its principles should have led to it. The substitution of
the beauty of character for the beauty of proportion was bound to move
the artists to regard illustration in a new light; and as pictorial
Impressionism was born of the same movement of ideas which created the
naturalist novel and the impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and
the Goncourts, and moreover as these men were united by close relations
and a common defence, Edouard Manet's modern ideas soon took up the
commentary of the books dealing with modern life and the description of
actual spectacles.
The Impressionists themselves have not contributed towards illustration.
Their work has consisted in raising to the style of grand painting
subjects, that seemed at the best only worthy of the proportion of
vignettes, in opposition to the subjects qualified as "noble" by the
School. The series of works by Manet and Degas may be considered as
admirable illustrations to the novels by Zola and the Goncourts. It is a
parallel research in modern psychologic truth. But this research has
remained confined to pictures. It may be presumed that, had they wished
to do so, Manet and Degas could have admirably illustrated certain
contemporary novels, and Renoir could have produced a masterpiece in
commenting, say, upon Verlaine's _Fetes Galantes_. The only things that
can be mentioned here are a few drawings composed by Manet for Edgar A.
Poe's _The Raven_ and Mallarme's _L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune_, in addition
to a few music covers without any great interest.
But if the Impressionists themselves have neglected actively to assist
the interesting school of modern illustration, a whole legion of
draughtsmen have immediately been inspired by their principles. One of
their most original characteristics was the realistic representation of
the scenes, the _mise en cadre_, and it afforded these draughtsmen an
opportunity for revolutionising book illustration. There had already
been some excellent artists who occupied themselves with vignette
drawings, like Tony Johannot and Celestin Nanteuil, whose pretty and
smart frontispieces are to be found in the old editions of Balzac. The
genius of Honore Daumier and the high fancy of Gavarni and of Grevin had
already announced a serious protest of modern sentiment against academic
taste, in returning on many points to the free tradition of Eisen, of
the two Moreaus and of Debucourt. Since 1845 the draughtsman Constantin
Guys, Baudelaire's friend, gave evidence, in his most animated
water-colour drawings, of a curious vision of nervous elegance and of
expressive skill quite in accord with the ideas of the day.
Impressionism, and also the revelation of the Japanese colour prints,
gave an incredible vigour to these intuitive glimpses. Certain
characteristics will date from the days of Impressionism. It is due to
Impressionism that artists have ventured to show in illustration, for
instance, figures in the foreground cut through by the margin, rising
perspectives, figures in the background that seem to stand on a higher
plane than the others, people seen from a second story; in a word, all
that life presents to our eyes, without the annoying consideration for
"style" and for arrangement, which the academic spirit obstinately
insisted to apply to the illustration of modern life. Degas in
particular has given many examples of this novelty in composition. One
of his pastels has remained typical, owing to the scandal caused by it:
he represents a dance-scene at the Opera, seen from the orchestra. The
neck of a double bass rises in the middle of the picture and cuts into
it, a large black silhouette, behind which sparkle the gauze-dresses and
the lights. That can be observed any evening, and yet it would be
difficult to recapitulate all the railleries and all the anger caused by
so natural an audacity. Modern illustration was to be the pretext of a
good many more outbursts!
We must now consider four artists of great importance who are remarkable
painters and have greatly raised the art of illustration. This title
illustrator, despised by the official painters, should be given them as
the one which has secured them the best claim to fame. They have
restored to this title all its merit and all its brilliancy and have
introduced into illustration the most serious qualities of painting. Of
these four men the first in date is M.J.F. Raffaelli, who introduced
himself about 1875 with some remarkable and intensely picturesque
illustrations in colours in various magazines. He gave an admirable
series of _Parisian Types_, in album form, and a series of etchings to
accompany the text of M. Huysmans, describing the curious river "la
Bievre" which penetrates Paris in a thousand curves, sometimes
subterranean, sometimes above ground, and serves the tanners for washing
the leather. This series is a model of modern illustration. But, apart
from the book, the entire pictorial work of M. Raffaelli is a humorous
and psychological illustration of the present time. He has painted with
unique truth and spirit the working men's types and the small
_bourgeois_, the poor, the hospital patients and the roamers of the
outskirts of Paris. He has succeeded in being the poet of the sickly and
dirty landscapes by which the capitals are surrounded; he has rendered
their anaemic charm, the confused perspectives of houses, fences, walls
and little gardens, and their smoke, under the melancholy of rainy
skies. With an irony free from bitterness he has noted the clumsy
gestures of the labourer in his Sunday garb and the grotesque
silhouettes of the small townsmen, and has compiled a gallery of very
real sociologic interest. M. Raffaelli has also exhibited Parisian
landscapes in which appear great qualities of light. He excels in
rendering the mornings in the spring, with their pearly skies, their
pale lights, their transparency and their slight shadows, and finally he
has proved his mastery by some large portraits, fresh harmonies,
generally devoted to the study of different qualities of white. If the
name "Impressionist" meant, as has been wrongly believed, an artist who
confines himself to giving the impression of what he sees, then M.
Raffaelli would be the real Impressionist. He suggests more than he
paints. He employs a curious technique: he often leaves a sky completely
bare, throwing on to the white of the canvas a few colour notes which
suffice to give the illusion. He has a decided preference for white and
black, and paints very slightly in small touches. His very correct
feeling for values makes him an excellent painter; but what interests
him beyond all, is psychologic expression. He notes it with so hasty a
pencil, that one might almost say that he writes with colour. He is also
an etcher of great merit, and an original sculptor. He has invented
small bas-reliefs in bronze which can be attached to the wall, like
sketches or nick-nacks; and he has applied his talent even to renewing
the material for painting. He is an ingenious artist and a prolific
producer, a roguish, but sympathetic, observer of the life of the small
people, which has not prevented him from painting very seriously when he
wanted to, as is witnessed among other works by his very fine portrait
of M. Clemenceau speaking at a public meeting, in the presence of a
vociferous audience from which rise some hundred of heads whose
expressions are noted with really splendid energy and fervour.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who died recently, insane, leaves a great
work behind him. He had a kind of cruel genius. Descended from one of
the greatest families of France, badly treated by nature who made him a
kind of ailing dwarf, he seemed to take a bitter pleasure in the study
of modern vice. He painted scenes at cafe-concerts and the rooms of
wantons with intense truth. Nobody has revealed better than he the
lowness and suffering of the creatures "of pleasure," as they have been
dubbed by the heartrending irony of life. Lautrec has shown the
artificiality of the painted faces; the vulgarity of the types of the
prostitutes of low origin; the infamous gestures, the disorder, the
slovenliness of the dwellings of these women; all the shady side of
their existence. It has been said that he loved ugliness. As a matter of
fact, he did not exaggerate, he raised a powerful accusation against
everything he saw. But his terrible clairvoyance passed for caricature.
This sad psychologist was a great painter; he pleased himself with
dressing in rose-coloured costumes the coarsest and most vulgar
creatures he painted, such as one can find at the cabarets and concerts,
and he enjoyed the contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice
and poverty; Lautrec's two great influences have been the Japanese and
Degas. Of the former he retained the love for decorative arabesques and
the unconventional grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmanship,
expressive in its broad simplification, and one might say that the pupil
has often been worthy of the masters. One can only regret that Lautrec
should have confined his vision and his high faculties to the study of a
small and very Parisian world; but, seeing his works, one cannot deny
the science, the spirit and the grand bearing of his art. He has also
signed some fine posters, notably a _Bruant_ which is a masterpiece of
its kind.
Degas's deep influence can be found again in J.L. Forain, who has made
himself known by an immense series of drawings for the illustrated
papers, drawings as remarkable in themselves as they are, through their
legends, bitterly sarcastic in spirit. These drawings form a synthesis
of the defects of the _bourgeoisie_, which is at the same time amusing
and grave. They also concern, though less happily, the political world,
in which the artist, a little intoxicated with his success, has thought
himself able to exercise an influence by scoffing at the parliamentary
regime. Forain's drawing has a nervous character which does, however,
not weaken its science: every stroke reveals something and has an
astonishing power. In his less known painting can be traced still more
clearly the style and influence of his master Degas. They are generally
incidents behind the scenes and at night restaurants, where caricatured
types are painted with great force. But they are insistently
exaggerated, they have not the restraint, the ironical and discreet
plausibility, which give so much flavour, so much value to Degas's
studies. Nevertheless, Forain's pictures are very significant and are of
real interest. He is decidedly the most interesting newspaper
illustrator of his whole generation, the one whose ephemeral art most
closely approaches grand painting, and one of those who have most
contributed towards the transformation of illustration for the
contemporary press.
Jules Cheret has made for himself an important and splendid position in
contemporary art. He commenced as a lithographic workman and lived for a
long time in London. About 1870 Cheret designed his first posters in
black, white and red; these were at the time the only colours used. By
and by he perfected this art and found the means of adding other tones
and of drawing them on the lithographic stone. He returned to France,
started a small studio, and gradually carried poster art to the
admirable point at which it has arrived. At the same time Cheret drew
and painted and composed himself his models. About 1885 his name became
famous, and it has not ceased growing since. Some writers, notably the
eminent critic Roger Marx and the novelist Huysmans, hailed in Cheret an
original artist as well as a learned technician. He then exhibited
decorative pictures, pastels and drawings, which placed him in the first
rank. Cheret is universally known. The type of the Parisian woman
created by him, and the multi-coloured harmony of his works will not be
forgotten. His will be the honour of having invented the artistic
poster, this feast for the eyes, this fascinating art of the street,
which formerly languished in a tedious and dull display of commercial
advertisements. He has been the promoter of an immense movement; he has
been imitated, copied, parodied, but he will always remain inimitable.
He has succeeded in realising on paper by means of lithography, the
pastels and gouache drawings in which his admirable colourist's fancy
mixed the most difficult shades. In Cheret can be found all the
principles of Impressionism: opposing lights, coloured shadows,
complementary reflections, all employed with masterly sureness and
delightful charm. It is decorative Impressionism, conceived in a
superior way; and this simple poster-man, despised by the painters, has
proved himself equal to most. He has transformed the street, in the open
light, into a veritable Salon, where his works have become famous. When
this too modest artist decided to show his pictures and drawings, they
were a revelation. The most remarkable pastellists of the period were
astonished and admired his skill, his profound knowledge of technique,
his continual _tours-de-force_ which he disguised under a shimmering
gracefulness. The State had the good sense to entrust him with some
large mural decorations, in which he unfolded the scale of his sparkling
colours, and affirmed his spirit, his fancy and his dreamy art. Cheret's
harmonies remain secrets; he uses them for the representation of
characters from the Italian comedy, thrown with fiendish _verve_ upon a
background of a sky, fiery with the Bengal lights of a fairy-like
carnival, and he strangely intermingles the reality of the movements
with the most arbitrary fancy. Cheret has also succeeded in proving his
artistic descent by a beautiful series of drawings in sanguine: he
descends from Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard; he is a Frenchman of pure
blood; and when one has done admiring the grace and the happy animation
of his imagination, one can only be surprised to see on what serious and
sure a technique are based these decorations which appear improvised.
Cheret's art is the smile of Impressionism and the best demonstration
of the decorative logic of this art.
These are the four artists of great merit who have created the
transition between Impressionist painting and illustration. It would be
fit to put aside Toulouse-Lautrec, who was much younger, but his work is
too directly connected with that of Degas for one to take into account
the difference of age. He produced between 1887 and 1900 works which
might well have been ante-dated by fifteen years. We shall study in the
next chapter his Neo-Impressionist comrades, and we shall now speak of
some illustrators more advanced in years than he. The oldest in date is
the engraver Henri Guerard, who died three years ago. He had married Eva
Gonzales and was a friend of Manet's, many of whose works have been
engraved by him. He was an artist of decided and original talent, who
also occupied himself successfully with pyrogravure, and who was happily
inspired by the Japanese colour-prints. His etchings deserve a place of
honour in the folios of expert collectors; they are strong and broad. As
to the engraver Felix Buhot, he was a rather delicate colourist in
black and white; his Paris scenes will always be considered charming
works. In spite of his Spanish origin, the painter, _aquarelliste_, and
draughtsman Daniel Vierge, should be added to the list of the men
connected with Impressionism. His illustrations are those of a great
artist--admirable in colour, movement and observation; all the great
principles of Impressionism are embodied in them. But there are four
more illustrators of the first rank: Steinlen, Louis Legrand, Paul
Renouard and Auguste Lepere.
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