Some Modern Artists [pp. 178-181]

APPLETONS' JOURNAL.
leaf complexion and coral lips seem more fitted
for an Eastern harem than for rocky Ithaca, and
the sentiment involved is essentially moderm.
That is to say, no Greek would have considered
the scene fit subject for art. It may be said, and
very likely will be, that this does not profess to
be a Greek picture, that you may ascribe it to
any country you please; but what I want to insist on is that the artist, in everything he has
ever painted, has made the chief object of Greek
art his chief object - that is, "beauty " - and
that with all his great powers of coloring and
draughtsmanship- and in both his powers are
exceptionally great-he has mistaken the way to
attain his end; and the reason is evident. The
Greek knew only of the beauty of perfect form
and heroic endurance. Take, for instance, the
Venus of Milo, and the Laocoon; into his admiration of that he could throw his whole soul.
Suppose he had been doubtful whether perfect
form was the most noble thing in the world.
Suppose that the mass of the people among
whom he lived certainly thought otherwise! Do
you think he could have produced the work he
did? Nobody will say for a moment that it is
likely. Well, if that be the case, what chance is
there for a modern artist, who seeks to rival the
Greek oia his own ground, while he feels-must
inevitably feel-that he is pretending all the time?
The purely sensuous element of Greek art had,
by the circumstances of the national life and religion, various refining elements inextricably mingled with it; perfection of form with the Greeks
was a sign almost of godhead. So I come to
this, that "beauty," of the Greek ideal, can not
be produced on a modern artist, among a people
whose ideas of excellence have a totally different
basis from the old classical one; and that all attempts to infuse into modem work the spirit of
ancient times must from the very nature of the
case be failures. A man must paint with the
spirit of the age he lives in if he paints at all;
all attempts at retrogression must necessarily be
failures; they remind me of George Eliot's powerful picture of Mr. Casaubon "groping amid the
ruins of the past, with a farthing rushlight." The
way in which Leighton errs, though even in error
he is greater than nine tenths of his fellows, is
this-he has deliberately refused the better part;
beauty and truth have come to him as they came
to Hercules, in the old fable, and he has rejected
truth and chosen beauty, and the consequence is
that his pictures are dead and cold, and have
become more so year by year, till now they are
indeed (in the words emblazoned round the
Academy gallery)
Fair-seeming shows,
and nothing else. I must not say more on this
head, though I feel how excessively inadequate
my words have been to express correctly the
view I hold.
Poynter's work is always, or nearly always,
classical in subject, but he is perceptibly influenced in his treatment by the old Italian masters,
especially Michael Angelo. With an almost absolute precision of drawing, he is, as compared
with Leighton, as a calrt-horse withl a racerrough strength, instead of swiftness and symmetry. If his subject requires delicate or graceful
treatment, his work is unsatisfactory; if it needs
strength of color and depth of feeling, it distinctly
fails; but if the artist take a subject in which
mere accuracy of detail and power of composition
are wanted, and in which his magnificent drawing
of the figure has full and varied expression, he
produces work which, though still cold and academic, still producing less pleasure than astonishment, rises to a height of skill which is almost
genius. The two pictures which Poynter has in
Paris, "The Catapult" and "Israel in Egypt,"
are of this latter kind, and in the latter work what
I have said is particularly exemplified. I have
called this artist Greek in form, and certainly his
preference has hitherto been for showing the
beauty of form and action rather than that of
thought, and his subjects have been chiefly what
is called classical; but in the same way that
Leighton has failed to catch the spirit of the
Greek work, Poynter also has failed; he, too, is
groping with his rushlight. Study of the antique,
at South Kensington and the Academy; admiration (and perhaps imitation) of Michael Angelo,
and continual grappling with difficulties of complicated drawing, of attitude and action all these,
joined to a firm hand, a clear eye, and great industry, will do much; but they will not bring to
life again the grace, beauty, and unconsciousness
of Greek art; as I said above, they will give us
its form, but not its spirit. I should be doing
this artist less than justice, were I not to say a
word here of the great excellence of his portraiture, especially in water-colors. I know of nothing in modern portraiture, with the one exception of Watts's best work, which surpasses the
four or five women portraits exhibited by Poynter
in the Grosvenor Gallery of last year (not last
season). There was in them a mingling of refinement and strength, and the coloring, though
rather subdued, was as admirable as the drawing
and composition. Of Tadema I will not say
much; the classical part of his painting is hardly
more than the outside, but that outside is so perfect a reproduction of antiquity, that it almost
satisfies us-almost, but not quite. To this re mark there is one broad exception, difficult to
explain shortly, and which will, I fear, sound as
a very harsh criticism. It is this-that though
180