Whistler and Others

Utters Frederick Wedmore In Art, at in Affection, sympathies are involuntary. For all that, sooner or later, they will need to be justified NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS Fifth Avenue 1906 Note The JFrst f T7i. r 2 T f tft JPtftcenfto. Chapters ttt l ylufft Jtuctve xe n tftc tt ht aZmatdCy from 2 JkTatgretssJtne o f tt f than tei ter to Sir James first CONTENTS Page A CANDID WORD ix I. THE PLACE OF WHISTLER . . 1 U. VENETIAN PAINTING ... 30 III. FANTIN AND BOUDIN ... 35 IV. RICHARD WILSON 70 V. GOYA 72 VI. THE RISE OF ENGLISH WATER-COLOUR 76 VII. ROMNEY AND LAWRENCE . . 90 VIII. RAEBURN AND 2OFFANY, 92 IX. RUSKIN 95 X. CONSTABLES ENGLISH LANDSCAPE 105 XI. ETTY 125 XII. LARGE WATER-COLOURS . . .127 XIII, HINE 129 XIV. AN ENDLESS ROLL-CALL . . .135 XV, THE FIELD OF THE PRINT COLLECTOR 137 XVI. THE NORWICH MASTERS . .168 XVII. THOMAS COLLIER . . . .185 XVIII. PICTURES BY ORCHARDSON . . 191 XIX. CHARLES KEENE . . . .196 XX. PARIS AND FULLEYLOVE . . .199 XXI. D. Y. CAMERON .... 207 XXII, STILL LIFE 215 XXXII. THE ART OF BRABAZON . . .217 XXIV. THE PERSONALITY OF WATTS . . 221 Candid Word to the English Reader, by way of Preface A PREVIOUS look of my assembled essays On Books and Arts touched on Pictorial Art, the Stage, and Literature. This one ventures to be altogether about Pictorial Art, with this reservation always that to my mind no writing about any Art is other than pedantic, academic, or fragmentary me moires pour servir, at the most if it is not based on vivid, irrepressible interest in the Life we know. The general reader, here in England to whom this candid word is with much esteem addressed does not care greatly for the writing that he calls Art Criticism and often I agree with him. But his ideas of what Art Criticism is, are apt to be narrow. To two fields he limits it. With him, Art Criticism all Criticism, indeedis primarily fault-finding. Secondarily, it may be also, ix A CANDID WORD per adventure, investigation. But the investi gation that is held to be creditable to have conferred distinction is generally investiga tion into minor facts little, disputed points that have the interest of uncertainty and puzzle. The German, perhaps, is responsible for introducing, or for making much of, that order of Criticism which consists of slow or fevered debate, between two or more learned persons seldom endowed with any conspicuous faculty for Writing, as to whether this most second-rate painter or that one did veritably succeed in being the author of this or that most second-rate work. Masterpieces do not very often require or invite this method of treatment and I confess that masterpieces seem to me worthiest of study, and likeliest to inspire delight. But this method this order of Criticism has, in some measure, caught on amongst us, because in England the contribution of an idea is ever less welcome, as it is also ever less easy, than the contribution of a fact. Another order of investigation exists, never theless, although it may not be so well assured of the every-day readers respect. I speak now of investigation in the sense of an A CANDID WORD elucidation of qualities, an analysis of tem perament, a presentation, in full light, of a character or an achievement, an aim or a feat. That, in the instinctive opinion of the every day reader, has not been, and cannot be, any great part of Criticism. It is a something, indeed, scarcely conceived of by him because it is the Criticism of the creative Writer the criticism of Coleridge, Baudelaire, Gautier, Zola, Anatole France...