Page:Nation v71 no1832.djvu/11

 Aug. 9, 1900]

The Nation.

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have striven to get as many canvases ‘as possible in the given space, and these cover the wall in a solid mass from floor to coiling. Nor have the artists neglected any

of the fads or fashions of the day. ‘Their pictures are impressionistic, religious, mystic, symbolical—all the many other

things that pictures have been at the Salon for the last decade; while it 1s amusing to find, in the corner set apart for Croatia and Slavonia, a perfect outburst of sunlight and symbols. In a word, I discovered nothing in the Austro-Hungarian section that seem- ed in the least individual even interesting, except Ferdinand Andri—strong, vivid studies of peasants that reveal some originality of ob- servation as well as very good drawing.

Great Britain, on the other hand, has been ‘as Indifferent to the appearance of its gal- lerles as to the quality of the plotures that fll them. You might think the object had deen, after showing in the English pavilion the ‘masterpieces that British painters— ‘Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Raeburn, Turner, Constable—once produced, to as- tonish Paris by the spectacle of a Royal Academy of to-day on the banks of the Selne. “A collection of Academicians and medioerities,” -Bnglish critics themselves have been describing the work sent to repre- sent Britiah art; and the hanging 1s as un- intelligent, as crowded, as atrocious in every respect as at Burlington House. The fact fs, most of the members of the Committee fn charge were Academiclans or dealers, or admirera and patrons of the Academy, to whom British art—official art—means the Academy and nothing else. But it ts not necessary to point out now—I have pointed {t out often enough before—how much else there is In Great Britain besides the Acad- emy. The Glasgow School, for instance, started a very distinct movement, and what Is there from Glasgow? A couple of por- traits by Mr. Lavery, one very badly hung, ‘a pleture by Mr. Walton, skted—It occupied @ place of honor at the Knightabridge show a year ago—and that really 1s about all. Nor 1s the existence of the New English Art Club recognized; there is no suggestion of this little group who were among the first to turn to France for thelr inspiration and standard. Nor is space made for several in- dependent landscape-painters who might be leaders of a school wore not thelr own originality 80 obviously borrowed from France. Mr. Edward Stott 1s here and well bung, but Mr. Priestman and Mr. Hill are banished to the celling, and the others are absent. It 1s enough to say that, of all the notable outsiders, Mr. C. H. Shannon alone ‘appears, and he, unexpectedly, 1s on the line, where his portrait of himself, despite {ta old-masterly affectation and the clum- siness of drawing that so far has mar- red all bis work, asserts itself with that @istinetion which the Committee evidently tried hard to exclude. It ls easy to under- ‘stand, when you look round these rooms, 80 amateurish and childlike compared to the other sections, why the English, amazed at the manifestation of thelr own shortcomings, are indignant that two of thelr Academicians who might have joined with Mr. Watts and Mr. Orchardson to help things a Iittle—Sar- gent and Abbey—should prefer to show with the Americans,

In a fow other sections interest centres upon one or two men. In the Italian, where the space, so limited with the Amert-

cans, 1s far in excess of the exhibitors’ Reeds, Boldin! and Segantini overshadow everybody else. I have spoken already of Boldlnt. His pictures hang tegether, so that their effect is strengthened. Besides the “Whistler” there are two portraits of wo- mon and ope of Comte Montesquiow, the latter already seen in the Salon. His people live on bis canvas; you feel the nervous Jor of the painter, his excitement tn bis own creations, and, if you happen to know one of ia sitters, you recognise the truth with which he always renders every characterts- tle of feature or pose. 0 fact, to his por- traite of women, truth borders upon cariea- ture; what be intends for elegance in a reat lady at times comes very near degen ercting into moretric‘oumness, But that docs not detract trom the fluency of his painticg, his unusual power of observat‘on, his techn! cal accomplishment, his entirely personal standpoint. The drawback to his work is a cortain effect of thinness, of over-treshness; hls painting seems to need long years to tone and mellow it. But, when those years have passed, I imagino his pictures will stand comparison with the old masters be tor than even bls admirers now believe, Sogantinl is a painter of as decided a per- sonality, and his pictures, too, have been grouped together. ‘There is « series of three large Alpine landscapes upon which he was at work just before his death, unrivalled im thelr realization of the clear atmosphere, the hard glitter, the dassling snow peaks, the sharp outlines of the Alpe, and in thelr grandeur of composition. They are not finished; in one the clouds are still heavy white lumps of paint, and you are therefore too consclous of that curious technique which ho developed for himself. As a rule, a palnter’s methods broaden with years and is accumulation of knowledge and expe- lence. But it was just the other way with Sogantin!. There is one of his early plotures here, put in boldly and with the greatest breadth. But in theso last landscapes the canvas is covered with a minute morale of color that makes you marvel the more that, with such technical manneriams, he could express so much dignity, such a feeling of bigness in his mountains and pastures.

‘The Spaniards, in thelr work, show the ‘same desire for sensation on a large scalo, and, in a measure, the same still you find in the Salon. It ts evident that most of the exhibitors have studied in Paris. Pinaso Martines doce try, but with indifferent suc cess, to reproduce the types and sunlight of Spain. Sorolia y Bastida, who has carried off & gold medal, succeeds much better; his canvases have decided vigor, but they are nothing more than able Salon macMace. And what else ts there? Madraso grows vulgar with years. Fabrés, in a colosaal compoal- tion, seems, to his own misfortune, to invite comparison with Velasques; Paredes and Salinas do their best to continue the sub- fect and manner of Casanova; Garcia y Ramos paints anecdotes with the assiduity of, though with more ability than, the Brit- ish Royal Academician; Checa is sensation- allem itself; and there remain but the water- colors and drawings by Vierge, all woll known, that are worthy of the great tradl- tlons af the country. In Portugal, again, ‘you discover chiefly echoes of Paris and the Salon, except for the portraits of Colum- Dano, who has studied Velasques and Whis- ter, and whose work is, at least, a tribute

to his taste in preferring great masters to clever leaders of passing movements.

If Spain te Vierge, Switzerland ls Schwabe, Here and there are artists who deliberate ly set to work to develop whatever they think characteristic of thelr country, for never before was nationality accepted as ‘such a responsibility. Perhaps it is Hodler who carries the medimval spirit the fur- thest, striving almost too hard to infuse Into it the new Ife of a vigorous personality. There ts Rooderstein, whose portraits are ‘ tribute to Holbeln, and are more striking here than in the Salon. But, otherwise, everywhere is the influence of the Paris studios and schools. Take Amiet as @ typi- cal example; he, lke the American, has deen painting snow, but, instead of render- ing {t as he sees it in Swiss valleys and on Swiss mountains, his one Idea, apparent- ly, 1s & decorative arrangement that will ‘suggest vaguely many things he, last of all, would be able to-define. Even Schwabe, ‘whose personality 16 distinct enough to dom- tate any borrowed clements in his designs, has found part of bis mystical Insp tlon in the problems and subjects that have been engrossing the Parisian for the last ton years.

It is another matter in the Scandinavian countries, where individuality in the artist and fidelity to the national spirit in bis work are the battle-cry. The banner of freedom of Tbeen's young man has been waved in art as in Uterature. But the ‘Scandinavian painters long since took the world by storm by thelr vigor, amounting Almost to brutality, their nationality, flung down by the brush as a gauntlet, their love of strong color and bewildering sun- light. But of late they have added little to the message already brought. For all the efforts at s renaissance of the younger men, for all the violence of Willumsen, Chris- tlansen, and the others, it ts Kroyer ‘who still towers by his rendering of char- acter, as in the portrait of “Edward and Nina Grieg,” by his force and energy and Amowledge, as in that admirable portrait group, the “Séance de I'Académle Royale des Sciences,” though Skovgaard {s amus- ing and as Danish as well can be in his ver- ‘stons of old legends; and Hammershoft, io gray Interiors that are dull in them- solves but delightfully painted; and Nicl- ‘son, n his comparatively quiet portraits, and, above all, Taxen, in « sketch for the pleture of the Coronation of Nicholas brilliant, suggestive, rich in color. In Swe- den, where methods are leas exaggerated, it 1s Zorn who towers with his powerful por- trait of the King. In Norway, Thaulow, whose landscapes hold thelr own in an International Exhibition in Paris as in Lon- don, Werenskiold also stands out conspic- uously; he has a portralt of Ibsen, whom so many other Norwegians have painted, « harmony in gray, and study in character ‘that lives in one's memory after far more pretentious canvases have been forgotten for ever. And here, as in the American section, there are numerous studies of snow, unmistakably truthful, but, unlike the American, with none of the more im- portant pictorial qualities. ‘The tmpres- sion you carry away from these rooms is of @ people too engrossed with truth to remember that there is such a thing as ‘Deauty: one reason, perhaps, why thelr painters, Uke thelr posts and dramatists,

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