RECENT SCHOOLS OF

This article appears in Volume V20, Page 515 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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RECENT SCHOOLS OF PAINTING
British.
At the beginning of the last quarter of the 19th century British art was held to be in a vigorous and authoritative position. During the years immediately preceding it had been developing with regularity and had displayed a vitality which seemed to be full of promise. It was supported by a large array of capable workers; it had gained the widest recognition from the public; and it was curiously free from those internal conflicts which diminish the strength of an appeal for popular appreciation. There were then few

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divergences or subdivisions of an important kind. The leadership of the Royal Academy was generally conceded, and its relations with the mass of outside artists were little wanting in cordiality. One of the chief reasons for this understanding was that at this time an almost unprecedented approval was enjoyed by nearly all classes of painters. Picture-collecting had become a general fashion, and even the youngest workers received encouragement directly they gave evidence of a reasonable share of capacity. The demand was equal to the supply; and though the number of men who were adopting the artistic profession was rapidly increasing, there seemed little danger of over-production. Pictorial art had established upon all sorts of people a hold too strong, as it seemed, to be affected by change of fashion. All pointed in the direction of a permanent prosperity.
Subsequent events provided a curious commentary on the anticipations which were reasonable enough in 1875. That year is now seen to have beep, not the beginning of an era of unexampled success for British pictorial art, but rather the culminating point of preceding activity. During the period which has succeeded we have witnessed a rapid decline in thepopular interest in picture-painting and a marked alteration in the conditions under which artists have had to work. In the place of the former sympathy between the public and the producers, there grew up something which almost approached indifference to their best and sincerest efforts. Simultaneously there developed a great amount of internal dissension and of antagonism between different sections of the art community. As an effect of these two causes, a new set of circumstances came into existence, and the aspect of the British school under-went a radical change. Many art workers found other ways of using their. energies. The slackening of the popular demand inclined them to experiment, and to test forms of practice which formerly were not accorded serious attention, and it led to the formation of detached hostile groups of artists always ready to contend over details of technical procedure. Restlessness became the dominant characteristic of the British school, along with some intolerance of the popular lack of sympathy.
The first sign of the coming change appeared very soon after 1875. The right of the Royal Academy to define and direct the policy of the British school was disputed in 1877,
when the Grosvenor Gallery was started " with the Grosvenor intention of giving special advantages of exhibition Gauery to artists of established reputation, some of whom Academy. have previously been imperfectly known to the
public." This exhibition gallery was designed not so much as a rival to the Academy, as to provide a place where could be collected the works of those men who did not care to make their appeal to the public through the medium of a large and heterogeneous exhibition. As a rallying place for the few unusual painters, standing apart from their fellows in conviction and method, it had good reason for existence; and that it was not regarded at Burlington House as a rival was proved by the fact that among the contributors to the first exhibition were included Sir Francis Grant, the President of the Royal Academy, and such artists as Leighton, Millais, G. F. Watts, Alma-Tadema, G. D. Leslie and E. J. Poynter, who were at the time Academicians or Associates. With them, however, appeared such men as Burne-Jones, Holman Hunt, Walter Crane, W. B. Richmond and J. McN. Whistler, who had not heretofore obtained the publicity to which they were entitled by the exceptional quality and intention of their work. There was doubtless some suggestion that the Academy was not keeping touch with the more important art movements, for shortly after the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery there began that attack upon the official art leaders which has been one of the most noteworthy incidents in recent art history in Great Britain. The initial stage of this conflict ended about 1886, when the vehemence of the attack had been weakened, partly by the withdrawal of some of the more prominent " outsiders," who had meanwhile been elected into the Academy, and partly by the formation of smaller societies, which afforded the more " advanced " of the younger men the opportt'tnities which they desired for the exposition of their views. In a modified form, however, the antagonism between the Academy and the outsiders has continued. The various protesting art association continues to work in most matters independently of one another, with the common belief that the dominant influence of Burlington House is not exercised entirely as it should be for the promotion of the best interests of British art, and that it maintains tradition as against the development of individualism and a " new style."
The agitation in all branches of art effort was not entirely without result even inside Burlington House. Some of the older academic views were modified, and changes seriously discussed, which formerly would have been rejected as opposed to all the traditions of the society. Its calmness under attack, and its ostentatious disregard of the demands made upon it by the younger and more strenuous outsiders, have veiled a great deal of shrewd observation of passing events. It may be said that the Academy has known when to break up an organization in which it recognized a possible source of danger, by selecting the ablest leaders of the opposition to fill vacancies in its own ranks; it has given places on its walls to the works of those
reformers who were not unwilling to be represented in the annual exhibitions; and it has, without seeming to yield to clamour, responded perceptibly to the pressure of professional opinion. In so doing, though it has not checked the progress of the changing fashion by which the popular liking for pictorial art has been diverted into other channels, it has kept its hold upon the public, and has not to any appreciable extent weakened its position of authority.
It is doubtful whether a more definite participation by the Academy in the controversies of the period would have been of Changed any use as a means of prolonging the former good Conditions relations between artists and the collectors of works of British of art. The change is the result of something more Arr. than the failure of one art society to fulfil its entire mission. The steady falling off in the demand for modern pictures has been due to a combination of causes which have been powerful enough to alter nearly all the conditions under which British painters have to work. For example, the older collectors, who had for some years anterior to 1875 bought up eagerly most of the more important canvases which came within their reach, could find no more room in their galleries for further additions; again, artists, with the idea of profiting to the utmost by the keenness of the competition among the buyers, had forced up their prices to the highest limits. But the most active of all causes was that the younger generation of collectors did not show the same inclination that had swayed their predecessors to limit their attention to modern pictorial art. They turned more and more from pictures to other forms of artistic effort. They built themselves houses in which the possibility of hanging large canvases was not contemplated, and they began to call upon the craftsman and the decorator to supply them with what was necessary for the adornment of their homes. At first this modification in the popular taste was scarcely perceptible, but with every successive year it became more marked in its effect.
Latterly more money has been spent by one class of collectors upon pictures than was available even in the best of the times which have passed away; but this lavish expenditure has been devoted not to the acquisition of works by modern men, but to the purchase of examples of the old masters. Herein may often be recognized the wish to become possessed of objects which have a fictitious value in consequence of their rarity, or which are " sound investments." Evidence of the existence of this spirit among collectors is seen in the prevailing eagerness to acquire works which inadequately represent some famous master, or are even ascribed to him on grounds not always credible. The productions of minor men, such as Henry Morland, who had never been ranked among the masters, have received an amount of attention quite out of proportion to what merits they possess, if only they can be proved to be scarce examples, or historically notorious. All this implies in the creed of the art patron a change which has necessarily reacted on living painters and on the conditions of their art production.
These, then, are the conclusions to which we are led by a comparison of the movements which affected the British school Portraiture. between 1875 and the beginning of the loth century.
To a wide appreciation of all types of pictorial art succeeded a grudging and careless estimate of the value of the bulk of artistic endeavour. Only a few branches of production are still encouraged by anything approaching an efficient demand. Portraiture is the mainstay of the majority of the figure painters; it has never lost its popularity, and may be said to have maintained satisfactorily its hold upon all classes of society, for the desire to possess personal records is very general and is independent of any art fashion. It has persisted through all the changes of view which have been increasingly active in recent years. Episodical art, illustrating sentimental Episodical motives or incidents with some touch of dramatic Art. action, has remained popular, because it has some
degree of literary interest; but imaginative works and pictures which have been produced chiefly as expressions of anoriginal regard for nature, or of some unusual conviction as to technical details, have found comparatively few admirers. The designers, however, and the workers in the decorative arts have found opportunities which formerly were denied to
them. They have had more scope for the display Art rat1'e of their ingenuity and more inducement to exercise
their powers of invention. A vigorous and influential school of design developed which promised to evolve work of originality and excellence. British designers gained a hearing abroad, and earned emphatic approval in countries where a sound decorative tradition had been maintained for centuries.
The one dominant influence, that of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which in the 'fifties was altering the whole complexion of British art, had begun to wane early in Wane of the 'seventies, and it was rapidly being replaced Pre-by another scarcely less distinctive. The younger Rj m and generation of artists had wearied, even before 1875, Rise of of the pre-Raphaelite precision, and were impatient French of the restrictions imposed upon their freedom of Influence. technical expression by a method of practice which required laborious application and unquestioning obedience to a rather formal code of regulations. They yearned for greater freedom and boldness, and for a better chance of asserting their individual capacities. So they gave way to a strong reaction against the creed of their immediate predecessors, and cut themselves deliberately adrift.
With the craving of young artists for new forms of technique came also the idea that the " old-master traditions " were opposed to the exact interpretation of nature, and were based too much upon convention to be adapted for the needs of men who believed that absolute realism was the one thing worth aiming at in picture-production. So Paris instead of Rome became the educational centre. There was to British students, dissatisfied with the half-hearted and imperfect systems of teaching with which they were tantalized at home, a peculiarly exhilarating atmosphere in the French studiosan amount of enthusiasm and a love of art for its own sake without parallel elsewhere. They saw in. operation principles which led by the right sequence of stages to sure and certaifi results. In these circumstances they allowed their sympathies with French methods to become rather exaggerated, and were somewhat reckless in their adoption of both the good and bad qualities of so attractive a school.
At first the results of this breaking away from all the older educational customs were not wholly satisfactory. British students came back from France better craftsmen, stronger and sounder draughtsmen, more skilful manipulators, and with an infinitely more correct appreciation of refinements of tone-management than they had ever possessed before; but they brought back also a disproportionate amount of French manner-ism and a number of affectations which sat awkwardly upon them. In the first flush of their conversion they went further than was wise or necessary, for they changed their motives as well as their methods. The quietness of subject and reserve of manner which had been hitherto eminently characteristic of the British school were abandoned for foreign sensationalism and exaggeration of effect. An affectation of extreme vivacity, a liking for theatrical suggestion, even an inclination towards coarse presentation of unpleasant incidents from modern life all of which could be found in the paintings of the French artists who were then recognized as leadersmust be noted as importations from the Paris studios. They were the source of a distinct degeneration in the artistic taste, and they introduced into British pictorial practice certain unnatural tendencies. Scarcely less evident was the depreciation in the instinctive colour-sense of British painters, which was brought about by the adoption of the French habit of regarding strict accuracy of tone-relation as the one important thing to aim at. Before this there had been a preference for rich and sumptuous harmonies and for chromatic effects which were rather compromises with, than exact renderings of, nature; but, as the foreign influence grew more active, these pleasant adaptations, inspired
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by a sensuous love of colour for its own sake, were abandoned for more scientific statements. The colder and cruder tone-studies of the modern Frenchman became the models upon which the younger artists based themselves, and the standards against which they measured their own success. " Actuality " was gained, but much of the poetry, the delicacy, and the subtle charm which had distinguished British colourists were lost.
For some while there was a danger that the art of Great Britain might become hybrid, with the French strain predomi-Danger of nating. So many students had succumbed to the the French fascination of a system of training which seemed to Influence, supply them with a perfect equipment on all points, that they were inclined to despise not only the educational methods of their own country, but also the inherent characteristics of British taste. The result was that the exhibitions were full of pictures which presented English people and English landscape in a purely arbitrary and artificial manner, strictly in accordance with a French convention which was out of sympathy with British instincts, and indeed, with British facts. Ultimately a discreet middle course was found between the extreme application of the science of the French art schools and the comparative irresponsibility in technical matters which had so long existed in the British Isles. In the careers of men like Stanhope Forbes, H. S. Tuke, Frank Bramley, and other prominent members of the school, many illustrations are provided of the way in which this readjustment has been effected. Their pictures, if taken in a sufficiently long sequence, summarize instructively the course of the

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which became active about 1875. They prove how valuable the interposition of France has been in the matter of artistic education, and how much Englishmen have improved in their understanding of the technique of painting.
One noteworthy outcome of the triumph of common sense over fanaticism must be mentioned. Now that the exact weakening relation which French teaching should bear to British
of the thought has been adjusted, an inclination to revive
French the more typical of the forms of pictorial expression Influence. which have had their vogue in the past is becoming increasingly evident. Picturesque domesticity is taking the place of theatrical sensation, the desire to select and represent what is more than ordinarily beautiful is ousting the former preference for what was brutal and ugly, the effort to please is once again stronger than the intention t4 surprise or shock the art lover. Even the Pre-Raphaelite theories and practices are being reconstructed, and quite a considerable group of young artists has sprung up who are avowed believers in the ?rmciples which were advocated so strenuously in 185o.
To French intervention can be ascribed the rise and progress of several movements which have had results of more than Groups ordinary moment. There was a few years ago much within the banding together of men who believed strongly in
British the importance of asserting plainly their belief in School.
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function of the painter. Necessarily, in such a gathering there were several notable personalities who may fairly be reckoned among the best of English modern masters.
Perhaps the most conspicuous of the groups was the gathering of painters who established themselves in the Cornish village of Newlyn (q.v.). This group" The Newlyn School," as The Newlyn it was calledwas afterwards much modified, and School.
many of its most cherished beliefs were considerably
altered. In its beginning it was essentially French in atmosphere, and advocated not only strict adherence to realism in choice and treatment of subject, but also the subordination of colour to tone-gradation, and the observance of certain technical details, such as the exclusive use of flat brushes and the laying on of pigments in square touches. The colony was formed, as it were, in stages; and as the school is to be reckoned in the future history of the British school, the order in which the adherents arrived may here be set on record. Edwin Harris came first, and was joined by Walter Langley. Then, in the following order, came Ralph Todd, L. Suthers,,Fred

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, Frank Bramley and T. C. Gotch, and Percy Craft and Stanhope Forbes together. H. Detmold and Chevallier Tayler next arrived; then Miss Elizabeth Armstrong (Mrs Stanhope Forbes), F. Bourdillon, W. Fortescue and Norman Garstin. Ayerst Ingram, H. S. Tuke, H. Martin and F. Millard were later visitors. Stanhope Forbes (b. 1857) was trained at the Lambeth School and at the Royal Academy, and afterwards in Bonnat's studio in Paris. His best known pictures are " A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach " (1885), " Soldiers .and Sailors " (1891), " Forging the Anchor " (1892), and " The Smithy " (1895). He was elected A.R.A. in 1892, and became full Member in 1910. Frank Bramley (b. 1867) studied art in the Lincoln School of Art and at Antwerp. He gained much popularity by his pictures, " A Hopeless Dawn " (1888), " For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven " (1891), and " After the Storm " (1896), and was elected an Associate in 1894. Of late years he had made a very definite departure from the technical methods which he followed in his earlier period. T. C. Gotch (b. 1854) had a varied art training, for he worked at the Slade School, then at Antwerp, and finally in Paris under Jean Paul Laurens. He did not long remain faithful to the Newlyn creed, but diverged about 1890 into a kind of decorative symbolism, and for some years devoted himself entirely to pictures of this type. The other men who must be ranked as supporters of the school adhered closely enough to the principles which were exemplified in the works of the leaders of the

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. They were faithful realists, sincere observers of the facts of the life with which they were brought in contact, and quite earnest in their efforts to paint what they saw, without modification or idealization.
Another group which received its inspiration directly from France was the Impressionist school (see IMPRESSIONISM). This group never had any distinct organization like that of The imthe French Societe des Impressionistes, but among the pressionist members of it there was a general agreement on points Schoa of procedure. They based themselves, more or less, upon prominent French artists like Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Claude Monet, and owed not a little to the example of J. A. M'N. Whistler, whose own art may be said to be in a great measure a product of Paris. One of the fundamental principles of their practice was the subdivision of colour masses into their component parts, and the rendering of gradated tints by the juxtaposition of touches of pure colour upon the canvas, rather than by attempting to match them by previously mixing them on the palette. In pictures so painted greater luminosity and more subtlety of aerial effects can be obtained. The works of the British Impressionists have been seen mostly in the exhibitions of the New English Art Club. This society was founded in 1885 by a number The New of young artists who wished for facilities for exhibition wish which they felt were denied to them in the other Art Club. galleries. It drew the greater number of its earlier supporters from the men who had been trained in foreign schools, and a complete list of the contributors to its exhibitions includes the names of many of the best known of the younger painters. It was the meeting-place of numerous groups which advocated one or other of the new creeds, for among its members or exhibitors have been P. Wilson Steer, Fred Brown, J. S. Sargent (q.v.), Solomon J. Solomon, Stanhope Forbes, T. C. Gotch, Frank Bramley, Arthur Hacker, Francis Bate, Moffat Lindner, J. L. Henry, W. W. Russell, George Thomson, Arthur Tomson, Henry Tonks, C. W. Furse, R. Anning Bell, Walter Osborne, Laurence Housman, J. J. Shannon, W. L. Wyllie, H. S. Tuke, Maurice Greiffenhagen, G. P. Jacomb Hood, Alfred Parsons, Alfred East, J. Buxton Knight, C. H. Shannon, Mark Fisher, Walter Sickert, W. Strang, Frank Short, Edward Stott, Mortimer Menpes, Alfred Hartley, William Stott, J. R. Reid, Mouat Loudan, T. B. Kennington, H. Muhrman, A. D. Peppercorn, George Clausen and J. A. M'N. Whistler, and a number of the Scottish artists, like J. Lavery, J. Guthrie, George Henry, James Paterson, A. Roche, E. A. Walton, J. E. Christie and E. A. Hornel. A number of the men who have been more or less actively identified with it have been elected members of the Royal Academy, so that it may fairly claim to have exercised a definite influence upon the tendencies of modern art. It has certainly
the doctrines to which they had been converted abroad; and as a consequence of this desire for an offensive and defensive association, many detached groups were formed within the boundaries of the British school. Each of these groups had some peculiar tenet, and each one had a small orbit of its own in which it revolved, without concerning itself overmuch about what might be going on outside. Roughly, there were three classes into which the more thoughtful British artists could then be divided. One included those men who were in the main French in sympathy and manner; another consisted of those who were not insensible to the value of the foreign training, but yet did not wish to surrender entirely their faith in the British tradition; and the third, and smallest, was made up of a few individuals who were independent of all assistance from without, and had sufficient force of character to ignore what was going on in the art world. In this third class there was practically no common point of view: each man chose his own direction and followed it as he thought best, and each one was prepared to stand or fall by the opinion which he had formed as to the true
done much to prove the extent of the foreign influence upon the British school.
In its wider sense the Impressionist school may be said to include now all those students of nature who strive for the representation of broad effects rather than minute details, who look at the subject before them largely and comprehensively, and ignore all minor matters which would be likely to interfere with the simplicity of the pictorial rendering. To it can be assigned a number of artists who have never adopted, or have definitely abandoned, the prismatic analysis of colour advocated by the French Impressionists. These men were headed by J. A. M'N. Whistler (q.v.), born in America in 1834, and trained in Paris under Gleyre. His pictures have always been remarkable for their beauty of colour combination, and for their sensitive management of subtleties of tone. They gained for the artist a place among the chief modern executants, and have attracted to him a host of followers. Other notable painters who have places in the school are Mark Fisher, an American landscape painter who studied for a while in Gleyre's studio, one of the ablest interpreters in England of effects of sun-light and breezy atmosphere; A. D. Peppercorn, a pupil of Gerome, who makes landscape a medium for the expression of a dignified sense of design and a carefully simplified appreciation of contrasts of tone; and P. Wilson Steer, an artist who began as a follower of Monet, and based upon his training in the Ecole des Beaux Arts a style of his own, which he displays effectively in both landscapes and figure pictures.
The International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers, inaugurated in 1898,.although not by its nature confined to British The Inter- art and artists, who compose little more than half of nheon a the electorate, has its home in London. It succeeds in Society. its object of setting before the British public the most
modern and eccentric expressions of the art of the chief European countries. Its exhibitions are striking and the contributions for the most part serious and interesting; but while the freedom of the artist is insisted on it is doubtful if the more exagaerated displays by rebellious painters and sculptors have had much influence on the native school. The presidents have been J. A. M'N. Whistler and Auguste Rodin, and the vice-presidents John Lavery and William Strang: these personalities, considered along with their views and their vigour, sufficiently indicate the spirit and the politics of the society.
Generally speaking, the very large class of artists who fell only to a limited extent under the spell of French teaching includes Figure most of the figure and landscape men and practically Painters. the whole of the portrait painters. In all sections of
figure painting individual workers in improved technical methods have appeared, but most of them have gradually-lost their distinguishing peculiarities of manner, and have year by year assimilated themselves more closely to their less advanced brethren. The section in which their energetic propagandism has been most effective is certainly that of imaginative composition. A definite mark has been made there by men like S. J. Solomon (b. 1860; A.R.A. 1896; R.A. 1906),, trained at the Royal Academy, the Munich Academy and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and widely known by such pictures as " Samson " (1887), " The Judgment of Paris ' (1890) and the " Birth of Love " (1895) ; and Arthur Hacker (b. 1858; A.R.A. 1894; R.A. 1910), educated at the Academy and in Bonnat's studio, and the painter of a considerable series of semi-historical and symbolical canvases. They exercised a considerable influence upon their contemporaries, and introduced some new elements into the later practice of the school. At the same time admirably effective work has been done in this section and others by many painters who have kept much more closely in touch with the older type of aesthetic belief, and have not associated themselves openly with any of the newer movements. Among the more prominent of these figure painters there are, or have been, some excellent craftsmen, whose contributions to the record of native British art can be accepted as full of permanent interest. In the school of historical incident good work was done by Sir John Gilbert (18171897; R.A. 1876), a robust and ingenious illustrator of romantic motives, with a never-failing capacity for picturesque invention; John Pettie (18391893; R.A. 1873), a fine colourist and a clever manipulator, whose scenes from the life of past centuries were full of rare vitality; P. H. Calderon (18331898; R.A. 1867), a graceful and sincere artist not wanting in originality; and H. Stacy Marks (18291898; R.A. 1879), who treated medieval motives with a touch of real humour. Besides these, there are Sir J. D. Linton (b. 1840), who has produced noteworthy compositions in oil and water colours; Frank Dicksee (b. 1853; A.R.A. 1881; R.A. 1891), who has gained wide popularity by pictures in which romance and sentiment are combined in equal proportions; A. C. Gow (b. 1848; R.A. 1881), whose " Cromwell at Dunbar " (1886), ' Flight of James II. after the Battle of the Boyne " (1888), and " Crossing the Bidassoa " (1896) may be noted as typical examples of his performance; J. Seymour Lucas (b. 1849; A.R.A. 1886; R.A. 1898), trained at the Royal Academy Schools, and a brilliant painter of what may be called the by-play of history; W. Dendy Sadler (b. 1854), trained partly in London and partly at Dusseldorf, and well known by his quaintly humorous renderingsof the lighter side of life in the olden times; G. H. Boughton (born in England, but educated first in America and afterwards in Paris; A.R.A. 1879; R.A. 1896), a specialist in paintings of old and modern Dutch subjects; the Hon. John Collier (b. 1850), trained at the Slade School, at Munich, and in Paris, and a capable painter both of the nude figure and of costume; and Edwin A. Abbey, an American (b. 1852), educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Abbey came to England in 1876 with a great reputation as an illustrator, and did not begin to exhibit oil pictures until 1890; he was elected an Academician in 1898. Then there are to be noted classicists like Lord Leighton, Sir L. Alma-Tadema, and Sir E. J. Poynter's students of the East like Frederick Goodall (b. 1822; A.R.A. 1853; R.A. 1863; d. 1904), and idealists like Sir W. B. Richmond, K.C.B.; R.A. 1895 all of whom have done much to uphold the reputation of the British school for strength of accomplishment and variety of motive.
The painters of sentiment have in the main adhered closely to the tradition which has been handed down through successive generations. Among these may be noted Marcus Stone Painters of (b. 1840), elected an Academician in 1887, an original Sentiment. artist whose dainty fancies are familiar to students of
modern art. His pictures nearly all appeared in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. Another popular artist is G. D. Leslie (b. 1835), elected an Associate in 1868 and an Academician in 1876, who has been responsible for a number of domestic old-world subject-pictures remarkable for freshness of treatment and delicacy of feeling. The list may also be held to include Henry Woods (b. 1846; A.R.A. 1882; R.A. 1893), and since 1877 a painter of scenes from Venetian life; R. W. Macbeth (b. 1848; A.R.A. 1883; R.A. 1903), whose elegant treatment of rustic subjects displays a very attractive individuality. Among the painters of sentiment should also be included Sir Luke Fildes. (b. 1844), educated at the South Kensington and Royal Academy Schools, elected an Academician in 1887, the painter of such famous pictures as " The Casual Ward " (1874), " The Widower " (1876), " The Return of the Penitent " (1879), and " The

Doctor

DOCTOR (Lat. for " teacher ")

" (1892) ; and Sir Hubert von Herkomer, C.V.O. (b. 1849; A.R.A. 1879; R.A. 1890; knighted 1907), famous not only by his many memorable can-vases and by his extraordinary versatility in the arts, but also as a teacher and a leader in a number of educational movements.
Not many military pictures of high merit have been produced during the period. The artists, indeed, who occupy themselves with this class of art are not numerous, and they Military mostly devote their energies to illustrative pictures Mi painting. rather than to large canvases. Lady Butler (nee
Elizabeth Thompson), whose " Roll Call," exhibited in 1874, brought her instant popularity, continued to paint subjects of the same type, among which " Quatre Bras " (1875), " The Defence of Rorke's Drift " (1881), " The Camel Corps " (1891) and " The Dawn of Waterloo " (1895) are perhaps the most worthy of record. Ernest Crofts (b. 1847; A.R.A. 1878; R.A. 1896), trained in London and Dusseldorf, has taken a prominent position by such pictures as " Napoleon at Ligny " (1875), " Napoleon leaving Moscow " (1887), The Capture of a French Battery by the 53rd Regiment at Waterloo " (1896), and by many similar representations of historical battles. Occasional pictures have come also from A. C. Gow, R. Caton Woodville, W. B. Wollen, J. P. Beadle, John Charlton, and a few more men who are better known by their work in other directions.
The number of artists who have devoted the greater part of their energies to portraiture has been steadily on the increase. Most of the men who have taken definite rank amongportraiture. the figure painters have made reputations by their
portraits also, but there are many others who have kept almost exclusively to this branch of practice. Into the first division come such noted artists as Sir John Millais, Sir E. J. Poynter, G. F. Watts, Sir Luke Fildes, Sir Hubert von Herkomer, Sir L. Alma-Tadema, Sir W. B. Richmond, Seymour Lucas, the Hon. John Collier, S. J. Solomon, Arthur Hacker, Sir W. Q. Orchardson, J. A. M'N. Whistler, Frank Dicksee, Stanhope Forbes, Frank Bramley, H. S. Tuke, T. C. Gotch, P. W. Steer, John Bacon and Frank Holl. In the second must be reckoned J. S. Sargent (A.R.A. 1894; R.A. 1897), an American citizen (b. 1856), a pupil of Carolus Duran, who after 1885 was recognized as one of the most brilliant painters of the day; J. J. Shannon, also an American (b. 1862), trained at the South Kensington School, and elected an Associate in 1897, a graceful and accomplished artist, with a sound technical method and a delightful sense of style; A. S. Cope (b. 1857), trained in Paris, and elected an Associate in 1899, who carries on soundly the better traditions of the British school; James Sant (b. 1820), elected an Academician in 1870, a strong favourite of the public throughout a long career; W. W. Ouless (b. 1848; A.R.A. 1877; R.A. 1881), trained in the Royal Academy Schools, an industrious and prolific worker; H. T. Wells (b. 1828; A.R.A. 1866; R.A. 1870), trained in London and Paris, who produced a long series of portraits and portrait groups, and many miniatures; W. Llewellyn (b. 1860), educated at the South Kensington Schools and in Cormon's studio in Paris, an able draughtsman and a thorough executant; C. W. Furse (q.v.), trained
first in the Slade School under Professor Legros and afterwards in Paris, whose early death removed a master of his art; and others like Walter Osborne, Richard Jack, Glyn Philpot and Gerald Kelly.
In the class of figure painters, who are individual in their work, and owe little or nothing to the suggestions of foreign teachers, a number of artists can be enumerated who have in common little besides a sincere desire to express their personal conviction Individual in their own way. Among them are some of the Figure most distinguished of modern artists, who stand out Painters. as the unquestioned chiefs of the school. Sir John Millais
occupies a place in this group by virtue of his admirable pictorial work, and with him are W. Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, G. F. Watts, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Albert Moore and Ford Madox Brown, each one of whom may be regarded as a leader. There are also J. M. Strudwick (b. 1849), R. Spencer Stanhope (d. 1908) and Evelyn de Morgan, followers of Burne-Jones, and J. W. Waterhouse (A.R.A. 1885; R.A. 1895), in many ways the most original and inspired of English imaginative painters; and, again, M. Greiffenhagen, F. Cayley Robinson and Mrs Swynnerton.
Into this class come also the decorative painters, Walter Crane illustrator Decorative the producer pof rolific
an extraordinaryaamount of l work in Painters. all branches of decoration; Frank Brangwyn, whose pictures and designs are marked by fine qualities of execution and by much sumptuousness of colour; and several others, like H. J. Draper, Harold Speed, R. Anning Bell, Gerald Moira and G. Spencer Watson. As a branch of the decorative school, a small group of artists who have revived the practice of tempera-painting must also be noted. It includes Mrs Adrian Stokes, J. D. Batten, J. E. Southall, Arthur Gaskin, and a few others with well-marked decorative tendencies.
During recent years a movement has begun which apparently aims at the revival of Pre-Raphaelitism. It is headed by a few The New young artists, whose methods show a mingling Pre- together of the precision of the 19thcentury Pre-Raphaelite Raphaelites and a kind of decorative formality. The
School. most influential of the artists concerned in the formation
of this new school is J. Byam Shaw (b. 1872), whose originality and quaintness of fancy give to his pictures a more than ordinary degree of persuasiveness. A strong colourist and an able draughtsman, he possesses in a high degree the faculty of imaginative expression, allied with humour that never degenerates into farce. His strongest preference is for symbolical subjects which embody some moral lesson. Other prominent members of the group are F. Cadogan Cowper (A.R.A. 1907) and Miss Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, who is in manner much like Byam Shaw, but yet does not sink her individuality in mere imitative effort.
The painters of landscapes and sea-pictures have for the most part been little affected by the unrest which has caused so many Landscape new departures in figure-work. A love of nature has Paintsca. always been one of the best British characteristics,
and it has proved itself to be strong enough to keep those artists who seek their inspiration out of doors from falling to any great extent under the control of particular technical fashions. Therefore there is in the school of " open-air " painting little evidence of any change in point of view, or of the growth of any modern feeling at variance with that by which masters of landscape were swayed a century or more ago. Impressionism has gained a few adherents, and the French Barbizon schoolitself created in response to a suggestion from Englandhas reacted upon a section of the younger artists. But, on the whole, in this branch of art the British school has gained in power and confidence, without surrendering that sturdy independence which in the past produced such momentous results. The absence of any common convention, or of any set pattern of landscape which would lead to uniformity of effort, has left the students of nature free to express themselves in a personal way. The most devout believers in the value of French training, and in the infallibility of the dogmas which emanate from the Paris studios, have not, except in rare instances, demanded any radical remodelling of the British landscape school on French lines, as local conditions affecting the practice of this branch of art make impossible all drastic alterations. Most workers in the front rank can claim to be judged on individual merits, and not as members of a particular coterie. Still, it is convenient to divide the members of the landscape school into such classes as realists, romanticists and subjective painters of landscape.
Among the most notable of the first class are H. W. B. Davis
(b. 1883; A.R.A. 1873; R.A. 1877), the painter of a long series of
Realistic dainty scenes which suggest happily the charm of
Landscape. rural England; Peter Graham, elected an Academician
in 1881, who has alternated for the greater part of his
working life between Scottish moorland subjects, with cattle
wandering on bare hillsides and pictures of coast scenery, with
sea-gulls perched on dark rocks; David Murray (b. 1849; A.R.A.
1891; R.A. 1905), an artist whose career has been marked by
consistent effort to interpret nature's suggestions with dignity and
intelligence; Sir Ernest A. Waterlow (b. 1850; A.R.A. 1890; R.A.
1903), trained in the Royal Academy and afterwards President of
the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, a graceful painter,
with a tender colour feeling and an excellent technical style; Yeend
King (b. 1855), trained partly in England, and partly in Paris under Bonnat and Cormon, a sound craftsman who made a reputation by landscapes in which are introduced groups of figures on a fairly important scale; Alfred Parsons (b. 1847), elected an Associate in 1897, who paints rich river scenery with careful regard for actuality and with much minuteness and exquisiteness of detail, especially in the rendering of flowers; and Frank Walton (b. 1840), who chooses, as a rule, landscape motives which enable him to display unusual powers of accurate draughtsmanship. To the same class of realists belonged Vicat Cole, R.A.; Birket Foster, J. W. Oakes, A.R.A.; Keeley Halswelle, and perhaps Alfred W. Hunt, though in his case realism was tempered by a delicate poetic imagination.
The romanticists and pastoral painters have in many cases been perceptibly affected by the example of the Barbizon school, but they owe much to such famous Englishmen as Cecil Lawson, Romantic John Linnell (both of whom died in 1882), George and
Mason (A.R.A. 1868; d. 1872) and Frederick Walker pastoral (A.R.A. 1871; d. 1875). The most prominent later painters. member of the group is, perhaps, Sir Alfred East
(b. 1849), trained first in the Glasgow School of Art and after-wards in Paris, elected an Associate in 1899, a painter endowed with an exceptional faculty for suggesting the poetry of nature and with an admirable sense of decorative arrangement; but there are, besides, Leslie Thomson (b. 1851), whose art is especially sound and sincere; J. Aumonier, a pastoral painter with very refined appreciation of subtleties of aerial colour; C. W. Wyllie, a painter of delicate vision and charm of presentation; J. S. Hill, whose sombre landscapes are distinguished in design and impressive in their depth of tone; R. W. Allan (b. 1852), who uses a robust technical method with equal skill in landscapes and coast subjects; J. Buxton Knight (b. 1842; d. 1908), a vigorous manipulator, with a liking for rich harmonies and low tones; Joseph Knight (b. 1838; d. 1909), whose well drawn and broadly painted pictures in oil and water-colour have been for many years appreciated by lovers of unaffected nature; Lionel P. Smythe (A.R.A. 1898), a colourist who handles exquisitely the most delicate atmospheric effects and is unusually successful in his rendering of diffused daylight; J. W. North (A.R.A. in 1893), a painter of fanciful landscapes in which definition of form is subordinated to modulations of decorative colour; Claude Hayes, who studied in the Royal Academy Schools, and carried on the tradition established by David Cox and his contemporaries; J. L. Pickering, a lover of dramatic light-and-shade contrasts and a student of romantic mountain scenery; A. D. Peppercorn, who gives breadth and dignity with sombre colour and delicate gradation of tone; Adrian Stokes (b. 1854; A.R.A. 1910) and M. Ridley Corbet (who died in 1902, only a few months after his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy), a classicist in landscape, in whose pictures can be perceived a definite reflection of the teaching of Professor Costa, the Italian master. There must also be noted, as leaders among the pastoral painters, George Clausen (b. 1852), trained first in the South Kensington School and afterwards in Paris under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury, and elected an Associate in 1895 and R.A. in 1908, who began as a strict realist and afterwards developed into a rustic idealist; H. H. La Thangue, trained in the Royal Academy Schools and in Paris, elected an Associate in 1898, an artist of amazing technical vigour and an uncompromising interpreter of rural subjects; Edward Stott (A.R.A. 1906), trained in Paris under Carolus Duran and Cabanel, who paints delicately the more poetic aspects of the life of the fields; J. Arnesby Brown (b. 1866; A.R.A. 1903) ; Oliver

Hall

, Albert Goodwin, A. Friedenson and others.
The painters of landscape subjectively considered, who conventionalize nature with the idea of giving to their pictures a kind of sentimental as distinguished from emotional sug- subjective gestion, are most strikingly represented by B. W.
Landscape.
Leader (b. 1831), trained in the Worcester School
of Design and in the Royal Academy Schools, and elected an Academician in 1898. He became a strong favourite of the public, and his academic and precise technical methods were widely admired by the many people who are not satisfied with unaffected transcriptions of natural scenes and of the passion of nature.
In marine painting no one has appeared to rival Henry Moore, perhaps the greatest student of wave-forms the world has seen; but good work has been done by the late Edwin Marine Hayes, an Irish painter, whose powers showed no sign Painting of failure up to his death in 1904, after some half-
century of continuous labour; W. L. Wyllie (b. 1851; A.R.A. 1889; R.A. 1907), trained in the Royal Academy Schools, who paints sea and shipping with intelligent understanding; T. Somerscales, a self-taught artist, with an intimate knowledge of the ocean derived from long actual experience as a sailor; and especially C. Napier Hemy (b. 1841; A.R.A. 1898; R.A. 1910), trained at the Antwerp Academy and in the studio of Baron Leys, a powerful manipulator, with a preference for the dramatic aspects of his subject. J. C. Hook (d. 1907), retained into old age the subtle qualities which made his pictures notable among the best productions of the British school. Mention must be made of John Brett (18301902; A.R.A. 1881), the one Pre-Raphaelite sea painter, and Hamilton Macallum
(18411896), who painted rippling water in bright sunlight with delightful delicacy and charm of manner.
The school of animal painting is a small one, and includes only a few of marked ability. The chief members include Briton Riviere, (b. 1840; A.R.A. 1878; R.A. 1881), one of the most imaginative and inventive of living artists; J. M. Swan (18471910; A.R.A. 1894; R.A. 1905), trained first at Lambeth, and afterwards in Paris Anfma/ under GerSme and Fremiet, a skilful manipulator and a Painting. sensitive draughtsman, and especially remarkable for his
intimate understanding of animal character, mainly of the felidae (see also SCULPTURE) ; J.T. Nettleship (18411902), trained chiefly in the Slade School, whose studies of the greater beasts of prey are admirably sincere and well painted; Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch (b. 1869), trained in the Herkomer School at Bushey, who paints horses with unusual power; and John Charlton (b. 1849), trained in the South Kensington School, also well known by his pictures of horses and dogs.
There are local schools which claim attention because of the value of their contributions to the aggregation of British art. Scottish The most active of these belong to the Scottish school, Schools. the centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen,
which have produced some of the most distinguished British artists. The Royal Academy of London, indeed, with most of the other leading art societies, has been largely recruited from Scotland. There have been added to its modern roll the names of W. Q. Orchardson. Peter Graham, J. MacWhirter, J. Pettie, Erskine Nichol, T. Faed, David Murray, Colin Hunter, R. W. Macbeth, D. Farquharson, J. Farquharson, George Henry: all of them painters of well-established reputation; and there are many other well-known Scottish artists who have made London their headquarters, like Arthur Melville, a portrait and subject-painter and a masterly water-colourist; E. A. Walton, who is equally successful with portraits, landscapes, and decorative compositions; J. Coutts-Michie, who alternates between portraiture and landscapes of admirable quality; John Lorimer, who has exhibited a number of excellent subject-pictures and many fine portraits; T. Graham, an unaffected painter of sentiment, and a good colourist; Grosvenor Thomas, known best by his freely handled and expressive landscapes; T. Austen Brown, who paints semi-decorative pastorals with unusual vigour of statement; John Lavery, who has taken rank amongst the best of recent portrait painters; and Robert Brough, another portrait painter of vigour, with a subtle sense of colour, whose early and tragic death cut short a promising career. The most notable of the men who remained in Scotland include Alexander Roche, whose remarkable capacity has brought him many successes in portraiture, figure compositions, and decorative paintings on a large scale; W. Y. MacGregor, a leader of the school of landscape painters, fine in style and a master of effect; D. Y. Cameron, an admirable oil-painter and a famous etcher; and Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A. well known for his excellent portraits; James Paterson, R. B. Nisbet and Robert Noble, all landscape painters of marked originality and sound technical method; W. McTaggart (d. 1910), the brilliant impressionist; E. A. Hornet and W. Hole, decorative painters who have produced many canvases remarkable for robust originality and rare breadth of treatment; W. Mouncey, a landscape painter who united the dignity of the Barbizon school with a typically Scottish freedom of expression; and Sir George Reid, ex-P.R.S.A., one of the ablest and most distinguished of portrait painters.
The water-colour painters can fairly be said to have kept unchanged the essential qualities of their particular form of practice.
Water- They have departed scarcely at all from the executive
Colour. methods which have been recognized as correct for
nearly a century, but they have amplified them and have adapted them to a greater range of accomplishment, developing, it may be added, the " blottesque " or the accidental manner suggestive of summary decision. Latterly water-colour painting has come to rival oils in its application to all sorts of subjects; and it is used now with absolute freedom by a very large number of skilful artists. Many of the men who have done the best work in this medium are known as oil painters of the highest rank; and among living workers the same capacity to excel in either mode of expression is by no means uncommon. There have been in recent times such masters as Sir John Gilbert, Sir E. Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A. W. Hunt, H. G. Hine, Henry Moore, Albert Moore, C. E. Holloway, and perhaps should be included E. M. Wimperis, whose water-colours are at least as worthy of admiration as their oil pictures. As water-colourists, much credit is due to Sir E. J. Poynter for his landscapes, portraits, and figure drawings; Sir L. Alma-Tadema for his minutely detailed classic subjects; Sir J. D. Linton for his historical and romantic compositions; Sir E. A. Waterlow for his delicately expressive landscapes; Sir Hubert von Herkomer for his admirably handled figure subjects; George Clausen for pastorals charming in sentiment and distinguished by fine qualities of colour; J. Aumonier, A. D. Peppercorn, J. S. Hill, J. W. North, Leslie Thomson, Frank Walton and R. W. Allan for landscapes of special excellence; E. J. Gregory (d. 1909), and Cadogan Cowper, for figure compositions painted with amazing sureness of touch; Alfred Parsons for landscapes and flower studies; j. R. Reid, W. L. Wyllie, E. Hayes and
C. N. Hemy for sea and coast pictures; R. W. Macbeth, Claude Hayes and Lionel Smythe for rustic scenes with figures in the open air; J. M. Swan for paintings of animals; and G. H. Boughton for costume subjects and delicately poetic fancies. Besides, there is a long list of noteworthy painters whose reputations have been chiefly or entirely made by their successful management of water-colour, and into this list come Birket Foster, the head of the old-fashioned school of dainty rusticity; Carl Haag, a wonderful manipulator, who occupied himself almost exclusively with Eastern subjects; Thomas Collier, A. W. Weedon, H. B. Brabazon, G. A. Fripp, P. J. Naftel, G. P. Boyce, Albert Goodwin, R. Thorne-Waite, F. G. Cotman, Harry Hine, Clarence Whaite and

Bernard

Evans, whose landscapes show thorough understanding of nature and distinctive individuality of method; Mrs Allingham, an artist of exquisite refinement, whose idealizations of country life have a more than ordinary degree of merit; Clara Montalba, an able painter of impressions of Venice; Kate Greenaway, unrivalled as an interpreter of the graces of child-hood, and endowed with the rarest originality; Mrs Stanhope Forbes, an accomplished executant of well-imagined romantic motives; and J. R. Weguelin, one of the most facile and expressive painters of fantastic figure subjects. By the aid of these artists, and many others of at least equal ability, such as J. Crawhall, J. Pater= son, R. Little, Edwin Alexander, Arthur Rackham and J. Walter West, traditions worthy of all respect have been maintained sincerely and with intelligent discrimination; and to their efforts has been accorded a larger measure of popular support than is bestowed upon any other form of pictorial production.
See Richard Muther, History of Modern Painting (Eng. ed., 895); R. de la Sizeranne, English Contemporary Art (Eng. ed., 1898) ; Ernest Chesneau, The English School of Painting (2nd Eng. ed., 1885) ; Clement and Hutton, Artists of the 19th Century (Boston, U.S.A., 1885) ; David Martin and F. Newbery, The Glasgow School of Painting (1897) ; W. D. McKay, R.S.A., The Scottish School of Painting (London, 1906) ; E. Pinnington, George Paul Chalmers and the Art of his Time (1896); Gleeson White, The Master Painters of Britain (1897); E. T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, vol. ii. (1901) ; J. E. Hodgson, R.A., Fifty Years of British Art (1887) ; A. G. Temple, Painting in the Queen's Reign (1897) ; Cosmo Monkhouse, British Contemporary Artists (1899); G. R. Redgrave, 'History of Water-Colour Painting in England 17501889 (1889). Also the Transactions of the National Association for the Advancement of Art (Liverpool, 1888; Edinburgh, 1889; and Birmingham, 1890); the magazines devoted to the arts; and the principal reviews, such as " English Art in the Victorian Age " (Quarterly Review, January 1898). The Year's Art (18791910; ed. A. C. R. Carter) is an invaluable annual publication fully and accurately chronicling the art institutions and art movements in Great Britain. ' (M. H. S.)
FRANCE
The period between 187o and the opening of the loth century was singularly important in the history of France, and consequently of her art. The internal life of the people developed on new lines with a vigour that left a deep mark on the outcome of mental effort. Literature was foremost in this new movement. The novels of Balzac, Zola, Flaubert, the brothers de Goncourt, Daudet, Guy de Maupassant and the plays of Alexandre Dumas fils, filled as they are with the scientific spirit and social atmosphere of the time, opened the eyes of the young generation to appreciation of the visible beauty and the spiritual poetry of the world around them, and helped them to view it with more attentive eyes, more insight and more emotion. The aim of art was also to emancipate itself, by the growing efforts of independent artists, from the slavery of tradition, and to devote itself to a more personal contemplation and knowledge of contemporary life under every aspect. Modern French art tends to become more and more the art of the peoplea mixture of naturalism and poetry, deriving its inspiration, by preference, from the world of the working man; no longer appealing only to a restricted and more or less fastidious public, but, on the contrary, adapting its aesthetic or moral teaching to popular apprehension. The whole past was not, of course, wiped out. The younger generation had to learn and profit by the lessons taught by their great precursors. To understand the true character of this recent development of French art it is needful, therefore, to glance at the past.
We need not dwell on the individual authorities who constitute the official hierarchy of the contemporary French school; these masters belong for the most part, by the date of their best work, to a former generation. Starting in many cases from very opposite points, but reconciled and united by time, they carried on, during the last quarter of the 19th century, with more or less distinction, the inevitable evolution of their personal gifts.
We still see the works of some of the staunch Romanticists: Jean Gigoux (d. 1892), Robert-Fleury (d. 1890), Jules Dupre (d. 1889), Lanni (d. 189o), Cabat (d. 1893) and Isabey (d. 1886); and with these, though they did not follow quite the same road, may be named Francais (d. 1897) and Charles Jacque (d. 1894). Next to them, Meissonier (d. 1891) crowded into the last twenty years of his life a mass of work which, for the most part, enhanced his fame; and Rosa Bonheur (d. 1899), working in retirement up to the age of seventy-seven, went on her accustomed way unmoved by external changes. Hebert, Harpignies, Ziem and Paul Flandrin survived. Among the generation which grew up under the Second Empire we find men of great intelligence and distinction; some, like Alexandre Cabanel (1824-1889), by pictures of historical genre, in a somewhat insipid and conventional style, but more particularly by female portraits, firm in flesh-painting and aristocratic in feeling; others, like Paul Baudry (1828-1886, q.v.), whose large decorative works, with their pure and lofty elegance, secured him lasting fame, and whose allegorical compositions wele particularly remarkable; not less so his portraits, at first vivid, glowing and golden, but at the end of his life, under the influence of the new atmosphere, cooler in tone, but more eager, nervous and restless in feeling. Leon Ger8me (b. 1824, q.v.) was the originator, during the Second Empire, of the neo-Greek idea, an Orientalist and painter of historic genre, whose somewhat arid instinct for archaeological precision and finish developed to better ends in sculpture during later years. William Bouguereau (b. 1825, q.v.) painted symbolical and allegorical subjects in a sentimental style. Jules Lefebvre (b. 1836) had a brilliant career as a portrait painter, combined, in his earlier years, with admirable studies of the nude. These were followed by Benjamin Constant (d. 1902), a clever painter of past ages in the East and of modern Oriental life, who latterly directed his powers of vigorous and rapid brushwork to portrait-painting; Fernand Cormon, the inventive chronicler of primeval Gaul, and a solid and learned portrait painter; Aime Morot, a man of versatile gifts, a painter of portraits full of life and ease. These formed the heart of the Institut. On the other hand, we find a group who betray a close affinity with the realist partyrejecting, like them, tradition at second-hand, though returning for direct teaching to some of the great masters. Leon Bonnat (b. 1833), educated in Spain, and preserving through a long series of official portraits an evident

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

of the great realists of that nation; and again, under the same influence, Jean Paul Laurens (b. 1837), who has infused some return of vitality into historical painting by his clear and individual conceptions and realistic treatment. Jean Jacques Henner (b. 1829, q.v.), standing even more apart, lived in a Correggiolike dream of pale nude forms in dim landscape scenery; his love of exquisite texture, and his unvarying sense of beauty, with his refined dilettantism, link him on each side to the great groups of realists and idealists.
About the middle of the 19th century, after the vehement disputes between the partisans of line and the votaries of colour, otherwise the Classic and the Romantic schools, when a younger generation was resting from these follies, exhausted, weary, devoid even of any fine technique, two groups slowly formed on the opposite sides of the horizonseers or dreamers, both protesting in different ways against the collapse of the French school, and against the alleged indifference and sceptical eclecticism of the painters who were regarded as the leaders. This was a revolt from the academic and conservative tradition. One was the group of original and nature-loving painters, keen and devoted observers of men and things, the realists, made illustrious by the three great personalities of Corot (q.v.), Millet (q.v.) and Courbet (q.v.), the real originators of French contemporary art. The other was the group of men of imagination, the idealists, who, in the pursuit of perfect beauty and an ideal moral standard, reverted to the dissimilar visions of Delacroix and Ingres, the ideals of rhythm as opposed to harmony, of style versus passion, which Theodore Chasseriau had endeavoured to combine. Round Puvis de Chavannes (q.v.) and Gustave Moreau (q.v.) we find a group of,artists who, in spite of the fascination exertedof their intelligence by the great works of the old masters, especially the early Florentines and Venetians, would not accept the old technique, but strove to record in splendid imagery the wonders of the spiritual life, or claimed, by studying contemporary individuals, to reveal the psychology of modern minds. Among them were Gustave Ricard (1821-1893), whose portraits, suggesting the mystical charm sometimes of Leonardo and sometimes of Rembrandt, are full of deep unuttered vitality; Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), serious and expressive in his heroic compositions, keen and striking in his portraits; Eugene Fromentin (1820-1876), acute but subtle and silvery, a man of elegant mind, the writer of Les Maitres d'aulrefois, of Sahel and of Le Sahara, the discoverer--artisticallyof Algeria. And round the loud and showy individuality of Courbethealthy, nevertheless, and inspiringa group was gathered of men less judicious, but more stirring, more truculent, thoroughly original, but not less reverent to the old masters than they were defiant of contemporary authorities. They were even more ardent for a strong technique, but the masters who attracted them were the Dutch, the Flemish, the Venetians, who, like themselves, had aimed at recording the life of their day. Among these was Francois Bonvin (1817-1887), who, following Granet, carried on the evolutian of a subdivision of genre, the study of domestic interiors. This Drolling, too, had done, early in the loth century, his predecessors in France being Chardin and Le Nain. This class of subjects has not 'merely absorbed all genre-painting, but has become a very important factor in the presentment of modern life. Bonvin painted asylums, convent-life, studios, laboratories and schools. Alphonse Legros (q.v.), painter, sculptor and etcher, who settled in London, was of the same school, though independent in his individuality, celebrating with his brush and etching-needle the life of the poor and humble, and even of the vagabond and beggar. There were also Bracquemond, the reviver of the craft of etching; Fantin-Latour, the painter of highly romantic Wagnerian dreams, figure compositions grouped after the Dutch manner, and flower-pieces not surpassed in his day. Ribot, again, and Vollon, daring and dashing in their handling of the brush; Guillaume Regamey, one of the few military painters gifted with the epic sense; and even Carolus Duran, who, after painting " Murdered " (in the Lille Museum), combined with the professional duties of an official teacher a brilliant career as a portrait painter. A later member of this group, attracted to it by student friendship in the little drawing-school which under Lecoq de Boisbaudran competed in a modest way with the Ecole des Beaux Arts, was J. C. Cazin, well known afterwards as a pronounced idealist. Finally, there was Manet, a connecting link between the realists and the impressionists. These two radiant focuses of imagination and of observation respectively were to be seen still intact during the later period, as represented by the most energetic of the masters who upheld them.
After the catastrophe of 1870, French art appeared to be reawakened by the disasters of the country; and at the great exhibition in Vienna in 1873 Count Andrassy exclaimed to Leon Bonnat, " After such a terrible crisis you are up again, and victorious ! " Immense energy prevailed in the studios, and money poured into France in consequence. The output irlcreased rapidly, and at the same time study became more strenuous, and ambition grew bolder and more manly. Renewed activity stirred in the public academies, and a crowd of foreign students came to learn. Two great facts give a characteristic stamp to this new revival of French art: I. In the class of imaginative painting, the renewed impulse towards monumental or decorative work. II. In the class of nature studies, the growth of landscape painting, which developed along two parallel linesImpressionism; and III. the " Open-air " school.
I. Decoration.In decorative painting two men were the soul of the movement: Puvis de Chavannes and Philippe de Chennevieres Pointel. As we look back on the last years of the Second Empire we see decorative painting sunk in profound lethargy. After Delacroix, Chasseriau and Hippolyte Flandrin, and the completion of the great works in the Palais Bourbon, the Senate
House, the Cour des Comptes and a few churchesSt Sulpice, St Vincent de Paul and St Germain des Presno serious attempts had been made in this direction. Excepting in the Hotel de Ville, where Cabanel was winning his first laurels, and in the Opera House, a work that was progressing in silence, a few chapels only were decorated with paintings in the manner of easel pictures. But two famous exceptions led to a decorative revival: Puvis de Chavannes's splendid

scheme

SCHEME (Lat. schema, Gr. oxfjya, figure, form, from the root axe, seen in exeiv, to have, hold, to be of such shape, form, &c.)

of decoration at Amens (all, with the exception of the last composition, which is dated 1882, executed without break between 1861 and 1867), and his work at Marseilles and at Poitiers; Baudry, with his ceiling in the Opera House, begun in 1866 but not shown to the public till 1894. There was also a movement for reviving French taste in the industrial arts by following the example of systematic teaching set by some foreign countries, more particularly by England. Decorative painting felt the same impulse. Philippe de Chennevieres, curator of the Luxembourg Gallery and directeur des Beaux Arts (from 1874 till 1899), determined to encourage it by setting up a great rivalry between the most distinguished painters, like that which had stimulated the zeal of the artists of the Italian Renaissance. Taking up the task already attempted by Chenavard under the Republic of 1848, but abandoned in consequence of political changes, M. de Chennevieres commissioned a select number of artists to decorate the walls of the Pantheon. The panels were to record certain events in the history of France, with due regard to the sacred character of the building. Twelve of the most noted painters were named, with a liberal breadth of selection so as to include the most dissimilar styles: Millet and Meissonier, of whom one refused and the other did not carry out the work; Cabanel and Puvis de Chavannes. The last-named was the first to begin, in 1878, and he too was the painter who put the crowning end to this great work in 1898. His pictures of the " Childhood of Ste Genevieve " (the patron saint of Paris), simple, full of feeling and of innocent charm, appropriate to a popular legend, with their airy Parisian landscape under a pallid sky, made a deep impression. Thenceforward Puvis de Chavannes had a constantly growing influence over younger men. His magnificent work at Amiens, " Ludus pro Patria " (1881-1882), at Lyons and at Rouen, in the Sorbonne and the Hotel de Ville, for the Public Library at Boston, U.S.A., and on to his last composition, " The Old Age of Ste Genevieve," upheld to the end of the 19th century the sense of lofty purpose in decorative painting. Besides the Pantheon, which gave the first impetus to the movement, Philippe de Chennevieres found other buildings to be decorated: the Luxembourg, the Palace of the Legion of Honour and that of the Council of State. The paintings in the Palais de Justice, the Sorbonne, the Hotel de Ville, the College of Pharmacy, the Natural History Museum, the Opera Comique, and many more, bear witness to this grand revival of mural painting. Every kind of talent was employedhistorical painters, portrait painters, painters of allegory, of fancy scenes, of real life and of landscape. Among the most important were: J. P. Laurens and Benjamin Constant, Bonnat and Carolus Duran, Cormon and Humbert, Joseph Blanc and L. Olivier Merson, Roll and Gervex, Besnard and Carriere, Harpignies and Pointelin, Raphael Collin and Henri Martin.
II. Impressionism.In 1874 common cause was made by a group of artists drawn together by sympathetic views and a craving for independence. Various in their tastes, they concentrated from every point of the compass to protest, like their precursors the realists, against the narrow views of academic teaching. Some had romantic proclivities, as the Dutchman Jongkindt, who played an important part in founding this group; others were followers of Daubigny, of Corot or of Millet; some came from the realistic party, whose influence and effort this new set was to carry on. Among these, Edouard Manet (18321883) holds a leading place; indeed, his influence, in spite of or perhaps as a result ofmuch abuse, extended beyond his circle even so far as to affect academic teaching itself. He was first a pupil of Couture, and then, after Courbot, his real masters were the SpaniardsVelasquez, El Greco and Goyaall of whomhe closely studied at the beginning of his career; but he soon felt the influence of Millet and of Corot. With a keen power of observation, he refined and lightened his style, striving for a subtle rendering of the exact relations of tone and values in light and atmosphere. With him, forming the original group, as represented by the Caillebotte collection in the Luxembourg, we find some landscape painters: Claude Monet, the painter of pure daylight, and the artist who by the title of one of his pictures, " An Impression," gave rise to the designation accepted by the group; Camille Pissarro, who at one time carried to an extreme the principle of dotting with pure tints, known as poinlillisme, or dotwork; Sisley, Cezanne and others. Among those who by preference studied the human figure were Edgard Degas (q.v.) and Auguste Renoir. After long and violent antagonism, such as had already greeted the earlier innovators, these painters, in spite of many protests, were officially recognized both at the Luxembourg and at the great Exhibition of 1900. Their aims have been various, some painting Man and some Nature. In the former case they claim to have gone back to the principle of the greatest artists and tried to record the life of their own time. Manet, Degas and Renoir have shown us aspects of city or vulgar life which had been left to genre-painting or caricature, but which they have represented with the charm of pathos, or with the bitter irony of their own mood, frank transcripts of life with a feeling for style. For those who painted the scenery of nature there was an even wider field. They brought to their work a new visual sense, released from the clinging memories of past art; they endeavoured to fix the transient effects of moving life, changing under the subtlest and most fugitive effects of light and atmosphere, and the play of what may be called the elements of motionsunshine, air and cloudscaring less for the exact transcript of motionless objects, which had hitherto been almost exclusively studied, such as the soil, trees and rocks, the inanimate features of the landscape. They introduced a fresh lightness of key, which had been too subservient to the relations of values; they discovered for their ends a new class of subjects essentially modern: towns, streets, railway stations, factories, coal-mines, ironworks and smoke, which they represent with an intelligent adaptation of Japanese art, taking new and audacious points of view, constantly varying the position of their horizon. This is indeed the very acme of naturalism, the last possible stage of modern landscape, covering the whole field of observation, doubling back to the starting-point of imagination. Notwithstandingor because ofthe outcry, of these views, peculiarities and tendencies soon penetrated schools and studios. Three artists in particular became conspicuous among the most individual and most independent spirits: Besnard, who had taken the Grand Prix de Rome, and carried to the highest pitch his inexhaustible and charming fancy in studies of the figure under the most unexpected play of light; Carriere, a pupil of Cabanel, who sought and found in mysterious gloom the softened spirit of the humble, the warm caress of motherhood; and Raffaelli, a pupil of Gerome, who brought to light the unrecognized picturesqueness of the lowest depths of humanity.
enamoured of rustic life, he absorbed at an early stage, though not without hesitation, the love of atmospheric effects characteristic of Corot and of Manet. In his open-air heads and rural scenes he is seen as a conscientious nature worshipper, accurate and sincere, and, like Millet, imbued with a touch of mysticism which becomes even more evident in his immediate pupils. Round him there arose a little galaxy of painters, some more faithful to tradition, some followers of the best innovators, who firmly tread this path of light and modern life. These are Butin, Duez and Renouf, Roll and Gervex, Dagnan-Bouveret, Friant, Adolphe and Victor Binet and many more.
Immediately after the Exhibition of 1889 an event took place which was not without effect on the progress of French art. This was the schism in the Salon. The audacious work of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts, which left anything that the Impressionists could do far behind, had accustomed the eyes of the public to the most daring attempts, while the numerous contributions of foreigners, especially from the north, where art aimed solely at a direct presentment of daily life, was a fresh encouragement to the study of modern conditions and of the lower classes. But, at the same time, the encroachment on space at the Exhibition (where no limit of number was imposed) by mere studies, hastened the reaction against the extravagances of the degenerate followers of Courbet, Manet and Bastien-Lepage. Remonstrances arose against their perverse and narrow-minded devotion to " truth," or rather to minute exactitude, their pedantry and affectation of documentation; sometimes derived from some old colourists who had not renounced their former ideal, sometimes from younger men impelled unconsciously by literature, which had as usual pre-ceded art in the revolt. The protest was seen, too, in a modified treatment of landscape, which took on the warmer colours of sunset, and in a choice of religious subjects, such as a pardon, or a funeral, or a ceremonial benediction, and generally of more human and more pathetic scenes.
Bastien-Lepage, like his great precursor Millet, bore within him the germs of a reaction against the movement he had helped to promote. Dagnan-Bouveret, who began by painting " Sitting for a Photograph " (now at Lyons) and " An Accident," after painting " Le Pain benit," ended with " The Pilgrims to Emmaus " and " The Last Supper." Friant, again, produced scenes of woe, " All Saints' Day " and " Grief "; and their younger successors, Henri Royer, Adler, Duvent and others, who adhered to this tradition, accommodated it to a more modern ideal, with more vivid colouring and more dramatic composition.
Still, this normal development could have no perceptible effect in modifying the purpose of painting. More was needed. A strong craving for imaginative work was very generally felt, and was revealing itself not merely in France but in Belgium, Scotland, America and Germany. This tendency ere long resulted in groups forming round certain well-known figures. Thus a group of refined dreamers, of poetic dilettanti and harmonious colourists, assembled under the leading of Henri Martin (a strange but attractive visionary, a pupil of Jean Paul Laurens and direct heir to Puvis de Chavannes, from whom he had much sound teaching) and of Aman-Jean, who had appeared at the same time, starting, but with more reserve, in the same direction. Some of this younger group affected no specific aim; the others, the larger number, leant towards contemporary life, which they endeavoured to depict, especially its aspirations andaccording to the modern expression now in France of common usageits " state of soul " typified by melody of line and the eloquent language of harmonies. Among them should be named, as exhibitors in the salons and in the great Exhibition of 1900, Ernest Laurent, Ridel and Hippolyte Fournier, M. and Mme H. Duhem, Le Sidaner, Paul Steck, &c. On the other hand, a second group had formed of sturdy and fervent naturalistic painters, in some ways resembling the school of 1855 of which mention has been made; young and bold, sometimes over-bold, enthusiastic and emotional, and bent on giving expression to the life of their own day, especially among the people, not merelyrecording its exterior aspects but epitomizing its meaning by broad and strong synthetical compositions. At their head stood Cottet, who combined in himself the romantic fire and the feeling for orchestrated colour of Delacroix with the incisive realism and bold handling of Courbet; next, and very near to him, but more objective in his treatment, Lucien Simon, a manly painter and rich colourist. Both by preference painted heroic or pathetic scenes from the life of Breton mariners. After them came Rene Menard, a more lyrical artist, whose classical themes and landscape carried us back to Poussin and Dauchez, Prinet, Wery, &c.
Foreign influences had meanwhile proved stimulating to the new tendencies in art. Sympathy with the populace derived added impulse from the works of the Belgian painters Constantin Meunier, Leon Frederic and Struys; a taste for strong and expressive colouring was diffused by certain American artists, pupils of Whistler, and yet more by a busy group of young Scotsmen favourably welcomed in Paris. But the most unforeseen result of this reactionary movement was a sudden reversion to tradition. The cry of the realists of every shade had been for " Nature ! " The newcomers raised the opposition cry of " The Old Masters! " And in their name a protest was made against the narrowness of the documentary school of art, a demand for some loftier

scheme

SCHEME (Lat. schema, Gr. oxfjya, figure, form, from the root axe, seen in exeiv, to have, hold, to be of such shape, form, &c.)

of conventionality, and for a fuller expression of life, with its complex aspirations and visions. The spirit of English Pre-Raphaelitism made its way in France by the medium of translations from the English poets Shelley, Rossetti and Swinburne, and the work of their followers Stephane Mallarme and Le Sax Peladan; it gave rise to a little artificial impetus, which was furthered by the simultaneous but transient rage for the works of Burne-Jones, which were exhibited with his consent in some of the salons, and by the importation of William Morris's principles of decoration. The outcome was a few small groups of symbolists, the most famous being that of the Rose 4u Croix, organized by Le Sar Peladan; then there was Henri Martin, and the little coterie of exhibitors attracted by a dealer, the late M. le Bare de Bouttiville, in which Cottet was for a short time entangled. But few interesting names are to be identified: Dulac (d. 1899), who became known chiefly for his mystical lithographs in colour; Maurice Denis and Bonnard, whose decorative compositions, with their refined and harmonious colouring, are not devoid of charm; Vuillard, &c. But it was in the school and studio of Gustave Moreau (1826-1898, q.v.) that the fire of idealism burned most hotly. This exceptional man and rare painter, locked up in his solitude, endeavoured, by a thorough and intelligent assimilation of all the traditions of the past, to find and create for himself a new tonguerich, nervous, eloquent, strong and resplendentin which to give utterance to the loftiest dreams that haunt the modern soul. He revived every old myth and rejuvenated every antique symbol, to represent in wonderful imagery all the serene magnificence and all the terrible struggles of the moral side of man, which he had explored to its lowest depths and most heroic heights in man and woman, in poetry and in death. Being appointed, towards the end of his life, to a professorship in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, he regarded his duties as a real apostleship, and his teaching soon spread from his lecture-room and studio to those of the other masters. His own work, though hardly known to his pupils at the time, at first influenced their style; but, especially after his death, they were quickly disgusted with their own detestable imitation of subjects on which the master had set the stamp of his great individuality; they deserted the fabulous world of the Greek Olympus and the wonderful gardens of the Bible, to devote them to a passionate expression of modern life. Desvallieres, indeed, remained conspicuous in his original manner; Sabatte, Maxence, Beronneau, Besson and many more happily worked out their way on other lines.
In trying to draw up the balance-sheet of French art at the beginning of the loth century, it were vain to try to enter its work under the old-world headings of History, Genre, Portraits, Landscape. All the streams had burst their channels, all the currents mingled. Historical painting, reinstated for a
time by Puvis de Chavannes and J. P. Laurens, in which Benjamin Constant and Cormon also distinguished themselves, had but a few adherents who tried to maintain its dignity, either in combination with landscape, like M. Tattegrain, or with the ineffectual aid of archaeology, like M. Rochegrosse. At certain times, especially just after 1870, the memory of the war gave birth to a special genre of military subjects, under the distinguished guidance of Meissonier (q.v.), and the peculiar talents of Alphonse de Neuville (q.v.), of Detaille (q.v.) and Protais. This phase of contemporary history being exhausted, gave way to pictures of military manceuvres, or colonial wars and incidents in recent history; it latterly went through a revival under a demand for subjects from the Empire and the Revolution, in consequence of the publication of many memoirs of those times. Side by side with " history," religious art formerly flourished greatly; indeed, next to mythology, it was always dear to the Academy. Apart from the subjects set for academical competitions, there was only one little revival of any interest in this kind. This was a sort of neo-evangelical offshoot, akin to the literature and stress of religious discussion; and its leader, a man of feeling rather than conviction, was J. C. Cazin (d. 1901). Like Puvis de Chavannes, and under the influence of Corot and Millet, of Hobbema, and yet more of Rembrandt, he attempted to renew the vitality of history and legend by the added charm of landscape and the introduction of more human, more living and more modern, elements into the figures and accessories. Following him, a little group developed this movement to extravagance. The recognized leader at the beginning of the zoth century was Dagnan-Bouveret.
Through mythology and allegory we are brought back to real life. No one now thinks in France of seeking any pretext for displaying the nude beauty of woman. Henner, perhaps, and Fantin-Latour, were the last -to cherish a belief in Venus and Artemis, in naiads and nymphs. Painters go direct to the point nowadays; when they paint the nude, it is apart from abstract fancies, and under realistic aspects. They are content with the model. It is the living female. The whole motor force of the time lies in the expression, under various aspects, of real life. This it is which has given such a soaring flight to the two most primitive forms of the study of life, landscape and portraiture. Portraits have in fact adopted every style that can possibly be imagined: homely or fashionable, singly or in groups, by the fire or out of doors, in some familiar attitude and the surroundings of daily life, analytically precise, or synthetically broad, a literal transcript or a bold epitome of facts. As to landscape, no class of painting has been busier, more alive or more productive. It has overflowed into every other channel of art, giving them new spirit and a new life. It has led the van in every struggle and won every victory. Never was army more numerous or more various than that of the landscape painters, nor more independent. All the traditions find representatives among them, from Paul Flandrin to Rene Menard. Naturalists, impressionists, open-air painters, learned in analysis or potent in invention. We need only name Harpignies, broadly decorative; Pointelin, thoughtful and austere; and Cazin, grave and tender, to give a general idea of the strength of the school.
Every quarter of the land has its painters: the north and the south, Provence and Auvergne, Brittany, dear to the young generation of colourists, the East, Algeria, Tunisall contribute to form a French school of landscape, very living and daring, of which, as successors of Fromentin and Guillaumet, must be named Dinet, Marius Perret, Paul Leroy and Girardot. But it is more especially in the association of man and nature, in painting simple folk and their struggle for life amid their natural surroundings or by their homely hearth, in the glorification of humble toil, that the latest French art finds its most characteristic ideal life. (L. BE.)
BELGIUM
Belgium fills a great place in the realm of art; and while its painters show a preference for simple subjects, their techniqueis broad, rich and sound, the outcome of a fine tradition. Since 1855 international critics have been struck by the unity of effect produced by the works of the Belgian school, as expressed more especially by similarities of handling and colour. For the things which distinguish all Belgian painters, even in their most unpictorial divagations, are a strong sense of contrast or harmony of colouring, a free, bold style of brushwork, and a preference for rich and solid painting. It is the tradition of the old Flemish school. It would be more correct, indeed, to say traditions; for the modifications of each tendency, inevitably reviving when the success of another has exhausted itself, constantly show a reversion either to the domestic " Primitives " (or, as we might say, Pre-Raphaelites) of the Bruges school, or to the " decorative " painters of the later time at Antwerp, and no veneer of modern taste will ever succeed in masking this traditional perennial groundwork. In this way the prevailing authority of the French painter Louis David may be accounted for; as acknowledged at Brussels at the beginning of the 19th century, it was a reaction in antagonism to the heavy and flabby work of the late Antwerp school, an unconscious reversion perhaps to the finish and minuteness of the early painters of Bruges. Indeed, in France, Ingres, himself David's most devoted disciple, was reproached with trying to revive the Gothic art of Jean de Bruges. Then, when David's followers produced only cold and feeble work, Wappers arose to restore the methods of another tradition, for which he secured a conspicuous triumph. Classical tinsel made way, indeed, for romantic tinsel. The new art was as conventional as the old, but it had the advantage of being adaptable to the taste for show and splendour which characterizes the nation, and it also admitted the presentment of certain historical personages who survived in the memory of the people. The inevitable reaction from this theatrical art, with its affectation of noble sentiments, was to brutal realism. Baron Henri Leys (q.v.) initiated it, and the crudity of his style gave rise to a belief in a systematic purpose of supplanting the Latin tradition by Germanic sentimentality. Leys's archaic realism was transformed at Brussels into a realism of observation and modern thought, in the painting of Charles de Groux. The influence of Leys on this artist was merely superficial; for though he, too, affected painful subjects, it was because they appealed to his compassion. The principle represented by de Groux was destined to pioneer the school in a better way; at the same time, from another side the authority of Courbet, the French realist, who had been for some time in Brussels, and that of the great landscape painters of the Fontainebleau school, had suggested to artists a more attentive study of nature and a remarkable reversion in technique to bolder and firmer handling. At this time, among other remarkable men, Alfred Stevens appeared on the scene, the finished artist of whom Camille Lemonnier truly said that he was " of the race of great painters, and, like them, careful of finish "that in him " the eye, the hand and the brain all co-operated for the mysterious elaboration " of impasto, colour and chiaroscuro, and " the least touch was an operation of the mind." A brief period ensued during which the greater number of Belgian artists were carried away by the material charms of brushwork and paint. The striving after brilliant efforts of colour which had characterized the painters of the last generation then gave way to a devout study of values; and at the same time it is to be noted that in Belgium, as in France, landscape painters were the first to discover the possibility of giving new life to the interpretation of nature by simplicity and sincerity of expression. They tried to render their exact sensations; and we saw, as has been said, " an increasingly predominant revelation of instinctive feeling in all classes of painting." Artists took an impartial interest in all they saw, and the endeavour to paint well eliminated the hope of expressing a high ideal; they now sought only to utter in a work of art the impression made on them by an external fact; and, too often, the strength of the effort degenerated into brutality.
These new influences, which, in spite of the conservative school, had by degrees modified the aspect of Belgian art in
BELGIUM]
general, led to the formation at Brussels of an association under the name of the Free Society of Fine Arts. This group of painters had a marked influence on the development of the school, and hand in hand with the pupils of Portaelsa teacher of sober methods, caring more for sound practice than for theoriesit encouraged not merely the expression of deep and domestic feeling which we find in the works of Leys and de Groux, but also the endeavour to paint nature in the broad light of open air. The example of the Free Society found imitators; various artistic groups were formed to organize exhibitions where new works could be seen and studied irrespective of the influence of dealers, or of the conservatism of the authorities which was increasingly conspicuous in the official galleries; till what had at first been regarded as a mere audacious and fantastic demonstration assumed the dignity of respectable effort. The " Cercle des Vingt " (" The Twenty Club ") also exerted a marked influence. By introducing into its exhibitions works by the greatest foreign artists it released Belgian art from the uniformity which some too patriotic theorists would fain have imposed. The famous " principle of individuality in art " was asserted there in a really remarkable manner, for side by side with the experiments of painters bent on producing certain effects of light hung the works of men who clung to literary or abstract subjects. Other groups, again, were formed on the same lines; but then came the inevitable reaction from these elaborations of quivering light and subtle expression, pushed, as it seemed, to an extreme. The youngest generation of Brussels painters, in .revolt against the lights and ultra-refinements of their immediate predecessors, seem to take pleasure in a return to gums and bitumen, and to seek the violent effects so dear to the romantic painters of a past time.
Brussels is the real centre of art in Belgium. Antwerp, the home of Rubens, is resting on the memory of past glories, after vainly trying to uphold the ideal formerly held in honour by Flemish painters. And yet, so great is the prestige of this ancient reputation, that Antwerp even now attracts artists from every land, and more especially the dealers who go thither to buy pictures as a common form of merchandise. At Ghent the wonderful energy of the authorities who get up the triennial exhibitions makes these the most interesting provincial shows of their kind; other towns, as Liege, Tournay, Namur, Mons and Spa also have periodical exhibitions.
From 183o, in the early days of the Belgian school of painting, we may observe a tendency to seek for the fullest qualities of colour, with delicate gradations of light and shade. In this Wappers led the way. At a time when his teachers in the Antwerp Academy would recognize nothing but the heavy brown tones of old paintings, he was already representing the transparent shadows of natural daylight. But heroic and sentimental romanticism was already making way for the serious expression of domestic and popular feeling, and thenceforward the prominence assumed by genre, and yet more by landscape, led to a deeper and more direct study of the various aspects of nature. At the same time a special sense of colour was the leading characteristic of the artists of the time, and it was truly said that " the ambition to be a fine painter was stronger than the desire for scrupulous exactitude." Artists evidently aimed, in the first place, at a solid impasto and glowing colour; an under-tone, ruddy and golden, gleamed through the paler and more real hues of the over-painting. In this way we may certainly recognize the influence of the French colourists of Courbet's time; just as we may trace the influence of the grey tone prevalent in Manet's day in the effort to paint with more simple truth and fewer tricks of recipe, which became evident when the " Free Society was founded at Brussels, and the pupils from Portaels's studio came to the front.
Among the artists who were then working the following must be named (with their best works in the Brussels Gallery): Alfred Stevens (q.v.), an incomparably charming painter, characterized by exquisite harmony of colour and marvellous dexterity with the brush. In the Brussels Gallery are his " The Lady in Pink," " The Studio," " The Widow," " A Painter and his Model," and " The Lady-Bird." Joseph Stevens, his brother, a master-painter of dogs, broad in his draughtsmanship, and painting in strong touches of colour, is represented by " The Dog-Market," " BrusselsMorning," " A Dog before a Mirror "; Henri de Braekeleer, the nephew and pupil of Leys, a fine painter of interiors, in warm and golden tones, by " The Geographer," " A FarmInterior," " A Shop "; Lievin de Winne, a portrait painter, sober in style and refined in execution, by " Leopold I., King of the Belgians "; Florent Willems, archaic and elegant, by " The Wedding Dress ";
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Eugene Smits, a refined colourist, always working with the thought of Venice in his mind, by " The Procession of the Seasons "; Louis Dubois, a powerful colourist with a full brush, striving to resemble Courbet, by " Storks," " Fish "; Alfred Verwee, a fine animal painter, with special love for a sheeny silkiness of texture, by " The Estuary of the Scheldt," " The Fair Land of Flanders," " A Zeeland Team "; Alfred Verhaeren, a pupil of L. Dubois, by some " Interiors "; FeIicien Rops, an ertist, precise in drawing, sensual and incisive, by " A Parisienne extraordina7 Felix ter Linden, a restless, refined
nature, always trying new subtleties of the brush and palette-knife, by " Captives." Amongst other painters may be named Camille van Camp, Gustave de Jonghe, Franz Verhas, and his brother Jan Verhas, the painter of the popular " School Feast " in the Brussels Gallery; and Jan van Beers, the clever painter of female coquettishness, represented by pictures in the Antwerp Gallery.
As landscape painters, the chief are: Hippolyte Boulenger, a refined draughtsman and a delicate colourist, represented in the Brussels Gallery by " View of Dinant," " The Avenue of Old Hornbeams at Tervueren," " The Meuse at Hastiere "; Alfred de Knyff, noble and elegant, by " The Marl Pit," " A HeathCampine " ; Joseph Coosemans, by " A MarshCampine "; Jules Montigny, by " Wet Weather "; Alph. Asselbergs, by " A MarshCampine." There are also Xavier and Cesar de Cock, painters in light gay tones of colour; Gustave Den Duyts, a lover of melancholy twilight, represented in the same gallery by "A Winter Evening"; Mme Marie Collart, a seeker after the more melancholy and concentrated impressions of nature, by " The Old Orchard "; and Baron Jules Gcethals.
Of the Antwerp school, Francois Lamoriniere, archaic and minute, has in the Brussels Gallery his " View from Edeghem," and there is also Theodore Verstraete, sentimental, or frenzied.
As marine painters: Paul Jean Clays, who delights in vivid effects of colour, is represented at Brussels by " The Antwerp Roadstead," " Calm on the Scheldt "; Louis Artan, who prefers dark and powerful effects, by " The North Sea," besides Robert Mols, A. Bouvier, and Lemayeur.
As painters of town scenery may be named F. Stroobant, a draughtsman rather than a painter, who is represented in the Brussels Gallery by " The Grande Place at Brussels," and J. B. Van More, a colourist chiefly, by " The Cathedral at Belem."
The flower painter, Jean Robie, has in the Brussels Gallery " Flowers and Fruit."
Jean Portaels, the painter of " A Box at the Theatre," at Budapest, is represented in the Brussels Gallery by " The Daughter of Sion Insulted "; Emile Wauters, a master of free and solid brushwork, equally skilled in portraiture, historical composition and decorative portrait painting, by " The Madness of Hugo van der Goes "; Edouard Agneessens, a genuine painter, with breadth of vision and facile execution, by portraits; Andre Hennebicq, a painter of historical subjects, by " Labourers in the Campagna, Rome "; Isidore Verheyden, a landscapist and portrait painter, by " Woodcutters "; Eugene Verdyen and Emile Charlet should be mentioned, and the landscape painter Henri van der Hecht, whose " On the Sand-hills " is in the Brussels Gallery.
The principal landscape painters of what is known as the " neutral tint " school (l'Ecole du grit) are: Theodore Baron, faithful to the sterner features of Belgian scenery, represented in the Brussels Gallery by " A Winter SceneCondroz "; Adrien Joseph Heymans, a careful student of singular effects of light, by " Spring-time "; Jacques Rosseels, a painter of the cheerful brightness of the Flemish country, by " A Heath," besides Isidore Meyers and Florent Crabeels.
Some figure painters who may be added to this group are: Charles Hermans, whose picture " Dawn " (Brussels Gallery), exhibited in 1875, betrays the ascendancy of the principles upheld by the Free Society of Fine Arts; Jean de la Hoese, who has since made portraits his special line; Emile Sacre; Leon Philippet, represented in the Brussels Gallery by " The Murdered Man "; and Jan Stobbaerts, a masterly painter, powerful but coarse, by " A FarmInterior."
Three more artists were destined to greater fame: Constantin Meunier, a highly respected artist, equally a painter and a sculptor, known as the Millet of the Flemish workman, who has depicted with noble feeling his admiration and pity for one contemporary state of the human race, and who is represented in the Brussels Gallery by " The Peasants' War "; Xavier Mellery, who tries to express in works of high artistic merit the inner life of men and things, and personifications of thought, by " A Drawing "; and Alexandre Struys, a strong and clever painter, expressing his sympathy with poverty and misfortune in works of remarkable ability.
Besides these, Charles Verlat, a powerful and skilled artist, painted a vast variety of subjects; his teaching was influential in the Antwerp Academy. In the Brussels Gallery he is represented by " Godfrey de Bouillon at the Siege of Jerusalem," " A Flock of Sheep attacked by an Eagle"; Alfred Cluysenaar, whose aim is to produce decorative work on an enormous scale, by " Canossa "; Albrecht de Vriendt, by " Homage done to Charles V. as a Child "; Juliaan de Vriendt, by " A Christmas Carol "; Victor Lagye, by
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" The Witch." Franz Vinck, Wilhelm Geets, Karl Ooms, and P. van der Ouderaa, endeavour to perpetuate, while softening down, the style of historical painting so definitely formulated by Leys. Finally, Joseph Stallaert, a painter of classical subjects, is represented in the Brussels Gallery by " The Death of Dido." Eugene Devaux, a remarkable draughtsman, should also be named.
Works by all those artists were to be seen in the Historical Exhibition of Belgian Art at Brussels, 1880. Camille Lemonnier, in his History of the Fine Arts in Belgium, discussed this Exhibition very fully, pointing out three distinct periods in the history of the century. The first, romantic, literary and artificial, extended from 183o till nearly 185o; the second was a period of transition, domestic in feeling, gradually developing to realism in the course of about twenty years; the third began in the 'seventies, a time of careful study, especially in landscape. This was followed by the beginning of a fourth period, characterized by a freer sense of light and atmosphere.
Apart from the exclusive tendency, inevitable under bureaucratic administration, the mere arrangement on an antiquated plan of the great academic salons was unsuited to the display of works intended to represent individual feeling or peculiarities of pictorial treatment. Hence it was that a great many painters came to prefer smaller and more eclectic shows, leading to the fashion, which still persists, of exhibitions by clubs or associations. The Fine Arts Club at Brussels had long since afforded opportunities for showing the pictures of the Societe Libre, founded in 1868, which were condemned by the authorities as tending to " revolutionize " art. After this, two associations of young painters were formed at Brussels with a view to organizing their own exhibitions.
The " Chrysatide" Club was founded in 1895, and the " Essor " (the " Soaring ") Club in 1876. In 1882, however, the Essor obtained leave to open their exhibition in a room in the Palais des Beaux Arts at Brussels. This tolerance was all the more appreciated by the younger party because a new departure was in course of development, again a modification in the effort to represent light in painting. The " neutral tint " school had given way to the school of " whiteness "; a luminous effect was to be sought by a free use of brilliant colour with a very full brush. But ere long this method proved unsatisfactory, and attention was now turned towards a "sincerer and acuter perception of local values." ; and again the influence of certain French painters was brougt to bearthose of the group headed by C. Monet, preparing for that of the French painter G. Seurat, the first who carried into practice the systematic decomposition of colour by the process known as pointillisme (the intimate juxtaposition of dots of colour). In 1884, in consequence of a division in the Essor Club, the " XX
Club was founded, who, though thus limiting their number, reserved the right of " issuing yearly invitations, and thus testifying the sympathy they felt with the most independent artists of Belgium and with those foreign painters with whom they had the most pronounced affinity." For ten years the exhibitions of the " XX," whose careful and artistic arrangements were in themselves admirable, were the fount in Belgium of discussions on art. The limit of its existence to ten years was determined when the club was formed; but as it was desirable that the principle of liberty in art should still be held in honour, M. Octave Maus, the secretary of the " XX " Club, organized the exhibitions of the Libre esthetique in and since 1894. Other clubs had been formed in Brussels: the Fine Art Society in 1891 and the " Furrow " (le Sillon) in 1893. In 1894 another breach in the Essor Club, which, growing very weak, was soon to disappearas the " Art Union " and the Voorwaerts Club had doneled to the formation of the Society " for Art " (pour fart) ; and in 1896 a party of that club established a salon of idealist art which favoured an exaggeration of the intellectual tendency already begun in the exhibitions of the " XX." Subsequently, in the exhibitions of the Sillon and of the Labeur Clubs (founded in 1898) a reaction set in, in favour of heavy brown tones and ponderous composition. At Antwerp the influence of the local societiesthe " Als Ik Kan," the Independent Art Club, and the " XIII "was less sensibly felt ; it was, however, enough to confirm certain waverers in the direction of purely disinterested effort.
It would be impossible to classify into definite groups those painters whose first distinctive appearance was subsequent to the Historical Exhibition in 1880. Only an approximate grouping can be attempted by assigning each to the association in whose exhibitions he made the best display of what he aimed at expressing. Thus it was chiefly in the rooms of the Essor Club that works were shown by the following: L. Frederic, a remarkable painter, combining wonderful facility of execution with a sincerely simple sentiment of homely pathos, represented at the Brussels Gallery by " Chalk Sellers "; E. Hoeterickx, a painter of crowds in the streets and parks; F. Seghers, a pleasing colourist, who had made flower-painting his speciality; two animal painters, F. van Leemputten, " Return from Work " (Brussels Gallery), and E. van Damme-Sylva, as well as the marine painter, A. Marcette. The landscape painters include J. de Greet, almost brutal in style, " The Pool at Rouge-Cioltre " (Brussels Gallery), C. Wolles, and Hamesse. L. Houyoux, F. Halkett, L. Herbo are known for their portraits. And there are E. van Gelder, J. Mayne, A. Crespin, a learned decorative painter and E. Duyck, a graceful draughtsman, " A Dream " (Brussels Gallery). As[HOLLAND
designers may be named A. Heins, a clever illustrator, and A. Lynen, of a thoroughly Brussels type, keenly observant and satirical.
At the exhibitions of the " XX " were pictures by the following: Fernand Khnopff (" Memories," a pastel, in Brussels Gallery), an admirer of the refined domesticity of English contemporary art, and of mystical art, as represented by Gustave Moreau; H. van der Velde, a well-known exponent of the new methods in applied art; J. Ensor, a whimsical nature, loving strange combinations of colour and inconsequent fancies (Brussels Gallery: " The Lamp Man ") ; Th. van Rysselberghe, a clever painter, especially in the technique of dot painting (pointillisme) ; W. Schlobach, a remarkable colourist of uncertain tendencies; Henry de Groux, son of Ch. de Groux, a seer of visions represented in violent tones and workman-ship ; G. Vogels, a painter of thaw and rain; G. van Strydoneck, R. Wytsman, J. Delvin, F. Charlet, Mlle A. Boch, all of whom have striven to bring light into their pictures; W. Finch and G. Lemmen.
To the triennial salons, to the exhibitions of the " Artistic " clubs, to the House of Art (Maison d'art), at Brussels, and to the various Antwerp clubs, the following have contributed: F. Courtens, Rosseels's brilliant pupil, an astonishing painter with a heavy impasto (Brussels Gallery: " Coming out of Church ") ; J. de Lalaing, full of lofty aims, but showing in his painting the qualities of a sculptor (Brussels Gallery: " A Prehistoric Hunter ") ; E. Claus, a lover of bright colour, and a genuine landscape painter (Brussels Gallery: " A Flock on the Road ") ; A. Baertsoen, who delights in the quiet corners of old Flemish towns; H. Evenepoel, a fine artist whose premature death deprived the Belgian school of a highly distinguished personality (Brussels Gallery : " Child at Play ") ; G. Vanaise, a painter of huge historical subjects; Ch. Mertens, a refined artist; E. Motte, an interesting painter with a love of archaic methods (Brussels Gallery: " A Girl's Head ") ; A. Leveque, an accomplished draughtsman with a distinctive touch; L. Wolles, an admirable draughtsman; J. Leempoels, elaborate and minute; H. Richir, a portrait painter; J. van den Eeckhout, a clever pupil of Verheyden; J. Rosier, a skilful follower of Verlat; L. Abry, a painter of military subjects; E. Carpentier, E. Vanhove, Luyten and Desmeth.
Essentially of the Antwerp School are F. van Kuyck, P. Verhaert, de Jans, and Brunin of Ghent, Ch. Doudelet, C. Montald and van Biesbroeck.
There is a group of artists at Liege whose sincerity and high technical qualities have been recognized : A. Donnay, A. Rassenfosse, E. Berchmans, F. Marechal, Dewitte. Of lady painters: Mmes E. Beernaert, L. Heger and J. Wytsman paint landscape; Mmes B. Art, A. Ronner, G. Meunier and M. De Bievre paint flowers. Mmes A. d'Anethan, Lambert de Rothschild, M. Philippson, H. Calais and M. A. Marcotte paint figures and portraits.
The chief exhibitors at the Societe pour fart have been A. Ciamberlani, a painter of large decorative compositions in subdued tones; H. Ottevaere, a painter of night or twilight landscapes; O. Coppens, R. Janssens and A. Hannotiau, who study old houses, deserted churches and dead cities; F. Baes, an excellent pupil of Frederic Fabry, O. and J. Dierickx, painters of decorative figures; H. Meunier, an ingeniously decorative draughtsman; J. Delville, founder of the salons of idealist art.
Leading exhibitors at the Voorwaerts Club have been E. Laermans, a strange artist, as it were a Daumier with anchylose joints, but a colourist (Brussels Gallery: " A Flemish Peasant ") V. Gilsoul, a clever pupil of Courtens (Brussels Gallery: " The Kennel "); J. du Jardin, the writer of L'Art flamand, an important critical work illustrated by J. Middeleer.
Contributors to the exhibitions of the Sillon Club comprise G. M. Stevens, P. Verdussen, P. Matthieu, J. Gouweloos, Bastien, Blieck, Wagemans and Smeers ; and V. Mignot, ingenious in designing posters.
At the exhibitions of water-colours have been seen the works of Huberti, F. Binge, V. Uytterschaut, Stacquet and H. Cassiers, who work with light washes or a clever use of body colour; Hagemans, who paints with broad washes; Delaunois, the painter of mysterious interiors; Th. Lybaert, minute in his brushwork; M. Romberg and Titz, correct draughtsmen.
Since 1870 several important works of decorative painting in public buildings have been carried out in Belgium. Guffens, Swerts and Pauwels have succumbed to the influences of German art, often cold and stiff ; A. and J. Devriendt, V. Lagye, W. Geets and Van der Ouderaa have followed more or less in the footsteps of Leys. J. Stallaert has cleverly revived a classic style. Emile Wauters and A. Hennebicq have adopted the traditions of Historical Painting; and so too have L. Gallait, A. Cluysenaar, J. de Lalaing and A. Bourland, though with a more decorative sense of conception and treatment. But of all these works, certainly the most remark-able in its artistic and intelligent fitness is that of M. Delbeke, in the market-hall at Ypres.
See Camille Lemonnier, Histoire des arts en Belgique; A. J. Wauters, La Peinture flamande; J. du Jardin, L'Art flamand. (F. K.*)
HOLLAND
The entire Impressionist movement of the end of the 19th century failed to exercise the slightest influence upon the Dutch. They are only modern in so far as they again resort to the
classics of their Fatherland. For a whole generation Josef Israels was at the head of Dutch art. Born in 1827 at Groningen, the son of a money-changer, he walked every day in his early years, with a linen money-bag under his arm, to the great banking house of Mesdag, a son of which became later the famous marine painter. During his student days in Amsterdam he lived in the Ghetto, in the house of a poor but orthodox Jewish family. He hungered in Paris, and was derided as a Jew in the Delaroche school there. Such were the experiences of life that formed his character. In Zantvoort, the little fishing village close to Haarlem, he made a similar discovery to that which Millet had already made at Barbizon. In the solitude of the remote village he discovered that not only in the pages of history, but also in everyday life, there are tragedies. Having at first only painted historical subjects, he now began to depict the hard struggle of the seafaring man, and the joys and griefs of the poor. He commenced the long series of pictures that for thirty years and more occupied the place of honour in all Dutch exhibitions. They do not contain a story that can be rendered into words; they only tell the tale of everyday life. Old women, with rough, toil-worn hands and good-natured wrinkled faces, sit comfortably at the stove. Weatherbeaten seamen wade through the water, splashed by the waves as they drag along the heavy anchors. A peasant child learns how to walk by the aid of a little cart. Again, the dawning light falls softly upon a peaceful deathbed, on which an old woman has just breathed her last. A sad and resigned melancholy characterizes and pervades all his works. His toilers do not stand up straight; they are broken, without hope, and humble, and accomplish their appointed task without pleasure and without interest. He paints human beings upon whom the oppressions of centuries are resting; eyes that neither gaze on the present nor into the future, but back on to the long, painful past. A Jew, bearing the Ghetto yet in his bosom, is talking to us; and in his painting of the lowly and oppressed he recounts the story of his own youth and the history of his own race.
The younger painters have divided Israels' subjects among them. Each has his own little field, which he tills and cultivates with industry and good sense; and paints one picture, to be repeated again and again during his lifetime. Christoph Birschop, born in Friesland, settled as an artist in the land of his birth, where the national costumes are so picturesque, with golden chains, lace caps and silver embroidered bodices. As in de Hoogh's pictures, the golden light streams through the window upon the floor, upon deep crimson table-covers; and upon a few silent human beings, whose lives are passed in dreamy monotony. Gerk Henkes paints the fogs of the canals, with boats gliding peacefully along. Albert Neuhuys selects simple family scenes, in cosy rooms with the sunlight peeping stealthily through the windows. Adolf Cortz, a pupil of Israels, loves the pale vapour of autumn, grey-green plains and dusty country roads, with silvery thistles and pale yellow flowers. The landscape painters, also, have more in common with the old Dutch classic masters than with the Parisian Impressionists. There, on the hill, Rembrandt's windmill slowly flaps its wings; there Potter's cows ruminate solemnly as they lie on the grass. There are no coruscation and dazzling brightness, only the grey-brownish mellowness that Van Goyen affected. Anton Mauve, Jaco