Some Picture Exhibitions

The Speaker, 9 July 1892, pages 46-47, 1,510 words

What do you think of the Louvre? "It depends on the day you go there," says Degas. The remark is strangely true. Those who feel pictures at all feel them differently on different occasions. A year  ago I remember studying the celebrated Hals in the Louvre. "The very apotheosis of studio painting," I said, "a sublime practitioner, but no more than a practitioner." This year I returned to the Louvre to verify this judgment. "What perfect expression! How clear; how limpid! How impossible to imagine anything more healthy, manly, robust! How perfectly satisfactory!" Thinking my opinion had undergone a change, I said to myself, "What can my opinion be worth if, in the short space of a year, I am capable of holding diametrically opposite views regarding & masterpiece by Hals?" A little alarmed, I walked up the gallery, intent on the consideration of my own mental state rather than on the pictures. After a turn or two I saw that the two appreciations did not conflict; and that both were equally true, equally reasonable.

These divagations of mood show how necessary it is not only to seriously study pictures, but also to study one's own impressions of pictures. We do not take pictures seriously enough. We glance at them, think we like them, or think we dislike them, and are content to hold by such ephemeral judgment. Last week I dwelt on the failings of Mr. Whistler's Princesse des pays de la porcelaine; when I returned to the exhibition I hardly saw these failings: my whole attention was caught by the exceeding beauties of the picture. It may not be a first-rate Whistler – I do not think it is; but I do not think that Mr. Whistler has ever before produced at once so rich and so exquisite an arrangement of colour. The yellow of the shawl that the lady wears is most beautiful, and never did a Japanese artist contrast two colours with such exquisite effect as this yellow is contrasted with the purple behind it. The blue carpet, too, so clear and so pure, has never been surpassed. Even in my ungracious mood of last week I did not fail to notice the beauty of the grey dress and the delicate vermilion sash. But if Mr. Whistler's colour gained by being seen twice, Mr. Mouat Loudon's lost. His green dress seemed to me far more harsh, and the red bow and the red fan on the dress more discordant than it had done at first. But to make up for this depreciation, his portrait of a little girl with a white rabbit in her lap struck me as being better than it had done on my first visit to the gallery. On the other hand, I am satisfied with what I said about Mr. Guthrie’s portrait. Space prevented me from speaking of Mr. Lavery's portraits. The one hanging on the line, a lady in a white dress, the face seen in profile, the entire face in shadow, with spots of sunlight on the dress, is certainly distinguished, but it is wanting in vigour; it is what the French would call mièvre. And for this reason I like better the “skied" portrait, which is larger, bolder, more manly in treatment.

But by far the finest portrait in the gallery is Mr. Orchardson's portrait of his wife and child. This is a very fine work indeed, and, without exaggeration, may be termed a masterpiece. Is it finer than Mr. Orchardson's portrait of Mr. Gilbey exhibited in last year's Academy? Before venturing an opinion it would be necessary to see the two pictures together, and it is to be regretted that the hanging committee did not secure both portraits. Then we should have had the pleasure of trying to determine which we liked the better, just as we strove last year to determine whether we should award the palm to the portrait of "The Mother" or to the portrait of Miss Alexander. My impression is that Mr. Orchardson's portrait of his wife and child is the finest thing he has done; finer than the portrait of Mr. Gilbey because of the much greater difficulties overcome. Here, in a few words, is the subject of the picture. An old-fashioned cane sofa stretches right across the canvas. A lady in black is seated on the right; she bends forward, her left arm leaning over the back of the sofa; she holds in her hand a Japanese hand-screen. The movement of the body is most admirably expressed. The drawing is ample, comprehensive, flexible; above all, it is unaffected, nowhere is there a trace of a measurement taken; it seems to be free from all parti pris. And the fine and graceful English profile is modelled without vulgar roundness, un beau modèle à plat; the black hair is heavy and loose, one lock slips over the forehead, and the painter has told the exact character of the hair as he has told the character of the hand, and the age of the hand and hair is evident. The baby lies on a woollen rug and cushion, just beneath the mother's eyes; the colour of both is a reddish yellow. He holds up his hands for the hand-screen that the mother waves. about him. The strip of background about the yellow cane-work is grey-green ; there is a vase of dried ferns and grasses on the left, and the whole picture is filled and penetrated with the affection and charm of English home-life, and without being disfigured with any touch of vulgar or commonplace sentimentality. The baby's face is somewhat hard; it is, perhaps, the least satisfactory thing in the picture. The picture is wanting in that air of soft envelopment which we find in the greatest masters – for instance, in that exquisite portrait of a mother and child by Sir Joshua Reynolds, exhibited this year in the Guildhall – that beautiful portrait of the mother holding out her babe at arms'-length above her knee. That portrait would compare favourably with almost any portrait ever painted, and were it hung in the Society of Portrait Painters, Mr. Orchardson's picture would suffer almost as much as Mr. Watts's two portraits suffer from the neighbourhood of Mr. Orchardson's. I fancy that Mr. Watts's portraits are not very good examples of his art; be this as it may, they seem very hollow and formal beside the beautiful naturalness of Mr. Orchardson's masterpiece.

After leaving the Society of Portrait Painters, I went into the Barbizon Gallery. I saw there

a very beautiful Manet, which, however, seemed to suffer from the too close neighbourhood of a very delicate and expressive Corot. I remember causing some irritation by saying in THE SPEAltER that, notwithstanding my real admiration of Manet, I could not regard him as anything more serious than un petit peintre de décors. The more I see of his work the more convinced I am of the truth of this opinion. I will give my reason for holding this opinion. Manet is a man who, like Decamps, never considered whether there were values on his palette; his colour is therefore crude and without depth, and the painting is a fleur de toile. He will live, if he lives, by the alertness of his observation and an extreme vivacity of touch. Manet now makes ten thousand a year; I remember when he did not make three hundred. I doubt, however, if he is worth buying at his present prices. Close at hand there was a six-inch picture by Meissonier, a single figure of a man, worth, I suppose, about two thousand pounds. I wonder if many people think that these prices will keep up? For my part I have no hesitation in saying that I do not

think they will. Artists have never thought very highly of Meissonier's worth. His work has always appeared to them to be unemotional, theatrical, hard, and thin. Perhaps not many of my readers know Manet's criticism of Meissonier's famous charge of Cuirassiers. "C'est bien beau. Tout est en fer, excepté les cuirasses." No one ever was a better judge of a picture than Manet, and his criticism of Meissonier will soon begin to work out right, and we shall have a drop in Meissoniers of about fifty per cent. At the present time I know no painter whose work is so well worth investing in as Manet. Manet was the great painter as Degas is the great draughtsman of our generation, and Manets can still be bought for comparatively low prices. All the others have gone up in price, but Manet still remains stationary. There is at the present moment at 26, Old Bond Street, a very fine Manet on exhibition, "Boulogne Pier." The price is £150, and be will be a wise man who goes at once and buys it. A more simple and beautiful piece of painting was never accomplished; the finest Vandervelde by its side would seem trivial, precious – even insipid. G.M.