THE NEW AND THE OLD ART CRITICISM

THE art-critic, that figure so familiar to us all, who may be seen at every Exhibition of Old Masters, laying down the law as to the excellence of this or that picture, and renaming most of them, with a total disregard of the printed labels, has long been the butt of well-deserved ridicule. But is there not something that may be said in his favour? Does the printed word of a Gallery Director settle all questions for the art-student? Has the field really been so thoroughly explored that there is no room left for original work and discovery?

The truth is that there is scarcely any branch of the 'Humanities' upon which so little thorough and scientific labour has been expended. It may seem at first a very arrogant and very revolutionary proceeding to question the knowledge or the good faith of those in authority over the great picture galleries, yet I venture to assert emphatically that this is the beginning of wisdom for the student of Renaissance art. Out of the innumerable proofs which crowd to mind I will take two by way of illustration-the Louvre Raphaels' and the National Gallery 'Botticellis.'

The catalogue of the Louvre is well known to be so old and infirm that it is scarcely worth serious criticism, yet, as it still goes on repeating those decrepit attributions which are responsible (among other crimes!) for the 'Raphaelesque' ideal which has had such a baneful influence upon the so-called 'classical' school of France, it will not do to pass it over with the contemptuous silence it deserves. Moreover, public galleries forming, in all civilised states, a part of the system of public education, their official teaching is not limited to the special student, who, after all, may be trusted to rectify mistakes. Their influence is perhaps greatest of all upon the unsuspecting public, in forming whose taste they play so great a part.

To begin with, there are fourteen pictures in the Louvre unhesitatingly ascribed to Raphael. Four of them are genuine, although one, 'La Belle Jardinière,' is so repainted as to be, except for the composition, almost worthless. The other genuine pictures are the two small panels of St. Michael' and 'St. George' in the Salon Carré, and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione in the Long Gallery. Of the remaining ten ascribed to Raphael, one is by Perugino, one

by Bacchiacca, one by Sebastian del Piombo, one probably by Innocenza da Imola, one, if not actually by Pierin del Vaga, at any rate by some pupil of Raphael who stood close to him, while no less than five are by Giulio Romano. It is impossible here to go into the detailed proofs of authorship in each separate case, although I should be glad to do so if I had the space.

What is the result of this misnaming? The most obvious result, considering that there are more Giulio Romanos called by Raphael's name than there are genuine Raphaels, and considering also that three of these Giulio Romanos are important works, far larger and more imposing than any of the genuine Raphaels in the gallerythe obvious result, I say, is the impression that Raphael's general style was identical with Giulio Romano's. That is to say, that Raphael had very little sense of colour, that he was often vulgar, that his surfaces were smoky, his shadows black, and his flesh tints either scorched or frozen, and that his sense of composition was frequently more theatrical than dignified. The practical result of such a mistaken view of Raphael may be clearly traced in the French works of the early part of this century hanging in a room close at hand, which are modelled upon this supposed Raphaelesque style.

This, however, is not the worst. Turning from the Giulio Romanos, which, whatever their faults, show at least some consistency of character and execution, turning from them to the pretty but feeble Perugino ('Apollo and Marsyas '), the sentimental Bacchiacca (popularly known as a portrait of Raphael by himself), the theatrical Sebastian del Piombo (St. John '), the academic Innocenza da Imola (Holy Family'), and the charming but slight Pierin del Vaga (‘St. Margaret'), the resulting impression of 'Raphael' is inevitably that of an artist of very unequal talents, now too hot, and now too cold, at one moment Venetian in colour, and at the next as frigid as an Italianised Fleming, usually either feeble or exaggerated as a draughtsman, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes brutally indifferent to the interpretation of feeling-in short, an artist with no definite character, but generally speaking of second- or third-rate ability.

Suppose, on the other hand, the directors of the Louvre had public spirit enough to keep their catalogue up to date (a thing that would be required in any other department of public instruction), what would be the result in the popular view of Raphael? From fourteen works, some of them very large and elaborate, it is scarcely possible to help coming to definite conclusions about the author. But it is a very different matter to have only four, two of which, dating almost from the artist's boyhood, cannot be expected to give more than a hint of future promise, while another is so completely repainted as to be no criterion at all, and the fourth is a portrait, in VOL. XXXV-No. 207

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which, of course, there was less chance for display of the artist's power as a creator, than in a large imaginative composition. Yet these four, such as they are, are enough to lead an intelligent person to suspend his judgment about Raphael, even if they do not positively attract him. But it is more than likely that they would attract, if they were allowed fair play. The little 'St. Michael,' painted before Raphael had come under the influence of Perugino (whom the catalogue, by the way, names as his only master), has a glow of colour, a grace of pose, a touch of magic, and a naïveté that can scarcely fail to enchant anyone who looks at it carefully. The boy-artist was so obviously occupied with overcoming the difficulties of the human figure that he had no energy left to grapple seriously with other problems. He powders the ground with strange monsters which fail to terrify, and in the background he puts a gleaming tower, such as almost any imaginative child would be capable of painting. All this points to its being a somewhat earlier work than the little 'St. George' hanging near it, where the landscape background has a charm of freshness not less than that of the lovely, fair-haired knight himself. The decision and vigour of his figure, and the foaming energy of his horse both indicate an artist whose great talents are already beginning to unfold. 'La Belle Jardinière,' a picture of some years later, shows, in spite of its repainting, that Raphael was a master of harmonious composition; and the one genuine portrait by him, with its subtle harmonies of ashen grey and brown, is in itself enough to prove that the painter in his maturity was, to say no more, at least as complete a master of tone as Mr. Whistler, and an even more sympathetic interpreter of character. Thus, the result of correct naming in this case would at least save Raphael's reputation, and if it had been done in timethat is to say, a hundred years ago-it might have saved the whole French school from some of the vices against which they have had such a struggle.

Let us turn now to an instance nearer home, the Botticellis' in our own National Gallery. Probably there is no painter who of late years has had more nonsense talked and written about him than poor Botticelli, and for this the authors of our National Gallery catalogue are in a great measure responsible. Botticelli is a distinctly AngloSaxon fad, and the catalogue, in teaching us to look upon such horrors as the 'Venus and Cupids' and the two circular Madonnas' as genuine Botticellis, has probably done more to corrupt taste in a certain set of cultured' English and American people than volumes of bad art criticism could possibly have done. The catalogue also wantonly prevented a Botticelli-loving public from gazing with delight upon two of his genuine works, by hiding them under the name of his pupil, Filippino Lippi. Let us stop a moment to consider these things in detail, for in view of the writings of Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Pater, and of the growing generation who get what they call the

'poetry of their lives' from what they imagine to be Botticelli, it becomes a question of at any rate some importance.

Perhaps it will be as well to clear the ground first of an objection frequently raised, namely, that the pictures are in themselves quite as beautiful and suggestive, no matter by what name they are called, and that therefore the question of attribution is a trivial or merely pedantic affair. The answer to this is easy. The world fortunately never cares for anything but original work, when it can get it, and to mark a thing as a school-picture, imitation, or copy, is to consign it to neglect; and very rightly. What we care for in an artist is not the mere abstract beauty.' If that were all we wanted, nature would satisfy our demand better than any art. No line of Botticelli's, or even of Leonardo himself, was ever equal in beauty to the curl of cigarette smoke, no painted brightness ever came near the real sunshine. What we demand is the artist's impression of the world, the enlargement of our own experience through his vision, the quickening of our senses through his interpretation. This being the unformulated but imperative need that lies at the bottom of our desire for art, it is obvious that copies and imitations, when we can get the original, are valueless. They are at the best but blurred shadows of impressions, and we cannot afford to waste our time upon them.

This line of thought would easily develop itself into a volume upon æsthetics, and we must hasten back to our immediate subject. There are five genuine Botticellis in the National Gallery, and these, considering how little Botticelli changed his style, should be quite sufficient to give us, if not an idea of his range, at least a distinct impression of his quality. As the naming of the pictures now runs, it is impossible to form an idea of what Botticelli really was. Of the 'Venus and Cupids,' with their bunches of stiff paper roses, and of the large tondo containing a Madonna and Child, I will not speak. They are beneath notice, falling even below the average of the ordinary school work that parades itself under Botticelli's name; and, considering that the direction of the gallery skies them, we are perhaps justified in believing that they do not mean us to take these attributions over-seriously. But what shall we say in excuse for their ascribing to Botticelli the large 'Assumption of the Virgin,' a picture which, pace the eloquence of Mr. Pater, is not even of his school, but belongs clearly to the following of Cesimo Roselli? Vasari's timeworn error may perhaps be urged in palliation, but there is no one any longer, unless it be the people who made the National Gallery Catalogue, who puts faith in Vasari's unsifted statements. We come now to the most serious charges of all, the misnaming of the circular 'Madonna' on the screen, and the ascription of two Botticellis to Filippino. To question this Madonna' on the screen always arouses a howl of indignation. Placed in that prominent position (where it

effectually cuts off the view of the sham Leonardo), it is evidently meant to be taken for the Botticelli of the gallery par excellence, and is actually so taken. Most people, like Mr. Pater, are, by the help of this model, able to find in almost every collection of note' 'one of these circular pictures into which the attendant angels depress their heads so naïvely,' and, also like Mr. Pater, they accept them all as genuine. Painful as it therefore is to say so, in the presence of such a weight of popular opinion, I must assert that this is no Botticelli, but that it is, as the carefully hidden signature on the back proves, a picture by the architect, Giuliano di Sangallo. This artist is well known to have been an ardent admirer of Botticelli, and the undoubted drawings in his Siena sketch-book in the Barberini Library, and in the Uffizi, prove that he added direct imitation to admiration. So completely did he seem to see the world through Botticelli's eyes that even his sketches of Roman bas-relief are made to look, not Roman, but thoroughly Botticellian. Yet even in these imitations the architect seems to cling to the use of his compasses and rulers-as we can see in a moment by noticing the face of the Madonna in the National Gallery tondo, with its mechanical outline (the evenly balanced lines of the two cheeks connected by a ruler-like line between, which does duty for a chin), with fingers indicated by straight lines running into a flat hand, and with mathematical and lifeless drapery, and machine-made hair. Naturally, when we are taught to enjoy such a picture as a Botticelli, we are taught to overlook his one great merit as an artist, the exquisite quality of his line. With genuine Botticellis the critic may find all the faults he pleases: the anatomy is sometimes not even probable, the hair is more like sculpture than real hair, the types show little variation, the spirit is perhaps somewhat unhealthy-yet, with all these defects, and more, his line is always beautiful and alive. I am aware that nothing is a better test of the cultivated eye than an appreciation of really fine line, and that therefore those pictures which catch what I may call the 'literature' of Botticelli, even while they miss his line, may be said to do almost as well for most people.' The point is that the gallery, which ought to educate our eyes, by misnaming the pictures, encourages us in our bad national habit of jumping at the obvious literary meaning of a work of art instead of waiting until we have mastered the actual forms in which the artist has incarnated his ideas, and which alone can reveal them. For a peg to hang poetry upon-particularly poetry of the depressed, nihilistic kind which comes over most of us at the age when we begin to realise that we are not the centre of the universe, the only poetical fit except love that many people have-as a peg to hang these feelings, or the tender reminiscence of these feelings, upon, such pictures probably do even better than the real Botticellis, than the genuine 'Venus and Mars,' for example, or the two exquisite 'Adorations' (Nos. 592 and 1033) which go under Filippino's name.